Rachel is my favorite even before she joined the crew. She builds good decks, knows rule interactions (She's a CAG Member) and she's not afraid of flavorful Jank.
This is exactly the kind of discussion I love Rachel for instigating and I'm so glad her voice is being amplified by joining the staff here! Yay for Rachel!
@@andrewdonnelly4685 he builds his decks like an aggro player and expects to run out of resources. then when he runs out of resources he uses his lack of board wipes to lose harder. these type of linear players are quite a handful to play against. they are never useful in the pod and only play the game of "who goes off first"
@@andrewdonnelly4685 he's saying he doesn't like board wipes where you're behind so you board wipe to reset board back to 0 . Cyclonic rift just straight up wins you the game or at least kills one or two people when you use it with a developed board.
More Arthur Medowcroft! Smart, attentive, insightful, polite, and humble. Seems like the good human being I actually want to sit across the table from.
I really hope Craig is in the game knights episode for the phyrexia set. Haven't seen him play in a while + want to his what infect shenanigans he will pull
I love this question, and I think it's really important for people to consider. Specifically in regards to a card being too powerful and you either think it won't make for fun games, or will draw you too much hate at the table. It was very interesting to hear everyone's perspective.
Scute swarm is one of my favorite cards, I find that the easiest way to keep track of it is to stick my phone calculator on it makes calculations much easier
I run it in a Chatterfang deck with parallel lives, doubling season, and primal vigor and at a certain point I just leave it at 120 or something and don't bother making more.
I think Gaurav is just using Coat of Arms incorrectly. There is 0 reason to play it when creatures are still going to be entering or leaving the battlefield. Your goal is to have 10+ tribal creatures, and drop CoA like a craterhoof bahemoth. You should be dropping CoA, declaring attacks, and winning the game with it. Or you hold it because if you are the only tribal deck someone is going to kill it before it has its biggest possible affect. You don't drop CoA early and "whittle" people down with your slightly buffed creatures.
This. Learned this the hard way with my Rogue Tribal deck. I hadn't even read Coat of Arms correctly when I put it in the deck and didn't realise it affected everyone, not just me! Needless to say the Elf ball deck I was against trounced me from there. Play it to end the game or hold it.
I get both sides. You ideally play it to win, but if someone fogs, or teferi's protection, uses targeted removal to prevent lethal combat damage, it is a card that requires a lot of maintenance. Even if your intentions are to end the game, that doesn't always happen, and then, yes, it is an annoying card to play. That said, i agree, this card should be held until you intend to win.
You're correct there. It should be used like a colorless Overrun and not an anthem. A similar situation is people playing Beastmaster Ascension on T3 with 1-2 creatures in play. You play it until you have 7 creatures and start killing players.
Jewelled Lotus - to avoid the situations Josh outlined, it can be good to hold it in your hand until a few turns later, when there are other threats at the table / you're more set up to deal with the heat it might give you. It's still a great ritual effect, saving your lands that turn to use reactively. The same principal can be applied to "remove on sight" commanders; often the best way to play them is to not play them until you have the ability to protect them.
More to the point, only drop the lotus when you're going to crack it. There are almost no situations where you want the lotus in play. Literally use it as a Dark Ritual for your commander
Also, I never understood the thought that this is a dead card if you draw it later in the game. The Lotus pays commander tax, which is a great use of it, especially if, like me, you play a lot of Kill On Sight commanders
I really appreciated this insight. I wish they would have asked, “which deck would you absolutely play this card in”. Some of these cards are evergreen, but a few seemed narrow.
Rhystic Study, Smothering tithe, and other cards where I feel like I'm stepping on someone else's turn with all the triggers. They feel like they throw off game rhythm even with experienced players and they are awful with new players. If I am reacting on someone else's turn, I would rather have that one spicy moment where the whole table yells like casting Sublime Epiphany.
i remember when i played my landfall deck that the player next to me had rakdos charm in their hand while i kept making scute swarms to the point i took 16 million damage from 1 spell
Yes! Rakdos charm is one of my ultimate pet cards with 2 very relevant modes and a third that won't come up super often but when it does it just wins the game!
I've come to hate Rakdos Charm. In commander someone is inevitably going to go wide at some point, since you need to attack while leaving back enough blockers. Rakdos Charm just feels like a one card game nullifier, where nothing that came before matters because the player that was winning instantly loses. It's probably my saltiest card. At least Mindslaver requires some interaction, and it's possible to come back from a Cyclonic Rift. Why is there a 2-mana "you have a strong board state so you lose" card, especially one with other useful options?
@@adamrobinson6951 It is hardly a “you have a strong board state, so you lose” card. You have 40 life. It is basically only a counter against very specific token decks (ie. doubling season etc.). The 2 mana is not that relevant as by the time it would be an effective amount of damage, it could easily cost 7+ without much inconvenience.
That was my exact thought. My 3rd deck ever had a ton of tutors (Wilhelt with a bunch of infinite wincons) no deck I've built since has more than 1 tutor because I want variety in my games
Regarding Smothering Tithe: My approach is to tell the table, "I am going to make a treasure every time you draw a card unless you tell me otherwise." This gets rid of at least some of the nuisance factor in my experience.
The card I don't play anymore is curse of opulence (thanks richard from mtg goldfish) 1) It makes one person the punching bag, basically forcing them to lose slowly as they fall behind in life and resources 2) if there are multiple arch enemy commanders, you king make Just doesn't lead to fun situations
I used to be a patron of the command zone, but with my life situation changing and time I found myself not watching the podcast episodes any more. Commander sphere has been my favorite podcast for the past three or so years, so when Rachel came here, I immediately decided to come back! It's so great to see what she brings to the podcast, and I'm looking forward to listening to every episode again!
I think mine would be Dockside Extortionist. It’s so easy to put it into every one of my Mardu decks but the only one I have it in is Kelsien, which has a lot of blink effects.
Topic suggestion: gameplay techniques that help simplify complicated plays for the table to understand. What are the tricks you like for things like: making the stack easier to understand, handling lots of tokens counters and temporary effects, floating mana, etc.
Personally, D6 are for +1 counters (or minus, if both use strictly different colors) and anthems are a single D20. If I am generating a lot of tokens I’ll have 3 tokens with D20’s. One for untapped, on for tapped. And one for sickness. Playgroup has a good way to handle complicated stacks, we lay cards in middle of of the table in order cast so we can visualize the order, and face down cards to symbolize triggers from permanents. Everyone is responsible for their own triggers and spells to explain what happens when it resolves.
For +1/+1 counters, we have actual +1/+1 counter D6's, so we can use that to track those while using regular dice to track quantity of tokens. Colored spindowns for floating mana. One person always forgets to draw so he started putting his hand down sideways on the top of his deck so he has to pick it up from there each time and remember to draw. Placement of commanders can get confusing, so some of us stick our commanders out of the side of our library when not in play so they're floating in their own special command zone.
@@gregboulton8230 Designate a spot for new land drops away from your other lands, then every untap step, move any lands in that spot down to the rest of your lands.
I don't play Aetherflux Reservoir anymore. I felt as if I was holding the entire table hostage. It sucked the joy out of the game and really brought the mood down for the rest of the night.
I just promise people I wont use it if we go down to 1v1 or if someone targets it for removal. My need for it is that its extra life gain triggers. I will use it if its still a 3 or 4 man game and someone is "unjustly" targeting me AFTER I explain the condition I have for it. Like my goal is not to use the nuclear option. But IF someone at the table chooses to "give the game to someone else" because they have some kind of hill to die on and I know Im not going to make any progress because that one person is martyrdoming me. So I speed it up and just take us both out of the equation. My playgroup has learned to either keep me under the 50 threshold just so it doesnt come online, or that after Im above 50 to not spend 4 pieces of removal on my board JUST bc its online and to use those removals for actual threats.
You see, I actually really enjoy using Aetherflux because of that hostage type situation. It forces my opponents to make suboptimal places by either attempting to deal with it and possibly dying to it, or forcing me to use it at a time that I don't want to, thereby losing me the game. It also frequently guarantees a quicker game. Side Note: I run Aetherflux with The Golden Throne in my Elas Il-Kor deck, and it's a hilarious synergy.
seems like it's more like people don't know how to play against these "I can kill you any moment" situtations. First of all, you can't make deals and kingmake someone who has kill button for a player. It's even more salty play that they can just use others to kill others. Second, you have no option other than play into it, because when it is used, other players are free from that hostage situtation and can take him out. Sometimes they don't even want to use it because they get rest of the table on focusing him. Bonus: If you know what kind of game you are going into, then it's also mostly players issue when someone plays certain card.
If you have any instant speed damage or life loss you are actually holding the Aetherflux Reservoir player in check. They need to have a reasonable buffer above 50 to be able to use it. Remember: 50 life is the cost to activate it. You pay that immediately. Then 50 dmg to someone goes on the stack. If you have 53 life and Aetherflux someone and in response someone else Lightning Bolts you, you die and your damage effect on the stack is removed from the game. There are also cards like Trickbind which counter activated abilities. If Aetherflux is countered, remember, that player still payed the 50 life, because that is the cost of the ability.
The card I don’t run is Curse of Exhaustion. It just removes a player until they get an enchantment removal, which ruins the game not only for them, but the rest of the table. I just added Smothering Tithe to a Kwain deck. It’s so much upkeep when I make all players draw a card. I might not be keeping it in there long. My favourite thing with Scute Swarm is to make 5-10 copies, then when I play a land, mystic reflect them into something else. Last game, I made 12 Eternal Witnesses, got my grave back, The time before, I made 10 copies of a creature with initiative, and those 10 ventures won me the game
Unfortunately mystic reflection doesn't work like that with scute swarm. When you have 5 scute swarms and play a land your actually triggering each one separately to make another copy, and the way mystic reflection reads is the "next time you would make tokens replace them with X." So it replaces only the first scute swarm trigger of just 1 copy of another scute swarm into whatever you want then boom mystic reflection has met its criteria and no longer replaces copies and you just finish making 4 more scute swarms. The best way to utilize mystic reflection is something that has 1 trigger to make lots of tokens like Avenger of Zendikar. When you go yo make 7 plants after it etbs you replace those with mystic reflection to be 7 more Avengers, (which finishes Reflections trigger it no replaces anything for the turn) and after those 7 avengers enter they each make 7 plants now for a total of 21 plants and 8 total avengers to buff them next land drop.
"Wrathing takes away the joy of me building my board" Has Kyler as cmdr, Champion of Lambholt, Tireless Tracker and just played Increasing Devotion from grave. I will board wipe, as that is how I stop that bullshit seeing how I can't block a single thing with Champion out, oh and did I mention you put the Lightning Greaves on that so I can't just single target remove it? so its take lethal, cuz you have a cool board, or I wipe your board...
I also loved Arthur’s comment on tutors…I’m fairly new to using tutors in my deck as I too prefer the surprise of what I draw…however, in some of the decks, such as my ur dragon it’s a necessity so I can find the cards that make my dragons easier to get out I.e. fist of suns and nyxbloom ancient…but I only have 1 or 2 tutors per deck because I don’t want to always have the answer I want to work towards it!!!
I used to use tutors. found my game played the same almost every time. ended up being boring. Commander (EDH), in my opinion, is more fun when your deck plays differently in multiple plays. Having said that, I don't mind if somebody tutors for the answer to current board state. It's the combo searchers that make the game less fun.
I guess I don't use tutors correctly. I feel like a good 75% of the time or better I find myself tutoring for an answer not some type of wincon. Also, though, I only have a couple of decks that have actual combos in them.
I also don't run generic tutors in my decks. I'll occasionally run a thematic limited tutor if it fits the deck, but I prefer my games to play out differently every time. When I run tutors I find that the decks end up playing too linearly for my preferences.
These comments make me think I use tutors wrong. I don't really look for combo pieces, I tend to just look for what looks good in the moment and that means I typically get a bunch of different cards rather then just 1 or 2 blanket look fors.
@@kitsu1379 This is exactly how you use tutors without being linear. People freak out when you demonic tutor like you're about to win the game when in reality I just searched for a land bc mana screwed
@@servalkorion686 I run Idyllic and Enlightned in an enchantment deck and usually, I use it to look for a reasonably low cost enchantment that I can use to prock my enchantress draw abilities or just to set up for something I'm plannin for like.. I dunno two three turns down the line. I have demonic and vampiric in a liesa deck and that deck does have an infinate combo but tbh i'm more likely to use them to search for something I can use for protection like Myrel or Grand Abolisher ya know? Less looking for instant wins and more stuff that just kinda helps keep me in the game for a bit longer.
A great follow up may be what bad cards do you put into your decks. As an inverse of this where it may not be the optimal solution but your personal favorite for one reason or another. Or maybe one where you choose a cheaper option that performs a similar role as a budget focused episode. For a long time I would try to make Storm spirits work. That was back around Mirage block and I never really got it to be worth the hassle of getting it out. Maybe now with commander and or spirit support I could make it work, though it would still be pretty bad with so many even better options. Coat of Arms maybe needs a lighter math version maybe with counters and an activation trigger for when it checks. Removing the tutors sounds like sound advice to get more of the draw hype experience. Drawing a good chance card sounds more fun than a sure solution. Especially in Commander where part of the appeal is seeing a wider variety of stuff. Reducing the number of auto include type of cards is probably good all around. I dig the better help ad. The bit where Jimmy accepts the loss was gold as comedy and message. I never really understood necropotence well enough to use it despite knowing it is supposed to be good. I like the outside perspective on some of these cards and how they impact such as the time sink of sensei's divining top. I never really actively thought about turn or play efficiency from the perspective of time sinks or mental sinks dragging down the experience or stalling out the game flow with things like the voidwalker. Are there other types of acceleration like the jeweled lotus that can be cut to create a better play experience? Scute swarm sounds like you would need a calculator to keep up with it in short order. Imagine the math of that with Coat of Arms.... Is the blue castle background based on a card or a piece of art? I kind of want to change my pc background now.
I know that pain with Coat of Arms. I also run one in my elf tribal deck. The last time I played it, it resulted in a hilarious standoff because it was buffing the other players' boards thanks to my own creatures. May end up replacing it with something else now that I'm thinking about it.
In our group there is kind of a meme. One of us always always runs settle the wrackage. You can tell by the 4 mana open that he has it in hand, so people stopped attacking him then. Its kind of a funny mindgame. Does he have it? Does he not? Even if he took the card out, we would forget that he doesnt play it anymore.
Josh’s take on Jeweled Lotus was good. I decided against getting one for my Niv-Mizzet, Parun deck since I already get targeted whenever I play that commander so adding Jeweled Lotus would brand me as archenemy even more.
With dark ritual in these K'rrik decks: it's in your opening hand, you've won😆 okay maybe not auto-win but it is brutal. Mana crypt, Sol Ring, pay 6life and start yoyoing with your life total. In the meantime, everyone just get up and start making sandwiches
The con sounds fun, but I was just in Philly for PAX Unplugged and can't justify going back again so soon. As far as food, the Reading Terminal Market has wide variety of options. Also, the convention center is near a good sushi place and a good pho place.
Honestly, I don’t drop a lot of Likes here anymore, especially from the earlier days of the channel when Jimmy & Josh are mainly advocating for the strongest options available. This episode is nice… & different, presenting other considerations for not auto-including said strongest options. I too, have standing dis-preference towards certain cards/categories for reasons like logistics (Cathars’ Crusade), common annoyances/grievers (discard, play other players’ card, steal permanents, etc), even non-thematic staples (like the classic 1 MV removal spells). I Liked this episode
Really loving the input from Arthur, Damen and Rachel! They rep a different, slightly more casual experience from the veterans of the channel which is a breath of fresh air!
Top can also be a trap card when deciding if you want to mulligan. Keeping a 1 or even 2 land hand and thinking, "Well there's a Top so I can just Top into a way out." rarely works out.
Having said that I own 4 and run them all, but three of them are in decks that run off the top of the deck, Prosper, Grist, and Galea. The fourth is in my Marath, and that's mostly because it's my pet deck and well, Top is Top. Lol
In my Playgroup we play No Ban format. Two rules: #1 If you get beat by an opponents deck you get to play that deck against them in the next game. #2 You can't complain to the group about any ambdominal aches caused by laughing too hard!
Philadelphian here! Reading Terminal Market is right next to the convention center and is an absolute must to check out for food. Beilers in the Reading Terminal Market is a must for donuts, Old City Coffee (also in Reading Terminal Market) has great coffee. Tons of great food options as well. Passeros is also a good local coffee place. McGuillian's pub is the oldest pub in Philly and worth checking out.
I would suggest to Gaurav to view Coat of Arms more as an overrun effect than a piece you rush out. Like, say I have 25 goblins on he field, then cast CoA to swing for lethal.
I won't be able to attend the convention in my hometown sadly, but I can at least recommend some places you have to go to. 1. You have to hit up the Redding Terminal Market, plenty of great food there and imo you can't go wrong with any shop in that place. 2. Try out Wawa, it's a convenience store with some good options for quick food on the go and it's pretty much all solid. 3. Go to Pat's, Steve's, and Geno's, and when you get your cheesesteak, I recommend you get it "wit" aka with onions (I'm not a fan personally but it is tradition and you gotta follow tradition at least once before you break it if you are not from here). A lot of people from Philly will swear by one over the others (to the point of violence, part of the charm of our fair city) but for my money I just recommend travelers to try all three and form your own opinion. The only thing I ask is that when you form your opinion, you stand by it and take no guff from anyone who dares think otherwise, it is the Philly way. (In case anyone wonders, my preference is Steve's). As for the other question, I have a very simple answer, I play in a budget pod, and as a result, I don't play pretty much any good card that cost's more than 10 dollars (and even then only one of theose $10 cards in a deck generally speaking). I have personally found the experience to be infinitely more enjoyable than standard EDH. Budget unrestricted honestly wound up feeling very samey after a while, kept seeing the same cards constantly pop up and none of them were actually fun. Rift, tithe, [insert one sided board wipe here], dockside, good tutors, ect. All the usual suspects. Since converting the pod to $100 budget decks we have more fun games with more creative decklists. Everyone gets to pretty much do whatever their decks were designed for even if they don't win and even though the games generally take more turns (since on that budget it can take a couple extra turns for everyone to get rolling), the games are overall faster and we get to have more in a night.
I take Scute Swarm and I raise you Iridescent Hornbeetle! "{4}{G} • Creature - Insect • 3/4 • At the beginning of your end step, create a 1/1 green Insect creature token for each +1/+1 counter you've put on creatures under your control this turn." This means any time you consider playing this you have to keep track of the number of +1/+1 counters you are putting on your creatures and every turn going forward if it stays on the board. In decks like Phylath world sculptor or with cards like branching evolution, grumgully, master biomancer, and others this gets way more annoying to keep track of than even Scute Swarm. It has the potential to be a very powerful card, but it is such a headache and time suck to resolve it's ability I immediately cut it from my list.
I actually have a perfect example of this; Sage of Hours. My Favorite deck is my Ramos, Dragon Engine deck. it is a multicolor counters deck, and sort of a Ghave Secret Commander deck. The idea of the deck was finding ways to convert +1/+1 counters into other resources, move them around, and just do inventive things with them, or just even come in tall if all else fails. Sage of Hours has gone in and out multiple times, either for not having enough stuff that targets, or when I did fix that problem it felt like that was the way I was winning most games thanks to the deluge of counters flying around. There's so many extra win cons like Simic Ascendency or Door to Nothingness or Ghave loops to go wide or other fun things and it felt like I was winning SO many games with Sage of Hours loops that it just got people resenting the deck and it simply went into retirement. It's also a card that creates solitaire situations in a deck that normally doesn't have them TOO badly.
completely agree. the best part of playing commander (excluding cedh) is that its a singleton format and you should be having fun. yeah, we all want to win, but even when playing the same deck, 5-10 times, you get 5-10 different games cuz of playing/drawing different cards each time.
Even just browsing commander lists for ideas, if you sort by price the more expensive version of decks tend to end up being a bunch of really good tutors and other all-star efficient cards taking up all the spots that, compared to cheaper commander decks, maintain the theme or spirit of the deck. Tribal decks are the worst abou it, spells replaced with generic tutors n junk, creatures replaced by boring shapeshifters.
Tutors allow people to build decks in Commander, that would have been more fun in a 60-card format. They're like grease for putting a square peg in a round hole.
I stopped playing tutors when our group was looking for ways to power our decks down and boy has it been a major improvement! Turns are shorter, luck-of-the-draw leads to way more fun, the whacky less optimal cards that wouldn't get tutored for get to see more play. Highly recommend!
Craterhoof Behemoth: zero of fifty-two mono green decks. 1. I hated when I first started playing and the field would be clogged with creatures and you had to figure out who you can attack and how without leaving yourself too vulnerable to others, but then someone would play Craterhoof and the game was just over. It took away the strategic element of solving a Mexican Standoff. 2. As a mono green player, I find it infuriating when you sit down to a table and just by seeing the color identity of your deck some ass clown says "you have Craterhoof in there! I bet you're gonna win with Craterhoof - you just Craterhoof every game." Just because they don't know how to win games, doesn't mean I don't and if you reduce an entire color to 1 card either that's a problem with the design of the game its self or you the individual are very one dimensional.
Preach, Arthur. 99.99% of the time I despise tutors. The play pattern they create is painfully dull imo, and ruins the point of a singleton format. Vamp, demonic, worldly, etc., have all become an immediate internal "ugh..." Card draw > tutors any day.
I have a Venture into the Dungeon deck with Acerak. Everyone always says I should add Rooftop storm to it to go infinite, but that ruins the venture gimmick of the deck
The tutors one was interesting. I've been playing magic about 6ish months at this point and everything I come up with and plan out a new deck, the person who taught me constantly suggests tutors and other search cards but when I've played, I see tutors getting used so very rarely. Now I don't know if I'm just bad at deck building and my friend doesn't want to tell me and instead suggests tutors coz they may be the only way to make a deck functional, or if it's just that how he plays, he likes to be able to go and get those annoying combos and know exactly how he's going to win, and it's rubbing off on his advice giving, but it is still interesting to hear someone talking negatively about tutors.... I mean the only deck I've properly built from scratch rather then just editing a precon atm is running tutors but I may end up swapping them out for better cards... maybe more lands or land searchers since goodness knows I have terrible land luck.
Tutors are useful, but I find they lead to repetitive/boring gameplay patterns. If you goal is to just have fun, swap them out for card draw or repeating a synergy.
I never tutor for combo's, always something to make sure I can actually play and have fun. Last tutor was for something that could give me 1 white mana so I could cast my commander :D
I also think tutoring for consistency and combos is boring, because for me it's the opposite of what makes commander what it is. For higher tier gamplay it's important, but that's a different topic. Tutoring for answers is nice, but the general problem why most people don't run tutors that often is imo, the price. Either you run a 50 € tutor or a 4 or 5 cmc tutor. Budget tutors are to slow gamplay wise, while good tutors at instant speed are just way to expensive for 1 card.. I personal only run 1 tutor for 3 cmc on my dihada deck and also don't know if I wanna swap it out.
I really enjoyed this episode. I recently removed Dockside and Thoracle from my decks the former because it draws a lot of hate and I wasn't looping or anything so it often wasn't worth the trouble. The latter I removed because I was utterly bored of the wincon. I feel there is little interaction with thoracle and there are more "fair" ways to win by drawout like labman or jace.
I'm a few days late, but here are some cards that I don't play: stuff that wins super easily (Triumph of the Horde, Mechanized Production), cards that can be seen as combo pieces (Ashnod's Altar, Isochron Scepter), cards that create to much rules problems and moving stuff around, cards that just shut down other decks completely (old Elesh, Planar Void, Null Rod). Cards that I try to add: stuff that can turn a game completely around, like Inkshield, Rakdos Charm, Deflecting Palm and Narsets Reversal.
That was a great Episode. Reminded me to put Jeweled Lotus in my Tergrid Deck. I'm only playing it once every 2 months and then really try to CRUSH and show people why she is the god of FRIGHT :D Which is not happening when i play her on turn 5 when everyone has an answer and mana ready.
I love playing without Tutors! I replaced it with card draw and I felt my decks became less powerful but I had more often fun as I more often had a hand to interract with the game. :)
@@erik.pajula rampant growths and such are completely different in function and perpose to a worldly tutor or demonic tutor he'll look at the prices to show the difference
I run overwhelming splendor since there are multiple cards like "Songbird's blessing" that can cascade into it, and cards that can grab it from the grave and put it into play.
Reliquary Tower is a lot better when instead of just running some incremental card draw, you have ways of drawing MASSIVE numbers of cards. For example: * Necrologia/Necropotence * Peer into the Abyss * Decree of Pain * Massive ramp + X draw spells * Greater Good (or other "draw cards equal to creature's power" effects) + enormous creatures
Love the topic, for me one of them is Pitiless Plunderer in my Juri sacrifice deck. It is incredibly good, and can go infinite, what I dislike and why I preclude it, is that it goes infinite so easily. Any of my other mana producers on sacrifice, be it an Altar of Ashnod or cards like Pawn of Ulamog, etc., I can combo it in so many ways and just go infinite. I don't enjoy that as the sole win con, so I more curated to do effects similar, but they aren't infinite and only scale upward without a response.
Expropriate is always the first card I cut whenever I run a deck that has blue. I sometimes sneak in one card for an extra turn for flavor (Karn's Temporal Summoning in a Jodah Unifier deck, for example) but every time I put Expropriate in a deck I end up cutting it before the deck is played.
Interesting how I've had similar realizations on some of the same cards, but it does come down to how you want to play your deck. A friend of mine has been trying to evaluate how well his Hazezon deck runs but the games where Scute Swarm appears really skew the data. As for me I've taken Reliquary Tower out of decks because I don't have decks where I draw excessive amounts of cards and evaluating which 7 of your cards can win you the game is important. I also realized I've removed Spellseeker from almost all my decks, despite having 1) a wizard tribal deck, 2) a blink/ETB deck, and 3) a spellslinger deck. I have one copy left among those three, and I think it's #2 (because the value is absurd). #1 didn't have enough instants/sorceries anymore, while #3 I leaned more into just including instants and sorceries instead of tutors. I de-tutored one deck and entirely restructured it because if I drew a tutor (like Spellseeker) I would just tutor out the same combo pieces and go for the win. So I never got to utilize the other cool, lesser-known cards in the deck. The most efficient combo wasn't even unique to the commander or exciting, it was just Dualcaster Mage+Twinflame. Dualcaster Mage is another card I've removed from decks, and both Twinflame and Heat Shimmer remain in my binder.
Two of my three were mentioned. Tutors (other than land ramp) as I don't like decks getting the same thing all the time. As Rachel said, it's nice to try to win with what you draw Cathars crusade, I don't have enough dice for that Reserved list cards, some are super powerful and I don't think it's fair for me to have access to them when many people can't and won't ever have the chance
It depends on if things are happening in a long game, if a game runs long and there are swings in momentum that’s great! But if there are like 6 turns in a row that no one really does anything impactful, those are the long games that are less fun to play
A few comments on some of the cards the cast chose: Wraths: I keep them as a catchup mechanic, especially when i know my deck can win Dauthi: Used it in one deck and didn't net me anything good Top, tutors: Use to add consistency in the deck until I am comfortable with how it functions, then take out for synergy pieces Scute Swarm: haven't used it, maybe in a blex deck Tithe: only in mono white where ramp is terrible Lotus: even if it was cheap, most commanders I run are 3-5 so not worth it Now my personal "good" card I won't use: Vedalken Orrery or similar effects. First off, it breaks bounded accuracy on how effective a deck is. You can't tell how limiting sorceries or creature ETBs are. Second, you now need to be "always on" for every player's turn. I like being able to be at least partially shut off on my opponents turns. Third, doing nothing on my turn is, honestly, pretty boring. So I don't like those "can cast as though it were an instant" type effects.
I feel yall on the tutor take, I've really noticed that players eyes start to glaze over when you tutor more than once in a single turn. We play high power so it's all far in love and war but there are feels bad moments when you're tutoring and they would rather scoop because it's easier to just start a new game
I play Mindslaver in Muldrotha Artifacts for 2 reasons. 1. It turns a 3 person game into a 2v1 2. I have ways to make a game 3v1 with replaying it from the grave
It’s not so much the card but how players use it. If you actually had to steadily mill your deck to win, it would be fun but 99% of the time, the win comes from infinite combo and draw the entire deck to win. It’s the equivalent to infinite mana and fireball all opponents but easier to draw into…
Agree. I like variety and got very tired of 50% of games ending in lab man winning and later the other 2 versions. The one exception where I think I wouldn't be annoyed by Thassas Oracle is if they didn't draw/mill combo but developed enough blue devotion to win with half their deck left. I think I'd congratulate the opponent if they can pull that off.
I have a general rule of “don’t play cards that get you killed” these are things that when played draw the attention of the entire table because they either generate high ire or are the removal or die cards. Smothering tithe, painful quandary, are some examples. Vorinclex voice of hunger is another. Big dangerous things that don’t win you the game but everyone immediately knows they have to deal with you or die.
On the subject of board wipes, it feels like once the board is wiped you enter the board wipe zone. I don't think I've had a game where there was a wrath to answer a wild board state, and then the game moved forward. Once the board wipes start, the person immediately after the wipe in turn order is in the catbird seat and gets to rebuild first, which means seats 2 and 3 following are incentivized to board wipe again since now they are behind. I've had the experience a number of times that wraths comes in 3s and 4s. The difference-maker has been one-sided wraths. A Sephara getting to wrath and push damage, wraths that only hit certain permanents to maintain momentum, and even Cyclonic Rift to allow one person to get way ahead. Its ironic, but the fact that Cyc Rift is so much better than other wraths has made it the least annoying wrath in recent memory provided the player casting the rift can use that as a push to win.
Rhystic study, if I am in blue there are a million ways to draw cards that don't annoy people. Mystic Remora, above but also people just ramped with creatures of just held off until I gave up on it
Totally agree with Josh about the lotus. I didn't even bother about buying it, even if my playground plays kinda 8ish decks with pretty nasty things into it. It's kinda unfun and a pretty dead draw in many cases. About this topic in general I think we have to think about what is too powerful/ unfun in our particular deck, not in general. For example, I'm not playing mana crypt anymore in very commander centric decks, with very powerful commanders that can be summon too early because of it (let's say Korvold / Orvar as pretty obvious examples). But I still play the crypt in other decks, especially no green ones. In the same mindset, I can play very powerful cards if they match my deck's theme and serves its game plan. But not in other decks when it's just winmore or just a "goodstuff" card. I play dauthi in Yuriko, because it can't be blocked and I don't care about my graveyard. I play scute swarm in my land deck because it's a wincon by itself in this deck, and it draws attention away from my real key cards. I play tutors in combo decks but I never include any combo with less than 4-5 cards to go off. It's a general balance topic, in your particular deck, and in your pod in general. Removing sol ring / crypt / lotus in the entire pod can also be a good start to add balance and fun
13:45 fun thing for many players, that reanimator deck players also hate & hope you wrath instead bc less of their shit gets used, is that Cyclonic Rift prevents recursion. Note, it's fun to use this after they have glode reanimated with, for example, Day of the Dead, Living End, OG Liliana Vess, etc. Reanimator players, don't hate me. I sometimes play reanimator decks, I just don't get as worked up. Yeah, it can be Annoying, but I use plenty of reanimation & spell recursion. Or I'd play dredge with answers to Dauthi whatsistface.
One of my favorite things I've ever done in magic is mindslaves someone playing Pako and Haldan. I made them play my exiled stolen goblin caboomist, tap out, and pass the turn.
The reliquary tower argument was weak AF. The only argument is the mana sucks, the point being made about not knowing if cards are good or not cuz you’re not forced to discard is rather dumb. If you routinely don’t play a card (tower present or not) than the hand size never mattered and the card being pitched or stuck in your hand is NO DIFFERENT. Some of these takes seem thought of on the spot and not very thoroughly thought out….
36:30 slight counterpoint, or at least another dimension to consider here - decks that want this effect and get a lot of value out of it want more of this sort of hand and deck manipulation. They tend to have a compounding effect. Yuriko is a commander that likes effects like this, and it ends up eating so much time at the table. When the Top and the Scroll Rack combine with the Lim-Dul's Vault you've entered casual hell. That also trends towards decks with very powerful game plans (again, Yuriko is instructive here.) If you really need this level of consistency, you're looking to do kind of the same thing over and over again and that one thing is strong enough to take the game. It's like Capsize - the moment Capsize becomes good enough to lock out the game, the entire game becomes about Capsize. It all combines to make for games that are excruciating, especially at the casual mid-power level where people try to be more mindful of table equity. This is all to say that I think there are a vanishingly small amount of tables where these effects are in the appropriate band of being worthwhile without being power outliers.
Made a post in one of the EDH fbook groups talking about a personal ban list I use when building . . .everyone LOST THEIR MINDS OVER IT! Lolz. Everyone going off about how to stop combos and such. Accusing me of being a failure at magic, etc etc. It was wild.
I run tutors in my voltron decks. If I'm going to experience the same playpattern of my opponents casting removal spells on my commander before I can properly set up, I might as well play into that by making sure I can defend against the guaranteed answer to my main wincon.
Card I most identified with cutting: Tutors. My three new decks for 2022 had no tutors in them and they were more fun to play, and to play against, becasue of it. Every game feels different and every card gets to shine in its moment. Card I least identified with cutting: Reliquary tower. But the reasons given were excellent and I'll put serious thought into cutting that and thought vessel. In a 15 card hand, I'm not sure that cards 8-15 are worth the threat perception they create.
In my omnath deck I run jokulhaups and a koma, float the 13 mana, cast the jokul and then the koma. People usually scoop once koma hits since it's such a fast clock . Better to have 1 wrath and use it effectively rather than 10 and using them willy nilly.
It’s OK if your group is not including tutors, but that’s a major disadvantage if you are the only one not using them. I’m not a fan of cyclonic rift, but my play group frequently includes it, so I do too when playing blue. As much as I don’t like it, only ever being on the receiving end, I like even less…
@@wonkyboy Good players would typically play a synergistic deck AND tutors. I have no idea how your deck getting milled has anything to do with whether you use tutors.
@Dragon Fyre I was meaning that dull decks tutor for the same key pieces. These players tend to be the ones who whine about milling because they 'need' their pieces for their deck to operate. Good synergy and draw means your answers should always be close without needing to tutor. Personally i feel tutors ruin the singleton formula and cause repetitive gameplay. If you need to win so badly play standard or cedh. Just an opinion.
@@wonkyboy I guess it depends on how you use tutors. If you are just always going for the infinite combo win, it’s not very EDH friendly and all too repetitive. In my group, infinite combos are banned, so tutors are just used situationally, to get the card that is very synergistic to the moment.
Rad episode thanks for the hard work team! I believe in brewing and playing the deck you want and like but the one card I hesitate adding more than any other is dockside extortionist.
Lol where was Triumph of the Hordes? That shit is annoying af. It's like, oh I built up my tribal deck, Oh I built up my enchantments, I built up my artifacts, and then the 4th guy is like "I have 6 creatures and I play Triumph of the hordes."
Rachel is my favorite even before she joined the crew. She builds good decks, knows rule interactions (She's a CAG Member) and she's not afraid of flavorful Jank.
I'm gonna miss the commander sphere though
She plays, and supports, stickers and you don’t like silly?
She loves her some jank
She said at the end about 13 lives they all made it out. Thats not corrwct one of the navy seals died rescuing rhem
And she's hilarious. Check out some of her stand-up. It's great
4:50 the episode starts here
6:46 Murph
11:29 Craig
14:19 Gaurav
17:45 Jake
20:33 Arthur
28:52 Ladee
31:00 Damen
33:55 Manson
36:51 Jordan
40:32 Josh
42:45 Rachel
Also Rachel at ~42:45
@@Kleion_RFBThanks I added it
u tha goat
Not all heroes wear capes
Thank you kind sir
The cards I don't choose to use can be very easily grouped: "cards that are more then 10 bucks and I didn't pull from a pack myself"
Another man of culture I see.
Same thing but for me it’s over three bucks unless it is a key card for the deck that I am building then I don’t know over five dollars
I wish I could like this comment twice!!
@@ericpartridge8300 Hard fricking truth.
Skipping prerelease today just because it isn't worth the $30 coming with draft packs and no good promos 😭
Same. Love my jeweled lotus. Only have it because I pulled it. Lol otherwise I would never buy one.
This is exactly the kind of discussion I love Rachel for instigating and I'm so glad her voice is being amplified by joining the staff here! Yay for Rachel!
I love when Rachel caught him on “I don’t use board wipes” … “So do you use Cyclonic Rift?” ………. “I use Cyclonic Rift in EVERYTHING”.
Yeah, I don't really know what point he was trying to make. He doesn't like white board wipes, but he likes the best blue board wipe.
@@andrewdonnelly4685 he builds his decks like an aggro player and expects to run out of resources. then when he runs out of resources he uses his lack of board wipes to lose harder. these type of linear players are quite a handful to play against. they are never useful in the pod and only play the game of "who goes off first"
@@johnphipps4960 it's the correct way to play NOBODY wants to play pass the 25 min mark of a game
@@andrewdonnelly4685 he's saying he doesn't like board wipes where you're behind so you board wipe to reset board back to 0 . Cyclonic rift just straight up wins you the game or at least kills one or two people when you use it with a developed board.
@@famousstranger8468 I do.
The advice of focusing on advancing your own board rather than effectively destroying your opponents board is a perfect summation.
This is the best content you've released in a long while.
Feel like every creator is stuck on spoiler/review/repeat and it's boring af
More Arthur Medowcroft! Smart, attentive, insightful, polite, and humble. Seems like the good human being I actually want to sit across the table from.
Great topic! I really appreciate the not playing cards that make opponents say "Oh *sigh* i gotta do what now?" theme.
I really hope Craig is in the game knights episode for the phyrexia set. Haven't seen him play in a while + want to his what infect shenanigans he will pull
Rachel is such a wonderful addition to the command zone.
I agree! I'm wondering where Jimmy is, though. I took a magic break, came back and I don't see him.
I love this question, and I think it's really important for people to consider. Specifically in regards to a card being too powerful and you either think it won't make for fun games, or will draw you too much hate at the table. It was very interesting to hear everyone's perspective.
Scute swarm is one of my favorite cards, I find that the easiest way to keep track of it is to stick my phone calculator on it makes calculations much easier
I run it in a Chatterfang deck with parallel lives, doubling season, and primal vigor and at a certain point I just leave it at 120 or something and don't bother making more.
Just always play massacre wurm
I have it in one deck, but it’s usually removed within one round, so the “bookkeeping” is never an issue, lol
I love when my group plays this against my toxrill deck.
Scute Swarm on its own is cool, but the joy for me is in mutating Scute Swarm to make a bunch of ridiculous copies.
I think Gaurav is just using Coat of Arms incorrectly. There is 0 reason to play it when creatures are still going to be entering or leaving the battlefield. Your goal is to have 10+ tribal creatures, and drop CoA like a craterhoof bahemoth. You should be dropping CoA, declaring attacks, and winning the game with it. Or you hold it because if you are the only tribal deck someone is going to kill it before it has its biggest possible affect. You don't drop CoA early and "whittle" people down with your slightly buffed creatures.
This. Learned this the hard way with my Rogue Tribal deck. I hadn't even read Coat of Arms correctly when I put it in the deck and didn't realise it affected everyone, not just me! Needless to say the Elf ball deck I was against trounced me from there. Play it to end the game or hold it.
Good point, thanks for that!
I get both sides. You ideally play it to win, but if someone fogs, or teferi's protection, uses targeted removal to prevent lethal combat damage, it is a card that requires a lot of maintenance. Even if your intentions are to end the game, that doesn't always happen, and then, yes, it is an annoying card to play. That said, i agree, this card should be held until you intend to win.
You're correct there. It should be used like a colorless Overrun and not an anthem.
A similar situation is people playing Beastmaster Ascension on T3 with 1-2 creatures in play. You play it until you have 7 creatures and start killing players.
Jewelled Lotus - to avoid the situations Josh outlined, it can be good to hold it in your hand until a few turns later, when there are other threats at the table / you're more set up to deal with the heat it might give you. It's still a great ritual effect, saving your lands that turn to use reactively. The same principal can be applied to "remove on sight" commanders; often the best way to play them is to not play them until you have the ability to protect them.
More to the point, only drop the lotus when you're going to crack it. There are almost no situations where you want the lotus in play. Literally use it as a Dark Ritual for your commander
Also, I never understood the thought that this is a dead card if you draw it later in the game. The Lotus pays commander tax, which is a great use of it, especially if, like me, you play a lot of Kill On Sight commanders
I love how Jake references reading rainbow. Made me lol but also reminisce
I really appreciated this insight. I wish they would have asked, “which deck would you absolutely play this card in”. Some of these cards are evergreen, but a few seemed narrow.
Rhystic Study, Smothering tithe, and other cards where I feel like I'm stepping on someone else's turn with all the triggers. They feel like they throw off game rhythm even with experienced players and they are awful with new players. If I am reacting on someone else's turn, I would rather have that one spicy moment where the whole table yells like casting Sublime Epiphany.
Even Underworld dreams is embarassing to play
i remember when i played my landfall deck that the player next to me had rakdos charm in their hand while i kept making scute swarms to the point i took 16 million damage from 1 spell
Yes! Rakdos charm is one of my ultimate pet cards with 2 very relevant modes and a third that won't come up super often but when it does it just wins the game!
I've come to hate Rakdos Charm. In commander someone is inevitably going to go wide at some point, since you need to attack while leaving back enough blockers.
Rakdos Charm just feels like a one card game nullifier, where nothing that came before matters because the player that was winning instantly loses.
It's probably my saltiest card. At least Mindslaver requires some interaction, and it's possible to come back from a Cyclonic Rift. Why is there a 2-mana "you have a strong board state so you lose" card, especially one with other useful options?
@@adamrobinson6951 It is hardly a “you have a strong board state, so you lose” card. You have 40 life. It is basically only a counter against very specific token decks (ie. doubling season etc.). The 2 mana is not that relevant as by the time it would be an effective amount of damage, it could easily cost 7+ without much inconvenience.
Rakdos Charm is one of my favourite cards. It's won me multiple games
Honestly from all of these the one that stuck with me the most and the one I relate to heavily is Arthur Meadowcrofts take on tutors! Really good one.
That was my exact thought. My 3rd deck ever had a ton of tutors (Wilhelt with a bunch of infinite wincons) no deck I've built since has more than 1 tutor because I want variety in my games
Regarding Smothering Tithe: My approach is to tell the table, "I am going to make a treasure every time you draw a card unless you tell me otherwise." This gets rid of at least some of the nuisance factor in my experience.
In my experience this just leads to the whole table asking everyone all the time “Are you gonna pay his two?” And it’s just as annoying
Yea but thats also not how triggers are supposed to work youre supposed to remind people
Really cool video. Great explanations of why each player doesn't play those cards.
The card I don't play anymore is curse of opulence (thanks richard from mtg goldfish)
1) It makes one person the punching bag, basically forcing them to lose slowly as they fall behind in life and resources
2) if there are multiple arch enemy commanders, you king make
Just doesn't lead to fun situations
Rachel is a great addition. Keep these episodes coming.
Craig's explanation is the best. I co-sign everything he said in his segment.
I used to be a patron of the command zone, but with my life situation changing and time I found myself not watching the podcast episodes any more.
Commander sphere has been my favorite podcast for the past three or so years, so when Rachel came here, I immediately decided to come back!
It's so great to see what she brings to the podcast, and I'm looking forward to listening to every episode again!
I think mine would be Dockside Extortionist. It’s so easy to put it into every one of my Mardu decks but the only one I have it in is Kelsien, which has a lot of blink effects.
Great fun episode. Definitely a template I'd be happy to see repeated for different topics
YES!!!
'Every colour is well equipped with a good draw package'.
Mono White: Please sir can I have some more
My good card I don't use is Telepathy. Gives a good advantage, but slows things to a crawl and makes everyone at the table hate you
yeah I considered adding that one to a deck, but after thinking about it I realized that it was just miserable to play against and decided not to
Topic suggestion: gameplay techniques that help simplify complicated plays for the table to understand. What are the tricks you like for things like: making the stack easier to understand, handling lots of tokens counters and temporary effects, floating mana, etc.
Personally, D6 are for +1 counters (or minus, if both use strictly different colors) and anthems are a single D20. If I am generating a lot of tokens I’ll have 3 tokens with D20’s. One for untapped, on for tapped. And one for sickness.
Playgroup has a good way to handle complicated stacks, we lay cards in middle of of the table in order cast so we can visualize the order, and face down cards to symbolize triggers from permanents. Everyone is responsible for their own triggers and spells to explain what happens when it resolves.
@@fishrunner23 I like this. I feel like there are definitely ways to make this stuff easier.
For +1/+1 counters, we have actual +1/+1 counter D6's, so we can use that to track those while using regular dice to track quantity of tokens. Colored spindowns for floating mana. One person always forgets to draw so he started putting his hand down sideways on the top of his deck so he has to pick it up from there each time and remember to draw. Placement of commanders can get confusing, so some of us stick our commanders out of the side of our library when not in play so they're floating in their own special command zone.
Nice. Does anyone have any tricks for better keeping track of whether land drops are made or not?
@@gregboulton8230 Designate a spot for new land drops away from your other lands, then every untap step, move any lands in that spot down to the rest of your lands.
I don't play Aetherflux Reservoir anymore. I felt as if I was holding the entire table hostage. It sucked the joy out of the game and really brought the mood down for the rest of the night.
I just promise people I wont use it if we go down to 1v1 or if someone targets it for removal. My need for it is that its extra life gain triggers. I will use it if its still a 3 or 4 man game and someone is "unjustly" targeting me AFTER I explain the condition I have for it. Like my goal is not to use the nuclear option. But IF someone at the table chooses to "give the game to someone else" because they have some kind of hill to die on and I know Im not going to make any progress because that one person is martyrdoming me. So I speed it up and just take us both out of the equation.
My playgroup has learned to either keep me under the 50 threshold just so it doesnt come online, or that after Im above 50 to not spend 4 pieces of removal on my board JUST bc its online and to use those removals for actual threats.
You see, I actually really enjoy using Aetherflux because of that hostage type situation. It forces my opponents to make suboptimal places by either attempting to deal with it and possibly dying to it, or forcing me to use it at a time that I don't want to, thereby losing me the game. It also frequently guarantees a quicker game.
Side Note: I run Aetherflux with The Golden Throne in my Elas Il-Kor deck, and it's a hilarious synergy.
seems like it's more like people don't know how to play against these "I can kill you any moment" situtations. First of all, you can't make deals and kingmake someone who has kill button for a player. It's even more salty play that they can just use others to kill others. Second, you have no option other than play into it, because when it is used, other players are free from that hostage situtation and can take him out. Sometimes they don't even want to use it because they get rest of the table on focusing him. Bonus: If you know what kind of game you are going into, then it's also mostly players issue when someone plays certain card.
Holding the table hostage is exactly why I would play an Aetherflux Reservoir.
If you have any instant speed damage or life loss you are actually holding the Aetherflux Reservoir player in check. They need to have a reasonable buffer above 50 to be able to use it. Remember: 50 life is the cost to activate it. You pay that immediately. Then 50 dmg to someone goes on the stack. If you have 53 life and Aetherflux someone and in response someone else Lightning Bolts you, you die and your damage effect on the stack is removed from the game.
There are also cards like Trickbind which counter activated abilities. If Aetherflux is countered, remember, that player still payed the 50 life, because that is the cost of the ability.
The card I don’t run is Curse of Exhaustion. It just removes a player until they get an enchantment removal, which ruins the game not only for them, but the rest of the table.
I just added Smothering Tithe to a Kwain deck. It’s so much upkeep when I make all players draw a card. I might not be keeping it in there long.
My favourite thing with Scute Swarm is to make 5-10 copies, then when I play a land, mystic reflect them into something else.
Last game, I made 12 Eternal Witnesses, got my grave back,
The time before, I made 10 copies of a creature with initiative, and those 10 ventures won me the game
Unfortunately mystic reflection doesn't work like that with scute swarm. When you have 5 scute swarms and play a land your actually triggering each one separately to make another copy, and the way mystic reflection reads is the "next time you would make tokens replace them with X." So it replaces only the first scute swarm trigger of just 1 copy of another scute swarm into whatever you want then boom mystic reflection has met its criteria and no longer replaces copies and you just finish making 4 more scute swarms.
The best way to utilize mystic reflection is something that has 1 trigger to make lots of tokens like Avenger of Zendikar. When you go yo make 7 plants after it etbs you replace those with mystic reflection to be 7 more Avengers, (which finishes Reflections trigger it no replaces anything for the turn) and after those 7 avengers enter they each make 7 plants now for a total of 21 plants and 8 total avengers to buff them next land drop.
"Wrathing takes away the joy of me building my board"
Has Kyler as cmdr, Champion of Lambholt, Tireless Tracker and just played Increasing Devotion from grave.
I will board wipe, as that is how I stop that bullshit seeing how I can't block a single thing with Champion out, oh and did I mention you put the Lightning Greaves on that so I can't just single target remove it? so its take lethal, cuz you have a cool board, or I wipe your board...
I also loved Arthur’s comment on tutors…I’m fairly new to using tutors in my deck as I too prefer the surprise of what I draw…however, in some of the decks, such as my ur dragon it’s a necessity so I can find the cards that make my dragons easier to get out I.e. fist of suns and nyxbloom ancient…but I only have 1 or 2 tutors per deck because I don’t want to always have the answer I want to work towards it!!!
Imo tutors can be replaced by more card draw. You'll find your important pieces too, as well as interactions and avoid getting in top deck mode.
I used to use tutors. found my game played the same almost every time. ended up being boring. Commander (EDH), in my opinion, is more fun when your deck plays differently in multiple plays. Having said that, I don't mind if somebody tutors for the answer to current board state. It's the combo searchers that make the game less fun.
@@paloflimdul I search for what makes sense at the time…only two of my decks use tutors the other two rely on card draw
I guess I don't use tutors correctly. I feel like a good 75% of the time or better I find myself tutoring for an answer not some type of wincon. Also, though, I only have a couple of decks that have actual combos in them.
I also don't run generic tutors in my decks. I'll occasionally run a thematic limited tutor if it fits the deck, but I prefer my games to play out differently every time. When I run tutors I find that the decks end up playing too linearly for my preferences.
These comments make me think I use tutors wrong. I don't really look for combo pieces, I tend to just look for what looks good in the moment and that means I typically get a bunch of different cards rather then just 1 or 2 blanket look fors.
@@kitsu1379 This is exactly how you use tutors without being linear. People freak out when you demonic tutor like you're about to win the game when in reality I just searched for a land bc mana screwed
@@servalkorion686 I run Idyllic and Enlightned in an enchantment deck and usually, I use it to look for a reasonably low cost enchantment that I can use to prock my enchantress draw abilities or just to set up for something I'm plannin for like.. I dunno two three turns down the line. I have demonic and vampiric in a liesa deck and that deck does have an infinate combo but tbh i'm more likely to use them to search for something I can use for protection like Myrel or Grand Abolisher ya know? Less looking for instant wins and more stuff that just kinda helps keep me in the game for a bit longer.
@@servalkorion686 Also yea, I am so often mana screwed and have such bad luck with land draws that if I sometimes "waste" a tutor to look for a land.
A great follow up may be what bad cards do you put into your decks. As an inverse of this where it may not be the optimal solution but your personal favorite for one reason or another. Or maybe one where you choose a cheaper option that performs a similar role as a budget focused episode.
For a long time I would try to make Storm spirits work. That was back around Mirage block and I never really got it to be worth the hassle of getting it out. Maybe now with commander and or spirit support I could make it work, though it would still be pretty bad with so many even better options.
Coat of Arms maybe needs a lighter math version maybe with counters and an activation trigger for when it checks. Removing the tutors sounds like sound advice to get more of the draw hype experience. Drawing a good chance card sounds more fun than a sure solution. Especially in Commander where part of the appeal is seeing a wider variety of stuff. Reducing the number of auto include type of cards is probably good all around.
I dig the better help ad. The bit where Jimmy accepts the loss was gold as comedy and message.
I never really understood necropotence well enough to use it despite knowing it is supposed to be good.
I like the outside perspective on some of these cards and how they impact such as the time sink of sensei's divining top. I never really actively thought about turn or play efficiency from the perspective of time sinks or mental sinks dragging down the experience or stalling out the game flow with things like the voidwalker. Are there other types of acceleration like the jeweled lotus that can be cut to create a better play experience?
Scute swarm sounds like you would need a calculator to keep up with it in short order. Imagine the math of that with Coat of Arms....
Is the blue castle background based on a card or a piece of art? I kind of want to change my pc background now.
Get a life, please. KEKL
Approach The Second Sun. Always. My favorite wincon in UWx decks.
I know that pain with Coat of Arms. I also run one in my elf tribal deck. The last time I played it, it resulted in a hilarious standoff because it was buffing the other players' boards thanks to my own creatures. May end up replacing it with something else now that I'm thinking about it.
In our group there is kind of a meme. One of us always always runs settle the wrackage. You can tell by the 4 mana open that he has it in hand, so people stopped attacking him then. Its kind of a funny mindgame. Does he have it? Does he not? Even if he took the card out, we would forget that he doesnt play it anymore.
Josh’s take on Jeweled Lotus was good. I decided against getting one for my Niv-Mizzet, Parun deck since I already get targeted whenever I play that commander so adding Jeweled Lotus would brand me as archenemy even more.
With dark ritual in these K'rrik decks: it's in your opening hand, you've won😆 okay maybe not auto-win but it is brutal. Mana crypt, Sol Ring, pay 6life and start yoyoing with your life total. In the meantime, everyone just get up and start making sandwiches
@@hoozoohleague8264 💀💀💀
@@roarkkariyama that's it exactly. Dark ritual costs: 💀 and gives: 💀💀💀 haha
I immediately thought of cathar's crusade. you need so many dice and especially with tokens
Yep. I'll only use such a card in situations where a digital maths computer can track everything.
It is such a good card and every hates me for playing it because it takes me 10 years to organize all my d20
This is absolutely my answer. So.much.of.a.slog.
"I want to win. I don't want my cards to win." - this is why everyone loves Rachel's decks and Rachel!
Rachel you are AWESOME! You're definetly a great addition to the command zone crew. Stay cool!
The con sounds fun, but I was just in Philly for PAX Unplugged and can't justify going back again so soon.
As far as food, the Reading Terminal Market has wide variety of options. Also, the convention center is near a good sushi place and a good pho place.
genuinely compelled to watch more often with Rachel on ❤
Honestly, I don’t drop a lot of Likes here anymore, especially from the earlier days of the channel when Jimmy & Josh are mainly advocating for the strongest options available.
This episode is nice… & different, presenting other considerations for not auto-including said strongest options. I too, have standing dis-preference towards certain cards/categories for reasons like logistics (Cathars’ Crusade), common annoyances/grievers (discard, play other players’ card, steal permanents, etc), even non-thematic staples (like the classic 1 MV removal spells).
I Liked this episode
Really loving the input from Arthur, Damen and Rachel! They rep a different, slightly more casual experience from the veterans of the channel which is a breath of fresh air!
Top can also be a trap card when deciding if you want to mulligan. Keeping a 1 or even 2 land hand and thinking, "Well there's a Top so I can just Top into a way out." rarely works out.
Having said that I own 4 and run them all, but three of them are in decks that run off the top of the deck, Prosper, Grist, and Galea. The fourth is in my Marath, and that's mostly because it's my pet deck and well, Top is Top. Lol
@@DCII There's definitely decks that Top completely excels at and should be must include!
I love the top in Niv-Mizzet, Parun, but I've definitely fallen into the trap of keeping the bad Top hand and watching my prayers go unanswered.
In my Playgroup we play No Ban format. Two rules: #1 If you get beat by an opponents deck you get to play that deck against them in the next game. #2 You can't complain to the group about any ambdominal aches caused by laughing too hard!
That sounds like a really fun idea. I'll have to try proposing that
48:26. The soccer team gets out but one of the rescuers do not make it in real life.
Philadelphian here! Reading Terminal Market is right next to the convention center and is an absolute must to check out for food. Beilers in the Reading Terminal Market is a must for donuts, Old City Coffee (also in Reading Terminal Market) has great coffee. Tons of great food options as well. Passeros is also a good local coffee place. McGuillian's pub is the oldest pub in Philly and worth checking out.
I would suggest to Gaurav to view Coat of Arms more as an overrun effect than a piece you rush out. Like, say I have 25 goblins on he field, then cast CoA to swing for lethal.
I won't be able to attend the convention in my hometown sadly, but I can at least recommend some places you have to go to. 1. You have to hit up the Redding Terminal Market, plenty of great food there and imo you can't go wrong with any shop in that place. 2. Try out Wawa, it's a convenience store with some good options for quick food on the go and it's pretty much all solid. 3. Go to Pat's, Steve's, and Geno's, and when you get your cheesesteak, I recommend you get it "wit" aka with onions (I'm not a fan personally but it is tradition and you gotta follow tradition at least once before you break it if you are not from here). A lot of people from Philly will swear by one over the others (to the point of violence, part of the charm of our fair city) but for my money I just recommend travelers to try all three and form your own opinion. The only thing I ask is that when you form your opinion, you stand by it and take no guff from anyone who dares think otherwise, it is the Philly way. (In case anyone wonders, my preference is Steve's).
As for the other question, I have a very simple answer, I play in a budget pod, and as a result, I don't play pretty much any good card that cost's more than 10 dollars (and even then only one of theose $10 cards in a deck generally speaking). I have personally found the experience to be infinitely more enjoyable than standard EDH. Budget unrestricted honestly wound up feeling very samey after a while, kept seeing the same cards constantly pop up and none of them were actually fun. Rift, tithe, [insert one sided board wipe here], dockside, good tutors, ect. All the usual suspects. Since converting the pod to $100 budget decks we have more fun games with more creative decklists. Everyone gets to pretty much do whatever their decks were designed for even if they don't win and even though the games generally take more turns (since on that budget it can take a couple extra turns for everyone to get rolling), the games are overall faster and we get to have more in a night.
I take Scute Swarm and I raise you Iridescent Hornbeetle!
"{4}{G} • Creature - Insect • 3/4 • At the beginning of your end step, create a 1/1 green Insect creature token for each +1/+1 counter you've put on creatures under your control this turn."
This means any time you consider playing this you have to keep track of the number of +1/+1 counters you are putting on your creatures and every turn going forward if it stays on the board. In decks like Phylath world sculptor or with cards like branching evolution, grumgully, master biomancer, and others this gets way more annoying to keep track of than even Scute Swarm. It has the potential to be a very powerful card, but it is such a headache and time suck to resolve it's ability I immediately cut it from my list.
I actually have a perfect example of this; Sage of Hours. My Favorite deck is my Ramos, Dragon Engine deck. it is a multicolor counters deck, and sort of a Ghave Secret Commander deck. The idea of the deck was finding ways to convert +1/+1 counters into other resources, move them around, and just do inventive things with them, or just even come in tall if all else fails.
Sage of Hours has gone in and out multiple times, either for not having enough stuff that targets, or when I did fix that problem it felt like that was the way I was winning most games thanks to the deluge of counters flying around. There's so many extra win cons like Simic Ascendency or Door to Nothingness or Ghave loops to go wide or other fun things and it felt like I was winning SO many games with Sage of Hours loops that it just got people resenting the deck and it simply went into retirement. It's also a card that creates solitaire situations in a deck that normally doesn't have them TOO badly.
Removing Tutors has vastly increased my enjoyment of the game. I can't recommend it enough
It really depends on the deck. For example my marath deck can function without tutor, but my Kroxa it s a controll discard deck and needs tutors
completely agree. the best part of playing commander (excluding cedh) is that its a singleton format and you should be having fun. yeah, we all want to win, but even when playing the same deck, 5-10 times, you get 5-10 different games cuz of playing/drawing different cards each time.
Even just browsing commander lists for ideas, if you sort by price the more expensive version of decks tend to end up being a bunch of really good tutors and other all-star efficient cards taking up all the spots that, compared to cheaper commander decks, maintain the theme or spirit of the deck. Tribal decks are the worst abou it, spells replaced with generic tutors n junk, creatures replaced by boring shapeshifters.
Tutors allow people to build decks in Commander, that would have been more fun in a 60-card format. They're like grease for putting a square peg in a round hole.
I stopped playing tutors when our group was looking for ways to power our decks down and boy has it been a major improvement! Turns are shorter, luck-of-the-draw leads to way more fun, the whacky less optimal cards that wouldn't get tutored for get to see more play. Highly recommend!
Craterhoof Behemoth: zero of fifty-two mono green decks.
1. I hated when I first started playing and the field would be clogged with creatures and you had to figure out who you can attack and how without leaving yourself too vulnerable to others, but then someone would play Craterhoof and the game was just over. It took away the strategic element of solving a Mexican Standoff.
2. As a mono green player, I find it infuriating when you sit down to a table and just by seeing the color identity of your deck some ass clown says "you have Craterhoof in there! I bet you're gonna win with Craterhoof - you just Craterhoof every game." Just because they don't know how to win games, doesn't mean I don't and if you reduce an entire color to 1 card either that's a problem with the design of the game its self or you the individual are very one dimensional.
Preach, Arthur.
99.99% of the time I despise tutors. The play pattern they create is painfully dull imo, and ruins the point of a singleton format. Vamp, demonic, worldly, etc., have all become an immediate internal "ugh..." Card draw > tutors any day.
I have a Venture into the Dungeon deck with Acerak. Everyone always says I should add Rooftop storm to it to go infinite, but that ruins the venture gimmick of the deck
The tutors one was interesting. I've been playing magic about 6ish months at this point and everything I come up with and plan out a new deck, the person who taught me constantly suggests tutors and other search cards but when I've played, I see tutors getting used so very rarely. Now I don't know if I'm just bad at deck building and my friend doesn't want to tell me and instead suggests tutors coz they may be the only way to make a deck functional, or if it's just that how he plays, he likes to be able to go and get those annoying combos and know exactly how he's going to win, and it's rubbing off on his advice giving, but it is still interesting to hear someone talking negatively about tutors....
I mean the only deck I've properly built from scratch rather then just editing a precon atm is running tutors but I may end up swapping them out for better cards... maybe more lands or land searchers since goodness knows I have terrible land luck.
The only tutor I myself had an actual fun with was scheming symmetry, because it was easy way to get yourself an ally, more than actual card search.
Tutors are useful, but I find they lead to repetitive/boring gameplay patterns. If you goal is to just have fun, swap them out for card draw or repeating a synergy.
I never tutor for combo's, always something to make sure I can actually play and have fun. Last tutor was for something that could give me 1 white mana so I could cast my commander :D
@@tratanlightbreaker6029 I absolutely love scheming symmetry
I also think tutoring for consistency and combos is boring, because for me it's the opposite of what makes commander what it is. For higher tier gamplay it's important, but that's a different topic.
Tutoring for answers is nice, but the general problem why most people don't run tutors that often is imo, the price. Either you run a 50 € tutor or a 4 or 5 cmc tutor. Budget tutors are to slow gamplay wise, while good tutors at instant speed are just way to expensive for 1 card.. I personal only run 1 tutor for 3 cmc on my dihada deck and also don't know if I wanna swap it out.
I would go with Blightsteel Colossus. It’s just such a groan inducing card from your opponents.
i agree if it's played very often as the wincon. if it's like blightsteel surprise, i don't really care about that.
I really enjoyed this episode. I recently removed Dockside and Thoracle from my decks the former because it draws a lot of hate and I wasn't looping or anything so it often wasn't worth the trouble. The latter I removed because I was utterly bored of the wincon. I feel there is little interaction with thoracle and there are more "fair" ways to win by drawout like labman or jace.
I'm a few days late, but here are some cards that I don't play: stuff that wins super easily (Triumph of the Horde, Mechanized Production), cards that can be seen as combo pieces (Ashnod's Altar, Isochron Scepter), cards that create to much rules problems and moving stuff around, cards that just shut down other decks completely (old Elesh, Planar Void, Null Rod).
Cards that I try to add: stuff that can turn a game completely around, like Inkshield, Rakdos Charm, Deflecting Palm and Narsets Reversal.
That was a great Episode.
Reminded me to put Jeweled Lotus in my Tergrid Deck.
I'm only playing it once every 2 months and then really try to CRUSH and show people why she is the god of FRIGHT :D
Which is not happening when i play her on turn 5 when everyone has an answer and mana ready.
I love playing without Tutors! I replaced it with card draw and I felt my decks became less powerful but I had more often fun as I more often had a hand to interract with the game. :)
Do you play rampant growth?
@@erik.pajula rampant growths and such are completely different in function and perpose to a worldly tutor or demonic tutor he'll look at the prices to show the difference
@@erik.pajula I play land fetches yes but not demonic tutor, enlighted tutor and so on.
Always great to have a team episode
ABSOLUTELY!!!!
I run overwhelming splendor since there are multiple cards like "Songbird's blessing" that can cascade into it, and cards that can grab it from the grave and put it into play.
Reliquary Tower is a lot better when instead of just running some incremental card draw, you have ways of drawing MASSIVE numbers of cards. For example:
* Necrologia/Necropotence
* Peer into the Abyss
* Decree of Pain
* Massive ramp + X draw spells
* Greater Good (or other "draw cards equal to creature's power" effects) + enormous creatures
Love the topic, for me one of them is Pitiless Plunderer in my Juri sacrifice deck. It is incredibly good, and can go infinite, what I dislike and why I preclude it, is that it goes infinite so easily. Any of my other mana producers on sacrifice, be it an Altar of Ashnod or cards like Pawn of Ulamog, etc., I can combo it in so many ways and just go infinite. I don't enjoy that as the sole win con, so I more curated to do effects similar, but they aren't infinite and only scale upward without a response.
Expropriate is always the first card I cut whenever I run a deck that has blue. I sometimes sneak in one card for an extra turn for flavor (Karn's Temporal Summoning in a Jodah Unifier deck, for example) but every time I put Expropriate in a deck I end up cutting it before the deck is played.
Interesting how I've had similar realizations on some of the same cards, but it does come down to how you want to play your deck. A friend of mine has been trying to evaluate how well his Hazezon deck runs but the games where Scute Swarm appears really skew the data.
As for me I've taken Reliquary Tower out of decks because I don't have decks where I draw excessive amounts of cards and evaluating which 7 of your cards can win you the game is important. I also realized I've removed Spellseeker from almost all my decks, despite having 1) a wizard tribal deck, 2) a blink/ETB deck, and 3) a spellslinger deck. I have one copy left among those three, and I think it's #2 (because the value is absurd). #1 didn't have enough instants/sorceries anymore, while #3 I leaned more into just including instants and sorceries instead of tutors.
I de-tutored one deck and entirely restructured it because if I drew a tutor (like Spellseeker) I would just tutor out the same combo pieces and go for the win. So I never got to utilize the other cool, lesser-known cards in the deck. The most efficient combo wasn't even unique to the commander or exciting, it was just Dualcaster Mage+Twinflame. Dualcaster Mage is another card I've removed from decks, and both Twinflame and Heat Shimmer remain in my binder.
Two of my three were mentioned.
Tutors (other than land ramp) as I don't like decks getting the same thing all the time. As Rachel said, it's nice to try to win with what you draw
Cathars crusade, I don't have enough dice for that
Reserved list cards, some are super powerful and I don't think it's fair for me to have access to them when many people can't and won't ever have the chance
as someone who loves games that go long and always thinks a quick game is a feel bad moment, i feel so out of place now
It depends on if things are happening in a long game, if a game runs long and there are swings in momentum that’s great! But if there are like 6 turns in a row that no one really does anything impactful, those are the long games that are less fun to play
A few comments on some of the cards the cast chose:
Wraths: I keep them as a catchup mechanic, especially when i know my deck can win
Dauthi: Used it in one deck and didn't net me anything good
Top, tutors: Use to add consistency in the deck until I am comfortable with how it functions, then take out for synergy pieces
Scute Swarm: haven't used it, maybe in a blex deck
Tithe: only in mono white where ramp is terrible
Lotus: even if it was cheap, most commanders I run are 3-5 so not worth it
Now my personal "good" card I won't use: Vedalken Orrery or similar effects. First off, it breaks bounded accuracy on how effective a deck is. You can't tell how limiting sorceries or creature ETBs are. Second, you now need to be "always on" for every player's turn. I like being able to be at least partially shut off on my opponents turns. Third, doing nothing on my turn is, honestly, pretty boring. So I don't like those "can cast as though it were an instant" type effects.
I feel yall on the tutor take, I've really noticed that players eyes start to glaze over when you tutor more than once in a single turn. We play high power so it's all far in love and war but there are feels bad moments when you're tutoring and they would rather scoop because it's easier to just start a new game
love the episode, I'd love to see one talking about some of your favorite cards to play for Commander EDH
I play Mindslaver in Muldrotha Artifacts for 2 reasons.
1. It turns a 3 person game into a 2v1
2. I have ways to make a game 3v1 with replaying it from the grave
Sounds like a great way for one person to have zero fun though.
Mine is 100% thassas oracle and my reason is it's just too easy to pull off, I rather run lab man since it's not as complicated to interact with
Agreed. Both of those mill combos are lame.
It’s not so much the card but how players use it. If you actually had to steadily mill your deck to win, it would be fun but 99% of the time, the win comes from infinite combo and draw the entire deck to win. It’s the equivalent to infinite mana and fireball all opponents but easier to draw into…
Agree. I like variety and got very tired of 50% of games ending in lab man winning and later the other 2 versions.
The one exception where I think I wouldn't be annoyed by Thassas Oracle is if they didn't draw/mill combo but developed enough blue devotion to win with half their deck left. I think I'd congratulate the opponent if they can pull that off.
I have a general rule of “don’t play cards that get you killed” these are things that when played draw the attention of the entire table because they either generate high ire or are the removal or die cards. Smothering tithe, painful quandary, are some examples. Vorinclex voice of hunger is another. Big dangerous things that don’t win you the game but everyone immediately knows they have to deal with you or die.
On the subject of board wipes, it feels like once the board is wiped you enter the board wipe zone. I don't think I've had a game where there was a wrath to answer a wild board state, and then the game moved forward. Once the board wipes start, the person immediately after the wipe in turn order is in the catbird seat and gets to rebuild first, which means seats 2 and 3 following are incentivized to board wipe again since now they are behind. I've had the experience a number of times that wraths comes in 3s and 4s.
The difference-maker has been one-sided wraths. A Sephara getting to wrath and push damage, wraths that only hit certain permanents to maintain momentum, and even Cyclonic Rift to allow one person to get way ahead.
Its ironic, but the fact that Cyc Rift is so much better than other wraths has made it the least annoying wrath in recent memory provided the player casting the rift can use that as a push to win.
Rhystic study, if I am in blue there are a million ways to draw cards that don't annoy people.
Mystic Remora, above but also people just ramped with creatures of just held off until I gave up on it
Totally agree with Josh about the lotus. I didn't even bother about buying it, even if my playground plays kinda 8ish decks with pretty nasty things into it. It's kinda unfun and a pretty dead draw in many cases. About this topic in general I think we have to think about what is too powerful/ unfun in our particular deck, not in general. For example, I'm not playing mana crypt anymore in very commander centric decks, with very powerful commanders that can be summon too early because of it (let's say Korvold / Orvar as pretty obvious examples). But I still play the crypt in other decks, especially no green ones. In the same mindset, I can play very powerful cards if they match my deck's theme and serves its game plan. But not in other decks when it's just winmore or just a "goodstuff" card. I play dauthi in Yuriko, because it can't be blocked and I don't care about my graveyard. I play scute swarm in my land deck because it's a wincon by itself in this deck, and it draws attention away from my real key cards. I play tutors in combo decks but I never include any combo with less than 4-5 cards to go off. It's a general balance topic, in your particular deck, and in your pod in general. Removing sol ring / crypt / lotus in the entire pod can also be a good start to add balance and fun
1000% disagree on reliquary tower. Why get rid of cards when you don’t have to?!
I agree with Rachel. What you choose to omit from your deck says a lot more about you as a deck builder than what you do include.
13:45 fun thing for many players, that reanimator deck players also hate & hope you wrath instead bc less of their shit gets used, is that Cyclonic Rift prevents recursion. Note, it's fun to use this after they have glode reanimated with, for example, Day of the Dead, Living End, OG Liliana Vess, etc.
Reanimator players, don't hate me. I sometimes play reanimator decks, I just don't get as worked up. Yeah, it can be Annoying, but I use plenty of reanimation & spell recursion. Or I'd play dredge with answers to Dauthi whatsistface.
One of my favorite things I've ever done in magic is mindslaves someone playing Pako and Haldan. I made them play my exiled stolen goblin caboomist, tap out, and pass the turn.
The reliquary tower argument was weak AF. The only argument is the mana sucks, the point being made about not knowing if cards are good or not cuz you’re not forced to discard is rather dumb. If you routinely don’t play a card (tower present or not) than the hand size never mattered and the card being pitched or stuck in your hand is NO DIFFERENT.
Some of these takes seem thought of on the spot and not very thoroughly thought out….
36:30 slight counterpoint, or at least another dimension to consider here - decks that want this effect and get a lot of value out of it want more of this sort of hand and deck manipulation. They tend to have a compounding effect.
Yuriko is a commander that likes effects like this, and it ends up eating so much time at the table. When the Top and the Scroll Rack combine with the Lim-Dul's Vault you've entered casual hell. That also trends towards decks with very powerful game plans (again, Yuriko is instructive here.) If you really need this level of consistency, you're looking to do kind of the same thing over and over again and that one thing is strong enough to take the game. It's like Capsize - the moment Capsize becomes good enough to lock out the game, the entire game becomes about Capsize.
It all combines to make for games that are excruciating, especially at the casual mid-power level where people try to be more mindful of table equity.
This is all to say that I think there are a vanishingly small amount of tables where these effects are in the appropriate band of being worthwhile without being power outliers.
Made a post in one of the EDH fbook groups talking about a personal ban list I use when building . . .everyone LOST THEIR MINDS OVER IT! Lolz. Everyone going off about how to stop combos and such. Accusing me of being a failure at magic, etc etc. It was wild.
Not putting wraths in your deck and just accepting that you lose games is one of the least enjoyable play patterns I could imagine.
I run tutors in my voltron decks. If I'm going to experience the same playpattern of my opponents casting removal spells on my commander before I can properly set up, I might as well play into that by making sure I can defend against the guaranteed answer to my main wincon.
Card I most identified with cutting: Tutors. My three new decks for 2022 had no tutors in them and they were more fun to play, and to play against, becasue of it. Every game feels different and every card gets to shine in its moment.
Card I least identified with cutting: Reliquary tower. But the reasons given were excellent and I'll put serious thought into cutting that and thought vessel. In a 15 card hand, I'm not sure that cards 8-15 are worth the threat perception they create.
In my omnath deck I run jokulhaups and a koma, float the 13 mana, cast the jokul and then the koma. People usually scoop once koma hits since it's such a fast clock . Better to have 1 wrath and use it effectively rather than 10 and using them willy nilly.
Discussion of Relinquary Tower make me take out Thought Vessel. Now that I think of it discarding extra hand is also useful for graveyard play!
I don't play tutors either ! Id much rather the excitement of drawing an answer/amazing card than just search for it.
Gotta keep the game mooooooovin!
It’s OK if your group is not including tutors, but that’s a major disadvantage if you are the only one not using them.
I’m not a fan of cyclonic rift, but my play group frequently includes it, so I do too when playing blue. As much as I don’t like it, only ever being on the receiving end, I like even less…
@@Dragon_Fyre good players use synergy, not tutors. your deck should function perfectly even if half of your library gets milled.
@@wonkyboy Good players would typically play a synergistic deck AND tutors. I have no idea how your deck getting milled has anything to do with whether you use tutors.
@Dragon Fyre I was meaning that dull decks tutor for the same key pieces. These players tend to be the ones who whine about milling because they 'need' their pieces for their deck to operate.
Good synergy and draw means your answers should always be close without needing to tutor.
Personally i feel tutors ruin the singleton formula and cause repetitive gameplay. If you need to win so badly play standard or cedh.
Just an opinion.
@@wonkyboy I guess it depends on how you use tutors. If you are just always going for the infinite combo win, it’s not very EDH friendly and all too repetitive. In my group, infinite combos are banned, so tutors are just used situationally, to get the card that is very synergistic to the moment.
Dang, my fat arse thought the title was "good carbs..." as I was scrolling. I just got done doing cardio and I'm hungry.
Rad episode thanks for the hard work team! I believe in brewing and playing the deck you want and like but the one card I hesitate adding more than any other is dockside extortionist.
Stax and free Counterspells, because I hate them. Pretty simple 🤣
Mine is cyclonic rift - its a card that makes the whole table groan and even when you win with it you just feel cheap.
Yeah agreed, especially when people play it just to prevent themselves from dying but have no way to win
The main reason I don't run many tutors is that if I get the wrong thing and get wrecked later I feel very stupid :D
Sounds like a problem with player threat assessment not tutors.
Lol where was Triumph of the Hordes? That shit is annoying af. It's like, oh I built up my tribal deck, Oh I built up my enchantments, I built up my artifacts, and then the 4th guy is like "I have 6 creatures and I play Triumph of the hordes."