I think Regent in general is fairly setup oriented and takes a few turns to get rolling, so he tends to take some chip. That means leaning into stars, especially early, feels the best option since you can then pick up Forge or Colorless archetype cards as your damage solution if you see a good one
Once you have a stars engine online you can also 'splash' forge cards (mainly Bulwark, The Smith, Summon Forth have felt best) as your actual damage solution, and then using your stars to block and apply vuln/weak
Reflect is also insane.
Then you have the actual Stars 'archetype', with stuff like Child of the Stars as a block engine and Comet, Seven Stars, etc. as the damage engine. There's also a potential infinite with Aligment/Glow and Radiate as the finisher. Consistent star gen is key—Shining Strike A+
I've found that basically every deck wants some amount of star cards. Particle Barrier with sufficient star gen is a fantastic block solution in not just Star builds but also Forge and Colorless builds. The 0-cost star cards in general help you take game actions when you're paying 2 mana on blade
Finally you have the twin resource system in stars. Star cards are really good, and honestly they're too powerful to ignore, but splashing them is tricky because you run into the A+B problem of drawing the wrong half of your deck. There's also tension with the star gen cards and your energy economy
You then *also* need ways to actually redraw your blade after you play it, or your cycling feels atrociously slow. Summon Forth and Cosmic Indifference are key cards for this
there's only a single card that forges and is defensive—Bulwark—and it's incredible for that reason. But that also means if you don't find it the builds feel like they really struggle to block. Parry exists, but it doesn't feel like it actually works.
Forge builds are tricky and feel weak to me right now. In theory it leans towards a stalling strategy to scale and redraw your sword, since 2 mana makes it not super spammable (note: it's 1 mana when upgraded, if you find an in-fight source of upgrade)
that being said it feels the trickiest to actually "get into" since a lot of its scaling payoffs are kind of middling. If I see an early arsenal I'll start to look at picking up quasar and the non-rare transform cards (GUARDS looks like it's just good to me no matter what though idk for sure)
I think colorless is secretly hot and not as bad as I've seen people say, since arsenal is a real source of str scaling; both the sword and minion cards are colorless, so you don't need to go full random (though I've liked quasar, and debris is colorless and can be transformed to minions)
there's 3 prescribed archetypes: stars, forge, colorless
tl;dr imo focus on stars as a core—good star gen that you can leverage into block (particle wall, cloak, reflect)/draw (glow)
then you either use star damage cards (radiate, comet, etc) or splash into Forge/Colorless for your damage scaling
RIP Tomik Zarek conspiracy theory
although they made like 3 months pigeons, I think? lol
woah woah woah woah pigeons are fucking awesome don't even start
did they finish that chicago-mpls amtrak route?
yeah, the vault gave me big fomori vibes as well. I went back and checked all the descriptions/elements from OTJ and nothing was exactly analagous, although "copper-gilded pillars" somewhat matches aesthetically, as does the bit about it looking like an ancient temple
definitely would make for a good central incident to the plot of SOS too. Especially with the weirdness of how archaics form... multiverse-spanning magic could plausibly have thrown a wrench in things
"Step into a living story world where you and your fellow mage-students must decipher clues and face challenges to solve the mystery of the rampaging Archaics before chaos spreads across campus."
so it's def an archaic, and smth is fucking them up en masse? granted, who knows how canon this arg is
A screenshot of Slay the Spire 2, showing an event named "Trash Heap". The text says "You spend a decent amount of time wading through the dangerous garbage and find a relic of the past! Why was this thrown out?" The relic is Darkstone Periapt, and its description reads "Whenever you obtain a Curse, raise your Max HP by 6"
gee I wonder why
well I guess it's hamsona time!
not wholly new info actually—Aranzhur was mentioned by Tezz as a compleated plane in a MOM side story. The fact that it was Angrath's home plane is new to us though
I saw Aranzhur as one of the options for "where is home for you" on the quiz and went UH OH lol
magic.wizards.com/en/news/magi...
Maha, Its Feathers Night
But "Its Feathers Night" is probably my favorite, it just goes so hard
Alesha, Who Smiles at Death
Boseiju, Who Endures
Teferi, Who Slows the Sunset
I've got a soft spot for "who" ones, it just has a sort of lovely feel to it
PARSENOIRE COMMISSIONS OPEN - MARCH 2026 NOW ON VGEN - $100 game art style test (artistic liberty) - $150 stylized portrait (the parse special) - $175 convention badge (rush order available) more info and submit a request at vgen.co/parsenoire
COMMS OPEN FOR MARCH!!
trying out vgen this month, so go check out my page and submit a request!!
opening 5 slots each for:
- game art style test
- character portrait
- convention badge
it's scary big bill time (due mar 10), so requests and reshares are greatly appreciated!!
vgen.co/parsenoire
Jilesa: The Izzet League is famously red and blue aligned.
Ral: [examining his robes] Yes well as Parun I'm also responsible for white and black aligned tasks such as diplomacy and leadership.
Jilesa: Is that why you've been heard promoting regime change on Avishkar?
Ral: no wait --
Jilesa: I see.
who gives a fuck about an orzhov comma / I've seen those rakdos dramas too; they're cruel
doubling up on my thots this week, I wrote about the funny relationship between the Instant time--including the history of Interrupts and THE BATCH!!
Give it a read!
dominarianplowshare.substack.com/p/the-histor...
fantastic!
Off the Table: The Gratuity of Magic’s Hidden Lore
@mtgplowshare.bsky.social interviews format Magic Narrative Designer, Miguel Lopez, about the huge amounts of worldbuilding that never make it onto cards or webfiction.
a free read (for now):
www.cascadecascade.com/magics-hidde...
happy spire 2 day to all who celebrate
