Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been tagged as “Tom Anderson”
Spoiler season for Modern Horizons 2 is like none other in Magic history — save perhaps for the original Modern Horizons. Since every card is explicitly designed for the Modern format, even the commons often require close examination for their potential metagame impact – if not in Modern itself or Legacy, then in Commander or Pauper. No other sets in …
Thanks to a blockbuster “season overview” from WotC, we’ve finally gotten our first glimpse at Adventures in the Forgotten Realms: the first official crossover set between Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons. The article seems to indicate another top-down set design, emphasizing the flavor and even some of the mechanics of D&D. Adam Styborski writes that: “Adventures in the Forgotten …
In case you’ve been bewildered by the sheer rate of releases, we’re only a month away from perhaps the most important set of the year: Modern Horizons 2. By June 11th, we will be almost exactly two years on from the original Modern Horizons set, so there’s been plenty of time to think through its unprecedented impact on Constructed. Urza, …
Witherbloom Witchcraft and the other Strixhaven precon decks feel like a new evolution in Commander products, full of top-class new cards and many viable paths to upgrade them. Check out our reviews for those other decks, too, if you want – but if you already know your home is with the B/G Bog Goths, read on! THE COMMANDER Willowdusk, Essence …
Each of the new Strixhaven-themed Commander precon decks is a treasure trove, worth exploring in its own right. But if you’re still waiting to be convinced after reading our other reviews, listen in: the Silverquill Statement deck can be very persuasive… And this deck makes quite a statement indeed. The designers have gone out of their way avoid any mechanics …
Strixhaven, like every new Magic set, is designed with its own set of mechanical themes. But after nearly three decades, most have been revisited many times, reappearing in Standard over and over in slightly different forms. I think one of the coolest things to do with a Commander deck is to gather up these different incarnations of a theme and …
After covering the complex utility of the Strixhaven Commands at the start of spoiler season and then the ultra-wordy, double-faced Deans cycle in my last column, I wanted to follow up with something a little more classic and straightforward. Luckily enough, there’s a third cycle of college-defining cards which fit the bill for us battlecruiser Magic enthusiasts: the Elder Dragons …
Since as far back in Magic design as Ravnica: City of Guilds, WotC has embraced using powerful legendary creatures to anchor the identity of a set’s signature archetypes or factions. This habit has only been reinforced by the mechanical need to support these factions in the Commander format. So as soon as it became clear that Strixhaven: School of Mages …
At this point, Magic has been around for long enough to experiment with a ton of different mechanics. In the name of keeping things fresh, WotC are always expanding the design space of the game, pushing the boundary of what we think is possible with every new set. But sometimes, they cross over that boundary. Not just with one card …
This week, I’m rolling up my sleeves to tackle one of life’s great questions: what does “tempo” mean in Magic: The Gathering? It’s a controversial bit of jargon among Magic players even at the highest level, and this is far from the first article written about it. I have faint memories of reading one by Ben Bleiweiss back in Guildpact …
