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Ep. 30 - BurnTron
19 Plays3 months ago
Watch out for this podcast that is trying to blink, reanimate, proliferate, and aggro our opponents! We have deck techs and some musings on everyone's (almost) favorite care Sol Ring.
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Transcript
Introduction and Adulting Humor
00:00:12
Zachary Jeblonski
Hello, hello. Welcome to another episode of Midlife's Crisis. I'm Zach. I'm joined again by Charles.
00:00:18
Ciderspence
How's it going, Zach?
00:00:19
Zachary Jeblonski
Good. What, now that we're both adults and we titled our podcast Midlife's Crisis, and you know we we're required, actually, we're mandated to talk about the boring topics that adults talk about.
Organizational Tools and Relationships
00:00:32
Zachary Jeblonski
what What tools do you use to stay organized? you a Google Calendar kind of guy, or what what do you like to use?
00:00:38
Ciderspence
Oh, that is a great question. i feel like, oh man, I'm such a disorganized person that This would be like an anti-plug.
00:00:49
Ciderspence
you know Whatever tools I say I use, I think immediately the stock drops and people think, well, that can't be reliable because this guy is a flake.
00:00:50
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:00:57
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, come on. Uh-huh.
00:00:59
Ciderspence
It's fine. I mean, it is what it is. There's a lot going on. I mean, I try to use Google Calendar. I set watch alarms.
00:01:05
Zachary Jeblonski
huh
00:01:08
Ciderspence
Those are my primary sources of trying to you know keep up with the things I need to do. How about you?
00:01:16
Zachary Jeblonski
I I'm a big Google Calendar guy. i am. I do like to organize. I'm one of those like Marie Kondo type of people. But I do sometimes have trouble with reminders on certain things.
00:01:28
Zachary Jeblonski
So I'm trying to use a little bit more of a like, you know, when but my wife and i started, you know, dating a couple of years ago, it was we like very quickly. We're like, oh, we need a join Google Calendar because we we both got too many things going on at different times.
00:01:42
Zachary Jeblonski
and
00:01:43
Ciderspence
Yep. Joint calendar essential.
00:01:44
Zachary Jeblonski
And it's like, yeah, it's like one of those things from like, you know, if you look at this from like a whimsical fantasy world where it's like, oh, well, this isn't very romantic. You're like, let me have to like sync up a Google calendar to like, you know see each other. I'm like, no, that's just what being midlife is. That's what being an adult is nowadays. You just have to track this stuff.
00:02:06
Zachary Jeblonski
And it's just too much of a hassle to constantly be like, Hey, a reminder, this is coming up for that, you know? Now, yeah, so that's that's the way I do it.
00:02:16
Zachary Jeblonski
And for the most part, it works out, except for, you know, when I barely remember to do the podcast.
00:02:23
Ciderspence
Yeah, I was going to say, if you guys use the calendar together in a genuinely forward-looking way, that's awesome. I think the way it usually comes into play for us is we'll put stuff on the calendar, and then the other person will say, what do we have going on? And then that person will say, it's on the calendar. Look at the calendar.
00:02:40
Ciderspence
And it's more of like an accountability device than a way of actually keeping track of stuff, which is also extremely valuable in a relationship.
00:02:43
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, fair enough.
00:02:50
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:02:50
Ciderspence
I think... Kind of keeping track of when you need to pay more attention or when you drop the ball and knowing whose fault it was or knowing when, you know, it represents something that you really need to take care of because the other person did their part and you need to do yours.
00:03:05
Ciderspence
That's, you know, we we need those. I maybe just I'm speaking for myself here. I need those kicks in the butt every so often. So I like that feature of it as well.
00:03:12
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah Yeah, we we we don't go after each other too much on that front, but we do. like i like I have an Android phone and I have the Google Calendar wit widget like big on my home screen. So I'm like always just like looking at it. and just It does take a lot, but eventually you do get in the habit of like somebody rolls up to be like, hey, you want to do XYZ on such a day? And you know and you you start to catch yourself and go, hold on. Let me look. Make sure there's nothing going on. you know it does create those situations where like, Hey, there was nothing on the calendar. So booked something and then there's a conflict, you know, I'm going to have to resolve kind of thing.
00:03:48
Zachary Jeblonski
but overall I think it's good. I don't remember what I used to do without it.
Magic the Gathering: Game Strategies and Humor
00:03:55
Zachary Jeblonski
Overbook myself a lot, probably.
00:03:57
Ciderspence
I feel like a calendar forces you to do the thing that a deck building template does, which is like, you want to put everything...
00:03:58
Zachary Jeblonski
all right. Let's.
00:04:07
Ciderspence
on the calendar. You want to do all things, right? Everything exciting you want to do, but you can't do all those things and fit them all into the actual allotment of time you have. And so the calendar is like, hey, you've already got something here. You can't do that.
00:04:22
Ciderspence
Do something else on some other day. It's kind of like veggies, like removal and ramp and card draw and stuff.
00:04:25
Zachary Jeblonski
I
00:04:29
Ciderspence
You can't have 100 pieces of card draw and 100 pieces of ramp. That's just not how that works. You got 100 cards, so you got to
00:04:34
Zachary Jeblonski
mean, I can't build my blink proliferate token Voltron burn commander.
00:04:41
Ciderspence
Burn Blanklyphrate? That sounds amazing. Burntron? Awesome.
00:04:45
Zachary Jeblonski
ver john I put in Super Friends too, just for a little dead little spice too.
00:04:52
Ciderspence
Actually, Burntron is such a fun word to say, I might try to build Burn Boltron. That sounds excellent.
00:04:56
Zachary Jeblonski
we I think we we already have a commander for Burntron. Can you think of it?
00:05:00
Ciderspence
Who's the Burn... Uh... Burntron? No.
00:05:05
Zachary Jeblonski
Jaws.
00:05:07
Ciderspence
Does making Jaws bigger help? Let me read it.
00:05:09
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, because you make more blood tokens.
00:05:09
Ciderspence
Hell yeah.
00:05:13
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:05:13
Ciderspence
Okay. I've got my new deck.
00:05:14
Zachary Jeblonski
And you need him to get through to get the blood tokens, so...
00:05:18
Ciderspence
There you go.
00:05:19
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. So there you go. Look at that. Look at Quick pulls six 30 in the morning. I'm on top of it. Just like I'm on top of our commander game recaps.
00:05:29
Ciderspence
Love it.
00:05:29
Zachary Jeblonski
Uh, and I, and for me, it's my commander game recap. cause I don't think, yeah, i mean, the only thing I have since last time talked is, uh, our five pod at the new place we tried.
00:05:44
Zachary Jeblonski
were you able to get anything else in besides that?
00:05:47
Ciderspence
I was able to get two other games in.
00:05:50
Zachary Jeblonski
Nice. You're, you're, you're doing three times as good as me.
00:05:51
Ciderspence
But let's talk about that.
00:05:56
Ciderspence
Yeah, let's talk about that game, though.
00:05:58
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. Yeah. So we, uh, we were trying a new place and ironically it's like probably the last time they're doing the thing, but that's fine. You know, you make do it what we got. but it was only one pod or three people there. So we turned into a five pod and you know, as, as a five pod normally goes, it took the entire play session to not resolve because the game still ended without anybody, winning.
00:06:20
Zachary Jeblonski
I was the only person that was dead. But I died at the very end anyway. But I was playing Lucy. Definitely, I think a new I think she'll be my white commander for a long time. I think she's she's very good. She's a lot of fun.
00:06:32
Zachary Jeblonski
She seems very good to pull out in a pod where like I don't know what the vibe is. I don't know what the power level is. Yeah, yeah I don't have too much to say about my my game. so but But I think you you had a good showing on April O'Neil.
00:06:51
Ciderspence
Yeah, it was an interesting setup. we We just kind of talked about the April deck on the pod last week, and you had kind of been talking about the Lucy deck a lot, and it didn't occur to me how synergistic they were with one another.
00:07:03
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, they were.
00:07:04
Ciderspence
but
00:07:04
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:07:04
Ciderspence
but But basically, so the April deck makes Muted in Tokens. The Lucy deck lets you either... give somebody else a copy somebody's token and draw a card or keep the copy of the token yourself.
00:07:17
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah
00:07:18
Ciderspence
think you basically used it almost exclusively to draw cards that game.
00:07:22
Zachary Jeblonski
I don't, I, it's, it's the, I've played Lucy probably four times and it's extremely rare for me to, to make the token for myself because it's, I mean, there's not that many tokens in magic, which I think are better than drawing a card. Like if you really, if you like put them on a scale, you know, you know, occasionally like somebody will be like, well, I'm making my, uh, you know, i'm playing Eldrazi twin, which gets me a 10, 10 Eldrazi. Okay. I'll make that token, you know, but like,
00:07:50
Zachary Jeblonski
and What would you rather have, a mutagen token or a draw card? Yeah.
00:07:54
Ciderspence
Right. Well, there was one point though where I did cast a Moonlit Meditation so that the first mutagen token I made every turn was going to become a Karnstruct.
00:08:00
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah
00:08:03
Ciderspence
And I thought that was an interesting decision point. I think you still took the card.
00:08:07
Zachary Jeblonski
I still took the car because like my theory was like your contracts are always gonna be bigger than my contracts just because I just, you know, I don't have the artifacts energy that you do. And I'm, you know, my theory is like, I'd rather gain card advantage and find an answer for these contracts and try to like out contract you, which I know I think would have been losing proposition.
00:08:26
Ciderspence
Yeah, that makes sense.
00:08:29
Zachary Jeblonski
But yeah, no, I think it was it was interesting. i like I didn't pick Lucy intentionally. like It didn't even dawn on me about the mutagens until like we kind of got going. And i was like, oh, okay. it didn't Yeah, it didn't really help. Still got still got still got creamed. you know like did There was a couple of board wipes, and I just i didn't
Gaming Attitudes and Rule Flexibility
00:08:47
Zachary Jeblonski
really have... like I probably maybe should put in a mass reanimation spell. I think White has a couple that kind of work.
00:08:56
Zachary Jeblonski
that might be That might be good for this deck. Because it did it did seem like I struggled a little bit to to like claw my way back after Bordeaux.
00:09:03
Ciderspence
I think probably the most fun thing that happened this game happened early. One of the other players got... I basically stopped playing Sol Ring just because I don't always play with Zack, but when I do, he hates Sol Ring.
00:09:13
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, yeah.
00:09:15
Ciderspence
And it's like, you know what? I don't love Sol Ring either.
00:09:17
Zachary Jeblonski
I don't give you... i Look, i don't like i don't like lock horns with you over Sol Ring.
00:09:22
Ciderspence
No, you don't. I just know that you hate it. It's more of a respect thing. It's like, I enjoy playing with you. You don't like that card. Also, I know that it's like a thing that you want to answer early. So it's like the cases where it would be good when I played with you, it's probably bad because you're probably going to answer it.
00:09:36
Zachary Jeblonski
It's
00:09:36
Ciderspence
And that's also probably bad for you because you use your removal on it. And that doesn't help the table necessarily, unless it's a one V one, in which case it's great, but like, anyway, so I don't really put soaring in anything anymore.
00:09:47
Ciderspence
but one of the other players played a soul ring early. And and you could just see, I think you said, uh-oh, should I do it? And I was like, yeah, you should do it. But hilariously, by the time he answered it, I was holding a Narsets reversal, which...
00:09:54
Zachary Jeblonski
narcissistic reversal again.
00:10:01
Ciderspence
It's in this deck because it's a cheap interaction piece that I just want to have.
00:10:03
Zachary Jeblonski
it's marci reversal very good
00:10:06
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:10:06
Ciderspence
This was almost certainly not the right play, but I cast Narset's Reversal on your Get Lost targeting the Sol Ring. I gave you the Get Lost back and also hit the Sol Ring.
00:10:16
Zachary Jeblonski
he
00:10:16
Ciderspence
So that later in the game, somebody else cast a Sol Ring and you also caught cast Get Lost on that Sol Ring.
00:10:21
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:10:23
Ciderspence
So you got to answer two Sol Rings with one stone.
00:10:23
Zachary Jeblonski
Nobody gets whole rings.
00:10:26
Ciderspence
It was excellent.
00:10:27
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, that was really cool. To be honest, like it is very rare for me to blow up a soul ring just because soul rings often come out early. Soul rings in this weird spot where, and this is one of the reasons why it's so powerful, is that it either comes out early and makes such a, like, before anybody has removal and it makes it makes thiss impact.
00:10:46
Zachary Jeblonski
or it comes out late. And then when a solar ring comes out late, most of the time it's not worth answering, right? Like turn seven or eight, like it's, it's, just it's, it's good. i mean, it's still, it's still good, but it's not like, it's not worth spending removal. Cause at that point you probably have like some ways six, seven or eight drop that that's a bigger issue. so it's very rare for me to get that moment where I'm like, I have a get lost in hand and that's a soul ring. Hmm.
00:11:15
Zachary Jeblonski
my My dream to this day, and I have it running around in one of my decks, I can't remember which one, is to mental misstep a Sol Ring on turn zero, where I haven't even had my turn yet, but I pay the life and I counterspell a Sol Ring.
00:11:29
Zachary Jeblonski
Someday. But yeah, that was just...
00:11:32
Ciderspence
Wait, was is it a get lost 2 cast? Did I remember that incorrectly?
00:11:35
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I had Get Lost. I'm just talking about like my dream is someday to mental misstep a Sol Ring.
00:11:39
Ciderspence
Well, I'm going to real-time fact check us. Get lost, destroy target creature enchantment or planeswalker. Its controller creates two map tokens.
00:11:46
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh no.
00:11:48
Ciderspence
hilariously...
00:11:48
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh no. I didn't even think about checking the types on it. I just assumed it hit everything that wasn't a land.
00:11:54
Ciderspence
so hilariously We both misplayed and we got to do the same misplay twice. That is that is great.
00:12:04
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah. I'm looking at it now. You're re whoopsie.
00:12:08
Ciderspence
Well, folks, please continue to come here for your Magic the Gathering expertise.
00:12:14
Zachary Jeblonski
Wow.
00:12:14
Ciderspence
Mistakes not welcome.
00:12:17
Zachary Jeblonski
What? Oh, man. That's like a rabbit hole I don't necessarily i can think i can go on this early in the morning on a Sunday. But, like, what that game would have been had this old ring survived. That could have been a whole different game.
00:12:27
Ciderspence
The oops so nice it had to happen twice.
00:12:29
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, there you go
00:12:29
Ciderspence
There you go. well Well, if we ever see those guys again, he should apologize.
00:12:33
Zachary Jeblonski
go.
00:12:37
Zachary Jeblonski
And for the listeners at home, I was doing the whole, like, grab your neck collar thing. while i was like, yeah.
00:12:43
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh boy. All right. Well, the i feel kind of scummy now.
00:12:50
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh man. I remember, I don't know why this flashed in my head, but like very early on in my magic career, i don't know why I call it a career, magic play time. uh, somebody played a, a fierce guardianship on me and you know, I started to get really upset, you know, it was early on and I was like, what, you know, cause guy had answered a bunch of my stuff.
00:13:10
Zachary Jeblonski
And then I just happened to be like, wait, and i was like, i can I see Fierce Guardianship? i just want to double check. And I had cast a creature spell and he had done the same thing I had done with guest laws, which he just assumed to counter spells, but no Fierce Guardianship is counter target non creature spell.
00:13:25
Zachary Jeblonski
And he the look on his face when he realized like, oh, that doesn't work. And I think I was playing like a board wipe creature or something like he was just like, oh no.
00:13:35
Ciderspence
Yeah, it's really funny. Like
Challenges in Competitive Balance in MTG
00:13:36
Ciderspence
when you're first starting out, you don't know how anything works. So any card is just gibberish. You're very prone to misplay because you don't know what you're doing.
00:13:41
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:13:43
Ciderspence
Then there's a point where you know what you're doing and you're but you' you're not familiar with the card. So you just read the cards and it's it's a lot easier to get right what the card does. But then when you play enough, you're so used to the effect a card has that you no longer think of it in terms of the text on the card.
00:13:57
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep.
00:14:00
Ciderspence
You just play it in a circumstance where you want that effect and you expect it to work because you've seen it work a lot, but you don't think about the details. So I think this type of misplay is actually more common because you play the card.
00:14:08
Zachary Jeblonski
yep
00:14:12
Ciderspence
You're like, oh, I have an answer for that answer. And they're like, that's I don't think that works here. And you're like, what? This is answer. Answer works.
00:14:19
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah I have done that so many times where like, like I'll be playing a card and sometimes I'm playing a card for a while. And then somebody's like, Hey, that doesn't work that way. And i'm like, what do you mean? It doesn't work that way. I wouldn't even have all of it. And I'm like, and then it'd be like, no, read it again. And I'm like, Oh no.
00:14:35
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh no. You know, it just magic is a very complicated game and it's just easy. It's easy over time to like get your brain to think a card does something because it did this one thing one time and just assume that's what it always does.
00:14:50
Zachary Jeblonski
When in reality, that one time it worked that way is just because it was an edge case for that type of card. Right. like I'm pretty sure I must have casted a get lost on like an enchantment creature. in some of my head are like, i don't know, I'm trying to think of a good example, like a, like an artifact creature, right. Or something. And was like, Oh, it hits artifacts, you know, like, you know, kind of brain moment, you know?
00:15:11
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. So I guess I would, I would recommend people read the cards, but I feel like it's harder and harder to recommend people to do that. So just, i don't know, review the cards, you know, every time you go to play them.
00:15:21
Ciderspence
Yeah, I feel like my takeaway is just to be a little more chill when people when other people do that, right? And to be more open-minded about making mistakes even though you think you know what you're doing.
00:15:27
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:15:33
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, can I... All right, we're going to a tangent because I had a good moment. I don't remember i don't think I talked about this last episode, but a couple weeks ago I was playing in one of my stores that I like, and there's a gentleman there who's...
00:15:47
Zachary Jeblonski
Uh, he, he's not, but he's, he's good to play with, but he takes magic a little seriously. he's a little bit of a rules guy and that's fine. and we allowed somebody, i allowed somebody to like wind back their turn quite a bit actually in this game.
00:16:01
Zachary Jeblonski
And I have some rules for like how far I think people are should be allowed to rewind actions. I think one of my big things is like once you gain information that you wouldn't have necessarily had, you can't wind back anymore. Like, so if you look at the top of your card of your deck where you drew a card, you can't wind back now because now you have information you didn't have.
00:16:19
Zachary Jeblonski
But he hadn't done any of that.
00:16:19
Ciderspence
Yep.
00:16:20
Zachary Jeblonski
So he winded back quite a bit and I was cool with it. And the other guy was a little, he was annoyed by right? He's like, oh, blah, blah, blah. And i was like, okay, you know, it's fine. You know, whatever. no we just moved on. and i just kind of brushed him aside moved on.
00:16:31
Zachary Jeblonski
Later that game, he's like, oh let me wind back my turn. The guy that was upset about. And I just looked at him. I go, do you remember early in the game when you had a problem with him reminding his turn? Do you remember that? it And he's like, oh, oh, you know, it's just like the the point of the story is this game is complicated and we all have to be flexible with each other.
00:16:53
Zachary Jeblonski
and like, within reason, we should, you know, like let people rewind mistakes like. Because like as competent of a player as you think you are, you are going to mess something up because Commander is just that complicated.
00:17:10
Ciderspence
Yeah, it's it's a hard line to toe. I think just just be chill. it's It's easy to say and to think and to plan to do, but you know you start the game and something happens.
00:17:18
Zachary Jeblonski
Just be chill.
00:17:24
Ciderspence
It gets petty. It gets tense. It gets stressful. And hard. you know it's It's just hard to keep the mindset that you want the whole way through, but it's always worth trying to go into it. I think with that mindset, because I think it increases the chances, right? It's like having those 40 lands. Yeah. You might still not have enough lands in the game you play, but having 40 lands in the deck increases your chances. So trying to think of magic in a way where, Hey, I came to have fun. Other people came to have fun. Let's have fun together.
00:17:57
Ciderspence
Let me try not to take it personally or too seriously if people make mistakes or if I make mistakes.
00:18:00
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:18:03
Ciderspence
it's a It's a worthy goal, I think, to go into every game thinking of that. Even though, like I said, things happen, it's hard to keep that same energy.
00:18:12
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, I definitely later on in my magic playing time, I've just, I've, I've gotten to the point now with my playing where like, if I've, if I have,
00:18:23
Zachary Jeblonski
like done a pretty, pretty big error and it would require a, what I would would, for me personally would consider a substantial rollback. I just accept the error and move on. Like I just, I just allow myself to feel that like that mess up because hopefully it'll, it'll stop me from doing something similar in the future. you know, I will request like, uh, oh, can I tap my land slightly differently or something like that? Like I'm still good with that. But like,
00:18:48
Zachary Jeblonski
and Nowadays, I'm just like, I'm just, you know, it's probably just because I've played Magic for long. Like, each individual loss doesn't really matter. And if it really was that grave and I'm going to lose because of it's like, oh, well. But I'm very much of like, yeah, got to learn somehow, you know. But if another player wants to do that that relatively big windback, and like I said, for me, if like they don't have any additional information than they used to have, mean, it's a game. let's Let's do it. Roll back.
00:19:13
Zachary Jeblonski
But, you know, don't don't scoff when it's your turn to do the rollback, you know. You know, remember that when and you need to do the rollback.
Gaming Etiquette and Expectations
00:19:22
Ciderspence
Yeah. I would also say kind of the flip side of that is if you are the guy who scoffs when other players do the rollback, then just don't ask for the rollback. Like even in the, even in the spirit of, yeah, no, i yeah, I guess it's more like be consistent with your feedback.
00:19:33
Zachary Jeblonski
like They're so quick to forget though. Yes.
00:19:40
Zachary Jeblonski
Yes.
00:19:41
Ciderspence
If you're, if the thing that bothers you is when players do X, then don't do X and don't build decks that sometimes do X.
00:19:41
Zachary Jeblonski
yes
00:19:49
Ciderspence
Don't run decks that don't, have a turgrid deck if you hate playing against turgrid decks unless you can you can hate it quietly don't loudly hate turgrid and then play turgrid the next game uh i remember i was playing a spell table game once so here's kind of the version that i saw i i was in a i was in a spell table game and the lobby was like
00:19:55
Zachary Jeblonski
that's a good one. Yeah.
00:20:04
Zachary Jeblonski
Have you, yeah. Have you seen that happen before?
00:20:10
Zachary Jeblonski
okay
00:20:16
Ciderspence
This was pre-bracket system, I think. This was like, so it was like six, high six, low seven or whatever. Right. So I think the intention was something that has a win con or something, something that's not going to dirtle that will win if left unchecked, but isn't going to go bonkers.
00:20:33
Ciderspence
So we're all in this game. And this one guy
00:20:37
Ciderspence
is going a little too hard. Uh, And I was okay with it because this is just this just happens in Magic sometimes, right? Somebody goes a little too hard. If you play another game together, you adjust, right?
00:20:48
Ciderspence
But the host of the lobby was pissed.
00:20:49
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:20:51
Ciderspence
And so game two, and it was... i think his demeanor was like that seething where you can hear by tone that he wasn't thrilled, but he wasn't outright saying, I hate you, what have you done?
00:21:05
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:21:06
Ciderspence
Okay, so we finished the game. It was pretty quick because the the player who went too hard won pretty quickly. Game two, the host is like, all right, we're we're thinking the same thing, right?
00:21:16
Ciderspence
And I was like, yeah, we can, I'll tune mine up a little bit.
00:21:16
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh boy.
00:21:19
Ciderspence
And the other guy i was like, yeah, i got I got something similar power level. poor Poor fourth guy, i don't even remember what his attitude was. So the other guy was like, cool, I'm playing Nadu. And we're like, okay, I mean, that sounds...
00:21:27
Zachary Jeblonski
oh Ooh.
00:21:30
Ciderspence
That sounds aggressive, but all right. I mean, you know, whatever. We we just had one guy go off. You can go off next. And so his whole point in the Nadu game was to just go so hard that it was miserable for everyone just to prove a point to the other guy.
00:21:42
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:21:43
Ciderspence
And then afterwards, he just started yelling at the other guy. He's like, yeah, see, that's a geck that shouldn't be in this table. Just like the geck you played last game shouldn't have at this table. Read the lobby. Pay attention.
00:21:53
Ciderspence
Do what you're supposed to do. I can't believe you bring that. And I was like, oh, my God, this is like a domestic dispute now, and I want to leave. This is not. this isn't what I came to Spelltable for yeah yeah I think ultimately I did but it was yeah it was yeah but it was
00:22:01
Zachary Jeblonski
I mean, luckily it's spell table so you can just leave.
00:22:06
Zachary Jeblonski
but you wanted to listen to a little bit. it
00:22:11
Zachary Jeblonski
That's crazy to play a whole magic game just to quote unquote teach somebody a lesson.
00:22:16
Ciderspence
yes that is exactly what happened and it was yeah it was i mean don't do that don't do that I would say
00:22:23
Zachary Jeblonski
It's Man, yeah. I mean, that that is that is the core, the absolute core issue with Commanders right there. It's like, how do you have a competitive game?
00:22:40
Zachary Jeblonski
how do you, yeah how do you have a competitive game when everybody has access to almost the entirety of the card pool? And there's, there's no way in the mechanism of the game to account for the parallels of the cards, right? Like that's the whole thing with commander. Right.
00:22:55
Zachary Jeblonski
And, uh, I don't have an answer. and I'm not leading up to an answer to this. It's just like, man, it's just, and there's so many different, like, like it is such a complicated topic. I'm like, yeah, if somebody really wanted to like a sociology or a psychology student or something could could write probably a full dissertation on like the dynamics of trying to create good games in in a competitive game. Like it's like even just describing it, I'm like, oh my God.
00:23:23
Zachary Jeblonski
And like to spend your whole game trying to teach somebody a lesson. It's like the lesson is commander. Like, I don't know what, like, how do you, what do you do Right. Like, you know, here's like another Rob and I'm, I know I'm rambling a little, another Rob is like,
00:23:38
Zachary Jeblonski
What happens when you play your one deck that like kind of works most of the time, but like 5% of the time it just goes off. Like you have the right draw, like, and then people get mad at You're like, well, 95% of the time it doesn't do anything. i didn't know it was going to do this, you know, kind of thing. Right. i don't know. It's just, anyway, did you have fun at least? Oh,
00:24:00
Ciderspence
Oh, on that Spell Table game, I did not. It was it was fine, though.
00:24:02
Zachary Jeblonski
okay. Yeah.
00:24:03
Ciderspence
I mean, i you know, i i think I... Again, back to expectations. I have, you know, 25% it's going to be that baked into Spell Table. It's like, I play Spell Table when i I just want to play a game and i haven't I haven't gotten in enough in-person games, which are always better.
00:24:20
Ciderspence
So, in those circumstances, you know, you kind of you take what you get. And this was a case where I took what I got.
00:24:24
Zachary Jeblonski
You take what you get, yeah.
00:24:25
Ciderspence
Yeah. Yeah, the the what do you do about a deck that doesn't always go off, but sometimes goes off is an interesting question.
00:24:33
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, that's a good one for me.
00:24:35
Ciderspence
Like, I mean, this kind of reminds me back to the the game we played together at, at the local shop that we don't always play at, where my burn deck just kind of went off and the other two players who hadn't seen it before were really mad about it.
00:24:35
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:24:46
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, yeah.
00:24:51
Ciderspence
And yeah, like, it's interesting. Like, So that deck doesn't run a Sol Ring. This was just a case where I got an Enabler down on turn two. and then literally got kind of just the best i like i drew the best finisher esh finisher ish spell like i would call it the best finisher because the two games i can think of having one with this deck i won with that card and i just drew it on turn five or something and you like there was a board wipe that definitely helped me but i think it also helped you which is why you cast it and it just like
00:25:16
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Yep.
00:25:27
Ciderspence
I thought a lot about that game. Were they right? I don't think so, but is there something I could do? Because I do believe that there's value in...
00:25:35
Ciderspence
If we think about the question of should people just take Soul Ring out of their decks, what does that effectively do for most decks? It kind of reduces their top-end speed, right?
00:25:46
Ciderspence
It means that it's a lot less likely that you can go off by turn three or turn four or something.
00:25:46
Zachary Jeblonski
and Well, it. really
00:25:51
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, every it reduces like not even the top and it reduces the bottom end speed, right? ever reduce It like or not reduces, i mean say it reduces the bottom end speed where like. you know, like I said, Sol Ring doesn't matter really that much on turn seven six and above or even five and above, right? It's really that like one through four turns where it puts you a turn ahead and that's huge.
00:26:15
Zachary Jeblonski
So yeah, like removing a Sol Ring, I mean, well, I mean, my philosophical pitch on Sol Ring is removing Sol Ring creates more or reduces the chance of a non-game.
00:26:26
Zachary Jeblonski
But yeah, but yeah, like, I'm sorry, go ahead.
00:26:31
Ciderspence
just like I'm just trying to think of about what the what's the net ask for not playing Sol Ring. I think it's just to give up on the chance that your deck might go off super fast
Philosophies on Deck Building in MTG
00:26:45
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, like it, yeah.
00:26:46
Ciderspence
and in favor of like more consistency in getting it to go off faster.
00:26:52
Ciderspence
At the speed you want it to usually or a little faster than that. And is that a reasonable thing to to ask of a community of players?
00:26:57
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:27:02
Ciderspence
I think so, but i but in some way, like I guess the counter argument that I think goes with keeping Sol Ring is that the the point of the game is supposed to be about variants.
00:27:15
Ciderspence
it just it just so happens to feel like the variance is lower with Sol Ring because it seems like every game, the games where somebody goes off with a Sol Ring and it ends by turn three or something are so memorable that it feels like there are more of those games than there are.
00:27:34
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I mean, I think I guess, and and this and this is i mean this is a little bit of an unfair counter, so I'm not going to like rest my laurels on it.
00:27:44
Zachary Jeblonski
But the idea with variants in games and like you could have that Sol Ring Arcane start or whatever, to me, I'm like, that's not variants because it's like every commander deck has Sol Ring Arcane, right? Or I'll just leave Arcane out of it, Arcane Segnet. I'll just say Sol Ring. like...
00:28:02
Zachary Jeblonski
you know, and this is probably a topic I've been thinking about bringing up for a couple of weeks now on the podcast. Cause I'm like, it's like, if variance is at the core of commander, ring is not it, you know, because it's in like every deck, you know? And then if, and if we're talking about variance on like from game to game with that one deck, whether not how it performs, I guess.
00:28:25
Ciderspence
Yeah, because I would call the Sol Ring problem variety and not variance. I mean, they're very similar, but I think of variance as like part of the point of playing this format is that your deck can only be so consistent because it's singleton, right?
00:28:29
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. All right. Okay.
00:28:37
Ciderspence
Except for the rare cases where it's not quite singleton or where it just isn't singleton.
00:28:40
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, yeah, but there's a lot of talk about that right now.
00:28:43
Ciderspence
But, uh, but yeah, it's like, it's not supposed to be a singleton format. There's not supposed to be repetition of cards. so you should have to be creative in putting together your game plan and your, your thought process with a deck should be, how do I use some combination of these, uh, tools to win a game?
00:29:05
Ciderspence
And so in that regard, I feel like soul ring is fine, even if everybody runs a soul ring, but yeah, the fact that everybody runs one. So you see one kind of a lot compared to other cards does make games feel a little samey.
00:29:19
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I mean, like, kind of like my thing is like, just on a like a personal level, like I never, I have not noticed at all my, my, like not the fact that my decks don't have soul rings in them. Right. Because it's like, you, you obviously can't guarantee a soul ring in the opening of your games or ever seeing a soul ring during the course of your game.
00:29:40
Zachary Jeblonski
And I just, I haven't missed it at all. Cause like, I don't even notice it. Right. Because it's like, You know, it wasn't guaranteed to begin with. And I think the upside of that personally is like, and this is like not to get like on my, not to get on like a high horse, but it's like the upside I feel like is like if when you do win and you have those like nice lines and your deck does the thing and all that.
00:30:02
Zachary Jeblonski
don't know. I feel like I was like, well, I did it with all without fast man. I did it all without, you know, a soul ring. Right. And i don't know. To me, it makes the wins just like 0.3% sweeter because I'm like, oh, I didn't have to use that busted card to make this happen.
00:30:20
Ciderspence
Yeah, I mean, ultimately, that is the thing, right? Like, we are all playing Magic to have fun. So whatever you think is fun is the way that you should build your deck.
00:30:26
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Yeah.
00:30:28
Ciderspence
I do think that for a lot of people, that Sol Ring Signet busted turn three, maybe went on turn four is fun. And so I think that they like having that possibility.
00:30:40
Ciderspence
You know, it's like, it's like, it's like Kraken Packs for some people, right? It's like, Should you crack packs? I mean, probably not. You're probably not going to get the things you want.
00:30:50
Ciderspence
It's much more cost effective and kind of efficient, although for a while the singles you want might not be out there. But your best bet is to find singles and pay for the singles because if your alternative is to just crack packs until you find it, on average, you will probably spend more doing that than just paying the price for the single if you're just looking for one or two chase cards.
00:31:11
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:31:15
Ciderspence
But also some people like cracking packs and seeing what they get. I'm one of those people. I'm still tweaking a deck that I hope to play this weekend. that is Now that I've played through it a couple of times, it's bad, but I think it can be kind of fun bad, but it relies on some things. And a card that I wanted was Call of the Ring.
00:31:36
Ciderspence
And it's a Lord of the Rings card.
00:31:37
Zachary Jeblonski
Uh...
00:31:38
Ciderspence
And those packs are hard to find. So i I tried to pick one up in my LGS. Something happened with my order. Like maybe I forgot to put it in there. Maybe they forgot to give it to me.
00:31:47
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, the card draw spell.
00:31:48
Ciderspence
So i I was still looking for it.
00:31:48
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, yeah.
00:31:50
Ciderspence
Yeah. So I was trying to find it at other shops because there are kind of a couple of local shops that I go to. And I couldn't find it But I did find some packs of Lord of the Rings and they were overly expensive and there weren't many of them, but I bought them all.
00:32:04
Ciderspence
And I was like, maybe there's a call of the ring in here. And you know what?
00:32:08
Zachary Jeblonski
There's a call around, yeah.
00:32:09
Ciderspence
There was.
00:32:10
Zachary Jeblonski
Nice.
00:32:10
Ciderspence
And it was awesome. And I don't begrudge anyone that experience because sometimes it does work out and that's fun. And if you enjoy that and you enjoy the, you know, that the thrill of trying to find it under a haystack, then I get that.
00:32:27
Ciderspence
So i like, you know, and I do think that Soul Ring kind of represents that for some players, right? Where it's like, eh, this deck probably won't go off, but it might. And that'd be pretty cool. And, you know, it's a lot harder to get to that that corner of the space without Soul Ring. So I think taking it out of a lot of decks would take that away from players. And that's part of what motivates the play.
00:32:48
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I guess in my last my last little tidbit on Sol Ring, because I do want to ask about that deck of yours, is when you do have that like explosive start and that's exciting, just remember that people's threat assessment comes along with that.
00:33:03
Zachary Jeblonski
And I've seen a lot of players do the Sol Ring Arcane start, get off to a strong start, and then the whole pod turns against them. and they're left with they're left in a worse position than they were before the Arcane Signet and Silver Rain because everyone beat them down, destroyed everything they had, yadda yada, yada, yada.
00:33:20
Zachary Jeblonski
So just remember that threat comes along with that amazing start.
00:33:25
Zachary Jeblonski
That's all. us
00:33:27
Ciderspence
Yep. Yep. I mean, i I think perhaps the greatest skill in Magic is to be
00:33:38
Ciderspence
even-minded about the game.
00:33:40
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:33:40
Ciderspence
Where, like, it's okay if you get off to a fast start. It's okay if your opponent gets off to a fast start. It's okay if you answer somebody's threat and they get mad. It's okay if they answer your threat without you getting mad. It's okay if somebody's not paying attention as long as you can still play the game.
00:33:56
Ciderspence
It's okay if you get distracted, but you try to not get distracted too much to play the game. It's like being... Being able to just... Be chill, but also be present is, like I said, I think it's one of the best skills at the table. It definitely speaks to the try to behave as though you want to
Charles' Karai Deck Strategy
00:34:16
Ciderspence
be invited back.
00:34:17
Ciderspence
I think if you can just kind of roll with the punches and still play the play the game, I think that's a big component of that.
00:34:26
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Well, let's let's switch over to Dex on Deck. Yeah, tell me about what you what you got there.
00:34:34
Ciderspence
All right, well, my Karai deck is ready to go.
00:34:37
Zachary Jeblonski
Karai.
00:34:39
Ciderspence
So I'll read this again. Karai, Future of the Foot.
00:34:46
Zachary Jeblonski
How do you spell Karai?
00:34:46
Ciderspence
She's a 3-3 human ninja, K-A-R-A-I.
00:34:46
Zachary Jeblonski
Karai.
00:34:50
Ciderspence
She's a 3-3 human ninja with sneak 2 white black. Sneak is you may cast a spell for work. Sneak cost if you also return an unblocked attacker you control to hand during the declare blockers step. She enters tapped and attacking.
00:35:05
Ciderspence
Whenever she deals combat damage to a player, return target creature card from your graveyard to your hand. If her sneak cost was paid this turn, instead return that card to the battlefield.
00:35:14
Zachary Jeblonski
time
00:35:16
Ciderspence
So this deck is trying to do one specific thing. I've built it almost exclusively around land cyclers. And so the goal is...
00:35:23
Zachary Jeblonski
Interesting.
00:35:25
Ciderspence
Turn two. So I've got three turns. Turn two, turn three, and turn four. I need an evasive creature. They're almost exclusively tiny flyers.
00:35:38
Ciderspence
So I need one of those. I need landcycler to go to the graveyard. And then on turn four, I hit somebody with a bird. i return it to hand and put a landcycler into play for free.
00:35:53
Ciderspence
That's it. That's what the deck is trying to do. It's not powerful.
00:35:56
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:35:57
Ciderspence
It's not great. It's not the way the built deck's built now. It's not overly leveraged. It's not extremely repeatable because she can only do it if her sneak cost was paid, which can only happen when she's being cast.
00:36:11
Ciderspence
which is Which is fine. there're like Like so many things in Magic, right? There are ways around it. But I think i don't think, I don't even think it's an intelligent thing. It's like, I don't want to do the research to find the right balance.
00:36:22
Ciderspence
This this kind of suffers from the Chun-Li problem, right? Where like, there's a line of text that is so amazing, but the setup for it is so expensive.
00:36:25
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:36:30
Ciderspence
And the... the The hit you take if it gets interrupted is so massive that like you just have to be really meticulous about putting together a deck that accounts for all the possibilities.
00:36:36
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:36:43
Ciderspence
And I have not done that. Instead, I've put all the land cyclers I could find in the deck. And I hope to get one of them out sometime on turn four. That would be sweet. There are some things I can do if I get some big big dummies on the board.
00:36:57
Ciderspence
But none of them, I think, are going to create a board state that makes me the threat at any point. But that's OK. I'm excited to just play this deck and move on.
00:37:11
Ciderspence
because I think the character's cool. I wanna give her a chance to shine, sounds like an exaggeration, but to exist.
00:37:19
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah
00:37:20
Ciderspence
And yeah, I feel like I built it in a way that was fun. actually thought about trying to go way too hard and find a copy of whatever the the base, not the basic, but the alpha beta black white swamp planes is.
00:37:39
Ciderspence
Brushland, maybe?
00:37:40
Zachary Jeblonski
Brushland, I think, maybe?
00:37:41
Ciderspence
Yeah, because I don't have one. None of my local shops have one. It's it's expensive, but I've got stuff I could trade for it or whatever. I could just buy one or whatever.
00:37:48
Zachary Jeblonski
I mean, you're talking about putting an original duel in there?
00:37:52
Ciderspence
just I was looking for it because the cost is so high of running... i think I'm running 16 Swamp and Plane Cycler's.
00:38:00
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, you mean you need the type.
00:38:01
Ciderspence
So I need i need the types.
00:38:02
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:38:04
Ciderspence
So it's like it's either...
00:38:05
Zachary Jeblonski
And you have all the other ones, like the the one that cycles, like because there's several duels that have types on them.
00:38:09
Ciderspence
I think I have each other one.
00:38:11
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:38:11
Ciderspence
Yeah, I think there are five total. I think I have the other four.
00:38:15
Zachary Jeblonski
Gotcha.
00:38:16
Ciderspence
And they i i consider these land cyclers kind of like lands. So I'm running 44 quote air quote lands, but 16 of them are these land cyclers.
00:38:28
Ciderspence
And so only so many of them can be basics and get my colors. So that the incremental advantage of having another duel would just be really high in a stack.
00:38:37
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, unfortunately that incremental advantage, I think comes with like a $700 price tag.
00:38:38
Ciderspence
So...
00:38:43
Ciderspence
Yeah. So...
00:38:45
Zachary Jeblonski
Let's see what's grumbling at.
00:38:45
Ciderspence
But anyway...
00:38:46
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, it's not that high. Okay. Well, no, there's yeah, it's 550 ish. Okay.
00:38:51
Ciderspence
Yeah. But... But yeah, i like like I said, i I put it together. I think it's now... i Oh, I tried to play a spell table game with it, and I mauled to four and still had one land.
00:39:03
Ciderspence
And so... that was when I i think it had 42 lands. And that's when I realized I played through that game. Although as a weird quirk, I wound up getting eliminated really early because I had to leave because I forgot to take my child to a class.
00:39:17
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah
00:39:19
Ciderspence
well, even more hilariously, I got back pretty fast because the class was close by and then the game was over and I got to hear the people being salty about it by the end of the game, which was, which was their right. My bad guys. That was, that was on me. I'm sorry that the game wasn't as fun as it otherwise might've been.
00:39:35
Ciderspence
But yeah, it didn't occur to me that with that many land cyclers in my land spots, I need to up the land count because I still need to have two actual lands by turn two.
00:39:44
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah
00:39:48
Ciderspence
Because otherwise, I can't even cycle... the creature to get another land. I also need to get the other two Lord of the Rings cyclers which cycle for one because that kind of those play more like a traditional land where like at least out i i I will almost always have one land.
00:39:59
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:40:07
Ciderspence
So if I have one land and one of those guys that functions as if it were two lands. But yeah, anyway, I think from what I've said, this sounds this sounds about as strong as it is, right? Like it's it's not a good deck. I don't think it's going to do much, but I think it's it's playable and I think it will be fun to play. And once I've played it, I think I can stop thinking about putting it together and playing it.
00:40:29
Ciderspence
And I'm excited to do it the best I can in this direction.
Zach's Valgavoth Deck Insights
00:40:34
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah Yeah, that that commander reminds me.
00:40:36
Ciderspence
But I'm also excited to stop thinking about it and think about stuff that I think will be more effective and maybe more fun.
00:40:43
Zachary Jeblonski
so I think you could you can build a commander like Karai as like I'm trying to figure out the best way explain it is basically she is another example of what you can do with the deck, but she is not with the deck pivots on, right? Like, so if you have like an or resolve reanimator deck, you could run her as the commander and she's one of many ways you have to reanimate. Right. You know, so it's kind of like, you know once you do her one thing and she does the thing, then you can like forget about her right until she dies or something.
00:41:14
Zachary Jeblonski
Because I'm trying to think if I have any commanders that are like that right now. But I have built commander decks like that, where the commander does one specific thing the deck likes to do, but the whole deck doesn't revolve around it.
00:41:26
Zachary Jeblonski
And those can be strong in their own way, because when people spend their resources to get rid of your commander, because they think that's like the backbone of your game plan, it's just like, yeah, okay. I have like 12 other ways to reanimate. I didn't need her, so okay.
00:41:41
Ciderspence
Yeah, I think that's the... There are a couple. Yeah, that's I think that's the... Again, that that like that goes back to the problem. like How many of those do I have? I have a few other ways of reanimating. right I've got Rodolf Duskbringer, who I have in a very similar deck, who like brings things back. You have to pay...
00:41:59
Ciderspence
to bring things back, mana value up to the amount of life you gain. But it's like, I don't have that much other life gain in the deck.
00:42:05
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:42:05
Ciderspence
There's some, but not enough to make that a great strategy. I've got Abyssal Harvester, which can return something to the battlefield if it went to the graveyard this turn.
00:42:13
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, like Epistle Harvester, yeah.
00:42:15
Ciderspence
And I've got... I think there's maybe one. Oh, I've got Shoeyfeet who can just tap to bring stuff back from the graveyard with no keywords or with no abilities.
00:42:25
Ciderspence
So that will work also in a pinch. But again, like... this deck is just so hungry for the stuff it's hungry for. Like I kind of have to have ramp because the turn I'm dreaming of costs so much mana.
00:42:36
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:42:37
Ciderspence
Uh, and I have to have a few ways to bounce her to my hand because otherwise I literally will only get to do this once a game because once she costs six to cast for sneak, it's, it's hard to fit that in, in a game of magic.
00:42:48
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, like that she she's yeah, she's a one slash maybe two and then that's it like two times.
00:42:56
Zachary Jeblonski
I mean, she's a one time and or slash two times, but you know, and like she dies.
00:42:59
Ciderspence
Yeah, she gets answered.
00:43:00
Ciderspence
It's.
00:43:01
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah if she gets answered and and community attacks is up to three at that point or up to six, I guess.
00:43:05
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, she's she's kind of done for the game. Yeah.
00:43:10
Ciderspence
Yeah.
00:43:11
Zachary Jeblonski
Speaking of high mana totals, let me tell you about the highest mana total commander i have just built that that I've been talking about for a while.
00:43:12
Ciderspence
But anyway. Yeah.
00:43:20
Zachary Jeblonski
I did finally put together Valgavoth Terror Eater, which is nine mana. So if you guys, if i know people don't know what this is, this the other Valgavoth, the one that nobody talks about.
00:43:33
Zachary Jeblonski
This is Valga Valterra eater six black, black, black sets three blacks legendary creature, elder demon, find flying lifelink. This one, this part's important ward sacrifice three non land permanence. So a very strong ward.
00:43:47
Zachary Jeblonski
And if a card you didn't control will be put into a great an opponent's graveyard from anywhere. exile instead. And during your turn, you may play cards, exile with Alkavolt. If you cast a spell this way, pay life equal to its mana value rather than pay its mana cost.
00:44:01
Zachary Jeblonski
So sort of like a bowl of Citadel in a way. So I have goldfish the heck out of this deck because like i'm I'm like, how am I going to make this work?
00:44:12
Zachary Jeblonski
so I have, and I, you know, i use, I, I, when I build a deck on like Moxfield, I tag every card with what the card's trying to do. so some of these definitions are a little fuzzy, but I have 17 pieces of ramp and 17 ways to draw cards, which is a lot for my decks.
00:44:30
Zachary Jeblonski
I'm sorry, 18 ways to draw cards, my bad. So I have goldfish sell this a lot. I would say on average, I can get Valgavath out on turn six.
00:44:41
Zachary Jeblonski
and then and then in really lucky situations turn five. And then and I would say at about five to 10% of situations I have to wait till turn seven. So we'll see. will see how this goes.
00:44:53
Zachary Jeblonski
The whole idea is obviously tried to include ramp that was attached to a creature because i imagine going to be taking some beats because I'm not doing anything for so long. So I have our old favorite. I don't know if you ever played this, but this used to be big back in the Burnished Heart, which is a three mana artifact creature that you can spend another three mana to sacrifice and then get two basics on the battlefield.
00:45:15
Zachary Jeblonski
so basically every like colorless creature that gets me a land, you know, your, your sad, your solemn simulacrums, your scampering surveyors, dauntless scrap pots, like anything that's a creature that gets me a land, it goes in the deck. Cause I just need blockers probably because of the beats I'm going to take.
00:45:32
Zachary Jeblonski
and basically once I get the Algovoth out, then I have, uh, these big top end like, strip hands or mass mill. and then as far as my, like my mass discard, one of my favorites that I have included my discard decks that I've never really seen anybody else play uh, Miojin of Knight's Reach.
00:45:54
Zachary Jeblonski
It's an eight mana creature, five and three blacks. If you, it enters with a divinity counter if you cast it from hand, so you can't cheat it in or anything. And then you can remove a Divinity Counter.
00:46:05
Zachary Jeblonski
Each opponent discards their hand. So get Valgavoth out. Get like a Meogenum Knight to reach out. did Have everybody discard all their hands. They all go under Valgavoth. And I assume at that point something happens and I win.
00:46:18
Zachary Jeblonski
haven't figured out what happens at that point. But that's kind of the deck. So yeah. We will see how it goes.
00:46:28
Ciderspence
It feels like if Valkyrievoth resolves and exists until the next turn, the game is probably over.
00:46:33
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:46:36
Zachary Jeblonski
Probably. Like I went so far as i think the only thing I really have, I have a Mal'Qir rebirth, which is just a like instant where the creature dies, it comes back and I have a Kaya's ghost form, but I don't have like anything else in the deck. Like I didn't put like Swifu boots or lightning grease because I'm like,
00:46:55
Zachary Jeblonski
If you're willing to pay that ward cost, then you you deserve to be able to kill Valquod. Like, I don't know what to tell you. cause unless you're playing a token deck, that, about that ward cost is rough, you know?
00:47:09
Zachary Jeblonski
So I don't know, like, yeah, I just, you know, I tried to make it in such a way where it's like, it is very much like this slow moving locomotive that if it, if it, if it happens, that happens.
00:47:18
Zachary Jeblonski
Otherwise, you know, I, you know, like I don't have counter spells, right? Like I don't have ways to like, not like, I don't, I don't have, I don't own a cavern of souls, so I can't make like casting Valkovoth like uncounterable whatever.
00:47:30
Zachary Jeblonski
But all I can do is ramp a lot, draw a lot of cards and hope I resolve him.
00:47:32
Ciderspence
Yeah,
00:47:34
Zachary Jeblonski
That's kind of where it's at.
00:47:37
Ciderspence
yeah interesting. hey it's yeah i mean It's got a bit of Turgrid vibes, but it's so expensive that it's like it feels less, you're less likely to see it twice.
00:47:51
Ciderspence
So it's like, it's like a one hit wonder, right?
00:47:53
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:47:53
Ciderspence
It's like, you're going to get there, you're going to cast it. If you don't die for it, it reminds me more of an Eldrazi deck almost, right? It's like, it's so expensive that you're going to spend a long time ramping, but everybody should understand that if it resolves, you're probably going to win.
00:48:08
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. I mean, it's, it is like a target. Right. And the reason why I'm trying this deck out is because, I do like mono. I don't do like mono black discard. I like that gameplay pattern. I know it's toxic. I know people don't like it, but I like it. I think it's cool.
00:48:22
Zachary Jeblonski
And I haven't found the happy medium yet with any of the any of the discard commanders yet. Like I've tried all the different tiny bones variants. I've never tried Turgid because i've I've been smart enough from the beginning to be like, it's too much.
00:48:35
Zachary Jeblonski
so I'm going to give this one a shot. I mean, like Valgavoth is worse than Turgid. It is almost twice the mana and Turgid's still better because Turgid automatically gives you everything that was like discarded or sacrificed. Yeah.
00:48:48
Zachary Jeblonski
i' algaba that I still have to pay life for those things, you know? so kind of the thing that I can envision happening is by the time I get value on the board or like get back off on the board twice because they it got blown up the first time or something, my life total is going to be some, my probably semi low.
00:49:03
Zachary Jeblonski
And it's going to be hard for me to play all those cards that I'm exiled with value of all of Cause I'm like, right, I'm at 20 life. Do I really want to spend eight mana on this dragon that I had somebody discard, right? You know, so it's going to be interesting.
00:49:17
Zachary Jeblonski
goldfish the heck out of this thing, but like you just, there's no way to really know until I play because like what I exile with Valkavoth is going to change the game. Like if exile nothing but lands or like your kith can get plus three, plus three. Well, whoop-de-doo. Thanks, Valkavoth, you know?
00:49:35
Zachary Jeblonski
oh, so we'll say I'm excited to say it, you know, it's very much like I've never built a commander or this expensive, especially in commander with, and with no green.
00:49:44
Ciderspence
Yeah. Yeah, I'm curious.
00:49:47
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. I mean, like, I really, and you know, me my version, the matter rock. So like, I'm like, all right, how else can I ramp in black without matter rocks? And I'm like, I guess,
00:49:55
Ciderspence
I think there's some mana rocks you're okay with, right? And I think those would apply here. Like Skyclave Relic seems like it would be great in this deck.
00:50:02
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:50:02
Ciderspence
Interesting.
00:50:03
Zachary Jeblonski
I, I, I don't even like skyclay relic that much. I don't, I don't have it in this deck though. Really the only manor rock that survives nowadays is thought vessel. That's like the only one really, just because I, just because I think what it, the, the, the no maximum hand size is really big for me.
00:50:12
Ciderspence
Interesting.
00:50:18
Ciderspence
Yep.
00:50:18
Ciderspence
Yep.
00:50:19
Zachary Jeblonski
but yeah, like, so it's like, uh, black market connections, burnished hearts, uh, crypt ghast, which is a creature, but it's like worth the risk.
00:50:29
Zachary Jeblonski
I have an extra planar lens with snow covered swamps, you know? Oh, here's a, here's one. I realm breaker. Remember that? This is the one where you, it's a, it's a three mana artifact and you can pay two and tap it.
00:50:41
Zachary Jeblonski
And then target opponent mills three cards. And then if there's a land card in their graveyard, you put it on the battlefield on your, but your tapped.
00:50:48
Ciderspence
Hmm.
00:50:49
Zachary Jeblonski
And i used to run this all the time and it would work like 50% of the time.
00:50:49
Ciderspence
Okay, nice.
00:50:54
Zachary Jeblonski
Cause like you would, nobody would have a land in their graveyard and then you would mill somebody and they wouldn't mill a And you're like, well, that was a good five minutes i spent. so I'm running that. Yeah. So just basically like, yeah, the only amount of rock, oh, I'm sorry. You're right. There is another manner, uh, thrown of Eldrins in there as well.
00:51:11
Zachary Jeblonski
but yeah, it's, I have a couple, like,
00:51:12
Ciderspence
I love throwing the bell drain so much.
00:51:14
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, it's such a good card, and I only own one copy of it because it's so expensive, but I think black is where I think I use it the most. Yeah, and I have a couple of like, I have like Crick, Son of Yawgmoth, and I do have turgred in the 99 as well.
00:51:31
Zachary Jeblonski
So I have like backup commanders, like a al really like if but if I'm not dead and Valkyrie's been killed like three times, then like, okay, these are my backups kind of thing. we'll we'll see how it goes I mean, if I'm allowed to keep Algovoth and allowed to hit with him, he has got lifelink so like that'll that'll be the snowball-y time when like things are going get dangerous because like as I'm getting 9 life every turn that's just letting me cast spells that affects out and it'll just it'll just go from there or I'll just be dead, either way
00:51:59
Ciderspence
Let offer you some offbeat ramp
Card Inclusions and Weekly Highlights
00:52:00
Ciderspence
options.
00:52:01
Zachary Jeblonski
what's that?
00:52:02
Ciderspence
There are, I'm seeing one, two. Okay, just two. There are two mono black avatar cards that let you earth bend.
00:52:14
Ciderspence
So if you are running any fetch lands, you could earth bend them and have them return and get to fetch again.
00:52:14
Zachary Jeblonski
oh
00:52:19
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, you're right.
00:52:21
Ciderspence
Dylee Indoctrination is one and Fatal Fissure is the other.
00:52:26
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah, Dylee Indoctrination. That also has It's a discard spell of a sort, yeah. Yeah, I just need to have i have... I don't know if I... And then what was the other one? Dylee Indoctrination, what was the other one?
00:52:40
Ciderspence
Fatal Fissure, F-I-S-S-U-R-E.
00:52:42
Zachary Jeblonski
Fatal Fisher. Yeah. Oh, okay. Interesting.
00:52:51
Zachary Jeblonski
Might be worth considering. I think I'll i think i'll try and test run this deck a little bit. I don't think I have any fetches in there right now. I have bounces, but don't have any fetches, but it might be something worth considering.
00:53:00
Ciderspence
And are you running the landscape, you're running coffers and...
00:53:04
Zachary Jeblonski
No, I don't own any of the fancy black lands.
00:53:08
Ciderspence
Gotcha. Do you own any of the less fancy, like Cabal Stronghold, or...
00:53:11
Zachary Jeblonski
Nope. Nah, just never got never forgot around the buying those.
00:53:13
Ciderspence
Gotcha.
00:53:15
Zachary Jeblonski
I am running, I do own one copy of Mazavith and I'm running that, but I don't consider that a land. I consider that like a spell, so I don't use it for my land count.
00:53:24
Ciderspence
Gotcha.
00:53:26
Zachary Jeblonski
Because I'm like, people are going to be hitting me. Yeah.
00:53:31
Ciderspence
Yeah, I kind of hope these decks get to face off against each other, because I feel like they're both...
00:53:36
Ciderspence
let's see type of decks versus versus the decks that you want to bring to a pod of strangers where you're not sure quite what the vibe is going to be like there's a there's a good chance that uh that you never get to cast your commander at one of those games right uh or that my commander gets answered and i don't get to do anything the rest of the game at one of those tables that's fine you know again that is commander baby but
00:53:37
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, it's very much like that.
00:53:50
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep, there's a good chance. Yeah.
00:53:58
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Yeah.
00:54:01
Ciderspence
Also, part of the part of the experience is putting together deck and not being sure what's going to happen, but hopefully getting to play it at a table where you get to see what it's like before you die, or maybe win under the absolute best of circumstances.
00:54:13
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Yeah.
00:54:16
Ciderspence
But you know again, it's back to that gambling thing. yeah I think you want to feel like your deck has a shot, and sometimes it just doesn't.
00:54:22
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. I mean, like. And I guess, I guess I'll use this opportunity. I'm going to use my transition this because I'm going talk about my card of the week. because it is in dog vault and I have actually seen at work a couple of times now.
00:54:37
Zachary Jeblonski
Uh, it's off nab goat. That's from the commander set from lower wind eclipse. so this is one of my card draw in Valgaval and I've, and I've run it in a couple of decks and it works pretty well. So I like the design of it. it's off nab goad. It's one in a black, uh, it's a creature goat zero five, one mana draw card, gain control of this creature and put a negative one, one on it.
00:55:01
Zachary Jeblonski
Only your opponents may activate this ability and only as a sorcery. And when the creature dies, if it had one or more negative ones on it, its owner draws that many cards and each other player loses that much life.
00:55:13
Zachary Jeblonski
And I think consistently every time I've played this, my opponents have activated it and it's died and I've gotten, you know, the life, I've gotten the draw with the life loss.
00:55:24
Zachary Jeblonski
I like this card. I mean, like, and, and, and everyone seems to be chill with it too. Like, yeah, the owner draws more cards than everybody else. If it dies, you know, with, you know, a bunch of plus ones on, a bunch negative ones on there.
00:55:36
Zachary Jeblonski
But everyone got to draw cards along the way. and yeah, i don't know. I think it's just a fun commander card, right? Like, it's a little something for everybody.
00:55:45
Zachary Jeblonski
don't know. It's been nice.
00:55:47
Ciderspence
I think this card is very well very well designed for casual play.
00:55:51
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:55:52
Ciderspence
It's kind of something that helps the table, but it definitely helps the controller. But it's it's kind of easy to to be cool about. I've seen people snipe it at the end so its owner doesn't get to draw the cards.
00:56:05
Ciderspence
I guess that's a feel bad, but but yeah, I mean, it's not...
00:56:05
Zachary Jeblonski
That's fine. It's two mana.
00:56:08
Ciderspence
I don't know.
00:56:10
Zachary Jeblonski
To me, it's like so inoffensive.
00:56:11
Ciderspence
Yeah.
00:56:11
Zachary Jeblonski
you know
00:56:12
Ciderspence
Yeah.
00:56:13
Zachary Jeblonski
But yeah, like yeah if you want if you want to burn your sword supply share so I don't get my card draw, like that's also a win.
00:56:13
Ciderspence
Yeah, I like that card.
00:56:19
Ciderspence
That's right.
00:56:20
Zachary Jeblonski
like Because now you're not burning it on my Valgaboth.
00:56:26
Ciderspence
Yep.
00:56:28
Zachary Jeblonski
Do you want to grab your card of the week real quick as we kind of get to the end here?
00:56:32
Ciderspence
Yeah, I think the only card of the week I wanted to shout out
00:56:36
Ciderspence
was Selfless Spirit. I played a Black Panther game on Wednesday at a shop, and it was pretty fun.
00:56:38
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:56:45
Ciderspence
i lost... uh, after taking out the biggest threat at the table, which I kind of did eyes open knowing that that was a possibility.
00:56:56
Ciderspence
but a card that helped me a lot was selfless spirit, which is
00:57:02
Zachary Jeblonski
It is...
00:57:03
Ciderspence
a two, one flyer with sacrifice. This creature creatures you control gain indestructible until under turn.
00:57:10
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Yeah.
00:57:10
Ciderspence
So it's board protection. But it also flies, which comes into play much more often than one might think. So the Black Panther deck has a lot counter proliferation stuff.
00:57:21
Ciderspence
Black Panther says whenever a creature or Black Panther enters, put a 1-1 counter on a land, and then you can put you can pay three and remove all the counters from a land and put them on a creature and then gain that much life and draw a card.
00:57:36
Ciderspence
So I was able to protect my board against the threat, although it did get wiped after that. But then I brought it back. And then once I brought back Panther back, I just made it big and it swung through for lethal against the threat.
00:57:49
Zachary Jeblonski
Nice.
00:57:50
Ciderspence
So I like the kind of versatility of, you know, I. It's a good example of the type of card I look for now in all decks, which is just like, it's able to function on more than one axis, right? Like I think this being evasive in a counter, in a, you can put counters on a creature deck is just really valuable.
00:58:11
Ciderspence
In addition to the board protection you get from being able to make all your other creatures indestructible. So yeah, it played a pretty big role in that game. And it was my card of the week.
Episode Wrap-Up and Farewells
00:58:20
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, no, I, Celso's Spirit is really cool. I've had it work a couple times and, I don't really have a term for these cards, but these are like, kind of like, these are what I call like the cards with the loaded guns sitting on the board, meaning that like everybody can see what it does and it can be activated at any time. So now the whole game starts to warp around it.
00:58:39
Zachary Jeblonski
Like, Another good example of this is Nevral's disc where it's like at any point in time, the controller can board wipe. And so everyone starts playing differently with that, with that, basically that loaded gun on, on the table.
00:58:53
Zachary Jeblonski
and self spirits kind of like that, right? Like everyone's looking at that and be like, is he going pop it? If I play this board, like, will he pop it? If I play this removal spell, will he pop it? Like, you know, like you just kind of like, uh, and I kind of like cards like that.
00:59:05
Ciderspence
Yeah, I would argue that they they're similar in a way, but they're different in a way. like I would consider Devdisc along the lines of... What's the three mana one?
00:59:15
Zachary Jeblonski
Cause remember you had, you had this like really obscure red burn one. Remember that from like couple months ago. And that was very similar where I was like the whole time i'm like looking at like, are gonna pop it?
00:59:21
Ciderspence
Yes. Song of something.
00:59:24
Zachary Jeblonski
You're gonna pop it. you like
00:59:27
Ciderspence
Yep. And I think you were probably the only one who paid attention to it's song, I think it was.
00:59:29
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, I was the only one who paid attention to it. Yeah.
00:59:32
Ciderspence
Yeah.
00:59:34
Ciderspence
But again, that one's like, that does damage to a target. Things that blow up the whole board are kind of unique in that because they impact everyone, it it really bogs the game down. it's more I think of those more like like an aura shards or something where it's like everybody knows that all their stuff is going to get popped.
00:59:49
Ciderspence
so it's like Or the things that make you sacrifice a creature on your upkeep. stuff like Stuff that nobody wants to play anything because they know it's just immediately going to get dealt with.
00:59:53
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:59:58
Ciderspence
until that threat is gone. Whereas selfless spirit is like, it does make you think extra hard about board wipes, but you can otherwise basically play your game.
01:00:00
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah
01:00:08
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah
01:00:08
Ciderspence
And if anything, it maybe makes you feel better about not having the board be wiped because you you think until at least at least until that thing gets answered, nobody would wipe the board because then that puts that player ahead.
01:00:21
Ciderspence
So unless maybe that player going to wipe the board, i don't know.
01:00:22
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. It's interesting. It's a good card. i like it. But yeah, I think that brings us to the end.
01:00:27
Ciderspence
Yeah.
01:00:29
Zachary Jeblonski
Do you have anything else you want to talk about before we wrap it up?
01:00:33
Ciderspence
No, I'm good here.
01:00:34
Zachary Jeblonski
Cool. Yeah. As usual, we, we struggle to think about what we're going to talk about and then we turn around and it's over an hour every time.
01:00:40
Ciderspence
Every time.
01:00:42
Zachary Jeblonski
Well, thanks for joining me again, Charles. And thanks again for joining me listeners. Until next time, this is midlife crisis.
01:00:51
Ciderspence
Yes, it is.
01:00:52
Zachary Jeblonski
Yes, it is. i don't know. I don't know. don't know what I'm doing for outro. I'm just going to play the music and hopefully it makes it go go away. The awkwardness.
01:00:59
Ciderspence
Take easy, Zach. Make it easy, everybody.