Magic: The Gathering - Commander Night Playback - How to Make Friends with Nekusar

After our rounds of Commander a few weeks back, where one of friends brought in a Locust God deck, I was hit by a bolt of inspiration. I thought to myself, "Why should only one person draw all of those cards? It's only fair that everyone draws all of those extra cards." And as a good friend to the people of my table, I took the only logical course of action: Building a deck based on Nekusar, the Mindrazer.

What follows is a chronicle of friendship and camaraderie that Nekusar was happy to facilitate.

The Dark Duo - Man of Medan - Part 2

Our perils within the Qurang Medan conclude as Acharky and I guide these intrepid young souls along the path as best we can.

But were we able to keep all of them alive, or did tragedy strike as it does it so many adventures. Find out as The Dark Duo plays... Man of Medan!

Making Magic in the Arena - Jeskai Wishing Flames

Once more we find ourselves returning to Arena with a new deck in tow.

This time, we're packing one of my favorite builds yet. While it's certainly powerful, probably one of the top decks around in the current meta, the reason I like it is that it allows for a bigger, higher costs cards to see play in Standard, all at the same time, without being too unwieldy.

Welcome to Jeskai Wishing Flames. The decklist can be found here, with the difference that I replaced Chance for Glory with Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God in the sideboard.

The Dark Duo - Man of Medan - Part 1

It's that time of the year, where monsters, ghosts, and all forms of terrors begin to stalk the night and prey upon us mortals. And amidst all of that horror, some of us can undergo changes of our own.

Once upon a time, we were considered heroes. They called us "The Marvelous Duo". But that don't think we're so Marvelous anymore. We've seen things that have changed us, made us rethink our way of life.

The Marvelous Duo is dead: Long live the Dark Duo. Such is our fate, to lead five unsuspecting rubes in a game of life and death. We, along with the Curator of Stories, will be telling the tale of the Man of Medan, the first part of The Dark Pictures Anthology.

Magic: The Gathering - Commander Night Playback - Ladies' Night with Yuriko and Teysa

With another Saturday night, my Commander playgroup go together to run another play session, and this time we managed to get in two really solid games out of the three we played that night.

It seems like going tutorless has actually been a boon for our group, because we are starting to see a lot the play-space open a bit in a way we didn't really get with the $300 budget idea. If this week's matches were anything to go by, we're closing in on the right track.

Making Making in the Arena - Bant Lands

Eldraine, combined with the rotation, has done a lot to inject new blood into Standard. However, despite losing Scapeshift, one of the top decks is still going strong.

I never piloted in during the last season, but this season I figured it would be worth it to give Bant Lands a shot. So here we are, returning once more to the Arena to pilot a deck that I'm still very mixed on in terms of my opinion of it.

The Marvelous Duo - Ultimate Alliance 3 - Spoopy Expansion

What? Just because the game is over doesn't mean that we have to be done with it. And as long as new content continues to get added to Ultimate Alliance 3, The Marvelous Duo will perform our duty in playing it live on stream, to later be uploaded to YouTube.

Magic: The Gathering - Commander Night Playback - Hard Won Lessons with Konrad and Korvold

In my playgroup, we've been trying and failing to reduce our overall power level to promote more diverse decks and playstyles. For the reason, when Bennie Smith, the guy who literally wrote the book on Commander, opened up for questions on the format, I asked him for advice on how a group and lower their power level.

On his advice, I proposed a change in our rules, doubly so since some players were growing annoyed at the $300 budget limitations. And so, we began another experiment. This time, we moved backed to an unlimited budget, but banning any cards that let players search their libraries for cards, except those cards like Cultivate and Rampant Growth that let players accelerate their land drops.

While I'd say the experiment is still being conducted, as one night isn't enough to give a definitive result, I learned some things in these games.

Making Making in the Arena - Golgari Midrange

A set has been unveiled: Throne of Eldraine had finally made it's way into the Arena. And with these new cards come new decks, and new strategies.

We're back in the Arena. This time, I have a deck built around two of the most obviously powerful cards that exist in Eldraine. A slight modification of an existing deck on MTGGoldfish, moving several sideboard cards in the main board to better survive the best-of-one queue.

This is Golgari Midrange.

The Marvelous Duo - Ultimate Alliance 3 - Finale(?)

After spending the first 15 minutes of the stream downloading an update that had been pushed just moments before we began, Acharky and I were finally able to commence the endgame in Ultimate Alliance 3. To pass a bit more time, we even take a moment post-game to discuss the Infinity Trials.

What awaits The Marvelous Duo after this? It's difficult to say, but don't think that our adventures have ended just because the game has.

Magic: the Gathering - Commander Night Playback - Marisi and Syr Konrad Suffer For My Sins

As we do most weeks, my pod got together for our regularly scheduled doses of EDH. Although we saw a few new cards from Eldraine make appearances last session with Rankle and Chulane, this week was where the new set started to make inroads and impacts on the game, with strategies that were enabled by some of the legendary creatures added to the set.

A Quick Run - Dead Cells

Since Wizards of the Coast had the sheer, brazen audacity to wait until the day after I stream to open up the Throne of Eldraine expansion on Arena, I had to find something else to fill the void. To that end, I decided it would be a good idea to run through another roguelike game that I've had a ton of fun with in my spare time: Dead Cells.