Powerful Nothing
A Magic the Gathering Cube podcast hosted by Dan and James. Talking Cube and other magical goodness.
Powerful Nothing
#44 - The Golden MTGies - End of Year Awards 2024
Its the most magical night of the year, as we present the Golden MTGies, our end of the year award ceremony and year in review.
00:00:58 - Set of the Year
00:08:36 - Worst Set
00:17:52 - Best New Mechanic
00:25:28 - The not actually that good but is excellent vibes card of the year award
00:29:39 - Best New Card for Commander
00:35:02 - Biggest mistake of the year (that's not the commander bans or the following sh#tstorm)
00:46:59 - Best New Cube Card
00:56:23 - Best Artwork
00:59:11 - Best Commander
01:06:22 - Most Deserving Ban
01:17:20 - Pet of the Year
01:19:31 - Card of the Year
Video Version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5QZL9eJnlU
My Cube: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/sweet
James Cube: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/ba642a54-a6c7-4587-b97e-1d95429c59b5
Social Links: https://linktr.ee/toosweetmtg
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Creative Commons / Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en_US
Gaiety in the Golden Age composed, performed and recorded by Aaron Kenny.
Love Letters composed, performed and recorded by Aaron Kenny.
Dark Alley Deals composed, performed and recorded by Aaron Kenny.
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Hello everyone. Welcome back to Powerful Nothing a Magic The Gathering Cube podcast. It is the most magical night of the year. Today it's our end of year award ceremony, the golden mtgies But the ceremony this important, I can't host alone. As always, I'm joined by my glamorous co-host, James. James, how are you this wonderful evening? I'm feeling very glamorous. Of course. We've, It's. It's our most glamorous night of the year, so of course we've got the, the, the tuxedo. So I'm. My tuxedo is made of sequins, and that's a fact for glamor. It's, It's going to be a phenomenal evening. It is. It is truly the most magical night of the year. We just want to thank the academy and by the academy, I mean, thank you all very much for listening. And to all those who failed in the voting for them, the Academy would be nothing without you. I would just like to thank everyone who's been listening to podcasts over the past year for your support. It means the world to both myself and James, but I think let's take it away with our first award. We have a big one up first, James, let's talk about best set. So zendikar in Ystrad cans of Takeya legendary sets have stood the test of time. Which set from 2024 will join these lofty heights. Here is the award for set of the year. So for the contenders, as is the case of magic, now we release a lot of SAT seven content as we have for this year, where Veronica V mastered will say, a vino. Only thing I believe I know that was a paper set. Yeah, that was a long time ago, that Nicodemus that we drafted, that James I think I think we dropped a lot of things down. We dropped a lot of things. Yeah, we have graphic remastered. We have murders as Karloff Manor. We have the fallout sets have outsold the fun. The junction, well, the good cowboy based goodness. We have Modern Horizons three, Assassins Creed, The Limbo, Dusk Moan, House of horror, and finally foundations and the award goes to Modern Horizons three. I don't think that's a massive surprise. I think in terms of impact and just in terms of most impactful cards of the year, I do think Modern Horizons three definitely has it. It did definitely feel they found a bit more of a sweet spot with Modern Horizons three. I mean, yes, there are some obvious outliers in terms of power level, which we'll definitely do later on with some of our other awards. But I think in general, as I said, Modern Rising three for the most part did kind of thread that needle of what we kind of want from modern horizons in terms of there are some cool throwback cars, there are some powerful cars and this like that, especially for cube. Anyway, there was a lot of support for cool archetypes within it. I kind of like cool new role players and yeah, yeah, I can definitely see why. Why on horizon three took it down. James, what did you think about Modern Horizon three? Do you think a deserved set of the year? I think The Cube, it was a really cool set. In terms of looking at the the water, I guess, of what the Modern Horizons sets trying to achieve. I'm think it was a great thing for modern, as seen by probably band and respected announcement since, I suspect if we asked primarily modern players what for their opinion, some modern presence free, it might be a bit less popular. But for cube, I thought it was great. A limited format was fun as well. Not for most balanced, I would say. Footprinting. Reviving Chrysalis at common is it's just a wild decision, like people talk about V issues with energy, which was certainly a massive issue that they fended off as it was another place set, I kind of think. Did anyone playtests with advising reviving Chrysalis on that need? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you have to cast that card once you like that? It's absurd. It's a format of 4 or 5, which gives me two mana back like, and gives me some thought because none of it makes sense to me for that to be a common, but for the limits. That's that was so cool. You could do a lot of interesting things in that format. And, yeah, for cube, I think it was it was kind of great. I think we got some very nice, interesting build around six of like, the thing ritual and, communion night mass and some and, visuals are wonderful as well as phase II, just baseline power stuff. Like we did a whole podcast on not doing Cube Fight and Loathing. That's fun. In stuff like hieroglyphs, I think is a really interesting addition to a lot of cubes. So yeah, I, I totally get it. I also really like Sussman. As a said, I think that was certainly my limited format for. Yeah. But thought overall sets of vibe, I'm pretty on board with giving it to Modern Horizons, I think. Yeah, I think we spent more time talking about more horizons three this year. I think Modern Horizons three was the set where we it kind of, I'm not going to say broken up, but I think we did like five episodes on it. And I think that was very much the one where it was like, we're not ever doing that again. Yeah. When it when Modern Horizons four inevitably rolls around, you're not getting five star reviews. I'll tell you that. Now. There was definitely a point during the modern horizons that during the Modern Horizons, three episodes where we were recording an episode about modern noise, and three after, Assassin's Creed had been released. Like bloom borrows spoilers, it started, but it also started spoiling Dusk Morn as well. So it's kind of like we're still doing this three had this set, but there were just so many good cards. Forgive of that set, you know, like, no, exactly. Even if you, you know, outside of the super powerful stuff because every card is pitched to be in some way interesting and in constructive formats. Right? It just means that there's, like almost every cards you could talk about for some sort of cube. Yeah. Oh yeah. I then and like, I like it more. There was a couple we missed as well. So expect part six sometime in never. Absolutely. But right now we're not going back. But yeah. Yeah I did mention that, dustman that that was the second placed one and only a vote or two behind one horizon. Sorry. And I would agree with that in terms of what was promised for the set and in terms of what it delivered, I think it kind of nailed it. The haunted house setting was sort of like it was one of the ones early in the game when it was announced that I was kind of like, that sounds interesting. I, I'm kind of interested, see how they do that? And, and I thought they nailed it pretty well. Like, like I said, in my own kind of end of year review, they're kind of like I thought some of the references were kind of a bit on the nose that you had, like, they're the twins from The Shining. You had like chainsaw like like like you had a chainsaw. Some things were a bit on the nose, but I thought in general it just landed it pretty well and was kind of. Yeah, it was I was pleasantly I was really surprised with how that turned out, rather than some of the other sets of the I, which I think kind of left, but some of the sets kind of promised high, but I think underwhelmed me a little bit. But we'll kind of get onto that in a moment when we move on to our next. Yeah category. I, I think Testament for me was like a veiled masterpiece of limited design, where they really managed to thread the needle between, sort of synergy decks and, and cards having overlaps, like, we see a lot of sets now sort of fall into a lot of two categories. In lymphedema, you have the, twice of linear synergy decks where it's like a card goes in one, maybe two decks. Does it synergistic thing there and isn't useful anywhere else. Or we have sets like foundations where they basically just take for good cards, put them in your deck, ignore the synergies, and dustmen manage to have a lot of really powerful, interesting synergies. But that card really overlaps between them and they're even within the same color combinations. You could be doing very different synergistic things like your bluegreen deck, cut outs could be really leading into manifest thread synergies, or it could be very leaning in itself, mill stuff. It could have some airy enchantress stuff going on, and all of those things sort of felt like they overlapped and supported each other in a way, but without becoming just super power. You just play powerful cards and, you know, I mean, it was it was a really it was a really well put together for my fault, though. Definitely any, any in terms of, yeah, you mentioned mechanics. Their best new mechanic is also a category, for the awards today. And, and does more and features heavily in it with some of those. So yeah yeah yeah yeah. I would also agree probably my favorite dry format of the year as well. Yeah. Banger of a set. All right. Let's get it moving. Let's take it away with probably the award. People don't want to win. This is the worst set. Homeland's fallen empires. March of the machine. Colon aftermath. Turgid dumps of sets that not even a mother could love. Here are the nominees. The worst set of the year, though, for contenders for worst set. Unsurprisingly, the same we have. I think a remastered matters last call of mana fallout outlaws of Wonder Junction, Modern Horizons, three, Assassins Creed, limbo, Dusk Moan, House of Horror and Foundations. And the winner for worst of the year is Murders at Karloff Manor. So this is an interesting one because from an theming point of view and from a promised point of view, I completely get this. I don't actually think that this was the worst of the year in terms of like gameplay or even like cards in it, but in terms of what was promised ahead of time, I think this was the one that disappointed me the most. Like like it was kind of pitched and pitched as this, like murder mystery style set, but it was just a cassette. It didn't. I did not get to like it was a replica set that had a bunch of investigate cards in it. I did not get across that this was a like we were trying to solve anything. And like again, in my own the end of the review, I kind of went off on this because like, it's a murder mystery. But they told us like we knew who the murderer was before we ever touched the cards. There was no real mystery in the set, or kind of like discovering thing. I'm like, you had you had mechanics named after stuff like you had you had mechanics named off to investigate all that kind of thing. But I didn't really feel I didn't get the theming of, I'm trying to solve something. I'm trying to work out the puzzle. It was it just felt like a replica set. And from a play point of view, I didn't mind it. I thought it was okay, like it did have more, like it had morphs and landslide killers. And generally I like sets that have those in from a play point of view. I thought, I thought that was fine, but kind of like, imagine if they promised a dust moon and we didn't get anything like spooky or any references. That's kind of what murders that kind of man felt like to make it kind of. I was promised murder mystery, and I just got a replica set so I can see why this one was set of the year. Yeah, the grave of. I'd like a yeah, I think it promised a lot and didn't really deliver. Right. I the I think you're, you're bang on with the mechanics right. Like the mechanics. The name sort of pointed you in the direction of this murder mystery. But there's nothing about how the cards actually played. But the felt thematic about that. Yeah, it really just felt like, a lot of rehashed old mechanics, like, we've, we've had investigate before. We, we had the return of morph and like, I think it's a bit of an, a bit of an all time favorite mechanic. And. Yeah, but I guess these cards don't actually interact with morphs as you want them to because they did the, what do you call it? They did the day by night bounding of werewolves. They kind of brought it back. But like the content don't entirely work with the original morphs that we used to have. Yeah. So we have disguise, which is basically the cards are morph, though when they're face down, they have worlds to. So the logic behind this they was Fox morph has been power scrapped. We you can't spend Fee Manor on a two to in most formats anymore. Even like Modern Beast, that's just two behind the curve. So I decided to try and sort of, keep up with the power with by, by adding that wall to it, have sort of a weird effects on the format wave. And it made for certain bits of removal a lot worse. But honestly, a lot of the disguised creatures still felt pretty weak. Yeah. I didn't think it was a terrible limited set, though I that was partly just because I had a lot of fun with, like, chalk outline, insidious fruits, graveyard, dank. Honestly, without that deck, I'd probably have completely hated the limited format because that the other stuff was kind of medium. But, I'd tech for the period where no one drafted it. It was just like three weeks of that fun that we've lost that deck every time. And it was great. Because there's a lot of great ways to enable it, but it would go really late with the, what's called the spell Maverick is a verbal belt, you might call it, from your graveyards. Put a counter on something, it gets you. It's. It's because you're in City of Streets. It's the vowels. It's a one chop. It's quite, along with the, there's like a artifact creature which exiles itself. And another card from a graveyard. So that's two triggers on your roots and your, chalk outline. And you can just get these really cool value engines going and when the game that way. But, yeah, I'd like a general volume set for my fault was fine, but not exciting. I'm think it was like a full set, but I think it was the thing of a valid promise to loss and didn't deliver. Right. Like, I didn't think it was necessarily a worst set than foundations. And, for example, in terms of, yeah, in terms of play. Yeah. How much fun it was to try to tell how impactful it was. But I think foundations, they told us were getting a core set and they delivered on that. And, that as they, they told us we were gassy, getting a very interesting thematic set and kind of dig into that. Yeah. I think yeah, definitely. Yeah. Yeah, it was definitely the gist from the want to be it was the clear winner like in second and third place. We like I can see why it why Assassin's Creed was in second place. Because it wasn't really a set. It was a bunch of boost. It was it was a bunch of cards in seven pack boosters, which got of I don't want them to ever do again, but they probably will. But I can see why that was in second place. And then my actual worth it to the year, was Bloom Burrow that came in third place. And for me this was just because of the player experience. Like that's adorable. I get that, but specifically from a gameplay point of view, I really didn't like the limited environment of bloom, but I. I get the impression it was very like Marmite. You either loved it or you hated it, but it just didn't click with me. And I think I know you drafted more of it for me, James, but like from my end, it very much felt like you had to both be in the two color combination of your deck and also specifically in the right creature type. You could be in the correct colors for a deck, but not get the creature synergy, and therefore just have a bad deck like that. Really kind of. I didn't feel rewarded in that, in that set at all. Basically. Yeah. No, I, I totally agree. It was honestly bad draft for that detested. When a new limited set comes out, I'm normally like a complete degenerate, at least for a few weeks. And, but it's actually not really any standard legal set, so I don't at least do like 30, 40 drafts, I don't know. Yeah. And, limbo, I got like, I'm not sure I even got to ten drafts now. It's just like, really? Oh, today there's a cube for Magic Online. That's, That's it. I've got massive machine flashbacks draft. I could go and do something else. It's just like, yeah, yeah, like, because the draft portion wasn't fun because there's no way to pivot. Like, because the cards are all so linear and only go in one deck, like, you're basically just. I've got two sets of podcasts, but it's yeah, I'm in that white mice. Okay, I'll take every card with a picture of mouse on it. And that's basically how you meant to draft is not just for creatures like eating the spells. A certain link to that creature type of, mechanic that they don't really pivot between decks most of the time. So it just wasn't fun. And the gameplay was just, like, pretty boring on board gameplay. I was I mean, it was fine that I wasn't, that there wasn't really potential to play many long, grinding games. So it was just pretty, pretty quick and curvy. The frogs attack was kind of cool, but, outside of that, I for that set didn't have a lot going for. But, I think that by people who care more about the flavor, and the flavor, I think so, yeah. For some of the people, the favor really, really tied to a fan. And that's great. You know, not every magic set has to be for everyone, but limbo is certainly not for me. No, definitely, I guess I this thing I kind of like, I guess we're we are a bit more. Well, I would say in franchise, but I mean that in terms of we're probably kind of a bit more kind of like card first, flavor second, if that makes sense. And I guess bloom burrow was very much a flavor first. Everything else kind of afterwards. Basically it was a vibe set. And if it if it vibe with you, awesome. Love that. If it didn't, then I think you like it was harder for us to kind of like get on, get on board with it. But like I think I think just in general. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think for me I can see definitely Isle of Man. It was, it was the biggest disappointment for me, for the year. So yeah I can see why that kind of carried it to being the worst and most disappointing and unfun set of the year. But let's keep the train rolling, James. We have a lot of beautiful awards. I still a lot of magic for us to get through tonight. Let's take it away with best new mechanic. So this was a tremendous year for new mechanics. We got to kick around enchantments, kick it spread out over a couple of turns. Two types of kicker on morphs a new modal type of kick, and the ability to give all targeted spells. Kicker. Here are the nominees for best new mechanic. That's great. There's a lot of stuff we have crimes of, MKM when you target that stuff, you commit a crime. We have plot, we have spree, have offspring from Bloomfield, we have perfumes as manifest dread that counters and cloak. And the award for best new mechanic goes to runes. So yeah. Yeah. This was the kicker on enchantments. I actually quite like rooms. I thought it play. I thought it played a lot better than I initially thought it was going to. Yeah, any kind of like kicker where you are able to kind of get, get, get use out of something early game and get you out of something late game is always going to be good. And we hadn't seen it on the on this type of permanents before. I think as well, the fact that there was just a lot of flexibility and the fact that in the set, the rooms deck was actually quite fun, definitely, I think kind of helped carry a new mechanic and kind of get people using it, and definitely just individual card points of view, like, like one of my favorite cards of the year was the, the Crucible of Worlds room with upside. Basically, that is just a very strong card. And yeah, I can see. Yeah, I really like rooms. I thought it played quite well. Second place was also from Dusk Moon, which I guess shows again, the the, the popularity of that set with Manifest Dread. This is another great like type of mechanic because it's just it's basically just like printing upside and value on a bunch of cards. You're already going to play, the ability to get A22 into play. Yeah. It was really cool and really strong. James, what do you think about rooms and manifest rating? Kind of what was your mechanic of the year? Yeah, I, I think I would go manifest dread with the that are close second. I think that's maybe loosely based on the limited environment. But yeah, I think they both like great rooms is, I think it's nice having that mana sync ability on, on your value cards and, because a lot of them have a bunch of, like, movable spells would be rooms, and some of their features would be rooms, like, that'd be like a room made a totem or whatever. And I think just giving you more stuff to do in the late game, which is always great and limited, and it also means you, it's a mechanic, which gives them a lot of design space. Right. And I think they took advantage of that very well. There's some really interesting, cool rooms for them that they made. And, Yeah, played great and limited. I think it's like great in cube five. And they, they have overlap with of that fight like a if you're doing enchantments master stuff and then you can slot in really well. Yeah. Manifest also absolutely loved I think it seems like quite a minor switch from this from the original manifest to Manifest Dread, which was just, you know, the selection out of the top two, and we have one going to the graveyard. But and it's actually a very big deal because a, it gives you more chances to hit creature. And that feels less like just putting a vanilla two to into play, like you have to aspects a bit more of an it might be an actual creature, but the B it means it overlaps and fuels your graveyard and therefore like overlaps of other graveyard synergies. I did find if you went very heavy on manifest strats, you did yourself very fairly quickly. It's in 40 cards, so that can certainly be a concern. But I honestly kind of like that base, like I think limited formats where you have to worry about decking yourself often quite fun. There's, you know, it's just, a side of a game you don't normally interact with that much. Right. But certainly if I was all in on the Manifest Dread deck, I felt like I really needed at least one of the, six mana flier that could put cards on the bottom of your library from your graveyard to, to avoid decking. But that's a pretty cool, that's an interesting wrinkle in the format for me. And, yeah, I suppose we kind of expected. Great. To comment on a mechanic. On the other hand, forgotten oak boats. Dan, can you tell me without looking at up what that counters do? Right. So rad counter. So I know the specifically annoyance of this is that, all the so Rad counters is from the fallout set, and I believe no card itself actually explains what rad counters do. They just say you get a rad counter, and a rad counter is a token? Oh. I know it's an emblem you receive that basically, I believe says on your I think it's after you draw at the beginning of your pre combat main phase, if you have a rad counter, male, I'm gonna say two cards. If you reveal a non land permanent, you lose a life and lose a rad counter. You're pretty close. That's a good alpha. It's okay. It's you. Middle cards equal for number of that counts okay. And for each non land meld this way. Yeah. You lose the life and you lose for that counter. Yeah. Yeah I had for bad counter sweeper in my deck at the last, the last Kiwi place I think. Why I know I got as far as I did, because I was sat next to you and we were trying to remember, but. Yes, yes, yes, I looked at. I looked up every time. The first time I looked it up and still got it wrong. But I mean, maybe that says more about me. Even that counters that. No, it is. It is very much. There is not a card, I believe that fully explains what rad counters does. I think all the cards in this and I could be wrong, but like all the ones I all the ones that are playable anyway, say the words you get extract, you get an amount of rad counters and then it stops there. Like like the rules explanation for rad counters. It's on the tokens, but I don't have the tokens, which I apologize. Well, I should probably get round counters for my cube, for the tokens actually. But yeah. Yeah, it's. I can see why they go. I actually think it's a very cool mechanic, but like it self mill is is cool. It's something that I like and it's something that that cube wants, especially with the pirate glyphs and, and the other guys this year. But yeah, just as an execution, it's not great. It's really not great. Yeah, I think mechanics like that, I could see it being cool if it was like a limited set with a whole bunch of cards that did stuff with that counters, and you could get some sort of mini self games about it, but when it's just like there's one card you've ever played with which has less mechanics, it's just sort of annoyingly complicated, isn't it? Yeah, I meant you going through every card with Brad counter, and yet not one of them has the full rules for Brad counter written on it. Right. Great choices. Dreadful. And the annoying thing is that, yeah, on the card you're talking about nuclear fallout. That's ex black. Black for sorcery. Each creature gets twice minus x minus x, and to end of turn each player gets x red counters. There is room on that card to write what a rad counter does. Oh I see, yeah, yeah. That dice that I missed flavor attack. Okay, but yes, Brad counters won't be one that we'll be seeing again, I guess until I know fallout two. The set, not the game. Right. Let's keep it moving. Let's move on to. I had to go like this. That this next one, this one is the award for the not actually that good, but it's excellent vibes card of the year. Not all cards can be as strong as Psychic Frog. Not all cards can break formats like Nadu, and not all cards can like bristly Bill. Here are the nominees for not actually that good, but it's excellent vibes card of the year. So first up we have Sludge Titan. We have Nexus of becoming the caps. I don't have to say that word again. You could be a real wet the Capitoline Triad. Preposterous proportions and Leonardo da Vinci. And the winner, by a considerable margin, I will say, is preposterous proportions. If you don't know what this card is, it is five green. Green for sorcery creatures. You can get past ten plus ten and gain vigilance until end of turn. And the artwork is a bunch of squirrels wrecking a giant squirrels, wrecking a town. So I can see why there's one. I really like that. There's got to be. We always get, like, there's so many cards printed, but just like, some of them are just, just awesome. But don't really get there. The fact that this is seven mana and doesn't give you stuff trample is kind of wild. Like like overrun is in this set as an uncommon overrun, as in foundations. That is so much better than the bosses proportions. There is a world where like, yeah, I mean, this will still end games, but not as reliably as the one as any of the ones that give trample. It's a fun god. What did you vote for in this one, James? I did vote for boss just for fortunes, because I think I voted maybe after I had recently drafted foundations and cast gods and they was quite fun and it doesn't completely suck like it. It is mostly for that, I agree, but it's, basically, you can view this card as your opponent sacrifices creatures equal to the number of features you have. Yeah. Okay. That's for next number. If I have fewer features than you have, then you probably win. And if you have, And if otherwise, you kind of play good fun, because it gives you this vigilance as well. So they can't even, like, kill you on the back like it is seven mana. And it needs you to have a boss say, this isn't a good card, but like when it works, it feels it feels great. You know, the vibes are excellent. And that's why. And that's why it won this award. So I actually voted for the capital Nine triad. I think this card's stupid. I really like what it does. It's ten generic mana for a, legendary creature God artificer. It's A77. It has a named ability, which is those who came before, which is this spell cost one generic. That's the cost of each historic card in your graveyard. So that's artifacts of legendaries and sagas. And then it has the activated ability. Exalt any number of historic cards from your graveyard with total mana value 30 or greater. You have an emblem with creatures you control have base power, toughness nine nine. So I have this. I have this in the command. The deck I'll be bringing with me later today. James, when we play, I have never got anywhere near this. I think it's awesome. Just the ability to get an emblem that makes your things. 99I think is awesome. The only time I've ever seen this work is friend of the show, fire truck Moto. Put it in dredge. I got it working, and I love that. I think this card is dreadful, actually, but I really want to win a game with it. Like, really, really want to win a game with it. So hopefully, maybe today. Maybe today is where is where we'll do that. The other ones on the list. Yeah. Like they don't know. Da Vinci has a special mention to me because, mainly because the card has nothing to do with this, but I want to build a Voltron deck and beat people to death with Leonardo da Vinci, because I think that's funny. But, strong other contenders in this category, as we mentioned. So. Yeah. So yeah, but yeah, I and takes it down. What a vibe card. We love it. All right. But next we have a big one. Best new card for command I. So this is the best card printed for the 99 in 2024. The days of searching through long boxes for a six minute draft chat. Enchantment to put in your command. The deck seems so long ago now. Cards designed for commander are powerful, efficient, and I printed at such a rate. Artists have to plagiarize other artists to keep up with the demand. Here are the nominees for best new card for commander. Okay, so first up we have Patrick Tanner. We have Three Tree City, Velva, profane insidious roots six Spring Heart and two Co sink into stupor and trouble in pairs. And the award goes to trouble in pairs. They are we trouble in pairs. First it is two white white. When gentlemen. If an opponent would begin an extra turn, that player skips that turn instead. And whenever an opponent attacks you with two or more creatures, draws a second card each turn, or cast a second spell each time you draw a card. So this is for me anyway. It is very much indicative of like the current command design. It's just a value thing that kind of is just generically quite powerful. It's kind of feels like like the white version of like that of like a black market connections. That's the one that's sort of like a juiced for action arena. It kind of just draws you cards and makes you tokens and this just does a bunch of generic stuff. But it's very good in commander. This is also the one with the plagiarized artwork, for what it's worth. But I think myself, I think I actually voted for I think I voted for Patrick Banner, actually, this is an uncommon that if you, you should probably check your draft chaff if you have one, because they're out there. They're they're about £5, actually. Patrick Banner is the, monolith that, you choose a creature type when it comes in and gives all those creatures both plus one plus one, just a very solid card. That kind of probably goes in any type or matters deck. James, what was your, best new commodity out of the year? I voted for in citrus fruits? I think it's the coolest card on the list, and it would be a lot of fun to make work. And, commander, it's it's sort of depends what you mean by best, really, doesn't that. Obviously there's, so several base of cards in this list, probably, you know, more to more game ones. And commander, six seems kind of phenomenal. And commander, honestly, like giving reach to everything. The trouble and Paz I could certainly see is as the best, power level. The first time I read this card, as someone said, it was really good in commander, I was like, oh, we doing something cool where you, like, give your opponents extra turns and then they fizzle and they have some, like, interesting Senate Chief magistrate, I guess. And I just it's it doesn't it. It's just. And why. Yeah. That's just like a weird mystic study or whatever. It's not it's. Yeah. I don't like this sort of card, commander. That just kind of boring to me. But yeah, it certainly seems powerful. And, Yeah, I could, I could see, but know I, I think that I, if I'm honest with you, I think actually the most like, like if we group them together, I think they probably would have run away with it. And that's the mfccs from modern regions. Three have genuinely changed, commander, just in terms of like, like format of base bases. Now in commander, you do kind of you can can say to do I like how many mfccs am I running? Especially the ones that you can pay, like with with MH three, we got two in each color of ones that can come into like untapped. If you pay three life, which effectively means they're just free to run. So there's like like specifically like the profiling, which is a removal spell which comes on a land that comes into play untapped, that's just free to run. There's an argument that any deck in black should just run that. Same with like, which enchanter, which is, destroys an artifact enchantment, or it's a land that comes in play untapped. I think there is a world where these are probably most impactful cards of the year for command. And just because now every commander that it going forward will prob like that was a world where just like if you're building a fully tuned command, the deck you should be running these just in general. You should you should just be running them. And, and it's now a question of how many you run rather than if you should run them or not. Yeah, for sure. But especially commander being, you know, 40 like format. Just bolting yourself to untapped land matters a ton less. Yeah. Yeah it's I yeah I came back my doubts. He let games play also really good with with pitch cards. Right. If you can essentially sometimes pitch your Landstuhl. Yeah. Thoughts of well or your solitude or whatever it might be. Now generally say powerful ones like this, I think for that's like modern horizons. But yeah, yeah, we will see more MDF skis. But I think ones with this power level, like just ones where they come into play on tapped off kind of wild. Yeah for sure. Very strong key this well like sink into super specialist card I really like and cubed. Yeah. Again. Yeah it's just we don't. Yeah yeah yeah yeah a lot of these from a key point of view I just the argument of like where do I have room for them. Yes. Yeah for sure basically because like there is a limit on how many. Just like I'd like to be lands with upside. You can run but like yeah I, I've not run felt that fell too profane in mind but I probably just should be and saying we think it's super just because they are good. But anyway let's from good things to not so good things, our next category is the biggest mistake of the year. That's not the command to bans or the following shitstorm. There is an old Portuguese proverb the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Some of the some of the mistakes this year have come from a place of people trying to do the right thing. What's the minimum? People doing their best with what they had available to them? Some mistakes, however, are not accidents. They're a corporate bulldozer tearing through any good intentions in order to keep the red line going up. Here are the nominees for the biggest mistake of the year. If the biggest mistake for a year we have printing nada without playtesting its final form wizard stopping printing magic cards in Portuguese and simplified Chinese, delaying grief and legacy play boosters, replacing draft and set boosters and making secret letters. Limited event fun. And the award goes to making Secret Layers limited print run so this is definitely one that I think is I would agree with I, I think these all suck, to be honest with you. And I mean, the language expanding legacy might just be because I was talking to the wife when I put this list together who's a big legacy player. But, the rest of them, I think, all suck in some various forms, basically, but kind of like specifically from the Making Secret Layers limited print run, which is, yeah, it was a runaway it when I had noticeably more votes than any of the other ones. This this is something that kind of like, especially as we've just had the Marvel secret layers, which really I'm quite rightly kind of like a lot of people felt really, it just a very crappy situation is the best way I can describe it. It's basically it feels like wizards shooting themselves in the foot because people want to give them their money to buy things, and then just, just, just the whole way they've done these limited print run secret layers is just dreadful like like the experience of being in a bit, being like a queue for four hours to then go through to a list that says, you can't, that they're all sold out, just sucks and is a is a genuinely a bad experience for any like like no one buying a secret layers having a nice time. Basically. Like like even if you get what you want to do, you still may have had to wait an hour or two hours and then you have to make a quick decision like, and then just the fact that because people can buy, I think it's like you can buy multiple, you can't just but you can buy more than one of these just means that just scalpers are hoovering these up and everyone kind of hates it. And it's just this really shitty situation where just kind of it's just it's a perpetual cycle where we're basically we're just printing stuff that people want to buy, which is good, like, hooray, people can buy this stuff, but because they're making it limited print run, it just it doesn't work for anyone. Like when the situation is. The only people happy with this are scalpers. We are in a bad situation, like they either need to make it, you can only buy one, or they need to make it so that it's printed demand. Like like the reason they change this was because, of just the league times beforehand. Basically they would sell them and then print them, whereas now they print them and then sell the amount that they have made. So that they can send them. I will get them within like a couple of weeks rather than like it would take like 3 to 6 months last time, or like the main one was that that was, come on the deck, which took over a year. And I get that those delays suck, but like, for once, like a marvel set where even there was a CEO or that was expected that like said, these will sell out immediately that don't have ones like these limited print run like people would still be buying these for people at Christmas, that kind of stuff. If they were still available. And it's just generally I should be situation. And like for those who didn't get the Marvel secret layout, like the main thing I would say is they will all get reprinted at some point in the future. Like you might not get the artwork that was in the secret layer, but every single face commander from the from the Marvel secret layer you will get in the future. It is a multi-layered. It is a multi-year deal. They will all be reprinted at some point in the future. Don't worry about that. Don't feel like you need to spend 100 200 pounds on a scalpers one because you can proxy. Until then, it'll be all right. James, do you have anything on, on on the sequel as I was there any any of the other ones you want to touch on the secret labs? I mean, it didn't impact me really directly because I'm still yet to buy a secret lab, but, I just suddenly had a lot of negativity above. And if it sounds like a really, really poor experience and really needless, like, I don't know about you, I. I didn't really care. Many people complaining about the long lead times for the secret labs. Like, I think people sort of knew that when they were buying them and were broadly okay with it. And also, if you're going to do the limited print run, because these weren't the sort of things that were designed to sell out by having they just sort of misjudged, the clumsiness people would order. I don't know why. I was surprised that lots of people wanted to buy Marvel stuff, but I don't know very well. But you'd think they'd be the cost to Wizards when they find something and don't sell, it just isn't going to be that high. Like of of the total of Wizards expenditure that come that for bringing products market, the actual printing costs, it's just not going to be that big a part for. Yeah, you'd think they just really aim high. Like shoot high if you if you're doing a fix them send one right. Just like print twice the amount you expect to sell. And if you don't sell all that then fine. Whereas when they undershoot and they're just it seems like from their point of view, they're leaving a ton of money on the table. Plus they're very annoying. Lots for community. And even if you do get one, they're making the experience of buying a secret laugh way worse, right? Because you've got to go and sit in a queue for eight hours, which no one really wants to do. Yeah, it's a really weird decision for me. Like, even I think I've been. Monty Python one sold out almost immediately, right? Which was kind of a shame. I thought the, the Birds of Paradise were very funny for that. Yeah. African and European swallow. That that was that was great. But, yeah, it's just a really bizarre decision. Fencing not to. I think we've discussed really. And I think there's a whole episode. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think you owe it to you. Yeah, yeah. But I asked about Decision Land. I suspect. No, I'm voting for, delaying the ban probably reflects the bad number of legacy players who listen to our podcast. Specifically ban. I know, very mad about it. Well, I will just say my wife asked me to add that, and I know she voted on this form. Did she? I'll check. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, I, I'll, I'll check watch what she actually voted for in the end. Okay. Maybe she voted for, but yeah. But yeah, yeah. On the other ones. Yeah. The swapping printing magic in Portuguese and simplified Chinese is the short version of that. Is they just going to print them. There's going to print English and expect them to deal with that basically. Yeah. This is the one I voted for. I yeah, I do know there's a lot of magic has played in Brazil and in Portugal, to be fair. And there's a lot of people. Yeah, I, I've heard, I've heard from a few people in China as well. Yeah. This seems like long term, I think this is probably a really poor decision for wizards. Yeah. Like I believe that they, that it is maybe costing them more money to print now and not to. But if if you want to develop the game and grow the game, then having people be able to play the game in their native language seems like, feedback wasn't too great for me. Yeah. So this seems like a really odd decision. Yeah, yeah, a lot of things do seem so. Yeah. So like Noddy was that was the one on here that that I think was a genuine mistake. And just like they came out with like it was a balls up, they didn't. So yeah, I do feel a bit of sympathy there. But like all the rest of them and I haven't touched on the replacing draft boosters with set boosters, I think generally that hasn't, hasn't really kind of affected things too much. But from a gameplay point of view, I think it's worse. I think we'll see more of that. When, booster boxes go down to being 30 packs, they will just generally feel like we're getting a lot less next year than than it like, it. That's a combination of things that I think will really start ramping up in the next couple years. I kind of like most of these. I just ones where it's just wizards chasing the the red line and like the sales, from Covid, like with the like with a lot of industries, if I'm honest with you. You see it everywhere. Yeah. It's it's disappointing. And I wouldn't be surprised if they make another change, especially to the Secret Age at some point in the future. Just because, like, like I am the type of person who would buy secret layers, but like, all the ones I want, I just can't be asked to have the miserable experience of wait, like, like like I someone who buys a lot of gig tickets. I don't want to repeat that experience in my magic, you know what I mean? Like it? Yeah. So I know we're putting, Wizards of the Coast and Ticketmaster, so. Yeah, the level of, customer service. Yeah. Which is never where you actually want to be. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think we've always say that that's facing the bottom line and that's facing the very short term bottom line. And the reality is that that is what, that's just how corporations work. Yeah. The CEO of Wizards, I'm sure has is to a certain extent about the long term health of the game and about what magic's going to be like in ten years. But that is not what is driving that decisions, that decisions are being given because the line needs to go up next quarter and the quarter after that. And people already spend a lot of money on magic. You know, there's To a certain extent, the, we're kind of saturated with how much how many products they can release, how many, how much money they can get people to spend on the game. So when they start looking at things like cutting back costs by, by removing even printings in other languages, for example, and if, if that means that their profits go up in the short term, then that probably cannot do it. Yeah, it very sucks. I think it is shortsighted, but it's, yeah, unfortunately, that's how a lot of corporations have done. And, and with the certainly since and exception of the moment. Yeah, it is certainly something that kind of I think will bite them in the long term because I'm like, this is the year I spent the least on magic or giving the least money to Wizards. Yeah. Like I've not done like that. Or like I think to me, prerelease is and a magic wand is all the money they got out of me. I've not really bought product. I bought singles, I bought proxies because it was easier and cheaper and, nicer experience than sitting in a secret lair. So, you know, yeah, it's like I will not be alone in that. Other players will be moving to that too. And yeah, I think good will be a big one. Especially it. Yeah. I don't I think we should move on. But just like next year with booster backs going down to both booster boxes, going out to 30 packs is just going to mean I'm probably never going to buy a booster box again. I don't know, like but anyway, let's keep it ball rolling. Let's, let's, let's let's move on to a fun one. Next up we have best new card for cube print 24 has actually been an awesome year for cube. Well, the rise of universes beyond and the rotation of eternal formats with sets like modern Ryzen three has led a lot of in franchise players to feel alienated from the game. Cube and cubes get to navigate around that. If you don't like Marvel, you don't have to include them in your cube. But on top of that, we've also got a bunch of awesome and powerful cards this year, and here are the nominations for Best New Cube Card of the year. Yes, for nominations that receive votes in this category. Bristly Bell spine sour. Who I that's what I hear. Vault bone tyrant Iswap fights marionette offenses. Hieroglyph headliner. Scarlet Nadu, Winged Wisdom and V surveillance as a cycle and the award for Best New Cube Card of 2024 is the surveillance the full cycle. So I'm not going to say that we slept on them. I think like generally as a community, everyone kind of thought like, these are fine. These are good. That the fact they come into play tat means they're probably not for every cube. But the utility on these is just phenomenal. Yeah. These are quite rightly some of the most impactful cards of the year. I don't think I run a full cycle in my cube. I think I have a couple in either, some cards I want to combo with. There's like, in theory, there is a, combo in my key where you can make your whole deck with lands, with several lands, and then obviously the ones in like more graveyard colors. I'd want to run them there. But these are, I think, just becoming like, after, fetches original jewels, shocks and triumphs. That probably the best off of that, would you say, James, they're probably the fifth best cycle of lands for given. Yeah. Very impactful. And I can really see why people are running them. It's basically if you don't if you're not going to play a one drop and you have a fetch land, you're probably fetching for this now over anything else. Which is very important and very impactful. So yeah, I think about all lands coming out on top and it is like they got like like almost half of the votes in this category, which is a long oh, which is a big number. So yeah. Yeah. Deserving I think James had what have you thought. What have you thought about surveillance this year and about any of the other cards that stood out to you? Yes. Well, ancestry. Fossil. I think the interaction of turning your fetches into a survival late game is, It's certainly not one to sleep on. Like, I've definitely been in this scenario of taking a lie, take a surveil land over the untap jewel in that color, because it's like I can already fetch my clothes on tap. Two of my fetch lands, but I've got free fetch funds for all federal surveil land, and the value of being able to get past surveil basically for free. I feel fat renewed for a late game is is really valuable. I voted for vault one tyrant on this list. Nice. Yeah. It's. I think it's a very good addition to the sort of roster of large creatures you can put in powerful cubes. It's, the mostly with ease when we're talking about cards that we chieftains play nice often this sort of good with only a certain selection of ways. You treat key cousins, play right like you've got, for example, 15. Man, I'm a cool, great with sneak attack but doesn't work with you animate that versus like Woodford famous great with sneak attack or flash but doesn't work with Shallow grave of The attractive. I like less good, but still good. But, good to sneak attack, but not quite for that plus level. And then Vauban tyrant for me, it's like it's a really good in that it kind of works with all of them pretty well. Like it's maybe not the best for any of them, but like, you sneak this in, you're gonna draw two cards, hit from fair seven, gain six life and have A66 left over. If you reanimate, this is really solid. You get life. You got cards? If you, flash this in, it's going to be great. You get the cards, you're left to a body, and you can natural order for it, which is a really big deal. It just sort of works pretty well with all of them. I also quite like that, Eureka as a cause I, I always want to play with in cube. I think it's just it's it's pretty high variance. But, if you Yuvika and put in like this and then more faces, then you get the triggers off the other ones too, which is really cool. Yes, I, I just really like that card. Like, I'm not saying it's, you know, absolute eight. AC like, you know, you shouldn't be taking this over like a track, so I'll kind of cool to something, but I think it's good. Fit it. It sort of just works with all the ways that you, you cheat stuff into play. I agree, and it's also just about cast of all in a Green Deck. Oh, yeah. Show like emotion on it, but that like, it's five, it's five and double green and a green ramp deck that is very constable. Not like I'm like a so someone know that way you're going to you're going into four colors or that kind of stuff. So yeah. Yeah yeah I like that. I, I voted for pirate guys because I, I have a stereotype, James and I need to keep it up. Yeah, I, I love pirate. Like for me that was like, if there was an archetype of the. Yeah, like the delirium deck would be mine and pirate. I was just a fantastic card in that. And just easily, I think, the best flame on who ever printed, the key players. That's a very solid base to be. Ocelot pride actually came second, and I could see being high on this is just I haven't got to play with it that much because I don't play modern and everyone takes it very aggressively in my cube. I think I do some very cool things. But yeah, also probably notable mention in second place. Yeah, I, I think that's a very good chat. I will say again, it depends how you interpret best. If I open the pack of how it cube with all of these cards and I'll swap fighters for card I would take, I think it's really, really strong. Okay. It it's I, I want to get too hard on the hyperbole, but it does kind of feel like for Bhagavan a little bit, like in terms of the games where you cast it on turn one and you just start getting hits and for free, it feels very hard to stop. And it also then just randomly does some very powerful things. Late game sometimes, I'll say for the time that I really came up with this card was first time I copied it with Sasha. The, chess guy legends. The amount of tokens you end up with after you do that is just absurd. It was one of those things where I went to my own step on magic online. I was just like, oh, I have like, 20 creatures now. That's cool, because, you know. Yeah, because the thing is, the ocelot pride makes more of ocelot fights because it's a token ocelot fight. It sees that, then generates more like slot fights, which then make more tokens. Similar with like Fable of music for example. You can very go off and start generating more ocelot fights. And yeah, it has like cool, it has some interesting gameplay like that, you know, like if you make it work for like after for failing as men gain more life and you get all the for failing as tokens again, you know. Yeah. Would cut the cards fairly strong. Yeah. That's, we we've had fairly good coop cards this year, I think, but yeah, I think power goes to a really good shot too. I like with fiberglass as well. It's kind of a build around the clones, which is something we don't see very often, because if you clone it, you get two triggers because they see. But yeah, both hieroglyphs trigger when you play the new one and there's just a reason, say valve of the of the like or it's just kind of cool. No hundred percent and yeah yeah, yeah. But for cube it's been a really strong year because like there was some on the list that we didn't even that didn't get, didn't get votes, but in previous years would have been high contenders like Emperor of Bones has been a fantastic card. Warren Sole trader of Nasdaq card spring hot and Hugo didn't get a single vote, but that card is cracked. Same with a Johnny Nakamoto pariah and forensic gadget and forensic gadget here. Yeah. Very strong card for cube. And. Yeah. Long may it continue. Yeah. Tell you what. If you ever put a spring hot and and chico on a Paraguay. Oh, you're in business. You are? Yeah, yeah. Let's go check on sort of one of those. Very. Why you don't get to make as many tokens. It seems like because your opponent's already dead. Which, which is kind of a shame, but I love it. But it does. It doesn't work. So our next category is for best artwork. And this is one that we let the academy. And by that I mean all of you at home, write in an answer for any year where the CEO of Hasbro has said inside of development, we've already been using AI, as well as saying we will deploy it significantly and liberally internally as both a knowledge worker aid and a development aid, and probably never been more important to acknowledge the great work that the artists who make the magic cards feel like magic cards have done in 2024. Here are the nominees that we got for Best Artwork. Yeah, so I'd say some of these, indicative of why we don't let you buy in the answers for all of the questions. The first the first response was just mess. I could have, you know, last time we got a vote. There we go. I didn't get a vote, so I guess I guess that's good for you. We got a 90s possession, specifically the dog version. That is adorable. We're not saying. Look it up and it's very good. Yeah, we got trouble in past. That's cost me asphalt. We got a helpful hunter. Insidious food. Station mage. Offspring token. Specifically, I like what it's about. Yeah, it's. It's a little otter holding up a fish in there. That is adorable. For what it's worth, I've just looked it up. It is great. Yeah. Okay. I have great respect for that one. We have a Layla. Birds of Paradise block. I'm not quite sure what VLC means. There are a lot of Birds of Paradise. Poop limbo. So basically is Bloomberg command. Oh, yeah. That is that is good. That's actually not. I'll call that bird nervous gardener, which is great, actually. We have the bloom vo full out plains winter, and we have Taissa opulent oligarch. She's also really nice that, a special winner. The winner is 100% correct. The winner is helpful. Hunter. My heavy got Zoella. Everyone I think will know what this card is. It is the picture of the adorable cat with a feather in its mouth. Yeah, I agree with this. This is in a year full of adorable pets and animals. This is the me. This is the most adorable and I can see why this took it down. I thought everyone that everyone that has been submitted I would agree with I think have been bangers. They don't need protection. We got for a friend for their birthday. Sadly the dog won at the it's dog on one side, cats on the other. That's also adorable. Yeah, a lot of saw the dog this year. And yeah, keep the artist employed please. Wizards, don't give me some. I ballocks in the future, I won't buy it. Yes. Hundred percent. All right. We're rolling through these at a bit of a pace. We have. And we have a big one now. We have best new commander. And this is the best commander printed in printed in 2024 to lead a deck. The commander continued its dominance over magic. In 2024, there were 320 unique commanders printed in paper sets this year, and if you include arena ancillary products and playtest cards, that number rises to 419. But somehow I still can't get a playable soldier. Commander. Here are the nominees for Best New Commander. So we have Voya because of the conclave and a why is Mothman? Oh, Becca. Splitter of seconds. The neck for bloom. Oh, no! Queen of the silver balloon. The haymaker clubs the full. Arabella abandons doll Volkov off. However, souls and storm force of nature and the award goes to a beaker splitter of seconds worth pointing out. This was very close. The Necro bloom was just behind it, one right behind it. But yeah, a beaker is a banger of a card. It's a really unique one. A beaker is one. An accessory to five. Legendary creature ogre, Warlock. It has menace, and whenever it deals combat damage to a player, you get that many additional upkeep steps. After this phase. So yeah, you just fill this deck with a bunch of really awesome upkeep triggers and then kind of pop off with it. It's really cool. It's also a very unique style of commander. Not many commanders give you that kind of interaction where kind of you, you, you just get like upkeep triggers are designed to happen once. Getting multiple of them really kind of breaks the game. And yeah, they let you do some cool things. I did a deck take on this. I will put links down below, but some cool cards with this. Like do you know what Herald of the shrike does? James no I dare, I think you'll like this. It's six in a black for a two for phenomenal stats like that. Yeah. Great start. Few moments of upkeep. There's importantly KM upkeep works with this. How you want it to gain control of target land. It gets it gets one for each land you control but don't own. And when it leaves play, each player gains control of each land he or she control. So this is as you steal all of your opponent's lands. And this is a very cool, unique thing that kind of look like like obviously they were like the generic ones like Shields Road, Whispering One and The initiative. But like why I like this command is that, yeah, it lets weird cards from Cold Snap be cool and that is what I want from commander. So yeah, I can see why. A bigger one, I think. Yeah, it's a really cool one. I think you actually voted for a bigger James. Why was it your commander of the year? Yeah, I, I really value in commanders for they do something unique. Like obviously there's a lot of, like, very powerful commanders on this list, but I'd be honestly only one way I look at it and I kind of I'm already building the deck in my head and know, like, if I really just make to I, I it's not super narrow, right? It's not the, Oh, you've just got to go with this really narrow, narrow deck for deck isn't sort of built for you. It's just giving you more of upkeep saps. There's more, as there's, like a few directions you can go with that. And. Yeah, it's, I think it's like a very unique, potentially kind of powerful effect. And that's kind of what I'm looking for in commanders now. Yeah. Yeah, I it was a very cool commander. And so my vote was for, for what came in second place, which was the necro bloom. This is the one that it has some stats, but it has the main line of land cards in your graveyard have dredge two, and this is the closest we've got to a dredge commander, because it is a static ability that gives up dredge. They're never going to give me dredge seven on a commander because they're cowards. James. That cowards. But yeah, yeah, I don't think this is one. I haven't actually built my set yet. We did gameplay with this. And our friend Josh built it for that, but it's definitely one that I just want to build. I think it's sick. I this is one on my list that I've been meaning to get to some other kind of, thing. I wouldn't say worth mentioning. I think, just my personal point of view. So I think it's worth pointing out all of these nominees are the most popular ones, according to rank. There is no personal favorites in terms of what was nominated. It was just the top ten from Shrek. I guess there's a world where some more, some of the marble ones might have got in, and if we left it up longer because they are more recently printed. But I think these are all sick, like like I've been meaning to build it. Omo, Queen of the super deck. We got the prick on recently. Me and the wife. And that's the one that kind of, when enters or attacks, but on everything counter on one target land and on one target creature, you're kind of like all your stuff becomes all types and it does some cool things with like the locust lands, with the, the lands, that kind of stuff. They're just a bunch of really. It's another one where, like, there is probably a best way of building it. There's also just some weird niche things that you can do with it. Like all of your things on that were like, there are some cool things you can do with cards being every creature type in every land type that's that. There's a lot of room that yeah, I'm looking forward to putting Omo together in the next couple of weeks. Sam Island seems pretty cool. And finally, a way to make those fun lands playable. And commander, I guess it's yeah, yeah, yeah, because the way it works, you only need one from land. If one from land and everything land, and it will generate the amount that you want. The one thing I would say is I personally hate Voya Joy the concave no hate to anyone who's built it, but just I think this is probably the most one of the strongest commanders printed this year. That's two and another year for A55 legendary creature Wolf with vigilance, trample and Ward three. And whenever it attacks, but on counters on each creature, you control, like the number of elves you control, draw a card for each wolf you control it just as a little bit too much, and it's. I don't think many of the ones on this list have Ward, but there is an alarming amount of Ward being printed this year, which I don't personally like in commander. I think literally we did during dusk more and I did a rant about Ward, like everything having bloody Ward two. And then the next time you played Commander, someone was playing a command from someone that had water, and I didn't notice. I don't read other people's cards. The game is complicated enough. So what I meant to do just just assume it has Ward two and leave them. Find out that it doesn't. Yeah. It's Yeah. Yeah, very. It does seem very strong. I might put it in my changeling stack, though. I think it would kind of pop off and change. Yeah. Oh, Jesus. Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah. Then I think that's very strong, but yeah, yeah, just in general, I think it's probably an elf commander with a couple of overrunning walls sprinkled in. Something like that, maybe. But I mean, there are more powerful elves and magic involved, so that might be a good direction. Well, I'm assuming actually just you build it as an elf deck, and then it just draws you a card when it attacks because it's a wolf. That's the goal. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that seems pretty good. And yeah, yeah, there's tons of elves in there as well. Yeah. Makes sense. All right, let's keep the train rolling. We have three awards left. That's three of the biggest. Next up, we have most deserving fan. So sometimes a card designed to be powerful is a little bit too powerful. Sometimes it's a deck that's too strong, and it's a piece taken out to it to help balance things out. Sometimes, however, a card slips through the cracks. Sometimes an interaction isn't seen well. Last minute change to balance a card kicks the power level that card into the stratosphere. Sometimes all of those things happen and you have a card cup every format it touches. Here are three honorable mentions and an obvious winner. Yeah, so in no particular order, we have dockside Extortionist and Commander three kneel them in pauper three and Modern and Legacy. And nor do winged wisdom in all of the formats. And the winner is obviously nado. It's worth mentioning we put out this form before the most recent round of bans in Modern Legacy, but I don't think it would have mattered. Yeah, no I do. This is the biggest sweep of anyone we've seen. Next year, the award is going to be a named the Nada Award for Most Deserving Man of the year, I think. Yeah. This card's get kind of good, James. That's what I've heard. Yeah. So what? So it's worth pointing out. So nada is currently only banned right now in her modern and commander. The legacy ban can't be too far off at this rate, I wonder. Assumed putting up some fake numbers and legacy. It's on the cards. Just so upset. And it's it's the fact that your combo piece is already is also just has a great way. And then the combo is so easy and and it's not the sort of combo where it's like you have to put together multiple pieces and then you just win the game like, but, but it gets you so much value straight away in a way that's quite hard to interact with that. Yeah. Just by itself. And if they do interact, you get a card out of it. So. Exactly, exactly. Yeah. None of the design choices make sense for this. We've had that. They didn't play tests and didn't see the interaction with, with zero costs, which you have to imagine if this was anything other than a very last minute change. Someone somewhat on with its play design team would have spotted that, like, it's not this isn't some like niche rules of interaction that you could but would easily slip through the cracks like this is I think if you if you gave someone two hours to try and fake Natsu, I'm pretty sure they find zeros equipped for equipment by. Yeah, well, exactly. Well. So so so like specifically on there. So so again, in my end of year video, I, I have sympathy for this because it's just a mistake. Like, it was designed so yes, it was in Modern Horizons three in the main set, but it was designed as a command to card. And basically it turns out they have two categories of cards cards for commander that go through a casual playtest team and cards for competitive that go through a competitive team. So no one on the competitive team saw the no. One in general is the final version of not at all and no one in the strong in the competitive side looked at nada and like wasn't involved in its conversations while it was being changed. And like, like that is a that is a flop. That is a mistake. But again, I think our biggest mistake of the year last year was Wizards laying off a couple of hundred employees when like this is a consequence of that, basically this will happen again. There will be another card like this in a year or two that will break a format like this. And like most of the really broken cards in magic have been things where they've either made a last minute change like skull clamp or or like, oh, like Ocho. I think we're both kind of balanced, like last minute to kind of make changes, but kind of like this was like the culmination of everything. It was like an interaction. They didn't notice with a last minute change. They didn't realize what it would do. They didn't get tested either. And also just the fact that it was everywhere for like three months, really made it feel like it wasn't like they didn't just like emergency ban it. It kind of was out in the world long enough for it to be putting up numbers, and then you can't ban it because you had people playtesting for like a pro tour, that kind of stuff. So yeah, it really it really took a while and worth mentioning as well, because I haven't had a chance to talk about this on the podcast. I don't know if you want to. I want to touch on them, James, but we have had some bans more recently. I could imagine cause like the One Ring being banned would have put up some numbers on this, but I don't think it'd be close to now. I do and Psychic Frog being banned in legacy with any of the banning or Unbanning is recently James that kind of you wanted to touch on at all? Yeah, I think the the one thing everyone expects said so I think for getting legacy I mean, my opinion on the legacy ban less I think is very different from the prevailing opinion of legacy format. I sort of feel like legacy should be able to cope with nerfed in. You all have access to all style shares and maybe brainstorm some problem, but, you know, I am playing legacy. It's the format. It's not fun for me, nor should it be. It's fine. I think given the what, you know, if, like, given the nonsense of Bandon legacy already, I can see psychic fog is is more egregious than those cards. I mean, you know, you can't have psychic folks, we'll see it. But, like, flashes back cards when it attacks, you mean, threshold? Arcanist threshold? Yeah. Like if dreadful darkness is banned and obviously psychic fog are set to be banned. Like, Yeah, I guess that. Yeah, but that seems to approach legacy ballots, and that's fine. One thing. Definitely a good ban. Very boring cards. Completely ubiquitous in modern, the thing that excited me about that ban, the subset that was the, bans. And also, I think the, bans actually really cool. The. Yeah. Like, I have a lot of it in Modern Fallout. I'm not like buying back in, but I've been, like, curious enough to load up magic online and play, you know, like the mock. So full deck seem really cool views and it's you. It's still in that initial space. People unsure of the best builds on you playing against love. I see, and I think there's a lot of good, viewing space out for, fantasy cheating and, like, really powerful enabler. Lots of, lots of good decks to be built for. I've been jamming with the, persists and, for creativity deck, which is not played really well. And these feel like, bands where like adding really powerful cores to format, but it also feels like it's hard for those cards to be way too good, because just because they promote strategies that you can hate out if you want to. Yeah. Like like my example is certainly a very powerful card, but also only silence exists in the format. Meltdown exists in the format. Yeah. Like if you really want to beat the mock. So full deck you can similar deal with, the faithless looting. And, and I think that was a point in modern history where it was maybe too much about for linear decks, versus for hate. Like, you know, when you played against a in the old days, it very much just felt like, oh, if you kill all your stony silence, you when if you don't, when, but modern and and I think that was a bad thing. But since that point, moderns answer a lot of really, really has added a lot of very powerful generic answers for things like solitude, ley line binding. These are all, reasonable calls for give you a lot more of a shots of beat the linear decks, in game one, which I think is really important. And, on top of that, it's, I think these, bands just push modern away from the place that has been in, which has felt quite homogenous to me. Like I've been like, sure, theoretically, there's a lot of decks, but they've all kind of playing the same subsection of cards. You know? It's just like different combinations of, of folk elementals and, and the busted modern era, we have a bust of Modern horizons cards. You know, like, yeah, you can save a formats diverse because there's 30 decks that that they all play the same cards, you know, just in different combinations. It's not the same as how I feel about legacy, to be honest. Like, sure, you can say like, oh, look at these 15 different blue decks. They're like, yeah, they're all, you know, for sold for false of well for, for like yeah. Just like changing the last couple of cards. It's like it's a different deck. So yeah, I think actually for most modern decks that look very different and I think that's cool. And something certainly had to be done about part two and cheeks. That card was of Boris energy, that that deck was very stupid. Yeah. That had dropped and was you can throw it in that as well. I think it was and and the one thing but. Oh okay. Yeah. Jesus. Yeah. And all that. I guess the big question on this, James, how good is splinter 20 going to be? My gut is not very. Yeah, I think I probably agree. I mean, I've heard some people say it's it's they think it's playable, which is awesome. Maybe better than I thought it would be. I don't think it's about to be taking over for Matt. Like, it's the the point where splintering was really powerful. It wasn't like we didn't have solitude. We didn't have facial push. Yes. The the best removal spell was lightning bolt by a very long way and usb-C to C flex accent. That's a lightning bolt. Yeah. Well, for me, it's just way easier to do stuff. Now, but, like, I could see the deck. I can see that that having putting up some numbers and now. Yeah, I think people love. Right. And there's absolutely no reason they shouldn't be allowed to play over and modern. So I got a very good unban. Exactly. Yeah. I could see it being like the dreaded thing of like, no one expects it. It puts up a number, but most of the time it's a four man enchantment that it's a full mana aura that can be interacted with. Yeah, yeah, I seen some of the twin decks of playing, the fear of Missing out as well as a sort of secondary silently. So I think I got so good cards. Yeah. Which is kind of cool tech, I love it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm sure we'll talk about more of that in 2025, but let's move on. We have two left. And some might say that this is actually the big one of the year. Next up we have pet of the year. So yeah this is a big award. This could possibly be the the most coveted of all the MDGs, therefore making it the most coveted prize in all of magic. Keep your world championships. This is part of the year, James. Take it away with the good boys and girls. Are this very good boys and girls. First up, we have against you, Fox token. Absolutely brilliant. Faithful watchdog. Great boy. Helpful. Hunter already discussed. Nothing. No more needs to be said. Bring you a favor. Your value of a favor greatly. We have via Riptide, Vogue, failure, exuberance. Shepherd and generous pup. And the award quite rightly goes to helpful Hunter. Again. This cute little cat is the winningest card, and this year's MTG. I'd love to see it. Yeah, the fact that it looks kind of like my cat has nothing to do with me being biased about this at all. I can be still. I can be impartial. I think, yeah, it just happens to be the most adorable card of the year and happens and happens to look like my cat. Yeah. Love it. Very happy. So is Mary. James. What? What did you vote for in this one? It's helpful as a I Sony Walkman this way. You know, some of these awards are a matter of opinion. Like we acknowledge that. That's subjective. This one wasn't too much fun. Yeah, that's another that's an objective reality. Yeah. And that's very helpful for passive. Yeah. No. Yeah I completely agree. I was a little bit worried when Generous Pup got printed just in time for this award to go out and be ready to vote, because that's what a dog feeding three small cats, it's got everything on one card. So there was a moment where I was a little bit worried, but generous pup. Notable second place behind the adorable powerhouse. It is helpful Hunter. So well done you beautiful cat. You get all the treats. All right, we have our last award, James. All right. This might be a bigger one card of the year. So in total, there was 2187 new magic cards printed in 2024. That is a wildly large number. The context it took them four years when the game was originally created to get to that number, and that's making things like lambs as well. We've had four years worth of cards in one year, but only one of those 2187 cards can be the card of the year. And here are the nominees. We have bristly bill spines, so psychic fog hieroglyph surveillance as a cycle thing. Harden and tuco and insidious roots. And the award goes to psychic frog. So I don't think there can be too many complaints with this one. I think just in terms of magic cards that you've seen the most this year, in terms of winningest, in terms of people playing them, I psychic frog is pretty high up there. I remember that I initially might not have been as high on this one as I probably should have been. And, set with you. I know, James, that you definitely were. Yeah. It just it's proved to be a lot more than just, callback to Psychic Dog. This is a very powerful card, and. Yeah, it's I think it's. Yeah, it's definitely showing that it's put up numbers in it everywhere that it's in play. Yeah. Very strong card. It had double the amount of votes of any of our other contenders with civil lands and Brittany Bell spine. So, as a reminder to you all, he is, coming in second place with half the amount of votes each. Yeah. Awesome. God. James, what did you what did you vote for in this category? And what do you think of our winner, Psychic frog? Yeah, I've. I've voted for for. So good. It's, It's just it it's one of those cards. It feels like ten to frog. If you have really anything to back it up. Is just going to vote away with so many games and. Come on out with the fact that it just doesn't die to damage face removal. Basically, like they try and bolt it and you just discard two cards. Now flex massive and you have for cards to then jump at later. It's so powerful. It's and I've maybe a bit biased if it goes in. Dex. I really likes to do that, but, yeah, I think the, the, the power level just has to get that. And the gameplay I think is, is, but can be pretty good too. But, Yeah, I love a bit of fog. Leaf, a cube. How have you found it in cube this year? Because obviously, like the main base, it's numbers is, like eternal format. It's like, obviously, as you mentioned, it's been banned in legacy, because of just you can't have caught it on, like, brainstorm and protection, like sort of all combined with this card, it's just it's just not fair. But how have you found it specifically infused? Because I I'll be honest, when I first saw it, I thought like, it's a fine value card, it'll go in a Re-Animator deck as a way of getting your stuff into the graveyard, that kind of thing. But as we know, the card is stronger than that, but kind of like, how have you generally found it playing in Q specifically? Yeah, I think it's phenomenal. Like phase, it if you play it on turn two, it feels like, okay, if I don't have when you have a removal, spell it right away. If I end damage based removal doesn't work. So they basically need like an exile removal spell or some sort of like Black Terror variant. Right now, because otherwise you're gonna draw a nice fine to leave blockers back. This is not an effective strategy because either you just kill the blocker and get through and get your cards and get that value chain rolling. Or if you don't have the removal, you're just going to discard cards. And when we come back with a blocker and then they're going to be in the same position that next turn. But West is your block is bigger and you have the cards in the graveyard. Now to jump if you need to. Yeah. Because it's kind of absurd. Like there's, there's no, there's no deck that could cast this card, but I wouldn't put it in, you know, Valley second or lower Stack as well. By the way, that's, Jesus. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Just get get the cards back and keep. Yeah, that seems very strong. It seems like. Yeah. So, so I think when I first saw this card, I definitely didn't appreciate just the Assyrian nature of just getting a card every turn, how that really just plays into it growing as well. Because my, I'm the one who's actually played not a lot, but like, I have this like a tug and that that felt very off. I think that's what I was comparing it to a bit too much like that felt very all in where I kind of just like, okay, I win now. Basically it's like I'm just like, I might win a combat early in the game, but generally I have a big turn. But but because this puts counters on it specifically, it can just you can kind of I guess with this you can you're getting value and winning combats with it over the course of the game, rather than just having that one explosive turn. That was that. That was more what what the original genesis of this card is like a talk was generally doing is I kind of sad to say. Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's the thing with a Phrygians, right? Normally and but especially for a two matter one, they tend, they tend to be kind of understated and the payoff is great if you can get them through and they work, but you expect them to be like old die 12 them evil and they're not very good. If your opponent has blockers. Yeah, even kind of a good one. So I like classic bone very strong cards. So yeah, I like it a lot. But it is just a two with no combat ability. It's, you know and and and cost your life in this a million other ways. I think the psychic fog solves for a blocker problem in, in, in and of itself. It's, Yeah. The because if you can ditch cards, when combat, that's almost always good for you. Because you're not only get it, you're getting your friends creature off the board now and but zero matter. And it's whatever they play. And valley sentience isn't going to be that much bigger. And then later in the game, you don't care about the blockers anyway because, you know, fog essentially has flying most of the time of game. Yeah. No, it's it just asks. So less allows you to work, you know, like it it it feels like your opponent really needs to be, like, hard for move on the spot and turn to. And that's, which is a very different test from something like vagabond. Right. Which is a great card, but it is like your opponent. Any removal spell will work or blockers will work. Psychic fog demands a specific class of removal right now. Because once you've got enough on your first card, then you have more cards to discard. The value chain is rolling, you're digging to more of the movable more, and if you untap and have counterspell up it, it kind of just feels like it's over, you know? Yeah. No, definitely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In a year where we've seen a lot of, well, a lot of magic cards, but a lot of very powerful magic cards as well. Yeah. I think Psychic Fog was kind of was a standout in terms of level above. And also it doesn't fit, I guess I guess as well. Like it doesn't feel kind of like the one ring where it's just like generically good. There's games of magic with this card as well, which is also nice to say. Last thing on this section. I think I'm the one person who voted for paragraph, but yeah, I'll concede Psychic Frog might be a stronger magic card, but stick to your guns out of a brick if it was in this action. Oh, I'm so torn. But anyway, that is going to do it for the MGS. And that's going to do it for 2024 for powerful nothing. Thank you all very much for listening to the podcast over the last year. We really appreciate your support. We couldn't do it without you. Thank you all very much. Do make sure to tell a friend, give the podcast a five star review, all that good stuff. I'll just do more cool and interesting things. James, thank you very much. The episode, thank you very much. The past year, it's been awesome. Yeah, always a pleasure and I'm looking forward to another good year of podcasting. Yeah, I just like talking about cube. It's really fun. Yeah, it's pretty good. If anyone wants to listen to it, that's great too. But you know, that's a nice bonus. But yeah. Yeah. You know. Yeah. Thank you for your support on and on the podcast. This I've really enjoyed it. And yeah. Long may it continue. All right. Awesome. Well that's gonna do it for today. It's goodbye from me and it's goodbye from James. And until next year we'll see you all soon. Goodbye.