I can’t get over the irony of Seth coming out against Secret Rendevouz initially, while you just know he’d happily cast a Painful Truths into an opponent with Rhystic Study + Mystic Remora + Esper Sentinel and refuse to pay for any of them.
secret rendezvous synergizes with alms collector and smoothening tithe. The more taxing effects they print, or effects like narrset or notion thief, the better it gets.
smothering tithe, smugglers share, minds eye. teferis ageless insight and alhammerrets archive. definitely got a few ways to make it more in your favor. have them all down somehow and its draw 3 for them and draw 28 for you lol
Richard is totally correct about secret rendezvous. I've been playing it in my multicolor decks. You cast it when the table needs an answer to whoever is ahead You've given the table 6 new cards that could poentailly answer the theat, just don't cast it when you are the threat.
Exactly this! You don't cast a board wipe when you have the best creatures on the field, same as you don't cast Secret Rendezvous when you are on top, I believe the cast is underestimating that the person in first place drew hate from the entire board, and they are willing to cooperate to prevent the greatest threat to go off
I don’t think this happens nearly as often as people think. I’ve never seen Rendezvous cast and it been good. Half the time it does nothing, half the time the person they targeted pulls ahead.
its hard to take richards opinion about this card seriously when he considers it one of the best card draw spells in ANY color. it sounds like hes playing it as a meme.
The secret rendevous argument is: Do you listen the three dorks that think the card is bad or the one guy that is consistent at being in the first place, for at least three consecutive years playing kithikin and birds?
You can tell that Tomer is spoiled by Rhystic Study and Mystic Remora. It seems that he disregards any real good card draw resource. How do you think Secret Rendezvous is bad in a MONO WHITE deck? Lol
@@n3rdm4n36 In Mono White? Probably not. Really low bar. But people swear by it in MULTICOLOR! They have this fixation on playing archenemy without realizing that "Hey, this guy I'm letting go +3 at my expense either _is_ or _will eventually be_ my enemy." You can really tell they play a mostly combat meta rather than a combo one.
Idol of Oblivion doesn't require the token to be a creature, or for it to be your turn. Smothering Tithe's treasure token can let you draw a card on your opponent's turn.
Listen to everyone argue against Richard makes it clear why he keeps winning. They’re so busy trying to deny each other advantage that they aren’t paying attention to opportunities to put themselves in the best position.
This was 100% my take on this. They're overly obsessed with denying their opponents any amount of advantage instead of doing what's best in the long run
The real strength of weddiing ring is that you cast it on the person who is jamming all the cards like Painful Truths, Minion's Murmurs, etc. Acts like a mini notion thief that won't get you killed! (Also hilarious if you're able to clone it)
@@Kryptnyt Keep in mind that Wedding Ring only draws you cards if the opponent draws cards *on their turn.* I think the vast majority of cards drawn by Rhystic Study happen on other people's turns.
This. When in an earlier video he said he didn’t run removal because “someone else” will remove any major threats, you know he’s thinking in terms of the table, and specifically *his* table, not his deck.
I've learned from playing xyris, people will do a lot for you if you let them draw cards. Secret rendezvous is busted & the first draw spell I put in if I can.
I think Richard and Crim might both be right with Secret Rendezvous. I think Richard is right about basically everything he says about the card, especially from HIS perspective (playing Richard decks.) Crim is right because he doesn't want to give his opponents cards because usually all the opponents really want him dead lol I think it depends on the player and ability to parlay.
I think a large part in that is that Richard runs very little in the vein of one-for-one interaction, where Crim's decks are often chock full of one-for-one cards. Giving an opponent 3 cards, when it's going to take you 3 cards to answer those, is just bad.
When Richard talks about Commander, he’s talking about how to mathematically optimize your win percentage in an inherently political 4-person free-for-all format. When Crim talks about Commander, he’s talking about how to have the most fun controlling / trolling the table with archenemy-by-design Crim style decks, without caring much about whether he actually WINS the game. They’re never going to agree on a card like Secret Rendezvous because they’re having two different conversations.
@@LunaLasceria That's just not true. Secret Rendezvous is a terrible card even if you're trying to optimize winning a four person game. Especially when you consider the fact that he said he runs it in Azorius decks 😂
When Secret Rendezvous was released I wasn't very high on the card, but I love Richard's play style, so I put it in every single deck just to see it more often in game. What can I say: I absolutely love it. There are so many situations in which you are fine with giving cards to an opponent (who is then your ally).
lol totally though. the group in general gets fucked by so much of what richard does because they don't run a ton of interactions in general... even crim who has a lot of interaction cards mostly just sits on his hands half the time which is why he just loses constantly. it's wild to hear them make arguments and use examples of things they don't do. def a great episode though per usual
Richard's view on Secret Rendezvous reminds me of playing Civ 1 as a child, and the various stages of learning how to play the game progressively better. It took 20 years of off and on playing to finally get to the point where I could beat it on Emperor, and the hilarious part to me was that I played it as differently as possible from how we first (as kids) thought the game should be played. I actually not only won, but had a pimped out Civilization Score, and the thing that stands out was that my least favourite units to build, settler, caravans and diplomats (I made as few as possible back then, with many of my early games involving training literally no settlers in the entire game, just building military, exploring, and conquering them. On Emperor, it's basically suicidal to try to fight the computer in battle, the RNG suddenly becomes VERY unfriendly, enemy units seem to be at least twice as strong as normal, and this resulted in my great epiphany, Diplomats were secretly the best unit ever, and I barely built a military, but I'd be pumping out Caravans like crazy. To beat the highest difficulty games, when I had to conquer a whole new continent, I'd fill whole transports not with troops, but with caravans and diplomats. It was absurd, but it actually worked because I also figured out that if you have happy people, you can actually tax them and they won't revolt. My cities end up shockingly large, with fully developed surrounding ground, so their tax bases end up hilariously big, and I not only can learn all the relevant techs in time, I can sometimes get Wonders due to Caravan Farming (and sitting on unfinishable wonders haha), and I still end up with enough cash to buy units/cities as needed when I need to win. I think Secret Rendezvous is like a Caravan, you generate value for both cities, but you're able to make use of the cards better, being in card-starved mono-white and your usually giving the cards either to gain a short-term ally, or to just help the irrelevant player hit land drops. I don't run it anywhere yet, but I feel like it's worth consideration. I think it's harder to use a Secret Rendezvous effectively vs using an obviously pushed card like Sun Titan, but maybe it's a lot stronger than we think? What if our heuristics are fundamentally wrong about what constitutes a good card, and as we 'get good', we'll use different cards? I just don't know. Wedding Ring seems like a good card, mostly in decks where you aren't drawing extra cards very often, and you expect your meta to have players who like to draw extra. it's a bit of a steep investment up front, but if you play it turn 3 or 4, it can do work over +5 turns. Still, this is going to be annoying eventually, where Rendezvous will eventually just leave you alone. Endless Atlas is the kind of card you want in certain decks, and 'draw, go' is probably one of them. I threw one into Multani, where it's like a Phyrexian Arena most of the time. In that deck, I can hit 3 Forests pretty quickly, and this gives me something to do when I somehow didn't draw enough ramp, or need to buff Multani a tiny bit. It's not a particularly strong effect, and War Room is better, but this deck wants both (and Mikokoro). In my Azorius deck, I run Spectral Sailor and Faerie Formation in a slot where you'd put Atlas, and those are both way more synergistic with what I'm trying to do, even if 4 to draw a card is a bit shit. For the record, you probably want quite a few cards to take advantage of a payoff in a synergy deck, I would have thought 12ish hits before I'd run a Sram, perhaps even more. Affecting equip costs can vary in a lot in terms of how much it helps you, if you've got 8 key equipment that are all super-clunky to equip, then you might want Equip 0 even without what would normally be enough enablers. ...I usually run Three Visits when I want to ramp in a 5 colour deck? Ah, Three Dreams, very different card I suppose. That's a big ol' tutor, but not surprising that White's alternative to Buried Alive is way, way worse. I think I prefer Shared Summons to this too, instant can come up. I like the new Welcoming Vampire, because I can make creatures on other people's turns potentially to benefit from it. I think the effect is pretty nice potentially, but you do need to have ways to trigger the cards, and most of the cheaper creatures sort of suck, so there is a drawback from using these unless your deck actively wants utility weenies or something, or run token generation. Bygone Bishop seems awful unless you're breaking it somehow, it's floor is so low you'll be looking up at your feet most of the time. Yeah, Opt isn't a good Commander card unless you're playing spellslinger or need Force 'hits'. It's bad in most decks I'd say, openly not worth a card usually. I know that I undervalue burst card draw, but Opt is not digging deep enough in a 99 card singleton deck, you might as well play Gitaxian Probe, Portent, Ponder, Preordain, Serum Visions (but seriously, I agree the FNM Serum Vision is a super creepy card) etc, and even a spellslinger deck can only fit so many cantrips in if it wants to also have good cards to find with said cantrips.
The most similar game to commander is Munchkin. You have to be ready to build and play like you're gonna be behind most of the time, because you will be as long as the decks are on relatively equal power levels. In a 4 player game there will almost always be 2 players who are decently behind, so secret rendezvous almost always has a place. Richard understands best how political cards can give you extra value
Weathered Wayfarer is an insanely underrated card, it can tutor ANY LAND to hand. IF (big if) you stick it turn one and are not going first(the easy part) it will guarantee that you get the exact land you want on any given turn and if your games go into the late game run the lands that ask you to sacrifice lands and tap for multiple mana to keep your Land count down, Lotus Field is ideal because it has Hexproof. I have a Sram deck that tries to storm off (complicated yet not) and Endless Horizon and Land Tax are supremely clutch at getting my lands out of the way.
It has some ifs, but yeah that can work. Bte cause you talked about taking lands out of your deck:f look at Endless Horizons. Its landtax for 4 mana and far better, cause there are no restrictions outside of pick all you plains. If it sticks even better if not it did his purpose :)
@@okgut2033 I mentioned Endless Horizon with Land Tax in the second half of my comment, I absolutely love it and you're right, it is essentially an insta win in the deck I use it in
@@TheMadManHimself There are two and surprise: (almost) everyone played janky tribes. First (Season 2, episode 33) was: Bones (loosely skeletons) v Shades v Knights v a story of Richard deck and the second (Season 6, episode 26) was Griffins v Minotaurs v Skeletons v Changelings.
Richard is soooo right about Secret Rendezvous. Everybody else is looking at the card from a 1v1 perspective. You are up 3 cards against 2 players and down 1 card against 1 player (who was your weakest opponent and you might get a favor from them). It's similar to why Arcane Denial is good in commander. I wonder how the others would rate the card if it was "each opponent draws a card" instead of "target opponent draws three", I feel like they would be like it even though it is effectively the same for you.
My fav part of Commander is keeping tabs on everything, having a good blood feud, making mortal enemies, and being Archenemy. So white is good for me in those ways haha.
I think look at wedding ring as another secret rendezvous is wrong personally. I see it more as a gun that you put on the blue player or the player with the draw engine and say " hey everytime you can trip or draw off a effect so am I ". You use it as almost a deterrent for that other player. Because if they get advantage so will you then. Almost like the Max "c" challenge if anyone plays yugi
Yeah they seem to be missing that decks that want wedding ring aren't just decks with instant speed draw. Impulse draw doesn't trigger it and mono-white decks might not be drawing many cards at all. But when you attach this to the reki player suddenly you're able to keep up anyway. And relevantly its one card that is copying multiple card draw effects from your opponents. So yeah, its insane. Maybe the second best generic card draw spell in white.
@@TeaRanosaur yeh im thinking the same, (but again, havnt played it so cant be sure). Just thinking that when someone plays a rhystic study, or korvold, it seems very easy to convince people that removing their threat to stop both card engines seems much better than blowing up yours
Most players know that within it's respective strong archetypes white has good options for card advantage, the issue is that you're heavily pigeonholed into playing one of 2 types of decks to use those options effectively.
Secret Rendezvous is so good. When the table needs to stop an archenemy, Secret Rendezvous is 6(!) chances across two decks to find an answer. The thing to remember is that an opponent drawing cards can be good for you. If you're 1v1 then it's kinda sus, but the upside more than makes up for the times where it's bad.
I think Secret Rendezvous is incredible for mono white, as mono white is, the vast majority of the time, hyper aggressive, and someone drawing 3 cards is entirely meaningless if you just kill em that turn.
I think I recall Richard saying that mill is terrible and is basically drawing your opponent cards so its hilarious to see him advocate for Secret Rendezvous
I'm with Richard on this, drawing an opponent three cards means they still need to expend more resources and game actions to make it work most of the time, it is far too easy to abuse the graveyard and there has been a significant push towards treating the graveyard as something like an extra deck that grows as the game progresses with many cards actually being better from the graveyard. I hope that clarifies at least my view of the functional difference between cards in hand versus cards in the graveyard.
Wedding ring is so much better than yall giving it credit for. Any deck that doesn’t have much card draw (white decks) is automatically getting more value by placing on the deck that’s drawing the most
The one deck I've actually played bygone bishop over the other two weenie card draw payoffs is in mono-white hatebears. It's the only one out of the three that you can still draw cards when a torper orb effect is out.
Bygone Bishop is the white Tireless Tracker. In most decks, it's pretty easy to trigger every turn and save up the clues for a rainy day. But it really starts to do work if you can consistently trigger it twice per turn or more.
Now not strictly card draw I think oath of lieges might be the most underrated white card in all of commander. It lets you and everyone ramp except the person most ahead every turn which begins to thin the deck and speed games up a ton while keeping your mana super consistent for just a 2 drop enchantment. It is also amazing because it turns on all your land catch up cards because everyone usually takes the oath and gets a land everyturn so you can still ramp consistently. Really good with big mana draw sinks as well.
As someone who plays monowhite almost exclusively, I don't know how fair some of the commentary in this episode was. Much of it seemed to ignore the backdrop that this is for white, the color intentionally designed to be weaker in card draw. Statements like "I don't really like to pay 2 to draw a card" are kinda immaterial because it is quite well established that the average cost to draw a card in White is 2-3 mana.
Yeah I was kinda sad they didn't include endless atlas. It's a cheaper phyrexian arena that draws the turn it enters, as long as you can keep putting page counters.
Welcoming Vampire works best with Whitemane Lion (in a mono white deck) especially in my God-Eternal Oketra deck. It's so excellent to draw 3 cards for 6 mana (3 mana if you have a Pearl Medallion effect in play) before your turn. Such a wonderful creature for white decks with low power creatures.
Kinda sad they missed Eye of Vecna. Its like Endless Atlas, but instead of a land requirement it has a life cost and timing requirement, but it draws one card immediately, meaning it always replaces itself. I think it's actually one of the best generic draw spells in the game rn.
@@ms.sysbit5511 I think you're underestimating the huge increase in value getting a free draw immediately is. It means that at worst, it cycles itself, and at best it's always 2 mana less investment compared to Endless Atlas.
@@natemartin6498 I’m generally unimpressed by cantrips. If they have synergies, sure like spellslinger/storm decks but drawing 1 once freely to then decide at the worst time to spend two mana is not good. You want to maximize mana being held up as long as possible not be taxed before your draw step.
Ok, honestly I thought Wedding Ring was terrible until I remembered how much soccer speed card draw a mono blue deck has. Imagine this: you're playing mono white with no card draw, max OP gets is a single card a turn. If you target the mono blue player, they have Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time, Overflowing Insight, etc. just a crazy amount of card draw - you draw all those cards too!! You basically end up neutering the heaviest card draw deck at your table by turning most of their spells into Secret Rendezvous!!
"what mono white draw go even is there" Tomer one thing I've learned playing lightpaws is often the plan is to sandbag until you can burst-kill someone, war room is exactly what you want while you're sandbagging.
I think the fact that one of Richards counter-arguments for Secret Rendezvous being good is "you can hold up a counterspell for the card you willingly gave you opponent" says alot.
Loyal Warhound doesn't combo with Mentor of the Meek or Welcoming Vampire. It's a 3/1. That and it being a basic plains as opposed to plains make Knight of the White Orchid better IMO.
It seems like they missed the part that Wedding Ring doesn't only trigger on the first card drawn on the opponents turn but on every card they draw during their turns. So if you give it to the right player you potentially draw a ton of cards with them, while they might only draw one additional card a turn with you. This can be a very asymetrical advantage for you.
Richard! If you need more three mana draw three, start running Decoy Gambit and Manifold Insights as well! They are both effectively also are three mana draw three, and Decoy Gambit is a instant :). I am not saying ditch the secret rendezvous, just hey, why not have more!
I'd like to see a podcast like this for each colour. Maybe not on card draw, but elaborate on common knowledge what seems to be bad about a specific colour and what your guys opinions or options on it is? Or maybe a rating and exploration of archetypes for each color. I f.e. have always had difficulties building a mono blue deck and would like to see which angles there are to building one.
• Secret Rendezvous + Narset, Parter of Veils • Secret Rendezvous + Hive Mind • Secret Rendezvous + Mind's Eye • Secret Rendezvous + Consecrated Sphinx • Secret Rendezvous + Psychic Possession • Secret Rendezvous + Smothering Tithe Those are some fun interactions with Secret Rendezvous. Also, I have a deck where I can cast Wedding Ring and any of various Copy Artifact or Mirrormade effects. Once each opponent has a ring, they each get to draw for each other player, but I have 3 rings, so I draw a lot more.
Wedding Ring has been gas so far. In almost every pod I'm in theres at least one deck that's very good at drawing cards, so the symetry is broken pretty easily. If you're in mono white drawing one card a turn and your opponent is anything but mono white or red, you're more than likely going to draw more cards from them then they will from you.
I was thinking this. It's "situational" but almost every single game of commander I see has SOMEBODY who wants to keep their foot on the gas and draw a billion cards (seth in commander clash every time). If you give them a wedding ring they're not gonna say NO to drawing even 1 more card in a round, and you get A TON of cards. Seems way better than situational to me in a huge amount of games. Worst case scenario it's a very strong sideboard option.
Endless Atlas is good in mono red or mono white, you should be running this because no one targets this and it's incremental draw if you have the spare mana
Two things this episode made me realize: 1. I want to build a mono white edg deck 2. Richard sounds like the best edh player I'd want to play with, his takes on cards feels refreshing lol
Been playing with wedding ring since it came out, I think it's fully busted if you target the right player. I've targeted a tatyova deck, a wheels deck, a looting deck. Doesn't just draw a few cards, but keeps my hand full. Sure the payoff is they draw as well, but they're adding draws from a white deck wheras O get to copy the draws from a blue deck.
One of whites issues is that the things it draws cards with well, like auras and equipment, etc. is that it is quite easy to get blown out in those archtypes. If you spam your auras out and tge creature gets removed you've cycled cause of all the cards you lose with the creature. Equipment is probably slightly better because they stay around but you lose the mana you spent for it outside of free equips. Even white weenie creature draw gets blown out by wipes, which is similar for other colours but they are more resilient to those effects.
I think it would have been worth mentioning Tithe during the Land Tax discussion. I consider it just below Land Tax in power level. A one mana tutor that doubles if you are behind on lands. It is fantastic for fixing your mana, hitting your land drops, and can even tutor a few utility lands like Mistveil Plains. If you love Sunforger you need to have Tithe in your spell package.
I like Secret Rendezvous. There is almost always someone that you want to give the card draw to. You're almost never fighting all 3 simultaneously, unless you're already the problem. Give it to the least harmful target. Drawing three in mono white is fantastic. You don't have to count mana/card advantage nearly as much as a 1v1 format.
Idol of Oblivion also sees stuff like Treasure tokens. Still not the best in just white (red for example can create a lot more tokens, especially Magda or Ragavan, or white/green), but I think it's got its uses.
Thing about wedding ring is...you're guaranteed that the person you put it on will not bother destroying it, even if they're the deck that draws all the cards. Spending removal to stop the mono-white guy from drawing a card or two seems like a waste, especially if that is also drawing you one on their turn. I've yet to have it single target blown up, same cannot be said about Mind's Eye.
Oracle text for pursuit of knowledge makes the skip a draw a may ability, not a must, so if you skip one draw and then proliferate somehow, it's plus 6 cards, or if you aren't abusing it, having the option to draw makes it so much better
I'm on board with Richard for Secret Rendezvous in mono white. In Orzhov *absolutely* sure I draw three you draw three and then you Duress them if you're not looking to make friends. Boros, sure, sometimes you just want to unconditionally draw cards to finish an opponent off, or to ease the bad feels of nearly killing someone and having to refocus, Selesnya maybe if you're already running harmonize. Azorius is where I draw the line though. Hell even Abzan, Mardu or Naya sure, and I could see the argument for putting it in Bant, but definitely not Azorius.
Tons of competitive magic decks from every magic formats are built on making the downside of cards work for you. Doesn't matter how many colors you play if you have a deck to punish, deny, or steal your opponent's card draw (which is pretty common) rendezvous is a great card and thats not counting the teamwork/politicle aspects of the card
Idol is an easy add for decks that crap out free tokens (looking at you Edgar) but in mono white there's not many commanders that just do that. Darien maybe? Stuff like Smothering Tithe has a nice synergy with it though
Regarding Secret Rendezvous, I think an argument in its favor goes something like this: In a multiplayer game (1v3, 4 player), you have to consider card advantage in a different light than 1v1. You're playing against 3 players, so your cards are outnumbered 3 to 1. Therefore, to evaluate "card advantage" a better approach is to calculate the number of cards granted to your opponents ON AVERAGE and compare it to the cards you get. In 1v3, you gain 3 cards and your opponents get 3 cards in total, or 1 ON AVERAGE. The average benefit for you is 3, the average benefit for your opponent is 1. Consider, for simplicity, a situation where each player has 1 card. You cast Secret Rendezvous, your sole card. You now have 3 cards, and your opponents have a total of 6 cards (1 + 1 + 1 + 3). The ratio of your cards to your opponents cards have shifted favorably from 1:3 to 3:6 (=1:2). And of course, giving 3 to your opponent of choice is even better than giving 1 to each opponent. This approach also reveals why it is terrible in 1v1. You and your opponent(s) (there is just one) each get equal benefit on average. I'm not saying that this approach is flawless, but I do believe that thinking in this way reveals why it's less bad than you might initially expect from a naive card advantage evaluation.
A turn 1 land tax definitely is better than turn 1 sol ring; also richard is 100% right on the white cards and tbh secret rendezvous and oblation are white staples. Endless atlas also in all mono red and white decks as 2 mana draw a card for just having basics is good.
As someone who loves white in MTG Pursuit of Knowledge is better than it looks, though it benefits from other cards that let you burn through those study cards quickly which as Seth says, is the main drawback of the card. There are a few cards in Mono white that let you do it though, and its always so nice to do!
Oh and sidenote Coveted Jewel is severely underplayed in any color combination, in addition to blinking it you can make deals with an opponent to trade it between you (kinda like Humble Defector).
I have Mentor of the Meek in Yoshimaru because my commander triggers it. Norin with Welcoming Vampire in that deck is gas. I only have Bygone Bishop in my Osgir deck because of Academy Manufacturer in that deck. That deck tries to poop out artifact tokens to pump up constructs and Darksteel Juggernaut. Land Tax is the best card. Even if I am the start player I want Land Tax in my starting hand in my Darien deck. The thinning is awesome. Land Tax is card draw. It's simple, before the trigger how many cards in your hand? After Trigger how many cards in your hand? How many cards do you now have to discard to something? Thin out those plains from your Bolos Citidel deck...I have Min'd's Eye in my Borborygmos Enraged deck. When you have 50% land there can be turns where you draw 3 lands in a row so you don't do anything. Eye gives you something useful to do with the mana that is left open.
Hey hey, if you play Mind’s Eye and Secret Rendezvous all you need to do is tap 11 mana for 6 cards! 😛😛😛 Play Wedding Ring on the player who uses wheel effects: they draw 7, it’s their turn so you draw 14. 😛 Land Tax is one of the only cards that can reasonably reliably thin a deck. If it goes off three times you got rid of nine lands. If you’re feeling like taking a risk, Endless Horizons is a monster in mono-white.
Secret Rendezvous ftw! Also, Oblation and Martyr's Cry are great picks. Edit: This entire podcast is Richard making my points and then taking it a little too far
After a lot of time I've finally found a deck I'm comfortable with the bishop. It's a chief Jim hopper eleven deck that uses the clues for pumping creatures and enabling artifact synergies. In that deck the bishop has evasion and makes clues for me.
Secret Rendezvous is a good card, not only because you are the one making the choice and with the ability to leverage with it, but mathematically. See, in 60 card, this card is trash, you are going up 2 cards while allowing your opponent to go up 3, that's awful unless you're playing owling mine or something, but in commander, this breaks the symmetry, since a symmetrical draw would be each opponent drawing a card. Having an opponent draw 3 cards in commander is like having an opponent draw 1 card in 60 card, and a card that gives you 3 cards but lets an opponent draw one would probably see some play. On top of that, you still have the benefits of being able to politic with it, and the fringe upside of being able to run it alongside things like alms collector for added synergy.
I'd say secret rendezvous is even better than each opponent drawing one, because you can choose whoever is the least threatening and severely punish the other two
I think you guys really missed a treat by not mentioning Oblation, I love casting it on my own stuff, shuffle in ANY permanent that your opponents are targeting with removal, so it acts as protection and draw 2 cards, maybe just kill a token to draw 2 cards, optionally useable as removal. It looks terrible, but it's super flexible, can be used proactively or reactively and you're always getting rid of your worst thing, or your opponent's best thing.
Land tax IS card draw. I like to think of it as front loading the lands that you would draw later in the game. The deck thinning aspect is not insignificant either- if you take the trigger just twice your remove 6 lands from your deck which will make the likelihood of drawing gas WAY higher. Besides, lands are some of the best cards in magic!
I got a couple of kinda meme cards I actually do play that I wonder if anyone's tried running. Phyrexian portal is one that I actually like. Not needing to tap to activate is a big plus for me, since you can activate it multiple times in a turn. The most cards that should realistically be exiled at a time is 5, and getting a 5+ card selection from the top of your deck is no joke. Plus, it allows people to interact, play mind games with the piles, make deals, all the fun stuff I want to play commander for. The second card is liar's pendulum, which I like for a lot of the same reasons. You can do mind games, like when someone's trying to call your bluff for holding removal, you can double down and name the removal piece in hand, or maybe lie and try to dig to one. Even once your opponent has seen your hand, if they saw a plains in your hand, you can play it, and name plains to make them bet on if you top decked one. It just make the game more fun and interactive, which I love. Plus, you can do some neat things with scroll rack.
The problem with Mentor of the Meek is that it has anti-synergy with another big White color pie theme: Anthems. You want to play weenies and then buff them up, they work against each other. Quite dumb design if you ask me.
You kind person are a brilliant individual and I am now buying a Wedding Ring for my Combo deck since I'm already running Notion Thief(I admit I am the asshole of my playgroup but I'm not completely oppressive about it so they don't hate me for it)
Pursuit of Knowledge is good if you're running proliferation. I could see mono white getting a good superfriends deck pretty easily. Just set one counter on it via draw skipping then proliferate the rest of the way.
I think if you want to run Wedding Ring in a deck, you run it alongside Mirage Mirror and other ways to copy it (without casting something). If you control 2+ Wedding Rings, they’ll each trigger from the opponent who only has 1! Now, is this *good*? Unclear.
You forgot wall of mourning on the blink strategy or overall in creature based deck. It lets you draw up to 3 cards over few turns if you have coven. Pretty decent card draw for mono white
I agree that White doesn't have much trouble drawing cards as long as you're in certain archetypes. Here's my rebuttal though. Think about how many colorless cards are on this list. If this video were covering any other color, all of the cards would be colored cards. I can build almost any strategy ai want in black or blue off the back of the sheer quantity of generically powerful card draw. If I want to draw cards in white, I'm basically limited to 3 strategies.
Everyone but tomer trippin on idol of oblivion. That card is gas. Literally two mana pyhrexian arena that can make a chump blocker late game. Have to have a commander that makes tokens or is token themed.
Yay, we've established White Voltron decks are good at drawing cards. So how about the other 95% of white decks? It's great some narrow archetypes in white get to draw cards, but it'd be great if the vast majority of white decks got a reasonable amount of card draw. Regardless of that, Wx decks all draw cards better than monowhite versions of the same archetypes.
Mono white cant have good card draw it needs hoops to jump through. White is low key powerful af. It is second best in most aspects of the game. Has good creatures in agro midrange and control. Has second best removal behind black. Outside of artifacts which all colors can use it goes and gets the most lands behind green. Has tons of cheap creature burn like red but requires creatures to be tapped or attacking. Has the best counterspells after blue since it has more open ended counterspells. Not to mention things its great at like artifact synergies, enchantments, reanimation, etc. If white had great card draw and ramp it would be far too powerful. Sorry such long post.
Put Coveted Jewel in Mavinda, i think it's great there, you have a cheap flying flicker commander, that can get it back when its stolen, that runs blink effects and spells anyway, so great ad! EDIT: I'd say more and more, reanimator and tokens is also a great strategy for White, Cathar's Crusade and Devine Visitations are great pay offs for the latter, thus I'd recommend in a meta that's not as imediately punishing for do nothing permanents "Slate of Ancestry". 4 Mana to cast, 4 mana to activate and dependant on you creatures is not ideal, but if you have 10 tokens on your battlefield, in Monowhite? You draw 10 cards! And if you run reanimation in white, you can get benefits from the cards discarded!
Wedding Ring combo: put wedding ring on an opponent. Wait until that opponent plays an instant during the turn of the player right before his own turn, then use Arcane Denial to counter it. During the opponent’s upkeep, you draw a card, the opponent draws two cards, you draw two cards. Profit. Then go buy a lotto ticket
Any opinions on Reckoner Bankbuster? It's everywhere right now in Standard. I think a lot of the time it behaves like a better Endless Atlas, since it doesn't have a condition on the activation, can also be used as a vehicle, and eventually ramps and makes a body if you draw with it enough. There's also Mazemind Tome, which again seems better than Endless Atlas in most circumstances, since you have the option to scry instead of draw if you don't have open mana or want to scry on upkeep. I don't think being able to use Endless Atlas an unlimited number of times is enough of an upside to prefer it over Mazemind Tome or Bankbuster.
Their analysis of Wedding Ring is seriously off imo. The player playing Wedding ring is very likely to benefit more from the effect than the player that receives the token ring. You marry the player that draws a lot of cards during their turn, so you get a lot of cards in the process, and in exchange, you givbe them 1 card per rotation. You literally become a golddigger lmao, leaching off your opponent's draw effects.
@@ms.sysbit5511 and the opposite is also true. Just as an exemple, guardian project, elemental bond, kindred discovery, mentor of the meek, the great henge, and many more all trigger almost always at sorcery speed. And these are far from the only cards that work that way.
There are three certainties in life: death, taxes, and Richard defending Secret Rendezvous.
I can’t get over the irony of Seth coming out against Secret Rendevouz initially, while you just know he’d happily cast a Painful Truths into an opponent with Rhystic Study + Mystic Remora + Esper Sentinel and refuse to pay for any of them.
He needs to see this so bad
Painful truths is still way better than casting Secret R in that scenario but I do see the irony
In those cases the opponent had to invest mana and cards, with secret rendezvous they get cards for free.
@@poiri yeah, but the person with that trifecta in play is probably still a bigger threat to you than the person you’d give cards to with SR.
@@poiri but if you rendezvous someone they’re probably ur friend now
secret rendezvous synergizes with alms collector and smoothening tithe. The more taxing effects they print, or effects like narrset or notion thief, the better it gets.
Secret rendezvous works great in mono white and best in 2 color decks where you can punish players for the card draw you give them or block it
smothering tithe, smugglers share, minds eye. teferis ageless insight and alhammerrets archive. definitely got a few ways to make it more in your favor.
have them all down somehow and its draw 3 for them and draw 28 for you lol
"First they ignore you.
Then they laugh at you.
Then they fight you.
Then you win." - Richard Goldfish
Richard is totally correct about secret rendezvous. I've been playing it in my multicolor decks. You cast it when the table needs an answer to whoever is ahead You've given the table 6 new cards that could poentailly answer the theat, just don't cast it when you are the threat.
Exactly this! You don't cast a board wipe when you have the best creatures on the field, same as you don't cast Secret Rendezvous when you are on top, I believe the cast is underestimating that the person in first place drew hate from the entire board, and they are willing to cooperate to prevent the greatest threat to go off
I don’t think this happens nearly as often as people think.
I’ve never seen Rendezvous cast and it been good. Half the time it does nothing, half the time the person they targeted pulls ahead.
its hard to take richards opinion about this card seriously when he considers it one of the best card draw spells in ANY color. it sounds like hes playing it as a meme.
Hard pass.
The secret rendevous argument is:
Do you listen the three dorks that think the card is bad or the one guy that is consistent at being in the first place, for at least three consecutive years playing kithikin and birds?
True that.
You can tell that Tomer is spoiled by Rhystic Study and Mystic Remora. It seems that he disregards any real good card draw resource. How do you think Secret Rendezvous is bad in a MONO WHITE deck? Lol
@@n3rdm4n36 In Mono White? Probably not. Really low bar. But people swear by it in MULTICOLOR! They have this fixation on playing archenemy without realizing that "Hey, this guy I'm letting go +3 at my expense either _is_ or _will eventually be_ my enemy." You can really tell they play a mostly combat meta rather than a combo one.
Idol of Oblivion doesn't require the token to be a creature, or for it to be your turn. Smothering Tithe's treasure token can let you draw a card on your opponent's turn.
Pro strats.
Its too advanced 😂.
3 mana draw 2 and protect... Sign me in!
Listen to everyone argue against Richard makes it clear why he keeps winning. They’re so busy trying to deny each other advantage that they aren’t paying attention to opportunities to put themselves in the best position.
What a relief.
This was 100% my take on this. They're overly obsessed with denying their opponents any amount of advantage instead of doing what's best in the long run
I watch these videos because I care about Richard's point of view. They should give him his own show.
i mean he's the site owner so isn't it his show?
The real strength of weddiing ring is that you cast it on the person who is jamming all the cards like Painful Truths, Minion's Murmurs, etc. Acts like a mini notion thief that won't get you killed! (Also hilarious if you're able to clone it)
Get married to the guy who has Rhystic Study out it's probably a good time
@@Kryptnyt Keep in mind that Wedding Ring only draws you cards if the opponent draws cards *on their turn.* I think the vast majority of cards drawn by Rhystic Study happen on other people's turns.
It basically has two modes: either an amazing source of cards or one of the most powerful political bargaining chips ever printed
@@surfinggarchomp2820 Also has some "Actually proposing to your desired life partner" applications
Coveted Jewel Meta in a nutshell
Richard: Describes a line that gets his opponents killed
Tomer: Describes a line that gets himself killed
Richard wins because he is playing 3D chess to their checkers. Richard is play his opponents while they're playing their decks.
This. When in an earlier video he said he didn’t run removal because “someone else” will remove any major threats, you know he’s thinking in terms of the table, and specifically *his* table, not his deck.
I've learned from playing xyris, people will do a lot for you if you let them draw cards. Secret rendezvous is busted & the first draw spell I put in if I can.
Richard understands the assignment
I think Richard and Crim might both be right with Secret Rendezvous. I think Richard is right about basically everything he says about the card, especially from HIS perspective (playing Richard decks.) Crim is right because he doesn't want to give his opponents cards because usually all the opponents really want him dead lol I think it depends on the player and ability to parlay.
I think a large part in that is that Richard runs very little in the vein of one-for-one interaction, where Crim's decks are often chock full of one-for-one cards. Giving an opponent 3 cards, when it's going to take you 3 cards to answer those, is just bad.
@@anix712 Then you don't chose Crim lol
When Richard talks about Commander, he’s talking about how to mathematically optimize your win percentage in an inherently political 4-person free-for-all format. When Crim talks about Commander, he’s talking about how to have the most fun controlling / trolling the table with archenemy-by-design Crim style decks, without caring much about whether he actually WINS the game. They’re never going to agree on a card like Secret Rendezvous because they’re having two different conversations.
@@LunaLasceria That's just not true. Secret Rendezvous is a terrible card even if you're trying to optimize winning a four person game. Especially when you consider the fact that he said he runs it in Azorius decks 😂
When Secret Rendezvous was released I wasn't very high on the card, but I love Richard's play style, so I put it in every single deck just to see it more often in game. What can I say: I absolutely love it. There are so many situations in which you are fine with giving cards to an opponent (who is then your ally).
Tomer today: “Every deck has removal”
Tomer in previous episodes: doesn’t want to run interaction
All in good fun, btw. Another great episode!
lol totally though. the group in general gets fucked by so much of what richard does because they don't run a ton of interactions in general... even crim who has a lot of interaction cards mostly just sits on his hands half the time which is why he just loses constantly.
it's wild to hear them make arguments and use examples of things they don't do.
def a great episode though per usual
If every deck has removal, then Secret Rendesvous is removal because you draw your opponents removal
Wait when did I become the guy who doesn't run removal?
@@MTGGoldfishCommander when you started stanning Temple of the False God.
Richard's view on Secret Rendezvous reminds me of playing Civ 1 as a child, and the various stages of learning how to play the game progressively better. It took 20 years of off and on playing to finally get to the point where I could beat it on Emperor, and the hilarious part to me was that I played it as differently as possible from how we first (as kids) thought the game should be played. I actually not only won, but had a pimped out Civilization Score, and the thing that stands out was that my least favourite units to build, settler, caravans and diplomats (I made as few as possible back then, with many of my early games involving training literally no settlers in the entire game, just building military, exploring, and conquering them. On Emperor, it's basically suicidal to try to fight the computer in battle, the RNG suddenly becomes VERY unfriendly, enemy units seem to be at least twice as strong as normal, and this resulted in my great epiphany, Diplomats were secretly the best unit ever, and I barely built a military, but I'd be pumping out Caravans like crazy. To beat the highest difficulty games, when I had to conquer a whole new continent, I'd fill whole transports not with troops, but with caravans and diplomats. It was absurd, but it actually worked because I also figured out that if you have happy people, you can actually tax them and they won't revolt. My cities end up shockingly large, with fully developed surrounding ground, so their tax bases end up hilariously big, and I not only can learn all the relevant techs in time, I can sometimes get Wonders due to Caravan Farming (and sitting on unfinishable wonders haha), and I still end up with enough cash to buy units/cities as needed when I need to win. I think Secret Rendezvous is like a Caravan, you generate value for both cities, but you're able to make use of the cards better, being in card-starved mono-white and your usually giving the cards either to gain a short-term ally, or to just help the irrelevant player hit land drops. I don't run it anywhere yet, but I feel like it's worth consideration. I think it's harder to use a Secret Rendezvous effectively vs using an obviously pushed card like Sun Titan, but maybe it's a lot stronger than we think? What if our heuristics are fundamentally wrong about what constitutes a good card, and as we 'get good', we'll use different cards? I just don't know.
Wedding Ring seems like a good card, mostly in decks where you aren't drawing extra cards very often, and you expect your meta to have players who like to draw extra. it's a bit of a steep investment up front, but if you play it turn 3 or 4, it can do work over +5 turns. Still, this is going to be annoying eventually, where Rendezvous will eventually just leave you alone.
Endless Atlas is the kind of card you want in certain decks, and 'draw, go' is probably one of them. I threw one into Multani, where it's like a Phyrexian Arena most of the time. In that deck, I can hit 3 Forests pretty quickly, and this gives me something to do when I somehow didn't draw enough ramp, or need to buff Multani a tiny bit. It's not a particularly strong effect, and War Room is better, but this deck wants both (and Mikokoro). In my Azorius deck, I run Spectral Sailor and Faerie Formation in a slot where you'd put Atlas, and those are both way more synergistic with what I'm trying to do, even if 4 to draw a card is a bit shit.
For the record, you probably want quite a few cards to take advantage of a payoff in a synergy deck, I would have thought 12ish hits before I'd run a Sram, perhaps even more. Affecting equip costs can vary in a lot in terms of how much it helps you, if you've got 8 key equipment that are all super-clunky to equip, then you might want Equip 0 even without what would normally be enough enablers.
...I usually run Three Visits when I want to ramp in a 5 colour deck? Ah, Three Dreams, very different card I suppose. That's a big ol' tutor, but not surprising that White's alternative to Buried Alive is way, way worse. I think I prefer Shared Summons to this too, instant can come up.
I like the new Welcoming Vampire, because I can make creatures on other people's turns potentially to benefit from it. I think the effect is pretty nice potentially, but you do need to have ways to trigger the cards, and most of the cheaper creatures sort of suck, so there is a drawback from using these unless your deck actively wants utility weenies or something, or run token generation. Bygone Bishop seems awful unless you're breaking it somehow, it's floor is so low you'll be looking up at your feet most of the time.
Yeah, Opt isn't a good Commander card unless you're playing spellslinger or need Force 'hits'. It's bad in most decks I'd say, openly not worth a card usually. I know that I undervalue burst card draw, but Opt is not digging deep enough in a 99 card singleton deck, you might as well play Gitaxian Probe, Portent, Ponder, Preordain, Serum Visions (but seriously, I agree the FNM Serum Vision is a super creepy card) etc, and even a spellslinger deck can only fit so many cantrips in if it wants to also have good cards to find with said cantrips.
The most similar game to commander is Munchkin. You have to be ready to build and play like you're gonna be behind most of the time, because you will be as long as the decks are on relatively equal power levels. In a 4 player game there will almost always be 2 players who are decently behind, so secret rendezvous almost always has a place. Richard understands best how political cards can give you extra value
Weathered Wayfarer is an insanely underrated card, it can tutor ANY LAND to hand. IF (big if) you stick it turn one and are not going first(the easy part) it will guarantee that you get the exact land you want on any given turn and if your games go into the late game run the lands that ask you to sacrifice lands and tap for multiple mana to keep your Land count down, Lotus Field is ideal because it has Hexproof.
I have a Sram deck that tries to storm off (complicated yet not) and Endless Horizon and Land Tax are supremely clutch at getting my lands out of the way.
It has some ifs, but yeah that can work.
Bte cause you talked about taking lands out of your deck:f look at Endless Horizons. Its landtax for 4 mana and far better, cause there are no restrictions outside of pick all you plains.
If it sticks even better if not it did his purpose :)
@@okgut2033 I mentioned Endless Horizon with Land Tax in the second half of my comment, I absolutely love it and you're right, it is essentially an insta win in the deck I use it in
Why don't you play a "richard week", where everyone has to start the deckbuilding with the same 30 richard-cards and has to build a different deck? :)
They usually do a “person themed” week at the end of each season. There should be a Richard one in the past
@@TheMadManHimself There are two and surprise: (almost) everyone played janky tribes. First (Season 2, episode 33) was: Bones (loosely skeletons) v Shades v Knights v a story of Richard deck and the second (Season 6, episode 26) was Griffins v Minotaurs v Skeletons v Changelings.
@@ms.sysbit5511 BB g be by g
When you put a sword in the turn 8 Esper Sentinel and all sudden hes a 3/3, he draws cards every turn. Really powerful. I play it in 5c cedh lists.
Richard is soooo right about Secret Rendezvous. Everybody else is looking at the card from a 1v1 perspective. You are up 3 cards against 2 players and down 1 card against 1 player (who was your weakest opponent and you might get a favor from them). It's similar to why Arcane Denial is good in commander. I wonder how the others would rate the card if it was "each opponent draws a card" instead of "target opponent draws three", I feel like they would be like it even though it is effectively the same for you.
The weaker your table is the better it is, the stronger your table the worst it gets.
My fav part of Commander is keeping tabs on everything, having a good blood feud, making mortal enemies, and being Archenemy. So white is good for me in those ways haha.
I think look at wedding ring as another secret rendezvous is wrong personally. I see it more as a gun that you put on the blue player or the player with the draw engine and say " hey everytime you can trip or draw off a effect so am I ". You use it as almost a deterrent for that other player. Because if they get advantage so will you then. Almost like the Max "c" challenge if anyone plays yugi
I still havnt played wedding ring, but this was my thoughts too. Thinking of it as incremental draw that shuts down 1/3 of someones deck
Almost every time I have seen wedding ring it does nothing or the player who plays it got punished by it.
@@mjvane46 I’ve had it take over games
Yeah they seem to be missing that decks that want wedding ring aren't just decks with instant speed draw. Impulse draw doesn't trigger it and mono-white decks might not be drawing many cards at all. But when you attach this to the reki player suddenly you're able to keep up anyway. And relevantly its one card that is copying multiple card draw effects from your opponents. So yeah, its insane. Maybe the second best generic card draw spell in white.
@@TeaRanosaur yeh im thinking the same, (but again, havnt played it so cant be sure). Just thinking that when someone plays a rhystic study, or korvold, it seems very easy to convince people that removing their threat to stop both card engines seems much better than blowing up yours
Most players know that within it's respective strong archetypes white has good options for card advantage, the issue is that you're heavily pigeonholed into playing one of 2 types of decks to use those options effectively.
the only thing secret rendez vous is missing to be playable is being an instant
The bashing of the Azorius player who played secret rendezvous was a glorious moment!!!
Secret Rendezvous is so good. When the table needs to stop an archenemy, Secret Rendezvous is 6(!) chances across two decks to find an answer. The thing to remember is that an opponent drawing cards can be good for you. If you're 1v1 then it's kinda sus, but the upside more than makes up for the times where it's bad.
Lol the description! Mangara was the first card I thought of. I've never played the card.
I think Secret Rendezvous is incredible for mono white, as mono white is, the vast majority of the time, hyper aggressive, and someone drawing 3 cards is entirely meaningless if you just kill em that turn.
you can even give those cards to the other aggro-ish deck at the table, so you can pressure your opponents' life totals together
Heeeeeeell yeah, this hero gets it.
Sorry guys, but I'm totally buying what Richard is selling on Secret Rendezvous
I think I recall Richard saying that mill is terrible and is basically drawing your opponent cards so its hilarious to see him advocate for Secret Rendezvous
I'm with Richard on this, drawing an opponent three cards means they still need to expend more resources and game actions to make it work most of the time, it is far too easy to abuse the graveyard and there has been a significant push towards treating the graveyard as something like an extra deck that grows as the game progresses with many cards actually being better from the graveyard.
I hope that clarifies at least my view of the functional difference between cards in hand versus cards in the graveyard.
Richard was definitely right about mill lol
Wedding ring is so much better than yall giving it credit for. Any deck that doesn’t have much card draw (white decks) is automatically getting more value by placing on the deck that’s drawing the most
I would run the heck out of it in most of my white decks if it wasn’t $20
By blinking it in, you actually get double the draw without helping an opponent.
I run wedding ring in my osgir deck and just clone it
@@emulator4258 how? You need to have an opponent for it to trigger; you cannot be your own opponent.
The one deck I've actually played bygone bishop over the other two weenie card draw payoffs is in mono-white hatebears. It's the only one out of the three that you can still draw cards when a torper orb effect is out.
Bygone Bishop is the white Tireless Tracker. In most decks, it's pretty easy to trigger every turn and save up the clues for a rainy day. But it really starts to do work if you can consistently trigger it twice per turn or more.
Now not strictly card draw I think oath of lieges might be the most underrated white card in all of commander. It lets you and everyone ramp except the person most ahead every turn which begins to thin the deck and speed games up a ton while keeping your mana super consistent for just a 2 drop enchantment. It is also amazing because it turns on all your land catch up cards because everyone usually takes the oath and gets a land everyturn so you can still ramp consistently. Really good with big mana draw sinks as well.
Yeah it's an amazing card I run it in my Janky white and group hug decks
As someone who plays monowhite almost exclusively, I don't know how fair some of the commentary in this episode was. Much of it seemed to ignore the backdrop that this is for white, the color intentionally designed to be weaker in card draw. Statements like "I don't really like to pay 2 to draw a card" are kinda immaterial because it is quite well established that the average cost to draw a card in White is 2-3 mana.
Imagine surviving late game to 1v1 and you topdeck secret R
Lmao
I feel like tome of legends is one of the better options in mono w blink and reanimator. Better than endless atlas and mind stone at least.
I think you left out voltron. It’s sweet in my boros voltron deck and I can’t see why it’d be worse in mono white.
@@ms.sysbit5511 Oh yeah I feel like Time of Legends goes into basic every Boros deck, it's such a powerful draw option
Yeah I was kinda sad they didn't include endless atlas. It's a cheaper phyrexian arena that draws the turn it enters, as long as you can keep putting page counters.
Welcoming Vampire works best with Whitemane Lion (in a mono white deck) especially in my God-Eternal Oketra deck. It's so excellent to draw 3 cards for 6 mana (3 mana if you have a Pearl Medallion effect in play) before your turn. Such a wonderful creature for white decks with low power creatures.
Kinda sad they missed Eye of Vecna. Its like Endless Atlas, but instead of a land requirement it has a life cost and timing requirement, but it draws one card immediately, meaning it always replaces itself. I think it's actually one of the best generic draw spells in the game rn.
Atlas lets you choose when you draw v before your main phase; I think Eye is multiple levels below the already mediocre Endless Atlas.
@@ms.sysbit5511 I think you're underestimating the huge increase in value getting a free draw immediately is. It means that at worst, it cycles itself, and at best it's always 2 mana less investment compared to Endless Atlas.
@@natemartin6498 I’m generally unimpressed by cantrips. If they have synergies, sure like spellslinger/storm decks but drawing 1 once freely to then decide at the worst time to spend two mana is not good. You want to maximize mana being held up as long as possible not be taxed before your draw step.
"I play this (Secret Rendezvous) in Azorious decks"
lmao, the groans that followed this
Ok, honestly I thought Wedding Ring was terrible until I remembered how much soccer speed card draw a mono blue deck has. Imagine this: you're playing mono white with no card draw, max OP gets is a single card a turn. If you target the mono blue player, they have Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time, Overflowing Insight, etc. just a crazy amount of card draw - you draw all those cards too!! You basically end up neutering the heaviest card draw deck at your table by turning most of their spells into Secret Rendezvous!!
It wouldn't work with Dig Through Time
"what mono white draw go even is there" Tomer one thing I've learned playing lightpaws is often the plan is to sandbag until you can burst-kill someone, war room is exactly what you want while you're sandbagging.
I think the fact that one of Richards counter-arguments for Secret Rendezvous being good is "you can hold up a counterspell for the card you willingly gave you opponent" says alot.
Loyal Warhound doesn't combo with Mentor of the Meek or Welcoming Vampire. It's a 3/1. That and it being a basic plains as opposed to plains make Knight of the White Orchid better IMO.
It seems like they missed the part that Wedding Ring doesn't only trigger on the first card drawn on the opponents turn but on every card they draw during their turns. So if you give it to the right player you potentially draw a ton of cards with them, while they might only draw one additional card a turn with you. This can be a very asymetrical advantage for you.
Richard! If you need more three mana draw three, start running Decoy Gambit and Manifold Insights as well! They are both effectively also are three mana draw three, and Decoy Gambit is a instant :). I am not saying ditch the secret rendezvous, just hey, why not have more!
We have to quit look at rendezvous as a competitive card, it’s arguably the most political white card in commander
Secret Rendezvous in Azorius Control, I almost feel attacked.
I legitimately gasped
I'd like to see a podcast like this for each colour. Maybe not on card draw, but elaborate on common knowledge what seems to be bad about a specific colour and what your guys opinions or options on it is? Or maybe a rating and exploration of archetypes for each color. I f.e. have always had difficulties building a mono blue deck and would like to see which angles there are to building one.
Agree with Crim on [[Welcoming Vampire]] triggering it is very easy when you are curving out, not so much when you need to pay 1 for each creature.
...Did you just try to use the Reddit card fetcher bot summoning syntax on TH-cam?
@@AaronRotenberg yes. I think it’s helpful to denote am what words are card names even if no data is being fetched.
• Secret Rendezvous + Narset, Parter of Veils
• Secret Rendezvous + Hive Mind
• Secret Rendezvous + Mind's Eye
• Secret Rendezvous + Consecrated Sphinx
• Secret Rendezvous + Psychic Possession
• Secret Rendezvous + Smothering Tithe
Those are some fun interactions with Secret Rendezvous.
Also, I have a deck where I can cast Wedding Ring and any of various Copy Artifact or Mirrormade effects. Once each opponent has a ring, they each get to draw for each other player, but I have 3 rings, so I draw a lot more.
Wedding Ring has been gas so far. In almost every pod I'm in theres at least one deck that's very good at drawing cards, so the symetry is broken pretty easily. If you're in mono white drawing one card a turn and your opponent is anything but mono white or red, you're more than likely going to draw more cards from them then they will from you.
I was thinking this. It's "situational" but almost every single game of commander I see has SOMEBODY who wants to keep their foot on the gas and draw a billion cards (seth in commander clash every time). If you give them a wedding ring they're not gonna say NO to drawing even 1 more card in a round, and you get A TON of cards. Seems way better than situational to me in a huge amount of games. Worst case scenario it's a very strong sideboard option.
Same. It goes off if you target the right opponent.
Endless Atlas is good in mono red or mono white, you should be running this because no one targets this and it's incremental draw if you have the spare mana
Two things this episode made me realize:
1. I want to build a mono white edg deck
2. Richard sounds like the best edh player I'd want to play with, his takes on cards feels refreshing lol
Been playing with wedding ring since it came out, I think it's fully busted if you target the right player. I've targeted a tatyova deck, a wheels deck, a looting deck. Doesn't just draw a few cards, but keeps my hand full. Sure the payoff is they draw as well, but they're adding draws from a white deck wheras O get to copy the draws from a blue deck.
One of whites issues is that the things it draws cards with well, like auras and equipment, etc. is that it is quite easy to get blown out in those archtypes.
If you spam your auras out and tge creature gets removed you've cycled cause of all the cards you lose with the creature. Equipment is probably slightly better because they stay around but you lose the mana you spent for it outside of free equips.
Even white weenie creature draw gets blown out by wipes, which is similar for other colours but they are more resilient to those effects.
I think it would have been worth mentioning Tithe during the Land Tax discussion. I consider it just below Land Tax in power level. A one mana tutor that doubles if you are behind on lands. It is fantastic for fixing your mana, hitting your land drops, and can even tutor a few utility lands like Mistveil Plains. If you love Sunforger you need to have Tithe in your spell package.
I like Secret Rendezvous. There is almost always someone that you want to give the card draw to. You're almost never fighting all 3 simultaneously, unless you're already the problem. Give it to the least harmful target. Drawing three in mono white is fantastic. You don't have to count mana/card advantage nearly as much as a 1v1 format.
I personally run secret rendezvous. I love it, such a sleeper pick. You won’t know until you try it.
Idol of Oblivion also sees stuff like Treasure tokens. Still not the best in just white (red for example can create a lot more tokens, especially Magda or Ragavan, or white/green), but I think it's got its uses.
Thing about wedding ring is...you're guaranteed that the person you put it on will not bother destroying it, even if they're the deck that draws all the cards. Spending removal to stop the mono-white guy from drawing a card or two seems like a waste, especially if that is also drawing you one on their turn. I've yet to have it single target blown up, same cannot be said about Mind's Eye.
To Tomers question, will I run sky scanner in non EBT decks, no, but spirited companion? yes!
Oracle text for pursuit of knowledge makes the skip a draw a may ability, not a must, so if you skip one draw and then proliferate somehow, it's plus 6 cards, or if you aren't abusing it, having the option to draw makes it so much better
I'm on board with Richard for Secret Rendezvous in mono white. In Orzhov *absolutely* sure I draw three you draw three and then you Duress them if you're not looking to make friends. Boros, sure, sometimes you just want to unconditionally draw cards to finish an opponent off, or to ease the bad feels of nearly killing someone and having to refocus, Selesnya maybe if you're already running harmonize. Azorius is where I draw the line though. Hell even Abzan, Mardu or Naya sure, and I could see the argument for putting it in Bant, but definitely not Azorius.
Tons of competitive magic decks from every magic formats are built on making the downside of cards work for you. Doesn't matter how many colors you play if you have a deck to punish, deny, or steal your opponent's card draw (which is pretty common) rendezvous is a great card and thats not counting the teamwork/politicle aspects of the card
Idol is an easy add for decks that crap out free tokens (looking at you Edgar) but in mono white there's not many commanders that just do that. Darien maybe? Stuff like Smothering Tithe has a nice synergy with it though
Regarding Secret Rendezvous, I think an argument in its favor goes something like this:
In a multiplayer game (1v3, 4 player), you have to consider card advantage in a different light than 1v1. You're playing against 3 players, so your cards are outnumbered 3 to 1. Therefore, to evaluate "card advantage" a better approach is to calculate the number of cards granted to your opponents ON AVERAGE and compare it to the cards you get.
In 1v3, you gain 3 cards and your opponents get 3 cards in total, or 1 ON AVERAGE. The average benefit for you is 3, the average benefit for your opponent is 1.
Consider, for simplicity, a situation where each player has 1 card. You cast Secret Rendezvous, your sole card. You now have 3 cards, and your opponents have a total of 6 cards (1 + 1 + 1 + 3). The ratio of your cards to your opponents cards have shifted favorably from 1:3 to 3:6 (=1:2). And of course, giving 3 to your opponent of choice is even better than giving 1 to each opponent.
This approach also reveals why it is terrible in 1v1. You and your opponent(s) (there is just one) each get equal benefit on average.
I'm not saying that this approach is flawless, but I do believe that thinking in this way reveals why it's less bad than you might initially expect from a naive card advantage evaluation.
A turn 1 land tax definitely is better than turn 1 sol ring; also richard is 100% right on the white cards and tbh secret rendezvous and oblation are white staples. Endless atlas also in all mono red and white decks as 2 mana draw a card for just having basics is good.
As someone who loves white in MTG Pursuit of Knowledge is better than it looks, though it benefits from other cards that let you burn through those study cards quickly which as Seth says, is the main drawback of the card. There are a few cards in Mono white that let you do it though, and its always so nice to do!
Oh and sidenote Coveted Jewel is severely underplayed in any color combination, in addition to blinking it you can make deals with an opponent to trade it between you (kinda like Humble Defector).
I have Mentor of the Meek in Yoshimaru because my commander triggers it. Norin with Welcoming Vampire in that deck is gas. I only have Bygone Bishop in my Osgir deck because of Academy Manufacturer in that deck. That deck tries to poop out artifact tokens to pump up constructs and Darksteel Juggernaut. Land Tax is the best card. Even if I am the start player I want Land Tax in my starting hand in my Darien deck. The thinning is awesome. Land Tax is card draw. It's simple, before the trigger how many cards in your hand? After Trigger how many cards in your hand? How many cards do you now have to discard to something? Thin out those plains from your Bolos Citidel deck...I have Min'd's Eye in my Borborygmos Enraged deck. When you have 50% land there can be turns where you draw 3 lands in a row so you don't do anything. Eye gives you something useful to do with the mana that is left open.
Another argument in favor of skyscanner is that it can block an akromas will alpha strike. That card is getting played more and more
richard is so controversial compared to the rest of the group and i love every second of it
Hey hey, if you play Mind’s Eye and Secret Rendezvous all you need to do is tap 11 mana for 6 cards! 😛😛😛
Play Wedding Ring on the player who uses wheel effects: they draw 7, it’s their turn so you draw 14. 😛
Land Tax is one of the only cards that can reasonably reliably thin a deck. If it goes off three times you got rid of nine lands. If you’re feeling like taking a risk, Endless Horizons is a monster in mono-white.
Secret Rendezvous ftw!
Also, Oblation and Martyr's Cry are great picks.
Edit: This entire podcast is Richard making my points and then taking it a little too far
The amount of times I have used oblation on my own token to just draw 2 is sad
@@WGG-01 I mean, instant speed divination in the worst color at drawing cards is pretty good
After a lot of time I've finally found a deck I'm comfortable with the bishop. It's a chief Jim hopper eleven deck that uses the clues for pumping creatures and enabling artifact synergies. In that deck the bishop has evasion and makes clues for me.
I run Secret Rendezvous in all my white decks, All my two color white decks. And its in for consideration for 3 color with white as well.
Flumpf is super good. Reread that card. It’s what secret Rendevuez wishes it could be.
Spirited companion is an enchantment so it's really good in enchantment decks.
I think Richard is forgetting non creature tokens with idol of oblivion, treasure, clue, blood, food. All tokens
Secret Rendezvous is a good card, not only because you are the one making the choice and with the ability to leverage with it, but mathematically. See, in 60 card, this card is trash, you are going up 2 cards while allowing your opponent to go up 3, that's awful unless you're playing owling mine or something, but in commander, this breaks the symmetry, since a symmetrical draw would be each opponent drawing a card. Having an opponent draw 3 cards in commander is like having an opponent draw 1 card in 60 card, and a card that gives you 3 cards but lets an opponent draw one would probably see some play. On top of that, you still have the benefits of being able to politic with it, and the fringe upside of being able to run it alongside things like alms collector for added synergy.
I'd say secret rendezvous is even better than each opponent drawing one, because you can choose whoever is the least threatening and severely punish the other two
I think you guys really missed a treat by not mentioning Oblation, I love casting it on my own stuff, shuffle in ANY permanent that your opponents are targeting with removal, so it acts as protection and draw 2 cards, maybe just kill a token to draw 2 cards, optionally useable as removal. It looks terrible, but it's super flexible, can be used proactively or reactively and you're always getting rid of your worst thing, or your opponent's best thing.
Land tax IS card draw. I like to think of it as front loading the lands that you would draw later in the game. The deck thinning aspect is not insignificant either- if you take the trigger just twice your remove 6 lands from your deck which will make the likelihood of drawing gas WAY higher. Besides, lands are some of the best cards in magic!
Secret Rendezvous with Alms Collector maybe?
😩.
I got a couple of kinda meme cards I actually do play that I wonder if anyone's tried running. Phyrexian portal is one that I actually like. Not needing to tap to activate is a big plus for me, since you can activate it multiple times in a turn. The most cards that should realistically be exiled at a time is 5, and getting a 5+ card selection from the top of your deck is no joke. Plus, it allows people to interact, play mind games with the piles, make deals, all the fun stuff I want to play commander for.
The second card is liar's pendulum, which I like for a lot of the same reasons. You can do mind games, like when someone's trying to call your bluff for holding removal, you can double down and name the removal piece in hand, or maybe lie and try to dig to one. Even once your opponent has seen your hand, if they saw a plains in your hand, you can play it, and name plains to make them bet on if you top decked one. It just make the game more fun and interactive, which I love. Plus, you can do some neat things with scroll rack.
The problem with Mentor of the Meek is that it has anti-synergy with another big White color pie theme: Anthems. You want to play weenies and then buff them up, they work against each other. Quite dumb design if you ask me.
Wedding ring does combo with notion thief. Mono white no luck.
You kind person are a brilliant individual and I am now buying a Wedding Ring for my Combo deck since I'm already running Notion Thief(I admit I am the asshole of my playgroup but I'm not completely oppressive about it so they don't hate me for it)
I want to try Inheritance sometime. Very low opportunity cost
Pursuit of Knowledge is good if you're running proliferation. I could see mono white getting a good superfriends deck pretty easily.
Just set one counter on it via draw skipping then proliferate the rest of the way.
I think if you want to run Wedding Ring in a deck, you run it alongside Mirage Mirror and other ways to copy it (without casting something). If you control 2+ Wedding Rings, they’ll each trigger from the opponent who only has 1!
Now, is this *good*? Unclear.
Richard is 100% right after playing secret rendezvous in all of my decks with white it always overperforms and I play muted on mtgo
You forgot wall of mourning on the blink strategy or overall in creature based deck. It lets you draw up to 3 cards over few turns if you have coven. Pretty decent card draw for mono white
I agree that White doesn't have much trouble drawing cards as long as you're in certain archetypes. Here's my rebuttal though.
Think about how many colorless cards are on this list. If this video were covering any other color, all of the cards would be colored cards. I can build almost any strategy ai want in black or blue off the back of the sheer quantity of generically powerful card draw. If I want to draw cards in white, I'm basically limited to 3 strategies.
Everyone but tomer trippin on idol of oblivion. That card is gas. Literally two mana pyhrexian arena that can make a chump blocker late game. Have to have a commander that makes tokens or is token themed.
My friend put Wedding Ring on me when I was playing Varina. It worked out very well for him. It can be great if used against the right opponent.
Yay, we've established White Voltron decks are good at drawing cards. So how about the other 95% of white decks? It's great some narrow archetypes in white get to draw cards, but it'd be great if the vast majority of white decks got a reasonable amount of card draw. Regardless of that, Wx decks all draw cards better than monowhite versions of the same archetypes.
Mono white cant have good card draw it needs hoops to jump through. White is low key powerful af. It is second best in most aspects of the game. Has good creatures in agro midrange and control. Has second best removal behind black. Outside of artifacts which all colors can use it goes and gets the most lands behind green. Has tons of cheap creature burn like red but requires creatures to be tapped or attacking. Has the best counterspells after blue since it has more open ended counterspells. Not to mention things its great at like artifact synergies, enchantments, reanimation, etc. If white had great card draw and ramp it would be far too powerful. Sorry such long post.
I can't believe that the playgroup that thinks Toski is an overpowered magic card doesn't think that Wedding Ring is going to net you card advantage.
Put Coveted Jewel in Mavinda, i think it's great there, you have a cheap flying flicker commander, that can get it back when its stolen, that runs blink effects and spells anyway, so great ad!
EDIT: I'd say more and more, reanimator and tokens is also a great strategy for White, Cathar's Crusade and Devine Visitations are great pay offs for the latter, thus I'd recommend in a meta that's not as imediately punishing for do nothing permanents "Slate of Ancestry". 4 Mana to cast, 4 mana to activate and dependant on you creatures is not ideal, but if you have 10 tokens on your battlefield, in Monowhite? You draw 10 cards! And if you run reanimation in white, you can get benefits from the cards discarded!
Wedding Ring combo: put wedding ring on an opponent. Wait until that opponent plays an instant during the turn of the player right before his own turn, then use Arcane Denial to counter it. During the opponent’s upkeep, you draw a card, the opponent draws two cards, you draw two cards. Profit. Then go buy a lotto ticket
Any opinions on Reckoner Bankbuster? It's everywhere right now in Standard. I think a lot of the time it behaves like a better Endless Atlas, since it doesn't have a condition on the activation, can also be used as a vehicle, and eventually ramps and makes a body if you draw with it enough.
There's also Mazemind Tome, which again seems better than Endless Atlas in most circumstances, since you have the option to scry instead of draw if you don't have open mana or want to scry on upkeep. I don't think being able to use Endless Atlas an unlimited number of times is enough of an upside to prefer it over Mazemind Tome or Bankbuster.
Their analysis of Wedding Ring is seriously off imo. The player playing Wedding ring is very likely to benefit more from the effect than the player that receives the token ring. You marry the player that draws a lot of cards during their turn, so you get a lot of cards in the process, and in exchange, you givbe them 1 card per rotation.
You literally become a golddigger lmao, leaching off your opponent's draw effects.
Except so many good draw effects trigger or are cast not on their own turn so it does nothing.
@@ms.sysbit5511 and the opposite is also true. Just as an exemple, guardian project, elemental bond, kindred discovery, mentor of the meek, the great henge, and many more all trigger almost always at sorcery speed. And these are far from the only cards that work that way.