So this isn’t something I’ve brought up here before

But I hate 90% of all MTG players. Like. The crowd here on tumblr is here for story and fun kitchen table play which is why I’m here too.

Whenever I go to a card shop to play casual EDH I get hit by infinite combos, degenerate proxies, overbearing control, and one shot kills. “Oh great Magister Sphinx. Please tell me again how you used it for control against lifegain when you hit me at 40 life. Clearly I was out of control.”

Its like 90% of MTG players can only have fun if no one else is having fun. One shop owner literally told me my most prized deck (Riku hugs) wasn’t winning because it didn’t run the expensive staples every deck uses. Like, I get that it works but its boring and kills the game’s creativity.

That selfishness goes into the game’s market, too. Notice how anything in low supply suffered hoarding buyouts to resell at the raised price. One of the best tracking sites is literally called mtgstocks. I also get that without a secondary market there’s less incentive for players to buy sealed product that pays the bills so we can keep playing with cardboard but a $250 Mythic Edition is fucked. It just feels like a mad dash to take as much as you can for yourself instead of playing the game like a normal person.

I love playing mtg for its extensive library of cards and fun interactions that make for an exciting game.

I hate playing mtg for first place, for who spent the most money on the shiniest cards that win the fastest.

Bringing this back after the past few games I had

ITS BACK BABEY

@magicjudge with Leyline of Anticipation coming back to standard (and Teferi, Time Raveler’s +1 already there) I’ve been thinking about this a lot. It bothers me probably way more than it should, but what’s the rules reason why “only any time you could cast a sorcery” doesn’t/can’t check when I can cast sorceries?

It seems more intuitive to me that if any time I could cast a sorcery = any time I could cast an instant, then those abilities would be able to see that.

Wow I was really expecting the actual rules text to be different from the reminder text, but it does say “Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery.”

Can you spot the theme in the flavor text of M20′s dragon-related cards?

I love my werewolf lords <3

good boys

THIS POST IS AN OPINION

I think Cyclonic Rift should be banned in EDH.

Now, EDH promotes flexible deckbuilding and cultivates a small banlist to provide tons of options on how people want to play. Cards aren’t really banned unless the multiplayer, 40 life rules of the format really warp the card beyond what its original purpose was.

If you look at Sway of the Stars, you’ll find the reset to 7 life is so much more powerful here. As is Worldfire’s everyone at 1. Cards really aren’t banned unless their power is severely boosted by the high mana, altered life totals/libraries of the format.

So some things about Cyc Rift. What stands out to me is it outclasses every single boardwipe in the game. There are hardly any downsides to it and it shows.

First of all, its a one sided boardwipe that only hits all of your opponents things. The comparison I have here is Plague Wind. Destroy all your opponents’ creatures but let yours live for a high mana cost. Plague Wind only hits in black’s colors, when you look at Cyc Rift it hits every permanent on your opponents’ field. That’s an incredible range of coverage.

On top of that, Mass Calcify, In Garruk’s Wake, Plague Wind, these are all at sorcery speed. Cyc Rift is not only substantially more powerful but it also can be cast during your opponents’ turn.

The card gets two times better when you have three opponents for it. Hitting every nonland permanent only your opponents control in blue at instant speed is absurdly powerful, especially in EDH where boardstates take time to assemble and reassemble. Its a much different impact.

Lastly, how is Cyc Rift used? Similar to how Worldfire can be used to instantly win. My problem with cyc rift in game (is opinionated) is that either the game ends or takes another hour that turn. Either you negate the entire game of magic the gathering by removing the combat element for an OHKO for a win in the least fun way or the game drags on for another hour.

Cyc Rift is a miserable card that makes miserable games and any genuine positives it has can be filled in by another boardwipe for more balanced gameplay.

Definitely some valid opinions, and I just want to be clear that I am in no way disrespecting you or your thoughts above. I just want to throw a couple of my own opinions out there.

I have no issue with cyclonic rift, using it myself or being used by someone else against me. It’s a card that doesn’t win the game alone, in the same way that a craterhoof only attacks for 6 if cast into an empty board. If I don’t have much going on on my side and I cast a rift, all I did was either protect myself or try to reset the table back to where I am at. If I have a game winning board state and use it to clear the way for a lethal attack, all that rift did was clear out defenses, which any card granting an evasive ability could do, such as a wonder or filth in the graveyard or similar effects, or even the Plague Winds style of cards you mentioned above, which doesn’t need to be at instant speed to get rid of blockers. A world fire setting everyone to 1 life is pretty much a game ender I agree, since 1 life is basically dead and it can easily take just 1 card to finish the table. While a very versatile and very very powerful card, a cyclonic rift doesn’t do that, you need far more to go along with that rift to get anything done, it isn’t a game ender by itself.

I do disagree with the notion that a cyclonic rift undos all the previous magic play before it. Did nothing happen before that rift other than people building board states? Did life totals not change? Graveyards filled? Cards Drawn? Things exiled or destroyed? If the table only sat there building up those battleships, without interacting with one another, before that rift came down, that table has bigger problems. If magic is happening before a rift, things should all ready be being destroyed or removed, damage done, if so then a rift is not like resetting a whole game, sure it is a reset, but if it makes everything that happened before it irrelevant, like I said before, the table has bigger problems to figure out.

I’m not saying a cyclonic rift can’t slow down a game, but so can numerous other Commander staples, stax/prison strats, board wipes in general, land destruction, planeswalkers, tutors, even sensei’s divining top. Even just playing the whole no rush 20 mins(old Starcraft reference for the old people out there) build your battleship up style of Commander is a slow way to play.

I’ve been in numerous play groups, in various states and countries, but my current one aims to be a hard 75% power level, we play with powerful cards and tuned decks, cyclonic rift has not been an issue for us. Though I fully understand that every playgroup, every LGS, or just any table you find with be different.

I think part of the problem people see with it is that it is too flexible. It clears the board for an attack, yes, many other cards do that, but how many of those cards also negate an attack? How many can also be a single target removal. It has a ton of upside and makes it hard to argue against running it in any pod that doesn’t win by turn 3. The op said that this card outclassed other board wipes and I agree with that to an extent. Removal that destroys or exiles is more potent, and it has the downside of resetting etb triggers. Being an instant, being one sided, hitting each opponent, hitting all non-land permanent types, and even having the upside of a cheaper casting option and it’s base mana cost making it easier to find with a lot of restrictive tutors makes it imo probably the best “board wipe” in commnander. Does this mean it should be banned? Not nessisarily. It isn’t game-winning on its own, there are many cards that I think hurt the format way more than Cyclonic Rift. It’s annoying but I wouldn’t say it’s too powerful, and it’s high mana cost means it is not as relevant as the power level of the decks go up. I think just as Primeval Titan was banned for games turning into revolving around copying and flickering it until no-one is happy Cyclonic Rift is in the same boat. No-one really has a good experience playing against it and games often end up just playing catch up to the player who resolved it, just like everyone trying to catch up to the guy with multiple Titan triggers. Honestly, if it were up to me I would ban it because it’s effect on casual games, but it would be lower in priority to a lot of cards that warp the competitive landscape of the format.

I think we also need to be careful about setting the standard at banning for something winning on its own. There are extremely few cards that can do that (actually probably just Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, bc it does the damage and its annihilator trigger prevents fighting back). Nearly the entire ban list is just cards that create too much value for too little cost. Yawgmoth’s Bargain and Black Lotus together don’t even move you closer to winning the game, but they make it way too easy to cast things that do.

Regarding Cyc Rift, I think we need to look at it based on how much value it creates. For one card and seven mana on your opponents’ turns, you can remove every single threat but things that work off the battlefield (suspended spells, burn spells, etc). No other downsides. It’s always going to be a positive trade in terms of card advantage, and unless your opponents aren’t doing anything it’s probably a massive positive trade in mana. You lose a bit of tempo by not casting spells on your turn, but that’s blue’s MO and it has instant speed stuff, and if you do it at their end step they lose tempo too. Compare that to any other removal spell and you have: equal card advantage trades, equal mana trades, complete tempo loss for that turn, and letting your opponents set up first.

I don’t know what criteria the rules committee uses to determine a ban, but it’s probably the biggest source of value in EDH right now and provides more value than some banned cards. It actually might be one of the only cards that puts you ahead on every resource: cards (many-for-one), mana (lots-for-7), tempo (they wasted several turns of spells while you only wasted one), even life (if you attack on the now-empty board). Being seven mana keeps it from being truly broken, but there’s literally never a bad time to cast it

Some Pirate love! Flash it in to block, or sail over people’s heads to help hit Admiral Beckett Brass’s trigger.

Being a mana sink for card draw doesn’t hurt either.

One drop 1/1 flying flash is not bad by any means. Having two relevant creature types and being useful in the late game is just more to love

Oh you are going into Gitrog so fast.

Time for untap abuse

Aaaaaaand we have our rare dual land cycle!

With new art no less!!

Peter: Pretty sure Sony is copywritten…

Stephen: Ttark is just an awful name period.

Tony: ugh you guys suck. anyone else wanna play?

Pepper:

Wade:

Matt:

Happy:

Rocket:

Bruce: tony literally everyone in the room has-

Clint, barging in: BLINT CARTON

the real question should be why tf you waste a deck on sorin’s pasty old ass

Listen some of us never outgrew our edgy vampire phase don’t judge me

Hardcore judgment over here, fangbanger

Hey, Sorin’s hot! Sometimes. And the vampire that Sorin made in Tarkir is 100% the hottest vampire ever depicted in mtg art:

All marks of a good husband

Wait, Sorin made a vampire on Tarkir?

You can read about it here!

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/ur/sorins-revelation-2014-09-24

A sultai panharmonicon

I would’ve liked to see it as the opposite, doubling death triggers. Still neat though. Also the flavor is 10/10

If wizards isn’t gonna give us some kind ChandraxNissa card in m20 it’s never gonna happen. It previews in pride month, it’s right after they’re confirmed together in story and it even has an elemental theme which is something both walkers have cared about or made prior.

Which is why it hurts so bad to see Vivian in the green walker slot. Like it’s not even dropping the ball, it’s straight up deliberate at this point. Sure, maybe its still being represented on some other card but it’s not like wotc has earned any faith or trust when it comes to lgbt rep.

I kind of figured if Ral who’s the most immediately clearly gay wasnt going to get it, no one will.

I’m still basically willing to buy “Its hard to fit romance in magic” because i dont think we have seen many explicitly heteroxesual cards.

Personally i think they have built enough good will in terms of the story but not the cards, and I will certainly concede for most people on the cards is where matters most

Wow, this is a strange card. I guess it’s cool if there’s a specific land you want access to every game, but if that’s what this is intended to help enable, then can I trade the activated ability for a lower mana cost?

Totally putting this into my Atogatog list so I can grab Maze’s End.

This might be it. I think it’s intended to be a Maze’s End commander.

It’s the ideal generic 5-color commander: fixes mana, creates value, no questions asked. If I build it I’m probably fetching Cascading Cataracts nine times out of ten

I feel like this is a card for monobrown decks, since monocolor decks are running too many basics to get 7 lands with different names, and the heavy multicolor decks that have lots of different lands are going to be unwilling to give up a land slot for something that only produces colorless. Monobrown decks, which run almost 100% utility lands and don’t care about colored mana, are in the best position to use this.

Even then, seven is a lot. A land creating value and adding to the board is always good bc it doesn’t cost anything but a land drop, but realistically this is only useful in the slowest or grindiest of EDH groups. It could be useful if boardwipes are a constant though

I hope in the next unset they do full textbox basic lands. No art, just textbox. Slam down my basic land with “A deck may have any number of basic lands. You may only play 1 land per turn. A land with a basic land type has the intrinsic ability [T]: add [M], even if the textbox doesn’t contain that text, or the object has no textbox. For plains, mana symbol is [W], for island [U], for swamp [B], mountain [R], and forest [G].”

Basically print this. I WILL play them.

This is the ideal basic land. You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like.

And instead of an illustration credit on the bottom there’s a credit to the writer of the text

Illus. Matt Taback

The foiling would be on the words themself

Hmnmmg cardboard kill time

hahaha yeah, I ended up with a complete list like an hour and a half later… Won the first multiplayer played so… it works hahaja

Now that I think about it, what do you say if I make a deck tech video of this? I think I can make some time on friday to do so 🤔🤔🤔🤔

A board bounce that you get to recover from first? I want it.

Flood of Tears -> Omniscence that was already in your hand -> recast the rest of your hand