Same, +1/+1 counters are my favorite mechanic, but I'm a massive casual and will (in)actively ignore fodder or payoffs because I'm trying to fit the theme of a deck which just so happens to narrow the card pool into having next to no cards that actually fit the strategy. Ravnica standard Simic cards are AMAZING at getting +1/+1 counters out, less so something like Innistrad standard where the main buffing mechanics are the likes of transform Werewolves or equipment/enchantments. Heck, I have a Naya Shalai and Hallar EDH deck where it eventually became less about the counter burning and more just playing decently powerful Haste and/or First/Double Strike weenies and mana dorks that then get buffed to hell and back with the combination of additional combat phase effects and Gleam of Battle to just repeatedly kamikaze charge while getting additional burn triggers with my commander out. If I actually built it well like some kind of weird Goblin/Elf deck with a bunch of token spawning it'd probably explode, but it's based on a D&D character so I'm only "allowed" to use cards from Commander sets and the settings they interacted with so it'll just die to counterspells.
I feel like I never have this issue when building a deck on a budget. If I'm aiming for a tight $50/$100 list I tend to be very selective with my payoff cards because they're so expensive, but have a bevvy of enablers and other greasy cards to keep the deck running smoothly. That could just be the way I tend to build on a budget or something else with my deck building process, but I find it interesting that I rarely have this issue.
8:50 - 9:40 THIS. Your "underwhelming" cards are not going to draw as much attention from your opponents (and their kill spells) as much as cards like Smothering Tithe, Dockside Extortionist, etc. but they still progress your gameplan! More often than not, the little engine cards are going to passed over when in comparison to a honking V8 on the opposite end of the table. It also ties into one of my favorite little strategies in games: play your second strongest spell first so that your opponents waste resources on what should have been saved for your actual strongest spell.
Literally something I've learned to commit to with my Prismari deck. The deck has a few different combo outs, and so those cards are the few I truly need to have access to. While it sucks to feel like nothing you play can stick, it's been a matter of letting all my other things that feel like threats draw the attention and fire so when they're done dealing with all that, you can then deploy the actual KoS winners.
As a Johnny player, I take these principles to heart. The problem with is that if an opponent knows what you’re up to, and its a very apparent threat, you can’t get away with a game winning combo. So I intentionally play “bad” cards, along with janky combos with lots of pieces, and what happens is that the other players just ignore me and leave me alone until I pop off and it’s to late.
I gained a massive appreciation for overlooked cards after playing a lot of pauper and pauper commander. There are a lot of subpar cards out there that just need the right circumstances to shine.
I actually like looking for unpopular cards and playing with them. Because it's a bitter sweet moment when you ay them for that reason in a game. It's so satisfying
The conversation starts with artifact decks not playing enough artifacts, and this conversation always delights me, because I made a deck specifically based on that premise, presented by EDHreccast. Possibly my favorite deck is my Breya no-artifacts artifacts deck.
Excellent video. I have a Duke Ulder Ravengard deck that I have been tinkering with for about a year. I feel like it is in a good spot now, but I had to make some hard cuts. Adding in cards like Inspiring Overseer and Roving Harper to help with card draw, and cards like Kor Cartographer to help with ramp. Cards that are pretty boring when compared to giving Myriad to something like a Ancient Copper Dragon 🐉! But as soon as I added in more of these "underwhelming" cards, I found the deck functioned much better, more consistently. Great topic, I enjoyed this video.
I literally just got back from a commander night where I lost a game because I kept drawing spellslinger payoffs and no spells. This is apparently exactly the video I needed 😅
@@EDHRECast Thank you very much. :D This video is talking about a problem I have every single time building a deck. I'm glad you talked about this topic. This makes me feel like it's an actual issue and not just me being both stupid and bad at deck building.
That artifact analogy hits so hard... I have a Saheeli, the Gifted deck that has been my baby for years, but it has gone through periods where I wanted to play all the big splashy payoffs that Saheeli enables like Jin-Gitaxias Progress Tyrant, Blightsteel Colossus, etc, but I didn't have enough artifact token generation or ramp to back up those huge cmc cards. Saheeli NEEDS artifact presence on board or she's functionally dead in the water, but once I started sliding in things like Enthusiastic Mechanaut, Skullclamp, more token generators, more mana rocks, artifact lands, etc the deck started slowly feeling more and more consistent and really got to strut its stuff a lot more at game nights!
I ran into this problem when building Felisa, Fang of Silverquill. I had all of these sweet creatures but never wanted to sacrifice any of them to get my inklings. Super interesting video, thanks Joey!!
Yea it's so easy to add powerful cards vs the unpopular cards that execute your strategy. Like my Galazeth Prismari deck ia loaded with artifact cheerios. I save these cheerios in my hand for a big spell. But my opponents don't know my hand possibly has 2 or 3 cheerio artifacts which are used as instant mana ramp in izzet colors So 4 mana can turn to 6 or 7 mana pool on turn 4 or 5. Those reading if you sont know Galazeth he let's you turn your artifacts into mana rocks
Chromatic Star, Terrarion, and the implements cycle from Aether Revolt are some of my favorite "underwhelming" cards for my budget Breya deck. They're cheap on mana, sit on the board for affinity / improvise, and draw cards when sacc'd to Breya or other sacc outlets. Even the inconspicuous Wizards Rockets is a card I'm most excited about from the new LOTR set that I know I'm slotting in right away because those kind of effects are just so good fixing for a budget mana base. The card doesn't always need to be a bomb to shine in a particular deck!
This has been my main struggle for ghave for 5 years now. I often over commit on combo pieces and I end up with a non functioning deck. Card draw ramp and enough lands has always been a problem for me because there are so many cards I want to try. At this point I am thinking of breaking the deck apart and building only with the maybe pile I have and just keeping the ramp and card draw spells so I can use all the card I have gathered for guru of spores.
Love your videos Joey! I hope to one day play against you at a command fest. I took inspiration from you with a Baba Lysaga deck, i made one with our playgroup with a restriction of all cards in a deck, including the commander, is $.50 or less! With that sort of restriction, you really have to look for what synergies well with it. It's a hell of a lot of fun. I may not win with it, but I get seen as the threat when all that drain hits and everyone then realizes that their life totals are halved. I always tell them that I'm just here for a good time, not a long time! :)
I used to have this same problem, but then I started to focus more on what "feels good" in my opening hand, and the cards that weren't within that category HAD to be worth the risk of being a potential "brick" in my hand. These beautiful, eye-catching pay-off cards are quite enticing to over-include; however, that's a fantastic way to give yourself more bricks in your hand. You know what feels worse than drawing a land when you don't need it? Drawing a brick, a card that would be useful if your engine was running, in a crisis situation feels horrible. Thanks again, Joey for another great topic.
I love the "run underestimated cards" point. I've mentioned my Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts and Imoen//Far Traveler decks before; they both do an exemplary job of this.
I like what you said about being disciplined with your deckbuilding. It sometimes feels disappointing not to put all my favorite splashy cards in one deck, but over time I've realized it just means I have more opportunities to use those cards that didn't make the cut in new decks!
I love this. This has really been my ideology with making decks for a bit now. I'm building ONE Ezuri and Atarka, and while it's fun to throw in all the big splashy Proliferates and Dragons, I need to add some vegetables or starches to go with my prime rib, otherwise there's no balance and I won't get a satisfying meal
The Konrad issue is literally the EXACT thing that was happening with my Teysa Karlov deck. Once I leaned a lot harder towards token generation the deck got a lot more consistent. It's still not exactly there since I tend to either get all my outlets or all my fodder but nothing to use it with.
I ran into this slinging spells. It's such a delicate balance, but having just a bit more mana, or small draws just make it work rather than counting on the big stuff. Good stuff. Definitely checking out that podcast.
Orzhov Enforcer is one of my favorite fodder cards for these kinds of decks. It replaces itself and an early Deathtouch creature does wonders for deterring early aggression.
Green also has a surprising amount of deathtouch creatures. I have a Fynn the Fangbearer pauper commander deck that's really strong with just a bunch of cheap green deathtouch critters.
I have a Volrath the Shapestealer deck that struggled for the longest time. Eventually I dropped everything that would be cool to copy and all the counter generators and move to creatures with evasion or protection that brought their own counters with them. It plays so much better now and completely functions without Volrath on the table.
It's a common problem I've seen with a number of the people I play with. They want to throw down all these splashy effects and cards but dismiss things like boring stuff like land-finders because they think they'll just draw into lands naturally, or accelerated card draw because they think they'll just pull into cards naturally. It also doesn't help that some of these people have fragile egos so they refuse to consider changing the deck, for fear that'll mean they've made mistakes.
You got me right on the nose with both aristocrats and 1/1 counters decks. I made a thalia and the gitrog monster aristocrasts test deck online and every time i playtested it it’s like “wtf i can sacrifice anything because im saccing either my payoff or my engine to do it.” And with 1/1 counters same thing. I made a shallai and hallar counters deck and it’s like “this is great and all but if i dont draw biophagus or the other super synergistic cards my doubling season and everything else are for nothing.” I think you’ve finally convinced me to add back in bow of nylea just because it can reliably put counters on things, I don’t even need the deathtouch.
I've been having this issue with my Rackdos aristocrats deck. When I got a new job I bought all the big flashy cards I wanted for it and then it didn't do as well. Everything I had was a game ender and I found my little engines had fallen apart.
In my Ayara, widow of the realm deck I focused more on fodder with death triggers having a carrier thrall or a filigree familiar has been such a help in the early game when I need to dig or get that few extra mana to get going
Kyle and Andy are great! So it the advice on how to lower the aggro you draw. I have been playing the Cute to Brute secretlair deck and it's been so much fun! Nothing super crazy that "has to get answered" right away. It just lends to decent time to setup since the synergy isn't apparent
I got a Clue problem. One of my friends recently pointed out how many decks I have (they all do different things, but each one of them centers around Clue tokens) I own - Teysa, Opulent Oligarch ( It is about pinging each player and creating 3 clues a turn with her, then dropping Marionette Master & going to town sacing them or using Persuasive Interrogators to poison them out.) - Ezrim, Agency Chief (This is my voltron deck. I use cards like Merchant of Truth to give all my Clue tokens Exalted & Private Eye to give unblockable.) - Inquisitor Eisenhorn (My first deck with clues, this one equips him to become unblockable & gives him at least 5 power to use Time Sieve. Personally, this is my most powerful deck. I'd place around 9-low Cedh) - Tymna the Weaver & Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix (This is the deck that made my friends say I have a problem with Clue tokens; It is a WUBG deck that includes most of the good detectives in the 99 & uses Maskwood Nexus or Arcane Adaptation to change their creature types into Dogs for Sophia, Dogged Detective. Jaheira, Friend of the Forest allows me to tap all the tokens (more if Academy Manufactor is on the field) to pay for X draw spells; this allows Kydele to tap for the amount of cards drawn. I can then sac some tapped clues to draw even more. Lonis, Cryptozoologist can steal people's stuff from their libraries which is cool.) Anyways, my question is... if I removed two from the line-up, which two would you guys remove?
Honestly I think this is exactly what I needed to hear - I've been having issues getting my Lara Croft deck to actually *do* something, and I have a feeling its because there's too many fancy cards and not enough cards which just do a thing
I play a Grazilaxx, Ithilid Scholar bounce deck and it is my favourite by a mile. It has loads of things in it that don't look too bad, like Merfolk Trickster, Phantom Steed and Kefnet's Monument but people tend to leave me alone and I can amass a board that wins more often than not.
Man, this speaks to my soul. I’ve got a Tivit artifacts deck that I really love, and it’s really strong, but, it falls prey to exactly this, where it has a lot of payoffs and strong cards, but Tivit is the artifact-producing workhorse. I’ve got a Jon Irenicus deck that also often falls flat as it runs too many “donate” creatures and not enough fodder.
I really like that idea of "Remove or.." My fav deck is Jaxis, and it's crazy to me she almost never gets removed, no matter how broken I'm copying creatures. I think people see her, and it's like, she's not Kiki-Jiki or Reflection, and the copied cards are way scarier. Like it doesn't click that she's the lynchpin, since she's not over-the-top busted, so she sticks around.
Hey, don't sleep on Marsh Flitter! Once I drained someone to death with Sling-Gang Lieutenant with the Marsh Flitter tokens in a Shirei deck. It was the best accidental synergy moment I've had in recent memory. Also yeah, very good video, I agree wholesale. This is why I enjoy decks where the bread and butter are things I like doing. Spellslinger because cheap cantrips are my jam, tribal because the engine pieces ARE the cool Angels (or I guess lesser tribes, if you're into that sort of things), etc. etc. I definitely get your pains with Aristocrats though because the payoffs are so tempting in those decks.
Oh my god thank you! I have noticed this trend on edhrec and on playgroups, people never put enough enablers on their decks, I have seen cpunter decks with like two cardsactually putting counters, or token decks without token creators, I saw a guy remove half the instants from his Kalamax deck then complaining it didn't work or a guy whose deck failed because his Anhelo deck lacked fodder cards. Remember people enablers should always be your priority when building, payoffs are useless otherwise.
I'm a mostly Limited player who builds their commander decks from signpost uncommons and duct tape. I love middling cards! I usually start my decks with a big pile of 'underwhelming' cards and add a few payoffs to round things out. I think my favorite moments of serendipity in play and deck construction happen when an otherwise forgettable card plays at a showstopping level in the right deck (i.e. Volcanic Salvo giving +12/+0 for RR in my Livaan/Sword Coast Sailor deck; Iridescent Hornbeetle spitting out an army of 3/3s in my Lae'zel/Master Chef deck.) Most players don’t look twice at these sorts of cards, but as a Limited player they're special to me and I like giving them a slot in my deck where they can shine.
I had this same issue in my awesome Grimgrin deck. I have cool token generators but often you need to get the ball rolling. I have a bunch of 2 drops that draw when they enter or die and marang river prowlers I can get back
My Ob nixilis captive kingpin deck was like this, but i ended up adding some cards like make mischeif, and burn down the house, stuff that make those 1/1 devil tokens to keep ob going, and a scorched Ruksala as another way to sac them
So my version of aristocrats, I was running teysa karlov. But I realised a lot of sac outlets and a few of the payoffs were vampires. So I stopped to Edgar Markov, now when I cast those payoffs or sac outlets, I get a free fodder token with them. The deck ran a whole lot smoother with this. I just had to add one or two tutors so I could find teysa, but here is the thing, the deck works just fine without her now. Obviously it goes off when she arrives, but with the free vampire tokens, and the 3-4mana cards which give me 2extra tokens, can be replaced with 1-2 mana vampires for almost the same amount of value.
I need to put more cards thats make tokens into my Commissar Severina Raine deck, its a problem I've found constantly that there's just not enough tokens.
I love using outdated or “old” cards. When I was building my Galazeth deck when he was released I made him my dragons approach commander. I wanted a deck that had “more than one card with the same name” deck. I saw all the damage red spells did and wondered if blue did that. Finally I found Mind Bomb. A blue card that also did 3 damage just like my dragons approach deck. (Wasn’t until recently I saw Rachel Weeks ALSO built Galazeth and ALSO put Mind Bomb in it. Great minds think alike I guess. Another oldie I LOVE is Insight. A blue enchantment that draws you a card when an opponent plays a green spell. In certain games this card is better than Rhystic study. You don’t have to ask to draw. You just draw if someone plays a green spell. It’s a power house in my Izzet decks bc I have cards that draw and discard. If no one is playing green it’s an easy discard option and I draw two more. OR it gives me so much card draw.
this happened to me when I was trying to build my Felisa deck, it was really not working because I had all these wonderful +1/+1 counters on the creature but no way to sac them. Felisa was sitting there with an useless board. After putting in some much underwhelming cards to implement the "go tall then go wide" strategy of the deck, everything worked much better. It's true though that after you count your ramp and your card draw and the usual removals, pretty much 40 cards are already kinda fixed ç_ç so I tend to end up with endless lists where I put everything I like and then take off what is not neeed... it's painstakingly slow ahaha
I think my Ayara deck is the perfect example of something underwhelming but powerful. It’s full of the dinky fodder cards you mentioned for Konrad and has only 3 non basics, but I’ve actually found that all of my incremental advantage lets me run away with many games simply because I’m not doing anything remarkable - just a few life a turn while I draw some cards. It’s oddly satisfying to play
This is so true with my wilhelt deck which always ends up sacrificing nothing at end step before. I Had to add some creatures like lazotep reaver, butcher ghoul etc
Love the highlights for Konrad in here, had chittering witch in my bulk pile for a while now and it definitely works great for Konrad! Will be adding it in for sure!
One of my biggest issues w my liara portyr deck is the amount of value it generates. So many good cards and valid targets that I’ll just kept swept early game
I've had this issue with Kumena Merfolk. Build a board, get a bunch of counters and reach critical mass quickly, and then...boom, boardwipe. And it's hard to rebuild after that, but I still possess an increased threat level because of what people just saw.
One of my favorite commanders is Nekusaur, sure he can be really brutal, but the amount of times I have simply said "do you like phyrexian arena? Ok, why do you wanna kill my commander which gives you one for free?" People tend to blink and change their removals target, people help me keep my card in play, I also run some otherwise mediocre cards, stuff like Temple Bell, howling mine, prosperity, stuff that are in most cases horrible cards but simply allow my deck to do it's thing. Most people are ok with getting to draw 5 cards, lose 5 life and two of their opponents do the same thing. Another deck I ran in to issues on was Animar, you run in to the "well I want card draw I am in blue, ramp as I am in green... I'm in red... yay?" it ended up having something like 38 lands and 20 non creatures. I finally got to the point where I cut all the non creature spells other than Force of Will, Sylvan Library and Sol Ring. Deck runs so much smoother now and honestly gets to do much more splashy things because my commander is doing what it wants to do.
Your first item in this vid... Same reason I wasn't playing Annointed Procession in my Oketra deck... it's not a creature! Thankful they printed Mondrak though...
My most recent deck is a Dalakos equipment deck and this is a constant battle for me. How many synergies should I play versus how many raw pieces of equipment? Thopter Spy Network is a particular bugaboo. I've pulled that card out and then put it back in so many times.
I made a prossh deck themed around my devour deck i made back in alara days. the first thing I did after putting out all the cards that fit was balance not only payoffs but ramp/removal and token generation because I knew how important it was
Maybe I should recheck my Elrond Master Healer deck I plan on playing this weekend. I know that it is relying a bit on my commander to distribute +1/+1 counters on my creatures, with a large amount of the other cards being things that scry to set it off. I cannot remember how many other cards might give counters themselves.
My gruul hate bears deck is almost exactly what you are talking about. A lot of the cards in the deck get overlooked but after so long they make a big impact. For example harsh mentor
This is where I do find value in goldfishing a deck: What do I need for the strategy, how quickly do I need it and what pieces do I want to have down before my commander comes down on curve? Do I want a low CMC not-amazing but reliable token generator before Thallise Reverent Medium? Do I need evasive humans to attack with before I cast Trynn and Silvar, etc. I think for a lot of decks these underwhelming cards find themselves in the 2, maybe 3 mana slot as well if you're trying to hit a high volume of Something, and do it quickly to set up.
I was just looking over a ridiculous over-the-top "every card is a combo piece" deck I built with Sharuum in the command zone. It has 36 lands, 48 combo pieces, 10 card advantage mechanisms (draw or tutors), 3 counterspells, and the rest is miscellaneous "give your artifacts or enchantments shroud" stuff or graveyard recursion. I was excited at the goofy idea of piecing together esoteric puzzle pieces in weird ways, but in practice there isn't enough overlap between enablers and payoffs to *goldfish* a win in less than 9 or 10 turns. I love the absurd Rube Goldberg machines I can construct with it, but they're way too fragile to stand up to a table with opponents- even one board wipe resets that 9 or 10 turn clock almost entirely. Regrettably, I probably just need mana rocks and more card draw, and need to pare down the combo pile to closer to 30 cards that all more or less work together instead of pursuing five different strategies at random. That deck is an extreme example, but thanks for highlighting this problem exactly when I'm grappling with it.
this makes me think of my Ramos deck. it's my favorite deck and I love the way it generates +1/+1 counters and then converts them into other resources, but I've went through a lot of revision of trying to balance having enough bodies to carry counters or having enough of said bodies be multicolor.
One of the reasons a friends budget Dina Deck is absolutely the underwhelmingness of the single pieces he deploys. A welcome fresh difference for us and him too, since he usually Plays breya combo and Atraxa superfriends - with which he gets checked and removed into oblivion
This was a great video! Ive also got tired of "staple" cards, id be building a deck and 20-25 cards would be automatically added just because they were good.
My Korvold deck struggled with a “2 sac outlets on the battlefield, nothing I wish to sacrifice for value”. It feels like having big scary guns with no ammo. Cards like From Beyond fixed this easily.
I’ve definitely had this problem with my wilhelt zombies deck. There’s lots of cards that care about zombies or do things that synergise with zombies that arent actually zombies.
as an artifact player, things like sensei's divining top or if you're in a budget, ancestral statue are NEEDS in a deck where casting artifacts matter the most. Artifacts that make themselves recastable in an artifact deck are very damn gucci
The key to multiplayer is that you need to balance being enough of a threat that people don't want to lose resources going after you while not being so much of a threat that they have to go after you. I've got plenty of decks with must-answer threats, but sometimes I get the most joy out of decks that leverage garbage cards that just aren't worth burning removal on. For example, my Edric deck runs all sorts of crap like Flying Men and Cloud Pirates - no one wants to target them - yet the deck routinely draws 10-15 cards a turn and then overwhelms the table. Granted, it dies horribly to original Elesh Norn, but that's a risk I'm willing to take.
I had a conversation like this earlier this week. Not every deck benefits from being goodstuff. Sure, 5c dragons can pop off because each top deck is a bomb, but synergy and consistency go a very long way. Take voltron decks where the goal is to strap up your commander and go face. If you want to win, you need creatures that you sometimes will need to build up over the commander, usually enablers to the strategy.
I can offer my perspective as someone who primarily plays yugioh. The fodder are basically starters for a line, and the payoff cards are the extenders. Too many starters and you have a high floor, but a low ceiling, too many extenders, and you have an abysmally low floor. You need to balance out both so that your deck is *consistently* able to do the thing you want it to do.
Shots fired... got called out on 3 decks i've been tinkering with. Made a breya and was more artificer heavy on first draft than artifiact. Made a teysa aristocrat deck, more payoff than enabler. Though, i just sack the payoff pieces with the assumption that everything is expendible. But yes, those gears need grease. Made a minsc & boo +1/+1 counter legends deck... well i haven't finished this one yet but i can assure you my course is shifting slightly after this video. Thank you my man. Any chance you could go into recommended ratio numbers? X-X recommended sac outlets Y-Y of them should be free, Z-Z blood artist effects, A-A fodder, etc.
Functional hexproof is such a good term. Same way I rarely run greaves or boots. People will care more about what they can't remove than what they should
Cards like Marsh Flitter and Sengir Autocrat are great examples of cards that don’t seem amazing but which are absolute bangers in the right deck (aristocrats, in this case). I ended up cutting more overtly powerful cards for fodder cards like that in my aristocrats decks (Szat/Kodama, Teysa, Orzhov Scion) and have never regretted that choice.
at all i like the video. im lucky to already learned this lesson. the only small issue: i dont like the "hide under others" strat. yes its legit, but it easyly can cause an arms race situation. btw joey how do you handle arms race? (would be happy to see a video about that) thanks for helping out on being a better human being or at least a better magic player :D
I share an Aesi list and deck with my wife, and she is less of a rules and mechanics savvy kind of player. I've found that keeping that landfall list at about 40 lands works better for her, and also pays off better for me when I take the pilot seat. Your deck needs payoff, absolutely. But you need your fuel. Landfall needs lands, aristocrats needs sacrificial creatures, spell slinger needs cantrips, etc.
My Edgar Charmed Groom deck always plays better when I get the small inconspicuous vampires out first. I'm not kidding when I say Adanto Vanguard is one of the strongest cards in my deck because it's both hard to remove and not enough of a threat on it's own to bother with, so it stays on the board and gets work done
this was my problem with my dalakos deck. I was drawing way too many artifact payoffs to justify keeping them all. I might just build two decks for each of my commanders at this point, with all the extra cards in my collection XD
Mycosynth Lattice obviously solves the artifacts problem, but the obvious drawback is there can only be one in the deck. As an artifact player since the beginning i can say, you are so right. Oh, ban Scute swarm though. Heh.
Well thats the thing for me. I usually play decks where all the Fodder and the smaller cards ARE what the deck is trying to do. A example being my newest deck Anikthea...Alot of the cards and payoffs in the deck are enchantments that buff or add effects to creatures and large boards. So the rest of the deck is made to use Anikthea and other cards to turn those enchantments into creatures themselves. So the cards that boost creatures now boost themselves...and they all get all the other effects as well.!
Recently I've been brewing a peruvian commander jumpstart cube and there are three factors that have pushed me to pick weird cards. Budget - finding good cards in the draft bin is fun. Who knew Arni Metalbrow would fit a dragon tribal deck? Monocoled themes - specific to the format, halfdecks are, usually, monocolored. This allows bulk legendaries shine. WEIRD THEMES - I made a dice deck, it's 20% uncards. I have also seeded these in Auras, Hydras and blue number tribal. Lulz ensue.
Most decks should actually be mostly these kind of role players. Most card draw, ramp and removal fits this category. No one is excited to put swords to plowshares in their deck but cards of that nature just tend to be very valuable. Same goes for most mana rocks and generic draw engines. Having cards and mana is what allows you to play splashy cards so its vital to play some.
I tend to gravitate towards stupidly good value-generating COmmanders, like Mishra, Eminent One & Etali, Primal Conqueror. But in these two especially, the rest of the deck is pretty tame & only really shines because of who's in command. THe best/most exciting card in Mishra is probably Ichor freaking Wellspring because it draws 2 extra cards per turn. & I've build my Etali-deck as a weird form of Gruul "Blink", which just isn't a thing. There's pretty much every card in there, that allows me to create a copy of Etali (or any one of the other like 17 creatures with ETBs), to just abuse his broken effect a bunch of times. Of course, those two especially are still scary in the command zone, but what keeps the decks up and running is all the junk that happens around them and that on its own would never raise an eyebrow.
Challenge the stats: Ruthless Technomancer in Urza, Chief Artificer. Sac a construct token to double the power of each other construct and create treasure equal to number of artifacts. Shows up in only 87 Urza decks, 0.003%
This is why my Meren deck ended up at ~55 creatures in the 99, and if I get around to it, I'll shave even more non-creatures out for creatures. Also, Joey, if a card seems obviously bad but plays suspiciously good, it's probably a decent card and you (and probably many others) were just wrong to clown on it so hard. For example, Doom Blade is a bad card in Commander, but throw it in a deck that's short of removal and it will win you the odd game, ergo it's not actually a bad card, it's a role filler, as long as you still need more fillers for that role adding even bad examples will usually improve the deck, just not as much as a truly good card could have. I would think that those 'make some dorks on ETB' creatures you enjoyed adding so much are filling a necessary role in the deck, that of providing grain for your 'mill' to process, so I think the concept holds. In a 99 driven deck (Gladiator type Commander where you run the worst Commanders available to your colours), filling all your deck's roles is way, way more important because your Commander is usually nothing but a clunky beater, that's how I ended up thinking this way more, but this is also how I've ended up with decks that are at the higher end of 'how many wipes is okay to run?', some decks just love to control the board and something like Necromantic Selection exists and must see play! I love tedious 'is this worth a removal' type bodies, Gorilla Shaman is probably a better card than most people realize, especially if you're hitting your land drops and your opponent is one of those 'I'll be fine with 31 lands' types that run 12 mana rocks. I run it and Banshee in a deck, both are suspiciously useful, and both have required removal in 1v1 playtest games, removal on a stick is like really bad card advantage.
It's easy to get seduced by the exponentiality of strong engine cards and forget the fuel you actually need to power them, or theorycraft your plans to involve only your most potent resource generators - Tombstone Stairwell may be incredibly powerful for Zombies or Aristocrats, but half of your games will never see it and as many others will see it promptly killed. Aside from good synergy trying to get cards that can fulfil multiple of your value conditions at once - Ozolith the Shattered Spire instead of Nylea's Bow or such in your +1/+1 example - a good test for me has been asking myself what a card does when it's by itself. Some are perfectly fine; Walking Ballista is a +1/+1 staple and wincon and still fine as a standaloen creature that takes potshots when it eats removal. Some are so strong that they've earned their place; Mondrak or Drivnod are effectively weak vanillas when they aren't doubling, but doubling is so strong they get to stay. Some aren't just bad but outright traps; Primal Vigor is extremely strong when it's online, but if you have nothing to double you may be feeding an opponent a win. One of my new deck rules has been that if a card does nothing by itself, it has to basically lock in a win with multiple other cards to get to stay, and I have to strictly limit how many are in the deck. It means I've been having slightly fewer hyper-turns when everything goes perfectly and nobody knows what hit them, but basic play is much smoother and I have far fewer games where I'm not dead yet but am still effectively out of the game.
One downside of this strategy of playing underwhelming cards that I have experienced twice firsthand, is that people will react very poorly when they feel like they're losing to "Bad" cards. I've had to leave two tables and had to deal with a lot of mean comments from a third table because one person was salty after losing.
Another advantage of "underwhelming" cards is that they don't look threatening on the battlefield. So you don't get targeted as much when you have them
Underwhelming Cards I like the little stuff sometimes, like skeletons and zombies who reanimate themselves. They're my go-to for aristocrats (or just as a value generation strategy), and I'll even put in at least 10 or 15 cards in the deck which possibly do what they do... AND even benefit from what they do. Maybe green is better for removing non-creature annoyances on the battlefield, but Gilanra and Vial Smasher would rather have a couple common rarity chonky beholders with different ETB modes instead of a Woodfall Primus. Also, I enjoy the idea of giving the other colors a chance to shine, which is why the deck just sucked as Shattergang Brothers aristocrats, even with Parallel Lives, Doubling Season, and Ashnod's Altar. Speaking of underwhelming legends, Varis (Silverymoon Ranger) still managed to be an at least somewhat decent elf deck, but people see the dungeons instead of Ellywick Tumblestrum and mono-green Ezuri. +8/+8, trample, haste, AND elf mana is no joke.
I want to make a token deck, but im running into this issue. I have payoffs from all 5 colors. I think im gonna have to make 3 different decks just to properly fit them all.
Loving these new quick introspective videos!
“twenty second”-ed (like seconded for the twenty second time)
I feel very called out by the lack of getting first +1/+1 counters out
Same, +1/+1 counters are my favorite mechanic, but I'm a massive casual and will (in)actively ignore fodder or payoffs because I'm trying to fit the theme of a deck which just so happens to narrow the card pool into having next to no cards that actually fit the strategy. Ravnica standard Simic cards are AMAZING at getting +1/+1 counters out, less so something like Innistrad standard where the main buffing mechanics are the likes of transform Werewolves or equipment/enchantments.
Heck, I have a Naya Shalai and Hallar EDH deck where it eventually became less about the counter burning and more just playing decently powerful Haste and/or First/Double Strike weenies and mana dorks that then get buffed to hell and back with the combination of additional combat phase effects and Gleam of Battle to just repeatedly kamikaze charge while getting additional burn triggers with my commander out. If I actually built it well like some kind of weird Goblin/Elf deck with a bunch of token spawning it'd probably explode, but it's based on a D&D character so I'm only "allowed" to use cards from Commander sets and the settings they interacted with so it'll just die to counterspells.
Are we on the same spiritual commander journey? Your videos have all been so directly applicable to my commander life.
Literally made this discovery with a Korvold deck that I brewed off of my less impressive sacrifice themed cards
I feel like I never have this issue when building a deck on a budget. If I'm aiming for a tight $50/$100 list I tend to be very selective with my payoff cards because they're so expensive, but have a bevvy of enablers and other greasy cards to keep the deck running smoothly. That could just be the way I tend to build on a budget or something else with my deck building process, but I find it interesting that I rarely have this issue.
8:50 - 9:40 THIS. Your "underwhelming" cards are not going to draw as much attention from your opponents (and their kill spells) as much as cards like Smothering Tithe, Dockside Extortionist, etc. but they still progress your gameplan! More often than not, the little engine cards are going to passed over when in comparison to a honking V8 on the opposite end of the table.
It also ties into one of my favorite little strategies in games: play your second strongest spell first so that your opponents waste resources on what should have been saved for your actual strongest spell.
Literally something I've learned to commit to with my Prismari deck. The deck has a few different combo outs, and so those cards are the few I truly need to have access to. While it sucks to feel like nothing you play can stick, it's been a matter of letting all my other things that feel like threats draw the attention and fire so when they're done dealing with all that, you can then deploy the actual KoS winners.
As a Johnny player, I take these principles to heart. The problem with is that if an opponent knows what you’re up to, and its a very apparent threat, you can’t get away with a game winning combo. So I intentionally play “bad” cards, along with janky combos with lots of pieces, and what happens is that the other players just ignore me and leave me alone until I pop off and it’s to late.
I gained a massive appreciation for overlooked cards after playing a lot of pauper and pauper commander. There are a lot of subpar cards out there that just need the right circumstances to shine.
I actually like looking for unpopular cards and playing with them. Because it's a bitter sweet moment when you ay them for that reason in a game. It's so satisfying
Love that the Legendary Creature podcast is getting a shout out! “Basically Hexproof” is a great episode. Kyle and Andy are dope.
The conversation starts with artifact decks not playing enough artifacts, and this conversation always delights me, because I made a deck specifically based on that premise, presented by EDHreccast. Possibly my favorite deck is my Breya no-artifacts artifacts deck.
Excellent video. I have a Duke Ulder Ravengard deck that I have been tinkering with for about a year. I feel like it is in a good spot now, but I had to make some hard cuts. Adding in cards like Inspiring Overseer and Roving Harper to help with card draw, and cards like Kor Cartographer to help with ramp. Cards that are pretty boring when compared to giving Myriad to something like a Ancient Copper Dragon 🐉! But as soon as I added in more of these "underwhelming" cards, I found the deck functioned much better, more consistently.
Great topic, I enjoyed this video.
Loving these thought essays and short vids in the upping the average slot. Can't let yourself stagnate
I literally just got back from a commander night where I lost a game because I kept drawing spellslinger payoffs and no spells. This is apparently exactly the video I needed 😅
Can't cook a soup without water.
Excellent analogy :]
@@EDHRECast Thank you very much. :D
This video is talking about a problem I have every single time building a deck.
I'm glad you talked about this topic. This makes me feel like it's an actual issue and not just me being both stupid and bad at deck building.
That artifact analogy hits so hard... I have a Saheeli, the Gifted deck that has been my baby for years, but it has gone through periods where I wanted to play all the big splashy payoffs that Saheeli enables like Jin-Gitaxias Progress Tyrant, Blightsteel Colossus, etc, but I didn't have enough artifact token generation or ramp to back up those huge cmc cards. Saheeli NEEDS artifact presence on board or she's functionally dead in the water, but once I started sliding in things like Enthusiastic Mechanaut, Skullclamp, more token generators, more mana rocks, artifact lands, etc the deck started slowly feeling more and more consistent and really got to strut its stuff a lot more at game nights!
I ran into this problem when building Felisa, Fang of Silverquill. I had all of these sweet creatures but never wanted to sacrifice any of them to get my inklings. Super interesting video, thanks Joey!!
Yea it's so easy to add powerful cards vs the unpopular cards that execute your strategy. Like my Galazeth Prismari deck ia loaded with artifact cheerios. I save these cheerios in my hand for a big spell. But my opponents don't know my hand possibly has 2 or 3 cheerio artifacts which are used as instant mana ramp in izzet colors
So 4 mana can turn to 6 or 7 mana pool on turn 4 or 5. Those reading if you sont know Galazeth he let's you turn your artifacts into mana rocks
Great video. I've been focusing on underwhelming cards in a few of my decks lately and they've become some of my favorites to play
Chromatic Star, Terrarion, and the implements cycle from Aether Revolt are some of my favorite "underwhelming" cards for my budget Breya deck. They're cheap on mana, sit on the board for affinity / improvise, and draw cards when sacc'd to Breya or other sacc outlets. Even the inconspicuous Wizards Rockets is a card I'm most excited about from the new LOTR set that I know I'm slotting in right away because those kind of effects are just so good fixing for a budget mana base. The card doesn't always need to be a bomb to shine in a particular deck!
This has been my main struggle for ghave for 5 years now. I often over commit on combo pieces and I end up with a non functioning deck. Card draw ramp and enough lands has always been a problem for me because there are so many cards I want to try.
At this point I am thinking of breaking the deck apart and building only with the maybe pile I have and just keeping the ramp and card draw spells so I can use all the card I have gathered for guru of spores.
Love your videos Joey! I hope to one day play against you at a command fest. I took inspiration from you with a Baba Lysaga deck, i made one with our playgroup with a restriction of all cards in a deck, including the commander, is $.50 or less! With that sort of restriction, you really have to look for what synergies well with it. It's a hell of a lot of fun. I may not win with it, but I get seen as the threat when all that drain hits and everyone then realizes that their life totals are halved. I always tell them that I'm just here for a good time, not a long time! :)
I used to have this same problem, but then I started to focus more on what "feels good" in my opening hand, and the cards that weren't within that category HAD to be worth the risk of being a potential "brick" in my hand. These beautiful, eye-catching pay-off cards are quite enticing to over-include; however, that's a fantastic way to give yourself more bricks in your hand. You know what feels worse than drawing a land when you don't need it? Drawing a brick, a card that would be useful if your engine was running, in a crisis situation feels horrible.
Thanks again, Joey for another great topic.
I love the "run underestimated cards" point. I've mentioned my Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts and Imoen//Far Traveler decks before; they both do an exemplary job of this.
I like what you said about being disciplined with your deckbuilding. It sometimes feels disappointing not to put all my favorite splashy cards in one deck, but over time I've realized it just means I have more opportunities to use those cards that didn't make the cut in new decks!
I love this. This has really been my ideology with making decks for a bit now. I'm building ONE Ezuri and Atarka, and while it's fun to throw in all the big splashy Proliferates and Dragons, I need to add some vegetables or starches to go with my prime rib, otherwise there's no balance and I won't get a satisfying meal
The Konrad issue is literally the EXACT thing that was happening with my Teysa Karlov deck. Once I leaned a lot harder towards token generation the deck got a lot more consistent. It's still not exactly there since I tend to either get all my outlets or all my fodder but nothing to use it with.
Great advice Joey. I've had the same realisation on a few decks recently. I also agree that the Legendary Creature Podcast is top shelf 👌
I ran into this slinging spells. It's such a delicate balance, but having just a bit more mana, or small draws just make it work rather than counting on the big stuff. Good stuff. Definitely checking out that podcast.
Orzhov Enforcer is one of my favorite fodder cards for these kinds of decks. It replaces itself and an early Deathtouch creature does wonders for deterring early aggression.
Honestly one of the things I like most about budget mono black decks. It's really easy to throw in some low cost death touches.
Green also has a surprising amount of deathtouch creatures. I have a Fynn the Fangbearer pauper commander deck that's really strong with just a bunch of cheap green deathtouch critters.
That's an absolute staple in my Teysa Karlov deck. A cheap deathouch creature and Afterlife 1 (or 2 is Teysa is on the field).
The opening to this video looks like my Breya deck 😂
I have a Volrath the Shapestealer deck that struggled for the longest time. Eventually I dropped everything that would be cool to copy and all the counter generators and move to creatures with evasion or protection that brought their own counters with them. It plays so much better now and completely functions without Volrath on the table.
It's a common problem I've seen with a number of the people I play with. They want to throw down all these splashy effects and cards but dismiss things like boring stuff like land-finders because they think they'll just draw into lands naturally, or accelerated card draw because they think they'll just pull into cards naturally.
It also doesn't help that some of these people have fragile egos so they refuse to consider changing the deck, for fear that'll mean they've made mistakes.
You got me right on the nose with both aristocrats and 1/1 counters decks. I made a thalia and the gitrog monster aristocrasts test deck online and every time i playtested it it’s like “wtf i can sacrifice anything because im saccing either my payoff or my engine to do it.” And with 1/1 counters same thing. I made a shallai and hallar counters deck and it’s like “this is great and all but if i dont draw biophagus or the other super synergistic cards my doubling season and everything else are for nothing.” I think you’ve finally convinced me to add back in bow of nylea just because it can reliably put counters on things, I don’t even need the deathtouch.
Joey, you're so fricking talented and charismatic. Gives me the biggest straight crush. Keep up the great content my dude.
I've been having this issue with my Rackdos aristocrats deck. When I got a new job I bought all the big flashy cards I wanted for it and then it didn't do as well. Everything I had was a game ender and I found my little engines had fallen apart.
In my Ayara, widow of the realm deck I focused more on fodder with death triggers having a carrier thrall or a filigree familiar has been such a help in the early game when I need to dig or get that few extra mana to get going
Kyle and Andy are great! So it the advice on how to lower the aggro you draw. I have been playing the Cute to Brute secretlair deck and it's been so much fun! Nothing super crazy that "has to get answered" right away. It just lends to decent time to setup since the synergy isn't apparent
I got a Clue problem. One of my friends recently pointed out how many decks I have (they all do different things, but each one of them centers around Clue tokens)
I own
- Teysa, Opulent Oligarch ( It is about pinging each player and creating 3 clues a turn with her, then dropping Marionette Master & going to town sacing them or using Persuasive Interrogators to poison them out.)
- Ezrim, Agency Chief (This is my voltron deck. I use cards like Merchant of Truth to give all my Clue tokens Exalted & Private Eye to give unblockable.)
- Inquisitor Eisenhorn (My first deck with clues, this one equips him to become unblockable & gives him at least 5 power to use Time Sieve. Personally, this is my most powerful deck. I'd place around 9-low Cedh)
- Tymna the Weaver & Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix (This is the deck that made my friends say I have a problem with Clue tokens; It is a WUBG deck that includes most of the good detectives in the 99 & uses Maskwood Nexus or Arcane Adaptation to change their creature types into Dogs for Sophia, Dogged Detective. Jaheira, Friend of the Forest allows me to tap all the tokens (more if Academy Manufactor is on the field) to pay for X draw spells; this allows Kydele to tap for the amount of cards drawn. I can then sac some tapped clues to draw even more. Lonis, Cryptozoologist can steal people's stuff from their libraries which is cool.)
Anyways, my question is... if I removed two from the line-up, which two would you guys remove?
Honestly I think this is exactly what I needed to hear - I've been having issues getting my Lara Croft deck to actually *do* something, and I have a feeling its because there's too many fancy cards and not enough cards which just do a thing
I play a Grazilaxx, Ithilid Scholar bounce deck and it is my favourite by a mile. It has loads of things in it that don't look too bad, like Merfolk Trickster, Phantom Steed and Kefnet's Monument but people tend to leave me alone and I can amass a board that wins more often than not.
That's how things go with my budget Grismold deck. People underestimate it to begin with. It's a valid strategy. Lol
i love the shoutout to the Legendary creature podcast, has been one of my favourite commander podcasts for a while now.
Man, this speaks to my soul.
I’ve got a Tivit artifacts deck that I really love, and it’s really strong, but, it falls prey to exactly this, where it has a lot of payoffs and strong cards, but Tivit is the artifact-producing workhorse.
I’ve got a Jon Irenicus deck that also often falls flat as it runs too many “donate” creatures and not enough fodder.
I really like that idea of "Remove or.." My fav deck is Jaxis, and it's crazy to me she almost never gets removed, no matter how broken I'm copying creatures. I think people see her, and it's like, she's not Kiki-Jiki or Reflection, and the copied cards are way scarier. Like it doesn't click that she's the lynchpin, since she's not over-the-top busted, so she sticks around.
Hey, don't sleep on Marsh Flitter! Once I drained someone to death with Sling-Gang Lieutenant with the Marsh Flitter tokens in a Shirei deck. It was the best accidental synergy moment I've had in recent memory.
Also yeah, very good video, I agree wholesale. This is why I enjoy decks where the bread and butter are things I like doing. Spellslinger because cheap cantrips are my jam, tribal because the engine pieces ARE the cool Angels (or I guess lesser tribes, if you're into that sort of things), etc. etc. I definitely get your pains with Aristocrats though because the payoffs are so tempting in those decks.
Oh my god thank you! I have noticed this trend on edhrec and on playgroups, people never put enough enablers on their decks, I have seen cpunter decks with like two cardsactually putting counters, or token decks without token creators, I saw a guy remove half the instants from his Kalamax deck then complaining it didn't work or a guy whose deck failed because his Anhelo deck lacked fodder cards. Remember people enablers should always be your priority when building, payoffs are useless otherwise.
I'm a mostly Limited player who builds their commander decks from signpost uncommons and duct tape. I love middling cards! I usually start my decks with a big pile of 'underwhelming' cards and add a few payoffs to round things out. I think my favorite moments of serendipity in play and deck construction happen when an otherwise forgettable card plays at a showstopping level in the right deck (i.e. Volcanic Salvo giving +12/+0 for RR in my Livaan/Sword Coast Sailor deck; Iridescent Hornbeetle spitting out an army of 3/3s in my Lae'zel/Master Chef deck.) Most players don’t look twice at these sorts of cards, but as a Limited player they're special to me and I like giving them a slot in my deck where they can shine.
Love the Legendary Creature podcast, so good!
I had this same issue in my awesome Grimgrin deck. I have cool token generators but often you need to get the ball rolling. I have a bunch of 2 drops that draw when they enter or die and marang river prowlers I can get back
My Ob nixilis captive kingpin deck was like this, but i ended up adding some cards like make mischeif, and burn down the house, stuff that make those 1/1 devil tokens to keep ob going, and a scorched Ruksala as another way to sac them
So my version of aristocrats, I was running teysa karlov. But I realised a lot of sac outlets and a few of the payoffs were vampires. So I stopped to Edgar Markov, now when I cast those payoffs or sac outlets, I get a free fodder token with them. The deck ran a whole lot smoother with this. I just had to add one or two tutors so I could find teysa, but here is the thing, the deck works just fine without her now. Obviously it goes off when she arrives, but with the free vampire tokens, and the 3-4mana cards which give me 2extra tokens, can be replaced with 1-2 mana vampires for almost the same amount of value.
I need to put more cards thats make tokens into my Commissar Severina Raine deck, its a problem I've found constantly that there's just not enough tokens.
I love using outdated or “old” cards. When I was building my Galazeth deck when he was released I made him my dragons approach commander. I wanted a deck that had “more than one card with the same name” deck. I saw all the damage red spells did and wondered if blue did that. Finally I found Mind Bomb. A blue card that also did 3 damage just like my dragons approach deck. (Wasn’t until recently I saw Rachel Weeks ALSO built Galazeth and ALSO put Mind Bomb in it. Great minds think alike I guess.
Another oldie I LOVE is Insight. A blue enchantment that draws you a card when an opponent plays a green spell. In certain games this card is better than Rhystic study. You don’t have to ask to draw. You just draw if someone plays a green spell. It’s a power house in my Izzet decks bc I have cards that draw and discard. If no one is playing green it’s an easy discard option and I draw two more. OR it gives me so much card draw.
this happened to me when I was trying to build my Felisa deck, it was really not working because I had all these wonderful +1/+1 counters on the creature but no way to sac them. Felisa was sitting there with an useless board.
After putting in some much underwhelming cards to implement the "go tall then go wide" strategy of the deck, everything worked much better.
It's true though that after you count your ramp and your card draw and the usual removals, pretty much 40 cards are already kinda fixed ç_ç so I tend to end up with endless lists where I put everything I like and then take off what is not neeed... it's painstakingly slow ahaha
I think my Ayara deck is the perfect example of something underwhelming but powerful. It’s full of the dinky fodder cards you mentioned for Konrad and has only 3 non basics, but I’ve actually found that all of my incremental advantage lets me run away with many games simply because I’m not doing anything remarkable - just a few life a turn while I draw some cards. It’s oddly satisfying to play
This is so true with my wilhelt deck which always ends up sacrificing nothing at end step before. I Had to add some creatures like lazotep reaver, butcher ghoul etc
Love the highlights for Konrad in here, had chittering witch in my bulk pile for a while now and it definitely works great for Konrad! Will be adding it in for sure!
One of my biggest issues w my liara portyr deck is the amount of value it generates. So many good cards and valid targets that I’ll just kept swept early game
I've had this issue with Kumena Merfolk. Build a board, get a bunch of counters and reach critical mass quickly, and then...boom, boardwipe. And it's hard to rebuild after that, but I still possess an increased threat level because of what people just saw.
One of my favorite commanders is Nekusaur, sure he can be really brutal, but the amount of times I have simply said "do you like phyrexian arena? Ok, why do you wanna kill my commander which gives you one for free?" People tend to blink and change their removals target, people help me keep my card in play, I also run some otherwise mediocre cards, stuff like Temple Bell, howling mine, prosperity, stuff that are in most cases horrible cards but simply allow my deck to do it's thing. Most people are ok with getting to draw 5 cards, lose 5 life and two of their opponents do the same thing.
Another deck I ran in to issues on was Animar, you run in to the "well I want card draw I am in blue, ramp as I am in green... I'm in red... yay?" it ended up having something like 38 lands and 20 non creatures. I finally got to the point where I cut all the non creature spells other than Force of Will, Sylvan Library and Sol Ring. Deck runs so much smoother now and honestly gets to do much more splashy things because my commander is doing what it wants to do.
Your first item in this vid... Same reason I wasn't playing Annointed Procession in my Oketra deck... it's not a creature! Thankful they printed Mondrak though...
My most recent deck is a Dalakos equipment deck and this is a constant battle for me. How many synergies should I play versus how many raw pieces of equipment? Thopter Spy Network is a particular bugaboo. I've pulled that card out and then put it back in so many times.
I made a prossh deck themed around my devour deck i made back in alara days. the first thing I did after putting out all the cards that fit was balance not only payoffs but ramp/removal and token generation because I knew how important it was
Maybe I should recheck my Elrond Master Healer deck I plan on playing this weekend. I know that it is relying a bit on my commander to distribute +1/+1 counters on my creatures, with a large amount of the other cards being things that scry to set it off. I cannot remember how many other cards might give counters themselves.
My gruul hate bears deck is almost exactly what you are talking about. A lot of the cards in the deck get overlooked but after so long they make a big impact. For example harsh mentor
This is where I do find value in goldfishing a deck: What do I need for the strategy, how quickly do I need it and what pieces do I want to have down before my commander comes down on curve?
Do I want a low CMC not-amazing but reliable token generator before Thallise Reverent Medium? Do I need evasive humans to attack with before I cast Trynn and Silvar, etc. I think for a lot of decks these underwhelming cards find themselves in the 2, maybe 3 mana slot as well if you're trying to hit a high volume of Something, and do it quickly to set up.
I was just looking over a ridiculous over-the-top "every card is a combo piece" deck I built with Sharuum in the command zone. It has 36 lands, 48 combo pieces, 10 card advantage mechanisms (draw or tutors), 3 counterspells, and the rest is miscellaneous "give your artifacts or enchantments shroud" stuff or graveyard recursion. I was excited at the goofy idea of piecing together esoteric puzzle pieces in weird ways, but in practice there isn't enough overlap between enablers and payoffs to *goldfish* a win in less than 9 or 10 turns. I love the absurd Rube Goldberg machines I can construct with it, but they're way too fragile to stand up to a table with opponents- even one board wipe resets that 9 or 10 turn clock almost entirely. Regrettably, I probably just need mana rocks and more card draw, and need to pare down the combo pile to closer to 30 cards that all more or less work together instead of pursuing five different strategies at random. That deck is an extreme example, but thanks for highlighting this problem exactly when I'm grappling with it.
this makes me think of my Ramos deck. it's my favorite deck and I love the way it generates +1/+1 counters and then converts them into other resources, but I've went through a lot of revision of trying to balance having enough bodies to carry counters or having enough of said bodies be multicolor.
I chose Mina and Denn over Angry Omnath for this exact reason! And because 4
One of the reasons a friends budget Dina Deck is absolutely the underwhelmingness of the single pieces he deploys.
A welcome fresh difference for us and him too, since he usually Plays breya combo and Atraxa superfriends - with which he gets checked and removed into oblivion
This was a great video! Ive also got tired of "staple" cards, id be building a deck and 20-25 cards would be automatically added just because they were good.
Great video! Now I need to find a way to hide Gishath in plain sight.
My Korvold deck struggled with a “2 sac outlets on the battlefield, nothing I wish to sacrifice for value”. It feels like having big scary guns with no ammo.
Cards like From Beyond fixed this easily.
I’ve definitely had this problem with my wilhelt zombies deck. There’s lots of cards that care about zombies or do things that synergise with zombies that arent actually zombies.
as an artifact player, things like sensei's divining top or if you're in a budget, ancestral statue are NEEDS in a deck where casting artifacts matter the most. Artifacts that make themselves recastable in an artifact deck are very damn gucci
The key to multiplayer is that you need to balance being enough of a threat that people don't want to lose resources going after you while not being so much of a threat that they have to go after you. I've got plenty of decks with must-answer threats, but sometimes I get the most joy out of decks that leverage garbage cards that just aren't worth burning removal on. For example, my Edric deck runs all sorts of crap like Flying Men and Cloud Pirates - no one wants to target them - yet the deck routinely draws 10-15 cards a turn and then overwhelms the table. Granted, it dies horribly to original Elesh Norn, but that's a risk I'm willing to take.
I had a conversation like this earlier this week. Not every deck benefits from being goodstuff. Sure, 5c dragons can pop off because each top deck is a bomb, but synergy and consistency go a very long way. Take voltron decks where the goal is to strap up your commander and go face. If you want to win, you need creatures that you sometimes will need to build up over the commander, usually enablers to the strategy.
I can offer my perspective as someone who primarily plays yugioh. The fodder are basically starters for a line, and the payoff cards are the extenders. Too many starters and you have a high floor, but a low ceiling, too many extenders, and you have an abysmally low floor. You need to balance out both so that your deck is *consistently* able to do the thing you want it to do.
Shots fired... got called out on 3 decks i've been tinkering with.
Made a breya and was more artificer heavy on first draft than artifiact.
Made a teysa aristocrat deck, more payoff than enabler. Though, i just sack the payoff pieces with the assumption that everything is expendible. But yes, those gears need grease.
Made a minsc & boo +1/+1 counter legends deck... well i haven't finished this one yet but i can assure you my course is shifting slightly after this video.
Thank you my man. Any chance you could go into recommended ratio numbers? X-X recommended sac outlets Y-Y of them should be free, Z-Z blood artist effects, A-A fodder, etc.
Functional hexproof is such a good term. Same way I rarely run greaves or boots. People will care more about what they can't remove than what they should
Cards like Marsh Flitter and Sengir Autocrat are great examples of cards that don’t seem amazing but which are absolute bangers in the right deck (aristocrats, in this case). I ended up cutting more overtly powerful cards for fodder cards like that in my aristocrats decks (Szat/Kodama, Teysa, Orzhov Scion) and have never regretted that choice.
very good video!
The first thing is to determine if your commander is a payoff or an engine, then you put more of the other in the 99.
Exactly. This guy gets it :)
at all i like the video. im lucky to already learned this lesson.
the only small issue: i dont like the "hide under others" strat. yes its legit, but it easyly can cause an arms race situation.
btw joey how do you handle arms race? (would be happy to see a video about that)
thanks for helping out on being a better human being or at least a better magic player :D
I share an Aesi list and deck with my wife, and she is less of a rules and mechanics savvy kind of player. I've found that keeping that landfall list at about 40 lands works better for her, and also pays off better for me when I take the pilot seat. Your deck needs payoff, absolutely. But you need your fuel. Landfall needs lands, aristocrats needs sacrificial creatures, spell slinger needs cantrips, etc.
I really appreciate these videos that give fundamental deck building insight...even if they do boil down to "you should eat your vegetables". :)
My Edgar Charmed Groom deck always plays better when I get the small inconspicuous vampires out first. I'm not kidding when I say Adanto Vanguard is one of the strongest cards in my deck because it's both hard to remove and not enough of a threat on it's own to bother with, so it stays on the board and gets work done
this was my problem with my dalakos deck. I was drawing way too many artifact payoffs to justify keeping them all. I might just build two decks for each of my commanders at this point, with all the extra cards in my collection XD
Mycosynth Lattice obviously solves the artifacts problem, but the obvious drawback is there can only be one in the deck.
As an artifact player since the beginning i can say, you are so right.
Oh, ban Scute swarm though. Heh.
Well thats the thing for me. I usually play decks where all the Fodder and the smaller cards ARE what the deck is trying to do. A example being my newest deck Anikthea...Alot of the cards and payoffs in the deck are enchantments that buff or add effects to creatures and large boards. So the rest of the deck is made to use Anikthea and other cards to turn those enchantments into creatures themselves. So the cards that boost creatures now boost themselves...and they all get all the other effects as well.!
Recently I've been brewing a peruvian commander jumpstart cube and there are three factors that have pushed me to pick weird cards.
Budget - finding good cards in the draft bin is fun. Who knew Arni Metalbrow would fit a dragon tribal deck?
Monocoled themes - specific to the format, halfdecks are, usually, monocolored. This allows bulk legendaries shine.
WEIRD THEMES - I made a dice deck, it's 20% uncards. I have also seeded these in Auras, Hydras and blue number tribal. Lulz ensue.
Most decks should actually be mostly these kind of role players. Most card draw, ramp and removal fits this category. No one is excited to put swords to plowshares in their deck but cards of that nature just tend to be very valuable. Same goes for most mana rocks and generic draw engines. Having cards and mana is what allows you to play splashy cards so its vital to play some.
I like the term “vegetables” and “desserts”. Plenty of people come to EDH for desserts but you gotta eat your veggies 🥦
I tend to gravitate towards stupidly good value-generating COmmanders, like Mishra, Eminent One & Etali, Primal Conqueror. But in these two especially, the rest of the deck is pretty tame & only really shines because of who's in command. THe best/most exciting card in Mishra is probably Ichor freaking Wellspring because it draws 2 extra cards per turn. & I've build my Etali-deck as a weird form of Gruul "Blink", which just isn't a thing. There's pretty much every card in there, that allows me to create a copy of Etali (or any one of the other like 17 creatures with ETBs), to just abuse his broken effect a bunch of times. Of course, those two especially are still scary in the command zone, but what keeps the decks up and running is all the junk that happens around them and that on its own would never raise an eyebrow.
My favorite aristocrats fodder card: weaponcraft enthusiast. It is (i think still) the only 3-drop creature that makes two tokens on etb.
Challenge the stats: Ruthless Technomancer in Urza, Chief Artificer. Sac a construct token to double the power of each other construct and create treasure equal to number of artifacts. Shows up in only 87 Urza decks, 0.003%
This is why my Meren deck ended up at ~55 creatures in the 99, and if I get around to it, I'll shave even more non-creatures out for creatures.
Also, Joey, if a card seems obviously bad but plays suspiciously good, it's probably a decent card and you (and probably many others) were just wrong to clown on it so hard. For example, Doom Blade is a bad card in Commander, but throw it in a deck that's short of removal and it will win you the odd game, ergo it's not actually a bad card, it's a role filler, as long as you still need more fillers for that role adding even bad examples will usually improve the deck, just not as much as a truly good card could have. I would think that those 'make some dorks on ETB' creatures you enjoyed adding so much are filling a necessary role in the deck, that of providing grain for your 'mill' to process, so I think the concept holds. In a 99 driven deck (Gladiator type Commander where you run the worst Commanders available to your colours), filling all your deck's roles is way, way more important because your Commander is usually nothing but a clunky beater, that's how I ended up thinking this way more, but this is also how I've ended up with decks that are at the higher end of 'how many wipes is okay to run?', some decks just love to control the board and something like Necromantic Selection exists and must see play!
I love tedious 'is this worth a removal' type bodies, Gorilla Shaman is probably a better card than most people realize, especially if you're hitting your land drops and your opponent is one of those 'I'll be fine with 31 lands' types that run 12 mana rocks. I run it and Banshee in a deck, both are suspiciously useful, and both have required removal in 1v1 playtest games, removal on a stick is like really bad card advantage.
It's easy to get seduced by the exponentiality of strong engine cards and forget the fuel you actually need to power them, or theorycraft your plans to involve only your most potent resource generators - Tombstone Stairwell may be incredibly powerful for Zombies or Aristocrats, but half of your games will never see it and as many others will see it promptly killed. Aside from good synergy trying to get cards that can fulfil multiple of your value conditions at once - Ozolith the Shattered Spire instead of Nylea's Bow or such in your +1/+1 example - a good test for me has been asking myself what a card does when it's by itself. Some are perfectly fine; Walking Ballista is a +1/+1 staple and wincon and still fine as a standaloen creature that takes potshots when it eats removal. Some are so strong that they've earned their place; Mondrak or Drivnod are effectively weak vanillas when they aren't doubling, but doubling is so strong they get to stay. Some aren't just bad but outright traps; Primal Vigor is extremely strong when it's online, but if you have nothing to double you may be feeding an opponent a win.
One of my new deck rules has been that if a card does nothing by itself, it has to basically lock in a win with multiple other cards to get to stay, and I have to strictly limit how many are in the deck. It means I've been having slightly fewer hyper-turns when everything goes perfectly and nobody knows what hit them, but basic play is much smoother and I have far fewer games where I'm not dead yet but am still effectively out of the game.
One downside of this strategy of playing underwhelming cards that I have experienced twice firsthand, is that people will react very poorly when they feel like they're losing to "Bad" cards. I've had to leave two tables and had to deal with a lot of mean comments from a third table because one person was salty after losing.
Sounds like a skill issue on their part
GREAT VIDEO!!! A+
Another advantage of "underwhelming" cards is that they don't look threatening on the battlefield. So you don't get targeted as much when you have them
Underwhelming Cards
I like the little stuff sometimes, like skeletons and zombies who reanimate themselves. They're my go-to for aristocrats (or just as a value generation strategy), and I'll even put in at least 10 or 15 cards in the deck which possibly do what they do... AND even benefit from what they do.
Maybe green is better for removing non-creature annoyances on the battlefield, but Gilanra and Vial Smasher would rather have a couple common rarity chonky beholders with different ETB modes instead of a Woodfall Primus. Also, I enjoy the idea of giving the other colors a chance to shine, which is why the deck just sucked as Shattergang Brothers aristocrats, even with Parallel Lives, Doubling Season, and Ashnod's Altar.
Speaking of underwhelming legends, Varis (Silverymoon Ranger) still managed to be an at least somewhat decent elf deck, but people see the dungeons instead of Ellywick Tumblestrum and mono-green Ezuri. +8/+8, trample, haste, AND elf mana is no joke.
Literally, my mishra retro frame mishra deck😢😢😢
I want to make a token deck, but im running into this issue. I have payoffs from all 5 colors.
I think im gonna have to make 3 different decks just to properly fit them all.