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 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.

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

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.

Not really in love with this, as it kinda reads like a second Mastery Pass that costs less but with fewer (worse?) rewards. Still just kind of comes off like another complicated and confusing system to extract more money up front from the players.

This is the most busted 1 drop I have ever seen. Absolutely mental imo.

Regarding his biggest fear and Magic’s biggest threats:

“The places I get worried about are Magic’s tournament system, which has historically been important to Magic’s health. And then the philosophy that you should not make rare cards so powerful that you need them. People feel that’s a philosophy that has been broken from time to time, and I think it’s always been a mistake. It might have made money in the short run, but it has hurt the game in the long run, or at least until it was corrected,” he said.

“I think things that are existential threats for a game like Magic is if the community breaks down, and here I’m thinking of the community built around tournaments, but not just that. Or if people see it as being a game where you can buy victory, which is associated with this idea of making rare cards too powerful—or powerful cards too rare would be another way to put it. Those are serious problems which might lead to short-term profit but will lead to long-term problems that could be catastrophic.”

As the number of cards in circulation grew, Garfield went out of his way to keep common or easier-to-find cards powerful, while also keeping the rare cards narrowly attuned and never so powerful that you needed them to win. He would sometimes demonstrate this by bringing a deck full of common cards to games stores and beating players who had decks stuffed with expensive rares.

Today, getting rich kids to buy 10 sets of the game seems to be Hasbro’s primary business model. Wizards has adopted a punishing release schedule, printing so many new cards that the Bank of America recently reprimanded Hasbro for trying to over-monetize their players and downgraded the company’s stock. When I asked Garfield what he thought about this, he pleaded ignorance and told me he’s been completely disconnected from the game since the pandemic. He’s heard rumors that have alarmed him, but he thinks Wizards of the Coast old-timers like Bill Rose and Mark Rosewater still have the game’s best interests at heart.

I thought this was particularly interesting. I love the original vision Garfield had with commons vs. rares, bring that back!

Very good bans here

I’m actually really looking forward to Commander draft. Seems absolutely wild, and I like that you get a Collector booster to choose a commander from and kind of know your colors before the draft starts.

I honestly don’t buy that there is a pristine 10 Alpha Black Lotus in existence. The fact that they’re claiming a 10 makes me extremely skeptical of all of this.

I love that animation lol

Yea I’m very surprised Esper didn’t take this one down