So Many Insane Plays So Many Insane Plays

This is it. My favorite MTG podcast of all time, and possibly my favorite podcast of all time.

It all started in 2013. I commuted every day by subway and had a lot of time to spend listening to podcasts. I was also getting back into MTG for the first time since elementary school. I wanted a podcast to go with my new hobby and tried all of them. Friends hanging out, talking about Magic. Seasoned veterans analyzing Standard. Limited Resources. Of course. And then I downloaded So Many Insane Plays.

At first, I didn’t even know what Vintage was. All I knew was that it was something like Legacy. But when Stephen Menendian debates which land to play or what the metagame will be like, his infection excitement turned him into a super-knowledgeable color commentator to play-by-play man Kevin Cron. I was hooked and actually looked forward to episodes that lasted hours on end, spacing them out over days.

Despite having never played a competitive-level game of Vintage in my life, this is the only podcast that I have set to download automatically whenever a new episode comes out. It goes without saying that any Vintage player will love this podcast. What’s perhaps less obvious is that any Magic player can fall equally in love. You don’t need to have Time Walk or Ancestral Recall in your deck to benefit from discussions on tempo and card advantage. Sometimes I take away lessons that will help me in my next game of Magic, whatever the format or deck, and other times I’m merely entertained by stories from the annals of Magic history.

Which brings me to the heartbreak of going nearly a full year without an episode. I didn’t fault them one bit. Truth is, I have a hard time faulting anyone for anything since around March 2020. It was just anytime I went for a run, or washed dishes, or–rarely–went somewhere, I always checked to see if there was a new SMIP episode before picking whatever other podcast episodes I had lined up.

And thus I can hardly describe the breath of fresh air when episodes 100 and 101 came out. Even if you have never sacrificed a Black Lotus in your life, these two Magic players will take you on detailed, historical journeys into cards, plays, decks, metagames, and every conceivable aspect there is to enjoying the game of Magic.

Great eternal talk, a little more legacy would be nice.