Ideal Arbiter

my sideboard features lantern control hate, lantern control hate, and more lantern control hate

[markrosewater]

If/When: Controlling your opponents while they're voting?

If, it kind of defeats the point of voting.

[arbiteroftheideal]

bad news

[bog-witch-extraordinaire]

POST THIS OCTOPUS

Original ref: X

[grandwarlordradha]

skullclamping your 0/1 plant token so you can finally draw your third land

[dasebeleren]

If you’re having a hard time picturing the Gruul being part of Bolas’s plans, use your imagination. What use could an angry group of punks and anarchists be to an Elder Dragon? How could he implement them in the coming conflict, and how could he trick them into doing his bidding when they’re naturally opposed to authority beyond “might makes right”.

It could be as simple as pointing their anger in the right direction, or as complex as invoking Ilharg.

[counter-target-spell]

Here is how I imagine it “Now Bolas I get your a big super intelligent extradimentional dragon, HOWEVER my fellow Gruul…. isnt he a bit of a sellout? Would a REAL giant powerful dragon not already kicked our asses and eaten them for lunch? WOULD HE? Would a REAL giant powerful dragon have FUCKING BABY ARMS? NO WAY HE WOULD BE SWOLL AS FUCK A TRUE GRUUL LEADER WOULD EAT THAT PIG AND ITS WHOLE ASS FAMILY NOT BRAIN CONTROL IT A TRUE GRUUL LEADER WOULD HAVE SICK TATS AND PIERCING NOT FUCKING EGGS A TRUE GRUUL LEADER WOULD DRINK US UNDER THE TABLE AND SMOKE US OUT BOLAS CAN KISS THE GREENEST REDDIST PART OF MY ASS RAVNICA”

[edh-a-to-z]

The Gruul rebel because Bolas is not Biker Gang enough for them. Seems pretty in character!

[flavoracle]

I think some of you may be misreading the situation. None of the guilds would willingly follow Nicol Bolas. They’re following planeswalkers who are beholden to Bolas.

And Bolas has taken specific steps to help put those planeswalkers in positions of power. Some realize his true identity, while others probably don’t. I’m betting Domri Rade is one who just wants to unite his fractured guild, and he may very well believe that his mysterious benefactor IS Ilharg.

It wouldn’t be the first time that Bolas has pretended to be a returning god.

[luminary-ghost-blog]

Has this been done yet?

[maris-solstice]

*wipes tear* I’m just…so proud of him

[moisellethefae]

Success story of the decamillenia!

[arbiteroftheideal]

I just discovered this card and want other people to know about it. Essentially, this allows you to replace an opponent’s hand with whatever you want. It looks quite good in Commander! If you replace their hand with lands, it’s almost Wit’s End at two less mana. It can also be used as a political card. If an ally has a Merciless Eviction to deal with a Darksteel Forge, you can replace one of their cards with it!

[jolly-ob-saint-nixilis]

You guys want to see the most jank and nonsensical take an extra battle phase card ever put to paper?

They had to put special rule text on this card so people would understand how you actually resolve it.

[roboco-san]

why

why does it skip to your next turn

[jolly-ob-saint-nixilis]

Let me take you on a journey. I call the journey “why you don’t turn filler arc anime cards into real cards” the ride™. It’s a ride now instead of a journey.

You see, mischief of the time goddess needs to skip to your battle phase next turn in order to jump over it’s own mechanics. Meet the second signature card of the Valkyrie archetype:

I won’t make you read through it all, that would be mean of me. No one should have to read this.

Basically what this does is lets you special summon as many Valkyrie monsters from your hand to the battlefield. There is a cost to this, at your End Phase you have to put all your monsters from your field back into your deck. It’s a hefty cost. So what you do is you play this, get as many Valkyries as you can onto the field, go to your battle phase and do all of your attacks. Then you use Mischief of the Time Goddess.

When you play Mischief of the Time Goddess you immediately SKIP to your next battle phase. You skip main phase 2. You skip the end phase. You skip your opponents turn. You skip your draw phase. You skip your main phase 1. Then you are back at your combat phase again.

Which means you skip Ride of the Valkyrie’s negative effect because you never actually have an end phase, therefore you don’t have to bounce anything.

So they had to go out of their way in order to mess with their own mechanics in order to get a second combat phase.

You see that piece of text that says “Send this card to the GY, also, immediately after this effect resolve”? That had to be added in because the play testing of this card was apparently super confusing because it was hard to tell what you are supposed to do with the card. Without that piece of text telling you to send it to the graveyard a lot of people assumed this spell card should stay on the field for an entire turn because the effect doesn’t actually completely resolve until you start your combat phase. Cards like this can’t stay on the battlefield like this so they had to add that special piece of text just for this card.

[roboco-san]

this is awful you should play a sensible game

[jolly-ob-saint-nixilis]

I dunno, yesterday my friend beat us all on turn 4 with his Neheb deck by dealing us all 38 damage. While not as impressive I got someone out on turn four by hitting them with 54 damage. Last week I’m fairly sure a person at our table hit an infinite combo on turn 5. Every game has their gives and takes I suppose.

[roboco-san]

on second thought you’re right magic isn’t sensible either let’s all play Minecraft like god intended

[markrosewater]

Come to think of it, why didn't Ixalan have a Legendary Kraken? With all the pirates, ships, and sailing, that seemed like a glaring deficit! It should have at least one.

I told the design team they need to get Kraken and they just worked harder. : )

[fresh-prince-of-beleren]

I thought of this a while back and couldn’t stop thinking about it until I made it.

[doctor-roman]

He’s right and he should say it

[loreleywrites]

We finally have a Planeswalker character who mechanically cares about enchantments! (Source)

[kothophed-soul-hoarder]

I’m not sure if estrid really does what bant enchantments really wants to be doing. The focus on auras especially isn’t something I want to be a primary thing. Being able to protect something, or enchanting and using the plus for value like on lands or rocks, has some interesting applications but how much utility is actually here?

The blue card is a constellation enabler which is great and it does something else too. You can double up on a useful enchantment and trigger constellation, changing it if needed.

[arbiteroftheideal]

i do like that estrid helps mitigate the classical weakness of auras - piling them on and losing them all to removal. not sure about the +2, but it allows the ramp for the deck to be land enchantment based which is nice

[loreleywrites]

Heh it’s a lil drake that brings you mail. (Source)

[kothophed-soul-hoarder]

A+ love it. Happy to see lieutenant back, it’s a great and flavorful mechanic for commander.

[dragongirltitties]

stop telling me you cant doublecast thud i played a chaos deck for 3 years in know my way around obscure rules interactions

[markrosewater]

Hey mark, big fan. As a mostly commander player i've wondered if you guys have considered developing more commander products past just the precons? like maybe a commander set once a year, or another planeschase run?

We have a full calendar, so I’m not sure how many extra Commander products we can fit in. I never say never though.

[doctor-roman]

FIRST COMMANDER PRODUCTS EVERY YEAR

THEN COMMANDER PRODUCTS EVERY MONTH

THEN COMMANDER PRODUCTS EVERY WEEK

UNTIL WE FINALLY REACH COMMANDER PRODUCTS EVERY DAY

[in-response-scoop]

I’m going to nail this post right into Wizard’s front door like it’s 1517.

[oldtumblhurgoyf]

“In four days we could see a commander product every eight hours until they’re coming every four minutes. Lunarch marshal, we should witness a double event within 7 days.”

[arbiteroftheideal]

got back into FNM! drafted a WR aggro deck, which was solid but lighter on removal than i would have liked. i went 1-2, which was frustrating bc the losses were very close - i felt like i should have won the third games, but my opponents managed to pull ahead. altogether i think i played well, and i had a lot of fun!

[markrosewater]

What sort of magic might a red mage use that isn’t related to fire?

Lightning, earth, sound, magma & ash, just off the top of my head.

[dasebeleren]

sound mage planeswalker when

[loreleywrites]

flatumancy

[edh-a-to-z]

Do you take constructive criticism?