I’ll second what you said about Hugo; super amazing. I still can’t contain myself during the line “it’s the smell.” That hits so many points for me, it’s just the best. He was also a great Red Skull, though I feel bad about his under-utilization in that movie-universe. Such a great severity (not necessarily villainous).

Also a great example of a movie that syncs the soundtrack up with action events, similar to a music video (specifically with that great Propellerheads track). Great use of color. Great job of giving you a feeling through setting. I’m a big fan!

Niko9 - Terror was my first removal and probably still my favorite. The original art was AMAZING and has the added flavor of “can’t terror-someone-to-death if they’re a robot or zombie/demon/etc”. Super great. Yay removal!

Possibly replace Juniper Order Ranger instead..? I know that gets the proliferate-ball rolling on creatures... but a lot of them already come in with at least one counter...

Profet93 those are great! In my witchy-bad-deals coven deck I have Cruel Entertainment which takes your enjoyment even a step further, where you’re not even responsible for the choices made! Great additions to the list!! Thank you!!

Those are great, griffstick! So many of these have great effects that react to your opponents successfully doing stuff, allowing them to actually play, which is fun. I love it!

These are all great! Awesome mechanics, great flavor text, personal stories... this is exactly the sort of stuff I was hoping to see. Thanks for sharing all this! Hopefully we’ll see a few more!!

Those are great! I’m a huge fan of enchantments, so I’m in agreement on a bunch of those: ESPECIALLY pestilence. The flavor of “the pestilence ends once everything is dead” is 100% spot on!

Just a fun Friday post. What are some of your favorite pet-cards? Not necessarily key pieces or staples, just cards that you at least want to include in whatever deck you’re working on. I’m going to toss a couple out, though I’ll probably remember more later (and I hope you all do too). Whipkeeper is weird, and heavily reliant on circumstances, but when you have it on hand and those circumstances arise it’s really fun! Walking Sponge is another similar critter. That’s red and blue, and now I think I’ll shoot for one of each color. I’ve touted my love for Xenic Poltergeist often enough that you’re probably tired of it, but I’m always happy to draw it. I don’t play a ton of green, but Dense Canopy is something that’s had a special flavor for me. I love the idea of stealing a little of the power from flying, which is a pretty significant strength for a basic evergreen ability. In white I’ll pick Confessor as it’s a neat effect with a solid flavor. Mechanically I’m not a big fan of what lifegain decks have become, because of the sort of game state that you can end up with in a casual format, but I’m not totally negative on them. For an artifact, as a bonus, I’ll say Armageddon Clock because it’s a fun, symmetrical, way to move the game ahead while still giving people an extra out to regulate it some. What are some of your favorite cards, even if they aren’t particularly high-end?

I have progenitus as my commander for my wubrg natural disaster deck, which doesn’t have NEARLY the creatures your deck does, but I’ve had fun with Titans' Nest. It’s got a little surveil-action, and helps you ramp into things. Helps with a board-wipe recovery, a little more consistent land drops (or skipping unneeded lands) and fits nicely as a nest for progenitus! Lol

I’m just surprised to see a Breeding Pit-esque enchantment that makes 3/2s who are not only thrulls, but also zombies and demons and skeletons and slugs and knights and everything else black could want lol. It does seem heavy, but pretty much everything seems that way to me nowadays. Sarpadian Empires, Vol. VII hold my beer!

This is the problem with having, for lack of a better term, serious long-term characters in magic. Trying to have these planeswalkers stay in the spotlight severely limits plots and whatnot. The spotlight is, in my opinion, better saved for legendary creatures that can just come and go with the sets. Maybe X-Files is a better way to describe it: when it was (basically) just Mulder and Sculley dealing with the monster of the week, the show was WIDE open. As soon as they dug into the weird giant story arc... it got less and less enjoyable for me. In this game, Magic: the Gathering, WE are Mulder and Sculley. WE are encountering strange new creatures and anomalies. As soon as you add five new permanent characters to keep track of... bleh...

Regarding commander: I think having something like this will force people to change their play style, holding back a card or two, which isn’t an insignificant effect... especially if they’re a combo player. I’ve got this in my rakdos watermark deck (obviously) and I’ve enjoyed having it out on the table every time. YMMV.

This site really is a new aspect of “fun with magic” that I didn’t expect. I’m very glad to be here too - and welcome baaaaaack!

(1.) I love this idea. (2.) I’m not sure how many more there are going to be, but you could be a political monster and make people decide who is going to take the damage from the Scalding Tongs in your upkeep. So maybe additional padding from that sort of decision-making permanents.

I liked the idea of having one wizard pulling a planeswalker out of the ether and forcing them to help in the battle... only to have the opponent wizard reach through and pull that planeswalker to their side. I liked that old rule, and wouldn’t be opposed to extending it to “there is only one Eron the Relentless, so hopefully you grab him first...” But I’m generally for more restrictions anyways. Bring back mana burn while you’re at it. Punish the sloppy.

I think new players are in so much trouble already that color pie breaks are pretty far down the list. I got to play with two pods of new players last week, which was great, but all but one of them had the fallout precons. Watching them struggle to keep track of all of the triggers was rough. Magic has always been complex, that’s part of why we all like it, but effectively all of the decks are staxs decks: each player had triggers on top of triggers and it was laborious to say the least. I think that breaks are fine, if for no other reason than to reenforce the color identities. And as far as reprints are concerned: I don’t think they’re even necessary, as they’ll just make new cards that are those old cards with additional attributes/modifications. Crucible of worlds is (was?) expensive, but they made that snake guy who is a CoW that can also attack (and be combat-killed). Frankly, reprints are something I don’t even think about anymore.