I think people underestimate the advantages of playing the game from a different angle, or with an intentional restriction. There's an elegance to simplicity.
You'll only ever be able to do that once. Or once per play group. Once people learn you could just kill them easily with commander damage when they thought you where trying to help them out they're probably not going to take the bait again.
@@toolittletoolate You could make a deal with them. As in: "I will not butt it this turn, if you let it through" or even "I promise not to kill you this turn" and then dealing only 20 commander damage (:
@@toolittletoolate I do have a variant of this deck (Xyris with Combat Buffs, not a Xyris wheel deck) since like 2021 or smth, and it works and has been since then. People do want to have cards, and people are willing to risk some damage for cards
In the world of Magic, having someone build a spite deck after a disagreement you've had with them is the highest compliment one can receive. Also, Jack seems pretty cool
@@fairygoodmuller8065 ooooh, yeah the Reaper King is a spicy card. I take it he went the changeling tribal route due to there not being a ton of scarecrow support?
One of my friends tells me I play mtg wrong. For context, I played sparingly in my youth but was never quite as hooked on the game as other tcgs like yugioh and stuff until the unfinity set came out and I loved the space carnival esthetic as well as the art style of the alt cards. So I make commander decks using the eternal legal commanders from that set and try my damndest to break them or make them good, my friend hates it but I'm gonna keep going till I have one for every eternal legal legendary in the set. Like toy maker/ liquid metal combos using Captian Rex Nebula as the medium.
The "infinite resources" perception is so fun to leverage I have a Yorion blink deck, and just leaving 3 mana open with 5 cards in hand sends opponents into a tailspin "This removal is useless, he has a flicker or a counterspell" is a phrase I've heard too many times to count
@@Aigis31 I had written a whole reply but it seems like it got deleted because it had a link to the decklist Sadge It is my first deck ever I've built, I've tinkered it a lot, it's my baby at this point. I don't have a lot of the expensive cards that I'd ultimately like to put in (talking things like fetches or Solitude) because I'd like to build it in paper at some point. I basically play it as a heavy control deck, I run a TON of card draw and interaction/removal; the best way I've found to play is sort of hang back at the start and then take down the first person to pop off, taking advantage of the time you're gonna get left alone since you're helping taking down the threat. By the time you have a set board with Yorion in play it's very hard to interact with you in a successful way. The idea is that single target flickers on Yorion turn into boardwide blinks, which is doubly useful as both a lot of value and protection from interaction, including boardwipes (because stuff comes back on endstep, the boardwipe will miss everything but yorion himself), eventually even your own wipes. Yorion can blink any nonland permanent, particularly your mana rocks, which allows you to tap out but still retain mana for following turns. I generally win through sheer attrition (exhausting their resource through reusing etb removals) and the implied eventual Yorion beatdown, up to looping Agent of Treachery to chain steal their best permanents, but I do have 2 infinites that I get to use reasonably often. Peregrine drake+Archaeomancer+Ghostly Flicker+any ETB draw Preston the Vanisher+Felidar Guardian+Any land+any ETB draw+ a way to flicker the Guardian once to start the loop These get me both infinite mana and infinite draws, with the payoff being Blue sun's Zenith (to deck everyone else) I like them because all the cards are individually quite useful (the worst is Zenith, which can still be quite useful if I get a bit stranded to refill) The deck is built for consistency and resiliency, it may not be extremely powerful but I will get to meaningfully be part of the game basically every time. It's also quite resilient, a decent amount of redundancy and some recursion, with high amounts of card draw, means it's hard to put me down for good (plus as I said once setup I'm very hard to actually remove in the first place) I also like that I'm not too reliant on my commander, which is why I went for Yorion over something like Brago; in fact, I have won quite a few games before casting Yorion once, since it's manly there to pull double duty as a big value turn and pseudo protection/multiplier for my blink cards. I've been eyeing some cards to swap out, mainly tech cards that I've found not useful, but unfortunately I don't get to play this deck as much as I'd like to (commander players LOATHE control so I try to mix it up) Unfortunately I can't post a link to the list it seems. If you want I can just comment the whole decklist here, I guess?
No fear, make them have the answer. If they do have the flicker/counterspell, the card is a brick anyway outside of niche situations where you're using your hand to discard for value. If they don't, it wasn't useless. If you wait because you're scared and are waiting for them to make a mistake, that gives the opponent time to draw the card that you were worried they had.
LOL three people in a pod, just politic with those three to force all the cards out of your hand. Out of 5 cards, the possibility of you having enough interaction and open mana to respond to three different forms of removal/interaction is minimal.
Woah, wild to see the best creepypasta content creator in a mtg comment section. I agree with you, this commander is so cool. I played him with a bunch of wheel effects so I would make maximum snake bois.
What's also kind of crazy to think about is how Xyris makes the worst buffs playable. Instant buffs are inherently balanced around the idea that they're one-time use. As a result, on a single turn basis, a buff generally provides more stats per mana spent than equipment or enchantments. On most creatures, a buff is an inherent card disadvantage unless using that buff lets you destroy one or more other creatures (eg., combat trick). In commander, this is further exacerbated by the fact that there are triple the amount of cards in play from an opponent. Xyris turns a 1-mana +3/+3 into "draw three cards". Feather already sees a ton of play turning buffs from -1 to 0 in card advantage. Xyris turns cheap buffs into straight up card draw advantage, while also making snake tokens. And the cherry on top? Apparently, your friend has managed to make his opponents *happy* that Xyris is smacking them.
The sheer audacity of tricking someone into protecting your commander who's halfway to killing them is amazing. Being happy about it is one thing, I'll take the cards for 3 damage two or three times happily. But spending cards to protect it, when I'm one hit from dying to commander damage (assuming they have 2 buff spells)? Insane.
It reminds me of my friend's Lathiel deck, which turns lifegain into 1/1 counters. An unplayable card that only gains you five life for one mana now gives a creature five counters for one mana. Some of the best commanders are the ones that make bad cards good.
@@LibertyMonk Sure, you're spending a card to protect it... but that's because you'll get to draw cards next time Xyris attacks you, so when you really think about it isn't that negate just a delayed two-mana draw-five? (NOTE: Hand size doesn't matter if you lose to commander damage.)
You start out by not buffing it. 3 damage doesn't worry anyone, and 3 cards? Wow, you might be their best friend! And all you're doing really is making a finite number of 1/1s, and drawing some cards to do that more. Later on, you discover that snakes are actually not anyone's friend.
Since the deck was so cheap, and I had most of the cards already, I threw this one together and played a few games with some friends. Man, this deck is super fun and can easily knock out opponents. You always have something to do, and people love drawing those cards. Thanks Hans for proving your friends wrong and making a super awesome deck.
I love Xyris, they are my baby. I have a deck more built around the snake tokens, and when I heard the "Does anyone want to draw some cards" line I laughed, cause I say that all the time
I even spice it up mine with a bit of all-player ramp and tutors, as there are several win cons in the deck that just suddenly throw out wins after a Wheel effect (Impact Tremors, Purphuros, Devlish Valet) so I tell the group "Ok, I'm going to give you all the card draw and ramp your deck needs, if you can't beat me by the time I assemble a handful of pieces then idk it's kind of your fault."
You absolute gigachad even provided the deck list. Never would've thought about buff spells in a Xyris deck, but in retrospect, it makes a lot of sense.
Fascinating. I really ought to learn this stuff more intensely in order to incorporate these lessons into my own playing, but it's a lot to wrap my head around
The core tenets are: 1: Don't use power unless you're willing to be "the threat" or "the archenemy". 2: Silver linings (without going all the way to group hug) are a major political tool in FFA formats. 3: Make the deck predictable, so people don't remember that one time you got lucky. Performing the same way every time lulls them into false security. 4: Seriously, check your curve, your mana base, and card selection. These boring things are the easiest way to make a deck stronger without anyone noticing.
Our playgroup has a very similar dynamic with Gor Muldrak, piloted by my friend. This deck probably wins 60-70% of its games because none of its abilities are particularly spicy or noteworthy and it hands out free 4/3 blocking/attacking fodder. Why worry about the player whose creatures can change the creature type of another creature, when someone else has buffed merfolk tokens everywhere. The game usually ends up at a point where they have sailed through to the final two players before everyone realises they were probably set to win for the last 2 or 3 turns.
Buff spells were really important in Standard for a while. Heroic was a playable deck in 2014, and cards like Defiant Strike were incredibly important to winning with the deck. Hell, that entire deck I took out of the bulk bin and won both standard tournaments and took games mercilessly in modern.
I love the Ezuri-Kyler scale. It perfectly explains what I enjoy about my 5C dungeon deck: it's slow, but the value is ongoing. The featured deck is also a perfect example of an important Commander principle: the best ways to win are 1) make a deck so good that 3 opponents trying their best can't possibly beat you (i.e., lie about power level) or 2) incrementally build value so that you're still ahead when the dust clears. Great stuff.
First time on your channel. Great video, great analysis on a not so common deck. Keep it up. Subbed. Ps.: i will probably build the deck myself to try it. I would be curious what the would look like with a little more budget thrown in to it.
Great video🎉 Your summary reminded me of the nelly precon, wich I enjoy playing a lot. Some of your points might come in handy in its future development
I too have a Xyris deck, but I barely use the commander to draw cards. I call my deck the fun police because it helps struggling players and tries to keep degenerate decks in check with lots of counterspells and removal. I usually just help everyone draw cards and do their thing without being *too* threatening, then cast an overrun with 20-30 snakes and clear the table. My opponents get max 1 round to go from "this dude is helping me do my thing and stopping the Krenko player from killing me" to "hey, he has a lot of snakes, that's a problem" This is an interesting alternative take and I might see how it works in my pod, which is maybe a bit higher power than the deck you outlined.
That also sounds like a solid way to go with Xyris. Hans' version is definitely not wildly strong in the interaction department before turn 5-6, so it probably doesn't work so good if you're trying to play the "no, stop, don't do that" role with some faster decks.
I love your channel. I’ve been off and on magic for quite some time but now I’m sticking with it for good. I like how you approach topics for new players and veterans. Great content. Hope to see this channel have 100k subscribers
Not related to the content of the video, but xyris has been my favorite commander for a while. There are so many different ways to take the deck that span the entire power range without sacrificing fun at any of the levels. My current version is a mill deck that relies on psychic corrosion/altar of the brood and something like prosperity.
Fascinating stuff, and just what the doctor ordered, for me. I just scared my table shitless with a basic/cheap animar deck last weekend, and I was kind of discouraged when I realized I just built a really strong deck on accident. This week I've been looking for a way to build a pretty mid-deck next and this really strikes me as a winner in that category. I really appreciate how fleshed out your information is here. 😊
Ok it's rare that I stick to a video with seemingly poor visuals. Compliment on your content, you really got me hooked. And thanks for making me want to check that deck out, after seeing Xyris every once in a while in action and thinking every time yeah, that seems like fun. But all of those builds were power, your approach is really interesting.
Decks that make for a more fun and interesting game across the table are quickly becoming my favorite category of deck. I'm currently building Kros, Defense Contractor. He'd be a great subject for a video!
Your exploration of Xyris is thoughtful, esp wrt thoughts on cards in hand + card velocity as that's something most people who got into Magic playing casual commander sorely underrate. As an aside, In one of my pods, a player runs Xyris with a bunch of wheels, using commander damage as a back up. I also underestimated Xyris' power until she killed the whole table on turn 6 with Impact Tremors and a pair of wheels. Surprisingly versatile snek
I am tuning a CEDH playable version of what you described. We play weekly and I have been trying to make a wheels deck that can compete with the T1 CEDH decks (Yuriko, Talion, Blue Farm, etc.) decks that everyone brings to the table. Xyris has been the most successful so far
Just goes to show the power of a focused deck. It's like your friend was playing Constructed and put in two playsets of cards that do A, another two that do B, and a third playset that does C. In a 100 card singleton format, one "playset" is ~7 unique cards with similar abilities, and two "playsets" is ~13. So when you're drafting a card list, just say to yourself "I need 13 cards each that do this, that, and the other thing," and you'll have a very consistent deck.
Yeah, ~40 cards to move your gameplan, ~40 more as a mana base (lands + ramp/fast mana) and 20 slots for removal and pet cards usually results in some very focused lists
@zakading you want more ramp than that especially if you are green. I typically run 10-14 ramp cards (rocks, spells, and dorks) in any deck that isnt below average mana curve. It keeps you resistant to boardwipes and from losing to commander getting zapped.
@@Zakading I think 36 is the most lands i would run in a deck. Even in my highest curve deck (ur dragon) i run 36. At some point you either are maintaining land drops through card draw or are generating mana in better ways and would rather be finding good cards. I run proxies and full fetches which helps thin out the deck too
@@Aaron0000014 In the end it still all comes down to what a deck needs, and it's gonna be different every time. 39 is the most lands I run in a deck, and it's actually one of my lowest curves. I run that many lands because I don't run the ramp, i don't run the ramp because i just want to 1-2-3-4
I had a Kalamax Buff spells deck that runs a lot of the same cards here and while I loved all the cards, it became a Voltron deck as Kalamax was always the best target instead of something like Stormchaser drake. So I took it apart. But I feel inspired now to do my own take on Xyris Buff spells. Great video!
Yes! Xyris is my favourite deck. I play it more group huggy. Enchantments that allow everyone to draw an extra card each turn, get everything set up so people draw a bunch of extra cards each turn and then play out Xyris, creating 2-3 snakes per opponent's turn, and having a hand of protection for Xyris too.
I've had a similar experience with my Sheoldred, the Apocalypse Commander deck. I don't run heaps of wheels like some decks for her do, but I have the usual stuff like Howling Mine. One game I had out Sheoldred and the Court of Ambition. I didn't keep the Monarch status, but that was ok. Between regular draws and the Court's discard or lose 3 life, everyone lost life gradually. Eventually someone pointed out that they were all on low-teens in life and that I was still in high 30's. Sometimes a more subtle approach works really well.
This deck reminds me of a decklist I made around Kharn, the Betrayer, from the 40k Universes Beyond release. Kharn's entire gimmick is that he MUST attack and block at every opportunity, and if he would be dealt damage, he just doesn't take that damage, but instead you hand him off to another player. When you lose control of Kharn, you draw three cards! He's entirely built around a variety of enchantments and equipment that do things when the equipped/enchanted creature deals damage, but specifically AVOIDS cards that GIVE Kharn that ability. Things like Captain's Claws, for example. This means that no matter who controls Kharn, you always get some value out of it. But also, people don't necessarily want to kill it off, because the value it gains is usually fairly minor, and in exchange people are tossing Kharn around the table and drawing a bunch of cards. It's a fun time! Lists like this really feel like what the Commander format was made for, just some weird jank that everyone can have fun with.
BTW i felt convinced by you to reproduce the deck, so I had to ultimately pay, more than what he likely spent (about 70 total but for someone who only just got back into after decades I consider it worth it)but i felt happy to go for this one as my first one i bought pieces for building. I just hope it works in my own casual commander setting :P Any tips would help but im getting most from this video alone :)
This is interesting as both a fan of Xyris who never built a Xyris deck and as someone whose local play group just started a budget commander night. I might have to try this out and modify it for how my group plays!
4:17 This in yugioh we call the Honest effect! There is a monster card called Honest you can discard whenever a monster you own with the Light attribute is fighting, and it lets your monster gain as much attack power as the monster it is fighting, effectively turning even the most horrendously outmached fight into a winning one. As players grew wiser, a saying crystalized: "Always assume your opponent has an Honest in their hand" I wanted to mention it because that fear of interacting with the buff decks monsters really reminded me of this interaction in yugioh
I’ve build a Xyris Deck, and I can tell you for a certainty it’s one of the funniest decks I have ever played. I go for normal wheels and such, but I never thought of Buff Spells as an option 🤔
I pulled this off with a Marchesa deck many years ago. It was about $30-$40 bucks and just ran a lot of steal and sac outlets. People seemed to focus on the price of my deck and deem it not a threat, or see some of my low-end creatures and not worry about me.
Excellent video. I bought and upgraded the "Silverquill Statement" precon from Strixhaven, and it honestly plays similarly. Drawing your opponents cards is massively advantageous in Commander, and I can win despite being completely up-front with my win-con: "I'm going to use Breena triggers to draw cards and build an army of fliers to beat you all down. Make use of the Breena triggers yourself if you'd like; my game plan is the same either way."
I built a Xyris deck, but I advertise mine as ‘Temur Nekusar’ it’s far more wheel heavy with a bunch of go wide pay offs such as Shared Animosity, Cryptolith Rite, or Impact Tremors. This take on the deck is also super cool, I enjoy seeing buff spells get used, I’ve got tons rolling around in my bulk boxes.
This is the kind of deck that got me into magic in the first place, I might have to build one for myself. I've been looking for a temur deck that isn't the tyranid precon.
I run a Xyris deck too! It's also my playgroups "strongest deck" with an almost complete cedh Najeela at the table as well. The deck has become a super villain at the table and is usually the focus if ever played. When we went to the con it did great at every competitive table. He's very slept on. My deck is a wheel deck though.
I built this deck when Xyris first came out. It was my favorite deck for a while. Quite a fun build. One thing you can do is add a mill subtheme since your opponents draw so many cards.
I run Xyris at the head of my "Group Hug" Deck, My group loves to see him come out cause early game I tend to ramp everyone's mana and refill hands constantly, but the red part of the deck is full of punishing spells and effects, every one knows that letting me live is playing with fire but they always want to push their luck, on more than one occasion I wiped the entire table with one big play all cause they let me live too long lol so...who wants to draw some cards?
I feel like this functions very similarly to the minsc and boo cedh deck. That one misses blue but most of the buff spells are in red green anyways. Thats a deck that can get some seriously high value out of some good buff spells and can be made for about as cheap as this deck, or can be ramped up to a turbo expensive and incredibly competitive list.
this is the type of deck i would love to see tuned up and piloted at a cedh table. going all in on the commander like that is super super risky and currently probably a bit too vulnerable to be good but there’s a vision
One of my favorite decks is an artisan Rigo deck with a focus on 1 power flyers and buffing them after they've attacked and triggered Rigo. Typical combat step would be attacking with an innocuous amount of damage and then making it a lot of damage out of nowhere
I play Rielle, the Everwise as my Buff spells tribal deck. It allows me to pivot into combo is commander damage doesn't get there because the board got clunky or I got Rielle tied up some other way. I loved playing it and it came from my Pauper edh deckfrom years ago: Spellheart Chimera. Which was a deck that kicked a lot of ass
This makes me happy since my first deck was a buff spells combo deck from strixhaven standard. To be fair though it was also a storm deck with show of confidence.
Funny, a while ago I was thinking of making a buff spellslinger deck with Maarika or Xyris. Super cheap to make, and indeed quite non-threathening....until it's not. I went for Maarika because she had some protection on my turn and inbuild removal and it slaps hard out of nowhere. I will turn it into Xyris after playing a bit more with it. The token making is a good alt win con with things like impact tremor and such
On the no hand size thing being a sign of how the deck works, and it being a bit of a problem for the deck, I think just having Thought Vessel is a good idea. I don't know about you guys, but if I see a Thought Vessel, I never assume it's to be a part of the plan. I always think of it as just a colorless mana that is "Just in case I get some big draw." I run one in a couple decks just because I can potentially have like 10 cards, but it's never the goal to have that. The only time I worry about hand size is if Reliquary Tower comes out, since lands are a bit harder to get rid of, so I assume they really want it around. I figure even a few turns of slightly larger hands to play with is worth having it on your board until you draw 20 cards and the others realize the problem. Since discarding to 7 is already kind of accounted for it's not a big deal to lose Thought Vessel, and by then you are hopefully in a good enough spot that you don't need those cards anyways. Maybe that's just me though.
I have a deck that operates like this as well, that runs at a higher power level. Queen Kayla bin Kroog w/ Zirda companion. It’s another high velocity deck that stores value in its hand, but it adds to the somewhat difficult to interact with resource accumulation areas by storing cards in the graveyard, or underneath a bag of holding. Bag of holding is *very* unassuming
This is the same sort of strategy my Vazi deck uses; except with trying to figure out how to make a consistent stream of treasures. I might try this one; it looks rad.
I'm not a commander player, but I love to run this archetype in constructed, I remember when dragons of tarkir was in rotation I've won so many games with my jeskai illusive spellfist deck just pumping him up and the deck was just stitched together from bulk cards I had from being at locals twice, so the price was prob lower then buying lunch at a supermarket. This commander deck looks like so much fun playing it, not necessarily for the opponents just randomly dying left and right.
youtube really wanted me to watch this video, like it's been at the top of my recs for maybe 4 days at this point. I used to play a lot of magic but haven't for months so i just wanted to note how much the algorithm pushed your video on me lol. It was a pretty good video, just I'm not much of a magic nerd anymore
I've found incredible success with the similar concept of "looking unassuming" while playing a custom Hearthstone deck of mine. Being able to fake out your opponent is very useful, especially when you're playing a very careful resource balancing game. The Rogue class has tons and tons of draw in Wild, and features some crazy OTK decks, but it also has a lot of incredibly aggressive aggro decks featuring weapons and pirates. My trick is that those same weapon/pirate decks can run a huge amount of card draw, which I use to enable an OTK combo that works reliably due to the large amount of draw. My deck looks like a badly built wild weapon deck, right up until I OTK the opponent on turn 7. I think my deck needs the fakeout to win against most non-aggro decks, since most opponents never play anti-combo cards against my deck. Anti-combo cards usually help aggro decks by putting resources on the board. Playing aggro means they're usually fishing for control cards that don't save them from my OTK, and they're spending resources on surviving the aggression, rather than trying to stop the OTK. I've ran other OTK decks with a pure draw engine without the aggressive play style, and those decks tend to get hit with OTK disruption far more often, because the opponent knows that they only need to play anti-combo cards to win. Opponents will take the riskier plays that disrupt my combo, since that's the only way I win. But with aggro, opponents waste a lot of resources and time trying to survive against the aggression, thinking that's my game plan, even though I'm going to OTK them the next turn. They were playing the wrong game the whole time.
On the same note I built a bulk Baeloth Noble Heritage deck overnight as a joke. My table usually underestimates boros as a whole, add to that everyone seeing me running almost all basics and the most limited kind of cards, everyone was willing to take my deals until it was too late.
I was happy to see Shore Up make an appearance in this deck. I think it’s a totally underrated combat trick / protection spell that’s totally slept on. Untapping a creature as a surprise blocker can be huge. It’s cool to see so many initially unassuming cards packed together into a successful deck.
There's a pretty powerful/scary Xyris deck in my play group, but it almost always makes for fun games because it has a lot of effects that make everyone draw cards, or get more mana, etc. The games ramp up pretty quick and everyone kind of gets to do their thing much faster than they normally would. But if no one deals with the Xyris player, they'll run away with the game.
i always loved xyris as a commander and i should def try this idea for a deck. my normal xyris is a snake tribal, making everyone draw and profiting with my million snakes and draw into lord effects for my snakes
My deck is sort of like this. In the end, regulars at my LGS would warn players who were unfamiliar with my deck to watch it, because it's a lot scarier than it looks. Since we're a pretty high-power playgroup, these new players were coming to a game against Atraxa and Yuriko only to be told "keep an eye on that Mishra, Eminent One deck; it's scary". Velocity plays a huge part in it.
I built Xyris as soon as I got my hands on the precon. My deck cares a lot about card draw with wheels and snake tribal buffs. Xyris gives you the option of having a fun EDH game or ruthless cEDH match depending on how you play it.
Buff spells are a blast, and I will die on this hill! I prefer to go Bant over Jeskai colors though, because you can use White protection spells and buff spells to play it a lot more safely. My personal favorite deck is Derevi, and it uses buff spells on evasive creatures as it's main wincon. I see the appeal of Xyris though, that card is bonkers.
Buff spells are great. I think Sergeant John Benton is probably the best way to make this specific deck, Xyris just ended up being the pick because my friend had already built the deck in Temur colors.
I have a Xyris deck... Mine is more of a wheel/ go wide with win-cons like (Purphuros/Thassa's Orracle/Shared Animosity/Beast Masters Ascension) while adding high value cards like (Teferi's Puzzle Box/Kindred Discorvery/Ashnod's Altar/Kodoma of the East Tree), things that give my deck flash to do all of it on others turns when threatened (Leyline of Anticipation/Alchemist's Refuge)... and it is a CRAZY value engine.
This deck is so fun I think I'm going to make it again. My favorite combo is using a wheel and Mystic Reflection and making 21 copies of any non-legendary creature on the battlefield. Sticky Fingers is a nice card as it gives evasions, ramp, and a card draw once it gets destroyed for just one mana.
Very interesting thing to watch. This reminds me of my Niv-mizzet Reborn deck. It's a deck I build out of bulk and its theme is jus ravnica and two color cards. Plenty of limited only played cards and gates jank (no maze's end, that is too high of a profile cards for the table). It normally just plays basic magic, put cards on the board and occasionally swing, but because of what the commander does it tends to refill the hand just regularly enough that it ends up pulling ahead on resources and has a surprising number of wins. And it's never perceived as a threat as it has no combos, no massive synergy, no hyper ramp etc. it just keeps chugging while other players wipe each others' more dangerous resources out and I end up beating them with my angel of despair or other such junk. Anyways, thanks for this vid, interesting stuff.
I love pump spells. Especially like primal bellows! The opponent expects only to take 1 damage and all of a sudden it's 9+ and it's difficult to block even if you know it's coming. Then using something like Over Run or Life's Legacy with it.
I actually run a very similar deck. My favorite deck is a Kalamax Stormsire deck. All of those cheap cantrips you just listed off are even better when you get to cast them twice :)
I'm obsessed with building decks based around mechanics I've heard other people talk shit about. I have a shades deck I built for that reason and it stomps and stomps HARD frequently killing players in 4 turns (it's not EDH, though). I also have a deck built entirely around making me hard to attack for the same reason and it routinely wins games without ever being touched. I also have a blue/white reanimator that casts creatures from exile because someone said that Eternal Scourge sucked and, finally, I have a deck built entirely around Necromancer's Stockpile because...well you get it.
i'm slow at making edh decks so i'm still in the process of making my 13th+yaz deck. a problem i noticed during the precon battles i had was that my hand was very high in size because i would rather play the cards in the top of the deck. i think i want to solve part of the problem by playing cards that "you can play an additional land" but maybe not having the cards that that say "you don't have a maximum hand size" is probably good both for cascade (i cascade into something better) and for flashback (discarding cards with flashback) :3c
Built this deck card for card. After 5 pods with a variation of power levels and budgets ( and as always the cheapest deck at the table) I have a 4/5 (80% win rate) i also put the deck in Christmas flavoured sleeves and stuck a Santa hat sticker on the commanders sleeve. The ridiculousness has played into enhancing the videos strategy. 👌👌👌
![BOWKYLION - ส่วนต่าง (do it without me) [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/7x-pwcMopzE/mqdefault.jpg)
Note to self: if I'm ever losing to a deck in my playgroup make a video essay on why that deck is the threat.
If a friend of mine did a video essay on a deck I made I would consider it the best compliment I ever got, win rate be damned
I mean, if it’s an interesting social topic, yeah?
my play group hates my angel deck, they sadly never made an essay about it
Even if just for learning how to play better against your friends new deck, not a bad idea!
I think people underestimate the advantages of playing the game from a different angle, or with an intentional restriction. There's an elegance to simplicity.
"Who wants to draw cards? Oh you do? Okay, draw 21"
You'll only ever be able to do that once. Or once per play group. Once people learn you could just kill them easily with commander damage when they thought you where trying to help them out they're probably not going to take the bait again.
@@toolittletoolate You could make a deal with them. As in: "I will not butt it this turn, if you let it through" or even "I promise not to kill you this turn" and then dealing only 20 commander damage (:
i mean ultimately they are just playing a xyris deck as intended. the ability is literally printed on the card.
@@toolittletoolate I do have a variant of this deck (Xyris with Combat Buffs, not a Xyris wheel deck) since like 2021 or smth, and it works and has been since then. People do want to have cards, and people are willing to risk some damage for cards
@@edhdeckbuilding All abilities are printed on cards.
In the world of Magic, having someone build a spite deck after a disagreement you've had with them is the highest compliment one can receive.
Also, Jack seems pretty cool
lol, my friend built the reaper king just for me after i strip-locked him XD i love him
@@fairygoodmuller8065 ooooh, yeah the Reaper King is a spicy card. I take it he went the changeling tribal route due to there not being a ton of scarecrow support?
ehhhhhhh. maybe if you're friends with the player. we have a douchebag guy who does spite decks. i'm his current target and it's nothing but annoying
Jack IS awesome even though Hans is getting all the credit here 😊
One of my friends tells me I play mtg wrong. For context, I played sparingly in my youth but was never quite as hooked on the game as other tcgs like yugioh and stuff until the unfinity set came out and I loved the space carnival esthetic as well as the art style of the alt cards. So I make commander decks using the eternal legal commanders from that set and try my damndest to break them or make them good, my friend hates it but I'm gonna keep going till I have one for every eternal legal legendary in the set.
Like toy maker/ liquid metal combos using Captian Rex Nebula as the medium.
“He went for Temur colors…”
And that’s how we knew it could only be a product on utmost evil. Nothing good comes of giving the Simic red mana.
Nothing good comes of giving the Gruul Clans blue mana.
lol!
Nothing good comes of giving the Izzet green mana.
Because ferocious!!1
or giving the gruul blue mana
The "infinite resources" perception is so fun to leverage
I have a Yorion blink deck, and just leaving 3 mana open with 5 cards in hand sends opponents into a tailspin
"This removal is useless, he has a flicker or a counterspell" is a phrase I've heard too many times to count
Ooh Yorion sounds fun. Do you have a deck list I could view?
@@Aigis31 I had written a whole reply but it seems like it got deleted because it had a link to the decklist Sadge
It is my first deck ever I've built, I've tinkered it a lot, it's my baby at this point.
I don't have a lot of the expensive cards that I'd ultimately like to put in (talking things like fetches or Solitude) because I'd like to build it in paper at some point.
I basically play it as a heavy control deck, I run a TON of card draw and interaction/removal; the best way I've found to play is sort of hang back at the start and then take down the first person to pop off, taking advantage of the time you're gonna get left alone since you're helping taking down the threat. By the time you have a set board with Yorion in play it's very hard to interact with you in a successful way.
The idea is that single target flickers on Yorion turn into boardwide blinks, which is doubly useful as both a lot of value and protection from interaction, including boardwipes (because stuff comes back on endstep, the boardwipe will miss everything but yorion himself), eventually even your own wipes.
Yorion can blink any nonland permanent, particularly your mana rocks, which allows you to tap out but still retain mana for following turns.
I generally win through sheer attrition (exhausting their resource through reusing etb removals) and the implied eventual Yorion beatdown, up to looping Agent of Treachery to chain steal their best permanents, but I do have 2 infinites that I get to use reasonably often.
Peregrine drake+Archaeomancer+Ghostly Flicker+any ETB draw
Preston the Vanisher+Felidar Guardian+Any land+any ETB draw+ a way to flicker the Guardian once to start the loop
These get me both infinite mana and infinite draws, with the payoff being Blue sun's Zenith (to deck everyone else)
I like them because all the cards are individually quite useful (the worst is Zenith, which can still be quite useful if I get a bit stranded to refill)
The deck is built for consistency and resiliency, it may not be extremely powerful but I will get to meaningfully be part of the game basically every time. It's also quite resilient, a decent amount of redundancy and some recursion, with high amounts of card draw, means it's hard to put me down for good (plus as I said once setup I'm very hard to actually remove in the first place)
I also like that I'm not too reliant on my commander, which is why I went for Yorion over something like Brago; in fact, I have won quite a few games before casting Yorion once, since it's manly there to pull double duty as a big value turn and pseudo protection/multiplier for my blink cards.
I've been eyeing some cards to swap out, mainly tech cards that I've found not useful, but unfortunately I don't get to play this deck as much as I'd like to (commander players LOATHE control so I try to mix it up)
Unfortunately I can't post a link to the list it seems. If you want I can just comment the whole decklist here, I guess?
@@Aigis31 Maybe you can find it like this, on deckstats the code is 236714/3149471
No fear, make them have the answer. If they do have the flicker/counterspell, the card is a brick anyway outside of niche situations where you're using your hand to discard for value. If they don't, it wasn't useless. If you wait because you're scared and are waiting for them to make a mistake, that gives the opponent time to draw the card that you were worried they had.
LOL three people in a pod, just politic with those three to force all the cards out of your hand. Out of 5 cards, the possibility of you having enough interaction and open mana to respond to three different forms of removal/interaction is minimal.
I adore when decks use underrated mechanics
And the most important mechanic of all: social interaction with the other players.
Woah, wild to see the best creepypasta content creator in a mtg comment section. I agree with you, this commander is so cool. I played him with a bunch of wheel effects so I would make maximum snake bois.
It's why I love my scry landfall deck. Scry cards are cheap as hell and makes for an incredibly consistent deck
Bro didn’t you groom minors ☠️
Your videos got me through covid mate, cheers
What's also kind of crazy to think about is how Xyris makes the worst buffs playable.
Instant buffs are inherently balanced around the idea that they're one-time use. As a result, on a single turn basis, a buff generally provides more stats per mana spent than equipment or enchantments. On most creatures, a buff is an inherent card disadvantage unless using that buff lets you destroy one or more other creatures (eg., combat trick). In commander, this is further exacerbated by the fact that there are triple the amount of cards in play from an opponent.
Xyris turns a 1-mana +3/+3 into "draw three cards". Feather already sees a ton of play turning buffs from -1 to 0 in card advantage. Xyris turns cheap buffs into straight up card draw advantage, while also making snake tokens.
And the cherry on top? Apparently, your friend has managed to make his opponents *happy* that Xyris is smacking them.
The sheer audacity of tricking someone into protecting your commander who's halfway to killing them is amazing. Being happy about it is one thing, I'll take the cards for 3 damage two or three times happily. But spending cards to protect it, when I'm one hit from dying to commander damage (assuming they have 2 buff spells)? Insane.
"Instant buffs are inherently balanced around the idea that they're one-time use." *laughs in Feather, The Redeemed*
It reminds me of my friend's Lathiel deck, which turns lifegain into 1/1 counters. An unplayable card that only gains you five life for one mana now gives a creature five counters for one mana. Some of the best commanders are the ones that make bad cards good.
@@LibertyMonk Sure, you're spending a card to protect it... but that's because you'll get to draw cards next time Xyris attacks you, so when you really think about it isn't that negate just a delayed two-mana draw-five?
(NOTE: Hand size doesn't matter if you lose to commander damage.)
You start out by not buffing it. 3 damage doesn't worry anyone, and 3 cards? Wow, you might be their best friend! And all you're doing really is making a finite number of 1/1s, and drawing some cards to do that more.
Later on, you discover that snakes are actually not anyone's friend.
"Who wants some cards?"
menacingly stares at the weakest player at the table.
"YOU want some cards."
Since the deck was so cheap, and I had most of the cards already, I threw this one together and played a few games with some friends. Man, this deck is super fun and can easily knock out opponents. You always have something to do, and people love drawing those cards. Thanks Hans for proving your friends wrong and making a super awesome deck.
I love Xyris, they are my baby. I have a deck more built around the snake tokens, and when I heard the "Does anyone want to draw some cards" line I laughed, cause I say that all the time
I play Xyris, and I’m beginning to think it’s a universal phrase for us
Indeed. Forced Fruition is also a beast in there
Helm of the host plus mystic reflection. Swing wkth xyris
I even spice it up mine with a bit of all-player ramp and tutors, as there are several win cons in the deck that just suddenly throw out wins after a Wheel effect (Impact Tremors, Purphuros, Devlish Valet) so I tell the group "Ok, I'm going to give you all the card draw and ramp your deck needs, if you can't beat me by the time I assemble a handful of pieces then idk it's kind of your fault."
Xyris players assemble! I run mine with a strong politics theme :D
This video released just before the premiere of my Xyris group hug deck. I Hope no on catches on to my snake building empire.
Welcome to the dark side
nice, it was probably my next deck as well! would you mind sharing yours? :)
You absolute gigachad even provided the deck list. Never would've thought about buff spells in a Xyris deck, but in retrospect, it makes a lot of sense.
Could you post the deck list? I couldn’t find a link.
Fascinating. I really ought to learn this stuff more intensely in order to incorporate these lessons into my own playing, but it's a lot to wrap my head around
The core tenets are:
1: Don't use power unless you're willing to be "the threat" or "the archenemy".
2: Silver linings (without going all the way to group hug) are a major political tool in FFA formats.
3: Make the deck predictable, so people don't remember that one time you got lucky. Performing the same way every time lulls them into false security.
4: Seriously, check your curve, your mana base, and card selection. These boring things are the easiest way to make a deck stronger without anyone noticing.
This is how it felt winning with my unsleeved volo bulk deck, nobody expects the double paladin of predation toxic win.
oh god, i love my volo deck. how many copys of blightsteel collossus do i want? yes, all of them.
People KNOW Volo needs to be removed, but he's not a problem; until he is. XD
I've always wanted to build this deck.
Seeing how cheap it could be made makes me a lot more enthusiastic about doing that
Our playgroup has a very similar dynamic with Gor Muldrak, piloted by my friend. This deck probably wins 60-70% of its games because none of its abilities are particularly spicy or noteworthy and it hands out free 4/3 blocking/attacking fodder. Why worry about the player whose creatures can change the creature type of another creature, when someone else has buffed merfolk tokens everywhere. The game usually ends up at a point where they have sailed through to the final two players before everyone realises they were probably set to win for the last 2 or 3 turns.
Buff spells were really important in Standard for a while. Heroic was a playable deck in 2014, and cards like Defiant Strike were incredibly important to winning with the deck. Hell, that entire deck I took out of the bulk bin and won both standard tournaments and took games mercilessly in modern.
You can also play it in pioneer where it just got second place at the ProTour
@@ColossaldreadmawOP Niw, certainly. Pioneer didn't exist at the time, though.
I love the Ezuri-Kyler scale. It perfectly explains what I enjoy about my 5C dungeon deck: it's slow, but the value is ongoing.
The featured deck is also a perfect example of an important Commander principle: the best ways to win are 1) make a deck so good that 3 opponents trying their best can't possibly beat you (i.e., lie about power level) or 2) incrementally build value so that you're still ahead when the dust clears. Great stuff.
I did not expect this video to be as good as it was. Great job, subscribed!
Plz do more in depth deck analysis videos like this. It was I really interesting watch
Thanks for this video. This just inspired a possible strat change in a deck I'm building for a "special rules" tournament my playgroup does.
First time on your channel. Great video, great analysis on a not so common deck. Keep it up. Subbed.
Ps.: i will probably build the deck myself to try it. I would be curious what the would look like with a little more budget thrown in to it.
Great video🎉
Your summary reminded me of the nelly precon, wich I enjoy playing a lot. Some of your points might come in handy in its future development
The one I run is a go wide version of the deck with the tokens called "snakes on a plain"
I too have a Xyris deck, but I barely use the commander to draw cards. I call my deck the fun police because it helps struggling players and tries to keep degenerate decks in check with lots of counterspells and removal. I usually just help everyone draw cards and do their thing without being *too* threatening, then cast an overrun with 20-30 snakes and clear the table. My opponents get max 1 round to go from "this dude is helping me do my thing and stopping the Krenko player from killing me" to "hey, he has a lot of snakes, that's a problem"
This is an interesting alternative take and I might see how it works in my pod, which is maybe a bit higher power than the deck you outlined.
That also sounds like a solid way to go with Xyris. Hans' version is definitely not wildly strong in the interaction department before turn 5-6, so it probably doesn't work so good if you're trying to play the "no, stop, don't do that" role with some faster decks.
Very cool, I appreciate your thoughts and philosophy on commander. Thanks Snail!!!
I love your channel. I’ve been off and on magic for quite some time but now I’m sticking with it for good. I like how you approach topics for new players and veterans. Great content. Hope to see this channel have 100k subscribers
Not related to the content of the video, but xyris has been my favorite commander for a while. There are so many different ways to take the deck that span the entire power range without sacrificing fun at any of the levels. My current version is a mill deck that relies on psychic corrosion/altar of the brood and something like prosperity.
I actually love this video - It's an amazing deck (well done your Timmy friend) and you break it down in a very entertaining way
PLEASE MAKE MORE VIDEOS!! I love your takes and I love your voice.
My best date was $20
Was it a mtg game?
You guys are going on dates? :o
Well $20 is $20
awww
Why date a 20$ bill though
Fascinating stuff, and just what the doctor ordered, for me. I just scared my table shitless with a basic/cheap animar deck last weekend, and I was kind of discouraged when I realized I just built a really strong deck on accident.
This week I've been looking for a way to build a pretty mid-deck next and this really strikes me as a winner in that category.
I really appreciate how fleshed out your information is here. 😊
Do you have a decklist for the animar deck?
Ok it's rare that I stick to a video with seemingly poor visuals. Compliment on your content, you really got me hooked. And thanks for making me want to check that deck out, after seeing Xyris every once in a while in action and thinking every time yeah, that seems like fun. But all of those builds were power, your approach is really interesting.
I love that I have to pay more in shipping than the deck is worth...
fantastic! i wish more people would talk about the dynamics of a deck rather then the cards in it.
Decks that make for a more fun and interesting game across the table are quickly becoming my favorite category of deck. I'm currently building Kros, Defense Contractor. He'd be a great subject for a video!
Your exploration of Xyris is thoughtful, esp wrt thoughts on cards in hand + card velocity as that's something most people who got into Magic playing casual commander sorely underrate.
As an aside, In one of my pods, a player runs Xyris with a bunch of wheels, using commander damage as a back up. I also underestimated Xyris' power until she killed the whole table on turn 6 with Impact Tremors and a pair of wheels. Surprisingly versatile snek
That is so spicy, I can't believe I never thought of that! Xyris truly is one of the most weirdly interesting commanders WotC has made.
I am tuning a CEDH playable version of what you described. We play weekly and I have been trying to make a wheels deck that can compete with the T1 CEDH decks (Yuriko, Talion, Blue Farm, etc.) decks that everyone brings to the table. Xyris has been the most successful so far
Just goes to show the power of a focused deck. It's like your friend was playing Constructed and put in two playsets of cards that do A, another two that do B, and a third playset that does C. In a 100 card singleton format, one "playset" is ~7 unique cards with similar abilities, and two "playsets" is ~13. So when you're drafting a card list, just say to yourself "I need 13 cards each that do this, that, and the other thing," and you'll have a very consistent deck.
Yeah, ~40 cards to move your gameplan, ~40 more as a mana base (lands + ramp/fast mana) and 20 slots for removal and pet cards usually results in some very focused lists
@zakading you want more ramp than that especially if you are green. I typically run 10-14 ramp cards (rocks, spells, and dorks) in any deck that isnt below average mana curve. It keeps you resistant to boardwipes and from losing to commander getting zapped.
@@Aaron0000014 I usualy try to run 36 or 37 lands and 5-8 ramp effects (depending on the deck's needs/the Commander's cost). Usually seems reasonable.
@@Zakading I think 36 is the most lands i would run in a deck. Even in my highest curve deck (ur dragon) i run 36. At some point you either are maintaining land drops through card draw or are generating mana in better ways and would rather be finding good cards. I run proxies and full fetches which helps thin out the deck too
@@Aaron0000014 In the end it still all comes down to what a deck needs, and it's gonna be different every time. 39 is the most lands I run in a deck, and it's actually one of my lowest curves. I run that many lands because I don't run the ramp, i don't run the ramp because i just want to 1-2-3-4
The concept of "Velocity" is very helpful in describing HOW a deck plays. Thank you for conceptualizing this.
I had a Kalamax Buff spells deck that runs a lot of the same cards here and while I loved all the cards, it became a Voltron deck as Kalamax was always the best target instead of something like Stormchaser drake. So I took it apart.
But I feel inspired now to do my own take on Xyris Buff spells. Great video!
Great demonstration of Game Theory strategy of winning as cooperating, being forgiving, etc.
Great video!
I've been toying with a similar idea, but focused on RG under Neyrith (or however its spelled). This method makes me smile. Thanks for the video!
Yes! Xyris is my favourite deck. I play it more group huggy. Enchantments that allow everyone to draw an extra card each turn, get everything set up so people draw a bunch of extra cards each turn and then play out Xyris, creating 2-3 snakes per opponent's turn, and having a hand of protection for Xyris too.
I've had a similar experience with my Sheoldred, the Apocalypse Commander deck.
I don't run heaps of wheels like some decks for her do, but I have the usual stuff like Howling Mine.
One game I had out Sheoldred and the Court of Ambition. I didn't keep the Monarch status, but that was ok. Between regular draws and the Court's discard or lose 3 life, everyone lost life gradually. Eventually someone pointed out that they were all on low-teens in life and that I was still in high 30's.
Sometimes a more subtle approach works really well.
This deck reminds me of a decklist I made around Kharn, the Betrayer, from the 40k Universes Beyond release. Kharn's entire gimmick is that he MUST attack and block at every opportunity, and if he would be dealt damage, he just doesn't take that damage, but instead you hand him off to another player. When you lose control of Kharn, you draw three cards! He's entirely built around a variety of enchantments and equipment that do things when the equipped/enchanted creature deals damage, but specifically AVOIDS cards that GIVE Kharn that ability. Things like Captain's Claws, for example. This means that no matter who controls Kharn, you always get some value out of it. But also, people don't necessarily want to kill it off, because the value it gains is usually fairly minor, and in exchange people are tossing Kharn around the table and drawing a bunch of cards.
It's a fun time! Lists like this really feel like what the Commander format was made for, just some weird jank that everyone can have fun with.
BTW i felt convinced by you to reproduce the deck, so I had to ultimately pay, more than what he likely spent (about 70 total but for someone who only just got back into after decades I consider it worth it)but i felt happy to go for this one as my first one i bought pieces for building. I just hope it works in my own casual commander setting :P Any tips would help but im getting most from this video alone :)
very fun deck! I have a Sergeant John Benton deck which is the same idea but in selesnya, it’s so fun to pilot
I do this with Simic. Ivy, gleeful spellthief is really good with buff spells. Maybe not the same effect as "snake good" but it does very well
Thank you for making the only EDH content I enjoy anymore!
This is interesting as both a fan of Xyris who never built a Xyris deck and as someone whose local play group just started a budget commander night. I might have to try this out and modify it for how my group plays!
4:17 This in yugioh we call the Honest effect!
There is a monster card called Honest you can discard whenever a monster you own with the Light attribute is fighting, and it lets your monster gain as much attack power as the monster it is fighting, effectively turning even the most horrendously outmached fight into a winning one.
As players grew wiser, a saying crystalized: "Always assume your opponent has an Honest in their hand"
I wanted to mention it because that fear of interacting with the buff decks monsters really reminded me of this interaction in yugioh
Things have changed now. You're either getting your shit popped or honest gets negated
I’ve build a Xyris Deck, and I can tell you for a certainty it’s one of the funniest decks I have ever played. I go for normal wheels and such, but I never thought of Buff Spells as an option 🤔
Purphoros go brr
I pulled this off with a Marchesa deck many years ago. It was about $30-$40 bucks and just ran a lot of steal and sac outlets. People seemed to focus on the price of my deck and deem it not a threat, or see some of my low-end creatures and not worry about me.
Very good video. Finally someone actually analyzing a deck - and it's even budget!
Excellent video. I bought and upgraded the "Silverquill Statement" precon from Strixhaven, and it honestly plays similarly. Drawing your opponents cards is massively advantageous in Commander, and I can win despite being completely up-front with my win-con: "I'm going to use Breena triggers to draw cards and build an army of fliers to beat you all down. Make use of the Breena triggers yourself if you'd like; my game plan is the same either way."
I built a Xyris deck, but I advertise mine as ‘Temur Nekusar’ it’s far more wheel heavy with a bunch of go wide pay offs such as Shared Animosity, Cryptolith Rite, or Impact Tremors.
This take on the deck is also super cool, I enjoy seeing buff spells get used, I’ve got tons rolling around in my bulk boxes.
Loved this analysis as a fairly new player. Might have to try to put one of these decks together!
This is the kind of deck that got me into magic in the first place, I might have to build one for myself. I've been looking for a temur deck that isn't the tyranid precon.
This channel is rapidly becoming my favorite
wow. i absolutely love these kind of deep dive into a dech/archetype
I run a Xyris deck too! It's also my playgroups "strongest deck" with an almost complete cedh Najeela at the table as well. The deck has become a super villain at the table and is usually the focus if ever played. When we went to the con it did great at every competitive table. He's very slept on. My deck is a wheel deck though.
I like the idea of this deck and might try it out in my play group. this video was fun to watch.
This looks amazing and a lot of fun - thanks for sharing!
I like this deck. So its mine now. None of my friends have seen this video probably so im going to be a smart unique lil guy now
I built this deck when Xyris first came out. It was my favorite deck for a while. Quite a fun build. One thing you can do is add a mill subtheme since your opponents draw so many cards.
I run Xyris at the head of my "Group Hug" Deck, My group loves to see him come out cause early game I tend to ramp everyone's mana and refill hands constantly, but the red part of the deck is full of punishing spells and effects, every one knows that letting me live is playing with fire but they always want to push their luck, on more than one occasion I wiped the entire table with one big play all cause they let me live too long lol
so...who wants to draw some cards?
I feel like this functions very similarly to the minsc and boo cedh deck. That one misses blue but most of the buff spells are in red green anyways. Thats a deck that can get some seriously high value out of some good buff spells and can be made for about as cheap as this deck, or can be ramped up to a turbo expensive and incredibly competitive list.
this is the type of deck i would love to see tuned up and piloted at a cedh table. going all in on the commander like that is super super risky and currently probably a bit too vulnerable to be good but there’s a vision
One of my favorite decks is an artisan Rigo deck with a focus on 1 power flyers and buffing them after they've attacked and triggered Rigo. Typical combat step would be attacking with an innocuous amount of damage and then making it a lot of damage out of nowhere
I play Rielle, the Everwise as my Buff spells tribal deck. It allows me to pivot into combo is commander damage doesn't get there because the board got clunky or I got Rielle tied up some other way. I loved playing it and it came from my Pauper edh deckfrom years ago: Spellheart Chimera. Which was a deck that kicked a lot of ass
This makes me happy since my first deck was a buff spells combo deck from strixhaven standard. To be fair though it was also a storm deck with show of confidence.
lovely well done video, fascinating deck to examine
(this video is a feather, the redeemed deck tech under a temur disguise) Great video! Love seeing good threat assessment.
Funny, a while ago I was thinking of making a buff spellslinger deck with Maarika or Xyris. Super cheap to make, and indeed quite non-threathening....until it's not. I went for Maarika because she had some protection on my turn and inbuild removal and it slaps hard out of nowhere. I will turn it into Xyris after playing a bit more with it. The token making is a good alt win con with things like impact tremor and such
This is a super fun deck to play, I’m very interested in a upgrade video because this deck is already a blast for the table.
On the no hand size thing being a sign of how the deck works, and it being a bit of a problem for the deck, I think just having Thought Vessel is a good idea. I don't know about you guys, but if I see a Thought Vessel, I never assume it's to be a part of the plan. I always think of it as just a colorless mana that is "Just in case I get some big draw."
I run one in a couple decks just because I can potentially have like 10 cards, but it's never the goal to have that. The only time I worry about hand size is if Reliquary Tower comes out, since lands are a bit harder to get rid of, so I assume they really want it around. I figure even a few turns of slightly larger hands to play with is worth having it on your board until you draw 20 cards and the others realize the problem. Since discarding to 7 is already kind of accounted for it's not a big deal to lose Thought Vessel, and by then you are hopefully in a good enough spot that you don't need those cards anyways.
Maybe that's just me though.
Okay, great vid and analysis. ALSO hoo boy that deck looks sweeeeet
I have a deck that operates like this as well, that runs at a higher power level. Queen Kayla bin Kroog w/ Zirda companion. It’s another high velocity deck that stores value in its hand, but it adds to the somewhat difficult to interact with resource accumulation areas by storing cards in the graveyard, or underneath a bag of holding. Bag of holding is *very* unassuming
This is the same sort of strategy my Vazi deck uses; except with trying to figure out how to make a consistent stream of treasures. I might try this one; it looks rad.
Man this deck idea is so cool to me. Also I love your videos, easily my favorite magic youtuber, keep up the great work!
I'm not a commander player, but I love to run this archetype in constructed, I remember when dragons of tarkir was in rotation I've won so many games with my jeskai illusive spellfist deck just pumping him up and the deck was just stitched together from bulk cards I had from being at locals twice, so the price was prob lower then buying lunch at a supermarket. This commander deck looks like so much fun playing it, not necessarily for the opponents just randomly dying left and right.
youtube really wanted me to watch this video, like it's been at the top of my recs for maybe 4 days at this point. I used to play a lot of magic but haven't for months so i just wanted to note how much the algorithm pushed your video on me lol. It was a pretty good video, just I'm not much of a magic nerd anymore
I've found incredible success with the similar concept of "looking unassuming" while playing a custom Hearthstone deck of mine. Being able to fake out your opponent is very useful, especially when you're playing a very careful resource balancing game. The Rogue class has tons and tons of draw in Wild, and features some crazy OTK decks, but it also has a lot of incredibly aggressive aggro decks featuring weapons and pirates. My trick is that those same weapon/pirate decks can run a huge amount of card draw, which I use to enable an OTK combo that works reliably due to the large amount of draw. My deck looks like a badly built wild weapon deck, right up until I OTK the opponent on turn 7.
I think my deck needs the fakeout to win against most non-aggro decks, since most opponents never play anti-combo cards against my deck. Anti-combo cards usually help aggro decks by putting resources on the board. Playing aggro means they're usually fishing for control cards that don't save them from my OTK, and they're spending resources on surviving the aggression, rather than trying to stop the OTK. I've ran other OTK decks with a pure draw engine without the aggressive play style, and those decks tend to get hit with OTK disruption far more often, because the opponent knows that they only need to play anti-combo cards to win. Opponents will take the riskier plays that disrupt my combo, since that's the only way I win. But with aggro, opponents waste a lot of resources and time trying to survive against the aggression, thinking that's my game plan, even though I'm going to OTK them the next turn. They were playing the wrong game the whole time.
On the same note I built a bulk Baeloth Noble Heritage deck overnight as a joke. My table usually underestimates boros as a whole, add to that everyone seeing me running almost all basics and the most limited kind of cards, everyone was willing to take my deals until it was too late.
I was happy to see Shore Up make an appearance in this deck. I think it’s a totally underrated combat trick / protection spell that’s totally slept on. Untapping a creature as a surprise blocker can be huge. It’s cool to see so many initially unassuming cards packed together into a successful deck.
He's missing out on the powerhouse that is Embiggen. {G} for a draw 4 is better than Ancestral Recall.
I have a similar thing with my Feather, The Redeemed deck. I play value rather than the aggro and it catches people out in a similar way.
There's a pretty powerful/scary Xyris deck in my play group, but it almost always makes for fun games because it has a lot of effects that make everyone draw cards, or get more mana, etc. The games ramp up pretty quick and everyone kind of gets to do their thing much faster than they normally would. But if no one deals with the Xyris player, they'll run away with the game.
i always loved xyris as a commander and i should def try this idea for a deck. my normal xyris is a snake tribal, making everyone draw and profiting with my million snakes and draw into lord effects for my snakes
My deck is sort of like this. In the end, regulars at my LGS would warn players who were unfamiliar with my deck to watch it, because it's a lot scarier than it looks. Since we're a pretty high-power playgroup, these new players were coming to a game against Atraxa and Yuriko only to be told "keep an eye on that Mishra, Eminent One deck; it's scary". Velocity plays a huge part in it.
I built Xyris as soon as I got my hands on the precon. My deck cares a lot about card draw with wheels and snake tribal buffs. Xyris gives you the option of having a fun EDH game or ruthless cEDH match depending on how you play it.
Buff spells are a blast, and I will die on this hill! I prefer to go Bant over Jeskai colors though, because you can use White protection spells and buff spells to play it a lot more safely. My personal favorite deck is Derevi, and it uses buff spells on evasive creatures as it's main wincon. I see the appeal of Xyris though, that card is bonkers.
Buff spells are great. I think Sergeant John Benton is probably the best way to make this specific deck, Xyris just ended up being the pick because my friend had already built the deck in Temur colors.
I have a Xyris deck... Mine is more of a wheel/ go wide with win-cons like (Purphuros/Thassa's Orracle/Shared Animosity/Beast Masters Ascension) while adding high value cards like (Teferi's Puzzle Box/Kindred Discorvery/Ashnod's Altar/Kodoma of the East Tree), things that give my deck flash to do all of it on others turns when threatened (Leyline of Anticipation/Alchemist's Refuge)... and it is a CRAZY value engine.
This deck is so fun I think I'm going to make it again.
My favorite combo is using a wheel and Mystic Reflection and making 21 copies of any non-legendary creature on the battlefield.
Sticky Fingers is a nice card as it gives evasions, ramp, and a card draw once it gets destroyed for just one mana.
I've been tempted by a similar shu-yun deck in the past, but honestly Xyris giving access to green's pump spells are really tempting
Very interesting thing to watch. This reminds me of my Niv-mizzet Reborn deck. It's a deck I build out of bulk and its theme is jus ravnica and two color cards. Plenty of limited only played cards and gates jank (no maze's end, that is too high of a profile cards for the table). It normally just plays basic magic, put cards on the board and occasionally swing, but because of what the commander does it tends to refill the hand just regularly enough that it ends up pulling ahead on resources and has a surprising number of wins. And it's never perceived as a threat as it has no combos, no massive synergy, no hyper ramp etc. it just keeps chugging while other players wipe each others' more dangerous resources out and I end up beating them with my angel of despair or other such junk. Anyways, thanks for this vid, interesting stuff.
I love pump spells. Especially like primal bellows!
The opponent expects only to take 1 damage and all of a sudden it's 9+ and it's difficult to block even if you know it's coming.
Then using something like Over Run or Life's Legacy with it.
I actually run a very similar deck. My favorite deck is a Kalamax Stormsire deck. All of those cheap cantrips you just listed off are even better when you get to cast them twice :)
I'm obsessed with building decks based around mechanics I've heard other people talk shit about. I have a shades deck I built for that reason and it stomps and stomps HARD frequently killing players in 4 turns (it's not EDH, though). I also have a deck built entirely around making me hard to attack for the same reason and it routinely wins games without ever being touched. I also have a blue/white reanimator that casts creatures from exile because someone said that Eternal Scourge sucked and, finally, I have a deck built entirely around Necromancer's Stockpile because...well you get it.
i'm slow at making edh decks so i'm still in the process of making my 13th+yaz deck. a problem i noticed during the precon battles i had was that my hand was very high in size because i would rather play the cards in the top of the deck. i think i want to solve part of the problem by playing cards that "you can play an additional land" but maybe not having the cards that that say "you don't have a maximum hand size" is probably good both for cascade (i cascade into something better) and for flashback (discarding cards with flashback) :3c
Built this deck card for card. After 5 pods with a variation of power levels and budgets ( and as always the cheapest deck at the table) I have a 4/5 (80% win rate) i also put the deck in Christmas flavoured sleeves and stuck a Santa hat sticker on the commanders sleeve. The ridiculousness has played into enhancing the videos strategy. 👌👌👌