i remember WAY back in the day, MaRo once talking about how they test potential playtesters and designers and a big question was "whats wrong with this design?" and the correct answer was that the 6/6 creature card design had deathtouch. and maro was like "you never give a big body deathtouch because it's irrelevant!" then a year or two later, they printed grave titan.
The thing is though, it is often very relevant. One of the best ways to deal with creatures in combat (moreso in Limited) is by blocking them with multiple creatures. If your opponent blocked Sun Titan with 2 4/4s, they get to keep one. Grave Titan will kill the first 6 creatures blocking it! Obviously, there are better ways to deal with things in Commander, but it doesn't make Deathtouch on big bodies irrelevant.
@@hadrianjBut then, on the flipside, the blocking player will know they just block with the least amount of creatures possible...as they would likely be doing anyway. Like sure, they get to keep one (or more) if they have more total toughness when blocking and don't if it has deathtouch, but that doesn't mean they won't be blocking with the least amount of creatures either way. So it doesn't really change much in actual practice.
But as they pointed out in the discussion itself, sometimes cool flavor overrides mechanics. Well not so much overrides (as they don't tend to do full breaks of color pie anymore) but more "is redundant". But that also doesn't mean it's good practice to do all the time, so it's still a good question for newbie designers to be able to point out it is a little 'wrong' in pure design theory, even if reality ends up dictating it's needed for a cool specific card here and there. So even though Grave Titan exists now itself, it'd STILL be a good question for future designers...and perhaps an even better one now, given their first thought likely WOULD be Grave Titan, so them noticing Grave Titan is the sort of card that shouldn't happen a lot (despite being printed already) is even more valuable to sort out the amateur wannabes (who simply think "If it's been done before already, it can be allowed whenever!") from the potential professionals (who do realise things like that are best kept sparse exactly to make the flavor side cooler when it does happen).
@@hadrianj I would even say that Deathtouch on a big creature has its own forms of awesome. Sure it's flavorful, but if you ever get a big creature with both Deathtouch and Trample, it is downright devastating. Kill all the blockers, apply most of the damage to the attacked target anyways.
One of the really nice things about some "win-more" card, especially permanent cards, is their potential to draw removal. It's really nice when you can drop something big and splashy after setting up a value engine, and sit back and watch your opponents try to figure out how to stop you from doing the scary, flashy things rather than shutting down the engine that's going to make sure you win, anyways. At the end of the day, being able to distinguish between win-cons and win-more is not just good for deck building, but crucial for threat assessment.
I am traditionally a value player, so I have never understood this logic. You have 3 opponents in Commander. If you play a card intending for it to get removed, you are down a card and so is an opponent. Your other two opponents thus gain an advantage and you likely wasted your turn. So overall, your board state has lost the most. This strategy may make sense in a 2 player format where you are trading cards but has never made sense in Commander. It is the same reason that Aura decks were highly unpopular until recently when they added enough card draw bonuses from casting auras (mainly Selesnya) to offset losing two cards to every removal spell where your opponents would inevitably win the value game. Voltron decks had to be restricted to hexproof Commanders to be viable and even then equipment tended to be the better route. I would rather protect my own assets (hexproof, indestructible), use recursion to bring them back repeatedly or play cards that get me even more cards to put me ahead of my opponents in the game. I guess if you are focused on distracting your opponent from an obscure win-con it could work but only once. So unless you are one of those players with like 50 Commander decks (or you rarely play vs the same people), again I cannot see building your deck with this strategy in mind rather than just protecting the win-con from the beginning.
the fact it's that you are not necessarily only playing that card because it will be removed, it's a vauable card - but in some types of decks it's much much better to run that card you know will be removed that protect something because you can't so easily protect it and the removal plays actually in your favor. I always get this "but you are down a card" argument and my counter argument it's easy: well I don't really care if I will win next turn! it's not a matter of obscurity of the wincon but more a matter of the psycology of how a card is percieved. this happens to me quite often in Rakdos decks and it happened recentely also in dimir zombie: people are removing the lords, because they're scared of a +1/+1 while I am more concerned you will remove my next turn enchantment that will win me the game. I'll rather make you spend your counterspell on my lord than on my Gary for example.@@Dragon_Fyre
I'm just going to throw in some more card draw, removal or protection instead of having a basically dead card. If my value engine is set up then it's probably already game. I don't see a reason to run a card that NEEDS to have a good board state to work well.
I guess, what I'm saying, is that, at leas at casual tables, sometimes playing a big splashy spell can clear the way for a win. I don't typically play at tables that are competitive enough where at least one player has removal for something every turn cycle, so a card that looks powerful, even on a bad board state, can be a good way to ensure that you're able to land something better next turn. If you play with people that don't understand the difference between win-con and win-more, you can have a win-more card do valuable work as a way to check for removal before playing your win-con. You can use it to distract players from what you're doing otherwise, and you can also use it for big fun win-more moments where you are winning and you turn it into overkill for a great story. It's worth it to me personally, in my personal play style, and with literally every playgroup I've sat down with. I'm 100% guilty of misplaying because of poor threat assessment of win-more cards. I've seen a lot as well. I'm not saying it's an optimal build or anything, but most players aren't looking for optimal, just for fun, so I'm pointing out a way that "dead" card can do some extra work if you have it anyways. And yes, I've literally never played the exact same pile of cards more than once, and rarely with the exact same people, so, I imagine threat assessment changes when you play often against the same people with the same decks, but I don't have experience in that area.
I’m so glad you guys talked about the nuance of cards being win more in certain decks and not others, so often I see declarations that certain cards are only win more
Legit, several of these cards are really good in the right deck, but should not go in anything else even if they look appealing. For example I use ezzaroot channeler in my henzie deck since it likes to cheat costs, 2 is a solid discount with the high rates, and my boardstate is fleeting unless I hit my reanimator so the discount stays relevant. Etali for 3 is better than etalli for 5 any day. I would not play ezzaroot in lifegain due to that being an archetype with a lower curve that really does not need a discount if you already have 6 mana.
I do not consider Crucible of Fire to be a win more as it is not +3/+0 but +3/+3… The dragons do not need that extra damage for the most part if you have several but +3 toughness takes most dragons from susceptible to damage at 3 to 5 toughness to 6 to 8 where you can freely attack your opponents without much fear of depleting your dragons and losing a battle of attrition to your 3 opponents.
I really like the idea of what I call stepping stone cards in Commander. Excellent discussion, and you guys brought it up sideways which I love. Feel free to run with it if you want! Again I know maybe it's a topic tangential to winmore-vs-wincon, but it's a pretty open-field discussion topic. Cards that marked our deck brewing journeys by bringing insights to our minds about potential other build paths for the same deck or what have you.
Yeah, me too. I think it works best in decks that have a few of a certain type of creature that each in the deck is really impactful. Things like dragons, gods, etc
Win more is good in stalemate boardstates. If you have a bunch of dragons, but so does your opponent, having more Dragoney Dragons can make the difference
I love this show. Y’all are the best. And Matt and Dana’s Challenge the Stats segment has been super helpful in helping me analyze my decks. Thank you!
Btw the reason grave betrayal gives the creature a +1/+1 counter is to turn off undying creatures as RTR block was right after Innistrad, because when a creature with undying goes to the graveyard it returns to the battlefield under its owner's control with a +1/+1 counter. Giving the creature a counter prevents that feelbad of reanimating an opponent's creature then putting it back on their battlefield when it dies.
Agree a ton about damage doublers not necessarily being win-more cards. I have a Xenagos deck loaded up with them, and stacking those lets me one-shot opponents before they get a chance to stabilize!
I actually took Doubling Season out of my Planeswalker deck because it felt too slow and telegraphed. The moment you cast it you become the biggest target on the table and if there's removal for Doubling Season you can bet it will be played. I prefer using Deepglow Skate instead. Sure it's pretty much just as mana-hungry as Doubling Season but your opponents have a much smaller window to deal with it than Doubling Season under most circumstances. Plus Ichormoon Gauntlet is just fantastic. Best card I slotted into the deck in quite a while.
I love seeing Nyxbloom Ancient get mentioned here, hes my number one most favorite target of necromancy, but despite jamming him in like 10% of all my decks, ive hardcast it like two times ever.
I'm a dumbass who only hardcasts Nyxbloom, literally none of my decks that run it are reanimators. It's just real fun to like tap out and drop just a big boy who triples my mana and then have the rest of the table panic but I've got no mana left and I'm just being smug for a turn until I die or untap and end the game.
"That variance between what the pay off is and the effort it took" This idea has helped me so much building my decks. I love weird cards but I've got to make sure they don't end up dead draws.
Ichormoon Gauntlet is not made for superfriends in the traditional sense, it's for the planewalkers that can only remove counters through their natural abilities (and so they can be used with superfriends to potentially add counters to the others, in that sense don't have to protect multiple planeswalkers, only the ones you are wanting more counters on, so you're still only protecting 1-2 while using the rest as decoys and proliferate, must also consider the +1/+1 counter decks which can benefit greatly from both the proliferate and extra turns since it's most likely already proliferating while going wide with a smaller board, doesn't change the fact there are better ways to get that growth/win but it's a support card in these style of decks, it's a win more in superfriends.
I think I actually power down my decks with win more cards, which is good for my play group. I think that all the players in my group actually have win more cards, and it kinda balances each other out, and still makes for the splashy plays that make commander, and magic in general, awesome.
Not sure if this only works on Twitter, but I'd like to challenge the stats. 57% of Zask, Skittering Swarmlord decks are playing Canoptek Tomb Sentinel. The card's not bad, but I feel like people are misunderstanding how the card interacts with Zask. If you cast the card from grave, it does _not_ get to exile anything. This is because it goes from the grave to the stack, then from the stack into play. It doesn't even get to mill if you unearth it, as it is exiled instead of dying. It's no better here than it is in any other mill deck.
When it comes to Crucible of Fire, I think it’s win more in multicolored dragons but a win con in mono red dragons. Once you’re mono red, you’re losing out on additional ramp and protection (even black has it with recursion), so you need to take bigger chunks of life, whether it’s with a “bad” dragon or by making one of your “boss” dragons more dangerous.
I feel like the same card can be either in different decks. (Edit: I'm aware they touched on this quite a lot here and themselves, especially in regards to doublers, but I wrote this before they got to this part. But I also don't think it can be overstated, so am leaving it in for really-make-the-point redundancy!) For example, Overwhelming Stampede in a stompy deck with lots of already-big creatures is a win-more card (turning a handful of 5/5s into 10/10s only doubles the power), but in a deck with a large commander that makes a lot of tiny tokens (for example, Ghalta and Mavren going the go-wide route), then it's a win-con (turning a handful of 1/1s into 13/13s with trample, massively pumping the potential damage). Similarly, the damage doublers/triplers in a deck already dealing big amounts of damage is win-more. But if it's in a deck based around 1-damage ping effects, it becomes a win-con because you can't win by 1-damage pings alone, but when you have a couple out and each ping now deals 4-9 damage, that's a win-con.
Counterexample for Doubling Season effects: Cadira, Caller of the Small. As long as you have even a few tokens (or certain token makers) on the field, Cadira can do ridiculous things with token doublers. Last time I played that deck, I got to untap with DS, then gave Cadira double strike. The game didn't last long after that, even though I think I went into that turn with few or no token on the field.
I run Ruthless Technomancer in my Marchesa Modular deck and it does so much work. Can bring back modular creatures (and Marionette Master) by saccing an artifact on top of the great treasure making etb. It’s an acceptable sac outlet in a pinch too Retribution of the Ancients is another great way to remove +1 counters from creatures in a Haunted One deck
I like that Dana has Kindred Summons as a wincon card in an Eldrazi deck when I have it as a wincon card in my General Tazri Ally deck. Hagra diabolist triggering 5 times for 10 damage can be backbreaking.
Interestingly I actually think Nomad's Assembly can still be good but you need to play it very differently from how you want to play it when you first see it. People think oh I could make ten dudes and that is not when you need to play the card you play it when you have 3 dudes to double the size of your board now and then double it next turn to 12 dudes with the Rebound and then use your real win con to finish the game. Now for six mana making 9 1/1's over two turns is not huge but it's also not bad. I think understanding what a card needs to do in your deck is also important.
Triplicating damage is not win more, imagine it's the path to eventually being able to one-shoot someone with a lightning bolt. If EDH is not the place for such a thing, then it's a sad universe we live in.
That's how my imodane deck runs! Bolt a creature for 3, fiery triples it to 9. Imodane triggers, tries to deal 9 damage to each opponent, but it's a separate instance of damage so it gets tripled again to 27.
You guys are right about so many of these! However, Ezzaroot channeller is in my budget Aeve creature storm deck and usually what i want to do is get ezzaroot out, then storm off on the next turn, and it always delivers.
Ezzaroot Channeler is actually the least replacable part of the wincon of the green module of my Prismatic Piper/Sakashima deck. Because you can use it to make the Piper free and infinitly recast him with two Essence Warden type effects.
What made me play crucible in my Ur-Dragon deck was that Ur puts out 20 commander damage in 2 swings and so having somethig to cheat in with it that increases its power is extra valuable. I had overlooked how strong it was for a long time but now it's well worth the deck slot. I'd also play it in atarka or lathliss but not in ganax or miirym
Eh, a lot of these are petty situational card. In the past I did run Ormos in a deck. It was an azorius pillow fort deck where the goal was to turtle and draw a million cards until i kill people with creatures was scale with my hand size like empyrial plate. In that deck, Ormos was not a win condition, it was a "don't lose to myself" condition. Because decking my entire deck simply happened by accident, I did not want to run with laboratory maniac-type effects because that's not the game plan I wanted at all, I was trying to actively avoid doing so, but I still needed a way to not lose because of it either. Ormos is the only card that makes it happen.
Great discussion. I arrived at the same conclusion for throne of the pharaoh which does great in my Tetsuko which has a lot of 1 power creatures that can't be blocked due to that and that I can therefore not boost however I want.
Minion of the Mighty was a very common turn two win on MTGA a while ago. That's a damage doubler with Terror of Mount Velus or Blast-Funarce Hellkite. When your deck make it easy to get 6 power on board (that is nothing next to a 120 life total) it is a consistent ritual for >5. I don't think it's a winmore and I don't even play red or dragons. It's the same as seeing a Kaalia of the Vast onboard, it might be useless sometimes, but has a very high ceiling for shenanigans.
I think there is a conversation to be had about whether these 7+ mana win more cards are less winmore and more battle cruiser. Debtor's Knell is not an efficient spell, but it's fun and usually flavorful to pop it into some decks.
Throne of the God-Pharaoh is an interesting card. I partially agree with Dana but there are some decks, like The Locust God or Ovika that work great with it. Swinging for 15 and then do 15 more to EACH opponent is something big. Edit: you might think it is an overkill but you are attacking with 1/1 with haste and flying (at least with The Locust God tokens)
I have it in my lathril blade of the elves deck where I do all types of tap shennaigans. Nothing like tapping her with ten elves for ten damage to each opponent, then another eleven to each opponent on my end step. Any time I can do 21 damage to each opponent in a turn is so fun.
one of my earliest commanders ended up being kind of a win-more in Vorel of the hull clade. I had him with a bunch of untap abilities and other +1/+1 synergies but it got to be too much really quick. I then changed it to Ezuri: claw of progress and ended up MORPHing that into something I now have a lot of fun with.
I'm still fairly new to EDH and Magic in general, but this concept has me looking at my own deck and wondering if I've been thinking about the cards I considered win-conditions correctly
I notice a lot of your comments are about if you have a certain card then you don't need this other card. OK, but if you do not have that first card the other card is a good backup plan. You know, synergy. Also, a lot of the cards with "back up" abilities are really good at other things. Like Ormos, for example. The flying is great on a 5/5. Add the card draw and graveyard filling and it's a great card. Sure, the no cards ability will likely never happen, especially in commander, but it doesn't detract from anything either. One last thing is style of play. I like janky cards and decks. Using weird card is what makes commander fun to me. Great video as usual. I like hearing you allz opinions. Keep up the great entertainment!
43:50 I actually really like harvest season in my Katilda humans deck! It feels really nice to tap 3 creatures to cast it and just get at least three more lands! Plus katilda really loves to have lots of mana to use their ability a lot of times, making this either a really fast ramp early in the game or a "piece of a win condition" if you can get to later turns and ramp like 7 or even 15 lands out your deck
I play both Throne of the God and Harvest season in my gruul elves deck. One as a win condition (i attack one player and drain the rest) and the other kind of like protection against a boardwipe. I only play 32 lands - 2 is usually enough, and I draw plenty cards, but if I'm boardwiped it'll take forever to get the engine going, but if i have casted a harvest, then I'll have at least 10 lands so I'll be back for the win in 1 turn
Was thinking you should do an episode on this a while back, also advantage vs win-more. As in does this card draw only work when you already have a board? Is it worth it vs the sign in blood? Looking forward to listening to this episode!
I have a Samut, Voice of Dissent warrior tribal deck and Kindred Summons is an amazing closer in that deck specifically because Samut gives those creatures haste. Dropping five extra warriors on the field with haste and usually some combat relevant text because that's what warriors do is a huge game swing
The absolute classic win-more card is doublers, especially token doublers. Token making is good value and a classic deck method that relies on simply making more things that people can get rid of, and doublers are very valuable at taking you from going wide to overwhelmingly wide - but they do nothing if you aren't set up to go. You need to have consistent and protected or replayable ways to make tokens, or taking out the token-maker also effectively shuts down the doublers. Sure, the magical christmasland scenario where your Landfall deck has Elesh Norn and Mondrak and Greenwarden so you are making four times more tokens off each Landfall, but if you have that much in play you already won since nobody else is participating. No token makers and your deck sputters out.
I've got a similar card. People always ask why I don't run The Ozolith in my Tayam deck. I explain, by the time I'm sacrificing creatures with counters on them, it's usually in the middle of an infinite combo, so Ozolith doesn't do anything most of the time, except to maybe winmore if the infinite somehow doesn't work out.
Death's presence is great in magus lucea Kane if you're leaning into the "ferocious" keyword from that precon. Cast a big X creature and copy it. If somebody kills the main one, the copy is now twice as big. That deck already wants to produce a ton of mana, and the commander turns one big body into 2 already
As Dana pointed out, something that is win more in some circumstances is just win in others. Sometimes if you already have a bunch of tokens, casting something that doubles your number of creatures is less useful than an Overrun effect would be - say, in a Selesnya token deck - but in a token deck that runs Purphuros/Impact Tremors effects, the critter doubler kills people. I run both sorts of effects in my Gahiji token swarm deck, allowing me different wincons depending on the board state or what I happen to draw.
i think for nyxbloom ancient the way one of my friends sold it to me was. " it's not a 7drop it's a 10 drop that give you 9 mana back" and triples your mana on future turns. i then started playing it like that it dam it got WAY better, it suddenly became almost a "free" spell that gave insane amounts of options for future developments of my board, i could cast it and instead of that being my whole turn i could still do lots of stuff with remaining mana. not to mention with 11 mana then it starts generating mana instead. yes thats a lot of mana but i love my ramp and if i don't have 20 mana what am i even doin then :D
When it comes to doublers, specifically token doublers moreso than the others but it can apply to the others as well, I find they work best when paired with more passive effects. Tossing down a parallel lives or doubling season in a Jinnie Fay deck running things like Shiny Impetus, Assemble the Legion, Astrata of the Endless Web, Skrelv's Hive, Perigrin Took, etc... You already have that passive value set up so the doubling season doesn't really require the extra investment after you play it. As long as you have some sort of triggers lined up for after it's played, you get your value out of it.
You know it's funny. Joey referenced Stensia Masquerade which I use in my Grixis vampire deck, but I don't use it as a win con. I use it as one of the enablers for nasty deathtouch shenanigans that already to fit neatly into the deck. (And like Dana suggested, I'm usually going wide anyway).
Ormos is one of my favorite decks and I have won games by putting an absurd number of counters on him. He's mostly just there to draw entirely too many cards.
Scute swarm is a nightmare as well as any other trigger that exponentially upticks. Panharmonicon falls into this category as well as Cathars crusade. Sometimes you just want to play some simple mtg, not resolving trigger after trigger just simply buy playing a land or casting a spell. Then you find yourself helping them resolve stuff they missed and next thing you know you've taken up 15 mins and haven't even gotten passed their upkeep.
I run a lot of the damage modifer cards like fiery emancipation and solphim mayhem dominus in my valakut land fall deck and they pretty much always necessary since valakut only does three damage per trigger and it needs the help to actually take players out
Doubling Season is a win-more and unnecessary in my Shalai & Halar deck, because if I get lifelink on Shalai and have an Ajani's Pridemate in play, 2 counters instead of 1 doesn't really do much, I still win. Doubling Season in my Ghired deck makes 2-6 hasty Pathbreaker Ibexes that makes everything big enough to win. Same card, 2 vastly different results from including it or not.
It seems that a card's "win more" status is pretty much always contingent on what the rest of the deck looks like. Every example in this video could be used in a deck where it is definitively NOT a "win more" card. Speaking of Cultivator Colossus, I have a deck in which Cultivator Colossus is virtually necessary for the deck to win. My commander is Nissa, Resurgent Animist. Thicket Elemental is the only card that Nissa's trigger can find, and kicking Thicket Elemental with Cultivator Colossus in the library is a guaranteed hit on the Colossus. The only other non-land cards in the deck are Rude Awakening (to cast with entwine after Cultivator Colossus has dumped 90-ish lands onto the battlefield), Finale of Devastation (to give all my 2/2 land creatures something like +80/+80 and haste), and Gaea's Touch (to make the deck slightly faster sometimes). Everything else is lands, with an emphasis on rushing to seven mana and getting a second landfall trigger in the same turn on my commander. So yeah, it's super-gimmicky. But Cultivator Colossus sure isn't "win more" in this context. It's the keystone to the whole deck!
One thing I'd add is even if a card is win more, sometimes I still like to run because of the joy of playing them instead of a win con neccessarily. :)
For my scarab god deck endless ranks of the dead is one of my biggest threats if it comes out early. Starts compounding and really helping my scarab god get value so I can run more utility cards and not so many small zats
The Simic Phyrexian Ezuri really likes Death’s presence. I run mostly creatures to proc experience counters, so Death’s Presence (and/or the Ozolith) get me counters back on to my other creatures when the guy I’ve been buffing inevitably dies
Kindred summons isn't abotu having significant and important ccreatures on the board before casting, it's to make use of token creatures. For example, a Lathril deck can have a good 7 elves on board by turn 4 but most of them are irrelevant when it comes to attacking, this lets you get 7 extra elves that can actually turn those 1/1s into threats.
Throne of the God Pharaoh looks like it would work well in either a vehicle-heavy, or a Pinger-style deck as well. I like Harvest Season in my Sultai-colored Persistent Petitioners deck, along with Quest for Renewal. ;)
In a lot of ways this shows how fast and efficient the format has become. Doubling effects are stapled on commanders and 2/3/4 mana synergy cards are more powerful than trying to come over the top. Less board wipes also speeds up games and make some of the slower stuff unplayable
Personally a massive fan of Ascendent Acolyte, run him in my Chishiro deck so he can often get a ridiculous amount of counters on him, often got a lot of cards to ensure his attacks go through or he can block everything on his own
Id like to offer my own assessment on Grave Titan having death touch: if youre blocking it with a smaller creature to avoid damage, you do that but they keep titan. If youre blocking it with a bigger creature its still going to die. I think GT having deathtouch just makes it "harder" to deal with outside of straight up removal
I disagree with 'minion of the mighty' In commander, having 6 power worth of creatures isn't a late game situation where you're already winning. It's early midgame for most aggro decks. That extra dragon can easily make the difference between winning or dying.
Doubling season feels like winmore in my gargos hydra deck. I think that zendikar resurgent is not a winmore card, since it also gives you card draw. But usually it is a do-nothing card when it comes to play, but it telegraphs a warning to others, that things are going to happen...
I've taken out Divine Visitation. It's a super cool concept but for 5 mana where it doesn't DO anything just by playing it, it feels bad for me. I've tried to remove cards that absolutely DEPEND on other cards for their value unless I have so much synergy that they'll just be valuable anyway. One thing I've found is that, the goal of my deck and adding Divine Visitation was to just make an army of swarming flyers. But it was actually too slow not versatile enough, so I realized I could literally just play Harbin as my commander (who gives ALL my creatures flying and +1/0 til end of turn while attacking as long as I attack with 5 or more soldiers) and then I just made sure all my token creators made Soldier tokens of some kind AND Soldiers as a tribal has some really, really great cards for utility or aggression. It's SUPER easy to pump out soldier tokens whether through Creature cards that make soldiers when you attack OR through Sorceries that allow you to funnel mana into them to pay X value and create X soldiers. Being somewhat new to Magic still, I was still pretty hellbent on creating this dreamlike deck with WOW BAM super cool cards and then I realized that...eh...actually it's way more fun at actual Commander games to have cards that are helpful, fun to play, and beneficial whether or not any other particular card or strategy is on the board. Harbin so far for me is super fun! I can both go wide and create tons of Soldiers and have them all turn into flyers, OR I can pump up one particular creature based on my creature number and then swing. Mace of the Valiant is great for the fact that I'll be creating tons of creatures and unless someone deals with my Mace, then it WILL be able to do lethal dmg to someone later in the match. OR I put in Strixhaven Stadium and even if I don't K.O. someone with lethal combat damage, I can just swarm them with 1/1 fliers that still add counters to the Stadium and then take them out anyway much like Infect/Toxic. What I'd recommend for other new players is, DEFINITELY play what you want, however, keep in mind that decks are as much tools as they are power fantasies. Some cards that you think are really super cool ideas that "If it could only work" or "If I somehow pull this off in game with the right combo!" might actually end up being unfun or frustrating to play if you find yourself waiting around in the match for the right thing to happen. Try to build your deck like an engine that can constantly cycle itself productively and either ramp itself, protect itself, or build a constant threat to your enemies while you search for your "Win con" to come to fruition. It's easy if you're like me an can kinda get obsessively hooked on an idea of "I've got to use this card" but how that card FEELS in your hand at home might feel totally different when you've drawn it during a game and you're like "Oh shit...it costs 5 mana and I really don't need a Divine Visitation right now vs this board state". I could see how it could be run in certain decks very effectively tho and sometimes it's not the card that's the problem, but just that it doesn't necessarily fit into your own deck's flow and priorities.
Win-more can also be called win harder. You have already got lethal on board, but then you cast Savage Beating to REALLY make them dead. Bonus points if you Entwine it to make them REALLY, REALLY dead.
Ruthless Technomancer is fantastic in Juri, Master of the Revue. Sacrifice something on the ETB to make treasures and buff Juri then sacrifice the treasures to recur something and buff Juri even more!
Challenge the Stats suggestion: Priest of Titania in Lonis, Cryptozoologist. This is more my challenging EDHREC than challenging the stats. Priest is not listed at all on Lonis's "default" page, nor it is listed on the "expensive"/"clues" page; however, if you go to the "expensive"/(no theme) page, Priest shows up in 51% of Lonis decks. I find this to be a weird discrepancy: not only is Priest not a particularly expensive card, but it's strange that it shows up in expensive generic Lonis decks at a very high rate but not at all in expensive Lonis decks with the "clue" theme. Priest, of course, is good because she makes a clue when Lonis is in play, but she also makes at least two mana if Lonis in play as Lonis is an elf. It's forgivable that someone might forget that, among Lonis's five hunded creature types, one of them is "elf." Plus the average Lonis list runs a handful of elves anyway, buffing Priest's mana output potential. While not as good as something like Wood Elves in Lonis (as many Lonis decks run blink effects and Panharmonicon effects), two MV creatures, of a relevant creature type, with synergies with the commander are pretty good.
I’d definitely say Crucible of Fire is worth it because of the newer dragon cards being smaller and lower to the ground, and you can make them into decent threats. And when you do hit with you’re bigger hits, you’re getting a lot of value from them.
I own two doubling seasons and im still trying to find decks where im happy to draw it and not feel like its unnecessary removal fodder for me to waste 5 mana, and perhaps even a turn, playing right now i have one in Prossh and the other in my Urtet deck. Prossh really doesnt need it either and i havent played Urtet enough to know yet. As for fiery emancipation and true conviction, I run FE in a couple decks most notably the Ur-Dragon because he can put into play for free and one shot someone for 30 commander damage.
I don't really view Cultivator Colossus as acceleration. It's more a way to convert every land in your hand into a relevant spell in a way that other big draw effects can't.
When you have 3 (or possibly more) opponents all playing powerful, game-warping commanders and decks, win-more as a concept is down to a perception of someone’s play pattern. Is “make X big tokens” plus token doubler plus +3/+3 anthem win-more? What’s the board state otherwise? What answers are the other players holding? The game has to end at some point, whether it’s a Sanguine Bond combo or Niv/Curiosity combo or infinite squirrels or a handful of dragons/angels/demons and a couple anthems and/or damage multipliers. Sometimes you need that extra thing in case there’s a targeted removal spell or other trick that would turn your “exactsies” win into a fail. “Win-more” is rarely more than hindsight and salt.
I put every damage doubler and tripler I could into my Jaxis the Troublemaker deck, and it's very, very funny to deal like, 120 damage to each opponent out of nowhere.
I really don't understand why people are so down on Harvest Season. It seems like a lot of people think that it needs to get you 5-10-20 lands... But the truth is that as long as you get anything other than 0 or 1 basics, it's good. If you get 2, it's an Explosive Vegetation on discount / Cultivate that puts the second land into play. On 3, it's REALLY good and anything above that is just stupid. It's not too hard to tap creatures either; mana-dorks taps themselves (6 out of the 10 most played creatures according to EDHREC) and there's usually someone you can attack for free in the early game. I guess you need to play it in a deck where you'll be able to consistently have 2 creatures out by turn 3 to make it a consistently high performing card. But hear me out; T1 you play a mana-dork. T2 you play a 2/3mv creature. T3 you attack with the 2/3mv (someone w/o blockers or is unlikely to trade) and tap the mana-dork. On T4 you'll have access to 7 mana. This is by no means hard to pull off and very budget friendly.
Epic struggle would have been good in my sons landfall deck when he had lots of scute swarms without haste. I won that time by using call the coppercoats and skullclamping until wincon found 😅 I managed to beat that 8yo
i remember WAY back in the day, MaRo once talking about how they test potential playtesters and designers and a big question was "whats wrong with this design?" and the correct answer was that the 6/6 creature card design had deathtouch. and maro was like "you never give a big body deathtouch because it's irrelevant!" then a year or two later, they printed grave titan.
The thing is though, it is often very relevant. One of the best ways to deal with creatures in combat (moreso in Limited) is by blocking them with multiple creatures. If your opponent blocked Sun Titan with 2 4/4s, they get to keep one. Grave Titan will kill the first 6 creatures blocking it! Obviously, there are better ways to deal with things in Commander, but it doesn't make Deathtouch on big bodies irrelevant.
@@hadrianjBut then, on the flipside, the blocking player will know they just block with the least amount of creatures possible...as they would likely be doing anyway. Like sure, they get to keep one (or more) if they have more total toughness when blocking and don't if it has deathtouch, but that doesn't mean they won't be blocking with the least amount of creatures either way. So it doesn't really change much in actual practice.
But as they pointed out in the discussion itself, sometimes cool flavor overrides mechanics. Well not so much overrides (as they don't tend to do full breaks of color pie anymore) but more "is redundant". But that also doesn't mean it's good practice to do all the time, so it's still a good question for newbie designers to be able to point out it is a little 'wrong' in pure design theory, even if reality ends up dictating it's needed for a cool specific card here and there. So even though Grave Titan exists now itself, it'd STILL be a good question for future designers...and perhaps an even better one now, given their first thought likely WOULD be Grave Titan, so them noticing Grave Titan is the sort of card that shouldn't happen a lot (despite being printed already) is even more valuable to sort out the amateur wannabes (who simply think "If it's been done before already, it can be allowed whenever!") from the potential professionals (who do realise things like that are best kept sparse exactly to make the flavor side cooler when it does happen).
@@hadrianj I would even say that Deathtouch on a big creature has its own forms of awesome. Sure it's flavorful, but if you ever get a big creature with both Deathtouch and Trample, it is downright devastating. Kill all the blockers, apply most of the damage to the attacked target anyways.
Exactly. Mixing Deathtouch and Trample is huge. Deathtouch is never irrelevant, no matter how big the creature is.
Brb gonna build win-more tribal now
They banned Golos already
Still got my Foil Promo version of the best Scout in MTG history 💕
@@piratafrustradogolos could still be a rule 0 build. As long as the playgroup is okay with it.
Sounds fun actually
I play with a person that does this already; is also feelsbad tribal!
One of the really nice things about some "win-more" card, especially permanent cards, is their potential to draw removal. It's really nice when you can drop something big and splashy after setting up a value engine, and sit back and watch your opponents try to figure out how to stop you from doing the scary, flashy things rather than shutting down the engine that's going to make sure you win, anyways. At the end of the day, being able to distinguish between win-cons and win-more is not just good for deck building, but crucial for threat assessment.
this is so true. many many times these cards draw so much hate thte nobody pay attention to the engine you have :)
I am traditionally a value player, so I have never understood this logic. You have 3 opponents in Commander. If you play a card intending for it to get removed, you are down a card and so is an opponent. Your other two opponents thus gain an advantage and you likely wasted your turn. So overall, your board state has lost the most. This strategy may make sense in a 2 player format where you are trading cards but has never made sense in Commander.
It is the same reason that Aura decks were highly unpopular until recently when they added enough card draw bonuses from casting auras (mainly Selesnya) to offset losing two cards to every removal spell where your opponents would inevitably win the value game. Voltron decks had to be restricted to hexproof Commanders to be viable and even then equipment tended to be the better route.
I would rather protect my own assets (hexproof, indestructible), use recursion to bring them back repeatedly or play cards that get me even more cards to put me ahead of my opponents in the game.
I guess if you are focused on distracting your opponent from an obscure win-con it could work but only once. So unless you are one of those players with like 50 Commander decks (or you rarely play vs the same people), again I cannot see building your deck with this strategy in mind rather than just protecting the win-con from the beginning.
the fact it's that you are not necessarily only playing that card because it will be removed, it's a vauable card - but in some types of decks it's much much better to run that card you know will be removed that protect something because you can't so easily protect it and the removal plays actually in your favor. I always get this "but you are down a card" argument and my counter argument it's easy: well I don't really care if I will win next turn! it's not a matter of obscurity of the wincon but more a matter of the psycology of how a card is percieved. this happens to me quite often in Rakdos decks and it happened recentely also in dimir zombie: people are removing the lords, because they're scared of a +1/+1 while I am more concerned you will remove my next turn enchantment that will win me the game. I'll rather make you spend your counterspell on my lord than on my Gary for example.@@Dragon_Fyre
I'm just going to throw in some more card draw, removal or protection instead of having a basically dead card.
If my value engine is set up then it's probably already game. I don't see a reason to run a card that NEEDS to have a good board state to work well.
I guess, what I'm saying, is that, at leas at casual tables, sometimes playing a big splashy spell can clear the way for a win. I don't typically play at tables that are competitive enough where at least one player has removal for something every turn cycle, so a card that looks powerful, even on a bad board state, can be a good way to ensure that you're able to land something better next turn.
If you play with people that don't understand the difference between win-con and win-more, you can have a win-more card do valuable work as a way to check for removal before playing your win-con. You can use it to distract players from what you're doing otherwise, and you can also use it for big fun win-more moments where you are winning and you turn it into overkill for a great story. It's worth it to me personally, in my personal play style, and with literally every playgroup I've sat down with.
I'm 100% guilty of misplaying because of poor threat assessment of win-more cards. I've seen a lot as well. I'm not saying it's an optimal build or anything, but most players aren't looking for optimal, just for fun, so I'm pointing out a way that "dead" card can do some extra work if you have it anyways.
And yes, I've literally never played the exact same pile of cards more than once, and rarely with the exact same people, so, I imagine threat assessment changes when you play often against the same people with the same decks, but I don't have experience in that area.
11:36 when Dana says "bad dragons" and Joey makes that "Mmm" noise 😳
Love the episode and this discussion! I'm still learning to add win conditions to my decks in general, so this was very educational for me.
I’m so glad you guys talked about the nuance of cards being win more in certain decks and not others, so often I see declarations that certain cards are only win more
Legit, several of these cards are really good in the right deck, but should not go in anything else even if they look appealing. For example I use ezzaroot channeler in my henzie deck since it likes to cheat costs, 2 is a solid discount with the high rates, and my boardstate is fleeting unless I hit my reanimator so the discount stays relevant. Etali for 3 is better than etalli for 5 any day. I would not play ezzaroot in lifegain due to that being an archetype with a lower curve that really does not need a discount if you already have 6 mana.
I do not consider Crucible of Fire to be a win more as it is not +3/+0 but +3/+3… The dragons do not need that extra damage for the most part if you have several but +3 toughness takes most dragons from susceptible to damage at 3 to 5 toughness to 6 to 8 where you can freely attack your opponents without much fear of depleting your dragons and losing a battle of attrition to your 3 opponents.
I really like the idea of what I call stepping stone cards in Commander. Excellent discussion, and you guys brought it up sideways which I love. Feel free to run with it if you want! Again I know maybe it's a topic tangential to winmore-vs-wincon, but it's a pretty open-field discussion topic. Cards that marked our deck brewing journeys by bringing insights to our minds about potential other build paths for the same deck or what have you.
Kindred Summons in dragons has been impactful every time I've played it. Even just flipping 3 dragons is game changing.
Yeah, me too. I think it works best in decks that have a few of a certain type of creature that each in the deck is really impactful. Things like dragons, gods, etc
Win more is good in stalemate boardstates. If you have a bunch of dragons, but so does your opponent, having more Dragoney Dragons can make the difference
I love this show. Y’all are the best. And Matt and Dana’s Challenge the Stats segment has been super helpful in helping me analyze my decks. Thank you!
Btw the reason grave betrayal gives the creature a +1/+1 counter is to turn off undying creatures as RTR block was right after Innistrad, because when a creature with undying goes to the graveyard it returns to the battlefield under its owner's control with a +1/+1 counter. Giving the creature a counter prevents that feelbad of reanimating an opponent's creature then putting it back on their battlefield when it dies.
Agree a ton about damage doublers not necessarily being win-more cards. I have a Xenagos deck loaded up with them, and stacking those lets me one-shot opponents before they get a chance to stabilize!
I'm just building him rn, do you have a decklist?
I actually took Doubling Season out of my Planeswalker deck because it felt too slow and telegraphed. The moment you cast it you become the biggest target on the table and if there's removal for Doubling Season you can bet it will be played. I prefer using Deepglow Skate instead. Sure it's pretty much just as mana-hungry as Doubling Season but your opponents have a much smaller window to deal with it than Doubling Season under most circumstances. Plus Ichormoon Gauntlet is just fantastic. Best card I slotted into the deck in quite a while.
Oh, I requested this as an episode a few weeks back! Thanks for providing a deeper dive into the distinction, Dana and Joey!
I love seeing Nyxbloom Ancient get mentioned here, hes my number one most favorite target of necromancy, but despite jamming him in like 10% of all my decks, ive hardcast it like two times ever.
I'm a dumbass who only hardcasts Nyxbloom, literally none of my decks that run it are reanimators. It's just real fun to like tap out and drop just a big boy who triples my mana and then have the rest of the table panic but I've got no mana left and I'm just being smug for a turn until I die or untap and end the game.
@@brunopintaric8997 respeck
@@brunopintaric8997 Nyxbloom into Early Harvest is very funny
"That variance between what the pay off is and the effort it took"
This idea has helped me so much building my decks. I love weird cards but I've got to make sure they don't end up dead draws.
Ichormoon Gauntlet is not made for superfriends in the traditional sense, it's for the planewalkers that can only remove counters through their natural abilities (and so they can be used with superfriends to potentially add counters to the others, in that sense don't have to protect multiple planeswalkers, only the ones you are wanting more counters on, so you're still only protecting 1-2 while using the rest as decoys and proliferate, must also consider the +1/+1 counter decks which can benefit greatly from both the proliferate and extra turns since it's most likely already proliferating while going wide with a smaller board, doesn't change the fact there are better ways to get that growth/win but it's a support card in these style of decks, it's a win more in superfriends.
I think I actually power down my decks with win more cards, which is good for my play group. I think that all the players in my group actually have win more cards, and it kinda balances each other out, and still makes for the splashy plays that make commander, and magic in general, awesome.
Not sure if this only works on Twitter, but I'd like to challenge the stats. 57% of Zask, Skittering Swarmlord decks are playing Canoptek Tomb Sentinel. The card's not bad, but I feel like people are misunderstanding how the card interacts with Zask. If you cast the card from grave, it does _not_ get to exile anything. This is because it goes from the grave to the stack, then from the stack into play. It doesn't even get to mill if you unearth it, as it is exiled instead of dying. It's no better here than it is in any other mill deck.
When it comes to Crucible of Fire, I think it’s win more in multicolored dragons but a win con in mono red dragons. Once you’re mono red, you’re losing out on additional ramp and protection (even black has it with recursion), so you need to take bigger chunks of life, whether it’s with a “bad” dragon or by making one of your “boss” dragons more dangerous.
Love the topics and the cast. Btw awesome ui update on the site!
I feel like the same card can be either in different decks. (Edit: I'm aware they touched on this quite a lot here and themselves, especially in regards to doublers, but I wrote this before they got to this part. But I also don't think it can be overstated, so am leaving it in for really-make-the-point redundancy!)
For example, Overwhelming Stampede in a stompy deck with lots of already-big creatures is a win-more card (turning a handful of 5/5s into 10/10s only doubles the power), but in a deck with a large commander that makes a lot of tiny tokens (for example, Ghalta and Mavren going the go-wide route), then it's a win-con (turning a handful of 1/1s into 13/13s with trample, massively pumping the potential damage).
Similarly, the damage doublers/triplers in a deck already dealing big amounts of damage is win-more. But if it's in a deck based around 1-damage ping effects, it becomes a win-con because you can't win by 1-damage pings alone, but when you have a couple out and each ping now deals 4-9 damage, that's a win-con.
Counterexample for Doubling Season effects: Cadira, Caller of the Small.
As long as you have even a few tokens (or certain token makers) on the field, Cadira can do ridiculous things with token doublers. Last time I played that deck, I got to untap with DS, then gave Cadira double strike. The game didn't last long after that, even though I think I went into that turn with few or no token on the field.
I run Ruthless Technomancer in my Marchesa Modular deck and it does so much work. Can bring back modular creatures (and Marionette Master) by saccing an artifact on top of the great treasure making etb. It’s an acceptable sac outlet in a pinch too
Retribution of the Ancients is another great way to remove +1 counters from creatures in a Haunted One deck
Thanks guys! Wasn't expecting that!
I like that Dana has Kindred Summons as a wincon card in an Eldrazi deck when I have it as a wincon card in my General Tazri Ally deck. Hagra diabolist triggering 5 times for 10 damage can be backbreaking.
Interestingly I actually think Nomad's Assembly can still be good but you need to play it very differently from how you want to play it when you first see it. People think oh I could make ten dudes and that is not when you need to play the card you play it when you have 3 dudes to double the size of your board now and then double it next turn to 12 dudes with the Rebound and then use your real win con to finish the game. Now for six mana making 9 1/1's over two turns is not huge but it's also not bad. I think understanding what a card needs to do in your deck is also important.
Triplicating damage is not win more, imagine it's the path to eventually being able to one-shoot someone with a lightning bolt. If EDH is not the place for such a thing, then it's a sad universe we live in.
That's how my imodane deck runs! Bolt a creature for 3, fiery triples it to 9. Imodane triggers, tries to deal 9 damage to each opponent, but it's a separate instance of damage so it gets tripled again to 27.
That is indeed quite fun and healthy!
@@diegomartinez2920 it's certainly fun 😅
You guys are right about so many of these!
However, Ezzaroot channeller is in my budget Aeve creature storm deck and usually what i want to do is get ezzaroot out, then storm off on the next turn, and it always delivers.
Sage of Fables is an absolute powerhouse in my Volo//Haunted One deck, great suggestion for other Blue Haunted One decks.
Joey's beard game has been on point lately
Don't worry, Joey. "I'm am a mature adult who can handle it" is also a lie i tell myself.
Ezzaroot Channeler is actually the least replacable part of the wincon of the green module of my Prismatic Piper/Sakashima deck.
Because you can use it to make the Piper free and infinitly recast him with two Essence Warden type effects.
Decklist? This sounds like the kinda jank I'm looking for.
What made me play crucible in my Ur-Dragon deck was that Ur puts out 20 commander damage in 2 swings and so having somethig to cheat in with it that increases its power is extra valuable. I had overlooked how strong it was for a long time but now it's well worth the deck slot. I'd also play it in atarka or lathliss but not in ganax or miirym
Eh, a lot of these are petty situational card. In the past I did run Ormos in a deck. It was an azorius pillow fort deck where the goal was to turtle and draw a million cards until i kill people with creatures was scale with my hand size like empyrial plate. In that deck, Ormos was not a win condition, it was a "don't lose to myself" condition. Because decking my entire deck simply happened by accident, I did not want to run with laboratory maniac-type effects because that's not the game plan I wanted at all, I was trying to actively avoid doing so, but I still needed a way to not lose because of it either. Ormos is the only card that makes it happen.
Great discussion. I arrived at the same conclusion for throne of the pharaoh which does great in my Tetsuko which has a lot of 1 power creatures that can't be blocked due to that and that I can therefore not boost however I want.
Minion of the Mighty was a very common turn two win on MTGA a while ago. That's a damage doubler with Terror of Mount Velus or Blast-Funarce Hellkite. When your deck make it easy to get 6 power on board (that is nothing next to a 120 life total) it is a consistent ritual for >5. I don't think it's a winmore and I don't even play red or dragons. It's the same as seeing a Kaalia of the Vast onboard, it might be useless sometimes, but has a very high ceiling for shenanigans.
If you're considering Sage of Fables for Haunted one decks, then check out Retribution of the Ancients as well
I think there is a conversation to be had about whether these 7+ mana win more cards are less winmore and more battle cruiser. Debtor's Knell is not an efficient spell, but it's fun and usually flavorful to pop it into some decks.
Throne of the God-Pharaoh is an interesting card. I partially agree with Dana but there are some decks, like The Locust God or Ovika that work great with it. Swinging for 15 and then do 15 more to EACH opponent is something big.
Edit: you might think it is an overkill but you are attacking with 1/1 with haste and flying (at least with The Locust God tokens)
I have it in my lathril blade of the elves deck where I do all types of tap shennaigans. Nothing like tapping her with ten elves for ten damage to each opponent, then another eleven to each opponent on my end step. Any time I can do 21 damage to each opponent in a turn is so fun.
one of my earliest commanders ended up being kind of a win-more in Vorel of the hull clade. I had him with a bunch of untap abilities and other +1/+1 synergies but it got to be too much really quick. I then changed it to Ezuri: claw of progress and ended up MORPHing that into something I now have a lot of fun with.
I'm still fairly new to EDH and Magic in general, but this concept has me looking at my own deck and wondering if I've been thinking about the cards I considered win-conditions correctly
I notice a lot of your comments are about if you have a certain card then you don't need this other card.
OK, but if you do not have that first card the other card is a good backup plan.
You know, synergy.
Also, a lot of the cards with "back up" abilities are really good at other things. Like Ormos, for example. The flying is great on a 5/5. Add the card draw and graveyard filling and it's a great card. Sure, the no cards ability will likely never happen, especially in commander, but it doesn't detract from anything either.
One last thing is style of play. I like janky cards and decks.
Using weird card is what makes commander fun to me.
Great video as usual. I like hearing you allz opinions. Keep up the great entertainment!
43:50 I actually really like harvest season in my Katilda humans deck! It feels really nice to tap 3 creatures to cast it and just get at least three more lands!
Plus katilda really loves to have lots of mana to use their ability a lot of times, making this either a really fast ramp early in the game or a "piece of a win condition" if you can get to later turns and ramp like 7 or even 15 lands out your deck
I play both Throne of the God and Harvest season in my gruul elves deck. One as a win condition (i attack one player and drain the rest) and the other kind of like protection against a boardwipe. I only play 32 lands - 2 is usually enough, and I draw plenty cards, but if I'm boardwiped it'll take forever to get the engine going, but if i have casted a harvest, then I'll have at least 10 lands so I'll be back for the win in 1 turn
Excellent challenge the stats turn
Back when Mighty Emergence was standard, I had a bad (but fun) standard deck that paired it with Woodfall Primus to destroy all noncreatures!
Was thinking you should do an episode on this a while back, also advantage vs win-more. As in does this card draw only work when you already have a board? Is it worth it vs the sign in blood?
Looking forward to listening to this episode!
I have a Samut, Voice of Dissent warrior tribal deck and Kindred Summons is an amazing closer in that deck specifically because Samut gives those creatures haste. Dropping five extra warriors on the field with haste and usually some combat relevant text because that's what warriors do is a huge game swing
The absolute classic win-more card is doublers, especially token doublers. Token making is good value and a classic deck method that relies on simply making more things that people can get rid of, and doublers are very valuable at taking you from going wide to overwhelmingly wide - but they do nothing if you aren't set up to go. You need to have consistent and protected or replayable ways to make tokens, or taking out the token-maker also effectively shuts down the doublers. Sure, the magical christmasland scenario where your Landfall deck has Elesh Norn and Mondrak and Greenwarden so you are making four times more tokens off each Landfall, but if you have that much in play you already won since nobody else is participating. No token makers and your deck sputters out.
I've got a similar card. People always ask why I don't run The Ozolith in my Tayam deck. I explain, by the time I'm sacrificing creatures with counters on them, it's usually in the middle of an infinite combo, so Ozolith doesn't do anything most of the time, except to maybe winmore if the infinite somehow doesn't work out.
Death's presence is great in magus lucea Kane if you're leaning into the "ferocious" keyword from that precon. Cast a big X creature and copy it. If somebody kills the main one, the copy is now twice as big. That deck already wants to produce a ton of mana, and the commander turns one big body into 2 already
Ormos feels so like a real meme deck card. You know you can do super strong things, and yet you don't and do the silly thing instead
Divine visitation is a combo engine with bishop of wings.
One sac outlet and visitation go brrrrrrrrrr
As Dana pointed out, something that is win more in some circumstances is just win in others. Sometimes if you already have a bunch of tokens, casting something that doubles your number of creatures is less useful than an Overrun effect would be - say, in a Selesnya token deck - but in a token deck that runs Purphuros/Impact Tremors effects, the critter doubler kills people. I run both sorts of effects in my Gahiji token swarm deck, allowing me different wincons depending on the board state or what I happen to draw.
i think for nyxbloom ancient the way one of my friends sold it to me was. " it's not a 7drop it's a 10 drop that give you 9 mana back" and triples your mana on future turns. i then started playing it like that it dam it got WAY better, it suddenly became almost a "free" spell that gave insane amounts of options for future developments of my board, i could cast it and instead of that being my whole turn i could still do lots of stuff with remaining mana. not to mention with 11 mana then it starts generating mana instead. yes thats a lot of mana but i love my ramp and if i don't have 20 mana what am i even doin then :D
11:50 Joey definitely didnt Need to do the mmm when bad dragons were said but its iconic that he did lmao
When it comes to doublers, specifically token doublers moreso than the others but it can apply to the others as well, I find they work best when paired with more passive effects. Tossing down a parallel lives or doubling season in a Jinnie Fay deck running things like Shiny Impetus, Assemble the Legion, Astrata of the Endless Web, Skrelv's Hive, Perigrin Took, etc... You already have that passive value set up so the doubling season doesn't really require the extra investment after you play it. As long as you have some sort of triggers lined up for after it's played, you get your value out of it.
You know it's funny. Joey referenced Stensia Masquerade which I use in my Grixis vampire deck, but I don't use it as a win con. I use it as one of the enablers for nasty deathtouch shenanigans that already to fit neatly into the deck. (And like Dana suggested, I'm usually going wide anyway).
Ormos is one of my favorite decks and I have won games by putting an absurd number of counters on him. He's mostly just there to draw entirely too many cards.
Scute swarm is a nightmare as well as any other trigger that exponentially upticks. Panharmonicon falls into this category as well as Cathars crusade. Sometimes you just want to play some simple mtg, not resolving trigger after trigger just simply buy playing a land or casting a spell. Then you find yourself helping them resolve stuff they missed and next thing you know you've taken up 15 mins and haven't even gotten passed their upkeep.
I feel extremely similar about divine visitation in my alela deck. I'm just not sure its worth it or not
I run a lot of the damage modifer cards like fiery emancipation and solphim mayhem dominus in my valakut land fall deck and they pretty much always necessary since valakut only does three damage per trigger and it needs the help to actually take players out
i saw the gruul signpost uncommon for wilds of eldraine yesterday and i wonder if that will go in matts ragadraga deck it seems like a great fit
Doubling Season is a win-more and unnecessary in my Shalai & Halar deck, because if I get lifelink on Shalai and have an Ajani's Pridemate in play, 2 counters instead of 1 doesn't really do much, I still win.
Doubling Season in my Ghired deck makes 2-6 hasty Pathbreaker Ibexes that makes everything big enough to win.
Same card, 2 vastly different results from including it or not.
It seems that a card's "win more" status is pretty much always contingent on what the rest of the deck looks like. Every example in this video could be used in a deck where it is definitively NOT a "win more" card.
Speaking of Cultivator Colossus, I have a deck in which Cultivator Colossus is virtually necessary for the deck to win. My commander is Nissa, Resurgent Animist. Thicket Elemental is the only card that Nissa's trigger can find, and kicking Thicket Elemental with Cultivator Colossus in the library is a guaranteed hit on the Colossus. The only other non-land cards in the deck are Rude Awakening (to cast with entwine after Cultivator Colossus has dumped 90-ish lands onto the battlefield), Finale of Devastation (to give all my 2/2 land creatures something like +80/+80 and haste), and Gaea's Touch (to make the deck slightly faster sometimes). Everything else is lands, with an emphasis on rushing to seven mana and getting a second landfall trigger in the same turn on my commander. So yeah, it's super-gimmicky. But Cultivator Colossus sure isn't "win more" in this context. It's the keystone to the whole deck!
One thing I'd add is even if a card is win more, sometimes I still like to run because of the joy of playing them instead of a win con neccessarily. :)
For my scarab god deck endless ranks of the dead is one of my biggest threats if it comes out early. Starts compounding and really helping my scarab god get value so I can run more utility cards and not so many small zats
Lux Artillery in a Ramos deck means if you cast him, you can same-turn pop his effect for ten colored mana. Amazing enabler.
I like throne of the God Pharaoh with Otharri, Sun's Glory since it always create tapped tokens attacking.... so it makes a great offense.
The Simic Phyrexian Ezuri really likes Death’s presence. I run mostly creatures to proc experience counters, so Death’s Presence (and/or the Ozolith) get me counters back on to my other creatures when the guy I’ve been buffing inevitably dies
Epic Struggle is in my fiance's Chatterfang Deck for when combat is shut down as an alternative win card.
Kindred summons isn't abotu having significant and important ccreatures on the board before casting, it's to make use of token creatures. For example, a Lathril deck can have a good 7 elves on board by turn 4 but most of them are irrelevant when it comes to attacking, this lets you get 7 extra elves that can actually turn those 1/1s into threats.
Throne of the God Pharaoh looks like it would work well in either a vehicle-heavy, or a Pinger-style deck as well.
I like Harvest Season in my Sultai-colored Persistent Petitioners deck, along with Quest for Renewal. ;)
In a lot of ways this shows how fast and efficient the format has become. Doubling effects are stapled on commanders and 2/3/4 mana synergy cards are more powerful than trying to come over the top. Less board wipes also speeds up games and make some of the slower stuff unplayable
Personally a massive fan of Ascendent Acolyte, run him in my Chishiro deck so he can often get a ridiculous amount of counters on him, often got a lot of cards to ensure his attacks go through or he can block everything on his own
Now I want to know what that Eldrazi Spawn / Scion deck is!
Id like to offer my own assessment on Grave Titan having death touch: if youre blocking it with a smaller creature to avoid damage, you do that but they keep titan. If youre blocking it with a bigger creature its still going to die. I think GT having deathtouch just makes it "harder" to deal with outside of straight up removal
I disagree with 'minion of the mighty'
In commander, having 6 power worth of creatures isn't a late game situation where you're already winning. It's early midgame for most aggro decks. That extra dragon can easily make the difference between winning or dying.
Doubling season feels like winmore in my gargos hydra deck.
I think that zendikar resurgent is not a winmore card, since it also gives you card draw. But usually it is a do-nothing card when it comes to play, but it telegraphs a warning to others, that things are going to happen...
Commander players don't just want to win. They want to play with their food first.
I've taken out Divine Visitation. It's a super cool concept but for 5 mana where it doesn't DO anything just by playing it, it feels bad for me. I've tried to remove cards that absolutely DEPEND on other cards for their value unless I have so much synergy that they'll just be valuable anyway. One thing I've found is that, the goal of my deck and adding Divine Visitation was to just make an army of swarming flyers. But it was actually too slow not versatile enough, so I realized I could literally just play Harbin as my commander (who gives ALL my creatures flying and +1/0 til end of turn while attacking as long as I attack with 5 or more soldiers) and then I just made sure all my token creators made Soldier tokens of some kind AND Soldiers as a tribal has some really, really great cards for utility or aggression. It's SUPER easy to pump out soldier tokens whether through Creature cards that make soldiers when you attack OR through Sorceries that allow you to funnel mana into them to pay X value and create X soldiers. Being somewhat new to Magic still, I was still pretty hellbent on creating this dreamlike deck with WOW BAM super cool cards and then I realized that...eh...actually it's way more fun at actual Commander games to have cards that are helpful, fun to play, and beneficial whether or not any other particular card or strategy is on the board.
Harbin so far for me is super fun! I can both go wide and create tons of Soldiers and have them all turn into flyers, OR I can pump up one particular creature based on my creature number and then swing. Mace of the Valiant is great for the fact that I'll be creating tons of creatures and unless someone deals with my Mace, then it WILL be able to do lethal dmg to someone later in the match. OR I put in Strixhaven Stadium and even if I don't K.O. someone with lethal combat damage, I can just swarm them with 1/1 fliers that still add counters to the Stadium and then take them out anyway much like Infect/Toxic.
What I'd recommend for other new players is, DEFINITELY play what you want, however, keep in mind that decks are as much tools as they are power fantasies. Some cards that you think are really super cool ideas that "If it could only work" or "If I somehow pull this off in game with the right combo!" might actually end up being unfun or frustrating to play if you find yourself waiting around in the match for the right thing to happen. Try to build your deck like an engine that can constantly cycle itself productively and either ramp itself, protect itself, or build a constant threat to your enemies while you search for your "Win con" to come to fruition. It's easy if you're like me an can kinda get obsessively hooked on an idea of "I've got to use this card" but how that card FEELS in your hand at home might feel totally different when you've drawn it during a game and you're like "Oh shit...it costs 5 mana and I really don't need a Divine Visitation right now vs this board state". I could see how it could be run in certain decks very effectively tho and sometimes it's not the card that's the problem, but just that it doesn't necessarily fit into your own deck's flow and priorities.
Win-more can also be called win harder. You have already got lethal on board, but then you cast Savage Beating to REALLY make them dead. Bonus points if you Entwine it to make them REALLY, REALLY dead.
I'd like to a Sarkhan's Whelp in a Magda deck. Early aggression might be the way to get a dead dragon in your hand.
Ruthless Technomancer is fantastic in Juri, Master of the Revue. Sacrifice something on the ETB to make treasures and buff Juri then sacrifice the treasures to recur something and buff Juri even more!
Challenge the Stats suggestion: Priest of Titania in Lonis, Cryptozoologist.
This is more my challenging EDHREC than challenging the stats.
Priest is not listed at all on Lonis's "default" page, nor it is listed on the "expensive"/"clues" page; however, if you go to the "expensive"/(no theme) page, Priest shows up in 51% of Lonis decks.
I find this to be a weird discrepancy: not only is Priest not a particularly expensive card, but it's strange that it shows up in expensive generic Lonis decks at a very high rate but not at all in expensive Lonis decks with the "clue" theme.
Priest, of course, is good because she makes a clue when Lonis is in play, but she also makes at least two mana if Lonis in play as Lonis is an elf. It's forgivable that someone might forget that, among Lonis's five hunded creature types, one of them is "elf." Plus the average Lonis list runs a handful of elves anyway, buffing Priest's mana output potential.
While not as good as something like Wood Elves in Lonis (as many Lonis decks run blink effects and Panharmonicon effects), two MV creatures, of a relevant creature type, with synergies with the commander are pretty good.
Abundance sure does go good with that cultivator colossus.
I actually have it in my Obuun deck and your right game ending.
I’d definitely say Crucible of Fire is worth it because of the newer dragon cards being smaller and lower to the ground, and you can make them into decent threats. And when you do hit with you’re bigger hits, you’re getting a lot of value from them.
I own two doubling seasons and im still trying to find decks where im happy to draw it and not feel like its unnecessary removal fodder for me to waste 5 mana, and perhaps even a turn, playing right now i have one in Prossh and the other in my Urtet deck. Prossh really doesnt need it either and i havent played Urtet enough to know yet. As for fiery emancipation and true conviction, I run FE in a couple decks most notably the Ur-Dragon because he can put into play for free and one shot someone for 30 commander damage.
I don't really view Cultivator Colossus as acceleration. It's more a way to convert every land in your hand into a relevant spell in a way that other big draw effects can't.
Hey now 😒, I have Mighty Emergence on my Titania deck. It makes the 5/3 tokens into 7/5.
Will it help me win... Maybe. It's awesome though haha
When you have 3 (or possibly more) opponents all playing powerful, game-warping commanders and decks, win-more as a concept is down to a perception of someone’s play pattern. Is “make X big tokens” plus token doubler plus +3/+3 anthem win-more? What’s the board state otherwise? What answers are the other players holding?
The game has to end at some point, whether it’s a Sanguine Bond combo or Niv/Curiosity combo or infinite squirrels or a handful of dragons/angels/demons and a couple anthems and/or damage multipliers. Sometimes you need that extra thing in case there’s a targeted removal spell or other trick that would turn your “exactsies” win into a fail. “Win-more” is rarely more than hindsight and salt.
even though it does not quite translate, I normally use the quadrant theory: If it's not good in any of the other 3 quadrants, beware
I put every damage doubler and tripler I could into my Jaxis the Troublemaker deck, and it's very, very funny to deal like, 120 damage to each opponent out of nowhere.
This could just be a segment on what’s worth casting at 6+ mana in commander
I really don't understand why people are so down on Harvest Season. It seems like a lot of people think that it needs to get you 5-10-20 lands... But the truth is that as long as you get anything other than 0 or 1 basics, it's good. If you get 2, it's an Explosive Vegetation on discount / Cultivate that puts the second land into play. On 3, it's REALLY good and anything above that is just stupid.
It's not too hard to tap creatures either; mana-dorks taps themselves (6 out of the 10 most played creatures according to EDHREC) and there's usually someone you can attack for free in the early game.
I guess you need to play it in a deck where you'll be able to consistently have 2 creatures out by turn 3 to make it a consistently high performing card.
But hear me out; T1 you play a mana-dork. T2 you play a 2/3mv creature. T3 you attack with the 2/3mv (someone w/o blockers or is unlikely to trade) and tap the mana-dork. On T4 you'll have access to 7 mana. This is by no means hard to pull off and very budget friendly.
epic struggle is non modal triumph of the hordes that you need to untap with
Ok, now that Joey has mentioned his Syr Konrad deck for the millionth time, where is that art from? Cause it's not any of the times he's been printed
Epic struggle would have been good in my sons landfall deck when he had lots of scute swarms without haste. I won that time by using call the coppercoats and skullclamping until wincon found 😅
I managed to beat that 8yo