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Ep. 38 - This Deck Tops Out At Fine
13 Plays7 days ago
Marvel Superheroes is here! We have a lot of game talk featuring some of the new cards. Plus Zack has a minor crashout about Valgavoth, Terror Eater. There's something for everyone!
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Transcript
Celebrating One Year: Reflections and Humor
00:00:12
Zachary Jeblonski
hello Hello, Welcome to another episode of Midlife's Crisis. I'm Zach. I'm joined again by Charles.
00:00:17
ciderspence
How's it going, Zach?
00:00:19
Zachary Jeblonski
And we were just talking before the for the podcast started here that apparently we' passed a year. So congratulations, Charles.
00:00:27
ciderspence
right, yeah. Congrats, Zach.
00:00:28
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. so you know, if if we were a more on top of it podcast, we would have special programming, clip shows, highlights, you know, reminisces.
00:00:41
Zachary Jeblonski
But, you know, that's not the kind of podcast you're turning you tune into. You know, we we and we want to offer our fans what we want to offer our fans a consistent level of quality.
00:00:50
Zachary Jeblonski
Which is consistently flying by the seat of our our pants.
00:00:53
ciderspence
That's right. and I would say consistent in in our inconsistency, right?
00:00:56
Zachary Jeblonski
Exactly.
00:00:56
ciderspence
Like, we weren't sure if it had been a year yet, because this hasn't been a year's worth of episodes. But it occurred to us, you know, we've had a few absences, and maybe those absences plus the episodes equals a year.
00:01:08
ciderspence
And turns out that's correct.
00:01:10
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. So I think here's what
Marvel Mania: Anticipation and Insights
00:01:11
Zachary Jeblonski
i'll do. I will commit on air that when we get to episode 52, uh, will at least say something, resembling something, appreciating 52 episodes.
00:01:23
Zachary Jeblonski
There you go That's my lowest possible commitment I could possibly make. Will i remember to do this? Stay tuned. You just have to wait, uh, 15 more episodes.
00:01:34
ciderspence
I think the number 52 is pretty resonant. So I think between the two of us, we'll we'll come up with something by the end of that episode.
00:01:41
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay. Okay. Well, uh, why don't we get into it? It's been, it's been a couple weeks since we talked. So we we have a, we probably have a lot, uh, not to mention we haven't really touched on much of the Marvel stuff and I know that's gonna be a big set for you.
00:01:55
Zachary Jeblonski
so yeah, the,
00:01:56
ciderspence
It has indeed been so far, yes
00:01:58
Zachary Jeblonski
I can imagine. And and even I have been really enjoying looking through the cards and there's a lot in there. So lets before we get to that, let's what do you want to talk about what what we've played over the last two weeks.
00:02:11
ciderspence
Yeah, I mean, for me, it's going to be one and the same. I've played as many of the Marble Commanders as I could.
00:02:16
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, nice. OK.
00:02:19
ciderspence
So I think I've played eight or nine of them, and I have a couple of other decks that I'll get to on Decks on Deck that I'm kind of working my way into.
00:02:27
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:02:30
ciderspence
But yeah, my pulls were pretty good. i pulled the bonus sheet... storm and black panther and captain america that were released as part of that secret lair
00:02:42
Zachary Jeblonski
Bonus sheets.
00:02:44
ciderspence
uh the uh it's the set code mar i think it's like a marvel bonus sheet but like the storm the storm force of nature the the busted one that people were like oh you can't let her attack it gives you stuff storm
00:02:48
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh.
00:02:55
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, I was say, because it like, yeah, it was at first I was like, wait a minute, did they design a brand new storm just for the bonus sheet?
00:03:00
ciderspence
No, no, no. just Just different art, and it is a reprint. But that card is still good.
00:03:04
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, gotcha, gotcha.
00:03:06
ciderspence
So I decided, since I've already seen those, i already had I have a couple of versions of a Storm deck, and I have a Black Panther deck. I haven't built those. So i tried to I started by building just cards from cards that were new releases.
00:03:21
ciderspence
But yeah, I played a bunch of games. I don't think it makes sense to go through all eight of them. But I did play a game.
Gaming Strategies: Commander Pod Experiences
00:03:26
ciderspence
My first in-person Commander Pod game with one of those decks was last night.
00:03:32
ciderspence
And I played Monica Rembo.
00:03:32
Zachary Jeblonski
OK.
00:03:35
ciderspence
let me pull up her text.
00:03:37
Zachary Jeblonski
Let's pull up good ol' Monica.
00:03:38
ciderspence
Monica.
00:03:42
ciderspence
Monica Rambeau, she's a flip commander. So if anyone remembers from the Spider-Man set, they introduced these commanders that you could cast on the front or the back, but you could also cast on the front and then transform to the back.
00:03:45
Zachary Jeblonski
OK.
00:03:49
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh.
00:03:53
ciderspence
And the transform cost is the same as the casting cost the back.
00:03:54
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:03:57
ciderspence
So Monica Rambeau, two and a white. Flying prowess, legendary creature, a human hero. Just flying in prowess, and she transforms for two red, white, white. Transform Monica Rambeau only as a sorcery.
00:04:09
ciderspence
She's a 3-3 on the front side, and on the back side, she's a 4-4. Photon, living light, legendary creature, elemental hero. Flying, hexproof in prowess, and whenever you cast a non-creature spell, put a 1-1 counter on each other creature you control.
00:04:26
Zachary Jeblonski
So basically a permanent prowess. Interesting.
00:04:30
ciderspence
Kind of. So it's it's a little worse because her prowess doesn't grow.
00:04:30
Zachary Jeblonski
Like, yeah, like, like, yeah.
00:04:34
ciderspence
So that's a bit of a bummer. But yeah, the rest of it is obviously very good. So yeah, I played this deck in person last night. And it's it's funny because I showed up. i was It was a different store. And I was trying out a new place.
00:04:49
ciderspence
and it It said it was a commander party. So it was July 4th. So I was like, I'm not sure what options I'm going to have. Let me give this a shot. So I go, I get there a little bit late, and I said, hey, I hope I didn't miss it. And the guy says, no, you didn't miss it, but you are going to make it a five pod.
00:05:04
ciderspence
And so i was like, oh, man, i Because I hate five pods, and I know that other people hate five pods.
00:05:05
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh,
00:05:11
Zachary Jeblonski
I know. i know.
00:05:13
Zachary Jeblonski
i' and And to be fair, I am. i'm I'm at the point of my magic career where I'm with you. I am with you when it comes to five pods.
00:05:21
ciderspence
Ordinarily, I would rather not play than join a five pod, but I...
00:05:24
Zachary Jeblonski
Yes. Yes.
00:05:25
ciderspence
This was my one shot to play an in-person five-player game with one of these decks, but hopefully before we were going to podcast about it.
00:05:31
Zachary Jeblonski
And yeah. Yeah.
00:05:33
ciderspence
And I've been talking all to since Marvel pre-release about how much I wanted to play these decks. I played a lot of them in Spell Table. I played some Heads Up with a Friend on Wednesday night, but I just hadn't... I was like, let me just...
00:05:47
ciderspence
Let me just try to get this in. So I come in. I'm apologetic. I'm like, hey, guys, I'm sorry. I know I'm making this five-pod, five-player games are bad. And they're like, oh, no, don't worry about it i was like, no, no, no. I am worried about it. This is this is worse. I've done this to you.
00:06:00
ciderspence
i apologize. But anyway, we get into the game. And so it is two other Marvel decks, one pre-con, one homebrew, one Dr. Doom pre-con, one homebrew around Black Widow that was focused on a creature attacking a alone.
00:06:17
ciderspence
one Zozu the Punisher deck that was themed around old cards. And i I told that player, hey, I'm glad you're here because this is a five-player pod and you're going to keep this game from going forever.
00:06:28
Zachary Jeblonski
I know i was I was just about to say that that's that that is that's a champ right there playing a Zozu in a 5-5 because that that's going to make sure that game ends quickly.
00:06:37
ciderspence
hundred percent And what's funny is that was a fairly new player and she kept a hand with no lands in it.
00:06:44
Zachary Jeblonski
No.
00:06:44
ciderspence
assuming she would get a land and when it got to her turn she just passed and we were all like oh no no no you you just have to mulligan that she was like no i'm sure to work out and i told her look more than anyone at this table you need to make sure that you can catch your commander because that's our out so
00:07:00
Zachary Jeblonski
That's so funny.
00:07:02
ciderspence
so So she mulliganed another player also, this was a very casual game. Another player also re-mulliganed like they played a land, but they didn't like their starting hand, they re-mulliganed, this was fine. And then the other player at the table, aside from me, was a self-described, later we would come out come to come out that that person was a magic judge, and they were playing a high bracket three control deck.
00:07:26
Zachary Jeblonski
That you you're.
00:07:27
ciderspence
So... It's funny, like you find yourself at different tables in different circumstances. And I was actually glad that I was at this table because I was like, this is a mismatch. This person appears to not have another deck. They were like, oh, I don't have a casual deck on me. I was like, i have plenty of casual decks if you want to play one of those. And he was like, no, it would have to be a casual deck I enjoy playing.
00:07:45
ciderspence
and that that was That was like a yellow flag, right? Like there's a way that you can say that and be an okay person.
00:07:49
Zachary Jeblonski
that is
00:07:50
ciderspence
But there's definitely a way that you can say that and not be an okay person.
00:07:51
Zachary Jeblonski
you know you're
00:07:54
Zachary Jeblonski
you're you're being gent You're being so nice saying yellow because I'm moving like the red on that one. Yeah.
00:07:59
ciderspence
Well, gameplay wise, it was a red flag because I was like, okay, I don't want to do anything else but eliminate this player. So, you know, we we go around, that player played Sensei's Divining Top turn one.
00:08:06
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:08:12
ciderspence
was like, all right, man.
00:08:13
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:08:14
ciderspence
This is just how it's going be. But I happen to have removal on turn one. So I sent a message, you know, since they divining top hard to get rid of. But I played, i don't know, meltdown or something that like I tried to remove all one mana artifacts.
00:08:27
ciderspence
And then, you know, we kind of had the we kind of made eyes on each other. And I was like, he was like, oh, it's like that. And I was like, yeah, it's like that. So it was friendly.
00:08:34
Zachary Jeblonski
No, he did he did he I assume he he just put this into.
00:08:36
ciderspence
Yeah, he topped it. put it back on top. But, but you know, I said, all right, guys, I'm going to make an enemy. i cast a spell. He's like, cast that right now? Sensei's Dwayne top is the only thing on the board to be effective. Okay. All right.
00:08:47
ciderspence
He's like, well, it does set me back a turn. i was like, that's that's all I'm trying to do. Just make you less...
00:08:50
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, i I'm not going to derail this conversation, but man, when I first started playing Magic and I realized how hard it was to get rid of a top, that was that was an early salt moment for me when I first started playing Magic. but Continue, sorry.
00:09:03
ciderspence
no uh just to be clear Zach this is the conversation this back and forth in between talking about games
00:09:08
Zachary Jeblonski
Because like, and it kind of like goes to the, I had a minor crash out when I first started playing magic with Sporefrog and a Marin deck because that's when I learned that you can't respond to a cost.
00:09:17
ciderspence
yes right
00:09:22
Zachary Jeblonski
and And I just, i remember losing it was I had a sword supply of shame hand. i'm like, what do you mean I can't swords it? What do you mean? You know, like I had a moment there. And Sensei is definitely up there where it's like, what do you mean?
00:09:34
Zachary Jeblonski
Like you just, you activate it and it's gone and I can't do anything like, but yeah.
00:09:40
ciderspence
yep
00:09:43
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Yeah. Continue, please.
00:09:45
ciderspence
no i look i it being salty about this puts you on the right side of the story anyway so there's nothing nothing wrong with that uh okay so anyway that's like the early turns so this monica deck uh takes a while to get going but it's got some attacky shenanigans stuff in it so i was confident that if i lived long enough i'd be able to
00:09:50
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:09:58
Zachary Jeblonski
Uh-huh.
00:10:06
ciderspence
kind of put the screws to this guy and he was just i guess he was setting up or maybe he wasn't drawing well like part of this goes back to my threat assessment like i tend to threat assess at the beginning of the game and not as much during a game like they really didn't have that much going on like they were making land drops and they were spinning the top a lot but they weren't putting many threats on the board i forget who their commander it was like some sphinx that lets you cast free cast from the top of your library it was asper colors not i don't think it was spar it was old yes it was yenet yeah that's right
00:10:35
Zachary Jeblonski
Spara?
00:10:38
Zachary Jeblonski
Esper. Oh, you're talking about Yannet? If it's old, Yannet, if it's an odd card? Yeah. i you have any Yannet deck.
00:10:47
ciderspence
uh yeah so they were just kind of setting up they didn't have much on the board but you know just from the self-description of the deck i was still worried so anyway
00:10:57
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep. Nice.
00:10:58
ciderspence
Doctor Doom is putting villains out. The Black Widow deck is also putting villains out. Zozu is just playing, played Zozu, and so we're all taking our two damage every land we play.
00:11:09
ciderspence
So life totals are just whittling their way down.
00:11:09
Zachary Jeblonski
yep
00:11:11
ciderspence
She's also playing elementals that just come out with haste, big, big front, small back. So like she had a four one on turn two that just hit somebody for four. And it was, that was the vibes from that deck.
00:11:21
Zachary Jeblonski
nice
00:11:23
ciderspence
Pretty, pretty solid. So we're kind of taking turns, Dolan Damage out. And i get to a position where I think I can take out the Yannette player on the following turn.
00:11:36
ciderspence
But not before they have Yannette out, they swing at somebody who doesn't have a Flying Blocker, because I have one at this point, and they cast Void Winnower, the card that you can't block with even mana value creatures, and you can't cast even mana value spells.
00:11:47
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep.
00:11:56
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep.
00:11:57
ciderspence
So, and his, his, his, the description of his quote was something like, oh, well, I'm not going to live, but this will be funny. And that also is another yellow flag.
00:12:07
ciderspence
It's like, I don't, it didn't feel like his vibe for funny was, didn't feel like his vibe for funny was the same as the table's vibe for funny.
00:12:09
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep. That's a yellow. I'll give that one yellow.
00:12:14
ciderspence
But just to be clear, this player was not being a jerk. They just played a deck that I think was not appropriate for the table. No.
00:12:21
Zachary Jeblonski
Just be clear, they were they were not a jerk. They were just playing a deck that was a jerk.
00:12:26
ciderspence
That's true. And I don't know if you, I like, i hope that makes sense. Like there are, there are people who play a deck in a way that who, who just are jerks about their gameplay.
00:12:30
Zachary Jeblonski
It makes sense to me.
00:12:34
ciderspence
This player wasn't that they just were, you know, they were trying to do something I think was,
00:12:39
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:12:39
ciderspence
outside of the vibe but uh but whatever uh so they played this this obviously messed with some of our stuff it happened to not mess with my stuff because my commander is odd mana value a lot of my creatures are odd man of value did have some tokens out i expected to be able to walk with that i couldn't walk with so that was a bummer so i took a little more damage than i meant to on the way around uh but
00:12:53
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:13:01
ciderspence
I had a fire crystal, the fire crystal. So my creatures are going to have haste. was going to be able to cast my commander, swing in with two flyers. That opponent only had one flying blocker. and I thought between one of the flyers getting in and some of my low mana value stuff getting in, they were at like 10 life thanks to Zozu and some fetch land shenanigans on their part.
00:13:22
ciderspence
I thought I'd be able to swing in for the win. But then one of the villa the Dr. Doom pre-con player hit me with stilt man. And Stiltman says, when Stiltman, when whatever one or more villains deal control combat damage to a player, gain control of target non-creature non-land permanent that player controls until the end of your next turn.
00:13:44
ciderspence
It gains this permanent can't be sacrificed until the end of your next turn. and she stole my fire crystal which is totally fair i was doing a lot of work with that fire crystal it's a cost reducer and a haste enabler that's great in my deck so she took it i had destroyed her doctor doom also so she was rightly
00:13:53
Zachary Jeblonski
uh okay yeah ye yep yep
00:14:03
ciderspence
outraged which is completely fair uh okay so i was like and now my only problem is i don't know if i can kill this guy uh but then i drew my card of the week on my next turn and my card of the week is uh-oh in a different tab because i was going back to celebrate a
Marvel Set Exploration and Deck Building
00:14:19
ciderspence
year's worth of episodes here we go it is aurelia the law above flying vigilance haste 4-4 angel whenever a player attacks with three or more creatures you draw a card whenever a player attacked with five or more creatures aurelia the law above deals four damage to each of your opponents and you gain three life so it turns out that between the three life and the amount of creatures i was able to attack with i just got that player to zero uh and that felt great
00:14:35
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep. Yep. Nice.
00:14:49
ciderspence
I went on to win that game after just about dying, deservedly so, but it was a pretty fun in-person full pod debut with with Monica Rambeau, who I did cast on the turn that I won along with Karlak and my opponent scooped, because they apparently their pod has a Karlak player, and they know what she does and don't want to see it.
00:15:01
Zachary Jeblonski
nice
00:15:12
ciderspence
So...
00:15:12
Zachary Jeblonski
I, yeah, I've played, I've played against a lot of carlax for, so for whatever reason, I've played against a lot of carlax and, uh, yep. I know what that card does.
00:15:21
ciderspence
Yep. But yeah, so that was my game. Had a had a great time, and i didn't cast my commander until the end, but I think a commander as a finisher is is a fine. It didn't feel like she wasn't involved.
00:15:31
ciderspence
She was involved and that in the the felling blow. So yeah, that was I had a great time.
00:15:35
Zachary Jeblonski
No, that's, really that's really cool. Yeah, no, that's really cool. Cause like I, yeah, like I, I need to sit down and maybe I'll do that today. It's just like, you know, pull up all the Marvel sets, uh, filter down the legendary and just take a look at these.
00:15:47
Zachary Jeblonski
Cause I didn't even, until you told me this card existed, I didn't know it really existed.
00:15:52
ciderspence
Yeah, there are I think they said there are like 200 Legends in this set.
00:15:55
ciderspence
It's a lot. And some of them are just really fun.
00:15:56
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah. the
00:15:59
ciderspence
Some of them are generically very strong. And some of them are not generically very strong, but are are interesting.
00:16:01
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah
00:16:05
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, Tomer at MTG Goldfish does the a YouTube episode when a new set comes out where he features every legendary creature in there as a commander. or Like, not a full deck, but just talks about them. And I think the episode for this set is like six and a half hours long.
00:16:18
ciderspence
It is.
00:16:19
Zachary Jeblonski
because that it'
00:16:19
ciderspence
Yep, I started it, couldn't finish it, and I'm a diehard. so yeah is
00:16:22
Zachary Jeblonski
I know, I started it, and then what I need to do is I just need to have a running in the background while im doing something else. Yeah.
00:16:27
ciderspence
I had two seven-hour flights worth of time and still couldn't get through it. So yeah, it's a lot it's a lot of Legends.
00:16:31
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, it's it's a lot. But no, but Monica Rambeau says really cool. I like the whole like kind of kind of prowess, but but permanent because you leave the one ones on creatures.
00:16:42
Zachary Jeblonski
That's really cool. And the reason why it kind of jumped out at me is, and I guess here I'll segue this into the game I'm going to talk about, is i I'm on the lookout for a new Boros commander. So...
00:16:53
ciderspence
I think you'd really enjoy it.
00:16:53
Zachary Jeblonski
so
00:16:54
ciderspence
Yeah.
00:16:55
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, no, I mean, I will say it will say, I already have a commander that features that features heavily in non-creature spells. That's the Samet one, the max speed one. So that kind of fills the same hole. so but but But anyway, so I played my Boros Plains Walker deck.
00:17:11
Zachary Jeblonski
think this will be like my fourth game I've played it and finally won with it. but it was the most like grind you out, brutal, like slug fest. and I only won by like basically using restoration seminar and bringing back, I forget what Chandra it is and it's gonna take me a while to find it, but I bring back a Chandra over and over again and ulting it over and over again because I had a counter doubler on the board.
00:17:37
ciderspence
Nice.
00:17:38
Zachary Jeblonski
And eventually I got to the point where every time I cast a spell, I do 15 damage to any target.
00:17:42
ciderspence
That's pretty good.
00:17:42
Zachary Jeblonski
And that's how won, but it was such a long process and like, and I felt so bad because like three, three people in the pod, the other three people were like straight up, like sleeving other decks, looking at their phone, you know, because my, it was just, my turn was a mess.
00:17:59
Zachary Jeblonski
And and i was all right, we're done. We're done with it. This is what it takes to win with this deck. I'm good. I'll move on to something else. So, you know, I'm glad I got a win with it, but I'm also like, I'm glad to put that away. I'm glad to put that whole like theme away. I think I've tried Planeswalker or Super Friends as a theme like twice now.
00:18:19
Zachary Jeblonski
and I don't think you saw my previous and incarnation because I think that might have been pre us starting to play together, but it was soul tie, with Muldratha as the commander.
00:18:28
Zachary Jeblonski
so I could just keep in.
00:18:28
ciderspence
Yeah, it doesn't sound familiar.
00:18:30
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I could just keep getting the planeswalkers back from the graveyard if people killed them. And it's kind of the same. It's it planeswalkers always kind of turn the same problem, which is like, there's just so much going on that you start making a ton of mistakes and they start taking up ton of time.
00:18:43
Zachary Jeblonski
And there's not a lot of planeswalkers that are just like old and you win the game. It's like old and you get this overwhelming advantage, but you're still not going to win and you might not win for a while.
00:18:52
ciderspence
Right.
00:18:53
Zachary Jeblonski
So I think that's just like, that's just a type of play that I'm just going to shelve, which I'm good. I'm happy with. I'm fine. But now I'm back on the hunt for bros commander. So we'll probably talk about that a little bit on decks on deck.
00:19:05
ciderspence
Sounds good.
00:19:05
Zachary Jeblonski
And the, yeah. and And neither of my cards week are featured in that game. So I think I'll wrap it up and toss it back to you. If you want to talk about one of your and other games.
00:19:20
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:19:21
ciderspence
i want to talk a little bit about a lot of the decks that I built. So...
00:19:25
Zachary Jeblonski
Sure, we can do that.
00:19:26
ciderspence
so I was on a trip for the last, not this past week, but before that, the week before that I was traveling. And so I played a lot of games on Spelltable. But before I left for the trip, I picked up a lot of the marble cards.
00:19:40
ciderspence
So i i got as much of the main set as I could and a bunch of the jumpstart set. I didn't pick up the commanders the Commander decks. dex i picked those up after I got back.
00:19:52
ciderspence
But I just tried to look for the Legends that I i thought were would be fun and worth playing, and I put together a bunch of them.
00:19:58
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:19:59
ciderspence
So I played games with, and I'll just kind of read them off. One of the ones that I remember fondly was ironheart clever champion uh legendary artifact creature human hero she's four and a blue with improvise and flying she's a three four and non-creature spells you cast have improvise i played this game on spell table in a very not fun game uh where a player's goal was they were they playing uh she's a red green commander that lets you tap your artifacts for mana
00:20:34
ciderspence
but they played like a grinding station.
00:20:35
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, Maria.
00:20:37
ciderspence
Yeah, Myria.
00:20:38
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:20:38
ciderspence
Soul of Antiquities or something. but But they were playing like a their featured cards were one that lets you tap it for mana when it plays and untaps itself whenever you pass another artifact. I think grinding station.
00:20:51
ciderspence
But they basically just had like this loop where they would play an artifact and untap that thing and then play another artifact and untap that thing continually be able to tap it for mana. But then they also paired it with a card that doesn't let your opponents draw cards.
00:21:05
ciderspence
And then they because Mariah also lets you exile cards from the top of your library to play.
00:21:06
Zachary Jeblonski
Ooh.
00:21:11
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:21:12
ciderspence
So it was just like a very not fun game. So I didn't really get to see what Ironheart could do. But then I played Ironheart heads up with a friend on Wednesday. and it was pretty fun. I mean, it's it's very similar to other like,
00:21:24
ciderspence
mono blue artifact the commanders cards that i wanted to put in there but i didn't have with me when i built it up over the trip but i but have put him when i got back or like scimax orthopterist things that when you cast an artifact make you an artifact because you want to have some tappable artifacts you know there are artifact mana rocks in here but artifacts that give you value without you having to tap them are good because then you can also tap them to cast other spells especially more artifacts uh so like the water crystal sapphire medallion stuff like that it's good but then some other just generically like i put the uthros land from edge of eternities that lets you tap for the number of artifacts you control anyway it was just like a good time i was playing my friend was playing a tracksidek and
00:21:51
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:22:07
Zachary Jeblonski
okay
00:22:10
ciderspence
got the early jump on me, but then i was able to just kind of stabilize. And then i had some of the like explosive artifact effects come up. Like i I was playing artificers class and I was able to copy an artifact on my end step or something.
00:22:23
ciderspence
Then I also played echo casting symposium, the blue,
00:22:27
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, nice, that paradigm.
00:22:28
ciderspence
Yeah, the blue paradigm spell from Strixhaven. And then I was also able to copy something. The first time I just copied something that gave me more bodies to like help me block against them. Then I got Krang out.
00:22:38
ciderspence
They gave all my artifacts indestructible and flying and haste.
00:22:39
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:22:42
ciderspence
So that was cool. And then I was able to just like slowly whittle. That was also a slow grinding game. We wound up calling it.
00:22:47
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah
00:22:49
ciderspence
But I think once the deck stabilized, I think it was in a position to win eventually. So that was pretty fun. One other deck I wanted to shout out is... And I talked to you a little bit about this one offline.
00:23:01
ciderspence
Nico Minoru Runaway, three and a red. Legendary creature, human, warlock, hero. Well, it's me on my burn stuff again. Whenever you cast a spell from anywhere other than your hand, Nico Minoru deals two damage to each opponent.
00:23:15
ciderspence
If that sounds like long shot, that's what long shot says. But it's more restrictive than long shot, and it's different than long shot. It also has this text for two in a red and tap and discard a card. You can exile cards from the top of your library until you exile non-land card, and you may cast that card without paying its mana cost.
00:23:32
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:23:33
ciderspence
When I shared this card with you, I think you were more focused on this, or equally focused on this, while I was just focused on trying to find a commander for a more ethical burn deck.
00:23:38
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:23:43
ciderspence
But obviously this could also be really good. you were kind of talking me through some really expensive mono-red spells that could be worth casting for free.
00:23:50
Zachary Jeblonski
I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a Timmy at heart. I really am. And if I see like play card for free, I'm like, Ooh, if
00:23:58
ciderspence
That's kind of what Commander's for though, right?
00:24:00
ciderspence
getting to getting what It's the place where you can afford to play those splashy spells. So I get that.
00:24:04
Zachary Jeblonski
Yes, yeah.
00:24:06
ciderspence
But yeah, so I put together a version of her. And it was it was just noteworthy that of all of the decks I played, online, the one that just felt the most at home as far as what I could put together from, you know, just cards from the Marvel set and the the few staples I brought with me. This one just felt like, oh yeah, this is just me doing what I do. Like, you know, it's just set up, set up, set up, set up, set up.
00:24:27
ciderspence
And then wait for a turn where I could cast Nico and some other spells, look for doubler. you know I didn't win that game. I didn't win any of the spell table games I played on my trip. But this one just felt the most comfortable.
00:24:38
ciderspence
I was just kind of in my zone. i was like, yeah, I am a Redburn player, I guess.
00:24:41
Zachary Jeblonski
Nice.
00:24:43
ciderspence
like I started as a Mono White Angels player, and now i'm a Redburn player.
00:24:43
Zachary Jeblonski
and
00:24:46
ciderspence
I guess that's just how it goes.
00:24:46
Zachary Jeblonski
I think you are, i think, yeah, I think you're a red burn slash Voltron player. I think is, is I think that's your, your favorite niches there.
00:24:52
ciderspence
I do love Voltron.
00:24:55
ciderspence
I mean, that sounds right.
00:24:58
Zachary Jeblonski
You're like, yeah, sounds right. Yeah.
00:24:59
ciderspence
Yeah. right. Well, let me kick it back to you. What other games would you like to talk about?
00:25:04
Zachary Jeblonski
Let's see. Yeah, so Boros got kind of sorted out. I have this as card the week, but I feel like we talked about this game already. but or maybe did we talked about our kitchen table games from two weeks ago. i guess not.
00:25:21
ciderspence
I think we did.
00:25:21
Zachary Jeblonski
I feel like we did.
00:25:22
ciderspence
yeah I think we did.
00:25:22
Zachary Jeblonski
feel like we did. So I don't know why I have this as my card the week, but I'll just talk about it real quick. It's it's in my Witherbloom deck, which is our Rude Awakening. And this is like an old card. And I forget why own this card. I think I owned, i actually think i originally it was in a Modi, actually. Like...
00:25:39
Zachary Jeblonski
you know I looked up some deck list a long time ago, and that's what was in there. But anyway, it's a four and a green sorcery with entwine for two and a green. And you untap all lands you control, or until in a turn, lands you control become two two creatures that are still land.
00:25:54
Zachary Jeblonski
And this card is as i kind of bananas with Witherbloom because Witherbloom gives your all your spells affinity for creatures. So not only are you untapping all your lands, you're not turning them into creatures for affinity effects.
00:26:09
Zachary Jeblonski
It's like essentially like double all your mana for like a turn, essentially, is what it kind of does with Witherbloom out in the battlefield. And I think this is like one of those things. And before I like stick my foot in my mouth, I'm just going to briefly look...
00:26:21
Zachary Jeblonski
I was like, why is this like if you go on EDH rec, I don't think it's really in the the like the highlighted cards. Like if you just search with a bloom, which was always surprising because I'm like, this seems kind of broken with the commander. Yeah, it's not in the.
00:26:35
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, it's like not listed anywhere in sorceries under that commander. But anyway. Pretty much every time I've drawn this card playing Witherbloom, it's kind of like, oh, this is the turn it all ends because I'm going to cast a bunch of stuff. All my spells are going to get super cheap, yada, yada, yada. So this is a really good card. I think it's a really good card in general for a lot of decks. like I think obviously it's an exceptional in Witherbloom, but if you run a lot of bounce lands and stuff like that, this card you know becomes mana positive.
00:27:03
Zachary Jeblonski
And then if you just need to close the game out, you still have a bunch of creatures that you have a bunch of tutusos so yeah, uh, with a bloom continues to be that deck. but I do want to talk about, my other car of the week because it's a card. I've been running in a lot of decks and I haven't actually had like a payoff for it yet.
00:27:22
Zachary Jeblonski
or I haven't had that, like, you know, that moment, so to speak with it, but this time I did. So I was playing with, I think it was a three pod at one of my, at my normal, uh, Tuesday store.
00:27:35
Zachary Jeblonski
And I'm playing my Mono Black Valkavoth deck. And that deck is just full of ways to like either stall the game out a little bit so that I can i can build up towards Valkavoth or little cheeky ways of of getting him out when i you know when I'm ready to to to cast him because he's nine mana.
00:27:53
Zachary Jeblonski
And just a reminder for all the listeners, Valgvoth, Terror Eater, this is not the red-black one, this is just the black one, which is six black-black-black, legendary creature, elder demon, flying lifelink, ward, sacrifice, three non-land permanents.
00:28:05
Zachary Jeblonski
If a card you didn't control will be put into an opponent's graveyard from anywhere, exiled instead. And during your turn, you may play cards, exile with Valgvoth. cast a spell this way, pay life equal to its mana value rather than its mana cost.
00:28:16
Zachary Jeblonski
So here's the setup, essentially, is i have, I want to say, nine lands on the board. And my card of the week is Emergence Zone. And so one of the lands is Emergence Zone. And it is a colorless land. It taps add colorless.
00:28:32
Zachary Jeblonski
But it's one tap, sacrifice Emergence Zone. You may cast spells as though they have flash this turn. And I really do try to include this in a lot of decks, especially decks without blue. Because in this situation, I had nine lands.
00:28:45
Zachary Jeblonski
So on my opponent's end step, let's see. and My opponent's end step, I sacked it, gave my spells flash, and I casted Mewjins of Knight's Reach on his end step.
00:28:58
Zachary Jeblonski
which is an eight mana black creature. And when it it enters with a divinity counter, and if you remove the divinity counter, you make all your opponents like discard their hands. So so nine lands, tap sack, play Miojin, get to my turn, play ninth land, play Valgaoth, pull the divinity counter off.
00:29:17
Zachary Jeblonski
And that was, that was basically GG.
00:29:19
ciderspence
Oh, that wow.
00:29:21
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, it was, it was, it was when I, when my opponents realized what just happened, they were like, oh my God. So, yep, that was that.
00:29:33
Zachary Jeblonski
we, we played a little bit longer after that, but that was kind of it because their hands were like full of removal. So I just kind of dismantled all their boards with their cards and and that was pretty much it. so yeah, merge.
00:29:44
ciderspence
Yikes.
00:29:45
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:29:46
ciderspence
That's a good use of emergence.
00:29:49
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, so that's kind of, so, you know, this is where I'll segue. Like, if you, like I said, if you have big commanders that do things or, like, you don't have access to flash or your commander does a lot when it comes in and you know your opponents are kind of preparing for it or whatever, emergency zone is a great way to get them off guard because no one's expecting your commander to come out on an end step right before your turn, right?
00:30:08
Zachary Jeblonski
Like, if your commander has an attack trigger but doesn't have haste, you know, all all these, there's all these great, reasons to run this card. I highly recommend it. It comes in on tap to make colorless. I think it is crept up in price. That's the only thing that, that might dissuade people because I did buy a, yeah, it's up to like $4 now, which is, you know, higher than you might want, but it's not crippling. But at at one point I bought like 10 of these. Cause i' was like, Oh, i I was like, these are going in most of my, a lot of my decks. So,
00:30:38
Zachary Jeblonski
And there's also a c Simic land that does the same thing, Alchemist Refuge, but of course you have to be in Simic color, so I don't run that one as much. but findinging That's actually really good because Winding Canyons doesn't sacrifice itself.
00:30:45
ciderspence
There's one other one, I think, a colorless one, Winding Canyons, but only for creature spells, I think. I play that in my angel decks because the same.
00:30:55
ciderspence
You want to cast stuff when you... It doesn't sacrifice itself, yeah.
00:31:00
Zachary Jeblonski
That's pretty good. Yeah. but yeah, so, yeah, this was probably the best showing i've ever had for a version. So and it was, it was nasty.
00:31:10
Zachary Jeblonski
and then the, the lead up to that moment, I should say was I drew pretty much every board wipe in my deck leading up to that moment. So I had, I had really just crushed the board at this point. So they just weren't, they just didn't have the resources to handle it when it happened.
00:31:26
Zachary Jeblonski
so So yeah, but but Emergency Zone was definitely the card the week. So yeah. Yeah, any other games you want to talk about?
00:31:38
ciderspence
Yeah, I'll talk about a couple of other ones. Decks that i played that I didn't feel quite as... good about again just to be clear i had fun playing all these decks and i was the whole point was to throw as many decks against the wall as i could just to just to get used to playing some of the cards i put together a director nick fury deck uh director nick fury blue red white uh two four human spy hero hero spells you cast cost one less to cast and whenever you attack look at the top four cards of your library you may reveal a hero card from among them and put that card into your hand put the rest on the bottom of your library in random order
00:31:48
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:32:11
ciderspence
So I kind of put this one together, hoping to get in a four-player game with it. It seems like a nice little value engine, gives you some cost reduction, and also gives you some card draw. I wound up playing this one heads up with my friend in that Wednesday session, and he darkstealed it, and I got no value out of it starting on turn four.
00:32:28
Zachary Jeblonski
Fair enough. Okay.
00:32:29
ciderspence
And I was like, you know what? This is... this is the right way to respond to this. Uh, and then I got run over from there. I, but I had fun playing it, but I was like, I, I need to rethink my approach here or make this more resilient, uh, or something because that, I guess that's the, that's the flip side of a commander that gives you a lot of value, right?
00:32:39
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:32:49
ciderspence
Is if they get shut down, then that's a lot of your value. That's just not there anymore.
00:32:55
Zachary Jeblonski
But how much how much would you change your deck to deal with like these specific possibilities? like I find myself when I get in those situations where I'm like, well, this was just a bad game. And I don't like change my deck because of it. Because I just assume the next game I play, somebody's not going Darksteel. Yeah. Yeah.
00:33:13
ciderspence
i think i would so i think it's a case where the deck has i think i intentionally built it with 31 heroes 30 not counting my commander just so that i would make sure to draw heroes enough to hit that trigger most of the time and because it has so many heroes i have a lot of kind of janky
00:33:22
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah
00:33:34
ciderspence
uh vegetables right like a lot of my vegetables is stapled on the heroes which is fine if you are getting those heroes if you're drawing those heroes continually with your commander and i have some other hero payoffs because i'm playing so many heroes but if you're not using the fact that they're heroes as much then all of your interactions are just worse right so i think it's more a question of like
00:33:39
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:33:57
ciderspence
Maybe I have 25 heroes and risk missing the trigger and missing out on the cost reduction some and just play some of the best of the staples just to give myself more ways to answer board states that don't favor my game plan.
00:34:11
Zachary Jeblonski
Gotcha.
00:34:12
ciderspence
and We talked about this with when you rest in peace my by shadow deck.
00:34:17
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh, yeah.
00:34:19
ciderspence
It's not, what is it? Yeah, it kept my cards from going to Graveyard, which turned off my card draw. Shadow, the Hedgehog, one of the things is it gives your spells that you cast with a mana from an artifact split second, but the other one is whenever a creature you control with haste dies, you draw a card.
00:34:32
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep.
00:34:36
ciderspence
So that deck, you know, that's card draw in the command zone. That's great. But if you rely on that card draw in command zone and then that gets turned off, that's a lot of your card draw. That's a lot of your ability to find answers.
00:34:48
ciderspence
So I think I responded to that game that we played by just trying to put in three or four other enchantment interaction spells, which there aren't that many of in black, red, but there are a few.
00:34:59
ciderspence
And I put them in. I felt good about that. I think I've played that deck since then and been able to respond to stuff.
00:35:02
Zachary Jeblonski
Right.
00:35:04
ciderspence
So yeah's like I don't, i Yes, I agree with what you're saying, but I do feel like I do try to react a little bit to every game. Like, I'm i'm big on updating.
00:35:14
ciderspence
You know, i I think about Magic far too much. I have far too many cards. So basically, every game I play, unless it goes perfectly well, I'm like, what could I what could i tweak a little bit just to make...
00:35:24
Zachary Jeblonski
right
00:35:25
ciderspence
just to kind of incorporate this new information that I have about this deck and myself as a player and my gameplay style into whatever I do next. So see yeah, like I said, I don't hate the deck.
00:35:35
ciderspence
That was just kind of my my thoughts playing it the first time. And I'm sure I'll play it in the pot again, and it'll be different. But I'll i'll probably also respond to that. so
00:35:44
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I usually find myself like, I sometimes will do that, but a lot of times I'm just like, well, you know, a there's like, i don't know if it's a meme or whatever, but it's like, well, li Zach, what happens if they do X card against this deck? And I go, well, I guess I die. so Like, I don't know, what you know, that I have a fair amount of that with my decks where I'm just like, well, if they do this one specific thing or use these certain types of cards, I'm like, I guess I die. Like, because like, you know, sometimes...
00:36:10
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah Sometimes you can make those minor adjustments, like like adding the black enchantment removal spells. but Other times, it would require such a like complete re-evisioning of what the deck's trying to do that it's just not worth it. and I'd rather just run... Somebody has this specific card that shuts me down, then they have this specific card that shuts me down. It's like, okay. But I feel like with modern magic card design, it's especially with the way commanders are designed, and a lot of things are designed this way, it's just... I feel like that that situation does not happen as much as you used to
00:36:40
Zachary Jeblonski
Especially since the types of...
00:36:41
ciderspence
that an opponent has the one card that's going to shut you down?
00:36:44
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, like there's like one card that completely invalidates my deck. like I feel like that just doesn't happen as much as you used to. like you know I played Rest in Peace, but like who who plays Rest in Peace? I haven't seen a Rest in Peace since I played it last, and that was like a year ago or more.
00:36:57
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:36:58
ciderspence
But See, I would have almost gone the other way. There are so many cards now that do shut off graveyards though, right? Like your Valkyboth, like the Dalthy Boardwalker.
00:37:03
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:37:06
ciderspence
feel like there are a lot of cards that turn off dives triggers now.
00:37:07
Zachary Jeblonski
That's true. That's true.
00:37:10
ciderspence
So not being able to respond to something that turns off dives triggers, I think is more of a problem than it used to be.
00:37:10
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:37:16
ciderspence
Graveyard recursion for lands is something that I've been planning a lot. Like there's one in the Marvel set. There was one in the...
00:37:21
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah especially Yeah.
00:37:22
ciderspence
turtles set, I think, right?
00:37:23
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Okay.
00:37:23
ciderspence
So it's like, if you are weak to graveyard synergy, that's something that's gotten a lot more prevalent as they printed more cards. So I kind of lean the other way.
00:37:34
ciderspence
Like, I feel like it is more often the case now that if your deck is weak to something, you need to be able to respond to that weakness, maybe more so now than when I first started playing, don't know, a year or two ago, because there you just are more likely to see,
00:37:50
ciderspence
there are more versions of the thing that your deck is weak to. So, like, tuck effects in general, right? Like the Dark Seal mutation. Dark Seal is unique because it makes a creature indestructible, which makes it a little harder to deal with if you want to just kill your own creature.
00:38:02
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:38:04
ciderspence
But there are lots of, now there are lots of, like, one mana blue spells that make your creature lose all abilities and just kind of stash it on the board, where so if nobody will block or attack into it, you might be stuck for a while, so.
00:38:15
Zachary Jeblonski
I gotta, so would you permit me a moment to rant?
00:38:19
ciderspence
Of course,
00:38:20
Zachary Jeblonski
So I want to talk about one of the other games I played. I just remember him. And I played Valgavoth, the other, that' the red-black Valgavoth. Because i prior to me playing games with this pod, one of the other players had a red-black Valgavoth deck.
00:38:35
Zachary Jeblonski
And they were talking about how they were complaining that they couldn't quite get it to work, right? And I'm like, okay, let me look through it. And I'm like, huh, okay. I kind of see the problem here with this deck. And as a reminder to the listeners, red, black Valgavoth, which was the one from the pre-con is Valgavoth Haror, however pronounce that word, of souls, two black, red, legendary creature, elder demon, flying, ward, pay two life.
00:38:59
Zachary Jeblonski
Whenever an opponent loses life for the first time during each of their turns, you put a one, one counter on Valgavoth and draw card. Okay. Okay. I have played against probably four or five different Valkavoth decks, and I think every single deck but mine, and this is not some flex, this is just me like kind of losing my mind a little bit, runs Valkavoth without a lot or any on opponent's turns damage effects, which I cannot figure out why people keep building this commander this way.
Debating Deck Construction: Valgavoth and Sithis Stax
00:39:30
Zachary Jeblonski
so the guy hands me his deck, this Valkyrie bot deck, and I counted, I literally counted eight out of a hundred cards, uh, cards that have some sort of way to damage their opponents on their turn.
00:39:42
Zachary Jeblonski
and I'm like, do people just not understand? i shouldn't let mean let me let me Let me be less offensive. Is there something with the way the cards text that people are not understanding that like you can't just put generic burn spells in this deck? You have to put burn spells that trigger on the opponent's turn?
00:39:58
Zachary Jeblonski
i just I feel like I'm losing my mind here. like What is it about this card that people don't want to build it Like I count, I have, I have, here, to give you perspective, I have 22 cards in my deck that do damage to an opponent on their turn.
00:40:13
Zachary Jeblonski
Like, am i like, what am I doing? Like what? what So like, you know, and I demonstrated, I played the Valkyrie deck against that same player and like, you know, I, I died. I didn't win the game, but I had like 12 cards in hand by the end of the game. You know, like I'm just going, you know,
00:40:29
Zachary Jeblonski
So I don't know, Charles, do you do you understand? Like, have you run into ValkaWalt decks where like they're not building for that, that burn like trigger? Like,
00:40:39
ciderspence
Okay, I have a response. i
00:40:40
Zachary Jeblonski
okay.
00:40:41
ciderspence
My response is 100% agreement, but I think I understand it in a way that maybe you understand it from a different perspective.
00:40:48
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
00:40:48
ciderspence
But maybe I empathize with this more than you do. So earlier today, I was reading you a card, Monica Rambeau. I'm just going to read to you the back the the good side of Monica again.
00:40:58
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:41:02
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:41:02
ciderspence
So on on the flip side, it says... uh flying hexproof prowess whenever you cast a non-creature spell put a 1-1 count on each other creature you control zach i built this deck less than two weeks ago maybe less than three weeks ago now i built it no yeah less than two weeks ago i've played it two times and i've goldfished it a bunch like it or you know just kind of playing it by hand reading it to you out loud was the first time that i read put a 1-1 counter on each other creature you control.
00:41:33
ciderspence
At first, I thought it just said put a 1-1 counter on each creature you control. Now what that means is, I've been familiar with this card, I've played this card, but I just read it wrong, right? And I read it maybe in the more optimistic way, which is maybe the more a popular way to read something wrong.
00:41:49
ciderspence
So I suspect that part of what's happening with this Valgovoth player
00:41:49
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Yes.
00:41:53
ciderspence
is that they read that when you burn a player, you draw a card, but they maybe just didn't quite read carefully enough or didn't internalize the words that they read about it has to be the first time on that player's turn.
00:41:57
Zachary Jeblonski
yes
00:42:06
ciderspence
So what they do is they kind of synergize around what they think the card says, and then they play the deck, And maybe then they do or don't put together that they were building it in a way inconsistent with the exact wording. Maybe they just play it wrong and then people kind of card them and say, hey, you don't draw a card here. Maybe they do draw a card there. and it't Like remember we were talking about Chun-Li where it's like there's a version where if you got to cast this stuff for free, that would be great.
00:42:31
ciderspence
Maybe you get through a game where nobody else pays attention to it and you get to cast the cards for free and you don't think that that's a problem. But also, like, maybe somebody says, oh, you don't do it, and you don't put the two and two together. Oh, that doesn't work.
00:42:43
ciderspence
We talked about, what was it, Get Lost which was cast in a game that we were both at, and we both didn't realize that it couldn't target an artifact or something, or an enchanted, I don't know.
00:42:46
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:42:52
ciderspence
we It targeted some card type that it's not allowed to target, and neither one of us noticed, and we both play that card enough that maybe we should have noticed. So I think it's like, you know, I blame card design, I blame us as players, but yeah, it is it is not at all shocking to me that someone would build around the commander without understanding exactly what it does.
00:43:11
ciderspence
I was talking to you about that Nikomonoru card. i'd I'd forgotten that there there was the exile card clause and cast it for free.
00:43:16
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, yeah. and and and i and i And I guess two things to add to this is, number one, like I'm not making fun of these players because like I truly, like I really did help the guy. I'm like, hey, like you need to bump your count of cards that damage your opponents on their turns like a lot because you know you were he was basically complaining that like you know it just feels like it just sputters out and doesn't do anything. But like if you're not drawing cards regularly with Valgaboth, yeah, the deck's going to feel that way.
00:43:43
Zachary Jeblonski
But the other thing I wanted to add to that is Is there something specific with this specific commander? Because it's not just this player. I've probably run into four or five of these Valcaballs that all do this. They'll have the same problem. So it could be a collective just misreading of this card. which Which is fine. like maybe Maybe that's the reason. I don't know. It it it really caught me off guard. And i I wish I had remembered some of the cards that were in his deck.
00:44:05
Zachary Jeblonski
but I, I've seen like some of the same red, black burn cards that don't affect the opponent. They only affect the opponent, on, on the Valgoloth player's turn. And I'm like, I mean, this is, this might be a good card guys, but like, this is not the vibe here with what you're trying to do with Valgoloth.
00:44:25
Zachary Jeblonski
so I don't know. I just wanted to point that as like kind of a unique aspect about this specific commander. Cause I, you know, I, you know, you see the occasional misreadings of the commanders out there. But there's something about the red black Valgavoth that like people just do not take notice of or something like that. So I'm just, it's just curious. I'm going to like pay attention to the next time somebody plays Valgavoth against me and I'm going to, I'm going to wait and see how long it takes for somebody to play a card that actually affects me on my turn.
00:44:51
ciderspence
I think, and I haven't seen that player's decklist, but another kind of thing you could consider a mistake that might be going on here maybe what this is what's happening with some other players decks is i would imagine that some players also just play generic spells that they could cast that would burn a player at any time and figure maybe they can cast it at a time that would give them the valgamoth trigger and maybe they consider like the generic lightning bolts or lightning strikes or whatever to also be in the category of the type of spell you're describing that would damage a player on their own turn
00:45:22
ciderspence
I think that's also not a great way to try to trigger that ability because you're kind of just trading a card for a card. You'd rather play a permanent that is going to either burn every player on their turn, which is going to draw you four cards, or at least burn one player on their turn every cycle so that you could, in theory, get some actual card advantage out of it.
00:45:29
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Yeah.
00:45:41
ciderspence
So that that also might be a way that players are kind of building suboptimally around that theme.
00:45:46
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah Yeah. It's interesting. And I, and I, should I should, think I, I started, think i think I started talking to the player a little bit. But I didn't quite to the point get that why.
00:45:59
Zachary Jeblonski
and i didn't quite get to the point or like get to the you know that why but it is interesting. and I, you know, I just asked that in your future play styles, or you play against other Valga walls, just pay attention for me and see if I'm losing my mind.
00:46:15
ciderspence
Sure, i'll look out for it
00:46:16
Zachary Jeblonski
because I'm like like, please, please play something that affects me on my turn, please.
00:46:23
Zachary Jeblonski
You know, it's like, get your draw.
00:46:26
ciderspence
But I also wonder whether some of this is just card pool.
00:46:27
Zachary Jeblonski
Uh,
00:46:30
ciderspence
I think it's probably more common than not that players build around their collection more so than building off of Scryfall or building off of you know whatever search engine.
00:46:35
Zachary Jeblonski
Yes. I think that's, yeah.
00:46:39
ciderspence
So they might just be playing the burn spells that they have or that they know. And when they see one that happens to intentionally burn an opponent on their turn, maybe they include that. But maybe they just don't see those all the time and they don't know where to go looking for them or they don't think to do that.
00:46:53
ciderspence
They would rather just build... from, you know, stuff that's in the latest set or whatever, or whatever they have involved.
00:46:57
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I agree with that. i
00:46:59
ciderspence
So.
00:46:59
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, a lot of times it'll be it'll just be like a red-black deck with generically good red-black cards, and that's fine, you know? I just think that, like, Valkvald in particular such a specific commander in terms of how you build him.
00:47:13
Zachary Jeblonski
that I wonder if there might be better red, black commanders out there. If you just want a red, black, like, uh, like, slop pile, I'm slop pile is probably not the right word, but like, you know, if I want to jam, a if I wanted to jam a bunch of really good red, black cards, there's probably a better red, black commanders.
00:47:24
ciderspence
That's probably not what they're looking for.
00:47:30
Zachary Jeblonski
I'm trying to say for that, like a prosper tone bound is probably way better at that than like a valuable, you know?
00:47:31
ciderspence
Yeah, no, i get that. Well, it's funny. This reminds me. Yeah, but again, I do think that, you know, part of this is just the.
00:47:42
ciderspence
the inclination to try out new commanders though i think a player might be more excited about building around valgavoth who just came out then around prosper who i think came out certainly before valgavoth but maybe has been out for a few years i was when i was playing the when i was playing monica last night the shop owner kind of did like a walkthrough to come check out the commander game and he saw i was playing house squad heavy
00:47:52
Zachary Jeblonski
That makes sense for sure. Yeah.
00:48:07
ciderspence
uh which is a ether drift card i think but yeah know let me just read it because i'll explain why it was in the deck and the reaction of the uh guy okay hell squad heavy two and red uh start your engines goblin mercenary other goblins you control have haste at the beginning combat on your turn create a 1-1 red goblin creature token that token attacks this combat if able and at max speed you can tap it to add red for each goblin you control
00:48:10
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, that's yeah, I know that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:48:33
ciderspence
So the shop owner came by, saw the Hell Squad Heavy on my board. we were kind of talking through what was going on in the game. And I said, yeah, i'm going to try to take out this Yannet player. And then they were there for when my Fire Crystal got taken.
00:48:46
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:48:46
ciderspence
And so I said, oh, that might set me back. and he's like, well, I don't know. You've got Hell Squad Heavy. So you've got another haste enabler. If you're running Hell Squad Heavy, you're running a lot of goblins, right? And I was like, well, actually, not really running any other goblins. Hell Squad Heavy is just in here, you know, to kind of make me some bodies so that if I get my commander out, I can go a little bit wider with those counters.
00:49:06
ciderspence
And he was like, what? but That seems like a really bad inclusion. i was like, yeah, I mean, it's it' not the best inclusion, but I think it works here. And he's like, yeah, I mean, it's fine. And was like, oh, just to be clear. This deck tops out at fine.
00:49:17
ciderspence
Fine is all I'm going for.
00:49:17
Zachary Jeblonski
yeah All right.
00:49:20
ciderspence
So...
00:49:21
Zachary Jeblonski
Future Zach, that's podcast title. Just come back to that.
00:49:27
ciderspence
But yeah.
00:49:29
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I appreciate all those reasons and more. And I assume it's a it's a it's a combination of those reasons. But I know you've built a lot of Marvel decks. Do you have any other decks on deck that you want to talk about? but we were Let's transition to decks on deck. That's what I'm trying to say.
00:49:45
ciderspence
Got it. Yeah. So one deck that i I thought I'd be able to put together pretty quickly, but it turns out that I wasn't, and so I need to think a little more about how to put this one together. I do want to build it. it's It's a flavor win, but Cloak and Dagger Entwined.
00:50:02
ciderspence
One, a white and a black, Legendary Creature Human Hero, Death Touch, and Lifelink. When Cloak and Dagger enter, choose target opponent, and up to one target creature they control. they reveal their hand you may exile a non-land card from their hand or the chosen creature until cloak and dagger leave the battlefield so kind of temporary removal a bit of a tuck effect one white black not too expensive for that but looking at an opponent's hand is something that i don't actually like to do very much in commander so i was trying to think of like ways around that because
00:50:35
Zachary Jeblonski
Day night.
00:50:40
ciderspence
So for some cards, I just completely ignore part of the card. I play Vadric, Astral Archmage. It's one of my, probably one, yeah one of my stronger, that yeah, and I tell people when I'm playing it, look, I i completely ignore the day-night thing.
00:50:48
Zachary Jeblonski
day night
00:50:55
ciderspence
I don't want the counters. i don't want to track it. I would like us to all act as though that's not on the cards. No one yet has said, hey, we have to. I think everybody's happy to ignore day-night. But this one, i I don't know, it is the ETB trigger, so I feel like if I play, i would have to do it.
00:51:09
ciderspence
I was thinking maybe I just asked the player to exile on the honor system the highest mana value card that they have or something.
00:51:16
Zachary Jeblonski
I think, I think you got to go the whole way, man.
00:51:16
ciderspence
Or maybe I just...
00:51:17
Zachary Jeblonski
I think you got to do it.
00:51:19
ciderspence
Yeah, see, yeah like...
00:51:19
Zachary Jeblonski
It is a reveal though. So you're not just looking, you can just have him put it down on the board and then pick it up, you know?
00:51:25
ciderspence
it is a reveal. Oh, you're right. Bad attack. Okay, see, this is another case where I didn't fully read the cards at.
00:51:29
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:51:30
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. So like it is beneficial for the whole pod.
00:51:30
ciderspence
that That actually does make it better.
00:51:32
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
00:51:35
ciderspence
Yeah, maybe I play it as if that's a value. Yeah, that makes sense.
00:51:35
Zachary Jeblonski
I, I look, yeah.
00:51:38
Zachary Jeblonski
I looked at cloak and dagger also earlier. I remember looking at this card and I was just like, man, is there a way to keep these cards permanently exiled? But I don't think there is. Like if you blink cloak and dagger, they go back. Right. Like, so I'm like, is there a way to like keep it? Okay. Okay.
00:51:54
ciderspence
Well, you could... Oh, I wonder... You know what... Oh, that's a hilarious... Okay, I just watched a Keeping It Casual short about this.
00:52:03
Zachary Jeblonski
okay
00:52:03
ciderspence
Maybe the way to build it, and this is super niche, but maybe in a fun way. So what you could do is phase out Cloak and Dagger and then not phase them back in.
00:52:16
ciderspence
That
00:52:17
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay, that leads him in exile.
00:52:19
ciderspence
leaves him in exile. But then you don't have access to your commander. is there a way around that? I don't think so.
00:52:25
Zachary Jeblonski
Well, that's good. so all right. So I could segue into my deck on deck real quick because I have an answer for what you could do with this.
00:52:34
ciderspence
Oh, okay, I'm ready.
00:52:35
Zachary Jeblonski
Let me tell you about a card called Containment Priest. It's one in a white flash. If a non-token creature would enter the battlefield and it wasn't cast, exiled instead.
00:52:46
Zachary Jeblonski
So if you have that on the board and the creature comes back, it's gone.
00:52:47
ciderspence
Oh, yeah.
00:52:52
Zachary Jeblonski
So Containment Priest is one way to do it. So I don't know if there's other effects like it, but I'm sure there might be. so But for my...
00:53:00
ciderspence
I mean, that sounds like the makings of a plan though, and I love it.
00:53:03
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep, yep. my deck on deck is... I have basically built completely, except for I had to order a bunch of cards from TCG Player.
00:53:13
Zachary Jeblonski
Sithis Stacks, my bracket four deck. And this has been an interesting building project. I'm not sure it will it can win, or like... I have win cons in it, but I don't know how it's going to go, and I think in bracket four, it might not be strong enough to deal with like...
00:53:29
Zachary Jeblonski
free spells and all this other stuff. Well, even there are some stuff for that, but this is my first time building a stack stack. It's obviously like a theme that is, you know, forbidden in bracket three and below rightfully so, you know, I don't want to subject people to stacks in that and those brackets.
00:53:45
Zachary Jeblonski
But i really wanted I really wanted to take the whole thing in bracket four of like, hey, there's no restrictions. Nobody can get mad. And I'm like, great, let's do it. you know So like all these cards that I've never wanted, to never touched or never thought I could touch, I jammed in here.
00:54:02
Zachary Jeblonski
Some of the highlights of the stacks deck that I really wanted to jam was Drannith Manistrate is in there. So if you don't know that card, that's very big in the CEDH community.
00:54:15
Zachary Jeblonski
And I think I've seen it once before in an actual game and it blew my mind. It's a one white human wizard. Your opponents can't cast spells from anywhere other than their hands.
00:54:24
Zachary Jeblonski
Yes, that includes commanders. And then a couple other stacks pieces I wanted to shout out that I thought was always thought it was cool, just never really had an opportunity to play them.
00:54:35
Zachary Jeblonski
is a damp damping sphere. It's a two mana artifact. If a land is tapped for two or more mana, it produces one colorless instead. And each spell a player casts costs one more to cast for each other spell they've cast. So it's like an anti-storm card.
00:54:50
Zachary Jeblonski
In this deck, I'm running all basic lands except for two because I'm also including winter moon. Players can't untap more than one non-basic land during their untap steps.
00:55:02
Zachary Jeblonski
and then, uh, I'm also in one of the wind cons is a nice old red or green enchantment that I already owned. Cause I run it it, ran it in a different deck, which is a primal order and that's two green, green during each player's upkeep primal order deals damage that player equal to the number of non-basic lands they control.
00:55:21
Zachary Jeblonski
So I have a couple of different ways to kind of end the game out. I have like Sigil the Empty Throne. It's an enchanter stack basically. i have Sigil the Empty Throne to make angels. I have Ancestral Mask to make Sith this huge and come and swing in. There's a couple different ways to end the game, but really it is truly just like jam full of all the different ways I'm like,
00:55:40
Zachary Jeblonski
How can, how, you know, can I stop X, Y, Z archetype? And I have a way to do it. Like I have a way to shut off ETVs, way to shut off graveyard graveyards. I have a way of, of, of, of shutting off storm decks by raising mana costs every time they cast something, you know, solemnity is in there. So you can't poison me out or you can't, that sort of thing.
00:56:04
Zachary Jeblonski
and it truly is heinous and I look forward to trying it sometime. and then I guess my, my last shout out is I found a stacks card. I don't think it's very good, but I think it's really funny. And I think it's a gotcha card is a cornered market all the way back from Arcadian mass.
00:56:20
Zachary Jeblonski
And it's a two and a white enchantment and players can't play spells or non-basic lands with the same name as a card in play. So if somebody plays a command tower, nobody else gets to play a command tower.
00:56:31
ciderspence
Oh, I really like that.
00:56:33
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. I was like, I think it's, don't think it's a strong stack speed because, you know, there's so many cards in commander that it might not happen as as often as I think it will, but I think it's really funny. that's it So, so yeah. I, the only, the last thing I'll note is I, I goldfish this a lot.
00:56:47
ciderspence
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait what about spike it
00:56:48
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. Oh, that's mean. That's so mean.
00:56:54
ciderspence
that is mean
00:56:57
Zachary Jeblonski
Well, the pro all right, so I'm glad you brought spike kit because this brings into focus the the big challenge with this deck and I'm sure other stack stacks is how do you create a stack stack in which there's enough of, you know, if you imagine a stack stack like a block of Swiss cheese, right?
00:57:14
Zachary Jeblonski
Is there enough holes for me to get through to finish the game out? Like, is there a way for me to get through all my stacks pieces to finish the game out? And like Spy Kid, I think we have an example of like, well, now I can't play anything either.
00:57:27
Zachary Jeblonski
So I really had to like kind of find stack pieces that I could kind of work through. i was running a lot of rule of law effects when I first goldfish this deck and rule of law is just it's an enchantment that says each player can only play one spell a turn, basically.
00:57:42
Zachary Jeblonski
and I was running a lot of that and I was realizing like how much it was keeping me down. And i was like, well, I can't, I can't, I can't just do that. So I took all the rule of law facts out, but I have just one rule of law essentially. Now I have one card. So like,
00:57:57
Zachary Jeblonski
In a pinch, I will tutor it up because I am running tutors in this deck and slam it down. If I'm, I'm against like, like if somebody played red, green, a Tali, like I would, all right, let me fetch up the rule law. I'll put on the board. Right.
00:58:09
Zachary Jeblonski
you know, so I do have some like one-off ways. but it truly is like the stack stack is definitely like, how do I completely shut down what my opponents are doing, but still leave enough wiggle room for me to get through. And that's kind of been the fun challenge of putting this together.
00:58:26
Zachary Jeblonski
So we'll see you'll see how it works someday when somebody's like, let's play bracket four. I'm like, yeah. You mean let's try to play bracket four because you might not be able to.
00:58:37
ciderspence
It's funny, when you when you first told me about this, I wasn't excited, but I think I am excited now. I remember one and one of the more fun games I played at a shop was a player wanted to play their control deck, but they were they were very clear that this is a Staxi control deck, but if you guys have high-powered decks to play against it might be a fun little exercise. And so there was a three-pod game.
00:59:02
ciderspence
We played it. It actually was pretty fun. And so I think my Vadric deck looks forward to getting stacks out by your Enchantress build.
00:59:04
Zachary Jeblonski
Nice.
00:59:11
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, I think, you know, I think I mentioned this on the podcast, but Krim over in MTG Goldfish kind of like talked about stacks in this way where it kind of opened my mind a little bit. this but This goes back several years because I remember talking to another friend of mine who did not agree with this this viewpoint, but I have kind of come around on stacks in this one way, which is Krem's like, if you just look at it like a puzzle to be solved, right? Like your opponent lays out these pieces, these these guardrails that you can't go around or you have to remove to get around.
00:59:38
Zachary Jeblonski
You can just, it becomes like, well, how do I, in the my Swiss G's metaphor, like how do I navigate the holes in this plan to to get what I need to get done? And I have played against some stack stacks decks, not this aggressively stacks, like this is as aggressive as I possibly could make it because it's bracket four.
00:59:53
Zachary Jeblonski
But I have played against stacks like that where I did end up actually having fun with it because I'm like, okay, we have you know we have a an Elish Norn that's turned off all the ETBs. We have a Stony Silence and all the artifacts can be activated. Okay, like how do i get how do I use the cards available to me in my deck to get through this? I'm hoping that's like the experience that my my opponents will have is something similar to that. Like I like this deck is really hard to win with. Right. Like I basically need the Voltron Sithis up and swing in And that involves Sithis not dying. Right. Like as you guys will have removal spells and things like that.
01:00:29
Zachary Jeblonski
and, and I'll just give you one of the weaknesses of the deck away so that you can prepare for it in the future is I don't, I have, one board wife in this deck. So like, it's like one those things where like, if I can't stack the table out early enough and people get ahead too fast, uh, I don't really have a good way of catching up, you know? So like, you know, it's just like one of those things where I'm hoping to create a puzzle that people can, can, can try and get through, you know?
01:00:54
Zachary Jeblonski
So that's kind of, uh, the idea.
01:00:56
ciderspence
Yeah, I think the context of that game that I played and that I think works for this type of stacks game is at least a couple of the decks are racehorse type decks where, but like we've talked about the idea of oh, everybody kind of wants to do the thing when they play commander.
01:01:15
ciderspence
But I think for this type of pod to be fun, well, a way for this type of pod to be fun, and it was the way that we had that other one, was like, there are at least a couple of decks that if they get to do the thing, they're just going to win.
01:01:15
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
01:01:27
ciderspence
So the fact that a Stacks player is keeping everybody from doing the thing is what makes the game a game. And so thinking as one of the decks that if you do the thing, you're going to win, how do I...
01:01:39
ciderspence
put myself in a position where I can do the thing through the stacks where my opponent can't get to do the thing first, or how do I use the stacks to my advantage to keep my opponent from being able to do the thing while I prepare to be able to do the thing.
01:01:50
ciderspence
there's, so there's like this tension of like, which one of us is going to get out of this morass or will that player get to prolong the morass long enough to cobble together a win out of it? I think that's a fun, uh, yeah.
01:01:59
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, it's, yeah. i One of my favorite moments when you're going against a stacks, even if it's just a stacks piece, like one piece or, you know, but is when you when you're hurt by that piece, but you know another one of your opponents is hurt even more, so you try and keep that piece around.
01:02:14
Zachary Jeblonski
You know, like like I might not have ETPs, but your entire deck is based around ETPs, so I'm going to keep this, I'm going to try and keep this this piece on the board, even though it's hurting me too.
01:02:14
ciderspence
Right.
01:02:23
Zachary Jeblonski
You know, I think that's a fun moment where you're just like, ooh, I can't get rid of this. uh, doorkeeper thrall when my opponent is and a red green Atali, you know, like I can't, I gotta keep that thrall around.
01:02:35
ciderspence
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
01:02:36
Zachary Jeblonski
exactly.
01:02:37
Zachary Jeblonski
And, uh, so yeah, I think, uh, we'll see how it goes. if I can get, I think I'd be really happy with this deck if I get at least one gotcha with cornered market. If somebody plays like a command tower, I'm like, they're not getting that.
01:02:48
Zachary Jeblonski
There's another command tower. so, or you can't play your soul ring cause there's already a soul ring.
01:02:53
ciderspence
Well, think about like a hair apparent deck. You could really bust open with that.
01:02:56
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh God, and that would be, yeah. If we, well, if you, I feel bad for running hair parent in bracket four, but if you, if that's your thing, ugh.
01:03:03
ciderspence
That's that's fair.
01:03:06
Zachary Jeblonski
I, I have a, a Kotaki wars mage in it. It's a one white creature and all it does is all artifacts have at the beginning of your upkeep sacrifices artifact unless you pay one.
01:03:16
ciderspence
Love it.
01:03:17
Zachary Jeblonski
So like basically treasures are useless with this. That's,
01:03:22
ciderspence
Yeah, I mean, it sounds like it sounds like what it what it's advertised as, so...
01:03:26
Zachary Jeblonski
It is what it is, man. It is. i think that, I think the biggest deck that shut off by my deck right now is storm decks. Like storm decks are just not going to have a good time with this. Cause there's just, it's, it's, it's bad.
01:03:37
Zachary Jeblonski
There's so much stuff to stop storm.
01:03:39
ciderspence
I mean, Vagric is a Storm deck, so we'll we'll see how it goes.
01:03:44
Zachary Jeblonski
But yeah, I have, I know we're running a little bit long. I have nothing else for to add. And do you want to add anything else before we wrap it up?
01:03:51
ciderspence
Yeah, let me just say two brief things. i just want to submit a card for your consideration.
01:03:53
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah.
01:03:56
ciderspence
This is from the new Marvel set.
01:03:56
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
01:03:58
ciderspence
It is
01:04:02
ciderspence
Mr. Fantastic Reed Richards, three in a blue. Reach legendary creature human side to zero. Whenever one or more tokens you control enter, you may draw a card.
01:04:10
Zachary Jeblonski
Oh yeah.
Card Impact and Player Debates
01:04:12
ciderspence
That's it.
01:04:12
Zachary Jeblonski
Yep.
01:04:12
ciderspence
And this is an uncommon. So there's just there is a lot to do with that card. I think it belongs in a lot of decks. It makes a lot of decks a lot better.
01:04:22
ciderspence
just start Just a card that's in there.
01:04:24
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, there, I mean,
01:04:25
ciderspence
i don't even know how I feel about it. I feel like some people are mad. I don't know if I'm mad, but that's just a lot.
01:04:30
Zachary Jeblonski
is is there a hoopla about this card?
01:04:34
ciderspence
I've just heard things, right? Like it was on a list, the Command Zone put out of cards you're going to see from this set, like cards that are generically strong.
01:04:36
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
01:04:43
ciderspence
At this shop, it was the promo that they were giving out. And so the that the high bracket three player said they hadn't gotten a promo and then they got it and they were like oh, I don't want this card. I want something that makes me work for it.
01:04:55
ciderspence
And it's like, that's its own thing. that a person would say, but I did kind of get it. It's like, I could see a person saying this card is so generic and so valuable that it's it's a negative to the game. Like, they shouldn't even print cards like this.
01:05:11
ciderspence
I don't i' i' quite agree with that, but it does seem generically strong.
01:05:11
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay, I see. Yeah, I see where you're going with that now.
01:05:16
ciderspence
like I have a deck that would immediately use it maybe to almost go infinite, and maybe I don't want that. Maybe I do. I don't know. But it seems like a card that's good to know about, especially if you have a token deck that could use some extra card draw.
01:05:28
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, it's, I don't have any decks actively that this would be good in because I don't, I'm not a big tokens guy in general and and the token decks I do have are not in blue, but yeah, this is generically good and thank God they put it in uncommon. Jesus.
01:05:41
ciderspence
Yeah, you've played against my April deck that makes a mutagen token, I think, whenever a player casts you know an instant or sorcery or artifact spell.
01:05:46
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah, mutagens. Yeah.
01:05:52
ciderspence
So this obviously would...
01:05:54
Zachary Jeblonski
Now that, that, that does, yeah, that's really good.
01:05:54
ciderspence
do a lot of work in that deck. So, yeah. And then one other card I wanted to shout out, just back to my the cards that I put together, Brawn Amadeus Cho, one in a hybrid Simic, Legendary Creature Gamma Scientist Hero. It's got the power-up mechanic from this set. When it enters, you draw a card, it's a 1-1, and you can power it up for four in a hybrid Simic, put a 1-1 counter on it, and draw a card for each... Oh, put a 1-1 counter on it for each card in your hand, not draw a card for each card in your hand.
01:06:20
Zachary Jeblonski
Okay.
01:06:21
ciderspence
This one, I think... This one was really fun to play. I played it heads up and it did pretty well. I played it online and I i didn't win, but it was a good time. I think that basically is just, I think the Simic cards in the set work pretty well together.
01:06:35
ciderspence
So I played this, you know, all the decks I put together over the trip had a lot of cards from the Marvel set in them. This one, I think, performed maybe the best of all of them. Like I said, Nico was the most uh felt i felt the most at home playing that one but i think this one actually probably just did the best uh so i think the simic cards are pretty pretty good in the set and work well together i also did a pre-release event while i was traveling i just wanted to shout that out it was really fun met some met some people at the local uh shop had a really good time so yeah i'm really enjoying this set uh and i think it's i think it's got something for everybody even the non uh ub enthusiasts i think they're just some good
01:06:57
Zachary Jeblonski
Nice.
01:07:02
Zachary Jeblonski
Excellent.
01:07:11
ciderspence
Good generic cards in here, some good niche cards in here. They've they built a lot of support pieces into this set. So it's it's really it's really fun. i I would recommend it.
01:07:20
Zachary Jeblonski
No, I, yeah, I agree. Like I'm not the biggest Marvel guy, but, but regardless, the design of the set's been really cool.
01:07:28
Zachary Jeblonski
So good on you wizards.
01:07:31
ciderspence
Good job.
Closing Thoughts and Holiday Wishes
01:07:32
Zachary Jeblonski
Yeah. You, yeah. that That's all I got. are you all, are you good to ahead and wrap it up?
01:07:41
ciderspence
Yep.
01:07:42
Zachary Jeblonski
All right. Well, thanks for joining me again for another episode, Charles.
01:07:42
ciderspence
Absolutely.
01:07:45
ciderspence
Thanks for having me, Zach. Take it easy, everybody.
01:07:47
Zachary Jeblonski
All You guys out and listener land. Once ever, I found my mouse cursor. There it is. Uh, you guys have a good, uh, weekend and the rest of July 4th, uh, holiday weekend.