Welcome To Mana Club
Testing the limits of "I don't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member"
I worry a lot that Magic will become baseball.
Don’t worry; I won’t be talking about sports ever here. This is a metaphor or a simile, and I’m not afraid enough of looking dumb to look up the difference for the millionth time.
What I will talk about? Tangents.
Baseball was once the big American thing, next to boxing and the ponies, two incredibly violent things based on the degree to which you lose. (Sorry, horsehomies) People woke up, opened the paper, and read box scores. I assume this is why Baby Ruth exists as a candy bar, but if not, apologies to Ruth, who would be turning 103 this year.
Now? It’s failing. Both viewership and attendance are down. According to the Aspen Institute, kids playing baseball ages 13-17 (I assume a key demo) dropped by 16.8% between 2019-2020. Then, there was the pandangit. Without kids, the sport dies on the vine unless they invent a version with a small field where seniors play that I would actually kind of be into.
I worry that Magic will die because I’m not sure what the plan is to engage kids. I started in the, let’s vaguely say ‘90s, because it was new and exciting. There was hype and a place I could go. Soon, I was playing tournaments for kids. It was exceedingly affordable. It ruled.
What are the onramps now? I will boldly proclaim the average Magic player is pretty awful at teaching the game. When my wife learned how to play as the Single Greatest Christmas Gift Ever™, a mutual friend secretly taught her on the weekends.
He did it with #$%^ing Krenko.
Bingo is a simple game. I would never start someone out with six cards and an auctioneer as the caller. That’s for professional grandmothers.
So I built Mana Club as a way to teach kids the game with physical cards (one of my favorite parts of collecting as a kid) in a way that scales up, with video lessons and cool bonuses. Then it all fell apart because I ran out of funding.
This is a long way of saying I have now repurposed the thousands of dollars of branding in a newsletter, surely a way to reach the younger generation.
Oh, who tf am I? Great question. I used to write a limited column for Star City Games about data and then about Commander until I was fully burnt out. I played on the Pro Tour last year and made three consecutive RCs. Couldn’t day two my way out of a wet paper bag. I’m a Magic Online Creator, and if you’re reading this Torbin, I’m sorry! Keep reading for potential play points (PPP) everyone. I sell Magic cards under the hilarious name Steuer’s Sales because the former World Champ licensed me his namesake for $0. Rookie. I’m a video and audio editor for some of your favorite shows, like Decked Out. I write big old design threads that look at stuff like thumbnails and card design that thoroughly bore a lot of people.
But not you. You have taste.
I make no promises about what this will be, but potential subjects include: hidden gems (on Arena and in cardboard), How To Lose Less Money Playing This Game, Commander I guess, data insights, design (more graphic than card), the neverending spoiler season, what’s trending online, my dog Seymour, upcoming events, and literally anything that pops into my head.
Now, the big reveal, my completely original framing convention for the newsletter:
Untap - The thing(s) from yesterday
Upkeep - Mostly finance stuff
Draw - Wildcard
Main - Our big story
Combat - Beef: who’s got it?
Second Main - Probably where I talk about limited
Cleanup - Just fun little stuff, basically Magic mini muffins
Forever Discarding - Where I give something away of great value to me
My idea is to keep this newsletter like a buffet. I know you don’t like some of this in the same way I don’t like that they have the nerve to serve bread at a buffet. I know what you’re trying to do, don’t play with me like that. So, skip around. Find what you like. Fill up your plate and then throw away half of it if it’s not for you. There are no cameras or judgemental uncles here.
UNTAP
New Nadu, Who This?
People hate Alchemy, so let’s go ahead and lead with it. Nadu, Destroyer of Formats Winged Wisdom was a deeply fraught card from the jump. For those who don’t know, it was changed at the last minute and there wasn’t time to, you know, make sure it didn’t break everything. Here’s the original:
Well, in an effort to Hearthstone (or is it Heartstone, legitimately unsure and I don’t have an editor) Magic came up with a fun way to digitally alter cards called Alchemy. I don’t know where it’s legal but the drafts are pretty fun. This is mostly reserved to do Oracle of the Alpha things that are hard (but not impossible!) to do in paper. But sometimes, they just $@#^ with cards to make them less oppressive. So that’s how we wound up here:
I think I like the old version better? But hey, you still get some agency, so it plays like the Nadu we all grew to hate. Which is truly the spirit of Alchemy, I suppose, if you could combine various ores and, I dunno, animal hairs into a big old plopper.
Y’all Showed Up For Sheldon
I like seeing records broken. I believe that we should be giving everyone performance enhancing drugs and letting them destroy the monuments of an inefficient past. Wouldn’t it be sweet to see Joey Chestnut’s hot dog record hold when someone with a laboratory made second throat tried to take it down?
This record is not silly, but heartfelt: $2,140,640 raised from Sheldon Menery’s tribute Secret Lair is by far the most that WotC has given per a drop like this. I know the American Cancer Society is a giant organization, but that’s substantial.
It also speaks to the power of the “print to demand” system of Secret Lair drops. But I don’t want to get into that right now. Instead, I’ll share a little story of regret.
I met Sheldon at MagicCon Philadelphia. It was late, in a hotel lobby while my wife played Commander at a nearby table. It was a cool hotel lobby, with low lighting and bespoke furniture no one had ever puked a little on. Sheldon ordered us both a drink (cool move for a total stranger) and we talked about Peak TV. I told him he should give The Leftovers another shot and that, in retrospect, was a terrible show to recommend to a dying man.
We kept in touch over Twitter. I recommended another Lindelof show, Mrs. Davis. "Looks more up my alley” which was fair. He extended a huge kindness: an invite to play Commander on the official RC stream. To which I declined.
I made this rule for myself that I don’t play streams where I’m the 4th straight white guy. I don’t need the face time and I’d rather someone from a marginalized community take the spot. If you’re unfamiliar, check out inclusion riders.
This, in retrospect, was ****ing dumb, but I’ll let Sheldon’s words speak to that:
I was the exception. I stubbornly refused, “it was my promise to people”, and we didn’t speak for a while after that. And then he died.
The spot on the stream didn’t matter to me. Never did. I’m not upset about that. I’m upset that I feel like I kind of spit in the face of someone who was such a champion for folks in this community I claim to champion. He was doing the real work. And here I was going, “Welp, not for me!” I live a life filled with bad decisions but very few regrets.
That’s one.
How To Play Dimir Demons Like You Won Worlds
… and now for something completely different.
I don’t play a lot of constructed. I’m constantly surrounded by stacks of cards that make no sense, like “Japanese Strixhaven That Might Go Up By $1-3” and “Could this go in a deck?” but very few actual decks. This is all to say that you won’t find me talking about Hot Pioneer Decks or whatnot.
But I do really like Anthony Lee, a guy who has been on and off the Pro Tour (more on than off) since 2011. Also, I find it hilarious that this site chooses to put his full name where a nickname usually goes:
Anyway, there’s a really solid breakdown of the deck that won Worlds last month (Dimir Demons) available via UltimateGuard.com. As a rule, I think they’re a scummy company for ripping off InfiniTokens but they also support a lot of players so what can you do? The deck guide has some interesting upgrades from Foundations. Check it out.
The Real Wolverine Sale That Matters
The Marvel Secret Lair drop was a flop for all but like, 5,000 people who managed to buy it. We don’t know when it’ll be reprinted. The individual lairs go for upwards of $100 right now, which might actually feel like a deal in six months. The world is on fire and I hate that they did the Captain America drop a day before the US election. Magic Twitter is not particularly known for its ability to emotionally regulate and I imagine a lot of anxiety and fear was projected onto an already shitty show.
The big sale, though?
Per @MTGCal (who has a great podcast) this Victor Adame Minguez painting sold for $55,000. That’s almost 17,500 cups of Starbucks coffee or 2/3’s of one of those terrifying dogs people are always kicking from Boston Dynamics.
This is good news for artists in light of Donato Giancola’s recent shaming of WotC for their abysmal treatment of artists, especially when it comes to Universes Beyond commissions. See, with all the Rights and IP™ that go into these deals, artists don’t get the typical moneymakers like artist proofs and can’t do playmats or whatever. With Marvel, they’re allowed to sell their original art piece and that’s it. That’s pretty brutal considering their wages aren’t keeping up with inflation, per the article. Maybe that’s why we keep seeing this weird waltz with AI from the company.
UPKEEP
Phyrexia: All Will Be Funds
Captain America continues to drive a lot of random price spikes despite it being one of the worst selling Lairs on the secondary market (Storm is winning by a tornado’s destruction mile).
Here’s the price chart for a random ONC equipment you may not be paying attention to:
If you guessed Hexplate Wallbreaker, ding ding ding! Speculators were on this November 4th, but we’re still seeing organic growth. I don’t hate this at a sub $3 buy, as I think there’s still room, but this might just be laying around in your bulk. Go forth, Bulk Goblins, and feast!
What’s Going On With Ulvenwald Tracker?
Per usual, ChiStyleGaming nailed this one back in October: Wolverine.
Well, the cats are coming home to sit in their cardboard boxes, as the expression goes. (Wolverine is a cat with long claws, right?) Only a pair of the SLD Tracker sold the day of that tweet, and they’d have made a cool $8 on that transaction.
If you want a bling copy, pick yours up yesterday (or today, I don’t really like that expression). They won’t be going down for a month or two.
Managing Your Inventory
Closing out Cap, we see another little known card from Fallout hitting hard, up 500% and certainly something you tossed in your bulk when cracking this. Did people crack a lot of this? Anyway, Inventory Management is ironically surging.
I would personally sell into the fervor on these. With four different versions and a lot of people just sitting on them, expect more copies and a variety of copies to hit the market soon. I bought 12 from Troll and Toad, that’s how desperate I got. Trying times.
LPs Are The New NMs
Here’s One Thing Vendors Don’t Want Care If You Know: older cards that you see listed as Lightly Played on TCGplayer Direct are often just Near Mint copies they’d like to dump. Let’s look at this From the Vault: Twenty Green Sun’s Zenith
Weird that the only copies of this card are LP, right? Well, if we turn off the direct filter we see that a lot of Direct sellers have listed NM versions.
The way this works is Direct only sells what it has access to (vaguely, don’t quote me on this) so NM copies aren’t eligible for Direct. Some people just never want to mail you cards, so they’re happy listing a NM as LP to save them the hassle. Does TCGplayer swap a NM for an LP to satisfy your order? I really have no clue. But that’s why you see this on older cards. YMMV etc.
DRAW
New Combat Rules And You
WotC has long been obsessed with why people aren’t double blocking more. I don’t get it. I don’t see why this is a foundational problem, but rather an answer in search of a question. Welp, the answer is now new blocking rules, which are fairly simple: you don’t have to order blockers, just throw as much damage out there as you want.
Here it is, absolutely devastating a triple block, c/o Brittney_MTG:
Here, this little 2/2 nerd is going to assign 1 damage to each Bishop and then Anger wipes out everything. Brittney gets to untap and get a Kiki-Jiki. GGish.
I think this is broadly better, more intuitive, and a smart change for new players. Ordering always felt awkward in paper and probably lead to some sus judge calls. It also sets double blocking back like 20 years, so way to dig your hole deeper, MaRo.
For a full breakdown from one of my favorite streaming e-girls, check our NJR’s video.
MAIN
Foundations (add something clever here later)
I have a Mythic Qualifier Weekend coming up soon on Arena. I qualified with my draft rank and my reward is being forced to play a format I do not care at all about: Standard.
A lot of Gen X’ers and Geriatric Millenials feel a certain way about the format. FNMs I guess used to be all about it? This is where my Magic gap shows. I came back to the game after taking maybe 20ish years off, showed up for prereleases, and drafted online. That makes me part MTG Boomer, part MTG Zoomer, a person without a country. I have no nostalgia for the days when Standard Was Great.
Foundations is the attempt to return to a simpler times by making them very confusing. There will be approximately 130 legal sets in Standard by 2026. Some of them will be Spongebob I guess? It’s a big sandbox, for better or worse.
I keep wondering, “Why?”. My best guesses:
Modern feels inaccessible as hell, so people have to play paper something
There is no plan for whatever Pioneer is
They care(?) about people playing Magic at a LGS
This will sell cards
It’s a friendly onramp if you play Commander
Gives a somewhat "eternal” feeling to a less expensive format
This will sell cards
An octopus in a tank picked this ball
Modern Horizons sets have jumped the shark. Sure, you can still put up numbers with Amulet (shoutout to Kora) on a given week, but when decks are 95% MH3 cards, it ceased being a format where you can just tweak your sideboard and maybe add something to your 60. Your favorite restaurant changes its entire menu once a year to a page of the Cheesecake Factory. Which, to be fair, is still a lot of options. It’s just not what you showed up for.
Pioneer was fascinating because we just finished an RC season that is effectively the last time people will play the format for any form of stakes until mid 2025 at the earliest? If there’s regular Pioneer firing at your LGS, it’s because someone has a stack of Phoenixes that simply must go.
I don’t know if this gets people fired up to play Standard on a Friday night. Not my era. My favorite things to do in the mid-aughts were go to raves and a biker bar with all-you-could-drink beer for $10 between 5-6PM, and I wouldn’t be caught dead doing either right now. Play Boosters jacked up the price of draft, so maybe this fills a void. But at my prerelease last weekend, the community manager was seething about having to run another Standard Store Championship. “It’s none of my regulars. It’s grinders that come in to win a big promo and then I don’t see them again until the next store champs.”
Seems awful for a small business.
This will sell cards, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem for Magic broadly. What is a 5PSI boost to a firehose? Give it to me on a power washer. I really want to power wash something right now. Power washing is my Roman empire.
I would love to see Commander players try non-commander stuff. But mostly limited. Draft rules. Too bad the price just got jacked up. Tariffs on fun.
So that brings us to the feeling of this being the new Eternal Lite. I have to imagine bans are going to be necessary from this set. There’s just too much power here, too much in the sandbox to play with, and if you give enough monkeys typewriters, they’ll eventually write Shakespeare. The new B&R system is already, to put it lightly, contentious as #$%@, so is it the second or third obliteration of someone’s favorite deck they’ve sunk hundreds of dollars into that gets them to check out?
Time will tell.
COMBAT
Mark Tobiasch Is Doing Mark Tobiasch Stuff (Again)
Congratulations to the European RC winner Mark Tobiasch, known cheater and double downer. Unlike the awful chicken sandwich of the same name, I think there are two reasons to be “down” on his winning.
First, he can’t keep getting away with it. Playing Magic at a high level is a grueling, 20+ hour experience when you get deep into day two. As much as you’d like to say, “Hey, catch him!” it’s hard enough to focus on what you’re doing without making mistakes when your brain is mush and you’ve been in a hall of gamers running on convention pizza.
If you’d like to see a few clips of egregious cheats, check out these links, put together by the indefatigable Karl Sarap. Taken together, these point to intentional. I hated when people went after genuinely good human Minh Nguyen for a simple fatigue misplay at the US RC. Context matters.
The fact that the guy feels emboldened to make these regular “misplays” on camera, in front of judges, with an alacrity that borders on Blaine-esque shows that we have a fundamental problem with the system.
Because, second, there is no “ban” list for Magic! That’s wild, right? Repeat offenders need the Pete Rose treatment. Full stop. Also, sorry, I promised no sports.
SECOND MAIN
The Entirely Too Early Draft Data Sponsored In My Heart By 17Lands.com
We have roughly 22,000 games in the books, so let’s look at the “definitely not correct” data we have so far.
Azorius (Flyers)
Rakdos (Sakdos)
Orzhov (Aristocats?)
Dimir (Control I’m guessing)
Gruul (4 or More Power *Tim Allen grunt*)
It’s great to see skies back in blue white, even for a second. Empyrean Eagle is our overall top rated card because we don’t have enough data points for rares/mythics and, frankly, a lot of uncommons yet, but it felt like Azorius has strayed for too long from its bread and butter: evasion and tempo plays. Dazzling Angel and Healer’s Hawk are both going to do work for you.
We’ll keep an eye out, but my first impression is that the set looks fairly balanced, with green looking bad for now. This usually changes as green will benefit from people figuring out how to splash with it and I’m guessing Elves winding up underwhelming. Bad players love elves (good players, too! I’m not here to judge!) so they’re likely being overdrafted in the short term.
Early overperforming commons: Involuntary Employment (always slightly overrated because casting it means you’re in a position to win, but still, cast Threatens), Lightshell Duo, Hungry Goul, Fake Your Own Death, Bigfin Bouncer (c’mon, it’s shark-’o-war, people!), Uncharted Voyage, and Gorehorn Raider.
CLEANUP
Per Diana DiMicco, there will be a D&D twist on MagicCon Chicago. I don’t know what that means, but it doesn’t bode well for me trying to explain Magic to people who think it is just D&D. Regardless, Creators, get to applying now. As always, I’m here to help if you want it, but I don’t think there’s an essay portion. Don’t ChatGPT it.
From the WTF files: this card that I found digging through a collection. I don’t get the reference. I’m terrified to Google Lens it. I’m praying it’s body positive? WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE?
On a more serious note, condolences to Todd Anderson, who lost Chirpens yesterday. It takes a ton to care for a special needs cat, it’s not a position ***holes apply for, and while Tandy and I have our differences on things, I think he’s a well-meaning person who could use a little love if you have some to spare.
Magic is more fun when it is off the rails than on:
FOREVER DISCARDING
Thanks for making it this far or for skipping all of that. Really up to you how you want to engage with all of this and definitely not an affront to me.
Today/this week/however frequently I post this, I’m giving away a random card someone threw in with a collection this week, a “slabbed” and beat up Beta Terror.
This, plus a code for some MTGO Play Points (#Sponsored) are going to a lucky person who signs up for email updates? I think that’s how it works. Get notifications, get a prize. You do NOT have to pay, but if you win the Terror and don’t live in the US, I’m expecting you to chip in on shipping.
Frankly, I don’t know how the paid thing on Substack works or how to shut it off, but if you want to kick in a little cash, that would be dope. It gets you nothing extra outside of a little more willingness for me to do these regularly because I’d feel guilty if I let you down. I don’t want any of you to be disappointed ever.
I’m now done and I’m not editing any of this because, frankly, I spent far too much time on it. Point out errors in the comments - I love when people do that.
Passing the turn,
Jake
Bonus Seymour of the Week
P.S. Please, someone tell me how to add anchor links to this.
Best MTG thing I've read in a long time.
And I do read a lot!! =)
My thursdays in the office would greatly benefit from the continuation of this newsletter. Thanks!