Two comments: 1. At this point, just have Snail join the team. He's here most of the time anyway haha 2. Every time I get asked, "How do I fix my deck," I always start by saying the same thing - lower your curve, increase your ramp and draw, and build towards a game plan.
I would argue no color pairing is without access to removal nowadays, but some *do* need to get a little creative to get access to all *kinds* of removal. It could be a fun video.
Gruul has good removal, Red can burn creatures and planewalkers and Green kills anything else, i actually think dimir unironically has less removal than Gruul, barring creatures and things on the stack
I can agree with what mage was saying about charbelcher. I don't tell people all the strong "combos" and stuff I am running before a game starts but if I am playing some weird niche card that is going to be a problem I make sure I read out what it does and make it more apparent that I really want this card and that it is going to be a problem if they let it run free.
Felt the Archenemy pressure last Sunday when I had Ghyrson Starn, Basalisk Collar, and Manabarbs on the field! Apparently nobody liked being hosed when they wanted to play anything lol
I think the most archenemy commander I can think of is Jodah, the unifier. If I see someone sit down with that I just have to target them because once they cast their first legendary spell after jodah the game is going to start ending fast. I still think this card was a mistake having both abilities.
One of my favorite things about Life Gain decks is that it encourages people to attack me early, which primes the whole table to be more aggressive and interactive because i can force the "we're just durdling" phase to end super early and people start actually playing the game. Its not quite Archenemy, but I definitely enjoy the games more when people attack early.
I have a bad habit of becoming archenemy because I start doing way to many things way too quickly for people to be comfortable. Even happens when I am not playing aggro. I do have a friend who HATES being milled so if he's at my table and I pull out my Phenax (which is my pet deck - includes the 3 cards that sold me on magic basically) he will do everything within his power to politic me into being the archenemy whether it is warranted or not.
Bro, this channel quickly became my favorite mtg channel! I’ve been playing since 2016 and this channel brings life to so many incredible ideas! Keep the great work!😎🤝🤝👏👏
I literally thought this was a guide to playing the commander, Wick, the Whorled Mind. I saw the snail and the way that deck plays it basically becomes arch enemy anyways as when you sacrifice the Snail to do damage, it does it to everyone no matter what.
My Galea, kindler of Hope deck is very likely to gain notoriety in a game. It's usually doing a ton of actions, top deck manipulation, but as soon as Galea hits, she usually gets strapped the same turn, and she might even start attacking right away, and be ridiculous the same turn she comes down. The deck is very capable of maintaining the status and still comes out on top in the end
When Trinket mentioned Mardu Political Aggro, Queen Marchesa comes to mind. I personally run her with creatures that have combinations of Flying/Deathtouch/Lifelink (ideally all 3 for evasion) and then utilize something like Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder or Duelist's Heritage to give Double Strike. Q.Marchesa having Haste and potential DS gives opponents a 4 turn clock to defeat you else they succumb to commander damage.
To the Question Zone question about speeding up your deck - Getting to your win more quickly is the same as surviving longer. You don't need to get their more quickly, you just need not to get taken out before doing your things. This means running more interaction. You want sweepers (yes, even if you're a creature deck), targeted removal, graveyard hate, perhaps a fog, and counters. You want cards that stop your opponent from winning now so that you can win later. They're not boring, they allow you to get to your cool stuff. An easy way to add this within changing your deck too much is to lean into MDFCs. Start running Fell the Profane and Sink into Stuper as a start.
everytime i sit at a table, i have a "priority list." 1: Blue. If multiple opponents are blue, i'm basically locked down until the counterspells are flung. i especially have to be aware of Mental Mistep, Force of Will, and Force of Negation which can be cast with 0 resources. 2: is someone playing stax? 3: Who's playing aggro and are there multiple players? 4: While i'm putting this on the bottom, players who sit down with a commander like Kinnon, Kenrith or Thrasios allow me to have some leverage in talking the other opponents into being friends.
One of my favourite plays, once clearly becoming the arch-enemy, is trying to convince the table i am not the arch-enemy! I have never seen people get more tilted than when they are holding some piece of removal, usually standing up, and trying to figure out which piece of mine needs to be removed and then i drop the old, 'Why you picking on me for?' and they usually LOSE THEIR MIND! Pure sarcasm timed perfectly has amazing power 😂
Its usually just 1 card that snowballs an advantage for a player as the table either under-respected it or feed right into it. Rhystic Study is a prime example of that. If just 1 opponent plays into it, the others will do the same, and suddenly 10+ cards are drawn and the table somehow doesnt realize they did it to themselves. Wrath effects are similar, if people just blindly play everything they have, the rest of the table cant hold back and has to commit as well, which just makes the Farewell that hits them with their pants down even more brutal than it would be if they played more careful.
Two reasons: for one, I'm not actually running many creatures with power 7+, it's mostly power 5-6. Secondly, I'm very careful with numbers of full escalation cards I run (cards that don't have text without playing other cards) and I'm already running a couple other ones I like better. I may still try it out at some point, though.
Question zone question!; do you think yall could do a shorter podcast going on a deep dive on the decks you find yourself reaching for the most when you go to play? Like how it plays, weaknesses, strengths, when and why you would want to play it, how it is playing against it, and maybe your favorite interaction or thing about it? Thanks! Love what yall are doing!
I’ve been really enjoying this trio a ton. Y’all are insanely knowledgeable deck builders and players and it shows. I am pretty consistently the archenemy in my playgroup and I usually win because I sand bag. The best way I can describe it is like when you play Mario Kart. Stay in 2nd and just wait until that blue shell hits the player in first and then use your mushrooms to shoot right ahead and win the race. Also yall should get Deck Driver on the pod. I think he’d be a great addition to the group.
Two things I must say… 1- love the content… 2-only thing I can disagree with is 3/3elks comment on no one commander being an archenemy incorrect. My higher power decks like narset, kaalia, and krenko tend to put me archenemy turn 0. Because they play hard and fast as early as turn 3 I can start taking players out the game or massively threaten board states. Kaalia I had to take out all my fast mana to slow it down so it wasn’t a consistent turn 2-3 drop her down with haste and swing with an avacyn or sire of insanity (he’s just been fun and loved playing him in standard. I slashed black in my gruel deck just for him in my side board for control match ups and he always got me a win when he landed)
Hey, I posted an uncool comment on the last video. It was supposed to be constructive criticism, but it was couched in toxic language. I deleted it shortly after posting, but not before Elk saw it. I just want to say I appreciate you guys collaborating to add to the discussion of the game we all love. Thanks, and I apologize ❤
For building a unique deck while it certainly isn’t the best idea in the world I have literally looked through every single card that could work in the deck on scryfall. For example, when I decided to build a Jolly Balloon Man deck I went to scryfall to look at every creature card in the WR color identity and because of that I noticed that modular creatures make for a very interesting twist for The Jolly Balloon Man so I decided to make it a modular deck. Obviously this does take a lot of time as you will be looking at thousands of cards but honestly it’s not as tedious as you would think since you can gloss over most of the cards because they are old or very specific or whatever and by doing this you can find things you never would have thought to look for.
A lot of this advice just applies to smart defensive play in general. Don't overcommit, have a plan for when you're boardwiped, and run attack deterrents if you have room.
I love these podcasts! Keep up the great work guys! I'd love to see a talk discussing silver boarder commanders and unfinity commanders by extension. I play a myra deck and an ambassador blorpityblorpboop deck and everytime I play them I always get eye roles from boomer mtg players. Nothing against them, I just want silver boarder and unfinity commanders to be more acceptable in a casual format like commander. Thanks for the great videos again you guys!!
As someone who will soon be moving and is looking for a game store I would love an episode about commander game store experiences and good things to look for.
45:30 I had a similar experience when I moved. I check online and the store said that the Commander night began at 6. I showed up at *6:05* only to find out that: 1.) It's ONLY "tournament" style Commander, so no pickup games of any kind. 2.) The event starts at 6 *exactly*, so I would have to wait an hour for round two to actually play. Nothing short of infuriating. Shortly thereafter, they changed their schedule to only host "Commander Nights" once every three weeks. I tried to show up on a Friday that wasn't marked as a Commander Night, and the store was DEAD. Not a soul to play a game with, and maybe two tables of modern. Truly a baffling management decision because the store was completely packed on the one Commander Night I did go to. I promptly found another store that's much more lax and haven't returned.
10:00 We have a Khambal corupted Mayor in our pod with a lot of the Haunted cards and its a acctual menace becuse the gameplan works well even with 0 Token decks at the table but that never happens there is always someone making some sort of tokens draining the table at every turn while building a cheap advantage over everyone
Question Zone: What are your thoughts on brackets acting as a motivator to push cards out of decks/tables where they wouldn't be welcome (but not resorting to banning them). For example, if a deck is a bracket 2 without Smothering Tithe, but a 4 with it maybe the incentive is to cut it and avoid the wild power spike when it shows up.
Question Zone! The three of you each have varied playgroup experience; from very tight knit and repeated to lots of random games, how does this change your approach to deck building? Do you change a deck's tactics if you know your opponents will face it multiple times and learn its pacing and tricks?
Question Zone Question: what do ya’ll think about fogs, and how many should you run, if any? This is specifically for a deck that gets archenemy status pretty regularly in most pods. Also, do you have any ethics around fogs? For example, I’ve considered running constant mists in my Erinis commander deck, but I’m afraid it might be to grindy for most people and/or might paint a target on my back if it isn’t there already. Also no, I’m not a pubstomper I swear, I just play the cursed child of Simic value and Voltron.
Question zone: regardless of board state and due to game memory/history I have become the default archenemy, I am the default "threat". I am willing to lean into and embrace my role. Any advice on how I should approach this? Politically or in deck building?
Great to see snail, I discovered you three around the same time so it's great to see ya all together! Could you set a timer on snails movement so he slowly moves across the mirror in time with the video?
Hey guys! Still love the podcast. Keep up the good content ❤. I was wondering if we could get links to all the decks you guys are discussing in the videos? I would love to be able to look at the decks when you guys are talking about it!
Man the worst thing for me in my group is that I am ALWAYS the archenemy no matter what I am playing. I have played a low tier precon into a table of 8+ decks and still been the first target. (made the mistake of paying attention and having strategies whenever I play). We have been playing magic for only a few months and I now subscribe to Snail's "fight the table" ideology. Go out swinging every game but my winrate has tanked haha. I love my friends but someday I may need to start bringing it up if it hurts my fun.
This happened to me, so now, I build competitive in order to play casual. That way I'll have some leeway to enjoy the game. E.g. in my Boros equipment deck, what I get from stoneforge mystic depends on the table. If the table is not treating me like an archenemy, I pull a decent janky value piece like Strength-testing hammer, but if someone removes my commander turn 1 or 2 when I'm not even close to being a threat, things like Collosus Hammer and Sunforger starts coming out.
Question Zone: I love using removal engines as a means of catching up a bit with opponents or holding a dominate position in games, but struggle to find many of them. Do you guys have more examples of some removal engines? Are there any niche choices you enjoy using?
Question zone: I find that in my play group due to being the most experienced player and some of the decks I’ve built I’m normally labeled as the archenemy before the game has started. How would you navigate this situation?
Questionzone: What are the most difficult decks to pilot in higher power casual Would be cool if you could give some examples and draw parallels to other formats, for example modern was lantern, scales and belcher. All were either very math/probability intensive
On the smogon part of the vid… i personally dont find single battles to be very fun, and thus i tend to stay away from smogon as a whole. Additionally, a lot of the added rules to smogon to me just make the game less fun overall, as attempting to track a bunch of extra stuff detracts from my personal experience. Stuff like remembering the sleep clause, and evasion, and all the little things like that. Hence, i just prefer VGC. I dont think smogon is as bad as many people say it is, but its very much not my thing
Question Zone: Do you think that damage based removal is worth running? Having looked at a LOT of red spells, I struggle to find it worth while to include damage spells because they feel overcosted for how much damage they deal. But maybe it's just my perception because of removal in other colors being more universal. Love the podcast, keep up the good work :)
I will admit that this in part because of the EDHRECast episode where they discussed removal, in which they mention Chaos Warp, and no other red spells. While I don't take what they say as gospel, it was a bit disheartening that they didn't talk about burn OR bounce spells at all (which are some of my favorite types of spells) and made me start to second guess my strategies
I update my moxfield deck of my main deck about every 2 months, I swap cards out on a weekly basis, no way I am going to keep that list updated properly
Question for the Question zone: what are your thoughts about silver border/ ruler zero commanders? Are you against people trying to bring them to the table and have there been any you have thought about building?
It's always the Braids player I worry about. On my side of the table, though, I favor Davros. Embrace supervillainy, become the problem. It's always a fun time.
I've never been to a draft and have only ever opened a single booster box someone gave me and when I just started Commander. Would love to get a box to draft now but the price has skyrocketed and they are now 2-3x the price.
Question zone: Wikipedia has a good list of the different types of mtg deck types that exist. Do you notice while scrolling through the list that your decks fall into the same category? Or is there a tendency for there to be more variety?
Question zone: how can I get my play group to play more removal? It feels like most people hate having things removed, even when it's objectively correct or free value and I'm always the one having to play table police or we lose to some combo (or I snowball and win)
I keep my decks updated online. I'm part of two playgroups, and I'm the only one that does. Haha. So that's 1/10... I'd say you're probably right about the audience sample. 😉 Lol
00:55:50 this point right here hit home recently when I sat down with a table of randos i was invited to who needed a 4th,😂 and NONE of them knew any references I would make about any of the MtG youtube channels most here would consider to be high profile. The scariest part was they didn't even know what rule 0 conversation was. It was just a pod in an arms race, where one guy complained all the time and back seated everyone else at the table to try to get the threat he wanted gone. The 2nd dude was a sore winner and very impatient (and I think he made a gross sexual comment to some women at the coffee shop we were playing at, during my turn... 😒), and the other guy was saltier than the first. Needless to say, I see why they didn't have a 4th, and I won't be joining them again.
Two comments:
1. At this point, just have Snail join the team. He's here most of the time anyway haha
2. Every time I get asked, "How do I fix my deck," I always start by saying the same thing - lower your curve, increase your ramp and draw, and build towards a game plan.
I think they’ve said previously that snail couldn’t join full time because he’s too busy
Really like this trio! Keep it up guys
Yeah. Snail should just be an offical member at this point
@@fasterbuilder11 would love to see that yeah
Absolutely love these guys
you should do an episode on how to break glass ceilings, like playing gruul or color pairings without access to removal
I would argue no color pairing is without access to removal nowadays, but some *do* need to get a little creative to get access to all *kinds* of removal. It could be a fun video.
I actually have a really fun budget Rosheen burn deck that's drowning in boardwipes and removal
Gruul has good removal, Red can burn creatures and planewalkers and Green kills anything else, i actually think dimir unironically has less removal than Gruul, barring creatures and things on the stack
The Snail is here to stay, and I'm all for it!!!
I can agree with what mage was saying about charbelcher. I don't tell people all the strong "combos" and stuff I am running before a game starts but if I am playing some weird niche card that is going to be a problem I make sure I read out what it does and make it more apparent that I really want this card and that it is going to be a problem if they let it run free.
I am a simple being. I see a snail, I smash subscribe =)
Then you will be happy to know snail will show up on more podcast episodes in the future :)
I LOVE this trio. The audience demands the mollusk. Can’t wait to watch.
Now that there is a snail and an elk, I recommend you keep adding animals until the podcast is full of various woodland critters
Snail casually roams around the mirror. Cute.
Felt the Archenemy pressure last Sunday when I had Ghyrson Starn, Basalisk Collar, and Manabarbs on the field! Apparently nobody liked being hosed when they wanted to play anything lol
That is a nasty way to control the table 😂
Based deck though, love it
that's such a dirty combo, I love it so much
The Commenters yearn for the Trio.
How the heck is this video coming out right after I lost a game that was basically a 3v1 😮 you guys are reading our minds
Accidentally misread "lost a game" as "lost the game"
I'll see myself out.
Every game is a 1v3
Same thing happened to me and same feeling I am having haha
@yusheitslv100 how dare you. Now just Lost The Game.
Or TH-cam is listening to to your game and thought… “hey I have a video for you!”
I think the most archenemy commander I can think of is Jodah, the unifier. If I see someone sit down with that I just have to target them because once they cast their first legendary spell after jodah the game is going to start ending fast. I still think this card was a mistake having both abilities.
Yeah they felt like The First Sliver wasn't good enough
One of my favorite things about Life Gain decks is that it encourages people to attack me early, which primes the whole table to be more aggressive and interactive because i can force the "we're just durdling" phase to end super early and people start actually playing the game. Its not quite Archenemy, but I definitely enjoy the games more when people attack early.
I have a bad habit of becoming archenemy because I start doing way to many things way too quickly for people to be comfortable. Even happens when I am not playing aggro.
I do have a friend who HATES being milled so if he's at my table and I pull out my Phenax (which is my pet deck - includes the 3 cards that sold me on magic basically) he will do everything within his power to politic me into being the archenemy whether it is warranted or not.
I love that Snail is /on/ the mirror
Bro, this channel quickly became my favorite mtg channel! I’ve been playing since 2016 and this channel brings life to so many incredible ideas! Keep the great work!😎🤝🤝👏👏
Step 1: Build a huge board
Step 2: Twirl mustache
Step 3: Evil laugh
The three best content creators for MTG. Wonderful!
I literally thought this was a guide to playing the commander, Wick, the Whorled Mind. I saw the snail and the way that deck plays it basically becomes arch enemy anyways as when you sacrifice the Snail to do damage, it does it to everyone no matter what.
My Galea, kindler of Hope deck is very likely to gain notoriety in a game. It's usually doing a ton of actions, top deck manipulation, but as soon as Galea hits, she usually gets strapped the same turn, and she might even start attacking right away, and be ridiculous the same turn she comes down. The deck is very capable of maintaining the status and still comes out on top in the end
When Trinket mentioned Mardu Political Aggro, Queen Marchesa comes to mind. I personally run her with creatures that have combinations of Flying/Deathtouch/Lifelink (ideally all 3 for evasion) and then utilize something like Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder or Duelist's Heritage to give Double Strike. Q.Marchesa having Haste and potential DS gives opponents a 4 turn clock to defeat you else they succumb to commander damage.
To the Question Zone question about speeding up your deck - Getting to your win more quickly is the same as surviving longer. You don't need to get their more quickly, you just need not to get taken out before doing your things. This means running more interaction. You want sweepers (yes, even if you're a creature deck), targeted removal, graveyard hate, perhaps a fog, and counters. You want cards that stop your opponent from winning now so that you can win later. They're not boring, they allow you to get to your cool stuff. An easy way to add this within changing your deck too much is to lean into MDFCs. Start running Fell the Profane and Sink into Stuper as a start.
everytime i sit at a table, i have a "priority list."
1: Blue. If multiple opponents are blue, i'm basically locked down until the counterspells are flung. i especially have to be aware of Mental Mistep, Force of Will, and Force of Negation which can be cast with 0 resources.
2: is someone playing stax?
3: Who's playing aggro and are there multiple players?
4: While i'm putting this on the bottom, players who sit down with a commander like Kinnon, Kenrith or Thrasios allow me to have some leverage in talking the other opponents into being friends.
One of my favourite plays, once clearly becoming the arch-enemy, is trying to convince the table i am not the arch-enemy!
I have never seen people get more tilted than when they are holding some piece of removal, usually standing up, and trying to figure out which piece of mine needs to be removed and then i drop the old, 'Why you picking on me for?' and they usually LOSE THEIR MIND! Pure sarcasm timed perfectly has amazing power 😂
Its usually just 1 card that snowballs an advantage for a player as the table either under-respected it or feed right into it.
Rhystic Study is a prime example of that. If just 1 opponent plays into it, the others will do the same, and suddenly 10+ cards are drawn and the table somehow doesnt realize they did it to themselves.
Wrath effects are similar, if people just blindly play everything they have, the rest of the table cant hold back and has to commit as well, which just makes the Farewell that hits them with their pants down even more brutal than it would be if they played more careful.
Seeing the three best MTG content creators making videos together is INSANE. Please make this a thing!
Great insights from an awesome trio.
35:15 I want to know why snail isn't playing unsealing! He was about to say but the conversation moved on to mizzium mortars...
Two reasons: for one, I'm not actually running many creatures with power 7+, it's mostly power 5-6. Secondly, I'm very careful with numbers of full escalation cards I run (cards that don't have text without playing other cards) and I'm already running a couple other ones I like better. I may still try it out at some point, though.
Question zone question!; do you think yall could do a shorter podcast going on a deep dive on the decks you find yourself reaching for the most when you go to play? Like how it plays, weaknesses, strengths, when and why you would want to play it, how it is playing against it, and maybe your favorite interaction or thing about it? Thanks! Love what yall are doing!
I’ve been really enjoying this trio a ton. Y’all are insanely knowledgeable deck builders and players and it shows. I am pretty consistently the archenemy in my playgroup and I usually win because I sand bag. The best way I can describe it is like when you play Mario Kart. Stay in 2nd and just wait until that blue shell hits the player in first and then use your mushrooms to shoot right ahead and win the race.
Also yall should get Deck Driver on the pod. I think he’d be a great addition to the group.
The other day I was looking through the bulk at my lgs and I found the trinket mage!! I love your content, keep up the good work!
crazy that this comes out after a game night thatt i finally realized i am my groups permanent archenemy
Love the in depth discussion, keep up the great content gentlemen!
Love this group! You guys should hit up Red Bobcat and have a full pod of magic creators!
Two things I must say… 1- love the content… 2-only thing I can disagree with is 3/3elks comment on no one commander being an archenemy incorrect. My higher power decks like narset, kaalia, and krenko tend to put me archenemy turn 0. Because they play hard and fast as early as turn 3 I can start taking players out the game or massively threaten board states. Kaalia I had to take out all my fast mana to slow it down so it wasn’t a consistent turn 2-3 drop her down with haste and swing with an avacyn or sire of insanity (he’s just been fun and loved playing him in standard. I slashed black in my gruel deck just for him in my side board for control match ups and he always got me a win when he landed)
Hey, I posted an uncool comment on the last video. It was supposed to be constructive criticism, but it was couched in toxic language. I deleted it shortly after posting, but not before Elk saw it.
I just want to say I appreciate you guys collaborating to add to the discussion of the game we all love.
Thanks, and I apologize ❤
For building a unique deck while it certainly isn’t the best idea in the world I have literally looked through every single card that could work in the deck on scryfall. For example, when I decided to build a Jolly Balloon Man deck I went to scryfall to look at every creature card in the WR color identity and because of that I noticed that modular creatures make for a very interesting twist for The Jolly Balloon Man so I decided to make it a modular deck. Obviously this does take a lot of time as you will be looking at thousands of cards but honestly it’s not as tedious as you would think since you can gloss over most of the cards because they are old or very specific or whatever and by doing this you can find things you never would have thought to look for.
A lot of this advice just applies to smart defensive play in general. Don't overcommit, have a plan for when you're boardwiped, and run attack deterrents if you have room.
Always happy to see snail
I love these podcasts! Keep up the great work guys! I'd love to see a talk discussing silver boarder commanders and unfinity commanders by extension. I play a myra deck and an ambassador blorpityblorpboop deck and everytime I play them I always get eye roles from boomer mtg players. Nothing against them, I just want silver boarder and unfinity commanders to be more acceptable in a casual format like commander. Thanks for the great videos again you guys!!
My favorite trio talking about one of my favorite things about commander 🎉
at this point, is snail just a permanent member of the podcast
Loving the trios🎉
As someone who will soon be moving and is looking for a game store I would love an episode about commander game store experiences and good things to look for.
45:30 I had a similar experience when I moved. I check online and the store said that the Commander night began at 6. I showed up at *6:05* only to find out that:
1.) It's ONLY "tournament" style Commander, so no pickup games of any kind.
2.) The event starts at 6 *exactly*, so I would have to wait an hour for round two to actually play.
Nothing short of infuriating.
Shortly thereafter, they changed their schedule to only host "Commander Nights" once every three weeks. I tried to show up on a Friday that wasn't marked as a Commander Night, and the store was DEAD. Not a soul to play a game with, and maybe two tables of modern. Truly a baffling management decision because the store was completely packed on the one Commander Night I did go to.
I promptly found another store that's much more lax and haven't returned.
Yes. I love Mizzium Mortars. Great to see the snail agrees with me.
Thank you for pointing out aggro / midrange alliance. Especially important against combo.
This totally comes in time for me. I've discovered I like running really aggressive strategies
How to become archenemy every time:
Step 1. Play poison
As someone who becomes the archenemy often I think it can also be a table problem and not running a lot of interaction and I snowball faster
i like how snail is just moving around throughout the video 😂
i play benton and i totally agree with what you said about threat assessment
target white, then blue, then red, black, then green
PLEASE KEEP SNAIL AS A PERMANENT MEMBER YOURE ALL SO SILLY TOGETHER
10:00 We have a Khambal corupted Mayor in our pod with a lot of the Haunted cards and its a acctual menace becuse the gameplan works well even with 0 Token decks at the table but that never happens there is always someone making some sort of tokens draining the table at every turn while building a cheap advantage over everyone
Can you guys release the whole first season, netflix-style, so I can binge it while driving?
Question Zone:
What are your thoughts on brackets acting as a motivator to push cards out of decks/tables where they wouldn't be welcome (but not resorting to banning them).
For example, if a deck is a bracket 2 without Smothering Tithe, but a 4 with it maybe the incentive is to cut it and avoid the wild power spike when it shows up.
Pre-watch comment:
With my Ghyrson Starn deck I usually happen to be "the threat" to the table, so this vid will be perfect for me.
Love seeing snail on! This should be the normal cast imo
Question Zone! The three of you each have varied playgroup experience; from very tight knit and repeated to lots of random games, how does this change your approach to deck building? Do you change a deck's tactics if you know your opponents will face it multiple times and learn its pacing and tricks?
Question Zone Question: what do ya’ll think about fogs, and how many should you run, if any? This is specifically for a deck that gets archenemy status pretty regularly in most pods. Also, do you have any ethics around fogs? For example, I’ve considered running constant mists in my Erinis commander deck, but I’m afraid it might be to grindy for most people and/or might paint a target on my back if it isn’t there already. Also no, I’m not a pubstomper I swear, I just play the cursed child of Simic value and Voltron.
Question zone: regardless of board state and due to game memory/history I have become the default archenemy, I am the default "threat". I am willing to lean into and embrace my role. Any advice on how I should approach this? Politically or in deck building?
Great to see snail, I discovered you three around the same time so it's great to see ya all together!
Could you set a timer on snails movement so he slowly moves across the mirror in time with the video?
Is there any way I can get the deck list for tawnos? I have a sharuum deck that I play baubles and articifer's intuition in and I'd love to see it!
I just finished my last unwatched Magic Mirror pod, and I was sad there wasn’t any left.
Great timing!
An elk, a snail AND a trinket mage!?! Sweet.
Hey guys! Still love the podcast. Keep up the good content ❤. I was wondering if we could get links to all the decks you guys are discussing in the videos? I would love to be able to look at the decks when you guys are talking about it!
QUESTION ZONE: How do you keep track of life totals? percentile dice, 2 spin downs, pen and paper, an app or something else?
I feel so called out lol, played Daxos Contamination, played standstill, i HAVE an Ertai, the corrupted edh RN and its my favorite deck lmao
As someone who plays satoru umezawa, I always feel like the arch enemy when the game starts
Man the worst thing for me in my group is that I am ALWAYS the archenemy no matter what I am playing. I have played a low tier precon into a table of 8+ decks and still been the first target. (made the mistake of paying attention and having strategies whenever I play). We have been playing magic for only a few months and I now subscribe to Snail's "fight the table" ideology. Go out swinging every game but my winrate has tanked haha. I love my friends but someday I may need to start bringing it up if it hurts my fun.
This happened to me, so now, I build competitive in order to play casual. That way I'll have some leeway to enjoy the game. E.g. in my Boros equipment deck, what I get from stoneforge mystic depends on the table. If the table is not treating me like an archenemy, I pull a decent janky value piece like Strength-testing hammer, but if someone removes my commander turn 1 or 2 when I'm not even close to being a threat, things like Collosus Hammer and Sunforger starts coming out.
Snail on trinket mage's head is wholesome
Question Zone: I love using removal engines as a means of catching up a bit with opponents or holding a dominate position in games, but struggle to find many of them. Do you guys have more examples of some removal engines? Are there any niche choices you enjoy using?
Just built a Baylen, the Haymaker deck and I wouldn't have found Benefactor's Draught and Revielle Squad if I used EDHrec!
Question zone: I find that in my play group due to being the most experienced player and some of the decks I’ve built I’m normally labeled as the archenemy before the game has started. How would you navigate this situation?
Goated crossover
Smogon? I feel like you’d be a great guest for The Fridge with Jimothy Cool
Questionzone: What are the most difficult decks to pilot in higher power casual Would be cool if you could give some examples and draw parallels to other formats, for example modern was lantern, scales and belcher. All were either very math/probability intensive
On the smogon part of the vid… i personally dont find single battles to be very fun, and thus i tend to stay away from smogon as a whole. Additionally, a lot of the added rules to smogon to me just make the game less fun overall, as attempting to track a bunch of extra stuff detracts from my personal experience. Stuff like remembering the sleep clause, and evasion, and all the little things like that. Hence, i just prefer VGC. I dont think smogon is as bad as many people say it is, but its very much not my thing
Question Zone: Do you think that damage based removal is worth running? Having looked at a LOT of red spells, I struggle to find it worth while to include damage spells because they feel overcosted for how much damage they deal. But maybe it's just my perception because of removal in other colors being more universal.
Love the podcast, keep up the good work :)
I will admit that this in part because of the EDHRECast episode where they discussed removal, in which they mention Chaos Warp, and no other red spells. While I don't take what they say as gospel, it was a bit disheartening that they didn't talk about burn OR bounce spells at all (which are some of my favorite types of spells) and made me start to second guess my strategies
I update my moxfield deck of my main deck about every 2 months,
I swap cards out on a weekly basis, no way I am going to keep that list updated properly
Question for the Question zone: what are your thoughts about silver border/ ruler zero commanders? Are you against people trying to bring them to the table and have there been any you have thought about building?
An [...] episode, I would watch for some time you playing Pokémon Showdown yes
It's always the Braids player I worry about. On my side of the table, though, I favor Davros. Embrace supervillainy, become the problem. It's always a fun time.
I recently made an Ertai deck and yes i made it to be nemesis deck. It's great
My first episode as a viewer 🎉
6:01 Well damn, that's literally what I wanted to hear about, lol
Ugh I know the store Trinket was talking about and it sucks that theres no true free play tables on commander nights
Thanks for the tips.
I've never been to a draft and have only ever opened a single booster box someone gave me and when I just started Commander. Would love to get a box to draft now but the price has skyrocketed and they are now 2-3x the price.
Question zone: Wikipedia has a good list of the different types of mtg deck types that exist. Do you notice while scrolling through the list that your decks fall into the same category? Or is there a tendency for there to be more variety?
I am a simple man. I see Snail, I click.
Question zone: how can I get my play group to play more removal? It feels like most people hate having things removed, even when it's objectively correct or free value and I'm always the one having to play table police or we lose to some combo (or I snowball and win)
Question zone if you want to use hive mind and the pacts what cammander would you recommend and do I exclude pact of nagation
Asked to give examples of 'discreet' removal, lists 2 7 drops, I feel like there is nothing discreet about a gruul rage beast lol
I keep my decks updated online. I'm part of two playgroups, and I'm the only one that does. Haha.
So that's 1/10... I'd say you're probably right about the audience sample. 😉 Lol
Ophiomancer is the top card in my Yawgmoth deck.
Question zone: What do you find more interesting more or less colors for a commander deck.
00:55:50 this point right here hit home recently when I sat down with a table of randos i was invited to who needed a 4th,😂 and NONE of them knew any references I would make about any of the MtG youtube channels most here would consider to be high profile. The scariest part was they didn't even know what rule 0 conversation was. It was just a pod in an arms race, where one guy complained all the time and back seated everyone else at the table to try to get the threat he wanted gone. The 2nd dude was a sore winner and very impatient (and I think he made a gross sexual comment to some women at the coffee shop we were playing at, during my turn... 😒), and the other guy was saltier than the first.
Needless to say, I see why they didn't have a 4th, and I won't be joining them again.
Ah yes i love being archenemy especially when I get to play control and crush everyone under my pile of removal and full hand 39:55