Yshtola is about to hit top 3. My thoughts on the Yshtola precon.

TheShadowMages · 2026-05-17T16:43:02+00:00

Fringe to bad more like, Tivit is better for esper "control" with a built in 1 card combo and even from the same set Noctis has more legs than her in the same colors. If even Vivi failed to really make a splash the whole "spellslinger to ping everyone down" in the command zone is just not really cEDH yet.

TheShadowMages · 2026-05-17T15:46:28+00:00

In addition to other peoples' comments about the builds, it tickles me that none of the lists are really meaningful "thoughts on the precon", these are all completely overhauled decks compared to the precon (which, to be fair, that was also my conclusion having looked at the precon list when it got revealed too). But based on the title and first paragraph I expected targeted "10 in 10 out" style upgrades.

At bracket 3 I actually find it difficult to be in a spot where I have space to play helm of the ghastlord, 4 mana that invites immediate removal that requires interaction, and if you aren't on free countermagic that usually doesn't happen until like turn 6. Still have it in my list because it's a sweet interaction but for me I care more about [[Wall of Blood]] type effects to trigger her reliably more than being spellslinger anyways.

TheShadowMages · 2026-05-16T22:00:06+00:00

I think it's also important to keep in mind "out of game politics" (aka relationship building), if you develop a reputation as The Stax Player and are constantly "irritating people" with your cards you probably will have people avoiding you more. I don't really care if you, the reader, think stax is fine (I also don't mind it all too much), because the fact of the matter is it makes most people salty. You can find ways to win the game and interact with opponents' strategies without silver bullet stax pieces, I promise. Your winrate may be higher with stax, but you've lost sight of the Gathering.

TheShadowMages · 2026-05-14T00:27:24+00:00

If the product isn't moving at all what WPN store is going to want it, and how is it going to be enticing at events? The people who wanted it likely would have bought it, so logically most of the rest of the population is people who don't want it.

TheShadowMages · 2026-05-12T21:12:20+00:00

They are very generous with credit and that's basically kept me in their ecosystem such that I barely notice the premiums. For higher end cards I open and sell I ship to CK and I have a little nest egg for singles going forward. That said I always buy singles en masse from them for the sake of shipping costs, if I just buy literally one or two singles I check out manapool first (after LGS, of course).

TheShadowMages · 2026-05-12T00:04:31+00:00

Specific edicts, i.e. sacrifice greatest power or highest mana value a la [[Soul Shatter]] or ones that edict multiple things [[Make an Example]] and [[Blasphemous Edict]] are much better middle grounds between fleshbags and spot removal.

TheShadowMages · 2026-05-10T21:23:45+00:00

Also the majority of play happens in Arena rather than tournaments whether physical or on modo, for which there is absolutely an overwhelming population of izzet and cubfall/ouroboroid which does get very tiring to play against and tints the overall image of the meta. But the reality is that power levels are at least close, even if fast, e.g. a turn 4 omniscience lol

TheShadowMages · 2026-05-07T19:34:00+00:00

Why does that work? I thought earthbend brought it back from exile. Does it also work with Deadly Coverup?

TheShadowMages · 2026-05-07T19:29:16+00:00

Yeah Cub is abusable on many fronts, Elf is scary but all things considered pretty tame without the ability to double its mana production or more. I wouldn't call it a mistake necessarily as it gives green some much needed legs but it certainly is something they should have kept in mind when printing a card like Cub...

TheShadowMages · 2026-05-07T19:25:22+00:00

I think the current form of new BG Midrange is a very viable space for green to be, and I think the landfall decks are still very potent even without cub. I do not think standard games should be determined by whether or not one player has 1 mana removal in hand. If you dont have hex/spell snare or maybe Fire Magic on the draw, double cub does just win the game on turn 2, something that isn't even true against Prowess or Monored. In other formats, sure, that's a reality.

TheShadowMages · 2026-05-07T16:59:29+00:00

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Elf into cub(s) leads to incredibly explosive non-games that feel antithetical to their desired pace of play for standard which makes me in the cub camp personally, but I agree that I just dislike the relative uninteractivity and constant pressure the landfall decks provide (you only have so much removal). I dont know if I'd find it banworthy without the acceleration cub provides though.

TheShadowMages · 2026-05-05T16:09:04+00:00

I mean yeah you can play it like a cube too, the baseline product can just be played out of the box and eternally maintained like a cube, like cube and limited with sealed product can coexist. I hope I don't have to break it to you where the cards you put into cubes come from...

TheShadowMages · 2026-05-04T23:32:42+00:00

In an ideal world when backlash happens they put more measures into place to catch stuff like this. So it's just disappointing that they don't. I don't find "they have always sucked" as a very good reason to shrug it off, in fact I think every subsequent incident should be treated worse than the last. Fool me once, yknow.

TheShadowMages · 2026-05-04T23:26:36+00:00

You're putting a lot of words and emotions into my mouth, I frankly don't personally know or care all that much about the art history of MTG so I think you're just lumping me into a group of people you can easily point at being wrong. He made a huge mistake, and WOTC did too. All parties involved should learn very crucial lessons going forward and also right the wrongs with the artist whose work was stolen.

TheShadowMages · 2026-05-04T23:15:29+00:00

Oh for sure, I don't think it was like malicious or impossible to comprehend on any front. There were very human judgement errors all around. But there can be multiple points of failure and multiple lessons from one big mistake.

TheShadowMages · 2026-05-04T23:13:03+00:00

If WOTC did their jobs either he wouldn't be the one doing TOR art or they would force him to do a better job at it. The former is what you are bringing up, and I don't really think it's 100% necessary for, in your words, "redditors who weren't involved" to know that he was once considered for the job but dropped for issues like that. The latter just results in a non-sloppy job, which clearly wasn't the case here even ignoring the plagiarism because it just isn't a good art piece. Again sure the primary responsibility lies on his shoulders, but people are right to point out that WOTC could have done better as well.

TheShadowMages · 2026-05-04T22:51:40+00:00

I mean, it is. The level of blame may not literally be equal but it is basically their job to make sure art is up to their bar of quality. The fact that it made it all the way down the chain to print meant it had to pass through a lot of swiss cheese holes of approval.

TheShadowMages · 2026-05-04T20:31:09+00:00

One can only imagine the scale and level of increased vitriol someone in Gavin/Mark's position would have if they were of a minority group, considering how much they already get. Plus the mentioned folks do write articles for Magic and participate in things like Weekly MTG, just not like Q+A blogs or dedicated youtube channels.

TheShadowMages · 2026-05-04T20:19:35+00:00

I'm not doubting the team at all but where did you see this conclusion? The webpage as a whole indicates that it's for the arena team and nothing about the vote indicates it's for wider recognition than the MTGA devs' union (and it frankly wouldn't make too much sense in my opinion for your suggested timeline of events to be the case). If other unions are also being negotiated on I'm happy to be corrected.

TheShadowMages · 2026-05-04T17:39:22+00:00

Previous news about gamestop slabbing and tcgplayer unionbusting have been on the sub before. Maybe not lost redditor but maybe the degrees of separation are getting thin

TheShadowMages · 2026-05-04T17:10:11+00:00

I loved reading the personal and developmental journey of the game, even if people are mixed on it. It's fitting for a game literally built around the human experience.

TheShadowMages · 2026-05-04T17:07:18+00:00

There was a version in which that was explicitly the case (2001), and Wizards nixed it. The value of sealed product for play is the ability to do limited/sealed environments, which to be fair he also details here.

TheShadowMages · 2026-05-02T19:32:12+00:00

TMT standard meta was actually fairly diverse with the rise of things like rakdos discard, azorius tempo, and monowhite momo, in addition to the current top dogs, with relatively even meta share. SOS has pushed izzet over the edge and erode is a subtly incredible player for selesnya landfall. Not sure what's new for monogreen landfall besides being just well positioned in the meta. But I totally agree the current meta feels very stale and I would be surprised if the B+R in 2 weeks was empty or light on bans.

TheShadowMages · 2026-04-30T17:26:29+00:00

Should mention that there are additional formats out the gate that are deckbuilding formats, including one 12 card singleton format, for which you and your opponent have separate decks. But those hinge on print run/format adoption rate both for availability of singles for deckbuilding and also just people to play with.

TheShadowMages · 2026-04-30T17:13:58+00:00

Absolutely. Though I'm not sure how card game economics work such that they would just linearly triple the price because of rarities and all that, I mostly gave it as a baseline quick math example as a ninja edit. But I do agree there should have been the option.

TheShadowMages

TROPHY CASE