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Post by sdfkjgh on Feb 27, 2021 17:58:54 GMT
Theme music
Welcome back to The MageLaughlin Group. And this time, I'm proud to announce we finally have a full panel! You all know Daij_Djan, but allow me to introduce our newest panel members, dangerousdice, ArkiThe7th, and foureyesisafish. Why don't you all tell us a little something about yourselves, like how did you first get into Magic?*
*Always steal from the best, so I'm stealing from MaRo himself.
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ArkiThe7th
1/1 Squirrel
Any plant is edible if you’re not a coward.
Posts: 82
Favorite Card: Wee Dragonauts
Favorite Set: Pauper Masters (wait a second...)
Color Alignment: Blue, Red
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Post by ArkiThe7th on Feb 27, 2021 22:18:04 GMT
Alrighty, I’m ArkiThe7th, ArkiTheSeventh, or just Arki. I adore pauper and sometimes play other formats. Outside of magic, my main character traits are I like art and I talk too fast. (You won’t have to worry about the latter here). I use he/him pronouns. My first exposure to magic was through my dad. Actually, a lot of how I learned to read was by playing magic. My dad got me into the casual scene, but it took me a while to get into actual serious magic. I started playing standard around 5 years ago, but it was way too expensive. So, the professor from TCC converted me to pauper and that’s been a lot more fun, I would totally recommend it. There isn’t much more than that, I live in South Korea, so time zones are really wonky for me. Oh, I’m also into magic card design, in case it wasn’t obvious. I’ve made a few sets. One of them is good. Excited to be here, and thank you sdfkjgh for bringing me onto the panel! (Man, sdfkjgh is one hard username to spell...)
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Post by dangerousdice on Feb 27, 2021 22:58:31 GMT
I got into magic after A friend who owned a game store showed me how to play!
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Post by Daij_Djan on Feb 27, 2021 23:50:23 GMT
Hi sdfkjgh, glad to be here once more and.. Wait a second.. One, two, three.. Wow, we finally have a full panel – awesome Pretty cool to have a much bigger variety of opinions in the future, glad to have you all on board Also a small information to our loyal readers (I know we have some, the viewcount is proof ): As we're now scattered around the globe basically as much as possible we plan on slightly changing our style – meaning every episode of The MageLaughlin Group will most likely last two or three days starting as of today. That aside, I've been a member of this forum for more than nine years now, originally having started playing back in the year 2000 after getting baited by a cool TV commercial -insert old man joke here- I really don't want to go into too much further detail about me since (a) it's rather late and work was rather tiresome today and (b) most readers will know at least a little bit about me already anyway -insert old man being arrogant joke here-
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Post by sdfkjgh on Feb 28, 2021 0:14:55 GMT
Well, we still need to hear from foureyesisafish , so while we wait, ArkiThe7th , here's an easy way to remember how to spell my handle:
1) Look to the home row: asdfghjkl 2) Assigning an ordinal number to each key, left to right gets a1s2d3f4g5h6j7k8l9 3) 2348756
Since I'm fairly certain I've detailed my Magic origin elsewhere in Trapped on Tattooine, I'll explain how I came by this nom de plume: Decades ago (yes, like Daij_Djan , I too am Old Man Magic), I was playing a game on my old Macintosh computer (this was pre-1st gen iMac {I told you I'm old}). I'd gotten a high score, so to enter a name, I mashed my fingers on the homerow*. The result was so close to the actual order, I took it as a sign, and my gamertag/nickname/comment name from then on.
*This was back when school and parents were trying to force me to learn how to type. To this day I'm predominantly index fingers only, staring at the keyboard, and still hitting about 40-60 wpm on average, and everyone has given up on trying to change me. Take that, people who were only trying to better me!
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Post by sdfkjgh on Feb 28, 2021 2:26:11 GMT
Ok, this is getting ridiculous. Since foureyesisafish has yet to show up, I'm gonna move on to the first question. Now, mind you, dear readers, this question was never really hashed out properly, and as such its form became a joke, and that joke became a little humorously tumorous:
Something something something, Frazzled Editor, something something something, worse than Time Spiral.
Actually, I did the math, and KLD has a higher average than the entirety of TSP BLOCK, including the Timeshifted sheet! In fact, TSP block+Timeshifted would only be at the very bottom of the Top 8, right beneath Morningtide.
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Post by dangerousdice on Feb 28, 2021 3:03:01 GMT
I liked kaldheim. it's complexity was one of my favorite parts of it, in fact!
I loved drafting it, and I think it's a solid set!
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ArkiThe7th
1/1 Squirrel
Any plant is edible if you’re not a coward.
Posts: 82
Favorite Card: Wee Dragonauts
Favorite Set: Pauper Masters (wait a second...)
Color Alignment: Blue, Red
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Post by ArkiThe7th on Feb 28, 2021 3:08:28 GMT
Somebody could say that Kaldheim having so much text is too much of an increase in complexity, but I feel like the wordiness of a set isn’t really proportional to how complex a set is. As long as the effects are straightforward, the complexity stays low. And that’s definitely true in Kaldheim.
Sagas may also be skewing the data a little bit, considering that each chapter is basically it’s own card. Any set with sagas is probably gonna have an abnormally high word count. This makes sense when you see Theros Beyond Death is ninth from the top and Dominaria is in the top half.
Kaldheim also has modal DFCs, and those are two cards in one. Plus, since these DFCs are nonlands on both sides, they have a lot more text than the Zendikar ones with a land on one or both sides. In speaking of lands, ten of the nonbasics in Kaldheim have a lot of text on them compared to other lands, which most likely influences the data a bit as well.
Those are my thoughts. I may be looking too deep into this, but I like figuring out stuff like this. I wouldn’t worry about sets getting too complex because all of the mechanics and text is contained. It’s not like the giant tapestries of text in Time Spiral.
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Post by Daij_Djan on Feb 28, 2021 11:36:03 GMT
As it's probably well-known by this point, I'm a big fan of simple and clean cards – even though I admit sometimes clean and easily grockable can get rather wordy when translated to „Magic slang“ as well. Still, Kaldheim is insanely wordy and I think it goes a bit beyond the reasons given by ArkiThe7th . For example whlile.. Kaldheim also has modal DFCs, and those are two cards in one. Plus, since these DFCs are nonlands on both sides, they have a lot more text than the Zendikar ones with a land on one or both sides. In speaking of lands, ten of the nonbasics in Kaldheim have a lot of text on them compared to other lands, which most likely influences the data a bit as well. ..all of this is true, the Words per Card List actually already counts the Modal DFCs as two separate cards. I did just now take a short glimpse at the commons and uncommons again and noticed a few cards. Berg Strider for example is a simple and clean effect, nethertheless it's a seven line common which would be unthinkable a few years ago. Likewise Glimpse the Cosmos has nine lines of text – just recently this would have been almost unthinkable at mythic even. And I know that card also is rather simple as it's second paragraph basically translates to „~ has flashback as long as you control a Giant.“, but still. Skemfar Shadowsage likewise might be a virtual vanilla, but is again a nine-lined uncommon (btw I just now noticed, did they change the „share a creature type“ wording?) – and then there's Path to the World Tree.. So even when you ignore the Modal DFCs and the Sagas completely, the other cards have definitely gotten wordier as well. Again, nine line cards almost never ever happened at any rarity until recently – and now it seems like they're turning into a staple at uncommon. So yeah, some card types like the Sagas might help (the Runes also are really wordy even though not a complexity issue) - but the wordiness definitely goes beyond that. I know we still have a very, very long way to go before reaching Yu-Gi-Oh levels of wordiness, but still. As we say in German: „Wehret den Anfängen!“ (Nip it in the bud.)PS: Also fun fact, Strixhaven's already spoiled Witherbloom Command will feature a new shortened wording for “converted mana cost of” And the new Demonic Tutor either has a wording error - or they're shortening the shuffle clause as well.
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ArkiThe7th
1/1 Squirrel
Any plant is edible if you’re not a coward.
Posts: 82
Favorite Card: Wee Dragonauts
Favorite Set: Pauper Masters (wait a second...)
Color Alignment: Blue, Red
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Post by ArkiThe7th on Feb 28, 2021 12:55:25 GMT
PS: Also fun fact, Strixhaven's already spoiled Witherbloom Command will feature a new shortened wording for “converted mana cost of” And the new Demonic Tutor either has a wording error - or they're shortening the shuffle clause as well. I was thinking about that recently. I figure they’re also most likely also going to shorten ETB effects to just “when CARDNAME enters.” I think all of this shortening will probably be good. It makes cards less intimidating for less experienced players, and makes text on cards more legible and quicker to read. Now that I’m thinking about it, I did notice I was skimming over a lot of the card text in Kaldheim. It actually took me a couple reads to fully grasp what some of the cards did, even if they were a simple effect. So, ultimately, I think that you’re right that even if the complexity isn’t super high, they should still cut down on how much text is on a card.
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foureyesisafish
7/7 Elemental
Posts: 386
Favorite Set: Ikoria: Lair of the Behemoths
Color Alignment: Blue, Red, Green
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Post by foureyesisafish on Feb 28, 2021 15:04:21 GMT
Hey everyone! I'm foureyesisafish (he/him).
I got "into" magic back at Takhir, fell in love with Kaladesh, took a break til ZNR, played commander with a friend, and now I'm here.
I agree with what everyone has said so far. Kaldheim isn't actually that complicated of a set (especially compared with my favorite set Ikoria), but a lot of its effects are wordy. You know what really needs to be shortened? Token creation. I tried making a relatively simple tribal artifact token (Tribal Artifact- Scarecrow Equipment, Equipped creature has +1/+1 and is a scarecrow, equip 1) and it took, no joking, 7 LINES.
...also, speaking of Lorwyn, WHY IS MORNINGTIDE SO DANG WORDY?
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Post by Daij_Djan on Feb 28, 2021 16:02:30 GMT
...also, speaking of Lorwyn, WHY IS MORNINGTIDE SO DANG WORDY? Interesting question. At first glimpse I'd say that probably due to the set being a small one while returning the wordy Clash mechanic and introducing the just as wordy Kinship one at the same time?
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foureyesisafish
7/7 Elemental
Posts: 386
Favorite Set: Ikoria: Lair of the Behemoths
Color Alignment: Blue, Red, Green
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Post by foureyesisafish on Feb 28, 2021 16:27:53 GMT
...also, speaking of Lorwyn, WHY IS MORNINGTIDE SO DANG WORDY? Interesting question. At first glimpse I'd say that probably due to the set being a small one while returning the wordy Clash mechanic and introducing the just as wordy Kinship one at the same time? Ah, kinship definitely seems to be a major part of that, being a long ability word.
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Post by sdfkjgh on Feb 28, 2021 19:14:57 GMT
Glad you could finally join us, foureyesisafish.
Our next question was inspired by Reeplcheep's question to MaRo: MaRo has finally acknowledged the fact that their testing model is old, outdated, and no longer reflects reality outside of WotC HQ. So, the question remains, given that R&D works at least two years in advance, compounded by their characteristic slowness to adapt to external change (looking at their misevaluation of Serra Angel as a prime example), how long before we see this change in their design philosophy, and will it only come after yet another tectonic shift in the playerbase, thereby invalidating itself?
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foureyesisafish
7/7 Elemental
Posts: 386
Favorite Set: Ikoria: Lair of the Behemoths
Color Alignment: Blue, Red, Green
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Post by foureyesisafish on Feb 28, 2021 21:09:36 GMT
Glad you could finally join us, foureyesisafish .
Our next question was inspired by Reeplcheep's question to MaRo: MaRo has finally acknowledged the fact that their testing model is old, outdated, and no longer reflects reality outside of WotC HQ. So, the question remains, given that R&D works at least two years in advance, compounded by their characteristic slowness to adapt to external change (looking at their misevaluation of Serra Angel as a prime example), how long before we see this change in their design philosophy, and will it only come after yet another tectonic shift in the playerbase, thereby invalidating itself? There is one variable we do have to account for: did they realize this earlier and only now mention it? That is entirely possible.
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Post by dangerousdice on Feb 28, 2021 21:15:54 GMT
probably 3-4 sets after innistrad, but i'm not sure.
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ArkiThe7th
1/1 Squirrel
Any plant is edible if you’re not a coward.
Posts: 82
Favorite Card: Wee Dragonauts
Favorite Set: Pauper Masters (wait a second...)
Color Alignment: Blue, Red
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Post by ArkiThe7th on Feb 28, 2021 22:41:56 GMT
We don’t really know how long in development a lot of the sets are either. R&D has made some sets over many, many years and others more quickly. We don’t have a great way of figuring that out until a set comes out.
I do wonder if they’ll change the method with sets that are currently in development or if they’ll stick to it for a while. I really have no idea how R&D works, so I can’t comment on that.
I think that the most clear sign of a change in method is a more diverse standard environment. At least, that’s the hope. I personally believe the more viable standard decks, the better. WotC really likes to push mythic power levels which usually results in one really good card that sort of black holes everything into it (I’m looking at you, Uro). But I digress. I’m hopeful for the future, but using what we’ve seen in the past, I don’t think we’ll see any obvious big changes any time soon.
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Post by Daij_Djan on Mar 1, 2021 6:51:52 GMT
In some past articles, I think MaRo talked about working at least two to three years in advance. But the there are also the guys from the Command Zone, whom recently talked about being part of an early playtest for Commander Legends five years ago..
But to be fair, I'm not sure if I'd even come to such a harsh conclusion about MaRo's answer in the first place. The small color pie shifts he talked about are just one example of him talking about a pendulum for Standard design - another one was shifting power levels in the past - a concept which doesn't really work anymore with an eternal format as the most beloved one.
The question is though: How could WotC change their evaluation process? And should they even do this? Because I've heard several Commander players recently complaining about WotC already focusing to much on their favorite format and in doing so changing it drastically in these past two years or so..
And just to make it clear: I do think that if WotC wants to keep their Fire design approach they definitely need to make some changes in that regard - but that wasn't part of the given quote so I likewise ignored this angle for now.
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foureyesisafish
7/7 Elemental
Posts: 386
Favorite Set: Ikoria: Lair of the Behemoths
Color Alignment: Blue, Red, Green
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Post by foureyesisafish on Mar 1, 2021 12:28:11 GMT
In some past articles, I think MaRo talked about working at least two to three years in advance. But the there are also the guys from the Command Zone, whom recently talked about being part of an early playtest for Commander Legends five years ago.. But to be fair, I'm not sure if I'd even come to such a harsh conclusion about MaRo's answer in the first place. The small color pie shifts he talked about are just one example of him talking about a pendulum for Standard design - another one was shifting power levels in the past - a concept which doesn't really work anymore with an eternal format as the most beloved one. The question is though: How could WotC change their evaluation process? And should they even do this? Because I've heard several Commander players recently complaining about WotC already focusing to much on their favorite format and in doing so changing it drastically in these past two years or so.. And just to make it clear: I do think that if WotC wants to keep their Fire design approach they definitely need to make some changes in that regard - but that wasn't part of the given quote so I likewise ignored this angle for now. Commander Legends specifically has an interesting design history. It has been on the table for a while now.
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Post by sdfkjgh on Mar 1, 2021 17:51:51 GMT
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Post by dangerousdice on Mar 1, 2021 19:56:51 GMT
what makes a good faction set depends on many, MANY factors.
for example, say I am building a faction based around the "2 spells each turn" archetype. I need to decide the following:
#: what colors are they?
#: what's the flavor?
#: how does this slot into the set as a whole?
#: is it fun to play with and against?
#: does it's flavor fit the plane the set is on?
for example, let's say I want my "2 spells each turn" faction to be red/white, what's the flavor behind wanting to cast only 2 spells each turn? is it fun to play with it and against it? how does this impact the set as a whole?
you could have a faction with beautifully crafted lore that fits perfectly into the set, but if they only do counterspells, people are going to despise them!
back to red/white 2 spells a turn, let's say I want the flavor to be siege mages, how does that fit with the "2 spells each turn" archetype? would it have a lot of artillary spells? would they be defensive? offensive?
okay, so our red/white "2 spells each turn" siege mages are worthless if theres no castle to besiege! thus, we need a faction based around castles. let's say they are blue/green... i dunno... toughness 4 or greater matters? okay so they would have walls to help promote this theme. toughness 4 or greater matters is pretty much anti-ferocious.
but that leaves a burning question, were does black slot into this? we cant pair it with another color, as that would create an imbalance, but what does a mono-black faction do in the context of near constant sieges? answer: mercenaries/sellswords. they align themselves to whoever offers the most gold, and their mechanical identity would be based around treasure tokens.
so, did I just created a faction set outline to prove a point? yes. is this what the question wanted? I dont know.
this has been my ted talk.
-tl:dr set outline-
@: red/white "2 spells each turn" siege mages
@: blue/green "inverted ferocious" elves
@: mono-black "treasure tokens" mercenaries/sellswords
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Post by sdfkjgh on Mar 1, 2021 21:02:28 GMT
dangerousdice: Dammit, I would like to play this set, and subscribe to your newsletter. One thing though: as soon as you mentioned , I was thinking more along the lines of spies, saboteurs (obscure humor magazine references, ftw!), infiltrators, and informants instead of mercenaries and sellswords.
This'd make a great Magic set. Hell, it'd make a great WarCraft 3: The Frozen Throne map!
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ArkiThe7th
1/1 Squirrel
Any plant is edible if you’re not a coward.
Posts: 82
Favorite Card: Wee Dragonauts
Favorite Set: Pauper Masters (wait a second...)
Color Alignment: Blue, Red
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Post by ArkiThe7th on Mar 1, 2021 22:34:51 GMT
I think dangerousdice covered most of it, but I still have a few thoughts. I think another great part of designing a faction set is diversity. If I want to play white/red, I don’t want to be held to just that faction. I’d like to be rewarded for experimenting a bit. Some of the best decks in Ravnica limited weren’t just one guild. This really comes down to how you design a set. Implementing little synergies between factions is a great start. Having a go-between faction that can be played in any deck also helps but is more difficult to design. Simply, player choice is key. If you go to the prerelease and open up a sweet white/red two spells matter deck, that feels pretty bad when 4 other people built practically the same deck.
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foureyesisafish
7/7 Elemental
Posts: 386
Favorite Set: Ikoria: Lair of the Behemoths
Color Alignment: Blue, Red, Green
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Post by foureyesisafish on Mar 1, 2021 23:18:29 GMT
I will say this from my (current) experience designing a faction set: it's really hard. I first picked what color combos I was going to use, then I looked for a thematic theme for all of them, and now I'm thinking of the mechanical and flavor identities of the factions themselves. Between-faction synergy is extremely useful (for an "arbitrary" example, WUB surveil can get cards into the yard for GWU escape.)
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Post by Daij_Djan on Mar 1, 2021 23:32:53 GMT
Yeah, I think most of the important stuff has already been said. I agree designing a good fraction set requires a nice combination of lore / flavor and gameplay – whether you tied the factions together by mechanics, mechanical themes or sometimes simply by tribes (my first set ever, Penada, actually tried both at the same time ). One thing I'd love to see WotC try one day would be once again bringing something from one of the Un-Sets into „normal“ Magic – in this case Unstable's Watermark theme. I'm pretty sure I've already mentioned this somewhere already, but I think this would be a nice and unique approach
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foureyesisafish
7/7 Elemental
Posts: 386
Favorite Set: Ikoria: Lair of the Behemoths
Color Alignment: Blue, Red, Green
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Post by foureyesisafish on Mar 2, 2021 12:48:42 GMT
HOLY CRAP I JUST REALIZED SOMETHING!
As the Strixhaven houses are named after elder dragons... the commands are [ELDER DRAGON] Command. This is the completion of the elder dragon command cycle from Dragons of Tarkir! The names have a slightly different structure, but the intent is still there.
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Post by sdfkjgh on Mar 2, 2021 17:05:26 GMT
HOLY CRAP I JUST REALIZED SOMETHING! As the Strixhaven houses are named after elder dragons... the commands are [ELDER DRAGON] Command. This is the completion of the elder dragon command cycle from Dragons of Tarkir! The names have a slightly different structure, but the intent is still there. Hey, hey, hey, SPOILERS!!
I have no idea how to design sets properly, so I'd just say study Scars of Mirrodin block, as well as other faction blocks like Shards of Alara, Tarkir, or most of the Ravnicas, as well as anything written about them, especially from WotC sources.
Now, normally there'd be a Fourth Question here, before the final Surprise Question, but since we took this episode to introduce our new panel members, we're skipping right to the Surprise:
MaRo has famously gone on record as saying that they'll have to cart his rapidly-cooling body off the premises and away from his desk where he was so rudely interrupted mid-design by his own mortality. In light of this, design either what you think his last card will be, or a card commemorating the event. Note: this is not the passing the torch moment to heir apparent Gavin Verhey, that comes later.
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Post by dangerousdice on Mar 2, 2021 17:30:15 GMT
stroke of a genius - [1]: create a 1/1 blue wizard token. [2]: you may pay . if you do, target player draws X cards [3]: sacrifice a wizard. if you cannot, mill 35.
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Post by sdfkjgh on Mar 2, 2021 17:45:07 GMT
Wait, isn't Stroke of Genius already a card name? *Checks title more thoroughly* Ooooooohh!!!
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foureyesisafish
7/7 Elemental
Posts: 386
Favorite Set: Ikoria: Lair of the Behemoths
Color Alignment: Blue, Red, Green
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Post by foureyesisafish on Mar 2, 2021 17:58:43 GMT
Burning Out Instant Exile the top 10 cards of your library, then add . Mana does not empty from your mana pool as steps and phases end. Take an extra turn after this one. After the end of that turn, you loose the game. This is the best I could come up with. You could call it... burnout.
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