Arenacraft Ep. 1 - We're back! Let's talk about Standard - CovertGoPodcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Cover Go podcast is now on iHeartRadio, Spotify, and
Apple Podcasts, and is proudly sponsored by cool stuff ink
dot Com. Use the promo code cgb pod at check
out to get a discount and show your love for
the audio version of the show. Ah that just hits,

(00:29):
doesn't it? That the good old vibes.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Oh my gosh, dude, it there's nothing that takes me
back quite like just hearing that. Oh dude, Oh my gosh.
The man, the myth, the legend, he's still at it,
still the want and best of one.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
I know you're talking about you. We're talking about the
Arjuna man. They see me every day and this is
this is the legend has returned. So for those who
might be looking on this for the first time, our
Juna and I had a podcast that ran multiple years
called the Arena Craft Podcast. Really was your baby. You

(01:10):
started it without a co host. You eventually brought me
into the fold. We I think it was at least
two years. It feels like it sounds.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Right and solid. Two years. I think we missed one
week in that whole time.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
Kind of amazing, kind of amazing. I love the Arena
Craft Podcast. It was so much fun. The episodes are
still up. I honestly, I've been looking at the numbers
on them. It's really weird because we're reviewing sets like Strixhaven,
you know, and reacting to the ban of OMNAF, and
those numbers just keep going up. People want the simpler times, man,

(01:48):
they want the simpler times of band cards and broken sets.
It's not like we have those all the time Magic.
I can't keep it together.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
I have to say, you know, maybe it's just a bias, right,
like because I was there, but I feel like that
was a Titanic time in Magic, right, you know. We
had l drain, we had you know, CODs like freaking
euro flying around. I mean, it was it was quite
a time.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
It was quite a time, the best of times in
the worst of times.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
Indeed.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
So for one thing, we had a pandemic and we
all had to stay home and we had this new client.
It was only like a year and a half old
Magic Arena, so it was like, sweet, we have something
to do with our time at home. How lucky are
they that they finally, after all these years, launched a
great digital client right before pandemic strikes. But then car

(02:45):
Design lines up with the most broken, fucked up standards
good ever, so we are also dealing so now we're
playing more magic than ever because of digital magic. But
it's toxic. It was. It was ok, it was horrible.
It was horrible in a beautiful way. It felt like

(03:07):
good old strip Mine Armageddon standard. To me.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
I was gonna say, yeah, I feel like we were
playing with kind of broken magic that we hadn't seen
for like ten years at least, right, Yeah, I mean yeah,
so it was. It was quite a time, quite a time,
and I felt I felt fortunate to have met you
in what I believe was kind of like your great ascension, right,

(03:32):
I think, like, yeah, I just like we started making
content at a time when, like you were really puffing off,
and so it was just really exciting to see that
happen for you as well.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
It was before I played Commander at all, so it's
before I got to do any of the cool Commander shows.
It was. Yeah, I was just a guy playing Arena
and getting views doing it somehow. And what I remember
from that are is there were a lot of us.
But I mean, anyway, this already turned into a retrospective.
I'm going to give the audience a little behind the scenes.

(04:05):
Are Juna messages me last week just you know, you
know how it is. Adult friendships are hard. Man like you,
people that you love talking to every week, you'll suddenly
go for a year without talking to if life gets
like too crazy, and life has definitely been crazy. But
you messaged me last week and you're like, I got
the itch I want to record something. So who am

(04:27):
I to deny the crafties? Right?

Speaker 2 (04:30):
Well, you know what this feels like in in more
ways than one is it's kind of like, what must
it be like when Gandalf catches up with the Ratigast
or something, right, you know, because that's easy. They're out
that keeping middle balanced. They're out there keeping the meta
game in check, you know what, saying.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
Do you have anything for us to smoke? Because I
imagine that's very a big part of it. I don't think.
I don't think we have that handy.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
You could take the ACP to the whole next level.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
There, oh ma'am.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
But that's kind of how it feels to me. You know,
It's like we've been out wizarding in the world. We've
been out holding up our own corners of the universe, right,
and occasionally you just got to get together and kick
back and share a little shire weed.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
I see, so let's fire up the shire weed. What
what have you been doing in magic?

Speaker 2 (05:25):
What have I been doing in magic? I not a lot.
I will say I've not been The fire is not
currently burning at markov Mano when it comes to magic.
For me, however, I'm in a very very active playgroup
and we have like a we have a game night
Facebook group that we all participate in, and it has

(05:48):
been popping off. Dude. I mean, it's like, I feel
like we're in the era of like like maximum magic
right now. It seems like the the the kind of
the connas of stretching and spreading and tearing in some places,
and I'm super curious where it's all going to end up.

(06:09):
But yeah, I feel like I'm witnessing like a cataclysmic
shift in this whole thing that I've known as magic.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
Holy Cow. That's interesting. So it's boots on the ground.
So I have questions. But first kind of a framing references.
You know, corporate interests have released information that magic has
never been doing better that tark Your dragon Storm was
the best selling regular magic set of all time. Final

(06:40):
Fantasy blew away. Lord of the Rings did it as
much in one day as Lord of the Rings did
in six months.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
Two hundred million in one day. Is that what I read?

Speaker 1 (06:50):
That's right, Oh, that's right.

Speaker 2 (06:51):
Goodness.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
Obviously, the pricing, we can't get away from the pricing
when looking at this. That add a lot to do
with it. So when you're your boots on the ground,
you've got a group, you say, the fire isn't burning,
but you've got a playgroup that's popping off. Is this Commander.

Speaker 2 (07:09):
So it's a mix. It's Commander, Commander Unlimited, the common flawmats. Yeah,
And I actually what I like about that is that,
you know, when I play Limited, I get to see
all the cords, right whereas like if I was playing
Standard regularly, I'd only be seeing you know, the the
hot hot fire. And so I really like that that

(07:29):
kind of helps me to stay in touch with the
sets as they come out. And then Commander, you know,
helps me to stay connected with just the broadest sweep
of magic, right because any powerful cord that comes out
anywhere and magic's going to show up in Commanda. So
it's actually it's kind of a cool mix. It kind
of helps me stay up to date somewhat, even though
you know I've not I've not been firing up arena lately,

(07:52):
which heresy. I know. Heresys take a long time.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
The longer you wait, the more likely you're going to
have a twelve gig update and you're just gonna be like,
I guess I'll be back next month.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
And then about seven thousand prompts to click through and
I freaking get into the glass. Dude.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
You should start it right now so we can click
through all the cards that have been banned since you
were last year.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
Oh my gosh. Well, you know, I don't know if
now's the time to talk about it, but that recent
band announcement was a freaking doozy.

Speaker 1 (08:26):
So you did see it.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
I did.

Speaker 1 (08:28):
I was gonna I was gonna just start throwing cards
at you and ask you if you thought they got banned.
But you have seen it, okay, that that is totally legit.

Speaker 2 (08:36):
Yeah, dude, I mean you know, the first thing that
made me angry when I was looking at that list
was I was like, how is is it still on top?
How is is it still the deck to be instanded?

Speaker 1 (08:51):
You were looking wait, you were looking at this before
like like when the band happened, You're like, how is
is it still good? Like before the cards that got
banned or after the cards that got banned.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
Well after the cars that got banned. I mean, you
know what I'm saying is why did it? Why did
we get it to where we're still having like an
is a deck befoty percent of the pro to or
something like that? And I mean, because you know, this
is like years after I've retired, right when I retired
from content creation, is it was still on top? Dude? Oh?

Speaker 1 (09:25):
And was that the call teim?

Speaker 2 (09:27):
Is?

Speaker 1 (09:27):
It was that like gold Span Dragon? What is it was?

Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yeah? Man, yep, yep. We had you know, well there
was the Taking Turns deck right, which eventually got trimmed down,
but we still had freaking gold Span Dragon just running
rampant in the format. I mean, you know, is it
was dominant for a good solid year at least by
the you know, when I quit. And so it was
just I was coming back and I was looking at
you know, like Corey steel Cutter, and I was like,

(09:52):
what what is happening?

Speaker 1 (09:54):
It was his HQ man, would you okay? We know
what happened to Corey steel cut. But like, tell me, like,
when you read that card, did you think it was
getting banned?

Speaker 2 (10:06):
Dude? I mean it's like steam immediately starts in coming
out of my ears like that cord. I mean, what
is not busted about that cod? I you know, I
mean I feel like that's a card I would play
in Mono red. You know what I'm saying. That's a
good I would put in a low cub agro deck. Dude.
That's I mean that you could put that in a

(10:26):
combo deck. You could put that caught in any deck, honestly, right, an.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
Equipment deck, an artifact deck, like what do you want?
A a token deck, A two man of value matters deck,
I hate stack, A prowess deck.

Speaker 2 (10:42):
Yeah, I mean, I mean that's a wind con in
a paradoxical outcome deck, you know, I mean, it's like,
what's not to like about the cod? So anyway, yeah,
you know I looked at that, and I was and
and you know, because I remember this really clearly. I
remember when freaking Lucky Clover was like this untouchable card

(11:04):
and standard right, and I thought, oh, okay, hopefully they're
gonna stop printing these, you know, two cost artifacts that
come down and generate massive value and you feel like
you can't interact with them profitably ever, And nope, we're
just we're back at it. We're back at it again.
What do you know?

Speaker 1 (11:24):
What do you know? It's like they didn't learn from
L Drain or something. They just did L Drain two
point zero and now we're just sensitized to it. We're like, yeah,
that's a card. I guess, oh sixty percent of the meta.
How could this happen? How could this happen?

Speaker 2 (11:40):
What? We never saw this coming? Okay, so here's another
thing that grinds my gizz do it?

Speaker 1 (11:47):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (11:47):
And I and I and I feel like you're the
perfect person to talk with about this. Is it just
monastery mentors all the way down in magic? Did someone
at Wizard's HQ decide that we hadn't enjoyed monastery mentor
enough the first time? I mean didn't Did they just
like preview this car? Maybe we've got this card already,

(12:09):
which is like, it's like Prowess, but it makes monastery
mentors instead. I mean, what is going on? Wait?

Speaker 1 (12:17):
Isn't that an alchemy card? Is an alchemy Yeah, that's
an alchemy card. That card and it was like.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
My brain didn't even I didn't even want to read it,
you know what I mean. I was just I rejected it.

Speaker 1 (12:31):
So did you? Okay? Did it literally make monastery mentors?
I'm trying to remember because it's funny.

Speaker 2 (12:39):
Yeah, it's it's a legendary creature that makes non legendary
tokens that are monastery mentors. And I mean, and I'm like,
this feels like a statement. This feels like a statement.
They're like, no, Cary steel Cutter wasn't enough mentor on
an artifact? Who would have thought?

Speaker 1 (13:00):
Yeah? Is that the one literally makes monastery mentors every
time you cast a non creature smell?

Speaker 2 (13:06):
Yes, it literally Konja's monastery mental I was onto the battlefield.
So I don't know who at Wizard's HQ is like
cackling about this. But someone is like on a meme tag,
you know what I mean, someone just picked up monastery
mentor and they are just shanghaiing it into every cord
they can possibly imagine.

Speaker 1 (13:28):
Are you not a monastery mentor in everything? Kind of dude?
Is that not your jam?

Speaker 2 (13:33):
I think you're picking up on how I feel about this.

Speaker 1 (13:36):
Okay, Okay, so have you played with or against this
card I.

Speaker 2 (13:41):
Have h Okay, Cosmo Grand Zenith, Yeah do do. Oh, yeah,
that's not a problem. That's not a problem at all.

Speaker 1 (13:53):
When you cast your second spell each turn, make two
one ones or put a plus one plus one counter
on each creature you control three.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
That's gonna be fine. That's gonna be great. I'm happy about.

Speaker 1 (14:04):
That, all right. So you haven't had the pleasure of
getting acquainted with this yet.

Speaker 2 (14:08):
No, I haven't had the heavy fist of this cord shoved.

Speaker 1 (14:13):
In my face so far. So far. This card they
they banned from the Pixie deck. Okay, you did you
play against or with the Pixie deck.

Speaker 2 (14:23):
I'm familiar with the Pixick deck.

Speaker 1 (14:25):
So they ban this town ain't big enough, and they
ban Hopeless Nightmare, and they're trying to tone down whatever
the hell that value pile is. But Nurturing Pixie is
still very good. And they seem to love playing stock
up and consider playing Kaitos and things like that. Well, well,
guess what, well they added Cosmo Grand Zenith. Why because

(14:48):
every card that does a nurturing Pixie impression, like Fear
of Isolation, Sun Pearl Kurin is basically a two spell
in one one man a card. So triggering this every
turn is just free. It's just free, and it lets
them go wide or tall whatever they need, whatever they need.

Speaker 2 (15:08):
Dude, I just you know, you know what this is.
I'm looking at this cord and this is the person
at Wizards who makes busted white three drops, right, and
they would just like my beer. Right, They were like,
we need something to dethrone all of these other busted

(15:29):
white three drops from the past. And here we go.

Speaker 1 (15:32):
Remember when Benilish Marshall was good, you know, just three
man three give everything else plus one plus one. That
was a card, that was a real card. They played
that and.

Speaker 2 (15:44):
We and we we thanked them.

Speaker 1 (15:45):
Far, I know, beautiful magic card. And now this is
what we have. This is what we have. But that's
that's just a little bit of current standard from Esper
self Bounce. It's kind of wild that every card you
have to look at in this self Bounce kind of lens.
That's what this three year standard thing has done. It's
not about new decks very often. It's about which mythic

(16:09):
slots into the already amazing shell that's going to be
legal for a good amount of time. And speaking of visit.
What do you think Have you had a look at
the metagame numbers since the bands and the rotation? I'm
not oh, oh, what do you what do you want
to guess what the best deck is?

Speaker 2 (16:29):
Well, I mean based on the context cues?

Speaker 1 (16:34):
Am I just handing? I'm burying the lead a little
bit here? I get it?

Speaker 2 (16:37):
So are you? So? Are you telling me that even
after the bands is it is still a dominant deck
in the matta.

Speaker 1 (16:45):
So here is the biggest top eight event from Magic Online.
This is a sixty four player challenge competitive event from
two days ago. In the top eight, we have a
missorious Control.

Speaker 2 (17:01):
Okay, all right? To be packed up at that.

Speaker 1 (17:05):
It wasn't me, but I wish it had been. Uh
we have esper Self Bounce that I just discussed, and
and and what's this we have? Is it cauldron? Do
you do you know? What is it? Cauldron is?

Speaker 2 (17:19):
Well? I remember the cauldron. I'm trying to imagine what
do we uh you know what silly cauldron? Anything are
we doing? Because boy, has that card been just popping
ever since it was printed?

Speaker 1 (17:29):
I get the soul Cauldron? Very good card, yeah, very
good card?

Speaker 2 (17:33):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (17:36):
No, no, yes, come on, come on, what do you
what do you think you do with a cauldron?

Speaker 2 (17:40):
Well, I'm thinking wherein is it? Right? I've got access
to plenty of draw discard sure, right, yeah, but what's
what's the busted creature silly synergy thing that we're trying
to do. See this this is where my.

Speaker 1 (17:53):
Oh no, oh yes, I sent you vv ornate.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
Ear so oh yeah, dude, you know this is another
one of those cords where I read it and my
eyebrow just involuntarily raised. I was like, I don't know
which famat this card's gonna be busted in, but it's
gonna be busted somewhere.

Speaker 1 (18:13):
It's a card. Oh my god?

Speaker 2 (18:16):
What I mean? Talk about like a dyes to doom
blade cod that you are just happy to try. You know,
You're just you're gonna roll those dice, man, You're gonna
especially if we can culture.

Speaker 1 (18:27):
Ne See that's the thing you talked about, the draw
discard stuff. So you play limited. You know about marauding Mako,
you know you discard cards, you put counters on that thing.
You know about like propsidetic memory, steam course scholar, you
know about the light shatter tastes of light shatter whatever
that card is that discards to and draws two, like

(18:48):
basically all this rummaging. Right, So what you're trying to
do is you get creatures on the board, you get
counters on them with propsidetic memory or this like looting engine,
like the make up or the steam Course Scholar, and
then you put out your VV and they kill it,
and then you culture in it, and now you have
two or three vvs because they already have counters. You

(19:10):
have two or three vvs already on the field, and
now hasty right, yeah, they already have the ability. They
don't need haste to get the ability. So you make
all that mana and you use winter Night stories to
just dig through your deck and propsydetic memory to make
the creatures absolutely enormous, so they make even more manna
and they take about a twenty minute turn. Sometimes you

(19:32):
end the game, sometimes you don't, but you're just so
far ahead that there's nothing the opponent can do. So anyway,
this deck, yeah that So in this top eight I
was describing, there are one, two, three, four, five, six
copies of this is It deck.

Speaker 2 (19:54):
Oh my gosh, dude, they just they just can't stop,
can you can't stop, man. And it's funny, right because
I remember the I remember the simic descendancy as it were.
I remember the dominance, the just shiit auta dominance of
simic for so long, right in standard, and and I

(20:17):
just remember thinking, surely they won't let another another color
pair just so dominate for so long. And here we are,
here we are CGB. You know, is it is it
paid off the right people? The is it guild? You know,
ral Ral Frickin just slipped the right person at Wizards
a little extra cash, and here we are.

Speaker 1 (20:39):
I would bet money at this point that there was
a last second adjustment to VV you know, yeah, okay, yeah,
how we got.

Speaker 2 (20:52):
The old skull cloud problem.

Speaker 1 (20:54):
I feel like this card was supposed to like trigger,
say when you moved to combat or when you start
your first main phase or something like that. Yeah, and instead, oh,
it's just an activated ability. What could go wrong?

Speaker 2 (21:09):
Did it have to be just like a zero colon ability?
Couldn't have been a tap or just something, right, dude?
Any anytime I see that on a cord zero colon,
I'm like, oh, oh, I don't know about this. I
don't know about this. This reminds me of like nineties

(21:29):
magic right where you'd see like some random autofacts, right,
some random five Manta autofact. It was probably terrible, but
you know what, it could also just be freaking rip
your face off busted. And that's the way magic used
to be, right, And it's like, whenever I see that
activates in cost, it just brings an old fear, It

(21:51):
revives an old fear in the pit of my gut.

Speaker 1 (21:54):
Yeah. I don't know if this is the card you're
talking about, but I remember like Chandras Goggles or something, Pyromancer's.

Speaker 2 (22:01):
Goggles, Pyromans's Goggle. That was a.

Speaker 1 (22:03):
Card that made a pro tour topy. That's a five
minute artifact that taps for a read and copied to
spell and it was in like a ramp deck. I
can't imagine these decks Gatting played anymore. I can't imagine
I see. I wonder what you would do in this format?
Would you play domain? Would you be a Overlord of

(22:24):
the Hantwoods guy?

Speaker 2 (22:26):
Well, my friend, I'll tell you what I would be doing,
because I just discovered I was just looking today and
I discovered this beautiful cod a you familiar with Sammy's curiosity.

Speaker 1 (22:39):
Is this one green, hold on one green, make a
lander token, gain two life.

Speaker 2 (22:47):
Yes, yes it is, okay, yes it is. Look at
cgb's his limited brain is turned on, so so CGB
they reprinted. Never went to a dryad, my friend, and
as any long standing fan of the channel and definitely
ACP podcast listener will know, never in too dryad. Is like,

(23:10):
it's probably a top ten magic cord for me of
all time. Certainly a top ten standard magic card for
me of all time. That was a way of shanghaiing
rampant growth into standard, right, and now we've got this
might even be a beta version, right because you know
they can't get killed.

Speaker 1 (23:28):
Do you know? Do you know that Glimpse the Core
is in standard? Are you aware.

Speaker 2 (23:33):
Glimpse the car Man? Which one was that?

Speaker 1 (23:36):
I hope I don't let you down too hard with this.
I feel like I've got to do it all right here.
This this is a standard legal card that sees zero play.

Speaker 2 (23:46):
Oh yeah, but see that's just a forest, bro, It's
just it's just a forest.

Speaker 1 (23:52):
Okay. I guess you're getting islands. You've got big plans
or something.

Speaker 2 (23:58):
Dude, This this Simmic made this simic mage can't be stops.

Speaker 1 (24:02):
Okay, tell me cook cook for me.

Speaker 2 (24:05):
Well, so so this is the problem, right because I
don't like, what what are our green payoffs or just
like all big payoffs and standard right now? Because we
lost a TRACSA in the rotation, didn't we?

Speaker 1 (24:16):
We sure did?

Speaker 2 (24:17):
Ye know which? And you know what, thank God for that, man,
because I'll tell you what like as a ramp mage
as a diet in the wool ramp age and you
might relate to this actually playing you know other big
endgame archetypes like you know Zaria's control where you get
these like there's like the best finisher in the format, right,

(24:39):
there's the best expensive spell in the format. There's the
best whatever for that archetype spell in the format, and
building anything else just feels foolish, right, It's just it's
just like it's it's like the same dish but with
less of the seasoning on it.

Speaker 1 (24:55):
Right, You're saying it was like emergent ultimatum.

Speaker 2 (24:57):
Yep, well so that's the Oh, just just the thoughts
of that card wake something up inside me. So so attracts.
It was kind of like while ATTRACTSA was in the format,
what else was ramping it worth ramping into basically, right,
especially with all of these like domain decks, just strong

(25:18):
domain cards being around. So so now that that card's gone,
I don't know, I'll throw this back to you, like,
what what's the top end in the standard format? Right now?
What are we ramping into? Uh?

Speaker 1 (25:32):
I mean the first card that came to my mind
is Doppelgang. That is a pretty sick card. Do you
remember this card?

Speaker 2 (25:41):
Let's take a look at it.

Speaker 1 (25:42):
Yeah, yeah, here you go.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
Oh okay, yeah yeah, that's a that's a card.

Speaker 1 (25:50):
Yeah, the main copies of everything, good old copy absolutely everything. Here.
What do you think of this top end? Here? Here Attract?
It was a seven drop? This is a even drop.
What do you think of? What do you think of
that one jumbo.

Speaker 2 (26:03):
Cact Dude, that's like the timmiest card evan man. Look
at this No trample cauld a brother, get trample.

Speaker 1 (26:14):
I mean, have you taken ten thousand damage from this thing?
I can think of a card that might be for you. Actually,
let's see here, let's see what do you think of
dish Leviathan Famished world Sire.

Speaker 2 (26:32):
It's a big looking cod. Oh yeah yeah yeah, I
was reading this card, dude, cad sick.

Speaker 1 (26:41):
If our land three when it enters, look at X
cards from your library, where X is this creature's power,
but any number of land cards among them onto the
battlefield tapped. You often make something with nine to fifteen
power and ramp like three or four lands.

Speaker 2 (26:57):
So yeah, now do we do we have like and
fall incentives and Standard right now, we've got a few
that would be that would be cash money.

Speaker 1 (27:05):
Oh no, the vine Lasher is in Standard like the lizards.
That just yeah, that's.

Speaker 2 (27:11):
Kind of all right, all right, we're bruin'. I mean,
this definitely feels like a commander card to me, but hey,
Fabia for me to not try to play big flashy
green cards and Standard. Yeah, I man, you know it's
interesting because I feel like from my tenure in Standard,

(27:33):
I feel like they were printing these like really like
Google like end the game this time kind of kind
of cards, right, and I feel like they've moved away
from that a little bit. I mean, correct me if
I'm wrong, But it seems to me like that's not
so much the focus anymore. It seems like the ramping
is a little bit more value focused, a little bit

(27:55):
more like extend the game focused. Would you say that
that's true?

Speaker 1 (27:58):
I mean sort of maybe. I guess it depends on
the strategy. So have you seen the standard Tifa Lockhart deck?

Speaker 2 (28:10):
Oh okay, wait, yeah, this feels familiar to me.

Speaker 1 (28:13):
Because they have been pushing landfall in a very especially green,
in an aggressive direction. So yeah, Tifa Tifa and Mossbourne
Hydra and a couple bits of landfall will kill you.
The freakin' Chokobos are crazy. And then this I still

(28:36):
explore card. Have you seen this card? This is a
new one. Let me grab it here, I still explore.
Is it's a for mana two green green two four?
You may play an additional land each turn, pog you
may play lands from your graveyard. Okay, crucible and dright
of the Lazy Grove one card and you mill, you

(28:59):
get mill value. This card is dusted.

Speaker 2 (29:02):
This card is busted. Wow, dang dude, Yeah, yeah, nothing's
going to go wrong with that. So this brings me
to something that I wanted to bring up with you,
which is is Edge of Eternities just kind of a
busted set. Oh is it a dang dude? That am? I? Am?

(29:23):
I late to this conversation. I just some of these
CODs seem like, you know, pretty powerful.

Speaker 1 (29:30):
It's not like it doesn't feel like a set that
has like there's no theme, there's no keyword that just
creates a busted deck. There's no adventure here, you know
what I mean, where it's like, okay, now the all
the adventure cards are a deck. There's no toxic where
it's like, okay, we can build band toxic now. It

(29:52):
felt like that's what they were doing for the last
several years, a standard where it's like, okay, and all
will be one. We have toxic, and we build our
toxic deck, but it's contained in that space. Soldiers, the
white based blue splashing Soldier deck was really good out
of Brothers War, but it didn't get support for a
long time. And I actually thought that was an interesting

(30:14):
approach to standard, where if they can make one or
two decks around keywords or types in every single set,
then that does in a way keep it fresh so
that there's something for everybody. This now just feels like
Edge of Attorneys just feels like a set that has
a few insanely pushed cards that slot into the types

(30:35):
that are already there. And that's kind of it. And
if you like, it's kind of the same thing, but
it's more focused around the individual card than a pack
of like a package of like four or five cards
that fit a theme that maybe played out more and
limited or something like that. So there are busted pieces

(30:57):
for decks that were already there. I don't see a
breakout deck from Edge at all. In fact, looking over
a bunch of the cards in Edge, it's like, there
are so many decks right now that are significant metaplay
more than a week after set release, that have nothing
to do with Edge. They don't touch Edge at all. Yeah,

(31:21):
it's a little like the top metagame deck on its own.
If you don't count is it Prowess and is it Cauldron?
Is the same thing? Is Demure mid range? And Demure
mid Range is Kaito plus Blue Black cheap Dorks? That's it.
There's like nothing here from Edge. There's some watery grave

(31:44):
is your Edge card? You know? Yay? So I don't
is Edge of busted set. It's just got a few
individual busted cards, which I guess is easier to ban
around if something goes wrong.

Speaker 2 (31:58):
Uh no, s So, well, maybe that's it because I've
just you know, I've seen some spoilers and I've seen people,
you know, posting some of these CODs and I'm reading
them and I'm just thinking, God like this, and you know,
maybe it's making a big splashing commander or something like that.
Some of these CODs just seem really really powerful. And
I actually, you know, side note pivot into a cod

(32:21):
that is powerful. I'm not sure whether it's you know,
seeing any standard play or not, but this seemed like
the CGBS cod I've seen in a long time, and
so I wants to talk with you about it. Have
you built any deck around left Walking? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (32:35):
No, that is not what I thought you'd say, Uh,
left walking? Yeah, this is a four and two blue
six stolement enchantment that went enters. If you cast it,
shuffle your hand in graveyard into your library draws seven.
The first spell each player cast during each of their turns,
may be cast without paying its manocost.

Speaker 2 (32:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (32:57):
This is this is a wild card. What what the
hell do you do with this card?

Speaker 2 (33:02):
Well? Is there a more CGB cod than this? I'm
thinking about like, I'm thinking about controlled X that last forever.
I'm thinking about controlled X that shuffle it back in
and spin the wheel again. I'm thinking this is this
is in my mind, right, is you play this as
a top end in a control deck where you get
to a point in the game where you're both basically

(33:25):
top decking, right, or you only have a couple of
cards left. Sure, you slam, you slam this card and
you refill and you know you both get the bonus.
But at that point in the game, your opponent doesn't
really they're not exploiting the bonus much, right, because they're
presumably just playing off the top of that deck anyway.
So I don't know this, this card seems really cool

(33:46):
to me.

Speaker 1 (33:47):
My fear, my immediate fear, is that we're not in
a format where a card can sit in your hand
for two turns waiting to be good. It's just it's
like it honestly still feels like the format is so
fast that you have to have the option of playing
your spells every single turn. And I'm worried that, Like,

(34:10):
in this current environment, with a weft walking in my
hand and an opponent with two creatures and I'm on
turn four, not six, but four, i feel like I've
already lost that game, Like I'm just gonna die to
this board that I didn't answer like, if you blank,
you're gonna die. But I'm curious.

Speaker 2 (34:28):
Even though Monstrous Rage has been banned, was still was
still worried about dying.

Speaker 1 (34:34):
My control deck isn't gonna like a block anyways. I'm
still very worried about dying. But weft walking is interesting, dude.
It's I wish if you were to build the Pixie
deck in a way that it exhausted resources. Then being
able to pick up and recast a weft walking against
a top decking opponent sounds like such a brutal endgame.

(34:57):
But the stats on cards like Pixie like, even though
it's just a flying like to too, it beat you
to death way before this becomes a thing. That said
this and a propseidetic memory sounds like a good way
to end a game. But I don't know, man, I
don't know.

Speaker 2 (35:16):
I'm looking forward to the CGB weft Walking deck. Okay,
I'll put it that way.

Speaker 1 (35:21):
I'll get to work. It's been it's been easy mode
so far. Since Edge dropped of having like decks that
were pretty competitively familiar that I could play, I haven't
done any deep brew I've I mean, I can show
you what I've won the most games with If you'd
like to see from this set, have you seen Singularity Rupture? No,

(35:45):
show me that, all right, Singularity rupture is six mana
like weft walking here, blue and black, black sorcery, destroy
a creatures eh, and then any number this cod.

Speaker 2 (36:01):
I did read this cord. I mean this is another
cod that reads like a command of cod to me.
But are you are you milling people out? Dude? Are
you doing it? So?

Speaker 1 (36:09):
There is kind of a splinter twin in the format. Uh, so,
I'll show you River Churn Monument. Do you know this card?
It's just a sneaky little ether drift artifact. Oh, it's
just like Millstone again, except that exhaustibility though, check that
exhaust Oh.

Speaker 2 (36:32):
Oh so that's a two card combo. Oh snap, okay.

Speaker 1 (36:37):
Boom bam. And that's with a board wipe in between.
You know. So if they're trying to kill you with creatures, nah,
if you actually get to enough manna to cast the rupture,
you're good. You got this. It's fine.

Speaker 2 (36:52):
I'll bet you get in a lot of nices on
the ladder with that.

Speaker 1 (36:55):
Huh. People are making fun of me because on my
second channel over it go to where I just like
throw a bunch of the content that I don't know
what else to do with because it doesn't make for
a good video. I was like playing this, and I
got really salty with somebody because they were doing that
in early access, the like Singularity Rupture. Dude, early Access,

(37:17):
you know you were, you were in early access. You
try not to salt too hard, especially if you're control major.
You try not to make everybody mad because we're all
supposed to be having fun. I played against so many
control decks running this combo, and eventually I'm just like,
I can't anymore. They can't be doing me better than
me while I'm here trying to have some kind of

(37:38):
a principle about it. I've got to do it. I've
got to play this deck, and oh my god, damn
it I did.

Speaker 2 (37:46):
Yeah, well, no, you nailed it, right. Every early accesses
at least one deck. Well, like you just you do
want to scoop to it. You just want to you know,
you want to escape, You want to move onto the
next match. You know it was Lotus Cobra back in
the freaking Zendeca Rising.

Speaker 1 (38:03):
Right Bombna, Yeah, everybody everybody had to try the four
color omnav but it gave you a taste of how
miserable that was going to be.

Speaker 2 (38:11):
Oh my god, right while you're already tired of something
and you've only been playing the new format for one day. Yes,
so so you're allowed CGB, You're allowed.

Speaker 1 (38:24):
Thanks. I'll keep that in mind when I get like
kicked out of Discord servers. It's like I at least
are Juna as my friend.

Speaker 2 (38:34):
At least he agreed with me. But side note, doesn't
this feel like the almondcatius cod to have an Almand Cat.
I'm just looking at the odd I'm looking at the theme.
It just this feels like such an Almond Cat card
to me.

Speaker 1 (38:48):
So Almond Cat was one of the stops in eighth
or Drift on their three plane rates, so it is.
It is an Almond Cat card.

Speaker 2 (38:56):
It is an Almond Cat card. Nailed it.

Speaker 1 (38:59):
But right we we just barely visited it. The set's
like a third Amnket with race cars. So it did.
Let's just say, Am and Cat didn't get a second
visit in the proper sense. I don't think we've talked
since Ether Drift dropped.

Speaker 2 (39:14):
Have we?

Speaker 1 (39:15):
No, we've you know, what, what was the last set
we covered?

Speaker 2 (39:21):
Boy, the last set we covered, let's just you know what,
let's just.

Speaker 1 (39:26):
Do this year. We'll just do this year gas or
ass Oman cat no no, no, sorry, Libby and a
second shot at that gas or Ass Ether Drift edition.
H do you think of this? Uh?

Speaker 2 (39:44):
It's all ass for me, dude, It's I just I
cannot do Ether drift. Man. This is like, this is
like the worst combination of like pod racing, and I've
I start to feel the taint of you universes beyond
creeping into like regular magic. You know what I mean.

(40:05):
It's like, uh, like, Okay, I think pod racing is
such a good it's such a good analysis because I
think we were all like we showed up to watch
the first Star Wars film and who knows how long, right,
And I know you and I are of the same
generation CGB, so I feel like I can confidently speak

(40:25):
for you as well as me that going into the
theater to see that movie was like a peak experience
pack in life.

Speaker 1 (40:32):
Right the midnight premiere, Like news outlets were there, radio
channels were there, there were giveaways, there were lines. Everybody
was excited as hell. I will never forget that premiere.

Speaker 2 (40:43):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it was just stunning. Right, So
the Phantom Menace comes out, and you know, I probably
enjoyed the hell out of it because I was twelve
or whatever. But it's like you look back on that
film and there's this like weird taint of pod racing
to that.

Speaker 1 (40:59):
I was, I believe nineteen. I believe I was nineteen.
I walked out, like I walked out being like jar
Jar Binks, is what the fuck was that? And who
gives the damn about pod racing?

Speaker 2 (41:16):
Dude? It's like an hour of that film is pod racing, right,
And it's like we we we wanted to see light sabers,
we wanted to see wookies, we wanted to see X
wings blowing up in space, right, I mean, come on, dude, right,
and we spend an hour on freaking you know, tattooine,
like with some six year old kid pod racing. And

(41:39):
so anyway, all of that to say that Etha Drift
brought that like nauseous taint of pod racing. It was
like it was like pod racing meets magic.

Speaker 1 (41:50):
That's what it was from you. Oh God, So we're
talking about Star Wars becoming pod racing and then Magic
becoming pod racing. We'll get we're coming right back to
space pretty soon with Edge of Eternities. But I'm going
to try to keep some order in this. Okay, Okay, okay,
So Tarkier Dragonstorm, eh, at least it came out quickly

(42:12):
after Ether drift gas or ass.

Speaker 2 (42:15):
Okay, So I'm giving it gas, but I'm giving it
reluctant gas gas.

Speaker 1 (42:20):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (42:21):
Yeah, it's that kind of like it's like you have
to fought, but you really don't want to, you know.
That's that's what Talkio was for me. I was like,
I was like, if this is what it takes for
me to have like some good old fashioned magic, all right,

(42:42):
I'll do it. But I have to say that that
set there was something It's hard for me to put
my finger on it. There was I wanted to be
so excited for that set, and it just didn't end
up delivering the excitement that I was hoping for. And
it's hard for me to say exactly why. I think.

(43:04):
And you know, my exposure to it is mostly from
a limited perspective because I played it in limited and
it almost felt like it almost felt like a more
barring l drain to me. Or something like that. I
don't know if that's because of the what is it,
the Omen mechanic right, weird? Yeah, you know it was.

(43:27):
It was a bit of a weird mechanic for me.
I think it was the templating. We've gotten so used
to adventure, and the Omen cards behaved in actually a
pretty different way.

Speaker 1 (43:35):
Whoever kind of greenlit the will make it look exactly
like adventures, but have it functionally different. I have a
message for you. We don't get many brain breaks in magic,
but one thing we enjoy is when a card looks
like a duck in terms of like the structure, the layout,

(43:56):
the templating. It behaves like a duck, and that is
like adventure, especially now that we've had it multiple times.
I didn't know I was an ambassador on tark Here.
I got access to the set like six weeks early
or something like that to record Commander content. It took
Amy the Amazonian, flying in from Boston recording a Commander
game with me like a few days before the set release,

(44:18):
being like, oh, actually that doesn't work that way, and
I'm like huh yeah, yeah, so thank god for her,
but my goodness, I could like I would have never
even bothered, Like reading all that frying print, I'm like,
I know what an adventure is. It looks like an adventure.

(44:38):
It makes sense. There are dragons, there are adventures. This
is fine. But the second like you don't send it
to exile and you shuffle it back in, You're like, oh,
this is a lot worse than I actually thought it was,
and it's a very unfulfilling.

Speaker 2 (44:50):
That's the problem. I felt the same way with the mechanic.
It's like you want to be excited about it and
you actually end up like well, And also, can I
just say this, I don't think magic needs more shuffle
a deck text, right, this is this is something I
would like to get away from.

Speaker 1 (45:10):
Yes, arena players don't understand, but paper players it's like,
oh my god, yes.

Speaker 2 (45:16):
And Commanda players, Dude, Commanda players anyway, So yeah, so
reluctant ass for me on talk here.

Speaker 1 (45:24):
Reluctant ass on tark Here I thought was reluctant gas.
Did we switch it?

Speaker 2 (45:28):
I mean, sorry, sorry, reluctant gas.

Speaker 1 (45:30):
Okay, it was going to be controversial there for a second.
I think everybody wants to love tark Here so deeply
because it is the only set we have that feels
like a magic set in. Basically, it feels like years
at this point.

Speaker 2 (45:44):
So it does feel like it is, doesn't it. I know.

Speaker 1 (45:46):
Yeah, so we have to embrace it because it's like
one of us. But we do wish it were better.
We do wish it were better.

Speaker 2 (45:54):
That's exactly.

Speaker 1 (45:55):
Okay, we've come to gas or ass Final Fantasy Edition.
I don't I am an absolute no, no familiarity with
Final Fantasy, no emotional tie to Final Fantasy. I will
preface this. I want to hear all about where you're
coming from, but I need to preface it by saying
I didn't see this coming. I did not know the
fan base was this rabbit. I did not know they

(46:18):
would be this into magic or collecting the product. I
had no idea this would be the monster that it
turned out to be. Wow.

Speaker 2 (46:27):
Okay, well, I hear you, and I've been a Final
Fantasy fan, you know, since my teens, and there is
zero surprise for me with how this is all gone.
I mean that universe has a rabbit fan base, and
I'm one of them. I don't know if you remember

(46:48):
this coved Koblue, but the name they use the name
that I chose during Beta law MTG arena was Chocobo Canyon.

Speaker 1 (47:00):
Right, God damn, I was trying to remember what it was,
that's right, and I had no idea what that meant.
And you started being like, well, this Final fan and
I just zoned right out.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
Yeah, dude, And it's a bit of any any that
is the name will probably make any Final Fantasy lover
kind of twitch a little bit because it's a it's
like a it's a mish mash, right, it's not it's
not a thing. Jocobo Canyon isn't a thing. Cosmo Canyon
is a thing. Chocobo Canyon is not a thing. So
it was a bit of a it was a bit
of a what's the term. It's a bit of a dig.

Speaker 1 (47:35):
Okay, A couple of troll, a couple of deep cuts.

Speaker 2 (47:39):
Yeah, it was a troll. So anyway, but yes, I'm
a massive Final Fantasy fan. And you know, there's like
this incredible ecosystem of like collectibles, Like you know, if
you walk into you know, the the kind of nerd
palace of someone who's like really into collectibles, right, there's

(48:03):
like a fifty percent chance that they're going to have
like some kind of Final Fantasy action figure collectible of
some kind or another, right, I mean, it's just there's
something really iconic about it. And so yeah, it does
not surprise me that this is like the best selling
magic set of all time and this might be the

(48:23):
hardest gas or ass for me ever. Dude, this, I
mean seriously like this. I feel so torn by this
because on the one hand, it's like everything I love, right,
I love Final Fantasy so much. I mean I just
like buy it up FF seven and played through it.

(48:46):
This is like in the last month, and it's probably
my twentieth playthrough something like that, and am dude. And yeah,
and that game takes about you know, forty I was
to beat it's not and you know your first playthrough
is more like an at hour playthrough, right, So and

(49:10):
and I beat the game and I literally the same
night started it again.

Speaker 1 (49:16):
Wow. So, I mean you're a big thing.

Speaker 2 (49:19):
That's This is the level of like fanaticism that I
have for this game. And I am not alone, all right,
I'm not alone in this, Like there's something about it.
And so you know, I'm a massive Final Fantasy fan
and I just can't I can't get into this set, dude.
I just can't do it. Man, It's like it feels wrong.

(49:41):
It feels wrong to me.

Speaker 1 (49:42):
I know you have a strong opinion against like universes
beyond in your magic stuff. That's crazy because this is
supposed to be your set.

Speaker 2 (49:52):
It's supposed to be my set. It really is. Yeah,
And I and I think that I'm like one of
the people that they were probably targeting, right, And I
just it's just it's not a hit for me. Dude.
I have to give it an ass. I have to
give it an ass.

Speaker 1 (50:05):
You gave Final Fantasy ass.

Speaker 2 (50:10):
It hurts. Wow, I'm gonna I don't expect it. I'd
have to have a We're going to have to have
a talk when I get home, you know. But it's
just I can't do it taking a stand.

Speaker 1 (50:22):
You prefer final Fantasy in your final Fantasy games and
magic in your magic games? Is it that?

Speaker 2 (50:27):
Is that? It?

Speaker 1 (50:28):
Is it that simple? Or is it the cards? Is
it the way that the cards work? Is it's the
way that the characters feel.

Speaker 2 (50:35):
I do have to say that there is an aspect
of that. And I'm a bit this is something I've
learned about myself over the years. I'm a bit of
a wild card when it comes to magic sets, you
know what I mean. Someone could be like, this looks
like the odd Junity is set ever, and I'll just
take one look at it, and it's just a nope,
and it's this weird. It's like a visceral thing. I

(50:55):
don't it's hard to describe. Maybe maybe you have this
in magic or in some the area of your life,
some other fandom, right where like you'll just take one
look at something and it's either a yes or it's
a no. And I don't know whether it's like the
art design or the yeah, the initial mechanics, or I
don't know. I think it's made me realize that there's

(51:16):
a lot. There's a lot that goes into the design
of all of these sets, and a lot of it's unconscious, right,
And we might not think about that much, but I'll
tell you who does think about that a lot is
freaking Wizards of the Coast, right, They've they've got that
down like that. I actually think that that's one of
the secret or maybe not so secret brilliance as the

(51:39):
Wizards of the Coast is that they've taken design and
like game design and visual design and kind of art
direction to a whole new level. I think I actually
don't know anyone who does it better than they do.
And it's the whole experience. Right, We're talking like what's

(52:00):
on the boost of box, what's on the pack you know, Yeah,
the little icon on the CODs right, the borders, the
color schemes, the foiling, you know. It's just like when
you think about the sheer amount of design that goes
into these sets, it's really quite stunning. And so I
do think that there are some of these sets where

(52:21):
my design person just turns off, Like I look at
these cords and I'm like.

Speaker 1 (52:25):
Not for me, wow, wow, And a final fantasy one
of those all right, yeah, well, I mean can they rebound?
That was June. This is August. We are currently on
the edge of Eternities. It's not a space set. It's
not a Star Wars Universes Beyond. It is a Magic

(52:45):
the Gathering set that is set on the edge of Eternities,
which is somewhere in outer space where there's Tezaret and
some brand of hooligans at the working to try to
like get some magical mcguffin away from a black hole.
What do you think?

Speaker 2 (53:04):
Okay, so this is gonna be This is almost like
an inverse of the last one, where it's like, I
don't like it, but I think it's gas really really okay,
So let me explain. Let me explain. I thought that
I would be more open to magic in space than

(53:26):
I turned out to be, and I think the set
that kind of primed me for that was Neon Dynasty.
So I initially felt a little resistant to Neon Dynasty,
but when it actually showed up, I was like, full
yes to that set. And I think I remember you
also being really stoked about Neon Dynasty, right, And I

(53:48):
think parts of it was the idea and part of
it was the execution. So I think for me, Edge
of Eternities, the vibe of it makes me feel a
little bit off in the way that Neon Dynasty did
when I first looked at it. But I think that
the execution is really good, and you know, I think

(54:09):
that the art is incredible. I think that a lot
of the card designs are really cool, and so I think, like,
as a magic set, I think it's fantastic, and I
think that the flavor of it is really interesting, and
I mean, come on, dude, we all knew that it
was going to happen, right, we knew that magic was
coming to space eventually, did we didn't?

Speaker 1 (54:32):
I don't buy that premise. I don't. We have a
lot of planes. Did we have to get into spaceship
and blast off? And I don't know, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (54:42):
About that well, I mean if I don't know, I
feel like as soon as Emeric Cole showed up on
the scene, there was there was like space foret told right.

Speaker 1 (54:52):
Yeah. The blind Eternities, though, are like, isn't that like
a different dimensioned? I don't know. I don't know. I
don't know. I don't I'm not right.

Speaker 2 (55:00):
They sound like space to you.

Speaker 1 (55:02):
It does to some people, clearly. I think that that
many would agree with you about the l Drazi. And
there were nods to the El Drazi and nods to
Slivers in the set. But I yeah, as far as
actually having to do a set where we're in SPI
I was like, isn't this unfinity stuff? Like what are
we doing?

Speaker 2 (55:21):
Well? So I mean, let's flip it around to you.
Then CGB Edge of Eternity's gas or ass.

Speaker 1 (55:28):
So you're saying it's gas, You're saying edge of Etorney's
gas I'm saying is gas. Yeah, so this is the
first set I like. Okay, I did go through the
Tarkiar Dragonstorm lore and the Eighth or Drift Low. Oh
my god, I did not have fun doing that. I
the Edge of Eternity's law is the first law they've

(55:49):
done in a while that was written by like kind
of an author who really like, I'm probably disrespecting somebody
with this, who writes the magic lore, but I'm going
to say they got sci fi author to write sci
fi lore, and I was excited about it. I still,
after all was said and done, thought the story was
just kind of okay, and it felt really weird to

(56:10):
just have Tezrat bopping around in space just doing space stuff.
It just didn't work for me from a lore sense
and from a planar sense. The cards I like, like,
I like the cards, I still don't get the vibe.
So it's cards. There are gas cards. But if when

(56:31):
I look back at what was Edge of Eternities, there's
two important things I'll remember. One, I felt disconnected from
the lore because it still doesn't feel like a proper
magic set to me, so that gets kind of an ass.
And then the other ass. It's been brutal to content. Dude,
like content waste land out here. It's not that it's
a failure, it's just we haven't seen the enthusiasm that

(56:53):
we've seen around other sets. And part of that is
probably dropping a big set into rotation in July, which
feels weird as hell. People are out doing things for
the summer. So I'm not exactly blaming the set for
the audience, but I can't help it. I'm a content creator.
I'm in here working, So when I look back at
Edge of Eternities, I'm going to look at a lot
of the content I put a lot of work into

(57:15):
and be like, it kind of landed a little flat.
And I know I'm not the only creator seeing that,
so that that's a tough one. So I have to
give a like, probably a sixty to seventy percent amount
of ass to Edge of Eternities.

Speaker 2 (57:30):
Well, you know, you bring up a really good point,
and I remember this as well from being a content creator,
is that you're really in a unique position when it
comes to keeping a finger on the pulse of magic.
You know, I would almost say content creators probably knows
as much as anyone does. Kind of how it's feeling, right,

(57:51):
like what's in the thauce, right, you're kind of jedi
is feeling into the face of the of the fandom.

Speaker 1 (57:57):
Yeah, we have real data, we have real ice cold
market feedback on our work. It's not a Reddit post
that got the most up votes, it's not a Twitter
post that got the most street tweets. So those can
give you a sense of what's going on with a percentage,
But when our views are down a certain percentage versus
the last set, that is a real thing. An eighth

(58:19):
or Drift definitely had that problem. It was by far
the worst. It was worse than Edge of Eternities. But
Edge is like not hanging with tar Kiir, Final Fantasy
or any of the releases last year.

Speaker 2 (58:32):
Well, that's really interesting data. And I'm yeah, it's cool
to hear it. I mean, I'm sorry to hear it.
But it's also you know, it's.

Speaker 1 (58:42):
And I do I.

Speaker 2 (58:43):
Remember that feeling of like, you know, you publish a
thing and then it's not getting the engagement that you expect,
and is this like fall in the pit of the stomach, right,
or it's just just like, ah.

Speaker 1 (58:59):
I'm like the kid who's been on too many roller coasters.
I don't feel it in my gut anymore. I just
look at it and be like, eh, yeah, so it's
like part of it's like it's I can say things
like it's July. It would probably take something very powerful
to capture the zeitgeist and get us all to get
back in our house or watching YouTube videos and thinking

(59:21):
about magic the gathering in July when we could be
out doing nice summer things. But like, yeah, I don't.
I don't go on the roller coaster anymore. I just like, okay,
start working on the next one almost immediately, which brings
us to preemptive like pregas or ass hype gas or
ass on the hype dude to it. This, this has

(59:44):
this probably honestly affected. I think this is the first
time I've seen I have seen spoiler seasons get affected.
I think tark your debt Dragonstorms spoiler season was affected
by Final Fantasy getting spoiled before that set was even
out to some extent, but I think this one was
even more brutal. The day of Early Access that we

(01:00:05):
were doing our early access event for Edge of Eternities,
they were releasing and revealing Spider Man cards on the
Wizard on the Wizard's channel they were and for the
next that week at Comic Con, they revealed more Spider
Man and Avatar cards. So I think that really did something.

(01:00:25):
It really did feel like the mindset of the community
was off edge before it released, which I think is
a very brutal thing to do to the to your
own product. But hey, the calendar is the calendar. I'm
sure that. I'm sure there's a reason. So let's go
to pre hype for Spider Man. I just I the

(01:00:53):
head shaped We don't. You don't even have to say it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:57):
Cgv's known me long enough to know how I feel
about Spider Man. Dude. I don't think I've felt this
much higher towards a Magic product since Tricking Fortnight. I
really don't. I just looking at these Spider Man cards
makes me so mad, Dude. It engages me on a
visceral level. I just m it feels so wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
I don't wrong, I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:01:24):
We all have different levers on what feels wrong in magic, right,
and that's just that's one of my levers. And I
think I didn't even realize it until I saw it.
There's just something about I think it's like, because it's
a comic book thing, it feels doubly wrong. And I

(01:01:47):
can see, I see why people make the connection in
their minds, like comics magic, the kind of you know,
they play together, like I used to buy Magic cords
in my comic book store, right, it's nerds stuff. Yeah,
so I could totally see. But it's kind of like like,
for example, when Warhammer met Magic, even though it felt
like kind of like a marriage across rival lines, right,

(01:02:15):
but it's still but there was something about it that
felt like, Okay, they kind of play in the same space.
I can kind of see it, but for some reason,
like the Marvel Universe, entering Magic feels so wrong to me.
It feels like a different level of wrong. And I also,
I mean, just on a side note, I just don't
like Spider Man, dude, not your jam huh. Toby maguire,

(01:02:38):
just not into it, not into it. Although I will
say Mary Jane, Mary Jane.

Speaker 1 (01:02:44):
Slaps Okay, okay, sure, I remember going to Spider Man
and Spider Man two it wasn't that far away from
The Phantom Menace and feeling like those were the coolest
movies I'd ever seen in the like up there with
Jurassic Park, which is all was going to be my
all time favorite movie theater movie.

Speaker 2 (01:03:03):
Which, by the way, crossover when I already happened. Did it?

Speaker 1 (01:03:09):
Yeah? Did you miss it? It was in Nixelon Yeah,
Lost Caverns of Exelon.

Speaker 2 (01:03:16):
Did they actually though?

Speaker 1 (01:03:17):
I did? They actually did? They actually?

Speaker 2 (01:03:20):
Like like like, was it like when they did the
uh Man, why can't I remember stuff today? Like the
Gidura and the.

Speaker 1 (01:03:34):
It was It wasn't a set. It was like a
bonus sheet in Boosters. But like I just said, you
welcome to Okay, So they actually did it. Yeah, they
actually did it.

Speaker 2 (01:03:43):
Yeah, Okay, were you happy about that? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:03:49):
I'm a dinosaur idiot and a Jurassic Park idiot. I
loved it. I I played a bunch of commander with
the various legendaries from the set. I bought the Secret Layers. Yeah,
I'm a I'm a freaking simple for Jurassic Park. Dude,
I'm all in. I don't it's dinosaurs. I don't care.

Speaker 2 (01:04:05):
So if they released a full Jurassic Park set, would
you be a gas on that?

Speaker 1 (01:04:10):
Oh? Yeah? In a hartbeat, I'm mad they didn't. I'm
mad they didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:04:14):
Well, And and you know what's interesting, it is like
I probably would be too, you know, And I think
that that's what makes these universes Beyond and stuff so interesting,
is that it is it's so much about like the
visceral kind of you know, because I can't make any
logical argument for why this passes the test and some
of these other ones don't. But I also love Jurassic

(01:04:34):
Park and I think it would be a cool product.

Speaker 1 (01:04:37):
But Spider Man is a full ass hard no.

Speaker 2 (01:04:41):
It's a hard no, dude. There are either other there
are other model things that that would have gone over
better for me as well, But Spider Man is just
I just want to punch him. I just want to
punch him.

Speaker 1 (01:04:58):
Okay, Okay, I'm yeah. I've gotta be like looking at
these cards there is and you can laugh at me
all you want to. On the internet. You can leave
your little comments of well, what does she expect from
a Spider Man set. I'm saying it. I'm gonna say it.
I'm gonna say the thing. I'm gonna say the thing.
It makes me sound a little stupid, but I'm saying
the thing. There are way too many Spider Man on

(01:05:20):
these Spider Man cards. Every card, every card has a
Spider Man. I like, okay, I mean, you look at
a magic set. You can go through all the Magic set,
you can go through the Final Fantasy. There's so many
different legendaries. There's like, I bet there's like a hundred

(01:05:42):
legendaries in this set, and I bet every single one
of them has been bitten by a fucking radioactive spider.
And there's a spider There's a Spider Man on everything.
Everything has a Spider Man. It's like they tried to
turn magic into the Spider Man pointing meme and they succeeded.
There is a Spider Man everywhere in this set. Everything everywhere,

(01:06:03):
always will be Spider Man. I I'm like, it's a
bit much, dude, It's a bit much. It's hard to
take a set like this and find cards in it
that you're gonna slot into your standard without having Spider
Man in your face. Is my big concern, is my big,
big concern. But you know what it is, what it is.

(01:06:25):
I can't control much about that. Here's what grinds my gears.
Oh please, have you heard about the arena thing?

Speaker 2 (01:06:36):
I've not heard about the arena.

Speaker 1 (01:06:38):
You don't know this.

Speaker 2 (01:06:40):
This is new to me.

Speaker 1 (01:06:41):
So you know that they made a decision last year
that Universes Beyond will be in standard, yes, yeah, and
you know that arena has to keep pace with paper
standard of course. So what if I told you that
either they could not get or did not want to

(01:07:02):
pay the amount that was being asked for the digital
rights to Spider Man.

Speaker 2 (01:07:08):
Oh dude, wait, So okay, so arena standard is gonna
be out of sync with tape A standard.

Speaker 1 (01:07:14):
Oh no, no, no, they found a solution. It's gonna
be fine.

Speaker 2 (01:07:18):
Okay, how are we doing this?

Speaker 1 (01:07:19):
How are we doing this? We are releasing a We
are releasing a set on arena that is identical in
function with what without any marvel ip.

Speaker 2 (01:07:36):
Oh my god, dude, that might be the cringest thing
I've ever So what's it gonna be?

Speaker 1 (01:07:43):
Is it?

Speaker 2 (01:07:44):
Is it the cads? It just gonna be like I
imagine it ran Rando two thousand, Like, what's it gonna be?

Speaker 1 (01:07:52):
I imagine it will be something about going to a
magic plane with Spider City, visiting the law Spider City
of you, Tabby or something. Yeah, a Maya gets yeah,
Amayah goes radioactive. I don't know. I don't know, but
I can guarant I am really curious to see the

(01:08:14):
spotlight will be on it to see, like did the
designers put in the work or did they literally just
slap some the some Spider art from Giant Spider from
like maybe seventh edition Giant Spider on a guard and
call it uh not? Peter Parker, Peter Parker, like, what
are we gonna do? It's it's a train wreck you

(01:08:35):
can't look away from, and it's coming to Magic Arena
this fall.

Speaker 2 (01:08:40):
So can you imagine? Can you imagine the team that
gets assigned to make that set?

Speaker 1 (01:08:46):
I feel bad for dude.

Speaker 2 (01:08:48):
That gonna be like the kids in the in the
corner of the class, Dude, I feel bad for them.

Speaker 1 (01:08:53):
They didn't ask for this, but that's you know what
it is. It's like, hey, welcome to the job. Kid.
You're an intern Wizards of the Coast. You want to
be a game designer. Here's your first task. We need
one hundred non distinct, non non copyright infringing cards that
do exactly these things that were made exactly to be
like a Marvel property that we're not going to reference, like.

Speaker 2 (01:09:19):
Right, It's like it's like walking into a first date
and the person's like, so y'all my plan B. But
let's try to have fun tonight.

Speaker 1 (01:09:31):
Yep, yep, yep, yep. How about this? I feel I
feel great for all the artists who overnight got commissions
for like two hundred spiders. Just a spider doing something,
a spider doing anything? Are you good at spiders?

Speaker 2 (01:09:46):
Yeah, you're right. There's just like one or two magic
cots it's out there who are like pogging off that chairs.

Speaker 1 (01:09:53):
Right, we trained for this, Yeah, their time has come.
And what is this for the next Marvel set and
the next one and the next one. Right, So it's
gonna be interesting. It's gonna be a ride. It's gonna
be a wild ride.

Speaker 2 (01:10:10):
The magic, the inceptioning, Yeah, yeah, I mean it just
it really does it kind of this. See this is
what I was talking about, Right, It's like that taking
the sheet of magic and they're just stretching it and
that just it's buckling under the pressure. Right, The multiverse

(01:10:30):
is buckling under the pressure all of this stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:10:33):
Yep yep. And it is in bowl as this time
it's it's a different it's galactus or whatever. H So
uh yeah, so you have an asked for Spider Man.
I'm not ready. I'm annoyed by the amount of spiders,
but some of the cards look cool. The arena thing
is nonsense, but I'm a content creator, so you're kind

(01:10:56):
of embrace nonsense to an extent, and I'm not ready
to just proclaim it ass I was a big Spider
Man fan as a kid. I'll give it a shot,
but like I'm very I'm trying to stay impartial at
this point, at this point in my career. And that
brings us to the last Magic release of the year.
Only only only six sets going into standard this year.

(01:11:20):
By the way, Avatar the Last Airbender they have revealed
a few cards. Do you have an opinion on Avatar?
Are you an Avatar? Have you watched the show? What
do you think of it? In Magic? Would have you
seen the cards.

Speaker 2 (01:11:37):
And then the fire Nason attacked? I I love Avatar.
I love Avatar, although I will I'm like one of
those nutty hipsters who's like I liked Korbata but whatever,
that's great. I can't I can't do it, dude, No,

(01:11:59):
I can't do it.

Speaker 1 (01:12:00):
Okay, but I I don't care. You do need to
read avatar aang, and you need to tell me if
this card reminds you of anything specifically the backside.

Speaker 2 (01:12:14):
Okay, there you go, do me chance fum. Oh my gosh, dude,
what they shanghaied my one of my least favorite magic
cards ever on So this cord? Say it?

Speaker 1 (01:12:32):
Say it?

Speaker 2 (01:12:33):
Why dude? Will they never kill Omnath? Will they never?
Will they never kill Omnath? Dude, It's like Witness Protection.
I'm telling you, it's like Witness Protection. They did it
with gold Span Dragon, they did it with Ro for
that match, so Orro just got off for a ridiculously

(01:12:54):
long amount of time. Why are we still dealing with Omnath,
my brother.

Speaker 1 (01:12:57):
Omnap Locus of Creation? It does seem so inspired by
one of the most broken cards to ever be printed
for standard. We don't know what earth Bend, Water Bend,
Firebend or airband necessarily mean. I'm guessing it's casting a
spell of that color. But if you transform this, there
is a lot of Omnap in this card. And that

(01:13:19):
wasn't fine before, as sure as hell won't be fine.
Now what are we doing?

Speaker 2 (01:13:25):
Oh my god, witness protection dude, That's all I gotta say.
Witness protection. Let me read the front side of this though.
Five bending I'm curious with. That's so I wonder if
oh yeah, yeah, yeah, m okay, right, so each bending presumably,
I wonder if they're going to be different abilities, or
if they're all going to be like a similar ability

(01:13:47):
but for different colors or something. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:13:49):
I don't know. I imagine it's casting a spell of
each color, but I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's
got the same stats and the same casting costs as
Omnap Focus of Creation.

Speaker 2 (01:14:01):
Hey, you know what, dude, it doesn't draw a cord
on the way in. We're fine. I'll give him.

Speaker 1 (01:14:06):
That's good.

Speaker 2 (01:14:07):
I'll give him that.

Speaker 1 (01:14:08):
Did you hear somebody? Somebody said the reason they added
draw a card to that card? Did you hear this? No?

Speaker 2 (01:14:16):
Was it some other skull clamp nonsense?

Speaker 1 (01:14:18):
No, no, no, no. They added draw a card to
Omnath locus of creation so that, because there's an ETB trigger,
you have a chance to respond to the trigger by
killing it so that the landfall doesn't happen.

Speaker 2 (01:14:31):
Cool, So we'll just make it draw a cord. Yeah,
it couldn't have just been like gained to life or
something like the ETB trigger is create an OCO token.
There you go.

Speaker 1 (01:14:44):
Yeah, we did it, we fixed it, solved it. Yeah,
well done, well done.

Speaker 2 (01:14:49):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:14:50):
My wife and I watched Avatar recently, just over the
last couple of months, really enjoyed it. We're both really
looking forward to the set for Commander. For Standard is
so hard for me to get amped about a set
anymore because Standard is so weird now with three year
rotation foundations, five year legal, and six new sets a year.

(01:15:12):
It's like it's really hard to make an impact on Standard,
and when something does, it's usually in the busted way.
So Standard feels really weird to me. I don't get excited,
but I'm excited. Like I'm We're all in on Avatar
for Commander. My wife and I are going to play
it a lot, so we have gas for Commander Avatar.

Speaker 2 (01:15:32):
What about you, dude, if a Commander, I think a
lot of this stuff is fine. You know, It's just
like I think Command is kind of where a lot
of this belongs, and I don't. It's it's hard to
tease out in myself why Standard feels different, but it does,
you know. I think I think it's like these eternal
formats have all kinds of random crap in them, right,

(01:15:55):
And Commander especially has always been the famat where I
kind of random cords went to get a new life.
And so and there's you know, there's a proud tradition
of people kind of homemaking their own versions of cards
and stuff. And I think that's great. I actually think
that's one of the coolest things about magic is that
you can you know, you can be a nerd with

(01:16:15):
an idea and a printer and you can make some
really cool magic cards. And I love that about magic.
I just think that when Wizards does it, it kind
of hits different, right, So I think command is the
place for this, I really do.

Speaker 1 (01:16:27):
Yeah, if man, if you could wave a magic wand
and reverse a decision, like I've said since they like
over the years, like I've been asked questions like that,
like if I were Watzi, like if I could reverse
a decision or fix something in magic or change something.
But what I do, And yeah, it's a fun it's

(01:16:50):
a fun question, and I'll throw it back to you
in a second. I'm going to give you a minute
to think about it. By pontificating about answers I've given
in the past, So a big one for me was
bringing back GPS just so that I could. I know
it's selfish. I know it doesn't technically add to the
bottom line. I don't expect it to make money. But
a big thing about GPS for me was you would

(01:17:11):
have a tournament of a relevant current format with thousands
of people playing, and I could leave that coverage on
in my house all weekend and feel connected to the game,
feel connected to the game. It was just I wasn't
a content creator. I was doing other things with my life.
I was running a different business. But I never fell
out of touch with Magic even while I wasn't collecting

(01:17:33):
it or playing it, because I had that connection, and
I missed that connection quite a bit. And now in
theory I'm more invested than ever. But it feels like
a lot of I don't know, it's a lot of
transactional connections, and it's hard for me to find exactly
what I love about the game. I find it mostly
honestly in like universes beyond Commander, I really do getting

(01:17:56):
to play Commanders that I'm very excited to play, and
a lot of them do come out of universes Beyond
like Deadpool and Wolverine and things like that. Just feels
really fun for me to have these thematic Commander games
with these characters. So that I've answered bring back GPS
to this question. I've also ever since it happened, I've
said three year Standard was a mistake. I still feel

(01:18:19):
that way. Oh yeah, I still feel really strongly about that. Yeah,
but I think I mean and again, I'm not talking
about the bottom line. I'm talking about like how I
feel about the game. So obviously it's a feelings equation.
But I think if I got one Magic wand Wave,

(01:18:41):
I would probably I would probably keep universes beyond in Commander.
I think I would. It just feels weird in Standard. Man,
it feels really weird in Standard. I'm not I'm not
sure I can handle it in the long term. I'm
working on it, but it's tough. I think Commander was
the perfect place for these things to happen, perfect And

(01:19:03):
I don't know, well, I know why they moved away
from it. They want more people to play Standard, and
maybe in the long term they're right and I'm wrong
and that works and more people do play Standard, and
that would be good for my career as well, but
I'm not there yet. I haven't accepted this and I
need to see a few more receipts. I really need
to see it working right now. It doesn't feel like

(01:19:25):
it works.

Speaker 2 (01:19:29):
I couldn't agree more. I mean, yeah, I think that's
a great wand wave and yeah, I was thinking about it.
You know. For me, I think this is very much
biased towards kind of me and my experience of magic.
But if I could wave my magic wand, I think
I would have wanted them to have done that. E

(01:19:50):
Sports push for MTG differently, right, I think that whole
failed thing with the MPL and you know, because because
you remember, there was a couple of years there where
the higher ups at Watsea and maybe Hasbro were like,
let's try to make digital magic a thing, and they

(01:20:11):
really did. They put money into it, they put staff
into it. You know. I think we could both argue
that there was some key things that they didn't put
into it, but they really did. It was clear that
it was like an effort. It was clear that it
was on their mind, right, and I just wish that
they I don't know where it went a foul. I

(01:20:33):
don't know if they didn't take it as seriously as
they needed to. Maybe they just needed to push that
boulder a little harder up the hill. Maybe it was mismanaged,
you know, maybe the kind of shot callers and people
making the strategy just got the strategy wrong. But it
didn't come together. And I just really that has always

(01:20:55):
been like a heartbreak to me, because I think the
rest of this stuff, you know, whether or not I
like the decisions that they've made, like universes beyond and whatever.
You know, it's hard to say that it hasn't been
a success, you know what I mean, It's like true,
it's like maybe maybe they'll kind of milk the magic

(01:21:16):
eyepie so much that it'll eventually fall off and it'll
finally be the death of magic event that everyone's been
the doom foretold that has been forecast. But it's kind
of hard to argue that magic is struggling right now
because it's clearly not. But I do think that Arena
is like a shadow of what it could have been,
and that will always feel heartbreaking to me because I

(01:21:39):
love Arena, you know. I mean, I've loved magic since
since day one practically, you know, I've loved magic since
nineteen ninety three. But I've never felt so connected to
the game as I did when I was in my
arena heyday. Like that, really that magic hit for me
on a whole different level, and community on a whole

(01:22:01):
different level, even before I was making content, just playing
on arena, you know, hanging out on subreddits, being on Twitter.
You know, it was really it like brought magic into
my home, and it brought magic into my day to
day and that was really special for me. It really was,
you know, and especially like you were saying that the

(01:22:22):
pandemic call out, you know, it happened at the right time,
and it really got me through some hard times. So
I love Magic Arena, and there were just some moments
where I felt like it got done dirty. It just
it just got done really dirty. And so that would
be my magic wand gotcha?

Speaker 1 (01:22:43):
Gotcha? I mean that's not a bad one, I either, Like,
I think that that totally makes sense. Maybe I can
get you back into arena. Do you think there's a
world where you come back? Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:22:55):
Man? You know, I've life has been better after video games.
I've not been gaming much video gaming much lately, and
I think it's been a healthy choice for me.

Speaker 1 (01:23:05):
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on, now are we gonna
We're not gonna tell our audience not to game, right,
I've got a vested interest in this.

Speaker 2 (01:23:13):
Hey man, I'm I'm just one voice out here in
the wilderness, touching grass. Everyone.

Speaker 1 (01:23:20):
You're having a good life outside the arena. Oh my gosh,
what are we going to do with you?

Speaker 2 (01:23:25):
I did. I did just spend you know, forty plus
hours playing through Final Fantasy again, so it's still got
it sucks in me, but true.

Speaker 1 (01:23:33):
All right, I've got something for you. I'm sending you
something right now. I want you to look at this
they introduced. Did you see these tags that they introduced
that you can earn like, you can earn these what
are they called labels or whatever? They're like achievements? Here?
Check this out? What's that? What's that say? Under my name?
What does that say?

Speaker 2 (01:23:53):
Crafty?

Speaker 1 (01:23:54):
Hell? Yeah, dude, they are trying to get you back.
Don't you have to come back and earn the crafty badge?

Speaker 2 (01:24:02):
Oh my gosh, Oh dude, I do you know? I
feel the poll. I fill the poll every once in
a while, and you know, maybe who knows, maybe I'll
I'll get back in the chat sometime soon. And if
I do, dude, you'll you'll be the first person I
call for real.

Speaker 1 (01:24:19):
I imagine we'll do a podcast about it. Sounds good.
Anything else for this podcast, any other subjects we didn't hit,
or something you definitely wanted to cover, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:24:29):
I know you got places to be and I probably
do too, So I just wanted to give a big
hot for the Craft Nation. Anyone who's watching this, who
who remembers the hot hot fire that was CGB and
I chatting every week. I still have love for y'all.
I still think about y'all. The Arena Craft podcast is

(01:24:51):
still one of my proudest achievements in life, and it's
I'm just really stoked about every second of my time
and effort and attention that I put into that. So yeah,
I just I think about the you know, kind of
predominant craftis that I met throughout the experience regularly, and

(01:25:13):
you'll just all really dear people to me, And so
I just wanted you to know that the fire still
burns in my heart for the Craft Nation and I'll
always be proud of that.

Speaker 1 (01:25:23):
Do you remember we do we have an outro? Did
you prepare an outro. I'm trying to remember, so the outro.

Speaker 2 (01:25:31):
Used to be. You can find Arena Craft Podcast in
pretty much any place that you could find podcasts. It's
on Spotify, it's on Apple. You can find cobt go
Blue streaming regularly. I don't know, do you still stream
on twitch covid? No? No?

Speaker 1 (01:25:50):
All right, well you can find me on YouTube.

Speaker 2 (01:25:52):
Okay, you can find CGB on YouTube. You can also
find me streaming regularly. Absolutely, no way, because I'm not
doing that these days. But in the meantime, Crafties, go out,
be bold, be brave, brew new decks, don't be afraid
to defy the matters, and I'll look forward to talking

(01:26:15):
with you the next time that we spin it up
and CGB later, Crafties,

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Arenacraft Ep. 1 - We're back! Let's talk about Standard

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Arenacraft Ep. 1 - We're back! Let's talk about Standard