That sounds like the Shadowmoor anthology book, there was a good Kithkin story like you remember

If you’re interested in the lore of the plane, I enjoyed the Llorwyn/Shadowmoor cycle books and recommend them, but they are a bit of a mixed bag. I think the first one is the best, a great intro that segues into a classic fantasy adventure of strangers coming together with teasers of the larger plot. The second meanders a lot with a bunch of characters just wandering around in the forest and monologuing to themselves. The third must have run into time issues as it’s a collection of short stories by various authors that range from bad to amazing. It’s great at building out the lore of Shadowmoor (especially the cinders) and can be read on its own if you want as it’s very light on connections to the rest of the books. The last book wraps up the story from the first two books pretty well, though I think some of the parts were a little under baked.

The cinders were a cool twist of worldbuilding in Shadowmoor. Sad to see that they’ve been replaced with Rimebound in the upcoming set due to what I assume is color balance reasons, but I want to see what new lore they come up with

Good that Vivi is finally banned but between UB, the rapid fire release schedule and WotC’s repeated mismanagement of the format I still don’t have enough interest to come back to Standard

Thanks for the behind the scenes info about collector booster boxes.

Yeah, one of the worst things about UB is how much it has accelerated the product cycle. Or maybe they were always going to make this many sets and UB is actually a blessing in disguise since they’re not trying to rush out 6-7 in-universe sets each year. Either way I’ve just resigned myself to only paying attention to the UW sets and not stressing about missing anything. Granted this means I have to give up on Standard, but I sort of lost track of that anyways the past few years

Yeah, looks like another set I can skip. Can’t wait until Lorwyn!

Aside from Investigate, the fact that it’s so dark for a Blue card makes me think it’s set on Innistrad

I feel like this is good, but I’m struggling to think about what deck would run it. Mono-Green Nykthos in Pioneer? The mana cost on the untap ability makes it useless for mana ramp unless you’re tapping for multiple mana, and the search can filter your hand but you need a really good target or dead cards you want to trade in.

Just seems like a strange combination of abilities for a World Champ card I usually assume is aimed at competitive

These are just Magic cards that happen to have Play-Doh art. Way less bothersome than seeing Dwight on a card.

These likely would have been revealed Magiccon Atlanta this weekend even if they weren’t leaked. Welcome to eternal spoiler season. I’ve found that ignoring UB sets reduces the number of spoilers to a reasonable level

Merfolk were UW in Lorwyn and UB in Shadowmoor. But I’m guessing those colors will likely be scrambled since it sounds like the plane is stuck halfway based on the title

Funny that the effect is almost the same as Farhaven Elf from Shadowmoor, but changed up a bit to support typal strategies

That’s been my experience as well. Seems to get removed within a turn or two every time I play it. Haven’t actually been able to flip it yet

Yeah, one of the issues with runaway commander success is WotC dropping everything else to focus on it. And while I understand putting a lot of focus on their most profitable format, they don’t seem interested (especially as the main source of Hasbro’s profits) in products that aren’t as popular but help build the community. And I worry that letting that foundation rot is going to lead to an eventual collapse “out of nowhere”

The real nightmare was WotC’s customer service the whole time

I think even as a 1-time use tool it would be enough as a 4-of piece of land denial. There just would be fewer decks dedicated to it since you can’t use it as a wincon anymore

Did you mean to reply to Mike’s post? This one is a bit old haha. I actually haven’t been that active on Arena so don’t keep up with the daily deals

This one is more obviously a joke, but I’m always unsure of whether to tag satire or if that ruins the fun

I get why they did it, but I was hoping for a couple “unidentified” creatures like alien grays or a Thing-style creature to show up as aliens

I assume this was made to quickly Station spacecraft