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Ep. 34 - Red Means Go
16 Plays2 months ago
We're baking color pies in this episode. Should green be able to do everything? Tune in to find out!
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Transcript
Introduction and NPR Experiences
00:00:13
Zachary Jeblonski
Hello, hello, Welcome again to another episode of Midlife's Crisis. I'm Zach. I'm joined again by Charles.
00:00:18
ciderspence
How's it going, Zach?
00:00:20
Zachary Jeblonski
it's going pretty good. Are you an NPR listener or have you listened in a bit in the past?
00:00:25
ciderspence
I have in the past. I used to be a big classical music guy like in high school, AKA, yeah.
00:00:29
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, really? Okay. was I was a big NPR listener for most of my early like jobs because like you know not to date myself, but like you know that was before smartphones and Bluetooth. and you know i worked a very blue-collar job for for most of college and a couple years afterwards. So a cheap radio, like got options. you had some options. and I've always been more of a spoken word guy than a music guy. So listened to a lot of NPR on the job.
00:01:02
Zachary Jeblonski
And it's totally random, but there's like, you do you remember This American Life?
00:01:08
ciderspence
That wasn't really my show, but i i remember the name.
00:01:11
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah,
Soccer Excitement and Magic the Gathering
00:01:12
Zachary Jeblonski
it was just like, you know, one of those classic NPR talk shows where somebody waxes poetically about their life and their experiences, yada, yada, yada. and I've been on the hunt for an episode from like 20 years ago that I can't find, but, uh, that's a story for another time.
00:01:31
Zachary Jeblonski
Uh, the, the archiving on it is, uh, uh, leave something to be desired.
00:01:39
Zachary Jeblonski
But on much more exciting news, are you are you ready for the the influx of soccer enjoyers to our humble part of the state?
00:01:49
ciderspence
Sorry, I had to step away.
00:01:51
Zachary Jeblonski
good Are you ready for the influx of soccer enjoyers?
00:01:55
ciderspence
Yeah, I mean, it's not my thing, but as we've talked about with magic, that it's not my thing doesn't make me not want it to be here. So yeah, I like it when people are excited about stuff.
00:02:06
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, no, I do that all the time with magic, you know. Solemnity is not my thing, but I don't want it to be here, you know. All right.
00:02:12
ciderspence
Well, you're right, there are limits.
00:02:16
Zachary Jeblonski
are So, yeah, that's it. We got plenty of magic talk about. So let's get into it. We've
Magic Card Challenges and Strategies
00:02:23
Zachary Jeblonski
got a lot of game recaps i because it's been it's been a little while since we talked.
00:02:29
Zachary Jeblonski
If you can go into the deep recesses of your brain, as I am attempting to right now on my own, do you remember your games from last week or anything in particular you want to talk about last week?
00:02:39
ciderspence
Let's pause for one minute. Sorry, I'll be right back.
00:02:41
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:02:43
Zachary Jeblonski
So folks, I'm gonna, I'm just gonna fill this space up and we're gonna talk about more than one car of the week. so, you know, Charles and I were having a discussion, before the recording started with a mirror form and mirror form is a car that I was very much hyped about for from lower one equips or lower one eclipse. And I, true to my word, I have jammed it in almost all my blue decks.
00:03:08
Zachary Jeblonski
And I'd say in the last couple weeks, I've finally had the opportunity to to fire it off a couple times. But just a reminder, Mirrorform is for blue blue instant.
00:03:21
Zachary Jeblonski
And it says that each non-LAM permanent you control becomes a copy of a target non-aura permanent. So a couple key words, key things about this card is one, it's instant.
00:03:32
Zachary Jeblonski
And two, it can copy anything on the board as long as it's not an aura. and three, it's not till end of turn. It is permanent. so the the last couple times I fired it off, I fired it off for comedic effect and I wait for Charles to get back for the time I've done it most recently.
00:03:48
Zachary Jeblonski
but for the most part, I have been firing it off, you know, for, for not the, the, the, the best target, but what I thought was the funniest or funnest target. But I had originally envisioned this card almost as a board wipe protector, right? if you have, let's say 10 non-land permanents on your board and a board wipe comes through, you can just change all those permanents into whatever's not being board wiped.
00:04:10
Zachary Jeblonski
so even if it is a farewell, you could just change all your permanents into lands or a land. and then you'd have 10 more lands for your next turn. Right? So I kind of envisioned it for that purpose, but the challenge comes with it, it's but it's mana cost. six mana, that's a lot to hold up for a potential board wipe.
00:04:28
Zachary Jeblonski
so in reality, I've never had the opportunity or frankly, like the setup to do something like that. I've had to just fire it off when I've had to fire it off. And then also the other limiting factor is like, I think as magic players, or at least as myself, I have often overestimated how many permanents I would have on board when it's time to fire this off.
00:04:48
Zachary Jeblonski
And i think for the most part, it's five-ish is the amount of permanents I've been able to convert every time I've used this card. But, you know, that's only been about four four times or so since I've added the deck, card to the deck, and I'm certainly not gonna take it out because i still think it's funny.
00:05:05
Zachary Jeblonski
but I think my opinion on this car is going to change over time and it, you know, it's going to go up and down and whatever, whatever, whatever, which way. But I'm a big fan of a car designs like this.
00:05:16
Zachary Jeblonski
And, yeah, i don't know. don't want to talk about my other car of the week. Why not? Uh, it is, in both invert polarity. Uh, it's a blue, blue, red instant.
00:05:28
Zachary Jeblonski
And, you know, blue is probably my favorite color of magic. and, and, and these cards are kind of why, just because of the, the warping effect that can do on your board state or on the other people on other bonus board states. But, uh, this one's a really good one because it is, it is a fun stacks piece in a way or not, S T A X, but S T A C K. So it's, uh,
00:05:51
Zachary Jeblonski
It's an instant, you choose a target spell, and then you flip a coin. And if you win the flip, you gain control of that spell and you can choose new targets for it. If you lose the flip, you counter it.
00:06:02
Zachary Jeblonski
So when I first put this card in my decks, I thought there
MagicCon Vegas and Play Style Reflections
00:06:04
Zachary Jeblonski
was like, there's no downside to this, right? I'm either going to gain control of it or I'm going to counter it. Regardless, you're not getting the benefit. You as the opponent.
00:06:14
Zachary Jeblonski
I did forget one class of spell and I have been burned a couple times with this, which is board wipes. Cause it doesn't matter if I can control the board wipe and it does, you know, so like and there's been a couple times when like, you know, I really wanted that board wipe countered and said I gained control of it and you still got to fire it off. So, uh, it's not the perfect counter spell, but outside of board wipes, it's really good. some mean things you can do of course is,
00:06:41
Zachary Jeblonski
You can gain control somebody's commander. So if they cast this and you invert polarity, you gain control that spell, which means you gain their commander. And if they can't get it back, they can't get it back. i think I don't think I've ever done this yet, but I think you know that's something that I would consider when dealing with some of the more like I hate to use this term.
00:07:00
Zachary Jeblonski
I almost find it magic cringely, but like it, like the, like those Omega level threat commanders. quote I'm doing finger quotes. You can't see it on audio, but yeah, kill inside.
00:07:09
ciderspence
Yeah, just those kill on site commanders. the If this resolves, we're probably going to lose.
00:07:12
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like that's the only time I would really fire this thing off against the commander because like overall, I think gaining control of people's commanders is pretty, pre rough pretty rough. I'm pretty solid. I'm doing something.
00:07:24
Zachary Jeblonski
But if you're playing a Korvald or something like that or VV, you know, then then I have no sympathy. So I'm going to fire this off when you catch a commander. But yeah, let's go back to the games we were playing. Do you remember the any of the games from last week?
00:07:41
ciderspence
Yeah, so I went to MagicCon Vegas last weekend and got in a lot of games.
00:07:43
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, nice.
00:07:46
ciderspence
And I won some. I lost way more, but I had a really good time.
00:07:51
Zachary Jeblonski
You think, I think you you know your statistics, right? From that game again? Uh-huh.
00:07:55
ciderspence
I did. I i got in 19 games over the weekend. I won four, which is, you know, a little bit below your expectation. But I played a lot of silly decks.
00:08:02
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, that's actually not that far off though.
00:08:04
ciderspence
No, it's not far off.
00:08:04
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:08:06
ciderspence
And, you know, I had a lot of... uh just a lot of fulfilling satisfying games like I played a couple of bracket four games they were really quick I didn't win I played two of those I didn't win either one but I had a chance in both of them and I feel like I learned something about myself and my play style in both games lost a VB in the first game uh with my badrick deck and that one was tough I got interacted with and then VB stormed off the turn after this was turn four
00:08:12
Zachary Jeblonski
Nice.
00:08:34
ciderspence
And I played my Bruna deck and, got left alone for a few turns while I wasn't the threat.
00:08:34
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:08:40
ciderspence
And then i had a chance to win, but I was scared of some interactions. So I decided to pillow for a little bit and then, uh, there was a combo win on the next turn. So I think
00:08:50
Zachary Jeblonski
That's
Theme Decks and Strategic Adjustments
00:08:50
Zachary Jeblonski
always tough.
00:08:50
ciderspence
from that I learned, yeah, you just got to go for it.
00:08:52
ciderspence
And if you get stopped, you get stopped. but yeah, other than that, uh, had a bunch of bracket three games. Mostly I did get to play my bracket one deck and that was a lot of fun.
00:09:02
Zachary Jeblonski
What's the theme on that one?
00:09:04
ciderspence
It's just Treefolk. It's Monogreen Treefolk.
00:09:07
Zachary Jeblonski
okay. Is it just like every tree folk you can find kind of thing?
00:09:09
ciderspence
yeah but
00:09:13
ciderspence
Yeah, pretty much. And they're they're almost all bad. They're almost all very expensive. And there's very little interaction.
00:09:18
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Yeah.
00:09:20
ciderspence
But I think my vision for that deck is if I'm playing with new players or players where I don't want to think much about the deck, I just want the social experience. I just want to hang out. And Magic is just the canvas for that.
00:09:31
ciderspence
it's perfect because there's not a lot to do. There's not a lot to think about. And if no one else does anything, i can win with, you know, three eights in the late game.
00:09:42
ciderspence
But, you know, otherwise it's just, you know, magic as a pretext for socialism, socializing, not socialism.
00:09:49
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. i Yeah. right but Record one's interesting on a, definitely on a conceptual level. Like, you know, I think the, the, I think the, the one I've heard referenced to the most, and I don't know if anyone's actually built this or is this just like a, a, the example, which is like,
00:10:03
Zachary Jeblonski
my deck is full of women looking left, you know, where like every card has a woman looking left kind of thing. you know, you know, like those kinds of themes are kind of interesting. I don't think I can pull myself to make one of those yet. I'm always on the lookout for like a good bracket one idea, of like, I need, for me, it needs to be absurd and also have the opportunity to be fun. Like I, it's, it's hard for me to create a deck that's like,
00:10:30
Zachary Jeblonski
like low powered that low powered on purpose, you know, kind of thing.
00:10:34
ciderspence
Yeah, I think my barrier is that, or my barrier to explicitly building more bracket one decks is that there's just not much opportunity to play them.
00:10:43
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:10:43
ciderspence
And i I think a lot and spend a lot of time iterating over decks that I build And I don't, it's hard to justify that investment with a deck that you don't ever expect to play.
00:10:44
Zachary Jeblonski
it's
00:10:54
ciderspence
There are a lot of decks that I expect to play at least once, or maybe just once, just to, you know, get used to a new set or something. But decks that I expect to play, you know, less than once, that's tough.
00:11:05
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, it's, it's kind of like similar to a bracket for problem, at least in the stores that I run in. It's like, I don't know when I would have the opportunity to play a bracket for game, in, you know, most of the environments that I'm in,
00:11:20
Zachary Jeblonski
But yeah yeah, I guess i've I've been racking my brain trying to remember the games from last week. So I think I'm just going to mix in the games from this week.
00:11:31
Zachary Jeblonski
because like i
00:11:32
ciderspence
Yeah, go for it.
00:11:33
Zachary Jeblonski
So I guess one of the games I wanted to highlight was i played probably my third favorite deck. Again, this... Actually, no. So I have played this deck. I played this deck last week and I played the this deck this week. But anyway, I'm going to talk about the most recent game. But my third favorite deck is Amalia. She's white, black, vampire scout.
00:11:54
Zachary Jeblonski
She's got ward pay three life, which almost doesn't exist. I always forget it exists. But when you gain life, Amalia explores and then destroy all other creatures if its power is exactly 20.
00:12:05
Zachary Jeblonski
So this deck is just a life gain deck through and through. but heavily But heavily on incidental life gain, like little bits here and there, because you want to keep triggering the Explorer over and over and over again. And it's a little bit of like a commander damage deck, right? The the grand plan is Amalia gets 20, detonates, kills all the other creatures, and then I just start swinging in for commander lethal, one-shotting people.
00:12:29
Zachary Jeblonski
And last week I played it and I was like, this deck is just kind of stumbling a little bit. Like, it's just not, it's not, it's not, it's not doing it. And I realized I'm like, I had drifted into too much artifact and enchantment, like support pieces. And I, and I like had to step back and be like, well, wait a minute. Like,
00:12:48
Zachary Jeblonski
a lot of your life gain comes from creatures entering the battlefield or creatures doing things. So you should make your ramp and other support pieces creatures so that they, you know, synergize off of what you're trying to do.
00:13:01
Zachary Jeblonski
And so I swapped out about eight to 10 cards and then I played it again this week and it performed much more closely to what I was, what I, you know, I was expecting it to do. So yeah, I'm glad to see I was able to kind of identify that problem and kind of, kind of fix it. You know, it was a game I lost, but it was a game I had a lot of fun in because, you know, we had discussed this prior, which is that, you know, the deck absolutely performed the way it was supposed to. I didn't always have the answer and that caused me to die, you know, but I knew the answers were in the deck. I just didn't draw all them and that's fine, but everything else went perfectly great with the deck. So I'm very happy with it. So it remains in the top three of my decks now. So, so yeah.
00:13:39
ciderspence
It's really satisfying to see a deck be in the midst of doing what it's trying to do, you know, and sometimes that doesn't result in you winning either somebody else got off to a fast start or somebody else had, you know, just the right answer to what you had going on at the time.
00:13:44
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:13:54
ciderspence
But yeah, it's just satisfying to see, you know, you're opening seven cards, you have the stuff you need to get started somewhere by turn three or turn four, you draw something to kind of advance your position. It's really nice to see a plan come together in that way, whether you ultimately win or not.
00:14:09
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, it's just, this deck is, for me is very satisfying just because of the, it is for white and black, you don't really think of white and black like this, but it is very much like, like it is it is like a fork in a microwave kind of situation because eventually you get to the point where like I had three or four, when a creature enters, I gain the life triggers. So like my, my, my opponents will play a creature and then I would explore three times and then I would play a creature and explore four times. And i was just like, you know, so they would kill my commander and literally like the turn after I brought the commander back out, it would be up to like 12 power again because of all exploring, you know? So I was very much like, okay, they had to like board wipe me like twice. And then they finally kind of put the nail on the coffin. They finally took me out and I was like, that's fine.
00:14:55
Zachary Jeblonski
It was definitely a lot of fun. I'm probably going to try to play it again this week because it's a banger.
00:15:03
ciderspence
Nice.
00:15:04
Zachary Jeblonski
So yeah, one they hit us split up with one of your games.
00:15:08
ciderspence
Sure, one of the games I won was with, well, I took Chun-Li to the con trying to get a win with her. i did not succeed.
00:15:14
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, generally.
00:15:16
ciderspence
So she's 0 for the world right now, which makes me sad.
00:15:19
Zachary Jeblonski
Dude, like Chun-Li should be like our, Chun-Li should be like our podcast mascot.
00:15:19
ciderspence
I'm going to keep trying because I love her.
00:15:24
Zachary Jeblonski
Like Chun-Li plus Zethi. We should get new artwork with the two of them standing back to back like ninety sitcom style. Like I'm down with that.
00:15:30
ciderspence
Maybe. It's got to be her, like, I just lost a fight in Street Fighter Pose, because that's that's all I do with her.
00:15:31
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:15:34
Zachary Jeblonski
Yes. Yes. Yeah. I don't know. what to come up with a post for Zethi to do the same thing.
00:15:39
ciderspence
Yeah, but a game I did win was with her Street Fighter friend, Ryu World Warrior.
00:15:46
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:15:46
ciderspence
Two and a white legendary creature, human warrior with training. Training is whenever this creature attacks with another creature with greater power, put a 1-1 counter on it. I've never once used that ability, but an ability I do use is Hadouken, four and a red, and untap and discard a card.
00:16:02
ciderspence
Ryu World Warrior deals damage equal to his power to any target. If excess damage was dealt to a creature this way, draw a card. So I remember when I was first building the deck, I was really focused on, ooh, maybe I could put a lot of Madness in here so that when I discard that card, I can cast it.
00:16:16
ciderspence
And then I put in a lot of
00:16:20
ciderspence
double the ability stuff. So there's like Lithoform Engine and Rings of Bright Hearth.
00:16:26
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:16:27
ciderspence
But I think when I looked at it most recently to kind of tweak it before going to the convention, I realized First of all, the madness stuff I don't need because the ability is so expensive that unless you're getting a lot of reduction for it, you're not going to have mana to cast a spell even at its madness cost after you discard a card.
00:16:45
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah
00:16:47
ciderspence
I think doubling the trigger is good because then you just don't have to do this onerous thing more times. but the thing the deck really needed was just a lot more ramp, and in particular, overlapping stuff, stuff that would buff its power and also serve other functions.
00:17:01
ciderspence
So one addition I made that came into play in the game was Meteor Sword, seven mana, plus three, plus three equipment that does what Meteor Golem does when it enters a battlefield, destroys another permanent.
00:17:01
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:17:17
ciderspence
And another overlapping type card that I added, which is one of my cards of the week, is Tavern Brawler. Two and a red. Commander creatures you own have at the beginning of your upkeep. Exile the top card of your library. This creature gets plus X plus O until i end of turn where X is that card's mana value. You may cast that card. You may play that card this turn.
00:17:37
Zachary Jeblonski
Nice.
00:17:38
ciderspence
So those both came into play in that game. But basically I was able to get to one turn where I had some interaction. I was able to remove a piece from my opponent's board, but then I was able to attack and then activate his ability.
00:17:49
ciderspence
And I was able to copy it and deal 13 damage twice. And then I won the game shortly after that.
00:17:55
Zachary Jeblonski
Nice. Now, that's that's cool. I mean, he's a cool design. I i was actually searching him up.
00:18:01
ciderspence
I got to step away for a second.
00:18:01
Zachary Jeblonski
And yep, go for it.
00:18:02
ciderspence
Sorry. Hopefully not too long.
00:18:04
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, was it's a cool design. i was I was searching him up and he's a little difficult to scryfall for. Actually, scryfall doesn't list him as he is. But i'm always it's always really cool to see the untapped symbol on creatures, which is pretty rare.
00:18:17
Zachary Jeblonski
And there's probably a good reason for that because it's really easy to combo with untapped creatures. or creatures that can untap themselves. But in this case, the the ability to untap costs five mana, so I don't think there's too much of a danger of of comboing or things like that.
00:18:33
Zachary Jeblonski
But this is definitely a commander that makes you work for it. you're not going to This is not something you're just going to you know get a lot of value out of unless you construct your deck and you play your deck in in a way to make to make this happen. So i think's I think it's a pretty cool fact.
00:18:49
Zachary Jeblonski
And then while we're waiting for Charles to return, i will talk about one of my other games that I played. Let's talk about Witherbloom Spellslinger, or the the style of the deck is Spellslinger for me.
00:19:04
Zachary Jeblonski
And Witherbloom the Balancer is one of the new one of the news cycle Elder Dragons from Secrets of Strixhaven. So this is the Golgari one. It's some six black green. It's got the legendary creature Elder Dragon. It's got affinity for creatures, flying death touch, and instant and sorcery spells you cast have affinity for creatures.
00:19:25
Zachary Jeblonski
So your instant sorceries are cheaper based on the number of creatures you have by one generic. It doesn't doesn't influence any of the pip costs. So that is one of the limiting factors when you're playing this deck.
00:19:36
Zachary Jeblonski
But the affinity effect is very, very strong. And i have played this deck, I think. three times now and I have yet to lose with it.
00:19:47
Zachary Jeblonski
So I think, i don't think this deck is long for the world. I don't know if it's going to stay around or not. So the the issue I have with it is it's, you know, it's almost a little too easy, you know?
00:20:01
Zachary Jeblonski
I don't think it's that the, the thing about it is like, I don't think it's actually like overpowered or that overpowered to be honest, because I've never won. Like I've definitely, it's always been like turn eight, nine.
00:20:13
Zachary Jeblonski
It's always been late before I've been able to win. It's never been like fast or anything. cause there's a lot of setup to this. So gotta get creatures on the battlefield to make them cheaper, then get them out. And then you need another turn to use all those cheapened spells to do things and yada, get yada, yada.
00:20:26
Zachary Jeblonski
so it's actually not like broken in that way. But I think the issue for me is like, it, it doesn't feel, it feels very, uh, not challenging.
00:20:37
Zachary Jeblonski
You just sorta, here's, here's your, here's your, your play. You, you, you ramp for the early turns, fire off a board, wipe if you got it then you then you play Witherbloom, and and if you keep them for a turn, that's kind of it usually after that. Because then you can play an X spell, make tokens. The next spell is cheaper because of those tokens. you play another spell that makes tokens, but now you have even more tokens because the spell is cheaper because of the creatures you have, yeah yada, yada, yada.
00:21:06
Zachary Jeblonski
but there's plenty of opportunity for your opponents to interrupt. I mean, it's, you know, very difficult to stop your spells from being countered in green, black. There's a variety of ways for your opponents to interact. course, just removing Witherbloom, uh, can do a number.
00:21:20
Zachary Jeblonski
now as commander attacks is influenced by the affinity costs, so it can be very easy to recast Witherbloom, but like I said, a board wipe kind of handles that situation. you know I haven't written the deck off yet, but it is something I'm kind of keeping an eye on of like whether or not it's just a little too easy to execute.
00:21:35
Zachary Jeblonski
But yeah, we'll see. Yeah, i I don't know. we'll We'll see how it goes. I mean, there's a lot of spells in the deck, though, that I haven't played yet that I kind of want to play. And one of the ones I wanted to highlight, which was a spell that was came out in Dusk Mourn, that I think is kind of perfect for this deck, but it's kind of i wanted I wanted to try it but I haven't drawn it yet, which is Valgavoth's Onslaught.
00:21:59
Zachary Jeblonski
So it's X, X, green. It's a sorcery. And you manifest dread x x times, then put X, 1, 1 counters on each of those creatures. So so you know if you're really firing off a Witherbloom, would say X is 10. It's not hard to achieve, where you make where you manifest dread 10 times and put 10 1, 1s on each of those manifest dread targets.
00:22:21
Zachary Jeblonski
So this is definitely like one of those cards where i'm like, oh yeah, you can really end the game with this. you know, so that's kind of like one of the finishers I'm going to, you know, I'd like to to try, going to, you know, I want to, I want to get some of these cards out. I want to keep playing. It's I want
Deck Mechanics and Strategic Depth
00:22:34
Zachary Jeblonski
to lose with it. You know, I want to get stopped and then, uh, just kind of get a sense of it.
00:22:40
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah, but other than that, it's, uh, you know, I don't know. I, the more I talk about it, I'm i'm so wishy-washy on i want to keep playing it. It is fun. Maybe I'm just being a little baby. I don't know. Yeah. And then, so then we got next up. Let's talk about a deck that has been climbing up the ranks for me. have no idea where it is. I know I had mentioned to Molly is number three, but you know, I don't know where the rest of my decks are, so I don't know what the number for him is, but it is my amount of black deck currently.
00:23:08
Zachary Jeblonski
And as a Val Gavall terror eater, And I'll read him off. He's like a paragraph. So buckle in. It's Val Gavalt, Terrarieter, six, black, black, and black. So nine mana, huge, huge boy. He's a legendary creature. He's an elder demon. He's got flying lifelink. He has ward, sacrifice three non-land permanents. So that's rough. That's a rough ward to deal with.
00:23:33
Zachary Jeblonski
If a card you didn't control will be put into an opponent's graveyard from anywhere, exile and instead. During your turn, you may play cards exiled with Valgavoth. If you cast a spell this way, pay life equal to its mana value rather than pay its mana cost.
00:23:46
Zachary Jeblonski
So this is kind of like the final culmination of me trying to get this card to work in Commander. I've tried, you know, pretty much every Tiny Bones. I've tried green-black...
00:24:01
Zachary Jeblonski
commander, the the random one that does discard. I've tried a lot of discard commanders. And the problem I always run into is you're usually so annoying so early that you get stomped out before your discard value can really matter.
00:24:13
Zachary Jeblonski
and this deck kind of fixes that because you, you really don't get annoying until your time to start executing your plan. you're not playing your discard pieces. You're not doing any of that until Valgavoth's on the battlefield. So therefore you're kind of keeping a low profile until you're ready to strike. And usually what that means is like you put Valgavoth out, then you play your discard spell or your mill spell. And then you start accumulating so much value that it just becomes very difficult to deal with. And and his ward cost brutal for a lot of decks to deal with. Yeah.
00:24:44
ciderspence
Yeah, you know one funny thing that I've noticed about Commander, myself included, is that
00:24:49
ciderspence
Commander players, it's really tough to think ahead in a commander game.
00:24:54
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:24:54
ciderspence
And commanders like Valkvoth, like the Eldrazi Titans, if your commander costs 8 or 9 or 10 mana and you're just going to ramp the first few turns, if people at the table have played it before and are appropriately afraid of it, you might be in trouble.
00:25:08
ciderspence
But if they haven't, or if they're not, if they're more focused on what they have going on, you can really build up to an oppressive first turn with your commander. even though what it does is written on it because people are just focused on their own stuff and they're not thinking about the fact that and in three or four turns, we're going to have to deal with something game warping.
00:25:27
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, one of the things I, this is something I've thought about a lot. And, you know, some of the other podcasts talk about this, where like, you know, it's kind of like a joke, almost a meme, which is like, this card is so good, it's bad, because it draws so much attention to you, like, right, like, like, it's a, you know,
00:25:46
Zachary Jeblonski
And I've always kind of pushed back on that narrative of like X card is too good. So it's bad because it draws too much attention to you. i'm like, to me, it's like commander's just full of those cards now. Like everybody's got cards that are like, Oh, unignorable. Right.
00:25:59
Zachary Jeblonski
And I think ValkaVal benefits from the fact that like, yes, you see this like freight train coming, like it's sitting in the command zone, you know, it's there. but it's really hard to like bank up all your answers for them when the other three players are also putting things on the board or doing things that are like also really scary. You know, I've, I've, the few times I've, I've played this deck a few times where like, you know, my opponents read, know what this card does. They're, they're scared of it.
00:26:26
Zachary Jeblonski
But they end up having to use a lot of their answers and a lot of responses for other things that are happening. So by the time I play Valkaub, there's been a lot of times where like nobody's been able to do anything with it because they had to fire off their answers before.
00:26:37
Zachary Jeblonski
So Valkaub almost benefits from the fact that there's just so much scary stuff in Commander nowadays. There's so much scary stuff.
00:26:44
ciderspence
Yeah, that's right. You just don't want to be the first scary thing or maybe one of the first couple of scary things, right?
00:26:48
Zachary Jeblonski
Yes. Yes.
00:26:50
ciderspence
Everything horrifying is going to be responded to by someone. But if you can just not be first or second or third in that line, once people have used their answers and already made the choices that were development over spending the answers they have left, then you're in great positions.
00:26:57
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep.
00:27:05
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. And so, yeah, I really enjoy, i actually, i think this, I've been waffling on a mono black deck for years. Like I've been, i think this one's going to stay because it's just, it's a fun puzzle of like, when do I make myself the arch enemy? Like when do I put this thing out?
00:27:22
Zachary Jeblonski
You know? And I haven't quite nailed out how to do that. Like, I think, I didn't talk about the game specifically, but our game we played in our three pod this this weekend, know, I probably should have recasted him, but I only casted him once, you know, but it's like, it's this game of like, how many times do I really want to try and drop 11 mana to recast this guy? Like, do I think I can make him stick this time? You know, and that's something I'm still trying to figure out with them.
00:27:48
ciderspence
Yeah, he is he is terrifying.
00:27:51
Zachary Jeblonski
Because, man, you the other thing the little other thing I'll i mention on this and then we can move on is just the lifelink. that Getting line nine life back, it's not nothing.
00:28:04
Zachary Jeblonski
Because usually when you play this deck, you're usually down into the thirty s or 20s.
00:28:04
ciderspence
it's pretty good.
00:28:09
Zachary Jeblonski
by the time you play him because you've just been taking beats and you know, half the black cards in this deck hurt you in some way, you know, for card draw or whatever. So like you definitely are, are, are ready for that lifelink when he comes out.
00:28:22
Zachary Jeblonski
but yeah, uh, you want to hit up with another game you played?
00:28:27
ciderspence
Yeah, I think,
00:28:28
ciderspence
so I, I learned that I, and I guess I kind of knew this, but I learned that I'm much more of a red player than I thought, uh, of the four games I won over the weekend, three of them were red or decks with red in them. Uh, and one of them was not red related, uh, and it was an enchantress deck.
00:28:47
ciderspence
Uh, so yeah, I guess I, I'm into my red phase. When I started playing Magic, I was a mono white angels player. That was the first couple of decks that I built.
00:28:54
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah,
00:28:55
ciderspence
And I still like angels, but I guess I've moved over to thee to the red side of the ledger. Another one of the games that I won was with my long shot deck.
00:29:08
ciderspence
And it went you know Pretty similar to how long shot typically goes. Put down some ramp pieces, get long shot out, and do a lot. But O'Hare Ashneal also showed up, and he made a pretty big impact.
00:29:21
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah he's good.
00:29:22
ciderspence
I got to cast that flashback spell. I'm forgetting the name of it now. But then when you flash it back from the graveyard, you exile the top three, and you can play them without paying their mana cost.
00:29:31
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:29:34
Zachary Jeblonski
i I don't remember. I can see the card art. I can literally see the card art.
00:29:37
ciderspence
Yeah, it might be seize the opportunity or seize the moment or something like that. But but yeah, that was another fun game. But it you know what I'm trying to remember it, but it it just reminds me of all the other games I've played with Longshot.
00:29:54
ciderspence
And I love the deck, but it's one that I and don't play all the time now just because the games do feel a little samey. But they're good. They're samey good. So that's not bad.
00:30:03
Zachary Jeblonski
I, yeah, I, mean we, uh, you know, I was, while you're away, i was talking about wither bloom and it has a little bit of that sameiness feel to it a little bit, but it's still good. You know, it's still like, it still does the thing and it still feels pretty good when it happens.
00:30:18
ciderspence
Yeah, you know it's funny? There's a difference between samey and reliable, right? I think long shot is reliable.
00:30:22
Zachary Jeblonski
Yes.
00:30:23
ciderspence
And you don't you know you don't always want the same, you don't always want the reliable thing either.
00:30:24
Zachary Jeblonski
Yes.
00:30:29
ciderspence
But it's nice to have that to fall back on when you're in a pod or in a moment where you just, you want that old feeling.
00:30:31
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:30:36
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep. Yep. I agree. i agree. Do we want to move on to decks on deck?
00:30:42
ciderspence
Yeah, let's do it.
00:30:43
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. So I've got, I think my, the, the deck that's most ready for prime time. I'm just waiting for an order to come in to kind of like, I don't know. you, don't know if you do this, but like when I'm building a new deck and I had to order cards for it, like,
00:30:56
Zachary Jeblonski
I'd say if I'm missing like less than five, I'll run it and just jam whatever for the remaining five while the other cards come in. Uh, but I think more than five, I just wait till get that critical mass of cards.
00:31:08
Zachary Jeblonski
so this is like, I think I'm missing like 10 cards. So I don't know if I'll get them in by Tuesday to play it, but I'm to but, it is, uh, I'm going to, uh, my band slot, my green, white, blue slots been like vacant for a while. yeah I had,
00:31:22
Zachary Jeblonski
I was trying to experiment with mill with Ms. Bumbleflower it just never really worked. Never really came together and it really did the things that I wanted to do. So I was like, all right, screw it. So now i'm going to do bird tribal or I'm sorry, bird kindred or typal. I'm not sure of the actual word now, but.
00:31:40
ciderspence
Kendrick, yep.
00:31:41
Zachary Jeblonski
we're going to I'm going to use Choco, Seeker of Paradise. It's a one green, white, blue legendary creature bird. It's from the Final Fantasy set. And whenever one or more birds you control attack, look at that many cards on top of your library. You may put one of them into your hand and then put any number of land cards from of them on the battlefield tapped and and the rest into your graveyard.
00:32:03
Zachary Jeblonski
And then, uh, she, and it's got landfall. Whenever land you control enters Choco gets one zero. So on the turn with
Building New Decks and Strategy Talks
00:32:08
Zachary Jeblonski
my goldfish, I barely pay attention to that because Choco doesn't have any invasion of himself. He doesn't fly, even he's a bird.
00:32:14
Zachary Jeblonski
so I don't, when I, when I goldfish his deck, I don't think he's going to get through very often. He's going to get chumped, which is fine. Uh, but yeah, the deck's just full of birds. and, but one of the, the, the things, there's two reasons I wanted to build this. One is like, I've been impressed going against bird decks recently. I've gone against bird decks couple times in the last couple of months and birds I've noticed get, they get big real fast and it gets dangerous real fast. I wanted to try it for myself.
00:32:40
Zachary Jeblonski
And then two, it is a it's kind of like a little bit of a weird trigger that he has. Usually in ban or colors like this, you would expect the cards that you don't put into your hand or on the battlefield as lands to go to the bottom of library, but they actually go to graveyard.
00:32:55
Zachary Jeblonski
So I'm curious how this works. Because usually with those kind of colors, at an effect like this will put the cards on the bottom of the library, not and go to the graveyard. but So I kind of had the decision of like, do you you do you introduce graveyard recursion as a stack or do you just forget about the graveyard? And I'm going with forgetting about the graveyard to the point where I'm going to run a card that I think is neat, but I've never had a use for it.
00:33:21
Zachary Jeblonski
And it's a Wheel of Sun and Moon. And it's it's a hybrid Selesnya pip, hybrid Selesnya pip. And it's in an aura. You can enchant a player. And if a card we put into an enchant of players graveyard from anywhere, instead that card is revealed and put to the bottom of that player's library. so I'm going to run this card to enchant myself so that all the cards that would get put in the graveyard from Choco's ability, go to the bottom of the library. And we're going to see how this all plays out.
00:33:48
Zachary Jeblonski
and So that's a, yeah, because I think, I think it's intentional that they go to the graveyard because when I goldfish, like,
00:33:50
ciderspence
That's interesting.
00:33:58
Zachary Jeblonski
There is the potential. i don't know. i could see a world where I mill myself out before I kill people because of how many cards I'm getting dumped into the graveyard, you know? So I'm curious to see. i don't know. i don't know how this is all going to go, but I'm the gold fishing. It does seem, seem, seem good. So we're going to hopefully try it out this week.
00:34:17
ciderspence
I wonder if a future version of this would have some limited recursion, maybe like flashback recursion, like Civen's Reclamation, just to get a few key pieces back from your graveyard or stuff like Raise the Past.
00:34:26
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:34:27
ciderspence
If you're running a lot of cheap birds, you could just reanimate all of them.
00:34:31
Zachary Jeblonski
I really,
00:34:32
ciderspence
Because I guess you bring one to battlefield and the rest to graveyard, right? So if you attack with a lot of birds, you're putting a lot of stuff potentially in the graveyard. So if a lot of it's cheap, being able to bring back a lot of it might be useful.
00:34:43
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah I really did consider it. Like I, I, I built this deck a couple of different ways, you know, one way is with Sabine Reclamation. i even jammed the new Paradigm one in there, you know, just goldfish that a little bit.
00:34:54
ciderspence
Yep, restoration seminar. yep
00:34:55
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. And I think it's a way you can go, but I think I wanted to. i think there's like a purity of me over like i just like, no, I'm going to just like in that in in my head, i just know that if it's in the graveyard, it's gone and I'm just going to like run with it that way, you know, kind of thing.
00:35:13
Zachary Jeblonski
because there's in, in the, what's, what's so awkward about it, but also kind of interesting, which is like, you know, white has mass recursion for cheap spells, but it doesn't have mass recursion for just generic creatures. you can mass recursion artifacts and enchantments, but not creatures and white,
00:35:28
Zachary Jeblonski
And enough of the birds are big enough where they would dodge like a raise the past or something like that. so they didn't feel good running those cards and Savine's reclamation is okay, but also it's still one hidden certain, the birds that I wanted.
00:35:43
ciderspence
Yeah.
00:35:44
Zachary Jeblonski
so it was like, I really went back and forth on that. so I just ultimately ended up on, I'm just going to have this one card that if I get in play, It just puts all my graveyard back in my library every time I, something goes there and then I'm just going to ignore the graveyard, you know? So, you know, this would be the perfect deck to play against somebody that like Leyline of the Voids or something. Cause like, all right, well, I wasn't going to anything with my graveyard anyway. Like,
00:36:07
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, and then one last piece that I wanted bring up and then move on. A card that I thought of, I felt pretty smart when I was putting this deck together because usually like I don't always think of cards that people haven't thought about that much.
00:36:20
Zachary Jeblonski
You know card I realized was pretty good with this effect? It's Brainstorm.
00:36:26
Zachary Jeblonski
So Brainstorm is a one blue instant and you draw three and then you put two cards from your hand back on top of the library. So what you do is with Choco's trigger on the stack, you Brainstorm, you put... two libraries back on top of your library or two lands on top of your library and then Choco's trigger will go off and your lands are right on the battlefield.
00:36:43
ciderspence
Oh, that's really good.
00:36:44
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. I was like, yeah, look at me. I'm smart guy. so i'm excited to have a reason to run brainstorm because brainstorming commander is usually pretty bad. oh yeah.
00:36:53
ciderspence
Nice.
00:36:55
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah. Any decks on deck wanted to, you wanted to talk about?
00:36:58
ciderspence
Yeah. There are a couple that I'm working on. One that I, I think I put mostly together, but I can't find it. So I might have to start from scratch is Zafi and the Tempest. I think I've talked about this one before five blue, red, yeah, five, seven human barred sorcerer.
00:37:08
Zachary Jeblonski
This is the new Zafi? Okay.
00:37:12
ciderspence
Once during each of your turns, you may cast an instant or sorcery spell from your hand without paying its mana costs. I put together what I kind of had laying around like of expensive, uh, blue and red spells, or blue and red instance and sorceries.
00:37:27
ciderspence
I remember looking at it last time when I was sleeving it up and I wasn't that excited about it, but I do i do still want to play it. So, I mean, maybe I maybe i sabotaged myself and lost it on purpose so I didn't have to play it.
00:37:39
ciderspence
Hopefully not, but you know I can never tell.
00:37:41
Zachary Jeblonski
I don't know. There's enough very large blues and red ins instant surgeries now that I think he could be it could be really interesting.
00:37:50
ciderspence
Yeah, there's certainly a version of it that's that's playable slash fun slash good, but I don't know if that is the version that I put together. But, you know.
00:37:58
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I'm going to choose R. Gury is the one I'm thinking of. Yeah. my my My beloved Dance with Calamity, you know.
00:38:09
ciderspence
Yeah, but another one that I'm looking at, trying to figure out what to do with it, is Ennis, Debate Moderator, one and a white legendary creature, human cleric. When it enters, exile up to one other target creature you control, return that card to the battlefield under its owner's control the beginning of the next end step,
00:38:24
ciderspence
And at the beginning of your end step, if one or more cards were put into exile this turn, put a 1-1 counter on Ennis. This reads as a, it's an uncommon from Secrets of Strixhaven, so it's not that good.
00:38:38
ciderspence
But I like the art. I'm interested in building it. I got to figure out what to do to make it playable. So i'm I'm starting that journey.
00:38:45
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, that's a model white point deck. Yeah.
00:38:48
ciderspence
Yeah, but like the the payoff's just not very strong.
00:38:48
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah
00:38:51
ciderspence
So I'm trying to think of, is there something I could do with, this is really good with removing a counter from a creature, or whenever you put a counter on a creature, a lot happens in mono white.
00:39:02
ciderspence
So i'm I'm trying to think through that.
00:39:05
Zachary Jeblonski
I think you could also... I would almost ignore the second part and just focus on the first part. Like having a always available, blink spell in your command zone can be pretty powerful.
00:39:20
ciderspence
So just like really, really powerful ETBs that I can blink once and get a lot of value out of.
00:39:21
Zachary Jeblonski
don't know.
00:39:23
Zachary Jeblonski
Exactly.
00:39:25
ciderspence
Yeah.
00:39:25
Zachary Jeblonski
You know, like turn four, solemn simulacrum, turn five, play Ennis, bounce solemn simulacrum. And then also, he will always do it when he enters.
00:39:38
Zachary Jeblonski
So if you have mass blink, you're going to get two blinks off of him because he's going to come in and then blink again somebody else. Like, yeah, there's things you can do with this.
00:39:50
ciderspence
yeah Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, I guess I could also go a combo-e direction. But then I guess that begs the question, when do you play this? But maybe, actually, i wonder if I could, no. I don't think there's a way to build a mono-white bracket-4 deck.
00:40:06
ciderspence
But I could look into that.
00:40:07
Zachary Jeblonski
Uh, it all stacks.
00:40:10
ciderspence
Maybe, yeah. Because I guess this, you know, the one thing, to your point, the stuff that blinks stuff when it enters, could go infinite-ish with Ennis. And because he's cheap, if you get one of the other things down and it doesn't get removed when it gets back to your turn, where you somehow manage to get Flash and Mono White, you could do infinite ATBs in a lot of different ways. So maybe I try to build it that direction. And yeah, maybe I go stacks to try to see if I can make it a bracket four type deck.
00:40:40
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I don't know. I'm sure there'sm sure there's a way.
00:40:46
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah. I guess as far decks on deck goes, i probably the next one I'm building, speaking of decks that kind of play themselves, but yeah whatever, I'm still figuring out that whole philosophy, but, I think I'm going to turn Rydia, which is my green red deck. Um, deck.
00:41:06
Zachary Jeblonski
And I realized the last time I played her like a month ago or more than that, I was like, oh, there's too much going on with this deck. And I don't really want to deal with all the token triggering. It's landfall tokens and all that stuff. And it's just like it got to to be too much.
00:41:20
Zachary Jeblonski
So we're going to take most of that shell and we're just going to jam it into Tanook Memorial Ensign. One red green from Edge of Attorneys.
00:41:31
Zachary Jeblonski
An uncommon, I'm always a big fan of uncommon commanders. And he's got landfall whenever a land you control enters to note deals one damage to each opponent. And if it's a second time this ability has resolved this turn, draw card.
00:41:43
Zachary Jeblonski
So long story short, play lands. you Try to play a lot of lands that can get you two landfalls a turn so that you can trigger him. So that does mean that basically every land that sacks itself minus some of the fetches because i don't want to blow my budget that that hard is in this deck. So it was like evolving wiles, terramorphic expanse, myriad landscape, you know, all these lands that enter the battlefield and then i can also sack them to...
00:42:11
Zachary Jeblonski
to get another land, which is the second land coming in, which gives me the card draw. And I'm, you know, a lot of your normal landfall payoffs. But the one thing I did do is I just kind of avoided almost all token generators in the stack. Cause I just don't want to deal with them.
00:42:26
Zachary Jeblonski
And instead I replaced them with, value pieces from landfall, including, uh, creatures that do burn just like Tanook, like Sabotender, which is one in red.
00:42:36
Zachary Jeblonski
And as the same thing of whenever land you control enters, this creature goes one damage to each opponent. And then I, another creature that I've been looking to to get some plays in is a Geode Rager.
00:42:49
Zachary Jeblonski
and it's four red, red, first strike elemental. And whenever a land enters the battlefield, under your control goad each creature target player controls. So ideally, you know, this guy's on the battlefield, you get some landfall triggers and you literally goad everybody's creatures but your own.
00:43:05
Zachary Jeblonski
And that should hopefully protect you or protect me while I am incrementally burning out my opponents. So that's probably the next one that will make its debut after Choco is complete.
00:43:20
ciderspence
Nice. That's a that's a good find. Geode Rager. I never heard of that one.
00:43:24
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, he's six mana though, which is like the few times I had him in my hand when I was playing Rydia because he's also my Rydia deck. i'm like, oh, six, but I'm going to really try and get him out, you know, with this deck.
00:43:35
Zachary Jeblonski
So.
00:43:35
ciderspence
Yeah, you're in green. You can could manage it. Did you look at any earthbending cards for this deck?
00:43:41
Zachary Jeblonski
A little bit, but yeah, they're just so dang expensive. Earthbending is like, yeah.
00:43:45
ciderspence
Fair enough.
00:43:47
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I mean.
00:43:47
ciderspence
Do you have any play lands from Graveyard stuff in there?
00:43:51
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh yeah, I have like all of them.
00:43:53
ciderspence
Nice.
00:43:53
Zachary Jeblonski
Ice Tail Explorer. I think I have a Conduit. yeah have a Conduit of Worlds. that I have like three or four ways to play Lands from Graveyard.
00:44:04
Zachary Jeblonski
And a creature that I wanted to, I bought when it came out, but i i always thought it was a little awkward to use, but I've seen it work that it's going to go, that's going to go in this deck is a Steward of the Harvest.
00:44:16
Zachary Jeblonski
And it's a three green. And when it enters, you exiles three target land cards from your graveyard. And then creatures you control have all activated abilities of all land cards exiled with this creature. So what you can do, yeah as you exile, like you're evolving wilds out of the graveyard, and then all of your creatures become tap, sacrifice, fetch a land of the battlefield.
00:44:27
ciderspence
Oh, that's awesome.
00:44:35
Zachary Jeblonski
Right. So we're going to try that out. I don't know how good it is. Cause like I said, I don't have that many token generators in this deck. So it's like, you know I'm probably not going to be tapping and sacrificing my geode rager to fetch a land out, but you know but it like it could be a situation where like you know I'm about to get board wiped and I'm going to lose everything anyway, so then I might as well tap bunch of these creatures and get lands out, you know that sort of thing.
00:44:49
ciderspence
That's probably right.
00:44:59
Zachary Jeblonski
so
00:45:00
ciderspence
You seem really concerned about being board wiped, Zach. That's your justification for playing mirror form.
00:45:05
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, that's i mean that's kind of like i that's you know
00:45:07
ciderspence
I guess that's an indictment of me, really. I feel like I'm in a lot of your pods, so maybe that's my fault.
00:45:10
Zachary Jeblonski
No, no, no, no, no. It's actually just, it's just the way I think about most of my decks is I think for the most part, my decks don't crumble to single target removal. Like I'm like, Oh, you removed this one piece. Well, that's fine. I have enough redundancy.
00:45:23
Zachary Jeblonski
But as board wipes are, in my opinion, are really what would usually lose you a game. you know if If it's not a speed thing where like somebody just got so far ahead so fast, it's usually a board wipe that makes you lose the game. Like you over committed, you lose your board. So I'm always like in the back of my head when I'm building decks thinking like, you know what's what's my recoverability look like on a board wipe on this? you know or like Like what are my options if I'm getting board wiped? And I also, i always assume this, even though like it's so rare to see it. I always assume I'm getting farewell, you know, so I'm like, all right, in a farewell, what does this look like kind of thing? But even though you very rarely see farewell, least I very rarely see it.
00:46:00
Zachary Jeblonski
But yeah, no, that is one of my prime concerns of every time I build a deck, you know.
00:46:05
ciderspence
Yeah, I think Farewell is hard. I just, I haven't been able to successfully build a deck with Farewell in mind and have it do anything. Like, Farewell is just backbreaking. If it gets cast, and the player who cast it is in a position to benefit from it, they're probably just going to win.
00:46:22
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:46:22
ciderspence
I think of it almost like a win con. Like, it's, you know, if they just want the hard reset and the game takes forever, that's bad for everyone. But you know If it specifically impacts you or specifically benefits one player, I don't know, that's hard to come back from.
00:46:34
ciderspence
And it's hard to hard for me to think of a holistic way while supporting my game plan to deal with everything being taken away. It's like, yeah, that happens. It's bad, but i don't know.
00:46:44
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, yeah. I mean, outside of Tavarius protection, there's really nothing you can do about Farewell. And the way I think about it more of like, all right, so I'll give you good instance. So my Choco deck has two cards in it that draw me cards based on the number of birds I have or creatures of flying.
00:47:01
Zachary Jeblonski
And I'm really mixed on cards like this. Cause like, once again, I'm thinking to myself like, okay, I have four cards. Let's say i have four cards in hand. I got board wiped. I got farewell. It gets to my turn. I have no birds. And now I've got two of my cards, draw cards based on birds. Right?
00:47:15
Zachary Jeblonski
Like I'm going to feel bad about that. You know? So like, those are the, some of the considerations I make of like, that's why I try to avoid cards that draw based on conditions of other things. Cause I'm like, well, assuming a board wipe, like blah, blah, blah. Right.
00:47:28
Zachary Jeblonski
But, you know, for Choco, I'm going to go out of my way and try them and see see how it goes, you know. But, like, you know, that's just, like, one of the considerations, you know, that I think about, like, when it comes to, you know, board wipes and stuff like that. It's just, like, how how much can I recover from from one of those?
00:47:45
Zachary Jeblonski
I don't know. Maybe I think about it too much because, in reality, like, I don't get board wiped that often, you know, like compared to, like, the way some people talk about their Commander games. But, you know, don't know.
00:47:56
ciderspence
I do see a lot of board wipes. i I think about it some too. Like I definitely, when I have a redundant piece, rather than try to supercharge the effect right now, I will hold it to watch out for a board wipe.
00:48:08
ciderspence
So that if there is a board wipe and I lose the piece that I'm using, at least I have a backup that I can deploy when I do get to recast my commander. yeah, yeah.
00:48:18
ciderspence
i don't know I think a lot of my decks either fall to board wipes or are paced such that I need to get the board state to a certain level and then I can try to go off on my turn. And if I get to do that, you know there are fewer instant speed board wipes to be worried about.
00:48:34
ciderspence
So they don't impact my win condition maybe as much as as some other decks.
00:48:41
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, and I mean, I have some decks where it's very much a deck goes burr kind of thing. And I intentionally don't run a lot board wipe protection in it because I'm like, the deck is such a value engine. It's constantly chugging that like one board wipe is not enough. Like, because I'm just going to, we're going to just keep on going, you know, like a Moody, which is, you know, my my, you know, my most, you know, blinged out number one deck is very much that of like,
00:49:08
Zachary Jeblonski
there's very little ways for me to stop a board wipe or whatever, but it's just such a value engine that I'm like, okay, cool. You wiped my board of six creatures. well I'll just replay my commander, which ramps me, which means I'll play this, which is a little but you know, i'd like to every turn I'm just redeploying, redeploying, and redeploying.
00:49:24
Zachary Jeblonski
So that very much is a deck of like, I'm not trying to protect from your board wipes. I'm just going to run you out of your board wipes. You're going to have fired them off so many times that like you're just going to be out of answers, you know, kind of thing.
00:49:34
Zachary Jeblonski
So there's different ways to approach that. But for the vast vast majority of my decks, it's very much like I assume that I'm going to get board wiped and I assumed I did not have a protection spell, like a heroic intervention. And like what happens then? Does the deck still function?
00:49:49
Zachary Jeblonski
And that's what I try to make sure happens.
00:49:53
ciderspence
Yeah, it makes sense.
00:49:55
Zachary Jeblonski
but yeah, uh, let's see. otherwise decks on deck, I will likely build the new Quintorrius just because kind of want a planeswalker commander.
00:50:08
Zachary Jeblonski
but instead of buying the pre-con, I'm just, I've kind of built it straight up was with the cards I have. that seems kind of neat. So probably going to do that. probably that'll be Choco and Tanook. have any other decks on deck you want to talk about?
00:50:22
ciderspence
no No, I need to start looking at the Marvel previews to get ready for what's coming in June.
00:50:25
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh yeah.
00:50:29
Zachary Jeblonski
I haven't done that too much. I think i think we might've talked about it on a previous episode, but I think when they early spoiled Dr. Doom, I might consider that just because like my current Grixis that is okay.
00:50:43
Zachary Jeblonski
But i and now of course I'm having trouble pulling it up just to remind the viewers here, our listeners, let's see. Oh yeah, this was like a straight up spoil. Like it wasn't like intended to be revealed.
00:50:55
Zachary Jeblonski
But the one that got spoiled that I'm thinking about is Dr. Doom, King of Latveria. One blue, black, red. And whenever you discard one or more land cards, each opponent loses two life. And then at the beginning of your combat on your turn, target villain you control against menace until end of turn, it connives. So...
00:51:13
Zachary Jeblonski
Kind of neat. You don't really see like a discard land cards in Grixis, you know, so that's something I'm i'm kind of paying attention to. has there any been has Has there been any Marvel Heroes cards that you've kind of seen get spoiled or anything like that that you're interested in?
00:51:28
ciderspence
No, I have not been focused on it at all, probably the last since we last potted about it. So I need to kind of survey the landscape.
00:51:39
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I think the, the two official spoils I think were from magic on recently was the, uh, vision, uh, Synthozoid Avenger and lucky the pizza dog. uh, you know, I don't think there's too much said to comment on just yet about it. but yeah, i I am, I am being, I'm tepidly excited because that's all, you know, it's a new magic set, new cards. I'm not the biggest Marvel guy, but I know you are, right?
00:52:06
ciderspence
I am in fact the biggest Marvel guy, yes.
00:52:08
Zachary Jeblonski
that's it You are the biggest, literally the largest. yes. I mean, I'm excited for you and I hopefully, you know hopefully the slap, the set really, uh, slaps. I, I saw a little bit of the previews for reality fracture and that set is probably my most hyped set of the year. I think that is a really interesting, fun concept of, you know, these different magic planes walkers and cards.
00:52:35
Zachary Jeblonski
And they're really gonna futzing with the color ply. Like I saw they revealed a blue Chandra, which I think is really neat.
00:52:44
ciderspence
Yeah, i feel like that's going to be really exciting for longtime players to get to see their you know their roots get turned upside down.
00:52:54
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I do wonder if they'll take it too far and they'll break the color ply little too much. yeah I always wonder if like out of a set like that, are you going to get a really broken card that becomes a staple because it it's a card in a color that does something that that color normally can do. And then now it's like, everybody's got to have that. So like, I'm thinking of like chaos warp or beast within, which are like these cards that are in colors and it's the only card that allows them to do that thing, you know, kind of thing.
00:53:23
Zachary Jeblonski
So I think they, hopefully they they were careful about like, you know, they didn't give like a mono white planeswalker or a mono white card, you know, extra combat or whatever, you know, so we'll see. Yeah.
00:53:38
ciderspence
I don't know. I certainly don't have a problem with Beast Within. do you have a problem with Chaos Warp? I kind of love that card. like I guess if you're really bothered by the fact that Red can target anything because it's core to Red's ability, to Red's kind kind of identity, to not be able to target anything.
00:53:57
ciderspence
But it feels like it has a pretty big downside. like There are certainly many instances where I'm not sure whether I want a Chaos Warp in a deck. Yeah. or whether I would more likely use it on myself to, you know, chaos warp a token and try to get something better.
00:54:05
Zachary Jeblonski
They can't.
00:54:11
Zachary Jeblonski
I mean, ca Chaos Warp is, it's it's fine-ish. Yeah, I think the issue, issue Chaos Warp is more fine than Beast Within, for sure. Beast Within, I think, is a problem, like where,
00:54:23
Zachary Jeblonski
I am a fan of the color pie in general. Like, like I do think that like the color should be limited and they should be, they should find answers within those colors. I think chaos warp is more closer to red than beast within is closer to green because at least chaos warp like red, you know, red stick is removal through damage or removal with potential downside for the person who cast it. Right. Like,
00:54:50
Zachary Jeblonski
Chaos warp is just like, I might cast warp you into something worse for me. Right. Which which is like, which is fine. Like I'm, I'm down with that as a red philosophy. even though it's still like the fact that can hit anything is still a little like, uh, you know, but like a beast within to me is a much bigger problem where I'm just like, no, green should not be able to take out creatures. Like beast within should be destroyed target non-land or destroy target non-creature permanent. Like that's what it should be.
00:55:16
ciderspence
I feel like Beast Within just hasn't aged well because a 3-3 that your opponent gets back doesn't bother you as much. I could imagine you know years and years ago, giving your opponent a 3-3 was something you weren't sure you wanted to do.
00:55:29
ciderspence
And I guess I could envision a future Beast Within that's like destroy target permanent. Your opponent creates an XX elemental where X is the number of lands they control or something like that.
00:55:42
ciderspence
Where it feels like now you're talking.
00:55:42
Zachary Jeblonski
Thank you.
00:55:44
ciderspence
Now it's like it still removes everything. But are you sure you want your opponent to get an arbitrarily large creature? Maybe that grows. Like that seems to be, I'm guessing that that's closer to what Beast Within was envisioned as with that 3-3.
00:55:57
ciderspence
Being, you know, something that you, that could actually do something in a game. Whereas now it's irrelevant.
00:56:03
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. I mean, I suppose, but it's like, yeah, so that, that's kind of what I mean by, you know, the color pie stuff, which is, you know, you know, my criticisms of green and casual is is that, is that thing of, you know, it's a common refrain in magic circles that green can do anything like it because it literally can. I mean,
00:56:22
Zachary Jeblonski
you know, my, a friend of mine pointed out I was like, well, green can't interact on the stack. And I was like, for the most part, that's true. But even there, you have a card that's in my Witherbloom deck that has literally won me a game and with Witherbloom, which is Veil of Summer.
00:56:38
Zachary Jeblonski
And the veil summer is a one green instant. So I'm on a green instant. And you draw a card if an opponent has cast a blue or black spell, his turn spells you control can't be countered. You and permits, you, you and permits, you control gain hex proof from blue and black till the turn. So this is basically interacting with a stack, right? Like you cast a counter spell, I cast veil of summer, my spells can't be countered, done. Like, so like green literally does everything, you know? So like, that's kind of my problem is like, you know, I don't think green should be able to destroy creatures at whim.
00:57:08
Zachary Jeblonski
And I think more or less, they can't, they shouldn't be able to interact with the stack. And in return, green gets, you know, the best ramp in the game, the best creature or the most like scary damaging creatures in the game, you know, that sort of thing. So like, you know, I do want, I do like colors kind of staying in their zone a little bit. Now this is old man yelling clouds right now, because guess what? Like every color has breaks now and every color is like off the chain, off the rails. Like black's got enchantment removal now.
00:57:37
Zachary Jeblonski
You know, like every color has gone crazy. So like at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter. But this is just old men, you know, on cloud kind of thing.
00:57:46
ciderspence
Yeah, I don't know. I feel like the colors have maintained their distinctness, certainly over the time that I've been playing. But it doesn't seem like they're especially samey to me. And I don't mind that each color gets a little bit of the abilities of the other colors. Like, I think as the game has progressed,
00:58:07
ciderspence
the ability to interact in the on the stack just matters. And so the fact that you could do that, even if poorly, that's, I think maybe that's what I like about red is that red has, for the most part, ramp excluded.
00:58:20
ciderspence
i mean, you can play manoroks and stuff, but like red has the ability to do stuff that, that is staplily, right?
00:58:24
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:58:27
ciderspence
Like you can draw cards in red. but you know, there's a, there's an obvious downside to it. It's either impulse draw or it's a lot of draw discard. But you can do it. Those cards are out there. So it's more a question of like how do I build around the way that Red has to do this stuff?
00:58:42
ciderspence
And what does that make the decks look like? And I feel like that's a fun space to explore versus if it didn't have the ability to draw card that's like, could I play it? like I don't know. like Then it just seems like it would be frustrating to try to run out in a pod of four people who are going to be out-tempoing me and out-valuing me at every turn. so Yeah, I like building in the abilities with the challenges, which I i feel like is what what it seems like to me.
00:59:01
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I think you...
00:59:07
Zachary Jeblonski
No, no, I think i like I like that because like, no, that's an example of the color apply working as intended, which is like, we're okay. we you know We should not give red straight card draw, but how do we get, how do we keep red in the game with these other colors that do have straight card draw or whatever?
00:59:23
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay, well, like, well, red should have card draw with disadvantages, right? So like, well, let's do, okay, then we do the draw discard. And I think the the impulse draw is really cool because in the last couple of years, they've really pumped up impulse draw red.
00:59:37
Zachary Jeblonski
And I think that's like a great solution to red's card draw problem. It's just like, we're not going to, we don't want to let red easily fill their hand, but we can do this other thing where like, Hey, if you don't use your cards, you're to lose them like at the end of your turn, which is a very red thing. Like, I think that's an example of the color pie being good and working to, you know, for these. And I guess the last comment I want to make is like, I understand the appeal, like for instance, black recently got withering torment, which is the second card it got to handle enchantments.
01:00:11
Zachary Jeblonski
And my issue with allowing, if
01:00:12
ciderspence
There's one from Turtles too, so they have at least three now, I think.
01:00:15
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. So my issue with like allowing these like little bits of color pipe breaks here and there is that those cards often become staples and therefore, you know, decks become more and more samey, right? Like what percentage of green decks has Beast Within right now? Cause it's like, well, I'm in green. I got to have the one card where I can, take care of anything. Right.
01:00:36
Zachary Jeblonski
And I, I do think less staples is good. Like more cards that synergize with your color or synergize your commander or synergize with your strategy is better. Cause that, that just creates more variety, you know, kind of thing.
01:00:49
ciderspence
Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah, I'll just mention Shredder's Technique, two and a black, or Sneak for one black. Destroy target creature or enchantment. If an enchantment was destroyed this way, you lose two life.
01:00:56
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh,
01:00:58
Zachary Jeblonski
I totally didn't know that card existed. Well, there you go. But yeah, we're we're over time. Anything else you want to talk about before we kind of wrap it up?
01:01:06
ciderspence
No, I'm good there.
01:01:08
Zachary Jeblonski
Cool. Well, great episode. Thanks for joining me, Charles.
01:01:11
ciderspence
Thanks for having me, Zach.
01:01:13
Zachary Jeblonski
All right. Until next time.
01:01:16
ciderspence
Take it easy, everybody.