The draft order was Dark Ascension first. That "latest set first" order was especially weird in Scars of Mirrodin Block, since if you went by the draft order, the Mirrans won.

*Graham examining the art on Artful Dodge* "What is that thing?" Me, out loud to no one: "IT'S THE ARTFUL DODGER!"

OMG it's my pack, finally! It would have been PAX West 2019, as that is the only West I went to other than 2009, when I didn't know about LRR then. I've to PAX East 6 or 7 times pre pandemic.

This was the time Phyrexian Obliterator was in standard and Wrack with Madness was occasionally used as sideboard tech against those decks.

I like the moment when Graham said, "It's Morbid Time!"

Griptide in a set with Evolving Wilds was AWESOME. Play that in response to your opponent's fetch and the creature gets shuffled away

This pack was a banger of played cards. Young Wolf still sees play in Modern. Artful Dodge saw a bunch of play in pauper Infect for a while. Mystic Retrieval is in the typical Dandan deck. Increasing Ambition sometimes sees play in EDH combo decks to grab all the pieces. Cool pack. Did Graham say we don't get Griptides anymore? The one from MoM was better than this one trading in Instant speed for Convoke and buried it a card deeper or all the way to the bottom. There's usually a Griptide in every set, just sometimes it's a Totally Lost instead. The extra mana usually matters.

I bet Graham got Huntmaster of the Fells. Dang it.

Thanks for having me it's great to be here

You know a set's value isn't great when the third most expensive card is a planeswalker emblem right above the planeswalker that makes that emblem.

5:53 did he just say he was embearassed

Innistrad block was the first time that a person could open up three mythics in one pack! And I did just that with my very first Dark Ascension pack! I opened a Sorin, a Huntmaster, and a foil Archangel's Light, iirc.

Hat block, best block.

Wasn't Scorned Villager, Lambholt Elder and Huntsmaster of the Fells a Little Red Riding Hood cycle?

Having started right before Return to Ravnica, Dark Ascension is the earliest pack I've ever opened, since no store around me ever had Innistrad in stock and I've never had a particular interest in cracking packs outside of drafts.

I found a dusty Dark Ascension intro deck in the back shelf of a Rite-Aid in a nowhere town back in 2018. It was the Requiem Angel deck, and the pack had a Beguiler of Wills waiting in it

0:49 - The Ascension aren’t doing too well; WWE released them back in 2019.

Dark Ascension feels...older than 11 years to me? For some reason my brain lumps it in with OG Mirrodin era blocks/sets.

I am not in to magical gatherings, but I do like hearing G-Money ramble.

ah yes modern stapel young wolf

Every Magic set is someone's favourite magic set.

Woo Dark Ascension was the set I started on, 11 years of playing this amazing game and I love keeping up with all the new stuff and all the fun Commander brings :D It also pretty much explains why I love Angels in this game so much, because the first set I saw all of was Avacyn Restored and that is when I started Lore diving to find out more about all the planes and characters and history.

It's fun that one of those cards is a staple in one of the top Modern decks and it's the common 1/1.

Artful Dodge sounds like an art matters Un-card

The "target creature deals damage to itself equal to its power" effect has been in three different colors at this point. White: Repentance Black: Kiku's Shadow Red: Wrack with Madness & Inner Struggle and just for fun, Red+White: Justice Strike They kept changing the mana value, too.

artful dodge was useful in izzet blitz in modern back in the day

Lovely.

Fateful hour looks spicy in Wacky Races. 👀

A big part of the reason Indestructible had reminder text was that it wasn't a keyword at that point in time. That wouldn't happen until M14. Notice how Break of Day wasn't printed with "gain indestructible" and just says they "are indestructible". At the time, making things indestructible with effects such as this wasn't the same as the affected permanent having the ability indestructible. If you made those creatures lose all abilities, they would still be indestructible for the duration of the effect. Another bizarre quirk, was that if a card made a group of permanents Indestructible such as Rootborn Defenses (creatures you control are indestructible) or Boros Charm (permanents you control are indestructible), then any permanents that fit in that group that join that group after the effect was applied would also be indestructible for the duration as long as they were in that group. For example, cast Rootborn Defenses and then cast Act of Treason on an opponent's creature, and that creature would be indestructible while it was under your control. Cards with these wordings received errata when indestructible was made a keyword, so that they work more intuitively and in line with other effects that grant abilities.

There were a few solid deathtouchers to equip Wolfhunter's Quiver onto, like Ambush Viper and Typhoid Rats. Felt good.

Crack! A! Pack!

For people like Graham who cannot be bothered to look it up, the draft format was first Dark Ascension, then two packs of original Innistrad, so this would be your pack 1.

I feel like baseline undying is better than persist but persist is easier to break so across the whole of magic persist is probably actually better

I started playing Magic shortly after Dark Ascension came out, so it will always be a special set to me!

Ok but...desert bus goal to have graham run a dark ascension draft?

MORBED

2012 being 11 years ago....man Just. Man. Quality pack opening as always though. Dark Ascension was such a cool set.

Oh damn lrr finally caved and started using the new Patreon logo. The end of an era or something /j

We get tuck effects pretty often these days. I can think of half a dozen in the last couple years.

GOD FUCKING DAMN IT GRAHAM I JUST FINISHED THE COMPILATION VIDEO LAST NIGHT

Man I remember when dark ascension came out I bought a whole box to collect gravecrawlers

aw yeah, I love Dark Ascension. I was so enamoured with Elbrus, the Binding Blade at the time.

7:50 Only in Commander. And even there, it's dodgy these days

Hey, I use Increasing ambition in one of my arena decks.

i recently opened a dark accencion pack and opened Two of the mill card one was foil and i also got an increasing (whatever blue was

With Dark Ascension first it was no big deal because the sets worked well together. But then Avycn Restored was a stand alone draft so it was 3 AVR which wasn't as good. Then with Return to Ravnica the order was just messed up, because you drafted Dragons Maze first which was all fixing, then Gate crash which had one half of the color combos RW UB GR BW UG, then Return to Ravnica which had the other half UW BG RU BR and WG, so you were forced into three or four colors and you had to pick up fixing before knowing what you were going to get so you ended up passing great cards pack two and the whole table would be locked by Pack 2 Pick 2 and just be frustrated.

Werewolves

Magic cards is cool

😂 I absolutely loved the edit when Graham cracked the pack. I almost cried laughing.

Wrack with Madness-type effects are still really cool IMO, although it feels more White to me. Punishing your opponents' aggressive creatures while paying no mind to their more passive defensive creatures. Anyway, that's my dissertation on why Justice Strike should be in every Boros commander deck that needs more removal (also it deals with Blightsteel Colossus, hint hint)

I really liked Fateful Hour as a concept.

Good stuff. Also, First?

I like this set, too bad every time i buy single pks online they never show up, very weird and unfortunately sticking with a few verified buyers online is gonna be the best way to not get scammed and have your $ stolen from you. Way too many scam artist on ebay its legit starting to make it impossible to assume a seller is actually gonna sell you a product.

Poop