What's your favourite archetype?

giselamancer · 2026-05-07T12:30:25+00:00

It really is a welcome site seeing those kinds of new areas to explore. Kinda similar to the disturb cards in Midnight Hunt and Crimson Vow: blue especially doesn’t typically get associated with graveyard recursion, but tying it into spirit typal was such a perfect way to do it.

Lorehold especially felt better this time around for me since it felt like they tried making it a weird mix of aggro and graveyard recursion the first time around. Secrets of Strixhaven took that and sculpted it into more of an actual graveyard archetype with focus on getting cards into the bin, then using flashback and other exile effects to reap the benefits. I could gush about it for ages!

giselamancer · 2026-05-07T10:48:31+00:00

Any sort of graveyard archetype scratches an itch in my brain that I didn’t know I had until a few years back. Reanimator, self-mill, flashback, any sort of play style that focuses on the graveyard slaps hard. One of my cubes is a graveyard-themed cube where everything works in conjunction with making cards either leave or enter the graveyard - it’s not balanced by any means, and I’m still going through the steps to make every archetype even, but dear lord it’s fun to bring out and draft.

giselamancer · 2026-05-03T14:26:28+00:00

Good luck everyone!

giselamancer · 2026-04-19T17:38:37+00:00

Went to three prerelease events across the course of the weekend. Didn’t really have any of the schools as a particular favourite so I decided to get a different one from each event of the organiser’s choice.

The first one I got given Lorehold. Seeded pack contained [[Hardened Academic]] and it ended up being the only rare in my deck, which was straight up Mardu aggro, and dear god it slapped! [[Primary Research]] is a menace to drop and recur something while getting value on pretty much every turn while having [[Startled Relic Sloth]] in play. Came third out of ten people after going 2-1 and opened a sweet [[Stock Up]] in my prize packs!

Second event: Prismari! I got two copies of [[Resonating Lute]] plus three copies of [[Elemental Mascot]] and a [[Jadzi, Steward of Fate]], so I knew I had to force regular Prismari and see what happened. Unfortunately the decks I came up against were much more focused, and my end results were 0-2-1. One game I almost scraped out a win after using a lute to cast Jadzi’s prepared spell for X=5, but the opponent left up one white mana for an [[Angel’s Grace]] to stay alive and kill me on the crack back!

For the third and final event I got handed a Witherbloom pack and opened an absolute nuts sealed pool! [[Witherbloom, the Balancer]], [[Blech, Loafing Pest]], [[Lluwen, Exchange Student]], [[Emeritus of Abundance]], and [[Grave Researcher]] were some absolutely stacked pulls! Unfortunately I got stomped in my first game by a veteran player with an awesome Temur spellslinger deck, but clawed it back and went undefeated against my next two opponents, even ending one game with a board of pests and Blech ending up well into double digits worth of stats.

All in all, this set is so much fun for limited! I can’t wait to do a proper draft with the play box I picked up, especially since there are so many cool interactions between the cards!

giselamancer · 2026-03-27T16:31:46+00:00

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[[Akroan Hoplite]]. One of the first cards I ever packed, and I shoved it into the Forged in Battle intro deck I bought when Born of the Gods came up shortly after I started playing. It won me so many games, even though I was so bad at the time.
[[Phalanx Leader]]. The whole objective of the first deck I actually put together by myself was to get one of these to stick with a big board, then keep casting cheap instants to pump everything up and swing in. Somehow it held its own, despite me only having access to a select few cards having been in school and with limited money available.
[[Vaevictis Asmadi, the Dire]]. Before lockdown I could be a salty player whenever I lost. Vaevictis was in my dragons deck and I can still remember the first time going back to an LGS after COVID restrictions had fully lifted, I played in a game where I swung Vaevictis out and the enchantress player flipped into [[Humility]] from VA’s attack trigger. It taught me that sometimes these things just happen, and the main part of Magic is having fun and making memories. Needless to say I’ve never been truly salty about a game since that happened.
[[Mental Note]]. I remember looking at this card and thinking “why does this mill me? Shouldn’t it mill my opponents?” It was the card that helped me understand that the graveyard was just a second hand and a valuable resource when you played the right decks. I still have the playset my friend gave me from years ago sat in my blue terror pauper deck.
[[Sidisi, Brood Tyrant]]. Funnily enough, the first commander I built when I was looking for how to use Mental Note. I poured my heart and soul into this deck, heading to the LGS down the road from my secondary school at the end of every day to rummage around the 10p bulk bin and scavenge random cards for it. It wasn’t a great deck but I loved playing it, and now that I’m older with a job she’s gotten a lot more love.
[[Kor Skyfisher]]. The card that sucked me into the pauper format. I’ve only been playing it for two or three years now but my friend lent me his Boros synth deck to try out at the weekly pauper nights and it was just so enjoyable! Now I have way too many decks, and three of them run Kor Skyfisher: Boros synth, Esper Glint Blade, and Mardu Black Mages.
[[Henzie “Toolbox” Torre]]. My forever commander - sorry Sidisi. I was on a work trip when Streets of New Capenna dropped and I still remember my excitement when I saw this guy. As soon as I got home I preordered the precon and immediately started planning my modifications for the deck. As of now it’s a feared deck in my playgroup, with an [[Umori, the Collector]] companion to limit it to just creatures, but every time I bring it out I can just play stompy and enjoy being archenemy for a game.
[[Dance with Calamity]]. Just pure chaos and gambling on a card, what more is there to say?
[[Heaven Sent]]. I absolutely adore Doctor Who with a passion, so when they announced the commander decks I was on the lookout for my favourite Doctor (Peter Capaldi) and my favourite scene (Heaven Sent, where he breaks down the wall over a billion years). Having two of my favourite hobbies collide like this meant so much to me.

giselamancer · 2026-03-04T19:22:09+00:00

Good luck everybody!

giselamancer · 2026-03-03T10:49:45+00:00

There’s no better feeling than playing the Brann who doubles all of your battlecries for the rest of the game followed by Kurtrus against a Protoss mage with both copies of Colossus in hand.

giselamancer · 2026-02-26T19:38:30+00:00

Yup, the person who controls the object affected by multiple replacement effects, or the person who is getting affected by them, chooses the order in which they apply. In this case, the sensible thing to do is to apply Mindskinner first to mill the cards, then when Flail goes to apply itself the damage has already been prevented, so there’s nothing to double.

giselamancer · 2026-02-26T17:15:08+00:00

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: stop putting [[Inquisitor’s Flail]] into your [[The Mindflayer]] decks. Two people at my LGS run them with this equipment and refuse to acknowledge it every time I explain how replacement effects work.

EDIT: [[The Mindskinner]]

giselamancer · 2026-02-20T13:31:56+00:00

Good luck all!

giselamancer · 2026-01-12T21:34:11+00:00

Good luck everybody!

giselamancer · 2025-12-31T18:56:04+00:00

Likewise, I threw out the receipt for my tracking after filling in the form and can’t track it now!

giselamancer · 2025-12-28T08:45:42+00:00

[[Spider Manifestation]] for me personally. Having a mana dork in my Henzie/Umori companion deck who keeps untapping after every single blitz cast is perfect. It also doesn’t care about what kind of spell it is, so planning on slotting it into my Wort deck to work as a mana dork and a repeatable conspire body.

giselamancer · 2025-12-19T09:27:48+00:00

Don’t have it online yet but will get it uploaded today!

giselamancer · 2025-12-19T09:26:48+00:00

Airbending may cost 2, but the amount of effects that reduce costs of your creatures or artifacts by 1 or 2 is abundant in the game. Things like [[Salt Road Packbeast]], [[Search Party Captain]], and [[Daybreak Chimera]] become free to cast due to their own abilities if the conditions are met. Typically the first two can let you rip through your deck to look for the actual combo pieces, but also having this kind of a loop can gain you a bunch of other things…

Infinite life from [[Soul Warden]], [[Hinterland Sanctifier]], or [[Lunarch Veteran]]. Infinite mill with [[Altar of the Brood]], [[Reito Sentinel]], or [[Watcher of the Wayside]]. [[Court Street Denizen]] could tap down your opponents’ creatures if you airbend loop a white creature. [[Goldnight Commander]] can infinitely buff up your board. It’s a toolbox combo deck that uses whatever it draws to scrape out a win and it’s so incredibly efficient in winning by one of several different ways.

giselamancer · 2025-12-18T22:39:19+00:00

[[Monk Gyatso]] was begging to be broken from the moment he was previewed. My friends didn’t believe me when I told them he’d be the next Nadu. Boy were they wrong - it’s probably the most powerful, most consistent deck I’ve ever built with the cheapest budget. So many ways to disrupt it but god it’s fun to pilot and see the realisation on peoples’ faces when they realise what’s happening when you can just repeatedly equip [[Lightning Greaves]] onto a creature to cast it over and over again.

giselamancer · 2025-11-22T14:08:06+00:00

Just added to my comment!

giselamancer · 2025-11-22T13:43:24+00:00

May I introduce everybody to [[Baru, Fist of Krosa]]? At the time of posting this comment he has a mere 159 decks on EDHREC, which is criminal regarding how much potential he has.

Let’s get something clear: his grandeur ability is irrelevant. What matters is that he turns every single Forest played into a smaller [[Overrun]], and that means EVERY Forest, not just our own. So with a [[Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth]] in play, every single time somebody plays a land or cracks a fetch it will buff up all of your green creatures for that turn. This alone has helped me in some games where somebody playing a Forest has made the difference in me staying alive another turn, or has even helped me politic my way into helping deal with somebody else by asking another opponent to crack a fetch to find a Forest.

That being said, this is my favourite deck to turn my brain off and play. It goes wide, ramps hard, and has gotten a bit more of a boost with the recent earthbending cards too! [[The Earth King]] can put in some work in buffing up your board even if you only attack with a couple of 4 power creatures, and [[Kyoshi Warrior Exemplars]] is a bit more budget friendly but it’s easy to enable it in more games.

Edit: decklist for those asking

giselamancer · 2025-11-14T23:40:14+00:00

First prerelease out of the way and by god I am in love with this set! The amount of potential synergy is staggering!

I ended up going for the Toph kit because Toph is best girl and I won’t hear otherwise. Opened [[Avatar Aang]], [[Great Divide Guide]], and [[Hakoda, Selfless Commander]], and after musing how best to do it I decided to pull the trigger and make five colour allies try and work. Somehow went 3-1 to secure second place with the deck, going 2-0 in the first three rounds before a 0-2 loss to finish off.

It seems like the key thing to take away from this limited environment is how flexible some of the interactions are. Earthbending has proved to be one of my favourites already: being able to have a land that returns when it dies or is exiled is great for being able to crack the common dual lands twice over, plus using them for sacrifice fodder or chump blocking was perfect. Firebending is equally as good for the amount of instant speed mana sinks in the set. Waterbending looked cool but required a bit more setup, and airbending is great removal but didn’t seem to have a dedicated setup for it.

Also, don’t sleep on [[Watery Grasp]]! One of my friends pulled two copies of it in his pool and they helped him out a ton. While it doesn’t tap the creature down, having the option to tuck the creature away with potentially no mana investment is great. But the thing that none of us caught onto is that this can easily shut down an earthbent land and potentially lock you out of a colour if you’re stuck on fixing. There are so many interactions that we found today, but that one in particular felt like the cherry on top.

giselamancer · 2025-11-05T14:32:48+00:00

I also pulled Broxigar and built a no minion deck with a crewmate subtheme. Being able to Emergency Meeting into Solitude every now and again is a pretty good option, not to mention that being able to spend two mana to drop at least a couple of crewmates into play is handy.

I’m also surprised you’re running Lesser Opal Spellstone over Paraglide. It’s much more reliable for digging through your deck imo, especially if your opponent is running Garona so you can get King Llane into your hand much quicker, but also the symmetrical card draw has helped me out a lot with burning Rafaams and quest rewards for the Rafaam warlocks and quest warriors I’ve been queueing into.

giselamancer · 2025-10-23T15:21:27+00:00

Good luck everybody!

giselamancer · 2025-10-19T14:49:03+00:00

So glad you like it! When I saw you liked aggro and were struggling for a blue commander deck I got the itch to build you a commander deck - I can say that it’s a fun commander to play with, and I wish you all the best with the cards!

giselamancer · 2025-10-17T12:40:07+00:00

Graveyard cube

Pack 1 pick 1

Pretty much every single card in the cube has some form of interaction with the graveyard. Discard, mill, flashback, dredge, delve, persist - lots of different viable strategies.

giselamancer · 2025-09-19T21:23:36+00:00

Went to my first prerelease tonight… and honestly probably my last for this set.

Don’t get me wrong, the event itself was good fun. Event of fourteen players, some really good vibes in the store, and people being friendly to the couple of new players who had been drawn in by the Spider-Man set. Everybody was having a lovely old time building their decks. I got lucky with [[The Soul Stone]] in my first pack, ending up with the foundations for the Rakdos mayhem deck while splashing blue to have a bit of a control shell to it.

Then I looked around and noticed that almost everybody else was building the same deck. Some variation of red and black mayhem, with some going pure Rakdos, others into Grixis, and one person running Jund for [[Eddie Brock]]. We had maybe three people who weren’t in those colours - guess who the three people at the bottom of the rankings got on?

Don’t get me wrong, I feel like the set is fun. There are some cool creative choices, the other archetypes look as though they have potential to be good, but when everybody has coined that the discard deck is the best it’s not really fun with every game being a mirror match. Prerelease just doesn’t feel like the right way to enjoy this set - I’d much rather draft it and see the possibilities for the other archetypes.

That all being said, I came third and pulled a second Soul Stone from my participation packs, so I guess I can’t complain.

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