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Ep. 20 - The Mashed Potatoes of Podcasts
29 Plays7 months ago
It's a special episode of Midlife Scrysis as we talk about the cards we are thankful for as well as get in to our latest game. Also, wasn't there supposed to be a Monster Hunter Secret Lair or something?
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Transcript
Introduction and Thanksgiving Food Discussion
00:00:08
Zachary Jeblonski
hello Hello, it's Zach and it's another episode of Midlife's Crisis. I'm joined again by Charles.
00:00:15
ciderspence
Happy holidays, everybody.
00:00:16
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, happy holidays. So I'm not the biggest Thanksgiving food fan. what do you how do you How do you feel about Thanksgiving food or your variant thereof?
00:00:26
ciderspence
I enjoy it.
00:00:28
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:00:28
ciderspence
As I think I've mentioned before, I'm vegan, so my version of Thanksgiving fare is a little different than most people's, but it's still a good time to indulge in the things you don't have all that often. So I enjoy the special vegan food that I don't get to have every day.
00:00:38
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:00:41
Zachary Jeblonski
I'm curious because like, you know, based on my a dislike of normal Thanksgiving food, I'm guessing vegan food's got to be better. So what the what are like, what's some of your favorites that you guys have for Thanksgiving?
00:00:54
ciderspence
It's mostly like desserts that I have to go out of my way to get. There are a couple of shops in New York City that order from, a few in upstate New York that we'll visit like on my birthday or something, but I'll also get deliveries of those in for, like there's a place that makes, it's called Sweet Maurice's in I think Kingston, New York, but anyway, they make
00:00:57
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:01:12
ciderspence
vegan macarons which are those like little sandwiches that are filled with a creamy center so yeah they have i ordered two boxes of those basically blanketing thanksgiving uh and i've just been eating those non-stop until they were gone and it's delicious i shared some with my kids but not many
00:01:14
Zachary Jeblonski
Ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice.
00:01:29
Zachary Jeblonski
I like a, for dessert wise, I would say Thanksgiving desserts can be okay. I a pet i can go for a pecan pie, but I'm not really a pie guy in general, and to be honest.
00:01:40
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I'm Thanksgiving is just like, you know, I, it's not, not my food holiday. It's not like a July 4th or something like that or Halloween. If you really want to go crazy, uh, a bag full of candy counts constitutes as a full meal, right?
00:01:51
ciderspence
Yeah, I get that.
00:01:57
ciderspence
Depends on how much of it you eat, but yeah, it can be done.
Thankful for Games and Cards
00:02:01
Zachary Jeblonski
All right, well, we've got a special episode because it is a holiday episode. And we' we'll do we're going to cover some of the normals, and then we'll we'll jump into what we're thankful for as cards go.
00:02:12
Zachary Jeblonski
So were you able to get any games in this week?
00:02:15
ciderspence
Yes, I was. This was another heavy spell table week, but I kind of continued the recent theme of trying to play as many Avatar-themed decks as I could fit in.
00:02:18
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. Okay.
00:02:24
ciderspence
So I think I probably got in three or four games this week, and I think I got through most of the commanders I wanted to build for, and so I'm starting to think about how to tweak some of them to make them more viable in a normal pod.
00:02:29
Zachary Jeblonski
Nice.
00:02:39
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. Yeah, I was able to, I got, I went to two stores over the course of the week. I really kind of made it a priority last week to just get some magic in just because I was just, I've been Jones and for it, as I am every day, to be honest. but, uh, so I was able to go to my normal on Tuesday, but then I went to a brand new one that I've never been to on Friday. So God got a lot of stuff to talk about, which is good.
Game Strategies and Deck Building
00:03:04
Zachary Jeblonski
you want to start us off with one of your games?
00:03:07
ciderspence
Sure. So I'll just talk about two games that I played over this weekend. I played one repeat game with Tai Li, a chi blocker.
00:03:18
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:03:20
ciderspence
And i built this deck before, and I went kind of with a few enchantments and a few instants and sorceries because she's got prowess. So let me read it. Sorry.
00:03:32
ciderspence
Tylee Gbrocker. OK, Flash 2-1, prowess. When she enters tap up to one target creature, it doesn't untap during its controller's untap step for as long as you control Tylee. So she's got flash, so it's easy to flash her in the turn before you want to get going. Gives her some built-in protection, which is nice.
00:03:51
ciderspence
I figured either building her as Stormy or as Enchantress made sense. And I like the Enchantress route because there's a line in an episode of Avatar.
00:03:57
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:04:02
ciderspence
where she talks about people's aura. She says to one of her friends where they're kind of having a tete-a-tete about each other about each other's personalities, and she says to her, your aura is dingy.
00:04:12
ciderspence
So i I capitalized on the word aura. i was like, it would be fun to build this as just kind of an aura aura themed Voltron so that's when I and of course I love Voltron of all flavors so yeah I built her as aura Voltron I picked up a lot of kind of obscure blue auras and some of the more well-known ones uh and I kind of suited her up for a game this weekend it went pretty well predictably I had her get sacrificed to an edict effect and then I lost but before that happened I was doing pretty well and I definitely enjoyed that game so that was a that was a good a good one
00:04:20
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:04:37
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh.
00:04:44
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. Yeah. i'll i I went to my normal place on Tuesday and I had two very long games. I think both games were over two hours. So it was only two games I got, but I think I might be in a minority about this. Maybe it's a hot take. I'm not sure, but I actually like long games. I like the,
00:05:02
Zachary Jeblonski
the grind out, like we're in this, we're slugging it out. Like this is, we're doing the back and forth, all that stuff. So I got my, my, I guess I could say my inaugural game with Kratos and Atreus, which is the God of War characters from the secret lair.
00:05:19
Zachary Jeblonski
And you know, you think I would have this ready to go and talk about, but I'm just going to delay as I pull it up. But it was a really good game. i ended up with 16 experience counters, which only it was a result of like four different board wipes. Only one-on-one was mine, so don't come pointing fingers yet.
00:05:37
Zachary Jeblonski
but these are our partner commanders and, uh, you got Kratos, Stoic father. He's two red, white. and whenever you attack with one or more gods and whenever a God dies, you get an experience counter.
00:05:48
Zachary Jeblonski
So that means on combat, I just want to pause here. That means on combat, you really only get one experience counter because of the way they word it. So it's a little hard to like build a blob experience counters quickly, but some of that's been modified with like proliferate effects.
00:06:00
Zachary Jeblonski
And then at the beginning of your end step, you put a number of one, one counters on target creature equal to the number of experience counters you have. And it's partnered with Atreus, Impulsive Sun, and he's a two-floor with reach.
00:06:11
Zachary Jeblonski
And he has an activated ability of pay three, tap, draw a card for each experience counter you have, then discard a card, and then he deals two damage each opponent. So long story short, i was able since it was such a long game, I was able to just build up a massive amount of experience counters. So every turn I was making a creature huge.
00:06:28
Zachary Jeblonski
And I had a a ridiculous amount of card draw because with Treyas' ability, by the end of the game, I was drawing 16 and discarding one. So I was able to just kind of keep, yeah, I was basically able to just, like, they would board wipe, I would play creature, put 16 one ones on it, you know?
00:06:37
ciderspence
OK, that's pretty good.
00:06:44
Zachary Jeblonski
So it was like every turn they had to deal with me, and eventually I just was able to grind it out. So that was probably one of my that's probably my favorite game of the whole week. It was very fun, very good.
00:06:55
ciderspence
Awesome.
00:06:57
Zachary Jeblonski
How about one of yours?
00:07:00
ciderspence
Yeah, I think the other notable game was I played
00:07:05
ciderspence
Zhao, Ruthless Admiral, in a game last night. He's a legendary creature, human soldier three four with firebending 2. And whenever you sacrifice another permanent, creatures you control get plus 1 plus 0 until end of turn.
00:07:18
ciderspence
And this was an all-Avatar set deck. So it was just cards from the main Avatar set and then from the Avatar Eternal set that was mostly the Jumpstart cards and some of the set boxes.
00:07:30
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:07:35
ciderspence
And this game was actually pretty fun. i feel like it was a pod. And this is I think I've talked about this before, but I think it's almost as much a conversation about finding the right pod for your deck as finding the right deck to have fun with. Because this was kind of a another high two, low three pod.
00:07:53
Zachary Jeblonski
okay
00:07:53
ciderspence
where I got a chance to see this deck do some of what it wants to do. It was pretty predictably outclassed by you know more sophisticated and better-tuned decks, but I got to do some stuff. I felt like if things had broken my way, i had a chance to win in the end, and they didn't, and I lost, and it was okay. I still had a good time with it.
00:08:12
Zachary Jeblonski
Good. That's awesome. I guess by for my second noteworthy deck or network of the game, I would say i did have another really long game at the Tuesday Shop, but I don't think anything new in particular happened there. That was with Devlor, and it was just another grind-out fest where you know board wipes and things like that. i did That game was against Ascend Triplets, which I've never played against.
00:08:38
Zachary Jeblonski
And... And the gentleman that was piloting Centriplets, he's one of my favorite players to play with. So, you know, he can kind of do whatever he wants, to be honest, because he's just a fun guy to play with.
00:08:48
Zachary Jeblonski
And it was it was fine. It was good. Like, it wasn't nearly as bad as I think people have made Centriplets out to be. Now, I don't think he made it as like toxic as it could have been.
00:08:58
Zachary Jeblonski
but it wasn't, I thought it was kind of an interesting thing where like, you know, I really had to decide like whether or not I wanted to like empty my hand to prevent him from having certain things. So like I would cast, board white, I casted a board wipe specifically because I didn't want him to have access to that same board wipe.
00:09:15
Zachary Jeblonski
because it was raz a raise of Palisades, which is four and a blue, uh, choose a creature type and then, return all, you know, all creatures that are not that type to their owner's hands. Right. So I'm like, well,
00:09:26
Zachary Jeblonski
If I don't do this now, then he's going to do it and declare, you know, whatever sent triplets you know? so I think it was really, i think it was a cool, it was a cool game, you know, like, so my hot take, maybe sent triplets aren't so bad. I don't know.
00:09:41
Zachary Jeblonski
but I think that was one that one of the more interesting aspects of that game for sure.
00:09:44
ciderspence
But I mean, just for those who don't know, send triplets, 3-3 legendary artifact creature, human wizard. At the beginning of your upkeep, choose target opponent. This turn, that player can't cast spells or activate abilities and plays with their hand revealed. You may play lands and cast spells from that player's hand this turn.
00:10:00
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:10:01
ciderspence
Yeah, that not being that bad would definitely be a hot take. I'm glad that you enjoyed your game with it. I think if somebody showed up in a pod and that's what was... at the front of their deck box, I would ask for another commander or another table.
00:10:17
Zachary Jeblonski
I don't know. This is very much an antithesis to what you like in Commander, and I appreciate that wholeheartedly. I will say, i think Send Triplets suffers from the same thing that a lot of these thefts suffer from, which is my cards are good for me because I have built them to be synergistic together, right? So i was playing... I guess I got my games mixed up, but I was playing... the, my God's deck Kratos and Atreus.
00:10:43
Zachary Jeblonski
So every time he would look at my hand, it would be like two lands and like four gods that are kind of bad. And he's like, well, okay. you know, so it's like, if you really have a, I would say a deck that's really focused around a specific mechanic, uh, sin triplets, not that good because it's, it's, it's, you know, they're not going to be able to build the same engine you are because, you know, they only got one turn with your hand basically.
00:11:07
Zachary Jeblonski
but I could definitely see how, you know, you build this with a stacks folks in mind, or you build this in a certain way. I'm sure it can be absolutely heinous, but at least for that specific game, I didn't find it to be that bad.
00:11:20
ciderspence
Nice.
00:11:21
Zachary Jeblonski
Not compared to a tox role, which I faced later on that night, which I hate that commander.
00:11:27
ciderspence
Yeah, I saw talk show just in the 99 in one of my games this week and it was predictably devastating.
00:11:33
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, the Tox Roll was in his 99. He was playing Blue Black Reanimator. And long story short, there were clones of the Tox Roll, and a whole bunch of people got Tox Rolls, and it got out of hand. so But yeah, any other games you want to touch on?
00:11:50
ciderspence
Just briefly, I got a chance to pilot the new version of my Axes and Allies deck, and that was a lot of fun.
00:11:54
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. Okay.
00:11:55
ciderspence
That was the game that the Topps showed up in. And yeah, it was another case where i feel like I was right in it. I could have won at the end, but didn't, and still had a pretty good time.
00:12:07
ciderspence
That deck has, so the commander was one of the Sokka's from the Avatar set. It is Sokka and Suki.
00:12:14
Zachary Jeblonski
The oh, not that one. Okay, gotcha.
00:12:17
ciderspence
So whenever Sokka and Suki or another ally you control enters, attach up to one target equipment you control to that creature. And whenever an equipment you control enters, create a 1-1 white ally creature token. So it kind of ping-pongs back and forth.
00:12:30
ciderspence
So yeah, this deck, I have as many cards with the name Axe that are equipment in it as I could find, and then also the equipment I could get from the avatar set.
00:12:35
Zachary Jeblonski
Nice.
00:12:38
ciderspence
And then as many synergistic allies as I could find. And, you know, kind of... squeeze those together until I could find enough spots for lands and then make a deck out of it. Yeah, it played pretty well. I feel like it needs more haste enablers, and there are several allies that do that, so I'm going to swap some of those in. And there are a few more axes that I found since I put it together.
00:12:57
ciderspence
But yeah, I had a really good time with that one.
00:13:00
Zachary Jeblonski
Bloodforge Battleaxe is one of them.
00:13:02
ciderspence
Bloodforge Battleaxe is a big include. Also, a sneaky good include is Sokka's, I think it's called Sokka's Boomerang, or Trusty Boomerang. Let look it
00:13:12
Zachary Jeblonski
What colors is he again? Ooh,
00:13:14
ciderspence
Blue, red, white.
00:13:16
Zachary Jeblonski
you got two-handed Battleaxe in there?
00:13:19
ciderspence
I do... Okay, but trusty boomerang.
00:13:21
Zachary Jeblonski
It's such a good card.
00:13:23
ciderspence
This is one I wanted to to spotlight. In this deck, I haven't gotten to use it yet, but equip creature has one and tap it, tap target creature, return trusty boomerang to its owner's hand.
00:13:25
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:13:33
ciderspence
So this is a way to make your george your board huge, especially if you have a haste neighbor out.
00:13:33
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. Okay.
00:13:37
ciderspence
You can just play it. It auto equips to somebody. You have that person pay one and tap it. You bring it back your hand. You pay it again. It only costs one. It only costs one to equip. But you can just make a bunch of allies. And if you have stuff that grows your allies when an ally enters or stuff that gives them abilities when your allies enter it gains you life or something, you could have a really stormy turn out of nowhere just by playing this once. And it has its own kind of protection. You can always return it to its owner's hand.
00:14:01
ciderspence
I'm excited to see that card in action at some point with that deck.
00:14:05
Zachary Jeblonski
Nice. Nice. Okay. I think I'll talk a little bit more about one of the other games once we get to our cards we're thankful for. But the probably the last thing I want to touch on for games-wise was i played I had the opportunity to play in a bracket four game, basically.
00:14:24
Zachary Jeblonski
And I played, basically what I have is a bracket three deck. So I played Valgoloth, red, black, the pre-con Valgoloth, where he gets a 1-1 counter and I draw a card when my opponents lose health on their turns.
00:14:36
Zachary Jeblonski
So the deck is just full of ways for people to take damage on their turns.
00:14:40
ciderspence
Yep. yep
00:14:40
Zachary Jeblonski
But I played against a bracket for Atali, Primal Conqueror, and a bracket for Kefka, and a bracket for Samwise Gamgee. And I ended up winning that game but boy, what, what, uh, what a dynamic to have, uh, you know, at one point I basically had to spend three removal spells to get rid of one thing because of all the free counter spells. And i was like, all right, this is fun, I guess.
00:15:07
Zachary Jeblonski
But that was a great example of when you're at that level of people understanding threat so much better than I think at some of the lower brackets. The Itali player was basically not allowed to keep any sort of ramp piece. So at one point he had soul ring, an ancient tomb, and i want to say some other ramp piece.
00:15:28
Zachary Jeblonski
And in the span of one turn cycle, all three of them were destroyed. You know, the ancient tune was beside you. The Sol Ring was like, you know, deleted by some other means. And and he never got to a cast a Tali once in that entire game.
00:15:40
ciderspence
Oh wow. How long was that game?
00:15:43
Zachary Jeblonski
it was It was, I would say, standard, like hour, hour and a half. But like just the amount of control that everybody had was like, okay, well, we can never let Itali resolve. So all three of us made sure that didn't happen.
00:15:55
Zachary Jeblonski
And then Kefka kept getting kind of knocked down a little bit. And I would get knocked down a little bit. But like we we everybody always was like keeping an eye on the Itali guy, right? you know And he got you know he got a little salty, which I understand. But it's just like one of those things where I'm like, you you can never let Itali resolve. The game's over if it does.
00:16:12
Zachary Jeblonski
so I, I, I've never seen a thorough deconstruction of somebody's board that early on. like even the ancient tomb getting taken out by a besage you the land. I was like, geez, this guy just got completely destroyed.
00:16:27
Zachary Jeblonski
but I think that's, I think it's what you have to do because, uh, if a Tali makes it to land and the trigger goes on off, it's usually it. That's usually the end, you know, uh, because a lot of times those decks will have red clones or they'll have some other way to trigger the trigger again, then trigger the trigger again, and then so on and so forth. So, but that was also a very good game. I ended up, uh, oh, let me touch on my card of the wave. Cause that's basically how I won the game.
00:16:51
Zachary Jeblonski
I play, Chandra, uh, awakened Inferno. Uh, it's four red, red. This, this planeswalker can't be countered. the key thing on it is the plus two of it is each opponent gets an emblem. And at the beginning of your upkeep, this emblem deals one damage to you.
00:17:08
Zachary Jeblonski
So, basically once I get this emblem out, Val Gavoth will always trigger, because the emblems can never be removed. And I was able to stack this emblem up three times. So my opponents were taking three damage a turn.
00:17:20
Zachary Jeblonski
I was generating a lot of card advantage. So even though the Kefka deck was causing me to discard a lot, I was able to keep up with it. And it was just a grind out, you know, cards against cards. Basically I would cast spells. He would counter them. And then I would cast more spells and he would counter them. And then eventually he ran out of counter spells and I just, just, he just couldn't keep up with the amount of advantage I had. So.
00:17:38
ciderspence
Yeah, that's interesting. It sounds like you also were able to take advantage of a lot of the removal being pointed elsewhere. Because I feel like I've played at bracket two, bracket three table Valgaloth, where Valgaloth is probably the biggest table, biggest threat of the table, and eats a lot of that removal.
00:17:45
Zachary Jeblonski
Yes.
00:17:52
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh yeah.
00:17:53
ciderspence
So yeah, the fact that Itali and Itali's board took a lot of it
00:17:58
Zachary Jeblonski
And that deck is just full of so many like little cuts, little paper cuts that I think it's hard for people to justify removal a lot of times. Cause it's just like, it's only a damage a turn, right? It's only two damage a turn, whatever it is.
00:18:11
Zachary Jeblonski
so a lot of times the the removal gets directed at something that's much more, i guess you would say bombastic. so I think that deck definitely benefits from that, but you know, as people understand Valgavoth, like if you play, if somebody knows what Valgavoth can do, then yes, you're gonna, you're gonna have a harder time keeping anything on board.
00:18:28
Zachary Jeblonski
but yeah, really good game.
00:18:30
ciderspence
Awesome.
00:18:32
Zachary Jeblonski
Uh, ready to move on.
00:18:34
ciderspence
Yeah, let me just briefly touch on my card of the week because it featured in one of the games I talked about.
00:18:35
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:18:38
ciderspence
It is Spirit Water Revival, another avatar card, one blue blue, a sorcery, with as an additional cost to cast this spell, you may water bend six. Draw two cards. If this spell's additional cost was paid, instead shuffle your graveyard into your library, draw seven cards, and you have no maximum hand size for the rest of the game.
00:18:55
ciderspence
Exile Spirit Water Revival. So I cast this in my Ty Lee Chi Blocker game, but I had to do it at a point where it basically took my whole turn. And then Ty Lee was my only creature, so I left her up as a blocker.
00:19:09
ciderspence
And the following turn, my opponent cast the Edict that made me sacrifice her. So I think...
00:19:15
Zachary Jeblonski
Oof.
00:19:17
ciderspence
Now, it it was still worth doing. I did wind up paying the waterbending, so I drew seven. That was awesome. Shuffled my graveyard into my library. That might have mattered later. But because she was my only creature, i felt like I had to hold her up. But I did draw into what I think would have won me the game had I lived another turn.
00:19:34
ciderspence
But it was just an example of how even a really good card, if it takes your whole turn... to cast and it doesn't win you the game on the spot. It's just a kind of awkward fit in some decks.
00:19:45
ciderspence
So I don't know whether I'm going to take this card out of the deck or just play more creatures so that at least I can still swing with my commander or have a little additional protection if I do do something like this mid-game.
00:19:57
ciderspence
Because it felt great to get seven cards, but it felt not good to not do anything and not attack and then get addicted and then lose.
00:20:03
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:20:06
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. i I'm, I'm really glad you brought this card up because it's, I kind of forgot about this card and this is definitely a card I want to buy some singles of because I think it is a really good card. And I think even in, with this experience, going the way you wanted it to, I think it didn't really dissuade me because I think, I think, I think it's just like one of those cards where like, you're going to fire it off for just the two, just to draw two, probably more so than you're going to the big thing.
00:20:29
Zachary Jeblonski
but, I really like it. It's like, so the way I would look at this card is like, I'm going to, this is a three mana draw too, which is not a great return. I get that. And it is a draw seven later. If I happen to have this in my hand after a board wipe. Right. So like this, to me, this is the classic somebody board wipe the board moment where it's like, Oh, there's no threats on the board. There's nothing going on.
00:20:53
Zachary Jeblonski
i'm going to fire it off for its nine costs. Basically. Yeah. And take and take take advantage of this lapse and like aggression that I've been dealing with. So I really like this card. And i I've been thinking i' mean been going back and forth on whether or not I should have at least one card in some of my decks to shuffle my graveyard in my library so that I don't like accidentally mill myself out or whatever.
00:21:13
Zachary Jeblonski
And this kind of checks a lot of boxes. So i'm i'm I'm excited to try it.
00:21:18
ciderspence
Yeah, I'll also say this this card is even better in decks that run a lot of artifacts that don't otherwise have to tap themselves, like equipment or token decks, right?
00:21:25
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:21:27
ciderspence
Because then you can effectively get the waterbending cost almost for free. And then it's just a three mana or maybe four mana, draw seven, no maximum hand size the rest of the game, which is which is great.
00:21:39
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I mean, if I think if I can rip this for 7 mana, I feel pretty good. and Like, if I, you know, pay 5 and then tap 2 things, I'm good with that, I think. I think I'd be happy with that. and then, of course, anything less than that is even better. But I think this card's really good.
00:21:56
Zachary Jeblonski
And even in like even in, like, a reanimator deck, you could run this...
00:21:57
ciderspence
Yeah.
00:22:00
Zachary Jeblonski
And just not activate the waterbending, right? Like, you know, the only thing is I wish, I do wish it was instant because I wish, I wish there, obviously, I mean, of course you want everything to be instant, but like, I wish I could fire this off in response to somebody like bajuca bogging my graveyard or something.
00:22:15
Zachary Jeblonski
Right. But for what it is, it's still really good in my opinion.
00:22:16
ciderspence
Yeah, that's a good point.
00:22:20
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. All right, so let's let's transition over to Dex on Deck and what we're working on Are you working on anything new? are We're still refining the the Avatar playlist.
00:22:32
ciderspence
Yeah, I would say the thing I'm working on now is just kind of tweaking some of the decks, the ones that I had more fun playing. May, Scornful Striker, the Monoblack, all creatures deck, I want to tweak a little bit.
00:22:42
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, that's a cool one.
00:22:44
ciderspence
I want to get this Ty Lee up and ready for some stronger bouts. And I want to work on the Axes and Allies deck. I also pulled one single that I do want to build around.
00:22:53
Zachary Jeblonski
nice
00:22:56
ciderspence
It is Kiyoshi, Avatar Kiyoshi Earthbender. During your turn, Avatar Kiyoshi has Hexproof. She costs 5, green, green, green. She's a 6-6. With, at the beginning of combat on your turn, Earthbend 8, then untap that land.
00:23:10
ciderspence
So...
00:23:10
Zachary Jeblonski
that's that's a big land yeah
00:23:12
ciderspence
there's There's a lot going on there, and she costs eight mana, but she's in green, which is the ramp colors. So I see a pretty straightforward version of this deck in my head, and I'm excited to put it together.
00:23:26
ciderspence
Because it's monocolored, I feel less pressure in monocolored decks to try to play with only the cards from the set, because usually that's impossible, and even if it's possible, it's a little silly. So I will probably just make this...
00:23:35
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:23:37
ciderspence
mono green ramp and lands that sacrifice for value and see if I can put together a fun version of it.
00:23:44
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. there's There's a lot you could do with that. My head my head was already like, oh yeah, you could do this. you could Yeah, yeah. I think there's there's a lot to be done with that. I think that's a really cool idea. I'd be excited to see that deck.
00:23:57
ciderspence
And indeed you may.
00:23:58
Zachary Jeblonski
All right. So I think for me, the big thing is, i all right, so Dimir is kind of the focus right now for me right now. I have my Oscar deck. I tried him again. i didn't talk about these games because i've clearly i have honed in on the problem with him, and what I'm trying to do is just not going to work. It's too slow, way too slow for what he's trying to do.
00:24:18
Zachary Jeblonski
But I did kind of stumble. No, I shouldn't say stumble. It's not like I'm the first person who had this thought, but... The thing that I have to remember about Oscar that I wasn't really leveraging when i in his current form is, I'm just gonna read him again. He's three blue black, human wizard. costs one less for each different amount of value amongst cards in my graveyard.
00:24:38
Zachary Jeblonski
And whenever you discard an online card, you may cast it from your graveyard, right? So originally I'd use them as sort of like a form of card advantage, you know, because if I loot, I draw one, discard one, and i cast the discard of one, it's basically I'm drawing one, you know?
00:24:51
Zachary Jeblonski
But you know somebody pointed out at the Friday store, and and I always knew this in the back of my mind, but I didn't really leverage it, which is that that completely gets around timing restrictions. So when I discard something, I can cast it. So that means if I loot on somebody else's term,
00:25:05
Zachary Jeblonski
you know, that I can get around time restrictions. So I think I'm going to strip away the whole shell that benefits from, because right now he's built around the idea of like putting stuff in graveyard and taking it out and then getting value for that. Like a good example, that would be,
00:25:21
Zachary Jeblonski
Defiled Crip, whenever one or more cards leave your graveyard, I make a 2-2 Black Horror. there are a lot of cards in there that make tokens or give me value for stuff going in the graveyard and coming out of the graveyard. It's just way too slow. By time I'm amassing tokens, it's turn 9, 10, if not even later.
00:25:36
Zachary Jeblonski
So I think what I'm going to do is actually instead lean further into abusing the timing restriction. so I'm going to pull those cards out, the graveyard synergy pieces, And it just put in like maybe big legendary creatures or sorceries or things that you kind of wish you could cast at Insta's P but can't and then try and leverage that.
00:25:55
Zachary Jeblonski
And if that doesn't work, then I have Lo and Lee already pro prototyped out. So, Oscar, you're on notice. If you don't get your act together, low and Lee's coming in and taking over. Yeah.
00:26:06
ciderspence
Well, I would be curious to see you a version of the Lo and Li deck, but this also sounds like a great opportunity for you to test out Spirit Water Revival at in instant speed.
00:26:14
Zachary Jeblonski
Exactly. So this is a great, this is a, what is, what a segue. Yeah. This is a great segue for, for exactly that purpose, right? Like, oh, somebody bajuqa bogs my graveyard. i just happened to have nine mana or three mana and a bunch of waterbends set up, boop, boop, you know, activated instant speed. Right.
00:26:30
Zachary Jeblonski
so I'm excited to try that. Like abusing timing restrictions to me is just inherently fun. It's always fun to catch somebody off guard, uh, with a sorcery type of effect at instant speed.
00:26:40
Zachary Jeblonski
so I'm going to probably work on that and hopefully have that, uh, ready. that's probably my big project that's on the horizon right now.
00:26:48
ciderspence
Nice.
00:26:50
Zachary Jeblonski
All right. real quick, I was going to touch on, I didn't prep you on the new stuff, didn't want to touch on this just in case it was important for you.
Community Impact and Product Reworking
00:26:57
Zachary Jeblonski
But, Were you looking forward to that monster hand hunter secret lair?
00:27:01
ciderspence
I wasn't particularly, but I did hear this news, and i did think it was interesting. I wanted to talk about it, too.
00:27:06
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, yeah. So i didn't fully read through the briefing, but essentially they they had announced a Monster Hunter secret lair. And the cards, that the i would say the art looked great. I would say the the cards look good, but the cards they selected for the reprints were pretty bad.
00:27:22
Zachary Jeblonski
i i basically only saw one card that I think people run in general, and that's Dracoseth, which is a dragon ETBs and does damage. But In general, none of the a lot of the cards were just not very useful in today's modern commander, other 60 card formats.
00:27:39
Zachary Jeblonski
So they put out an announcement and they said, okay, hold up, we're going cancel this and then we're going redo it, basically, which I don't know if they've ever done with a secret layer.
00:27:46
ciderspence
Yeah, in fact, it's it's pretty brief. I'm just going to read it. It's from Wizards of the Coast. Announcements November 26, 2025. Let's cut to the chase. The Secret Lair X Monster Hunter Super Drop we revealed last week fell short of expectations. We heard loud and clear that you were disappointed, and we believe we can do better.
00:28:02
ciderspence
So we're going to postpone the release and and rework this Super Drop entirely. Like many of you, we're big fans of Monster Hunter. It's why we put the Super Drop together. But in our excitement, we missed the mark on elements like card selection and faithfully integrating the world and mechanics of Monster Hunter.
00:28:15
ciderspence
As a result, the overall construction of the SuperDrop is not up to the standard you've come to expect. Pulling SuperDrops back isn't something we're going to do very often, but we're committed to doing better. Capcom is on board for us to make to take another swing at this SuperDrop as well.
00:28:27
ciderspence
So we're going to pull this one back and we'll share new details and an updated release date in a few months. Keep an eye out for more information in 2026.
00:28:36
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. Yeah. and So, I mean, I've never, I don't think I've ever, I've never seen them do this before, as far as I know.
00:28:45
ciderspence
Yeah, I think this is great. i I've seen, I guess, mixed reaction. A lot of people are taking it as an opportunity to kind of dunk on Wizards for doing something and then recognizing that they didn't do it well and saying, look how they bungled that or something. But I actually think this is a positive, especially in the era where people are complaining about the direction that the game is taking. This seems like a clear instance of them taking the temperature of the room and recognizing that enough people who have you know enough weight in the in their sphere weren't happy with it, that they'd rather take an unprecedented step of pulling it back than just go forward. And I think that's, I feel like that's, if not progress, that's at least a positive sign.
00:29:30
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. No, agree. i I think it was the right thing to do, for sure. like there'st you know I don't know if it's apocryphal or not, but Shigeru Miyamoto, who's the creator of Mario for Nintendo, has a famous quote where he says... A delayed game is delayed, but a bad game is a bad game forever. Essentially is the quote.
00:29:52
Zachary Jeblonski
so better to delay, better to go back to the drawing board, fix it before you put it out. Because once you put it out, it's too late, you know? so yeah, I hope for monster hunter fans and people are excited for it I hope that when that comes back, it's, it's, it's a better proposition.
00:30:08
Zachary Jeblonski
but you have a monster hunter fan or did you have any interaction with the series?
00:30:11
ciderspence
No, I had no interaction with the series. The only thing I saw about this before the announcement was Krim, the Asian Avenger from the MTG Goldfish channel, put out a short, I think, just talking about it.
00:30:24
ciderspence
And I think his general vibe was, you know, this isn't this isn't something I'm that excited for. And so I'm going to take that as you know somewhat representative of collective sentiment to it.
00:30:34
ciderspence
And again, I just think it's... It's great that Wizards heard that and was able to you know not put out something people weren't excited about and instead work on making it better.
00:30:45
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, for sure. I'm for this decision, a hundred percent. Like I can't imagine what the argument would be to put out a product that people are not excited for. That makes no sense to me. And if it's like, uh, you know, Oh, I, we got, we got wizards finally with their pants down, blah. I'm like, okay, this is a product you don't have to buy. If you don't like it, like it's, it's not, it's, there's not cultural war guys chill out.
00:31:10
Zachary Jeblonski
I know there will be no chill. I'm, I'm, I'm not optimistic.
00:31:12
ciderspence
There will be no chill.
00:31:13
Zachary Jeblonski
There will be no chill.
MTG Cards Enhancing Gameplay
00:31:16
Zachary Jeblonski
All right. Yeah, as far as that, that was the only news I wanted touch on. I don't think there anything else unless you wanted to bring up anything before we move on.
00:31:22
ciderspence
No, I didn't have anything else.
00:31:24
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. all right. So we're going kind of get to our Thanksgiving topic, which is cards we're thankful for. and this is an interesting way to think about cards. And and I appreciate you Charles, for bringing it up or or proposing it.
00:31:37
Zachary Jeblonski
So these might not be the flashiest cards. And i don't know if they would always classify as your, you know, eating your vegetables type of cards. But I think they are cards that are, I think,
00:31:48
Zachary Jeblonski
overall make your play experience better or make the play experience for everybody else better or more fun. So do you want to start us off with with one of your picks?
00:31:57
ciderspence
Yeah, I'm going to start off with an oldie but a goodie, Rogue's Passage. It's a land that taps for colorless, enters untapped, and you can pay four and tap it, and target creature can't be blocked this turn.
00:32:08
ciderspence
This card is just great. ie Sometimes you don't use it, sometimes it doesn't come into play in games, but it helps really long games end. And in particular, it gives you an opportunity to get through with your commander or your randomly big creature in a game-ending way. It also lets you play politics with the rest of the table, because sometimes somebody else has a game-ending threat that they can't otherwise get through.
00:32:32
ciderspence
And you can let that player get through and then try to deal with them on the backswing or something, or just let them get through to end the game, even if it means ending you too because you don't want to play anymore.
00:32:32
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:32:41
ciderspence
I think this this is just kind of a great get out of jail free card, and I'm i'm happy to see it. if The downside is just so low and the upside is is pretty great.
00:32:52
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I think this is a great first pick. I i used to run Rogue's Passages in every deck. when i first For the first year and a half, for two years of Magic, I had it in every deck. Unfortunately, i don't have it in many decks, but I think I need to get back to it. I played a game last week where it was against Cloud, the Voltron Commander, and he didn't fight he didn't have a Rogue's Passage, but if he did, he would have won that game twice.
00:33:17
Zachary Jeblonski
He absolutely would have won that game because we were able to keep his trample keywords off of the Voltron target. So we were able to keep chomping him. But if he had that rogue's passage, that would have been it. So I think this is a great first pick.
00:33:30
ciderspence
Yeah, it's an easy card to think you don't need anymore, especially if you play in faster games. Like games that only go six or seven turns, Rogue's Passage is often too slow for them.
00:33:41
ciderspence
But if a game goes unexpectedly longer than you think it will, Rogue's Passage, I found often comes in pretty handy.
00:33:49
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep. right. I'll start with mine. and This, I think, was one of my card of the week, but I want to bring it up because this card just... just continually surprises me.
00:34:01
Zachary Jeblonski
And it just, it it it sometimes creates this really fun game environment. Sometimes it just bails you out. And it's a machine gods effigy. It's four mana, four generic. That's an artifact. And when it enters a battlefield, you can have it become any creature on the battlefield, except it's an artifact and it has tap for blue.
00:34:19
Zachary Jeblonski
And the big thing about this is it is not a creature. It is still an artifact. And I had a game, and I'll just give you one example, but this is one example of many, which is I had a game last week where my opponent played the old shielded, the whispering one, where your opponent sacs a creature on upkeep, and then and then the person who owns the shielded reanimates a creature on upkeep.
00:34:42
Zachary Jeblonski
And so he played a shieldred. So then I played a Machine Gods Outfit G as a shieldred. And then the mono blue clone deck cloned his shieldred.
00:34:52
Zachary Jeblonski
So basically, we created this very weird loop where every turn, we all had to sacrifice all of our creatures and reanimate our creatures as shieldreds and then cycle continue, basically.
00:35:03
Zachary Jeblonski
that's just one example of like a silly game that this can create. This has gotten me out of so many bad scenarios. I think it's just a great card, you know, it's four mana, so it's a lot. I get it. You know, it's not like fast man. It's not a soul ring or whatever, but it really comes in clutch. and very rarely is it bad because it let the very least, it taps are blue. So even if you copy something lame, you can still tap it for blue.
00:35:26
ciderspence
Yeah, it's a solid pick.
00:35:27
Zachary Jeblonski
So machine gods FG. All right. I'm excited for your next pick. I like it. So you want to tell us about that one?
00:35:34
ciderspence
Yeah, my next pick is Coveted Jewel. Six mana. When it enters the battlefield, draw three cards and tap it to add three mana of any one color. Whenever one or more creatures an opponent controls attack you and aren't blocked, that player draws three cards and gains control of Coveted Jewel. Untap it.
00:35:54
ciderspence
So this is another card. I would put the Monarch as a mechanic in a similar category.
00:35:59
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, monarch.
00:36:00
ciderspence
That just kind of gets games moving. It's like this one is worse, I guess, than the Monarch because you somebody has to pay six mana to do it. But I just like what it does to a game. It just gives gives everybody something to grab for, right? Like everybody kind of wants Coveted Jewel because who doesn't want three mana and three cards?
00:36:19
ciderspence
So I just kind of love it. It's, again, it's not especially efficient. There are certainly games that end before it could make an impact, but I'm generally thankful when it shows up, so I think it goes on my thanks list.
00:36:34
Zachary Jeblonski
No, I am thankful when it shows up. And it's a card, once again, just like Rose Passage, I really should put this back in more decks. I do have it in two decks, I think. But I should put it back in because it's just fun. It just makes the game more fun for pretty much everybody.
00:36:49
Zachary Jeblonski
Sometimes the Coveted Jewel gets locked behind somebody who has like a you know good defensive wall or whatever, or defensive creatures and stuff like that. But a lot of times it it passes around. and And one of the situations that I think is really fun when it creates is when you choose and not to get the coveted jewel because you don't want to get clapped by the person who does want the coveted jewel.
00:37:10
Zachary Jeblonski
And I think that's a really cool hot potato moment where drawing three and adding three mana is not enough to deal with the 2020 Voltron that's going to come swinging your way if you have that coveted jewel, right? So I think it's just I think it's really fun on multiple fronts. I think it's a great card.
00:37:26
ciderspence
Yeah, I agree.
00:37:28
Zachary Jeblonski
All right, so I got a much less flashier card, but i yeah basically about, I'd say about a year and a half ago or two years ago, i just started running Bounce Lands in every deck. And I've been very happy with with this move.
00:37:42
Zachary Jeblonski
and i'm gonna And I picked the boringness of the boring of the Bounce Lands, which is Arid Archway. And it's basically the same thing as another one called Gillis Commons. They basically both do the same thing.
00:37:55
Zachary Jeblonski
But they come in tapped and when they enter, you have to return a land to your hand and they add two mana, in this case, two colorless, right? And then there's bounce lands for all the two color combinations.
00:38:05
Zachary Jeblonski
But I am almost never unhappy when I draw this. it It just, it does the thing. And one of the things it does really well is return MDFCs that maybe you play as lands.
00:38:17
Zachary Jeblonski
It ensures a land drop for your next turn. It just plays well with a lot of different effects. And yes, I know it's tapped, whatever. I know there's a lot of people out there that are just completely...
00:38:28
Zachary Jeblonski
Uh, just one, one, nothing to do with any lands that come in tapped and I get that you can play that way. But in reality, what I find is that you can play your lands out in such a way where you don't need that mana that turns you play the tap land that turn. And then the turn you need the mana, you play your untapped land. You have that mix, right? So, bounce lands in general, but I'm going to pick the most boring because it is just the card I'm thankful for, which is Arid Archway.
00:38:53
ciderspence
And let me just say, you say the most boring. i say the most generic and useful. Like this is the one that you can put into any deck.
00:38:59
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah
00:39:00
ciderspence
Another thing I've heard people complain about with bounce lands is that if you play at turn two and you haven't played anything else, it bounces your and you have to discard something. I think that as infrequently as that happens, it also sometimes happens that you get to discard something you'd like to have in your graveyard.
00:39:16
ciderspence
So I think that's a wash. I just don't even think that's a material downside. I think bounce lands are great. So hard to agree.
00:39:21
Zachary Jeblonski
And here's here's my thing with that. but Here's my thing with that. Well, why'd you keep that hand? Like you should be mulliganing that hand, i think you know, like, I don't know. To me, that's like a, a mulligan issue because I, I, I have never done that.
00:39:38
Zachary Jeblonski
And since I've run, sorry, running bounce bands, I've never once done the situation where I dropped it and then had to discard because I didn't play something. Except when I've done it on purpose and reanimated it. Cause that's another secret, see secret thing you can do, which is you intentionally play that bounce land on turn two to force yourself to discard. So you discard your reanimation target.
00:39:59
Zachary Jeblonski
so I've done that and that's a fun thing to do, but yeah, like just don't keep the hand. If you have like two lands and one of them is a bounce land, I wouldn't keep that.
00:40:08
Zachary Jeblonski
All right. Do you have another card you want to talk talk to us about?
00:40:13
ciderspence
Those are the two that stood out to me. Did you have a third one?
00:40:16
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, i yeah, we're going roll here. This is another one where I'm surprised I don't see it as as often, but it was huge in the meta.
00:40:26
Zachary Jeblonski
In the meta, i used to when I when i play used to play a lot more in Birmingham, Alabama with my friend group there, this card was always present. If there was any green deck, it was always there.
00:40:36
Zachary Jeblonski
And I run it in every green deck, and it's Oracle of Moldiah. And it's three and a green. You can play an additional land on each your turns. You play with the top card of your library revealed, And you play lands from, can play lands from the top of your library.
00:40:50
Zachary Jeblonski
And i just really like this card because there's just something that tickles the dopamine centers of my brain. When you play this card and then the top cards will land and you play that and there's another land behind it. you play that just that little, like if that's all that happens and then she dies, I'm cool. I'm good. We Gucci. I'm all right. Cause I got my little dopamine hit of playing lands on top of my library.
00:41:13
Zachary Jeblonski
it's just a fun card. I just really like it. I run it in every green deck. but I'm kind of surprised I don't see it as often. I know it's slightly on the expensive side. Yeah. I think the cheapest one is still $3. Okay. So it's, you know, when I started playing them, they were like $10 plus, so they have been reprinting them, but yeah, highly recommend it for any green deck. the downside is your opponent to be able to see every card you draw for as long as she's on the battlefield. So even if you draw more than one card, you technically have to reveal them as you draw them.
00:41:40
Zachary Jeblonski
But most normal magic players are not going to remember. They're just not going to remember what's in your hand after a couple minutes. So I wouldn't worry about it. But Oracle Maldaya, it's she's all right.
00:41:51
ciderspence
Yeah, I feel like I've only seen this card in decks that were pretty high-functioning. The decks that it appears in, it adds a lot of value for. I think I've never seen one of those decks experience the downside of having someone see their gacha card on the top of their library. Yeah, this is just a solid card that, again, i don't run it because don't play a lot of Landfall-y decks or decks that rely heavily on RAMP where I think this would be most useful.
00:42:26
ciderspence
But like I said, the decks I've seen it in it has added a lot of value for
00:42:31
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it is like my generic, it's it's part of my generic green ramp package. If it's a green deck, she's in there. And I am pretty much always happy to see her.
00:42:43
Zachary Jeblonski
The, the big thing is if you are going to run this card, that One of the common things that everyone does and I have to do is like, if you run if you're going to run this card, don't play a land until you played the Oracle, just in case there's a land on top.
00:42:56
Zachary Jeblonski
You know, I know it's simple, but I'm guilty of that all the time where i'm like, oh, I'll play Oracle and then I'll play a land and off there's a land on top. Right. Like, but yeah, so, and if she makes it another turn cycle, like past the turn cycle, you play it.
00:43:04
ciderspence
Yep. yep
00:43:10
Zachary Jeblonski
Like, usually you are just riding high.
00:43:13
Zachary Jeblonski
All right. I think you got another card you want to bring up that you're thankful for.
00:43:17
ciderspence
Yeah, I got another one. This is kind of in the in the same vein as Rogue's Passage. It is Blackblade Reforged. 2 mana, 3 mana to equip.
00:43:23
Zachary Jeblonski
oh yeah.
00:43:25
ciderspence
Legendary artifact equipment. equipped creature you Equip creature gets plus 1 plus 1 for each land you control. This is another kind of get out of jail free card for a long game where you're not sure how it's going to end.
00:43:40
ciderspence
This can help it end. Just give your creature plus one plus one for each lane you control. Usually in a long game, that's unless you've been exceptionally unlucky, that's, you know, eight, nine, 10, 11, plus 11, plus 11 makes basically anything a game ending threat.
00:43:56
ciderspence
If you hit with it twice and that can, you know, push a game that's struggling to the finish line over it.
00:43:56
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep. Yeah.
00:44:02
ciderspence
So Yeah, just, again, a card that I'm thankful to see, sometimes on an opponent's board, because they've been doing a lot of stuff, but they're not close to winning, and now at least they're closer.
00:44:15
Zachary Jeblonski
and Please get me out of this game.
00:44:17
ciderspence
Yeah, yeah, sometimes, yeah, you just want to move on.
00:44:20
Zachary Jeblonski
Now, Black Page, it's a classic. And like, it's one of those cards where you can see it in all sorts of decks, like bracket twos, all the other bracket fours. It's just, it's not too good for what it is. it is it is a it is a meat mashed potatoes card, if you would, in terms of it does it gets the job done. It's not flashy, but it certainly gets the job done.
00:44:44
ciderspence
Yeah, agree.
00:44:46
Zachary Jeblonski
Speaking of, all right, so this is a card I'm thankful for. i run it in all my black decks, and it is worse, I would say, than than a lot of cards that do its effect.
00:44:59
Zachary Jeblonski
But let me walk through why I like it so much. It's Kaya's Ghost Form. It's one black. It's an enchantment aura. You enchant a creature or planeswalker. Planeswalker is sometimes relevant. And when Enchanted Permanent dies or is put in into exile, return it back to the battlefield under your control.
00:45:14
Zachary Jeblonski
So for one black, you basically make it so that a creature or Planeswalker can't die or be exiled, which is really big. So anybody casts a path or Swords of Plowshares, it also activates.
00:45:27
Zachary Jeblonski
I just really like it. And one of the reasons I really like Kaya's Ghost Form is that even if somebody has the removal in hand, they won't want to do it because they don't want to eat. They don't want to have Kai's Ghost form bring it back. You know i mean? Like, so even if they have like two removals in hand, they just won't do it because they just don't want to spend two cards for your one card. Right.
00:45:48
Zachary Jeblonski
And, and a lot of people like, Oh, it's sorcery piece. So just respond. I'm like, okay, I wasted one black mana to try to keep my creature from dying. I'm i'm fine with that. You know, if I get a three mana removal spell out of a somebody's hand for me, casting my one mana, like,
00:46:03
Zachary Jeblonski
protection spell, I'm okay with that. So, general, I find this card to be really good. I find it usually gets activated. Usually like, I don't think there's many games where I play Kai's ghost form on a creature and that creature doesn't die or get put into exile at some point for some reason, usually a board wipe.
00:46:19
Zachary Jeblonski
so it's just a car I'm thankful for. I do run it in pretty much all of my black decks.
00:46:23
ciderspence
Yeah, and it's got fat text that it returns to the battlefield under your control, so if you steal something and you sacrifice it or something, you can bring it back.
00:46:29
Zachary Jeblonski
You can do that. Yeah.
00:46:31
ciderspence
Yeah, I mean, this is... I've also seen this card be a part of some overwhelming decks, especially decks that are focused on looping the same creature, looping the same Planeswalker, I guess. it's Yeah, this is this is another good one. I don't personally run it a lot, but again, the decks I've seen it in, it's it's done pretty well for
00:46:52
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, the I think the grossest I ever made it was... i don't have this deck anymore, but when I had Muldrotha as a commander where he allows you to play one of... He allows you to play permanently your graveyard once each turn of that type, basically.
00:47:07
Zachary Jeblonski
And with a Kai's Ghost Form, it is almost impossible for your your your your opponents to remove creatures permanently because you're basically just playing Kai's Ghost Form back from the graveyard onto the creature every time they try to blow it up. Like... Of course, if they do it at instant speed or they back to back the removals, that's fine. But then it's Muldratha. So you just cast it from the graveyard again. So you can see where like Kai's Ghost Form in a Muldratha deck is just absolutely heinous for anybody to try and deal with your creature.
00:47:35
Zachary Jeblonski
But even if you're not doing any unfair toxic stuff with it, I think it just slaps. It's just a good old card that I'm grateful exists in the game.
00:47:46
ciderspence
Nice.
00:47:48
Zachary Jeblonski
All right. any other cards you want to talk about that you're thankful for?
00:47:53
ciderspence
No, I think those are those are mine. You got any more?
00:47:57
Zachary Jeblonski
i got, I got one more. I don't think this has ever been a card the week for me, but it is a card I'm grateful for. and it's, you know, also not the most flashy thing, but it it does the job and I've run it in every blue deck I have. and it's to fairy's ageless insight.
00:48:14
Zachary Jeblonski
It's this a card that I always think well bay will will elicit more removals than it does. But almost no one ever removes this card, and I get it because it doesn't do anything on its own. So I think a lot of people are like, oh, it can't be that bad.
00:48:28
Zachary Jeblonski
But I hesitate to say this because as much as I like this card, it is that bad. So Teferi's Ageless Insight is two blue blue legendary enchantment. If you would draw a card except the first one, you draw two instead.
00:48:43
Zachary Jeblonski
every blue deck I have runs this card basically. and the game completely changes for me every time I play it because I've like from that point forward is what I mean. Like, so if I'm in a game, I'm doing something, but once I play it, the whole game shifts because you just think about how many activation of abilities or how many card draw effects you have and how like inefficient they are usually, you know, we're we're not running ancestral recall out here. We're spending multiple mana to get cards that less than the amount of our spending or whatever.
00:49:11
Zachary Jeblonski
And with this, all those value propositions switch and suddenly that draw two discard one and becomes a draw four discard one. And then all these cards become amazing. So it's a card I'm thankful for. I run in all my blue decks.
00:49:24
Zachary Jeblonski
for whatever reason, people don't tend to remove it very often, which I think you should. Like if I have the opportunity to remove somebody's Teferi's Ageless Insight, I do. but yeah, this card just, just goes. I, I mean, I probably play it at least once a week because every, practically every deck I had that has it.
00:49:40
ciderspence
Yeah, if you have a deck where you're drawing on your opponent's turns, this is auto-include. Turning things that are, you know, draw one, discard one, or blood tokens or clues, all that stuff into even higher value is just great.
00:49:51
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah yeah. yep.
00:49:56
ciderspence
The question is, for me, I have it in a bunch of decks, I've taken it out of a few decks, can I afford to spend 4 mana to not do anything immediately? i should probably be a little more optimistic of its chances of sticking around because it's an enchantment.
00:50:10
ciderspence
And it seldom seems like the worst enchantment on the board.
00:50:15
Zachary Jeblonski
yep
00:50:16
ciderspence
because The people that play enchantments play a lot of busted enchantments. If this is the only one and somebody has enchantment removal, sure, they might spend it on this. So that's a little scary, but it probably is a little more resilient just because it's not the worst thing to see come to the table, but it does add a lot of value.
00:50:36
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I mean, it's, it adds, let me put it this way, it adds so much value that a lot of times when I play the, play a game with this on the board, sometimes I choose not to play this card because it will kill me because like of how much cards it will probably cause me to draw.
00:50:51
Zachary Jeblonski
A good example of this was when I played by Kratos to Kratos Atreus deck. I had this on the battlefield when I had 16 experience counters. So I couldn't activate Atreus at that point because I would draw 32 cards.
00:51:03
Zachary Jeblonski
Now that might be underselling or it might be like counterselling this card, but I'm just saying like, that's house how good it is at what it does. And four mana, I understand it comes down, does nothing for four mana, but I think four mana is within that mana range for me where like I'm comfortable with a card that does nothing at four mana. I'm comfortable with that.
00:51:26
Zachary Jeblonski
And yeah, I think it's it's a really card I'm grateful for. It's turned so many spells and abilities in my decks from like, okay, I guess that's fine. I draw a card to, oh, okay. My clues draw me too. Okay. You know, like it just, I just, it just rips. It's just great.
00:51:44
ciderspence
Yeah, it's a great pick.
Conclusion and Thanksgiving Wishes
00:51:46
Zachary Jeblonski
but yeah, I think that's a, those are the cards I'm thankful for. Of course I'm thankful for a lot more than just that, but those are the ones that I thought I wanted to touch on, on this Thanksgiving special. Uh, anything else you want to talk about before we kind of wrap it up?
00:52:00
ciderspence
No, I think that's it.
00:52:02
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay, cool. and yeah, so, uh, we're thankful for, uh, the listeners out there, of course. guys are the best card. Uh, if I could put you on one, I would. But until next week, this has been Zach. I've been joined again by Charles.
00:52:17
ciderspence
Indeed. Happy holidays again, everybody.
00:52:18
Zachary Jeblonski
And you...
00:52:19
ciderspence
Hope you're enjoying food and festivities with people you care about. And magic, of course, magic.
00:52:24
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. And yeah yeah, just for... for you know when you're When you're with your friends and family, force them to play Magic at Thanksgiving. They'll love it. But you guys have a great Thanksgiving.
00:52:34
ciderspence
Take it easy, everybody.