The reason I use the signets is because they don't die to creature-based boardwipes. Mana dorks, in my experience, tend to be less useful than mana rocks because board wipes are a dime a dozen and creatures (be they token or utility or even commanders themselves) are so meta, that mass creature removal is a *must* as an answer if you fall behind.
I totally agree. There are tons of mana dorks that are incredibly good out there, but playing them puts you at risk of losing your mana sources on boardwipes.
It's probably a meta thing. If your play group is playing a bunch of battle cruiser magic then I imagine dorks are significantly better than at my tables for instance.
@@skellyxj1My thoughts exactly. Yes, he's completely correct that on turn 2, a signet is on a level with an Ornithopter of Paradise - but on literally any other turn during the "buildup" phase of the game, it's superior (can be used instantaneously, doesn't die to random creature wipes). That said, I'll have to dig up an OoP for my Davros deck. More artifact creatures certainly won't hurt that one.
Big agree on just about everything. I'll refute signets though for a few reasons. 1) They're incredibly budget 2 mana rocks. Sure ornithopter, liquimetal, fellwar, etc. But these are still good outside green. 2) They can convert colorless mana to colored mana. 3) In later turns past 2, coming in untapped lowers the tempo hit from playing them. I still think they're overplayed in decks with more than 2 colors, but in 2-color decks I would probably start with them included and only remove if there were enough more synergistic ramp. Also, harmonize is overplayed, but it's not a bad option for some unconditional draw. If you're prone to overcommit to the board in green and end up with an empty hand, it can get you back in the game after a wipe.
yep. signets basically cost 1 mana from turn 3 onwards. Also, signets are generally going to survive a lot more turns than 0/2 artifact creatures in a format full of sweepers
I agree with the guys from EDHRec. *More* people need to be playing Harmonize over Return of the Wildspeaker, in any either/or situation. 3 cards for 4 mana can’t be beat outside Blue, and RotW can’t do anything to help you with a post-Wipe rebuild. I’m a huge believer that primary-Green decks that aren’t maximizing efficient ramp and card-draw are playing against game design. Green has these strengths to balance out its limitations when it comes to Interaction. MaRo said it best, when he said, “Whether it’s creatures to counters, targeted removal and boardwipes, or everything else Green to Counters and Enchantment/Artifact Removal, Green *is going to lose expensive spells to Interaction* . The way the color deals with that is by facilitating your drawing and playing enough replacements to remain even *after* losses to Interaction.”
I like Harmonize, it gives you three card as it resolves. For return of the wildspeaker you need a creature, guardian project needs creatures, as does great henge. All these can draw you more, but you need other stuff to happen. And great henge is expensive for a casual deck, at least I haven't seen it in a precon lately. I will keep my harmonize.
Agree with all of these. I’d go so far as to say a few of these are really great cards, but tired nonetheless. Worth mentioning that a lot of these bad removal options like Putrefy have stuck around because many players have erroneously decided to only play instant-speed removal. Flexibility is nice, but removing threats on your own turn has a lot of its own advantages! I think this would be a great topic for a video: the pros and cons of sorcery-speed removal.
I love the vids, but oof on some takes. Negate is 30 cents and An Offer You Can't Refuse is $4. For those can't or won't always proxy, I'm not sure you can discount budget and accessibility so much when calling something overplayed.
I hate how mtg content creators straight up forget some people are on a budget sometimes. Hate entering a deck tech video and they just trow in a bunch of cards that alone are almost the price of my usual deck.
No, dark ritual is a bonified powerhouse. It’s in a small group of cards that are the closest thing we have to a legal black lotus. The opportunity cost is low and the ceiling is high. You’re tripping for this one Demo.
I'd have to agree. A single casting of dark ritual can completely shift the game. It doesn't matter if it's early game or late game, Dark Ritual is almost always a good card to draw. Not to mention how powerful it is in any flashback-esque deck like Kess, the Dissident Mage.
In casual commander, spending a card for just mana so that the thing you spent the mana on potentially just gets blown up by a board wipe later is not good
@@alfonsoferrera1135 this is basically the “dies to removal” argument extended to instants and sorceries. Casual or competitive, tripling up your investment on a 1 mana spell is POWERFUL in almost any situation but especially early in the game.
I’m building a Red/Black Spellslinger deck with Judith, Carnage Connoisseur as my Commander. I’m specifically adding Dark Ritual and Seething Song because they are Instants that let my specific Commander do what they want to do quicker and more efficiently.
Negate is excellent because 90% of the time it's as effective as straight up counterspell, because I so rarely care about countering a creature spell. It's typically noncreature spells that warp the game. The spell in many cases could even be better if you're playing in more than 2 colors including blue because if playing on a budget mana base you may not consistently be able to keep 2 blue up. Everything else I agreed with totally, brainstorm seems like such an obvious #1, biggest trap card ever unless you have like 15+ shuffle effects or some other sweet brew. Card draw effects are so powerful now, I would easily wait the extra 2 turns and not due the flashy brainstorm lock my hand play and instead play something even like a chart a course which can filter cards into my graveyard or consistently be sign in blood if I'm playing an agressive commander that comes down early. IDK brainstorm fits in so few decks archtypes I can't see why it'd be in ~40% of blue decks
Honestly Negate is one of my go to "Fuck it, I've got 97 cards and want to try this deck out" includes because like there may be better options but it's never not good.
I think he's not making so much of a case that the "non-creature" clause makes makes it unplayable somehow, it's just that he likes "an offer you can't refuse" more because it's cheaper at 1 mana. Though mentioning the OG Counterspell as the better card undermined that a bit, I would agree. It probably depends on what you want your counterspells to do. Do you want to slow down your opponent? Then Negate seems better because giving an opponent two treasure via "offer you can't refuse" kind of accelerates your opponent into doing even worse things next turn. But if all you want to do is counter certain key-spells, offer you can't refuse (or swan-song) can be better because they're just cheaper and you don't care about the goodies you just gave your opponent, if it means that you just countered a Cyclonic Rift for 50% of the mana-cost of a negate.
I think I'm starting to see a pattern in your card evaluation. My theory is that it's pretty heavily influenced by threat assessment expectations at the table. This is ok but it won't translate well to other play groups, and may explain the discrepancies between your experience and everyone else's re: mass removal, ramp and synergistic draw. For example, my former group leaned heavily towards greedy play and bad threat assessment, and board wipes were extremely powerful because they were resetting at least two players. This made people shy away from creature payoffs, which made spot removal less impactful, and in the end settled into a board wipes vs countermagic meta with horrible threat assessment and big snowball games. Not sure if EDHRec data reflects similar patterns, but it could explain why what you're seeing diverges so much.
It makes sense, I think at the average commander table ornithopter of paradise is a very mediocre card. The signets are not the best mana rocks, but they are certainly in a much higher class than OOP and the diamond cycle style of "functionally tapped two mana rocks," the OOP's upside of tapping for any color functionally be negated by its way higher likelihood of being swept away in some sort of board wipe to bring it down to the diamonds level
The pattern is that dude is off his rocker and let's the brewer mindset take over. I've seen too many people fall into the trap of "well, this card is bad because of X, Y, Z so I'm going to play this card that is generally worse because it's better in these niche situations". That's all this video was. One giant shitpost
@@khub5660 keep in mind he's specifically not talking about CEDH, so Best in Slot is not a fair consideration when criticizing his takes. Budget and accessibility are, which I can respect. Also to be fair, I don't think there's any real way of metagaming casual EDH outside of very stable groups, so I understand why there can be so much variance of opinion regarding card playability. I don't consider EDHREC a very good source for generalized conclusions either, because of how polluted the dataset is by precons and "ideal" decklists (no, most users don't own that many duals, trust me).
@@zbaschtian best in slot is most definitely a valid line of criticism. I don't pay attention to nor care about EDHREC as it is a dumpster fire. But you also don't have to own a card to play a card, EDH is proxy friendly. If don't own a card because it's out of price range then just proxy it. We're talking about a format that is unsanctioned. There is a way to metagame outside of stable groups. You play generally good cards that will do what they're supposed to 9 times out of 10. Phyrexian Arena is a perfect example. Sure, the creature he mentioned *might* draw you a card per turn at one table, but at another you'll get nothing. Phyrexian Arena is generally better because you're guaranteed an extra card per turn cycle, when all nuances are put aside
@@khub5660 card availability is a non issue as long as your group is ok with proxies, but that doesn't mean you're going to find a lot of tables that are ok running stuff that makes games last 3-5 turns less on average, especially if it isn't matched by the whole table. Running a Necro or Mana Crypt is usually a mistake in tables below 9 power regardless of whether the card is a proxy. Goodstuff value vs synergy is one of the main deckbuilding tensions of the format, and there's no definitive answer without also considering your group and commander. I tend to agree with Phyrexian Arena being mediocre unless you can stick it early (good argument for Dark Ritual in the same pile). Plus the 4 player scaling changes power valuations a lot: generally you're better off getting a likely trigger on 50% of the turns across the table than 100% of your own upkeeps.
Growth Spiral and Explore are good in decks where you NEED a turn 2 ramp spell in your opening hand. Which I would argue is 15 copies of an effect. Those are my favorite turn 2 ramp spells in a deck like that because when I draw them later they just cycle away unlike a lot of turn 2 ramp. I think people in Commander almost play a completely random number of ramp spells and a lot of the time the ramp is not doing what it is supposed to do because people don't play enough lands for the ramp to have done anything for them on the following turn after they played it.
Agree on players mostly not understanding ramp. What blows my mind is people but 1 and 2 CMC ramp in a deck with a 2 CMC commander that they want to play on curve.
I don't think Brainstorm is overrated or "horrible", it's just misplayed often. You can always use it in conjunction with fetch lands to put bad cards on top, crack the fetch, then shuffle or a variety of other ways to shuffle. It's great in Nekusar to manipulate his deck before a wheel. Etc. The problem isn't the card, the problem is the way people play it, which imo, distinguishes it from some of the other cards you highlighted (like Mortify and Harmonize)
Brainstorm (since you asked for my opinion and all) gets so much playtime for three reasons: first, if you check EDHREC, decks are averaging 34 lands in a deck. I think cards like Brainstorm or Dark Ritual are often being played in place of a land because it is mana positive or can grab a land early game on a 2-land hand. Secondly, Brainstorm is likely maximized early game or end game when you're fishing for a comeback option or to close a game; personally, my most emotional moments in MTG are getting a 1 lander after your third pitch hand to open a game or the games I top deck a land in a loss. That emotion likely plays a significant role in many deck building decisions; how does this feel opening hand or when I'm about to lose? Brainstorm can work in both of those scenarios. Lastly, I don't know about everyone else's play groups, but my games are basically over by turn 7, so any card that is ultra late game just doesn't get included in my builds. If the hardcore MTG players are the ones posting the most Moxfield and EDHREC builds, their play groups are probably similar to mine, so that's why we may see those cards more than we should. P.S. I still like Mortify, but it is 100% outdated now. Just too lazy to take it out of the couple decks it's in. Haha!
This went off the rails at the discussion for Negate where he said Fierce Guardianship, Force of Will and Mana Drain are better counterspells and then immediately acknowledges the budget factor with the craziest comment I have ever heard, that Negate is “not that much cheaper”… Really ? Just googling the TCG prices of $40, $70 and $55… and Negate comes in at $0.13 those are comparative values ? Even just going back to an Offer You Can’t Refuse for card comparison, it is listed at $4. If I had a $50-100 budget on a deck, I am not replacing cards like Negate with An Offer You Can’t Refuse.
In defence of Growth Spiral, it's a budget card, so is very accessible for people. Also, in my opinion, it's not a bad rate for ramping 1 (same as something like Rampant Growth or Farseek). There's obviously the chance it could whiff, but then it has the upside of being an instant (i.e. can hold up interaction / bluff interaction and use this as a backup play), and can also be effectively cycled when drawn later in a game, which can be very important. Personally, I don't use it outside of having great synergy (e.g. in Kalamax), but it's a pretty solid ramp option I think. Side note on deck thinning: a cantrip card like this doesn't really make a difference in commander, as you say. However, deck thinning is definitely possible and effective, e.g. with Land Tax removing a lot of lands from your deck to ensure you draw more "gas" as the game goes on :)
My reason for liking harmonize is that it's unconditional. Synergistic card draw is definitely better until you've been exhausted of resources and you just need to reload without hoops.
Makes me wonder if this might also be an issue with sequencing. Playing a value engine without an immediate payoff is always a risk, so you'd normally hold back until you can get a few cards off of it or are ok with trading. You should generally avoid going all in on the boards unless you're trying to win on the spot or have reliable protection online. In paper, this should minimize the amount of games where you exhaust your hand, but tbh it's impossible to fully avoid. Also, what you describe is close enough to a worst case scenario that wouldn't it be better to commit the spell slots elsewhere, and rely on utility lands for the draw instead?
@zbaschtian I don't mind 1% of my deck being a worst case scenario card because it does happen. We run graveyard hate for the off chance it matters, right? I've had games where there was heavier control shutting down my draw engines and I just needed cards. Really, you could argue that it should be a one ring rather than a harmonize but that's another discussion on how casual that is to run
@@ShinnyMetal I try to avoid including nonsynergistic silver bullets unless they're not available in the colors or theme. Deck slots are at such a premium right now that it's hard to justify running narrow cards that do not have secondary payoffs IMO. Unless the table is heavily biased towards that specific strategy, you'll get more mileage from the payoff than the actual narrow effect on average. In other words, I'd rather run something like Scooze or Farewell as my dedicated GY answer than Rest In Peace outside of, Enchantress or an on-theme combo. Same for Harmonize, but from the opposite angle: IMO it's hard to justify sinking 4 mana into 3 draws when those same 4 mana could also be giving me a threat, a blocker, an answer or a land drop in the same turn.
Negate is not for mono blue. It’s for multi-color decks that want to splash a counterspell but the double blue cost is too much for the multi-color mana base. It’s totally serviceable.
Overrated and overplayed are two different things in my mind. Overrated are cards that require a huge financial investment for a relatively very small effect, Jeweled Lotus is a great example. Overplayed cards are ones that, even in budget, there are better options. For overplayed I’d add Wrath of God/Day of Judgment. There are so many good 5 CMC symmetrical board wipes now to use instead.
Good take on Brainstorm, but I will correct you: It is not the best card for putting something back. That's a white card called Penance; I have one in my Elminster token deck - there's no spell slinging going on. At any time, put a card from your hand on top to prevent all damage from the next red or black source of your choice. The implications regarding red boardwipes are staggering - oh and notice that it doesn't say "target" so you don't require any red or black players at the table. I agree with Dark Ritual in the vast majority of cases, but I did include one in my Tevesh Szat deck so he can start churning out 0/1 thrull tokens asap, who in turn block for him (it's a tribal thrull deck. No joke, I made sure to fit in Ebon Praetor). There's even a Will-o-the-wisp to block for him, which always gets a lot of looks, followed by a lot of frustration when no one is willing to burn good removal to get rid of the thing I HAVE A GREEN SPELL SLINGER! It is... strange. Yes. Strange. In all seriousness though, don't discount harmonize in a bog standard green deck. Yes, it has a pretty low power ceiling for green, but it's floor isn't 0. This is from someone who has giggled madly to himself as he drew his entire library in mono green on turn 5, killing myself when I could have easily stopped at 70 cards Something to consider with removal: There is no such thing as perfect solution, only trade offs. Timing, coverage, quantity, style (sacrifice, exile, destroy, bury etc), mana, color restrictions, things granted to the opponent. You can't simply write one off because it's not your favored balance of those consideration. Now there are simply bad cards, but those are things that cost 4+ and are a simple terror. Mortify and Putrefy are not those. Not even close, even if Mortify specifically has a lot of fierce competition in its space. Even Desert Twister has a home in a handful of decks, and that's a 6 mana sorcery beast within - yuck - but if you need another catch-all removal spell or if beast within's token isn't something your deck can tolerate, you put up with it if you can afford it.
While synergistic card draw can be vastly more powerful, call it having a higher ceiling, there’s nothing worse than having your creatures destroyed with an empty hand, and then drawing a Rishkar’s Expertise. At least with Harmonize as long as you have the mana, you’ll get cards. I also tend to play in games with way more creature removal and board wipes vs artifact destruction, so an ornithopter of paradise (or most dorks for that matter) end up as collateral damage a lot of the time. Meanwhile that turn 2 signet tends to stick around and continue to provide mana quietly in the background.
funny enough i just did my ranking of the colors video and i talked exactly about this with green card draw. however i think the risk is worth the reward.
Signets are not overrated for not green decks. We run them with the talismans with the them to increase our chance of opening up with a turn two mana rock.
My big one is cultivate/kodama's reach (in general but mainly for 4 cost commanders), if your commander costs 4 ramping at 3 is very awkward when there's easily 10+ 2-mana Land Ramp, for the benefit of like a bundled Ley of the Land. Its the harmonize of ramp in most decks.
The big upside of cultivate/kodama is, that you basically draw 2, whereas the 2 mana ramp spells are just cantrips. So unless you have like you said a 4 cost commander that you want to be dropping in turn 3 every game, they are really good ramp spells, definitely not overplayed.
signets get played not only because they are decent but because how accessible they are compared to talisman (at least they were for very long time). you also put thopter of paradise over signets. If you don't have some pump effects that are good for thopter than you are paying 2 for ramp that will get removed by the first board wipe. Players choose mana rocks to have ramp not affected by board wipes. supreme verdict is popular as it improves on every aspect of general board wipe that is 5 mana and just destroys creatures. Cost less and can't be countered. A lot of players has that from playing different formats so it get played. I disagree with these 2. There are reasons why they are played both from their functionality and availability. You are arguing for these 2 cards in general while providing specific situations where they don't really compete against each other in terms of choice (non-creature rock vs creature-ramp, 4 mana board wipe vs 7 mana board wipe).
sure, also in general the more colors the deck the more signets can help hitting all colors in case of manabase not being up to par with the deck. like breya budget build can benefit from signets a lot. While I myself prefer talismans for most cases there are a lot of good reasons to run signets. Actually there are very little reason to not include it as most of the times you don't play one or the other but both signets and talismans. I can understand the argument that some people overvalue signets but I can't really accept the argument for thopter as a something strictly better. It can be better in very specific decks but this is general video. Thopter doesn't have haste and can be easily removed. 2 things that I don't want in my ramp pack.@@Sweetguy1821
Supreme Verdict is designed for Azorius control, which does not typically run a lot of creatures (the same would apply to the popularity of Toxic Refuge in Dimir control decks or Sultai dredge decks). It’s not a significant concern for those decks that it destroys all creatures. The low CMC is important as these spells are used to control aggro threats while the control deck is developing… control decks are about buying time until they can combo for the win.
He also mentioned on turn 2, u won’t be able to tap it for mana. Same for Ornithopter of Paradise, because of summoning sickness. But on any turn after turn 2(assuming u got the mana drop), u can tap signet. While OoP will still have summoning sickness.
You already said it, but I think precons are the reason many of these are played so much. I also think these are prime examples of “eat your vegetables” cards. In other words, people have a few key cards around which they want to build their deck, and as far as the necessary ramp/removal packages are concerned, they just go with the simple, generic, and affordable options they have lying around in their collection to fill the space and enable their deck to do what they want it to do. I’m guilty of doing that a lot of times, if I’m honest.
Disagree a bit on Mortify, to me it's a fantastic (and deserving of the praise) budget option, as (at least in my groups) creatures and enchantments are the most likely "kill on sight" cards, 3 mana is an amount of mana that isn't too painful to float for the instant speed, too. I do mostly agree with the take on petrify, as I find artifact removal to be more common, and somewhat less important, especially if you have access to red. I personally take mortify as a good 3rd of 4th removal spell for the colors, or in cases where I dont want to drop wads on more powerful options like Anguished Unmaking.
Definitely some controversial takes like you said, but I also think our deck building philosophies are like polar opposites lol. I dont think Arena or Harmonize overrated but not in the way youre talking about them, most people in my experience just dont find them to be good cards at all to even be considered in this conversation. If someone ramps out their commander through dark ritual or other means and the immediate response is to remove it then it's either really bad threat assessment (i.e someone going "well just for getting it out 2 turns early I cast swords to get rid of it) or a KOS commander, but being able to cheat the cost of a card is objectively good. I think the problem is actually people not knowing when not to play it imo being 3+ color decks where you could draw it and not have anything to use the black mana for, whereas 1-2 color decks dark ritual should always be a live card. I 100% agree with Putrefy and Mortify being dated removal just not your recommendations, but that's more because I like cost efficient deck building where my removal & playlines are mostly is low to the ground so I can accomplish multiple things on my turn and still hold 1-3 mana for spot removal, some decks I dont even play boardwipes. I dont like the idea of needing to hold up 5 mana for an instant because it usually leads to choosing between that removal spell or making the play i need to advance my board + if they do have protection against the instant thats 5 mana gone plus missing out on my turn actions. Personally would go with Abrupt Decay, Assassins' Trophy, Beast Within, Anguished Unmaking, etc before playing a 5 mana removal spell. On the topic of cost efficiency I dont think reducing peoples deck building theory to "Oh it's banned in another format so it must be good" is a good angle. Maybe could apply to a grade-school player, I know at that age I loved the idea of getting to play banned cards, but beyond that you're just not giving other people enough credit. Those cheap "draw" cards absolutely have a floor and ceiling , so of course getting the maximum value from them is ideal but their floors really arent bad either. Cards that at worst replace themselves + did something else for a single mana isn't going to lose you the game vs a 4+ mana draw card where you draw a ton of the answers to the threat but are now short mana to use those cards and do lose. On the opposite side of that though digging 3 cards into your deck isn't going help you win but if you're in a position to cast some big splashy card that draws a ton of cards odds are you were already in a winning spot and didnt need to cast that card either. Basically I think the mentality has nothing to do with if a cards banned or not elsewhere and more the efficiency offered + the benefit of manipulating the top of your deck. I can 100% agree it's much less impactful in 1v1 60 card formats, but being able to have more control over your topdeck not being a missed land drop early game or a dud draw late game I think is what people find most appealing when playing these cards generically. Again though I do I think we have very different deck building philosophies. I like for the early game; build low to the ground, always have something to play and always try to keep my decks CMC average to 3 or less, usually winning from accumulated advantages. I get the vibe you prefer getting through the early game fast and getting wins through playing a series of explosive big mana cards until the table cant recover and either runs out of answers or already did from earlier interactions amongst themselves such as the "you played your commander early so Im gonna waste removal right away" player. It's a strategy I can say is mostly unexplored for myself but is just as viable a strategy as leaning more into the early game cards I think I like a little more than you might 😅
I think people downplay Harmonize too often because it's not “cost effective” or because it lacks the creature sinergy. But let me ask you, what if you've got no creatures to play, or you've just been board wiped? Return of the Wildspeaker, Shamanic Revelation, Guardian Project and the countless other iterations of this effect won't serve you any good when things aren't going according to plan. Even Rhystic Study and Mystic Remora may draw you zero cards if your opponents play around them. That's why it is so important to include card options that draw you cards anytime, no questions asked.
Don’t see many people use Dark Ritual in a different way. In my experience you use it to cast your big rock (gilded lotus, thran dynamo) and sling shot ahead of the table.
hmm... that feels like you're just inviting trouble unless you're playing super casual where people really don't run any artifact hate. Gilded lotus alone is already a semi-questionable card in most modern casual edh decks but investing two cards to be ahead 3 mana sounds... not worth it. I mean, yes, if you're not playing green, then decent permanent ramp that goes beyond a rock can be hard to come by so if you're in, say, mono-black (because of dark ritual) you probably want to look at Doubling Cube or Scepter of Eternal Glory if you want to produce big mana before considering (and not necessarily ruling out) Gilded Lotus, which I think can still be a solid card. (Also consider Worn powerstone. It's a bad Sol-Ring but Sol-Ring is broken and even a 3-mana rock that taps for 2 next turn is still a pretty solid rate.) But why would you use Dark Ritual to power it out? What turn 3 play is so important that you'd risk card disadvantage to get it running until then? I can see Dark Ritual as a way to power out an expensive commander or to help me replay my commander once it has commander tax on it IF my commander is cruicial to my gameplan. But setting myself up for a 2 for 1 on the first couple of turns of a 4-way commander table feels like you're rushing the line a bit and get people worried about you.
On the topic of Mortify, one card that came out not too long ago that has totally replaced both Mortify and Vindicate in my decks is Legions to Ashes. Being able to exile something while at the same time having the ability to eliminate a swarm of tokens (same as Maelstrom Pulse, thanks for showing me that one!), which often times can only be done with a board wipe, has been huge in my play experience. The down sides of sorcery speed and non-land permanent are not a big deal at all given the aforementioned benefits in my opinion!
Ornithopter provides a mana of any color and might be a relevant attacker/blocker. But it dies to much more removal as well. There are as many arguments against as there are for it.
For Dark Ritual there are some niche areas where I play it. I play it in Skithiryx for that surprise haste-infect, and I play it in Rowan to give me enough black pips for my combo pieces. Also run it in Narfi for that first cast.
I don't think ritual should have been on this list, I don't actually see it played that often. I run it in my ayara devotion deck and that's the only scenario I've had it played in an edh game. Maybe my perception is flawed because my frequent playgroup doesn't run it. Do you see it played often?
A bold move like that just draws all the table hate, and some disenchant comes out as a great trade. Don't get me wrong, love citadel; have it in a Moldrotha deck. But I never ramp citadel out too quick.
The one thing I could see Brainstorm used for is to get a look at three new cards in a pinch when drawing one of the two that won't help immediately is less of a concern. Paying 1 mana for three chances to get a counter spell in a clutch doesn't seem like a stretch, especially when you're sitting on one combo piece for just the right time. When you draw it next turn, you still have it available when the time is right...
I like Harmonize. I admit it's not as good as the color's "best". But, imo it's "in too many decks" most likely because of being a redundant effect in green. Like redundancy in removal, ramp, etc... I think pay 4 draw 3, in a color that laughs at mana cost, is good. I would also argue it does does do enough in every deck it's in, as it finds your "core" quicker, amidst your other draw spells.
My decks that run Dark Ritual and why. #1. K'rrik With K'rrik not out, it gets him out by turn 2, which I then get immediate value out of by abusing his cost conversion on other cards with no colorless cost like Necropotence, Ayara, etc. With K'rrik out it's even better as a card that costs only 2 life, ramps 2 towards a second spell, and puts a +1/+1 counter on K'rrik so I can steal that life back. #2. Thrasios/Ravos The whole idea of this deck is aiming for infinite by turn 5. Dark Ritual helps you get that Pili Pala + C.Cult. combo or that Kinnan + Monolith combo etc out by turn 4. #3. Mahadi ($75 budget) I don't use it to race Mahadi out, but it ALWAYS comes in handy to get those strong 3 dtops in the deck out sooner, and one good example is a card you mentioned: Morbid Opportunist. Then there is: Midnight Reaper, Fleshbag, Plaguecrafter, Merciless Executioner, Demon's Disciple, Soul Shatter, not to mention the 4-7 drops that are far more potent when dropped earlier like Revel in Riches, Grim Hireling, and Necrotic Hex. #4. Tergrid Come on now. Just sitting down with Tergrid makes you the archenemy anyway, so might as hell get her on the board asap. #5. Killian You know what is better than casting 1 black kill spell/aura for 2 or 3? Casting 3 black kill spells/auras for 1. #6. The Scarab God The Scrab God has a lot of setup. Dark Ritual gets you there faster. It's that simple. I might not cast Scarab God right away but it sure does make getting cards like Paradox Haze, Loyal Subordinate, Headless Rider, Endless Ranks, Ghoulcaller Gisa, out sooner. Worst case scenario is that it helps me get 2 more zombies out. #7. Sen Triplets Too many cards to list that this helps me drop sooner. I do wait to cast Triplets later, but casting either of the Jin-Gitaxias' in the deck 2 turns sooner is huge. That's just 2 examples. #8. Zurgo Helmsmasher Voltron Helps me play the 4-6 drop wipes easier. Btw, that is EVERY SINGLE deck I have that runs black. You talk as though ramping early only serves to play your commander faster. That's nonsense. Getting any spell out 2 turns sooner is powerful. Period. "Guys, all it does is generate two mana" Please, PLEASE make a video explaining to us how generating two extra mana as early as turn 1 "Isn't that good". I'll wait. Let me get popcorn ready.
Harmonize is underated. Unconditional draw is very good. Yes it doesnt have the ceiling other draw spells have. But its floor is higher and the consistency is very important. You cant draw from return of the wildspeaker after a board wipe. Harmonize you can. You also cant get blown out by instant speed removal with harmonize. This consistency is underrated and under appreciated.
re: Ornithopter of Paradise. When this card first came out it went into all of my decks. However, I tend to play in a Wrath-heavy environment & Ornithopter came out of all but one of my decks. On the second Turn, a signet is not immediately useable, but is an investment - later in the game it's fine.
I agree with the sentiments about dark ritual. I do play it in my mono black korlash deck because i can draw A LOT of cards so gaining 2 mana is worth the hand resource most the time :)
Interesting takes and I mostly agree! As a CEDH and casual player just overall commander addict, signets are important budget ramp for people who don’t have the talisman and the alt you suggested dies so easily albeit being better mana fixing Supreme verdict is just hands down the best board wipe available in those colors for the cost and uncounterable is highly relevant when you suggested cards like An Offer You Can’t Refuse as better counters than negate (which I highly agree) Mortify is dookie butt stinky doodoo Putrefy “ “ Dark Ritual absolutely makes you archenemy with the plays it facilitates, but as you already mentioned, in the decks where it’s good it’s very good Lotus pedal is also incredible in an opening hand and can be looped from the gy with certain enablers. Brainstorm… tough one, I agree with it doing nothing at times but I’d say brainstorm is ultimately dependent on the overall card quality of the deck so it’s up to the deck builder how strong of an effect it can be
I think one of the biggest factors is the playgroups you are in. My playgroup board wipes 3 to 5 times per game. Having car draw or manor rocks on an artifact or enchantment that won’t die of that is always better than on a creature in my plague group. Are you supreme verdict if it’s an option because 50% of my board wipes are countered. It’s interesting how different my playgroup is from yours.
in defense of signets and the same(2 mana rocks) is that they're Cheap, makes your deck do something in the opening, and helps cast your commander in later stages of game. I play casual and this is a fast way to bring out jank high cost rares :)
At low power tables i think Negate Is better than An Offer You Can't Refuse because keeping one more mana untapped and play a bit slower is better than give your opponent a pretty big mana boost in the form of treasures that he can use right away or keep for later
2 vs 1 mana for a counter spell is the difference between playing a protected 5-cost creature with 6 mana vs 7 mana, as an example, you are delaying your play by a whole extra turn, its a pretty big deal. That being said, negate isnt bad, but i would never run it over offer, delay and arcane denial, as a couple of exemples.
The commercial placement is supreme in these videos. Right when he’s about to drop the knowledge BOOM commercial. I don’t necessarily enjoy it, but I respect the hustle.
Not a big fan of Saw it Coming because EDH decks rarely run more than one foretell card total. Playing that you got to be aware you're basically revealing to your opponents you have a counterspell in hand. Sure you can find a couple counterspells that are better than negate, but I rarely put only one or two of those in my decks. There's always room left for negate despite the An Offer You Can't Reffuse and all.
Dark ritual and growth spiral are always awesome to see when you have access to other card draw. If you drop your whole hand tapping out for your commander turn 1 or 2 thats just irresponsible 😂
I tend to only play Growth Spiral if I've already got a land in hand. Of course, that pretty much means I'm playing it early or I have a ton of draw that ensures I have more lands in hand, but... I mean, two mana for draw a card AND put a land on the field (untapped, assuming no tapped conditions on the land itself) is not horrible. But I think that really only works IF you have the land in hand to start.
2 things to consider: 1 ornithopter of paradise dies to every wipe, making it a mana rock you no longer get to use. 2: growth spiral being late game being a 2 mana draw 1, is still better than the alternative of a late game rampant growth, or worse mana rock, or even worse, and ornithopter of paradise. I think youll have to cast ornithopter of paradise 10 times to see it perform better than even a daimond. i get that it did great for you in that one game, but I want you to noticed every time your OOP dies, how often youll be one mana shy of doing what you'd prefer in future turns.
For my experience, the problem with card that are synergistic with your deck it's they are not good enough if they are stand alone, so they can't help you to recover in case of board wipe or target removal, if I am at turn 6 with 3 card in hand after a one sided boardwipe , I don't need a guardian project, but something that let me draw/loot my deck to find answer
props to you for actually playing different cards than signets. I dont care if signets are more reliable and whatever...the whole format plays the same cards in every single deck
I agree with a lot of the others, phyrexian arena especially but hard disagree for the non green signets. They are the most accesible 2 mana rocks that filter your mana super well (including colorless mana). I also don't like ornithopter very much since it'll always take a turn to use unlike a signet which can be used right away if you draw one after turn 2, and ornithopter also dies to sweepers. Ornithoper isn't bad mind you but you have to be a heavy creature strategy outside of green for it to be worth it
Regarding negate there are other more flexible counterspells as well like cryptic command (only for mono blue) mystic confluence, sublime epiphany, arcane denial, swan song, on top of all the ones you listed. Negate is still totally fine, but there are so many good counterspells
Demo - "these cards are played too broadly and jammed into too many decks they're just not great in" People in the comments - "you're wrong because I use that card in the specific deck it's actually good in" 🙄
I still like to run Phyrexian Arena in a lot of my decks with constricted themes. It's not explosive card draw, but it's consistent and the cost is very negligible. Same with Negate, I'm not always very concerned with my opponents casting specific creatures so the "non-creature" stipulation just makes it a super cheap counter spell. And I like Supreme Verdict because my douche bag pod LOVES counter magic, so I crutch really hard on "This spell can't be countered" being printed on a lot of the spells I choose to build with. Still, this is a fairly accurate list, there are way more efficient and interesting spells to replace a LOT of these cards with, and a lot of them just get overlooked because they're older and have faded into obscurity.
Interesting list. I disagree with Growth Sprial, Dark Ritual, and Brainstorm. Growth spiral does what blue does (draw cards) and what green does (ramp) at instant speed. Dark Ritual is a nice suprise mana jump when you need it. Brainstorm gives your nine options and what your next two turns will look like. I agree that it all depends on what your deck is trying to do. Thanks for posting.
Disagree on the signets. You're not considering the scenarios where you cast these after turn 2 and they enable you to double spell or keep reaction mana up. Thopter of Paradise sidegrades this into a chump blocker and some untap synergies, but the sequencing is fundamentally different. Honestly, what's the scenario where you're sad to tap out for these turn two outside of a CEDH table? Why would having double spell or reaction mana on T2 more important than the ramp to 4 on T3? And shouldn't you be looking into pitch spells and T1 ramp if it is?
Ornithopter of paradise is great, buteverything should be deck dependant. I like signets in decks where i already have flying creatures, and having a creature artifact makes it easier to remove, also sometimes i need double pips which signets are better at. And i play more phyrexian arenas because i like the enchantment, and i dont need creatures in play, and Nostalgia FUN! And dark ritual has helped me win so many games and make plays turns where I just didnt have enough mana and its so fun and explosive😎👍🏻 and theres no problem with playing precon cards. Not every player needs to “upgrade” to “better” cards. Maybe players like the precon cards art, its theme, flavor, etc. and thats totally cool. Again, commander deckbuilding to me is reaching the point why i stopped playing mtg... is reaching this endgame of “competitive only” super overtuned optimal decks and thats not fun. My philosophy for casual commander is play what you want and do what you want for more surprises, laughs, unpredictability, and FUN
Gonna have to defend Growth Spiral here. Think of it like a rampant growth with cycling (and flash). In a 2 mana deck where you dont need the manafixing and play this early, it's just a rampant growth. You draw a card and remove one from your hand for an extra landdrop, except you can cast it at instant speed. And blue likes to keep mana open. Now theres a down and an upside. The downside is that it might miss if youre manascrewed and therefore becomes „2 mana draw a card“. The upside is that it also becomes „2 mana draw a card“ in the lategame where drawing rampant growth is horrible.
Harmonize...I put it back in all my green decks because Return of the wild speaker and R. Expertise don't work after a boardwipe, they are just death cards in that situation. Harmonize is the only card that puts me back in the game after the boardwipe.
Phyrexian Arena belongs with Sheoldred. That one life paid is actually one life gained with her on the field. This and Howling Mine equals 5 life for you at your draw step, and enemies lose 4 life on their draw steps. Throw in a Bowmasters and you got a very punishing draw loop.
I play phrexian area and dark ritual in my chainer nightmare adept deck. I mainly use dark ritual to help hard cast creatures from my graveyard and give them haste like arcon of cruelty and phyrexian area for card draw
Why I love Harmonize: I like having 2 pure card draw options. No matter what board state I have, card X will draw me 3 or more cards. I still load my decks w synergistic draw, but I have a couple like harmonize
I agree with Brainstorm but Ponder and Preordain are great. If you're in blue playing 36-38 lands, you can easily cut a land for a ponder. It makes a starting hand with a couple lands significantly better and its a much better draw than an island when you already have a lot of lands in hand or in play. I will say brainstorm is also good if you're in five color and can afford fetches
I want to use my mass removal as late as possible that is why I like Supreme Verdict. I may not need everything to die (blacksmith skill example given) but it's important that enough things get destroyed that I'm not left dead on board. So it not getting countered allows that. Play removal that gives people less options to deal with it
I think Growth Spiral is just a worse explore, which is a decent 2 mana ramp spell. So the main question would be: is a farseek effekt better, because it never fails to ramp (early game) or a explore effekt, cause it cycle itself to maybe find something better (late game)? But in a landfall deck like tatyova you probably want to play all the 2 mana, land based ramp. So I can absolutly understand why growth spiral is played in land focused decks. Outside from that you are probably.
I agree growth spiral is generally nothing special in Commander but I been having pretty good success with it in my Arargorn, the uniter deck since you get the added effect of scry 2 and +4/+4 pump. May not sound like much but the scry 2 really does help with increasing the odds of you dropping that 2nd land into play. Great card if you can find some kind of synergy, not great playing it on it’s own.
Explore is the *exact same card* for 1G, rather than Growth Spiral’s 1G 1U cost. Exploration doesn’t give you the draw, but it’s an enchant that lets you play an extra land every turn, for the same 1G. Growth Spiral isn’t horrible. There are just better options. Hell, for the same 1G, Burgeoning will let you put a land in play every time one of your opponent’s does. That’s pretty much dedicated landfall territory, but I included it for cost-perspective. Demand maximum bang for your pips spent.
Ornithopter is a creature, therefore its vulnerable to board wipes. Don't get me wrong, its a great card, but the signets tap for mana mid-late game as soon as they enter. Ornithopter is better than signets only in creature decks or mostly budget 3-4-5 color decks (because your mana base may not be as good as a non-budget deck)
A key note about arcane signet and Ornithopter of paradise in colorless decks. Colorless is not a color. You can not generate mana outside of your commander identity - it becomes colorless normally. The catch is you can't generate mana with them if you can't produce colored mana. They don't actually produce mana in colorless decks at all as a result. Nor does command tower.
As a sens triplets player; I assure you that you can generate mana in any color within a cards written parameters regardless of what color identity restrictions the deck has. The "can only produce mana in accordance with your manders identity" rule was errata'd more than a decade ago.
On Growth Spiral. 2 mana ramp is used for different things in different colors and obviously ramp but it highly depends on the colors. In a mono green deck, imo, there isn't a huge difference between explore and natures lore. Early/Mid game it puts the land into play untapped like you want. Sometimes it misses, you're absolutely right, but its 1 out of your 10 ramp cards. . and late game Explore cycles. And mono green generally plays the higher end of land to make it even more likely to nab the top deck land. In Simic again there still isn't a MASSIVE difference between the two. How many non-basic forests that come into play untapped are you actually running for fixing? Shock and Dual. To me again, the power is it coming in untapped, and now having 2 of your 10 ramp spells have cycle attached to it, with the bonus that growth spiral is instant speed. You hold up mana for a counterspell, see nothing scary to counter, last endstep before your turn, cycle! Bonus points for instant speed landfall lol. In 3 colors and beyond, growth spiral and explore are god awful, like you mention. They don't fix, I'd really really really rather go grab a basic land with rampant growth just to make sure I have a balanced mana base. And even late game, grabbing another basic its probably better because the fixing is SO important in these decks. Having double red or triple black in your 5 color could genuinely make the difference between winning and loosing. 2 mana ramp is at its worst in the late game, and strongest in the early. Explore/Spiral are at their weakest mid game, and strongest early and ok late game. If you understand what the card is doing for you, and understand the cost of them sometimes just missing. . I think it has a place. I love the faster play patterns it lets me eek out in the early game, and the slight flexibility it has in the late. Also a very niche use but, sometimes Ill draw like 10 cards, and get 4 lands, I dont wanna discard them all, but explore/growth spiral can help you play an extra one so you dont have to pitch as many. Is that really a reason to play it? no, but its another tiny use that makes me love it. Absolutely shouldn't go in every deck, but of all dual colors to get this effect, simic can definitely use of it imo
Not sure if you read these comments but I’d say most people save their removal spells for the first commander play or at least the most threatening commander at the table.
I think there are scenarios where you would just prefer to use signets over talismans. An example would be any deck that uses Nyxbloom Ancient, or a deck that is already burning through life with minimal lifegain
If you have cards that are good enough I don’t see any issue with playing them even if there’s a better option. Would nature’s lore be better than moss diamond in my gruul deck? Yes, but my copies of nature’s lore are already in other decks and I don’t care enough to buy another one when moss diamond doesn’t stop my deck from functioning. To address the point about budget, there are approximately 64 deck slots in a commander deck, if you have a lot of decks that’s a lot of cards and the difference between already in my collection or even 50 cents and 2 dollars can be significant.
In the signed vs talisman vs mana dork debate, it's been my experience that in a 2-3 color deck, the Signets are by far superior, because they're not just ramp but also fix your mana. If you only have swamps but need red and blue, the signet will sort you out. Talismans and mana dorks don't do that. So the more colors you have in your deck, I will argue that the Signets become all the better. If you have 1 signet and 1 dork you have access to up to three colors. 2 Signets will give you up to 4 colors. Based on my experience, they deserve their spot in my decks.
"An Offer you can't refuse" cost around 2,50. "Negate" costs less than 5 cents. I have 15 decks, 7 of them are blue. And i am a strict budget player, rarly spendig more than 2 bucks on a piece of cardboard. "Saw it coming" is okay, but i dont think its better. Even if you foretell it, it cost you 1U to cast it, the same as Negate, with the only upside that it can counter creature spells. So all in all i dont think that Negate is overplayed. It is simple, cheap and effective, and perhaps one of the best options for budget players The Signets i like in two colored decks that don't have green. In decks that have more than 2 colors orni of p. is far better than any of those signets. Regarding "Putrefy" and "Mortify" you are 100% right. I don't use any of these because even on a low budget there are better options like "Generous Gift" "Beast whitin" "Vindicate" and "Tear Asunder" nami g just a few.
Love your videos man, however let’s not forget a signet is way better in the mid game as well. The thopter is fantastic in turns 1 (if you can cheat it) and 2 but in non green decks, your signet will be better for utility color fixing where as the thopter not as much, but still a great card though in higher colors.
Also I basically completely agree with you on all of these. Brainstorm is ridiculously overplayed. One point to advocate for Brainstorm a little is that it is also really good card selection. It's good as a midgame smooth out your hand option to optimize a turn. It also has other fringe applications like saving certain cards in your hand from getting wheeled away. I'd play it in the types of decks you've mentioned but I'd still play it in Spell Slinger just because high cantrip density is really important for those decks. Other than that, yes. Brainstorm is so overplayed it's hilarious.
Signets are good in 2-3 color decks, imo. More often than not, you won't have a follow up on a turn 2 rock anyway. After that, it is all upside, where you get all your colors, or 2/3.
In my view Ornithopter of Paradise should only be played if you are including either equipment or auras to enhance creatures or if you have some kind of artifact creature synergy. If you can use it as a body that is generating value, that is great. Equip a sword and go to town. If all it is is a potential blocker, that you have to choose to leave up mana with, then it is not a good include. It is like 10x more fragile then a simple signet, and fragile ramp is bad. (You mentioned this later) Signets get hit only by artifact wipes and dedicated removal only (why anyone would dedicate removal to a signet I don't know). OoP gets hit by literally every board wipe that exists, including all those that hit signets, plus it is vulnerable to shock effects and pingers.
As for counter spells, I think your way of thinking - "I have to leave up 2 mana" - represents many players that are not playing the real draw-go type control play style. Leaving up 2 mana is normal for control players. That is literally not even a factor to consider because you do it pretty much every turn anyways. The value of negate is in its colorless mana. You don't need the 2 blue, so if you are in a multicolored deck you are freed up to cast a blue-mana intensive spell and leave up only 1 blue. VERY important. (Of course, this depends a lot on your deck and if you even have mana intensive spells.) I also think your viewpoint where you don't care about the treasure is fringe :)... ramping an opponent 2 mana is nuts in many situations. I can't believe it hasn't burned you yet.
You are totally correct on Growth spiral. It is a holdover from 60 card formats. You hit all the reasons it is bad in commander :) With harmonize, you are correct that it is overrated, but it does have a home. You hinted at green decks being based on creatures, but there is a small cohort of green decks that want spells. That's where Harmonize lives, because you lose all the creature draw and creature synergies. As for the blue cantrips, they are some of the best cards in certain decks. Unless you are building a big blue behemoth deck with krakens and leviathans (like Tomer at Goldfish), odds are your blue deck has multiple synergies for cantrips. The three you mention are even better because they are cantrips stapled onto top-deck manipulation which is one of the most powerful effects in blue. In addition to the scenarios you mentioned, there are also shuffle effects and instant/sorcery synergies, including the ability to bring it back over and over - which lets you control your hand and draw repeatedly. So busted.
I have removed all of them from my decks, but when starting and a limited budget, i had some of those for a while (and mostly because it came from precons)
I find it odd that the argument against Supreme Verdict is that there are options to spend more mana to make it more one-sided while the argument against the very next card, Negate, is an option to spend less mana and make it less one-sided. An Offer You Can't Refuse makes sense in cEDH to protect/deny combo wins, but in a casual game I'll spend one mana to deny my opponent two mana. Another reason some of the cards are overplayed very simple - availability. This topic has been touched on with talk of precons and budget cards, but not fully explored, probably because it is so subjective. I'll use myself as an example. I'm an older casual player that has mostly stopped opening packs over the last few years for reasons like product fatigue, power creep (leap), and the 30th Anniversary money grab. I put signets in every deck even though talismans are better because I own maybe 12 talismans and probably over 100 signets. In the decks that actively want creature ramp over non-creature ramp, I am running Alloy Myr over the strictly better Ornithopter of Paradise because I already have them and in my casual, low-power playgroup it doesn't really matter. Simply put, it just makes sense for people to play the cards that they have. All that to say that I disagree that the signets and negate are overplayed, because the have high utility and availability. Brainstorm has high availability, but it is bad in the format. Everything else is spot on. Including Mortify in your deck means that your available card pool must be incredibly small.
counterspells are a special situation because you have to constantly be leaving the mana open. you don't know when you're opponents are going to do that big thing. boardwipes you just cast whenever it's convenient for you.
The way I think cards like putrefy / mortify can be understood is that there's a distinction between budget and ultra-budget. So to say, for established players, making a deck that's under $100 can be considered budget. Logically, we might also think that making a deck around $40-50 is pretty budget, as that's the cost of a precon. However, with the absurdly low prices afforded by marketplaces like TCGplayer and the apparently unstoppable march of whales who buy more product than might be prudent in search of shinies, I can get friends into the game who might otherwise be noncommittal with a $20 decklist, because putrefy and negate and mortify are $0.15. To enfranchised players this is uncommon, but it's such an easier buy-in if I set someone up with what might be the price of a 'normal' board game, rather than suggesting they spend a video game's upfront price on something they don't know they'll like. Of course, I usually keep a few cheap-but-simple decks on hand in penny sleeves to play with newer / casual people. I also think that "target creature/artifact/enchantment" is more easily understood by new players than "nonland," in the same way that power stones tripped up people in Brothers' War (eg, "can't be used for nonartifact spells" -> can be used for costs).
i've got lotus petal in my silas renn artifact recursion deck and its pretty based, with things like master transmuter i can turn cheerios like that into cool stuff AND use it as a worse burnished hart for when i dont pull burnished hart
If people are wasting their swords on your early game commander, that's their loss. And yours, I guess, but swords should be saved for when you really need it. Fair point about avoiding making yourself the threat early though, unless you can back it up. Ornithopter is an interesting option but dies to doom blade or any board wipe, so that's not a negligable downside. Brainstorm can still be quite good if you're running fetches, or need to dig for a finisher. But I agree most people play it wrong and I have taken it out of some decks. Also with something like land tax it can just become ancestral recall which is absurd. Or if youre in Dimir and you dump reanimate targets to your graveyard with surveil. In terms of topdeck manipulation its arguably the best in the game, it just doesnt fit in every deck like some apparently think.
I run Phyrexian Arena in my Queza deck simply cuz its a free card draw and deal a damage to someone each turn and i dont even lose a life but outside that yeah i dont run it in anything really. But aye good video i know everyones got their preferences but i truly enjoy the content man keep it up.
Gonna disagree about Harmonize. In a Gruul deck, for example, yeah there are better options but they’re also dependent on your board state. Sometimes you just need to draw cards regardless of what you have on the table
In other countries, the prices of cards does not translate in the same way. It is not only the different currency, the proportions are not the same. So, cards like Negate and Mortify can be signifficantly cheaper than the better options. Maybe it is because the supply chain is different. These other countries also use the EDHREC as a database and echo chamber.
Gotta disagree with dark ritual, its still putting you two turns ahead and it comes out before ppl will have counter magic on turn two while ppl are still ramping and setting up, those two turns can make a huge difference depending on you’re deck. Dark rit into certain plays that dont have to be commanders, you can play other 4-drops on two and some Commanders with ward or hexproof they literally cannot target them because they wont have enough to pay. Its good at all points of a game beginning, middle and end and worse case, even if it does get removed, on less removal you baited out for the mid/late finishers. Dark ritual also gets you those black pips/devotion for mono colored decks too for the finishers like bolas citadel, and one of my personal favs marionette master ect. you dont always need your commander to win games
Explore is an incontrovertibly superior cantrip to Growth Spiral. It’s the exact same spell for just 1G. Personally, I would skip the single draw, play *Exploration* and double my land-drops from then until my Enchantment is removed, or pay 1 more and play either Tireless Provisioner or Azusa. Burgeoning has an even higher ceiling. I disagree that Green has *better* card-draw than Harmonize. It has many options with higher ceiling, but the vast majority of them *won’t do jack during your next Untap after a boardwipe* . There are few moments that feel worse than being hellbent in the wake of a Farewell, and topdecking Return of the Wildspeaker. EDHRec did an entire statistics-backed section of their “Veggies Cards” video that explains why Harmonize will very often be the superior option when you’re either the only one behind or there’s just been a boardwipe. (An all too frequent occurrence, when people drop a symmetrical wipe the *instant* they fall behind on the regular.)
Since we’re on this topic, could you help me understand why Solemn Simulacrum is so popular? I don’t understand why tapping 4 mana for a 2/2 that gets me a land is a good thing.
Compare it to Burnished Hart, which basically does the same thing. Colorless doesn't have a ton of land searching, so these cards are good for a little ramp on a stick.
Because it's a Swiss army knife of a card. With a single card you get land ramp, card draw, and a blocker. The creature itself synergizes with any effects that care about creatures _and/or_ artifacts, and because it has both an ETB and an LTB trigger stapled onto it, it also synergizes with anything that cares about either of those triggers as well, and because those triggers are land ramp and card draw, it _also_ synergizes with any lands-matter or card draw-matters decks. It's not powerful, but it is versatile; so as long as your deck cares about at least two of those synergies, it'll get some use out of Solemn Simulacrum.
The reason I use the signets is because they don't die to creature-based boardwipes. Mana dorks, in my experience, tend to be less useful than mana rocks because board wipes are a dime a dozen and creatures (be they token or utility or even commanders themselves) are so meta, that mass creature removal is a *must* as an answer if you fall behind.
Gotta call cap on the ornithopter vs signet argument. Ornithopter is twice as vulnerable as a signet which is enough to make it significantly worse
I totally agree. There are tons of mana dorks that are incredibly good out there, but playing them puts you at risk of losing your mana sources on boardwipes.
It's probably a meta thing. If your play group is playing a bunch of battle cruiser magic then I imagine dorks are significantly better than at my tables for instance.
@@bruvaroni Ya you're totally right on that.
Thanks I was just screaming "Signets have haste!" At the screen lmao
@@skellyxj1My thoughts exactly. Yes, he's completely correct that on turn 2, a signet is on a level with an Ornithopter of Paradise - but on literally any other turn during the "buildup" phase of the game, it's superior (can be used instantaneously, doesn't die to random creature wipes).
That said, I'll have to dig up an OoP for my Davros deck. More artifact creatures certainly won't hurt that one.
Big agree on just about everything. I'll refute signets though for a few reasons.
1) They're incredibly budget 2 mana rocks. Sure ornithopter, liquimetal, fellwar, etc. But these are still good outside green.
2) They can convert colorless mana to colored mana.
3) In later turns past 2, coming in untapped lowers the tempo hit from playing them.
I still think they're overplayed in decks with more than 2 colors, but in 2-color decks I would probably start with them included and only remove if there were enough more synergistic ramp.
Also, harmonize is overplayed, but it's not a bad option for some unconditional draw. If you're prone to overcommit to the board in green and end up with an empty hand, it can get you back in the game after a wipe.
yep. signets basically cost 1 mana from turn 3 onwards. Also, signets are generally going to survive a lot more turns than 0/2 artifact creatures in a format full of sweepers
I think people run too many colorless mana to begin with.
I agree with the guys from EDHRec. *More* people need to be playing Harmonize over Return of the Wildspeaker, in any either/or situation.
3 cards for 4 mana can’t be beat outside Blue, and RotW can’t do anything to help you with a post-Wipe rebuild.
I’m a huge believer that primary-Green decks that aren’t maximizing efficient ramp and card-draw are playing against game design. Green has these strengths to balance out its limitations when it comes to Interaction.
MaRo said it best, when he said, “Whether it’s creatures to counters, targeted removal and boardwipes, or everything else Green to Counters and Enchantment/Artifact Removal, Green *is going to lose expensive spells to Interaction* . The way the color deals with that is by facilitating your drawing and playing enough replacements to remain even *after* losses to Interaction.”
I like Harmonize, it gives you three card as it resolves. For return of the wildspeaker you need a creature, guardian project needs creatures, as does great henge. All these can draw you more, but you need other stuff to happen. And great henge is expensive for a casual deck, at least I haven't seen it in a precon lately.
I will keep my harmonize.
Agree with all of these. I’d go so far as to say a few of these are really great cards, but tired nonetheless.
Worth mentioning that a lot of these bad removal options like Putrefy have stuck around because many players have erroneously decided to only play instant-speed removal. Flexibility is nice, but removing threats on your own turn has a lot of its own advantages! I think this would be a great topic for a video: the pros and cons of sorcery-speed removal.
what are the pros of sorcery speed spot removal?
@@Brutusquethe effect you get on a sorcery spell is usualy better than the one u get on an instant
The #1 most underrated TH-cam MTG channel- EDH Deckbuilding!
I love the vids, but oof on some takes. Negate is 30 cents and An Offer You Can't Refuse is $4. For those can't or won't always proxy, I'm not sure you can discount budget and accessibility so much when calling something overplayed.
Damn that's a good $4 uncommon
I hate how mtg content creators straight up forget some people are on a budget sometimes. Hate entering a deck tech video and they just trow in a bunch of cards that alone are almost the price of my usual deck.
No, dark ritual is a bonified powerhouse. It’s in a small group of cards that are the closest thing we have to a legal black lotus. The opportunity cost is low and the ceiling is high. You’re tripping for this one Demo.
I'd have to agree. A single casting of dark ritual can completely shift the game. It doesn't matter if it's early game or late game, Dark Ritual is almost always a good card to draw. Not to mention how powerful it is in any flashback-esque deck like Kess, the Dissident Mage.
In casual commander, spending a card for just mana so that the thing you spent the mana on potentially just gets blown up by a board wipe later is not good
@@alfonsoferrera1135 this is basically the “dies to removal” argument extended to instants and sorceries. Casual or competitive, tripling up your investment on a 1 mana spell is POWERFUL in almost any situation but especially early in the game.
@@bend5963it’s worse than dies to removal because if the thing you spent the mana on goes away you got two for one-ed
@@bend5963it’s worse than dies to removal because you got two for one-ed
I’m building a Red/Black Spellslinger deck with Judith, Carnage Connoisseur as my Commander. I’m specifically adding Dark Ritual and Seething Song because they are Instants that let my specific Commander do what they want to do quicker and more efficiently.
Negate is excellent because 90% of the time it's as effective as straight up counterspell, because I so rarely care about countering a creature spell. It's typically noncreature spells that warp the game. The spell in many cases could even be better if you're playing in more than 2 colors including blue because if playing on a budget mana base you may not consistently be able to keep 2 blue up.
Everything else I agreed with totally, brainstorm seems like such an obvious #1, biggest trap card ever unless you have like 15+ shuffle effects or some other sweet brew. Card draw effects are so powerful now, I would easily wait the extra 2 turns and not due the flashy brainstorm lock my hand play and instead play something even like a chart a course which can filter cards into my graveyard or consistently be sign in blood if I'm playing an agressive commander that comes down early. IDK brainstorm fits in so few decks archtypes I can't see why it'd be in ~40% of blue decks
Honestly Negate is one of my go to "Fuck it, I've got 97 cards and want to try this deck out" includes because like there may be better options but it's never not good.
I think he's not making so much of a case that the "non-creature" clause makes makes it unplayable somehow, it's just that he likes "an offer you can't refuse" more because it's cheaper at 1 mana. Though mentioning the OG Counterspell as the better card undermined that a bit, I would agree.
It probably depends on what you want your counterspells to do. Do you want to slow down your opponent? Then Negate seems better because giving an opponent two treasure via "offer you can't refuse" kind of accelerates your opponent into doing even worse things next turn. But if all you want to do is counter certain key-spells, offer you can't refuse (or swan-song) can be better because they're just cheaper and you don't care about the goodies you just gave your opponent, if it means that you just countered a Cyclonic Rift for 50% of the mana-cost of a negate.
I think I'm starting to see a pattern in your card evaluation. My theory is that it's pretty heavily influenced by threat assessment expectations at the table. This is ok but it won't translate well to other play groups, and may explain the discrepancies between your experience and everyone else's re: mass removal, ramp and synergistic draw.
For example, my former group leaned heavily towards greedy play and bad threat assessment, and board wipes were extremely powerful because they were resetting at least two players. This made people shy away from creature payoffs, which made spot removal less impactful, and in the end settled into a board wipes vs countermagic meta with horrible threat assessment and big snowball games.
Not sure if EDHRec data reflects similar patterns, but it could explain why what you're seeing diverges so much.
It makes sense, I think at the average commander table ornithopter of paradise is a very mediocre card. The signets are not the best mana rocks, but they are certainly in a much higher class than OOP and the diamond cycle style of "functionally tapped two mana rocks," the OOP's upside of tapping for any color functionally be negated by its way higher likelihood of being swept away in some sort of board wipe to bring it down to the diamonds level
The pattern is that dude is off his rocker and let's the brewer mindset take over. I've seen too many people fall into the trap of "well, this card is bad because of X, Y, Z so I'm going to play this card that is generally worse because it's better in these niche situations". That's all this video was. One giant shitpost
@@khub5660 keep in mind he's specifically not talking about CEDH, so Best in Slot is not a fair consideration when criticizing his takes. Budget and accessibility are, which I can respect.
Also to be fair, I don't think there's any real way of metagaming casual EDH outside of very stable groups, so I understand why there can be so much variance of opinion regarding card playability. I don't consider EDHREC a very good source for generalized conclusions either, because of how polluted the dataset is by precons and "ideal" decklists (no, most users don't own that many duals, trust me).
@@zbaschtian best in slot is most definitely a valid line of criticism. I don't pay attention to nor care about EDHREC as it is a dumpster fire. But you also don't have to own a card to play a card, EDH is proxy friendly. If don't own a card because it's out of price range then just proxy it. We're talking about a format that is unsanctioned. There is a way to metagame outside of stable groups. You play generally good cards that will do what they're supposed to 9 times out of 10. Phyrexian Arena is a perfect example. Sure, the creature he mentioned *might* draw you a card per turn at one table, but at another you'll get nothing. Phyrexian Arena is generally better because you're guaranteed an extra card per turn cycle, when all nuances are put aside
@@khub5660 card availability is a non issue as long as your group is ok with proxies, but that doesn't mean you're going to find a lot of tables that are ok running stuff that makes games last 3-5 turns less on average, especially if it isn't matched by the whole table. Running a Necro or Mana Crypt is usually a mistake in tables below 9 power regardless of whether the card is a proxy.
Goodstuff value vs synergy is one of the main deckbuilding tensions of the format, and there's no definitive answer without also considering your group and commander. I tend to agree with Phyrexian Arena being mediocre unless you can stick it early (good argument for Dark Ritual in the same pile). Plus the 4 player scaling changes power valuations a lot: generally you're better off getting a likely trigger on 50% of the turns across the table than 100% of your own upkeeps.
Growth Spiral and Explore are good in decks where you NEED a turn 2 ramp spell in your opening hand. Which I would argue is 15 copies of an effect. Those are my favorite turn 2 ramp spells in a deck like that because when I draw them later they just cycle away unlike a lot of turn 2 ramp. I think people in Commander almost play a completely random number of ramp spells and a lot of the time the ramp is not doing what it is supposed to do because people don't play enough lands for the ramp to have done anything for them on the following turn after they played it.
Agree on players mostly not understanding ramp. What blows my mind is people but 1 and 2 CMC ramp in a deck with a 2 CMC commander that they want to play on curve.
@@WarrickRangeryes sir
I love explore for the very fact it's not a dead card late game. And still ramps on the turn that matters. it's so good.
These are the ramp cards that require you to play enough lands for them to work.
Just because of that i like them even if i dont play them a lot.
It also replaces itself in the late game and you can get a landfall trigger in an opponent turn.
I don't think Brainstorm is overrated or "horrible", it's just misplayed often. You can always use it in conjunction with fetch lands to put bad cards on top, crack the fetch, then shuffle or a variety of other ways to shuffle. It's great in Nekusar to manipulate his deck before a wheel. Etc. The problem isn't the card, the problem is the way people play it, which imo, distinguishes it from some of the other cards you highlighted (like Mortify and Harmonize)
Brainstorm (since you asked for my opinion and all) gets so much playtime for three reasons: first, if you check EDHREC, decks are averaging 34 lands in a deck. I think cards like Brainstorm or Dark Ritual are often being played in place of a land because it is mana positive or can grab a land early game on a 2-land hand. Secondly, Brainstorm is likely maximized early game or end game when you're fishing for a comeback option or to close a game; personally, my most emotional moments in MTG are getting a 1 lander after your third pitch hand to open a game or the games I top deck a land in a loss. That emotion likely plays a significant role in many deck building decisions; how does this feel opening hand or when I'm about to lose? Brainstorm can work in both of those scenarios. Lastly, I don't know about everyone else's play groups, but my games are basically over by turn 7, so any card that is ultra late game just doesn't get included in my builds. If the hardcore MTG players are the ones posting the most Moxfield and EDHREC builds, their play groups are probably similar to mine, so that's why we may see those cards more than we should.
P.S. I still like Mortify, but it is 100% outdated now. Just too lazy to take it out of the couple decks it's in. Haha!
This went off the rails at the discussion for Negate where he said Fierce Guardianship, Force of Will and Mana Drain are better counterspells and then immediately acknowledges the budget factor with the craziest comment I have ever heard, that Negate is “not that much cheaper”… Really ? Just googling the TCG prices of $40, $70 and $55… and Negate comes in at $0.13 those are comparative values ?
Even just going back to an Offer You Can’t Refuse for card comparison, it is listed at $4. If I had a $50-100 budget on a deck, I am not replacing cards like Negate with An Offer You Can’t Refuse.
yeah, it was an awful take
He was obviously trolling when he said that
In defence of Growth Spiral, it's a budget card, so is very accessible for people. Also, in my opinion, it's not a bad rate for ramping 1 (same as something like Rampant Growth or Farseek). There's obviously the chance it could whiff, but then it has the upside of being an instant (i.e. can hold up interaction / bluff interaction and use this as a backup play), and can also be effectively cycled when drawn later in a game, which can be very important. Personally, I don't use it outside of having great synergy (e.g. in Kalamax), but it's a pretty solid ramp option I think.
Side note on deck thinning: a cantrip card like this doesn't really make a difference in commander, as you say. However, deck thinning is definitely possible and effective, e.g. with Land Tax removing a lot of lands from your deck to ensure you draw more "gas" as the game goes on :)
Land tax > brainstorm > fetch land makes brainstorm ancestral recall.
My reason for liking harmonize is that it's unconditional. Synergistic card draw is definitely better until you've been exhausted of resources and you just need to reload without hoops.
Makes me wonder if this might also be an issue with sequencing. Playing a value engine without an immediate payoff is always a risk, so you'd normally hold back until you can get a few cards off of it or are ok with trading.
You should generally avoid going all in on the boards unless you're trying to win on the spot or have reliable protection online. In paper, this should minimize the amount of games where you exhaust your hand, but tbh it's impossible to fully avoid.
Also, what you describe is close enough to a worst case scenario that wouldn't it be better to commit the spell slots elsewhere, and rely on utility lands for the draw instead?
@zbaschtian I don't mind 1% of my deck being a worst case scenario card because it does happen. We run graveyard hate for the off chance it matters, right? I've had games where there was heavier control shutting down my draw engines and I just needed cards.
Really, you could argue that it should be a one ring rather than a harmonize but that's another discussion on how casual that is to run
@@ShinnyMetal I try to avoid including nonsynergistic silver bullets unless they're not available in the colors or theme. Deck slots are at such a premium right now that it's hard to justify running narrow cards that do not have secondary payoffs IMO. Unless the table is heavily biased towards that specific strategy, you'll get more mileage from the payoff than the actual narrow effect on average.
In other words, I'd rather run something like Scooze or Farewell as my dedicated GY answer than Rest In Peace outside of, Enchantress or an on-theme combo.
Same for Harmonize, but from the opposite angle: IMO it's hard to justify sinking 4 mana into 3 draws when those same 4 mana could also be giving me a threat, a blocker, an answer or a land drop in the same turn.
Negate is not for mono blue. It’s for multi-color decks that want to splash a counterspell but the double blue cost is too much for the multi-color mana base. It’s totally serviceable.
Also Growth Spiral has now been outclassed by Planar Genesis which is great.
Dark Ritual is extremely good. A friend in my playgroup landed a turn 2 7-drop commander earlier this week thanks to it.
Overrated and overplayed are two different things in my mind. Overrated are cards that require a huge financial investment for a relatively very small effect, Jeweled Lotus is a great example. Overplayed cards are ones that, even in budget, there are better options. For overplayed I’d add Wrath of God/Day of Judgment. There are so many good 5 CMC symmetrical board wipes now to use instead.
great point. maybe i'll make another video about that.
Agreed, I thought jeweled lotus was overrated as soon as it came out but like you said it's not overplayed because it's too damn expensive
Good take on Brainstorm, but I will correct you: It is not the best card for putting something back. That's a white card called Penance; I have one in my Elminster token deck - there's no spell slinging going on. At any time, put a card from your hand on top to prevent all damage from the next red or black source of your choice. The implications regarding red boardwipes are staggering - oh and notice that it doesn't say "target" so you don't require any red or black players at the table.
I agree with Dark Ritual in the vast majority of cases, but I did include one in my Tevesh Szat deck so he can start churning out 0/1 thrull tokens asap, who in turn block for him (it's a tribal thrull deck. No joke, I made sure to fit in Ebon Praetor). There's even a Will-o-the-wisp to block for him, which always gets a lot of looks, followed by a lot of frustration when no one is willing to burn good removal to get rid of the thing
I HAVE A GREEN SPELL SLINGER!
It is... strange. Yes. Strange.
In all seriousness though, don't discount harmonize in a bog standard green deck. Yes, it has a pretty low power ceiling for green, but it's floor isn't 0. This is from someone who has giggled madly to himself as he drew his entire library in mono green on turn 5, killing myself when I could have easily stopped at 70 cards
Something to consider with removal: There is no such thing as perfect solution, only trade offs. Timing, coverage, quantity, style (sacrifice, exile, destroy, bury etc), mana, color restrictions, things granted to the opponent.
You can't simply write one off because it's not your favored balance of those consideration. Now there are simply bad cards, but those are things that cost 4+ and are a simple terror. Mortify and Putrefy are not those. Not even close, even if Mortify specifically has a lot of fierce competition in its space. Even Desert Twister has a home in a handful of decks, and that's a 6 mana sorcery beast within - yuck - but if you need another catch-all removal spell or if beast within's token isn't something your deck can tolerate, you put up with it if you can afford it.
While synergistic card draw can be vastly more powerful, call it having a higher ceiling, there’s nothing worse than having your creatures destroyed with an empty hand, and then drawing a Rishkar’s Expertise. At least with Harmonize as long as you have the mana, you’ll get cards.
I also tend to play in games with way more creature removal and board wipes vs artifact destruction, so an ornithopter of paradise (or most dorks for that matter) end up as collateral damage a lot of the time. Meanwhile that turn 2 signet tends to stick around and continue to provide mana quietly in the background.
funny enough i just did my ranking of the colors video and i talked exactly about this with green card draw. however i think the risk is worth the reward.
Signets are not overrated for not green decks. We run them with the talismans with the them to increase our chance of opening up with a turn two mana rock.
My big one is cultivate/kodama's reach (in general but mainly for 4 cost commanders), if your commander costs 4 ramping at 3 is very awkward when there's easily 10+ 2-mana Land Ramp, for the benefit of like a bundled Ley of the Land. Its the harmonize of ramp in most decks.
If you need your Commander to come out as quickly as possible and your deck is really dependent.
Otherwise you can still run 3 or 4 mana ramp.
The big upside of cultivate/kodama is, that you basically draw 2, whereas the 2 mana ramp spells are just cantrips. So unless you have like you said a 4 cost commander that you want to be dropping in turn 3 every game, they are really good ramp spells, definitely not overplayed.
signets get played not only because they are decent but because how accessible they are compared to talisman (at least they were for very long time). you also put thopter of paradise over signets. If you don't have some pump effects that are good for thopter than you are paying 2 for ramp that will get removed by the first board wipe. Players choose mana rocks to have ramp not affected by board wipes. supreme verdict is popular as it improves on every aspect of general board wipe that is 5 mana and just destroys creatures. Cost less and can't be countered. A lot of players has that from playing different formats so it get played. I disagree with these 2. There are reasons why they are played both from their functionality and availability. You are arguing for these 2 cards in general while providing specific situations where they don't really compete against each other in terms of choice (non-creature rock vs creature-ramp, 4 mana board wipe vs 7 mana board wipe).
Signets also let's you filter your colorless utility lands into colored mana. That's the main reason I use it
sure, also in general the more colors the deck the more signets can help hitting all colors in case of manabase not being up to par with the deck. like breya budget build can benefit from signets a lot. While I myself prefer talismans for most cases there are a lot of good reasons to run signets. Actually there are very little reason to not include it as most of the times you don't play one or the other but both signets and talismans. I can understand the argument that some people overvalue signets but I can't really accept the argument for thopter as a something strictly better. It can be better in very specific decks but this is general video. Thopter doesn't have haste and can be easily removed. 2 things that I don't want in my ramp pack.@@Sweetguy1821
Supreme Verdict is designed for Azorius control, which does not typically run a lot of creatures (the same would apply to the popularity of Toxic Refuge in Dimir control decks or Sultai dredge decks). It’s not a significant concern for those decks that it destroys all creatures. The low CMC is important as these spells are used to control aggro threats while the control deck is developing… control decks are about buying time until they can combo for the win.
He also mentioned on turn 2, u won’t be able to tap it for mana. Same for Ornithopter of Paradise, because of summoning sickness. But on any turn after turn 2(assuming u got the mana drop), u can tap signet. While OoP will still have summoning sickness.
Cute opinion
You already said it, but I think precons are the reason many of these are played so much. I also think these are prime examples of “eat your vegetables” cards. In other words, people have a few key cards around which they want to build their deck, and as far as the necessary ramp/removal packages are concerned, they just go with the simple, generic, and affordable options they have lying around in their collection to fill the space and enable their deck to do what they want it to do. I’m guilty of doing that a lot of times, if I’m honest.
Disagree a bit on Mortify, to me it's a fantastic (and deserving of the praise) budget option, as (at least in my groups) creatures and enchantments are the most likely "kill on sight" cards, 3 mana is an amount of mana that isn't too painful to float for the instant speed, too. I do mostly agree with the take on petrify, as I find artifact removal to be more common, and somewhat less important, especially if you have access to red. I personally take mortify as a good 3rd of 4th removal spell for the colors, or in cases where I dont want to drop wads on more powerful options like Anguished Unmaking.
Definitely some controversial takes like you said, but I also think our deck building philosophies are like polar opposites lol. I dont think Arena or Harmonize overrated but not in the way youre talking about them, most people in my experience just dont find them to be good cards at all to even be considered in this conversation. If someone ramps out their commander through dark ritual or other means and the immediate response is to remove it then it's either really bad threat assessment (i.e someone going "well just for getting it out 2 turns early I cast swords to get rid of it) or a KOS commander, but being able to cheat the cost of a card is objectively good. I think the problem is actually people not knowing when not to play it imo being 3+ color decks where you could draw it and not have anything to use the black mana for, whereas 1-2 color decks dark ritual should always be a live card.
I 100% agree with Putrefy and Mortify being dated removal just not your recommendations, but that's more because I like cost efficient deck building where my removal & playlines are mostly is low to the ground so I can accomplish multiple things on my turn and still hold 1-3 mana for spot removal, some decks I dont even play boardwipes. I dont like the idea of needing to hold up 5 mana for an instant because it usually leads to choosing between that removal spell or making the play i need to advance my board + if they do have protection against the instant thats 5 mana gone plus missing out on my turn actions. Personally would go with Abrupt Decay, Assassins' Trophy, Beast Within, Anguished Unmaking, etc before playing a 5 mana removal spell.
On the topic of cost efficiency I dont think reducing peoples deck building theory to "Oh it's banned in another format so it must be good" is a good angle. Maybe could apply to a grade-school player, I know at that age I loved the idea of getting to play banned cards, but beyond that you're just not giving other people enough credit. Those cheap "draw" cards absolutely have a floor and ceiling , so of course getting the maximum value from them is ideal but their floors really arent bad either. Cards that at worst replace themselves + did something else for a single mana isn't going to lose you the game vs a 4+ mana draw card where you draw a ton of the answers to the threat but are now short mana to use those cards and do lose. On the opposite side of that though digging 3 cards into your deck isn't going help you win but if you're in a position to cast some big splashy card that draws a ton of cards odds are you were already in a winning spot and didnt need to cast that card either. Basically I think the mentality has nothing to do with if a cards banned or not elsewhere and more the efficiency offered + the benefit of manipulating the top of your deck. I can 100% agree it's much less impactful in 1v1 60 card formats, but being able to have more control over your topdeck not being a missed land drop early game or a dud draw late game I think is what people find most appealing when playing these cards generically.
Again though I do I think we have very different deck building philosophies. I like for the early game; build low to the ground, always have something to play and always try to keep my decks CMC average to 3 or less, usually winning from accumulated advantages. I get the vibe you prefer getting through the early game fast and getting wins through playing a series of explosive big mana cards until the table cant recover and either runs out of answers or already did from earlier interactions amongst themselves such as the "you played your commander early so Im gonna waste removal right away" player. It's a strategy I can say is mostly unexplored for myself but is just as viable a strategy as leaning more into the early game cards I think I like a little more than you might 😅
I think people downplay Harmonize too often because it's not “cost effective” or because it lacks the creature sinergy. But let me ask you, what if you've got no creatures to play, or you've just been board wiped? Return of the Wildspeaker, Shamanic Revelation, Guardian Project and the countless other iterations of this effect won't serve you any good when things aren't going according to plan. Even Rhystic Study and Mystic Remora may draw you zero cards if your opponents play around them. That's why it is so important to include card options that draw you cards anytime, no questions asked.
Don’t see many people use Dark Ritual in a different way. In my experience you use it to cast your big rock (gilded lotus, thran dynamo) and sling shot ahead of the table.
hmm... that feels like you're just inviting trouble unless you're playing super casual where people really don't run any artifact hate. Gilded lotus alone is already a semi-questionable card in most modern casual edh decks but investing two cards to be ahead 3 mana sounds... not worth it. I mean, yes, if you're not playing green, then decent permanent ramp that goes beyond a rock can be hard to come by so if you're in, say, mono-black (because of dark ritual) you probably want to look at Doubling Cube or Scepter of Eternal Glory if you want to produce big mana before considering (and not necessarily ruling out) Gilded Lotus, which I think can still be a solid card. (Also consider Worn powerstone. It's a bad Sol-Ring but Sol-Ring is broken and even a 3-mana rock that taps for 2 next turn is still a pretty solid rate.)
But why would you use Dark Ritual to power it out? What turn 3 play is so important that you'd risk card disadvantage to get it running until then?
I can see Dark Ritual as a way to power out an expensive commander or to help me replay my commander once it has commander tax on it IF my commander is cruicial to my gameplan. But setting myself up for a 2 for 1 on the first couple of turns of a 4-way commander table feels like you're rushing the line a bit and get people worried about you.
On the topic of Mortify, one card that came out not too long ago that has totally replaced both Mortify and Vindicate in my decks is Legions to Ashes. Being able to exile something while at the same time having the ability to eliminate a swarm of tokens (same as Maelstrom Pulse, thanks for showing me that one!), which often times can only be done with a board wipe, has been huge in my play experience. The down sides of sorcery speed and non-land permanent are not a big deal at all given the aforementioned benefits in my opinion!
Ornithopter provides a mana of any color and might be a relevant attacker/blocker.
But it dies to much more removal as well.
There are as many arguments against as there are for it.
For Dark Ritual there are some niche areas where I play it. I play it in Skithiryx for that surprise haste-infect, and I play it in Rowan to give me enough black pips for my combo pieces. Also run it in Narfi for that first cast.
I don't think ritual should have been on this list, I don't actually see it played that often. I run it in my ayara devotion deck and that's the only scenario I've had it played in an edh game. Maybe my perception is flawed because my frequent playgroup doesn't run it. Do you see it played often?
@@fauscsk_9099 Almost never. I'm the only one I know that runs it, and then only in the decks listed above.
Dark Ritual is great when used smartly
My best Orzhov play was Dark Ritual to Bolas' Citadel on turn 3 after everyone just played ramp
How cute, you played some ramp. I'm just going to pay some life! GG? Now I want to do that play sometime!
A bold move like that just draws all the table hate, and some disenchant comes out as a great trade.
Don't get me wrong, love citadel; have it in a Moldrotha deck. But I never ramp citadel out too quick.
The one thing I could see Brainstorm used for is to get a look at three new cards in a pinch when drawing one of the two that won't help immediately is less of a concern. Paying 1 mana for three chances to get a counter spell in a clutch doesn't seem like a stretch, especially when you're sitting on one combo piece for just the right time. When you draw it next turn, you still have it available when the time is right...
I like Harmonize. I admit it's not as good as the color's "best". But, imo it's "in too many decks" most likely because of being a redundant effect in green. Like redundancy in removal, ramp, etc... I think pay 4 draw 3, in a color that laughs at mana cost, is good. I would also argue it does does do enough in every deck it's in, as it finds your "core" quicker, amidst your other draw spells.
My decks that run Dark Ritual and why.
#1. K'rrik
With K'rrik not out, it gets him out by turn 2, which I then get immediate value out of by abusing his cost conversion on other cards with no colorless cost like Necropotence, Ayara, etc.
With K'rrik out it's even better as a card that costs only 2 life, ramps 2 towards a second spell, and puts a +1/+1 counter on K'rrik so I can steal that life back.
#2. Thrasios/Ravos
The whole idea of this deck is aiming for infinite by turn 5. Dark Ritual helps you get that Pili Pala + C.Cult. combo or that Kinnan + Monolith combo etc out by turn 4.
#3. Mahadi ($75 budget)
I don't use it to race Mahadi out, but it ALWAYS comes in handy to get those strong 3 dtops in the deck out sooner, and one good example is a card you mentioned: Morbid Opportunist.
Then there is: Midnight Reaper, Fleshbag, Plaguecrafter, Merciless Executioner, Demon's Disciple, Soul Shatter, not to mention the 4-7 drops that are far more potent when dropped earlier like Revel in Riches, Grim Hireling, and Necrotic Hex.
#4. Tergrid
Come on now. Just sitting down with Tergrid makes you the archenemy anyway, so might as hell get her on the board asap.
#5. Killian
You know what is better than casting 1 black kill spell/aura for 2 or 3? Casting 3 black kill spells/auras for 1.
#6. The Scarab God
The Scrab God has a lot of setup. Dark Ritual gets you there faster. It's that simple. I might not cast Scarab God right away but it sure does make getting cards like Paradox Haze, Loyal Subordinate, Headless Rider, Endless Ranks, Ghoulcaller Gisa, out sooner.
Worst case scenario is that it helps me get 2 more zombies out.
#7. Sen Triplets
Too many cards to list that this helps me drop sooner. I do wait to cast Triplets later, but casting either of the Jin-Gitaxias' in the deck 2 turns sooner is huge. That's just 2 examples.
#8. Zurgo Helmsmasher Voltron
Helps me play the 4-6 drop wipes easier.
Btw, that is EVERY SINGLE deck I have that runs black.
You talk as though ramping early only serves to play your commander faster.
That's nonsense. Getting any spell out 2 turns sooner is powerful. Period.
"Guys, all it does is generate two mana"
Please, PLEASE make a video explaining to us how generating two extra mana as early as turn 1 "Isn't that good". I'll wait. Let me get popcorn ready.
Harmonize is underated. Unconditional draw is very good. Yes it doesnt have the ceiling other draw spells have. But its floor is higher and the consistency is very important. You cant draw from return of the wildspeaker after a board wipe. Harmonize you can. You also cant get blown out by instant speed removal with harmonize. This consistency is underrated and under appreciated.
re: Ornithopter of Paradise. When this card first came out it went into all of my decks. However, I tend to play in a Wrath-heavy environment & Ornithopter came out of all but one of my decks.
On the second Turn, a signet is not immediately useable, but is an investment - later in the game it's fine.
I agree with the sentiments about dark ritual. I do play it in my mono black korlash deck because i can draw A LOT of cards so gaining 2 mana is worth the hand resource most the time :)
still beats charcoal diamond
Interesting takes and I mostly agree! As a CEDH and casual player just overall commander addict,
signets are important budget ramp for people who don’t have the talisman and the alt you suggested dies so easily albeit being better mana fixing
Supreme verdict is just hands down the best board wipe available in those colors for the cost and uncounterable is highly relevant when you suggested cards like An Offer You Can’t Refuse as better counters than negate (which I highly agree)
Mortify is dookie butt stinky doodoo
Putrefy “ “
Dark Ritual absolutely makes you archenemy with the plays it facilitates, but as you already mentioned, in the decks where it’s good it’s very good
Lotus pedal is also incredible in an opening hand and can be looped from the gy with certain enablers.
Brainstorm… tough one, I agree with it doing nothing at times but I’d say brainstorm is ultimately dependent on the overall card quality of the deck so it’s up to the deck builder how strong of an effect it can be
13:53 Negate is not a double blue spell and An Offer You Can't Refuse is $3-4 and Negate is 20 cents. Some people are really on budget.
yeah its more like 9 cents, I play 20 dollar budget decks and that's a huge difference 9 cents vs 3.50$, again it's just him talking out his ass.
I think one of the biggest factors is the playgroups you are in. My playgroup board wipes 3 to 5 times per game.
Having car draw or manor rocks on an artifact or enchantment that won’t die of that is always better than on a creature in my plague group.
Are you supreme verdict if it’s an option because 50% of my board wipes are countered.
It’s interesting how different my playgroup is from yours.
in defense of signets and the same(2 mana rocks) is that they're Cheap, makes your deck do something in the opening, and helps cast your commander in later stages of game. I play casual and this is a fast way to bring out jank high cost rares :)
At low power tables i think Negate Is better than An Offer You Can't Refuse because keeping one more mana untapped and play a bit slower is better than give your opponent a pretty big mana boost in the form of treasures that he can use right away or keep for later
If you want to keep two mana up for multiple turns of wasted mana, that’s on you
I'm just saying that at low power tables keeping two up for Negate is not that bad. Offer can be a big ramp for the opponent. Just an opinion
2 vs 1 mana for a counter spell is the difference between playing a protected 5-cost creature with 6 mana vs 7 mana, as an example, you are delaying your play by a whole extra turn, its a pretty big deal. That being said, negate isnt bad, but i would never run it over offer, delay and arcane denial, as a couple of exemples.
The commercial placement is supreme in these videos. Right when he’s about to drop the knowledge BOOM commercial. I don’t necessarily enjoy it, but I respect the hustle.
i have no idea when ads drop on my videos. i know some people arrange it, but i don't.
@@edhdeckbuilding right on m8. Coincidental timing was on point!
Not a big fan of Saw it Coming because EDH decks rarely run more than one foretell card total. Playing that you got to be aware you're basically revealing to your opponents you have a counterspell in hand. Sure you can find a couple counterspells that are better than negate, but I rarely put only one or two of those in my decks. There's always room left for negate despite the An Offer You Can't Reffuse and all.
Dark ritual and growth spiral are always awesome to see when you have access to other card draw. If you drop your whole hand tapping out for your commander turn 1 or 2 thats just irresponsible 😂
I tend to only play Growth Spiral if I've already got a land in hand. Of course, that pretty much means I'm playing it early or I have a ton of draw that ensures I have more lands in hand, but... I mean, two mana for draw a card AND put a land on the field (untapped, assuming no tapped conditions on the land itself) is not horrible. But I think that really only works IF you have the land in hand to start.
2 things to consider: 1 ornithopter of paradise dies to every wipe, making it a mana rock you no longer get to use.
2: growth spiral being late game being a 2 mana draw 1, is still better than the alternative of a late game rampant growth, or worse mana rock, or even worse, and ornithopter of paradise.
I think youll have to cast ornithopter of paradise 10 times to see it perform better than even a daimond. i get that it did great for you in that one game, but I want you to noticed every time your OOP dies, how often youll be one mana shy of doing what you'd prefer in future turns.
You just convinced me to add brainstorm and other clones into my galea deck
For my experience, the problem with card that are synergistic with your deck it's they are not good enough if they are stand alone, so they can't help you to recover in case of board wipe or target removal, if I am at turn 6 with 3 card in hand after a one sided boardwipe , I don't need a guardian project, but something that let me draw/loot my deck to find answer
props to you for actually playing different cards than signets. I dont care if signets are more reliable and whatever...the whole format plays the same cards in every single deck
I agree with a lot of the others, phyrexian arena especially but hard disagree for the non green signets. They are the most accesible 2 mana rocks that filter your mana super well (including colorless mana). I also don't like ornithopter very much since it'll always take a turn to use unlike a signet which can be used right away if you draw one after turn 2, and ornithopter also dies to sweepers. Ornithoper isn't bad mind you but you have to be a heavy creature strategy outside of green for it to be worth it
Regarding negate there are other more flexible counterspells as well like cryptic command (only for mono blue) mystic confluence, sublime epiphany, arcane denial, swan song, on top of all the ones you listed. Negate is still totally fine, but there are so many good counterspells
Demo - "these cards are played too broadly and jammed into too many decks they're just not great in"
People in the comments - "you're wrong because I use that card in the specific deck it's actually good in"
🙄
I still like to run Phyrexian Arena in a lot of my decks with constricted themes. It's not explosive card draw, but it's consistent and the cost is very negligible. Same with Negate, I'm not always very concerned with my opponents casting specific creatures so the "non-creature" stipulation just makes it a super cheap counter spell. And I like Supreme Verdict because my douche bag pod LOVES counter magic, so I crutch really hard on "This spell can't be countered" being printed on a lot of the spells I choose to build with. Still, this is a fairly accurate list, there are way more efficient and interesting spells to replace a LOT of these cards with, and a lot of them just get overlooked because they're older and have faded into obscurity.
Interesting list. I disagree with Growth Sprial, Dark Ritual, and Brainstorm. Growth spiral does what blue does (draw cards) and what green does (ramp) at instant speed. Dark Ritual is a nice suprise mana jump when you need it. Brainstorm gives your nine options and what your next two turns will look like. I agree that it all depends on what your deck is trying to do. Thanks for posting.
Disagree on the signets. You're not considering the scenarios where you cast these after turn 2 and they enable you to double spell or keep reaction mana up. Thopter of Paradise sidegrades this into a chump blocker and some untap synergies, but the sequencing is fundamentally different.
Honestly, what's the scenario where you're sad to tap out for these turn two outside of a CEDH table? Why would having double spell or reaction mana on T2 more important than the ramp to 4 on T3? And shouldn't you be looking into pitch spells and T1 ramp if it is?
Turn three signet is huge - you get to keep mana up for interaction or play a second ramp spell.
I did indeed enjoy this video
Thanks for creating n posting
You should definitely do a collab video with the MTG Goldfish gang!
Ornithopter of paradise is great, buteverything should be deck dependant. I like signets in decks where i already have flying creatures, and having a creature artifact makes it easier to remove, also sometimes i need double pips which signets are better at. And i play more phyrexian arenas because i like the enchantment, and i dont need creatures in play, and Nostalgia FUN! And dark ritual has helped me win so many games and make plays turns where I just didnt have enough mana and its so fun and explosive😎👍🏻 and theres no problem with playing precon cards. Not every player needs to “upgrade” to “better” cards. Maybe players like the precon cards art, its theme, flavor, etc. and thats totally cool. Again, commander deckbuilding to me is reaching the point why i stopped playing mtg... is reaching this endgame of “competitive only” super overtuned optimal decks and thats not fun. My philosophy for casual commander is play what you want and do what you want for more surprises, laughs, unpredictability, and FUN
Gonna have to defend Growth Spiral here. Think of it like a rampant growth with cycling (and flash).
In a 2 mana deck where you dont need the manafixing and play this early, it's just a rampant growth. You draw a card and remove one from your hand for an extra landdrop, except you can cast it at instant speed. And blue likes to keep mana open.
Now theres a down and an upside. The downside is that it might miss if youre manascrewed and therefore becomes „2 mana draw a card“. The upside is that it also becomes „2 mana draw a card“ in the lategame where drawing rampant growth is horrible.
Harmonize...I put it back in all my green decks because Return of the wild speaker and R. Expertise don't work after a boardwipe, they are just death cards in that situation.
Harmonize is the only card that puts me back in the game after the boardwipe.
Phyrexian Arena belongs with Sheoldred. That one life paid is actually one life gained with her on the field. This and Howling Mine equals 5 life for you at your draw step, and enemies lose 4 life on their draw steps. Throw in a Bowmasters and you got a very punishing draw loop.
I play phrexian area and dark ritual in my chainer nightmare adept deck. I mainly use dark ritual to help hard cast creatures from my graveyard and give them haste like arcon of cruelty and phyrexian area for card draw
Why I love Harmonize: I like having 2 pure card draw options. No matter what board state I have, card X will draw me 3 or more cards. I still load my decks w synergistic draw, but I have a couple like harmonize
I agree with Brainstorm but Ponder and Preordain are great. If you're in blue playing 36-38 lands, you can easily cut a land for a ponder. It makes a starting hand with a couple lands significantly better and its a much better draw than an island when you already have a lot of lands in hand or in play. I will say brainstorm is also good if you're in five color and can afford fetches
that sounds good if you have them in your opening hand. but what are the chance of that?
Happy new year from my family to yours. Keep up the awesome content. :)
I want to use my mass removal as late as possible that is why I like Supreme Verdict. I may not need everything to die (blacksmith skill example given) but it's important that enough things get destroyed that I'm not left dead on board. So it not getting countered allows that. Play removal that gives people less options to deal with it
I think Growth Spiral is just a worse explore, which is a decent 2 mana ramp spell. So the main question would be: is a farseek effekt better, because it never fails to ramp (early game) or a explore effekt, cause it cycle itself to maybe find something better (late game)? But in a landfall deck like tatyova you probably want to play all the 2 mana, land based ramp. So I can absolutly understand why growth spiral is played in land focused decks. Outside from that you are probably.
I agree growth spiral is generally nothing special in Commander but I been having pretty good success with it in my Arargorn, the uniter deck since you get the added effect of scry 2 and +4/+4 pump. May not sound like much but the scry 2 really does help with increasing the odds of you dropping that 2nd land into play. Great card if you can find some kind of synergy, not great playing it on it’s own.
Explore is the *exact same card* for 1G, rather than Growth Spiral’s 1G 1U cost.
Exploration doesn’t give you the draw, but it’s an enchant that lets you play an extra land every turn, for the same 1G.
Growth Spiral isn’t horrible. There are just better options.
Hell, for the same 1G, Burgeoning will let you put a land in play every time one of your opponent’s does. That’s pretty much dedicated landfall territory, but I included it for cost-perspective.
Demand maximum bang for your pips spent.
Ornithopter is a creature, therefore its vulnerable to board wipes. Don't get me wrong, its a great card, but the signets tap for mana mid-late game as soon as they enter. Ornithopter is better than signets only in creature decks or mostly budget 3-4-5 color decks (because your mana base may not be as good as a non-budget deck)
Dark Ritual should go in every mono black deck.
A key note about arcane signet and Ornithopter of paradise in colorless decks. Colorless is not a color. You can not generate mana outside of your commander identity - it becomes colorless normally. The catch is you can't generate mana with them if you can't produce colored mana.
They don't actually produce mana in colorless decks at all as a result. Nor does command tower.
As a sens triplets player; I assure you that you can generate mana in any color within a cards written parameters regardless of what color identity restrictions the deck has.
The "can only produce mana in accordance with your manders identity" rule was errata'd more than a decade ago.
You're right in that command tower doesn't work in a colorless deck though
Disagree with growth spiral. Draw+ramp on 2 mana. Also easy synergy with drawing, landfall at instant speed.
On Growth Spiral.
2 mana ramp is used for different things in different colors and obviously ramp but it highly depends on the colors. In a mono green deck, imo, there isn't a huge difference between explore and natures lore. Early/Mid game it puts the land into play untapped like you want. Sometimes it misses, you're absolutely right, but its 1 out of your 10 ramp cards. . and late game Explore cycles. And mono green generally plays the higher end of land to make it even more likely to nab the top deck land.
In Simic again there still isn't a MASSIVE difference between the two. How many non-basic forests that come into play untapped are you actually running for fixing? Shock and Dual. To me again, the power is it coming in untapped, and now having 2 of your 10 ramp spells have cycle attached to it, with the bonus that growth spiral is instant speed. You hold up mana for a counterspell, see nothing scary to counter, last endstep before your turn, cycle! Bonus points for instant speed landfall lol.
In 3 colors and beyond, growth spiral and explore are god awful, like you mention. They don't fix, I'd really really really rather go grab a basic land with rampant growth just to make sure I have a balanced mana base. And even late game, grabbing another basic its probably better because the fixing is SO important in these decks. Having double red or triple black in your 5 color could genuinely make the difference between winning and loosing.
2 mana ramp is at its worst in the late game, and strongest in the early. Explore/Spiral are at their weakest mid game, and strongest early and ok late game. If you understand what the card is doing for you, and understand the cost of them sometimes just missing. . I think it has a place. I love the faster play patterns it lets me eek out in the early game, and the slight flexibility it has in the late.
Also a very niche use but, sometimes Ill draw like 10 cards, and get 4 lands, I dont wanna discard them all, but explore/growth spiral can help you play an extra one so you dont have to pitch as many. Is that really a reason to play it? no, but its another tiny use that makes me love it. Absolutely shouldn't go in every deck, but of all dual colors to get this effect, simic can definitely use of it imo
Not sure if you read these comments but I’d say most people save their removal spells for the first commander play or at least the most threatening commander at the table.
I think there are scenarios where you would just prefer to use signets over talismans. An example would be any deck that uses Nyxbloom Ancient, or a deck that is already burning through life with minimal lifegain
If you have cards that are good enough I don’t see any issue with playing them even if there’s a better option. Would nature’s lore be better than moss diamond in my gruul deck? Yes, but my copies of nature’s lore are already in other decks and I don’t care enough to buy another one when moss diamond doesn’t stop my deck from functioning.
To address the point about budget, there are approximately 64 deck slots in a commander deck, if you have a lot of decks that’s a lot of cards and the difference between already in my collection or even 50 cents and 2 dollars can be significant.
In the signed vs talisman vs mana dork debate, it's been my experience that in a 2-3 color deck, the Signets are by far superior, because they're not just ramp but also fix your mana. If you only have swamps but need red and blue, the signet will sort you out. Talismans and mana dorks don't do that. So the more colors you have in your deck, I will argue that the Signets become all the better. If you have 1 signet and 1 dork you have access to up to three colors. 2 Signets will give you up to 4 colors. Based on my experience, they deserve their spot in my decks.
"An Offer you can't refuse" cost around 2,50. "Negate" costs less than 5 cents. I have 15 decks, 7 of them are blue. And i am a strict budget player, rarly spendig more than 2 bucks on a piece of cardboard.
"Saw it coming" is okay, but i dont think its better. Even if you foretell it, it cost you 1U to cast it, the same as Negate, with the only upside that it can counter creature spells.
So all in all i dont think that Negate is overplayed. It is simple, cheap and effective, and perhaps one of the best options for budget players
The Signets i like in two colored decks that don't have green. In decks that have more than 2 colors orni of p. is far better than any of those signets.
Regarding "Putrefy" and "Mortify" you are 100% right. I don't use any of these because even on a low budget there are better options like "Generous Gift" "Beast whitin" "Vindicate" and "Tear Asunder" nami g just a few.
Love your videos man, however let’s not forget a signet is way better in the mid game as well. The thopter is fantastic in turns 1 (if you can cheat it) and 2 but in non green decks, your signet will be better for utility color fixing where as the thopter not as much, but still a great card though in higher colors.
Edhrec guy just challenged the stats on negate in Talrand decks. Great minds think alike.
Will never agree about Swords lolol, but spot on with all the others!
Also I basically completely agree with you on all of these. Brainstorm is ridiculously overplayed. One point to advocate for Brainstorm a little is that it is also really good card selection. It's good as a midgame smooth out your hand option to optimize a turn. It also has other fringe applications like saving certain cards in your hand from getting wheeled away. I'd play it in the types of decks you've mentioned but I'd still play it in Spell Slinger just because high cantrip density is really important for those decks. Other than that, yes. Brainstorm is so overplayed it's hilarious.
Signets are good in 2-3 color decks, imo.
More often than not, you won't have a follow up on a turn 2 rock anyway.
After that, it is all upside, where you get all your colors, or 2/3.
In my view Ornithopter of Paradise should only be played if you are including either equipment or auras to enhance creatures or if you have some kind of artifact creature synergy. If you can use it as a body that is generating value, that is great. Equip a sword and go to town. If all it is is a potential blocker, that you have to choose to leave up mana with, then it is not a good include. It is like 10x more fragile then a simple signet, and fragile ramp is bad. (You mentioned this later) Signets get hit only by artifact wipes and dedicated removal only (why anyone would dedicate removal to a signet I don't know). OoP gets hit by literally every board wipe that exists, including all those that hit signets, plus it is vulnerable to shock effects and pingers.
As for counter spells, I think your way of thinking - "I have to leave up 2 mana" - represents many players that are not playing the real draw-go type control play style. Leaving up 2 mana is normal for control players. That is literally not even a factor to consider because you do it pretty much every turn anyways. The value of negate is in its colorless mana. You don't need the 2 blue, so if you are in a multicolored deck you are freed up to cast a blue-mana intensive spell and leave up only 1 blue. VERY important. (Of course, this depends a lot on your deck and if you even have mana intensive spells.) I also think your viewpoint where you don't care about the treasure is fringe :)... ramping an opponent 2 mana is nuts in many situations. I can't believe it hasn't burned you yet.
You are totally correct on Growth spiral. It is a holdover from 60 card formats. You hit all the reasons it is bad in commander :)
With harmonize, you are correct that it is overrated, but it does have a home. You hinted at green decks being based on creatures, but there is a small cohort of green decks that want spells. That's where Harmonize lives, because you lose all the creature draw and creature synergies.
As for the blue cantrips, they are some of the best cards in certain decks. Unless you are building a big blue behemoth deck with krakens and leviathans (like Tomer at Goldfish), odds are your blue deck has multiple synergies for cantrips. The three you mention are even better because they are cantrips stapled onto top-deck manipulation which is one of the most powerful effects in blue. In addition to the scenarios you mentioned, there are also shuffle effects and instant/sorcery synergies, including the ability to bring it back over and over - which lets you control your hand and draw repeatedly. So busted.
I have removed all of them from my decks, but when starting and a limited budget, i had some of those for a while (and mostly because it came from precons)
Funny how much I agree with you almost everytime. You are a bit more extreem but you are right non the less.
I find it odd that the argument against Supreme Verdict is that there are options to spend more mana to make it more one-sided while the argument against the very next card, Negate, is an option to spend less mana and make it less one-sided. An Offer You Can't Refuse makes sense in cEDH to protect/deny combo wins, but in a casual game I'll spend one mana to deny my opponent two mana.
Another reason some of the cards are overplayed very simple - availability. This topic has been touched on with talk of precons and budget cards, but not fully explored, probably because it is so subjective. I'll use myself as an example. I'm an older casual player that has mostly stopped opening packs over the last few years for reasons like product fatigue, power creep (leap), and the 30th Anniversary money grab. I put signets in every deck even though talismans are better because I own maybe 12 talismans and probably over 100 signets. In the decks that actively want creature ramp over non-creature ramp, I am running Alloy Myr over the strictly better Ornithopter of Paradise because I already have them and in my casual, low-power playgroup it doesn't really matter. Simply put, it just makes sense for people to play the cards that they have.
All that to say that I disagree that the signets and negate are overplayed, because the have high utility and availability. Brainstorm has high availability, but it is bad in the format. Everything else is spot on. Including Mortify in your deck means that your available card pool must be incredibly small.
counterspells are a special situation because you have to constantly be leaving the mana open. you don't know when you're opponents are going to do that big thing. boardwipes you just cast whenever it's convenient for you.
The way I think cards like putrefy / mortify can be understood is that there's a distinction between budget and ultra-budget. So to say, for established players, making a deck that's under $100 can be considered budget. Logically, we might also think that making a deck around $40-50 is pretty budget, as that's the cost of a precon.
However, with the absurdly low prices afforded by marketplaces like TCGplayer and the apparently unstoppable march of whales who buy more product than might be prudent in search of shinies, I can get friends into the game who might otherwise be noncommittal with a $20 decklist, because putrefy and negate and mortify are $0.15.
To enfranchised players this is uncommon, but it's such an easier buy-in if I set someone up with what might be the price of a 'normal' board game, rather than suggesting they spend a video game's upfront price on something they don't know they'll like. Of course, I usually keep a few cheap-but-simple decks on hand in penny sleeves to play with newer / casual people. I also think that "target creature/artifact/enchantment" is more easily understood by new players than "nonland," in the same way that power stones tripped up people in Brothers' War (eg, "can't be used for nonartifact spells" -> can be used for costs).
i've got lotus petal in my silas renn artifact recursion deck and its pretty based, with things like master transmuter i can turn cheerios like that into cool stuff AND use it as a worse burnished hart for when i dont pull burnished hart
If people are wasting their swords on your early game commander, that's their loss. And yours, I guess, but swords should be saved for when you really need it. Fair point about avoiding making yourself the threat early though, unless you can back it up. Ornithopter is an interesting option but dies to doom blade or any board wipe, so that's not a negligable downside. Brainstorm can still be quite good if you're running fetches, or need to dig for a finisher. But I agree most people play it wrong and I have taken it out of some decks. Also with something like land tax it can just become ancestral recall which is absurd. Or if youre in Dimir and you dump reanimate targets to your graveyard with surveil. In terms of topdeck manipulation its arguably the best in the game, it just doesnt fit in every deck like some apparently think.
I run Phyrexian Arena in my Queza deck simply cuz its a free card draw and deal a damage to someone each turn and i dont even lose a life but outside that yeah i dont run it in anything really. But aye good video i know everyones got their preferences but i truly enjoy the content man keep it up.
Gonna disagree about Harmonize. In a Gruul deck, for example, yeah there are better options but they’re also dependent on your board state. Sometimes you just need to draw cards regardless of what you have on the table
You NEED to play brainstorm before a fetchland or some way to shuffle.
In other countries, the prices of cards does not translate in the same way. It is not only the different currency, the proportions are not the same. So, cards like Negate and Mortify can be signifficantly cheaper than the better options. Maybe it is because the supply chain is different. These other countries also use the EDHREC as a database and echo chamber.
Gotta disagree with dark ritual, its still putting you two turns ahead and it comes out before ppl will have counter magic on turn two while ppl are still ramping and setting up, those two turns can make a huge difference depending on you’re deck. Dark rit into certain plays that dont have to be commanders, you can play other 4-drops on two and some Commanders with ward or hexproof they literally cannot target them because they wont have enough to pay. Its good at all points of a game beginning, middle and end and worse case, even if it does get removed, on less removal you baited out for the mid/late finishers. Dark ritual also gets you those black pips/devotion for mono colored decks too for the finishers like bolas citadel, and one of my personal favs marionette master ect. you dont always need your commander to win games
Explore is an incontrovertibly superior cantrip to Growth Spiral.
It’s the exact same spell for just 1G.
Personally, I would skip the single draw, play *Exploration* and double my land-drops from then until my Enchantment is removed, or pay 1 more and play either Tireless Provisioner or Azusa.
Burgeoning has an even higher ceiling.
I disagree that Green has *better* card-draw than Harmonize. It has many options with higher ceiling, but the vast majority of them *won’t do jack during your next Untap after a boardwipe* . There are few moments that feel worse than being hellbent in the wake of a Farewell, and topdecking Return of the Wildspeaker.
EDHRec did an entire statistics-backed section of their “Veggies Cards” video that explains why Harmonize will very often be the superior option when you’re either the only one behind or there’s just been a boardwipe. (An all too frequent occurrence, when people drop a symmetrical wipe the *instant* they fall behind on the regular.)
Since we’re on this topic, could you help me understand why Solemn Simulacrum is so popular? I don’t understand why tapping 4 mana for a 2/2 that gets me a land is a good thing.
Its colorless and its included in a lot of precons.
Compare it to Burnished Hart, which basically does the same thing. Colorless doesn't have a ton of land searching, so these cards are good for a little ramp on a stick.
Because it's a Swiss army knife of a card. With a single card you get land ramp, card draw, and a blocker. The creature itself synergizes with any effects that care about creatures _and/or_ artifacts, and because it has both an ETB and an LTB trigger stapled onto it, it also synergizes with anything that cares about either of those triggers as well, and because those triggers are land ramp and card draw, it _also_ synergizes with any lands-matter or card draw-matters decks. It's not powerful, but it is versatile; so as long as your deck cares about at least two of those synergies, it'll get some use out of Solemn Simulacrum.
My Rashmi deck wants to be casting spells on every turn, and Growth Spiral works really well there. There are not a lot of instant speed ramp options.