#you may notice a Theme to these answers. most are very sword-and-sorcery (which is my favorite Genre of Thing)

[le--fruitcake]

In the meantime while I anxiously await your plentiful truths, might I ask for what cartoons you might recommend my humble self?

Ah, my vassal! I am neariy finished writing that essay, I promise. Just a while longer, I need to be sure my sources are accurate.

I will say you should watch Samurai Rabbit, despite it being almost painfully cringeworthy at times. It's surprisingly well-written, though! It's only on Netflix.

In terms of TMNT, the only one I can recommend with my whole chest is Rise of the TMNT. I like the others (mostly— 2012 is on Thin Fucking Ice with the Donnie/April thing), but Rise is the best by far! I am Extremely Biased and am going to say you should watch the Usagi crossover episodes of 2003 (S2E23-26, S3E01 [does not contain a whole lot of Usagi, but he and Leo uh. Exchange swords], S3E22-23, S4E13, and S7E13 [no speaking lines, appears as a background character only]) and 2012 (S5E15-17). The 1987 ones (S3E32/34) aren't as good, but you do get to watch Mikey slap Usagi in the face with a pizza. Fucking LMAO. All the TMNT is on Paramount Plus, but far be it from me to tell you not to hoist the colors, matey.

The Amazing World of Gumball... exists! It sure does. I really like the way they play with animation and art style, and it has some honestly amazing physical comedy, but it's very, um... 2012. I think it popularized a lot of tropes you see in more modern cartoons that make them borderline unbearable, but I found myself watching the entire thing and kind of wanting more! It's pretty good if you just want some batshit insane cartoon nonsense, but it has no story to speak of, really. The episodes are both startlingly interconnected and purely standalone. Anais is my favorite character, followed by Nicole, and honestly the men in that family are trash lmao. I think I watched it on Hulu, but it might have been HBO Max.

I like Star Wars, too, specifically Visions, Clone Wars (both 2003 and 2007), and, though I haven't finished it, Rebels. (I like the movies, too! Real shame they never made any past Episode VII. Had so much potential. Smh my head.) Visions S1E8 is my favorite thing Star Wars has ever done btw. Very Heavily Biased. All of this is on Disney Plus.

I have of course seen Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Legend of Korra, and recommend Avatar if by some miracle you haven't seen it, but tbh I don't know if I would recommend Korra. It has very interesting concepts, but the execution is um. Bad. Watching the Straights™️ frothing at the mouth over Korrasami was an Experience! "we poppin' the biggest bottles when Makorra happens tonight" is a regular part lo my vocabulary. Both are on Netflix, I think.

I like Teen Titans! I used to have the first two seasons on DVD. There are a lot of jokes I didn't get as a kid, and so rewatching it as an adult was interesting. I also didn't appreciate Cyborg enough as a kid, man has the best jokes. Robin was always my favorite, but on rewatch, I really can't say who's my favorite. I like Beast Boy's power the best, but Raven is p cool, and Starfire is wonderful, and Cyborg is funny. This is available on The Max Formerly Known as HBO.

I also watched all of the original animated Batman. Batman: The Animated Series, I think it was called? I really really liked that one, it was the perfect mix of edgy and funny, and is my favorite Batman iteration. Mark Hamill Joker also! That interpretation of Two-Face is my favorite, and made him my favorite Batman villain. I still want a silver dollar btw! I already have a $2 bill and several dollar coins, so if I get one of those and a half-dollar, I'll have one of every kind of defunct American currency. I think. I believe this is also available on The Max.

If you count anime as cartoons, Bleach and Fairy Tail are good, if you skip the filler. My Hero is... Pretty good. Mirko is of course my favorite character, and I am now only invested in the show for her sake. Crunchyroll is kinda the go-to for anime, but Hulu also has all three of these. I think Bleach might not be on Crunchyroll anymore also? Very Odd if so because it's one of the Big Ones, but I couldn't find it when I looked last.

Little Witch Academia is adorable! Lesbians abound, and features a surprising amount from actual Celtic lore. It's also quite possible the only anime featuring high school girls that doesn't make any blatant attempt to sexualize them, which is a breath of fresh air. The official anime is a Netflix original, but there apparently exists an OVA that I have not seen, and a movie, that I have, also on Netflix.

Castlevania is extremely good, but I guess it's technically an anime? It's originally in English and has some of the best lines I have ever heard come out of someone's mouth, ever, but it is heavily gorey, and S2 has some Unfortunate Rather Graphic Heterosexuality. Fortunately, one of the characters is confirmed bisexual! It is also a Netflix original.

This was a doozy to answer! I don't watch too many cartoons, per se, because I wasn't allowed watch most of them growing up. Never seen Spongebob, Powerpuff Girls, Phineas and Pherb, etc. etc. Despite that, I am a fan of animated shows over live-action shows, generally speaking, due to the liberties one can take, and the fact that you aren't limited by what you can achieve with human actors and such. The same goes for video games— I prefer heavy style to realism, though the GameCube/PS2 era games had the best of both worlds.

[loreleywrites]

Command Zone: Consulate Commanders and Renegade Ringleaders

Whether you support the Consulate’s efforts to maintain a safe and secure society or the renegade’s efforts to unshackle aether and innovation from oppressive law, Aether Revolt has new commanders for you. In fact, it has six new commanders: one for each color and colorless.

In case it wasn’t obvious, today’s article is going to break each of these new legendary creatures down. What are they about? What kind of strategies do they enable? How well do they fit into existing decks? Those kinds of things.

Sram I Am

He loves The LEGO Movie.

Sram, Senior Edificer is all about building things up. Auras, Equipment, and Vehicles are all subtypes that augment your existing creatures. The key to any Sram deck is to have creatures that benefit from these subtypes too.

Thankfully for Sram, mono-White Equipment decks are already well-supported. Between Kemba, Kha Regent and Nahiri, the Lithomancer, these decks have existed for years. Each commander has their own advantages, and Sram’s is raw card advantage. Drawing cards is White’s biggest weakness, and making all of your Equipment spells into cantrips keeps the cards flowing.

Auras are the next best subtype to build around. Sram may only be a 2/2 for two mana, but Auras can quickly turn him into a Voltron threat. The selling point for this style of deck is that White has a bunch of removal spells that are Auras. You don’t need to attach them to your creatures to get the card; Sram is just happy you’re casting Auras at all! When your removal spells can draw into even more removal spells, you’re harnessing real power. There are even Auras that can bounce themselves back to your hand. #Value

I’m not terribly excited at the prospect of building a Vehicle deck around Sram. Depala, Pilot Exemplar hits a lot more of the relevant cards, but Sram is still going into the 99. Depala can help dig to him, and then it’s off to the card-drawing races as you amass more and more Vehicles. Since he’s also a Dwarf, Sram will be at least a 3/3 to crew most of the Vehicles you’ll play.

Bottom of the Baral

Hooded face? Sword for an arm? Short temper? What a nice guy!

Baral, Chief of Compliance is a self-loathing mage on a plane that has very few mages. I don’t know who taught him his mad skillz, but he’s sure got ‘em.

Obviously, Baral is all about instants and sorceries. Making them all cast one less is better than being a mana dork, as it allows you the discount more than once if you can cast more than one spell a turn. Since Baral only costs two mana, you’re going to get that bonus right away.

As the number one instant and sorcery color, Blue has plenty of stuff to work with. Talrand, Sky Summoner and Uyo, Silent Prophet are just two of the existing mono-Blue commanders this archetype can be built around. So, once again, we have a new legendary creature that offers a new twist on an established strategy.

Baral does also have another ability, however. You get to loot whenever you counter another spell. Sculpting your hand is nice in a singleton format, but I’m pretty down on counterspells in multiplayer. Waiting around and trading one-for-one is a great way to fall behind. There are good counterspells, but I don’t like “Counterspells!” as a deck theme. If you do go that route, don’t forget Guile.

Party Hard

Bottoms up, darlings!

Yahenni, Undying Partisan has a lot going on, so I’ll break it into three parts.

First, they have haste. Haste is probably one of the most underrated abilities in Commander, as not having to live through multiple opponents’ turns to attack is very yes goodtimes (That’s a technical term.) Having haste on your commander, especially when they cost a mere three mana, means more opportunities to smash for commander damage.

Yahenni is one of few Aetherborn that have the ability to draw life-sustaining aether out of other creatures. As such, they are a Vampire and have a version of the classic vampire ability. Any time a creature an opponent controls dies, for any reason, Yahenni gets a +1/+1 counter. When it comes to multiplayer Magic, creatures die. A lot. If you just play a regular game of Commander, Yahenni will get huge on their own.

Though if you want to be tricksy, you can combine a creature sweeper with Yahenni’s final ability. Sac a creature to make Yahenni indestructible, cast Damnation, and probably kill one of your opponents with commander damage right there. Or sac a creature in response to an opponent’s sweeper. Or sac a creature to stop a piece of removal. Or sac a creature to make Yahenni live through combat (especially on defense). Or sac a creature to prevent an opponent from stealing it. In case you didn’t notice the pattern, there are a ton of uses for this ability.

In fact, Yahenni being a sacrifice outlet means they’re much more than just an aggressive Voltron commander. You can do all kinds of graveyard stuff, build around death triggers, abuse the heckfire out of Grave Pact, and more.

It’s your party; go nuts!

Monkey Business

When you’re a professional pirate, you’re always in the best of company.

But maybe you want to go bananas.

Kari Zev, Skyship Raider and her prince, Ragavan, soar free in the aethersphere. They also rumble on the battlefield, since that’s the only time you’re able to actually get that Monkey’s help. First strike and menace aren’t terribly exciting on a 1/3, and an extra 2/1 isn’t doing a whole lot since Ragavan doesn’t deal commander damage, so what do we do with Kari?

First strike and menace would be way more exciting on a bigger creature, so my first thought goes to Voltron. Load Kari up with Equipment and you have a much scarier Pirate. Red has a ton of artifact synergies already, so this is a novel way to build such a deck. It’s much less comboriffic than the usual Daretti, Scrap Savant decks and focused more on a beatdown strategy.

If you get a creature token every time Kari attacks, maybe we can also build around that. A handful of Red cards already interact with creatures entering the battlefield. Purphoros, God of the Forge and Warstorm Surge are just a few examples of cards that will love you pooping out a Monkey every turn. So long as Kari can keep attacking, you can keep whittling down your opponents’ life totals.

That’s where my brain went, but I’m sure a unique creature like Kari has more potential.

Count Me In

What a divine divining rod. Does it point to aether? Cuz that seems like cheating. Aether is everywhere. He might be a fraud. Investigation pending.

Rishkar, Peema Renegade is one helf of an Elf. He plays with +1/+1 counters, a common theme in Green, while also guaranteeing you have two more mana dorks. He also costs three mana. That means he’s on-curve for some serious mana ramp.

Green’s relationship with +1/+1 counters exists in almost every block in Magic history. There is no shortage of different +1/+1 counter decks that can be built around Rishkar, and he’s great in any other +1/+1 counter deck as part of the 99. All that is very open-ended.

It’s worth noting that Rishkar lets any of your creatures with counters be mana dorks, not just ones with +1/+1 counters. But they’re almost always gonna be +1/+1 counters, so there’s not exactly a ton of build-around potential with other counter types. Your next best bet is to tinker with -1/-1 counters and the persist mechanic (annihilating the -1/-1 counters with Rishkar’s +1/+1 counters is a good strategy), but that’s about as far as I’d be willing to stretch.

That’s really all I have to say about Rishkar. I think he’s awesome, and he’s gonna fit into basically any Green deck you want to put him in. He’s a solid commander himself too. My expectations are high for this workhorse of an Elf.

The THOP Heard ‘Round the World

Lore spoiler alert. Good job, flavor text!

LEGENDARY.

THOPTER.

Now that that’s out of the way, we have another colorless commander! Considering five of the now seven cost ten or more mana, it’s refreshing to see a one-drop in this “color.” First, let’s look at what Hope of Ghirapur actually does.

The answer: very little. Other than being a 1/1 flier, it can lock a single opponent out of casting noncreature spells during the second half of your turn. But only if you smack that player with Hopey first. Join me in groaning, because this ability is pretty useless.

Here’s the good news: colorless Commander decks are incredibly difficult to build. Wait, I said good news. How is this good news!? Well, there just isn’t a whole lot to do with Hope of Ghirapur when restricted to colorless cards. It is a one-drop and it does have flying, so commander damage is probably the best avenue of victory here. Colorless does have one big asset in this department: Equipment. Thopter Voltron can be a thing! If you add in some other Thopter cards, you’ll have a host of evasive threats capable of carrying oodles of weapons for you. It’s pretty silly, but I like how it captures Kaladesh’s spirit of invention.

Magic: The Gathering: Civil War

Six new commanders, all at rare, is pretty sweet. They each provide a novel mix of abilities to the format. Being rare means they will be easy to obtain (in foil (or as a prerelease promo)). Commander has its financial problems, but it doesn’t seem like any of these six exciting cards will be part of that. Truly something to celebrate!

Which new legendary creature are you excited to build around, planeswalkers?