The most common confusion here in the comments is that you can’t get the creatures back with Illicit Masquerade “because they’re exiled”. Here’s the breakdown: Illicit Masquerade (IM) is not a replacement effect. A replacement effect would say “if a creature would die, exile it INSTEAD”. IM has an ability that is triggered when a creature dies. There is a brief period of time between the board wipe resolving and the Masquerade triggers being put on the stack where the creatures are put in the graveyard, before they're exiled (because the triggers haven't resolved). This period in the stack is what would give someone time to counter Masquerade's ability with something like Whirlwind Denial. With the timing of the stack, your first creature that resolves will be exiled, which is why it's preferable that it's a token, because it's gone forever. But when that token is exiled, that's where you can reanimate Sheoldred, because IT IS in the graveyard and Sheoldred's Illicit Masquerade exile trigger hasn't resolved yet. When Sheoldred is on the battlefield, it no longer can be exiled because it's a "new game piece so the exile fizzles, but not the reanimate because Masquerade doesn't say "if you do exile it, then reanimate a creature”. The absence of an “exile it INSTEAD” and an “if you do” clause is what allows this interaction to happen. Feel free to discuss this below!
You've sold me on modify memory. But I can confirm Fleeting Reflection is so slept on. The card is so flexible and it is just an auto include in any deck I have with blue.
Love to hear it, thanks for sharing! Yeah I love the versatility of both cards, you don’t cast them for the same reasons in every game. If you do try out Modify Memory and switch out commanders, I’d love to hear how it goes haha!
Big fan of the concept of this channel. Really trying to get away from the EDHrec-ification of commander in my deck building and stuff like this really helps with that. Keep it up!
@sawderf741 true but it's not like they have a readily curated list for that purpose. I'm more saying that the era of EDHrec leads to a lot of homogeneity in the format, but the approach here helps challenge that - which is cool!
Another big step to take would be learning how to navigate Scryfall. It can help you narrow a search outside of EDHEEC immensely. The more you know how to narrow the search on there the nore you'll find hidden gems for your deck. Once I learned how to use it I really felt like my decks were more MY decks.
@sawderf741 that is very true for commanders, EDHREC is how I find unpopular commanders. Unfortunately, it is not good for seeing what is unpopular in the 99 since it does the opposite, it only shows the 50 or so most popular options for each card type. I wish there was a way to search up two cards (a commander and another card) to see how many decks play that card if it isn’t in the top recommendations already
Due to the timing, there’s a period of time between the board wipe resolving and the Illicit Masquerade triggers resolving that the creatures are in the graveyard (unless the BW was sunfall or farewell) since the Masquerade effect isn’t immediate after the BW resolves, people have time to interact with it like with a Whirlwind Denial for example. That timing is why you can save all of your creatures minus 1, which is the creature masquerade trigger that is at the top of the stack
This is the kind of content I need at my point with commander. I'm new-ish but sick of seeing the same cards in every deck on EDHRec, but I also don't have the experience to know what's out there and what to look for. I need this kind of content to show me cards that I didn't know were out there that fit into my specific game plans and aren't Cyclonic Rift and Teferi's Protection.
That’s awesome to hear, welcome to the channel and the mtg community overall! How long have you been playing? I’m glad you enjoyed the content, I have always strayed away from the norm because I want the decks to feel like they’re mine. Glad to have you here!
@ you know, you could also hold up mana suspecting a board wipe, but if you called it wrong, you can just cast it anyway to not waste the open mana for future protection. Especially in a deck with a lot of token generation and/or self mill, this could do absurd work.
100% agree, I think people worrying about not having creatures in the graveyard, or exiling a creature are the big reasons it doesn’t see play. But in a graveyard deck or token deck, that mitigates both issues!
I got AN illicit masquerade cause i liked but i did not know it worked like THAT. I knew it would do fun things within tokens but i did not expect the wipe protection side. Well time to get a few more at 50c each.
I already picked Wave of Vitriol and when I played it in some of the 3+ colors, it was hilarious seeing them losing more lands than what they could replace while also messing with all of the other cards it did touch, even an Urza Construct guy who did play indestructible artifact lands was stumped by it, and scooped since he had no counterspells and only 6 basic lands in the deck... he had already 4 out when I played my Wave of Vitriol
6 basic lands is pretty wild, I guess they never see this coming haha! I’ve never seen anyone get angry over it because they have lands to replace it, but in that case that would be devastating!
Mandate of Peace is such a strong card. Saved me from dying so often and even won me the one or other game. Awesome video. Always love to get input on not so often played cards that can take a table by surprise
Another point on masquerade is using an instant speed sac outlet to sac all of your nontoken/important creatures before the counter trigger resolves and then have all of your tokens/unimportant fodder get the counters. This way when you get wiped you just get your board back like a one-sided living death 😂
So true, and as you mentioned, if they’re tokens, you don’t care if they get exiled. They cease to exist anyways, so use them to bring back the non token banger cards that matter!
my pet card is Might of the Masses. It has given me two great victories in two different formats, I beat 4-color rhino with a $10 elf deck back in magic origins standard with Might of the Masses and more recently I won a commander game with it when a player had drawn half their deck and had over 100 life in a game. Commander damage won me that game since they had just wiped the board (guardian of faith saved my board)
I’ve been eyeing that card for a few of my decks but haven’t used it yet because my go wide decks are mostly Orzhov aristocrats. But was thinking about it for Izoni, I may need to add that to the list, one mana and a huge upside in the right decks!
The idea of the video is so cool :0 I always love seeing weird jank cards i can put in my decks. I got to have the satisfaction of winning with comeuppance in my zetalpa deck as it was just some jank card :)
Fun fact about Mandate of Peace: You can use it in a similar fashion as "end the turn" effects to stifle end-of-combat triggers, because that step (same as begin of combat, i.e. could use it without actually attacking) is still part of the combat phase. Exile tokens at the end of combat? How about no?
9:04 Dude Wave of Vitriol literally caused so much chaos in our play group last year. My homie plays a monk green Nissa animist deck and he told us the week before “up the basic land count” we didn’t listen and got beat bad lol.
Wow illicit masquerade is wayyy better than I thought. It's just a small thing of not having the "if you do" makes gonfrom being decent to actually pretty crazy. Definitely getting that for my mono black decks
@@RNG-esus When the creature dies, it goes to the graveyard, the exile trigger goes on the stack, you can resolve one of the Illicit masquerade triggers and bring back another before the exile trigger takes effect.
I've been eyeing Illicit Masquerade for a while but never read it that way. I'm a huge fan of "call an ambulance, but not for me" anti-board-wipe effects and this seems super spicy.
I think wave of vitriol is somewhat well known but the other cards were less known though some of them I had thought about before. Your analysis gave me more reasons to give them serious consideration. Good examples of how to use the cards
Also consider Exchange of Words from Unfinity. 1UU Enchantment that exchanges the text boxes of two target creatures until the enchantment leaves the battlefield. Same effect but as an enchantment, even if the commanders die and return it remains active.
I haven’t ever used that card, not because I don’t like it, but because I didn’t realize it’s commander legal 😂 Having 50% legal and not legal is very confusing with no border differentiator
I'm always looking for cards for my Shadowheart // Master Chef aristocrats deck that focuses on using Persist to loop my creatures. I was immediately going to include Plunge into Darkness but then I took a second to think about it. I tend to have a only handful of creatures since there are not many creatures with Persist. So, I will probably not get as much value off of this card as opposed to some other aristocrat style decks. Thanks for helping me think about exactly what the game plan of my deck is and value cards that could be in this deck!
Persist is such a good ability, and yeah that makes perfect sense, there aren’t a ton of those creatures, so a go wide sacrifice card like this won’t do as much work with less creatures. Are there any favorite cards you have included so far? I always think of First Day of Class when I think of Persist
I just watched a gameplay video where someone played a Cauldron of Souls, don't know if you run it, but might be worth a look to give any creature persist?
These are the types of videos I like to see. Keep up the good content! As for the cards you listed in this video that interest me: Mandate of Peace - didn't realize this was an unpopular card! I remember it coming out and being way out of my price range, so I gotta consider it in a lot of my decks! Wave of Vitriol - I'm gonna try to put this in Slogurk, where I don't run as many artifacts or enchantments, and Slogurk gets buffed when the lands get sacced. Might have to clear it with my playgroup first, though. Howl of the Horde - I don't really have a deck this could go in, as my only spellslinger deck benefits more from casting the spells in the precombat main, but it's a cool card nonetheless. Gold Rush - windmill slamming this one in all forms of Halsin I can get my hands on! The extra treasure comes in handy for mana and an extra attacker/blocker! Love it!
Oh, Howl of the Horde is going DIRECTLY into my Alania deck. Three mana and giving someone a card for 4 copies just for swinging with a token? Sign me up.
Great video! I know you have started including card prices for the other series but they also work here too! And for those wondering: 8. Modify Memory- $0.13 7. Mandate of Peace- $0.55 6. Plunge into Darkness- $1.93 (I run this in my Rowan lifepain Deck, it's quite effective for instantly winning.) 5. Wave of Vitriol- $1.07 4. Howl of the Horde- $0.45 3. Gold Rush- $0.13 2. Fleeting Reflection- $0.13 1. Illicit Masquerade- $0.14
Thanks so much for posting these, this is great! The unpopularity leads to them being cheap too. And cool to hear that Plunge into Darkness works well in your deck!
Also worth noting for Fleeting Reflection is that your commander is still your commander even if it copies something else. So if you attack with a 6/6 commander, they let it through, you make it a copy of Ghalta, that's 6 extra commander damage.
I like Repel the Abominable. For a white and a colorless block all damage from nonhuman sources at instant speed. It was a fun thing to pull out everytime someone would go for with a Torment of Hellfire. They'd waste all their mana and do nothing, then the others at the table target that player next for elimination. (In about 5,100 decks.)
I run a basics heavy Omnath Locus of Rage. The few nonbasics I do lose, trigger Omnath and I’m further ahead in board while the rest of the table is shocked at the amount of stuff getting removed, love that card!😂
Wow that would be crazy in Omnath or any landfall deck! I just use it to set back others, but in a dedicated deck that can take advantage of the landfall triggers, that’s even better!
I already loved mandate of peace, it has been one of my favorite white combat tricks for years. And I'm definitely interested in fleeting reflection. Some others you might be interested in, 2 severally underrated bounce spells are run away together, and leadership vacuum. Run away together is great for answering someone who is attacking you, and someone else who has a threatening value creature, at the same time for 2 mana. Or, you can use it to save your creature from removal/combat, while bouncing something else. Incredibly versatile and efficient. Leadership vacuum is somewhat inefficient, but it doesn't target, and it bounces all commanders the player controls. So it gets around hexproof, protection or other things that make it difficult to target, works fantastically well against partners, and if someone steals your commander, you get to snag it back to your hand while punishing them. Plus it draws a card. It's particularly good in a spellslinger deck that will get extra value out of it, my best home for it is ojer pakpatique, where i get a second copy for free, and get to set back 2 problems. Another interesting card I've just started running, is great for any deck that relies heavily on tap effects for its creatures, mine being tocasia. The card in question is lost in the maze. Not only is it occasionally an effective way to tap and stun a pile of creatures at instant speed, at a decently efficient rate, its also permanent board wide hexproof for every single one of your creatures. Absolutely insane how good it is as protecting creatures with tap abilities. And a final thought on a category of cards that go under played, play stifle effects guys. The main ones i recommend are tales end, defabricate, and whirlwind denial. Tales end is fantastic, because you can always counter a commander if necessary. Defabricate counters 2 very high impact card types, and whirlwind denial is amazing when someone has a string of triggers off of casting a spell, or if they are attempting to cascade or storm. And all of them are incredible, because you don't really notice how reliant decks are on certain triggers going off when they are supposed to. Also, as a control player, one of the best pieces of advice i can give is to let opponents go as far as they possibly can without hurting you before you stop them. If you counter the ravenous chupacabra on the stack, there is a 0% chance they are going to target the green player. If you let it resolve with a stifle in your hand, you can eek every last ounce of information out of that interaction before you commit resources.
These are awesome recommendations and I actually play all of them, I love it! Also… you read my mind haha, one of my next videos is actually about Stifle effects and how underrated they are. People don’t see it coming and aren’t prepared for it ever!
@@Unpopularmtg For sure! I love running into people who run niche interaction, so many commander players use all but like 6 card slots on their own game plan, and then just run the same bog standard interaction packages in every single one of their decks. Its actually a little depressing to me how many times I've joked about the blue player holding 4 mana up for aetherize, and no one at the table even knows what that is.
Fleeting Reflection has incredible versatility and I love it. Protection is really important in commander but it’s hard to leave a spot just for a Hexproof effet in your deck. This card is the solution.
I’ve never seen wave of vitriol before, I’m going to add that to my Kodama deck because my buddy loves to play expensive lands in his Sauron the Dark Lord deck 🤬
It doesn't get used, not because no one knows it exists, but because many people don't play mass land destruction, and don't buy into the various justifications that non basic lands aren't really lands, so it's ok to destroy them
Yeah it’s not very common and it’s one of the few cards I have as a side board that I switch in and out depending on the game. If I’m playing games at my LGS with people I’ve never met before I tend to keep it out, but I’ve never had a salty reactions for it resolving. More than anything, it’s a “Touché” type reaction
@@bcoo111eh, if they built a deck that folds to Blood Moon they deserve it. Going all nonbasics is just being greedy on their mana base. I try to include 10 or so basics for that reason.
So glad to see more people recognizing modify memory I play it in every blue deck I can, I explain to people would you play a card that reads two target creatures lose all abilities and draw 3 cards for 5 mana? Hell yes you would. Mandate of peace is so funny with myriad because you can use it on end of combat to exile the triggers from the stack so they don't get exiled and you keep the tokens.
I love hearing that, Modify Memory is such a fun card and in the rare cases that I don’t use it as a removal + draw 3 card, it’s because I’m even happier with the creature I’m going to steal. And I didn’t even think about the Myriad use case, you’re so right, that’s amazing
I don’t think many people know about the aura removal aspect with DEBT when it comes to protection, because that is an awesome use case for just 1 mana
Nice thought, but the card does not say "non-token" card. So have a creature that can't be blocked as it's ability turn into one of Vraska's assissin tokens with "When this creature deals damage to a player that play leaves the game". (I'm a rogue player too)
@@Unpopularmtg Put Fleeting Reflection into my Mr. Foxglove today. Besides all you mentioned it can also be pseudo haste for the big creature I put into play attacking with the fox.
Howl of the horde into blood for the blood god is a really fun time. Fleeting reflection - have two copies and no homes and you've convinced me. My Bilbo Burglar deck (themed around the Hobbit and using double strike to abuse level 4 Ring triggers) has a combat tricks subtheme and this video made this connection in my brain so good job!
I’ve been eying Blood for the Blood God for awhile now but don’t have a deck to slot it into, that would be awesome. And cool to hear about your Bilbo deck. Does the hobbit theme take away from the power or does it still perform well? Sounds interesting!
@ I've balanced the theme with playability. First version I had 13 dwarves in there and turns out there aren't 13 playable dwarves in izzet 😂 but we still got dwarves, we got dragons, we got treasure and we even have a gollum (riddlekeeper). Part of how it wins is by being underestimated and unassuming, again on-flavour for Bilbo. I like when the play pattern is on theme as much as the cards in the deck - my Gandalf deck wins by hanging on for more time.
Some of my pet cards that win games: Alexi's Cloak - What if Negate was an Aura. You can use it on your opponent's creatures. Great at protecting Muldrotha and Bruna. Callous Sell-Sword - Fling is a nice effect, so it's really nice to staple it to a general-purpose mode (like Kazuul's Fury). With this you also only sac upon resolution, which is a big deal for Voltron. Deluxe Dragster - Incredible invasion stapled to a repeatable Memory Plunder. Aetherdrift might nerf it, but even a vehicle player doesn't *really* wanna crew to block. Like any vehicle, it dodges board wipes and sorcery-speed creature removal. Detective's Phoenix - Haste and evasion for one mana. Equal Treatment - Quasi-fog that's compatible with your deathtouchers and immune to Skullcrack (it doesn't prevent damage) also answers Banefire/Chandra's Ignition *and it cantrips*. If you play tokens, it's also a damage doubler (does not stack with other anthems). I got this from Sheldon Menery's appearance on EDHRecast. Hypnotic Siren - If you need a critical mass of early evasive dorks, this one at least has a late-game mode. Izzet Staticaster - Keep the tokens player in check. Pair with Basilisk Collar and/or Vizier of Tumbling Sands and/or Mirrorweave and/or Rasputin the Oneiromancer. Kudo, King Among Bears - It's an Anthem for your dinky Soldier tokens, except now they 1-for-1 with Eldrazi. Path of Peril - If you're a slow WB deck, this is an amazing early play. Later on, the Cleave mode could save you, or the regular mode will clean up chump blockers and save you from an army of tokens. Vivien's Arkbow - Niche mana sink + late-game gas for a green draw-go strategy. Plus a way for an ETB deck to play at instant speed. Loves a Scroll Rack/Sylvan Library.
Totally do more of this! Even if most cards don't apply to my decks, it's really interesting to see the good cards that people sleep on, rather than see "Swords to Plowshares" in the instants section of EDHREC. I'm totally gonna ruin someone's day with Modify Memory in Eluge. Not only it would be free draw 3, but it would screw two best players lol. Thanks for the vid.
I’ll definitely be doing more, thanks for sharing your thoughts, I love to hear it! I haven’t played against Eluge in person, but it’s one of the most satisfying commanders to beat in MTG Arena, it’s so strong 1v1 😭
I love the cards that are only as strong as the decks you’re playing against, it makes your deck match the power level of the table so you don’t have to worry about getting stomped on or accidentally stomping on newer players. Like copying or stealing a creature is only as effective as the creatures that are available to target, if your opponents aren’t playing powerful creatures then you don’t get a powerful effect out of it. Like the logic that used to apply to dockside extortionist, it was only a powerful cedh piece because most cedh decks run a lot of hyper fast mana rocks for dockside to profit off of, anytime I saw it early at a non-cedh game it made maybe 2 or 3 treasures which isn’t enough to start the combo and everyone else had time to deal with it. I get that the number of mana rocks in the format is increasing over time and a mid game dockside has the same combo potential so I’m not super upset about the ban, but going back to my point of cards and decks that focus on copying the opponent’s things match the power level of the decks they’re playing. I have 2 decks that focus on copying or stealing and the craziest things I’ve ever pulled off with them are because of interactions I got from my opponents’ decks. One time I was playing my Riku extra turns deck which wins with a critical mass of clone effects and biovisionary and my friend played his sea creatures deck, he cast a fleet swallower to start milling my deck and so I made 3 copies of it, took an extra turn and milled 7/8ths of his deck in one attack…
I adore modify memory in my melek deck, and I'm always using it to switch opponents stuff for that card draw. Draw 3 feels amazing when your commander makes it 2, and the plethora of electromancer-like effects I got in the deck often bring it down to just (U).
I love Melek, I think he’s so fun and underrated. He’s great because fe makes so many cards suddenly playable that otherwise never see play because of the cost. My biggest complaint about him is his toughness isn’t */*+1. Him dying from a bojuka bog because his toughness goes to 0, not 1 is rough
I use the card *Renounce* in a clue deck of mine in a very similar way to how you're using *Plunge into Darkness* . Really good card for just quickly sacrificing the hoard of clues I've built up in one go while also gaining me a substantial amount of life.
I have illicit masquerade in my mycotyrant deck and it is basically the best card in the deck every time I play it. That card with a full graveyard and 10 saprolings, easy to do by turn 5/6, basically wins me the game. I have been singing it’s praises for so long.
One I really like that I came across recently is Screams from Within. Forget bolt the bird, you can now bolt every single bird and every single other 1/1 for just 3 mana. Less than 7k decks.
Ok, my illicit masquerade finally has been explained to me well enough for me to include it in a deck. I'll probably put it in Kadena for yet another instant speed and strange rules card. 😂
Yea dude mandate of peace is so versatile, great picks in here, illicit masquerade specifically was one i hadn't noticed that will be great for a deck of mine.
I just get this video in my feed . Thank you cause fleeting reflections was a maybeboard for my orvar non-combo , but i didn't really think of it in the good way . Can wait to try it ( and maybe target again the creature after the copy to keep it forever ). Other cards are great too, i must confess i'm not a fan of wave of vitriol cause i don't like farewell like board wipes that make a game go back to stone age but it's just my way of playing and i get the point of your opinion on it . I'm gonna take a look at some other video.
I love to hear it, thanks for sharing! And yeah Wave of Vitriol isn’t for everyone, so I get that. From what I’ve seen, it doesn’t set the board back nearly as much as farewell, because you’ve built your deck in a way that you aren’t affected as much, or you have landfall triggers to get 5-10 triggers to likely put the game away the same turn it’s cast or next turn
Farewell is a terrible card for sure -- Wave of Vitriol at least leaves the graveyard intact, doesn't hit non-artifact non-enchantment creatures, and has cool synergies with sacrifices or landfall. (And it costs 7 instead of 6, and it's in green so there's a good chance you'll actually have big creatures to end the game soon)
I actually play Howl of the Horde! I play it in my Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge. She wants to attack every turn to cast free things, so the raid is immediately checked for, even if it's in exile through Jeleva herself!
I think one of the most slept on cards in EDH is Ensnaring Bridge. It's only in ~16K decks despite absolutely blowing out aggressive creature decks. You haven't lived until you've seen the light drain from an opponent's eyes when they see it
illicitly masquerade is a banger card!! crazy that its so underplayed, just shows the overall excitement about MKM i guess 😂 but that green boardwipe is also fire, especially in landfall decks!
Illicit Masquerade is gonna be going into my Nashi, Searcher in the Dark deck now. That is SAUCE. Nashi's become my new pet deck as the unholy abomination that I've dubbed "Zombietron" There is a surprising amount of value to achieve in a zombie deck loaded with legends and enchantments (both for zombies and for buffing Nashi, sometimes both) and in that I've discovered a beautiful beater in Grimgrin, Corpse-born. Dude is really hard to beat in combat and any consistent token generation (or untap source in general) lets him go to town.
So I have a favorite card that I think should see more play in multiple formats, maybe not so much commander but Modern and Pauper certainly. I played it when it was legal in penny dreadful and it singlehandedly won me a game on the spot once: Snapback. It's basically what the Unsummon to Force of Will's counterspell, but given Force of Will isn't legal in those formats your opponents will think they're safe to combo off when they see you tapped out. The game it won me, my opponent had a Necrotic Ooze combo deck and with me tapped out, they milled their entire deck to set up a loop that powered up their ooze to 20/20 and swung. I cast snapback. And they realized in horror that while they could play the ooze again on second main they couldn't actually attack again until next turn -- after losing to decking on their draw step
Ooh I like that card a lot, exiling a blue card is not a bad price to pay if someone is swinging for lethal or has a creature combo they think is protected with all tapped lands. I’ll probably be slotting this in a deck or two!
When i spammed ygra when he was new before (back when he was 1-2k decks) every time i casted wave, i won. Ik its a very specific case but even without ygra, like you said, punishing greedy decks' mana base. Another card thats similar thats only in around 50k decks is winds of abandon. Idk, everytime i cast it either i win or i win the next turn because they fail to find basics after 12-14 total basics (deck hand firld). "oh no i give them basics" But irs asymmetrical exile based wipe and doesnt halt the game like farewell.
That’s a good point, if you had a commander like Kess or someone that let you cast Howl of the Horde from the graveyard the same turn you already have the raid activated, that would be so many copies!
@@aarondunn6759 As is explained in the video, since the card isn't exiled until the masquerade trigger resolves it can be targeted in the graveyard and reanimated before it is exiled. If the card leaves the graveyard to the battlefield, it becomes a new game object and it can't be exiled by masquerade because it no longer exists as far as that ability is concerned. Normally you would expect there would be some kind of clause preventing the reanimate effect if the card can't be exiled, but there isn't so you can stack the triggers so that if multiple of your creatures with imposter counters on them die, only one of them is exiled and the rest of your nontoken creatures return to the battlefield. (In the example in the video, they use a token that can't be reanimated anyways as the first trigger to resolve, reanimating your entire board for pretty much free in the case of a board wipe.)
Great explanation, thanks for sharing! Now the only trick is getting the playgroup to understand this isn’t a replacement effect “if a creature would die, exile it INSTEAD”
3 mana Kaito that loots and makes creatures unblockable in Modern Grixis Death's Shadow is another one that has surprised many and won me several games. I usually play just 1 copy, but he is really good for tempo and getting in with a big Frog or Shadow.
I had a Modify Memory in an Inniaz, The Gale Force deck, as just another way to swap control of things around. Definitely good enough for other decks though!
Howl of the Horde takes me back to when I used it in my Melekk, Izzet Paragon list back when Khans had just come out. Insane card, usually used it to copy high tide twice to pop off and win
I’ve been thinking of a Melek Izzet Paragon deck, did playing with your top cards revealed ever feel like a disadvantage? I love copying spells, so Melek seems like one I need to try
@Unpopularmtg Never did no, but this was back before edhrec was just getting popular so people didn't have as many streamlined decks. Now with so many free spells and resources for deckbuilding it may be more detrimental. I used Sensei's Divining Top to help hide the spell I actually was going to cast, Trinket Mage was a huge mvp in the deck
Getting Brainstorm/Ponder/Counterspell on an Isochron Scepter was also a common occurrence with the deck. I eventually took it apart as winning turns usually took 10-15 minutes of math until I combo'd off with something like Epic Experiment, Fireball or Blue Sun's Zenith with a Laboratory Maniac out
Modify memory is great, swapped a sefris land fall deck with a vihan goldwaker treasure deck last night, took the vihan player 2 turns to exile their commander to cast again, the sefris player was shut out.
The most common confusion here in the comments is that you can’t get the creatures back with Illicit Masquerade “because they’re exiled”. Here’s the breakdown:
Illicit Masquerade (IM) is not a replacement effect. A replacement effect would say “if a creature would die, exile it INSTEAD”.
IM has an ability that is triggered when a creature dies. There is a brief period of time between the board wipe resolving and the Masquerade triggers being put on the stack where the creatures are put in the graveyard, before they're exiled (because the triggers haven't resolved). This period in the stack is what would give someone time to counter Masquerade's ability with something like Whirlwind Denial. With the timing of the stack, your first creature that resolves will be exiled, which is why it's preferable that it's a token, because it's gone forever. But when that token is exiled, that's where you can reanimate Sheoldred, because IT IS in the graveyard and Sheoldred's Illicit Masquerade exile trigger hasn't resolved yet. When Sheoldred is on the battlefield, it no longer can be exiled because it's a "new game piece so the exile fizzles, but
not the reanimate because Masquerade doesn't say "if you do exile it, then reanimate a creature”.
The absence of an “exile it INSTEAD” and an “if you do” clause is what allows this interaction to happen.
Feel free to discuss this below!
You've sold me on modify memory. But I can confirm Fleeting Reflection is so slept on. The card is so flexible and it is just an auto include in any deck I have with blue.
Love to hear it, thanks for sharing! Yeah I love the versatility of both cards, you don’t cast them for the same reasons in every game. If you do try out Modify Memory and switch out commanders, I’d love to hear how it goes haha!
Mandate of peace has a 5th mode, which is to keep your myriad creatures around.
Yeah that’s a big effect that I totally skipped over!
Big fan of the concept of this channel. Really trying to get away from the EDHrec-ification of commander in my deck building and stuff like this really helps with that. Keep it up!
You can use edhrec to see what's unpopular too.
@sawderf741 true but it's not like they have a readily curated list for that purpose. I'm more saying that the era of EDHrec leads to a lot of homogeneity in the format, but the approach here helps challenge that - which is cool!
Another big step to take would be learning how to navigate Scryfall. It can help you narrow a search outside of EDHEEC immensely. The more you know how to narrow the search on there the nore you'll find hidden gems for your deck.
Once I learned how to use it I really felt like my decks were more MY decks.
That’s awesome to hear, and is my goal as well, so I’m glad it can be helpful!
@sawderf741 that is very true for commanders, EDHREC is how I find unpopular commanders. Unfortunately, it is not good for seeing what is unpopular in the 99 since it does the opposite, it only shows the 50 or so most popular options for each card type. I wish there was a way to search up two cards (a commander and another card) to see how many decks play that card if it isn’t in the top recommendations already
Can confirm, Mandate of Peace is bonkers. It’s like a 2 mana Time Stop. It’s significantly put me ahead every time I play it.
It’s so underrated, glad to hear some love for the card!
Loving the content on this channel. Explanation for illicit masquerade was great too
Thanks, I appreciate you being here! And thanks, I tried to do the card justice by making it clear what it can do!
if you flash on top of a BW all your creatures are exiled...
Due to the timing, there’s a period of time between the board wipe resolving and the Illicit Masquerade triggers resolving that the creatures are in the graveyard (unless the BW was sunfall or farewell) since the Masquerade effect isn’t immediate after the BW resolves, people have time to interact with it like with a Whirlwind Denial for example. That timing is why you can save all of your creatures minus 1, which is the creature masquerade trigger that is at the top of the stack
This is the kind of content I need at my point with commander. I'm new-ish but sick of seeing the same cards in every deck on EDHRec, but I also don't have the experience to know what's out there and what to look for. I need this kind of content to show me cards that I didn't know were out there that fit into my specific game plans and aren't Cyclonic Rift and Teferi's Protection.
That’s awesome to hear, welcome to the channel and the mtg community overall! How long have you been playing? I’m glad you enjoyed the content, I have always strayed away from the norm because I want the decks to feel like they’re mine. Glad to have you here!
You know, I had thought that Illicit Masquerade was better than people gave it credit for, but I hadn't realized there wasn't an "if you do".
It’s a small wording that makes a huge difference!
@ you know, you could also hold up mana suspecting a board wipe, but if you called it wrong, you can just cast it anyway to not waste the open mana for future protection. Especially in a deck with a lot of token generation and/or self mill, this could do absurd work.
100% agree, I think people worrying about not having creatures in the graveyard, or exiling a creature are the big reasons it doesn’t see play. But in a graveyard deck or token deck, that mitigates both issues!
That seems pretty disgusting in a Prossh/Food Chain shell to drain out the table with Gary.
@Unpopularmtg
Because it doesn't say "exile them INSTEAD" do you still get the death triggers?
These are good takes which is rare for a video of this type
Thanks, I appreciate hearing that!
I got AN illicit masquerade cause i liked but i did not know it worked like THAT. I knew it would do fun things within tokens but i did not expect the wipe protection side. Well time to get a few more at 50c each.
That’s the best part of unpopular cards, they’re so cheap because there’s no demand for them!
I love how modify memory slots seemlessly into the decks draw section and just casually fucks over your opponents on the way down.
Exactly, draw some cards and sow some chaos while you’re at it!
I already picked Wave of Vitriol and when I played it in some of the 3+ colors, it was hilarious seeing them losing more lands than what they could replace while also messing with all of the other cards it did touch, even an Urza Construct guy who did play indestructible artifact lands was stumped by it, and scooped since he had no counterspells and only 6 basic lands in the deck... he had already 4 out when I played my Wave of Vitriol
6 basic lands is pretty wild, I guess they never see this coming haha! I’ve never seen anyone get angry over it because they have lands to replace it, but in that case that would be devastating!
Mandate of Peace is such a strong card. Saved me from dying so often and even won me the one or other game. Awesome video. Always love to get input on not so often played cards that can take a table by surprise
It really is, and that’s cool to hear how you’ve used it effectively. Thanks for being here, glad you enjoyed the video!
Another point on masquerade is using an instant speed sac outlet to sac all of your nontoken/important creatures before the counter trigger resolves and then have all of your tokens/unimportant fodder get the counters. This way when you get wiped you just get your board back like a one-sided living death 😂
So true, and as you mentioned, if they’re tokens, you don’t care if they get exiled. They cease to exist anyways, so use them to bring back the non token banger cards that matter!
@@Unpopularmtg and you don’t even lose any death triggers, the exile isn’t replacing going to the graveyard!
Absolutely great point!
Incredibly impressive deep cuts my friend
Thank you, I appreciate it! 🙏
Wave of Vitriol is that one card you get to play it once in your deck's career and you will never survive past turn 5 ever again.
Yep, and it’s totally worth it 😊
Pepperidge farm remembers that wave of vitriol
Sounds like Thieves Auction and Warp World cast by the Krenko player
Watches video. Pulls Illicit Masquerade out of rares box. Puts Illicit Masquerade into Savra deck. Proceeds to make friends cry.
Savage, I love it!
my pet card is Might of the Masses. It has given me two great victories in two different formats, I beat 4-color rhino with a $10 elf deck back in magic origins standard with Might of the Masses and more recently I won a commander game with it when a player had drawn half their deck and had over 100 life in a game. Commander damage won me that game since they had just wiped the board (guardian of faith saved my board)
I’ve been eyeing that card for a few of my decks but haven’t used it yet because my go wide decks are mostly Orzhov aristocrats. But was thinking about it for Izoni, I may need to add that to the list, one mana and a huge upside in the right decks!
@Unpopularmtg it really is!
The idea of the video is so cool :0 I always love seeing weird jank cards i can put in my decks. I got to have the satisfaction of winning with comeuppance in my zetalpa deck as it was just some jank card :)
Comeuppance is so much fun, I got the Blame Game precon that comes with that card and a few others like it, I love that style of card!
Fun fact about Mandate of Peace: You can use it in a similar fashion as "end the turn" effects to stifle end-of-combat triggers, because that step (same as begin of combat, i.e. could use it without actually attacking) is still part of the combat phase. Exile tokens at the end of combat? How about no?
Great callout, hello myriad!
9:04 Dude Wave of Vitriol literally caused so much chaos in our play group last year. My homie plays a monk green Nissa animist deck and he told us the week before “up the basic land count” we didn’t listen and got beat bad lol.
Haha I love it, I don’t use it with people I’ve never played with before, but friends and common playgroups, it’s a good time!
Big fan of this style of content, more please!
I’m glad to hear, thanks I’ll be sure to do more!
SUBBED. Love your YT handle. I've been trying to not rely so heavily on the "monotonous" EDHRec style of deck-making. Thank you for this vid.
Thank you, that’s my whole goal here, highlighted underrated and slept on cards!
Wow illicit masquerade is wayyy better than I thought. It's just a small thing of not having the "if you do" makes gonfrom being decent to actually pretty crazy. Definitely getting that for my mono black decks
Yeah the lack of those words makes such a big difference!
@@Unpopularmtgstill not sure I understand how you can bring them back before they're actually dead
@@RNG-esus When the creature dies, it goes to the graveyard, the exile trigger goes on the stack, you can resolve one of the Illicit masquerade triggers and bring back another before the exile trigger takes effect.
@PutYaHandsUp gotcha! I figured it would go straight to exile
I've been eyeing Illicit Masquerade for a while but never read it that way. I'm a huge fan of "call an ambulance, but not for me" anti-board-wipe effects and this seems super spicy.
The wording (or lack there of) is so small that it’s easy to read over, but makes all the difference!
plunge into darkness gaining me life during citadel turns wins me games
That’s nasty, I love it!
I think wave of vitriol is somewhat well known but the other cards were less known though some of them I had thought about before. Your analysis gave me more reasons to give them serious consideration. Good examples of how to use the cards
I appreciate it! Would love to hear if you end up using some of the cards and how it went!
Also consider Exchange of Words from Unfinity. 1UU Enchantment that exchanges the text boxes of two target creatures until the enchantment leaves the battlefield. Same effect but as an enchantment, even if the commanders die and return it remains active.
Every time I have seen Exchange of Words hit the table has been, 1, an absolute game changer, and 2, an absolute delight
I haven’t ever used that card, not because I don’t like it, but because I didn’t realize it’s commander legal 😂 Having 50% legal and not legal is very confusing with no border differentiator
If the commanders die and get re-cast from the command zone, doesn't that make it a new game object?
I'm always looking for cards for my Shadowheart // Master Chef aristocrats deck that focuses on using Persist to loop my creatures. I was immediately going to include Plunge into Darkness but then I took a second to think about it. I tend to have a only handful of creatures since there are not many creatures with Persist. So, I will probably not get as much value off of this card as opposed to some other aristocrat style decks. Thanks for helping me think about exactly what the game plan of my deck is and value cards that could be in this deck!
Persist is such a good ability, and yeah that makes perfect sense, there aren’t a ton of those creatures, so a go wide sacrifice card like this won’t do as much work with less creatures. Are there any favorite cards you have included so far? I always think of First Day of Class when I think of Persist
I just watched a gameplay video where someone played a Cauldron of Souls, don't know if you run it, but might be worth a look to give any creature persist?
I'd use Modify Memory to switch peoples commanders simply because it's humorous to me
Doing something for the lols guides like 90% of my choices in Commander games 😆
It’s just so much fun haha!
mos bueno. as a old school player with a 6-digit DCI number, i'm still conditioned somewhat to creature-win decks. i love this shit.
6 digit DCI is awesome! When did you start playing, some time in the 90s?
These are the types of videos I like to see. Keep up the good content! As for the cards you listed in this video that interest me:
Mandate of Peace - didn't realize this was an unpopular card! I remember it coming out and being way out of my price range, so I gotta consider it in a lot of my decks!
Wave of Vitriol - I'm gonna try to put this in Slogurk, where I don't run as many artifacts or enchantments, and Slogurk gets buffed when the lands get sacced. Might have to clear it with my playgroup first, though.
Howl of the Horde - I don't really have a deck this could go in, as my only spellslinger deck benefits more from casting the spells in the precombat main, but it's a cool card nonetheless.
Gold Rush - windmill slamming this one in all forms of Halsin I can get my hands on! The extra treasure comes in handy for mana and an extra attacker/blocker! Love it!
Oh, Howl of the Horde is going DIRECTLY into my Alania deck. Three mana and giving someone a card for 4 copies just for swinging with a token? Sign me up.
Awesome breakdown on these cards. Great video!
Thanks, I really appreciate it!
there are just too many cards to keep track of. Play just about anything uncommon from pre 2005 and most people wont have seen it before.
That’s 100% valid and I would be guilty of not knowing them too
Mandate of peace would blow some of my decks to shreds. And at 2 mana. Wow.
What deck is it? Yeah it’s such a good card!
Great video! I know you have started including card prices for the other series but they also work here too! And for those wondering:
8. Modify Memory- $0.13
7. Mandate of Peace- $0.55
6. Plunge into Darkness- $1.93 (I run this in my Rowan lifepain Deck, it's quite effective for instantly winning.)
5. Wave of Vitriol- $1.07
4. Howl of the Horde- $0.45
3. Gold Rush- $0.13
2. Fleeting Reflection- $0.13
1. Illicit Masquerade- $0.14
Thanks so much for posting these, this is great! The unpopularity leads to them being cheap too. And cool to hear that Plunge into Darkness works well in your deck!
Also worth noting for Fleeting Reflection is that your commander is still your commander even if it copies something else. So if you attack with a 6/6 commander, they let it through, you make it a copy of Ghalta, that's 6 extra commander damage.
I wasn’t aware that it’s still commander damage, that’s even better, thanks for sharing!
Let me tell you about my boy Wing Shards.
I like Repel the Abominable. For a white and a colorless block all damage from nonhuman sources at instant speed. It was a fun thing to pull out everytime someone would go for with a Torment of Hellfire. They'd waste all their mana and do nothing, then the others at the table target that player next for elimination. (In about 5,100 decks.)
Repel the abominable is great, especially in human decks where blockers or attackers die and your creatures stay alive!
Gold Rush can be used on creatures your opponents control as well so have fun with that...
That’s a great point that I didn’t even cover, thanks for bringing it up! Actually can be used often to have your opponents close someone out for you
I ordered Mandate of Peace 2 seconds after you finished talking about it xD!
Ayy let’s go!! I’d love to hear what you think about it when you use it!
I loved this video, thank you. One of my favorite things in any game is finding things that are better than everyone else thinks. great job
I’m the same way, thanks for being here, glad you enjoyed the video!
I love this kind of content. Thank you for the video. You have a new subscriber from Brazil. Take care!
I love to hear it, thanks for being here! I have many friends in Brazil, and had two roommates from Brazil. I’d love to visit there one day!
I run a basics heavy Omnath Locus of Rage. The few nonbasics I do lose, trigger Omnath and I’m further ahead in board while the rest of the table is shocked at the amount of stuff getting removed, love that card!😂
Wow that would be crazy in Omnath or any landfall deck! I just use it to set back others, but in a dedicated deck that can take advantage of the landfall triggers, that’s even better!
I already loved mandate of peace, it has been one of my favorite white combat tricks for years. And I'm definitely interested in fleeting reflection.
Some others you might be interested in, 2 severally underrated bounce spells are run away together, and leadership vacuum. Run away together is great for answering someone who is attacking you, and someone else who has a threatening value creature, at the same time for 2 mana. Or, you can use it to save your creature from removal/combat, while bouncing something else. Incredibly versatile and efficient. Leadership vacuum is somewhat inefficient, but it doesn't target, and it bounces all commanders the player controls. So it gets around hexproof, protection or other things that make it difficult to target, works fantastically well against partners, and if someone steals your commander, you get to snag it back to your hand while punishing them. Plus it draws a card. It's particularly good in a spellslinger deck that will get extra value out of it, my best home for it is ojer pakpatique, where i get a second copy for free, and get to set back 2 problems.
Another interesting card I've just started running, is great for any deck that relies heavily on tap effects for its creatures, mine being tocasia. The card in question is lost in the maze. Not only is it occasionally an effective way to tap and stun a pile of creatures at instant speed, at a decently efficient rate, its also permanent board wide hexproof for every single one of your creatures. Absolutely insane how good it is as protecting creatures with tap abilities.
And a final thought on a category of cards that go under played, play stifle effects guys. The main ones i recommend are tales end, defabricate, and whirlwind denial. Tales end is fantastic, because you can always counter a commander if necessary. Defabricate counters 2 very high impact card types, and whirlwind denial is amazing when someone has a string of triggers off of casting a spell, or if they are attempting to cascade or storm. And all of them are incredible, because you don't really notice how reliant decks are on certain triggers going off when they are supposed to. Also, as a control player, one of the best pieces of advice i can give is to let opponents go as far as they possibly can without hurting you before you stop them. If you counter the ravenous chupacabra on the stack, there is a 0% chance they are going to target the green player. If you let it resolve with a stifle in your hand, you can eek every last ounce of information out of that interaction before you commit resources.
These are awesome recommendations and I actually play all of them, I love it! Also… you read my mind haha, one of my next videos is actually about Stifle effects and how underrated they are. People don’t see it coming and aren’t prepared for it ever!
@@Unpopularmtg For sure! I love running into people who run niche interaction, so many commander players use all but like 6 card slots on their own game plan, and then just run the same bog standard interaction packages in every single one of their decks. Its actually a little depressing to me how many times I've joked about the blue player holding 4 mana up for aetherize, and no one at the table even knows what that is.
I will definitely be trying out wave of Vitriol in my mono green ooze deck. Fits the theme and I'm sure I'll get a few table flips. 🤣
Haha please do share more if you get an awesome reaction!
Illicit masquerade is completely busted, and I'm suprised to see it in so few aristocrats decks.
Yeah no kidding! I feel like most people haven’t actually read it all the way through or don’t understand what it can actually do with tokens
@@Unpopularmtg yep there are some low key token/ sac decks out there jsut abusing the heck of this atm. I love doing it.
100%!
Fleeting Reflection has incredible versatility and I love it. Protection is really important in commander but it’s hard to leave a spot just for a Hexproof effet in your deck. This card is the solution.
I absolutely agree, the versatility and all relevant use cases is what makes it so strong
I’ve never seen wave of vitriol before, I’m going to add that to my Kodama deck because my buddy loves to play expensive lands in his Sauron the Dark Lord deck 🤬
It doesn't get used, not because no one knows it exists, but because many people don't play mass land destruction, and don't buy into the various justifications that non basic lands aren't really lands, so it's ok to destroy them
Yeah it’s not very common and it’s one of the few cards I have as a side board that I switch in and out depending on the game. If I’m playing games at my LGS with people I’ve never met before I tend to keep it out, but I’ve never had a salty reactions for it resolving. More than anything, it’s a “Touché” type reaction
Also curious, which Kodama version do you have a deck built for?
@@bcoo111eh, if they built a deck that folds to Blood Moon they deserve it. Going all nonbasics is just being greedy on their mana base. I try to include 10 or so basics for that reason.
I got some awesome deck ideas because of this.
Thank you for explaining the interactions in such a clean manner
That’s great to hear, thanks for the comment, I’m glad you enjoyed the video!
So glad to see more people recognizing modify memory I play it in every blue deck I can, I explain to people would you play a card that reads two target creatures lose all abilities and draw 3 cards for 5 mana? Hell yes you would.
Mandate of peace is so funny with myriad because you can use it on end of combat to exile the triggers from the stack so they don't get exiled and you keep the tokens.
I love hearing that, Modify Memory is such a fun card and in the rare cases that I don’t use it as a removal + draw 3 card, it’s because I’m even happier with the creature I’m going to steal. And I didn’t even think about the Myriad use case, you’re so right, that’s amazing
myriad is so breakable lmao
This is true
One of my new faves is Stave Off to protect or knock off auras 🎉
I don’t think many people know about the aura removal aspect with DEBT when it comes to protection, because that is an awesome use case for just 1 mana
Fleeting Reflection = Ninjutsu
A ninjutsu from the battlefield 💪
Nice thought, but the card does not say "non-token" card. So have a creature that can't be blocked as it's ability turn into one of Vraska's assissin tokens with "When this creature deals damage to a player that play leaves the game". (I'm a rogue player too)
I knew what everyone of those cards does at least, but I like to hear how you use them and your enthusiasm for them.
Thanks, it’s been fun sharing about cards I like to use, I appreciate the kind words!
@@Unpopularmtg Put Fleeting Reflection into my Mr. Foxglove today. Besides all you mentioned it can also be pseudo haste for the big creature I put into play attacking with the fox.
Howl of the horde into blood for the blood god is a really fun time.
Fleeting reflection - have two copies and no homes and you've convinced me. My Bilbo Burglar deck (themed around the Hobbit and using double strike to abuse level 4 Ring triggers) has a combat tricks subtheme and this video made this connection in my brain so good job!
I’ve been eying Blood for the Blood God for awhile now but don’t have a deck to slot it into, that would be awesome.
And cool to hear about your Bilbo deck. Does the hobbit theme take away from the power or does it still perform well? Sounds interesting!
@ I've balanced the theme with playability. First version I had 13 dwarves in there and turns out there aren't 13 playable dwarves in izzet 😂 but we still got dwarves, we got dragons, we got treasure and we even have a gollum (riddlekeeper).
Part of how it wins is by being underestimated and unassuming, again on-flavour for Bilbo. I like when the play pattern is on theme as much as the cards in the deck - my Gandalf deck wins by hanging on for more time.
Some of my pet cards that win games:
Alexi's Cloak - What if Negate was an Aura. You can use it on your opponent's creatures. Great at protecting Muldrotha and Bruna.
Callous Sell-Sword - Fling is a nice effect, so it's really nice to staple it to a general-purpose mode (like Kazuul's Fury). With this you also only sac upon resolution, which is a big deal for Voltron.
Deluxe Dragster - Incredible invasion stapled to a repeatable Memory Plunder. Aetherdrift might nerf it, but even a vehicle player doesn't *really* wanna crew to block. Like any vehicle, it dodges board wipes and sorcery-speed creature removal.
Detective's Phoenix - Haste and evasion for one mana.
Equal Treatment - Quasi-fog that's compatible with your deathtouchers and immune to Skullcrack (it doesn't prevent damage) also answers Banefire/Chandra's Ignition *and it cantrips*. If you play tokens, it's also a damage doubler (does not stack with other anthems). I got this from Sheldon Menery's appearance on EDHRecast.
Hypnotic Siren - If you need a critical mass of early evasive dorks, this one at least has a late-game mode.
Izzet Staticaster - Keep the tokens player in check. Pair with Basilisk Collar and/or Vizier of Tumbling Sands and/or Mirrorweave and/or Rasputin the Oneiromancer.
Kudo, King Among Bears - It's an Anthem for your dinky Soldier tokens, except now they 1-for-1 with Eldrazi.
Path of Peril - If you're a slow WB deck, this is an amazing early play. Later on, the Cleave mode could save you, or the regular mode will clean up chump blockers and save you from an army of tokens.
Vivien's Arkbow - Niche mana sink + late-game gas for a green draw-go strategy. Plus a way for an ETB deck to play at instant speed. Loves a Scroll Rack/Sylvan Library.
Totally do more of this!
Even if most cards don't apply to my decks, it's really interesting to see the good cards that people sleep on, rather than see "Swords to Plowshares" in the instants section of EDHREC.
I'm totally gonna ruin someone's day with Modify Memory in Eluge. Not only it would be free draw 3, but it would screw two best players lol.
Thanks for the vid.
Ah, a fellow Eluge player, I see. Good to know there's more of us
I’ll definitely be doing more, thanks for sharing your thoughts, I love to hear it! I haven’t played against Eluge in person, but it’s one of the most satisfying commanders to beat in MTG Arena, it’s so strong 1v1 😭
I love the cards that are only as strong as the decks you’re playing against, it makes your deck match the power level of the table so you don’t have to worry about getting stomped on or accidentally stomping on newer players. Like copying or stealing a creature is only as effective as the creatures that are available to target, if your opponents aren’t playing powerful creatures then you don’t get a powerful effect out of it. Like the logic that used to apply to dockside extortionist, it was only a powerful cedh piece because most cedh decks run a lot of hyper fast mana rocks for dockside to profit off of, anytime I saw it early at a non-cedh game it made maybe 2 or 3 treasures which isn’t enough to start the combo and everyone else had time to deal with it. I get that the number of mana rocks in the format is increasing over time and a mid game dockside has the same combo potential so I’m not super upset about the ban, but going back to my point of cards and decks that focus on copying the opponent’s things match the power level of the decks they’re playing. I have 2 decks that focus on copying or stealing and the craziest things I’ve ever pulled off with them are because of interactions I got from my opponents’ decks. One time I was playing my Riku extra turns deck which wins with a critical mass of clone effects and biovisionary and my friend played his sea creatures deck, he cast a fleet swallower to start milling my deck and so I made 3 copies of it, took an extra turn and milled 7/8ths of his deck in one attack…
Cool vid more please.
There will be more on the way, thanks for being here!
This video was great! I'd love to see more like this if you have any more sleeper cards
I’ll be sure to do more in the future, thanks!
I absolutely adore Gold Rush. Was clutch in Leyline Reso deck letting me brush the mirror matches off my shoulders.
Fleeting Feflection lets your Rotpriest make new BFFs that get to cosplay as them!
Oh yeah that sounds awesome, I love hearing how people use different unpopular cards!
Plunge into Darkness is going to slot in perfectly with the new Ketramose, the New Dawn coming to aetherdrift.
I know Aetherdrift is getting a ton of hate, but some of those new cards look so fun!
@Unpopularmtg I completely agree! Awesome suggestions too!
I've never seen Modify Memory before, but will be trying to cram it into something IMMEDIATELY. What an awesome card.
Awesome, would love to hear what you think of it when you get to play it!
Plunge Into Darkness is something I'm definitely going to be picking up as an alternative to Dig Through Time for one of my decks!
Nice, would love to hear your thoughts on how it performs!
I adore modify memory in my melek deck, and I'm always using it to switch opponents stuff for that card draw. Draw 3 feels amazing when your commander makes it 2, and the plethora of electromancer-like effects I got in the deck often bring it down to just (U).
I love Melek, I think he’s so fun and underrated. He’s great because fe makes so many cards suddenly playable that otherwise never see play because of the cost. My biggest complaint about him is his toughness isn’t */*+1. Him dying from a bojuka bog because his toughness goes to 0, not 1 is rough
Great vid! Totally agree on these picks super underrated
Thank you, I appreciate it!
When I first heard of Mandate of Peace I bought 10 of them lol. I thought it would be more popular, but it's a great combat trick that I love to use
I like it too, I also run orims chant and calamitys wake.
Yeah it never took off, but I like it that way because it’s not a staple that people plan against now
I remember a guy with like 40 tasigurs
I use the card *Renounce* in a clue deck of mine in a very similar way to how you're using *Plunge into Darkness* . Really good card for just quickly sacrificing the hoard of clues I've built up in one go while also gaining me a substantial amount of life.
I haven’t seen that card used before, super cool burst of life at instant speed!
If you like mandate of peace, id suggest similar cards like 'festival' and 'calamity's wake' though mandate is still the best.
I haven’t seen festival before but I like that a lot, and I do really like Calamity’s wake. Great suggestions!
I have illicit masquerade in my mycotyrant deck and it is basically the best card in the deck every time I play it. That card with a full graveyard and 10 saprolings, easy to do by turn 5/6, basically wins me the game. I have been singing it’s praises for so long.
The mycotyrant and Slimefoot and squee seem like perfect fits for what illicit masquerade wants to do. Love to hear it’s performed well for you!
Fantastic list!
Thanks, I appreciate it!
That was a very nice selection of cards, I added most of them in my cart :D
Awesome to hear! Let me know what you think of them when you have a chance to play them!
One I really like that I came across recently is Screams from Within. Forget bolt the bird, you can now bolt every single bird and every single other 1/1 for just 3 mana. Less than 7k decks.
Oh yeah that’s nice! Pair it with something that cares about Enchantment ETBs and that’s wild!
Ok, my illicit masquerade finally has been explained to me well enough for me to include it in a deck. I'll probably put it in Kadena for yet another instant speed and strange rules card. 😂
Oh nice, how do you like Kadena? And are there other strange rules cards you use in the deck haha?
Yea dude mandate of peace is so versatile, great picks in here, illicit masquerade specifically was one i hadn't noticed that will be great for a deck of mine.
Love to hear it! I’d love to hear what you think of the card if you end up using it!
Bro I was sleeving my modified memory as I was watching the 📹
That’s what we love to see! 🙌
Wave of Vitriol is amazing in Yuma. You get a bunch of 4/2 plant warriors and likely have a bunch of ways to play lands from graveyards too.
I don’t own a Yuma deck, but it looks so fun, I should try the commander out some time
9:37 Correct me if I’m wrong, but would this delete all creatures if Ygra is on the battlefield?
Yes, food is an artifact type.
Hell yeah
Absolutely 🔥
I just get this video in my feed . Thank you cause fleeting reflections was a maybeboard for my orvar non-combo , but i didn't really think of it in the good way . Can wait to try it ( and maybe target again the creature after the copy to keep it forever ). Other cards are great too, i must confess i'm not a fan of wave of vitriol cause i don't like farewell like board wipes that make a game go back to stone age but it's just my way of playing and i get the point of your opinion on it . I'm gonna take a look at some other video.
I love to hear it, thanks for sharing! And yeah Wave of Vitriol isn’t for everyone, so I get that. From what I’ve seen, it doesn’t set the board back nearly as much as farewell, because you’ve built your deck in a way that you aren’t affected as much, or you have landfall triggers to get 5-10 triggers to likely put the game away the same turn it’s cast or next turn
Farewell is a terrible card for sure -- Wave of Vitriol at least leaves the graveyard intact, doesn't hit non-artifact non-enchantment creatures, and has cool synergies with sacrifices or landfall. (And it costs 7 instead of 6, and it's in green so there's a good chance you'll actually have big creatures to end the game soon)
I actually play Howl of the Horde! I play it in my Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge. She wants to attack every turn to cast free things, so the raid is immediately checked for, even if it's in exile through Jeleva herself!
Wow idk how I missed this commander, it’s right up my alley, may need to build it now!
I think one of the most slept on cards in EDH is Ensnaring Bridge. It's only in ~16K decks despite absolutely blowing out aggressive creature decks. You haven't lived until you've seen the light drain from an opponent's eyes when they see it
I sold my LoTR foil Ensnaring Bridge box topper but wish I kept it. I haven’t used it but definitely see a use case for why I should!
Im pretty sure ensnaring bridge is considered too stax for people to not put you in stocks over, which is part of why people dont use it
illicitly masquerade is a banger card!! crazy that its so underplayed, just shows the overall excitement about MKM i guess 😂
but that green boardwipe is also fire, especially in landfall decks!
It’s true, they’re both insane cards, and I wasn’t even taking landfall triggers into consideration!
Illicit Masquerade is gonna be going into my Nashi, Searcher in the Dark deck now. That is SAUCE.
Nashi's become my new pet deck as the unholy abomination that I've dubbed "Zombietron" There is a surprising amount of value to achieve in a zombie deck loaded with legends and enchantments (both for zombies and for buffing Nashi, sometimes both) and in that I've discovered a beautiful beater in Grimgrin, Corpse-born. Dude is really hard to beat in combat and any consistent token generation (or untap source in general) lets him go to town.
Cool idea! A cheap commander with menace to get through easier, sounds like a fun idea and I can see how that card would fit in well with the deck!
Just found this channel and I love it already
I love to hear it, thanks for being here!
So I have a favorite card that I think should see more play in multiple formats, maybe not so much commander but Modern and Pauper certainly. I played it when it was legal in penny dreadful and it singlehandedly won me a game on the spot once: Snapback. It's basically what the Unsummon to Force of Will's counterspell, but given Force of Will isn't legal in those formats your opponents will think they're safe to combo off when they see you tapped out.
The game it won me, my opponent had a Necrotic Ooze combo deck and with me tapped out, they milled their entire deck to set up a loop that powered up their ooze to 20/20 and swung. I cast snapback. And they realized in horror that while they could play the ooze again on second main they couldn't actually attack again until next turn -- after losing to decking on their draw step
Ooh I like that card a lot, exiling a blue card is not a bad price to pay if someone is swinging for lethal or has a creature combo they think is protected with all tapped lands. I’ll probably be slotting this in a deck or two!
When i spammed ygra when he was new before (back when he was 1-2k decks) every time i casted wave, i won. Ik its a very specific case but even without ygra, like you said, punishing greedy decks' mana base.
Another card thats similar thats only in around 50k decks is winds of abandon. Idk, everytime i cast it either i win or i win the next turn because they fail to find basics after 12-14 total basics (deck hand firld). "oh no i give them basics" But irs asymmetrical exile based wipe and doesnt halt the game like farewell.
I hadn’t even thought about that, Wave in Ygra is insane! All those ‘food’ tokens being sacrificed makes one big commander
For Howl of the hord goes to a few ways to play a sorcery from the graveyard, which could turn two copies into I think six copies.
That’s a good point, if you had a commander like Kess or someone that let you cast Howl of the Horde from the graveyard the same turn you already have the raid activated, that would be so many copies!
Man, Modify Memory seems like a fun to use card for causung chaos! If like to see this played with Guilded Drake!
Absolutely, they never see it coming, it’s the best!
Man trying to explain the stack on masquerade is giving me a headache already, but that’s why too cool not to try and cram in my token deck
I can't see how it works because any creature with an imposter counter would be exiled and unable to return to the battlefield.
@@aarondunn6759 As is explained in the video, since the card isn't exiled until the masquerade trigger resolves it can be targeted in the graveyard and reanimated before it is exiled. If the card leaves the graveyard to the battlefield, it becomes a new game object and it can't be exiled by masquerade because it no longer exists as far as that ability is concerned.
Normally you would expect there would be some kind of clause preventing the reanimate effect if the card can't be exiled, but there isn't so you can stack the triggers so that if multiple of your creatures with imposter counters on them die, only one of them is exiled and the rest of your nontoken creatures return to the battlefield. (In the example in the video, they use a token that can't be reanimated anyways as the first trigger to resolve, reanimating your entire board for pretty much free in the case of a board wipe.)
Great explanation, thanks for sharing! Now the only trick is getting the playgroup to understand this isn’t a replacement effect “if a creature would die, exile it INSTEAD”
fishing pole + modify memory makes me happy
Absolutely agree
3 mana Kaito that loots and makes creatures unblockable in Modern Grixis Death's Shadow is another one that has surprised many and won me several games. I usually play just 1 copy, but he is really good for tempo and getting in with a big Frog or Shadow.
Super cool recommendations, I haven’t used them in my decks before but may need to consider it, thanks for sharing!
I had a Modify Memory in an Inniaz, The Gale Force deck, as just another way to swap control of things around. Definitely good enough for other decks though!
Inniaz is hilarious, do people usually get salty at the ability?
I really like your picks! I def added mine in a few decks!
That’s awesome to hear, I’m glad you enjoyed it!
I have Mandate of Peace and Plunge into Darkness in my decks already. I will have to look into these other cards.
Awesome to hear, let me know if you do end up using any more of them!
Great video. Love role reversal in my Niv Mizzet.
I don’t have a Nov Mizzet deck, but I do have a Lilah deck that I love to play it in
Howl of the Horde takes me back to when I used it in my Melekk, Izzet Paragon list back when Khans had just come out.
Insane card, usually used it to copy high tide twice to pop off and win
I’ve been thinking of a Melek Izzet Paragon deck, did playing with your top cards revealed ever feel like a disadvantage? I love copying spells, so Melek seems like one I need to try
@Unpopularmtg Never did no, but this was back before edhrec was just getting popular so people didn't have as many streamlined decks. Now with so many free spells and resources for deckbuilding it may be more detrimental.
I used Sensei's Divining Top to help hide the spell I actually was going to cast, Trinket Mage was a huge mvp in the deck
Getting Brainstorm/Ponder/Counterspell on an Isochron Scepter was also a common occurrence with the deck. I eventually took it apart as winning turns usually took 10-15 minutes of math until I combo'd off with something like Epic Experiment, Fireball or Blue Sun's Zenith with a Laboratory Maniac out
Modify memory is great, swapped a sefris land fall deck with a vihan goldwaker treasure deck last night, took the vihan player 2 turns to exile their commander to cast again, the sefris player was shut out.
Haha no way that’s awesome, last night even?? Let’s go!
beautiful cards!! And they are cheaper, than i expected!
That’s one of the best parts of unpopular cards, there’s low demand so the prices are cheap!
Sick video, really enjoyed this
Love to hear it, thanks!