#40 - Looking Back at Innistrad Block

In this episode we look back at one of the most influential blocks of all time, Innistrad.

00:00:28 - News
00:06:27 - Revisiting Innistrad
00:12:30 - Mechanics
00:30:44 - Indiviual Cards
01:18:32 - Impact on Cube
01:25:03 - What have we been playing...

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Chapters

• 0:49 News
• 6:48 Revisiting Innistrad
• 12:51 Mechanics
• 31:05 Indiviual Cards
• 1:18:53 Impact on Cube
• 1:25:24 What have we been playing...

Transcript

0:24

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Powerful Nothing and Magic The Gathering Cube podcast. I'm your host and I don't need to just to sweet MTG. And as always, I'm joining my co-host James. How's it going, man? All right. Yeah, it's going pretty good. Pretty good. And talk about some quite old magic cards today. These are older than I thought they were. But don't worry, we're going to have a spooktacular time today because today we're going to be looking back at the original in the stride block and its effect on cube. There will be time goes down below if you wanna jump around. Because before we get on to our main topic, we have a little bit of news you want to touch on. So announced this week, they've revealed the magic on schedule for 2025. On February the 21st of the 23rd. We're going to Chicago in June from the 20th to the 22nd, we're going back to Las Vegas. And in September, from the 26th to the 28th, we are going to Atlanta. So, magic wands are a bunch of fun. We had a good time when we went on this year, James. But as someone who doesn't live in North America, that schedule kind of sucks a little bit. I'm going to be honest with you, that the announcement wasn't super clear. There's going to be a fourth one. I think the wording they used was we look forward to joining Europe in the future, something like that. But I didn't kind of quantify it. That was going to be in next year or the year after that. And obviously it doesn't do anything for people in like in, like Southeast Asia or South America where there is a big thriving, although both places where there are big, thriving magicians who have never had a magic con. Yeah, that kind of sucks, but good. But to the people who can make it, And I'll going. I hope you all have an awesome time. And then also those announcement of what formats these magic games are going to be, because I think they have a pro tour attached to them. Two of them are going to be standard pro tours, and then the other one's going to be modern. Which kind of begs the question, what does that mean for pioneer? James, I know you've been dabbling back into a bit of pioneer because I think one of your what is the card that you like that is an exotic incarnation is my my time back at the moment. Now, I think it's actually good. It's no longer my pet deck because it's too good to be a pet deck. Oh let's go I love that. Okay. Yeah, but where does this leave, pioneer, do you think, James. Yeah, that is that is kind of a question. Right. And it's it's quite disappointing and it's disappointing several aspects of this announcement, actually. But the, no pioneer DT is is pretty frustrating, I think, because it felt like Wizards were just getting back into like a sort of fairly consistent rhythm of like basically competitive the supported formats, if you if you play these formats, there will be a DT. And I think having a bit of that consistency is actually quite important because, you have a kind of a reality for a lot of players. Don't just go, oh, it's modern season for these R6 I'll buy a modern DAC like, but that's not people do that. They invest in format and then they, they enjoy playing and, but with the knowledge that that will also at some point in the VFL, be able to play that competitively. And they go through seasons VI and for this season and pioneer would be very competitive. They supported format. So I think for the people where pioneer was the format for them and they don't really play like modern and this, this kind of sucks. And, doubling up on standard is I understand why trying to do that fine set thing standard back as being that family competitive format. But yeah, I think I haven't been for a long time. But the reality is nice people don't play standard anymore. Certainly not in paper. It feels like standard has been for a while now, majority in a VNA format and and little else. Like, I don't know if you go to F and I'm not very there. You see. You see anyone playing standards. So yeah was was pioneering. I think it's really popular and it's also really good at the moment. Like there's there's a lot of really interesting facts. There's a lot of diversity. Certainly in a much better state for modern. Are you a bit biased because you're just not good. Again. Not as was amongst the interesting tags. So sorry about there was the last those recently a pioneer of event. Pretty big pioneer event won by Tree of Tradition combo. Ooh if I can guess. Oh it's okay. Yeah, yeah. The idea is you put it into an Agatha. So Colton and van. No. Okay. What valve taps to make that, like, fatal one? Well, that's kind of wild. Okay, I like that. Yeah, that's pretty cool. So. Yeah, that was a shame, I think, to not have a pioneer DT. And all three in North America got a long way from for the flavor game fever. Well, sort of a slogan used to be, Yeah. Think they play the game? See America, I guess, it's. Yeah, that's a shame, because it's, you know, there's there's clearly a lot of people in other regions who want to go to these events. Right. This isn't a, this is where the demand is thing. The demand is all over the world. Like the magic on Amsterdam was huge. I suspect this is a symptom of, like, it's just easier for them to arrange in America. But that that feels very pretty shortsighted to me. Yeah. Yeah, obviously I'm complaining from a European point of view. We we're still generally do better in this regard than South America, of Asia. But, yeah, yeah, I still, I think a World Championships to announce and maybe that ends up being Europe. They've said that that the world is going to be a closed event. So it's not going to be at to magic. But like like like so, so there is still room for them to possibly announce something in winter 2025 or maybe even early 2026. That is kind of what people are at least kind of hoping, speculating for. But yeah, yeah, yeah. That's like it's I know we're complaining, but yeah. Like actually Amsterdam I, I was chatting with some Brazilian champs and I didn't know that like so they never had a magic on. But also they stopped printing magic product in Portuguese which is wild. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. That feels necessary to say that. Yeah, I mean literally. Yeah. Well, the best players of all time, like kind of, so there's, I think there's, there's a really big magic trade in business and it's, Yeah, it it feels like you could give those businesses something, you know? Yeah. Magic on the fan would be nice to have one closer to us. Yeah. Who knows? Maybe we should arrange our own type thing. James, I've been. I've been thinking, but that's something for another time, I think. So today, for our main topic, we're going to be looking back at the original industry blog. So that blog was made of three small assets, something that's a bit if you've only been playing the last couple of years, might be unfamiliar to you, but magic sets used to be made up of three sets. So the block was in the start, which was released on September the 30th, 2011, which is 13 years ago. Dark Ascension was released in February 3rd, 2012, and that was restored, was released on May 4th, 2012. So that's a nice, well, six month window for three sets that seem so reasonable. Three sets over six months. Wonderful. And as a setting in history is probably one of the most popular of all time. There is something about that gothic horror environment that people absolutely love. Yeah. No, I mean, it is sad. This is a great five five as it's not, not a coincidence that it's been visited since then as a plain, but I think the, yeah, gothic horror is like a great was, I think, a great way for magic to do something a little bit different than the traditional fantasy fare of like, orcs and elves and stuff, but but in a way that still felt very, sort of aligned with the, the vibe that that magic had as a game. They it wasn't it was much less discordant with magic as a game fan going to, for example, land Outlaws of Thunder Junction like cowboys whilst it was cool like that, does not have the magic vibe to me. Where there's gothic horror, it I think definitely does. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, yeah. It really yeah, it fits very well in with the magic ethos and kind of like, famously, it's also one of the probably the most successful, like top down sets they've ever done, where basically they had the idea of the plane first and walk and work down rather than like some, some sets are like, we had this idea for some mechanics that go upwards, like, like one of the spots they kind of worked up with some from, from doing a planeswalker set, whereas this is very much like they want to do a bunch of ideas from like gothic horror and like horror movies and then kind of work the mechanics and cards from there. And the set is absolutely full of, horror tropes and legally distinct or public domain characters, like you have things like the Invisible Stalker is the Invisible Man. You have humans that transform into werewolves. Screeching bat is a bat that turns into a vampire. Close to dude is a young girl possessed that transforms into a demon. Like. Like on The Exorcist Delver of secrets I can't believe hasn't been a secret lair of this yet. Devil secrets. As a scientist that turns into an insect. Like the film The Fly, we already have a Jeff Goldblum. God, why is there not a fly card? And then there's literally like, like a pitchfork as an equipment in the set, like it's it's so chocked full, dripping with flavor that I think is always just really appeal to players. Yeah, for sure, for sure. I think it's an was a veil like win for magic design, I think as it was slightly before I started playing. But I remember like I saw it playing, going and looking at these, these cars was very like, okay, I I've, I really got what they're going for here. I yeah, I think the, the whole design of shoot works very well. Yeah. Both in a safe sense and the gameplay sense now 100%. I kind of one of the weird things I found out when, researching this a little bit more is that Microsoft described it as a fixed homelands, which is a you, have opened up a white homelands booster back in. Okay, I'll start off. You'll know that kind of you have maybe one of the worst sets of all time and maybe one of the best sets of all time. So. So despite being its home line, homelands is selling it short because in terms of gameplay, People in Australia is widely regarded as one of the best draft informants of all time. And that's one of the reasons I'm going to be talking about, about the set today, just how good it was, and also how many cards it gave us and archetypes they gave us for cube. I did mention triple in a strand that for those unaware, what that meant is when it was first released, when you drafted this, you drafted three packs of in a strand. As the subsequent sets were released, you adjusted the amount of packs. So I think when Dark Ascension came out, I think you drafted the first pack, Dark Ascension, then two in a strand packs afterwards, and then it did kind of change from set to set, I think within a strand block. You drafted triple Amazon restored as a draft format on. So I think it was a great decision for magic to go away from them. Drafting blocks is is a mixture of sets. I think you look back in all of the, the best formats for ways for single. Yeah, that one's right. Like triple cards was great. Cons favor forge two. As mentioned. Bowl like, I'm sure dark Ascension fast was fine, but it's certainly not a all time classic in the way that Jeff lit Estrada's. Yeah, I think it's just basically made or so also made things just more consistent because, like like like they don't really mess with draft sets anymore. Like some are kind of less fun than others. And like, they'll be like personal biases. Like, personally, I didn't really like Bloom burrow, but I know some people loved it, but kind of like you don't get as many just kind of dislike or bad play experience sets anymore. They very much got their, their rhythm going. They, they have their routine down and kind of like, yeah, when you kind of effectively basically within a triad, you have the main set, which is and then you have kind of like that's got a kind of watering down the mechanics a little bit. You don't see cards in, but like, like like a deck you might like in the, in the main format isn't going to work in the watered down one a little bit. But we are going to talk about the whole block because of how flavorful it was. And also just I'll be honest with you, like, like I know like the internet isn't that isn't that, high on Amazon restored? But Amazon Restored has some other bangers of cards in it. So what kind of grouping the whole block together today to kind of talk about how those cards have affected cube and how the set as a whole has affected the cube, and also the way we cube, because it might you might not realize it, but but it might be one of the more impactful sets of cube in terms of things that things it has inspired players to do outside of just regular high powered cubes or cubes that that we know and play online, that kind of thing. So let's look at some of the mechanics and their impact before we talk about individual cards. So probably the biggest type of cards the initial block introduced was flip cards or cause that transformed. So we're talking about things like werewolf. We're talking about like some things like screeching bat like delver secrets. Like we mentioned, this was the first time I've pretty positive that a magic card didn't have a magic card. Like like the magic card back. Like like a playable card. Didn't have that on it. Basically that was printed into a sentence. And that's quite a big deal. Like in the packs, you had to think you had the checklist cards. Was they still use today? And just from a flavor point of view, things transforming into stuff that was like a that just feels right, like from a gothic horror top down point of view. Like like on one side. Well, on the other side, I get that, that makes sense. Like, yeah, I love flip cards. There's so much design space with them. I, I like when there's, I like when they're with restrained. And it's not just like a wall of text on one side and all the text on the second side. But like, this was like when these like when you look at a werewolf card, you get it immediately. It just works. Yeah. No, really, because I meant, I think like I quite a big design risk at the time. Right. Like is very, very new to have, you know, not available magic back as in some annoyance with like drafting. Right. You know, like revealing the, the other side of your cards when you open their packs. They will have been like there were downsides to this. Definitely like some mechanical gameplay point of view and consequently, they will have been people who are really mad about it at the time. But I think the upside to this was definitely worth it, because they, it kind of tried to do transform cards before that with the, yeah, the kind of ones, the comic owl ones, where you sort of turn the card upside down. They have different full tacks and they're awful, like, I mean, not as in like the things the cards do are full, but like, they're really hard to read. And because you only have like one thing of, this, it does not capture the flavor of of transforming, that's all. Because you're still limited to what the size of of magic cards, right? Yeah. I guess the flavor of like, rotating upside down doesn't feel like like, like you're not doing like, it doesn't feel as special as turning the card over and doing and reveal and revealing it. That's just feels better. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And because you can't have another side twist of art as well, like, yeah. So I think Face to Face is certainly a really big one. And, and now it feels like most sets of nice have some sort of flipped cards. Right. Even if, No, not necessarily like at common, but, Yeah, they're not as I think as printing processes have got better, they're able to put like a couple more inserts, like, like I think there's like, they tend to not just put 1 or 2 in a set because the fact that it's own sheet, like, I know when they printed the, the planeswalker Chris nickel bonus, the ones that on the neck of the Ravager on one side and it flipped into a planeswalker that was the only flip card in the set, and that was the basically like there there was a sheet of just nickel bolts. That's how they had to do that. Whereas everything else, it's you have a sheet for the flip cards, and it's generally when where you can see these sets is when they kind of commit to doing a whole, whole cycle or like a whole bunch of them. But like one thing that the cube from a like flip flop point of view in terms of, typically these cards, like I am, I love originally in this draft and I'm so furious with the later sets where effectively they change the werewolf mechanic, like in the early day or in in a strats. The general werewolf text is on the front side is at the beginning of each upkeep. If no spells will cast this turn, you transform the card into a werewolf. The backside is generally a bigger creature. It's a more impactful threat if it has an ability, generally has a better version of that ability on the back side, but then when it's flipped, it can transform back by at the beginning of each upkeep. If a player cast two or more spells last turn, transform it. And basically that actually kind of gets harder as the game goes on. There was something I've they were trying to make it feel like, nighttime was getting longer, that kind of thing. But like that is that is relatively neat. It's much neater than like Dave Owl Night Bound, and I'm so angry that the two mechanics do not line up, like not just from a like it'd be cool in commander point of view. Like I tried this in cube and like some of the some of the transform cards are very cool, like master of the fails, like it's probably been pushed out now, but for a while that was like a decent magic card. And just then putting the mechanics, I did just I have a note that says give out about the new werewolf rule change. We'll get over that. But like, yeah, I'm. Yeah, day by night, man is I think actually what table night founders is it's a symptom of them designing for, online play rather than paper play. Right. Because so based on what they found, Night Bound is, I saw a very similar mechanic for flipping levels. Splashy casino spells that becomes knights. And if you cast two spells, become stay again. But the pavilion curating thing about it is even when there's no werewolves in play, you have to keep tracking it. Yeah. Once you've played a card with data, I'm like, bound. You are tracking it for the rest of the game. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even if there's only one card with this mechanic in your cave and that might be like. And, you know, even explain casually, it's like, well, you know, I might be able to get it back at some point. So I still kind of need to keep track of this thing, but it's quite difficult to, you know, to get it back $0.10 later. It's not always easy to go and work out if it's meant to be day or night. Right? So it's yeah, it's a real nightmare. Scape paper play. And I've kind of just got on board with this all the day about night time cards, even though some of them are kind of cool because I just love noxious. Yeah, some of them are cool. Like like 12 hours. Hot master is a great green, creature. Ivan. Ivan, Brooke. Caretaker is a house as a black one as well. But, but but anyway, that's the new industry. We're not talking about that. Like, I think in this set. Anyway, they really nailed the the flip cards because like from mechanics point of view, I think it worked. It worked very well. And then from a flavor point of view, as we kind of mentioned, you have things that turn into things that you just like a lot of horror and out of body horror is something turning into something else, transforming into the monster, that kind of stuff. Like, I'm pretty positive there's like a Doctor Jekyll Mr. Hyde reference in the set, that kind of stuff. There's like an there's like an unruly mob as well, or something like that, which is like a I think it's like it's one person that flips into it. It's, it's, it's a one white person that flips into an angry red mob. And that's just one of those kind of things that just perfect. Yeah. VM the big gameplay interaction for a while for failed ones though sometimes I like have master of A fails. I think it's decent. The, but if your plan is to like pass your turn and flip your bowels, well, I will say that don't cast a spell on other end so it's safe if you're a werewolf. Which way the old ones work. Which new ones don't you? If your opponent casts a spell in your. In step, your werewolf stone flip. So you do have to be very aware of, when it is when you can not cast any spells. No, just fine scepter. But now I think it was a, it was a cool mechanic, right? Because it is. Because the one they're mostly like non flash creatures that they then encourage you to put incense in your deck because you want to be able to not cast spells on your turn and then use your banner on your opponent's turn. Yeah, I thought I played very well. Yeah, I love the old way I was actually, you reminded me of the flash stuff. Makes me slightly more angry because when. Yeah, I remember when the set with Dave and Mike Brown came out. Probably the last time we went back to in a Strat. Yeah. I built, like, a whole, like I had a werewolf thing and grew. I had a flash thing and Simic, it was going to be sick. And then just like Dave, I'm like, that was just irritating. So yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, it is actually to me, it's almost less irritating if there's more of it. Right? Because true, it's just worth remembering not being irritating at all. And actual shadows. I've been finished Strat limited because then it's like this game for like a at most points in the game there's a werewolf in play, so it's just a thing. You're keeping track of anyway, so it's not an issue. But like the annoying thing is that when in the whole cube there's one, there's tracks like disenchant, werewolf, dude, and then you have to keep track of it. So the whole game, there is no way I'm putting Dave. I'm not going back in my queue, but I'll get it some more werewolves back end vibes. Let's keep talking about mechanics. Another one that kind of I quite like and has kind of got a bit better, recently because there's a bit of combo potential with it, and that's the undying mechanic. That's basically if a creature dies. If I had no personal encounters on it, return to the battlefield with a person with a personal encounter on it. And kind of this is always like, like a decent value starter mechanic, anything like the opposite of possess. And there's a bit more combo potential with possess, because the stuff that puts carries on stuff when it comes in. But like, undying cards with things like your Moss ram position, you need you need two undying creatures for trick because you sack one, it comes back for plus one stone. Count on it, and then you sack the other undying free shit, but a minus one minus one counter on one. The plus one plus one counts on it. And the way magic rules work is that plus one plus one and minus one minus one counters cancel each other out and as no counters on and you can suck it again and keep going and draw lots of cards. That's pretty sweet, but but yeah, like like it's kind of like like we've seen persistent stuff over a couple of hours, but we haven't really gone back to undying. But it does seem like quite a flavorful effect that kind of again, people get the gist of it kind of. You read undying, it kind of makes sense that it's coming back, though. So I would assume that, like, there was a witch king from from a Lord of the rings ancillary product that has undying, which is kind of nice, but that's, the mix has some good, like, janky combo stuff going on that you can do. Are you talking about Mike Cartwright? James? Mike strike is not is not joke. That is one tome that in my first year of playing in command of that plague that won me so many games, and then I stopped playing those cards. Yeah. But it's it's not janky in command standard sustainable. I would argue like, yes, it is. I think whatever you try and put command Deck on those and keep janky like, yeah that's fine. Yeah, yeah. But so, so Micaiah, is a six man sci fi that gives other non-human creatures you control dying. So, with things like walking ballista and, alien where you can remove counters from it to deal stuff damage effectively. That the loop is you take the last counter off, you paying your opponent. I think we've, actually thought that walking blessing. Yeah. You're right. That's not very janky, is it? I'm pretty positive less that. But that's kind of vibes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that seems fairly good. All right. Okay. It's going in the next update. That's kind of fast. But then another mechanic that I've tried a couple of times and as time goes on, I think this will make a more of a splash and cube. It just needs more cards and that's miracle like, like it's been like it basically got sensei's divining top two band and legacy the miracles mechanic, where basically, if it's the first card you draw each turn, you can reveal it and it's generally a over cost effect, like a board wipe or a damage spell or an extra. Turns out it's not like an overflow side effect, but if you reveal it, this way, the miracle cost. It's a miracle you've drawn it. Basically. That's the that that's the game. But basically it's a much reduced cost. So kind of like even that miracle and it's your turn spell and pay one the blue to take an extra turn, that kind of thing. Like in the in environments where you can control the top of your library, miracles can be very strong. But the issue with cube, I think, with that is that there hasn't been just like they have gone back to miracles very sparingly basically. Yeah. I think, I think there were some very powerful miracle cards. I think the issue isn't a lack of miracle cards, it's the lack of ways to summon up, which don't suck. Like there's brainstorm and there's top, and then roll that you can and then there's and Jace Jace is good. But then for five you yeah, you might. Q but yeah, I see that. Yeah, yeah. And it's not like, yeah, you're just not going to be able to get a density of them in your deck to actually make these cards work like miracles when it's actually a miracle when it works is it's not how you want to build the deck. Right. And I think that's mostly how it is in cube. You can do some cool stuff with like, what's called Mystic Sanctuary as well, playing be like putting the Miracle Time lock on top with that can be quite good. That's pretty fun. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, it's, I guess, spiffy for some good mythical creatures now, right? Like metamorphosis fanatic and these stupid angels. So maybe you could do a similar thing. Would be the black version. Is it Witches Cottage that put a creature on top? Me what, from your graveyard or. Yeah, and that's pretty cool. Yeah, I like that. I might be making that up face. Okay, now I know there are. There are definitely lands that put a creature back on top of your. On top of your library. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Witches castle. Yeah. It's a black mystic sanctuary. Looks for creatures instead of spells. Basically. Pretty cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I, I like miracle. I think maybe one reason that hasn't come back is because if you aren't doing, like, the scroll Reiki thing where you're actually controlling it and setting it up, I can see how just getting bonfire of the damned out of nowhere can fit can kind of suck. Like a kind of, I guess. Oh, oh, you done is put it in your deck. Your opponent feels like, like a, you know, like the feel bad of, like, they do the exact right thing at the right time. Imagine that. But like, times ten, that's probably how. Yeah, I'll still feel about miracle, but like like I think it is a cool mechanic and like, yeah, give us a few more effects like this and a few more things. I could see it coming back into my game, like like like, but like miracles is something I have tried, like a blue white version. Yeah. I think what, like, like scroll rack and land tax is kind of cool, but that's a separate thing for another time. I feel you don't fall. And yeah, the fall lands Drawful cards. That's kind of. That's fine. Yeah. That's contacts for And. Yeah. And then I'll just call them facts and then I'll call as well. Like, it's really nice that you can if you can draw a card on your opponent's pen and you draw your medical card, you can anticipate when you draw it, which is nice, like even if it's a sorcery, which is, you know, instant speed, ten minutes, for instance, feeds and kills sick. That's some of their rituals. This, is really good. Yeah. It is. I think an archetype. It would be very cool if you could get it to work. But. Yeah, maybe it's just you've got to work a bit harder first night. Plus, the next thing I'm going to talk about is flashback. And while this was originally printed back in like, Odyssey, I feel it was kind of honed into more what we think of it nowadays in, in in a Strat, like in a Strat is more of a graveyard set than both Odyssey. And I think it appeared in Times Borrowed as well. But like it, just the the flashback stuff feels more at home in a graveyard kind of set, and I think it just works really well here. There's some really cool cards in this that, he's like, things like, Burial Rites is a great card cube with flashback. And obviously spiders spawn in, which will get onto. Well, we'll just spend a bit of time talking about spiders wandering in a bit, don't worry. But like, yeah, I just, I flashback is probably one of my favorite mechanics of all time. Like the amount of times I have just I just search for cards with flashback to look to go index is kind of wild actually. But yeah, I love flashback gig. Give us more of it. I think it works really well here, and it's not surprising that that we kind of seen it again in follow up in a shroud set, because it's kind of just become synonymous with it now. Yeah, for sure, for sure. I think it's, it's very nice and it just gives you stuff to do later in the game. Right. Without costing you much upfront. And is it. It's. I think it's good having some base mechanics. It's like I have this value sort of. And you can see it. So you might have been can around that same as as a bit of agency there. Right. But you know, these things are coming and I think it, it just makes for really interesting games. I, I reckon I probably gained thousands of life with naught to the bone. James. Yeah. I'm like, I'm like, that's the turn of an instant. You going to like for each creature got in your graveyard with flashback for two and a great I reckon. Yeah, I reckon it's thousands at this point. This in like my first ever self family come on the deck. And yeah I can certainly believe that out of everyone that I've ever met, you have gained the most life with nil from that that I'm proud. Proud. Oh love it. And then the last kind of mechanic we want to touch on it's it's sort of a mechanic but it's more, it's more of a theme actually. It's it's part of mechanics also part theme. And that's kind of like the title matters stuff in the set, like, over the, over the block. It kind of main more things like vampires, ghosts, werewolf zombies and humans like, like you, you very much got the vibe of, like, the humans against the monsters, that kind of thing. That was like removal spells. That victim of night was black. Black, the destroy target. Non vampire, non werewolf or non zombie creature. It's been very much supplanted since since, since of its villainous fat block. But for a while, it was like you'd see this cod crop of occasionally. Martin. The decks that could make black. Black because there was a lack of so fairly unconditional removal and, there was always a bit of a gamble on fair that be it, I like one vampire in the form that you're really scared off and and the be very frustrating when that start couldn't kill it. But yeah, those but yeah. And on the type of stuff like in this that gave us a lot of the, a lot of the very good, type payoffs for these stealthy crafting, I think cubes today, like the, like, strong captain, for example, like very strong vampire lords. This, I think, was for pretty much a first set where spirits was a thing, like, like all the good spirit lords came from this set up of a v subsequent in a strats that, and some great zombie lords as well as there's some good stuff going on there. Yeah, so much bangers. On the topic of bangers, let's talk about some individual cards that I've kind of there's so many impactful cards on the set that kind of yeah, we want to touch on them and just kind of basically just reminisce and talk about how cool these cards are. This isn't as much of a set review. It's more of, loving, basically. But, so first up, I'm pretty positive you will have cast his card a hell of a lot more than me, but I know how powerful this is. First up, let's talk about snap costumes. So for those on the way, there's one blue for A21 creature human wizard with flash. And when it enters the battlefield, target incident or social card in your graveyard games flashback and on the turn, the flashback cost is equal to its mana cost. So there's just so much you can do with this card just giving any spell in your graveyard. Flashback. It's kind of like that. The old modern line of bolts snap cast a bolt is still pretty good. That's six damage and your annual threatening with them with this. And also I've lost the games where they will beat me down with a snap. Cast a mage and these are things that can happen. But yeah, it's it's just so versatile. Like like there was a period of time where in high power level games, this is just this was obviously you have your power and you have your premium like lands and fixing this was a very high pick because like an only powered level gives this. This lets you cast your time work again. This is you cast your ancestral recall again. There's a lot of like in cube. We are playing in the best instant and sorceries and all of magic and snap cast. A mage lets you cast them twice for just two manner on top, and you get a body that can block. That's kind of wild. Yeah, I love that cast cube. I think in some ways this is kind of a perfect cube card because it, it goes in a lot of different strategies, right? But you do still have to do a bit of work. You have to once you have the snap cast image, you are valuing of that card slightly differently. Right? You'll really want to pick up those, especially very, very cheap 1 or 2 mana instances, sorceries. So you all, you know, ponders your feelings, your lightning bolts, your manly, And it's very powerful. There's there's no cube snap. Casimir is not good enough. It's, it snaps the house in the maker vintage cube. But it's also it's never too good, I think, for most cube. Right. It's it never feels oppressive because it it scales with the power level of the of the cards in the cube. Yeah. Love snap. Cast image. No bad way to say about it. Also, just invest in gameplay decisions, right? Like, I think one thing that people often don't do enough is when are you meant to play your snap cast image for no value? Block? Yeah, it's one of the reasons I hate playing controls. James I have lost against the mono red deck when I was like, fine, I can oh, it's fine, I don't need to block this rabble, master. It's fine. Don't worry about it. Then I'm dead. Yeah, yeah you are. Yeah. No, actually, all timer and size has a thing of vintage stack online view of a day with with snap casters. One of the find me when conditions. It's great. What beat down games. Okay I will it was standstill. So you just start check cancel. And if you got a snap costume fight that you're ahead of odds. Yeah. Then it's advised. Fake sounds still. Yeah, yeah. It's not custom made. Versatile. I guess that's the thing. And. Yeah, like, it's it's kind of held its value like the original one. Like, you can probably get work on hold about that one for about like 15, $20. That kind of thing. But because it's just plain everything it has, it has held this value like like, yeah, if this was printed into oblivion, it would be played in probably every cube that could run because it is good. Yeah. As you as you pointed out, it does scale to the power level of the CPU by itself is not it's not taking the extra turn. It's just facilitating stuff that's already there. So yeah, very, very, very cool card on next one is not lion of the veil as I've written about maybe chocolate lamb. Next up we're going to talk about Liliana of the veil. It is one black black gray legendary planeswalker Liliana with three starting loyalty. It has a plus. One of each player discards a card, has a minus two of target player stacks, a creature, or a minus six of separate all permanents. Target player controls into two piles. That player sacrifices all permanence in the pile of their choice. After this was printed for a long time, this was one of the most powerful. Planeswalker is just around like it comes down. It can rip apart your opponent's hand while taking up, and if they can't, and protect yourself very well by making them like a creature. James, have you ever ultimate learned the veil or had it done against you? Oh yeah, I, I feel like it's happened to me more than I have done it for people. Yes. Maybe that's just because I remember more for the pain and it happens to you. It is a yeah, it's a threatening ultimate when they can play a Liliana onto an arm and onto an empty board and just stop slashing at you. You're feeling the heat. Sure. And there is kind of like a fourth mode of this card where you can just leave it. There is a world where you don't want to discard your card, and there is a world where you don't want a minus two. It. The fourth mode is a zero of do nothing keep keep your Liliana around at parity. That is a kind of the unspoken fourth mode of this card, but yeah, yeah, that plus zero. You get to keep your hand. Exactly. Yeah. No, Lily's. Lily's really good for her. It's, I'd say like, maybe showing its age a little bit at this point. Not in that. I don't think it should go in cubes, just that it goes in slightly fewer decks than it used to. Like fists to be used to be. Like the sort of definitive mid-range planeswalker. Right. And adds, adjacent grind value. Exactly, exactly. And now, mostly, if I'm putting Liliana in a deck, it's because I want to put cards in my graveyard, whether that be the animates out or just slightly of, synergistic graveyard stuff. Just because I think the curves getting lower and the cheap creatures being, being more explosive and in cube has fallen three power. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. Just thinking that. Yeah. There's more haste you guys I yeah I think for the mode of unten free, I get to play my lily on that eat takes your creature and then stop flashing. My Liliana is, It just doesn't pan out as often as it used to. But it's not. Say it's a bad card. It's it's still, I think, quite strong in, sometimes that does go up, but also it's, you know, at times you plus it and discard your arcanum and the animation. That's great because you're not paying a big cost to put this card in your deck. It's a fine card, but also lets you put cards in your graveyard. And you know, most cubes have some amount of graveyard stuff going on. And this is like a way to enable that with an already strong interactions value cards, rather than having to put some some sketchy, putrid imbecile discard out that said right thing, I love I love futurism, but yeah, but yeah, no, I just think like Lit on Fire is still in the Mego vintage. Yeah, it's still in Leaves cube. It's a very powerful card. But yeah, I do see it now. Yeah. As you were saying, at times like it's there for like you want a little bit more, more synergy rather than just like raw power level for this anymore. Because like, like from a raw power level point of view, it's getting kind of crapped on. But yeah, if you can synergize with it. Yeah. Just got a big thing or, you know, madness. Something out that's also fun. Yeah. That's kind of where Lily gets a little bit spicier. Let's move on to one for the minor white fans out there. Let's talk about Talia. Guardian of three. But this one actually came from Amazon, from Dark Ascension. This is one white raid. Two. One legendary creature, human soldier with first strike and one who just battles cost one generic multicast. So this is kind of like the is this the death and taxes car? James, you're taxing in theory your opponent's Dex stopping them from casting instant sorceries all isn't sorceries and artifacts. While you're also just putting a good threat down on the board on curve, and then you're following it up effectively with more creatures. And then if you do need to remove something, you're in white. So you can part like pausing, like paying to manage a path. That big blocker isn't the end of the world, but stopping spells by stealth from kind of going off. It's very, very impactful. Like Talia is probably one of the premium, though it is still, to this day, one of the most premium white aggressive creatures. Like, even as even as like creatures have got bigger, even as we're saying, like more like like things that put counters on things. Every combat, like there's stealth base, there's there's still definitely a place for Thalia in the highest power level cubes. And also because of all the reprints, it's also nice and cheap. You can probably pick one of these up for less than a dollar. And it is, it is it is a hell of a magic card, and it's very iconic. I could see a world where in the future, just that if if white wants to get more spells, then that becomes a bit of a hindrance. But generally speaking, you're fine paying it. Yeah. As I mentioned, you'll find paying two for your swords. It's not the end of the world for sure. I mean, you want it in a creature based aggressive deck, but you you're not going to put this in your white control deck. But in fact, yeah, it probably is great because, even if you have, you're going to have some amounts of non creatures in your deck obviously below you're not going to be the deck that's casting multiple non creatures in his head or trying to you know you're not casting below impacts like like for your Danas to sort of make cantrip switch to like low impact way suspend banner on non creature spells. They're the ones that really get hosted by Thalia. Right. Because you're you're trying to cast that plus other non creature spells in the same term. And folio just does not let you. And then of course there's the Dom dex which basically just can't win with a folio and play. Yeah. Yeah. No very powerful card. And it is a card that's like sometimes you should put out because, you know, you play against monsters. This this card isn't doing anything for you. Really. It's a card. But you should be a little bit selective in how you draft your deck. Once you have your full year, you might, for example, take a, you might have one. The removal spells come the form of creatures that you've made manifest in, say, a, a Cathar commando versus a disenchant to whatever, you just use the folly as a good time thinking about this fact. But it's not difficult for wise, aggressive Dex to get a lot of, spell base type effects on creatures at this point. Like, there's just so many good ETB creatures in those stacks. And, yeah, Thalia just works very well in that combat context. And it can be a real sort of ground task card for your Titan, right? Like you're looking at your hand, you're feeling good about it and may fly a Thalia and it's, Yeah, it's a yeah, you've across all of your choices. Like there is there a world where Thalia Gardner thriving is like one of the winningest cards in cube because, like, white, white aggressive is kind of a staple in terms of like Dex, just to just perform, basically. And Thalia has been in them ever since, what, 2012. So has. Yeah, I will, I will, except maybe like lightning bolt because one but like odds Brindle ended in the last two decades. Maybe 40 is pretty high. Yeah yeah yeah yeah for sure I can see that. Like Thalia Sky claim that fish and all this stuff is just, Yeah. Racking up the very strong. I do think it's, like, slightly less back faking than maybe it was in a pilot cube context. Maybe even it was sort of five years ago, just because that cube as a whole has shifted to be more creature centric and spell centric and, yeah, but we just have so many powerful creatures now, and yeah, like really fully it doesn't line up very well against your opponent playing like Layla's and Questing Beasts and, and that sort of card fight. Yeah. And also when this was printed, it was a time where, like, other colors didn't really get, like, on right creatures. Like, it took black like years to get like a humanity to there's possibly a world where even when this was printed, black didn't have a two minute tutu without a downside. I guess that might well be true. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think it's just, like, a little less frequently, right? Because if you. You're lucky. Your hand of, like, three counter spells and two count fits, right? Yeah. But, Yeah. No, it's still still a banger. You should still, this is so. That's true in all your aggressive decks. I could I can just imagine the the other minor red players playing jackal pop when this was printed and just weeping. Rip Jackal. I love that card. All right. But but. Right. Let's move on to another card. Let's move on to. This might be one of my favorite cards of all time. Next up we have ISIS looting. This is a single read for sorcery of. Draw two cards, then discard two cards with flash back for two and a red. So this is just so efficient. I really love this card, like I played it so much in other formats, where like things like dredges legal and it can't be in cube. It's fantastic, with dredge gods because you can bring it back your hand and just pitch them again. But just it's quite a lot of filtering and it really does fill up your graveyard especially. And this kind of I guess it's a card that kind of just keeps getting better as more and more cards care about it. Basically, as we now have like four timer glyphs like this, looting just gets better. Yeah. I'll be honest with you, I stopped playing modern when this was banned. Because it kind of ruined everything I wanted to do. Quitting the formatting first. I said no going back, I respect it. Yeah. It's a super cheap answer. And also, I also read doesn't normally get this type of effect. Like like draw two. Then discard is huge in red. Like, it's normally, like everything we've seen since then has been discard and then draw. And this is giving you that extra opportunity to kind of filter like like you're, you're more likely to like if you are digging for something, you are more likely to be able to keep it with faces looting than any of the other way round rummaged out of effects. And it's just. Yeah. And and you get to do it twice as well. I just think it's just a, it's a, it's such a innocuous card and it's, but it's just so, it's just so very good at what it does. It's also a common that it's going to be played in every cube that can run it. It's been printed to death. So it's going to be pennies. Absolute banger I love yeah I love faces looting. Yeah for sure I mean careful study which is the blue version of it doesn't have fast back already a fine card. Nothing wrong with a single manufacturer. So you test can't see and I guess gets a graveyard going, gets your gets your synergies going, does a lot of work for you. And the, the the flashback is such a huge deal like later in the game when you just. Yeah, you're both top king, but one person has a faceless detail in the graveyard. That's a huge sci fi, kind of like you're just seeing two extra cards for very low cost. Yeah, still. Still great. In vintage clip. That takes three animators a deck I really like. And this is, this is one of your, you know, premium ways to put cards in your credit cards as just and just see a lot of new cards, right. Digging for your, your animates, and more mid power level cubes. This is a great nebula of madness of all your graveyard shenanigans. Powers up your guides. No bad words to say about faceless stitching. Really? One like gameplay I have on this. I, like a lot of people just snap off their faces sitting on ten monks. They have nothing else to do. And then it's like, if you don't have stuff you want to discard. Yeah. And you don't really know. Like, we don't have bad cards in your hand and you have a good foundation for, like, you are allowed to just play a mountain and not cast unless like, just you don't mean like just save it for a few tens. It's such a low cost for you'll be able to get it in a different tent. And because then you know how your hand is developed and what you're actually looking for, or you maybe have something you want to discard you. And because to a certain extent, by this sort of selection gets better along with a game goes on. Right. So yeah, I think it's, yeah, sometimes you don't have to cast it. But the earliest available opportunity, I would agree, I've been guilty of doing that. And then just like, oh, my good cards are in the bin. But let's talk about let's swap from a card that you don't want to toss at your earliest opportunity took out. You do probably want to ask your earliest possible opportunity next up to talk about Hell Ryder. Yeah. So hell, Ryder is two red reds. Three, three three creature devil with haste. And whenever a creature you can draw attacks her. Right. It is one damage to the player or planeswalker. It's attacking you. So this is wins games. How right is kind of busted. Like it's kind of wild that like basically every red four drop since this card was been printed has just been compared to how Ryder and how Ryder is still there. Like, it's going to take a lot for me to tell Ryder from my cube, because just it just kills people. Like if you have any kind of any kind of red aggressive deck in your cube, if you're playing creatures at one, at one, two and three, especially if you have rebel bosses at three, which is spewing out tokens just. Yeah, hell, right? It just kills people. It is, very dumb, very stupid much. God, I guess my only complaint is it's not a goblin, but I think that's me being picky. Yeah, I've lost a lot of how Ryder had this. Great. It just represents so much damage when you'd have thought about it is. I will say it's. It's a kind of more high variance then than some of the for Red falls. Right. Like, obviously when you're, like a little bit ahead, you have a good port and how bad it is just kills them. Like it doesn't give them a chance to catch up. And that's great. That's valuable. It is not great. Once your opponent has stabilized it, it doesn't really, swing that back in your favor. Very well. If your opponents did a good job at killing you earlier. Creatures. Yeah. This can be a little more middle of the road. I'm actually, I think it is currently in my cube, and I'm thinking of cutting out, I don't know if this is, sacrilege. So you, for example, like, you compare this to a card like headliner Scarlet. Sure. Like the Scarlet doesn't do as much damage necessarily the turn you play it, but often it does, because that headline, Scarlet context is, Oh, man of free. Haste when the ETB is, you know, pens, creatures can't lock the sun. And at the beginning of your upkeep, you have top card and you can play at this ten, so scarlet is also represents a dunce for damage. For ten it comes in. But if your opponent has killed your previous two features, headliner Scarlet is still good VAX. It's going to get him for free and then it's going to start throwing your cards. How's that? It kind of doesn't do that much in that spot. Yeah, I guess the scarlet like drawing you your burn so you can finish off your opponent. That's quite nice. Exactly. Like if you just feel like it's good in slightly more scenarios. Right. But certainly the scenario where your deck is working. Well, Hell. Right. It kills and that's that's valuable. No, I think that's fair. I think it also maybe one of the things that's kind of going, it's hell, right? It's just cube design a bit at the moment. A lot of cubes, especially the more like high pile of ones like the go vintage cube and like leaves cube, they're a bit less balls to the wall, right? Aggro the like. We're not running as much like Goblin Guide anymore. It's like like the power has kind of swapped to three mana with things like broadside bombardiers and gods and like lately, that's kind of where the power, I guess it's kind of moved and not, I guess, to an extent, things like, what I would do is, is like sacking your tokens. So maybe you're going to have less creatures like, like got does like got doesn't put you up on tokens. They kind of keeps your tokens at parity. Doesn't make you more of that makes sense. So I yeah I could see a world where maybe hell right is being pushed out in terms of just like what Red is doing now. Like red is going to go on a bit like bigger basically by like, but by that I mean like three mana rather than like 1 or 2, but like, yeah, maybe that's work on it. But like, I think especially in budget cubes, I think, I think right is still a phenomenal option because it's I'm looking at it was $0.60 or something like that. And like, like if you're, if you are just doing balls to the wall, my red deck is just going to kill them as quickly as possible, I think. I think you still play hell writer. Yeah. Yeah, I for sure I get that and yeah. And if you're doing a tokens thing, I think Hellevator is a, is it more of a modern red card in some ways because it's. Yeah, I would agree. Yes. It's so good when your opponents often fight like yeah, yeah. I mean they and if your strategy involves playing goblin guides then then they're more likely to be at ten and to be at 16, you know, and that's a very big difference to how good how I do is, like, if your deck wants fire blasts to your deck himself, I don't know. Oh, I love no. All right, let's keep it rolling. We're swapping over to Amazon restored now. Next up we have Grizzle brand. This is for black black black black for black for A77 legendary creature demon with flying Lifelink pay seven life and draw seven gods. So there's no brands of very dumb magic card. I think most of us know if you get to play with this card, like for me, Grizzle Brown is kind of synonymous with cube like, even though there are cards like Archon of Cruelty and attracts that maybe of kind of like there is an argument now in terms of who is at the top of the mountain. But for a long time there were if you were reanimating something, it was Gristle brand. But when I think about like cubes and powerful cubes especially, I think of Grizzle Brand. It's one of the cards. They're just like, you don't get to do anywhere else because it's like it's banned in command. You don't really see it that much in like, modern or like legacy as much that kind of thing or all those formats are kind of hard to get into. So like the the times I have played around the most is cube and yeah, who doesn't love drawing seven cards and hitting your opponent with A77 like it is phenomenal. And like, I, I really like the tangent with this card because like, I've definitely kind of like I've done the thing of like, right, I've been attacked a bit reanimate because I've been haha. Oh wait, I'm on eight life. I have to wait for time to attack. Like, like that level of tension and that level of like you haven't just one is very nice, then it can still be very powerful because if you built your deck properly, which is kind of normally where I fall down with this of like, of like having loads of counter magic in my deck that I can draw with. That's with the seven cards, or better yet, even draw this, draw the next reanimation spell. If I answer goes around the first time, that kind of stuff, like it's the lines in this card are just so cool and like I it is very powerful. It can be very, very oppressive. But because around sick I love gristle brand. Yeah. When you get a fandom player for healthy life cycle, that's that I've had a feeling I just found many clubs in magic where you get to draw, basically where you get to draw so many cards without having fun manner. I like to draw a seven. You're like, that's one very good. Seven. I said, a lot of five. Let's do another seven. What exactly? Yeah, yeah, it's, Chris Evans great. Chris Evans this I think. Yeah. Like sit out of this of a cube. The power the the high power cube experience I think. Yeah. The kind of, for many years, the gold standard of, things you reanimates. Right. And I think still. Yeah, I think you can certainly have ideas about, like, if it's better or not fun like arcana. Well, facts I'd probably have, like, slightly ahead. The crystal trend feels more powerful when you do it. You feel like you feel like a powerful wizard, but you have a special fandom that's, it's good stuff. Yeah. I love big Crystal. Daddy, his. Yeah. It's okay. Yeah, yeah, you are right. Like it captures the feeling of doing something broken when you get a random play. Like like I know that arc on an attracts it. Yeah. That there was like conversation there, but kind of I'm not saying they feel they're more efficient and just good at what they do because like you can whiff of and you could pay seven like to draw like five lines. And two things you don't care about like that is definitely thing that can happen. But just when it works it really works. I love yeah, yeah, yeah, this is sick. The only thing that mildly annoys me about aggressive and actually is that it was. I feel like it was very obviously meant to cost seven mana. And then they decided it was safe by ten. I just like never looked at that. But yeah, I see that. Yeah yeah yeah. But like it's A77 with a seven draw seven is A777. But so I was like oh this is a that cast somehow. Yeah. But they can never cast this. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. Maybe just three and five black symbols would look like oh yeah. It would just look weird or something that maybe they should have just made it seven black symbols. I would have been fine with that. That would have been stick. Yeah. Do that. I think that would have been cool. Yeah. Do that. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Modern horizons four gave us printers a fixed because a brand. Yeah yeah yeah I could have. And Vic nice sets or something. All right. We're sticking with Amazon Restore and we're sticking with black cards. I can't believe it took them this long to print an effect like this. But next up, we have blood artist. One the black rhino. One which a vampire. When blood artist or another creature dies, target player loses one life and you gain one life. So this did follow on from Falcon Wrath noble, which like a bigger version of this effect, but that costs four mana. This cost too. It's just so cheap and just so like effectively do you. This effectively made the aristocrat deck possible. This kind of I've actually like this level of when gone just didn't exist before Amazon restored before when it tried block when this effect was printed. Like yes with things like goblin bombardment where you can reach and pick them out, but like that required you to control the creature. This is whenever, when, when, when it or any creature, including your opponent's creatures. Now, like in one magic, we have this suitable cut throat style of cards which deal damage whenever which deal damage to multiple opponents. So it works so it scales for a commander. But this triggers off of any creature dying like this could be one of the more impactful cards in set, just because of all of them. This one just brought about a whole warlock attack that didn't exist before, and especially for cube. Like I know, aristocrats is not the it's not. They're right now in high powered level cubes or like full like power cubes. But this is an uncommon and like in any more budget cube. I like aristocrats, is a staple band, but art is a slam dunk, an imposing cube. But this but but this is a staple. And so of those archetypes. Yeah, this is a very, very iconic card. Yeah for sure. I think, what we often see like we get a lot of sort of blood artist variants at this point. Right. But I think you could still make a reasonable argument for original blood assets being the best one because, yeah, I think triggering off your opponent stuff is is a huge deal. I think it's quite tempting to always evaluate this cards like you're in the scenario where you're really doing the thing and you have stack outlets and stuff. But there are also just so many games where like, you have your stupid one, ones that you make and your sacrifice stack and you don't have a safe outlet. You just play a puzzle. This is impossible for your opponent to kill you by attacking you, because you just line up some medium blocks and like now when you block like they're free for you were free of the L1 ones and everything dies like they take fall and you gain for like that's huge. And then you just do a bit of more Trump blocking and then you can afford to take hits a few other creatures. And at some point it's like, yeah, well they've been attacking me all game. But somehow though, I'm like six and I'm on 18, so I guess I attack them now. Yeah. No. The cards. Great. Like obviously, you know, it's no one that dies for centuries, but it's, if if I don't answer it, let us justice. Let us just put a lot of work. And obviously, it's a part for Rangers. I'll say sometimes you are doing the whole thing, and you do have suck out lots, and you can just kill your opponent on the spot, and that's great, too. Yeah. Let us is. Yeah, it's very, very good. I think I think nowadays I think I don't think it's been fully pushed out by Marionette Apprentice. That's the one. The black for a 1 or 2 with fabricate one. Which means you either put accounts on it or you make a servo and it has. And whenever another creature or activated you can is put into a graveyard from the battery department loses one light. So there's, like, four creature decks. That is significantly worse than blood artist, but it kind of has a bit of play and synergy with like artifact decks. I can treasure that kind of stuff. I just, I mean, in low and lower power level cubes and in peasant games just run both like they're very, very good and like like like the there is still room, but and there will be room for black artist ink for quite a while. Like it's all you in black. All creatures dying. Do you need a bit of reach? It's too mano. It's so cheap. Yeah, yeah, yeah I mean, I think, yeah, it's reasonable to argue for VR. Fantasy could be better because getting sponsored for one one is such a big deal, right? But, Yeah, like, it doesn't gain you for life like blood does. It's just keeps you alive so well. Right. We're sticking with that. Watson restored. But we are going up in the manor value quite a bit. Here we have the biggest pig is next. Next up we have Kratos. Behemoth. This is five. Green, green, green for five. Five. Creature beast with haste and one two enters features. You control, gain, trample and get plus six until end of turn where X is number of creatures you control. So, how did Green Decks win before this? Games? Like what was this one of green doing before? Oh, you could natural order enter a creator group. What were you doing? Like this is just again, like, this is there's a world now where where this is now considered more of a command card. But for years, like a solid ten years off, this was printed. This is kind of what effectively green Decks were doing. Like by your dorks, by your natural order or play your guy's cradle, make a bunch of mana, cast a creator who's gonna win. That's kind of the maybe it's not as like, maybe this is another one that kind of opened up an archetype. But yeah, like what we've been doing before this, James, I have no idea. So I did I was before my stream. I just like had some grizzly bears and attacked two of them. Yeah. No crazy horse messed up like. There has been a shift away from that sort of mono green vamp in a lot of tubes. Go back and listen to one file that say it's about this, but, but if you are doing the big green vamp stuff, right? So it feels like is the best soft end and it's not for best top end in the way, but we might say, oh, Archons the best reanimation talk at like Arkham then attack. Sound aggressive I know are very good. Like the top end for green. This is crater off huge gap answering elf. Because basically everything else gives them the ten. Yeah. And the other thing else is like you cast it it, they get some value for you pass return the next ten. You can probably win. Crater Huff just kills them dead on the spot. It doesn't matter what's in their hand. Like it's you. You need shockingly few creatures to kill them with a crater of behemoth. I feel like whenever you look at it and think, oh, I wonder if crate of kills them, and then you realize it's like -50 every time you do the maths, you know? Yeah. No. Crater. Crater is insane. If you can, if you can get that and you have a decent number of features, create software when you get well, when you've a game that easily. I remember when I started playing commander, like we used to try and do the math with this and it's just like, don't do the math. Yeah. Do you have more than ten creatures? You won. Don't worry about it. It's fine. Just assume it's over. Yeah, I do a busted magic card. All right. We have two to talk about next. One is from. Actually, both of the. Both of these are from Amazon restored. We have, like, zealous conscripts, which is foreign. Read by three, three, creature, human warrior with haste and one two inches getting control of target metal. End of turn on top that permanent it game stays in 2010 and restoration angel which is three in a white for a three for Angel with flash flying. And when enters you may exile target non angel which you control and return that card to the battlefield under your control. So individually these are both powerful cards like those ones. If you can steal something, it can. Like I've stolen games with this, but just by taking their block, hitting them with it. With those two. That's pretty good restoration Angel is also very good. And like the flicker deck, I'm assuming it goes infinite with something. Probably the Cat TCG key. That's. Yeah, that's what I was getting on to. And that's kind of the effect that these two had on cube is that pairing with Kiki, Kiki the Mirror Breaker, the the big goblin that says tap, make a copy of target creature. Probably you control Kiki. Gigi also importantly has haste. These both reset Kiki take the the conscripts on taps it restoration angel flickers it. It comes in you copy these creatures with Kiki. Kiki and you end up with infinite of them. And then you win. And I would imagine that they might have already sort of existed with, like, with maybe some of the untapped creatures, but just getting this level of density in one go must have been really big for the archetype in cube. Yeah for sure. And crucially, they've pretty playable cards, even if you don't have Kiki. Right? Like especially Vesto Vesto was just like a good card for a lot of, like, decks for a long time. Where the only downside of Vesto for a long time was that it was kind of only good for mana flash cards and white. So you always knew when they had it. Okay, like this very suspicious thing with all that are up. But that's kind of less true. Now I have one and that sort of stuff. Yeah, but I guess it's great, right? It's, if you can, physical, like removal spells, it can be tricky, right? TBS specifies blocker. I mean, it it can be two surprise blockers, right? You flash it and you flick a lot of your thing. Tap things. Now, tap block. You have two blockers I didn't know about. Yeah. Super strong card. Zealous. Yeah. From now, I'll say, is less likely you play zealous without even that, you'd play that so without Kiki. But I certainly have done it. As you say, it does just steal games. It. Can you also steal planeswalker, which is fairly nice, can it? Right. Yeah. Oh, wow. I'm not okay. That's why it's. I've never done that. But that's cool. That's good to know. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. You can like you can wait till that planeswalker gets up to all to that and then and then steal and ultimate that science Walker. It's it's it's kind of crap. Yeah. Like obviously five mana is a lot, but it's it can just be such a huge amount of damage of no assets. But yeah, it can be a very strong card. Yeah. I, I think in terms of including them in your cube that I think you are probably only they should be only get slots nowadays. If you are doing giga then the twin stuff like I, I think restoration Angel is a fine card, but I think because of it being synonymous with that archetype, there is a world where it could be a bit of a trap, including restoration Angel, because if someone sees it and doesn't know your cube, they will. They might assume that Biggie's in there. That could be something exist. Like like if you buy something that brings a conversation and there are other like, like, things that you can do if you want to, like a target, I guess. But there is a very efficient guard, like, like restoration angel lady is very patient and very good, especially in a world where there's ebbs like like this, like restoration resto angel in your solitude, that kind of stuff is very strong. Or grief, God forbid, it's very strong. But yeah, yeah, I could just see that maybe from a cube design point of view, maybe you would would want them more. At least if you if you're doing the combo stuff, I can see yourself speaking of that as a chapter 15, seeing you have Kiki, I think that says like, fine, if you're doing a blank thing and no, tell them to read. The cube should have way. Yeah, yeah. Cool. We have a couple more cards that we want to spend a bit of time chatting about, just cause of how awesome they are. And this could be. There's so many iconic cards on this that I'm just going to use the phrase again, this could be one of the most iconic cards from this at James. It's definitely one that people think about when they think about the drop environment. And that's spider spawning. This is for an a green for a sorcery that says trait A12 green spider creature token with reach reach which card in your graveyard and has flash back for six and a black. So this is pop, possibly another one that kind of like spawned its own archetype, like the self mail style of deck. Be rewarded for a number of things in your graveyard, like it also might not shock a lot of people to know that I have played a lot of spiders morning. I played it in a lot of decks. I've made a lot of tokens. I would not say I've made the most tokens, unlike, nor to the bone where I've gained the most life. But yeah, I've made a lot of spiders with this car. James. So this was one the kind of like in the draft format as well. Kind of like it's what this. But for me, the card knock that people think about when they think about in a straight drop, it's like, oh, it's the one where you can do spiders mourning. But like, it wasn't a well known archetype when it came out. Like, it took players months to kind of get on board with this because like, thankfully this is kind of like the weird build around card of the set. They're kind of like they now it's now more common that there's kind of like a 1 or 2 cards. They're kind of like a not really synergize, like, oh, okay, like a build run card you can kind of commit to. But this was like one of the first examples of them doing this and kind of like, yeah, yeah, I love spiders bonding like it's it shows up a bunch in like like this is effectively what peasant go Gari is doing. It is doing this it it's doing spider spawning basically. And spiders spawning and spiders spawning adjacent things is what a cube is doing in gari. I love that. Whether it's good enough in like the lower power level, maybe, maybe there's some good payoffs in like, I could see there's just getting a place like. But my first draft of my high of my higher power level cube had been spawning in. I had it as a green card because I was being greedy with Michael Garvey section. But that's a separate conversation. But yeah, yeah, yeah, I love spiders spawning. Yeah. Nice. Funny. Okay, I think the, the thing and like, I think people realized, you know, you could mill yourself and make some spiders or spider spawn and cards. That would be cool. I think it took people a while to realize how deep you could go with it, because it was things like memories, journey, which is like one the blue, and you can flash back for a green and it lets you shuffle some numbers of cards from your graveyard back into library. And you had like a couple of those. Yeah. Exile, I think even. And, you could basically set up where you dumped your whole back into your graveyard and keep putting spiders spawning on top, and then, and you just cast by flooding every ten and create absurd numbers of one things with bleach, which initially stop you from dying, and then the second and third one start killing them. Yeah. Phenomenal cube cards as well. I feel like when I see spider spawning in a cube, it's, I want to draft it. And then I'll say it gives me confidence that I'm going to enjoy the cube. Yeah, I'd say like, yeah, loads of peasant cube, like low power level, low to mid power level cubes. I think spider spawning is, a pretty cool build around, a thing like a salty graveyard to play a cube the other day and which had some, some good spider spawning stuff going on, I think. I think it can go in in quite a few places. Yeah. Like if you, if you have a strong old Garvey South Mill theme by the spawning site. Good. You just have to make sure you actually have a lot of creatures in your deck. It's, it's not easy to build decks, which you're like, yeah, I can dump my whole car back into my graveyard. I have 3 to 6 creatures. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And this and oddly, has got better with things like stitch with things like stitches supply, and other things that kind of like, other creatures that mildew efficiently. This has obviously got better and just gone up in higher level. But like, yeah, it does have a ceiling because it is a five man card and then a seven man of card. So yeah, we're not here for like super high power level cubes, but like it's an iconic card. If you were to run this in like your lower power level cubes, your budget cubes or your present cubes, people like this card. It feels cool to do so. Yeah, slave up a spider spawning, the last card that we're going to touch on in a bit more detail. Is another very unique effect that's kind of like really to the fall a bit more the last couple of years as a ton of like beam power crash, but like Laboratory Maniac is an awesome card. It's two in a blue for A22 creature human wizard. It has the rules text. If you would draw a card while your library has no cards on it, you win the game. That is so awesome it. Winged guns are cool and fun. Like obviously like this is kind of got a bit more like more eyes on it with things like, like stats, historical being printed, which is kind of taken over a lot of formats. But like if you're if in cube, you are trying to do that kind of package. The when with no cards in your deck, you need more than one effect because you might not open that. So Oracle black man is one of the next ways of winning. Like there's this and there's the Jace wielder of mysteries. If you're trying to do that kind of deck where you're trying to win with no cause in your library, I think you run all of them. You just need it. Like like, do you like doomsday? Cool. You're probably still saving up a lot, man. Like, I'm assuming James kind of like, back in the like when when this was printed, like, like demonic consultation was legal. So the only consultation doomsday lab man, I still kind of slaps like you probably don't lose to that in like 20 to 24. Oh yeah. For sure. For sure. It's it's more set up from the Thiokol, right. Because the Thiokol, you play a clientele live for you when, the the lab man, you have to drive into the empty library. Which you can obviously be taciturn and do it on your doorstep, but that's very risky, because if I kill the lab man, then you instead lose by throwing into an empty library. But I also think in a lot of ways, it's cooler. Like it's cooler. I'm just saying it. Yeah, I yeah, it is cooler. It's, like more impressive. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, I've actually like, just tinkering around with slightly lower power level cubes. I've had a couple I've, I've had lab man, but I have not had bosses alcohol. So I was like, no, facile close is too easy in this to the lab man. It's perfect. It's the perfect amount of set up. And yeah, it's such a unique effects. Yeah. I really like the card. It's. I think it's very well-designed, like, it's for. Right. Like, it should be like three mana. So it's not, it's not for you to put into play and it's there two you can kill it. And that's gives us some jeopardy. I think it is a they didn't make it too easy. I kind of feel like Foucault makes it a bit too easy. Like, don't get me wrong, I love focal gamma and Powerful cubes, but I think in with more like mid power level cubes sometimes. Like now I want the lab man instead, you know? Yeah, I kind of feel if I lose with that is Oracle. It's like okay cool. Fair enough. If I lose to lab man I shake the hand. Okay. I'm much more impressed as a man of taste, I see. Yeah. Well done, well done. Cool. Yeah. So that's, I think it for kind of like, cards we're going to go into in a bit of detail, but there's just so many other cool cards in this that like, Yeah, like cards like Burning Vengeance and Secrets of the dead that kind of reward you for, but casting cards from your graveyard, that is a cool archetype, I think. Doesn't like if there were some Warhammer cards that kind of sort of work with it, but maybe this is like, that's having, like a peasant type of thing that I think could be quite cool. Lingering Souls is just a very, very effective card. It just makes it makes you some bodies on a sorcery. It has flashback. It just goes in so many decks, like, yeah, young Wolf is A11, with undying for a single green, staple in pop. A cube for such a long time. Like when I played pauper, I, I believe me, I put some wrinkles on some young wolves. That's how you win some games. Passing flames is an awesome way of kind of like rewarding the spells deck. Just getting your spells back. You have dealt with of secrets, iconic card in so many formats. I don't I feel people trading cube more than it was probably worth it. It's not very good. And cube it doesn't work. He just. It's so hard to have a density to actually make this card good. And cube, I feel like this is based on this, like a classic cube trap, you know? Yeah, yeah, it doesn't flip as much as you want. And then another card that was kind of synonymous with the draft environment. Travel preparations one, the green for sorcery, but a counter on each other to target creatures with flash back for one to white. Like, that's a lot of value off of one card like that. Must still see. Like, I can't imagine, like, if you're doing any kind of counters that still sees, pop a cube play and then you have Grave Crawler, like, this is just a cool little recursive card. It's a single black for two, one in black. That's not something that black generally got at that point. Or yes, it got yes. It can't block. You don't care. And then it has, you can Cosgrave call it from the graveyard as long as you control a zombie. I'm assuming this has got better recently isn't it. With like Forsaken Minor or something like that. James is like almost. Yes. I mean there were already combos in the combos have got better, I would say. So the, the nice for combos evolve. And if you just have another zombie in play and then you can have a way to stack this and generate a mana, right? Stack this for a black mana, then you can have a black mana to recast it. You're getting a bunch of desperate guys. You can be somewhere of a game from that. The new cards that sort of turbocharged this. That was the woven sole trader. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. Which lets you suck a creature to make a treasure, which you can obviously use to recast this. And as a zombie itself. It costs your life. So that's something else that's going on with that, that you very don't need a lot. Yeah. It's it's nice. It's like a, a black, cheap, aggressive creature, but then also just has these accidental combo potential, which is quite nice. But yeah, like there's just awesome cards all coming down and those are the main ones I think we want to touch on for Q but like brother formats like, oh, I love me a grim, grim, there's are so many sweet cards this. But like there is another part of like it wasn't just the cards and some of the mechanics that are iconic with in draft and have made an impact on cube. It's also the set itself. So In a strand is one of the main sets, along with replica, where people have built cubes around a certain plane like, you see people build cubes set on an abstract. That's because they like the theming, because they like it so much. And like this is generally the first. If it's like this, this is more of a thing where people did this because the reason why this kind of started I and lot cases is like this and Zendikar, which I think came like a year before this, were such where such iconic draft environments that people enjoyed, they wanted to recreate that draft environment. And that's where things like set cubes really came to the floor. Like, yes, they were like they existed beforehand, but kind of like in terms of people I know personally with weird like set cubes. I think we know someone with an abstract cube. We know someone with a comms cube. And I have a domino aria cube. For one listener out there, I'm going to say the words original Domino aria, but but like like like it's it was a set that that that people love so much they wanted to draft again. I kind of like like I said, cube is basically like a cube that someone has made to recreate the draft format. Basically the way you make it. I'll put a link down below to a video where I explain it in more detail, but kind of the gist is you take, you remove like the ten worst cards in the set that don't really synergize or anything. You take three commons, three uncommon, one rare and one mythic of every other card in the set. You then shuffle up your commons. You shove up your own commons, you got your resin, your mythic, and you collate them into 15 card packs with ten commons, three on commons, one where normally it would be one land in a pack, but within a strat. One thing we have mentioned is that every, every pack had a flip card, so you could have a separate pile for flip cards. And basically you recreate packs and that gives you an unlimited amount of redraft ability for this set. And like it's probably something that's very difficult to do, like now because it just came out so long ago. But like I did this with, with Domino Aria, I've seen people do it with like Lord of the rings, basically like there are sellers who will sell you, like all of one comment and all of one like, like, like a set of comments or a set of comments and most of those aren't really too expensive. It's something you can definitely do with sets and like in a stride, was was one of the first sets where people really wanted to do that and recreate that experience. Like, yeah, for sure. And I think people also have built a lot of cubes, right. Which, in a Strat. So not in a Strat block. Plus they're more recent in a Strat block for stars, shadows over the strats, Midnight hunts, and maybe a third set that I can't remember. But just everything from being a Strat plane and a cube, basically. Right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Because one of the things with like, probably more than other sets because like with like Ravinia, every time you get a replica each guild has a different like mechanic, like you have dredge in one set, you have scavenge in another set. With industry, like there's always been vampires, there's always been werewolf. So kind of like the tribal aspect of things, can go across all the different sets and then kind of you sprinkle in some of the cool things, like, like flashback. This goes in any kind of graveyard synergy and this and this mechanic they have brought back in other sets. So kind of like, yeah, it's one of the things with industry, it does feel kind of self-contained, if that makes sense. So that's one of the reasons why. Yeah, it also works in terms of themed cubes and also like it's what we then is in the middle of October. It's spooky season. James. Like people love spooktacular times and and it really does give it to that. Like I'll put another link as well. If anyone's not seen it. Lucky people have a resource where basically they do a cube map and basically it kind of displays cubes based on like what's in them in terms of like how close they are. I'm kind of like you generally have like what base looks like. So you have this big clump of like powered on what kind of like your stock cubes. Then you kind of have these little like satellites and kind of like you have like, rabbinic themed cubes and like Lord of the rings cubes over here. And then you have this fairly sizable, fairly substantial circle or like, patch that is like in its thread set cubes, horror themed cubes. So it's probably one of the big, like, I'm going to say niche, but it's a it's a very popular way of interacting with cube and kind of like a lot of this started with industry. So that's one of the reasons you want to talk about it all kind of reminisce about it today is because if it wasn't for like how popular like like it wasn't for like how good the play experience was, how bad the theming was, we probably wouldn't have as popular a set cubes, a set cube theme, or a like themed cube type of environments that we see today. I'm just clicking around on the cube map thing that's I hadn't seen it before. It's cool. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah, no for sure I think. And because it because of the themes work and it's, it's flavorful enough. I, it has that potential of a that you can attach your cube to the theme. And the theme runs through all the sets on the, in the shot plane. Very well. I think more so that is true for most of the planes. Really? Yeah. Overall, I think one of the most impactful and one of the coolest blocks ever. I know, I know, we've went back to it relatively recently, but I think it was one of those sets where, oh, and it's just one of those environments where like if they announce we're going back to it, I'm kind of still here for it. There's still a lot more they can do that. I think for sure, for sure. I think there's, is definitely some space in there, new things. And then Strat I guess it's been a few years. We could get back to that, I think for too long. Isn't it still in standard, James? Oh, no. Was I don't have time for that. No it's not actually, no, it's not so much. Really sweet. That's not too bad. Yeah. Awesome set. Really fun. There's so many cool cars that I like from this, I, I have been thinking of building, like, I don't think you. But some point, maybe a yeah, maybe a spooky cube, is the way to go. Oh, I will put some link down to some more famous ones that I know. Ryan Over Earth has a horror themed cube. I think he split into two now to make it a bit more modular, but, I'll put a link down to that. And and an instruction below along with the, lucky paper link, where you can just search for any shred cubes and you can see a whole bunch of them that will be there. Yeah, sure. I think that's a spooky cube up a magical line of moments that I don't have that it could be then I have to have. So I'm not sure. Snookie cube, then it probably is that one, because that's what it's all nice. But let's move on to our last topic of the day. Let's talk about what have we been playing? James, you've been playing a bunch of Dustmen Limited recently. How have you been finding it? Oh, I sure have. It's great. I need to, I'm going to have to give me five minutes, so let's have it. This format is phenomenal. Yeah, it's testing events partly in preparation for that. An arena open, last weekend. But also just because the format is great, it's it's such a nice change from we've had a lot of formats recently where it felt very sort of linear, like if you're in this two color, you are doing this thing and all the Dax are kind of the same here. There's so much for that because, the themes are like distinct and synergistic, but they overlap enough where you can where there's incentive to splash around and you can be doing different things within this, like meaningfully different themes within the same two color paths. And I think that to me just makes it much more much fun watching like it's, I think a lot more cube like fun than most limited sets. And the, the themes all play out really well like that. There aren't really a ton of misses, I think survivals great, but, a nice silver theme sale. Well, they say they overlap nicely. Things like the the manifest red stuff has its own payoffs, but then also plays really well of delirium set dumping a bunch of cards in your graveyard, which also then leads into Enchantress stuff because your, his enchantments know the type for your delirium, and there's a ton of good fixing, which means you get splash about a bit, which means you just have more possibilities in a draft, right? When when free and full color combinations are open to you. And the, the, the themes are not necessarily confined to two colors, like, well, I drafted a movie in the open, actually ended up drafting a on the animator deck. Which I think the animator is being kind of slapped on at the moment because probably I think because people look at the 17 land station and stuff and they see all the white blacks for the animated color and white blacks doing really badly. So the animator must be bad. And I don't know if this is true at all. I think you're very animated actors isn't supposed to be white. Black because white doesn't really usually animate that sphere control act. So and the white cards tend to lean aggressive so that they just don't add a ton. I think like absent or aspect of the animator both play very well. I've shifted quite, quite a few of both of those. And yeah, I think they both play great. Like you're not sort of a all in combo deck. You're a control deck that sometimes gets to seven manner and cast steel thing, and then maybe sort of like 60 frames for a time, you find a way to put it in the graveyard and we animate that the rest of the time you just cast it. And those plans work well, TV app sound mono. So you get green signal vamp into your thing. But, that's definitely not necessary. For although my wife and tech sadly went to Toon and didn't didn't get her money, Stefan that was a Batmobile. And I had I fall off, which is the, Is that not like the big demon, which is like nine mana? So you're not really casting that one. But, you do, you do actually just win the game when you, when you put it into play. But they can't very kill it. And it's, it's a nine, nine fighting for sacrifice. Three non land permanence. Yeah. That's a what cost. Yeah. Yeah. Jesus stuff Jesus okay. That world was not paid many times. So yeah. No there's, there's a ton of as a sort of bat from the spawn that I've been. Yeah, I've been liking as I've been liking out on, all the green delirium decks work. Well, the, like, there's a glue on that leans a bit more aggressive of as a green black one, which I find often you end up sort of salty, which is more like deadly level delirium stuff. That black works. Well, I think that one is a bit more distinct, and you get a lot of cards that other people just don't value at all. I find that open a lot at the moments, actually. So I think that that's quite a good place to be. That white has a good aggressive deck. Blue lights is good in fantasy stuff. It all works. A lot of these things you can combine together, if you've not crafted much of a format. And, I do recommend giving it a try. Yeah, I, I just really haven't had the time to play too much of it, but the I just, the if I have played, I have, I have enjoyed like, it's a, it's a graveyard set. I really like in this draft. I really like this. Yeah. I really like what I've played with mode. I've, I was, I've been surprised that like, I, I actually quite like the rooms. I think they actually work quite well. Like, it's just like it's, it's, it's of like a menacing but it's actually kind of decent I think like like like like I haven't really explored like the rooms deck. But, I like the also I like the, the old wink on where you, where you win the game if you've opened like a bunch of rooms. But just like as value cards, I think that they're pretty solid. And like, I, I think I set this up immediately after prerelease, like, I think I just love any, any set that has land cyclers in them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's like that's a good, especially when it's when you actually have time to cycler. Right. We've had some with our land cyclers, but you could never spend two mana to cycle. Oh, I mean, obviously isn't, like your best choice of things to on tend to in any of that. That, Yeah. The land cycles are like actually playable in this one, which is good. Yeah. I agree with you about them. I think they play really nicely. It's a nice like get something up front, get something else later. Too late for you. You don't run out of stuff to do. I think the meme stack is real. Actually, it's, I think it's quite dependent on getting at least 1 or 2 of the the the blue red gold card is very good for it. Smoky lounge. Right. Which is like for the vets, half is like having two in a red. At the beginning of each of your first main phases, you get two mana, but you can only spend on rooms and then the other sides. You make an x x flier where x is the number of rooms first to unlock. And that card really like turbo charges that deck. So you just get so much mana cleans. Yeah. It's fun. Yeah, yeah I think like, fortunately, I think I have a bit of time with this one. Like, I know there's foundations coming out, but I don't think that's going to replace like as, as the main drops it on arena until like the next set isn't, it's like the next Mesa isn't until starting next year. So yeah, have some time to go. I think in some games of this I do like it. And yeah, I'm glad to know that kind of the games are slightly longer and that. Yeah, because it's gonna be around for a bit of time. It sounds like a bit, a bit more of a deeper format. So that's that is fun. Yeah. For sure. Really nice break from limbo. I did not enjoy that one. It's fine. So we're coming to the end of the episode. Just a one last bit of housekeeping before we get you all out of here. So it's coming to the end of the year already. Did. God, how time flies. We are getting prepared our end to do our end of year award ceremony. The Golden MTG is the most prestigious magical night in all of magic. Do keep an eye out. Will be posting the, voting form to everyone soon. We want to hear from you. We want your input. The academy must be consulted and we must find out what were the hits? What were the misses? From 2024? We'll make sure to keep it civil and. Well, I'm sure we'll have a good time, but that's where we're going to leave it for today. James, thank you very much. That was awesome. Thank you. Always a pleasure. Yeah, I do, sometimes I like just talking about cool, cool things that I like. And this is definitely one of those episodes. So. Yeah. Thank you for that, Anya. And thank you all very much for listening. Dude. Please give the podcast a five star review, tell a friend all that good stuff. Until next time, it's goodbye from me and it's goodbye from James. And we'll see you all soon. Goodbye.