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Smaug Combo Breaker, Leaked Hobbit Artifacts, and Mystery Booster 2?!

· 20 sources

Set News — spoilers, previews, announcements, bans, upcoming releases

  • The Hobbit Spoilers Keep on Giving: spoiler season is in full swing! MTGGoldfish covers the latest reveals from July 23-24, highlighting new Elf draw engines, token producers, and some highly anticipated white stack interaction. Meanwhile, Draftsim breaks down Bothersome Noisemaker, noting that this new Goblin token maker is the real deal for go-wide strategies.
  • A Dragon's Hoard of Combos: Smaug, The Magnificent has officially entered the chat, and he is ready to incinerate Commander pods with endless infinite combos. If you're looking to pivot your treasure deck into a relentless kill-on-sight combo engine, Smaug is your new windmill slam commander.
  • Leaked Hobbit Card Buffs Artifact Decks: While official spoilers are rolling, a leak has given us Fateful Discovery, an absurdly strong card that is poised to buff at least eight different artifact commanders. Start pulling your spicy artifact synergies out of the trade binder now.
  • MagicCon Amsterdam Reveals: We officially have a roadmap for 2027! MagicCon Amsterdam gave us a massive outline for in-universe sets, including a highly anticipated return to Zhalfir. Even more exciting for format junkies: Mystery Booster Commander Edition was announced, promising a chaotic draft experience loaded with reprints and wildcard oddities.

Commander Corner — EDH highlights, new commanders, precon reviews, cEDH updates

Competitive Scene — tournament results, meta shifts, tier list changes, deck techs

  • Toughest Deck in Standard: If you want to grind out your opponents on the Standard ladder, MTGGoldfish has the deck tech for you. This build is absolutely loaded with Doran and toughness-matters synergies to crack the meta wide open.
  • Legacy's July Extravaganza: For the Eternal format grinders, Joe Dyer dives deep into the Legacy metagame to break down the top tier decks and underdog performers.
  • The Future of Worlds: A fan recently asked Mark Rosewater if we would ever see the return of World Championship decks. MaRo noted that while he never says never, they originally went away for selling poorly—so some major factor would need to change to bring them back.

Limited & Draft — draft guides, set reviews, pick tips, cube updates

  • Rules Deep Dive: While we wait for the next Limited environment to drop, it's the perfect time to brush up on mechanics. Draftsim has comprehensive guides on Replacement Effects and Summoning Sickness to ensure you never misplay a combat step or a clone effect again.
  • Why No Keyword Hate? Ever wonder why "Flying" gets all the hate cards (like Hurricane) while mechanics like Trample or Vigilance rarely interact with the board? MaRo explained that it's an "as-fan" issue—it feels terrible in Limited to draft a card that hates on a keyword that might never show up in your draft pod.

Finance & Market — price spikes, reprint news, buy/sell targets, Reserved List updates

  • Weekly Price Spikes: The market is moving. Draftsim covers the weekly price spikes, noting heavy Modern influences and plenty of hype surrounding Universes Beyond and The Hobbit previews. Meanwhile, MTGStocks notes that this week's biggest winners are almost entirely driven by Commander players chasing down fresh combo pieces.
  • Multiverse Reforged Themes: A recent WotC product guide may have leaked the theme for Multiverse Reforged. Reddit user intel suggests the set will heavily feature cheating out massive spells by Chaos Warping your tokens. Start picking up your token doublers and cheap cheat spells now!
  • Reconciling with Universes Beyond: In a deeply thoughtful Blogatog post, a fan asked how to reconcile their love for MTG's creative integrity with the profit-driven reality of Universes Beyond. Rosewater gave a frank, respectful response about WotC being a business while acknowledging the passionate veteran community that keeps the game's soul alive.

Design & Lore — Rosewater insights, story beats, worldbuilding, flavor deep dives

  • Designing Double-Edged Swords: Miss the days of Shroud and Shadow? MaRo addressed why R&D never explored using these keywords offensively (like giving an opponent's creature Shroud). The answer is intuitive player psychology: players simply hate when their own cards help the opponent or hurt their own board.
  • Colored X Spells: Could we ever see a mechanic where X must be paid in colored mana? According to MaRo, it is absolutely mechanically possible within the rules of the game.
  • Copying Spells in Dimir: If you're a fan of Cipher from Return to Ravnica or Haunt from Ravnica: City of Guilds, you might be in luck. Rosewater teased that the design team loves copying effects and is always looking for new ways to iterate on repeatable spell recursion.

Sources

Markrosewater · 2026-07-25
Hi Mark, In your teaser you wrote about: “a new type of counter created by a hackathon group looking to expand red’s slice of the color pie”. Has this been revealed? I have not seen any new red card with a new type of counter.
Markrosewater · 2026-07-25
Hey Mark. Not sure if you’ve answered before, but if we were to see a new D&D set in Magic, would that be considered one of the UB sets or an in universe set?
Markrosewater · 2026-07-25
Does R&D pronounce MIP as “em-eye-pe” or “mip”?
Markrosewater · 2026-07-25
Why is Kindred not a evergreen mechanic?
Markrosewater · 2026-07-25
Since you said you write articles on Friday, which article are you writing today?
Markrosewater · 2026-07-25
do you think it’s possible to have an X spell, but X must be paid in colored mana?
Markrosewater · 2026-07-25
What’s the easiest way to find all your Drive to Work podcasts? I was trying to find an old one.
Markrosewater · 2026-07-25
Despite people being critical of more modern settings like Duskmourn and New Capenna and prefering more traditional high fantasy, are you all still willing to explore and create settings more “out there” like Duskmourn and New Capenna?
Markrosewater · 2026-07-25
Very random, but what do you like to do in your free time?
Markrosewater · 2026-07-25
Can we name play test keywords like annihinfect for modular monstrosity?
Markrosewater · 2026-07-25
“do you think it’s possible to have an X spell, but X must be paid in colored mana?It is possible.” Like Drain Life and Soul Burn?
Markrosewater · 2026-07-25
Hi Mark! Aside from being at the MTG booth at SDCC, do you also get time to go around and look at other stuff/booths/the stage? If yes, anything that you really liked?
Markrosewater · 2026-07-25
How about an X spell that must be paid by Colorless mana?
Markrosewater · 2026-07-25
I was relistening to one of your mood swings podcast and thought the “booster” pack league sounded really fun and wanted to try it out. The most common booster breakdown I know is 10/3/1 but that seems weird when you get so many rares and mythics in the starter deck. What pack breakdown would you recommend for me starting my own pack league.
Markrosewater · 2026-07-25
Hi Mark! Is it correct to say that the future sight ability is primary in blue, secondary in red, green, and black, and tertiary in white?
Markrosewater · 2026-07-25
The pun of Wave Goodbye always gives me a chuckle, please congratulate whoever came up with it.
Markrosewater · 2026-07-25
After all these years, I’m surprised there aren’t more cards that interact with evergreen keywords in fun or flavorful ways, such as “Destroy target creature with Trample or Haste”, “This creature can’t be blocked by creatures without Vigilance”, or “Target creature with Deathtouch deals 1 damage to itself.” Any insight on why “Flying” is about the only keyword that ever really gets these kinds of interactions at all? (aside from Walls maybe, before “Defender” became its own keyword).
Markrosewater · 2026-07-25
I know it’s a set ago, but can you give a high-five to the designers of Mirrorform from Lorwyn Eclipsed? I’ve had a lot of fun with it the past day.
Markrosewater · 2026-07-25
I always loved double-edged keywords like Shroud and Shadow, they were two of my favorite keywords, and I was very sad when Shroud got replaced with Hexproof. Any particular reasons why the design space of using them offensively, for example “Target creature you don’t control gains Shroud/Shadow until end of turn”, was never explored?
Markrosewater · 2026-07-25
Hi Maro- This is going to be a long one! I’ve been catching up on your blogatog over the past couple hours and I’ve been reading all the discourse surrounding Universes Beyond. I saw your response talking about the three options for coping with the changing trajectory of MTG, and I really appreciated the frankness and sympathy it carried. I’ll be frank in turn- I don’t like universes beyond. In fact, I hate it. Watching it take over half (arguably more than half) of the game that I grew up playing and loving has hurt me deeply. I care very, very much about Magic. Its world, its art, its gameplay, and the people that it has brought into my life. I probably wouldn’t have even a quarter of the good friends I have now if it weren’t for Magic gathering us, for lack of a better term. Pun fully intended. I don’t love new IPs coming into a game I love. That’s part of it. I do understand that I am part of a minority. For a bit I had deluded myself into thinking that WotC was completely ignoring feedback, but I play magic with a lot of people, and almost all of them enjoy universes beyond. This much I can’t deny. The game is irrevocably changed in a way I don’t like, and I still play it. I just choose not to include universes beyond cards in my decks, and I don’t give people grief for running them in theirs. In your reply detailing the three paths, you said that you would like to help people steer towards option 1, learning to love and appreciate the new form the game is taking. I was hoping I could get some advice from you on the matter. I appreciate the time you spend talking to the community, and the clear passion you still share with us for this incredible game. If you don’t mind, I’ll explain the crux of my difficulties here, and I will try my best to do so in a way that is respectful and descriptive, while still getting my point across adequately. As I already explained, the outside IP aspect of UB is difficult for me. That being said, it isn’t the part that makes me feel so ideologically opposed to it. My main pain comes from the fact that, no matter how you slice it, universes beyond is largely driven by profit. You can color it how you want, but as you have said, it’s market research that your consistent return to (and ramping up of) universes beyond is driven by. Obviously, this makes sense. Magic is a game but it’s also a business. It’s a wildly successful business that rakes in more money than I will ever see in my life. I’m truly glad that Magic has seen so much success, and I love that it has grown to be so mainstream. I say all this to hopefully express that I am not speaking from a place of ignorance. Magic the Gathering being 50% comprised of sets that are not, in truth, Magic: the Gathering feels like a departure not only from the aesthetics of the game I love, but the very spirit of it. When I started playing magic, around 2011, it felt not only like an incredibly well designed game, but a game that was backed by people who truly loved it. Magic’s original success, I feel, stemmed from the fact that the game was not only well designed, but relentlessly creative, and innovative. I know that there have always been players who did not like the way magic was going in some way or another, like with the art of Lorwyn, as a sole example. But, Magic was still Magic. It wasn’t the Avengers, or Spongebob, or Fortnite, or Furby, or the Walking Dead, or even Lord of the Rings. It wasn’t secret lairs designed around cereal boxes, or baseball cards, or instagram posts, or garfield, or movie posters. It had creative integrity, it had constraints that it designed within, and as you often say, restriction breeds creativity. Now, it feels as though the game and the people behind it have willingly tossed aside the constraints that made it great in favor of making more money. It feels as though the soul of magic has been squandered because shareholder pressure demands record profits year after year. It feels as though WotC loves money more, and their players less, every year. I want to be wrong about this, but it’s hard to feel as though I am off base when each new year, it feels as though the envelope is pushed further and further. How can I reconcile this perceived reality with my love for this game? I truly do mean all of these questions in good faith. I love Magic, and I want to keep loving it, but for a long time now, I have felt as though I love a smaller and smaller part of it. I want to love the whole game again, not an increasingly small sliver of it. I have come to terms with the fact that Magic changes, and I understand that this is one of its strengths. But in my case, understanding has not led to acceptance, and it hurts me to see the game that I care about so much leave me behind because more people are willing to pay more than me for more of the game.
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