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The Shadowfax Award
Each set, there is a card which most perfectly nails the marriage of mechanics and flavor; a huge win for resonant gameplay. And also, enfranchised players can’t wait to tell you about why it’s so clever. These cards are honored with the 𝑺𝒉𝒂𝒅𝒐𝒘𝒇𝒂𝒙 𝐀𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝 🏆 The award is named after Shadowfax, Lord of Horses, from…
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Draft Archetype reference guide archive
Below is a gallery of each of the little “reference guide” cards I’ve been able to find for past Limited formats. I will try to keep this updated, but I could use your help! If you have high-quality images of any formats I’m missing here, please send them to me (@mtgds.bsky.social, or @mtg_ds on Twitter).…
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Prestidigitation
A Magic-like game for two players that uses a standard 52-card deck of playing cards. Here’s my idea for a way to play Magic with a standard 52-card deck. Shuffle and deal 7 card hands to each player. Put the remainder facedown as a shared draw pile. Players also share a graveyard. You’re basically playing…
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Staplechase
Which brand new cards will be tomorrow’s staples? Here’s the idea: before this set’s prerelease begins, you pick a collection of eight unique cards that you think will be the most-played Commander cards one year from now. Your picks will be scored by summing the total number of decks in which they appear at EDHREC,…
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Ride the Rails: Measuring openness and the degree to which Limited is on-rails
It is common to hear Limited formats described by the degree to which the draft is on-rails, that is — once you have “found your lane”, how closely do you have to hew to that path. Relatedly, specific picks are often described as “keeping you open”, if they don’t commit you to one specific archetype/deck…
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P0P1 Challenge
Here’s the idea: before this set goes live on Arena, you pick a “team” of eight unique cards that you think will be the strongest in Arena Premier Draft. Your team is scored by summing the total Game in Hand Win Rate across all eight cards, according to 17Lands.com. You can pick any eight cards…
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Elves of Deep Shadow
Read this post for some guidance as to how to get this into print. Svetlin Velinov, Nils Hamm, Vincent Proce, Kev Walker, Greg Staples, Magali Villeneuve, Chris Rahn, Seb McKinnon, Chippy, Dan Scott, Daniel Ljunggren, Deruchenko Alexander, Randy Vargas, Sam Burley, Slawomir Maniak, Christopher Moeller, Lars Grant-West, Johannes Voss, YW Tang, Izzy, Nicholas Gregory, Adam…
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Go-Shintai of Life’s Origin
Made from 16,384 illustrations that depict Kamigawa. Read this post for some guidance as to how to get this into print. Kev Walker, Anthony S. Waters, Rob Alexander, Christopher Moeller, John Avon, Paolo Parente, Shishizaru, Carl Critchlow, Ittoku, Heather Hudson, Rebecca Guay, Stephen Tappin, Pete Venters, Wayne Reynolds, Johannes Voss, Martina Pilcerova, Darrell Riche, Jim…
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Composite Golem: Image mosaics from related illustrations
I’ve been making mosaics of card illustrations, in which the component images are also card illustrations. Very meta.
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Collective Effort: Inferring synergy from decklist composition in Limited
In which I use patterns in @17Lands users’ decklists to infer synergies between cards and two-color archetypes.
mtgds
Magic. Data. Science.
mtgds 