0:10

Hello and welcome to the EDH

0:12

RecCast, where we're all about commander,

0:14

data, and dad jokes. I'm Joey

0:16

Sholten, I'm joined by my fantastic

0:18

co-hosts. Up first, he shrunk my

0:20

Mycotyrant card, which turned it into

0:22

a micro-tyrant. It's Matt Morgan. So

0:25

on our first date, I took my girlfriend to the ice

0:27

rink where entry was half off. And I thought that was

0:30

a pretty good deal. Turns out she

0:32

just called me a cheapskate. I

0:39

thought it was a really good way to break the ice, but it turns

0:42

out it wasn't. Oh no. Oh

0:44

wow. Matt, this is not fair.

0:46

I came fully prepared into the show like, oh, I'm

0:48

so excited to talk. And you've just blown

0:51

every other thought out of my head because that's one

0:53

of the best jokes you've ever told. Holy crap. So

0:56

you're saying that the show is skating on thin

0:58

ice as far as being productive and helpful. Up

1:01

next, that

1:04

was wicked good, Matt. I

1:06

love that. Up next, he loves

1:08

the new disguise keyword and he

1:10

just can't wait for Wizards of the Coast to

1:12

pull a mega morph and make mega disguise. It's

1:14

Dana Roach. You can't

1:16

really tell behind me, but we have a

1:18

small earthquake here today. So

1:21

things are a little bit shaken up. It's

1:23

not my fault, but

1:26

it's definitely a fault. I

1:28

believe technically I believe it's

1:30

the new Madrid seismic zone fault,

1:33

but it's not mine. Interesting,

1:35

interesting. What an interesting line for that

1:38

fault line. No, actually I can't keep

1:40

up with you guys. Anyway,

1:42

Dana, what are we talking about in this week's

1:44

episode? This week we'll

1:46

be talking about something Jim

1:49

actually said recently in the

1:51

most recent Commander Rules Committee

1:53

update. Playing

1:55

weird cards that don't have a home elsewhere. Yeah,

1:57

I am excited to get into this. interesting

2:00

line from that update and you were like, hey, what

2:02

if we'd like, can we make a whole show about

2:04

these cards that like are just like bring a lot

2:06

of charm into Commander? And we're like, yeah,

2:08

let's do that. So I'm excited to get

2:10

into it. But we got some shout out

2:12

to do before we get to it. Up first,

2:15

we want to thank Chase, aka Manicurves for

2:17

their terrific work on the post production of

2:19

the show. Manicurves, Chase, thank you so, so

2:21

much. And we are now a member of Team

2:23

Ultimate Guard. So when you see us at

2:25

Magic Con Chicago, we will all be rocking

2:27

these sweet Ultimate Guard deck boxes and see

2:29

our nice Katana sleeves. Fantastic

2:32

product and you absolutely should check it out.

2:34

And if you'd like to support the show,

2:36

you can do so by subscribing on

2:38

YouTube, liking this video, subscribing to local podcast

2:40

app, or you can go to patreon.com/adhretcast. We're

2:43

have patron tiers of all sorts of

2:45

levels, whether you want to join our Discord

2:47

community. There's so many features over there, some

2:49

that are upcoming even more

2:51

news on that in the future, but go

2:54

to patreon.com/adhretcast for all of those

2:56

awesome ways to support us there

2:59

too. So there's also a great

3:02

feature, great benefit for all

3:04

of our patrons, the weekly and coveted

3:06

patron shout out. And this week, Benjamin

3:08

Collins, thank you so much for Collins

3:10

in that your home page on

3:14

your browser. I don't

3:17

know if, I don't know, Matt, that was a

3:20

stretch, but I liked it. I

3:22

don't know if Ben is 21 and I wanted to

3:25

ask about his uncle Tom Collins, but I, Matt,

3:28

I gotta say you like from your 10 out

3:31

of 10 dad joke from your very

3:33

intro to Collins at home. I feel

3:35

like there's been a slight change in

3:38

the atmosphere here, slight dip. I

3:41

thought it was warming up, but turns out that's not good for ice.

3:45

Obviously the snowman didn't do well in snow or do

3:47

well in the heat, so I'm

3:50

not either. Oh my goodness.

3:52

Sorry everybody. I tried. I

3:54

tried, but Ben, either way, thank you

3:56

for the support. Yeah. Thank you so

3:58

much, Benjamin Collins. at your

4:00

home. You know what? Actually, the more I say it, the

4:02

more I like it. So, never mind. See? There you go.

4:04

It grows on you. Yeah, it really does. All

4:07

right. So, guys, we are going to get

4:09

into our main topic here. And Dana, as

4:12

you said, there was that

4:14

update from the Rules Committee a couple of weeks

4:16

ago, and there was a really terrific line from

4:19

Jim LaPage, as you said there, that said, if you're

4:21

reading this, one way you can

4:23

help to preserve Commander's Charm is to dig

4:25

deep and play weird cards just because they

4:27

don't have a home elsewhere. And

4:29

that line really resonated within the community and especially I know

4:31

with you, which is why you wanted to make a whole

4:33

show about it. So, I'm actually just going to like pass

4:36

this all off to you. Where are you at? Where do you

4:38

want to start when it comes to that vibe, that idea, that

4:41

idea for a whole episode to be about? Yeah.

4:43

So, the first caveat I want to throw out

4:46

there is this isn't a challenge to stats, the

4:48

show kind of situation. Like that's one where we're

4:50

talking about cards that are just

4:52

generally good and should see more play and get

4:54

overlooked for one reason or another. This

4:57

isn't that. Not that we're going

4:59

to be advocating you run Crawworm in

5:01

your decks or whatever just to do it,

5:03

but like we're talking about here cards that

5:06

just aren't going to see play elsewhere and

5:09

should see a little bit of play in Commander

5:11

because they're fun and they're interesting and they're something

5:13

different and they just shake things up because

5:16

they're not going to see play. Technically,

5:19

Rhystic Study is going to be better than this

5:21

card that we're going to suggest for your blue

5:23

deck or something, but these cards

5:25

are interesting and sometimes that's what

5:28

the game is all about. Yeah. We talk

5:30

about all the time on this show just

5:32

because we're about EDH Rec and what people

5:34

are playing. We still love just

5:37

being able to get to play these cards

5:39

that we never maybe didn't get to play

5:41

them in 60 card formats. They just

5:43

completely skip that or we played them in 60

5:45

card formats a little bit and they're just fun

5:47

old random cards that just we...

5:50

just bring joy to our hearts and they're

5:52

not obviously the optimal cards, but they're still

5:54

the cards that we choose to play and

5:57

those are for me at least. Those are my

5:59

fears. cards. The cards you don't

6:01

have to play, you choose to play those.

6:04

Yeah, that's absolutely. These are the little... I'm

6:07

hoping just an episode full of little cards that bring us joy.

6:09

Just like because where else are we going to get to play these

6:11

and these little things. They're not great but that's

6:13

the point. They're the type of cards that you look at them

6:16

and you go like that. That is what Commander is about to

6:18

me. Matt, is there a place

6:20

that you'd like to start off? Well, I mean, I was

6:22

talking to Dana about this earlier before we

6:24

started and my whole Raga-Droga deck

6:26

I feel like very much applies to, oh,

6:29

this is Commander. This is some shenanigans

6:31

that you don't get to do other

6:34

places. So for those who

6:36

don't know, my Raga-Droga Gorguts boss deck,

6:38

that is my Eldrazi deck. And you

6:40

might think, well, yeah, because Raga-Droga's

6:42

ability to whenever you cast big spells,

6:45

you get to untap creatures and pump it up quite

6:47

a bit. But actually this is

6:49

my Eldrazi deck because I play Eldrazi

6:51

scions and Eldrazi spawns in there because

6:53

they have mana abilities. And

6:55

I don't know about you, but where are you

6:57

going to see cards like rapacious one in just

7:00

really any format these days? Nobody's paying six mana

7:02

for that effect. That's kind of

7:04

a perfect example here too, Matt, because a lot of

7:06

the cards that I'm going to mention here are in

7:09

my decks because I've chosen to

7:11

do a specific thing in that

7:14

deck. I think that's a really

7:16

great back door to find reasons

7:19

to run these cards. If you

7:21

are playing an artifact-centric deck, maybe you want

7:23

to decide to like, I'm going to run

7:25

no enchantments in this deck because it's an

7:27

artifact deck. And therefore you have to figure

7:29

out ways to do things that you normally

7:31

do with enchantment with an artifact. And that's

7:33

going to lead you to find cards that

7:35

you would not otherwise run. That's a really

7:37

good way, I think, to do that. And

7:40

by doing that with this Gorguts deck, you've found

7:42

a whole bunch of cards to play that wouldn't

7:44

otherwise probably normally see play in a deck that

7:46

would be filled with variations on the Land of

7:48

War Elves, say. Yeah, those Land of War Elves,

7:51

like a bunch of Mandoroks, those tend to be

7:53

the typical way that you see Raggadroga build, but

7:55

instead you've opted for like, hmm, these other things

7:57

have some nice mana abilities, which I find very

8:00

enjoyable every time that I get to see

8:02

it. Yeah, and I still have some of

8:04

those cards. I still have Birds Paradise because

8:07

I want to cast all my spells, but

8:09

then I'm casting Birds of Paradise so that

8:11

I can later cast Birthing Hulk. There's

8:16

maybe like 60 other people that are actually playing

8:18

Birthing Hulk, and that's just one of the fun

8:20

things that I really enjoy about this deck

8:22

too. There's other options too,

8:24

like Outpost Siege, so many people play

8:26

in just a ton of decks, but

8:29

looking a little bit deeper, there's Brazen Cannonade, which

8:31

is just a really silly one that I

8:34

like a lot. There's a lot

8:36

of fun little interactions that just kind of led

8:38

to me really just enjoying and

8:40

digging into this deck specifically because

8:42

it's so many things that I don't get to do

8:45

in other formats. It's just something that's only going to

8:47

happen in Commander. I got a shout out by the

8:49

way. Your Brazen Cannonade tech in that deck is amazing

8:51

because it says whenever an attacking creature your control does,

8:53

it deals two damage to each opponent. You attack with

8:55

your scions and then they deal damage and then in

8:57

the post-combat there's still technically an attacking creature, so you

9:00

sacrifice them for mana and then

9:02

you deal damage. Actually, the damage and stuff,

9:04

it's freaking brilliant. I absolutely love that. It's a

9:06

very good card, folks. That's not a commander only

9:08

thing. That's just a very good card. But I

9:10

do need to say that there is someone else

9:12

who plays Birthing Hulk a lot, and that's actually

9:15

Dana because he's got an Eldrazi spawn deck too.

9:17

Which is funny. We kind of independently

9:19

both at the same time built two

9:22

different decks designed internally around

9:24

Eldrazi spawns and scions. Yeah. Yeah.

9:27

But yeah, it means the same thought process

9:29

there. I had built a deck, Jihira, Agent

9:31

of the Iron Throne, and I'm like what

9:33

could I do that was different with this particular combo of

9:36

creatures and I did the same thing, Eldrazi spawns and scions

9:38

and I have a deck also filled with a

9:40

bunch of those cards that, you know, if you

9:42

look at EDH Rec,

9:44

5% of the people playing them are you and me. Well,

9:49

yeah, that's just it. Where else are you

9:51

going to see someone play Dread Drone? Which

9:53

is like a five-man and make two spawns.

9:55

Like that is limited draft chaff ultimate

9:57

right there, but like that is the thing that's charming about

9:59

Commander. just like, oh yeah, I found a place

10:01

where this card can actually be kind of decent. And there's

10:03

no way that doesn't feel absolutely amazing. Yeah,

10:06

another one, you know, I've talked recently,

10:08

one of the more recent decks of

10:10

mine is my Caliphate Beloved of the

10:12

Sea deck. It's

10:14

a motto blue deck, Voltron built

10:17

around devotion to blue. And

10:19

because I want to have as many blue

10:21

permanents in play as possible, one

10:23

of the things I decided to do with that

10:25

deck for a theme was I'm running no instance

10:27

or sorceries. It's entirely a permanent based deck, which

10:30

is a pretty unusual thing to see for a

10:32

motto blue deck, colors known for

10:35

reacting at instant speed, particularly with counterspells.

10:37

So as a result, I've had to run

10:39

a lot of kind of oddball things in

10:42

this deck that I wouldn't otherwise run. All

10:44

of my counterspells are the counterspells on creatures

10:46

with flash. I have to do things with

10:48

enchantments that I would otherwise try to do

10:50

with creatures. You know, all

10:52

of my draw mechanics and stuff are cards

10:54

like Insight, where I draw when someone

10:57

plays a green spell. I mentioned Rhystic

10:59

Study before. Rhystic Study is a much better card than

11:02

Insight, but like when all of my things have

11:04

to be on enchantments, I have to dig pretty

11:06

deep. So I'm running a card like Insight in

11:09

that deck. So yeah,

11:11

that's a similar thing to

11:13

your Raga-Daga deck back where when you

11:15

have made these decisions to try to

11:19

do something outside the box, that's when you find

11:22

these cool cards that just aren't going to see

11:24

play elsewhere. So do you have anything, Joey, like

11:26

we mentioned one from Matt or I, where you've

11:28

specifically taken kind of a weird direction with a

11:31

deck and as a result, it has some strange

11:33

cards that just don't normally see play? Oh yeah.

11:36

The most recent deck that I've built is a

11:38

Rule Zero Time deck, where it starts with the

11:40

Ninth Doctor, and then if I ever have to

11:42

recast the commander, it becomes the Tenth Doctor, and

11:44

then the Eleventh Doctor, and then the Twelfth Doctor.

11:47

So I'm playing a Rule Zero Jeskai deck, which

11:49

I'm way out of my element because I'm Mr. Golgari.

11:51

What am I doing here with Jeskai? But I

11:54

wanted it to feel like I am playing with

11:56

time as much as possible in that deck. So

11:58

I finally found a home for one of our

12:00

very own. first preview cards which is Aeon Engine,

12:02

the artifact that reverses the game's turn order, which

12:05

shows up in 1900 decks right now.

12:07

And it's like it's not a great card, but like where else

12:09

am I going to get the chance to play this? Like

12:11

I love that. And I also like I was

12:13

playing back in the original Ravnica and also into

12:15

the Time Spiral and Futureside block. And like one

12:17

of my favorite cards from Planar Chaos was Chronozoa,

12:19

a little Amoeba flying 3-3 that slowly vanishes. And

12:22

if it completely vanishes, it does a mitosis and

12:24

now you have two copies of it. And that

12:26

does also vanish and now you've got four copies

12:28

and etc etc. And if I'm playing with time

12:30

counters, if I get to time travel, y'all I

12:32

want to flood a board with Chronozoa so that

12:34

this card is not great, but where else am

12:36

I going to get the chance to do this?

12:38

Like that is fully the thing for me with

12:40

this. I look at these cards and I'm like

12:42

this is what Commander's about to me. I want

12:44

to make people smile with these cards because I

12:46

absolutely think that that's the reaction that people will

12:48

get when they see you're playing Aeon Engine, you're

12:50

playing Chronozoa, I haven't seen that card in ages.

12:53

That's what this is about to me for

12:56

sure. Yeah there's so many different things, especially

12:58

too. It's fun to get to play old

13:00

cards that you maybe played when

13:02

you were doing other formats. For

13:04

me too, my Sig River Guide

13:06

deck that just harkens back to when

13:09

I first got into or got back into

13:11

Magic I should say. And just a bunch

13:13

of cards that they weren't really getting played

13:15

anymore, like maybe some of them here and

13:17

there. But yeah, Murfolk is a deck for

13:19

modern and legacy. But then also

13:21

I'm putting it next to some really not

13:23

great commanders or really not

13:26

great cards to like Enclave

13:28

Cryptologist. Back

13:30

when it was like, oh these are cards that

13:32

I just have laying around. Is that the level

13:34

up Murfolk? That is the level

13:36

up Murfolk and if you invest, I

13:38

want to say it's like six mana total

13:41

into it after you cast it, you can

13:43

tap it to draw a card. That's where

13:45

things really get powerful. Yeah, the card's not

13:47

great but there's no way that

13:50

doesn't bring a smile to your face when you see these

13:52

old things. That is an interesting position we find ourselves in

13:55

Commander these days where it does feel like we sometimes

13:57

run the risk of optimizing the fun out of our

13:59

decks. So yeah, if you can find

14:01

these things, it's just like, oh, I don't know where else

14:03

I would get the chance to play this and it feels

14:06

nice to stay in tune with that side of what got

14:08

us into Commander in the first place. Yeah, and just playing,

14:10

I want to say playing

14:12

back then, swings felt even

14:15

more swingier. I don't think that's a real

14:17

word, but when you cast a

14:20

card like Overwhelming Intellect, one of Dana's favorite

14:22

cards, you just got this

14:24

massive massive swing, but also there's probably like

14:26

13 mana involved with casting those two spells.

14:28

Well, it was also like, it was

14:31

easier to find deep cuts back then and

14:33

surprise people because Commander was a new thing.

14:36

So what counted as a

14:38

weird underplayed card 10 years

14:41

ago was a whole different beast than it was today.

14:44

Rhystic Study was a weird underplayed card

14:46

10 years ago. Right. And you

14:48

know, that is not how the game works anymore. So like

14:50

if you were, want to be outside the box, you have

14:53

to dig a little bit deeper and be a little bit

14:55

more intentional about it than maybe you once did. But there's

14:57

still a lot of fun gems to be found

15:00

out there that work really well in

15:02

decks if you want to do that kind of

15:04

a deep dive. Yeah, like Rhystic Study wasn't always

15:06

a staple, but then on the reverse side, Mind's

15:09

Eye kind of was a card that a lot

15:11

of people had to put into decks. And

15:13

you still have a chance to play Mind's Eye. Like

15:15

it's been cut from a lot of decks, but that

15:18

doesn't mean you can't still play it. It's still a

15:21

great effect. Yeah, 10 years ago, Rhystic Study was

15:23

maybe the weird card that didn't see play

15:25

and Mind's Eye was maybe a staple. And the

15:27

inverse is true. And today you might want to drop it

15:29

in Mind's Eye at a table and you'll look like you're playing

15:31

something strange and no one had seen before. So

15:34

I have a Vowel, Kennelkip Researcher and

15:36

Haunted 1 background deck. And

15:38

the point of the deck is to basically

15:41

swing at people with a bunch of buffed

15:43

up mages. Because

15:45

of the way Vowel works, I

15:48

can tap her to add mana

15:50

pool, but I can't use it to

15:52

cast spells from my hand. And Haunted 1,

15:54

whenever a creature, whenever a commander becomes tapped,

15:56

it gives creatures that share a creature type

15:58

plus 2 plus O and D. done dying.

16:01

So the point of the deck is to

16:04

tap and untap Val as many times as

16:06

possible on a single turn because the Haunted

16:08

Wand trigger isn't restricted to once a turn

16:10

or on attack. So if I can tap

16:12

and untap her repeatedly, I can bump a

16:14

bunch of mages up and

16:16

swing in from lethal with a team that wouldn't

16:18

normally look like it would be swinging at people.

16:22

So that number one lends itself to running

16:25

a bunch of strange cards, but

16:27

beyond that, because I'm creating so

16:29

much mana when I'm repeatedly tapping

16:31

and untapping Val, it

16:34

becomes beneficial to run a bunch of

16:36

bad draft chaffed mages like a Zermage

16:38

that don't see play otherwise that have

16:40

a just an ability that doesn't require

16:42

you to tap the mage, spend three

16:44

in the blue to draw a card.

16:47

That's not a particularly good ability and no

16:49

one's really running that creature but in that

16:51

deck where I'm going to oftentimes be making

16:53

in a single turn, you know,

16:55

six or eight or ten mana that I can't

16:57

use to cast a creature spell, I can just

17:00

throw it into the Zermage and draw three or

17:02

four cards. So

17:04

that deck, because of how I've chosen to build

17:06

it, there's 32 creatures in

17:08

that deck and 22 of them are probably

17:10

ones that you would

17:12

look at and like why is that in this deck? So

17:16

again, it's just a reason to

17:20

look to build something that's slightly different than

17:22

maybe what you would see because that's

17:25

another way that you can find yourself just putting

17:27

a bunch of weird cards in decks that wouldn't see

17:29

play otherwise and that's how you wind up with Frostwind

17:32

Evoker in your list or

17:34

Gempalm Sorcerer or Mystic

17:37

Archaeologist or Forbidden

17:39

Inspector and those cards are also obscure that I

17:41

just made up one of them and you're not

17:43

really sure which one I made up right now.

17:45

I was going to say I don't recognize at

17:48

least three of those cards you've just said. He

17:51

made up all of them actually. He made them all up, we don't know.

17:55

That is fun. Yeah, taking those like little

17:58

weird like what does that do to me? cards and like

18:00

actually promoting them into you're being beat down by a

18:02

little draft chaff on common like is a very That's

18:05

a cool thing that you only see in commander

18:08

and I guess unlimited but like yeah Right.

18:11

Yeah. Yeah, it just it

18:13

feels it feels like a wonderful thing and I love the way

18:15

that like These charming cards

18:17

these these interesting. I don't mean literally charms. I

18:19

mean cards that like have a charm to them,

18:21

right? They can manifest in

18:23

some different ways Like there are the pet cards that you

18:26

have that you're like, oh, let me just run this just

18:28

because and then there's also like Cards that can guide

18:30

the entire direction of a deck For

18:34

me, for example, Bain Philomen is one of

18:36

those Like it's

18:38

a seven mana do nothing enchantment. This is not

18:40

a good card in a one-on-one format This

18:42

is the seven mana black enchantment beginning of your

18:44

end step reveal the top card of your library

18:46

if you do each opponent Loses life equals to

18:48

that cards converted mana cost you don't even draw

18:50

the card it stays there But I've been able

18:52

to like Kind of shape my

18:55

entire your net deck around this because the entire deck

18:57

is like doing you know cheating stuff into play If

19:00

it has an odd mana cost when the net attacks,

19:02

which is really really fun But my favorite way to

19:04

win is with Bain Philomen and I did like over

19:06

time I kind of tried to direct the the deck

19:08

a little bit away from just like oh You net

19:10

is the powerhouse here and more

19:13

into like can I make a

19:15

string of things happen where I'm

19:17

Bain Philomening And I'm keen dualist

19:19

ing and I'm also Twilight

19:21

profiting And I'm using the sword

19:23

and that also has this a bit like I'm just

19:25

trying to just put stuff back on top of my

19:27

Deck just for the Bain Philomen trigger as many times

19:29

as possible because that's hysterical to me So there are

19:31

the pet cards and there's also the way that these

19:33

pet cards can actually Completely reshape the direction that your

19:35

deck is going to go I mean well if you

19:37

want to talk about cards that just reshape what the

19:39

deck is doing Joey you and

19:42

I both have a top deck matters

19:44

deck Yours is very very different

19:46

than mine though because mine is my vivictus

19:48

as Mahdi the dire deck Which

19:50

is all about what's the wildest thing that

19:52

I can cheat into play for everybody and

19:54

like yes I am playing good

19:57

cards quote unquote you can say

19:59

that like both of the Atollis that

20:01

are in there. They're good cards and they're

20:03

powerful for sure. Woodfall Primus, pretty close to

20:05

a staple. But Avatar

20:07

of Slaughter is neither of those things. Avatar

20:10

of Slaughter is a eight mana, eight eight

20:12

that all creatures have double strike and attack

20:14

each turn of fable. And it was originally

20:16

printed in the original

20:18

Commander product and it's

20:21

only been reprinted up until recently.

20:23

So it's sat there for a long

20:25

time not doing anything, but that's a card

20:27

that just absolutely just makes me

20:29

laugh so hard whenever it happens because

20:32

just the chaos it causes on the

20:34

table. Well, and that makes sense Matt

20:36

because you can't spell slaughter without laughter.

20:38

It's very, very true. When you cheat

20:40

that into play off of your Vectus

20:42

trigger mid combat and then suddenly everything

20:45

has double strike? Mid combat. What are

20:47

we playing Commander for if not that

20:49

type of moment? Well, and I recently

20:51

put in Archfiend of Depravity too. I

20:53

hadn't seen that card. I forgot it

20:55

even existed until I was sorting cards

20:58

out because I was giving some friends

21:01

of mine. I was like, wait, wait, that card,

21:04

that card still exists in 2024. It

21:06

was great back then when Fate Reforged first

21:08

came out. I think everybody kind

21:10

of forgot about it, but I still think it's absolutely

21:12

great. Oh yeah, I love that one. So

21:15

five mana, five four, beginning of each opponent's end step.

21:17

They choose up to two creatures that they control and

21:19

then sacrifice the rest. Like yeah, the good

21:21

board control helps you deal with enemies who are like,

21:23

oh, I've got a bunch of tokens. And you're like,

21:25

nah, no, you're not. But there's kind of an interesting

21:28

lesson that we can learn from this when

21:30

we look at its Ediatrek page. Like it's showing up in

21:32

37,000 decks. That's pretty darn

21:34

good. But his most popular commanders tend to be,

21:37

this is a commander that cares about demons. You

21:39

got your Rakdos, the showstoppers. You got your BelaKor,

21:41

the dark master. Your Vectus deck does not feel

21:43

that way. Like you're not like, oh, I need

21:45

to- Does not care. Yeah. And

21:48

I think that that's also kind of a habit that we sometimes slip

21:50

into. And like it's a good habit,

21:52

I think, where we do want to extract every

21:54

iota of value out of a card. Down to

21:56

its mana cost, down to its power and toughness,

21:58

down to its creature types, down to its- keywords

22:00

down to its text box. We don't just play an

22:02

individually good card, we want it to have those branching

22:04

synergies, those ripple effects throughout the rest of the deck.

22:06

And those are really fun moments when you can make

22:08

them happen. But there's

22:11

also like sometimes you just play a thing that is like, yeah,

22:13

this is just efficient, this is just gonna get the

22:15

job done. And I don't need to worry too hard

22:17

about like having those big massive ripple effects. And I

22:19

think that you embody that really well when you are

22:21

finding cards like these two playing your gigantic dragon deck

22:23

that's cheating ridiculous stuff into play. Yeah, well, and a

22:25

lot of decks to that care about cheating things into

22:27

play, they want to keep them

22:30

in play. But I'm also playing stuff

22:32

like morbid curiosity, which rewards me for

22:34

sacrificing bigger and dumber things. So

22:37

it's just some of those fun things. And

22:39

then I think my, well, your favorite card

22:41

in this deck, Joey, is Ugin's Nexus, only

22:43

in 10,000 decks right now. And like that's

22:45

still it's still a fair number. But

22:48

it's just you don't see it a whole lot. Because I remember

22:50

when it was originally printed the reaction that everybody

22:53

had to Ugin's Nexus was like, well,

22:55

why would I want to pay mana and then have to

22:57

sacrifice it later? Yeah, that just didn't make sense to everybody

22:59

back then. Oh, Ugin's Nexus is so dang

23:02

good. You use this in your vid, vid, this deck,

23:04

I use this in my Baba deck. Yeah, you using

23:06

a morbid curiosity on this card is one of the

23:08

coolest things I've ever seen in a dang game. Ugin's

23:10

Nexus is the five mana legendary artifact. If a player

23:12

would begin an extra turn, they have to skip that

23:14

turn instead. But if Ugin's Nexus would be put into

23:16

a given from the battlefield instead exile it and take

23:18

an extra turn yourself. So like,

23:20

our commanders, we can both eat this artifact, which

23:22

is why we love it so much. But you

23:25

also have like other cards that just like, and

23:27

I'll sacrifice it and draw five cards while I

23:29

do it with the morbid curiosity. And yeah, those

23:32

synergies are just terrific. And again, 10,000 decks for Ugin's

23:34

Nexus. If anything, that's higher than I thought it would

23:36

be. But there are a lot of cool ways to

23:38

manipulate this cool card that is doing something that you

23:40

don't usually get to see. So we've been talking for

23:42

a while here about cards that are just

23:45

fun to play that and weird and different about

23:47

maybe we can actually challenge some cards that shouldn't

23:50

be played for statistical reasons and yeah,

23:52

challenge some stats here. Yeah, I can't

23:54

lie when you first started talking about

23:56

the about like the

23:58

topic, you were just like and we I don't want this to be

24:00

like a challenge to stat show. I had this like reflexive 2023 reaction

24:02

of just like, is he about to

24:05

take the challenge to stat segue? We're like two minutes into

24:07

the show, is he about to do this? Thank goodness we're

24:09

not though. I think I need to learn to move past

24:11

that. But yes Dana, you're

24:13

absolutely right. We've got some stats to challenge here on

24:15

the website because there's a whole bunch of them, but

24:17

we don't always agree with them. So let's take a

24:19

quick break and come back with that. All right, I'm

24:22

gonna start us off with challenge to stats this week.

24:24

And I have a challenge for the Sliver Grave Motherdax,

24:26

which came out in the Commander Master set. Kind

24:29

of a mess of a pre-con specifically, that mana

24:31

base, not gonna lie. And Commander Masters in general,

24:33

also kind of a mess. But that's not

24:35

what we're here for today. If you have a Sliver Grave

24:37

Motherdax, there is a card that I think is probably showing

24:39

up a little bit too much, sort of a holdover from

24:41

some pre-con effect situations going on there. And that is the

24:44

card Blur Sliver, which is showing up in 56% of

24:47

those Sliver Grave Motherdax. This is a simple

24:49

three mana Sliver that helps give your slivers

24:51

haste. And that is very, very helpful. The

24:53

thing is there are so many other slivers

24:56

that also give haste, that I don't think

24:58

you end up needing this one. For example,

25:00

Cloud Shredder Sliver is a two mana haste and

25:02

flying, or there's the new Fire Wake Sliver, also

25:04

three mana, and it also can let you sacrifice

25:06

your slivers to buff up other slivers. Those ones

25:08

are already really great. And they're showing up in

25:10

like 97% and 58% of Sliver Dax. But

25:14

then there's also even like Heart Sliver, which is

25:17

actually showing up in fewer Sliver Grave Motherdax than

25:19

the Blur Sliver. And that one's two mana to

25:21

give all slivers haste. Granted to say all slivers,

25:23

not just slivers you control, but like when

25:26

you're in a Sliver Dax, I think the mana cost

25:28

does matter. Having those extra things, those

25:30

little edges can definitely add up. So

25:33

here, I think Blur Sliver is proving to be a

25:35

little bit redundant. You've got so many other things that

25:37

already do that effect that I don't think you need

25:40

this one. So I'm gonna say that 56% inclusion for

25:42

Blur Sliver, probably a little bit too high. And you

25:44

can maybe cut that one to either make room for

25:46

the Heart Sliver, if you want a cheaper version of

25:48

that effect, or make room for a different Sliver that's

25:50

going to give you any other type of benefit beyond

25:53

the stuff that you've already got access to. So that

25:55

is my challenge this week. Well, Joey, I actually also

25:57

have a pre-constructed commander

25:59

to- challenge here. So mine is

26:01

going to be for the new murders

26:03

at Karlov Manor pre-constructed decks, the Deep

26:05

Clue C deck, one specifically. So Morska

26:08

Undersea Sleuth is the face commander for

26:10

that and this is the commander that's

26:12

all about rewarding you for making much

26:14

of Clue tokens, drawing extra cards, and

26:16

then putting plus and plus encounters onto

26:18

Morska after you draw your second card

26:21

each turn. So the card that I

26:23

think is just absolutely just a powerhouse

26:25

here is gonna be Rise and Shine.

26:27

It's only getting added to about 22%

26:32

of decks right now and Rise and Shine is just

26:34

absolutely one of those cards that I think gives commander

26:36

a whole lot of charm but also one

26:39

that I've been trying really hard to find a

26:41

home for myself. We talk a

26:43

lot about how some of these bad decks, they're

26:45

really really good at generating a ton of value

26:48

but then they don't actually find ways to close

26:50

the game and actually win. Rise

26:52

and Shine is just that card. So one

26:54

and a blue for a source that says

26:56

target non-creature artifacts you control

26:58

becomes a 0-0 artifact creature. Put

27:01

four plus one plus one counters on each

27:03

artifact that became a creature this way and

27:05

then the really powerful version of this is

27:07

the overload cost that is four blue blue.

27:10

So you can turn all of your non-creature

27:12

artifacts into four four beaters. It's

27:15

just a great way to convert a

27:17

lot of maybe extra Clue tokens you

27:19

have laying around if you're playing I

27:21

don't know like a kid Academy manufacturer

27:23

all those Clue food and treasure tokens

27:25

into four fours. It's just

27:27

an absolute beating. There's also Overdrive

27:29

Awakener which is a creature version

27:32

of this. There's a

27:34

lot of really really powerful ways that you can

27:36

weaponize these artifacts especially the tokens that you're making

27:38

in the deck and you just gotta find something

27:41

to win the game with and these are great

27:43

ways to do that. Yeah that's Cyberdrive Awakener showing

27:45

up a nearly 50% of the Morskadek

27:47

so far so Rasenshine definitely should rise up

27:50

to meet those numbers I think because they're

27:52

both so efficient at winning games for this

27:54

type of strategy. Yeah absolutely they're both cards

27:56

that should be probably played and added

27:59

two more more for Skidex than they currently are.

28:01

Well, my challenge this week is brought to

28:03

us by a super fan and a listener,

28:05

CrabBaskets. Crab

28:07

says that he got to

28:09

taking a look at the card Familiar's

28:11

Ruse. Fragr's Ruse is

28:14

a two mana counterspell as

28:16

an additional cost to cast a spell,

28:18

return a creature you control

28:20

to its owner's hand, and then counter the spell.

28:25

Crab writes that it feels like a tempo hit to

28:27

bounce a creature you have in

28:30

play to counter a spell, but in the right

28:32

deck being able to recast a creature to get

28:34

an ETB trigger can be very powerful on top

28:36

of being able to counter a spell. And

28:39

he was curious how many Cascade Commanders

28:41

run this since Familiar's Ruse can just bounce

28:43

that Cascade Commander back to your hand and

28:45

let you get a Cascade trigger again. And

28:48

currently only two Yidris Maelstrom wielder

28:50

decks are running Familiar's Ruse and

28:52

only four Maelstrom Wanderer decks are

28:55

running it. Now there's a

28:57

logic to not playing counterspells in that kind of

28:59

deck. They aren't things that you're going to easily

29:01

be able to hit with your Cascade triggers and

29:03

they can kind of kill the chain that maybe

29:05

you're trying to set off with Maelstrom Wanderer. But

29:09

there's 500 decks running counterspell with

29:11

Maelstrom Wanderer, another couple hundred running

29:13

straight up counterspell in Yidris decks.

29:17

And yeah, there's a logic to replacing

29:19

things like counterspell with Familiar's Ruse in

29:21

that deck. Every Maelstrom

29:23

Wanderer deck I've ever played in basically

29:26

is taunting you about destroying their commander

29:28

so they can recast it. And

29:30

if you're already running counterspell, I'd

29:33

be really, really tempted to just swap

29:35

that out with Familiar's Ruse. The

29:37

upside on there is pretty huge and

29:40

in that kind of deck, that's just not much downside at

29:42

all. So that's a good pick,

29:44

Crab Baskets. If you're doing some kind of a

29:46

Cascade deck like that, Familiar's Ruse is

29:49

a really solid card and that kind of

29:51

deck or deck just filled with ETB stuff

29:53

in general. Dana, this challenge reminds me of

29:55

you challenging Abjur a long time ago, which

29:57

is the one blue mana counterspell that. For

30:00

the to sacrifice a blue permanent to counter as

30:02

both a new use that in some very brutally

30:04

efficient ways that mothers whose can be used. In

30:07

some similar ways to like when you see either of

30:09

those and like and injured act but you rico back

30:11

into the command zone which is yeah like if you're

30:14

playing London just as where she wants to be recommended

30:16

into to a little bit more easily to hit people

30:18

yeah deserve this kind of spells that look like they

30:20

have a drawback that you can actually manipulate to your

30:22

own advantage. Those. Are critical moments.

30:25

So yeah, think, think wisely about them.

30:27

I mean that manipulating a drawback to

30:29

an advantage is a gray weight of

30:31

wind up running a weird underplayed car,

30:33

doesn't see plenty or else and committed

30:35

acts as a look at you, bringing

30:37

things full circle back into our main

30:39

topic day an hour ago. I x

30:41

I'm a professional as as the super

30:43

professional Zola just as you also like.

30:45

I've got another example here that is

30:47

sort of just er category of things

30:49

that I feel like we don't get

30:51

to appreciate very much in other aspects

30:53

of. That the magic, the gathering universe

30:55

I guess. and it just slips. I just

30:57

kind of want to shout out fobs like

31:00

has he has made of entire video about

31:02

like you to play more fox because in

31:04

Commander they really are they. They can be

31:06

absolutely skewed upsets but like in another format.

31:09

Give. You really don't wanna play fox like it

31:11

so much more efficient for you to remove and

31:13

opponents creature or creatures as opposed to stalling them

31:15

out for one turn. So a regular fog is

31:18

not great in one of my magic with it

31:20

but an idiot. sometimes it feels like your time

31:22

walking somebody interest at. But the lesson that I

31:24

got to blow something up with a battling broom

31:26

which made them not only would I prevented or

31:28

damage but also they lost my for his creature

31:30

that was attacking for those moments are also quintessential

31:32

idiots. To me there's no way that those don't

31:34

bring a smile to your face so I just

31:36

wanted to. That shut Up fog is under the

31:38

category that kind of meets. This that the topic

31:40

of the show till your it in their the

31:43

kind of spell that was one of the things

31:45

we've We've talked about planning the past as like

31:47

creating stories and like Fox agree for doing that.

31:49

they free destroy were like someone has the bomb

31:51

on board state are they think is going to

31:53

kill everybody. and sunday

31:55

they don't and their wide open for someone to

31:57

then swing back and take them out three

32:00

people in some cases Just

32:03

almost lost the game or not like have

32:06

their knives sharpened for revenge. So yeah,

32:08

no, that's that's Are

32:10

they always the most optimal thing to run

32:13

necessarily? No But they're interesting cards

32:15

that don't see a lot of play elsewhere

32:17

and make for good stories I mean, I

32:19

would argue that there's there's some pretty good

32:21

fog of these days though Like you have

32:24

sure around shield arachnogenesis Like

32:26

yes, all the things that Joey just said

32:28

about fogs still are true But

32:31

finding ways again to weaponize the spells

32:33

that you're casting They're

32:35

pretty great at winning games to not nowadays when

32:37

we talk about fog. We're not talking about fog.

32:39

No Yeah,

32:42

well and they also have started to lean

32:44

a little bit more into the illusionist Scambit

32:47

style fog to that really do like play

32:49

with the multiplayer nature and it is like

32:51

where else are you gonna play these only?

32:53

Commander legal cards like Dan commander obviously, but

32:56

like I do appreciate like Matt You

32:59

really enjoy the misleading signpost new card because of

33:01

its free direction ability, right? Yeah, I do It's

33:04

just a fantastic way. You're not actually

33:06

fogging, but you're just playing around with

33:08

okay I want you

33:10

to attack that person said so the

33:13

politics of commander gets to be expressed

33:15

on physical cards that's a

33:17

really really fun way to play commander because

33:20

You're getting a lot of different things going on just

33:22

in one card Yeah And they just made that new

33:24

take the bait card as well in the car love

33:26

Manor set which is the Boris version

33:28

of illusionist to gambit I guess the

33:30

instant that you can only cast during an opponent's

33:33

turn and only during their combat and you prevent

33:35

all damage that would be Dealt to you and planes walkers you

33:37

control this turn But then you untap all those things that they

33:39

were attacking with and you go them and then they have to

33:41

attack again So it's just like listen you can still attack my

33:43

opponents But you're gonna leave me alone and in effect you have

33:45

to attack my opponents And so they keep leaning into those and

33:47

I think those also can make for some fun moments Who was

33:50

just like dang these had a wild effect now didn't they one?

33:53

I'm a fan of In

33:55

this one's a little more universal doesn't necessarily want

33:57

to go in a specific deck like a lot

33:59

of ones we talked about, keep watch, it

34:02

is a blue instant to end a blue, draw

34:05

a card for each attacking creature. And

34:07

I think people tend to want to

34:09

run it in a deck where you are going

34:11

to have a lot of attacking creatures because you

34:13

can control what you're doing. So if you're playing

34:16

some kind of a blue token deck, it's great. But

34:19

it's not just restricted to what you're doing. You can

34:21

cast it at anyone else's turn. It's not creatures that

34:24

you control that are attacking, it's just

34:26

attacking creatures. And there's a lot of situations where,

34:28

you know, someone

34:30

else is doing that disgusting thing with a whole

34:32

bunch of creatures and lets you draw a mid-full

34:34

of what they are doing, even if they're attacking

34:36

somebody else. Again,

34:39

it's just one of those cards that, like, people aren't

34:41

prepared to swing at

34:43

somebody with eight creatures and you, the

34:46

third party sitting there, just draws a

34:48

mid-full of cards. And

34:50

at 3 mana too, if we're talking about,

34:52

like, cards just being generally pretty useful, you

34:55

only need to draw two cards at

34:57

instant speed for that to be

34:59

a pretty good rate of return just in general

35:02

for blue instant speed draw spells. And

35:04

think about how many times you see people attack with

35:06

two creatures and commander on a single turn.

35:09

That's every turn, more or less, you know, for

35:11

the most part. Let alone how many times you

35:13

see them attack with three or six or eight

35:15

or twelve or whatever it lines up in. Yeah.

35:17

It's got that big berserk energy of, like, let me

35:20

muddle with someone else's combat just a little bit, just

35:22

because you can, just because it's fun. Oh, I'm going

35:24

to have you, you're attacking them, I'm going to help

35:26

you. And it'll also hurt you, but I'm going to

35:28

help you. There's so many different cards, though, that kind

35:31

of play around with the multiplayer aspect that really

35:33

just make things fun. One of my favorites

35:36

is Modifying Memory. It's four

35:38

and a blue. And you get a

35:40

source rate that says exchange control of two target

35:43

creatures controlled by different players. Now, that effect, we've

35:45

seen a lot. That's

35:47

not a novel concept. But tacking on

35:49

the, if you controlled neither creature, you

35:51

draw three cards. It's such

35:54

a fun way to just play around

35:56

the the multiplayer political aspect of

35:58

Commander that we just don't get other

36:00

places. Yeah, Matt, as soon as you said this one,

36:03

I was just like, dang it, because I've seen

36:05

what you can do with this card. Like,

36:07

maybe you'll give away something that you don't care about

36:09

so that you can steal something, but also sometimes you'll

36:11

just ruin our day. So like, alright, you two, let's

36:13

swap your commanders, which don't do anything for each other's

36:15

decks. And also I get to draw

36:18

cards just, you know, cuz. Like,

36:20

yeah, you're kind of a fiend with this one a

36:22

little bit, which I think is really,

36:25

really terrific, even if I'm a little

36:27

bit salty about it still. I mean,

36:29

that card specifically though, I saw it,

36:32

cuz Sheldon, men or you, had been playing

36:34

it in his You Did This To Yourself

36:36

deck. So I think anything from that deck

36:38

specifically just gets an honorary pass anyways for

36:41

adding to the culture of commander. Another

36:43

card from my Council Fort deck that I really like is

36:45

just Secrets of the Golden City, which it

36:48

was kind of only regularly played a

36:50

little bit in draft-ish, but it's one

36:53

blue blue for a source that says, draw two

36:55

cards, but if you have the city's blessing, you

36:57

draw three cards instead. And well,

36:59

in commander, it's all about how much can you put

37:02

on the board. And it's not

37:04

that hard to get the city's blessing to ascend

37:06

and have 10 or more permanents on the battlefield.

37:08

So really, Secrets of the Golden City is just

37:10

to draw three. Yeah, absolutely.

37:12

It's so weird to hear Matt

37:14

talk about blue cards. That's

37:16

just the thing I think it is. It is a

37:18

little jarring for me too. But

37:21

kind of going back to like the flexing with

37:23

the multiplayer nature of things, I also wanted to

37:25

quick shout out the card Doubt the Embrace, which

37:27

is another personal favorite of mine that also has

37:29

those maybe I'll hinder, maybe I'll help, maybe I'll

37:31

just serve my own needs. And

37:34

that's the three-man-of-black enchantment that you can pay

37:36

to black to give target creature shadow until

37:38

end of turn, which has so many

37:41

applications. This card would be such a dud in a

37:43

regular one-on-one game. There's no other format where I'm going

37:45

to be able to make use of this thing, but

37:47

you can give your own creature shadow so that it's

37:49

basically impossible for someone else to block. You

37:52

can give someone else's attack creature shadow so that it

37:54

can't be blocked when they're attacking one of your mutual

37:56

opponents, or you can give a creature shadow to make

37:58

it so that it cannot block other stuff. This

38:00

is so good and it's only showing up in 6400 decks right

38:02

now Oh, I love Douthian

38:04

brace and I love the little annoying but Matt I'm

38:07

gonna definitely embrace you since you modified my memory. All

38:09

right, that's that's what we're gonna do here That's fine.

38:11

If that's the trade-off that we have to go through

38:13

I can live with that Well

38:15

speaking of like little annoying things I'm

38:18

not sure if if the white and

38:20

black Counterspells are necessarily that great in

38:23

white particularly you have reprieve and you

38:25

have laps of certainty in black I

38:27

tend to think of imps mischief in

38:29

particular. They're useful and they're pretty good But

38:32

I'm not sure if very

38:34

often you can rationalize like running them

38:36

over something that just solves a problem

38:38

in those colors however They're

38:41

always fantastic to it's always a great

38:43

thing to do to somebody because no

38:45

one is ever ready For the

38:47

white counter spell or the black counter spell and

38:49

pretty you know, those are things that catch people

38:51

off guard The very rarely

38:53

are they ever dead? They're just maybe not

38:55

optimal But where else are you

38:57

they gonna see play and they create again create

39:00

a good story create a good memory create a

39:02

good game Whenever someone equips us on forgers to

39:04

their creature. I am immediately worried about white counter

39:06

spells for the rest of the Sure,

39:10

yeah, or me even if it's not a counter spell you

39:12

still can get stuff like deflecting SWAT, right? Yeah Impossible

39:15

to get rid of anything. Yeah. Yeah, honestly Sunforger

39:17

is like that That was one of the first

39:20

cards I opened when I first started playing in

39:22

like the mirrored into early Ravnica stuff I saw

39:24

Sunforger and I was just like towards hammer. This

39:26

is an interesting game. Let me try and Wasn't

39:29

great when I was trying to build one-on-one to act

39:31

against people but in commander It's like another one of

39:33

those quintessential commander cards. I'm just like, oh, thank goodness.

39:35

We get to play this card here So that's that's

39:38

also kind of a thing in addition to the fact

39:40

that it helps you find more cards like those white

39:42

counter spells Which also are a terrific thing to experience

39:44

here in this format Well, and if

39:46

you'll indulge me I've got one last one here that

39:48

I also just want to shut up because again Where

39:50

else am I gonna find home for this card except

39:52

for commander? Although it does probably kind

39:54

of tip the scales into like being brutally efficient rather

39:57

than just charming But that's that's the card tombstone stairwell,

39:59

which I've become kind of known for in my Conrad

40:01

deck because of how much damage it can deal. Tombstone

40:04

Stairwell is the four mana world enchantment with

40:06

cumulative upkeep of two mana, so you have

40:08

to pay a lot of mana to keep

40:10

this thing around. And it says, at the

40:12

beginning of each upkeep, that's each upkeep, if

40:14

Tombstone Stairwell is on the battlefield, each player

40:16

creates a 2-2 black zombie creature token with

40:18

haste named Tombspawn for each creature card in

40:21

their graveyard. And at the beginning of each

40:23

end step, or when Tombstone Stairwell leaves the

40:25

battlefield, you destroy all tokens created with Tombstone

40:27

Stairwell. They cannot be regenerated. There's

40:29

so many words, and this is a four mana

40:31

enjaiment that relies upon you having a bigger graveyard than your

40:34

opponents for it to do anything in a one-on-one format, and

40:36

you have to keep it around. And I think it's on

40:38

the reserve list, it's only like, I think like eight

40:40

bucks right now or something like that, but like, in

40:43

commander, the words each upkeep.

40:47

Each upkeep, and if Conrad is seeing all those tokens

40:49

get destroyed over the turn, oh, oh, it's so much

40:51

damage. And again, it's just one of those cards where

40:53

like, where else am I going to get the

40:55

chance to play this? And I guess like, this

40:58

one is less on the silly side, and it really

41:00

is veering more into like, oh,

41:02

that's like gross. Oh, that's wildness really like, oh

41:04

no, this is just like good. But

41:06

that's also a thing that we get to enjoy about commander

41:09

too, isn't just like, oh, we found something that's a little

41:11

bit silly, but also we found something that's just like, oh,

41:13

I didn't know how powerful that card could be, and we've

41:15

unlocked a potential. And that's also a cool feeling, I just

41:17

wanted to shout out. See, I would argue that the most

41:19

powerful word in commander is

41:21

each. Honestly. Not when it's target,

41:24

it's each. Yeah. It

41:26

helps everything scale, it helps everything go

41:28

up and bigger, whether it's the multiplayer,

41:30

or it's like with Overload, instead of

41:32

target, artifact becomes four-four,

41:34

each. Yeah. And I think that

41:36

is probably the single most powerful

41:39

word for commander players. Yeah.

41:42

So my kind of last thought on this subject in general,

41:45

it kind of goes back to what I said in the

41:47

beginning, I would suggest

41:50

the best way to do this, to find

41:52

these cards, isn't it just necessarily look for

41:54

weird cards? Because there's a lot

41:56

of cards out there. I

41:58

think the best way to do it is like look for... prefer a way

42:00

to do something interesting or

42:02

different with your deck and

42:05

then that will give you a direction

42:07

to look. If you have decided to

42:09

not run any, you know, creatures

42:12

in your deck and I have a creature

42:14

with stack, that's gonna make you

42:16

find a way to like, how can I emulate

42:19

what I would be normally doing with creatures in

42:21

this deck with something else? I

42:23

think that is the best way to kind of

42:25

find yourself, to find a way

42:27

to look for a specific card without just

42:29

like generically looking through every single card ever

42:31

printed, trying to find something that looks interesting

42:33

for a list. Find some kind

42:36

of a way to make an

42:38

opening in your deck that's looking for a specific

42:40

weird thing and then you can narrow down what

42:42

you're trying to find. I like that. Yeah,

42:44

that makes a lot of sense. There

42:48

is also, I think when we are first

42:50

putting a deck together or when we're first getting into

42:52

Commander, there's a lot of the struggle of like how

42:54

do I make the deck do anything at all in

42:56

the first place? And I think that consumes a lot

42:58

of our mental energy on that deck, but especially once

43:01

we get into the groove of understanding how that deck

43:03

works, we realize what is necessary, what isn't and that's

43:05

where it feels to me like once

43:08

we've worn that leather, weathered down so

43:10

that it feels more like, oh, okay, it knows

43:12

what its job is, that's when we can actually

43:14

start to find those flares and those flurries too. So

43:16

maybe a little bit of familiarity is, I don't

43:19

know, kind of a nice thing. I guess

43:22

I'm kind of pondering whether Ugin's Nexus was

43:24

in Matt's first draft of his Vavictus deck,

43:26

if that makes any sense. Matt,

43:28

you can answer that better than I can, but

43:30

that feels like a flare that you added later

43:32

maybe. I can definitely answer, it was not in

43:35

my first draft by any means. Yeah, yeah. And

43:37

so these are discoveries that we get to make

43:39

as well and that feels nice. It's

43:41

not a thing that we know for sure what

43:44

we're going to do right from the bat all

43:46

of the time and that discovery aspect is a

43:48

fun thing to lean into. Yeah,

43:50

I think going off color sometimes helps

43:52

you discover this stuff too similarly. Like,

43:54

if you're going to build a Boros

43:56

equipment deck, it's probably going to be

43:59

kind of difficult. to find an odd

44:01

card that isn't already seeing play

44:03

in Boros equipment decks that works with

44:05

your Boros equipment theme. Whereas

44:07

if you build an Orzhov equipment deck or

44:09

a Selesny equipment deck or something, gruel

44:12

equipment, then it's probably easier to

44:14

find this thing from, you know,

44:16

15 years ago that got

44:18

printed that will make sense in that deck

44:20

that doesn't see very much play and

44:23

is weird and kind of fun and cool than it will be,

44:25

you know, playing the typical

44:27

combo for that archetype. Dana,

44:29

don't give Matt more ideas about how to

44:31

beat me. You said Selesny equipment and don't

44:33

give him ideas. Oh, alright. Brother,

44:35

I don't need any more ideas for Selesny.

44:38

They're all there already. Fantastic. Alright,

44:40

listeners, we'd love to hear from you

44:42

about your favorite cards that have

44:44

this charm to them, but what are the cards that

44:46

you look at and you're like, that is what Commander

44:49

is all about, those things that you can't necessarily do

44:51

just anywhere else. But with that, we're going to call

44:53

this episode to a close. So, if a listener wants

44:55

to get in touch with us to tell us about

44:57

those magnificent cards that they're playing, where can

44:59

they find you online? Matt? So,

45:02

you can find me on pretty much any social media platform at

45:04

Mathemas55. That's M-A-T-H-I-M-U-S-5-5.

45:08

And don't forget, we have joined Team Ultimate Guard.

45:10

If you want some of the best magic accessories

45:12

on the market, check out Ultimate Guard for all

45:14

of your needs. And Dana. You

45:16

can find me on the interwebs at Dana

45:18

Roach. I'm writing articles for EDH Rec and

45:20

Commander's Herald. And you can find all of

45:23

us together at patreon.com, so that's EDH RecCast.

45:25

And I'm Joey Schultz. You can find me

45:27

online at Joseph M. Schultz, most likely, beginnifl

45:29

on Instagram. And if you've got a question

45:31

for us, you can find the cast at

45:33

EDH RecCast everywhere online and you can contact

45:36

us at EDH [email protected]. Our thanks go out

45:38

once again to Chase for their fantastic work

45:40

in the post-production of the show. You

45:42

can find them online at Man o' Curves. Listeners

45:44

will be back at you next week with more data

45:47

and insights, but until then, remember, EDH Rec Your Deck

45:49

before you wreck your deck. Thank

45:51

you. Thank

46:00

you.