I actually strongly considered putting keranos in a deck that didn't run front-facing lands, but decided against it when I went for the zendikar party and ally stuff with the tazri that cares about them.
Keranos is insanely good. One of my favorite decks. Of course Izzet decks are not that different, but with Keranos you have a different playstyle and he provides so much value
@@bryankopkin6869 well. Mainly I use him as a Draw engine running 38 lands. Like almost every Izzet its a spellslinger deck but I dont use extra turns and dont use the Niv Mizzet/Curiosity combo and I mixed the deck with Big Spells like Thousand Year Storm, Arcane Bombardment, Double Vision. And I mainly dont use the copy spells to win with storm or burn. I ramp a lot using Keranos, mana rocks and Mana Geyser to play with my opponents cards using Wand of Wonders and copying Blatant Thievery or Bribery and then, in the next turn, copy those as many times as possible with Mnemonic Deluge. And I have one unnusual combo and not that easy (but probably my favorite combo) in this deck that needs a lot of mana wich is Confiscate + Radiant Performer to stole all permanents in play
That deck actually sounds super cool. I also love that you don't have a blindingly white background on your vids, the gentler grey is much appreciated :)
Wait... THIS is your first video?? Very impressive, and enjoyable to watch. Simple style and editing choices that drive focus to the discussion. Really really amazing!
I recently got into magic and for a while just got by using precons. But after a friend of mine showed me his werewolf deck and after it absolutely kicked my ass, he suggested that I take a look into building my own decks to try out against our group. After searching around for a while I decided I wanted to do a Golgari deck and Pharika honestly resonated with me. So I made a snake themed deck with a lot of removal and deathtouch. I finished the deck just this week and it was extremely rewarding. Pharika is underrated, but not unloved.
I think thats when the game grabs you. It happened to me when the invasion expansion launched. We were playing the game with what we could buy in the big city in Argentina, far away from small hometown. Only a couple old cards and some mercadian cycle cards. Then invasion launched and the boosters were sold at our hometown and it was multicolored and slower as a format. It grabbed us. I made a deck of blue flyers and some bounce. It ended up being similar to a championship deck called blue skies. Created to beat a fast deck at the time called Fires of yavimaya (I leave this decks names so you can check the meta at the time). You had rebels vs blue skies vs fires of yavimaya vs UB control. This is me using your comment to remember such times. Almost 20 years ago. I know when the game grabs you. Please share werewolf deck haha
I’ve seen a few of your videos now. I don’t know exactly what it is, but something about your format, the way you present your information just makes my brain happy. Keep it up please!
Rarely has a first video been so good. This primer really gave me an insight into how to build pharika, as well as making me reconsider my own deck building patterns. I wait with anticipation for your future videos. Automatic subscription.
I love building unpopular commanders and started building Pharika just a few days ago. Neither the EDHREC article nor any of the TH-cam content about her was appealing to me at all for the build. So excited to get recommended this exactly when I needed it! Great video!
Been brewing around Pharika for almost 6 years now!!! Started as a tiny leaders rock deck and grew into a deck that used a lot of instant speed constellation critters and creatures that sac/etb. Also I think that you can do Umori with Pharika if you choose creatures instead of Enchantments! I'm REALLY HAPPY that someone else has discovered this ridiculousy underrated commander
Absolutely you can do Umori if you choose creature instead of enchantment, but honestly i think I’ll miss wilderness reclamation, sol ring, tortured existence, and especially insidious roots too much. Not impossible though! Trust me i want to be a believer, just too steep for me to rationalize at least for now.
I think for me, discovering Kagemaro, First to Suffer was my Pharika moment. I was trawling the depths of EDHrec's mono black page when I saw this commander with less than 100 decks in their database. This card, for a single black mana and at INSTANT speed can wipe the board provided you have a big enough hand, so I got to brewing with all the combat tricks that bring creatures back if they would be destroyed like Not Dead After All + black draw spells that have been printed in the 20 years since the card was released. I took the deck apart somewhat recently as I wanted to brew other things (+ sell Sheoldred the Apocalypse) but it was a ton of fun whilst I had it! Fully endorse more people seeing what's possible with old jank
Edited pre-vid comment with post vid thoughts. Pulling this card I tried it in 3 different decks in standard, and even in the sb it was disappointing. In a Jarriad deck, my forest EDH deck, I tried it and it was the 3rd or 4th card cut when aether revolt came out. I love this card, it just had the impact of a wet paper towel. I hope I missed something! Holy cow! The snakes are enchantments! That's a really good call I should have used that. THOUGH WHEN I used her I was not an enchantress gamer. Also those new charts like tormod is a great point. I'm super happy to know she has
Pharika was my first legendary creature I ever pulled back in OG Theros block and I tried to make her work in Commander for FOREVER as a teenager, and eventually consigned to run her in my 60 card golgari Constellation build me and a friend threw together with then only the OG Theros constellation cards so this is actually super validating. Loved this video, and looking forward to seeing more!
Kinda crazy your first video is doing this well. i love your deck and am considering trying it out. it reminds me of my glissa the traitor deck that just keeps getting new tech. i love these old underated and misunderstood commamders
Feel like I'm on the ground floor of a future great MtG channel! Nice video, loved your thoughts on an underrated commander. Cool sona, too. I've got a Pharika deck too, built around the fact that her ability gives deathtouch snakes to any player so long as they have a stocked graveyard, allowing me to not only protect myself but to make deals with the other players by blunting attacks from enemies, and helping allies build up a board. The deck plays lots of effects that mill all players, so I can get to making snakes ASAP, as well as political cards like Shared Trauma (look that one up, it's comically bad) Tempt with Immortality/Discovery, and Incarnation Technique. It spends most of the game arranging the board in just the right way that I can take over the game when at least one player gets knocked out, typically with some sort of Overrun effect or a mass reanimate. This works great in my low-to-medium power playgroup, but this video has really made me curious what a less "cute" build of the deck could be.
I built Pharika this year and had an experience just like this! My buddy and I who both love Theros gods were lamenting Pharika's low placement on edhrec. I honed in on the snakes being enchantment creatures and was simultaneously looking for a home for insidious roots, and everything sort of just fell into place.
I also had a Pharika moment!! Maeve, Insidious Singer, has some of my fav magic art. She was released in the Game Knights set and basically forgotten, since on the surface her deck seems whatever. Every suggested list told me to cram goad into it, but Maeve doesn't care about goad. She cares the creatures she goads attack. I built her with artifacts and activated ability synergy, to get big mana fast and turbo goad. From there, she loads her hand up and when its time, she combos out. Going infinite with her is a way to draw your deck out, since she hits her ability on self and swings. Labman/Jace or Psychosis Crawler/Thoracle are the finishers, and the deck never draws heat since everyone sees Maeve and is like huh, interesting goad card. It taught me a ton about brewing myself!
Been brewing Pharika based on your list, I'm deeply in love (again), this will certainly be a keeper! Does so much so early. I'm a child waiting for christmas, can't wait to get the rest of my cards 🤟
Oh boy I remember Pharika, back in the day this was one of my favorite commanders however the support for the way you built it wasn't there at the time. I had instead built her to abuse on death triggers and to act as kind of a Voltron deck. I eventually disassembled her because she was far too mean and nobody wanted to play against her (a sentiment I absolutely agreed with). I would run every enchantment under the sun that could destroy creatures with the deck signature card being Pestilence, Pharika would survive because of the indestructible, I would summon snakes to my opponent's fields to get more death triggers, and then I would give her auras to buff her damage. Winning through either commander damage, pestilence damage, or Revel in Riches. I am so glad you were able to find a version that is not nearly as unplayably mean as mine was. It was good seeing her again and I'm glad others are enjoying her, thank you.
Pestilence is such a messed up card. Pharika started in the 99 of my grismold deck but I graduated her to the command zone and retired grismold for the literal EXACT reason why you retired your old commander deck, it would just prevent my friends from playing.
loved this video, great topic and well explained. Would have loved to hear more about green collect evidence mechanics in the murder at karlov manor set play into her gameplay to make the point about old decks not being a good place to start for this brew hit home more, but you got there in the primer. Bravo
I’m back from watching this video a couple months ago and man are you right when you say magic is a living game. Now with “Eerie” a new constellation effect we now have a wider access to enchantment ETB cards that are genuinely good. If anything this has boosted my resolve to make an awesome pharika deck with loops with riftsweeper because it too looks at anyone’s exiled stuff so in I want to get out my own creatures from exile to slowly start the loop again, I can.
Great video! My Pharika moment was building Tuya Bearclaw mith mostly bulk from my collection and some from my lgs to round out the list. The very first game I take down 2 people in the same turn and win the game.
EDH deckbuilding made a video about old commanders and talked about how he used to play this deck, and all the new tools that have come out over the years. It was always very low on my list but after listening to what he had to say, and the first THREE minutes of this video it's really caught my attention. I definitely missed so many things when evaluating this card and is one of the rare times that I'm still interested in potentially building a deck after hearing someone else talk about it first (usually I like to be able to take credit for playing a cool, overlooked commander) Excited for the rest of the video lol and waiting for more content!
Omg, I'm so glad this popped up in my feed. Literally this morning, I was brewing a Blex deck that I wanted to theme around cards leaving the graveyard, will definitely be checking your list out, if not pivoting entirely!
This reminded me of when I first found my current favorite commander, Sivriss with Cloakwood Hermit. I really sympathized with your story, and found the deck to be right up my alley. I have most of the cards in my collection or in my Sivriss deck, so I will likely be trying it out at my table, albeit with a few alterations where the deck has cards I dont own. One I'm definitely going to be putting in is Death Denied, to bring a bunch of key creatures back from your graveyard. Its a great "got ya" moment to fill up an empty hand or set up for big turns, and its instant speed and X cost makes it very versatile.
literally started flapping my hands when u revealed that these were **enchantment** snakes... that's sick!!! and as someone who's mtgsona is also an animal (izzet leauge Minotaur) i respect ur elk
Another great video. I really appreciate your ability to approach typically underpowered commanders from a unique perspective and think outside of the box. It's one of the things that I think makes Commander a great format. You also do a really great job at working through your thought process, which I think makes for great (and surprisingly uncommon) content.
I tried making Pharika about snakes, constellation and leaving the graveyard triggers but i see that i just didn’t delve deep enough into scryfall. Really cool vid!
I actually put this card in my Myrkul, Lord of Bones deck; I know..I know but the white pip does help immensely with creature enchantment token creatures. Now if you add all the constellation effects and repeated token creatures, thats another way to ensure a dominate board state.
Great first video and I can’t wait to see more! I also have always loved the art on Pharika, but have never found a pile worth playing. Your revelation moment sounds so cool, and thank you for sharing this really cool deck!
Dude, I built Pharika years ago and am guilty of using constellation effects with the snake tokens. It also had quite a few cycling creatures to fill the grave. This version looks pretty cool though. Great work on the deck and excellent reason to explore older cards with new releases.
This inspired me to make my own take on Pharika as well :D I'll be trying it tonight, thank you so much for highlighting such a cool niche commander! I look forward to your future videos.
Pharika has been on my to-do list for a while. It's mostly just been enchantress/constellation synergies from leftover Legacy brews but I hadn't thought of using the snakes for combat politics! Also thank you for reminding me that Insidious Roots is a card that I keep forgetting to add to my carts. Snarling Gorehound is also a crazy card that I completely missed. Looking forward to future vids!
As a Person who build a EDH Deck of each of the OG two color- and each new mono colored Theros Gods, this is truely a interesting casual build. I had build Pharika multible times, first as enchantent focus, who was back in the early days, lacking of enchantment support. Then as a Apostel/Demon deck. Now i play her as a Protean combo deck, because until now it was the fastest and efficientest way to play her. This was necessary because of the Powerlevel most people play today and im very successful with this deck. With the new enchantment cards i could give Pharika another try. thank you for this video, i really like your ideas behind this lovely legendary enchantment creature. she is one of the gods that i hold dear, because she is so unknown.
I love pharika more than any of my decks for sure. Absolute peak magic, has everything I love: jank combos, activated ability abuse with seedborn, hate cards (i mean gl reanimating with me holding open pharika mana), and a resilient commander that I probably only need to at max cast twice. Like its the perfect storm with these new cards from mkm. Hope you have luck with playing her
@@33elk with the Protean Hulk combo infinite reanimate of ALL graveyards, Pharika makes sure that only creature come back into play that are worth of her love. the others are turned into a exile-snake. i love my snek goddess!!
One of my friends is the creator of the Mutate Pharika deck! She is such a creative deck builder, though we tease her sometimes for the jankyness 😅. The deck was a actually a bit of a powerhouse in our pod, being very resilient against removal and the activated ability working well to threaten unfavorable attacks and play politics simultaneously.
I've been looking to Pharika for the longest time, but other decks have always taken priority since I couldn't find a way to build around her... well, this is just brilliant
I'm not the only one to realize this but I was excited when I thought of it. Rograkh and the prismatic Piper are a partner pair that don't care about what colored Mana to cast them. So if you can set up a recursion and Mana loop you are pretty well set.
I run Pharika in my Glissa the Traitor deck as a graveyard hate piece that also gives my opponents creatures for additional Glissa triggers. It's nice to see her getting some love.
Love the deck's design! My favourite decks are ones that play on different axises (axi?) all at once. My Shigeki, Jukai Visionary is a landfall + enchantress + threshold deck that is slow as heck but actually works real smoothly, and I quite enjoy how it plays. This feels a lot like that, with the mill + enchantress + leave-graveyard all working harmoniously. Keep up the good stuff!
Great video! Subbed. Pharika has been on my radar for a long time - she's just so thematically interesting. It was fun to see her broken down in so much detail.
Oh hey a Pharika deck! This is awesome, I somehow pulled like four of her when I first started playing back in Theros but I never found the right place to put her back then, really cool to see a deck using her now, she's always been a favourite. That's a sub from me.
I've been a Golgari fan since I got into MTG and Commander, and I've always looked at Pharika and been kind of puzzled by her. This definitely makes me interested in building her, since it sounds like she would be doing something a little bit different from my other Golgari decks.
really cool video and the deck on moxfield was super synergistic, i might actually brew her! For a first yt video this was really well done btw, keep it up and im sure you can reach more people :D
I too have a Pharika deck and took delight in the recent cards added from MKM. The consistency you mentioned is very real, the Doomwake Giant you flashed up I've found can get pretty oppressive. I also really like just having gravewlyard hate in the command zone. 90% of the time I'm using her ability on my own grave but the utility to deal with someone's muldrotha or whatever is cool. Her grave strategy feels more fair and she forces the turbo grave decks to play fairer. And she is just an indestructible 3 mana 5/5, devotion isn't always on but when it is, you have an excelent blocker and a decent threat. As I've grown as a player I've gravitated from big and splashy/obvious combo to more subtle synergies and utility cards, and I feel like Pharika is perfect in that space
As a long time lover of Pharika, I fully agree with you. She was the first Golgari commander I built after buying the Meren precon to learn how to play the game back in 2015. After quickly realizing Meren is way too good of a card and often drew tons of hate I switched things up. Often she is seen as weak, underpowered jank. A deck that is probably just Golgari Goodstuff. She is certainly a card that doesn't look like much compared to what other Golgari commanders can do. She makes for a unique experience. When I first read the card Desecrated Tomb when it came out in M19 I desperately wanted more cards like it. When we got Tormod I was elated lol. One of the first cards I found for Pharika that really made me fall in love is Eternal Scourge. It is so mana inefficient to do it but man do I love spending 5 mana I have lying around to make a snake and recast Eternal Scourge, especially when it triggers 4 or 5 pieces on my board. The Runes from Kaldheim are all pretty cool with the Theros gods because they do not fall off when switching between creature and noncreature. In that same vein, keyword counters are cool with her, I personally like the big cycling creatures that give deathtouch and trample. Cycling in general can be good with her. Chain of Acid becomes a 3 card combo with Witherbloom Apprentice when Pharika isn't turned on yet. Sure you could do it with Chain of Smog in a 2 turn combo win but why not run both lol. Pharika is great at committing crimes too, especially when those crimes are political. Pharika is a deck that I tinker with every few sets and I am always on the lookout for new tech. I find her level of shenanigans amusing and she always goes under the radar in games.
I wasn't into the witherbloom apprentice combo line because it felt like it had nothing to do with pharika and yeah eternal scourge is a bit too much mana and a synergy i originally missed, but the rest of this is definitely things are definitely cool things i saw and thought about for this deck haha. Glad to see someone else sees the potential!!
i've only played with precons or decks of my own making since i got back into the game last year, but decided to try this one out because it looked really interesting. I love the way it works, requiring a fair amount of setup to fully get started, but providing the deathtouch as a surprisingly powerful level of protection in the meantime. And the reward is a deck that can become scary very suddenly, and is very resilient to boardwipes, making it feel almost like they are good for the deck as a lot of the time the creatures that get sent to the graveyard can then just be immediately used as fuel for the next few pharika triggers (alongside the way pharika sticks to the board by being an indestructible god card). Also I found the way you have to think about the snakes on top of the base cost for exiling a card from an opponents' graveyard a real enjoyable experience. It really makes me think about the perfect moment i should be using that ability, which i feel is a good tool to help me improve at the game
This is such a cool deck! I was just trying to build something with Tormod and Desecrated Tomb, Varolz felt too janky focusing on counters but Pharika with enchantment synergies sounds really cool!
first thing i thought of when you started talking about maximizing pharika's ability was tormod! i've never found a place for him in my black decks but i always wanted to make him work since pulling him in a commander legends draft. nice video. hope to see more
This is my random command that I have to build for a special game that got picked via random commander. I'll try to build it with your advice and hopefully learn something new
I honestly love my enchantress deck AND love graveyard decks, so I’m tempted to steal this decklist outright! 😂 But seriously, excellent video! I’m loving all the new edh content creators coming out of the woodwork to post about much more enlightened and informed deckbuilding strategies and philosophies! I suffer from tunnel vision myself when brewing and it can lead to frustration when cutting cards or figuring out synergies so content like this can help refocus my mind. Best of luck and hoping for your channel’s growth!
Hah, I was very much not with you until you pointed out the constellation activation and then it all dawned on me XD . Good vid. I've been historically a bit bummed out that she wasn't as solid as some of the other original theros gods so it's good to see her find a niche.
Spellweaver Helix was a straight up unplayable card in EDH before Dragon's Approach, but now it's an amazingly fun secret commander to build around (like casting Clone Legion every turn, or insta-winning with Worldfire)
Celestial Kirin for me- we've gotten a lot more good spirits since it's release, including a couple of X-spells that can be used as mass land destruction with it out! The mass land destruction definitely isn't for everyone, but I really like it tbh.
YAYYY love for pharika!!! the angle you take here is really interesting, and its cathartic to see pharika work so well! i pulled a foil pharika back in 2014 and built a snake deck around her, the deck was NOT lol good but i loved it to bits, such a beautiful card. ive always wanted to do smth with umori so i might give that doomed pharika build an attempt, though my current ideas for umori are either a rule zero BG shigeki+umori deck or umori egg combo. i LOVE building around underrated commanders so its hard to pick a single Pharika Moment, but maybe my favorite deck i own right now is a Kels, Fight Fixer deck that's literally just an aristocrats shell and a control shell smashed together. it does a great job at keeping the table in check and being an invisible threat. looping kairi + dread return has been my favorite emergent synergy from the deck. im really loving your channel so far, keep up the great work! :3
Heh, I actually built a deck with leaves your graveyard synergies recently too, but using Sivriss/Cloakwood Hermit instead as I wanted to build a squirrel deck before bloomburrow dropped. That didn't work out but turns out Sivriss works well with insidious roots and friends.
okay you mentioned Insidious Roots and I'm in. I love Golgari decks (fave is Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest) and this feels like this goes in a fun different direction
This is an MTG love story if I've ever seen one. Makes you wonder what other forgotten cards are out there just waiting for that one special player to turn them into winners.
I've always had a vague interest in Pharika, mostly a curiosity around "What was the design philosophy for a (seemingly) group hug Golgari card?" She just needed time to have support for her printed
I don’t build these decks just for the channel. They are decks I’ve specifically been playing for awhile already. That being said, zada, feather, gargos (vicious watcher), ivy (gleeful spellthief); these are all cards that can make such a deck work really well.
One of my decks, built around Fain, the Broker, is really quite good at forcing my opponents to check for any tricks I can do. Sacrificing artifacts for surprise blockers, sacrificing creatures to flip a block in my favor, throwing away chump blockers, sometimes even putting counters on my opponent's creatures so they can win a combat unexpectedly. Plus he natively has the ability to untap to double down on the shenanigans when need be.
You have a very clever way of building decks. I have most of the cards for this deck and look forward to building it. Your Kura deck looks fun but would need too many proxies. But either way, very happy I stumbled upon your channel!
Yeah i plan for my first few videos to be about decks I literally own so nothing like “you can build this deck for 20$!” where I’ve never played the deck or anything. Basically, I don’t want to make a deck tech video about a deck I’m not confident I at least have some experience in so you’re gonna see some wild fluctuations in deck quality and price because these decks are ones I actually play and upgrade in paper frequently. Like I’m literally invested in their success haha. Also you may have noticed i talk about most cards in the deck pretty broadly/loosely because decks change overtime and I want this video to stand the test of time which is why i say “please read the primer!” Cuz i can actually update that thing haha I don’t really have a gimmick after that. I have maybe 6 decks maximum I want to talk about. Maybe after them I’ll talk about my commander deck graveyard or touch on how building a cube has been a good way of finding a home for pet cards I really want to play but can’t find a deck for because they’re too weak. That’s right, imma make some cube propaganda and try to turn some players away from being commander only mwuhahahaha.
@@33elk wonderful to hear, elk! I believe players need to try other formats to understand magic better and honestly even just to have more fun. Decks like High Tide, Manaless Dredge, even just good old fashioned Burn helped me start seeing lines of play I couldn't before. Evaluating board states and knowing when to buy time versus when to commit entirely is a skill best learned in 60 card formats. Drafts helped with making the best of a bad situation and living by the phrase "make them have it." Real games aren't goldfished so expect the removal. Expect to be sandbagged or be a turn away from a combo loss. Have the removal and always push your opponents to need it for you. Bombs, removal, evasion, aggro. Drafting is deck building bootcamp and more players need to do it to break their habits of decks with not enough lands, card draw, or removal, just stuffed with bombs and pet cards that never get their value. So I'll be down in the comments helping nudge people into cube too. Magic is too lovely a game to know only one of its faces.
I stopped playing MtG about a decade ago but I *have* a Pharika deck! It's pretty much a watered down version of this idea using cards available at the time. A bit of self-mill, some constellation triggers, and various creature-based removal to restock the graveyard. I don't like the direction MtG has taken since then so I don't intend to pick the deck back up, but it's nice to know that people are giving this card another look as the engine it offers is second to none in creative potential.
If you love magic but hate how it is currently I can't recommend cube enough. I'll do a video on it someday soon. Hopefully you're already super into cube.
@@33elk The only cube I've played recently is one with way too many modern cards, and I hate it. But I love cubes that don't use cards printed after 2014 or so (or are very careful in what they curate from after that era). If you want a funny anecdote about cube, I absolutely despise Stax builds in every single form of MtG other than cube. I think they're an obvious affront to the idea that they don't let people meaningfully play the game. But I ADORE them in powered cubes. I will slam-pick Balance, Smokestack, and Armageddon every chance I get if I think I can grab all the pieces. I really don't know how to explain why that is. My best guess is that because the power level of those cubes is so high, the idea that I'm holding back the floodgates of letting my opponent slam game-ending bombs at any moment is really exciting.
The same happened to me with Karametra. When my playgroup saw my commander, they thought it was just another typical enchantress deck. Actually, the deck barely has any other enchantments, it's a ramping machine filled with lots of creature bouncing effects and creature based cascades, that pretty soon put all my lands on the field. And everybody knows that having so much mana can act miracles to make you win out of nowhere
this reminds me of my recently built Reveka deck the ammount of "better frogify"printed lately has allowed me to build a decently funny mono blue ping deck I call it "that otter had a gun!" (after a great game with thieving otter)
yoo this is some top-notch quality video right there ! I'm still not convinced about the deck's strength until I've seen it in action (I'm worried it relies too much on its commander and its value pieces) but your presentation was super good and you gave me a lot to think about, thanks! The conclusion is gonna have me retroactively look at way too many cards x3
I agree with you unironically. Most of the time I wouldn’t build a deck that is this needy for its commander in play, but pharika is a theros god so out of 50 games with her (I’m guessing) she’s only actually gotten removed maybe 5 of those games because indestructible enchantment is hard to deal with. Even then the deck has good mana acceleration and so it’s not hard to recast her and activate her a couple of times if she does get killed for only 5 mana (and you might get some constellation triggers from recasting her too lol). Against a drannith magistrate, gravehate, or pithing needle it gets slightly harder but remember the deck is black/green so any permanent you don’t like isn’t going to stay around for long.
![[EDH] My favorite green commander WANTS to be destroyed](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/uqiygfohojM/mqdefault.jpg)
![[EDH] My favorite green commander WANTS to be destroyed](/img/tr.png)
![[EDH] What you NEED to make a Commander deck](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/prg6qNDgjsk/mqdefault.jpg)
![[EDH] Lessons from Decks I’ve Dismantled](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/D5RvQLD0f84/mqdefault.jpg)
Great, now do keranos
I actually strongly considered putting keranos in a deck that didn't run front-facing lands, but decided against it when I went for the zendikar party and ally stuff with the tazri that cares about them.
Real :(
Keranos is insanely good. One of my favorite decks. Of course Izzet decks are not that different, but with Keranos you have a different playstyle and he provides so much value
@@FelippeARJ what sort of deck do you have him at the helm of? I could see how he can be powerful as just value rather than building a deck around him
@@bryankopkin6869 well. Mainly I use him as a Draw engine running 38 lands. Like almost every Izzet its a spellslinger deck but I dont use extra turns and dont use the Niv Mizzet/Curiosity combo and I mixed the deck with Big Spells like Thousand Year Storm, Arcane Bombardment, Double Vision. And I mainly dont use the copy spells to win with storm or burn. I ramp a lot using Keranos, mana rocks and Mana Geyser to play with my opponents cards using Wand of Wonders and copying Blatant Thievery or Bribery and then, in the next turn, copy those as many times as possible with Mnemonic Deluge. And I have one unnusual combo and not that easy (but probably my favorite combo) in this deck that needs a lot of mana wich is Confiscate + Radiant Performer to stole all permanents in play
Between you, Trinketmage, and Snail I feel like my entire deck building philosophy has changed more in the last 3 months than the prior 7 years.
3/3 artifact snail
Great first vid! I'm excited to see what's next!
I was absolutely sold once you said you could give an opponent a secret blocker, that's my favorite kind of thing to do ever
That deck actually sounds super cool. I also love that you don't have a blindingly white background on your vids, the gentler grey is much appreciated :)
LOL, NO OFFENSE TO SNAIL BUT THATS WHY ITS GRAY.
I wrote that article! Crazy that people read it. Pharika rules.
Wait... THIS is your first video?? Very impressive, and enjoyable to watch. Simple style and editing choices that drive focus to the discussion. Really really amazing!
I recently got into magic and for a while just got by using precons. But after a friend of mine showed me his werewolf deck and after it absolutely kicked my ass, he suggested that I take a look into building my own decks to try out against our group. After searching around for a while I decided I wanted to do a Golgari deck and Pharika honestly resonated with me. So I made a snake themed deck with a lot of removal and deathtouch. I finished the deck just this week and it was extremely rewarding. Pharika is underrated, but not unloved.
I think thats when the game grabs you. It happened to me when the invasion expansion launched. We were playing the game with what we could buy in the big city in Argentina, far away from small hometown. Only a couple old cards and some mercadian cycle cards. Then invasion launched and the boosters were sold at our hometown and it was multicolored and slower as a format. It grabbed us. I made a deck of blue flyers and some bounce. It ended up being similar to a championship deck called blue skies. Created to beat a fast deck at the time called Fires of yavimaya (I leave this decks names so you can check the meta at the time). You had rebels vs blue skies vs fires of yavimaya vs UB control. This is me using your comment to remember such times. Almost 20 years ago. I know when the game grabs you.
Please share werewolf deck haha
I’ve seen a few of your videos now. I don’t know exactly what it is, but something about your format, the way you present your information just makes my brain happy. Keep it up please!
Rarely has a first video been so good. This primer really gave me an insight into how to build pharika, as well as making me reconsider my own deck building patterns. I wait with anticipation for your future videos. Automatic subscription.
I love building unpopular commanders and started building Pharika just a few days ago. Neither the EDHREC article nor any of the TH-cam content about her was appealing to me at all for the build. So excited to get recommended this exactly when I needed it! Great video!
Been brewing around Pharika for almost 6 years now!!! Started as a tiny leaders rock deck and grew into a deck that used a lot of instant speed constellation critters and creatures that sac/etb.
Also I think that you can do Umori with Pharika if you choose creatures instead of Enchantments!
I'm REALLY HAPPY that someone else has discovered this ridiculousy underrated commander
Absolutely you can do Umori if you choose creature instead of enchantment, but honestly i think I’ll miss wilderness reclamation, sol ring, tortured existence, and especially insidious roots too much. Not impossible though!
Trust me i want to be a believer, just too steep for me to rationalize at least for now.
i was just considering building pharika, but i just couldnt figure out how to make it work! this is amazing! thank you!
I think for me, discovering Kagemaro, First to Suffer was my Pharika moment. I was trawling the depths of EDHrec's mono black page when I saw this commander with less than 100 decks in their database. This card, for a single black mana and at INSTANT speed can wipe the board provided you have a big enough hand, so I got to brewing with all the combat tricks that bring creatures back if they would be destroyed like Not Dead After All + black draw spells that have been printed in the 20 years since the card was released.
I took the deck apart somewhat recently as I wanted to brew other things (+ sell Sheoldred the Apocalypse) but it was a ton of fun whilst I had it! Fully endorse more people seeing what's possible with old jank
Super excited to build this! The second you pointed out each token was an enchantment I was in.
Thank You very much. I wanted to build this Commander since FOREVER, and now I have an awesome primer and starting point. Kudos!
Edited pre-vid comment with post vid thoughts.
Pulling this card I tried it in 3 different decks in standard, and even in the sb it was disappointing. In a Jarriad deck, my forest EDH deck, I tried it and it was the 3rd or 4th card cut when aether revolt came out.
I love this card, it just had the impact of a wet paper towel. I hope I missed something!
Holy cow! The snakes are enchantments! That's a really good call I should have used that. THOUGH WHEN I used her I was not an enchantress gamer.
Also those new charts like tormod is a great point. I'm super happy to know she has
Pharika was my first legendary creature I ever pulled back in OG Theros block and I tried to make her work in Commander for FOREVER as a teenager, and eventually consigned to run her in my 60 card golgari Constellation build me and a friend threw together with then only the OG Theros constellation cards so this is actually super validating. Loved this video, and looking forward to seeing more!
Kinda crazy your first video is doing this well. i love your deck and am considering trying it out. it reminds me of my glissa the traitor deck that just keeps getting new tech. i love these old underated and misunderstood commamders
Feel like I'm on the ground floor of a future great MtG channel! Nice video, loved your thoughts on an underrated commander. Cool sona, too.
I've got a Pharika deck too, built around the fact that her ability gives deathtouch snakes to any player so long as they have a stocked graveyard, allowing me to not only protect myself but to make deals with the other players by blunting attacks from enemies, and helping allies build up a board. The deck plays lots of effects that mill all players, so I can get to making snakes ASAP, as well as political cards like Shared Trauma (look that one up, it's comically bad) Tempt with Immortality/Discovery, and Incarnation Technique. It spends most of the game arranging the board in just the right way that I can take over the game when at least one player gets knocked out, typically with some sort of Overrun effect or a mass reanimate. This works great in my low-to-medium power playgroup, but this video has really made me curious what a less "cute" build of the deck could be.
I built Pharika this year and had an experience just like this! My buddy and I who both love Theros gods were lamenting Pharika's low placement on edhrec. I honed in on the snakes being enchantment creatures and was simultaneously looking for a home for insidious roots, and everything sort of just fell into place.
I also had a Pharika moment!! Maeve, Insidious Singer, has some of my fav magic art. She was released in the Game Knights set and basically forgotten, since on the surface her deck seems whatever. Every suggested list told me to cram goad into it, but Maeve doesn't care about goad. She cares the creatures she goads attack. I built her with artifacts and activated ability synergy, to get big mana fast and turbo goad. From there, she loads her hand up and when its time, she combos out. Going infinite with her is a way to draw your deck out, since she hits her ability on self and swings. Labman/Jace or Psychosis Crawler/Thoracle are the finishers, and the deck never draws heat since everyone sees Maeve and is like huh, interesting goad card. It taught me a ton about brewing myself!
Love the vid also super cute sona. Hope to see more from you!
i love theros and i love niche commanders so this video drew me in so much, AND YOUR PHARIKA ART IS BEAUTIFUL!!
Your vids feel like a mtg Ted talk, something with your cadence is just right, great vids
I have either 2 or three copies in my various old decks and boxes. I loved journey into nyx and i look forward too playing with this card again
Been brewing Pharika based on your list, I'm deeply in love (again), this will certainly be a keeper! Does so much so early. I'm a child waiting for christmas, can't wait to get the rest of my cards 🤟
Oh boy I remember Pharika, back in the day this was one of my favorite commanders however the support for the way you built it wasn't there at the time.
I had instead built her to abuse on death triggers and to act as kind of a Voltron deck. I eventually disassembled her because she was far too mean and nobody wanted to play against her (a sentiment I absolutely agreed with).
I would run every enchantment under the sun that could destroy creatures with the deck signature card being Pestilence, Pharika would survive because of the indestructible, I would summon snakes to my opponent's fields to get more death triggers, and then I would give her auras to buff her damage. Winning through either commander damage, pestilence damage, or Revel in Riches.
I am so glad you were able to find a version that is not nearly as unplayably mean as mine was. It was good seeing her again and I'm glad others are enjoying her, thank you.
Pestilence is such a messed up card. Pharika started in the 99 of my grismold deck but I graduated her to the command zone and retired grismold for the literal EXACT reason why you retired your old commander deck, it would just prevent my friends from playing.
loved this video, great topic and well explained. Would have loved to hear more about green collect evidence mechanics in the murder at karlov manor set play into her gameplay to make the point about old decks not being a good place to start for this brew hit home more, but you got there in the primer. Bravo
Really love the sound of this deck. Might have to try putting something together myself now!
I’m back from watching this video a couple months ago and man are you right when you say magic is a living game. Now with “Eerie” a new constellation effect we now have a wider access to enchantment ETB cards that are genuinely good. If anything this has boosted my resolve to make an awesome pharika deck with loops with riftsweeper because it too looks at anyone’s exiled stuff so in I want to get out my own creatures from exile to slowly start the loop again, I can.
Great video!
My Pharika moment was building Tuya Bearclaw mith mostly bulk from my collection and some from my lgs to round out the list. The very first game I take down 2 people in the same turn and win the game.
I love revisiting old, relatively underpowered commanders to see what can be done. What a fun deck!
EDH deckbuilding made a video about old commanders and talked about how he used to play this deck, and all the new tools that have come out over the years. It was always very low on my list but after listening to what he had to say, and the first THREE minutes of this video it's really caught my attention. I definitely missed so many things when evaluating this card and is one of the rare times that I'm still interested in potentially building a deck after hearing someone else talk about it first (usually I like to be able to take credit for playing a cool, overlooked commander)
Excited for the rest of the video lol and waiting for more content!
Omg, I'm so glad this popped up in my feed. Literally this morning, I was brewing a Blex deck that I wanted to theme around cards leaving the graveyard, will definitely be checking your list out, if not pivoting entirely!
This reminded me of when I first found my current favorite commander, Sivriss with Cloakwood Hermit. I really sympathized with your story, and found the deck to be right up my alley. I have most of the cards in my collection or in my Sivriss deck, so I will likely be trying it out at my table, albeit with a few alterations where the deck has cards I dont own. One I'm definitely going to be putting in is Death Denied, to bring a bunch of key creatures back from your graveyard. Its a great "got ya" moment to fill up an empty hand or set up for big turns, and its instant speed and X cost makes it very versatile.
literally started flapping my hands when u revealed that these were **enchantment** snakes... that's sick!!! and as someone who's mtgsona is also an animal (izzet leauge Minotaur) i respect ur elk
Yes the snakes being enchantments make for some super funny plays lmao
What is an mtgsona?
That's the absolute most autistic comment I've ever read in my life.
Another great video. I really appreciate your ability to approach typically underpowered commanders from a unique perspective and think outside of the box. It's one of the things that I think makes Commander a great format. You also do a really great job at working through your thought process, which I think makes for great (and surprisingly uncommon) content.
I tried making Pharika about snakes, constellation and leaving the graveyard triggers but i see that i just didn’t delve deep enough into scryfall. Really cool vid!
I actually put this card in my Myrkul, Lord of Bones deck; I know..I know but the white pip does help immensely with creature enchantment token creatures. Now if you add all the constellation effects and repeated token creatures, thats another way to ensure a dominate board state.
Great first video and I can’t wait to see more! I also have always loved the art on Pharika, but have never found a pile worth playing. Your revelation moment sounds so cool, and thank you for sharing this really cool deck!
Coming out the gates with a great vid, gotta respect it. Hoping you grow quickly. ❤
Very cool and good start to the channel!! Excited to see more :)
Dude, I built Pharika years ago and am guilty of using constellation effects with the snake tokens. It also had quite a few cycling creatures to fill the grave. This version looks pretty cool though. Great work on the deck and excellent reason to explore older cards with new releases.
great video hope to see more cool commander decks from you in the future
Might try this, Pharika was my first mythic. (which was why I clicked) Also great job on the first video!
Just figured out my pharika build the other day after what felt like forever ! Great video! Long live Pharika!
This inspired me to make my own take on Pharika as well :D
I'll be trying it tonight, thank you so much for highlighting such a cool niche commander! I look forward to your future videos.
This is an amazing look at Pharika. I'm gonna have to take a look at your decklist.
Pharika has been on my to-do list for a while. It's mostly just been enchantress/constellation synergies from leftover Legacy brews but I hadn't thought of using the snakes for combat politics! Also thank you for reminding me that Insidious Roots is a card that I keep forgetting to add to my carts. Snarling Gorehound is also a crazy card that I completely missed. Looking forward to future vids!
As a Person who build a EDH Deck of each of the OG two color- and each new mono colored Theros Gods, this is truely a interesting casual build.
I had build Pharika multible times, first as enchantent focus, who was back in the early days, lacking of enchantment support. Then as a Apostel/Demon deck.
Now i play her as a Protean combo deck, because until now it was the fastest and efficientest way to play her. This was necessary because of the Powerlevel most people play today and im very successful with this deck.
With the new enchantment cards i could give Pharika another try.
thank you for this video, i really like your ideas behind this lovely legendary enchantment creature. she is one of the gods that i hold dear, because she is so unknown.
I love pharika more than any of my decks for sure. Absolute peak magic, has everything I love: jank combos, activated ability abuse with seedborn, hate cards (i mean gl reanimating with me holding open pharika mana), and a resilient commander that I probably only need to at max cast twice. Like its the perfect storm with these new cards from mkm. Hope you have luck with playing her
@@33elk with the Protean Hulk combo infinite reanimate of ALL graveyards, Pharika makes sure that only creature come back into play that are worth of her love. the others are turned into a exile-snake.
i love my snek goddess!!
Great first video 🎉
Ps, I love your avatar! So adorable 🥰
One of my friends is the creator of the Mutate Pharika deck! She is such a creative deck builder, though we tease her sometimes for the jankyness 😅. The deck was a actually a bit of a powerhouse in our pod, being very resilient against removal and the activated ability working well to threaten unfavorable attacks and play politics simultaneously.
Awesome video! You've inspired me to take another look at the golgari decks ive always shelved in the past
I am so glad I found this channel, love the decks and commentary!
I've been looking to Pharika for the longest time, but other decks have always taken priority since I couldn't find a way to build around her... well, this is just brilliant
I'm not the only one to realize this but I was excited when I thought of it. Rograkh and the prismatic Piper are a partner pair that don't care about what colored Mana to cast them. So if you can set up a recursion and Mana loop you are pretty well set.
I run Pharika in my Glissa the Traitor deck as a graveyard hate piece that also gives my opponents creatures for additional Glissa triggers. It's nice to see her getting some love.
Love the deck's design! My favourite decks are ones that play on different axises (axi?) all at once. My Shigeki, Jukai Visionary is a landfall + enchantress + threshold deck that is slow as heck but actually works real smoothly, and I quite enjoy how it plays. This feels a lot like that, with the mill + enchantress + leave-graveyard all working harmoniously.
Keep up the good stuff!
Great video! Subbed. Pharika has been on my radar for a long time - she's just so thematically interesting. It was fun to see her broken down in so much detail.
Oh hey a Pharika deck! This is awesome, I somehow pulled like four of her when I first started playing back in Theros but I never found the right place to put her back then, really cool to see a deck using her now, she's always been a favourite. That's a sub from me.
I've been a Golgari fan since I got into MTG and Commander, and I've always looked at Pharika and been kind of puzzled by her. This definitely makes me interested in building her, since it sounds like she would be doing something a little bit different from my other Golgari decks.
Wow that actually seems really cool!
Considering slotting her into my anikthea precon (self mill, enchantress and token strategies)
really cool video and the deck on moxfield was super synergistic, i might actually brew her! For a first yt video this was really well done btw, keep it up and im sure you can reach more people :D
Tysm!!
I too have a Pharika deck and took delight in the recent cards added from MKM. The consistency you mentioned is very real, the Doomwake Giant you flashed up I've found can get pretty oppressive.
I also really like just having gravewlyard hate in the command zone. 90% of the time I'm using her ability on my own grave but the utility to deal with someone's muldrotha or whatever is cool. Her grave strategy feels more fair and she forces the turbo grave decks to play fairer.
And she is just an indestructible 3 mana 5/5, devotion isn't always on but when it is, you have an excelent blocker and a decent threat. As I've grown as a player I've gravitated from big and splashy/obvious combo to more subtle synergies and utility cards, and I feel like Pharika is perfect in that space
The gravehate is really nice yeah
I Love Pharika, really wanted to do a deck with them. Many Thanksss!
Insta-subbed! Excellent video, looking forward to your next!
As a long time lover of Pharika, I fully agree with you. She was the first Golgari commander I built after buying the Meren precon to learn how to play the game back in 2015. After quickly realizing Meren is way too good of a card and often drew tons of hate I switched things up. Often she is seen as weak, underpowered jank. A deck that is probably just Golgari Goodstuff. She is certainly a card that doesn't look like much compared to what other Golgari commanders can do. She makes for a unique experience. When I first read the card Desecrated Tomb when it came out in M19 I desperately wanted more cards like it. When we got Tormod I was elated lol. One of the first cards I found for Pharika that really made me fall in love is Eternal Scourge. It is so mana inefficient to do it but man do I love spending 5 mana I have lying around to make a snake and recast Eternal Scourge, especially when it triggers 4 or 5 pieces on my board. The Runes from Kaldheim are all pretty cool with the Theros gods because they do not fall off when switching between creature and noncreature. In that same vein, keyword counters are cool with her, I personally like the big cycling creatures that give deathtouch and trample. Cycling in general can be good with her. Chain of Acid becomes a 3 card combo with Witherbloom Apprentice when Pharika isn't turned on yet. Sure you could do it with Chain of Smog in a 2 turn combo win but why not run both lol. Pharika is great at committing crimes too, especially when those crimes are political. Pharika is a deck that I tinker with every few sets and I am always on the lookout for new tech. I find her level of shenanigans amusing and she always goes under the radar in games.
I wasn't into the witherbloom apprentice combo line because it felt like it had nothing to do with pharika and yeah eternal scourge is a bit too much mana and a synergy i originally missed, but the rest of this is definitely things are definitely cool things i saw and thought about for this deck haha. Glad to see someone else sees the potential!!
i've only played with precons or decks of my own making since i got back into the game last year, but decided to try this one out because it looked really interesting.
I love the way it works, requiring a fair amount of setup to fully get started, but providing the deathtouch as a surprisingly powerful level of protection in the meantime. And the reward is a deck that can become scary very suddenly, and is very resilient to boardwipes, making it feel almost like they are good for the deck as a lot of the time the creatures that get sent to the graveyard can then just be immediately used as fuel for the next few pharika triggers (alongside the way pharika sticks to the board by being an indestructible god card).
Also I found the way you have to think about the snakes on top of the base cost for exiling a card from an opponents' graveyard a real enjoyable experience. It really makes me think about the perfect moment i should be using that ability, which i feel is a good tool to help me improve at the game
Really happy to hear you enjoyed the deck! Pharika is my baby.
This is such a cool deck! I was just trying to build something with Tormod and Desecrated Tomb, Varolz felt too janky focusing on counters but Pharika with enchantment synergies sounds really cool!
first thing i thought of when you started talking about maximizing pharika's ability was tormod! i've never found a place for him in my black decks but i always wanted to make him work since pulling him in a commander legends draft.
nice video. hope to see more
YAY Pharika getting some love, she's so cool but couldn't get a good list going. Glad someone has been having success!
Love this video she was the first mythic card I ever owned and she was in my deck for a good amount of time 🙌🏻
This is my random command that I have to build for a special game that got picked via random commander. I'll try to build it with your advice and hopefully learn something new
She has a ton of depth, have fun!
Wonderful first video~~ love seeing another fur(I assume) in the community!
I honestly love my enchantress deck AND love graveyard decks, so I’m tempted to steal this decklist outright! 😂
But seriously, excellent video! I’m loving all the new edh content creators coming out of the woodwork to post about much more enlightened and informed deckbuilding strategies and philosophies! I suffer from tunnel vision myself when brewing and it can lead to frustration when cutting cards or figuring out synergies so content like this can help refocus my mind.
Best of luck and hoping for your channel’s growth!
Awesome insights, I also never realized her tokens were enchantments. Reading is hard.
@@TippettRugby very much so! In my kura video I mention how when i first read her I inserted a phantom “basic” into her rules text
Hah, I was very much not with you until you pointed out the constellation activation and then it all dawned on me XD . Good vid. I've been historically a bit bummed out that she wasn't as solid as some of the other original theros gods so it's good to see her find a niche.
She is a very good commander! Wasn't always the case but she definitely is very unique now and has quickly become my favorite to play
Awesome vid dude, just rediscovered this commander and was blown away to see a recent vid about her
also dont forget targeting a card in opponents graveyards is committing a crime!!!
Very exciting and unique deck, I love this video!
Spellweaver Helix was a straight up unplayable card in EDH before Dragon's Approach, but now it's an amazingly fun secret commander to build around (like casting Clone Legion every turn, or insta-winning with Worldfire)
Celestial Kirin for me- we've gotten a lot more good spirits since it's release, including a couple of X-spells that can be used as mass land destruction with it out! The mass land destruction definitely isn't for everyone, but I really like it tbh.
YAYYY love for pharika!!! the angle you take here is really interesting, and its cathartic to see pharika work so well! i pulled a foil pharika back in 2014 and built a snake deck around her, the deck was NOT lol good but i loved it to bits, such a beautiful card. ive always wanted to do smth with umori so i might give that doomed pharika build an attempt, though my current ideas for umori are either a rule zero BG shigeki+umori deck or umori egg combo.
i LOVE building around underrated commanders so its hard to pick a single Pharika Moment, but maybe my favorite deck i own right now is a Kels, Fight Fixer deck that's literally just an aristocrats shell and a control shell smashed together. it does a great job at keeping the table in check and being an invisible threat. looping kairi + dread return has been my favorite emergent synergy from the deck.
im really loving your channel so far, keep up the great work! :3
Love to see you diving into the card, very nice!
I can relate to jank because I run thraximundar sac at my LGS
Heh, I actually built a deck with leaves your graveyard synergies recently too, but using Sivriss/Cloakwood Hermit instead as I wanted to build a squirrel deck before bloomburrow dropped. That didn't work out but turns out Sivriss works well with insidious roots and friends.
okay you mentioned Insidious Roots and I'm in. I love Golgari decks (fave is Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest) and this feels like this goes in a fun different direction
This is an MTG love story if I've ever seen one. Makes you wonder what other forgotten cards are out there just waiting for that one special player to turn them into winners.
I've always had a vague interest in Pharika, mostly a curiosity around "What was the design philosophy for a (seemingly) group hug Golgari card?" She just needed time to have support for her printed
This Channel is so good and you're just getting started, I'm looking forward to what is next 😮
I like the combat trick aspect of giving your opponents a surprise snake token. Can you think of another commander deck focusing around combat tricks?
I don’t build these decks just for the channel. They are decks I’ve specifically been playing for awhile already. That being said, zada, feather, gargos (vicious watcher), ivy (gleeful spellthief); these are all cards that can make such a deck work really well.
One of my decks, built around Fain, the Broker, is really quite good at forcing my opponents to check for any tricks I can do. Sacrificing artifacts for surprise blockers, sacrificing creatures to flip a block in my favor, throwing away chump blockers, sometimes even putting counters on my opponent's creatures so they can win a combat unexpectedly. Plus he natively has the ability to untap to double down on the shenanigans when need be.
Very well put together. I love the elk avatar!
You have a very clever way of building decks. I have most of the cards for this deck and look forward to building it. Your Kura deck looks fun but would need too many proxies. But either way, very happy I stumbled upon your channel!
Yeah i plan for my first few videos to be about decks I literally own so nothing like “you can build this deck for 20$!” where I’ve never played the deck or anything. Basically, I don’t want to make a deck tech video about a deck I’m not confident I at least have some experience in so you’re gonna see some wild fluctuations in deck quality and price because these decks are ones I actually play and upgrade in paper frequently. Like I’m literally invested in their success haha. Also you may have noticed i talk about most cards in the deck pretty broadly/loosely because decks change overtime and I want this video to stand the test of time which is why i say “please read the primer!” Cuz i can actually update that thing haha
I don’t really have a gimmick after that. I have maybe 6 decks maximum I want to talk about. Maybe after them I’ll talk about my commander deck graveyard or touch on how building a cube has been a good way of finding a home for pet cards I really want to play but can’t find a deck for because they’re too weak. That’s right, imma make some cube propaganda and try to turn some players away from being commander only mwuhahahaha.
@@33elk wonderful to hear, elk! I believe players need to try other formats to understand magic better and honestly even just to have more fun.
Decks like High Tide, Manaless Dredge, even just good old fashioned Burn helped me start seeing lines of play I couldn't before. Evaluating board states and knowing when to buy time versus when to commit entirely is a skill best learned in 60 card formats.
Drafts helped with making the best of a bad situation and living by the phrase "make them have it." Real games aren't goldfished so expect the removal. Expect to be sandbagged or be a turn away from a combo loss. Have the removal and always push your opponents to need it for you. Bombs, removal, evasion, aggro. Drafting is deck building bootcamp and more players need to do it to break their habits of decks with not enough lands, card draw, or removal, just stuffed with bombs and pet cards that never get their value.
So I'll be down in the comments helping nudge people into cube too. Magic is too lovely a game to know only one of its faces.
I stopped playing MtG about a decade ago but I *have* a Pharika deck! It's pretty much a watered down version of this idea using cards available at the time. A bit of self-mill, some constellation triggers, and various creature-based removal to restock the graveyard. I don't like the direction MtG has taken since then so I don't intend to pick the deck back up, but it's nice to know that people are giving this card another look as the engine it offers is second to none in creative potential.
If you love magic but hate how it is currently I can't recommend cube enough. I'll do a video on it someday soon. Hopefully you're already super into cube.
@@33elk The only cube I've played recently is one with way too many modern cards, and I hate it. But I love cubes that don't use cards printed after 2014 or so (or are very careful in what they curate from after that era).
If you want a funny anecdote about cube, I absolutely despise Stax builds in every single form of MtG other than cube. I think they're an obvious affront to the idea that they don't let people meaningfully play the game. But I ADORE them in powered cubes. I will slam-pick Balance, Smokestack, and Armageddon every chance I get if I think I can grab all the pieces. I really don't know how to explain why that is. My best guess is that because the power level of those cubes is so high, the idea that I'm holding back the floodgates of letting my opponent slam game-ending bombs at any moment is really exciting.
@@shuttlecrossing1433 I love low power cubes, my next video is actually about how cube is a better casual format than commander is lol
The same happened to me with Karametra. When my playgroup saw my commander, they thought it was just another typical enchantress deck. Actually, the deck barely has any other enchantments, it's a ramping machine filled with lots of creature bouncing effects and creature based cascades, that pretty soon put all my lands on the field. And everybody knows that having so much mana can act miracles to make you win out of nowhere
She’s been in my bull for ages and I always thought it was so cool…I just didn’t know HOW!
this reminds me of my recently built Reveka deck
the ammount of "better frogify"printed lately has allowed me to build a decently funny mono blue ping deck
I call it "that otter had a gun!"
(after a great game with thieving otter)
yoo this is some top-notch quality video right there !
I'm still not convinced about the deck's strength until I've seen it in action (I'm worried it relies too much on its commander and its value pieces) but your presentation was super good and you gave me a lot to think about, thanks!
The conclusion is gonna have me retroactively look at way too many cards x3
I agree with you unironically. Most of the time I wouldn’t build a deck that is this needy for its commander in play, but pharika is a theros god so out of 50 games with her (I’m guessing) she’s only actually gotten removed maybe 5 of those games because indestructible enchantment is hard to deal with. Even then the deck has good mana acceleration and so it’s not hard to recast her and activate her a couple of times if she does get killed for only 5 mana (and you might get some constellation triggers from recasting her too lol).
Against a drannith magistrate, gravehate, or pithing needle it gets slightly harder but remember the deck is black/green so any permanent you don’t like isn’t going to stay around for long.
Great video! Look forward to seeing more videos. Subbed👍👍
Sweet list!! Love seeing creative builds like this.