Played on a stream associated with a military/veteran magic players discord with a member of Playing With Power and a member of KingdomsTV during a marathon.

Then yeah bro, don't be down on yourself about science. The refrigeration cycle is the practical application of some pretty neat science. Sensible heat and latent heat and all of that are concepts that most people never have to deal with and never learn. Again we are getting back to specialized knowledge and how IQ isn't everything. If you give Joe Blow off the street a refrigeration manifold, a jug of refrigerant, and a P/T chart and tell him to make the system work he is going to have no idea what to do. Because you have an understanding of how the system works and the relationship between pressure, temperature, and physical state you think it is as simple as "compressor go brrrr".

An important part of deckbuilding that I haven't seen you mention in either of these first two articles and that is especially important in this once since it is based from a combo is metainformation. This is not to say information about the meta that you will be playing the deck into (though that is important too), but information about the game in general.

One example would be existing archetypes or general categories of decks. With a mono-blue blink combo and wanting to add colors metainformation informs us that a established archetype is Bant Blink. It is tried and true and has a proven depth of field for support of blink. You subvert this by going Dimir, which I appreciate.

Another consideration is known synergies with cards you are already running.

• You are running Glen Elendra Archmage, persist plays well with undying, and Mikaeus, the Unhallowed is a card that exists.
• You are running an infinite mana combo and Basalt Monolith is in the deck. Rings of Brighthearth is an infinite mana combo with the monolith.
• If you had gone down the Mikaeus route another consideration is that Walking Ballista is a payoff for infinite mana and also has a combo with Mikey.

By no means do you have to follow all metainformation. And you also don't need to worry about missing something and therefore stress about knowing all the info. But just being generally aware of what is possible and proven will allow you to make informed deckbuilding decisions.

I am enjoying your "Build a Deck with Me" thread series, but I would like to make a suggestion related to the series and don't think it is appropriate to put it in either thread. It would be helpful if you linked the decks that are under discussion. Since you aren't really asking for help with them and are more using them as case studies in deck building I don't think this would run afoul of the "NO DECKLISTS in this forum" rule. You could ask Rhadamanthus or Caerwyn since they are the mods who generally are the ones keeping posts in the correct forums if you want to be super careful.

Hey now, the refrigeration cycle is more advanced science than most people need to understand in their adult lives, so you are doing just fine in science. Then again I'm not super familiar with industrial ammonia refrigeration since I do mostly commercial HVAC-R. Maybe you don't have to understand the refrigeration cycle, IDK.

Not trying to hijack your thread, but you have complained in the past about your work situation and finding out you are in the same general field I am... you might want to get ahold of your UA Local and see about joining. MES (mechanical equipment service, it is what they call HVAC-R techs) is the fastest growing trade within the organization. Depending on how extensive your previous experience is you might be able to skip some/all of the apprenticeship.

It's not even "a bit of a dispute" IQ is irrelevant past about 13 or 14 once people start gaining specialized knowledge and reasoning skills because it can only measure general knowledge and reasoning. Also exactly what is tested is skewed heavily toward how middle to upper class white people in the early 20th century performed. So it isn't a good objective measure much like most standardized testing.

Having said all of that; I'll try to provide what IQ means for when it is a valid measure to use. IQ is your "mental age" divided by your chronological age and multiplied by 100. So an 8 year old who scores what would be expected of a 10 year old has an IQ of 125 and if they score what would be expected of a 6 year old it would be 75. 140 is considered "genius" and 70 is usually where they start testing for developmental disabilities. (Though some "disabilities" such as ASD manifest with increased IQ). From a random website I found explaining IQ tests. "IQ tests are administered by licensed psychologists. There are different kinds of intelligence tests, but many involve a series of subtests that are designed to measure mathematical abilities, language skills, memory, reasoning skills, and information-processing speed."

For a more practical reference, when I was in school I was given multiple IQ tests and scored between 144 and 148. All standardized testing I have taken I have scored in the 99th percentile, so I was "smarter" than 99% of people if you want to look at it that way. At 152 I'd assume that your GF is in the top 99.5%. Again, though, this sort of testing has limited usefulness.

Use Mom's ring if it is cool with Dad. Good luck in all your endeavors.

Two damage.

113.7a Once activated or triggered, an ability exists on the stack independently of its source. Destruction or removal of the source after that time won’t affect the ability. Note that some abilities cause a source to do something (for example, “Prodigal Pyromancer deals 1 damage to any target”) rather than the ability doing anything directly. In these cases, any activated or triggered ability that references information about the source for use while announcing an activated ability or putting a triggered ability on the stack checks that information when the ability is put onto the stack. Otherwise, it will check that information when it resolves. In both instances, if the source is no longer in the zone it’s expected to be in at that time, its last known information is used. The source can still perform the action even though it no longer exists.

First a little information about the site. The Q&A is for rules questions. It's not a big deal and I'm sure a mod will be by at some point to move this thread.

I'm assuming that you mean Modern Horizons 3 and English isn't your first language and the name of the set didn't translate well. The set is scheduled to release June 14 with prerelease events starting June 7 and the official spoilers beginning May 21. The full set contents will slowly be previewed between May 21 and June 7, though I'd guess that previews would be done by June 1, but that last date is supposition.

https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Modern_Horizons_3

The most compact Hulk line is going to be Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and Walking Ballista which requires you to add only Protean Hulk and Walking Ballista both of which are decent outside of the combo. The combo does require a sacrifice outlet, and I was having trouble thinking of how to grab one since the combo already uses all 6 CMC of the tutor and I am most familiar with the combo in Abzan where you get Karmic Guide. Luckily DreadKhan supplied the missing piece, if you add in Activated Sleeper you can tutor the Sleeper and Viscera Seer to provide the sacrifice outlet.

Combo I am describing in case you are not familiar with Mike and Ballista. Mikaeus, the Unhallowed gives non-human creatures +1/+1 and undying, so the Ballista enters as a 1/1 and doesn't die. Sacrifice Walking Ballista and it comes back with a +1/+1 counter. Remove the counter from Ballista and deal 1 damage to an opponent. Repeat loop of sacrificing Ballista and removing counter until all opponents are dead.

You are also already running Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, so you can add in a few low cost undying creatures and get that combo with low opportunity cost. Young Wolf and Butcher Ghoul are the easiest to cast ones since they only have a single colored pip. Treacherous Pit-Dweller, Geralf's Messenger, and Strangleroot Geist are perfectly defensible options too, though the pit dweller is more all-in on having a way to sacrifice for value before the trigger to give an opponent control resolves and as such I think isn't a great fit here.

In general you can also up the power level of the deck by adding tutors. The "good" ones you are not running are Worldly Tutor, Grim Tutor, and Vampiric Tutor.

Fetch lands are the best fixing in Magic, so if they are in the budget the answer is always "yes" in multicolor decks.

The rules for deathtouch means that any damage from a source with deathtouch is considered lethal damage. Since Uncle Istvan prevents all damage from creatures, damage from a creature with deathtouch is prevented and he will not die. If you give a spell deathtouch (as Judith, Carnage Connoisseur does) the rules for deathtouch still apply. So he will die to an Electrickery with deathtouch.

I assume it is because of the language in point 3 of the "Prison/other card explanations" section. Not sure though.

OK, I was just concerned about if the spell was grouping the cards (like how Fireball distributes damage) or the player (like Pyrotechnics) and couldn't find a CR reference.

For the purposes of Celestial Toymaker does Hostile Negotiations count as causing "one or more players to guess or to group cards or permanents into a pile this turn"?