With RE9 being released a few weeks ago, I only just realized I've only ever really played two Resident Evil games (RE2 on N64, RE1 Remake on GCN).
I tried RE3 on PS1 and RE4 on GCN, but didn't play more than a few minutes.
I might have to play some RE this year.
MTG tonight, and I'm playing through Slay the Spire. Never played it before.
POSSIBILITY STORM: The craziest enchantment I came across. I have a UR Modern deck based around this card (also featuring Guttersnipe, Young Pyro, and Lightning Bolt)
ENSOUL ARTIFACT: The key card in my favorite Standard set. Turning Darksteel Citadels or Ornithopters in 5/5s on Turn 2 was awesome.
TEMUR BATTLERAGE: I remember seeing this in FRF prerelease and thinking it was the best combat trick of all time.
IMPACT TREMORS: I remember seeing this in DTK prerelease and thinking, "Why is this printed at common?"
TOME SCOUR: The first time I played MTG my buddy gave me the choice of decks to play with and I was immediately intrigued by mill. Still like it.
YOUNG PYROMANCER: Similar to Guttersnipe
LIGHTNING BOLT: All-time favorite MTG card. The perfect card.
Didn't even think about sharing info about these cards.
BATTLEWISE HOPLITE: the key card for my best performing deck when I played Standard, and leads the first PDH deck I ever built.
GUTTERSNIPE: one of my favorite creatures as it supports one of my favorite strategies.
If I wanted to go all Red, I would add:
- Monastery Swiftspear
- Zada, Hedron Grinder
- Final Fortune
Why yes, I did start playing Magic in 2014. How could you tell?
Also, I really need Ensoul Artifact reprinted at common.
#η§γδ½γ£γγγΈγγ―9ζ
#My9MTGCards
I miss when game controllers were wired. Sure, can take a long USB cable and plug it into the console but the cable isn't grafted to the controller.
I'm just tired of having to pay $70-$85 for a new controller because the wireless ones no longer hold a charge.
Entering the final year I'm legally allowed to wear this shirt.
However, what I think would be more entertaining (for me) would be to hypothesize what kind of pre-cons that could be made to better represent other color identities. How would mono-color decks look in 2026? How do we make new 4-color decks? Could be fun to think about.
These are my major observations thus far. I might consider looking at the following:
- Decks released per year (uninteresting)
- Strategies used per color identity
- Release cadence per color identity
- Pre-con kindred trends
A note about the 3-color decks: I did not include the Brawl pre-cons since Brawl is technically a different format. But if I did include them, Jund, Mardu, Esper, and Bant would go up by 1 per.
Esper would be 2nd, Bant and Mardu would still be 4th and 5th, and Jund would be 7th.
3-COLOR IDENTITY SPREAD:
-Jeskai (URW) has 12/81 pre-cons, close to 1/7th of all 3-color pre-cons.
- Naya (RGW) and Esper (WUB) have 10 pre-cons each. Remaining combinations are 8 or less.
- The top 5 all use White.
- The bottom 3 all have Golgari (BG) in them.
2-COLOR IDENTITY SPREAD:
Simic (GU) has 7 compared to the other 9 pairs, but honestly most of the color pairs have been equally represented over the years. Azorius (WU) and Selesyna (GW) have only 4 pre-cons per.
I thought the even spread was curious, but design focuses more on 3-colors these days.
But let's drill down further. What about specific color identities in 2 and 3 colors? From here, I had a general observation that there were a lot of Simic (GU) and Jeskai (URW) pre-cons. Was I able to confirm these suspicions?
My biggest issue, and what triggered me to start this investigation, is the sheer amount of 3-color pre-cons. IMO, I think having 3+ colors is a bit overkill. But more importantly: mana-bases for pre-cons are generally weak so anything 3+ colors is harder to play out of the box.
Color QTYs:
- 81/150 decks have 3 colors, just over 1/2 of all pre-cons.
- 51/150 decks have 2 colors, over 1/3 of all pre-cons.
- There have been 6 1-color decks made, with Black receive 2 pre-cons.
- All 4-color decks were made in 2016 (because WOTC is too cowardly to try 4-color again lol)
For this, I was strictly only looking at color identity. Color identity is a huge part of what makes Commander and its variants unique compared to other formats, and I'm also only looking at physical, non "Secret Lair" decks released since 2011. So, as of this thread: 150 commander pre-cons total.
Something I like doing it identifying data trends among unimportant things. Example: tracking every videogame I've ever played. Well, as a fan of MTG, I decided to take a look at the various Commander decks WOTC has made over the years to see if there was anything interesting. I'll share my findings
I'm not sure when I'll host next. Probably not until April, honestly. We talked about potentially doing a Limit game day or something. I also suggested a "Chaos" limited. It would be like Chaos Draft only we don't draft. I'm not buying boosters to lose their cards. No thanks.
Which, while untrue: we originally got into the game via 60-card formats. I still enjoy them. Might have to make another 60-card soon.
I'm sad everyone else wasn't able to make it over, but happy I was able to play a bunch of games in one sitting. Felt good.
Meanwhile, I had his larger creatures enchanted so he would lose life on his turn. It was a very slow burn but in the end, I was able to achieve victory. Arguably the closest game of the night and probably the most entertaining.
We both joked, "This is REAL Magic right here!"
I got lucky that game since he didn't draw into his bigger eldrazi threats and didn't get any trample effects into play. I was able to continuously top-deck into creatures. My opponent never swung more than 3 creatures so I was able to block without too much punishment.
GAME 8 (Pauper)
RG Eldrazi vs. WB Burn
The last game was quite intense. He was able to constantly get creatures in play to maintain board presence and I kept playing enchantments to drain him of his life. After some careful blocking, I was able to win with my life total being at 3.
From there, the game was basically over. It was a partial misplay on his part since he needed to clear my board but forgot about Shard's ability whenever any artifact dies or is exiled. He didn't have flying blockers so it was a done deal.
GAME 7 (EDH)
Auntie Ool vs. Imotekh (me)
Pre-cons only. After a somewhat slow start, I drew into a boardwipe that destroyed all nonartifact creatures. From there, I was able to reanimate a Shard of the Void Dragon. After getting more stuff, I got Black Sun Zenith'd turing it into a 14/14 dude.
Tifa, Martial Artist in play, drew into Darksteel Plate, Mask of Memory, and Behemoth Sledge. I was able to get into extra combats to stabilize my life. Drew into Vanquish the Horde to complete kill his board, played Cloud for basically lethal at that point.
GAME 6 (EDH)
Krenko vs. Cloud (me)
Cloud is basically the pre-con only with other FF7 cards added in. The game went very slow for me. Krenko was making Goblins but wasn't able to do a lot of damage to me. I thought was a goner for sure, but I top-decked into a handful of good cards.
Black Waltz No. 3 is another one of my stronger PDH decks. I think it works better in multiplayer since then the other players can gang up on me for burning them outside of combat. Still, nice to see the deck perform.
