The Lost Caverns of Ixalan Prerelease Guide for Sealed and Draft | mtg lci 

@Kr0pn1tz lol 🍻

@Krymos13 You’re absolutely correct, but you can still destroy the crafted creature or artifact afterwards. In another comment I noted that I realize that maybe I should have edited out my use of the word respond because that wasn’t very clear and a bit confusing. So I’m sorry that part of the video had some misleading language. I’m pretty sure I did say after they craft you can then respond by destroying the crafted permanent. But still, it wasn’t delivered as clearly as I could have. Anyways, even though they still get the etb value of the crafted permanent or one activation of it, most of the time the etb or one activation of the ability is not enough to justify the craft. Further, most crafted permanents need to attack to get their full value. So yes, you can’t prevent the transformation etb, but in most cases I’d be more than happy for my opponent to spend 7 mana tap out, get an etb, but no further value. It’s still a massive swing in momentum. Especially if they needed to eat other permanents from the board to get the crafting materials. Plus, if you are concerned about the crafted transformation side’s etb you can plan ahead and abrade before they have the mana or resources to craft in the first place. Like I said crafting broadcasts you’re crafting which is why holding off or playing around abrade is still pretty important if the crafted side is your win con. Thanks for the comment.

@@mtgmonster8755 yes, very true indeed. Most of them are artifacts anyway. I did not realize that, so you are absolutely correct!

just what i was looking for

@MELOVISIONHD Good luck with your forklifting duties 🍻

@richarddueck1770 Always great to hear from you! When Abrade was revealed as a reprint I actually burst out laughing! I expected some artifact hate, but to give us Abrade is a gift! I could see first picking Abrade as it hits about 80% of mythic and rare cards in the set and destroys over half of the permanents. I think Abrade is splash worthy. If I have Abrade in my sealed pool, I will be eager to find ways to fit it into any deck.

@@mtgmonster8755 totally agree. I like your point about your early takes on colour power ranking. I’m gonna try to review the cards more this time around to see if I can be a bit better informed, especially about tricks

@richarddueck1770 There are very few tricks in this set, especially compared to WOE. Most decks reward playing more permanents than spells so I expect this to feel like there are a lot fewer tricks here. Expect a large defensive 2 drop to have a chance to hold the board state for at least a turn. In WOE a blocker on turn 2 was doomed. I expect blocking will be a little more straightforward than it was in WOE. There's still tricks, but people won't be able to run tricks at a high concentration the way they could in WOE, so you shouldn't get blown out every single turn in combat at instant speed like it was possible to do in WOE.

@@mtgmonster8755 going to try to catch your twitch stream (tomorrow?). It might be a good idea to post more details about it on your main page, or even drop a short form video with details so more of us can support you :)

@samuelphillips8776 lol 😂 That's a loaded question! The long and the short of it is I think it will add higher variance in draft and sealed, and that's not a good thing usually. A lot will depend on how/ if they change the power of the rares, mythics, uncommons, and commons in sets to deal with this change. Time will tell. 🍻

@TheReydoom I agree the caves are very good! Good points. I also like the cave that can destroy target non-basic land as that can be another round about way to put gods in the graveyard. But even if you're averaging 4 caves in each sealed pool, the odds of all 4 of those being in your colors is very low. I'd expect you to maybe get 2-3 playable caves max. So then spells that get better the more caves you have become very bad. Even if you have 2-3 caves in your deck realistically you might only draw into 1-2 of them the entire game... I also think newer players might try and shove every cave in their deck and too many tap lands is very bad, so I think a few caves are good but maxing out on them could be too slow and hurt your curve out. There will need to be a balance. 🍻

@rogerdunn5932 100% correct, but I would highly recommend doing this post the other damage. If you do it pre-combat or are trying to combo it, there are very few instances where they would actively block or willingly take more damage to kill their own god.

@@mtgmonster8755 That being said, an indestructible creature would not die from a post combat damage -2/-2 if it's original toughness is higher than 2.

@DeWillpower The sets come quickly, but I was 100% ready to be done with WOE over a month ago so I'm pleased to be moving on. Thanks for all your support of the channel. 🍻 🤔 Looking like this set is going to be one of those just play the biggest creature possible on curve kind of things.

@nikolausgezabarnas4454 My wording was not so clear. I did mean that after it transformed you could destroy it. I believe that's what I said in the video. The inclusion of in response before hand was confusing and probably should have been edited out. But yes, the card would exile as part of the cost and it would transform once the player decided to go ahead and activate craft, but upon etb of the transform side then you could destroy it. It would still be a huge blow out. The cheaper crafting cards don't do anything on etb so they wouldn't get any value there. The more expensive crafting costs do occasionally have an etb, but most of the time they would require you to double cast to get full value off of them or attack in. Sometimes, craft cards will get to activate once after crafting, but many times even that one activation is not going to be worth what you paid for it. Either way Abrade will do very heavy lifting here. I think Jade Seedstones is a great example of this where the player would pay 7 and gain X life equal to the mana value of cards crafted with it. That would resolve. They'd gain the X life, but if you Abrade they wouldn't have the 7/7 creature too. Paying 7 to gain some life is usually not worth it. Of course if that life gain would matter you could always see this coming and Abrade the Jade Seedstones before they have the mana to craft it. Obviously, if there is an absolute bomb of a crafting card that has an amazing etb that you're worried about you should Abrade it before your op has enough mana or resources to activate the craft ability. But I think there are going to be times where you hope your op taps out to craft even if they get an etb or ability activation once off of it. Great question and thanks for pointing out that I didn't word that section of the video as carefully as I should have. 👍🍻

She’s saying you can wait for the craft ability to resolve and only then casting abrade to destroy the new crafted artifact; in other words, you’re waiting for the opponent to spend mana and battlefield/graveyard resources and then undo all that with a simple instant Abrade. You can potentially lose a ton of resources via one single card, not to mention the lost momentum by spending a turn crafting to no avail. Edit: a few minutes late to the party 😅

@tiagomiranda4057 We got there in the end! 🍻 Magic is a silly game.

Thanks for the detailed response! I think I get it now. I think "responding" also matters when it comes to crafting a card that transforms into a non artifact card. In that case there is no reason to respond to the activation as the artifact is in exile already. In any case, I agree that Abrade is good removal in red! Loved your vid! Keep it up!@@mtgmonster8755

Thanks for the clarification!@@tiagomiranda4057

@roninpharaoh 😂🍻 THIS! 100% There were several times I had to look at the bottom of the card to verify what rarity it was using the C, U, R, M letter indicator that appears before the set number on each card.

@metarico3075 No. The exile is part of the casting cost. You can’t target crafting materials being used or the artifact with the craft ability on it in response to the craft activated ability. It will resolve. But after the etb of the transformed side you can destroy it. They will get an opportunity to do the activated ability if it has one. But most of the time the other crafted side is a creature that needs to stick around for them to get enough value out of the mana spent for it to be worth the crafting cost. If the etb or activated ability of the other side will cause you an issue in a game then you should consider abrading the artifact before they have the mana or materials needed to craft. But most of the time, I want them to eat their resources, spend the mana, and lose momentum by going for the craft. However I recognize there will be times maybe you don’t want that to happen. Sorry my wording in that section of the video wasn’t as clear as it could have been. Thanks for the great question.

@rickam4 Thanks 🍻 glad you liked the video and found it useful

@fresshstart5521 Thanks! 🍻

@lucasdtk 🍻 Thanks. I'm glad you enjoy my set primers.

@tevdestro Please see the numerous other comment answers about Abrade I have posted. 🍻

3 mins later. "Descend is a confusing mechanic". Point proven.

@haofabs Once you know what the different descends are referring to it is a very straightforward set. I think deck building will be quite straightforward in what you should be wanting to do in draft for your deck and colors. Game play will also be fairly straightforward. There are very few tricks or ways for someone to "surprise" you. At first I thought this set had the potential to be very complex with how you might want to draft, but the more I dove deeper into it, the less complex it looked. I think the board states will be quite straightforward. 🍻

@croma86 Gracias. salud! 🍻

@nolanadamiec9693 Tokens do not count towards descend. I triple checked with judges. The reason being that descend specifically states "permanent card". Tokens aren't cards. Tokens are permanents, but not a permanent card. So they can not count towards descend triggers. If descend was worded "when a permanent enters your grave this turn" then it would count. But that pesky word "card" makes all the difference. Magic is a silly game. 🍻

@Ger0nimo76 🍻

@colle31 yep I do that from time to time 😂🍻

@MattHorton Although I don't recommend ever forcing a color pairing, if you were going to blindly force a pairing red green is one of the top ones to do it with for this set. Play big dinos on curve and turn them sideways. 🍻

@@mtgmonster8755 for sure. I usually go in with a few I think I'll be good at. For example, messing with the graveyard is just not my strength. So I'll avoid Descend.

@MattHorton Green white +1+1 counters or red white discover aggro could also be a good fit if graveyard isn't your thing. I'd stay clear of black and especially blue if you're not comfortable with mill/ graveyard value.

@nightfox_69 Please see the other comment answers regarding Abrade.

@@mtgmonster8755 uu, nice!

@hoseaosborn7271 My only issue with he diamond pick axe is that you do need to attack to make the treasure. In constructed this is much easier to build around, but in this set I'd really only run it if I also had some 1 drop flyers to equip it to early for the treasure. 🍻

@@mtgmonster8755 yeah I have a boros dwarf dragon deck that tutors goldspan dragon from the deck

@hoseaosborn7271 Nice!

@emiliorubione837 The cards do have a lot of words printed on them, but the core mechanics/ things each color cares about is quite simple. You've got this. 🍻

@seananderson3582 Thanks and I agree. Especially for sealed, it's more important to know what each individual color wants to be doing so you have an easier time mixing and matching. 🍻

@tiagomiranda4057 lol! I think we are all looking forward to being able to block with our 2 drops on the draw with more consistency once again. I do think this set will favor the player that drops the largest creature on curve, so I could see this set being frustrating in that way. When your op goes turn 2 Belligerent Yearling, turn 3 Pugnacious Hammerskull, turn 4 Pathfinding Axejaw it's going to feel very bad!!!

Yeah, that’s a dream scenario 😅. But with so much going on in this set, I’m hoping different strategies can compete better with one another than in WOE. And you just put forward the vocabulary that I lacked: being on the draw trying to block an invariably fast opponent was incredibly frustrating in WOE.

@andrewpark78 Thanks!

@That1powergamer I've been doing some sealed and draft sims to prep for the Streamer Event. I'd say the vast majority of sealed pools end up being a Jund, Naya, or Abzan deck for me. I've had one Sultai pool and one Esper pool. So it isn't always Jund, Naya, or Abzan but I think you are most likely to open the highest concentration of synergizing cards, plus enough strong 2 and 3 drops in those three colors. It's pretty usual for me to only play 2 colors in sealed. I feel confident in splashing for at least that 3rd color most of the time. I hope this helps. 🍻

@mtgmonster8755 sure does. Is there any other potential staples I should look out for besides abrade.

@That1powergamer Lol yes! but too many to list here. I'll go into detail about those on Thursday during the Stream. 🍻

@mtgmonster8755 if it's between 11am and 5pm I won't make it. :( I work then.

@That1powergamer I upload all the content from the stream to RU-vid fairly quickly, and there is also a possibility I'll be doing a second stream from 9PM - ? EST on Thursday as well.

@kratky420 Thanks for your signature woot as always. 🍻

@8Smoker8 Correct. There are only 2 cards where this is the case and I think they are the two best craft cards in the set. The Throne of the Grim Captain and the Visage of Dread. This is why, when I was mentioning how to play around Abrade, and I suggested that you don't want to run your win con crafting card out early I showed a picture of the Throne of the Grim Captain. That one you'll want to hold until you can transform. But my favorite craft card is the Visage of Dread. Expect this card to be an overperforming card in the set. It's one of my favorite uncommons. At cost 2 mana ETB look at op hand put a artifact or creature in grave is good. But what takes it to the next level is it then requires your op to cast abrade against it early if they don't want to deal with the back side 5/4 menace. It's a perfect card to fork out Abrades. Because Abrade targeting the Visage of Dread is a bad play all around. Basically it would be a 2 for 1 there where you got a creature/ artifact plus a removal spell. That's an amazing deal for you! But if they don't Abrade (Over the Edge, Dauntless Dismantler, Deconstruction Hammer, Dreadmaw's Ire, or Thrashing Brontodon) it they get punished with a 5/4 menace backside! Too much value. I think the only card that doesn't 2 for 1 your op with Visage of Dread is Dreadmaw's Ire. That's the only way for your op to not suffer unrecoverable card disadvantage. But as said in other comments. Yes, I was not careful enough with my wording in that section of the video. I apologize for it not being as clear as it could have been. Thanks for the great comment! 🍻

@@mtgmonster8755 yep I saw you had explained it already, nice!

@sampomentula5010 thanks 🍻

@andrewl.4624 Great questions! So I think red green has the potential to be one of the best and easiest decks to build in sealed. I normally play 3 colors so I would be willing to play any 3 color deck with red green at its base. White, Blue and Black all have good reasons to pair with Red Green base. I think black also has the potential to be right up there in power level with Red and Green, but you'll need to work for it a bit more. For instance, a card like Defossilize is so strong but you'll want to pair it with something worth getting back from the grave that preferably has a great etb, and preferably you have some mill or discard synergies to be able to get extra value from the grave. Same could be said for the Abyssal Gorestalker as another stellar uncommon in black but it takes some work to make it great. As much as I love the Jund colors in this set, I do think Abuelo, Ancestral Echo is a very strong card in weaker color pairing. When in doubt I'd lean towards trying to have big creatures in sealed for this set. Obviously, you still want 2 and 3 drops, but I see the games lasting a bit longer than WOE so BIG finishers or Equipment become important for being able to push in damage late game after everything has stabilized. This is also why crafting and abrade become good and important. A crafted added value could outpace a board stall in your favor, or an abrade could remove a threat to re-swing things in your favor. Removal will be important to run enough of it in sealed. Trigger to payouts is a hard thing to tell you the right balance for. The ratio depends on how good your payouts are and how many of those payouts you have, plus how effective are the enablers. For instance, Waterlogged Hulk allows you to mill a card every turn. If you wanted to focus on descend you only need one of those on the board to trigger all your payouts. So maybe you could get away with only 3 of those in your deck as enablers and you then have a whole bunch of payouts. But sometimes you won't have very efficient enablers like Explore... Yes, you can put the card in the grave but I've found a lot of players aren't disciplined enough to start throwing playable cards off of explore into the grave. So mid-game maybe that won't fill your grave. Maybe, you'd need 10+ cards in your deck that explore to start seeing those descend payouts so then you'd only have 2-3 payouts in your deck with many more enablers. This is true for sacrifice fodder and everything else. The ratio depends on how efficient and effective your enablers are. That will impact ho many payouts you can run and how good those payouts get. I think this set is very likely to come down to who has the biggest things/ removal through the mid-game. Value late game and just how large your power and toughness are will win the day. Whether that value is from craft, recursion from the grave, card advantage, or a ridiculously wide board state. The early creatures in this set are good at blocking. Things get big fast. Attacks become pretty hard to make profitably pretty early in the game. There aren't tons of combat tricks. So stabilize early-mid. Late game go large or go very wide. If you're doing neither I think you'll find yourself losing quite a bit. Expect grindier games than WOE was. 🍻

I appreciate the context! I probably fall into the group of amateurs that won't be as aggressive about throwing playable permanents into the graveyard from explore/surveil. Any advice on picking and choose when to put a permanent into the graveyard/getting past that mental barrier? I'm thinking if it isn't on curve, it's going in the yard 😅

@andrewl.4624 It's tricky to throw out broad advice here. What you do with the card in question on an explore ability will depend on what your opponent is doing. It'll depend on your own hand. It'll depend on the board state. It depends on the card in question you're looking at. Sometimes you should 100% not put the card on top of your library in the graveyard even if you want to trigger descend. The more experience you have with Magic and how games play out the better you'll be at Exploring properly. I think getting good at Explore decisions comes down to experience and practice. You'll do fine. Just make your best guess at what you think is right at the time, and learn from when it was a mistake and when it wasn't. That's how I do it. 🍻

@RhythmBeast360 This is a common misconception going around. Let me help add clarity of the official ruling. I asked 3 different judges and they all said the same thing: -What is the definition of Descend? - "You descend each time a permanent card is put into your graveyard from anywhere." -Why does a token not count? - Because a token is NOT a "Permanent Card". Rule108.2b Tokens aren't considered cards-even a card-sized game supplement that represents a token isn't considered a card for rules purposes. - But isn't a token a permanent? Yes, a token in a permanent, but a token is not a card. So it doesn't satisfy the conditions for descend. Tokens do not trigger descend because they do not count as "permanent cards". Here is the full text ruling on Cards: 108.2 When a rule or text on a card refers to a “card,” it means only a Magic card or an object represented by a Magic card. 108.2a Most Magic games use only traditional Magic cards, which measure approximately 2.5 inches (6.3 cm) by 3.5 inches (8.8 cm). Certain formats also use nontraditional Magic cards, oversized cards that may have different backs. 108.2b Tokens aren’t considered cards-even a card-sized game supplement that represents a token isn’t considered a card for rules purposes. 108.2c In the text of spells or abilities, the term “card” is used to refer to an object that is represented by a Magic card. It’s usually used to refer to a card that’s not on the battlefield or on the stack, such as a creature card in a player’s hand. In rare cases, it can be used to refer to a nontoken permanent or to a spell that’s not a copy of a card. The Mycotyrant, 1BG, Legendary Creature - Elder Fungus, * / * Trample The Mycotyrant’s power and toughness are each equal to the number of creatures you control that are Fungi and/or Saprolings. At the beginning of your end step, create X 1/1 black Fungus creature tokens with “This creature can’t block,” where X is the number of times you descended this turn. (You descend each time a permanent card is put into your graveyard from anywhere.) This card would be so busted if tokens triggered it. Unfortunately they don't. I hope this helps. Thanks for the excellent question. Magic is a very silly game as we both know! 🍻