Demon Blade | Elbrus, the Binding Blade | Modern | Against the Odds
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 ก.พ. 2025
- What are the odds of winning with Elbrus, the Binding Blade in Modern? Let's find out!
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TI: Arcum Dagsoon can only sacrifice artifact *creature*. Better hope we draw our one Blinkmoth Nexus ;)
(Seriously though, if you pick up the deck for some reason, play another Stonehewer Giant instead).
MTGGoldfish lol
N O
Patrick Buerke UwU
these are the creatures elbrus the binding/demon blade can transform into;
winnegar
vinegar
whithanger
wittengar
wittigar
I swear Seth was having a stoke against ponza. He said “down to 18” when being attacked by a bloodbraid at 19 (so apparently 19-3=18). And then the next turn he said “opponent is going to keep bolting our face” when both of their bolts when at stoneforge mystics. Seth, u good bro?
Dalton Mekis UwU
"I actually considered to play Elbrus Tron" LMAO
As a WB Tokens player, I think I've had people try to Spell Queller Spectral Procession like a dozen times. It's a common mistake. :D
Filthy Arena Casual here :) What happened there?
@@jzoobs Spectral Procession can be cast for WWW (3 white mana), but its converted mana cost is 6 because of the 3x 2/W symbols in its mana cost. 2/W is called two-brid for short, and it functions like how hybrid mana works in that you can pay either the one colored mana or two generic. Spell Queller can't hit it because it only hits cards with converted mana cost 4 or less, so despite the player only paying 3 mana for Spectral Procession which makes it look like a legal target, it isn't. Queller's ability flops spectacularly when it resolves as a result.
My playgroup and I didn't realize this so I got away with Sram's Expertise into Spectral Procession for a while. Was fun while it lasted.
They cast it for three mana!
If I remember correctly, the cmc of X spells, while they are being cast, is equal to the amount of mana used to them. Don't know why it can't be the same for two-brid mana.
I have a soft spot for Elbrus because when I was younger and opened a Dark Ascension pack I got 3 mythics in one pack. A Drogskol Reaver in my normal rare slot, a foil Moonveil Dragon in the possible foil slot, and a foil Elbrus, the Binding Blade in the transform card slot.
Thanks Seth for your videos more than ever now. I always look forward to your great videos and your even more amazing attitude. You are seriously such a treasure.
I'm glad they are helpful :)
I... probably also would have "Spell Quellered" the Spectral Procession there!
They cast it for three mana!
One of my favorite cards from my middle school magic days! Still throw it in my commander decks sometimes for old time’s sake
This is, without a question, the optimal stoneforge mystic deck.
I give Bant snowblade a week before it's completely eradicated from Modern.
So Arcum doesn't do anything in this deck right? Because you have to sacrifice an artifact creature to find a non-creature artifact with him. So it only works with the 1 of Blinkmoth nexus?
BobariusZabirith lol wait...I think you are right😂. Wtf Seth. READING THE CARD EXPLAINS THE CARD lol
I might have misunderstood Arcum. But Blinkmoth Nexus!
You can sac Blinkmoth after activating it, but I still think that it's not worth running him for that...
Arcum has to sac artifact creatures specifically...
Maybe the plan was just the one of blinkmoth nexus...
It is the hedge against when one of his many non artifact creatures gets hit with a Darksteel Mutation.
Hey, now decktechs are more watchable thanks to the GENIUS idea of showing some gameplay while explaining. Really good!
I've been restraining myself from making this comment for weeks, believing it to not be something I hold in high regard but instead simply a psychological knee-jerk resistance to change. But I've thought about it, and I actually do feel like it may be important enough to articulate on.
I feel that game-state previews during deck-techs undermine the narrative flow of your videos, especially in the case of the Against The Odds series.
Scrolling TH-cam and seeing a well known Magic Card in glorious thumbnail with "Against the Odds" written under it is an exciting experience, and the beginning of a crafted narrative.
First the viewer takes a moment to try to imagine what sort of deck they would build in Seth's position. The viewer ponders with access to all five colors, the complete legal card pool of the relevant format, and the limits of their own imagination.
Eventually the viewer decides that they know what direction they would build the deck, or the suspense eventually gets to them and they start the video, ready to find out what Seth, the master, did with the enigmatic card. Maybe he'll talk about different permutations and the challenges they presented.
He walks the viewer through his design process, and explains the cards and the deck. The ideas fit together in the viewer's head and engage their imagination. They're chomping at the bit to see it in action. At this point the narrative tension changes. The question of how the deck will be built is resolved, and the viewer wants to see how it will perform.
Each game and match comes with it's own tension and releases. What deck are you playing against? How do you match up? Will you successfully pull off the central goal of your deck? Will your opponent counterattack? Will you win? How do you sideboard? How do they sideboard? Do you win the match? Do you have fun?
Intercutting haphazardously to game-states releases this tension before it is allowed to build on it's own.
You recognize cards Seth built around before he introduces them in the deck-tech. You see that Seth pulled off the combo before you're able to wonder if he'll pull it off. You see what opponents Seth will go up against and who probably wins before you're allowed to guess what the deck's good and bad matchups are.
In every way, the viewer is able to glean massive amounts of information from very few frames of previewed game states. The natural highs and lows of watching these videos are flattened and homogenized through foreknowledge.
I acknowledge the work that goes into these previews, and I concede that there is value in visually supplementing card interactions as you discribe them orally. For me personally, this doesn't offset how deflating the rest of the video becomes knowing what will happen before I've been given a chance to engage with the deck in my own imagination.
Finally, someone took the time to articulate my thoughts/feelings on this matter. And in a very intelligible and descriptive manner
Thanks stranger.
I really appreciate the in depth comments and feedback.
@@MTGGoldfish Appreciate the years of quality content and the initiative to always keep improving your craft!
While I believe the previews to be a step backwards based on the negative impact to narrative flow, others may like the change. If I had no choice but to see them continue, then only showing previews generated from "solitaire" matches would ameliorate about 60% of my concern.
OH NO IM AN IDIOT
Seth~ 2020
Also Seth in 2019, 2018...
@@MTGGoldfish Don't be so hard on yourself, man.
"At least tron me beautifully" is one of my favorite quotes from Seth
Matches start at 5:48
I really hope Spawnsire gets the win for next week; it's the card which not only got me into MTG in the first place, but what introduced me to this channel!
Spawnsire does seem funny (if we can get to 20 mana, somehow).
I remember running this card in commander when I first started never got it off but man was it fun to watch people freak out when I swinging at em with that equiped
This deck seems sweet, makes me think a one of elbrus in a stone forge deck is a cool fun of since you want evasive creatures for swords anyway. 4 seems like a bit much for a card that you can only play with tutors haha.
I feel like Arcum Dagsson was a mistake, you possibly didn't read it properly.
It's good sideboard tech against some decks, since it can take down opponents artifact creatures every turn, with the downside of giving them the other artifact.
"which can sacrifice one of our lesser equipment (more on these in a minute) to find Elbrus, the Binding Blade“
Seth clearly thought he can sac an equipment to swap in Elbrus :(
I might have misunderstood Arcum (but we do have a Blinkmoth Nexus)!
Arcum Dagsson can only make a player sacrifice an artifact creature. Not great for random artifact hate or to upgrade a sword.
"Aaaagainst the Odds. Tonight we are playing Commander, IN Modern"
The last match pretty much sums up the fate of all Elbrus decks:
Withengar DIES TO REMOVAL
The Stalker is one of my fav cards. I always think of him as the flasher lol. He's just flashing his invisible junk!
Seth and losing to Tron. Name a more iconic duo!
If you played the Hallowed Fountain instead of an island the turn that Blood Moon was out you could've saved yourself two damage.
Ah, the most powerful ancient demon - Vinegar the Unbound
Wasn't that a dragonball movie?
As soon as the stony silence was played I noticed the lack of disenchants in the board, might want to add a few
The price of beast within just jumped up to 4 rolls of toilet paper with that intro...
crap i only have 1 roll
I'll give you 7 RV rolls for a playset
Out of my price range :)
What the conversion rate between softply and og duals?
I feel it's the reverse regarding aliens. First zendikar had stuff like hagra diabolist a random ogre cleric being allies while in battle only members of the alliance against the eldrazi were allies.
I wonder if this deck would possible work well with a Jeskai Base with something similar to Fling etc if you could kill people turn 3/4 depending on stoneforge search etc
My only modern deck is boros allies. It's great to see someone else play it.
When your deck is 90% tier 1 uw control cards like cryptic, teferi, stoneforge, spell queller, and force of negation, how against the odds can really be lol. If I put coiling oracle and palakka wurms in bant snow am I now against the odds lol?
Mother of God! The Binding Blade. Lol! Hell yes.
Against tron, your best friend is the sword of feast and famine, because you untap and force opponent to discard. Tron its a resourse deck, this means if you cant break his or her lands, your best shot is certainly make them discard cards
I feel as if playing the Ally deck would be interesting. A brew selcouth to most, could it perhaps be a potent power?
I think it was actually an old Budget Magic deck (or at least very close to an old Budget Magic deck) www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/budget-magic-130-18-tix-modern-red-white-allies
Ah, the classic Against the Odds deck where the centerpiece is so awfully bad that we can't even cast it 80% of the time. Not hating, but it is kinda disappointing to see a video where it's almost everything else keeping it together. I personally would have gone with Sigarda's Aid, because it seems good with the Swords and allows you to swing and flash in or Stoneforge Elbrus.
The Sigarda's Aid plan is sweet, but you still need seven mana to cast Elbrus. Maybe Sigarda's Aid Tron!
😜
Could someone explain the 13 +1/+1 tokens that go on the demon when a player loses the game. I assumed that the tokens would be removed each game, so they don't do anything. Is it for flavor?
I'd guess just for multiplayer
It's for games with more than 2 players. He mentioned commander, which is typically a 4 player game.
In a multiplayer format is the only time the 13 +1/+1 actually do something.
Thanks for the replies, it took me way too long to realize that it was for multiplayer.
Shaharazad shenanigans
Why not side in the Kor Firewalkers against the Gruul deck? Pro red seems relevant.
This deck is missing Whispersilk Cloak. Also protects your blade bearer at instant speed with Stoneforge.
I thought about it, but decided that Swiftfoot Boots was better (since Whispersilk Clock gives shroud it can keep us from equipping our Elbrus).
Been brewing with Enigmatic Incarnation in modern one of my ideas was leylines. Incarnation can get down by turn 2 and can go get Stonehewer Giant eot. Turn three Elbrus seems dec, also running hammer time and Grafted exoskeleton for the sneaky infect kill. Lots of room to brew though (Kiki Kiki is 5 cmc - perfect!)
I watched the whole damn thing to find out if there was a single Fatal Push ending this deck's whole career.
Beast Within was a close one though
I really hate the spoiler stuff at the beginning
Same!! Glad I am not the only one... I have to try and skip around to get to the intro without spoilers. Very annoying
Same. It takes the magic of watching the actual video
A whole heaping SET of Elbrus? I mean, I know it's the focus of the deck. But in no way is 4 copies correct. Should have ran at most 2.
He's running four because he has to guarantee it shows up in as many games as possible. Every game that ends without seeing it is just a wash for the video.
Could have gotten a Sword of Truth and Justice for pro-White and life gain off the second Stoneforge in game 1.
You mean War and Peace.
Still that would have gained less life than Battersklull on a (vigilance+lifelink) flier...
I came to the comments looking to see if anyone else saw this this possible play. I didnt understand why Seth didnt get pro white to get in and flip the blade...whole point of this against the odds right?
@@chardblack 9:12 He gets the batterskull “as a save pick because he is down to 12“
10:53 he puts it into play with 8 life
Assuming we are talking about this situation?
11:44 opponent paths and has 5 2/2 ready to attack.
So yes, assuming the sword would have been able to connect and opponent just drew Path that last turn - Seth might have gotten the demon but
a) the Demon would have been pathed
b) Seth been dead on the backswing
@@Germynator31 That is a fair comment. I stand corrected. :)
That force of negotiation on expedition map was awful. Why would you do that? Lol. I was shouting at the screen "no what the hell are you doing" 🤣🤣
4:50 from what card is the background artwork there please ?..
Path to exile, from Gideon Spellbook
Does it bug anyone else that most people scoop in response to lethal damage instead of just letting it go through?
I watched this muted with captions because I was jamming to Shine On You Crazy Diamond... did not expect captions at 15:45 to go "oh oh all right well we never got to... never got to David Blake because..." XD
You should've quelled the Chromatic Star on turn 3 to keep them off of green mana.
I think you should just play 1 demonblade in all future stoneforge decks.
Che figata sto mazzo !!!!
Why not side in RIP in the first game? It would hamper the flashback the deck seems to run.
Seth you misplayed in the first game, you should’ve gotten sword of war and peace with the second stoneforge mystic, pro white! And it gains you life
1:01:44 couldnt u draw sword there? why the scoopy scoop
Seth, I will NEVER. Not vote for the Unspeakable lol. I tried building it myself once, hard to figure out.
Am dirty tron player here as well, Can confirm OPP tron player is a monster...
At the start of this video, wow I haven't watched modern content in ages, why is that. 2nd match, vs tron, oh right I remember now.
To be fair with spell queller's outdated method of using two triggers instead of one, it can't be done using one trigger since you can't just put a spell back onto the stack.
When you rake batterskull over sword of war and peace agains white tokens...
mk1533 depends on the board. Like depends if you have a spell queller or other creatures to equip sword to. Batterskull is an incredibly hard card to race though so it might just be batterskull anyways. Pro white is good but probably not as good as a 4/4 vigilance lifelink. The main place I might take the sword in the matchup is to make sure the demon equipment connects since it effectively gives unblockable and hexproof in the matchup. But other than that scenario, I think a batterskull on a flyer is infinitely harder for tokens to beat
@@daltonmekis That is normally true, but in context war and peace would've allowed elbrus to flip and leave opp dead on board unless they had a path.
Equipment that grants trample should be in here as well, if for nothing else than to get around that token-pocalypse in that first match.
I'm probably just slow but it's quite a pain trying to read the cards with the clips in between. Can barely keep track of the clips anyway. Suddenly an entire board state to look at which does not tell you more than the actual cards do.
Thanks for the feedback :)
elbrus is a good troll in multyplayer getting 13 +1 counter after a player die but useless in a duel
Turn one: plains, kor duelist turn two: plains quest for the holy relic, memnite, glinthawk, memnite, ornithopter, ornithopter, get colossus hammer or argentum armor equip to kor duelist, swing. If they kill kor duelist in response to the sac then just equip to something else.
Seth you gotta put the blade in anEDH deck noa
Seth, I am right there with you on the Tron hate. Do everything right and then they just top deck the land or threat they need, miserable
I Didn't know that sword fire and ice is a sword of feast and famine.
Elrubius has logged into chat
Sigarda's Aid would be a good card for this deck.
12:50 you were dead if he attacked.... how would you have stopped it
@49:12 top ten anime betrayals
I hate not seeing people run Ratchet Bomb in sideboard. It is always a solid include!!!@_@
The binding blade? I forgot that was a card. Has intelligent systems sued wizards of the coast yet over that cardname?
I think when Elbrus was printed, it was still called Sword of Seals?
I think binding blade was just used in the translation, but fe6 never got an official US release
"The binding blade" is *waaaaay* too generic to be copyrighted.
I play tron and anytime an opponent plays a stoneforge nomatter the colors I feel like I can’t lose
But what about if they are tutoring up Elbrus instead of good equipment?
To be honest I’d probably end up punting hard
Seth to answer your question about the chance of your opponent having that beast within I can't calculate that but think about this the name of your series is against the odds 🤔😂😂😂😂
28:00 HE’S SELF AWARE!!!!
this is deck has a edh feel to it
David Hernandez probably bc the demon sword is literally designed for multiplayer and that was the centerpiece for this against the odds
Needs rouge's passage
Elbrus is very much an Commander card :)
I know this is an April 1st video, but the 4 copies of Elbrus still triggers me hard
Against the Odds has a stipulation that he has to put in 4x of the card that was voted for, otherwise the decks arent janky enough!
It's a rule of Against the Odds. The winning card is a x4, whether its right or not from a competitive perspective.
Why not Lightning Greaves?
Lightning Greaves can be awkward in equipment decks, as Shroud prevents you from equipping creatures if you don't have 2+ creatures in play.
This feels more like a janky commander Strat lol.
Although it's refreshing to see something other than urza in mode
love u seth keep it up
Love you too abel :) Thanks!
Super fun
AN ISLAND
And you had been doing so well
Seth: ha they don’t have beast within Opponent has beast within. Me: suck it seth!
jesse huxley 😜
the audio levels dropped quite dramatically on the wrap up
Where is Dread Dryad game play?
Sunday for Much Abrew.
@@MTGGoldfish Outstanding! Can't wait!
Allys good again?
The day you don't play monored ponza... you encounter tron players. That's gotta be fixed.
Would have been a good run for Mono-Red Ponza, that's for sure.
What are the odds that ponza plays ponza removal? Lol oh seth
Why does this deck have so many Elbrus?
With you having 4 SFMs, and the only actual way to put an Elbrus into play, you only need 1 of them, or, AT THE VERY MOST, 2
always thought elbrus was better than people give it credit for. Always surprised this card is not worth $20+ why notttt
Cj Crabtree whaaa
starts video
has best part immediately spoiled
Zach Gray Yeah, I also dislike the spoilers, I immediately fastforward to match 1 starts.
Oof, keep Withengar in commander... Ormendahl seems a bit better for a big bad demon boi...
nice
is he royalty cause he talks about himself in the royal "we"
What? No Karn Great Creator for animating the blade and then somehow making it into a werewolf and using moonmist?? Not janky enough hahahah
But honestly, I don't know how Elbrus has kept its paper price over the years since it's just a terrible (yet super flavorful and cool) card. Hahaha
I thought about Karn, but I feel like Karn just takes over games so we probably wouldn't get as much of a chance to see Elbrus shine.
@@MTGGoldfish agreed. It would be hard not to build around Karn instead of the blade (and put the blade in the sideboard). :P
I know I may be in the minority, and I'm sure Seth probably wont even read this, but just in case: I hate hate HATE having the gameplay spoiled by the clips at the beginning and during the deck tech. Could you possibly use clips from a match not in the gameplay for these examples? At the very least, can you include a timestamp in the description that jumps straight to gameplay, and make that a mandatory inclusion at the time of upload? I cant be alone in not wanting to see these, right?
I try to read all of the comments :)
Thanks for the feedback. I'm still trying to figure out the deck tech, but including a time stamp to jump right to the games in the description is really easy, so I can do that for the short term while we're figuring things out (they are included in most videos, but not typically for Against the Odds since it's more about doing a cool things than individual matches).
The intro ruins the anticipation!
Cool deck tho
Thanks for the feedback!
When your playing 2 colors but technically are running 3
GamingSkull R ???