Old Man here to tell you, back in RAV/TSP standard, people played Grozoth so they could transmute for Dragonstorm. Also, Spectral Searchlight was printed when mana burn existed, so you could nug your opponent for 1 end of turn if they didn't have any mana sinks.
Funny story about Dimir Machinations, it was cast, targeting an opponent even, on this very TH-cam channel this year. During the Canadian Highlander Tournament for 2023. Sacha Christensen cast it against Thomas Simmons to remove the land on top of Thomas's deck which was preventing him from casting Black Lotus due to Thomas's Counterbalance. Obviously Sacha was running it for transmute but one in a million use cases come up every now and then.
Love listening to a publicly released podcast and one of the hosts is confirming that the joke he's currently making is going to be cut from the final release
Sweet that was my AVR pack! It was cool meeting you guys in Chicago and I'm glad an otherwise underwhelming pack at least had a Resto to bump up the average!
When I came back to the game around Avacyn restored, I build a deck around builders blessing. The set had a 2 mana 2/1 with vigilance, and I liked it. Then came Return to ravnica, and brought me an 2 mana 3/1 with vigilance. It was as if made for my deck! ...powerlevel of the group back then was veeeery low, and we liked it!
Lots of people mentioning that Spectral Searchlight was frequently used to mana burn your opponent, but also significant is that the Two Headed Giant format was introduced during this expansion! You can help your buddy out when they need some fixing, or are just one mana short of doing what they want to do.
In Kathleen's defense for capitalizing "Tell me more": it's rare to have the dialogue tag in front of the dialogue. It's a bit of an older formatting or, as in this case, used when you want the dialogue to be more impactful by putting it last.
42:37 Scryfall now lists all cards from Mystery Booster 1 and all the Mystery Booster 2 reprints (except the future frame and white border ones) as being from "The List", as those card are indistinguishable from the ones from The List and there is some overlap. Dimir House Guard was reprinted in Mystery Booster 2, but scryfall lists it as being reprinted in "The List"
Only good thing I can say about Grozoth is that it's BUSTED in Jodah, Archmage Eternal in Commander. Cast Grozoth for WUBRG, fetch every big 9-mana beater in your deck that you're already gonna stuff in there, as well as some of the yuckiest sorceries and artifacts. It fetches creatures like Zacama, Artisan of Kozilek, Valgavoth terror eater, and spells like Rise of the dark realms, Expropriate, and Portal to Phyrexia.
8:30 Dominaria had the name of every single expansion set on the plane in the flavor text of some card, so this is just one of many. 18:40 and here is the representative for Judgment
If it's any consolation Kathleen, when I first showed my wife y'all's work she immediately asked who was the pretty woman referring to yourself and I thought it was the cutest thing ever 🥰
Last new card with transmute was Tolaria West, from Future Sight. EDIT: Additionally, Tidewater Minion is part of an infinite mana combo with Illusionist Bracers.
We did it guys, we broke illusionist’s bracers Also I guess it’s ok if you have a commander with a really good tap ability or something. Experiment Kraj maybe.
@NStripleseven True enough! The Illusionist Bracer bit is a little more important than it may seem simply because it's the only creature that can untap any permanent including itself for no mana cost. There's only 2 others that can untap themselves as part of their ability (Aphetto Alchemist and Seeker of Skybreak). Almost all the others specify "Another target."
I, too, loved Avacyn Restored. Lots of angels cleaning up Innistrad, flicker fun, Havengul Skaab and Mist Raven being degenerate friends... such good times. ... And also yes, I do still have that vigilance Solid Footing deck. So many ways for fans to feel seen this episode. :)
There have been 16 total cards with some variation of "Hexproof from", so that's a little more than 2 a year since 2018 on average. Planar Chaos also had Blood Knight which was another variation of Black/White Knight but in Red.
Grozoth can be transmuted into good cards that have their costs reduced such as Blasphemous Act, Great Henge, The Ur-Dragon, Sproutback Trudge, or Cavern-Hoard Dragon. Other than that, it seems to only see play on edhrec in Sea Monsters decks (cards that care about Kraken, Octopi, Leviathans, and Serpents)
For Ravnica I remember Sparkmage Apprentice and Fists of Ironwood being very solid commons. The first one always finding a target and the second one powering up convoke.
I did actually briefly have a tidewater minion in my skeleton ship commander deck! It was when I was in college and had no money so I just bought all the cheap ways to untap the ship lol. It was quickly phased out, but I did hit the board a few times!
The only non-Ravnica block transmute card is noted Amulet Titan favorite Tolaria West. Muddle the Mixture is a big player in cEDH, I assume that’s why it got a reprint recently. I personally have the Rebecca Guay secret lair version.
The thing they did with flavor text in Dominaria is, that they hid names of all the sets set on Dominaria in them. So Divest has "Fallen Empires" and Eviscerate hase "The Dark".
The idea of Zephyr Spirit was to play alongside the Kamigawa block Spirit/Arcane synergies in Standard(in fact there are quite a few assorted Spirits in Ravnica block!). The problem, of course, is that Zephyr Spirit is very bad support for a very bad Constructed theme.
So I actually called Grozoth because it's such a goofy card. My wife used to play it as a finisher in her commander deck lovingly called "big dumb blue things" where it would search up breaching leviathan, inkwell leviathan, and expropriate.
WotC is probably not going to reprint Fyndhorn Elves in a current expansion since Fyndhorn Forest was destroyed over a millennium and a half before current Magic story.
@Vyolynce we don't actually have confirmation of Alesha's death in the current timeline. It's likely she has died of old age at the very least, but it's not impossible that she's alive. Barrin, for example, was 522 years old by the time he even started drinking slow time water.
Oh, I run Builder's Blessing... in my Bad Cards Cube. But white's theme is to slow the game down, have massive toughness, and remove creatures from combat if needed. So, the opposite of aggro. In which case this card is "great".
Yeah, no, I don't think they're going to print more Transmute cards anytime soon. Making an entire tutor mechanic just wasn't a good move (Mark has been saying as much), and Commander precons usually don't include tutors due to people just shutting down when they have to dig through their freshly bought deck (with the few exceptions like Sylvan Scrying). That means that the best means of printing another Transmute card is in a Modern Horizons-like set, but then all the actually fun designs have already been printed (like Tolaria West and Grozoth), and you still have to solve the problem of the card's text itself barely making a difference in the card's power level. Anyways, some Transmute trivia! Wizards were apparently scared of making Battle of Wits decks too strong (which was in Standard at the time), so they doubled down on the precautions by both making just one Transmute card at 5cc and putting it in a different color (Brainspoil being the card in question).
Would Grozoth work in the Momir format on MTGA, or whatever it's called? The one that was used to play the Phlottery? I'm digging deep into LRR history on that one, but if it works the way you want, you can basically just grab All The Nine Drops Ever and win...
I would say no. Their mana value are still 0. But bears are any 2 mana 2/2s, not just vanilla ones. There's also "hate bears" which are 2/2s for 2 that does some sort of removal or tax.
If I have Bloodstone Goblin on the battlefield, and while casting a non-creature spell kick that spell with my foot, do I get the +1/+1 and menace on the goblin?
I put little to no stock in astrology, but know a bunch about it because it intersects with some of my special interests and honestly if i had to guess what the sign Graham and Cameron shared, Gemini, the sign of clear communication, intellectual pursuit, curiosity and multidisciplinary hobbies is a pretty solid pick.
Cam asking "who is pushing to PROD over the weekend? Come on!" makes me feel so seen and heard it's not even funny. Obviously these guys failed in tech if that's their MO.
Burst lightning is any target, shivan fire is only creatures
Kathleen: "Burst Lightning could be anywhere"
Me: "Including face"
Old Man here to tell you, back in RAV/TSP standard, people played Grozoth so they could transmute for Dragonstorm.
Also, Spectral Searchlight was printed when mana burn existed, so you could nug your opponent for 1 end of turn if they didn't have any mana sinks.
I remember the Standard decks that used 4x Eladrami's Vineyard
the button i got 2 weeks ago was "upkeep draw whoops untap" which is extremely relevant to a lot of people i know
Funny story about Dimir Machinations, it was cast, targeting an opponent even, on this very TH-cam channel this year. During the Canadian Highlander Tournament for 2023.
Sacha Christensen cast it against Thomas Simmons to remove the land on top of Thomas's deck which was preventing him from casting Black Lotus due to Thomas's Counterbalance. Obviously Sacha was running it for transmute but one in a million use cases come up every now and then.
two minutes in and cameron makes the darkest joke i'll hear on a magic podcast this year god bless him
Love listening to a publicly released podcast and one of the hosts is confirming that the joke he's currently making is going to be cut from the final release
Sweet that was my AVR pack! It was cool meeting you guys in Chicago and I'm glad an otherwise underwhelming pack at least had a Resto to bump up the average!
Oh hey, that was my Ravnica pack! And it was Dimir themed with Kathleen and Cameron on the show. It was meant to be.
When I came back to the game around Avacyn restored, I build a deck around builders blessing. The set had a 2 mana 2/1 with vigilance, and I liked it. Then came Return to ravnica, and brought me an 2 mana 3/1 with vigilance. It was as if made for my deck!
...powerlevel of the group back then was veeeery low, and we liked it!
Lots of people mentioning that Spectral Searchlight was frequently used to mana burn your opponent, but also significant is that the Two Headed Giant format was introduced during this expansion! You can help your buddy out when they need some fixing, or are just one mana short of doing what they want to do.
"we have the art, it's easier to change the name" is literally something I have to do at work on occasion.
In Kathleen's defense for capitalizing "Tell me more": it's rare to have the dialogue tag in front of the dialogue. It's a bit of an older formatting or, as in this case, used when you want the dialogue to be more impactful by putting it last.
Spectral Searchlight used to be able to ping opponent for one. Then they took away mana burn.
Have to specifically say loved Cam's bit calling out MBS. LRR rocks
42:37 Scryfall now lists all cards from Mystery Booster 1 and all the Mystery Booster 2 reprints (except the future frame and white border ones) as being from "The List", as those card are indistinguishable from the ones from The List and there is some overlap. Dimir House Guard was reprinted in Mystery Booster 2, but scryfall lists it as being reprinted in "The List"
Was just going to say that for their future reference!
Only good thing I can say about Grozoth is that it's BUSTED in Jodah, Archmage Eternal in Commander. Cast Grozoth for WUBRG, fetch every big 9-mana beater in your deck that you're already gonna stuff in there, as well as some of the yuckiest sorceries and artifacts.
It fetches creatures like Zacama, Artisan of Kozilek, Valgavoth terror eater, and spells like Rise of the dark realms, Expropriate, and Portal to Phyrexia.
This was indeed fun, wouldn't mind seeing an extended Crack-a-Pack like this every now and then!
8:30 Dominaria had the name of every single expansion set on the plane in the flavor text of some card, so this is just one of many.
18:40 and here is the representative for Judgment
Cold-Water Snapper is the Cold Snap reference
17:40 for The Dark?
@ I missed that one but yes, that is indeed the only card in the set to have “the dark” in its flavortext
"This is like an Alpha card" Cam is right on the money, Builder's Blessing is a near functional reprint of Castle from Alpha
If it's any consolation Kathleen, when I first showed my wife y'all's work she immediately asked who was the pretty woman referring to yourself and I thought it was the cutest thing ever 🥰
50:08 "You're just like a wall with agoraphobia...I love Ravnica" is somehow a PERFECT statement
You could transmute a Grozoth into a Blasphemous Act, so it has that going for it!
33:03 funny you should mention that Cam, Builder’s Blessing is a functional reprint of Castle, which was first printed in Alpha
It's a reprint of the 6th edition buffed version of Castle. The original text wouldn't give +0/+2 to attacking creatures.
"you're just a wall with agoraphobia" I feel called out...
Last new card with transmute was Tolaria West, from Future Sight.
EDIT: Additionally, Tidewater Minion is part of an infinite mana combo with Illusionist Bracers.
We did it guys, we broke illusionist’s bracers
Also I guess it’s ok if you have a commander with a really good tap ability or something. Experiment Kraj maybe.
@NStripleseven True enough! The Illusionist Bracer bit is a little more important than it may seem simply because it's the only creature that can untap any permanent including itself for no mana cost. There's only 2 others that can untap themselves as part of their ability (Aphetto Alchemist and Seeker of Skybreak). Almost all the others specify "Another target."
Grozoth was the backbone of my Quest for Ula's Temple deck! Grabbing a bunch of 9 drop Inkwell Leviathans did work!
I, too, loved Avacyn Restored. Lots of angels cleaning up Innistrad, flicker fun, Havengul Skaab and Mist Raven being degenerate friends... such good times. ... And also yes, I do still have that vigilance Solid Footing deck. So many ways for fans to feel seen this episode. :)
i received a CK LRR button over the holiday weekend! It was 'Serving Commander'.
I usually only chuckle, but the Zephyr spirit roasting made me actually lol....
There have been 16 total cards with some variation of "Hexproof from", so that's a little more than 2 a year since 2018 on average. Planar Chaos also had Blood Knight which was another variation of Black/White Knight but in Red.
Grozoth can be transmuted into good cards that have their costs reduced such as Blasphemous Act, Great Henge, The Ur-Dragon, Sproutback Trudge, or Cavern-Hoard Dragon.
Other than that, it seems to only see play on edhrec in Sea Monsters decks (cards that care about Kraken, Octopi, Leviathans, and Serpents)
Grozoth can also be transmuted into like Expropiate for all its worth, amonth a bunch of gross-oth cards TBF
Grozoth is pretty good in Kiora, Sovereign of the Deep
I’m glad Gram said something about that spinning noise at 29min, I thought my earbuds were breaking
Love crack a pack, love Grahan, love Kathleen, love Cameron! weeeee
Tidewater Minion! Love that thing. Untapping Nykthos in a monoblue deck is real good.
For Ravnica I remember Sparkmage Apprentice and Fists of Ironwood being very solid commons. The first one always finding a target and the second one powering up convoke.
Arvad is the WB Uncommon Vampire in DOM. The other Capishen is Raff, the WU Historic Legend.
Damn, Cam with the DARK reference to start the show
I played Builder's Blessing and Castle in my Ruhan walls typal deck. I need to rebuild it, that deck was fun
51:55 Bear in mind guys, this is from when mana burn was still a thing.
I did actually briefly have a tidewater minion in my skeleton ship commander deck! It was when I was in college and had no money so I just bought all the cheap ways to untap the ship lol. It was quickly phased out, but I did hit the board a few times!
In defence of the searchlight, mana burn existed at he time, so you could use it to ping someone sometimes.
The only non-Ravnica block transmute card is noted Amulet Titan favorite Tolaria West.
Muddle the Mixture is a big player in cEDH, I assume that’s why it got a reprint recently. I personally have the Rebecca Guay secret lair version.
I'm frankly astonished that I correctly guessed the Ravnica rare would be Grozoth.
I run Builder's Blessing in my Dhalsim, Pliable Pacifist commander deck. Goes great with all the spiders.
The thing they did with flavor text in Dominaria is, that they hid names of all the sets set on Dominaria in them. So Divest has "Fallen Empires" and Eviscerate hase "The Dark".
The idea of Zephyr Spirit was to play alongside the Kamigawa block Spirit/Arcane synergies in Standard(in fact there are quite a few assorted Spirits in Ravnica block!). The problem, of course, is that Zephyr Spirit is very bad support for a very bad Constructed theme.
24:00 Arvad the Cursed i think is who they were talking about.
Yes, I ran him in a DOM flashback draft
8:29 fun fact, they put the names of every previous dominaria set in the flavor text of Dominaria
So I actually called Grozoth because it's such a goofy card. My wife used to play it as a finisher in her commander deck lovingly called "big dumb blue things" where it would search up breaching leviathan, inkwell leviathan, and expropriate.
Yes, long-form crack a pack forevermore.
There were 8 other 9 Mana Value cards between Kamigawa and Time Spiral, the 2 other sets that would have been in Standard with Ravnica
WotC is probably not going to reprint Fyndhorn Elves in a current expansion since Fyndhorn Forest was destroyed over a millennium and a half before current Magic story.
Alesha died 1000ish years ago. Didn't stop her from getting a new card in Foundations. If any set was going to do it, that was it.
@Vyolynce we don't actually have confirmation of Alesha's death in the current timeline. It's likely she has died of old age at the very least, but it's not impossible that she's alive. Barrin, for example, was 522 years old by the time he even started drinking slow time water.
Instructions unclear, acquiring Grozoths.
It's funny how all these Ravnica cards they don't remember are the ones I strongly remember. 😂
Amass the Components was useful in a fringe standard deck that wanted to tuck its Unexpected Results targets back in the deck.
Grozoth is going into my "The Ancient One" Deck
Oh, I run Builder's Blessing... in my Bad Cards Cube. But white's theme is to slow the game down, have massive toughness, and remove creatures from combat if needed. So, the opposite of aggro. In which case this card is "great".
28:40 Ah, my spittle!
Excavation Elephant, the other name for Quintorius
Grozoth can find Dragonstorm. I think Nelly played it in his memes and moxen deck for that purpose.
I am shocked and amazed that you have not heard of thee old Kiki-Tidewater minion combo deck before?! For shame internet!
29:10 I heard the ghosts as well
Seeing stuff like the Raging Poltergeist makes me realise just how many stereotypes hearthstone just blatantly stole and tried to make a thing...
Please yes we need more pathfinder players Kathleen!
The most recent "new" card with Transmute is [[Tolaria West]] from Future Sight.
Grozoth is a dragonstorm all star!
Grozoth kicks ass in my Jhoira commander deck
Grozoth is in my Blue White Commander Cube in my Big Fish Stompy archetype
Graham, I will say, they reprinted Muddle the Mixture in MB2
It's sometimes weird when you have 4 people all miss text on a card (Burst Lightning "any target")
Yeah, no, I don't think they're going to print more Transmute cards anytime soon. Making an entire tutor mechanic just wasn't a good move (Mark has been saying as much), and Commander precons usually don't include tutors due to people just shutting down when they have to dig through their freshly bought deck (with the few exceptions like Sylvan Scrying). That means that the best means of printing another Transmute card is in a Modern Horizons-like set, but then all the actually fun designs have already been printed (like Tolaria West and Grozoth), and you still have to solve the problem of the card's text itself barely making a difference in the card's power level.
Anyways, some Transmute trivia! Wizards were apparently scared of making Battle of Wits decks too strong (which was in Standard at the time), so they doubled down on the precautions by both making just one Transmute card at 5cc and putting it in a different color (Brainspoil being the card in question).
Fwiw - mystery booster cards show up on scryfall as being from the list
Would Grozoth work in the Momir format on MTGA, or whatever it's called? The one that was used to play the Phlottery? I'm digging deep into LRR history on that one, but if it works the way you want, you can basically just grab All The Nine Drops Ever and win...
@6:40 I literally said, out loud, "Oh, no... her book!" in sync with Graham.
Hey, Grozoth can get me Valgavoth!
21:24 do the knights count as bears since they're 2/2s for 2? Or does that only count for vanilla creatures
I would say no. Their mana value are still 0.
But bears are any 2 mana 2/2s, not just vanilla ones. There's also "hate bears" which are 2/2s for 2 that does some sort of removal or tax.
Astrology must be great for when you run out of socially acceptable prejudices but still want to irrationally deny someone a job opportunity
If I have Bloodstone Goblin on the battlefield, and while casting a non-creature spell kick that spell with my foot, do I get the +1/+1 and menace on the goblin?
Are there gonna be any more nicknames episodes? or are they done now?
you know, most of the names are longer than the original cards, so we should probably be calling them nicholasnames.
We miss nicknames but I mean makes sense when there was like every 2 weeks to slow them down
Okay, the only way I as a Gemini man might be considered two faced is the fact that I do drag! XD
If Excavation Elephant got any artifact back to the battlefield it would still be kinda meh honestly. 7 Mana? Ooof.
Grozoth sent me. Button please.
builders blessing is just pump in an arcades the strategist deck. not saying its great or cEDH or anything, but it is a use case I suppose...
Quest for ulas temple says high to to grozoth
Mechaghosts, ah!
Zephyr spirit is so bad i thought it was a Kamigawa card in my head.
It was designed to work with Kamigawa cards that trigger from casting Spirits! It's just, you know, bad at it.
JESUS, CAMERON!!!
... but at the same time, you're right about Elon being the kind of useful idiot that MBS would bonesaw a guy to protect.
Didnt know MBS plays Cheerios
Stop slagging off Grozoth! He's doing work in my Runo commander deck
Tidewater Minion untaps Time Vault, sooooooooooo Highlander playable?
GROZOTH!
Oddly enough I also looked up Taurus Women with Gemini Men but all I got was World of Warcraft porn
44:40 well the thing is, we used to have much better nostalgia. Not like the crap we have nowadays.
@36:45 I think I found it: th-cam.com/video/GfbsCE7-dWU/w-d-xo.html
Timestamp is about 40 minutes in when I see you sideboarding in Favorable Winds.
Does Cameron listen to Trashfuture?
I put little to no stock in astrology, but know a bunch about it because it intersects with some of my special interests and honestly if i had to guess what the sign Graham and Cameron shared, Gemini, the sign of clear communication, intellectual pursuit, curiosity and multidisciplinary hobbies is a pretty solid pick.
Cam, don’t go to Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦 😅😊
fwiw, you could learn to play pathfinder *now*
Cam asking "who is pushing to PROD over the weekend? Come on!" makes me feel so seen and heard it's not even funny. Obviously these guys failed in tech if that's their MO.
Am l..?
Has it happened..?
FIRST AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!