Cavern of Souls Naming Phyrexian in Standard
     Well, here we are. This is a thing - writing a Magic: The Gathering article about a Standard format - that I did not anticipate myself doing again, but here we are.     For those of you who don't know me, my name is Frank Lepore, and I was a Magic pro for about a decade. I started writing articles for TCGplayer in 2009 before leaving in 2016. I've written for nearly every other site as well, along with having a Pro Tour and a Grand Prix Top 8. In the past few years I've evolved into a game designer, but I was laid off in 2023…along with thousands upon thousands of others, if you've been keeping up with the industry news.     I've known Jake, who owns the site, for probably around seven years now. He had some things at his store that I wanted, and he asked me if I wanted to write an article or two for them.      So here we are.  It's kind of like riding a bike in that it's both painful and awkward, but you never really forget how to do it, I guess. I'm going to post a decklist now, so buckle in. Creatures (24) 2 Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal 3 Archfiend of the Dross 4 Deep-Cavern Bat 2 Glissa Sunslayer 4 Mosswood Dreadknight 4 Preacher of the Schism 3 Sentinel of the Nameless City 2 Tranquil Frillback Spells (11) 1 Bitter Triumph 3 Cut Down 1 The End 3 Gix's Command 3 Go for the Throat Lands (25) 1 Boseiju, Who Endures 4 Deathcap Glade 4 Llanowar Wastes 4 Restless Cottage 1 Takenuma, Abandoned Mire 5 Forest 6 Swamp Sideboard (15) 3 Duress 1 The End 3 Liliana of the Veil 3 Nissa, Ascended Animist 4 Path of Peril 1 Tranquil Frillback      This is a list I found that went 5-0 in a League on Magic Online. Yes, I still play Magic Online over MTG Arena both because I'm a boomer, and because I think it's a better, less flashy interface. It's also infinitely easier (and cheaper) to acquire cards in my experience. And when I'm done, I can sell those cards for real money. I also like older formats, like Pioneer and Modern, but I digress.  The point is this deck went 5-0 in a Standard League.      But not in my hands.  In my hands it went a frustrating 1-4. I was about to give up on it, thinking that its winning record was a fluke, but I knew that the deck had been putting up decent results on occasion. I also knew after playing the deck for five rounds that there were a good amount of things I wanted to change. This was the deck I eventually played. Creatures (25) 2 Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal 2 Archfiend of the Dross 4 Deep-Cavern Bat 2 Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor 2 Glissa Sunslayer 3 Preacher of the Schism 3 Sentinel of the Nameless City 4 Sharp-Eyed Rookie 1 Sheoldred 2 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse Spells (10) 2 Bitter Triumph 3 Cut Down 1 Gix's Command 2 Go for the Throat 1 Nissa, Ascended Animist 1 Virtue of Persistence Lands (25) 1 Boseiju, Who Endures 2 Cavern of Souls 4 Deathcap Glade 3 Llanowar Wastes 4 Restless Cottage 1 Takenuma, Abandoned Mire 3 Forest 7 Swamp Sideboard (15) 3 Duress 2 The End 2 Liliana of the Veil 2 Nissa, Ascended Animist 3 Path of Peril 3 Tranquil Frillback      I'll go over all the changes in a minute, but here are some matches of the deck in action!      While I touch on some changes while describing the deck in the videos, I'll go over some of the larger ones here. -IN-       Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor  - I was actually shocked this wasn't in the first version. It turns every one of your creatures in a Phyrexian Arena trigger, and after a turn one bat, it's chef's kiss. If Gix isn't better than Preacher of the Schism, he's at least on par with it. Activating his “ultimate” with a handful of duds is also a very real thing.       Sharp-Eyed Rookie  - Every time I played with Mosswood Dreadknight, I just wasn't pleased with it. I never wanted to cast it as a creature without drawing a card first, even when I knew that was the better play. I also didn't like that, when it died, I had to draw the card within one turn.      In my experience, Sharp-Eyed Rookie could regularly find itself as a 4/4 that granted two clue tokens, which just feels better to me. If the Rookie survives to turn three, it's almost impossible to not “draw a card,” since every creature above it will trigger its ability.       Sheoldred, the Apocalypse  - I also don't know why this card wasn't in the deck. She's one of the best cards in Standard, and we can certainly cut Archfiend of the Dross to fit in a couple of Sheoldreds. She also has the added benefit of offsetting some of the life loss from Gix as well.       Sheoldred  - I think this Sheoldred just seems good. Making them sacrifice a creature or planeswalker can be backbreaking against the right deck, and there are tons of decks in Standard that end up having eight cards in their graveyard, so transforming her isn't impossible.       Nissa, Ascended Animist  - This Nissa just takes over games, and I felt like the deck just wanted a more expensive card to sink your mana into. Nissa is a great one to cast on turn five, six, or seven, and she can even get rid of an artifact or an enchantment, doing a great Tranquil Frillback impression.       Cavern of Souls  - In the updated version of the deck, there are a surprising amount of Phyrexians. Nine to be exact. There are also six bats as well. -OUT-      Mosswood Dreadknight  - I mostly described the issue with this guy above.      Tranquil Frillback  - This guy was good, but I don't think it's worth a maindeck slot. Sometimes you just don't need one of its modes. That being said, I did move up to three in the sideboard, because being able to kill an artifact, enchantment, or graveyard, or multiple, can be super useful.      Gix's Command  - Every time I had this in hand, the modes just never solved my problems. I would either have one creature in the graveyard, or my opponent would have a bunch of three power creatures, or I would. Heck, 16 of our 24 creatures get killed by one of the modes! The stars just never aligned with this card. I think it is versatile enough to keep it as a one-of, but having three was far too slow and clunky.      I tweaked some of the other numbers in the deck as well, like swapping out one Go for the Throat for an additional Bitter Triumph to deal with planeswalkers, but a lot of the skeleton is the same. I also cut a good number of Forests to add more black sources. There are only 10 green cards in the original deck, none of which have GG in their costs. Meanwhile, there are 26 black cards, not including the adventure half of Dreadknight. Yet there were six Swamps in the deck and five Forests. The numbers just seemed off. So now we have seven Swamps and two Cavern of Souls, all of which should help with the sheer number of black cards in the deck, as well as the BB cards.      I thought this version of the deck was much more fun to play, and it felt a lot more powerful as well. It has a few more forms of card advantage in the main deck, which I felt like it was missing. Making Map tokens is great, but they're definitely not a form of card advantage.      Hopefully you guys can try it out and let me know what you think! Thanks a ton for reading/watching, and I'll see ya around! Frank LeporeTwitter, Twitch, YouTube: @FrankLepore
Begun the Clone Wars Has - Part 1: Primary Characters
     Star Wars: Shatterpoint by Atomic Mass Games has just been released, and epic duels in a galaxy far, far away are right at our fingertips! For those of you asking, “What’s Shatterpoint?” well, I’m glad you asked! It’s only the best skirmish miniatures game on the market! I don’t have the space to explain everything here, but please stop by the shop and we’ll happily play a demo game with you!      For those of you as excited for the game as me, you might be asking, “Which heroes or villains should I take to the battlefield?” or “Which characters are the best in the game?” While I don’t feel qualified yet to give a definitive answer to those questions, I do feel like I’ve obtained a decent grasp of various units' strengths and weaknesses. Hopefully this quick guide will help you in making the tough choices regarding which characters to put on your table, whether playing at home or at an event! Today, I will be sharing brief thoughts on the primary characters from the first wave of releases.  Anakin      Strengths: Best offensive unit in the game. Can gain you extra momentum. Has excellent movement options on one of his stances. The best part of his identity (scoring extra momentum) doesn’t care about key words, so I give him high flexibility in list building. Bringing 4 force points to the table is excellent.      Weaknesses: All displacement relies on dice, as he has no displacement force powers. Incredibly force hungry, plan on spending 3 each time you activate him, and he is often going to be your shatterpoint target. This means he pairs really well with Dooku to get a large force pool and force refresh. Highly defensive characters that can punish you for attacking them like Ashoka and Dooku check his power somewhat, though they aren’t straight up counters. Only having 7 points to build with limits the options of who you can bring with him. Ashoka      Strengths: Incredibly mobile, highly defensive, can ruin your opponents scoring with her identity giving her out of turn movement to get onto a point.The out of turn recovers on a key piece can be increĂble relevant as well. She has the potential to wound enemies on their turn with her reactionary abilities, but most of the time it will just be chip damage on them. Incredibly self contained, can be played with literally any other character in the game without losing on any of her synergies.      Weaknesses: Offense is pretty weak for a primary. Her control stance has less dice and a worse expertise than her damage, making it so she has little reliable control. Strain shuts her down hard, taking 3 damage to use her reactive abilities is brutal. Her own activation can sometimes feel a little lackluster, and all her best stuff happens on the other players turn. Doesn’t have a force jump to get on top of terrain. Lord Maul      Strengths: Almost has it all, guaranteed displacement that comes with a status condition, high damage, high mobility, excellent ranged and melee options. His force economy is amazing. The more damage he takes, the more consistent he becomes. A self contained unit that can go in any team.      Weaknesses: The one thing that I think keeps him from being the best in the game is that he only has 2 stamina, which means it’s reasonable for your opponent to remove him. He’s also not great at getting up elevation without a force power jump. Offers no synergy benefits to the rest of your team. Asajj      Strengths: Highly mobile, incredible displacement, and surprisingly good at recovering not just herself but her allies as well. Her identity lets her refresh force, which is excellent. A character that does a lot on her activation, making her a good shatterpoint target. Has powerful out of activation movement if you build your list around her.      Weaknesses: Frail defensively for a primary. Needs separatists/dathomirians around her to get the most out of her abilities, making her not as splashable. Very force hungry. Dooku      Strengths: Makes the rest of your army more mobile, has two very solid stances, and incredible defense. His identity is crazy good, in contention for the best. Refreshing force when your opponent wounds your units is amazing, it makes every unit you have better. Twice the Pride, Double the Fall, triggers may more than you think it would, as every block removes a strike from the dice pool. Additionally his 5 dice attacks tend to hit pretty decently as 1 expertise equates to 2 crits. Oh, and he comes with 4 force points.      Weaknesses: Bad at getting up elevation, and relatively slow for a primary. Lacks guaranteed displacement. All of that is somewhat made up for with early displacement on the stance with his absurd expertise. He also needs mostly separatists around him to be getting his full value, so he’s not very splashable. Other units can get splashed into a Dooku separatist list, but not Dooku into their lists. Obi-Wan      Strengths: Can hit hard consistently, mobile, and defensive. His identity is a powerful buff to your strike team, making everyone harder to kill. His order card manipulation is excellent, and he force economy is pretty decent, as he only needs to spend 1 force to have a full activation. Three shoves and a pin if you make it through his Ataru tree is incredible.      Weaknesses: Not super splashable, you really need to be playing galactic republic to take advantage of his identity. No guaranteed displacement, though that’s not a huge deal with how many dice he can roll with Ataru, which can easily result in many shoves.      If you feel I missed anything, found this article useful, or disagree with anything, please leave a comment or stop by the store to let me know! May the force be with you!-Samuel Sweeten
$50 Deck Tech - Anhelo, the Painter
     Back to the fun articles! Let’s do another $50 commander list, this time around a newish favorite of mine, Anhelo, the Painter. This ugly mug eats your small creatures to Casualty the first spell you cast each turn. So I tried to focus on having 2+ power creatures that want to die, big ol’ spells that make 2/2’s, and impactful instants and sorceries that would be fun to copy. To start off, here is the decklist itself: Commander (1) (1) Anhelo, the Painter Creatures (23) (1) Accursed Witch (1) Baral and Kari Zev (1) Boneclad Necromancer (1) Clone Shell (1) Cormela, Glamour Thief (1) Dire Fleet Hoarder (1) Diregraf Horde (1) Doomed Dissenter (1) Errant, Street Artist (1) Exultant Cultist (1) Filigree Familiar (1) Grixis Slavedriver (1) Guildsworn Prowler (1) Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia (1) Kingfisher (1) Lagomos, Hand of Hatred (1) Lucius the Eternal (1) Overseer of the Damned (1) Solemn Simulacrum (1) Squee, the Immortal (1) Talrand, Sky Summoner (1) Torrential Gearhulk (1) Youthful Scholar Sorceries (11) (1) Army of the Damned (1) Cruel Ultimatum (1) Dreadbore (1) Enter the God-Eternals (1) Expressive Iteration (1) Rags // Riches (1) Slave of Bolas (1) Stir the Sands (1) Syphon Flesh (1) Time Stretch (1) Twisted Justice Enchantments (3) (1) Cryptic Pursuit (1) Double Vision (1) Oversold Cemetery Instants (16) (1) Arcane Denial (1) Bedevil (1) Big Score (1) Blood for the Blood God! (1) Fact or Fiction (1) Far // Away (1) Grixis Charm (1) Hurl Through Hell (1) Kolaghan's Command (1) Maestros Charm (1) Magma Opus (1) Memory Plunder (1) Rona's Vortex (1) Silumgar's Command (1) Startle (1) Terminate Artifacts (5) (1) Birthing Boughs (1) Dimir Signet (1) Izzet Signet (1) Rakdos Signet (1) Sol Ring Lands (41) (1) Akoum Refuge (1) Bloodfell Caves (1) Choked Estuary (1) Command Tower (1) Crumbling Necropolis (1) Dismal Backwater (1) Foreboding Ruins (1) Frostboil Snarl (9) Island (1) Jwar Isle Refuge (9) Mountain (9) Swamp (1) Swiftwater Cliffs (1) Temple of Deceit (1) Temple of Epiphany (1) Temple of Malice (1) Xander's Lounge      I wanted to use this list to demonstrate the way I build commander decks. When I sit down to craft a new list I pick my commander first (obviously) then, depending on the budget, I put in my less than 3 CMC mana rocks and the fetches, shocks, and duals that apply. I try to have around 45 mana sources between the lands and rocks. I always do my lands first so I’m not tempted to cut a land at the end. Once my lands are taken care of I move on to: PLAN A      Plan A is the primary goal of the deck. Every card in the deck should lead towards that plan. In combo decks this would be your combo pieces along with ways to protect and acquire your combo. In this deck it is 2 power creatures with death triggers and giant instant and sorceries (and if those sorceries also make 2 power creatures, even better.)      Some of the more impactful cards in this section for the creatures are: Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia, Solemn Simulacrum, and Youthful Scholar. Jadar makes a never ending stream of fodder for Anhelo, along with his less effective buddies Diregraf Horde and Overseer of the Damned. Solemn Simulacrum is a card I usually do not put in my commander decks anymore. He is usually a little too slow and clunky for most of my decks but this is exactly the type of deck he’s perfect in, he plays into the synergy and puts me up two cards quickly.      Youthful Scholar is a piece of draft chaff I’m going to assume most of you haven’t played before. It was pretty awesome in Khans of Tarkir draft because of all the Exploit and it will be good here for exactly the same reasons. Turning him into an extra copy of your spells and two additional cards is perfect here (along with his less successful versions Kingfisher and Clone Shell)      When it comes to upgrading this particular part of the deck there aren't a whole lot of impactful upgrades, most of the cards you want are dirt cheap. You could run Drivnod, Carnage Dominus to double up on the dies triggers, but ultimately you want cheap creatures with dies triggers that either replace themselves or do some on board damage.      The second part of this deck’s Plan A is the fun part: the big sorceries. You get the big thumpers like Cruel Ultimatum, Magma Opus, and my personal favorite spell in the deck Time Stretch. But you cannot run a deck on 7+ mana spells, you need the 2-5’s to keep yourself alive until that happens: Enter the God Eternals, Hurl Through Hell, and Wrecking Ball will keep your opponents off your back and give you the velocity to end up winning the game.      Breaking the budget on this section is where you can really decide what you want this deck to be. If you fill the deck with expensive card draw spells I would pair it with something like Psychosis Crawler or one of the Blue/Red Niv Mizzets and start plinking your opponents to death. If you want to be an absolute psycho, fill the deck with extra turn spells and really make yourself a target in the next game you play. The first time you double (or triple or quadruple) resolve an Expropriate you will win on the spot.      The final part of Plan A are the cards that support your commander. In this deck’s case I couldn’t run a lot of the ones I wanted to because of the budget constraints. I was only able to fit three of them in and they are Errant, Street Artist, Double Vision, and Cormella, Glamour Thief. Errant makes your already silly commander ability even better. Getting another free copy of your Casualtied spells is when this deck really goes over the top, hitting each opponent with a Cruel Ultimatum or taking 6 extra turns with a time stretch is exactly what I want to be doing with this particular commander.      For upgrading this part you get some of the more expensive pieces I wasn’t able to put in. Twinning Staff, Chandra, Hope’s Beacon, Storm Kiln Artisan (stupid $8 uncommons), Veyran, Voice of Duality and Archmage Emeritus being just a few of the more powerful options (there are actually about 2 dozen copy spell upgrades you could play but I don’t want to just list them all). I would stay away from one shot copy effects like Fork and Dual Caster Mage. I would prefer to have the ones that trigger over and over again.      Now that we have Plan A covered we can move on to the part of a commander deck no one really likes:   THE INTERACTION:       I am a firm believer in the fact that every commander deck should have about 1/3 of its non-land cards be some kind of interaction. Ideally your cards benefit your Plan A and work as interaction, in this deck you have cards like Twisted Justice and Hurl Through Hell. Both of these cards are decent removal spells that give you some decent card advantage. Similarly cards like Syphon Flesh that I don’t usually like very much becomes a premium removal spell that gives you six more creatures to feed to Anhelo.      I also put lots of single target creature removal into the deck, something I don’t usually do, but with Anhelo’s ability working on each turn doubling up Terminate with a creature that doesn’t matter anymore makes it worth playing. I’m also running several artifact destruction spells to keep your opponents from getting too far ahead of your Grixis self. Things like Kolaghan’s Command and Bedevil keep the board clear so you can win with your, admittedly, stinky creatures.      Upgrading this bit gets expensive fast. Free counterspells, premium mass removal, and Cyclonic Rift will make this deck better but aren’t strictly necessary. This is one of the more powerful budget lists I’ve ever made because all of the synergy is so powerful. It relies pretty exclusively on the commander so keeping him alive should be a priority with things like Lightning Greaves, Deflecting Swat, and Darksteel Plate. The last section of a commander deck I look at is:   THE VALUE:      This is where I put the cards that don’t necessarily fit into any of the other categories. Rhystic Study, Fact or Fiction, Demonic Tutor, etc. This deck doesn’t have a lot of these cards since most of them are staples and on the expensive side. It also doesn’t need most of them because the synergies are so powerful. That’s not to say that you won’t benefit from running a Rhystic Study but with all the card draw in the deck and all the advantage you will get from your commander’s ability you really don’t need it.      The value pieces I did manage to put in are Torrential Gearhulk, Fact or Fiction, and Rags//Riches. I’m not 100% sold on the split card but getting to steal two creatures from each opponent seems pretty decent and getting to clean up hoi polloi while keeping your commander alive should be fine too.      I hope you’ve all enjoyed walking through how I build a commander deck and I hope Anhelo has given you some ideas for a new brew in the future. If you have any questions or comments about the list please drop them in the comments. -Adam Godfrey
March of the Machine's Limited Thought
     Magic players, it’s prerelease time, which means it’s time to review the newest set of Magic cards. I have some thoughts about these new cards and so I thought I’d share them with you all just in time for prerelease. This set seems incredibly fun and I’m super excited to get to cracking packs with all of you and start exploring a set of brand new mechanics.      On that note, let’s talk about one of those new mechanics, and it’s the one that everyone is most excited about. Battles! I’m not 100% sure how battles are going to play out. Am I supposed to take two or three turns off from killing my opponent to flip this card into something better? I just don’t know and that is what I am most looking forward to in this set is figuring out which of these are worth wasting combats on and which are not. I feel like Invasion of Belenon is one that I will want to be playing, since UW is Tribal Knights and a 3 mana 2/2 with vigilance isn’t too far below the curve.      The second of three new abilities in this set is Incubate. When you Incubate you put a non-creature artifact token into play with X +1/+1 counters on it. Then whenever you have priority you can pay 2 generic mana to transform it into a 0/0 Phyrexian creature. I think all of these cards are neat for limited because they all effectively say draw an X/X creature when you play this spell that costs 2 mana. Compleated Huntmaster is the premier uncommon for this ability in my opinion. It is a magnet for removal because your opponent will not be able to have attacks that accomplish anything until it is off the board. My intuition is every card with Incubate is better than it looks on first blush. The third, and last, new ability from March of Machines is Backup. If this format turns into a "curve out, kill you dead" format, it will be because of this ability. When a creature with Backup enters the battlefield, put a +1/+1 counter on a creature, it can be the creature with Backup itself, if it’s a different creature then that creature gets the rules text from the creature with Backup. It sounds super complicated but I think it will play very simply and intuitively. For my money the most dangerous not-rare for this ability is Bola Slinger. If you curve 2 drop into 3 drop into this thing, put the counter on the 2 drop and attack, your opponent is hurting badly. Especially if you follow this guy up with the 5 drop that Backups a creature with flying. Flying Bola Slinger seems like it would end the game very quickly. Pairing any of these cards up with any of the several cards in this set that care about counters being placed, or put more counters on, and you have a solid beating to deliver to your opponent.      Now that we have some of the basics out of the way, we can talk about the bugbear of limited for the last couple of sets: the speed of the format. Brother’s War and Phyrexia: All Will be One were both blisteringly fast sets, where the aggressive decks pushed out a lot of the interesting things you could do with the different archetypes. Compare them to Dominaria United, which is one of the slowest sets in recent memory, and all of the goofy stuff you could get up to with Domain and Spells Matter and Defender. None of those decks would fare particularly well in either BRO or ONE because you’d be dead long before you could get any of the pieces together.      For the returning abilities that some of you might not have had the pleasure to play with: Land Cycling is incredible and you want at least two in every limited deck. Good early and good late is everything you want in a card. Convoke is certainly just as powerful here as it has been in every Ravnica set, granted it’s Blue/White instead of Green but all of the Convoke cards are much better than they look just on the Vanilla Test.      Just looking at the cards I feel like this set will be on the slower, grindier, side of things. Between Battles and Incubate and the removal being both very good, and on the expensive side, this set seems like it will be whoever can generate the most advantage will end up winning. That’s not to say you can just durdle around and not do anything until turn three, there will still be assertive decks (think BW Knights, GW Backup, and the GR Battles decks) but if you can get your defensive speed up and running you should be able to make some pretty spectacular limited decks.      The last thing I want to talk about are some cards I think are traps. Cards that seem like they could or should be decent, but are probably not worth putting in your limited deck. Scroll Shift: I’m not 100% sure this card is a trap, but it seems like spending three mana on this effect is not where you want to be. There’s spinning your wheels and then there's actually doing nothing. Invasion of Vrynn: Same as with Scroll Shift. I don’t know the exact speed of the format, but if this card is actually good in MOM limited this will be one of the slowest formats ever. Etched Host Doombringer: From a couple cards I don’t know if they will be traps or not to a card I KNOW will be a trap. A 5 mana 3/5 is too far below rate anymore and Black isn’t a Battle color. If this card was Red I’d be a lot more likely to play it. Corrupted Conviction: This card, if you know what you’re doing and have a deck built to play it, rocks. If you don’t have those aforementioned things then you should probably leave this in your sideboard. Akki Scrapchomper: One drops are good in limited now, but this one isn’t. If you draw this on turn 7 it is a dead draw. The good one drops are the ones that are good at basically every part of the game or are super busted on turn one. This card is neither. Mirran Banesplitter: If you are ok playing a combat trick that is R:target creature gets +2/+0 then play this, my hunch is that you will almost never want this card. Crystal Carapace: Everyone loves putting expensive auras in their limited decks. Maybe don’t put this one in yours. Placid Rottentail: You have to really, really, really want a cheap dork to sacrifice for this card to be good. If you have three of the GW uncommon that gives extra counters to things have fun with your Fungus. Seed of Hope: This is a constructed card. Leave it in your sideboard.      I’m super excited to play this set. The prerelease should be outstanding! Game Grid is hosting them all weekend. The events are at 4 PM and 9 PM on Friday the 14th, 1 PM and 6 PM on Saturday and 2 PM on Sunday. I’ll be playing in all 5 and if you defeat me in a round anytime this weekend I’ll give you a pack of March of the Machine. We will see you this weekend!
Widening Your Horizons
      There are multiple very good trading card games on the market right now. I’ve always been a big proponent of expanding your TCG horizons by learning to play and getting competitive at those games. Like an NFL linebacker learning ballet, learning these other TCGs will make you a better Magic player. So this week I want to talk about some of the other TCG’s I’ve been playing and how they’ve advanced my Magic capabilities. POKEMON      Let’s start with the only game that’s ever been a real competitor for Magic outside of Japan. Pokémon. The Pokémon TCG is a whole separate monster from the video games and the shows and the comics. I will say for the record I haven’t played Pokémon competitively for several years, but I just finished putting a new standard deck together with the rotation coming up on April 14th.      In case you live in a cave and have never seen anything Pokémon before, here’s a crash course. You have small little pocket monsters that can evolve into bigger, nastier threats. In the TCG you use energy cards to power your attacks by attaching them to your Pokémon. At the start of the game you put out six prize cards and every time you K.O. one of your opponents Pokémon you take some number of prize cards depending on how powerful the Pokemon you K.O’d was. When you claim your sixth prize card you win the game. This goes both ways, when you play your more powerful Pokemon you put yourself at risk of your opponent getting extra prize cards.      In that vein the aspect of Magic I think you get the biggest boost in by playing Pokemon is risk management. Knowing when and how to push your luck, how to read the board to intuit what is in your opponent’s hand, and knowing what your lines of play and outs are. Those are the things that set apart the very good Pokémon players and are something you can put directly towards your Magic game.   DIGIMON      For the main part of this article I want to talk about the Digimon TCG. For me, personally, Digimon is the game I think has the most skills that are applicable directly to Magic. When you ask a Magic player what their least favorite thing in Magic is, almost all of them will get to Mana Screw eventually. While I think Mana Screw is an important and necessary part of the game, making it so the underdog can win sometimes being just one reason why, most players I’ve spoken with think the game would be better without the possibility of Mana Screw in the game at all. Digimon handles this in a nice way.      In Digimon your resource is Memory. Below is a Memory Gauge,      It starts at zero and ticks up to ten on either side of the gauge. When you play a Digimon you pay some amount of memory, let's say you are playing this Agumon, in the top left of the card there are two costs. A play cost and a Digivolve cost (the Digivolution cost doesn’t matter here so we will ignore it for now). To play this card from your hand into your battle area it costs three memory, so if you play him that way you would move the marker three spots up the gauge. If it ever ticks above zero on your opponent's side of the gauge your turn is over and it is now their turn. Then they have however much memory you gave them, plus however much they want to give you for your turn. They could give you one memory, or they could give you ten if they felt like playing something very powerful. This push and pull dictates the play of every game of Digimon. Some decks try to choke their opponents out by only giving them one memory a turn, while others don’t care how much memory they give because their individual card quality is so high.      Managing this resource is the single strongest aspect of the entire game of Digimon. Because of this, sequencing your turns in the proper order becomes the most important part of becoming a good Digimon player. Becoming proficient at keeping my board states in order and sequencing my turns properly has made it easier for me to play some of the more complicated Magic decks that are super dependent on sequencing. My success with decks like Titan, Yawgmoth, and Grixis Midrange in standard have all been improved by becoming proficient in Digimon. Digimon is easy to get started with as a new player, with starter decks available at just $12.   Yu-Gi-Oh      I’ve not played Yu-Gi-Oh in over a decade and I know that the game is very different now than it was then. That being said, the one thing that game did teach me as I got better at it was how important testing new decklists is until you have a smooth list that has all the cards you could need. So many Yu-Gi-Oh lists are built around one-ofs and very specific card interactions that taking that ethos to a game like Magic can give you the edge you need when you start to deck build in Limited as well as eternal formats.   EVERYTHING ELSE      There are a million games that you can play to widen your horizons and add the skills you learn to your Magic repertoire. Drafting games like Sushi Go, or games like Sentinels of the Multiverse can help your Limited game by giving you another lens to look at the draft through.      Learning games like Warhammer Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40K will make you a more well rounded gamer. While these games might not have anything specific I can point to and say “I am better because of this”, learning new tactical games and gaining new experiences will expand what resources you can draw on.      What do you think? Are there any games that you’ve played that you think lines up well with a particular Magic skill? Let me know what kind of games you play besides Magic.
Budget Standard Aggro Decks
     Now that we have a consistent Standard scene here at Game Grid, I thought I would share a couple of budget lists to get you into the format. Standard can be super expensive, what with your Sheoldred, the Apocalypses, your The Wandering Emperors, and your Fable of the Mirror-Breakers. But it doesn’t have to be. You can build a competitive, fun deck to play on as little as $40. Mono Black Aggro Creatures (24) (4) Cult Conscript (4) Blade of the Oni (4) Misery's Shadow (4) Tenacious Underdog (2) Graveyard Trespasser (3) Shakedown Heavy (3) Defiler of Flesh Spells (11) (3) Cut Down (4) Go for the Throat (4) Invoke Despair Enchantments (4) (4) Okiba Reckoner Raid Lands (21) (20) Swamp (1) Takenuma, Abandoned Mire      The nice thing about aggro decks is they have pretty straightforward lines. You play creatures and turn them sideways. The things that change are when to go all out, and when to hold back. This deck has a pretty clean 24 creatures (28 if you count the Okiba Reckoner Raid) with Cult Conscripts and Reckoner Raid being your solid one drop options. Conscripts gives you a decent amount of longevity as it comes back over and over to attack into 1/1 soldiers so your bigger menace threats get through. Speaking of menace, this deck has 14 menace creatures, meaning your opponents will have a headache trying to put blocks together that don’t leave them vulnerable to an all out attack in the coming turns.       Tenacious Underdog is the most important creature in this deck. It gives you the reach and sustainability to go into the long game with the midrange and control decks that are dominating the format. A two mana 3/2 is already a bear to deal with normally, but making it draw you a card over and over again can be just what you need to get over the finish line. It gets supported nicely by Misery's Shadow, keeping opposing Underdogs and Haughty Djinn’s easier to deal with, plus its pump ability can put it out of range of an opponent’s Cut Down for one mana.      Your three mana cards are where things get interesting and a little controversial. Graveyard Trespasser is an incredible threat at all stages of the game, but the mana cost is a little high for what is, ultimately, a replaceable creature. Which is why we are only running the two of them. Shakedown Heavy is a perpetually underrated beatdown card that has been overshadowed by the likes of Sheoldred and Raffine, Scheming Seer. 6 power is a ton for three mana, and the menace means there won't be any profitable blocks for your opponent. Sure they could let you draw a card, but then you’ll have the beefiest blocker in standard and be one card closer to the best card in your deck.      Invoke Despair is so good that three color standard decks are making sure they play only lands that can tap for black just to cast it. Esper Invoke and Grixis Invoke have been top of the board for almost a year, since Invoke Despair was printed. It just does everything; games where you cast it you will win easily, games where you don’t draw it will be much harder. Once again WotC has proven that it doesn’t matter how many colored pips of mana you put in something’s cost, if the power is high enough, players will make it work in their two and three color decks.      Invoke is a clean answer to practically every threat in standard, when backed up with intense aggression and cheap removal, it can be absolutely back breaking. Making sure the slower decks don’t have a creature in play when they cast their Fable of the Mirror-Breaker will make it so Invoke deals with both pieces of that card and draws you an additional card. If you can ever cast Invoke Despair and leave your opponent with an empty board you will usually win on that turn.      The sideboard changes based on your local meta, but things like Duress, Reckoner Bankbuster, Whack, and more Graveyard Trespassers will make your life a lot easier. For easy upgrades, you have of course Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. But if you aren't looking to drop $150 on Sheoldreds, other cheaper upgrades would include Phyrexian Fleshgorger and Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor. Liliana of the Veil is a fine addition to this deck but you risk turning into more of a midrange deck if you go too hard on three drops. A one mana card I wouldn’t run more than 2 or 3 of is Evolved Sleeper. Its stats are too small for an all out aggro deck. It is a fine card to draw on turn 5, but less good to have in your opening hand.      This deck wins quickly and takes over the board in a way that aggro decks don’t typically. I took a very similar version of this deck to Mythic rank on MTG Arena last month (it had Sheoldred in it) and I have nothing bad to say about it. (Nearly) Mono Green      The second deck I want to talk about is another aggro deck but this time mono Green (with a teeny tiny splash of red). Creatures (30) (4) Ascendant Packleader (4) Evolving Adaptive (4) Cankerbloom (4) Quirion Beastcaller (4) Yavimaya Iconoclast (4) Bloated Contaminator (4) Simian Simulacrum (2) Defiler of Vigor Spells (5) (3) Tyvar's Stand (2) Gaea's Gift Enchantments (3) (3) Audacity Lands (22) (2) Copperline Gorge (16) Forest (1) Mishra's Foundry      It is very similar to the Black version, with the exception of running no removal. This is pure, play a dude and turn it sideways. Want a bigger dude? Put Audacity on it. Your opponent trying to kill your stuff? Make it indestructible. There’s not a lot to say about this deck, except for the two Copperline Gorge to kick your Yavimaya Iconoclast. If you have the budget, upping that to 4 Copperline Gorges and 4 Karplusan Forests will also give you access to some more sideboard options in red. Where the last deck was all Menace, this deck has 14 creatures with Trample and 5 ways to give trample to anything you control.      Bloated Contaminator is a fun card in this list, not because of the Toxic win, but because so many of the cards have +1/+1 counters and proliferating to make your dudes into bigger dudes. The last card I want to talk about for this deck is Cankerbloom. It is a two mana 3/2, which is the way to be aggro nowadays. Do not be bashful about sacrificing Cankerbloom to kill a Fable of the Mirror-Breaker or Wedding Announcement. Getting these value engines off the table is how you don’t get buried by your opponents before you can kill them.      As far as upgrades are concerned, running more than two Defiler of Vigor is a good place to start. Your one and two mana spells are pretty well locked, you’re already playing the best ones in the format (if you're feeling more midrange than straight up aggro, you can run Rootwire Amalgam at two). At three you have a couple other options as upgrades. Primal Adversary is a bulky creature that can explode in the end game for big damage. Briarbridge Tracker gets you a little more sustainability that Simian Simulacrum won't give you, but you lose some of the nut draws that let you really beat down people on turn three.      The last upgrade you could try is one that I’m not sure about. If you run Clay Champion, you have access to a four mana 8/8. On the surface this feels super powerful, but I expect for most board states Defiler of Vigor nets your more power and toughness for the mana. If someone does the testing on this let me know, I’m curious how this turns out.      Titania and her respective land is the way to go if you feel like going a little more midrange than straight aggressive. Going more midrange also nets you access to Primal Adversary and Ulvenwald Oddity for the longer games (Oddity would also slot into the aggro version of the deck instead of Defiler of Vigor if you prefer that route). The most expensive upgrade for this list is fortunately a one of Boseiju, Who Endures. Boseiju is a free disenchant in this deck that you should have available.      As far as sideboard options you have things like Carnivorous Canopy for some added enchantment control, and on the plus side, you get free proliferate when you deal with some of the more common enchantments in the format. Bouncer's Beatdown is a fine anti-Sheoldred or Raffine card. You also don’t have to worry about Sheoldred’s deathtouch ability since it's a punch and not a fight. The rest of the sideboard is dependent on what you plan on playing against. Whether it’s more protection spells or color specific removal spells you have plenty of options for good sideboard cards.      If you have any budget decks you’d want me to talk about, for other formats or other colors in standard, let me know. Thanks for reading and we will see you next week. Â
