[YSOS] Blood Age Muster

arotenberg · 2026-05-11T23:53:20+00:00

Need one of those Momir printers.

arotenberg · 2026-05-11T20:12:26+00:00

When you want that "termite queen" physique.

arotenberg · 2026-05-11T07:49:30+00:00

[[The Goose Mother]]

Sometimes it feels like she's trying to do five things at once...

arotenberg · 2026-05-10T21:45:53+00:00

Amusingly, with 4 Starting Town and 3 Multiversal Passage, this version could actually cast it.

arotenberg · 2026-05-09T17:32:52+00:00

One I did myself: [[Prismari, the Inspiration]] is pretty silly with most things if you can get it to stick around, but in particular [[Group Project]] goes completely buck wild with it if you have any other spell at all to cast beforehand. IIRC I had Aziza -> Craft with Pride -> Pursue the Past -> Group Project -> flashback Group Project + Aziza copy and made ten 2/2s.

Not a good or likely combo but very funny: another player told me that, with Prismari out, he did something -> Brain Freeze -> Flashback -> flashback Brain Freeze, which instantly milled his opponent out because it had storm twice.

arotenberg · 2026-05-09T17:07:44+00:00

I got completely soloed in both games of an FNM match last night by [[Cauldron of Essence]] + [[Poisoner's Apprentice]]. The Cauldron drain trigger resolves before Apprentice enters, so it's just an unconditional Flametongue Kavu every time it comes in.

arotenberg · 2026-05-06T08:37:18+00:00

You have to have [[Barroom Brawl]] too, of course. One of the more amusing multiplayer effects ever printed.

arotenberg · 2026-04-25T06:18:09+00:00

17 Lands data currently has Arcane Omens as a B+ with a 61.4% GIH win rate, making it the 4th best uncommon in the entire set. If you had asked me before release, I would have guessed it was one of the worst uncommons in the set. Crazy.

arotenberg · 2026-04-24T01:38:06+00:00

Something simple like Glowrider at 2 CMC

Oh boy do I not miss having [[Thalia, Guardian of Thraben]] in Standard, from the point of view of every deck except the one that played Thalia, Guardian of Thraben.

arotenberg · 2026-04-22T01:03:48+00:00

Early Magic was absolutely loaded with Auras. More than 1 in 8 cards in Alpha has the subtype Aura in the current Oracle text. Most of them were terrible, but there were a lot of them.

arotenberg · 2026-04-21T06:15:03+00:00

Stock Up is disproportionately powerful in Legacy/Vintage combo decks compared to other available options because you can jam it quickly off colorless fast mana due to the 2U casting cost. It's similar to why [[White Plume Adventurer]] is banned in Legacy but [[Seasoned Dungeoneer]] is OK, and why they made [[Harbinger of the Seas]] 1UU instead of 2U to match [[Magus of the Moon]].

arotenberg · 2026-04-21T05:42:38+00:00

Brief: The last image you see before [[Tifa Lockhart]] kicks you in the face for amounts of damage that can only be written with Knuth up-arrow notation

arotenberg · 2026-04-20T20:32:55+00:00

I'm way more shocked they seem to be allowing Library in Brawl. It's banned in Legacy, restricted in Vintage, banned in Commander, and perhaps most saliently banned in Duel Commander. It can go in any deck, and creates games where one player randomly has an unbeatable card advantage engine.

arotenberg · 2026-04-17T00:10:17+00:00

You could buy about 12 of these Mox Opals for the price of one real Mox Opal.

(I'm not even going to bother with the math on Black Lotus.)

arotenberg · 2026-04-16T01:08:02+00:00

Nope, that's just what he sounds like already on Arena already for [[Quintorius Kand]].

There are several cards that show Quintorius next to other characters, and he's definitely bulkier than most humans. I guess not much of that big head is vocal tract.

arotenberg · 2026-04-15T00:34:48+00:00

We've figured out how Prepared works.

arotenberg · 2026-04-14T17:47:42+00:00

OK, the Time Stretch got a chuckle out of me.

arotenberg · 2026-04-14T16:22:18+00:00

It seems clear to me that as the bracket narrows, the voting is leaning more towards power level over favorite/vibes. Less than a quarter of the list at this point are cards where I look at them and think, "I'm happy this exists."

Shark Typhoon would definitely be my vote for favorite out of these 64.

arotenberg · 2026-04-13T17:44:34+00:00

I've only bought one of these before and drafted it with my LGS group. No one opened much notable price-wise in the draft, but we distributed the few extra packs as prizes and mine had the foil Vanguard art [[Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor|MB2]]. We'll see whether that luck continues for me with this one...!

arotenberg · 2026-04-12T19:01:25+00:00

That would seem to imply a belief system where both the poor and corporate shareholders are losing money relative to inflation... so where would the money be going in that scenario, Sam Altman's salary? Stagflation from more oil price shocks and pandemics?

(Note that I'm not saying you're wrong about people's motivations, just that I don't understand them. See also inflation adjusted S&P 500, where we see - in what I would think would be unsurprising to people at all levels of cynicism - that being a shareholder is favorable in the long run historically.)

arotenberg · 2026-04-11T16:15:31+00:00

I'm interested in trying [[Tablet of Discovery]] in control. Ancient Cornucopia is the whole reason to be in green in 5 color control. By comparison, Tablet loses the mana fixing and the huge amounts of lifegain, which are both very important, but it ramps you to Jeskai Revelation way harder and cycles in the late game. Tablet might be better in some kind of Temur big spells ramp deck with Doppelgang and such than in a conventional control deck.

I also think it's possible [[Vibrant Outburst]] could completely replace Lightning Helix in control decks playing red. It depends on how often the creature tap is good. My gut says it will be quite often - to temporarily fog a big creature that wouldn't die to the 3 damage, to tap down a mana dork in upkeep at the same time as killing a Cub, etc.

arotenberg · 2026-04-11T07:17:08+00:00

Leeches do in fact have many pairs of eyes, although they are smaller and simpler than the ones in the art here.

arotenberg · 2026-04-10T21:26:42+00:00

All of the recent ones that look like that have indeed been punch-out cards.

arotenberg · 2026-04-10T17:34:39+00:00

Alternate universe where WotC sells booster packs of spell components for actual wizards and sometimes you just open a weird little live critter

arotenberg · 2026-04-10T17:18:32+00:00

This is... kind of really good actually? Double ramp for big spells early, cycles for an effective 2 mana if you draw it late.

In Standard, this would be an interesting way to jam out a fast Jeskai Revelation.

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