This one looks awesome. All three sets they showed today seemed really cool.

Please do mutate again, I would love to be at a draft enviroment with it!

Wasn't expecting Kamigawa Vs. Ikoria to feel like the weakest of the 3 sets of the year going in.

Officially micro-hyped for them here.
The proof though, as ever, lives in the gameplay so we'll see how it goes.

But as pure aesthetic, they all look good.

This looks pretty dope. Glad to be moving on from all the superhero stuff.

I remember being stoked for MTG Online back in the day because I thought it would mean getting to play with more cards without buying cards all the time cuz it waw a video game. That was really the first kind of Live Service game I remember seeing back then.

wasn't in the cards

Heh.

Proxies rarely change in price... Thankfully.

I was really hoping I'd be able to get my hands on atraxa today. I'd finally build my straight typal angel deck, but it just wasn't in the cards. I'm not too upset about missing it, and unlike many other secret lairs, I'm totally fine with this one being limited.

Those are some expensive proxies.

Wait, I thought they were doing print-to-demand this time? How can they be "gone"?

edit: oh, that's only for the upcoming one. Boo.

And they're gone.

Worth calling out here is the opponent can still sneak/ninjutsu in response if they have another card that can in hand. If you suspect that the opponent plays more than one card with sneak/ninjutsu and has untapped mana, you might want to consider that possibility before targeting the creature.

As an example:

• Opponent declares some creature as an attacker.
• You declare no blockers.
• Opponent casts Michelangelo, returning the attacker to hand, and it resolves.
• You target it with Maze of Ith to remove it from combat. The ability is on the stack, but not yet resolved.
• Opponent casts Donatello, Gadget Master for his sneak cost, returning Michangelo to hand. It resolves.
• Maze of Ith's target is invalid. The ability does nothing.
• Your opponent passes priority, then you pass priority. In the damage step, Donatello deals combat damage to you and triggers.

Basically, during the declare blockers step, sneak/ninjutsu lets you juggle creatures around at instant speed as long as you have the mana.

I love Maze of Ith. One other trick that I learned when I started playing Lands is that there’s still an opportunity to untap your own creature after damage has been dealt as it’s still technically “attacking”:

You can activate Maze of Ith's ability targeting an attacking creature you control during the combat damage step or the end of combat step, even though it will already have dealt combat damage. This will untap the creature. The damage it dealt will be unaffected.

I used this to untap my own Marit Lage token so it can block in my opponent’s turn.

Yes, you can use Maze on Sneak and Ninjutsu creatures after they enter and prevent them from doing combat damage that turn.

Maze of Ith doesn't block or remove from combat, it just stops combat damage, so as I understand it, sneak works as he is unblocked (presuming they didn't also block him, of course.), the combat damage based ability does not as damage was prevented.

Glad I could be of assistance!

Good luck with the deck building.

Thank you pal, this breakdown of plans really helped on how I should think on solving some problems on mono red. Those ideas feel like you have iterated for a while on them, really nice!

If anything, I encourage it. Keep in mind you don't play Imodane until you're about to win. So, kill on sight means instant speed removal. Which, at bracket 3+, your opponents ought to have. During the rule zero discussion, I remind everyone why she's kill on sight. If the pod's not comprehending or just not ready to play at that level, I put her away & play something else.

One my favorite games of all time was the one where all 3 opponents actually listened and each of them held up on a single target removal spell. We went around the table for 3 turns in a row with me doing 'the thing', only for one of them to stop me.

Sadly, there's far too many games where I win, then have to explain the math two more times.

Funny how much more concise the effect becomes with more modern templating.

...you may have target player mill a card.

I could work on getting the deck list if that is something you are interested in.

There are a few extra combat effects like Bloodthirster or Port Razer to get more triggers of Calamity.

I run a decent amount of cards that untap/gain control/ grant haste like conscripts. They are good at removing blockers, untapping Calamity for the above additional combats, or granting haste to a big creature that I might drop onto the board.

With these conscript style creatures I can reuse creatures with tap effects like Jaxis, Krenko, Mob Boss, and Heartless Hidetsugu. Jaxis filters cards in hand, Krenko lets me go wide, and Hidetsugu can let me quarter life totals out of nowhere.

The cmc run a bit high on creatures, so I supplement the early game with adventure cards like Fang Dragon, Grabby Giant, and Two-Headed Hunter. They are not super big creatures, but if I get two of them from Calamity they are enough to apply pressure.

Herigast, Erupting Nullkite is a great option for using the tokens post combat to be able to drop a bigger creature for cheap or recast my commander after it has been hit with some removal.

Calamity is another red commander I have seen a few times and thought of building it. That Jaxis plan sounds neat, will give it a try as a commander.

What finishers do you like to run for calamity/Jaxis? Something like a phyrexian triniform/ Triplicate Titan? Or some other level of violence like terror of the peaks?

Jaya Ballard itches my hipster scratch, will definitely take a look. Imodane is turbo kill on sight, isn't it? How have you managed that?

I actually use her as one of the 99 in my Calamity, Galloping Inferno deck. Mostly using her as a way to pitch late game lands into usable creatures and also drawing a card off of them.

So an example of play with her would be to pay a red and pitch a card I don't need, create a copy of something like Zealous Conscripts to untap her, repeat as needed to remove dead draws, and eventually take away a blocker with the last copy or target a fatty. After that move to combat and draw a card for each copy that was created when it dies at end of turn. If I have a sac outlet like Ashnod's Altar or the like then you could even sacrifice the tokens on main phase 2 for both the card draw and mana. Alternatively Sundial of the Infinite on end phase keeps the draw trigger on the token while avoiding the sacrifice delayed trigger.

I'll go ahead & propose [[Jaya Ballard, Task Mage]]. Her abilities do not directly connect to [[Tormenting Voice]], but because they all require you to discard a card, the deck I built ends up with a lot of card draw for a Mono Red deck. Link below, might help you find similar cards you like.

https://moxfield.com/decks/22OGyesUsk25N2imX1JiKA

As a second option, have you looked at [[Immodane, the Pyrohammer]]? Much faster deck for when you want a quicker game. Just remove the [[Blood Moon]] if you want to run in bracket 3.

https://moxfield.com/decks/IDBXvzYTHUy_2RZWiDPQuQ

Solphim, Mayhem Domino's Burn is my end-of-night quick game deck, with lots of AOE damage and cards to keep the game flowing. Descent into Avernus is lots of fun for everyone :)