Is It Safe to Play Paper Magic Again?

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:00:00] You are listening to Faithless Brewing, a magic the gathering podcast for the spike rogue. Each week we design new decks, modern and pioneer. We put our creations to the test and share our findings. All the air coming up on the Roundup Counterspell is coming to modern. We’re breaking down the newest previews from modern horizons and Dungeons and dragons adventures in the forgotten realms.

That’s all coming up on this edition of the Faithless brewing podcast. Thanks for listening and enjoy the show.

David Robertson: [00:01:01] hello and welcome to the Faithless brewing podcast. I am David Robertson joined by Damon Alexander Damon. What’s going on?

Damon Alexander: [00:01:08] Hey, summer is coming and I’m pretty excited.

David Robertson: [00:01:12] Awesome. A man who is a fan of summer as well is the CEO of the Faithless brewing podcast. He is Cavedan online. Daniel Schriever. What is up?

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:01:21] Hello? Hello. It’s not just any summer Damon. It’s the summer of legend. Summer of legend.

Damon Alexander: [00:01:28] That was fifth grade for me, honestly,

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:01:33] is that the year legends came out?

Damon Alexander: [00:01:36] No, this has some cool summer camps and got some boy scout merit badges. Just create Time. I had a bike.

David Robertson: [00:01:44] Well, we have to get into the summer of legend. As Dan has referenced first, we want to do a little housekeeping at the top. We want to welcome our newest patron, Daryl P welcome to the Faithless brewing Patreon.

Just a quick reminder that if you’d like to support us, you can go to patreon.com, backslash, Faithless brewing, and much like Daryl you’ll have access to our discord. You can submit a X for deck tech, et cetera, et cetera. So if you’re interested, please feel free to, but no pressure ever. And we got a delightful new review from London pod fan, our fan, or one of our fans from jolly old London in great Britain.

Damon, of course you have to do your dramatic reading.

Damon Alexander: [00:02:24] Yeah. Well, let me just take a deep breath here. Great hosts and great ideas,

David Robertson: [00:02:31] Damon proving once again, there is no such thing as small parts, only small actors. Uh, so if you’re enjoying our podcast, please go ahead and give us a review. The various algorithms.

Appreciate it. And so do we, so as Dan intimated, there’s a ton of news that came out, uh, this last week. Uh, we are going to do two episodes this week as per our new normal, this week. We’re going to talk about all of the comings and goings major announcements and, uh, affecting multiple formats. Uh, our Sunday episode will be a look back at our said more which list and look at some new bruise involving some of the spicier.

Is it cards in Strixhaven? So Dan, let’s start with the magic summer of legend. Maybe not as good as Damon’s fifth grade year, but it’ll be close.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:03:19] Yeah. There are no bikes. Is there a bike? That will be the best-selling magic set of all time. If you could open a bicycle in a, in a booster pack,

David Robertson: [00:03:28] it’d be like an equipment, right?

Damon Alexander: [00:03:29] You need to have some sort of like portable hole to fit the bike in the pack.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:03:33] I think there is like a unicycle card or something from the mystery booster convention edition. That’s like a broken equipment too. It becomes a vehicle.

David Robertson: [00:03:42] Oh, there we go.

Damon Alexander: [00:03:43] Oh, I think I got crushed by that card because it’s like a bone splitter slash three, one trample haste or something.

I blocked that memory out. It was rough.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:03:53] What can we expect from the magic summer of legends? I thought that’s just going to be like a quick one and done. Here’s a few preview cards, a tantalizing, you for modern horizons and, you know, we’ll announce some date or something. They did that actually. That’s all it was, but they bundled in some fancy, uh, marketing and there’s, you know, some cool events on arena, a new historic anthology coming up.

Uh, one of the things that we care about, well, May 20th, that is when modern horizons to preview week begins. Well, actually, no, that’s not true. May 24th May 24th is when previews began, uh, May 20th is another pre preview show. They also gave us an order to whet our appetite. I think five new cards for modern horizons, kind of the early first look and they are sweet.

Uh, so we’re definitely gonna have to dive into those. Um, they also pulled us the date for the summer release adventures and forgot in the forgotten realms, the Dungeons and dragons crossover set that is replacing course at 2021. And when you got to see, I think, five cars from that, as well as the, we got 10 previous cars in front of us, as well as some other miscellaneous news, probably the biggest news, at least for people in the U S is that sanctioned paper play is back on the menu.

Uh, starting me 28th. Does that sound right? Uh, local gaming stores will be allowed to host FNMs and other wizards, uh, organized play. Was there a plane network, sanctioned events? Um, I don’t know how to feel about this. This is actually the part that I was most confused by. Like, I, I want to celebrate this, but I’m also, it just hasn’t crossed my mind to like go hang out in a comic shop for the past year.

And now it’s actually right in front of me as an option. So what do you guys think about this?

David Robertson: [00:05:38] I think it’s actually really good. They’re being aggressive with the timeline. I’ve heard people complain about it, but I think people have gotten into a victim mindset. Um, the way that people didn’t understand how exponential growth for the vac or, uh, for the virus would work last March is now affecting how people understand, uh, exponential decrease in the virus.

If you look at the numbers across the country that are collapsing, Uh, following very closely the trajectories in Israel and the United Kingdom, which are 10, 15%, uh, ahead of us in terms of vaccination of population, you might argue that there may be some lingering effects, et cetera. Um, because of the polarization of the vaccine, we won’t dig too deeply into the various flaws of American politics, but the, uh, vaccination rate is such that it’s basically state should be considering lifting mass mandates indoors right now.

Uh, it’s May 11th as we record this. So certainly by May 28th in almost every state, the, uh, case rates and death rates will be, we’ll actually be under the flu. So the jerk-off borough, who’s been talking to you about how this isn’t worse than the flu for 14 months wrong every month, but he or she. Almost certainly he, of course will finally be right by the end of may.

So we should be getting back to normal wizards, encouraging people to get back to normal is exactly the right thing to be doing. Uh, if people want to wear a mask, uh, while they’re indoors, they should for sure do so, but it’s certainly the case that people should be, uh, in inside and starting to live life normally again.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:07:04] Right. And just to chime in here, David, you’re talking about if you’ve been vaccinated.

David Robertson: [00:07:08] Yes. Oh yeah. Everybody should get vaccinated. The vaccine works, bill Gates is getting divorced, so he does not have time to track you with the microchip and the vaccine anymore. Uh, so you’re free from that. Don’t even worry about that anymore.

So yeah, this is assuming you’re vaccinated. Everyone should be vaccinated by May 28th in the United States, especially

Damon Alexander: [00:07:25] a little bit torn in the sense that between the threat of variants, the still as yet coming science on the vaccines efficacy against. The variance. I’m not sure at this point, reading the literature, I would feel super comfortable playing at an indoor tournament with a bunch of people, unmasked.

Um, I feel totally good outside, although actually, um, you know, two weeks ago, when the update came out, that you could go outside without a mask per the CDC in, uh, Biden, Sr. Now wearing a mask outside, and most people were still wearing masks. And over the two weeks it’s been most people now don’t wear masks, but it’s still kind of, it’s a soft majority.

Um, even on these hiking trails that aren’t that crowded. Uh, a lot of people still wear masks. And so getting to the point where people feel comfortable inside without a mask, I’m just not sure where that close are you guys, would you guys feel comfortable playing inside for like a four hour FNM without a mask?

David Robertson: [00:08:13] 100% people in general do not follow CDC guidelines nor should they. So if you follow the CDC guidelines, you would never have meat with pink in it. You would never eat here, run a yolk. You would always wear a hat and long sleeves when it’s sunny outside, no one follows these prescriptions, nor should they.

Uh, in a post pandemic world, we should be thinking about the CDC recommendations as overly cautious and their recommendation. For instance, to not wear a mask outside caught up to 10 months of scientific literature. Every major scientists didn’t was not affiliated with the CDC was already encouraging people to be outside without a mask, uh, including the people who first discovered the virus, Trevor Buford, uh, in Seattle, et cetera.

So I think the CDCs, uh, things are overly cautious and the CDC is guideline is that if you’re vaccinated indoors, then you’re free to do so. So I, I can actually come in, whether it’s for being aggressive about doing this, it may also help the, uh, people who run these FNMs, et cetera. They have been crushed by the, by the disease.

So the fact that it also lines up with what I believe the science to be is I think just a win-win for everybody.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:09:16] Well, I hope you’re right, David. I’m not convinced that pandemic is over. I understand what you’re saying about the case. Numbers are falling. Vaccination numbers are going to be slowing down too.

I mean, we’re a few weeks away from having a massive surplus and realizing that 30 to 40% of the country will refuse it to get vaccinated. Now, maybe we can say, okay, well I’m back to noon. So that’s fine until news of some variants comes around. I shouldn’t worry about it. And there’s, that’s something to just be aware of.

I mean, I guess when you balance all these factors, it seems likely that COVID is going to be with us basically forever. In some variants, it might hopefully just become like a part of the seasonal flu type thing where you get booster shots, that sort of thing. But I mean, look at, look up what’s happening around the world.

Like the new variants are all over the place. I mean, it’s just a utter disaster in places like the Indian subcontinent in South America and it’s spreading all over the world and those variants. So, you know, we’re just hoping that’s what we’ve got in place right now. I assume most of our listeners are in the U S I know some are not.

Um, if you’re able to get the vaccine, get it, go, enjoy everything. That’s the current science says we can do. I mean, it’s entirely possible that the situation will have changed again by the fall. So maybe this is like the best time to go and do all that stuff you’ve been putting off, including playing medic indoors.

David Robertson: [00:10:34] And to your point, Dan, I don’t know that it will ever get better than this. Like hopefully it will get better on the Indian sub content continent, but the flu we have right now is functionally. The 1918 flu, so that killed, uh, you know, millions of people, uh, especially in India, uh, crazy numbers. We called it the Spanish flu.

Although of course it was actually originated in Chicago, uh, meat, packing plant. Uh, so that’s, that’s what the still right. It’s a hundred years later, there is going to be the COVID virus in some number with some slight variants every year for the rest of our lives. So you need to decide now how you’re going to deal with that risk.

Right now, there is no variant that has been shown to be resistant to either the Pfizer or modern vaccine or the Johnson and Johnson. If you choose right now to not do anything or to wear a mask, that’s totally fine. I support everyone’s personal decision, but just know that next year it’s going to be the same choice.

It’s never going to go away. So you’re gonna have to make these choices for the rest of your life every year to decide, okay, I choose not to travel on a plane or on a subway station or go to a baseball game. And each of those decisions has to be respected, but it’s never going to be zero. There’s always going to be a Corona virus.

There’s going to be a booster every year, every 18 months.

Damon Alexander: [00:11:45] Well, news I see suggests that, you know, quote experts want to see a bit more research and data before the declared the vaccinated. People can throw out their masks and gather in large numbers, indoors, which is what a magic event is.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:11:56] And my hesitation is that, you know, I’m not sure how many of the people in attendance will have been vaccinated.

Unfortunately, it’s become such a polarized politicized thing in our country.

Damon Alexander: [00:12:05] Yeah. Well, ultimately, everybody’s gonna have to make their own decision about whether they feel comfortable playing in store when this, uh, in play resumed. I think that you guys are kind of convincing me. We’ll have, you know, a few more weeks of evidence.

I do feel pretty good being fully vaccinated, and it’d be fun to play some cards.

David Robertson: [00:12:20] And if you want to wear a mask, you can, it’s not like eating or drinking. Right. You can just wear your mask. It can help your poker face. If you’re someone who gives away a lot with their face, I do that. I have a bad poker face though.

Maybe I should be wearing a mask just so they don’t know that I, you know, drew the nuts on them.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:12:35] Yeah, I expect that I will be wearing a mask.

Damon Alexander: [00:12:37] Yeah. Wear a mask and sunglasses, your sunglasses get so far. You just can’t see anything, lose the game, set, not knowing what the opponent’s cards do.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:12:44] Practice smiling with your eyes.

If you haven’t done that already, you got to smile. It’s the only way they’ll know your friend with you.

David Robertson: [00:12:50] They’re big news, especially if you are a Hasbro. Stockholder is that modern horizons. Two is on the horizon. As Dan intimated earlier, there are five preview cards out official preview week begins May 24th, modern horizons, one obviously super influential in the format.

Um, people have been sort of anticipating with bated breath, the, uh, the new formats, uh, what it might do to the formats. Uh, they are of course, including enemy fetch lands. That’s sort of a foster. They can kind of turn on and off and everything want to increase sales. And so the new sort of borderless old border variant stuff, that’s stuff that people get into.

Yeah. It looks poised to be a, quite the set.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:13:32] Well, you said enemy fetch lands that rare that’s happened before that happened in modern masters three, there was a secret layer with fetch lands, but this was the first time since concept heartier that we’ve seen fetch lands in a quote unquote print to demand sets.

Uh, in theory, the supply on this will be as, as big as we want it to be. Now, whether that means you can actually buy a box from your local store or from online, that depends on allocations from distributors and that sort of thing. So there might be some spurts in which there’s no product available or someone’s pressed managing someone’s not, but in theory, you know, this should be as plentiful as any set.

And what that means is that the price of any individual card that is not official land, I just cannot be that high. If you think back to Khans of Tarkir here, They had the five-oh ally fetch lands those, uh, I guess in the finance world, they would say they ate up the value of the box. And basically none of the other areas from that set were able to hold any value as singles, a seeds, vinyl Dig Through Time, these dominated standard, they were like $1, $2 cards.

And I expect the same will be true for modern horizons too, even though it is a double price sets, the boosters will be about, I don’t know, seven, $8 if modern horizons one was any indication. I think the price of singles will be manageable.

David Robertson: [00:14:46] Yeah. And then it’s also sort of the, this will be the SA it’s basically releasing right after they have allowed people to go back to F and M whether everyone will go back to F N M or not is unknown, but in the, if you’re of the mentality that everyone is going to.

Kind of been champing at the bit to get back and play paper magic. And if this is another excellent, um, limited set, which was for all the complaints you can make about modern horizons, one, uh, the limited format was highly praised by, uh, most people, uh, this might just be gangbusters in terms of this is the set that’s really encouraging people to get back into play.

If there are a bunch of chase Mythics and rares, which of course there will be for competitive play for the first paper events for modern. So yeah, this, this could be maybe the best-selling magic set of all time.

Damon Alexander: [00:15:31] Yeah, it’s always so weird with these sets, this whole notion of like printed demand and distributors and allocations and all, it just makes my head spin.

I bought jumpstart from mystical games. That was a mistake, never got jumpstart. My friend is able to secure a bunch of boxes, steadily of Amazon for like $90. But to do that, you have to like track these MTG finance posts that says it’s available and it’s available for like an hour and then it’s gone.

And so from what I’ve seen, like, it’s not super easy to get a good pre-order for MH2. So they can say printed a mental they want, but I think it’s possible that that’s just not the case. I mean, again, we have the fetch lands providing equity to the set. We have, um, new pimped out cards. We know how much those can drive demand given times about remastered.

And so we’ll see

David Robertson: [00:16:14] Hasbro has a modern understanding of how they should work. The EV almost every site is going to be printed demand from now on this other stuff was kind of a archaic way of. Kind of driving to Dan’s point, you can just charge more for the, whatever the pack is and then that’s, that’s the way to artificially control it while still just basically pushing the market as far as it’ll go.

Damon Alexander: [00:16:34] I think that almost certainly has her has a team of MBAs and economists or whatever that understand that, how these things work. On the other hand, I think magic players are pretty resistant to increases of the price of packs. You’re like pricing out your like younger generation. The point packs get, you know, keep up with inflation or whatever.

Um, but the thing is what they don’t have is like a good printing team. You know, you’re not really going to be as all you want, but literally making magic cards requires printers and for us, and one thing I have very little confidence and it has possibility to print good-looking cardboard.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:17:02] Yeah, that’s true.

That’s a bit sad, but nothing that we can do can be done about that right now in terms of the prices of singles. I hear what you’re saying, Damon, where sometimes it can be frustrating. It feels like all the allocations going to Amazon and then the bots snap it up. And you never have a chance to actually buy this, that what you see other people buying the box for.

But most of us don’t do that. And most of us don’t buy a bunch of boxes and crack them to try to get singles. It’s much simpler to just buy the cars you want off of TCG player or whatever else, cartoon them. And we have modern horizons one as our Guide, unless things have changed drastically. I mean, that’s that had one expensive, rare of force of negation.

It had a cycle of lands. Uh, the enemy horizon lands that’s were at the time, you know, 15, $20 when it first came out. But as more and more modern horizons hit the market, those lands each went down under 10 cars that we think of as modern staples, like give her a ruins or, you know, $5. It could have give her a ruins.

Now it’s two years later and the prices will begin to tick up on, on those because you can no longer buy modern horizons, um, from distributors, but just think of like add up how much one forced medication and all those lands costs. That’s kind of like the total price of the rears and that’s, most of that’s going to go towards the federal lands.

So as much as this as a cash grab, but it’s also, I think, a fair way to do it. I don’t feel like as a modern player that they’re, they’re out to get me with this set. I think this is, uh, including the MDFC lands. That was a good decision for everyone. Yep.

Damon Alexander: [00:18:27] And so much as. Well, the argument works is that if the box is expected, value gets too high, people will buy them and crack them and release more product with the world until, uh, equilibrium is reached that’s, what’s called an arbitrage opportunity, but this argument requires its people to be able to buy boxes at the correct price.

And so in so much as that’s true, then I agree with your argument that this should drive the prices of enemy fetches down dramatically. Although it’s honestly an interesting game because I think actually what might happen instead is that everything else gets driven down to very low, uh, fetches have such price memory.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:18:59] Yeah, I think I’m fine with the fetch as being the price that they are. I, what I don’t like is a new card that’s only available in this sets being 50 or a hundred dollars, because then it feels like if you just want to keep up with modern, now you have to drop $400 on Wrenn and Six or something like that, or a playset of Force of Negation.

So as long as the reprints are the expensive ones and the new cards are cheap, I think that’s good for everyone. Yeah. All right. Let’s talk about the cards been beating around the Bush here. David, what did he get?

David Robertson: [00:19:29] The first card was rumored about possibly with good cause possibly just people bullshitting because they’d been praying for this car for the longest time was Counterspell Counterspell originally printed in alpha printed all the way up through seventh edition in the base sets.

So counter spell blue, blue counter targets, spell no other texts on the card. Um, the card is uncommon, but there’s a special, uh, art version. That’s rare. If you want to pimp out your deck with a bunch of cards that don’t look like magic cards, please feel free to do so as Dan says, hopefully it won’t be that expensive because of the fetch lands.

Um, is this too powerful for modern? I don’t think so. I don’t like that. It just reduces choice. You know, we’ve had a lot of interesting discussions about when to play mana leak, when to play Remand how much of each the, uh, blue, blue, uh, delve spells see some play. This is obviously just better than man, a leak.

It’s not a close obviously. Well, there’s some few corner cases where the Dell smells a little better. It was cool that manually can path the exile had tent tension being in the same deck. So that’s all gone forever. Um, I think this car is going to see a ton of play and yeah, it accomplishes one of the modern horizons objectives, which is to replace sort of history of the format with a new card that you’re sort of compelled to play.

Damon Alexander: [00:20:46] I think I have a very different take. I think the Counterspell awesome for modern counter spell is like garbage and legacy and even further garbage in vintage, we completely manage reign. This is like one of medic’s most iconic spells. It barely needs to have a text box. I mean the text box interest is one extra word to the title.

And so I think it’s great. You know, just as lightning bolt is a four of an, a ton of modern decks, you know, so as counter spell and I don’t think that, you know, does lightning bolt crushed deck diversity? I guess if you think about it in a sense, you know, what it would have bought on and be like without it.

Yeah. But look at pioneer, you have to play cards like wild slash. My Mana leak is the wild slash of modern. And I feel like Monash is better than that.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:21:24] I’m not going to be able to give an unbiased opinion because I don’t like counterspell decks or counterspell players. So I don’t like it when they get tools like this, that smug satisfaction.

But I do, I guess I have questions for the two of you. So do you think this will actually change the number of counters that a controlled that, uh, I understand the argument, you know, you’re compared to her spells to various options like men and leek, logic, not or whatever. And you replace those all with Counterspells.

That’s fine. But do you actually change the distribution of counter magic in your deck? Because Counterspell is so good that you just want more of that now.

David Robertson: [00:21:55] I think you’ll play four counterspell. And then in the like hard control decks, you know, some number of arc majors, charm, and some number of, uh, cryptic commands, whatever that number is, you know, we’ll let, uh, Jendrek or Gabriel to see for aspiringspike, uh, fiddle around with those numbers.

I think Counterspell is just the premier to mannequin Counterspell, unless specifically you’re on some kind of weird thing where remand is better, um, or the man your man is tough. So I think typically people were playing around for two men, uh, affects, you know, sometimes it was like three men and leek and one of the Dell spell, I think you just straight up replace for those with counter spell.

If you want a fifth, two men and effect, um, you know, then maybe you look at the delve spell first. Yeah.

Damon Alexander: [00:22:32] I think actually that it there’s a chance that drives counterspell quantity down in the sense that counter spell is so good at what it does, because typically it used to be that you look at your map and leaks a man’s and logic knots, and be like, well, a lot and not actually just suck sometimes.

Mana Leak also doesn’t scale into the late game, or Matt is a pretty good car, but also has its own set of problems. And so you kind of like play a lot of them because they cover those weaknesses to some extent. But if you just play for counter spell, you don’t have the same weaknesses, counter spells, only weaknesses, you just need blue blue.

And so the thing is that that means the cards like Archmage’s charm, which used to be really important to have, because you just need to have some density of absolute, like just no nonsense counter targets, spell effects in your deck, like Cryptic Command and Archmage’s Charm, um, in a way that logic Know mantle, you can, and I can’t cover.

And now the of counter spelled, that means the cards like cryptic. or Archmage’s charm. The hard, no aspect of them is less important.

David Robertson: [00:23:22] I mean, the one thing about corresponds, I think it’s going to reduce mana costs. You know, it used to be, you can just wait out manually cause sometimes right? Like eventually it’s not good against Tron or whatever, but Counterspell is just always good.

So like, if you’re gonna cast spells that cost three or more, that’s just a really bad deal into a counter swell.

Damon Alexander: [00:23:42] I mean, let’s be honest, we’re playing a format with Aether vial, Chalice of the Void turn, whatever Tron into Ulamog, exile you’re to whatever’s, uh, people can bring back world breaker of control gets too big.

There’s all sorts of hetic control tools to ferry, uh, Time reveler. Um, so I’m not like super worried about counter spell decks, just like taking over modern. Yeah.

David Robertson: [00:24:03] I said, I don’t think it’s that bad on power level. I said it reduces choice. And then you just listed a bunch of examples where like, instead of having decide between all these commerce bells, you just play for commerce.

Well, so I think you’re basically, I agree. Yeah. Yeah.

Damon Alexander: [00:24:14] W what is the right split? Two L’s last three lightning strike. I don’t know, man. I don’t want to play that game. I just wanna play lightning bolt.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:24:20] So is the shark typhoon logic knot dream. Totally dead.

David Robertson: [00:24:24] Shark Typhoon is just really bad right now. I think it just does not line up very well with how good the one and two drop aggressive creatures are.

You don’t see aspiringspike for instance, playing, uh, this card. And, uh, you know, he loves you if he could. I think.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:24:39] How many blue sources do I need in my deck, if I just want counter spells in some match-ups

David Robertson: [00:24:44] Google Frank Karston, plus how many colored sources.com

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:24:51] you were saying Damon about reducing number of times, it reminded me of like, you’ll, you’ll see decks sometimes that don’t play counter magic.

And then in the sideboard they’ll have like two or three Negates. And you’re wondering like why two or three Negates. And it’s because they’ve identified that in some match-ups you just need some hard knows and you know, negate does the job now, any, any deck, it can do that against, you know, any type of spill.

Right. But don’t go overboard. Don’t don’t just throw Counterspell in because it’s famous, you know, check your mana first. If you’re an Archmage’s Charm deck, you’re already fine. That’s fine. But if you’re not, you know, you should at least think about it. How often, and how early am I going to get double blue?

And at what costs to my life total.

Damon Alexander: [00:25:31] Yeah. Although if you’re not pulling a blue, heavy deck, I mean, cards like negate Disdainful stroke to spell out of the sideboard Mystical dispute. These all have an argument to be played over counter spell in a certain sort of deck and a certain sort of match up.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:25:43] All right, next card, another legacy standout sanctum prelates, one white way to increase your human cleric for a 2/2 as sanctum prelate enters the battlefield to choose a number non creature spells with mana value equal to the chosen number can’t be cast.

So this was originally printed in conspiracy, take the crown a multi-player drafts sets, but that has legacy legality. So this was one of the cars that made an impact. I think you’ll find it in legacy death in Texas. I don’t know if that’s still true Damon.

Damon Alexander: [00:26:14] Oh, I can’t say I really know legacy death and taxes list, but I don’t think you can see many copies of it right now.

Yeah.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:26:19] Not a form of, um, that was the interesting thing about it is that, you know, it looks kind of jaw-dropping. I mean, it’s got aspects of Chalice of the Void aspects of meddling Mage. But I don’t know how many copies you want to play. Right. So we have a card here that has some pedigree of being good enough, but I’m actually not sure right off the bat, how to use it, or how many copies to put into a Taxes deck, for example.

Damon Alexander: [00:26:42] Yeah, the thing is what makes a good and legacy is two factors. One is there’s a high density of brainstormed ponder. Preordain dark ritual thoughseize, uh, or you can put on a for and stop tendrils of agony. It used to be complete on Six and stop Terminus, um, Swords to Plowshares it just kinda like could stop a whole class of cards that were very commonly played in legacy against a wide variety of decks.

The other thing which actually is I don’t see a bigger thing, in my opinion, is the card recruiter of the guard, uh, another conspiracy card, uh, because it lets your death and taxes let’s play exactly one sanctioned prelate as scary as this card sounds, being able to cut stuff off. I’ve played it before and it really is not.

A mega powerhouse. There are game States where it’s really good and there are plenty of games. That’s where it just is pretty medium. Yeah.

David Robertson: [00:27:30] Without that like built in tutor effect where you can kind of have it whenever you want. I do think this card is very powerful against certain match-ups. If you look at blue, red prowess, right now, they play 26, one drops.

Um, they maybe have two ways to kill it out of the board. So it, it is probably very good against them, but I don’t know that it’s good enough to be main deck a bowl because of the variety of decks. Right? Like, I guess you could play it on Six against Titan. I mean, I you’d have to actually look at the matchup spread, but it certainly is going to be a powerful sideboard option.

I don’t know about if it’s main deck double step.

Damon Alexander: [00:28:04] Yeah. It will be interesting against, uh, like the blue, red prowess text or whatever. Keep in mind. It only stops non creature spells. And so they do play a lot of one drops that are non creatures, but other creatures still get through this card is a three drop.

And so if you’re on the draw, you may just be dead before you’re even casting it.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:28:22] Sanctum prelate will take some getting used to, um, it has the meddling Mage templating. So the number is chosen as it enters the battlefields. You do not get a chance to respond, to hearing what number they chose. Um, also if you’re playing in paper, you know, when you put this card onto the stack, you don’t announce the number, right?

So you just say, I’m casting this when it resolves, then you say your number and then there’s no longer a chance to cast those spills.

David Robertson: [00:28:46] Yeah. And unlike something like chalice, they don’t get to like caste it and it gets countered. So they still get to trigger like this just actually blocks and kills, you know, whatever their one, two prowess creature, if they don’t specifically have manamorphose.

Damon Alexander: [00:28:57] And so that’s a stone-cold block right there and

David Robertson: [00:29:01] just call every time and they don’t have it. They always think it’s like, well, they can’t block you. It’s like, yeah, soul read, put your shit in the graveyard.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:29:12] Staring at their face, but they’re wearing a mask. You have no idea, judge. Okay. So the sanctum Prelate to sounds like we’re, we’re not sure like how good this is going to be, but I’m sure people will be experimenting with it. Next card up is one that’s. Yeah. I don’t know what to say about this. This will be like a 50 or $60 card.

Maybe if not for the enemy fetch lands. That’s my hot teak Urza’s saga. Damon. Do you want to walk us through this card?

Damon Alexander: [00:29:40] Yeah. Urza’s saga is a enchantment land or is it a saga? That is a saga till they have to say it’s a saga somewhere. Like I’m kind of confused, but it’s a saga just by the name alone. And as three chapters.

Uh, so the first chapter is it gains, tap, add a colorless. So it functions as a colorless providing land for the Time it’s on the battlefield. Chapter two is to tap crit a Karnstruct, which is the construct that gets plus one plus one for each artifact you control. And chapter three is search your library for an artifact card with manna costs, zero or one, put it onto the battlefield, then shuffle, what the hell is a manna cost?

Didn’t we just rebrand CMC as men of value. So a couple of comments about this card, uh, Mana cost explicitly refers to the exact thing appearing on the upper, right? Not some sort of conversion of that into an integer number, but rather just the exact thing that appears must be a zero or a one. So cards like Lotus bloom are out.

Uh, Everflowing Chalice is in because it has multi kicker, but it’s kind of useless to get that. Secondly, just the way sagas work is the third chapter goes on the stack at the being of your main phase one. And so you can in response to that, the land for man on. And so you kind of get three mana uses out of this.

And then by the time you get to the third chapter expiring, you’re going to want to find something to replace your land. Dan loves this card. Dan has written a saga about Urza saga. So I’ll let him fill in the commentary.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:31:14] I mean, those are the main points. Yeah. If you follow us on Twitter, we are at Faithless MTG.

I put a thread together about this, uh, earlier in the week. So you may have already seen it. But yeah, I ran, I ran through some of the Nissa interactions and also, and what the results of my Scryfall searches, just trying to figure out what exactly chapter three can fetch up. There’s a lot of stuff. I mean, there’s two ways to go about a one is you think, Oh, what can’t I fetched up?

I can’t fetch a Lotus bloom. I can’t fit a darksteel Citadel because those are null mana cost. Um, you can’t fetch tells live away for zero cause that’s ex uh, you can’t fetch portable hole. Um, a card we’ll talk about in a bits or witching. Well, cause those have colored symbols, but that’s fine. So it’s not quite the same as like trinket Mage packages.

But when you actually break down what is available, there’s a lot of stuff. There’s many sources. There’s card draw, you can catch up answers, you can fetch up combo pieces, equipments, uh, and all of that is just focusing on chapter three. We haven’t even talked about chapter two, which can make, uh, potentially to constructs tokens in addition to getting something off chapter three.

So there’s a ton of value packed into this land. What do you think David.

David Robertson: [00:32:22] Yeah, I think this card is going to be restricted in vintage probably immediately and, um, will be incredibly powerful in legacy. So in those formats, being able to actually fetch up Mox in means it functions also as a ritual on its third term, um, it can tap her card list and your main phase and then fetch, you know, whatever you want, including various, uh, low Tai.

And, um, so yeah, I think just there it’s already incredibly powerful. They already took away Mox Opal to prop up the first modern horizons. So this can’t replace itself as a Montessori, which is the only thing, maybe keeping it in check. Um, but I think just the ability to fetch map and, um, map is a card decks that are going to want to generate a ton of Magma and play a bunch of artifacts anyway, already want to play is already just interaction I’m interested in.

Um, it’s just a repeatable way to cycle through your deck and constantly make a bunch of Karn. Structs sort of like a Superman land. Um, if you want to think about it that way.

Damon Alexander: [00:33:21] I’ll take the other side of this position. I think you guys both like it. I think that yes, he can find a black Lotus or a Mox in vintage.

On the other hand, it takes three turns to do so in a format that is frequently decided on turns one or two. Also that format has the card wasteland and strip mine scene and a lot of decks. And so this card just kind of, doesn’t do a whole lot in the face of any of those. If those things are happening, it is a poor land that provides, you know, a single colorless compared to a card like ancient tomb or city of traders.

The tutoring ability is not like trinket Mage, which, and to the late game, via the likes of cards like walking ballista or hangarback Walker or engineered explosives, all these X cards are the ones that let Trinket Mage shine. A man of values your one. Yeah, you can get some good cards, but it’s such a smaller slice.

There it’s a lot less important as the end of the Lake game. That they’re that cheap. It does go straight on the battlefield onto your hand, which is nice.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:34:16] Let’s just stick with modern for a sec. So in the late game, It is slow to actually impact the board. You play it. Chapter one trigger is you can tap it, that’s it, but you will still be able to activate the next two turns to get to Karnstructs.

Constructs, sorry, Karnstructs. That’s something. I mean, that’s more powerful than a trinket Mage shrug, maybe more powerful about as powerful as a trinket mage. And then you still get another thing. And if it’s very late, you can get another expedition map. Like David saying, I played against Eldrazi Tron twice today, and I was just thinking as the games went on, like, man, if they had Urza saga, I would be totally, totally dead right now.

Uh, but they didn’t yet. So I was sort of, okay.

David Robertson: [00:34:57] I think the, the thing to emphasize here is this does not have to take a actual slot in your deck. Like trinket is a card you have to cast. This is just a land you get to play that does this for free. It doesn’t slow. Sure. I mean it’s, and it doesn’t win the game.

I think it’s going to actually be a car that makes people think they’re actually playing fair magic while it’s being very dominant. So I think they’re actually going to be reticent to, uh, look at it in terms of restrictions or bannings because it’s not going to be obvious how powerful the card is, but it’s just going to give you an inevitability out of your land slot.

Again, it’s just, doesn’t take any spell slots out of your deck. Yeah.

Damon Alexander: [00:35:30] I mean, I think that the current strikes that cost three max, you have to tap the Urza’s Saga itself and that’s just kind of slow the, I mean, Eldrazi Tron could play this. Yes. And it would be a good net deck shore that tech already juices lands.

Every land to places is precious. You know, they’re gonna have to be cutting a blast zone or a scavenger grounds or a waste or something. They don’t have that many lands. They can trim, uh, all those cards are all quite relevant and the right map.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:35:54] Uh, I think they’ll play at least three, possibly four. I be, I mean, they’re already playing expedition maps, so it’s like you don’t, I guess you don’t need a full place.

That’s. If you find yourself out of guests, you just crack them and get the saga. And you have like a little chain going. It’s not just Eldrazi Tron though. If we think about the modern format as it exists right now, I can think of like six, seven, eight different existing archetypes that should at least consider this starting with Eldrazi Tron.

But I think Amulet Titan should definitely consider this. It can fetch up the Amulet of vigor, which is usually the car that puts that deck over the top. You don’t need to play a full playset of Urza’s saga. Maybe you just want a few extra copies breach station, the grinding station, underworld breach deck.

We’ll definitely want this. Uh, and finds whatever pieces you’re looking for or finds the Mox, Amber, which is one of the necessary components of that combo. Lantern control, the entire lantern package. We entered of insights, codex, shredder, pyxis of pandemonium, pithing needle, those cards, they’re all eligible for Urza’s saga.

And now that deck gets access to like a Tarmogoyf, like creature on one of his lands, um, dice factory, you mentioned Everflowing Chalice has a card that is puzzling. Why would you search that up with zero charge counters on it? Well, you can just put the charges on it with the core Tapper or the Surge node.

Yeah. I think this factory should consider this. Pardon? Scales fetches up the Urza with hammer Time fetches up Colossus Hammer. I think we’ll even see like new breeds of control decks built around just Mishra’s Bauble and Lurrus uh, and the brainstone, which we’ll get to your next, Oh, that’s like a ton of decks that are going to at least be playing this.

I think you’ll, you’ll get to know this card very, very well. Within the first week of the set releasing.

David Robertson: [00:37:34] I mean, some of those decks aren’t going to be decks, but I absolutely think dice factory is going to be like a legit thing. Like it will perhaps be the way to play Tron lands. Um, after this card gets released, that would be my guess.

And I also think that Karn, the great creator is going to become more popular in any deck that plays this because Carmen can fetch artifacts that have synergy with this. Um, amulet Titan also has karoo lands, which let you reset your saga. So if you have the, a one, one that lets you play tap to put land into play in response to the third trigger, you can make your second Karnstruct, put a crew land into play, uh, bounce this back to your hand and then play it again for your turn or just naturally play it.

Just get one, um, one construct. And then on that term play karoo land, if you have, you know, one of the mini MULTILAM plays and it’s just such a free slot, you just play one or two of them. You have these Titans already in you’re directed to her up. So. The, the power level of the car. And I agree with Damon actually, isn’t that impressive?

It’s just that it’s on a land. So it doesn’t, it doesn’t have to be very powerful at all. Like Mutavault is not powerful, but it just sees a ton of play in various shells. And it’s just because it’s just a land.

Damon Alexander: [00:38:45] One quick comment that Dan found a Twitter thread that asked the following question, what happens to, Urza’s saga under a blood moon?

And the short summary is that it becomes a mountain mountains. Just don’t have chapters. If you pull out a basic mountain from your deck box, there’s nothing there about chapters, zero chapters. It’s still a saga for layers reasons, a saga with the chapter being greater than or equal to the chapter account dies.

And since it will have a, you know, be on chapter one or two or whatever, it will just die immediately compared to the chapter count of zero. So blood moon kills this card from a state-based action. So a lot of these decks where it would go well in or Dexter points are going to be wanting to play blood moons already.

So doubling down in the face of your weakness, uh, makes me nervous.

David Robertson: [00:39:26] I do agree that blood moon is maybe the thing that’s going to keep this card from getting banned. It’s just a card you can play. It’s a card you can play as fast as turn to, as we know a bunch of ducks of Don and blood moon, both hosing colors and being a stone rain built in on this is maybe the thing necessary to keep it in check.

Damon Alexander: [00:39:43] All right. Well, we definitely cover the spread of opinions. We, we should be right. Um, for some combination of our sentences, but perhaps not what a single one of us was saying. It’s a paragraph. Uh, I guess David thinks it’s barely held back from being bannable with blood moon, being the one, keeping us together.

Um, I’ve, I’ve seen one of you guys said, uh, restricted in vintage on day one or whatever. Dan has 10 new brews. They’re going to break this card, I think is mediocre. I think that the, you know, some of these lines stands mentioning sound crazy. You get Tarmogoyfs in your Ensnaring bridge deck. Okay.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:40:15] Let me, let me give you my final projection for this. Before we move on, this will spawn at least three, possibly five distinct decks that didn’t exist before, just from this card. And at least five existing decks. We’ll adopt it in large quantities. There will be at least one week of like Urza saga dominating the format, and then people will bring in some disenchants and blood moons.

And then the saga players are gonna have a really bad time. The last interaction that it is important to know is that if you disenchant the saga with chapter one on the stack, they don’t even get mana out of it. They just it’s like a stone rain on them and instant speed. So there’s definitely counter play.

Um, it’s just going to reshape the format and we’re gonna have to learn how to exist with this card, how to use it and how to fight against it.

David Robertson: [00:40:58] Turn to brain or a turn to blood moon never looks so good.

Damon Alexander: [00:41:03] Yeah, we’re just a nature’s claim insurance type becoming a strip mine. Yeah.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:41:09] All right, what’s the next card.

David Robertson: [00:41:11] Next card, brainstone. So Dan mentioned it. I actually think this card does not have the kind of synergy I’m interested in with the land, although I’m willing to be proven wrong, but brainstone, a terrible pawn on brainstorm. One color list for a artifact to man, a sacrifice brainstone, draw three cards, and then put two cards from your hand on top of your library in any order.

So this is basically just brainstorm the legacy staple, but made into a functionally three-mana brainstorm. Although you get to divvy up into increments, it is a one man artifact. So as Dan mentioned, it is fetched possibly by a nearly broken or is a saga also fetched by trinket Mage. Um, has synergies with Lurrus has synergies with Emry.

Uh, I mean, for me, it’s like how expensive can they make this effect? And it still be playable. We know that brainstorm would be too good for modern. Uh, Jace is a format of brainstorm that has been banned for most of modern existence. Since it’s unbuttoning has seen a pretty good amount of play, often as a one or two of and control decks.

You know, this card is a repeatable value engine obviously gives you a little bit more than Bauble, but Bauble is free. And that is really, really big deal. So I think this will really only see play if there’s some kind of miracles, counterbalance deck. And I think because wizards made this card on common, they try that and they don’t think it’s playable.

Damon Alexander: [00:42:33] Yeah. I think this is a cool car to have around. Uh, I think it would be a really fun car to have and the pioneer deck that plays possibility of storm with enter the infinite and does not want to ever have enter the infinite in hand. And especially being on a, you know, there’s a car like fire prophecy was, puts it back with that’s an incident which interferes with the, uh, the possibility storm lines.

This card is an artifact, so it gets cleanly out of the way, but it of course is not legal in pioneer. So the question is, are there modern decks, modern decks that have this clunkiness problem are a few and far between most modern decks are good at avoiding this. There was, of course the, you know, Neobrand deck, which would sometimes draw their Griselbrand, lose.

Could they play brainstorm and put it back? Probably not.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:43:11] The two of you have both casts, a lot of brainstorms in your magic careers. So you understand what makes brainstorm good. Do you feel like brainstone captures that or is it just not doing the same thing?

Damon Alexander: [00:43:24] Uh, it is not doing the same thing. What makes brainstorm good is fetch lands because you can kind of reset your hand and you can put two cards away and then shuffle them out of there.

And the thing is that with brainstorm that you can do it with as little as a single land in a fetch land on the battlefield. So two minutes total to do it with a brainstone requires, uh, three lands, which is just a lot slower. That’s one more land.

David Robertson: [00:43:45] I feel like you can’t use brainstone to like fix your early draws and things like this.

Um, as a repeatable sort of value engine or something that’s constantly manipulating the top of your deck or is, uh, Damon was mentioning, you know, putting combo stuff back, you know, is a good enough to do that. It’s an instant speed way to manipulate the top of your deck, which Jace, the Mind Sculptor is not.

Um, I think the only real success anyone’s had. Was I think aspiringspike one, a PTQ with a white blue miracles deck. Um, that was still playing, I think three Jace, I don’t know if he would play this card over Jace because Jace was also as wind condition. But if you have like a Lurrus this counterbalance, I mean, we haven’t seen a deck like that.

It would surprise me if that was good enough. It just seems very fragile as I’m like lifting the cards that would be in it.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:44:37] I think that that could be actually a very good and the way that I would build it is the first thing I would do is I would cut all the Jace the mind Sculptor. I feel like that card is actually just bad and modern right now.

And it’s kind of like a bummer as a brewer because Jace, the Mind Sculptor was one of the only cars that can put something from your hand on the top of your deck. That’s a cool brewing space, but when the only way to enable it is to resolve my format of Planeswalker that they’re going to kill immediately.

Anyway. It’s just like, not even worth trying. So if you’re telling me that I can have that for just two easy payments of one and two men, and I’m much more interested in and attempting something like that. And counterbalance, I think, is a reasonable place to start. The reason I think that the Lurrus control angle will be good is because of Urza saga, which we just talked about.

Urza saga being a land that just like produces Tarmogoyfs and then fetches your Mishra’s Bauble, which the Lurrus will then bring back is already like a lot of power. And all you need is like one brainstone to fetch up, uh, with Urza saga. And then the Lurrus can recast the brainstone as often as you need to.

And that’s just like a better effect than cracking a bubble of return. Not every turn, sometimes you’ll just want the Bauble, but as a very low deck building cost, assuming I was already playing Urza saga Mishra’s Bauble and Lurrus

David Robertson: [00:45:50] are you imagining this is a deck that has Lurrus as a companion or that’s playing Lurrus as a main deck or companion

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:45:55] for me, I think companion.

Damon Alexander: [00:45:58] That feels like a high deck building cost. I mean, you’re literally putting brainstorm in a deck over any other card. I mean, for example, preordain is too good for modern. And then meanwhile, deliberate seasonal play. Because even though it’s an instance, beavers and preordained, but it cost Humana. Um, adding that extra mana really takes the car down this as two more manna to the, to brainstorm.

I don’t think Grantham’s a good card at three mana. And I don’t think if you have a Lurrus out, you’re going to be like, Oh, I’m going to get brainstone over. Bauble because it’s a slightly better effect when it costs that much more manna.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:46:28] I think that you’ll definitely want at least one, if you have the ability to tutor for it, you’ll want at least one.

It converts lands at hand into actual spells. I mean, you don’t need to do that every turn, but sometimes they’ll want that,

David Robertson: [00:46:39] I guess to me, and this might be my just misconception of how this deck, this hypothetical deck, which may or may not ever exist, will work if I’m playing this like super long grindy deck.

And I actually want my land secrete managed consistently over the course of the game. And so playing a bunch of colorless lands in a deck that’s trying to resolve Lurrus and counterbalance, which are very men and intensive. That actually feels like a real punishment and then eventually leave. So that means my X spells or whatever else, get worse.

So, I guess I was surprised to hear you say that you think that the is really interesting. I’m really interested to see what, what you kind of come up with Dan, because I see those kind of across purposes. Um, and, and the, the three manner versus zero manner is just such a huge gap that even though the effect is so much worse, I just don’t imagine playing saga with Lurrus and counterbalance.

Like, I just don’t see all those cards together, but I’m really curious to see what, what you come up both.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:47:28] Yeah. I think counterbalance will be the weak link, but I will definitely be tinkering with it. It might not ultimately have Counterbalance. Speaking of Lurrus decks, another toy for Lurrus to play with is the diamond lion.

This is like lion’s eye diamond, but this is the lion that it came from. And if you look really closely at the arts. Uh, well, it actually has both of its eyes. That’s kind of weird, but the diamond lion is basically like a magus of the lions eye diamond. It is a artifact creature, a cat, uh, two two for two generic mana.

It has the activity to be able to tap discard your hand, sacrifice diamond lion, add three men out of any one color. Activate only as an instance. Now I think a lot of people listening to this podcast have heard of lion’s eye diamond, but have not really played with it much. So what is the function of that activate only as an instant clause?

What does this actually mean for how you can use the card?

Damon Alexander: [00:48:20] What that means is that you can’t use it to play a spell from your hand. Uh, if you could use it as a man of source. And I think you could, like you say, I’m going to cast my Bolas’s Citadel from my hand via diamond lion. And by the time that you discard your hand, I think you’ve already cast it.

So I think it just has, is meant to make us have the drawback of this turn. Your head actually works.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:48:41] It’s almost like you can’t use this manner to cast spells. Or maybe it’s that you can’t use it to cast spells from your hand, you can like float men with it, uh, in response to something, and then maybe cast a spell from your graveyard.

If you have an escape card or a flashback spell, maybe you’re emptying your hand and then sacrificing diamond lines to go and fetch your Lurrus or whatever from the companion zone. Are there any combos or synergies that jump out at you here?

David Robertson: [00:49:05] I mean, Lurrus is the big one. Um, you know, that’s free basically lines I diamond is a two-minute card already gained to put Lurrus in your hand, functionally for the cost of just your hand and possibly getting to replay line a diamond laymen line.

That turn is interesting. Obviously there’s no like store mechanic, like in legacy where lines I diamonds has done a play. There’s also a lot less tutor effects. Um, one of the other things that was a frequent player, right? As you cast a tutor effect, uh, there’s a tutor effect that says if you have. No hand Infernal Tutor.

Yeah. If you cast Infernal tutor in response to the tutor, you can sacrifice, and you have the manna in your man pool. When you get the car that you tutor, the tutor effects in a modern are much worse. The wish effects in modern are much more expensive, et cetera. So it doesn’t have an easy home. There’s not an obvious place to put it.

So I think it’s actually going to involve a lot of creativity on players parts. If this is playable at all. And the fact that it’s, again, a creature. Means normal cars that people play interact with it. The bolt that I’m playing to kill your a one minute prowess creature, that’s still good against lions.

I Damon.

Damon Alexander: [00:50:10] Yeah. In particular diamond lion. Uh, yeah, it really is a tap ability. So what has summoning sickness LED does not have so many sickness, uh, and also does not cost to manna. So yeah, you play this card hoping to come off the next turn in your opponent, who has otherwise abrupt Decays, lighting bolts, you name it that are otherwise dead against you now has great targets.

So I think that this card, I think that WotC really figured out how to fix lion’s eye diamond, which is kind of a broken magic card. Uh, even though you have to jump through some hoops to, to utilize it in legacy, it’s still sees, plays a forum in any number of decks. Uh, this card, I don’t think it’s anywhere near that.

David Robertson: [00:50:46] Good. I have classified this card as my modern horizons to cabal therapist, a card, which references a cool card, which sees a ton of cool. It actually leads a really cool place in legacy. That’s a zero play and modern people tried to make it work because they were so in love with the effects. Uh, right now I think that’s where diamond line is headed.

Yeah, I agree. And by some people, I mean, Dan, Dan was just like, man, how can we make cobalt therapists work? I was like, no, no, they got there and had them and they got foxes.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:51:17] So you’re not tempted to do like diamond lion discard, my echo of Eons and Time twister on turn three or something.

David Robertson: [00:51:24] Again, this is why all the Valki lines where it has to resolve as a creature.

And then you blink it to make your thing are so much worse because it allows the normal course of magic to interact with it. And that’s why all these other things where you like cascade into it, or just do all your storm stuff, normal spells or interact with that. Or there’s only a few spells that interact with things on the stack.

Uh, everything interacts with this portable hole, which we’re gonna talk about in a second lightning bolt Swords to Ploughshares the disenchant I’m bringing in to blow up your, uh, Urza saga. All that stuff stops what you’re trying to do. Plus Counterspell, still work and, and disruption.

Damon Alexander: [00:51:57] Right. And the way the legacy echo of Eons deck works is they do the following.

They go LED discard my hand play echo V and straw seven led led discard my hand, just Karn my head again, floating blue, you know, Six blue cast, second echo of Ian’s. Now they go to a new seven with a three mat of floating. They play Narset play. And our led discard, uh, their hand. Now you’re putting a zero cards in hand, um, and, and they’re still going off.

And in the meantime, they’re picking them Mox Opus, along the way, Karn the great creator to find Mila led. And if you do this and modern with the diamond wine, and you say, okay, just Karn my hands play  maybe I have the man I’ll have to over to castle or diamond lion for two, you put it on taps of the fresh seven kills your diamond line and probably kills you.

It doesn’t, it doesn’t kind of go off in the same way that the echo of you and stack does and legacy with led.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:52:51] Yeah, the Magus cycle of which there’s like three or four cycles of magi They’re amazing. It’s amazing how bad cards become when you put them on creatures.

David Robertson: [00:53:01] I make the cost mana and set up and are free.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:53:04] Exactly. All right. So those are five cards from modern horizons to, uh, again, the official preview week begins May 24th. Uh, they also gave us a tease of Dungeons and dragons, Dungeons and dragons official previews began June 29th. There’s actually only 26 days between when modern horizons two is available on magic online.

And when preview start for this core set and as a Dragon set. So we’re going to have a very compressed schedule coming up. I don’t know how we’re going to handle this. There’s so many cars at brew round, and the T is five of them for us, uh, during this summer of legend preview. So this first one portable whole, I think, is going to be a big player,

David Robertson: [00:53:45] portable whole one white artifact when portable whole enters the battlefield exile target non-planned permanent and opponent controls.

With men of value to our less until portable hole leaves the battlefield. So certainly evokes bloodchief’s thirst, which was a card I was not high on. And I think I was proven to be correct. Um, I liked that this is better in multiple ways. It combos with the, uh, Izzet Dragon Lord, uh, Urza Emory, it works with processors, which we’re starting to see kind of a, a return from it also targets a bunch of things that bloodchief’s thirsts does not target other vile, um, to mana equipment or vehicles, amulet of vigor, Utopia sprawl on thin ice.

And I think the most important factor is it gives white decks in pioneer, early removals, specifically able to interact with men elves, which is something that they had not been able to do without playing black or red. Um, so I think that’s actually kind of a game changer. In pioneer. Uh, obviously the removals suite is quite powerful already in modern.

Uh, I think this might still season bit play with some of the synergies I listed, but in pioneer, I think this is possibly a huge, uh, shift pioneer.

Damon Alexander: [00:55:01] It’s a really good card out of the sideboard. I’m less sure about main deck play because there’s enough decks that just don’t interact with it. Whether it be like a loaded combo deck or a Niv-Mizzet deck only playing Sylvan Caryatids that even though it is, you know, really good against the model red, the model, blacks, whatever, those sorts of things, um, it has a lot of gaps in modern.

I think the gaps were much smaller against Tron. It hits their early expedition map. It gets control like true control featuring counter spell or whatever. I’m not sure what the techs are playing. It might be kind of weak there, but a lot of decks and modern tend to tend to be playing tons of cheap spells because you just have to be playing things early on.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:55:35] Are you shocked by like how cheap this card is? Like it read a little bit, like journey’s nowhere baffling and silk wrap. I’m used to this effect costing one on a weight and being like pretty fringe and standard. We had glass casket and Eldraine and I was like, Oh, that’s interesting. It’s on an artifact.

Maybe that will make it better. I wasn’t expecting to be on an artifact and cost one. I mean, it’s kind of like when, when they made a village rights or claim the first firstborn, the ability to have an effect like this for half the cost, like almost the cheapest possible cost, the car can have, seems like a game changer.

David Robertson: [00:56:05] I mean, the differences in standard, they just don’t print and good one or two men of creatures. It’s just these like three and four men and beaters going back and forth with people going over the top with some of these super expensive spells. I mean, they have been pretty chintzy and printing like powerful two drops.

So unless they’re going to print some of them, this, this isn’t particularly powerful against what I’ve seen of standard ducks. So, I guess it seems like a reasonable thing for them to do, huh?

Damon Alexander: [00:56:32] Yeah. That’s the famous saying. There’s no such thing as wrong threats, only wrong answers and this card, you know, you can trash talk Bloodchief’s Thirst all.

You want that card scales, uh, with a kicker to kill anything or a Planeswalker um, meanwhile, federal pushes a single man. I can trade with up to a four drop. This car can only ever trade with some of the costs, a man of value, two or less leaving behind this hole that can be interfered with. So I think it’s very fair.

You never go up huge on tempo by killing you pose to drop, you know, it’s fine. It’s good to have the answer there that can make your deck stop the early on slot. If you grab an ether vial or Wrenn and Six or whatever. Um, and that’s fine. I think this is a good card to have. I don’t think it’s like shockingly cheap.

Hmm. Okay.

David Robertson: [00:57:12] And there is the one white enchantment exile any creature. You just have to cast doubt on a mountain. So if you’re willing to make your man out, you know, you kind of have access to this effect anyway. But again, this has this ability to interact as Damon and sing and like post board games with manna, Elvis is unique and pioneer.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:57:27] Both of this will not be legal in pioneer, so let’s Oh no, it will. It will. This will monitor horizons.

Damon Alexander: [00:57:33] Next up, we have prosperous innkeeper, uh, coming out of adventures in the forgotten realms. This cart is one in a green for a one, one halfling citizen when prosperous it and keep her at ETBs you get a treasure token, and whenever another creature enters the battlefield under your control, you gain a life.

What do you guys think of our perhaps very first halfling citizen.

David Robertson: [00:57:54] It’s kind of an interesting card. So if you have to, man, it basically functions as a one man, uh, um, soul sister, right? Like a martyr, because you can always get that man a back if you need it, if you don’t need it though, it can be like a ramp card on the next turn, I guess doesn’t trigger on your opponents creatures.

So I think in terms of the non-rotating formats, it’s just a near miss, but I think it’s going to be a little more powerful than we think. And if you have synergies with treasures or the life game, um, it might actually be playable.

Damon Alexander: [00:58:25] Yeah. Well, what jumps out to me is that this card ramps you from two to four was lets you cast collected company.

So what sort of life gain deck wants to play collects with company a and there are decks like that such as Green white Heliod terror of modern, as we know it, where that deck, you know, it likes to champions because those are very good against, uh, you know, one of the other top decks and modern this card is obviously, you know, on the battlefield now is, goes all react champion.

But maybe that little bit of ramp, uh, is good enough that you appreciate the life gain to make your Heliod synergies better.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:58:56] Huh? That’s interesting. Yeah. As a man, Manor producer is so much worse than mana elves on either one or two men, uh, that I was thinking you would only want this. If you had like some specific shenanigan you were trying to achieve with the treasure token, like, um, Indomitable creativity or something, or shape Anew, but then like those decks don’t care about the life gain.

The only deck I could think of that might want both effects was like the Jund food that sometimes plays bullets, a Citadel, where once you have this little down. Uh, this life can and do it. It could be kind of nice and I’m definitely interested in revisiting shape and new, I realized the other day that, you know, we never actually tried shape Anew with gingerbread Cabin, um, after Eldraine came out.

And that seems like it should be good enough. So yeah, maybe I’ll be playing a little Hobbit friend in that deck. We’ll we’ll see.

David Robertson: [00:59:44] Well, now we can do it with Prismari command and we don’t have to torture our mana base for no reason.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:59:49] Uh, but, but I want to do it off a fetch land.

David Robertson: [00:59:54] You don’t want to Indomitable creativity with prosperous innkeeper in your deck, but I take your point, your point about shape and new as well.

I think,

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [01:00:03] yeah, we also kind of glossed over that. Um, there’s a, there was a universe as beyond initiative that was announced a month or two ago, I guess this is our first look at what the Lord of the rings set might look like stylistically. Uh, that will be a standard legal set sometime in the future.

We’re going to have halflings

David Robertson: [01:00:21] yeah. And maybe a magical ring equipment. Yeah. Ring of Maruf, reprint speculate now.

Damon Alexander: [01:00:28] Okay. Yeah. One thing we do learn with his card is that in the magic world, it pays more to be a pirate than an innkeeper because both a prosperous innkeeper and prosperous pirates give you treasures.

But one gives you two treasures and is a three-four

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [01:00:42] crime pays. All right. So the next cars that were previewed, or maybe less likely to impact our formats, let’s run through them very quickly. We have a black kill spell power word kill one in a black instance, destroy target, non angel and non demon, non devil, non Dragon creature.

Yeah. Off the top of my head. This kills most things in modern, but I probably still wouldn’t play it. Yeah,

David Robertson: [01:01:06] I think this card is just worse than victim of night. And I don’t understand why they did that to an iconic Dungeons and dragons spell. But this is what happens when you just cannibalize IP for a corporate synergy for the DND players out there, level Six, spell power, word, kill, no saving, throw kills a creature under I forget what the base hit Dias.

It changes a edition to edition, but yeah, I mean, there are dragons. That’s a play like this can’t kill the visits. This can’t kill ’em the three-three devil. I mean, there’s like legitimate creatures that this misses on kills the Strider.

Damon Alexander: [01:01:38] It doesn’t kill Korvold either. I guess

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [01:01:41] I can’t wait to see what Avada Kedavra does.

All right. Next up is the Buy a Box promo. It is a equipment Vorpal sword. Damon. Tell us about the Vorpal sword.

Damon Alexander: [01:01:51] Yeah. So this is a single black for a piece of equipment. Uh, the gives equip creature gets plus two plus hours and deaths touch equip for black, black. And then if you can muster together five black, black, black, you can make it so that until end of term, Vorpal sword gains, whenever a quick creature of deals can be matched to a player that player loses the game.

So it’s not like they just credit card or their hand, or you draw a card or you, you know, sort of lay in the shadow, whatever that card does, they lose the game.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [01:02:24] So if you’re playing commander, would you rather have them lose the game or would you rather draw card

Damon Alexander: [01:02:28] Q a meme with 25 cards in hands?

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [01:02:32] Well, there’s still, all the other players are still alive. I’d rather just have a card, right.

Damon Alexander: [01:02:37] And all it takes to activage. This is three diamond lions.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [01:02:41] Uh, okay. So for one-on-one this card is actually not that far off of Basilisk Collar, which you used to see someplace. That was one the cast to, to equip Grant’s death touch on life link. This is one to cast, two to equip.

Although it’s only in black matter, you get the death touch and you get a nice, both literal power boost. Am I created, I think this is like sort of playable.

David Robertson: [01:03:04] I think when that w the combination you’re talking about was playable modern was a little bit different. Um, I think the formats are much more powerful now, but, uh, I liked the flavor for people who don’t play D and D Vorpal sword was a weapon.

When you critically strike your opponent, you actually be had them. Um, so I think this is a really cool way to bring that flavor to the D and D set.

Damon Alexander: [01:03:26] Holy Kevin’s just, and he said, it’s really hitting with you, David, all these things you’re saying, I just have no idea. I’ve never cast a power word kill in my life.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [01:03:35] I didn’t know you were a D and D player, David. I’m actually doing my first campaign ever. Right now. I’m like a few sessions in, and I have no idea what I’m doing.

David Robertson: [01:03:43] So many, many, many levels you will eventually perhaps acquire a Vorpal sword. I don’t think this is playable. Um, I think that’s why it’s, uh, the history of box promo rares is that they’re not often that playable and when they are, it’s a mess.

It’s exactly. It’s a terrible, terrible shame.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [01:04:01] All right. Last card. Tiamat, legendary creature, Dragon, God, apparently this is a Dungeons and dragons thing. I was thinking of like, you know, the old Testament and the Babylonian sea goddess, but apparently this is also a Dragon and Dungeons and dragons to WUBRG.

So that’s white, blue, black, red, green, seven men, a total for seven, seven flying. When Tiamat enters the battlefield. If you cast it, you get to do something cool. If you turn it into play, you do not get to do anything. Cool. And it was just a 77 flying. So right there, I mean, that’s basically not going to be playable.

What do you actually get? If you do cast this for seven, you search your library for up to five Dragon cards, not named Tiamat with different names, reveal them and put them into your hands. So that’s like the second strike against it. It doesn’t put them in a play. It just like draws some dragons. So I don’t think this actually offers anything for one-on-one.

David Robertson: [01:04:55] Yeah, I agree. It’s a much worse, uh Niv-Mizzet uh, which is unfortunate. Tiamat was kind of the big, bad, uh, and forgotten realms. And she was actually a chromatic Dragon, uh, that had each species of Dragon as part of her heads, uh, black, blue, green, red, and white. So it like weirdly fits perfectly into the magic color scheme.

I am not saying they needed to like push the power on this more, but I wish it had a little bit more, uh, applicability. I don’t even think this will be very playable in standard, which is a shame.

Damon Alexander: [01:05:26] Well, the questions will be playable and commander.

David Robertson: [01:05:28] Well, I think any five color card is playbook competitor because it just lets people play whatever bus itself they want and putting, you know, 10 dragons that she can turn her up at various points.

Pretty reasonable.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [01:05:39] Yeah. That seems to be for commander. And that’s important. I mean, this magic’s most popular formats, the success of the game hinges in large part on whether people like their commander cards and want to keep buying a magic product.

David Robertson: [01:05:51] Yeah. I’m not sure why they added this. When it enters the battlefield, like the conditional clause, like Niv-Mizzet does not have that, but this needs that like is tutoring five dragons to your hand.

If you cheated into play that crazy, I don’t think that’s even that powerful.

Damon Alexander: [01:06:06] Well, you can go like a nameless in version, which is like a cheap kill, spell Crib Swap.

David Robertson: [01:06:12] If someone starts tutoring on nameless Inversion and cribs swap, I do think that modern will start to buckle under the weight. So two mana plus three minus three.

What the hell is the whole format got, man.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [01:06:26] Okay. So 10 cards of five Modern horizons, five from Dungeons and dragons. We had a lot to talk about. I think we’ll call it there for today. Obviously we’re going to be revisiting these cards when we actually have a chance to play them in just a few weeks time.

David Robertson: [01:06:43] Sounds good gentlemen, talk to you later.

Damon Alexander: [01:06:45] Yeah. See it.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [01:06:47] That’s a wrap on episode 13 of Strixhaven season tuning on Sunday for you brews with Galazeth, Prismari and expressive iteration. Plus testing results with sedge more, which support for this podcast is provided by brewers Lake Hughes. If you like what we do, be assertive.

Join our community@patreon.com slash Faithless to discord access bonus content. Ambusher that’s all for today. Stay safe and we’ll see you next time.