....and here...we....go! Registration for The Classic on Nov 8th is live! As part of Invitational Weekend, all profits will go towards benefiting @translifeline.org ! We have much more to unveil as we get closer, but use this time to pre-reg! Link below! https://melee.gg/Tournament/View/363882

Quick theory crafting on Pick 2 draft, bc evaluating Spider cards sounds horrid -Signals volatile, easy for someone to take 2 and pivot under you, more trainwreck tables -Anchoring 1 color early, soft forcing high value, getting 4 good Green cards Pack 1 + 4 Green 1st picks P2&3 hits playable count

Is it the Spiderman set's fault for filling the file with 40 basically identical Spidermen, or the comic source material's fault for unable to change the timeless Spiderman character and telling the same idle "Uncle Ben dies, Peter pays rent, web sling a weird dude" story for 60 years?

Going to be cautiously pessimistic bc FF was better in packs than as a card file, but the Spiderman set looks like everything potentially bad about UB products stitched together. Contract limitations, source material issues, over designing for punchlines over content, etc.

if wotc cared about entrenched players they would find a way to make me 5 years old again and also give me a huuuuuge lollipop

Using whatever authority this gives me to tell you all to cut every Illvoi Galeblade from your decks. Absolutely psychotic they printed split card Mulligan/Mana Short Yourself and people submit decks with multiples.

Turns out EOE is more fun and skill intensive than 80% of draft formats released in the last 3 years. All it had to do was be a basic draft format where attacking and blocking with commons decides games, and players can run out of cards that matter.

My strong EOE draft opinions: Godmaw and Terrapact are more B- than B+. Godmaw's Hoof insta win promise is usually more 7 drop that wins in a turn with 7 drop liabilites, making the right Terrapact choice usually limits from being game dominating and 2nd Lander rarely matters.

Oops the best enablers for the Boros 2 tapped creature mechanic in EOE draft are Green - Gene Pollinator Blue - Tractor Beam their Boros payoff

Design lesson from EOE draft: Adventure and Warp aren't good at on-curve filling or reducing land variance. Thats a job for Kicker or Flashback. They are really good at letting you maintain mana efficiency in midgames though, and thats part of why EOE is so aggressive

Think I finally pinpointed the thing I liked the least about Final Fantasy Limited, and why Edge of Eternity feels refreshing. In FF the good commons are almost all card selection and removal, exception of White. In EOE, theres a lot more bodies and tricks in that mix

Really important piece of the one-off throwback designs from EoE: they just work out of context. Double strike especially important on the Sliver design, instantly gets over the "I dont have other Slivers" stop with "but 2 double strikers is sick"

Everyone is complaining about preview fatigue, but there have been 0 previews for Legally Distinct Arachnoid Human set for digital Magic platforms.

the average redditor can beat a bear in a fight

Either the Legend rule is changing, or Spiderman draft is going to get weird. No idea how a table full of people drafting Lutri-lite to dodge common legend duplicates is going to work out

Small N, high win rate (85%, 10ish drafts) in Vintage cube this run with relatively low Power counts. -Stop passing Psychic Frog, also Dimir great -Legacy trends have transferred, best combo setups are easily hybridized into fair shells -More about best cards than best decks -Splash G, dont play G

Making the flashiest big flying rares in your Spaceship set just normal Angels and Dragons really implies you have no faith in that mechanic. Rest of the set looks better than the Station mechanic tho.

My final FF Limited hot take is that Dragoon's Wyvern is overrated. I might even have it down as 4th or 5th favorite blue common. Lot of minor reasons adding up here, but it is largely the format forcing U into early defense > proactive bulky end game, and Wyvern is just OK at both of those.

I think the big gap with Oops is how surface level it is similar to Belcher, so it gets a surface level pass, but in practice its not remotely the same experience. It's much closer to asking "What if every Epic Storm combo line was a 4 mana instant kill"

Would have biased towards Talent (1 cost and still loops) over This Town (you made Peel from Reality good, plz clap), skeptical of 3 years of Stock Up, but Standard fixes are good. Banning Tibalt's Trickery in the 47th format but saying Oops is OK is a bad look tho

I think the reason FF draft isn't going to hit all timer status for me is a broader lesson that Living Weapon style equipments really constrain end games in a format. They are all balanced well, but the mechanic fundamentally forces every deck to have an assertive end game.

The whole "capitalism format" stuff is nonsense. The actual story is this format has older origins that have been incidentally destroyed via changes to Booster structure and Organized play, and the version "brought to market" has to exist as a shell of itself as a result.

This is the coolest shit ever for anyone who remembers what a Magic Online Daily event was

I think a lot of the UB fatigue from the Final Fantasy set comes from the set size increase overlapping with the exposure of previews/visual spoilers. Look at a pack IRL/on draft sim and the vibes are so much better, or in game compare how intrusive Sepiroth is vs The One Ring.

in 2015, competitive players loved Goblin Guide. in 2025, competitive players only want Sideboard Guide

Bloomburrow to Tarkir is definitely one of the all timer set design runs. Has a weak offering in the middle like all of the others, but really impressive how every set has panned out.

Hearing the complaints about this Standard format like its a cascading design failure is kinda wild on a long scale 1. The last time aggro was close to this good in Standard was 7 years ago, Venerated Loxodon. 2. Pretty sure the last format this polarized was the last time Titans were legal.

Sway of the Stars vs Gifts Ungiven is a great example of how systemic waste is allowed to flourish. Almost certain the later unban costs an order of magnitude more of human life hours, but Sway takes the heat.

Just non-stop MODO wins these days -Can't tariff a digital product -Don't have to learn if Amazing Spiderman is the 4 drop or 5 drop -Still get to ride chocobos -Bugged rulings are consistently wrong, unlike judges -Opponents cant cheat you, also apparently unlike judges

my brief okcupid affair with a world champion One Piece TCG player: This story sounds mean. It’s about a girl judging another girl because she’s a nerd (like so many of us!) that she met on OkCupid. But that’s the point: Judging people on shallow stuff is human nature

Interesting extreme version of this, translated from WoWTCG: You are playing Rakdos Midrange. Nexus of Fate is also legal, with a "win every round 1-0" level of win con slowness. There are no draws, every match ends with life totals/sudden death if time and extra turns expire in Game 3.

Well, at least there's no tariffs on importing decklists to MODO yet.

No Modern changes until September due to RCQ season is so much worse than any complaints about Standard.

Also very strongly over Lurrus in Vintage. The more I play, the more I see the card either not matter but cost nothing to include, or it is all that matters and enables the exact worst of what it historically has to offer.

"Why don't players just go play Modern" The Modern they built-

Here in the waning hours of B&R discourse season to promote my view that Pod unban in Modern is washed, Survival unban in Legacy would be the new hotness. open.spotify.com/episode/6ygb...

In the vein of "the PT is a unicorn example of trickle down economics", it appears Arena Opens are now an example of taxation as theft.

Even ignoring Breach, its really insane how all the unban Opal, unban Looting good will towards Modern lasted 4 weeks and was promptly consumed by MH3 again.

Wondering what percent of the time that I've attacked with Wishcoin Crab it was a better attacker as 2/5 than it would have been as a 5/2. It might be over 50%

Sick design in context of Llanowar Elves in Standard. Really context driven on play/draw, specific matchup, their lands whether getting to this a turn early is even good

I'm now saying the Dragon eye basics are bad.

Pretty sure Stock Up in Vintage is being overrated as combo setup and underrated as Time Walk, where it just finds FoW + blue card or an equivalent every time

New thinker from the Dominaria's Judgment discord, via United Battlefront hitting Lotus Bloom. Obviously Lotus Bloom is still good at Suspend 3 and would be cracked at Suspend 2. Would Sol Talisman be playable at Suspend 2? Would Mox Tantalite be too good at Suspend 1?

>Get dog sat >Go on walk >Other dog stops to pee >Run away >Break into taco restaurant >Apprehended by the National Guard >Would do it again >Can I eat your lunch

Are you more of a secular Yargle Day observer, or are you in for the full gluttony? open.spotify.com/episode/4qMf...

All I have to say about Spongebob is the fact that @jkyu06.bsky.social 's Snoopy Goyfs are still banned from tournament play is a travesty.

Northernlion voice: once you start filling a 1099 for magic income you're no longer a magic player. You're a corporation. Okay? I just mean you have to be gentle to yourself.