You Can Just Play Things
PLUS: Spice Paradise voting, Premodern comes to MTGO, Lobstercon registration, and the Blue Skies crew
Like a Squee discarded… I am back! Also, happy 12/12 day. This issue covers one of my favorite topics: playing cards that you like and spicy decks. I’m planning to release at least one more issue of BANDING this year, one of which will cover new breakout decks in the format. Once we hit January 2026, be on the lookout for the fourth annual format round table featuring several members of the community sharing their thoughts.
Although there are no links to other Premodern content at the bottom of this issue like there normally is, I do want to shoutout Mana Reflections, a new Substack launched by game designer and NYC crew stalwart Rich Bucey. Each issue he breaks down a single Magic card with thoughts on card design and charming anecdotes.
Thanks to you all for supporting the newsletter! If there’s one thing I recommend you do in this issue, it’s to vote in the Spice Paradise favorite decks poll. More details further down!
You Can Just Play Things
Since launching in 1993, Magic has printed over 30,000 unique cards throughout the decades. Every player has certain cards that are fondly remembered, whether because it’s a card that captured their imagination when they first discovered the game (Eron the Relentless and Killer Bees for me), was part of a deck you loved to play (Rishadan Port in Legacy Lands for me), or any other numerous sentimental reasons. Sometimes I come across laments on social media when a beloved card is mentioned, like “I wish this was still playable” or “I miss this card”. I get a bit bummed when I see messages like that because it reveals an unfilled desire, artificially imposed.
Working in the technology sector, a common refrain I’ve seen increase in popularity in the past year with the rise of generative AI tools is that “you can just do things” — implying that leveraging new tools allows a single, motivated person to accomplish what used to take a huge amount of resources. Although the topic is thorny, I must admit the phrase is punchy and I find myself these days thinking “you can just play things”. Who cares if a favored card or strategy is not meta anymore? You can just play it anyway. Have some fun, make some memories.
Recently, the Wild Speculations thread in the Premodern Discord organically and spontaneously hosted a “fight night” of sorts, featuring two regulars and their respective decks. In one corner, an off-meta UG Aggro deck that the player has been tuning and enjoying. In the other, Mono U Stiflenought, widely regarded as one of the best decks in the format. Over 30 viewers throughout the night crowded into a Discord room to watch the match in which the UG Aggro deck punched above its weight and took down the big bad Mono U Stiflenought. The match was unrecorded but the tale will be passed down for a long time to come.
Another way that I’ve been thinking about “you can just play things” is made-up formats and leagues. So your favorite card is no longer playable in Legacy or Modern… you can make a league or format in which it is. Cards are not destined to be doomed to the bulk box even if Wizards of the Coast prints something better. Besides community-made formats like PreFIRE, Classic Legacy, and 2015 Modern, one way I like to play with “uncompetitive” cards and strategies is through Spice Paradise, the Premodern webcam league I organize that prohibits top tier strategies. Players bring pet decks and tune new strategies before taking them to the big leagues. We’re now in the third season with 32 players — each season growing bigger than the last. It’s a breath of fresh air, even for someone like myself that still loves vanilla Premodern.
So get out there and sleeve up your favorite cards. They deserve to be enjoyed. Only you get to decide whether your favorite card is playable or not.
Spice Paradise, Season 3
We’ve wrapped up the eight-week regular season of Spice Paradise and voting has opened for which decks you’d like to see in the exhibition round. Voting is open to everyone and will close on Monday, December 15.
Besides the deck featured in the vote, I want to highlight a few others that I found inspiring throughout the season. I’ll write about the winning decks in a later issue so I want to focus on the decks played but weren’t submitted for voting. The participants often shared their creations throughout the league in the Spice Paradise thread of the Premodern Discord to gather feedback and the positive energy of collaboration is one of my favorite things about organizing the event.
If you want to view all 130+ deck photos shared throughout the event, you can check them out here. Among these, here are some that caught my eye… (also, I wasn’t able to upload all of these to Moxfield but if you have a question on identifying cards/decks, just comment and I’ll do my best):
Jinxed Bookworm by BrandonE
Even though this deck didn’t operate up to expectations ( the designer said of the deck: “only thing I succeeded in doing vs [my opponent] was forcing him to Google Insidious Bookworms and Jinxed Idol”), I love the idea behind it. The deck is full of cheap creatures to sacrifice to Jinxed Idol and Cabal Therapy, as well as to kickstart Oversold Cemetery. Your clock is fairly slow but if you get going, disruptive against decks unable to apply pressure.
Frankenberry by Cody
BRW (i.e., Mardu) is probably the least common tri-color combination seen in Premodern. The only competitive one that I can think of off the top of my head was Matt Harper’s sweet Land Tax Draco Blast brew years ago. I like how Cody’s deck has both a tokens theme and a zombies theme going on, providing incredible reach. I think maybe the Mother of Runes are unneeded here, perhaps swapped for Withered Wretch if the mana base can handle it.
BUG Tog by CrazyCarl
BUG is my favorite color combination so I’m always intrigued to see what people are cooking in this space. Merfolk Looter has seen somewhat of revitalization in interest thanks to Lanny on Spike Colony (and perhaps others?). I asked Carl about it and he said he liked it a lot… even though he lost the game. Quiet Speculation is a card at the top of mind of many these days too, though I am somewhat worried about the reliance on the graveyard of this deck. Is there a good way around that?
8 Dog by cudfather
Green Stompy decks have seen a lot of new iterations in the last few years and this one is a neat take on it with Wild Mongrel and Wild Dogs. Mongrel is one of those creatures that I grew up playing with during UG Madness’s domination and I still don’t respect that card enough in Premodern. It’s really good. And yes, the dog in the middle is cudfather’s real dog!
Pirates by Didgeridood
Didgeridood tried out two variants of Pirates, one with black and one with white. Both iterations are really neat (and beautiful) and I think it’s interesting to see how people brew and tune their decks throughout Spice Paradise. I have a soft spot for the strategy after the infamous Pirate Stompy deck that caused a stir in Legacy years ago.
BRg Midrange by GibsonJunkie
BRG (i.e., Jund) is one of those colors that people have a strong attachment to and several flavors have been developed over the years. Varchild’s War-Riders is also a Spice Paradise staple, so it’s always neat to see new takes on it. The surprise splash of green for Naturalize effects makes sense but hold up, Voracious Cobra? Love it. Goblin Tinkerer and Gorilla Shaman is some serious artifact hate too.
Mono Red Dreadnought by K-Run (Raphaël A. Caron)
K-Run is easily one of my favorite brewers in the community. This is another masterpiece as he takes format all-star Phyrexian Dreadnought but combines it with Fling and Pandemonium. Goblin Welders and Junk Divers ensure he gets at least two-hits in. Winding Canyons and Goblin Welders also help Dreadnought stick around in play too, if you have a second one.
UR Dracoplasm by Koget
As I said, Varchild’s War-Riders is a Spice Paradise favorite! I love seeing how people try to turn the cumulative upkeep downside into an advantage. Koget cleverly uses Reins of Power to switch control of creatures, then casts Dracoplasm to make a large creature or uses Goblin Bombardment.
Serra Oath by mango
Serra Avatar plus life gain is just too sweet. I like that Worthy Cause helps you keep growing the Avatar while grabbing a new creature with Oath of Druids. I think I’d want to see Dragon Fang in here for trample, and maybe even Dragon Breath, though that’s a bit riskier being uncastable. Maybe throw in a Rith’s Grove or two in there?
Recycle by Narcism
Narcism has been working on Recycle for a while and the latest list is looking clean. Green enchantments have always been strong in Premodern and Recycle shouldn’t be overlooked. I saw him play this deck during the league and Emerald Charm hitting non-aura enchantments is pretty handy.
Cradle Rebels by QuirionGamer
Rebels is a classic archetype and I’ve been meaning to take another look at and QuirionGamer opted for the green splash with Gaea’s Cradle to generate huge amounts of mana. I like the chain of finding a Skyshroud Poacher (which is inexplicably a Rebel) to then dig up Deranged Hermits.
Polymorph by Samuel Leng
Polymorph is generally not seen in Premodern due to Oath of Druids, Show and Tell, Natural Order, and Reanimate providing more efficient ways to cheat out creatures, but I like Samuel Leng’s attempt. I’d also be kind of curious to try a version with Phantom Nishoba and Natural Order too.
Junk Nic Fit by SamuraiFunn
Really love this take on Nic Fit. I’ve been exploring Junk Nic Fit too, but with Academy Rector to help assemble Opal-Wave. There aren’t many busted expensive enchantments to fetch in Premodern but perhaps the most powerful are still worth grabbing even if you’re not trading up on mana. Or what about a Junk Nic Fit with Survival of the Fittest? Chaining expensive creatures, ditching Veteran Explorers, etc.
Storm Seeker Tron by snorful
I’m always interested in Tron lists and this is just a tasteful attempt to use your mana to have both players draw cards before hitting them with Storm Seeker and Black Vise.
Scoria Cat by Taco Island
Hard to exaggerate how many sweet cards are here. You can just play things! Prophecy was a set that I bought way too much of as a kid and while the removal of mana burn deeply affected the card interactions, they still pack a punch if you’re able to set things up.
Bounce by Varchild’s Hug-Givers (Gabe F)
I like this one because Warped Devotion and Megrim are often cards that people are interested in brewing around. Gabe has worked on iterations for a while now and this one looks pretty sweet. Recoil is potentially underplayed in Premodern!
Necrologia by vieko
I like this list because most Necrologia brews I’ve seen are pretty reliant on the card while this one uses it as a surprising late-game finisher to draw a bunch of cards for Zombie Infestation or just to discard creatures and supercharge the graveyard.
Registration for Lobstercon / 2026 North American Champs
Friendly reminder that registration opens on Sunday, December 14th at 12pm ET! It will likely sell out fairly quickly (my guess is under an hour). Check out the FAQ here!
What I’ve Been Playing Lately
Gonna warn you all now, if you’re looking to be regaled by top-tier plays and finely-tuned decks… turn back now:
Blue Skies
I was invited to play Blue Skies for the November webcam monthly alongside six other players (shoutout to Gabe, Carl, Alex, David, Zack, and especially Travis). This isn’t the first time a coordinated Skies outing was seen, with Gabe and Travis, as well as Stephen, playing the deck at the Lobstercon side event earlier this year and going 13-11 combined.
The last time I had played the deck was over two decades ago when I tried to build a deck for kitchen table based off of a single Sunken City and how ever many Sea Sprites and Rishadan Airships I could find. When I was invited, I had thought about playing something more unconventional, perhaps a UW Faeries list with Shared Triumph, a UW Skies list utilizing Meddling Mage, Swords to Plowshares, and Armageddon, or a self-bounce heavy list with Wormfang Drake, Thalakos Seer, and Curfew. Ultimately, I opted for something more traditional, with some slight modifications.
One thing I noticed about many existing Skies lists was the heavy allocation of anti-red cards in the sideboard. I wanted to free up some sideboard space and included Sea Sprites in the main. Thalakos Seer seemed like a very cool card to me with evasion and the ability to replace itself. In exchange, I took out the 2-powered creatures that often require a condition or drawback as well as Unstable Mutation. My theory was that I could try to efficiently play a lower curve and once I connected with Curiosity a few times that I would be able to sufficiently control the game even with a slower clock.
I ended up 2-4, with a few mistakes that the deck punishes you severely for. Unlike some decks in Premodern, there is no card to get you back into the game once things begin to slip. No Replenish to bail you out or Survival of the Fittest to establish a board.
Overall, I felt like Blue Skies was a solid, lower tier 2 deck. When things worked, it felt great. Sometimes I would assemble a creature with Curiosity and Sigil of Sleep with a Winter Orb out while holding a hand with Gush and multiple counter spells. The lack of effective one-drops really hampers the deck in Premodern and to be honest if there was an unconditional 2/2 flying creature in the format I think the deck would still be completely fine.
I think maybe the lack of clock punished me only once, meanwhile I only faced one red deck (Goblins) in which the main dcck Sea Sprite did a lot of work. Sigil of Sleep is a busted card, loved it. The one of Cephalid Coliseum was fun, though amazingly I had perhaps three games in which I drew my starting seven cards and it was the only land in hand.
The November Skies crew finished a disappointing 9-33, but not without good times. A few of the players shared their decks and thoughts too:
Carl felt like his list needed more bounce, perhaps increasing the number of Snap, after he was stymied by an Exalted Angel (one of the reasons I liked Thalakos Seer in my list). He also had no issues casting Skyshroud Condor. Similar to my own thoughts, Curiosity is really the engine of the deck and Carl felt like if wasn’t able to get it online then he would get overwhelmed.
In contrast, Travis felt like Curiosity was a trap! The setup cost is high and creatures are too easily removed that he wanted something like Portent instead. He also really liked Unstable Mutation.
Gabe had high praise for Portent but would like to rework his creature package since the mana base had a hard time supporting a 3 cost creature. There also may not be enough creatures to support Curiosity so additional cantrips like Peek or Opt could be the change alongside Skyshroud Condor.
Zack’s list was atypical with lighter interaction. He didn’t enjoy Sea Sprite and Cloudskate and would consider using Sage Owl in their place. He also would want to find room for Cursed Totem in the sideboard.
Finally, another take on the deck is the increasingly popular UR Sprite Rites variant. Alex also was unsure about Curiosity and would likely consider Portent in the future to help smooth out the enemy mana base. Rites of Initiation and Reckless Charge both over-performed, though one fewer Reckless Charge may be OK. Skyshroud Condor is a target for inclusion to bulk up the creature suite to be more resistant to Engineered Plague and Goblin Sharpshooter. Finally, Alex would like a catch-all bounce spell like Chain of Vapor or Boomerang in the main to deal with resolved permanents.
BG Deed Ritual
I started playing Premodern in 2018. Back then, the top decks were widely considered to be UW Landstill, Goblins, Burn, and The Rock. Of those four, the last has slipped the most in the rankings. Still, I’ve been intrigued by Pernicious Deed of late as a powerful sweeper that many decks just aren’t used to playing against anymore. Curves have begun to drift downward and that makes Pernicious Deed particularly enticing. I’ve also been interested in brewing with different flavors of black decks recently so with Pernicious Deed top of mind I thought about what a black-based Pernicious Deed deck could look like. Green-based Pernicious Deed decks are tricky because the card is mana intensive and the best way for green to accelerate mana is through low cost creatures like Birds of Paradise or Llanowar Elves, which Deed wipes out. Thus I arrived at Dark Ritual powering out Pernicious Deed.
Once I landed on Dark Ritual, I thought about other common targets of Ritual: Hypnotic Specter and Phyrexian Negator. At three mana each, both are less likely to get wiped by Deed, which is probably most commonly activated for two or less in Premodern. I originally had included Phyrexian Arena for card advantage but swapped them for Phyrexian Rager as extra bodies for Cabal Therapy and Rancor. The rest of the deck was fairly straightforward, including Ravenous Rats, a card that has begun to receive more appreciation in recent months.
And now to be transparent: I went 1-7 in the Fall Brawl webcam league with this. I think the deck had some interesting elements though that I wouldn’t mind taking a revamped version for a spin in the future. Some quick thoughts:
Pernicious Deed was indeed a great card, loved it. Pretty much every time I cast it my opponents were like “oh wow/no”. It did a lot of work.
I ran out of gas a lot and Phyrexian Rager didn’t cut it. I think Graveborn Muse may be the answer, perhaps as a two-of and Withered Wretch in the main. Skeletal Scrying is another option too and plays well with Dark Ritual as you can then “cycle” the card.
Many games I felt like I was doing everything right and still lost. My Cabal Therapies would hit perfectly but then my opponent would draw another devastating card. Or I would suffer due to lack of card selection (one game 12 of the 15 cards I had drawn were lands). These are problems pretty much all black decks face and there’s no real good way around it in many cases.
My clock was just a touch too slow. Hypnotic Specter is great to disrupt control and combo opponents but late-game it’s an expensive bear. I often found myself and my opponent at the mercy of top decks and I just wasn’t able to close out fast enough before they found what they were looking for.
I remain fairly bullish that more interesting black decks are out there, yet to be discovered. I have so many I want to try: BW Pit-Rack, UB Midrange, Skirge Aggro, Skirge Pox, etc.
Premodern Arrives on MTGO
In case you missed the news, Premodern is now available to play on MTGO! Although it’s slated as a temporary format on the platform, I wouldn’t be surprised if it continues in some capacity if demand is strong. I’ll have more thoughts on this next time (they are largely positive), but for now have a read from Martin Berlin himself about the new addition to MTGO.
Also! Highly recommend Spike Colony’s latest podcast on an intro to Premodern for newcomers to the format.
Was the UG deck lilypad's merfolk gro? If so, I had a similar experience against dreadnaught at my locals a few months back, the deck is sweet!
Did you consider Wash Out as a card to get you back into the game if things slip?