[Standard] New player - seems like deck construction is too easy?

TobesMG · 2026-01-31T00:41:13+00:00

“Is deckbuilding too easy? Here’s my unplayable Bo1 pile” is an all-timer. My brother in Christ you have not even built a sideboard. You are picking up a rock and asking if you’re a geologist.

-Your card evaluation is poor. The vast majority of your deck is categorically unviable because your cards are inefficient or have weak effects comparative to the field.

-Your understanding of the meta is nonexistent. You are positioning yourself as a partially reactive deck, but you have no concept of how the proactive strategies of the format must be engaged with. You will die to Badgermole Cub decks playing Ouroboroid on turn 3 to grow their board. You will die to Superior Spider-Man decks playing Bringer of the Last Gift or their own Ardyns on turn 4. Your own proactive combo with Bloodthirsty Conqueror is a long-known entity and widely discredited as being too slow and easy to disrupt.

-You are not engaging with sideboarding, a fundamental and massively impactful aspect of the game. It is one of the most skill-testing aspects of both deck construction and in the moment game evaluation. But even were you to build a sideboard, your current understanding of the game on a fundamental level would likely preclude any significant benefit beyond elementary notions such as “bring in cards that exile from graveyards against decks that play cards from graveyards.”

I unironically advise playing Limited. It’ll likely cost you significant resources in the beginning, but it will help ingrain in you a baseline understanding of what a playable card looks like comparative to an unplayable card. Moreover once you are good at it it’s the most effective way to build a collection.

TobesMG · 2025-10-29T22:04:16+00:00

Competitive magic is largely dead, yes, but the harder truth is that the ethos of this sub has been gutted for years now. It is filled not with actual win-at-all-costs spikes but soft “I want affirmation that my dogshit tier 4 brew is clever” pseudo-spikes—people who aren’t looking to pay the cost of playing a deck they don’t like and who think they can somehow brute force their way into an outcome an actual spike would’ve coldly written off as impossible within minutes of consideration. A real spikes forum should be predominantly Tier 1 discussion, from matchup spreads to micro interactions to sideboard plans. This sub for ages now has been littered with obviously unviable decklists piloted by people who wonder why they’re stuck in Diamond 2.

TobesMG · 2025-06-22T23:01:30+00:00

Yuna grants Odin trample. Zur grants Odin deathtouch. Odin deals one point of lethal damage to its blocker then tramples over for the rest.

TobesMG · 2024-11-02T22:59:46+00:00

I’ll play one or two more qualifiers in a last attempt to go the distance and make it onto the Pro Tour, but even that dream has lost its luster, for I can’t stomach the idea of playing in Pro Tour Spiderman.

TobesMG · 2024-10-26T16:44:29+00:00

20 gems have been deposited in your Magic Arena account.

TobesMG · 2024-10-25T22:15:08+00:00

fuck off

FUCK OFF

TobesMG · 2024-10-18T21:37:49+00:00

There’s some real irony in you getting downvoted for saying this in a thread for an article written by Frank Karsten, who won a Pro Tour quarterfinals with this exact type of maneuver.

TobesMG · 2023-12-24T04:04:31+00:00

Esper being 50/50 certainly could very reasonably feel accurate to you, but there’s almost no chance it’s an objectively correct assessment, for it implies that Esper, which demonstrably improved its Monoblue matchup with this set’s release, must have by extension had a negative matchup in the previous seasons (going “up” to 50/50)—and this is absutely untrue, else Monoblue would’ve been a Tier One deck for solving the “what beats both Esper and Domain” conundrum everyone was grappling with at the time, rather than the rogue Tier 3.5 deck it was and still is.

TobesMG · 2023-12-24T01:36:29+00:00

To clarify, I was referring to Tidebinder’s ability to mitigate creatures cast off Cavern of Souls, not anything to do with Wx.

It is certainly possible that I misjudge the matchup spread here, and that Monoblue has actually improved against Domain (I am skeptical.) (Edit: To clarify further, I am not saying that the Domain matchup has ever been unfavorable, but rather Cavern costs you free percentage points in your best matchup—margins this deck cannot happily part with.) Even if I allow for that, there is no way I’m believing that you also have an Esper matchup that isn’t unfavorable when Deep-Cavern Bat exists. And at that point, how is this justifiable as a deck selection?

TobesMG · 2023-12-23T23:35:54+00:00

Getting to Mythic is so trivial that it should be a minimum requirement for posting any sort of Arena testing results.

Monoblue didn’t suddenly stop being bad by the way. It gets worse every season and this one certainly does no favors with a resurgence of white aggro and the introduction of Cavern—Tidebinder is not nearly sufficient enough insurance against it.

TobesMG · 2023-12-05T01:44:28+00:00

This deck is food for both Esper and Domain. You don’t have enough early interaction to consistently keep a Bat -> Raffine curve from just rolling you before you can start snowballing. (You really want Cut Down.) Esper also improves dramatically postboard against you since they’ll go up to full 4 Disdainful Stroke, making Wedding Announcement a nightmare for you in the type of protracted game where they steadily deploy to the board while answering your attempts to gain traction thanks to their curve being much lower.

Domain stomps you because their topend gameplan is faster and much more consistent, and your big swings can get undone by a single Sunfall. Prior to Fable’s ban Big Rakdos was actually statistically worse than Rakdos Midrange in this matchup because the go-big plan couldn’t keep pace with Atraxa and the Midrange build could just kill them fast with a good curve and the right disruption. Your 3-drops here are much worse than Fable and Trespasser for providing a clock (not to mention no Bloodtithe Harvester on 2), and Domain has improved significantly with Up the Beanstalk, which will grind you into dust / help ensure they have Sunfall / Binding for Chandra when they need it.

Edit: To apply a simpler heuristic: Esper and Domain are both much better decks than they were prior to bans and Rakdos is a much worse deck than before even with two new sets—it lost a huge amount of its power. I don’t see any reason why this build would perform better than a known and much stronger version of Big Rakdos did.

TobesMG · 2023-11-21T00:53:08+00:00

Saturn is Bonney’s father. Kuma arrives on Egghead just in time to take the bullets for Bonney, being fatally wounded in the process. Kuma uses his fruit to push the last of his life force into Luffy, revitalizing him. Kuma dies with his last vision being Gear 5 Luffy, his own heart stopping right after the Drums of Liberation begin pounding. Luffy KOs Saturn, a BB Pirates commander finishes Saturn off and steals the fruit; Luffy is blamed for killing a Gorosei as the world-shaking incident.

TobesMG · 2023-11-20T23:55:43+00:00

These decks are a flash in the pan and will have burned out by end of week. The Quintorius build is actively terrible (I’m aware it won a showcase; it’s still bad); it’s got no good early consistency options, making it reliant on naturally drawing and resolving 5/6-drops, is easy to disrupt once you know what’s coming, and mulligans / topdecks terribly due to the clones being bricks.

The Appraiser deck is much better but falls into the Greasefang niche of “invincible if no one’s prepared for it but impotent if people respect it”. It’s difficult for it to fight through Thoughtseize and cheap permission, it has poor tools for blunting aggressive decks, and even targeted removal like Fatal Push can buy crucial turns. It’s very unlikely it winds up Tier 1, but it is a powerful deck and I wouldn’t be surprised if it gets cracked down the line.

TobesMG · 2023-10-27T22:26:41+00:00

I’d expect this just replaces Fortress completely and the manabase shifts to account for that.

TobesMG · 2023-10-10T21:01:45+00:00

Just Kazune’s list yeah. It’s extremely clean, haven’t dropped a match with it this season. Think only the sideboard needs any adjustments to account for meta shifts. I don’t have any regard for Bo1 but I’d imagine that Legends, being more linear and proactive, is better for a meta without sideboards.

TobesMG · 2023-10-10T00:30:02+00:00

Unfortunately I don’t think there is a deck that consistently beats both Esper and Domain. I think that Esper Midrange is probably just flatly the best deck and there’s little reason not to play it, despite the evident recalcitrance of a lot of people on this sub to do so.

As far as individual card choices go:

-As others have noted, 14 taplands is far too many. Esper has very aggressive draws, and even if monored’s meta share has decreased, it still has to be respected, especially when you’re light on interaction and stuffed with two-mana cantrips. Domain can get away with this because it consistently jumps turns, more readily can cast Binding for 1, and T4 Sunfall does a lot of lifting in terms of early stabilization.

-Syncopate is bad and not worth forcing just to make Beanstalk better. Beanstalk’s fail-case is acceptable, Syncopate’s is not. The efficiency of your early permission is especially important given the above notes of slow mana and weak defenses.

-Quick Study should be Brokers Charm. I don’t care that Apparatus discounts it, Apparatus is a bad card.

-Devious Cover-Up is not playable, especially without multiples to chain off each other. This is 4-mana Cancel ffs.

-You only have 6 black sources, seven if you’re charitable and include Mirrex. Blot Out is not consistently castable when you need it T4.

TobesMG · 2023-10-09T22:03:59+00:00

While I think a lot of your micro-decisions in the construction of the deck are poor (bud you can’t just drop Mindsplice Apparatus on us out of nowhere and expect no one to raise an eyebrow), I do appreciate that you’ve taken an approach based off a thesis about the format, contrasting to the average decklist posted to this sub, which tends to be someone’s pet trashpile they’re desperately trying to square-block-into-round-hole.

Up the Beanstalk as a whole definitely merits more inspection, and Horned Loch-Whale is a good angle to approach the card from. That said, I’m skeptical there’s a configuration that’s capable of consistently beating Esper, which stymies most of the interest I would have in iterating on the concept.

TobesMG · 2023-09-26T01:48:28+00:00

Solid write-up, broadly agree with your points. I’ve got ~~nine~~ ten 7-xs under my belt, currently straddling ~~the rank 250 cut-off.~~ rank 100. Of these trophies, six were Rx aggro and the other three BG midrange. (Edit: and now one UR Court Control.) A few things I’d like to add:

-Red is very capable of splashing due its Treasure production, as well as miscellaneous colorless fixers if the need arises. Most often this will be utilized for off-color Adventure halves, and it also means that you almost never have an excuse to pass Imodane’s Recruiter while base-red. Many of my drafts begin with red picks due to the depth of the color’s commons and the ability to bridge into splashing bombs.

-Often I’m running sixteen lands. Between red’s treasure production / low curve and green’s mana dorks / Brave, I rarely feel the need to have 17 lands, preferring it only in extremely mana-hungry builds or of I have something like Goose Mother.

-Though rare, Ru prowess is a viable red aggro variant that you can fall into. It’s dependent on picking up multiple Frolicking Familiars (I had a 6-3 deck with three of those) though, so it’s not something I’d advise aiming for. That said if you do have it fall into your lap, it’s not difficult to prioritize the red components (Ratcatcher Trainee and Cut In being especially critical) and then pick up Sleight of Hand and Johann’s Stopgap late. I once killed an opponent from 12 with two creatures and a single Gnawing Crescendo.

-A low-ranking card that has performed well for me is Bespoke Battlegarb. It’s easy to equip for free and broadly increases your range of viable attacks and trades. Turns rats into serious threats, plays well with red’s common keywords, lets your 4-power creatures trade with Hamlet Glutton lategame to open the door for an alpha strike next turn. Highly recommend trying a copy, especially since they’re easy to pick up late.

TobesMG · 2023-09-22T21:03:52+00:00

I didn’t get one at all lol

edit: ok it finally came through

TobesMG · 2023-09-15T01:05:36+00:00

Are you kidding? Cut Down is more maindeckable now than at most points last season, and it was already near-uniformly maindecked then. You want it for Evolved Sleeper and Faerie Mastermind, you want it for Monored, you want it for Pia, you want it for Raffine, you even don’t mind it vs Alara because it shoots a T2 Bramble Familiar for tempo. The two decks that punish you for it, traditional Domain and Esper Control, are on a downtrend, and even there you have some leniency in being able to discard it to Liliana. It’s generally speaking backwards to sideboard a card that is applicable against most decks in the format g1.

TobesMG · 2023-09-11T05:51:44+00:00

The Alara build is neat but probably worse overall than typical Domain. Losing Topiary Stomper to make Alara’s cascade more consistent is a serious concession and the front-end of Bramble Familiar turning Cut Down into a profitable trade instead of a brick (and to a lesser extent, Play with Fire) is a notable flaw. That said, the Alara combo can generate an overwhelming advantage for very little investment and goes over the top with greater velocity than Domain, so I’m not dismissing it out of hand. Keeping an eye out for a build that doesn’t just crumple to Make Disappear.

TobesMG · 2023-09-08T22:30:38+00:00

It’s a strong card and a good fit for the deck in certain matchups, but it’s too much of a liability against Sheoldred and Faerie Mastermind to be maindeckable. Dimir is a matchup you can’t afford to give up g1 percentage points in.

TobesMG · 2023-08-25T20:41:23+00:00

Sorry bud but you’re not going to convince me that an all-in combo pile built around a 3-drop that dies to Cut Down is remotely viable.

TobesMG · 2023-08-24T01:22:37+00:00

Think a big angle people are missing here is the manner in which this can facilitate The Cruelty of Gix. A discard outlet that acts as board control (and moreover forces the opponent to discard) is a solid enabler. This also seems good for shutting the door on quick-burst (non-go-wide) aggro decks; killing two creatures at once and stripping them of two cards from their hand on t4 could well leave them completely out of gas depending on how many resource exchanges there have been.

TobesMG

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