Lol, damn. Ninja'd while it refreshed.

See above.

My long time custom commander, who I had to scale down and nerf like 7 times because everyone kept saying it was too powerful lmao

Wild or repeat

Zaid, Auroch Shepard

Legendary Creature - Human Shaman

As long as Zaid is untapped, Auroch you control get +0/+2.

As long as Zaid is tapped, Auroch you control get +2/+0.

2/2

His low cost allows justification of the anthem effect. But he doesn't produce any Auroch himself.

His deck will need plenty of ways to cast, tutor, copy and make Auroch tokens.

Perhaps start with a Selesnya Legendary Auroch in the +99 as a second Commander :)

Lol, TheoryCrafter, as written you can pay to make your Hydra monstrous, and then double the counters upon doing so. As written, serves no function Xp

Regardless, love the design! Thanks!

Decked Out

Sorcery

Target creature gets +1/+1 for each equipment and aura attached to it.

Who needs the right tool for the job, when you have every tool for the job?

Upgrade Hydra Broodmaster into a legendary creature.

Austrada, Gilded Fire

Legendary Creature - Dragon Angel

Flying, vigilance, haste

Whenever Austrada attacks, attacking creatures you control have menace.

Whenever Austrada blocks, blocking creatures you control have lifelink.

After Aurelia was destroyed, The Boros Legion fractured in half. Many stayed committed to her fierce loyalty. Many departed from her rigid regimen. But none dared to pick up her mantle, until one was worthy of both.

5/7

Take your favorite Ravnica guild leader, kill them, and make their replacement.

You can make another Boros one, if you'd like. :)

Y'all read my previous comment about the economic sustainability on the matter, but that didn't express my actual enjoyment of it.

My personal feelings?

Burnout.

It's one of the reasons I left MTG fully, except for this website.

I no longer play, buy, collect, build or theorycraft. I don't read lore, I don't watch releases, I don't look at promotions.

To be honest, I don't even know what set is currently being printed in Standard. I know Lorwyn is coming back but I don't know what the current one is right now.

My local Walmart and Target stopped stocking MTG due to rampant theft. Even our LGS deals primarily online for most products.

The cost is too expensive. The time is too limited. The constant shift in mechanics is too abrupt.

To me, personally, it killed the game. It was fun for a while but now everything is so daunting that it simply isn't worth the time.

And even if I wanted to spend well over $1,000 on a Commander deck, with barely playable mechanics and chase cards, I don't even have the time to play.

I am exhausted from spending my hard earned money to sit down at a table and be insulted and screamed at for not "optimizing" my deck, or not having foils, or not having specific art, or for having a Universes Beyond card that "Isn't legal", or keeping up with ban lists, or listening to people fight over identity.

I'm done. I've been done. I haven't played in basically two years, if not more.

Universes Beyond wasn't the final nail in the coffin. It was the six feet of dirt that buried it for me. All of these problems existed before UB and SL, but the widespread arguing and fighting over UB cards killed it for me.

It's a game. At the end of the day, it's a f---ing game. And people scream and yell and curse and throw things in person over it. I've seen fights. Arguments. Frustration.

I've seen decks thrown off the table. I've seen grown ass men pick fights with literal highschool teenagers. I've seen police involved.

And then, reports trying to tell officers that their deck cost $1,600 and the damage makes it a felony and officers scoff at it because "it's just cardboard".

Even my most beloved set of all time, Tarkir, I didn't even buy a single booster pack for.

It's just simply too much.

I'm done.

Rice Pool

Legendary Land

Humans you control have islandwalk.

: Add

When I was a kid, we would spend entire summer vacations at Rice Pool in Wheaton, IL.

Wild, since I understand not everyone is as old as me lol

I'm not going to read everything here (out of laziness), but from an economics perspective there are three compelling reasons why WOTC is implementing Secret Lair.

God I feel like ChatGPT right now. But I assure you, this is from the heart and not our AI overlords.

The first reason is sustainability. The truth is, WOTC is massive, but every world is drawn from some point of inspiration. At a certain point, it is inevitable that the well of inspiration will begin to run dry. From there, you have a few options. You can continue to progress the story (Dominaria, Lorwyn, Tarkir), introduce new and adjacent lore (Innistrad, Zendikar, Ravnica) or sort of do both by massively pushing history so far forward it becomes nearly unrecognizable (Kawagami).

Aside from creator burnout, the second reason is a two-for-one; Diversity and adaptability. I do not mean diversity in terms of racial or gender alignments, but from an ontological perspective.

Ontological means: Showing the relations between the concepts and categories in a subject area or domain.

In this case, we have an ontological alignment in that WOTC can select IP that is both compelling and engaging, for a wide arrangement of audiences. We can have a new Zombie adaptation with The Walking Dead, and a high fantasy theme for Zelda and a Kaiju theme for Godzilla. Whatever theme or core they want, it already exists and is ready for publication. That's your adaptability aspect.

Adaptability and ontological diversity go hand-in-hand for this exchange because something that is already rich and well-developed is, by necessity, adaptable.

The third, and arguably the most crucial reason, is user engagement. Let's use an example that I don't believe has been printed yet: The Elder Scrolls.

TES has a MASSIVE fan base. Even fans who don't play MTG will want to buy the set for collector reasons. And this leads toward engagement because some of them may enjoy the cards so much, they buy more sets. Now you have a legitimate returning customer.

So, to reiterate, Secret Lair and other expansion sets offer:

• Sustainability between sets while larger core stories are being developed.
• Diversity and adaptability in the game.
• Player engagement and expansion.

Like it or not, they're here to stay because they work, from an economics perspective.

I got a deck for Firesong and Sunspeaker...

Radiant Constitution

Sorcery

Radiant Constitution deals 2 damage to any target for each paid to cast it.

You gain 2 life for each paid to cast it.

If Radiant Constitution was cast with five or five , double the amount of damage or life instead.

5 hits for 20 damage. That could be a T1 wincon in some formats. Definitely a powerful card.

Repeat