Master Your Magic the Gathering Journey with Video Insights!

Welcome Magic lovers! As the Standard Regional Championship Qualifier season hurtles on, racing through Aetherdrift and setting its sights on the gathering storm on Tarkir, one may think the format has started to become stale. After all, tired, old Domain won the Pro Tour again, a Standard deck that's existed in one form or another for a full two years now, while Dimir Midrange and Gruul Aggro have been around since before last year's rotation, yet combined, they still manage to make up almost 50% of the metagame. However, as this past weekend's Standard Showcase Challenge on Magic Online has shown us, the metagame changes as often as the weather, with innovations and tweaks being made to several new archetypes, in particular Esper Pixie. A dominant performance by the Esper players put three copies of the deck into the top four of the tournament, with another copy just missing top eight, in no small part due to the work that incredible deck-builders, like the infamous 'cftsoc' on Magic Online (who ended up taking down the whole tournament), are putting into the deck.

It's been a few weeks since Aetherdrift came out, and we are starting to see the cards that are standing out in the meta. We didn't expect the set to change things too much with regard to what we have been seeing. What we did get from it is a nice supplement to many other decks. Although we did not get a ton of format-shaping cards, we have seen a couple that have lit up fringe archetypes. What I've brewed for today plays off of a familiar archetype, and it was one that we kind of already had, but it allows us to pivot in a certain way and get additional value from it that we may not have gotten in the past. One of the biggest things that our deck can do is have plenty of action on the end step/cleanup step. It's an interesting scenario because usually when we think of the cleanup step at the end of each turn, we remove damage, and we discard to hand size. Usually discarding to hand size is pretty much the final step, and there aren't any triggers... until now. We will be using Monument to Endurance to have triggers when we discard to hand size, and get additional value from it. Now we don't care if we end the turn with nine or ten cards in hand, because we are going to benefit from it. This will help us possibly get in some finishing damage against our opponent, or get extra value. It is worth noting that this will cause triggered abilities on the cleanup step, and this is something that our opponents can respond to. This has historically been a point in the turn where no player can respond to actions. We'll take a look at the relevant cards in the deck, and then I'll detail a few fun combos that we may see during gameplay. Relevant Cards

Last week, Wizards of the Coast gave us a first look at the next Standard release, Tarkir: Dragonstorm, and that gives us an opportunity to analyze, overreact, and wildly speculate on what the future holds, which is an opportunity I rarely pass up. This first look was only nine cards from the Standard set itself, but it includes some eye-catching mechanics, so let's get into it. For this article, I plan to analyze how these cards will impact Standard first and foremost. The Headliner

The economy on MTG Arena has always been a pain point, and a grand debate over how far a digital version of a card game should go to ensure players feel as if they are getting proper value for their time. Wizards has two different versions of its beloved game on the internet, and they both seem to have their benefits and drawbacks. On February 11, Arena launched the Achievement System to reward players for hitting milestones in-game, and completing specific tasks. While it is always fun to do these kinds of things in each game, something that gamers always do is assess whether the reward for doing so in-game is worth putting forth the extra effort for the task. While there are some things in the achievement tab that I believe to be kind of fun, and certain things that I know people will want, I view the entire thing as largely a waste of time. Today we will look at why the new feature on Arena simply isn't enough for what the game should have, and what it could be. The Good and The Bad There are plenty of things that we love about Arena, with how it is the easiest way to play our favorite decks from Standard, and not spend thousands of dollars in doing so. It is probably the most efficient way to try out decks. We also love the wildcard system. Although it is not the easiest to obtain them, it is great that a rare/mythic wildcard could buy a rare/mythic card that is of any value and it still just costs one wildcard. This was especially helpful in getting a play set of Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. I still don't have a play set in paper simply because I don't want to spend that much money on it, but on Arena it was easy. I had the wildcards to do what I needed. The only part where this may be lacking is the economy itself. What if we could earn wildcards for hitting certain achievements (I.E. the achievement tab giving us wildcards instead of sleeves, etc.)? I believe that the rewards from this new feature being solely cosmetic underscores the ongoing issue of the economy on Arena simply not being enough for us. 

During its debut, Phyrexian Obliterator was not a dominant force. Still, as years passed, new cards were printed and finally, at no other than Pro Tour Aetherdrift, this crazy Golgari Phyrexian Obliterator build managed to go 9-1 during the Standard portion at the hands of Christoffer Larsen. TODAY I will go over the key cards in the deck and uncover the main plan behind it! Golgari Midrange Standard Deck Overview For those who may not know, Phyrexian Obliterator is a four -mana 5/5 with a crazy ability: whenever it's dealt damage, the source controller sacrifices that many permanents. Not only does this mean that it can bypass burn spells, but also combat damage, and this deck is centered on maximizing its potential, along with a sneaky and clever card that will help us do devastating damage to our opponents. Let's find out how.

Pro Tour Aetherdrift has concluded, and it was no surprise that Domain is still the best deck in the format. It is too powerful, and the high amount of mana availability simply provides too much value for other decks to consistently have a chance against it. Matt Nass was able to secure the win in the mirror match, as Domain Overlords were the most popular deck in the top 8. Since we have a new set that just came out, that calls for innovation and some overall spice. The deck that we will examine today isn't exactly a new concept in the meta, but it certainly is something that nobody previously has had the stones to enter as a list in a Pro Tour Event. There were a couple of well-known pro players with this list, including Javier Dominguez, who has been known for having some unique decks in the competitive circuit. Although Javier didn't do as well as we normally see this past weekend, Christoffer Larsen nearly made the top 8 with this list. The deck went 9-1 in Constructed, and it's safe to say that it was one of the top performers on that side of things. Had Larsen maybe won one more match in Limited, he would likely have been in the top 8. It goes without saying that this deck has a spot in the current meta, and probably has some legs in Standard. It was something that was rather unexpected in the event, sure, but the high roll of the combo within the deck is undeniable. Even without the combo that the deck has, outside of that, it is simply a Golgari Midrange Shell. Those decks always carry a competitive win rate, so everyone has to keep it on the radar either way. We will take a look at the deck, and then I'll go over the combo, then see if we can figure out why the deck is seeing a resurgence. Obliterator is an incredibly fun card. Everyone wants it to have a home in some format, because there are few things more satisfying than watching your opponent sit there trying to figure out which land(s) they are going to keep, or deciding if they want to keep playing after they were just forced to sacrifice all of their permanents. We historically think of this interaction happening during combat. What makes this deck fun is that it can happen during combat, or with a simple one - mana fight spell. Something else that is noteworthy is the fact that this deck plays only 23 lands. My best explanation for it is that the spell that allows you to fight for one mana also allows you to get any basic land from the deck for the same price. I think that this almost treats it as having 27 lands, and in turn helps figure out what cards to remove in order to squeeze in the extra spell. Let's take a look at the relevant cards, then we will see why it's back and better than before.

Welcome Magic lovers! As the Standard Regional Championship Qualifier season hurtles on, racing through Aetherdrift and setting its sights on the gathering storm on Tarkir, one may think the format has started to become stale. After all, tired, old Domain won the Pro Tour again, a Standard deck that's existed in one form or another for a full two years now, while Dimir Midrange and Gruul Aggro have been around since before last year's rotation, yet combined, they still manage to make up almost 50% of the metagame. However, as this past weekend's Standard Showcase Challenge on Magic Online has shown us, the metagame changes as often as the weather, with innovations and tweaks being made to several new archetypes, in particular Esper Pixie. A dominant performance by the Esper players put three copies of the deck into the top four of the tournament, with another copy just missing top eight, in no small part due to the work that incredible deck-builders, like the infamous 'cftsoc' on Magic Online (who ended up taking down the whole tournament), are putting into the deck.