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Ep. 35 - Reality Fracture
19 Plays2 months ago
Unfortunate gaffs aside, this is a pretty mild mannered episode. Yeah....
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Transcript
Introductions and 'Boss Rush' Analogies
00:00:12
Zachary Jeblonski
Hello, hello. Welcome to another episode of Midlife's Crisis. I am joined. I'm Zach. and I'm joined again by Charles.
00:00:18
Ciderspence
How's it going,
00:00:30
Zachary Jeblonski
did Did you do you play many video games or have you played many video games in the past?
00:00:34
Ciderspence
I did when I was a lot younger, but I haven't played many as an adult.
00:00:40
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. yeah There's this concept called like the boss rush is like, it's a concept in video games and usually comes at the end of a video game where like you have to fight a bunch of hard enemies in a row, basically back to back.
00:00:53
Zachary Jeblonski
and I was like, man, finally, it's just like the boss rush of of schooling. and I'm sure I'm the only person who had this original thought in the whole world. I'm going to lay claim to it, copyright, trademarked, and all that stuff. so but My brain is mush.
00:01:09
Zachary Jeblonski
How's your brain doing?
00:01:14
Ciderspence
Pretty average, which I think is also mush.
00:01:16
Zachary Jeblonski
What?
00:01:18
Ciderspence
But yeah, feeling good.
00:01:19
Zachary Jeblonski
That's it. Well, let's, uh, why don't we
Wemby's Performance and Video Game Parallels
00:01:22
Zachary Jeblonski
hop right into it? That's, I mean, like when I say bring mush is like, that's the best I got for cold open guys. You're just going to have to take that. yeah.
00:01:30
Ciderspence
Yeah, my I think my version of the boss rush is NBA playoff season.
00:01:36
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh geez.
00:01:36
Ciderspence
where I stay up late. I think for the first few rounds, they bill it as 40 games 40 nights.
00:01:44
Ciderspence
uh and a lot of those games start on the east coast at 10 o'clock and end at you know 12 30 or one o'clock so i most years will take it on myself to watch almost all the games if i can so for months i will just kind of be a zombie and so i'm towards the end of the 10 o'clock game every night phase so i'm i'm starting to get out of the fog but yeah i've been
00:01:44
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, geez.
00:01:51
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:02:12
Ciderspence
worse than worse than usual for for a few months now too
00:02:16
Zachary Jeblonski
Well, I appreciate the dedication and and, and, and I know very little about sports and the NBA in general, but I do know a lot of clamor about, uh, Wemby. How's Wemby doing?
00:02:28
Ciderspence
uh he is very good he's doing well this is his first playoffs and he is performing well above expectation and
00:02:37
Zachary Jeblonski
Even above the expectations you guys had, like, like, cause the expectations are pretty high from, from our discussions.
00:02:43
Ciderspence
Yeah, I would think of it as like a standard player playing commander for the first time, where like Wemby is a young player, but he's obviously a very good player. He's an MVP candidate this season, but this was his first playoffs and his team's first playoffs. So it is the same game, but it's kind of a different format. Like the game's a lot more physical.
00:03:04
Ciderspence
There's a lot more pressure than you're used to. Maybe tournament play is a more appropriate analog, but I think...
00:03:10
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Gotcha.
00:03:11
Ciderspence
It is most common for rookies and first teams sit in their first year in the playoffs to struggle just to deal with the pressurization of the playoffs, the different level of physicality of the playoffs.
00:03:24
Ciderspence
And the Spurs have not really struggled.
00:03:25
Zachary Jeblonski
got yeah
00:03:27
Ciderspence
They've kind of taken it. The Spurs are Wimby's team. They've kind taken it in stride, and they're they're doing great. So they're in the conference finals, two rounds away from the championship if they were to win the next two.
00:03:38
Ciderspence
so yeah, they're doing great. he's He's pretty good.
00:03:40
Zachary Jeblonski
Now, he threatening to destroy the entire game? As some people have said, is that still on the table?
00:03:48
Ciderspence
I think there's an argument to be made that if he wins the championship this year in his what second or third year in the league, his first year in the playoffs, then I think there could be legitimate concern for the rest of the league, kind of similar to what there was with there was a Golden State Warriors team about a decade ago now that was kind of legendary for the fact that the rest of the the league just didn't really have much of a chance. I think the Spurs could approach that territory if they finish the job this year because, again, it's it's very uncommon for a team in its first try at the playoffs to do this well.
00:04:25
Ciderspence
And so, yeah, it's on the table.
00:04:25
Zachary Jeblonski
Gotcha.
Humor and Sponsorship Jokes
00:04:27
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. Interesting. All right. I, I'm, I will stay tangentially informed and I'll, we'll keep an eye on the NBA situation as I'll, I'll call it from the war room here.
00:04:38
Ciderspence
Midlife's Crisis brought to you by FanDuel.
00:04:38
Zachary Jeblonski
All right.
00:04:40
Ciderspence
No, I'm just kidding.
00:04:41
Zachary Jeblonski
i I mean, no lie. Like, you know, ri reality Kings or what? No, not ri reality Kings. What's the other one?
00:04:46
Ciderspence
Definitely not Reality Kings. Maybe DraftKings?
00:04:48
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah that's the one. Yeah. Kings. I was like, I know reality Kings. Isn't it right? They're not, they're not doing both.
00:04:54
Ciderspence
Not them.
00:04:54
Zachary Jeblonski
They're not double dipping. Are they?
00:04:58
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, I think I know what the podcast title is. draft Kings.
00:05:03
Ciderspence
Folks, that's about overlap. Double dipping is about overlap. We we talk about this topic periodically. We're just going to bring you back. don't Just get your minds out of wherever they are.
00:05:13
Zachary Jeblonski
I honestly thought it was that when I said it. man. All right, FanDuel, DraftKings, you know, whatever you guys want. You know, like, look, I'm for sale. I can't speak for my counterpart, but I am, you know.
00:05:28
Ciderspence
As long as you'll pay the one. As long as you'll pay the one.
00:05:30
Zachary Jeblonski
Yes. Oh, man. Wait a minute. If Ristic Study is part of the deal, i don't want nothing to do with it. All right. let's Let's get into some...
00:05:38
Ciderspence
Now that's your cold open, folks.
Magic: The Gathering - Deck Strategies
00:05:40
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Oh boy. woke me up. all right, let's get into, uh, let's get into the magic. we're, we we always always start with the the games that we've been playing. or we have played, uh, I've got, i basically have my two games on a Thursday and that's, that's what I got. you know, finals week being what it is.
00:06:02
Zachary Jeblonski
do you have any games for, since last time we talked?
00:06:05
Ciderspence
Yeah, I had three games on Wednesday, and then I played one spell table game last night.
00:06:10
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. Yeah, I guess I'll start off one of mine, and then we'll scoot over to yours.
00:06:16
Ciderspence
You got it.
00:06:17
Zachary Jeblonski
i had the the inaugural game of my new red-green deck, which I think I mentioned last week, which is, i forget what it is, a little post-comma thing. Tanook, or Tanook, or Tanook, whatever. T-A-N-N-U-K, Memorial Ensign, one green-red,
00:06:37
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, he's got landfall whenever a land enters a battlefield under my control, deals a damage to each opponent, and if it's the second time this ability is resolved, i draw a card. So real simple, straightforward design. Just play lands and then try to play at least two lands on every turn, including your opponent's turns. So you can try to maximize that card draw off of him.
00:06:56
Zachary Jeblonski
And yeah, I mean, it performed well. I ended up winning the game. But I think what was more interesting than than this deck was the environment that I walked into on Thursday. so you know, the store I went to, you're familiar with it, Charles, but they do, you know, kind of random pod seeding.
00:07:16
Ciderspence
Yep.
00:07:17
Zachary Jeblonski
And I sat down and two, I was the, like the fourth player sit down. So there are three people were there already. And the two of the people were at it already before the game even started, like arguing back and forth.
00:07:31
Zachary Jeblonski
And essentially it came down to, we'll call him player B. Player B had a deck that he wanted to play that was claiming to be bracket three. And then player a was like, no, I've played against you many times. This is not bracket three, this is bracket four.
00:07:45
Zachary Jeblonski
And so me and the remaining player were kind of like, oh, we're just going to play our decks and whatever happens, happens. And we got into a pretty lengthy discussion in the middle of the game because player B with the bracket three slash bracket four deck i definitely had a bracket four deck probably.
00:08:09
Zachary Jeblonski
And it turned into this whole discussion.
00:08:10
Ciderspence
Now, let me just ask here, what what made it definitely a bracket for?
00:08:11
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:08:14
Ciderspence
Was this just more game changers than is obviously allowed, or was it the spirit of what the deck was trying to do?
00:08:20
Zachary Jeblonski
Wow, what a segue, Charles. Like, yeah, so that's what we're going to get into. So the play player B, whether it was in good faith or not, and I can't say which it actually was, was was genuinely confused as why his deck would be bracket four and not bracket three, right?
00:08:36
Zachary Jeblonski
and it came out, it started off as a question of like, well, well, is this certain cards? What card should I, read he literally said, what card should I remove to make it bracket three? And I started answering the question and then I got, and then i it dawned on me. was like, this is not a,
00:08:50
Zachary Jeblonski
card issue, right? Because like, if you throw, you know, if you throw a black Lotus in my, in my sheep, like Kindred deck, it's still a bad deck, right?
00:09:02
Zachary Jeblonski
Like black Lotus doesn't make the deck like a bracket four deck. Right.
00:09:05
Ciderspence
Right.
00:09:06
Zachary Jeblonski
and so, so, uh, some example of cards he had, he had mocks opal. So this is an in spirit deck. So it's the Jess guy pre con, ship spaceship deck gives all of his artifacts instructable,
00:09:18
Zachary Jeblonski
and so he had Mox Opal, he had a metal worker, he had, he had a force of will. He had, I'm just really running through all the ones I remember here.
00:09:29
Zachary Jeblonski
a lot of cards where as soon as I see like unwinding clock, you know, just a lot, a lot of cards that when you, when I see them, I'm like, yeah, I know what's going on here.
00:09:40
Zachary Jeblonski
and and, I, and I, what, what I came down to is I told him, I was like, look, it's not about the specific cards. It's about like what the deck does. And what I mean by that is like,
00:09:51
Zachary Jeblonski
you know, it's more about consistency to me than anything else. Like if every time you sit down and play your deck, it does the same thing or similar things. And it's able to secure the game or win the game in a very predictable pattern every single time.
00:10:05
Zachary Jeblonski
That's probably a bracket for deck. and then later on in that pot, he said the magic phrase and we, we collectively as a pop were like, there you go. Which was, I don't understand. i just want to play the best of the best cards.
00:10:20
Zachary Jeblonski
And the entire pod goes, that's bracket four. it'
00:10:25
Ciderspence
Yeah, that is actually bracket four.
00:10:27
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, that's like, he literally said it, like and everybody just stopped and was like, that's bracket four. Like, what do you mean? And it was this it was a really interesting experience. Like, he ended up losing, and I honestly don't know if he threw, you know, because he was he felt whatever way about whatever his deck or not. I don't think he threw. I think
Commander Deck Building Challenges
00:10:47
Zachary Jeblonski
we the three of us just basically exhausted his resources because the three of us basically ganged up on the whole game, and it took all three of us to take him down, to be honest Like, even though I won, it was not like, you know, it was, it was definitely a team effort to like, take this guy down.
00:11:01
Zachary Jeblonski
You know, we asked how many counter spells he runs in the deck. and he said nine. yes.
00:11:06
Ciderspence
Oh goodness.
00:11:08
Zachary Jeblonski
And they're all the good ones too. Like of them, like swans on force of negation, our pact of negation, force of will, like all those were in there for guardian chip. Like, you know, like it's a bracket for deck, you know, like,
00:11:21
Zachary Jeblonski
you know So it was it was a very tense game. the The other player, he stayed for the whole pot game. He was the first, the the the let's say player A, the one that was arguing with him to begin with. He left the second that game was done. He was like, I'm out. like I'm not playing with you again, you know kind of thing. i I ended up playing with him again because I was just like, I don't care. I just want to get games in at this point.
00:11:41
Zachary Jeblonski
But it was a very interesting experience.
00:11:41
Ciderspence
Now, what did that player play in game two? Was it a different deck? Was it similar? was it...
00:11:46
Zachary Jeblonski
So he it definitely i didn't get this he definitely struggled in game two. He played Kenrith, which i he also was like, yes is probably if you guys thought that was bracket four, this is probably also bracket four. I was like, okay.
00:11:59
Zachary Jeblonski
But the Kenrith deck seemed a lot more fair to me. like I didn't see him really put anything out that like I found... bracket four ish, to be honest.
00:12:10
Zachary Jeblonski
and I'm, I'm like struggling to think of anything like the most he did was he put out, I forget what card it was, but it lowered activation costs by like two. So like his Kenrith abilities were pretty strong.
00:12:21
Ciderspence
Hearthstone?
00:12:23
Zachary Jeblonski
i don't think it was Hearthstone and I don't think it was Training Grounds.
00:12:24
Ciderspence
Oh, is it the white blue one? Was it a white red one? Zerta?
00:12:29
Zachary Jeblonski
No, it wasn't Training Grounds. It wasn't Hearthstone. It wasn't, I don't know what it was to be honest. I can't remember.
00:12:34
Ciderspence
OK.
00:12:36
Zachary Jeblonski
But yeah, like, so, you know, he was gaining, like, 30 life a turn because I think Kenrose's, like, white ability has gained five life and he could lower down to, like, one white kind of thing.
00:12:46
Zachary Jeblonski
So, like, but, like, I didn't see him do anything absurd. I thought that was much more of a bracket three deck than his first one. anda And he ended up losing that game as well, so...
00:12:55
Ciderspence
Hello. Thank you.
00:12:59
Ciderspence
Very interesting.
00:13:00
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, so like I think the yeah that was that was the most interesting part of the game. Tanook did what Tanook did. i ended up doming people for six damage of landfall you know because I stacked up a bunch of damage multipliers and eventually ended the game. But that was really like... That was just me like...
00:13:17
Zachary Jeblonski
you know, climbing out of the rubble of the game and planting my flag and just being the last one standing. That was more or less what that's what I was at that game. but yeah, like, so, so whenever, if anybody out there gets into those embroiled in those discussions of what makes a racket four deck versus bracket three, just remember the phrase.
00:13:34
Zachary Jeblonski
I just want to run the best cards I can.
00:13:37
Zachary Jeblonski
So yeah, that was a, that was that game.
00:13:38
Ciderspence
Yeah, that's
00:13:41
Ciderspence
nice.
00:13:43
Zachary Jeblonski
Do you want to hit us up with one of yours?
00:13:45
Ciderspence
I do. I'm wondering if maybe you should get your other game
00:13:51
Zachary Jeblonski
By handle situation.
00:13:51
Ciderspence
a little more clear. Yeah, my daughter's here.
00:13:53
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:13:53
Ciderspence
I'm just going to, we could just vamp a little bit. I think I can go for it.
00:13:56
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, I got, I got some solo time ready. All right. right. Welcome to Zach's Fireside Chat. We're going to talk about, going save the second game for when Charles gets back.
00:14:09
Zachary Jeblonski
But I'm going to talk about, I'm gonna expound on an idea that I've been floating by is trying to focus more on commanders that do less or at least make you work harder for the victories. Right? So we, I just talked about Tanook and Tanook is like kind of the opposite of this problem where Tanook requires very little of you to get the job done. mean, he really literally only requires that you play lands and, and the slight effort that is been required into playing two lands a turn. That's really all Tanook's requiring of you. So it is very much like a,
00:14:42
Zachary Jeblonski
a kind of like opposite one talking about. So what I'm, what I've been talking about is commanders that make it work for. and an example of this and, and is i was thinking about building.
00:14:55
Zachary Jeblonski
and so this is less of a prototype and more of an idea is a cayenne corrupted memory deck. And this is a commander that I think is very much opposite of Tanook. And so Kyan Corrupted Memory is a semi commander, two green and a blue. It's a legendary creature in Illusion.
00:15:14
Zachary Jeblonski
And as long as Kyan's power is even, you may cast non-creature spells as though they have flash. And as long as Kayan's power is odd, you may cast creature spells as though they flash. And then whenever you draw a card, Kayan gets a plus one, plus one.
00:15:27
Zachary Jeblonski
So this is kind of a deck that requires your attention. it requires you to plan ahead. And the payoff is good, but it is not going to win you the game on its own. Just playing your spells at instant speed does not automatically win you a game.
00:15:41
Zachary Jeblonski
And there's actually very little, i would say, based on my, unless you're in Dimir, and even in Dimir, it's still a little little, like, scarce. But there's very there's very little, like, flash payoffs in Magic, in my opinion, that just win you the game because of flash. Like, so there's not, like, a card out there that says, like...
00:16:02
Zachary Jeblonski
you know, not there's not like a sorcery out there that says like, if this card is played as flash speed gain 12, two, twos or something like that, like that that doesn't really exist. you're really, you're trying to leverage flash into making cards that maybe had a downside before, but are stronger now and then leverage that into a win. And so like just these extra hurdles and these extra steps to get you to that wind is kind of like the stuff I'm starting to look for.
00:16:27
Zachary Jeblonski
when I'm building magic decks in the future, just because I do want i do i do want to rest the power a little bit back from the commanders that I have been building and more in in in the old noggin up here.
00:16:39
Zachary Jeblonski
So Kyenne is one example. then the second example, the one that's much more closer to actually being built that I think I might actually put together before the next time I play i'm is a deck idea I saw on EDH rec and EDH rec has a, as a running series, which I think is really valuable out there. So if, you if, if anybody listening is, you know, always on the lookout for new deck ideas, they do this like deck building contest every month.
00:17:07
Zachary Jeblonski
And they really like kind of pick out the jank or they pick out like the creative ideas. And I saw this as one of the creative ideas and I was like, huh, it it's basically a commander that has like 200 X and out of those 200 X, it's like 30 of this subtype, but it's, it's Boros planeswalkers.
00:17:30
Zachary Jeblonski
And the commander is Eartha Joe Frontier Mentor. And it's a two red white. And when Eartha Joe Frontier Mentor enters the battlefield, you create a 1-1 red Mercenary Creature token with the normal Mercenary ability, which is tap target creature control gets 1-0 until out of turn, activated only as a sorcery.
00:17:51
Zachary Jeblonski
but the key here is this is the kind of the thing that kind of slipped through. I think a lot of people with radars is whenever you activate an ability that targets a creature or a player copy that ability, you may choose new targets for the copy.
00:18:03
Zachary Jeblonski
and that really only cares about activating abilities. It doesn't say activate the ability of a creature or of an artifact or whatever, just as activated an ability. So planeswalker abilities are abilities as the name and implies. So with Earth or Joe on the battlefield, any planeswalker activation that has a target gets copied.
00:18:22
Zachary Jeblonski
So immediately you're like, oh, this is going to be super powerful, super good. This is like a deck that plays itself, right? Well, if you've ever looked at Boros planeswalkers,
00:18:33
Zachary Jeblonski
Most of the abilities that target something are either put a plus one plus one counter on a creature or deal a fixed amount of damage to a target. And that's more or less what you got to work with in order to get to your win condition with this deck. So this deck is, i sat down and went through every Boros colored planeswalker and I picked out what I think are the 23 best.
00:18:56
Zachary Jeblonski
usually have abilities that target or, or even if they don't have abilities that target, they do something that's so valuable that I, I'd rather, I'd run it anyway.
00:19:07
Zachary Jeblonski
then I have, you know, a selection of creatures that will help with this. Some of them with targeted abilities. classic is, uh, Humble Defector, you know, tap, draw two cards, target, phone, and gain control Humble Defector. And then a really cute one, which is Solbright Flamekin, which is one in a red, and it's a 2-1 Elemental Shaman.
00:19:29
Zachary Jeblonski
That just has the activated ability of pay two generic target creature gains trample to end of turn. And if it's the third time this ability is resolved this turn, you may add eight red to your mana pool. So that's really good with this deck. And then, so yeah, it is it is, you know, you got your normal white package or any other normal red cards. You have your planeswalkers and you're really just trying to close the game out through these activated abilities.
00:19:52
Zachary Jeblonski
And I think this is like one of those decks where I'm excited to build because it's going very, it's going to it's going to, it's going to take some mental energy to to, you know, to figure out like when you want to send a directed damage to a creature that an opponent has or to an opponent's face.
00:20:05
Zachary Jeblonski
and it's, it's not, it's not going to be an easy win. I don't think. And I hope it's strong enough to win so that I don't feel like I have to take it apart.
Chun-Li Commander Deck Struggles and Solutions
00:20:14
Zachary Jeblonski
but we'll see, we'll see. It's definitely something I'm excited to try. probably the next time I play magic.
00:20:21
Ciderspence
I'm excited to see this one. It reminds me of a deck I put together, Agris Koss. I forget if this is Eternal Soldier, but it is also...
00:20:31
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah, he has something similar.
00:20:32
Ciderspence
You can pay, it's it's his his is worse, but a little broader.
00:20:37
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, it is. Yeah.
00:20:37
Ciderspence
Agris cost, Eternal Soldier, 3-4 Vigilance. Whenever he becomes the target of an ability that targets only him, you can pay one in a red or one in a hybrid red-white.
00:20:46
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:20:49
Ciderspence
If you do copy it for each other creature you control that that the ability can target, each copy targets one of those creatures. So I feel like he would be a nice include in this deck. if some of the stuff you were going to cast was going to target Earth or Joe.
00:21:03
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I've thought about it. It's, it's yeah, he might, he might, i haven't decided yet on that. but yeah, no, i agree. It's a, it's gonna be, yeah, i'm I'm excited to try it out. I think it's gonna be mentally taxing, but I'm looking forward to having more of like a puzzle to work with.
00:21:20
Ciderspence
Yeah, that sounds awesome.
00:21:21
Zachary Jeblonski
and it also, and it also gives me a reason.
00:21:23
Zachary Jeblonski
It also gives me a viable deck and a reason to run farewell. And so farewell will be in the deck. Because farewell does not hit planeswalkers.
00:21:34
Zachary Jeblonski
and in my opinion, that's where farewell generally performs the best as in and a planeswalker deck. yeah, I have like every exile board wipe that I can in there because I'm like, I don't care what happens to my creatures.
00:21:47
Zachary Jeblonski
So sunfall farewells in there. And I think the, of eternity is one is going to go in there too.
00:21:52
Ciderspence
At least it keeps the spirit of what I think board wipes should be doing the state these days, which is has the potential or the likelihood to be one-sided. think as long as you're playing one-sided board wipes and you're advancing the game so that hopefully you have a chance to close it out, I think that's...
00:22:01
Zachary Jeblonski
Yes. Yeah.
00:22:09
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Because I mean, on a high, on a high upside, an exile board wipe could give me like two turns of planeswalk to activations without being harassed.
00:22:09
Ciderspence
I'm not nearly as upset to see that.
00:22:19
Ciderspence
Yeah.
00:22:19
Zachary Jeblonski
And some of my planeswalkers do have some pretty backbreaking emblems if I can get there. But since I don't have blue, it's a blue or green, to be honest, it's a little difficult. Like i I don't have any ways to like, you know, like blue and green, you can kind of play a planeswalker and immediately emblem it if you have the right cards and play like a doubling season.
00:22:40
Zachary Jeblonski
And red, white doesn't really have that. So I do have to get to my emblems mostly fairly. There's a few like white proliferations, but like mostly i have to get there fairly. So,
00:22:50
Zachary Jeblonski
but yeah, do you want to hit us up with one of your games?
00:22:53
Ciderspence
Yeah, maybe I'll try to speed through
00:22:56
Ciderspence
my games. On Wednesday, I tried, so I've decided that from now on, as long as I play Commander, I'm going to...
00:22:57
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. Okay.
00:23:05
Zachary Jeblonski
You want me to take over for a bit?
00:23:06
Ciderspence
No, I got I'm sorry.
00:23:07
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:23:08
Ciderspence
I've decided that as long as I play Commander, my first game until I win a game with her going to be Chun-Li. I'm going to try to make that down work. I'm going to try to get at least one win with it before i take her apart and stop thinking about it.
00:23:15
Zachary Jeblonski
i Dude, she's...
00:23:19
Ciderspence
But I just like the character.
00:23:20
Zachary Jeblonski
She is like our mascot.
00:23:22
Ciderspence
i So i I saw the Mortal Kombat movie with a buddy mine. And and that we were thinking about the upcoming Street Fighter movie, and i was like, I can't give up on this deck.
00:23:26
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, nice. So did I, yeah.
00:23:31
Ciderspence
i just She's fun. I like her. i i have such fond memories of playing the game. I'm going to make it work. And I got so close and couldn't close out a game where I got to like 64 life. I cast one of the magic spells. I cast a Chrome as well, got it under Tun Lee.
00:23:46
Ciderspence
So I was coming in, double strike lifelink, every combat, as long as she was on the battlefield. Knocked out two players, but one of the players took my... swift foot boots and then she got removed and then I slow and then I slowly lost the game from there so so close but so far away yeah
00:24:04
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:24:07
Zachary Jeblonski
That is a really cool really cool project, and I support this this this project to to keep I appreciate it.
00:24:07
Ciderspence
yeah
00:24:14
Ciderspence
Like I said, hopefully hopefully it won't be that much longer because as soon as I get one win with her, i will stop playing it for sure because it is it has become much more labor than love at this point, but I'm i'm committed.
00:24:29
Zachary Jeblonski
I wanted, i wanted so much for Chun-Li to work. I tried for so long know before I, before I met you Charles to make it work and I i gave up, but i I support it because the design is cool. Wizards come back to this design. Do.
00:24:43
Ciderspence
Well, I don't know, man.
00:24:43
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:24:44
Ciderspence
If he can't win with it, like there's there's a difference between something not being too strong and something being tantalizing but obviously bad. And I like i i don't know where on that spectrum Tun Lee falls, but it's it's closer to the obviously bad than I'd like it to be.
00:25:00
Zachary Jeblonski
No, no, no. There's two things that have to happen. and Like if if Wizards ever makes a commander, they can literally do white-blue again, and they just either one, make it so that the kick spells are free,
00:25:11
Zachary Jeblonski
Or two, i don't know, find a way to make it so that like like they give Chun-Li an invasion built in, like flying or something. like If they ever make a commander that does like one of those two things, I think maybe it'll cross the line into being playable.
00:25:28
Zachary Jeblonski
i really think that I really think the kick spell should be free, in my opinion. I don't think that would be broken.
00:25:34
Ciderspence
I, well, I think that would be broken. Because then it's, well, whatever. i i don't I don't know.
00:25:39
Zachary Jeblonski
you still got to get them kicked and you still got to attack with her you know?
00:25:40
Ciderspence
I don't know what would make her broken, honestly. i Like I said, I'm still trying to get her playable, so I'm probably not the right person to opine about what
Aziza and Rakdos Deck Highlights
00:25:49
Ciderspence
would make her OP.
00:25:50
Ciderspence
Yeah.
00:25:52
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, that, that's my opinion. I think, I think that the restriction on getting the spells kicked and getting her to attack is enough to make them free, but we will see and probably not see.
00:26:04
Zachary Jeblonski
I don't know. I don't know if wizards will come back to that.
00:26:04
Ciderspence
like At this point, I don't know we'll ever see, but we're going to keep trying.
00:26:09
Zachary Jeblonski
i'm want to I'm going to tweet at Gavin and be like, Gavin, when are you going to put out a better Chun-Li?
00:26:16
Ciderspence
Well, one true to true to her name, she is Chun-Li Countless Kicks. I feel like it will have been countless games before I get this win, but it's... it's get a win or die trying.
00:26:28
Ciderspence
I think that's my motto for this deck.
00:26:29
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah Yes, yes. Get a winner, or die trying.
00:26:40
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:26:43
Ciderspence
so it's, it's really crystallized around, creature ETB burn. and I kind of just got into a great scenario where, I had, I think five pingers on board, which is maybe the most, no, there are four pingers on board. One was,
00:27:00
Ciderspence
One was the indestructible, one was Purphoros. I had two copies of Agate Instigator, and then
00:27:09
Ciderspence
one other one. It wasn't Weststalker Arden, it was o General Crete, the goblin who makes more goblins and pings when it enters.
00:27:16
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:27:17
Ciderspence
And then I got a card that I just put into the deck, so i was very excited to see it.
00:27:22
Ciderspence
The one that makes rat tokens. and
00:27:26
Zachary Jeblonski
On card draw, Mad Hatter.
00:27:28
Ciderspence
No, it's it's like a Burst and X spell. It's X.
00:27:31
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, Song of Totenhan.
00:27:32
Ciderspence
Yes, Song of Tontance. Yep. Got it at the right time. And I just cast it. And this was after a mana geyser was copied. So I, you know, created 24 red mana something.
00:27:45
Ciderspence
I cast it for X equals 7, and I had the tokens on board already to copy it. So I had 5 damage per creature, and making 14 creatures. So that was game.
00:27:55
Zachary Jeblonski
Nice. Yeah. Yeah. Is that, that, cause I played against it twice now. Yeah. Twice now. And, and I've been watching it getting stronger and stronger every time I played against it.
00:28:05
Zachary Jeblonski
So it's good.
00:28:07
Ciderspence
The one one card that i wanted to single out though, which was a silent kind of valuable contributor to the game, is my card of the week, Quarry Mountain Monastery. So this card is a land, and it taps for red, and it's tapped unless you control a plains or an island. This was from Tarky Dragonstorm.
00:28:26
Ciderspence
But it's also got the ability three and a red and tap. Exile the top card of your library until the end of your next turn, you may play that card. So that's not that good, right? Why would this card even be memorable in a game like the other one? Well, it was because during one of the intermediate turns of the game, one of my opponents played a Toxtral.
00:28:48
Ciderspence
And my board is all tiny stuff.
00:28:50
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh boy.
00:28:51
Ciderspence
So I've lost a bunch of tokens on the end set. The Toxtral came down. i was the player following the Toxtral player. And I didn't want to play anything because all my stuff is small enough that by the time it got back to my turn, it would certainly all be gone.
00:29:07
Ciderspence
So what does a player do when they have mana but don't want to deploy any their spells? Well, it's nice when they have something on board that can at least generate them a card.
00:29:17
Ciderspence
And I did. And the card that I happened to exile was Ruby Medallion, which worked out great. One of the cheaper spells I could have exiled. And it helped me in the turn where I went Seething Song into copied Mana Geyser.
00:29:34
Ciderspence
and then wind up drawing into a Song of Totentance at the end, which again doesn't happen if I don't exile a card before that, right?
00:29:38
Zachary Jeblonski
Nice.
00:29:40
Ciderspence
Like it would have been something else. So yeah, it was just nice to have something to do when the board was disfavorable. Somebody else removed the Tox role because obviously no one likes it.
00:29:49
Zachary Jeblonski
No one does.
00:29:50
Ciderspence
But yeah, it was I think that type of little card advantage that I try to put into as many decks as I can, it was nice to see it pay off in a material way.
00:30:00
Zachary Jeblonski
Nice. Yeah. And I, I, I, like said, think we were talking pre-call. I have a copy of this. And it's just kind of sitting in my now kind of defunct red-white deck. But I definitely need to find a better home for because it's, it's you know, it's I think it's it's close to War Room good. Like, it's it's close to that. and And it comes in untapped.
00:30:20
Zachary Jeblonski
and More or less, it's probably going to come in untapped in the decks you put it in. And it taps for a color, and that that makes it really good. So, you know, on those turns where you have instant speed interaction, you want to hold up.
00:30:32
Zachary Jeblonski
You can just, you know, oh, I didn't need to use it. Well, right before my turn, i pay four, tap it, and i have an extra card for my next turn. So really good. And I don't think it's too expensive either.
00:30:43
Zachary Jeblonski
I think I kind of expected it to be, but I think it's only a couple dollars. Let me double check before i stick my phone. Oh, I'm leaving less than that, 37 cents. So definitely a good got include.
00:30:53
Ciderspence
I think another nice oh yeah another nice thing about this one is that if you do happen to cast it during your turn, it's got the nice kind of exile draw where it's until the end of your next turn.
00:30:56
Zachary Jeblonski
Go ahead.
00:31:03
Ciderspence
So you kind of get at least two turns to cast it or to you know use that card.
00:31:03
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep.
00:31:07
Ciderspence
So yeah, I like this card all around.
00:31:10
Zachary Jeblonski
I'm so glad that like wizards moved to that. Like, you know, yeah there's definitely a clear delineation between like exile draw effects from like more than a year or two ago to now where most exile draw effects, like two years ago and back were all like till the end of your turn. Well, it's like, I just spent all my mana drawing, exiling these cards and now I can't play them.
00:31:33
Zachary Jeblonski
And now luckily they're doing you till your next, your, to like, you know, your next turn or whatever, which is nice. Cause it's like, okay, cool. Thanks. Thanks for letting me keep these cards in exile until I can untap my land and actually maybe play them. So I really liked that.
00:31:47
Ciderspence
Yeah, I think it's a really nice kind of creative direction too, because there are lots of reasons that having a card exiled face up until your next turn still isn't great, but it's still way, way better.
00:31:57
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:31:59
Ciderspence
Like it makes it much more... valuable to have that sort of draw right like i think there's an argument against the type of exile draw that's like what if you exile something good that you can't cast now you just lost it now at least you know if you do it at the right time in the game at least you've got a better chance of being able to cast it on your next turn now everybody knows about it and you still only have one shot and it might disrupt what else you were trying to do but i feel like this strikes the right balance of what i think wizards wizards design philosophy for red is right it's like
00:32:28
Zachary Jeblonski
Right.
00:32:28
Ciderspence
good but not not stable and you got to kind of take your chances
00:32:33
Zachary Jeblonski
I agree. And my only other game I played, which which following the the explosive pod, we went down to a three pod and I played, we kind of talked about my opponent playing Kenrith and I played Valgavoth, the mono black one, which I really enjoy. I think it's it's definitely going to be my mono black deck for a while here, at least.
00:32:57
Zachary Jeblonski
and then my other opponent who didn't end up winning was playing Mirum, team of dragons. So you can kind of, you, you already know what happened there. Lots of dragons came out.
00:33:04
Ciderspence
Oof, yeah. yeah
00:33:05
Zachary Jeblonski
Things went, things went south.
Dragon Deck Dynamics and Creative Builds
00:33:08
Zachary Jeblonski
but I, I think the, the, the, the two things I wanted to highlight was, I managed, I put turgrids in the 99 of this deck.
00:33:16
Zachary Jeblonski
And I managed to draw Turgard in my opening hand and I played Turgard fairly. i didn't put any protection on her. I didn't know Swiftfoot boots or anything. Cause I actually don't even run Swiftfoot boots in this deck just because I just rely on Valgavall's inherent ward to just get me there.
00:33:31
Zachary Jeblonski
and Turgard hung around for like five turns and I got a surprising amount of value off of her. and probably the most consequential card, which leads to my card the week,
00:33:42
Zachary Jeblonski
As my opponent played defense of the heart. And this used to be a, this was definitely boogeyman. When I was first starting to play magic, and I don't see it as much as I used to, but defense of the heart is three and a green enchantment.
00:33:57
Zachary Jeblonski
And at the beginning of your upkeep, if an opponent controls three or more creatures, sacrifices his enchantment, search your library for up to two creature cards, put them onto the battlefield. So as you can imagine, Commander, this thing like pops. Usually the turn you play, you have to wait a whole turn cycle was as you get back to the beginning of your upkeep. But the Kenra player played this. Of course, the Mirum dragon player had more than enough creatures to satisfy this condition.
00:34:20
Zachary Jeblonski
So he pops it. He sacrifices it searches the two creatures and he's going to put it in the graveyard. like, nah, going to give that to me because target, you know, you sacrifice a permanent, it goes to my battlefield.
00:34:30
Ciderspence
Oh, right.
00:34:31
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. So I put the pencil harder than my battlefield. It gets to my turn. I sacrifice it. And to be honest, there's not the men, they they're not the best creatures to search for in this deck. I mean,
00:34:42
Zachary Jeblonski
You know, target's already on the battlefield, so that's not one I can search for. But I did, and I'm searching for my card the week, which is Crypt Ghast, which is, you know, a classic amount of black decks.
00:34:53
Zachary Jeblonski
If anybody doesn't know, it's three and a black. He has Extort, and whenever you tap a Swamp for mana, add an additional black. and I ended up so extorting a fair amount in this game because of the extra manner that Crypt Gas gave me.
00:35:06
Zachary Jeblonski
so that kind of let me live an extra turn. so that's kind of what i wanted to highlight on the card is just to remind people that he does have extort, which is nice. I didn't end up winning, but he definitely kept me in the game. I think more than I would have had I not, uh, tutored out a Crypt Gas, with, with somebody else's defense of the heart.
00:35:26
Ciderspence
Yeah, that's a fun sequence.
00:35:28
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, and i and basically the way the game went is I just i was i was desperately digging for one of my board wipes to to so to get the to deal with the dragon player. Never found one, and he just sat a he had a dragon's tempest and a variety of other dragon synergy pieces, and that was it. That was the game.
00:35:50
Zachary Jeblonski
So yeah, the Kenber's player, I think on one turn gained 40 life, but it literally didn't matter. He got domed for like 80 on his next turn. Like it was like, it was bad.
00:36:00
Ciderspence
Yeah, that's Mirim.
00:36:00
Zachary Jeblonski
But yeah. Yeah. Let's mirror him. and Like, you know, I'm kind of glad he kind of got dumpstered in the first game. So I'm glad to see his deck. You know, I think everybody's deck more or less did the thing. His deck just did the thing harder. So I'm glad he got got a good game in.
00:36:16
Zachary Jeblonski
And yeah. Any other games you want to highlight?
00:36:19
Ciderspence
Yeah, I want to talk just briefly about the third game I played. Actually, i will briefly talk about two games. The third game I played on...
00:36:28
Zachary Jeblonski
Might have lost you there.
00:36:29
Ciderspence
Sorry, I just wanted to briefly talk about two more games. The third game I played on Wednesday was I did something that I'm i'm really excited to do more of, which was I was i was putting together...
00:36:32
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:36:42
Ciderspence
i was trying to tweak some decks on my way to work one day, and I found that I had a bunch of green cards.
00:36:50
Ciderspence
Sorry, I need 30 seconds, apparently.
00:36:52
Zachary Jeblonski
All right. That's fine. It's more, it's more Zach talk now. all right. So let's talk about the other stuff that, I've been working on or prototyping, this, okay.
00:37:03
Ciderspence
Actually, let me, sorry, let me, let me, let me try to get this, this brief segment in and then you may get to go for it. My, I'm, she's trying to draw, but she wants to talk about her drawing. Okay.
00:37:15
Ciderspence
Uh, yeah, I want to just talk briefly about my last game on Wednesday and a spell table game I got to last night, which relates to decks on deck from the past few weeks.
00:37:24
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep. yep
00:37:25
Ciderspence
Wednesday night's last game featured a deck that I put together on my way to and from work one day, which was very exciting because I got to use the cards that didn't fit in my storage. I was just like, there's enough good stuff in here that I can probably make a reasonable deck.
00:37:39
Ciderspence
It was a bebop and rocksteady deck. So Bebop and Rocksteady is 7-5. That costs 3 mana, so it comes down early. But whenever it attacks or blocks, you have to sacrifice a permanent.
00:37:49
Ciderspence
So I tried to just put in enough stuff that made tokens or had token synergies with enough good stuff, just like basic green ramp, basic black card draw, and removal, and played that in Game 3. And it performed very well at a table with some much stronger decks, so I was really happy to see that.
00:38:08
Zachary Jeblonski
Nice. nice
00:38:10
Ciderspence
And then the other game I just wanted to briefly bring up, I did put together an NS debate moderator list. it is, Ennis itself probably is one of the worst blink options in the deck, but it's kind of blink themed and it's got just a lot of white weenies.
00:38:25
Ciderspence
There are some heavy hitters in there. There's a caretaker's talent. And there is a card that I know you don't like. What's the one that pumps your creatures whenever a creature enters the enchantment one?
00:38:38
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, Cathar's Crusade?
00:38:38
Ciderspence
Yeah, there's a Cathar's crusade. So that's, that's
00:38:40
Zachary Jeblonski
i Look, for the record, I only dislike it. i only dislike playing playing it myself. I don't mind if my opponents do it.
00:38:44
Ciderspence
Right, you dislike tracking it, yeah.
00:38:46
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:38:47
Ciderspence
But yeah, Catharist Crusade is basically the win con in there. But there's also like some some fun stuff like the Sally Pride Lioness Leader is in there.
00:38:56
Ciderspence
couple of things that make a bunch of tokens when they enter.
00:38:57
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:38:59
Ciderspence
And... Abdul Adrian... Gorian's Ward or whatever the the other guy that when he enters you can exile any number of creatures until he leaves the battlefield and you make a bunch of one ones so that's kind of the flavor of the deck I got to play it in in a game that quickly went awry online last night which was my first time playing Spell Table in several weeks and I turned out I didn't miss it I probably won't be doing a lot more of it myself but it was fun to just take that deck for a little mini spin
00:39:10
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:39:23
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh.
00:39:27
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah Yeah. I'm glad. I'm glad. I know you were, you were, you've been thinking about this and trying to make them work. So I'm glad it was, I'm glad it did stuff for you.
00:39:36
Ciderspence
Yeah.
00:39:39
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. Well, I guess I yeah will. do you need Do you need a moment?
00:39:45
Ciderspence
Yeah, if you had a long form topic you wanted to get into, this is a great time.
00:39:47
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, I do. right. I'll take it. Go ahead and take care. i So we're going we're going to another, uh, Zach talk, a little fireside chat here. and we're going to run through some more. we're well I'm going to give the listeners a peek deep in the recesses of, some of my prototypes that aren't even at the stage yet where like I would bring them up on the podcast, but like something I've been thinking about, because what I'll do is I'll get like an idea,
00:40:12
Zachary Jeblonski
And I'll prototype it out. And then I'm not sure if it's good to the point where, you know, like I have to be like, well, I don't know if I'm even going to build this.
00:40:24
Zachary Jeblonski
And now now I'm having trouble finding it. One sec here, guys. So one of the ideas... that I was thinking about is with the inclusion of all the elder dragons in Strixhaven, I noticed that the dragon, uh, two color dragons have kind of are getting close to a critical mass and a commander that's always kind of sticks out to me, because I have it in budget form, but I kind of like want to do something more with it. Wow. I can't figure out where I did with this deck is, is Niv-Mizzet and specifically the Niv-Mizzet where
00:41:01
Zachary Jeblonski
Uh, let me try this one sec guys. It's the Niv-Mizzet where when he comes in the battlefield, you reveal the top 10 cards of your library and you can put, number of different color pairs from that, uh, pile into your hand.
00:41:15
Zachary Jeblonski
And I kind of realized was like, well, wait a minute, like with the inclusion of the elder dragons in a secret district, saving, there might be enough dragons to basically fulfill the the two color slices for all the different dragons.
00:41:32
Zachary Jeblonski
So I more or less have prototype that out. And i i i swear I did it. One sec, guys. All right. So anyway, so that's kind of like, that's on the that's on the the possible table. The problem is is that I'm still missing a fair amount of two-color dragons, especially some of the more obscure ones.
00:41:56
Zachary Jeblonski
And some of them are a little expensive. Luckily, the most expensive dragons are your mono-colored dragons for sure. So luckily that's not too big of an issue. But still, you know, it it is an investment. I'm not sure if I'm going to do it. And the payoff is like funny. i don't know if it's good. The payoff being like, hey guys, look, I just put five or six dragons in my hand.
00:42:17
Zachary Jeblonski
But Niv-Mizzet, the commander, it's let me actually pull it up for you guys.
00:42:23
Zachary Jeblonski
because there's so many Niv-Mizzets now, but then the specific one is Niv-Mizzet Reborn. When he enters the battlefield, you reveal the top 10 cards of your library for each color pair. Choose a card that's exactly those colors from of them. Put the chosen cards in your hand, the behind library.
00:42:36
Zachary Jeblonski
So he himself does not like do anything to increase the strength of your your dragons. he's not and He's not making them cheaper like an Erd Dragon does. He's not making more of them like a Mirim does. He's purely a card advantage engine with a very specific restriction to them.
00:42:52
Zachary Jeblonski
But I still like that idea. And I like the idea of playing some of these dragons that you really don't see much. Like there's three Simic dragons, I think, in total. So you're basically playing all three of those. There's like three white and black dragons. You're playing all those. There's some Dimir dragons that are not terrible, but you don't really ever see them because Dimir doesn't show up too many in dragon decks unless you're playing Ur-Dragon.
00:43:14
Zachary Jeblonski
So it's definitely like on the possibility table, but I haven't fully committed to to to doing that. And then and I guess another peek into some real, like, let's just say not sure or not we're not we're not quite at the step where I'm going to commit to making it,
00:43:37
Zachary Jeblonski
is the Rakdos Red Clone Theft deck, essentially. So it's a long story short, or I shouldn't say long story short, but like...
00:43:47
Zachary Jeblonski
but so I mean, is I was looking for a Raktos deck to put my red clone shell in. So I have a lot of red clone cards, when I had my Roxanne deck and I still have most of those cards not sitting in any decks. So I was looking for a deck to kind of put them in.
00:44:04
Zachary Jeblonski
so because they're red clones, they're, they're generally bad. They're generally worse than blue cones in almost every way. because they self-sacrifice and, and,
00:44:15
Zachary Jeblonski
you know, they don't get around legendary and stuff like that usually. so it has to be a a commander whose color doesn't include blue, because if they include blue, then I might as well run the good blue ones, right?
00:44:25
Zachary Jeblonski
And I really generally want a commander that has a good ETB to him so I can make use of the fact that even if I clone him and I lose the clones to the legendary role, I still get the value of the ETB.
00:44:38
Zachary Jeblonski
And then I realized that there is a commander that doesn't have a great ETB, but he has a pretty good sacrifice effect. And luckily when you have creatures that violate the legendary rule, you are required to sacrifice them. They are not destroyed, they are sacrificed.
00:44:54
Zachary Jeblonski
So the commander that may get built, he's been prototyped down to 100 cards. The deck is technically good to go. i just don't know if it's good enough to put together, to be honest, is Rakdos the Muscle from Outlaws of Thunder Junction. He's two black, black, red.
00:45:12
Zachary Jeblonski
He's a flying trample six fiver. And whenever you sacrifice another creature, you exile cards equal to its mana value from the top of target upon our target player's library.
00:45:23
Zachary Jeblonski
And until your next end step, you may play those cards and mana of any type can be spent to cast those cards. And he also allows you to sacrifice a creature. He gains an instructional time to turn, he gets tapped and he can only activate that ability once each turn.
00:45:37
Zachary Jeblonski
So the key thing here is is, when you sacrifice another creature, it doesn't say when you sacrifice a creature with my ability or whatever, it's just literally when you sacrifice a creature, you can do that effect.
00:45:48
Zachary Jeblonski
so if you play a mass clone effect, like a classic would be Ortheon and you do the nine mana activation, you make five tokens of Rakdos. Four of those Rakdos are getting sacrificed a legendary rule.
00:45:59
Zachary Jeblonski
So you have four activations or four hits of five mana onto a player. And some of those could be yourself. like some So it says to target a player. So like if I wanted to get a little bit more card advantage that turn, I could do it to myself.
00:46:14
Zachary Jeblonski
Or if I wanted to, in a way, mill my opponents, I could i could do like in that example, I'm i'm stripping 20 cards from the library. even if I don't have the mana to pay for them.
00:46:25
Zachary Jeblonski
So that's kind of the idea of the deck. Is it good? Probably not. I think probably the stronger way to play Rakdos to Muscle is to have creatures that are worth sacrificing and then sacrificing those creatures and getting extra value on top of that.
00:46:39
Zachary Jeblonski
Whereas what I'm trying to do is make more rack doses. I get sacrificed to legendary, which causes his his triggered ability to happen. so this is not yet moved on to the, let's say the assembling phase of my deck, uh, teching process. It is still on the prototyping stage.
00:46:55
Zachary Jeblonski
Uh, but I haven't completely written it off. I think there's a world where if the pieces are in play and things are, you know, set up in such a way that like, he could be really good, you know, especially, you know, I know this kind of goes with all commanders, but like if the roaming throne, there's a roaming throne in the deck, if the roaming throne's on the battlefield, when this all happens, a doubling of that effect definitely puts it closer to actually being effective at killing people.
00:47:19
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah, we'll, we'll see. We'll see. think it could be neat. It is a theft deck. So, you know, some players will not like to play against it, which is totally fine.
00:47:29
Zachary Jeblonski
At the very least, this theft is really hard to pull off. So some of those players might also be okay with playing against it just because the hoops you're doing to get this, this, this payoff is, is, is intense.
Optimizing Decks and Gameplay Insights
00:47:41
Zachary Jeblonski
And, you know, I have to remind everybody that or remind myself too, is that you can the the ability on Rakdos is you can play those cards, but it does not mean you can play them for free.
00:47:52
Zachary Jeblonski
So if I spend a bunch of mana making a clone of Rakdos to get the triggered ability, I probably don't have the mana to play the big spells that I'm exiling off opponents. you know So yeah, we'll see.
00:48:06
Zachary Jeblonski
don't know. The more I talk about it, the more I'm interested interested in putting it together now. But the the challenge there is that I would have to take apart my current red-black deck, which is the red-black Valkavoth, and I like having that deck around as a, Hey, we need to get one game in. Uh, we have one, we have time for a short game at the end of the night, or it's also a really good deck for those players who say they have a bracket for deck or I have a bracket three deck. because about, about this is full of ways to punish decks like that.
00:48:33
Ciderspence
I feel like it's thematically coherent with that Rakdos deck to sacrifice one of your Vagaboths to the Legend rule, right?
00:48:40
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, there you go. Put Valgaboth in Rectus. Now that would be terrible. There's nothing nothing to nothing that would trigger Valgaboth in this deck. But yeah, that's my that's my deep cuts with Zach.
00:48:53
Ciderspence
I love it. This segment deserves its own music.
00:48:56
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, we'll be in the lab.
00:48:56
Ciderspence
We'll be in the lab, folks.
00:49:00
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, so Charles, do you have any do you have any more games you want to talk about or do you want to get to maybe one of the decks you're working on?
00:49:07
Ciderspence
No, that was all my games. Yeah, we can skip skip on to Dex on Deck.
00:49:12
Zachary Jeblonski
All right, cool. Yeah, hit us up with the deck that you're working on.
00:49:15
Ciderspence
actually I said that, but I don't have anything that I... Like I said, I just finished putting together. I'll be tweaking this... NS deck probably over the course the next week. Hopefully I'll have it in shape to play at a store by midweek.
00:49:31
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:49:32
Ciderspence
But yeah, that's the... And i'll I'll probably do the same with this Rocksteady, Bebop and Rocksteady deck. I'll probably try to tune it up a little bit as well. But I think... I don't think there were any other...
00:49:42
Ciderspence
sort Well, I still need to finish that Zafi deck, but i've I've actually misplaced my deck box, so I don't know where the cards that I had set aside for it were, which isn't which usually isn't a problem because I've got plenty of cards just lying around, but that had a lot of the Strixhaven cards that I wanted to put in there.
00:49:53
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh no.
00:50:01
Ciderspence
So that's kind of on hold until I can find it. I also only have the one copy of Zafi. yeah I could just get another copy, but like I don't want to have to...
00:50:08
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. Get
00:50:12
Ciderspence
get all the other cards again. But if I must, I must.
00:50:16
Zachary Jeblonski
this.
00:50:16
Ciderspence
We'll see. That's that's TBD. But yeah, I think Zafi is the only thing that I have that I'm kind of... I guess one other deck that I wanted to get back to, I never finished building it, was that one of the Appas.
00:50:27
Ciderspence
I think Appa's Steadfast Guardian. I forget which one, but either the Flash one that protects your creatures or...
00:50:37
Zachary Jeblonski
a Okay.
00:50:40
Ciderspence
uh sorry let me let me actually pull some text here yeah
00:50:41
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I'm pulling up Appa's. There's four of them. Oh, magic.
00:50:48
Ciderspence
so definitely not not appa ang's companion no thank you not appa loyal sky bison yeah so either appa the vigilant yeah i think this was the choice either appa the vigilant flying vigilant six six for seven mana whenever appa another ally you control enter as creatures you control you have plus one plus one flying and vigilance until end of turn it'll probably be that one
00:50:48
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, Appa's that, yeah.
00:51:08
Ciderspence
or Appa Steadfast Guardian 2 white white for a Flash flying when Appa enters, airbend any number of other target non-line permanents you control. Whenever you cast a spell from exile, create a 1-1 white ally creature token.
00:51:22
Ciderspence
So I think that's the best one, but I think I'm probably interested in the 7 mana 6-6 that gives your creatures plus 1 plus sun and flying when an ally enters. So that'll probably...
00:51:31
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, that's that's very much a, it's an overrun in the in the command zone kind of thing.
00:51:38
Ciderspence
Yeah, and it's it's probably not going to work out. It's 7 mana. It's telegraphed. You need a wide board. It reminds me a little bit of the Silk deck I put together where your commander's doing a lot, so it's kind of a natural target for removal.
00:51:55
Ciderspence
If you can get it to stick in a long game or in a game where you're otherwise not the threat, you could probably do some pretty big turns with it if the setup is behind it.
00:52:05
Zachary Jeblonski
I think, yeah, I think like you, you, you more or less are playing that commander when you're ready to win or ready to knock somebody out. but the card that immediately jumps in the mind for this deck, cause I have a copy and i've I've always, I've never feel like I've had a deck where it really makes a lot of sense in it is a silence. I think silence would be really good in this deck.
00:52:26
Zachary Jeblonski
it's a, one white instant and your opponents can't cast spells this turn. so yeah, so on the turn you would want to get up out and overrun somebody.
00:52:33
Ciderspence
It's pretty good.
00:52:38
Zachary Jeblonski
You just like maybe even on your upkeep, I would just be like silence and you know what they either counter spell that, which means they lose a counter spell for whatever you're doing next, or they let it resolve and whatever happens to them happens.
00:52:51
Zachary Jeblonski
to them
00:52:53
Zachary Jeblonski
So
00:52:53
Ciderspence
Yeah, I might and might look into that. I also picked up a couple of extra copies of Voice of Victory and Grand Abolisher, mostly because they have to go in the Chun-Li deck because I'm trying to make it playable.
00:52:59
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah. Yep.
00:53:04
Zachary Jeblonski
You got to everything you can for Chun-Li.
00:53:06
Ciderspence
So yeah, they those copies might also find their way into it, but I
In-Person Magic vs. Spelltable
00:53:09
Ciderspence
don't know We'll see. What do you have on deck?
00:53:12
Zachary Jeblonski
Uh, let's see. We talked about some of the the major ones I did. Finally, i was stumbling to find, my prototype of the nive ni Niv, Niv, Niv, Mizzet, uh, two color dragons deck. and I just realized I overwrote my existing Niv Mizzet deck. So that's, that's a problem.
00:53:28
Zachary Jeblonski
that's a problem that I'll fix later. I guess the the next thing that's good to go, definitely will be my Choco deck is good to go. I think I have like two cards left coming in. I think they're coming in probably tomorrow. And if not, then I'll just,
00:53:41
Zachary Jeblonski
put random basics in there until, until it works. I'm excited to try that out. Uh, I don't remember if I mentioned this in the last time I talked about Choco, but I'm going to try a card in there that I don't know if it's worth it to put in there.
00:53:55
Zachary Jeblonski
Did I talk about Choco with you last week?
00:53:57
Ciderspence
Yeah, you brought it you brought it up.
00:53:58
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. real quick, if I've already mentioned this last week, I don't know. I don't listen to the episodes. Fun fact. But anyway, uh, wheel of sun and moon is going to be in that deck. it's a card that I think is cool, even though i don't know what it does. I don't know what the point of it is. It's,
00:54:12
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, I think I'm literally remembering mentioning this but i'm just going to mention again in case you didn't listen to the last episode. But it's Selesnya, Selesnya, Enchantment Enchant Player. If a card be put into Enchantment Player's Graveyard from anywhere, instead that card is revealed and put on the bottom of that opponent'slyer that player's library.
00:54:28
Zachary Jeblonski
And Choco's effect will reveal basically, no I'll look at the the amount of cards that I attack with birds with.
00:54:36
Zachary Jeblonski
I'll put one of them into my hand and every, all the lands on the battlefield tap, but everything else goes to the graveyard. So when I've goldfish this, there's some turns where, I'm putting like six or seven cards to the graveyard. And I wonder if this deck will mill itself out.
00:54:51
Zachary Jeblonski
So that's kind of why i want to try that wheel sun a moon. So we'll kind of see if that's even necessary or it could be a situation where like, by the time I'm ready to mill myself out, the game should be ending anyway, because people should be dead or I should be dead. I don't know. I don't know going how the deck's going to go with that.
00:55:09
Zachary Jeblonski
and then I just want to highlight one, I guess one additional card in that same deck. that I've never seen before, but I'm like, wow, i you would think you would see it more often, is a Bower Passage. It's one in a green enchantment.
00:55:23
Zachary Jeblonski
Creatures with flying can't block creatures you control. So that seems kind of nuts. Like, I'm surprised I don't see this in, like, Dragon decks. Because essentially what that means is that if you have a flyer, your flyers are unblockable.
00:55:37
Ciderspence
Except by reachers. Yeah, that's wild.
00:55:38
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, except by Reachers, but like, you know, more, you know, you don't really see Reachers that much, but when, you know, so I mean, like it is, it's for one in a green, it seems insanely good and I'm surprised you don't see it more often. It's less than a dollar.
00:55:51
Zachary Jeblonski
So for Dragon decks with green in it, i would jam that.
00:55:56
Ciderspence
Yeah, that's cool.
00:55:58
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, but I think that's most of my decks on deck. I ran through a fair amount of them, so I don't think I have anything else.
00:56:04
Ciderspence
Yeah, I think I'm i'm good too.
00:56:06
Zachary Jeblonski
All right. Well, we'll, we're actually going to, well, I guess we'll end on time. Is there anything else we want to touch on before we kind of wrap things up?
00:56:13
Ciderspence
No, well, you know, just a final note about Spelltable. I think there was a time, there was a stretch there where I was so excited to play that I was i was all in on Spelltable just because it let me get games in reliably.
00:56:28
Ciderspence
i think I'm coming around to the spell table. not as fun as playing at a shop. So I'd rather work harder to get into a shop once or twice a week than jam spell table games. It's a combination of, i don't know, playing late at night is less fun.
00:56:42
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Yeah.
00:56:43
Ciderspence
and I don't know.
00:56:44
Ciderspence
I just enjoy being at a physical table, messing with the cards, uh, And, you know, talking to people more.
00:56:53
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah
00:56:53
Ciderspence
So, yeah, I'm starting to to come around on the, you know, playing it live is where it's at. So, yeah.
00:57:02
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I think, yeah, I think, yeah, I mean, we don't need to relitigate spell tables issues because I think the the program is fine. it's it's the It's the people that's the issue. But yeah I agree. Like there's a lot of times where I want to play Magic and I can't.
00:57:16
Zachary Jeblonski
I can't physically get to the store. and, and mostly what I've done with that is I've just, you know, you, I've just spent my time with other hobbies, just, uh, comforted myself knowing that, you know, next week or days in the future, I will get back to a store and just kind of resist that temptation.
00:57:34
Ciderspence
Yeah, I might be going that direction. i i might, I mean, magic basically is my only hobby and I'm okay with that. I feel good about it, but I might just, you know, in those instances, just goldfish or something, either online yeah.
00:57:41
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:57:44
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Organize your collection or whatever, you know, like I find that I found that to be pretty satisfying. Like the times when I want to play magic and I can't, I usually will do some kind of magic related project where like, you know, I'll reorganize something or do some deck teching or something like that.
00:58:04
Ciderspence
Yep. Sorry, Spelltable.
00:58:05
Zachary Jeblonski
Cool. Say, what was that?
00:58:09
Ciderspence
said sorry, Spelltable. It was fun, I guess.
00:58:11
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah Don't be. i don't know if it's a solvable problem. That'd be a good topic for a future episode is how, how would you solve spell table? But like, yeah, we'll come back to that. But anything else before we kind of wrap things up?
00:58:23
Ciderspence
Nope, I'm good with that.
00:58:25
Zachary Jeblonski
Cool. Well, thanks for joining me on another episode, Charles.
00:58:28
Ciderspence
Thanks for having me, Zach.
00:58:29
Zachary Jeblonski
All right. Have a great rest of the week, everybody out there in listening world. And we will talk again next week.
00:58:35
Ciderspence
Take it easy, everybody.
00:58:35
Zachary Jeblonski
Bye. Oh, I got to find the button. There it is.