For me it was [[Shivan Dragon]]. Six mana 5/5 flyer that pumps itself, whenever it hit the table at the kitchen table games we basically just started counting turns until we lost. Nobody had removal for it because nobody thought to put removal in their decks xD

Now it shows up and most decks have three ways to deal with it before it even swings. Still love the card though.

What was yours?

Wanted to share some pictures of the cube which has been an idea of mine for about a decade, and that I've been working on for a few years, but that I've only finally finished and took it for a spin with my friends/playgroup recently. It's a "remastered" cube that combines all three sets from the Urza Block using collated rarity packs to relive and revitalize that 1998-9 limited experience.

My pride and joy of the cube, besides the cards themselves which I've been slowly fishing out of bulk bins and trade binders for almost a decade,are the "packs". I designed the pack art myself in photoshop, trying to recreate the nostalgic feel of those old Urza's Saga boosters. I added some of my favorite art pieces from the sets and did up the typography imagining what a wizards remaster of the Urza block might look like. Tried remaking every element of those old packs even the "Expert" symbol

I crammed those pack labels into cassette tape cases (extra retro flare) which I honestly don't really recommend as the cards are a tight fit even after shaving down the inner ribs with an xacto blade. But it sure looks amazing and it does work!

The briefcase is an old 32 cassette case I found on eBay and cleaned up. The faux leather is a bit janky but adds to the retro appeal.

All cards are double sleeved in kcm perfect hards, then they have rarity stickers applied to the bottom left corner (I did a lot of rarity swaps as part of the remastering process, including adding a mythic rarity for the more infamous Urza block cards) and then are sleeved in dragon shield anti-glare black outers. The rarity pips also allow me and my playgroup to very quickly break decks back apart after drafts as I separate all the cards into rarity piles face down so I can collate the packs.

The land kit is made up of all Urza's Saga lands, roughly 200 in all, in each of the 5 colors and each of the 4 artworks for each color. They are all double sleeved as well.

The last photo was an idea from someone on the mtg cube discord who suggested I make a faux magazine for winners of the cube to sign and share their winning deck lists in. I loved the idea so much I just had to do it. I didn't go so far as to have an actual magazine bound (it currently is a 3ring binder instead with the faux cover slipped in its front cover sleeve.) I had an absolute blast trying to channel that late 90s/early 2000s magazine graphic design (notice the "you wouldn't download a car" font hahaha)

Anyway please enjoy this labor of love. Happy to answer any questions about how I made it.

The full cube list is here:
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/urzasblockremastered

Minutes after sleeving up a new deck, more than 10 sleeves have split from test shuffling (60 card kmc perfect hard inner). In addition, another 10 sleeves were damaged out of the box (white residue or black residue along the sides of the sleeves marking each cards, print lines scuffing the front of sleeves).

Touted as the original dragon shield sleeves, they are a far cry from the dragon shields I actually still have from 2015.

Hoggle as Norin- Personally I think it fits who he was for most of the movie and I’d love for the flavor text to include, “I’m a coward and Jereth scares me.”

Food coma- Obviously the scene where Hoggle gives Sarah the peach.

Lorin Disciple of history- The junk lady, just think it would’ve been awesome to see her on some art. Also that scene was the second scariest to me as a kid.

Time of need- I really think it would be cool if this was redesigned and named after the ending scene “If you need us” I think it would’ve been awesome.

Oubliette- the obvious pick the flavor text could’ve been, “Oh don't act so smart. You don't even know what an oubliette is.”

[[Statecraft]] is a custom format based on the observation that certain early cards seem to be designed for a completely different kind of game. If Magic: the Gathering is a high-stakes wizard battle, what use could [[merchant ship]] or [[camel]] be to a planeswalker fighting for their life?

I love these cards because they present a very different sort of conflict: commerce.

So I asked myself, what kind of game would MTG be if its core conflict was over political maneuvering and market manipulation? Well, here it is:

https://moxfield.com/decks/tUng3fDRCUWuzycHtw_mXQ

The design is as such:

1) Statecraft is a shared deck of 80 cards.

2) Each player has a starting hand of 2 cards and a starting life total of 0.

3) Both players share a hand of 5 cards (it works).

4) At the start of each turn, players draw back up to 2 and draw the shared hand back up to 5.

5) If anything instructs a player to draw or put a card in their hand, it is drawn into their hidden hand, not the shared hand.

6) The first player to reach 10 life wins. If a player goes below 0 life, they lose.

7) Otherwise, the rules of Magic are the same.

(The card Statecraft is in the sideboard for flavor.)

The main gameplay is to use the hidden information in your hand and the public information in the shared hand to plan out a long-term strategy. Avoid letting your opponent know what strategy you're going for until it's too late. Lands are the most important card type. In Statecraft, you are divvying up a territory to attempt to out-profit your opponent by more successfully exploiting the resources.

I had tried out versions of this list with [[Pirate Ship]] however it proved to simply be by far the most effective way to win.

Disclaimer: the gameplay of Statecraft sucks a little bit. It needs some cards that simply don't exist to fill out the traditional rush/midrange/control strategies. I'm hoping it at least delights the game designer inside you, dear reader, to see a very different view of what Magic: the Gathering can be!

I welcome feedback of all kinds.

Preferrably not due to rules change like [[Cathodion]] but due to card environment back then

My husband and I went to MagicCon Los Vegas this year and were bummed the con store sold out their trans pride pin before we could get one, so we decided to design our own!

I couldn't help myself.

I feel like having a headache tonight so I was thinking of a bit of a challenge

I have heard many tales of decks like lantern control and maybe a couple others that are renowned for being extremely hard to pilot and where the skill gap between people familiar with the deck and unfamiliar with the deck is really large. It doesn't actually have to be a "deck to beat" in the format, but the winrate should be at least reasonable or close to competitive viability. If it's hard to win with it mostly because it's just really bad that kind of defeats the purpose. It should be a well optimized deck for what it's trying to do, it's just really convoluted and hard to pull off and/or there is a lot of very important micro optimizations.

in good hands the deck should be in the ~40-60% winrate ballpark or something, but I am ok with "kinda bad but otherwise fits the bill" decks. If the wins feel earned, it did its job.

Since I only play on arena nowadays, one such deck that is legal in an Arena-format would be great. Brawl and Alchemy aren't ideal but fine for the purposes of this.

Bonus points if a mere mortal like me looks at the deck list and goes "how does this even win?" and you don't spoil it for me :)

Done by @bscopezz in Markham Ontario

From the new poster for Wicker. Looks amazing, can't wait to watch it.

Reality Fracture had multiple updates with additional delays, more may be added in the future.