The replies here are a good show of why RCQ level events are viewed as angle shooter territory, and PTs / Pro REL events/players get stereotyped as “relaxed”. Policy on takebacks with no info gained is lenient. Magic is better when players are playing the game and not the rules.

Round 14 opponent was already qualified for the next PT and conceded to me, putting me at a 9-5 finish, which should be good for a top 24 PT qualification (And a hometown Portland RC qual I really wanted). Pretty happy with my weekend! But should have maindecked 2 Recordings.

Round 13 vs Airbending Airbending is such a cool deck to play against when the matchup is close, all the instant speed decision melting is brain melting in a good way. Won game 1 on wipes and card advantage, lost a close game 2, torpor orb’d game 3. 8-5

Round 12 vs Simic Ouro Picked up a very favored game 1 through the power of sweepers. But lost two extremely close postboard games to not drawing sweepers and a tiny bit of flooding. 7-5 out of top 8 dreams, time to fight for a PT invite.

Round 11 vs Sultai Reanimator Drew the nuts counterspell / card draw hand to win game 1 pretty smoothly, then had a super interactive game 2 where I fought through caverns and about three living ends, but eventually swung for 20 worth of prowess tokens with 5 cards left. 7-4

Rounds 8-10 vs Draft Went 1-2 with a deck that I think is probably 2-1 on average, but mulliganned a lot, and missed many topdeck outs to lethal. So it goes, sadly. Plan now is the good ol’ 4-0 constructed to Top 8. 6-4

Round 7 vs GB Dragons Definitely a favored feeling matchup. The GB grindy creature land strategy is really powerful vs traditional control, but Jeskai Revelation and Cursed Recording do a lot to go exponentially over the top instead of linearly. 5-2, pretty good day.

Round 6 vs Lessons Small vindication for the feature match loss, won both postboard games against (I believe) the same 75. Matchup seems very cool, but probably unfavored. Monument to Endurance makes for really cool lines. 4-2 Day Two!

Round 5 vs Izzet Looting Game 1 cursed recording copy jeskai rev on curve locks things up, and game 2 I managed to hold off the aggro with impended overlords long enough to use cursed recording TSA to make 2 overlord copies when it came off impend. 3-2

Round 4 feature match vs Matt Nass on Izzet lessons. Tough game 1s here, monument and card advantage are very good grindy tools that tend to outscale anything but a Cursed recording I didn’t find. And game 2 sadly didn’t really leave the runway. 2-2

Worlds Thread time! First draft was an absolute riot. Went 2-1, losing to an extremely good UW deck after mulliganing each game. Onward to Standard where we’ll be haunting some videos

Shoutout to all my Rest in Peace gamers.

Deck registration for Worlds gonna be deeply amusing.

Why did no one tell me trains are cool

I appreciate how Foundations has removed the “Magic needs core sets so standard can have pithing needle” argument. Nowadays if we need a bad sideboard card to fight oppressive decks they can just retroactively have secretly had it in Foundations the entire time.

Another year gone by and I still can’t find a drive through Garlic Bread store churning out loaves like some kind of butter and herb based Starbucks. What’s even the point of capitalism?

What’s an efficient way to add a disclaimer to every post about card design that statements made about card quality are only about standard unless otherwise specified? I don’t know how to elegantly tell commander players that power levels on weak cards don’t affect them.

Enchantment-based removal card design is the part of magic that most consistently confuses me. They always seem costed as if being a removable liability that flickers your opponents’ stuff for them is somehow not a downside? Would love to see one of these with, like, ward 2.

So having now seen these in person: Good news! They somehow look worse in real life. They’re exactly as pixelated and low res, except they’re larger and the artifacting is exacerbated, on top of the printing being so dark you can’t tell what most cards are. Honestly baffling.

https://t.co/Xf9aUMl12i