I love Ikoria

 I love Ikoria, and I think long-term, the set opened up new design space for Magic that is wide open for exploration. The first time is always hard because there is no precedent. I am betting that Return to Ikoria is already on the schedule. And if it isn't, that's a major mistake. Wizards will be a fool not to explore Mutate and Companion a lot more.

The mistake with Coompanion's costing, and perhaps how some of the Companion cards work, is understandable. Companions are deck-building heaven, warts and all. Wizards deserves respect for daring new designs instead of just re-hatching old designs. I also don't mind when Wizards blatantly steals from other games (Mutate is a more open form of Pokemon evolution). Like Picasso used to say: 'good artists borrow, great artists steal.'

The Mutate cost-benefit was well thought out. Eldraine adventures are two cards in one whereas Mutate plays are one card from multiple cards, and that is a vulnerability; yet many of the Mutate cards hold their own in a format that has Eldrain adventures; although, parenthetically, I do find [[Unsummon]] effects to be the Achiles heel of Mutate. 

Monoblue Ominous Seas in Standard (MTG Arena)

 Here are links to two matchups I played against and then seven iterations of my monoblue version of an Ominous Seas deck. The decklist:

1. Encountered (I played against) 

Azorius Manabase

Izzet Manabase

1. My Deck 

Version 1 vs Green Stompy

Version 2 vs Yorion Dimir

Version 3 vs Monoblue Teferi's Tutelage Milling

Version 4 vs Monoblue Teferi's Tutelage Milling

Version 5 vs Gruul

Version 6 vs Izzet

Version 7 (final as of today) vs Green Stompy

2019-2020 8-set Standard MTG Arena Match-ups

 In this post, I plan to annotate the match-ups I have been uploading to my YouTube channel as I work my way through a cube I am building for the very first 8-set Standard with all large sets in Magic's now long and beautiful history. There are multiple posts, given that for some decks I have recorded many games I played with the deck or many games in which I played against the deck (looking at you Ominous Seas and RDW).

1. Rakdos 

2. WU Flyers 

Game 1

Game 2

3. Selesnya 

4. Gruul 

5. Orzhov Vampires 

6. Red Deck Wins 

7. Lurrus 

8. Abzan Stompy 

9. BUG Flash 

10. Mono-black WAR Ugin (A loooooooong game) 

11. Post-ban Simic Ramp 

The best is yet to come for Magic

Every now and then someone will post on reddit worrying about the eventual demise of this great game. This is what I reply:

There are things Wizards does that annoy me (I don't care for any pack that costs more than $4, period), and I think sometimes that Wizards would be better off by itself, but that is just wishful thinking. It's easy to forget the good an umbrella company like Hasbro does for a company like Wizards. For a textbook case, look at the Force of Will TCG. FOW TCG made one dumb decision after another and there were no adults in the room. All things considered, I think Hasbro IS good for Wizards.

My perspective is a little different because I have been collecting stamps since the late 1970s (I am an old dude). The biggest threat to Magic is that my 11 year old son will not pick it up, and this is what happened to stamp collecting. I was unable to get my son into stamp collecting because none of his friends are interested. Magic, on the other hand, and Dungeons and Dragons, ARE getting picked up. Just last night my son and I did a brief round of D&D, and he has several friends his age who play the game.

I think Arena is a home run, and even MTGO can stick around for a while longer, but paper Magic will go on for a very long time. These are not ORs, these are ANDs: Arena AND MTGO AND Paper.
Wizards has a deep pool of design talent, and a really devoted player base. It ain't going nowhere. Even if the execs committed professional hara kiri, there would be a dozen well managed companies willing to take on the IP, and no, none of those companies would be stupid enough to get rid of the reserved list, as much as I would want them to.

This game has decades of success ahead of it. The company is willing to turn around on a dime when they go in the wrong direction. They brought back the core set. A poorly run company would have stuck to those dreadful two-set blocks just because of false pride. And they will reprint the fetchlands and make them cheaper, or kill Modern for Pioneer, but they will do something that, however annoying to some, will keep the game strong.

I collect Pokemon and Yugioh when Magic is going through what I think is not the best of times (did a lot of both when the core set was taken out). These days, I am 100 percent Magic. The 'all sets are large' era is so awesome. We are getting Zendikar III, possibly New Phyrexia II, possibly a Norse set... man, oh, man. I think the best for Magic is yet to come.

Deckbuilding with Companions

This is an aggregated post for builds with the ten companions from Ikoria. The builds can be constructed Standard, constructed Modern, and also Commander.

Commander Builds:

Eutropia with Keruga Companion Casual Commander Build
http://mtgadventures.blogspot.com/2020/06/eutropia-with-keruga-companion-casual.html

Lazav Mastermind with Gyruda Companion Casual Commander Build
http://mtgadventures.blogspot.com/2020/06/lazav-mastermind-with-gyruda-companion.html

Lazav Mastermind with Gyruda Companion Casual Commander Build

This build is somewhat more restrictive because the commander has to have an even casting cost. This is not a good deck to model on MTGO because I can't tell which one of the creatures Gyruda sends to the graveyard is associated with each Lazav trigger.

As with other ETB's, you want to be able to pop it back to your hand to give it another whirl. It's otherwise a 6 CMC 6/6 critter. The ETB is what matters for this card.

Sphinx of Foresight was in my starting hand for this modeled game.

Anticipate is very useful in this deck.

Tyrant's Scorn lets me pop Gyruda for another whirl.

I can sacrifice rats from Piper of the Swarm. Here, just as an example, I sacrificed Orzhov Enforcer to draw cards off Erebos.

Lazav becoming Atemsis is good. I can tap it and draw and discard.

Bloodsoaked Altar is also really good in this. I can sacrifice/discard for a 5/5/ Demon token. 

Forever Young lets me make use of all of the other cards that land on the graveyard via Gyruda.

I can also have Spark Double become a copy of Piper of the Swarm.

Last, but not least, Unexplained Disappearance allows me to recast Gyruda.

Eutropia with Keruga Companion Casual Commander Build

The fix has been applied to MTGO for nerfing Companions. As usual, game screenshots are from solitaire games, and the card pool is Standard-only.

Minus the Enter-the-battlefield bonus, Keruga is an otherwise unremarkable 5 drop 5/4. The key to this deck is dropping Keruga when you have lots of permanents in the same turn in which you have the mana to xast those permanents AND having cards that can bounce Keruga back to your hand. The 3+ CMC limitation is not too onerous in casual Commander.

There are several cards in Standard that make this deck shine: Nadir Kraken generates tokens turn after turn to up your permanent count. You can also use the tokens as Mutate targets, but that's a secondary bonus that decreases your permanent count. Then we have two cards to bounce Keruga for additional ETB triggers: Arrester's Admonition and Rescuer Sphinx.

Europia is perfect for Kruga. With a reasonable manbase, it can be reliably cast turn 3. I would add more enchantments when expanding the card pool out of Standard.

Farfinder is a great Mutate target plus the land drop it triggers.

Keruga requires 3 extra mana. It's a late play after the nerf.

Even though I want a high permanent count for Keruga, I am also having fun testing Mutate triggers.

Eutropia gets me a counter, and so does New Horizons. Setessan Champion nets me cards.

Keruga draws a ton!! It's a lot of late game fun!

Here I am after casting post Keruga.

An early game Nadir Kraken is a beast. If not addressed, it will get your opponent a really high permanent count for Keruga.

Here I am at the turn when I put Keruga in my hand.

Proliferate.

Card draw from Keruga triggers a zillion tokens.

Atermis also triggers Nadir Kraken for tokens.