They acknowledged that those strategies are good if you build around it. Armageddon is good if viewed as a win condition, not a hate card. Getting beat by five different cards isn't strong if those cards are already advancing their game plan like ramp cards.
I hate it how every time someone says "Im gonna do this cool new powerful thing", Seth always argues "But we are just gonne kill you first." An argument that is completely pointless and leads to nothing when you literally say that to all 3 other players in your pod.
@@BobardeZanzibar it’s not necessarily better, but one of the advantages of playing mono color decks is not getting blown out by bloodmoon and ruination type stuff
You want more card variety to force you to play trippy Wrath of God? Play a singleton season. Which is to say, with the exception of basics and Relentless Rats-effects, you get one copy of each card to last you the entire season. You get one deck with Farewell.
Usually I can’t stand his takes, but this is a hot takes episode so he’s the star of the show here! I’d be disappointed if he didn’t show up on one of these.
Seth and Richard literally just describe simic decks almost the whole episode and seem to think they came up with a unique strategy of just focusing on out valuing opponents. Good on Tomer and Crim bringing some more interesting stuff to the conversation
To be fair, threatening someone (Crim) with “We’ll kill you first because of X” doesn’t really work if you just try to kill them first all the time anyways. They’re used to it
That’s casual magic for you sir. If you want an episode where everything probably actually is 100% correct then you want a CEDH video, you’re in the wrong place.
I was really happy to hear seth’s idea of trying to build less staple focused decks. The thing that i think is important to think of when going down a less staple focused deck is that staples make deck building easier and faster. If we all know the best blue card draw card is rhystic, and staples are how a deck is made, then rhystic makes it into the deck instantly, meaning there is less cards ro go find. With less staples, synergy pieces are what make up the powerlevel difference, but it takes more time and creativity to find them. However, with more creativity and time comes a way more interesting deck that feels incredibly unique for you and the table to play into
i think its a friction between commander as "lets have fun and present our decks" and the actual reality of the situation: That EDH, like any other mtg format, is a GAME with a WINNER and 3 LOSERS. Its hard for people to collectively agree that winning the game is not the objective in EDH, it goes against the very concept of games in the first place.
EDH *was* a social format. Yes, it is a game with one winner. This leads us to a large separation amongst the current player-base. That friction you speak about is caused by people who build/play the game to win, and people who build/play the game for interaction and experience. Obviously this isn't black and white, as I want to hope that all players desire some forms of both and intend to take the game (at very least) semi-seriously. But I do believe the two wildly different demographics exist. Me personally, I would drop all staples and only play bird tribal if it meant fun interactable games with friends. If 2 people in my 5-6 player pod only build stapley value-trains, losing turn 6 with a jank themed deck before I cast my 4th spell isn't fun after 20 games... Your reality is that it's a game with a winner. My reality is that it was a game to share with my friends. Playing with people of like-mind could eliminate the friction burn entirely.
I'm so happy to hear Seth talk about building worse decks and Tomer talking about themed decks. That's exactly how I like to play Commander. I really like leaning into themes with my decks. A lot of decks can have fun, themed removal, board wipes, and value engines. I think a decent amount of the problems the crew have had recently is because they're too concerned about making an optimized deck. For instance, their concerns about lands that are too good. I would never play Field of the Dead outside of a dedicated landfall deck. Sure it will be amazing there, but if you build that way, you don't need to be concerned about every 2+ color deck running it.
"I need to play 6 wraths to keep up with phil alone" We're so close, we're so close to getting him to just play efficient targeted removal, he's almost there.
Even if he played it he'd never fire it off. Richard winning as much as he does is based solely on him being the best at whining so people attack someone else or dont remove his pillow fort pieces
@@donb7519Facts. His whole strategy is to do absolutely nothing for 7 turns and get everyone to kill each other, then swoop in and steal the win. It’s why it’s so infuriating whenever no one targets Richard when they have the chance.
On the pet card thing: Cards don't always exist on a linear scale. Take Austere Command versus Farewell as an example: You can make use of the selective creature modes to your benefit. Sure, Austere Command doesn't hit graveyards, so you might have to shift your answers around to accommodate the change. It isn't a better/worse scenario here, if you make use of Austere Command's advantages. You don't say that a swiss army knife is better than any of the individual tools it contains, because the real tools are better at their job.
Love Seth’s take, making worse decks is great. I feel like I always have one to five cards in every deck that are not optimal but add both flavor and fun to every game experience.
So agree with this. Magic just has so many cool cards, so much cool art, and commander is really the only format where you can play those cards without getting laughed out of the room. I also believe that the more people who embrace bad/weird jank, the more it will inspire others to try to expand their deckbuilding restrictions outside of the usual goodstuff suspects.
I generally do this. I played a Horde of Notions “Elementals” deck where I ran the useful Backgrounds and a bunch of dungeon cards. I had no business winning, but everyone ignored me because I was durdling with silly enchantments until I played a Criminal Past with a now full graveyard
Agree, I was a heavy theme builder. Sure, I had 1 deck that had Sol Ring, Rhystic Study, Cyclonic Rift, etc but not every deck. I hate seeing "theme" decks where you can't tell what the theme is without the player telling you. Like the people claiming that they are playing a planeswalker deck but only play a bunch of control, draw, and ramp. After an hour and 30+ spells, they play a single planeswalker to win. By the time they cast their first walker, they had already won the game and that could have been any win condition and it wouldn't matter. In contrast my walker deck had around 45 walkers. If I did anything that game you would know what my deck was without me telling you. I generally like my themes (like dragon tribal) to have at least 40 cards and then try to make the support cards fit too.
The secret is that they go together. Early game your opponents take each other out, late game you force your opponent to attack into your inkshields and batwing brumes.
Hot Take, but not sure: The concept of :"well if you play this 'card' we will gang up on you" is very underestimating the power of a 4player format. If you focus on one player, usually 1 or 2 out of the rest of the table should have progressed their game plan so you rarely actually just get that one 'hated' player, and not lose from another "out of the blue". So I believe Crim Armageddon-ing should not be consider that bad from his side either. You can call that we should target him but advance some of your game plan too, otherwise you are going to lose from Phil
I play the low-ramp/efficient curve playstyle. You NEED a lot of card velocity to make these decks work. If your commander doesn't draw cards I would run 15+ cards that provide some kind of card advantage. The way you split it is you need ~5 of Night's Whisper type cards that draw unconditionally/efficiently and then 5-7 cards that draw a lot because they synergise with your strategy (think Coastal Piracy, Midnight Reaper or Beast Whisperer). As for the ramp in these decks I tend to run 3-7 of effects like Heraldic Banner or Cursed Mirror that do something I want and also produce mana as a side effect. The number of these will depend on what your game plan and mana curve is. The plan shouldn't be to play these before turn 4 so the effect needs to be at least on rate like with Heraldic Banner being a 3 mana anthem. These mostly help you consistently double spell/keep up interaction. With this combination you should be able to consistently double spell past turn 4 and apply pressure to the table. I also suggest mostly running one-sided boardwipes since the total mana investment in your boardstate is higher than a regular deck
Really hope Seth and Crim read this because it's spot on. I have a Law Aurelia deck where my only ramp is Sol Ring and the assorted Knight of the White Orchids. We get on the board early and often and play cards that provide advantage along the way.
One day Richard will realize that his go-to argument "You will just die if you play an indestructible artifact land, I will kill you!" unfortunately falls appart in practice, as every game in every LGS on the globe has a Phil at the table with 5000 permanents and a must kill commander that take all the priority away from any armageddom player.
I love hearing Richard skim over the fact that the ruination wrecked him in a monocolor deck hahaha. It's not like they're saying 9 basics will save you, but in monocolor 9 is low. Anyway, to put some points on Richard I do agree that Shocks are not as necessary as they once were even if he's maybe going a bit far
@@dontmisunderstand6041iv won games shocking in the shock lands. Iv also lost to other people doing it. Dont shock them in if you don't need the mana.
@@atk9989 And I've won games to my opponent shocking in shock lands, and never won a game due to shocking in my own. Yes, they're theoretically better than guildgates. I won't argue that. But the vast majority of the time, their ability is not relevant.
@@dontmisunderstand6041Your meta must be extremely aggro. I’ve never once seen the life loss be relevant. Most games I see are either won through some combo or other noncombat method, or through huge alpha strikes that would have won the game whether someone shocked themselves 5 times or not.
What I love about Wrath of God: when it saves the day, it's the best feeling ever for all the table, and we will remember it. Farewell will always save the day, but it brings no joy and no one will remember it. Thats why I love casual commander, the stories the fun and the surprise. You'e not suppose to care that much about winning or losing. Does your deck creates fun memorries? More WOG, less Farewell.
That’s why I have decided to make decks for the memes. My Aminatu deck? It’s a mill deck and has a few miracle cards solely so I can say “IT’S A MIRACLE!” My Sliver Queen deck? Never cast her, nor is it a sliver deck. It’s a cycling deck… because Freddie Mercury (of Queen) wants to ride his BIIIICYCLE! My 4c (no green partners) - I call it “Don’t Attack Me, Bro” - filled essentially with ways that encourage my opponents to attack each other. My Xantcha deck? I call it “R.E.M.,” because everybody huuuurts! And everybody criiiiies. *** You can “optimize” these decks and still have bad decks. 😂
You need a playgroup that supports this too. Very grateful my playgroup is low budget and relatively lower power (at least for now...😅). We see a huge variety of cards and play patterns in games. The main drawback is that games tend to take longer, so there is a trade off.
@@bortron5000 Budget is only one way to limit a group’s power creep. I’ve been playing this game for a very long time and therefore was able to buy original dual lands, Mox Diamonds, etc. (no Power) at reasonable prices. Some of my decks with extremely expensive cards are terrible. I have a buddy who has a GW soldier deck… with Gaea’s Cradle, but the deck is terrible, because Soldiers. 😂
I like how this episode was ostensibly about experimental ideas, but the bulk of it was mostly about how meta shifts occur. It reminded me of an old Eternal Glory podcast about "The Midrange Wars," which is, imo, really what commander has been dealing with for a long time. If the format becomes about value, then decks warp to just pile on more value and lose spots for the efficient interaction and what not you need to beat aggro, or the specific hate pieces against combo, etc. Plus, the "Vintage Cube" problem where yeah you could play mono red, but why would you when you could be slinging Black Lotuses and Time Walks, etc. But we don't really analyze commander through a meta lense in the same way. So these conversations get framed as power level, optimization, and so on. So, take all of that, add a sprinkling of nostalgia and a scoop of witty banter, and you get this.
Big red is actually really strong in vintage cube! Especially if you get ramp in mana crypt or sol ring :) if you pull a time walk then you have every reason to splash blue. But I will say for my own cube that when I had time walk and ancestral recall in my cube it skewed to where everyone wants to play blue. So my cube is less optimized and more jank now
@zaneghiskhan It is really strong. But like you're alluding to a lot of people will choose not to draft it even when it's open and would mean higher win rates because they want want live the dream of casting lotus into recall and so on. It is also why I tend to prefer unpowered Cube, and why I'm making one to supoort various multi-player formats.
@@Titanreaver616 agreed. The stronger a card is the more zero-sum games end up being. I'm currently trying to balance the power in my cube. It's budget but proxy fetches, shocks and triomes. I still have proxy lotus and moxen in it, since I still want to simulate the experience of opening a powerful accelerant, but the payoffs aren't as strong. Hopefully just cutting recall, time walk, twister is enough
@zaneghiskhan True, and while J don't mind those feats ot famine games when I do play vintage or other formats to a lesser extent, if I'm sitting down for Cube I'd rather the games take long enough to be worth doing the drafting.
Richard, I need to preach to you, since you tend to be open-minded about cards: Banefire is the truth! All these red decks produce so much mana, and since wizard keeps printing colorless ramp, you can easily Banefire x15 someone on a dime. Go gruul, and you can ramp into your Banefire, and hold up your fogs to deal with the clapback (not required, but its easy mode). The uncounterable clause is also huge, as it stops control players (Crim) shenanigans. My playgroup keeps making fun of me, yet they're the ones dying to it. You won't regret it!!
@@bigfootfighter4132 reliquary tower is a trap, it's rarely useful and it's a colorless source. If you're discarding to max hand size, you're already winning. It's easily the first card I cut for a shock land. Temple of the false god is widely considered to be a really bad trap card. it's completely useless early in the game and I really have no idea why Richard is running it with BOUNCE LANDS, where you're intentionally trying to have fewer lands than normal. It's downside is even more brutal when you're building your deck around catch-up ramp. Myriad landscape is just really slow, being a tapped colorless source that requires 3 mana to ramp by 1 is really bad. Just run ramp cards, don't put unreliable slow lands in your manabase
This one was weird. The only bit of it I can follow is "you're not always fetching for your shockland now", which... fine? The Surveil lands are pretty good to fetch early IF you don't immediately need that mana. The DMU duals are fine targets to fetch on a budget; I frequently look for Tangled Islet in my Simic deck so I can leave Breeding Pool in the deck - it might come in untapped for me on a later turn. But shocks are, like, THE best color-fixers that are fetchable and they can come in untapped if you need them.
I really wish to see all thishigh talk by Richard an Seth claiming that they are going to focus the LD player out of the game played out. They play the most greediest of them all with no single target removal and no early game creatures to aggro or defend with. Its much more likely they die first too a more aggressive deck or having to farewell and then loose their landbase to a ruination. I still think the best thing is to normalise Land Destruction and focussing a player out of the game so people have to start playing more defensive tools instead of only greed.
Personally I don't auto include fetches but if you have fetches but I don't see why you wouldn't play them. It's like OG duals, they don't increase power enough to affect play experience and it's nice to have them to help your land base.
@@zweis And I still stand by off color fetches being no more anti-flavor, anti-“spirit of color identity” than Farseek is. Both Farseek and off-color fetchlands reference fetching out lands that you might not legally be allowed to play in your deck. But for some reason, no one has any problem with Farseek in 2/3/4 color decks. I will die on this hill.
@@zweis That's sort of why I think it's out of touch. If you have them throw 'em in, but most players probably don't. Especially not for multiple decks. But Richard's list is centered on having them all, so it's not realistic to many players.
I think it’s time the crew had a “no staples” game. Collectively build a list of 100 or so cards that no-one is allowed to play. Or maybe give everyone a budget that’s based on how often the card is played rather than its dollar cost.
Using bounce lands to activate White's catchup ramp is a great strategy...now explain how and why Temple of the False God is in that manabase! Richard, that list you showed would be infinitely better if you took out the off-color Yavimaya, Temple of the False God, and Reliquary Tower for your 3 on color Shocklands.
I love that this conversation basically boiled down to half the people saying, "Im asjusting my interaction to better deal with the meta" and the other half saying "I'm going to change the meta to better deal with the interaction".
It’s a problem that the player base has made. With land hate being taboo in general, there’s no reason not to run utility lands that still tap for colors. It’s why I’m on board with targeted land hate, more specifically nonbasic and even hitting specifically snow lands. Oh you’re a going wide deck running 5 basics? Too bad you got hard hosed by a Settle the Wreckage followed up by From the Ashes.
Richard, if you're playing five bouncelands and a lotus field, I would suggest not adding Temple of the False God. I'd actually suggest Thawing Glaciers in its place, because it becomes much better with that many bouncelands. You can activate glaciers and then bounce it with the bounceland, because it was going to bounce itself anyways. It actually speeds both cards up a little bit. Also tempted to say a manabase like this benefits a lot from Exploration effects, and suffers a bit without them.
Something I wish I saw more from the Goldfish crew is more non combat wincons. Things like burn, cool combos (my personal favorite is Tasha’s Hideous Laughter copied a bunch) even hard locks. This isn’t to say we never see these things (Crim’s been playing burn a lot), but I feel like commander games in the wild end in a variety of ways. Hell I have a dragon deck that often wins with something like Sarkhan the Mad, which is basically a 20 damage burn spell late game. Cause this is (in my mind at least) the answer to this weird fog meta Richard and Seth are constantly talking about, just do something that doesn’t end in a couple of 5/5’s running into your opponents
I’m pretty much at the point that there are only two reasons to play bounce lands: Landfall and getting MDFCs back to your hand. But I would never run the colorless ones outside of landfall.
But between some actual MDFCs and pseudo-MDFCs (channel lands, Mystic Sanctuary) being playable everywhere, doesn't that imply that bounce lands should be run in almost every deck (if you cracked packs of the latest Zendikar and Kamigawa)?
@@zaclock-4228 to bring back one of seth’s hot takes, the downside of bounce lands is their super inefficient on the tempo side of things. if you’re playing a deck that wants to be casting meaningful spells and interacting from the jump (which a lot of metas don’t but people should probably do a lot more in commander) bounce lands are a dead card the first 2-3 turns of the game depending on if you have 2 2 drops in hand or not.
White has land ramp that works only if your opponents control more lands than you. In a deck that includes white but not green they're extremely important (also, the meta in their pod is that they cut strip mine for vesuva)
If the whole table wants to sit there ramping twelve times, wrathing every other turn, and not progressing the game, then I'd argue Armageddon and decree of annihilation can't be blamed for the game going forever. Land destruction 2024!!!!
Clash decks are built in isolation for the week whereas most commander players I know have 10+ decks on the go at once. If you want to build less optimised decks assume you don't pull apart last week's deck for the staple cards.
Bounce lands are the best land cycle in the game, they literally draw cards. I think 5 is about where you have to top out with bounce lands, but like, they’re incredibly broken
I play three in almost everyone of my decks, and I enjoy this number, I'll see one or two on average every game, which is what I need to reset the 1-2 early MDFCs and channel lands that I played in the early game. Maybe the difference is that Richard plays more MDFCS than me...?
While I am on board with running 9 basics in tri color if you have ramp that digs them out (cultivate, kodama's, land tax, sword of the animist, etc) I do disagree with dropping the shocks. I would rather drop the off-color fetches unless there are landfall / land recycling going on in the deck.
Richard, you’re really suggesting to play Temple of the False god in your 5 bounce land Lotus Field deck? Overall I think you’re really underrating the power of lands coming into play untapped so you can play your spells on curve.
You're massively overrating lands coming into play untapped. Every single land in your deck coming into play tapped is functionally just the same as going second, but without the card draw attached. Only, bounce lands DO effectively draw a card.
@@dontmisunderstand6041no, it's functionally the same as being a turn behind every playing untapped lands. If I'm playing true duals to cast my spells on curve you are behind me even if your turn comes before mine. And it all snowballs, I'm casting ramp turn 2 and making a 4 mana play on turn 3, and if your turn 3 is ramping and playing your 3rd tapped land you're going to be playing on your back foot the entire game. And it gets even worse if you're after me in turn order.
@@Trisket So... dumbass. What do you think the benefit of going first is? Being exactly 1 turn ahead on mana. If you ONLY play tapped lands and the opponent ONLY plays untapped lands, if you went first you're even on mana. I said what I said because it's objectively and irrefutably true, by the laws of mathematics. In order for your stance to be valid, you'd need to first prove that going second is more impactful on winrate than the deck you're using. For the record, though... if both players ramp an equal amount, the first player to fail to hit their land drop is the one who falls behind on mana, regardless of whether they're playing all basics or all guildgates. Which is, hilariously, yet another reason why bounce lands are the best two color land cycle.
Bounce lands are cool but there a limit about you want to play them. If you are going against aggro good luck catching up with taplands and surveil lands
Bounce lands are well known to be the best dual color land cycle. It's not even close either. How is it a hot take that you choose the better card over the worse card?
5:35 Richard runs all available bounce lands in a Jeskai deck? He’s running Yavimaya in a Jeskai deck (I realize you can, as it has no color identity)? He’s running Lotus Field in a Jeskai deck? That’s insane. Even having Myriad Landscape in a Jeskai deck is a little odd (but certainly justifiable on a budget).
Lotus Field is so he can play his catchup ramp. But also there's an absurd four bounces in the deck. No shocks and 14 taplands is absurd though. I'm a huge fan of surveils and has been cutting my Triome from 3c to make room, but his mana base is all of expensive, slow, and light on colors in order to get a bunch of mediocre utility lands in the mix. That's literally just the worst of all worlds.
Am I the only one who just hates bounce lands? I dislike tapped lands in general and I find these REALLY awkward to sequence. They're ETB tapped lands that can't be played turn 1, leave you tapped down turn 2 when you'd probably prefer 2-mana rocks or ramp, and then are super awkward later in the game. I get that they're a land you can play on 2 that "gives" you a land to play on 3, but man they feel like such sad draws later and I don't even like playing it on 2.
I can't stand them. I can see the dream of keeping a 2-lander; play other land, play bounceland, play first land again so you're on 3 mana from 2 cards and got 5 spells with said lands... but it's far, far more likely that you see this thing late in the game and it's a tapped land with little upside. It doesn't have land types, it doesn't have an ETB surveil/scry, it doesn't have some other ability like a creature land... it's just a guildgate later.
The problem with going down wraths is that it’s really meta-dependent. Richard is probably right in that it would help you win more in specifically Commander Clash, because everyone just ramps and draws and commits less to the board. He says you can’t Armageddon because it’s not socially acceptable, but I’ve played in many groups that find stuff like Farewell even *less* acceptable than MLD. If everyone listened to Richard and played like the Goldfish crew does, no wraths and eight fogs makes sense. However, I don’t think their meta is actually representative of how most people play, in that most people are going more in the honest creature route that doesn’t rely on single huge combo turns so much as sustained value and multiple combats. It’s possible my meta is the odd one out here, but I can count many times where a wrath saved my butt and Dress Down would’ve been totally useless
I kind of agree with them. I think that wraths are both over- and under-played; there REALLY shouldn't be an expected number per deck. Look at 1v1 constructed formats: some decks run lots, most run none. Control decks want ways to sweep the board and set their opponents back for playing aggressively early, whereas aggressive and midrange decks don't play any wraths because it'd be a totally dead card to them. At time of writing there's two decks in Standard (Domain Ramp, and Azorius Control) that run sweepers - the ramp deck is doing just that, playing early ramp and removal to not get run over, then plays one of the biggest wordiest threats ever printed that happens to generate a ton of card advantage and selection on resolution. Meanwhile the control decks have lots of card advantage baked in and play nearly zero creatures. Meanwhile there's other decks that run some white, like Boros Convoke & Esper Raffine: but they are the aggressive deck, and they don't just jam in a couple copies of Depopulate or Sunfall "in case they fall behind". Board clears should be part of some strategies in Commander, but I think players should commit to a particular kind. If you're a more aggressive deck in Black, Damnation doesn't make any sense for you - run Kindred Dominance if you're a kindred deck, run Overwhelming Forces for (basically) player removal, run In Garruk's Wake as your absolute top-end... but if you're a slower deck more interested in playing a long game, Damnation is good to set back the players going early and then you play your own bigger cards behind it.
For the love of Heliod, Richard, Surveil lands ETB TAPPED. THIS IS A NOT INSUBSTANTIAL DRAWBACK. Surveil is a nice perk, but it's not anywhere near as relevant as entering untapped on demand, and for only 2 life (in a 40 life format!). I happen to use ETB tapped lands fairly often, but the more competitive a list the more I like entering untapped when possible, missing a key spell can be mean you're effectively timewalked, since what you can do sucks or isn't impactful enough compared to what you could have done that turn with a Shock. Also, you literally mention Bounce lands, Bounce lands love Shocks because they can enter untapped if you're desperate! Do you know how painful it is to bounce an ETB tapped sucker land?! Gah! I do support running more Basics, Basics are very good cards in many ways, most importantly THEY ENTER UNTAPPED. Anyways, I would say if you're not in Green and/or you don't use Fetches then I'd definitely not bother with Shocks, they're pretty expensive for what they do if you have to draw into them fairly. I have Myriad Landscape in a huge range of decks, it's such a big upside when you're desperate for mana, but it's also true that probably 1/3 of the time it's an ETB tapped Waste? Still, I run into enough games where my land shaving ways catch up to me, and I short pretty badly, Myriad can usually finish fixing your mana by the time you can use it. Thank goodness for the wise words of Crim, guiding the channel back to reality... Surveil lands are not as good as Shocks in the overwhelming majority of decks in terms of raw power. I actually have a 'keep my land count down' theme in a deck, and even in that deck, I don't think I'd run Surveyor's Scope, it's just too demanding to be down 2 lands to multiple opponents. I mean if everyone in your pod is on mono-Green it's probably a good call? Playing some bad cards can add a ton of spice to a deck, but it's also able to add a lot of excitement to your deck, bad cards often do weird things, or do them in unusual ways, that's why they're bad, so I think Seth is right and people should run some cards that 'seem bad'. I like to have a roleplay reason for my bad cards, this compounds the excitement and can make for very memorable games. Also, Wrath of God isn't a bad card, it's not 'the best Wrath', but it's one of the absolute best purely creatures Wraths all things accounted for. 'Roles need to be filled' is a decent maxim to remember when building a deck, you need to run enough removal to get by, but some of that removal can be pretty bad and still 'fill the role'. It's like how a construction crew can support a guy who sucks at his job but keeps people's morale up, but it can't be made up only of such people and function, some of your roles can be filled by Hurl Through Hell type jank and you'll even have an edge in niche situations. Not going to lie, I think my Richard-est deck is a Selesnya Tokens/Counters deck, and I don't think it bothers with Wraths because it always should be ahead or it's going to lose regardless of a Wrath or 2. My 5C Sisay is a 'Phil' type deck, it's a lot of fun but it cut most of the interaction (it runs 1 counter and 3 true removal spells) to make space for the OG 11 Shrines, in case I play against a pod of lower power decks, but technically the deck can actually compete with 8s, even with 11 profoundly bad cards. I have decks that I'd enjoy watching you guys play, mostly my pod of Legends beaters, but it's 5 decks so you'd either have to skip a deck or play in person with 5. I'm trying to work out some alternate rule so people can form official teams (which costs resources), but everyone would start out hostile. Psst, Crim, resolve a Rite of the Raging Storm before you Armageddon maybe? Extra nice with a 'must attack' effect if you can swing it. Also, maybe take a look at my boys, Dwarven Miner and Dwarven Blastminer, resolving one vs a deck that is low on removal might cost them the game! Red is a colour I used to hate, but I'm warming up to it, it's got some good cards if you dig deep, but it's not as intuitive as say Black or Green (I know people say Simic is the easy button, but Golgari is the ACTUAL easy button, you can even reanimate your stuff if necessary, much more effectively than Simic, and Golgari is probably as good at putting cards in hand if you want that).
I would say Green is the easy button, but I won't disagree that Golgari can be as strong as Simic. Simic is easier to build (green ramp + blue card draw), but the removal in Golgari is fantastic and black can do card advantage extremely well.
I've actually done the "constructed deckbuilding" with my Torbran deck and I've actually won a couple of games. If the card can't deal damage (and is not a land), it's not in the deck, so all my ramp and card draw are stuff like Magda, Generous Plunderer, Captain Lannery Storm, Rose Cutthroat Raider, etc., which is great since the deck is at its best when it curves cards that deal damage into the commander. There is generally someone who has a scarier board (or deck) than just a couple of bulk rares from standard, so they eat the removal while you just help murder the archenemy, but in reality you are killing everyone else equally with "deal 1-2 damage to each opponent" effects and by swinging at other players "for value".
Here’s my hot take, utility lands are mostly garbage. We’ve already established that in Modern magic you almost never run out of cards, so you always have good ways to spend your mana, and I honestly can’t remember the last time I activated a land’s ability. I think most decks would just run better if they replaced almost all of their utility lands with basics, except for maybe a few of the most important.
I have definitely dropped my valuation of utility lands with expensive activations in recent years. But I'm still very high on the ones with cheap activations. Celestial Colonnade is out, Blinkmoth Nexus is in.
I think they're like guild lockets for the most part. The ability is technically there, but it's just not useful. I bought a copy of Castle Locthwain, and I've just tucked it into my box of lands without making a home for it. Basically 1BBB & some life for a card? In what world do I have nothing better to do with my mana than that? It was bought for a Teysa, Opulent Oligarch deck and that deck is making more clues than it has mana to sacrifice AND Teysa rewards me for sacrificing said clues. Outside of some life loss synergies (Rowan?) I'm not sure I'll ever play this. Rogue's Passage seems good for decks where getting a hit with the commander is essential, but on the other hand - shouldn't I have other evasion tech to work with? Voltron decks feel notoriously tight on mana, I'm not sure I'll ever actually use that ability.
Maze of Ith, Bojuka Bog and the channel lands. That’s all you should ever need for utility lands. Beyond that, unless your running a specific land for a specific deck, utility lands are usually gonna be worse than a basic, or regular mana producer, that taps for a spell. A spell will almost always be more value than a small activated ability.
To Crim's point. I don't think I know someone who, knowing a deck has MLD, would not ramp as hard as they can do get ahead in the game. I don't ever see a green player ramping, later in the game. They've spent all their ramp typically. I've played games with MLD and the green player doesn't just rebuild instantly. They might have a ramp spell or two, but almost their entire ramp package has already been used. I'll also say that typically the person who uses MLD has a winning board state. If it's used without a winning board state it's just bad and boring. I really don't get why commander players are so against it. I don't play it because I'm not built around it. But I"ve played against a suspend decks with major MLD in them and its a great win con. No reason to be salty about it because they win. The game doesn't just stall and get boring. They win we shuffle and play again.
I agree with this. Is the theme and build is meant to take advantage of MLD, then I'm totally fine. Playing a ton of walkers, then wiping creatures and lands so you can just bleed value over time is fine. But just resetting the board playing draw go for 9 turns makes me want to unalive
I totally agree. It's the only way after 2015 anyone can win with a Kaalia of the Vast deck, lol. But truly, MLD and Wraths are how you deal with explosive and hard to remove ramps/board states. As ramp becomes even more explosive and heavily printed, and the amount of value stapled onto a single creature goes up, MLD and Wrath are how you deal with them without putting yourself further behind.
You guys absolutely nailed it. If people stop playing commander interactively, and all it becomes is ramp/card draw. Then it is absolutely fair to curve out and drop the Armageddon.
In my opinion, people play too little interaction that can cope with multiple targets. In fact, board-wipe is most often needed to kill the 3-4 targets that are the worst - the rest is "relatively ok" (of course not always, but often). That's why now I try to play 1-2 board wipes, and more interaction that can cope with several goals. Cards such as Fire Covenant, Unexplained Absence, Mystic Confluence and the new V.A.T.S. This kinde of interaction that can get rid of several targets is, in my opinion, very underestimated. Now I try to play 2-3 pieces of cheap interaction (0 to 2 mana), 2-3 pieces of very universal interaction (one that can deal with anything like Anguished Unmaking), 2-3 pieces of muli-target interaction ( just like V.A.T.S.) and 1-2 pieces Board Wipe. In addition, I try to play with more cards that protect my things (if there is a chance, at least 2-3 pieces, and preferably 4-5... and I like FOGs as well, but the more expensive ones that give us something "extra" ). Plus i always have 2+ lands that can be use as interaction / board wipe (Mount Doom FTW!!!).
Sorry, Richard I agree with Seth swapping the off-color fetches for shocks in your proposed mana base. If you need an untapped land that can make a specific color in a 3-color deck, you need shocks to let off-color fetches get that color. Without shocks, they can only get one color of mana untapped. Unless you really need the shuffle effects, replacing the off-color fetches with shocks just makes that mana base better.
It surprises me that no one brought this up in the podcast. Polluted Delta being a $30 Island that costs you 1 life to play, excellent mana base there.
I think you should legitimately just be playing settle the wreckage XD Like in every deck, and all of the equivalent cards like comeuppance and spider fog and ink shield etc. The problem with fogs is if you actually let them do whatever without interacting with them, they can just attack into your fogs until you run out. What you need is to play cards where if they guess wrong and attack into you they get demolished. Then people learn to be nervous about attacking into you, and *that's* what buys you the time where no-one is attacking you while you can do whatever.
Seth rather than thinking of it as building "worse" decks, try swapping cards that show up in more than one of your decks. Every Blue deck can run Rhystic Study, but when you open up that draw slot to another option you try more flavorful or unique choices. I do this with most "staple cards" of their respective colors like Black Market Connections, Rhystic Study, Teferi's Protection, etc.
For Seth, salubrious snail has a great video on pet cards. And to me one of the most important things in edh is matched power levels so you could consider doing more themed or budget episodes for clash
Something interesting y'all could do is introduce a full season of budget decks. Set a budget at the start of the season, every deck has to fit within that budget, and see how it affects your deck building and the group's power level.
Would you all consider doing a precon league where you play a few time adding some limited number of cards too swap each week? It could even be as little as 3 total sessions and could help with the power creep concerns while remaining competitive with the group.
I'm happy to hear Seth wants to build less optimized decks, my main gripe with Clash for awhile is how every game is high power. There's usually multiple rungs to every card category you want to run, you don't always have to run the most optimal option in every slot, every time.
Seth is absolutely right on the overrating of Surveil lands. Richard had been so opposed to them, so against them during spoiler season that I almost went back on my free time to watch Commander Clsh episodes again just to count up the amount of times someone could have played a tapped land without hurting the events of their turn because it was many, many times.
I dont understand this "Min/Max" mana base these guys have going on. Been playing commander for a long time and honestly a mix of slow lands, pain lands, shocks, check lands, horizon lands, battlebond lands, and most importantly BASICS make very consistent mana bases. Don't need fetches or a bunch of utility lands. Fetches for higher powered landfall decks, utility for niche commander payoffs like kessig wolfrun make more sense than throwing that kinda noise in every multicolored deck. I've never seen what they promote out in the wild, so it really does ring true when Seth frequently asks "is this just an us thing?".
i'm with you mostly that mana bases can be totally fine without turning it into a whole thing, but basics do _not_ make consistent mana bases, they do literally the opposite
@@GlaceonBM I'm not advocating for 30 basics in a three colored deck, but I feel even an amount of 15 basics never hinder consistency in the three colored deck; especially when paired with say check lands or battle lands.
I agree with you. I am sure there is someone that is able to do a math and tell you how many dual lands you need for a deck to function. From 3colors above the basic shrinks.
@ich3730 Basics are less consistent in the sense that you are less likely to get all the colors you need on curve. If you have a 3 color 3 CMC commander you are gonna have a harder time casting your commander on curve if a majority of your lands are basics.
Seth mentioned Akul. That is a good example of a deck that doesn't need traditional mana rocks. If you spend turn 2 ramping and you play Akul on turn 3 you just risk running him into removal without no payoff. Instead you want to curve into him by playing expendable sacrifice fodder on turns 1-3 then on turn 4 you can play Akul and sneak attack in a bomb.
I've always thought that if you can't purposefully build your decks worse then you should incorporate more themes or challenges in order to do so. That's what makes alphabet soup week, or budget week so fun. The challenge of finding the BEST (possible) card for your restriction is underrated. Tomer has it figured out on this one with why he builds all of his deck budget themed. The FOMO on broken cards is a struggle for most commander tables imo
Seth's take is my take! The most fun in games I have is when I play nostalgia and jank, not when I'm optimizing and spending my game fretting over what lines to play! High powered games can be fun...but it's a load of fun to bend rules and play in the mud too!
I feel Richard has to be trolling with that manabase including Myriad Landscape, Temple of the False God and Yavimaya in Jeskai while saying "Shocks are bad now". Like there's three lands to ditch for your three shocks right there. Same number of basics, already a better manabase.
i put it a year ago after seeing it from edh deckbuilding, even him said that there were already better draw options in white/red but i loved the art and bought it and so far it never let me down. my playgroup even started targeting it lol
I give Richard a lot of crap but I respect him a lot for being a good sport about the crap he gets. Also I like the leading take - Shocks aren't overrated but Richard's hypothetical mana base is really solid. 9 Basics is a good number for a 3 color deck.
But did you see where he only ran, like 3 basics in a mono color deck and got wrecked by ruination. Lmao he runs more basics in a 3 color deck then a mono colored deck
@gregprice4834 yeah that moment was pretty embarrassing, but they record like 2 weeks in advance, so he's had like 4 weeks to consider changing his ways
he has 7 colorless lands, that is horrid and if you cut 3 then boom, he has his shocks. oh! or how about the yavimaya that does nothing in a jeskia deck which that mana base is for, and the Exotic orchid because its just as likely to be a basic or uncontrolled 2 color land anyway. or the lotus field unless you are loaded with catchup ramp. 99% of games iv played a thespian stage would be dead, diamond city isnt needed, the colorless bounce is bad unless you have like 15 catchup ramp cards and if you are doing that then temple of the false gods is bad in the deck anyway. thats 10 lands that came be cut for shocks and battle bond lands, and the slow land cycle and add a 10th basic.
@atk9989 You're preaching to the choir here bud. I play an average of 0-2 colorless utility lands per deck! But I do think you're underselling the power of the colorless bouncelands. They kinda rule in practice, and many times in this section Richard refers to Land Tax as a reason to play lands like that.
I agree with tomer, commit to a theme fully, you end up with a much more interesting and textured deck. Playing the same 15-20 cards in every deck, or what people refer to as a "shell" is what almost had me quit magic completely several years ago out of sheer boredom
Some of my decks: Old jodah - only "good" wizard themed, no wizards or spells that look evil Kalamax - the land destroying weather themed deck Phyrexians - all phyrexian, no exceptions Thalia and frog - innistrad multi block constructed
But decklist shells are in every single TCG. hearthstone, runeterra, yugioh, pokemon all have staples and overarching cards between archetypes. In every cardgame you eventually have to decide if you want your deck to be good OR whack and unique, its never both.
- Insight is broken and, if you're in blue, you should be playing it. - Dream Tides isn't broken, but you need to justify *not* running it. - Play Mystic Subdual - Lion Sash and Scavenging Ooze are S-tier graveyard hate. - Tamiyo, Field Researcher is one of the best planeswalkers in the format.
With Richard he's absolutely nuts playing that many colourless lands. You could 100% find 3 cuts for untapped fetchable lands. Like untapped lands are to ramp as Scry is to draw. Tapped lands make you fall so far behind
Seth: I’m trying to get used to not always running the fanciest new, optimal card in every slot. Seth, 25 minutes later: I’m cutting Mind Stone for Ragavan
“How do we go back?” - Commander cube How do we solve the lands problem - Commander cube How do we fit pet cards? - Commander cube. Time to build a cube guys!
Command Zone in 2021: "Only play 2-3 wraths in your deck" Richard in 2021: "You need to play at least 10 wraths and run no other interaction" Command Zone in 2024: "I think it's finally time we start running more wraths to deal with ward and hexproof" Richard in 2024: "I'm off wraths!"
Richard is cutting shocks to support some pretty middling cards. That said, you can also be just fine without shocks. That said, they're pretty close to best in slot.
(In response to cutting board wipes) I'm playing with a deck idea with Kwain where it's build around no ramp but all 7+ drops and board wipes. I just chill until I have 7 mana and then clear everything (all non-lands), and then going forward my 7+ drops are better than their average drop. I thought it would be a silly idea, but it's been really working out.
* Someone suggests any competent strategy *
Seth and Richard: But what if your opponents exclusively target you instead of literally any other threat?
The answer is to normalize land destructions. Lands have become must answer cards. So the must have answers
"This card is so good!"
"The card sucks because someone could have the incredibly niche answer or use 5 cards to punish you!"
They acknowledged that those strategies are good if you build around it. Armageddon is good if viewed as a win condition, not a hate card. Getting beat by five different cards isn't strong if those cards are already advancing their game plan like ramp cards.
@@BobardeZanzibar okay but they say that about literally any powerful card.
I hate it how every time someone says "Im gonna do this cool new powerful thing", Seth always argues "But we are just gonne kill you first."
An argument that is completely pointless and leads to nothing when you literally say that to all 3 other players in your pod.
Richard, the problem was not "You are playing 5 basics", it was "You are playing 5 basics in MONO-BLACK".
So it would have been better if he was playing grixis?
Nah, still stupid to run so many non basics if youre playing ANYTHING that ramps basics as well.
Hahahaha, from now on until the end of time, Richard will be "the guy who got Ruination while playing Mono Black".
Hahahaha, from now on until the end of time, Richard will be "the guy who got Ruination while playing Mono Black".
@@BobardeZanzibar it’s not necessarily better, but one of the advantages of playing mono color decks is not getting blown out by bloodmoon and ruination type stuff
I feel like I just watched the Commander Clash metagame shift about three times in the course of one podcast.
Also I'm super on Tomer's side when he says we need to put some fear in the hearts of people who play no basics in their ramp-heavy nonsense.
What's the point in all that if you don't get to use it again? >:)
Wave of vitrol and from the ashes
@@hanschristopherson8056 Preach your truth, brother!
Yep! I'm greedy in a lot of decks, but my rakdos deck sure does run Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon, and Price of Progress!
I've won games this way. It's such an obvious weakness to exploit.
You want more card variety to force you to play trippy Wrath of God? Play a singleton season.
Which is to say, with the exception of basics and Relentless Rats-effects, you get one copy of each card to last you the entire season. You get one deck with Farewell.
I know I am about to hear Richard say some of the most outlandish things
I disagree, Richard busts out the hot takes when nobody expects the mindnumbing nonsense
I’m 5 mins in, and this is how I feel.
Usually I can’t stand his takes, but this is a hot takes episode so he’s the star of the show here! I’d be disappointed if he didn’t show up on one of these.
Seth and Richard literally just describe simic decks almost the whole episode and seem to think they came up with a unique strategy of just focusing on out valuing opponents. Good on Tomer and Crim bringing some more interesting stuff to the conversation
Yeah I get sick of it. It never sounds like he builds a balanced deck. 9 wipes in each deck? Fogs instead of targeted removal? What is this?
To be fair, threatening someone (Crim) with “We’ll kill you first because of X” doesn’t really work if you just try to kill them first all the time anyways. They’re used to it
This, and also the fact that they are not even applying any presure in the early game.
Exactly lol, that's like the most empty threat ever you can throw at Crim
I hate Seth especially making that argument all the time... You cant just say that to all 3 other players in your pod man! :D
@@Lucarioguild7 Very true
So glad there’s going to be another podcast where everyone is absolutely correct and no one is incorrect
That’s casual magic for you sir. If you want an episode where everything probably actually is 100% correct then you want a CEDH video, you’re in the wrong place.
Personal feelings on a format will do that
Tbf I would say most of their takes are wrong 😂
I was really happy to hear seth’s idea of trying to build less staple focused decks. The thing that i think is important to think of when going down a less staple focused deck is that staples make deck building easier and faster. If we all know the best blue card draw card is rhystic, and staples are how a deck is made, then rhystic makes it into the deck instantly, meaning there is less cards ro go find. With less staples, synergy pieces are what make up the powerlevel difference, but it takes more time and creativity to find them. However, with more creativity and time comes a way more interesting deck that feels incredibly unique for you and the table to play into
i think its a friction between commander as "lets have fun and present our decks" and the actual reality of the situation: That EDH, like any other mtg format, is a GAME with a WINNER and 3 LOSERS. Its hard for people to collectively agree that winning the game is not the objective in EDH, it goes against the very concept of games in the first place.
EDH *was* a social format. Yes, it is a game with one winner. This leads us to a large separation amongst the current player-base. That friction you speak about is caused by people who build/play the game to win, and people who build/play the game for interaction and experience. Obviously this isn't black and white, as I want to hope that all players desire some forms of both and intend to take the game (at very least) semi-seriously. But I do believe the two wildly different demographics exist.
Me personally, I would drop all staples and only play bird tribal if it meant fun interactable games with friends.
If 2 people in my 5-6 player pod only build stapley value-trains, losing turn 6 with a jank themed deck before I cast my 4th spell isn't fun after 20 games...
Your reality is that it's a game with a winner.
My reality is that it was a game to share with my friends.
Playing with people of like-mind could eliminate the friction burn entirely.
How is this episode any different than your regular episodes, richard is always hot taking 😂
I'm so happy to hear Seth talk about building worse decks and Tomer talking about themed decks. That's exactly how I like to play Commander. I really like leaning into themes with my decks. A lot of decks can have fun, themed removal, board wipes, and value engines. I think a decent amount of the problems the crew have had recently is because they're too concerned about making an optimized deck. For instance, their concerns about lands that are too good. I would never play Field of the Dead outside of a dedicated landfall deck. Sure it will be amazing there, but if you build that way, you don't need to be concerned about every 2+ color deck running it.
"I need to play 6 wraths to keep up with phil alone"
We're so close, we're so close to getting him to just play efficient targeted removal, he's almost there.
Even if he played it he'd never fire it off. Richard winning as much as he does is based solely on him being the best at whining so people attack someone else or dont remove his pillow fort pieces
@@donb7519Facts. His whole strategy is to do absolutely nothing for 7 turns and get everyone to kill each other, then swoop in and steal the win. It’s why it’s so infuriating whenever no one targets Richard when they have the chance.
On the pet card thing: Cards don't always exist on a linear scale. Take Austere Command versus Farewell as an example: You can make use of the selective creature modes to your benefit. Sure, Austere Command doesn't hit graveyards, so you might have to shift your answers around to accommodate the change. It isn't a better/worse scenario here, if you make use of Austere Command's advantages. You don't say that a swiss army knife is better than any of the individual tools it contains, because the real tools are better at their job.
Richard wants people to play Burnished Hart, tons of tapped lands, and run no interaction lmao
I’d love it if all my opponents follow this advice!
You guys need to play a season with LD on the table to truly test it! Also “Wave of Vitriol” is very low key good!
Love Seth’s take, making worse decks is great. I feel like I always have one to five cards in every deck that are not optimal but add both flavor and fun to every game experience.
So agree with this. Magic just has so many cool cards, so much cool art, and commander is really the only format where you can play those cards without getting laughed out of the room.
I also believe that the more people who embrace bad/weird jank, the more it will inspire others to try to expand their deckbuilding restrictions outside of the usual goodstuff suspects.
I generally do this. I played a Horde of Notions “Elementals” deck where I ran the useful Backgrounds and a bunch of dungeon cards. I had no business winning, but everyone ignored me because I was durdling with silly enchantments until I played a Criminal Past with a now full graveyard
All my decks are flavor/theme before optimizing
In tribal deck ko creature are not either the tribe or doing something to the tribe
Absolutely. Helix Pinnacle hasn't won me a game of commander since 2014 but I still include it in at least one of my big mana decks.
Agree, I was a heavy theme builder. Sure, I had 1 deck that had Sol Ring, Rhystic Study, Cyclonic Rift, etc but not every deck.
I hate seeing "theme" decks where you can't tell what the theme is without the player telling you. Like the people claiming that they are playing a planeswalker deck but only play a bunch of control, draw, and ramp. After an hour and 30+ spells, they play a single planeswalker to win. By the time they cast their first walker, they had already won the game and that could have been any win condition and it wouldn't matter. In contrast my walker deck had around 45 walkers. If I did anything that game you would know what my deck was without me telling you.
I generally like my themes (like dragon tribal) to have at least 40 cards and then try to make the support cards fit too.
Wait until Richard realizes that mass goad meta is even more lucrative than the fog meta.
Kardur is life. I've played lots of games where I just loop him and laugh as the table argues about each other attacking
The secret is that they go together. Early game your opponents take each other out, late game you force your opponent to attack into your inkshields and batwing brumes.
Kardur can feel so ridiculous sometimes, lol. Mf super goad
Hot Take, but not sure: The concept of :"well if you play this 'card' we will gang up on you" is very underestimating the power of a 4player format.
If you focus on one player, usually 1 or 2 out of the rest of the table should have progressed their game plan so you rarely actually just get that one 'hated' player, and not lose from another "out of the blue".
So I believe Crim Armageddon-ing should not be consider that bad from his side either. You can call that we should target him but advance some of your game plan too, otherwise you are going to lose from Phil
I play the low-ramp/efficient curve playstyle. You NEED a lot of card velocity to make these decks work. If your commander doesn't draw cards I would run 15+ cards that provide some kind of card advantage. The way you split it is you need ~5 of Night's Whisper type cards that draw unconditionally/efficiently and then 5-7 cards that draw a lot because they synergise with your strategy (think Coastal Piracy, Midnight Reaper or Beast Whisperer).
As for the ramp in these decks I tend to run 3-7 of effects like Heraldic Banner or Cursed Mirror that do something I want and also produce mana as a side effect. The number of these will depend on what your game plan and mana curve is. The plan shouldn't be to play these before turn 4 so the effect needs to be at least on rate like with Heraldic Banner being a 3 mana anthem. These mostly help you consistently double spell/keep up interaction.
With this combination you should be able to consistently double spell past turn 4 and apply pressure to the table. I also suggest mostly running one-sided boardwipes since the total mana investment in your boardstate is higher than a regular deck
Really hope Seth and Crim read this because it's spot on. I have a Law Aurelia deck where my only ramp is Sol Ring and the assorted Knight of the White Orchids. We get on the board early and often and play cards that provide advantage along the way.
One day Richard will realize that his go-to argument "You will just die if you play an indestructible artifact land, I will kill you!" unfortunately falls appart in practice, as every game in every LGS on the globe has a Phil at the table with 5000 permanents and a must kill commander that take all the priority away from any armageddom player.
If you can't find the Phil at the table, you're the Phil at the table. (I'm the Phil at the table)
@@tommarren3809I’m fairly certain I’m the Phil in most tables
I think cutting the shocks is certainly interesting, maybe a little cute, but also I'm side eyeing this a bit when those mdfcs are right there
I love hearing Richard skim over the fact that the ruination wrecked him in a monocolor deck hahaha. It's not like they're saying 9 basics will save you, but in monocolor 9 is low.
Anyway, to put some points on Richard I do agree that Shocks are not as necessary as they once were even if he's maybe going a bit far
Man eats one ruination and it wrecks him and his whole world view changes lol😅
Shocklands suck. They're almost always a guildgate, and they lose you the game if you actually need the mana now.
@@dontmisunderstand6041iv won games shocking in the shock lands. Iv also lost to other people doing it. Dont shock them in if you don't need the mana.
@@atk9989 And I've won games to my opponent shocking in shock lands, and never won a game due to shocking in my own.
Yes, they're theoretically better than guildgates. I won't argue that. But the vast majority of the time, their ability is not relevant.
@@dontmisunderstand6041Your meta must be extremely aggro. I’ve never once seen the life loss be relevant. Most games I see are either won through some combo or other noncombat method, or through huge alpha strikes that would have won the game whether someone shocked themselves 5 times or not.
Richard: cut shocklands so that ALL your lands come in tapped.
He said he was cutting shocklands for basics though
@@iffailedinglesh8741 Sure but now he has 0 non basics that can be fetched untapped. That's just bad.
It was a masterful bait!
As a connoisseur of rampless tempo in commander, I am ready for yall to show the masses (and Richard) what they've been missing.
What I love about Wrath of God: when it saves the day, it's the best feeling ever for all the table, and we will remember it. Farewell will always save the day, but it brings no joy and no one will remember it. Thats why I love casual commander, the stories the fun and the surprise. You'e not suppose to care that much about winning or losing. Does your deck creates fun memorries? More WOG, less Farewell.
I 100% agree with seth. Commander has gotten too spiky, and its more fun when you play not optimal commander.
Nah, crush the competition.
That’s why I have decided to make decks for the memes. My Aminatu deck? It’s a mill deck and has a few miracle cards solely so I can say “IT’S A MIRACLE!” My Sliver Queen deck? Never cast her, nor is it a sliver deck. It’s a cycling deck… because Freddie Mercury (of Queen) wants to ride his BIIIICYCLE! My 4c (no green partners) - I call it “Don’t Attack Me, Bro” - filled essentially with ways that encourage my opponents to attack each other. My Xantcha deck? I call it “R.E.M.,” because everybody huuuurts! And everybody criiiiies.
***
You can “optimize” these decks and still have bad decks. 😂
@@brianpendleton2674go to cedh
You need a playgroup that supports this too. Very grateful my playgroup is low budget and relatively lower power (at least for now...😅). We see a huge variety of cards and play patterns in games. The main drawback is that games tend to take longer, so there is a trade off.
@@bortron5000 Budget is only one way to limit a group’s power creep. I’ve been playing this game for a very long time and therefore was able to buy original dual lands, Mox Diamonds, etc. (no Power) at reasonable prices. Some of my decks with extremely expensive cards are terrible. I have a buddy who has a GW soldier deck… with Gaea’s Cradle, but the deck is terrible, because Soldiers. 😂
I like how this episode was ostensibly about experimental ideas, but the bulk of it was mostly about how meta shifts occur. It reminded me of an old Eternal Glory podcast about "The Midrange Wars," which is, imo, really what commander has been dealing with for a long time. If the format becomes about value, then decks warp to just pile on more value and lose spots for the efficient interaction and what not you need to beat aggro, or the specific hate pieces against combo, etc. Plus, the "Vintage Cube" problem where yeah you could play mono red, but why would you when you could be slinging Black Lotuses and Time Walks, etc. But we don't really analyze commander through a meta lense in the same way. So these conversations get framed as power level, optimization, and so on. So, take all of that, add a sprinkling of nostalgia and a scoop of witty banter, and you get this.
Big red is actually really strong in vintage cube! Especially if you get ramp in mana crypt or sol ring :) if you pull a time walk then you have every reason to splash blue. But I will say for my own cube that when I had time walk and ancestral recall in my cube it skewed to where everyone wants to play blue. So my cube is less optimized and more jank now
@zaneghiskhan It is really strong. But like you're alluding to a lot of people will choose not to draft it even when it's open and would mean higher win rates because they want want live the dream of casting lotus into recall and so on. It is also why I tend to prefer unpowered Cube, and why I'm making one to supoort various multi-player formats.
@@Titanreaver616 agreed. The stronger a card is the more zero-sum games end up being. I'm currently trying to balance the power in my cube. It's budget but proxy fetches, shocks and triomes. I still have proxy lotus and moxen in it, since I still want to simulate the experience of opening a powerful accelerant, but the payoffs aren't as strong. Hopefully just cutting recall, time walk, twister is enough
@zaneghiskhan True, and while J don't mind those feats ot famine games when I do play vintage or other formats to a lesser extent, if I'm sitting down for Cube I'd rather the games take long enough to be worth doing the drafting.
Richard, I need to preach to you, since you tend to be open-minded about cards: Banefire is the truth! All these red decks produce so much mana, and since wizard keeps printing colorless ramp, you can easily Banefire x15 someone on a dime. Go gruul, and you can ramp into your Banefire, and hold up your fogs to deal with the clapback (not required, but its easy mode). The uncounterable clause is also huge, as it stops control players (Crim) shenanigans. My playgroup keeps making fun of me, yet they're the ones dying to it. You won't regret it!!
The most overlooked and underrated comment Richard made was “i would need an abacus to determine how many times we have fetched a survey land”
Phil is needed for these episodes,
I would like to hear his point of view.
Phil needs to be in the podcast more in general. I don’t know why he stopped appearing, does he not like recording for a podcast?
richard: "you cant fit shocks into your manabase!!!"
also richard: runs temple of the false god, myriad landscape, and reliquary tower
Ramp, ramp, and reliquary tower is a MUST.
@@bigfootfighter4132Reliquary Tower is a win more timmy trap. If you're discarding to hand size it's a sign you're deck is preforming very well.
@@bigfootfighter4132 reliquary tower is a trap, it's rarely useful and it's a colorless source. If you're discarding to max hand size, you're already winning. It's easily the first card I cut for a shock land.
Temple of the false god is widely considered to be a really bad trap card. it's completely useless early in the game and I really have no idea why Richard is running it with BOUNCE LANDS, where you're intentionally trying to have fewer lands than normal. It's downside is even more brutal when you're building your deck around catch-up ramp.
Myriad landscape is just really slow, being a tapped colorless source that requires 3 mana to ramp by 1 is really bad. Just run ramp cards, don't put unreliable slow lands in your manabase
This one was weird. The only bit of it I can follow is "you're not always fetching for your shockland now", which... fine? The Surveil lands are pretty good to fetch early IF you don't immediately need that mana. The DMU duals are fine targets to fetch on a budget; I frequently look for Tangled Islet in my Simic deck so I can leave Breeding Pool in the deck - it might come in untapped for me on a later turn.
But shocks are, like, THE best color-fixers that are fetchable and they can come in untapped if you need them.
I really wish to see all thishigh talk by Richard an Seth claiming that they are going to focus the LD player out of the game played out. They play the most greediest of them all with no single target removal and no early game creatures to aggro or defend with. Its much more likely they die first too a more aggressive deck or having to farewell and then loose their landbase to a ruination.
I still think the best thing is to normalise Land Destruction and focussing a player out of the game so people have to start playing more defensive tools instead of only greed.
Richard with the casual assumption that clearly you'd run a full set of off color fetches, there's more out of touch than just the utility land greed.
Personally I don't auto include fetches but if you have fetches but I don't see why you wouldn't play them. It's like OG duals, they don't increase power enough to affect play experience and it's nice to have them to help your land base.
@@zweis And I still stand by off color fetches being no more anti-flavor, anti-“spirit of color identity” than Farseek is.
Both Farseek and off-color fetchlands reference fetching out lands that you might not legally be allowed to play in your deck. But for some reason, no one has any problem with Farseek in 2/3/4 color decks.
I will die on this hill.
Nobody’s doing that without proxies
@@hanschristopherson8056 actually lots of people have disposable income but yeah proxies 100% I ain't spending that much
@@zweis That's sort of why I think it's out of touch. If you have them throw 'em in, but most players probably don't. Especially not for multiple decks. But Richard's list is centered on having them all, so it's not realistic to many players.
I think it’s time the crew had a “no staples” game. Collectively build a list of 100 or so cards that no-one is allowed to play. Or maybe give everyone a budget that’s based on how often the card is played rather than its dollar cost.
Great idea
It's funny how Richard presents all the arguments for running spot removal with his "no wraths" hot take, while still believing spot removal is bad.
Using bounce lands to activate White's catchup ramp is a great strategy...now explain how and why Temple of the False God is in that manabase! Richard, that list you showed would be infinitely better if you took out the off-color Yavimaya, Temple of the False God, and Reliquary Tower for your 3 on color Shocklands.
I gave up asking but Tomer is right this season needs a stats episode!!!
I love that this conversation basically boiled down to half the people saying, "Im asjusting my interaction to better deal with the meta" and the other half saying "I'm going to change the meta to better deal with the interaction".
You can't tell me with a straight face you have NO ROOM for basic/fixing lands when HALF you manabase is utility lands.
FIVE BOUNCE LANDS
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It’s a problem that the player base has made. With land hate being taboo in general, there’s no reason not to run utility lands that still tap for colors. It’s why I’m on board with targeted land hate, more specifically nonbasic and even hitting specifically snow lands. Oh you’re a going wide deck running 5 basics? Too bad you got hard hosed by a Settle the Wreckage followed up by From the Ashes.
Crim should run Urza's Sylex, you can blink it as a planeswalker tutor to get Karn to hand, then Karn can pull it out of exile after you use it.
Richard, if you're playing five bouncelands and a lotus field, I would suggest not adding Temple of the False God. I'd actually suggest Thawing Glaciers in its place, because it becomes much better with that many bouncelands. You can activate glaciers and then bounce it with the bounceland, because it was going to bounce itself anyways. It actually speeds both cards up a little bit.
Also tempted to say a manabase like this benefits a lot from Exploration effects, and suffers a bit without them.
Something I wish I saw more from the Goldfish crew is more non combat wincons. Things like burn, cool combos (my personal favorite is Tasha’s Hideous Laughter copied a bunch) even hard locks. This isn’t to say we never see these things (Crim’s been playing burn a lot), but I feel like commander games in the wild end in a variety of ways. Hell I have a dragon deck that often wins with something like Sarkhan the Mad, which is basically a 20 damage burn spell late game. Cause this is (in my mind at least) the answer to this weird fog meta Richard and Seth are constantly talking about, just do something that doesn’t end in a couple of 5/5’s running into your opponents
I’m pretty much at the point that there are only two reasons to play bounce lands: Landfall and getting MDFCs back to your hand. But I would never run the colorless ones outside of landfall.
But between some actual MDFCs and pseudo-MDFCs (channel lands, Mystic Sanctuary) being playable everywhere, doesn't that imply that bounce lands should be run in almost every deck (if you cracked packs of the latest Zendikar and Kamigawa)?
@@zaclock-4228 to bring back one of seth’s hot takes, the downside of bounce lands is their super inefficient on the tempo side of things. if you’re playing a deck that wants to be casting meaningful spells and interacting from the jump (which a lot of metas don’t but people should probably do a lot more in commander) bounce lands are a dead card the first 2-3 turns of the game depending on if you have 2 2 drops in hand or not.
It is we're spelunking and amulet are good...
The colorless bounces are good in mono white to activate catch up ramp consistently
White has land ramp that works only if your opponents control more lands than you. In a deck that includes white but not green they're extremely important (also, the meta in their pod is that they cut strip mine for vesuva)
Richard: I'm going to cut shocklands, but I'm playing temple of the false god in a 3 colors deck!!!
If the whole table wants to sit there ramping twelve times, wrathing every other turn, and not progressing the game, then I'd argue Armageddon and decree of annihilation can't be blamed for the game going forever. Land destruction 2024!!!!
Clash decks are built in isolation for the week whereas most commander players I know have 10+ decks on the go at once. If you want to build less optimised decks assume you don't pull apart last week's deck for the staple cards.
How did they just let 5 bounce lands go through. I'm a bounceland advocate but thats such a clunky mana base
Right? 5 bounce lands sounds way too slow
Same, I thought I was losing my mind 🤣
Bounce lands are the best land cycle in the game, they literally draw cards. I think 5 is about where you have to top out with bounce lands, but like, they’re incredibly broken
I haven't played bouncelands since like, 2017. I find them to be worse then worthless
I play three in almost everyone of my decks, and I enjoy this number, I'll see one or two on average every game, which is what I need to reset the 1-2 early MDFCs and channel lands that I played in the early game. Maybe the difference is that Richard plays more MDFCS than me...?
While I am on board with running 9 basics in tri color if you have ramp that digs them out (cultivate, kodama's, land tax, sword of the animist, etc) I do disagree with dropping the shocks. I would rather drop the off-color fetches unless there are landfall / land recycling going on in the deck.
Richard, you’re really suggesting to play Temple of the False god in your 5 bounce land Lotus Field deck? Overall I think you’re really underrating the power of lands coming into play untapped so you can play your spells on curve.
You're massively overrating lands coming into play untapped. Every single land in your deck coming into play tapped is functionally just the same as going second, but without the card draw attached. Only, bounce lands DO effectively draw a card.
@@dontmisunderstand6041no, it's functionally the same as being a turn behind every playing untapped lands. If I'm playing true duals to cast my spells on curve you are behind me even if your turn comes before mine. And it all snowballs, I'm casting ramp turn 2 and making a 4 mana play on turn 3, and if your turn 3 is ramping and playing your 3rd tapped land you're going to be playing on your back foot the entire game. And it gets even worse if you're after me in turn order.
@@Trisket guy is going around setting bait, dont fall for it lol
This only holds if you don’t ramp very much. Ramp mitigates the downside of tap lands
@@Trisket So... dumbass. What do you think the benefit of going first is? Being exactly 1 turn ahead on mana. If you ONLY play tapped lands and the opponent ONLY plays untapped lands, if you went first you're even on mana. I said what I said because it's objectively and irrefutably true, by the laws of mathematics. In order for your stance to be valid, you'd need to first prove that going second is more impactful on winrate than the deck you're using.
For the record, though... if both players ramp an equal amount, the first player to fail to hit their land drop is the one who falls behind on mana, regardless of whether they're playing all basics or all guildgates. Which is, hilariously, yet another reason why bounce lands are the best two color land cycle.
Bounce lands being picked over Shock Lands? And you were UNSURE if this was a hot take?
Bounce lands must be paying off richard with how much he loves them
Bounce lands are cool but there a limit about you want to play them. If you are going against aggro good luck catching up with taplands and surveil lands
Bounce lands are well known to be the best dual color land cycle. It's not even close either. How is it a hot take that you choose the better card over the worse card?
@dontmisunderstand6041 the bait is unreal.
@@ThePlayer4our Yeah, it sucks that I fell for the bait. My bad.
Omg, Crim to Richard “You are so high!” Agreed! You’re tripping, I knew this was going to be the hot take too! Lol
10:55 I'm with Seth. Ppaying off color fetches is WeirdChamp. Idk why the rules committee allowed it
5:35 Richard runs all available bounce lands in a Jeskai deck? He’s running Yavimaya in a Jeskai deck (I realize you can, as it has no color identity)? He’s running Lotus Field in a Jeskai deck?
That’s insane. Even having Myriad Landscape in a Jeskai deck is a little odd (but certainly justifiable on a budget).
The yavimaya, as said, represents tech lands like urborg, phyrexian tower etc.
I have no clue what the lotus field is for though
Lotus Field is so he can play his catchup ramp. But also there's an absurd four bounces in the deck.
No shocks and 14 taplands is absurd though. I'm a huge fan of surveils and has been cutting my Triome from 3c to make room, but his mana base is all of expensive, slow, and light on colors in order to get a bunch of mediocre utility lands in the mix. That's literally just the worst of all worlds.
He outsmarts himself trying to be too big brain
@@Kestral287 the doctor who precons had better and more affordable mana bases then richards pile there
Am I the only one who just hates bounce lands? I dislike tapped lands in general and I find these REALLY awkward to sequence. They're ETB tapped lands that can't be played turn 1, leave you tapped down turn 2 when you'd probably prefer 2-mana rocks or ramp, and then are super awkward later in the game.
I get that they're a land you can play on 2 that "gives" you a land to play on 3, but man they feel like such sad draws later and I don't even like playing it on 2.
Unless it is a landfall deck, I hate running bounce lands. They never feel good to me.
I love seeing Bouncelands, for I always run Wasteland and Strip Mine.
@faerie7dragon lmao you're a monster
(Same bestie 🤫)
I can't stand them. I can see the dream of keeping a 2-lander; play other land, play bounceland, play first land again so you're on 3 mana from 2 cards and got 5 spells with said lands... but it's far, far more likely that you see this thing late in the game and it's a tapped land with little upside. It doesn't have land types, it doesn't have an ETB surveil/scry, it doesn't have some other ability like a creature land... it's just a guildgate later.
The problem with going down wraths is that it’s really meta-dependent. Richard is probably right in that it would help you win more in specifically Commander Clash, because everyone just ramps and draws and commits less to the board. He says you can’t Armageddon because it’s not socially acceptable, but I’ve played in many groups that find stuff like Farewell even *less* acceptable than MLD. If everyone listened to Richard and played like the Goldfish crew does, no wraths and eight fogs makes sense. However, I don’t think their meta is actually representative of how most people play, in that most people are going more in the honest creature route that doesn’t rely on single huge combo turns so much as sustained value and multiple combats. It’s possible my meta is the odd one out here, but I can count many times where a wrath saved my butt and Dress Down would’ve been totally useless
I kind of agree with them. I think that wraths are both over- and under-played; there REALLY shouldn't be an expected number per deck.
Look at 1v1 constructed formats: some decks run lots, most run none. Control decks want ways to sweep the board and set their opponents back for playing aggressively early, whereas aggressive and midrange decks don't play any wraths because it'd be a totally dead card to them. At time of writing there's two decks in Standard (Domain Ramp, and Azorius Control) that run sweepers - the ramp deck is doing just that, playing early ramp and removal to not get run over, then plays one of the biggest wordiest threats ever printed that happens to generate a ton of card advantage and selection on resolution. Meanwhile the control decks have lots of card advantage baked in and play nearly zero creatures.
Meanwhile there's other decks that run some white, like Boros Convoke & Esper Raffine: but they are the aggressive deck, and they don't just jam in a couple copies of Depopulate or Sunfall "in case they fall behind".
Board clears should be part of some strategies in Commander, but I think players should commit to a particular kind. If you're a more aggressive deck in Black, Damnation doesn't make any sense for you - run Kindred Dominance if you're a kindred deck, run Overwhelming Forces for (basically) player removal, run In Garruk's Wake as your absolute top-end... but if you're a slower deck more interested in playing a long game, Damnation is good to set back the players going early and then you play your own bigger cards behind it.
can we just agree that tomer has the best takes here?
For the love of Heliod, Richard, Surveil lands ETB TAPPED. THIS IS A NOT INSUBSTANTIAL DRAWBACK. Surveil is a nice perk, but it's not anywhere near as relevant as entering untapped on demand, and for only 2 life (in a 40 life format!). I happen to use ETB tapped lands fairly often, but the more competitive a list the more I like entering untapped when possible, missing a key spell can be mean you're effectively timewalked, since what you can do sucks or isn't impactful enough compared to what you could have done that turn with a Shock. Also, you literally mention Bounce lands, Bounce lands love Shocks because they can enter untapped if you're desperate! Do you know how painful it is to bounce an ETB tapped sucker land?! Gah! I do support running more Basics, Basics are very good cards in many ways, most importantly THEY ENTER UNTAPPED. Anyways, I would say if you're not in Green and/or you don't use Fetches then I'd definitely not bother with Shocks, they're pretty expensive for what they do if you have to draw into them fairly. I have Myriad Landscape in a huge range of decks, it's such a big upside when you're desperate for mana, but it's also true that probably 1/3 of the time it's an ETB tapped Waste? Still, I run into enough games where my land shaving ways catch up to me, and I short pretty badly, Myriad can usually finish fixing your mana by the time you can use it. Thank goodness for the wise words of Crim, guiding the channel back to reality... Surveil lands are not as good as Shocks in the overwhelming majority of decks in terms of raw power. I actually have a 'keep my land count down' theme in a deck, and even in that deck, I don't think I'd run Surveyor's Scope, it's just too demanding to be down 2 lands to multiple opponents. I mean if everyone in your pod is on mono-Green it's probably a good call?
Playing some bad cards can add a ton of spice to a deck, but it's also able to add a lot of excitement to your deck, bad cards often do weird things, or do them in unusual ways, that's why they're bad, so I think Seth is right and people should run some cards that 'seem bad'. I like to have a roleplay reason for my bad cards, this compounds the excitement and can make for very memorable games. Also, Wrath of God isn't a bad card, it's not 'the best Wrath', but it's one of the absolute best purely creatures Wraths all things accounted for. 'Roles need to be filled' is a decent maxim to remember when building a deck, you need to run enough removal to get by, but some of that removal can be pretty bad and still 'fill the role'. It's like how a construction crew can support a guy who sucks at his job but keeps people's morale up, but it can't be made up only of such people and function, some of your roles can be filled by Hurl Through Hell type jank and you'll even have an edge in niche situations.
Not going to lie, I think my Richard-est deck is a Selesnya Tokens/Counters deck, and I don't think it bothers with Wraths because it always should be ahead or it's going to lose regardless of a Wrath or 2. My 5C Sisay is a 'Phil' type deck, it's a lot of fun but it cut most of the interaction (it runs 1 counter and 3 true removal spells) to make space for the OG 11 Shrines, in case I play against a pod of lower power decks, but technically the deck can actually compete with 8s, even with 11 profoundly bad cards. I have decks that I'd enjoy watching you guys play, mostly my pod of Legends beaters, but it's 5 decks so you'd either have to skip a deck or play in person with 5. I'm trying to work out some alternate rule so people can form official teams (which costs resources), but everyone would start out hostile.
Psst, Crim, resolve a Rite of the Raging Storm before you Armageddon maybe? Extra nice with a 'must attack' effect if you can swing it. Also, maybe take a look at my boys, Dwarven Miner and Dwarven Blastminer, resolving one vs a deck that is low on removal might cost them the game! Red is a colour I used to hate, but I'm warming up to it, it's got some good cards if you dig deep, but it's not as intuitive as say Black or Green (I know people say Simic is the easy button, but Golgari is the ACTUAL easy button, you can even reanimate your stuff if necessary, much more effectively than Simic, and Golgari is probably as good at putting cards in hand if you want that).
I would say Green is the easy button, but I won't disagree that Golgari can be as strong as Simic. Simic is easier to build (green ramp + blue card draw), but the removal in Golgari is fantastic and black can do card advantage extremely well.
Richard never fails to be the "what if!" Person in the group.
He's transcended from Devil's advocate to Devil's associate with how much he shoots down everyone else's ideas
Richard coping so hard right out the gate that he put Yavimaya in his Jeskai deck just to make his a point.
seth/crim "were gonna test out decks with no ramp"
"how are you gonna have a deck with no draw!??" -richard.
Listening is hard.
Turn 1: serra ascendant, turn 2: Another tempo creature, Turn 3: Boromir, Turn 4: Armaggedon
Cutting shocks and keeping off color Yavimaya and temple of the false god is absolutely insane 💀
"Don't be alarmed if I become a Boros mage." YESSSSS JOIN US CRIM! THE LEGION CALLS!
I've actually done the "constructed deckbuilding" with my Torbran deck and I've actually won a couple of games. If the card can't deal damage (and is not a land), it's not in the deck, so all my ramp and card draw are stuff like Magda, Generous Plunderer, Captain Lannery Storm, Rose Cutthroat Raider, etc., which is great since the deck is at its best when it curves cards that deal damage into the commander.
There is generally someone who has a scarier board (or deck) than just a couple of bulk rares from standard, so they eat the removal while you just help murder the archenemy, but in reality you are killing everyone else equally with "deal 1-2 damage to each opponent" effects and by swinging at other players "for value".
Here’s my hot take, utility lands are mostly garbage. We’ve already established that in Modern magic you almost never run out of cards, so you always have good ways to spend your mana, and I honestly can’t remember the last time I activated a land’s ability. I think most decks would just run better if they replaced almost all of their utility lands with basics, except for maybe a few of the most important.
I have definitely dropped my valuation of utility lands with expensive activations in recent years. But I'm still very high on the ones with cheap activations. Celestial Colonnade is out, Blinkmoth Nexus is in.
I think they're like guild lockets for the most part. The ability is technically there, but it's just not useful.
I bought a copy of Castle Locthwain, and I've just tucked it into my box of lands without making a home for it. Basically 1BBB & some life for a card? In what world do I have nothing better to do with my mana than that? It was bought for a Teysa, Opulent Oligarch deck and that deck is making more clues than it has mana to sacrifice AND Teysa rewards me for sacrificing said clues.
Outside of some life loss synergies (Rowan?) I'm not sure I'll ever play this.
Rogue's Passage seems good for decks where getting a hit with the commander is essential, but on the other hand - shouldn't I have other evasion tech to work with? Voltron decks feel notoriously tight on mana, I'm not sure I'll ever actually use that ability.
Maze of Ith, Bojuka Bog and the channel lands. That’s all you should ever need for utility lands. Beyond that, unless your running a specific land for a specific deck, utility lands are usually gonna be worse than a basic, or regular mana producer, that taps for a spell. A spell will almost always be more value than a small activated ability.
To Crim's point. I don't think I know someone who, knowing a deck has MLD, would not ramp as hard as they can do get ahead in the game. I don't ever see a green player ramping, later in the game. They've spent all their ramp typically. I've played games with MLD and the green player doesn't just rebuild instantly. They might have a ramp spell or two, but almost their entire ramp package has already been used. I'll also say that typically the person who uses MLD has a winning board state. If it's used without a winning board state it's just bad and boring. I really don't get why commander players are so against it. I don't play it because I'm not built around it. But I"ve played against a suspend decks with major MLD in them and its a great win con. No reason to be salty about it because they win. The game doesn't just stall and get boring. They win we shuffle and play again.
I agree with this. Is the theme and build is meant to take advantage of MLD, then I'm totally fine. Playing a ton of walkers, then wiping creatures and lands so you can just bleed value over time is fine. But just resetting the board playing draw go for 9 turns makes me want to unalive
I totally agree. It's the only way after 2015 anyone can win with a Kaalia of the Vast deck, lol.
But truly, MLD and Wraths are how you deal with explosive and hard to remove ramps/board states. As ramp becomes even more explosive and heavily printed, and the amount of value stapled onto a single creature goes up, MLD and Wrath are how you deal with them without putting yourself further behind.
@@ThePlayer4our What is your mana base that you have to draw for 9 turns before having mana?
@@akihitokoizumi2474 he wasnt talking about having mana, he was talking about how the game devolves into draw-go.
Sounds like the crew should adopt a new rule next season where you can only play a copy of a card once per season.
You guys absolutely nailed it. If people stop playing commander interactively, and all it becomes is ramp/card draw. Then it is absolutely fair to curve out and drop the Armageddon.
In my opinion, people play too little interaction that can cope with multiple targets. In fact, board-wipe is most often needed to kill the 3-4 targets that are the worst - the rest is "relatively ok" (of course not always, but often).
That's why now I try to play 1-2 board wipes, and more interaction that can cope with several goals. Cards such as Fire Covenant, Unexplained Absence, Mystic Confluence and the new V.A.T.S. This kinde of interaction that can get rid of several targets is, in my opinion, very underestimated.
Now I try to play 2-3 pieces of cheap interaction (0 to 2 mana), 2-3 pieces of very universal interaction (one that can deal with anything like Anguished Unmaking), 2-3 pieces of muli-target interaction ( just like V.A.T.S.) and 1-2 pieces Board Wipe. In addition, I try to play with more cards that protect my things (if there is a chance, at least 2-3 pieces, and preferably 4-5... and I like FOGs as well, but the more expensive ones that give us something "extra" ). Plus i always have 2+ lands that can be use as interaction / board wipe (Mount Doom FTW!!!).
Sorry, Richard I agree with Seth swapping the off-color fetches for shocks in your proposed mana base. If you need an untapped land that can make a specific color in a 3-color deck, you need shocks to let off-color fetches get that color. Without shocks, they can only get one color of mana untapped. Unless you really need the shuffle effects, replacing the off-color fetches with shocks just makes that mana base better.
It surprises me that no one brought this up in the podcast. Polluted Delta being a $30 Island that costs you 1 life to play, excellent mana base there.
I think you should legitimately just be playing settle the wreckage XD Like in every deck, and all of the equivalent cards like comeuppance and spider fog and ink shield etc. The problem with fogs is if you actually let them do whatever without interacting with them, they can just attack into your fogs until you run out. What you need is to play cards where if they guess wrong and attack into you they get demolished. Then people learn to be nervous about attacking into you, and *that's* what buys you the time where no-one is attacking you while you can do whatever.
Seth rather than thinking of it as building "worse" decks, try swapping cards that show up in more than one of your decks. Every Blue deck can run Rhystic Study, but when you open up that draw slot to another option you try more flavorful or unique choices. I do this with most "staple cards" of their respective colors like Black Market Connections, Rhystic Study, Teferi's Protection, etc.
For Seth, salubrious snail has a great video on pet cards. And to me one of the most important things in edh is matched power levels so you could consider doing more themed or budget episodes for clash
"you don't need shocks! What could you possibly cut!?" Richard there's like 5 lands you could cut from that list.
Something interesting y'all could do is introduce a full season of budget decks. Set a budget at the start of the season, every deck has to fit within that budget, and see how it affects your deck building and the group's power level.
Would you all consider doing a precon league where you play a few time adding some limited number of cards too swap each week? It could even be as little as 3 total sessions and could help with the power creep concerns while remaining competitive with the group.
honestly the best way to understand each others view points is to live through it, build each other decks that are quintessentially you
I'm happy to hear Seth wants to build less optimized decks, my main gripe with Clash for awhile is how every game is high power. There's usually multiple rungs to every card category you want to run, you don't always have to run the most optimal option in every slot, every time.
"A 9/9 trample trumps any 2-drop"
- Richard
Blood Artist would like to have a word with you...
“Everyone is playing the Richard meta” was the hottest of hot takes
I've never played with someone in person that plays the "Richard Meta"
To be fair the context of that everyone was pretty clearly the group.
Seth is absolutely right on the overrating of Surveil lands. Richard had been so opposed to them, so against them during spoiler season that I almost went back on my free time to watch Commander Clsh episodes again just to count up the amount of times someone could have played a tapped land without hurting the events of their turn because it was many, many times.
I dont understand this "Min/Max" mana base these guys have going on. Been playing commander for a long time and honestly a mix of slow lands, pain lands, shocks, check lands, horizon lands, battlebond lands, and most importantly BASICS make very consistent mana bases. Don't need fetches or a bunch of utility lands. Fetches for higher powered landfall decks, utility for niche commander payoffs like kessig wolfrun make more sense than throwing that kinda noise in every multicolored deck. I've never seen what they promote out in the wild, so it really does ring true when Seth frequently asks "is this just an us thing?".
i'm with you mostly that mana bases can be totally fine without turning it into a whole thing, but basics do _not_ make consistent mana bases, they do literally the opposite
@@GlaceonBM I'm not advocating for 30 basics in a three colored deck, but I feel even an amount of 15 basics never hinder consistency in the three colored deck; especially when paired with say check lands or battle lands.
I agree with you. I am sure there is someone that is able to do a math and tell you how many dual lands you need for a deck to function. From 3colors above the basic shrinks.
@@GlaceonBM How are basics inconsistent? by definition of the word, basics do the same thing every game.
@ich3730 Basics are less consistent in the sense that you are less likely to get all the colors you need on curve. If you have a 3 color 3 CMC commander you are gonna have a harder time casting your commander on curve if a majority of your lands are basics.
Serveil lands are ok for decks that like stuff in the graveyard, but they still enter tapped and thus are slow.
Seth mentioned Akul. That is a good example of a deck that doesn't need traditional mana rocks. If you spend turn 2 ramping and you play Akul on turn 3 you just risk running him into removal without no payoff. Instead you want to curve into him by playing expendable sacrifice fodder on turns 1-3 then on turn 4 you can play Akul and sneak attack in a bomb.
I've always thought that if you can't purposefully build your decks worse then you should incorporate more themes or challenges in order to do so.
That's what makes alphabet soup week, or budget week so fun. The challenge of finding the BEST (possible) card for your restriction is underrated. Tomer has it figured out on this one with why he builds all of his deck budget themed. The FOMO on broken cards is a struggle for most commander tables imo
Seth's take is my take! The most fun in games I have is when I play nostalgia and jank, not when I'm optimizing and spending my game fretting over what lines to play!
High powered games can be fun...but it's a load of fun to bend rules and play in the mud too!
I feel Richard has to be trolling with that manabase including Myriad Landscape, Temple of the False God and Yavimaya in Jeskai while saying "Shocks are bad now". Like there's three lands to ditch for your three shocks right there. Same number of basics, already a better manabase.
Temple is quite good
Seth has absolutely sold me on Mind's Eye. Time to bust out the ol' playset.
i put it a year ago after seeing it from edh deckbuilding, even him said that there were already better draw options in white/red but i loved the art and bought it and so far it never let me down. my playgroup even started targeting it lol
Yo won't regret it!
I give Richard a lot of crap but I respect him a lot for being a good sport about the crap he gets.
Also I like the leading take - Shocks aren't overrated but Richard's hypothetical mana base is really solid. 9 Basics is a good number for a 3 color deck.
But did you see where he only ran, like 3 basics in a mono color deck and got wrecked by ruination. Lmao he runs more basics in a 3 color deck then a mono colored deck
@gregprice4834 yeah that moment was pretty embarrassing, but they record like 2 weeks in advance, so he's had like 4 weeks to consider changing his ways
he has 7 colorless lands, that is horrid and if you cut 3 then boom, he has his shocks. oh! or how about the yavimaya that does nothing in a jeskia deck which that mana base is for, and the Exotic orchid because its just as likely to be a basic or uncontrolled 2 color land anyway. or the lotus field unless you are loaded with catchup ramp. 99% of games iv played a thespian stage would be dead, diamond city isnt needed, the colorless bounce is bad unless you have like 15 catchup ramp cards and if you are doing that then temple of the false gods is bad in the deck anyway. thats 10 lands that came be cut for shocks and battle bond lands, and the slow land cycle and add a 10th basic.
@atk9989 You're preaching to the choir here bud. I play an average of 0-2 colorless utility lands per deck! But I do think you're underselling the power of the colorless bouncelands. They kinda rule in practice, and many times in this section Richard refers to Land Tax as a reason to play lands like that.
@@TheSpunYarn No he said that 9 basics will still also autolose into ruination, he just likes Surveyor's Scope. He's also right.
I agree with tomer, commit to a theme fully, you end up with a much more interesting and textured deck.
Playing the same 15-20 cards in every deck, or what people refer to as a "shell" is what almost had me quit magic completely several years ago out of sheer boredom
Some of my decks:
Old jodah - only "good" wizard themed, no wizards or spells that look evil
Kalamax - the land destroying weather themed deck
Phyrexians - all phyrexian, no exceptions
Thalia and frog - innistrad multi block constructed
But decklist shells are in every single TCG. hearthstone, runeterra, yugioh, pokemon all have staples and overarching cards between archetypes. In every cardgame you eventually have to decide if you want your deck to be good OR whack and unique, its never both.
@@ich3730 If you care more about your deck being good rather than having fun, you're playing commander for the wrong reasons. cEDH is the other way.
halfway through and really loving the vibe on this episode
- Insight is broken and, if you're in blue, you should be playing it.
- Dream Tides isn't broken, but you need to justify *not* running it.
- Play Mystic Subdual
- Lion Sash and Scavenging Ooze are S-tier graveyard hate.
- Tamiyo, Field Researcher is one of the best planeswalkers in the format.
With Richard he's absolutely nuts playing that many colourless lands. You could 100% find 3 cuts for untapped fetchable lands.
Like untapped lands are to ramp as Scry is to draw. Tapped lands make you fall so far behind
Seth: I’m trying to get used to not always running the fanciest new, optimal card in every slot.
Seth, 25 minutes later: I’m cutting Mind Stone for Ragavan
5 bounce lands is way too many, you’ll have be up with multiple in hand pretty often and that is rough, or just a hand that needs to be mulled
“How do we go back?” - Commander cube
How do we solve the lands problem - Commander cube
How do we fit pet cards? - Commander cube.
Time to build a cube guys!
Command Zone in 2021: "Only play 2-3 wraths in your deck"
Richard in 2021: "You need to play at least 10 wraths and run no other interaction"
Command Zone in 2024: "I think it's finally time we start running more wraths to deal with ward and hexproof"
Richard in 2024: "I'm off wraths!"
Richard is cutting shocks to support some pretty middling cards. That said, you can also be just fine without shocks. That said, they're pretty close to best in slot.
I’ve been binging these podcasts and commander clashes and now I am somehow convinced to run fogs instead of wraths.
Depends on play style and how you like to have fun
(In response to cutting board wipes) I'm playing with a deck idea with Kwain where it's build around no ramp but all 7+ drops and board wipes. I just chill until I have 7 mana and then clear everything (all non-lands), and then going forward my 7+ drops are better than their average drop. I thought it would be a silly idea, but it's been really working out.