4+ MV Mana Rock Tier List | Commander Clash Podcast 64
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 ก.ค. 2024
- Are all 4+MV Mana Rocks "unplayable" in Commander these days? The crew ranks the most popular ones and sees if there's any we underplay!
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0:00 Introduction
4:50 Hedron Archive
17:56 Bolas's Citadel
27:54 Primal Amulet
34:56 Coveted Jewel
44:46 Sarevok's Tome
55:14 Chromatic Orrery
1:03:07 Pyromancer's Goggles
1:09:01 Sceptre of Eternal Glory
1:17:01 Timeless Lotus & Prismatic Geoscope
1:23:55 Caged Sun
1:28:51 The Great Henge - เกม
![[TH] VCT Pacific Stage 2 - Playoffs Day 3 // DRX vs GEN | PRX vs TLN](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/CWM1Q-2-o3M/mqdefault.jpg)
You can find our full rankings here: i.imgur.com/d3zRKcT.png
Why on God's green earth did you share this as an image file instead of a spreadsheet?
Crim being the voice of reason and not trolling. It is a brave new world.
Don't be fooled. It's just meta-trolling. Now you'll never know what to expect when you see him
The twist is that Crim was never trolling
Maybe Richard not being there to be the voice of reason is affecting him.
Understated take: I love that you guys started adding all of the other cards that you all mention when talking about your ratings. Mtg is only getting more complicated so being able to see the cards is amazing
I still feel like Tomer over-exaggerates Hedron Archive's weaknesses out of spite, and Seth tries a little too hard to sell it. Hedron Archive isn't bad, but it isn't amazing either. It strikes me as the kind of card that you put in a precon to upgrade it, and then you later upgrade the deck further by switching it out. I think Hedron Archive has a decent home in some artifact-sacrifice-recursion type decks, but in a random Commander deck it is just fine. It's better than bad and worse than good. I wouldn't make fun of someone for playing it, but I would expect that there are often better options.
The hedron archive debate is probably 70% a meme at this point, though.
Imo, I like hedron archive alot more now that ornithopter of paradise was printed. I play sultai, so I have 4 signets, 3 talismans, mind stone and OoP to ramp me into a 4 drop on turn 3 AND have a chance of playing ANOTHER 2 drop on turn 3. I untap with 8 mana on turn 4. Thats insane enough to commander with protection or just drop a haymaker.
I think it's like a C. I'm never *looking* to put it in a deck, but it will be a good filler if I'm looking for a filler. The problem is that we have such good cards now that we don't have room to just fill
@@bodaciouschad I feel like since you are using green you don't need that many mana rocks I mean you have farseek natures lore harrow utopia sprawl wild growth sure you can put what 3 talismans 3 signets 3 diamonds everflowing chalice prismatic lens mind stone felwar stone arcane Signet and sol ring where do you find room for hedron archive
I play it in Osgir, quite often I pay 12 mana for 6 cards after I have more colourless mana than I can spend.
Hedron archive is good in “over-ramp” decks: basically decks where you are running way more ramp spells than the average deck to quickly get to high cmc game winners (expropriate etc.) Those decks will often get into situations where they’ve built up enough mana but haven’t drawn the bomb, and in those situations it does exactly what you hope it to do.
I think they call that 'Big-Mana'
Yeah 100%. Decks where you're desperate to get to 6+ mana is its home and where it plays well. Thran dynamo puts it to shame a little, but it's a decent second option at 4MV.
I think in general almost all 4MV+ mana rocks are for big mana decks. I'm surprised it didn't come up in their discussion properly.
So then by their very rules it objectively is not an A because it is only used in specific decks
The 2 cards off Hedron archive could be anything, they could even be 2 boats
Could even be 2 cards
Two birds
They could even be Thran Dynamo and Mind Stone!
Or 2 hats
You know how much we wanted one of those!
"I don't want to sacrifice a 4 drop to draw 2" Solemn Simulacrum would like to know your location
Yeah, but Archive doesn't block or wear swords
@@nik700 and he is rapidly approaching their location
I mean, at least solems ramp stays and you dont have to pay to draw the card 😁 it blocks, even fear creatures, best sad bot out there
It's easier to abuse ETB triggers
I'm surprised no one mentioned The Immortal Sun. It's an unconditional spell discount, an anthem, and it draws you an extra card. Plus it keeps pesky planeswalkers off your back.
Worth mentioning for sure!
I used to believe Tomer for the longest time, but then heard Seth make some good points about Hedron Archive and gave it a shot. That was probably three years ago at this point, and it has never let me down
Listing to tomers takes us usually a mistake outside of budget cards.
Tomer comes on here and says if you don't have cards you should have built your deck better, but then sits in games with no cards in hand. I tend not to listen to his opinion when he brings that out- I also think thats the attitude that leads to a lot of boring "Draw/Ramp" commanders instead of fun synergy commanders.
@@mark1A100Yeah low key his takes are constantly bad.
Tomer looking like death at the end of the Hedron Archive debate had me dying
The whole discussion around Sceptre of Eternal Glory is exactly why I don't mind running a bunch of cards that punish nonbasic lands. Mana bases these days are so greedy it makes cards like Blood Moon,Price of Progress, Archon of Emeria, Burning Earth, Primal Order, etc. so much more effective than they have any right to be.
Exactly, I felt like I was going insane hearing people say they wouldn't run a 4 mana rock that refunds you 3 mana in monoblue or monowhite, like of course you would.
Honestly, gents, don't apologize for calling out all the "My 31-land Ur-Dragon deck never misses a land drop" people.
Saame, I run galazeth with 34 and regularly miss land drops. It just doesn't "really" matter in the deck because i have a ton of rocks making mana.
No way any 31 land deck doesn't miss landdrops
If someone is playing 31 lands just to take advantage of "mulligan till I have a good hand" then we are playing a different game.
31 is just a trash mana base. I go down to 36 and rarely to 35 if the deck is really low curve, but I already feel bad about that lol
@@Jug_or_not 31 is trash mana base for high curve decks. It's perfectly fine for decks that have a very low curve.
@@SamuelKacerik That's just the honor system, and if you have no honor you'll be kicked out of playgroups pretty quick. As to whether the average person commenting on MtG videos on youtube is honorable... I won't comment on that either way.
Tomer should start playing blood moon, back to basics and Ruination in all his decks from now on.
The difference between Mind Stone and Hedron Archive is that if Mind Stone didn't exist you would play a 2 mv mana rock that taps for just 1 colorless. The cantripping is just gravy. Meanwhile no one plays Sisay's Ring.
I think as many people play Sisay's Ring/Ur Golems Eye as play Fractured Powerstone (Mind Stone without the card draw).
Super budget players.
I think there's an argument that you can take a lot of unplayable cards, like Sisays Ring, and if you staple Sac 2: Draw 2 cards, then they don't remain unplayable. That's the difference here.
I have so many 2MV rocks that I find it difficult justifying anything 3MV or higher if it doesn't have some significant side benefits because I've had some amazing gameplay results even from using some of the "enters tapped" 2MV rocks that either are creatures or can become creatures.
To be clear I usually run around 8-10 rocks rarely including 3+MV rocks.
@@Ixidora While there's clear benefits to this, it depends on your commander. More expensive commanders want bigger rocks to get out faster. While MV2 is a sweet spot, there is no one size fits all.
@@apjapki That is fair, I don't generally play commanders over 5MV and don't know how the ramp looks for those decks. The most expensive commander I run is Tivit, Seller of secrets at 6MV but it is my "Welcome to the U.S.S.R." deck and has all my fast mana and proxies as it is my "8/9 power level " deck so mana is less of an issue as Tivit is also a combo piece and is only cast once.
Forgive me for my haste, have a great day! :)
Seeing initiative in action from drafting Baldurs Gate, it's like a better monarch when you build around it, even a little bit.
I actually played against a guy who played a Coveted Jewel the other day, and I was like “oh, this will be interesting” but then he sacrificed it almost immediately to a sac outlet :(
Best way to play it.
Unless you want group hug, you don't want someone stealing it from you
I hate to break it to you but I'm not really going to let you keep the Wishclaw Talisman either.
Yeah, kinda sucks that any fun effect like that, the gut instinct of most players is to try and cheat the system instead of have fun. I personally don't understand that "this is a game, I'm not here to have fun I'm here to win" mindset.
Just don't play cards like that if you don't want to engage their premise in good faith. Play with the spirit of the game, not just the letter of the rules text.
Coveted jewel is one of my favorites, particularly for thantis the warweaver or goad based decks! Effects like these actively speed up the game (like monarchy, the curse cycle)
Do you have a Coveted Jewel in a Thantis deck? I'd been considering doing so, but I was already running monarchy and initiative cards. Hard to fit it in. Also run a decent amount of artifact hate like Bane of Progress and Titania's Song.
Did anyone else lose audio for a bit from 6:56 to 7:02?
That was an editing hiccup that I didn't catch, sorry about that!
@@MTGGoldfishCommander in my headspace Phil was cussing out Hedron Archive
I think if we're not taking points from cards with color restrictions like pyromancer's goggles or bolas's(sic) citadel or any multicolor cards, it's fair to say that cards clearly built for mono color decks like scepter can still be As because mono color isn't just an archetype but an important chunk of the format.
Surprised Crim isn't higher on Sarevok's Tome - trolling the whole table with the initiative mechanic seems right up his alley.
Sarevok's tome is amazing. You're undervaluing the initiative. It's easy enough to hold onto and the benefit it gives you each turn on top of the mana rock makes the card phenominal.
I think Tomer's right though, because I think a lot of people are sleeping on it because they don't want to add Initiative to their commander games.
Csst the card turn3-4 as normal. Go through the dungeon in 2-5 turns. The soonest you could use it would be turn 6, because it needs 3 mana. That's being generous and if you drew into it the first 4 turns or had it opening hand. The initiative is being rated fairly, the card just isn't fast enough and something like bolas citadel can be played faster and be used multiple times a turn, maybe until you run out of cards if your deck is built right
Hedron archive number one also received my play from you guys this week looks even better in person
Glad you like it!
@@MTGGoldfishCommander Seriously the playmats look SICK! The colors are so vibrant, it's easily my favorite of the 3 I own
Also got mine this week, and I agree the colours are incredible! Love the foil signatures too, came out way better than I was expecting :)
I think it's hard to say Citadel is a mana rock when you can't play anything in your hand, and more crucially, your commander with it. Part of the reason to run mana rocks in commander is to help pay for your commander, either to ramp them out early, or to replay them again. I guess that's less relevant for 4+ mana rocks, but Citadel being a mana rock is a streeeeeeetch. Also, I believe that one crucial thing for commander seperating dynamo vs hedron archive is that dynamo goes infinite with iscochron reversal on it's own, which is HUUUGE and a reason to run thran dynamo by itself.
Not everyone is a sweaty combo player lol
@@Steven-rb7ph not every player who acknowledges the existence of a combo is "sweaty."
Hedron Archive is good in battle cruiser metas where the games are grinding and the two cards can help you dig. Nowadays it feels like most decks are able to curve out without issue, meaning the ability to dig sac the rock to dig just isn’t as useful as it used to be.
Seth is right on Hedron. Because the best three words in magic are "Draw, A, Card"
I think it's actually draw seven cards
I mean it maybe a good card if your budget is funded entirely from raiding your little brothers piggy bank but honestly even at casual power level hedron archive is a pretty crappy card.
Also the rest of the cast is acting like mana rocks just stick around forever and no one tries to board wipe, bane of progression, vandal blast, etc.
I'm pretty sure the best 3 words are "counter target spell"
I can't begin to imagine the amount of games the have decided because someone drew a single card to end things or save themselves.
Loving the longer podcasts!
I've never had any other mana rock take me from an empty board, ready to die, and take me straight to the win. I'm sold on the citadel. (though to be fair, I've never untapped with Great Henge. It always gets blown up.)
A few seconds silence at around 6:56 mark, just a heads up
My fault sorry
The Great Henge is a symbol of everything wrong with green design
THIS.
Stuff like that has made me legitimately enjoy green less and less over the years. What fun is a card that does everything you'd ever want? Just bad design overall.
@@BW-CZ The stuff that makes me worry is simplifying old challenges. Casting stuff from opponents decks almost always let's you spend mana as if it were any colour now. Clones almost always let you ignore the legend rule. It's sad because it simplifies the complexity of the game.
By this weird logic I believe that Omniscience just might be the best mana "rock".
Nah, can’t be a rock it’s not an artifact. Probably the same reason they didn’t put Fires of Invention on the list.
@@totalcoward I know. Which is why it was in quotes. But I would argue their logic on Citadel as well, but just a light jab at their logic.
I was thinking about enchantments too. Black Market and Revel in Riches feel like they would be interesting in this discussion as well.
@@totalcoward Fires of Inventions is by far the best card in my Zirilan of the Claw deck. It's like extremely powerful there.
@@totalcoward if Citadel is a rock, so is Omniscience, as is Jolene and Prosper. Oh, also the new cycle that let's you pay 2 life for 1 individual color pip. As is K'rrik and fuck it so is Treasonous Ogre. Also, Dockside is a mana rock.
Tomer and Seth are going to war with the audience and I'm here for it.
My favorite thing with Phil in these podcasts is the slow sunset in the BG, and scrubbing through the thumbnail timeline
The first deck I put together runs 33 creatures, 33 lands, & 33 non-creature non-lands in the 99. It's a 3 color Marath deck with lots of mana rocks. My greatest land count is for my colorless Ulamog with 40 lands & and incredible amount of mana rocks.
Ultimately, I believe if the mana rock costs less than your commander, then it's okay to run it in your deck.
*Clash On* !
That's what I subscribe to as well. Generally speaking I want to choose ramp that ramps me into something (usually the commander). In Ulamog I'm totally fine running 4+MV rocks like Hedron Archive because they're ramping me towards the main game plan of getting the commander on to the battlefield.
Shoutout to Tomer for editing in real time the cards as they're being mentioned!
Thank you very much for taking up the community's suggestion, it makes the podcast so much easier to follow :)
I picked up coveted jewel a few months back because you guys mentioned it. It's an absolute blast to play with! Super strong too, as soon as there's any synergy going on. Where I have it is in a pillow fort-style deck with high mana haymakers and evasive creatures so I can always take it back and give it away politically. The way it plays, it helps me spiral out of control as it gives both significantly extra mana and a lot of extra cards.
It's definitely not for every deck, but since there's so much it works with I'd argue for A tier, with S tier fun!
The audio cut out at 6:56 - 7:06. Judging by the bg dropping out, I'm assuming there was some kind of production issue?
Glad to see I wasn’t the only one!
I will never understand the mindset of "There is one or two cards that are slightly better than this one, so *this* card is *BAD*!"
Yeah but it's mtg internet content so we have to pretend everyone cares about optimisation. I mean, they don't, but....content.
I love that we start with the hot takes!
Was a bit afraid hedron archive was lumped in somewhere.
Tomer!!!! I love you!!!! You finally changed the janky intro. It feels so good to not be confused after the opening sequence.
I can totally feel Seth about the land thing. I think their are decks, that don't need as many lands, but those are like super low to the ground. I've had it to often aswell to be stuck on lands when borrowing a deck. I usually start with 37 lands.
While watching this, I was a bit conflicted on the idea of Bolas' Citadel being a "mana rock" but after thinking about it more, I've determined that anything which is not a land and adds extra mana to your Mana Reserve can be considered a "mana rock" for all intents and purposes, so I think we should decide as a community if this is a take that we can adapt to all of Magic (MTG).
If you'd like clarification of what I mean when I say "mana reserve", click 'Read more'
"Mana Reserve" refers to the total amount of mana you could generate (of any color, including colorless) from w/e your current board position is. If you have a lone Mountain (untapped), your Mana Reserve is 1 (meaning that there is the potential to add 1 mana to your mana pool). If you have a Mountain and tap it for a Sol Ring, your Mana Reserve is 2 until your Mountain untaps, at which point your Mana Reserve will increase to 3. If you are "tapped out", this should mean your Mana Reserve is 0 or empty.
I am disappointed Tomer didn't put Archive at an F for the memes
I actually love Phil's take on Primal amulet. I'll try it in my next simic+ decks
Timeless Lotus is great for me because it's Legendary, and one of my favorite decks is Sisay Legendary tribal; so being able to fetch it up with Sisay is a huge plus.
Prismatic Geoscope is so much more playable after New Capenna, now that the full cycle of triomes is complete. Fetches + triomes = two lands to get full value from Geoscope.
Audio cuts out for about 10 seconds at 6:57
6:56 Phil’s take here is so true, I don’t know how anyone can disagree.
I'm with Tomer on the Sceptre being good for some decks. I think I might put this in a Feather deck, where getting mana rocks to make lots of coloured mana can sometimes be challenging.
I agree with you Tomer in running many basic lands. My land count in most two color decks is 10 color fixing lands, 10-16 basics or 5-8 of each basic, 2 land destruction to hate out unfair lands, 1-2 graveyard hate lands, and the rest are usually utility lands be they for drawing cards, removal, synergy, or color fixing
Making my case Sarevok's Tome. The turn it comes down it taps for 2 and fetches a basic, if you have not played a land for turn it in effect creates 3 mana for 4 (which is a Thran). On the next turn, if you kept the initiative it fixes your draw with Scry 2. Allowing you to find another land or a cast-able spell. If you have lost initiative, it will still nets you two mana if you include the basic land. In the late game after you have completed a dungeon, this works as a repeatable card draw/cascade effect at instant speed. Notably, it exiles cards until you hit a nonland but does nothing with the exiled lands (they aren't shuffled back in) so at the point where you don't need more mana, Sarevok's Tome thins your deck of lands.
Seth is right, Hedron Archive is a good card.
Its a fine card, i dont see myself playing it in anything other than a slightly upgraded precon, i actually belive crim is right 😁
Id say you put it in a precon to first upgrade it a bit and then take it out again one you keep on upgrading later, or if your on a strict budget or if it has synergy like the planeswalker daretti but its not an a for sure
Tomer and seth both are a bit over the top in both directions
I love Phil but can you also put a static text card on the end with any comments from Richard? He had some very hot takes on card draw and I miss his no nonsense attitude.
I like the idea but I'm assuming if Richard doesnt have time to be on this episode then he definitely doesnt have time to sit down and write out his thoughts on all of these cards.
@@SmashCentralOfficial I'm talking like three bullet points calling Seth out on bad takes and done.
@@apjapki LOL that's fair
First time listener to this group and listening to them I don't even feel like we're playing the same game, the thought process behind some of the things they say sound completely crazy.
Me halfway through the video. "Why is Seth talking about Hedron Archive for the second time this podcast?"
Just wait until the third time...
Also counterpoint: I think even outside of a dedicated dungeon deck Sarevok's Tome is at least a B both because it's not that complicated and also I think there are multiple initiative cards that are worth playing.
Every time someone defends hedron archive, the amount of basics you should play goes up.
The card draw from Hedron Archive could be anything! It could even be actual card draw!
Hedron archive embodies the fun and creativity of modern commander: if it's not the most efficient thing possible, it's complete trash. The versatility it offers doesn't matter, because your game plan has to be to pull off a two-card combo on turn four or five, or you're just playing the game wrong.
It's a perfectly fine card with good utility, best suited to non-green decks with a decent chunk of mv-5+ cards. In the majority of groups, it's a perfectly good card that will perform exactly the same as its alternatives in 90% of games - sometimes even better with that draw utility. But in the sorts of groups where anything above 3 mana is essentially unplayable, no duh, it's unplayable.
Amen to that, sir. And this is what is wrong with Commander nowadays.
I’m curious on what the gangs opinion on Stonespeaker crystal is, it’s like Hedron archive, but you’re trading the two cards for one card and exiling graveyards when you sac it instead
stonespeaker crystal replaced hedron in the deck I had that did run it, Osgir.
The issue with primal amulet and spellslinger in my opinion is that spellslinger likes to play a lot of cantrips and the mana reduction doesn't work on 1 mana spells or for spells like expressive iteration
Hedron active is literally 2 mind stones glued together. It cost double a mind stone draws double the cards and its activated ability double.
I think the reason Primal Amulet doesn't see a bunch of play in Spellslinger is that most spellslinger decks wanna cast cantrips and care more about quantity of spells rather than the quality. Bigger spellslinger lists might want to play it.
Tomer likes Firemind Vessel because he is a Niv-Mizzet stan.
Can't deny it
Saervok's tome seems great in an etb/blink deck to reset the rock and get another venture trigger. Even without being initiative focused this seems pretty cool!
Timeless Lotus is amazing in my Sisay, Weatherlight Captain deck for two reasons
1. I don't have an expensive mana base to guarantee max domain
2. You tutor it with Sisay just before your turn, so it immediately replaces itself with instant tutor value
Most of you do not run enough basics. Y'all gotta have enough so that if you get blood mooned, back to basicsed, and have all your rocks and dorks blown up that you can still make enough colored mana to fulfill your colored pips.
Tomer taking damage from seth's opening speech about hedron archive is top tier content
My problem with most of these in general is that
A. Ramp is best done early and cheap, a 4+ mana rock is too slow, I need to be playing big things by then.
B. Artifacts get blown up too easily. I’m hesitant to even play Signets since SO many cards these days seem to have “blow up an artifact” tacked on to them in the pickup games I play at my LGS.
The grossest thing I saw with Coveted Jewel was a 3rd turn casting off of free mana from Belbe, Corrupted Observer
Favorite "mana rock" MV 4+: Golden Guardian from Rivals of Ixalan, which transforms into Gold-Forge Garrison. Ghalta decks especially love a 4/4 every turn without spending more cards in hand.
I love Primal Amulet. I include it in my spellslinger decks, however I want to note part of the aversion to it may come from the fact it requires the 4 counters in order to flip. I can see some players feeling it may be too risky for a sweet effect.
Coveted Jewel is another card that also gets help from the Sheoldred and Quezas of the world. Where you drawing cards is a nice bonus, but you need to get your opponents drawing cards.
I ran primal amulet x4 in standard in a 4 color nuclear anti-meta deck that won against all the archetypes... EXCEPT TEMPO BLUE. But at that time it saw so much love and play with that deck that literally only had 4 creatures, 4 artifacts, and 4 enchantmentd. 16 out of 72 cards were permanents and that made it fun. In commander I play it in spell duplication decks, storm decks where you can use repeated reverberation, a thousand year storm and other synergies to create storm counts inside of storm counts. Magecraft triggers get nutty with it. Storm-Kiln artist and primal amulet on the field basically means you start playing solitaire. Same goes for baral plus primal amulet because in those decks you X blue blue card draw spell costs X and that is it. Pay 5 to draw 5 cards. Not bad at all.
Tomer is right on Scepter of Eternal Glory being a B-Tier. You obviously don't want to play it in a three or more color deck but in a 1 or 2 color deck, you can get a lot of value out of it.
its also really easy to turn on with the many abilities and spells that fetch you one or more basic lands
the one issue is a mono color deck normally doesn't specifically need 3 more colored pips
Biggest takeaway this week is that the "Who likes card draw more, Seth or Tomer?" debate is finally settled. Seth is victorious
I put Coveted Jewel in my Darien, King of Kjeldor deck. It's pretty freaking awesome there. 😅
@56:26 Teferi Chain Veil slapped the table with Chromatic Orrery just saying :P I fully recognize that was a cEDH tournament and does not provide a good amount precedent for the entirety of EDH.
As for Amulet vs Goggles, I usually prefer the Goggles for my Izzet builds, which are Veyran/Vadrik/Magnus the Red (I use them interchangeably as they share a good portion of their core pieces). Goggles come in and is ready to use. Amulet sits there a bit. Besides, while Crim is partially right that blue mana is important in these decks, some of the newer red spells like Jeska's Will, Finale of Promise, Apex of Power, Brass's Bounty, Chandra's Ignition, Mizzix's Mastery(Overloaded), Big Score, Invoke Calamity, Past in Flames(Flaskback Cost), Magma Opus are game ending when copied.
There are decks that need the card draw of Archive, but also need the ramp from it too. I play it in Sheoldred for both modes. Early game, it ramps me and let's me push explosive plays. Late game, it turns into a decent card draw spell. It's not necessarily great at either of them, but it's better than the do nothing that Tomer thinks it is.
Ok so for Headron Archive for the most part I agree with Seth The downside it has compared to commandersphere is that you have to pay manna and sacrifice it to draw the cards. If it was tap it sacrifice it draw two cards that'd be a little bit better. Because the nice thing about commander's fear is when somebody wraths all artifacts on the board you can sacrifice it and draw a card in response so you're at least not down a card but I do like the ability to just have extra card drive I need it.
Hedron archive is one of my favorite mana-rocks!
I don't think it was noted, unless I skimmed over it, but prismatic geoscope vs timeless lotus: geoscope lets you add mana "in any combination of colors", so it will let you cast spells with double the same pip, or triple the same, etc, whereas the lotus doesn't. You can also turn it on earlier with things like dryad of the illisian grove, or the world tree, or anything else that makes lands into all land types on one or more lands. And it's not legendary so you can make copies of it and they all work well, card's way better than timeless lotus.
Tomer is correct about Sceptre of Eternal Glory. That thing is great in mono-color, and the "worry" about not having basic lands is...not a worry at all in mono-color and I'm confused as to why it is.
I play Sarevok's Tome in two decks that care about dungeons/initiative and it is easily one of the best cards in those decks. If you can uptap it at all, it's insane.
Came to see what they say about The Throne of Eldraine.
Edit: didn't notice it was done 11 months ago
Sarevok's Tome is an easier to manipulate Temporal Aperture. And you don't have to randomly shuffle your deck each time you use it.
I use Scepter of Eternal Glory in my mono-white Angel deck. lots of white pips so the 3 white is better than 3 colorless
Great discussion! To me the discussion about 4+ mana rocks is a little more interesting than the 3mana ones since they are a bit more niche.
Just a little suggestion but you could include the price when you display the cards for TH-cam. I swear you used to do it so if it's too much work then no worries. I realize you folks probably bank episodes so the price might change in that time.
Hedron archive is good because it's a decent rate in non green for mana ramp and in the mid to late game when a rock sweeper comes down or if you are flooded you get the chance to cash it in. Not to mention it synergizes with many red and white artifact recursion engines.
My favs above 4 mana would be: gilded lotus, Hedron archive, and (if it counts) everflowing chalice
Love the Chalice
The reason Seth feels like he needs so many lands is pretty apparent from the card draw episode, he favors high cmc high impact card draw spells over the cheaper card draw spells. 30 lands is more than enough if your deck is packed with 1 and 2 mana card filtering and card advantage spells.
Funniest thing I ever did against a Bolas’ Citadel was play Ruric Thar. 😂
Coveted jewel and displaces cub are absolutely bonkers together btw.
Primal amulet is cool but its alot more work then it seems in actual practice to get it copy things. There are other spells that you can just use out right to copy, sometimes multiple copies which generally end up becoming your spell slinger win condition. Copying one spell a turn for the rest of the game just puts you into archenemy status. The longer you have it the less time you are going to spend alive at the table.
I used it in my casual experience counter spell slinger deck (can't remember the commanders name been taken apart since then) and it often combo'd with price of progress or comet storm as a win con. *Shrugs its fun but it just a generic value engine which most spell slinger decks don't generally use. They'd rather have another fun spell to cast then to just double something their already doing.
Today I learned Omniscience is a mana rock
Nah, to be a rock it has to be an artifact. Just ask Toggo.
It often seems strange to me that they'll evaluate cards like hedron archive low in the context of a random deck that doesn't make good use of it. I guess I don't like to build decks with the same staple package rather than customizing for powerful synergy.
I love hedron archive but I run it in decks that can recur, copy it, or double the effect. For example, recently using mirrorworks to copy the artifact, lithoform engine to copy the draw, and alhammarets archive to double the draw to draw 8. Awesome. That might seem like magical Christmas land but if you set your deck up right then you can and I do often get that.
But I'm not running any of that in my enchantress deck which is completely different than my Karametra, Ezuri claw of progress, planeswalker, landfall, kalamax, spellslinger, zubera, equipment, Prosper, dragon tribal, 5 color political, etc. There are so many different ways to ramp that can enhance different strategies which I find a lot more fun.
But maybe I'm biased because I used to work at an lgs and played probably 1 or 2k commander games so variety was more important to me.
HEDRON ARCHIVE LET'S GOOO
Plot Twist: his birth certificate actually says “Seth probably better known as Saffron Olive”
Caged Sun is good for 5 color/one color decks. *
Say a white deck that has whatever color creature that's also a white creature.
Same goes double for a deck with whatever color creature and also a blue creature. Blue having almost no mana ramp in general, Caged Sun is a major bonus.
*All creatures share a common color plus whatever other color they have.
I think the biggest problem with Scepter of the Eternal Gods is that in a mono color deck if you have 3 basics on the battlefield to turn it on you dont really NEED the color fixing anymore which makes it just strictly worse than Thran dynamo in like +90% cases. Still a cool card and maybe in a less competitive format that takes a long time for games to end. getting more BIG mana rocks to play huge spells could be worth it.
Some advice for anyone listening. Run stuff like hedron archive and than dynamo only if you run 6+ of 2 cmc mana rocks like the diamonds, mind stone colorless rocks, and the talismans if they are in your color. It's easier to pump them out on turn 2(if you run 1 mana dorks) or turn 3 if your just playing rocks and lands.
Hedron archive has a deckbuilding restriction: It's great if you have 8~ colorless 2 mana rocks AND you need to have either a 6/7 mana commander or plenty of such spells to cast in the deck.
50:47 Phil's "hell yeah" here took me out lol
Not an artifact, but no less non-creaturey-dorky than artifacts. And can only be played in decks with a red(-plus) identity, but that's no different than a Boros/Izzet/Rakdos/Gruul Locket (and can actually be played in more decks than those can)...but my vote goes to...Mana Echoes. It's an absolute beast in tokens decks and tribal decks (and even better in tribal tokens decks!). The amount of mana that pours out from it just while you're doing what you're already doing is insane! Best card in my Kykar deck for sure (and that runs literally no creatures in the 99!).