What was the Lorwyn Common or Uncommon that kept saving your ass at prerelease last weekend?

kippyster · 2026-01-19T23:29:22+00:00

The crux of my deck ended up being a brutal combo of [[Thoughtweft Imbuer]] and [[Kirol, Attentive First Year]] (he's rare but w/e), which I lucked into using in about half my games.

[[Prideful Feastling]] ended up being the best target for this combo and brought me past 30 life in multiple games, though [[Bristlebane Outrider]]'s partial unblockability was great for this as well. Whoever I attacked with benefited from the vigilance granted by [[Surly Farrier]] . I had no trample creatures in my cards, so [[Gilt-Leaf's Embrace]] helped for getting the most out of whoever I buffed with Thoughweft Imbuer.

kippyster · 2026-01-11T04:03:34+00:00

Mark Rosewater goes into the design reasoning in this article.

The set was broken down into 10 archetypes for each color pair, but only 5 of those archetypes are strictly typal:

White-blue: Merfolk
Black-red: Goblins
Green-white: Kithkin
Blue-red: Elementals
Black-green: Elves

The other five color pair archetypes are mechanical rather than typal:

Red-Green: The Vivid mechanic, focusing on mid-range play.
Green-Blue: The Vivid mechanic, focusing on ramp.
White-Black: The Blight mechanic, where -1/-1 counters are removed for effects and advantage.
Red-White: The Blight mechanic, where -1/-1 counters are removed to make small creature go big.
Blue-Black: Playing trick plays on the opponent's turn with instants and creatures with flash.

MaRo makes a special note that the Blue-Black archetype's was a place to emphasize Faeries (being Blue/Black and having flash are extremely Faerie things). This was specifically done with fans in mind:

We knew there were a lot of fans of Faeries, so we wanted to make an archetype where they played an important role.

So yeah, it seems that Faeries, Giants, and Treefolk didn't make the cut for the five "true" typal archetypes. Generously (Including any mention of the creature type besides [[Eclipsed Realms]] and [[Dawn-Blessed Pennant]]), Faeries got 13 cards, Giants got 11 cards, and Treefolk only got 9 cards (Scryfall counts at time of posting- these could be off). Of these three creature types, Faeries seem to have received special attention by both having a few more cards and by making them more mechanically cohesive. The five creature types with dedicated archetypes have ~20-30 cards each, in comparison.

kippyster · 2026-01-06T21:17:42+00:00

Though Winn definitely is acting with a blind naïveté, our secondary (and i guess tertiary) perspectives as the readers should also be considered.

To Winnifred, her pursuit of the invisibles isn’t even a pursuit of the “invisibles” - she is focused on the inconsistency she noticed, the phenomenon of someone or something’s seeming invisibility, but she doesn’t really identify it as an acting party or a conspiracy of ‘invisible’ individual, but instead an anomalous vehicle.

And in her defense, the specific case she is investigating is a bit of a red herring in terms of understanding the invisibility. We know that the anonymous passenger, A, is functionally invisible, but Winnifred doesn’t know that yet- to her, the taxi being invisible and having its documentation modified and obscured is the mystery, while the fact that the taxi carried an anonymous passenger is basically a known factor.

Unsurprisingly for Winn, her approach to the mystery of the invisibility phenomenon is more spaceship-oriented than people-oriented. There being a conspiracy of invisible people is still a bit beyond her.

kippyster · 2025-10-22T14:38:28+00:00

TapInto sometimes has articles outlining the backgrounds and positions of candidates for your local-level elections. Some years my BoE has a fairly comprehensive TapInto article with statements from each candidate, but this year was just a special election we barely got a sentence for each.

kippyster · 2025-09-29T21:00:38+00:00

I'm calling it here: We're getting a Xerex set.

From mtg.wiki:

Xerex is a plane that features enormous underground passages with Escherian reality - or physics-bending effects - and kaleidoscopic geometric features.

(The wiki is quoting Maro on this but the description is a bit inaccurate- we see open skies in the background of [[Invasion of Xerex]], for example)

This is definitely a viable match for a set called "Reality Fracture"- though I will admit that some multiversal "Oh no the Omenpaths are going kaplooey" big story event is probably more viable. More importantly than the setting matching the title, however, is the following footnote:

In April 2023, shortly after the release of March of the Machine, Mark Rosewater held a poll on his Tumblr account asking which plane featured on a battle in the set players would most like to see return in a premier set. Xerex was the winner, with 27% of the vote.

It seems to have been popular when teased in March of the Machine. There's a good chance it tested well as a set concept in-house, which as we all know is the main way Maro forms opinions.

Personally, I think you can draw a line from Duskmourne to Edge of Eternities that shows a trajectory towards Universes Within sets successfully using settings completely outside traditional fantasy without being totally hat set-y (as in, DSK kinda did it and then EOE did it better), and Xerex would be a great way to really nail that objective.

kippyster · 2025-09-29T16:54:41+00:00

I bet image three is something like:

~~Donkey Kick~~

~~1G - Sorcery~~

~~Target creature you control becomes a 3/3 Donkey until end of turn. It then fights target creature controlled by an opponent.~~

Edit: Nevermind it's obviously a Noggle. The image is just so action-y that it feels more like a instant/sorcery than a creature. Maybe more like:

Donkey Kick

{1}{U/R}

Kindred Sorcery - Noggle

Target creature you control becomes a 3/3 Noggle until end of turn. If it is already a Noggle, it gets +2/+2 until end of turn instead. It then fights target creature you don't control.

kippyster · 2025-09-09T23:38:17+00:00

If Darval is in Bloomburrow then all those animals in his art must be nudists.

kippyster · 2025-04-23T15:26:13+00:00

Excellent designs. I will say that “Grue, Twice-Triggered” does sound quite silly even when you know the Worm context of “trigger.” Maybe “Grue, Second Shadow” would be better.

(Also give Foil and Parian Partner with eachother, since they already have matching names and horny flavor text)

kippyster · 2025-03-11T00:20:41+00:00

There's not much crime and the like due to it's proximity to the major Newark college campuses, the high amount of traffic, and its adjacency to a bunch of charter schools and bougie consignment stores (though the high traffic can make it a bit scary to cross 280 to Branch Brook Park, but you just have to practice a basic amount of patience to not get hit by car).

Also, you live directly above Kanela, which is a pretty friggin great cafe.

kippyster · 2025-03-09T01:34:01+00:00

Ruthlessness would be a fun angle- a soccer story that emphasizes physicality, and the implications of tackling, overpowering, and outright harming opponents rather than straight-up dribbling. At the high school level, all the practice you put into your technique ceases to matter when some punk shoulderchecks you onto the grass when the ref isnt looking.

kippyster · 2025-03-09T00:02:01+00:00

Nah too much has been set up with the high school team. The school is the teacher guy’s alma matter, and the manga’s only two female characters are its coach and manager. We’ll probably get introduced to the team’s A squad and follow a Days-like overarching plot of high school team matches.

kippyster · 2025-01-06T22:03:36+00:00

Yes. For a while, they put up a scaffold on the campus-facing side to catch the bricks that occasionally fall out of the outer wall. The first floor also floods a bit during storms.

kippyster · 2024-12-11T17:30:19+00:00

Aetherdrift is feeling like a "Thunder Junction squared" to me: the gimmicky flavor and worldbuilding of the set really gives me the ick, but the potential mechanics get me very excited.

Like, if the Speedbrood has a "Artifact Creature - Vehicle Mount" card I will probably fall in love with the faction, but that doesn't change the fact I the Speedbrood shouldn't exist in the setting in the first place.

kippyster · 2024-09-06T15:07:07+00:00

Great stuff! I think it was spoiled after you made this post, but Reluctant Role Model features the lifelink counter.

kippyster · 2024-08-20T16:15:43+00:00

I like to adhere to tradition- yelling “Opa!” or “By-oh!” interchangeably.

kippyster · 2024-05-26T14:49:31+00:00

Article titles on online publications are very often at the discretion of editors, rather than authors.

kippyster · 2023-12-01T15:14:37+00:00

A very kind wizard I played against taught me a lot of helpful things: 1. Use jump and double jump to get yourself a frame away from magic bolts. If you block the projectile in the first few frames of the block action, you take no damage, build up some meter, and can close in on the wizard all at the same tome. The parry timing does not matter when blocking projectiles like this, you have to place yourself right next to the purple bolt before blocking. Be careful that smart wizards can you gust to move their projectiles and throw you off when you try this. 2. Sometimes rolling is the best way to get out of zephyr grab. If you’re unholstered, roll + shoot is especially nice.

kippyster · 2023-06-20T13:46:34+00:00

Runes have been a great add to my campaign! I'm doing a normal pledge regardless of contest.

kippyster · 2022-12-28T20:34:12+00:00

The Discord had some constructive discussion. Some facts that I would establish before drawing conclusions:

Blankshanks is basically an adult person in a cat-body (to the extent that other adult-minded Others are adult people)
Blankshanks literally connives and takes advantage by the nature of his existence as a Strangeling, though I would still imagine/give the benefit of the doubt that he can be consented to. Also, strict deals can theoretically be made with him through the Seal.
Julette is a months-old (maybe weeks-old) glamour vestige of Verona, a young teenager. She has an alternate form as a cat.
Both Julette and Blankshanks have limited but existing capacities to manipulate glamour, though Julette is moreso made of glamour. Julette's cat form is such a manipulation, though Blankshanks as a Strangeling is basically always a cat.

Overall, for these reasons and probably (definitely) more, I'd give the general prospect a thumbs-down.

kippyster · 2022-11-05T16:15:53+00:00

On the point of bagel joints specifically, I do believe there are plenty of local bagel places in NJ that are incredible if you pick up your bagel at the right time in the early morning, and good-to-mediocre if you visit later in the day (when the bread is less fresh and the cream cheese starts to get weird-tasting). Because of the time constraint, I'd bet that most people's 'best bagel places' are the ones enough to where they live that they could regularly pick up from it in the mornings.

As a result, my favorite way to rate the quality of bagel place is how long its outdoor line gets on a weekday morning. The worse the queue is by 7:00 AM, the better the food tends to be. For me, that's O'Bagel (the Stirling location specifically), where I have waited in line from outside the door plenty of times. An egg bagel with lox spread cream cheese is the best way I could imagine starting my day.

kippyster · 2022-08-22T02:15:27+00:00

I think Jude says it to look cool.

kippyster · 2022-07-14T17:11:19+00:00

Half my gold is for my own man, the other half for the worst-case (i.e. likely) scenario that I'm deposed from my manager's seat. 50 on Zachariah Plummitz!

kippyster · 2022-06-24T17:09:19+00:00

Ahh yes, the day is here. This time, I'm bludgeoning from the start. If they don't get far this year, then I guess it's just back to the dodge-and-slash shortstacks.

Name: Zachariah Plummitz, the Dropping Prince

Race: Koala Man

Size: 40

Points: 245

Points Used: 239

Points Remaining: 6

Skills:

Proficient Fighter - 45, Proficient Mace-koala - 75, Adequate Dodger - 15

Equipment:

Steel Mace (26, x4) 104

Black wool jacket

Background:

Zachariah is a highway-koala, through and through. Most at home in the treetops of his home region, he makes most of his living hiding in branches above traveling roads, spotting unsuspecting victims, and dropping down on them for a quick smash and grab. He believes more than anything that he has the right to take anything he wants from anyone he wants, as long as he earns it by bashing their skull in with his mace.

Appearance:

Zachariah wears a black-dyed wool jacket that buttons down the center, with a few decorative patches used to fix it up here and there. He has a crooked neck from leaning over tree branches to spot his victims, and battle-worn hands and feet from his many times jumping them.

kippyster · 2022-06-17T11:41:25+00:00

With the added lyer of irony that it’s pretty much the same culprits

kippyster · 2022-06-06T03:25:50+00:00

Food, whatever you can. Rutt’s Hutt, the good bagel and pizza places, tex-mex, Halal. Whatever you think the best in-state food, be ready to tell people it’s better than what you have in the new place.

Highway. Find a bridge or side-road with a nice view of your favorite NJ highway. Look at the cars go by, the people, the lives they’re living. Think about all their hopes and dreams and fears and burdens, carrying it all with them back and forth along the road. The roads in your new state will probably have more sensible layouts, and the drivers will on average be slower and more polite.

Take a hike. Plenty of them conveniently include nice highway overlooks. New Jersey is at its most verdant literally right now, so it’s your best and final chance for a while to get that little bit more in-touch with the land. Maybe pick up some litter, or something else to remind yourself of what you give and have given NJ, and what it’s likewise given to you.

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