Rachel is my favorite even before she joined the crew. She builds good decks, knows rule interactions (She's a CAG Member) and she's not afraid of flavorful Jank.
@@andrewdonnelly4685 he builds his decks like an aggro player and expects to run out of resources. then when he runs out of resources he uses his lack of board wipes to lose harder. these type of linear players are quite a handful to play against. they are never useful in the pod and only play the game of "who goes off first"
@@andrewdonnelly4685 he's saying he doesn't like board wipes where you're behind so you board wipe to reset board back to 0 . Cyclonic rift just straight up wins you the game or at least kills one or two people when you use it with a developed board.
This is exactly the kind of discussion I love Rachel for instigating and I'm so glad her voice is being amplified by joining the staff here! Yay for Rachel!
More Arthur Medowcroft! Smart, attentive, insightful, polite, and humble. Seems like the good human being I actually want to sit across the table from.
I really hope Craig is in the game knights episode for the phyrexia set. Haven't seen him play in a while + want to his what infect shenanigans he will pull
I think Gaurav is just using Coat of Arms incorrectly. There is 0 reason to play it when creatures are still going to be entering or leaving the battlefield. Your goal is to have 10+ tribal creatures, and drop CoA like a craterhoof bahemoth. You should be dropping CoA, declaring attacks, and winning the game with it. Or you hold it because if you are the only tribal deck someone is going to kill it before it has its biggest possible affect. You don't drop CoA early and "whittle" people down with your slightly buffed creatures.
This. Learned this the hard way with my Rogue Tribal deck. I hadn't even read Coat of Arms correctly when I put it in the deck and didn't realise it affected everyone, not just me! Needless to say the Elf ball deck I was against trounced me from there. Play it to end the game or hold it.
I get both sides. You ideally play it to win, but if someone fogs, or teferi's protection, uses targeted removal to prevent lethal combat damage, it is a card that requires a lot of maintenance. Even if your intentions are to end the game, that doesn't always happen, and then, yes, it is an annoying card to play. That said, i agree, this card should be held until you intend to win.
You're correct there. It should be used like a colorless Overrun and not an anthem. A similar situation is people playing Beastmaster Ascension on T3 with 1-2 creatures in play. You play it until you have 7 creatures and start killing players.
I'm absolutely on the "No Tutors" train. It feels like too many games boil down to "let's get the same card". It's especially difficult if I'm in a "control" style list and I tutor for... What? I have a 5 color Ramos deck that uses nothing but modal spells. If I have a tutor for it... What do I tutor for? There's too many options.
I love this question, and I think it's really important for people to consider. Specifically in regards to a card being too powerful and you either think it won't make for fun games, or will draw you too much hate at the table. It was very interesting to hear everyone's perspective.
i remember when i played my landfall deck that the player next to me had rakdos charm in their hand while i kept making scute swarms to the point i took 16 million damage from 1 spell
Yes! Rakdos charm is one of my ultimate pet cards with 2 very relevant modes and a third that won't come up super often but when it does it just wins the game!
I've come to hate Rakdos Charm. In commander someone is inevitably going to go wide at some point, since you need to attack while leaving back enough blockers. Rakdos Charm just feels like a one card game nullifier, where nothing that came before matters because the player that was winning instantly loses. It's probably my saltiest card. At least Mindslaver requires some interaction, and it's possible to come back from a Cyclonic Rift. Why is there a 2-mana "you have a strong board state so you lose" card, especially one with other useful options?
@@adamrobinson6951 It is hardly a “you have a strong board state, so you lose” card. You have 40 life. It is basically only a counter against very specific token decks (ie. doubling season etc.). The 2 mana is not that relevant as by the time it would be an effective amount of damage, it could easily cost 7+ without much inconvenience.
Rhystic Study, Smothering tithe, and other cards where I feel like I'm stepping on someone else's turn with all the triggers. They feel like they throw off game rhythm even with experienced players and they are awful with new players. If I am reacting on someone else's turn, I would rather have that one spicy moment where the whole table yells like casting Sublime Epiphany.
I really appreciated this insight. I wish they would have asked, “which deck would you absolutely play this card in”. Some of these cards are evergreen, but a few seemed narrow.
Scute swarm is one of my favorite cards, I find that the easiest way to keep track of it is to stick my phone calculator on it makes calculations much easier
I run it in a Chatterfang deck with parallel lives, doubling season, and primal vigor and at a certain point I just leave it at 120 or something and don't bother making more.
I think mine would be Dockside Extortionist. It’s so easy to put it into every one of my Mardu decks but the only one I have it in is Kelsien, which has a lot of blink effects.
Regarding Smothering Tithe: My approach is to tell the table, "I am going to make a treasure every time you draw a card unless you tell me otherwise." This gets rid of at least some of the nuisance factor in my experience.
That was my exact thought. My 3rd deck ever had a ton of tutors (Wilhelt with a bunch of infinite wincons) no deck I've built since has more than 1 tutor because I want variety in my games
I know that pain with Coat of Arms. I also run one in my elf tribal deck. The last time I played it, it resulted in a hilarious standoff because it was buffing the other players' boards thanks to my own creatures. May end up replacing it with something else now that I'm thinking about it.
The con sounds fun, but I was just in Philly for PAX Unplugged and can't justify going back again so soon. As far as food, the Reading Terminal Market has wide variety of options. Also, the convention center is near a good sushi place and a good pho place.
The card I don't play anymore is curse of opulence (thanks richard from mtg goldfish) 1) It makes one person the punching bag, basically forcing them to lose slowly as they fall behind in life and resources 2) if there are multiple arch enemy commanders, you king make Just doesn't lead to fun situations
Jewelled Lotus - to avoid the situations Josh outlined, it can be good to hold it in your hand until a few turns later, when there are other threats at the table / you're more set up to deal with the heat it might give you. It's still a great ritual effect, saving your lands that turn to use reactively. The same principal can be applied to "remove on sight" commanders; often the best way to play them is to not play them until you have the ability to protect them.
More to the point, only drop the lotus when you're going to crack it. There are almost no situations where you want the lotus in play. Literally use it as a Dark Ritual for your commander
Also, I never understood the thought that this is a dead card if you draw it later in the game. The Lotus pays commander tax, which is a great use of it, especially if, like me, you play a lot of Kill On Sight commanders
I also don't run generic tutors in my decks. I'll occasionally run a thematic limited tutor if it fits the deck, but I prefer my games to play out differently every time. When I run tutors I find that the decks end up playing too linearly for my preferences.
These comments make me think I use tutors wrong. I don't really look for combo pieces, I tend to just look for what looks good in the moment and that means I typically get a bunch of different cards rather then just 1 or 2 blanket look fors.
@@kitsu1379 This is exactly how you use tutors without being linear. People freak out when you demonic tutor like you're about to win the game when in reality I just searched for a land bc mana screwed
@@servalkorion686 I run Idyllic and Enlightned in an enchantment deck and usually, I use it to look for a reasonably low cost enchantment that I can use to prock my enchantress draw abilities or just to set up for something I'm plannin for like.. I dunno two three turns down the line. I have demonic and vampiric in a liesa deck and that deck does have an infinate combo but tbh i'm more likely to use them to search for something I can use for protection like Myrel or Grand Abolisher ya know? Less looking for instant wins and more stuff that just kinda helps keep me in the game for a bit longer.
I don't play Aetherflux Reservoir anymore. I felt as if I was holding the entire table hostage. It sucked the joy out of the game and really brought the mood down for the rest of the night.
I just promise people I wont use it if we go down to 1v1 or if someone targets it for removal. My need for it is that its extra life gain triggers. I will use it if its still a 3 or 4 man game and someone is "unjustly" targeting me AFTER I explain the condition I have for it. Like my goal is not to use the nuclear option. But IF someone at the table chooses to "give the game to someone else" because they have some kind of hill to die on and I know Im not going to make any progress because that one person is martyrdoming me. So I speed it up and just take us both out of the equation. My playgroup has learned to either keep me under the 50 threshold just so it doesnt come online, or that after Im above 50 to not spend 4 pieces of removal on my board JUST bc its online and to use those removals for actual threats.
You see, I actually really enjoy using Aetherflux because of that hostage type situation. It forces my opponents to make suboptimal places by either attempting to deal with it and possibly dying to it, or forcing me to use it at a time that I don't want to, thereby losing me the game. It also frequently guarantees a quicker game. Side Note: I run Aetherflux with The Golden Throne in my Elas Il-Kor deck, and it's a hilarious synergy.
seems like it's more like people don't know how to play against these "I can kill you any moment" situtations. First of all, you can't make deals and kingmake someone who has kill button for a player. It's even more salty play that they can just use others to kill others. Second, you have no option other than play into it, because when it is used, other players are free from that hostage situtation and can take him out. Sometimes they don't even want to use it because they get rest of the table on focusing him. Bonus: If you know what kind of game you are going into, then it's also mostly players issue when someone plays certain card.
If you have any instant speed damage or life loss you are actually holding the Aetherflux Reservoir player in check. They need to have a reasonable buffer above 50 to be able to use it. Remember: 50 life is the cost to activate it. You pay that immediately. Then 50 dmg to someone goes on the stack. If you have 53 life and Aetherflux someone and in response someone else Lightning Bolts you, you die and your damage effect on the stack is removed from the game. There are also cards like Trickbind which counter activated abilities. If Aetherflux is countered, remember, that player still payed the 50 life, because that is the cost of the ability.
Rad episode thanks for the hard work team! I believe in brewing and playing the deck you want and like but the one card I hesitate adding more than any other is dockside extortionist.
I have a Venture into the Dungeon deck with Acerak. Everyone always says I should add Rooftop storm to it to go infinite, but that ruins the venture gimmick of the deck
I definitely agree with the tutor advice. I've taken them out of my decks too. I will still run them in my one high power deck. But I actually like the lack of consistency that I get when I don't run tutors. I don't want every game to play out the same way.
I think it really depends on your decks wincon, if you've built a combo heavy deck, and need a specific card to start up your engine so to speak, a couple tutors definitely helps consistency there. My Pyromancy deck does run a couple of the various tutors from white, blue, and black simply because my win con hinges on getting one of 3 enchantments from my deck, and a 3 in 99 chance is too low to effectively pull off. But in my Kavu deck, I have zero tutors, because there's no reason for it in there, the deck is about going wide, not going for a specific combo piece. So yeah, depending on your decks playstyle and game plan, tutors are definitely good, but could be left out in a lot of decks.
The card I don’t run is Curse of Exhaustion. It just removes a player until they get an enchantment removal, which ruins the game not only for them, but the rest of the table. I just added Smothering Tithe to a Kwain deck. It’s so much upkeep when I make all players draw a card. I might not be keeping it in there long. My favourite thing with Scute Swarm is to make 5-10 copies, then when I play a land, mystic reflect them into something else. Last game, I made 12 Eternal Witnesses, got my grave back, The time before, I made 10 copies of a creature with initiative, and those 10 ventures won me the game
Unfortunately mystic reflection doesn't work like that with scute swarm. When you have 5 scute swarms and play a land your actually triggering each one separately to make another copy, and the way mystic reflection reads is the "next time you would make tokens replace them with X." So it replaces only the first scute swarm trigger of just 1 copy of another scute swarm into whatever you want then boom mystic reflection has met its criteria and no longer replaces copies and you just finish making 4 more scute swarms. The best way to utilize mystic reflection is something that has 1 trigger to make lots of tokens like Avenger of Zendikar. When you go yo make 7 plants after it etbs you replace those with mystic reflection to be 7 more Avengers, (which finishes Reflections trigger it no replaces anything for the turn) and after those 7 avengers enter they each make 7 plants now for a total of 21 plants and 8 total avengers to buff them next land drop.
I used to be a patron of the command zone, but with my life situation changing and time I found myself not watching the podcast episodes any more. Commander sphere has been my favorite podcast for the past three or so years, so when Rachel came here, I immediately decided to come back! It's so great to see what she brings to the podcast, and I'm looking forward to listening to every episode again!
I have a treasure generating deck that 1 of my 1st cuts was Dockside Extortionist. Sure, it gets me treasure, but it also gets me noticed, and draws the ire of anyone else utilizing treasures.
I would suggest to Gaurav to view Coat of Arms more as an overrun effect than a piece you rush out. Like, say I have 25 goblins on he field, then cast CoA to swing for lethal.
Two of my three were mentioned. Tutors (other than land ramp) as I don't like decks getting the same thing all the time. As Rachel said, it's nice to try to win with what you draw Cathars crusade, I don't have enough dice for that Reserved list cards, some are super powerful and I don't think it's fair for me to have access to them when many people can't and won't ever have the chance
Love the topic, for me one of them is Pitiless Plunderer in my Juri sacrifice deck. It is incredibly good, and can go infinite, what I dislike and why I preclude it, is that it goes infinite so easily. Any of my other mana producers on sacrifice, be it an Altar of Ashnod or cards like Pawn of Ulamog, etc., I can combo it in so many ways and just go infinite. I don't enjoy that as the sole win con, so I more curated to do effects similar, but they aren't infinite and only scale upward without a response.
The tutors one was interesting. I've been playing magic about 6ish months at this point and everything I come up with and plan out a new deck, the person who taught me constantly suggests tutors and other search cards but when I've played, I see tutors getting used so very rarely. Now I don't know if I'm just bad at deck building and my friend doesn't want to tell me and instead suggests tutors coz they may be the only way to make a deck functional, or if it's just that how he plays, he likes to be able to go and get those annoying combos and know exactly how he's going to win, and it's rubbing off on his advice giving, but it is still interesting to hear someone talking negatively about tutors.... I mean the only deck I've properly built from scratch rather then just editing a precon atm is running tutors but I may end up swapping them out for better cards... maybe more lands or land searchers since goodness knows I have terrible land luck.
Tutors are useful, but I find they lead to repetitive/boring gameplay patterns. If you goal is to just have fun, swap them out for card draw or repeating a synergy.
I never tutor for combo's, always something to make sure I can actually play and have fun. Last tutor was for something that could give me 1 white mana so I could cast my commander :D
I also think tutoring for consistency and combos is boring, because for me it's the opposite of what makes commander what it is. For higher tier gamplay it's important, but that's a different topic. Tutoring for answers is nice, but the general problem why most people don't run tutors that often is imo, the price. Either you run a 50 € tutor or a 4 or 5 cmc tutor. Budget tutors are to slow gamplay wise, while good tutors at instant speed are just way to expensive for 1 card.. I personal only run 1 tutor for 3 cmc on my dihada deck and also don't know if I wanna swap it out.
Honestly, I don’t drop a lot of Likes here anymore, especially from the earlier days of the channel when Jimmy & Josh are mainly advocating for the strongest options available. This episode is nice… & different, presenting other considerations for not auto-including said strongest options. I too, have standing dis-preference towards certain cards/categories for reasons like logistics (Cathars’ Crusade), common annoyances/grievers (discard, play other players’ card, steal permanents, etc), even non-thematic staples (like the classic 1 MV removal spells). I Liked this episode
A great follow up may be what bad cards do you put into your decks. As an inverse of this where it may not be the optimal solution but your personal favorite for one reason or another. Or maybe one where you choose a cheaper option that performs a similar role as a budget focused episode. For a long time I would try to make Storm spirits work. That was back around Mirage block and I never really got it to be worth the hassle of getting it out. Maybe now with commander and or spirit support I could make it work, though it would still be pretty bad with so many even better options. Coat of Arms maybe needs a lighter math version maybe with counters and an activation trigger for when it checks. Removing the tutors sounds like sound advice to get more of the draw hype experience. Drawing a good chance card sounds more fun than a sure solution. Especially in Commander where part of the appeal is seeing a wider variety of stuff. Reducing the number of auto include type of cards is probably good all around. I dig the better help ad. The bit where Jimmy accepts the loss was gold as comedy and message. I never really understood necropotence well enough to use it despite knowing it is supposed to be good. I like the outside perspective on some of these cards and how they impact such as the time sink of sensei's divining top. I never really actively thought about turn or play efficiency from the perspective of time sinks or mental sinks dragging down the experience or stalling out the game flow with things like the voidwalker. Are there other types of acceleration like the jeweled lotus that can be cut to create a better play experience? Scute swarm sounds like you would need a calculator to keep up with it in short order. Imagine the math of that with Coat of Arms.... Is the blue castle background based on a card or a piece of art? I kind of want to change my pc background now.
I run tutors in my voltron decks. If I'm going to experience the same playpattern of my opponents casting removal spells on my commander before I can properly set up, I might as well play into that by making sure I can defend against the guaranteed answer to my main wincon.
Philadelphian here! Reading Terminal Market is right next to the convention center and is an absolute must to check out for food. Beilers in the Reading Terminal Market is a must for donuts, Old City Coffee (also in Reading Terminal Market) has great coffee. Tons of great food options as well. Passeros is also a good local coffee place. McGuillian's pub is the oldest pub in Philly and worth checking out.
In my omnath deck I run jokulhaups and a koma, float the 13 mana, cast the jokul and then the koma. People usually scoop once koma hits since it's such a fast clock . Better to have 1 wrath and use it effectively rather than 10 and using them willy nilly.
That was a great Episode. Reminded me to put Jeweled Lotus in my Tergrid Deck. I'm only playing it once every 2 months and then really try to CRUSH and show people why she is the god of FRIGHT :D Which is not happening when i play her on turn 5 when everyone has an answer and mana ready.
completely agree. the best part of playing commander (excluding cedh) is that its a singleton format and you should be having fun. yeah, we all want to win, but even when playing the same deck, 5-10 times, you get 5-10 different games cuz of playing/drawing different cards each time.
Even just browsing commander lists for ideas, if you sort by price the more expensive version of decks tend to end up being a bunch of really good tutors and other all-star efficient cards taking up all the spots that, compared to cheaper commander decks, maintain the theme or spirit of the deck. Tribal decks are the worst abou it, spells replaced with generic tutors n junk, creatures replaced by boring shapeshifters.
Tutors allow people to build decks in Commander, that would have been more fun in a 60-card format. They're like grease for putting a square peg in a round hole.
I stopped playing tutors when our group was looking for ways to power our decks down and boy has it been a major improvement! Turns are shorter, luck-of-the-draw leads to way more fun, the whacky less optimal cards that wouldn't get tutored for get to see more play. Highly recommend!
I also loved Arthur’s comment on tutors…I’m fairly new to using tutors in my deck as I too prefer the surprise of what I draw…however, in some of the decks, such as my ur dragon it’s a necessity so I can find the cards that make my dragons easier to get out I.e. fist of suns and nyxbloom ancient…but I only have 1 or 2 tutors per deck because I don’t want to always have the answer I want to work towards it!!!
I used to use tutors. found my game played the same almost every time. ended up being boring. Commander (EDH), in my opinion, is more fun when your deck plays differently in multiple plays. Having said that, I don't mind if somebody tutors for the answer to current board state. It's the combo searchers that make the game less fun.
I guess I don't use tutors correctly. I feel like a good 75% of the time or better I find myself tutoring for an answer not some type of wincon. Also, though, I only have a couple of decks that have actual combos in them.
I run overwhelming splendor since there are multiple cards like "Songbird's blessing" that can cascade into it, and cards that can grab it from the grave and put it into play.
I actually have a perfect example of this; Sage of Hours. My Favorite deck is my Ramos, Dragon Engine deck. it is a multicolor counters deck, and sort of a Ghave Secret Commander deck. The idea of the deck was finding ways to convert +1/+1 counters into other resources, move them around, and just do inventive things with them, or just even come in tall if all else fails. Sage of Hours has gone in and out multiple times, either for not having enough stuff that targets, or when I did fix that problem it felt like that was the way I was winning most games thanks to the deluge of counters flying around. There's so many extra win cons like Simic Ascendency or Door to Nothingness or Ghave loops to go wide or other fun things and it felt like I was winning SO many games with Sage of Hours loops that it just got people resenting the deck and it simply went into retirement. It's also a card that creates solitaire situations in a deck that normally doesn't have them TOO badly.
This topic was made for me. In my Dina deck I don't run any planeswalkers, double faced cards, and I only have a single card that can "search my library". I also specifically took out Exquisite Blood, because I just didn't like how it was basically an instant win card. It made my deck super inconsistent based on if I drew it or not, and it didn't let me do the thing I wanted to do with the deck (keep on playing permanents until I overwhelm with a million pings of life loss). Even though it's literally the perfect card for this deck, it just didn't match the power level I wanted. In my Meren deck I don't run any planeswalkers, double faced cards, or any cards that let me draw cards. I also specifically kept in my copy of Entomb and will not replace it, even though there are cards that have better synergy in this deck. This is my flagship deck, so I made it to represent me, and the collector part of me wants one of each of the masterpiece cards in the deck. Entomb, being the Amonkhet masterpiece that works best for this deck, stays, just to complete the set. Likewise, I hate double faced cards and planeswalkers were what got me out of the game years ago, before I came back. Not drawing cards is just a fun thing that I could work around with Meren, and happened to help avoid nonbos with Chains of Mephistopheles. My Yedora deck only runs a single instant and a single sorcery. It's fun to find ways to work around the missing spells, and there are some fun combos and synergies you get to do too. My Tevesh Szat and Rograkh deck doesn't make red mana. It still gets to use red spells, but only if they don't need red mana to be used. My Omnath, Locus of Mana deck doesn't have anything that makes colorless mana. It makes it simple to synergize with the commander, but you'd be surprised how many staples you get to avoid. No Sol Ring? Yup. My Ayula deck: every nonland card in it has "bear" in its name or typeline. Because bears, that's why. My 60 card monogreen elves deck doesn't have any cards that work on their own, outside of maybe Llanowar Elves (I have four of every functional Llanowar Elves reprint too). Because elves are powerful no matter what you do, so why run Craterhoof Behemoth when instead you could assemble a Pathbreaker Ibex with a Wellwisher via Emergence Zone? It makes games way more fun. I even have a cEDH deck made of entirely handwritten proxies that runs almost entirely cards that are strictly worse than other cards, like Wasteland instead of Strip Mine, just to annoy cEDH players. The deck also doesn't have any infinite combos, and usually wins by slow combat damage, again, just to show how silly the cEDH format is. The point is, building with deck and card restrictions makes the game way more interesting and fun. It can also keep you in check, if you, like me, can get hyper competitive without meaning to. That's just one reason I only own black and green cards. I can't imagine how unfun it would be to play against me if I allowed myself to make blue decks. I know this from the few times I played blue or red or white in draft, or when I pilot someone else's deck for a game - I get so much hate. Sticking to Golgari colors also gives me a specific identity at my LGS ("Oh hey, you're the golgari guy!") and it helps my budget when new cards come out (I think I'll just ignore that new $200 blue planeswalker thank you). So I highly recommend limiting yourself in creative ways. If you don't win, you still got to play a really creative way, and if you do win, it's that much more satisfying. Either way, the game will be much more enjoyable for the whole table - I mean come on - everyone loves mono-bears.
Interesting how I've had similar realizations on some of the same cards, but it does come down to how you want to play your deck. A friend of mine has been trying to evaluate how well his Hazezon deck runs but the games where Scute Swarm appears really skew the data. As for me I've taken Reliquary Tower out of decks because I don't have decks where I draw excessive amounts of cards and evaluating which 7 of your cards can win you the game is important. I also realized I've removed Spellseeker from almost all my decks, despite having 1) a wizard tribal deck, 2) a blink/ETB deck, and 3) a spellslinger deck. I have one copy left among those three, and I think it's #2 (because the value is absurd). #1 didn't have enough instants/sorceries anymore, while #3 I leaned more into just including instants and sorceries instead of tutors. I de-tutored one deck and entirely restructured it because if I drew a tutor (like Spellseeker) I would just tutor out the same combo pieces and go for the win. So I never got to utilize the other cool, lesser-known cards in the deck. The most efficient combo wasn't even unique to the commander or exciting, it was just Dualcaster Mage+Twinflame. Dualcaster Mage is another card I've removed from decks, and both Twinflame and Heat Shimmer remain in my binder.
Josh’s take on Jeweled Lotus was good. I decided against getting one for my Niv-Mizzet, Parun deck since I already get targeted whenever I play that commander so adding Jeweled Lotus would brand me as archenemy even more.
With dark ritual in these K'rrik decks: it's in your opening hand, you've won😆 okay maybe not auto-win but it is brutal. Mana crypt, Sol Ring, pay 6life and start yoyoing with your life total. In the meantime, everyone just get up and start making sandwiches
Topic suggestion: gameplay techniques that help simplify complicated plays for the table to understand. What are the tricks you like for things like: making the stack easier to understand, handling lots of tokens counters and temporary effects, floating mana, etc.
Personally, D6 are for +1 counters (or minus, if both use strictly different colors) and anthems are a single D20. If I am generating a lot of tokens I’ll have 3 tokens with D20’s. One for untapped, on for tapped. And one for sickness. Playgroup has a good way to handle complicated stacks, we lay cards in middle of of the table in order cast so we can visualize the order, and face down cards to symbolize triggers from permanents. Everyone is responsible for their own triggers and spells to explain what happens when it resolves.
For +1/+1 counters, we have actual +1/+1 counter D6's, so we can use that to track those while using regular dice to track quantity of tokens. Colored spindowns for floating mana. One person always forgets to draw so he started putting his hand down sideways on the top of his deck so he has to pick it up from there each time and remember to draw. Placement of commanders can get confusing, so some of us stick our commanders out of the side of our library when not in play so they're floating in their own special command zone.
@@gregboulton8230 Designate a spot for new land drops away from your other lands, then every untap step, move any lands in that spot down to the rest of your lands.
I take Scute Swarm and I raise you Iridescent Hornbeetle! "{4}{G} • Creature - Insect • 3/4 • At the beginning of your end step, create a 1/1 green Insect creature token for each +1/+1 counter you've put on creatures under your control this turn." This means any time you consider playing this you have to keep track of the number of +1/+1 counters you are putting on your creatures and every turn going forward if it stays on the board. In decks like Phylath world sculptor or with cards like branching evolution, grumgully, master biomancer, and others this gets way more annoying to keep track of than even Scute Swarm. It has the potential to be a very powerful card, but it is such a headache and time suck to resolve it's ability I immediately cut it from my list.
I've been following the command Zone ever since this teams first few gameplays. Most of the time I place orders now, I do order through Card Kingdom. I do shop around to see what works best as far as price goes but definitely Card Kingdom has been the store where I can order all the cards I want or at least most of them in one transaction.
If you order a lot, I found the TCG player subscription works even better. Cheaper prices and you can get all cards (from sellers in the service) in one envelope. Its like $7 a month but free shipping and like I said all in the same envelope. Pays for itself in a few orders.
I'm a few days late, but here are some cards that I don't play: stuff that wins super easily (Triumph of the Horde, Mechanized Production), cards that can be seen as combo pieces (Ashnod's Altar, Isochron Scepter), cards that create to much rules problems and moving stuff around, cards that just shut down other decks completely (old Elesh, Planar Void, Null Rod). Cards that I try to add: stuff that can turn a game completely around, like Inkshield, Rakdos Charm, Deflecting Palm and Narsets Reversal.
Dictate of Erebos is one for me, I love Aristocrat strategies but with enough creatures you can end up holding the board hostage until someone can out it, and enchantments ofc are one of the hardest to hit permanents for some colors.
Top can also be a trap card when deciding if you want to mulligan. Keeping a 1 or even 2 land hand and thinking, "Well there's a Top so I can just Top into a way out." rarely works out.
Having said that I own 4 and run them all, but three of them are in decks that run off the top of the deck, Prosper, Grist, and Galea. The fourth is in my Marath, and that's mostly because it's my pet deck and well, Top is Top. Lol
I feel yall on the tutor take, I've really noticed that players eyes start to glaze over when you tutor more than once in a single turn. We play high power so it's all far in love and war but there are feels bad moments when you're tutoring and they would rather scoop because it's easier to just start a new game
Card I most identified with cutting: Tutors. My three new decks for 2022 had no tutors in them and they were more fun to play, and to play against, becasue of it. Every game feels different and every card gets to shine in its moment. Card I least identified with cutting: Reliquary tower. But the reasons given were excellent and I'll put serious thought into cutting that and thought vessel. In a 15 card hand, I'm not sure that cards 8-15 are worth the threat perception they create.
I love playing without Tutors! I replaced it with card draw and I felt my decks became less powerful but I had more often fun as I more often had a hand to interract with the game. :)
@@erik.pajula rampant growths and such are completely different in function and perpose to a worldly tutor or demonic tutor he'll look at the prices to show the difference
I really enjoyed this episode. I recently removed Dockside and Thoracle from my decks the former because it draws a lot of hate and I wasn't looping or anything so it often wasn't worth the trouble. The latter I removed because I was utterly bored of the wincon. I feel there is little interaction with thoracle and there are more "fair" ways to win by drawout like labman or jace.
THAT is the commander content I want more of. You guys are right, what you don't include tells as much, if not more, about what kind of player you are.
I still play a few wraths in each deck but my take is: if you don't think you are well positioned after a wrath, you're (usually) kingmaking or dragging out the game unnecessarily. If I don't think I have a shot at winning after the board is wiped I'd much rather shuffle up for another game.
Rhystic study, if I am in blue there are a million ways to draw cards that don't annoy people. Mystic Remora, above but also people just ramped with creatures of just held off until I gave up on it
13:45 fun thing for many players, that reanimator deck players also hate & hope you wrath instead bc less of their shit gets used, is that Cyclonic Rift prevents recursion. Note, it's fun to use this after they have glode reanimated with, for example, Day of the Dead, Living End, OG Liliana Vess, etc. Reanimator players, don't hate me. I sometimes play reanimator decks, I just don't get as worked up. Yeah, it can be Annoying, but I use plenty of reanimation & spell recursion. Or I'd play dredge with answers to Dauthi whatsistface.
A type of card I do play but have thought about stopping are the enchantments that turn a creature into a land or another creature with no abilities. My friends have a feel bad moment when it happens. Plus in some colors, like mono red and mono black, enchantments are hard to deal with.
It’s not so much the card but how players use it. If you actually had to steadily mill your deck to win, it would be fun but 99% of the time, the win comes from infinite combo and draw the entire deck to win. It’s the equivalent to infinite mana and fireball all opponents but easier to draw into…
Agree. I like variety and got very tired of 50% of games ending in lab man winning and later the other 2 versions. The one exception where I think I wouldn't be annoyed by Thassas Oracle is if they didn't draw/mill combo but developed enough blue devotion to win with half their deck left. I think I'd congratulate the opponent if they can pull that off.
One of my favorite things I've ever done in magic is mindslaves someone playing Pako and Haldan. I made them play my exiled stolen goblin caboomist, tap out, and pass the turn.
Reliquary Tower is a lot better when instead of just running some incremental card draw, you have ways of drawing MASSIVE numbers of cards. For example: * Necrologia/Necropotence * Peer into the Abyss * Decree of Pain * Massive ramp + X draw spells * Greater Good (or other "draw cards equal to creature's power" effects) + enormous creatures
I totally agree about Sensei's Divining Top. To an extent I feel the same way about cards like Scroll Rack, Brainstorm, etc. I don't think they go in EVERY deck. Just because a card is generically useful doesn't mean it is good in every deck. I like to think about what I want to do with the deck and if certain "good cards" synergize with what I already want to do. I'm fine with Smothering Tithe, but I don't put it in every white deck because it doesn't match the type of game I want from certain decks. Same with Dauthi Voidwalker.
In my Playgroup we play No Ban format. Two rules: #1 If you get beat by an opponents deck you get to play that deck against them in the next game. #2 You can't complain to the group about any ambdominal aches caused by laughing too hard!
I won't be able to attend the convention in my hometown sadly, but I can at least recommend some places you have to go to. 1. You have to hit up the Redding Terminal Market, plenty of great food there and imo you can't go wrong with any shop in that place. 2. Try out Wawa, it's a convenience store with some good options for quick food on the go and it's pretty much all solid. 3. Go to Pat's, Steve's, and Geno's, and when you get your cheesesteak, I recommend you get it "wit" aka with onions (I'm not a fan personally but it is tradition and you gotta follow tradition at least once before you break it if you are not from here). A lot of people from Philly will swear by one over the others (to the point of violence, part of the charm of our fair city) but for my money I just recommend travelers to try all three and form your own opinion. The only thing I ask is that when you form your opinion, you stand by it and take no guff from anyone who dares think otherwise, it is the Philly way. (In case anyone wonders, my preference is Steve's). As for the other question, I have a very simple answer, I play in a budget pod, and as a result, I don't play pretty much any good card that cost's more than 10 dollars (and even then only one of theose $10 cards in a deck generally speaking). I have personally found the experience to be infinitely more enjoyable than standard EDH. Budget unrestricted honestly wound up feeling very samey after a while, kept seeing the same cards constantly pop up and none of them were actually fun. Rift, tithe, [insert one sided board wipe here], dockside, good tutors, ect. All the usual suspects. Since converting the pod to $100 budget decks we have more fun games with more creative decklists. Everyone gets to pretty much do whatever their decks were designed for even if they don't win and even though the games generally take more turns (since on that budget it can take a couple extra turns for everyone to get rolling), the games are overall faster and we get to have more in a night.
I play restrictive tutors like Imperial Recruiter. I think going for restrictive tutors in the 3cmc space is ok. And I also limit the tutors in my decks 2-3 max.
I wish my friend running 10 tutors in his krrik Deck would think like that, but ATM it just plain boring playing agaisnt him for how broken and telegraphed their turns are.
I play Mindslaver in Muldrotha Artifacts for 2 reasons. 1. It turns a 3 person game into a 2v1 2. I have ways to make a game 3v1 with replaying it from the grave
Expropriate is always the first card I cut whenever I run a deck that has blue. I sometimes sneak in one card for an extra turn for flavor (Karn's Temporal Summoning in a Jodah Unifier deck, for example) but every time I put Expropriate in a deck I end up cutting it before the deck is played.
I don't use Cathar's Crusade. Massive amounts of bookkeeping, and every creature has different numbers of counters, so it's difficult to group tokens. Plus, it draws more attention than I like.
Totally agree with Josh about the lotus. I didn't even bother about buying it, even if my playground plays kinda 8ish decks with pretty nasty things into it. It's kinda unfun and a pretty dead draw in many cases. About this topic in general I think we have to think about what is too powerful/ unfun in our particular deck, not in general. For example, I'm not playing mana crypt anymore in very commander centric decks, with very powerful commanders that can be summon too early because of it (let's say Korvold / Orvar as pretty obvious examples). But I still play the crypt in other decks, especially no green ones. In the same mindset, I can play very powerful cards if they match my deck's theme and serves its game plan. But not in other decks when it's just winmore or just a "goodstuff" card. I play dauthi in Yuriko, because it can't be blocked and I don't care about my graveyard. I play scute swarm in my land deck because it's a wincon by itself in this deck, and it draws attention away from my real key cards. I play tutors in combo decks but I never include any combo with less than 4-5 cards to go off. It's a general balance topic, in your particular deck, and in your pod in general. Removing sol ring / crypt / lotus in the entire pod can also be a good start to add balance and fun
I cut all fast mana. This includes every mana postive rock including sol ring. I feel for the advantage it gives you in the moment it always turns the game into a 1v3 very quickly and the game is no longer fun when you have to fend off 3 players using everything at you. I have found over the years that just hitting land drops every turn and a ramp spell or two within the first 4-5 turns is enough to do anything my decks could want. It is alot easier for them to do there things without all the hate from the table.
I like this! Except what if you’re in a color that doesn’t ramp with spell? Like for example I play a mono-black deck what would your answer be for that? I’m genuinely curious because I like this idea!
@@theaeskey2502 hey rocks are fine, I usually run 4-6, but ramp is not just rocks. You can make whatever it is your strategy is based on cheaper spell wise. I was just talking about fast mana mostly. (Mana crypt, Moxs, Jeweled lotus and such. They draw more hate then they are worth having, outside of cdh. My black decks I usually am agro so I run the swords set, so Feast and Hearth would get you some ramp while giving protection. Most blacks otherwise usually do tokens/aristocrats so you can run the altars for mana. For my olivia deck I also run Nurkana Rev. It doubles swamp mana plus you can dump the extra to add damage on it for pumping. Black you rely more on rocks unfortunately. I typically run the 2 cost rocks, and stonespeaker crystal. In mono black do not be afraid to run cabal if you really have a payout for the mana, just hold it till you are ready to end with a hellfire.
The cards I don't choose to use can be very easily grouped: "cards that are more then 10 bucks and I didn't pull from a pack myself"
Another man of culture I see.
Same thing but for me it’s over three bucks unless it is a key card for the deck that I am building then I don’t know over five dollars
I wish I could like this comment twice!!
@@ericpartridge8300 Hard fricking truth.
Skipping prerelease today just because it isn't worth the $30 coming with draft packs and no good promos 😭
Same. Love my jeweled lotus. Only have it because I pulled it. Lol otherwise I would never buy one.
4:50 the episode starts here
6:46 Murph
11:29 Craig
14:19 Gaurav
17:45 Jake
20:33 Arthur
28:52 Ladee
31:00 Damen
33:55 Manson
36:51 Jordan
40:32 Josh
42:45 Rachel
Also Rachel at ~42:45
@@Kleion_RFBThanks I added it
u tha goat
Not all heroes wear capes
Thank you kind sir
Rachel is my favorite even before she joined the crew. She builds good decks, knows rule interactions (She's a CAG Member) and she's not afraid of flavorful Jank.
I'm gonna miss the commander sphere though
She plays, and supports, stickers and you don’t like silly?
+1
She loves her some jank
She said at the end about 13 lives they all made it out. Thats not corrwct one of the navy seals died rescuing rhem
I love when Rachel caught him on “I don’t use board wipes” … “So do you use Cyclonic Rift?” ………. “I use Cyclonic Rift in EVERYTHING”.
Yeah, I don't really know what point he was trying to make. He doesn't like white board wipes, but he likes the best blue board wipe.
@@andrewdonnelly4685 he builds his decks like an aggro player and expects to run out of resources. then when he runs out of resources he uses his lack of board wipes to lose harder. these type of linear players are quite a handful to play against. they are never useful in the pod and only play the game of "who goes off first"
@@johnphipps4960 it's the correct way to play NOBODY wants to play pass the 25 min mark of a game
@@andrewdonnelly4685 he's saying he doesn't like board wipes where you're behind so you board wipe to reset board back to 0 . Cyclonic rift just straight up wins you the game or at least kills one or two people when you use it with a developed board.
@@famousstranger8468 I do.
This is exactly the kind of discussion I love Rachel for instigating and I'm so glad her voice is being amplified by joining the staff here! Yay for Rachel!
This is the best content you've released in a long while.
Feel like every creator is stuck on spoiler/review/repeat and it's boring af
The advice of focusing on advancing your own board rather than effectively destroying your opponents board is a perfect summation.
More Arthur Medowcroft! Smart, attentive, insightful, polite, and humble. Seems like the good human being I actually want to sit across the table from.
I really hope Craig is in the game knights episode for the phyrexia set. Haven't seen him play in a while + want to his what infect shenanigans he will pull
Rachel is such a wonderful addition to the command zone.
I agree! I'm wondering where Jimmy is, though. I took a magic break, came back and I don't see him.
Great topic! I really appreciate the not playing cards that make opponents say "Oh *sigh* i gotta do what now?" theme.
I think Gaurav is just using Coat of Arms incorrectly. There is 0 reason to play it when creatures are still going to be entering or leaving the battlefield. Your goal is to have 10+ tribal creatures, and drop CoA like a craterhoof bahemoth. You should be dropping CoA, declaring attacks, and winning the game with it. Or you hold it because if you are the only tribal deck someone is going to kill it before it has its biggest possible affect. You don't drop CoA early and "whittle" people down with your slightly buffed creatures.
This. Learned this the hard way with my Rogue Tribal deck. I hadn't even read Coat of Arms correctly when I put it in the deck and didn't realise it affected everyone, not just me! Needless to say the Elf ball deck I was against trounced me from there. Play it to end the game or hold it.
Good point, thanks for that!
I get both sides. You ideally play it to win, but if someone fogs, or teferi's protection, uses targeted removal to prevent lethal combat damage, it is a card that requires a lot of maintenance. Even if your intentions are to end the game, that doesn't always happen, and then, yes, it is an annoying card to play. That said, i agree, this card should be held until you intend to win.
You're correct there. It should be used like a colorless Overrun and not an anthem.
A similar situation is people playing Beastmaster Ascension on T3 with 1-2 creatures in play. You play it until you have 7 creatures and start killing players.
I'm absolutely on the "No Tutors" train. It feels like too many games boil down to "let's get the same card". It's especially difficult if I'm in a "control" style list and I tutor for... What?
I have a 5 color Ramos deck that uses nothing but modal spells. If I have a tutor for it... What do I tutor for? There's too many options.
I love this question, and I think it's really important for people to consider. Specifically in regards to a card being too powerful and you either think it won't make for fun games, or will draw you too much hate at the table. It was very interesting to hear everyone's perspective.
i remember when i played my landfall deck that the player next to me had rakdos charm in their hand while i kept making scute swarms to the point i took 16 million damage from 1 spell
Yes! Rakdos charm is one of my ultimate pet cards with 2 very relevant modes and a third that won't come up super often but when it does it just wins the game!
I've come to hate Rakdos Charm. In commander someone is inevitably going to go wide at some point, since you need to attack while leaving back enough blockers.
Rakdos Charm just feels like a one card game nullifier, where nothing that came before matters because the player that was winning instantly loses.
It's probably my saltiest card. At least Mindslaver requires some interaction, and it's possible to come back from a Cyclonic Rift. Why is there a 2-mana "you have a strong board state so you lose" card, especially one with other useful options?
@@adamrobinson6951 It is hardly a “you have a strong board state, so you lose” card. You have 40 life. It is basically only a counter against very specific token decks (ie. doubling season etc.). The 2 mana is not that relevant as by the time it would be an effective amount of damage, it could easily cost 7+ without much inconvenience.
Rakdos Charm is one of my favourite cards. It's won me multiple games
Rhystic Study, Smothering tithe, and other cards where I feel like I'm stepping on someone else's turn with all the triggers. They feel like they throw off game rhythm even with experienced players and they are awful with new players. If I am reacting on someone else's turn, I would rather have that one spicy moment where the whole table yells like casting Sublime Epiphany.
Even Underworld dreams is embarassing to play
I really appreciated this insight. I wish they would have asked, “which deck would you absolutely play this card in”. Some of these cards are evergreen, but a few seemed narrow.
Really cool video. Great explanations of why each player doesn't play those cards.
Scute swarm is one of my favorite cards, I find that the easiest way to keep track of it is to stick my phone calculator on it makes calculations much easier
I run it in a Chatterfang deck with parallel lives, doubling season, and primal vigor and at a certain point I just leave it at 120 or something and don't bother making more.
Just always play massacre wurm
I have it in one deck, but it’s usually removed within one round, so the “bookkeeping” is never an issue, lol
I love when my group plays this against my toxrill deck.
Scute Swarm on its own is cool, but the joy for me is in mutating Scute Swarm to make a bunch of ridiculous copies.
Rachel is a great addition. Keep these episodes coming.
Craig's explanation is the best. I co-sign everything he said in his segment.
I love how Jake references reading rainbow. Made me lol but also reminisce
My good card I don't use is Telepathy. Gives a good advantage, but slows things to a crawl and makes everyone at the table hate you
yeah I considered adding that one to a deck, but after thinking about it I realized that it was just miserable to play against and decided not to
I think mine would be Dockside Extortionist. It’s so easy to put it into every one of my Mardu decks but the only one I have it in is Kelsien, which has a lot of blink effects.
Regarding Smothering Tithe: My approach is to tell the table, "I am going to make a treasure every time you draw a card unless you tell me otherwise." This gets rid of at least some of the nuisance factor in my experience.
In my experience this just leads to the whole table asking everyone all the time “Are you gonna pay his two?” And it’s just as annoying
Yea but thats also not how triggers are supposed to work youre supposed to remind people
Honestly from all of these the one that stuck with me the most and the one I relate to heavily is Arthur Meadowcrofts take on tutors! Really good one.
That was my exact thought. My 3rd deck ever had a ton of tutors (Wilhelt with a bunch of infinite wincons) no deck I've built since has more than 1 tutor because I want variety in my games
I know that pain with Coat of Arms. I also run one in my elf tribal deck. The last time I played it, it resulted in a hilarious standoff because it was buffing the other players' boards thanks to my own creatures. May end up replacing it with something else now that I'm thinking about it.
The con sounds fun, but I was just in Philly for PAX Unplugged and can't justify going back again so soon.
As far as food, the Reading Terminal Market has wide variety of options. Also, the convention center is near a good sushi place and a good pho place.
The card I don't play anymore is curse of opulence (thanks richard from mtg goldfish)
1) It makes one person the punching bag, basically forcing them to lose slowly as they fall behind in life and resources
2) if there are multiple arch enemy commanders, you king make
Just doesn't lead to fun situations
Jewelled Lotus - to avoid the situations Josh outlined, it can be good to hold it in your hand until a few turns later, when there are other threats at the table / you're more set up to deal with the heat it might give you. It's still a great ritual effect, saving your lands that turn to use reactively. The same principal can be applied to "remove on sight" commanders; often the best way to play them is to not play them until you have the ability to protect them.
More to the point, only drop the lotus when you're going to crack it. There are almost no situations where you want the lotus in play. Literally use it as a Dark Ritual for your commander
Also, I never understood the thought that this is a dead card if you draw it later in the game. The Lotus pays commander tax, which is a great use of it, especially if, like me, you play a lot of Kill On Sight commanders
Great fun episode. Definitely a template I'd be happy to see repeated for different topics
YES!!!
I also don't run generic tutors in my decks. I'll occasionally run a thematic limited tutor if it fits the deck, but I prefer my games to play out differently every time. When I run tutors I find that the decks end up playing too linearly for my preferences.
These comments make me think I use tutors wrong. I don't really look for combo pieces, I tend to just look for what looks good in the moment and that means I typically get a bunch of different cards rather then just 1 or 2 blanket look fors.
@@kitsu1379 This is exactly how you use tutors without being linear. People freak out when you demonic tutor like you're about to win the game when in reality I just searched for a land bc mana screwed
@@servalkorion686 I run Idyllic and Enlightned in an enchantment deck and usually, I use it to look for a reasonably low cost enchantment that I can use to prock my enchantress draw abilities or just to set up for something I'm plannin for like.. I dunno two three turns down the line. I have demonic and vampiric in a liesa deck and that deck does have an infinate combo but tbh i'm more likely to use them to search for something I can use for protection like Myrel or Grand Abolisher ya know? Less looking for instant wins and more stuff that just kinda helps keep me in the game for a bit longer.
@@servalkorion686 Also yea, I am so often mana screwed and have such bad luck with land draws that if I sometimes "waste" a tutor to look for a land.
I don't play Aetherflux Reservoir anymore. I felt as if I was holding the entire table hostage. It sucked the joy out of the game and really brought the mood down for the rest of the night.
I just promise people I wont use it if we go down to 1v1 or if someone targets it for removal. My need for it is that its extra life gain triggers. I will use it if its still a 3 or 4 man game and someone is "unjustly" targeting me AFTER I explain the condition I have for it. Like my goal is not to use the nuclear option. But IF someone at the table chooses to "give the game to someone else" because they have some kind of hill to die on and I know Im not going to make any progress because that one person is martyrdoming me. So I speed it up and just take us both out of the equation.
My playgroup has learned to either keep me under the 50 threshold just so it doesnt come online, or that after Im above 50 to not spend 4 pieces of removal on my board JUST bc its online and to use those removals for actual threats.
You see, I actually really enjoy using Aetherflux because of that hostage type situation. It forces my opponents to make suboptimal places by either attempting to deal with it and possibly dying to it, or forcing me to use it at a time that I don't want to, thereby losing me the game. It also frequently guarantees a quicker game.
Side Note: I run Aetherflux with The Golden Throne in my Elas Il-Kor deck, and it's a hilarious synergy.
seems like it's more like people don't know how to play against these "I can kill you any moment" situtations. First of all, you can't make deals and kingmake someone who has kill button for a player. It's even more salty play that they can just use others to kill others. Second, you have no option other than play into it, because when it is used, other players are free from that hostage situtation and can take him out. Sometimes they don't even want to use it because they get rest of the table on focusing him. Bonus: If you know what kind of game you are going into, then it's also mostly players issue when someone plays certain card.
Holding the table hostage is exactly why I would play an Aetherflux Reservoir.
If you have any instant speed damage or life loss you are actually holding the Aetherflux Reservoir player in check. They need to have a reasonable buffer above 50 to be able to use it. Remember: 50 life is the cost to activate it. You pay that immediately. Then 50 dmg to someone goes on the stack. If you have 53 life and Aetherflux someone and in response someone else Lightning Bolts you, you die and your damage effect on the stack is removed from the game.
There are also cards like Trickbind which counter activated abilities. If Aetherflux is countered, remember, that player still payed the 50 life, because that is the cost of the ability.
I immediately thought of cathar's crusade. you need so many dice and especially with tokens
Yep. I'll only use such a card in situations where a digital maths computer can track everything.
It is such a good card and every hates me for playing it because it takes me 10 years to organize all my d20
This is absolutely my answer. So.much.of.a.slog.
Rad episode thanks for the hard work team! I believe in brewing and playing the deck you want and like but the one card I hesitate adding more than any other is dockside extortionist.
I have a Venture into the Dungeon deck with Acerak. Everyone always says I should add Rooftop storm to it to go infinite, but that ruins the venture gimmick of the deck
I definitely agree with the tutor advice. I've taken them out of my decks too. I will still run them in my one high power deck. But I actually like the lack of consistency that I get when I don't run tutors. I don't want every game to play out the same way.
I think it really depends on your decks wincon, if you've built a combo heavy deck, and need a specific card to start up your engine so to speak, a couple tutors definitely helps consistency there. My Pyromancy deck does run a couple of the various tutors from white, blue, and black simply because my win con hinges on getting one of 3 enchantments from my deck, and a 3 in 99 chance is too low to effectively pull off. But in my Kavu deck, I have zero tutors, because there's no reason for it in there, the deck is about going wide, not going for a specific combo piece. So yeah, depending on your decks playstyle and game plan, tutors are definitely good, but could be left out in a lot of decks.
The card I don’t run is Curse of Exhaustion. It just removes a player until they get an enchantment removal, which ruins the game not only for them, but the rest of the table.
I just added Smothering Tithe to a Kwain deck. It’s so much upkeep when I make all players draw a card. I might not be keeping it in there long.
My favourite thing with Scute Swarm is to make 5-10 copies, then when I play a land, mystic reflect them into something else.
Last game, I made 12 Eternal Witnesses, got my grave back,
The time before, I made 10 copies of a creature with initiative, and those 10 ventures won me the game
Unfortunately mystic reflection doesn't work like that with scute swarm. When you have 5 scute swarms and play a land your actually triggering each one separately to make another copy, and the way mystic reflection reads is the "next time you would make tokens replace them with X." So it replaces only the first scute swarm trigger of just 1 copy of another scute swarm into whatever you want then boom mystic reflection has met its criteria and no longer replaces copies and you just finish making 4 more scute swarms.
The best way to utilize mystic reflection is something that has 1 trigger to make lots of tokens like Avenger of Zendikar. When you go yo make 7 plants after it etbs you replace those with mystic reflection to be 7 more Avengers, (which finishes Reflections trigger it no replaces anything for the turn) and after those 7 avengers enter they each make 7 plants now for a total of 21 plants and 8 total avengers to buff them next land drop.
genuinely compelled to watch more often with Rachel on ❤
I used to be a patron of the command zone, but with my life situation changing and time I found myself not watching the podcast episodes any more.
Commander sphere has been my favorite podcast for the past three or so years, so when Rachel came here, I immediately decided to come back!
It's so great to see what she brings to the podcast, and I'm looking forward to listening to every episode again!
I have a treasure generating deck that 1 of my 1st cuts was Dockside Extortionist. Sure, it gets me treasure, but it also gets me noticed, and draws the ire of anyone else utilizing treasures.
I would suggest to Gaurav to view Coat of Arms more as an overrun effect than a piece you rush out. Like, say I have 25 goblins on he field, then cast CoA to swing for lethal.
Two of my three were mentioned.
Tutors (other than land ramp) as I don't like decks getting the same thing all the time. As Rachel said, it's nice to try to win with what you draw
Cathars crusade, I don't have enough dice for that
Reserved list cards, some are super powerful and I don't think it's fair for me to have access to them when many people can't and won't ever have the chance
Love the topic, for me one of them is Pitiless Plunderer in my Juri sacrifice deck. It is incredibly good, and can go infinite, what I dislike and why I preclude it, is that it goes infinite so easily. Any of my other mana producers on sacrifice, be it an Altar of Ashnod or cards like Pawn of Ulamog, etc., I can combo it in so many ways and just go infinite. I don't enjoy that as the sole win con, so I more curated to do effects similar, but they aren't infinite and only scale upward without a response.
The tutors one was interesting. I've been playing magic about 6ish months at this point and everything I come up with and plan out a new deck, the person who taught me constantly suggests tutors and other search cards but when I've played, I see tutors getting used so very rarely. Now I don't know if I'm just bad at deck building and my friend doesn't want to tell me and instead suggests tutors coz they may be the only way to make a deck functional, or if it's just that how he plays, he likes to be able to go and get those annoying combos and know exactly how he's going to win, and it's rubbing off on his advice giving, but it is still interesting to hear someone talking negatively about tutors....
I mean the only deck I've properly built from scratch rather then just editing a precon atm is running tutors but I may end up swapping them out for better cards... maybe more lands or land searchers since goodness knows I have terrible land luck.
The only tutor I myself had an actual fun with was scheming symmetry, because it was easy way to get yourself an ally, more than actual card search.
Tutors are useful, but I find they lead to repetitive/boring gameplay patterns. If you goal is to just have fun, swap them out for card draw or repeating a synergy.
I never tutor for combo's, always something to make sure I can actually play and have fun. Last tutor was for something that could give me 1 white mana so I could cast my commander :D
@@tratanlightbreaker6029 I absolutely love scheming symmetry
I also think tutoring for consistency and combos is boring, because for me it's the opposite of what makes commander what it is. For higher tier gamplay it's important, but that's a different topic.
Tutoring for answers is nice, but the general problem why most people don't run tutors that often is imo, the price. Either you run a 50 € tutor or a 4 or 5 cmc tutor. Budget tutors are to slow gamplay wise, while good tutors at instant speed are just way to expensive for 1 card.. I personal only run 1 tutor for 3 cmc on my dihada deck and also don't know if I wanna swap it out.
Rachel you are AWESOME! You're definetly a great addition to the command zone crew. Stay cool!
Honestly, I don’t drop a lot of Likes here anymore, especially from the earlier days of the channel when Jimmy & Josh are mainly advocating for the strongest options available.
This episode is nice… & different, presenting other considerations for not auto-including said strongest options. I too, have standing dis-preference towards certain cards/categories for reasons like logistics (Cathars’ Crusade), common annoyances/grievers (discard, play other players’ card, steal permanents, etc), even non-thematic staples (like the classic 1 MV removal spells).
I Liked this episode
A great follow up may be what bad cards do you put into your decks. As an inverse of this where it may not be the optimal solution but your personal favorite for one reason or another. Or maybe one where you choose a cheaper option that performs a similar role as a budget focused episode.
For a long time I would try to make Storm spirits work. That was back around Mirage block and I never really got it to be worth the hassle of getting it out. Maybe now with commander and or spirit support I could make it work, though it would still be pretty bad with so many even better options.
Coat of Arms maybe needs a lighter math version maybe with counters and an activation trigger for when it checks. Removing the tutors sounds like sound advice to get more of the draw hype experience. Drawing a good chance card sounds more fun than a sure solution. Especially in Commander where part of the appeal is seeing a wider variety of stuff. Reducing the number of auto include type of cards is probably good all around.
I dig the better help ad. The bit where Jimmy accepts the loss was gold as comedy and message.
I never really understood necropotence well enough to use it despite knowing it is supposed to be good.
I like the outside perspective on some of these cards and how they impact such as the time sink of sensei's divining top. I never really actively thought about turn or play efficiency from the perspective of time sinks or mental sinks dragging down the experience or stalling out the game flow with things like the voidwalker. Are there other types of acceleration like the jeweled lotus that can be cut to create a better play experience?
Scute swarm sounds like you would need a calculator to keep up with it in short order. Imagine the math of that with Coat of Arms....
Is the blue castle background based on a card or a piece of art? I kind of want to change my pc background now.
Get a life, please. KEKL
Approach The Second Sun. Always. My favorite wincon in UWx decks.
love the episode, I'd love to see one talking about some of your favorite cards to play for Commander EDH
I run tutors in my voltron decks. If I'm going to experience the same playpattern of my opponents casting removal spells on my commander before I can properly set up, I might as well play into that by making sure I can defend against the guaranteed answer to my main wincon.
Philadelphian here! Reading Terminal Market is right next to the convention center and is an absolute must to check out for food. Beilers in the Reading Terminal Market is a must for donuts, Old City Coffee (also in Reading Terminal Market) has great coffee. Tons of great food options as well. Passeros is also a good local coffee place. McGuillian's pub is the oldest pub in Philly and worth checking out.
In my omnath deck I run jokulhaups and a koma, float the 13 mana, cast the jokul and then the koma. People usually scoop once koma hits since it's such a fast clock . Better to have 1 wrath and use it effectively rather than 10 and using them willy nilly.
That was a great Episode.
Reminded me to put Jeweled Lotus in my Tergrid Deck.
I'm only playing it once every 2 months and then really try to CRUSH and show people why she is the god of FRIGHT :D
Which is not happening when i play her on turn 5 when everyone has an answer and mana ready.
Removing Tutors has vastly increased my enjoyment of the game. I can't recommend it enough
It really depends on the deck. For example my marath deck can function without tutor, but my Kroxa it s a controll discard deck and needs tutors
completely agree. the best part of playing commander (excluding cedh) is that its a singleton format and you should be having fun. yeah, we all want to win, but even when playing the same deck, 5-10 times, you get 5-10 different games cuz of playing/drawing different cards each time.
Even just browsing commander lists for ideas, if you sort by price the more expensive version of decks tend to end up being a bunch of really good tutors and other all-star efficient cards taking up all the spots that, compared to cheaper commander decks, maintain the theme or spirit of the deck. Tribal decks are the worst abou it, spells replaced with generic tutors n junk, creatures replaced by boring shapeshifters.
Tutors allow people to build decks in Commander, that would have been more fun in a 60-card format. They're like grease for putting a square peg in a round hole.
I stopped playing tutors when our group was looking for ways to power our decks down and boy has it been a major improvement! Turns are shorter, luck-of-the-draw leads to way more fun, the whacky less optimal cards that wouldn't get tutored for get to see more play. Highly recommend!
I also loved Arthur’s comment on tutors…I’m fairly new to using tutors in my deck as I too prefer the surprise of what I draw…however, in some of the decks, such as my ur dragon it’s a necessity so I can find the cards that make my dragons easier to get out I.e. fist of suns and nyxbloom ancient…but I only have 1 or 2 tutors per deck because I don’t want to always have the answer I want to work towards it!!!
Imo tutors can be replaced by more card draw. You'll find your important pieces too, as well as interactions and avoid getting in top deck mode.
I used to use tutors. found my game played the same almost every time. ended up being boring. Commander (EDH), in my opinion, is more fun when your deck plays differently in multiple plays. Having said that, I don't mind if somebody tutors for the answer to current board state. It's the combo searchers that make the game less fun.
@@paloflimdul I search for what makes sense at the time…only two of my decks use tutors the other two rely on card draw
I guess I don't use tutors correctly. I feel like a good 75% of the time or better I find myself tutoring for an answer not some type of wincon. Also, though, I only have a couple of decks that have actual combos in them.
48:26. The soccer team gets out but one of the rescuers do not make it in real life.
I run overwhelming splendor since there are multiple cards like "Songbird's blessing" that can cascade into it, and cards that can grab it from the grave and put it into play.
I actually have a perfect example of this; Sage of Hours. My Favorite deck is my Ramos, Dragon Engine deck. it is a multicolor counters deck, and sort of a Ghave Secret Commander deck. The idea of the deck was finding ways to convert +1/+1 counters into other resources, move them around, and just do inventive things with them, or just even come in tall if all else fails.
Sage of Hours has gone in and out multiple times, either for not having enough stuff that targets, or when I did fix that problem it felt like that was the way I was winning most games thanks to the deluge of counters flying around. There's so many extra win cons like Simic Ascendency or Door to Nothingness or Ghave loops to go wide or other fun things and it felt like I was winning SO many games with Sage of Hours loops that it just got people resenting the deck and it simply went into retirement. It's also a card that creates solitaire situations in a deck that normally doesn't have them TOO badly.
"I want to win. I don't want my cards to win." - this is why everyone loves Rachel's decks and Rachel!
This topic was made for me.
In my Dina deck I don't run any planeswalkers, double faced cards, and I only have a single card that can "search my library". I also specifically took out Exquisite Blood, because I just didn't like how it was basically an instant win card. It made my deck super inconsistent based on if I drew it or not, and it didn't let me do the thing I wanted to do with the deck (keep on playing permanents until I overwhelm with a million pings of life loss). Even though it's literally the perfect card for this deck, it just didn't match the power level I wanted.
In my Meren deck I don't run any planeswalkers, double faced cards, or any cards that let me draw cards. I also specifically kept in my copy of Entomb and will not replace it, even though there are cards that have better synergy in this deck. This is my flagship deck, so I made it to represent me, and the collector part of me wants one of each of the masterpiece cards in the deck. Entomb, being the Amonkhet masterpiece that works best for this deck, stays, just to complete the set. Likewise, I hate double faced cards and planeswalkers were what got me out of the game years ago, before I came back. Not drawing cards is just a fun thing that I could work around with Meren, and happened to help avoid nonbos with Chains of Mephistopheles.
My Yedora deck only runs a single instant and a single sorcery. It's fun to find ways to work around the missing spells, and there are some fun combos and synergies you get to do too.
My Tevesh Szat and Rograkh deck doesn't make red mana. It still gets to use red spells, but only if they don't need red mana to be used.
My Omnath, Locus of Mana deck doesn't have anything that makes colorless mana. It makes it simple to synergize with the commander, but you'd be surprised how many staples you get to avoid. No Sol Ring? Yup.
My Ayula deck: every nonland card in it has "bear" in its name or typeline. Because bears, that's why.
My 60 card monogreen elves deck doesn't have any cards that work on their own, outside of maybe Llanowar Elves (I have four of every functional Llanowar Elves reprint too). Because elves are powerful no matter what you do, so why run Craterhoof Behemoth when instead you could assemble a Pathbreaker Ibex with a Wellwisher via Emergence Zone? It makes games way more fun.
I even have a cEDH deck made of entirely handwritten proxies that runs almost entirely cards that are strictly worse than other cards, like Wasteland instead of Strip Mine, just to annoy cEDH players. The deck also doesn't have any infinite combos, and usually wins by slow combat damage, again, just to show how silly the cEDH format is.
The point is, building with deck and card restrictions makes the game way more interesting and fun. It can also keep you in check, if you, like me, can get hyper competitive without meaning to. That's just one reason I only own black and green cards. I can't imagine how unfun it would be to play against me if I allowed myself to make blue decks. I know this from the few times I played blue or red or white in draft, or when I pilot someone else's deck for a game - I get so much hate. Sticking to Golgari colors also gives me a specific identity at my LGS ("Oh hey, you're the golgari guy!") and it helps my budget when new cards come out (I think I'll just ignore that new $200 blue planeswalker thank you).
So I highly recommend limiting yourself in creative ways. If you don't win, you still got to play a really creative way, and if you do win, it's that much more satisfying. Either way, the game will be much more enjoyable for the whole table - I mean come on - everyone loves mono-bears.
Interesting how I've had similar realizations on some of the same cards, but it does come down to how you want to play your deck. A friend of mine has been trying to evaluate how well his Hazezon deck runs but the games where Scute Swarm appears really skew the data.
As for me I've taken Reliquary Tower out of decks because I don't have decks where I draw excessive amounts of cards and evaluating which 7 of your cards can win you the game is important. I also realized I've removed Spellseeker from almost all my decks, despite having 1) a wizard tribal deck, 2) a blink/ETB deck, and 3) a spellslinger deck. I have one copy left among those three, and I think it's #2 (because the value is absurd). #1 didn't have enough instants/sorceries anymore, while #3 I leaned more into just including instants and sorceries instead of tutors.
I de-tutored one deck and entirely restructured it because if I drew a tutor (like Spellseeker) I would just tutor out the same combo pieces and go for the win. So I never got to utilize the other cool, lesser-known cards in the deck. The most efficient combo wasn't even unique to the commander or exciting, it was just Dualcaster Mage+Twinflame. Dualcaster Mage is another card I've removed from decks, and both Twinflame and Heat Shimmer remain in my binder.
Josh’s take on Jeweled Lotus was good. I decided against getting one for my Niv-Mizzet, Parun deck since I already get targeted whenever I play that commander so adding Jeweled Lotus would brand me as archenemy even more.
With dark ritual in these K'rrik decks: it's in your opening hand, you've won😆 okay maybe not auto-win but it is brutal. Mana crypt, Sol Ring, pay 6life and start yoyoing with your life total. In the meantime, everyone just get up and start making sandwiches
@@hoozoohleague8264 💀💀💀
@@roarkkariyama that's it exactly. Dark ritual costs: 💀 and gives: 💀💀💀 haha
Topic suggestion: gameplay techniques that help simplify complicated plays for the table to understand. What are the tricks you like for things like: making the stack easier to understand, handling lots of tokens counters and temporary effects, floating mana, etc.
Personally, D6 are for +1 counters (or minus, if both use strictly different colors) and anthems are a single D20. If I am generating a lot of tokens I’ll have 3 tokens with D20’s. One for untapped, on for tapped. And one for sickness.
Playgroup has a good way to handle complicated stacks, we lay cards in middle of of the table in order cast so we can visualize the order, and face down cards to symbolize triggers from permanents. Everyone is responsible for their own triggers and spells to explain what happens when it resolves.
@@fishrunner23 I like this. I feel like there are definitely ways to make this stuff easier.
For +1/+1 counters, we have actual +1/+1 counter D6's, so we can use that to track those while using regular dice to track quantity of tokens. Colored spindowns for floating mana. One person always forgets to draw so he started putting his hand down sideways on the top of his deck so he has to pick it up from there each time and remember to draw. Placement of commanders can get confusing, so some of us stick our commanders out of the side of our library when not in play so they're floating in their own special command zone.
Nice. Does anyone have any tricks for better keeping track of whether land drops are made or not?
@@gregboulton8230 Designate a spot for new land drops away from your other lands, then every untap step, move any lands in that spot down to the rest of your lands.
I take Scute Swarm and I raise you Iridescent Hornbeetle!
"{4}{G} • Creature - Insect • 3/4 • At the beginning of your end step, create a 1/1 green Insect creature token for each +1/+1 counter you've put on creatures under your control this turn."
This means any time you consider playing this you have to keep track of the number of +1/+1 counters you are putting on your creatures and every turn going forward if it stays on the board. In decks like Phylath world sculptor or with cards like branching evolution, grumgully, master biomancer, and others this gets way more annoying to keep track of than even Scute Swarm. It has the potential to be a very powerful card, but it is such a headache and time suck to resolve it's ability I immediately cut it from my list.
Discussion of Relinquary Tower make me take out Thought Vessel. Now that I think of it discarding extra hand is also useful for graveyard play!
I've been following the command Zone ever since this teams first few gameplays. Most of the time I place orders now, I do order through Card Kingdom. I do shop around to see what works best as far as price goes but definitely Card Kingdom has been the store where I can order all the cards I want or at least most of them in one transaction.
If you order a lot, I found the TCG player subscription works even better. Cheaper prices and you can get all cards (from sellers in the service) in one envelope. Its like $7 a month but free shipping and like I said all in the same envelope. Pays for itself in a few orders.
I'm a few days late, but here are some cards that I don't play: stuff that wins super easily (Triumph of the Horde, Mechanized Production), cards that can be seen as combo pieces (Ashnod's Altar, Isochron Scepter), cards that create to much rules problems and moving stuff around, cards that just shut down other decks completely (old Elesh, Planar Void, Null Rod).
Cards that I try to add: stuff that can turn a game completely around, like Inkshield, Rakdos Charm, Deflecting Palm and Narsets Reversal.
Dictate of Erebos is one for me, I love Aristocrat strategies but with enough creatures you can end up holding the board hostage until someone can out it, and enchantments ofc are one of the hardest to hit permanents for some colors.
the color it comes in has the roughest time with enchantments so that's funny.
Top can also be a trap card when deciding if you want to mulligan. Keeping a 1 or even 2 land hand and thinking, "Well there's a Top so I can just Top into a way out." rarely works out.
Having said that I own 4 and run them all, but three of them are in decks that run off the top of the deck, Prosper, Grist, and Galea. The fourth is in my Marath, and that's mostly because it's my pet deck and well, Top is Top. Lol
@@DCII There's definitely decks that Top completely excels at and should be must include!
I love the top in Niv-Mizzet, Parun, but I've definitely fallen into the trap of keeping the bad Top hand and watching my prayers go unanswered.
I feel yall on the tutor take, I've really noticed that players eyes start to glaze over when you tutor more than once in a single turn. We play high power so it's all far in love and war but there are feels bad moments when you're tutoring and they would rather scoop because it's easier to just start a new game
Card I most identified with cutting: Tutors. My three new decks for 2022 had no tutors in them and they were more fun to play, and to play against, becasue of it. Every game feels different and every card gets to shine in its moment.
Card I least identified with cutting: Reliquary tower. But the reasons given were excellent and I'll put serious thought into cutting that and thought vessel. In a 15 card hand, I'm not sure that cards 8-15 are worth the threat perception they create.
I love playing without Tutors! I replaced it with card draw and I felt my decks became less powerful but I had more often fun as I more often had a hand to interract with the game. :)
Do you play rampant growth?
@@erik.pajula rampant growths and such are completely different in function and perpose to a worldly tutor or demonic tutor he'll look at the prices to show the difference
@@erik.pajula I play land fetches yes but not demonic tutor, enlighted tutor and so on.
Start with Reading Terminal Market in Philly. There's a ton of awesome stuff there and it's right around the corner from the con
Always great to have a team episode
ABSOLUTELY!!!!
I really enjoyed this episode. I recently removed Dockside and Thoracle from my decks the former because it draws a lot of hate and I wasn't looping or anything so it often wasn't worth the trouble. The latter I removed because I was utterly bored of the wincon. I feel there is little interaction with thoracle and there are more "fair" ways to win by drawout like labman or jace.
THAT is the commander content I want more of. You guys are right, what you don't include tells as much, if not more, about what kind of player you are.
I still play a few wraths in each deck but my take is: if you don't think you are well positioned after a wrath, you're (usually) kingmaking or dragging out the game unnecessarily. If I don't think I have a shot at winning after the board is wiped I'd much rather shuffle up for another game.
Rhystic study, if I am in blue there are a million ways to draw cards that don't annoy people.
Mystic Remora, above but also people just ramped with creatures of just held off until I gave up on it
13:45 fun thing for many players, that reanimator deck players also hate & hope you wrath instead bc less of their shit gets used, is that Cyclonic Rift prevents recursion. Note, it's fun to use this after they have glode reanimated with, for example, Day of the Dead, Living End, OG Liliana Vess, etc.
Reanimator players, don't hate me. I sometimes play reanimator decks, I just don't get as worked up. Yeah, it can be Annoying, but I use plenty of reanimation & spell recursion. Or I'd play dredge with answers to Dauthi whatsistface.
Cathars' crusade... i had it in an Isshin deck. and then 1 game Krenkro, tin street kingpin attacked and i did not want to keep up with the math....
I would go with Blightsteel Colossus. It’s just such a groan inducing card from your opponents.
i agree if it's played very often as the wincon. if it's like blightsteel surprise, i don't really care about that.
A type of card I do play but have thought about stopping are the enchantments that turn a creature into a land or another creature with no abilities. My friends have a feel bad moment when it happens. Plus in some colors, like mono red and mono black, enchantments are hard to deal with.
The problem is there are some commanders that are almost impossible to deal with without these effects.
Mine is 100% thassas oracle and my reason is it's just too easy to pull off, I rather run lab man since it's not as complicated to interact with
Agreed. Both of those mill combos are lame.
It’s not so much the card but how players use it. If you actually had to steadily mill your deck to win, it would be fun but 99% of the time, the win comes from infinite combo and draw the entire deck to win. It’s the equivalent to infinite mana and fireball all opponents but easier to draw into…
Agree. I like variety and got very tired of 50% of games ending in lab man winning and later the other 2 versions.
The one exception where I think I wouldn't be annoyed by Thassas Oracle is if they didn't draw/mill combo but developed enough blue devotion to win with half their deck left. I think I'd congratulate the opponent if they can pull that off.
One of my favorite things I've ever done in magic is mindslaves someone playing Pako and Haldan. I made them play my exiled stolen goblin caboomist, tap out, and pass the turn.
I realized this week that my card is Telepathy! I played it at Tuesday night Commander this week, and it was too much/less fun.
yeah, cut it from my Talrand deck as well. Deck is political enough without it.
I use Dauthi Voidwaller, but as an unblockable creature for ninjutsu. 😅
Good cards I haven't been playing are fetch lands, and opting for basics. 😅
Reliquary Tower is a lot better when instead of just running some incremental card draw, you have ways of drawing MASSIVE numbers of cards. For example:
* Necrologia/Necropotence
* Peer into the Abyss
* Decree of Pain
* Massive ramp + X draw spells
* Greater Good (or other "draw cards equal to creature's power" effects) + enormous creatures
I totally agree about Sensei's Divining Top. To an extent I feel the same way about cards like Scroll Rack, Brainstorm, etc. I don't think they go in EVERY deck. Just because a card is generically useful doesn't mean it is good in every deck. I like to think about what I want to do with the deck and if certain "good cards" synergize with what I already want to do. I'm fine with Smothering Tithe, but I don't put it in every white deck because it doesn't match the type of game I want from certain decks. Same with Dauthi Voidwalker.
I only put Top when the top of library needs to be set up (e.g. Hidetsugu Devouring Chaos). for reasons others stated, it ain't in my other decks
In my Playgroup we play No Ban format. Two rules: #1 If you get beat by an opponents deck you get to play that deck against them in the next game. #2 You can't complain to the group about any ambdominal aches caused by laughing too hard!
That sounds like a really fun idea. I'll have to try proposing that
Really GREAT idea for an episode!!!!!
Interesting topic!
I don't play infect in any of my edh decks. I just don't like the mechanic in commander.
I won't be able to attend the convention in my hometown sadly, but I can at least recommend some places you have to go to. 1. You have to hit up the Redding Terminal Market, plenty of great food there and imo you can't go wrong with any shop in that place. 2. Try out Wawa, it's a convenience store with some good options for quick food on the go and it's pretty much all solid. 3. Go to Pat's, Steve's, and Geno's, and when you get your cheesesteak, I recommend you get it "wit" aka with onions (I'm not a fan personally but it is tradition and you gotta follow tradition at least once before you break it if you are not from here). A lot of people from Philly will swear by one over the others (to the point of violence, part of the charm of our fair city) but for my money I just recommend travelers to try all three and form your own opinion. The only thing I ask is that when you form your opinion, you stand by it and take no guff from anyone who dares think otherwise, it is the Philly way. (In case anyone wonders, my preference is Steve's).
As for the other question, I have a very simple answer, I play in a budget pod, and as a result, I don't play pretty much any good card that cost's more than 10 dollars (and even then only one of theose $10 cards in a deck generally speaking). I have personally found the experience to be infinitely more enjoyable than standard EDH. Budget unrestricted honestly wound up feeling very samey after a while, kept seeing the same cards constantly pop up and none of them were actually fun. Rift, tithe, [insert one sided board wipe here], dockside, good tutors, ect. All the usual suspects. Since converting the pod to $100 budget decks we have more fun games with more creative decklists. Everyone gets to pretty much do whatever their decks were designed for even if they don't win and even though the games generally take more turns (since on that budget it can take a couple extra turns for everyone to get rolling), the games are overall faster and we get to have more in a night.
I play Overwhelmig Splendor in my Light-Paws deck so i can get Eldrazi Conscripion out on her :)
I play restrictive tutors like Imperial Recruiter. I think going for restrictive tutors in the 3cmc space is ok. And I also limit the tutors in my decks 2-3 max.
I wish my friend running 10 tutors in his krrik Deck would think like that, but ATM it just plain boring playing agaisnt him for how broken and telegraphed their turns are.
The betterhelp ad is wonderful.
I play Mindslaver in Muldrotha Artifacts for 2 reasons.
1. It turns a 3 person game into a 2v1
2. I have ways to make a game 3v1 with replaying it from the grave
Sounds like a great way for one person to have zero fun though.
Very cool idea for an episode. I liked this a lot.
Expropriate is always the first card I cut whenever I run a deck that has blue. I sometimes sneak in one card for an extra turn for flavor (Karn's Temporal Summoning in a Jodah Unifier deck, for example) but every time I put Expropriate in a deck I end up cutting it before the deck is played.
I don't use Cathar's Crusade. Massive amounts of bookkeeping, and every creature has different numbers of counters, so it's difficult to group tokens. Plus, it draws more attention than I like.
Totally agree with Josh about the lotus. I didn't even bother about buying it, even if my playground plays kinda 8ish decks with pretty nasty things into it. It's kinda unfun and a pretty dead draw in many cases. About this topic in general I think we have to think about what is too powerful/ unfun in our particular deck, not in general. For example, I'm not playing mana crypt anymore in very commander centric decks, with very powerful commanders that can be summon too early because of it (let's say Korvold / Orvar as pretty obvious examples). But I still play the crypt in other decks, especially no green ones. In the same mindset, I can play very powerful cards if they match my deck's theme and serves its game plan. But not in other decks when it's just winmore or just a "goodstuff" card. I play dauthi in Yuriko, because it can't be blocked and I don't care about my graveyard. I play scute swarm in my land deck because it's a wincon by itself in this deck, and it draws attention away from my real key cards. I play tutors in combo decks but I never include any combo with less than 4-5 cards to go off. It's a general balance topic, in your particular deck, and in your pod in general. Removing sol ring / crypt / lotus in the entire pod can also be a good start to add balance and fun
I cut all fast mana. This includes every mana postive rock including sol ring. I feel for the advantage it gives you in the moment it always turns the game into a 1v3 very quickly and the game is no longer fun when you have to fend off 3 players using everything at you. I have found over the years that just hitting land drops every turn and a ramp spell or two within the first 4-5 turns is enough to do anything my decks could want. It is alot easier for them to do there things without all the hate from the table.
I like this! Except what if you’re in a color that doesn’t ramp with spell? Like for example I play a mono-black deck what would your answer be for that? I’m genuinely curious because I like this idea!
@@theaeskey2502 slow mana, things like thran dynamo and the like
@@theaeskey2502 hey rocks are fine, I usually run 4-6, but ramp is not just rocks. You can make whatever it is your strategy is based on cheaper spell wise. I was just talking about fast mana mostly. (Mana crypt, Moxs, Jeweled lotus and such. They draw more hate then they are worth having, outside of cdh. My black decks I usually am agro so I run the swords set, so Feast and Hearth would get you some ramp while giving protection. Most blacks otherwise usually do tokens/aristocrats so you can run the altars for mana. For my olivia deck I also run Nurkana Rev. It doubles swamp mana plus you can dump the extra to add damage on it for pumping. Black you rely more on rocks unfortunately. I typically run the 2 cost rocks, and stonespeaker crystal. In mono black do not be afraid to run cabal if you really have a payout for the mana, just hold it till you are ready to end with a hellfire.