Mountain, Pass: a Magic: the Gathering podcast

Will the latest bans shake up the MTG World we know? Has Standard settled into a reasonable state where we can avoid removing overpowered cards for, like, a couple weeks? Is Pioneer set to invert expectations? Answers to these questions, and much more you’d never ask, can be found within. Listen to this episode to get a special sneak peak of the NEXT Un- set to follow up Unsanctioned, take a visit to the Azorius Pie Emporium, and learn some dubious strategies for defeating your opponents by making your mind a total blank. Left-Field Decklists from this week: Simic Emry: https://scryfall.com/@amico/decks/28090ac6-ab02-45c0-abc2-9b89a6e00338 Mono-Blue Flash: https://scryfall.com/@gabrielisaac/decks/19e4e783-5fc3-4572-a40e-78d79600b2f8 With apologies to John Cleese and Graham Chapman. -- Intro music: Day Trips by Ketsa Don’t forget to rate and subscribe to us wherever you enjoy MTG podcasts. Email us at mountainpasspodcast@gmail.com with questions and feedback—your question may be featured in an episode! Connect with our hosts! Here’s how to get in touch: Brandon: twitter.com/amico Charla: twitter.com/CharlaSchlueter Gabe: Via Telex

In this snack-sized episode, Gabe and Charla discuss what the Theros gods were like back in the day compared to their power level today (Charla is pretending like she knows anything about fashion). Gabe revels in his champion, Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa, winning the MTG World Championship—with his favorite deck! And the MP crew discuss if the 2020 Challenger Decks are up to the challenge. -- Intro music: Day Trips by Ketsa Don’t forget to rate and subscribe to us wherever you enjoy MTG podcasts. Email us at mountainpasspodcast@gmail.com with questions and feedback—your question may be featured in an episode! Connect with our hosts! Here’s how to get in touch: Brandon: twitter.com/amico Charla: twitter.com/CharlaSchlueter Gabe: Wherever you can buy Planeswalker Decks

We've all been there: trapped in an underworld, some faceless planeswalker tormenting you and taunting you about your loyalty abilities never plus-ing. It happens. We're here to talk you through it. In this one the MP crew talks about the new world of MTG Standard thanks to the addition of Theros Beyond Death into the card pool! Is your deck from Eldraine Standard still viable? Is it *better*? What new decks are people racking up wins with? The answer to all of these questions, and plenty more you didn't ask, is contained within. (The episode, that is, not within yourself. That wouldn't make any sense, this is why you come to us in the first place; it's certainly not for our sparkling personalities. Unless it is, in which case: thanks!) Also on tap is a fun left-field deck wherein you can stomp on your opponents with a Paradise Druid, and an introduction to a counseling service specifically for Magic: the Gathering players. Decklist: https://scryfall.com/@gabrielisaac/decks/3d59a8f8-01e7-4837-9720-19cb8edd376f -- Intro music: Day Trips by Ketsa Don’t forget to rate and subscribe to us wherever you enjoy MTG podcasts. Email us at mountainpasspodcast@gmail.com with questions and feedback—your question may be featured in an episode! Connect with our hosts! Here’s how to get in touch: Brandon: twitter.com/amico Charla: twitter.com/CharlaSchlueter Gabe: 867-5309

Guess who’s back, back again? Theros is back! (Tell a friend.) We’re celebrating the impending release of Theros: Beyond Death with the only way we know how to experience joy anymore: by making fun of how bad the white cards still are in this set. Kind of joking. We’re really excited for some new, powerful cards (and one old friend, hi G!) coming to Standard, so give this episode a listen to hear which ones (and which brews) we’re putting our stock in for the early weeks of this MTG season. Feel like hitting your opponent with Drakuseth from multiple sources (but probably never paying the mana for it)? Check out Gabe’s take on Grixis Reanimator, juiced with some THB cards, our left-field deck of the episode: https://scryfall.com/@c5fa7b77-8adb-4d07-951b-0f5121cd148c/decks/c5fa7b77-8adb-4d07-951b-0f5121cd148c -- Intro music: Day Trips by Ketsa Additional music: Bad Example by Popskyy Don’t forget to rate and subscribe to us wherever you enjoy MTG podcasts. Email us at mountainpasspodcast@gmail.com with questions and feedback—your question may be featured in an episode! Connect with our hosts! Here’s how to get in touch: Brandon: twitter.com/amico Charla: twitter.com/CharlaSchlueter Gabe: Head to the Underworld

2019 is banned. Join Brandon, Charla, and Gabe to find out what the MP team wants to get out of the next twelve months of Magic: the Gathering—sure, what we WANT to happen and what we think WILL happen might be different, but we can dream, after all. Will we get something spicy for Standard in Theros, Ikoria, or Zendikar? What will the next Secret Lairs look like? Will the next Core Set have seventeen Teferi cards? Is 2020 the year we will finally see clearly (the pun needed to happen, sorry) and stop missing our triggers, or in Charla’s case, RTFC? Come for the 2020 foresight, stay for a discussion of multicolored mana bases, five-color Standard decks that can hold their own, and the sexiest ad spot ever recorded on an MTG podcast (at least we’d assume so—if there’s a sexier one, we’re a little scared to hear it). -- Intro music: Day Trips by Ketsa Don’t forget to rate and subscribe to us wherever you enjoy MTG podcasts. Email us at mountainpasspodcast@gmail.com with questions and feedback—your question may be featured in an episode! Connect with our hosts! Here’s how to get in touch: Brandon: twitter.com/amico Charla: twitter.com/CharlaSchlueter Gabe: Wish upon a star

[A note about this episode’s audio: No need to adjust your headphones, you’re hearing everything right. There was an unfortunate wobble in the base of our microphone that got out of hand at parts of this episode, but the conversation with our guest was quite excellent and we didn’t want to lose that (and miss our release window) doing a re-record. Hang in there with us, we’re looking to fix that for future episodes!] Ho, ho, ho! The gang is joined by a guest this week to talk about what a control player’s supposed to do when the Standard meta is filled with midrange or value-weirdness like Fires, Adventures and Cat-Food combos; what happened to the days when you could just counter, wrath, counter, and call it a match? We also have to play enchantment/artifact hate, graveyard tech, and maybe Spyglass? In the main?! We’re gonna need a minute here. The days of Teferi, Hero of Dominaria may be over, but there’s some surprising ways control-comfortable players can take the upper hand among the Cleaves and Trails of Eldraine Standard. Have a listen to up your “land-pass” game, and we’ll also talk about some of the early Theros: Beyond Death spoilers and what that means for the enchantments currently in *your* life...er, your deck. -- Intro music: Day Trips by Ketsa Don’t forget to rate and subscribe to us wherever you enjoy MTG podcasts. Email us at mountainpasspodcast@gmail.com with questions and feedback—your question may be featured in an episode! Connect with our hosts! Here’s how to get in touch: Brandon: twitter.com/amico Charla: twitter.com/CharlaSchlueter Kevin: twitter.com/Batominion

The Cat took home a Mythic Championship, and we’re over the Blood Moon about it. This week, we’re in a brewing mood and whipped up some decks that center around the underutilized legendary artifacts from Throne of Eldraine (no Cats or Fires allowed!). Then, just like scientists do with the subjects in any good experiment, we smacked them together to see which one didn’t break. Which is to say, we played them against each other, and we bet you won’t guess which artifact won! The MP crew also discusses the breakout decks of this refreshing new Standard and talk underperformers and the decks that need retooling (or to simply be put aside for now). Then we get all inspirational with another edition of Kevin’s Serious Magic: the Gathering Professional Corner of Mythic Advice, which has increased our listeners’ game win percentage by six points every time we’ve done the segment*. *This statement has not been evaluated by the FDA or WotC. -- Intro music: Day Trips by Ketsa Don’t forget to rate and subscribe to us wherever you enjoy MTG podcasts. Email us at mountainpasspodcast@gmail.com with questions and feedback—your question may be featured in an episode! Connect with our hosts! Here’s how to get in touch: Brandon: twitter.com/amico Charla: twitter.com/CharlaSchlueter Kevin: twitter.com/Batominion

In this week’s special episode, Brandon and Charla discuss how to teach your friends to share your love of Magic: the Gathering! Listen for tips on what to do (get a welcome deck and watch YouTube tutorials!) and what not to do (play without sleeves or throw the literal printed book of MTG rules at them from the onset). So give this one a listen if you have friends or family who seem interested in MTG but are maybe a little daunted by it; or share this episode with them to check out, as we walk through practical, real world advice on getting up to speed with creatures, planeswalkers, and the planes they walk. We also talk about what brought us to Magic in the first place. From little nerds to...slightly larger nerds, but nerds with a podcast now! And all the intoxicating power that comes with it. Plus, find out why someone jumped out a second-story window. High stakes in this one, folks. ---- Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/MtnPassPodcast. Don’t forget to rate and subscribe to us wherever you enjoy MTG podcasts. Email us at mountainpasspodcast@gmail.com with questions and feedback—your question may be featured in an episode! Intro music: Day Trips by Ketsa Connect with our hosts! Here’s how to get in touch: Brandon: twitter.com/amico Charla: twitter.com/CharlaSchlueter Kevin: twitter.com/Batominion

What has ten guilds, a bunch of cats being placed in ovens, and no more Elk? Standard, thanks to the recent round of bannings! Brandon, Charla, and Kevin discuss the ban’s implications on what feels like a Wild West of decks raring to take the mantle now that Simic Food has been abolished—but not before they eulogize Oko, Once Upon a Time, and Veil of Summer...and talk about Charla’s burial plans. Uh, this one got weird. In our Stories from the Left Field Bleachers segment, we talk about streamer MegaMogwai’s “Double Pig OTK”—yes, you read that right. Watch him pilot the fun combo deck here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccJHPADq1kY and if you want to get your Gruul on yourself, here’s the decklist: https://aetherhub.com/Deck/Public/182795 In this house, we ship Nissa/Chandra. -- Intro music: Day Trips by Ketsa Don’t forget to rate and subscribe to us wherever you enjoy MTG podcasts. Email us at mountainpasspodcast@gmail.com with questions and feedback—your question may be featured in an episode! Connect with our hosts! Here’s how to get in touch: Brandon: twitter.com/amico Kevin: twitter.com/Batominion Charla: Nowhere...wait, Charla has a Twitter now! twitter.com/CharlaSchlueter

Kevin was prepping for MagicFest Richmond, so we had to talk about the 3/3 Elephant in the room. Er, the 3/3 Elk, really. We’re joined by special guest, Matt Baetzhold (@TrainMTG), in our inaugural “Standard for Haters” segment where we look at Standard in the context of what’s going on in other formats. Prepare yourself for lots of Elk puns. Come for the Cervidae jokes, stay for another round of Kevin’s Serious Magic: the Gathering Professional Corner of Mythic Advice, and a look at a fun take on Standard control, Weston Anderson’s “Fresh Prince”: https://twitter.com/WestonAnderso18/status/1189037929085034497 Intro music: Day Trips by Ketsa Don’t forget to rate and subscribe to us wherever you enjoy MTG podcasts. Email us at mountainpasspodcast@gmail.com with questions and feedback—your question may be featured in an episode! Connect with our hosts! Here’s how to get in touch: Brandon: https://twitter.com/amico Kevin: https://twitter.com/Batominion Charla: Here today, Elk tomorrow

Charla and Brandon take on the Standard format (or at least a small portion of it), competing in Star City's Standard Classic in Atlanta on October 27, 2019. Listen to their experience *as* it happened! Episode 4 coming soon! In the meantime enjoy this in-the-moment look at a tournament and like, subscribe, rate and share Mountain, Pass with others!

Well, that was fast. Bye, Field. Brandon, Charla, and Kevin discuss the recent Standard ban’s implications on the format and what decks stand poised to benefit from the hydra-made-of-2/2 zombies deck that was Golos getting put on the bench. Also featured is a lightning round discussing if the bans didn’t go far enough; should Oko have been banned? Nissa? Teferi or Krasis? Ban everything, see if we care. Plus the introduction of our future Pulitzer-winning segment, Kevin’s Serious Magic: the Gathering Professional Corner of Mythic Advice. Here's the decklist for the left-field Mono-Blue Phoenix deck we discuss: https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=23415&d=361668&f=ST Intro music: Day Trips by Ketsa Don’t forget to rate and subscribe to us wherever you enjoy MTG podcasts. Email us at mountainpasspodcast@gmail.com with questions and feedback! Connect with our hosts! Here’s how to get in touch: Brandon: https://twitter.com/amico Kevin: https://twitter.com/Batominion Charla: Say her name three times in the mirror

It’s Golos’s world, we’re just living in it. Join Brandon, Charla, and Kevin as they discuss how Golos decks have taken over the Standard metagame early in the Throne of Eldraine season, and what you can do to combat the tireless, faceless menace and his accompanying zombie hordes. Come for the Magic: the Gathering strategy and analysis, stay for the primer on early counterculture webcomics. Intro music: Day Trips by Ketsa Don’t forget to rate and subscribe to us wherever you enjoy MTG podcasts. Email us at mountainpasspodcast@gmail.com with questions and feedback! Connect with our hosts! Find them here: Brandon: https://twitter.com/amico Kevin: https://twitter.com/Batominion Charla: Via the North Pole

Welcome to Mountain, Pass: your window into the Standard Magic: the Gathering Format! Join Brandon, Charla, and Kevin every other week as we discuss what’s new, exciting, and upcoming in Magic—just in time for your local FNM. We’re on the precipice of a bold new Standard format, so this week our hosts discuss what cards from Throne of Eldraine have them most excited, counting their lucky Broodstars and thanking their Fairy Guidemothers. Intro music: Day Trips by Ketsa Don’t forget to rate and subscribe to us wherever you enjoy MTG podcasts. Email us at mountainpasspodcast@gmail.com with questions and feedback! Connect with our hosts! Find them here: Brandon: https://twitter.com/amico Kevin: https://twitter.com/Batominion Charla: Carrier pigeon