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Ep. 26 - We're Not Poo Pooers
31 Plays5 months ago
We've got some hands on with Lorwyn Eclipsed as well as our normal game and deck talk. Also, we started what might be a recurring feature, tier listing deck ideas!
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Transcript
Welcome and Weather Talk
00:00:13
Zachary Jeblonski
Hello, Welcome to another episode of Midlife's Crisis. I'm Zach. I'm joined again with Charles.
00:00:18
ciderspence
Good morning, Zach.
00:00:20
Zachary Jeblonski
Good morning. Are you adequately prepared for the snowmageddon that's hiding our way?
00:00:26
ciderspence
I am. Last weekend was pretty rough in terms of the timing of the snow. It made for some treacherous driving. So having gotten that under my belt, I'm better prepared for it next time.
00:00:37
Zachary Jeblonski
I think I'm actually going to drag myself to a a store today. Well, going definitely go grocery shopping today because I think tomorrow is going to chaos. Well, if it's anything like in the other places I've lived in this country. but I think I might try and pick up two sleds.
00:00:50
Zachary Jeblonski
Uh, cause I haven't done sledding as an adult, like ever. And it might as well, there's, there's no better time than now.
00:00:54
ciderspence
Nice.
00:00:55
Zachary Jeblonski
Right? So,
00:00:56
ciderspence
I agree. It's only going to get worse. It's another way of saying that.
00:00:59
Zachary Jeblonski
the
00:00:59
ciderspence
Yeah.
00:01:00
Zachary Jeblonski
Yes, the more the more pessimistic way is it's only downhill from here. You see what I did there?
00:01:06
ciderspence
ha
00:01:06
Zachary Jeblonski
Sledding, you get it? Oh, wow. He's got singers. All right. So we got we got a little bit of a normal mixed bag, but I got a little special a show edition. Not not a person, just like a topic to talk through.
00:01:22
Zachary Jeblonski
But why don't we start with the games we played this week?
Gaming Highlights and Strategies
00:01:25
Zachary Jeblonski
did you Were you able to get any games in this week?
00:01:29
ciderspence
I was, and only through the magic of the internet. I did not go to any places where live games were held, but I got in several games on Spelltable, including one last night which featured my card of the week.
00:01:32
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:01:41
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:01:41
ciderspence
I was playing my Avatar Roku deck And I had just kind of gone through, I'll do this periodically. You know, I'd kind of refreshed the card list from what I originally put together. And I played with that version of it a few times.
00:01:56
ciderspence
And I was evaluating what to take out and what to put in. I've got a number of kind of red, burny decks these days. And so I was thinking of taking out O'Hare Ashenil, Deepest Might.
00:02:08
ciderspence
So O'Hare Ashenil, Legendary Creature, 2-2 Red.
00:02:09
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:02:13
ciderspence
It's got trample, and if a red source you control would deal an amount of non-combat damage less than its power to an opponent, that source deals damage equal to its power instead. And when it dies, you turn to the battlefield tapped and transformed under its owner's control.
00:02:26
ciderspence
On the back, it's a land that you can flip back if you've dealt four or more non-combat damage this turn for three mana. So I've used it before in my long shot deck and in several other decks. It's just good for anything that's dealing damage to face especially.
00:02:44
ciderspence
But like I said, I've been playing a lot of burn lately, and I didn't feel like Avatar Roku had to be burned. It could also be combat focused.
00:02:51
ciderspence
So I pulled out a lot of creatures that couldn't fly or didn't have more natural evasion.
00:02:52
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:02:57
ciderspence
This one does have trample, but so I was contemplating taking this one out. But the interaction I liked was that during combat, Avatar Roku can pump a creature's power.
00:03:08
ciderspence
And so my thought was, if I could do that during combat and then have its power still be high for the end step, then I could deal some burn damage it could be a lot of damage. And that is how yesterday's game played out.
00:03:21
ciderspence
I was able to get Dracosaur auxiliary, which I think is a flying dragon with haste, but that also has the ability if it attacks while saddled, it deals two damage to any target.
00:03:22
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:03:36
ciderspence
So I was able to have O'Hare Ashnil on the battlefield while there was no obvious burn threat and then play the Hasty Dragon, swing with it, pump O'Hare Ashnil, and deal... you know I also happen to have an Electro out, so i had stored up a lot of red mana, so I was able to deal 20-something damage swinging with the Dragon when it otherwise would have dealt to, so that was pretty cool.
00:03:51
Zachary Jeblonski
Nice.
00:03:56
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. Yeah, now i I run this card all the time, but not for that purpose. I run it as ramp. I often forget that Axanil even does the thing that he that you literally had him do sometimes.
00:04:10
Zachary Jeblonski
Because I'm mostly interested in the fact that I can turn him into a land usually. But...
00:04:15
ciderspence
I like the idea of him as ramp, but someone has to help you make him ramp, right?
00:04:15
Zachary Jeblonski
but
00:04:19
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah Yeah, but usually what I do is I just force people's hands. like i'm like I play them, and then next turn, it's, all right, I'm going to keep swinging my 4-4 trample into you. like You're either going to block it, or you're just going to keep taking 4, which I'm also fine with. you know and That's usually what happens, is people block them.
00:04:36
Zachary Jeblonski
But yes, you are right. It's it's very clumsy, but you know you do what you can when you don't have access to white and green, in my opinion.
00:04:42
ciderspence
Yeah, red doesn't have a lot of better options.
00:04:42
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:04:44
ciderspence
There are some, but yeah, I've heard of that idea.
00:04:46
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:04:47
ciderspence
But yeah, I've never had the heart to want him to be flipped. I just always, the damage is just so nice.
00:04:54
Zachary Jeblonski
Nah. I mean, yes. Depending on the... I have, like i said, I've had to dex where like I forgot that he did that, and then like I had an effect do like a ping, and somebody's like, ne doesn't he do something with that? I'm like, oh, right, he does do something with that.
00:05:08
Zachary Jeblonski
But yeah, that's really cool. That's that's that's a really that's a really potent combination between Roku and O'Hara Axanel.
00:05:16
Zachary Jeblonski
we should, uh, let's, let's get into, our one table, one spell table game that I got some games in in person, but I want to talk about our spell table game that the three hour long one.
00:05:25
ciderspence
Yeah.
00:05:27
Zachary Jeblonski
maybe that should have been the card of the week and I'm going to delay now while I look it up. But we we got into a three-hour game. I was playing my new Esper Destined Warrior set or a deck, which is basically just a party deck. So think Nalia de Arnis, but with blue in it.
00:05:48
Zachary Jeblonski
And what was what was your deck again? i was something.
00:05:51
ciderspence
I was playing a a hastily thrown together list of cards from Lore When Eclipsed.
00:05:52
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:05:57
ciderspence
So it was helmed by Aisling Rekindled. So not the good one.
00:06:00
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep.
00:06:02
ciderspence
It is the flip one that on the front side you get to rummage. And on the back side you get two mana at the beginning of your main phase that you can only spend on a spell that has mana value four or greater.
00:06:18
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah i I actually like the design. i really like that flipping back and forth. I think that's cool. I'm not going to get too into details. I'll save it for that game, but I played a game where somebody had the Oku from Loreward Eclipse that flips back and forth.
00:06:33
Zachary Jeblonski
It's a cool design. i like that space. i don't know if they I don't know if they powered those cards up sufficiently to kind of make that become something I'm Really want to dive in, but I like i like the the idea.
00:06:48
ciderspence
Yeah, it gave me something to do even when there wasn't more to do.
00:06:49
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah, so...
00:06:51
ciderspence
So that was that was something.
00:06:52
Zachary Jeblonski
Right. And yeah, and her front side of of of rummaging is like, that's perfect for like, okay, I'm kind of stalling out. I don't really have anything better to do. Let me rummage, you know, to try and find something, right? So it's like, it's not bad, really. Yeah.
00:07:05
ciderspence
Yeah, I think if you could keep her on that side and rummage every turn, it would be pretty good.
00:07:09
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:07:12
ciderspence
But right now, you get the mana every turn if she's on the back side, but if she's on the front side, you only rummage when she enters or when she transforms. So you have to keep flipping her so you can only reliably rummage every other turn and then you have to pay the mana to flip it.
00:07:26
ciderspence
So it is pretty limited, but that's okay.
00:07:30
Zachary Jeblonski
Hmm. Yeah. i don't know Like actually the more I'm thinking about this, I'm like, Hmm, kind of like this design. I'm, I'm becoming like, as I've, I guess changed as a magic player, I've been coming more and more interested in low cost commanders that just do a little bit of value.
00:07:46
Zachary Jeblonski
it's like a field of commander ship. don't know if that's a word, uh, that I'm becoming more and more interested into because I'm like, It's just nice to have commanders where like nobody wants to burn removal on your commander. like Who wants to burn removal on Aisling Rekindled? right like' like okay you know it's like There's something nice about having commanders that are in that space. because you This is kind of like a strategy thing for me it's like like When I have a commander that's in that space, I generally don't run even run Swiftfoot boots or lightning greaves or anything like that because I'm just like...
00:08:14
Zachary Jeblonski
Bro, if you if you want to spend your three mana to destroy my two mana commander, go for it. like You want to swords my Aisling rekindled? Okay. And more or less, that that usually pays off,
Gameplay Dynamics and Player Interactions
00:08:28
Zachary Jeblonski
right? Because there's always going to be like somebody playing the next Timmius thing next to you, right? So it's like the tension always gets drawn in a different direction, which I kind of like.
00:08:37
ciderspence
Yeah, that's fair.
00:08:38
Zachary Jeblonski
But yeah, so this game this game devolved into a three-hour slog based on a card, which I haven't seen in practice, but I'm sure I've seen elsewhere, called Arcane Laboratory.
00:08:50
Zachary Jeblonski
And this was played by the Sultai player, who's playing the Toad Ninja guy from Neon Dynasty. i can't remember his name. Tatsunari, yes.
00:08:59
ciderspence
Tatsunari, toad rider.
00:09:00
Zachary Jeblonski
that tason r yes And so he's playing this and it's arcane laboratory two in a blue enchantment. Each player can only play or each player can't play more than one spell each term.
00:09:12
Zachary Jeblonski
So that just ground the game to a halt. And unfortunately, it wasn't it didn't get removed. And it was just like a very slow death. Like i I should have texted you because I wanted to make a prediction about that game. but And i even though that prediction would have come true, but obviously i don't have proof of that now because I didn't like timestamp my prediction.
00:09:33
Zachary Jeblonski
But even when I was ahead like by 50 life, i I was like, I knew I was dead. Because like unless I got rid of that enchantment, he was just going to slowly grind me down in value. Because I could only cast one spell a turn. And sure enough, that's what happened.
00:09:47
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, it was it was brutal. i don't know what else to say.
00:09:50
ciderspence
Yeah, and early in that game, another opponent who actually got eliminated before Arcane Laboratory came down had out for many turns in a row.
00:09:56
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:09:58
Zachary Jeblonski
Yes, that too.
00:09:59
ciderspence
That meant only one creature could no more than one creature could attack each combat, no more than one creature could block each combat. So we really weren't able to play full magic at any point in that game.
00:10:12
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, and then the, you know, my my commander is kind of a go wide. It's it's the destined warrior. I just remind everybody what it is. It's just one white, blue, black, first strike vigilance, first strike vigilance menace, cleric rogue warrior, and wizards are one less. And then the the key part is at the beginning of combat on my turn, my creatures get until on a turn. And if I have full party, they get 3-0. So I was able to more or less keep a full party going for large chunks of game.
00:10:35
Zachary Jeblonski
but I'm still only swinging with one creature. And the idea is I have a bunch of party members that I'm swinging that all have three Oh, and with a silent arbiter, you know, out, I'm like, well, here's my six, three. It's like, and then, and then invariably somebody blocks because everyone, here's the other thing with like silent arbiters is like, everybody's got blockers too, because nobody's swinging out.
00:10:57
Zachary Jeblonski
So it's like combat becomes this just like, not non, so unless you're a Voltron, it's just, nothing's happening really.
00:10:57
ciderspence
Thank you.
00:11:04
Zachary Jeblonski
So yeah, it was, it was a grind out. yeah, you know, I'm glad that guy had fun. Put it that way. Like he seemed very like by the end of that game, he seemed very like, like you could tell he was riding a high of like, oh my God, I can't believe I pulled that out. But in the back, my thing is like in the back of my head, I knew that game was over like 45 minutes before it ended because I'm like, don't get rid the enchantment, he's just going to grind me out. And it's just going one of those really sad, slow deaths, you know, and that's what happened.
00:11:32
ciderspence
Yeah, that it was.
00:11:34
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah So give me something cheery. any other dode you have any more cheery games that this week?
00:11:43
ciderspence
I got in another game with my... Lila Holographic Assistant deck, and that was pretty fun. I got to play with a new card, well, not a new card, the card I found on Scribefall or something called Mask of the Schemer.
00:12:03
Zachary Jeblonski
Mask of D?
00:12:05
ciderspence
Mask of the Schemer.
00:12:05
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh.
00:12:07
ciderspence
Two and a blue artifact equipment. Whenever equipped creature deals combat damage to a player, it connives X, where X is the amount of damage it dealt to that player.
00:12:15
Zachary Jeblonski
oh
00:12:15
ciderspence
So can I draw X and discard X, put a 1-1 counter on that creature for each non-land card and discard it this way, it equips for two. So the interaction here is Lila lets you put a counter on something each time you draw a card.
00:12:27
ciderspence
So especially if you've already made something big with Lila, you hit with Mask and Schemer, and then you get to double put those counters. So it was pretty it was pretty fun. I enjoyed the game. I learned about a pattern that I need to get better at thinking through, but I had out mask of a schemer and maybe, oh, and a ledger shredder.
00:12:48
ciderspence
So I was doing a lot of looting, but i in my in my choice of what to loot away, i looted away several instances of just pure card draw, thinking I was already drawing enough cards and seeing enough cards.
00:12:52
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:13:01
ciderspence
But over the course of the game, I kind of ran out of cards, which seems unthinkable in this deck because it's all built around card draw. But i wasn't I needed to keep at least one or two things that just positively drew me cards.
00:13:13
ciderspence
I guess I was hoping that I would find Teferi's Ageless Insider something to give me actual card advantage.
00:13:17
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Yeah.
00:13:19
ciderspence
I did ultimately get the the blue Overlord that lets you draw two, discard one. So that helped a little bit. But if at any point I kept one of my... Whenever you deal combat damage, draw card effects.
00:13:32
ciderspence
I think I would have been a much better position that game, but I was just low on cards, kind of despite the amount of cards on the deck. So I kind learned that even though those cards aren't flashy, and might be more expensive than I want them to be. i kind of need them to enact the game plan. But that was a very fun game.
00:13:49
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah no i i had a very similar thing in one of my games this week where i was playing oscar who was all around looters and i diluted away like all of my card draw spells because i did the same thing you were kind of doing where i'm like i'll find teferi's ages inside i'll i'll whatever and i got down to one card i had i had at like one point i had like eight and in like the span of like a turn i was down to like one
00:14:10
ciderspence
yeah Yeah, I think that's the easy thing to forget is that you play those cards because they're good and then you don't have any cards.
00:14:10
Zachary Jeblonski
well
00:14:15
Zachary Jeblonski
Exactly.
00:14:16
ciderspence
so
00:14:17
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah. no, that's, yeah, I think that's a really cool equipment. I, this is the first time I've never really seen it. And I was just thinking like, yeah, any kind of deck that features evasive creatures as well. Like that's not, it's not bad.
00:14:31
Zachary Jeblonski
That's like,
00:14:31
ciderspence
Yeah.
00:14:34
Zachary Jeblonski
If my Sphinx deck didn't draw so many cards already, i probably would consider for that. But it it's got, yeah, it might have places. have to think about that one. But that's cool.
00:14:44
Zachary Jeblonski
I like that card.
00:14:45
ciderspence
Yeah, there's kind of one more piece that would make it really good in the deck that I didn't draw. And the other the other piece is something that either a creature with first strike or something that gives a creature first strike, because the dream scenario here is you hit with something evasive in first strike damage, and then after blocks have been declared, you can choose for some open thing to get the benefit of those doubled counters.
00:15:07
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:15:07
ciderspence
I think you could actually put somebody away with with that type of layout.
00:15:10
Zachary Jeblonski
That would that would be a really cheeky play. Yeah, I like that.
00:15:15
Zachary Jeblonski
okay I got. We got a of games in at the store. i got, I guess, I guess a new quick edition of salt talk. We haven't had salt talk in a while. It wasn't me though.
00:15:26
Zachary Jeblonski
We had, I played, I played, it was that blue black game, the the Oscar game that was about, which is the deck's built around looting. And when I loot, I can cast that spell. So whenever I discard a card, I can cast a spell from the graveyard. I have to pay the mana cost, but it allows me to get around timing restrictions.
00:15:42
Zachary Jeblonski
And it was just a very, my opponents were mono blue clones, which is one of my least favorite archetypes to play against, as we all know. And, you know, and then a couple other players that were playing, i don't remember, but I don't think they were too important. oh One of them was the coin flip pre-con.
00:16:01
Zachary Jeblonski
i don't I can't remember if it was modified or not, but at least those that was the gist of it.
00:16:05
ciderspence
the recent Secret Layer one from a couple years ago.
00:16:07
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, that one.
00:16:09
ciderspence
Gotcha.
00:16:10
Zachary Jeblonski
it's and If you've ever played against it, it's extremely powerful and you have to be like very careful with that with that dealing with that deck. I had it for a while and I stopped playing. I so i took it apart because i was like, this is too much.
00:16:21
Zachary Jeblonski
And so he was being, I would say, effectively managed between me and the mono blue player. We were kind of like, he he it wasn't like he couldn't do anything. but we were always in the back of our heads like okay is he in chandra's ignition range like you know because like the way that deck usually wins or can win is is okun which uh doubles his power every time you win a coin flip you just you make okun like ridiculously huge through coin flip effects And then you challenge his ignitions and kill everybody. Right. And so it's like, you always have to be on guard for that. Right. Like, it's like, all right, does he have enough mana to cast Okun? Does he have enough coin flip effects?
00:16:58
Zachary Jeblonski
and then if you cast chandras ignition, do I have a response? Right. Like, so you kind of always have to have that in your back your head when you, when you play against that deck. So,
00:17:04
ciderspence
Gotcha.
00:17:06
Zachary Jeblonski
You know, between me and the mono blue player, we weren't communicating this, like we never voiced like what our intentions are like, well, all right, we were going cooperate, but we, I think we both kind of had a general gist of what was happening. So we kind of effectively kept him outside of kill range. Like, like we never allowed him to have enough permanence or enough this or that to, to,
00:17:25
Zachary Jeblonski
And I could just tell the set the salt was welling a little bit. And yeah, we got it we got a mid-game scoop. And it was after just a generic board wipe. It wasn't even like anything targeted directly towards him.
00:17:37
Zachary Jeblonski
And he's like, yeah, just not the type of magic I want to play. And I was like, I get that. And this is probably where the topic is that I'm going to get to. But I'm like... magic is a communal operation, right? Like we don't necessarily get to choose the type of magic we want to play. We get to some sort of choose the power level we want to play at. And that's like a rule zero conversation, but you don't really get to choose the type of magic you want to play unless you're doing some kind of meta thing where like you're cultivating your own friend group, right? Like you're cultivating whatever, but if you're in in a store,
00:18:11
Zachary Jeblonski
you you are committing to the overall field of magic. Or how do you feel about my stance on that? and do you think I have an appropriate stance on that?
00:18:20
ciderspence
I think this is a great topic. I'm sure we touch on elements of this, maybe not every week, but you know this is kind of a thing that comes up in a lot of games. you know Overall salt level, people's frustration, how much should one person feel accountable for another person's fun at the table.
00:18:43
ciderspence
I think there is some notion of you know effects or commanders or game patterns gameplay patterns that are just broadly or generally considered to be not fun.
00:18:56
ciderspence
But yeah, for the most part, being able to it's an interesting thing that the player said, this isn't the kind of magic I want to play.
00:18:57
Zachary Jeblonski
Right.
00:19:05
ciderspence
Presumably it was the kind of magic that player wanted to play, but everybody else gets to also play the kind of magic that they want to play. So if you're playing a four-player game,
00:19:16
ciderspence
unless you're prepared to control the table in a way that dictates the type of magic that everybody else wants to play or that everybody else is able to play.
00:19:27
ciderspence
Kind of like in the the spell table game we were talking about, right? Where Silent Arbiter, you know, kind of effectively controls, you know, one of the aspects of gameplay, making it so that, you know, if that player only wanted one creature to attack and one creature to block, they got it because that card said that.
00:19:31
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:19:42
ciderspence
And then, you know, Arcane Laboratory, same thing, right? Like that player wanted to slow the game down until they could ground ground at value. And they did that. So there are ways to do that. But it sounds like this player maybe wanted a very, very, very specific set of conditions to be met that their board state didn't allow for.
00:20:01
ciderspence
And, you know, that, unfortunately, you know, as we say, that is commander, maybe.
00:20:05
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, it's...
00:20:07
ciderspence
If you're going to be playing in the four-player format, you have to you know be prepared to either establish the terms you want or deal with the terms at the table until you can make them what you want.
00:20:07
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah it's
00:20:18
ciderspence
If that's you know if that's what you're trying to get out of the game, you you kind of have to do that yourself.
00:20:23
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, it's, it's, it's, I'm not, and I'm not, not, denigrating Timmy players because at heart that's what I am. Like my, when I think about my fondest deck, the decks that I usually keep together are the ones with Timmy stuff. Like even my, like my soul tie deck, which is graveyard recursion to me, it's just a big Timmy deck. Cause it's just big stuff. Like I'm not comboing, I'm not like doing some kind of slow drain or anything like that. Right. just big creatures, big champions. Right.
00:20:47
Zachary Jeblonski
And i think I think the issue is like he i think he probably considers himself like Timmy at heart. And so he wants to do these big things and we're not allowing them to do that. And I understand that's frustrating, but it's like my thought is like when I build a Timmy deck, I go, okay, you know i'm going to like I'm going to assume that people going to have a problem with these cards because they should.
00:21:09
Zachary Jeblonski
What am I going to do about that? Right? So it's like, you know, you have cards in your deck that protect yourself or, or you make a deck that poops out Timmy things so rapidly and constantly that like your opponents can't keep up with the interaction, right? Like, it's like, okay, you blew up this dinosaur. Well, here's another one. And then here's another one. And then, you know, it's like that kind of thing. Right.
00:21:29
Zachary Jeblonski
So unfortunately you get into these, these middle grounds, I think, and then this is, I know this cause this is kind of where I used to be in magic is like, I'm a Timmy player and I want to do Timmy things. And I'm also not going to include things that protect my Timmy things. And now i'm going to get frustrated when people deal with my Timmy things. Right. And it's like, that was the kind of ethos that I was getting out of the situation.
00:21:48
Zachary Jeblonski
uh, it's just like, it's just a lesson you have to learn, unfortunately, which is, but you know, like I said, if you're, if you are, manicuring and handpicking your meta your meta your meta by choosing the players you're always playing with or whatever. That's that's one thing. But in a general environment, you have to assume that you know you have to assume that people know what Zender Split and Okun can do, which are the coin flip commanders. And we did. And we're going to address them. Because like even if you tell me your deck's not powerful, even if you tell me you know, you didn't do any modifications of pre-con.
00:22:17
Zachary Jeblonski
I still know what the base pre-con can do. And also I don't trust you. So yeah, it was, it was just, you know, nothing, nothing too earth shattering of a take on, on salt, but I thought it was like, Oh yeah, I know, i know why you're frustrated. And like, and I hope you can kind of get, hope you can grow as a magic player to see like what you would need to do in the future to avoid this kind of thing.
00:22:41
ciderspence
Yeah, I mean, I guess I think the other thing is
00:22:45
ciderspence
it is another vote in favor of mechanics like the gift mechanic from Bloomberg and cards that are powerful but also have some downside, which unfortunately makes them, you know, decidedly worse cards.
00:22:54
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, yeah, i like that.
00:23:05
ciderspence
But it's a scenario where there is some benefit gameplay-wise to playing cards that are maybe a little less efficient, maybe not as good, but that are just slightly better at the table.
00:23:21
ciderspence
For example, like if you're a mill deck, you know that a lot of people don't like mill. If you're going to play the mill deck, maybe it's worth
00:23:29
Zachary Jeblonski
Wait, wait, wait, people don't even know?
00:23:32
ciderspence
Yeah, newsflash. You heard here first, folks.
00:23:34
Zachary Jeblonski
Dang it. Dang it.
00:23:36
ciderspence
But, you know, if you're going to play an archetype that you think is unpopular, that you know is unpopular, or, you know, you've played with your playgroup and they don't like it, you can still play it.
00:23:47
ciderspence
But knowing that it's unpopular may suggest that if you're going to do it, you try to do it in a way that bring something else positive to the table so you're not just doing the thing nobody likes.
00:23:58
ciderspence
Maybe you're trying to make it better. Maybe that's not enough and maybe the table still hates it and maybe you don't do it again after that. But again, the table doesn't get to choose, well, not all the time does the table get to choose what you play.
00:24:10
ciderspence
So you're allowed to play decks that you know have an unfun play pattern. But it's worth considering cards like an offer you can't refuse where, yeah, it counters your thing and that's a bummer.
00:24:20
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:24:22
ciderspence
But you do get two treasures from it and it's like, you know, that is probably going to help you later on. Cards, are you know, mechanics like the gift mechanic where, you know, you counter something or you fog or whatever, but you get to give an opponent a card or, you know, in some cases a tapped fish. That one's maybe less...
00:24:38
ciderspence
Nope, nobody's that excited for the tap fish, but giving somebody a card at least, i don't know, at least gives them something. And I do think that over time and over games, especially if you're feeling targeted, those things add up and they become kind of opportunities for a bad situation to have a bright side.
00:24:53
ciderspence
So again, as the as the player casting the spell, you don't want your opponents to have a bright side. So they're worse cards, but I don't know. They're worth considering in broader gameplay just because there is a little bit of upside. And I think it can lead to a player feeling less picked on, even if they have to be dealt with continually.
00:25:12
ciderspence
So I don't know.
00:25:15
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, yeah. I mean, i got two comments on that. Number one, for mill players that want to mill and then kind of give your opponent something. I played against a mill, I'm going to put mill in quotes deck, a mill deck, and his whole deck was focused around forced fruition,
00:25:32
Zachary Jeblonski
which is a six mana enchantment, and whenever an opponent plays a spell, they draw seven cards. So it is, it's like, it's a mill spell essentially is what it is.
00:25:41
Zachary Jeblonski
Uh, but at least it makes you feel good while you're going out because your hand is huge. so that's like kind of like a way.
00:25:47
ciderspence
Yeah, it's not bad.
00:25:48
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah It's like, Hey, I'm going you're going to, going to mill you out through this, but at least you're drawing your deck and you get to see it and you get to play and all that. So, I thought that was a little neat, uh, way to do mill. That maybe is a little less salty.
00:26:03
Zachary Jeblonski
And I forgot what I was going to say about, oh yes, my last little comment about that game is players, people, people of the world.
00:26:13
Zachary Jeblonski
If you're gonna play a coin flip deck, do one of two things for me. One, practice coin flipping at home. And two, if you can't coin flip, just use dice.
00:26:25
Zachary Jeblonski
Cause this guy was flinging this coin everywhere and it was getting everywhere.
00:26:30
ciderspence
Oh, that's wild.
00:26:32
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, like he had zero control over this coin flip and it was flying all over the pod and like around the store. It was it was a nightmare. Yes.
00:26:40
ciderspence
Okay, that's an offense against the game itself. if you're
00:26:43
Zachary Jeblonski
yes
00:26:43
ciderspence
this i mean, this is this is like the antithesis of the bring what you need. but Make sure you're equipped to do what you need to do, especially if your deck is going to mainly do one thing.
00:26:50
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah Yeah, and luckily he was using the same plastic coin that I have from the free con because if he was using a metal coin, I would been like, sir, you need to stop because if this if that coin lands on one of my cards, I ain't going to be happy. I'm not going to be happy with the plastic one landing on my card, be honest. But yeah, so I mean, we we you know we didn't say anything. We let them. We're not like poo-pooers, but we just poo-pooed them on the battlefield.
00:27:16
ciderspence
Yep.
00:27:17
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, that's a podcast title right there. Yeah.
00:27:22
Zachary Jeblonski
And then, yeah but yeah, last game I had for the week, just real quick, I played my Monoblox Shieldred deck where I tried to get off her final saga. And I was able to do the thing where I flipped her onto the saga part.
00:27:35
Zachary Jeblonski
And then on the second turn, which is the turn I have to wait another turn after that to get to Rise of Dark Realms. I played Rasko betrayal, staying in proliferator. So that was a fun moment.
00:27:47
Zachary Jeblonski
I ended up losing that game. I usually, you know, you, that's the thing I've noticed with rise the dark realms is you end up losing the games of rise dark realms oftentimes. Cause you just instantly shoot way up to the problem person. And then everyone gangs up on you, which is fine.
00:28:00
Zachary Jeblonski
so they ganged up on me and that was it. And, but I, I had a, that was a good moment. I had a good time. That's an example of like, you don't have to win games to have fun. And I was like, I actually had fun with that game after I died.
00:28:11
ciderspence
Yeah, but you know, actually, this this goes back to, just throwing it back to the conversation we were just having, though, about a player needing to be dealt with over and over again.
00:28:16
Zachary Jeblonski
Right.
00:28:19
ciderspence
i think that that is a thing that, you know, that's kind of the other side of that dynamic, is it's possible that that Timmy player who got frustrated and scooped would have also been satisfied to just, you know, land one or two of their big spells and become the problem and then get eliminated.
00:28:33
ciderspence
I do think that it's often the case that we just want to play our deck. We just want to see our deck do the thing or do something.
00:28:38
Zachary Jeblonski
right
00:28:39
ciderspence
So i do I do feel like i empathize with players who get frustrated when it feels to them like their deck hasn't had a chance to do anything. But yeah, it is kind of a balance, right? if you If the thing your deck wants to do is tantamount to approximately winning the game or it's so scary that nobody wants it to happen,
00:28:59
ciderspence
You know, maybe the first time or two you can be taken aback by that, but I do think that at some point if you want to continue playing the deck, it's worth considering how to make it a little more resilient or a little less threatening so that, you know, it's more acceptable to the table for you to get to do the thing without always being preempted or taken down before you can.
00:29:22
Zachary Jeblonski
Right. And I think that's something that like maybe some of the newer players or players i haven't thought about the game as deeply, I think run into, which is like, i just want to do my thing and they don't realize that their thing is tantamount to winning the game. Right? Like if your thing is I'm on, I want to plant this big dinosaur and I have to wait a whole turn to swing with them. That's one thing.
00:29:40
Zachary Jeblonski
But if your other thing is, i just want to flip a bunch of coins and make my commander huge. Well, that that's tantamount to winning because we don't know if you have a child resignation or not. Right? Like, So like, and then that's where the salt comes, right? Because then then you feel like, well, they won't let me even do my, have my deck do my thing.
00:29:58
Zachary Jeblonski
And it's that it's that disconnect of like your deck doing your thing means you win or your deck doing your thing means big things happen and we have opportunities to respond, right? You know, unless I cast Rise out of Dark Realms into a Corpse Knight or a Haste Enabler,
00:30:14
Zachary Jeblonski
More than likely, everybody's got a whole turn cycle to deal with me, you know? And that's usually, that's almost always what happens. Like nine times out of 10, I feel like with Dark Rise Dark Realms is like, you cast it and then you get board wiped and then that's, and you had your fun. It's like, you know?
00:30:28
Zachary Jeblonski
So yeah, I think that's it's an interesting topic. it's an interesting thought to have. Any other comments on that or are you ready to move on? Okay.
00:30:37
ciderspence
No, I'm ready to move on.
00:30:38
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. I'm good on games that I play. Do you have any other games that you want to play? Or that you want to talk about?
00:30:45
ciderspence
No, I don't think so. I think I played another game, but it was pretty forgettable. Oh, I think I played another game with the Aisling deck. But yeah, still still a very limited commander.
00:30:56
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah
Deck Building Plans and Philosophies
00:30:58
Zachary Jeblonski
All right. so but for decks on deck, I'm just going to very quickly throw out there, just like I mentioned last week, I am going to go into the secret layers minds on, I think Monday and really try to get the fallout one.
00:31:13
Zachary Jeblonski
Cause I'm excited to be, uh, to build Lucy McLean. already prototyped it out.
00:31:16
ciderspence
Nice.
00:31:18
Zachary Jeblonski
it's like, I'm trying not to get too excited because like I said, I know the secret layers are, are shit show. So it's a possible that I don't get through. and, and just a reminder, she's four and a white and then whenever a token enters, can have a target player other than it's controller, create a token. That's a copy of it. And then if I do, i draw a card and,
00:31:35
Zachary Jeblonski
And this only happens once you turn. So it's like group huggy. i like the design on it. It's it's definitely like i can so I'm trying to find ways to basically have tokens happen every turn so that I'm drawing four cardds four cards a turn cycle. That's kind of the goal.
00:31:51
Zachary Jeblonski
And I think it's just going to be a fun deck because it's very group huggy, but at the same time, I think the value is worth it. So we'll see.
00:31:58
ciderspence
Nice.
00:31:59
Zachary Jeblonski
Got any decks on deck for you?
00:32:02
ciderspence
Yeah, I've just started thinking about putting together Marilyn Fae Ascendant deck, so she's one of the legends from Lorento Eclipsed.
00:32:09
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, I just played it against this. Yeah.
00:32:11
ciderspence
Yeah, two black, green, blue elf, fairy, noble, flying. Whenever she or another elf or fairy I control enters, exile the top car two cards of target opponent's library.
00:32:22
ciderspence
Once each turn, you may cast a spell with mana value less than or equal to the number of elves and fairies you control from among the exiled cards with her this turn without paying its mana cost. I'm trying to think of a way to build her that I wouldn't not want to play against.
00:32:40
ciderspence
And it it's...
00:32:40
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I was about to ask you about this because i was like, Charles, isn't this your thing you don't like?
00:32:46
ciderspence
Yeah, I think that's the question is, yes, it is. But I like the character and I like the art and I want to play the card. So I'm Yeah, this will be, i feel like this is the thing to follow up on in a month and kind of see if I was able to come up with a direction that seemed satisfying for her.
00:33:03
Zachary Jeblonski
Like I said, I support this.
00:33:04
Zachary Jeblonski
i'm you know As somebody who doesn't mind this archetype, I'm i'm here for you. I'm your emotional support. I will say, if it makes you feel better, i I played against this. I forgot to bring this up, but in my Shieldred game, I played against this.
00:33:18
Zachary Jeblonski
And i didn't I personally didn't find it too annoying. even I was targeted 80% the time. The guy really liked the cards that were in my deck. And I didn't find it too annoying to be honest. but yeah, I encourage you explore your dark side.
00:33:39
ciderspence
But yeah, I think it's a fun thought experience. and So stay tuned. I'll bring it back up in a few weeks, I think.
00:33:43
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:33:44
Zachary Jeblonski
All right. You just got to open this.
00:33:46
ciderspence
And then I'm also working on that. Oh, go ahead.
00:33:49
Zachary Jeblonski
You just opened this door, buddy, so I can slide on through with a bunch of decks that I want to do.
00:33:53
ciderspence
Well, I would encourage you to wait to see what I come up with before before you think, oh, great, toxic gameplay patterns are back on the menu.
00:34:00
Zachary Jeblonski
All right. Oh, my, I mean, my, my, what's her face?
00:34:03
ciderspence
I mean, maybe they are, but we'll see.
00:34:06
Zachary Jeblonski
Exhale deck has been ready to go for a while. that's it
00:34:10
ciderspence
i think I don't mind poison. I don't mind poison.
00:34:12
Zachary Jeblonski
Well, she's the one that does the, top cards of everybody's library.
00:34:13
ciderspence
I don't know that I've said that.
00:34:16
Zachary Jeblonski
If they have three or more poison.
00:34:18
ciderspence
Oh, OK. Well, all right.
00:34:19
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:34:20
ciderspence
I guess I mind some poison.
00:34:20
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. That's the part I think, you know,
00:34:23
ciderspence
Yeah, I gotta i gotta to relax about people taking my cards. that is That's one of the things that I feel like it doesn't make me salty, but it makes me vengeance-y, and I need to stop doing that during games.
00:34:35
Zachary Jeblonski
That's also a good podcast titled Vengeancy.
00:34:38
ciderspence
Yeah, it's not great.
00:34:39
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah no, I mean, I will stand by, but I, I, uh, I have, I am, uh, cautiously optimistic.
00:34:48
Zachary Jeblonski
I think she's really cool. I really wanted to build her, but also at the same time, I'm like, it's like, you know that there's an, i's I think there's enough people that I play with in my life that I'm just like, they're not going vibe with that. So that's fine. And I also really like my soul tie deck right now. Like it's, it's high up on my list. So.
00:35:08
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. All right. You want to talk about what, what, what this tab is on the spreadsheet that I've got?
Clone Deck Commanders and Evaluations
00:35:13
ciderspence
yeah Yeah, let's do it.
00:35:15
Zachary Jeblonski
All right. So this is, I also could rename this tab, Zach's, uh, copium to stop himself from rebuilding Talion tab is basically, but that's much longer. So I just put clone deck ideas.
00:35:27
Zachary Jeblonski
So what, so what this is is I have this pretty well, pretty much full blue clone package that, you know, just group of cards,
00:35:39
Zachary Jeblonski
that I've accumulated that were in my Italian deck. Because the whole idea of Italian was like, I have this one core creature, my commander, and I'm just gonna make more and more copies of it. And then over a deluge of value and and drain, I will just win through that, right? And that's that's how it worked. And I really enjoyed that play pattern.
00:35:58
Zachary Jeblonski
but i you know, i took it apart because it's like Italian kind of borderline CDH, even though I, this is kind of, it's desperation I'm in. I did look through a bunch of CDH deck lists and nobody built it like I did. So luckily that my Italian was not CDH, but Italian could be a CDH commander. So it's kind of like one of those weird gray areas.
00:36:17
Zachary Jeblonski
So I was like, all right, well, what other commanders featuring blue could I maybe replicate Talion, but maybe a little bit less oppressive, right? And it's kind of like the idea.
00:36:27
Zachary Jeblonski
so I just went on Scryfall and literally was like blue, legendary creature, commander, boom. And I went through every single one. And these are the top seven that I pulled out of like of like commanders that I'm like,
00:36:41
Zachary Jeblonski
have neat things to do with the fact that like, if I cloned them over and over again, there there's like, there's definitely neat consequences. So I'm just gonna go through them real quick. we'll we'll so We'll pause on each one and I'll talk about my pros and cons. So my first one I have here is an older one, Atrix and Neve, which is two green, blue ward two. And if one or more tokens we create under your control, twice that many tokens are created.
00:37:04
Zachary Jeblonski
So obviously the fun here is this gets exponential real fast. yeah The downside is it only affects tokens. So any like Sakushima effects don't get doubled, right?
00:37:17
Zachary Jeblonski
What do you think about Adrix and Neve as a replacement for for my my burning desire for self-clone?
00:37:24
ciderspence
Yeah, so I guess my question would be, what form would you like? So we got a few cards to get through, and which I love. Do you want like a rating one to 10?
00:37:30
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:37:33
ciderspence
Do you want us to try to rank them in real time?
00:37:33
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, let's
00:37:35
ciderspence
Or do you want to just talk through them all and then rank them at the end or something?
00:37:39
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah, let's rank them here. I'll I'm just gonna move them off to the side here. then while Ajax will be at the top, right?
00:37:45
ciderspence
Oh, you know what? we should we should This is a thing in Magic. We should tier them. So this is i'm gonna I'm going to give them a tier rating, and maybe we we can both give tier ratings, and then at the end, we'll kind of go back and see what's.
00:37:49
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:37:56
ciderspence
So we'll use S, A, B, C, D, which I think is the the rating system I've heard most often in this space.
00:37:56
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:37:59
Zachary Jeblonski
okay
00:38:03
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I got a, I'm going to start with a B on this one. i don't know how easy it is to do. I'm just going to see if i can, nah, I can't go that fast.
00:38:14
Zachary Jeblonski
In the future, I'll make a tier list with a website that people use, but for now we're just going to do it like this. So my I'm putting this as a b My pro is, i think it's fun to watch this thing go like bananas very quickly.
00:38:21
ciderspence
Yeah, this will work.
00:38:27
Zachary Jeblonski
Like it very quickly gets out of control. But the downside is it it itself doesn't produce any value. Like, I don't get any card draw off of this. There's no evasion. There's no, you know, it's... it's And I also think the play pattern is going very similar every game, where it's just like, oh, okay, I've made 2,000 Aedrixes and Neves, and then I have to wait a turn to swing him if I don't have a hasten dealer, which is hard and c Simic, right? like So that's kind of my thought with Aedrix and Neves.
00:38:57
ciderspence
I mean, a hastenagler's not that hard.
00:39:00
Zachary Jeblonski
oh It's not the easiest and in Simic.
00:39:03
ciderspence
It's pretty easy. Like, the Garak does it. there's There's... Who's the...
00:39:11
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, the Garrick, Surak and Gorklau's six mana.
00:39:11
ciderspence
Serac and Goreclaw does it. Concordant Crossroads does it. i mean, I've done it...
00:39:16
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, but that gives everybody haste.
00:39:17
ciderspence
I feel like it's pretty... Yeah, but if you have it on the turn you need it, that's all that matters.
00:39:22
Zachary Jeblonski
That's true. So, i don't know.
00:39:24
ciderspence
And it's only one mana, but...
00:39:24
Zachary Jeblonski
i'm i'm like I'm a B on there.
00:39:27
ciderspence
Yeah, I would actually give this one a C.
00:39:30
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:39:31
ciderspence
But only on gameplay vibes reasons, I think it's very powerful. But I think it's the kind of powerful that
00:39:43
ciderspence
makes your board hard to manage and think about for the rest of the table.
00:39:49
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, that's also part of it.
00:39:51
ciderspence
But in know and like that turn-by-turn way, instead of the... If you're playing Scoot Swarm and you have a Haste Enabler you play and you put down 20 lands on your turn and you swing and win, that's one thing.
00:40:06
ciderspence
But if you got a Scoot Swarm and you're just playing two lands a turn and you're not doing anything with them, that at some point, I think, becomes less fun for the table because it's like you're just taking up a lot of time and you're doing a lot of stuff, but you're not advancing the game.
00:40:20
ciderspence
And I would worry that Adrix and Nev does something similar. So unless unless your build were going to be focused on like getting immediate game advancing value from the tokens as quickly as possible, which is something that your Talion kind of did. It did rely on other people playing spells for you to get the burn value. But other than that, it kind of made it so that the game...
00:40:46
ciderspence
progressed pretty quickly because people were just, know, I was just taking a lot of damage every turn once the copies were out. I would worry that this one would not
00:40:56
ciderspence
advance the game in that way.
00:40:57
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I think it's a little turtly.
00:40:58
ciderspence
It would just get, yeah. So I think I'd have it as a C for that reason.
00:41:01
Zachary Jeblonski
All let's, let's, let me, I'm, are you convinced me? let's talk about my, this is a D for me, I think is George, uh, Joel Riel. it's kind of neat where if you make copies of her, you're turning more of your lands into creatures and then each Joel Riel will see each land hits. So like, if you have three of them, you turn three lands in each land doing damage would each draw three cars. be nine cars total.
00:41:25
Zachary Jeblonski
So like you can see kind of how like the value train would get going. my, I am kind of, this is pre earth bending and I am very hesitant about turning lands into creatures, without the earth bend like safety mechanics. And that's, that's kind of where I kind of see Joriel going, which is kind of in the D area.
00:41:45
Zachary Jeblonski
because they, they stay lands, right. Or no, until end of turn, but still, even if they, but i' I guess I'm worried about the blowout, right? Like, oh, I swing in with my land, somebody kills it, or flashes in some kind of death toucher, and now I'm down a land, you know? Like, it's just like, eh, I don't like that. So I'm kind of in the D area here with Joriel.
00:42:06
ciderspence
Yeah, I'm going to say B, but I think your concerns are correct. I think what I like about this one from a gameplay perspective is this is this seems like a fun commander to see and to play against.
00:42:19
ciderspence
Because you talked before about commanders that make you solve a puzzle.
00:42:19
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. Yeah.
00:42:23
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah
00:42:23
ciderspence
This is one that makes you solve a puzzle, but you don't have to solve the puzzle to play. You just have to solve the puzzle of, wait, how bad is this going to get? How quickly? and oh, I need to maybe adjust my own gameplay pattern to make sure that this doesn't completely go off in a turn or two.
00:42:40
ciderspence
But it is very interactable. So it kind of makes you, the player, also solve a puzzle because you're right. It is making your lands creatures where they're vulnerable. It also is kind of anti-ramping because you need to keep some lands to be attackers so you can't tap them for mana.
00:42:56
ciderspence
So it does kind of present a puzzle
00:42:58
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I forgot about that whole like, like, yeah, you're you because the lands are tapping to attack. Yeah, this is a day for me. if She gave the lands vigilance, maybe.
00:43:07
ciderspence
yeah
00:43:08
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:43:08
ciderspence
Yeah, there are a few cards that give your lands vigilance. There are some lands that are fun to attack. Like there's some lands that naturally have vigilance. There's some lands that are themselves unblockable, like Secret Tunnel from the Avatar set.
00:43:21
ciderspence
I think there this would be a fun commander to see at a table that could still be powerful because, again, you are doubling up on the card draw.
00:43:29
ciderspence
But yeah, I could see how this one wouldn't be as fun to choose.
00:43:33
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:43:33
ciderspence
I've had this deck and it it was interesting to play, but i I did take it apart and I don't take many decks apart.
00:43:38
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, i've but I've played against it like, and it was very normally constructed. Like obviously I'm doing something weird with this construction and it was fine. You know, ill i'll I'll give you, since you want B and I want D, we'll put it in c How about that?
00:43:50
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:43:52
ciderspence
Yeah, it works for me. I think one thing that actually takes a lot away from it, just last thing, is that it makes the land into an XX green and blue creature.
00:43:53
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:44:01
ciderspence
So if if for some if it gave a land plus X plus X and it gave you the choice to make either a wide board of lands or a tall land, that would be cool.
00:44:10
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:44:10
ciderspence
But no, it doesn't.
00:44:11
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:44:13
Zachary Jeblonski
It's definitely like, it definitely reads as like a card they were like figuring this out with, and then they perfect it with earthbending to me. It's like, that's what this reads as like, Oh, this is like a proto earthbend commander essentially.
00:44:26
Zachary Jeblonski
But let's move on to, I think a really powerful one, but it has a deal breaker to it. And what is Bria, Riptide Rogue. And so now we're moving into, is it, not that we're doing any kind of pattern here with the colors, but it's two blue, red prowess, which is whenever you cast a non-creature spell, it gets one, one to end of turn. Other creatures you control have prowess. And whenever you cast a non-creature spell, target creature you control this can't be blocked this turn.
00:44:51
Zachary Jeblonski
And I was kind of surprised. I expect to breed a show up more. I thought Bria was going to be really good, but I've never seen her as a commander. she, as far as damage goes, I mean, she's got two keywords going at the same time, which is like prowess and making something unblockable. So to me, it's like, holy crap, why don't I see this?
00:45:09
Zachary Jeblonski
but I think the thing that break, there's two things that break Bria for consideration for me is one. it is a nightmare to track prowess when you have multiple instances of prowess and creatures that came onto the battlefield at different points in your turn. So like if I have Bria on the battlefield and then I play a clone spell and now I have two Brias, well, only the first Bria saw the first cast.
00:45:31
Zachary Jeblonski
So it only has one, it has one tick of prowess where the second Bria has zero ticks of prowess. If I play another clone, say like each prowess, you know, and then the prowess starts to stack and then the numbers get more hard to to deal with. So from a mathematical perspective, I think it's just completely out of contention for me. And then the other thing that is a problem with this is there's no value on the commander itself. So I can make a ton of Bria's and then get board wiped. And then I likely have no cards in hand, right? Because Bria doesn't draw me cards, make mana, do anything like that. It's just straight up damage. So I think Bria's going have to be a D for this one.
00:46:07
ciderspence
This is so funny. I think we're, I mean, I guess your perspective is decks you want to build and play and mine is decks I think would be fun to see or play against.
00:46:16
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay, that's a fine perspective.
00:46:18
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:46:19
ciderspence
I just think the idea of, so one counterpoint I would say is that The question of like how many Bria's saw the prowess trigger, if most of your clones are creatures, then at least they're not contributing to prowess anyway.
00:46:31
ciderspence
So I guess I would hope the play pattern would be get down another get down a clone or two, or maybe have a cost reducer so you can get down a bunch of clones and then start prowessing, so that maybe that would make it slightly easier to track. i agree, if you're like if you're casting non-creature stuff so that there's some number of triggers, and then you add another Bria, and then there are other numbers of triggers, that does sound like it would be unwieldy.
00:46:53
ciderspence
But I just really love the idea of like a prowess stack so that you know if you're like keeping track of it with the dice in front, instead of turning it by one for every spell, you start turning it by six or eight for every turn. That's wild.
00:47:05
ciderspence
And the fact that each non-creature spell makes one creature unblockable means that if you just change if you've got three or four instances of prowess, you cast three or four spells. And you've got three or like if you've got three Bria's, that basically makes your whole board unblockable.
00:47:20
ciderspence
So this i mean you know this is a a type of gameplay pattern that I like, right?
00:47:20
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep.
00:47:24
ciderspence
Like build up for that one big turn. But it's still... somewhat easy to see coming. It also turned your protection spells into buffs. i kind of I kind of love this one, but I could see how... And you know, you're in blue and red, so you kind of have card draw available. You have non-creature spell card draw available to you, and you've got a lot of creatures that support drawing cards on non-creature spells.
00:47:48
ciderspence
So i I don't know. I kind of love it, but I can see how it doesn't seem consistent enough or consistently fun enough to...
00:47:54
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. right. Well, you sold me.
00:47:58
ciderspence
to be a prominent.
00:47:58
Zachary Jeblonski
We have yet another C.
00:48:03
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. So my my thing with with that is the thing I've noticed when I played battalion is like when you go this hard on the clone route, like you you need your commander to to handle some of like the the the lifting, right?
00:48:18
Zachary Jeblonski
Like so like a Joriel kind of does that, right? Because she's filling your hand up. and also moving your game plan and forward. Whereas Bria is gonna require a package on top of the clone package.
00:48:25
ciderspence
Yeah.
00:48:29
Zachary Jeblonski
It's gonna require card advantage basically.
00:48:31
ciderspence
Yep, yep, that makes sense.
00:48:33
Zachary Jeblonski
And like, to me, it's like, eh. And I also look at like multiple prowess triggers as like, this is like catharsis crusade, like all over again, you know, like, oh God.
00:48:43
Zachary Jeblonski
But look, I'll tell you what, Bria would be at the top of my list if we were playing on arena, if they ever did commander on arena and and arena could handle all that, I would absolutely try it.
00:48:50
ciderspence
Right, I got that,
00:48:53
Zachary Jeblonski
All right, so let's talk about, so these, I'm saving some of the best ones for last is what I've been doing here. So I'll talk about Keranos. I think this one's an interesting thought.
00:49:03
Zachary Jeblonski
So this is three blue red. It's one of the old gods from Theros or something like that. It's indestructible as long as your devotion to blue and red is less than seven. He's not a creature.
00:49:14
Zachary Jeblonski
and reveal the first card you draw on each on each of your turns. And whenever you reveal a land card this way, draw a card. And whenever you reveal a non-land card this way, deal three damage to target creature or player. So my thought is like Keranos is probably the closest thing on my list to Talion, right? So he does non-combat drain.
00:49:33
Zachary Jeblonski
he when he When it's time to go to combat, he's effective. Like Talion flew and Keranos is indestructible. And likely if I'm moving to combat because I've made clones of him, I've satisfied that devotion requirement. So it would be a bunch of six, five indestructibles.
00:49:47
Zachary Jeblonski
He handles card advantage for you. Sometimes, right? So it's not perfect, but like, you know, if I would say for the most part, he's probably going to handle card advantage for you.
00:49:56
Zachary Jeblonski
And when he's not handling card advantage, you hope that he's doing a chunk of damage, right? So like in an ideal world, if I have five Karanoses and I reveal a non-land card, that's 15 damage to a target creature, well, five instances of three damage.
00:50:10
Zachary Jeblonski
and then And then I have six five, six fives that are instructable that can attack. So Karanos, I think is a pretty appealing option. he i don't think he's as appealing as the next three we're gonna talk about, but i think he's at least a B for me.
00:50:25
ciderspence
Yeah, i would say B also.
00:50:28
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay, wow, all right. Settled. hunt
00:50:32
ciderspence
I think it could have been an A if there was a way to... i you know i I just like the idea of the one big explosive turn, but because it's the first card you draw each turn, whatever turn you're creating these Karanos's, you probably have already drawn, so there's no way that you could...
00:50:39
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:50:49
ciderspence
get that possibility of burn the turn they come down. I guess you're drawing cards on everybody's turn, it is it does have blue, so that's a possibility. Then that could be a way to quickly get the value out of it. but
00:51:03
Zachary Jeblonski
Well, you can, it only works on your turn, the Karanosh trigger.
00:51:08
ciderspence
Oh, each of your turns?
00:51:09
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Each of your turn.
00:51:09
ciderspence
All right. Yeah, okay. I mean, it is drawing you cards. It is... It is doing a lot for you and it it it protects itself. It's indestructible, but it's also not a creature if your board is small.
00:51:19
Zachary Jeblonski
you Yeah.
00:51:19
ciderspence
So yeah, I think B is about right for me.
00:51:23
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. I think he, he's not, he's not out of the running, but he's, you know, Next we're going to bring up Lord of the Nazgul. So I got dumpstered by this curriculous commander like a couple of years ago when I was playing in Alabama actually.
00:51:38
Zachary Jeblonski
And it wasn't the player who had him didn't build him around clones. He just had like kind of like an instant or sorcery kind of card drawly kind of, you know, interactive package. Like a demme just a normal like kind of Demir instant sorcery package.
00:51:51
Zachary Jeblonski
but this commander iss cool and I'm surprised I don't see him more often. Lord of the Nazgul, three blue black legendary creature, wraith noble flying wraiths, you control of protection from ring bearers.
00:52:01
Zachary Jeblonski
Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, you create a three, three black wraith creature with menace. Then if you have nine or more wraiths, wraiths, you control up base power and toughness nine, nine.
00:52:11
Zachary Jeblonski
So he has similar problems to Bria effect. but I think he's even better than Bria, just because, when you have, once you get a couple of Nazgul's or Lord the Nazgul's going, uh, you know, they're obviously seeing each of those are seeing every instant or sorcery spell. So if you have three of these guys going and I cast an in instant or sorcery that clones, all three of them see if they make three, three, threes and I've instantly hit that nine, nine trigger, right? Like I'm like, I think I can envision this being like so easy to turn every race into a nine, nine.
00:52:44
Zachary Jeblonski
So I think he's, I think he's better than Bria, but he still has some of the problems of Bria where like the value engine's not built into the commander. So you would need an additional package on top of this.
00:52:56
Zachary Jeblonski
I'm, I'm, this is like another B for me. He's slightly better than Bria.
00:53:01
ciderspence
Yeah, I would agree. i think this one has a lot of potential, but I think I would land it a B also. Maybe for an unrelated reason, but it's also such a specific lore card that building it with clones seems like taking it out of the lane that I i would see as the most fun for it. So...
00:53:22
ciderspence
I don't know. i I do think it has high potential, but to your point, it requires you to do setup, and the more setup you have to do for your commander, the harder it is to make the deck consistently fun to play. So i would I think a B here works as well.
00:53:36
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:53:36
ciderspence
I do like that it just pumps them once to 9-9, though, and you don't have to think about it more, and 9-9 is plenty.
00:53:41
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah there's not the Yeah, he's not adding pluses to them. They just become 9-9s, which is kind of a nice little administrative benefit of like, I don't have to think about this anymore. They're just 9-9s, right? Well, until I get boardwip or something. but And he himself is a wraith, of course. So yeah, it's very easy to turn everything into a 9-9, which is pretty cool.
00:54:00
Zachary Jeblonski
All right, then i I kind of had this idea. This will be my second to last one here, which is Hackball, the Surging Soul. So this is from this is a pre-con leader from Lost Caverns of Ixlaw, and he's two green-blue legendary creature, Merfolk Scout. At the beginning of combat on your turn, each Merfolk creature you have control explores, and whenever Hackball, the Surging Soul attacks, you may put a land card from your hand on the battlefield. If you don't, you draw a card.
00:54:24
Zachary Jeblonski
And i was like, I was when I was going through this thought process, was like, huh, this guy probably gets pretty crazy if there's a bunch of them. And, you know, like, so I wouldn't even have like a normal Morpho package in here. Maybe, maybe like a couple of like the best Morpho, like the ones that give Island Walk or something. But other than that, it's the clone package in him.
00:54:46
Zachary Jeblonski
Uh, he, he, he advances the board state. He creates card advantage. He creates land, uh, mana advantage too, which is something that you don't always say. So he's card and land advantage.
00:54:58
Zachary Jeblonski
And the, the little cherry on top is I, I like explore explore is one of my favorite mechanics of magic. I think I want them to do more with it. So he really checks a lot of boxes. I guess the only, I guess the pullback from hack ball is unlike a care nose or Italian.
00:55:12
Zachary Jeblonski
He only can win through combat. Like I'm not draining people. i'm not milling people. i'm not doing whatever. So the only way I'm going to be able to win with this deck is through combat. And so that has its own, you know, disadvantages to it per se. So, but I think he's a, he's a solid option. And I think it's also like kind of a fun factor of like rolling up to a pod and being like, Hey, here's my hack ball deck.
00:55:32
Zachary Jeblonski
And it's, and he's the only Merfolk in it, you know, technically, you know, I think it'd be, I think it'd be kind of cool. I think the administrative burden of resolving a bunch of them, I think will be rough, but I, I've already kind of devised a system in my head of how I would like quickly move through it.
00:55:49
Zachary Jeblonski
And the good thing with Explorer is if you have a non-land card on top and you just, and you don't have any interest of putting it in the graveyard, you just leave it there. And then you just quickly resolve the rest of your triggers. Cause everybody explores the same card on top. So.
00:56:02
Zachary Jeblonski
So yeah, hackball. A, if you if I didn't guess. That's why i'm kind of he's kind of sitting in the A territory for me.
00:56:09
ciderspence
Yeah, I think I would say A2. Hockball is... There's a notion of like a kill on sight commander.
00:56:17
ciderspence
Hockball's not that in my eyes, but he's a...
00:56:19
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, he's not quite there.
00:56:21
ciderspence
I've got my eyes on you, commander, right?
00:56:21
Zachary Jeblonski
But yes, he is a I got my eyes on you for sure.
00:56:23
ciderspence
It's like... Once your board is wide enough, I have to kill that player or deal with the Hawk Ball because it is it's one of those inevitable, if you leave it alone, it's going to win.
00:56:33
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:56:33
ciderspence
And it does do it through combat, but it's it's pretty good at that. Yeah, I think an A fits here. I like the idea also of running busted lands so that once you have, let's say you have three or four Hawk Balls, well, you can just draw into lands that you can play for immediate value.
00:56:39
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. I mean,
00:56:43
Zachary Jeblonski
oh yeah.
00:56:52
ciderspence
And they come in untapped. So it's just like, a you know, you can put down some busted stuff.
00:56:54
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep.
00:56:58
ciderspence
Yeah, I think this one this one seems very strong. And i I like the idea of a new play pattern for Hawkball.
00:57:02
Zachary Jeblonski
Uh,
00:57:04
ciderspence
So yeah, I'm an egg for this.
00:57:05
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, yeah, i think I think it could be a sleeper cool card. that i say Here's my favorite. It's also the most ridiculous.
00:57:16
Zachary Jeblonski
It's Cirdan, C-I-R-D-A-N, the shipwright. Three green, blue, legendary creature, elf, noble, vigilance.
00:57:27
Zachary Jeblonski
And he has secret council. So whenever Cirdan, the shipwright, enters the battlefield or attacks, each player secretly votes for a player. Then those votes are revealed. Each player draws a card for each vote they received.
00:57:39
Zachary Jeblonski
And each player who received no votes may put a permanent card from their hand battlefield. I like this because you know like one of my favorite things is is cards that that engage the table, right like cards that get my opponents to do things when it's not their turn I think that's fun when people are asking to be engaged. And this is an engagement that is an interesting thought pattern right because you know you could conspire with my opponents. like My opponents could conspire with each other to select people so that permanents don't come in and stuff like that.
00:58:11
Zachary Jeblonski
And I can see the backstabbing that could happen with this. And I just, i think there's just like so many cool things that can happen with this. And I think the secret voting is not that hard to do. Literally, it's just everybody takes a dice. And then what I would do is if I was playing this deck is I would just assign a number on my iPad, you know, this player one, two, three, or four, and then you just set the dice to one, two, three, or four to do your vote. and Like, I think, I think administratively, I don't think it's that hard to resolve this.
00:58:36
Zachary Jeblonski
and I think it just will create a lot of fun because people will be drawing cars, people putting permanents out. And also he's a three, four vigilant. So which means is I can go to combat, do all these triggers and I still have all my creatures to attack. I can attack with them and I still have blockers.
00:58:48
Zachary Jeblonski
he handles card advantage for me. He handles, he doesn't handle like drain. So I do have to win through combat, but, uh, he's the one that kind of inspired this whole, I saw him randomly and I was like huh.
00:59:00
Zachary Jeblonski
And that's how I came down this road. So he is my current, uh, pick.
00:59:05
Zachary Jeblonski
What do you think?
00:59:05
ciderspence
Yeah, we feel very differently about cards that make the whole table do something.
00:59:10
Zachary Jeblonski
Aww.
00:59:12
ciderspence
i I know that you like that. This card is good at that. But you know back to kind of that conversation we were having at the beginning about you don't always get to play the game that you want to play.
00:59:25
ciderspence
i you know i think if you if you played this deck, I think I would treat it as a higher level threat than otherwise, especially if I knew it was a clone deck because I don't want to do this every turn.
00:59:40
Zachary Jeblonski
Fair enough.
00:59:42
ciderspence
But, you know, for you, I could see this being an A, almost an S, because it kind of does everything you want it to do. It is drawing cards, and it's drawing cards for other people, potentially.
00:59:54
ciderspence
It's got high variance because the table gets to choose.
00:59:54
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep.
00:59:56
ciderspence
And it's got an interesting amount of variance just over the course of two to three turns, right? You get to see the way it turns out the first turn, and that gets to inform how you handle it, that player's next turn.
01:00:09
ciderspence
it's Yeah, it's interesting. like it's It's an overwhelming commander without commander without seeming overpowered, if that makes sense. So I think you know it has a lot of influence on gameplay.
01:00:18
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
01:00:22
ciderspence
Yeah, I could see this being an A. I could almost you know i can almost see this being between an A and an S, especially the for a deck for you.
01:00:28
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
01:00:32
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay, so you but you wouldn't want to play against us.
01:00:35
ciderspence
I wouldn't be excited to play against it, but as long as you were okay with me...
01:00:38
Zachary Jeblonski
Hmm.
01:00:41
ciderspence
targeting it. Like this, this would be the type of game that if a stranger played, I could see me treating it the way you treat a Tali and not wanting it to resolve or not wanting it to attack and deal with the triggers.
01:00:50
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Yeah, Tom.
01:00:54
ciderspence
And I could see it causing a, you know, assault outbreak. And you know, that just is it just is something that happens at tables, right? Like different people like different things and those keep people keep butting heads about it. you know sometimes that's Sometimes that's a fun table dynamic, sometimes it's not.
01:01:12
ciderspence
But yeah, I'm not excited for it. I'm also not excited. I put in a last second entry. I'm not excited for that either, but I wanted to throw it in here because I also think it belongs in this conversation.
01:01:17
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
01:01:20
Zachary Jeblonski
I'm going to, I'm going put your, your, your disdain, I think moves into a, so it gives me something to think about. let's talk about the one you just added in real quick and at the crossroads, you want to walk me through it?
01:01:34
ciderspence
Yes, I do. So I guess I'm i'm big into the Avatar set, so I probably have just seen this card more than you.
01:01:38
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
01:01:39
ciderspence
Aang at the Crossroads 2, green, white, blue, flying, human Avatar ally. When it enters, look at the top five cards of your library. You may put a creature card with mana value four or less from among them onto the battlefield.
01:01:51
ciderspence
Put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order. When another creature you control leaves the battlefield, transform Aang at the beginning of the next upkeep. it's a clone that lets you draw all your clones and just keep going.
01:02:04
ciderspence
So it lets you have one big explosive turn, and if you can have haste enabler out before that, and if you have a high enough density of clones, maybe you just win there because they all fly.
01:02:19
ciderspence
i there's a i don't love this play pattern, but I've seen this deck or versions of this deck enough times, both online and in person.
01:02:28
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, I get it now. Yeah, yeah, I get it.
01:02:30
ciderspence
that i see that I see why people do it. And it definitely feels like a deck you wouldn't want to play a lot, but that you would definitely enjoy seeing go off the time it did.
01:02:42
ciderspence
So I think this is a contender in this space that I just wanted to at least put on your radar. Like, I think this is, yeah.
01:02:52
ciderspence
Yes, yes.
01:02:57
Zachary Jeblonski
but yeah, I get it. Like I, yeah, it's like, I read it and I'm like, this is one of those cards where i read it and I go, I get it. I'm not laughing, but I get It's like, you know, it's like, yeah, I know you just put a bunch of clones and you hit them over and over and over again.
01:03:11
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah we're gonna, we're gonna slide this guy over into the D territory.
01:03:17
ciderspence
Oh, wow. Okay, fair enough.
01:03:19
Zachary Jeblonski
I am, I am not, I do not like that play pattern of like, I don't like things that approach combo. Like I just, it just draws me the wrong way when like you could make a deck I'm sure where you have a very reasonable chance of like, just this going off and then creating tons of these. And, it's just not the vibe I like i like personally.
01:03:41
ciderspence
Fair enough.
01:03:42
Zachary Jeblonski
but I appreciate the addition. I'm gonna leave this tab here in case I come up with so many, any other ideas, but this is where it sits right now. We'll we'll see what happens. But I know we're running.
01:03:52
ciderspence
I love it. I think I'm come prepared with a similar tab for next episode.
01:03:52
Zachary Jeblonski
a I'm here for Yeah, this was just like genuinely like, i was like, man, I got like nine commanders and I gotta decide between them.
01:03:55
ciderspence
I enjoyed this as kind of a change-up.
01:04:03
Zachary Jeblonski
So this is helpful. Yeah, so real quick, I'll run down the final list. i would I'm gonna put them in order here. And it's top of the list is Hackball, then Searden, Keranos, Lord of the Nazgul, Adrix and Nev, Joriel, Bria, and Aang at the Crossroads in order.
01:04:24
Zachary Jeblonski
And yeah, anything else you wanted to add before we wrap it up? I know we're running a little late.
01:04:29
ciderspence
No, I'm good here.
01:04:31
Zachary Jeblonski
Cool. Well, thanks for joining me. Thanks for helping me, Charles. And you have a great weekend. Stay safe in the snow if you're up in this area. And we'll talk again next week.
01:04:41
ciderspence
Yeah, that was fun. Take it easy, everybody.
01:04:42
Zachary Jeblonski
right. See you.