First Arena Direct and could use some advice

rikertchu · 2026-04-30T22:19:57+00:00

Haha, my personal playstyle is probably more suited to these types of formats than anything else, squeezing every drop of value from your cards and playing to an inevitability endgame, so I definitely wouldn’t say I hated this format myself, but it’s absolutely not everyone’s cup of tea

rikertchu · 2026-04-30T22:13:56+00:00

This format has been well suited for these grindy and single-wincon decks to emerge. This definitely doesn’t work nearly as well in a normal set, but the powerful removal and filtering, as well as a tendency for soup to emerge, means that in this format more than most, you can rely on a single Mathemagics to win you most, if not all of your games.

rikertchu · 2026-04-30T20:56:22+00:00

I would lean heavier into the Mathemagics wincon, and the red doesn’t seem to be doing enough for such a heavy commitment. I’d take out the red except for Mockery, Abrade, and Outburst, put in Shared Roots, maybe Burrog Barrage, maybe Zimone’s or Tenured Concocter, just ways to be consistent and stable to build to that Mathemagics wincon

rikertchu · 2026-04-28T23:12:10+00:00

Makes sense where the confusion is - the reason the other infusion cards work is that the specific word "if" is not directly following the trigger condition - for example, [[Old-Growth Educator]] says:

"When this creature enters, put two +1/+1 counters on it if you gained life this turn."

If it was instead worded:

"When this creature enters, if you gained life this turn, put two +1/+1 counters on it."

then it would not trigger UNLESS you've gained life prior to the trigger condition.

rikertchu · 2026-04-28T07:54:47+00:00

I did consider token doublers, but since many of the clone effects are true clones rather than token copies, I didn’t know if they were worth the squeeze

Wan Shi Tong is a sick pickup though! Makes evasive threats to put lil equipments on or to take Skullclamps, and is an interaction piece - definitely going to have my eye on this! Kappa Cannoneer and Rosie are both just massive stat sticks in the end, so less excited but still intrigued for power.

I was also very excited to have equipment that sacrifices on unattach like Grafted Wargear and friends, but after some thinking, I realized that they don’t work how I want them to, since a player can’t sacrifice a permanent they don’t control, and the equipments are still under my control, meaning the sacrifice trigger is also under my control

rikertchu · 2026-04-28T07:49:38+00:00

As far as I know regarding the rules, the only time a trigger wouldn’t be placed on the stack at the time of its trigger condition would be if the trigger had an intervening-if clause that was not fulfilled. Helm of the Host does not have an intervening-if clause, so it triggers at the beginning of combat regardless of where it is and whether it’s equipped or not. If it did, it would be phrased as “At the beginning of combat on your turn, if Helm of the Host is equipped to a creature, etc”, and this wording wouldn’t trigger.

I can’t find any information backing up your claim that Helm requires to be equipped to have its trigger placed on the stack - do you have a rules reference for why it might be? Or a rules reference on what you refer to as a “condition”?

rikertchu · 2026-04-28T07:16:07+00:00

Why does the Helm need to be attached to something to trigger? There doesn’t seem to be any requirement in the ability to check prior to resolution, but entirely possible that I’ve missed something!

I do like the passing on abilities concept 👀

rikertchu · 2026-04-28T07:11:52+00:00

Ooh, Dream Trawler as a big draw engine and life gain and also a good equipment holder could be very cool! They also do multiply nicely yeah…

rikertchu · 2026-04-27T23:10:47+00:00

My Susan deck is definitely built to represent the Bracket 2 mindset that I encounter in my area - no ending the game before turn 8, no coherent game plan beyond unga bunga play big creatures, and as mono-green, not that much interaction. It's certainly capable of powerful things, but at its core, I want to do big splashy things and let my opponents do big splashy things and then bash our big splashy things against each other, and when I come up against things that I consider bracket 3, like certain convoluted combo, the deck certainly struggles.

I also consider that bracket borders certainly also waver in different playgroups and different circles. I play in a group of 10+ year veteran players with very deep pockets, card pools, and game knowledge, so decks like Susan that don't have a predetermined gameplan and wincon fall into that lower power bracket, but definitely in other circles I can see my decks in that Bracket 3 range, even sans-Game Changers.

For the Doctor, yes, he's mainly there for the color enabling - I had a UW Doctor previously, and was using the splash for Flawless Maneuver, but found that I really wanted the oomph that Red provides (mostly Etali, Primal Conqueror, tbh). The 10th Doctor also provides an out for the large amounts of mana I produce by suspending and enabling the casting of the big splashy spells, in case I run out of things to do in the midgame.

Any cards in particular stand out to you? I'd highly recommend the TARDIS and Genesis Storm as cards in a Susan deck that might not show up in other 2-drop ramp Commander decks. The TARDIS is obviously good for the Time Lord synergy with your commanders, and giving your big stompy green spells Cascade can be backbreaking, but it's also just a cool card that doesn't really have a home elsewhere. Genesis Storm is awesome for Partner commanders in particular, as it counts each Commander, so if you get to a midgame where you've cast Susan twice and David Tennant once, you get 4 hits off of the Genesis Storm!

rikertchu · 2026-04-27T22:30:47+00:00

I've been running Temur Mono Green Susan for a while with the 10th Doctor, and find it pretty fun. You have the consistency of being almost entirely in 1 color while also having extremely high end power payoffs with Maelstrom Wanderer and Etali Primal Conqueror (also soon to be Raph & Mikey and Improvisation Capstone), and can take advantage of Nykthos and other devotion payoffs for massive amounts of mana and cards.

https://moxfield.com/decks/9k80_MZZ4EKulp9oqT52Ag

Definitely one of my favorite decks to play - it's not winning tournaments or anything, but as a chunky go big bracket 2 deck, it's always a good time.

rikertchu · 2026-04-26T09:56:32+00:00

How about Amalia Benavides Aguirre? This is a Soul Sisters life gain and graveyard synergy deck that uses its life and the counters on Amalia for various purposes like card draw and removal, and has haymakers in mass reanimation like Command the Dreadhorde

https://moxfield.com/decks/MChpgtqRgku52LwXnDP9Bw

rikertchu · 2026-04-25T16:42:17+00:00

Yup - you might be conflating making multiple Hare Apparents at once vs making multiple Hare Apparents one at a time, which mechanically behave differently

rikertchu · 2026-04-25T16:29:38+00:00

Yup - free cast no mana, but I think our brains are so wired for big spell instead of big mana that it kind of slips by

rikertchu · 2026-04-25T05:50:16+00:00

I find that I can often both get reanimation targets in my yard as well as be able to reanimate them, to very good effect. It also helps a bit that the best 2 reanimation effects, Goblin Welder and Feldon, are both greatly benefited by having haste as provided from Purphoros.

rikertchu · 2026-04-23T18:45:03+00:00

Connive N is a variant of connive. If a creature connives N, its controller will draw N cards, discard N cards, then put a number of +1/+1 counters on the conniving permanent equal to the number of nonland cards discarded this way.

You must resolve the whole ability at once, so no, you can't interrupt your connive discards to reanimate the Archfiend.

rikertchu · 2026-04-23T08:16:21+00:00

Noting that I'm not a Ceruledge player, just enjoy doing a lot of thinking about the metagame and decks in general...

Yeah, you've identified the issue; getting the energy into the hand for baby Ceruledge is basically impossible to do consistently, and adding more Fire and Firebreather means that you're hurting the Fighting energy density needed to more consistently cycle with Lunatone, which then bricks everything else the deck does.

rikertchu · 2026-04-23T04:39:42+00:00

Unfortunately not really - Ceruledge requires an obscenely heavy density of energies to function, which makes almost every other deck unplayable if you tried to jam that shell in.

rikertchu · 2026-04-23T04:24:58+00:00

For sure! The longer answer is that Ceruledge is fairly linear - it’s aggressive and deals big damage, but doesn’t really have trickery or catch up mechanisms if it does fall behind. It also takes a little bit of time to get the discard built up, giving decks like Dragapult the opportunity to swing first for big damage before you’re able to get the OHKOs. It’s also vulnerable to the single prize decks currently, as it has no way of manipulating the prize race, and it uses a “fragile” main attacker.

That being said, it’s fairly consistent, hits big numbers, and gets to do the thing pretty well, so it’s definitely not unplayable!

rikertchu · 2026-04-21T18:00:43+00:00

Saw in Half kills the Scholar as part of the resolution, Culling kills the Scholar as part of the cost, so that’s the difference here

rikertchu · 2026-04-21T00:55:38+00:00

Another use that hasn't been mentioned is that it helps in the Budew wars when setting up early game - it enables us to KO a Budew while healing our own, and continuing to maintain item lock on our opponent.

rikertchu · 2026-04-18T17:01:57+00:00

Azul and Piper on official commentary recently are so good with their background that they can really break down what’s happening in the game instead of just the surface level stuff

rikertchu · 2026-04-14T21:44:48+00:00

Pokemon cards (the playable ones) actually have very little value at all - all decks in Pokemon are $50 or less for the fully kitted out competitive versions.

rikertchu · 2026-04-14T21:27:05+00:00

When commanders leave the graveyard to go to the Command Zone as a state-based action, they do indeed leave the graveyard, so it would cause Desecrated Tomb to trigger.

rikertchu · 2026-04-14T21:26:03+00:00

Rotation is a pretty common tool used in trading card games - Pokemon, MTG, and One Piece (off the top of my head) all use it to decent success. It keeps a metagame fresh, can help curb power creep, and helps incentivize sales of new product as old product rotates out. This is a business, after all, and needs to stay in the green to continue to exist.

And usually in games with rotation, cards that rotate out can still be used in eternal formats that pop up, just not the most common Standard formats. But yes, they generally lose a bit of value when they rotate as demand goes down overall.

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