Ari Lax
@armlx
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PT Khans of Tarkir winner, Dominaria's Judgment ( @dominaria_pod ) w/ @dominharvia
Joined May 2010
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Last Seen Profiles
I found a reasonable creature that can't be turned into an Elk by Oko!
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Excited for Pioneer with all our favorite cards:
Elk, the Promised End
Elk, Vryn's Prodigy
Pack Elk
Siege Elk
Smuggler's Elk
Aetherwork Elk
Thassa, Elk of the Sea; Elk of Kruphix
Reflector Elk
Elk, the Fervent
Elk Chainwhirler
Thoughtseize
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Extremely out of Goblin flavor for Krenko to make players secretly learn about the stack.
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The color wheel of terrible tournament opinions:
W - IDs are theft
U - Sideboard guides are for people who can't learn the material
B - Calling judges is angle shooting
R - Netdeckers suck
G - Damage on the stack was better
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> wotc places new set on Ravnica
> says its not a Ravnica set
> pulls out explainer of what the set is
> "huh thats a cool idea to flesh out a plane"
> lightning helix and shock lands
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Your PSA to literally never pass this card in OTJ draft and that it is somehow not a Mythic.
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Triome Secret Lair, but they are all just renamed Jund / Abzan Triome so everyone can forget the real names.
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Magic Players: Noooo you can't concede to people in events that's unfaiiir play the game. Intentional draws are theft!
Also Magic players: You are legally obligated to accept your FNM finals opponent's request to prize split because it's getting slightly late.
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I see we have reached the "Magic's land system is outdated garbage, modern designs do it better" discourse.
Anyways, RIP to Magic because lands suck, long live all the dead games that tried to "do resources better".
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Just delete the Companion mechanic, I don't feel like waiting another 6 months and checking Yorion numbers.
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Cancel your WoW Classic subscriptions.
Not that I wouldn't endorse that decision any day, but today is an especially good one to do so.
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WotC: No pirate guns on Ixalan, only weird powder cannons.
Also WotC: Fuck it
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Banning Fury broadens the Modern metagame. Creature decks can now lose to Izzet, Hammer, and Yawgmoth instead of just Scam!
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There were 79 maindeck spells between the GP Bologna finalists. 29 of those were from 2019.
You have 26 years of Magic to choose castable cards from, and more than 1/3rd are from the last nine months.
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Hating Modern Horizons more and more as I see stupid Snow Lands in every deck instead of 27 years of cool basic land options.
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Topical story for the discourse:
Two pros, late in a draft GP. Game 3 one asks how many cards are in his opponents hand.
They reply 3, and list all 3 by name. A five drop, removal, and a trick.
The player who asks refuses to believe this, plays into those 3 cards and loses.
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"The wildcard system is effectively the dust system. But rather than tie it to things that are unfun (playing with the cards you have then wanting to try new things) we tied it to something that is more fun (you giving WotC lots of money)"
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Over the last 2 years, the progression of large audience content creators going from "maybe avoid Standard" to "maybe avoid Organized Play" to "maybe avoid competitive formats" to "maybe just don't play Magic" is a fairly strong sign somethings got really fucked up.
As someone who wants to see Magic succeed, grow and thrive more than just about anything this was a tough article to write, but it felt necessary.
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Masterwork of Magic design to print Tibalt with a drawback and make it seem exciting to people.
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Fun fact about Modern right now: Ragavan and Urza's Saga are expensive, but so is not playing with either of them because you lose all your matches.
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The Chandra/Nissa apology wasn't translated into languages where the pro-LGBTQ message was viewed as a liability.
I don't want to burn bridges, as I really value my friendships with Wizards.
But these are tiny, performative changes that affect cards nobody plays.
It's been six months since the Chandra/Nissa thing with no substantive changes, so please tell me why I should believe this.
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After playing a bunch of Standard, it really shocks me that WotC put so much work into costing and writing flavor text for all these 3/3 green Elks they printed.
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Just learned that Fraying Omnipotence causes a draw in 2HG by making each player lose half their team's life. Teams then get to sideboard for game 2 of their 1 game match.
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Alex Bertoncini wasn't even MODO banned during his first couple bans.
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Ignoring Pioneer, I want to know who in R&D played Alara-era Standard and said "yes, I have fond memories of Bloodbraid Elf existing, we should make cards that look exactly like it"
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On the eve of whatever the hell Wizards decides to do about this mess, some thoughts about the systematic things that are leading to Standard breaking over and over and over again the last year or two.
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This Pioneer Rakdos Midrange deck has to be the worst deck actually winning things I've seen in literal years. Your entire deck costs 3, there's no draw smoothing, and there isn't a single good card in the deck that makes you want to play midrange.
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Medium take:
Of the Top 8 planeswalkers of all time, over half are from 2019
Hot take:
Jace TMS might be the only pre 2019 one the Top 5.
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WotC is back to working on their "Standard ban" speedrun, with a current PB of 17 days set in October 2019.
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On this 3/5, lets remember the simpler days of card design and OP.
Where a set would have a Siege Mastodon, you would get the artist to sign a foil copy with "Congrats on the PT!", and then promptly hand it to whichever friend went 3-5 and bricked.
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Frantically Googling "how to go back in time and prevent formats from existing".
I completely understand why cEDH isn’t for everyone. Most players would hate the spot my last game found itself in:
My opponent Emrakul the Promised Ended me going into a turn where I could make infinite mana and then do basically anything you can think of, but I could concede..
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Next thing you know, killing a creature in response to an aura will just let them choose a new target.
Booooooring.
It's fun when a generally upside mechanic comes at the cost of sometimes being inconvenient and/or bad.
The "put it in your hand" backstop for Discover vs. Cascade sucks too.
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This Alrund's Epiphany ban talk is such nonsense. Yea, it's a very good card. It's an expensive sorcery that will rapidly decrease in power relative to the format as it expands. The combo kill is even more expensive. New set previews start basically tomorrow. Chill for 2 weeks.
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Why banning Fury is a bad idea:
1. Fury isnt causing new issues
2. Fury Scam is healthy
3. Fury has real costs in 4C
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Anyone who suggests unbanning Oko in any format should have their B&R discourse privileges revoked.
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Me, casting Jadelight Ranger revealing Glorybringer: "Yea, you can stay right there".
Judge behind me, two minutes later: "Am I staying here,to answer a question or can I leave?"
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Never drafting MH1 again, keeping this deck unplayed so I can stare at it as the League ticks down to close.
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> Thunder Junction was totally uninhabited
> Akul is a people (has a job of Rogue) and is a Scorpion Dragon
> Scorpion Dragons came from somewhere
> Show that plane please?
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Was just told by a Tron player on MODO that my Inkmoth Nexus should be banned.
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Coming around full circle to the idea that Standard is failing because of game design, not OP or the game economy.
This 9 set Standard has the same vibes as 5 set SoI or BfZ. Without a real cohesive mechanical plan joining sets, its all just a soup of medium mana and spells.
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Just learned that Veil of Summer beats Chalice of the Void for 0, and it is just natural human reaction to share new, unwanted, and jarring knowledge with anyone in earshot
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2RR
Sorcery
Deal 4 damage to all creatures and planeswalkers.
Flavor Text : Oh shit, how much loyalty did we start all those at?
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Long Magic design theory post today: Why basing a Limited format around three mana 3/2s naturally leads to dynamic game play, more cards being playable, and strategic diversity.
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Nahiri makes Kor tokens. Winota is a Warrior. Embercleave is an Equipment.
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The real winner of the London Mulligan is Patrick Sullivan, who now has an extra 3 minutes per Modern match to general great Twitch rants.
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The deck that won the Legacy Challenge this weekend is the biggest pile of bullshit I've seen in a long time. Just really impressive.
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Evoke: Printed in 2007, no real issues until 2021
Free spells: Results in bans 50-60% of the time it happens.
Late design changes on free spells: Um... what?
Anyways errata evoke or something.
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For my final trick, I'm going to make Cedric publish a theory article. Featuring why mana curves are a lie, the way I've won the most matches relative to other players, and why playing around cards isn't the whole picture.
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B&R discourse: Any complaints about Scam's metagame share in Modern need to be pointed right back at The One Ring condensing all midrange end games, making Scam style "broken fair" the only viable normal way to engage with the format.
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Banning Fury has made the T1 Grief plays feel even more offensive. We could have just shifted to a world where this didn't happen. Instead everyone just has to live through more of this horseshit so that LeoninArbiterFan1992 could feel a bit better about losing.
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Taking a cue from the finance book of PSulli. If anyone says a 250 dollar booster is a good investment, I will tell them to buy 3 Hasbro shares and order pizza instead.
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Honestly, the Uro ban might be the 2nd worst WotC announcement of the day behind "you know, the original Mana Crypt distribution and legality model was a good thing"
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On the flip side, Play Boosters suck. They don't ruin draft, but cutting a pickable card and reducing the wheel is not fun and the increased concentration of "my opponent has 3 bomb rares" matchups gets old quickly.
Been thinking a lot about this the more I play MKM. The set is very well designed to be a true tempo set, but that suffers because its the 5th or 6th raw tempo set in a row behind a bunch of sets that weren't well designed or intended for that role.
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Words that describe my reaction this Play Design article:
-Disheartening
-Offensive
-Concerning
I don't get how you walk away from War of the Spark forward assuming your vision was good and needs tweaks as opposed to it being a systemic failure.
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To be clear with my retweets, I think banning OUAT and Breach was absolutely correct, but why the hell was either of those cards printed? Where was the upside?
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Figured out how to say what I wanted to say about how the soul of competitive Magic has been traded for the MPL. At least I hope I have.
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Don't Gift of Fangs your opponent's Blood Petal Celebrant, Bloodtithe Harvester, or Belligerent Guest. This tweet brought to you by my first Shame Scoop of 2021.
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Fun fact from PT testing: if you listen to Frog's Theme from Chronotrigger on loop while playing Bogles, your win percentage drastically increases.
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Uro: Printable in 2020
Rick, literally a black border card with a dude with a beanie on it: Printable in 2020
The Companion mechanic: Printable in 2020
Jeweled Lotus: Printable in 2020
"Bearer of Squeak-rets": OVER THE LINE
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If you keep having to ban stuff like The Meathook Massacre after rotation, can we just call 5 set Standard a failure and make something different happen?
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I noticed today that I think of AFR as both a "deceptively powerful" and "absolutely forgettable" set, which made no sense. I tried to unpack why, and realized you can sum up the issue with two cards: Inferno of the Star Mounts and Baleful Beholder.
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Unpopular opinion: MH1 was a monkey's paw. Non-rotating format devotees want new stuff, but all at once in an inorganic dump destroys why they want to play a non-rotating format. Unsure the genie can go back in the bottle, and we asked for MH1, but I would unprint it if I could.
Unpopular opinion: if it wasn't for something like five cards that were pushed to far Modern Horizons would be considered one of the best sets of all time.
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Day/Night continuing to track even if no permanents associated with it are on the battlefield was a mistake. Adding a bunch of brain space and tracking overhead when there isn't an active game play return is the same category of game design sin as Sensei's Divining Top.
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Player with multiple PT 9th places makes finals of Worlds last year, loses, comes back and wins. Not only that, but he T8ed his home country PT in the middle and is generally great.
But you have to dig through a random non-WotC Wiki page to construct this narrative.
Ah. Not a word about Javier on the Magic homepage. I see...
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@CedricAPhillips
"Florida Man Voices Desire for Free Speech Platform Where He Only Listens to Ideas He Agrees With"
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Lost to Bertoncini for a GP T8. Apologies in advance to all my GP Detroit opponents for playing angry as fuck.
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If you intend to draft Neon Dynasty, I would strongly advise you do 5-10 practice runs on Draftsim first. Or you can have Arena autopick your first draft as you try to read the cards in time, your choice.
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Simple lessons of NEO Limited so far:
-Attacking good
-Cheap combat tricks good
-Card advantage engines good
-Sagas good
-Blocking to trade bad
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Quote of the round:
"Judge, I need the Oracle text of that card"
"Ok what card is that?"
"I don't know."
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The Iowa caucus counting app, brought to you by the makers of DCI Reporter.
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Three players registered Oops All Spells in Pioneer at the MOCS. Their deck sizes are:
62 cards
68 cards
79 cards
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It takes about 2 matches of 1v1 Commander to realize its absolutely unplayable as a competitive format, then you realize the League goes for 3 more matches and drop.
Given how popular Commander is, I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw a cEDH PT or some other big event in the near future with the competitive players.
Would be pretty funny if the broadcast viewership instantly skyrocketed from the usual ~15k to 50k.
Next year cEDH PT Prague?
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It really sends a message to anyone competing in future events that you can't even trust previously announced payouts if you are qualified for literal Worlds. No clue how you reboot any semblance of competitive play from there.
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Also mad props to
@efropoker
and
@dwpoker
for refusing to play Nexus of Fate proxies and instead foiling out their deck. That was sweet.
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Detective hats had good fun vibes. Cowboy hats have bad, trying too hard vibes. Going to spend a month ruminating on why.
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Happy annual "Mengu posts the unpeeled egg baked good" day to those who celebrate
Typical Easter food from Naples. Il Casatiello! 🥰 Stuffed with pancetta, eggs and cheese!
#menguccicuisine
🇮🇹
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There's a huge difference between hopping in a car with 4 friends at 3am and getting home at 1am and sitting alone in your apartment rolling dice alone for 60 hours.
I see people complaining about this "grind" for the 8 spots. When I was on the grind, that meant 10 hour car rides to 1 spot ptqs. Playing online magic until 3am is what I do for fun and if u told me I could qualify for a $1,000,000 tourney if I ran hot, I would have fainted.
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It seems like people forgot you can just put Lurrus in your deck. Like as a card. That you draw. That you can play multiples of.
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Uber driver asked if I was going to the dentist convention. GG, wheel me out to the retirement home.
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Kinda accustomed to the "abuser pretends nothing happened and shifts to a new community" thing.
Not used to the "someone prominently employed in the old community uses that to promote their abuser friend within the community they exploited".
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This Domain deck is the best thing to happen to Standard in years. Actually based on a mechanic. Easy to understand, also easy to see how good players do stuff better with it. Has obvious flaw, does nothing before Turn 4. Forces midrange decks to make real scale decisions
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Llanowar Elves is now scientifically proven superior to Elvish Mystic in multiple studies.
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Why is this card a Lotus? It makes a decidedly non-three amount of mana and doesn't sacrifice. Are we just at the point thay "taps for some number of colored mana" is a Lotus?
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I do want to clarify this: ban the shit out of Grief if you want to fix anything. Even if Scam is a beatable best deck, Grief is what is subsidizing the Scam effects in a deck and the T1 Grief games are the ones that are universally warping in ways that are hard to fix.
Why banning Fury is a bad idea:
1. Fury isnt causing new issues
2. Fury Scam is healthy
3. Fury has real costs in 4C
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It is telling that many of the women WotC gave discretionary invites to this year came from the SCG Tour, a series where they can promote people on a weekly basis, where iterated events give players room to improve, and not from the OP system where they hand you 7k and a die roll
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Offended that Yuuta's GP Portland deck is named "UB Control" on the WotC site. There's Spellstutter Sprite and Bitterblossom, the man has worked hard for the actual Faeries title.
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To all my PT teammates who thought making MODO alts to test was overkill, who is laughing in free Cube drafts now?
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