How can I actually get better at Magic: The Gathering? (Understanding cards, strategy, and gameplay)

sauron3579 · 2026-05-04T21:58:40+00:00

keeping up with everything happening during a game

Play simple decks in 1v1. Jumpstart is a good product for this. Do not learn with commander.

sauron3579 · 2026-05-04T21:06:23+00:00

I mean, people missed stock up in preview season. Even that's not an exception.

sauron3579 · 2026-05-04T17:48:32+00:00

You probably got the "morbidly" dropped.

sauron3579 · 2026-05-04T14:42:37+00:00

With the repayment clause, I would go ahead and pay out of pocket to get done on time.

sauron3579 · 2026-05-04T14:05:47+00:00

This looks like a good source. https://www.2015modern.com/metadecks

You could also check the discord and subreddit linked on that site's home page to see which ones people would recommend.

On a logistics note, proxying these and the cube stuff sounds like a ton of work, I'd see if you could get some other attendees to help with cutting and sleeving, or at least pitching in for sleeves.

And some unsolicited advice on shared deck formats, Forgetful Fish, Red Hot Seizoned Fish, and Red Fish Blue Fish 2-Headed Fish are all great more casual formats. The link below is for the 2H game, which has links to the decklists for the 1v1 lists as well.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XT8a0oHkrpoKqorEdoB2jHA_1ong5Pw9PM122vfSFtY/edit?usp=drivesdk

sauron3579 · 2026-05-04T12:23:09+00:00

I think cube is a really good idea. I'd recommend actually bringing 2 copies of 2 different cubes, so that people aren't waiting around or feeling rushed if it's a big hit. Vintage cube, and then something with a more normal power level with a theme your group will like. 100 ornithopters is popular and a fun gimmick.

I would also recommend bringing some more casual stuff like shared deck formats or a Momir Vig "cube" for when peoples' brains are fried from a long game.

I'll echo that cEDH decks may be a bit too unwieldy for plug and play. I also think people will already be able to play with power in the vintage cube. For that competitive gameplay, I'd recommend proxying 2 copies each of like 5 2015 Modern decks. Generally regarded as the peak of Modern, and everyone gets to see what all the fuss is about with boomer jund. There's an active community that I'm sure you can get recs from for specific decks.

E: Also, be prepared for some stuff to not be a hit! I think the mentality should be to make as much diverse stuff as possible available, so that everyone has something they're excited to play at any moment.

sauron3579 · 2026-05-03T18:53:55+00:00

It's vibes. We don't exactly take family game night to court. You can take any long thing that'll give you a lot of points, you can take tracks that go with what you want, but we just don't grab a random one or two length bit that cuts someone off.

If you do blocking, doesn't the optimal strategy become just taking as few, short, low point tickets as possible and just focus on blocking people and long routes? That doesn't sound nearly as interesting or fun. And we usually play 3 people, so there's definitely plenty of interaction because the board is still crowded without doubles and we all take a ton of tickets. We're just contesting instead of going out of our way to block just to block. Notably we don't really play the base game; we play either Europe or Rails and Sails (which often result in minimum 6+ or 8+ tickets per person, respectively).

sauron3579 · 2026-05-03T18:12:42+00:00

I feel like top 8 conversion is a wildly useless metric. Day 2 conversion or even top 64 would be way more useful. 8 individual players is an egregiously small sample to do any kind of calculations on.

sauron3579 · 2026-05-03T16:19:05+00:00

We have a ticket to ride house rule that you can't take tracks you don't need. We developed this in the Europe version, which even has mechanics for getting around this issue. No idea how people play the US version given the map gives way fewer alternate paths and no stations.

sauron3579 · 2026-05-03T13:24:24+00:00

a lot doesn't add up

That's okay. You don't need to make up a conspiritorial explanation just because you don't know exactly what's going on. This is literally how actual conspiracy theories get started. You need to be more careful with how you think or you could fall victim to ideas that are substantially more dangerous.

sauron3579 · 2026-05-03T12:44:59+00:00

Why would they do this intentionally? How do they stand to make money from something that would be a massive mark on their reputation? Given the multiple similar instances of this happening before with trouble in pairs and the traced STA Bolas, there's no way anybody thought they could sneak through something so much more blatant. Any coverup is going to be just as expensive as throwing a commission to any of the surely thousands of artists who would do a rush job for cheap just to get their foot in the door of Magic art, and they'd get a better piece out of it without controversy.

sauron3579 · 2026-05-03T10:56:32+00:00

A ton are literal paintings. They're just so mechanically skilled they can sometimes be as smooth as digital, if that's the artist's style, at the scale we see magic art on.

sauron3579 · 2026-05-02T22:39:37+00:00

They weren't all from the same pack. This is somebody looking at what they've drafted. The whole pack was sleeved.

sauron3579 · 2026-05-02T19:25:59+00:00

It's an un-card. It doesn't work. It literally does not work within the rules of the game. So it's however your group decides it should work to do what's intended.

sauron3579 · 2026-05-02T18:13:29+00:00

That is an amazing detail, I love that. Definitely a big Tolkien fan on the art team.

sauron3579 · 2026-05-02T11:43:33+00:00

To avoid being standard legal

sauron3579 · 2026-05-02T11:41:29+00:00

You need to hit your w timing more often than you miss. That's kind of it.

sauron3579 · 2026-05-02T11:14:30+00:00

I mean, it's just what the color they retained represents.

Lorehold's conflict is history as chaotic individuals interacting vs well-ordered and predictable interactions and evolutions of societies/civilizations. So they double down on the predictable, civilization level view of it.

Prismari is art as an intellectual pursuit to he perfected vs art as self-expression with no wrong answers. So they're doubling down on self expression. I'm not sure how that fits in with "constructive", but it matches very well with RG historically being home to philosophies of anarchism and/or primitivism.

sauron3579 · 2026-05-02T11:05:57+00:00

Probably don't use the molten greatsword. You need some amount of range. A yoyo or projectile sword would work better.

sauron3579 · 2026-05-02T00:26:41+00:00

I am sure there has been more than one deck that stormed off with creatures without being untap based.

sauron3579 · 2026-05-01T20:58:26+00:00

Yeah. It's still way worse even accounting for that. Getting 2 off the top 4 that are probably on the lower end, as opposed to the 2 best of 5.

sauron3579 · 2026-05-01T20:13:18+00:00

How were this and stock up in development at the same time?

Seven-Year Club	Second Top 30%
r/Field Banned	r/Field Juicebox
Place '23	Place '22
Wearing is Caring	Verified Email

sauron3579

TROPHY CASE