[Off-Topic] Community Chat Thread

[DirkGently]

@TheAmericanSpirit There's limited fodder and there's limited fodder. Like Spider-UK would be a pretty boring commander, but you could do it if you wanted to. But Swarm, Being of Bees is actual garbage. Most sets (though I guess we'll see going forward into this wonderful hellscape of UB) don't have many hard-Fs like Swarm. This set had quite a few, mostly because of all the commons, though there are some (like Vulture, Scheming Scavenger) at uncommon as well. But there are also legends at uncommon, like Green Goblin, Revenant that are actually pretty strong, so I wouldn't want to paint all legends of a certain rarity with the same brush. Ultimately you need the bad ones to highlight the good ones, this set just has a lot of bad ones.

Magic being as compartmentalized as it is, I don't expect people reading an article about commander to care about limited. I'll mention it offhandedly but I don't think it's worth going into the weeds trying to do a limited-resources-style set review for just a few mediocre cards (I mean, if someone was paying me to write a separate article evaluating the set for limited, I would do that, but I think that market is already saturated tbh).

[Rumpy5897]

From my perspective, covering the dregs makes sense. Legendary is legendary, the stuff will end up on edhrec, some folks will build them for hipster street cred. You can dismiss them very promptly and fail them, but they should still exist in the write-up.

[DirkGently]

Gbu article for Spider-Man is up for anyone interested 🥳

[RxPhantom]

This set is total anus. On one hand, being apathetic toward UB means that I get to opt out of perpetual hype for a while, but it also means that proper Magic sets really need to hit the mark. Lorwyn Eclipsed has a lot riding on it, for me anyway.

I'm sorry I haven't been here in a while. Life is getting in the way. But I have been playing the Nexus Forge games that @Feyd_Ruin put up a couple of months ago. I really like them.

[Hermes_]

Calling it done, Panzer III French village

[5colorsrainbow]

This set is total anus. On one hand, being apathetic toward UB means that I get to opt out of perpetual hype for a while, but it also means that proper Magic sets really need to hit the mark. Lorwyn Eclipsed has a lot riding on it, for me anyway.

The Lorwyn/Shadowmoor 2 does have a lot riding on it imo. It will go to show higher ups if settings that flopped the first time can be redone or if Kamigawa 2.0 was a postive fluke.

[TheGildedGoose]

Anyone have any good recommendations on a commander that takes work to make them payoff? Something like Kosei, Penitent Warlord , non-combo Mairsil, the Pretender, or even Phage the Untouchable? I'm trying to build a deck that satisfies my inner Johnny but is also good to sit down with at a casual table, and I figure handicapping myself by playing a terrible-but-fun commander might help with that.

[Dragonlover]

But I have been playing the Nexus Forge games that @Feyd_Ruin put up a couple of months ago. I really like them.

Its amazing how much harder a wordsearch is when you don't get the list of words. I also wish we could put pencil marks in the sudoku, but that's just cause I'm used to having them, I think there's been about 2 where its required.

Dragonlover

[Ruiner]

Anyone have any good recommendations on a commander that takes work to make them payoff? Something like Kosei, Penitent Warlord , non-combo Mairsil, the Pretender, or even Phage the Untouchable? I'm trying to build a deck that satisfies my inner Johnny but is also good to sit down with at a casual table, and I figure handicapping myself by playing a terrible-but-fun commander might help with that.

If you are interested in a starting point for Phage, my list is in my signature. It's always a fun little game of trying to assemble various puzzle pieces. You could crank up the difficulty and go tutorless if you like as well but it's already pretty rough even with tutors.

Recently I've been playing a Kain, Traitorous Dragoon deck that has been scratching a similar itch as well. It's not "good", but it is a weird deck. The goal of some people in my playgroup has been to kill me with my own commander, which adds a fun layer. I don't have any sort of list up for this as it is very much in flux at the moment.

[materpillar]

Anyone have any good recommendations on a commander that takes work to make them payoff? Something like Kosei, Penitent Warlord , non-combo Mairsil, the Pretender, or even Phage the Untouchable? I'm trying to build a deck that satisfies my inner Johnny but is also good to sit down with at a casual table, and I figure handicapping myself by playing a terrible-but-fun commander might help with that.

Depends a little on your definition of "casual". There's "friends who don't even know what the stack is" vs dirk with a precon.

Not sure if it'd scratch the Johnny itch but building one of the OG elder dragons is pretty cool and low power. They're slow but Vaevictis Asmadi will get people dead fairly fast unanswered without any help. I personally enjoy throwing Sword of Fire and Ice and Chromium quite a lot. They also get you so many style points.

Tivadar of Thorn is my weakest commander by far. The deck isn't my weakest, but Tivadar as a card certainly takes a lot of work to get off the ground. That deck is fun to give a spin but I think I've figured out literally every combo for him (there isn't many) so not a lot of room for exploration there.

I think I'd most highly recommend Lazav, the Multifarious though. He takes a lot of really janky cards and turns them playable. Bangers like Eater of Days. He's got a bunch of different ways to build him and can be anything from pure hilarious jank to cEDH adjacent.

[Jemolk]

Anyone have any good recommendations on a commander that takes work to make them payoff? Something like Kosei, Penitent Warlord , non-combo Mairsil, the Pretender, or even Phage the Untouchable? I'm trying to build a deck that satisfies my inner Johnny but is also good to sit down with at a casual table, and I figure handicapping myself by playing a terrible-but-fun commander might help with that.

I've built two of those. Phage is a lot of fun. You have to work pretty hard to get her out of the Command Zone, but there's several ways to do it, including things that say you can't lose, Sundial of the Infinite, Torpor Orb, and countering her to recur to hand. Also, Endless Whispers with Phage makes for a really strange interaction that no one ever sees coming.

Non-combo Mairsil, on the other hand, just turned out to be accidental bad stax. I actually added a Quicksilver Elemental to Mairsil so that its primary gameplan wouldn't be removal spam or, worse, Soul of New Phyrexia Nevinyrral's Disk setups with counter backup. It's clunky but obnoxious, and while I'm still fond of it, I don't play it very often for good reason.

[TheGildedGoose]

Right now I'm leaning towards Myra the Magnificent tokens or Sokrates, Athenian Teacher Pillowfort Owling Mine. Attractions suck and are silly but I can kill people with them. Sokrates is a unique attack angle that I think some newer players might appreciate.

EDIT: After talking it over with a friend I've decided to build a Bill and Ted deck based around Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis, with Sokrates, Athenian Teacher, Kellan, the Kid, and other cards to fit the other historical figures. May God have mercy on me.

[DirkGently]

My prerelease pool was probably the craziest I've had in years. My first pack I cracked Anti-Venom, Horrifying Healer. Nice money pull, but probably unplayable right? Second pack…anti-venom AGAIN. I then proceed to get almost all my rares in white and colorless. Played a manabase of 14 plains with a forest plus land search for a green splash of uncommons, and a cheeky island to flip Peter Parker // Amazing Spider-Man (which I managed twice though it didn't do much - never got to chain anti-venoms, boo).

Anyway went 3-0. Deck was sweet, no mana problems ever. MVP Iron Spider, Stark Upgrade, insanely strong for a colorless card.

[folding_music]

tried playing the FF14 MMO so I could better enjoy the Final Fantasy set and be less whiny about it. mmm it's just one big addiction trap. seven different crafting jobs with individually tracked levels that allow you to craft new equipment which slightly increment your crafting ability or your ability to gather crafting materials from the wild (there's three jobs for that, too, and you can switch between them at will) as well as keeping track of your warrior class so you can go into the wild and collect materials that only enemies drop. if you like number going up it is one big mean flytrap. along with booster packs I think we should ban games based on old graphical muds >:)

and all the quest dialog has been localized to english in an overly verbose and linguistically dated way, for some reason? it was kinda like that in FFXII, but tolerable cos it was full of characters who were or used to be knights and they spoke with gravity and pride. but here they're seemingly trying to model every accent on the british isles into text and it's absolute torture. it makes you feel guilty for skipping all this text people have put a lot of work into but it takes me out. there's honestly no reason for it to be so anglo

[DirkGently]

Is the forum working again?

Right now I'm debating between 4 commanders from SPM:

Araña, Heart of the Spider - Instead of focusing on a heavy modified-creature-synergy plan, I would focus on using Arana as a pretty standalone value piece that gives CA and board presence for a low price. The only awkward part is the my default "I have a lot of extra slots because my game plan is compact" thing is to stick in a bunch of interaction, which is kinda clunky with Arana since she can only cast until eot. So any interaction needs to be cast as a sorcery, which kinda sucks.

Sandman, Shifting Scoundrel - Another solid standalone piece, he's a giant evasive beater that's unkillable and ramps you. Also synergizes with any sac lands. Probably either going mono-green control with a lot of lands, or go balls-walls and go 99 lands for the memes. Running a bunch of sac outlet lands to use him as an engine.

Sun-Spider, Nimble Webber - Ok I know we just had Cloud, Midgar Mercenary and then Kellan, the Fae-Blooded // Birthright Boon a few years back, but I think Sun-spider might actually be the superior version of this build thanks to having blue in the CI. Voltron is a slow and, let's be real, pretty crappy strategy, so having counterspells to protect yourself and dismantle enemy wincons while you slowly kill them is very clutch. Also the etb tutor has some big advantages with blink compared to Kellan, and makes Sword of Hearth and Home the guaranteed first tutor every game I'd imagine.

Iron Spider, Stark Upgrade - I'm not big on colorless builds but this does kinda do it all. I'd mostly be going wide with artifact tokens and 0-1 mana dorks to hold counters as efficiently as possible for the draw power. Not the most original thing, but I haven't done much colorless, and also the card just seems super sick from my experience with it so far.

MOST IMPORTANTLY, though, for all of them (except sandman) I have a perfect alter idea for all these human spiders: Chaos Witch Quelaag.

[tstorm823]

When I clicked the notification that someone had posted here, it took me to one of the early pages for whatever reason, and it was a bunch of introductions cause of the new site, and I genuinely thought all of you were just goofs committed to a bit now that we're back up.

[Rumpy5897]

It seems the read post history got reset. I just manually opened the last page of each thread showing up on the first page of my involved threads list, and now I get to see actual new posts as they appear. And we're not 503'ing anymore. Thanks Feyd!

[RxPhantom]

Brain dump time!

- Vaccines are great and everyone should get them.
- Acetaminophen (paracetamol if you're nasty) has not actually been linked to autism.
- After enjoying an Arena Brawl deck with them at the helm, I think I want to build Sami, Wildcat Captain in paper. Now I just need to find more big stupid Boros/colorless/X spells.
- I really wish there was a good Magic/CommandFest around me at all this year.
- Landfall decks are for beginners.
- Alien: Earth is pretty cool. It's nice to see the IP on the upswing.
- Everyone thinks the Nickelodeon announcement will be TMNT, but I'm calling it now:

SPOILER

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Tommy Pickles is coming to %$#% your %$#% up.

[Lifeless]

Hit me with an Ixalan set crossover with Legends of the Hidden Temple and we've got a deal.

[RxPhantom]

Hit me with an Ixalan set crossover with Legends of the Hidden Temple and we've got a deal.

Azor discovers Olmec's disembodied head deep in a forgotten Orazca temple, brings it to a trusted artificer, and is finally given a body to match. Remembering all the times his crypt was plundered by orange monkeys, silver snakes, purple parrots and other colorful animals, he goes tearing through the core of Ixalan, up to the less interesting surface of Ixalan, where he wages unspeakable atrocities on the goblins of the plane, as they resemble the monkeys he detests so much. The goblins' pirate compatriots come to their aid, but it is no use. Olmec crushes them effortlessly.

With his bloodlust sated, Olmec sits among the viscera of his vanquished foes, quietly contemplating his existence. "What now? Why am I here? Is my existence only rage?"

Before he could spare another thought for himself, he heard an odd voice say "Hasta la vista, baby" followed immediately by an explosion in the back of his head, Jarred, he sprang to his feet to find himself surrounded by several imposing men. He noticed that they all had similar builds despite having wildly different attire. One of them, in sunglasses and a brown trenchcoat began walking toward him, peppering him with shrapnel from a device in his hands.

"Who are you!?" cried Olmec.

"I'm the party pooper," he replied.

Olmec's rage reignited. Before the Party Pooper could fire again, Olmec grabbed the device and violently shoved it through his attacker's skull.

"Ice to see you!" said the Party Pooper, but before Olmec could figure out why the man with a hole for a face was still speaking, he found his leg had been frozen solid in a block of ice. Standing before him in a garish silver armor, equally shiny magical ice blaster, and unsettling, oddly glittering alabaster skin, was the Party Pooper. But it wasn't him exactly. It was then realized that all of these men were the same person, or, at least looked and sounded like the same person. He looked around. One in leather and sunglasses holding a device similar to the Party Pooper's. Another in only a loincloth with a massive sword. And yet another shirtless one covered in mud. Perhaps the most odd doppelganger was one he could barely make out in the middle distance. Perhaps it was the haze of battle, but is he...pregnant?

Wanna find out how the story ends? Wizards of the Coast is pleased to announce:

Ixalan X Legends of the Hidden Temple X Schwarzenegger!

January 2026*

*Lorwyn Eclipsed now releasing 2028. Get rekt nerds!

[materpillar]

- Alien: Earth is pretty cool. It's nice to see the IP on the upswing.

I just finished it myself. I thought it was good but not great. It's way better than I thought it was going to be though for sure. I had some pretty rock bottom expectations.

[DirkGently]

Why are the welcome deck cards worth so much? Stores give them away for free, plus they're terrible. Doesn't make any sense.

Ghost-Spider, Gwen Stacy wouldn't be impressive as a common ffs.

[Lifeless]

- Alien: Earth is pretty cool. It's nice to see the IP on the upswing.

I just finished it myself. I thought it was good but not great. It's way better than I thought it was going to be though for sure. I had some pretty rock bottom expectations.

Alien had nowhere to go but up really, and the last few outings at least try to travel some new ground although they're both a bit too mired in past bad ideas imo. Earth was solid by most measures and could be something really special if studio meddling is left to a mininum and they get a couple more seasons.

Now Predator, on the other hand, is currently cooking at historic levels.

[Hermes_]

Why are the welcome deck cards worth so much? Stores give them away for free, plus they're terrible. Doesn't make any sense.

Ghost-Spider, Gwen Stacy wouldn't be impressive as a common ffs.

Ghost spider/spider gwen/gwen stacy is a popular character at least that's what i'm guessing is driving the price of that card

[DirkGently]

All of them are pricey though, while the main-set versions are normal prices.