if rarran thinks lands you can play immediately and tap for blue are strong, wait until he sees an island.

Classic saying from Saga Block Standard: “There’s the early game, where you decide who goes first. Then there’s the midgame, where you decide mulligans. Then there’s the late game, which is turn 1.”

1:14:05 "There's no way you would name your whole legacy on (a bad card)" - Rarran, speaking to Mesa Falcon Guy

Tolarian academy was even more heinous thanks to the legend rule at the time. The fact that non-artifact decks would play Tolarian Academy in their decks just so the opponent couldn't then play theirs due to the legend rule was insane.

Rarran looking at Arcbound and correctly guessing it's busted, while I'm like, "Yeah, but you're also missing that it can sac itself to it's ability to trigger modular, it's not just busted, it's turbo busted.'

Fun fact: Forsythe wasn't just being cute when he called Skullclamp "a mistake": There was actually a literal mistake involved with its creation. In design, rather than +1/-1, it gave equipped creature +1/+1. The balancing team, towards the end of their pass at the set, decided that it was a bit too strong, so they changed it to +1/-1, and didn't really have a lot of time to test it. Roughly 6 months later, for a playtest for one of the Kamigawa sets, one of the playtesters noticed it was blatantly overpowered, but it was too late - Darksteel had already passed the editing lock and was getting sent to the printing facilities.

I don't think Rarran realized for the entirety of the Urza's Saga section that Time Spiral says "draw seven cards" on it.

My favourite story i've heard about combo winter was from i think Mark Rosewater (game designer at wizards) were he said that players during that time referred to the game as early game = shuffling your decks, mid game = deciding who goes first and late game being turn 1

At 1:34:09 and CGB still hasn't corrected Rarran that you can't sacrifice opponents' creatures; that's definitely going to affect his evaluation.

Rarran was evaluating the Recurring Nightmare's "Sacrifice a creature" cost thinking he could sacrifice an opponent's creature, which is not the case

One of the first FNMs i went to a guy was trying to sell his now banned affinity deck but no one would bite so he literally just gave it to 13 year old me stating "this game sucks im done" I think a lot of people probably quit at that time.

I like how he'd saw a card that said "Draw 7 cards" he'd say "IDK if it's good enough to be banned." "It's banned." Then see another one and make the same mistake again.

I love Raran losing his shit over what I often take for granted as rather common effects. Equipment - "Oh that is a super interesting effect." Yes. Yes it is an interesting concept.

Emrakul, a moon-sized Eldritch Abomination, attacks you. Sneakily. For one mana.

1:20:40 when seeing sneak attack: "this is the most broken thing I've seen in my life" after just seeing Tolarian academy and yagmoths will... XD

I'm going to write all at Wizards to make a "Mesa Falconer" 😅

I think rarran misinterpreted recurring nightmare as saying u can sac opponent creatures but u can always only sac ur own creatures

I can’t believe we didn’t talk about the -1 toughness on skullclamp.

Rarran's analysis of Time Spiral was so strange. It's essentially 0 mana draw 7, and he comes from a game where Secret Passage is highly valued as essentially 1 mana draw 4.

"The year is 1999... how old are you?" "I'm 27" "How old were you in 1999, nerd" absolutely killed me

Oh, gods, Urza's. First tournament I ever attended. First game I ever played against? A Stroke of Genius deck. Well, I say played, but I meant "Stood there openmouthed as they went off t1 and I realized I hated tournaments." EDIT - Oh, CGB, the reason Dark Ritual was never banned was because they kept balancing Black spells around Dark Ritual. It's why everything cost more if it was in Black.

i hear "Eldraine" and my body has a visceral reaction to the sound😂

"If a card is broken, but no one plays it, does it get banned?" is the modern "if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

It would be good to also put on the screen any HS cards that get mentioned

Magic's design philosophy: "Hey, it looks like this card could be busted." "Eh, blue can counter it. It's fine." *Chaos ensues*

I was in my early teens at my local magic shop bringing my casual deck I had just built. I played against a guy in his 20s who apparently decided to show this young kid what magic was all about and brought his time spiral combo deck. I had no idea what was happening, but he just kept shuffling his deck and drawing a new hand and then the game was over. I don't even remember the win condition or what I was playing, maybe I got decked out, all I remember is him shuffling and redrawing over and over.

The funniest part about ravager affinity is almost everybody missed it during the previews, and it was dirt cheap even for a while after darksteel released. Someone submitted a guide on starcity and the editors removed the winrates because they thought they were BS and the author was overhyping it.

I can't wait for the day Rarran has to read the text on Questing Beast

the sound Rarran makes at 48:30 is so accurate to the universal feeling of seeing that card played against you.

Fun fact: The first MTG booster pack I ever purchased had Arcbound Ravager in it.

These collabs have converted me into an mtg enjoyer

Rarran: about Rule of Law, another thing that makes it different in Magic is that you can play one spell on your turn and one spell on your opponent's turn.

I was just starting to play Magic at my local game store during this set, I was 10ish. Best translation I can have to Hearthstone is "what if after the Grand tournament launched 19/20 decks was Secret Paladin mirrors except somehow more coinflippy"

CGB: all artifact lands were banned. Rarran: darksteel citadel wasnt banned

Just a quick note on the timing of the Memory Jar ban. The regular B&R annoucement happened on March 1st 1999, the emergency ban of Memory Jar happens on March 11th, to come into effect on April 1st, along with the other bans announced on March 1st. Erik Lauer and Randy Buehler figure out the Megrin Combo in Extended and book flights to play the only big torunament it will be legal in: GP Vienna, which happens on March 13th-14th, so just after the ban has been announced. Though, I think they had to register the deck prior to the emergency ban. Erik comes in 4th and Randy 5th. In 2015 Randy created a series called Gauntlet of Geratness, where he'd pit some of the best standard decks of all time against each other, giving him an opportunity to play the standard version the MCU has come up with, but never got to put into use in a sanctioned tournament. Not going to spoil how that turned out in case anybody wants to check that series out (certainly entertaining).

I started playing Magic in high school during Darksteel (immediately after the bannings), when players were quitting the game left and right due to Mirrodin block, and some of them gave me their old collections. I was actually given a playset of Arcbound Ravager, Frogmite, Disciple, and all 6 artifact lands FOR FREE in my very first collection. My friends and I immediately fell in love with the next two blocks: Kamigawa and Ravnica, and it's been an addiction for me since.

My favorite part of these videos is mesa falcon guy giving context of a stupid busted combo using a card and rarran saying "oh" in a high pitched voice. Lmao

Always love the rarean colabs. For your next one you should get him to guess if a card is from the modern banlist, legacy banlist, commander banlist or isn't banned in either. There are tons of interesting differences.

1:36:30 the most hilarious thing about Dream Halls is that InQuest magazine - at the time the biggest CCG-oriented magazine - rated Dream Halls as THE WORST card of Stronghold. Their example was something like "Oh so I can throw away my birds of paradise to get a bushwagg but my opponent ditches a flying men for a polar kraken!" which is just... Mwah, chef kiss, possibly the most "Timmy" line of text ever written about this game.

What is funny is that there are many more cards you could show and people would be like yeah that's broken from urza's block. Metalworker, Grim Monolith, yagmoths bargain, goblin welder, voltaic key, any card with the untap lands ability, tinker. And then how the legend rule worked.

While playing along, I literally said "Arcbound Ravager looks like the most fair card Mesa Falcon Guy has ever shown me." Boy was I wrong.

The story goes that the Tempest+Urza's standard environment was the only time the entire Magic R&D team got called in front of the CEO and yelled at.

1:00:25 "you're not drawing any cards" What do you mean? You're drawing SEVEN cards

Urza's was released when I was in my Timmy phase. So many dreams.

30:00 I still remember my friend who hard mained Shudderwock shaman back in the Witchwood and how furious he was when the deck got killed by a nerf of a common, which meant he wouldn't even get any reasonable dust refund for death of an expensive deck.

Academy Combo. The early game was the dice roll. The mid game was resolving mulligans. The end game was turn 1.

One important thing to consider with both Time Warp and Sneak Attack (and to a lesser extent show and tell) at this period magic was still working to raise the power of creatures. They had gotten better about supporting faster aggressive decks (although still much much weaker than today) but mid sized and larger creatures were still often not a great rate. Time Warp got really good when a) it was much easier for two attacks in a row to kill someone and b) it let all of your Planeswalkers use their abilities an extra time. At the time mostly Sneak Attack would just hit someone for 7 or 8, which is nice for 1 mana but doesn't end the game so you might need 2 or 3 expensive creatures to finish the job. Now, however, you can hit people for 15 or more, destroy or steal a bunch of your opponents permanents, and/or draw a bunch of cards, which makes it much more impactful.

CGB I know you’ve talked about the channel’s direction a few times, and I am probably in your viewership’s minority, but this is the kind of unique content I keep coming back to!

"There's not a lot of molten giant effects in magic" CGB forgot about death's shadow. Nothing at the time, sure, but oh boy do I remember GDS modern.

Gaea`s Candle is now it`s canon name.

Dark Ritual was considered a core part of black's color identity back then; it's super flavorful and giving up card advantage for tempo was a nice representation of black's "power at any cost" mentality. For years, R&D steadfastly kept reprinting it, preferring to ban the payoffs that made it broken, until they finally came to their senses and stopped.

Rule of Law effects are starting to see play in standard. It turns bounce effects/counter spells into extra turn spells o.O Aven Interrupter, High Noon, Three Steps Ahead. Tempo is fire right now.

That "FIRE design and Eldraine" signoff felt like a threat directed at me personally

Had a blast at the dripshop stream! Hey Messa Falcon guy... You're cool!

You guys need to do this more often!!! This is literally my favorite series on KZfaq at the moment

I have been binge watching these the last week and ran out like yesterday, excellent timing for more.

The problem with recurring nightmare is that if you play it well, your opp cannot use disenchant to remove it, making it a very difficult card to interact with.

I have drifted away from MtG a couple of times in my life. But I walked away from it because of Mirrodin block.

skullclamp is a really mistake as the story goes the team changed it from 1+/+1 to +1/-1 last minute trying to weaken the card

Raran's heartfelt "WHAT!?" to hearing why Ravager was disgusting is very mood.

These are my favorite videos on youtube. Keep going guys thanks Rarran for being a good sport

Here is why Rule of Law isnt great. 1. You take a turn off, so you're behind. 2. Your opponent still gets to cast a spell each turn. So your three mana and a card effectively answers your opponents second best play each turn. They still get their best play each turn.

*listens to rules of the challenge. Hears "It could be one, it could be two, it could be all of them" Me: It's going to be "all of them" every time, isn't it?

Oh Rarran, not only do people actually play Thoracle in commander, it's honestly one of the most common win conditions in cEDH lmao

Great series! Always love to see rarran trying to evaluate magic cards because as both a magic player and a hearthstone player I somehow still learn something new every time because you both explain really good

At 30:30 honestly I had that with HS as well. If you craft a deck only for it to be completely destroyed you still often lose a lot of dust. Especially as a poorer player.

Watched all of it for the nostalgie :) Thanks. Great memories. I love the "legal in commader" part. That fomat is wild in 2024.

iirc, damage went on the stack still, during Mirrodin, too, so if you had two 3/3 Ravavers, you could attack into a 3/3, deal damage, then sac, and you have a 6/6, and their 3/3 is dead.

"Skullclamp was quite simply a mistake" - Also: "Let's reprint this card a few times just to be sure."

Haven't played a game since legion. But you are explaining everything sooo well, that even I can understand it 😊

This has become my favorite collab duo on KZfaq. Fire

It's always funny to think that Urza block was supposed to be enchantment themed. Also a special mention to Krark-Clan Ironworks which came out a little late to receive a ban but was still hella busted.

When will the channel be renamed to CovertgoBird already. Your new Identity is being a mesa falcon player not being a blue player

I cannot believe how much Rarran misjudged Time Spiral. Like even as a one of copy refilling your hand completely for free is still insane. And it does not matter if your opponent also gets seven cards if you just kill them that turn.

I was a young scooter during mirrodin block, i didnt understand the power of the modular cards much, but i did understand Door to Nothingness and how to make it go boom early. The older dudes at the card shop did not approve of my gameplay style.

Magic Online Trivia: The card Fatespinner was bugged for about two weeks upon release. It's trigger wouldn't let your opponent make a choice, so you won by timeout if it went on the stack. Fatespiner cost 1U, so it was a faster clock than Affinity. That's right, there was a two-week period on MTGO where Affinity was too slow to compete in Standard.

Rarran going 'i have no context to what you can do with an artifact land' and ravager being RIGHT THERE ALSO: They did print 'sneak attack' into hearthstone. It was called...Skull of the Man'Ari

An hour and forty minutes!? Sure, sounds delightful

The art on Recurring Nightmare depicts and older versions of the kid and monster depicted in the art of Show and Tell.

"See, that's a cool card" words that have never ever been uttered by anyone that's ever seen Yawg's will in action.

You should do a a video where you cut up the name card text and art and have Rarran try to match them together

Don't think of artifact lands as two lands in one, think of them as jukai naturalists stapled onto your lands

Dude skullclamp was so rough. I remember just paying 1 to kill your own 1/1 guy to draw 2 cards, and how awful that was.

these colabs are so fun, get to learn a lot about history and deck crafting while listening to great banter

fun fact: skull clamp was originally designed to give +1/+1 but the devs thought it was too strong so they "nerfed" it by making it give +1/-1 instead. It really only made it more powerful though as you could turn any 1/1 creature into 2 cards for one mana

I always love these series, makes me actually want to pick up magic and learn all of these niche and nuanced interactions. Good stuff, keep it up!

really love these videos, the banter between cgb and rarran is always so entertaining + getting to learn about magic's history as someone who started playing more recently. keep em coming!

"They banned the wrong cards" seems like an understatement, this was a fever dream. I think Rarran had the impression you can sacrifice an opponent's creature for Recurring Nightmares?

Watching Rarran grapple with cards that draw 7 is a wild experience.

"Yeah you go try that" sounds like a great flavor text for a Magic card lol

I love these videos, thanks for teaching me the history of Magic! I used to play Magic very casually back in like 2000. Ive always had a passing interest, but other hobbies took priority. Somehow I started watching Rarran more as a content creator about a year ago dispite little interest in hearthstone. Now, somehow im here and these have been my favorite youtube content of late. Shout out to the Mesa Falconer and Sku-E God!

Fun story about Gaea's Cradle. My buddy Ben had been playing Magic for years, I don't know quite how long but longer than me or anyone else I know. He recently moved in with his fiance and they had been going through his Magic collection trying to downsize since their space was limited and Ben wanted to offload some of his cards anyway. Emily, thinking Ben's Gaea's Cradle was a basic forest, had put said Gaea's Cradle on their couch where it then got sat on, folded, creased, and ruined. I saw pictures the day after it happened and I was, to put it lightly, gobsmacked.

All I know about Mirrodin is a rant about a card named 'Tinker' which was ready and waiting to combo with Artefacts.

Always interesting to see what unwritten rules Rarran invents for cards

I absolutely love these videos! I just picked up MTG during the Kamigawa Neon Dynasty set so it’s fun to go back and see all these older sets and the history and lore behind them

Looking forward to when you guys look at shadows over innistrad - kaladesh - amonkhet standard for all the unlikely bans

I never thought I'd make it through 100 minutes of what is essentially banter about the history of some of MTG's most broken cards, but here we are. Very enjoyable!

always love your card choices mesa falconer! some other mtg channels i watch that do something similar with guests but they always pick cards that look bad, give no context to their guest and then go on to proceed how its busted (only when its paired with a million other cards -.-)

One of my favourite ever Modern FNMs back when I still played involved Ravager. I was playing some kind of janky but fun Gifts Reanimator deck with Utopia Sprawl, Arbor Elf, Garruk and Nythos. The plan was to reanimate an Elesh Norn or another impactful big creature on turn three, but sometimes you drew the wrong half of the deck and ended up having to hard cast things. One game against Affinity, I had an explosive amount of ramp in my opener and hard cast Emrakul, the Promised End against them. I got to sac their entire board to their own Ravager and then sac the Ravager to itself.

These videos are excellent. I wonder if it's possible to make this a series where you guess hearthstone and other tcgs.