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Ep. 28 - I Will Look You In The Eyes
16 Plays4 months ago
We're back from our hiatus and we've got a lot to talk about. Nothing about new Magic but we have some takes both hot and warm!
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Transcript
Technical Glitches and Podcasting Challenges
00:00:12
Zachary Jeblonski
Hello. Hello. Welcome to another episode of midlife crisis. I'm Zach. I'm joined again by Charles.
00:00:17
ciderspence
How's it going, Zach?
00:00:18
Zachary Jeblonski
Uh, it's doing pretty good. i would say we had our first, uh, real like, uh, well, not our first, but it's been a while, but we had a technical difficulty and even now I'm being cognizant of my little way form here.
00:00:31
Zachary Jeblonski
So I think we hopefully got it sorted out and hopefully it sounds all right when people listen.
00:00:35
ciderspence
Yeah, I think we hopefully, i yes, I share that sentiment. Hopefully it's fixed. I think it is, but I guess we'll just have to see.
00:00:42
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. So it's been a little while, but we got a new brand new recording time and hopefully we'll be able to get our consistency back up, which is something, you know, there's a reason why we call this the midlife crisis podcast because the life part of that name comes up a lot.
00:00:58
ciderspence
yeah Yeah, I'd like to say work that's 100%. Midlife was dominating. Hopefully we can get back to Morse crisis, but you know again, we'll we'll see how it goes.
00:01:06
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, for sure. But yeah, we'll see it goes. And of course, you know, look guys, we, we provide a free entertainment for you all. So like you get what we give you, you know, not that we don't appreciate you, but you know what i'm saying?
00:01:21
Zachary Jeblonski
all right, let's, not, not that I've ended on that preachy remark,
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Celebration and Dietary Mishaps
00:01:25
Zachary Jeblonski
that I'm sure will engender.
00:01:34
Zachary Jeblonski
Uh huh.
00:01:34
ciderspence
And, you know, it's a Universe is Beyond set. And I know that that's not everybody's thing, but I was excited about it. So on Friday, i was working from home and I ordered myself a whole pizza.
00:01:42
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:01:49
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:01:49
ciderspence
And let me tell you that perhaps like the greater magic community, That pizza did not agree with me.
00:01:56
Zachary Jeblonski
Ooh. So it was a vegan pizza, right?
00:01:59
ciderspence
It was.
00:02:01
Zachary Jeblonski
what was the, what was the flavor of the pizza? Like what was on it was the toppings.
00:02:05
ciderspence
It was like, I mean, just a lot of vegan cheese, some broccoli, some spinach.
00:02:08
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:02:11
ciderspence
The flavor, it tasted great.
00:02:13
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, okay.
00:02:14
ciderspence
that That wasn't the the issue. Just, you know.
00:02:18
Zachary Jeblonski
The issue was that after the eating it.
Midlife Indulgences and Guilty Pleasures
00:02:20
ciderspence
That's right. It was the aftermath set, as it were.
00:02:26
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, wow. What a good magic joke. Okay. Did it, did the pizza also come with like three less slices than normal?
00:02:35
ciderspence
Honestly, at this point, I wish it had.
00:02:37
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, did did you crush the whole thing by yourself?
00:02:40
ciderspence
i did.
00:02:41
Zachary Jeblonski
Ooh, nice. Now I, uh, had, i one of my like, uh, uh, guilty things is every now and then I just get, I get in the mood for wings. Not, not the vegan variety, but ate like, I bought 24 of them. I think I ate like 20 of them last night.
00:02:59
Zachary Jeblonski
and I'm still feeling it. So I, I hear it, you know, getting older, it's harder to do these types of things.
00:03:02
ciderspence
Yeah.
00:03:07
ciderspence
Midlife, folks. when you get the when If you know, you know.
00:03:08
Zachary Jeblonski
Midlife. yeah You know, if your knees are hurting, then maybe don't eat the whole pizza or 24 wings either way.
Magic the Gathering Strategies: Ink Shield
00:03:19
Zachary Jeblonski
okay, well, let's, all yeah, let's get into it. I know we, we, we didn't get out last weekend because of the pre-release, but did you end up doing anything, around Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?
00:03:30
ciderspence
Yeah, so i went to
00:03:34
ciderspence
yeah so I went to a shop on Thursday night. to It's a shop that I typically go to that has product at midnight.
00:03:37
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:03:41
ciderspence
So I got in a couple of games on Thursday. Yeah,
00:03:45
Zachary Jeblonski
Is that the one that, uh, that I've gone to?
00:03:47
ciderspence
yeah it's the one that you've been to.
00:03:48
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:03:49
ciderspence
Yeah, I got in three games there. I saw a really fun interaction.
00:03:58
ciderspence
between It was just a good ink shield situation.
00:04:01
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, nice.
00:04:01
ciderspence
Somebody swung in with like a 40 power commander and then got ink shielded. And ironically, that should have ended the game, but there was a board wipe that kind of saved the table.
00:04:13
ciderspence
But then the player with the ink shield did something two turns later that just generated another
00:04:14
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
White Ketchup Ramp and Casual Play
00:04:18
ciderspence
massive board of tokens and swung out for the win.
00:04:22
ciderspence
But ink shield... It's, you don't see it a lot when you do it.
00:04:26
Zachary Jeblonski
I run it in... i
00:04:27
ciderspence
It's just basically almost always fun.
00:04:29
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, i I have it in two of my decks. In two of my decks, I have white and black and I run it just because it I, for two reasons. One, when I was first starting to play Magic, I got blown up by Ning Shield because I didn't know the card existed.
00:04:42
Zachary Jeblonski
And somebody blew me up really bad with it. And two i I had an amazing ink shield like two or three years ago or something like that. Or two years ago with my Amalia deck where like I had all my engine pieces out and then somebody swung at me for like 40 and I made like 40 inklings and then all the little like creature enter triggers happened.
00:05:04
Zachary Jeblonski
And it was just like it was like dropping. I don't know. This is for all the science nerds out there. was like dropping a block of sodium in water.
00:05:14
Zachary Jeblonski
It was like, it was just like, boom. The game was like over immediately. Yeah,
00:05:18
ciderspence
Nice. Yeah.
00:05:21
Zachary Jeblonski
I really like Ink Shield. It's not a good card, but I like it a lot.
00:05:27
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh yeah, for those who don't know what it is, it's it's it's it's a five-minute instant, three white-black, prevent all combat damage to be done to you this turn, and for each damage presented this way, you make a two-one Inkling with Flying.
00:05:28
ciderspence
yeah
00:05:38
Zachary Jeblonski
So it's very good. it when it works, the problem is it's five minutes.
00:05:44
ciderspence
Yeah, it's five mana and you have to wait to use it. It's like it's not even that it's maybe over-costed for how useful it is generally, it's also kind of dead a lot of the time.
Perceptions vs Realities in Commander Games
00:05:55
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. That's, that's an issue with it. A lot of times is like, and this is kind of like a theme I have too with like,
00:06:03
Zachary Jeblonski
man this is a hold on that's a big topic that I have to formalize my thoughts before I get into but yes it is oftentimes a dead card I find that like when it's in my hand like nobody's swinging or if people are swinging it's like for onesie twosie stuff and doesn't really matter yeah that that I just thought of a topic of the week at some point we want to address which is uh what the overall magic community thinks actually happens in in in common commander games and what actually happens and a lot of people think, oh, you know, you're holding in shop, uh, you know, for that person that plays crater hoof or comes in with you lethal commander damage and mobile blah, blah.
00:06:38
Zachary Jeblonski
don't just feel like more and more that stuff doesn't happen.
Card Strategies: Board Presence and Direct Damage
00:06:40
Zachary Jeblonski
like you don't get that big blowout. you just get chipped down until you die kind of thing. And I think that's the more common thing actually. But,
00:06:48
ciderspence
Yeah, I think I would say very similarly. That does happen, but I think the variety of ways that people win is such that that doesn't happen maybe as reliably as it used to.
00:06:59
ciderspence
So like I think maybe in the past you could have expected an overwhelming stampede type finisher for, I don't know, going to guess like half of games, maybe two thirds of games.
00:06:59
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:07:11
ciderspence
Maybe nowadays it's like
00:07:13
ciderspence
one out of eight, one out of nine. Like to your point, there's a lot of drain, there's a lot of insta-kill commander damage stuff.
00:07:22
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, actually.
00:07:22
ciderspence
It just isn't overwhelming board presence always anymore.
00:07:24
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
Catch Up Ramp and Land Ramp Inconsistencies
00:07:26
Zachary Jeblonski
The thing I've noticed a lot is like i'll die to I might die to commander damage, but it won't be in one hit. It'll be like three hits. Right. And, you know, the issue with like an ink shield type card is like, well, yeah, like let's say is let's say I'm going to get killed in three hits and each hit seven.
00:07:43
Zachary Jeblonski
Well, you know, on the first seven, you're probably not going to fire it off because you're like, well, you know, he'll probably hit me for even more next time. You know, and then you get locked into that thing of like, well, you know, even more than my time you get to that last seven, they played a grand arbiter or something and you can't even fire off your ring shield. You know, it's just like, yeah I just, it's just something I just like, this is just like random Zach thought of the week. It's just like, the the, the, the concept that really brought this to my forefront is, is a lot of magic creators. And to me, to some extent, really like white ketchup ramp and they think it's like really powerful.
00:08:17
Zachary Jeblonski
In my experience, every time I have white ketchup right in my hand, nobody's playing green. I feel like every single time and and it does nothing. So it's just, yeah.
00:08:28
ciderspence
I think I will defend catch up ramp. I think it's pretty, I've had that happen
Debating Tapped Resources and Value Turns
00:08:34
ciderspence
where you're just holding catch up ramp and you either went first or nobody's ramped yet.
00:08:39
ciderspence
I think a lot of the creators I hear talking a lot about catch up ramp are actively playing things to make sure that it's online. Now that I think is maybe a step further than I would want to go, but I'm still comfortable mostly having it in decks, especially when it comes on a body.
00:08:46
Zachary Jeblonski
yes yes
00:08:53
ciderspence
Cause it's like, I don't know, then it, at least it's something on the board, even if it isn't going ramp you. And you can try to hold onto it until it's good if you can, but if you can't, like, and you just want to use it as a creature, that's fine too.
00:09:05
ciderspence
So I'm not, i don't mind to catch up for on a body.
00:09:07
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, like I, experimentally with my white red deck, I went hard on that. So like I have a Lotus field in there. I have a Karoo in there. i have like, i I have every bounce land. Like I did everything I could to ensure that like I would be behind on lands, even if nobody was playing green.
Deck Building Essentials: Mana Ramps and Enchantments
00:09:26
Zachary Jeblonski
And even in that deck, I still find that about 50 per, I would say 50% of the time I can't, my white catch up doesn't do anything. And it's because i think in general, here's my hot take here.
00:09:37
Zachary Jeblonski
Most command casual commander players are bad at making their decks and most people miss their land drops early. And, you know, i don't think there's any amount of deck construction you can do outside of some really extreme things like sacrificing your own lands for Zoran orb or something.
00:09:55
Zachary Jeblonski
to keep yourself behind on lands a lot of times because in general, at least at least in the new in the the area we live, in the metas that we play in, I feel like people miss land drops constantly and like people don't play green ramp that much. And it's just like, okay, I guess all this white ramp doesn't really do anything, which is why I lean more into cards like one of my all-time favorites, which I think is better than people think it is. It's Charitable Levy.
00:10:21
Zachary Jeblonski
which is just one in a white, uh, non creature spells cost one more to cast. and each time a non creature spells cast, you put a counter on it once it gets to three counters, you sacrifice it, draw a card and fetch up a plane on the battlefield. And like, to me that works consistently where something like a, night of the white orchid or loyal war hound or something like that doesn't work very often. don't know how I, I'm sorry to derail the, uh, your Thursday talk, but I just had to get it off my chest.
00:10:49
ciderspence
No, I get that. Yeah, I've seen you. i've I've noticed you run Charitable Levy a lot. I've run it a few times. I think it's okay. But yeah, like the fact that it slows you down for a couple of turns if you're running non-creature stuff makes me hesitant.
00:11:05
ciderspence
But...
00:11:05
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, the way the way I've looked at it is if I only have to trigger it once, it's a three mana fetch a land on the battlefield and I'm okay with that in white. know, it was two for the enchantment and one extra for I had to pay for the tax. I'm like, I'm fine with that. Usually my opponents will get me at least two counters. I've noticed.
00:11:22
ciderspence
That's fair point, yeah. Yeah.
00:11:24
Zachary Jeblonski
and it doesn't require my opponents to be on, you know, doesn't require my opponents to be low on lands either, or like, higher than me on land. So, but yeah I don't know.
00:11:33
Zachary Jeblonski
Like you know, once again, this is just a feeling I'm not, I didn't take data. I don't know. Maybe I'm completely wrong, but, yeah.
00:11:39
ciderspence
Well, this also might have something to do with kind of, in general, I think your perspective on gameplay is I think you strive for consistency in your play experience.
00:11:40
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:11:53
ciderspence
That's like valuable to you. So I could see how Catch Up Ramp, because you're relying on the rest of the table. and I guess you also don't like relying on the rest of the table when when it's possible or when it's likely that the rest of the table is going to do suboptimal stuff.
00:12:07
ciderspence
so So that might also be part of it.
00:12:10
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Yeah.
00:12:11
ciderspence
I could see that.
00:12:11
Zachary Jeblonski
I think it's just, I, I think, I think the overall theme is, and this is like, I think, a lot of magic creators overemphasize how often people play land ramp.
00:12:22
Zachary Jeblonski
And, and I don't think, I don't, you know, but like when we played last, at the store, you played a lot of land ramp that day. And, and I remember remarking to myself, I'm like, wow, it's been a while since I've seen my opponents play land ramp. It's Like, you know, because a lot of times it's arcane signets, it's soul rings, it's signet or the other signets, it's talismans, it's no ramp at all. I feel like I see that a lot. Like, and I don't, for whatever reason, I just don't see land ramp as much. So I, you know, it's one of those things where, know, there's the white ketchup just doesn't feel good most of the time.
00:12:57
ciderspence
Yeah, I think land ramp is really meta dependent is too strong. But I think the reason to play a lot of land ramp or in the case of you and our like our play group for a time, I feel like we had a lot of artifact removal in in kind of a spurt.
00:13:15
ciderspence
We had, there was a week, what's the what's the green thing that whenever a creature comes down, you blow up an artifact or enchantment?
00:13:21
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, aura shards.
00:13:23
ciderspence
Or a shards. Yeah, we had an or shards game. We had some other repeat... Oh, the flyer that blows up artifacts when it deals damage.
00:13:34
Zachary Jeblonski
Is that the red dragon?
00:13:34
ciderspence
What's that guy? Predator, Trigon Predator?
00:13:37
Zachary Jeblonski
i't and I'm not familiar with that one.
00:13:39
ciderspence
i think it's blue-green. Whenever you hit somebody, you can blow up an artifact.
00:13:46
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. Now, I mean, like, yeah, you, you're, I mean, and just set the record straight so that the listeners know, I almost run zero mana rocks, like all of my decks, regardless of color, focus on land ramp, uh, which yes, does require to me get very creative when I'm not in white and green.
00:14:01
Zachary Jeblonski
so I'm very much an opponent of mana rocks. I don't, I, the only ones I run are, I think are the super high value ones, like a thought vessel, which I think is like, it's good enough that I run it.
00:14:12
Zachary Jeblonski
But I've noticed that and and this is something the like I used to be, you know, when I used to make decks, when I first started playing commander, it was like the first things I would add to the deck are Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Felwar Stone, whatever two color signets go into that, you know, like that was always like the first things that went in.
00:14:28
Zachary Jeblonski
and then, uh, you know, over time I got persuaded that like, oh, well, if I run land ramp, then I can run general board wipes that won't affect me as much as my opponents, you know?
00:14:42
Zachary Jeblonski
But yeah, it's, uh, it's interesting because like, and we'll talk about this later when we get the decks on deck, when you have a mono black deck with with with a commander that costs nine finding land ramp has been interesting.
00:14:55
Zachary Jeblonski
but yeah.
00:14:57
ciderspence
Yeah, I think the fact that land ramp is so heavily green and to some extent with the catch up ramp white, if you're a player who plays a lot and plays casually, it might be easier for you to just think about mana rocks the whole way through, you know, and even like some, sometimes you see green players play mana rocks and
00:15:11
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, for sure.
00:15:15
ciderspence
You know, you could certainly make the case that that's suboptimal basically regardless. But I think it's just the case that some people pick up mana rocks when they see mana rocks and then they build decks when they build decks and they're not thinking as much about what are this color strengths versus other color strengths. It's more about what do I have?
00:15:32
ciderspence
How do I usually build decks? Let me get this thing together and play, which is which is I get totally.
00:15:35
Zachary Jeblonski
No, for sure. Now there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a school of thought and you know, I have a friend that's in this school of thought where like basically once zero basically abhors anything that comes in tapped. So whether that's
Mana Rocks vs Land Ramp: Strategic Dilemmas
00:15:50
Zachary Jeblonski
land ramp that puts the land in tapped or, you know, a matter rock that comes in tapped or a land that comes in tapped, like just abhors that concept entirely and like pretty much never does anything like that. So, you know they'll run like a nature's lore or three visits, but they're not going to run a rampant growth. Right. Because that comes in tapped.
00:16:07
Zachary Jeblonski
And then, and like, you know, they're, you know, they just, their argument is they just can't stand it when they have a turn and they can't play their turnout because whatever resource they need to come in tap. I've much more moderated my position on that and, and much larger and larger percentages of my decks, like have resources that come in tapped, whether it's lands or land ramp or matter rocks and stuff like that.
00:16:29
Zachary Jeblonski
Just cause just don't think it's that big of an issue. Like my, My approach has always been like, I'm going to run better value pieces that get me better value resources, even if they come in tapped.
00:16:40
Zachary Jeblonski
And if I have to slow the game down so that I can catch up because my resources came in tapped, then that's what board wipes are for. And that's kind of like my, my ethos. So here's here's a hot tip. If you're playing against me, if you see, I have like five or six lands, but I haven't put anything on the board.
00:16:54
Zachary Jeblonski
You probably know what's coming. Yeah.
00:16:58
ciderspence
Yep. I'm a witness. That's an accurate description.
00:17:01
Zachary Jeblonski
Because, because once I board live now we're all on equal footing, except now I have a better resource base. Like I have lands attack for more than one mana or whatever the case is. Right. So like, that's kind of like my methodology now, doesn't always work because guess what, if you're playing, you know, you know, if you're playing mono green or something like that, like your access to a board, what that actually catches you up to your opponents is.
00:17:25
Zachary Jeblonski
uh, almost non-existent, you know? So, but I do feel like we've, really feel like I pulled us off. So, let's go back to a TMNT night at the store. is there anything else you want to talk about there?
00:17:37
ciderspence
No, I think I... But there is another game I did want to talk about. I wanted to talk about the first deck. Oh, you know what? There was one other thing. In the second game of that night, I played an an older deck of mine that I hadn't played...
00:17:43
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:17:48
ciderspence
i think I only played it once, and it was well over a year ago that I played it. I like it. that We can have a conversation another time about whether I should get rid of some of these decks that I'd never play. But I was excited to dust this one off, and it was...
00:18:02
ciderspence
During the game, all right, so it was it was in Alawando the Seer deck.
00:18:06
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh yeah. Yep.
00:18:07
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep. Yep.
00:18:08
ciderspence
He basically lets you tap him to put a card from your hand onto the battlefield with suspend counters for each or with time counters equal to its mana value. And then when you whenever you tap him, you do that, but you also remove a time counter from each permanent you control are sorry from each card you own that's suspended.
00:18:30
ciderspence
Or in exile.
00:18:31
Zachary Jeblonski
No.
00:18:31
ciderspence
I forget the wording. But like basically, you get to play stuff from your hand, but it comes in with time counters, and you get to remove a time counter every time you tap him.
00:18:32
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. that
00:18:39
ciderspence
Every time you tap him, you put a card. Oh, let me just read it. Okay.
00:18:43
Zachary Jeblonski
i' I'm going to, I've got, I got pulled up because this is one of my, this guy is one of my bug bears. so he's two green, blue legendary creature, human shaman tap, draw a card, then exile card from your hand and put a number of time counters on it equal to its mana value.
00:18:57
Zachary Jeblonski
It gains when the last time counter is removed from this card. If it is exiled, you may cast it without paying mana cost. You cast a creature spell display against haste until on a turn, then remove a time counter from each other card you own in exile.
00:19:10
Zachary Jeblonski
my God, the reason why this guy is a bugbear to me is why isn't it su suspend? Why did they make a bespoke mechanic for him instead of just giving him suspend?
00:19:20
Zachary Jeblonski
But anyway, I'll, I'll give it back to you.
00:19:24
ciderspence
No, I just, i I like this guy. I like i like the, I like the ether of this card.
00:19:28
Zachary Jeblonski
He's neat.
00:19:30
ciderspence
And so this was the second game after a pretty quick first game. I just wanted to play it. And the way the game broke down, so the pod was Alaundo, Liesa, the angel who makes you pay life for casting spells, Mirum, Sentinel Worm, and Kodas the Fangbearer.
00:19:44
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep.
00:19:48
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh boy. Yep.
00:19:50
ciderspence
So Mirum makes you copies of dragons, and CODIS is indestructible unless you cast stuff for free, it's less than the mana value of the damage CODIS deals you.
00:19:51
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:19:56
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:20:02
ciderspence
So it was a pretty good pod, and sorry, it it was a pod of strong commanders where my commander was not the strongest.
Cyclonic Rift and Game-Changing Moves
00:20:08
ciderspence
The way the game played out, three or four or five turns in, somewhere in there, the Mirum player had taken an overwhelming advantage.
00:20:17
ciderspence
They had lots of dragons out there, Peaks out, as they do.
00:20:18
Zachary Jeblonski
As they do.
00:20:21
ciderspence
So next my next turn, we're kind of looking at imminent danger. The player before me asked if they can hit me for some damage. I had recently drawn a Cyclonic Rift, so I said, I'm going block, but I think I have a plan.
00:20:35
ciderspence
So they didn't hit me. They didn't do whatever they were going to do. They were going to try to help slow down the Mirren player. I main phased my Cyclonic Rift.
00:20:41
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:20:44
ciderspence
This is probably the first time I played a Cyclonic Rift, maybe in, I don't think I played it in this deck, maybe in almost as many as two years. And let me tell you, it's a game changer because bounced all that stuff.
00:21:02
ciderspence
The Mirum player was basically shut down because by the time they got back to their turn, they had to discard so much of the good stuff they had on board that they were essentially never able to recover.
00:21:10
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:21:13
ciderspence
I was able to just have enough stuff on the board. Like I just had a couple of creatures, but I was able to keep something on the board so that when the CODIS player came back, they went after the Mirum player and I just had enough damage to knock them out when they choose when they chose who to go after. so it was really, I mean, just just a billboard for the fact that at least some of the game changer list is valid.
00:21:38
ciderspence
I think we've had this conversation about Jessica's Will in the past where like we played a game where Jessica's Will really did, I mean, it really did just change the game once you cast it.
00:21:42
Zachary Jeblonski
It is. Yeah.
00:21:47
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:21:47
ciderspence
And I, you know, I can imagine the deck without it.
00:21:49
ciderspence
I could make an argument for taking it out of that deck, but it really is the type of card that, you know, has a a disproportionate impact on the game. And I,
00:22:01
ciderspence
and every time one of these things happen, like every time a game changer really changes a game, it just, it sticks out in my mind. Cause I like, you know, we have conversation about new cards being added, new cards being taken away, but I do think that there is something
00:22:14
ciderspence
essential about the notion of game changers. And I do think that for the most part, when I see them in play, or a lot of the times I see them in play, they really do change the game. And I i feel the same way about Farewell. So I think we maybe talked about this a little bit last episode, but I do think that Farewell probably deserves to be on the game changer list because I've seen it have that type of impact on games as well.
00:22:28
Zachary Jeblonski
It does, yeah. Yeah, no, i know.
Reintroducing Farewell for Indestructible Threats
00:22:32
Zachary Jeblonski
Psych Riff is it's a card I used to be a lot more salty about and I'm not as salty about it anymore.
00:22:38
Zachary Jeblonski
My only beef with what's what's psych riff is. I feel like people don't. It's the same beef I have with farewell is that I don't think people use it correctly. It's a lot of people view psych riff and farewell is like a panic button.
00:22:52
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, God, things aren't going well. Panic button. Slap this thing, you know, like slap the button. when i feel like if you if you use it strategically like it sounds like you did to affect the game like affect a change in the game like to try to resolve an issue or something like that then it's like then i'm more with it and uh yeah i don't know like i don't own any of them i just you know it' was just like a card i just never want to spend the money for uh but it's uh they're good it's a good one for sure
00:23:21
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I don't think I have anything more to say about it. The other thing I was going to say that I am considering putting Farewell back in my decks. I don't run it in any of my decks right now, but I think I have like three copies of it, and I think I might start adding it again.
00:23:33
Zachary Jeblonski
There's just, i don't know, it's such a tough card because it's like... I have the self control when like I'm really losing a game and I know that even if I farewell, I'm not going to claw my way out of this, but like I won't fire it off. Like I'm just like, I'd rather not just fire off a board, but that's going to extend the game for an hour and still have me lose.
00:23:52
Zachary Jeblonski
But there's been enough times now where I'm like, man, everything I need to deal with is like indestructible or I'm playing against a bunch of graveyard recursion decks and I just, if I blow it up, they're just going to pull it back anyway. You know so it's like, I'm like kind of there now with farewell again.
00:24:08
ciderspence
Yeah, I mean, there's there's a reason that it's played a lot. And it it works. It doesn't work too well, maybe. But i could see i could see it working its way back into your heart.
00:24:16
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. I don't know. We'll say I, I, I'm not, I'm not dead set on, on adding it back in, but I'm maybe like two or three more games where like I get killed by somebody who has like an indestructible threat that can't be handled or that can't be targeted.
00:24:20
ciderspence
I get it.
00:24:33
Zachary Jeblonski
i'm going to be like, okay, that's it. Oh, you have a hex proof indestructible commander. That's killing me. Okay. All right. Well, well I know what card I'm adding to this deck, you know?
00:24:41
ciderspence
It does the job.
00:24:43
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, it does. It does do the job. All we need now. And this is, I think, i don't know if I've made this pitch on the podcast, but i definitely made it in stores. Cause I like seeing people's reaction to this. I still want my eight mana. So yeah, I'm putting it eight.
00:24:55
Zachary Jeblonski
I'm not, I'm not trying to be cheap, eight mana border wipe. And it reads all permanents and players phase in destroy all non land permanents. They can't be reanimated this turn or something like that.
00:25:06
Zachary Jeblonski
You know, I, I want to,
00:25:08
ciderspence
That'd be pretty good.
00:25:09
Zachary Jeblonski
I want, I want board wives to start pulling phasing creatures back in. That's what I want next. I, I, I disdain T pro.
00:25:19
ciderspence
There is this site what is a disciple of Nin, which ive I haven't had the courage to put in a deck because it's super duper narrow, but it is a Punisher for it.
00:25:26
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah, the, the one that prevents stuff from phasing in. Yeah.
00:25:29
ciderspence
Yeah, when she enters the battlefield, starting with you, each player chooses up to five permanents they control. All permanents other than disciple of Nin that weren't chosen this way phase out and then permanents can't phase in.
00:25:40
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, she's just... that This is like an overall better, bigger topic, and it's like narrow cards that... So, like, Commander's gotten to a point now where, to like, you know, if you look at the 60 cards of your deck, because 40 are taken up by land, so you really only have 60 to work with. And then if you look at, like...
00:25:57
Zachary Jeblonski
a subset of that, which is probably 40 because you need ramp and card draw staples. And then like you start narrowing down, you really have so few slots in any given commander deck to have narrow answers to things that like, that's why you never run them. You know, like a card that I keep wanting to run, but I ended up taking it out decks is confounding, uh, conundrum.
00:26:18
Zachary Jeblonski
and let me just pull it up, but it's, you know, it's another, like, Oh, no. Conund something. Oh, yeah. So Confounding Conundrum, it's a one and a blue enchantment.
00:26:30
Zachary Jeblonski
And when it enters the battlefield, draw card. So we're already pretty good. It's two-mana draw card. And whenever a land enters battlefield under an opponent's control, if that player had another land enter the battlefield under their control, then return a land they control to its owner's hand so it's like it shuts down green ramp or shuts down land ramp.
00:26:48
Zachary Jeblonski
But even this, which is not that narrow, even this, i have had it as dead cards or dead cards on board because people weren't running land ramp. So it's just like, I, I, I hope blizzard. i don't know why I say blizzard. hope wizard.
00:27:03
ciderspence
Probably because of the Blizzard, I'm guessing.
00:27:05
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah.
00:27:06
Zachary Jeblonski
Like I hope wizards like take some of these effects and graphs them onto things that people would actually run in their commander decks, you know, cause I would like to see like phasing hate or, you know, even land hate that's not destruction, you know, or something like that. Or like, I think this is a perfectly fine land ramp a piece because it doesn't stop your first land from coming in.
00:27:27
Zachary Jeblonski
It, you know, it's, it's not that bad, you know, it's like, and it's not that oppressive, you know? and But if if if these effects are grafted on bespoke cards and that's all they do, you're probably no one's probably going to run them, you know unfortunately.
00:27:41
ciderspence
It does feel like that's the direction of design
Card Design and Phasing Mechanics
00:27:44
ciderspence
these days. Like, i I think there have been more cards that have kind of incidental graveyard hate, for example, that encourage you to run a card that will get you, like a donuntt Dauntless Scrapbot, I think, from Edge of Eternities.
00:27:45
Zachary Jeblonski
I think so, yeah.
00:27:56
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah Yeah, that's a good example. Yeah.
00:27:58
ciderspence
When it enters, it gives you lander token, but it also exiles an opponent or all opponents graveyards or something. But that's graveyard hate on ramp.
00:28:04
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. eight yeah Yep.
00:28:05
ciderspence
It makes it easy for you to... play graveyard hate. And I think, so I could see, I could see your, your vision coming true of Wizards deciding, Hey, let's, let's have a phasing Punisher on something that draws you two cards.
00:28:18
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, yeah.
00:28:18
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. We're we're there. We're there. Yeah, we're there. i We'll say. I don't think Wizards has the cojones to do it, but we'll see. Yeah. It's right when it comes to land ramps specifically. I mean, I don't think they care about phasing because they, you know, they view it as like, oh, that's a, that's on the game changer. no one cares, you know?
00:28:19
ciderspence
So yeah, maybe maybe that's on the way.
00:28:35
Zachary Jeblonski
Uh, but man, I would love to see the day when somebody fires off a T pro and I have like a, some kind of card that prevents phasing back in. Oh, oh,
00:28:45
Zachary Jeblonski
I just hate that card.
00:28:45
ciderspence
Yeah, that would be a fun moment.
00:28:46
Zachary Jeblonski
so
00:28:47
ciderspence
Yeah. Noted.
00:28:50
Zachary Jeblonski
all right, cool. Anything else you want to talk about on TMNT night?
00:28:54
ciderspence
have you Did you have any games since our last games at the shop?
00:28:58
Zachary Jeblonski
No, I have not had games since our last game at the shop. It's been very busy.
00:29:01
ciderspence
Maybe let's talk about those. Okay, let's
Deck Performance and Modifications
00:29:03
ciderspence
talk about those games. I did have one more. I want to get to my card of the week, but I want to hear your perspective on our our shop games before i go into that game.
00:29:11
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. Sure.
00:29:13
Zachary Jeblonski
would you want to talk about your card the week or tell them about those games first?
00:29:16
ciderspence
No, I wanted to talk about those games first, and then I'll come back to one other game I played that featured my card the week.
00:29:17
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh.
00:29:21
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay, let's talk about those games. Man, that was brutal. Yeah, that was that that was a rough night, least for me. So I think we had three games in and... and And, and this is not, has it, that's nothing to do with you or the other opponents, but I would say all three of my decks really failed to perform. and that just happens sometimes in magic, you know, like no matter how well you, you make your deck, you can draw poorly or you could draw cards that are good in a vacuum, but they're just not good in the circumstance that you're find yourself in. And that's kind of where I found myself in all three games.
00:29:55
Zachary Jeblonski
but I think what, uh, I think I started off with the Rydia, uh, which was the, which is my green, red landfall, slight saga, like, sub theme to it.
00:30:06
Zachary Jeblonski
and I learned some very valuable lessons in that game. so much so that I think since that game and now i have changed out 20 cards in the deck, cause I realized like a major problem I had with it.
00:30:18
ciderspence
Oh, nice.
00:30:19
Zachary Jeblonski
So, Rydia is an uncommon commander from Final Fantasy. And ha I built this deck shortly after Final Fantasy came out and then I kind of took it apart because I thought it lacked an identity of its own.
00:30:29
Zachary Jeblonski
And then I've re put it together, but now I've like, I have a better sense of what I'm trying to achieve and I'm happier with it. But she's a just green, red human shaman. Whenever a land you control enters, you may discard a card if you do draw a card. And then you pay and tap her and return a saga with X from matter value X from your graveyard to the battlefield with a finality counter and gains haste.
00:30:50
Zachary Jeblonski
And when when this card is spoiled, I'm sure I even talked about it on the podcast, which is like, wait, I get i get i get to discard and and draw every time a land hits the battlefield. like I'm like, this is an amazing effect. This is huge.
00:31:02
Zachary Jeblonski
you know, it doesn't have black, so I'm not like doing some kind of reanimator shenanigans, but still. but when I played at the store, I, the big thing I realized is like, oh, the cards I'm discarding, i have no way of interacting with these things outside of, lands that I can play from graveyard through a variety of effects that are in the deck.
00:31:21
Zachary Jeblonski
But if I don't have that, my graveyard is doing nothing. And then when you're doing, i mean, you're filling up a graveyard in any deck, you want that to be an extension of your hand in a way. Like you want to,
00:31:29
ciderspence
Yeah.
00:31:29
Zachary Jeblonski
find ways to leverage those cards. So what I ended up doing is I literally went on Skyfall when I got home and was like, card has flashback in green, red, and pretty much all those went into the deck.
00:31:42
Zachary Jeblonski
I added a few more sagas for so that she can reanimate them. But I really heightened the amount of interaction I can have my graveyard with the deck. So a lot of more flashback, a lot more stuff that I can do from graveyard.
00:31:54
Zachary Jeblonski
and in gold fishing it, it's a, it's a lot more, so can I guess, to go back to your conversation earlier, it's a lot more consistent in terms of like, I have something to do. cause I think the rent thing I ran into in our games is I just didn't have anything to do.
00:32:08
Zachary Jeblonski
And my car jaw was all predicated on creature power. and I just didn't have any creatures with high power because my commander is a one power so it was just it was just a definitely a do nothing game for me but i learned a valuable lesson and i really kind of uh changed it up for that i don't and it's been you know we're gonna get better at this folks i'm sure and we will but i don't remember what you had in that game which which commander that was
00:32:25
ciderspence
Nice.
00:32:36
ciderspence
I don't remember either.
00:32:38
Zachary Jeblonski
What if we just talked about our commanders that we know we played and then we're just kind of like they they worked somehow into these games, guys.
00:32:38
ciderspence
on
00:32:45
Zachary Jeblonski
Like that's kind of where we're at.
00:32:47
ciderspence
I did start trying to log games again. So for the games on Thursday, i just i just opened an email and and drafted, you know, just who the commanders were.
00:32:50
Zachary Jeblonski
I'm so bad about it. Yeah.
00:32:56
ciderspence
Once I remember who the commanders are, i might, well, this is also just since Thursday, so maybe this isn't a great example, but it's it's a little easier for me to remember how a game went when I remember who the commanders were, but remembering who the commanders were is sometimes just impossible a day out.
00:33:11
ciderspence
So yeah, I've started writing it down again just to help, like to your point with the consistency of recall, because it's getting harder.
00:33:11
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:33:20
Zachary Jeblonski
It's getting hard.
00:33:22
ciderspence
I know one of the games we played that night, I played
00:33:27
Zachary Jeblonski
You had, yep.
00:33:27
ciderspence
Marlin. I played my Marlin deck the second game, but I don't remember when I played the first game.
00:33:32
Zachary Jeblonski
There was a team or ramp thing. was, was,
00:33:35
ciderspence
Oh, did I play the Storm deck? I think I played Storm.
00:33:37
Zachary Jeblonski
you played You played Storm, but I don't remember if that was just me and you together. no no, that was with the other opponents. Yeah, so Storm was one, Marlin was one, and then the final one was the mono-red guy.
00:33:46
ciderspence
Yeah.
00:33:49
ciderspence
Yeah.
00:33:50
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Yeah, storm Storm is the one I was referencing earlier where you were definitely a land land ramping, and I was like, all right, and i' too bad I'm not playing my white deck, but yeah.
00:34:00
ciderspence
thanks
00:34:00
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:34:01
ciderspence
Yeah, I was ramping lot that game. Because my Storm deck is Mutant Kindred. And before, there actually have been a lot of Mutants released with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle set, maybe sensibly.
00:34:10
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:34:16
ciderspence
But before that, Mutants were an expensive and not very good lot, and I counted after the game, I think I was running 40 mutants in that deck. So, you know, the a lot of mutants, and the point is to...
00:34:27
Zachary Jeblonski
It's still lot of mutants. Yeah.
00:34:31
ciderspence
I had a few instants and sorceries in there to benefit from the storm trigger if I ever got to do it, but that basically meant cast a bunch of mutants beforehand to copy it, and that just costs a lot, yeah.
00:34:42
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, which is hard to do.
00:34:47
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, it's hard to do. Yeah, so yeah that was that was that was my radio game. Just definitely it was like, oh, I have to make sure that large percentage of this deck is playable from the graveyard in some
Flashback Cards and Graveyard Synergies
00:34:59
Zachary Jeblonski
way. and So that's what I did. I'll just do one shout out before we move on to like the other commanders. is that I think for the first time in like years, I put faithless loading in a deck because I'm like, Oh, that's got flashback on it.
00:35:14
ciderspence
Nice.
00:35:15
ciderspence
Yeah, and then a deck that gets, especially if you're going to run more flashback stuff, Faithless Looting becomes even better.
00:35:20
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah, yeah, for sure.
00:35:20
ciderspence
Like, it has flashback, it enables your other flashback stuff, yeah.
00:35:24
Zachary Jeblonski
and then, a couple of other flashback cards that are kind of neat that I put in there. One that you'll appreciate because you got me with this one once is ignite the future.
00:35:32
ciderspence
Yes, Ignite the Future is great.
00:35:33
Zachary Jeblonski
so that, Yeah, that's in there. but, I'm going to shout out one that I think no one talks about. And actually if, if any, if you, I don't know if anybody watched, Tomer of MTG Goldfish is 45 decks under 45.
00:35:49
Zachary Jeblonski
He actually, when he shouted this card, I was like, oh my God, I beat him to it. but a dire strain rampage is in this deck and it's a sorcery from. One of the Dungeons and Dragons sets, I can't remember which one, but it's a destroy target artifact enchantment or land. And if a land was destroyed this way, its controller may search his library for up to two basic lands, put them on the battlefield tapped. Otherwise they search for a basic land and put on the dial to tab. So it's a removal spell that can hit three different types. It does ramp your opponents if you use it on them, but more likely you can just use it on, i can just I just use it on myself and ramp.
00:36:23
Zachary Jeblonski
And then by the way, it's got flashback for three red and green. So it's like, it's a great card. for like 20 cents, you know, especially for this deck. So, so I'm, I'm excited to try this deck again.
00:36:33
ciderspence
Nice. Yeah, that's a good one.
00:36:35
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:36:37
Zachary Jeblonski
and then you had Marlin and i don't, yes. And then I play Italian into Marlin because they're both fairies. and my Italian deck did
00:36:45
ciderspence
Yes.
Challenges with Talion Deck Stability
00:36:48
Zachary Jeblonski
poo poo.
00:36:49
Zachary Jeblonski
It did nothing. it's and Which has happened sometimes, you know, I don't, I don't think there, I didn't make any deck changes out of that game. I don't think there's much to learn from it. It's just that that's kind of like the, one of the main weaknesses of Italian. And this is even before when I had to Italian slightly weaker than it was the last time I had, because I harvested some of the better cards and put them in other decks when I took it apart.
00:37:12
Zachary Jeblonski
but that's always been one of the, one of the weaknesses of Italian is like, if my opponents get too fast of a start, it's really hard for me to like stabilize and catch up. and, uh, I think that's more or less what happened in that game.
00:37:26
ciderspence
I'm trying to remember who our... One of our pod mates was playing Cosmic Spider-Man, and I think played that deck twice.
00:37:30
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:37:33
ciderspence
The first game, the winning pod mate played Birds. I forget who her commander was, but Kestrel was it?
00:37:38
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. It's, if you just search, yeah, cashroll, yeah, if you just search up white, blue, blurred, bird commander, she'll pull up.
00:37:46
ciderspence
Yeah, but she did well with Kestrel. I think prompting me to want to play a Flyer in game two, which is part of why played Marlin.
00:37:51
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:37:54
ciderspence
But she also won that game, and I don't remember who she played in game two.
00:38:01
Zachary Jeblonski
i i'm sure I love this part of our podcast.
00:38:06
ciderspence
I wish it were a bit, folks.
00:38:06
Zachary Jeblonski
oh it's yeah it's you know She played a person or a thing that does something and it was an amount of value that she had to pay for it.
00:38:07
ciderspence
We just can't remember things very well.
00:38:14
ciderspence
it was definitely some noun. I think it was legendary.
00:38:20
ciderspence
It was a creature or it could become a creature.
00:38:20
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I'm not going to...
00:38:22
ciderspence
Yeah.
00:38:23
Zachary Jeblonski
but Or a planeswalker of some sort or... you know
00:38:26
ciderspence
Yeah,
00:38:27
Zachary Jeblonski
Or even a vehicle. no, I'm not gonna be able to think of it. I don't think I'm not even close to to coming up with what it is. It wasn't the card draw deck that she has.
00:38:37
Zachary Jeblonski
I don't think it was that.
00:38:37
ciderspence
it wasn't that one.
00:38:38
Zachary Jeblonski
It definitely wasn't her sea monsters.
00:38:39
ciderspence
it was something that we hadn't seen before. Yeah.
00:38:43
ciderspence
Yeah, I don't remember at all.
00:38:46
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh no.
00:38:47
ciderspence
Which is weird because I exiled a lot of cards from her deck.
00:38:47
Zachary Jeblonski
Cash rules.
00:38:50
ciderspence
So I would think that I remember, because I basically hit her with all of my Marlin triggers.
00:38:53
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, i got it. I got it. It it was a Laura.
00:38:57
Zachary Jeblonski
Wasn't yeah, it was a Laura.
00:39:00
ciderspence
The game life, the Eminence one?
00:39:01
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, the guy who gains life. Yeah, the Eminence one. Yeah. It was a Laura because she had like a weird looking art version of him. i don't know if it was like a proxy or something.
00:39:13
ciderspence
Interesting.
00:39:15
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:39:15
ciderspence
Well, if it was Aloro, I i would have, one in a million years, never guessed that. I guess I just didn't know who her commander was that game, which is possible.
00:39:22
Zachary Jeblonski
No, it was a Laura. Yeah, I remember. Because that was the game where like, remember remember it came down to Cosmic Spider-Man and her and they both had like 50 life.
00:39:26
ciderspence
Here you
00:39:32
ciderspence
go. I do remember that being the final thing.
00:39:33
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, because she was gaining life and he was, hit and Cosmic has life length. So that's why they had so much life.
00:39:40
ciderspence
Okay, there you go. Yeah, I remember she yeah she was playing a lot of life life game dorks and stuff.
00:39:42
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:39:44
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep. Yeah, remember she had polluted bonds, remember that?
00:39:45
ciderspence
So, yeah.
Eminence Mechanic: Overpowered Commanders?
00:39:47
ciderspence
I do, yes. Yep, I definitely remember those cards. And I guess it makes sense that i never saw her commander because he has eminence, so why would you cast it?
00:39:48
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:39:50
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah
00:39:53
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, there's just no reason to play him, really. Yeah. By the way, like and i have a my friend down in Alabama shares this view, and I'm in 100% lockstep with him. Eminence maybe the worst mechanic Wizards has ever created.
00:40:08
Zachary Jeblonski
I despise Eminence. Like, you should have to spend mana to get an effect. Point blank. Anyway, that's it. That's all I got. it.
00:40:20
ciderspence
I don't mind Eminence. I think this is maybe my least favorite one, but i to me, Eminence is just a target.
00:40:25
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, Markov is the worst. He's the absolute worst.
00:40:29
ciderspence
Markov might be the strongest, but I don't mind that so much. it Like, Erdragon, I think, is maybe the one I've seen to best effect, and I don't mind that one either.
00:40:39
ciderspence
and just, you know, it's just like, if a player demonstrates, art it's kind of like, I think of Eminence like a ley line.
00:40:40
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, man.
00:40:46
ciderspence
The player who gets to put something out before anyone else has gotten to play is ahead. It's like a turn one soul ring, but on turn zero. So it's like, look,
00:40:54
Zachary Jeblonski
But it's also guaranteed. And then my biggest problem with it, uninteractable. So with the ley line, I can blow it up. But I cannot stop your eminence unless I stifle it each turn somehow through like an effect.
00:41:06
Zachary Jeblonski
But the fact that it's uninteractable is my biggest problem with it. That and they spend no mana to get it
00:41:14
ciderspence
Yeah, I don't know.
00:41:18
ciderspence
I don't mind it, but I hear you. I definitely get your vantage point.
00:41:23
Zachary Jeblonski
I will say this. I will say this. They at least learn to make it less good with Siddhar. So Siddhar is okay.
00:41:32
ciderspence
Yeah.
00:41:33
Zachary Jeblonski
if For Eminence Triggers, it's okay. But...
00:41:37
ciderspence
The cat one is also not bad.
00:41:39
Zachary Jeblonski
hey The Catwin's okay. Inala, if you build around it, is devastating. But Markov and Erdragon are the worst to deal with. And Allura is close to that. But but yeah, like, oh, God.
00:41:54
Zachary Jeblonski
Anyway, but yeah, that that game was, you know, for me, Talion, I just couldn't get off the ground. i I couldn't find a clone that turned off Legendary. And I think even if I did, I don't think it would have changed that
Marlin Deck Strategies and Match Insights
00:42:03
Zachary Jeblonski
game that much. The biggest problem for me in that is I chose the wrong number.
00:42:07
Zachary Jeblonski
And I just got so few hits on it that I just, you know, which is fine. It's one of the reasons I like Talion is like trying to mind game your opponents a little bit and figure out like what number you should choose.
00:42:18
Zachary Jeblonski
And I chose two and I really should have chosen in three. But yeah, you did much better than me though. You yeah you had elves and fairies and stuff going on.
00:42:27
ciderspence
Yeah, I definitely had stuff happening, but I don't think at any point I was making headway in terms of winning the game. Between Cosmic Spider-Man's flight being able to stop me and the life just piling up on the Elora side, I didn't see any path to victory.
00:42:43
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:42:46
ciderspence
And in fact, I think that guided me into making the the the very poor decision of attacking you. So sorry about that. I think I was just... not sure how to impact the board, but I was also concerned that if in some unlikely event it was down to a 1v1 versus you, that I was going to lose that because I have bad memories from Talion.
00:43:05
Zachary Jeblonski
No, that's fair.
00:43:05
ciderspence
So...
00:43:06
Zachary Jeblonski
But I also like, and I mean this wholeheartedly, like I'm pretty sure if it was one be one you still would have gotten me. Because like I really just did not have gas in my hand. I was like, uh... And I was scared of your deck because I'm like, every time you play an elf, you're going to you're going to take from my deck and you're going to start copying your commander, making your commander non-legendary because you're going to hit those copies off my deck.
00:43:30
ciderspence
Oh, that's a good point.
00:43:31
Zachary Jeblonski
And then that means you're going to get multiple procs every time your deck was going to go nuts as soon as you start hitting my clones. Like, so, I was like, I was very sure that I would not win. And I want be one just because like, once you've cloned Marlin once or twice, that's it.
00:43:45
Zachary Jeblonski
You know, like,
00:43:47
ciderspence
That does seem pretty good.
00:43:49
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. so, but yeah, regardless, I don't think it really mattered that much. Like cosmic Spider-Man was doing cosmic Spider-Man things and what we really,
Handling Enchantment Threats
00:43:56
Zachary Jeblonski
really needed. And unfortunately Italian can't do this in Demir at least not do it well.
00:44:01
Zachary Jeblonski
We needed a artifact, enchantment board wipe. And that, that's the, that's why we really lost that game is a Laura was able to keep their, uh, polluted bonds. And then like, I think she had a blind obedience and like, she had like these,
00:44:14
Zachary Jeblonski
these value enchantments that just never got interacted with. and yeah.
00:44:18
ciderspence
We did have some spot removal take care of some of them, but you're right. By the time we were able to do that, there was too much to be spot removed.
00:44:26
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:44:26
ciderspence
So yeah, Enchantment Boardwife would have been good.
00:44:27
Zachary Jeblonski
It's it. It's to the point where I'm like, I'm like push. I've been more and more in my decks. I've been running oblivion stone, uh, for decks that don't have access to green and white because it's like more and more.
00:44:38
Zachary Jeblonski
I'm like, man, I need to have ways to handle enchantments and artifacts and decks that, traditionally can't handle them well. So I might start, i might put it, I might have pulled oblivion stone Italian.
00:44:48
Zachary Jeblonski
We'll say just because it's like,
00:44:50
ciderspence
Fate from History is a green sorcery from Brothers War that does something similar. Each player who controls an artifact or enchantment makes a 2-2 green bear, then destroy all artifacts and enchantments. There are a few other ones like that.
00:45:01
ciderspence
Green has several, I think.
00:45:02
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, yeah.
00:45:02
Zachary Jeblonski
Green. Green has green and white.
00:45:03
ciderspence
Just, yeah.
00:45:04
Zachary Jeblonski
They got it on lock. They're good. It's just like for blue, blue, black, and then red for enchantments. It's like Oblivion Stone or bust kind of.
00:45:14
Zachary Jeblonski
I also run Perilous Vault in some my decks and because that also does what like an Oblivion Stone style, but it's like nine mana instead of eight.
00:45:14
ciderspence
Yeah.
00:45:23
Zachary Jeblonski
But it exiles instead, so which is nice. Hey, like, you...
00:45:27
ciderspence
Yeah, there are a few blue bouncers that hit everything too.
00:45:28
Zachary Jeblonski
you Yeah, there's blue bouncers that do it, yeah. But i don't think I don't think I own any. I think i mean, Psycrif does it, but I don't i don't know.
00:45:38
ciderspence
I've got a Hercules final meditation if you if you want another one.
00:45:39
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, yeah. now And I also run Season of Weaving in a lot of decks, and that'll hit them.
00:45:41
ciderspence
Yeah.
00:45:45
Zachary Jeblonski
So yeah, there's, there's ways around it, but yeah, like, yeah, I guess if I draw my season of weaving, maybe maybe would it's hard because that only delays the inevitable. She just replaced polluted bonds and replaced everything. So, but anyway, and then that brought us to
Choosing Fast Decks for Quick Games
00:46:01
Zachary Jeblonski
the third game, which was your modern red commander, which I can't remember the name of.
00:46:07
ciderspence
Yeah, this was, i played long shot rebel bowman.
00:46:10
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:46:11
Zachary Jeblonski
And the, And then I had, red, black, uh, Valkalboth, but go ahead and read your commander off.
00:46:13
ciderspence
Who's...
00:46:18
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:46:19
ciderspence
Oh yeah, sorry. Long shot rebel bowman, 3-3, reach, rebel, human, ally. Non-creature spells I cast cost one less to cast. and Whenever you cast a non-creature spell, it deals two damage to each opponent. He's a 3-3.
00:46:30
ciderspence
And then, you mind reading off Valgavar?
00:46:30
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. The most popular erectives commander now, I think, which my, my toxic trait is now makes me want to take him apart because I know he's popular.
00:46:43
Zachary Jeblonski
is, uh, he's a, uh, two black red, elder demon flying ward pay to life. Whenever an opponent loses life for the first time during each of their turns, put a one, one counter on Valkvoth and draw a card.
00:46:55
Zachary Jeblonski
so this is the deck that is kind of more or less specifically catered, uh, to ensuring games don't go long. Either I die or. my opponents die. I think there's like five or six ways to stop life gain in the deck.
00:47:08
Zachary Jeblonski
And there's just a lot of incidental burn, pinging, damage that happens so that the game comes to a you know a a pretty swift close.
00:47:17
Zachary Jeblonski
And just you know just another one of these games where like I just did not draw the things that I needed to draw. so I really just didn't do much. I think I played Valgoloth like once at the very end of the game, but I never i never drew way to ping my opponents on their turns, which is usually when I play this deck, I wait until I have an effect that will ping my opponents before I play the commander because otherwise the commander didn't really do anything, and I never drew that effect the whole game, so I was like, all right, this is not much I can do.
00:47:44
Zachary Jeblonski
you did A-OK. Yeah.
00:47:49
ciderspence
Yeah, long long shot went off. This was an interesting game vibes wise because we had played two games with the same pod and then two of our pod mates left.
00:48:00
ciderspence
And we were joined by two other players who I had played with before. I don't know if you had played with them before.
00:48:06
Zachary Jeblonski
I've never played with them now.
00:48:08
ciderspence
Yeah, so we'll come back to that in a second because I i wanted to just chat
Dealing with Player Criticism and Salt
00:48:12
ciderspence
briefly about...
00:48:12
Zachary Jeblonski
I have words for that. yeah so we're going to come back to that.
00:48:14
ciderspence
Yeah, yeah. But anyway, so this was it was known between we had kind of established
00:48:15
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah
00:48:20
ciderspence
Before we chose our commanders, this is probably going to, let's let's play our fast decks. You know, we've gotten out of two kind of grindy games. And we wanted to play again, but we didn't want to play forever. So we kind of intentionally chose two fast decks, two burner-type decks.
00:48:35
ciderspence
They came over, and I don't remember what they, oh, one of them was running Aragorn, a four-color Aragorn.
00:48:40
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, Aragorn. Yep.
00:48:42
ciderspence
And the other one was running, was it Doretti? Maybe.
00:48:45
Zachary Jeblonski
No, Durevi was in the deck, but he was playing Sissé, five-color Sissé, the one that tutors up legendaries.
00:48:45
ciderspence
i know he plays Doretti a lot. Sorry, Derevi, yeah. Was in the deck, okay.
00:48:54
ciderspence
Okay, yep. Yep, that's right. But yeah, I basically had the nut draw for my opening seven.
00:49:04
ciderspence
I had an Artist Talent in hand, and the way the game played out, I played Artist Talent on two. Uh...
00:49:17
ciderspence
And I guess I didn't have much to do and the board wasn't established well enough to deal damage the first...
00:49:21
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I think you fully leveled it up on. Yeah. yeah
00:49:24
ciderspence
Yeah, by turn four, I had it leveled up so that by turn five, which I guess sounds later than it felt. Maybe this was turn four, but no I think it was turn...
00:49:33
Zachary Jeblonski
No, I think five is reasonable.
00:49:34
ciderspence
Oh, I think it was turned it might have been turn four because Artist Talon on two.
00:49:35
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. i
00:49:39
ciderspence
No, turn five. Yeah, must have been because I leveled it up twice and I think it's three. It's at least three to do. Yeah, so turn five, I played Longshot. i had a mana left. And with the Artist Talent reduction, my non-creature spells were now two less, and the burn was four per non-creature spell.
00:49:59
ciderspence
So on that turn, I played, i think, two non-creature spells for a total of one mana, like a rock and then something for three that was only one, and burned the table for eight.
00:50:00
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:50:10
ciderspence
I think these other the other two players had not seen this before, but I'm not sure what they expected, but this seemed to be and a violation of what they anticipated for the game based on the based on words and actions.
00:50:20
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, yeah. We're getting into that. Yeah, we're getting into that.
00:50:24
ciderspence
So the Aragorn player... put a hit on me the next turn, which totally justified.
00:50:28
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, he did. He did.
00:50:29
ciderspence
I just want to say, i thought their response to me and my deck was fine. i I didn't mind it. I got it. I could see how it was scary. And they said, this is an Omega level threat. let's Let's scare him out of doing something bad.
00:50:45
ciderspence
So Aragorn hit me for 17 damage, 17 commander damage.
00:50:49
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep.
00:50:50
ciderspence
Pretty good, pretty good. I don't remember what Sese player did next, but then it was Zex's turn.
00:50:54
Zachary Jeblonski
No, he didn't really do anything. Yeah.
00:50:58
ciderspence
And Zach's response was...
00:51:02
Zachary Jeblonski
I, so I, the, the first time i didn't, I once I, I, I fell to profane, right? Like I killed your commander with a targeted removal first.
00:51:10
ciderspence
Oh yeah.
00:51:11
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep.
00:51:12
ciderspence
Yes, that's right.
00:51:12
Zachary Jeblonski
And then, and then your turn is right after my turn. So I kill, I single target. Then on your turn, you play your commander again. Okay. Then.
00:51:21
ciderspence
Well, I think i think you're the the response I wanted to get to happened before I played my commander again. I think that was the point of contention.
00:51:28
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:51:29
ciderspence
This was after you had fell to Profan, but before i recast.
00:51:29
Zachary Jeblonski
right. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. And then I fired off Plasma's Edict because I just watched you get doomed for 17 from Commander Damage. So I was like, well, I can't. i don't want to get hit by the Aragorn player you know doing 17 or maybe more in a pop.
00:51:49
Zachary Jeblonski
And those players did not like that. Not one bit. I have not seen a reaction to a board like that in a while. they got super salty.
00:52:01
ciderspence
They got super salty.
00:52:03
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah And I was like, I, I, it took me a while because i'm like, wait a minute.
00:52:04
ciderspence
And there are
00:52:07
Zachary Jeblonski
I thought they were joking at first. Like at first I thought they were joking. So it took me a while to like catch up to the fact that like, no, they're genuinely upset about this.
00:52:17
ciderspence
Yeah, they were they were mad. And there are there're different types of salt, right? there's kind of There's new player salt where something happens that you don't like and you haven't played enough magic to be able to contextualize it within the type of thing that happens a lot.
00:52:32
ciderspence
And you always don't like what you get used to versus the thing that never happens because nobody plays that card. But this was a different salt because those guys are seasoned players who, and I've played with them a lot.
00:52:41
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:52:43
ciderspence
Again, we'll we'll get back to that. But they're not new players, and so they weren't, there their tastes and their opinions, whatever you think of them, are honed from many, many games and from a kind of hardened hardened stance on what they feel about, you know, the good and bad and right and wrong things to do in a Magic game are. And they they spoke about their disdain from that perspective, which think particularly bothered you, rightfully so.
00:53:13
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I guess. i So I guess to to interest a full disclosure, because I don't want to come off as like this totally rational actor either. You know, once I kind of once I kind of settled in that they were upset, I was like, all right, they're upset. OK.
00:53:24
Zachary Jeblonski
But then they started turning it towards like criticism of what I've done and like criticism, my actions. Right. And they're like looking directly at me when they're saying this. And I'm like, And that's when I just said point blank, I'm not accepting criticism right now. Like, cause I think some people will feel that they're entitled to criticize your, your gameplay performance, but you're not entitled to do that. Like I'm not in, like if I see a player doing something I don't agree with, I might approach and be like, hey you know, can I present maybe a different option for you? Would you be amenable to that? You know, kind of thing.
00:53:59
Zachary Jeblonski
But, you know, I was like, they they thought they were going to like educate me or or or or walk me through my game plan or whatever. I was like, I'm not i'm not here for that. i'm not I'm not listening to you tell me that. it's like Yeah, we're done.
00:54:14
ciderspence
Yeah, it became very paternalistic. It was, again, not new for me, clearly new for you. Something that I... Let's just talk about the rest of the game and then we'll kind of get back to their disposition.
00:54:28
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:54:29
ciderspence
Anyway, so you blessed this addict.
00:54:29
Zachary Jeblonski
i don't I don't think I have much else to talk about.
00:54:31
ciderspence
Okay. Oh, all right. So you Blastom's Edicted. After that, I recast my Commander.
00:54:35
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep.
00:54:37
ciderspence
And then I think maybe the turn after I cast my Commander, my next turn, i think I won with some...
00:54:44
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, you had like a flashback spell, I think, and like, yeah.
00:54:47
ciderspence
Oh, yeah. It was... Yeah. That would have been a decent card of the week, too. Sorcerer's Schemes, card from Final Fantasy. That three and a red, you can...
00:54:59
ciderspence
play a card, you can return a card from your graveyard, or you can flashback a card from your graveyard for its mana cost. And it also has flashback.
00:55:06
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:55:08
ciderspence
So that's a that actually, i think, would be pretty good in your radio deck if it's not already in there. but And I also had Fiery Confluence, which I think I won the last game I won with Longshot also through Fiery Confluence.
00:55:19
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep. Yep.
00:55:21
ciderspence
But Fiery Confluence, you can deal damage to face three times. And so that's four from Longshot for the cast, and then four on top of the two you deal. So that's 20 20 damage. It's 6-6-6, and then...
00:55:42
ciderspence
4?
00:55:43
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, that's 22.
00:55:43
ciderspence
No, 22? So that was, yeah, flashing that back, that was just the game. And they they remained salty and vocal about their salt after the game was over,
00:55:52
Zachary Jeblonski
Yes. Because I did not say my comment about the the criticism until the game was over because I was like packing my stuff up and I'm like, yeah, I'm not, I'm not going to sit here for this.
00:55:54
ciderspence
which was
00:56:02
Zachary Jeblonski
Are you crazy?
00:56:04
ciderspence
Yeah, which was unfortunate because the game was quick enough that I was hoping hoping we as in you and I, could have gotten another one in.
Independent Strategic Decisions and Game Memory
00:56:10
ciderspence
But that was that was clearly the end of that. You you had had enough, rightfully so.
00:56:15
Zachary Jeblonski
But they also went after you too. And I was like, and I, and I was like, yeah, it was, they, they accused you of comboing off and I'm like, that's not a combo. That's just a line that produced a lot of damage. Right? Like you couldn't have done that infinitely. you could only have done that for however much damage.
00:56:32
ciderspence
yeah I mean, it was just flashback. like it like there's a There's an actual game mechanic that limits It was 100% not a combo.
00:56:34
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:56:40
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:56:40
ciderspence
But i I understood their point that they thought that was outside of the spirit of what that game was supposed to be. And i i i I think they just didn't know the deck well enough, and they didn't know the spirit we were aiming for well enough.
00:56:53
ciderspence
And after you left, I actually went through the deck and goldfished a few turns later. like from a different draw, I said, look, i the artist talent in my opening hand is just really good. And I drew a fiery confluence.
00:57:03
ciderspence
Like, what you want me to do? I was stealing 22 on that spell no matter what. Like, I can't, I'm not going to not cast it.
00:57:07
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Yeah. yeah
00:57:09
ciderspence
though I'm not going to not play magic. It was just a good draw for me. And so I gold fished it a bit for them afterwards. they were like, oh, okay. Yeah. They were like, does it do this consistently? I was like, no, this was just a really good draw.
00:57:19
ciderspence
and So yeah, I've played with them before, and I think we've talked about this shop before. And I don't know whether I've been explicit when we've talked about it before, but it's not my favorite shop. And I think a well no i think that vibe, and those players in particular, but that kind of perspective on magic where there's like there's a right way to play and a wrong way to play and this is fun that's not fun and what you're doing is too good and what you're doing is not good enough that kind of commentary on other players games i i don't like i don't love that either now i've i've gone there enough because it's the closest shop to my house that i'm a little desensitized to it and
00:57:41
Zachary Jeblonski
Yes, am.
00:57:58
ciderspence
Frankly, I'm glad that you're not. It was refreshing to see someone have the correct defensive reaction to it, whereas I've just kind of become numb to it. So I'm sorry you had that experience, but it was good for me to be reminded that that's not great.
00:58:12
ciderspence
And I should try to continue to not normalize that behavior and try to avoid it when possible.
00:58:19
Zachary Jeblonski
No, I mean, for for me, it's like, it was just, it was you know, it just caught me off guard. But, like, I know that the next time I go back, and if I'm playing with them again, next time I'm going to fire off the board wipe and look them right in the eyes when I do it.
00:58:30
Zachary Jeblonski
Because, like... Like, I'm not changing my behavior for these guys. Like... Because, like... Because this this is... Alright, so I have met players like this. This is this is one if you're if you're making a a categorization of magic players, I know where these guys fall. These are the happy go lucky guys.
00:58:49
Zachary Jeblonski
that give off the impression that they're here for a good time. And the second something goes wrong, they flip on a dime. Like, and I have met players like this so many times in my magic career where you're like, oh, we're in for a great game. And then literally the smallest thing goes wrong and they turn into the most salty people.
00:59:06
Zachary Jeblonski
So now that i know that, I know that the next time I go in, Now I can try to bait it out. Do you know? Like, you know, I'm going to fire off a board wife if I think it's the best decision to make. And at the time I thought it was the best decision. Right. And it ended ended up being wrong. Like, but how I can't know that. I don't know what's in my opponent's hands. I'm going to make the best decision off the information I have.
00:59:31
Zachary Jeblonski
And chill. I don't know. and Chill guys. I don't know what to tell you.
00:59:37
ciderspence
I think chill is the right word. and i i think your description is actually really good because there's another player who frequents that shop who i I think that is also a perfect description of. They seem like they're there for a good time, but if something goes wrong or something happens that they would not have made happen if it were their choice, they flip on a dime.
00:59:49
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:59:55
ciderspence
And it's just an interesting it's an interesting characteristic to have as a player. And
01:00:02
Zachary Jeblonski
What's interesting is the exact opposite exists. And there's a player in the Tuesday shop that I get to sometimes. And he's the most mono, like he speaks in this monotone.
01:00:16
Zachary Jeblonski
He seems annoyed or angry all the time. But that dude is completely unfazed by what happens. You could destroy his commander three times in a row. And I've seen it happen. and his emotions don't change, he still is fine. Like, you know, so like there's like an opposite to this too, you know? Yeah, it's just interesting.
01:00:37
Zachary Jeblonski
So yeah, i'm I'm fine with it. It's just like now I know, like if I play with those guys again, I'm like, okay, I know what to expect, you know, and like, and i'm and I'm going to hope I draw the board by because I'm that kind of antagonistic person when when I know that I got somebody that's going to be that way.
01:00:53
ciderspence
We finally got there, folks. Now Zach believes in game memory, and I am here for it.
01:00:57
Zachary Jeblonski
a Well, let me let me be clear. i do yeah i I do not agree with game memory.
01:01:00
ciderspence
I'm just joking.
01:01:04
Zachary Jeblonski
i do I do believe every game should be approached in a vacuum. And I'm only going to fire that board wipe off if it makes sense. I'm not firing up a board wipe just because, just to annoy those guys.
01:01:14
Zachary Jeblonski
But if I have a choice between two options and they're equally right and one of them is the board wipe, then you know what I'm picking.
01:01:21
ciderspence
nice
01:01:23
Zachary Jeblonski
But yeah, that wraps up those games. I know we've we've run a little long. I want to save decks for working on for next episode or you want to touch on that?
01:01:31
ciderspence
yeah we can save decks on decks for next time i think you can watch the waveform if you want i don't i don't know how you enjoy podcasts people
01:01:33
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. Okay. All right, cool. Well, this has been a great catch up. Hopefully, like said, listener or yeah, listeners, not viewers, but listeners, you know, yeah, I don't know.
01:01:44
Zachary Jeblonski
I can put up, I can put up like an old wind zip visualizer on YouTube or something. Yeah, sure.
01:01:49
ciderspence
That actually sounds fantastic.
01:01:51
Zachary Jeblonski
It whips the llama's ass. What can I say? uh, all right guys Well, thanks for joining me, Charles.
01:01:56
ciderspence
Nice.
01:01:59
Zachary Jeblonski
And we'll talk again next week.
01:02:02
ciderspence
Sounds good. Take it easy, everybody.
01:02:03
Zachary Jeblonski
All right, take it easy, everybody. i'm going to delay as I move my mouse cursor over to the outro because I didn't prepare for this, but here we go.
01:02:09
ciderspence
Get out of here, Mouse.