Magic the Gathering | Goonhammer

Competitive Play

Innistrad: Crimson Vow Review, Part 2 – WUBRG

FromTheShire - November 11, 2021

Magic's newest expansion has us returning to Innistrad just in time for Halloween. Innistrad: Crimson Vow is the second of two expansions set in the horror-themed plane, and this second set sees the two main vampire lineages uniting in...

Competitive Play

Innistrad: Crimson Vow Review, Part 1 – The Mechanics

FromTheShire - November 10, 2021

Magic's newest expansion has us returning to Innistrad just in time for Halloween. Innistrad: Crimson Vow is the second of two expansions set in the horror-themed plane, and this second set sees the two main vampire lineages uniting in...

Core Games

Commander 103: Mana Value, Ramp, and the Meta

B Phillip York - November 4, 2021

At the dawn of Commander... Long ago, in the Great Before Time, Commander exploded in popularity as a format, giving birth to more competitive spirit, and many more competitive decks were born. Many of these decks are still around in some...

Competitive Play

Commander Focus: Kenrith, It’s a lock

B Phillip York - October 28, 2021

For the most part, Commander is supposed to be a fun format. The rules committee philosophy frequently references this sort of idea, and even seems to consider not focusing on "fun-having" as some sort of abomination or aberration. People...

Competitive Play

Commander Focus: Horde of Notions

B Phillip York - October 21, 2021

Tribal commander archetypes are fairly common, though if you're in a more casual group there's a bit of an issue where several of them are really quite good. Elves and pirates easily make the cut off for any kind...

Competitive Play

Not-Commander Secret Lair: Stranger Things

B Phillip York - October 19, 2021

Late last week Wizards revealed cards from the next "Universes Beyond" release, this time focused on the Netflix series Stranger Things. If you're starting to feel fatigue from the sheer volume of new Magic releases well, you're not alone. Today we'll...

Competitive Play

Commander Focus: The Rubaiyat of oh my Tayam!

B Phillip York - October 14, 2021

Tayam, Luminous Enigma is kind of a strange card. He cares about counters, not particular counters. A lot of cards will have you remove counters, but typically they are counters associated with the creature itself, and the most common...

Competitive Play

Commander Focus: Anowon, Feeling a Bit Rouge-ish.

B Phillip York - October 7, 2021

Yes, thank you I know how to spell. But that's the point of a rogue deck. I tricked you into correcting my spelling. You fell into my cunning plan of, well proving something or other. Rogues are a nifty subtype...

Gaming

Commander Unstable Mutation: Coven Counters

B Phillip York - October 4, 2021

Coven Counter is based on generating +1/+1 counters, off the commander and other sources, buffing the small creatures in order to deal combat damage. This is inherently a bad game plan, especially without backup from things like proliferate, or...

Competitive Play

Commander Unstable Mutation: Undead Unleashed

B Phillip York - September 30, 2021

We've previously covered the mechanics and cards of Midnight Hunt, the newest Innistrad-set expansion for Magic: the Gathering. This week we're covering the Commander preconstructed decks for the set - what they've got, how to play them, and how...