#adeline resplendent cathar | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dravidious · 11 months

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Thank you for being awesome

Hello and welcome back to every budget player's favorite game show...

Nerf! That! Rare!

Where we look at cards that are pissing off the writer on arena and knock them down a peg!

Our first participant, hailing from Innistrad and fighting against the eternal night, it's Adeline, Resplendent Cathar!

Coming down on turn three, Adeline gives you a free 1/1 every time you attack. Its power will almost always be at least 3, and with 4 toughness and vigilance, it's tough to deal with on either offense or defense. Having 4 toughness especially means that most other 3-drop creatures won't even be able to trade with Adeline. So how might we keep the card's fundamental qualities intact while stopping ourselves from ripping our hair out every time it's cast on curve?

Like this! This rework makes several small tweaks, such as forcing Adeline herself to attack in order to make a token. This delays the token summoning by one turn, and also leaves Adeline vulnerable to being blocked and killed. The drop to 3 toughness helps put Adeline on par with other 3-drop creatures, since her token spawning and boundless power are advantage enough. And to give Adeline a nice round -1/-1, her power scaling only counts OTHER creatures, not herself, requiring more commitment to a swarming strategy to get proper value out of her.

Our next participant, a praetor hailing from New Phyrexia, the scourge of the current standard, it's Sheoldred, the Apocalypse!

Reminiscent of the menacing Siege Rhino, Sholdred comes packing with infinite life drain and a bulky body. Just like Adeline, that extra toughness puts Sheoldred out of trading range of other 4-drops, and that deathtouch means that double blocking her is still a -1 in card advantage. And that's IF she's even attacking! Sheoldred's greatest power is that she can just sit there stopping attacks while the opponent bleeds to death, unable to win even with evasion thanks to that life gain. How can we be free from the oppression of this phyrexian ruler?

With a simple tweak to the numbers! The difference a single point of toughness can make truly is incredible; just ask Sheoldred's grandpa Siege Rhino! The rhino will also tell you just how powerful life draining can be, and Sheoldred's life drain is even stronger! Or rather, it was. Getting 4+ free damage while the opponent scrambles to find an answer is a lot, so slowing that clock down means that Sheoldred needs to play the long game to win.

Back on Innistrad, we've got not a participant but an event that got a little TOO festive, it's Wedding Announcement! // Wedding Festivity!

A Glorious Anthem that comes with 3 tokens and/or card draw is powerful indeed, and the slow speed of it just isn't enough to offset its sheer long-term value. Not much to say about this one, 3 mana for a trio of 2/2s is just too powerful! But with its various effects and use of counters and transforming, this enchantment seems very reminiscent of a certain art form of Kamigawa...

Now that's more like it! In terms of pure value, this rework reduces the number of triggers from 3 down to 2, in exchange for an extra scry and flipping one turn earlier. And that chapter 2 ability really requires you to commit to the swarming strategy to get full value, no sitting back and collecting tokens!

Heading back to New Phyrexia, weighing in at 4 mana with a mighty 5/5 statline, it's Phyrexian Obliterator!

If you thought a +1 in card advantage was strong, wait until you see a +5! This 4-drop can annihilate the opponent's board if they dare to attack, with stats strong enough to beat most other 4-drops and survive to cause more carnage! With just one card, you can completely shut down your opponent's combat phase! Its 5 power and trample means that you're not even safe on the defense, as chump blocking it is impossible and trading with it will cost you everything. The only counterplay is to hope you can get a big enough board to either kill your opponent in one swing, or sacrifice all your lands and win with pure momentum. And yet, the nerf is the simplest one yet! Sacrificing 5 permanents is a death sentence...

... but sacrificing 1 is just a mild pain! It can even keep its beefy stats as a reward for paying that harsh mana cost. But just be safe, it's not a horror anymore, which is because horror tribal support is extremely dangerous and definitely not because I forgot to put the subtype.

Finally, last but not least for this episode of Nerf That Rare, it's the most obnoxious card in all of magic...

Every Planeswalker Ever!

Not only does this card generate infinite value over time culminating in a game-winning effect, it also works much better if you're already winning the game, while being nothing but a glorified sorcery if you're losing, crushing any hopes of comebacks when drawn no matter which player draws it! But the smallest little tweak can make this card much more fun:

Much better

#asks #original #the usual method for designing a rare seems to be this:#make a solid card. then buff it. then buff it again #i'm 95% sure there's no reason whatsoever to make rares so strong besides just pure greed #“oh but if commons were as strong as rares it would ruin limited” THAT'S NOT THE POINT #i remember when i complained one time about rares being way stronger than commons #the answer i got was that commons can't be as strong as rares #which is NOT WHAT I SAID #i don't want commons to be as strong as rares i want rares to be as weak as commons #rares should be weird gimmicky messes of cards that are 1-per-pack because they're unplayable in limited and only good in constructed #not just “hey we made a 5-drop 10/10”#but most of all they SHOULDN'T OVERSHADOW THE ENTIRE REST OF THE CARDS #with such a massive power gap between commons/uncommons and rares limited and constructed may as well have 2 different card pools #why can't constructed just have a lower power level? why do we need broken bullshit like this?#and for fuck's sake why do we have cards like obliterator that just shut down combat and require removal?#a trend you'll notice in my ranting above is that i pretend removal just doesn't exist and combat is the only answer #if the only thing keeping a card balanced is removal then it isn't balanced and it isn't okay

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eight-freakin-gids · 7 months

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After taking a break, I'm getting back into MTG Arena. I mostly played Alchemy before, but now I'm looking to try Standard. Moreover, I'm feeling a bit experimental, and I want to play something other than the most popular decks. So, I built Mono-White Midrange.

Ultimately, this deck is filled with the cards I'm most excited to play, and I could stop my justification there. Because I don't really know the first thing about midrange decks or this Standard metagame. That being said, I will try and document my thought process behind this deck, if only for my own benefit.

While I acknowledge Alchemy and Standard are pretty different formats (and I've missed a few expansions since I've last played), I will try to share my logic about cards that have performed well in the past and why I expect them to perform well again.

To set some groundwork, I think Flying is really, really good in this particular metagame. Several decks run notable flying creatures. Phoenix Chick; Goddric, Cloaked Reveler; Harbin, Vanguard Aviator. Atraxa, Grand Unifier; Ledger Shredder; Faerie Mastermind; and Raffine, Scheming Seer are all centerpieces or key players in big name decks. Whatever your deck is doing, you can't ignore these creatures.

For my own Flying creatures, let's start with Phyrexian Vindicator. I love this card, and could probably gush about it for a whole post. But let me focus on the big stuff. Bottom line, it beats any flying creature. It beats any creature, really. This can attack and block freely in any board state, and that's a very valuable trait. However, this card is held back by the abundance of good removal in this Standard card pool. Additionally, while this can beat any of the Flying creatures mentioned above, those cards all come down 2-3 turns before Vindicator does. So while I think this is a valuable card to use, earlier options are needed.

This brings me to Steel Seraph. This card enables you to defend against enemy fliers, admittedly to mixed results. But what it really excels at is Flying offense. The ability to give your other creatures flying is very powerful. The only thing better than an Adeline, Resplendent Cathar is an Adeline with evasion. On top of all that, Steel Seraph is also immune to Go For the Throat and Cut Down, some of the most popular removal spells available to Black right now.

Archangel Elspeth accomplishes some similar things to Steel Serpah. It can give creatures flying, with the added bonus of being very nice on the defensive.

Alright, alright. You see I've got these 4-5 mana planeswalkers and big fliers, but they do me no good if I'm dead before I can use them.

For the early game, Thalia and Anointed Peacekeeper slow down my opponent's gameplan, Cathar Commando and Fateful Absence lets me interact with the board, and Lunarch Veteran gives me a buffer against aggro decks. Shoutout to Cathar Commando for being a good tool against counterspells, as Make Disappear is popular in any decks with Blue.

Throw in a few Eiganjos for extra removal and a few Skrelvs to protect my creatures or break through board stalls, and that's my deck. I've written this all before I've played the deck. This is all theory that needs to be put into practice, but I look forward to trying it out.

I have a sideboard, since I want to play best of 3 rather than best of one. That being said, the sideboard is definitely what needs the most work. I don't see a lot of point in adding it here since it's likely going to change pretty drastically.

#magic: the gathering #magic the gathering #mtg #mtg decks #decklist

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thecommandertable · 10 months

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What is the Token Tax?

I'm a big advocate for having all the tokens your deck needs when you play. When I cast Adeline, Resplendent Cathar and attack, I want to be at the ready with that Human token.

I'll generally keep two copies of any given creature token with my deck, so that I can easily differentiate between my tapped and untapped ones. You could also have an additional token in case you want to keep track which of the untapped creatures have summoning sickness or not. If we're talking treasures or clues, one copy is usually sufficient (unless your commander is Urza, Lord High Artificer, or you have a lot of cards with improvise, or Ghirapur Aether Grid- stuff that causes you to tap these tokens without sacrificing them).

The point being, for most cards that make tokens, one or two tokens are usually all you need. They have a low "token tax". Other cards require more from you if you want to represent the board state as accurately as possible.

Consider Curse of Disturbance:

You'll want two zombie tokens for yourself, but also zombie tokens for your opponents should they attack the enchanted player- that's four more (the cursed player can't attack themself). It's unlikely the game state will require six separate zombie tokens from just this card, but it is possible. Thus Curse of Disturbance has a higher token tax. I might hesitate to include it in a deck because of this, especially one that doesn't have any other cards that make zombie tokens.

Sometimes an increased token tax isn't due to a large number of pieces needed on hand, but how difficult it is to get them in the first place. The 6/6 dragon tokens created by Utvara Hellkite, for instance, will run you anywhere from 2-6 dollars apiece, depending on the printing.

Some tokens don't exist at all -- usually ones created by older cards like Spawning Pit.

Some cards create multiple kinds of tokens:

This concept can be extended to cards that don't make tokens per say, but still require other materials to help keep track of the board state. This could be dice for +1/+1 counters--

-- or for keyword counters--

Some cards, particularly from the two D&D sets, require non-standard dice.

The Unfinity set brought us some Commander-legal cards that I don't touch because I don't want to muck about with attractions or stickers.

And there are a handful of mechanics that, again, don't make tokens, but use another game piece to track some sort of status - the monarch, the city's blessing, night/day, the ring tempts you, and of course, dungeons. I mean, just look at Undercellar Sweep:

You need Soldier tokens, the Undercity card (2 actually, so you can turn one over to track who has the initiative), a Treasure token, a 4/1 menace Skeleton token, dice or counters for both tracking your position (and possibly your opponents') in the dungeon and for +1/+1 counters.

What if an opponent takes the initiative from you after you've already gone through the Stash room and the Catacombs, and reaches those rooms themselves? Yeah, someone else probably has a Treasure token, but a 4/1 black Skeleton token with menace? You'd better have a second one just to be safe. It's just too much! The token tax is too high!

#magic: the gathering #commander #edh

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freebiess1 · 1 year

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30 whatever deck challenge

Probably gonna come back to this.

Mono

White: Adeline, Resplendant Cathar

Blue: Donal, Herald of Wings

Black:

Red: Jaxis, the Troublemaker

Green: Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma

Duo

Azorius: Lavinia, Foil to Conspiracy

Dimir: Tasha, the Witch Queen

Rakdos: Magar of the Magic Strings

Gruul: Chisiro, the Shattered Blade

Selesnya: Ellivere of the Wild Court

Orzhov: Shadrix Silverquill

Izzet: Galazeth Prismari

Golgari: Beledros Witherbloom

Boros: Osgir, the Reconstructor

Simic: Hakbal of the Surging Soul

Tri

Esper: Raffine, Scheming Seer

Grixis: Admiral Brass, Unsinkable

Jund: Ziatora, the Incinerator

Naya: Jinnie Fae, Jetmir’s Second

Bant: Falco Spara, Pactweaver

Abzan: Karador, Ghost Chieftan

Jeskai: Leori, Sparktouched Hunter

Sultai: The Fourth Doctor and Vislor Turlough

Mardu:

Temur:

A Lot

Whiteless

Blueless

Blackless

Redless

Greenless

WUBRG: Tiamat

Can you tell when I started

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all-hail-the-gitrog-toad · 3 years

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Adeline, Resplendent Cathar: Exists

Chandra Nalaar

#mtg #chandra nalaar #midnight hunt

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sneakyhomunculous · 2 years

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PT New Kamigawa Report!

9-6 last time, need to try because a couple more medium results could get me into worlds. Oh, also Huey is making an OP announcement in a few weeks and retroactivity is a constant of new OP announcements!

Alchemy is weirdly frustrating. I want UR turns to still be good, the nerfs dont seem big enough. Unfortunately the hearthstone kids on the team quickly teach me that nerf=ban.

Runes looks horrible, but is annoyingly good. Alchemy doesn’t have many good cards somehow. UR combo seems promising though, invoke calamity is very powerful. 2+ weeks of all hands on deck tuning invoke decks still can’t really beat runes at a comfortable clip, sadge.

Sort of content to just lock in runes, then we try WW. Aspirant is banned (nerfed?) but inquisitor captain is strong and Thalia/archon/nekraatals seem good.

WW smashes runes. WW also holding up nicely vs UW and just feels powerful. Locking in WW.

Expect 30-40% Runes, there just are no other decks?

Oops we dismissed citystalker decks as being too weak to runes, and I didn’t know mirror fabled thing was a card. LMAO at venturing into a dungeon. Deck 1 Cave of the Frost Dragon 4 A-Faceless Haven 3 Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire 17 Snow-Covered Plains 4 Inquisitor Captain 2 Elite Spellbinder 2 The Wandering Emperor 4 Hopeful Initiate 3 Archon of Emeria 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 4 Sigardian Evangel 4 Skyclave Apparition 2 Brutal Cathar 2 A-Luminarch Aspirant 2 Portable Hole 2 Fleeting Spirit

Sideboard 2 Fleeting Spirit 2 Portable Hole 2 Elite Spellbinder 1 Intrepid Adversary 2 Valorous Stance 1 Guardian of Faith 1 Archon of Emeria 1 Ao, the Dawn Sky 3 Adeline, Resplendent Cathar

As far as historic goes, it’s the classic rock paper scissors Phoenix/Control/Food.

However Phoenix has been very popular and is doing well. Control could play red to be better vs Phoenix, but then it’s worse in the mirror and maybe vs other stuff too.

I played Phoenix last time and went like 4-3 or 3-4, I’m over it. Let’s try food! I’ve spent the last few years completely avoiding food/cat/oven. I haven’t played a tournament with it and maybe not even a couple matches.

Regret…

It’s quite fun!

We have a decent plan vs control and it seems like a powerful deck, I’m in.

Companion 1 Lurrus of the Dream-Den

Deck 4 Cauldron Familiar 4 Deadly Dispute 2 Mortality Spear 2 Hive of the Eye Tyrant 2 Phyrexian Tower 2 Cursebound Witch 4 Trail of Crumbs 2 Fatal Push 4 The Meathook Massacre 1 Takenuma, Abandoned Mire 4 Gilded Goose 2 Boseiju, Who Endures 4 Ravenous Squirrel 2 Khalni Garden 2 Soul-Guide Lantern 4 Blooming Marsh 4 Witch's Oven 4 Darkbore Pathway 4 Overgrown Tomb 1 Swamp 1 Bone Shards 1 Castle Locthwain

Sideboard 1 Phyrexian Reclamation 4 Thoughtseize 2 Graf Reaver 1 Lurrus of the Dream-Den 2 Tormod's Crypt 1 Arguel's Blood Fast 2 Outland Liberator 2 Culling Ritual

Unfortunately all of my girls have a stomach virus and I start feeling bad the day before the PT. I woke up feeling decent but am not 100%.

R1 vs No Ah Mah BW Venture I’m playing WW bc It beats runes and is decent against control and I expect that to be 50-60% of the field minimum. Turns out half the field brought black decks 🙄 (Spoiler alert, I play against 0 runes) G1 seems pretty close but this stupid triumphant adventurer is getting so much value, I eventually have enough and decide to just double block it and thankfully he doesn’t have removal. I immediately peel evangel and get excited but then I realize his adventurer is still in play???? I double check my creatures and they were certainly sized correctly? I check adventurer again???

Oh, it has deathtouch. Lmao oops.

G2 I have a nice draw but he has his 1 meathook on time and then a good follow up to slowly claw back and steal it. 0-1 and feel like shit, at least now I might be in the runes bracket! R2 vs Marcela Almeida on Wr aggro. It’s basically a mirror but she plays showdown Kumano and rabid battery.

G1 I am a bit behind on board and life total but I have t4 captain and then the wandering emperor to pull ahead, I realize that I’m actually at 8 and bc she has rabid battery I am sort of at risk to her peeling a flier (has 2 elite spellbinder a 2 reidane) but I fade that for the turn or two I need to close it out.

G2 I believe she mulligans and I have a very strong hand and win without much sweat.

1-1 and back in it

R3 vs Ryosuke Nishiura on RB sac. We tried this deck a few times, including the days before submission with Shota’s upgraded list. However it was still a little shaky against runes and we had done so much work on WW I never seriously considered it. What I did learn is that it absolutely smashed WW 😞

I won my first die roll and had the best possible start, hopeful initiate into Thalia into spellbinder into captain and I just ran him over after he mulliganed and had an awkward hand.

In game 2 I got him to use a doom blade on a spellbinder and a voltaic surge on something before slamming a turn 5 Ao that went unchecked and solo’d the game!

2-1 and ecstatic to get out of there with a winning record after that pairing.

Onto Historic where I’m hoping to massacre some phoenixes (spoiler, I play vs UW control 4 times)

R4 vs Ilya Manin on UW control. He has only 60 cards so no yorion, and his MD has 3 teferi 2 narset 1 wandering emperor, 1 farewell, 2 divine purge, 4 March 2 veto 3 deluge 2 soul guide lantern.

All things considered it’s not so bad. He doesn’t have portable holes and only 1 farewell. g1 goes very long as expected but somewhere around turn 10 I know I’m going to win. I’ve just gotten too far ahead with trails/disputes and I have castle + manland etc. but it just takes so long. I’m trying to not get beat by farewell + teferi so it’s taking longer than I’d hoped, then he does play farewell + teferi but I kill it and rebuild and eventually win with like 14min on my clock. If i had played tighter I could’ve saved 3+ minutes but oh well. G2 I am ahead and think I’m a big favorite but he peels a farewell for turn 6 and then follows up with teferi + backup and it starts to slip away. I may still be 10-20% to win but I only have 7 minutes so I concede. G3 I am pressing and know I am like 99% to win from turn 4. unfortunately it’s still very slow. I go as fast as possible and have him down to no hand, I am deploying two squirrels and have cat oven 2 trails manland etc. He untaps and cycles a shark and peels divine purge. I’m under 1 minute so I untap and slam my 3 mana squirrels plus get cat oven into play. he untaps and says go, I’m under 15 seconds and when I attack he steals a squirrel with the charm he drew… I try to start sacraficing stuff but I run out of time.

2-2 and on sky tilt. It’s my own fault for playing too slow, but losing this way hurts extra. I hadn’t practiced quite enough and I also still wasn’t 100% myself; I tried to calm myself down and relax but it wasn’t easy.

R5 Bernardo Santos on Jund Food. He has 4 mayhem devil 3 Karn 1 korvold, and another korvold in the board. This matchup is bad bc his karns and red cards are just very strong.

G1 is going pretty well but he just has his 1 korvold turn 5 and I die to it from a position that was crushing otherwise.

G2 is going well again but my advantage starts to slip as I flood a bit and he fetches bolas’ citadel with Karn… he’s on 5 lands and empty handed otherwise but he quickly finds the 6th land and slams it at 10 or 11 life. Immediately hits a free korvold… I have some damage tho and I get him down to 3, I have to fade him finding any food and miraculously I do! I survive and just untap and kill him.

G3 is just wild, I forget what he plays t1 some creature, I Thoughtseize and see trail korvold random other cards, he only has 1 other land but I take the korvold bc I have 2 trails and think I can keep up and korvold will just crush me if he does find lands naturally. Unfortunately he slams a turn 3 Karn after I had t2ed trail. he goes to get oven to go with his cat and trail. Next turn I just have to deadly dispute my food + use trail, he gets chitterspitter and plays it so he has like squirrel chitterspitter cat oven Karn vs my 3 lands trail no food. Somehow I turn it around slowly. I kill squirrel with bone shards or something after playing a 2nd deadly dispute, and I set up a culling ritual the turn his karn is up to 3 which kills everything but chitterspitter and Karn, and lets my hive finish off Karn. The chitterspitter is brutal though the squirrels keep coming and I’m at a low life total. I manage to fade and then barely hang on at 1 life before assembling cat/oven/meathook and I come back and win!!

3-2

R6 Riku Kumagai UW yorion. Their list looks pretty tough, but it is 80 cards and only has 3 teferi.

I win the die roll and have T1 squirrel t2 cat oven off a manland. t3 I have like goose + another oven and I’m just rumbling, on t4 I’m trying to decide exactly how to proceed before attacking and he just concedes without playing a spell all game 😂

G2 goes quite long and he outplays me, the wandering emperor + a timely farewell put me on the backfoot and I’m still way ahead but somehow his yorion into a baneslayer are able to get me down to 2, and despite me having cat multiple ovens and trail I can’t actually get traction and I am digging hard for a goose, I put myself up to 6 or 7 life before finally finding a goose and tapping out to play it. He’s empty handed so I am just fading removal on goose for 1 turn and I’ll untap and win, but he peels a March and I lose a game I had no business losing

G3 also goes very long and this time he’s pressuring me with hall and making my plays awkward. But I’m always ahead and feel like I’m going to win, I’m under 1min tho and get a bit of a sweat. On the last turn I am attacking for lethal but I’m under 20 seconds and if he has any charm/even just removal it should break things up and I’ll need another attack step. Good guy Riku just concedes as I’m declaring attackers with 14 seconds though. I imagine he just had nothing, but still a huge relief.

I need to play faster 😩

4-2

R7 Kenta Harane playing the same 75 as Riku UW yorion 🙄

G1 I am on the draw and keep khalni garden 2 goose 2 trail squirrel mortality spear. I brick and t2 my goose missing my land drop after he went tapped land tapped land. Turn 3 he goes for a mainphase omen by the sea bottom bottom and doesn’t have a 3rd land 😂 I brick again and just play a trail so I have garden trail goose 1 food gif

He untaps and omens again, bottom bottom again! But he peels a UW dual and portable holes my trail 😔 I hit a land my next turn and end up losing a long game where I’m always behind because he kept hitting land drops from there.

G2 I keep a loose 6 and resolve deadly dispute and then another, but I never find anything meaningful and just get crushed.

A brutal 4-3 finish day 1. I played meh and too slow; I had some tough pairings though, so I don’t feel too bad.

Day 2 It looks as though of the 50+ people that are 4-3 only 4 of them are playing runes 😬

R8 Rizer playing GB the rock G1 Is a bit back and forth but he eventually kicks a dig up and as I expected plays a bankbuster with his remaining 2 mana. He untaps and slams his 1 tovolar‘s huntmaster and I can’t come back from that.

g2 is very back and forth but I manage to keep him under pressure and he floods a bit and dies. g3 he has t2 bankbuster t3 briarbridge tracker shutting down all of my attacks, and he starts grinding me down but I am managing to keep pressure. unfortunately he peels his 1 meathook massacre on a key turn after I had spent 3-4 turns in a row forcing him to activate lair of the hydra to eat an attacker, leaving him unable to use bankbuster or crack his clue.

the meathook keeps him alive but I push him down to 1 life and he needs to peel a spell just to stay alive. He draws his 1 tovolar 🤦‍♂️ I immediately draw a spellbinder and got excited because he needs removal, but then I remembered he can just pass, go to night, and trade wolves with my fliers so I’m locked out.

4-4 and dead for T8

I have to try my hardest to get worlds points, but this loss was crushing.

R9 Andrey Zhilin WW Mirror

I don’t remember the first two games of this match very well, but I know we split them. In G3 I am ahead and make what I believe was a bad strategically error. I had a big captain getting pumped from luminarch and my wandering emperor, and I decided to press my advantage and keep using emperor to + and get in attacks. I got him low and had 2 eiganjo in my hand so I figured I would keep pressing as he had 2 luminarchs to my 1 and I needed to end the game quickly. What I should have done was just started minusing my emperor to make tokens and go wide, I had 4 evangel to his 0 amnd he was in no position to ever start attacking me anytime soon. He played very well and kept growing his brutal cathar which he had flipped, so he had a 7/7 first striker. Now I am also worried about this thing flipping back and make my big attack, he blocks well so I use one egainjo but he is able to just untap and attack down my 7 loyalty wandering emperor and still have stuff back to not be dead, a few turns later he has pulled ahead and I lose a game I should really not have.

4-5 and feeling really dejected.

R10 Jakub Toth on UW control

This is my first matchup in the tournament where I get some relief. They do have a decent UW list but I think our matchup is just very good, we have 4 fleeting spirit etc.

He steals game 1 despite me drawing a fleeting spirit, the wandering emperor just owns me multiple times.

I get the SB bug, so I contact an admin and have to send him our clocks and we restart the match. I scoop and we SB fine and go to a game 2.

I win a medium length game 2.

Now in G3 things slow down a lot and we have a lot of critical moments. However I come out ahead due to fleeting spirit(s) and I am in a great spot. He is also getting low on time, I have like 3.5 minutes to his 2:45, and he’s still tanking. He has a hall of the storm giants and has me down to 5, so I am also trying to be extra careful. I have plenty blockers and 2 manlands, but he does play divine purges and has a field of ruin in play so it’s a little tricky. I could go for the win multiple times but he’s now under 1 minute and I see no need to risk it. I just play it safe and he ultimately times out.

I send screenshot to the admin asking if he timed out (bc we had to restart the clocks got reset and you have to do the math, and the admin confirms that yes he timed out and he will contact Jakub). During my next match I get a DM from the admin that we were both awarded byes for the previous round, because the admin who reached out to Jakub never mentioned the time situation and therefore we were “Playing to different victory conditions” and this is the fairest way to resolve things. Awkward, but I guess it makes sense.

5-5

R11 Teammate Arne Huschenbeth playing the WW mirror

This match was nice, Arne won the die roll but gets stuck on 2 lands for a turn or two, unfortunately I draw both portable holes and they both get skyclaved as he gets back his luminarch each time.

Luminarch puts a hurting on me and I am not able to capitalize on his stumble while he crawls out of it and wins a long game.

I win a g2 where i don’t really remember what happened, I was ahead most of the time.

G3 we both have very nice hands but him being on the play is just too much. We spellbinder each other so we know what’s up, but his adeline just pushes too much damage and I can’t come back.

5-6

R12 Nico Bohny playing Rakdos Arcanist

This is one of the good matchups for food, and this match shows me why. He has t1 inquisiton t2 arcanist but I’m able to answer it with a bone shards and i slowly pull ahead and win a long game with meathook/cat/oven draining him out.

G2 he has multiple timely hidetsugu’s and beats me down.

G3 is wild, I go for a turn 3 khalni garden and I’m going to deadly dispute the token. But khalni garden trigger never hits the stack and my arena seems to be frozen. Ok, restart arena. It lets me in no problem and the game takes 10 seconds to load I hear the exploding animations and I’m back. The token is now in play so I go to play deadly dispute and it hits the stack but no mana is tapped and my game is frozen again...... I panic and switch off my laptop to the backup computer. I open arena and fumble around trying to get gmail open so I can lookup my username/pass for this PT account. I find it and copy paste, but arena tells me incorrect password. I assume ive just been DC but google and internet is working fine... I try copy paste again and this time it works!

Except now arena starts doing an update hahahahaha. Somehow it only takes like 20 seconds and the client loads up, it has me VS nico screen and the timer ticking up to like 20-25 seconds I assume the match is just broken/I’ve already timed out and died. But suddenly I get the animation noises and the match loads! It’s his turn, he had a hidetsugu that’s now a creature? he has a magmatic channeler in play I hadn’t seen yet, I am trying to cast my deadly dispute but apparently I roped out this turn already bc I can’t click anything. Somehow I untap and he still only has 3 lands and I just have a bunch of life still and a meathook massacre and other stuff, and I just end up winning easily anyway. Sorry arcanist :(

6-6

R13 Noboyushi Suzuki playing Jund Food. This time there is no karns, but he has 4 oni-cult anvil

Now that I think about this match, I think I confused the beginning of one of those R5 games vs bernardo with one of these lol. I thoughtseize and take korvold over trail in g3 of this one, not vs bernardo. So who knows what actually happened in that one!

G1 I kill 2 mayhem devils but a 3rd one just unleashes on me and I die from some high life total.

G2 and 3 I get off some nice culling rituals/thoughtseizes and I fade korvolds and manage to squeak out wins. I know in one of the games I was dead to half his deck for a turn or two and faded.

7-6

R14 Dominik Gortzen on UR phoenix

Another matchup I was hoping to play, and it’s even better bc he cut some fliers for 2/2′s for 2 that seek instants/sorceries. He draws and plays a 2/2 for 2 both games and I have good draws and win rather easily.

In g2 it was a bit funny bc he actually brings back 3 phoenix’s and it’s a little scary, but he immediately attacked with all 3 putting my to like 4 or 5, but leaving himself open to an already 6/6 squirrel (He was at like 11 or 12) and I had an oven and cat and another oven + tower in hand etc. so I just easily killed him on the backswing.

8-6

R15 Yo Tezuka on UW control

I lose a long g1, win a long g2.

G3 I have t1 thoughtseize t2 graf reaver t3 graf reaver, he divine purges I turn 4 a 4 mana graf reaver, he misses his land drop and purges again, I turn 5 a 4 mana graf reaver plus a goose, he misses again and I think I play a 6 mana graf reaver lmao. I know he has teferi and 2 deluge and I know I’m gunna win bc I have manland and multiple removal spells. He just bricks 1 more time I believe and dies to these reavers ggs yo.

9-6 and still alive in the worlds race!

Props to Ginky for making his first T8

Slops to no runes opponents and me for playing so slowly and poorly

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mtg-cards-hourly · 2 years

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Adeline, Resplendent Cathar

Artist: Bryan Sola TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

#mtg #magic the gathering #tcg #bryan sola #adeline resplendent cathar #innistrad: midnight hunt promos #legendary #creature #human #knight

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mtgdays · 3 years

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《統率者》輝かしい聖戦士、エーデリン / Adeline, Resplendent Cathar

統率者戦だからこその物量が実現する！白の新たな力《輝かしい聖戦士、エーデリン…

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all-hail-the-gitrog-toad · 2 years

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I posted 19,197 times in 2021

9 posts created (0%)

19188 posts reblogged (100%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 2132.0 posts.

I added 19 tags in 2021

#mtg - 7 posts

#homestuck - 3 posts

#cat - 2 posts

#2001: a space odyssey - 1 posts

#new frog dropped - 1 posts

#glitch doesn't happen on mobile - 1 posts

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#vampire - 1 posts

#is the opposite of - 1 posts

#wario - 1 posts

Longest Tag: 54 characters

#it posts all the peperonis in the same vertical collum

My Top Posts in 2021

Back to Innistrad, back to the Gitrog! Woot!

3 notes • Posted 2021-08-21 01:37:18 GMT

LOOK AT MY CATS!

3 notes • Posted 2021-02-05 20:48:25 GMT

ONE Mystery booster pack.! These aee the most fun packs to crack ever!

5 notes • Posted 2021-02-21 01:20:22 GMT

This Gitrogs cousin.

8 notes • Posted 2021-10-28 22:38:33 GMT

Adeline, Resplendent Cathar: Exists

Chandra Nalaar

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76 notes • Posted 2021-09-12 03:58:21 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

#my 2021 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

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radramblog · 2 years

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best (?) of magic in 2021

Welcome to the final week of the year. Ish. Technically that started a couple days ago, but yknow.

As it’s the end of the year, I’m going to be committing to that thing every Content Creator decides to do, apparently, and that is: write a bunch of top/bottom-tier lists. It’s a tradition, right?

It’s also Monday, and that’s usually the day I set aside for talking about everybody’s favourite money pit, Magic the Gathering. So I guess this is the top…Magic? Of this year?

…how much Magic came out this year again?

Oh.

Just so we’re on the same page, here is a full list of everything Magic that came out this year.

>5 Standard-Legal sets- Kaldheim, Strixhaven, Adventures in the Forgotten Realms, Midnight Hunt, and Crimson Vow

>2 Supplemental sets- Time Spiral Remastered and Modern Horizons 2

>Various fancy versions of cards and reprints associated with those sets- the Strixhaven Mystical Archive, the Retro Frame cards from TSR/MH2, etc.

>17 new Preconstructed Commander decks, all associated with the aforementioned Standard-legal sets (excluding the Secret Lair one)

>4 Arena-Only sets- two Historic Anthologies, Jumpstart: Historic Horizons, and the first load of Alchemy cards

>A reprint of Mystery Booster: Convention Edition (but not exclusive to conventions)

>Various Promos (Judge promos, WPN promos, Love Your LGS, etc.)

That is a lot of Magic. According to Scryfall, there were a total of 1,919 new cards released this year- that’s 8.3% of the game’s 22897 cards across 3.5% of its time in existence. Probably less time than that, actually, but to compare, there were 1,231 new cards in 2020 and 1,205 in 2019. The year I started playing, 2013, had 755 brand-new cards, for reference- that’s less than 40% as much as this year. And that doesn’t include reprints.

I don’t have any idea how I could possibly rank them. I can’t really even grade each set accurately, because I haven’t really had the chance to play with half of them. I used to go to FNM every week at a minimum, but I’ve not drafted…any set this year, I think. I did a casual MH2 Sealed event for a mate’s birthday, but that’s the only non-cube limited I’ve done.

In short, despite spending ages talking about Magic this year, I’m really not qualified to talk about what its highlights were this year.

So I’m instead going to go through things in the formats I did play- specifically, what cards I liked for Commander and Cube. And because combing through almost 2000 cards is hard, I’m just going to be looking at the actual commanders, and the cards that I added to my cube that are from this year.

So it’s going to be a little bit biased. Gonna stress that these are my favourite cards, not necessarily the best ones. Go to ChannelFireball or something for those.

Commander

This list I think is going to end up being weaker than the Cube one. I mean, at the end of the day, there was no Commander this year that I dedicated time into building a real deck around- can’t say the same about 2020.

It’s also going to be a bit of a weirder list, because I definitely approach this format a bit more differently than most people. I think that’s best evidenced by the fact that my one Commander from last year was Callaphe of all things.

Egh, fuck it. I can’t order these. Honest truth- I’m actually writing this section second, and I’m tired at this point. Here’s a few words on like like every card I was thinking of when I went through everything.

Adeline, Resplendent Cathar: This actually almost made the list for Cube as well. This card, in my eyes, proves that two things are possible- one, that Mono-White is definitely still good enough (and y’all are just mean), and two, that Aggro is definitely still good enough (and y’all are just mean). I really like her, she goes tall and wide simultaneously, and she demonstrates that White’s problems don’t necessarily need “solving”. Though they probably should do that still.

Minn, Wily Illusionist: I have actually designed a deck around this one, and god, it was a lot of fun. This card is just so genuinely interesting that I’ve thought about taking Callaphe apart and replacing it with Minn. It was just, the moment I realised that this card can ramp you. It doesn’t say nonland, you can just drop lands when your illusions hit the dirt. That was huge.

Ebondeath, Dracolich: Believe it or not, I actually struggled to make picks for my favourite colour combinations this year. It wasn’t actually a great year for Mono-Black, all things considering? At the very least, the cards we got didn’t really pique my interest super much. Ebondeath did, though, so there’s that.

Gisa, Glorious Resurrector: She just looks like she’s having such a good time.

Yedora, Grave Gardener: I’ve always been a fan of checking the “secondary” Commanders present in precons, because there’s always some really whacky designs. Yedora is one of these- it’s a mono-Green Aristocrats-esque card that also happens to have insane synergy with Morph, one of my favourite mechanics. You can go infinite with fucking Temur Charger, how sick is that?

Toski, Bearer of Secrets and Chatterfang, Squirrel General: I’m lumping these together because I’m just happy they’re there. Good for MaRo. Finally got Squirrel Tribal out of the Un-Set hell it’s been in since its brief escape in Odyssey block. Now to just reprint all those cards, and also remove the reserved list so we can get Deranged Hermit back.

Dennick, Pious Apprentice / Dennick, Pious Apparition: Something about this guy just wriggled its way into my brain and I cannot get him out. I have to figure this deck out and then build it. I don’t know why, but I gotta. I’m thinking, like, Looter tribal? Maybe? The only thing I’ve really got is the deck’s name, Kill This Man, because somebody kill my commander so I can use it properly.

Vega, the Watcher: On the flipside, this is just ludicrously simple and clean, but great as a result. I really enjoy uncommon commanders sometimes- when they’re basic and open or niche but powerful. It’s a fine line- I mean, look at most of the ones from AFR, they’re kinda garbo- but some of them really get to shine.

Eloise, Nephalia Sleuth: Iunno man this one’s just cool. Investigate is a great mechanic, would love to see it more often.

Kardur, Doomscourge: Kardur was very much a card that told me that Rakdos was back, and back to being interesting. Of course Goad and its similar effects should be BR, it works perfectly. And then it kind of got completely overshadowed by Karazakar and Prosper and the like, but still. It’s cool.

Halana and Alena, Partners: Look, I’m just happy they got to stick around. Always loved these characters, was great to see them in Commander Legends, greater to see them in an actual Innistrad set.

Tovolar, Dire Overlord / Tovolar, the Midnight Scourge: This is kind of a dishonourable mention, actually. It frustrates me so deeply that, instead of getting a bunch of cool an interesting Werewolf commanders that do a bunch of different takes on how the deck should work, like what the Vampires got in Crimson Vow, we got exactly one. And he’s so incredibly nuts that it makes no sense to run anything else. Fuck, man, I don’t want this for this tribe.

Genuinely, though, I know that Werewolves are a problematic design space because of their complexity, but you know what you could have done? Added a fucking WOLF legend that buffs Werewolves too? Considering every Werewolf in the set also cares about Wolves? Come on, man.

(Side-note: I’d also like to give a dishonourable mention to Tergrid, God of Fright, for completely overshadowing every other Mono-B deck this year and also making a lot of people very very miserable)

Grist, the Hunger Tide: I just like that this guy’s a secret extra Planeswalker Commander. And also, Insect tribal! I think I’d still run Xira Arien, but that’s just me.

General Ferrous Rokiric: As much as I dislike every card with 3+ colours being fucking insane and there’s not enough mono/two-coloured decks in the format, I do actually like encouraging playing multicoloured cards. I really like the idea of a deck where all those Shadowmoor/Eventide cards are really good. I dunno. I’m still tossing up what I want to do for bonus extra Boros deck, but this guy is on the table.

Odric, Blood-Cursed: Fuck you this guy’s neato you’re just mean.

Quintorius, Field Historian: I feel like I was too harsh on this guy the first time. He’s a neat little guy, does interesting things, and it encourages you to lean into some of Boros’s better card advantage options. Did he really have to be 5 mana, though?

Cube

Okay this one gets to be an actual ordered list.

Honorable Mention: Tourach, Dread Cantor

I’m not going to act like this card is incredible. Hell, it’s probably not even that good. It’s a 2 mana 2/1 with limited upside, or it’s a very hard-to-cast 4 mana 4/3 with insane upside. I guess maybe I should put this guy in my 4s section, huh?

But I’m just a sucker for Hymn to Tourach. I’m fully aware of how painful it is to get hit with it- hell, I think I might have been targeted by this spell in Cube more that I’ve gotten to play it. But it’s just so sick. I’m glad I get to have Black discard effects in my cube, because they’re something I just really enjoy playing with- and it might be a bit of a feel bad to play against them sometimes, but hey. Just draft Black yourself next time, and show them how you feel about it.

The card’s called Despise for a reason. I mean, I don’t play that one anymore (it’s not good!), but still.

#5: Smoldering Egg / Ashmouth Dragon

The keen-eyed among people who actually look at my cube may notice a suspicious Thing in the Ice-shaped hole in my Blue section. But why, Rad, why are you not playing that classic banger? Aren’t you trying to support Blue-based control decks? Aren’t you supporting a Blue/Red spellslinger deck? Whatever gives? Why not Horror Guy?

Thing in the Ice is a card I have a bit of history with. I played an aggro deck in Standard at the time, played SOI draft weekly (it might be my favourite format), and as such have sat across the table from the thing plenty of times. It has not given me a good impression. It’s a very good card, but not one I like, and I want to keep only cards I actually enjoy in my cube if I can get away with it.

Smoldering Egg, therefore, is a very convenient alternative. It does a lot of the same things, but rather than resetting the game when it transforms, it instead acts as a turning point for the deck’s plan, letting it pivot aggressive while still blowing through things in the process. It’s a bit more playable in tempo-ier decks, but it also encourages playing some of the more expensive spells available- hell, I’d consider playing this in Mono-Red if I had Fireblast. Dig Through Time flips it immediately!

In short, I love this card, and I don’t love Thing in the Ice. Besides, it’s like a quarter of the price.

#4: Timeless Dragon

As a heads up, every other card on this list fits a pattern. That is, there’s two Green and two White cards, and they’re from Midnight Hunt and Modern Horizons 2. I said I was biased.

With that in mind, I feel like I’m going crazy when I don’t see this card in many cubes. It’s in less than 5% of cubes total, and that just feels so low to me considering how versatile this thing is.

This card effectively has two modes. The first is an instant-speed 2 mana draw 2 in White, as long as you know that one card is always a land and the other is always a 4 mana 4/4 flyer, which is pretty fine. That doesn’t sound that good later in the game, but fortunately, the other mode of a 5 mana 5/5 flyer that draws you a 4 mana 4/4 flyer on death looks pretty good there. This card is just a versatile value house- this isn’t even getting into its synergies with mill or strength against discard effects.

It’s definitely not the splashiest thing in the world, but honestly, it doesn’t have to be. Sometimes, a big idiot dragon is good enough, and this one happens to be two of those.

#3: Timeless Witness

Man, maybe I just like Eternalize. But no, this is actually here for a very specific reason.

When I was looking into redoing my Cube up a bit, I was kind of in a rut. I’d added the green Demigod, Renata, to my list on seeing it in some other ones- only to realise it was in those because it’s a Persist combo enabler (which isn’t a thing in my list) that’s a bit more playable outside of that context. And I kinda forgot what I had cut for Renata- but also, wanted my new card to support some of the synergies I was going for in my Green section.

Then this thing came along. Boom, it’s a Human for GW decks. Boom, it’s a graveyard card for GB decks. Boom, it’s just kind of really good value. I didn’t have Eternal Witness in at the time, but now that I do have that card (and am seeking a non-Terese Nielsen version, thanks asshat), I’m still keeping the Timeless one in. It’s obviously weaker on account of being more mana, but I’ve just grown attached to it.

#2: Cathar Commando

Whenever WoTC ends spoiler season by just unceremoniously dumping the last of the cards upon the people all at once, there’s often a card or two hiding in the pile of draft commons and uncommons (and like one rare they knew people won’t care about) that are actually worth the interest. For Crimson Vow, that was Ancestral Anger- the secret extra Zada draw effect they tried to throw me off of by giving it text that doesn’t work in Commander (also Reckless Impulse). For Modern Horizons 2, that was Unholy Heat (kind of the best burn spell in years?) and Goblin Anarchomancer. And for Midnight Hunt, that was Cathar Commando. And probably some other stuff too.

This card is just so simple, and yet somehow of the 30-odd White 3/1s for 2, it has managed to skyrocket right near the top. I guess it has to be simple- it’s a common from a regular standard set, but still. I’d argue this thing is more playable than the Mythic Rare 1W 3/1 from the very same set, Intrepid Adversary- and that’s something you just don’t see in modern sets. Commons aren’t supposed to be allowed to do that these days, but here we are.

For the record, it’s technically the only 3/1 for 2 I’m running- only because Adanto Vanguard, the utterly absurd beast that it is, is acshually a 1/1. But I think that says a lot about how much I think about this card.

#1: Tovolar’s Huntmaster / Tovolar’s Packleader

Grave Titan is a card with a long, long history of terror in Cube. Released as part of a cycle of 5, each of settling into their own homes. Sun Titan is an EDH Menace, Primetime decimates Modern whenever it hits the field. Inferno Titan lives in Cube as well, but has never been quite as good and is much more replacable. Frost Titan is also there…hey, I’m still running it. But nothing can really step to the old Grave Daddy in Cube as far as 6-drops go.

And the thing is, that’s embarrassing for Green. For the undeniable best 6-mana card to be Black? For the colour that’s about getting to the big good stuff to be outdone in its optimal peak? For the ramp deck to have to splash another colour to get something as game-ending as the big man himself? For shame.

And lo, finally, we received it. The Green Grave Titan. Is it as good? Not quite, obviously. But is it good enough? Absolutely.

anyway thats it im goin bed buh-bye hopefully when i wake up there’ll be a neon kamigawa w/e spoiler that’s a samurai and not a ninja still a little miffed about the new umezawa anyway

#ramble #mtg

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