The reason people use Kodama's Reach and Cultivate is because they're cheap, because they give you neutral card advantage, and they guarantee you a land drop next turn. They don't see play in higher power since they only fetch basics but still, people at 6-7, and most definitely lower power, still play basics often.
Kodamas is WAY more powerful with any commander that costs more than 4 than the nature's claim cards. Nature's claim is good for cheap commanders and low curves
Even with a low basic land count and a big budget, in sultai there is not that many forest + X that come untap, so cultivate and kodama allows for mana fixing two colours for not that much mana. Depends on the the deck and the mana base, but they are still highly playable:)
Also they serve different purposes as harrow does enter the lands untapped but unless you can make use of that 2 mana you literally don't have much reason to use it. Granted you can harrow and then plan land for turn meaning you cast it for free but unless you have ways of recurring lands back to battlefield or hand your now at a disadvantage. Because missing a land drop can sometimes be worse than one time ramps. If you miss 2 land drops in a row then your now at a mana disadvantage. I'd honestly say if you have mana in hand and someway to make use of the 2 mana available from harrow it's worse than cultivate as it makes sure that yes you one lands entering tapped but you can then play the second land for turn and be ahead next turn. It's for early not late. By turn 6 or 7 if your ramping then you might be at some kind of dire need to cast multiple large cost stuff or want to have more mana available to spend it on stuff you need. It's better to fetch the lands directly from the deck than have to reply on drawing into them and or getting mana flooded...
So, what your saying is to run less optimal cards for more fun games? Like playing chess with missing pieces? Sounds like you need to tailor your "ban list" to what group your playing with
@@SWAT6809 it's something my grandfather would do when playing chess with us. Take half the pieces off the board, then dismantle your defences with what he had left. Kept the game interesting for him as he taught you how to play. To this day I've not beaten him, but I've gotten close a few times.
I appreciate you guys for the hot takes, such as you are not okay playing sol ring because it is fast mana, but you are okay playing sorcery ramps that are cheap mana cost. I was confused at your choices at the end but I still enjoyed listening to yall talk about your bad card list.
I have to partially disagree with you on the wheels. I get why you don't play them in your lower power decks, but once you play a table that uses tutors, they can save you from losing if you can't play a counter spell because youre not in blue. You can wheel their approach the second sun that they just drew again, for example. I've lost games because someone used a wheel to get rid of my wincon.
Chromatic lantern is a card that i consider mostly a place keeper in commander. It should really only be played in 3+ color decks when you're just starting out, but the more you invest in your deck, the less important the static ability of chromatic lantern matters and the more you are just spending above rate on a mana rock.
Personally I think Noxious Revival is criminally underrated in casual commander. Not only getting a key piece back after removal, but I've used it to disrupt an opponent's play so many times.
It definitely depends on play style because it can be a bad card but it can be an amazing card too. Doesnt do much in my meta unless you can draw the tutored card the turn it played. Or cast on the endstep of your turn.
Cultivate and Kodama's have some hidden value imo because they help you hit your land drop for just 1 more mana than rampant growth. They are great in mono or 2 color decks where you have a fairly high costing commander. Even a lower costing commander just explodes off of these, casting 2-3 spells a turn.
I feel like Cultivate and Kodama's Reach offers something more unique than what's being let on. It's ramp and mana fix for 3 mana. Harrow doesn't count since you have to blow up one of your own lands and Skyshroud Claim still requires you to hit that 4 mana curve before casting it (same with Explosive Vegetation and all its variants). If you're playing only 1 or 2 colors then I agree there are better ramp options out there. Once you have 3-5 colors that extra mana fix is invaluable.
@@mrjey3434 but don't guarantee the next land drop. There is friction though since 3+ color decks typically don't run many basics. In particular 5c, I would run maybe 1 - maximum 2 basics per type and then cultivate/fabled passage/steve become much worse
@@Skytho Funny you mentioned fabled passage since I run that as well in my 5 color deck. I think its good to have a handful of basics. If nothing else when an opponent uses something like path to exile or demolition field on you you'll be happy that you still have basics to search for lol.
110%. All their 2 drops they like grab one land. And the 4 drops they mention grab 2 lands. These are 3 drops that grab 2 lands, literally the most mana efficient land tutor spells. Feels like they're still in CEDH/high tier mode when talking about these cards and so hyper focused on the second land not hitting the field immediately, and forgetting most commander games go to turn 10+ regularly. Playing for the long game and making sure you continue to hit land drops is far more valuable than worrying about perfect efficiency in turns 1-4. They also compare it to harrow acting like harrow is better? It's the worst card of the bunch, 3 mana for one land? All the 2 drops do that for less mana. Unless you're in landfall Harrow shouldn't even be in the conversation.
They just flat out don't know how to evaluate ramp, who evaluates ramp in a vacuum? Evaluate ramp in the context of what your deck is doing, if you want to ramp to five by turn three, you need a one mana ramp plus a three mana ramp on turn two meaning you only had to actually draw two lands for natural land drops since the three mana option gives you the drop for the following turn. Thats a far better option than utopia sprawly plus skyshroud claim on turn three if you want your commander on turn 3... Lets not even get into their own acknowledged cognitive dissonance on something like craterhoof being bad but all the other replacements to win in the exact same way being perfectly fine.
The unnecessary amount of time it took me to realize Amber was the frickin cat. I thought there was like a hidden cast member I never knew about bc I’m a noob. So I stayed quiet until I inevitably found out… it’s a cat. 😂😅
Noxious revival has been a great value card for me but only in my Lonis, cryptozooligist deck. I usually use it to steal a card that someone else is trying to reanimate.
I respect the meta cuts you guys make for your playgroup, but I feel like the first half of this video was the first miss in a pretty long time, especially without taking stricter budgets into account. Still watched and I’ll watch the next one too!
I'm totally with Cherries on not running Arcane Signet in non-artifact-based green decks. And I agree that Sol Ring is fast mana: it costs less than it produces, but I'm'a keep jamming it anyway because it's the flagship of the format.
One type of card I’ve been cutting from my deck are board wipes. I used to put 3 or 4 in each deck, but now it’s 1 or 2 or none. If you don’t have a win-con they just slow the game way down as everyone tries to rebuild their boards. Obviously a one-sided wipe will win you the game, but blowing up every non-land permanent is just starting a new game.
No its not, you have the information that you will wipe and other players might be scary due to their commitment on board. Not playing any boardwipes is setting you up to get just pushed over whenever youre behind.
I don't recommend not running board wipes. I have played many games where people were not running board wipes and that often resulted strong early boards just winning the game.
boardwipes stop opponent from just snowballing a win, its also good for you to know when all the creatures are going to be blown up. running 8 is lame yeah but running a good amount like 4 or 5 or onesided wipes is just so amazing not to
It depends but mostly agree. My stand on board wipes are different from most ppls because i came from yugioh and cards that wipes boards are banned in that format like dark hole because it provides too much of an advantage just because you’re losing the game. There are justifiable board wipes like if somebody has like 1 million scute swarm or something then absolutely and then there are fruitless board wipes that ppl just do because they can or because they’re getting clapped and have to mana available. If you’re running more than 2-3 board wipes, then game go on for way too long because other ppl are doing the same thing and nobody is trying to deal with 10 board wipes in a game. Its not fun trying to build up a boardstate just to have ppl wipe because they cant stop you.
Calling Kaalia bad in several different videos when she sees a lot of cEDH play and calling Noxious Revival a bad card when it’s a FREE spell that gets you your best card back from grave really makes me question if this channel is satire or not sometimes
Kaalia doesnt see much cedh play as her colors just ok and she doesnt get you card advantage. In casual, Kaalia is kind of an all in strategy, and people just lose to it because they don't play enough removal. Noxious Revival is a cedh staple because you need 0 mana interaction / recursion, but its card disadvantage and in casual edh you can afford to pay mana to actually get the card to your hand instead of on top, in casual its even worth it to pay extra mana to get more synergy with something like an eternal witness. They even said the card is really good in higher power.
@@mrjey3434 noxious revival is just as good in casual lmao. You pay 0 mana to put your haymaker or overrun or combo piece back into your hand at the end step before your turn. And a Kaalia deck JUST won a large cEDH tournament
It's not too hard to break symmetry with Scrambleverse/Thieves' Auction honestly. If you can phase out or flicker most of your relevant permanents you can proactively get a pretty big advantage from them. I'm not saying these are good cards or even particularly fun cards but it's pretty easy to play them for reasons beyond "lol chaos".
Ramp is only good if the turn after you play it you have a land to play. Kodama's reach and Cultivate ensure that. That's why they are god tier, plus they are not card disadvantage
@@Wyrm7774 that's true for all ramp. Unless you NEED to deploy your 4 mana Commander as soon as possible or you NEED the advantage of getting duals or triomes, KR or Cultivate are far better quality
"Pyroblast could not be more narrow." *Guttural response has entered the chat* Pyroblast is counterspell protection. 80% of counterspells are counterable by pyro or red ele blast. I put it in solely for cyclonic protection. My meta also plays a ton of blue.
Aetherize is so good AND versatile, you can use deffense and offensive, just cast to protect yourself ou cast it after someone alpha strikes other player after the damage phase, you can also cast on yourself to return your own cratures to hand than blow the table. Just cant ignore this one when my deck has blue, and my meta with my friends is also very creature intensive.
Yeah, but it's 4 mana, so you almost have to skip a turn of play, just so you can hold the open mana, and then you'd feel really bad if nobody attacked you, or tried anything funny.
@@yavivanov6650 I am playing Blue, everything I do is instant speed. If I don't have to play Aetherize I will just play some draws on the end step before my turn.
Aetherize is a good fair card, it can win games if somebody over commits. Playing at instant speed has its advantages and you can always do other thing and spectate before deciding to drop it, if they dont then play ponder, or just hold up counter play in case somebody play some bull 💩 or even if they only attack with a few annoying flier, it can make them recast it or slow them down or creat opening for other players .
Spot on about windfall. Almost everyone runs it in my local meta, but I’m the only one who really benefits. I’m a rotcleaver reanimate / graveyard deck so it just helps me dig to find my combo pieces faster.
@@zakbrooks7354 there probably talking about Song of the Dryads, which would mean that the creature is a land but the land card type wouldn't be a copyable property, so the copy wouldn't be a land, same would be true of Imprisoned in the Moon
@@zakbrooks7354 so thespians stage copies the whole printed card. That printed card is the sphinx. It cannot copy the effects on that card from an enchantment. So after copying the whole printed card, it no longer has an effect making it a forest.
@@zakbrooks7354 It’s a super weird interaction. I had to look up the rules, myself, before making that play. My opponents had me show them the rulings, too.
I disagree on pyroblast. It’s a counter to counters, which is important. It also comes in handy for the occasional urza or cyclonic rift. It can be the difference between winning and losing the game in a lot of cases.
They didn't say they were bad cards but that they are very situational cards. Not all games will have blue so sometimes it's just a dead card they would rather play cards that always do something
I am confused Why is Chrome Mox, Sol Ring Mana Crypt & Vampiric Tutor in the video mentioned if they use it? (Look at moxfield: Competitive Karador, Ghost Chieftain (Beezy's Current List) The video titel was "we NEVER play"
@@theonewhohasowotism4093 And? cedh ist still a part of commander and they wrote "commander cards we never play", sorry but that would mean that the titel is clickbait
Love the insight into your meta. What do you two think of the "predh" format? Does it interest either of you? Do you have any experience with it? Would love a future video on it.
Hey dudes love your content. “Wheels are bad 90% of the time”, is a statement i could’t disagree more on. I understand your point and i guess i see them from a different perspective. 3 mana for 7 cards is a top tier rate. You emphasize giving away cards heavily but there is a element of disruption. Using good sequencing and timing is key to effectively capitalizing on wheel effects. Are they the best card draw effects in mtg of course not. However i feel like yall have grossly misrepresented the real power of these effects. Again no hate and love your content.
I don't think your points against Kodama's reach and cultivate really hold up. You just kind of mentioned a lot of cards and said they were better, without explaining why. I don't know if you've talked about why you prefer those cards in other videos, but to me a lot of them are either worse or a lot more situational (for example, I don't see how harrow is better than either, unless you are in a landfall deck). I'm especially confused about why you prefer wild growth and utopia sprawl. Utopia sprawl requires specifically a forest, and wild growth only produces green mana. So unless your colors are very weighted towards green, they are usually really awkward in my experience.
Disaggre on reach and cultivate. power on them unlike other ramp is the ramp + enable get the next land drop as well. Very few ramp spells actually do that.
One of my favorite cards to come out in blue(after this video was published) is Pollywog Prodigy. It's a creature, doesn't necessarily stax my opponents, but over time it inevitably draws every tike someone plays a spell. But it's definitely more fair because it is most vulnerable to removal. Unless I offspring it with Zinnia, in which case the draw is doubled and really only a wipe will stop it. Good luck doing that before I've drawn into answers.
Chromatic lantern is never about color fixing and always about convenience :D the feeling of not having to care which lands you are tapping is worth it to include a mediocre card.
I respect that they don’t run certain cards to get different game experiences but like dang talk about a restrictive play group lol. So many people had to cry to have that many normal good cards group banned
I will defend pyroblast in some spellslinger decks. Particularly something like Feather. The recursion that you get from Feather, with the optional destroy effect, potentially tutorable counter, and just a cast trigger for something like a Storm-Kiln Artist, it does work.
I've also been playing without sol ring due to making budget decks and my Beledros Witherbloom deck because he can't untap a sol ring and I agree, the games feel more fair and better overall whenever no one has sol ring. I know it's commander and people have their "obligatory sol ring" but it's been nice to play without it
I think wheels are good when you’re mono red or Boros, because those colors have weaker card draw, so most of the time, cards like Wheel of Fortune are great at just refilling your hand. Sure, white has better card draw now, but if your engine gets blown up, and you don’t draw into another draw engine, you might just lose. Also, you’ll sometimes play this and make someone discard their best cards or a wincon they drew early game. Yes, it doesn’t always happen and you don’t know when they’ll have it, but there will be times when you just screw over a player.
I made atraxa grand unifier blink/etb. And I just put Craterhoof in it. I can blink him and he just double or triples the etb with panharmonicon on the field or I just make another copy of him. I do have a lot of ramp in this deck also
well, I do play Ashnod's Altar and Phyrexian Altar in my Mardu Aristocrats deck at the moment, but I do not play any tutors, and I also didn't include any infinite combos, so I think it's ok. I basically only play these cards because I need Sacrifice outlets, and there aren't that many cheap Sacrifice outlets that I don't already play in the deck.
I do play a Krark deck, and agree that flipping a coin over and over again is time consuming. I don't enjoy it as the flipper either. So instead, we agree to skip the formality of one at a time and will roll X dice all at once. Saves time.
I'm not against infinite combos, sometimes they are necessary to finish the game and sometimes they can be so random and convoluted that it's nice to see them work or interrupt, but I do HATE combo players that don't interact with the table until they win, It's like we're playing with a player less and against the time
Torment of Hailfire is fantastic for decks with black in them that make mana. I don't understand the idea that because it ends the game it's bad. I don't want to play 4 hour games of commander. If someone can win and doesn't get countered, let's move on to the next. It's one of the 4 or 5 wincons in Prosper and I love it.
chromatic lantern fits well into decks that have some land based stax pieces like bloodmoon or contamination as it still gives you access to all your colors
hey guys, I know you hate Grave Titan, but have you ever thought of putting it in a ninjitsu deck with Satoru Umezawa? You can cheat it in for 4 mana and hit someoone with a 6/6 and also create 4 2/2 zombie tokens in one fouls swoop. You can ninjitsu it back to your hand then repeat the process multiple times. I know it doesnt go in any deck, but in certain decks it can shine. Dont hate me for sticking up for Grave Titan
I think the reason Cultivate and Kodama's Reach see so much play and are arguably better then the 2 mana ramp is that they get you two lands, on to the battlefield and one to play on a future turn. Later in the game, you typically run out of lands in hand to make land drops, so that one extra land from Cultivate does actually put you one more land ahead compared to the 2 mana spells. The slower the meta, the more powerful they become compared to the lower mana options.
Video translation: We don’t play cEDH cards. We don’t think they’re bad, we just don’t like their influence on our casual games. I like that you’re opinionated and have preferences. That comes from experience, nothing wrong with that. Keep up the good work nerds.
Love the channel, wanted to say that first. Just wanted to point out that Noxious Revival is better than your analysis imo because it can also target any player. This can be critical in higher power games if you can put a card say a player doesn’t want on top of their library OR if you want someone to remove something you can make a political deal to have a removal spell put back on top of an opponent’s library to remove something you both mutually don’t want on the board, for phyrexian green this spell does much more than I believe your take has called out. Hope this helps you add it to more of your decks!
They said Noxious revival is really good in high power where you need 0 mana interaction / recursion. In low - mid I would just much rather pay mana to get the card to my hand instead of on top and maybe even add more synergy with something like an Eternal Witness
i understand what you mean by soul ring. the only thing is, is that wizards puts them in every precon commander deck. those will always be in every deck from on out.
Chromatic lantern : I only play it in 5 color budget deck . Noxious Revival : I use it in deck that care about what is on top of the library. Mana Rock like Arcane Signet in green : I would gladly take Arcane Signet in a 3+ budget color deck with green. Sometimes you are looking for ramp source under 3 mana and Arcane signet is just perfect fixing I do like the rest of the list a lot
I get your point with the wheels but the discard can be very useful.. There are so many other ways to use wheels outside of Nekuzar and Narset Locks. Red Artifact Reanimation, Delve Decks, regular Reanimator etc. But as I said I totally agree wheels should not be thrown in any deck just for the sake of it.
People will play with arcane Signet over into the north. Snow lands are cheap and easily accessible. Rampant growth is heavily played but no one plays into the north. Not to mention if you're in two color you can grab the snow tap duals.
Thieves' Auction wins in combination with Brand or Gruul Charm... Draft your opponents stuff, being mindful you will be tapped out and attacked... But get you your own stuff back, some of it untapped, immediately for 8 or 9 mana.
If you’re wondering who plays all the spell based ramp, I can at least vouch for Zacama. Deck is mostly spell based ramp and board wipes with a few win conditions thrown in.
Ngl I think mental mistep is slept on in non cedh, commanders became so efficient the past few years. Yeah I know the dream is hitting the sol ring but anymore it hits mana dorks, tutors(since they’ve seems a decent reprint), and a good chunk of removal.
I have a Vrondiss enrage deck, which is the first deck I built from scratch without edhrec. I put the deck list into a combo finder... 26 combos. I consciously put in 2 jank combos. I love that deck, hate having to say "ooopps I found another combo." I don't get to play it with my play group. They have the same feeling with my Feather your turn is my turn deck.
I like Scrambleverse *only* when it's used in a way where you don't have to resolve it. If you create an absurdly large number of a permanent with a deadly upkeep trigger. Can anyone stop themselves from dying to the triggers on their upkeep? If they can then generally they win, otherwise you do. GG either way. Same thing with a lot of weird card like Knowledge Pool, generally only play them when you're abusing them somehow and the intended effect is irrelevant.
Big fan of this video. I felt kind of bad taking arcane signet out of my Omnath Locus of Creation deck. But I’m happy I did. Only run the 2 drop ramp in that deck now, considering putting skyshroud back in though. Good stuff guys love your videos!
Pyroblast and Red Elemental Blast are super good in my playgroup!!! I play very oppressive and combo driven decks that have a shit ton of Blue and a lot of our friends also play busted blue cards and having a 1 mana counterspells or destruction spell in RED is so NUTZ!!!!
Ok quick question, if I told you I dont have mass land destruction in my deck, but then play Natural Affinity and Heroic Intervention into your board wipe, would you consider that bad manners? Also what about Gilt-Leaf Archdruid?
I personally enjoy infinite combos, but only when the use the deck's commander. I don't want to be playing a commander game until someone wins through pinging down everyone on turn 15. If someone can manipulate their cards into a combo turn 5 or 6 win, good for them.
I can't imagine ever playing Grave Titan now that Bladewing, Deathless Tyrant is a card. Soo much better in every possible way as long as you have access to red. Plus it's less than a buck.
Bladewing does not combo the way Gtitan does. If you are running the Ashnod/Deathmantle mana combo they are correct in the sense there are other options but Deathwing isn't one of them.
I actually like Rhystic, I think it adds some level of strategy to trying to play around it. I think if you're playing really low power, it's no fun to play against and if you're playing really high power it's game warping since either playing a mana down on every spell or they instantly win by drawing cards ends up shaping the game, but I feel like there's a sweet spot in there where it can actually be interesting to weigh the costs of paying the study or not. The higher cost ones like Remora are less fun since you can't really afford to pay it, but it does have it's own minigame in trying to wait it out. Tithe can be a bit more annoying since the 2 mana every draw is backbreaking and unlike remora it doesn't go away on it's own.
Since years I love to throw my one cultivate into my deck. Play my 2 cmc ramp spells and then this. Like to hit that extra landrop, also love the t1: ramp, t2: cultivate, t3: 5 mana. Totally understand the argument against it, but I like it. Often have the 3 strongest 2 mana ramp cards and then manadorks & rocks (sol ring, mana vault, moxen, arcane signet etc.)
I strongly disagree on magistrate, hushbringer and other hatebearers: if you are playing white those are your interactions, your counterspells, the only way you have to do anything against any type of combo deck. If you don't have blue they make games a lot more fair and let you catch up Especially in mono white, they're vital, and they are fair because they're creatures, anybody can remove them
Making everything more equal and excludig cards like Sol Ring makes for more even games. However having randomn outcomes in a card game is actually a good thing. Luck is a factor and allows everyone to win some. Making it more even might make it less fun in the long run.
Phyrexian Arena is just a card that doesn't play out so well in today's general meta. If you're playing more old-fashioned / battlecruiser commander where games last 10-20 turns, then cumulative value cards like this are really strong. Honestly, it's a good challenge and makes for a great game experience to have all players build decks with no cards that came out before X year, would highly recommend! Also, hard disagree on Noxious Revival. I get what you mean that it's card disadvantage, but its versitility in applications and the amount of situations where it can be fantastic are too good to overlook. That applies to all power levels too, from getting back your big creature or spell that you'd like to play again in the late game in a low power, to grabbing value cards in a mid power, to ensuring crucial land drops by getting back fetch lands, getting back your countered/destroyed win con, or messing up an opponent's top-deck tutor in high power. Card is mega good and definitely worth the 1 card disadvantage. I even love and use Reclaim to great effect, which is worse in multiple ways. If anybody wants a fun/fair extra turn spell, I'd recommend Karn's Temporal Sundering. 6 mana, has some hoops to jump through to cast (being a legendary sorcery), and exiles itself so can only be played once outside of copy effects. If you need a high-end, game-ending card for budget, it's pretty great and doesn't lead to feel-bads in my experience.
They said Noxious revival is really good in high power where you need 0 mana interaction / recursion. In low - mid I would just much rather pay mana to get the card to my hand instead of on top and maybe even add more synergy with something like an Eternal Witness
Phyrexian Arena has a home in decks that care about devotion to black...that is the upside over other options that might be considered. In general, synergy will pull medium cards up to great cards in the right decks.
Honestly with how many cards and random strategies there are in edh its hard to say cards are definitively bad. Some stuff has uses in super random niche cases. Good in edh is so relative it's hard to draw a line. There are a certain subset of cards that are actively always good and then for everything else it just depends lol
my old golos deck exploited the "kaya the inexorable" emblem to cast karn's temporal sundering infinitely. my new vial smasher tribal deck (we have a decently high power meta so extra turns are NEEDED if I want to deal damage with my vial smashers) is full of extra turns and ways to copy them (technically impossible to go infinite but I have taken 7 or 8 turns back to back before with more on the way)
Infinite combos are fun. Just don’t load your deck with tutors to get them. The table can try to respond and if they can’t, you win. No one I play with see that as un-fun. It’s a nice work GG
I understand where you're coming from as far as Hushbringer being kinda narrow and not doing stuff for you. HOWEVER. Hushbringer + Kroxa is still a fun combo. :)
I actually used Kodama's Reach in my sarulf deck since non-land permanent ramp doesn't really fit the game plan I was going for. You are right that it's like, 6th best for what it's trying to do, but I had 5 other ramp spells in it and it was my last choice
Cool, thanks for making a video of all the cards i should be adding. But actually I heavily agree on extra turns. Kind of a hot take, but I would ban all extra turn cards if it were up to me Oh and peregrine drake and the altars are just automatic infinite combo cards, no doubt. If you are playing those cards then you know that you're shafting the whole table
i definitely agree that grave titan is an overhyped card. i only have it in one deck and that is anhelo as it can make 2 2/2 bodies for the casualty cost really easily. and even then, i don't normally need it.
It sounds like instead of "bad cards" it should've be like "suboptimal cards" That being said, Noxious Revival is a good way to counter opponents reanimation
The only one I don't really agree with is pyroblast. And I agree to some extent. Low power tables, total flop. Random table 8 and up, I think it's a great choice.
Kalamax doesn’t really want of need cultivate or kodamas reach. He only copies instants so the cheap 2 mana spells are fine but I personally just run the 3 talismans for his colors and crop rotation as my ramp package because mine and most kalamax decks curves are pretty low
I remember I was playing a 5 color deck at a tournament, using Garth one eyed, and this guy in my pod used blood moon and magus of the moon and I saved my ass with the chromatic lantern, he won with a goblin bombardment but I got him to 1 life, good game
I only played torment of hailfire once and everybody scooped so I never played it since and traded both my copies away because that's not how I wanted to be seen in the magic community. I'll make 500 creatures in my jetmir deck and swing out I'll take several combat steps in my isshin deck I'll burn your house down with my izzet kelermorph deck I'll mill you out with lord xander but I won't force you to do the maths to resolve a torment of hailfire
funny they mention finale as worse (feelbad) hoof like yeah you can't cheat it out but finale is such a powerful card lol it tutors and reanimates and has late game use, literally does everything
The one time i really like Noxious Revival is in my Gishath Deck! Get your best Dino from the graveyard back into play from a Gishath trigger for 2 Life? Sign me up!
I think wheel of misfortune is a good card because it basically gives players the choice to wheel and at least in my experience, I’m always the only one that wheels because everyone else wants to keep their hand. Again, this has just been my experience
Geez I feel bad for wanting to put in Phyrexian arena in my Queza deck. And not telling you what to do but I'm shocked that you used the art for rhystic study of someone that is not a good person. We have the arcane art we can use now. Again not telling you what to do, you folks make awesome content!
Heavily disagree on pyroblast and red Elemental Blast. Blue and counter magic is so prevalent in edh. They are both in my prosper deck to have the options to protect from specifically blue
Yo love the content guys keep it up! One comment I have is that when you’re talking about Kodamas reach and cultivate you keep saying they’re not bad cards but you have em in your category of bad cards seems confusing
I think they mean "These cards are not unplayable and WILL get the job done if it's all you have. BUT if you could add something else, there are so many better options". I've thrown those cards into a budget deck that I'm building from the scraps I've got lying around. I may swap them out down the line or I may not - it's not going to be a main deck of mine and I kind of like the idea of using my spare cards.
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I play 99 basic lands in all my decks because I don't want to interfere with anyone's cool deck and harsh their vibes.
😂😂😂
Lmao
It’s cool guys, not everyone is good at deck building. No one’s mad at y’all. We still love you. 😃👍
Gottem
😂 felt the samee
Lol
They should ask Amber for help. I bet she plays well.
The reason people use Kodama's Reach and Cultivate is because they're cheap, because they give you neutral card advantage, and they guarantee you a land drop next turn. They don't see play in higher power since they only fetch basics but still, people at 6-7, and most definitely lower power, still play basics often.
Kodamas is WAY more powerful with any commander that costs more than 4 than the nature's claim cards. Nature's claim is good for cheap commanders and low curves
Casting Cultivate is like flossing your teeth or defrosting your fridge. It's not fun but you feel good afterwards.
@@Zendrig like getting socks/underwear for Christmas. Not exciting, but practical
Even with a low basic land count and a big budget, in sultai there is not that many forest + X that come untap, so cultivate and kodama allows for mana fixing two colours for not that much mana. Depends on the the deck and the mana base, but they are still highly playable:)
Also they serve different purposes as harrow does enter the lands untapped but unless you can make use of that 2 mana you literally don't have much reason to use it.
Granted you can harrow and then plan land for turn meaning you cast it for free but unless you have ways of recurring lands back to battlefield or hand your now at a disadvantage.
Because missing a land drop can sometimes be worse than one time ramps.
If you miss 2 land drops in a row then your now at a mana disadvantage.
I'd honestly say if you have mana in hand and someway to make use of the 2 mana available from harrow it's worse than cultivate as it makes sure that yes you one lands entering tapped but you can then play the second land for turn and be ahead next turn.
It's for early not late.
By turn 6 or 7 if your ramping then you might be at some kind of dire need to cast multiple large cost stuff or want to have more mana available to spend it on stuff you need.
It's better to fetch the lands directly from the deck than have to reply on drawing into them and or getting mana flooded...
I like that term, “building out of your binder”. People always say, “why play that card it’s bad?”, when in reality I’m building out of my binder.
We have lots of respect for the “trade binder deck” 👍🏻
I build a Hylda deck out of my binder and she was decent. I have not bought a single card for her and she is freaking amazing. And so cheap to build
I still think Chromatic Lantern is good in 5 color budget decks
even 4 colored. this card is way underrated.
With 5 color, unless you're playing a super land base with all the fetches and shocks and original duals, chromatic has a place.
5 color AND budget really shouldn't be a thing lol.
@@dirtyfrench2926 why not? It's actually pretty easy to build 5 color budget
@@doktarr Absolutely. I have all that stuff in my Jodah deck, but the chromatic lantern has saved my ass multiple times
So, what your saying is to run less optimal cards for more fun games? Like playing chess with missing pieces? Sounds like you need to tailor your "ban list" to what group your playing with
It’s easier to just not build decks with, say, tutors than to tell everyone “Okay guys cards 1, 2, 3, 4……..29, and 30 are banned.” Just my 2 cents.
mfw your analogy is mindbendingly hillarious
@@SWAT6809 it's something my grandfather would do when playing chess with us. Take half the pieces off the board, then dismantle your defences with what he had left. Kept the game interesting for him as he taught you how to play. To this day I've not beaten him, but I've gotten close a few times.
@@samuelreese1816 A chessboard has fixed pieces, a commanderdeck does not. The two are not the same except for being games.
Terrible analogy lmao
I appreciate you guys for the hot takes, such as you are not okay playing sol ring because it is fast mana, but you are okay playing sorcery ramps that are cheap mana cost. I was confused at your choices at the end but I still enjoyed listening to yall talk about your bad card list.
I have to partially disagree with you on the wheels. I get why you don't play them in your lower power decks, but once you play a table that uses tutors, they can save you from losing if you can't play a counter spell because youre not in blue. You can wheel their approach the second sun that they just drew again, for example. I've lost games because someone used a wheel to get rid of my wincon.
Actually an interesting idea, i haven’t thought of it that way.
Chromatic lantern is a card that i consider mostly a place keeper in commander. It should really only be played in 3+ color decks when you're just starting out, but the more you invest in your deck, the less important the static ability of chromatic lantern matters and the more you are just spending above rate on a mana rock.
Personally I think Noxious Revival is criminally underrated in casual commander. Not only getting a key piece back after removal, but I've used it to disrupt an opponent's play so many times.
It definitely depends on play style because it can be a bad card but it can be an amazing card too. Doesnt do much in my meta unless you can draw the tutored card the turn it played. Or cast on the endstep of your turn.
I’ve used it to put a creature on top of my opponent’s library when they tried to reanimate it I find the card very useful
it's instant speed so playing it on end step seems pretty great. You don't even need mana lol
I completely agree, you're trading card advantage for flexibility. Hitting someone's reanimate target for 2 life is often useful in any power level
Cultivate and Kodama's have some hidden value imo because they help you hit your land drop for just 1 more mana than rampant growth. They are great in mono or 2 color decks where you have a fairly high costing commander. Even a lower costing commander just explodes off of these, casting 2-3 spells a turn.
I feel like Cultivate and Kodama's Reach offers something more unique than what's being let on. It's ramp and mana fix for 3 mana. Harrow doesn't count since you have to blow up one of your own lands and Skyshroud Claim still requires you to hit that 4 mana curve before casting it (same with Explosive Vegetation and all its variants). If you're playing only 1 or 2 colors then I agree there are better ramp options out there. Once you have 3-5 colors that extra mana fix is invaluable.
But harrow and Skyshroud Claim also fix you
@@mrjey3434 but don't guarantee the next land drop. There is friction though since 3+ color decks typically don't run many basics. In particular 5c, I would run maybe 1 - maximum 2 basics per type and then cultivate/fabled passage/steve become much worse
@@Skytho Funny you mentioned fabled passage since I run that as well in my 5 color deck. I think its good to have a handful of basics. If nothing else when an opponent uses something like path to exile or demolition field on you you'll be happy that you still have basics to search for lol.
110%. All their 2 drops they like grab one land. And the 4 drops they mention grab 2 lands. These are 3 drops that grab 2 lands, literally the most mana efficient land tutor spells. Feels like they're still in CEDH/high tier mode when talking about these cards and so hyper focused on the second land not hitting the field immediately, and forgetting most commander games go to turn 10+ regularly. Playing for the long game and making sure you continue to hit land drops is far more valuable than worrying about perfect efficiency in turns 1-4.
They also compare it to harrow acting like harrow is better? It's the worst card of the bunch, 3 mana for one land? All the 2 drops do that for less mana. Unless you're in landfall Harrow shouldn't even be in the conversation.
They just flat out don't know how to evaluate ramp, who evaluates ramp in a vacuum? Evaluate ramp in the context of what your deck is doing, if you want to ramp to five by turn three, you need a one mana ramp plus a three mana ramp on turn two meaning you only had to actually draw two lands for natural land drops since the three mana option gives you the drop for the following turn. Thats a far better option than utopia sprawly plus skyshroud claim on turn three if you want your commander on turn 3... Lets not even get into their own acknowledged cognitive dissonance on something like craterhoof being bad but all the other replacements to win in the exact same way being perfectly fine.
Support Amber, greatest cat in the multiverse!
The unnecessary amount of time it took me to realize Amber was the frickin cat. I thought there was like a hidden cast member I never knew about bc I’m a noob. So I stayed quiet until I inevitably found out… it’s a cat. 😂😅
@@AGirlNamedRon HA! Ron, it is ok, you can make up for it by continuing to make great content and being a cool part of the magic community!!!
What you didn't know there is a grave titan under one of the legs of their playing table
@@famousstranger8468 AWWWW SNAP
@@zackfro aww thanks 😊
Noxious revival has been a great value card for me but only in my Lonis, cryptozooligist deck. I usually use it to steal a card that someone else is trying to reanimate.
I respect the meta cuts you guys make for your playgroup, but I feel like the first half of this video was the first miss in a pretty long time, especially without taking stricter budgets into account. Still watched and I’ll watch the next one too!
I'm totally with Cherries on not running Arcane Signet in non-artifact-based green decks.
And I agree that Sol Ring is fast mana: it costs less than it produces, but I'm'a keep jamming it anyway because it's the flagship of the format.
One type of card I’ve been cutting from my deck are board wipes. I used to put 3 or 4 in each deck, but now it’s 1 or 2 or none. If you don’t have a win-con they just slow the game way down as everyone tries to rebuild their boards. Obviously a one-sided wipe will win you the game, but blowing up every non-land permanent is just starting a new game.
No its not, you have the information that you will wipe and other players might be scary due to their commitment on board. Not playing any boardwipes is setting you up to get just pushed over whenever youre behind.
I don't recommend not running board wipes. I have played many games where people were not running board wipes and that often resulted strong early boards just winning the game.
boardwipes stop opponent from just snowballing a win, its also good for you to know when all the creatures are going to be blown up. running 8 is lame yeah but running a good amount like 4 or 5 or onesided wipes is just so amazing not to
It depends but mostly agree. My stand on board wipes are different from most ppls because i came from yugioh and cards that wipes boards are banned in that format like dark hole because it provides too much of an advantage just because you’re losing the game. There are justifiable board wipes like if somebody has like 1 million scute swarm or something then absolutely and then there are fruitless board wipes that ppl just do because they can or because they’re getting clapped and have to mana available. If you’re running more than 2-3 board wipes, then game go on for way too long because other ppl are doing the same thing and nobody is trying to deal with 10 board wipes in a game. Its not fun trying to build up a boardstate just to have ppl wipe because they cant stop you.
@@mibbzx1493 People dont wipe because the cant stop someone, they Wipe to stop someone.
Lots of love to you amazing pair, and thanks for always bringing us the best daily magic videos! Appreciate you both!
Really appreciate you back!
@@NitpickingNerds i hope that didn't make them uncomfortable...
Calling Kaalia bad in several different videos when she sees a lot of cEDH play and calling Noxious Revival a bad card when it’s a FREE spell that gets you your best card back from grave really makes me question if this channel is satire or not sometimes
They have had very questionable opinions, i find it hilarious .
Kaalia doesnt see much cedh play as her colors just ok and she doesnt get you card advantage. In casual, Kaalia is kind of an all in strategy, and people just lose to it because they don't play enough removal. Noxious Revival is a cedh staple because you need 0 mana interaction / recursion, but its card disadvantage and in casual edh you can afford to pay mana to actually get the card to your hand instead of on top, in casual its even worth it to pay extra mana to get more synergy with something like an eternal witness. They even said the card is really good in higher power.
Not to be that guy but a Kaalia deck just won a big event in cedh like a week ago.
@@mrjey3434 noxious revival is just as good in casual lmao. You pay 0 mana to put your haymaker or overrun or combo piece back into your hand at the end step before your turn. And a Kaalia deck JUST won a large cEDH tournament
They have said multiple times that they play in a very casual, combat-focused meta. They are not a high-power, cedh channel.
If you're playing Ayara, Grave Titan is a 12 life swing on ETB.
It's not too hard to break symmetry with Scrambleverse/Thieves' Auction honestly. If you can phase out or flicker most of your relevant permanents you can proactively get a pretty big advantage from them. I'm not saying these are good cards or even particularly fun cards but it's pretty easy to play them for reasons beyond "lol chaos".
They're not BAD.... just a colossal time consuming headache to parse out and keep track of.
Ramp is only good if the turn after you play it you have a land to play. Kodama's reach and Cultivate ensure that. That's why they are god tier, plus they are not card disadvantage
Also gotta take the mana curve into account. Kodamas reach and cultivate are amazing when the average cmc is a bit higher than normal
@@Wyrm7774 that's true for all ramp. Unless you NEED to deploy your 4 mana Commander as soon as possible or you NEED the advantage of getting duals or triomes, KR or Cultivate are far better quality
"Pyroblast could not be more narrow." *Guttural response has entered the chat*
Pyroblast is counterspell protection. 80% of counterspells are counterable by pyro or red ele blast. I put it in solely for cyclonic protection. My meta also plays a ton of blue.
It is funny cuz our meta often has no blue in pods
@@NitpickingNerds Probably because you nerf it so severely it’s not even worth playing
Aetherize is so good AND versatile, you can use deffense and offensive, just cast to protect yourself ou cast it after someone alpha strikes other player after the damage phase, you can also cast on yourself to return your own cratures to hand than blow the table.
Just cant ignore this one when my deck has blue, and my meta with my friends is also very creature intensive.
Yeah, but it's 4 mana, so you almost have to skip a turn of play, just so you can hold the open mana, and then you'd feel really bad if nobody attacked you, or tried anything funny.
@@yavivanov6650 I am playing Blue, everything I do is instant speed. If I don't have to play Aetherize I will just play some draws on the end step before my turn.
Aetherize is a good fair card, it can win games if somebody over commits. Playing at instant speed has its advantages and you can always do other thing and spectate before deciding to drop it, if they dont then play ponder, or just hold up counter play in case somebody play some bull 💩 or even if they only attack with a few annoying flier, it can make them recast it or slow them down or creat opening for other players .
Spot on about windfall. Almost everyone runs it in my local meta, but I’m the only one who really benefits. I’m a rotcleaver reanimate / graveyard deck so it just helps me dig to find my combo pieces faster.
I like Cultivate in Deck in a 5 mana commander with 3 colors.
Same though I try to save it until I get Riku on the field so I can double it.
One time I cloned a Consecrated Sphinx with a Thespian’s Stage, because someone had used the enchantment that makes the enchanted permanent a forest.
...but that just makes thespians stage a forest...?
@@zakbrooks7354 there probably talking about Song of the Dryads, which would mean that the creature is a land but the land card type wouldn't be a copyable property, so the copy wouldn't be a land, same would be true of Imprisoned in the Moon
@@zakbrooks7354 so thespians stage copies the whole printed card. That printed card is the sphinx. It cannot copy the effects on that card from an enchantment. So after copying the whole printed card, it no longer has an effect making it a forest.
@@jovismarshall ah I see. I didn't know about that interaction. I thought since it got turned into a land with no abilities it would be a forest only
@@zakbrooks7354 It’s a super weird interaction. I had to look up the rules, myself, before making that play. My opponents had me show them the rulings, too.
I hear you on Murder and Hero's Downfall. Even in Toshiro Umezawa, with 37 instants, neither one makes the cut.
I disagree on pyroblast. It’s a counter to counters, which is important. It also comes in handy for the occasional urza or cyclonic rift. It can be the difference between winning and losing the game in a lot of cases.
They didn't say they were bad cards but that they are very situational cards. Not all games will have blue so sometimes it's just a dead card they would rather play cards that always do something
Its a counter to essentially a color specific murder (that targets a spell) on the stack. Its about as situational as it gets. Not worth.
I’ve rarely been in a four player game where at least one player wasn’t playing blue
I am confused
Why is Chrome Mox, Sol Ring Mana Crypt & Vampiric Tutor in the video mentioned if they use it? (Look at moxfield: Competitive Karador, Ghost Chieftain (Beezy's Current List)
The video titel was "we NEVER play"
Keyword "Competitive" as in CEDH
@@theonewhohasowotism4093 And? cedh ist still a part of commander and they wrote "commander cards we never play", sorry but that would mean that the titel is clickbait
@@onurkarakas3471Welcome to YT in 2023
@@onurkarakas3471 commander is a different Format than cedh. The Formats have the same rules, but That's kind of the only Thing they have in common
Love the insight into your meta. What do you two think of the "predh" format? Does it interest either of you? Do you have any experience with it? Would love a future video on it.
Hey dudes love your content. “Wheels are bad 90% of the time”, is a statement i could’t disagree more on. I understand your point and i guess i see them from a different perspective. 3 mana for 7 cards is a top tier rate. You emphasize giving away cards heavily but there is a element of disruption. Using good sequencing and timing is key to effectively capitalizing on wheel effects. Are they the best card draw effects in mtg of course not. However i feel like yall have grossly misrepresented the real power of these effects. Again no hate and love your content.
I don't think your points against Kodama's reach and cultivate really hold up. You just kind of mentioned a lot of cards and said they were better, without explaining why. I don't know if you've talked about why you prefer those cards in other videos, but to me a lot of them are either worse or a lot more situational (for example, I don't see how harrow is better than either, unless you are in a landfall deck).
I'm especially confused about why you prefer wild growth and utopia sprawl. Utopia sprawl requires specifically a forest, and wild growth only produces green mana. So unless your colors are very weighted towards green, they are usually really awkward in my experience.
Disaggre on reach and cultivate. power on them unlike other ramp is the ramp + enable get the next land drop as well. Very few ramp spells actually do that.
One of my favorite cards to come out in blue(after this video was published) is Pollywog Prodigy. It's a creature, doesn't necessarily stax my opponents, but over time it inevitably draws every tike someone plays a spell. But it's definitely more fair because it is most vulnerable to removal.
Unless I offspring it with Zinnia, in which case the draw is doubled and really only a wipe will stop it. Good luck doing that before I've drawn into answers.
Chromatic lantern is never about color fixing and always about convenience :D the feeling of not having to care which lands you are tapping is worth it to include a mediocre card.
Your lack of faith in wheels makes me question your judgement wheels are awesome
I respect that they don’t run certain cards to get different game experiences but like dang talk about a restrictive play group lol. So many people had to cry to have that many normal good cards group banned
I will defend pyroblast in some spellslinger decks. Particularly something like Feather. The recursion that you get from Feather, with the optional destroy effect, potentially tutorable counter, and just a cast trigger for something like a Storm-Kiln Artist, it does work.
I've also been playing without sol ring due to making budget decks and my Beledros Witherbloom deck because he can't untap a sol ring and I agree, the games feel more fair and better overall whenever no one has sol ring. I know it's commander and people have their "obligatory sol ring" but it's been nice to play without it
I think wheels are good when you’re mono red or Boros, because those colors have weaker card draw, so most of the time, cards like Wheel of Fortune are great at just refilling your hand. Sure, white has better card draw now, but if your engine gets blown up, and you don’t draw into another draw engine, you might just lose. Also, you’ll sometimes play this and make someone discard their best cards or a wincon they drew early game. Yes, it doesn’t always happen and you don’t know when they’ll have it, but there will be times when you just screw over a player.
I made atraxa grand unifier blink/etb. And I just put Craterhoof in it. I can blink him and he just double or triples the etb with panharmonicon on the field or I just make another copy of him. I do have a lot of ramp in this deck also
well, I do play Ashnod's Altar and Phyrexian Altar in my Mardu Aristocrats deck at the moment, but I do not play any tutors, and I also didn't include any infinite combos, so I think it's ok. I basically only play these cards because I need Sacrifice outlets, and there aren't that many cheap Sacrifice outlets that I don't already play in the deck.
I do play a Krark deck, and agree that flipping a coin over and over again is time consuming. I don't enjoy it as the flipper either. So instead, we agree to skip the formality of one at a time and will roll X dice all at once. Saves time.
I'm not against infinite combos, sometimes they are necessary to finish the game and sometimes they can be so random and convoluted that it's nice to see them work or interrupt, but I do HATE combo players that don't interact with the table until they win, It's like we're playing with a player less and against the time
Torment of Hailfire is fantastic for decks with black in them that make mana. I don't understand the idea that because it ends the game it's bad. I don't want to play 4 hour games of commander. If someone can win and doesn't get countered, let's move on to the next. It's one of the 4 or 5 wincons in Prosper and I love it.
Love your precon power up series. Would love to see them for the newer precons!
chromatic lantern fits well into decks that have some land based stax pieces like bloodmoon or contamination as it still gives you access to all your colors
hey guys, I know you hate Grave Titan, but have you ever thought of putting it in a ninjitsu deck with Satoru Umezawa? You can cheat it in for 4 mana and hit someoone with a 6/6 and also create 4 2/2 zombie tokens in one fouls swoop. You can ninjitsu it back to your hand then repeat the process multiple times. I know it doesnt go in any deck, but in certain decks it can shine. Dont hate me for sticking up for Grave Titan
I think the reason Cultivate and Kodama's Reach see so much play and are arguably better then the 2 mana ramp is that they get you two lands, on to the battlefield and one to play on a future turn. Later in the game, you typically run out of lands in hand to make land drops, so that one extra land from Cultivate does actually put you one more land ahead compared to the 2 mana spells.
The slower the meta, the more powerful they become compared to the lower mana options.
Video translation: We don’t play cEDH cards. We don’t think they’re bad, we just don’t like their influence on our casual games.
I like that you’re opinionated and have preferences. That comes from experience, nothing wrong with that. Keep up the good work nerds.
Love the channel, wanted to say that first. Just wanted to point out that Noxious Revival is better than your analysis imo because it can also target any player. This can be critical in higher power games if you can put a card say a player doesn’t want on top of their library OR if you want someone to remove something you can make a political deal to have a removal spell put back on top of an opponent’s library to remove something you both mutually don’t want on the board, for phyrexian green this spell does much more than I believe your take has called out.
Hope this helps you add it to more of your decks!
They said Noxious revival is really good in high power where you need 0 mana interaction / recursion. In low - mid I would just much rather pay mana to get the card to my hand instead of on top and maybe even add more synergy with something like an Eternal Witness
i understand what you mean by soul ring. the only thing is, is that wizards puts them in every precon commander deck. those will always be in every deck from on out.
Chromatic lantern : I only play it in 5 color budget deck .
Noxious Revival : I use it in deck that care about what is on top of the library.
Mana Rock like Arcane Signet in green : I would gladly take Arcane Signet in a 3+ budget color deck with green. Sometimes you are looking for ramp source under 3 mana and Arcane signet is just perfect fixing
I do like the rest of the list a lot
I get your point with the wheels but the discard can be very useful.. There are so many other ways to use wheels outside of Nekuzar and Narset Locks. Red Artifact Reanimation, Delve Decks, regular Reanimator etc.
But as I said I totally agree wheels should not be thrown in any deck just for the sake of it.
People will play with arcane Signet over into the north. Snow lands are cheap and easily accessible. Rampant growth is heavily played but no one plays into the north. Not to mention if you're in two color you can grab the snow tap duals.
Thieves' Auction wins in combination with Brand or Gruul Charm... Draft your opponents stuff, being mindful you will be tapped out and attacked... But get you your own stuff back, some of it untapped, immediately for 8 or 9 mana.
So we need a video where you two explain what kind of decks/games you actually enjoy.
If you’re wondering who plays all the spell based ramp, I can at least vouch for Zacama. Deck is mostly spell based ramp and board wipes with a few win conditions thrown in.
I made a Zacama deck when he came out but mine was a dinosaur deck. I just found Gishath to be worse as a commander.
Ngl I think mental mistep is slept on in non cedh, commanders became so efficient the past few years. Yeah I know the dream is hitting the sol ring but anymore it hits mana dorks, tutors(since they’ve seems a decent reprint), and a good chunk of removal.
I have a Vrondiss enrage deck, which is the first deck I built from scratch without edhrec. I put the deck list into a combo finder... 26 combos. I consciously put in 2 jank combos. I love that deck, hate having to say "ooopps I found another combo." I don't get to play it with my play group. They have the same feeling with my Feather your turn is my turn deck.
The fact that you are considerate enough to not play them with your friends that don't like it shows you are good player to play with!
I like Scrambleverse *only* when it's used in a way where you don't have to resolve it. If you create an absurdly large number of a permanent with a deadly upkeep trigger. Can anyone stop themselves from dying to the triggers on their upkeep? If they can then generally they win, otherwise you do. GG either way.
Same thing with a lot of weird card like Knowledge Pool, generally only play them when you're abusing them somehow and the intended effect is irrelevant.
Big fan of this video. I felt kind of bad taking arcane signet out of my Omnath Locus of Creation deck. But I’m happy I did. Only run the 2 drop ramp in that deck now, considering putting skyshroud back in though.
Good stuff guys love your videos!
Love watching videos like these from you guys. I don't agree with you on everything but I love to hear your reasoning when that's the case!
Pyroblast and Red Elemental Blast are super good in my playgroup!!! I play very oppressive and combo driven decks that have a shit ton of Blue and a lot of our friends also play busted blue cards and having a 1 mana counterspells or destruction spell in RED is so NUTZ!!!!
I would not like your meta but I am glad you have fun in it
Ok quick question, if I told you I dont have mass land destruction in my deck, but then play Natural Affinity and Heroic Intervention into your board wipe, would you consider that bad manners? Also what about Gilt-Leaf Archdruid?
I personally enjoy infinite combos, but only when the use the deck's commander. I don't want to be playing a commander game until someone wins through pinging down everyone on turn 15. If someone can manipulate their cards into a combo turn 5 or 6 win, good for them.
I can't imagine ever playing Grave Titan now that Bladewing, Deathless Tyrant is a card. Soo much better in every possible way as long as you have access to red. Plus it's less than a buck.
Bladewing does not combo the way Gtitan does. If you are running the Ashnod/Deathmantle mana combo they are correct in the sense there are other options but Deathwing isn't one of them.
I actually like Rhystic, I think it adds some level of strategy to trying to play around it. I think if you're playing really low power, it's no fun to play against and if you're playing really high power it's game warping since either playing a mana down on every spell or they instantly win by drawing cards ends up shaping the game, but I feel like there's a sweet spot in there where it can actually be interesting to weigh the costs of paying the study or not. The higher cost ones like Remora are less fun since you can't really afford to pay it, but it does have it's own minigame in trying to wait it out. Tithe can be a bit more annoying since the 2 mana every draw is backbreaking and unlike remora it doesn't go away on it's own.
Since years I love to throw my one cultivate into my deck. Play my 2 cmc ramp spells and then this. Like to hit that extra landrop, also love the t1: ramp, t2: cultivate, t3: 5 mana.
Totally understand the argument against it, but I like it. Often have the 3 strongest 2 mana ramp cards and then manadorks & rocks (sol ring, mana vault, moxen, arcane signet etc.)
I strongly disagree on magistrate, hushbringer and other hatebearers: if you are playing white those are your interactions, your counterspells, the only way you have to do anything against any type of combo deck. If you don't have blue they make games a lot more fair and let you catch up
Especially in mono white, they're vital, and they are fair because they're creatures, anybody can remove them
Making everything more equal and excludig cards like Sol Ring makes for more even games. However having randomn outcomes in a card game is actually a good thing. Luck is a factor and allows everyone to win some. Making it more even might make it less fun in the long run.
Phyrexian Arena is just a card that doesn't play out so well in today's general meta. If you're playing more old-fashioned / battlecruiser commander where games last 10-20 turns, then cumulative value cards like this are really strong. Honestly, it's a good challenge and makes for a great game experience to have all players build decks with no cards that came out before X year, would highly recommend!
Also, hard disagree on Noxious Revival. I get what you mean that it's card disadvantage, but its versitility in applications and the amount of situations where it can be fantastic are too good to overlook. That applies to all power levels too, from getting back your big creature or spell that you'd like to play again in the late game in a low power, to grabbing value cards in a mid power, to ensuring crucial land drops by getting back fetch lands, getting back your countered/destroyed win con, or messing up an opponent's top-deck tutor in high power. Card is mega good and definitely worth the 1 card disadvantage. I even love and use Reclaim to great effect, which is worse in multiple ways.
If anybody wants a fun/fair extra turn spell, I'd recommend Karn's Temporal Sundering. 6 mana, has some hoops to jump through to cast (being a legendary sorcery), and exiles itself so can only be played once outside of copy effects. If you need a high-end, game-ending card for budget, it's pretty great and doesn't lead to feel-bads in my experience.
They said Noxious revival is really good in high power where you need 0 mana interaction / recursion. In low - mid I would just much rather pay mana to get the card to my hand instead of on top and maybe even add more synergy with something like an Eternal Witness
Ive been trying to push my group away from fast mana but people just dont want to ditch sol ring.
Sorry to hear. Same issue. Cut sol ring from my deckd but they wont.
@@energetek661 they always just use the argument that its fair if everyone has it lol. It still ruins the game.
Phyrexian Arena has a home in decks that care about devotion to black...that is the upside over other options that might be considered. In general, synergy will pull medium cards up to great cards in the right decks.
The problem with Craterhoof versus cards lol Finale of Devastation is how easy it is to cheat into play.
Honestly with how many cards and random strategies there are in edh its hard to say cards are definitively bad. Some stuff has uses in super random niche cases. Good in edh is so relative it's hard to draw a line. There are a certain subset of cards that are actively always good and then for everything else it just depends lol
I never resized amber was getting constantly petted.
my old golos deck exploited the "kaya the inexorable" emblem to cast karn's temporal sundering infinitely. my new vial smasher tribal deck (we have a decently high power meta so extra turns are NEEDED if I want to deal damage with my vial smashers) is full of extra turns and ways to copy them (technically impossible to go infinite but I have taken 7 or 8 turns back to back before with more on the way)
Infinite combos are fun. Just don’t load your deck with tutors to get them. The table can try to respond and if they can’t, you win. No one I play with see that as un-fun. It’s a nice work GG
I like to make really complex infinite combos with lot's of parts. Makes them more fair and interesting
I understand where you're coming from as far as Hushbringer being kinda narrow and not doing stuff for you.
HOWEVER. Hushbringer + Kroxa is still a fun combo. :)
I actually used Kodama's Reach in my sarulf deck since non-land permanent ramp doesn't really fit the game plan I was going for. You are right that it's like, 6th best for what it's trying to do, but I had 5 other ramp spells in it and it was my last choice
Cool, thanks for making a video of all the cards i should be adding.
But actually I heavily agree on extra turns. Kind of a hot take, but I would ban all extra turn cards if it were up to me
Oh and peregrine drake and the altars are just automatic infinite combo cards, no doubt. If you are playing those cards then you know that you're shafting the whole table
I'd never consider putting pyroblast or red Elemental blast in anything besides my cEDH decks
i definitely agree that grave titan is an overhyped card. i only have it in one deck and that is anhelo as it can make 2 2/2 bodies for the casualty cost really easily. and even then, i don't normally need it.
It sounds like instead of "bad cards" it should've be like "suboptimal cards"
That being said, Noxious Revival is a good way to counter opponents reanimation
The only one I don't really agree with is pyroblast. And I agree to some extent. Low power tables, total flop. Random table 8 and up, I think it's a great choice.
Kalamax doesn’t really want of need cultivate or kodamas reach. He only copies instants so the cheap 2 mana spells are fine but I personally just run the 3 talismans for his colors and crop rotation as my ramp package because mine and most kalamax decks curves are pretty low
What if the fast mana is synergistic? I like mana Crypt specifically in king Darien because I want the coin flip to hurt me
And I want it in Okaun & Zndrsplt because coin flip 🙃
I remember I was playing a 5 color deck at a tournament, using Garth one eyed, and this guy in my pod used blood moon and magus of the moon and I saved my ass with the chromatic lantern, he won with a goblin bombardment but I got him to 1 life, good game
Man, Amber has been full on keen to be on set lots compared with 'the beginning' of NN
Yeah... I've lost count of how many times I've won games on Expropriate. So I definitely get you guys on the extra turns cards.
I only played torment of hailfire once and everybody scooped so I never played it since and traded both my copies away because that's not how I wanted to be seen in the magic community.
I'll make 500 creatures in my jetmir deck and swing out
I'll take several combat steps in my isshin deck
I'll burn your house down with my izzet kelermorph deck
I'll mill you out with lord xander but I won't force you to do the maths to resolve a torment of hailfire
funny they mention finale as worse (feelbad) hoof
like yeah you can't cheat it out but finale is such a powerful card lol
it tutors and reanimates and has late game use, literally does everything
The one time i really like Noxious Revival is in my Gishath Deck! Get your best Dino from the graveyard back into play from a Gishath trigger for 2 Life? Sign me up!
I think wheel of misfortune is a good card because it basically gives players the choice to wheel and at least in my experience, I’m always the only one that wheels because everyone else wants to keep their hand. Again, this has just been my experience
Geez I feel bad for wanting to put in Phyrexian arena in my Queza deck. And not telling you what to do but I'm shocked that you used the art for rhystic study of someone that is not a good person. We have the arcane art we can use now. Again not telling you what to do, you folks make awesome content!
Heavily disagree on pyroblast and red Elemental Blast. Blue and counter magic is so prevalent in edh.
They are both in my prosper deck to have the options to protect from specifically blue
You're just telling people to power down their decks. These are mostly all cards that are great in the format.
Yo love the content guys keep it up! One comment I have is that when you’re talking about Kodamas reach and cultivate you keep saying they’re not bad cards but you have em in your category of bad cards seems confusing
I think they mean "These cards are not unplayable and WILL get the job done if it's all you have. BUT if you could add something else, there are so many better options".
I've thrown those cards into a budget deck that I'm building from the scraps I've got lying around. I may swap them out down the line or I may not - it's not going to be a main deck of mine and I kind of like the idea of using my spare cards.