Yoni Skolnik

It was incredible. The escalation made me think of the puzzle game Baba Is You.

I love bringing her back immediately when she dies so she gets her own counters again. Remember, if Aerith dies you can always bring her back with a Phoenix Down! #wotcstaff

Thanks for the shout out!

TRUE

Trophied a last minute mixed up draft with Naya stats ft. a deathtouch pinger combo.

If it were up to me every set would have a way to make your own Visara the Dreadful.

Barbed Batterfist has gotta be my favorite limited common. At one point I had a 7/8 vs a 6/8 and then I equip--WOW!

#WotCStaff

Magic: The Gathering®—FINAL FANTASY™ Vision Design, Part 2 Yoni finishes the story of Magic: The Gathering—FINAL FANTASY's earliest iteration.

And here is part 2 of my Final Fantasy vision design article!

magic.wizards.com/en/news/feat...

#MTGxFINALFANTASY #WotCStaff

Magic: The Gathering®—FINAL FANTASY™ Vision Design, Part 1 Yoni Skolnik begins the tale of how Magic: The Gathering—FINAL FANTASY came to be.

My article about Final Fantasy vision design is up!

magic.wizards.com/en/news/feat...

#MTGxFINALFANTASY #WotCStaff

Super excited to see everyone talking about Final Fantasy! I'm getting my Aerith commander deck ready. 😢

#MTGxFinalFantasy #WotCStaff

"...Whatever."

Not having worked on the set much I wanted to try a challenge run mostly for Bluesky content purposes. Was a lot of fun!

I love how this draft environment allocates power between mono and multicolor cards. It makes for many approaches and speeds to be viable.

Thanks for reading!

12/12 #WotCStaff

WU aggro worked when I started with early Sibsig Appraisers, and then see Stormbeacon Blade and Sunpearl Kirins late.

Appraiser smooths out the white based aggro plan. Humbling Elder and Ringing Strike Mastery are valuable as 1 mana tempo plays which white otherwise lacks.

11/12 #WotCStaff

This deck had solid rares. But it was less streamlined than the 5x Champ masterpiece, and often didn't compete with the power of 3+ color decks.

Going forward if I start drafts with Champion of Dusans I’ll keep an eye open for if white or red happen to be the right support color.

10/12 #WotCStaff

Now for the aggro portion. Coming into the format I was very excited to build decks around Champion of Dusan. Wow did it deliver with 5x Champion leading to a mono green 7-0.

I first picked a Synch Charge hoping to wheel a Champ in the pack, when I did I knew it was on!

9/12 #WotCStaff

I was excited about Smile at Death on Appraisers and Stags as a finisher, but in practice it was usually too slow to catch up as opposed to bombs with more immediate impact.

8/12 #WotCStaff

Here are a couple non-trophy decks that followed this theory.

Fortress Kin-guard does a nice job of setting up Trade Route Envoy to draw to find Craterhoof or Nature’s Rhythm (to find Craterhoof).

7/12 #WotCStaff

I also had a couple nonblue decks that aren’t controlling, but follow the same principle.

The many Equilibrium Adept and Stormshriek Feral give card flow to find the black bombs, giving you power to compete with 3 color decks after your aggro start gets stymied.

6/12 #WotCStaff

This deck has two Marang River Regents. You definitely don’t need a third color when you have that.

Otherwise the deck has many shortcomings, but I just tried to build it with a balanced gameplan to try and not fall too far behind before I find the River Regents.

5/12 #WotCStaff

Without much removal, this deck uses cheap white creatures to play defense until it finds Elspeth or Naga Fleshcrafter’s rewew ability on a dragon.

Fortress Kin-Guard does good work both controlling the board, and then being the finisher empowered by either of those bombs.

4/12 #WotCStaff

1st up is blue controlling decks. Step 1 to success here is game winning bombs.

No need for a 3rd color when you have bombs like Ugin and Scavenger Regent. If you have those and black removal, then the best color to add might be U for card draw to find the bombs reliably.

3/12 #WotCStaff

Forcing these color pairs like I did is not optimal, but there are examples in my decklists of why ending up WU/UB/BR/RG/GW can be correct.

Playing 2 color decks can ensure smoother games, at the cost of impact and power. So step 1 is identifying how your deck competes with power.

2/12 #WotCStaff

I did a Bo1 TDM draft challenge run from platinum to mythic only playing ally color decks (and 1 monocolor deck). All praise to Ojutai, Silumgar, Kologhan, Atarka, and Dromoka!

Here is a thread of my best decks and lessons I learned for drafting the format.

1/12 #MTGTarkir #mtgdraft #WotCStaff

Makes me nostalgic for the old slop.

“You won’t believe how this Topeka mom purees tomatoes. Cookbook writers HATE her.”

Fun fact, the art for them originally had them facing the same direction, but we mirrored one so they’d be easier to distinguish. #WotCStaff

Good thoughts, but I decided to go with resonance since it’s the word Rosewater uses most often and I want my writing to resonate with the mothership’s core audience.

Please help. Which of these is the opposite of ludonarrative dissonance?
* Ludonarrative Consonance
* Ludonarrative Harmony
* Ludonarrative Resonance
#gamedesign #ludology

A noble Grizzly Bear brandishes Nicol Bolas

Not ready to think about Spider-Man? Immerse yourself in a panel on the Aetherdrift design process instead!

youtu.be/rzLiyD3pkaE?...

Come for the in depth worldbuilding, stay for this cameo of Nicol Bolas being wielded by a Grizzly Bear. #MTGAetherdrift #MCChicago #WotCStaff

That was me! Shout out to this pup who was my MagicCon all-star for ending games with commander damage.

I've worked at WotC for over 10 years. Sometimes people ask me how things have changed since Hasbro acquired us, and I have to explain to them that I was 9 years old when that happened.

#MCChicago #MTGAetherdrift I’ll be at the Magic Game Design meet and greet tomorrow (Saturday) at 2pm! Come ask me questions about Aetherdrift game design! Or come tell my boss Aaron how much you love the set!

I forgot to take screenshots of all my decks, so I'm out of pictures of winning nontraditional decklists now.

Hope you all enjoy the format as much as cowboy Mu Yanling pushing the limit did!