u/-I_am_not_a_Crow-

I have been in this sub because I, like many, am a frustrated magic player. I have spent the better part of a decade casually collecting cards, buying precons, making decks, and playing commander with my friends. I too am disappointed with WotC becoming schleps to their shareholders.

...But what I continually fail to understand is why so many people in this sub are so mad at the choice to make Aragon a black man. Ive been a huuuge fan of LotR my ENTIRE life and I am not upset by this in even the smallest regard.

For context I grew up in a very rural area surrounded by conservative values and churches so before you go calling me woke and all that just know we probably have similar backgrounds.

I dont think a majority of this sub is racist or homophobic but I do take issue with how prevalent this theme is. If you dont like that WotC is hiring trans persons then dont play the fucking game... they arent forcing anything on you. Not liking the decisions they make for the game is different and completely arbitrary to their trans identity. Just because you dont like their choices doesnt mean you attack their personhood. In politics thats called mudslinging or something like that... its when you dont have a rebuttal or a solution to what your opponent said so you attack their character instead of their policy. Its the same thing with Aragorn getting melinated... why should it matter so much to you if you arent racist?

TLDR My mass land denial card is easy to negate and wasnt in the list I had pulled up and theres no major consensus I could find on Reddit. If Im pigeon-holed into bracket 4 should I put more effort into beefing up the deck for potential tournament play at an LGS or play it in my pod as is?

I put together a Mono Red Spell Copy Deck [[Mica, Reader of Ruins]] I can link the decklist if anyone wants to check it out. It has a salt rating of like 27 on my archidekt and an estimated bracket of 2. I dont have any major payoffs except Molten-Core Maestro and Crime Novelist. No game changers like tutors which [[Gamble]] is the only mono red one I could find anyway if i did want to get one. It would push me into bracket 3 especially if i added an infinite combo like [Jeska's Will]] (another game changer) and [[Reiterate]] . No huge combos already in the deck or anything too crazy I think. The one hang up is I forgot I have Zhao, the Moon Slayer in there. Sure its mass denial yes but if you don't have the 7 uncolored to pay for his ability is it still mass land denial because of his other static ability of making nonbasics enter tapped which a lot of them do anyway so no big gain. A lot can happen in a single 4 player round and unless I have Walls of Ba Sing Se on the field Zhao is rather squishy. With my commander having a ward cost of 3 life I didnt feel the need for a lot of protection spells to keep him on the field in a lower bracket tier which my pod plays mostly precon decks so bracket 2 maybe 3 for some of them. I said screw it ill just recast him. But if this automatically pushes me rather hilariously up to a bracket 4 should I just pick up the combos and some game changers, add my copy of [[Boil]] and get a [[Blood Moon]] instead of Zhao to make it a proper bracket 4 in case I ever get time to enter a local tournament?

What is yall's problem?

Mass Land Denial but isnt shown as bracket 4?