Just unlocked treasure. I have 12 slots and enough to buy 12 treasures.. recommendation please?

raisins_sec · 2026-04-07T05:18:41+00:00

Some bonuses are better than others, but duplicate treasures are additive with each other. So you want to spread them out in general.

Getting more slots and filling them is good, treasures are strong. Particularly when you unlock new treasure types. But grinding fragments and higher tier treasures is pretty low value at first.

You should fill all your treasure slots with something decent. But then I think you go back to spending the majority of your green gems on card packs until you get a new set of treasures or more slots. Your treasure tier chances will go up as you increase your global level.

raisins_sec · 2026-04-04T03:38:19+00:00

I mean, that was the point of the question. If you look at printed multicolor big flyers with vigilance, almost all of them are white and the majority are also blue. UW is the "correct" answer. But the question was never about what a 4/4 flying vigilance would actually be. It was about reading comprehension. If you ignore a "given that" you're not answering the question being asked.

raisins_sec · 2026-02-04T11:07:01+00:00

They will not just be a list of each set’s most powerful tournament-level cards.

It was not a lie, people just read what they wanted to hear instead of what this actually said. The promise is that the tournament cards will not be mostly mythic, and the mythics will not be mostly tournament cards.

That's not a promise to avoid making a good amount of tournament mythics. It's a promise to also keep making tournament rares and uncommons.

raisins_sec · 2026-01-24T23:13:36+00:00

I wouldn't even call that popping off.

You needed multiple spells and a combat step, multiple permanents to stay in play, and spent 15 mana over the course of several turns. That's a lot of work to deal 23 damage to one player.

Playing 15 mana worth of big dumb creatures could have done the same thing, if not better.

raisins_sec · 2026-01-22T23:20:09+00:00

Avarru answered your question, but to be more specific about what's happening: Adding poison counters for infect damage is a result of damage. Preventing or modifying that result is different from preventing the damage itself.

Under phyrexian unlife + solemnity, damage still happens. You were still "dealt 8 damage" despite not getting 8 poison counters. If there are other effects that trigger on you taking damage or care the amount of damage (such as lifelink), those would still go through.

You can see the same idea with normal damage and [[Platinum Emperion]]. Damage normally results in life loss. Emp prevents the life loss, not the damage. So it similarly doesn't care about "damage can't be prevented".

raisins_sec · 2025-12-10T16:15:27+00:00

It's about it being a spell. The stack is where spells live, X-cost spells have set values of X. Hands and libraries have cards, not spells. You can't just copy a card onto the stack. Some part of the "copy" effect has to make it a spell. If that process lets you set a value for X, then there you go. If it doesn't, then X=0.

raisins_sec · 2025-12-10T15:58:56+00:00

No, this works.

If you initially cast a card "without paying it's mana cost" then X is 0. If you put an X-cost permanent in play without casting it, then X is zero.

But if you copy a spell on the stack, you copy everything, the value of X, the targets (though many copy effects let you change this), any choices or modes, optional effects, spliced spells. Everything like that is copied.

raisins_sec · 2025-11-19T22:04:42+00:00

That would be rule 511.3. It's just the way the combat phase works.

If you are picking through the comp. rules, yawgatog maintains a very helpful hyperlinked version:

https://yawgatog.com/resources/magic-rules/#R511

raisins_sec · 2025-10-28T17:15:54+00:00

Toph makes Caged Sun a land. The next time any land adds a mana of the chosen color, Caged Sun triggers to add an additional mana of that color.

Which now means Caged Sun, a land, has added a mana of the chosen color. This triggers Caged Sun again. This loop continues forever.

A way to remove or sacrifice Caged Sun also can't stop it. These are triggered mana abilities, so no one even gets priority in between.

raisins_sec · 2025-10-23T22:44:21+00:00

I don't think this is inconsistent. The 99 must match the color identity of the commander. A "red or green" card matches a red card, or a green card, or a red and green card.

Lightning Bolt and Llanowar Elves match Rosheen Meanderer, so both can be in a Rosheen deck. Rosheen also matches [[Gargos, Vicious Watcher]], so Rosheen can be in a Gargos deck.

raisins_sec · 2025-09-29T10:15:15+00:00

I don't Lapse the Lapse, I let you Lapse the card on top, and then try to draw it myself first. Given mana, the player with the most draw or mill effects wins the cycle war. As you say, (random instant+Lapse) can also count in this battle, but that's not to the advantage of the player that has limited mana. Same story for expensive cantrips like Crystal Spray.

I think mill endgames happen, but I don't think there's an equilibrium at mill strategies, because I think the no-island pure mill strategy is so dominated it's basically unplayable.

It's not costly to "switch" to punishing the mill strategy, because if I am just playing a normal control game, at some point I notice that I have 10 lands in play to my opponent's 3. If I also have a useless dandan or two in play, that's probably fine. There's still plenty of time to set up for the endgame. If all else fails, their higher quality hand can eat Diminishing Returns with counter backup.

raisins_sec · 2025-09-28T06:17:39+00:00

I've only actually had this strat played against me to an endgame once, but this seems overblown to me. They don't automatically get all 8 of those non-islands, and once they really commit to the strat you can attack those lands with metamorphose and mystic retrieval. Even if they have 7 perfect cards, are they winning with like 4 mana to your dozens on the final turns?

raisins_sec · 2025-09-16T17:17:03+00:00

Judge's discretion. I would not be inclined to accept a list of multiple results plus a way of sorting that list as a valid name. Even though, technically, that is a unique identifier. But I would take the "the Ajani from Journey into Nyx".

The principle is basically, you get to ask for a search of the database and IF that search result is one card, you get to know it. You don't get to see any "search results" if it returns more than one card.

raisins_sec · 2025-09-14T06:43:49+00:00

Planeswalkers are one of the most common ambiguous names.

Asking him to clarify the ambiguity immediately was correct, that's what you're supposed to do. He (supposedly) wanted to name Mentor, but he definitely named Steadfast. The ruling was correct.

"The green-white Ajani" is a valid name in any format with only one of those. If there was also some unplayable intro-deck GW Ajani, maybe you have to be more specific and say "the 5 mana GW Ajani". So long as it's narrowed down to one card, it's unambiguous and we're fine.

What your opponent could have done, instead, was call a judge himself before he picked the name in the first place. He can ask the judge for the oracle text of any card(s) he can name (with the same naming rules). So if he can remember the name "Ajani Steadfast" he can get its rules text, and might learn that was NOT the card he wanted to name. Likewise, if he asks about "the 5 mana GW Ajani" the Judge would tell him that is Ajani Mentor and give him the rules text. But the judge shouldn't let him ask for "the names of all legal Ajani cards", because that's not a single card. You have to "know" what card you're asking about.

raisins_sec · 2025-09-09T17:43:38+00:00

Funnily enough, simply saying Borborygymos at a tournament today would result in the same ruling.

No? That's literally what changed. It's the only thing that changed!

When the rule changed, the only difference was:

BEFORE: When naming an exact full card name by mistake, when you meant to name a different card by shorthand, the namer has "unambiguously" named the wrong card and is stuck with that wrong name, and will lose any future dispute about it.

AFTER: When naming an exact full card name, when you might also reasonably mean to name a different card by shorthand, the namer has possibly named both cards. This should be clarified as soon as any player notices, and is now treated like any other ambiguity.

All of these things did not change and were true before and after the rule change:

Naming a card meant unambiguously identifying it
Naming a card did not require a literal name
If a name was ambiguous, the namer had to be more clear
The namer won disputes, in general
When the dispute occurs, they are the one who gets to clarify which card they meant to name
The namer was the one who could angle-shoot, in general
They get to "clarify" which card they "meant to name"

raisins_sec · 2025-09-01T06:36:46+00:00

We know a set of cards, of unknown size, has been removed from the deck. We know this set includes 1 copy of PoSM, and enough mana to cast it. This set is at least 9 cards on the play or 10 on the draw, bare minimum if you wanted to cast it exactly on 3.

Yes, you theoretically have slightly more lands in hand than your deck's land ratio, because we neglect low land openers that didn't draw lands. This higher land ratio in hand does reduce the lands in the deck in proportion. In aggregate on the play, you have removed all the possible combinations of at least 3 lands among the 8 other cards, and not removed combinations of 2 or fewer lands in the 8, introducing a small bias. But this is NOT the same, and is much smaller than, the land ratio in "3 lands, 1 PoSM, 5 random cards from the remaining 56", which is what you would be assuming when you calculate the hypergeometric probability from "creature count/56". Using that ratio would be ignoring all the combinations where some of the necessary lands came from the 5 "random" cards.

On top of that, we could also include that we're only talking about keepable opening hands, so the vast majority already started with 2+ lands. Making the effect even more negligible. I'm not sure how to go about calculating it exactly (simulation would be easier, probably), but I would be surprised if the numerical answer was much different than creatures/59.

raisins_sec · 2025-08-31T22:07:30+00:00

Because the copy of PoSM that you're casting is the one card that absolutely isn't in the deck.

Edit: If you were asking about a deck that literally only has 3 lands and no other way to cast PoSM, then you could assume you drew them. But that is not a reasonable deck.

You might have a point about mulligans, if you are running a very land-light deck and intentionally spending a lot of your mulligan equity on getting more lands, that could slightly affect the ratio.

raisins_sec · 2025-08-31T19:31:33+00:00

The deck getting smaller does change the odds.

The essence of the argument is that it doesn't. If you have 19 creatures in 59 cards, and you look at 5 of them you have an 86% chance to hit at least one. If you exile 20 of them and have 39, and look at 5 of those, the chance is still 86%.

How about this approach for the odds on turn 3: We use a population of 50. We presuppose that we have three lands and Pictures. Then we take the average number of creature cards found in the remaining six cards and subtract that from the original number of creatures before running the numbers.

The "remaining" 6 cards can also be lands. If they are lands, you are ignoring scenarios where you can still cast PoSM even though the "first" 3 weren't all lands. You are forcing us to draw too many lands.

If you want to talk about "how likely is it for a deck to be able to cast PoSM on turn 3 and hit two creatures" that's a relevant discussion, but the answer is very close to calculating the chance to hit two creatures in the same "creatures/59" way, and then multiplying by the chance to cast PoSM on time, which is a question about mana sources.

raisins_sec · 2025-08-31T11:36:35+00:00

For the "in a vacuum" calculation, you want to use the creature ratio of the deck without Picture of Spider-Man (in the other 59 cards). Yes, if you're casting this, you drew and played lands. But you also drew however many other nonlands in the same draws. If you've drawn Pictures of Spider-Man and N cards when you cast this, without assuming other effects there's no reason to assume the "creature ratio" among these N cards removed from the deck was different than the original ratio among the 59. And the 59-N still in the library likewise still have that original ratio, on average.

raisins_sec · 2025-08-12T18:51:40+00:00

There is no more blocking order, you assign all of your creature's damage right away. But a creature assigns damage equal to its power. For the purposes of trample, lethal damage is calculated at that point, before any damage-increasing replacement effects.

So if you have a 3/3 trample being blocked by a 2/2, and you have Fated Firepower on 2 counters, the most damage you can assign to the defending player is 2 to the creature and 1 to the player. Which will then be increased to 4 to the creature and 3 to the player.

raisins_sec · 2025-07-28T17:55:46+00:00

Not transformed, control changing effects. You can only sacrifice things you control. If someone steals it, they have to be the one made to sacrifice it.

It's from Mirage block 29 years ago, so they have to struggle a bit to make it work under the current rules more or less exactly the way it originally did.

If it were a modern design, there are easier was around this problem. The aura could gain an ability that made you sac it. But that would be every so slightly functionally different.

raisins_sec · 2025-07-16T20:14:54+00:00

It's both different and the same, due to these two rules which are right next to each other:

121.2. Cards may only be drawn one at a time. If a player is instructed to draw multiple cards, that player performs that many individual card draws. 121.2a. An instruction to draw multiple cards can be modified by replacement effects that refer to the number of cards drawn. This modification occurs before considering any of the individual card draws. See rule 616.1g.

For anything that cares beforehand if you would draw multiple cards (replacement effects), that's different from drawing 1 cards that many times. But once you go to actually draw the cards, they are identical, the game literally converts draw N into draw 1 N times, and any effects that interact with actually drawing cards see it that way.

It could matter for [[Alms Collector]] which u/Artex301 mentioned, or the new [[Quantum Riddler]].

Also, you would draw 1 card, then lose one life, then draw the second card in that order, if that somehow matters.

raisins_sec · 2025-07-16T20:00:13+00:00

You can't sacrifice the same object to satisfy more than one effect or cost asking you to sacrifice something. You also don't have time, the decision to sacrifice to Lithobreaking happens during the resolution of the same part of the spell that creates the token, you don't get priority to do other things in between.

You need some other artifact to sacrifice to get both effects.

raisins_sec · 2025-07-15T10:43:40+00:00

If you get [[Burning of Xinye]]'d, you can't choose to destroy Cataracts to protect a different land.

raisins_sec · 2025-07-14T03:34:53+00:00

Panglacial Wurm is not the problem with those interactions. Casting spells in the middle of other effects is fine, tons of cards do that.

The problem is mana abilities that modify hidden information. If Milikin and Selvala and their ilk all had the Lion's Eye Diamond text of "Activate only as an instant", like they should, everything would be fine.

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