Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been tagged as “Tom Anderson”
One interesting thing about competitive Magic compared to seasonal sports competition is that not all event weeks are created equal. There are peaks and troughs to the schedule – and this last fortnight has been quite an intense peak! The release of Secrets of Strixhaven has added a ton of significant cards to the Constructed card pool, opening up new …
Secrets of Strixhaven is a uniquely challenging Draft set to wrap your head around. Unique, that is… unless you played the original Strixhaven! Much like its predecessor this new set has a heavy emphasis on instants and sorceries, and their interplay with the students and professors of Strixhaven’s five colleges. As a Draft format this provides some really memorable archetypes …
Secrets of Strixhaven is showing us parts of Arcavios that lie beyond the bounds of Strixhaven School, but this is still a set primarily themed around mage academia. The mechanic which really anchors that theme is “prepare” – a new ability which, appropriately, lets creatures learn to cast their own instants and sorceries! On the surface it may look like …
Secrets of Strixhaven is an intriguing prospect for Commander players, especially the preconstructed decks. Secrets of Strixhaven is our second visit to the academic plane of Arcavios, which trains young spellcasters from across the multiverse. It’s the fastest Magic has ever returned to a new plane, with the original Strixhaven: School of Mages debuting just five years ago. Like Secrets, …
Secrets of Strixhaven is an intriguing prospect for Commander players, especially the preconstructed decks. This second visit to Arcavios is the fastest Magic has ever returned to a new plane, with the original Strixhaven: School of Mages debuting just five years ago. Like Secrets, that set got its own accompanying release of Commander precons, which were also themed around the …
Commander has a serious problem when it comes to balancing its strongest tier of cards. As a casual format built on the promise of fun, self-expression and inclusiveness, simply banning cards for being successful is a poor fit. That kind of logic would have seen Sol Ring banned decades ago – after all, it’s been included in nearly every Commander …
I often explain to people that Magic as a hobby is more about studying than it is playing games. You can spend countless hours improving your knowledge, even as a veteran planeswalker – looking up cards, reading about combos, pondering the possibilities of your deck. Perhaps that passion for learning is what makes the multiversal wizard school Strixhaven, and its …
As a wise muppet once opined: it’s not easy being green – and that goes for more than just frogs. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles set has not had an easy debut into Standard, appearing just as the format is reaching historic peaks with the size and power of its card pool. That’s a high barrier to entry. But it …
The latest Magic release is another Universes Beyond tie-in, with the totally-tubular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cards now available at your LGS and on MTGArena. I personally don’t know much about the TMNT franchise, so unlike some other Universes Beyond sets I can’t say how good a job this one does adapting signature characters and storylines. I’m only focused on …
If I was asked what qualities which define the current era of Magic: The Gathering, there’s a few answers I could give. First, that more new cards are being released than ever before. Second, that cards are becoming more complicated, with even commons having more rules text on average than previous eras. Third, that thanks to Universes Beyond the game …
