iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

rst38 @rst38.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Almost at 10,000 battles already, and a new 4-card battle mode is available now!

rst38 @rst38.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

Want to help find the most iconic and memorable Magic The Gathering cards in history? Check out #MTGVS! Vote in quick 1v1 matchups for the #mtg card you are more familiar with, and explore the evolving community-driven ELO ranking with basic Scryfall-like filtering! mtgvs.vercel.app/vs.html

010 0

rst38 @rst38.bsky.social · 24/11/2025

When omen was spoiled I was a bit confused. My first reaction was "But this mechanic provides no tangible structural support!" That is, no gy interaction, no cast-from-exile, not explicitly helping flurry, etc. So what's its role in the format? Yet playing with it felt good. It quickly grew on me.

000 0

rst38 @rst38.bsky.social · 11/10/2025

If I'm not mistaken, Donny & April and Leonardo would become just the 10th and 11th cards with four subtypes. Full list: scryfall.com/search?q=t%3... Notably, the only other cards with four printed types are River Song and Druid of the Sacred Beaker (silver-bordered). Others gained via errata.

200 0

rst38 @rst38.bsky.social · 28/09/2025

I was a bit surprised how much the assumption was that players would lock into their colors early and survive/pivot from there as needed. But wouldn't drafting be healthier if staying open was embraced also in pick-two format? I've first picked 2 cards that can't go into same deck many times myself

110 0

rst38 @rst38.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

For anyone that might be interested (and somehow doesn't have enough with EOE!): Tomorrow I start previewing a custom set in the MSE discord server. You can also follow along the cards as they are previewed here: custom-magic.gitlab.io/custom-magic... Here you have the teaser and a welcome card!

121 0

rst38 @rst38.bsky.social · 20/06/2025

One of the many cool things about landfall is that it can be used to implement a dedicated lands archetype that can replay lands, as well as a tool to reinforce a grindy archetype that just aims to ensure a steady flow of lands. You just need to tinker with the triggered abilities you design.

000 0

rst38 @rst38.bsky.social · 20/06/2025

When I see a new mechanic I love thinking about the design space of positive interactions in limited: - Undercosted high pw (defender, lopsided stats, other downsides) - Becomes tapped, control tapped creatures - Vigilance, untapping - Interacting with (charge) counters Expect at least the first 3

000 0

rst38 @rst38.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

I always enjoy N&B articles as I consider myself part of the target audience MaRo mentions! I think coming up with mechanics is something that I will never stop struggling with. And unfortunately, a bad choice of mechanics can be something that comes back to bite you hard at the worst moment.

110 0

rst38 @rst38.bsky.social · 29/03/2025

Corporate needs you to find the differences between these two plays.

000 0

rst38 @rst38.bsky.social · 21/03/2025

These two are peak Magic design

010 0

rst38 @rst38.bsky.social · 18/03/2025

Sometimes I see custom designs (commons/uncommons designed for limited) that use twobrid mana for costs like {1}{2/G} or {4}{2/G}{2/G}. These hardly make sense because you are designing a card that's either unplayable off green, or too strong for a green deck (for whatever its rarity is).

100 0

rst38 @rst38.bsky.social · 11/03/2025

"A common archetype theme gets an ability word" might be "Whenever one or more +1/+1 counters are put on ~" or something related to counters? "Dragons get a new typal enchantment based on a popular Zombie one": Liliana's Mastery? "A new instant and sorcery subtype" 👀 Time counters 👀👀

100 0

rst38 @rst38.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

Magic cards are very consistent in how they order the types of creatures with 2+ creature types, especially in the vast majority of cases that are a class+race pair. But I noticed something very interesting the other day. In the very same set, we recently got a Horror Spirit and a Spirit Horror!

100 0

rst38 @rst38.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

Indeed, when the first 3-color TDM cards were spoiled I remember thinking to myself how good they'd be as illustrative examples of how to make harmonized multicolor cards according to the color pie. Obviously Skirmish Rhino has the precedent we all now about but Inevitable Defeat was my favorite.

110 0

rst38 @rst38.bsky.social · 22/02/2025

One of the most satisfying things in Magic for me together with the mechanical color pie is the design skeleton. But even with the restrictions that the design skeleton may impose, it's interesting how there are recurrent designs even more specific in their configuration of numbers and mechanics.

111 0

rst38 @rst38.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

You have probably heard expressions such as "Magic is a literal game" or "Reading the card explains the card", which reflect just how consistent the rules engine and the rules text wording of the game is. But can we find instances of identical effects worded in a slightly different manner?

230 0

rst38 @rst38.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

A thread with early reflections about the DFT limited format. We are only two days in, but the extent to which green is dominating the format is quite remarkable. At common, green is the clear frontrunner both in Game in Hand and Opening Hand stats.

140 0

rst38 @rst38.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

Just submitted my picks for the #P0P1 challenge for DFT. But what about the inverse #P0P1 challenge? These would be my picks: - Lightwheel Enhancements - Stall Out - Streaking Oilgorger - Magmakin Artillerist - Broken Wings - Guidelight Matrix - Walking Sarcophagus - Boosted Sloop

110 0

rst38 @rst38.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

I love how you can tell the defining peculiarities of a set by looking at the restrictions of the common two-mana blue mana dork. - DFT: Vehicles, exhaust - DSK: Enchantments, Rooms, manifest dread - DMU: Spells, kicker - KHM: Spells, foretell etc.

000 0

rst38 @rst38.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

#MTGAetherdrift features the highest vehicle-to-card ratio of any set by a good margin (41 in total; 9C, 17U, 11R, 4M) Vehicles have a tricky characteristic. They can be creatures and engage in combat, but they aren't creatures by themselves. So what are the implications on the design skeleton?

100 0

rst38 @rst38.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

Some of my favorite Magic designs are those that leverage set mechanics and/or flavor to convey a recurrent design in a different but just as clean manner. And you get to contribute to relevant as-fans, often in a superficial but multi-archetype friendly way due to being generic. Brilliant card.

000 0

rst38 @rst38.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

The ranking of the most quoted flavor text sources (characters, books, etc.) found in unique flavor texts across the history of paper Magic cards. Including all of them that show up in at least 20 different flavor texts!

100 0

rst38 @rst38.bsky.social · 23/12/2024

Do you have any joke custom Magic cards that you have no particular use for but you still came up with them at some point anyway?

000 0

rst38 @rst38.bsky.social · 22/12/2024

Want some Magic trivia? A thread with the ranking of the most quoted flavor text sources found in unique flavor texts across the history of (paper) Magic cards. Starting from #52, this thread goes up to #35. Some clarifications on how the count was determined at the end of the thread.

110 0

rst38 @rst38.bsky.social · 21/12/2024

So I did the thing twice...

000 0

rst38 @rst38.bsky.social · 19/12/2024

Some follow up analysis of Traditional Draft vs Premier Draft below. How do 17Lands players build their decks in Bo3, compared to Bo1, regarding color density and color preferences? Which configurations do better in Bo3 compared to Bo1? An analysis aggregating FDN, DSK, BLB, MH3, OTJ and MKM data.

100 0

rst38 @rst38.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

By the way, the answer was these two vanilla creatures!

000 0

rst38 @rst38.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

Want some obscure Magic trivia? Let's see how many cards exist that have the exact same name as a Magic mechanic (keyword ability, ability word, or keyword action). I didn't expect the number to be so high! See below. Cards are alphabetically sorted and show their first printing.

1328 0

rst38 @rst38.bsky.social · 15/12/2024

One of the things I like most about (custom) Magic design is the feeling that you are solving a puzzle. I like to think that designing a Magic set is like solving a puzzle with infinite correct solutions and infinite times that many incorrect solutions.

100 0

rst38 @rst38.bsky.social · 15/12/2024

So anyway, the (unreliable) tl;dr would be • Does hand smoothing affect play/draw win rate? It doesn't, or at least impact is so minimal that the player quality in Bo1 vs Bo3 affects more. • Does sideboarding affect play/draw win rate? Favors being on the draw by around 0.6% (but depends on set).

100 0

rst38 @rst38.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

Most of the limited Magic data analysis that I generally see (which is excellent, by the way!) focuses on Premier Drafts, as they have a larger playerbase and thus datasets. But as someone who plays Traditional Draft almost exclusively, let's also give some love to the caveats of the Bo3 format!

100 0

rst38 @rst38.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

I'm no cube desiger but I enjoy set design. So this question inspired me to do the following thread. What new commons from 2024 stand out for their flexibility in play booster sets? Think doing a draftable remaster set like Pioneer Masters, for example.

221 0

rst38 @rst38.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

I have noticed that there are two no-downsides three-mana creatures with a statline *better* than Loxodon Smiter and that were released even before it! Can you guess/find out which ones they are?

000 0

rst38 @rst38.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

🐻🐘 Long gone are the days where a vanilla 2/2 for 2 or 3/3 for 3 would be considered a good creature. Today we expect the Bears and Elephants of Magic to provide a bit more, even at common. But back in the day, power and thoughness was highly priced. Back in the day, right? You may be surprised!

141 0

rst38 @rst38.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

No idea, but I wonder if PWs (& thus Oaths) will really make much of a difference in limited. According to 17lands, this kind of sheet in SIR used a typical rarity distribution. The PW sheet has no rares, but (un)commons will show up significantly more. Many seem more aggro/tempo than other sheets.

000 0

rst38 @rst38.bsky.social · 04/12/2024

A thread about (inferred) FDN play booster collation! So it's well known that draft boosters used to guarantee at least one common per color. However, it's not necessarily the case since play boosters. In fact, Maro stated it here: markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/7553269...

110 0