TCG player isn't loading the deck list. Card Kingdom is missing several cards or only has higher priced variants on some of them. Plus my LGS isn't open yet :)
This could be a killer series and opens windows for more collabs with other CCs. Bring in other avid EDH players eventually and have them help build these. This deck is absolutely sweet for it's price point and very welcoming to both new and experienced players. Well done Prof!!!
Want more int his series? Here you go! "Spells Trouble" Commander Deck | Build-Your-Own Precon For Less Than $45: th-cam.com/video/6M0VwAU5jKE/w-d-xo.html
You absolutely MUST make this a series! You could make infinite videos with building decks like these, give people access to ready made decks that they can buy for an affordable price and give people ideas for their own that they wouldn’t have thought of otherwise. You could make multiple videos each week in this format and we’d watch them all!
@@monkaeyes I think the nice thing about this deck, or building around proliferate in general, is that it's fun regardless whether you're doing 'fair' things or broken nonsense. There's lots of ways you could tweak this to be nicer, or weirder, stronger or weaker depending on how you want to play and who you're playing with.
I am a little surprised that you didn't talk about the mana base, considering how much you dislike the mana base of precons in general. It would've been a nice touch to talk about it, and how its different from a normal precon, and how some of it will synergize with the deck, even if the decklist is there to see =) But this needs to be a series for sure.
Lately it has been better - for example for the Boros deck required almost no changes except for adding some more token generating lands (and then fetches and expensive duals remained as the only option to actually improve it). They mostly include the good cheap duals and bouncelands now. It is miles away from what I remember from the first precons.
Please make multiple of these types of “precons” per set and make Shuffle Up and Play videos of you and guests playing them. We would even love “precons” for Modern and Pauper in this style
This is a great way to help understand deck construction. The series would be excellent to follow. Also different type of decks to learn how to play not only the format, but the achy type of deck. Equipment, mill, voltron, and so forth.
First of all: Cool video Prof!! Kudos it is receiving very good feedback and folks are even asking for a series to be made on this format (Fun Commander strategy + Potential Upgrades) That being said, just in case anyone cares o is curious: the correct way to pronounce 'Myojin" is 'mi(short vowel sound) -oh(short vowel sound) -jin (pronounced like Gin the beverage or like jeans without the S xd) Anyways, keep the amazing vids coming prof, appreciate them
One of my favorite decks is similar to this: Bant Counters, headed by Falco Spara Pactweaver. Counters, especially +1/+1 counters, are such a good open ended theme that keeps getting more options so you should always be able to pick new goodies up for cheap.
If you love counters lookup grumgully the generous, I built him to abuse the counters and it's a slow simmering blast when abusing persist and modified.
I built a pretty similar deck, though admittedly mine is a bit more expensive at $150. I went for an Alternate Wincon Tribal theme, filling the deck with cards like Helix Pinnacle, Darksteel Reactor, and Simic Ascendancy that just straight up Win The Game, as well as infinite loops like Ezuri Claw of Progress with Sage of Hours, quasimill in the form of Forced Fruition with Jace Wielder of Mysteries, and good ol' battle damage with Kiora the Crashing Wave, Kiora Master of the Depths, and Champion of Lambholt. The proliferate shell really speeds up a lot of these, and it can get out of hand quickly. I'd love to see more videos like this, it'd help new players find a not-yet-officially-supported strategy they like and let more experienced players try out new decks.
I really respect Brian plugging LGS's for buying more singles. It is important to try and spend where you play. I'm no LGS owner just saying I'm grateful for the reminder
A few other cards that I'd throw in that weren't mentioned or in the desklist: Steady Progress and Contentious Plan (Smaller Tezzeret's Gambit) Teferi, Temporal Archmage (Ult gives ALL of your Planeswalkers instant speed) A couple of the really fun Jaces: Unraveler of Secrets and The Mind Sculptor (because if you're gonna Blue... just do it) Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus (Every proliferate becomes proliferate twice) I'd love to see this become a series!
Just adding another comment on how this should be a series. Your deck-tech videos are absolutely phenomenal to watch, especially when on a budget so we can see card we hadn't heard of before!
Prof, this video is a slam dunk!!! Please do more of these in the future! In an Era of overwhelming choices and product burn out, you are definitely a beacon that guides the way. You're awesome man, keep up the great work and take care of yourself!! 💕
I know that there are other youtubers that make budget deck techs. However, I really enjoy how well you describe the contents of the deck and why they're in the deck. Also great pilot direction! I would love to see this as a monthly video saga!
My LGS has been making in-shop precons that you can bring right to the table, that night. They're selling like crazy. Why? They're worth the money you paid AND actually fun to play. Plus it's a dope way to actually move the "functional bulk" out of the inventory and into players hands. Shout out to Gabes Cave!!
What a great idea, Professor!!! I love this "precon" idea for a regular thing. You are starting something that Mitch over at Commander's Quarters did a while ago. I think he limits himself a bit much though. I am going to try this deck. What I like is that there are ideas for variants, and that I can try my own cards. What I also like is that the ideas here dig into cards from my own collection that I've wanted to use but found no place for. What also got me to actually do this was that the day after I watched it, I bought a pack and pulled Ezuri. Please keep doing this and use this "precon" theme idea. I love it!!!
I immediately built this deck after watching the video. I love it, took it to my local commander night and had a blast. 100% going to look into upgrade it. This has to be a series!
I got back into mtg in Khans block. Prof has been a wonderful force to keep me into this hobby, especially in the last few years where I wasn't sure if I could afford to be a part of one of my favorite games. This is a boon to our community. Thanks, Brian.
This is really cool! One card that came to mind for it is Planar Incision, which you could use to flicker Ezuri and pay the 3 for his own proliferate while protecting him from targeted removal
It doesn't look like it on paper, but blink sounds too slow with Ezuri. Even paying once seems like a large investment. 5 mana draw 2, put a counter and double proliferate doesn't sound that good and requires extra steps. If anything at least using Teferi's Time Twist sounds better since it also saves Ezuri from Board Wipes and edicts.
This is a fantastic concept and just another reason why this is among my favorite channels on TH-cam. I really hope you choose to do more of these in the future, at least one commander per set.
ive been wanting to build this guy since I saw him. Thank you for taking the time to build this out so I can make my changes on the fly. bought my cards last night. Cant wait for them to come in.
If anyone wants extra ramp in this deck, I'm partial to gyre sage myself. It costs about a dollar and can provide lots of mana even if you don't have your engine online, but of course works much better with it. It can even act as an emergency blocker once it gets super big. Surprised it isn't in the list already tbh, would recommend!
Would love to see additional issues like this - fit various formats: pauper, low level ($100 or less) and mid range power ($500). 4 of each? Also like the idea of “guest builders”…. Then have a game with the decks competing!
Please prof continue this. Not just for the cost, but your vision of edh and your playstyle are good for the game overall and I would love to see more emulating it.
A card I think you definitely overlooked for the Upgrades portion of the video is Nissa, Who Shakes the World. She's a mana doubler, she makes land creatures that can be proliferated, and her ult will allow you to get all your forests out of your deck AND make your land creatures indestructible. She slots in perfectly into this list (I would cut Jace Architect or Vivien to put her in, ideally both because those cards kinda suck)
What a coincidence! I just finished my Ezuri deck, although it's more focused on poison counters. And I'm loving it! Really nice video, prof, please make more of these!
I have most of these cards! I won a box in pre release. I didn't open the staff but I did crack open the blue dominus 😏. MAKE THIS A SERIES. This is brilliant
It's always great seeing your deck techs. The first deck I built from scratch, years ago now, was based on your Kaseto deck and it's still my favorite. Keep on keeping on
It's a solid decklist. I counted about eight ramp cards and ten removals. 37-lands is appropriate for a 4-mana, two-colored commander. The win power is a bit shy, but I like the *Infectious Bite* line. Forget winning by damage- you wanna proliferate your way to victory. Run more cards like that. Run Prologue to Phyresis, Blighted Agent and maybe Venerated Rotpriest. Think about it- if your opponent has just one poisons counter, each proliferate is essentially dealing 4 damage to them that cannot be healed.
I'm long late to the original video, I watched this original and am now swinging back around to it. I'm also 1000% on this as a series, I have never seen a deck like this and it looks SO fun.
A potential idea would be to have a collab with your sponsor Card Kingdom and have a dedicated section on the site near their rookie decks and other CK precon decks where you could put this deck and if you make more, those as well.
I pretty much exclusively build commander decks on a budget like this. Placing restrictions on deckbuilding can be a ton of fun and leads to (in my experience) much more diverse and interesting decks overall, using a bunch of unknown or underrated cards, all while saving yourself some money. Done right, you don't even lose out on actual gameplay viability!
The synergy in this deck is so high compared to a normal precon! Please continue this as a series, maybe not once a set to save your energy but maybe 2-3 times a year! :-)
This was a great video! My favorite videos of yours are your precon reviews, so naturally this was a welcomed addition. I'd also like to point out how impressive the budget is on this. A decent deck whose total value is $45 is incredible, especially considering the card value for other precons is usually $80+
Echoing what other people are saying please make this a series 😊 My friends and I annually have an event where we set a small budget to create our own precons for Commander with randomly assigned colors so more like this would be fantastic. It’s also just a really cool idea to help solidify the philosophy of deck building for people.
It's sad because this deck is better than many of the ones printed as of late... And cheaper! Love the series idea, keep it up! Maybe let viewers submit their own ideas and choose one, the viewer could write up a little thing with it etc. Could be a fun community thing. Nice video!
I lived in a country where it is hard to find good places to purchase cards and I can't afford expensives cards. I really, really love when people make "budget" decks. I had a Henzie Deck and a Galea Deck with little modifications, and I'm currently building an Isshin deck, everything Budget. Thanks for the content, Prof.
I love this kind of content. Thank you, Prof... Nay, Thank you, Brian. This is, once again, exactly what the community need, wants and you just give it to us.. Thank you.
So after testing: Players should expect an interesting little deck “out of the box. I had a couple of games where I got too much green mana but I could have gotten a few bad shuffles. I sometimes struggle paying that extra 3 for Ezuri but mostly use him for that card draw. I did some slight modifications as the deck suffers from being able to deal with board states. Even with Ratchet Bomb & The Phasing of Zhalfir. Those modifications were adding a Curse of the Swine for board state and Tekuthal (cheapest double proliferate option) I also updated some of the mana base as I had an extra couple of double lands, a shock land and fetch land on hand. I found that the Planeswalkers in Prof’s pre-con weren’t doing very much and were targeted early and normally would die before I could proliferate very much. So those were mostly my removal options. I kept Teferi in, and I believe Vivien. Over all “Counter Blessings” is a cool little combo deck that I’m continuing to have fun with at my table. Playability 8/10 Mana Base 6/10 Synergy 8.5/10 Verdict: 7.5/10
One thing that the WoToC gets right is the deck balance. Players usually scimp on draw, removal and board wipes for semi-optimal synergies. This deck seems especially light on good card draw and board wipes. Ezuri is not really the type of commander that gives reasons to skimp on either. For anyone who wants to see some ideas: Aetherize, River's Rebuke and Aetherspouts are great cheap "wraths" for a board centric Simic deck (bouncing our own board sounds horrible but we need answers to strong players). Better card draw might include - Fathom Mage, Inspiring Call and Sage of Fables (all of them have higher celling which is super important in EDH). Some of the walkers and low impact sorceries might go out and we might even gain some budget from that.
I absolutely love this. You should this once a week. The idea of spending money on a curated deck from a local shop (or using your affiliate link to order it online ;)) is phenomenal.
Great job on the video, well done! Simple, informative, educational, and entertaining. Please keep more Commander deck tech/cost videos like this coming if you can.
this is awesome! and would love to see more community built precons with all set releases. it would be cool see to a deck to pair with this to play against.
I would love to see a set of four balanced commander decks from from Tolarian community college! having a set of decks that play well against each other is far more important than bringing a bunch of power to the table.
This absolutely, my favourite way to play magic (if I could afford it) would be only playing themed decks. It’s just fun a flavourful. Not sweaty and expensive.
Small non-bo note for The Phasing of Zhalfir, Read Ahead actually prevents all other chapter abilities from triggering on the turn it etbs, not just the lower numbered ones. I was looking into this for a Resourceful Defense + Sagas deck. If you proliferate at instant speed though, you could potentially get all three abilities in 1 turn + opponent's upkeep, so almost the same as getting all three in a single turn.
Please add Fertilid to your proliferate deck, people. Not only is it going to net you a bunch of mana, but you can target an opponent (perhaps they Vampiric/Worldly/Enlightened Tutored and you think it's a board wipe that will take out all the progress you've made on board). Fertilid is the best.
Going to agree with the people here that this would be a great series. Only nitpick of mine would be that it would have been nice to know what to remove for the upgrades. I am terrible at deck building, so suggestions would be nice.
another great include if you can expand the budget for this deck is Walking ballista, who not only scales really well with proliferation and the amount of mana that this deck can generate, but also can proliferate an infinite number of times when paired with an urban daggertooth that has a +1/+1 counter on it.
So I made this deck and changed out a few cards, nothing like mana crypts though. I got the blue Dominus in there, a contagion engine, agent toolkit (So good in this deck!!!) and any blue/green lands I had available. It absolutely rocks; had an absolute blast playing it. Tha k you Prof!!!
I added Tekuthal too, did you have trouble dealing with board states? I added a curse of the swine for that. I also axed a few of those planeswalkers that weren’t helping the cause. I removed Garruk and Jiang for heroic intervention & bloated contaminator
@Dylan Brushett so I added a Reject Imperfection for another counterspwll, and I dropped like 5 cards for 2 more planeswalkers and the ichormoor gauntlet. I got one in pre release, so I figured this is the deck for it :) also a Kodoma of the Weat Tree does wonders in this deck; trample and ramp is a dream for this deck. It's probably the best card next to Tekuthal to add.
Wizards should let Professor make a commander deck. This deck was great. Or would love a series like this from one legendary that Professor likes each set.
Simic Counters - this kind of counters - was the one deck I really enjoyed playing in the short time I played on Arena. The key card was Simic Ascendancy, which I think could go in this deck for some laughs. Somehow, it won games; I think because it was enough of a jank pile that it didn't often get matched up against truly 'good' decks. It was fun, where I could win with beat-down and had a little interaction, but mostly I just wanted to gum up the board and proliferate enough to get 20 growth counters on Simic Ascendancy, and it entertained me that my opponents either didn't notice, or just couldn't do anything about it.
People making this may want to consider Tumble Magnet as well. It basically becomes an infinite use tap-down you can use after your opponent untaps before their main phase, which can completely shut off many strategies or just slow down their mana rocks by forcing them to use their mana when it isn't convenient.
Download Empires & Puzzles here: pixly.go2cloud.org/SH3gP
Please make as many of these as you feel you can because this as a series would be amazing!🙏
Will you make a video when your deck boxes are going out to ship?
Only prof would tap a creature with vigilance while attacking 🤭 jk
TCG player isn't loading the deck list. Card Kingdom is missing several cards or only has higher priced variants on some of them. Plus my LGS isn't open yet :)
Can you talk about your sponsor "Empires & Puzzles" again? But this time try to talk faster.
Make this a series pls
Yes !
I hope they do
Command Quarters also has a lot of cheap commander decks.
Pls. Maybe a vid whenever a new set drops
Yes
This could be a killer series and opens windows for more collabs with other CCs. Bring in other avid EDH players eventually and have them help build these. This deck is absolutely sweet for it's price point and very welcoming to both new and experienced players. Well done Prof!!!
Want more int his series? Here you go! "Spells Trouble" Commander Deck | Build-Your-Own Precon For Less Than $45: th-cam.com/video/6M0VwAU5jKE/w-d-xo.html
You absolutely MUST make this a series! You could make infinite videos with building decks like these, give people access to ready made decks that they can buy for an affordable price and give people ideas for their own that they wouldn’t have thought of otherwise.
You could make multiple videos each week in this format and we’d watch them all!
Let this become it's own series! Thank You Professor! 😎👍
I’m so glad it’s about counters on permanents rather than countering spells. I can have friends with this deck!
Hmm still locks players out of the game with multiple forms of extra turns. Maybe I won’t have friends.
@@monkaeyes you either win or have friends.
@@monkaeyes I think the nice thing about this deck, or building around proliferate in general, is that it's fun regardless whether you're doing 'fair' things or broken nonsense. There's lots of ways you could tweak this to be nicer, or weirder, stronger or weaker depending on how you want to play and who you're playing with.
@@ajaxender12 you say that but I’m too dumb to know how to make those changes without the whole thing completely falling apart...
Simic players don't have friends, thats why they play solitaire
Love this hopefully it will be a series
I am a little surprised that you didn't talk about the mana base, considering how much you dislike the mana base of precons in general. It would've been a nice touch to talk about it, and how its different from a normal precon, and how some of it will synergize with the deck, even if the decklist is there to see =) But this needs to be a series for sure.
Lately it has been better - for example for the Boros deck required almost no changes except for adding some more token generating lands (and then fetches and expensive duals remained as the only option to actually improve it). They mostly include the good cheap duals and bouncelands now. It is miles away from what I remember from the first precons.
I thought the same thing
Please make multiple of these types of “precons” per set and make Shuffle Up and Play videos of you and guests playing them. We would even love “precons” for Modern and Pauper in this style
This is a great way to help understand deck construction. The series would be excellent to follow. Also different type of decks to learn how to play not only the format, but the achy type of deck. Equipment, mill, voltron, and so forth.
Seeing more videos like this would be awesome!
First of all: Cool video Prof!! Kudos it is receiving very good feedback and folks are even asking for a series to be made on this format (Fun Commander strategy + Potential Upgrades)
That being said, just in case anyone cares o is curious: the correct way to pronounce 'Myojin" is 'mi(short vowel sound) -oh(short vowel sound) -jin (pronounced like Gin the beverage or like jeans without the S xd)
Anyways, keep the amazing vids coming prof, appreciate them
One of my favorite decks is similar to this: Bant Counters, headed by Falco Spara Pactweaver. Counters, especially +1/+1 counters, are such a good open ended theme that keeps getting more options so you should always be able to pick new goodies up for cheap.
Falco Spara Pactweaver= Harvery Birdman attorney at law :P
If you love counters lookup grumgully the generous, I built him to abuse the counters and it's a slow simmering blast when abusing persist and modified.
I built a pretty similar deck, though admittedly mine is a bit more expensive at $150. I went for an Alternate Wincon Tribal theme, filling the deck with cards like Helix Pinnacle, Darksteel Reactor, and Simic Ascendancy that just straight up Win The Game, as well as infinite loops like Ezuri Claw of Progress with Sage of Hours, quasimill in the form of Forced Fruition with Jace Wielder of Mysteries, and good ol' battle damage with Kiora the Crashing Wave, Kiora Master of the Depths, and Champion of Lambholt. The proliferate shell really speeds up a lot of these, and it can get out of hand quickly.
I'd love to see more videos like this, it'd help new players find a not-yet-officially-supported strategy they like and let more experienced players try out new decks.
I really respect Brian plugging LGS's for buying more singles. It is important to try and spend where you play. I'm no LGS owner just saying I'm grateful for the reminder
A few other cards that I'd throw in that weren't mentioned or in the desklist:
Steady Progress and Contentious Plan (Smaller Tezzeret's Gambit)
Teferi, Temporal Archmage (Ult gives ALL of your Planeswalkers instant speed)
A couple of the really fun Jaces: Unraveler of Secrets and The Mind Sculptor (because if you're gonna Blue... just do it)
Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus (Every proliferate becomes proliferate twice)
I'd love to see this become a series!
Just adding another comment on how this should be a series. Your deck-tech videos are absolutely phenomenal to watch, especially when on a budget so we can see card we hadn't heard of before!
I didn’t know that I needed this to be a series, and now I don’t want to live without it.
Prof, this video is a slam dunk!!! Please do more of these in the future! In an Era of overwhelming choices and product burn out, you are definitely a beacon that guides the way. You're awesome man, keep up the great work and take care of yourself!! 💕
This is fantastic, I have friends who are just moving past precons and trying to build decks themselves and am absolutely gonna share this with them
This is now the reason I subscribed, please make this a series and thank you for the hard work sir!
I know that there are other youtubers that make budget deck techs. However, I really enjoy how well you describe the contents of the deck and why they're in the deck. Also great pilot direction! I would love to see this as a monthly video saga!
My LGS has been making in-shop precons that you can bring right to the table, that night. They're selling like crazy. Why? They're worth the money you paid AND actually fun to play.
Plus it's a dope way to actually move the "functional bulk" out of the inventory and into players hands.
Shout out to Gabes Cave!!
Love this! Please do more!
What a great idea, Professor!!! I love this "precon" idea for a regular thing. You are starting something that Mitch over at Commander's Quarters did a while ago. I think he limits himself a bit much though. I am going to try this deck. What I like is that there are ideas for variants, and that I can try my own cards. What I also like is that the ideas here dig into cards from my own collection that I've wanted to use but found no place for. What also got me to actually do this was that the day after I watched it, I bought a pack and pulled Ezuri. Please keep doing this and use this "precon" theme idea. I love it!!!
Amazing content! So amazing that an hour later the deck has doubled in price, but that is to be expected. Keep up the great work!
I immediately built this deck after watching the video. I love it, took it to my local commander night and had a blast.
100% going to look into upgrade it.
This has to be a series!
I got back into mtg in Khans block. Prof has been a wonderful force to keep me into this hobby, especially in the last few years where I wasn't sure if I could afford to be a part of one of my favorite games.
This is a boon to our community. Thanks, Brian.
This is really cool! One card that came to mind for it is Planar Incision, which you could use to flicker Ezuri and pay the 3 for his own proliferate while protecting him from targeted removal
It doesn't look like it on paper, but blink sounds too slow with Ezuri. Even paying once seems like a large investment. 5 mana draw 2, put a counter and double proliferate doesn't sound that good and requires extra steps. If anything at least using Teferi's Time Twist sounds better since it also saves Ezuri from Board Wipes and edicts.
This is a fantastic concept and just another reason why this is among my favorite channels on TH-cam. I really hope you choose to do more of these in the future, at least one commander per set.
ive been wanting to build this guy since I saw him. Thank you for taking the time to build this out so I can make my changes on the fly. bought my cards last night. Cant wait for them to come in.
If anyone wants extra ramp in this deck, I'm partial to gyre sage myself. It costs about a dollar and can provide lots of mana even if you don't have your engine online, but of course works much better with it. It can even act as an emergency blocker once it gets super big. Surprised it isn't in the list already tbh, would recommend!
Please make this a series. If this didn't take to much effort or time to make, I would love to see more of these pop up to watch.
Would love to see additional issues like this - fit various formats: pauper, low level ($100 or less) and mid range power ($500). 4 of each? Also like the idea of “guest builders”….
Then have a game with the decks competing!
as a simic +1/+1 counters player, Forgotten Ancient and Gyre Sage are wildly good and would do great in this deck.
Please prof continue this. Not just for the cost, but your vision of edh and your playstyle are good for the game overall and I would love to see more emulating it.
This is one of my favourite TCC videos and I would love to see more like it for future sets!
A card I think you definitely overlooked for the Upgrades portion of the video is Nissa, Who Shakes the World. She's a mana doubler, she makes land creatures that can be proliferated, and her ult will allow you to get all your forests out of your deck AND make your land creatures indestructible. She slots in perfectly into this list (I would cut Jace Architect or Vivien to put her in, ideally both because those cards kinda suck)
The fast ad read was appreciated but made my brain melt trying to figure out what was wrong with The Professor for a moment
What a coincidence! I just finished my Ezuri deck, although it's more focused on poison counters. And I'm loving it! Really nice video, prof, please make more of these!
I have most of these cards! I won a box in pre release. I didn't open the staff but I did crack open the blue dominus 😏. MAKE THIS A SERIES. This is brilliant
It's always great seeing your deck techs.
The first deck I built from scratch, years ago now, was based on your Kaseto deck and it's still my favorite.
Keep on keeping on
I’d LOVE to see more of these videos!
I would really like to see one of these for each set, if not more often. Wonderful work Professor! You've outdone yourself.
It's a solid decklist. I counted about eight ramp cards and ten removals. 37-lands is appropriate for a 4-mana, two-colored commander. The win power is a bit shy, but I like the *Infectious Bite* line. Forget winning by damage- you wanna proliferate your way to victory. Run more cards like that. Run Prologue to Phyresis, Blighted Agent and maybe Venerated Rotpriest. Think about it- if your opponent has just one poisons counter, each proliferate is essentially dealing 4 damage to them that cannot be healed.
I played against almost exactly the same deck as this a week ago at FNM! It won the pod; it's a good deck!
I'm long late to the original video, I watched this original and am now swinging back around to it.
I'm also 1000% on this as a series, I have never seen a deck like this and it looks SO fun.
This is a great idea for a new series Prof! I'd love to see more of these budget EDH builds
I love this series! Not to mention the deck is super fun to play. Well done to everyone involved in making this deck!
A potential idea would be to have a collab with your sponsor Card Kingdom and have a dedicated section on the site near their rookie decks and other CK precon decks where you could put this deck and if you make more, those as well.
I pretty much exclusively build commander decks on a budget like this. Placing restrictions on deckbuilding can be a ton of fun and leads to (in my experience) much more diverse and interesting decks overall, using a bunch of unknown or underrated cards, all while saving yourself some money. Done right, you don't even lose out on actual gameplay viability!
The synergy in this deck is so high compared to a normal precon!
Please continue this as a series, maybe not once a set to save your energy but maybe 2-3 times a year! :-)
This was a great video! My favorite videos of yours are your precon reviews, so naturally this was a welcomed addition. I'd also like to point out how impressive the budget is on this. A decent deck whose total value is $45 is incredible, especially considering the card value for other precons is usually $80+
Echoing what other people are saying please make this a series 😊 My friends and I annually have an event where we set a small budget to create our own precons for Commander with randomly assigned colors so more like this would be fantastic. It’s also just a really cool idea to help solidify the philosophy of deck building for people.
It's sad because this deck is better than many of the ones printed as of late... And cheaper! Love the series idea, keep it up!
Maybe let viewers submit their own ideas and choose one, the viewer could write up a little thing with it etc. Could be a fun community thing.
Nice video!
I lived in a country where it is hard to find good places to purchase cards and I can't afford expensives cards. I really, really love when people make "budget" decks. I had a Henzie Deck and a Galea Deck with little modifications, and I'm currently building an Isshin deck, everything Budget. Thanks for the content, Prof.
I love this kind of content. Thank you, Prof... Nay, Thank you, Brian. This is, once again, exactly what the community need, wants and you just give it to us.. Thank you.
Finally a great deck building video. This needs to be a series!
So after testing:
Players should expect an interesting little deck “out of the box. I had a couple of games where I got too much green mana but I could have gotten a few bad shuffles. I sometimes struggle paying that extra 3 for Ezuri but mostly use him for that card draw. I did some slight modifications as the deck suffers from being able to deal with board states. Even with Ratchet Bomb & The Phasing of Zhalfir. Those modifications were adding a Curse of the Swine for board state and Tekuthal (cheapest double proliferate option) I also updated some of the mana base as I had an extra couple of double lands, a shock land and fetch land on hand. I found that the Planeswalkers in Prof’s pre-con weren’t doing very much and were targeted early and normally would die before I could proliferate very much. So those were mostly my removal options. I kept Teferi in, and I believe Vivien.
Over all “Counter Blessings” is a cool little combo deck that I’m continuing to have fun with at my table.
Playability 8/10
Mana Base 6/10
Synergy 8.5/10
Verdict: 7.5/10
If this continues into a series, something helpful could be saying what upgrades replace what, or even a upgrade decklist made alongside the budget
One thing that the WoToC gets right is the deck balance. Players usually scimp on draw, removal and board wipes for semi-optimal synergies. This deck seems especially light on good card draw and board wipes. Ezuri is not really the type of commander that gives reasons to skimp on either.
For anyone who wants to see some ideas: Aetherize, River's Rebuke and Aetherspouts are great cheap "wraths" for a board centric Simic deck (bouncing our own board sounds horrible but we need answers to strong players). Better card draw might include - Fathom Mage, Inspiring Call and Sage of Fables (all of them have higher celling which is super important in EDH). Some of the walkers and low impact sorceries might go out and we might even gain some budget from that.
I absolutely love this. You should this once a week. The idea of spending money on a curated deck from a local shop (or using your affiliate link to order it online ;)) is phenomenal.
Would love to see a series like this Prof! Loved this video
This is a very good idea. What you're doing help local GS and players. Please keep doing it. Love this. Cheers
I like this idea of creating your own pre-cons. I hope to see more of them. Keep up the great work, Prof and team!
Great job on the video, well done! Simple, informative, educational, and entertaining. Please keep more Commander deck tech/cost videos like this coming if you can.
this is awesome! and would love to see more community built precons with all set releases. it would be cool see to a deck to pair with this to play against.
This absolutely needs to be a series.
I used to have a Vorel counters deck built very similarly to this deck, thanks prof for updating a long forgotten deck of mine
Yes make a series! This was great! I would love to see one or two per set! Please do Slimefoot and Squee from March of Machines!
This is great! Building interesting casual commanders for people playing on a budget
Please make this a series.
I would love to see a set of four balanced commander decks from from Tolarian community college!
having a set of decks that play well against each other is far more important than bringing a bunch of power to the table.
This absolutely, my favourite way to play magic (if I could afford it) would be only playing themed decks. It’s just fun a flavourful. Not sweaty and expensive.
We need more of these videos.
I can also see Card Kingdom actually making these "precons" on the professors' behalf.
Small non-bo note for The Phasing of Zhalfir, Read Ahead actually prevents all other chapter abilities from triggering on the turn it etbs, not just the lower numbered ones. I was looking into this for a Resourceful Defense + Sagas deck. If you proliferate at instant speed though, you could potentially get all three abilities in 1 turn + opponent's upkeep, so almost the same as getting all three in a single turn.
This is a decent budget deck the main reason commander precons are worthwhile though is because for 40-60$ you get 80+$ worth of cards
This would be such an awesome series, please do more. And this deck looks so fun
I'm not building Ezuri but I am building a deck around counters, so this was extremely helpful, thanks Prof!
Please add Fertilid to your proliferate deck, people. Not only is it going to net you a bunch of mana, but you can target an opponent (perhaps they Vampiric/Worldly/Enlightened Tutored and you think it's a board wipe that will take out all the progress you've made on board). Fertilid is the best.
Going to agree with the people here that this would be a great series. Only nitpick of mine would be that it would have been nice to know what to remove for the upgrades. I am terrible at deck building, so suggestions would be nice.
another great include if you can expand the budget for this deck is Walking ballista, who not only scales really well with proliferation and the amount of mana that this deck can generate, but also can proliferate an infinite number of times when paired with an urban daggertooth that has a +1/+1 counter on it.
SERIES PLEASE! what an awesome concept!!
So I made this deck and changed out a few cards, nothing like mana crypts though. I got the blue Dominus in there, a contagion engine, agent toolkit (So good in this deck!!!) and any blue/green lands I had available. It absolutely rocks; had an absolute blast playing it. Tha k you Prof!!!
I added Tekuthal too, did you have trouble dealing with board states? I added a curse of the swine for that. I also axed a few of those planeswalkers that weren’t helping the cause. I removed Garruk and Jiang for heroic intervention & bloated contaminator
@Dylan Brushett so I added a Reject Imperfection for another counterspwll, and I dropped like 5 cards for 2 more planeswalkers and the ichormoor gauntlet. I got one in pre release, so I figured this is the deck for it :) also a Kodoma of the Weat Tree does wonders in this deck; trample and ramp is a dream for this deck. It's probably the best card next to Tekuthal to add.
I just built a budget version of this deck and it's cool to see this video to see even more cards I didn't think of
This is a very cool and unique idea, would love to see a series of these, especially with some more lesser-played but still viable commanders!
I love this video concept so much! Would love to see more of these in the future, even at lower price points!
This is one of the best content ever on this channel, and that alone is a achievement.
Please make this a series
Wizards should let Professor make a commander deck. This deck was great. Or would love a series like this from one legendary that Professor likes each set.
I'm building this and putting it in my tolarian community college deck box when it arrives 👍
I'd like to nominate Vorel & Roalesk as card to consider adding to this deck.
What a phenomenal way to present a deck tech! Love seeing this!
Glad you like it!
every channel should speed up their ads to x1.5 speed. Well done, sir 🤩
I love this, I hope these videos become more frequent on the channel. I’d prefer more boros but this was still an excellent video!
i saw this in my recommended and immidiately knew how good it would be
Simic Counters - this kind of counters - was the one deck I really enjoyed playing in the short time I played on Arena. The key card was Simic Ascendancy, which I think could go in this deck for some laughs.
Somehow, it won games; I think because it was enough of a jank pile that it didn't often get matched up against truly 'good' decks. It was fun, where I could win with beat-down and had a little interaction, but mostly I just wanted to gum up the board and proliferate enough to get 20 growth counters on Simic Ascendancy, and it entertained me that my opponents either didn't notice, or just couldn't do anything about it.
Would be amazing if sponsor of the channel card kingdom could sell them alongside their other pre on products
This series have inspired me to build more decks. Currently working in a Council of Four deck!
People making this may want to consider Tumble Magnet as well. It basically becomes an infinite use tap-down you can use after your opponent untaps before their main phase, which can completely shut off many strategies or just slow down their mana rocks by forcing them to use their mana when it isn't convenient.
I never thought I’d see Prof take a sponsor from a mobile game. How the mighty have fallen
I would love seeing more of these! This was great!!