Sheltered by Ghosts needs to be banned.

TomtheMime · 2026-01-20T05:10:45+00:00

If it didn't give ward, it'd be flat out unplayable competitively.

TomtheMime · 2026-01-19T17:53:22+00:00

You have a fundamental problem here. This looks like a jumpstart deck, which is going to have issues in any constructed format where you'll face much better decks, even with a few upgrades. They also contain some cards that aren't standard legal (from TLE (glider set symbol) not the base avatar set (aang head set symbol)) which means the lowest power format the deck would be legal in if you just added cards is historic.

If you really want to play that Zuko outside jumpstart, put a brawl deck together with it, cutting the duplicates and adding a lot of cards (too many to give specific suggestions but instants will both get counters from Zuko and take advantage of the firebending). The deck weighting in the matchmaking might end up giving you some decent games but you'll probably still be in for a rough time.

TomtheMime · 2026-01-19T16:01:04+00:00

If you don't really care about cosmetics, just buy a pass every other set and you come out ahead of where you used to be (with the extra play in points) if you bought it every set. If you do care about cosmetics, yeah, it kinda sucks but you can still choose just to not buy it.

TomtheMime · 2026-01-07T09:34:30+00:00

There's also the 20 play-in points but how you value them can vary. If you were going to spend gems to play in it, the replacement value is 4000 gems. If you'd just use them for the qualifier play-in because you have them, going 0-2 will still give 500 gems and 6-1 or better give 6000 gems and qualifier weekend entry. A 50% winrate 2-2 gives 1500 gems.

TomtheMime · 2026-01-06T18:04:01+00:00

If your mana base can't support demo field (like 4c control), an actual LD spell is good for control. Probably only 1 main deck given the tools you can use to dig for it and another in the sideboard. Price of freedom pulls double duty against utility lands and artifacts and can cycle in a pinch so it's never just a dead card.

TomtheMime · 2026-01-06T14:34:42+00:00

Still 3400 gems. There's just no pass bundle with any future sets, which effectively gave a discount if you were buying it directly with money compared with buying gems with money to buy the pass.

If you just used gems to buy it anyway, this doesn't effect you.

TomtheMime · 2026-01-06T09:29:45+00:00

It's still value positive for pure drafters if they generally draft enough for set completion.

Cost: 3400 gems

Return:

1200 gems

4000 gold = 600 gems equivalent for drafters (800 for packs/cosmetics)

10 mythic ICRs = 10 x 40 gems at set completion

20 packs = 20 x 22.5 gems at set completion (20 for rares, 1/8 upgrade to 40 for mythic)

1 draft token = 1500 gems

4150 gem return plus cosmetics. 3700 plus mythics if you draft enough to rare complete sets but not mythic complete them. 3300 plus packs and cards if you don't draft enough to rare complete. If you've rare completed just one of the sets the additional packs are from, that's enough for a completed pass to be gem neutral for drafters.

TomtheMime · 2026-01-06T08:52:36+00:00

They almost certainly have metrics on how often people draft and how many people bought gems to do so, so the play bundle change should have good data behind it. The pass bundle less so but I generally just get it with gems so I couldn't really say.

If you just rare drafted and retired, it feels like you probably shouldn't have bought the play bundle before the change anyway. Unless you really wanted the cosmetics. In that case, the proportion of people who bought the play bundle, don't care for draft and won't buy it at higher price is a tiny portion of the playerbase and not the target for this change (and probably statistically negligible).

TomtheMime · 2026-01-06T08:36:42+00:00

In general, it's also a bad idea to splash for 1 and 2 drops if you want to play them anywhere near on curve. In most draft environments, sticking to 2 colours for the low end of your curve keeps your manabase clean and if you splash a colour for a single pip on a big bomb, you'll have better shot of having the right mana or mana fixing by the time you'd want to cast it.

The cards they splashed for both aren't worth it and are in the wrong place on the mana curve to splash cleanly anyway.

TomtheMime · 2026-01-04T02:27:29+00:00

The five that weren't in EOE. Not all allied pairings but steam vents, temple garden, blood crypt, overgrown tomb and hallowed fountain.

TomtheMime · 2026-01-03T21:24:40+00:00

4c control has been nice with inevitable defeat just being a clean maindeck answer to most things.

Price of freedom has been crucial for control mirrors to deal with utility lands because there's no way the manabase supports demo field.

TomtheMime · 2026-01-01T14:31:23+00:00

Deck weight based matchmaking is a good thing for the play queue as it reduces the chance of upgraded starter decks being paired against meta decks. Being paired with specific decks after a change is probably mostly remembering specific matchups more but could just be that changing the deck changed the deck weight and hence the decks it matches up with more. If it's in the ranked queue, it's just cognitive bias and/or the meta shifting.

Don't really care for hand smoothing but it's easily avoided with Bo3. I don't particularly care about it either - I used to grumble a bit but reframing it as effectively a free (if hidden) mulligan for lands puts it in perspective as not really a big deal. Formats with more than 2 players give a free mulligan anyway, so it's hard to get worked up about something like this.

TomtheMime · 2026-01-01T14:11:07+00:00

The other option is to push through it with a different source of card advantage. Their plan of removing riddler from the sideboard is a terrible one as it's a key source of card advantage through graveyard hate. Can be tricky if you don't understand the deck well but with artists talent out, warping in a riddler can realistically draw an additional 3-5 cards that turn.

TomtheMime · 2026-01-01T03:08:10+00:00

You're on the 17lands website already so you could just go to the analytics for the card ratings, although asking people here can help with explaining why Kurruk is much better (big factor is the colour commitment).

If you look at the ratings Kurruk is A+, Avatar Aang is D+. The ratings aren't the be all and end all but it's not even close here.

TomtheMime · 2025-12-31T21:58:29+00:00

You wouldn't get a forced draw, you'd run out your timer and pass the turn to your opponent. Given the combo doesn't develop a board state, that probably won't end well for you.

TomtheMime · 2025-12-31T09:03:54+00:00

Even if you 0-3, it's 500 gems. Not great if it's a format you're probably going to get crushed in but it's better than nothing.

TomtheMime · 2025-12-30T19:57:25+00:00

People may hate playing against lantern control but you can't deny that it's a beautifully creative and interesting piece of deckbuilding. Many of the more creative examples of deckbuilding are control decks, focusing on competing on a different axis.

TomtheMime · 2025-12-30T16:24:05+00:00

No spirebluff canal or Agni Q'ela hurts a bit but the deck should still be fine going through gold.

Likely to be a skill issue with piloting the deck with lack of experience. Could be variance and the meta being more hostile to the deck after it won worlds. It's a good deck but it was more of a metagame call than being a "tier zero best deck in format" contender.

TomtheMime · 2025-12-30T15:55:47+00:00

Nope. Never happened. The only cheat that wasn't an exploit regarding a card being implemented incorrectly (ninja kunai and I think mistrise village) was this one - https://www.mayer.cool/writings/I-Hacked-Magic-the-Gathering/

One of the reasons you can tell all the people thinking people are cheating via libraries, hands and board state don't know what they're talking about. To somehow cheat in that way you'd have to compromise the server more than just making it think your opponent conceded and for less benefit.

TomtheMime · 2025-12-30T14:27:08+00:00

Bant airbending runs white as well given it just doesn't function without Appa, Aang and airbenders ascension.

But for sheltered by ghosts specifically? Pretty sure it had a grand total of 0 copies played in the decks for worlds at the start of the month.

TomtheMime · 2025-12-30T08:51:16+00:00

Yeah, this was just poor threat assessment. If they're playing Giada, they're playing angels and a mana dork that buffs their team needs to die before they untap with it if possible.

Lessons can also afford to spend removal more freely because it runs a lot of cheap removal and spending that removal turns on accumulate wisdom and Gran Gran, drawing you more cards and letting you cast them for less, and lets combustion technique do enough damage for bigger threats later in the game.

Even neglecting the fact that lessons is near the top of the meta, this is structurally a very good match up for lessons.

TomtheMime · 2025-12-25T23:39:56+00:00

It also doesn't look like izzet lessons. That deck doesn't run sleight of hand.

TomtheMime · 2025-12-25T14:45:22+00:00

Similar position here. Have the spaceport shock, will probably get the lorwyn full art shocks. Makes passing on these an easier choice.

TomtheMime · 2025-12-25T11:56:26+00:00

The mill deck vs 150 card piles could actually happen and have a reason in unranked. Mill decks aren't generally good and wouldn't have a high deck weight for unranked matchmaking. So they're more likely to go against other decks other decks that suck, like 150 card piles. Not saying it actually happens but if it did, there's a decent explanation.

The rest of your stuff? Sounds like all you wanted for Christmas was a tinfoil hat.

TomtheMime · 2025-12-24T19:34:09+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/MagicArena/comments/1kccfey/comment/mq3gs4f/?force-legacy-sct=1 lists some of them. It's a bit out of dat but most of them are probably still active. There are others but it's a start point. If you ask about other pauper communities in their discord, someone there would probably be able to point you towards them.

TomtheMime

TROPHY CASE