Force of Will was probably the best card from the set but Helm of Obedience is on the reserve list for some reason. WotC really just needs to throw the reserve list out.
@@CitrusDestroyer citadel druid, diamond valley, damping field, gate to phyrexian, haunting wind, martyrs of Korlis, might stone, power leech, power artifact, su-chi, transmute artifact, weakstone, library of Alexandria. All uncommon reserved.
@@CitrusDestroyer It's a little more complicated than that. Anything that had been reprinted before the creation of the reserve list doesn't go on it. Out side of that, the first few sets had everything go on the reserve list, whereas the later sets on the list were rares only if I recall.
Just in case anybody doesn't know: Helm of Obedience combos with Leyline of the Void or Rest in Peace to mill an opponent out. Helm specifically looks for cards hitting the graveyard, and if they never do because they get exiled instead, it keeps milling until the library is empty.
Banding on block was basically cheating. You know how good it feels to run op's creatures headlong into death on your Emrakul the Promised End turn? Well, this card is that, but for two mana! Wow! (Ok, maybe not _quite_ as good as that, but close)
Notes and Rules Information for Spiny Starfish: Spiny Starfish’s first ability creates a regeneration shield for it. Spiny Starfish’s second ability checks whether it _used_ any regeneration shields that turn, not whether any regeneration shields were created for it. (2009-10-01)
Hail Storm is a play on Sandstorm, which was a common green effect at the time. False Demise can enchant your opponent's creatures and reanimate them on your side. Which I think Graham missed if he was saying it's worse than Demonic Gifts. Helm of Obedience I believe might have been mentioned in 30-40 comments already. A surprise blocker with banding is a pretty good combat trick.
For those in the back of the class, Rest In Peace and Leyline of the void are replacement effects that put everything that would go into a graveyard into exile instead. So you trigger the Helm with X=1 and since the first card doesn’t go into the graveyard, it does it again. And again, and again, burning through their entire library.
A surprise banding blocker is actually a pretty strong combat trick in limited. Banding is deceptively powerful, but no one took the time to understand it.
Banding is strong in other formats too, though almost certainly mismatched to competitive Magic nowadays. You have a big trampler that will kill me? Here, let me chump with my Banding creature. I will mark all your damage onto the creature please. Even better if there is an indestructible creature to block with, as it can take the hits again and again.
In case anyone else was wondering: At time of publication, Alliances booster packs are $60-70 US, and there are three hits in the 'did we make the money back' lottery: Helm of Obedience, Force of Will, and Lake of the Dead.
You keep opening packs from when I played as a kid and it makes me feel both nostalgic and old. I'm pretty sure I have Hail Storm, Lim-Dul's High Guard, Phantasmal Fiend, and Fyndhorn Druid chilling in a long box somewhere. Also I really like the little visual edits for comedic effect, very well done.
Spiny Starfish is Legit my favorite Magic card! He is throwing his babies! Great blocker that makes more blockers, great for a sacrifice deck, fun all around for creature entering the battlefield effects.
ok so here's how regenerate USED to work. there was an interveining step after a creature was dealt lethal damage but before it was removed from the field. this is when regenerate would be used to make it no longer marked with damage.
@@AutumnRa1n when an activated or triggered ability "regenerates" a creature it gives it "the next time this creature would be destroyed it is instead tapped and removed from combat and any damage marked on it is removed" but also things that trigger "when a creature regenerates" trigger when the replacement effect is used up not when it's placed on the creature.
@@AutumnRa1n they don't print much of it anymore. Opting to just make things indestructible instead, that's how it works. At least as far as I'm aware.
Watching this I was like 'oh Heck, forgot helpm was in this set he's gonna be happy about that pull.. .. ..oh, he doesn't't know... ... ...well he IS gonna be real happy when he checks the prices'
Clearly Graham didn't play legacy in the old days. Good old helm of obedience plus leyline of the void or rest in piece combo. That card murders people graham. Kills them right dead. Lol
Spiny Starfish is one of my favorite cards to cast in my entirely ocean-based Commander deck! It can be a frustrating blocker to deal with... and that art is perfect! Is it powerful? Nahh, but I love it.
@@lordgzstg6181 if the cards it mills never hit the graveyard (for example, a Rest in Peace or Leyline of the Void in play), Helm never reaches the requires number of cards, so just keeps going until it mills your opponent out completely.
Graham not being aware that Helm of Obedience is a $60 2 card combo piece. I also would run it if it weren't for the unfortunate wording which makes it incredibly powerful.
For anyone else unaware, Helm of Obedience + any of either Leyline of the Void/Dauthi Voidwalker/Rest In Peace/Anafenza the Foremost makes your opponent exile their entire library.
Thank you. I saw several people mentioning a combo but no one actually explaining what the combo was. It took me a second to get, but yeah that is very unfortunate wording on the Helm.
4:20 Helm of Obedience is a popular combo card when paired with any effect that makes things entering the graveyard impossible such as leyline of the void, rest in peace and Dauthi Voidwalker. It basically oneshots people in commander.
False Demise can go on opponents' creatures, and still puts them on the battlefield under _your_ control. So if you want to put a lot of work into stealing a thing, that's an option I guess.
@@compubabble The ability has definitely shifted to black, and does get printed occasionally, but Graham was thinking it was like cards such as Undying Evil and Supernatural Stamina that are cheap and are focused on reviving your creatures.
Love this series. Eventually I think it would be really funny to have all the different LRR people do their own episodes to provide their wacky commentary on packs/cards!
I have absolutely loved this series so far! Watching Graham discover Helm of Obedience is very fun. I hope we can maybe see some other members of the TTC or even N100 crew come in and crack a pack! I imagine Cam or Nelson would have different perspectives on what they like about cards. Regardless I'd like to see more
Important about Phantasmal Fiend. At the time, damage would go on the stack. So switch p/t. 5 damage on stack. switch p/t again. effectively a 5/5 for 4 (and 4 mana each turn) - but back then threats like that weren't really around.
Spiny Starfish’s first ability creates a regeneration shield for it. Spiny Starfish’s second ability checks whether it _used_ any regeneration shields that turn, not whether any regeneration shields were created for it.
Helm of Obedience works fantastically with Leyline of the Void (or any other card that replaces graveyards) in mill decks. MtG market value 10/14/2021 is about $42 American.
A quick search on scryfall shows me why that card is good... "If an effect like that of Leyline of the Void prevents cards from being put into your opponent’s graveyard, the process described in the first sentence of Helm of Obedience’s effect will never stop. Your opponent’s entire library will be exiled, even if X is 1."
I feel like that starfish is really good in blue/black so you can make a ton of tokens for blocking and easy fodder for "sacrifice a creature" effects.
If I recall right, the regenerate was activated when damage was dealt, but was later changed to be a shield like you mentioned. I could be wrong as I was very young when playing with cards with regenerate. If that is the case, I would assume they got rid of it since the term was no longer aligned with the ability (i.e. more like a shield than actual regeneration)
I think old school regeneration was basically like clippy popping up and saying "Uh oh it's looks like this creature is going to die, do you want to regenerate it? Y/N" but I wasn't as much of a rules nerd back then.
Oh god. Oh god. Oh no. Graham opening this pack, where they used to put the uncommons and then the rare up front, followed by all the commons. Then seeing a Helm as card three, and I almost had an aneurysm. I remember owning a set of Helms like 8 years ago because I foolishly wanted to run that deck in Legacy. Turns out virtually everything else the deck would need was insanely expensive...and has only gotten more expensive in the past eight years. Especially Underground Seas.
Banding is good, but most people don't know how to use it. Errand is a good limited trick. It allowed you to summon a chump blocker that banded with something that had good power that you didn't want to die. You assigned ALL combat damage to the knight token and the creature blocked was killed. The Sage is fine for what it does. What it does is turns excess lands into card draw and allows you to put cards in your graveyard. I used it with Animate dead waaaaaay back in the day for some funny stuff. Of course decks back then didn't have much to actually bring back from the dead. The fiend was a prototype Morphling.
Errand of duty is amazing. Its instant. And it doesn't come in tapped. And has banding. That is a blowout if you know how banding works lol. Which I think was the best strategy in this set. Or blue black. Speaking of which, im taking phantasmal fiend pack 1 pick 1.
Helm of obedience is not entirely obscure, but its price is more reserved list than actual player demand, so you will definitely find people who need to read the card 2 times and then think "Wow what a weird and interesting card"
![Aether Revolt [German] || Crack-A-Pack - May 10, 2022](/img/n.gif)
Graham: *Opens a $75 USD combo piece that has never been reprinted in paper* "Wow look at this weird thing. Kinda cute. Anyways." hehe.
Force of Will was probably the best card from the set but Helm of Obedience is on the reserve list for some reason. WotC really just needs to throw the reserve list out.
@@skillganon606 reserved list doesn’t include uncommons, therefore Force of Will isn’t on the RL
@@CitrusDestroyer citadel druid, diamond valley, damping field, gate to phyrexian, haunting wind, martyrs of Korlis, might stone, power leech, power artifact, su-chi, transmute artifact, weakstone, library of Alexandria. All uncommon reserved.
@@CitrusDestroyer It's a little more complicated than that. Anything that had been reprinted before the creation of the reserve list doesn't go on it. Out side of that, the first few sets had everything go on the reserve list, whereas the later sets on the list were rares only if I recall.
@@CitrusDestroyer even if you were right it still shouldn't exist.
Can’t wait for Graham to put helm in a commander deck and have everyone in the pod gang up on him because they think he’s running the combo
Ha!
@@LRRMTG that may be the most Graham thing you could say in one syllable
Yeah, I think he forgot about the combo. Though to be fair, I've only seen people on North100 talk about that one. :)
When Big G hit the Helm of Obedience I was sitting in anticipation of him learning the price.
"Oh, hmm. Helm of Obedience? This seems weird. I wonder if anyone uses this" *Looks at price* "Oh dear god"
Not as good as Bribery, but it's colorless and interacts with artifact junk like goblin welder, so ... Sure, I guess
And that's before I learned about "the combo" a few comments down. Okay, I guess bizarre old wordings lead to broken shenanigans, who knew?
Just in case anybody doesn't know: Helm of Obedience combos with Leyline of the Void or Rest in Peace to mill an opponent out.
Helm specifically looks for cards hitting the graveyard, and if they never do because they get exiled instead, it keeps milling until the library is empty.
Thank you, I was not in the know and now I am. Cool.
This!!
Oh...thats nasty.
It also combos in the same way with Dauthi Voidwalker from the new MH2 set.
Not all hero’s wear capes
4:05 "There are good cards in Alliances; none of these are them. Helm of Obedience"
I wish I could shame my packs to have expensive cards in them like that
"Dominaria wakes from its long, cold sleep. Its people face a world torn by natural and political storms."
Same.
Dominaria was a cicada at this time of the game
I’m in this comment and don’t like it. 😆
woah woah woah woah, putting a banding blocker into play at instant speed is actually really solid.
Im actually lookin for that card for my Tristani deck
Nothing like forcing banding upon an unsuspecting commander table
Right? People always underestimate how good banding is on defense. My Soraya deck always gets blowout wins this way.
Banding on block was basically cheating. You know how good it feels to run op's creatures headlong into death on your Emrakul the Promised End turn? Well, this card is that, but for two mana! Wow!
(Ok, maybe not _quite_ as good as that, but close)
Yup if it had been a 1/1 with banding and flash for 2 he might have rated it but the instant and token thing might have thrown him off
Notes and Rules Information for Spiny Starfish:
Spiny Starfish’s first ability creates a regeneration shield for it. Spiny Starfish’s second ability checks whether it _used_ any regeneration shields that turn, not whether any regeneration shields were created for it. (2009-10-01)
Dang
I wish they would errata the text to say that
Hail Storm is a play on Sandstorm, which was a common green effect at the time.
False Demise can enchant your opponent's creatures and reanimate them on your side. Which I think Graham missed if he was saying it's worse than Demonic Gifts.
Helm of Obedience I believe might have been mentioned in 30-40 comments already.
A surprise blocker with banding is a pretty good combat trick.
Helm of obedience is Part of The Main wincon of my Marchesa deck with Rest In Peace or leyline of the void
Just got better with Dauthi Voidwalker. Now my favorite combo.
For those in the back of the class, Rest In Peace and Leyline of the void are replacement effects that put everything that would go into a graveyard into exile instead. So you trigger the Helm with X=1 and since the first card doesn’t go into the graveyard, it does it again. And again, and again, burning through their entire library.
I have the same, it feels thematic, right? She's an assassin and that's what the combo does, just boom, headshot.
Hail storm would actually be pretty Dec in a dino enrage deck ironically consider the whole cold blooded thing.
I didn't even know that card existed (it doesn't show on big dino commander lists on edhrec), goes straight into my Gisath deck.
Oh..Oh nooo.. Polyraptor generator...
A surprise banding blocker is actually a pretty strong combat trick in limited. Banding is deceptively powerful, but no one took the time to understand it.
Banding is strong in other formats too, though almost certainly mismatched to competitive Magic nowadays. You have a big trampler that will kill me? Here, let me chump with my Banding creature. I will mark all your damage onto the creature please. Even better if there is an indestructible creature to block with, as it can take the hits again and again.
In case anyone else was wondering: At time of publication, Alliances booster packs are $60-70 US, and there are three hits in the 'did we make the money back' lottery: Helm of Obedience, Force of Will, and Lake of the Dead.
"There are good cards in Alliances! None of these are them!"
"Anyway, Helm of Obedience..."
"This skeleton is just having the time of their death!" _pffft_
hi emily
Get that Helm a sleeve.
You never double helmet.
When G pulled the helm I let out a real loud YEAH BUDDY
I literally went oooh and I don't do that often
Editing suggestion: when talking about the art of a card could we have it on screen a bit longer?
Yup! Will do.
You keep opening packs from when I played as a kid and it makes me feel both nostalgic and old. I'm pretty sure I have Hail Storm, Lim-Dul's High Guard, Phantasmal Fiend, and Fyndhorn Druid chilling in a long box somewhere. Also I really like the little visual edits for comedic effect, very well done.
False Demise can steal opponent’s creatures and even got a callback in Time Spiral.
Spiny Starfish is Legit my favorite Magic card! He is throwing his babies! Great blocker that makes more blockers, great for a sacrifice deck, fun all around for creature entering the battlefield effects.
Yey starfish, love it.I use it in my control deck to gum up the board after boardwipe
Banding is great on blocks, an instant speed banding dork seems pretty good! I actually really like that design.
“He looks like he’s having the time of his death” got me good LoL 🤣
Well, this pack was really good. Helm is incredible.
ok so here's how regenerate USED to work. there was an interveining step after a creature was dealt lethal damage but before it was removed from the field. this is when regenerate would be used to make it no longer marked with damage.
How exactly does it work nowadays?
@@AutumnRa1n when an activated or triggered ability "regenerates" a creature it gives it "the next time this creature would be destroyed it is instead tapped and removed from combat and any damage marked on it is removed"
but also things that trigger "when a creature regenerates" trigger when the replacement effect is used up not when it's placed on the creature.
@@AutumnRa1n they don't print much of it anymore. Opting to just make things indestructible instead, that's how it works.
At least as far as I'm aware.
Watching this I was like 'oh Heck, forgot helpm was in this set he's gonna be happy about that pull..
..
..oh, he doesn't't know...
...
...well he IS gonna be real happy when he checks the prices'
Clearly Graham didn't play legacy in the old days. Good old helm of obedience plus leyline of the void or rest in piece combo. That card murders people graham. Kills them right dead. Lol
I sure didn’t! I still don’t, but I didn’t then also.
Martyrdom is a cornerstone of my "Brash Taunter et. al" EDH deck.
Spiny Starfish is one of my favorite cards to cast in my entirely ocean-based Commander deck! It can be a frustrating blocker to deal with... and that art is perfect! Is it powerful? Nahh, but I love it.
I'm actually jealous of Graham not knowing about Helm Combo.... I can't even imagine how nice those commander groups must be.
what is this combo? dont play commander and never heard of this card.
@@lordgzstg6181 if the cards it mills never hit the graveyard (for example, a Rest in Peace or Leyline of the Void in play), Helm never reaches the requires number of cards, so just keeps going until it mills your opponent out completely.
@@lordgzstg6181 It also shows up occasionally in Legacy and Vintage decks.
@@christopherlundgren1700 lost against it Last Weekend in Can lander
@@MrUTPlayer Oh yeah, Canlander seems like the perfect place for that.
Graham not being aware that Helm of Obedience is a $60 2 card combo piece. I also would run it if it weren't for the unfortunate wording which makes it incredibly powerful.
For anyone else unaware, Helm of Obedience + any of either Leyline of the Void/Dauthi Voidwalker/Rest In Peace/Anafenza the Foremost makes your opponent exile their entire library.
Thank you. I saw several people mentioning a combo but no one actually explaining what the combo was. It took me a second to get, but yeah that is very unfortunate wording on the Helm.
@@DoctaFenBalls I was about to ask. Thank you!
@@DoctaFenBalls And with Wheel of Sun and Moon, the game immediately ends in a draw! Isn't Magic fun?
@@lookoutitsadragon Wouldn't have it any other way.
I honestly don't hate the starfish, it's essentially just infinite chump blocks forever.
4:20 Helm of Obedience is a popular combo card when paired with any effect that makes things entering the graveyard impossible such as leyline of the void, rest in peace and Dauthi Voidwalker. It basically oneshots people in commander.
False Demise can go on opponents' creatures, and still puts them on the battlefield under _your_ control. So if you want to put a lot of work into stealing a thing, that's an option I guess.
A lot of the new options do that as well. Minion's Return has Flash and Unholy Indenture gives it a +1/+1 counter, both in Black
@@compubabble The ability has definitely shifted to black, and does get printed occasionally, but Graham was thinking it was like cards such as Undying Evil and Supernatural Stamina that are cheap and are focused on reviving your creatures.
While I've been enjoying this series, I really love it when Graham tackles the older sets. This one was particularly great.
10:00 correct! This actually got errata'd to a bird.
"something something state based actions" good description of magic as a whole
I want an opening where the hand pulls out a pack of Homelands, pauses, then puts it back.
Love this series. Eventually I think it would be really funny to have all the different LRR people do their own episodes to provide their wacky commentary on packs/cards!
I dunno why but I really like being called weird things at the top of the episode.
"There are good cards in alliances. None of these are them."
"Helm of Obedience..."
WELL THERE YA GO
I like the little shot of grabbing the pack from the box at the beginning! very nice touch
Important difference with False Demise, it can be used on your opponents creatures as a convoluted(maybe cheap) way to steal a creature.
I love it when Graham cracks himself up looking at these old cards. :P
As often as you want, please do these. These are great. And when there are like ten or so ill Playlist them in a row at times.
This video has more minutes than the pack has cards, I love it.
Im loving these relaxed look through of the cards, and Grahams jokes :), looking forward to more!
Instant speed banding dude is pretty good though.
I'm enjoying this series, though It'd be nice to see the art while Graham is talking about it :P
little did graham know, the helm sees legacy plays as a combo with rest in peace and leyline of the void as a one shot mill combo
Now I want more Scott Kirschner and Anson Maddocks art on cards. Their art is so striking and intriguing!
Yes I am here to watch Graham open magical cards.
Hey man, I use Errand of Duty in my Knight tribal commander deck. It does work!
Surely you can do better than a 1/1 with flash for 1W
Love the cracked a pack. This series is one of the higlights of the week.
Helm was the shit back in the day too :D
So nice to see some of that old artwork.
Loving this series keep it up. Maybe a rotating cast would be cool.
Congrats on the helm hit. Would definitely watch more of these
I have absolutely loved this series so far! Watching Graham discover Helm of Obedience is very fun. I hope we can maybe see some other members of the TTC or even N100 crew come in and crack a pack! I imagine Cam or Nelson would have different perspectives on what they like about cards. Regardless I'd like to see more
Crack a pack with Graham is always funny to watch; I totally like this show..
Sooo, is anyone going to tell him about the helm combo?
Important about Phantasmal Fiend. At the time, damage would go on the stack. So switch p/t. 5 damage on stack. switch p/t again. effectively a 5/5 for 4 (and 4 mana each turn) - but back then threats like that weren't really around.
Spiny Starfish’s first ability creates a regeneration shield for it. Spiny Starfish’s second ability checks whether it _used_ any regeneration shields that turn, not whether any regeneration shields were created for it.
Helm of Obedience! Nice pull! I wanna see you destory people at the table with it!
Helm of Obedience works fantastically with Leyline of the Void (or any other card that replaces graveyards) in mill decks. MtG market value 10/14/2021 is about $42 American.
A quick search on scryfall shows me why that card is good... "If an effect like that of Leyline of the Void prevents cards from being put into your opponent’s graveyard, the process described in the first sentence of Helm of Obedience’s effect will never stop. Your opponent’s entire library will be exiled, even if X is 1."
Engagement for the algorithm gods!
But also these videos are really sweet, I've missed the crack a packs on TTC and this scratches that itch real good
Soldevi Sage! All star from Graham's *Classic* Sixth Edition land destruction draft deck... It destroyed everyone's lands...
I feel like that starfish is really good in blue/black so you can make a ton of tokens for blocking and easy fodder for "sacrifice a creature" effects.
‘You boy. Take this lightning bolt for me’
‘But sir, I’m supposed to be holding this sword by the window’
‘IT IS YOUR DUTY OF ERRAND!!’
Graham will crack them packs until the packs have been cracked
Graham: literally opens 1 part of my favorite combo
Me: Has the other half
🎶when i see you again🎶
If I recall right, the regenerate was activated when damage was dealt, but was later changed to be a shield like you mentioned. I could be wrong as I was very young when playing with cards with regenerate. If that is the case, I would assume they got rid of it since the term was no longer aligned with the ability (i.e. more like a shield than actual regeneration)
You know I've never felt much like a Phantasmal Sphere.... more a Phantasmal Triangular Prism
Opens the second most expensive card in the set: "what a cute jank we got here! defnetly puting it on ine of my EDH decks"
ah spiny starfish. Used in combination with any instant speed sac outlet could let you get a wall of starfish every turn.
Well I think my new favorite magic art is that High Guard
Looking forward to Graham milling someone's library with Leyline of the Void and Helm of Obedience!
These crack-a-pack videos are great - keep them coming
i am engaged with this content make more of it praise algorithmn
Last pack of alliances I cracked had a force of will in the first slot. Blew my mind.
I love this series. It’s amazing.
False demise is commander jank at it's finest. It's both protection for a creature or a theft effect if you can kill someone else's creature
I think old school regeneration was basically like clippy popping up and saying "Uh oh it's looks like this creature is going to die, do you want to regenerate it? Y/N" but I wasn't as much of a rules nerd back then.
Lovin these!
Graham when you were reading the back of the pack, I don’t if you’ve watched much Parks and Rec but you reminded me of the radio host from that show.
Oh god. Oh god. Oh no. Graham opening this pack, where they used to put the uncommons and then the rare up front, followed by all the commons. Then seeing a Helm as card three, and I almost had an aneurysm. I remember owning a set of Helms like 8 years ago because I foolishly wanted to run that deck in Legacy. Turns out virtually everything else the deck would need was insanely expensive...and has only gotten more expensive in the past eight years. Especially Underground Seas.
Helm of obedience combos with the black layline and Rest In Peace
Love those pack openings, keep it up!
I remember loving the starfish when this set came out .
helm of obedience plus the Leyland of the void= ONe opponent exiles their entire library.
Yay crackapacks with graham!!!!! Takes me back to calmer times
Banding is good, but most people don't know how to use it. Errand is a good limited trick. It allowed you to summon a chump blocker that banded with something that had good power that you didn't want to die. You assigned ALL combat damage to the knight token and the creature blocked was killed. The Sage is fine for what it does. What it does is turns excess lands into card draw and allows you to put cards in your graveyard. I used it with Animate dead waaaaaay back in the day for some funny stuff. Of course decks back then didn't have much to actually bring back from the dead. The fiend was a prototype Morphling.
Best set ever
I think he missed out of the fact that the squire token gets BANDING! Which makes it a playable
Note, Helm of Obedience is one-half of a Legacy combo deck with Rest In Peace. Since the cards never hit the yard, you just exile their whole deck.
Hail storm seems like an interesting way to trigger enrage on the ixalan dinos
Alliances had multiple arts, so the other art for Phantasmal Fiend does show those are it's hands/arms
Errand of duty is amazing. Its instant. And it doesn't come in tapped. And has banding. That is a blowout if you know how banding works lol. Which I think was the best strategy in this set. Or blue black. Speaking of which, im taking phantasmal fiend pack 1 pick 1.
Obedience + Leyline of the Void is bonkers
Helm of obedience is not entirely obscure, but its price is more reserved list than actual player demand, so you will definitely find people who need to read the card 2 times and then think "Wow what a weird and interesting card"