Emrakul also has perhaps the funniest rules clarification of any card, where they make it clear that while controlling your opponent, you cannot make them concede the game.
Promised End also made Wizards change the rule book. Before Emrakul, you could look at an opponent's sideboard while you controlled them. Nowadays, the rulebook forbids that explicitly.
I think CGB couldve mentioned how Lurrus pre-errata did get banned in basically every format outside of standard INCLUDING vintage. The first blackborder card banned in vintage since basically Shahrazad.
And the fact that because Lurrus was in the companion zone and not your hand, you couldn't discard it. Lurrus basically banned all permanents that cost more than 3 for a couple of years, I dont think any card's ever warped deckbuilding around it more
@@Windowlick_ Slightly off, as Lurrus allowed casting of permanents that were 2 or less, but yeah, for super old format that just have good low-cost drops essentially get warped. Though, Lurrus is back in vintage, and I don't follow that, so I have no idea how things have changed now.
Rarrans ability to interpret MTG cards has come such a long way. CGB picked some absolute bangers to go over! Would love to see more MTG content on the channel. Especially with Weasel Tunneler lady :)
Kinda weird that he saw embercleave, hogaak and vial already in other videos and pretends he did not. Just like he explains aluneth to his guest who already rated aluneth in a previous Video.
@@ich3730 i'm really not sure you've been paying all that close attention if you've somehow got the impression that memory is one of his stronger points
Love CovertCoBlue, he's really good at this type of series, he outlines mechanics without telling you much about the card and has such a nice delivery of the actual truth while telling a lil story about the card, this episode was a blast
He did forget to mention Emrakul's cost barely mattered by the time it was banned, when you were just cheating it out with Aertherworks Marvel! Other than that his stories gave great context.
Hearthstone has "Solid Alibi", that's a MUCH worse fog and was broken at 2, and still good at 3; I think if he made the connection, he'd call it right. Like Alibi doesn't even protect your creatures, fog is a full "nope" for a turn.
Calling Jodah a bad card is so strange to me, when he is one of the best 5 mana commanders out there. Also dominated MTGA Brawl when he was new. But yeah, huge difference between standard and commander.
@@Achtikun Yeah, the premise of the video was to rate the cards in the context of Standard, and Jodah is unplayable in Standard. I guess it's just a Commander card printed in a Standard set.
@@shaded3313What would the guy have to write to satisfy you if 'most' isn't good enough? Does he literally have to find all the old cards and write them down to avoid your ire, or how does it work with you ?
the words "protection from everything" are currently on six cards in Magic: Progenitus (this is probably the one you're remembering, it's rather iconic) Hexdrinker Teferi's Protection (this one DOES stop your opponent's combo dead, and is expensive for that reason) Vexilus Praetor The Stasis Coffin and then The One Ring
What makes The one ring broken is the combination of both of its effects. The problem with damage prevention effects is that they often dont meaningfully answer the situation at hand that led to needing to cast the protection spell to begin with. On the other hand, while paying life for cards (up to 3 additional by your next draw step) it also leaves you veunerable to heavy aggression. Funnily enough, being able to put up a shield while also drawing up to 4 cards prior to your opponent being able to effect you is the standard floor of the card. Add to that the fact that the burden counters are attached to the permanent and NOT the player and its a legendary artifact and now you have a card that can chain itself for multiple turns, giving its caster a lot of looks for an answer to anything going on simply by casting another One Ring and sacrificing the old one to the legendary rule.
The bonus fun with Embercleave was putting it on Anax, Hardened in the Forge whose base power was equal to your devotion to red. The two pips on the Cleave would add an additional 2 to his power, and you're effectively giving him +3 power (and double strike and trample).
Honestly nuts how spot-on Rarran’s initial analysis of Delver was. He had no way of knowing Ponder was a factor that made it even better. Would have loved to see CGB put up Squadron Hawk as well 😁
I was so sure, when he was talking about whether or not a card would be banned in standard, that he'd pull up with the squad. There's a 0% chance Rarran would have put that thing as an 8+ card lol
Worth mentioning though that Emrakul wasn't banned (entirely) for it's own merits, but for how strong it was to pull of Aetherworks Marvel, which was release the following set (and later also banned). Emrakul on it's own was strong but there was also coco-reflectormage-spirits that could definitely hold it's own against it.
one of the biggest issues with embercleave in standard was anax, he always left behind creatures, and when he got equipped with embercleave you got domed for like 16
It's just a 3/2 flyer so they gave you all the information. The more interesting detail is that you decide whether you reveal it, so it's more likely to psych out your opponent than yourself (scryfall says you can reveal any card, you only have to reveal an instant or sorcery to get the effect)
The thing about cards like Jodah, the Unifier (specifically legendary creatures) that are printed into Standard sets is that usually they aren't actually intended to be good for Standard, but rather a shiny new option for Commander players to build decks for. In the Commander context, Jodah is so good that it is a kill-on-sight card most of the time because of how snowbally one turn with him can get.
I've been out of MtG for a _long_ time, but I can't see pulling off that mana cost without having access to dual and/or fetch lands, and even then it's squiggly.
@@InfinityRift7 I phased out of magic before EDH was a thing, but talking with people that I know that still play I can see that, since the card pool for it is so large. I can see it being nearly impossible to pull off in a more limited format, especially if they still use the design philosophy of only designing around the block instead of thinking about the wider consequences of releases.
Not only do I absolutely love the card selections here, CGB is AMAZING at explaining the story behind a card and why it’s good or bad. I agreed with all of his takes and played with all of the cards that were mentioned in standard/ modern in their times. Rarran did a pretty good job at evaluating too. Awesome video
CGB is hands down the best partner for these videos. He has a very deep knowledge of the game and the game's history and the dude can tell a story. It's insanely entertaining to listen to him deliver all these anecdotes about the cards's history. Even though he clearly didn't speak enough about Lurrus and how absurd this card was regarding both it's powerlevel and the result it had on Mtg.
Rarran going through the mindset of not flipping delver on T2 is so fucking hilarious. This was exactly my reaction to it, down to the "and then I look like an idiot"
As it turns out a person reading a card for the first time might miss a single word! But not revealing it still gives a ton of information and the damage to your mental game when you whiff a few in a row is the big problem.
This was a great episode. Limiting it to the Standard format really lets a lot of cards shine even after they got outclassed. Also, Emrakul being the secret Standard boss is very lore-accurate.
@@АлексейПруцев-ф4р No. but iirc you could ask to see your opponent's sideboard, and some people would just surrender in response to hide it. This resulted in a rules change.
This is awesome, and I especially love the little things where a certain detail picked out on base card game principles is just spot on, like Delver 'being good if you can ensure it flips,' or 'if Embercleave sees play your opponent always has to be thinking about it.' Very fun to watch!
I love the chosen cards that do somewhat the same thing, but are very different in power level because of its implementation. "Aether Vial" vs "As Foretold", "The Magic Mirror" vs "The One Ring". Very clever choices and very interesting to see why one is amazing and the other unplayable. good video
Same with Jodah, casting wubrg isnt all that restricting and if he get's removed you can just get him back and keep the value from the cascades making it an easy beatdown
Don't forget that Doctor Who introduced the Time Travel mechanic. So ramping As Foretold is super easy in Commander. I have a deck that runs it and can reliably get it to 6 or 7 even when I play it late game.
18:22 you missed two things, first CGB didn't point out that "may" which means if the top card isn't an instant or sorcery, you just don't reveal it (which was one of Rarran's points against it) second CGB didn't mention Runechanter's Pike which was the other big threat in delver decks that boosted the already decent 3/2 into high power levels to beat face with.
For Emrakul, it's even more of a problem that I don't think they mentioned. Because the "mindslave" effect happens on cast, even if the card is countered, the effect still goes through.
@@ab14967 True, though they did print a (4-mana) counterspell for that Standard specifically to counter Eldrazi as it countered effects on the stack in addition to exiling the spell.
well theres your problem buddy it costs four mana for a counterspell that you must leave open so youre screaming, "HEY IM ABOUT TO CAST THIS SPECIFIC SPELL *AND* IM ABOUT TO WASTE THIS *FOUR* MANA. PLEASE FIT ME FOR A CLOWN WIG."
@@aa-tx7th or you just cast a couple instants that draw at the opponent's end step cause you didn't really need to counter their shit... its definitely not unusual to be playing control and do nothing during your turn because your real turn is the opponent's end step anyways.
@@xXSamir44Xxyeah, but Ich was saying that if you don't reveal a card you still gonna give opponent some info that it was probably not a instantl/sorcery. Again, not as valuable and maybe even missleading (because you COULD not show that you drew a counterspell or something like it), but still.
You're misunderstanding his point. He was clarifying that it gives your opponent the information that you didn't draw an instant or sorcery. That's not a lot, but it is information that's relevant.
26:44 in Legends of Runeterra double strike is the same as MTG one. first strike before the blocker does damage and the 2nd one at the same time as the blocker dealing damage to both
I love cross-card game evaluations, it is a lot of fun to think about how card games are different. If you're looking for a new card game to think about, Netrunner has some pretty wild cards in it. (It is a very different game though).
Pog Seeing Rarran try Netrunner would be a wild and surreal expiriense. Jinteki is an interesting way to play and in some way Rarran already dipped his toes into this type of fan-made ways to play with Lorcana and Yugioh, but still... I think it could be hard to jump into it. There are couple of good channels to learn it or maybe even collab, because I think if he someday really stumble upon Netrunner - it would be a hard time to learn it by yourself. But boy its a good stuff, I love Netrunner and just an idea that two players in duel card game could play a completly different game is even by itself facinate a lot of people, atleast for me it really done it. One player is playing towerdefence while other trying to breach it. One is making the puzzle, bluffing about it content and rewards that his opponent get if he solve it, while other trying to create a working lockpick to get through. One is playing evil Corporation that trying to do its evil stuff, creating new servers and protecting them with ice-firewalls, while other is playing Runner, hacker that for one or another reason trying to get into this servers to steal and prevent Corp from doing its Corp-stuff. Just amazing game. Idea that both players want to get same agenda-cards, but the way they score them is different, idea that all agendas start in Corp deck (so they trying to get them online, while Runner trying to steal them)... Just chef-kiss And the way its handeling your resources - you always spend one action to draw a card, to gain a resource, to do almost everything... But with right cards you could do it more efficient. So you almost never gonna get into top-deck-mode, you almost always has something to do... yeah, you could still get beaten by super-unlucky draws, but its no way near HS problem when you just don't draw stuff that you need and especially not near MTG mana-fliod/mana-screw problem. Atleast from the metal point - yeah, in super-competitive play every action count, but it feel no way near as bad when even if you top-decked something completly useless and you could say "okay, I spend 1/3 or 1/4 actions of my turn to get another card" and try again, then when you go "okay, I drew 1 drop on turn 7, I get 2/2 creature... Thats all". So, again, if we someday would see Netrunner here this would be SUPER cool
I think something worth mention/reinforcing in regards to embercleave is that in magic, Math Is For Blockers. And embercleave made that math against any red deck that you were just even with really horrible if you were trying to match them for board presence. It made blocking completely impossible to do profitably. Therefore, people just stopped trying, and resorted to just trying to race with their own embercleaves, or going full combo/control.
The reason why 'Cascade' effects on Jodah or other cards says put them in exile is to limit the interactions that can be done. Imagine the shenanigans if something like that resolved via graveyard instead? Would be such a wacky and gross combo maker.
@@monnd This is the more accurate assumption, and they've done it before too. Though with how they've been doing "casting from exile matters", perhaps that's why they worded it differently.
@@monnd I mostly trying to highlight the absurdity if those effects would be if they were able to interacted with did not matter the zone. I just arbitrary picked Graveyard. Even your example of Reveal technically has interaction. Revealed cards are still in their respective zones and the opponent can see every card from the Library due to how Reveal works and technically has the option to mill the card targeted. Understandablely a very niche and unlikely scenario but I've seen weirder things. Yet changing that to "Exile cards from the top of your library" then xyz effect, Most cards do not interact with Exile Zone directly or at least not to the effect of Tormod's Crypt other powerful cards. Leaves the opponent to only interact with original casted Spell generally with counterspell, and the opponent has zero information until you find the cards in your deck and resolve card effect.
None of the cards exiled would be interactable until the effect sending them there (cascade, etc) fully resolved, at which point they'd all be at the bottom of your library. This would be the same if the cards were sent to grave instead of exiled for their reveal.
Hell yeah I love these videos. CGB did a great job explaining everything 33:33 worth mentioning that Embercleave was part of a cycle with the Mirror. (Cycles in mtg are a set of 5 cards in different colors that share characteristics by design. This cycle was 5 single color legendary artifacts)
PLEASE do more videos with CGB. I really enjoyed how he did a little setup for each card and explained its place in the meta and hence why it was good/bad. Really informative for someone who has never played MTG before.
I loudly cheered when Aether Vial was shown on screen. DARKSTEEL FORGE, 2004, my prime age of playing Magic the Gathering with friends all day every day. After school we'd sit out at the garden table and just play hours and hours of idiotic decks and ideas. So much fun. The prime of my childhood right there.
Oh yes! I love this kind of content. People from different card games bonding of a shared hobby of card games and showing off their favored game is simply the best.
I know it's a Standard focused video, but it should absolutely be mentioned when showing Lurrus to someone that it is the only Vintage power level ban ever. That alone makes it an 11/10.
The story I love most about Embercleave is "my red opponent literally had no hand, struck an Opt off of *my* library from Robber of the Rich, cast Embercleave. They ALWAYS have it."
I found it absolutely bizarre that Rarran thought as foretold could be good for tempo. He even understood that it was a 3 mana do nothing for a turn. But it's even worse than that. After a turn, you get to cheat out a 1 mana card, which any mana rock could do. And that relies on you having a 1 mana spell you actually want to play. 2 turns after playing it, you get to cheat out 2 mana spells, but typically by this point you're up to 5 lands or more, so it's a bit of who cares? It's only after 3 turns does it feel like it has any impact. It's so intensely slow that it simply can't be tempo, and any control deck would rather have cards that ramp you up in a more immediate sense, have a card that actually impacts the board, or a card that finds you what you need. It's a card that looks worse the more you look at it. If it started with a time counter already on it, we might be talking. I still think it would be not great, but at least you could plan your deck around it, and have it come out on a turn you have a meaningful 1 mana card in your hand, and get that ramp earlier.
As foretold was only that bad, because it was in the highest power crept meta in years You also ignore, in your very bare bones analysis, that cheating out a 1 or 2 mana spell is not really bad, because, yes at that point you are at 4/5 mana, but you are also....om 4/5 mana. 1+4 or 2+5 is more than 4 and 5 respectively. Also ignoring that As Foretold states: "once EACH turn" which means you can cast a spell for 0, if timing restrictions work out, on your opponents turn. Which would fit a UX control deck, but you generally want to keep up counterspells on turn 2-3. So, sure, you are right, that the card was bad, but not for the reasons you think it was. And like I hinted at earlier: If it was printed today, with proliferate in the meta, it would be far better, would it be played?
it only cost 2U? only 1 blue pip and 2 colorless. also it is worht mentioning , as he said in the video it see occasion al mider play as it comboes with suspend cards that have no mana value so you can crashing footfalls or restore baance or w/e on turn. @@neros_soren
In Standard it's it's not good, but in Modern it can be played turn 2 and cheat out cards wit suspend immediately, no need to wait a turn since suspend cards with no mana cost are technically castable by an As Foretold with no counters.
Bad in the standard meta that it was printed sure. Pretty good in any format which has proliferate in it. Extremely good in EDH where it gives you one free cast on EACH opponents turn.
There's an urban legend (that everyone insists is true, of course) about a Magic tournament where a player had a deck with a card that said "Target player loses the game" (I think it was called "Door to Oblivion" or "Door to Nothingness" or something like that). Note that it specifically says "target player", not "target opponent". Apparently at one point he played the card, turned in his chair to point at another player across the room, and said "That guy", and supposedly the judges ruled it a valid move.
Door to Nothingness is such a meme card. It an Artifact that costs 5 generic that says Door to Nothingness enters the battlefield tapped. It costs 2 of each color: tap and sacrifice Door to Nothingness: Target player loses the game. I'm sure in a tournament setting they wouldn't have someone in a random game lose, but I'd be just more surprised at the fact that he was able to have the mana for it and get it to work without losing himself in the meantime.
Your description of Timmy ("I play this thing and this thing and together they do this...") is really a better description of a Johnny player. Timmy just likes big, impressive things. He likes his 13/13 Krosan Cloudscrapers and 10/10 Leviathans even though they cost way too much for what they do and can be answered fairly efficiently. He just wants to play big things. Johnny is the one that puts together the Rube Goldberg machine. Jodah is still totally a Timmy card, it is flashy and impactful mostly on its own (yes, it needs other cards, but it can be a variety of other cards and cares little about which ones specifically) but rather impractical.
Delver of Secrets is such a good example to present. Nowadays it's a little meh but a nice inclusion if you have nothing else on your collection. Great fun of CGB to give you that and Hogaak! Evil picks 😊 Edit: Watched more of the video. Embercleave, CGB? Really? xD
@@livedandletdie Yeah I thought so too, but Aeon's Torn very obvious for being good. At least Promised End has the 'when you cast' trigger and the cost reduction thing to make non-MtG players think a bit.
I can't believe he didn't mention that delver of secrets says you MAY reveal that card. AKA you don't reveal the card unless it's an instant or sorcery
Another fun fact: Lurrus was SO busted in Vintage (the format where things get restricted to 1 copy rather than banned), it was banned. Vintage then was cast black lotus, cast Lurrus, cast lotus from GY. It was the first card to be banned in vintage since 1994, and the only one on the very short ban list that was there for power level reasons. The rest were gambling cards or racist cards
For Delver of Secrets one thing is that you LOOK at a card and you MAY reveal it. If you miss, you do not have to show your opponent what that card is. All they would know is that most likely it was not a sorcery or instant because most likely if it was you would have revealed it.
Second video I've seen from this channel and they've both been this hearthstone guy... I love it! Lol I just started hearthstone a week or so ago and the reverse perspective is just glorious. Love your content dude!
I’m just going to drop some info here that I think is very relevant for translating power level of Magic to Hearthstone: Because you have to play lands to get your mana in Magic, higher cost cards are not guaranteed to be played on curve most of the time unless you are planning to accomplish that task and build your deck around it. Because of this, cards that cost more are significantly worse, and double-spelling or triple-spelling is significantly more common in Magic. The average cost of cards in a deck is usually 2.0-2.5 or lower, meaning 1, 2, and 3 cost cards make up 75% or more of the nonland cards in a deck. Cards that cost 4 or more are usually not numerous, and generally together take up less than 10 slots if they’re included at all. Mana cheating cards like Hogaak escape these rules because they come out early as a big payoff to the strategy, but as a general rule any card that has a cost of 3 needs to be super impactful immediately, and anything more expensive than 3 has a very high bar of power that it needs to meet or exceed to be playable. I think it would be cool to show Rarran some meta decks in different formats throughout history to help get a feel for what decks tend to look like beyond the MtG Arena experience, and would also showcase the kinds of cards available in the rest of Magic as well as what’s deemed playable at the top level in constructed formats.
26:50 "Double strike in Runeterra means, it strikes twice before damage is dealt back" No, it does not. Double Attack/ Double Strike function the same as the same as Magic, you get the first strike/ quick attack damage, then normal damage after at the same time as other normal combat damage.
Great episode, great card selection by CGB, can't wait for the next episode maybe with other formats, rating more modern and legacy cards would be a totally different thing :)
Important to remember for embercleave as well- If the first strike damage kills the blocker, not only will u trample over with that hit but the full damage of the second hit of the doublestrike will trample through as well.
The important thing that made Emrakul, the Promised End utterly busted in Standard was that Wizards had the "brilliant" idea of creating a Standard format with 2 graveyard-focused sets and effectively ZERO graveyard hate.
For embercleave you also need to know about the arena meta of the time, res used to play a deck with several 1/1 haste creatures, with an enchantment that ping face when a 1 power attacks, combine that with embercleave, the dwarf that increased any red dmg by two and the freaking 1/3 lizard that got one extra power and double strike for each non combat damage dealt and most games would end by embercleave at turn 3 or the dwarf at turn 4
Anax was definitely Embercleave's partner in crime in standard, especially in paper where several of those cards you mentioned aren't legal because they're Arena only
As Foretold requires a bit of build around but when if it works in commander, it's crazy. It works on each player's turn so you can get 4 free 1 mana spells with just the first counter. I have an Instant-Tribal Izzet deck that just abuses this. You don't even need the magical Christmas land. Essentially, its floor is like an etb tapped 3-mana rock. ofc 100% right about standard, the build around is way too restrictive in a small format.
My wife plays As Foretold in her Atraxa deck. In a proliferate-focused deck, you get time counters so damn fast. She actually doesn't use the effect much on her own turn, but she gets to tap out and still get a free counterspell or draw effect every turn.
I thought it was run in Modern for a while to cast stuff like Crashing Footfalls and Ancestral Visions, but starcity doesn't have it in any decks in the last 2 years. huh. but yeah, none of the cards it worked with were in standard with it
@@someguy1ification In my recollection it was tested in most cascade decks but the current version of rhinos was settled on pretty quickly. Definitely not unplayable in modern though.
Another treat from Rarran (and CGB!) Super-amazing episode, I love that its almost an hour long because, again, its such a good stuff. In general I like this series, but as many there already said - CGB is so good at presenting cards, he is almost everytime pass just enough info to understand what card would do (well, sometimes its still not as easy to do, especially if card is super meta-depending), but not spoil exactly why its broken or not. And card picks in this episode was just amazing, all valid and interesting. And yeah, I am too in a "As Foretold beliver" Gang, maybe its trash, but I don't care :D And yeah, Rarran's ability to identify cards is so good too, yeah, there was couple misses here and there, but especially judging from empty meta-knowledge point of view - you are very good at it! So again - amazing stuff, thanks, hope to see more of it someday!
Aether vial doesn't skip the stack. The effect it generates goes on the stack. The creature that gets put into play isn't cast (so can't be counter spelled), and the creature itself is never on the stack. This is a minor difference, but there are cards that can counter any effect on the stack (so not just spells being cast). You wouldn't have to reveal the creature your putting into play until the effect resolves though.
Emrakul, The Aeon's Torn is better than the Promised End. Because when its played you get an extra turn, and it being summoned can't be countered, meaning you ALWAYS get that extra turn no matter what. Everything else is extra.
As a yugioh player, seeing Hogaak being able to exile cards from GY as its mana cost reminds me of Fairy Tail snow, which is one of the most insane cards of all time (In yugioh, the card game without mana cost), and i immediately thought its a 10/10
The fun fact about Embercleave is that it has flash, so we can play it AFTER the opponent declare blockers, and when it enters the battlefield, we can "attach", which means it enters equiping one creature, and smorc almost always prefeer to equip the unblocked creature.
its rare these "other card game players rate a different card game than theyre used to" videos are enjoyable to me. this is was 10/10 though. knew enough of the game to not need basic game mechanic explanations. but not enough that he still had to frame it on it his home game. With very clean card descriptions from the host without miss speaking about what an ability is and listening to the guest to correct misidentifications by them (like embercleave "reducing to 0", not giving the answer away). Thanks for such a great video.
this is me, having played against jodah a billion times in commander. learning his first dumb f%$# ability doesnt even say "other" anywhere. not other legends, i know it effects him too. but specifically not for EACH other like heroes podium. hes a 6/6 with nothing but him in play. wtf.
Aether Vial probably wasn't banned because everything else in the Mirrodin block was even more busted. IDK though I didn't even know Magic existed back then
I really like he points out if the card is/was good in other formats. I've seen other videos where they call what's a staple card in other formats bad with no context at all.
I've seen As Foretold in commander once, they had a deck focused around counter Manipulation and some enchantment interactions, they mostly used it to exploit the hell out of Sagas but also to cast suspend spells faster, As Foretold was a bit of a nice plan B as it was a good place to dump time counters from suspend spells and get value from them while upping the enchantment count. And Yes, Jodah is a neat commander deck if you have the expensive land base(Or allow proxies) where you just cheat out the most overcosted but game winning legends if they lack removal(My friend built it mostly in blue with some green, running mana tutoring from green and several counterspells from blue along with a splash of deck manipulation(Both to find your mana base more effectively and to help ensure you're hitting the big game winning legends and not the small efficient ones to get it going)
@@DiabloTommaso Yeah, I still remember people testing around with some Suspend decks, which worked at local and casual online levels but never managed to get a foot in the door in serious competitive environments.
@@Zakading Maybe I remember wrong since I was quitting Modern around that time, but as I recall, (and while being fringe) "Blue Living End" and "Turns" were both pretty competitive at the time. This was around the same time when regular Living End was still somewhat playable and not that long after it was one of the most popular decks in the format.
@@DiabloTommaso It's a little fringe in Modern, but I play a deck with As Foretold and Electrodominance that can cast Crashing Footfalls or Restore Balance as early as turn 2 and that's a huge tempo swing.
@@muchograndeyolatengo Living end with as foretold had some success in modern, then they printed shardless agent into modern and it just did what you wanted from as foretold but casting living end from your deck instead.
With an introduction to the companion mechanic, now would be the perfect time to try and rate the other nine companions in Ikoria. See if you can sniff out which one were good in standard and which ones had longer staying power. And with Lurrus not being included, the others power levels should seem a bit more comparable.
"Your opponent has to constantly think about this card if you're playing red" My guy you have no idea lol. I was happy to see this go at standard rotation.
The problem with the One Ring is that it's actually the Four Rings because every deck runs four copies. And if you play a second copy, you can sacrifice the first one to the legend rule, get a whole new turn of protection from everything and reset the clock on the burden counter.
CGB was having SO much fun with this one ahahaha. Welcome to MTG, bud. The more things make sense, the less they will, so don't worry about it and just have fun hahaha.
As Foretold in Standard was crap, but definitely playable in Modern: Turn 1 land + Ragavan, turn 2 attack + land + treasure + As Foretold + Crashing Footfalls = 2 4/4 Rhinos on turn 2
Emrakul also has perhaps the funniest rules clarification of any card, where they make it clear that while controlling your opponent, you cannot make them concede the game.
Promised End also made Wizards change the rule book. Before Emrakul, you could look at an opponent's sideboard while you controlled them. Nowadays, the rulebook forbids that explicitly.
@@jeffreyreading5318yeah and people would concede to keep that information a secret
I'd say that the funniest rules clarification (in the example of 719.5b) is that you can't make them go to the restroom :P
I mean mindslaver existed long before this lol.
I still love "Yes your opponent can't even. We know". Or the rulings on Demonic Pact
"This is an old card" while looking at Embercleave made me feel ancient.
I know right...I still classify all cards with the modern frame as "new" even though it came out 20 years ago.
"Cmon man, it's from 2019 Eldraine"
"Yeah. That's almost 4 years ago"
*turns into dust*
@@TheyCallMeDioYo, Khans was 9 years ago 😅
I quit playing after Return to Ravnica. Everything in this video makes me feel ancient lol
@@FalseHerald "calm down, grandpa. That was 11 years ago"
I think CGB couldve mentioned how Lurrus pre-errata did get banned in basically every format outside of standard INCLUDING vintage. The first blackborder card banned in vintage since basically Shahrazad.
and shahrazad wasnt banned for power level reasons.
And the fact that because Lurrus was in the companion zone and not your hand, you couldn't discard it. Lurrus basically banned all permanents that cost more than 3 for a couple of years, I dont think any card's ever warped deckbuilding around it more
@@Windowlick_ Slightly off, as Lurrus allowed casting of permanents that were 2 or less, but yeah, for super old format that just have good low-cost drops essentially get warped.
Though, Lurrus is back in vintage, and I don't follow that, so I have no idea how things have changed now.
Yeah… wasn’t it banned in every format it was legal in?
Lurrus also forced them to errata the entire Companion mechanic. Absolutely gross card
Rarrans ability to interpret MTG cards has come such a long way. CGB picked some absolute bangers to go over! Would love to see more MTG content on the channel. Especially with Weasel Tunneler lady :)
weasel tunneller lady my beloved
Putting As Foretold and Aether Vial in the same video, as well as Magic Mirror and The One RIng, was devious.
Kinda weird that he saw embercleave, hogaak and vial already in other videos and pretends he did not. Just like he explains aluneth to his guest who already rated aluneth in a previous Video.
weasel tunnling is what got me kicked out of my vegas hotel room :(
@@ich3730 i'm really not sure you've been paying all that close attention if you've somehow got the impression that memory is one of his stronger points
Love CovertCoBlue, he's really good at this type of series, he outlines mechanics without telling you much about the card and has such a nice delivery of the actual truth while telling a lil story about the card, this episode was a blast
Plus his snide, condescending performance makes it hard to decide if he's fucking with you or not. He's so good at pretending to be the villain
He did forget to mention Emrakul's cost barely mattered by the time it was banned, when you were just cheating it out with Aertherworks Marvel!
Other than that his stories gave great context.
@@dracosfire7247 Pretending? He's a blue player, we're all one life-changing event away from going full villain.
The way he evaluated the one ring makes me really want to see how he would rate just fog.
Fog is incredibly strong, there's a reason we don't see many fogs printed in standard.
@@milo8425 It is ironic how people underrate fog effects.
Hearthstone has "Solid Alibi", that's a MUCH worse fog and was broken at 2, and still good at 3; I think if he made the connection, he'd call it right.
Like Alibi doesn't even protect your creatures, fog is a full "nope" for a turn.
i started playing magic in the early 2000s and I loved using fog. It demolishes aggo in so many situations.
22:01 “I can’t even read this one… Camouflage”
The irony 😮
Fun fact Jodah is always at least a 6/6 b/c his ability sees himself which is rather unusual, most lord style effects do not effect themselves
Undead Warchief
@@shaded3313most
Calling Jodah a bad card is so strange to me, when he is one of the best 5 mana commanders out there. Also dominated MTGA Brawl when he was new. But yeah, huge difference between standard and commander.
@@Achtikun Yeah, the premise of the video was to rate the cards in the context of Standard, and Jodah is unplayable in Standard. I guess it's just a Commander card printed in a Standard set.
@@shaded3313What would the guy have to write to satisfy you if 'most' isn't good enough?
Does he literally have to find all the old cards and write them down to avoid your ire, or how does it work with you ?
the words "protection from everything" are currently on six cards in Magic:
Progenitus (this is probably the one you're remembering, it's rather iconic)
Hexdrinker
Teferi's Protection (this one DOES stop your opponent's combo dead, and is expensive for that reason)
Vexilus Praetor
The Stasis Coffin
and then The One Ring
funny how two of these are mega recent, printed very closely to each other and are UB cards from other franchises.
What makes The one ring broken is the combination of both of its effects. The problem with damage prevention effects is that they often dont meaningfully answer the situation at hand that led to needing to cast the protection spell to begin with. On the other hand, while paying life for cards (up to 3 additional by your next draw step) it also leaves you veunerable to heavy aggression. Funnily enough, being able to put up a shield while also drawing up to 4 cards prior to your opponent being able to effect you is the standard floor of the card. Add to that the fact that the burden counters are attached to the permanent and NOT the player and its a legendary artifact and now you have a card that can chain itself for multiple turns, giving its caster a lot of looks for an answer to anything going on simply by casting another One Ring and sacrificing the old one to the legendary rule.
CGB looking like a villain with a smirk every time rarran is talking about a card.
well he kinda is since hes cool with other ip cards lol
The bonus fun with Embercleave was putting it on Anax, Hardened in the Forge whose base power was equal to your devotion to red. The two pips on the Cleave would add an additional 2 to his power, and you're effectively giving him +3 power (and double strike and trample).
Honestly nuts how spot-on Rarran’s initial analysis of Delver was. He had no way of knowing Ponder was a factor that made it even better. Would have loved to see CGB put up Squadron Hawk as well 😁
I was so sure, when he was talking about whether or not a card would be banned in standard, that he'd pull up with the squad. There's a 0% chance Rarran would have put that thing as an 8+ card lol
Worth mentioning though that Emrakul wasn't banned (entirely) for it's own merits, but for how strong it was to pull of Aetherworks Marvel, which was release the following set (and later also banned). Emrakul on it's own was strong but there was also coco-reflectormage-spirits that could definitely hold it's own against it.
Yeah emrakul Was just the best fattie for marvels to cheat in. It could have been any big chungus, emrakul just happened to be the best at the time.
one of the biggest issues with embercleave in standard was anax, he always left behind creatures, and when he got equipped with embercleave you got domed for like 16
For the Delver of Secrets card it would be nice to also show the transformed side. Anyways, i simply cant get enough of those videos
Yeah, on the first one they did show it, so probably just the good old editing mistake
It's just a 3/2 flyer so they gave you all the information. The more interesting detail is that you decide whether you reveal it, so it's more likely to psych out your opponent than yourself (scryfall says you can reveal any card, you only have to reveal an instant or sorcery to get the effect)
@@juliotorres3147 i meant for us, as i don't know the cards. i mean in the end this one luckily wasn't complicated, but still
The thing about cards like Jodah, the Unifier (specifically legendary creatures) that are printed into Standard sets is that usually they aren't actually intended to be good for Standard, but rather a shiny new option for Commander players to build decks for. In the Commander context, Jodah is so good that it is a kill-on-sight card most of the time because of how snowbally one turn with him can get.
I've been out of MtG for a _long_ time, but I can't see pulling off that mana cost without having access to dual and/or fetch lands, and even then it's squiggly.
@@leadpaintchips9461 There is so much access to good mana dorks and good rainbow lands in EDH that mana fixing isn’t too much of a problem anymore
@@InfinityRift7 I phased out of magic before EDH was a thing, but talking with people that I know that still play I can see that, since the card pool for it is so large.
I can see it being nearly impossible to pull off in a more limited format, especially if they still use the design philosophy of only designing around the block instead of thinking about the wider consequences of releases.
Not only do I absolutely love the card selections here, CGB is AMAZING at explaining the story behind a card and why it’s good or bad. I agreed with all of his takes and played with all of the cards that were mentioned in standard/ modern in their times. Rarran did a pretty good job at evaluating too. Awesome video
CGB is hands down the best partner for these videos. He has a very deep knowledge of the game and the game's history and the dude can tell a story. It's insanely entertaining to listen to him deliver all these anecdotes about the cards's history.
Even though he clearly didn't speak enough about Lurrus and how absurd this card was regarding both it's powerlevel and the result it had on Mtg.
Rarran going through the mindset of not flipping delver on T2 is so fucking hilarious. This was exactly my reaction to it, down to the "and then I look like an idiot"
I laughed at his comment about it destroying your mental game too. Spot on with that one.
People don't seem to realize there is a MAY in that ability. You look at the card and then you MAY reveal it, meaning you don't have to.
As it turns out a person reading a card for the first time might miss a single word!
But not revealing it still gives a ton of information and the damage to your mental game when you whiff a few in a row is the big problem.
@@Dreamhaxor I think he realized that but argued that the opponent can jsut infer that you have drawn a creature/land if you do not reveal
This was a great episode. Limiting it to the Standard format really lets a lot of cards shine even after they got outclassed.
Also, Emrakul being the secret Standard boss is very lore-accurate.
wasn't emrakul also able to let you surrender for your opponent for some time?
@@АлексейПруцев-ф4р Not in paper. That was made clear back in Mirrodin when Mindslaver was printed.
I don't know about MTGO, but it seems unlikely.
We are Emrakul
@@АлексейПруцев-ф4р No. but iirc you could ask to see your opponent's sideboard, and some people would just surrender in response to hide it. This resulted in a rules change.
This is awesome, and I especially love the little things where a certain detail picked out on base card game principles is just spot on, like Delver 'being good if you can ensure it flips,' or 'if Embercleave sees play your opponent always has to be thinking about it.' Very fun to watch!
I love the chosen cards that do somewhat the same thing, but are very different in power level because of its implementation. "Aether Vial" vs "As Foretold", "The Magic Mirror" vs "The One Ring". Very clever choices and very interesting to see why one is amazing and the other unplayable. good video
Would love to see you guess some of the other companions. They me of Baku and Greymane somewhat too
The funny thing about Lurrus is that it was the only card that was banned in Vintage for power level reasons.
I'd argue that Shaharazad is banned for its stall power :P
Ranranch doing more magic content?? My day instantly became better
Oh god, my brain immediately corrected that to Ram Ranch. It's under siege, under lockdown.
As fortold gets a lot more neat in commander, because it says each turn, giving you a free removal card on each opponents turn in high draw decks
Same with Jodah, casting wubrg isnt all that restricting and if he get's removed you can just get him back and keep the value from the cascades making it an easy beatdown
Don't forget that Doctor Who introduced the Time Travel mechanic. So ramping As Foretold is super easy in Commander. I have a deck that runs it and can reliably get it to 6 or 7 even when I play it late game.
18:22 you missed two things, first CGB didn't point out that "may" which means if the top card isn't an instant or sorcery, you just don't reveal it (which was one of Rarran's points against it) second CGB didn't mention Runechanter's Pike which was the other big threat in delver decks that boosted the already decent 3/2 into high power levels to beat face with.
Hearing Embercleave called an old card made me feel absolutely ancient 💀
PLEASE more of these. Thank you, love you Rarran
Rarran forgetting that dual class cards exist in hearthstone,and had existed for years,at least he tried.
For Emrakul, it's even more of a problem that I don't think they mentioned. Because the "mindslave" effect happens on cast, even if the card is countered, the effect still goes through.
unless u counter the effect
@@pinkpersona You can, but people usually don't run these kinds of spells that specifically counter the effect.
@@ab14967 True, though they did print a (4-mana) counterspell for that Standard specifically to counter Eldrazi as it countered effects on the stack in addition to exiling the spell.
well theres your problem buddy
it costs four mana
for a counterspell
that you must leave open
so youre screaming, "HEY IM ABOUT TO CAST THIS SPECIFIC SPELL *AND* IM ABOUT TO WASTE THIS *FOUR* MANA. PLEASE FIT ME FOR A CLOWN WIG."
@@aa-tx7th or you just cast a couple instants that draw at the opponent's end step cause you didn't really need to counter their shit... its definitely not unusual to be playing control and do nothing during your turn because your real turn is the opponent's end step anyways.
Delver of Secret's reveal is a "may", if you don't draw a noncreature spell you don't have to show it.
I mean, sure. But when you dont reveal it that telegraphs pretty fucking hard that its not an instant or sorc
@@ich3730If you reveal it and it's not an instant or sorcery you just gave your opponent information for no reason.
@@xXSamir44Xxyeah, but Ich was saying that if you don't reveal a card you still gonna give opponent some info that it was probably not a instantl/sorcery. Again, not as valuable and maybe even missleading (because you COULD not show that you drew a counterspell or something like it), but still.
You're misunderstanding his point. He was clarifying that it gives your opponent the information that you didn't draw an instant or sorcery. That's not a lot, but it is information that's relevant.
26:44 in Legends of Runeterra double strike is the same as MTG one. first strike before the blocker does damage and the 2nd one at the same time as the blocker dealing damage to both
CGB and rarran telling stories about the cards makes this 10 times better keep the great content going
I love cross-card game evaluations, it is a lot of fun to think about how card games are different.
If you're looking for a new card game to think about, Netrunner has some pretty wild cards in it. (It is a very different game though).
Pog Seeing Rarran try Netrunner would be a wild and surreal expiriense. Jinteki is an interesting way to play and in some way Rarran already dipped his toes into this type of fan-made ways to play with Lorcana and Yugioh, but still... I think it could be hard to jump into it. There are couple of good channels to learn it or maybe even collab, because I think if he someday really stumble upon Netrunner - it would be a hard time to learn it by yourself.
But boy its a good stuff, I love Netrunner and just an idea that two players in duel card game could play a completly different game is even by itself facinate a lot of people, atleast for me it really done it. One player is playing towerdefence while other trying to breach it. One is making the puzzle, bluffing about it content and rewards that his opponent get if he solve it, while other trying to create a working lockpick to get through.
One is playing evil Corporation that trying to do its evil stuff, creating new servers and protecting them with ice-firewalls, while other is playing Runner, hacker that for one or another reason trying to get into this servers to steal and prevent Corp from doing its Corp-stuff.
Just amazing game. Idea that both players want to get same agenda-cards, but the way they score them is different, idea that all agendas start in Corp deck (so they trying to get them online, while Runner trying to steal them)... Just chef-kiss
And the way its handeling your resources - you always spend one action to draw a card, to gain a resource, to do almost everything... But with right cards you could do it more efficient. So you almost never gonna get into top-deck-mode, you almost always has something to do... yeah, you could still get beaten by super-unlucky draws, but its no way near HS problem when you just don't draw stuff that you need and especially not near MTG mana-fliod/mana-screw problem. Atleast from the metal point - yeah, in super-competitive play every action count, but it feel no way near as bad when even if you top-decked something completly useless and you could say "okay, I spend 1/3 or 1/4 actions of my turn to get another card" and try again, then when you go "okay, I drew 1 drop on turn 7, I get 2/2 creature... Thats all".
So, again, if we someday would see Netrunner here this would be SUPER cool
You two are great fun to listen to together. Like you're just actually having fun here, and it's really enjoyable.
I think something worth mention/reinforcing in regards to embercleave is that in magic, Math Is For Blockers. And embercleave made that math against any red deck that you were just even with really horrible if you were trying to match them for board presence. It made blocking completely impossible to do profitably. Therefore, people just stopped trying, and resorted to just trying to race with their own embercleaves, or going full combo/control.
The reason why 'Cascade' effects on Jodah or other cards says put them in exile is to limit the interactions that can be done. Imagine the shenanigans if something like that resolved via graveyard instead? Would be such a wacky and gross combo maker.
Couldnt the wording just be "reveal cards from the top of your library" then
@@monnd This is the more accurate assumption, and they've done it before too. Though with how they've been doing "casting from exile matters", perhaps that's why they worded it differently.
@@monnd I mostly trying to highlight the absurdity if those effects would be if they were able to interacted with did not matter the zone. I just arbitrary picked Graveyard. Even your example of Reveal technically has interaction. Revealed cards are still in their respective zones and the opponent can see every card from the Library due to how Reveal works and technically has the option to mill the card targeted. Understandablely a very niche and unlikely scenario but I've seen weirder things.
Yet changing that to "Exile cards from the top of your library" then xyz effect, Most cards do not interact with Exile Zone directly or at least not to the effect of Tormod's Crypt other powerful cards. Leaves the opponent to only interact with original casted Spell generally with counterspell, and the opponent has zero information until you find the cards in your deck and resolve card effect.
None of the cards exiled would be interactable until the effect sending them there (cascade, etc) fully resolved, at which point they'd all be at the bottom of your library.
This would be the same if the cards were sent to grave instead of exiled for their reveal.
These are for real some of my favorite videos on youtube; thank you so much for the extra-long version!!!!
Hell yeah I love these videos. CGB did a great job explaining everything
33:33 worth mentioning that Embercleave was part of a cycle with the Mirror. (Cycles in mtg are a set of 5 cards in different colors that share characteristics by design. This cycle was 5 single color legendary artifacts)
PLEASE do more videos with CGB. I really enjoyed how he did a little setup for each card and explained its place in the meta and hence why it was good/bad. Really informative for someone who has never played MTG before.
I loudly cheered when Aether Vial was shown on screen. DARKSTEEL FORGE, 2004, my prime age of playing Magic the Gathering with friends all day every day. After school we'd sit out at the garden table and just play hours and hours of idiotic decks and ideas. So much fun. The prime of my childhood right there.
Rarran already reviewed this card with PVDDRMTG, you can go back to that video if you want to see him rate it again.
Oh yes! I love this kind of content. People from different card games bonding of a shared hobby of card games and showing off their favored game is simply the best.
I know it's a Standard focused video, but it should absolutely be mentioned when showing Lurrus to someone that it is the only Vintage power level ban ever. That alone makes it an 11/10.
A suggestion for dad: when you value a planewalker you need to see how much it costs if he can protect itself and how hard is to remove
The story I love most about Embercleave is "my red opponent literally had no hand, struck an Opt off of *my* library from Robber of the Rich, cast Embercleave. They ALWAYS have it."
I found it absolutely bizarre that Rarran thought as foretold could be good for tempo. He even understood that it was a 3 mana do nothing for a turn. But it's even worse than that. After a turn, you get to cheat out a 1 mana card, which any mana rock could do. And that relies on you having a 1 mana spell you actually want to play. 2 turns after playing it, you get to cheat out 2 mana spells, but typically by this point you're up to 5 lands or more, so it's a bit of who cares? It's only after 3 turns does it feel like it has any impact. It's so intensely slow that it simply can't be tempo, and any control deck would rather have cards that ramp you up in a more immediate sense, have a card that actually impacts the board, or a card that finds you what you need. It's a card that looks worse the more you look at it.
If it started with a time counter already on it, we might be talking. I still think it would be not great, but at least you could plan your deck around it, and have it come out on a turn you have a meaningful 1 mana card in your hand, and get that ramp earlier.
As foretold was only that bad, because it was in the highest power crept meta in years
You also ignore, in your very bare bones analysis, that cheating out a 1 or 2 mana spell is not really bad, because, yes at that point you are at 4/5 mana, but you are also....om 4/5 mana.
1+4 or 2+5 is more than 4 and 5 respectively. Also ignoring that As Foretold states: "once EACH turn" which means you can cast a spell for 0, if timing restrictions work out, on your opponents turn. Which would fit a UX control deck, but you generally want to keep up counterspells on turn 2-3.
So, sure, you are right, that the card was bad, but not for the reasons you think it was.
And like I hinted at earlier: If it was printed today, with proliferate in the meta, it would be far better, would it be played?
it only cost 2U? only 1 blue pip and 2 colorless. also it is worht mentioning , as he said in the video it see occasion al mider play as it comboes with suspend cards that have no mana value so you can crashing footfalls or restore baance or w/e on turn. @@neros_soren
In Standard it's it's not good, but in Modern it can be played turn 2 and cheat out cards wit suspend immediately, no need to wait a turn since suspend cards with no mana cost are technically castable by an As Foretold with no counters.
@@wacosta13yeah but that’s a lot of hoops to jump through for an aether vial that doesn’t give your creatures flash
Bad in the standard meta that it was printed sure. Pretty good in any format which has proliferate in it. Extremely good in EDH where it gives you one free cast on EACH opponents turn.
There's an urban legend (that everyone insists is true, of course) about a Magic tournament where a player had a deck with a card that said "Target player loses the game" (I think it was called "Door to Oblivion" or "Door to Nothingness" or something like that). Note that it specifically says "target player", not "target opponent". Apparently at one point he played the card, turned in his chair to point at another player across the room, and said "That guy", and supposedly the judges ruled it a valid move.
Door to Nothingness is such a meme card. It an Artifact that costs 5 generic that says Door to Nothingness enters the battlefield tapped. It costs 2 of each color: tap and sacrifice Door to Nothingness: Target player loses the game. I'm sure in a tournament setting they wouldn't have someone in a random game lose, but I'd be just more surprised at the fact that he was able to have the mana for it and get it to work without losing himself in the meantime.
I love CGB's energy. Hes so fun to listen to
Your description of Timmy ("I play this thing and this thing and together they do this...") is really a better description of a Johnny player. Timmy just likes big, impressive things. He likes his 13/13 Krosan Cloudscrapers and 10/10 Leviathans even though they cost way too much for what they do and can be answered fairly efficiently. He just wants to play big things. Johnny is the one that puts together the Rube Goldberg machine.
Jodah is still totally a Timmy card, it is flashy and impactful mostly on its own (yes, it needs other cards, but it can be a variety of other cards and cares little about which ones specifically) but rather impractical.
As a Johnny combo nut, I agree.
As Timmy who masquerades as Johnny, this assessment is correct
Delver of Secrets is such a good example to present.
Nowadays it's a little meh but a nice inclusion if you have nothing else on your collection. Great fun of CGB to give you that and Hogaak! Evil picks 😊
Edit: Watched more of the video. Embercleave, CGB? Really? xD
It's a sad day when delver got power crept out of delver in legacy
He could've talked about the OG Emrakul as well, after all, that card is my one true love.
@@livedandletdie Yeah I thought so too, but Aeon's Torn very obvious for being good. At least Promised End has the 'when you cast' trigger and the cost reduction thing to make non-MtG players think a bit.
He should've showed him Delver, then Dragon Rage Channeler and then Ragavan :P
@@2ntwins You mean modern? Legacy still absolutely sees delver play.
Delver of Secrets is still insane in the Pauper(commons only) format, and is one of the main reasons blue is so strong in Pauper.
am excited to see you rate cards after you've actually played the game
I can't believe he didn't mention that delver of secrets says you MAY reveal that card. AKA you don't reveal the card unless it's an instant or sorcery
"This is an old card, 2019" Rarran this hurt my soul, I feel like I played this yesterday
Another fun fact: Lurrus was SO busted in Vintage (the format where things get restricted to 1 copy rather than banned), it was banned.
Vintage then was cast black lotus, cast Lurrus, cast lotus from GY.
It was the first card to be banned in vintage since 1994, and the only one on the very short ban list that was there for power level reasons. The rest were gambling cards or racist cards
Delver "This is bad for your mental because you're going to get tilted on turn two"
AS A LOVER OF DELVER DECKS I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO CALLED OUT.
The way he says "You COULD" when answering about paying mana for Hogaak rofl.
Really fun and thoughtful card choices here, well done CGB!
Also, our boi is getting some true evaluation chops, so proud.
For Delver of Secrets one thing is that you LOOK at a card and you MAY reveal it. If you miss, you do not have to show your opponent what that card is. All they would know is that most likely it was not a sorcery or instant because most likely if it was you would have revealed it.
Second video I've seen from this channel and they've both been this hearthstone guy... I love it! Lol I just started hearthstone a week or so ago and the reverse perspective is just glorious. Love your content dude!
I’m just going to drop some info here that I think is very relevant for translating power level of Magic to Hearthstone:
Because you have to play lands to get your mana in Magic, higher cost cards are not guaranteed to be played on curve most of the time unless you are planning to accomplish that task and build your deck around it. Because of this, cards that cost more are significantly worse, and double-spelling or triple-spelling is significantly more common in Magic. The average cost of cards in a deck is usually 2.0-2.5 or lower, meaning 1, 2, and 3 cost cards make up 75% or more of the nonland cards in a deck. Cards that cost 4 or more are usually not numerous, and generally together take up less than 10 slots if they’re included at all. Mana cheating cards like Hogaak escape these rules because they come out early as a big payoff to the strategy, but as a general rule any card that has a cost of 3 needs to be super impactful immediately, and anything more expensive than 3 has a very high bar of power that it needs to meet or exceed to be playable.
I think it would be cool to show Rarran some meta decks in different formats throughout history to help get a feel for what decks tend to look like beyond the MtG Arena experience, and would also showcase the kinds of cards available in the rest of Magic as well as what’s deemed playable at the top level in constructed formats.
26:50 "Double strike in Runeterra means, it strikes twice before damage is dealt back" No, it does not. Double Attack/ Double Strike function the same as the same as Magic, you get the first strike/ quick attack damage, then normal damage after at the same time as other normal combat damage.
yeah, david cut it out of the video but I said I was wrong in the recording.
Love this video, these are some of my favourite types of video (x game player rates y game cards) and to get an hour in 1 vid is awesome
If we had to talk about lurrus holistically i think its an 11/10. I wish he discussed lurrus's war crimes in eternal formats real quick
41:30 ALSO let's not forget the whole Free cast with energy using Aetherworks Marvel from the very next set, Kaledesh
Great episode, great card selection by CGB, can't wait for the next episode maybe with other formats, rating more modern and legacy cards would be a totally different thing :)
Important to remember for embercleave as well- If the first strike damage kills the blocker, not only will u trample over with that hit but the full damage of the second hit of the doublestrike will trample through as well.
The important thing that made Emrakul, the Promised End utterly busted in Standard was that Wizards had the "brilliant" idea of creating a Standard format with 2 graveyard-focused sets and effectively ZERO graveyard hate.
For embercleave you also need to know about the arena meta of the time, res used to play a deck with several 1/1 haste creatures, with an enchantment that ping face when a 1 power attacks, combine that with embercleave, the dwarf that increased any red dmg by two and the freaking 1/3 lizard that got one extra power and double strike for each non combat damage dealt and most games would end by embercleave at turn 3 or the dwarf at turn 4
Anax was definitely Embercleave's partner in crime in standard, especially in paper where several of those cards you mentioned aren't legal because they're Arena only
@@2424Larsmana Javier, mana Robber, mana Anax, mana Embercleave or Torbran and win. Balanced haha.
"This was a long while ago so the power level must've been lower in general" Oh my sweet summer child
Magic works backwards lol
As Foretold requires a bit of build around but when if it works in commander, it's crazy. It works on each player's turn so you can get 4 free 1 mana spells with just the first counter. I have an Instant-Tribal Izzet deck that just abuses this. You don't even need the magical Christmas land. Essentially, its floor is like an etb tapped 3-mana rock. ofc 100% right about standard, the build around is way too restrictive in a small format.
My wife plays As Foretold in her Atraxa deck. In a proliferate-focused deck, you get time counters so damn fast. She actually doesn't use the effect much on her own turn, but she gets to tap out and still get a free counterspell or draw effect every turn.
I thought it was run in Modern for a while to cast stuff like Crashing Footfalls and Ancestral Visions, but starcity doesn't have it in any decks in the last 2 years. huh.
but yeah, none of the cards it worked with were in standard with it
@@someguy1ification In my recollection it was tested in most cascade decks but the current version of rhinos was settled on pretty quickly.
Definitely not unplayable in modern though.
Another treat from Rarran (and CGB!)
Super-amazing episode, I love that its almost an hour long because, again, its such a good stuff. In general I like this series, but as many there already said - CGB is so good at presenting cards, he is almost everytime pass just enough info to understand what card would do (well, sometimes its still not as easy to do, especially if card is super meta-depending), but not spoil exactly why its broken or not. And card picks in this episode was just amazing, all valid and interesting. And yeah, I am too in a "As Foretold beliver" Gang, maybe its trash, but I don't care :D
And yeah, Rarran's ability to identify cards is so good too, yeah, there was couple misses here and there, but especially judging from empty meta-knowledge point of view - you are very good at it!
So again - amazing stuff, thanks, hope to see more of it someday!
Aether vial doesn't skip the stack. The effect it generates goes on the stack. The creature that gets put into play isn't cast (so can't be counter spelled), and the creature itself is never on the stack. This is a minor difference, but there are cards that can counter any effect on the stack (so not just spells being cast). You wouldn't have to reveal the creature your putting into play until the effect resolves though.
Rarran, these are such awesome videos! Love seeing you talk about other card games. Would be really awesome to see you do it with the Pokemon TCG
11:43 CGB's "you can't even" joke went criminally underappreciated
46:02 "An enigma to a hearthstone player as Vexing as real life itself"
Emrakul, The Aeon's Torn is better than the Promised End.
Because when its played you get an extra turn, and it being summoned can't be countered, meaning you ALWAYS get that extra turn no matter what. Everything else is extra.
The thing he misunderstood about delver is that you are only going to reveal the card if it hits (since you can look first)
Not Rarran forgetting he already reacted to Æther vial 😂
i was confused as well if it was just acting, also kind of bad research by cgb
there is a really good video called the summer of the gaak from Rhystic Studies that goes over how meta warping it was and it's ban real good watch
As a yugioh player, seeing Hogaak being able to exile cards from GY as its mana cost reminds me of Fairy Tail snow, which is one of the most insane cards of all time (In yugioh, the card game without mana cost), and i immediately thought its a 10/10
Love the CGB Collab. Hearthstone got me into Card games, wich made me check out magic a few years ago and CGB was my go to content creator back then
Lurrus was banned. Briefly it held the honor of the only banned vintage card until the companion errata.
2:45 You do not lose the game when you have no cards in your library. You lose when you draw a card and have no card to draw.
21:15
I think Blood Treant is the only *mandatory* "you can't play this for mana" card (excluding 0 cost cards).
The fun fact about Embercleave is that it has flash, so we can play it AFTER the opponent declare blockers, and when it enters the battlefield, we can "attach", which means it enters equiping one creature, and smorc almost always prefeer to equip the unblocked creature.
its rare these "other card game players rate a different card game than theyre used to" videos are enjoyable to me. this is was 10/10 though. knew enough of the game to not need basic game mechanic explanations. but not enough that he still had to frame it on it his home game. With very clean card descriptions from the host without miss speaking about what an ability is and listening to the guest to correct misidentifications by them (like embercleave "reducing to 0", not giving the answer away). Thanks for such a great video.
this is me, having played against jodah a billion times in commander. learning his first dumb f%$# ability doesnt even say "other" anywhere. not other legends, i know it effects him too. but specifically not for EACH other like heroes podium. hes a 6/6 with nothing but him in play. wtf.
"delver of secrets is bad for your mental" is such a take and I can get behind this so hard.
I love that format. It's very cool to watch how you dissect the cards and their effects.
Aether Vial probably wasn't banned because everything else in the Mirrodin block was even more busted. IDK though I didn't even know Magic existed back then
I really like he points out if the card is/was good in other formats. I've seen other videos where they call what's a staple card in other formats bad with no context at all.
I've seen As Foretold in commander once, they had a deck focused around counter Manipulation and some enchantment interactions, they mostly used it to exploit the hell out of Sagas but also to cast suspend spells faster, As Foretold was a bit of a nice plan B as it was a good place to dump time counters from suspend spells and get value from them while upping the enchantment count.
And Yes, Jodah is a neat commander deck if you have the expensive land base(Or allow proxies) where you just cheat out the most overcosted but game winning legends if they lack removal(My friend built it mostly in blue with some green, running mana tutoring from green and several counterspells from blue along with a splash of deck manipulation(Both to find your mana base more effectively and to help ensure you're hitting the big game winning legends and not the small efficient ones to get it going)
As Foretold was such an unlucky card to be printed into a Ramunap Red Standard. Literally no way to play a 3 mana do nothing in that environment
And modern was too fast as well. There was some fringe decks with cards with no mana cost and that s it
@@DiabloTommaso Yeah, I still remember people testing around with some Suspend decks, which worked at local and casual online levels but never managed to get a foot in the door in serious competitive environments.
@@Zakading Maybe I remember wrong since I was quitting Modern around that time, but as I recall, (and while being fringe) "Blue Living End" and "Turns" were both pretty competitive at the time. This was around the same time when regular Living End was still somewhat playable and not that long after it was one of the most popular decks in the format.
@@DiabloTommaso It's a little fringe in Modern, but I play a deck with As Foretold and Electrodominance that can cast Crashing Footfalls or Restore Balance as early as turn 2 and that's a huge tempo swing.
@@muchograndeyolatengo Living end with as foretold had some success in modern, then they printed shardless agent into modern and it just did what you wanted from as foretold but casting living end from your deck instead.
Specifically for Hearthstone Mage class: it's like Izzet minus artifacts.
Cards, burn, spell slinging, permanents with synergy for those three things
With an introduction to the companion mechanic, now would be the perfect time to try and rate the other nine companions in Ikoria. See if you can sniff out which one were good in standard and which ones had longer staying power. And with Lurrus not being included, the others power levels should seem a bit more comparable.
"Your opponent has to constantly think about this card if you're playing red"
My guy you have no idea lol. I was happy to see this go at standard rotation.
The problem with the One Ring is that it's actually the Four Rings because every deck runs four copies. And if you play a second copy, you can sacrifice the first one to the legend rule, get a whole new turn of protection from everything and reset the clock on the burden counter.
CGB was having SO much fun with this one ahahaha. Welcome to MTG, bud. The more things make sense, the less they will, so don't worry about it and just have fun hahaha.
As Foretold in Standard was crap, but definitely playable in Modern: Turn 1 land + Ragavan, turn 2 attack + land + treasure + As Foretold + Crashing Footfalls = 2 4/4 Rhinos on turn 2
Emrakul was summed up a fun way to me when it came out: It's difficult to know if you're playing good, it's easy to tell when you're playing bad.