Limited Resources 847 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Sunset Show

What is up everybody? Welcome to another episode of Limited Resources. This episode number 847. My name is Marshall. I'm one of your limited resources and joining me on the line all the way from Denver, Colorado, it's Louis Scott Vargas. Louis, we're going to say goodbye to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles today. I already did. It's been in my review mirror for weeks. Well, I will say that, you know, I've talked about this before, but like between the cube drafts that I just do on a normal week and the fact that like I've really gotten to like slay the spire or various other games at the, you know, once upon a galaxy, that sort of thing. If the limited, if the current limited format is not one I'm really vibing with, I, you know, I'm not going to like play tons of it past that point and Turtles definitely has gotten pushed out by the combination of slay arena cubes back up like once upon a galaxy like so. I think it's good that we're doing the sunset show, but yeah, I already, it has been dismissed already. Yeah. And, you know, we're going to get to answer some of the questions that we had about both Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles specifically, but also more broadly, the smaller sets now that we've had two of them, Spider-Man and this one, we had our concerns and we had our, you know, questions going into the format. And I think we have our answers now, which is kind of interesting. And that's what we're going to talk about on the show today. As we say goodbye to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles before we do want to say thank you to everybody who supports us over on Patreon. It's patreon.com slash limited resources. If you'd like to support us and of course our support from ultimate guard, you can check them out for all of the best products to take care of your cards, your decks and your collection, whether you're actively playing sleeves, play mats, whether you're organizing your cards into deck boxes and stuff to get ready for a tournament or a hangout with friends, or even your entire collection where you need to organize things into binders so that you can find them and protect them. Ultimate Guard has options for you across the board. They use premium materials and really well thought out designs with cool designs on them too. I mean, you can get like straight up just colors if that's what you like, but you can get a lot of different IPs. They have square rows over there too, which borrow from other IPs and kind of create this cool deck box that is the vibe of maybe something else that you're into. You can find it all over at their website, ultimate guard.com. And if you want to buy something, you can get it from your favorite online retailer or local game store. Thank you, Ultimate Guard. Thank you. I think we do appreciate it. One of the benefits that you get for being a Patreon supporter of ours, there are quite a few actually, you get to watch the show live as it's recorded. You also get a behind the scenes look depending on what level you're at. And one of the things that's open to anybody who's a Patreon supporter of ours is the Patreon question of the week. This one comes from Gus who says, Hey guys, there are a few words you all use to describe cards that I think we all intuitively understand, but I'd love to hear unpacked a little. I love where this is going. Yeah. What makes a card sweet when a card is stupid rather than busted is broken a third category in that realm? Anyways, love the show. Great question, Gus. You know, this is one of those things that is something that I've had to think about a lot as both the co-host of this show and also my role at the Pro Tour as the commentator, which is on one hand, we want to make sure that anybody finding our podcast or finding the competitive side of the game at the Pro Tour doesn't feel overwhelmed by the vernacular. Right. You walk in and it doesn't sound like we're speaking English with all the slang terms. We have all the references, all the things that you need to know the history. And we don't want that to be a deterrent from somebody getting into the game. But there is another side of that coin, which is one of the really great things about magic and the magic community is exactly that. We have a certain way that we talk. There's correlations that we can make that if you've been here, if you understand, it can help explain something better than just the plain old English language that we use every day on the show. So it's always interesting to try to walk that line of making sure that people still can come into the fold, but also not giving up what it is that makes one of the things that makes our community cool, which is the way that we talk. How would you break it down, Louise? Like, you know, when we say a card is sweet, that doesn't mean that doesn't even necessarily mean good at all. Right. Usually it does have at least a vibe of good, but it does not mean that it's one of the best cards in the set when we use that word, for example. Yeah, sweet usually means it like draws cards or does something cool. Yeah, it does imply that there is like some amount of like power in the card, because like we're not talking a card might be cool, but really terrible. We're not usually going to describe it as sweet. So but it's also like more interesting than that. So this is a good question because like Ponder is not a sweet card, you know. Remand is not a sweet card. They're both pretty powerful cards. I would say that like stock up is a pretty sweet card, though. Stock up is, you know, it's both powerful and doesn't could card draw stuff like that. Yeah, I think that a card is stupid if the like part of why when I use a card stupid is like the play pattern is stupid, which is not exactly again, power level, but can't is correlated with it. So an example of a card that is maybe kind of stupid is like like Thalia is kind of a stupid card because it's like when it's working, it's like this game is annoying, you know. So there they're and we also do use it, though, on the broken busted stupid, right? Like, you know, like there's a card that we're going to talk about on the sunset show, Sally Pride. And I would definitely quote myself as saying this card is just stupid. Like, yeah, it's so overpowered. That like we like how would you rank busted, broken and stupid? Like on that continuum, busted is the best or busted and broken are basically the same thing. Like I use those pretty much interchangeably. And then stupid is like really good, but also like kind of dumb, like how it plays out. Like really stupid, right. Busted and broken and stupid. Like all those cards are the same. I whereas like Black Lotus is broken, but it's also sweet. It is and it's not stupid. No, you can't you can't say that. No, not at all. I would never say that. Yeah, that's great. We should do a glossary at some point so that we can use all our terms and still have people be able to figure out what the heck we're saying. But yeah, great question, Gus. I love stuff like that. Before we get into the sunset show, let us do one last teenage mutant ninja turtles crack a pack. Although it is kind of interesting, Louise, because I've actually been playing more sealed. You know, we had a two winter boxes like really close together. And then there was also the qualifier thing. I didn't play in that, but I did play in in the collector box winter box. And then this last weekend, I played a good amount of the normal the play booster box winter boxes as well. So it's a lot of sealed. Yeah, I was going to say one of the things I have really liked about this like last stretch this last year or whatever is it feels like there's a pretty cool, pretty sweet arena tournament to play in a lot of the weeks. I do think that some of the the winter boxes, the arena directs, it does behoove you to do a little bit of research. Like, look, if you're Marshall, you're just going to play whichever one shows up in the client and he doesn't care about the EV or nor will ever sell the boxes. That's totally. You do that if you're a listener who wants to maybe cares about the, you know, maximizing how much money you're spending and getting back from this stuff. They will just run arena direct and then three weeks later, run arena direct that is like 20 percent more value. So you really actually should pay a little attention to that. For me, it's just do I want to play the format or not? If I do want to play the format, I'll usually play it. But I do appreciate that there's some cool action every weekend. Yeah, I think that that's been a nice one. Yeah, for me, you know, it whenever these come up, I'm interested in them because I get to play for something. Right. It feels more special than just doing a regular draft for some gems or whatever. And, you know, you've played in a ton of PTs, you've won them. Like you have played a lot of, you know, the highest stakes competitive magic that we have available. But, you know, it's funny because like right when I was starting to travel for GPs is when I started doing coverage. And then I kind of made the decision to go towards the coverage route rather than keep trying to play. Because, you know, I knew I didn't have some like, you know, bright future on the the magic pro tour. And also I was already like a full grown adult at that time. So it wasn't really in my purview to say like, I'm just going to stop everything at 34 years old or whatever and go try to be a pro magic player. That was never really even my goal. That's why you never succeeded at it. Yep. I mean, maybe. Yeah, that's what we'll say. But the thing is I really liked playing in those tournaments and I liked playing for more. And I feel like over my life, I haven't got enough of it, you know, so whenever anything comes up, I'm like, I'm in. Even if it's just for boxes that and Louis is right. I hate selling stuff. It's just like I hate the process. I hate having to figure it out. I always second guess myself and be and I'm like, could I have gotten more? Like I just when really I should just hit whatever button I need to hit and get it out of my house. But I'm just so terrible and I'll just put it off and stick them in a closet and whatever. And so I yeah, I would trade in the boxes that they send. Like if they could just like quote me a price, even if it wasn't very good, I'd probably just take it to like not have to have the extra because I'm so bad at it, Louis. Like seriously, it's like a major kryptonite. Anyway, you don't have to convince me. Yeah, I'm sure you're the same. But anyway, what I was saying is I haven't actually drafted this set in a little while because once the cube came back on Tuesday, I'm like, I'm in. I'm not drafting the set. And this will be interesting to see our first card up is Raphael Tough Turtle. That's the one three for one in a red and it pings them whenever creature. E.T.B.s. It's all right. But it's fine. Yeah. Then there's starting, certainly. Yeah, then there's mutant town, the blue, green gain land. I really like gain lands, but I'm not in the habit of first picking them. That's not really this format did support the four to five color deck. So this is a useful card, but you don't need to first pick it. Next card's nice manhole missile. The one in red does three to a creature and you can put a card on the bottom of your library and draw a card to the card. It's very good. Sure. Right. Next is Zog Triceraton Castaway. That's the red mountain cycler. It's four in red for a five, four reach trample. When it enters Tariq creature, can't block this turn. You can mount and cycle it for two. I was actually surprised that the land cyclers didn't end up being as good as I thought they were going to be, despite actually looking pretty good. I know they keep pushing them and they didn't need it. They used to not need to do that at all. Like it was just if it was a warm body at five or six mana and a lands like cycler, you're like, yep, you know, throw it. Now it's been a long time since that's been the case. And even these relatively pushed ones were still just kind of like, yeah, OK. Next up, pretty good one. Uneasy Alliance, the the pacifism pacifism style effect. And it's it's key because it's in white, you know, and and white black. As we'll talk about a little bit, ended up being the best deck by a fair bit. Yeah, I think that you could take the manhole missile or uneasy alliance. But you should probably take uneasy alliance. It's a I think a slightly better card in a better color. So they're close, though. Right. It's just so much like the problem is, is that if you end up in red and you're not red, white, then you're red, blue, and that's a good deck. But and manhole missile goes in it. Don't get me wrong. But uneasy alliance goes so well into the assertive, aggressive strategy from black, white, looking to get creatures through and then take advantage of sneak where blue, red does need these cheap removal spells, but they can't capitalize on it quite as hard. It buys them more time to set up, you know, some critical, massive artifacts or pay off or something like that. So I just lean over to the uneasy alliance a little bit more. And wow, next card up is anchovian banana pizza. Another very good removal spell. That's the two black, black artifact food. And when it is easy to destroy a creature, and of course, you can food it for three life. I like this one because I like making it so my career of commestibles can go get a murder. I like drafting the kind of food deck. I think it is worse than uneasy alliance, though. I think we'd be. I think so, too. But it is more versatile, like you said, it does go into some other archetypes that I prefer. Next up is retro mutation. This is the two in a blue flash and chant creature that makes it a one turtle that can't attack and loses all abilities. It can block over once. Yeah, I mean, it's a it's a decent removal spell for blue, but it's worse than kind of all the other removal options that we've got here. That's right. Next up is foot ninjas. This is the four and two black, two white or black white for a five five with sneak three in a black white hybrid and when it E.T.B. you gain three life cards. All right. You know, it's kind of one of those ones that like at six mana, you're not thrilled, but it's playable and four mana sneak. You're not thrilled, but it's playable. So it ends up, you know, making it into the deck, no problem. But there are better options for both high end and sneak. Yeah. I mean, I guess we're still on an easy alliance here. Yeah, I would probably take anchovies and banana pizza. You would take anchovies and banana pizza. It goes in the same deck and it's fine. And it also opens the door for me to do things that are a lot more fun than play the sneak deck. Last common is tender eyes. That's the the instant speed bite for one in a green. Good. Yeah. I mean, another decent removal spell. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, there's some good amount of death touchers in the format that makes tender eyes even better. You know, your frog butlers and your squirrel anoints do really well with tender eyes. Uncommon's first one up is the neutrinos, which is two red, white for a two four flying with whenever another creature enters, it gets plus and plus. So until I have turned and then this is a weird ability. Whenever the neutrinos attack exile up to one target creature you own, then return it to the battlefield under your control, tapped and attacking. So it's a it's a weird one, but, you know, any E.T.B.s it can really take advantage of. It can also unlock creatures from things like uneasy alliance and retro mutation. Yeah, I had neutrinos as the card I have to read every time. Yeah. I don't I am unaware of that particular rules text being on anything else. It is a weird one. Good card, though. Next up is turtle layer. This is an uncommon land taps for colorless or one man of any color, but you can only spend it spend it to cast a turtle or ninja spell. But it also has what ends up being a pretty dang important activated ability which is three tap target ninja or turtle can't be blocked this turn. And there's no restriction on the size of it. You know, usually when you have this, it's like our creature with power to or less can't be blocked. No, if you have a five power turtle, pay three tap this and that thing's getting through. Yeah, I mean, the turtle layer. I have definitely lost games. I thought I was going to win. Same to that card. Same. I respect it. And you know, you can't just use the turtle. Same. I respect it. And you do need to make sure that you have enough to spend on that middle mana ability so it's not just a straight up colorless land. That is a little bit too high of a price to pay, I think. But, you know, if you have some amount of ninjas and or turtles, which most decks do, this is a small set. And that's, you know, two of them. There's like mutants. Well, I guess mutants, ninjas and turtles are the probably the three most common things. Next step is I think I would call it an over performer. It's ooze spill, one blue, blue instant counter target spill, create a mutagen token. Card actually did really well in the format. Better, better than I would have thought coming in. It's good, right? Counterspell plus a material. It's also relevant for, you know, the blue red deck that this goes right into, etcetera, but even then mutagen tokens. You know, I value them. They matter. But I would not have assumed that ooze spill would be put kind of over the top into the really good uncommon category because of it. But it was. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. I wasn't really on my radar so much either. Yeah. Two rares this time, Louise. They're both good. First one up is Madam Null. power broker. This is the two in a black one three death touch. And whenever another creature, etvs under your control, you can pay life equal to its power to give it that many plus one, plus one counters. This is one of the scariest things to see on turn three, because oh, yeah, the next two plays, they will pay the life. And if they particularly are three power or above, you are getting hammered. I mean, if their next play is literally just a three, three, it's a six six. And then the next one, if it's just a vanilla three, three, it's another six six. And there are not many decks that can cope with that much pressure that quickly. Because remember, you also still have to kill Madam. No, like you don't want to just leave that sitting there. And then what you need two more removal spells for their random common three drop that happened to have three power. That is a recipe to win the game quite easily. And then also they really could have like they could have made this a one one death touch, and it still would have been good. And it's a one three. Like it actually blocks a lot of stuff. And when it comes to the point of the game where you're like, OK, I've spent too much life, like we're stable. I can't really do it. You can trade it off. Like you can block, you know, whatever with it in trade. Course works well, tenderizing stuff to really good card. Yeah, this card is like if you if you don't if you don't do something immediately, you're going to lose really badly, really badly to normal stuff, too. That's the thing. They don't need anything special, just creatures. So this would definitely be my pick at this point. But we've got another rare. It's Don and Leo problem solvers. This is the three blue, blue or three white or three blue, white, four, six vigilance. And at the beginning of your end step, exile up to one target artifact you control and up to one target creature you control, then return them to the battlefield under their owner's control. So you get to blink an artifact and or creature. And that is amazing. I mean, in this pack, we have anchovies and banana pizza. So that's a machine that if left unchecked, completely dominates. And then, you know, there's tons of creatures that have E.T.B.s. Heck, you can just use it to untapped the dang things. Yeah, I would definitely take this. This is a sick build around. Nice little rare to start out with. Definitely sweet, by the way, for Gus. Don and Leo problem solvers. Sweet. This is an insane pack to end on, though. Holy smokes. I mean, we got we got to Madame Noel with one card left and we still took the other. Yeah, no, no, that's that's really something that is legit. OK, let's get into the end of the sunset shows. It can be an interesting one, I think, especially because it's been a while, Louis, since I think I had so many preconceived notions about a set. You know, I'm you always make fun of me because I'm like kind of out of the loop on what the set is until it's right upon. And this one. And this one, I I had my opinions going in. So with that in mind, the biggest picture question that we start off with is if you could summarize the set in one sentence, what would it be? Not so bad after all. Yeah, that's a very that is by fate, praise, you know, that that does, though, you know, sum it up really well. I said proves the concept of a small set being draftable, but still worse than a big set. And that really is kind of what my biggest takeaway, like, non specific to the cards. But, you know, one of the questions that we had coming in and that we talked about in the preamble for the show there, you know, is. We hated Spider-Man. Is that because it's a small set or and or because it was poorly designed in our opinion? And I think that the answer that we have now is that it's because it was poorly designed, but not just because it was a small set, although. And because my takeaway from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is that this was a very well designed set. You could tell that there was care put into these cards, the designs. This had a very different feel from a design standpoint than Spider-Man did. But these small set restrictions very much played out how we talked about before the set came out, Louise, with it having a much shorter runway than a normal set with it feeling more constricted during the draft because of the only five and we'll call it six. But really kind of rounds back down to five, because one of the archetypes didn't do very well at any rate, five-ish archetypes supported with the rest basically being left gone. And I felt that I did. I mean, this set just didn't have the runway that a normal set would have for me. Yeah, I agree. Like I when you said, did you like it because it was poorly or we did not like it because it was poorly designed or because it was a small set? My answer of yes, was actually my actual answer, which is those are both reasons. It's more as we have as we've seen with turtles, the design does matter a lot. And Spider-Man was poorly designed and turtles is not poorly designed, but a small set is not an upside. And I think it's a downside from the perspective of of a limited player. I agree. And I think that that's, you know, the really big takeaway. We'll talk about that more when we do the kind of recap. What did we learn from it? But let's get into actual turtle stuff here. What turned out to be the best archetypes? Well, there was one head and shoulders above the rest and it was black, white, sneak. That was the best supported of the supported archetypes. As it turned out, blue, red, blue, white and red, white also were all good. They did good. They were thumbs up. They were they were fine. Blue, green, bad. Yeah. All the unsupported archetypes, very bad. And but the maybe beacon of hope or something was the five color deck. It was actually really good. Like if you put that deck together, it was one of the best decks you could get. Yeah, I think I think so. So that's cool. I mean, I think go ahead, Luis. I was just going to say, I think that the there there really just was a pretty big I felt like a gap between black, white and a lot of what else was going on. Yeah, for sure. I mean, black, white had that rare combination of power level plus depth that allowed it to support multiple drafters. You know, we saw this with black, green elves in Lorwin Eclipse, for example. This felt a lot like that. And it also, by the way, held that crown that doesn't always happen of being both the most drafted and the best performing archetype, which, you know, that is that to me is yet another sign when you see that. And we again, going back to Lorwin Eclipse as well, that also focused on five archetypes that the self correcting nature of draft is having a hard time correcting if there's only four other options to go to versus if there would be nine other, you know, things to kind of fill in those gaps and equalize things out. That said, black, white didn't run away with it. It wasn't broke. It wasn't one of those ones where we're just like, this is stupid. I don't want to play this. It just was the best deck and it and you saw it the most. But again, that was the same thing as black, green elves in Lorwin Eclipse. And that didn't ruin that format either. It just was the best deck. But yeah, the coolest thing, though, was definitely the five color deck. That that ended up being very real. There was a lot of cards that went in it that other archetypes didn't want. So you kind of got them. And then, you know, the the card we'll talk about a little. In fact, we'll talk about it right now. Everything pizza, which cards were you most wrong about during the set reviews? In this case, we did a set primer for the show, or maybe just cards that really surprised us and everything pizza was like, wow, this is even better than we thought it could be. Yeah, it did that card. I do not realize how good, cool and load bearing that card was going to be. Like I was hoping it would be good or at least cross that threshold into I don't feel terrible for trying this and then it just being straight up good. Yeah, I mean, it's the sort of thing where like. You it's an argument for one cool card can really have a huge disproportionate even on a draft. It's and that is what what everything pizza did. Like really the addition of that card made me like this for like a significant amount more. It's really interesting. It makes me wonder what the characteristics of a card like that are. Like my assumption is that it has to be colorless, like to have this big of an impact. But maybe not. But I completely agree. It's so crazy how much better this format is just for that card's presence. Like I think you could make a good argument that that everything pizza kind of saved the the format because if it really was just black, white, and then the other three archetypes that were pretty good, the blue, red, blue, white, right, white, red and then kind of nothing at all and nothing interesting also beyond that. That would have been a lot rougher than, hey, there's the dream and the dream is real. Like you don't have to feel dumb for going for five color pizza deck. Like it actually worked. So yeah, great card, everything pizza. And it will definitely be the card that I think about when I think back to this set. Yeah, for sure. Headliner easily. Yeah. What were some of the underrated cards? One of them that came to mind for me was was turtle layer, the land that we just talked about because, you know, at least when I read it, my brain kind of shortcut to, OK, it's one of those lands that like cares about certain specific things. Those usually don't get over the line. And then it has an expensive, activated ability that is only good in certain scenarios, like if there's a board stall or if you're racing and you can just squeak out the last bit of damage. I don't really rate either of those very highly, but the thing I didn't realize were there are tons of turtles and ninjas. So it was actually really common to find those and the lack of restriction on anything about the card, whether, you know, whatever power level it had, meant that it was actually really good at breaking up those stalls or enabling a game plan around just one creature hitting twice or something like that. So those were that that was one of the cards that came to mind for me. For me, Weathermaker, it looked like a manorock and it just ended up being like an incredibly good card. I it's to the point where like one of my opponent played on a turn that's like, oh, my God, this is going to be tough. Totally. It's so good. I mean, we have a category that we put in recently about cards that Louise has an eye for a cube, but I'm going to ask him about Weathermaker and that one because I I don't know if it's too slow for cube. But dang, this thing's powerful. And this is without fetches. Like this is, you know, we're getting multiple land drops and it turns really hard. And, you know, in cube, that is not the case. So yeah, I totally agree. And Weathermaker is a card I have a ton of respect for. I it has to fit in some some cube or constructed or something. Right. It's just too good. What was your what card had your favorite artwork? So it's actually the alternate art for Super Shredder by Inuchiyo Maimaru. I just think it's cool. And that's that's the one I play with in cube now. OK, hold on. I got to look this up because I'm not I don't know the. OK, so there's this one, which is already really cool. Yeah, I know. I like the Super Shredder where it starts. But yeah. And your favorite one. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, no, I think it looks cool. That's that's yeah, he looks I'm not going to swear. But he looks awesome. My favorite one was the last Ronan by Hock Young Kim. And is that because you had this card in your hand a lot? Because yeah, right, I wish I had it like twice ever. I I'm a big sucker for the saga style art where the artist is kind of challenged to a. At least show something of the story, either the three acts as as as they're often templated or maybe the final act, something like that. But in this narrow vertical space that isn't the normal box. And I thought that that one was was really well done. Like it jumped off the page to me. And that's really hard to do in such a tiny little area. So I thought that the technical skill shown was really, really good. And then it just looks sweet, too. And I wouldn't mind having that card in my hand. That was one interesting thing. I don't know if we have anywhere to talk about it in the sunset, Luis, but I did want to bring up to you was that it did feel like there was a few types of cards that you didn't see that often in the set that that I think played well, which was like there was only the one on common counterspell. There was no like common two man of counter or anything like that. And then there was a general lack of sweepers outside of the last Ronan. Like that's why it was so good. It's like nobody you just didn't have to worry about sweepers in this format. What was the set that we played edge of eternities? Is that the one that had like like five or something? Yeah, like that. It was a ridiculous amount. I remember that. Exactly. And this was the opposite. And I have to say it was nice. Like I kind of like the idea of letting people cook a little bit with what they've, you know, I'm trying to set up this thing. I also think it does take a little bit of the pressure off of some of the critical mass style decks, which I think is a good thing. This did suffer a bit here, but what were the best build around cards in the set? I mean, everything pizza is the shining pizza was a big part of that, I think. But after that, it got a little rough. I mean, we had like brilliance unleashed, but that just kind of went into the blue red deck, you know, it wasn't hard to build around. One, one, I will say there was one that I found and I got to do just the one time and I faced it a couple of times and I was always like, yeah, I see what you're doing. And that was on the bonus sheet. So it wasn't part of the actual set, but it was teleportation circle, which is three in a white and you can blink a thing on your end step. And I skeptically put that into a deck that had like five different things that would do something, you know, the peak was maybe not the peak, but the thing that I did the most often that was the most impactful was the pizza, a banana and anchovy pizza that, you know, similar combo to what we talked about with Don and Raf. It's gnarly, like really, really nasty. But, you know, even something like what's it called, you know, the one in a red, white that makes a one one and then makes another token, like just getting an extra token every turn added up. You I didn't find that I needed to do too much as long as I had some type of good top end for it. And that was a card that I found myself wishing was in the actual set. Like, I think that would have been really cool. Yeah, I never got a chance to have it work, but I would say that the average set teleportation circle is going to be pretty good. And they just make a lot of ETPs. They do. Yeah. And even though you have to pay a lot, you know, four mana to get that thing down, it does pretty pretty good. What were what card still looks good when you read it, but it just doesn't really see play. For me, it was Renet temporal apprentice. This is the three blue blue or three flash that an ETP bounces every other creature played this turn or I think it may even be permanent. I had two and one of the Winner Box sealed and it was just like, wow, this card really is not that good. It's weird, right? It's just kind of a shame, you know. Yeah, I think like was the joke on it to like let somebody sneak and then play it and like. Basically, they end up with both of the creatures in hand and they never got to hit you. Like, was that what they were going for with this? I don't I don't know, honestly. Like, I don't really know what their what their plan is. That's a great answer, though. I felt the same way. The other one that came to mind for me was hench bots. That's the four mana to three and it gets rid of a tap creature until it leaves play. You know, I read that and I'm like, OK, fine. It's not, you know, it's not an oblivion ring with legs or whatever. But like that should do stuff, right? And it just didn't perform. Maybe it is because of the ETPs in the set where like you're the one who's actually taking the risk, right? You're like, OK, bounce your thing that ETPs and then or not bounce it, but, you know, exile it and then they kill the hench bots and they get it again. And now you're just I think the tap creature part killed it. Like that's too big of a restriction. There's just too many times when it's just like, oh, yeah, this isn't going to do anything. It's not going to be good, you know. Yeah. Sad hench bots. Was this a prince or a popper set? I said it was popper ish, but the rears were good. Like they were good. We see you rares, but it's still a popper set. Yeah, I agree. What's the it's a bad card, but I love it anyway. Award winner. I love me a crustacean command. The three that makes him you didn't I just like trinkety little things. If you remember how much I liked Brothers War, it was because like the theme of that was like like idiotic little trinkets. I just really like that stuff. Yeah, crustacean commando. It's two permanents for only two mana. Like what could go wrong for me? I might have to have you do earmuffs for this one, Louise, because I don't want to hurt your feelings, but it's Donatello's technique. Yeah. You know, divination just isn't what it used to be. Even when it sometimes costs one, but then the additional cost of your creatures. So yeah, not a great card, but I really I just I cannot like it's like, you know, flirting with ancestral recall, right? It's instant speed ish for one mana, two cards like. Yeah, it's just carrying a lot of weight. I can see a constellation forming. Never never quite comes together for Donatello's technique, but I will never quit you. The I literally never went with it, but it always seems to beat me. A card, what was that for you? We nut the battle on the belfry. That's the like one, two flying that like it doesn't even have one. Well, it can get it can get Hays flying. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. OK, it's always flying when it's attacking me. I'll tell you that. Yeah, that is the go to. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I just not a very appealing card, but it certainly did demolish me plenty. Yeah. For me, it was cool, but rude. Do you remember that one, Luis? That's the red one. Reds, the the level up card, the the talent cycle, which I guess that they don't call those that class class class. Class, that's what it was. Yeah, because that's the whole the first cycle was Storm Chaser's talent or whatever. Or at least that was the cycle in Bloomberg. Yeah, no, I guess they started in AFR. So any case, yes, I do remember that card. That's like the one where like, whatever you discard a card deals to damage, that sort of thing. Yeah. You have to read all these cards. It's impossible to know what they do. Yeah, that is it. The base level is whenever you attack, you can rummage and then you can one in a red to level it up and whenever you discard a card, it does two damage to the opponent. And then it has a really weird level three where you pay for you get a card from your library into your hand and then you discard a card at random. So it's like, you know, it's you don't end up up a card, but you might get to keep the one that you got, you know, who knows? But most of the time, people just level it up once when they played it. And I mean, I think the card's really bad. But if you are drafting a slow deck, if you're drafting a ramp deck, if you're trying to do everything pizza and you're kind of taking your time and you're willing to take some hits, this thing can actually add up and they can get you for a good chunk of damage to kind of finish you off. Regardless, it makes it so that there could be a situation where you need to remove literally every creature they play and you can't do that at some point. And and you and I've lost to it. Yeah. And I've never won with the dang thing because I don't play it. All right. What was the my opponent play this? So now I must win or quit magic forever card. It's funny because for me, it's turtle power. And I had a game where I think they would have beat me if they just used turtle air every turn, but they got into that trap, you know, where it's like they they could use it or they could cast a spell and they chose to cast a spell. So then they were like a couple turns away from killing me. But then every turn you don't use it means they're not getting that much closer to killing me, which means that next time they kind of have to play a spell instead of using it. It's an interesting cycle to get into. But yes, you have to be decisive to lose to turtle power. And I did not luckily. Yeah. For me. And I know for you too, Luis, it's on your list was hard one. Jitte. It gives a creature double strike. It's an equipment that gives a creature double strike, but that is a lot to pay man wise and card wise to give one of your creatures a benefit like double strike, which can be powerful. Don't get me wrong. But what this card really does. And this is why I have it here. Is it makes your opponents removal better? Basically, you're saying, I have a threat that matters. My opponent can remove it, or I can pay another card and extra mana to make my threat better. And then when they do remove it, I'm the one who's out all of this extra tempo. And, you know, Luis and I were talking just earlier in this show about the land cycle is right. Well, why are they not as good as they used to be? And the reason is, is because most cards do more things earlier. And so the cost of paying two mana to cycle and get a basic land into your hand has gone up. The tempo matters more on board matters more. This isn't, you know, one of the fastest sets or anything, but every set has that pressure attached to it now. And that means that if you're going to say, cast my hard one, Jitte, equip it. My ear opponent goes cool, kill your creature. And then you're like, all right, equip it over here. Like you're burning all of those cycles that if your opponent isn't, makes it really hard for you to actually win the game. So don't play that card. There is another Jitte in the set, and I highly recommend that you play that card, however, but it's on the bonus sheet. What was the biggest grown test for this set? For me, one of them was Agent Bishop. That's the Tamiana one, two double Lumenar, because it's like it's the sort of card where you don't lose on the spot. It's not like they played like a Sally Field or like a Triceratops Commando where it's like, OK, I'm dead, you know, easy enough. You they play Agent Bishop and you're like, OK, I'll take some damage. And then maybe you kill it and they put the counters on two other creatures and you still end up losing most of those games. Yes, maybe you can't kill it and then you just get buried. And either way, it's like, oh, it's just feel so bad trying to fight out of that, even if like you're not really you're not really losing to it like immediately in that sense. Totally. And, you know, it's interesting because, you know, when we think of grown test, we're not just talking about the best card. Of course you go, OK, you had Sally Pride, right? But we're talking about the ones that really make you go, oh, no. And Agent Bishop is absolutely that because it comes down so early. And another card that has a very similar effect on me, at least at this point, but comes down two turns before that are Dream Beavers. Like that's exactly that's perfect. Dream Beavers is like a perfect example of this because it's like you're like, oh, no, they're going to turn to a Roku sake. Like it's just this is going to go from bad to worse. And you feel so far behind on turn one. And Dream Beavers, by the way, is a bomb level card in this set. Yeah, totally. One of the highest win rate black cards in the entire set. Exactly. And another one for a slightly different reason and maybe not quite as potent, but still quite good is a leather head where if you are playing the removal style deck, leather heads to five four that comes with a like what's it called? That card in a rena cube today. Oh, really? OK. And it's five or triple. It has a hexproof counter. And when you hit them, you can remove the hexproof counter to blow up an artifact or enchantment of theirs. Right. But what they usually do is kill your creature and attack you. And you're staring down at your banana and anchovy pizza and you can't do anything about the stupid leather head because they won't remove that counter unless it's really hitting something good. And even then they can put other counters on it and remove those. Like if your opponent ever starts putting plus one, plus one counters on leather head, it gets ugly fast because your blocking gets bad and it can be really difficult to come back from. So that's definitely another type of grown test because I have the answer in my hand and I can't do anything about it. And then what's our last one here? Swamp Stalker? What is that one again? Oh, that's just I don't know. You put it on the list. No, I'm stupid. That that's Leatherheads. What? Oh, I see. That's his title. That's amazing. Totally killed myself. I can't believe it. Swamp Stalker really sounds like a man. In fact, is it a magic? It sounds like a card. I'm going to look actually. Oh, God, it just showed me Leatherhead. Whatever. Whatever. What cards? Oh, yeah. Here we are. Louise, what cards do you have your eye on for cube? I mean, there's there's actually a pretty decent amount of cube additions here. Like mutagen man living ooze. That's the green green X two, three that makes X mutagens and makes them zero to use that turn. That card's actually really cool. It I haven't had it do too much in terms of like it does actually make your clues cheaper to crack and that sort of thing. OK, yeah. What other? But mostly it's like it's a decent play on two to six mana works really nicely with Nadu, like it's cool in that deck. OK, it just does some cool stuff. Does machines is actually one I like a lot. The the saga that you like mill to draw to discard to and then you pay two mana level it up, get two artifacts back and then you pay five mana turns into a tetherette emblem, which is pretty cool. Super Shredder has been awesome. That's the one in a black one, one menace that whenever any permanent leaves the battlefield to get a plus and plus on counter, Super Shredder wasteland is now a three three, you know, lighting bolt your guy and then crack a fetch line now with a three three. It's it. I've had it be like seven, seven, eight, eight pretty quickly. That's impressive. And your opponent plays fetches and it's going wow. Michelangelo weirdness to eleven. That's the one in a green one one that comes with a mutagen. And then when you doubles all counters placed on your creatures, pretty nice with mutagen man, and it's just like there's a lot of plus and plus one counters kind of floating around. So it works out pretty nicely. Also, I just a card that makes another card, you know, often is worth is worth doing looking at at least like turn two, Michelangelo turn three, gut or bombardier sack the mutagen token is awesome. And then agent Bishop is definitely definitely been good enough. April, Neil Hactivist, the three in a blue one five, the end of your turn, you draw a card for each card type you cast this turn, you know, turn three, play mocks, play her draw two cards and it turns really nice. Yeah. So there's some cool stuff. Crang, the the nine nine flying haste, trample, indestructible, makes all your other artifacts, creatures do that. That's a good tinker target. Uh-huh. Oh, yeah, that's cool. That's a that's a maybe win the game in two turns. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Yeah. So there's some cool stuff here. So no weathermaker. Too expensive. No, I have not tried it. I definitely could try it, but I it hasn't been. I'm not convinced. I was more just curious. I wouldn't advocate because it is expensive. Like, and there already are a few mana rocks that do quite a bit more right away, which is usually the name of the game in cube and they're not even. Amazing, you know, in cube. So it might be difficult, but I don't know, maybe for the landfall deck, it's cool or something. I don't know. There's got to be something there. Um, what was the most frustrating bad card? Air quotes, bad card to lose to what card do you not missplaining? Or maybe just annoyed you. Uh, the April reporter of the Weeder, the two to blue, the two to when it hits them, you draw cards into its power than discarded card. So bad. It's mostly that like when this card is in play, I always feel like I have to leave like so much back to block because I really don't want to get hit by it. It just makes the game a little bit more obnoxious to play. And you do lose to it if it hits you most of the time. I chose party, dude. This is a bad one. That's the, that's the other class, right? It's the other one that we're, that one's so annoying to play against. Cause when they level it up and make it so when an artifact goes to your graveyard, they draw a card. It's just like, I mean, I'm not saying that's unbeatable, but it's really annoying, which is exactly what we're looking at here. Right. But and like it's the frustrating bad, like to me, this is like really one of the best examples of this because it's not a good card. Like this is the green when a ETB is each player gets a food and then they can level it up for one in a green and whenever an artifact, an opponent controls is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, you get to draw a card and then you could level three it to make one of your guys bigger. One of, whenever you attack your, your opponent up to one target attack, you get plus six, plus six, X is number of hand cards in your hand. Very weird card. But I often found myself with artifacts that I wanted to make happen and they played this and it's like, you know, against red, white, they would be like LOL and just start slamming you. But against like the stupid decks that I'm drafting, I'm like, this is actually really annoying once they level it up because, you know, there's cards to be drawn. There's also like, like sacking foods for life. It was an important part of many of these deck strategies. Like a lot of the late game was play a thing and sack of food to make up for being a little slow early. So and it's also an enchantment. So it's like the hardest type of thing to get rid of too. So party dude. What was the bombiest bomb? What was the number one card you wanted to have in your sealed pool or open pack? One pick one for a draft. I mean, Sally pride is just like win. Unbelievable card. Stupid. Busted. Uh, yeah. Yeah. But all of those things, not sweet really. No, not sweet. And that's it. That's it. That is an important point here, though, because Sally pride. I don't like cards like this power level too high. But if it was really interesting or did it in a cool way. OK, maybe. But Sally pride was just kind of dumb power, right? It was just like, here's a whole bunch of stuff. And then if this thing survives, here's a bunch more, right? And it felt. Pushed, felt overdone. Like this card could have way less stats. It could do half of what it does and still be a really, really good card. So I'm like, eh, turn up the the knob. It's always a little weird, especially, I mean, you know, not talking about specifically Sally pride here, but it's like. When a card is a mythic, not a mythic, but a regular rare, not good enough for constructed, but way pushed past the point for limited. And I get that, you know, people play magic in a lot of different ways and like Commander is one of them and, you know, there's different things going on. But it's all it always felt like you could have made this a little better than it being constructed. You could have made it a little worse and it still be a bomb and limited. But as is, it's just completely out of control and it's not a mythic. So I'm seeing it a lot. In a small set. Yeah, it could be. It could be a lot. You saw a lot of Sally pride around. Here's the best comments for each color. The first one and Louise, we can tie break these. April O'Neill or Kunoichi trainee. Isn't that the same card? I mean, that's the same. Did I just do it again? My God, I've loved on this. This is great. Well, how about this blue actually has two cards? Return to the sewers or sewer valence cam. And there's no. I think return to the sewers. I do think surveillance cam is good. And actually, I'm going to try. What's up? Valence cam. Come on. Yeah, my bad. I do think sewer valence cam is good. And I actually am going to try playing it in cube. Really? Well, I'm going to try a package that it's not going to work and I'm going to remove it. But I'm going to try it. If you have sewer valence cam and goblin welder, you can weld out the cam and then it untapped the welder. So you can then you weld in whatever. So you can like if you have a legion extruder, that's infinite damage. Cool. And and sewer valence cam is not like completely out of the question. No, it's not. You know, with a Slurring Academy in play, it does actually make an additional man. I don't know if you're aware. Yeah, I mean, I didn't have anywhere to fit sewer valence cam kind of in like my like favorite card of the set or anything. But it is one of my favorite cards, especially at Common. Really cool design. Also, it just hits that one little narrow thing where there's a close game and you're like your opponent passes the turn and you're thinking, OK, I think I got this like they didn't remove my guy. Like I've still got the thing I'm going to do. All right, go to combat and then you see them pause and you're like, oh, no. And then they sewer valence cam. So now whatever combat that you were going to do kind of falls apart. And especially if it's mid late game, then they crack it for the cards and you're like, oh, I was ahead and now like this thing bought them this one turn window where they didn't take any meaningful damage and they, you know, got two cards into their hand and all of a sudden games can fall apart pretty quickly. So I like that one return to the sewers also very good. Two cards for black aroku, sake or squirrel anoints. I like a Roku sake. Yeah, that's the card that everyone you all feel like you got really punished by when they get you. That's the one that when they play a squirrel anoints, you hope they don't have the Roku sake in their hand. Two red cards also very close together. Manhole missile or Mauser foundry. I like the missile. Yeah, I mean, Mauser foundry ends up being better. It's a little bit like the sewer valence cam where like the missile is just overall very, very good no matter what. Or as like the Mauser foundry can be better, but you do have to kind of have it in the right in the right deck. No controversy on green frog butler. Yeah, that's just not even close. Yeah, we like that card from the very get go just because it was a it's pushed like they added a whole bunch of extra stuff that the card didn't even need to be good and made it even better. But it was all relevant like even the ability to get reach in the late game was good. Death touch is huge in the format with tender eyes. And also these type of cards, these these two mana, mana ramp cards, they can kind of outlive their welcome at some point where you you ramped out your hand and you kind of have your mana under you. And then they tend to be really bad because they're they're usually very low static. And at that exact point in the game is when frog butler can block something big on the ground or even in a pinch, get reach and kill something in the air, really good card. Cool design, too. What was the mythic uncommon for this set? Mighty Mutantimals like just pop out a lot. Mighty Mutantimals easy. Easy. This this card was better than almost all the rares. I mean, talk about pushed. I mean, I think that, you know, if you look at cards like Sally Pride and Mighty Mutantimals, you know, these were pushed too far. I don't think it ruined anything. I'm fine with it. Some cards have to be best. It didn't really bother me. It was a little little bit of a fork-knit that. But these are like ridiculously pushed cards like. That the two cards pushed so far, both were kind of the similar card mindspace wise. Totally. Like that that I don't think is great. Like it's just tokens and counters. Yeah, it's like, well, they also are. It just feels like you're losing to the same card more often than you. Then you need to, you know, it does. And again, both of them unnecessarily pushed, I would say. Like they were already like these aren't the reasons why black, white is really good. They don't hurt, right? Just having outlier power levels and uncommon and rare that are just like leaps above everything else that they're comparable to. You know, it doesn't doesn't hurt. But those were good, well thought out archetypes anyway that had good synergies. And, you know, if Mutantimals made a one one or whatever, like if they just just a little bit down and it would have been a little more palatable. But even then, again, these aren't the type of cards that I think ruined formats or that had like some big negative impact. I'm totally fine with them. Like they if you're going to overdo it, at least just do it on power and toughness. Right. Because yeah, you can see what you can see with that. And maybe you could deal with it or whatever. What was the worst card in the set? The biggest blank? The most last I'm actually curious if you even knew what this card is broadcast takeover. I do. That's the two red, red, red. And what is it? Yes, I don't remember. It does something with damage or something. It steals all their artifacts. Oh, my God. No, I feel like there are artifacts. Oh, no. Hey, at least like this is a time where that's a mythic rare, right? So like that's where you want your mythic rare, steel, are there artifacts card? Although I will say it is interesting because clearly that is not meant for for limited. And, you know, when you when you're working with a small set, right, like you have less wiggle room. So if one of your mythic rare slots out of the few that you get is a rip it up and throw away ridiculous, hard to cast unplayable card, that's a bigger cost, you know, than in a big set. I'd rather they hide something like this in a big set. All right, Luis, let's see if you still got it. Which card was the most begrudgingly playable? So I have two for your consideration. OK. Eastwind avatar. It's the three in a white line, Alliance plus one plus or plus and plus one. I remember and foot mystic three in a black to lifelink disappear. Make make I make one one crown it foot mystic for grudgingly playable. It's just like it leaves just as lifelink as four to I could get a one one sometimes. You know, it's like it's just like, come on, put me in, coach. Wearing wearing Jersey number twenty three, no doubt. What card were you misdrafting? I mean, I know I had I think it's going to be everything pizza. Like that that card is really fun. Honestly, I think one of the most fun things I did in the format was a black white seal deck to black white to everything pizzas, splashing the other three colors to activate the pizzas. That is just like because I had like a couple of duels, one of each basic. I think I had like one off color card that I could play. But mostly it was just a black white deck that uses the pizzas to missile not missile and drop. And then at some point you just get off I have colors and start to pop off and it's awesome. Totally. That that was of course the thing with everything pizza was that the floor was higher than it looked. Yes, as I mentioned before, pain to man to get a basic land in your hand is not a trade off that we comfortably make these days. But it is not the worst. And when you have the tremendous upside that everything pizza gives you, it's easily worth it. Because if you ever get to activate everything pizza, that's a, you know, game percent bump that is significant, let's just say. What was the LSV is card in the Marshall is card? I'll go first for this one. My card was lessons from life. The two blue green sorcery draw through, you can play a land tapped. There are many types of cards that I love to play like, like, I don't know how to describe it, but like a grouping of a card. But this is definitely one of them. What was it called? You top it. What was the? Remember the three blue green from is probably years now. Urban evolution, urban evolution. That was untapped. But still this is, you know, the cousin of that type of card drawing extra cards, playing extra lands. These are just the things you want to do. Like that's why that's what you're in for, you know, when it comes to magic. It is. And, you know, it also scratches another itch, which I like the setting up for a turn where you invest in something that that leaves you exposed. But then the next turn you get it all back. And this is a perfect one of that. You take the turn to do this. And as long as you don't take too much damage to die, the next turn you have the cards in your hand plus the mana ready to go. And you can start doing some really dumb stuff. So for me, it was lessons from life. What was the LSV is card in the set? I actually think it was Donatello's technique because the combination of. Not not that great. Put yourself back on board to draw cards. You know, yeah, that's that's what I'm talking about. That is very Louis Scott Vargasian. What was my soap boxiest card? I don't think I had a specific card that I would put in this. But what was I soap boxing about? Small sets, restrictions, that type of stuff. And again, we're going to talk about that when we kind of do the wrap on it. But that was the thing that was on my mind as we went through. Though I will say that once we started drafting the set, it was pretty quick that I was like, this is not bad. Like this is not Spider-Man Part Two. This this definitely has a different feel. And then my mind switched to. OK, OK, you did it. So do I accept these? Am I happy about these small sets or these concerning to me? And that's what we'll talk about in that last section. What card do you still have to read when it's cast against you? I mean, really, really the classes are like in this case, party dude, which we talked about earlier is just like, OK, yeah, I guess I have to exact because the specifics matter. And it's just like you do want to read and figure out what's going on there. Totally. That was mine. I'm just like, I can't like it's not that I don't know what it does at all. It's just like I need to remember which counters which little boxes they filled with what like that one cares about how many cards you have in your hand when you attack. Right. It's like, huh? OK. I mean, I get it like you're supposed to have extra cards because your opponent is just willfully sacrificing all their artifacts into it or whatever. But that card felt almost like a sideboard card to me. Let's see where we are. Oh, from this is it. Big questions from a design and development aspect. How did this set fair? How are the mechanics? What were some of the wins and the losses for teenage mutant? Well, it's because of the mechanics, because the mechanics, I don't think we're too bad. Like sneak, I don't like that much. I just I we've talked about it before, but it's the main problem I have with that kind of mechanic is it's so forward facing where it's like, if you're ahead, this mechanic is good. And yes, there are some things you can do to like set up those scenarios and you sound and you feel smart when you're like, OK, this is how I did it. But it's like, yeah, when you curve out and they don't have a blocker for your creature, then and you get to do this, then that that's not the most interesting thing. And then dream beavers and city pigeon is just like when your opponent played one on turn one, you just felt like, OK, all your cards work. That's great. Yeah. And then and then sometimes you didn't have one of those. And none of your cards worked. And that also wasn't like the most fun. So right. It also feels like it puts a lot of extra pressure on play versus draw, which feels like it already has a lot of pressure. Yeah, we don't need more of that. That magic is pretty heavy with that already. Another thing, another mechanic is disappear, which is a permanent left non-linear left the battlefield. You know, it pops and I've also like, yeah, void, disappear, morbid, all kind of worked and kind of didn't. And I'm not just that excited about them, you know, like, I think that I think that it's totally fine and it plays into what Black Green wants to be doing naturally. So I think this is also a fine mechanic. The deck ended up not being that good, but that's like a card specific thing. And the mechanic doesn't necessarily dictate that alliance. The red and white mechanic was just about as boring as it can get. Yeah. When you play a creature, do a thing and all the outputs you would expect are kind of on those cards. So yeah, it checked the box. I mean, I like the simplicity of it. Yeah, I think simple mechanics are good. And I don't mind. That being a little dog. I don't mind that being part of like what's going on. I just thought alliance wasn't, you know, wasn't that interesting, but not particularly bad or good. It just was what it was. Mutagen tokens I really like. That was another theme. I think that they do a pretty good job of making trinket, trinkety tokens, treasures, maps, clues, blood, mutagen. These all feel pretty good and they all feel like they're pretty close. Like obviously early treasures tend to be better than the rest of these. And then late, you'd rather have a clue over like a blood, for example. But blood that you discard, that's cool. And mutagen is just straight up like, you know, is mutagen better than the explore tokens that that let you the map tokens that let you get a land or a plus and plus on counter? No, it's probably a little bit worse. But sometimes you really just do want the counter and this does let you hit that. So I think that that worked out pretty well. And artifact matters is clearly a fine mechanic, if that's where if that's where you're into, you know. Yeah, yeah, they check that box many times and it can. Overall, the mechanics just on face value, I think are pretty reasonable. Like I don't really mind them. How did it play out? It played out OK. It wasn't like it wasn't amazing, you know, but it certainly felt pretty good. And we're going to talk plenty about like small set stuff, I'm sure, because this is the kind of the next topic. But I would say the wins were that all the mechanics were totally fine and reasonably well supported, maybe disappear being the worst one or like the blue green theme. Kind of not coming through as much. And it doesn't surprise me because sneak and alliance are both like kind of temporary mechanics. And so the mechanics like disappear that aren't going to be as strong necessarily against a tempo deck. I can see why those those were losing totally. And, you know, again, from we're talking about the design development side of things. This felt like a very well designed curated set. Like there was clearly attention to detail given to the cards, even the ones that we have issues with it, you know, maybe slip through a little bit too powerful. They didn't break the format. And, you know, maybe that's what they wanted out of the card. Who knows, right? So these were not, you know, crazy. How did the archetypes balance out? Well, blue green kind of fell off a little bit, but it really just kind of became the five color deck. And if you consider it that then there are five archetypes that all were roughly, you know, within range of each other, that if you drafted any of them you know, you had a shot at winning only five. So that's what we're going to talk about. But if we, you know, if we accept those restrictions, they stuck the landing on each of the five again with the caveat that blue green isn't just blue green by itself, but instead is adding a whole bunch of extra colors. So that's a win, too. There was clearly a lot of care given to individual cards and cool little things. I remember one of the first early in the format our friend Woody sent me a text and he was like, oh, this is cool. And I hadn't seen this happen yet, but Bebop and Rocksteady, not the three man of card, but the two land cyclers win combined together, allow themselves to become unblockable, right? Like, you know, what when you read a lot of text like that that are on those cards, you have to immediately be like, OK, why is this here? Then it's like, oh, I see. Yeah, right. And I just hadn't seen that yet. And I'm like, oh, that's cool. Right. And it's like these little things are really cool. They obviously had a lot of fun with this set, right? Like coming up with the weird flavors of pizza and what they do was was kind of fun and novel, right? And even though it does feel a little bit weird from like a flavory, plain perspective to once again be back in New York somehow, it's like, eh, you know, if that is the task that they were given. Yeah, it totally works. And, you know, and sure, we'll we'll see, you know, taxi drivers and, you know, whatever stuff in there. So that was all fine. It seemed to be a good homage to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise, right? Like they they really did try to cover a lot of the niche stuff and a lot of the kind of fun stuff. And, you know, for me, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was around when I was a kid and growing up. And so it was a, you know, something that I was familiar with and thought was cool and whatever. So it hit a bit of a nostalgia thing. So I felt like they really just across the board, check the boxes on what this set was. And I'll tell you, Louise, I don't want to gloss that over because I collect a Spider-Man comics when I was young, too. And that did not feel that way from that set. It felt very different. So that that part of it and it's a big part of it, they get a very large thumbs up. This was clearly a well-crafted, well thought out set with the attention to detail and where they hit the big picture notes. But the other thing that we want to talk about is what did this format teach us? How did it make us better at limited or what are some of the takeaways from the format? And this is where, you know, the kind of meat of the bone hits here, which is. They showed that small sets can work. But at what cost? You know, even if this set is like thoughtfully crafted like this one was, there is a natural ceiling on how interesting, good, diverse and long lasting. This format, a format like this can be. And I don't know why we want to cap it. Right. Like I don't want to grade on a curve, Louise. Like I don't want to say, oh, well, this was a small set. So it gets a good grade. I'm like, but that just straight up made it worse than if this was a big set that had this much attention given to it. Now, we don't get insight into why or if there's restrictions, like maybe, maybe there's something with the contract with Viacom or whoever owns Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that they couldn't do it. Or maybe it's just simply a shortage of we can't. We just simply cannot produce seven fully fleshed out sets that are good for limited balance and constructed in the course of a year. That could 100% be the case. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case, but that's also not my problem. I don't care about those restrictions. I'm the consumer. And when you bring me a draft product, because that is how I see it is, how do I get to draft? This is just worse than a big set. And I don't like that. And that is something that I don't want to let slide by either. Yeah, I don't. I don't think small sets have to be worse. But I think that they kind of start with the deck stacked against them. And I when I look at like what are, you know, how is this going to play out? I think that you are you are accepting a pretty big gamble, not gamble exactly. You're accepting a pretty big drawback when you're like, I'm going to make a make a small set. So I don't know that it has a ceiling. I wouldn't exactly agree with that, but I agree with basically everything else. It's not so much for me as a ceiling. It's more like when you when you make any set, you're you're, you know, the outcome of how good it is and, you know, is based a lot on like, you know, how many archetypes are there, how many buildarounds are there, how do the cards play and the small sets just are an uphill battle on some of those because there's fewer archetypes to look at. If a card is obnoxious, especially imagine an uncommon being really obnoxious, like Mighty Mutant animals, you see it a decent amount more often. Right. Like I don't know what the exact math is, but if if if a set's half the size, you're going to see the cards in it somewhat close to twice as often. Right. Right. You know, I know it's not quite as simple as that. But and so when I look at that and I think of like, OK, how how how is this going to play out? A lot of the time it's like, yeah, this is just you're you're you're accepting a pretty big drawback here. Is it worth it? And I don't again, it's hard to say without knowing what their goals are. Yeah. I mean, I think I what I meant by ceiling and I think it's true is like, for example, if I came to you with a clean slate, Louisa of a set and I said, this is a magic set, so there's 10 colors. And since drafting tends to reduce down to pairs and less forced otherwise, then the ideal number of viable, good, interesting decks would be 10. Yeah. And they aim for that. And usually they hit like eight of them or something, right? Because a couple of fall through like black ring. And then but then if I came to you and said, all right, well, due to reasons, we are going to make a set that's much smaller. So we are not even going to try for 10. We're going to try for five. That's what we're aiming at. You know, that's what I mean by it has a ceiling on it where. I would much prefer a set that had 10 viable, interesting, powerful things to do rather than five. And yet, you know, look at the numbers. They're there. There is no way for the other, for the non-supported color pairs to compete. Like they are not meant to be there. And so you're automatically setting this ceiling of like, this is the most you're going to ever get, you know, is five or maybe six or 10 or maybe 11. So that's what I meant by ceiling on it. I just, I feel like I agree with that completely. And there is a ceiling on a number of archetypes, for sure. Like you're saying maybe it's still just as good even like it could be. I think Strixhaven is this, right? And we're going back to Strixhaven. So this is actually very timely. Strixhaven is the set with, you know, the five color pairs. And I think Strixhaven can hold its own with all the sets around it. It was very good. I really enjoyed it. I had fond memories of it. Same. So six didn't hit that a ceiling of quality. It's, I think comparable to all the other, the, a lot of the other sets you can talk about. But I do think that it was like overcoming that more than it was certainly not aided by the fact that it's only five or two. And I think what I think is that, so that's the main thing that I meant by ceiling. But also I would throw in, and then if you don't have as many cards, you also are limiting yourself, right? So like Strixhaven had a full card set worth of cards to try to hit the mark on the five that they wanted to make work. This has the same restriction, but even fewer tools to get there. And I, you know, and, you know, you mentioned it just very briefly there, Louise. At the beginning, when you said that they're taking on more risk and then you kind of adjusted, but that is also true, right? Like the risk part is very much there. They nailed this one. If they didn't, right? Like if, let's say two of the archetypes were just woefully, like they just missed, they thought it would be really good in testing it did well. And when it hit the masses, they just stink and we're down to three, right? Like that is risky, where when you have the full 10, even if you end up with six that work at least, that's most of a draft table, right? Where here you could find yourself where everybody's scrapping it out, you know? Another thing that's happened is sometimes we see one color way outperform the others and that skews the archetypes. If they had that happen here, that could be this set could be way, way worse. So it feels like the peak of it is lower and the floor is potentially lower also when you do this small set. So I think I was a limited player. What's that? Great combo. Let's make the ceiling lower and the floor. Yeah, that's exactly what you want. As a limited player, my takeaways are I was wrong about it not being possible or being really, really, really unlikely to make a good set out of these small sets. They actually can. This held my attention longer than I would predict would have predicted. It was better in both card design, gameplay than I would have predicted. But it still isn't as good as or would have been better as a big set. And I don't want to just accept that as a limited player and just say, well, it's pretty good for what it was when we had three or four years where like the average grade we gave on a set was probably a minus or something. I mean, we had just like another great set, another great set, another cool set. It was like they really had the formula nailed. And now, you know, these small sets might be mucking it up. The one other thing I want to say, Luis, there was a question coming in that I was like confused about as a limited consumer is, am I supposed to be aiming at these small sets? Remember, Spider-Man disappeared really quick. It felt like they kind of pulled the ripcord on it. They brought back Final Fantasy really quickly. And it like it didn't feel like it was the thing I was doing for two or three months. This did. I'm not I'm not super stoked about that. I was really ready for the cube to come back, like maybe even a week sooner than it did. Maybe even sooner than that. Like I was, thank God, like I saw Paul's the title of one of Paul's videos. It went up and it was just like the cube is back, you know. And you know, Paul has suffered more than than than we do when totally. When the current limited set is not what he's jamming or what really into, he doesn't really have a choice. He's going to keep playing it because that's that's kind of where he's at in terms of making content. That's right. So this did answer that question, too, in that, yeah, that is the expectation. This was the thing that was front and center. I did both of the Winnebos things. There was qualifying weekend. Like this was the format. So that's an important data point, I think, because we do have more of these coming. Right. We've got the, at least the Star Trek set is going to be the size, I think, and maybe even one more. So. So there you go. That is just a data point that I didn't have solidified coming in and that I do now. What grade would you give this set, Louise? I would give it a B minus. I think that is the same grade I came up with. I think it I think overall, I think the set's fine. Like I think it there's a lot of there's a there's a it had a lot of drawbacks or disadvantages coming in because Spider-Man was so universally reviled. But I think despite that, it persevered. I think it's totally fine. Same. I think that it might take away from it is it definitely checked the box on for on what a small set can be. But it kept the question alive of should we have these? Do we like these? Are these is it better to have seven sets in a year? With say three of them being small sets that kind of divide our attention. But do you keep the variety going? Like, you don't have to sit there for three and a half months on one set. There's another one coming most of the time. Maybe that's worth it. Right? If this maybe if the window is actually like a month and a half. That if I if they stop this set at exactly a month and a half, that would have been just about perfect for me. Like I would have still been interested and been like, OK, I'm starting to get a little bored of this and then move on to the next thing. Once you get up to the two month mark or whatever, it's like, OK, I'm kind of over this like where's the cube, that kind of thing. So that's the question that we have to our community to our listeners and stuff is do you like these? Like are these sets cool? This seems to be a good example of one where they check the boxes for what these smaller sets can be. And now the question is, do we like that? Do we want more of these? Are these the things that we're we're hoping to get as limited players? And that's I think the question is going forward because it feels precarious to me. But I'm like, OK, you got me. One other thing, Louise, it's a little narrow, but I did. I did forget it was the one of the other things that we would list when we were talking about the factors of these small sets. And that was the prevalence of legendary creatures at both common and uncommon and moving their way up and how many of them there were. Any thoughts on that? I don't like it. I think that I think that it is just a pretty negative gameplay experience to have that come up routinely as a drawback. And I feel like that kind of does. OK, I just I wanted to touch on that just because we hadn't done it before. What was your favorite card in the format? I think North Wind Avatar. This card is a little under the radar. This is the Red Blue Dragon, the like five blue, blue, red, five, five flying. And each of you, if you cast it, go get a card from your sideboard. Such a cool card. I think it's a really cool design and a really fun card. It's like, do you put what do you put in your sideboards? I I had it only once and I really had a good time because I had again, some extra random lands, and then I would just have off offish color cards in my sideboard to go get that I didn't want to play in my main deck, but could be good in the right situation. Totally and unlimited, especially in sealed. Like I played it in sealed and your sideboard is everything you didn't play. It's a huge amount of cards. And, you know, sometimes you have to cut good cards from your sealed deck. And I had it in a five color deck. So I could cast almost anything out of my sideboard. Seriously, like I could go find whatever. I mean, you know, the card I got the most, Louise, it was kind of funny. It was negate. Yeah, because if you're the one with the five fly flyer, you never want to draw the negate, but it's a great card to pick up in the right situation. Yeah, that's that's great. Yeah, I got negate a lot. And then there was a few removal spells that I didn't have main deck because they would have been on a pretty hard splash. But when I cast that spell, I know if I can cast it or not. Great choice. I love Northwind Avatar. Really cool design. My favorite was Krang and Shredder, which was the blue black, the six man of blue black, rare. And that's the one that milled them or exiled them or whatever for three. And then if you had disappeared, you could cast or no, so what it did is it milled until it hit a spell and then you could cast that spell if you had disappeared on your end step. And I really like that card because it held its own. It was huge. I think what is it? Six, seven or something. And so it did a good job on its own of attacking and doing the thing. But it just made you work hard enough where you needed to disappear to make it work. So it wasn't free. It wasn't just one of these mega bombs that you play and you're just like, oh, here's all this free stuff. And, you know, I don't have to do anything. I like the cars that make you work a little bit for it, right? But are still powerful and Krang and Shredder was my favorite of those ones. OK, that's going to do it for this episode of the show. We're curious what you think as well. Let us know about this small set debate that we have going on in the community, because, I mean, realistically, we're getting at least one more this year, if not more. And then it'll probably carry over into next year. If they end up being rejected by multiple sources, then maybe they'll change. But for right now, they seem to be pretty content to use this small set format. And I have to say, leaving Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The feeling that I feel the most is actually relief because this wasn't terrible. If this was another Spider-Man, I would just be like, what are we doing? You know, like this is these these are just afterthought off the rails sets that, you know, don't have any home and that I don't feel like that at all. This really felt like a small version of a real set. So let us know what you think. We're always curious. You can find us on social media, Marsha underscore LR and Luisa's LSV. You can also find everything related to the podcast over at LRcast.com, including links to, for example, Luisa's YouTube channel. If you want to watch him play cube draft, he did have some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles drafts. Also, some of the other games that he's been he's doing a little bonus content. I actually don't think I posted a single TMNT draft. Oh, you didn't post any? I don't think so. Wow, brutal. How about Slave the Spire 2 then? Oh, yeah. Yeah, there's some there's some Slayer runs going up there. And once upon a galaxy, you're getting any of that stuff up there? Oh, yeah, yeah. I know. So not Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but everything else. We also want to say thank you to everybody who supports us over on Patreon, as well as Ultimate Guard for their support of the show. That is going to do it for this one. We'll see you next week. I want to do a quick review of the cube changes they did to the arena cube because then there's this iteration actually think ends up. I don't like a lot of the changes, though the arena cube is awesome and I'm having a great time playing it. So, you know, if Zach listened all the way, it's still still great. But my biggest complaint is that both the Citadel is no longer in the cube. I saw it on the list, Luis, and I thought of you immediately because that's kind of your main tinker target these days. Look, I think it's fine to cut tendrils in Yawgwell. I'm not really going to say that you shouldn't, especially for the arena cube. I'm sure that those cards, they even have the data like don't get played and don't win. Both the Citadel is the best tinker target and there's some cool stuff you can do with Citadel. So I really like this Citadel a lot. And I think that cutting it was was is just again, one slot. You don't need that many cards to make it work. And I think I think it would be cool to have it still in. I like that comic got cut. I just don't really enjoy the gameplay of Comet that much. The red, white dice rolling planes work. I know it's a powerful card and kind of interesting, but it really does feel very. You just sort of let it go, right? Like any cards that don't really require choice kind of. I'm not I don't know. I'm not that interested in. Um, I I think that they went a little overboard on the turtles cards. And I do understand wanting to add a bunch, but I think they added probably like 25 to 50 percent more turtles cards than they should have, because there are some good ones. And there's actually a pretty deep set for a cube stuff, especially given the size of the set. But there's a bunch of stuff in there from turtles that is just like, we don't need double striking Rafael and, you know, cards like that that I generally are just not going to make much of an impact. And you know, it's going to be gone. It almost felt like when they went too hard on like the most recent set, it was like, I guess, you know, it's like it felt like they had a mandate to include the most recent set, which I know is not actually choose what they've said, but it's like, did you need to put in 15 cards? And like, what if we just put in the best eight? You know, it does feel like it. Yeah. I love that broadside bombardiers and gutter back. I think that those cards are really fun. Yes, they're good. And yes, they're very good in boroughs, but they're good in a lot of decks. And I think that it increases my enjoyment a lot to have those around. They just do cool stuff. If I could add one card to the cube, it might actually be Bailoff Prime that that card, I think, is really cool. And one of the best things Green is doing is in cube in general, is Titania or Bailoff Prime plus Sylvan Safekeeper and Zurnorb. So I would have liked to see that overall, you know, I think it's great. Like the cube is fun. Black still struggles like they put in a bunch of sacrifice cards. And it's like, I don't think any of this stuff really works, but, you know, good on you for trying it. So overall, definitely should be a renegubing. If you're not, I think it's just a blast. But I would say that. I would I would not some of the cards they added and some of the cards they cut, I would rather have not had those things happen. Whereas a lot of the updates, I feel like neutral to positive. This one, yeah, there's some stuff here I would have done differently.