Looking back at the Theros block

Hits:

1. Devotion is awesome. I can't get enough of it, especially green devotion. Green-blue in Legacy with JTMS is a ton of fun, and in modern with Proliferate shenanigans it is also a ton of fun. Devotion has IMHO a lot of unexplored potential. Nykthos is by far my favorite dual land.
2. Strive is also awesome, and also has IMHO a lot of unexplored potential. NYX is a great set, not New Phyrexia great, but going that way. With a few new cards in the coming sets I believe Nyx can be a close second to New Phyrexia. Just like Kicker, Strive gets better in the late game, and sometimes insanely better.
3. Here and there cards that have a home in the eternal formats in the three sets.
4. The quality of some of the art, of course, is amazing.

Misses:

1. Heroic is a card disadvantage mechanic. Poor Born of the Gods got hit with the Heroic stick.
2. Bestow, except for one or two creatures, is grossly over-costed; Saviors of Kamigawa over-costed.
3. The entire block is missing cards that would have made it a much more playable block. There is not a single card at common that even comes close to Delver of Secrets, for example. I like slow games, but not boring and dumbed down slow games, and a lot of games with Theros in them are just dumb. I love mono-black, but Theros made me not want to play mono-black on account of the one-trick pony Gray Merchant of Asphodel.
4. I love Greek Mythology, but the coverage of ancient Greece in Theros felt 'high school.' Even though the Kamigawa block takes a lot of heat for playability, I feel that Kamigawa is more Japanese than Theros is Greek. I would have liked Theros to feel more Greek.

Print runs of the early sets

I recently bought volumes 1, 2, and 3 of the Official Encyclopedia. These are early volumes with pictures of the cards issued up to 4th edition (Volume 1), 5th edition and Mirage block (Volume 2), and Tempest block (Volume 3). I have Volume 4 on the way and it covers Urza block. I believe Volume 5 covers Mercadian Masques, and Volume 6 covers Invasion block.

In Volume 1 there is mention of the print runs that Wizards has made public:

Limited Edition Alpha (August 1993): 2.6 million cards
Limited Edition Beta (October 1993): 7.3 million cards
Unlimited (December 1993):35 million cards
Arabian Nights (December 1993): 5 million cards
Antiquities (March 1994): 15 million cards
Revised (April 1994): many more than Unlimited
The Dark (August 1994): 62 million cards
Fallen Empires (November 1994): more than four times the number issued for The Dark (that is a ton of cards for this early period!)
Legends: 35 million cards

Tempest Block Draft No. 2

Pulled some nice cards, especially a Lotus Petal and an Oath of Gouls, as well as an Altar of Dementia. Also Seismic Assault, and Price of Progress and a Crystalline Sliver.

Tempest Block Draft No. 1

Here it is. I pulled two money cards.

[Legacy] Future Sight JTMS Combo Mono Blue

Can you imagine if Wizards released a Legacy product with this deck?

And here is a casual game in which I got to place most of this deck on the battlefield. Elixir of Immortality kept me from milling myself several times.

I continue to drop critters.

This game is pretty much locked. I have been able to use and recycle many counterspells. My opponent was unable to drop any of a long list of killer black spells (Black Sun's Zenith and others).

Finally I can flip three of my Delvers.

Here I am about to ultimate my first JTMS.

Here I use my second JTMS to put back the locking critter to my opponent's hand.

Final barrage.

[Legacy] Learner deck for Mirage and Visions White Blue

I am keeping the Future Sight-JTMS combo in a light version. It comes up rarely with only two of each of these cards and that means I get to play the learner cards often. There are some uses for phasing... especially on tokens. Who knew? This version has two Future Sight, but I have gone to three... otherwise, it does not come up often enough.

Here is the combo gone wild.

And here is why Just for Fun Legacy sometimes is all about someone with a tournament deck play testing against a weak deck and using that deck as a punching bag.

And here is a board state of the optimized deck. It is bonkers!

Three Mirage booster packs online

I was looking to pull one of the tutors, but did not...