AllWhoWander: The card I'm most looking forward to in Hyperpop is Gleaming Laser! Warleader's Helix is one of those cards that feels so sweet to resolve, but never seems to quite cut it outside of standard environments, so I'm looking forward to playing it. But Gleaming Laser isn't just Warleader's Helix – it makes use of one of Hyperpop's most exciting new mechanics – prismatic mana! That means this card could be played in any three-color deck – and that's what really excites me, because this card is flexible/generically good enough to see play in all sorts of decks – but it's going to have a different texture in each deck. 

In aggressive decks, mardu or naya, this card is a finisher – forcing through the last points of damage needed to close out a game. In more midrangey decks, like jund or temur, this card deals with problematic permanents and allows you to push through damage. And in more controlling decks, like jeskai, this card is a stabilization tool. I'm looking forward to playing Gleaming Laser – in a lot of different decks, in a lot of different ways!

PTM: If you’ve paid literally any attention to anything I’ve ever said about Magic, you won’t be shocked to see I’ve picked Emblazoned Hooligan, an aggressive red 1-drop, as my card.

Because my preference for aggro lists is topping out at 2-3 mana, I’m always on the lookout for cards that add reach – and Hyperpop brings a lot of tools to help with that. Relatively few decks in the format put up wide arrays of good blockers, and disrupting blocks once – or even twice – a turn is huge for decks looking to put an opponent to zero fast. With other additions like Rock On and Pyrote Entity, this Goblin is going to be the bedrock of a lot of aggro wins.

Emblazoned Hooligan synergizes very well with my favourite aggressive card in the format: Raise//Rampage. Not only does Maneuver play beautifully with Amp it Up, menace and Hooligan will make blocking nightmarish for your opponents. Lastly, while I’ve got your attention and we’re thinking about Raise//Rampage, have a quick look at Vroom Vroom. Yeah – it works exactly how you want it to. Play them both with Emblazoned Hooligan. You’ll love it.

Dodger: I've chosen a somewhat innocuous card for my Hyperpop highlight, but I think this little fella will fly under the radar (and over your opponent's blockers). Flow Prodigy is a really neat little twist on classic tempo threat Spectral Sailor, but with a big potential upside. All you need to do is have access to three colors of mana and you get an entire mana discount on Spectral Sailor's ability! 

That might not seem like much, but if you've played with the Sailor you know it's huge. They don't play anything worth countering on turn 3? Card. You played a 1-drop on turn 4 and have mana to spare? Card. You're flooding out and have no plays on turn 6? Two cards. This little guy is a workhorse that should energize multicolor flash decks in the next couple years.

dr platypeople: A card I'm super excited to brew with from the new set is Grand Consonance. Revolution has had a few of these pie-in-the-sky expensive green sorceries floating around for a while and they've all felt just a bit too slow. Grand Consonance opens up some new avenues both by being 1 mana cheaper than usual and by broadening the ways these sorts of ramp decks can be built while maintaining the potential to high-roll. It's also just perfectly emblematic of the kinds of strategies Hyperpop encourages in general: playing lots of colors, and playing balanced combinations of creature and noncreature spells. Make sure you have some counterspells and discard ready for this finisher when heading into League play this month!

Scribbl: Make It Personal is a card I am hyped to brew with. Anyone who knows my deckbuilding style knows that I don't like putting many win-cons in my control decks, so the idea of a deck full of interaction that utilises its Big Draw Spell slot as a way to steal your opponent's win-cons (and cast them at a discounted rate!) is incredibly compelling. This card slots nicely into an Esper shell, but thanks to the Prismatic Mana mechanic, there are a ton of deckbuilding avenues for it. Being an instant is also a control mage's dream, not forcing you into any shields-down moments.

Reuben: Revolution is about to get rocked by the arrival of "Bring Down the House" from the Hyperpop set, and I couldn't be more excited. This card is a creative mashup of the classic 5 mana white Wrath of God effect and the suspend mechanic, giving players the option to play it with a 1 turn delay for the bargain price of 3 mana. With the strategic decision-making involved in choosing which mode to play and when, this card is sure to shake up the format. And while the card's power may seem unstoppable, cunning players can still use indestructibility, or non-creature mana sinks to foil the plans of those who rely on it too heavily.

Overall, this card is a standout in the Hyperpop set and I can't wait to see its impact on the Revolution format.

Revolution, April, 2023 – 

The first-ever Revolution Eternal tournament, GP Masara, took place this month, and it did not disappoint. With the upcoming rotation of Karslav at the beginning of May, players got their first chance to compete with cards from all of Revolution's history. For those who had not played earlier rotations of Revolution, this was an opportunity to try cards from sets such as Vastuum, Ghariv, Kuutalya, and more. With 18 players joining in total, it was a small but enthusiastic turnout.

While over 20 premade decks were provided, many players joined the tournament with brand new brews that took full advantage of the format's many tools. 

Fossils were not the only old favorite to return in a new form. Tyrant of Tributes made a high impact as a reanimator and ramp target. Elements of "Big Red," such as Amaret and Merciless Shieldbreaker, also crashed back onto the scene. There wasn't a single set that didn't include a few staples within the decks submitted. Some players also used this tournament as a final chance to play Karslav before it rotates, with a significant number of copies of Feast of Crows appearing alongside Ferocious Flames.

AllWhoWander won the tournament with Abzan Treasure, facing off in the finals against Fazzer, who was playing Big Red.

In third place was PTM, who played BR Sligh, which interestingly included Embraced by Dusk. While he described it as "a bad card," its combination of attack, toughness, and menace added much-needed reach and synergized with Renegade Apprentice hilariously well.

Not all decks, however, were able to compete with the increased power level of the new format. Crushcastle's Maple Toolbox Control and Reuben's Mono-Green Brutality were among the decks without a single win to their name.

Overall, the Eternal Revolution format still looks to be extremely diverse, and while this tournament is now over, we look forward to seeing what exciting brews and modifications people bring in the future. With the success of GP Masara, it's clear that Revolution Eternal is a format with a lot of potential, and it will be interesting to see how it develops in the months and years to come.

Click here for a full look at the deck lists featured in this month's GP.

Interview #1: PTM 

• What deck did you play?

"I played monoblack storm, featuring Demon of Darker Paths, Perspicacity, Keening Belltower, and a variety of cantripping artifacts and sacrifice synergies."

• Why did you pick it?

"I picked the deck for two reasons. Firstly, coming into the tournament, I knew I was on a low seed, and would therefore be on the draw for almost every match, excepting some where I'd get to roll for play. For this reason, I wanted to bring something along that was play/draw agnostic, and a combo deck is well-suited to filling that role. This is a pretty major departure for me, since I enjoy playing aggro more than anything else.

Secondly, I believe monoblack storm was one of the strongest archetypes in Revolution at the time of decklist submissions, and that it had at minimum a 50% matchup against the entire field. It's relatively resilient to disruption, and very little of that disruption is in people's mainboards."

• What was the hardest matchup and why?

"While I lost both grand finals matches against Purplemurasaki, my hardest matchup was probably against Matt in the upper bracket final. Matt's deck was doubtless the most explosive deck in the tournament, and while the storm list blocks reasonably well with Granite Harbingers, each block it makes is one fewer vital trigger or sacrifice in the combo. On top of that, the deck featured solid burn and removal spells which were very good against Demon. However, probably the scariest part of the matchup would be that Matt clearly built his sideboard with artifact hate in mind, meaning that a bad game 1 became a worse game 2 and 3.

Despite all of this, Matt's deck didn't cooperate as well as it otherwise might have, and I had some solid draws on my end, which let me pick up the win. I was very anxious about facing Matt again in the grand finals, because I think if he drew his sideboard cards, I'd have been cooked."

• What card or cards were most crucial to your deck?

"There is barely any fat in the monoblack storm list, so almost all of the cards in the deck are crucial. If I had to pick a real standout that I didn't expect in the tournament, however, I'd actually pick one of the colourless lands: Extravagant Patisserie. The extra Food token mattered with real frequency, and often let me execute at least part of the combo earlier than I otherwise might have.

Granite Harbinger was probably tournament MVP, and I have a really hard time picking a favourite between Diabolical Minion and Undercroft Poisoner. The 1-drops absolutely carry the deck."

• Looking back, are there any changes you would have made? 

"I took Outdated Crony out of my deck every single match, as soon as sideboarding started. It's a really great card in BR Treasures, but I'm not entirely convinced by it in the storm list. I suspect that the correct play might have even been a pair of maindeck Mistwreath Stones in their place.

I'm happy with my sideboard, overall, but like I said earlier: there's very little flexibility in the maindeck, so few of the sideboard cards saw the light of day throughout the tournament. It might be the case that there were higher-value cards I could've picked."

Interview #2: PurpleMarasaki

• What deck did you play?

"BR Espionage, which is a lower curve black based midranged deck based on the Undercroft Poisoner + Organized Espionage synergy."

• Why did you pick it?

"In the two GPs prior to worlds I played aggressive midranged decks (BR and mono G) and found that many of the 3-5 drops that decks going bigger play feel awful to deal with unless you have a 1 drop, so I retooled my BR list away from value threats to lower the curve and include Undercroft Poisoner and Diabolical Minion, which seemed to be the most generically good pair of 1 drops."

• What was the hardest matchup and why?

"I think Mono B Storm is the expected answer here, but I'll actually say 4c Approaching Greatness. While Mono B Storm is extremely good, I tooled my sideboard substantially for it to get an okay matchup, whereas 4c Approaching Greatness had a lot of stuff I don't want to deal with that I also didn't have good answers for (Hugo's Handiwork, big enchantments)."

• What card or cards were most crucial to your deck?

"Undercroft Poisoner, Alehana, and Organized Espionage were all really important in both getting me ahead and keeping me ahead, with one or more being exceptional in almost all of my wins."

• Looking back, are there any changes you would have made? 

"I would probably try and cut Umberdeep Shade and Myrkalt from the deck, probably just to increase the numbers on the 1-2 ofs. Don't think either card is bad, but they line up pretty poorly with how many decks de-emphasize creature combat and many of the creature based decks incidentally being able to answer/ignore them with cards like Queen Andarli, Ferocious Flame, or Furycall Hellion."

And that wraps our coverage for revolution worlds this year! Thank you to all our participants as well as to everyone who followed along and cheered us on! Congratulations to PurpleMurasaki, and remember: if you want to earn an invite to Revolution Worlds 2024, there's no better time to join the revolution!