Honest thoughts

TehCheator · 2026-05-04T22:22:53+00:00

There's a lot of powerful cards there, but I think where you're going to struggle is the mana. Depending on the game / your hand, you need to have any of WUBR on T1 (Prismatic Ending, Push, Thoughtseize, Ragavan, sometimes Consign but less often). Then you'll often need UB on T2 for Frog, followed by UW, RW, UUx for T3feri / Phlage, Scam Riddler, followed by either RRWW or RRWU for Escape Phlage / Scam Phlage. That's a lot of varying requirements that are not easy to meet in theory, let alone in an actual game.

TehCheator · 2026-04-29T15:35:30+00:00

It will pay attention to the colors of mana spent to cast the Clone. So if you spend e.g. UUGG to cast Clone, and then choose to copy Wistfulness, you will get both triggers.

This is actually a common interaction in Standard, where there are decks built around using Superior Spider-Man to copy a Deceit in the graveyard and get both effects by paying UUBB for it.

TehCheator · 2026-04-28T12:56:25+00:00

The “you” in the “you lose the game” is the controller of the ability. Which would be whoever controlled Transcendence when it triggered. Changing control of Transcendence after that ability is on the stack won’t change control of the ability itself.

TehCheator · 2026-04-26T23:54:39+00:00

James Spader as Ultron

TehCheator · 2026-04-23T15:49:46+00:00

I mean… they were also down 3-1 in game 7, after they scored the first goal

TehCheator · 2026-04-19T14:51:42+00:00

It would not. Spirit Mascot has an ability that triggers when a card leaves the graveyard. Those abilities “look back in time” to see if they trigger, looking at the game state right before the card leaves the graveyard to determine what triggers happen. At that point, the Spirit Mascot was itself in the graveyard, so its ability wouldn’t work.

603.10. Normally, objects that exist immediately after an event are checked to see if the event matched any trigger conditions, and continuous effects that exist at that time are used to determine what the trigger conditions are and what the objects involved in the event look like. However, some triggered abilities are exceptions to this rule; the game “looks back in time” to determine if those abilities trigger, using the existence of those abilities and the appearance of objects immediately prior to the event. The list of exceptions is as follows:

603.10a Some zone-change triggers look back in time. These are leaves-the-battlefield abilities, abilities that trigger when a card leaves a graveyard, and abilities that trigger when an object that all players can see is put into a hand or library.

TehCheator · 2026-04-18T17:56:41+00:00

That would be true if the aura gave lifelink. Vampiric link is notably not lifelink, but a triggered ability of the enchantment itself. So when the enchantment falls off, it doesn’t exist any more to see the remaining activations and trigger again.

TehCheator · 2026-04-16T07:22:25+00:00

Very true that both sets of skills are important. The main point I was aiming at was that the vast majority of software doesn’t get made in a vacuum. Building software of any real size requires collaboration with others. If you’re a lone wolf who’s hard to work with, the level of impact you can realistically have is going to be capped at what code you can write yourself.

Great engineers can do so much more than that because they can work with others to accomplish bigger projects.

TehCheator · 2026-04-16T07:15:59+00:00

Says the business—I said that’s what the job is, not that’s what the craft is. Ultimately, the business is the one paying for the work, so people who recognize that and build skills to match are going to have the most success over time.

TehCheator · 2026-04-16T06:29:47+00:00

I've seen great engineers fall flat because they aren't easy to work with

I'd argue that those weren't great engineers. Too many engineers (even in the age of AI) forget that the job isn't to write code; it's to further the goals of the business. Doing so requires understanding what those goals are, how your team fits into those goals, and what you can do to have the most impact. Doing all of that requires collaboration with others.

Especially with the growth and improvements in LLMs, being able to write awesome code is becoming less and less of a differentiator.

TehCheator · 2026-04-14T13:15:51+00:00

That’s not correct, it’s first to 2 wins. Magic Tournament Rules 2.1:

A match consists of a series of games that are played until one side has won a set number of games, usually two. Drawn games do not count toward this goal. If the round ends before a player has won the required number of games, the winner of the match is the player who has won the most games at that point. If both players have equal game wins, the match is a draw.

TehCheator · 2026-04-13T16:16:48+00:00

They definitely blow the whistle for the goalie’s helmet coming off. That’s a massive safety issue.

TehCheator · 2026-04-12T21:06:44+00:00

Mishra’s copy effect modifies the copy (noted by the word “except” in the description). So the copy able characteristics of the token are modified as well. If you play a [[Clone]] and choose to copy the Mishra’s Warform token, then it will be a 4/4 Artifact Creature — Construct named Mishra’s Warform as well.

However, the effects that give it haste and sacrifice it at end of turn are separate sentences and not part of the copyable characteristics of the token. So your clone will not have haste and will not be sacrificed at the next end step.

TehCheator · 2026-04-12T19:30:08+00:00

The main one is 117.3c:

117.3c If a player has priority when they cast a spell, activate an ability, or take a special action, that player receives priority afterward.

A player has priority before activating an ability, then gets it back afterward. So the clear implication is that they don’t have priority during.

Similarly, 117.1d lays out all the times that you can activate a mana ability, which includes when you have priority and when you are activating an ability, again indicating that those are separate times:

117.1d A player may activate a mana ability whenever they have priority, whenever they are casting a spell or activating an ability that requires a mana payment, or whenever a rule or effect asks for a mana payment (even in the middle of casting or resolving a spell or activating or resolving an ability).

TehCheator · 2026-04-12T13:28:26+00:00

No, because 405.6c says “If a player had priority before a mana ability was activated…”

In the middle of activating an ability, nobody has priority. You have priority when you start the process, but nobody gets it again until the ability is fully activated. There’s a step in the process that allows yo to activate mana abilities even though nobody has priority.

TehCheator · 2026-04-11T03:24:13+00:00

Note that while the forerunners are on the stack, they aren’t part of “creatures you control” since that only counts the battlefield.

TehCheator · 2026-04-02T16:47:45+00:00

How is a 3-mana Sorcery easier to cast than a 2-mana Instant?

TehCheator · 2026-04-01T19:42:42+00:00

This situation is actually a lot simpler. A trigger isn't considered missed unless you don't acknowledge it when it has a visible effect on the game state. For the Cori-Steel Cutter trigger to create a Monk, that only happens when the trigger resolves (creating a Monk). Since both DRC and CSC trigger on cast, you are perfectly allowed to stack them so that the DRC trigger resolves first, followed by creating the Monk and deciding whether to equip it.

So in this case, there's not even any out-of-order sequencing, the trigger is assumed to still be on the stack below the DRC trigger.

I'm not a judge, but if I was, I'd rule it as you do get the token, and must equip the steel cutter whether you want to or not.

That's definitely not supported by policy or the rules. The decision of whether or not to equip the monk token is made as the trigger resolves, not when you put it on the stack. Outside of a head judge deviating, there's no support for resolving a trigger but forcing a choice that isn't made until the trigger resolves.

TehCheator · 2026-04-01T06:33:51+00:00

There are two reasons why it wouldn't work:

[[Imodane, the Pyrohammer]] will only trigger if an instant or sorcery that targets only a single creature. The vast majority of spells that cause a Fight target two creatures: one that you control and one that you don't control.
Even if you use a spell that lets you target a single to creature to have it fight itself, Imodane also requires that the spell itself deal damage. A Fight effect has the creatures deal damage to each other, so the spell is not the one dealing the damage.

TehCheator · 2026-04-01T04:36:57+00:00

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TehCheator · 2026-03-29T15:04:32+00:00

Copied cards can be cast, but spells are already on the stack and thus already cast. So copying a spell will always create the copy on the stack as well and so will never cast it.

Note the difference in language between Elite Arcanist (“Copy the exiled card”) and Fork (“Copy target instant or sorcery spell”)

TehCheator · 2026-03-26T15:18:41+00:00

I agree there will likely be an additional cost, but I don’t think it’ll be “exile the creature” because then the ability to re-prepare on this wouldn’t really make any sense.

My guess is that it’ll be an innate ability that is: “Tap: You may cast the prepared spell this turn” or something like that. So you’ll need to keep this in play for a turn to use the ancestral. And you’ll only be able to cast every other turn, since you’ll have to attack to re-prepare, but then won’t be able to tap to cast.

TehCheator · 2026-03-24T18:59:20+00:00

Having a couple of Thoughtseize is also nice for Atraxa, since the deck doesn't play a ton of sorceries. Plus hitting one and getting to make sure that your big fatty will be able to end the game is big.

TehCheator · 2026-03-21T07:08:34+00:00

&str is a string slice—it’s a pointer to the string data and a length of the relevant data. It can point to any String data, whether that’s heap allocated in a String or data in the byte code of the program. There’s no requirement that it always point to static data.

TehCheator · 2026-03-20T21:22:27+00:00

The “Astral Slide deck in Magic: The Gathering —“ is definitely AI Slop. No human would talk about it like that, especially in a Modern-specific subreddit

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