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Episode 214: The Tangents of Xira
168 Plays10 months ago
Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome back to another episode of the Goblin Lore Podcast! Today Alex and Taya talk about one of Alex’s favorite commander decks while also managing to tangent their way through a number of other topics (seriously though, it's an impressive amount of tangents even for us).
We also finally have a Linktree with all of our discounts/resources
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As promised, we keep Mental Health Links available every episode. But For general Mental Health the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has great resources for people struggling with mental health concerns as well as their families. We also want to draw attention to this article on stigma from NAMI's site.
If you’re thinking about suicide or just need someone to talk to right now, you can get support from any of the resources below.
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988
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- Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741-741
- International suicide hotlines: A comprehensive resource list for people outside the US.
- IMAlive: Click Chat Now to access a live online network of volunteers through instant messaging.
- TrevorLifeline, TrevorChat, and TrevorText (LGBTQ+ crisis support): 1-866-488-7386, or text “Trevor” to 1-202-304-1200
- Trans Lifeline (US): (877) 565-8860
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Opening and closing music by Wintergatan (@wintergatan). Logo art by Steven Raffael (@SteveRaffle)
Goblin Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast, and a part of their growing Vorthos content – as well as Magic content of all kinds. Check them out at hipstersofthecoast.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsor Thanks
00:00:29
Speaker
Hello Podwalkers and welcome to another episode of the Goblin Lore podcast. So today we have kind of a fun episode and I'm really glad you brought this idea to you. So first we want to just open and say Hobbes is not going to make it, just stuff came up, life happens. So today there's just going to be two of us.
00:00:53
Speaker
Might as well introduce myself and then you introduce yourself. We'll do introductions and then the opening question. So I'm Alex Newman found on Twitter at, uh, no underscore chronicler for now, still. Okay. Oh, go ahead, Alex. Let's just say my pronouns are he, him. I'm sorry. Uh, I'm Taya pronoun to she, her, they, them, and I'm a Taya transcends on blue sky.
00:01:20
Speaker
All right, and so I apologize. I just realized that I lost all my notes that I had taken for this. So I'll get those open in a moment.
00:01:30
Speaker
But today, I also want to thank the Grinding Coffee Company before I forget, because I have a tendency to. They've been great sponsors. They've been working with us for years. We just want to always remember to open the show and thank them. They've helped us with charity stuff and, I mean, Hobbs Coffee Needs, which is great, but just want to make sure that we get them thanked right away.
Mindfulness and Personal Experiences
00:01:53
Speaker
And then, yeah, so for today's topic,
00:01:57
Speaker
We were trying to come up with something we could do with the two of us. And Taya, you brought up the idea of talking about one of my commander decks. Yeah, did we want to do the opening question first, though? Yeah, that's true. That's true. So I got an opening question that I was trying to come up with something that ties to the topic. And in lieu of having something that specifically ties,
00:02:21
Speaker
which I couldn't come up with. Though there is a thing we could have used, but that has been fleshed out and is more of the actual meat of the episode, along with the other thing.
00:02:32
Speaker
So the opening question, I want to go with something that Hobbes, a mindfulness technique that Hobbes talks about. I know he's talked about it on the cast and he's talked about it with me off the air. I know it's something that he's worked on with his kids and it's something I've done myself. The full exercise that he does is
00:02:52
Speaker
I believe for them it's at the end of each day, you list three good things that happened that day and one thing you're looking forward to the next day. I used to do it first thing in the morning at work while I was eating breakfast, so I would do three good things from the previous day, one thing I was looking forward to current day.
00:03:08
Speaker
But sort of in that vein, I was thinking we could talk about something good that happened to us in kind of the last week or so, just kind of in the podcast timeline. And so I'll open up with something that kind of happened this weekend. I've been lifting recently pretty regularly with some friends of mine. I was doing it kind of last summer and then with me and one of my friends, and then we kind of fell off and it was hard to,
00:03:35
Speaker
get back to it but now there's three of us we started in december and have been going pretty consistently the holidays disrupted things a little bit but it's been every week through january and february now and so it's just in general that's been nice it's been nice to have three of us and it's it's it's nice to just have that group to to be doing that with but also um this weekend so last saturday we did
00:04:00
Speaker
something called we worked for a one rep max. And so for me, like I've been lifting for a while with them, but not that long overall, they've, they both have been doing a lot over the last number of years, my friend, Zeke for almost a decade on and off. So they're, they're a lot more knowledgeable about what they can do, what they used to be able to do kind of where they're at now. And so this was helpful for them to calibrate. But for me, I've never done that.
00:04:24
Speaker
And kind of what you're doing is you're starting somewhere, you know you can lift, and you're starting to just go up higher. Go higher than you've lifted before and just try to get one. You're not trying, like normal working sets, you might be doing five or 10, depending on your goals. Lift per set, reps per set, but here you're just trying to hit one. Can you do this weight at all? And if you can, cool, then on your next, then it's someone else's turn, on your next set, you go up and weight again, up again until you hit failure.
Deck Building Overview
00:04:54
Speaker
because it just tells you where you're at. And so I started weeks ago fairly low in weights. And I think as of a couple of weeks ago, the last time we actually lifted together, I was at 115, was the highest that I was lifting.
00:05:11
Speaker
on the bench press. And I really enjoy this particular activity. I never ever would have expected it. I just genuinely enjoy the motion, laying down on the bench, pushing the weights up, putting them back on the rack. I enjoy that whole process way more than I expected, but I was kind of afraid of it the whole time. And I didn't really, I recognized a little bit of it, but I didn't really recognize that until this week when we started pushing up the weight for me.
00:05:39
Speaker
And I started at 125 and they want to hit 135. So for American sets, for using American weights, the barbell, the bar that it's all on is 45 pounds. And so at 135, you have a 45 pound plate on each side. And those things are huge.
00:06:00
Speaker
compared to the other plates and i there is something psychological that hit my brain when i went to when they set that up for me and i put forty five on each side and i'm like oh this is this is my this is where i'm at now.
00:06:12
Speaker
And I lifted that one and then I did 155 and I pushed higher and then I missed once. I didn't get to 165, but I went from lifting 115 to then this week I pushed one, one at 155. So it was like that, I had a way more in me than I was.
00:06:32
Speaker
than I thought I did, but I also realized kind of how much fear I had around it. And understandably, it's a thing, but with two people there and all of the precautions and things that we had set up, it's fine. But there was still something in the back of my head that I was intimidated by this setup. And so
00:06:54
Speaker
That was, A was just really good. For this now, I have that weight and I can use that to sort of set my goals going forward because I can take, my working sets can be some percentage of that and I can start working from there. But just as a psychological thing, it was really, really good thing for me to kind of confront that, to realize that, so that fear I had to confront that and to get through that.
00:07:21
Speaker
And then also just a couple of, a couple of friends and actually we had a fourth friend who hasn't been lifting, has never lifted with us before, has been there sometimes when we were lifting, but he would just hang out and wouldn't lift. And he actually showed up to lift too. So it was kind of fun for him to get to start things. And then just a group of friends all celebrating when somebody hit some, did something good and kind of jovially making fun of someone else when you did a, like, especially my two friends who've been in it for a while, they kind of poke at each other when one's better at this and the other's better at
00:07:50
Speaker
It was just a good environment and it was, it was a really good, a good thing for me and kind of multiple levels there. Very cool. Yeah. That's, that's awesome. Yeah. For me, I mean, I'm going to go back. I've been home and I mentioned the last time we were on that I was getting ready to go in for surgery. And, you know, it was just about two weeks ago, two weeks ago on the day this comes out Wednesday.
00:08:19
Speaker
you know, I had my top surgery, which for male to female trans top surgery is mostly a breast augmentation. But in my case, it's also a bit of a reshaping to kind of give a more feminine appearance to fit my frame a little bit better than a natural size, which is a surgery I was trying to have for
00:08:47
Speaker
I was working on about three years and trying to find a surgeon that would do it and dealing with BMI bullshit from being a fat person and having to deal with doctors that are fat phobic and won't work on people that are my size and all that kind of bullshit. And finally finding a doctor that'll do it and then dealing with insurance issues and having to go on a network and all kinds of other problems. Finally, three years later, finding a doctor who would do it and
00:09:17
Speaker
lining up everything else and having to pay out of pocket. And now I have to go back and do insurance reimbursement. Thankfully, I was in a place where I could afford to pay for the surgery out of pocket and go back for reimbursement later. But I'm just happy I could finally get it done. And it looks like I might be having some complications I'm dealing with now. I've got to go to the doctor tomorrow to deal with some pain issues I'm having that aren't expected.
00:09:47
Speaker
I'll figure that out, but I'm still happy that I was able to get it done. It's one of the kind of three major surgeries that are somewhat common for transitioning along with facial surgery and bottom surgery. So I'm just happy I was able to get this done and I'm really happy with how things have turned out other than dealing with some of the pain issues I'm having. So, you know, for me, that's a big positive in my life is
00:10:17
Speaker
you know, finally realizing that I wish I didn't have to deal with so much fat phobia in the medical industry to get things done. And, you know, yeah, my is such bullshit to begin with. Yeah, that, that sucks. That's a whole other thing that I can, I can relate to having had some fat phobia and, you know, medicine issues myself. There was a long stretch where I just
00:10:47
Speaker
didn't go to regular checkups because in my head going to the doctor was nothing but shame. And so yeah, it's, you know, it is hard. And I, you know, I deal with a lot of medical issues that I just don't go deal with. It's easier for me to get medical health care because that's one thing they don't blame on my weight. But for other issues, I deal with a lot of chronic pain issues and stuff too. And I just don't go deal with them because they blame everything on my weight.
00:11:17
Speaker
And they don't take anything else into account. And it's just like, well, I guess I'm just going to deal with it. Yeah. There's a little bit of a struggle I had recently. Well, finding a doctor that I could have like talked to who wouldn't, who wouldn't just blame, who wouldn't do that and go, go, just go to, uh, you should lose weight every, you know, 10 minutes that I'm seeing them.
00:11:39
Speaker
But I found a doctor that I liked, and unfortunately, because I didn't know how to navigate the medical system, they eventually closed to new patients. And I wasn't considered a patient of theirs, even though I'd seen them five or six times over two and a half years. And so fortunately, I found another doctor who I actually saw recently for something else and was talking to him about that. And he's like, okay, let me go in. And he just went in the system. He's like, all right, you're my patient now. So that won't happen again. He's like, okay, cool.
00:12:07
Speaker
Yeah, it works out great when you find a good doctor. My last doctor that I had that I really liked left the practice, and I still haven't found a good replacement yet. That sucks.
Community and Card Highlights
00:12:22
Speaker
All right. Well, then do we want to get into the topic here? Yeah, let's do it. Let's talk about zero.
00:12:33
Speaker
the one of the first decks I built and kept together for any period of time. Yeah, you mentioned it on a podcast pretty frequently. And it's a cool, I've gotten to play against it. It is a really cool deck. It's powerful. Yeah, yeah, it is. It is one of my two most powerful decks. It Kozilek and Zyra are my two oldest decks and the decks that I put money into.
00:12:54
Speaker
They're, they're the decks that, um, I have my expensive cards in and they're the, because for a long time and to be honest, even now I have lots of ideas that catch my attention and then I build them and I play them once and go, eh, and then I just don't play the deck and I take it apart. Zyra and Kozilek were my first two decks that that didn't happen. I've had them together. I think I built Zyra first, but they both were around the same time and I built Kozilek when
00:13:24
Speaker
Oh, what was that second set? When the second... Kozlak the Great Distortion, when that second... Oath of the Gatewatch. Yes, thank you. When Oath of the Gatewatch came out, I built that deck. In fact, I was starting to put that deck together for... That's a whole other conversation. I started to put it together for the Ulamog from the set before, and then Kozlak was spoiled and was like, that's my new commander.
00:13:51
Speaker
So Zyra was from around that time too. So I've had these two decks together. Let's see, Oath was January 22, 2016. So I've had these two decks together for about eight years that I've been working on and tinkering with.
00:14:10
Speaker
How has it been eight years since Battle and Oath? Wow. It's ridiculous. Part of it isn't making me... What really makes me see it is I distinctly remember playing two-headed giant at the Oath pre-release with Xavier and thinking he would have been nine when that set came out.
00:14:29
Speaker
Oh, wow. And, and that's just that really, that's what really gets me more than anything is just thinking that well, yeah, there was a conversation with my dad the other day about my niece, my oldest niece who
00:14:46
Speaker
He is nine. I thought she was she's eight. I thought she was seven. Yeah, it's it's my god. It's already Yeah, I mean, I'm sorry to totally derail this. No, no, no, it's like wow because I remember this clearly because we we were behind like 2 to 18 or something like that and we won with the whatever that the
00:15:09
Speaker
The twin flame spell is that you can, that has the cast ability. If something is in cast earlier, you can cast for cheaper. The fall of the titans or whatever. And it says it was two-headed giant. We could select each of them as targets and we got to come from behind and win by targeting each of them.
00:15:30
Speaker
Yeah. With that spell. Two up to two targets. Oh, that's so brutal in Two-Headed Giant. Yeah, it was awesome in Two-Headed Giant because I just cast a cantrip or something stupid like that and then Xavier got to dump all of his mana into casting that spell and killing it. Oh yeah, and it's Surge so your teammate can cast Surge. Yeah, that's what the spell, that's what the ability was.
00:15:54
Speaker
Yeah, I taught my dad how to use Scryfall this weekend, and I explained to him how many magic podcasts exist because of Scryfall. Yeah. Yeah, no, that's so cool. I don't think I played too at a giant event, but I do remember playing. Yeah, you'll run an X damage to two targets is a real cheap
00:16:15
Speaker
It's real brutal when you get to just double the damage. You hit both heads and it does double damage to the shared health pool. That is so powerful. Okay, that's super cool. Yeah, I've had this deck together since then. Like I said, most of my decks are together for months at best. These days it's a little bit longer simply because I just don't play Magic as often so I don't take things apart as often because I don't need the pieces.
00:16:40
Speaker
as often, but the Xyro deck has been together since then. I built a Titania deck back when Titania came out in 2015 or 2014. I think that was when the mono color
00:16:55
Speaker
2014 so that was my first like lands matter deck because I just loved that idea of that deck and also I listened to a magic podcast at the time where they joked about doing Aisling the pilgrim in 99 mountains like was one of their decks that they talked about
00:17:14
Speaker
And then when I heard of this Titania, I'm like, well, I could build a mostly land deck. And so that was a Titania and 70 lands. I legitimately put 70 lands in that deck. And I loved it. It was a fun deck. But in a lot of ways, Zyra sort of was a building of that.
00:17:34
Speaker
because I wanted to build, oh, you know what? It was Zaira was second because Zaira was built out of Gitrog being spoiled, which would have been the next year or later that year when the Gitrog monster came out and just clicked on the wrong one. Shadow is over in a shot. Yeah.
00:17:55
Speaker
So that had been still about eight years. And so when the Gitrog monster came out, Gitrog is a big old 6'6 with death touch for three black green, but it's sort of relevant text is beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice the Gitrog monster unless you sacrifice the land. You may play an additional land on each of your turns.
00:18:13
Speaker
whenever one of more lands are put into your graveyard from anywhere, draw a card. Yeah, Gitrog is when a lot of Lands Matters decks started showing up. There were so many Lands Matters deck when Gitrog came out. Yes. And that was including mine, because I just, that
00:18:34
Speaker
spoke to me and I understood that I kind of liked lands and this had some cool land sacrificing things, which synergized well with Titania. But the thing that I really wanted to do was I wanted to play Gitrog with Seismic Assault, which, if you're not familiar, is a red enchantment for red, red, red. Discard a land, Seismic Assault deals two damage to any target.
00:18:59
Speaker
So that means you discard the land to do two damage, and then the Gitrog monster gives you a land because it's hitting your graveyard from anywhere, or gives you a card. And so, obviously, Gitrog is green and black. Couldn't put red in the deck, so I needed a green, black, red commander. And so this is the first, to be honest, really, it's probably still one of the only decks where my commander is not really a piece of my strategy or synergies.
00:19:29
Speaker
I was looking at three different commanders that fit those colors that I had at the time that I thought could fit this strategy. Honestly, Zaire Irene, who I ended
Podcast Reflections and Closing
00:19:44
Speaker
up going with and still have, was not what I thought would be the first choice. One of my first choices was actually the Shattergang Brothers.
00:19:54
Speaker
Because honestly, the only reason they probably didn't go with the Shatter Gang is because their abilities sacrifice a creature, an artifact, or an enchantment. If they did land, this would be a Shatter Gang Brother's deck.
00:20:09
Speaker
And, but they didn't. And so that was a potential, it was still a potential. Like it still was pretty good. You could sack a creature, every player has to sack a creature. Same for artifact, same for enchantment. They're in the right colors. They're not hitting the primary strategy I'm looking at, but it was a good utility card.
00:20:26
Speaker
The other possible one I went with was Add an Oakenshield, who I kind of think was probably the front-runner for me. Because Add an Oakenshield is a Legends Legend, one-two for green-black-red, but has the activated ability, green-black-red tap, return target creature from your graveyard to your hand.
00:20:48
Speaker
And I knew a lot of what I was trying to do in this deck was going to be built around creature engines like the Gitrock monster. And I figured this would be a good way to get those cards back. Ultimately, I started with Adam Oakenshield in the deck because I had an Italian for shit that my dad couldn't sell when he tried to sell his cards years ago. So he gave it to me when I got back into magic.
00:21:15
Speaker
And then I went with Zyra, who is much deeper because she's in Chronicles, who is a insect wizard, like Adon, oddly enough, has the same casting cost and toughness, green, black, red for a 1, 2. She ever has Flying and the activated ability green, black, red, tap. Target player draws a card.
00:21:40
Speaker
which turned out to work really well for this deck. At first, this was kind of just land matter's good stuff, but I realized I could build several different engines into the deck that had interchangeable parts, and Zyra was just useful for, I don't have enough parts right now, so play my three-drop commander,
00:22:03
Speaker
But on turn three, if I don't have anything else to do, a lot of decks are still developing in Commander. That gives me a flying speed bump if I need to chump block something. And if I don't start getting what I need, every turn I just start drawing an extra card, every turn.
00:22:18
Speaker
As we'll get into some of the engine cards I use, being able to draw a card on command is also helpful when you have dredge things in your graveyard. So Zyra has some nice utility there too. And so I just stuck with her. In fact, at some point I took an Oakenshield out of the deck because once I started to build in some of these other engines, there was enough
00:22:40
Speaker
Redundancy, but also just like, sure, you blow up Gitrog, I'll just find a different way to navigate to a WinCon. I don't need Gitrog. It's fun, but I can build some other piece with these other components. And so, add in Oakenshield kind of came out.
00:23:00
Speaker
I figure run through chunks of this. For the engine cards, I've talked about Gitrog, the other parts of the main engine. Gitrog obviously has a lot of value in its own. That's one of the strengths of this deck, because most of these cards are good in multiple ways, and some of they're just value. Gitrog, if I don't have anything else going on, is an extra land drop.
00:23:22
Speaker
This deck is just all value on a card. It doesn't have to do anything else at all. Yeah, six, six, death touch. I lose a land in return, but then I'm drawing a card every turn.
00:23:32
Speaker
and playing an additional land. And being able to play an additional land, including Gitrog. I have eight ways to play additional lands in this deck. One of those is Azusa, so that puts me up to nine if I get them all in play. That's, well, I guess nine extra. That's the thing. If you ever play this deck with me, I will generally pull out a die at some point to start tracking my extra land drops. Just because I can get so much activity going on, I need to keep track of where that number's at.
00:24:01
Speaker
And then sort of the other engines that go with Gitrog, obviously Seismic Assault. Some nice redundancy with Seismic Assault is Bobarigmos Enraged. Oh yeah.
00:24:13
Speaker
Four red, red, green, green for a 7, 6 trample, which is nice. Does some other thing with combat damage. I could take lands from other people's libraries potentially. But the... Oh, my library. That's cool. But his big thing is just discard a land. Obergriff's Midrage deals three damage to a creature or player. He's a better Seismic Assault. He hits people and does more damage than Seismic Assault does.
00:24:39
Speaker
So that's kind of the second piece, and then I mentioned it with Dredge, but life from the loam and the land, Dac'more Salvage, are kind of the third piece for that main combo. This is my favorite way to win. It's not the most consistent because this requires every time, basically, I'm discarding lands.
00:24:59
Speaker
to ding people, to generate card draw from Gitrog, using some of that card draw to redretch life from the loam if I can get it back into my hand so that I get to play it to get more lands, to discard those lands again.
00:25:15
Speaker
I enjoy doing it, but it's hard to kill a full table with it. But if we're late in the game, a player's been knocked out, everyone's life totals are a little bit low, I will try to set this up if I can. Because unlike some of the other win conditions that I'll talk about in a moment, it isn't just like do a few calculations and say, nope, you guys all just die unless you can interact with this. This one makes me do the work, and it feels like I earned the win.
00:25:45
Speaker
So then the other major sort of engine is Preacher Token creators. And I have two major ones and a smaller one that's sort of the backup. Titania, I mentioned. Protector of Argoth. 5-3 Elemental, when she comes into play, you get a Return of Land card from your graveyard to your hand, or graveyard to your battlefield, which is nice. But the main thing is, whenever a land you control is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, create a 5-3 Elemental. Right. Yeah.
00:26:15
Speaker
It's so good when you're just cycling lands between playing the graveyard and back in the play. Yeah, and get into some of my land base later, but as a preview, I have a lot of lands that sacrifice themselves. That is a large portion of the lands in this deck are lands that sacrifice themselves. Intentionally, I mean, that was back in my Titania deck. I ran 30 forests and 40 lands that could sacrifice themselves in some way.
00:26:43
Speaker
I was running fetch lands in a mono-colored deck so that I can sacrifice them to make elementals. And then, sort of, her partner on the other side of things is Omnath, Locust of Rage, who's a big 5-5 elemental who, whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, put a 5-5 red and green elemental creature token into play. His second ability, when elementals I control die, including him,
00:27:11
Speaker
Zap somebody for three is also useful because both Titania and all of her tokens are elemental stats. Yeah, that is in my K and T deck as well, and it's one of the... With just how many lands that deck can put into play, it can get out of hand really quick, and it is... It is one of the cards people hate seeing on the battle, but it doesn't matter what deck you're playing. If you play that card, people hate it.
00:27:38
Speaker
Yeah, it is. They try to kill it immediately because if you get too many elementals and then somebody board wipes or something, it gets out of hand. Yeah, he in like a literal sense is a lightning rod and then that's upon off the lightning bolt, three damage he's absolutely with. The not nearly as good as these two and not quite as synergistic, but can still get their sort of third carve in this set is a worm harvest.
00:28:08
Speaker
2 and 3 green-black hybrid mana, so 5 total. Create a 1-1 black and green worm creature token for each land in your graveyard. But this spell also has retrace, so you can cast it from your graveyard by discarding a land in addition to paying its other costs. You're not exiling it, so you can cast it and cast it and cast it again, getting lots and lots of worms.
00:28:35
Speaker
So they are far less intimidating than the 5 3s, but the worms are still very useful when you have overrun effects of which this deck runs too.
00:28:48
Speaker
I have, of course, Craterhoof Behemoth because I just put the most expensive cards, well not the most, but I put the cards within my reach that I can get for this deck, and Craterhoof is probably the most powerful in that range. 5 green green green for a 5-5 with haste, when it enters the battlefield, all of your creatures get trample and XX, where X is the number of creatures you control.
00:29:11
Speaker
15, 1, 1 worms suddenly become 17, 17. Yeah. I mean, it's been the green finisher of choice for a long time because it's efficient. Yeah. And it's just, it's an easy critical mass thing because they all get bigger for how many there are. Yeah. It's exponential. And then the other one I have, so go ahead.
00:29:37
Speaker
You only need like five or six creatures on the battlefield to make it lethal. And if you have more than that, it's just... Unlike the sort of life from the loam, seismic assault nonsense, this one is just, you put it down and be like, all right, I can do 1500 damage. Can anybody interact with this? And that just ends the game. Which can be fun, especially in longer games. Sometimes that's just what you need. I would not be surprised if
00:30:07
Speaker
Greater Hoof Behemoth has ended more games of Commander than any other single card. Yeah, that wouldn't surprise me either. It just does it. It's just done. It gains haste, which is nice. It does not give your creatures haste, which is important. That's also why I run Concordant Crossroads in the deck. It's a one drop that gives all creatures haste.
00:30:30
Speaker
I used to have Sarkin vole, actually, specifically to give my creatures haste. And then they printed Concordant Crossroads in the second double master set, and the extended heart fort was so gorgeous, I just put it in my deck and took out Sarkin. But then the other overrun effect I have is Overwhelming Stampede.
00:30:53
Speaker
Till end of turn, creatures gain trample and get plus X plus X, where X is the greatest power among creatures you control. It's not as exponential as Craterhoof, but if I have a 5-5, not all my 1-1s become 5s, you know, 6-6s. Right, yeah. It's still beating.
00:31:10
Speaker
It's big. And so that's kind of those big pieces. A couple of engine-y things that assist those, which can also be really fun. Squandered resources is an enchantment. Sacrifice a land, add to your mana pool. Oh God, this is an old card. So I'm going to read it as it's simply. Add to your mana pool. One mana of any type the sacrificed land could produce, play this ability as a mana source.
00:31:36
Speaker
So basically, I just get to sac lands for mana, which is double value in this deck. I get the mana for it, and I get a sacrifice land to trigger off anything that cares, like Phytania. I have Splitted Reclamation, that's almost the reverse of that, where I just put all my lands from a graveyard into my battlefield, tapped.
00:31:56
Speaker
And I'll just get 12 triggers off of Omnath. And then I've scaped shift that just does both. Where I sacrifice all my lands, put in that many number, put in that many lands. Some of those lands might be fetch lands, so I might just get to go. Yeah, I have 15 sacrifice triggers and 15 landfall triggers.
00:32:16
Speaker
Yeah, Scapeshift is also in K&T. K&T is, my K&T Landfall is one of the Wincons in there. There's a lot of Landfall cards like Omnath. So, Omnath and...
00:32:37
Speaker
a felidar retreat and a couple of other ones. So yeah, there's a lot of things like scape shift and stuff like that to just get a ton of land drops all at once.
00:32:50
Speaker
Yeah, there was a time when I was looking at building multiple lands decks. When I was actively playing Magic a lot, and it felt like worth buying multiple copies of the same staple to put in multiple different decks, K&T were one of the other decks I was looking at trying to build as another. A different land deck that works slightly differently. Yeah, K&T definitely works slightly differently.
00:33:15
Speaker
It lands as just one of its wind con. The main wind con in K&T is to give you stuff and then kill you with your own stuff. That is its main wind con. It is to borrow your stuff and kill you with it. But it does need, if like nothing else is happening, it needs its own wind con and it's pretty much landfall as it's built in wind con. Nice. Yeah, I built a K&T deck one time with the intention for my wind con to be forced fruition.
00:33:44
Speaker
Which is blue enchantment for foreign blue blue. Whenever an opponent plays a spell, that player draws seven cards. Because I really wanted to specifically mill people out by making them overdraw. I didn't want to just mill them out. I wanted to give them too much stuff.
00:34:01
Speaker
So that got another tangent here but somebody played that in a game where Xavier was playing his Rakdos deck. So he basically got to play and he had a discard outlet in play. I forgot what his discard outlet was but he would basically get to cast all of his creatures for free and anytime he got close to decking he would just
00:34:25
Speaker
He would discard a bunch of crap and then discard one of the Shuffle El-Drazi, so he never had to worry about decking himself. Nice. Fair. Yeah, so it's like, yeah, no, thanks for letting me draw as many creatures as I can play for free. Yeah, that's fair. I played it a couple of times.
00:34:50
Speaker
It was fun to play. It actually was really fun to get to play a hugs deck. It's one of the other things. This deck has one or two effects that are sort of...
00:35:02
Speaker
across the board like that. My K&T deck is very precious to me. I've played it on stream a couple of times and done some really funny things with it on stream. Yeah, that's cool. I really appreciate them as a commander. Whenever I played against that deck, and honestly, I can't remember if I played against that one. I don't know if I've played you with my K&T deck, but
00:35:26
Speaker
You know, I know I've played it on the charity stream where I've like donated $5 for every card I've made my opponents draw during the, and I've donated like $500 that way.
00:35:36
Speaker
between two rounds. That's awesome. Yeah. That's super cool. So, okay. Well, then some of the other just general utility I want to talk about, because this is, again, kind of gets into some of the things that I love about these decks. It's the mechanical things. And we talk about like being, you know, the Lorthos. And honestly, for me, I realize over the last few years as a gamer, just in general, it's some of this mechanical stuff that really interests me. Like this deck has three tutors.
00:36:07
Speaker
And I very, very specifically picked these tutors because I got black, I could play demonic tutor, I could play vampiric tutor, but I don't want to because I don't want to always be looking for the same answer to every solution, to every situation. So the three very specific tutors I picked out are Beseech the Queen, which is three black and two colorless hybrid mana. So three, if I pay three black or I can sub in two colorless.
00:36:37
Speaker
not if I don't have all the black, but it's search your library for any card with a converted mana cost less than or equal to the number of lands you control. So this allows me to find anything potentially, but it keys off of lands, which is something I care about anyway. So it felt okay, if that makes sense to me. I love tutors that work like that. I have actively been reducing tutors
00:37:05
Speaker
I've been reducing generic tutors, except in decks where my deck has one thing. I run the big suite of tutors in my... I'm losing my train of thought here. My villainous wealth deck, because the whole point is to find and play villainous wealth.
00:37:24
Speaker
So I do run a full suite of tutors in that deck. But my other decks, I do like playing the more conditional tutors a lot. Yeah, that's like a deck I need to get back to work on. I loved it in concept. It worked once or twice, but I committed to the bit too much. Did I ever talk to you about my dovescape deck? No, you didn't. So I built a vial smasher and eShy? Is that the blue-white?
00:37:53
Speaker
Yeah, that sounds right. Yes, Eshai Ojutai Dragonspeaker is the blue white partner commander. Because Dovescape is a blue-white card. So I want to play Dovescape with Vial Smasher. I needed Eshai. So those two, the whole point of the deck was to get Dovescape into play. So everybody's spells are countered, and everybody's getting birds instead of non-creature spells. And then I just make it bird tribal. So it's like a bird tribal Vial Smasher deck with Dovescape.
00:38:21
Speaker
Oh, yeah, that that's awesome. And so like, the problem was, especially at the time, there weren't a lot of great bird cards. So I put a lot of really subpar birds in the deck. Yeah, some better cards have come out later. And so I have this deck set aside to workshop and rebuild, but like that will happen. And that's a deck where it's like, I got Timonic tutor, I got Phamper tutor, I'm getting govscape, because that's the point of the deck.
00:38:47
Speaker
Yeah, that is the same thing with my Villainous Wealth deck. And I do need to work on that deck now because there's that new card that is sort of like Villainous Wealth, but you have to pay for the spells. Oh, okay. That just came out in Murders. Basically, you exile all the cards off your opponent's deck, but you have to pay for them afterwards. And Villainous Wealth makes so much mana that I don't mind having to pay for the...
00:39:14
Speaker
Yeah. And it's just nice to have that second copy. Yeah, a second copy of that same ability, right? And that's a thing like with my dad coming back to Magic again recently, when I've been talking about deck building for Commander, there's a lot of little considerations like that where it's like, yeah, this isn't as good, but it gives you two. And that's twice as many, which is really nice to have in your deck if it's built around this effect.
00:39:41
Speaker
So my other two conditional tutors are even sort of ratchet again to being more conditional. I have Green Sun Zenith, very specific, Green X, where you have to search your library for a green creature with converted mana cost X or less, put it into the battlefield, and then you shuffle this back into your deck. All of the engine creatures I'm looking for are green. Omnath and Git Frog and Titania, all green creatures.
00:40:09
Speaker
So I have that, and then also along those lines, I have time of need, which is probably my favorite because it's the weirdest and most obscure. One in a green, search your library for a legendary creature card, reveal it and put it into your hand. Kind of the same thing.
00:40:26
Speaker
Amnath, Titania, are all legends. I have some others. I have, like, Mina and Den are one of the legends in here that gives me extra land drops. If I care about that for some reason, I've got a Zuso. Mina and Den is also in K&T. And it also can give trample to stuff, which is a big bone. And also, that gives you more land drops, or some plans to your hand.
00:40:47
Speaker
So yeah, Mina and Den has some strong utility other than just the land drop too, which is cool. So that's one of the reasons why I like those two, Green Sun and Time of Need are so perfect because it's like all of the, not all, but most of the engine important cards in the deck are legendary creatures that are at least green. So it's like they both are super narrow in different ways, but they both hit almost everything I care about.
00:41:15
Speaker
only Beseech the Queen is able to find Seismic Assault, but both of the others can find Bobarigmos, so it still works out. So those cards
00:41:31
Speaker
Some of the other things I have, so I have a bunch of land tutors, of course, just in general, you do that with green, but also deck deck cares about most about lands. I've got some, some of the standard ones in there that I won't talk about too much, but the ones that are most important are like crop rotation, because it's instant and you're sacrificing a land to go find any land. Such a good spell on a land deck.
00:41:55
Speaker
Oh good. Also clutch if I need to go find like a utility land like Yavamaya Hollow which regenerates creatures so I can save my creatures without having anything on the board. All I need is a green mana. Crop rotation, sacrifice a tapped land. Yavamaya Hollow, well as Hollow has to have, it has a tap activation too so I need two green mana I suppose. But I can regenerate my stuff if people try to kill it.
00:42:20
Speaker
Probably my signature card that if every time there's a question on Twitter, if you know they made a secret layer about you, what would you, what would be in there like easily, easily one of my cards. And I've talked about it on this cast. When we went through some of our favorite magic cards, I talked about it. It's realms uncharted. It's gifts I'm given for lands. You go find four lands with different names. An opponent puts two in your hand, two in your graveyard.
00:42:49
Speaker
What else do I want in this deck? I want lands in my hand and I want them in my graveyard. I love that card. That's another one that's an instant as well, which is nice. A fairly recent card. I say fairly recent, but this was Dominaria United. I guess that was last year, two years ago.
00:43:09
Speaker
Yikes. Anyway, sprouting goblin. It's just a land tutor, but it's also a goblin. But it also has an activation rate. Tap red, tap it, sack a land, draw a card.
00:43:21
Speaker
So I haven't gotten to play too much lately, but I put this in here as a nice red goblin with the green kicker. The green kicker is what gets you to go find a basic, put it in your hand. Just nice general utility. One other I want to, I've wanted to play around with, but I haven't had a chance as root weaver druid.
00:43:41
Speaker
Have you gotten to play this card before? What does that one do? Two, one for three. Whenever it enters the battlefield, each opponent may search their library for up to three basic lands. Oh, and they give you one and they keep two. Yep, that's in K and T. Yeah. Yep. I love that so much that I haven't gotten to play it. It's gotten... I've never had anyone decline to go find the lands and it is...
00:44:04
Speaker
always gotten me the lands. So it's just, I love the idea of not just giving other people lands, like not just taking other people's lands, but also giving them lands, but also taking them, but not like from your battlefields, just like, yeah, take it out of your deck. It's just a potential land. You never, you don't have it. So I just, I love that.
00:44:25
Speaker
One other weird card, I wish I could find more of these that I have room for in the deck, but I have Balla Ged Recovery in the deck. Yep, that's another good card. Which is like the front face, just normal two to green. It's a recover, return card from your graveyard to your hand. Super solid utility, but it's one of the Zendikar cards. I play that card in pretty much every green deck I play. Now it's a regrowth or a basic green land. Either way, it's a win.
00:44:55
Speaker
Yeah, and it's how I was able to keep my deck at kind of 45 lands because I was able to put this in and drop to 44 lands. I love that. There are several more of these foot cards in the set, but I just... I don't know. I have a few of them to try out sometime, but I've just not really... None of them definitely have a slot in the deck except for this. This is an effect I just want some number of in every green deck.
00:45:23
Speaker
Yeah, I I play that card and I bought like 20 copies of it because I play in pretty much every green deck that I have. Yeah, it just it just works really well. I love it. I have gotten to play both faces. That's that's honestly for this deck, fairly a newer edition. Some basic other just land centric stuff, because again, this is all all land on cents. I have three cards that let me play lands for my graveyard.
00:45:51
Speaker
See, kind of straightforward, crucible of worlds, ramen of an excavator, an ancient green warden, which also does a bunch of other nonsense.
00:46:01
Speaker
That's a four green green for a five seven with Reach. You may play lands from your graveyard. If a land entering the battlefield causes a triggered ability, but permanent you control the trigger, it triggers an additional time. Yeah, that thing's disgusting. Yeah. In a land stack, that thing needs to die if you ever see it. Yes, I have not gotten to play it. That's another one that I've not gotten to play yet. Yeah, that thing is- Easy, easy slot. Way OP. Yeah.
00:46:30
Speaker
So yeah, so that is those. I mentioned the land center, how many land drops I have. I also have burgeoning in the deck. That was not a card that I've had in the deck for a while. So burgeoning is an enchantment for green. Whenever an opponent plays a land, you may put a land from your hand onto the battlefield.
00:46:51
Speaker
It can be really powerful if you get it early, but it is sometimes just a dead card, even in the middle of the game. If I have two or three land drops, I don't have lands in my hand for very long. Or if I do, I might be saving them up to try to seismic assault somebody. But the art on this is just so good. From Kellogg's Loops, I do not know how to pronounce that, but this was a secret lair they did
00:47:20
Speaker
a couple of years ago and the card was gorgeous enough and fit the theme. I had a burgeoning, it's been in and out of the deck for a while, but when that art was revealed, it was like, okay, well, this goes in the deck for a while now. So it's here. Other main land utility things. Horn of Greed is one of my favorites. I assume you have that in K&T? Oh yeah, that's absolutely in K&T.
00:47:47
Speaker
It's so good, because not only does it help me, so it's just an artifact. Whenever any player plays a land, that player draws a card. It gives me lands, which is great, but also I have had people not swing at me because they were getting cards from me. And that's also great, so it's just a beautiful thing.
00:48:11
Speaker
Rights of flourishing is another sort of effect like that. This is one that it's an enchantment that gives, at the beginning of each player's draw step, they draw an additional card. Each player may play an additional land. So I have it in there for myself, but also so that if someone decides that that is of value to them and they don't want to, they don't want to swing at me, I would appreciate that.
00:48:36
Speaker
Yeah. No, still swing. I mean, I have the same deterrence and K and T. Yes. I am telling you all right now, don't take the bait and just swing. Absolutely just do it. Well, you know, if someone isn't hip to it, maybe they won't attack me and that. Yeah.
00:49:00
Speaker
No, the candy is not worth it. No, no. Take what you can get for it and then continue to swing at me. Yeah. Two other good ones I have that one was fairly recent one is not. A tireless tracker and its companion tireless provisioner. Both big cards in any land deck. Yes.
00:49:26
Speaker
So they're both landfall. Tireless Tracker gives me a clue whenever I play a land. Tireless Provisioner gives me a food token or a treasure. Lots of value. Tireless Tracker gets bigger if you sacrifice clues and things. That's fine. Yeah, that's fine. It can get huge. It really can if it sticks around.
00:49:47
Speaker
Yeah, so by and large, they're both just those tokens. You probably don't have enough other synergy for it, but is there a friend Academy manufacturer in the deck? No, no, it isn't because right now it's just these two. Yeah, that's honestly a card that I would love to work with. I want to build a deck around that card on its own.
00:50:13
Speaker
Because that's the one with if you make any of those three, you make all of them, right? Yes, you make all of them. Absolutely. I don't know. Do you watch any streamed or commander gameplay shows? I don't. The Elder Dragon Social Club, the last episode, there was an Academy manufacturer on the table for the entire episode that nobody bothered killing the entire time. And I don't know how many
00:50:43
Speaker
tokens that thing made. Oh my god yeah and they were playing the pre-cons from Murders from Karlov Manor and yeah they just nobody bothered killing it the whole time and that thing made so many tokens. Yeah that's god that's amazing.
00:51:01
Speaker
Yeah, so other I don't know. I don't think I've ever gotten. I don't know if I've ever gotten to have it come around a turn cycle when I've played one without it. Oh, I've I've I've gotten a number of clues out of the tireless tracker. Oh, I'm a tireless tracker. I mean, the Academy manufacturer manufacturing. I don't think I've ever had it come around to me where it's gotten not gotten killed before. No, my I still have that in a pile with offering to the Fae. That lets you.
00:51:31
Speaker
get one of those every turn. Oh yeah there's a couple of things that yeah generate the stuff every turn. Yeah and so that was uh it was a green enchantment I can't find it I'll figure it out but like that was the thing I wanted to build I have so many partial decks. Yeah the deck that this one was in on the elder dragon social club was one that generates a clue every turn. Oh that's awesome.
00:51:57
Speaker
Yeah, so this is a champion offering at the beginning of each end step if you cast both a creature and a non creature, create a clue food and a treasure token. Oh, wow, with this you'd create three of each. Yeah, that's that's a hard that's a hard step to meet though a creature and a non creature. Yes, you've got to like really build your your deck and kind of what you're doing around having enough of both or ways to get both back.
00:52:23
Speaker
Yeah, that's part of why it interests me so much. I look at that, I'm like, I want to build a deck around this single uncommon enchantment. Because that's how my brain works. But so other other sort of land utility stuff, I have several things that sacrifice lands for value. Zura an orb is a great one. It's just a zero. What a classic dark card. Oh, man, the zero sacrifice a land gain to life.
00:52:48
Speaker
When I, when I first, I started playing when the dark was the current expansion and I saw that card and I'm just like, why would anybody ever play this card ever? And then, you know, when, when.
00:53:04
Speaker
I found out later that, yeah, there's a lot of busted things you can do with that. Oh, yeah. Hold this up in the script. And there are eight championship deck versions of it. Yes. There are a lot of broken things you can do with Zurn Orb.
00:53:22
Speaker
And then it's companion, Clause of Gix, which is not as good, but can still be solid. Yeah. Because there are an orb of zero. Sacrifice a land to gain two life. Just no activation. I mean, there's an activation there, but you're not consuming any resources to do it. You just do it. Clause of Gix, also an artifact that cause zero, but you have to pay one to sacrifice any permanent to gain one life. That's that whole second card that isn't as good is still good, because now I have two.
00:53:53
Speaker
I run Sylvan Safekeeper because of course I do. Just a one-one-for-one with sacrifice of land, target creature gains shroud into land of turn. Oh, of course. I mean that card's ridiculous in a land stack. Yeah, just it's good, I think, probably in any green deck that cares about specific creatures. Yes, it's protecting specific creatures. It is worth it.
00:54:17
Speaker
Yeah, and especially a lands deck where that sacrifice of land is a bonus. Like I said in our recent preview episode, sometimes I want to blow up my own lands, particularly in this deck. I also have constant mists, which is probably the card that feels the most unfair to me every time I play it. Like, not get wrong, not get wrong.
00:54:40
Speaker
you know, not even greater off. Oh, I guess Zurnor came out in the ice age, not the dark. So it was around the time I started, but not quite the dark. Yeah. Setter may be falling in prizes in between, regardless. They're right in that same range. Same general time, but it was a beautiful Sander Everhym artwork for the original art. Yeah. Yeah. That
00:55:03
Speaker
That yeah, we played that card a lot. Well, of course I played a big group games where we were all turtles anyway, but constant mists is a fog. That's unfair in a land. One of the green creatures do no combat damage this turn, but it has buyback sacrifice a land.
00:55:20
Speaker
Yes. One land. It is bad. I, I just blank people's decks sometimes sort of like constant myths and they're like, good game. That's the end. And it just like is a crater hoof. At least even if it doesn't feel like I earned it as much as, is when I'm doing nonsense with life from the loam, at least crater hoof is like, I got big creatures and this big creature makes them bigger.
00:55:47
Speaker
Are we done? Don't have the bring back your lands package and K and T, but that deck puts so many lands into play that constant miss might still be a good card in that deck. It's so bad. It's in a good way. It's so good. You have any way to bring your lands back? It is. It is disgusting. Yeah, it's. Yeah, it's also the card that in this deck
00:56:14
Speaker
that I have the least faith that I'll ever get a special version of, even though as far as I can tell, it's not on the reserve list. It's just a random ass, like uncommon, common probably from that set, uncommon from Stronghold. So yeah, because I think the reserve list was just rares or you won. So yeah, so it's definitely not on the reserve list. I doubt this card will ever be printed. I have genuinely considered picking up the world champion deck one just because the gold signature and gold. Yeah, something a little different.
00:56:44
Speaker
Yeah, so like I may do that at some point. There's a few cards in this deck that that's probably the best I can do. Because this is this is one of my this and again, this and cause like, are my decks where I try to have like the when I think of is like the coolest looking version I can find. Yeah, I'm not a big pack foil person. So there's some cards that there's pack foils that I just don't care.
00:57:09
Speaker
The gold border looks nice, so I like the World Championship deck printings when they have them. There's a few cards in Causa like that have versions that I just can't afford. Yes. Responsibly that I might get World Championship versions of just to have a nicer look in one of those.
00:57:31
Speaker
We'll see. But then it just kind of finishing this category out. I also have Deathrite Shaman, which took me far too long to put into this deck. Oh no, yeah. A one drop for green or black.
00:57:45
Speaker
With Tap, exile a land from your graveyard, add them out of any color, which is nice. Or it starts eating instants and sorceries. One of the best one drops in Commander. Yeah, it exiles creatures from graveyards, instants and sorceries from graveyards. It just does a lot of things, but also... It's actually one of the best cards against your deck too, because each lands out of opponents' lives. Yes, it is.
00:58:10
Speaker
But yeah, it took me far too long to put that into my tech. I don't know why. I played during RTR Theros standard. This card was around. I don't know why it took me that long to put it in. I mean, it's banned in Legacy. That's a good point. A recent, another recent addition, not terribly recent card, but I added it fairly recently that I haven't gotten to play yet, is God Eternal Bantu.
00:58:39
Speaker
as another sort of big beater who gives me lots of value. Five, six Menace for three, black, black. Like most of the gods, it has some way to live. So when it dies or put into exile from the battlefield, I may put it onto my library third from the top. But it's relevant thing for me, most relevant is when it enters the battlefield, sacrifice any number of other permanents, then draw that many cards.
00:59:05
Speaker
I can sacrifice so many lands and double dip because now I'm getting value from the sack and getting cards out of it. And I have a 5-6 menace on the board that sometimes is not the most scary thing I have on the board. And it has a really ugly San Diego Comic Con promo.
00:59:26
Speaker
Yes, it does. That's what I'm looking at right now. It's not great. I like it more in person. It actually looks a lot better in person where it does. But I think the reverse black. Yeah, we're not good. That was not a good year for the Comic Con promos. No, that's that's fair. I liked that as a series. I have all but the first year of the Comic Con promos, and that's probably the worst ones.
00:59:55
Speaker
Yes, though, it is much more readable than some of the others that I think are cooler. I mean, they are readable, but I could not tell you that was Bontu if I just looked at that art without knowing. That's absolutely true. It's really hard to see the picture of Bontu, because it's like, for people who haven't seen it, it's all black, except for the art of the card is supposed to be in the shape of Bontu's head, basically. It's really hard to read
01:00:24
Speaker
Not the text, the text is very legible, but basically read the rest of the card is much more difficult. Yeah. It's a negative art image of Bantu over Ravnica. You basically just see the Ravnican buildings and the skyline. Yes. Bantu's image. And, but it's hard to tell that's supposed to be Bantu.
01:00:45
Speaker
It really is, which, it's totally fair. But for me, it was good enough. And now, because I have so many, I almost did the pre-release promo. I'll be honest, I have so many pre-release promos in this deck. I wanted something a little bit different. And that was good enough. It's relatively affordable, too, for the Comic Con promos. They printed enough that year that... Yeah.
01:01:09
Speaker
I have all of them except for the first year ones because those they only printed like 500 copies total or 5,000 copies total so there's not that many of them in existence and they're ridiculously expensive despite being rather the regular versions of the card are like a dollar a piece so there's
01:01:27
Speaker
Because those were like some of the most printed versions of those planeswalkers. And several of them were printed again the next year. Yes. I mean, they were just the corset planeswalkers. They just were printed in the black.
01:01:44
Speaker
With a black on black, it's... Black on black, yeah. I think they look good in person, but they are really hard to read. They are very hard to read. They do look good in person. I have the 2014 and 2015 ones, but the 2013 ones are just ridiculously expensive. Yeah. I have a couple of the...
01:02:04
Speaker
The 2014, the second year that they did all the all black that were cheap. Yeah. I have a couple of those, including Chandra, Pyramas, who went in a lot of my promo decks that include red because she's just good card value. Yeah. I also have another one of my signature cards on this deck, Tectonic Reformation. I talk about this card a lot whenever we talk about cards, but it is one of my favorite cards to put in any deck that has red. It's just it's an enchantment that gives all my land cycling.
01:02:34
Speaker
I love it. In this deck it's really good because I love the idea of discarding cards to get value twice. Especially with a Gitrog out and you get to draw two off of it. Yeah, I get to draw two if I have other things going on and then I get to take them out of my graveyard potentially and play them. Just the nonsense doesn't stop. But I have this in my Zata deck. I have this in basically every red deck I have because
01:02:59
Speaker
So many red decks can have card draw problems. And while this is not card draw, it's a nice bit of filtering to help smooth out getting flooded late in the game. And the enchantment itself has cycling, so you draw it late and you don't need it. You just pay two to discard it and draw a card. So I love it. It is probably the single non-land card I have the most copies of.
01:03:25
Speaker
And I have Lord Windgrace in this deck, who is... Lord Windgrace is my lands deck. I have Lord Windgrace because of course I built the cat deck. The cat girl built the cat deck. And I have the fun cat, the fun fancy cat one from... Yeah, I think she's the one from... No, it was from Philly. Philly, yes. Thank you, that's right. Yeah, I love it.
01:03:50
Speaker
It's just a really good utility land. It's a planeswalker that can be your commander. It has multiple.
01:03:58
Speaker
First ability is discard a land. It passes fun, but it's not game breaking. Just make a bunch of cats. Yeah, destroy up to six target Nodland permanents, and then create six two-two green warrior creatures of Forest Walk. Six permanents can be a lot, but if it's still a four-person game, that's really not a lot. Yeah, I mean, that's two permanents per opponent, and it's destroy, so it doesn't deal with a lot of really problematic. Yeah, you're just like that utility artifact, that problematic land, that enchantment that no one likes, take them all out.
01:04:28
Speaker
Yeah, and then it's like, it's one, you know, plus two and minus three are just like land things. Take lands out of graveyard, discard. If you discard a land, draw more cards. And it's a card that I've thought about Windgrace as my commander, but I just really like the role that Zyra plays.
01:04:49
Speaker
And so it's like, if I were to build a... Today, if I didn't have this deck put together, I'd absolutely build a Lord Windray stack. Oh, yeah. He's a cat, so he's my commander. Oh, yeah. And a great card. And it fits the theme. There was a lot of cool stuff in there. There's a couple of cards from that commander deck in this deck.
01:05:12
Speaker
But I was a little disappointed. I mean, in fairness, the way they have to build the commander pre-cons is you can build them with a central theme, but that central theme is only a portion of the deck. They want to have other stuff in there for other people. And so there wasn't a ton else for me in that deck, but it was still cool to see that kind of be a thing. Yeah, I mean, that that's where my deck started from the commander pre-con and then it evolved. It's definitely it's probably
01:05:40
Speaker
40 to 50% different from the pre-con at this point, because that's one of my more focused decks.
01:05:50
Speaker
Yeah, this is another thing I've learned. Mechanical things interest me, but I have a hard time with, I think they call them linear decks, which are like typos, for instance, like goblin. You just put in everything that says, make goblins better, or gets better with goblins. And those concepts sort of interest me until I start to build the list. And I'm just like, I have too many make goblins better cards, and I don't really know what to cut, and I'm not interested anymore. And I walk away.
01:06:20
Speaker
Lands is a sort of thing where it's like, there's a lot of cards that just say do stuff with lands, but it's not exactly, it's not as prescriptive in what you want to build or what you want to put in there. And so it made it easier for me to sort of engage with that. And there's a lot of ways you can go with it. And my way, I mean, my WinCon and my Lord Windgrace deck is to make token creatures and kill people with token creatures.
01:06:48
Speaker
So I'm all focused on things that let me make token creatures from lands. Or turn my lands into creatures and kill people. But again, the same thing, you know, my win cons are, you know, it's ibex, it's crater hoof, pretty much the same things you listed off. But sometimes that's not needed because sometimes I just turn 30 lands into three threes and
01:07:20
Speaker
kill people with those. Yeah. Yeah. And this, that was one thing that this deck has no land animation cards by design to begin with, at least like, cause that was going to be other decks. Like I said, I was, I was just going to try to work on multiple landexes. Like that is a very clear sort of alley for building a clear lane for a land deck that
01:07:45
Speaker
kind of needs its own things. And I could put in here, but it feels like it probably better to... I think I only have one card to animate my lands in the deck, but it's one of my finishers that just turns all my lands into three threes with indestructible until end of turn. It's just... Now that I think about that, I guess I did end up building one of those. Yeah, I built that as an Oathbreaker deck. Oh, yeah. Because I have Nissa who shakes the world.
01:08:12
Speaker
Oh yeah, that's a good Oathbreaker deck, yeah. Yeah, thanks. All your fours tap for extra, and then just starts animating them. Well, we had a whole real world segment planned for tonight, but we're already at an hour and 10 minutes, so I don't think we're going to get to our real world segment. No. We had a lot of fun talking about land.
01:08:34
Speaker
Land matters. Yeah. This was great. Thank you again for, for the topic. Yeah. Maybe we'll pull that in some other way or some other relevance. I mean, uh, Hobbs just finished a trip. We were going to talk about, you know, travel, uh, to go with the lands, but maybe we'll cover that as a separate topic sometime. Yeah. I liked it. We'll find, we'll find a good place to slot that in. Yeah. We can definitely talk about that. So, well, great. Well, I hope, hope.
01:09:02
Speaker
Y'all are having a good February. Hope 2024 is treating you better than 2023.
01:09:14
Speaker
Yeah. And, and let us know how you think of this. Like we, for a long time, didn't really talk about cards too much, just cause it kind of, we were trying to do other things with, with what you're talking about. It makes sense to kind of filter that in here and there, talk about decks. And we've done the goblin profiles where we talk about goblin decks at each of the hosts has, but yeah. And if you want to talk more about decks or commander or anything, we have active channels that do talk about.
01:09:40
Speaker
deck building and gameplay and stuff in our discord and you know, we'd love to have you join our discord and join the conversation it's It were a small but you know active community and it's it's a really great place. It's Not overwhelming like a lot of discords are we have a really good tight community and you know would be lovely to have you join us and talk about your favorite deck with us and
01:10:10
Speaker
Absolutely. All right, I think we'll just end it there. And that's our show for today. You can find all of the hosts on Twitter for now. Hobbs can be found at HobbsQ, Tay can be found at Tayatransends, and Alex can be found at Mel underscore chronicler. Feel free to send us any questions, comments, thoughts, hopes, and dreams to the Goblin War Pod on Twitter, or email us at goblinwarpodcast at gmail.com.
01:10:36
Speaker
If you would like to support your friendly neighborhood gobsugs, our link tree can be found on our Twitter account and in the description of today's show. This has everything from various discount codes to the link from our Patreon. The music for today's show was by Wintergotten, who can be found at vintergotten at bandcamp.com. The art was done by Steven Raphael, who can be found at stevereffel on Twitter. Goblin Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast as part of their growing forthos content.
01:11:04
Speaker
Check them out on Twitter at hipsters MTG or online at hipstersofthecoast.com. Thank you for listening and remember goblins like snowflakes are only dangerous in numbers.