Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Ep. 24 - New Year-iko Resolutions
29 Plays6 months ago
We start off with good intentions to include Lorwyn spoilers but we don't get there in time but we do have plenty of game and deck talk! Plus, resolutions we may or may not keep.
P.S. Slight technical hiccup in the beginning so about two minutes was lost.
Recommended
Transcript
00:00:00
Zachary Jeblonski
All right. Hopefully if everything went all right, the the audience, you you do hear nothing that happened. Everything seamlessly spliced together.
Starting New Routines and Game Resolutions
00:00:07
Zachary Jeblonski
But regardless, we're going to get into our normal and then we're going to maybe hit some magic new resolutions and some lower wind eclipsed spoilers.
00:00:17
Zachary Jeblonski
But I think, i mean, it's been a while. So I assume, well, actually, i don't want to assume because the holidays are crazy. And I had, you know, I had challenges, I'm sure, just like you did.
Holiday Gaming Challenges
00:00:25
Zachary Jeblonski
Were you able to get any games on this lovely holiday break?
00:00:30
ciderspence
I was able to get a few in, but far fewer than I would have liked. But yes, I did get some games in.
00:00:38
Zachary Jeblonski
We had some kitchen table games in since last time we talked as well, but please don't ask me to remember too many details from those.
00:00:45
ciderspence
yeah, I got nothing. i i think I think we talked about the last kitchen table games we had.
00:00:52
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, think that I think you're correct. I was able to get to my store on Tuesday. so that's probably that's probably like I'm just going to go with that. That's the recent stuff, you know, and if audience you're wondering what happened when some of those kitchen table games that maybe we've forgotten, don't worry, nothing happened. We just sat there quietly, played our cans and went home and nothing exciting happened.
00:01:14
Zachary Jeblonski
That's just the rest assured.
00:01:16
ciderspence
That does happen sometimes.
00:01:19
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, we just sit in silence. No one says anything. Three hours later, we get to pick up our stuff and leave.
00:01:24
ciderspence
It's a really enthralling kitchen table, guys. So sometimes you just need to take it in.
00:01:26
Zachary Jeblonski
Yes, it is. it is Yeah, you know, we serve each other unflavored seltzer water and eat unflavored ice cream as a reward, you know. But yeah, I think for, I guess for Kitchen Cable,
00:01:41
Zachary Jeblonski
I got to, so I got to like, I didn't get a, Hold on. Let me get my thought here. So basically, you know, during the school season or during the semester, like my, my, I feel like my creativity is a little stifled on like come up with new deck ideas. And I, and I slow down with that just because, it you know, it takes a fair amount of effort and time to like deconstruct the previous deck, then put another one together.
00:02:03
Zachary Jeblonski
But since, you know, I have been free of most obligations this week, I've kind of gone a little crazy on that. so I got a game in at the store on Tuesday with a new deck that I don't, mean discussed on this podcast, but it's like, I'm really kind of just been this last week focusing on commanders that like, we're always like kind of hanging out in the back of my brain that I've always like, man, these are cool.
00:02:26
Zachary Jeblonski
I should do something with them. And I just, I'm now I'm just starting to do something with them. without much further ado, the commander that I, I kind of built around was, uh, shield And this is the flip shield red. I think all these flip commanders are really cool.
00:02:43
Zachary Jeblonski
and an avatar, we kind of got the reverse of this where we have this, the legendary saga that turns into a creature, but I'm a big fan of this design of like creature on the front saga on the back. because it's like this, to me, it's like this really like interesting flow of a game of like,
00:02:59
Zachary Jeblonski
we have these phases of the game. Like myre my commander is doing this right now. It's going change doing this lately. And my priorities going to switch with it. And I kind of like when a deck has phases to it, so
Deep Dive into Commander Shieldred
00:03:10
Zachary Jeblonski
to speak. But anyway, without much further ado, it's Shieldred, three black black,
00:03:16
Zachary Jeblonski
Phyrexian Praetor, we all know Shieldred. She's got Menace. When she enters, each opponent sacrifices a non-token creature or Planeswalker as their choice. So right off the bat, she does something impactful when she comes in.
00:03:28
Zachary Jeblonski
And then four in a black, Exile Shieldred returns to the battlefield, transformed. uh into under its owner's command and then turned into its saga and the first step is each opponent to destroy up to one target creature or planeswalker that player's controls step two is each opponent discards three and mills three and then step three is basically rise of the dark realms i'll put all creatures from all graveyards on the battlefield under your control and then she flips back to the other side and this kind of took the place of my, braids deck, uh, not the, not the old braids, the new braids, which I found to be kind of like too slow.
00:04:03
Zachary Jeblonski
And, but so the, the interesting like thing with this deck is just like, how, how I'm on a black. Do I get to that third step on the saga without losing like shieldred in her creature form or in a saga form.
00:04:18
Zachary Jeblonski
Cause Mono Black not known for its ability to protect sagas, you know? And it was it was a really fun, interesting game. I ended up losing it, but it was like the first game I played with it and it it worked semi well.
00:04:29
Zachary Jeblonski
It did the thing. so I've been pretty excited about that.
00:04:35
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. I mean, like I have the, like any of the saga commanders. So they, I think, Have they any of them reached out to you? Like there's been terror recently, a final fantasy. That was the five color one. does that like, does that concept, does that do anything for you?
00:04:50
ciderspence
Yeah, I'm intrigued by it. I don't and don't play a lot of Phyrexian cards. So the flip Phyrexian guys never appealed to me But I do, I agree about the design space. I think it's pretty interesting. I haven't seen that Shildred in action in a while. I don't know what I would think about that as somebody's commander.
00:05:12
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. It, cause it's very telegraphed. Like, you know what I'm doing? Like, and that's like that to me was like an interesting design space, which is like, yeah like, this isn't a, this isn't like a surprise. Oh my God. Rise of the dark realms. I don't know where, this is, this is a rise of the dark realm. that's going to take three turns to arrive.
00:05:31
ciderspence
Well, it's interesting because that's also on the back.
00:05:33
ciderspence
So I think if you're running that as your commander, you are kind of obligated to show it to the table, but
00:05:34
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah,
Exploring Mono Black Deck Mechanics
00:05:39
ciderspence
it's also kind of easy to forget a few turns in, unless somebody at the table, like I said, has seen it before and knows, Hey, we to make sure that tables on their toes about, Hey, we gotta make sure we deal with this before it flips.
00:05:39
Zachary Jeblonski
for sure.
00:05:55
ciderspence
if they have some counter-reliberation, you know, they could, uh, they could get to it early. I guess in Mono Black, that seems hard to do. Although there are, i think there are a few things that let you place or remove counters from permanence generically.
00:06:09
ciderspence
so
00:06:09
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, there's some stuff, you know, and like you can nesting grounds to like loop maybe one the first or second stepping over and over again. like you can do that. Like I have put nesting around in there. I haven't, I put current bastion in so that you could, I'd rather advance the counters and remove them to be honest. Like i'm not like not interested in like hanging out on the first counter and just,
00:06:31
Zachary Jeblonski
completely nuking people's boards every turn.
00:06:33
ciderspence
Yeah.
00:06:34
Zachary Jeblonski
but I, there's one little piece I forgot to mention, which also like kind of adds more elements to like piloting this deck, which is you can only flip her if there's eight or more cards in an opponent's graveyard.
00:06:45
Zachary Jeblonski
So there's like all these conditions you have to meet. There's all these steps you have to do. There's all these things you have to do to like get there. And I kind of, I like that space because it's a, it's a commander that makes you work for it.
00:06:57
Zachary Jeblonski
And I'm not going to reveal all the little dumb cards, but like one dumb card I put in there was like, well, okay, well, how do I like, once you saw good and I'm on step two and I know people are going to inching to remove her before the rise of dark realms. Like how would I protect her?
00:07:10
Zachary Jeblonski
You know, if you're a green, blue, it's like counter spells, give it hexproof, whatever. But in black, there's not really a ways to do that. So I took out, uh, not of this world from my Zoola doc, my colorless deck.
00:07:22
Zachary Jeblonski
which is, uh, neither world is seven generic mana, i counter it's an instant counter in target spell or ability a target's a permanent you control. And it costs seven less.
00:07:34
Zachary Jeblonski
Uh, if it targets, I spell our ability that targets a creature you control with seven power greater. So that means i got to hold up seven mana to counter her spell that targets her, but like there's not a lot of ways to protect the saga. So I think it's kind of an interesting spot.
00:07:48
ciderspence
Yeah, that is interesting.
00:07:50
Zachary Jeblonski
But yeah, what do you got? Do you have anything you remember from the winter break or anything that you want to highlight?
00:07:59
ciderspence
I think Overbreak, the deck I've spent the most time playing is Avatar Roku, which I think I talked about building on the podcast, but it's been a lot of fun.
00:08:09
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, is that the red one
00:08:11
ciderspence
Yeah, that's the red one. it is three red, red, red. I think.
00:08:20
ciderspence
Hold up, sorry. Nope, that's not it.
00:08:21
Zachary Jeblonski
Yes, it is three red, red, red. Yeah, three and three reds.
00:08:25
ciderspence
Toroku.
00:08:27
ciderspence
Yes, three red, red, red. Whenever player attacks, add six red mana until end of combat. You don't lose this mana as Step's end. And then red, red, red, target creature gets plus three or plus 0 until end of turn.
00:08:38
ciderspence
So it's it's in age's a 6-6. It's cool because you get this mana any time any player attacks. So that adds a fun.
00:08:43
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:08:46
ciderspence
dynamic to the game. It's it's like, is it Duelist Heritage, the one that the white enchantment that lets you give a target creature double strike at the beginning of every combat?
00:08:51
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep, yep, yepp yep, yep, yep.
00:08:55
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep.
00:08:57
ciderspence
Yeah, so it's just it's fun to have something to do. and i What I tried building around was instead of focusing on instance, I mean, there are some instances in there, but it is mostly permanence with mana sinks.
Playing Strategies for Avatar Roku Deck
00:09:13
ciderspence
So my hope is just to have the ability to have you know have enough creatures to not just get attacked every turn, but also to be able to benefit from other players attacking.
00:09:14
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I like this.
00:09:25
ciderspence
one a card that I found works really well is Staff of Domination. which has a bunch of modes, but it includes the mode, I think, five and tap it, draw a card, and then one to untap it.
00:09:30
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep.
00:09:38
ciderspence
So every time you create that six mana, you can loop it. You can draw four cards a turn cycle. And, you know, you can also tap down creatures or do other stuff with it. But of the cards that, you know, there's like Bonner's Ornament that lets you pay four and tap it to draw a card, you know, the lands...
00:09:54
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh man, is this is this secretly the best Bonders Ornament commander? Is this it?
00:09:58
ciderspence
It, I mean, it makes it look better than it usually does. I'm still going to run it, so I don't know. I think they're all great for Bonder's Ornament, but it feels it feels good to do it for free.
00:10:07
Zachary Jeblonski
fair enough oh that's a good inclusion that's good yeah that sounds yeah that's a cool red that's a cool red deck i like that
00:10:10
ciderspence
Wand of Wonder has also overperformed in that deck, so...
00:10:16
ciderspence
Yeah, but that's been a lot of fun to to tinker with.
00:10:24
Zachary Jeblonski
But yeah, other learned than that, i just just some standard stuff. Kratos, I got a game in with Kratos and Atreus, Partner Gods, which I think I've played at the kitchen table before.
00:10:39
Zachary Jeblonski
That deck still does all right. like it is like To me, it feels slow, but it does it it is like one of those slow-moving locomotives where like it's slow, but like it will eventually grind the table down.
00:10:53
Zachary Jeblonski
the kind of one of the all-stars in that deck, which I didn't really think about when I put it in is a Heliod sun crown. So you never guess it's a God. It's a two white.
00:11:04
Zachary Jeblonski
It's in an indestructible as long as your devotion to white is less than five. Heliod isn't a creature. Whenever you gain life, put a one, one on target creature enchantment, you control all that stuff's fine. doesn't, none of that stuff really matters that much. But the last part is one of way, another target creature gains lifelink. It's on a turn.
00:11:21
Zachary Jeblonski
I think twice now that, that, that card alone has like pulled me out of like almost dying. Because usually I have one big creature and even if I'm swinging in and it's going to be blocked by a one, one or, or it's going to die to some death touch or something like that, just being able to get like 10 or 12 life back because I have a giant creature that I was able to slap lifelink on has been pretty huge.
00:11:43
ciderspence
pretty cool.
00:11:44
Zachary Jeblonski
I often forget about lifelink and decks that aren't built around lifelink. That's something I'm sure I'm probably going to try and get a little bit better about in 2026 is like remembering that like, A little bit lifeline can each deck can go a long way.
00:11:57
ciderspence
Yeah, I found myself including it as one of, not of the staples, but of the things that I want three or four of in every deck.
00:12:04
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:12:05
ciderspence
Just because, yeah, to your point, Often enough, it's been the case that gaining a few life here there separated me from the rest of the table that was getting beset upon by a threat and allowed me to last long enough to figure it out.
00:12:22
ciderspence
So yeah. And I do like lifelink as that method, because especially in in a tag
00:12:24
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I do think. Yeah. yeah
00:12:28
ciderspence
in the taggy decks decks where you're going to swing or where you you have a big creature or something. Like, it lets you get that life gain in a bursty way. Sometimes I find that the incremental life gain cards seem good, but especially if you're gaining one life per instance of something, you may just not have the time for that to make as big a difference.
00:12:46
ciderspence
Like, you know, thinking you're going to gain one life a turn is great if you drop it on turn one or turn two, but If you draw that card when you're at three life and gain one life to go to four, that doesn't do nearly as much as drawing your, you lifelink equipment that lets you swing and gain seven in life.
00:13:04
Zachary Jeblonski
Interesting. Cause I was actually going to go the other way on that. I think I prefer, even though i just talked about Heliod and being able to get a bunch of life off a big creature, I actually prefer this smaller incidental life gains because to me, they draws less heat.
00:13:18
Zachary Jeblonski
you know, a life here, life there, people don't tend to pay attention to, and you don't really get the heat. but I think to your point, yeah, it's drawing them late is a real feels bad for sure.
00:13:28
Zachary Jeblonski
i guess I guess it's bound, right? Because if you draw them late, it it's just a field bet. It doesn't work very well. But if you draw some of these big life gain cards early, they also usually don't do much. So i don't know what I'm trying to say here. Maybe a mix. But i do overall, though, I want to get more lifeline going on with my decks.
00:13:47
Zachary Jeblonski
Just because it's sometimes it's sometimes it's like six life here, or ten life there. Even if it only happens once is enough just to kind of get you through.
00:13:56
ciderspence
Yeah.
00:13:57
ciderspence
Yeah, I think the Soul Sisters-y type thing, I like them, but I guess I've seen them.
00:14:00
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah.
00:14:03
ciderspence
I now know to target players who have those early, either to just remove them or but just because, like, I don't know, along the... We have a player in our pod who likes to run Soul Sisters-type effects, and it just becomes the case a lot of the times that with his board state, he will have a lot of tokens and he will have a lot of life, and it just...
00:14:25
ciderspence
becomes incredibly difficult to deal with him late game if he's just been allowed to incrementally get that life gain and token value all game. So I kind of have to focus him early in order to not be stalled out by him in the late game.
00:14:43
Zachary Jeblonski
Right.
00:14:44
ciderspence
So in my mind, I just am always aggressive against those incremental things early. So maybe that's part of the reason why I don't value them as highly as the Bursty Life game, which you can just kind of hold back and get value when you're ready when you're ready for it or when you need it versus the type of thing that, again, like we said, if you draw late, doesn't have enough time to get a lot of value. But if you play it early, over the you know over the course of five turns,
00:15:11
ciderspence
your life totals at 50 and everybody else is in the 30s, kind of gets you a lot of attention that maybe you're not ready for. Maybe you are, but I find that I'm i'm usually not ready for that attention, so I prefer the first team.
00:15:19
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:15:23
Zachary Jeblonski
Fair enough.
00:15:26
Zachary Jeblonski
One sec.
00:15:28
Zachary Jeblonski
Sorry, I had to get a cough out. All right. Let's see Any other games you wanted to talk about before maybe we move on to what we're working on?
00:15:38
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I think that's kind of where the exciting space is right now, at least for me. so I kind of already spilled the beans on my mono black deck being converted into shielded.
Reassembling a Minotaur Deck with Jund Combo
00:15:47
Zachary Jeblonski
so do want to let you know that I, I took what you said to heart in the last episode, if you remember that last episode and I went through the trials and turn, uh, you know, I had like 1980 style montage. I climbed some Hills. I lifted some logs.
00:16:06
Zachary Jeblonski
And I reassembled a version of my Minotaur deck.
00:16:12
ciderspence
Nice.
00:16:14
Zachary Jeblonski
So so i i know i I think I know this Kindred more than any other Kindred in Magic because there's only so many Minotaurs. And i already had pretty much all the good ones.
00:16:25
Zachary Jeblonski
And I really was like, okay, how i don't I had a couple challenges. One was like, I don't want to get rid of my Rakdos deck. Even though Rakdos is like kind of the Minotaur colors, it basically is Minotaur colors.
00:16:37
Zachary Jeblonski
Because I think my Rakdos deck, I like having my Rakdos deck as, it it serves two functions. One is like the last game of the night, make sure that the game doesn't go long. And two, when somebody brings out like a bracket four deck, it's my best deck for dealing with a bracket four without actually having a bracket four myself.
00:16:57
Zachary Jeblonski
So I don't wanna get rid of that. So I was like, okay, so I don't wanna do Rakdos, cause I don't wanna like take those parts out of it. And I was like, okay, what do I do? And then, you know, I went through a bunch of different options and I really, I set it on Jund, because I was gonna take apart my Jund deck anyway.
00:17:11
ciderspence
Gotcha.
00:17:11
ciderspence
I
00:17:13
Zachary Jeblonski
I'm sorry, what was that?
00:17:15
ciderspence
was like, get oh no, I'm just, sorry, I'm just following. Gotcha. Yeah.
00:17:17
Zachary Jeblonski
and then there's no, no John Minotaur commanders.
00:17:18
ciderspence
I'm with you.
00:17:20
Zachary Jeblonski
There isn't. so I could go all the way to more fun or something like that, but I don't care for more fun. I find them a little too generic for my, for my taste. so I settled on John and of the John commanders, there's not really anything that really helps a Minotaur tribal or tribal in general.
00:17:36
Zachary Jeblonski
Unless I want to be really cheeky and do like a mask with Nexus and then turn them on the lurk or something like that. But I'm not going to do that because I'm trying to keep the flavor of Minotaurs, you know, as disgusting as that sounds.
00:17:49
Zachary Jeblonski
So I settled on a non-Minotaur commander for this and I settled on Zira Arion, which I ran him some decks in the past.
00:17:56
ciderspence
Oh, the bug lady.
00:17:58
Zachary Jeblonski
The bug lady. Yeah. The original one, which is really simple. It's black, red, green, flying, black, red, green, tap, draws target player, draws a card.
00:18:10
Zachary Jeblonski
That's what she does. So she's just there to like help out with a little card draw if I need her. but the rest of the deck is trying, I'm trying my best to win with Minotaurs and not like put in alternative win kind cons, like try not to win in other ways. There's a few ways that where I could presumably win.
00:18:32
Zachary Jeblonski
like Shadow of the Goblins in the deck, and that deals damage to players if I cast a spell from anywhere other than my hand. But there's not too many ways to do that. So like it's directly possible that I will win not hitting somebody with a Minotaur.
00:18:44
Zachary Jeblonski
But I really try to make it so that i would win hitting with Minotaurs. But boy,
00:18:48
ciderspence
Are Minotaur as hasty as a collective?
00:18:52
Zachary Jeblonski
haste is a somewhat common keyword, but I will say a lot of the best Minotaurs do not have haste.
00:19:00
ciderspence
OK.
00:19:01
ciderspence
The only other one that comes to mind, and it sounds like you're settled, so and I actually really like Shira.
00:19:05
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:19:05
ciderspence
I built her as a commander for my daughter, who is too young to play magic, but she went through a bug the phase.
00:19:09
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, okay.
00:19:13
ciderspence
So it was insect kindred. and Shira. I tried both Shiras, actually, the original Shira and then Shira the Golden Sting, and I played that deck against my son's dinosaur deck, so that was a fun fun exercise.
00:19:18
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:19:29
ciderspence
But the only other one that comes to mind is Agnes the Dragon and Slash, I think.
00:19:34
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I thought about that too.
00:19:35
ciderspence
Yeah.
00:19:36
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:19:37
ciderspence
But I guess treasures can get you to a place where it doesn't feel like the Minotaurs are doing it for themselves. And I think you do want them to shine.
00:19:44
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah I mean, i mean, as long as I don't include any other treasure payoffs and the treasure just that ramp. Yes, I could do that. but there, there's enough Minotaurs. In fact, a lot of the Minotaurs don't have haste. So it's like one those things where like, there is, if this doesn't work or I'm not satisfied with it, I did it. Like basically I got 90% of the way putting those deck and it dawned on me something. it dawned on me what I could do with this.
00:20:08
Zachary Jeblonski
So i'm just going to highlight probably the best Minotaur commander that's in the 99 here, is which is seth Sethron Hurlun General.
00:20:18
Zachary Jeblonski
It's three red red. Legendary creature Minotaur Warrior. Whenever Sethron or another non-token Minotaur enters the battlefield, you create a two three red Minotaur token, and you can pay two hybrid Rakdos.
00:20:31
Zachary Jeblonski
Minotaurs you control get one O, Menace, and Haste till end of turn. And it dawned on me that since the hybrid mana and the activation is is you know black red, I think what might actually be an even stronger way to do Minotaurs, and I might do that if this doesn't work,
00:20:50
Zachary Jeblonski
is I just do Sethron red clones and I just focus on red cloning him. So because every time he comes in, he makes that token. so that, that might also be a possibility, but I must try this first. And the reason why I splashed green for this minotaur deck is is there's exactly one minotaur that has green in it that I wanted to put in the deck.
00:21:09
ciderspence
that Tongarth?
00:21:10
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah, Taungarth.
00:21:11
Zachary Jeblonski
So I literally switched, added a whole color just so that I could get Taungarth.
00:21:17
ciderspence
I mean, look, when you're earth when you're rocking with Minotaurs, you want to make sure you get to play the really good one.
00:21:20
Zachary Jeblonski
i Look, man, you do the best you can. You know.
00:21:26
ciderspence
I also wonder, it seems like most Minotaurs are also warriors, so I wonder if there's like a warrior commander...
00:21:30
Zachary Jeblonski
Yes.
00:21:32
ciderspence
who just cares a lot about warriors and you just have all the warriors be
00:21:32
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
Strategies and Challenges for Minotaur Decks
00:21:36
ciderspence
minotaurs.
00:21:36
ciderspence
I have a vampire soldier deck that is similar. i was, the vampires are so, have like the opposite problem with minotaurs. There are so many vampires that I was like, how do I make a deck that's not just all good stuff vampires?
00:21:46
Zachary Jeblonski
Yes.
00:21:50
ciderspence
And it was, I will make it all vampire soldiers. And there are, you know, about 30 them. So, It felt more unique and also it was a much more limited card pool, so it made the decisions easier and felt more flavorful.
00:22:05
Zachary Jeblonski
Now I'm going to do something. Yeah. I mean, I, let's say I'm going to type, I'm going see what, how many Minotaur warriors there are. There's 37 Minotaur warriors.
00:22:16
ciderspence
Yeah.
00:22:17
Zachary Jeblonski
and And I would say a third of them are playable. I, you know, I, I did put, i read,
00:22:24
ciderspence
Oh, come on. don't Don't limit yourself to just the playable cards, Zach. What are we
00:22:28
Zachary Jeblonski
I've looked, I'm trying and tried to have a functional deck here.
00:22:30
ciderspence
You chose Minotaurs. You chose this life.
00:22:32
Zachary Jeblonski
I, I know I love minotaurs. I do. I like them as a mythological concept. I like their, just I like the way they look, but, and I like that they're an underdog in magic.
00:22:43
Zachary Jeblonski
I like all three of those things, but I am still trying to win.
00:22:48
ciderspence
Fair enough.
00:22:48
Zachary Jeblonski
so I got, I got some, so you know, I got, I got a really, I got like my solid green ramp package around it. I robbed some really good cards from other decks to like, like I put it at Chrome as Memorial in it. Like I am doing everything I can to make these guys good.
00:23:04
Zachary Jeblonski
uh, I just want highlight maybe like two more cards out of it. One is i do have the Minotaur card, which is the didgeridoo. You ever seen didgeridoo?
00:23:16
ciderspence
I have not.
00:23:17
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, this is an oldie, an old card. I don't remember what's that. It goes back 15 years or so, but it's didgeridoo. It's a one mana artifact. Pay three, take a Minotaur from your hand and put it directly in play.
00:23:30
Zachary Jeblonski
So it is like,
00:23:32
ciderspence
Well, that's awesome.
00:23:33
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, it's a great card. I mean, it is unequivocally like one of the best, like I think kindred cards of all time. It's just the kindred itself is weak. So really see it. so I got that.
00:23:43
Zachary Jeblonski
And then, you know, just literally. Oh, yeah. The other Minotaur thing I wanted to highlight is Minotaur do have a really unique tutor. So I will break my normal tutor rule for this.
00:23:54
Zachary Jeblonski
uh, which is death, bellow war cry. It's five red, red, red. You search your library for up to four minotaurs and put them on the battlefield and shuffle your library. So, an eight mana card that should, that tutors for minotaurs directly to the battlefield. And those minotaurs don't get like sacrificing end of turn, like a normal, like red card would do.
00:24:14
Zachary Jeblonski
They're just there. So that's really kind of a unique, cool thing with minotaurs is that they have their own tutor that I don't, I don't, I'm not aware of any other tutor that in the game that lets you get four cart four creatures on the battlefield like that.
00:24:25
Zachary Jeblonski
So, so yeah but you know, watch out because I'll be fetching up my Anuba spirit collar, which gives me, which is a one three that gives my Minotaurs one Oh, so watch out.
00:24:27
ciderspence
Garrett sounds pretty good.
00:24:37
Zachary Jeblonski
I'm coming.
00:24:39
ciderspence
I'll try to be ready. I'm actually genuinely excited for this. I i can't wait to see
00:24:43
Zachary Jeblonski
I I'm, I'm, I'm interested to see what it does. i am worried that there is too many non Minotaurs in it where it won't feel minotaur enough, but we'll see. i am, I am cheating a little bit.
00:24:54
Zachary Jeblonski
I do have a mask with Nexus in there so that hopefully I can get everything to be Minotaurs.
00:24:57
ciderspence
How many Minotaurs are in the deck so far?
00:25:00
Zachary Jeblonski
Ooh, let's right. And then also some of them are changelings. So.
00:25:05
ciderspence
So I remember you played a... Who's the rat snail guy?
00:25:10
Zachary Jeblonski
Uh, wick. Yeah.
00:25:11
ciderspence
Wick, yeah. I remember your Wick deck list. And at the time, I was curious about a Wick deck list as well. But you ran it as Rat Kindred, but I think you only had like 20 rats in it.
00:25:22
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:25:23
ciderspence
And that, to me, seemed low.
00:25:23
Zachary Jeblonski
So. All right.
00:25:25
ciderspence
So i'm I'm wondering how many Minotaurs you have in your Minotaur Kindred deck.
00:25:26
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. All right. So I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going count creatures that when they come become minotaurs.
00:25:37
Zachary Jeblonski
a Okay. Can you give me that? Or are we not giving me that?
00:25:40
ciderspence
Like you get to declare a type and you declare the type is Minotaur?
00:25:44
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:25:45
ciderspence
OK, yeah, sure.
00:25:46
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. You'll let me have that. Okay. All right. Let me see. One, three.
00:25:58
ciderspence
It's like your kindred magic number. Yeah, it's fine.
00:26:00
Zachary Jeblonski
It is
00:26:01
ciderspence
I get it. I get it. There
00:26:02
Zachary Jeblonski
Look, one-fifth of my tech is infinite. Sorry.
00:26:06
ciderspence
you
00:26:07
Zachary Jeblonski
And there and there's there should not be a way to win without, let's just say a very easily reliable way to win other than hitting people with minotaurs. That's what this deck does. There's no i don't run there's not crackle of power or anything like that. it is the the minute it's The idea is the minotaurs are coming.
00:26:22
Zachary Jeblonski
and They got a lot of help from non-minotaurs.
00:26:26
ciderspence
Are you at least running Crater Hoof?
00:26:28
Zachary Jeblonski
No, that's not a minotaur.
00:26:30
ciderspence
I mean, Crater Hoof feels like a Minotaur card, though.
00:26:34
Zachary Jeblonski
I like how much you're trying to help and I appreciate it. No, I've got, I got a chroma's memorial, uh, which I, which is not a crater hoof, but I think it's, I think it's a little bit more in line with trying to keep the minotauriness.
00:26:48
Zachary Jeblonski
I think I might put in a triumph of the hordes, which is like, once again, this is, these are cards I don't normally run, but like they need all the help they can get.
00:26:54
ciderspence
I mean, that sounds like a Minotaur card, yeah.
00:26:56
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah, try the horror feels more minotaurier than like, yeah, yeah.
00:27:00
ciderspence
Overwhelming Stampede also feels flavorful.
00:27:04
Zachary Jeblonski
So like cards like that, I think I'd be more okay with running because i want the Minotaurs themselves to be like the thing. Yeah, and like I said, depending on how it goes, you know it'll stay as otherwise. I'll move to like a red clones because like no the only reason i i don't want to do the Satharm red clones is because once again, I'm like, is this Minotauri or am I just abusing this particular Minotaur commander?
00:27:25
Zachary Jeblonski
And what does it mean to be Minotauri?
00:27:26
ciderspence
Yeah.
00:27:28
Zachary Jeblonski
these philosophical questions and more.
00:27:31
ciderspence
I mean, I think that's that's what keeps us coming back to the table, I think.
00:27:32
Zachary Jeblonski
But yeah, that's Minotaurs.
00:27:35
Zachary Jeblonski
Yes. Okay. Do you have a deck you're working on that you want to highlight
00:27:40
ciderspence
Yeah, I've been working on a
Building a Lila Deck from Spider-Man Set
00:27:41
ciderspence
few. I mentioned the Roku deck.
00:27:42
Zachary Jeblonski
highlight? Okay.
00:27:43
ciderspence
I also put together my Lila deck. Lila is
00:27:50
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, Lila.
00:27:51
ciderspence
From the Spider-Man set, yeah.
00:27:51
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah Yeah.
00:27:54
ciderspence
She is three in a blue, legendary artifact creature, Lila, holographic assistant.
00:27:54
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, that Lila. Yep.
00:28:00
ciderspence
Legendary artifact creature, illusion advisor. Whenever you draw a card, put a 1-1 counter on target creature. So the first thing I thought of with this card is there's another card that is known to be very good, Danny Pink, that I had as a commander.
00:28:17
ciderspence
And it was fine. Uh, but I thought that this might be a fun way to put some of those cards into action in a different format. And I like that it pays you off for drawing cards. Just, it feels very land folly, like paying you off for something you were going to do anyway.
00:28:35
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:28:36
ciderspence
giving a blue weenie deck a way to win that isn't just, you know, try to win the mana expenditure game.
00:28:46
ciderspence
So this deck doesn't do well unless Danny Pink is out, but when Danny Pink is out, it is incredible.
00:28:57
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, I can imagine.
00:28:58
ciderspence
So I don't know. i got it i I need to figure out how to make it better, but it is it has been fun to play. Another card that... so i I staged a game with this deck among some other decks over the last few days, and another card that stood out in that game was Diviner's Wand, a kindred equipment. It's a tribal artifact wizard equipment. Equipped creature has, whenever you draw a card, this creature gets plus one plus one and gains flying until end of turn, and you can draw a card for four mana.
00:29:31
ciderspence
and When a wizard comes into play, you can attach it to it, what otherwise it equips for three. And Lila's not a wizard, so I have to pay. But being able to give her flying and then being able to double pay yourself off for drawing cards is really sweet in the deck.
00:29:46
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, now Diviner's Wand is like, it's a sweet card. It's something you don't see very often. and And it's also one of those cards where every time I read it, I'm like, why is this good? Because my brain, for whatever reason, just skips over the first part where you get to put a 1-1 or a creature gets one one every time you draw a card.
00:30:02
Zachary Jeblonski
And like my brain just forgets about that part, even though they're like that's crucial to the whole thing.
00:30:03
ciderspence
Yeah.
00:30:07
ciderspence
Yeah. Yeah. So between that, Danny Pink and Prof's Identic Memory, those are the three big ones that I think, when they're around, give you an accelerated shot of being able to do a lot of damage in a single turn.
00:30:24
ciderspence
Otherwise, it just takes so long to accrue value. Now, you are in blue, so you've got ways to kind of protect your value as you go.
00:30:28
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:30:31
ciderspence
But I don't know. what Having built a lot of mono red decks recently, i don't like the anticipated play pattern of if the game goes long enough, I should have a board state that lets me contribute. I'd rather build up the board state faster. So I'm trying to find a way to do that in the mono blue deck.
00:30:53
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. No, i like it. I like it. Okay.
00:30:58
ciderspence
I've also come back around on decks. Well, I guess I never left, but I've decided that in the new year, I do want to kind of redouble my efforts to build decks that are like period pieces, where all the cards come from a single set or from a you know, contemporaneous set release, like Foundations and that Jumpstart that came out at the same time.
00:31:19
ciderspence
I played at a friend's house. It was me and my son playing with him and his son. And, you know, we were kind of trying to decide what decks to play because his son built his own deck. So it It was like a lot of good cards, but not a lot of synergy.
00:31:34
ciderspence
And so I said, well, you know, my my answer was, what if we played some decks that were just cards from a single set? So we know that they're kind of limited in how good they could be.
00:31:42
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:31:42
ciderspence
And so my friend played Brothers War deck that I had built using Soundwave as the commander that I did not sufficiently explain to him that he understood what the deck was trying to do. So that was that was a big my bad if you're listening. Sorry about that.
00:31:57
ciderspence
that has That has also encouraged another one of my New Year's resolutions, which I'll get to in a few minutes.
00:31:57
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, okay.
00:32:03
ciderspence
But I played a played Far Fortune End Boss from Aether Drift.
00:32:08
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah okay
00:32:08
ciderspence
And i hadn't I hadn't picked up or thought about that deck basically since Aether Drift. But it was fun. you know It's like there were enough cards in there that were synergistic that I remembered what the deck was trying to do.
00:32:21
ciderspence
It's fun to kind of immerse yourself in a set. during a game, you know? Because when I do this, I try to only also include lands from the set. So basically, every card that I play reminds me of the setting, the mood of that set when it came out. And, you know, because Aether Drift what isn't especially popular, you don't really get to to see the Aether Drift world all that often. But it was cool to kind of go back there.
00:32:48
ciderspence
So I really enjoyed doing that. So another deck I just put together, i had a Vazzy Keen Negotiator deck. but I decided to make an all-Kapenna-Vazzy-Kean Negotiator deck kind of for the same reason.
00:32:58
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:33:01
ciderspence
So yeah, that's that's that's something I'm trying to do more of.
00:33:02
Zachary Jeblonski
Now that's enter it. Yeah, no, I like that. And then one thing that like, it's interesting you chose far future in there because, you know, a friend and I have like a little bit of a new year tradition where we just buy a box and we crack packs.
00:33:15
Zachary Jeblonski
Uh, it's like Christmas slash new year's tradition. Yeah. Cause it's like, you know, you come in a dolly, you stop, just kind of stop unwrapping things. People don't wrap stuff for you.
00:33:22
ciderspence
Yep.
00:33:23
Zachary Jeblonski
so it kind of simulates that experience kind of nicely. It's just like, Oh yeah, let's sit open with the box and we're to unwrap our quote unquote presents. and you know, with the advent of final fantasy, everything has just kind of gotten crazy expensive and I don't want to deal with bulk as much anymore. Like I'm just kind of past that phase.
00:33:39
Zachary Jeblonski
for, for what I'm doing with my collection. And so I was like, right, I need to, I want to buy a collector box. We can open packs. So I don't get as much bulk and hopefully just the hits are a little bit better. but any collector's box right now is just kind of exorbitant.
00:33:52
Zachary Jeblonski
I was like, oh, okay. So I gotta, I gotta think about like, what are the worst sets and then look up those sets. And sure enough, unfortunately I was able to get an eighth or drift box for very cheap, but I was not cheap.
00:33:58
ciderspence
There you go. Nice.
00:34:02
Zachary Jeblonski
I would say reasonably priced. So that's what we opened up. And that's why far future far fortune was like, oh yeah. When you said I those was like, oh yeah, i saw I opened up a couple of those. yeah and I know what she does. You know, I got a, I was hoping to get like a nice, like really like foiled out treatment of catcher most. Cause that's always like a commander that's on the back burner for me that I might do someday, but no, no, no, uh, yoked out catcher most is that's all right. I got a fracture foil Chandra planeswalker.
00:34:32
Zachary Jeblonski
which looks really cool, but it's in Japanese, so I can't use it.
00:34:36
ciderspence
Did you get any interesting treatments of ketramose? Maybe at ketalmos?
00:34:41
Zachary Jeblonski
No, I didn't get, uh, no, I think we opened up one non foil catcher most. I think it's like all we got out of the whole box, which is fine.
00:34:49
ciderspence
Gotcha.
00:34:50
Zachary Jeblonski
because right now I really, really like my white black deck. So it's very, it's going to I I'm, I'm, very doubtful that I'll ever make that deck, but it's always like in the back burner.
00:35:04
ciderspence
Nice.
00:35:06
Zachary Jeblonski
the next thing I'm
Deck-Building with Destined Warrior
00:35:07
Zachary Jeblonski
all right. So I got, i guess the next thing that's the closest to fruition, cause I have a couple more that are kind of just milling about, But i remembered that they did Final Fantasy scene boxes over the holidays.
00:35:22
Zachary Jeblonski
and I was like, oh, right. I should double check those to see if there's any legendaries in there that I care about. so I looked through them and I remember, and there's one in there that I haven't heard anybody talk about. And it's not like an explosive or like super unique or new thing, but it is something that I haven't really messed with. which is, well, have you looked at any of the scene box stuff yet?
00:35:43
ciderspence
I looked at them and none of them appealed to me.
00:35:46
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:35:46
ciderspence
yeah. sorry yeah
00:35:48
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. Well, in that case, I don't have to compete for you to make the Destined Warrior commander deck, which is, that's the name of the the the creature, is it the Destined Warrior. It's one white, blue, black. It's legendary creature, human warrior, first strike, vigilance, menace, all some fun keywords, but it's a party commander. Cleric, rogue, warrior, and wizard spells are one less to cast. At the beginning of combat on your turn, creatures get one oh and until on a turn,
00:36:16
Zachary Jeblonski
And if you have a full party, they get three Oh intern instead. so just kind of straightforward, but I've never, I realized I've never worked with the party stuff and magic ever. Like I didn't do any of the ball or skate, like party commanders and stuff.
00:36:27
Zachary Jeblonski
And I've been kind of looking for an excuse to do, to kind of break down a Shola. We're going to get to like a new year's resolution shortly on that. so i was like, Oh, this, this seems like it works pretty well. It's Esper. It's not toxic Esper, which Esper tends to be.
00:36:41
Zachary Jeblonski
And it's like a fun deck building challenge of like, you know, let me balance my deck construction the best I can so that I can increase the you know statistical odds that I'll have a full party.
00:36:52
Zachary Jeblonski
So I'm about, i would say two thirds of the way with building that. The other fun thing I'm going to do with it is normally I i have a pretty like, let's just say a standard MO to drawing cards, especially when I have blue. It's, you know, Teferi's Ageless Insight goes in the deck. And then it's like a lot of like similar cards end up in my blue decks.
00:37:15
Zachary Jeblonski
And one of the things I've been batting around is like lately in the last couple of years, there's been a lot of design in the magic space with cards that don't draw you cards, but do something and then put those
Innovative Card Draw Techniques
00:37:25
Zachary Jeblonski
cards in your hand. I think probably the most famous or the most...
00:37:29
Zachary Jeblonski
infamous one or whatever is a factor fiction, right? Like, you don't, you don't draw those cards, you put them in your hand. So I think i'm what I'm going to really do on this deck for no reason in particular. it's not like the commander cares about this is I'm going to focus on pretty much every source of card draw as a, like a put to hand effect just to, just to see some new cards, you know, like,
00:37:51
Zachary Jeblonski
in the AetherJift box, I opened up a nice foil stock up, which is a very popular commander in standard right now, or a card in standard. I'm like, well, why don't I actually force myself to use this thing?
00:38:01
Zachary Jeblonski
You know? So, so that's kind of like the little s sub theme is like draw cards based on not drawing them, putting them hand.
00:38:02
ciderspence
Nice.
00:38:08
Zachary Jeblonski
So
00:38:08
ciderspence
And are you going to put some actual draw Punishers in there with that?
00:38:13
Zachary Jeblonski
I thought about that part of it. you could always do the NARS set thing.
00:38:16
ciderspence
I guess you were just saying that you like that it's not a toxic deck. So I feel like enough of those would make more so.
00:38:20
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I thought about it and it's like one of those things where like, yeah, if I can find party members, like if i can find like a like cleric or something that that makes it so that people can't draw more than one card or something like that, yeah, I'll do that, right? Because like it'll work because it works for the party, it does all that. But if like if it if there's no...
00:38:39
Zachary Jeblonski
if there's no party member or mechanics that like do draw punishing or anything like that, then I'm not going to worry about it. cause I think, I think the deck, I think you just can't, I just think you can't get pulled in that many different directions.
00:38:51
Zachary Jeblonski
Like by the time I fill up with, yeah, cause I'm going to try and have an equal number of all four.
00:38:52
ciderspence
Yeah.
00:38:56
Zachary Jeblonski
And then I have to have your normal ramp and your normal removal. Oh yeah. You know, it's like, you're kind of out of space at a certain point. but I did want to highlight one card in there that i'm like, cause I just kind of been searching through like, okay, what are the warriors in my collection? What are this and question and a warrior? I think it's going to go really well in this.
00:39:14
Zachary Jeblonski
I was like, i always liked that the name of it is Jacked rabbit. it's from Bloomberg. It's X one white ravenous. When it enters, you put X one, one counters on it. If X is five or more draw a card when it enters,
00:39:27
Zachary Jeblonski
And when it attacks, you create a number of one, one white rabbit creatures equal to his power. So it's a warrior, and which is great. And then when it attacks, it makes all the rabbits that are, that'll also get buffed by the commander.
00:39:40
Zachary Jeblonski
So those one ones will hopefully turn into four ones. Uh, so I was like, Oh, this is a sweet car. You know, was like, it's from Bloomsboro. It's, it's, it's, I love the name on it. Like Jack Deravid gets me every time I read it.
00:39:52
Zachary Jeblonski
so yeah, just like, I'm just trying to include some, maybe some fun, some fun party members.
00:39:58
ciderspence
Nice. Yeah, one of our pod mates ran a Nalia D'Arniss deck for a while.
00:40:04
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep. That's the, uh, yeah, that's the other one.
00:40:05
ciderspence
I think that was mostly before you played with us regularly, but I think you probably have seen it.
00:40:10
Zachary Jeblonski
I saw it once or twice, I think. Yeah.
00:40:13
ciderspence
Yeah. We saw it a bunch of times, so we are... i think I'm still probably a little too scared of parties, because them being big with Death Touch was was a problem several several game nights.
00:40:27
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I think Nalia, i think, I'm just pulling her off, because I think she's better. yeah she's Yeah, she's better than this commander, but that's fine. I get access to blue, and that's, you know. And like I said, I really like my white-black deck, Nalia's not going to push that off, but... Yeah, I'm familiar. Like now the party stuff is it on his face usually looks pretty milquetoast or weak.
00:40:52
Zachary Jeblonski
But if you know like like with most things of like Tron, like if you can get it assembled, it gets pretty out of hand usually.
00:41:02
Zachary Jeblonski
So we'll see if I can get it assembled.
00:41:02
ciderspence
Yeah, the other thing I wanted to... Yeah, it just it also reminds me of the... don't her name. The Samud from Aether Drift.
00:41:11
ciderspence
It kind of has both of those sides to it as well, where it's got the cost reduction and the buff, and it's based on the party versus based on speed.
00:41:12
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh yeah.
00:41:17
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Yeah.
00:41:21
ciderspence
So... Yeah, i i liked I liked that card, and I know you have a deck that you liked, you had a list that you liked.
00:41:27
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. That's my, that's my Nya deck right currently.
00:41:29
ciderspence
So yeah, I'm curious to see if it's fun.
00:41:30
Zachary Jeblonski
i I enjoy it.
00:41:32
ciderspence
Yeah.
00:41:32
Zachary Jeblonski
But that's a good point. I guess you could, if you wanted to with Destined Warrior, even though you would basically be casting aside her whole cost reduction, you could you could focus on just making a bunch of tokens that are, you know, cleric tokens, rogue tokens, whatever, and then, you know, give them all 3-0 and all that.
00:41:48
Zachary Jeblonski
that Yeah, that's I think that's a way you could take the Destined Warrior. I'm going to actually just go with like, no, I have actually like warriors in my deck. i have actually these things, but...
00:41:57
ciderspence
you feel like I feel like there are a lot of things that make warrior tokens, and I think there are a few things that make cleric tokens. And now that I'm thinking about it, there are also wizard...
00:42:03
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:42:06
ciderspence
Yeah, mean, there a lot creatures that are party.
00:42:08
Zachary Jeblonski
i'm sure you I'm sure you can make tokens of all those types, I'm sure.
00:42:10
ciderspence
Yeah, I think you can... With party members, though, I think you probably could also do it. So yeah, that that's that sounds like an interesting conceit.
00:42:19
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:42:19
ciderspence
Nice.
00:42:21
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. And then another deck that you wanted to talk about?
00:42:28
ciderspence
Yeah, a deck that I've been really struggling with is Aang, A Lot to Learn. So I think I mentioned I was going to build this one.
00:42:36
ciderspence
But it is two and a hybrid, you know, green or white, legendary creature, human avatar ally.
00:42:37
Zachary Jeblonski
Uh, this is the sack one.
00:42:44
ciderspence
Aang has vigilance as long as there's a lesson card in your graveyard. and I should probably build around that more. But whenever another creature you control dies, put a 1-1 counter on Aang. It's a 3-2. And this is one of the uncommon legendaries from the Avatar set. So Wizards is kind of telling you you probably shouldn't build around this. It's not good enough.
00:43:02
ciderspence
But don't know. It's a cute version of Aang, and I thought it would be fun to build. It has been fun to build, but it's not fun to play. There are a lot of cards that sacrifice them themselves for one of two things.
00:43:18
ciderspence
either to destroy an artifact or an enchantment, or to protect your board.
00:43:23
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:43:23
ciderspence
So those things are great, but I feel like...
00:43:30
ciderspence
There are just some more vegetable-y things that there aren't a lot of sacrificers that do. And so I think part of the problem with my builds is that I'm pulled kind of in the direction of you know some generic things that let me sacrifice anything for value to get more RAM, to get more card draw, and big things that when they die, give you a lot of value, but don't sacrifice themselves. When what I really want is things that you know, sacrifice themselves for their own value.
00:44:02
ciderspence
And there are a few, but there aren't enough to make the build smooth.
00:44:05
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, secure Tribelder being, yeah.
00:44:07
ciderspence
Yeah. And then I want to do some counter payoff stuff. So it's so it's kind of like the Chun-Li problem where it feels like it would be sweet if everything worked together, but there are just too many things
00:44:19
ciderspence
that don't... there aren't enough cards that do all the pieces to make it cohesive yet. And by there aren't, I just mean I haven't found. So I'm still...
00:44:29
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:44:30
ciderspence
I've had a few versions of this deck. I've played it a few times on Spell Table. It just never really does or anything. So yeah, i will I will continue to work on it because I do... I do i like the card.
00:44:43
ciderspence
visually, I like what it looks like. So I want to run it. I just need to make it more reasonable. like it's It's at this point so bad that I don't think I could play it at you know at a table in person because I'm worried that I wouldn't be able to do anything.
00:44:59
ciderspence
Or even I wouldn't be able to lose fast enough to to get out of the table with my enjoyment
Building the Aang, A Lot to Learn Deck
00:45:06
ciderspence
intact. It's like a time sink and it doesn't do anything. So I gotta i gotta figure out how to get it out of that mode.
00:45:12
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, i understand. I, kind of like tangentially related to that is I, I remember hearing somewhere and it's kind of like one of those thoughts that's kind of just burned its way into its brain, my brain, which is like somebody was making the argument that like aristocrats in general, are bad, just because you're often, maybe, maybe in 2026 commander, that's kind of the way it is now because as you were, you were putting yourself down on board presence to get advantages that,
00:45:39
Zachary Jeblonski
are usually not as impactful as you constantly putting yourself down. And that's part of the reason why I got, I changed my braids into a shield or deck is I would find when I play braids is like, I am constantly destroying the board presence that I'm making just to keep the triggers going and it's not enough. Right. And I think that's always been the the challenge with aristocrats decks.
00:46:04
Zachary Jeblonski
is I have to go down in value to go up in value. And, whereas other forms of play don't have to, don't have to make that same choice.
00:46:14
Zachary Jeblonski
but you know, I, think I think, don't know. It is a, ain't got lot to learn is a lot is a really nice space. Cause it's like, it's, I can't think of any other Selesnya commanders that care about self-sacrifice, you know?
00:46:28
Zachary Jeblonski
So it's an interesting space, and also just a reminder, some of the best commanders, some of the most fun commanders are uncommon. It's like Modi. <unk>
00:46:38
ciderspence
That's fair.
00:46:41
ciderspence
That's fair.
00:46:43
Zachary Jeblonski
okay. Uh, you're good to transition to some magic, uh, magic new year's resolutions.
00:46:49
ciderspence
Yeah, let's do it.
00:46:50
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. so I've kind of been hinting at this a little bit, but, um'm I'm really trying to get away, and it's not for any kind of philosophical reason, but just because I know my own, like...
00:47:00
Zachary Jeblonski
mindset, which is I'm trying to get away from popular commanders. I just find myself like not wanting to reach for those decks and it it has nothing to do with anybody else. It's just my own mental thing of like, when I see somebody play like a commander a lot, I just want to play it less. So like I said, I've already taken apart my hearth hole deck to make the minotaur deck.
00:47:24
Zachary Jeblonski
and even though I didn't really see, Oh yeah. And I'm taking apart Estola to make the destined warrior deck. Right. Like, so I'm like, I'm slowly starting to disassemble these decks where I'm like, okay, I'm, I'm tired of seeing these commanders. I don't want to, you know, I don't want to play it because I've seen it so much.
00:47:41
Zachary Jeblonski
so that process
Choosing Unique Commanders for Decks
00:47:42
Zachary Jeblonski
is continuing. And the next one that's probably up that I didn't, I'm not really prepared to talk about, because I haven't figured out what direction I'm going yet is like, bellow will probably the one I take apart next to.
00:47:52
Zachary Jeblonski
and this is no slant against anybody that likes these commanders or wants to play these popular commanders. But for me personally, I just, there's something about me where like, if I see people playing a certain commander a lot, I just, just don't want just don't want to play it. So it's kind one of new resolutions is like, try to avoid commanders that are popular or commanders that I suspect will be popular. So like, you know, like if I see a pre, if a pre con gets,
00:48:16
Zachary Jeblonski
you know, pre-con gets like highlighted this year and I'm like, Oh my God. And everyone's like, Oh my God, I need to like pay attention. and I'd be like, yeah, that's probably something I'm going to be seeing a lot. and So I should probably not build that. So that's my first new year's resolution.
00:48:28
ciderspence
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. I think we've talked before about you know decks that we, even decks that we were on the first wave of building, but then we saw enough in the wild that it just made it kind of less exciting to play those cards.
00:48:37
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:48:40
ciderspence
Like my Black Panther deck, I like, but I've just seen so many Black Panther decks now that, i don't know, what it doesn't feel interesting.
00:48:50
ciderspence
And I think it's hard, it's hard once you've seen especially good versions of a deck to not, you know, kind of
00:48:55
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep.
00:48:58
ciderspence
think of your deck in relation to that other deck. And like, oh, should I be adding some of the cards that they had in there? If I do, does it is it even my deck anymore? So like yeah, I find myself reaching for the Black Panther deck a lot less these days.
00:49:11
ciderspence
So i yeah, I get that one.
00:49:14
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, i didn't I didn't bring it up, but I played kind of like a send-off game with Bellow this week at the store because I'm like... and and Well, Bella is its own case, but it's like I've played that deck three or four, man maybe close to five times.
00:49:28
Zachary Jeblonski
And it's a very, like, but like it's the opposite of Shieldred for me, where Shieldred has all these different phases to it, and there's all these different things I'm trying to achieve at different points in the game and blah, bla blah, blah. Bella is very much like this like straight line...
00:49:44
Zachary Jeblonski
it does the thing and then it wins usually. And I was like, okay, okay. I think I'm good with this, you know? but yeah. So how about one of your new year's resolutions?
00:49:56
ciderspence
Before we get to that, i mean I think once you're done with a Bellow deck, I think it's actually custom and honor and tradition to literally throw it in the trash. I think Bellow would appreciate that.
00:50:06
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, Oh, cause he's a trash brand.
00:50:10
ciderspence
Indeed.
00:50:11
Zachary Jeblonski
Well, considering the only reason I built Billow is because I opened up like this, the super, super special textured foil alternate art version of them. That's worth, that's the most expensive card in my entire collection.
00:50:22
ciderspence
Oh, interesting.
00:50:24
Zachary Jeblonski
i will not be throwing them trash, but I like where your head's at though.
00:50:24
ciderspence
Oh, wow. Fair. Fair. Yeah, so I mentioned the be a little better prepared as one of my resolutions. Another one is I want to be,
00:50:41
ciderspence
i want to have rule zero conversations differently. I think I mentioned that
00:50:49
ciderspence
Excuse me. I mentioned that I lent a friend a deck and I didn't explain what it was trying to do. And I had shared the deck list. So in my mind, I i kind of gave gave him an opportunity to see what the deck was about.
00:51:04
ciderspence
But I don't think that that, it in hindsight, that didn't, I mean, that idea made sense, but it was a, so the deck I shared with them was
00:51:14
Zachary Jeblonski
The sound wave one?
00:51:15
ciderspence
Soundwave, Sonic Spy, yeah, one white, blue, black, legendary creature legendary artifact creature robot.
00:51:16
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:51:22
ciderspence
On the front side, it is whenever one or more creature tokens you control deal combat damage to a player, exile target instant or sorcery card with mana value equal to the damage from their graveyard. Copy it, you may cast the copy without paying its mana cost if you do convert Soundwave.
00:51:37
ciderspence
So that sounds like it does something. But it turns out that it really only makes sense, well, it makes the most sense, especially in the context of the deck, which is all cards from Brothers War and Transformers cards from the BOT set that got released concurrently, or mini set that got released concurrently.
00:51:39
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:51:54
ciderspence
But it makes a lot more sense in the context of the back side, which is the more than meets the eye side, Soundwave, Superior, Captain, Whenever you cast a spell with an odd mana value, convert Soundwave. If you do, create Ravage, a legendary 3-3 black robot artifact creature token with menace and death touch.
00:52:12
ciderspence
Whenever you cast a spell with an even mana value, convert Soundwave. If you do, create Laserbeak, a legendary 2-2 blue robot creature token artifact creature token with flying and hexproof.
00:52:24
ciderspence
So there's all this stuff about tokens dealing damage and the specific mana value of something from a graveyard, and that's the payoff. But the way that you get the tokens is by having him be on the other side.
00:52:36
ciderspence
And it's actually kind of hard to flip him if you don't have the tokens to cast the spell. So my friend cast Soundwave on the front side, and then for you know the first third to half of the game, didn't have any creature tokens to be able to do anything with.
00:52:43
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:52:54
ciderspence
and it occurred to me, i should have at least at the beginning of the game said, you know, or when he was looking to cast down, he said, hey, you might want to cast it on the backside so that you can get the tokens, because there's like, the deck does a lot of token-y things, it's, you know, a lot of artifacts, but those tokens are really important, and so him just not having access to those tokens for the first third of the game, I think he found really frustrating, and in hindsight, I just felt really bad for not you know doing the little extra effort of just making sure that he knew what the backside of the card did and like just making sure that he was aware of the context in which the deck... Because, it again, it's like a deck of all brothers' work cards, so it's not even that good.
00:53:36
ciderspence
But I think it led to a more frustrating experience for him because he didn't understand what the deck was even trying to do that it was you know probably only capable of doing mediocrely anyway.
00:53:47
ciderspence
So a thing I want to do in games going forward
00:53:47
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Yeah.
00:53:51
ciderspence
And I think this this also kind of relates to games where you have a deck that your friends don't understand how it works. And so they aren't quite as aware of the threats that you're presenting as you do them.
00:54:06
ciderspence
An example I had come up recently was I was at a shop and I was playing against the Iroh Lessons, Iroh Grand Lotus deck, right?
00:54:15
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, yeah.
00:54:16
ciderspence
And Iroh Grand Lotus deck. And so there was, you know, there were the four players and we were all kind of assessing threats at the table. One of the guys was playing the Manifest Dreads of Moan, so that was obviously horrifying.
00:54:29
ciderspence
I was playing Yidris Cascade deck, this the other guy was playing, I forget what he was playing. It was something reasonable. at some point the Iroh deck had, Electro on board and i think he had not cast Iroh yet.
00:54:49
ciderspence
And so the, the other player, we were talking about how the board was kind of scary. He said, well, what's the real threat here? And so I said, because I've seen a lot of the Iroh deck, If he casts Iroh next turn and has one mana left over, he's going to be able to cast...
00:55:04
ciderspence
And he had been milling, so if his graveyard was full of lessons. He's going able to cast all the lessons from his graveyard in one turn.
00:55:07
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:55:11
ciderspence
And if he has a damage payoff or something, where he's going to not go infinite, but he's probably going to win the game on his next turn because he has... the mana reducer. And it it was one of those things where like I've seen the deck and I understand like the pieces that are required. So I saw that electro piece as being able to... And you know and you know we kind of said this out loud. And so he you know he's got that wry smile where he wasn't going to announce that to the table.
00:55:34
ciderspence
But... but you know and And so a lot of times that happens at tables, right? Like somebody at the table has seen something enough to be able to recognize a threat when maybe everybody hasn't. But I feel like in a kitchen table game, it's more important or it's more meaningful, more valuable to to kind of self-report that.
00:55:55
ciderspence
Because I feel like winning that way at a kitchen table game just doesn't feel good. In fact, it feels kind of bad and kind of against the spirit of what the kitchen table game is trying to do sometimes. And I want to not have that experience anymore.
00:56:08
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I agree with that.
00:56:08
ciderspence
So i think, yeah.
00:56:10
Zachary Jeblonski
i am kind of is similar to this extent and this is a whole other topic, which is like, i I got myself killed on not like kind of on purpose, but like it was the near the end of a game on when I was playing in the store and the the, my one of two opponents was trying to figure out who to like pop for four and I was up for life and the other person had like eight or nine and he's like, well, I'm not going to kill Zach probably need him for that.
00:56:37
Zachary Jeblonski
And I was like, I should, I gotta tell you, man, and like, i was like, you're not paying attention to my board because I had a blood chief ascension on board with, with three, three quest counters. so I was going to start like gaining life like crazy.
00:56:50
Zachary Jeblonski
And I was eventually going to win probably off the blood chief ascension. Right. And I was like, bro, I was like, you should probably kill me. Like, cause I have a blood chief ascension with three quest counters. And he's like, Oh, what does that do? And I explained it. He's like, Oh, and then he popped me and killed me. It's just like, to me, it's like, when I see somebody making such a blatantly bad,
00:57:09
Zachary Jeblonski
uh, threat assessment, like, and and, and, and I'm, I'm the one who's going to be on the receiving end of once they realize what's happening, I still feel compelled, compelled to say something. So I, I kind of, uh, I kind of, I appreciate that. I get that, that, uh, that, that idea.
00:57:25
ciderspence
Yeah. All right, got another one?
00:57:28
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah, let's do one more each and then we can, uh, wrap it up. I think this one is, yeah, we, so we talked about, you know, breaking apart, like kind of a mini resolution that kind of goes along with that is like, I'm just going to be paring back this year. I think, I don't know what my end deck number of decks will be, but it will be less than I have now. Just because I, you know, I go, sometimes I go months without playing a deck and I'm like, well, why am I locking all these cards away? Why am I like, you know, and it's just, you know, we're creatures of habit. We want to play the decks that we're interested in. We all know the decks that we reach for more than the other ones, right? So, so the kind of like goes along with that, the paring down, the not the playing less popular commanders is I want to be a little bit more forgiving with myself in playing the decks that I want to play.
00:58:15
Zachary Jeblonski
so sometimes that what happens is I try to more or less keep most of my decks the same power. I truly believe that most of my decks, you know, are kind of in the same range that can kind of win similar, like in the same speed and all that.
00:58:28
Zachary Jeblonski
And I just want to be more forgiving myself of like reaching for the decks that I really enjoy and playing them. I think what happens sometimes is I'll have like a really good game with the deck and it'll scare me. And I'll think that deck is like,
00:58:38
Zachary Jeblonski
oh, that's too strong for this table. That's too strong for this pot. I can't bring this out because, you know, i had that a game where it just went bananas and blah, blah. And I think I just got to be like, no, every game is separate. These decks can fall apart just as much as they can pop off. And just because you had a great game with a deck doesn't mean you're going to have another great game with a deck. And if you enjoy playing with it, just play it and trust that your opponents can handle you. Right. Kind of thing.
00:59:01
Zachary Jeblonski
And it's not going to be a non game or something like that. So I think I'm just going to like, You know, play the decks that I want to play more on and don't worry so much about quote unquote pub stomping because I know, you know, at this point that like none of my decks are our iron ironclad and unbreakable and blah, blah, blah. You know, a lot of times all it takes is one removal at the most inopportune time and I'm set back for three turns, right? You know, so...
00:59:27
Zachary Jeblonski
so yeah, just playing more of the decks that I actually want to play instead of trying to power down, even though I i think most of my decks are around the same power at this point.
00:59:38
ciderspence
Okay. that makes sense.
00:59:40
Zachary Jeblonski
Uh, what's your last one?
00:59:42
ciderspence
I think my last one is to just be, so there was a podcast from another content creator that was talking about end of year stuff, like a wrap on 2025, best sets, worst sets, things like that.
01:00:00
ciderspence
And one of the things that they brought up was a comment by, i think, either somebody in the magic community, either Sheldon Menary or Mark Rosewater, but talking about the place of standard in Commander.
01:00:13
ciderspence
And I think that one of the comments that they made was something to the effect that A healthy standard is important because you want players to have a competitive outlet so that they can treat casual commander in a casual way
Casual and Story-Focused Commander Games
01:00:28
ciderspence
and not bring that competitive aspect to casual gameplay.
01:00:28
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
01:00:34
ciderspence
And I'm obviously not a standard player. I basically only play commander. But that did resonate with me that I do want to make sure that I have the right mindset in my kitchen table games in particular, just that, you know, we're there to have fun. It's more about creating a story together, like with the decks.
01:00:53
ciderspence
And so i I want to be a little sillier and maybe more intentional with my kitchen table gameplay and also find enough outlets for you know spell table play or like play in shops with strangers where i can still you know try to bring decks that can win and and get you know get my quarter of victories. But i want I want to be less focused on that in the home games just so that I can you know make sure that I'm present and enjoying the company of the friends that you know that we are gathering with. So I think that's one of my resolutions is to just
01:01:27
ciderspence
be more explicit about what I'm trying to get out of playing commander as a hobby both in shops on spell table and at kitchen table games
01:01:37
Zachary Jeblonski
Nice. That's wholesome. Hitting this with the wholesome thinking about other people stuff. It's almost like this game involves other people or something.
01:01:47
ciderspence
it's almost like that yep
01:01:49
Zachary Jeblonski
It reminds me of one of my favorite SNL skits with Will Ferrell when he's working at a high fashion store and he says this, and you know, he's he's like like a cashier at like a high fashion store and he's very each playing a very stuck up character and he says this place would be so much better without customers.
01:02:07
Zachary Jeblonski
And sometimes you run into those players in commander where you're like, you really just wish there weren't other people in commander. But yeah, no, I like it.
01:02:16
Zachary Jeblonski
So let's see if we can hold up to our 2026 resolutions. Will Zach end up with even more decks than he started it with? We'll find out. But yeah, anything else before we kind of sign up?
01:02:27
ciderspence
No, I'm good with that.
01:02:29
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. Well, we're we're glad to be back in 2026 and many more to come. We'll probably talk about Laura Wynn next week. Pre-release, I think, is next week, I think. But yeah, thanks for joining me again, Charles.
01:02:43
ciderspence
Yeah, thanks for me, Zach. Happy New year everybody.
01:02:45
Zachary Jeblonski
Happy New Year.