Treasure fundamentally changed Magic. Kristen muses on its current place in Limited and Commander, considering if it’s too powerful. When Treasure first arrived on the scene, it seemed innocent enough. “Sailor of Memes” was the standout, well, meme from Ixalan block, and our experience at that point showed it was new and interesting, provided fixing in a limited environment that …
What’s the Deal with Rakdos Scam in Modern?
Chances are if you’ve played Modern on Magic Online or in a paper tournament of any significant size recently, you’ve likely run into Rakdos Scam. This deck’s path to becoming the Modern boogeyman is an odd one for sure, and today I want to dig deeper to see what about today’s metagame allows it to be the top dog. I …
This Day in Magic History: Dragonstorm World Championship (Nov 29-Dec 1, 2006)
Welcome to another edition of “This Day in Magic History!” Today, we’re going to look at Magic’s 2006 World Championship, which ran from Nov. 29 to Dec. 2 that year. In particular, we’re going to take a look at one of the wackiest tier one Magic decks of all time: Dragonstorm. Dragonstorm Before the 2006 World Championships In 2006, Dragonstorm …
The Return of Creature Decks to Modern
Modern, as a format, has always been propped up by a “you can do whatever you want” mentality. However, during the last year, Yorion made playing creature decks in Modern incredibly difficult due to cards like Solitude, Fury, Prismatic Ending and Unholy Heat. The good news for creature fans in Modern is that many of these cards are on the …
The Brothers’ War: Three Types of Standard Decks
Standard has had a few weeks to percolate since we first touched on it after The Brothers’ War released. But Standard is a big, wide format right now, with many viable archetypes floating around. And since it’s still too early to gauge which decks will settle into the various tiers, I’m not even going to try quite yet. Instead, here …
Jumpstart 2022: Bottom-Up Commander Design
I don’t always have the energy to keep up with the flow of new spoilers from day to day, but I definitely made an exception for Jumpstart 2022. Not only do I look forward to the normal Jumpstart 2022 experience, but this sort of product represents a unique, creative opportunity for the team at Wizards of the Coast regarding Commander …
Bestow – MTG Keywords Explained
Bestow is an alternate casting cost that appears on Enchantment Creatures, so we’re getting pretty specific already as those are somewhat uncommon to begin with. If you cast the Bestow creature for its normal mana cost, it enters the battlefield and behaves like any other creature spell. If you choose to cast it for its Bestow cost, it instead enters …
Modern Tier List: Nov. 2022
Welcome back for the Nov. 2022 update to the Card Kingdom Modern Tier list! This month was a bit slow for Modern tournaments, as both SCG Philadelphia and all of the Regional Championships played Pioneer. However, we still have some solid, online data to look at for November. The Brothers’ War has been out for a couple of weeks, and …
There’s no Such Thing as Free in Commander
There’s no such thing as a free lunch, and likewise, no such thing as “free” in Commander. Kristen is here to help us with some cost-benefit analysis. Everyone loves free, right? Free bonus cards in your Secret Lair; free door-prizes at the LGS, a free drink with your meal deal. But none of those things are ever truly free. The …
Lessons Learned from DreamHack’s Regional Championship
Last weekend, DreamHack Atlanta featured the 2023 season’s first Regional Championship. I competed in the event and secured a Pro Tour invite, learning plenty along the way. So, today we are going to talk about three decks that taught some lessons and secured their pilots pro tour invites. The “best” deck for the moment Izzet Phoenix was the “best deck” …