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Ep. 18 - Boy!
39 Plays8 months ago
We're in the run up to Avatar and Charles and Zack are here to comment on it!
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Transcript
Introduction and Setting the Stage
00:00:12
Zachary Jeblonski
hello Hello, Welcome back to another episode of Midlife's Crisis. I'm Zach and I'm joined again once again by Charles. are you doing today?
00:00:19
ciderspence
Good. How you doing, Zach?
00:00:21
Zachary Jeblonski
I'm doing pretty good.
Exploring Riftbound: A New Card Game
00:00:22
Zachary Jeblonski
and do you have any do you have any space in your life? All right, let me rephrase that. do you have any time in your life to consider another card game?
00:00:31
ciderspence
I do not.
00:00:33
Zachary Jeblonski
Well, great segue, because I was thinking about like trying to talk you and the boys into trying Riftbound, which is the the new card game by the League Legends guys. Now, didn't play League Legends, but I've seen some things about this card game that are intriguing. So maybe if I can sucker you guys into it at some point. I have enough for everyone to play. It's a that's designed with four players in mind. Have you seen anything about this yet? and
00:01:03
ciderspence
I think I've seen some creators on channels, magic channels that I like experimenting with Riffbound and I think maybe one or more of them are ambassadors for it because it seemed like they were doing actual promotion for it.
00:01:16
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:01:16
ciderspence
So I'm aware of it. Yeah, I mean, I'd probably give it a try, but I feel like because of the way my personality works, the things that I like, I kind of go all in on and
00:01:29
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I have a similar issue.
00:01:31
ciderspence
And because of you know where I'm at in terms of life cycle and responsibility load, I don't have and don't have another hobby's worth of time or energy to invest in something. So who knows? Maybe i will love it and i will want to do that instead of magic. But I think it's you know those two are competing
Riftbound's Unique Game Design
00:01:53
ciderspence
pretty much. That and you know and anything else that's just a hobby are competing pretty strongly for that time.
00:02:01
Zachary Jeblonski
No, for sure. And that's like kind of always been, you know, my challenge because throughout the years of playing magic, I've always had people like come up to me and I'll be like, Hey, do you want to learn this? or you want to try this? I'm like, I got, I got time for one of these. and that, that has not changed, but there was just enough about riff bound where was like, okay, i want to at least try it.
00:02:21
Zachary Jeblonski
so I bought like, you know, all the starter stuff, like basically their equivalent of pre-cons, uh, they're like $20 each, you know? So I do want to give a shot just because the one thing that has intrigued me about it without getting too deep into the rules and all that is that they the game was designed with both one V one and four players in mind, which I think is like the first of the other trading card games to do that.
00:02:47
Zachary Jeblonski
You know, Commander is, of course, an amazing game. But like there's there's obviously situations where you're like, oh, it's clear that Commander is a stapled on thing to a to a.
00:03:00
Zachary Jeblonski
rule system that wasn't designed for that. So I'm curious to see what somebody can do when, uh, the intention to design for a commander like experience is already there. but standby, I won't, I won't, uh, hoist it on you guys until I'm very familiar with how it works.
00:03:16
Zachary Jeblonski
but yeah, i just, uh, you know, just, uh, just, just, just taking the temperature of the water.
00:03:22
ciderspence
Noted.
00:03:24
Zachary Jeblonski
You're like noted.
Strategies and Experiences in Card Games
00:03:27
Zachary Jeblonski
All right. You want to get into the games of the week that we played?
00:03:31
ciderspence
Sure.
00:03:32
Zachary Jeblonski
right. So my games of the week are the same games that you've seen. i didn't get a chance to get anywhere else besides the store on Friday. Did you get any other games besides the the games on Friday?
00:03:44
ciderspence
Yeah, I got in a few other games last night, so I'll talk about those a bit at the end.
00:03:49
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. Yeah. So we we went to a store on Friday friday night. I think it was Friday night. Interesting experience there. You know, there was a gentleman at the table that was also traveling. So he was not familiar. He was not used to the store. And I think the fourth player was.
00:04:05
Zachary Jeblonski
But yeah, so I did the the the first game, I believe, was kind of like my reintroduction of my coin flip deck.
00:04:15
Zachary Jeblonski
And ki or can you remember or recall what you were playing on that one?
00:04:21
ciderspence
I can. I was playing Chun-Li.
00:04:23
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, Chun-Li. Chun-Li. She's going to become our mascot of this podcast. We're going have get new art commission. going to Chun-Li. And Zethi and Chun-Li standing back-to-back or something.
00:04:34
ciderspence
I don't think so.
00:04:36
Zachary Jeblonski
She's just... She's a commander I love to talk about. That's all.
00:04:41
ciderspence
She is a fun commander to talk about. I would venture to say much more fun to talk about than to play.
00:04:47
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, that's what makes her so fun to talk about.
00:04:48
ciderspence
no
00:04:49
Zachary Jeblonski
I was
00:04:49
ciderspence
Yeah, but that's she's she's no Bruna. Bruna and Badric have a special place in my heart because they are fun and can win.
00:05:01
ciderspence
So I would not...
00:05:01
Zachary Jeblonski
i was waiting for you to say fun and functional as opposed to.
00:05:04
ciderspence
Yeah, thought well, yes, that would have been better, yeah. But yeah. I feel like I'm going to be playing the Chun-Li deck until I win with it, and then I might retire it.
00:05:10
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Okay.
00:05:15
Zachary Jeblonski
okay
00:05:16
ciderspence
But yeah, I mean, it it is good for content.
00:05:21
Zachary Jeblonski
It's good for content. my favorite of backhanded compliments to magic cards. You know, the art looks good. Yeah, so that that game was it was, it was interesting because to the to the to to right of me, that the fourth player is playing Brutaclad. Same colors as it as my coin flip deck, which is based on Breaches from Outlaws Thunder Junction.
00:05:44
Zachary Jeblonski
Which just to paraphrase is when I cast my second spell each turn, I flip a coin. Uh, well, when I cast my second spell each turn, I sacrifice an art. If I sacrifice an artifact, I flip a coin. And if I win the flip, I copy that spell. And if I lose the flip,
00:05:58
Zachary Jeblonski
I get to direct, that spells CMC, in damage to any target. Right. and the gentlemen to the right of me was playing Brutaclad and I kind of, I'm going to segue into my card the week because for the first time ever, my card the week is not my card.
00:06:14
Zachary Jeblonski
It was my opponent's card. And it was theoretical duplication. And this is a card that I bought several copies of. I know I own this card. I have thought about putting it into decks so many times and then not put it into decks because it's really hard to get over the the possibility that your opponents aren't doing much. And then this card is like a dead card in your hand. But...
00:06:36
Zachary Jeblonski
Essentially what it is, it's a it's a three mana spell, two and a blue instant. And whenever a non-token creature enters the battlefield under an opponent's control, you create a token that's a copy of that creature. And it's as you can imagine, the possibilities are endless and the floor is low. like So if nobody's really doing anything or the creatures that people are playing synergize only with their own decks, this card really is rough.
00:06:59
Zachary Jeblonski
But it worked really well against me because happened to play Summon Bahamut, which is a nine drop, and he got to make copies of it. And then because of Brutaclad, he got to make more copies of it.
00:07:11
Zachary Jeblonski
And it very quickly became the pivot point of the the game. So how do you feel about theoretical duplication? You think you think you think might run that card?
00:07:22
ciderspence
I don't think so, but it seemed to me like the the perfect match of a card that might be worth running most of the time and a scenario where it's definitely a card to run.
00:07:32
Zachary Jeblonski
Right. brian
00:07:32
ciderspence
I don't think if the upside of making everything a you your opponent's best creature was there, I think absent that it's marginal.
00:07:42
ciderspence
But with that as a possibility, or if you're a deck that populates every turn or something, then, you know, Again, the floor is pretty low because you don't know what your opponents are going to run, but assuming that one of them runs something worth cloning, knowing that you're going to get a lot of them makes this card a lot more valuable.
00:08:03
ciderspence
And might
Deck Dilemmas and Game Meta
00:08:03
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, yeah. yeah
00:08:04
ciderspence
just take it over the edge of maybe playable to definitely include.
00:08:09
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, and this this kind of operates in the same space that like Bolt Bend or Redirect effects do, which are usually your red spells that, you know, copy target spell. You can choose new talks targets with a copy, you know, it's effects like that.
00:08:24
Zachary Jeblonski
I'm trying to run them a little bit more in my red decks because I'm trying to, you know, allow myself to like breathe a little bit on my card selection in terms of like, well, what if my opponent doesn't do anything? The card doesn't do anything.
00:08:36
Zachary Jeblonski
And it's like I'm trying to like, go beyond that a little bit just because, you know, the essence of commander is fun and those unpredictable moments are big part of it. I mean, it's, it's the moment for the most part that I remember most from the game.
00:08:48
Zachary Jeblonski
but I guess to your, to your point, yeah, I mean, it's, it is, I can just see it now. I can see this thing sitting in my hand and then playing against three decks that, oh, I'm a, I'm, I'm a worm deck.
00:09:00
Zachary Jeblonski
And my worms are pretty terrible on their own, but they work well together. And then the other guy's like, I'm a spell slinger. And then, you know, and then suddenly, oh there's there's just not going to be a good target for this or a good time to use it.
00:09:10
ciderspence
Yeah, I think i think Bolt Bend is another good example. so and Did you mean one of the copier spells, the copier opponent's spell?
00:09:18
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I'm sorry. I should, but yeah, bullpen's probably not a good example.
00:09:18
ciderspence
Yeah,
00:09:21
Zachary Jeblonski
I mean, like, return the favor, like, it basically spells that copy your opponent's spells on the stack.
00:09:27
ciderspence
yeah but I actually think Bolt Bend is another good card that falls into this category where...
00:09:28
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:09:31
ciderspence
So Bolt Bend is three and a red. This spell costs three less to cast if you control a creature with power four greater. change the target of target spell or ability with a single target.
00:09:41
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah
00:09:42
ciderspence
And that's another thing that, I mean, I guess you'd like to be able to do that. It's not obvious that in most decks you need that. It really only acts as protection, and it's either expensive or Maybe not expensive depending on whether you have a creature that's four greater. But if you're in red and you don't have a lot of other options and you run an expensive commander that you really don't want to run out if it's just going to get removed, then this this is close to an auto include, right? Because it's one red, maybe protect your thing, get a chance to untap with it when you might not have survived or turned around the table.
00:10:21
ciderspence
So like there are definitely scenarios where it's high value, but it's not it doesn't seem like an auto-include just for having red in your deck.
00:10:29
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. And there there are people who view it as an auto include, but I, and so i give a good parallel to this is hydroelectric specimen.
00:10:40
Zachary Jeblonski
It's two blue and it's it's an MDFC. It's a flash creature on the front that when it comes in, you redirect, you know, a spell that's on the stack to it, you know, so it's kind of like similar to like a bull bend in a way.
00:10:54
Zachary Jeblonski
And i have that in most of my blue decks. And I can't remember single time in the last but year, year and a half, where I was able to redirect something to protect my my creatures.
00:11:05
Zachary Jeblonski
And it's just because i think in, and this is kind kind of like a greater conversation, but I think within the the metas that we run, including like the kitchen table meta, the meta at the stores that we go to, there just isn't that much single target interaction going on, at least in my experience.
00:11:20
Zachary Jeblonski
And, you know, it's just kind of right up there with theoretical duplication, where if you're at a table with low interaction, it's just, it's kind of like like a dead card. I think where, and I'm going to crib this a little bit from, from MTG goldfish. I think where you have modality in the card and it it can be used for other things like a return the favor, then it's, it's a lot more valuable to me. It's, it's more expensive. It's three man instead of one.
00:11:50
Zachary Jeblonski
but at least you have the option of copying your own spells or copying a spell. That's not a targeted ability, you know, that sort of thing. So, But yeah, so that that's my that's my spiel on the game.
00:12:02
Zachary Jeblonski
How are your feelings on the Chun-Li game?
00:12:06
ciderspence
I thought it was okay. Like I said, I think, you know, I still have strong visceral reactions to all the Chun-Li games, probably up to and until I win a game with her, and then maybe it will be less stressful. But I've played, i don't know, like probably five to ten games with her at this point without winning. and I think I would like to win, and i I probably care more about getting a win with that deck than I care about getting a win with most decks. So win it.
00:12:38
ciderspence
doesn't go great. I probably take it harder than I take it most of the time, especially given that, you know, in the average commander game, you expect to be about 25% to win.
00:12:47
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:12:48
ciderspence
i think typically I have a pretty positive attitude about that, but I feel like I i enjoyed this game less because it was stressful and it didn't didn't turn out the way I hoped. So yeah, I mean, it wasn't my favorite game of magic, but I think there were, you know, there were a lot of factors in that.
00:13:05
Zachary Jeblonski
Well, here's what we'll do. Here's what we do. we each play every We try to get everybody to play a deck they've never won with. So I'll play Bumbleflower. You play Chun-Li. And I'm sure our other friends have decks they haven't won with yet. and And then by mathematical certainty, somebody has to win.
00:13:22
Zachary Jeblonski
And then we can start to check these boxes.
00:13:26
ciderspence
Nah, because then it feels worse, right? I feel like if you, if you enter a pod where it's like, Hey, everybody play your weakest deck or everybody play the deck that you haven't won with, you lose that game.
00:13:38
ciderspence
If it's already stressful, it's just going to feel that much worse. Like, I think, I don't know. I like, I will keep playing it. One of these days I'll get a win with it and then I'll, I'll let the whole thing go.
00:13:51
ciderspence
But, but yeah, I don't, I don't,
00:13:51
Zachary Jeblonski
okay
00:13:54
ciderspence
I don't know. I don't want to try to manufacture scenarios to give her an advantage. I'd rather she just win one of these days and then I get the you know i get the monkey off my back about it.
00:14:07
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, you can you can close the book, so to speak.
00:14:08
ciderspence
It'll happen.
00:14:11
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay, I can respect that. Yeah, and I think then the next game was... I know I was playing Oscar, which is my blue-black deck.
00:14:21
Zachary Jeblonski
I'm trying to remember. Oh, that was the... Not the Angels deck. It was... man I'm really blanking now on what the other... Oh, it was...
00:14:34
Zachary Jeblonski
He was playing Red-Green, the fourth opponent. Oh, and Sithis. And then do you remember what you were playing for the second game?
00:14:41
ciderspence
Yeah, I played Shriek Troublemaker for the second game, which is a removal-heavy deck that did okay, didn't get going all that much, but...
00:14:43
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, right, right, right, right. Okay, yeah.
00:14:56
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, that was the story of my game, now too. Yeah, I think yeah that that game was just it was a choice between evils. you know One of our opponents was the Sithis player, and he got off to a very intense start, which is kind of, in my opinion, normal for Sithis.
00:15:13
Zachary Jeblonski
And he was about to take out the fourth opponent, and I kind of made a calculated judgment to keep the fourth guy alive. because the Sithist player had lifelink on board and he was probably, he was going over like 120 life if he had connected with, with our opponent. So in in response, I authorized it and that pretty much wiped him out the Sithist player because all the or, or went to the graveyard, the system went back to his hand, the whole thing.
00:15:40
ciderspence
Yeah, he was running Sithis Voltron, which i I've seen Sithis a number of times.
00:15:42
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah.
00:15:44
ciderspence
I don't think I've ever seen her play that way. And, you know, as a dedicated Voltron enjoyer, I was curious to see how it turned out. And it did seem to suffer the pitfalls that a lot of Voltron decks do.
00:15:56
ciderspence
And for a Voltron deck, it seemed to be less prepared for... the Voltron footfalls than I would have expected.
00:16:10
ciderspence
Like it didn't have auras and pumps that created other creatures for blockers. It seemed to be the case that he attacked with Sithis a lot and had no other blockers and was just hoping to win with Sithis fast enough that that didn't matter.
00:16:28
ciderspence
So I think it was just kind of deck construction choice that was interesting that you know did put him in a very strong position at some point but left him very vulnerable once uh sythus was uh dealt with and she got removed or she got interacted with at least three times because i i blew her up early on like turn two or three or something
00:16:45
Zachary Jeblonski
A couple times, yeah. Yeah.
00:16:53
ciderspence
And then you athorized her, and I think she maybe was interacted with one more time. So I think maybe each player at the table dealt with her once. I mean, it almost still wasn't enough, so maybe I'm talking myself out of whether it was a curious build, but yeah.
00:17:08
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. that so So this is like a... So this was like my first experience when I was first getting into Commander and I was kind of doing it by myself. I wasn't just playing with friends. I was going out to stores and stuff years ago.
00:17:22
Zachary Jeblonski
I think Sithis was the first, was the commander that taught me to be careful about what commanders you play in terms of monopolizing the pods time. I remember playing against the Sithis and this, this gentleman did not take the Voltron approach. He took like a much more like kind of like a traditional approach, you know with like, uh, you know, making angel tokens all this stuff.
00:17:43
Zachary Jeblonski
But because of the very nature of synthesis of like playing enchantment, draw a card, yada yada, yada, I think his turn was like taking like 10 minutes. And I was like, oh, oh, okay. This is a good note for me to remember that I should be conscious of the commanders I play and the decks I play and how long my turns take. Cause this is miserable.
00:18:02
Zachary Jeblonski
She, she is, very, very powerful. But yeah, i think that was, and we you know, we ended up losing at the same time when the Gruul player just kind of had an overwhelming board presence after he dealt with the Sithist player after I dealt with him.
00:18:16
Zachary Jeblonski
And then we kind of, over you know, never stuck dealing with the Gruul player. Unfortunately, i was hoping to buy use that time that I had by board wiping the Gruul player, but i just didn't draw it. I didn't find it.
00:18:30
Zachary Jeblonski
But yeah, I don't know. that that Yeah, go ahead. and
00:18:33
ciderspence
Yeah, i was going to that was my plan too. And that deck runs a lot of board wipes. And I also didn't get to one. So I think that was just wasn't meant to be.
00:18:42
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, it just wasn't meant to be. Yeah, I just, yeah, i don't know. that That was Oscar's like fourth or fifth game now. And i don't i don't know if he's going to survive. He's like, I have won with him once.
00:18:55
Zachary Jeblonski
But it was like one of the situations where like, I don't know, like, I think we talked about it last week, which is like, it won not by what the deck was trying to do, but just because of a random card I had in the deck that happened to be very crucial. Yeah.
00:19:07
Zachary Jeblonski
that wasn't specific to what his game plan was. So I'm going to probably try it once or twice more, but if like, I'm just not feeling it, that might be it for him, but we'll see. But yeah, that was a, that was our, Oh, that was our games of the week. How about your games? Like I know you have additional ones.
00:19:24
ciderspence
yeah I got a few more games in last night. I think this week I was really focused on leaning into my only Universes Beyond decks do I play, but with a couple of exceptions.
00:19:35
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:19:39
ciderspence
So i played I played one of my Silk decks. I played the... probably the stronger one that was responsible for a win I got where I never actually cast Silk, so I didn't feel great about it. But in this circumstance, I was like, well, let me just put together the more thoughtful, maybe more consistent version of the deck just so that I don't wind up having a non-game as I play the more flavorful version. And that game was pretty good. I didn't win, but I got to use my card of the week this week, which was Eldrazi Displacer, two and a white for a devoid Eldrazi creature, two and a colorless exile another target creature, then return it to the battlefield tapped under its owner's control.
00:20:25
ciderspence
I was able to blink Clifftop Lookout a bunch of times, and Clifftop Lookout is just one of those.
00:20:29
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, nice.
00:20:32
ciderspence
so It's a creature that when it enters, basically open the way for x equals 1. You just reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a land in card. That land enters the battlefield tapped.
00:20:44
ciderspence
So I was able to just ramp a lot with that card. I probably blinked it four or five times. And that was fun.
00:20:55
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah i Yeah, that sounds like a great time. I love when you can blink shenanigans with a ramp creature, especially Clifftop, you don't have to search. I love it.
00:21:03
ciderspence
Yeah, it was a good time. And it's a card that i I learned about very early in my Magic days. And I found some decks to put it in, and then I forgot about it. And then I rediscovered it about a month ago. was like, oh, this seems like a card that might be good in some decks.
00:21:18
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, Eldazi's Displacer is disgusting because it also can hit your opponent's stuff. So I long a while ago, I held an opponent hostage with one of those where basically every time you try to equip something to his companion or something like that, you just blink them.
00:21:36
Zachary Jeblonski
and Yeah. So I'll draw the displacer is really good. Like it's like, you know, somebody tries to attack you, and you blink it out of combat. Like it's it's an exceptional creature.
00:21:45
ciderspence
I'm also realizing now it's good against theft because it exiled another target creature then returned to the battlefield tapped under its owner's control.
00:21:48
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep.
00:21:52
ciderspence
So that's pretty nice. Somebody steals your thing or somebody cheats in your thing, you can just take it back.
00:21:56
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, it's it's shockingly good.
00:22:01
ciderspence
One of the, I mean, I guess this is the case with many abilities of Eldrazi, but you do need a colorless mana. It's a colorless pip for the activation cost.
00:22:07
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:22:10
ciderspence
So it, in some circumstances could require some building around. Like if you're a mono white, you need to have at least an enough color less producing sources to be able to use it.
00:22:21
ciderspence
And that deck actually runs a couple of wastes for that purpose. And then you know a couple of utility lands. But yeah.
00:22:29
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. I like it and nice. And was there another game besides after that one?
00:22:37
ciderspence
Yeah, I played another couple of games. The most interesting other one was I did get to play that Eshgi Dragon Claw deck that I built around the signed Artist Proof.
00:22:48
Zachary Jeblonski
Hmm, nice.
00:22:54
ciderspence
And that one went great. I came down to a and it was... and it was me with a huge asmo me with a big Eshki versus an impossibly big board.
00:23:07
ciderspence
But I had the Rogue's Passage out, and I had Kami Whispered Hopes out, which gives you an additional counter when you add a counter to something. And so Eshki was at 12 going into the turn, and so it was, can i get to... I think she's a 4-4, so can I get to 17 counters but and still afford Rogue's Passage to hit my opponent?
00:23:28
ciderspence
I think I got up to...
00:23:32
ciderspence
So, you know, I dealt my 19, which otherwise would have been good, but I, I dive on the crack back.
00:23:32
Zachary Jeblonski
Nice.
00:23:38
ciderspence
Uh, but I felt like i had a good shot. I got to play expand the sphere, which is a ramp card I like. Uh, it's three and a green. look at the top six cards of your library. I think, you can put up to two lands from among them on the battlefield tap.
00:23:54
ciderspence
Uh, For any number, if you don't put two lands on the battlefield, you proliferate up to the difference.
00:24:01
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep.
00:24:05
ciderspence
So yeah, it was nice. Looked at the top six, put them all on the bottom, proliferated twice, put four counters on her, made it close. Yeah, it was good.
00:24:15
Zachary Jeblonski
Nice. Yeah, I like i like i like that ramp card. I've used it in certain decks that it really cared about proliferation. I think it's i like choices in my ramp, and that's that's a really good one.
00:24:27
Zachary Jeblonski
And yeah, I haven't played my Ash King in a little while, but that is that's a solid commander.
Thematic Deck Building: Kratos, Atreus, and Avatar
00:24:33
Zachary Jeblonski
And not that hard to achieve the trigger, really, which I think we talked about one the episodes. But it's the trigger at first appears to be daunting in terms of like, oh I got to do my whole deck around this.
00:24:44
Zachary Jeblonski
As long as you have a reasonably balanced deck, you'll be fine. It'll be fine.
00:24:49
ciderspence
Yeah, I agree. agree
00:24:50
Zachary Jeblonski
All right, cool. So we want to move on to what we're working on.
00:24:54
ciderspence
sure
00:24:55
Zachary Jeblonski
All right, so i so i got the PlayStation Secret Lair, which was not the one that everybody wanted, which is fine. So I was able to like buy it like six hours after the Secret Lair started.
00:25:07
Zachary Jeblonski
i was like, oh yeah, I got home one day. I was like, oh yeah, that's on sale. I should probably do that. And I was like, it's probably all sold out, but I'll check. They were available. But I do have... I am building the Kratos and Atreus deck, which is a Jeskai gods matters deck. And the reason is, is and this is probably one of the first times I've ever done this with Universes Beyond, which is that I actually care about the characters.
00:25:33
Zachary Jeblonski
So like that's a big part of why I'm doing it. Usually that's not one of my motivating factors when I make a deck. but I really enjoyed the games and i really enjoyed the storyline and the character development between the two of them.
00:25:44
Zachary Jeblonski
But just to get into it, so they're partner commanders and Kratos' stoic fathers, two red, white. And whenever you attack with one or more gods or whenever a god dies or end whenever a god dies, you get an experience counter.
00:25:58
Zachary Jeblonski
And at the beginning of your end step, put a number of 1-1 counters on target creature equal to the number of experience counters you have. And then I'm partnering it with Atreus Impulsive Sun, which is one blue red.
00:26:09
Zachary Jeblonski
And it's a two, four of reach and it has an activated ability of pay three and and tap to draw a card for each experience counter you have, discard a card, and then deal two damage to each opponent. So it's real, you know, somewhat simple, straightforward. it's It's mostly play gods, attack with gods, get experience counters.
00:26:27
Zachary Jeblonski
and then some proliferation within it. But it really is just me jamming every God that's in those colors into the deck. For the most part, there are some gods that are just really bad in this context that that are not part of it.
00:26:41
Zachary Jeblonski
And, you know, in playtesting, it'll be fine. I don't think it's going to be an explosive deck or, like, you know, it's going to be crazy, but I just wanted to have them with the characters. Yeah.
00:26:50
ciderspence
Nice.
00:26:51
Zachary Jeblonski
that, and, uh, what's cool uh, one of the chief cards in there is, uh, Iroh is God of victory, which is a God has been around for a while. i can't remember what the original set is. but one of the reprints that's in the secret layer is Freya from the, from the game series. And Freya was probably my favorite character from the game series. So it's nice to have her as part of the deck too.
00:27:10
Zachary Jeblonski
So that is what I've got working on.
00:27:13
ciderspence
Nice. Yeah, it's always good when you can put characters that you like in the decks.
00:27:18
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Did you ever play any of the God of War series?
00:27:21
ciderspence
I did not. Nope. no
00:27:23
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. Yeah. they the They did a reboot. This is like part of the reboot. And it's one of the hardest reboots you've ever seen because the first series is is unabashedly teenage boy game, hyper violent for no reason, bubble bla blah, blah, blah.
00:27:35
Zachary Jeblonski
And then the reboot is he's older now and wiser. And it's really about a father son dynamic of like him learning to be a good father. So it's like the most like 180 pivot on a story.
00:27:48
Zachary Jeblonski
but yeah, all right. That that's what got working on. What, uh, what are you working on?
00:27:52
ciderspence
Yeah, so mine, i the decks I'm working on, I guess, are also kind of thematic, passion-driven, but they are Avatar decks. So over the last couple of weeks, I just c crammed all of Avatar The Last Airbender to be ready for the set.
00:28:02
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, nice.
00:28:11
ciderspence
I had some friends who've liked it. And it wasn't one of those things where everybody was recommending that I watch it. But given that the magic set was coming out, I heard a lot people, well I heard a few people, creators talking about doing this with Fallout, where before the set released, they just, you know, played the game.
00:28:26
ciderspence
Or I guess there was an Amazon Prime series that came out around the same time, but they kind of used the, go ahead.
00:28:29
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah not to not to Yeah, not to derail you, but that series is fantastic. So if you need a TV series and you want to know about Fallout, that's great. Anyway, sorry, go ahead.
00:28:39
ciderspence
I watched a couple of episodes. It looked interesting.
00:28:41
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, okay.
00:28:42
ciderspence
It wasn't it wasnt my cup of tea, but i but it did look good. But yeah, i kind of, I used that same thinking with Avatar. So I watched the whole thing and I loved it.
00:28:52
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, wow, nice.
00:28:54
ciderspence
And so I'm way more excited about this set and about building some of these commanders than I had been. I was able to make it to a store last night, so I was able to get some product at midnight.
00:29:05
ciderspence
And actually put together a deck when I got home, which was very late.
00:29:06
Zachary Jeblonski
Nice.
00:29:09
ciderspence
I put together Fire Lord Zuko deck just with Avatar cards.
00:29:13
Zachary Jeblonski
and I think I know this one, but go ahead
00:29:18
ciderspence
So Fire Lord Zuko is red, white, black, legendary creature, human noble ally with firebending X, where X is its power. And firebending is whenever this creature attacks add X red mana, that mana lasts until end of combat.
00:29:35
ciderspence
Whenever you cast a spell from exile and whenever a permanent Eve control enters from exile, put a 1-1 counter on each creature control, he's a 2-4. But yeah, it was not a powerful deck, I think. So I played a spell table game with it and I advertised it as bracket 2 bracket 3 with quick turns, which is kind of my tag because that's how I hope everybody plays.
00:29:57
ciderspence
Yeah, got in a game, maybe 45 minutes to an hour 15 long. Perfect. Yeah, and I just got to see a little bit of what firebending can do. It's pretty good.
00:30:09
ciderspence
And I think it encourages a fun
00:30:14
ciderspence
gameplay style because I feel like Commander is more fun when you win one when the players are incentivized to attack.
00:30:24
Zachary Jeblonski
Yes, I agree.
00:30:26
ciderspence
So, you know, it can be frustrating when your strategy is built around attacking and one or more of your opponents makes it hard to attack, but thankfully that wasn't the case last night.
00:30:37
ciderspence
And yeah, it just feels nice to be in a deck where you're kind of forced to be proactive to get the benefits that your deck has.
00:30:48
ciderspence
And yeah, Firebending I thought was very exciting. I just tried to build it around as many Instance and Flash cards as I could. I'm sure there are more. I only cracked three bundles, I think, to get the cards and I got some more product to go through. But yeah, it was a good time. So I'm i'm looking forward to building a lot of Avatar decks.
00:31:04
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, no, I think firebending is gun. i mean, i mean, maybe, you know what, I'm going to have a take and let's see if I ever i read it, but I think firebending out of the the bendings is going to be the one that's the longest lasting commander.
00:31:18
Zachary Jeblonski
it just seems really good. and And man, I was just like, you know, i go into like crazy land, which is like, if you have a firebending commander that has blue,
00:31:31
Zachary Jeblonski
And you just happen to have one of the four or five ways give your spirit your spells flash. i was like, man, I feel like that that can go crazy. But even then, and if you just do instance, I think that perfectly.
00:31:44
Zachary Jeblonski
wonderfully, especially with Fire Lord Zuko, since you are getting a 1-1 on every creature you control every time you cast a spell a spell from Exile. Yeah, that's just, it's a sweet commander. And if I didn't have a play from Exile commander already, like he would be he would be in top contention. So I'm glad to see that it worked well, even with, you know, and the avatar cards.
00:32:06
ciderspence
Yeah, and I'll emphasize, I think it only worked well because this was a respectful pod where it does feel like the level play was in line with this. I think I played against a Zergo deck and a Ploggan Asari and a... Who's the other guy?
00:32:25
ciderspence
I forget to that the other player was. But yeah, it felt like we were all but on about the same level, so...
00:32:32
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:32:34
ciderspence
And it was late at night, so we all probably were of a similar mindset of, hey, let's get a game in and not tweak it or optimize gameplay too much. We just got some turns in.
00:32:42
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, let's not let's not be here for four hours.
00:32:45
ciderspence
Yeah. But yeah, it was good time.
00:32:48
Zachary Jeblonski
Awesome.
00:32:49
ciderspence
a
00:32:49
Zachary Jeblonski
That's great.
00:32:49
ciderspence
I'm curious to see in the long run whether firebending or earthbending is the more enduring mechanic.
00:32:55
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, earthbending is the other one.
00:32:55
ciderspence
Because I think earthbending, I saw a couple of gameplay videos where earthbending just... kind of went nuts.
Exploring Avatar Mechanics and Cards
00:33:02
ciderspence
And it was pretty simple, like you earth bend a fetch land and you just get to double ramp with it.
00:33:06
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep, yep. yeah
00:33:09
ciderspence
You know, there're like there's the toff that turns all your artifacts into land, so I know there's some shenanigans that can ensue with that.
00:33:16
ciderspence
Because landfall is such a powerful strategy, I suspect that earth bending is going to be the most played of the mechanics.
00:33:29
ciderspence
But i I do agree that firebending has a lot of utility to it. It might be the more fun of the mechanics. So I do expect to see it a lot.
00:33:38
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Yeah. Earthbending is, uh, it's scary. Like that, that one is like, if somebody knows how to, what they're doing with that, with, yeah, I'm glad you brought the fetch lands with, with earthbending because that that's something that didn't occur to me when all these bendings were announced weeks ago until somewhat recently. And so I saw somebody mentioned that and like, oh, oh, oh okay.
00:34:02
Zachary Jeblonski
Like, like, oh, this is, this is going to be an issue probably. Yeah, I will say i am. I have not reviewed every legendary from from the Avatar series yet, but I haven't.
00:34:16
Zachary Jeblonski
I don't think I'll be building any commanders based on Avatar. But I feel like every time I say that about a set, I end up doing like I end up building one because i like there's always one legendary that slips through the cracks that I didn't notice or didn't see.
00:34:29
Zachary Jeblonski
So but yeah, I'm glad I'm glad I'm glad to say i'm glad the mechanics are are I've been good so far.
00:34:36
Zachary Jeblonski
and Any other things you're working on right now?
00:34:40
ciderspence
No, just those.
00:34:41
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. I mean, that's so that's that's that's good enough. So I wanted to talk about just this kind of like segue off of that into some avatar cards.
00:34:52
Zachary Jeblonski
I pulled a few selections, but really it's an avatar cycle discussion in a way. and I just pulled some that were kind of emblematic of of what I was...
00:35:03
Zachary Jeblonski
seeing. And they did a whole Ascension series for Avatar, which I'm very curious to see how good they'll be. I think they'll be good, but it's hard to tell. And it kind of pivots off the discussion of like, let's have cards that incentivize people to attack.
00:35:19
Zachary Jeblonski
but it essentially all the Ascension enchantments, and there's one for each color, is like, when you attack with a creature, uh, it gets a quest counter.
00:35:29
Zachary Jeblonski
And then once has four more quest counters, then, the act, the ability of this, of this card activates. So the given example, they have the fire, the red one, the firebending Ascension, which is one in red.
00:35:41
Zachary Jeblonski
When it enters, you make a 2-2 soldier with firebending one. So it's already like, you're already getting a 2-2 for two mana. So not too bad already. And whenever creature control attacking causes a triggered ability, i.e. firebending, of that creature to trigger, you put a quest counter on it.
00:35:57
Zachary Jeblonski
And then when it has four more quest counters, then you can copy that ability. And also all the ascensions have that kind of like four quest counters, you know, trigger and do something. And they're all pretty solid. And I like this because it's a way to get once again to go back to what you were saying is it's it's an incentive for people to attack to keep the game rolling my only concern is is kind of what your situation is which is like when it's difficult to attack how do these cards feel like are you happy to draw them and i'm not you know this is this is a rhetorical you so i don't know i don't i don't know if i'm going to run any of these decks have you looked at any ascensions or thought about them
00:36:34
ciderspence
Yeah, I heard discussion. and one interesting thing is there's no Black ascension from the series because there was no, I think because they correspond pretty closely to the bendings from the show, there's like fire bending, earth bending, air bending and water bending.
00:36:41
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, i thought there was.
00:36:48
Zachary Jeblonski
oh gotcha.
00:36:51
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, you're right. My bad.
00:36:53
ciderspence
No, it's okay. There are a few Black enchantments that function somewhat similarly, but yeah, there was no corresponding bending for Black, so it's just for the colors.
00:37:05
ciderspence
But yeah, i heard a conversation, I think, of the Command Zone talking about the cycle and how Firebender's Ascension in particular you would think is really good in an attacks matter deck, like an attack trigger theme deck, but it's even narrow within that archetype because it's whenever a creature you control attacking causes the trigger ability of that creature to trigger.
00:37:28
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:37:29
ciderspence
So it obviously does work with firebending, but it doesn't work with a creature or a permanent that triggers when another creature attacks. So even in a deck where you want to attack a lot, it still has a pretty high threshold of specificity for that card to work with it.
00:37:51
ciderspence
But it does come with a 2-2. And like I said, firebending is pretty fun. So I suspect that this will still be pretty popular.
00:37:57
Zachary Jeblonski
Right.
00:37:57
ciderspence
But it is more narrow than it might read the first time through.
00:38:02
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. It's, we'll see. We'll see. I think the other, the other one that kind of note is the, is the green one. it's two and a green. When it enters, you earth bend two.
00:38:14
Zachary Jeblonski
So we just saw that earth bending and, and you search for a basic and put on the battlefield. And then when a land enters, you put a quest counter and and then, and then if there's four quest counters, you put a one, one, one one counter on a creature and against Trample to end a turn. So this thing does like three things.
00:38:30
Zachary Jeblonski
you i It ramps you, earthbends you, and then it starts putting 1-1 counters on things. So it's pretty good. But once again, I don't know. i don't know i don't know if that's at that the hurdle of of attacking, and especially with the red one, or attacking with a creature with triggered abilities, I don't if the hurdle's too high to climb.
00:38:49
Zachary Jeblonski
But I guess we'll we'll have to wait and see.
00:38:52
ciderspence
Yeah, for Earthbender Ascension, I think you just have to, it's just a landfall trigger. So whenever land enters, people question, yeah, that one seems pretty great.
00:38:56
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, Earthbender is just like not even attack, but yeah.
00:39:01
ciderspence
You know, if you're if you happen to want to ramp while you're in green, which is a common thing that players like to do, kind this is, you know, in line with why landfall is good in the first place. Like, you want to play lands anyway, so you want to be triggering this anyway, so it kind of,
00:39:18
ciderspence
incidentally by playing magic you are satisfying this condition so i think this one's pretty good probably the strongest of the four just in terms of how easy it is to get online and especially in a dedicated landfall deck you can very likely get this online the turn that it comes down so uh yeah and i like this one because it has the potential to turn
00:39:30
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:39:42
ciderspence
a
00:39:44
ciderspence
deck that was having trouble turning its board state into a winning position into a board state that has a much easier time closing a game out because you give everything where you're able to on landfall give stuff trample so you know if you have some big things you can give them trample and let them get through or if you have something that has evasion or otherwise has fruitful attacks, but it's small, you can just make it bigger. And again, if you're anticipating a lot of landfall, you can just do it a bunch of times, and especially with like counter doublers, counter plus one stuff, you can make it pretty big pretty fast.
00:40:21
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I'm i' i am somewhat considering at it for Eshki. Not because Eshki is a landfall deck, but just because of the 1-1 synergy. Yeah, we'll see.
00:40:29
ciderspence
Yeah, I think it'd be great for Eshki.
00:40:32
Zachary Jeblonski
We'll see. I guess the next cycle i'm I wanted to touch on, which I think are all really cool, are the Legend of Enchantment Saga cycle. So there's one, I think there's, well, hold on now. I have to check now.
00:40:45
Zachary Jeblonski
Is there a black one for these? Do you know what? there's at least four of them. Let's put it that way. and, uh,
00:40:54
ciderspence
Looks like there are just the four of them, yeah.
00:40:56
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay, i cool. and I caught myself before another mistake. But yeah, so there's one for each color except for black. And they're all sagas that, you know, transformative creatures. Like we've seen this kind of saga before.
00:41:09
Zachary Jeblonski
But I will say that with the exception of maybe the blue one for a different reason, which I'll talk about shortly. i think i think these are all really cool. I really like the design of them.
00:41:20
Zachary Jeblonski
And I don't know why, but it got me thinking that like... I'm not saying I want wizards to do this because I imagine there's, there's implications beyond where my brain is at right now where I'm not considering it, but I almost wish you could run these as commanders.
00:41:34
Zachary Jeblonski
Like because they're a legendary creatures on the backside. I just think the sagas are are all really well done and I don't want to, you know, thing, but like, God, I kind of wish you could do that, but you can't. because they're not creatures on the front side. and But yeah, I think the the one in particular I was just going to bring up was the green one.
00:41:52
Zachary Jeblonski
and you know, step one is draw cards equal to the greatest power among creatures you control, which is something green has many different ways of doing now. Step two is earth bend X where X is the number card in your hand.
00:42:05
Zachary Jeblonski
So the first, the first ability fills up your hand. The second ability like gives you a big land creature essentially. That land becomes an island in addition to its other types, which I assume is flavorful for the show, but I'm not familiar.
00:42:17
Zachary Jeblonski
And then on this, the last step, it exiles comes back as a five four with lands have trample and hexproof. Lands you control have trample and hexproof.
00:42:27
Zachary Jeblonski
And then becomes a mana dork where you tap it and add X, where X is the grace power among creatures you control. So it's just a real solid card all the way around. It's six costs, which I forgot to mention up front, but, you know, green, who cares?
00:42:40
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah, I really liked this legend cycle. the, the blue one, I think the issue with the blue one, and this was mentioned on, on, I've seen it mentioned in other places, is that it has waterbend 20 take an extra turn.
00:42:54
Zachary Jeblonski
I think, and it's exhaust exhaust, so you can't just loop it, but I think that's enough right there where you're to draw an undue amount of hate. So I, I would be hesitant around running the blue one, but the other ones I think are, are good. and
00:43:07
ciderspence
Yeah, I agree. The cycle also looks interesting. I do think it is a flavor win for what it's worth, that second chapter on The Legend of Kyoshi.
00:43:13
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I was hoping maybe you could elaborate on that.
00:43:15
ciderspence
Yeah, there's like a part of the story where her tribe is under attack and she...
00:43:22
ciderspence
separates physically the land. Like she's an earthbender. And so she's able to like break the land in between her and the attacking tribe to make her, I guess, I don't remember being an island, but she definitely like separates it physically by making like a chasm between her land and the land of the would-be aggressors.
00:43:39
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:43:40
ciderspence
So I suspect that is making her land the island or making that other land the island. I don't know, turning turning some land into an island is how they portray that scene. So yeah, I think that's a flavor win.
00:43:52
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay, cool. Have you looked at any of these legends? Anything, any of them popping out at you?
00:43:57
ciderspence
i I think the blue one's interesting. I agree it's going to draw hate because it's got an extra turn on it, but on that side it also makes a creature every time you cast a spell.
00:44:05
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:44:07
ciderspence
So it seems like it could pop off on a stormy turn, so it's possible that you could
00:44:16
ciderspence
You'd probably need some proliferation shenanigans to get through. Yeah, I guess, yeah, it's dicey.
00:44:22
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:44:23
ciderspence
Because, yeah, it does seem like a big flashing light that says you should probably try to kill me before I get to do the thing that I get to do with this card. And it might be tricky to get it all done in the same turn.
00:44:35
ciderspence
But if you could, it seems like a card worth running. But is it the best card worth running that's in that category? Probably not. And I guess you don't want to run... but so many of them because they're so high risk, high reward.
00:44:47
ciderspence
So yeah, I guess I could see that one maybe not meeting the criteria you want a top end card to meet.
00:44:55
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I think... i think I think the green one is specific. I think it's good enough for me to run it in several my green decks. and and And I'll try it, and I'll get back to you. the I do want to note the white one, because the white one is also really good.
00:45:12
Zachary Jeblonski
It's one less mana. It's three white-white. And the first step is, which I think is a cool thing, and which is starting with you, each player chooses up to one permanent with mana value three or greater from among permanents your opponent's control.
00:45:24
Zachary Jeblonski
Exile them. So all your opponents choose permanents you don't control that are mana value three or greater, get rid of them. And the second step is like a secret rendezvous or a cut a deal. remember which one it is, but you, you can have a target opponent, draw three cards. And if you do, you draw three cards.
00:45:40
Zachary Jeblonski
And then the backside, which is which is kind of bananas, especially if you have any kind of blink sh synergies, is it's a 4-5 of flying, and whenever you cast your second spell each turn, you airbend up to one other target non-land permanent.
00:45:53
Zachary Jeblonski
And it doesn't have to be a permanent you control. And just a reminder, airbend is you exile it, and then while it's exiled, its owner may pay 2 to recast it, 2 generic mana.
00:46:05
Zachary Jeblonski
So i yeah i think I just like this whole cycle. I think the white one's good. I think I think they're all really good. It's just rare for me to like see a saga and be like, yeah, yeah.
00:46:17
Zachary Jeblonski
Usually I see sagas. I'm like, uh,
00:46:19
ciderspence
Yeah, just feel like the saga has kind of made a comeback starting with Final Fantasy.
00:46:23
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah, that's true.
00:46:24
ciderspence
And here there're they're pretty fun too
00:46:27
Zachary Jeblonski
I did forget about Fond of Fantasy. I had a saga deck a long time ago. wouldn't recommend it. It's a lot of work.
00:46:32
ciderspence
too. Might be might be less work and more fun now.
00:46:36
Zachary Jeblonski
Hopefully. i know i When I did it, I built it around a track, and you can imagine proliferating lore counters and stuff like that. it it was It was way more mental load than I was prepared for. right.
00:46:46
ciderspence
Yeah, I can see that. I'm curious to see how airbending goes.
00:46:48
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:46:50
ciderspence
Sorry, as an aside, I'm curious to see how airbending goes.
00:46:51
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah,
00:46:52
ciderspence
We talked about how earthbending and firebending seem like they're going to be fun slash strong. Waterbending will probably be broken in artifact-y stuff because artifacts are broken.
00:47:02
Zachary Jeblonski
it's okay. Yeah.
00:47:06
ciderspence
Airbending, being able to exile something and then recast it for two seems good for offense and defense. But It seems maybe the line to breaking it seems maybe less direct. So it's curious to see whether it will prove to be worth the trouble or not.
00:47:25
ciderspence
Maybe, but I could see it not.
00:47:27
Zachary Jeblonski
Maybe?
00:47:29
ciderspence
I did play an earthbending card in that deck I ran last night and it came into play. And I actually had it stolen by Plaggan Asari and then He copied it. i he guesss I forget the name of the spell, but it was like each opponent can copy the spell.
00:47:46
ciderspence
If they do, you get to copy it once plus another time for each player.
00:47:48
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah Tempt with madness.
00:47:50
ciderspence
Yeah, Temple of Madness. That's exactly what it was. So I got to see that card happen a lot. And a lot of stuff got blinked off the board. it It seemed pretty effective.
00:48:02
ciderspence
i It definitely seemed good for defense. i'm not I haven't seen it used proactively for offense yet. I think which you know the utility of that will determine a lot about how popular it winds up being, i would think.
00:48:15
ciderspence
So yeah, TBD, but I'm curious to see how that plays out.
00:48:17
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, the tbd i Two quick notes on airbending, which is like... Well, one quick note I say is that we'll see. i think the cost on regaining your stuff back, I think might prevent it from being like a commander all-star.
00:48:33
Zachary Jeblonski
But in reference to that cost, that that's a casting cost and that casting cost can be reduced by any effects of that. So if you have like an Oketra's monument that makes your white spells cost one less or your white creature spells cost one less, that would affect that airbending or the airbending cost to come back. So youre your white creature would only be one mana, right?
00:48:54
Zachary Jeblonski
so there is shenanigans that you can do. You can build around it.
00:48:57
ciderspence
Yeah, or better yet, Urza's incubator could reduce it to zero.
00:48:58
Zachary Jeblonski
We'll see.
00:49:00
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. There you
00:49:03
ciderspence
Yeah, or if it's artifacts that you're doing, you could have you know multiple artifact reducers to bring it to zero.
00:49:10
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:49:11
ciderspence
So yeah, that it's it's breakable, but yeah still wait to see how it goes.
00:49:12
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:49:18
Zachary Jeblonski
It might be good enough on its own. I guess we'll say, you know, Last card was going to talk about, not a cycle, but there was something I didn't notice about the card when I first reviewed it and I kind of wanted to bring it back, which is Spirit Water Revival.
00:49:31
Zachary Jeblonski
It's one blue blue sorcery. As an additional cost, you may waterbred six, which as a reminder, it's just you can pay that cost and you can also tap your artifacts and creatures to help pay it.
00:49:43
Zachary Jeblonski
draw two cards. If the spell's additional cost, which is Waterman 6, was paid, instead shuffle your graveyard into your library, draw seven, you have no maximum hand size for the rest of the game, and then you exile Spirit Water Revival.
00:49:54
Zachary Jeblonski
So when I first read this, I thought it was like a midnight clock type effect, but you're not getting rid of your hand when you do this. You're just shuffling the graveyard into library and drawing seven. and so that, that suddenly made my, this card actually jump up a little bit for me.
00:50:08
Zachary Jeblonski
So this is one of those cards where I'm, I think I might, might try running it. it's three mana draw two at the worst, which is not great. That's not great. I'm not going to say it's good. and but nine mana, you know, with the, with the option to have your creatures and artifacts help for six of it to, uh, to draw seven and then put your graveyard back in your deck and no maximum hand size.
00:50:32
Zachary Jeblonski
I think it's good. I guess we'll see.
00:50:34
ciderspence
i Yeah, I think the upside late game, this late game, if you have a board or even late game, if you have mana that you don't have anything else to do with, you'd be pretty happy to see this, I think.
00:50:44
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah
00:50:46
ciderspence
And I, yeah, three mana draw two, it's expensive, but you probably still want to draw the two cards for three mana. If you don't have anything else to do, right I have a hard time imagining that you'd have this in your hand and be really disappointed at any point in the game. So yeah, I think it looks pretty good to me. I will certainly start running it and stuff.
00:51:08
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, yeah, I think i think i think you brought up a good point that I, you know, which is that it's nice to have cards like this in your deck that function in both phases of the game, you know, so if you draw this early, okay, fire it off, draw two.
00:51:21
Zachary Jeblonski
You draw this late, well, maybe it's worth it for you to draw seven, you know. Yeah, I don't know, like, yeah, I'm i'm interested see this. I just, it caught me off guard because, you know, how your brain will just automatically fill in holes, you just get lazy in reading and just be like, oh, I assume that's what the rest of the card says.
00:51:36
Zachary Jeblonski
And my brain read, oh shuffle your graveyard into your library, draw seven. Oh, okay. You got to put your hand in there too. yeah I just assumed. And it still wasn't much later that I realized, oh, oh, okay.
00:51:48
ciderspence
Yeah, it is frighteningly common for me to read a card in my head and think I understand it and then read it out loud in a game or at a table and say, oh, I didn't, you know, when I read this and thought I understood it, I just completely skipped that sentence or I read that sentence with the word not or with the word once and it's not there.
00:51:49
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:51:53
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep.
00:52:06
ciderspence
Yeah, cards are pretty easy to misread, which I think says more about me than magic. So, yeah.
00:52:13
Zachary Jeblonski
i Yeah, I agree with that because I think my biggest faux pas or my biggest blunder in reading was with Chun-Li. And I think I mentioned this when we were playing that I played an entire game and it got all the way near the end of the game before one of my opponents said, hey, you got to pay for those Chun-Li spells.
00:52:34
Zachary Jeblonski
Because I just assumed it was copy the spell and play it without paying his mana cost. Cause like, you know, you just read a card and you just kind of like fill in the gaps, so to speak. so I, I have done it to a horrible degrees. I've tried it.
00:52:47
Zachary Jeblonski
I gotta be a little better about slowing down when I read these cards.
00:52:51
ciderspence
It's hard. There are so many cards and so many cards that are exciting.
Conclusion and Recommendations
00:52:56
ciderspence
It's hard to just, it's hard to take your time and really go through every one of them.
00:53:02
ciderspence
So I think if you're trying to keep up with all the cards as they come out, I think a certain amount of that is inevitable.
00:53:03
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:53:09
ciderspence
So, yeah.
00:53:10
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. yeah. so I think that's, I think that's it for avatar. I don't, like said, I don't know if I'm going to build a commander deck on that so far. No, but you know, like I said, every time I say that I end up eating my words and going back and building a tech based on it.
00:53:25
Zachary Jeblonski
anything else before we kind of wrap up this episode? Yeah.
00:53:27
ciderspence
No, I'm good with that.
00:53:29
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. So we'll have little bit of a shorter one today, but that's fine. I don't know if you want to mention it. You're, you're out this, uh, this weekend, you're you're on a fun vacation.
00:53:39
ciderspence
No, just probably building some avatar decks. I might try to jam some spell table games and see if I can just capitalize on my newfound enthusiasm for the show as much as possible.
00:53:43
Zachary Jeblonski
Nice.
00:53:50
Zachary Jeblonski
Would you recommend that I try watching it?
00:53:53
ciderspence
I would.
00:53:54
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:53:54
ciderspence
like I said, I really enjoyed it. But I guess I recommended that you watch K-Pop Demon Hunters and you were pretty lukewarm on it. So I don't have a great feel for whether our entertainment tastes align in a way that me like me watching it and liking it suggests that you would watch it and like it.
00:54:01
Zachary Jeblonski
Hmm.
00:54:12
ciderspence
So I don't know.
00:54:13
Zachary Jeblonski
I'm always willing to try things. How did you watch it? but you Is it through Paramount Plus or what did you do to watch it?
00:54:19
ciderspence
I watched it on Netflix.
00:54:22
Zachary Jeblonski
it's on Netflix.
00:54:22
ciderspence
Yeah.
00:54:24
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, okay. Well, now I have Netflix. Yeah, all right. I'm not going to make any commitments on air, but we'll see.
00:54:30
ciderspence
I might recommend that you skip the first season. I think the first season was, yeah, like there's a tonal shift at some point and the second tone I think is more satisfying for an adult while the first tone is probably better for kids and it is ostensibly a kid's show, but like many kids shows, I think
00:54:34
Zachary Jeblonski
I've heard that.
00:54:50
ciderspence
You know, it certainly has undertones that adults can appreciate. So yeah, I think from the second season on, i think there are like 60, 61 total episodes.
00:55:01
ciderspence
Starting with 21, it's a little more compelling, I think, for an adult than up to 20.
00:55:07
Zachary Jeblonski
okay all right
00:55:11
ciderspence
So i like, and again, i like, can you record, they're like, you know, without ads, they're like 23 minutes.
00:55:16
ciderspence
So can you recommend that somebody watch 2400 minutes of something that they might not like?
00:55:21
ciderspence
I don't know. like I wanted to do it, so I did it. But like I don't know that I would recommend that to anyone else.
00:55:30
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah no I mean, you can recommend somebody try it. And I think I've heard enough to, I would consider trying it, you know, and you telling me that the the show is like 22 minutes. Cause you know, cut down for commercials. that's music to my ears.
00:55:41
Zachary Jeblonski
I love when television shows are just like there's half an hour or like 41 minutes when they're hour long, but they have commercials like 41 minutes. give me an out. Let's go.
00:55:50
ciderspence
Nice.
00:55:51
Zachary Jeblonski
like it. All right. Well, uh, well have a great weekend and we'll talk again next week.
00:55:57
ciderspence
Yeah, sounds good.
00:55:59
Zachary Jeblonski
All right. Thank you, everybody, for listening. We'll talk again next week.
00:56:03
ciderspence
Take it easy.