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Ep. 22 - Truckasaurus Secret Lair
30 Plays7 months ago
We're chomping our way through a lot of game talk and we also roar our way through some Marvel Heros spoilers!
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Transcript
Introduction and Monster Truck Rally
00:00:14
Zachary Jeblonski
Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to another episode of Midlife's Crisis. I'm Zach. I'm joined again by Charles.
00:00:19
ciderspence
How's it going, Zach?
00:00:20
Zachary Jeblonski
Doing good. i don't know how we got on this topic. I've already forgotten. it's It's fine. Brain mush. But you were saying that you have been to a monster truck rally?
00:00:31
ciderspence
I have. I took my kids, well, we went as a family, my wife, my kids, and I. i think I think it was either earlier this year or late last year. It was at like a basketball arena.
00:00:41
ciderspence
It was interesting. It was very loud.
00:00:44
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I've heard that about monster truck rallies.
00:00:46
ciderspence
Yeah, basically, if you don't have headphones, you will you'll be in pain the whole time, and your kids will be a part of that pain.
00:00:52
Zachary Jeblonski
oh
00:00:54
ciderspence
That's what I learned.
00:00:54
Zachary Jeblonski
oof
00:00:54
ciderspence
So we were able to buy some there, so it wasn't all pain all the time, but it was close.
NASCAR Experience and Fan Culture
00:01:00
Zachary Jeblonski
I mean, and I'm trying to think like basketball arena, like the basketball court big enough to like, I guess they can move all the state the the chairs back. I'm i'm just can im trying to imagine like how they fit the monster trucks into you know that area.
00:01:14
ciderspence
Yeah, I mean, I guess most arenas have like a loading area for concerts and stuff like that, because most of them do things outside of sports.
00:01:22
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, that makes sense.
00:01:22
ciderspence
But yeah, they took all the seats away, and it was there were no bleachers or anything. It was just boxes and all the second floor seating and second and third floor whatever.
00:01:32
ciderspence
So everybody was watching from a distance, you know covering their ears and having you know somewhere between an OK and presumably a good time for others.
00:01:43
Zachary Jeblonski
Presumably. That's a good one. and That kind of reminds me of... a you know my you know My parents were somewhat active in... like i I should say they were active in getting us to experience like new things in case we were interested in like you know as kids.
Magic: The Gathering Crossover Ideas
00:01:58
Zachary Jeblonski
and I grew up about an hour and a half away from a pretty major NASCAR stadium. and in our you know My parents didn't grow up in NASCAR. We're not like...
00:02:10
Zachary Jeblonski
you know, we're not usually in that, in that, in the circles, but my dad took me one time and that's the thing I remember most about it was just how loud it is. And I can imagine monster truck rallies being even louder because the space is, closed off. It's like, uh, you know, it's with all of them building, but even a NASCAR race, i was just like, man, this is brutal.
00:02:32
ciderspence
Yeah, and it seemed like noise was part of the show. Like, they were intentionally, when whenever they, their downtime was just revving the engine so that, I guess, kids and, you know, enthusiastic adults can just hear how loud the trucks are.
00:02:36
Zachary Jeblonski
Ooh.
00:02:47
ciderspence
So, again, I think, I don't think it was a, I think that was a feature, not a bug. And that just meant it's, you know, not for me, not for us.
00:02:52
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I agree.
00:02:56
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, i think I think the NASCAR noise is not as just as a side effect. I don't think they they don't care how much noise they make, per se. Because a lot of, like, I know there's lot.
00:03:03
ciderspence
Yeah, i think given the choice between faster car and louder car, NASCAR would go faster, but I think monster trucks would actually go louder. I don't think there's any and he yeah aim above that.
00:03:09
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I agree with that.
00:03:12
Zachary Jeblonski
Cause that's also where I learned that. And I promise we'll talk about magic. This is a magic podcast I've heard, but I also, that's also where I learned that a lot of like hardcore NASCAR fans, they, they wear, basically like the equivalent of a helicopter, like pilot, earmuff, uh, headphones. So they're both like noise isolating. And then also it lets them like tune into the radios between the coaches and the drivers. That's a big thing for a lot of people, like going there and then listening to the communications between the drivers and the coaches. and i'm like,
00:03:42
Zachary Jeblonski
This is all cool. And I, and I love that for you guys, but I would like to never come back to a NASCAR race again.
00:03:49
ciderspence
Yeah, I mean, and clearly this ties to magic because in 2027 the NASCAR versus
Magic Gameplay and Deck Strategies
00:03:54
ciderspence
Truckasaurus secret lair launches.
00:03:54
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh God.
00:03:56
ciderspence
I think we weren't supposed to announce that, but listeners, you got a scoop.
00:04:00
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh dude. I just realized that honestly, oh, do you think there's going to be a NASCAR secret layer at some point?
00:04:11
ciderspence
I don't, but anything is possible, I guess.
00:04:15
Zachary Jeblonski
I don't know, man. Like, oh man, are we ever going get to a point where there's like an NBA, like, or like an NBA secret layer?
00:04:19
ciderspence
I mean, we do have vehicles.
00:04:23
Zachary Jeblonski
Like, is Wemby going to be on a card?
00:04:27
ciderspence
It would probably be two cards, but yeah, I could see it.
00:04:29
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, a melding card.
00:04:32
ciderspence
Actually, that would be a little terrifying, but kind of hilarious. I don't, yeah, I don't know. now i'm Now I'm kind of rooting for it because I'm curious.
00:04:38
Zachary Jeblonski
i don't know. I mean,
00:04:43
Zachary Jeblonski
i I can't get there. like I don't want that to happen. So Wizards, if you were ever listening to this, no. But I also understand at this point, like, there's very few guardrails on Secret Lair.
00:04:55
Zachary Jeblonski
So, okay. All right, I just could really derain my train of thought, but I guess you ready to talk about some of the magic we've played?
00:05:05
ciderspence
Choo Choo.
00:05:07
Zachary Jeblonski
Choo, Choo. I Choo Choo's this topic to talk about. Did you have games other than the ones that we were playing on Kitchen Table that you wanted to bring up?
00:05:17
ciderspence
No, I think I, the only other game I played was similar to one of the games we played.
00:05:24
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, okay. All right. So we'll just jump into it. we I also only had the Magic games that we played as a three-pod on Saturday. So that was that's an interesting takeaway too. It's just like a night of three-pod.
00:05:38
Zachary Jeblonski
But it started off with, I believe, your May, right? It's May? May deck?
00:05:47
ciderspence
That's right. Yeah, and that was that was a, yeah, you got it.
00:05:47
Zachary Jeblonski
I will get the pronunciation down.
00:05:49
ciderspence
Yeah, i appreciate that.
00:05:52
Zachary Jeblonski
And so it was your Monoblog May deck versus my Monogreen Nissa energy deck. And then the third player had deck of some repute that I am struggling to remember.
00:06:06
ciderspence
It was a Deadpool deck.
00:06:07
Zachary Jeblonski
Yes. Oh man, what a trio that deck is. All right. So yeah, I, I, No, was a good game. That was a debut game for my new mono green deck. It did the thing.
00:06:19
Zachary Jeblonski
i thought I was going to be more safe from Maze Trigger, which is whenever a player casts a non-creature spell, they take two damage or lose two life.
00:06:29
Zachary Jeblonski
And it turns out I actually had a lot more non-creature spells in my deck than I remember because i think i think i'm I think I took the title of who lost the most life to May that game because I think I lost about Between 12 and 16 life to me. Yeah. Yeah.
00:06:45
ciderspence
Yeah, I think, so my my deck is all creatures, so I didn't lose any life to May. And our other pod mate was running mostly creature clone effects.
00:06:58
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah
00:06:58
ciderspence
So he didn't lose that much life to May. So yeah, you were you were taking most of the hits. But I think that our pod mate may have been more
00:07:08
ciderspence
excited to see Mei go even than you, which made for an interesting dynamic.
00:07:13
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I think it
00:07:13
ciderspence
I mean, Deadpool always makes for an interesting dynamic. But Mei became the primary target of Deadpool. And our pod mate got a Felden of the third path or Felden?
00:07:25
Zachary Jeblonski
was. Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up because that was that might have been the most interesting interaction I've seen this week was that Feldman.
00:07:33
ciderspence
Yeah, we call that the MVP of the game.
00:07:36
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:07:37
ciderspence
in terms of what did the thing the most, I think it was that Felden by a long shot. I mean, your deck won and did great.
00:07:41
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, yeah.
00:07:45
ciderspence
But yeah, the Felden,
00:07:46
Zachary Jeblonski
No, no, 1 million percent. that's That's the card I would want to talk about from that game is Felden.
Game Analysis and Strategy Insights
00:07:52
Zachary Jeblonski
And just a reminder, because I always forget his text box because it's always slightly weird to me, but it's one red red legendary 2-3 creature.
00:08:02
Zachary Jeblonski
But the important part is he's got two red tap, create a token that's a copy of a target creature card in your graveyard, except that it's an artifact in addition to its auto types. Gains haste, sacrifice at the beginning, next end step.
00:08:15
Zachary Jeblonski
so this essentially allowed our pod made to leave Deadpool in his graveyard after had been, like, it wasn't board wipe, but it was just removed.
00:08:23
ciderspence
Yeah, just got blocked to death on an attack.
00:08:23
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. yeah And he just left it in his graveyard. And then from 80% of the rest of the game, it's just Feldening a copy of Deadpool every turn, which is, you know what?
00:08:36
Zachary Jeblonski
That is a solid, well done, sir. Cause like that was brutal to deal with. Yeah.
00:08:42
ciderspence
Well, and I think the one especially interesting dynamic for our game was we had joked for... So once we were talking about what were going to play, and I was talking about, you know I'm going to play Mei, it's going to deal two life every time you cast a non-creature spell.
00:08:58
ciderspence
And our pod mate said, well i'm going to play Deadpool. And I said, oh, that's funny, because with Deadpool, even if you clone my Mei, the whole table still going to take two damage every time they cast a non-creature spell.
00:09:10
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh,
00:09:10
ciderspence
But... when he made the Deadpool clones with Felden, it cloned May, took her ability. And then that ability was only active during his turn. And then he sacrificed it. So it really was able to deal with the May in kind of a unique way and repeatably, like I would just recast May. He would just remake a clone. The clone would still only last for turn.
00:09:30
ciderspence
And then you would board wipe. And then he got out Orion, hero of lava brink.
00:09:36
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah.
00:09:37
ciderspence
And at some point my board had gotten
00:09:37
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep.
00:09:40
ciderspence
a little big and he made five copies of Deadpool and really wiped out my board. So it was actually pretty cool.
00:09:48
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah it's Yeah, it is really cool. like The temporary red clones, so that like he's just constantly... yeah man it's you know i don't think we need I don't think I need to jump on the bandwagon, but the Deadpool is like...
00:10:03
Zachary Jeblonski
He quite possibly might be the strongest removal like of that year. like if somebody If somebody's going to say, what was the strongest removal card? Which I guess is this year, right? came out in 2025. So what's the strongest removal that was released in 2025? It's Deadpool. Because we we we also learned during the course of this.
00:10:21
Zachary Jeblonski
Now, a rules lawyer have jumped out my throat here, but you you know you can respond to the cast of the Deadpool. You can respond to the trigger going on to stack. but you can't respond after the target's been chosen.
00:10:33
Zachary Jeblonski
or I shouldn't say target, I guess the copy, yeah, the choice has been made.
00:10:35
ciderspence
Yeah, after the choice has been made.
00:10:38
Zachary Jeblonski
And that's just yet another layer on like how strong he is as a removal because, you know, I had a greater good on my battlefield and my original plan was that if he had chosen my commander, I would just immediately sacrifice it so there so that the trigger would fizzle and he wouldn't be able to swap, but you can't, you can't do that because it's all part of the the trigger.
00:11:00
Zachary Jeblonski
So it's just like, you know, reason number seven on why him is a removal or a way to remove a creature is it's I mean, it's just, it's so strong. It's so strong.
00:11:14
ciderspence
Yeah, was we'd we played against a version of this friend's Deadpool deck before. And it it really seemed like the upgrades had been very thoughtful.
00:11:23
ciderspence
I thought it was really interesting. And yeah, I think there's something a little more satisfying, I think, even though it was kind of devastating in this game.
00:11:25
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Yeah.
00:11:31
ciderspence
I think there's something a little more satisfying about the red clones that sacrifice themselves versus like the blue clones that stick around and just kind of... you know, kind of double or triple up on really powerful effects.
00:11:42
ciderspence
You at least know that the red clones are going away. So it's kind of cool to, and it feels very red for them to show up, do their thing and then disappear. I kind of I, like i said, I thought it was a pretty cool interaction.
00:11:49
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:11:53
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, no, for sure. i When I used to have my red-green clone deck, it is is a cool interaction, especially... a
00:12:02
Zachary Jeblonski
wait a minute. Oh, that's right. he couldn't When he lava-branked, he didn't get to keep all Deadpools because they all legendary themselves, right? Yeah.
00:12:10
ciderspence
Yeah, all he did was take away all my creatures and deal me 15 life if I didn't sacrifice them for three mana at the beginning of my next turn.
00:12:11
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:12:16
Zachary Jeblonski
Right, right, right. You know, that's all he did. But yeah, like the red clones are are neat. You know, I i had a red green clone deck around Roxanne. Same thing, you know, of just abusing ETB triggers just like a Deadpool. So it is cool. And it does incentivize people to actually swing, right? Because if they got haste and they're going to sacrificed anyway, you might as well send them in.
00:12:37
Zachary Jeblonski
So definitely, definitely a cool game. and I believe the next one was i was playing Oscar, which is blue, black.
00:12:48
Zachary Jeblonski
And I'm not sure what you have for the second one.
00:12:51
ciderspence
This was a funny one.
00:12:51
Zachary Jeblonski
Do you remember?
00:12:52
ciderspence
So I was playing one of the Katara's from Avatar, and I think it is probably the least popular and worst Katara.
00:12:57
Zachary Jeblonski
it was that one. Yeah.
00:13:00
ciderspence
It is Katara seeking revenge. 3-3 legendary creature, Uwarden warrior ally. As an additional cost to cast this spell, you may water bend 2. When she enters draw a card, then discard a card unless her additional cost was paid.
00:13:15
ciderspence
And Katara gets plus 1 plus 1 for each lesson card in your graveyard. So this was a lessons persistent petitioners deck i would say 90 of the cards in the deck were either lessons lands or persistent petitioners and the rest of the cards were mostly like uh flavorful uh helpful cards from the avatar set so one of them that played a pretty significant role in the game was uh waterbender ascension which uh whenever a creature deals comet damage you put it at
00:13:26
Zachary Jeblonski
Right. right
00:13:49
ciderspence
you put a quest counter on it, and then if it has four
Deck-Building Philosophies
00:13:51
ciderspence
quest counters, you draw a card, and then you can waterbend four to make target creature unblockable.
00:13:58
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah Yeah, that was pretty impactful, but I think you're missing the the really impactful one. Or no.
00:14:04
ciderspence
And one of the other really impactful cards, nope, you are correct, was was Lo and Lee, Royal Advisors, which is the one that we, I think we talked about in a previous episode, that we thought would be interesting or overwhelming in a Persistent Petitioner's deck that, I'm just trying to find the text here.
00:14:07
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, that was that game. Yeah.
00:14:24
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, now, while you're while you're pulling the...
00:14:25
ciderspence
Basically, whenever an opponent discards a card or mills one or more cards, put a 1-1 counter on each advisor you control.
00:14:26
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:14:33
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. And, and then I, you know, not, I didn't, you know, do it in concert. It actually, I think I ran this out before the low and Lee, but I also had an anvil of Bogarden on the battlefield. So that essentially is a two manner of artifact where every player draws two on the draw step and then discards one. So low and Lee's triggering at least once every turn.
00:14:55
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah, but the low and Lee made those persistent petitioners very big, very quick. And that that, yeah, that card, I mean, Katara, I mean, did work at the end too, because Loan Lee didn't stick around forever and she was able to make things unblockable, which definitely helps close the close the game.
00:15:13
Zachary Jeblonski
But that Loan Lee, I did bring up an interesting conversation about like, you know, is low and Lee like maybe not lazy is not the right word, but is it against the spirit of those synergies to basically say, well, I'm trying to win you out, but if I can't win you out, I'll just make things huge and hit you.
00:15:30
Zachary Jeblonski
Right. so I guess the idea was that like low, this low and Lee and in enable strategies that are, I guess unfun isn't the wrong word either, but like, is it sloppy design or is it poor design, you, that you give strategies another wincon layered on top of their original wincon like this
00:15:49
ciderspence
Yeah, I think I'd heard one of the creators say, you know, if you're going to build one of the any number of, you may have any number of copies of this card in your deck decks, you should have to think about it a little harder than this lets you do with persistent petitioners. Like, if you want to run a deck with 30 persistent petitioners, which i which I have wanted to do, I've had one for a few months, and this was, I just kind of tweaked a persistent petitioners deck I'd already put together.
00:16:15
ciderspence
But if you want to do that,
00:16:17
ciderspence
you know, that's silly and kind of quirky, should you have to come up with a silly and kind of quirky way to try to win with it versus doing that and then having something that just makes them all huge and then, you know, being able to just treat it like a an aggro green deck.
00:16:34
ciderspence
And I don't know. i I thought about building this as a commander deck with the persistent petitioners and ultimately decided against it because I think I didn't want to run into a table of strangers who, you know, were grumpy about it.
00:16:48
ciderspence
I would rather just have it in the 99 so that if it got dealt with, it got dealt with. But it did show up and it did make a pretty big impact on the game. So I could see the argument for running it as a commander.
00:16:58
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, no, I mean, I, I have it prototyped and ready to go on Moxfield, like, and you know, that's why I like every time Oscar doesn't perform like I want him to, I just look at him and just like point to, point to Loan Lee and be like, Hey buddy, you don't act right.
00:17:12
Zachary Jeblonski
You know, but, I don't, I mean, I'm good with the design on it. I guess long story short is I'm good with the design of Lo and Lee. As somebody who has run pretty much every discard commander that exists and fair amount of the mill commanders that exist, Those archetypes are hard to win with. This card especially is really difficult to win with because usually what ends up happening is if the engines get online and I strip everybody's hands, it's kind of like, well, then what?
00:17:43
Zachary Jeblonski
Right? Like I still have to find a way to do damage. I still have to find a way to like, you know, and there's ways to do that. Like Liliana's caress and and just cards that, you know, damage your opponents for having less than certain amount of cards and yada, yada, yada.
00:17:57
Zachary Jeblonski
But <unk>ve what I've found is two things, especially specifically to discard in the commander format, which is one is card draw is so strong and it's getting stronger every year that it is really, really hard to strip people's hands completely, which is maybe not a necessarily bad thing.
00:18:14
Zachary Jeblonski
And then two, it's just the damage isn't there and it's not fast enough. The damage the damage that does exist in in a lot of these things is not fast enough. Now, mill is a whole different beast because Mill a significantly stronger archetype than discard, but it's still a weak archetype. I've, I've held to that since I started playing magic.
00:18:32
Zachary Jeblonski
I'm very rarely scared of a mill deck because they're working through a hundred cards, whereas I only have to work through 40 life. So I don't i don't see Lo and Li as overly overly strong. i think I think, unfortunately, with the speed at which Commander is moving, cards like Lo and Li are going to be probably more necessary for certain types of archetypes that are just traditionally slower. Because i i otherwise, I don't know how you keep up.
00:19:02
ciderspence
Yeah, I agree with that.
00:19:04
Zachary Jeblonski
so like said, someday i will someday I may make my low and lead deck. I have a discard shell already ready in a mill shell ready together. I would just do probably low and lean and like six or seven of the good advisors and then just kind of run out like that.
00:19:19
Zachary Jeblonski
but yeah. And then the, oh yeah, I guess only other thing of note is i just want to shout out our pod mate for an offer. You can't refusing my rise of the dark realms, which was absolutely the right play.
00:19:35
Zachary Jeblonski
Bravo.
Memorable Gameplay and Azula Deck
00:19:36
ciderspence
Yep, made a pretty big impact.
00:19:38
Zachary Jeblonski
To be fair, like I literally was just having a rough game. I just, I didn't, my card draw was terrible. I didn't find any looters and I literally drew that card and I was like well I got exactly nine mana I'm gonna run this and if it gets whatever happens happens and it got the counter so was like all right but yeah that was good and and then then we move on to the next game after that which I believe is the was your Azula deck right
00:20:03
ciderspence
Next game was Azula, that's right.
00:20:05
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, and I was playing Valgivoth, the red-black Valgivoth, and our last teammate was playing. That wasn't the Rashmi one.
00:20:16
Zachary Jeblonski
That was something else, I believe, right?
00:20:20
ciderspence
Let's see. Rashmi is the Theft deck, right? That was last, I think.
00:20:23
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, that was the last game, yeah.
00:20:26
ciderspence
Oh,
00:20:27
Zachary Jeblonski
Was it Radarabic?
00:20:30
ciderspence
oh it might have been.
00:20:31
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I think it was right. Yeah, that but those words that I just, the syllables that I actually.
00:20:34
ciderspence
a route of driving, yeah.
00:20:37
Zachary Jeblonski
Wow, you should talk about your Azula game.
00:20:41
ciderspence
Yeah, well, uh, I don't remember if we talked about it here, but it's been much discussed in Magic Circles. I played Fire Lord Azula, one blue, black, red, legendary creature, human noble with firebending two.
00:20:54
ciderspence
And whenever you cast a spell while Fire Lord Azula is attacking, copy that spell. You may choose new targets for the copy. She's a four, four. And she is one of the primary bad guys from the Avatar show.
00:21:08
ciderspence
I didn't think I was going to put this deck together. because I didn't know if I wanted to support villainy in this form. But i I pulled a really nice art treatment of it, and I was leaning towards maybe putting together just an in-avatar TLA, TLE version with only cards from the set.
00:21:16
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:21:28
ciderspence
And so I did that. I played a game three, and I basically got the nut draw. I was able to get Azula out without being interacted with.
00:21:42
ciderspence
And then I swung, and i think I only swung once with her, maybe twice, but I think just once. I was able to get another Firebender out. And when I swung, I was able to cast Faded Firepower.
00:22:00
ciderspence
for
00:22:00
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh,
Commander Format and Card Interactions
00:22:00
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah. so yeah
00:22:00
ciderspence
x equals seven.
00:22:02
ciderspence
So Faded Firepower is a flash enchantment. Whenever a source you control deals damage to a permanent or player, it deals that much damage plus the number of fire counters on it.
00:22:13
ciderspence
So when Azula hit my one of my opponents, it was our pod mate, she dealt the four and then she dealt seven and then...
00:22:25
ciderspence
She made the copy of Faded Firepower, so she dealt an additional seven. So she hit that player for 18, which was pretty strong, pretty scary. I think at that point it was known she was a problem, but she had already kind of produced a problem that was hard to immediately deal with.
00:22:42
ciderspence
And then the next turn i pulled Longshot Rebel Bowman.
00:22:47
Zachary Jeblonski
hey yeah Yeah, because faded firepower...
00:22:47
ciderspence
Three and a red, legendary creature. Let me see.
00:22:53
ciderspence
Reach non-creature spells you cast costs one less to cast. Whenever you cast a non-creature spell, it deals two damage to each opponent. And I happened to have a cheapish instant and a cheapish sorcery, and I cast them, and the game was over.
00:23:14
Zachary Jeblonski
added onto the, you know, 14 onto that too. And that was 16 per. And that was it. Well, I mean, well done. it's We got to, she did the thing.
00:23:22
ciderspence
Yeah, she did the thing. i yeah i can officially say i get it now. I will run it again probably at a table where there's four players and maybe four players who are less friendly so that if she does the thing, I'll feel better about it. but yeah it was i mean it was Like I said, I do feel like it it kind of it was it was the best possible scenario, getting the Fate Firepower and then having the long shot show up right afterwards.
00:23:42
Zachary Jeblonski
No, I mean like,
00:23:51
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. I mean, it was, it was a nut draw, right?
00:23:51
ciderspence
But
00:23:53
Zachary Jeblonski
Like, like, I mean, and every deck can have that, you know, I, I remember specific occurrences with some my decks where I'm like, Oh, literally everything that could go right with my deck has gone right.
00:23:53
ciderspence
Yeah.
00:24:04
Zachary Jeblonski
And now I am closing it out on like turn five or six. Right. Like, you know, and everyone's, everyone's, everyone's entitled and should have those games every now and then.
00:24:13
Zachary Jeblonski
Cause it's just, sometimes you just need to like remind her that like, Oh yeah, i can still build decks. Okay. Like it still works. Um, works.
00:24:21
ciderspence
Yeah, it's interesting. I think about this in that in terms of like the conversation we had about Sol Ring before. I kind of think of... It's interesting. I think it kind of supports your position on Sol Ring and my position on Sol Ring, where, to me, it is often the case that a Sol Ring enables your nut draw, right? So that like your deck really gets to pop off and you get to see what it was trying to do.
00:24:42
ciderspence
Now, does that come at the expense of your opponents who you know aren't really ready for it because you're able to do what you're your deck wants to do a turn too early? Maybe, and I can see how that would be a less fun experience for them.
00:24:56
ciderspence
But I do, it you know, it is kind of nice to see a deck just really pop off every once in a while. So I think Sol Ring kind of enables that.
00:25:02
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
00:25:04
ciderspence
So that's that's kind of why I'm in favor of it.
00:25:06
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah
00:25:07
ciderspence
But yeah, I mean, I could see why the fact that it makes things happen too early could also be a downside.
00:25:17
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, no, I mean, I, I, at some point, if I ever had the time, I would, should I should write my, my, uh, my doctoral thesis on, the, the deleterious effects of solaring on the, on the commander format. But, but more or less it it is that issue, right? So like, I guess you would, you know, if you were going to, you know, push back, it'd be like, well, you know, Zach, why are you in Why do you think it's okay to have a nut drawl and for these decks to pop off quicker than they normally do, but you're not okay with solaring?
00:25:46
Zachary Jeblonski
And I think a big part of that is because solaring is generically good and that solaring allows, basically increases the frequency of those quote unquote nut draws.
00:25:58
Zachary Jeblonski
And it it allows the nut draws to happen even outside the confines of a specific commander deck theme. Like your Fire Lord Azula, like chain of events there was specific to Fire Lord Azula in the way she works.
00:26:14
Zachary Jeblonski
Where Sol Ring just generically is like, oh, okay. Sol Ring and then, you know, Arcane Signet and then, you know, blah, blah, blah. But that'll be, that's that's a much bigger topic. Yeah.
00:26:28
Zachary Jeblonski
But yeah, that that game was that game was solid. talk about kind of did stuff I mostly did all my damage to myself with my own Magebane Lizard.
00:26:36
ciderspence
Yeah, it's funny.
Multiplayer Dynamics: 3 vs 4 Player Games
00:26:37
ciderspence
he after After being frustrated by Mei in game one, he played a version of that same effect later on and then paid the price for it. So I hope you learned a valuable lesson, Zach.
00:26:48
Zachary Jeblonski
guess don't try new things no i'm just kidding all right and then our last game which ended up being i mean it was it was intense i would say at least for me it was uh was Our third player was playing Rashmi and Ragavan, Temur, which kind of like theft deck.
00:27:11
Zachary Jeblonski
I had Omnath, the five color one, basically Spellslinger around three mana pips. And you had something that I'm remembering.
00:27:22
ciderspence
I was running my Axes and Allies deck, Sokka and Suki, blue, red, white, legendary creature, human warrior ally.
00:27:24
Zachary Jeblonski
Yes, there it is.
00:27:29
ciderspence
Whenever this or another ally you control enters, attach up to one target equipment you control to it. And whenever an equipment you control enters, create a 1-1 white ally creature token. It's a 3-3.
00:27:40
Zachary Jeblonski
Right. Okay. Yeah. yeah And I should bring up the Omnath because I think there's some misconceptions on it. but it's the five color Omnath, Omnath Locus of All. Uh, it's white, blue, Phyrexian, black, red, green. and if you would lose unspent mana, that mana becomes black instead.
00:27:55
Zachary Jeblonski
At the beginning of your first main phase, you look at the top card of your library. You may reveal that card if it has three or more colored mana symbols in its cost. If you do add three mana in any combination of its colors and put it into your hand. If you don't reveal it, put it to your hand.
00:28:09
Zachary Jeblonski
now the The one quick point that I wanted to make is that a lot of people don't realize that it it's only looking for mana symbols. It's not looking for three different mana symbols. So if you have a spell that is green, green, green, too generic or something like that, then that still works because it had the three green pips.
00:28:27
Zachary Jeblonski
So that that my I'm that deck is like literally as full as it possibly can be almost with spells that have at least three pips of some sort.
00:28:37
Zachary Jeblonski
with the exception of like ramp spells and some a few other spells that i needed that just didn't have the pips but but our our podman man he that deck go burr and uh it was it was it was a struggle trying to keep up with uh what he had going on over there
00:28:56
ciderspence
Yeah, I think he didn't even get to some of the nastier cards that we've seen in that deck. But yeah, was it was quite a contest.
00:29:07
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, no, I mean, i I was impressed. Like, you know, because I remember Rashmi and Ragman getting revealed and I did and I was like, this effect seems kind of whatever. But he's really done a great job with that deck. It is it's scary. I mean, it's usually, you know, like those kind of decks, at least in my opinion, have, you know, they there they can be on the annoying side and less on the scary side. And that deck crossed into scary. So.
00:29:31
Zachary Jeblonski
I was only able to, I ended up winning, but I was only able to secure that win because i got really lucky with basically like two draws in a row where I drew back to back my two closeout spells or like the two spells that I really like kind of closed the game out with Omnath, which is The first one is Exsanguinate.
00:29:50
Zachary Jeblonski
But the one that I'm going to use as my card the week, the one that I think is really cool and i you don't see it very often is Debt to the Deathless. And it's X, white, white, black, black. So that's four pips there.
00:30:03
Zachary Jeblonski
Each opponent loses two times X life and you gain life equal to a life lost this way. So kind of the order of events was, you know, he had a pretty massive board state. He had three mind dilations, you know, which I... yeah I agree. I did get a, I get a little, so I got a little salty, but I attributed that more to the time of the night and not the card. I'm going to defend my, my bro, my bro there.
00:30:26
Zachary Jeblonski
but I, when I fired off the death, the death list for lethal, uh, counterspelled it.
Challenges in Five Player Games
00:30:31
Zachary Jeblonski
And then the next turn came around that I just fired off like sanguine for lethal and he didn't have a counter spell for that one. But without those, without those like very lucky draws, like he would have had that game easily.
00:30:44
ciderspence
Yeah, his board state was out of control.
00:30:46
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, it was so out of control. Like his three mind dilations. I think, did he get, feel like he got a Tali bag. Oh, we had the passionate archeologist. Yeah. He just had, it was all, it was just going.
00:31:00
ciderspence
Yep.
00:31:00
Zachary Jeblonski
It was going.
00:31:01
ciderspence
Yep. But somehow his life total was getting chipped away at.
00:31:05
ciderspence
So, you know, we were we were kind of trying to collectively whittle him down before... it finished the job and Zach was able to.
00:31:16
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah Yeah, it was it was it it was a really good game. Yeah. So those are our games a week. Now, like i get do you have any overall thoughts on the three pod versus four pod? like And I'll just kind of kick it off. you know i'm like i am I'm pretty okay with three pods. like I'm like 80% with a three pod, right? like So if like a standard commander four pod is 100%, I put a three pod in 80%.
00:31:40
Zachary Jeblonski
and and And I'll ask you kind of what your opinion of like a three pod is before I move on to five pods. is I think five pods is where some of the heat is for me. So what do you think about like a three pod?
00:31:50
ciderspence
So I think the generic three pod at a store, I don't like. I think it is most often the case that when three strangers get together and talk about what decks they're going to play, one of them is not on par with the others. And I think a three pod makes that turn into a non-compelling, non-game game.
00:32:15
ciderspence
more often than a four pod does, because at least in a four pod, where I think it's often still the case that one player is not really vibing with the spirit of what the rest of the table wants to do.
00:32:27
ciderspence
There are just more chances for the table to kind of, through gameplay, try to equalize the experience. And I think that I see that happen a lot in stores.
00:32:35
Zachary Jeblonski
Gotcha. Yeah. gotcha
00:32:37
ciderspence
And sometimes it'll be two players play more powerful stuff and two players play less powerful stuff. And that would seem to be not fun, but it turns out to be the case that the two powerful decks kind of try to neutralize these each other and hold each other back.
00:32:50
ciderspence
And that gives the other two less powerful decks time to develop so that it actually turns out to be a more even game because you have those decks, uh,
00:32:53
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah
00:32:58
ciderspence
you know, kind of get to go under the radar so that they get to become scary. And the other two decks use their resources to to hold each other back so that they keep each other from being too scary. So you wind up with a point where it's like, do the two up and coming decks get to a point where they're above the two big and scarier decks that are, that are you know, fighting each other.
00:33:18
ciderspence
I found that to be a quite fun dynamic. But with three pods, I think it's usually the case that one deck just kind of overpowers the others and there aren't enough opportunities collectively to respond to it before it takes over. And sometimes those games are long, even though they're not fun, because the deck that's overwhelming has a really big board state and it's hard to interact with, but doesn't win deterministically or doesn't win early or like wins through some slow win con. And then it's just like you're kind of stuck there. And that's just so I found that at stores, three pods are not that fun.
00:33:53
ciderspence
A home game 3-pod, though, i think actually was great.
00:33:53
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. a
00:33:57
ciderspence
We were able to get four games in. I thought each of the games was pretty interesting. And we know each other well enough, and we know our decks well enough to say, oh, let's not, maybe let's not play this deck first.
00:34:07
ciderspence
Oh, you're running Deadpool, I'll run this. I didn't think that we metagamed each other, but I do think that we wound up with four games where the decks were on par with not with one another so that the games were interesting.
00:34:22
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah, I mean, i i don't I can't really recall any like experiences at stores with carding three pods. That really stood out to me.
00:34:32
Zachary Jeblonski
But I do see your point, and i and i'm I'm guessing that's probably happened to me, and I just purged it from my memory banks. But you know for me it's it's you know for me a lot you know for me, the thing that hinges a lot of my magic enjoyment on is like,
00:34:50
Zachary Jeblonski
Not that I want people to like play like chess clocks, speed, or whatever, but like it's it's more or less the cadence or the the speed at which like the turns are moving through.
Proposed Formats and Emperor Format
00:35:00
Zachary Jeblonski
And at least, I guess, for me, for like three pods, it's like, okay, well, even if you have somebody that's taking longer time because their deck is complicated or whatever,
00:35:09
Zachary Jeblonski
there's one less player before it gets back to me kind of thing. But it still has the multiplayer format of 1v1v1 and not a 1v1.
00:35:19
Zachary Jeblonski
Obviously, four players is is the peak, right? So I'm putting this at like 80%, right? So I'm saying like like a three pot is like 80% to me. Like, I'm good with that. and And the reason I wanted to talk about it, because I want to talk about the flip side of that, which is like the five-player experience.
00:35:34
Zachary Jeblonski
Because to me, I put five players at like 40%. forty percent What do you where do you think, where do you kind of rank like five-player games at?
00:35:43
ciderspence
I think five players can be tolerable. But again, I think it works a lot better in the home game setting where you know the players.
00:35:54
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, for
00:35:56
ciderspence
Because yeah, an in-store five pod with strangers, i I don't think I've ever had a good time with that.
00:36:02
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. I think something I wanted to bring up and then, and you know, in the event that like we have a five pod situation for our kitchen table, because of course we're, we never wanted to exclude anybody. And of course I want people play magic.
00:36:15
Zachary Jeblonski
And this is something I was introduced to it in a store that I want to try. Cause I think it helps Olivia. I think it takes that 40% for me and kind of moves it up into the 60, maybe even 80% Is have you ever heard of, I think if they call it, some people call it star or other people call it pentagram, like on how to play a five player game.
00:36:35
ciderspence
I've heard this idea discussed, but I've never dialed in enough to really understand it.
00:36:41
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, so the the rules are, so I would say, so sufficiently simple, but essentially is, know, you have a five-player commander pod. The thing that changes is that the two players that are next to you are are your not your allies, but they do not matter if they die.
00:37:00
Zachary Jeblonski
Like, so two players on the side of you, you are not trying to kill them. They are not trying to kill you. And if the two players across from you are, if those two players die, you win, right? So basically instead of trying to wipe this whole pod of five people, your only objective is to kill the two people that are across from you.
00:37:20
Zachary Jeblonski
And so it gives everybody this kind of like lesser goal, right? So they're not trying to, we're not trying to kill the whole pod. You win if you kill the two people across from you.
00:37:30
Zachary Jeblonski
And it creates a little bit of an interesting dynamic where you know, some of the decisions get shortened a little bit because you're not like, you know, if your partner is going crazy on the left, but they're not an immediate, like, they're not going to win immediately. cause obviously if they win, you lose, but like if they're, if they're going crazy and they're doing all this stuff, like you don't really have to care that much about it because they're not, they're not your win condition essentially.
00:37:54
Zachary Jeblonski
so that's something I might want to bring up and, you know, see, see how everybody feels. Cause I think it does help speed up a little bit cause it eliminates some of the decision paralysis as you get to more players in the game.
00:38:06
Zachary Jeblonski
but I, I, have you ever, what do you think of that? Like idea of the pentagram slash star?
00:38:14
ciderspence
I don't love it, but I think only because it complicates the... i guess I like games where you just pla
00:38:28
ciderspence
play the way that you would expect to play when you're building decks.
00:38:32
Zachary Jeblonski
Hmm, okay.
00:38:32
ciderspence
So the notion that you have effectively teammates and then... and not not directly teammates, but you have players that you're playing against that you're not trying to beat.
00:38:44
ciderspence
And then you have players that you're playing against that you are trying to beat. And your win condition isn't just eliminate all the other players. And your opponent's win condition isn't eliminate all the other players, including you. I don't like... I guess if it's if it's a thing that everyone was preparing to play and everyone is excited to try it, I think that's one thing. But I don't like the idea of...
00:39:06
ciderspence
showing up expecting a four pod instead of getting a five pod and then instead playing a variant. I think I just, I think for me, I like, don't know, I like normalized controlled experiences, which might seem weird given my stance on like universes beyond, but I think, knowing the rules in advance and being prepared for the rules is something that I find pretty valuable.
00:39:30
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:39:31
ciderspence
I think the the alternative I would like, and I think I've done this when we've done five pods, is I would just want as many players who have burn decks that they are excited to play to play burn for a five pod. And I might even propose, you know, kind of out of step with what I was just saying. I might even propose everybody starts at 30 life or something just so that the overall ask of a deck...
00:39:53
ciderspence
isn't that much harder. I think the thing about five pods that's tough is that, especially if you are looking to avoid a three hour game, there's just so much more life to get through at the table for whichever deck ultimately wins that it's going to take a lot longer.
00:40:09
ciderspence
And of course there's that much more interaction. So whatever board state you have that's going to lead you to a win, if you're trying to win through board state, is also going to take that much longer to achieve. So yeah, I found that I think the last five pod that we played at a home game, I think I played my Dragon's Approach deck.
00:40:27
ciderspence
And i i would think that's I think that's the direction I would want to go in the scenario of more players.
00:40:33
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I think, yeah, I mean, I certainly, you know, that makes sense to me. I understand why, you know, you feel that way. you know For me, it's it's it's all about like how do we how do we turn a game that is 25% more players and more decisions, and how do we keep the speed somewhat similar?
00:40:57
Zachary Jeblonski
So that's kind of like where my focus goes. But I understand your point of view for sure. And I think you touched on another issue with the disparity between 3-Pod and 5-Pod. is whether or not archetypes basically even work anymore changes depending if you have a three or f five pod.
00:41:15
Zachary Jeblonski
An easy example this is Voltron becomes a whole lot harder in a five pod than it does in a three pod or I mean in a four pod. Because you have you have at least one extra turn in order to complete your win because you have one extra player that you have to you have to have one shot down.
00:41:33
Zachary Jeblonski
or two shot down, and then you you know now you're looking at two extra turns just to finish your win con it if you're in a Voltron-style deck. So there's just a lot of knock-on effects between three and five players, and obviously, if you're in that situation, you're only there because you know just that's just the way the the chips fell that week as far as players and you know who and who could make it.
00:41:53
Zachary Jeblonski
And I want to be clear that if my decision between magic, it's it's no magic or a five pod, it will take the five pod 10 times out of 10. i just want to be clear about that. But, you know, it i it is an interesting issue that, and well, I guess what I find interesting is just how like honed in for players is, right?
00:42:12
Zachary Jeblonski
I guess from the outside looking in, I could see a player who's not familiar with Commander saying, what's the point? What's the problem with adding one more player? But it really does change the game. Or what's the what what how detrimental can it be to remove one player? I'm like, oh, it does change things, you know.
00:42:27
Zachary Jeblonski
So, yeah. So that was our game.
00:42:28
ciderspence
Yeah, I think for me, it's largely just expectations, right?
00:42:29
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:42:30
ciderspence
I think because it's, you know, by by design, a four-player format, when you build decks, when you playtest decks, when you think about decks, when you think about what your deck's going to do, when you think about how it's trying to win, you're thinking, you know, I got to get through three opponents.
00:42:45
ciderspence
And it it just, you know, it just kind of throws me off a little bit when it's going to be two opponents or when it's going to be four opponents. And so I think that's what I don't like about it.
00:42:56
ciderspence
And just to be clear on my side, I would always rather play with five people in our pod if the other four people are available to play. Like that's, you know, that's the the benefit that we haven't explicitly talked about, but the nice thing about a home game is you're playing with your friends and you get to hang out.
00:43:11
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, for sure.
00:43:11
ciderspence
And I think that's always more fun.
00:43:12
Zachary Jeblonski
Correct.
00:43:13
ciderspence
Seeing more seeing more friends better than seeing fewer friends.
00:43:16
Zachary Jeblonski
correct
00:43:17
ciderspence
So, and that, far outweighs any any gameplay distinction between the two. So I would always rather see as many of my friends as possible for game night. And occasionally, if that turns into six players, I'd i'd be down for that too. And then then maybe I'm more excited about either splitting into two, three pods or doing an adjusted rule set because six sounds sounds wild. But you know it's the fun kind of wild if if they're friends.
00:43:44
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I've done an eight player with the Emperor format. I've done that once. It wasn't my favorite. I've never done six, I don't think.
00:43:54
Zachary Jeblonski
Have you ever tried Emperor?
00:43:57
ciderspence
I have not. I think the only other format I've tried is Two-Headed Giant.
00:43:58
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:44:04
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay, I've never done Two-Edded Giant. I've done Emperor. Emperor seems like the exact kind of thing you would not like. Yeah. cause it's basically like, Oh, wait a minute. No, that was a six player game was emperor. Yeah. Cause the way it works is you have like, two people are emperors on teams or, know, one emperor on each team and they each have two nights and the nights can only attack the other nights or the night, like across from them.
00:44:32
Zachary Jeblonski
I forget there's all these rules, but basically you have to kill the Knights and then kill the emperor to win. Right. So you're the, each emperor has two night, like protecting them. And it, you know, I, I get why you would do that if you're doing a six player game, because you have to, you have to change the rules a certain point, like, because the whole commander format starts to like disintegrate once you get to like six players.
00:44:53
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah.
Ethical Deck Building
00:45:16
ciderspence
And the kids were able to interact with whoever they wanted. And I thought that that would be better because it would improve the experience for the kids. But what wound up happening was my kid had a significantly stronger deck than my friend's kid.
00:45:31
ciderspence
And basically, my friend's kid wasn't in a position to interact with it much. And then my friend wasn't by rule allowed to interact with it much.
00:45:40
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, yeah. yeah
00:45:41
ciderspence
And so it actually led to a pretty unfun game. And it it was... really not, you know, it wasn't well considered on my part. So the next time we played, we just played a more normal game. And i you know, I still didn't interact with my friend's kid at all. I didn't think that was reasonable.
00:45:57
ciderspence
But, you know, they interacted with my, with my son some. And it was okay. You know, i I like tried to retaliate against their interaction with him, which I actually thought made for a pretty fun dynamic. So I, you know, I wish i wish the first game had been played in that way too.
00:46:11
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:46:11
ciderspence
But yeah, adjusted formats, I think they can be fun, but I think overall that the original is pretty good.
00:46:16
Zachary Jeblonski
That's a, yeah, you touched on an interesting topic I have to put on the list, but like self-imposed rules to like, not fix imbalances, but like to address certain, I'm to say conflicts of interest.
00:46:31
Zachary Jeblonski
So I did this when, I had my wife play with us and anytime I, you know, I have my wife play with people that I know. I always tell her like, look, if you're going to do something against somebody and it doesn't really matter who, like you're not really that specific, just do it against me just to remove any appearance of like,
00:46:52
Zachary Jeblonski
You know, like we're colluding, we colluded before the game, you know, to fix the game between the two of us or something like that. i was like, no, if you're going to like, if you have to send 10 damage and it doesn't matter where you send it and send it to me. Right. Like kind of thing. Right.
00:47:05
Zachary Jeblonski
so yeah, that's an interesting, yeah. Like the, the meta game on top of the game of like, like how do we what kind of additional rules are we layering on ourselves to just try to ensure to the best of our ability that everybody has a good time.
00:47:20
ciderspence
Yeah, I mean, I do this a lot. Maybe we'll talk about it a little bit here. I think you know one of the things I've tried to focus on deck building recently is trying to not play effects that I don't like seeing other people play.
00:47:34
ciderspence
And so just back to our Persistent Petitioners game, I didn't mill anybody.
00:47:35
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:47:39
ciderspence
And i the reason that I liked Katara as the commander for that deck was that the only plan... that involved mill was to mill myself just to get more lessons in my graveyard to make Katara bigger. So it was really kind of just a Voltron strategy.
00:47:54
ciderspence
The low and least showing up made the persistent petitioners huge, so I got to go aggro with it. But the only milling I did that game was myself. And I i did i probably milled myself 24 cards. And i had a I had a line to mill myself.
00:48:09
ciderspence
24th, the end to see if I could deal lethal commander damage to the remaining player. But I liked that. application of a mill strategy because, you know, it's, I don't have fun when, when I get milled a lot.
00:48:22
ciderspence
And so I wanted to play Persistent Petitioners because I like the, you can run any number of copies of this card decks.
00:48:23
Zachary Jeblonski
Hmm. Okay.
00:48:29
ciderspence
So I wanted to have a version of that. And I'd had an earlier one where I did mill people and I tried to play it in a pod where everybody was doing fun things, but I did like this better.
Marvel Magic Set and Card Design Discussion
00:48:38
ciderspence
So that's just what, you know, kind of the golden rule deck building philosophy I've been trying to adhere to. So that's one of my kind of, uh,
00:48:45
ciderspence
limiters
00:48:47
Zachary Jeblonski
No, I agree. i do i do the i do I do the same exact thing. like i I try not to have any effects on my decks where like I'm not thrilled to see it. you know like I preach what I you know and i put when I preach. right like I don't have Sol Ring in any of my decks.
00:49:04
Zachary Jeblonski
you know I'm not a big fan of extra turns or even extra combats. I don't like either of those usually, so none of my decks have those. you know, so yeah, I agree. I do the same thing, you know, like I'm, you know, I, if I'm going to, if I'm going to get on a a soapbox about something, then I obviously shouldn't be running it.
00:49:22
Zachary Jeblonski
but yeah, I guess we we got, we got a little bit of time left. I did want to touch on, some of the, the Marvel spoiler. Cause know you're a Superman fan, but are you also like a Marvel in general fan?
00:49:32
ciderspence
I'm a Spider-Man fan. Superman is okay.
00:49:34
Zachary Jeblonski
I'm sorry, Spider-Man, my bad.
00:49:35
ciderspence
Nope, totally fine. Yeah, I'm excited about the Marvel stuff coming. But yeah, i I'm a little sad that Spider-Man was so broadly disliked. But I'm trying not to let that make me retaliate against any of the upcoming sets.
00:49:51
Zachary Jeblonski
Well, I mean, I think, I think Spider-Man has a shot at, at kind of building support over the longterm. Like it, I think it was a, maybe it didn't hit like a, like we had hoped for a lot of people, but I think it's like one of those sets that like a year from now, sort of like Baldur's gate kind of did that.
00:50:09
Zachary Jeblonski
Baldur's gate was a little bit low and then over the years it's like been creeping back up and people are like, yeah, Baldur's gate was a great, you know? And I think Spider-Man that might happen him with Spider-Man as well.
00:50:19
Zachary Jeblonski
But we got, I just, I selected some cards that i thought we were worth talking about. I have it in our sheet here and I'll just kind of kick us off with, I recently watched the professor's video on this. And, you know, he's very cynical about it, which I understand. I'm not the biggest Marvel person myself, but I, you know, yada, yada, yada. But anyway, he brought out, he talked about the Sentry, Golden Guardian.
00:50:41
Zachary Jeblonski
It's three and a white. It's Flying Vigilance Indestructible, five five And when it enters, you give an opponent the void, which is a legendary five, five black horror villain creature token with flying and indestructible and the void attacks each turn, each combat available.
00:50:58
Zachary Jeblonski
And I think when I first saw that card revealed, I was like, man, giving me an opponent something, blah, blah, that seems bad. But then he, he pointed out that something very obvious. Obviously i didn't pay attention to it, which is that the century is vigilant and indestructible and the token is indestructible.
00:51:11
Zachary Jeblonski
Meaning that you can attack every turn with the century and still have them up as a blocker for the void. If whoever you gave the void to decides to attack you. So it's not really too much of a drawback, that you give somebody this five five because you presumably also always have this five five blocker as well.
00:51:30
Zachary Jeblonski
So I kind of really liked the centuries design, to the point where I'm like, I might consider building him. We'll say, Any thoughts on the century?
00:51:40
ciderspence
Yeah, it looks pretty cool. Yeah, I hadn't thought about that either.
00:51:41
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:51:42
ciderspence
Yeah, that's a neat, I agree. That is pretty cool design.
00:51:45
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Yeah. but I guess we'll talk about probably the most powerful card that they've debuted so far. is the one that I know a lot of people have been talking about a lot of different formats.
00:51:56
Zachary Jeblonski
Commander wise, it's probably gonna be fine, but I think in some of the more limited formats, it's going to be crazy, which is Namor, the Submariner. He's one blue blue flying. He's a merfolk villain, a mutant merfolk villain. And his power equal to the number of merfolk you control.
00:52:11
Zachary Jeblonski
But this one's a doozy. It's whenever you cast a non-creature spell with one or more mana symbols in its cost, you create that many one, one blue merfolk creature tokens. So this is this is insane. This is a nuts. mean, I'm pretty sure this is going to be real. This might be one of the strongest amount of blue commanders in Commander as well, I think.
00:52:30
Zachary Jeblonski
because essentially you're getting token value off of everything you do, uh, because you're probably not running that many like colorless artifact spells and stuff like that. But even spells like powerful spells, like force of will or, you know, fierce guardianship or like free counter spells, they're netting you tokens. They're increasing the power on your battlefield.
00:52:51
Zachary Jeblonski
I think he's going be very strong. It's a little weird that he's classified merfolk and he looks like a dude, but you know, that's more of a Marvel art thing, I guess for me, but I think he's going to be pretty nuts.
00:53:04
ciderspence
Yeah, this looks awesome.
00:53:07
Zachary Jeblonski
I am. I also like that effect. I kind of wish, I kind of hope that they do more effects sort of like the Omnath thing too, which is like, I do like it when they focus on the pips a little bit. Cause I think that helps pretty I know I just said that name was strong, but I think it also helps with some of the fast mana issues in terms of like, well, if you want to run the commander with a lot of pips, you know, I don't know why I'm focusing on this much so much today, but like soldering is less valuable if half your, if most of your deck is full pips. Right. So that's kind of like, you know, let's, let's, you know, let's make some mana. Let's make some pips.
00:53:43
Zachary Jeblonski
and then, uh, lastly, The card that the design is the thing I want to about was Dr. Doom. Uh, it's four black, black, you know, legendary creature, human scientist villain. And when he enters, you make two, three, three, robot villain robot villain creature, artifact creature tokens named doom bot.
00:54:01
Zachary Jeblonski
And as long as you control an artifact creature or a plan, Dr. Doom is indestructible. And I didn't, I don't have the plan up here, but they've only debuted one, but plans are basically like, uh, enchantments with quest counters. if you're familiar with those,
00:54:14
Zachary Jeblonski
And at the beginning of your step, you draw a card and lose a life. And I think what I like about his design is it's more mono black, like ETB stuff. I feel like we're starting to see that more and more.
00:54:26
Zachary Jeblonski
And, I think, uh, I think there's a reasonable design space where maybe you do feign death effects or something like that, where you could, if you run them as a commander, you could really get kind of out of control with, some of these color, these, uh, tokens that he's generating. And he's also giving you card draw on your end step, just like the speed demon, which is another mono black commander that I've always thought about building.
00:54:47
Zachary Jeblonski
but I think he's a cool, cool effect.
00:54:50
ciderspence
Yeah, I think it's fun six mana creature design, right? Like, kind of protects itself. If it gets to stay on the battlefield, you get to get value out of it.
00:55:01
ciderspence
But at six mana, you kind of have to build up towards playing it.
00:55:07
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:55:07
ciderspence
And it's not overwhelming when it comes down, but it does give you value and it gives itself a way to protect itself.
00:55:08
Zachary Jeblonski
But just, I kind of, yeah.
00:55:14
ciderspence
So I like it.
00:55:16
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. i'm I'm a big fan of, I would say, what I would call an appropriately costed commander where like, he doesn't feel like he's pushed or anything like six man is a fair amount mana. And, uh,
00:55:27
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I think that, I think, you know, I don't, I don't i hesitate to say this on on on audio log, but it doesn't seem abusable. Because yeah she was like, every time I see a commander, I'm like, oh, that seems like a fair commander. And then it turns out they're like the most broken thing ever.
00:55:42
Zachary Jeblonski
Speaking of the most broken thing ever, the last one I want to talk about is our our good pal and yours, Bruce Banner slash the Incredible Hulk. So his design is similar to the Spider-Man designs where he has two sides and you could cast either side straight up or you could, if you cast on the front side, you can pay an alternate cost to flip them to the backside.
00:56:05
Zachary Jeblonski
But the front side is he's Bruce Banner. He's one blue. He has XX tap, draw X cards, activate only as a sorcery. But you can pay two red, red, green, green to flip him.
00:56:16
Zachary Jeblonski
Or you can pay two red, red, green, green to cast him straight up on his backside. And that's when he is the Incredible Hulk and he's got a reach and trample. And then here's the big thing. Whenever the Incredible Hulk is dealt damage, put a 1-1 counter on him. If he's attacking, untap him.
00:56:32
Zachary Jeblonski
And there's an additional combat phase after this phase. Uh, so he basically goes infinite with like 50 different cards and magic. one that people have been pointing out all over social media is there's a three manner artifact called cow traps that does one damage to attacking creatures.
00:56:50
Zachary Jeblonski
so if you have cow chops and incredible Hulk, he attacks, he takes a damage. He gets a one, one. There's another combat rinse, repeat, uh, everyone's dead. i I'm personally not too excited for this card. Like I'm not an extra combat guy. I'm not an easy, I don't like combos in general, especially ones that are easy like this.
00:57:10
Zachary Jeblonski
But the one the reason I would do want to highlight it is I do think the art treatment on the Hulk is fantastic. So listeners out there, look at the art treatment for the Hulk.
00:57:20
Zachary Jeblonski
I think it's just really, it's like almost disturbing, like how the anger is portrayed there. What do you think about that art?
00:57:30
ciderspence
Yeah, it it's great. And I think that was something that I appreciated about the Spider-Man set as well and about the Avatar set. The art on a lot of these cards is just phenomenal.
00:57:40
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah like yeah even if even if i'm not you know as interested in in this particular subject i can still appreciate that like the craft that went into this really like a lot of the art that i've seen so far from this set and spider-man set as well too like you know i thought the hulk in particular here really stood out to me i was just like wow like that is That is deranged and angry man, which I've heard is his shtick.
00:58:07
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:58:07
ciderspence
Yeah, that's that's his deal. I do think it's interesting comparing this card to Dr. Doom, and I guess a lot of this goes into color identity and what the colors are, what they represent and what they're supposed to be able to do.
00:58:20
ciderspence
Whereas Dr. Doom seems like a well-costed card that seems reasonable. This seems out of control for six mana, especially in easy haste colors.
00:58:29
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:58:32
ciderspence
And especially to the point you made with like you know, with on-curve ways to make it go infinite when it comes down, and with blue somehow on the front side so that you can protect the cast of it and the card when it's down. it This seems...
00:58:54
ciderspence
you know You mentioned that Dr.
00:58:54
Zachary Jeblonski
And also, like... Yeah.
00:58:55
ciderspence
Doom doesn't seem on his face abusable. This seems on its face very abusable. So I look forward to losing to this one or two times in a fun way and then asking politely to not play against it going forward.
00:59:09
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, it's... i I don't like the design. I mean, I featured it because I wanted to really talk about the art, but I think the design is like, yeah you know, Tomer from MTG Goldfish talks about this a lot. And I agree with it wholeheartedly, which is that commander should kind of make you work for it.
00:59:27
Zachary Jeblonski
Like a commander shouldn't just be so overwhelming that like, it It basically does its own thing, you know? And like, I just don't think there's a lot to work for here with the Incredible Hulk.
00:59:38
Zachary Jeblonski
As long as you have one of the 20 to 40 effects that damage a creature when it attacks or you have, you know, you know would whatever. and i don't have them all listed, but like he just immediately goes infinite. And it's just like, but why? Why why do we have to make it so easy?
00:59:57
Zachary Jeblonski
Right. but yeah, I mean, I, I think maybe a magic designer would say, well, dr Doom doesn't have to attack in order to get his value and he's usually indestructible. So that makes his costs synonymous or like similar to incredible halls costs. But in a commander, format, we know that's not true. We know that the incredible Hulk in this case would be, is probably going to be significantly stronger.
01:00:21
ciderspence
Yeah, and I mean, a lot of it does come down to seeing people use it. It's possible that there will be, you know, some lines that become popular pretty quickly that make Doctor Doom seem powerful and scary on par with the Incredible Hulk. But I think just in terms of looking at the card and thinking about what's possible with it, the Incredible Hulk just seems, you know, unreasonably abusable and strong compared to Dr. Doom.
01:00:53
ciderspence
It's an interesting question, which seems on its face stronger, Namor or the Incredible Hulk. I am tempted to say Namor just because it's cheap and and it has the opportunity to be so tricky and it's got that evasion.
01:01:02
Zachary Jeblonski
I think Namor is, yeah.
01:01:07
ciderspence
But yeah, I guess we'll just kind of see. I'm excited to see the Gnall in action.
01:01:11
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, it yeah
01:01:13
ciderspence
But like I said, the Incredible Hulk maybe fewer times than the others.
01:01:17
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah it's like one of those things where like I just, with you know, I've brought, with the speed at which Commander is moving, i think Namor is going stronger just because he's half the cost and, know, like if if Especially if those decks were going head-to-head, Incredible Hulk would probably never get to a chance to attack. right you get removed do we have balanced He would he would... And every time the Namor deck did those things, he was making his board stronger. it it would yeah But anyway, but in Casual Commander, I think Incredible Hulk is going to be more prolific and probably more dangerous. Yeah.
01:01:50
ciderspence
Yeah, the Incredible Hulk just kind of reminds me of like an Atali, where it's like, as long as everybody's played it before and knows that you can't let it resolve or you can't let it do the thing or the game is going to be over, then, you know, maybe that makes for fun dynamic. I feel like I've had this dynamic with my Bruna deck before, where it's like, sometimes I'll tell the pod, hey, read this effect. It's pretty good.
01:02:12
ciderspence
you know, if you let me get her down with a reasonable hand, I'm probably going to knock somebody out and then she's got vigilance and I can put more stuff on her when she blocks. So this is a threat, you know, just be aware of.
01:02:24
ciderspence
And in those games, like I typically face a lot of removal, but that seems appropriate. And, you know, sometimes she comes down later and, and does a lot of work and sometimes she doesn't. And I'm okay with that. That seems like a dynamic that might start to happen with this Hulk card after it
Episode Wrap-Up and Future Anticipation
01:02:39
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
01:02:39
ciderspence
gets a little more, after it gets played some.
01:02:42
ciderspence
So, You know, it doesn't necessarily make for unfun games, but it does warp the table. But, you know, a lot of cards do that.
01:02:49
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, no, I mean, I, and last thing is, the card I immediately thought of when I saw this, uh, spoiler was, uh, Andrag the Quake Mole. It's very similar effect where you get an extra combat, if Andrag is blocked and then you can pay a cost to force people to block it.
01:03:06
Zachary Jeblonski
so, you know, there was, i remember when that card was debuted, there was a lot of fear that like that was going to take over casual commander and I don't really see Andrag. So, Same thing might happen with the Incredible Hulk. This might kind of blow over. And in fact, I think it will, because I think he kind of falls a little bit in that you do it once or twice and you're like, oh, okay.
01:03:26
Zachary Jeblonski
You know, you did the thing once or twice and then you kind of move on. Right. So, I know we're pushing time. is there anything else you wanted to talk about before we wrap it up?
01:03:34
ciderspence
No, I'm good.
01:03:36
Zachary Jeblonski
All right. Well, thanks for joining us. Thank you for joining me, Charles, as I stumbled my way through this.
01:03:40
ciderspence
Yeah, my pleasure.
01:03:43
Zachary Jeblonski
And we will talk again next time.
01:03:45
ciderspence
Take it easy, everybody.
01:03:46
Zachary Jeblonski
See you.