Recent content by shamizy

I'd say the bigger problem with Masters sets was the frequency with which they were printing them. It made sense at the beginning with a schedule of every two years beginning with Modern Masters in 2013. That was right in line with how frequently the meta would shift in that format for a long...

I'm a month late on the year review bump, but better late than never to revisit this set. My inclusions from a year ago were... nonexistent. I strongly disliked the aesthetics of this set so much that I outright skipped the prerelease and didn't spend a second further on it. Hell, I even hated...

That's right about where I was leaning as well for most of these cards, Pyromancer being the iffiest. Big fan of more effects to draw cards and maximize graveyard interactions, extremely sick sequences for Winternight with Astrologian's Planisphere which is quickly becoming a favorite of mine...

Thoughts on any of the following cards: Earth Kingdom Jailer Tishana's Tidebinder Winternight Stories Bolas's Citadel Irencrag Pyromancer Mightform Harmonizer The Endstone Just had a cube session with 9 people (cube report later this month hopefully) and my gears are turning with swaps...

Rip Apart for sure, you get a ton of flexibility and interaction options. Being able to maindeck a removal piece that can pick off small bodies and problematic permanents like a Retrofitter Foundry or Animate Dead is huge. It's only getting better with more and more artifact creatures and...

One good thing about this set is that foils are absolutely dirt cheap. I was able to pick up all my stuff for about $15 total at my LGS today.

Still a dumb card when it can get going, but I don't think it's nearly as problematic nowadays with how much bigger creatures are at lower CMC and how much more efficient removal has become. The real issue is how boring it is to play with. The window for interaction before it locks up a game has...

Rat King Verminister Ravenous Robots Casey Jones, Vigilante Chrome Dome Technodrome Nothing's really changed since spoiler season for me with these 5 cards being on my shortlist for inclusion. These all could be Magic cards; there isn't enough turtle stuff present to really turn me off to them...

The flipside would be getting overrun by a pile of goodstuff that can splash without worry which is the issue with high powered environments an increasingly splashier cards alongside great fixing options. I just don't think that there should be nonzero cost to a super greedy mana-base in most...

I think Wasteland and W&6 is fine; there should be some cost to playing too greedy a manabase when you're already running the greatest hits of Magic in most Cube environments. Strip Mine is a step too far, but you can play around Wasteland recursion with sequencing at least.

As long as a base version exists to explain the finer details, I'm in favor of the alternates making concessions for aesthetic purposes. For example, base set Sedgemoor Witch with Ward reminder text vs. a cleaner Extended Art:

I actually cut Young Pyromancer a while back which was hard due to nostalgia, but the limitations to instants and sorceries just became more of an issue over time. It's really difficult to hit that critical mass in a draft format unless you absolutely get the nuts like you could in Constructed...

If anyone is interested, Patrick Chapin is kickstarting his next Magic book diving into a bunch of stuff regarding Magic history and theory and design. It just reached a milestone that will lead to a chapter on Cube being included. He was away from Magic for a while but it looks like he's very...

I'm likely out on anything that references a Mutagen token since it's going to be a set specific token and not evergreen like Clues or Treasures, but there are a number of cool designs I'm interested in trying out from what we've seen: These could all just be Magic cards; there isn't...

I've been running Siege Veteran for years and while this is probably an upgrade, I think that card is just cleaner to play with. Not really feeling the flavor text of this one. Two +1/+1 counters is pretty pushed, did they really need to upgrade that ability so highly? Guess it really depends on...