I suspect that Phil, and his deck building ethos of “value go brrrrt, make them have an answer” is the most representative of commander players at large.
Honestly yeah, that’s the most common thing I’ve seen at my LGS. Sometimes we have a board wipe or two, but most games there’s just some spot removal occasionally and everyone does their thing while watching out for the really scary pieces from their opponents.
Yep...If an opponent is using their targeted removal on a mana rock, that's pretty much a win anyways IMO. I'll go out on a limb and take the stance that a mana rock is about the least dangerous target in most decks, and if they're being targeted with removal it's probably so the other player doesn't feel like they're wasting their turn. Don't get me wrong, its a setback to the victim, but almost every mana rock removal I've seen in person comes with the attitude of "and I guess I'll target the mana rock (sorry!)" after asking/scanning the table for the perceived "real threats." Unless someone is already in a bad spot of mana/color fixing, you're probably hurting yourself as much as them by using your removal and resources in commander on a rock. Not as bad in a heads-up game but still not great.
Also, if they see this later. Dreamscape Artist. It's Harrow on a creature in blue. I think it's worth a shot. The lands come in untapped just like Harrow so that's a boon. It helps with Search for Azcanta as well.
Ok I’ll be the person to call this a reaction to commander clash meta. My experience in real life magic is that people aren’t destroying mana rocks that same way as the clash games do imo
In my experience, people very rarely play farewell, because people want to actually finish their games. And farewell is the main board wipe that punishes you for playing rocks.
Yeah, Richard and Seth may acknowledge the clash meta is different, but seem to believe their stance is correct in spite of the clash meta not being representative of the general commander experience. I've also grown tired of the "Farewell and/or other sweeper gets cast means auto lose" argument. It makes these podcasts almost feel redundant when all the rebuttals seem to just circle back to "dies to removal, so (insert whatever nonland permanent) is bad".
This is the take . Like the Clash Meta is so Board Wipe heavy that they fail to realize that outside of their meta, Farewell, Hour of Revelation are rarely seen. I feel like the big disconnect here is that the rampers are talking early game and the non-rampers are talking late, but at the end of the day the people that talk about late dont have way to gain card draw and set their engines fast Not surprised to see their contradictions and their biases show all the time Edit : And here comes the mana dork argument. Look at the EDHrec number and say the greater community doesnt believe in them. They are played a lot outside of elfball
Love Morgan calling it out: 'Every single thing in this game has some amount of risk tied to it but that doesn't mean you don't put cards in your deck.' Preach!
@@STS-qi1qy but that wasn't a counter point at all. It was Morgan missing the point. for one no lands actually don't have a risk in commander, no matter how many people in the comments scream Armageddon they aren't going to actually play it. and for two, if one set of cards has a lower risk than another set of cards its correct to play the cards with the lower risk. Richard is just like anti casual and thats pretty much where all this friction comes from.
@@qwerqwer-rt8wmbut aren‘t you missing the point now? More lands is not zero risk, not because of Land Destruction but because of the cost of better synergy. One point was to not even play an indestructable artifact land in an artifact deck. Playing a basic in that slot makes you lose synergy so you run the risk of a more inefficient artifact deck while playing it increases the risk and reward.
@xMareZx i find it questionable to equate opportunity cost with risk. and while I play those lands the argument 2% chance is higher than 1% chance still holds. as said in the pod if you dont think thats worth caring about then don't ( i certainly play artifact lands) but if you're like Richard who is like the antithesis of a casual player it makes sense why he holds that line. if the replies to Richard were "he's too sweaty caring about these tiny percentage points" I'd agree, but thats not what the replies have been.
In all honesty though, that is a compelling argument. It might depend on your local LGS’s environment but I’ve definitely a lot of games where removal is everywhere and you’ve got to play carefully if it’s an important piece.
@@k9commander Usually anything that would either rapidly accelerate their game state (like Sol Ring or a two mana mana-rock) or a card that is incredibly threatening (like a big commander or a card like Rhystic Study).
@@WearingGoldluck Based on the limited information you provided me, most (not all) of my decks either have no important pieces, or are built to work without them. If I never draw my important piece or it gets blown up, my deck still functions at 100%. If getting rid of my important piece ruins my game, then I either build the deck poorly or the piece is something like Krark's Thumb in my coin flip deck.
@WearingGoldluck not really when they are often saying cards are unplayable since they can be removed. Why play anything if it will get removed? Isn't it better to just not play magic so your things won't get removed?
Seth and Richard talking about how mana dorks and all other non-land stuff just dies then plays literally minimal amount of removal and always count on other players to deal with stuff is just pure irony.
I see them cast wipes relatively regularly. Baiting out other people’s resources to deal with a threat makes for better TV and also you get to keep mana for your own spells.
they come from standard and modern formats where meta requires to play value, and rocks are meme, they are expecting oponents to remove everything they have but lands and they expect the "victory action", when casual mind (almost everyone in casual) just don't care and go playing cards to do their "deck thing"
Morgan doesn't play in Clash, so he isn't terrified of his own shadow. He probably plays with normal people and knows the Seth and Richard arguments aren't what real tables are like.
@@Umbry_Rose its crazy seeing how many people are screaming "fear" at the crew. all you're actually doing is showing your own ignorance but you couldn't have known better could you.
@ I mean, I've won two regionals, top 8'd others, and went to Worlds... but go off. It is absolutely fear to say everything dies to interaction. Have you ever played, say, Legacy? Guess what. Unlike the constant fear mongering of Farewell in EDH, people probably DO have an answer to your in Legacy. So, what, do people not play artifacts? Not play creatures? It's absolutely fear. But, go off. What was it you said? Oh, right, you're showing your ignorance, but you couldn't have known better could you?
@qwerqwer-rt8wm But it is fear. Have you ever played, say, Legacy. You know, a format where people do have an insane amount of answers? If you play like Richard suggests in this podcast and worry about those answers, you'd never cast anything. I've won a couple regionals, top 8'd some others, even went to Worlds once. I've played since the 90s. One of the most common issues with newer players is hesitation to attack or cast their thing worried they'll lose it. You're going to lose things in Magic, it's how the game works. It's better to learn to time your plays, not constantly fear 1 or 2 cards out of 99 might ruin your moment. That is 100% playing scared. But, of course, you couldn't know I've played competitively. You were just showing your ignorance, but couldn't have known better. Keep fearing Farewell and make sure not to play any creatures, enchantments, artifacts, or graveyard strategies. Then you can be safe, like Richard.
I agree with a lot of Richard's takes, but this is one that genuinely confuses me. Isn't he playing hard into the concept of tempo by running 8 boardwipes and constantly netting like a 12+ mana swing of tempo by casting 4-6 mana board wipes?
Tempo and Midrange are just straight up different archetypes. Honestly a lot of what Tomer calls "tempo" has very little to do with what Tempo is actually about. Tempo is a style of deck that is mostly incompatible with edh.
Arguing against mana rocks because someone casts a board wipe that hits artifacts in 15% of games is insane. Sometimes you just play 3 mana rocks by turn 4 and kill everybody before they can draw the thing that stops you. I didn't think this was even close to a controversial take.
its not a controversial take at all. and the weirdo's who are in here pretending anyone who plays a mana rock is somehow an uneducated noob.... I guess they've never seen someone take such a commanding lead on turn 2-3 BECAUSE they dumped 5 different mana artifacts on the table and had 8 mana, that they're basically unstoppable from here on out. Oh and because they have extra mana, they can hold up counterspells and protection spells to stop a farewell (which i've literally never seen get cast at my LGS btw)
To be fair, when the subject is largely 'efficient mana rocks vs less efficient land ramp' then the only real argument against mana rocks is that they can die to boardwipes
I think there is some psychology going on here too, richard will spend 6 turns ramping lands and no not and be all "look i have no board!" then someone (often himself or seth) will play a board clear and then he will take over the game because everyone let him get ahead so easily.
its an everscaling problem out of allowing tutoring in commander. Green having such strong ramp, and MLD being to frowned upon means that the absolute best way to play is just stack on lands, clear the board, and take the cake. If green would be forced to ramp through more honest means (mana dorks or extra landrops) wiping out the board would be much harder to capitalize on. As it is now, any selesnya+ deck has an inmense advantage relative to the rest of color combinations.
Especially given how long they play together. I think he just gets a mask under notably Crim and Phil. Phil is doing the big scary thing, and Crim is out to ruin your life. But if you try to run his "Selesnya ramp and wipe.deck" you will absolutely not win in a local *FIXED* meta. I remember my friends decks, I know which ones do the annoying thing and kill them early. Yeah, you'll get a one off with it. But game 2, or ESPECIALLY 3+ of running that deck? Every one is going to remember you blew up the entire tables rocks, perhaps multiple times. You WILL become the archenemy with an empty board.
I feel like the big disconnect here is that the rampers are talking early game and the non-rampers are talking late. Example: after Richard asks about 'what is this early game advantage' one gains, he brings up an 8-mana spell like Ondu Inversion as an answer. The early game advantage is that the white player with the inversion is still four turns off of casting it while the rock/dork player is rolling out their synergy and card draw
the problem is Ondu might be 7 mana, but wraths are usually 4, we now even have them for 3. On top of that, ramping out of lands is investing in something you know it will last. Taping for rocks is hoping that you actually get to spend it's mana before someone just crushes your tempo. Mana rocks are in general great, unless you play green, which, coincidentally, is the most popular color for commander...
Richards philosophy always seems to be that everyone will always have an answer. Idk how many games ive played where someone was like "i have 3 wipes in the deck" but its turn 4 and they dont have any way to draw many cards to find them. And now 3 turns later theyve only seen 5 new cards out of the 80+ left in the deck. And to no ones surprise a wrath was NOT found.
this isn't about "an answer". Mana rocks die incidentally, because someone plays a sweeper or a two-for-one removal spell. Even if you aren't the target, sometimes you just lose them because they get hit as collateral damage.
Richard's philosophy (also Seth's) is mostly to play every deck like a combo deck, that's why he also loves Mana Geyser so much. Despite his alleged midrange mindset, it's not about incremental damage and stuff like that, but instead building up mana and cards while staying alive and then winning, ideally in one turn. That's why the slower ramp doesn't affect him that much, he's just stalling, trying to fly under the radar, having some blockers in case that doesn't work out and then winning in the combo(ish) turn.
i wish they would print more land destruction/hate. either its overcosted and only destroys one or 2 lands or it destroys everything. would love a middle of the road and fairly costed land hate so it doesnt feel like a pure spite play. especially non basic land hate
Normally, people frown upon mass land destruction. Try looping a Polluted Dead. They'll be more impressed with the combo than they are at you causing an Armageddon effect. Just get creative.
Tomer's takes are so reasonable. Seth and Richard either aren't arguing well or failing to recognize the contradictions in their opinions. Seth/Richard: "I feel like you are all in on one thing and if you lose to it then oh well." ALSO Seth/Richard: "Why would you diversify your ramp package?" Splitting between catchup ramp and mana rocks actually makes the catchup ramp *better* and your opponents' catchup ramp *worse.*
@@christopherneedham9584 Your opponents are also doing that. Make no mistake, those cards also slow you down. You don't have to work nearly as hard if you run five or so of the best catchup ramp cards and five of the best rocks.
@@christopherneedham9584bounce lands as a whole suck. They’re only tapped lands without any real utility. The colored ones I sometimes run but a two colored deck can only run one; the colorless ones are horrendous. The sacrifice lands are far riskier barring the Vale (whichever has hexproof). I think running a mixture of rocks and catch up ramp has served me well.
@@qwerqwer-rt8wmpetty is a person that slow rolls every game playing slow land ramp and then blows out the board in a one sided board wipe that wrecks the players who are playing synergies on curve. Literally there is no way you can say land destruction is toxic when the behavior Richard is describing is exactly that kind of one sided resource denial, simply in a different flavor
@@qwerqwer-rt8wm Richard abusing the fact that EDH players are reluctant to destroy lands is totally ok, but someone saying they would punish Richard for that abuse is being petty? Holy shit mate, you are all over this comment section calling everyone ignorant and yet throw out nonsense like this. Is Richard paying you to suck up so hard to him or what?
Thank you, Morgan. Also Tomer, but especially Morgan. Around 43 minutes really highlights Richard not having any real experience at local LGS games. Morgan sounds the most like someone who plays a number of casual games. Almost no one in casual games run 500 wraths. It's just not what the real meta is. All it does is drag out games of normal people who don't play Magic for a living. People want to get in more than one game.
if your view of board wipes is anything other than "boardwipes progress the game forward" you are wrong. if your view of someone playing a magic card ANY MAGIC CARD is "just drags the game out" you shouldn't even be playing this game to begin with.
@qwerqwer-rt8wm You don't get that there can be separate worlds in Magic. And it's possible to play control without advancing the board state. I never said no wraths, I said they aren't played to the extent Richard makes them out to be. And, as someone who has played competitively and played the game for well over 20 years, it's totally OK that some people just want to do cool things at a casual FNM and people absolutely run less interaction on average at such events. It's ok.
@@qwerqwer-rt8wm Nonsense is pretending there is only one way to play Magic. All my comment said is people do play Magic in ways other than wrath heavy metas. Of course you think that's nonsense. We can all see your comments insulting casuals in this very comment section. As someone happy to just play Magic (competitively and casually), I understand nuance and am capable of switching my playstyle to make the best experience in the situation. The fact you think there's only one way to play Magic, in year 32 of the game, that's nonsense.
My calamity galloping inferno plays 3 ETB land destruction creatures, that my calamity makes clones off. and 3 hardcasted MLDs. Needless to say, if you dont have instant speed interaction. You'll never afford that board wipe as your lands are sniped 3 at the time.
The point is that the advantage of building up more mana does indeed cost you mana in the case of rocks vs. lands. Arcane signet vs. Farseek means an Hour of Revelation consumes your t2 play, effectively costing you 2 mana for the same benefit the Farseek player got - with the difference of you not having anything to show for it after a boardwipe. So while yes, losing mana rocks generally isn't literally losing half your mana, it definitely means that a lot of your plays have been invalidated, meaning you are generally behind a lot compared to land ramp options.
@@lVideoWatcherl i have literally never seen someone cast a farewell at EITHER LGS that i play at. No one wants to play a card that turns a 45min - 1hr game into a 2 hour snooze fest. We wanna slug it out, shuffle, and play another one before the shop closes. Occasional Blast-Act? Sure. Cyc Rift? Sure. But exiling every f***king nonland permanent is just not a fun feeling for anyone involved.
@@lVideoWatcherl While true, if someone instead plays Winter Orb or Armageddon how good is the ramp vs rock then? Clash avoids much of the counterplay to ramp, but we don't in my metas.
@HollowdTV I agree, especially because Farewell is basically the pinnacle of boardwipes and generically, without a doubt, the most efficient and versatile wipe there is, making it the totally boring default staple - which makes it, beyond it most often producing obvious unfun play patterns, also totally uninteresting.
@timbombadil4046 Consider that the clash crew's arguments are generally based on the clash crew's meta. Of course, your mileage may vary - but also, I'd say that your mileage is _vastly_ different to most other playgroups', since both heavy stax and MLD are seemingly agreed upon in the mtg commander sphere to normally be socially inacceptable. I'd assume your group to be an outlier, if the cards you mentioned find heavy play there.
One thing I think Richard too focused on is "keeping your mana advantage late game". The way i look at it the turns i need mana the most are the very early turns. Stuff that turns into lands is cool but it won't help you play your 4 mana commander on turn 3. The fact that i get online earlier means i get to draw more cards or secure some other advantage early it doesn't mean much if i lose them later since now i already got what i wanted. But also my meta isn't heavy on non-creature wraths so it doesn't come up that often. When it comes to wraths, i myself prefer the types that don't hurt my stuff. Whenever i played a farewell it usually felt since your opponents get to rebuild before you do.
@@TheTexasDiceI don't have the Karsten math readily available but having only one land on turn two in a format with a free mulligan seems incredibly rare even at 36 lands
I find it wild that they always 💩 on basic and ask why Tomer runs so many. But then someone wants to argue mana rocks, and instantly basic lands are Our Lord and Savior
I'd respect them more if they were talking about ramping basics, it's even worse than that. They want to play permanents that are just as vulnerable as mana rocks but more expensive because they have the chance of turning into land ramp if you jump through all the hoops on them
If wraths are your problem, then play some counterspells. Your mana rocks accelerate you so you can hold up mana. Or even run extra recursion to return the rocks back if your that desperate. Dont ruin your tempo over the possibility of a boardwipe
@@akihitokoizumi2474i don't understand this philosophy at all. If you have a single card in your deck that performs a certain function, it's the same as having none at all as you'll never reliably have that piece in your hand unless half your deck is tutors. This sounds like a deck building philosophy based on net decking and cramming staples in rather than any sort of direction or synergy.
“What if I get board wiped?” Is such a silly rationale 😂 there’s mass removal for all permanents. So if you don’t want to play something because you’re scared to get wiped you may as well play spellslinger or combo.
@ concerned, worried, nervous, mindful, "hesitant because of", any of those that you'd like to swap out since you don't like the word "scared". The sentiment remains the same.
The mana fixing argument for budget decks I think is the most compelling thing the pro-mana rock camp mentioned. A lot of my budget two/three color white decks can't *cast* hour of rev turn 3/4 consistently without some amount of fixing
I've heard Richard's argument. Previously I was winning ~20 games (~25%) and after applying his logic I won all 4 games (100%) and the group now plays without me.
That’s funny. I’ve long that felt that if everyone played commander like Richard, no one would play commander. Imagine four players all sandbagging resources, feigning weakness and constantly politicking to make other players feel more threatening.
lmao ya when you farewell the board because the guy across from you played an izzet signet you'll literally never be spoken to again. They have such an out of touch take on what people play. I think they forget that you have to get along with your opponents. Turning a 1 hr game into a 2hr game because you Farewell'd without a win con in your hand is THE most anti-social play of all time 🤣
Commander players are so silly. There's this idea of the correct way to deckbuild but when a different (better) strategy emerges now it's somehow worse BECAUSE it is better
Pre listen things I’m hoping they mention: 1. Mana rocks helping the blue player counter your farewell 2. Cheap over powered mana rocks being better than ramp 3. The stupidity of 2-3 mana artifacts that ramp a land later vs just a 2-3 mana rock
I know this is intended as a gotcha, but they’ve talked over and over that this strategy only works because lands are untouchable! Pretty sure they would have a different plan if land destruction didn’t get your car keyed after the game at the local lgs in the vast majority of places
Seth making a disingenuous argument at 35:00, land destruction isn’t against the rules, people don’t like land destruction but you can’t pretend it doesn’t exist just to justify your opinion on mana rocks. The anti rock arguments are just in general bad, it’s literally just “they did to removal” which applies to all magic cards.
I think people misunderstand "dies to removal." Magic is a game where the meta creates incentives. When Lightning Bolt is in Standard you try to play four-toughness creatures. When Go For the Throat is the most played removal spell (like current Standard), artifacts go up in value. I believe that the prevalence of "destroy all non-land" wraths in the Clash meta creates an incentive to avoid mana rocks, partly because the social contract of Commander prevents land destruction and partly because cards exist that do the same thing (giving you extra mana) that don't die to sweepers.
@@MTGGoldfishCommander that’s fine acknowledge your meta is good, but you realize your specific meta isn’t universal. It doesn’t really do much for the community to say “you shouldn’t run rocks in commander clash meta” because nobody but y’all is a part of that meta.
But the alternative... does not die to removal? Your lands are safe, and even if someone uses mld you will rebuild faster if you are running land ramp. There's just literally no downside.
I want to build a green deck where the only ramp are the cheap cards that draw you a land and let you play more per turn. I'm not sure how good it would be outside of forcing landfall as a theme, but it seems like a neat experiment to understanding the importance of lands.
It's the Trinket Mage! Out of curiosity, is your direction because of Richard's point about playing around hate or is it more of an experiment for something like card efficiency?
I think this is really the basic land argument. For example, the majority of the player base still plays cultuvate over three visits. To a budget player, one extra mana for an extra land is significantly better than two mana fetch a nonbasic that they may not have. It is easy for the clash crew to drop a golgari signet when they can play overgrown tomb and the underground mortuary, but you have to keep in mind that mana rocks are not exclusively used for ramp, they also color fix. This is why the comments believe Ojer as ramp is outlandish, because ramping a mountain through wayfarers bauble has the same result. with most player's manabases
@@qwerqwer-rt8wmBrawl games very easily end on turn 4 if your opponent is running Gruul, mono red, or possibly mono black agro decks like vampires. And brawl has a much more limited card pool than Commander.
@@qwerqwer-rt8wmnot dying, but if I’m doing fuck all for 4 turns then I will fall behind, doesn’t mean I’m dead but does mean I’m in an uphill battle. Can’t be sitting here one spelling till the late game and hoping people leave me alone. Because they won’t, and they shouldn’t.
1:06:32 so angry y’all keep touting Coalition Relic as “good” when you have to take a turn off and Relic of Legends exists and is just better. Everything is a legend, every set they’re a million more printed that synergize that you can just run. Not to mention “the ring tempts you” makes your ring bearer legendary. It’s SO easy for it to tap for 2+ mana.
Relic of legends is insane. Some games the 3 Mana cost is awkward but some games it’s just like “suprise you have more mana than you can possibly spend”
They should bring Morgan on more often. He’s kind, well-spoken, and I feel his takes are pretty balanced and rational… Unlike some of the hosts. But hey, love all the discourse!
I don't know wath kind of meta is Richard playing, but most of the games don't see a boardwipes for manarocks, they are common, but that doesn't make them unplayable. Hour of revelation is played in 1% according to EDHrec, Ondu inversion is 2% and farewell 13%
In all my many games in 2024 (multiple local EDH events in a major US city, plus GenCon Indy), I did not see a single cast of Hour of Revelation or Ondu Inversion. You can tell who in today's podcast has actually played outside of their strict playgroup.
This is why I think it's a Clash meta thing. In the clash meta Farewell and Ondu Inversion are the most played white cards, if Richard, Crim or Seth is on white, those cards are in their decks (and at least Richard probably also has Hour of Revelation and Devastating Mastery too). If I got to a MagicCon or CommandFest I'll run mana rock decks, because odds of getting punished are low (as you said), but on Clash the odds of getting punished for playing rocks is pretty high.
@ Do you think Sol Ring being banned (and previously Crypt and Lotus) helps affect this? Would more explosive starts encourage more or less mana rocks? No one would have the big three board wipes mentioned if someone plays a turn one ring into a 2 mana rock. Nothing wrong with a different meta, but it is more unique.
@@Umbry_Rose Definitely not. Richard was there with Phil on the season he joined: Phil opened Crypt/Sol ring in I think 12% of the games he played and easily placed the worst of anyone in terms of win rate. He would consistently explode out of the gate, someone would destroy his rocks/dorks, and then he would sit and do nothing while praying to topdeck lands to slam his 8 drops.
Morgan, besides overall seeming to have the best grasp on what "average tables" actually are like, had some banger lines. Richard: "most of the time you have a garbage hand that you need to sculpt.." Morgan: "why u playing garbage cards Richard?"
Over the last two years at my LGS I have never seen a farewell. I think that the general population does what Morgan said and wipes creatures but leaves the rest alone
It seems to me Richard forgets that some of us would rather go home than play a board wipe for 4th time that game. Fun episode, as usual everyone has good points.
I looked through the decklists for the last 10 Commander Clashes and counted the board wipes in all 4 decks combined. On average, there were 8 TOTAL board wipes between all 4 decks. Out of those 8, 3.7 of them would have destroyed mana rocks (Farewell, Ondu Inversion, etc.). So even if we round up to 4, that means there was an average of 1 board wipe per deck that would wrath mana rocks. To quote Seth, "It's math! It's just like the numbers!". Disclaimer: a sample size of 10 can be helpful, but is not conclusive (I'm looking forward to the stats episode for that). Also, if I missed any wraths in the lists, my numbers may be slightly off, but it shouldn't be by a significant amount.
Maybe, just maybe, your winrates at magic events are because you are at the same level of fame in those buildings as someone like jack black? Maybe you win there so much is because people dont want to be the asshole who kills the famous person early? Maybe they run out all the cards into the wrath because they want to show off their cool decks to the people they idolize and dont want the other players to kill them before the person they see at a literal different level can see thier cool cards and choices? I really dont see how you all cant see that the people at magic con arent there to beat you, they are there to show you their cool decks and be remembered by you.
Honestly my favorite part of Richard thinking mana rocks are bad is he’s the one who insists on playing boardwipes that hit all permeant types. So he’s the one making his own mana rocks bad 😂
His slow play is also common because Phil (and sometimes Seth or Tomer) love explosive starts. He hides behind Phil nearly every game and of course he thinks this is the norm. He doesn't need rocks or to play early game because he does the same slow play every single game and wins a ton because everyone else is spending resources to stop the threat.
23:07 also if you accelerate out your commander and start drawing cards, you should be able to hit your land drops. Sure you you play 4 mana rocks and didn't play your 4th land then sure. But if you are drawing cards, you should be getting your land drops and shouldn't be behind
How many more seasons until they finally start punishing land ramp? Every single argument Seth and Richard made boiled down to "I don't like that this card type has counterplay". Lands have counterplay, too. At least play the tame stuff like Urza's Sylex, Natural Balance, Restore Balance, Break the Ice, Opposition Agent, or From the Ashes. The "get more lands" imbred meta is getting out of hand
Dowsing dagger better than mana rock!!????!? It requires a creature, have to pay mana to equip, has multiple ways of being stopped (blocking or removal of itself or the creature its on) Such a wild take as usual from Richard
But it becomes a land later a permanent source of mana like Richard is saying.. but i do 100% agree with your point, I was just iterating what would be Richard Argument
You flip it, vesuva it, blow up every bodies rocks. I was a hater on this strategy until I tried it out and realized it’s actually really good. You just need to be on a lot of cheap creatures
Dowsing Dagger is absolute Trash outside of Arna Kennerüd in whose Flying hands it is Mana from heaven blessing you with a land each turn. Or more if ocelot pride is present.
Richard: "We need to think hard to turn this crappy ramp into good ramp" The "Good Ramp" Richard is thinking of: A four mana creature that has to die just so that it can flip into a tapped land.
I don't think I'll ever take mana advice seriously from someone who loses to Ruination while playing mono-color. That said, Richard is right - *if* your meta lets you sandbag every single game, does all of the dirty work for you, and refuses to pressure you week after week. Great strategy for cons and, for some reason, Clash, but at every LGS I've ever visited people tend to adjust game-to-game to player preferences.
All this video has told me is that commander's sphere is severely underrated and anyone in 3+ colors should be running it, if what you're afraid of is getting your artifacts wiped. Mindstone also fits the bill for 2 or less colors. Also, Ondu shouldn't even be in this conversation. The chasm between 6 and 8 mana is so huge that most decks will rarely play it on curve. If you play Ondu Inversion on turn 6 or 7, and that's all you've done the whole game. You are very likely on death's door and will be dead by the time players recast their commanders. As far as Farewell and Austere are concerned, it's shocking to me that no one brought up a very real possibility: what if the person playing it doesn't wipe artifacts? Like, if you're a boros equip deck and you've got a suite of beatsticks on the field, but you wanna wipe your opponent's creatures so you can attack on a later turn, are you going to blow up your own stuff just to get rid of a few mana rocks? The reason Austere and Farewell are so good is because they're flexible, you can choose the modes that hurt you the least. Someone else also mentioned, but prioritizing wipes over counterspells is wild to me. If you have access to both, I would almost always run more counters than boardwipes. Counters are just considerably more versatile in what they can do.
It may be the "correct" way to play in the sense of Richard and Seth "solving" the format (just ramp and prepare for turns 7-10 to win). The question i ask is would I rather have a format where everyone plays for turns 7-10 and just ramps the first 4-5 turns or everyone play mana rocks and potentially rebuild after a boardwipe?
Your meta will always skew the idea of mana rocks. Especially the Goldfish meta where Richard is always in white with multiple board wipes that hits everything. Many people only run 1 or 2 wipes and usualy they cant blow up every permanent.
I feel like most games I play have fewer than 10 board wipes across all 4 decks, and only 2-3 of them can hit mana rocks (and even then they won't always be cast to do so).
Such an absurd debate. Can’t believe it’s even a question. MANA ROCKS ARE SOME OF THE MOST CONSISTENT, VALUABLE, AND STICKY RAMP PIECES THAT CAN GO INTO ANY DECK THAT ISN’T GREEN!!!
I think with a discussion like this they need a timer. Because they talked all over the place in the situations. It's kind of hard to keep up. Edit: We need more Morgan in our life!
So interesting Seth and Richard are somehow always playing red/green/white but we don't talk about what choice a dimir deck has besides rocks or loads of tutors
I would say cards like Burnished Hart and Solemn Simulacrum are perfect for dimir. If you've got artifact or recursion synergies you should be able to get a lot out of them. The fact that they weren't brought up at all in the vid is just shocking.
@@franciscoramirez3573Hinging your ramp strategy on two cards isn’t good. There aren’t a tonne of similarly strong ones that aren’t butt. Bauble maybe, but that’s basic lands so can’t do that lol
My plan for any black deck is to find Cabal Coffers and Urborg, and if I need more ramp something like Vesuva or Thespian Stage to copy Coffers. I'll back it up with mana doublers that care about Swamps. Blue is the hardest for me, there I tend to lean on things that flip into lands (like Treasure Map, etc) and sometimes Treasures. Also cards like High Tide if I'm trying to combo finish.
100% agree with Morgan, lot more one sided board wipes should and often do get played. Farewell actually hurts the player who casts it since it costs their turn so everyone gets a turn to rebuild before them. Even damnation and wrath of god are more flexible because you can give your creatures indestructible in response
@@qwerqwer-rt8wm There are going to be times when you have to boardwipe your own commander. That isn't necessarily a bad play. If your opponents have committed considerably more to the board than you then a sweeper is almost always a viable value option.
@@franciscoramirez3573 yes, which is why it did not "hurt" you. the problem here is a general lack of understanding overall evaluation. blowing up your own stuff, is not "hurting" you or your gameplan which is why we do it. if it did hurt you gameplan which is to say lower your odds of executing your overall plan then you don't do it unless you're a troll or do don't really know what you're doing on a deeper level than the surface level mechanics. I find these comments endlessly frustrating in the same way casual criticism of game development is frustrating. they don't even know why what they are saying is nonsense.
@@qwerqwer-rt8wm it hurts you because you are behind a turn cycle unless you have enough mana to pay the 6 for farewell and still cast a meaningful card afterwards. By no means am I saying it's always a bad play to board wipe. I was saying I agree with Morgan that one sided board wipes lead to more advantageous positions compared to just jamming farewell which often just resets the board. Richard often argues this exact point to an extent as he tries to get anyone else to play the board wipe so it doesn't waste his turn.
@@skykur is ruination Armageddon? I didn't realize the text was magically changed while I wasn't looking. ruination is a meta play that will do almost nothing at your lgs besides upset people unless your lgs is rocking $400 mana bases in every deck like the clash crew. it does crush the Richard's of the world absolutely. THAT IS A DIFFERENT CARD WITH A DIFFERENT EFFECT.
This one was hard to watch. Felt like it was "but what if they have a boardwipe" on repeat for over an hour. How would anyone win a game with this many hypothetical wipes?
Richard: "If you play anything but lands, instants, and sorceries in your deck you're playing wrong. Everything will just get destroyed and you'll be behind. There's no reason to play creatures, enchantments, artifacts, battles, etc. as it'll just get destroyed or exiled."
Richard's whole commander philosphy is trying to not be the threat and let your opponents waste resources against another while he slowly builds up appears weak and wins in the end. This warps his entire view on how to evaluate cards.
I wish Richard was a little more… I don’t know… understanding? I want a challenging discourse, and appreciate the contrarian. But he talks over people too much, and won’t ignores their points. Keep it civil Goldfish Crew! 🐠
Richard this episode: "X cards are bad because what if your opponents have the perfect answers in their hand? What then? Then the cards you're playing are bad"
I really want to see Richard playing in a meta where people play moxes, sol ring, arcane signets, and stuff. People will smash him with 10 mana while he tries to flip those janky stuff.
This is the outline for why "Commander Clash doesn't understand what a 7 is." If you don't play mana rocks because they always get destroyed in your pods, you are playing high power commander. 90% of tables I have sat at don't touch the rocks.
If nobody on your tables is running Mass-Artifact Removal that really says more about you then others. Sounds like you're playing at or below Pre-Con Power Level.
There's no way Hour of Revelation is above a 7, it's barely even decent compared to other board wipes (Farewell, Austere Command, Promise of Loyalty, Vanquish the Horde, etc.) Not to mention cards like Oblivion Stone which are among some colors' only way to unconditionally destroy a board of creatures
Or people need to stop acting like their tolerances are the same for everyone else. I expect you to put sticks in my bike spokes when we play; I’m gonna do the same to you after all.
Morgan at 1:12 ish nails it. Your meta is not everyone's meta! You literally have your own banned list (as an example of your meta). Most casual players will never encounter that. Your meta runs a ton of enchantment removal; most players don't. Morgan said most players run 2-3 board wipes while you guys run 5-6.
13:00 So, I understand that land destruction is taboo in comander, but I'd like to point out that dropping mana rocks is just kind of abusing this fact. You are making yourself more vulnerable to land destruction and honestly ive been considering it as Wizards pushes more and more busted lands. Mana rocks are a balance and just going all or none is an issue on both sides.
Also, isn't saying "you better not play mana rocks against me because I'm going to repeatedly blow them up, but you can't touch my lands" is a little hypocritical isn't it?
@@The_KorythYES. ABSOLUTELY. Richard is being a brat. Any other player should Armageddon his ass into the Stone Age with plenty of rocks to subsist upon, if his plays are that predictable and one sided. This is basic game theory. Why is their meta not adapting
One of the harder podcasts to listen to, tbh. Richard approaches his deck building choices in, like, a scientific way by testing it out and seeing if it works. Tomer and the editor just keep saying "you're wrong" without listening to what he's come up with.
Appreciate Morgan’s perspective. Also, I think the crew is not taking into account blue’s ability to control the stack and politic. If an opponent casts farewell, ask them if they are naming artifact and counter accordingly. Unfortunately red and black can’t reliably do this.
I was going to use this story to disprove Richard about the value of early game, but then I thought about it more and I realized it fit perfectly with his view. At Vegas, I played a game with Richard on Arabella, me on superfriends, and another guy on balan voltron. On turn 5, I had basically spent the entire game ramping, and only played like 1 planeswalker. Meanwhile, Richard had a massive board, welcoming vampire, and Arabella. The balan player looked at the board, saw how scary Richard was, and oneshotted him. Then I untapped, farewelled, and won. He was the early threat, and it got him killed.
I typically play mana rocks in decks with a 4+ cmc commander to hit it early, if my commander is 3 or less I’m not as concerned. “Curving out” is now a thing in commander with how much power creep has happened the past 3ish years, so taking 1-2 turns off to ramp comes at an actual cost. Rocks are no longer auto includes, but still can improve a deck when critically thought about rather than “lands 36-45”
I suspect that Phil, and his deck building ethos of “value go brrrrt, make them have an answer” is the most representative of commander players at large.
Honestly yeah, that’s the most common thing I’ve seen at my LGS. Sometimes we have a board wipe or two, but most games there’s just some spot removal occasionally and everyone does their thing while watching out for the really scary pieces from their opponents.
Yep...If an opponent is using their targeted removal on a mana rock, that's pretty much a win anyways IMO. I'll go out on a limb and take the stance that a mana rock is about the least dangerous target in most decks, and if they're being targeted with removal it's probably so the other player doesn't feel like they're wasting their turn. Don't get me wrong, its a setback to the victim, but almost every mana rock removal I've seen in person comes with the attitude of "and I guess I'll target the mana rock (sorry!)" after asking/scanning the table for the perceived "real threats." Unless someone is already in a bad spot of mana/color fixing, you're probably hurting yourself as much as them by using your removal and resources in commander on a rock. Not as bad in a heads-up game but still not great.
Totally my general gameplay. I'm going to force the answer.
Thats my main style
Thats very much the attitude of our gamestore playgroup too.
Btw, I'm loving the longer 1 1/2 hour podcasts. I know you guys were limiting to just an hour for a bit, but I hope it keeps up like this if you can
Yes! 2 hours! Richard is probably busy as all hell tho so I understand if it's only a hour
Want to blast this for sure
Also, if they see this later. Dreamscape Artist. It's Harrow on a creature in blue. I think it's worth a shot. The lands come in untapped just like Harrow so that's a boon. It helps with Search for Azcanta as well.
richard you can't live your whole life in fear of board wipes
You'd be surprised lol
He’s the one casting them! If you routinely use cards that reset the whole board, mana rocks become infinitely worse!
You do when you're the one running 8 Wraths.
Also, we will touch your land. You will lose them for sure.
anyone using the word "fear" about this is just signaling that they have no understanding of this game on more than the most surface of levels lol.
Ok I’ll be the person to call this a reaction to commander clash meta.
My experience in real life magic is that people aren’t destroying mana rocks that same way as the clash games do imo
In my experience, people very rarely play farewell, because people want to actually finish their games. And farewell is the main board wipe that punishes you for playing rocks.
This right here. I wouldn't play mana rocks in a meta where the board is getting wrathed every turn either.
I think it really depends on if Farewell, VandalBlast, Bane of Progress, Hour of Revelation, or Austere Command are common spells in your meta.
Yeah, Richard and Seth may acknowledge the clash meta is different, but seem to believe their stance is correct in spite of the clash meta not being representative of the general commander experience. I've also grown tired of the "Farewell and/or other sweeper gets cast means auto lose" argument. It makes these podcasts almost feel redundant when all the rebuttals seem to just circle back to "dies to removal, so (insert whatever nonland permanent) is bad".
This is the take . Like the Clash Meta is so Board Wipe heavy that they fail to realize that outside of their meta, Farewell, Hour of Revelation are rarely seen.
I feel like the big disconnect here is that the rampers are talking early game and the non-rampers are talking late, but at the end of the day the people that talk about late dont have way to gain card draw and set their engines fast
Not surprised to see their contradictions and their biases show all the time
Edit : And here comes the mana dork argument. Look at the EDHrec number and say the greater community doesnt believe in them. They are played a lot outside of elfball
Love Morgan calling it out: 'Every single thing in this game has some amount of risk tied to it but that doesn't mean you don't put cards in your deck.'
Preach!
@@STS-qi1qy but that wasn't a counter point at all. It was Morgan missing the point.
for one no lands actually don't have a risk in commander, no matter how many people in the comments scream Armageddon they aren't going to actually play it.
and for two, if one set of cards has a lower risk than another set of cards its correct to play the cards with the lower risk.
Richard is just like anti casual and thats pretty much where all this friction comes from.
@@qwerqwer-rt8wmbut aren‘t you missing the point now? More lands is not zero risk, not because of Land Destruction but because of the cost of better synergy. One point was to not even play an indestructable artifact land in an artifact deck. Playing a basic in that slot makes you lose synergy so you run the risk of a more inefficient artifact deck while playing it increases the risk and reward.
@xMareZx i find it questionable to equate opportunity cost with risk. and while I play those lands the argument 2% chance is higher than 1% chance still holds. as said in the pod if you dont think thats worth caring about then don't ( i certainly play artifact lands) but if you're like Richard who is like the antithesis of a casual player it makes sense why he holds that line.
if the replies to Richard were "he's too sweaty caring about these tiny percentage points" I'd agree, but thats not what the replies have been.
@@qwerqwer-rt8wm everyone should be playing land hate. At least 5 per deck for non basics at least
I love how half the arguments on this channel are along the lines of "yeah but what if your opponent has an answer".
In all honesty though, that is a compelling argument. It might depend on your local LGS’s environment but I’ve definitely a lot of games where removal is everywhere and you’ve got to play carefully if it’s an important piece.
@@WearingGoldluck
What is your definition of 'important piece'?
@@k9commander Usually anything that would either rapidly accelerate their game state (like Sol Ring or a two mana mana-rock) or a card that is incredibly threatening (like a big commander or a card like Rhystic Study).
@@WearingGoldluck
Based on the limited information you provided me, most (not all) of my decks either have no important pieces, or are built to work without them. If I never draw my important piece or it gets blown up, my deck still functions at 100%. If getting rid of my important piece ruins my game, then I either build the deck poorly or the piece is something like Krark's Thumb in my coin flip deck.
@WearingGoldluck not really when they are often saying cards are unplayable since they can be removed. Why play anything if it will get removed? Isn't it better to just not play magic so your things won't get removed?
Seth and Richard talking about how mana dorks and all other non-land stuff just dies then plays literally minimal amount of removal and always count on other players to deal with stuff is just pure irony.
"What if it gets hit with targeted removal?" By who, Richard? Is the removal in the room with is now?
I do genuinely wonder how they would feel if the others stopped playing board wipes as much.
I see them cast wipes relatively regularly. Baiting out other people’s resources to deal with a threat makes for better TV and also you get to keep mana for your own spells.
Richard literally started his anti rock argument stating that they get blown up by board wipes, what are you talking about lmao
they come from standard and modern formats where meta requires to play value, and rocks are meme, they are expecting oponents to remove everything they have but lands and they expect the "victory action",
when casual mind (almost everyone in casual) just don't care and go playing cards to do their "deck thing"
Morgan was the smartest person in this episode. Keep him on
Morgan doesn't play in Clash, so he isn't terrified of his own shadow. He probably plays with normal people and knows the Seth and Richard arguments aren't what real tables are like.
@ facts
@@Umbry_Rose its crazy seeing how many people are screaming "fear" at the crew.
all you're actually doing is showing your own ignorance but you couldn't have known better could you.
@ I mean, I've won two regionals, top 8'd others, and went to Worlds... but go off. It is absolutely fear to say everything dies to interaction.
Have you ever played, say, Legacy? Guess what. Unlike the constant fear mongering of Farewell in EDH, people probably DO have an answer to your in Legacy. So, what, do people not play artifacts? Not play creatures?
It's absolutely fear. But, go off. What was it you said? Oh, right, you're showing your ignorance, but you couldn't have known better could you?
@qwerqwer-rt8wm But it is fear. Have you ever played, say, Legacy. You know, a format where people do have an insane amount of answers? If you play like Richard suggests in this podcast and worry about those answers, you'd never cast anything.
I've won a couple regionals, top 8'd some others, even went to Worlds once. I've played since the 90s. One of the most common issues with newer players is hesitation to attack or cast their thing worried they'll lose it. You're going to lose things in Magic, it's how the game works.
It's better to learn to time your plays, not constantly fear 1 or 2 cards out of 99 might ruin your moment. That is 100% playing scared.
But, of course, you couldn't know I've played competitively. You were just showing your ignorance, but couldn't have known better. Keep fearing Farewell and make sure not to play any creatures, enchantments, artifacts, or graveyard strategies. Then you can be safe, like Richard.
I want a supercut of every mention of ‘farewell’
Richard: "I don't believe in Tempo."
Richard: "I play midrange."
I agree with a lot of Richard's takes, but this is one that genuinely confuses me.
Isn't he playing hard into the concept of tempo by running 8 boardwipes and constantly netting like a 12+ mana swing of tempo by casting 4-6 mana board wipes?
@@BorkBigFrighten2 no not really
@@qwerqwer-rt8wm excellent contribution to the conversation, my good man
Nothing Richard says makes sense. The sooner you accept it the sooner you can just ignore everything he says.
Tempo and Midrange are just straight up different archetypes. Honestly a lot of what Tomer calls "tempo" has very little to do with what Tempo is actually about. Tempo is a style of deck that is mostly incompatible with edh.
We need Morgan to be on the podcast more often for actual reasonable takes.
100%
@@Demegrade yes, from the 4 of them he has made the most sense and had overall the most valid points and most accurate views on it.
I do love in every Richard situation all three other players have 2 spot removal and a boardwipe and are using it on you specifically.
That's my usual experience 😂
@@RisottoNero-z1w people who play like this need to stick to goldfishing.
But never on you when it's convenient. Everybody has Swords for Toski but nobody has Swords for Axonil.
Arguing against mana rocks because someone casts a board wipe that hits artifacts in 15% of games is insane. Sometimes you just play 3 mana rocks by turn 4 and kill everybody before they can draw the thing that stops you. I didn't think this was even close to a controversial take.
its not a controversial take at all. and the weirdo's who are in here pretending anyone who plays a mana rock is somehow an uneducated noob.... I guess they've never seen someone take such a commanding lead on turn 2-3 BECAUSE they dumped 5 different mana artifacts on the table and had 8 mana, that they're basically unstoppable from here on out. Oh and because they have extra mana, they can hold up counterspells and protection spells to stop a farewell (which i've literally never seen get cast at my LGS btw)
The Richard Challenge: make an argument other than “but it’ll get removed!” for a change. Hard mode: all arguments must be congruent with one another.
Impossible
To be fair, when the subject is largely 'efficient mana rocks vs less efficient land ramp' then the only real argument against mana rocks is that they can die to boardwipes
He can stop making that argument when it stops happening perpetually
Mana rocks in 35 land bases are bad because half the time, you play a signet and miss land drop 3. that means you paid for your mana.
Nothing Richard says makes sense. The sooner you accept it the sooner you can just ignore everything he says.
I feel like richard's stance is the fault of the rest of the table. They continually let him do nothing in the early game instead of just killing him.
I think there is some psychology going on here too, richard will spend 6 turns ramping lands and no not and be all "look i have no board!" then someone (often himself or seth) will play a board clear and then he will take over the game because everyone let him get ahead so easily.
its an everscaling problem out of allowing tutoring in commander. Green having such strong ramp, and MLD being to frowned upon means that the absolute best way to play is just stack on lands, clear the board, and take the cake. If green would be forced to ramp through more honest means (mana dorks or extra landrops) wiping out the board would be much harder to capitalize on. As it is now, any selesnya+ deck has an inmense advantage relative to the rest of color combinations.
Especially given how long they play together. I think he just gets a mask under notably Crim and Phil. Phil is doing the big scary thing, and Crim is out to ruin your life.
But if you try to run his "Selesnya ramp and wipe.deck" you will absolutely not win in a local *FIXED* meta. I remember my friends decks, I know which ones do the annoying thing and kill them early. Yeah, you'll get a one off with it. But game 2, or ESPECIALLY 3+ of running that deck? Every one is going to remember you blew up the entire tables rocks, perhaps multiple times. You WILL become the archenemy with an empty board.
@@tahoth5866 People forget that casual EDH is not about farming wins. Sometimes I want to lose to some Gallifrey Stands jank.
@@huckstej he is their boss ...
No because of Farwell. - Richard, probably
8 mins in.
I feel like the big disconnect here is that the rampers are talking early game and the non-rampers are talking late.
Example: after Richard asks about 'what is this early game advantage' one gains, he brings up an 8-mana spell like Ondu Inversion as an answer.
The early game advantage is that the white player with the inversion is still four turns off of casting it while the rock/dork player is rolling out their synergy and card draw
the problem is Ondu might be 7 mana, but wraths are usually 4, we now even have them for 3. On top of that, ramping out of lands is investing in something you know it will last. Taping for rocks is hoping that you actually get to spend it's mana before someone just crushes your tempo. Mana rocks are in general great, unless you play green, which, coincidentally, is the most popular color for commander...
@@juliofranciscogomezstoppel1860 If someone uses their boardwipe turn 3 to deal with my mana rocks, they have already lost the game.
Richards philosophy always seems to be that everyone will always have an answer. Idk how many games ive played where someone was like "i have 3 wipes in the deck" but its turn 4 and they dont have any way to draw many cards to find them.
And now 3 turns later theyve only seen 5 new cards out of the 80+ left in the deck. And to no ones surprise a wrath was NOT found.
this isn't about "an answer". Mana rocks die incidentally, because someone plays a sweeper or a two-for-one removal spell.
Even if you aren't the target, sometimes you just lose them because they get hit as collateral damage.
Richard's philosophy (also Seth's) is mostly to play every deck like a combo deck, that's why he also loves Mana Geyser so much. Despite his alleged midrange mindset, it's not about incremental damage and stuff like that, but instead building up mana and cards while staying alive and then winning, ideally in one turn. That's why the slower ramp doesn't affect him that much, he's just stalling, trying to fly under the radar, having some blockers in case that doesn't work out and then winning in the combo(ish) turn.
What if you don't have 3 wraths you have 8?
What this is really convincing me is that you actually need to play more land destruction to make lands less safe and permanent
I think that’s Richard’s real ploy here
i wish they would print more land destruction/hate. either its overcosted and only destroys one or 2 lands or it destroys everything. would love a middle of the road and fairly costed land hate so it doesnt feel like a pure spite play. especially non basic land hate
Armageadon, hold priority, Teferi's protection
I'd like to see Tomer or Phil win with Soulscour or Cyberdrive Awakener. Or just counterspell the Farewell.
Normally, people frown upon mass land destruction. Try looping a Polluted Dead. They'll be more impressed with the combo than they are at you causing an Armageddon effect. Just get creative.
Tomer's takes are so reasonable. Seth and Richard either aren't arguing well or failing to recognize the contradictions in their opinions.
Seth/Richard: "I feel like you are all in on one thing and if you lose to it then oh well."
ALSO Seth/Richard: "Why would you diversify your ramp package?"
Splitting between catchup ramp and mana rocks actually makes the catchup ramp *better* and your opponents' catchup ramp *worse.*
This! Too much catch up ramp turns itself off unless someone is on green with their foot on the gas. A mixture of the two really works well imo.
You can use bounce and sacrifice lands to make your catchup consistent.
So many times Seth goes, "oh no blockers, I guess I take 20 damage". Mana dorks have a secret mode called BLOCKING.
@@christopherneedham9584 Your opponents are also doing that. Make no mistake, those cards also slow you down. You don't have to work nearly as hard if you run five or so of the best catchup ramp cards and five of the best rocks.
@@christopherneedham9584bounce lands as a whole suck. They’re only tapped lands without any real utility. The colored ones I sometimes run but a two colored deck can only run one; the colorless ones are horrendous. The sacrifice lands are far riskier barring the Vale (whichever has hexproof). I think running a mixture of rocks and catch up ramp has served me well.
Once again, I would love to See Richard (and Seth) playing as guest on other Commander Shows.
I would really Like to See how they do in other metas.
Yup!
I'd love to see them on The Worst Possible with CGB & friends. I'm really curious how they'd do there.
Richard, you would start playing mana rocks, if you'll would allow mass land destruction. As Richard Garfield intended.
I would start playing landdestruction with Richard in my playgroup 😉
@@EvilShade82 that just makes you a person no one should play with.
being petty should get you immediately ejected from any table.
@@qwerqwer-rt8wmpetty is a person that slow rolls every game playing slow land ramp and then blows out the board in a one sided board wipe that wrecks the players who are playing synergies on curve.
Literally there is no way you can say land destruction is toxic when the behavior Richard is describing is exactly that kind of one sided resource denial, simply in a different flavor
@isidoreaerys8745 you aren't worth further time.
@@qwerqwer-rt8wm Richard abusing the fact that EDH players are reluctant to destroy lands is totally ok, but someone saying they would punish Richard for that abuse is being petty?
Holy shit mate, you are all over this comment section calling everyone ignorant and yet throw out nonsense like this.
Is Richard paying you to suck up so hard to him or what?
Thank you, Morgan. Also Tomer, but especially Morgan. Around 43 minutes really highlights Richard not having any real experience at local LGS games. Morgan sounds the most like someone who plays a number of casual games. Almost no one in casual games run 500 wraths. It's just not what the real meta is. All it does is drag out games of normal people who don't play Magic for a living. People want to get in more than one game.
if your view of board wipes is anything other than "boardwipes progress the game forward" you are wrong.
if your view of someone playing a magic card ANY MAGIC CARD is "just drags the game out" you shouldn't even be playing this game to begin with.
@qwerqwer-rt8wm You don't get that there can be separate worlds in Magic. And it's possible to play control without advancing the board state. I never said no wraths, I said they aren't played to the extent Richard makes them out to be.
And, as someone who has played competitively and played the game for well over 20 years, it's totally OK that some people just want to do cool things at a casual FNM and people absolutely run less interaction on average at such events. It's ok.
@@Umbry_Rose what an utterly nonsense reply.
@@qwerqwer-rt8wm Nonsense is pretending there is only one way to play Magic. All my comment said is people do play Magic in ways other than wrath heavy metas. Of course you think that's nonsense. We can all see your comments insulting casuals in this very comment section. As someone happy to just play Magic (competitively and casually), I understand nuance and am capable of switching my playstyle to make the best experience in the situation. The fact you think there's only one way to play Magic, in year 32 of the game, that's nonsense.
@@Umbry_Rose well done. that other guy is an idiot.
Real lesson of this podcast. Normalize MLD to punish the land ramp.
Ramp rebuilds the best after MLD. Having them take damage whenever they tap a land works better.
*Blood Moon, Back to Basics, Static Orb
My calamity galloping inferno plays 3 ETB land destruction creatures, that my calamity makes clones off. and 3 hardcasted MLDs. Needless to say, if you dont have instant speed interaction. You'll never afford that board wipe as your lands are sniped 3 at the time.
Losing a couple mana rocks isn't losing half your mana base, and it certainly isnt the same as losing the game.
The point is that the advantage of building up more mana does indeed cost you mana in the case of rocks vs. lands. Arcane signet vs. Farseek means an Hour of Revelation consumes your t2 play, effectively costing you 2 mana for the same benefit the Farseek player got - with the difference of you not having anything to show for it after a boardwipe.
So while yes, losing mana rocks generally isn't literally losing half your mana, it definitely means that a lot of your plays have been invalidated, meaning you are generally behind a lot compared to land ramp options.
@@lVideoWatcherl i have literally never seen someone cast a farewell at EITHER LGS that i play at. No one wants to play a card that turns a 45min - 1hr game into a 2 hour snooze fest. We wanna slug it out, shuffle, and play another one before the shop closes. Occasional Blast-Act? Sure. Cyc Rift? Sure. But exiling every f***king nonland permanent is just not a fun feeling for anyone involved.
@@lVideoWatcherl While true, if someone instead plays Winter Orb or Armageddon how good is the ramp vs rock then? Clash avoids much of the counterplay to ramp, but we don't in my metas.
@HollowdTV I agree, especially because Farewell is basically the pinnacle of boardwipes and generically, without a doubt, the most efficient and versatile wipe there is, making it the totally boring default staple - which makes it, beyond it most often producing obvious unfun play patterns, also totally uninteresting.
@timbombadil4046 Consider that the clash crew's arguments are generally based on the clash crew's meta. Of course, your mileage may vary - but also, I'd say that your mileage is _vastly_ different to most other playgroups', since both heavy stax and MLD are seemingly agreed upon in the mtg commander sphere to normally be socially inacceptable.
I'd assume your group to be an outlier, if the cards you mentioned find heavy play there.
Man, Phil's American impression is getting really good.
Blink twice if they are holding you hostage Richard
One thing I think Richard too focused on is "keeping your mana advantage late game". The way i look at it the turns i need mana the most are the very early turns. Stuff that turns into lands is cool but it won't help you play your 4 mana commander on turn 3. The fact that i get online earlier means i get to draw more cards or secure some other advantage early it doesn't mean much if i lose them later since now i already got what i wanted.
But also my meta isn't heavy on non-creature wraths so it doesn't come up that often. When it comes to wraths, i myself prefer the types that don't hurt my stuff. Whenever i played a farewell it usually felt since your opponents get to rebuild before you do.
You say that and yet you clowns run 36 lands and play a signet on 3 instead of your third land
great early game mana value, brol.
@@TheTexasDicebehave
@@TheTexasDiceI don't have the Karsten math readily available but having only one land on turn two in a format with a free mulligan seems incredibly rare even at 36 lands
I find it wild that they always 💩 on basic and ask why Tomer runs so many. But then someone wants to argue mana rocks, and instantly basic lands are Our Lord and Savior
because things are relative to one another.
I'd respect them more if they were talking about ramping basics, it's even worse than that. They want to play permanents that are just as vulnerable as mana rocks but more expensive because they have the chance of turning into land ramp if you jump through all the hoops on them
You can build a nonbasic ramp package now
I'm a mana rock hater, but Richard is in a world where each opponent is running 10 Farewells.
Not just farewells but also targeted removal that is for sure going to be run at him.
Nothing Richard says makes sense. The sooner you accept it the sooner you can just ignore everything he says.
If wraths are your problem, then play some counterspells. Your mana rocks accelerate you so you can hold up mana. Or even run extra recursion to return the rocks back if your that desperate. Dont ruin your tempo over the possibility of a boardwipe
Richard has stated he never puts more than one counterspell in a deck since he does not want 2 in his hand doing nothing.
@akihitokoizumi2474 then he should look at crim with the versatile counterspells like cryptic command
@@akihitokoizumi2474i don't understand this philosophy at all. If you have a single card in your deck that performs a certain function, it's the same as having none at all as you'll never reliably have that piece in your hand unless half your deck is tutors. This sounds like a deck building philosophy based on net decking and cramming staples in rather than any sort of direction or synergy.
Yeah lemme do that in my gruul deck
Player 1 casts a wrath that destroys my rocks. I have a counterspell, but if I use it then player 2 will win the game. I am sad. Does that make sense?
“What if I get board wiped?” Is such a silly rationale 😂 there’s mass removal for all permanents. So if you don’t want to play something because you’re scared to get wiped you may as well play spellslinger or combo.
You ever watched Richard play? That's legit how he plays every week until he combos off while the other three beat each other up.
@ lol it’s insane. But hey I guess for his playstyle that makes sense. He lets other people be the problem and waits for an opportunity
What if you’re the one jamming all the board wipes?? Then it makes perfect sense
no one is "scared."
its honestly annoying how many fool casuals are commenting this.
@ concerned, worried, nervous, mindful, "hesitant because of", any of those that you'd like to swap out since you don't like the word "scared". The sentiment remains the same.
The mana fixing argument for budget decks I think is the most compelling thing the pro-mana rock camp mentioned. A lot of my budget two/three color white decks can't *cast* hour of rev turn 3/4 consistently without some amount of fixing
I've heard Richard's argument. Previously I was winning ~20 games (~25%) and after applying his logic I won all 4 games (100%) and the group now plays without me.
That’s funny. I’ve long that felt that if everyone played commander like Richard, no one would play commander. Imagine four players all sandbagging resources, feigning weakness and constantly politicking to make other players feel more threatening.
lmao ya when you farewell the board because the guy across from you played an izzet signet you'll literally never be spoken to again. They have such an out of touch take on what people play. I think they forget that you have to get along with your opponents. Turning a 1 hr game into a 2hr game because you Farewell'd without a win con in your hand is THE most anti-social play of all time 🤣
Commander players are so silly. There's this idea of the correct way to deckbuild but when a different (better) strategy emerges now it's somehow worse BECAUSE it is better
Pre listen things I’m hoping they mention:
1. Mana rocks helping the blue player counter your farewell
2. Cheap over powered mana rocks being better than ramp
3. The stupidity of 2-3 mana artifacts that ramp a land later vs just a 2-3 mana rock
8:40 just wanna correct Richard here. Mana rocks don't die to Farewell, they get exiled. players spirits die to Farewell.
Richard loves the "perfect scenarios that supports my argument" approach to debating while downplaying or ignoring those that don't.
@MrGeoghagan you're correct but my comment was just being a lil silly. Just goofing around.
How about Seth & Richard touch grass outside of the clash meta. When was the last time either of you were even in an LGS
For real the two dudes that dont ever play but online lecturing actually LGS public players and the community
Can't wait to play with Richard and Seth at a Con deploy all my mana rocks then cast an Armageddon, now whose mana is flimsy lol.
Do it
Or bring a low to the ground aggro deck and relentlessly pressure Richard into using his global answers on terrible 1 for 1s
Play Armageddon and nonbasic land hate
You would be my God!
I know this is intended as a gotcha, but they’ve talked over and over that this strategy only works because lands are untouchable! Pretty sure they would have a different plan if land destruction didn’t get your car keyed after the game at the local lgs in the vast majority of places
At this point I legit want to see someone win vs Richard with Soulscour or Rise and Shine. Bonus points if Farewell gets counterspelled.
Seth making a disingenuous argument at 35:00, land destruction isn’t against the rules, people don’t like land destruction but you can’t pretend it doesn’t exist just to justify your opinion on mana rocks.
The anti rock arguments are just in general bad, it’s literally just “they did to removal” which applies to all magic cards.
I think people misunderstand "dies to removal." Magic is a game where the meta creates incentives. When Lightning Bolt is in Standard you try to play four-toughness creatures. When Go For the Throat is the most played removal spell (like current Standard), artifacts go up in value. I believe that the prevalence of "destroy all non-land" wraths in the Clash meta creates an incentive to avoid mana rocks, partly because the social contract of Commander prevents land destruction and partly because cards exist that do the same thing (giving you extra mana) that don't die to sweepers.
@@MTGGoldfishCommander that’s fine acknowledge your meta is good, but you realize your specific meta isn’t universal.
It doesn’t really do much for the community to say “you shouldn’t run rocks in commander clash meta” because nobody but y’all is a part of that meta.
But the alternative... does not die to removal? Your lands are safe, and even if someone uses mld you will rebuild faster if you are running land ramp. There's just literally no downside.
I have also been brewing around no mana rocks and more lands as of late... I like the results so far! Need keep testing though!
I want to build a green deck where the only ramp are the cheap cards that draw you a land and let you play more per turn. I'm not sure how good it would be outside of forcing landfall as a theme, but it seems like a neat experiment to understanding the importance of lands.
It's the Trinket Mage! Out of curiosity, is your direction because of Richard's point about playing around hate or is it more of an experiment for something like card efficiency?
@@michaelk6071 more curving out with aggro
I think this is really the basic land argument. For example, the majority of the player base still plays cultuvate over three visits. To a budget player, one extra mana for an extra land is significantly better than two mana fetch a nonbasic that they may not have. It is easy for the clash crew to drop a golgari signet when they can play overgrown tomb and the underground mortuary, but you have to keep in mind that mana rocks are not exclusively used for ramp, they also color fix. This is why the comments believe Ojer as ramp is outlandish, because ramping a mountain through wayfarers bauble has the same result. with most player's manabases
This is at your playgroup guys. Most of us will get run over if we ramp lands turns 1 through 5 to prepare for turn 7 and beyond.
you're dying on turn 4 to what?
that is not the normal play experience lol.
@@qwerqwer-rt8wmBrawl games very easily end on turn 4 if your opponent is running Gruul, mono red, or possibly mono black agro decks like vampires. And brawl has a much more limited card pool than Commander.
@@qwerqwer-rt8wmnot dying, but if I’m doing fuck all for 4 turns then I will fall behind, doesn’t mean I’m dead but does mean I’m in an uphill battle. Can’t be sitting here one spelling till the late game and hoping people leave me alone. Because they won’t, and they shouldn’t.
@@isidoreaerys8745 what does brawl have to do with commander? everyone knowsi n brawl you play 2 mana target removal to spam remove commanders
@@isidoreaerys8745 brawl is not commander. I stopped reading the second you said brawl.
1:06:32 so angry y’all keep touting Coalition Relic as “good” when you have to take a turn off and Relic of Legends exists and is just better. Everything is a legend, every set they’re a million more printed that synergize that you can just run. Not to mention “the ring tempts you” makes your ring bearer legendary. It’s SO easy for it to tap for 2+ mana.
Relic of legends is insane. Some games the 3 Mana cost is awkward but some games it’s just like “suprise you have more mana than you can possibly spend”
It depends on the deck. Relic of Legends is great, but you need to be playing legends in the early game.
They should bring Morgan on more often. He’s kind, well-spoken, and I feel his takes are pretty balanced and rational…
Unlike some of the hosts. But hey, love all the discourse!
I don't know wath kind of meta is Richard playing, but most of the games don't see a boardwipes for manarocks, they are common, but that doesn't make them unplayable.
Hour of revelation is played in 1% according to EDHrec, Ondu inversion is 2% and farewell 13%
In all my many games in 2024 (multiple local EDH events in a major US city, plus GenCon Indy), I did not see a single cast of Hour of Revelation or Ondu Inversion. You can tell who in today's podcast has actually played outside of their strict playgroup.
yupp, it's just not reality. I've never seen a farewell cast at either LGS i play at.
This is why I think it's a Clash meta thing. In the clash meta Farewell and Ondu Inversion are the most played white cards, if Richard, Crim or Seth is on white, those cards are in their decks (and at least Richard probably also has Hour of Revelation and Devastating Mastery too). If I got to a MagicCon or CommandFest I'll run mana rock decks, because odds of getting punished are low (as you said), but on Clash the odds of getting punished for playing rocks is pretty high.
@ Do you think Sol Ring being banned (and previously Crypt and Lotus) helps affect this? Would more explosive starts encourage more or less mana rocks? No one would have the big three board wipes mentioned if someone plays a turn one ring into a 2 mana rock.
Nothing wrong with a different meta, but it is more unique.
@@Umbry_Rose Definitely not. Richard was there with Phil on the season he joined: Phil opened Crypt/Sol ring in I think 12% of the games he played and easily placed the worst of anyone in terms of win rate. He would consistently explode out of the gate, someone would destroy his rocks/dorks, and then he would sit and do nothing while praying to topdeck lands to slam his 8 drops.
Morgan, besides overall seeming to have the best grasp on what "average tables" actually are like, had some banger lines.
Richard: "most of the time you have a garbage hand that you need to sculpt.."
Morgan: "why u playing garbage cards Richard?"
Seth was a magic card in another life and got farewelled into this life and is suffering ptsd
Over the last two years at my LGS I have never seen a farewell. I think that the general population does what Morgan said and wipes creatures but leaves the rest alone
What if I told you... there is a better way
"Why would you ever play Rock when Paper exists?"
the problem is "clash meta is wrath meta"
Thank god I dont live in whatever fantasy land Richard does where everyone always has a board wipe in hand.
It seems to me Richard forgets that some of us would rather go home than play a board wipe for 4th time that game.
Fun episode, as usual everyone has good points.
I looked through the decklists for the last 10 Commander Clashes and counted the board wipes in all 4 decks combined. On average, there were 8 TOTAL board wipes between all 4 decks. Out of those 8, 3.7 of them would have destroyed mana rocks (Farewell, Ondu Inversion, etc.). So even if we round up to 4, that means there was an average of 1 board wipe per deck that would wrath mana rocks. To quote Seth, "It's math! It's just like the numbers!".
Disclaimer: a sample size of 10 can be helpful, but is not conclusive (I'm looking forward to the stats episode for that). Also, if I missed any wraths in the lists, my numbers may be slightly off, but it shouldn't be by a significant amount.
Maybe, just maybe, your winrates at magic events are because you are at the same level of fame in those buildings as someone like jack black? Maybe you win there so much is because people dont want to be the asshole who kills the famous person early? Maybe they run out all the cards into the wrath because they want to show off their cool decks to the people they idolize and dont want the other players to kill them before the person they see at a literal different level can see thier cool cards and choices? I really dont see how you all cant see that the people at magic con arent there to beat you, they are there to show you their cool decks and be remembered by you.
Richard pubstomping his LITERAL employees who depend on his favor for their livelyhood: “lol get gud Nerd! 😂”
Honestly my favorite part of Richard thinking mana rocks are bad is he’s the one who insists on playing boardwipes that hit all permeant types. So he’s the one making his own mana rocks bad 😂
His slow play is also common because Phil (and sometimes Seth or Tomer) love explosive starts. He hides behind Phil nearly every game and of course he thinks this is the norm. He doesn't need rocks or to play early game because he does the same slow play every single game and wins a ton because everyone else is spending resources to stop the threat.
thats... his whole point? that the board wipes are so good it makes mana rocks bad. what is with this comment section
@@intoarainstorm they have no desire to learn anything about the game beyond the basic mechanics is what.
It's stubbornness. You've all been running rocks for the last decade and never considered that they might be bad. Your ego can't handle it
23:07 also if you accelerate out your commander and start drawing cards, you should be able to hit your land drops. Sure you you play 4 mana rocks and didn't play your 4th land then sure. But if you are drawing cards, you should be getting your land drops and shouldn't be behind
How many more seasons until they finally start punishing land ramp?
Every single argument Seth and Richard made boiled down to "I don't like that this card type has counterplay".
Lands have counterplay, too. At least play the tame stuff like Urza's Sylex, Natural Balance, Restore Balance, Break the Ice, Opposition Agent, or From the Ashes.
The "get more lands" imbred meta is getting out of hand
They always dogpile Crim when he does it to them sadly.
Dowsing dagger better than mana rock!!????!?
It requires a creature, have to pay mana to equip, has multiple ways of being stopped (blocking or removal of itself or the creature its on)
Such a wild take as usual from Richard
But it becomes a land later a permanent source of mana like Richard is saying.. but i do 100% agree with your point, I was just iterating what would be Richard Argument
In a Richard deck, Dowsing Dagger is way better than a mana rock. The upside of getting a 3-mana land is just insane.
I would rather play Dowsing Dagger over the rock. The ceiling on Dowsing Dagger is much higher and the later game cost is lower.
You flip it, vesuva it, blow up every bodies rocks. I was a hater on this strategy until I tried it out and realized it’s actually really good.
You just need to be on a lot of cheap creatures
Dowsing Dagger is absolute Trash outside of Arna Kennerüd in whose Flying hands it is Mana from heaven blessing you with a land each turn. Or more if ocelot pride is present.
Richard: "We need to think hard to turn this crappy ramp into good ramp"
The "Good Ramp" Richard is thinking of: A four mana creature that has to die just so that it can flip into a tapped land.
I don't think I'll ever take mana advice seriously from someone who loses to Ruination while playing mono-color. That said, Richard is right - *if* your meta lets you sandbag every single game, does all of the dirty work for you, and refuses to pressure you week after week. Great strategy for cons and, for some reason, Clash, but at every LGS I've ever visited people tend to adjust game-to-game to player preferences.
All this video has told me is that commander's sphere is severely underrated and anyone in 3+ colors should be running it, if what you're afraid of is getting your artifacts wiped. Mindstone also fits the bill for 2 or less colors.
Also, Ondu shouldn't even be in this conversation. The chasm between 6 and 8 mana is so huge that most decks will rarely play it on curve. If you play Ondu Inversion on turn 6 or 7, and that's all you've done the whole game. You are very likely on death's door and will be dead by the time players recast their commanders.
As far as Farewell and Austere are concerned, it's shocking to me that no one brought up a very real possibility: what if the person playing it doesn't wipe artifacts? Like, if you're a boros equip deck and you've got a suite of beatsticks on the field, but you wanna wipe your opponent's creatures so you can attack on a later turn, are you going to blow up your own stuff just to get rid of a few mana rocks? The reason Austere and Farewell are so good is because they're flexible, you can choose the modes that hurt you the least.
Someone else also mentioned, but prioritizing wipes over counterspells is wild to me. If you have access to both, I would almost always run more counters than boardwipes. Counters are just considerably more versatile in what they can do.
A lot of the arguments sounded like the magic version of "I have an everything proof shield" and "Well I have anti everything proof Shield sword!"
It may be the "correct" way to play in the sense of Richard and Seth "solving" the format (just ramp and prepare for turns 7-10 to win). The question i ask is would I rather have a format where everyone plays for turns 7-10 and just ramps the first 4-5 turns or everyone play mana rocks and potentially rebuild after a boardwipe?
I don't even think they are "correct." It is A strong way to play but it's not the only strong way to play.
Your meta will always skew the idea of mana rocks. Especially the Goldfish meta where Richard is always in white with multiple board wipes that hits everything.
Many people only run 1 or 2 wipes and usualy they cant blow up every permanent.
I feel like most games I play have fewer than 10 board wipes across all 4 decks, and only 2-3 of them can hit mana rocks (and even then they won't always be cast to do so).
We all know Richard didn't contribute to this episode title
Edit: The new Unstoppable Plan from Aetherdrift is a real reason to play rocks.
He wanted to title it “why Ojer Axojil is better than arcane signet at ramping” but got outvoted
Thought the same
The fear of farewell is such a meta based reason to loose mana rocks. Morgan speaks the truth
Such an absurd debate. Can’t believe it’s even a question. MANA ROCKS ARE SOME OF THE MOST CONSISTENT, VALUABLE, AND STICKY RAMP PIECES THAT CAN GO INTO ANY DECK THAT ISN’T GREEN!!!
I think with a discussion like this they need a timer. Because they talked all over the place in the situations. It's kind of hard to keep up.
Edit: We need more Morgan in our life!
So interesting Seth and Richard are somehow always playing red/green/white but we don't talk about what choice a dimir deck has besides rocks or loads of tutors
Disdainful Stroke, Miscast, Negate, An offer you can't refuse etc.
Negate is also my favorite ramp spell
I would say cards like Burnished Hart and Solemn Simulacrum are perfect for dimir. If you've got artifact or recursion synergies you should be able to get a lot out of them. The fact that they weren't brought up at all in the vid is just shocking.
@@franciscoramirez3573Hinging your ramp strategy on two cards isn’t good. There aren’t a tonne of similarly strong ones that aren’t butt. Bauble maybe, but that’s basic lands so can’t do that lol
My plan for any black deck is to find Cabal Coffers and Urborg, and if I need more ramp something like Vesuva or Thespian Stage to copy Coffers. I'll back it up with mana doublers that care about Swamps.
Blue is the hardest for me, there I tend to lean on things that flip into lands (like Treasure Map, etc) and sometimes Treasures. Also cards like High Tide if I'm trying to combo finish.
Morgan?!? I went to high school with you!!!!!
What up Caleb!
All I know is both Seth and Richard play too many nonbasic and they need to be punished for it as well lol
The clash meta is not the normal meta. These guys play an insane number of wipes.
Morgan is a great addition to the show!
Mana rocks are good outside of the clash meta because most people don’t play turn five value wraiths that hit all permeants
100% agree with Morgan, lot more one sided board wipes should and often do get played. Farewell actually hurts the player who casts it since it costs their turn so everyone gets a turn to rebuild before them. Even damnation and wrath of god are more flexible because you can give your creatures indestructible in response
no. it doesn't "hurt the player who cast it" unless that player is bad.
@@qwerqwer-rt8wm You are a turn cycle behind unless you have enough mana to cast farewell for 6 mana and a meaningful card afterwards
@@qwerqwer-rt8wm There are going to be times when you have to boardwipe your own commander. That isn't necessarily a bad play. If your opponents have committed considerably more to the board than you then a sweeper is almost always a viable value option.
@@franciscoramirez3573 yes, which is why it did not "hurt" you.
the problem here is a general lack of understanding overall evaluation.
blowing up your own stuff, is not "hurting" you or your gameplan which is why we do it.
if it did hurt you gameplan which is to say lower your odds of executing your overall plan then you don't do it unless you're a troll or do don't really know what you're doing on a deeper level than the surface level mechanics.
I find these comments endlessly frustrating in the same way casual criticism of game development is frustrating. they don't even know why what they are saying is nonsense.
@@qwerqwer-rt8wm it hurts you because you are behind a turn cycle unless you have enough mana to pay the 6 for farewell and still cast a meaningful card afterwards. By no means am I saying it's always a bad play to board wipe. I was saying I agree with Morgan that one sided board wipes lead to more advantageous positions compared to just jamming farewell which often just resets the board.
Richard often argues this exact point to an extent as he tries to get anyone else to play the board wipe so it doesn't waste his turn.
If mana rocks are unplayable, then artifact decks are not busted. Right?
Morgan backing me up here 38:00
no lmfao. what an asinine thing to say.
I think Richard just wants his commander to be a land
Arixmethes is the true calling
Richard, if your deck cannot survive one Farewell, your constructing your deck wrong. Armageddon
they have explained before why Armageddon is not an answer to Richard's decks.
@@qwerqwer-rt8wm My calamity galloping inferno's hates landlords deck disagrees.
@@qwerqwer-rt8wm except it was. Crim cast a ruination against Richard’s mono black 0 basics deck. And he was obliterated from the game
@@skykur is ruination Armageddon? I didn't realize the text was magically changed while I wasn't looking.
ruination is a meta play that will do almost nothing at your lgs besides upset people unless your lgs is rocking $400 mana bases in every deck like the clash crew. it does crush the Richard's of the world absolutely. THAT IS A DIFFERENT CARD WITH A DIFFERENT EFFECT.
@@qwerqwer-rt8wm holy aspergers.
Anyway, against Richard, ruination and Armageddon are the same card
This one was hard to watch. Felt like it was "but what if they have a boardwipe" on repeat for over an hour. How would anyone win a game with this many hypothetical wipes?
Also you don't auto lose to a boardwipe getting rid of your mana rocks, you do have other cards.
Richard: "If you play anything but lands, instants, and sorceries in your deck you're playing wrong. Everything will just get destroyed and you'll be behind. There's no reason to play creatures, enchantments, artifacts, battles, etc. as it'll just get destroyed or exiled."
I love how the keep saying “half your mana base” when at most you have 2-3 rocks
Richard's whole commander philosphy is trying to not be the threat and let your opponents waste resources against another while he slowly builds up appears weak and wins in the end. This warps his entire view on how to evaluate cards.
I wish Richard was a little more… I don’t know… understanding? I want a challenging discourse, and appreciate the contrarian. But he talks over people too much, and won’t ignores their points.
Keep it civil Goldfish Crew! 🐠
Richard this episode: "X cards are bad because what if your opponents have the perfect answers in their hand? What then? Then the cards you're playing are bad"
I really want to see Richard playing in a meta where people play moxes, sol ring, arcane signets, and stuff. People will smash him with 10 mana while he tries to flip those janky stuff.
@@rodrigodepaula4198 listing fast mana in the same list as arcane signet is asinine lol.
This is the outline for why "Commander Clash doesn't understand what a 7 is." If you don't play mana rocks because they always get destroyed in your pods, you are playing high power commander. 90% of tables I have sat at don't touch the rocks.
No vandalblast, austere command, bane of progress or anything like that? No way that's some one's indicator of high power.
If nobody on your tables is running Mass-Artifact Removal that really says more about you then others. Sounds like you're playing at or below Pre-Con Power Level.
There's no way Hour of Revelation is above a 7, it's barely even decent compared to other board wipes (Farewell, Austere Command, Promise of Loyalty, Vanquish the Horde, etc.)
Not to mention cards like Oblivion Stone which are among some colors' only way to unconditionally destroy a board of creatures
I'd probably say that 90% of tables I have played at are fine with destroying mana rocks
Or people need to stop acting like their tolerances are the same for everyone else. I expect you to put sticks in my bike spokes when we play; I’m gonna do the same to you after all.
Morgan at 1:12 ish nails it. Your meta is not everyone's meta! You literally have your own banned list (as an example of your meta). Most casual players will never encounter that. Your meta runs a ton of enchantment removal; most players don't. Morgan said most players run 2-3 board wipes while you guys run 5-6.
13:00 So, I understand that land destruction is taboo in comander, but I'd like to point out that dropping mana rocks is just kind of abusing this fact. You are making yourself more vulnerable to land destruction and honestly ive been considering it as Wizards pushes more and more busted lands. Mana rocks are a balance and just going all or none is an issue on both sides.
Also, isn't saying "you better not play mana rocks against me because I'm going to repeatedly blow them up, but you can't touch my lands" is a little hypocritical isn't it?
@@The_KorythYES. ABSOLUTELY. Richard is being a brat. Any other player should Armageddon his ass into the Stone Age with plenty of rocks to subsist upon, if his plays are that predictable and one sided.
This is basic game theory. Why is their meta not adapting
100% running land ramp over mana rocks is abusing the incentives of the format.
One of the harder podcasts to listen to, tbh. Richard approaches his deck building choices in, like, a scientific way by testing it out and seeing if it works. Tomer and the editor just keep saying "you're wrong" without listening to what he's come up with.
I liked for Morgan and Tomer. But then I played Farewell, in honor of Seth and Richard, on the like. We'll get them next week!
Appreciate Morgan’s perspective. Also, I think the crew is not taking into account blue’s ability to control the stack and politic. If an opponent casts farewell, ask them if they are naming artifact and counter accordingly. Unfortunately red and black can’t reliably do this.
There needs to be a new series where the guys bring personal deck to really express themselves. No house bans.
I was going to use this story to disprove Richard about the value of early game, but then I thought about it more and I realized it fit perfectly with his view. At Vegas, I played a game with Richard on Arabella, me on superfriends, and another guy on balan voltron. On turn 5, I had basically spent the entire game ramping, and only played like 1 planeswalker. Meanwhile, Richard had a massive board, welcoming vampire, and Arabella. The balan player looked at the board, saw how scary Richard was, and oneshotted him. Then I untapped, farewelled, and won. He was the early threat, and it got him killed.
Don't play to the counterspell you don't know is there. Same with Board wipes.
Can't belive they didn't mention Phil's favorite mana rock Machine God's Effigy
I typically play mana rocks in decks with a 4+ cmc commander to hit it early, if my commander is 3 or less I’m not as concerned. “Curving out” is now a thing in commander with how much power creep has happened the past 3ish years, so taking 1-2 turns off to ramp comes at an actual cost. Rocks are no longer auto includes, but still can improve a deck when critically thought about rather than “lands 36-45”
The takeaway is: don’t play any permanent spell because it can get boardwiped.
Richard describing his land ramp nepo baby is hilarious
Comparing Dark Ritual to mana dorks is wild. One of those has a hidden mode called BLOCKING.