Magic: The Removing

For a long time, many Magic players advised players just getting into limited formats to follow the heuristic "BREAD". After bombs – the absolute strongest cards in a set, that could singlehandedly change a losing game into a come-from-behind victory – the acronym recommended that players draft removal.

Although BREAD is better used as a vehicle for butter and jam than as a Magic strategy, the fact remains that removal is the cornerstone of Magic by providing a necessary element of interactivity and allowing players to affect each others' plans. Entire colors are frequently made or broken by how strong their removal performs. However, while there have been plenty of set breakdowns based on their removal spells, I have not yet seen a breakdown of general removal effects at common in modern Magic and what they need to be effective. That's what this article intends to fix, color-by-color.

Weekend Design Challenge 022621 - Treasure

Hey Artisans! Click through to see this weekend's design challenge. Your mission is to design a custom Magic card that follows the guidelines. Over the course of the weekend, give feedback to your fellow designers on their designs and incorporate their feedback to iterate on your own. I'll try to offer some feedback of my own starting on Monday.

Weekend Design Challenge 021921 - Command

Hey Artisans! Click through to see this weekend's design challenge. Your mission is to design a custom magic card that follows the guidelines. Over the course of the weekend, give feedback to your fellow designers on their designs and incorporate their feedback to iterate on your own. I'll try to offer some feedback of my own starting on Tuesday. (Apologies for the delayed posting this week!)

The Usual Suspects: The Green 4/4 for 4

Welcome to the beginning of what I expect will be a recurring segment on Goblin Artisans. In The Usual Suspects, I will analyze a card archetype common across multiple sets, exploring its history, variants, and value to the game. This week's suspect: The ruler of stats for the cost, the green 4/4 for 4.

Weekend Design Challenge 021221 - Valentine

Hey Artisans! Click through to see this weekend's design challenge. Your mission is to design a custom magic card that follows the guidelines. Over the course of the weekend, give feedback to your fellow designers on their designs and incorporate their feedback to iterate on your own. I'll try to offer some feedback of my own starting on Monday. 

Weekend Design Challenge 020521 - Marquee Card

Hey Artisans! Click through to see this weekend's design challenge. Your mission is to design a custom magic card that follows the guidelines. Over the course of the weekend, give feedback to your fellow designers on their designs and incorporate their feedback to iterate on your own. I'll try to offer some feedback of my own starting on Monday.

Tibalt's Bag of Tricks

Tibalt's Trickery caught the eye of the Magic player base as soon as it was revealed. It was a counterspell in red, something that hadn't been heard of before; not only that, the rest of the text was exceptionally bizarre, involving milling, random decisions, and Chaos Warp effects. While it looks like it was added at random, this text is Wizards' best attempt at preventing abuse while maintaining a smooth pace of gameplay. But is it the optimal decision, and what else could have been used instead? Let's find out together.