Which of Ravnica Allegiance's new commanders will become the most popular?

Ninjutsu for You Everybody loves Ninjas. You loved them in Mortal Kombat. You loved them when you read about them in the Magic Treehouse books (or was that just me?). And you probably loved them when they first appeared in Betrayers of Kamigawa, despite them being criminally under-supported. Their signature mechanic is, of course, Ninjutsu, and this week […]

Growing Under When it comes to building around mechanics, I like the simple ones. Forget that Prowl or Explore nonsense—I want something straightforward. Since we're in Ravnica right now, I think I've got just the thing. This week on Mechanically Minded, let's talk about Undergrowth. A nice, simple, direct mechanic. When you cast a spell or your […]

Getting a Clue The year is 2016. Shadows Over Innistrad spoilers are rolling in. I'm loving all of them. Especially this one: My favorite mechanic from Shadows was (and still is) Investigate. The flavor is sharp, and everyone loves drawing cards, but there's even more to be done with Clues than just cracking them. For those […]

Sweetest Devotion Hello and welcome to the very first edition of Mechanically Minded, the column where we build decks around some of the coolest keyword mechanics in Magic's history. For the inaugural edition of this column, let's explore Banding! Kidding, kidding. For the actual first mechanic, we'll cover Devotion. You'll remember this mechanic most recently from Theros, though […]

Negotiation is for those who don't attack enough. At least that's what Goblin Diplomats think. Today is the sixth (and final?) edition of our EDH Player Psychographic series. We've covered Herm/Hermettes, Turtles, Mackenzies, Barktooths, and Puppet Masters. To round things out, we'll take a look at perhaps the most extreme psychographic there is: the Goblin Diplomat, […]

Like Deja Vu All Over Again Love baseless speculation? Keep reading, pal. It's about to get super baseless up in here. Today, I'll predict the popularity of every new commander from Guilds of Ravnica. (Before reading further, don't forget my 600 article for Commander 2018. Extremely baseless). This plane has given us popular commanders in the past including […]

Turtle Power Every playgroup has one. I'm talking about the player who never attacks. I'm talking about the player who plays  and in every white and/or blue deck. (If not for the color restriction, they'd play them in green, black, and red decks, too.) Every playgroup has one. I'm talking about Turtles. Turtles are the […]

Making a Prophecy I love prophecy. I'm not sure why. I love the prophets and prophetesses of Greek myth. I love when authors foreshadow future events in books. I even love pro football preseason picks (though how accurate are they, really?). All in all, predicting the future is pretty cool. With this series, I'm going […]

Marionettes On a String Manipulation. Deceit. Coercion. Bribery. If these words appeal to you, you might be a Puppet Master. Or maybe a criminal. Or both? In any case, politics are an essential part of every game of EDH. Whenever we play, we make deals, threats, and treaties. But that's just scratching the surface. Being […]