In her spare time, Thalia moonlights as an MTG ergonomics consultant. She may or may not have completely made this term up, but what she means to say is that she helps assist users with questions regarding battlefield clarity and layout, order of operations, and good, clean gameplay practices. She also holds valid opinions on Spike-related ethics queries and can provide general MTG advice. Every so often, she’ll pick a few interesting questions and write about them. Send all questions to thalia@unfulfilledmtg.com. Posts will occasionally be satirical.
Artist Justin Murray should be proud.
Dear Thalia,
I’m in the process of losing all of my friends because I hold strong opinions about Tarmogoyf’s power and toughness being considered derived information. Help!
Regards,
RulesLawyer69
<Editor’s note: I’m going to use the RulesLawyer69 character for stuff I’m not a big fan of. This character is not based on anybody I know in real life, but I should make very clear that they are not someone to aspire to be. Shall we carry on?>
Dear RulesLawyer69,
I’m glad you came to me, to be honest. There’s a chance that if you went to any other Spike advice columnist, you would have been told to find better friends. That said, I do think we need to rethink ‘getting people’ with Goyf. As a friend of mine has hinted at elsewhere, there are so many other opportunities for Magic players to make mistakes on their own. It seems so much simpler to me for players to treat Goyf’s size as free information, with regular updates and announcing size when Goyf enters the battlefield or grows/shrinks. This means both players are actively curating the game state and, god forbid, communicating with each other. It also reduces downtime that would happen from consistent Goyf size checks. I just can’t argue against a clearer board state and a greater percentage of time where player thoughts actually go towards relevant game actions.
How you represent Goyf’s size is on you. If you’re willing to pay for them, specialized Tarmogoyf dice are easily the clearest way to go about things. I don’t actually hate putting regular dice on top of Goyfs because the vast majority of Goyf decks will never be putting +1/+1 counters on their Goyfs. However, I completely understand using dice above Goyf on the principle that putting dice on Goyf could give information to your opponent that you have nothing like a Gavony Township, Shalai, or Anafenza in your deck. This is, admittedly, quite a reach, but I have to respect the possibilities here. You can also write down Goyf’s power and toughness on paper or a Boogie Board, but using dice keeps both players informed and in agreement on the current Goyf size. Using dice is also a safeguard against an unscrupulous opponent: any time they need a few extra seconds to think, they can “perform” a Goyf check. If being a Spike is about playing to win while still playing fairly, then removing the opportunity for deceit can only be a good thing.
I personally recommend apologizing to your friends and trying to keep them. Unless they’re actually shitty people. Then just leave them behind and don’t look back. Life is too short to have shitty friends or play shitty decks.
Thalia
PS: Why are you trying to cast Tarmogoyfs in a format where KCI is running wild? Can we talk about that next time?
(artist Svetlin Velinov)
Dear Thalia,
I can’t help but notice that I keep dropping games with Bant Spirits. Sometimes the battlefield gets clogged and I have issues with creature sizing. I don’t have this problem with Humans because I can more accurately display creature pumps there. Help!
Sincerely,
Feelin’ Dicey in Detroit
Dear Dicey,
I know you didn’t actually write to me about this problem, but it came up in conversation and I’ve been trying to think of a solution ever since. One of the problems that is going to come up here is that you can’t force your opponent to rearrange their board, which would be extremely helpful. What follows is my current best offering and may evolve with time.
My proposed solution is to create two rows of creatures when the board clogs and a Lord effect hits play. In the back row, place all Supreme Phantoms and Drogskol Captains, plus Images of those creatures (colloquially, Lords) and non-Spirits. I also highly recommend keeping the non-Spirits grouped together. If Gideon saw play in the 75, we’d put his emblems in the back row too. Put all other Spirits in the front row. I considered moving Hierarch to the row of Lands, but I think it’s potentially too easy to miss an Exalted trigger that way. Now, in a combat scenario, count the number of Lords and Gideon emblems you control. All of your front row creatures get +1/+1 for each item you counted, and don’t forget Mausoleum Wanderer growth or Exalted triggers when applicable! Then subtract 1 from the number of Lords + Gideon emblems to determine how much to pump your Lords. The non-Spirit pile never gets pumped unless you have a Gideon emblem or Exalted triggers.
All of our focus is on the creature layout, but everyone should always be reminded to pack multiple dice for Aether Vial triggers.
Thalia
Thalia has been making sure Spike-y situations are not mentally taxing since 2019.