For some background, my coworkers have been talking nonstop about this game and have been trying to get me into to play with them. I generally know the fundamentals of this game from what they have shown me, but the more i understand it, the less i like the game. It seems to me that regardless of how well you play a game, someone could just have a better deck than you and you would never win. They mentioned a tier system for the decks but i still dont understand how that makes a difference if you could just keep upgrading your deck to make it stronger, making the tier system obsolete. I guess i could just not be used to this type of game but i still dont see the strategy behind it except for "get the best deck possible." Am i missing something? (I dont mean to be rude or ignorant i am just lost)

What is this card? I can’t find much about it online and am very puzzled. I have no clue where it came from. Any ideas?

I was at a Bracket 3 Commander tournament at my LGS this last weekend, and I’m having a hard time understanding how the bracket rules work.

I was playing my [Experiment Kraj]] deck. It’s my simic combine themed deck that I’ve spent a lot of time working on to be my pet deck.

In my last game, I managed to put together a 5 card combo.

Turn 1: Played [[Helix Pinnacle]], Turn 2: Played [[Aquastrand Spider]], Turn 3: Played [[Gyre Sage]], using graft to move a +1/+1 counter onto it, Turn 4: Played Experiment Kraj, Turn 5: Played [[Horseshoe Crab]], grafting a +1/+1 counter onto it. I made infinite mana and put 100 counters on Helix Pinnacle, Turn 6: Won during my upkeep with Helix Pinnacle.

I thought this was a pretty fair combo for Bracket 3. It needed five specific cards, several turns of setup, and passing the turn with my win condition out. Everyone had an opportunity to interact with the combo, and nobody did. One of my opponents called a judge.

The judge said that because I had won before turn 7, I was disqualified from the tournament, and the judge informed me that my deck is actually Bracket 4 because it contained a combo capable of winning that early.

I tried explaining that Helix Pinnacle doesn’t actually win the game until my next upkeep, and that the table had an entire turn cycle to respond to pinnacle if not on any of the turns before.

What really bothers me are the inconsistencies.

In my first game, I played against a [[Godo, Bandit Warlord]] deck running [[Helm of the Host]]. The player had all their mana rituals in their hand on turn 5, but said that they were waiting until turn 7 to do it because they didn’t want to violate the bracket rules. They killed the entire table on turn 7.

In my third game, a [[Tivit, Seller of Secrets]] player assembled an infinite turn combo on turn 5. They took like 20 turns before they won. Someone called the judge during that game to ask whether this violated the turn 7 rule. The judge said that because the Tivit player was past their 7th turn when they won it was fine.

I genuinely don’t understand what I was supposed to do differently. Was I supposed to leave it at 99 counters until turn 7? Would the exact same 5 card combo be Bracket 3 if I just waited to use it for another turn?

I’m pretty disappointed. I put a lot of effort into building something that felt fair for the bracket, and getting disqualified for a lucky game feels like I’m being punished for not artificially extending the game.

At this point, I’m considering quitting the hobby. I’m still pretty new, this was my first official thing at an LGS.

Is this really how the bracket system works?

Edit: I see folks talking about prize support. Prize for 1st is secrets of strixhaven collector packs, 2nd place was marvel packs, 3rd place was deck boxes and sleeves. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd all got a playmat.

I’m from the Pokemon community, collected until I couldn’t physically get product for retail anymore. As a kid and through 2015-2021. God packs turbo boosted product unavailability to new levels, added new “investors” to the hobby and ultimately left Pokemon worse than what it was. And when Pokemon did it they didn’t take the cards out of packs to compensate for this new “feature”.

What was relatively simple to acquire and rip became: Que up the day before and wait upwards of 6 hours to get 2 items…. Maybe…

I started magic as something I could actually play and not just sit on my collection. So far getting product has been hard enough and I feel like it’s going to push people out of the hobby.

I’ve never double sleeved a deck before, somebody please tell me the ideal brand of inner sleeves. This is the third brand (and yes one was Dragon Shield) of “Perfect Fits” I’ve tried and they all do the same DAMN THING. Am I doing something wrong or are they just infamously annoying…? And yes I tried more than just that one card lol

If I were to play Synthetic Destiny and revealed creatures such as Emrakul, the promised end or Emrakul, the world anew and placed them on the battlefield would their “when you cast this spell” trigger occur or not?
the instant says “put all creature cards revealed this way onto the battlefield” so would this bypass “casting” those creatures?

I have a bunch of cards that give other zombies (+1/+1), but I also have a zombie that puts (+1/+1) counters on itself.

As the title says I preordered a secret lair today, which ive never done cause ik too many horror stories and a lot of success as well from ppl who've preordered from WOTC, I was just wondering about the risks and what to do if I am an unlucky customer,lol?

I am sorry if this is not the best place to post this, I have no idea where else to ask.

I am a returning player and I have no idea what current products are around and their names, I am trying to organize my 5 decks into one single holder, so I have bought Gamegenic Sidekick 100+ Convertible.

To my surprise, it did not fit 5 deckboxes that comes with the product Deck Box Gamegenic Triple Holder 300+ XL, it fits only 4 deckboxes even though it's the same company.

Purchasing Gamegenic is extremely hard where I live, so I don't want to make that mistake again.

Can you please help me identify which deckboxes are the ones inside the red circles? Apparently Gamegenic thought it was a good idea to show the use cases of their product but forgot to name what are the products that work with it, you are supposed to guess to already know the market.

Sorry for the frustration, please help!

TLDR: Please help me identify the products inside the red circles

Is there anywhere in the UK that you can preorder the Reprint decks yet?

I’ve seen some people talk about contacting stores and they’re allowing reservations, but I don’t know if they’re USA or UK based.

Desperate to get my hands on the necron set!

Spray on paper / 50 x 70 cm / ©2026

Hello. I'm in a dilemma. Some buddies of mine and myself are planning on ordering high quality proxies. We mostly play CEDH and we want to buy some more decks.

My friend plays [[Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy]]. It has been his number one deck and his first CEDH deck. He has played it ever since.

I like trying new decks. I change my decks all the time because I simply get bored of certain decks, or wanna play a new one. I once went from RogSi - Kefka - Rogsi - Tymna Kraum.

I have recently picked up a taste for Kinnan. I tried my friends deck, and it rocks. It's super fun and I win. I have of course brewed my own version on Archidekt, but it's similar since Kinnan really has only one game plan with mana and such. It's everything I like about CEDH. A ton of mana and a bunch of counterspells.

I'm thinking about ordering a Kinnan deck now. I asked my friend if he would find it a bit annoying that I am ordering his "pet deck". He said that it's a little annoying because it's his first deck and his main deck.

So I do not know what to do. Kinnan is one of the best commanders in CEDH, and I really want to have the deck. But I do feel bad. I asked him if it would change anything if I just avoided playing it whenever he played it, but he said it doesn't make a difference.

I understand where he's coming from. I would probably feel the same way if I had a pet deck like that.

I have looked at other similar decks like RograkhThrasios, but it just isn't the same as Kinnan.

Any opinions?

I've never used a card that has the Split Second effect. Can someone explain exactly how it works?

Was done in Canva with some design input from my students. I plan on giving them a bonus assignment to pick a commander and design it i'm thinking.

At the bare minimum Jurassic Park, The Walking Dead, and Doctor Who have access to Big Macs but are there others?

I got the Mutant Menace commander set at release and had a ton of fun with buddies after work almost everyday with this deck for months. I played some standard in high school but that was 10 years ago.

I plan on getting back into Magic starting Friday at my local gamestore , how is mothman gonna hold up with randoms at the gamestore ? What's a recommendation for a commander precon in case this guy stays in retirement.

And what's a good tutorial or maybe some advice for building my own deck from scratch? Im debating on getting a box of boosters or something of the new set list.

https://moxfield.com/decks/ucp4S50KjUKXjZXa-m6F3Q

Self built deck. How did i do? Any suggestions for somewhat cheap? Aiming for strong bracket 3 low 4.