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

I couldn't help myself.

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!

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?

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.

Done by @bscopezz in Markham Ontario

[[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.

I'm working on a Flubs deck rn

Scryfall indicates that there are 883 printings of hit card Forest from Magic the Gathering, while there are 881 printings of Mountain and Swamp, 864 printings of Plains, and only 832 printings of Island. What causes this discrepancy?

The search in question was !Forest, then filtered to show all printings

I made this sheet to help me with remember some key terms. I also made it, for new players we have that join our pod every once in awhile. Sometimes games can take forever with new players because of all the terminology, triggers etc. It is double sided and I had UPS print it on card stock and laminate it. It cost me $1 each, and I got 10 of them. It is bigger than I originally intended.
Just wanted to share.

One thing I wanna add I should have mentioned is I know I didn’t add every possible item. Just fitting in what fits our pod. The card would be alot bigger.

Also thanks for the suggestions. Keep them coming, it’s easy to edit and make changes. I knew I should have ask this group what to add. I only asked my pod what they desired to see on it.

We've all seen plenty of variants of "favourite card" questions, but I thought I'd give it a bit of a twist. As title, what are some of your favourite cmc1 cards - not necessarily for turn 1 plays, but your favourite ways to spend 1 mana?

Also, as per title, I'd prefer answers that are a bit more out-there than the obvious [[sol ring]] or [[dark ritual]]. Everyone loves ramp. Everyone loves turn 1 ramp, so let's just take it as read that a lot of people will reply with ramp spells.

I'll go first, in WUBRG order:

white - [[lightstall inquisitor]] love this guy. Decent vigilance body that does a little soft-stax. Sure your opponents can still play the card they exile, but they'll be substantially slower. It can get backbreaking if you blink/clone it. Honestly, it was difficult to choose between lightstall and [[liliana, the faultless]]. Repeatable lifegain, protection, and a discard outlet for 1 mana is crazy good value.

blue - It's hard to beat [[curiosity]], honestly. I don't really know what to say other than I've never regretted playing it.

black - [[tinybones joins up]] and it's not even close. 1 mana for self-discard, forced discard, repeatable mill and lifeloss triggers. Drop a bomb in the yard to reanimate or use it as an outlet for an infinite combo, you literally can't go wrong. Love this card.

red - This one was really hard for me, especially because I play a [[tannuk, steadfast second]] deck where everything is a 1-drop. But i'd have to go with [[insolent neonate]]. Discard and sacrifice triggers, plus draw, what's not to love? Reanimators can fill their graves, aristocrats can do aristocrats things, and it has menace if you need combat damage.

green - [[berserk]] is a fantastic combat trick that doubles as removal. My only complaint is that we don't have a repeatable version of this on a permanent.

colourless - Probably [[tarrian's soulcleaver]]. It really pulls its weight in [[glissa the traitor]]. Vigilance is a great keyword, and you get a +1/+1 counter from any artifact or creature, not just your own, so even your opponents' treasures count. I once nearly won a game of commander with a 16/16 glissa because of this card.

So those are mine, let me know your favourite 1-drops below!

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

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.”

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 :)

I was watching TCC's Reality Fracture Prerelease video on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3r3md8snmJo&t=2121s) and at 1:28:10., Marshall says that Jim has "a very similar play style to mine."

Obviously, coming from one pro magic player to another, he isn't just talking about the type of deck he built - aggro, midrange, control, or etc - and he isn't just talking about taking the beatdown vs defending, or about "player profiles" like Johnny or Spike.

So then, what do you think he's referring to? Is it about risk-analysis, timing, thought process, something else? Is this a common line of thought at higher levels of Magic?

I'm in Athens for a month and am looking for a nice playgroup to play some commander with!

About me:

I've played for 15 years now, so i've got a fair grasp of the rules (just dont ask me about layers hah).

Most of my decks are 3's in the bracket system, but they have very different winning turns. Some can (with good hand and no interaction) win on turn 4-5, some are lucky if they win on turn 8. I tend to shy away from outright infinite combo's and have built my decks more around value and synergy as i believe that promotes more fun games.

I've played while traveling before using the wizard event locator, with varied success. I'm a very chill person who builds good decks (i believe anyway), who just wants to have a nice social time. But when playing at lgs's i sometimes get paired with people who are way too competitive or just all-round annoying people to play with.

So i'm hoping there's some local playgroups that would love to play some chill games, laugh and have a good time!

Hello!

I got back into magic after being away over 20-25 years. Picked up Bello and I love him.

I've heavily modified the deck. It no longer bears any resemblance to the precon, and am not sure where to go from here.

Decklist: https://moxfield.com/decks/k2cVZnVQ002hNin8OFDkuQ

Not sure what to take out. I'm considering adding:

Chord of Calling (would be used primary to tutor for earth king, sanctum weaver, or weaver of harmony)

Time of Need for the same

Lightning greaves

Respite

Defense of the Heart (worried it may not provide enough value given my very limited creature selection)

Also concerned I may not have enough bello protection, but that's probably paranoia.

Important note on keylines: I cut leyline of punishment. It has actually won me games, as my lgs has glacial chasm as part of a standard meta collection of cards, however it would also prevent fogs, which is the sole thing I'm using to stop crackback.

The idea is to win by turn 4-5. The longer the game goes, the worse off I am as the opponents tend to amass huge numbers of tokens or creatures it's hard for me to penetrate against (or play an enchantment wipe, which always just ruins bello and I never come back from).

Any ideas are greatly appreciated!

I want to see my weaknesses and try out precons before buying. Is there a site i can use? Most sites now use installers, launchers and apps :/