"Tam, the Possibility: The Multiverse’s Next Superfriends Commander."

"Tam, the Possibility: The Multiverse’s Next Superfriends Commander."

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr. MD

Tam, the inheritor of Jace's spark, is not exactly being hailed as the new queen of Planeswalker EDH.

And I can understand why.

At first glance, she appears to be a Simic creature with a rather unassuming 2/4 body. But Tam is much more than that. When it comes to Commander, she effectively gives you access to all five colors.

That alone opens up a ridiculous number of possibilities.

Atraxa, Praetors' Voice currently holds the distinction of having helmed an enormous number of Planeswalker decks, and she has long been one of the faces of the Superfriends archetype.

But Tam might change the way we approach it.

Especially because having access to Red Planeswalkers—or Planeswalkers with Red in their identity—opens up a whole new selection of characters and abilities that traditional Atraxa builds couldn't access.

Then there is Tam's discount.

She reduces the cost of your Planeswalkers by one generic mana, which might not sound spectacular at first.

But when you are playing a deck filled with Planeswalkers, that discount adds up quickly.

A lot of these cards are expensive.

If Tam is sitting there making each one a little cheaper, you can start deploying your Planeswalkers earlier and potentially get more of them onto the battlefield before your opponents have a chance to catch up.

But the ability that really makes me interested is the proliferate ability.

You pay all five colors of mana and proliferate X, where X is based on the number of different Planeswalker types you control.

And I think that is where Tam gets really interesting.

Because suddenly, we aren't just building a deck around Jace.

We're building a multiverse.

Tam encourages you to play a variety of Planeswalkers—different characters, different colors, different personalities—from across Magic's history.

And that feels appropriate for a commander whose entire identity revolves around possibility.

Tam can come down relatively early, then sit there while you deploy your Planeswalkers one by one.

Build your board.

Accumulate loyalty.

Proliferate.

And eventually start firing off ultimates before your opponents can figure out what just happened.

There is something particularly satisfying about the idea of having a table full of Planeswalkers, each one doing their own thing, while Tam quietly makes the entire operation more efficient.

Is Tam going to immediately dethrone Atraxa as the face of Superfriends?

Maybe not.

But I don't think she needs to.

She offers something different.

She gives us access to the entire color pie, rewards diversity among our Planeswalkers, and potentially turns a collection of individual characters into one enormous multiversal team.

Not a bad possibility.

Not bad at all.

"The Country That Exported Its People Is Running Out of People."

 "The Country That Exported Its People Is Running Out of People."

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr. MD

There have been plenty of experts warning about population decline around the world. Yet many people still believe it could never really happen here in the Philippines.

After all, for decades, our country has been one of the world's biggest exporters of manpower.

Nurses. Seafarers. Engineers. Domestic helpers.

You name the profession, and there is a good chance the Philippines has provided someone to fill it somewhere around the world.

For generations, leaving the country to work abroad was almost a rite of passage.

It was also a great equalizer.

You could leave your family behind, endure the loneliness of being away from home, and hopefully provide them with a better life. The sacrifice was painful, but there was usually a promise attached to it: work hard enough overseas and you could give your family opportunities that might have been difficult to achieve in the Philippines.

But that promise is becoming harder to sustain.

Yes, you can still go abroad and earn more than you probably would at home.

But earning more does not necessarily mean achieving the kind of prosperity that overseas workers enjoyed in previous decades. The cost of living has risen everywhere. Fuel is more expensive. Housing is more expensive. Food is more expensive.

The paycheck may be bigger, but so are the expenses.

And something else is changing.

There is a growing percentage of young Filipinos who may simply not want to follow the traditional path.

Why spend years training to become a nurse, seafarer, engineer, or skilled worker, then leave your family and spend years working abroad when there are now other possibilities?

One viral TikTok video can sometimes bring in an amount of money that would have seemed impossible to earn from a day's work in the traditional economy.

Of course, some people will hit it big.

But most won't.

Virality has a very short attention span. Today's sensation can easily become tomorrow's forgotten account, replaced by the next viral video, the next creator, the next trend.

And yet, the traditional workforce is still here.

The jobs still need to be done.

And increasingly, we may find ourselves facing shortages—not necessarily because there are absolutely no people available, but because there are fewer people willing to take those jobs under the conditions being offered.

At the same time, young families are making different calculations.

Gone, or at least increasingly rare, are the days when having three, four, or even more children was considered normal for a family.

Many families today are choosing to have only one or two children.

It is not difficult to understand why.

The cost of raising a child has become enormous while wages, for many workers, have struggled to keep pace with the rising cost of living.

And so the demographic shift happens quietly.

One family at a time.

One fewer child here.

One delayed marriage there.

One young person deciding that working abroad is no longer worth the sacrifice.

One couple deciding that two children are enough.

Eventually, all those individual decisions become a national trend.

Perhaps that is the strange future we are moving toward: a country that spent decades building an economy around sending its people elsewhere may eventually find itself with fewer people willing to go.

The Philippines has long had an abundant supply of one of its most valuable resources—its people.

But people are not an infinite resource.

And when fewer young people are born, when families become smaller, and when traditional jobs become less attractive, the consequences do not arrive all at once.

They arrive slowly.

First as shortages.

Then as higher costs.

Then as industries struggling to find enough workers.

It is a world where problems abound and solutions often seem temporary.

And perhaps the biggest problem is that demographics do not change as quickly as policies do.

You cannot suddenly create a new generation when you realize you need one.

The country that spent decades sending its people out into the world may eventually have to confront a very different question:

What happens when there simply aren't enough people left to send?

"Today, I Wrote Anyway."

 "Today, I Wrote Anyway."

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr. MD

It is funny how writing also requires a certain amount of momentum.

When you finally get the time to sit down, gather your thoughts, put them into words, and then edit everything into something worth publishing, it can feel like you have finally gotten the machine running.

But life has a funny way of getting in the way.

Ironically, while actually living life gives us plenty of material to write about, it can also disrupt the momentum needed to write about it.

That is why some writers develop a kind of muscle for it. They write and keep writing—day after day, week after week, year after year—until writing becomes less about inspiration and more about habit.

I used to think I had developed that muscle.

Until recently.

I have been procrastinating again.

A terrible sin when it comes to writing.

I had been trying to write at the beginning of my shifts, partly because I wanted to exercise my brain before I started seeing patients. It was a small routine that helped me feel like I had already accomplished something creative before the day got busy.

But lately, I have been tired.

And the patients have been arriving earlier.

And there have been a lot more of them.

It is the Ber Months, after all, and flu season has taken hold in certain offices. My quiet time before seeing patients has slowly disappeared.

And so, here I am, back to writing.

Not because I am particularly inspired.

Not because I suddenly have some brilliant idea that absolutely needs to be written.

I am writing this simply to prove to myself that I can still write when I don't feel like writing.

That perhaps the muscle is still there.

Maybe it just needed to be exercised again.

So this is today's exercise.

No grand revelation. No profound story.

Just words on a page.

And, apparently, that is enough.

So much writing for one day.

Today, I wrote anyway.

"Piracy: Because Your Mana Is My Mana"

"Piracy: Because Your Mana Is My Mana"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr. MD

When I build a deck, I don't normally ask myself the question:

“Just how annoying would this spell be?”

That isn't usually how I approach Magic.

Ever since I started playing, I rarely had a ready opponent sitting next to me. I didn't grow up with a friend in the same neighborhood who played Magic, an office mate who could suddenly say, “Hey, want to play a game?” or even a family member who understood why I was excited about a particular card.

I usually played by myself, calculating how much damage I could dish out by turn three and whether I could already make it lethal.

Satisfying?

Absolutely.

A little sad?

Maybe.

But I digress.

Because about as far away from that style of play as you can get is Piracy.

Piracy is an incredibly annoying two-mana sorcery that essentially looks at your opponent's mana and says:

“You don't mind if I use that, right?”

The spell lets you tap your opponents' lands for mana and use that mana to cast your own spells.

And honestly, I'm surprised they haven't made a Commander specifically built around this ability yet.

Then again, with the rate at which Wizards is churning out legendary creatures, I wouldn't be remotely surprised if we eventually get Piracy on legs.

Piracy basically looks at your mana capabilities, looks across the table at the green player who has been ramping like there's no tomorrow, and says:

“Hmmmm... let's use that too.”

And that's where the fun—and the annoyance—really begins.

Of course, Piracy is blue and costs two mana, and it is a sorcery. Your opponents aren't completely helpless. They can simply tap their lands in response, denying you the mana.

But even that can work in your favor.

Because if they tap their lands to prevent you from using them, you've still accomplished something important:

Their mana is now tapped.

And that can be the entire point.

Piracy can become the final piece of a game-winning combo, not necessarily because you need every drop of mana you steal, but because you can potentially leave the entire table without the ability to respond.

You cast Piracy.

They see what you're doing.

They panic.

They tap their lands so you can't use them.

And suddenly, everyone's mana is sitting there tapped while you proceed with whatever horrible plan you had prepared in the first place.

That is the kind of interaction I really appreciate in Magic.

The card doesn't merely give you resources. It creates a situation where your opponents have to make an uncomfortable decision:

Let me use your mana, or tap it yourself so I can't.

Either way, I may have gotten exactly what I wanted.

And hopefully, what I'm setting up is the coup de grâce for the entire table.

Because believe me when I say this:

You cast Piracy once, and you are putting a target on your back.

And sometimes, that's exactly what you wanted to do.

"When It Rains, It Pours: September’s Last-Minute Gifts."

 

"When It Rains, It Pours: September’s Last-Minute Gifts."

by 

Virgilio F. De Leon Jr., MD

I am not exactly sure what happened today.

I just thought that when it rains, it pours.

And as much as I have disliked the rains recently, this sudden outpouring of opportunities was something I simply could not pass up.

Today is September 30, 2026—the very last day of the month. I found myself thinking that perhaps everyone was suddenly rushing to fill positions for October, or maybe some of the opportunities I had been waiting for had finally made their way through a long list of applicants, schedules, and deliberations.

Whatever the reason, September apparently decided to end with a little drama.

After several misses, I finally secured a Viber interview. What surprised me even more was what they were offering: something that was actually at the level I felt I deserved, with a company I had worked with in the past.

And of all the companies in the country, it had to be that company.

This is now the third time an opportunity with them has come my way.

Sheer coincidence?

At this point, I am beginning to think otherwise.

My conclusion is that it must be Fate.

Of course, we will have to see where that road leads.

Then another recruiter, who apparently had been quite busy for some time, finally read my DM.

And lo and behold, she offered me several schedules that seemed almost like a natural extension of my current work. Even better, the clinics involved are barely three kilometers away from each other.

Again, another opportunity.

Again, another decision to ponder.

Then came an even bigger surprise.

I left my former PEME company after the pandemic, so I certainly did not expect to hear from them again. But apparently, they needed another physician for a school examination—and somehow, my name was mentioned.

Of course it was.

So now Saturday is booked.

And then, at 11:13 PM, almost at the very end of the day, another message appeared on my laptop.

The clinic I had previously worked with, which is only about eight minutes away from our house—

They needed me for tomorrow.

October 1.

Of course they did.

September apparently looked at my calendar, saw a few empty spaces, and decided:

Let's fix that.

Whatever cosmic alignment happened today, I just want to say how genuinely happy I am to be remembered and appreciated in this way.

There is something deeply reassuring about discovering that even after you have moved on from certain places, people still remember your work well enough to call you when they need someone.

Sometimes, an opportunity is more than just an opportunity.

Sometimes, it is a reminder that you mattered there.

That you did something right.

That the work you once did left enough of an impression for someone to remember your name months or years later.

And perhaps that is the most meaningful part of what happened today.

September has been a month of self-improvement and further self-discovery. There were plenty of moments when I wondered where everything was going, and more than a few moments when I simply had to keep moving forward without knowing exactly what would come next.

Then, on the final day of the month, everything suddenly came pouring in.

One opportunity.

Then another.

Then another.

And finally, one more at 11:13 PM.

Maybe it was coincidence.

Maybe it was timing.

Maybe it was Fate.

Whatever it was, I am grateful.

September did not exactly end quietly.

It ended by reminding me that sometimes, the things you have been waiting for do not arrive one at a time.

Sometimes, they arrive all at once.

Now that September has ended, I am fully awake for October.

The calendar has turned.

The rain may still come.

But apparently, so can the opportunities.

Onward.

"Maybe I’m a Comedian After All: The People Who Laughed at My Jokes."

"Maybe I’m a Comedian After All: The People Who Laughed at My Jokes."

by:

Virgilio F. De Leon Jr., MD

I have recently started compiling my jokes in the hope that I might finally go on an open mic sometime soon.

It has been a dream of mine to stand in front of people again and simply tell jokes.

Recently, I started practicing some of my material on my daughter, Aven, as we drove through Cavite from Tagaytay. The nightmarishly long route wasn't so bad because we got to bond again over stories, observations, and jokes.

Needless to say, some of my jokes were absolute hits.

Aven would giggle and snicker, and I would immediately file that reaction away as:

KEEP THIS ONE.

And then there were the jokes that completely bombed.

One time she basically gave me the equivalent of a professional comedy note:

“Aw, Dad. You can't tell that joke. People will totally feel for the guy in that joke.”

Honestly?

That was good feedback.

It meant the material might actually work if I tweaked it a little more. Make it tighter. Improve the transitions. Change the wording. Find the right moment to deliver the punchline.

The more I work on this, the more I realize that the art of making people laugh is scary serious.

Some people seem to have the talent naturally. They can make a room laugh almost as easily as breathing.

Others have to work at it.

I think I am somewhere in between—or perhaps still trying to figure out which one I am.

I am not even sure if all of my stories would translate well into stand-up comedy.

I can tell a story and get a polite smile.

Or I can keep piling on details, observations, and little quips until suddenly someone is almost collapsing on the floor laughing.

Those moments are probably one of my favorite highs as a person.

I can't really call myself a comedian yet.

I don't think I've earned the right to use that word.

But I have had moments.

Moments I remember.

Moments that still make me happy.

“Masakit na ang panga ko.”

“Masakit na ang tiyan ko. Tama na.”

Music to my ears.

I remember making my best friend laugh after he had an appendectomy in UST.

He was laughing so hard that he eventually looked at me and said:

“Brod, bubukas yung tahi ko.”

Precious.

Then there was the time I saw our usually dignified and composed pastors and pastoras practically falling out of their seats laughing at one of my Batangueño characters.

This was a Christian camp, of all places.

I am pretty sure they needed the laugh.

And honestly?

So did I.

Remarkable.

Then there is my ex-girlfriend, who eventually became my wife.

There was a time when she suddenly exhaled Sprite through her nose because I made a joke that made her laugh and choke at the same time.

Absolute treasure.

I married her partly because she used to laugh at all my jokes.

Now that I am experimenting with new material, she sometimes gives me that look and simply says:

“Ang corny.”

So naturally, I switch to the more violent jokes.

For some reason, those are the ones that make her smile.

Marriage is strange.

Then there is my Mom.

There was one time when she told me, quite directly, that this better be funny because she wasn't in the mood.

Needless to say, the joke bombed.

Completely.

But I remember the moment because my Mom is usually such a happy person, and I get to talk to her a lot when she finally sits still and isn't busy planning something for the family.

Even when the joke doesn't land, those moments are precious.

Then there is my Dad.

I think I have only heard my Dad genuinely guffaw once.

It was over a joke involving a bald man being introduced as a “Bokal Solo.”

I also remember him making a joke with me once.

He casually asked:

“Bakit yung mga girlfriend ng kapatid mo mukhang mga construction worker?”

And I almost banged my head against the gate because we were literally just standing there when he said it.

That was my Dad.

And sometimes I wonder how I ever managed to make that man laugh when he could apparently come up with lines like that himself.

Maybe that is the strange thing about comedy.

You never really know which joke is going to stay with someone.

You don't know which story will make them laugh until their stomach hurts.

You don't know which silly observation will become something they remember years later.

And maybe that is why I keep writing.

Not because I am ready to call myself a comedian.

Not yet.

But because I have experienced what it feels like to make someone laugh.

I have seen the smiles.

I have heard the snickers.

I have heard people say their jaw hurts.

I have heard someone laugh so hard that they worried about their stitches.

I have watched my wife nearly spray Sprite through her nose.

I have watched pastors and pastoras lose their composure.

I have made my daughter laugh in the middle of a ridiculously long drive.

And I have even managed, somehow, to make my Dad laugh.

Those moments are worth something.

Maybe one of these jokes I am writing will eventually make it onto a stage.

Maybe I'll stand in front of a room full of strangers, tell the joke, and hear absolutely nothing.

That is part of the risk.

Maybe the joke will bomb.

Maybe someone will stare at me.

Maybe I'll hear the dreaded silence that every aspiring comedian fears.

Or maybe, just maybe, somebody will laugh.

And perhaps that will be enough to make me want to tell another one.

So I will keep writing.

Keep tightening the stories.

Keep practicing the transitions.

Keep testing the punchlines on the people brave enough to sit through them.

And maybe, someday, I will finally earn the right to call myself a comedian.

Until then, I am perfectly happy being the guy who keeps trying to make people laugh.

Because when someone finally does laugh until their jaw hurts, their stomach hurts, or they nearly lose their Sprite through their nose—

well...

that's music to my ears.

Here is to that future.

"When the Sealed Pool Builds Itself: My Reality Fracture Mono-Red Dream."

"When the Sealed Pool Builds Itself: My Reality Fracture Mono-Red Dream."

by: 

Virgilio F. De Leon Jr., MD

When MTG players receive a Prerelease Kit, one of the first questions is always: What exactly am I supposed to build with this?

Sealed Deck is rarely straightforward.

It all depends on what your card pool gives you. Do you have a bomb worth building around? Do you have enough cards to support it? Do you have three or four copies of an important card to give you some consistency? Do you have removal? Ramp? Card draw?

There are a lot of questions to answer before you can even decide what colors you are going to play.

And then, every once in a while, something magical happens.

You open your pool and the cards basically tell you:

“Dude. Just play Red.”

It is a rare event indeed when the bomb you open in your Prerelease Kit—in this case, Curse-Marred Demon—is followed by five other Rares and a Mythic in the same colors.

At that point, there really isn't much of a deck-building debate anymore.

There is only acceptance.

And in this particular Reality Fracture Prerelease Kit, I would have accepted my fate.

This was going to be Mono-Red.

And not just Mono-Red.

It was going to be Mono-Red with an unhealthy amount of burn.

First, we have Samut, Hazoret's Champion, which gives all my creatures haste.

Because apparently my creatures weren't interested in waiting their turn to participate in the violence.

Then there's Master of Barbs.

Now this is where things start getting ridiculous.

Master of Barbs converts all that lovely non-combat damage into a +1/+0 boost for all my creatures. And it already has Menace, which makes it even more annoying to deal with.

So every time I start throwing burn around, my entire team gets bigger.

That means my opponent has a rather unpleasant choice:

Do you want to deal with the creatures, or do you want to deal with the burn?

The correct answer is probably:

Neither.

Unfortunately for them, they don't get to choose.

Then we have Curse-Marred Demon, the card that started this entire madness.

It can come in swinging, but it also has the ability to find the card I need from my deck.

Sure, it is a little more chaotic than its black counterpart because I have to discard a card at random. And yes, there is a certain amount of comedy in tutoring for exactly the card you want, only to have the game immediately respond:

“That's nice. Put it in the graveyard.”

But that's where Stingcaster Mage comes in.

Any instant or sorcery sitting in my graveyard suddenly becomes useful again thanks to flashback.

So that supposedly random discard isn't really much of a drawback.

If anything, my graveyard becomes another hand.

And then there's Ajani's Anguish.

Not only does it burn a target, but it also gives my creatures Trample.

Which, when combined with everything else going on in this deck, starts to look downright rude.

Because then we get to the other massive bomb:

Face Yourself.

A seven-mana sorcery.

Normally, seven mana makes me pause and ask whether something is really worth that investment.

But this?

This is the kind of card where you let your opponent do all the hard work for you.

Let them build their army.

Let them develop their board.

Let them proudly assemble this magnificent collection of creatures.

Then you cast Face Yourself and say:

“Thank you. I'll take that.”

You copy all of them.

And here's the important part:

Those tokens have haste.

So suddenly, that giant army your opponent spent several turns building is now also your army—and apparently your army has places to be.

You could simply attack for lethal.

Or your opponent could try to block.

Except, of course, if Master of Barbs is already doing its thing.

Your creatures have Menace, so suddenly your opponent can't simply throw blockers in front of everything.

And if Ajani's Anguish is already on the battlefield giving those creatures Trample?

Well...

Good luck.

Even creatures that manage to block are not necessarily going to stop the damage from getting through.

At this point, the deck has basically become a complicated mathematical equation whose answer is:

“Your opponent is probably dead.”

Well, well, well.

This sounds like a plan.

A very ridiculous plan.

A very Mono-Red Reality Fracture plan.

The kind of Sealed deck that makes you stare at your pool and think, Surely the universe intended me to play this.

The colors are there.

The bombs are there.

The synergy is there.

The burn is there.

The haste is there.

The Menace is there.

The Trample is there.

And somewhere in the middle of all this nonsense, there is a seven-mana spell waiting to steal an entire army and immediately send it into combat.

It was beautiful.

It was glorious.

It was probably completely unreasonable.

Now, if only I could have actually played this Reality Fracture Prerelease Kit.

I guess we'll never know.

But in my head?

I went undefeated.