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Last year was pretty crazy about pushing the power level of Magic sets. We’ll see what 2020 brings, and that all starts with Theros Beyond Death. As usual, I’ll be analyzing the theoretical impact of this set on “Tribal” constructed Magic gameplay. My primary vision for this is some kind of...

My latest West Coast Commander League deck features another commander I was excited to play, one I'd been wanting to build a deck around for years. I packed this deck with good cards and the result was, well, not great. At least Sliver Queen did OK. My Sidisi deck generally crapped out and...

Built this yesterday, but we didn't get enough turnout for the West Coast Commander League, because of the Theros Beyond Death prerelease. I did poorly in the prerelease, too. Will play some version of this some day, but not next week... Commander: 1x Axelrod Gunnarson 1x Anger 1x Animate Dead...

Recently in "Magic Memories" I mentioned that I have the cool new printing of Life from the Loam, and that I wanted to use it in a deck. I also wanted to do a Loam deck for yesterday's West Coast Commander League Event, which included a special point for putting 20+ lands onto the battlefield...

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/january-13-2020-banned-and-restricted-announcement Modern: Mox Opal is banned. Oko, Thief of Crowns is banned. Mycosynth Lattice is banned. No changes to other formats, but Ian Duke notes that moving forward, Pioneer changes will be...

I like the art on the new "Secret Lair" version of this card and I'm excited that I'll finally be using it soon... Where to start? Life from the Loam is one of my personal favorites, but it's also one of the all-time great Magic cards. And I don't know how to properly convey that. In...

I started off 2020 in the West Coast Commander League with the commander that will always be the my true favorite, deep down. Nearest and dearest to my heart. The card that was my favorite Magic card in 1998 when I had no idea what I was doing, but making lots of slivers was fun. Long live the...

Back in February of 2019, West Coast Sports Cards in Federal Way, Washington began organizing test runs for a new weekly casual commander event, which would become the West Coast Commander League. The league officially opened in March and while participation has been inconsistent, it’s looking...

Oops, forgot to post this on Sunday. Last deck of the year for the West Coast Commander League. Themes included snow, cards with family relationships in their names, and giving Flying to non-flying creatures. Commander 1x Gosta Dirk 1x Ajani, Caller of the Pride 1x Anvil of Bogardan 1x Arcane...

This is a long article. You’ve been warned. At the most abstract level, this one has been a long time coming. A very, very long time. But I don’t think I’d have made the effort to string these words together and come up with something coherent if not for the (relatively) recent article by Bryan...

Here's yet another wacky creation for the West Coast Commander League. Having at least nine elk and/or caribou over the course of the game wasn't worth enough points for how hard it is to pull off. But Caribou Range got me there. It's totally a legitimate Magic card. My favorite play of the...

Continuing this December silliness in the West Coast Commander League, I built a deck to best ensure that I'd have snow permanents, that I'd have cards with family relations in their names, that I'd tap Sensei's Divining Top and/or Candelabra of Tawnos, and that I'd trade cards with my...

It turns out that Thornbite Staff is a good Magic card. After four weeks in a row of playing Legends legends, I decided to change it up and do a combo deck. Well, what really happened was that the weekly rotator in the West Coast Commander League's point system was to activate abilities of...

I'm already working on my deck for the next West Coast Commander League meetup, so I'm ahead of schedule on that compared to my usual these days of "Don't start until the night before." But I've fallen behind on reporting my decks as they're played. So here's my deck from the 1st. But it's weird...

https://magic.wizards.com/en/products#secretlair Looks like they have some fun stuff. Thinking about getting these once they're available...

Another one of my hastily constructed decks for the West Coast Commander League. It did its job, but I do feel that I didn't do Arcades Sabboth justice. I didn't employ the right cards to reliably cast my commander or to take advantage of its universal toughness boost. Part of the impetus for...

Three of the Legends legends are mana-dorks, and none of them are very much like any sort of legendary mana-dork that would be printed today. One of them just taps for U, one of them just taps for B, and then there's Sunastian Falconer, who makes two colorless mana. As the 55 possible 1994...

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/november-18-2019-banned-and-restricted-announcement?asdf Standard: Oko, Thief of Crowns is banned. Once Upon a Time is banned. Veil of Summer is banned. Brawl: Oko, Thief of Crowns is banned. Legacy: Wrenn and Six is banned. Vintage...

In case you've forgotten, Commander was originally called Elder Dragon Highlander and originally the commanders or "generals" were the five elder dragons from Legends. Since those are now some of the worst three-color commanders in the game, I'd never actually seen them in that role. So, when I...

So the organizer for the West Coast Commander League didn't announce our point system for November until after I showed up at the store. No one had any time to build decks based on those points, of course. Also, "Commanderfest" meant we had fewer attendees anyway. Specifically, we had eight. Two...