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Ep. 19 - Norin the Midlife Guy
27 Plays7 months ago
A shorter episode as we ramp up to the holiday break, but don't worry still plenty of discussion on Avatar and how it's playing out so far.
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Transcript
Thanksgiving Food and Veganism
00:00:01
ciderspence
it
00:00:13
Zachary Jeblonski
Hello, hello. Welcome to another episode of a Midlife's Crisis. I'm Zach. I'm joined again by Charles.
00:00:20
ciderspence
going zach
00:00:21
Zachary Jeblonski
Good, good, good. So Thanksgiving is almost upon us. I've already had a couple of Friendsgivings that I've gone to. And do you have any, like, all right, I'll preface this by saying that, like, for the most part, I think Thanksgiving food is pretty lame. But what what's your take on Thanksgiving food?
00:00:39
ciderspence
Well, I'm vegan, so in general,
Vegan Recipe Humor
00:00:40
ciderspence
I agree. Food isn't great.
00:00:43
Zachary Jeblonski
oh come on You guys, you must have like good vegan but recipes by now, right? Like, or what do you guys normally do?
00:00:51
ciderspence
Do different Oreo flavors count as recipes?
00:00:53
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, I mean, if you count recipe as preparing something to eat, yeah, because you have to open the bag, right? To get to the Oreo.
00:01:02
ciderspence
Yeah. And I'll sometimes have to take two sittings to eat a bag of Oreos, so that definitely counts. Those are like servings.
00:01:08
Zachary Jeblonski
Mmm. Okay. Okay. So like no, you no mashed potatoes or stuffing cranberry sauce. I need none of that.
00:01:18
ciderspence
Well, my wife loves cranberry sauce. I'm okay with it, but not a huge fan.
00:01:22
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:01:22
ciderspence
i've Over the years, I've looked at different like sweet potato recipes.
00:01:26
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:01:27
ciderspence
Sometimes stuffing is vegan, but back to your point about Thanksgiving food not being that great, I wouldn't count that as a major victory. we We'll do like a vegetable or two, but again, nothing that nothing that is all that exciting.
00:01:42
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. Well, I'm going to put you on the spot here. What's one of your favorite vegan recipes you'd like to have at home? It doesn't have be Thanksgiving related. It could just be in general.
00:01:53
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:01:57
ciderspence
Yeah, I mean, sometimes I'll put a double stuffed Oreo next to a birthday cake Oreo next to like a Selena Gomez Oreo.
00:02:07
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:02:07
ciderspence
And I'll just make that like a, it's almost like its own Oreo, right? It's like an Oreo cookie Oreo.
00:02:13
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, it's like the Gomez.
00:02:13
ciderspence
Those are delicious.
00:02:16
Zachary Jeblonski
okay
00:02:20
Zachary Jeblonski
All right. I mean, Hey, look, you're not going to find much information here because I, you know, I'm, I'm not vegan, but I also find Thanksgiving food in general to be pretty lame and, and, and, uh, bland.
Thanksgiving Break Plans
00:02:32
Zachary Jeblonski
So, but the, the time off from work or wherever school is definitely, appreciate I'm looking forward to it because I am going to cram so much magic in as much as I can into this break is if I can find, you know, stores and stuff to play at.
00:02:47
Zachary Jeblonski
But speaking of stores to play at, it sounds like you were playing on the virtual store in Arena.
00:02:54
ciderspence
Yeah, i checked out Arena over the past week, looking to get in some time with the Avatar set. I think we talked a little bit about I bought some cards last week, and I bought a couple more over the weekend and through the week, but I was trying to get a feel for the flavor of the set more broadly than what I can get in from building decks on my own and seeing the cards that I opened. So yeah, I played in I forget exactly what kind of event it was, but it was all avatar sets.
00:03:21
ciderspence
It was similar to like jumpstart packs where you open two virtual packs, jam them together, and that was your deck for the event.
00:03:25
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:03:30
Zachary Jeblonski
What's the standard? Like, was a standard?
Magic Arena Gameplay Experiences
00:03:33
Zachary Jeblonski
Was a singleton non singleton, I guess?
00:03:37
ciderspence
I think it was not Singleton. Well, I don't know. I kept seeing the same cards, so I think it was probably not Singleton.
00:03:44
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:03:45
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. So like you, you had like drafted from the pack or no, you got a whole packs, right? Or did you have to draft?
00:03:50
ciderspence
Yeah, I think it was like two.
00:03:51
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:03:51
ciderspence
Yeah, again, it was I think it was most similar to like Jumpstart where it's not exactly a pack.
00:03:55
Zachary Jeblonski
Gotcha.
00:03:57
ciderspence
It's like kind of a curated pack. There's some variants, but there's a theme to each pack.
00:04:03
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I think I heard about this and I wasn't sure.
00:04:04
ciderspence
Yeah.
00:04:04
Zachary Jeblonski
I wasn't sure how it worked, but now I think the comparison that Jumpstarted making is making a little more clear for me.
00:04:12
ciderspence
Yeah, so i I didn't do great. i did I think I won two out of like 10 games or something, which would be just barely okay in Commander and is pretty bad in 1v1, but I was still getting used to the mechanics, and I don't really play 1v1 formats that often, so it didn't bother me too much.
00:04:29
ciderspence
But I did get to see a bunch of different decks, so it was pretty valuable for the experience I was hoping to get out of it.
00:04:31
Zachary Jeblonski
Nice.
00:04:36
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, no, i've I, I, think overall over the past several years, I probably put about 40 to 60 hours into arena.
Magic Arena Monetization Concerns
00:04:47
Zachary Jeblonski
I would probably put more in there except, and I know this is like a hot take or whatever, but I just, the monetization part of it, just, it's too much for me.
00:04:57
Zachary Jeblonski
I'm like, basically, the the the thing that I get struggled with is like, man, i have all these cards. I can literally see them, but I don't get access to them and I have to buy them all over again. Which I don't necessarily fault Wizards for because I like i don't know how Wizards would even solve that problem. But man, if they had like a subscription service where I could pay like a monthly fee and get access to every card on Arena, I'd do in a heartbeat.
00:05:21
ciderspence
And I think that they do have that for MTG Online, right? So it feels like if they could just kind of marry the two where there's a really reasonable app that is the MTG Online client, where some people will also play Commander, I think.
00:05:37
ciderspence
I think that would be really positive venture for Wizards.
00:05:42
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:05:42
ciderspence
Now, is it worth their time and energy and money? Maybe not. I mean, they don't think so, or they would have done it. But I think I would use that as well.
00:05:50
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. I think, I think the, I think the money's points the other way, which is like what they're doing already with the wild cards and packs and all that. I think that's, probably netting them more money than like any hypothetical, you know, subscription service. So it it is what it is.
Magic Gameplay Strategies
00:06:05
Zachary Jeblonski
But I do like Arena for what it is. And and to your point earlier is like, yeah, 1v1 formats are it's crazy how different the game feels in one-on-one.
00:06:16
Zachary Jeblonski
when, like everything changes, like in terms of like what card is considered good, what you do when the value of removal, like everything goes completely, completely changes in a one-on-one situation.
00:06:29
ciderspence
yeah I feel like you don't get the opportunity to take turns off or recover from mistakes like you do in a game of Commander.
00:06:35
Zachary Jeblonski
Nope.
00:06:37
Zachary Jeblonski
Like, you know, when I, when I like goldfish a deck and I'm like, Oh, this deck doesn't really do anything for the first five turns. I'm like, Oh, that's fine. And commander that's fine. But like you are dead in five turns in singleton formats or non singleton formats, especially if you're playing in like instructed, like a standard or something like that. You are, you, you do not get to take off five turns. The first five turns of the game.
00:07:00
ciderspence
Yeah, it's a different world. But like I said, it was it was fun to be able to see the cards from the set.
00:07:04
ciderspence
A card that I saw a lot was Firebender's Ascension. And I think every time I saw it, I lost to that deck.
00:07:09
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh yeah.
00:07:13
ciderspence
so
00:07:14
Zachary Jeblonski
I think that's definitely hot in and any kind of like limited format. it's, it's the one, it's one of the ones that we definitely mentioned. cause it definitely has the capability of, um, of,
00:07:26
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, it's it's interesting. In order to build the quest counters, you have to have a creature that does it. And when I say it, I mean like has a triggered ability on combat, but it creates that thing for you. So it just it kind of fuels itself.
00:07:40
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, it's like it's a good card. It's a neat card.
00:07:43
ciderspence
Yeah, I think just having the body on turn two turned out to be pretty valuable in this setting.
00:07:52
Zachary Jeblonski
Do you find, did you find that people were able to, I guess because they're the the packs are reconstructed, I'm sure they found ways, but did you find that people were able to use the mana they generated from firebending or, or did it go to waste often?
00:08:05
ciderspence
I certainly saw people use it. There are a couple of pump spells in the set, one of which I got taken out by when I
00:08:09
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:08:12
ciderspence
thought I had an opportunity to save a creature by not blocking. And there are clues in the set. So I think clues, and maybe even, I don't think, I think blood tokens were not from the set.
00:08:22
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh yeah.
00:08:25
ciderspence
But yeah, they're there are a couple of clues. There's like some abilities, like one of the Zukos has an ability to exile the top card for three mana. So yeah, I think there are outlets for the firebending mana.
00:08:39
ciderspence
And then...
00:08:42
ciderspence
tease my card of the week as another such outlet.
00:08:45
Zachary Jeblonski
Well, what's your card of the week?
00:08:48
ciderspence
So this actually came from in paper games that I played on Spelltable, but I played a number of those this week as well. i was just trying out some of the new commanders. I was mostly playing with decks built only from avatar cards, both from the TLA set and the TLE set, which I think the TLE is basically the jumpstart cards.
00:09:10
ciderspence
But this card came in clutch. I was playing, let's
00:09:15
ciderspence
see, who was I playing? I was playing Sokka, one of the Sokkas.
00:09:21
Zachary Jeblonski
Which soccer?
00:09:24
ciderspence
It's only now occurring to me that Sokka sounds kind of like Saga, which is pretty funny.
00:09:24
Zachary Jeblonski
Was it the... yeah
00:09:28
ciderspence
It was Sokka Tenacious Tactician. Menace, prowess, human warrior ally, 3-3.
00:09:31
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, yeah, that one.
00:09:34
ciderspence
Other allies you control have menace and prowess, and whenever you cast a non-creature spell, create a 1-1 white ally creature token. So i built up a pretty reasonable board.
00:09:44
ciderspence
This is spell table, so one of the players had dropped out for no reason. life totals were getting low because one of the players was playing a burn deck. And then I had a turn where I had six or seven bodies and into my hand walked faded firepower an enchantment with x red red red flash this enchantment comes with x fire counters on it if a source you control would deal damage to an opponent or a permanent an opponent controls it deals that much damage plus an additional amount of mana or plus an additional amount of damage equal to the number of fire counters on this enchantment instead pretty good
00:10:24
Zachary Jeblonski
Pretty good. And i I've had my eye on this card because it's very I like the design on it. It's versatile. like I could put this in Bellow and maybe eke out a couple more points of damage per enchantment, but I think like when I see this card, I'm like, okay.
00:10:41
Zachary Jeblonski
And, uh, if you have any kind of card that does pinging and repeated pinging, like this card goes nuts. Like, so if you're able to do like one damage your opponents routinely, uh, you can easily double triple quadruple that damage with this, with this card alone.
00:10:58
ciderspence
Yeah, and the flash just makes it much more useful than the similar cards, because as a combat trick, it works great.
00:11:00
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh yeah.
00:11:06
ciderspence
Or, you know, holding open your mana for seemingly something else, you can set up for one really big turn with limited with a limited window for your opponent's interact. So it's pretty pretty good.
00:11:17
Zachary Jeblonski
I fire Ben 12 X is nine. it's like,
00:11:21
ciderspence
Yeah. Yeah, it's...
00:11:23
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah, that's, for that's gotta be really.
00:11:24
ciderspence
And fireman, you do... That's a place where the firebending mana is staying sticking around until the end of combat. It's great, right? Because you can just wait till after blocks.
00:11:31
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep. Yep. Yep.
00:11:33
ciderspence
Yeah.
00:11:33
Zachary Jeblonski
It is three red pips. So I, and you were running this in the soccer. That's just guy.
00:11:40
ciderspence
Yep.
00:11:41
Zachary Jeblonski
how How is it... i mean, we might not have enough games to really answer this, but one of the things I've been paying attention to more and more in my decks is like and realistically how easy it is it to play some of the cards I have and that I have like three or three pips. have you Do you have any sense of... like do Are you able to make triple red when you need it to play this card?
00:12:04
ciderspence
I mean, I was able to play it in this game. I've only played that deck once, and I i may have this in another deck, but I don't think I've encountered it in hand elsewhere.
00:12:08
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Yeah.
00:12:14
ciderspence
Yeah, I mean, it's a i guess it's kind of a concern, but again, I do think it works especially well with Firebending, so if you're playing many or any Firebending cards, I think it's worth it I'm going to step away for one second.
00:12:28
ciderspence
I'll be right back.
00:12:29
Zachary Jeblonski
No, you're good.
00:12:31
ciderspence
That's the midlife part of the process for the podcast.
00:12:33
Zachary Jeblonski
That's why we named it that way. i don't remember what we were talking about anymore. I think it was but maybe your i'll tell you spell table game.
00:12:44
Zachary Jeblonski
I guess we're...
00:12:45
ciderspence
Yeah, I think you were asking, the last thing I remember was you asking how hard it was to come up with the red pips for Fated Firepower.
00:12:51
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh yeah. The red pips. Yeah. Because the reason I bring it up is, I'm, I'm, I don't know if it's the problem has gotten worse for me or if I'm just noticing it more, but I have been noticing, a lot more difficulty in, casting spells on curve because I'm missing the pips, you know?
00:13:11
Zachary Jeblonski
so it's just something I'm trying to keep in mind of like, I'm for, for most of my magic, you know, playing time. I've never, I like look at a bunch of pips and i'm like, yeah, I'll be fine.
00:13:21
Zachary Jeblonski
I'll figure it out. You know, the lands will whatever, you know. But I'm starting to pay attention to the pips a little bit more because I, and I, where I ran into this a lot was actually, when I first started to notice it was Arch-Jewish Charm, which is the green, green, green instant where you can do one of three things. You can ramp a land.
00:13:41
Zachary Jeblonski
You can have a creature fight another creature or you can exile an artifact or an artifact or enchantment. And I was like, when I card came out, I was like, Oh, put it in every green deck. And then I would keep drawing it, and especially in my two to three colored decks and, uh, and not be able to cast it on curve or, or have trouble casting in general, just because of the pips.
00:14:01
Zachary Jeblonski
so it's something I've been trying to pay more, a little bit more attention to.
00:14:06
ciderspence
Yeah, it's interesting. I still kind of consider Archdruid's Charm an auto-include in decks that have green, although I think i I may have pulled it out of...
00:14:17
ciderspence
I play a three-color Riku of Many Paths deck that has lots of spells that let you choose things because you get a payoff on Riku whenever you cast a spell that has a choice.
00:14:21
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:14:31
ciderspence
I don't remember if I took Archdruid's Charm out of the deck. I don't think so. And that's a three color. Yeah, I feel like I would say for Faded Firepower, and I guess I might save R2's trauma, although I guess if you what you really want is the land, I could see how you really want that as early as possible.
00:14:49
ciderspence
I think the effect is one that gets better the later you cast it, if that makes sense. So it's kind of okay.
00:14:57
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Yeah.
00:14:59
ciderspence
Like, I think I had Faded Firepower in hand for a while. before I was A, able to play it pips wise, and B, able to play it to end the game. So it was kind of okay that I had to wait for the opportunity to use it.
00:15:14
ciderspence
And now for Arch, I guess that the downside of a card like Archie is Charm in comparison is it's not going to end the game. Whereas Faded Firepower is like,
00:15:21
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah
00:15:24
ciderspence
An advantage engine, but also a trick that could win you the game. And I guess waiting for your trick that could win you the game is different than waiting for something that's going to help the rest of your game.
00:15:34
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, and you and you touched on something important there that kind of helps me like a little solidify my my point a little bit, which is that the pips become much less important the the the higher the mana cost of the card. And Faded Firepower luckily has the advantage to being... it can be as early of a game card as you want or as late as a game card want. So if you don't have the Fire Pips, you just hold on to it. And that likely means you can just pump more into the X and get more fire counters on it.
00:16:03
Zachary Jeblonski
I guess for Arch-Jewish Charm in specific, it's, you know, for me, it's like, I'm like, that's a ramp card. It's a ramp card. the number one purpose for me is the ramp card.
00:16:11
Zachary Jeblonski
And then the other purposes are removal if I draw it late. Uh, but it's drawing that early where I can't, where it's just, you know, it's hard to use it. so just pips in general, something I'm paying attention to. you know, when I was first playing magic, I used to jam chromatic lantern in every deck, because I was lazy and I didn't want to think about the pips.
00:16:32
Zachary Jeblonski
but I have one or two decks. I might bring it back for just because I've noticed several times now where that where it's been challenging. And the one that's really sticking out to me is my Zevlor deck, uh, the red, blue, black one, because it's so pip heavy that, it has been a challenge to play cards, even like turn six, seven, and eight. I'm having trouble casting like two cards back to back because of the pips.
00:16:55
ciderspence
I've heard a number of people poo-poo Chromatic Lantern, and I guess I don't understand.
00:16:59
ciderspence
Like, if your point is that it's a three-mana rock in a world of two-mana rocks, okay. But it just seems like it makes the rest of the game easier if you get it. Now, maybe you can't build around it because it's a singleton format, and it seems silly to, like, add tutors to be able to get Chromatic Lantern.
00:17:17
ciderspence
But i I think the advantage it gives you of not having to worry about pips is a is a pretty good one. Like, certainly, at least on par with, like, uh thought well thought vessel was two man but with uh decanter of endless water which is like thought vessel and gives you unlimited hand size like that's another one of those things that you know may not come into play if it comes into play you're happy i think this is the same where like if you wish you had the pips for something and you don't you'd be glad you had it with chromatic lantern so i think it's i think it's worth running i think it's one of the three mana rocks with the the type of upside that you look for
00:17:32
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:17:51
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, it's, I've heard, this is this is one of those like hot buttons for a lot of major magic influencers is Chromatic Lantern. And I get the arguments from all sides. You know, i think if I was going to take the con side or the side against Chromatic Lantern, it doesn't do enough for three mana, especially when you compare it to other three mana artifacts.
00:18:12
Zachary Jeblonski
And the other part of is like, you know, if you make your, if you construct your deck appropriately, you shouldn't need chromatic lantern type effect. Right? Like that's kind of the other answer to it.
00:18:24
Zachary Jeblonski
And I, I think chromatic lantern has its best value to me is like the game just gets more fun when I don't have to think about pips anymore. And I can just look down at my lands and be like, I have 12 mana.
00:18:36
Zachary Jeblonski
I don't need to think about anything other than the amount of mana I have, you know? and that has value in its own right. Right. And like we're playing the game to have fun and if it makes more fun than, know, that's all there is to it.
00:18:48
Zachary Jeblonski
But I will admit that I don't, I used to run it in like every multicolor deck and now I don't think I have it in any decks currently, maybe my five color, i'm goingnna double check, but, yeah, that's, that's a card that like gets a lot of veteran players all fired up. It gets, you know, it's an, it's interesting card that people, uh, yeah, I don't even have it in my five color deck.
00:19:08
Zachary Jeblonski
you know And I'd say for a lot of my decks, I haven't noticed the pip issue that much. But recently I have started to notice little bit, so I'm just trying to pay a little more attention to it.
00:19:19
ciderspence
Yeah, I guess if you think of deck building as constructing the perfect deck that you'll play all the time, I could see how it would not fit in an optimized list. I think of it maybe the way that you think of Bondur's Ornament, where that card is just not good so often that it's not worth the fact that it's a little more expensive than other options that are probably going to not benefit you.
00:19:47
ciderspence
the same amount because you never want to pay four mana to draw a card. But occasionally you use it, and I just like the fact that I can buy a bunch of Bonner's ornaments and just put them in a bunch of decks and they're always a mana rock.
00:20:01
ciderspence
And in games where I just have the mana to waste, that goes pretty well with firebending, as a matter of fact, it just gives me something to do with the mana that also gives me a way to draw cards. And if I want those things, it's nice to have.
00:20:14
ciderspence
And I have enough decks that I'm not trying to hyper optimize each deck. And so just giving myself that possible out in a game is valuable to me. And so I think similarly, I would put Chromatic Lantern in any three color deck that I had just to, again, not have to worry about pips when I would otherwise have to worry about pips.
00:20:36
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, that makes sense. Do you run, i mean, are you running Chromatic Lantern in any of your three colored decks?
00:20:43
ciderspence
I will tell you, I don't have any in my binder. I think I have some in decks, but that's hard to track because I have a lot of decks.
00:20:47
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:20:48
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, yeah.
00:20:49
ciderspence
But yeah, I mean, I certainly wouldn't look at one in a drawer and keep it there. i would find a way to put it into it a three color or four color deck. But yeah, i've I've also never gone to a store and seen like a stack of chromatic lanterns.
00:21:01
ciderspence
So, but if I do,
00:21:12
Zachary Jeblonski
i don't know if they're bulk level yet, but probably.
00:21:16
ciderspence
Well, I'm on the lookout. If you know a guy, let me know.
00:21:18
Zachary Jeblonski
if i Yeah. If I know a guy, yeah, they're, they're, they're down to about $2. So not bulk, not bulk bin level yet, but someday.
00:21:29
Zachary Jeblonski
All right. And i have any other magic games you want to talk about that you got in?
00:21:36
ciderspence
Not really. i played... I'm trying to look through the... commanders that I played. I played Sokka, Tenacious Tactician. I played a game with Mei Scornful something.
00:21:48
ciderspence
But she is it's the mono-black one that deals two damage whenever a player casts a non-creature spell.
00:21:48
Zachary Jeblonski
Is that the mono black one? Yeah.
00:21:56
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, that's an interesting one. Yeah.
00:21:58
ciderspence
Yeah, that game was fussed. Mei Scornful Striker, 2-2 for one and a black with first strike. Whenever a player casts a non-creature spell, they lose two life. This was the first deck that I built out of the set.
00:22:10
ciderspence
Maybe the second? Maybe the second, yeah.
00:22:11
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:22:13
ciderspence
But yeah, it was hard to keep her on the battlefield. But I built her as only creatures, which I think is a little worse mono black than it is. I have another creatures only deck, but it's Gruul.
00:22:28
ciderspence
But it was fun. I liked it. And I think if I play you know the few black options for
00:22:36
ciderspence
protecting a creature with another creature, and the as many mana multipliers as I can, i want I'm excited to try this deck again. so
00:22:45
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, and you can use... She's the kind of commander I would load up with feign death effects because I know people going to try and kill her. you know Now you'll lose two life for every time you do a feign death effect because...
00:22:53
ciderspence
yeah I think I am committed. Yeah, that's the thing.
00:22:56
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:22:57
ciderspence
I think I'm committed to only creatures.
00:22:58
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:22:58
ciderspence
so i gotta find I know that like there's Mukdrub, which like lets you change the target of a spell with only one target. I think that's the only protection spell-ish creature that I've seen in black. But but I also like this as an opportunity to just look for more throughout the history of magic. So that's that's fun in its own right.
00:23:17
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, i was thinking you could do colorless with Darksteel Forge? Or, no, maybe that's just artifact. I can't remember. But like there's that like huge amount of cost one that makes your permanence indestructible.
00:23:31
ciderspence
Mm, yep. And yeah, it's a hard time, yeah.
00:23:33
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, and then, of course, and of course equipments, too, you know?
00:23:35
Zachary Jeblonski
So, like... Mythalcoat and all that stuff. But yeah, that's, yeah, I, she's, she seems like a good commander, especially to bring out late in the night when you're like, let's get a quick game in. I'm like, all right, here you go.
00:23:46
Zachary Jeblonski
It's like, and then all we have to do is find a way to smash her and Rorak Thar together. And you really got a deck going.
00:23:54
ciderspence
That would be a pretty sweet deck.
00:23:57
Zachary Jeblonski
That would be, i would, I would, I would play against that. That would be funny. Uh, Uh, all
00:24:03
ciderspence
Rurik Thaw at least is big and can can fight. you know I feel like the one disadvantage to this deck is that, I mean, it's great that she's two mana, but she's also a 2-2. So like if you do face off against another deck that has enough creatures to not be killing itself, you're you're kind of in a bad way.
00:24:21
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, it's almost like you want to like, maybe, i don't know, and maybe you have like a top end of this deck where like you have a lot of big, scary mono black or colorless creatures.
00:24:32
Zachary Jeblonski
And in my sort of just the way to like whittle your opponent down while you build up the mana to that point. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, I think you, you, with this kind of commander, you definitely have to be like, how do I win exactly?
00:24:44
Zachary Jeblonski
Because if people stop casting into her and they just beat me down, like, you know, it's it's an interesting deck construction issue there, I would say.
00:24:52
ciderspence
Yeah, I think my hope is between mana multiplying creatures and mana multiplying lands, I can just get enough mana to cast her enough times to bring the table low enough to win with drain creatures, of which there are many in mono black.
00:25:05
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Yeah.
00:25:06
ciderspence
So that's hopefully that's Anne Avenue. That's what the one I'm exploring. I'll let you know if I ever get there with it.
00:25:12
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. now i'm I'm here for it.
00:25:16
Zachary Jeblonski
All right. I'm ready to move on to decks on deck.
00:25:20
ciderspence
I am.
00:25:21
Zachary Jeblonski
All right. So, uh, so almost all my cards are in for my God's deck with a Trace and, Kratos, but I haven't, you know, it's still missing like 10 cards. So haven't had chance to try that out.
00:25:34
Zachary Jeblonski
And then I'm prototyping. so i in order to make the, Kratos to Treos deck, which is Jeskai, I had to take apart my other Jeskai deck, which was blink, uh, focused. So now i kind of have like this blink shell and I, I don't know if you do this, but I do this a lot when I, when I'm, when I'm making decks or deconstructing decks, it's like, I'll have a shell that I'm no longer using now because I, I deconstructed the deck and I'll like try and find like a color pairing or a color grouping that I can kind of that I'm missing like a deck in or or a deck or the deck I have in that color slot isn't really vibing. I'll just kind of like slam it in there.
00:26:11
Zachary Jeblonski
So that's kind of what i'm doing with Selesnya. So I'm taking that Blink shell and I'm making Selesnya deck around Blink because, a you know, a good portion of the Blink cards are white or colorless. So i'll miss out on all the blue ones. But the...
00:26:27
Zachary Jeblonski
and So I kind of went through, i kind of like scoured what, what Selesnya commanders would be good to blink. And I settled on Torsten. I don't, i don't know if I've ever even seen this guy in the wild. I run them in my current Selesnya deck, but it's kind of neat. it's Torsten founder of Benalia. He's five, a green white.
00:26:46
Zachary Jeblonski
And when, when he enters the battlefield, I reveal the top seven cards in my library and I put any number of creature land cards from among them in my hand and the rest in the bottom in any order. And when he dies, i make 7-1-1 creature tokens. So the idea of this deck is ramp hard, run out my hand, play him fill my hand back up.
00:27:06
Zachary Jeblonski
And then i have a variety of like you know you know creatures and and ways to blink and creatures that take advantage of that. And yeah, that's kind of the idea. It's pretty straightforward. A big part of why I wanted to do this, because I just really wanted to blink like cliff top lookout because that's fun.
00:27:25
Zachary Jeblonski
but yeah, so that, that should be coming together pretty soon.
00:27:29
ciderspence
Nice.
00:27:31
Zachary Jeblonski
It's very, it's very, it's going to be a very straightforward Timmy type deck.
00:27:32
ciderspence
Yeah.
00:27:35
Zachary Jeblonski
I'm not putting in crater hoof. I don't know why, but I just don't like that card. so I had, I'm finding more obscure ways to do like over on type effects and things like that.
00:27:45
ciderspence
Nice. Yeah, it looks fun. I think I run torsyn or i i think i ran Torsten in my Black Panther deck for a while.
00:27:53
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, he's it's seven mana, but it's like it's green, so that might well be three mana in other colors. so
00:27:58
ciderspence
Yep.
00:28:01
Zachary Jeblonski
And it gives me a place to to put my Elish Norn Mother and Machines, the card that Erwin loves.
00:28:07
ciderspence
Yay. i actually am building a deck that I need a Mother Machines for, so i i should take it back.
00:28:07
Zachary Jeblonski
the The one that...
00:28:12
Zachary Jeblonski
All right. So... yeah Yeah, that's always one of those cards. Elish Norton's fun because it's like, i'm going to play Elish Norton. Everyone's like, all right, which one is it which horrible one do we have to deal with?
00:28:23
Zachary Jeblonski
And it's the ETV one. All right. And I think it's mostly what I'm prototyping. I am in the early stages of prototyping Jaws from the movie Jaws.
00:28:33
Zachary Jeblonski
I ended up buying just the card, not getting a secret layer. And I might take it in an equipment Voltron direction, or but I'm not sure yet. So more to come on that.
00:28:44
Zachary Jeblonski
What you got working in
00:28:44
ciderspence
I played against a Jaws deck on Spell Table.
00:28:46
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, yeah.
00:28:47
ciderspence
It moved fast.
00:28:49
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I can imagine. i think i think the stronger way to build it is to build around the burn aspect where like, You know, like faded firepower would be great in that deck. Uh, like, oh I sack a, I stock a blood token and now you guys take four, you know, I sack another blood token, you guys take four, right? Like, like I think burn is the, the stronger way to make it, but I think I, I might mess around with just doing equipment Voltron and then the blood tokens are just there to like help me, with card selection.
00:29:20
Zachary Jeblonski
what did, what did the, the jaws deck that you play against? What did they do?
00:29:25
ciderspence
It was mostly focused on artifact token burn. So it got an early Descend into Avernus, and that was pretty much game.
00:29:30
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:29:34
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, boy. Yeah, that's game.
00:29:38
ciderspence
Because it was just doing so much damage one turn, two turns, three turns in, that on the fourth turn, so I guess, what is Descend into Avernus? Like a three or four mana spell? By the fourth time around,
00:29:51
ciderspence
when he made When that player made the tokens on his upkeep, he was able to just stack them all and burn the table, especially with the the blood tokens from Jaws.
00:29:59
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:30:00
ciderspence
So like yeah, it was, like I said, very fast.
00:30:02
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I can imagine that's yeah that's like the kind of the burn way. And I think I'm going to try the Voltron way just because I have so many Voltron pieces and no place to put them right now.
00:30:13
Zachary Jeblonski
And it has traditionally not been a style of gameplay that I enjoy. so I'm trying to like see if maybe Jaws can can do it for me. But more to come on that.
00:30:24
Zachary Jeblonski
So what you do you have anything working on that you're working on?
00:30:27
ciderspence
Yeah, I mean, so i I just built, like I said, I think I built four or five decks so far from Avatar, and I have a few more on the way.
00:30:32
Zachary Jeblonski
Nice.
00:30:34
ciderspence
I'm doing something similar to what you were talking about with shells, but I am taking decks that I have that are completed, and I'm going to swap out the commander for another card from my avatar so two decks i'm doing that with one i have an i have a deck that i affectionately refer to as axes and allies where it's just an allies kindred deck with a bunch of axe equipment uh right now yeah i love that board game growing up access and allies
00:30:59
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. All right. that's it That's a great name. Great name.
00:31:05
Zachary Jeblonski
I never played it, but I had friends that loved Yeah.
00:31:07
ciderspence
Yeah, I enjoyed it a lot. But I'm going to take out the commander now, who is one of the five-color Tazri cards, and I'm going to replace it with one of the Sokka's.
00:31:15
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:31:18
ciderspence
It'll be Sokka and Suki, which is a legendary creature, a human warrior ally. Whenever Sokka and Suki or another ally you control enters, attach up to one target equipment you control to that creature.
00:31:31
ciderspence
Whenever an equipment you control enters, create a 1-1 white ally creature token. It's a 3-3 for Jeskai.
00:31:37
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:31:38
ciderspence
So I'm going to have to take out some of the colors because, like I said, the Tazir deck was five color and this is three color. But that gives me space to put in avatar cards. So I hopefully will finish making that swap by the end of the day today and be able to get in some games with that deck this weekend.
00:31:55
ciderspence
And then another deck that I'm going to re-helm is I built a Soundwave. so I had a Glenn Voice of Calm deck that was Persistent Petitioners.
00:32:07
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:32:07
ciderspence
Then I switched it to a Soundwave deck. Again, themed around Persistent Petitioners. But now it will be a Lo and Lee Royal Advisors deck.
00:32:17
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, Lo and Lee. ive I thought about this, Commander.
00:32:20
ciderspence
Yeah, and i've heard I've heard mixed reviews from the community about whether this card and a Persistent Petitioner's deck is like fair or too easy. I'm okay with too easy. I've got a lot of decks, and I want to see how this one plays.
00:32:32
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah I'm okay with that.
00:32:34
ciderspence
Yeah, like I said, it's it's not like I will be playing this deck all the time trying to rack up easy wins, but I will be playing it once and seeing how the game goes. So, Lowe and Leroy advisors, a 3-3 human advisor, 2 black black.
00:32:47
ciderspence
Whenever an opponent discards a card or mills one or more cards, put a 1-1 counter on each advisor you control. And 2 and a hybrid blue-black. Target player in mills 4 cards.
00:32:58
Zachary Jeblonski
I was thinking about, and I haven't like done any looking, but I was thinking about building Lo and Li as advisor tribal, but not participant, not persistent practitioners.
00:32:58
ciderspence
So...
00:33:07
Zachary Jeblonski
And I don't know how many blue black advisors are, but I thought about doing it that way. Cause I do.
00:33:12
ciderspence
A lot of the advisors I've seen have white in them.
00:33:15
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. White is 10 texts to be the the advisor. yeah
00:33:19
ciderspence
Well, think blue tends to be the advisor color, but a lot of them also have white from what I've seen.
00:33:26
Zachary Jeblonski
let's see, I'm just doing a quick so like look look through. i was like, and i could I could do it because I have, and when we talk about shells, I have that discard shell that's just hanging around that's all black.
00:33:37
Zachary Jeblonski
And I could disassemble Bumbleflower to get the mill shell out of that. so I was like, it's something i'm I'm considering, but I'm still giving Oscar a chance right now.
00:33:48
Zachary Jeblonski
it's like It's like, I'm like looking at Oscar and be like, hey, if you don't start acting right, Lo and Le's right there. They're going to take over.
00:33:55
ciderspence
i've I've seen your Oscar deck do some stuff, but yeah, I get that. It's on double secret probation.
00:34:00
Zachary Jeblonski
Now you got to keep these guys on their toes. You know, I like answer more poor fives, which I can't say that word very well.
00:34:02
ciderspence
Yeah.
00:34:07
Zachary Jeblonski
My commanders, i like to look at them just be like, Hey, you're going to give me a land next time. Right.
00:34:12
ciderspence
Yeah, they mostly have faces. I think that's appropriate.
00:34:14
Zachary Jeblonski
I'll, I'll replace you.
00:34:18
Zachary Jeblonski
No, I'm, I will, I will look forward to playing against your low, your low and Lee just for one reason only, which is like, finally, Somebody else gets to be arch, arch, arch enemy. and I can just be like, yes, it's not me this time.
00:34:32
Zachary Jeblonski
that's
00:34:33
ciderspence
Yep. Yeah, one thing I like about Persistent Petitioners is that you don't actually have to have... My my deck will be mostly Persistent Petitioners. like i I just have a bunch of copies of it, and I think it's funny to run you know the cards that you can have any number of.
00:34:47
ciderspence
But you don't need that many Persistent Petitioners because it lets you tap any Advisor.
00:34:48
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, it's funny.
00:34:53
ciderspence
So you really just need a bunch of Advisors. So it could easily be Advisor Kindred with 10 to 15 Persistent Petitioners and have probably the same effect.
00:35:03
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:35:04
ciderspence
but mine will be 30 Persistent Petitioners in just that one effect.
00:35:07
Zachary Jeblonski
all the persistent petitioners.
00:35:09
ciderspence
They are persistent.
00:35:09
Zachary Jeblonski
All
00:35:11
Zachary Jeblonski
right. Anything else?
00:35:14
ciderspence
Those are the only ones I'm thinking of right now. I i do want to build the five color Aang as well, but I haven't started that. But again, because it'll be mostly cards from the Avatar set, it should be pretty straightforward.
00:35:24
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. and i yeah I had an idea, and i didn't I haven't done any research, so it's not there. but like I don't know if we're there yet, but I wonder if we're going to get to a critical mass of basically these five-color commanders that they make They're, you know, I don't know what you would call them, but they're basically every like set, they do these like five color commanders that kind of just let you play all the cards from that set.
00:35:49
Zachary Jeblonski
you know, like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, one that's coming up, same thing. It just gives all your turtles a whole bunch of keywords and a whole bunch of stuff. This one is similar where, yeah, you slammed all your bending cards in there and it does things. wonder we're going to get to a point where you can make a deck that's just like, comprised entirely of these catch all commanders.
00:36:08
Zachary Jeblonski
like a five color deck and And then I feel like all you would need to do is have like, you know, three or five cards in that deck that change the character or the creature types of all your creatures to something.
00:36:22
Zachary Jeblonski
And then I think that deck could be insane. Like, you know what I mean? Like, oh, all my cards spiders, turtles, blah, blah, blah, blah. So they all have all these keywords, all these things, you know. So I think a five color catch all commander deck could be interesting. I just don't know if we're at critical mass of those yet.
00:36:41
ciderspence
Yeah, I think that's a fun idea for like, ahve I've heard of the Morafod Kindred Lord deck. I think you could, yeah, we're definitely approaching a point where you could make those with just the universes beyond Lords for sure.
00:36:46
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:36:52
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Like behold my spider turtle avatar.
00:36:58
Zachary Jeblonski
And what do you, and then as you.
00:36:58
ciderspence
I'm going to step, sorry, I got to step away again. I'll
00:37:01
Zachary Jeblonski
good.
00:37:02
ciderspence
But I did realize what the name of today's episode is.
00:37:06
Zachary Jeblonski
What's that?
00:37:07
ciderspence
Norrin the Wary. Because
00:37:09
Zachary Jeblonski
Noren the Wary?
00:37:11
ciderspence
that's me. I just keep going and coming back.
00:37:14
Zachary Jeblonski
no, no. i already I've already thought of the name of the website, and then I have already since then forgotten the name of the website back later and go through the transaction. But you said something good earlier, so listeners...
00:37:25
ciderspence
Even your idea was Norrin the Wary. It was in here and then it was is left. But that means maybe it'll come back.
00:37:29
Zachary Jeblonski
Yes. Maybe it'll come back. Listeners, you have no idea how often I have to through the transcript to remember the funny thing that happened. I should probably have a notepad or something to keep track of this.
00:37:41
Zachary Jeblonski
i Yeah, so we were talking about decks on deck. And we're talking about the the catch-all commander deck someday, maybe. I'll build that. I would consider it at least.
00:37:52
Zachary Jeblonski
But yeah, anything else you're working on
00:37:55
ciderspence
No, I think those have a those are the ones I have in mind. Like I said, the five color Aang. i'm I'm sure I will build more from the the Avatar set. I'm very excited about it.
00:38:04
Zachary Jeblonski
Good.
00:38:05
ciderspence
But yeah, I mean, i I guess I haven't mentioned all the decks that I've built so far. So I i also built the Zuko. i built one of the Zukos. I built the Mei. I built Zuko and Mei.
00:38:15
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah
00:38:16
ciderspence
I built Sokka. I built Sokka and Suki. I built a Grand Lotus, Iro Grand Lotus deck for a buddy.
00:38:25
Zachary Jeblonski
The teamer one.
00:38:26
ciderspence
Yes, the teamer one, the lesson focused one.
00:38:28
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I'm interested to see how that goes.
00:38:30
ciderspence
Yeah, i've seen I've seen a bunch of people play variants of it online and it looks fun. But yeah i yeah, I'm really excited about the set. So i'm sure I'm sure I will have more decks on deck from the set as the as the weekend arrives.
00:38:45
Zachary Jeblonski
Nice. Yeah, I mean, we'll stay stay tuned. you know I don't think I have any Avatar deck commanders that i'm that I'm committing to building right now. But if if it is one, ironically, it's probably low in Lee.
00:39:01
Zachary Jeblonski
But we will see. Yeah, as far as the news goes, nothing really happening. It's just kind of like the lull as we get near at the end of the year here.
00:39:11
Zachary Jeblonski
Was there anything else you wanted to kind of bring up or talk about before we kind of wrap it up?
00:39:16
ciderspence
no, I think that's that's all i had. Yeah, sorry again for for my absences.
00:39:21
Zachary Jeblonski
Well, hopefully if my editing skills or my skills to use this, this website go well, the listeners will never even know.
00:39:29
ciderspence
Unless somebody tells them.
00:39:31
Zachary Jeblonski
But that's a big if, you know, that's a, that's very heavily relying on my skills. So, but yeah, so I'm sure, well, next week is is Thanksgiving. So maybe we'll have to work something out with that. But regardless, we will talk again in the future. you have a good weekend, Charles.
00:39:47
ciderspence
Thanks to you too, Zach.
00:39:49
Zachary Jeblonski
All right, guys, uh, you guys have a good weekend as well. And we'll talk again next time.
00:39:53
ciderspence
Take it easy.