I think The One Ring has been slipping under the radar with all the focus on Nadu. Nadu is definitely a problem but The One Ring is being run in nearly every other deck and I just cannot see how this is a good thing for any format. If aggro, midrange, combo, and control are all running the same card I think that's a clear sign the card is not only too strong, but too easy to run as well.

There just aren't any downsides, not even color pips, to prevent auto-including it and the upside is to high that it's often the right decision to just run 4 of them. I saw a number of games in PT MH3 where the game was almost over but the player behind casts TOR and then ends up winning from the card advantage it generated.

60% for Bant Nadu with that many games is insane imo. This is after a short time since MH3 came out too, not sure what that's going to be once it gets played more and more.

There's no doubt in my mind Nadu eats a Hogaak style ban too. Way overpowered and way too much representation.

I also honestly still think The One Ring needs to go too. That card is bonkers level nuts and I think it's being slightly overshadowed by the even more nuts Nadu.

I just want to say I think we're lucky to have Corey Baumeister and his commentary! I could listen to this guy 24 hours a day.

Looking at the full decklist, damn I think you would have 3-0'd this even without any!

This is hilarious, I think I'd play 10 if I saw them all 😛

I totally agree. In this video one of the guys basically says whenever he sees a turn 1 Grief->Reanimate->Grief or an Initiative creature he just scoops and decides its not worth playing that game. I get that this on the extreme side, but when you have players activity deciding to just scoop instead of playing out a game, because of how mentally exasperating it is, I wonder what the f- are we even doing! This is a GAME. This screams to me local/community ban list. I were running a store and trying to get people to come out, I would just manage my own banlist, but a community created one would go the furthest I think.

I don't play Legacy but I've always been a big fan of the format. It's very interesting to hear their thoughts on how negatively impactful Grief has been for the format. I think it's frustrating but expected that Wizards delays banning a card from the current active set that they're promoting. They haven't even shipped out Gift Bundles yet (July) so to ban a card from the set before people even receive the product is definitely never happening.

I do think that Grief creates non-games, and I think non-games are truly antithetical to "fun" and fun should be the #1 concern for every game in existence. The fact that they're not banning it means they care more about money than fun.

I feel like Pauper is the healthiest most diverse format right now. If there's anything that gets me to finally figure out installing MTGO it would be Pauper.

I think they quietly renamed Historic Brawl to "Brawl" and then Brawl became "Standard Brawl". That's just from what I've seen online but I don't if that's formal or anything.

Yea I totally agree. Wizards needs to wholeheartedly abandon anything with AI art imo. That's the wrong direction.

Fun fact -- I just met Drew Tucker yesterday at a Sorcery TCG event in Baltimore and I believe this and nearly all of his paintings for Magic are in water color. I really love his style, but I never would have guessed these were water color paintings. It was also cool to see what the art directors instructions look like, he showed me an email he got for MH3 and it was surprisingly interesting to see the descriptions and paramters the artists get. He said the card names are often changed later, and that they don't get any of the card text or abilities to work with. It's just a ~50 word description of the scene they're looking for. I'd love to see the write-up he was given for this card.

I agree with every single one of these picks. I haven't played a ton of Commander, but whenever I do I'm really turned off by commanders with salty/toxic abilities or ones that have doubling or copying effects. It's not because I think they're too strong, but it's because they're negatively fun, like a fun dampener. Copying/doubling effects can be fine but baked into the commander makes every single thing become so much more complicated, with so much more state to manage.

The most unfun commander games and people I've played with are the ones who take 100 actions per turn, dominating the game time with their turn decisions and actions. The least fun I have is when 80% of the game is spent on one player masturbating in front of the other 3. I seek out games now that are with lower powered or thematic commanders only. I understand I could be in the minority with this, and it's coming from someone who can't wrap their head around how or why CEDH exists. I feel like Commander is the format for having fun above literally everything else, and when anything at all prevents fun in any way I just feel like it should go to any of the 10s of competitive formats or events.

Alayna Danner is one of my all time favorite artists. She has so many amazing pieces that it's hard to choose a favorite but I think her landscapes and lands are the best.

I've always loved this artwork, and just how gross it is

I think they have to be doing some player-skill-based matchmaking in those queues. I think it would just be really un-fun if they didn't, and I'd bet Arena is optimizing for player hours over anything else. Nothing ends an Arena session like getting dunked on multiple games in a row in a ranked queue lol.

I’d bet that each format – Standard, Explorer, Alchemy, etc. – has its own set of weights.

I never thought about that but I'd bet you're right and I'd hope they're getting updated a lot more regularly than the Brawl ones.

Just out of curiosity, they must be using this for unranked and the play queue right? If not, there has to be something else they're using for those matchups because I still never see a wide deck/player disparity even in the unranked queues.

I also think most of the frustration was due to the improper weighting on cards. I think that indicated to people that they don't give a shit enough to keep them current or perhaps they don't have the resources to, both of which are bad news for players.

For me, the best change they could make would be to display the MMR/Deck Strength numbers everywhere in matches. The way you can see the Elo in all chess matches I think helps people understand why they're matched up against their opponent. Having everything in the dark makes people come up with conspiracy theories.

Damn, this is so beautiful

I think they should have dropped the 2,300 gem cost to unlock it, and just allowed everyone to accumulate tickets accordingly. I don't mind a new currency in the game, but this is really just another bundle sold to us for gems/money. And you have to do work to accumulate the rewards after you pay.