ITT we post our unpopular Magic opinions.

I prefer the Modern Masters artworks for Tarmogoyf and Dark Confidant. Goyf looks like something from the old Carpenter horror pic, At the Mouth of Madness. Confidant's just got a pleasing assortment of colors compared to its original.

I build draft decks with 14 lands.

I honestly like FS Goyf better because of what the futureshifted frame does for the colors and a may be biased by the foil I have of it. I agree all the way on MM Confidant. He looks so appropiatley slimy and sinister, and his effects are far more appropiate and visually pleasing than the orzhov loser in the original.


I honestly don't like most of the high-end duals. Yeah, they do nice things for decks but playing at the level I do I have never missed them running between all basics and mostly basics with a few EtBT lands. Yes, my Evolve deck would probably be better if its mana base was 4x Breeding Pool, 4x Misty Rainforest, 4x Hinterland Harbor, and then maybe 6 forests and 6 islands, but I'm quite happy at 4 Simic Guildgates and 10 of each relevant basic. I don't need the $300 version and when I get the parts for it, into the trade binder they go.

I believe in Land Destruction. Is it great to end up shut out of a game by hardcore Ponza? No. But no degeneratley overspecialized strategy is a blast to play against, be it Ponza, Burn, Counterspells.dec, or Creatures: the Tappening. By being so specialized, they fail to interact on more than one level, and that's the killer for me. Hell, on that scale Ponza is less bad than most of the others listed. As part of a broader deck (say, in EDH) LD reduces reliability, forcing players to make choices both in game (especially with mulligans) and in deck construction between the rewarding option that might never see the board and the safer alternative. Spot LD also provides a safety valve against really powerful nonbasics like Gaea's Cradle, Cabal Coffers, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, and so on. For the same reason, I believe in Stax, (especially the face card itself, Smokestack) and in Countermagic.

C'mon man. Simic Guildgate? Bear down and spring for a playset of Thornwood Falls already.


My land-oddity is that I like running City of Brass / Mana Confluence / Gemstone Mine ... way more than most people do (even in some two-color decks!). I've even taken a shine to Crumbling Vestige lately (I missed the boat on Tendo Ice Bridge before it spiked...) I really don't like lands that don't produce mana the turn I play them.


I don't enjoy shuffling enough to go deep on fetches all the time.

I run 3 of every nonland card in my constructed Magic decks because I prefer to have 12 unique spells to cast instead of 8 (if I went with the trope of running 4 of every card I want to run). Lands I have no problem running 4 of, though I don't go out of my way to buy duals so I usually only have 1 or 2 of "the good ones" to put in the deck.

I scrapped my standard Populate deck after Lingering Souls, Intangible Virtue, Sorin and Garruk rotated out, and haven't played Constructed ever since.

As a token lover myself I think that's fair.

Opinion: anyone who takes something like Storm to a casual FNM really needs to think long and hard about what they are doing. My LGS runs two parallel FNMs: one for more casual players and one for more hardcore players. Take your lame combo BS to the latter, where people are actually prepared for it. I'm not having fun while you're getting your calculator out.

I actually stopped going to those FNMs because I know I'm not equipped for the hardcore tourney but the casual tourney is so wildly inconsistent in deck/player quality that it's just... not really fun.

My favorite kitchen table casual build is Kai Budde's Wildfire deck. It was in Standard back when I started the game and was really invested in the storyline. Scott's work made me a fan of Keld, so playing a good deck with a dragon from Keld appealed to me.

So yeah, I could share that opinion with ya.

I don't think old Zendikar block was really as golden as its made out to be. What came out of it that made it infamous? Goblin Guide, Stoneforge Mystic and Jace the Mind Sculptor, Emrakul the Aeons Torn.

I like land destruction, AVR, dragons of tarkir, every filthy casual card, I always do 41 cards in draft with 24 cards and 17 land, uhhhhh I dunno, probably something else.

Return to zendikar was pretty awful because it killed two titans and gave us the gatewatch.

I despise rare lands barring very few exceptions.
Anytime I see someone drop three life between fetches and shocks, I just shake my head.

I get funny looks when I run only one copy of a rare or mythic in my decks. They're rare. That means something to my twisted up brain.

You are bad at games. Everyone here except me is terrible at everything and should be gassed.

Is that too far? Is my humor still there? Did I even mean it as a joke I dont know anymore.

The removal of mana burn upset me.

I not only dislike rare duals, but think that packs for limited should be sold alongside limited-unbalanced, but rare-heavy constructed packs. I'd split the product line.
If my deck isn't "win more" it is no deck of mine.
I'm terrible at actually using the cards I buy.
I think that every card frame introduced has been better than the one that preceded it (though I'm sure I missed some changes they've made).
I once grabbed some promo cards that were meant to be destroyed out of my local store's recycling bin.

Yesterday, I drafted Oath/Oath/Battle.

I enjoy the foolish five-color sealed control mirrors that you can only get playing with beta boosters.

I had been known to agree with official Wizards statements.

I generally feel all the rules changes Wizards has made since 6th Edition have been a good idea.

I approve of New World Order

I feel like Mind Rot is consistently underrated and misplayed in limited.

I feel like people who claim to be black players but refuse to sacrifice their creatures, discard cards, or pay life are bald-faced liars.

Edit: To clarify, "black player" means "person who plays heavily in the Magic color of black" not "player who is racially considered black."

#LivesMatter

I bought a Savannah for $35 and I'll never use it to generate green mana.

I shun tournaments and dislike draft.

I avoid Goodstuff

My decks are largely tribal (or very themed) and often combine 2 or more casual variants (Tribal Commander, Tribal Rainbow Stairwell, Rainbow Stairwell Commander, Tribal Star, etc.). The exception are teaching decks, which are built on basic deck archtypes and avoid 4-ofs in favor of increased ariety to expose new players to more cards and interactions. Basic burn, aggro, stompy, etc.

Elves, Goblins and Zombies aren't tribes, they are Goodstuff.

My longest living deck is Tribal Griffins which was built following the Mirage Pre-Release (Lansing, MI) and has never been taken apart, only adjusted.

I believe in highly organized card storage. Not only are the boxes organized in a specific order, cards with value > $2.00 are listed in excel documents with card details and show if they are in a binder, box or deck. Rarely are cards unsorted unless they are in an active deck.

I also use Excel to keep decklists, with formulae to auto-append wiki, forum and autocard tags.

NGAC is the best Magic format.

Burn and Beats may have limited ways to be interacted with, but they don't actively prevent the opponent from executing their game plan (other than, you know, killing them.)
Although I don't know how you can compare those archetypes. Have a match of LD against each other, and it becomes a race to stop your opponent from casting spells. Have a beatdown matchup against each other, and combat itself presents numerous decision trees. Not to mention that you'll be hard pressed to find a deck that isn't capable of interacting with creatures in some fashion, unless they play some form of combo deck.