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Parker LaMascus @parker.luckypaper.co · 7h

3/x OH YEAH and in the first half of mouse's set, behind the wailing sax and two keyboardists playing the nastiest polyrhythms you've ever heard, a B&W projector was cycling thru cell mitosis, super-close-up video of ants carrying a bee corpse, and abandoned freight cranes. sublime and numinous

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Parker LaMascus @parker.luckypaper.co · 7h

2/x
anyways, i never thought i'd be in the same country as mouse, so it was such a dream to just... take the train to see them, kinda on a whim, transit and hotel and vinyl all less than the price of a nosebleed ticket in the US.

forget magic the gathering, try the magic of music.

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Parker LaMascus @parker.luckypaper.co · 7h

this week I saw one of my top 5 bands live, mouse on the keys.

opener Oavette was new to me, but i was instantly hooked. they played 45 minutes no breaks, the entire album:
tokeirecords.bandcamp.com/album/oavett...

mouse was as awesome as i hoped: mouseonthekeystokyo.bandcamp.com/album/midnight

midnight, by mouse on the keys Tokyo

11 track album

mouseonthekeystokyo.bandcamp.com

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Parker LaMascus @parker.luckypaper.co · 1d

Thanks for filling in the blank! It's an awesome story. I'll push an update to credit Tim.

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Parker LaMascus @parker.luckypaper.co · 1d

aaaand now all of the typos are fixed (i hope)

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Parker LaMascus @parker.luckypaper.co · 1d

("show the cards who shuffles whom" comes from a P Sully anecdote on SCG's Resleevables. if anybody has a better source than that pod's now-inaccessible audio, I'll happily update that paragraph)

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Parker LaMascus @parker.luckypaper.co · 1d

This week's #mtgcube piece has been brewing for awhile. Sometimes, you have to show the cards who shuffles whom.

luckypaper.co/articles/uni...

Universes Beyond and the Meaning of Life — Lucky Paper

The typical debate about Universes Beyond's effects on Magic is framed as a matter of market value. But once we start weighing the success of these co-branded products, we've already lost a rigged gam...

luckypaper.co

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Parker LaMascus @parker.luckypaper.co · 5d

Okay, it turns out the Phillies will not be winning the 2025 World Series. Otherwise, this Kamigawa #mtgcube retrospective has held up pretty well over the last 48 hours.

Parker LaMascus @parker.luckypaper.co · 7d

I daresay this might be the finest article on baseball, Magic: The Gathering, and world travel ever written.

(Granted, that doesn't leave much competition... but you should still read it!)

luckypaper.co/articles/kam...

#mtgcube

Kamigawa and The New York Yankees — Lucky Paper

Kamigawa is a lightly fictionalized version of real-world Japan. What does that mean for the set? What does it mean for its players? A meditation on trading cards, cultural exchange, and baseball.

luckypaper.co

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Parker LaMascus @parker.luckypaper.co · 7d

I daresay this might be the finest article on baseball, Magic: The Gathering, and world travel ever written.

(Granted, that doesn't leave much competition... but you should still read it!)

luckypaper.co/articles/kam...

#mtgcube

Kamigawa and The New York Yankees — Lucky Paper

Kamigawa is a lightly fictionalized version of real-world Japan. What does that mean for the set? What does it mean for its players? A meditation on trading cards, cultural exchange, and baseball.

luckypaper.co

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Parker LaMascus @parker.luckypaper.co · 11d

We time our rounds on a similar 3.5h cube night. We just announce it clearly as the draft wraps up, and it's no big deal. Another possibility is to do ad-hoc pairings instead of Swiss.

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Parker LaMascus @parker.luckypaper.co · 13d

I'll double-check our end (I may have forgotten to run a script) and update the site next week! Thanks for letting me know.

Parker LaMascus @parker.luckypaper.co · 14d

Yes! You can make it easier to collate by using sparkly inner sleeves or inner-sleeve stickers on the cards you want to separate.

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Parker LaMascus @parker.luckypaper.co · 15d

*We can only help with Amonkhet experts. (Only you have the power to trainwreck your drafts.)

Emma's not on bsky, but you can learn more about Egypt on her YT: www.youtube.com/@learnegypto...

Learn Egyptology

Hello everyone! My name is Emma Glenister and I'm a PhD student in Egyptology at the University of Pennsylvania. I love ancient history, languages, and sharing everything I learn about them as widely ...

www.youtube.com

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Parker LaMascus @parker.luckypaper.co · 15d

Sometimes I get unexplained Magic cravings, like "I want to trainwreck this #mtgcube draft," or "I need to know what the experts think of Amonkhet."

I'm proud to say we can help with that.* Here's Emma Glenister, Egyptology PhD candidate, for Lucky Paper:

luckypaper.co/articles/amo...

Amonkhet: Fact and Fiction — Lucky Paper

With Amonkhet, Magic stepped into Ancient Egypt, a culture with three thousand years of history and religion to draw on for inspiration but also a minefield of stereotypes and tropes. Our chief Egypto...

luckypaper.co

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Parker LaMascus @parker.luckypaper.co · Sep 12

If you ever feel inclined to write about cube (or cube-adjacent things) for Lucky Paper... let me know!

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Parker LaMascus @parker.luckypaper.co · Sep 10

You might be surprised -- if you frame it right, it can be a YOLO moment that frees people from the analysis paralysis of cutting from 45 spells to 23 (because you KNOW them casual EDH drafters ain't picking lands)

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Parker LaMascus @parker.luckypaper.co · Sep 9

this cube has NO DECKBUILD. you just jam the 40 you draft. Better find a discard outlet to make use of any off-color spells.

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Parker LaMascus @parker.luckypaper.co · Sep 9

for inspo, here's one of the best to ever do it: cubecobra.com/cube/overvie...

Cube Cobra Overview: Mad Max Cube

>>> ### My name is Max. My world is fire and blood. <<< Mad Max Cube is a desert cube made up of a combination of cards that pay homage visually to the Mad Max/Furiosa movies and cards that mechanica...

cubecobra.com

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Parker LaMascus @parker.luckypaper.co · Sep 9

What cards from Spider-Man are you testing in your #mtgcube? We wanna know! Respond to our survey... or else I'll shoot some Tobey finger-guns in your direction.

luckypaper.co/survey/spm/

Marvel's Spider-Man Cube Survey — Lucky Paper

Tell us what cards you're testing in your cube from Marvel's Spider-Man. Results will be compiled, analyzed, and shared with the community.

luckypaper.co

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Parker LaMascus @parker.luckypaper.co · Sep 9

Gatecrash's mechanics? Meh, they're 40% fine.

But the flavor? Wow. Wasn't expecting to end up where I did. I want more Gateless in Magic!

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Parker LaMascus @parker.luckypaper.co · Sep 9

A little jetlag can't stop me from getting another article out the door! This week's piece for Lucky Paper is a design-focused review of Gatecrash.

luckypaper.co/articles/gat...

Gatecrash: A Retro Design Review — Lucky Paper

We reassess the game design of Gatecrash. Though it may be nearly identical to its predecessor, the differences are striking – and instructive for Cube designers!

luckypaper.co

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Parker LaMascus @parker.luckypaper.co · Sep 7

Was really glad to see Jacob's byline on Hipsters again! Magic and Meaning was always a favorite column of mine (along with @improphilo.bsky.social's, of course)

Jacob W. Torbeck @jacobtorbeck.bsky.social · Sep 3

@hipstersofthecoast.com reached out this summer and told me he was getting the band back together. It was good to play with Magic & meaning again.

www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2025/09/phil...

#magicthegathering #MTGEOE

Philosophy of Religion through Edge of Eternities

Professor Torbeck returns to Hipsters to plan a new curriculum on Religion and Ethics around the Edge of Eternities setting.

www.hipstersofthecoast.com

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Parker LaMascus @parker.luckypaper.co · Sep 1

I was surprised to see success correlate with age: DMU had more long-term success than BRO, which in turn outshone ONE, and so on in release order (with one LTR-sized blip).

Looking forward to 2026, I wonder if these fast-paced high-power releases will continue to chill Cube enthusiasm.

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Parker LaMascus @parker.luckypaper.co · Sep 1

It's time for our biggest article of the year: the data-driven Cube Standard Retrospective, which looks back on DMU through LTR. Find out which cards survived 3 years in cubes to become true staples!

luckypaper.co/articles/202...

2025 Standard Rotation Cube Retrospective — Lucky Paper

There were 2,112 new cards printed between Dominaria United and Lord of the Rings. We follow up on our Cube survey series to ask: which cards survived to become true Cube staples?

luckypaper.co

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Parker LaMascus @parker.luckypaper.co · Aug 25

this is what it looks like when nobody knows what Imotekh does in @improphilo.bsky.social's UMA+ Cube (that cube slaps, btw)

Ollie // Beeks @ollie.bostoncubeparty.com · Aug 25

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