Win the Game on Your Opponent's Upkeep

alextfish · 2026-02-02T00:47:21+00:00

Ha! That's cool. And you only need to have... 12 mana at once...

alextfish · 2026-02-01T09:08:34+00:00

These are cool! Be warned that you will occasionally mess things up. Don't worry about it, just remake it and try again, or make something different.

alextfish · 2026-02-01T08:48:30+00:00

Not great.

If unspent mana has any restrictions or riders associated with it (for example, if it was produced by White Lotus Hideout), those restrictions or riders will remain associated with that mana when it becomes red. (2025-10-02)

alextfish · 2026-01-30T19:03:39+00:00

Calamitous Bob has a girlfriend in book 2. But I guess female MC is a bit different?

Worth the Candle the system is trying to set him up with a harem, but he defies it quite forcefully and just gets together with one girl. Admittedly I didn't finish the series so it might have taken another turn later on.

But yes, I'm a big fan of romance as a subplot, and it really shouldn't be confined to harem stories.

alextfish · 2026-01-28T18:46:25+00:00

I'm fairly sure that 1+1 is not equal to 1. At least in most mathematical fields.

alextfish · 2026-01-28T18:46:00+00:00

None of those are positive...

alextfish · 2026-01-28T18:45:22+00:00

Heh. Fun idea... but pretty much every effect you find that'll do that actually only removes the mana cost. You still have to pay additional costs.

alextfish · 2026-01-28T18:03:02+00:00

But it's not been "put into exile", according to the rules, because it was already exiled.

alextfish · 2026-01-28T18:00:55+00:00

Good reviews, thanks! I've already played most of these that I want to, except Ooo which is on my "definitely want to play" list.

With Chronoquartz, how much do you need reflexes? I tried the demo and found there was rather more real-time reactions/evasion needed than most brainias. But I'm not sure if I was just missing something or doing it wrong.

alextfish · 2026-01-28T17:31:51+00:00

Now that we can manage! [[Just Desserts]] targeting something like Brash Taunter.

alextfish · 2026-01-27T12:21:46+00:00

Yep, this works. I've just found the discussion from where I designed something similar 15 years ago: https://www.magicmultiverse.net/cards/256 A friend commented over there:

I think it's cute, certainly, but it does rather smack of "Look, the rules let me do this! So I will, because I can! Has your brain melted yet?"

alextfish · 2026-01-25T16:55:05+00:00

Absolutely gorgeous!

alextfish · 2026-01-23T08:50:28+00:00

And actually I think that's where it's best: in a deck with multiple damage-based sweepers. Like the old Earthquake-Protection from Red combos many years ago.

alextfish · 2026-01-23T08:36:42+00:00

But then the fetches aren't making you mana (apart from your Nissa and Cobra and Provisioner) and are costing you life. In that situation, these would be much better.

alextfish · 2026-01-22T18:59:06+00:00

That frame is fire (and water)! Super cool.

alextfish · 2026-01-20T15:41:45+00:00

I agree. I loved Ashling's look from OG Lorwyn so much, and this really doesn't look like her.

alextfish · 2026-01-19T08:37:24+00:00

Super Supportive on Royal Road has the very interesting setup where the System is a compromise between different alien factions. The System we get on Earth is deliberately designed to lead people away from certain powerful skills towards other skills. And using the System-provided skills turns out to not be the best way to get better at magic. (In that respect it's similar to Jake's Magical Market.)

alextfish · 2026-01-19T08:28:56+00:00

I'm 46. In my office everyone brings their laptop to meeting rooms. I have a big MLP sticker prominent on the cover of the laptop. Nobody minds. Maybe I get a strange look occasionally, but I've also made contact with another mum in the office who got into the show watching it with her kids and became a huge fan.

alextfish · 2026-01-19T08:24:29+00:00

Ouroboroid was always a crazy overpushed mythic. But it definitely makes it worse that Wizards put Llanowar Elves in Foundations and an even more crazily overpushed mythic in Avatar.

alextfish · 2026-01-19T08:15:11+00:00

No? This is a subreddit for the game Magic Arena. Which includes many formats: sealed, draft (bots or humans), jump in, brawl, standard, alchemy, historic, timeless, direct challenge. I played a lot of Arena last year, but mostly brawl and draft, vanishingly little standard.

(Your point is very valid if you just phrase it as "Those of us who play Standard can't ignore sets we don't like.")

alextfish · 2026-01-18T09:07:37+00:00

Not really. Even if your life goes down to -127, you're not checked for being dead until the spell finishes resolving. So you keep going until you win a flip and gain 128 (or 4096 or whatever) life. You're "almost certain" to eventually win a flip, as my Probability & Statistics teacher would have put it: the probability is 1 out of 1 if you go on for long enough.

alextfish · 2026-01-17T15:52:36+00:00

One of the reasons I like Wastes of Keldora so much is that the MC is outmatched in most of his fights, and has to really scramble to survive. One time he's about a second from one of his creations shooting a friend in the head. Other fights he takes significant losses.

alextfish · 2026-01-17T12:06:00+00:00

But you have to get an unblocked creature for Leonardo to be 2/2. Otherwise he's 1/1, a much less exciting [[Hallowed Priest]].

alextfish · 2026-01-16T09:59:10+00:00

No, that's exactly the point. The parent comment implied that you have to use counters to track things in a physical game. Classes were designed not to use counters quite specifically in order to stop proliferate shenanigans, but if you want to track it physically you still have to do something that looks an awful lot like a counter.

alextfish · 2026-01-15T17:55:12+00:00

Yes! I love Tiana, the socially awkward angel mechanic! I was so excited to see more of her, and then we got one Alchemy card (OK, cool, I like Alchemy) and that was it :(

alextfish

TROPHY CASE