Hello everyone, and welcome back to Powerful Nothing and Magic The Gathering Cube podcast.

I'm your host, Dan, and as always, I'm joined by James James.

How's it going?

You feeling festive?

I'm feeling festive.

Yeah.

I think when this comes out will be post festive period, so I guess I am, I am, I need to remove myself from the festive mindset, you know, it's it's done.

It's happened.

And we're in a future world.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So in the future.

So.

So we've had Christmas, but we're still very full from a large amount of Christmas Day culture.

Yes.

I'm okay.

I'm, I'm no longer excited for Christmas dinner.

I'm excited for the leftovers of Christmas dinner.

That's good.

That's the mindset we need to to adopt for this podcast as you.

Well yeah I as you're listening to this day of you assume we're eating a fancy sandwich.

That's the best way to describe it.

Coat.

Yeah.

We're back with our final episode of the year.

We're taking a little break after this today.

We're just going to have a nice little fireside chat about, 2025.

We're going to do a little year in review.

As always, before we jump in, please give the podcast a five star review.

Tell a friend, all that good stuff greatly helps us out.

Also, any card we talk about, we will put down a card.

We will put a card gallery down in the show notes if you wanna check that out.

We we do try and read them out, but just helps if there's any kind of.

We get too excited and just kind of don't talk about a card in great detail.

And also obviously there'll be time goes if you want to jump around to a specific set that we talk about or a specific topic that'll be down below.

If you want to jump around as well.

But yeah, let's James 2025 A hell of a Year in Magic.

We've had six mindsets.

You wrote this note down and this kind of what, 1500 new cards came out this year?

That's, such a large amount.

We've also seen big changes to standard rotation.

This now standard is now three years.

There's now yeah, six sets a year is now a big change.

There used to be four obviously.

And universes beyond came to constructed.

We're going to be looking at all of those and how they've affected the greatest format in all of magic and maybe the greatest format, because it hasn't been as affected by other formats as those.

Okay, was talking about how cube has been in 2025, so Wizards sounded the starting gun in 2025 with our first out of the year, the Into Planar Racing set of eight adrift.

So for cube eight, adrift had a bunch of cool cards.

But like what was your thoughts of eight adrift as a whole?

Like like did you get the racing vibe from the set?

Did that kind of carry over to the cards for you?

Yeah, I mean, for Matically.

I think for me, the set didn't really work.

Like, I think this was very much what they call a hot set, right?

For, that there's not a lot of world building going on.

There's not a lot of that.

That's, it's kind of just, we got all the same.

We got all of the cards that we make.

We put these cards on them.

Now, now, I've had it for draft cards.

So.

Yeah, for massive clear mess for me.

But mechanically, I think ahead, like, the limited format was really fun.

We got to block of green features that's always nice.

And, and there were some really cool Q cards, right.

So yeah, I think, yeah.

The flavor criteria for me was a big miss, like bugs for West Lafayette.

But, I think the most of the rest of the set was, was pretty good.

Yeah.

Like, yeah.

Yeah.

My opinion, a lot of cool individual cards, but yeah, it outside of there being slightly more vehicles than other sets, I didn't super feel I didn't get the feel of speed like there was the mechanics.

Start your engines.

But that could have been named anything else.

And I think it would have given the same feel.

I didn't get the feel of like, and again, maybe it's impossible.

Maybe.

But maybe it's impossible to design a mechanic apart from haste that gets the feeling of a race across to the audience.

But then if that's kind of their fault for choosing a race as a theme for a set, I did find it quite funny that they made a racing set, and it was like the slowest limited form that we had had.

Like for yes, that's right.

Perfect.

Perfect work.

Yeah.

No, it.

Yeah.

Sorry.

Your engines was very generic.

Could have been anything and also, I don't know about you, I'm kind of done with vehicles.

I don't, I don't think I work that quite well.

Like.

Yeah, it feels like the only ones ever heard of ones that are, like, such a low, like, basic crew one.

And then it's like, yeah, such a small cast.

It might as well not be a vehicle like.

Like the ones where they bump up the crew costs.

That gives you more stats or whatever, just never really play out.

Well.

And no, I, so I for me I want another couple of big but I, I like the idea of the vehicle Re-Animator deck.

There's just not enough bits for it yet.

So I like the idea of, like, printing another.

What's that like?

Partially.

And that spits out angels and another like, grease thing.

Like something like that.

So so it's a it's it's it becomes a full rounded package.

But yeah, generally I but for me I agree with you but I like the vehicles where it kind of it does feel more like, aura if that makes sense.

Like you're upgrading a creature.

It doesn't mean they can't be cool vehicles, but yeah, I, I do kind of.

I do agree with you.

Like, like those spoilers for some of my opinions on the latest.

I do think vehicles are bad.

Some are a lot better than station, but we'll get to that when we talk about, Edge of Eternity.

But were there any cards specifically that stood out for you?

The cube?

James.

Like.

Like, what were your favorite cards from the set that that you've enjoyed playing in cube this year?

And I think the big one has to be stock up.

Right.

Stock up was obviously at home on a card I famously said was bad and you shouldn't play it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You said we you as you said we're not allowed to play divination is necessary.

Five Jesus is.

It's still $8.

It's so good.

It's big free time.

But you don't have to tell.

Yeah, I know it's 2010.

And it's also I think this been like one of the most impactful cube cards for.

Yeah, right.

And it's kind of cool that one of the impactful gift cards was not like a creature with 15 million lines of text.

Right.

And it's just a, and there's no gimmicks.

It's just like, okay, this is like the way that we now need for two and up to 12 SIM cards.

And then, yeah, it's a great card.

I, I will read it just for that just because.

Yeah, we like to look about it.

So stock up is two and a two and a blue sorcery.

Look at the top five cards of your library.

Put two of them into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.

So yeah, it's by five cards is a lot of card selection.

I have been I still don't think it's actually in my cube, maybe because it's too expensive.

I've got to spend that on a comment when it gets reprinted and uncommon when it gets reprinted, then I'll consider putting all I.

For some reason in my house we have like 20 German packs of jet, so maybe I'll start cracking them over like over the Christmas that has just happened.

Downtime.

Okay, maybe I'll start looking for one.

I guess.

Maybe I'll stock up on stock ups.

Yeah.

Seems like a good move before.

Yeah, if you have a cards.

I kind of want stock that from this.

That was monument syndrome.

So I kind of like this one.

It's obviously not one for every cube.

This is for free.

Mana artifacts.

Whenever you discard a card, choose one that hasn't been chosen.

This time you can try a card, create a treasure.

Each file loses three.

This, I think, is pretty cool.

I think if you're doing the discard thing, this is actually really good.

It's, if you have that repeatable discard out there.

Right?

Like a first discard is upgraded into a loot.

If you're actually looting with your first discard, it's become like a tool to discard one.

And making a treasure gives you waste cash for new cards.

And it also gives you a way to to close the game.

I think this is actually pretty powerful.

I just, I it's in the mic go cube now and I lost to someone who went ten to psychic folks and see monument for insurance.

Now, you could argue that had more to do with psychic folks from monuments to injuries, but it was like very, very like the first test card of sadness free, like I felt was like looting and putting counters on that thing.

And then they start draining me.

They make treasures as fake good.

Not sure.

Psychic fog spoken of everything and honestly.

But cubes.

I'm really excited for monument insurance.

Lower power level of, psychic fog.

But I think if you're, like, leaning into that discard masters thing, I think this is fairly cool.

Like, I know I want to activate this stuff like that with this in play.

Very.

So yeah, actually.

So for me, the main thing I like about ether drift, like is it was also part of the one of the commander decks had a bunch of cards for this kind of discard.

Like like discarding was a theme in this set.

Like we also got like marauding Mako.

That's the single red one one cycling two.

And whenever you discard one or more cards for that many personal encounters on this creature like that has seen a bit of play.

Like with bizarre Rbac, like basically this set made Bazaar of Baghdad better.

There's also a card like Ashton Scab boss face.

Like primarily that's a commander card, but there are cubes where I think this is very cool with, white in a black for A13, whenever you discard a creature card, you may pay two and a blue.

If you do create a capped token as a copy of that card, except as a four for Black Zombie, there's some cool things you can do with this card, like there's also like crypt for the Chariot and Chandra Spark Hunter.

That kind of just added a bit of extra just to to some more options to that discard matter type deck.

Yeah.

Like like like again.

Like I don't think any of the ones I've just mentioned are getting into like vintage, although Miko potentially might, I might see some play and hype out of games.

But like I know I mentioned all like getting into the vintage Power Cube, but like they are cool.

Build around cards if you're trying to do the cycling or discard deck in lower power or more budget cubes, I think that there's a bunch of cool cards from the drift that added to that.

Basically.

Yeah, for sure.

I really like that on that.

Actually.

I've got an, Duel Commander Cube that I'm really excited to have it on deck at some point.

It sounds sounds very powerful.

Yeah, it's it's one I want to build as a commander, but I think everyone built it as a commander.

But I guess one of the things about it is there is a bunch of different ways to like, you can take it, I think.

I think I bought the single rather than buying the commander deck.

Maybe there's something I should look at cause yet, like I do like the look at that card I think is a very sweet card.

But after we went racing, this was probably my most hyped set of of the year going into it, we went back to talk here with Talking Dragon Storm.

This James talk talk.

It was it was your first set, wasn't it?

So I'm assuming you were quite hype about going back to talk here in this iteration.

Like, how did you find this out?

Did it live up to your expectations?

Did you get what you wanted out of the set?

As I enjoyed drafting it, I drafted a bunch, I think my expectations were very high.

I was a little bit disappointed in the in the, like, mechanically, how the limited format played out and how it was balanced specifically.

Because they were so obviously trying to make free color work.

Right.

But, the three color themes weren't quite strong enough, and the fixing was to actually too good was the problem.

So it all just drifted into like five color soup.

And they had to of the Dragon Synergy cards as well, which exists across all five colors and really want you to have a bunch of dragons.

So it just means like if you see a powerful gold dragon, you just take X and splash it.

And that makes all you have a dragon that is cards better and all just drifts towards, like there's actually not really a reason to be like so Ty most of the time I'm just going to be five colors.

Because for five color fixing, was that good?

And yeah, it's kind of a shame there wasn't.

Yeah.

Like, I think it kind of ended up in a space of like the pillars of the form that were five color dragons, which had be like, you know, 3 or 4 people trashing that on those tables.

And then there was a red y aggro attack, which, like, wasn't actually good in terms of like if you compared it to aggro attacks in other formats, it was less good, but it was.

But when the default Fang is five color like I play a Matt left five card and three, it was like just about good enough to punish that a little bit, you know?

And yeah, it would have been nice if there were and not to say like there wasn't anything else you could do, but that was just how a lot of the drafts would end up.

If you, you know, trying to maximize your win fight.

And it would have been cool if there were more reasons to end up, end up doing other stuff, you know, I shouldn't say I didn't enjoy drafting the set like it was cool.

And that was other cool stuff you could do.

But, okay, they could have done a little bit better with this one.

I know that the I think it's always going to be the thing of talk was such a big love set that whenever you return to the, well, it's always going to be hard to live up to things like that, like the, the vengeance was so high.

Like I personally, I thought Harmony's really struggled as a like as a mechanic.

I think it has potential, but just the way like it harmonize felt very safe in this set.

I thought, for me that was like, I really liked omens.

As a mechanic, though, it's kind of like adventures, but they shuffle back into your deck afterwards so you can play them again.

Like there's some I think it was you or something, like, just like you had the Dragon board wipe that just you just played infinitely until your opponent milled out.

Yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah.

I think omens are cool because they do a thing as well where, you, when you cast them, you are adding more gas back into your deck, right?

Which is nice.

And it means your, you know, sometimes the split cards, your, you know, you don't cast a cheap half because you want to save the expensive half until later.

And with these, well, still, the extensive cast isn't in your hand anymore, but it is still in your deck, so you can drawbacks.

Or at least I I firemen's fate.

Well, and also they were just a way to let you play more dragons and you'll have to attack five like just for fang.

Because dragons have the issue about, like, they're just some cheap dragon.

Like.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And you can't.

You can only plant so many eight drops in your deck, and this lets you put more.

But just get.

Yeah.

Omen.

Yeah.

Omens is something I could see them doing again.

Like it.

It sounds very casual time if I'm honest with you, but, That's good.

I think we can see that again.

Yeah, maybe, like, chance could have omens too, you know?

Now, bigger.

Nice.

Yeah, yeah.

Be, any card specifically.

Stick out.

What?

You.

James.

What?

What were your favorite cards for cube from target?

Dragon storm?

I really like for big.

You can, You can.

I have the songs?

Yeah.

Let's read them on quickly.

That's seven mana.

Ergon, comes in with seven starting loyalty.

When you cast a spell, they go up to one target.

Permanent.

That's one or more colors.

Whenever you cast a colorless spell, exile up to one target.

Permanent.

That's one or more colors.

I has a plus.

Two of you gain three life and draw a card.

It has a zero and three generic mana, and a -11 of such a like B for any number of colorless non land cards.

Exiled.

Then shuffle and then the turn.

You make those cards without paying their manacles.

Well, that's definitely a win.

Gone.

Yeah.

James I whereas again seen the most play would you say like what?

What kind of decks does it show up in.

Yeah like fits in.

So for big mana artifact decks and in pretty high power level cubes, I did it.

Yeah.

Like power cube or like anything adjacent to that I think is can is is kind of the payoff you want at the seven mana slot, like, you know about sphere is showing its age a little bit.

This is this is kind of what you need in stats.

It's really powerful.

It's the gain.

The gain life, the fact of card is, is, I think low key, very important because if you untap with assets, it's generally kind of fate, but, you know, it just to so much for like, you can just any color spell vindicating, it's so powerful that, and for things it comes down seven loyalty like seven is.

It's insane.

Yeah.

But not going to be able to kill it with damage.

So they kind of have to go attack, try and kill you off and kill this most of the time.

Like it goes to nine loyalty.

Or you can do defend.

But if I attack you, you also gain free life.

So it's, Yeah, it's a hard card to fight through.

And obviously it got something on the way ends.

Yeah.

Very powerful.

I think this is is like, kind of a pay off of the big mana decks needed in, in the high power level cubes to, you know, hang in the world of, like, Vance and the Giannis and all that now, definitely.

There's another card we should probably cut us touch on.

Banned in standard.

And that's Corey Steel cut.

One red artifact equipment.

Equipped creature gets plus one, boss.

One.

And as trample and haste as it can equip for one red and also has flurry.

Flurry was a mechanic from this set which whenever you cast your second spell, each turn with A11 white monkey creature token with prowess and you may attach this equipment to it to James Corey.

So Carter obviously proven it's it's its place in magic.

And it's basically just by being a very good, very aggressive guard.

Like like, yeah, this can get through for a lot of damage and especially in to where you're running a lot of cheap, efficient spells, just gonna make a bunch of tokens and just going to keep getting through for damage.

Like, yes, they can answer the token that this is attached to, but you can just play two spells again and you have a threat again, like, yeah, cause I've got a very broken magic code.

Like how have you found it?

Play in like in in in cubes.

This here.

Yeah.

When you have a right deck for it, it's really, really powerful.

Just because it's, you know, it's it's hardest for me.

Of fact, some creatures I've seen this when it goes like, this kind of has monastery mental fights fight, but they can't kill it.

Yes.

And at any cost to manor, it's a really puts a premium on.

If you can get a couple of zeros into your deck.

This, this set was very good for the stock of like, Mistress Bauble, you know, for the mechanic.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But yeah this if you can, like, play this player zero on ten, two feels so good.

So you're attacking the two to haste that turn you then, it's got faster.

It's going to get bigger.

Next turn, it's.

You're going to spit out another, next turn, most likely.

It's, Listen, it's not amazing.

In every deck.

I say its best home is blue.

That, because you have that card velocity to, to keep casting multiple spells.

I don't love it in the, like, straight up that diver attacks, you know, you're just going to run out of spells too quickly.

But yeah, I think if you're like blue that with some cantrip, and a low curse, it's it's very, very powerful.

I think that the Flowey mechanic was quite a good one for cube, actually.

There's also, sage of the skies, which is pretty sure that was quite good.

Yeah, yeah, that's for two in a white, two free flying life.

Think when you cast it, if you've cast another spell this season, you copy it, like three mana for two.

Two free flying life links is really powerful.

And yeah, again, great.

Plays great with fear.

At any sort of zero you can get into your deck.

Just makes these cards so much more powerful.

But this is also really good.

You know, you can if you play it on like ten, five with a 12.

That's a very good ten.

Yeah.

Very, very subtle.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like, I like the fact they actually got around to key wording.

Play two spells a turn.

That does seem like something that, that, that, that they had been kind of building towards like for me in my more kind of like janky and like I really like to level the balance scale.

That's the one and a soul tie for, for that kind of goes in the insidious root style deck.

It's kind of it does everything.

It builds you cards and then when you, guys leave the graveyard, you make it two to zombie.

So definitely one of the more slower cubes.

And if you're really trying to do the insidious rootstech, but that was one was a cool one for me.

The next set of the air, I think, for some people.

Favorite set of all time.

For some people it was the turning point in their relationship with Magic The Gathering.

Some people started building it for In the Cave.

Yeah.

Seeds were planted.

Yeah.

Our third set of the year is obviously, universes beyond Final Fantasy.

The first legal universe is beyond set.

Like we've done a whole episode about universes beyond we're not going to sit here and complain a little bit, but not for, like, that is not the main topic of this chapter.

We're going to just keep the ball rolling and kind of keep chatting on, but like, James, like, we know people who love Final Fantasy and they love this.

And I, I think it's fair to say we were in the camp who have not that same level of fondness for this IP, just like because it hasn't been part of, like the media we have consumed.

But as a not the biggest fan of Final Fantasy, how did you find the draft set?

Like did you find it flavorful?

Did you find that kind of like like you got a sense of what was going on from the cards or anything like that?

Kind of like like like like like, how would it land for you?

Yeah.

The limited format was really good.

The themes.

Oh worked very well.

There was, there's a lot of different stuff you can do if and there there were a lot of like, interesting build around cards, but the limited format was actually like one of the best my friend made my favorite of.

Yeah, I know a lot of people have it as like an all time best.

That's good.

No, but it's, Yeah, I've, I've really enjoyed crafting this, flavor wise, obviously it didn't hit for me, but, like, you know what?

Never do it for draft.

You know?

It's fine.

Whatever.

I think, yeah, I'd like it if I made more like, magic sets, which felt like magic sets used to, but, that's not all the sets we got now.

It's okay.

I'll engage with that side, like.

And, Yeah, the draft on that was good.

I think we got a couple of cool cards for cube.

And.

Yeah, they were just.

It felt like they put a lot of thought into these designs.

So a lot of interesting and unique designs did sort of design space explore tower.

Samuel off that.

I did honestly feel like with some of the sets this year, like it felt like they put a lot more effort into making some of them investigated for others, you know, like, this compared to like Ether Drift, for example.

I mean, we're not even going to talk about Spider-Man yet, but we're getting to it.

There's a lot more, a lot more.

That fit was fun into this one.

You know.

Yeah, I'd agree like like I from from my end like the like they had a few like big positives.

Like like I thought like from speaking with people who do like final Fantasy, like the vibe for them was that like I personally did like summons as a mechanic.

It's a way of like it's it's actually turning sagas into creatures.

But that was quite cool.

I like that as a mechanic.

I think that's something that I would like to see them bring back.

I thought they worked pretty well.

There's some cool, obviously, like, like individual cards, which we're going to get onto in a moment.

For me, like, the main downside of this set wasn't anything to do with the set.

It was just like the secondary market imploding afterwards.

Like, I don't want to know how much, collector booster boxes got for in the end, but that was kind of a bit of a miserable part of the year, if I'm honest with you.

Just as like, I think it was like thousands or something, that kind of stuff, like, like what would you write like?

Yeah, yeah, 100,000 thing.

Like it's just wild.

And like, that was kind of the first time that magic as a game has really had, like the Pokémon ification, where you have people coming in to just buy and hold product, which is I it's not my vibe in the slightest.

And like that work for me was like, if not the set's fault, this is one of the I think it might still be the most popular amongst successful said all time.

I think it was the most accessible set of all time at release in terms of how much it had sold.

So obviously on all metrics it did very, very well.

And there's some cool cards which we'll get onto in a moment.

Just like that was a flip side that kind of came out of this and yeah, was worth mentioning because it I know we have a podcast talking about magic and I kind of want to talk about it, so yeah, for sure.

Jon Snow, a very sad, sympathetic story.

The apparently all the scalpers who came in for Final Fantasy, although they did Spider-Man no.

Yes.

Don't you just feel so bad for the guy?

Yeah.

Yeah, that was great.

Yeah.

No, it obviously is ridiculous.

Amount of money that stuff goes for.

And we don't want scalpers part of our game.

Like, it's just classic parasitic behavior.

Now needs that.

On the other hand, like.

I'm don't get that exercised about collect set pieces being expensive because that's like they're not something you need to play the game.

Yeah.

No, no, that is very true.

That very they're for their scarcity in a lot of ways.

Right.

Like that's what collectibility is at the end of the day.

I don't know I think I'm more bothered about the price of the regular versions of the cards.

So people need to play the game than about the price of the playmates.

You know, that was the other thing that changed with all kind of started with Final Fantasy is because it was a universe is beyond set account.

Even though it was standard legal, it was a premium set or some nonsense where it packs were more expensive in general, and just like a basic level of entry, was more expensive with Final Fantasy, with the egregious price gouging of the collectibles on top of that as well.

Generally not a great situation.

No one wants to be paying like Shrinkflation.

Hooray!

We all love it.

And yeah, we like I definitely felt that more this year.

Like, I definitely bought less individual like packs of magic this year than I think any year.

The only releases I've done have been the three in universes, ones I don't.

Maybe on one night out I drunkenly bought a like a booster pack, but I think generally that's been my booster pack consumption this year.

I've been buying singles, I've been doing keep had a great time doing that, but just them getting more expensive and I mean not caring about half the sets this year has been tricky.

It's fun.

Everyone makes the bad decisions when intoxicated.

Yeah.

No, it it is just to feel bad for like prerelease is now randomly like 5% more expensive, you know.

Yeah that like that really sucks.

Just like I love prerelease.

Prerelease like after cube is my favorite way to play magic is doing prerelease.

Like playing with the new cards, playing with a bunch of cool people.

I love prerelease, it's awesome.

And like if the if if the Final Fantasy one had been in the regular price, there's a world where I may have done it, but I was already kind of going into being like, I'm not really forced by Final Fantasy.

Oh, it's more expensive.

No, I just kind of out of principle.

Like I kind of thing like.

But yeah, let's, let's look at some cards because.

Because there were some very cool cards in the set, probably like the strongest card in the game, would you say with VB on it?

Yeah.

One blue in a red legendary creature.

Oh three you can pay zero ad x mana in any combination of blue or red.

Where x is VB on it is power activate only doing a turn it only once each turn.

Whenever you can't know who to spell, I'll put a plus one count on VB alternate.

It deals one damage.

Which opponent seems really good with coins?

Still contractually, but I think that was the problem.

But like chorizo.

Got it.

Also banned in standard.

James.

From a power level point of view.

Strongest card of the year, would you say suddenly up fam?

It is one that scales really well with the power level of, you know.

Yes.

Well, yes.

It's, yeah, you can do some very disgusting things with this when, when you have some explosive acceleration, you know, and it can be it, it has that tension rate of, it's a card for each one.

She kind of wants you to put it in a strong adjacent deck.

Right?

Not that that's for any place it works, but like, that is sort of what it's telling you to do, right?

And, but you don't want to put a female, a creature in that deck for they can point in the middle, spells out, so it has that tension, but like, it has the power level to justify, you know, it's like it can do some very disgusting stuff.

I also, as always, when they miss things and putting the stakes up, they constructed, I think it's fun for cube, Vivi with cell culture.

And it's a lot of fun time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's, that's the.

You can do some really gross things with that, as, as standard players, so they'll evolve.

I think that was, that was I think about doing stand it for like half a year.

And sorry to bring it up that some people have just got over a James.

Thank you.

That's great.

But yeah, I definitely had some other really cool cards.

Like I think probably the most played card from Final Fantasy is probably just starting down like it's this is the upgraded, City of Traitors.

No.

City of brass.

That probably sees a lot of that.

We'll see a lot of.

I think the only reason I don't have it in my cube is because I never got round to buying one, but it's a fantastic card that should just be played in a bunch of different cubes.

For me, I really enjoyed jumbo cut cut cut jumbo.

Actually, I am realizing that all the ones that I have added to this are all just command like command or adjacent cards or feel more command do.

But this is seven mana, one seven that when it attacks it gets plus 9999 plus zero until end it turn.

This is a very silly magic card.

James.

And I'm here for it.

I'm very glad that I added this.

And Brown strike strong, strong, stout arm like the one that the lad that throws things.

Yeah.

You throw 10,000 points with the damage at your opponent.

That's a lot of fun.

It sounds sick.

Yeah, yeah, that's, I it's like anytime there's, stupid numbers on the magic card, there's.

You will find some way to abuse it, you know, because even if you can just give it trample, you know, that's game over on attack.

No.

Exactly.

And the other thing as well, that this that gave us, also gave us Tifa Lockhart one and a green one, too.

There's no creature.

Human monk with trample and land.

For whenever land enters, whenever land you can show enters double D.Va Lockhart's power and then the turn.

So this and V added a new deck to the go vintage Q.

They were trying out like a Power Matters deck for a while.

It did kind of.

It ended up a bit too.

All in I think, is the fair way to say James, where they kind of they were running like invigorates, like the the free green spell that like it's free if you give your opponent like for life or something, but it gives a creature plus four plus four.

I want to say like so there were some turn 1 or 2 kills with Tifa Lockhart, that kind of stuff.

As well.

Just making them see an amount of mana with V, like I'm.

This seems like a good place to talk about that.

About that deck, James.

But how did you find that Powers Matter deck played out in higher power level cubes anyway?

Because it it was tested in the Meko Vintage Cube.

That was, the first place we saw let you how do you think it played?

So it's quite bad.

I think I'm sorry.

That is, I think the, the thing they're doing with Mako Vintage Cube, which and I don't mind this in that is they have all the good decks and then each season they're like having a package where it's all like, maybe actually, like, quite a lot of cards to support a theme.

And the themes like not very good, but you can make it work.

If you, if you put the effort in, like sound, I sound very much like me every time I make an update to my cube, honest with you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly.

So you love this?

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

So for a couple of iterations, it was the power of that, this thing, which to me is like in the West sparse of, really bad and also not that cool.

Whereas obviously that's a very like personal, preference thing.

But whereas this time around I've not got this has I only got a chance to do like two drafts since it's gone off again.

But this time around for putting of like, discard matters, stuff with like, survival and how to find a nice cool view while there's and like that marauding mako you talking about as in, monument to insurance and then all that stuff.

So far, I am going to.

Like I said, it's done two drafts in the second draft.

I like second picked survival of professors because, because for me and I'm kind of I'm selfish trying to win so much.

And I had a lot of fun doing that.

So.

Yeah, I think that's the approach now as far as, like, there's the same repertoire of good decks and then there's like one wild card package fan.

And, so for a while it was power masses.

I mean, for power masses thing, I actually never saw work.

Whereas the discard thing definitely can work.

But maybe it's just because no one tried it that much, you know?

But, yeah, it's certainly not by power.

No, that's, I think, where I kind of left off on it was that I think it was cool that they were doing something like that.

And I think it could work at like, Vivi doesn't work at a lower power level, but I think everything else kind of does.

And wasn't there a set?

There was a card.

There's a card from a recent set review that I described as a bad levy.

So maybe you can.

Yeah.

And the thing is, like, you don't need to invigorate PvE for it to be good.

Just cast some spells there.

It's fine.

Yeah.

I guess the one good side is that it brought berserk back into the vintage cube, so I'm always here for that anyway.

But yeah, yeah, yeah, it it was at least a way.

It was at least like for me a while.

It might not have hit in its current in its first iteration.

I think there is definitely something there for people and like yeah that was something that we got from Final Fantasy.

So that was a plus.

I did want to touch on the next set I really enjoyed.

Next up was Edge of Eternity.

We headed to space.

This set was relatively new for magic.

We were in, the The Final Frontier.

No wrong IP.

How did you find our first foray into deep space, James?

When it came to imagine a gathering.

Yeah, I thought it was cool.

Certainly.

There seemed to be a little more worldbuilding going on here.

And that was with, ether drift and the like.

So, yeah, I thought it worked well.

And, you know, for, some of that came across in the cards, I think, yeah, I think, yeah.

For Matically, it was it was pretty good.

In terms of limited set design, I think it was like, fine, but uninspired, you know, a lot of mechanics felt kind of safe, I have to say.

And like, the spacecraft station thing was just straight, mediocre.

You know, I'm saying they're all crap.

I hate AI station.

I think it might be one of the most disappointing mechanics of all time.

I think I in the set, I think it played better than my initial thoughts of it were because you had things like warp where you put a thing in, where a thing would come in, you could tap it to station something, and then the warp thing would bugger off, kind of like like evoke basically.

So, so in this set specifically like and also I think like, yeah, in this at specifically I think station mechanically in set off was fine everywhere else.

I hate it so much.

Yeah.

I think that's for yeah I think and warp is.

Yeah.

Well it's like just kind of a covariant realism.

Yeah.

It's it's all right.

But yeah, but it didn't feel like Fe you, I talked about a lot of, like, very cool individual cards in the snap.

Yes.

I feel like themes existed in the set, but not very interesting.

Yeah, I would agree.

Like, well, oddly, for a set about space, like some of the cards we got from the set are more like like there was two guys specifically I want to touch on for like the lands deck.

First we had I still explore to green, green for two for Insect Scout.

You might play additional land on each of your towns.

You may play lands from your graveyard and land for whenever a land you can show enters Miller card.

Like this, while not the strongest card of the game, might be up there in terms of one of my favorite cards of the year, but the fact that you could do the the fact that strip mine was on the bonus sheet is incredibly rude.

But you could do that.

It's wild card.

Yeah, I still explore.

I thought it was great.

James.

I what's been your like?

How has it played for you?

Like four mana is a bit pricey, but yeah.

How has it played for you in a in cube.

Yeah, I think it's really good.

Like there's not obviously it's a lot of mana.

They can just kill it.

But if it lives and you get to do the thing like, this is kind of what you need from that effects now.

Because actually, one lander turned out of a graveyard is oftentimes just not enough to really move the game of direction.

You want to, you know, if you're trying to do the strip mind thing, it's often not enough.

You know, they're progressing their game, they're casting their spells.

And, if they keep paying land drops for a couple of turns, you might just fall too far behind.

And it doesn't matter that you're you're running them out of mana because you're too far behind.

Let's the extra land drops really, like, let's you turn the corner, you know, makes you, like, actually make progress.

Yeah.

And then, so I think it's a really good update for that fact.

It's like, I like faster toughness as well.

And, it's nice having these effects on creatures a lot of the time because you're more vulnerable, but also makes them a lot more touchable for green dex, which is, you know, this is if you're putting this card in a deck, it's probably quite an important piece.

Like, you don't put this card in your deck without a good reason.

So, having ways to find this is, is going to be for the in person.

Yeah.

This of just did it just did everything that we wanted.

Yeah.

As you are so right on the additional land plus the graveyard.

Like you can really this triggers so much land for like, like eight, even if you don't have the straight mind, if you have Somnath or anything else that wants you to be playing a bunch of land a turn.

Maybe.

Maybe a Tifa Lockhart Jones.

You can really go hand with this.

Like this.

In the French land.

There's just so much land for this kind of mad.

But another card I want to touch on from this that I really like was, bail of prime three and the green for ten and is with and attack with six ton counters on it.

And whenever you land create a tap for for green beast which a token and untap this creature and it has four cycle land you gain two life.

So this was on like a redundant, Titania.

And this, like these two cards along with a card will get on to when we get into avatar.

I have really kind of I feel I've really kind of pushed the lands deck to being more of a thing, like I saw it being, but the lands, like it's been around for a while, but I saw this to like, be quite strong when, when Palicki came to arena, I thought it was very good.

Like, I don't think by the farmers in that build, but like, lands feels more like a legit deck now after this year.

Because of course, like I still explore and Bale of Prime.

Would you go along with that?

Yeah, I think this is actually a really important venting for, for the high power level cubes.

I know it's like it's a bit harder to get excited about new fencing.

So I'm really what they're doing is providing redundancy and yeah, this and this is worse than Tyson.

Yeah.

Like choice.

Cheaper black titanium gets the land back.

Which is such big upside and and makes the tokens untapped.

But having this in as well as titanium means you can.

It's much more of a coherent plan that green decks can aim for.

You know, you can take that seven out of all that safekeeping that you were speaking on a lot more of the time, because you're going to have something to do with it a lot more of the time.

And this is this is honestly in the higher power level, cuz this is kind of the sort of lands payoff you need, you know, rather than too much diddling around with, Crucible of wild type stuff.

You know, this just kills you.

Let's put so much power into play if you.

Yeah, even if it's untenable, you've not got any more lands in play at all.

And none of them are lands.

Nothing else mattered.

You just have this in a seven all bit size 16 power.

Right?

Yeah.

And, you know, some of them will be fetch land.

So you can, or you'll play it with more lands in play and, Listen.

Yeah, sure.

It's bad for you for a very fine, sweet for something, but, this is.

Yeah, the Titania plus land sack out.

That thing has been like a very, one of greens more powerful, angles for a while.

I think, giving that a little bit of redundancy is is a pretty big deal.

Yeah, I've really like that that day.

We should touch on a card with a lot of hype when it came out.

Heather at Cruel Captain three.

Generic teaser at planeswalker.

For starting loyalty, whenever an artifact you can drop enters with a loyalty counter on Tesseract.

Very strong about a zero untap target artifact or creature with an artifact creature, but a counter on it.

Minus three.

Such a library for an artifact card with minor value, one or less revealed to put in your hand and shuffle, and minus seven, you get an emblem with at the beginning of combat on the turn, but three plus one counters on target.

What about you, control?

If it's not a creature, it becomes A00 robot artifact creature.

So obviously in Power Game, this had a lot of hype when it was printed, and I know, the wife was trying to work out how this like which deck these guys can do best in things like legacy and vintage and such.

How have you found this play important?

Because obviously being able to to to up your most powerful artifacts we love, we are still very happy.

This does not search for time vault.

Which is great.

But, Yeah.

In the like in the cubes you played, how do you think it's played?

I think it's fine.

So, yeah, it doesn't search for time vault.

I think this gets some way better if you're in a cube with time vault, because then it is a vault combo piece.

Which also doesn't punch from a Stephanos fact deck.

A lot of ice cubes.

Turn around.

Time vault.

If you're in a cube without time vault that you do have.

But you are power cube.

I think it's it's pretty solid.

It's very much a sort of the rich get richer card, you know?

Like it's busted.

If you have a bust.

It does good things if you have busted cards and.

Yeah, if you have busted banner accelerants in your deck.

I don't think it's like, I wouldn't be shocked if in a few years it was getting cut from some sort of.

How cute.

So, you know, I could say that, like, I think it's.

Yeah, it's fine, but it's, It feels like, quite reliant on having specific cards to power that, you know, and not in a super interesting way, because a lot of the things that the cards tells you to do, like putting the counters on the creatures and whatnot, is that's not what the card's about, right?

It that part doesn't actually come up that much.

It's more just about like searching foreign and tapping your your day.

Powerful nanobots.

Which is fine.

It can make a lot of mana.

I'm not if I've got it in my power to this moment.

In my favor.

But I'm not, like, super attached to it.

You know, you do have time, vault, though, because if you're like, yeah, so I do have time vault and I will probably at some point take it out because I have time vault because my I have time vault but no keys and a lot of information tap a bit janky.

And I think this is a bit a bit good, actually.

Yeah.

It's that, Yeah, I think I wouldn't be surprised if, like.

Yeah, a lot of people start cutting it from their non time vault cubes as well.

That's it.

I was there anything else from from Edge of Eternity that stood out to you?

So I think we got a couple of actually a lot of cube cards in the chat.

There are a couple of blue cards in which I think are just going to be staples across a lot of cubes for a long time.

So consult the Sasha Arts is a very, very powerful card for spell.

This is the one.

A blue for an instant.

You look at cards from the top of your deck equal to the number of lands you control, and put one of them in your hand.

But you can kick it for an extra one.

That blue.

So before mana total.

And if you kicked it, you get two of those cards.

This is fairly good because this is like an updated fact or fiction, but it's actually a lot more powerful than factual fiction because it gives you that flexibility.

Right?

If you can cast down ten to if you just need to deck for something, or if you draw it late and you know you need something right now, that turn, you might still just have to manage it.

You want to be able to cast the card you for, right?

But it also has this powerful for mana card advantage mode and the things this scales so well later into the game because most of the time, like even if you're casting it for for mana, it won't be on turn four, right?

Because a lot of times you play your cards for effects for board earlier and you can save your cards for self later.

And this just gets so much more powerful the longer the game goes to look at so many cards.

Yeah, I'm expecting this to be around in in a lot of cubes for a long time now.

And what was the other blue card you wanted to touch on?

Yes, fifth one's Quantum Riddler.

So I have just been seeing a lot playing, in modern, but, very, very powerful and cube as well.

This is, Oh, it's $45.

Yeah.

Bottom five weird cheeses I though.

Okay, I, I opened one of these then.

That's fun.

That's I had to that's it to treat yourself.

But as a oh, this card seems cool.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Is it actually quite strong then is what you say.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, it's really good.

And it's you kind of don't have to do a lot of work.

As for Feng, so it's free blue.

Blue for, for six creature.

We're flying one answer suit for a card, but as long as you have one or fewer cards in your hand, if you would, for one or more cards, you draw that many cards plus one, but you can also warp it for one in blue.

So that's you cast it and says, but at the end of the turn, you'll exile it and you can cast it again.

So you saw that at the when instead of sacrificing it, it, itself goes on the adventure, as it were.

Yeah.

This is just like on turn two.

If you want to warp, if you have time to warp for this, it's weird.

You can sort of think it's sort of like actually casting something like a Knights Whisper, like a draw two, because you draw two cards and one of them is a quantum red, which you're going to.

So.

Right.

Yeah, I guess that's what we're is so far away I think about that.

Plus, yeah, sometimes you get some extra synergies, but it is still a creature and touring and whatnot.

But, but it is a good as good thing to cast on turn to.

And then the five manipulation is great as well, because often by the time you cast it, you know, if your hand and then you're getting two cards on the way and, and it's absolutely huge, it's a full six.

It's very hard for them to kill if it sticks around you, you know, you'll play out your spells, you'll get loan cards again.

Many a 12 step will net you more spells.

Yeah.

It's just one of those cards where it's great if it sticks around.

But even if they collect, you got value.

You know?

Okay.

Nice.

Yeah.

Yeah, as I said.

Yeah, I understand why treat yourself Q but maybe it should actually go in my no more powerful level cube.

That's cool.

All right, let's move on to what I think is probably is definitely the worst set of the year.

Worst of all time, I think, is my worst set of all time.

I've I suppose, and I wasn't around during homeland, so I don't know.

But yeah, it's certainly I think is the worst that as far as I'm concerned since I've been playing magic, I had a great and that's and that's not from a we don't like Spider-Man point of view like I actually I am I've all the universe is beyond sets this year as a theme.

I am least I am most ambivalent about Spider-Man.

I have no strong feelings for or against.

But just as a set, this was a garbage fire.

Like it.

Like we we know now that effectively they it's what it says.

Only 180 cards.

Originally it was only 100.

There were no commons or UN commons or something like that.

And they had that too quickly.

But basically it was going to be, Assassin's Creed style set where it was going to be like boost, but packs of like seven cards or 7 or 10 cards.

But everyone hated that when Assassin's Creed came out.

So they were like, quickly, let's make this draftable.

Which seems like the worst decision because, I mean, from a money point of view, I probably made them some cash, but this was a dreadful draft environment.

James.

Like, so let's talk about that specifically before we kind of get on to like, all I want to be somewhat kind of like, how did you find it from a play point of view?

Did you even play there?

Much of it?

Oh, I did, I did want to ask.

That and I think I like watched a couple more and then I decided that one.

Was that enough.

Yeah.

No it was, it was really bad.

So it was being a, a guild set, I so there's like only five playable characters to start off with, but then they made red so ridiculously weak, so you basically couldn't play it.

So that leaves you with, with three playable decks and that's, that's the whole format.

And then they very doing this because like the cards full face model, they said it wouldn't work very well for regular draft.

So they did this, pick two draft thing as well.

So if you wanted to play it on online, that's how you had to do it.

Yeah.

I feel like I can really, give a strong opinion on pick two to ask.

Have some played enough that that, I have had a lot of other people saying that it in terms of like fit that, that that you need to have Twitch Twitch to sort of make sense makes it harder to pivot.

Right.

But yeah, I think the big thing for me was this just felt like a sort of toxic sticking exercise, you know, like someone had got told for you've got to make this many more cards by next week.

And these are just one that came up with and, you know, just like there are so many Spider-Man cards like, yeah, it's like 40 Spider-Man House or something ridiculous like that, you know?

And I did just feel like they were filling it out.

Yeah.

I don't know, it was.

I can't remember who said this now.

And I should do such creative impacts.

I felt I'd say it a very well phrased point and similar thing.

On a podcast assessing team.

But it was then Final Fantasy was a magic set about Final Fantasy that felt like it was made by people who loved both things, and Spider-Man was a magic set about Spider-Man felt like it was made by people who love never.

Yeah, I can say that.

Yeah, I, I can kind of see where they're coming from with that.

Yeah, this this felt vaguely the, just lacking care.

Lacking, you know, creativity in the designs.

Yeah.

Just like they needed to churn out SIM cards because that's what the licensing agreement said, you know, and this isn't like, I think it was originally meant to be a supplemental products like, I think they make kind of not great supplemental products all the time, and that's fine.

And no one cares.

People do care when it's standard set, you know, a standard set at that premium pricing as well, because this universe is beyond.

Yeah.

No, I agree.

And you touched on the licensing agreement there.

The other lovely thing we got with this set was that, arena has different cards now.

Auto Arena and MC go, the digital versions are different, which is just an A, it's just a needless pain.

Like that was clearly something that someone overlooked or that they thought would be fine and they could work out and haven't been able to, so yeah, the digital versions, I, I think even the mechanics are named differently.

Like, it's not called web slinging.

It's called something else.

Yeah.

The cards are different names.

Different artwork.

Yeah.

I think it's called in web or something.

On the other hand, I love that love.

And.

Yeah.

And again, if you like Spider-Man.

Cool.

And I think from our end it's more of a well, we like magic and it's being disappointment when anything sucks.

But we're just seeing like it's like the line of failure or like the point of failure were so blatant and so obvious to everyone ahead of time.

It's just frustrating.

Especially as for a lot of people like Spider-Man is a phenomenal onboarding tool for a lot of players.

It is a is a great way of getting like new people into playing magic, like into playing magic.

And for it to suck reflects badly on the game, I guess.

Like, I think like that, like the other part of this as well is they they haven't really learned from this mistake because it's the same going to be the same thing with Ninja Turtles.

They didn't.

Ninja turtles was going to be a similar set that they crammed into a standard set.

And I think basically what people have learned is like like, yeah, as Jamie touched on, people drove up the prices of collective boosters for Final Fantasy.

The the market has fallen out of Spider-Man and people have got burned from that.

So where we end up in the future, I don't know, but my gut is that the hype.

But the damage done by Spider-Man will be so great that they that it will affect people's opinions on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles before it even comes out.

Yeah.

The, I mean, what I mean to found, to negative about it, I am kind of glad for that sales and that things seem to have really crashed to a because I think it I'm hoping from this the Wizards will have that they can just churn out the best slime.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

And people expect people to keep buying it.

Because yeah, this felt like I was really, reading it and then just, you know, oh, it's a popular IP.

Will make loads of money.

Anyway, it doesn't matter if we, if we actually, try.

Yeah.

Build like good set.

Yeah.

And.

Yeah, I'm not trying to, like, dunk on the people who works on this set too much because like, these are clearly they were they didn't have a chance to do this partly.

Right.

It's it's again the the people at Fort Worth it.

We're not anyone to design this.

That is the management who made the decision to change stuff like it's a managerial issue.

I am, in terms of cause like we've got Norman Osborn that slips that flipped into Green Goblin down as a cool card.

Like, I like that card.

Nothing.

I've played with it yet.

Like, it's like I've had it to my cube, to my dreams.

Trees.

Okay.

It looks really cool.

I want to give a go.

Like, have you had a chance to actually play with that one?

Yeah.

James, I have played with, I think it's fine.

I think it's good.

It's sort of like 90% of the games.

It's just your, like, neutral core type thing, and that's fine.

And that does thing and then but like the 10% of our games where you flip it, the flip side is actually really cool and unique and does some powerful stuff, you know, and it like works well for fun sci fi because you can hit them, discard a card, flip it, cast that card shape.

And then there is like some interesting combo potential with, like an underworld breach and this and a frantic search to some powerful stuff with that.

And discount.

So yeah, I think this is a card that will stick around.

This was.

Yeah.

So not a lot of good designs in this set in my opinion.

But this I think is one.

There was one.

So mechanically I really liked mayhem.

This is, mayhem.

It's kind of like the modern day version, like the fixed madness.

It's effectively madness.

But you don't get around timing restrictions.

And I would like to see what they like.

Basically, I like the fact that they have made mayhem.

A couple of the cards are cool.

But it's basically I want to see the next set with mayhem.

I want to see, like, mayhem.

And in a Strad, basically that would be sick.

So so that so for me, that was like the main thing I took from Adam is like, mayhem is cool, but I do more of that in the future.

Our final set of the year is also another universe beyond, obviously, like the set of choice at the moment.

Avatar The Last Airbender.

I'll be honest with James, I have not touched any of this set.

I have not have I opened the booster pack.

I think I've ordered some singles.

I think I've ordered a couple of singles.

I ordered the one single I wanted for my cube.

That's, because Badger mockup is still too expensive.

But what has been your what's been your take on like, how has how has Avatar The Last Airbender been viewed?

James, have you done, I've drafted too much.

Yeah.

It's just drafts of s.

It's been good fun.

I think I've done like.

Yeah, maybe like ten, 15 drafts, something like that.

Arena.

It's been good, actually.

But this I do kind of have sort of universes beyond, fatigue at this point that I'd like from to make a magic set for me, please.

But having said that, this is, I think is a pretty good draft on that.

It's, the feet specifically, the bending mechanics all work that all, That all sort of things at work on their own, but get better when you build around them.

And so it feel satisfying when you get to maximize them.

You know, so I think that's like a really big design when, because, you know, when you have like four sets that, sort of, flagship mechanics for the set, if I have them all working of them all sort of landing is is fairly positive.

And there's some cool designs.

V limited format is is pretty good, I think, like there's a few color balance issues.

And I would say like V's are a little bit better than I would ideally like them to be.

Like there are quite a lot of games where, you know, I'm doing a cool synergistic thing, you're doing a cool, synergistic thing, and then so on that is not answered, and all the synergy stuff becomes irrelevant, you know, like, you know, every format has a couple of bombs which feel like that.

Right?

But they just as I think slightly more often you would want, but having said that, like, yeah, I've, I've enjoyed drafting this, that I'm like, I'm probably done with it now.

I think I've had sort of half my I feel that, that it's, it's, it's been solid.

Not many complaints, but I would like to go back to having some magic sets and I'm very hyped for, for Logan.

Yeah.

Logan.

Kind of like we should touch on that gem.

Okay.

Because I do think it's I haven't.

Yeah, I haven't got my hands on one yet because it's currently it's currently still sitting at $50, so and I've done a proxy order and a hot minute, but, one the green two to creature badger bagman.

When it enters earthbound one, which is target land, you control becomes A00 creature with haste.

There's still a land.

Put a counter on it when it dies or his exile returns.

About to go tapped.

And it has.

Whenever you tap a creature for mana, an additional green.

So it's a manado.

But the gist is the Earth bend we think is quite strong because it does cool things with fetch lands and strip mine, which is kind of hot.

And have you had a chance to play with Badger mole?

James?

I've certainly lost to it so far.

That's a lot to it in limited.

And then I actually played some standard on arena for a yes I don't okay.

Yeah.

Many years ago.

Great.

I played, the is it lesson the stack assessment for square.

That's just why I play I just looked at that Dex listen to let's say six v that, for a 45 upscaled arena and, then some wild cards that, Yes, a that's a very good batch model club and standard as well.

So I've played against them.

I've not played with it yet, but Earthbending as a mechanic, certainly does the things you want it to do.

I've got a much slower engine going in limited a couple of times with, the common duel lands.

You can actually draw cards in that format.

So if you bend onto them, you can stack them and then they come back and then you draw more cards, which is great.

So yeah, batch mode crafting.

So I'll do that stuff in a much more explosive way.

And cube fight with stuff like that.

Sands and strip mines and yeah, that seems very powerful.

And you're getting it on an already very serviceable card, right.

Which, you know, adds mana on its own.

But if you have other mana docs around, that's going to double them up as well.

Yes.

This seems really good.

I like the idea of, I feel like there's some combo nonsense you could get up to with, you know, life stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well.

Oh, well, I'll be using the left side.

That turns all.

Exactly.

You never use.

Like, if you have that small curve and you cast life and all the other ones.

Tab for da'vonne, so I defend.

That's kind of cool.

You just you you've turned life into a high tide.

Exactly.

That's good.

Yeah.

Nice I like that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, this seems like a very good card and.

Yeah, yeah, I yeah because I was that review is so recent.

Let's not I don't think I'm going to do too much into it into the other cards.

But yeah from an individual card point of view I thought this set was quite cool.

But yeah.

I agree with what you said about, universes beyond fatigue, if that makes sense.

Like, I we're kind of coming on to like, the, like how the year has been in general.

I guess I'm kind of like one of the main, main takeaways from the year is the.

I feel like this year has been quite freeing for me, because I felt like I haven't had to be as invested in every set.

If that makes it look like there's more magic than ever, let's me.

There's so much to keep up with.

Like like I'm glad.

Like I like doing the set reviews.

And I hope everyone listening enjoys listening to them because I like looking at a set, seeing what cool cards for cube there is.

And then if I if I'm not vibing with it, moving on with my day, like, like like for me, I like for me, like I just kind of basically checked out during Final Fantasy because it didn't vibe with me, but that meant that effectively, I had like a nice three month gap between, talking and opportunities that felt like a normal release window again.

And it was quite nice.

Kind of like how how have you found that this year, James?

It's just in terms of just like the never ending release schedule and all that stuff.

I just constant cards, constant hype, like, I, I can't be alone in feeling that.

It can be a bit much at times.

Yeah, I think yeah, we make a lot of releases and still.

Listen, I've been for a long time.

I've been to not engaging with like a lot of the mental products stuff I produce.

Right.

So it's, it doesn't feel like it's a huge set that, huge step to skip some of the main sets as well.

Certainly something I did with Spider-Man and, I imagined that these, Teslas will be similar.

I think I'm just.

Yeah, I'm just I'm I'm comfortable with.

I'm just going to engage in the stuff that I enjoy.

And, you know, I'm hopeful for the, you know, Strix.

Even next year, I think.

Be cool when I'm psyched for.

And then, no, I'm probably not.

Not a coincidence that I've taken up a lot and that, and honestly, I think this is probably part of the reason why cube is getting a lot more popular as well is, that people want the ability to sort of customize the draft experience a little bit more, play of the cards they like build a environment for types of, And cube lets you do all those things.

So, and, and this is why we like cube like we don't.

Yeah.

Like much as we don't like the stuff or whatever.

Some of the universes beyond stuff, When we're playing cube from, we're building our cubes that, you know, we get to pick what we like and ignore all the stuff we don't.

But I think we're quite lucky we're not in the same position as constructive players where the, their favorite format is still is all of a sudden all of, like, cause you think kind of miserable.

We get to pick what's in our format.

And that's why I.

Great.

It's like.

And it does go both ways.

Like, if you love Final Fantasy, you can build a Final Fantasy set cube and play it forever like that.

It's like, I think this does come onto nicely.

I kind of like this is this is probably been the best year for cube in terms of like like I yeah, I think cube has gotten a lot more popular because people are looking to because people love magic and and they're looking to tailor their the way they enjoy it.

And if you don't like half of half of it nowadays, you can like a best thing about cube is, yeah, yeah, you, you make the environment that you want to live in.

Also this year we've had Powered Cube come to arena, so it's more accessible.

More people have had access to it for the first time and that is phenomenal.

Like like, yes, Mitko is there.

Yes, go is there.

But it just being on arena brings so many more people to and also just brings more people like making content about it.

Like, like more people are talking about cube.

More people are watching things about cube because it just just it looking nicer and being more of an acceptable viewing experience.

Streamers are going to play it more because it's on arena.

All this kind of stuff.

In person tournaments have got bigger, like cube, like two clash has got bigger cube cons and all like then there's so many more that were just seeing popping up now is becoming more of a natural thing for people to kind of start designing cubes and start getting cube, groups going forward.

Like, that's been really awesome to see over the last like 12 months or so.

Yeah, I think that has been quite a big shift in that, I've always thought of cube as a sort of magic for people stop fighting once they've already been playing magic first, that a yes.

And there's it's kind of the end point, right?

Where.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

I just get to make it after five.

It was because I like Darvill.

Yeah.

That's that's well as I think that's changing now like a cube clash I played against a couple of different people who are like, yeah, who'd been playing magic, you know, less than a year and, coming to a big cube event.

Yeah, that was awesome.

I think you wouldn't have got past this game.

Oh, definitely.

Yeah, I guess the word is just getting out now, which is great.

And like.

Yeah, from a, like a from a personal point of view, I kind of touched on how I've been interacting with magic this year, but like, I've really like for me, the thing I've enjoyed most about this year is playing different cubes.

Like I've played so many more different cubes this year than I have previously.

Like that's been awesome.

Again, attending to you guys, but also like us in our play group have just started making more and doing more different things.

Like I started this year with one actual cube and I'm finishing it with three on top of like, we've been playing auto battler a bunch, the four player Q4, like I've really enjoyed for Black Cube formats.

They've been great this year.

Auto Battler has been fantastic.

Like the, the your trim down four player version of the only top two cube has been awesome to do a lot.

Like a lot.

It means we can get things in when there's less people or midweek.

I've really enjoyed that and I think like, yeah, like the next thing on my list is probably a four player is a four black cube.

I think.

Nice.

Yeah.

No, four.

Thank you.

It's been great.

And.

Yeah, it's good.

Sake.

It's have a, variety.

Yeah, I think I've certainly.

And a lot more for.

Yeah.

Like about fire energy into building cubes this year for, Yeah.

Putting together a drill commander cube took a lot of, like, very creative energy this year.

That's been a lot of fun.

We'll do an episode on it and then.

Yeah, I think some time.

Yeah, exactly.

And, yeah, it it comes back to.

Yeah, we are making the, formats that we want to see again.

We did a whole episode last week on, me making a cube based on old cards that remind me of when I was young and fringy and virile and all this kind of stuff, but, yeah, like like like like cube lets you do that.

And I just think that's going to continue more into 2026.

Like, personally, I think it's more likely I make a couple more cubes than it is.

I attend a prerelease of a set.

I'm just not a spy.

And that's honestly just why Cube is Magic's best format.

And I don't even think it's close.

And if you're listening to this, it's likely that you think the same way.

But talking of 2026, that's going to do it for our episode today and do it for our year as we're finishing up, I just wanted to thank you all very much for listening and very much for being here throughout 2025.

I want to wish you all, great holiday season, happy New Year, all that good stuff.

And James, thank you as well man.

It's been a pleasure this year.

Yeah thanks.

Same to you and happy New Year for our listeners.

Yeah.

Thank you all very much for listening.

We're going to take a week or two off, recharge the batteries, all that goodness.

But until then you will look after yourselves.

You will have a great new year.

You will take care, give the podcast a five star review.

Thumbs up, all that good stuff.

And until next time, it's goodbye from me.

Goodbye from James.

And we'll see you all soon.

Goodbye.