0:01

Greetings humans, you have

0:03

entered the command zone, your

0:05

destination for all aspects of

0:08

Elder Dragon Highlander. Enjoy

0:10

your stay. Hello

0:13

everybody and welcome back to another episode

0:16

of the command zone podcast. I'm your host,

0:18

Rachel Weeks. How's it, it's Josh Lee

0:20

Kwai. And today we are talking

0:22

about powerful

0:24

cards in Commander. Very powerful cards. Very powerful,

0:26

like there's a lot of powerful synergistic cards

0:29

in Commander, but there are some cards that

0:31

if you put in a Commander deck it

0:33

feels like they actually shift the

0:35

full power level of a deck, even

0:38

if you just add one or two of these

0:40

cards into your deck. Yeah, and you know, the

0:42

power level discussion is controversial, people have disagreements about

0:44

how to do it. I think you and I

0:46

aren't even on the same page about how it

0:49

all works. And so a lot of

0:51

people just see a single card and

0:55

make a judgment about the power level of the

0:57

deck based upon that one card. And so we're

0:59

gonna kind of dive into like how warranted is

1:01

that? Like if you see a mana

1:03

crypt, does that mean that the deck cannot be

1:06

a five or a six or whatever on the

1:08

power scale? What

1:10

cards do in our estimation sort

1:12

of vastly change the power level or

1:15

not? So I think it's gonna be

1:17

an interesting discussion, I'm excited about it. Yeah, we're gonna

1:19

talk about a lot of sweet, powerful cards

1:21

today. If you wanna pick up any of

1:23

those, you can do so while supporting the

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If you need it on your game board

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Again, ultrapro.com/command. So if you want to protect

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best. I teased it a

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little bit already but we are

3:00

reminding you that we're having a

3:02

Game Nights Live at MagicCon Chicago.

3:04

It's February 23rd on Friday

3:07

at 4 p.m. We are having

3:10

a big live Commander game featuring

3:12

us and also The Professor!

3:14

Yeah, it's his first ever appearance in Game Nights Live,

3:17

you do not want to miss it. He's very excited

3:19

about it, he's never been to a MagicCon before. I

3:21

like what you said there, Rachel. The

3:23

Game Nights Live performance is on the Friday, which is the

3:25

first day of the show, and we hear this from people

3:28

all the time, they show up on Saturday, Sunday, and they're

3:30

like, when's Game Nights Live? And we're like, we already did

3:32

it. So we're just trying to get that message out there.

3:34

If you are going to attend the con, it's a great

3:36

weekend, we're going to be there all weekend, obviously we'll be

3:38

there the other days, but the Game Nights Live, specifically that

3:41

performance is on Friday, so make sure you try and get

3:43

there on Friday. I mean, We're biased but I do think

3:45

it's the best part of the show. Yeah, it's a ton of

3:47

fun. So If you can at all catch the show, it is

3:49

worth that extra day for sure. Plus, it doesn't cost any extra.

3:51

We Get a lot of questions about if you need tickets or

3:54

if you need to reserve a seat. Nope, it's first come, first

3:56

serve. As long as you can get into the hall on Friday,

3:58

you can come see the show. The little

4:00

early make sure the that your seats. Yeah. Okay,

4:02

let's get into it. Oh well, it's

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There's tons of perks of being a

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Europe and are you definitely want

4:27

rocks all recovery like me? Yeah

4:29

the Surface and Ring Roses era

4:31

of Israel will mourn our own

4:33

for I phone him sort of

4:36

noom him to. Do. You judge

4:38

municipal your particular under Mr. Ah yeah Is

4:40

there another who hit his It's the big

4:42

question. Is this a go between the lead

4:44

us and the choir or officer who oh

4:46

this is interesting read have we ever since

4:49

that I don't think I've ever said that

4:51

requires my last day I met her is

4:53

just too or just trust my first name

4:55

I do have a middle name now because

4:57

I'm between their yeah exactly So people with

4:59

are perfectly is my middle name of mouth

5:01

or to assist. Them

5:06

and we talk about of the cool outside world. My sister.

5:10

Who reveals across his middle name

5:12

at the end up with a

5:15

thicker often? Oh man. Okay so

5:17

ah, I feel like in Casual

5:19

Commander like what when we think

5:21

about the matter with think about

5:23

precautions and then they're Cdh and

5:25

then there's this big months in

5:27

between that is as the Wolves

5:29

Commander just there's like And then

5:31

there's. Within. That big

5:33

mock there is is invisible line

5:35

that is like say or casual

5:37

commander and then there's more broken.

5:40

Like I've heard it called a like turbo. Commander.

5:44

Optimal. Have heard of? Yeah, yeah. Like

5:46

it insists, more supercharged acts are usually more

5:48

expensive. There are a little faster for that

5:50

are nazis? Yeah, they're not doing. Like

5:52

the best strategies in the games,

5:54

but there are you, the more

5:57

powerful. Cards and probably the average cat

5:59

castle to manage. commander player which is

6:01

sort of below this line. So

6:04

the cards that we're talking about today I think sort

6:06

of give you an estimation of where that line is.

6:09

It is very, you know,

6:11

it depends on your playgroup and everybody has sort of

6:13

a different idea of where that line can be drawn

6:15

and often that line is sort of drawn in salt

6:20

because people are like, your deck has more power, why does

6:22

it bother the line? And you're like, no, it's not.

6:24

It's below that line. And

6:26

so it's a very tricky thing to talk

6:28

about. So everything that we're talking about today

6:30

is relative but we're trying to give you

6:32

an idea of what cards sort of shift

6:35

up the power level and maybe push you

6:37

above that line into a more powerful casual

6:39

commander like a turbo casual. Yeah.

6:42

And as with everything, it depends is

6:44

the real answer to this question. But I think

6:46

at least sharing our thinking on how we sort

6:48

of tackle the subject matter when we're building our

6:50

own decks and thinking about power level and where

6:52

we want to sit will hopefully help some people

6:54

out there come to some sort of maybe, maybe

6:56

they can codify a little bit how they think

6:58

about it. I know it's been helpful

7:00

for me and I feel at

7:03

least pretty good about my own decks and

7:05

where I know they sit. Like I rarely

7:07

sit down at a game and I've misjudged

7:09

what my deck is. And

7:12

sometimes, you know, I feel like maybe my opponents have

7:14

misjudged what their decks are, but also sometimes it's just

7:16

impossible to tell with one game. So a lot of

7:18

times I just give them the benefit of the doubt.

7:20

It's like they said their decks are six, it's performing

7:22

very well, seems probably like it might be above that.

7:24

But at the same time, maybe they just got a

7:27

good draw and I can't tell from one game really.

7:30

So as always, and I feel like I say

7:32

this all the time, try and give people a break. But

7:36

yeah, if we want to sort of talk about

7:39

how we're going to refer to numbers here

7:41

and it's hard not to, on that one

7:43

to ten power scale, I

7:46

tend to think of a pre-con these days as a

7:48

five. And like the original pre-cons

7:50

they used to come out with are closer to a three. So

7:53

over the years, the pre-cons have gotten better because

7:55

they started in like 2011, And

7:59

you know, we are 12 years past that.

8:01

So somewhere in the middle years, they're probably closer to a

8:03

four and they've, I think, come to like

8:05

about a five these days. And then

8:07

a mildly upgraded pre-con or what would

8:09

be the equivalent of like you've changed

8:12

out 15 or so cards in a

8:14

pre-con? And that like one

8:17

of our budget upgrades, I would consider a six.

8:19

Yeah. Like not, you're not upgrading 15 cards

8:21

and you're adding manuscripts and the cards we're talking

8:23

about today, we're talking about 15 cards and like

8:25

you maybe put another 50 bucks into it.

8:27

You probably look through your collection and whatever you

8:30

happen to have, you kind of add it in.

8:32

Yeah. Again, we're not talking about the super

8:34

most powerful cards in the format here. Yeah. And

8:37

a seven is a deck that is you

8:39

have changed out enough that

8:41

it's not even really the pre-con anymore and

8:43

maybe has like the pre-con commander and less

8:46

than 10 to 15 of the cards that

8:48

were originally in it besides lands. And

8:50

you've really done a lot of work on it and

8:52

that's a pretty big step up, I think. And I

8:55

know everybody jokes that most, that everybody says their deck

8:57

is a seven and I do believe that like 80

8:59

or 85% of the decks in the format are sevens.

9:01

Like they can play together and they're about the same

9:03

power level. And then the one step past that is

9:06

what we were talking about was maybe supercharged

9:08

or optimized, I like to say. Yeah. Which

9:10

is, okay, now I've probably built this deck

9:13

from the ground up. There's probably almost nothing

9:15

left from the pre-con and I've added a

9:17

lot of very powerful cards. Yeah. There

9:19

could be a Manacrypt and an eight. Manacrypt

9:23

doesn't push you necessarily towards zero CDH

9:25

deck but that is probably the most

9:27

powerful that like quote unquote casual decks

9:29

kind of get. They might dip into

9:32

the very low nines but once you're

9:34

in a nine, that to me is

9:37

CDH but not top tier CDH decks.

9:39

Yeah, like second tier or off meta,

9:41

maybe dated CDH decks that still are

9:43

trying to compete on that timeline but aren't

9:45

necessarily updated to like the absolute current meta.

9:47

Yeah. And then 10 is of course like

9:49

a top CDH where you've checked the lists

9:52

and that's the list. If you have a

9:54

10, you've gone online. And you know it's

9:56

a 10. You know it's a 10 because

9:58

it is meant to be. As

10:00

powerful as decks can kind of get in the

10:02

format and I like to think of power level

10:04

like a deck can sort of Reasonably

10:07

play with decks that are within one One

10:11

step of it so a six can play with a five

10:13

and it can play with a seven is it advantage against

10:15

the sevens? No, but it can play and it won't feel

10:17

like this is not a game at all Right, you know

10:19

and a seven can play with an eight and can play

10:22

with a six but against a nine It's definitely like doesn't

10:24

really have a chance That's not to

10:26

say cdh is a weird thing where I've definitely

10:28

played in pods where like People are playing three

10:30

cdh decks and I have a in my you

10:32

know, my vials If

10:55

it was like three eights and a ten the tens

10:57

probably gonna win because it's just gonna combo out so

10:59

early and there won't Be able to stop it. They

11:01

just can't interact on that level Yeah So I like

11:03

to think of it I think in the old days

11:05

the power levels were a little different the format was

11:07

a little slower and you could play maybe two Steps

11:09

away, but it's contracted now where I think you can

11:11

play about one step away Like yeah, and eight can't

11:13

play with a ten But it would have a chance

11:15

against a nine and it really shouldn't be playing against

11:18

a six It'll just won't it'll just be a pub

11:20

stomping. Yeah. Yeah. Okay power level discussion. Yeah So

11:22

the cards that we're talking about today are we're gonna be

11:24

talking about like the difference between a six and eight Like

11:27

that that's sort of the power level Difference

11:30

that we're talking about between an eight and

11:32

a ten totally different cards But between those

11:34

like lower casual decks and the higher casual

11:36

decks These cards are gonna be the ones

11:38

that make the difference and it's like having

11:41

one to two of them in your six

11:43

and you Know ten plus of them in

11:45

your eight. Yeah is is where we're drawing

11:47

lines So all of that most decks

11:49

sit around seven. I think this is applicable to most

11:51

decks Yeah, sort of knowing like am I really where

11:53

exactly am I and it's a continuum, right? You could

11:55

be like a seven and a half like we just

11:57

talk about them in these ways and again more

12:00

art than science too. Exactly. A lot of

12:02

these cards have vibes. Yeah. We're reading the

12:04

vibes. Okay. That's

12:06

part of the discussion. So the first

12:09

category that we're going to talk about, the first group of

12:11

cards, I think is going to be the most obvious to

12:13

people. And I think it is maybe

12:15

the biggest factor in pushing your deck from

12:17

a six to an eight. And that's of

12:19

course fast mana. Yep. There's a lot of

12:21

different kinds of fast mana in the format.

12:23

I think the most recognizable is something we've

12:25

alluded to a lot, which is mana rocks.

12:27

Yep. Mana crypt specifically, we've already mentioned a

12:30

number of times. And that definitely

12:32

is a card I believe that feels like

12:34

if it is in your deck, it's difficult

12:36

for your deck to be a six. Yeah.

12:38

It's just that card alone is

12:41

so powerful that when you draw it early,

12:43

it totally changes how your deck plays to

12:45

a degree that makes it pretty

12:47

difficult for an

12:50

upgraded pre-con to feel even like it's an upgraded

12:52

pre-con. It feels more like it's a level or

12:54

two above that. Yeah. An

12:57

interesting thing here is, Sol Ring

12:59

is fast mana, right? Sol Ring

13:01

is 100% fast mana piece. It's a mana

13:03

rock. But because Sol Ring is

13:06

in most decks, 95%

13:08

of decks, right? At least it

13:11

doesn't really register on this. I don't think

13:13

a Sol Ring moves the needle of your

13:15

deck necessarily. But adding a mana crypt changes

13:17

the percentage of your deck that has fast

13:19

mana in it. So it just means that

13:21

you're dedicating two slots to very powerful fast

13:23

mana pieces. Yeah. Where like Sol Ring, I

13:25

don't know, you sort of expect Sol Ring

13:28

to happen in Commander. But Mana Crypt is

13:30

that second level where you're like, oh, you're

13:32

really trying to go fast. Yeah. And the

13:34

difference between one of a thing and two

13:36

of a thing is twice as much of

13:38

a thing as you had before. Right. Two X's a

13:40

lot. And so that's just twice as many

13:42

times when you're going to get off to a fast

13:44

start. And then you also have the possibility to do

13:46

something that a deck with just Sol Ring can't, which

13:48

is get both of them in your opening hand, in

13:51

which case you have a crazy start to a game,

13:53

which is going to happen some percentage of the time.

13:55

So your percentage like crazy starts just goes up. And

13:57

I think that's really one of the reasons or the

13:59

biggest reason why. Manicrypt on its own, I do

14:01

believe, is a card that single-handedly

14:04

should be factored into the power level of your deck. Right.

14:07

In addition to Manicrypt, there's a lot

14:09

of zero mana rocks. Chrome Mox and

14:12

Mox Diamond are the two that I

14:14

think of that are definitely, if they're

14:16

in your deck, I consider them a

14:18

higher tier casual deck. Both

14:20

of them pitch a card to give you a zero

14:22

mana rock that's half or one mana of any color.

14:25

And that's, again, more slots dedicated to fast

14:27

mana. It just means that you're more likely

14:30

to have a fast start. I

14:32

don't know. I'd be interested to hear. I don't

14:34

think Chrome Mox and Mox Diamond fit in the exact same spot

14:36

as Manicrypt in that if

14:38

you didn't have Manicrypt, you just have Soul Ring and

14:40

two mana rocks, regular stuff. And then

14:43

you have Chrome Mox in your deck also, but it's just

14:45

a one-off. That doesn't feel

14:47

like that deck is a ton more powerful

14:50

than the version of that

14:52

deck that just has a two mana rock in that same

14:54

slot because you are down the

14:56

card and you don't have enough redundancy for the

14:59

effect for it to really be like this huge

15:01

payoff because even those crazy starts where you go,

15:03

I have a Chrome Mox in my opening hand,

15:06

your deck's not necessarily equipped to take

15:08

advantage of it. It's when you have

15:10

Chrome Mox, Mox Diamond, Manicrypt. It

15:13

does indicate that maybe you have those other things and your

15:15

deck is very powerful, but I think it's possible to add

15:17

a Chrome Mox to a deck, and I'm not saying everybody

15:19

should do this, and

15:21

not really increase the power level that much. If

15:23

you see a player play a Chrome Mox, do

15:25

you assume they have a Manicrypt? I

15:28

assume their deck is powerful. If they told me

15:30

before the game, hey, my deck's a six, and

15:32

they go turn one Chrome Mox, I got

15:35

to be on it. They're like, hmm, alarm bells. Yeah, I

15:37

sort of don't believe you. I'm sort of going like, that

15:40

doesn't mean I think you're lying. I just think

15:42

this person's gauge of their numbers are different than

15:44

mine. In my mind,

15:46

your deck is already a seven and could possibly

15:48

be an eight just from playing that card. It

15:52

is possible to play that card in

15:55

a low-power deck, but

15:57

it's just unlikely. For sure. The

16:00

card you need to be aware that like they

16:02

are gonna set off alarm bells and your opponent's

16:04

that is specially be told them that it's effects.

16:06

Such a really good point I think if somebody

16:08

like all things being equal I have an early

16:10

creature out I'm an attack to play with the

16:12

chrome mox. That's fair I don't the you have

16:14

any like never complain about it and hopefully better

16:16

like a list my dad actually sexennio like when

16:18

him about artwork and the chrome mox. This happens

16:20

to fit in with the theme of the our

16:22

work there that's that's really get out of your

16:24

still hitting you for three.com a jagged than it

16:27

is assessed. ah. I think. Also, it's not

16:29

traditionally a man iraq, but it's repeatable. Source:

16:31

Of manner that gives you more manner

16:33

than it creates. So I think we're

16:35

going to consider carpet a Flowers also

16:37

in the sections yes where it's like

16:39

I consider i don't run purple flowers

16:41

been any household act for right now

16:43

because it does the same thing that

16:45

I mean it does were just suits

16:47

you into the. Next

16:49

the intellect turns return for earlier than

16:51

most my ducks need to be. When

16:53

it does it's thing is is similar

16:56

to a soul ring or America Pride

16:58

in his a thing that costs you

17:00

one manner. That often crates two, three

17:02

or more manner every single turn and that

17:04

is is on that parable. I agree, I

17:06

don't I am from the fires and next

17:08

but I. Won't. Call it like

17:10

the it's on anything That's baloney. At first I

17:12

was put in a deck that I want to

17:14

be a seven Me like I'm I say that

17:16

x a seven It couldn't have. Metacritic.

17:19

Couldn't have harbored flowers threatening yeah, and I

17:21

don't believe I have any sevens that have

17:23

that much the marks and either. yeah, don't

17:25

think so. Yeah, there's some that are on

17:28

the cusp of interesting and they are also

17:30

Moxon. And these Moxon means Americans Cossio that

17:32

would come to me. And so's Mox, Opal,

17:34

ad marks, Amber and both of these. We

17:37

neither of us really think that they're as

17:39

good as Com Os and Mclaren and. They.

17:41

Sort of fit a slightly different category.

17:43

Yeah, these are filled around. Mock says

17:46

that don't like they're they're gonna give

17:48

you more manner. But like the Mox

17:50

Opal requires that you have three artifacts.

17:52

Know it's like a build around artifacts.

17:55

Rock and It also. means to be played

17:57

on turn one it's not likely to make humana unless you're

17:59

a day Designated like ton of artifact decks

18:02

and then mox amber requires you to

18:04

have a legendary creature in play Yeah, so

18:06

it's harder to give you the mana on

18:08

those early turns where fast mana is really

18:10

really dangerous Yeah, it won't help you cast

18:12

your commander for the most part Which is

18:14

kind of a pretty big drawback right you

18:17

don't get your commander out early with mox

18:19

amber Obviously there are certain exceptions to that

18:21

rule. Yeah, I would be interested

18:23

if I'm building a deck and rogue rock

18:25

is in My command zone though does mox

18:27

amber become a thing where like I

18:30

can't have a rogue rock deck that I'm telling people is a Seven

18:32

if I have a mox amber in it I

18:34

so I had a rogue rock deck that I'd box

18:36

amber in it and it was just it was rogue

18:38

rocker chroma Which I played on game nights And I

18:40

think I think it had a mox amber in it

18:42

because I was like look at this cool synergy Yeah,

18:44

and it didn't have any other moxes And it didn't

18:46

have any but I was like this makes me like

18:48

gives me a reward for having this commander that doesn't

18:50

do anything So

18:52

I played it and you know it was just to get creatures

18:54

out so I could hit people a little bit faster But

18:57

it was like that in Sol Ring so

18:59

it had the fast mana package and rogue rock

19:02

really gave me that because it also I think I'd

19:04

had like springleaf drum and those other cheap

19:06

artifacts that take advantage of having a zero mana

19:08

commander So it did have some pretty serious

19:10

acceleration, but the wincon was Angels

19:14

so you think your deck could still be

19:16

qualified as a seven. I think it's probably

19:18

a seven I wouldn't call it innate it

19:20

doesn't interact on that level Yeah, it's just

19:22

interesting a rogok specifically means that mox amber

19:25

is guaranteed to be guaranteed a mox which

19:27

is very powerful Yeah, exactly so I again.

19:29

I it's about redundancy of the effect right

19:31

like yeah, yeah, okay interesting The

19:34

next category of course is mana dorks,

19:36

so they're similar rocks and dorks dorks

19:38

are creatures rocks are usually artifacts Or

19:41

enchantments I guess in the case of carpet of

19:43

flowers. Yeah, they don't have power and toughness It can't

19:45

be killed by destroy creature spells rocks Dorks

19:48

can and they don't have something to thickness.

19:50

Yeah, good point so deal big deal yeah

19:54

So mana dorks of course the most powerful ones

19:56

are Gonna be your one mana ones of the

19:58

Relanwar Elves and Elvish mystic. But I

20:00

think this category. Also includes will

20:03

Bloomed Hunter is probably

20:05

the most powerful. In

20:07

terms of like one and two men are

20:09

one yeah it's pretty good. it's the biggest

20:11

swaying and nana nerf but also this will

20:13

include like or circle of dreams thread which

20:15

is a guy as cradle on her creature

20:17

that's a huge amount of acceleration of on

20:19

trump or yeah but it costs so much

20:21

that it's like hard to put in the

20:23

same category grow up birds of paradise or

20:25

and when we I am all he had

20:27

the one minute ones I think are the

20:29

what we're talking about primarily but that also

20:31

includes your by things are holder answer at

20:33

and that kind of thanks How do you

20:35

feel are these in comparison to. The man rocks.

20:38

I mean, ah, but I don't think anybody there

20:40

was gonna say like you put a birds of

20:42

paradise in your deck and of a Marxist into

20:44

the power level of that that. Know that's the

20:46

interesting thing is like. Birds. Of Paradise

20:48

is just fixing and it's Iraq and it

20:50

works one turn. Slower rocks, Or

20:53

a full turn faster than manner dark.

20:56

Ah, big deal. But. We're

20:58

also talking about density here. Like I

21:01

think the more manner dorks you have

21:03

the sastre your deck wants to go

21:05

faster. that goes of course they give

21:07

you have. One.

21:09

Or two manner dorks you're like okay,

21:12

that's like ramp honor in a creature

21:14

decks few five or six mannered orcs

21:16

you're sitting towards the else Ball deck

21:18

was like a very powerful very snowball.

21:20

He strategy. Yeah. It's interesting

21:22

because we always talk about on the show

21:24

advocating a certain amount of ram pieces of

21:26

Zack and Now or in that you know

21:28

twelve his range I think is what were

21:30

these days saying you want but it. For.

21:33

The power level of your decks one

21:35

of the sort of rubric we use

21:37

is what turn as my dick normally

21:39

ready to win on and having a

21:41

lot more available to generally means you're

21:43

ready to try and win earlier. So

21:45

the density of sort of one man

21:47

oh man and are specifically one man

21:49

I'd say more than the rest although

21:51

you mentioned lieutenant which I think it

21:53

will be reception but yeah if you

21:55

if you have a decks. You

21:57

don't have the same necklace the I. am

22:00

I'm like I'm gonna add five cards to it

22:02

and you're like I'm gonna add five cards to

22:04

it and I add five Land of War Elves,

22:07

Eldritch Mystic, Birds of Paradise, Bloom Tender or something

22:09

else, Ever since Pilgrim, whatever and

22:12

you say I add five five to seven

22:14

drop creatures that are fun and gonna attack

22:17

My deck probably went up a power level or close

22:19

to it and your deck Stayed

22:21

the same or got worse or got slower. Yeah,

22:23

mine probably slowed down a turn while yours probably

22:25

sped up a turn Yeah, if you've added five

22:28

so but your odds of having one of these

22:30

on turn one is huge Give you three mana

22:32

on turn two It shoots

22:34

you into the late game a lot

22:36

earlier when you at that density now

22:38

the same scenario I add one

22:41

Birds of Paradise and you had one five to

22:43

seven CMC creature Doesn't really shift

22:45

the power level. Our decks are basically the

22:47

same as they were before and haven't changed

22:49

So it I think for the mana dorks

22:52

It's about density kind of similar to the moxon

22:54

almost where a one-off thing I think is fine.

22:56

It really is about having a lot redundancy. Yeah,

22:58

right. Yeah, absolutely It's changing the

23:01

consistency of your deck. Yeah, okay.

23:03

The next one is an interesting Well,

23:06

I guess we have a question here. How many mana

23:08

dorks do you think where's that line? I said five

23:10

as just a number I'm throwing out. I think five

23:12

is about right I mean like you're 20% to

23:15

have one in your opening. No, they're in they operate

23:17

they take up five out of a hundred It's five

23:19

percent. Yeah, you draw seven cards. What are

23:21

you with the likelihood you have one in your opening hand? 5050

23:24

I think yeah. Yeah And

23:27

you draw an 8th. Yeah, I think it's higher. I think

23:29

yeah, I think You

23:31

know if you took a normal deck with normal I'm ramping

23:33

at five I'm assuming there's some already there so did power

23:35

level But let's say your deck has zero ramp

23:37

in it and you're like I need ramp because you know And you

23:40

had five and Josh and Jimmy always say add ransom my deck What

23:42

am I gonna do and you pull out of your mana dorks and

23:44

you're like, I don't I currently have a sold ring That's it is

23:46

random and I put five in I

23:48

think it's you're not quite to the point where it's

23:51

that density is so high I think if you're like price 789

23:53

somewhere in there Once

23:56

you have that many one mana dorks or

23:58

two mana dorks you you'd significantly if it

24:00

can at least bed yourself up and you're likely to have

24:02

one in your opening hand most games. Yeah.

24:05

I think the big difference between like these

24:07

one-mana dorks and the two-mana signets that we

24:09

usually talk about is of course how much

24:11

like what turn they come down, what turn

24:13

they start working. Mana rocks come

24:16

down on turn two but don't really give you

24:18

additional mana until turn three because unless you have

24:20

like a one drop in your hand which you

24:23

may or may not. Yeah. Well and then even like a

24:25

signet wouldn't necessarily even be able to tap it on turn

24:27

two to cast the one drop. So

24:29

having the three-mana on turn two

24:32

means you've already ramped a whole turn earlier.

24:34

Yeah. So that's a huge

24:36

difference between rocks and dorks. Of course there's

24:38

like high risk, high reward because if there's

24:41

a board wipe, sign are a

24:43

ramp. Yeah. It

24:45

sets you back even farther. Yeah. I

24:47

think six or seven is probably where I'm like

24:49

that, okay, this is an elf deck where we're

24:52

really accelerating with creatures. Assuming you've still got a

24:54

few other ramp pieces and you're still at that

24:56

12 level or so. The

24:59

next category is rituals. Yeah. Which

25:02

is single-use sources of mana. So

25:04

these always give you more mana than they cost.

25:06

Yeah. If you're using them. You're

25:08

sort of trading a card generally and you're going to see

25:11

we're going to use that term loosely but generally you lose

25:13

the card in exchange for mana. So

25:18

a dark ritual is the most classic of these and

25:20

sort of, I guess black lotus is probably actually the

25:22

first one and I would classify black lotus as a

25:24

ritual but dark ritual is where we get the word

25:26

ritual. And it's just an instant.

25:28

You pay one black, you get three black. And

25:31

so you've traded that card, that card advantage for

25:33

two extra black mana because you obviously put one

25:35

in and got three back so you're up two.

25:39

So you can see with the lotus example

25:41

how we can kind of expand the definition

25:43

to include cards

25:46

that are not technically instance or sources.

25:48

In fact, you have mana vault on the list and

25:50

I think I had it originally in mana rocks and

25:52

you moved it down to ritual and I was like,

25:55

yeah, you're right. I think in a lot of decks

25:57

you see mana vault come down. It

25:59

costs one mana. and generates three and yes you can

26:01

untap it but there are many many games where you

26:03

never do. You just use it the one time to

26:05

get your commander out early or go off on a

26:07

turn and it's obviously better with

26:09

synergy if you can untap it and I get that but it

26:13

really is often a ritual. So it's

26:15

smart to put it in this category and think about

26:17

that way. Yeah I think people

26:19

think about Man of Alt wrong like

26:21

they think about it as a Man of Rock and you're like unless

26:23

you have a plan like you're gonna sack it or

26:25

you're gonna bounce it and replay it or

26:27

something this is single use. Yeah.

26:30

It doesn't make it bad. No. Just

26:33

be eyes open about it. Yeah you

26:35

just know it's not mana-crypt which is two mana

26:37

every turn. This is three mana now you have

26:39

to spend four mana or some other amount of

26:41

mana to get more mana out of it later.

26:44

So this is gonna be your jeweled

26:47

lotus, grim monolith and basalt monolith all

26:49

either cost less than they make and

26:51

don't untap or you have to sacrifice them

26:53

to do it. Yeah and also

26:55

the ability to sort of pay mana now

26:58

and save it till next turn is what

27:00

basalt and grim monolith do. So you

27:02

can almost think of it as like a delayed dark ritual.

27:04

It banks it yeah. Yeah so you bank it and you're

27:06

gonna get one use out of it. Man of Alt often

27:09

gets used that way. Play it now don't tap it this

27:11

turn tap it next turn and now I get three extra

27:13

mana in true not just two extra mana that I sort

27:15

of net from it yeah. Yeah.

27:18

So these are interesting because they're

27:20

not as to me

27:22

they're not as dangerous as Man at Rocks because they don't

27:25

give you a repeatable value and you do sort of have

27:27

to be able to use them. Like

27:29

they're not something you can just throw in your deck

27:31

and they'll be good. If you

27:33

don't have the card advantage to keep up with using

27:35

these then they cost you a card and they gave

27:37

you a little value but if you didn't take advantage

27:39

of it then you didn't get the

27:41

value out of it you're supposed to. So they

27:43

are a little bit more build around

27:46

but these kinds of cards indicate

27:49

to me that this deck is

27:51

designed to go as fast as

27:53

possible because we're spending a card to

27:55

go fast. And

27:57

traditionally fast decks are egg-rater.

28:00

And what they're trying to do is win the game

28:02

before card advantage matters, right? Card advantage is a longer

28:04

game play where you're just saying as the course of

28:06

the game goes on We're gonna slowly whittle away each

28:08

other's resources and eventually I'll have more to do than

28:11

you because I have more cards and This

28:13

is that opposite plan which is totally viable right

28:15

like as long as everybody signed up for it

28:17

There's no value judgment on it, but this is

28:19

the opposite plan I was like I'm going to

28:21

just hit you before you're ready for it And

28:24

I'm can probably knock you out and so what if you have

28:26

20 cards in your hand 20 cards I mean nothing if you're

28:28

dead. They're not on the board. Yep. Yeah. Yeah I

28:31

think the one here that we've talked about that

28:33

stands out for me is jewel jeweled lotus Yeah,

28:35

and it's kind of the Manacrypt of this section

28:37

to me where I do believe that a jeweled

28:39

lotus in your deck does Intrinsically

28:41

change the power level of your deck like it's hard

28:43

for me to imagine a deck That's a six that

28:45

has a jeweled lotus not that it's impossible But

28:48

just the fact that like that's a big

28:51

difference right three turns my commander comes

28:53

out three turns early And obviously we're

28:55

talking about in its best-case scenario But

28:57

the variants of like being

28:59

able to do that some amount of games You

29:01

know something like 10% of games you'll draw it

29:03

in the first ten cards Which is the first

29:05

three turns and if you've got a five or

29:07

six cmc commander Corvald coming

29:10

out that early is a lot different Yeah,

29:13

and even the ability to sort of it's not

29:16

dead later either the ability to like recast really

29:18

in Corvald Yeah exactly the ability to recast your

29:20

commander later and just this pays for the tax

29:22

and you can kind of do it out of

29:24

Nowhere is value so I believe that one sits

29:27

in a little bit of a different spot than

29:29

the other ones just cuz yeah It

29:31

just feels more powerful the rest of them

29:33

are sort of how you use them or

29:35

again the density of them if you have

29:37

a deck full of rituals now, we're a

29:40

storm deck now we're operating one big turn

29:42

and Hopefully that big turn

29:44

is significantly earlier than people are dealing with

29:46

you Which it generally means you're

29:48

a seven minimally probably innate if you're doing

29:50

some kind of storm strategy I had in

29:52

a functional storm deck at a seven that's

29:54

six. Oh my god. Yeah, that's what I'm

29:56

saying It's like a spell slinger deck, which

29:58

is usually based on like huge enchantments. But

30:00

out of the six, you can't be

30:02

storm, truly storming. Right. Yeah.

30:06

I just can't imagine it. Yeah. I

30:08

think you're totally right. If you're storming, then you're at least a seven.

30:10

I would think so. Yeah. Like, and

30:12

seven, we're talking about, like, you're running a lot

30:14

of acceleration pieces. And I, again, we have sort

30:16

of like a cusp section of

30:18

this one, which are cards that you see and you're

30:20

like, those are very powerful, but

30:23

aren't necessarily like, okay, this, there's no way

30:25

this is a six. Right.

30:27

So that for me is Basalt Monolith,

30:29

which is you're spending three and you're banking three later.

30:31

Like, yep, that's for one big turn. But

30:34

I don't know, it might have something to do

30:36

with Basalt Monolith is significantly cheaper like value

30:39

wise, like dollar wise than Grim Monolith. Yep.

30:41

And Man of All Two. And Man of

30:43

All Two. Oh my gosh. We'll talk, I think, near

30:45

the end about the effect that the price of cards

30:47

have on this because it definitely does. For sure. I

30:49

think it's impossible to remove that. So the cost of

30:51

a card is sort

30:54

of tied to the power level

30:56

of it in some ways. And of course, you know, your

30:58

brain can't help but factor it in a little bit. Yeah.

31:01

It's also three mana. So it like accelerates you

31:04

on turn four. If you haven't

31:06

ramped before that. Turn four, you can have seven, right? If you

31:08

go to a proper jewel, Basalt Monolith, then you want to tap

31:10

with four. You're like, okay, well that's scary. It's

31:12

pretty good. But you're

31:14

down two cards. You're down two cards. Yeah.

31:17

Yeah. So it's, Basalt

31:19

Monolith doesn't scare me as much as a Grim Monolith

31:21

or of course a Jeweled Lotus. It's

31:24

interesting. If I see Basalt Monolith, I think, oh,

31:26

you're going to combo with it in some way.

31:28

So it does scare me, but not because of

31:30

them. In a different way. Yeah, exactly. Some other

31:32

rituals that if we see them, I think it

31:35

would scare us are things like Simeon Spirit Guide

31:37

and Elvish Spirit Guide. And these are the cards

31:39

that you can discard from your hand to make

31:41

a mana. Exhale them. Yep. Exhale

31:43

them from your hand. So they, you're trading cards

31:45

straight up for one mana. One mana. Yeah.

31:49

But that's not actually that powerful of effect.

31:51

In Commander, yeah. It just denotes that your

31:53

deck, if you have the Hutzpah or whatever to

31:55

put that in your deck, then I

31:58

think your deck is probably very scary because. That

32:00

one mana means so much to you. What

32:02

are you doing with it? You must be

32:04

doing something incredible. Yeah. Because I've never seen

32:07

a casual deck that's just like, yeah, discard

32:09

an Elvish Spirit guide to cast, you know,

32:11

my commander one turn early and I'm not

32:13

doing anything broken for the rest of the

32:15

game. Yeah, no, it's they're getting Winota out.

32:17

It's what's happening. Yeah. Those are

32:19

very very powerful cards and like Lotus Petal does

32:21

exactly the same thing, right? It's one card for

32:23

zero mana that gives you one mana of any

32:25

color. Those kind of cards you're like, oh, oh

32:29

Yeah, if I see that it just

32:31

again, it's not that that cards powerful

32:34

it just implies. Yeah. Yeah certain power

32:36

Okay, there's two that we

32:38

talked about in red and this card the sex

32:40

card. I actually similar

32:42

to Mana Crypt and Jeweled Lotus,

32:45

I don't have in any decks Mana Crypt. I have in

32:47

a couple but again I would never call a deck below

32:50

an eight Or yeah,

32:52

I wouldn't put a Mana Crypt in any deck.

32:54

That's seven or below. It's got if

32:56

America's in this gotta be eight Yeah, and I sort

32:58

of feel the next same way about this next card,

33:00

which has made me think we should put on A

33:02

hot take. Yeah, Jessica's will is a card that I

33:06

start taking out of my decks that I wanted to

33:08

call sevens and just if

33:10

it's in there it has to be at least an eight in

33:12

my head I Don't

33:15

feel the same way about Jessica's well But I

33:17

do wonder if it's wishful thinking because this card

33:19

feels it's so fun to cast It's so fun

33:22

to cast Jessica's will really like I draw three

33:24

cards and I make six men and what can

33:26

I do with that? Yeah, then I cast the

33:28

three cards then you're like Incredible

33:33

but it definitely that is the kind of card

33:37

that Sneaks his way into

33:39

every single red deck if you don't put the cap

33:41

on it and it when it

33:43

gets cast you're like Oh, no, so it

33:45

has that sort of feeling that

33:48

makes you go Alright. Well,

33:50

I guess we're playing that way It

33:53

never feels like a Jessica's

33:55

will gets cast where it

33:57

doesn't just immediately tilt the scalp Tilt

34:00

the game, right? It's

34:02

just immediately that player, they're either going to win or

34:04

everybody's going to team up and stop them, but that

34:06

is just, that's the way. You almost never see a

34:08

Jessica's Will cast where it's just like, you

34:11

know, then game continues kind of as normal.

34:13

And the fact that it's three mana and

34:15

has that effect is what, it feels like

34:17

a six mana spell. It feels

34:19

so powerful. There's those games where

34:21

every once in a while you get 21 mana. Like

34:23

somebody's drawn a million cards. You get 12 mana, you

34:25

know? Sometimes, of course, the worry is sometimes you'd only

34:28

get four or five, but that almost never happens. You

34:31

know, you usually have a player in your game that's got six or

34:33

seven. I think the interesting thing about Jessica's Will

34:35

as a ritual is we think of like, you spend a

34:37

card, you make some mana. Jessica's Will,

34:39

you make some mana and you get

34:41

cards. Three! You're up

34:43

two cards. It's insane. Like you're up two

34:45

cards and usually up mana. So it

34:47

feels like a free effect that

34:50

you're just like, I just drew three cards for free.

34:52

And the impulsive draw nature of that draw is mitigated

34:54

by the fact that you get the mana to cast

34:56

it right now. So you don't even usually have to

34:59

worry about like, well, what if I can't cast all

35:01

these cards? I don't actually get the

35:03

full value. You almost always do. You get a land drop

35:05

and then, you know, the only time

35:07

you're with is when there's three lands, you know, or maybe like

35:09

two lands in a rock. It's still not the worst thing ever.

35:11

A lot of times you're like, oh, and if

35:13

you're smart and you play Jessica's Will a lot, you just account for

35:15

that and you go, I'm going to cast it at a time when

35:17

I have another effect in my hand that can take advantage of the

35:19

mana if I don't get something good off the three cards. And

35:22

even then, like, even if you just hit three lands,

35:24

you play the land you haven't spent a card. And now

35:27

you're up mana and you have two lands off the top

35:29

of your deck. So it's like a, it's a ritual

35:31

that doesn't cost a card, which means it's

35:33

so powerful. It's just three

35:35

mana. So it's like, we don't think of

35:37

it as broken as Dark Ritual because it doesn't

35:39

happen until, you know, turn three or

35:42

four, but it does have that kind of game swing

35:44

energy to it. Speaking

35:46

of game swing energy, mana

35:48

geyser, I feel like you spend a card and you spend

35:50

five mana, but you get 25, 20, 30, 18. A

35:56

lot. So much, man. That

35:59

you're like, you don't get... get the cards out of it,

36:01

but it is worth a card at that point.

36:04

And I think Managyzer is the kind of card that,

36:06

like, it doesn't, again, it

36:08

doesn't scream, I'm an eight, but it

36:10

does say, okay, your deck is designed

36:12

to do explosive things before we're ready

36:15

for them. Yeah. Because oftentimes, if

36:17

you and Cast Managyzer are on turn five, you're

36:19

going to get somewhere around 15 mana. And 15

36:22

mana worth of stuff coming out of your hand

36:24

on turn five is very

36:27

difficult to deal with in a more casual meta. If

36:29

you're a six, imagine you do that in a deck

36:31

and the pot is full of sixes. You

36:33

know, that's so early in the game for you to

36:35

be getting so much stuff out. Like, that's going to

36:37

tilt the scales very wildly. So the decks that are

36:39

able to deal with that kind of thing are probably

36:41

higher up on the scale. And therefore, again,

36:44

I don't believe that Managyzer by itself, you put

36:46

it in a deck and it automatically becomes an

36:48

eight, but it's not normally the type of thing

36:50

that, you know, sixes want to be doing. Right.

36:53

Yeah. So it's, yeah, it's one of those things.

36:55

Density, definitely. Jessica's will and Managyzer in the same

36:58

deck. You're like, hmm, hmm. Yeah. That's the

37:00

thing where like, if I did that,

37:02

I would be like, I can't, I can't with a straight face

37:04

say that this is a seven, this is an eight now because,

37:06

you know. Yeah. Okay.

37:08

Let's talk about the big, the big, the big

37:11

goblin in the room, the big pirate in the room.

37:15

Oh, it's docked that extortionist. Which

37:18

is kind of a ritual. It's

37:20

a ritual. It's a ritual. Yeah.

37:23

It's a very, very abusable ritual.

37:26

And I think we sort of glossed over the

37:28

fact that, you know, Jeweled Lotus and somebody does

37:30

those other ones, yes, you can recur them, Lotus

37:32

Petal and things like that and there are synergies.

37:36

So obviously we know those things can happen

37:38

and that happens with Dockside. But on its

37:40

face, Dockside is a two-mana thing that comes

37:42

in and gives you a lot more than

37:45

two-mana. Right. And it doesn't

37:47

have the ritual thing where it's like, okay, you're

37:49

going off now. Yeah. I could

37:51

go off later. Even better. I could get like

37:53

some kind of value. I could take advantage of just

37:55

having all those artifacts enter. I could tap those

37:57

artifacts for mana instead of sacking them. I could

37:59

get sacrifice triggers from sacrificing them.

38:01

Dockside gives you so much more

38:04

than a burst in

38:09

mana. And then on

38:11

top of that, you can clone it, you can

38:13

blink it, you can reanimate it, you can like

38:17

sack it for mana, you can block with it.

38:21

It's crazy. It can wear a sort of piece

38:23

of famine. Like it

38:25

just is everything and it

38:27

does everything, yeah. I feel like

38:29

Dockside is... I feel

38:33

like it's scarier to me than Mana Crypt. Like

38:36

if I see a Dockside, I'm like your dex

38:38

and eight. It goes from six to

38:40

an eight basically immediately. It's

38:43

super easy to tutor for in any

38:45

color. Yup. I

38:47

agree. I don't know where it

38:49

sits on my scale, but all the cards we've talked

38:52

about so far, I believe Mana Crypt, Jeweled Lotus, Jessica's

38:54

Will, do change the

38:56

power level of your deck and should be taken

38:58

into account. I think Jessica's Will probably could be

39:00

in a seven, but probably not a six. The

39:02

other two, you're at least an eight and Dockside

39:04

is in that category. I

39:06

don't think a Dockside can exist in a deck that

39:08

is a seven really. Obviously, people

39:10

can concoct these weird like crazy decks,

39:13

again, that are built around a theming

39:15

around art and they're most energy at

39:17

all, but it's guys with hats. Yeah,

39:19

exactly. And in that case, yes, Dockside

39:21

probably doesn't. But for, you know, we're

39:24

talking about the vast majority of that

39:26

here. That

39:28

deck can't be a one. It takes it from

39:30

a four to a five. It takes it from

39:32

a three to a four. Like it does fully

39:34

move it a step or two from where it

39:36

is. For sure. The moment you sleeve

39:38

up a Dockside. For sure. Yeah,

39:41

so obviously that's top of

39:43

the list. The next category that we're talking about

39:45

in the Fast Mana thing is on lands and

39:47

these are lands that tap for more mana than

39:50

one. Right. They're ramp lands.

39:53

Yeah. And often with no

39:56

other real downside. Right. Yeah,

39:58

because bounce line is obviously top for two, but they have a pretty big down. You

40:00

bounce another land, they come in tapped, so I

40:02

don't think they really count in this category. These

40:05

are ones where there often is a downside, but the downside is

40:07

not real. Yeah. So the

40:09

big one or the first one that comes to mind is ancient

40:11

tomb, which just straight up comes in

40:14

and just taps for two. Now, yes, it deals

40:16

two damage to you, but again, we have double...

40:18

We have the double the amount of life. So

40:20

it's almost like it really was rebalanced to only

40:22

deal one damage, which they never would have designed.

40:25

It's already broken in the current design. Yeah.

40:30

This is a very powerful card that I

40:32

think is close to Jessica's will for me, where I think

40:35

it does change the power of your deck. And I don't

40:37

think that, for the most part, you're probably a six anymore

40:39

if you have an ancient tomb or deck. Well, how do

40:41

you feel about it? I think

40:43

it has a similar thing as a Mana

40:46

Crypt. I'm really not putting it in any

40:48

deck that is operating

40:50

at a six or a seven. It's

40:53

just not. The kind

40:55

of deck that is willing to

40:57

pay life for resources is generally

41:00

just going to live as an

41:02

eight. It's more on the optimal side, for

41:04

sure. The way that I build is I sort of build

41:06

with none of these cards or all of these cards because

41:08

I like... Then

41:11

that's a very clear line for me, where it's like,

41:13

this deck doesn't play all of... It doesn't play Mana

41:15

Crypt. It doesn't play ancient tombs. It

41:17

just doesn't. And then there's

41:19

a very clear deck building line for me

41:21

that I can build something that's very

41:23

powerful and synergistic without any of that

41:25

stuff. But if I'm playing

41:27

ancient tomb, which I love to play ancient tomb, I'm

41:29

like, yeah, we're doing it. We're putting

41:32

Mana Crypt in. We're putting the gap. It's

41:34

like a cheat meal for me. I

41:37

don't want to say I'm never going to eat French fries again

41:39

for the rest of my life. I just

41:41

want to eat better in general, so I get a cheat meal

41:43

once in a while. I

41:46

still want... Ancient Tomb is a sweet card and Dockside is

41:48

a sweet card and Mana Crypt is a sweet card and

41:50

Jessica's Will is a sweet card. And I want to

41:52

be able to play those cards. I just need to pick

41:54

my spot. I don't eat that for every meal. And this

41:56

is like, oh, this is going to be a treat. This

41:58

deck is in the... eight or maybe

42:00

even nine category and I have a few of

42:03

those. But I know most of my decks want

42:05

to be seven so I can play with the most amount of people and in

42:07

those decks, I don't allow myself to

42:09

have an ancient tomb. Maybe I'm thinking more

42:11

and more just because Will doesn't belong down in the seven either.

42:14

And wherever anybody wants to personally draw that line, we're just

42:16

giving our opinions obviously. I think it's fine

42:18

but that is a healthy way to think about it I think. I really

42:20

like that of like, yeah, I like these cards. I'm not saying I don't

42:22

like these cards. They're awesome. I'm just aware of

42:24

where I place them so that when I play, I give the

42:26

best chance for everybody to have a good experience because we all

42:28

know, we were all signing up for what we got, right?

42:31

Yeah. But

42:34

then I tap my ancient tomb to cast my

42:36

Dockside Extortionist and you know, sac 27 treasures

42:38

to Korvald, which I got out in turn three

42:40

because of Jewel Lotus. Turns out it wasn't a

42:42

six. You know what I mean? It wasn't a

42:44

six. Yeah. This category also has

42:47

like a guys cradle. Of course, obviously there's

42:49

a bigger financial barrier to having a guys

42:51

cradle in your deck but when a guys

42:53

cradle comes down, it's like, all right, we're

42:55

not messing around. It's

42:57

not a seven if you've got a guys cradle. Yeah, it's just not. And

43:01

there's a couple of cards in this category. A

43:05

lot of them, like those are the big ones for me. It's

43:07

like ancient tomb and guys cradle. And

43:10

then with an asterisk, Sarah Sanctum, which

43:12

makes mana for all of your enchantments because it's

43:14

not that hard to build an enchantress deck. It's

43:16

not like that's a great limitation on your deck.

43:18

It's like guys cradle. Building enchantress, like it's just

43:20

great. Yeah. If it's in a

43:22

deck, it's going to be guys cradle basically. Yeah. You

43:25

wouldn't put it in a deck but it only has five enchantments. Yeah, but the city

43:27

of the chamber deck is probably not a six. True,

43:30

true. But those

43:32

are like the big three. Beyond that

43:34

the cusp cards that are sort of warning cards

43:37

for me is like Gemstone Caverns is a

43:39

big one, which is a

43:41

land that you can play on

43:44

turn zero basically. A pregame action, yep. Yeah,

43:46

if you're not going first. So

43:49

it just ramps you for free. It's kind of like a

43:51

mox but it's a land. Yep.

43:54

That's the kind of card that I'm like, oh, oh. Okay,

43:57

I guess we're playing Gemstone Caverns.

44:00

And then on a deal creators. Yeah,

44:02

honestly gemstones caverns, you

44:04

know after we've learned that the player going

44:07

first Gets such an advantage. Maybe it's not

44:09

that bad Yeah But

44:12

still if I see it, I know that

44:14

you are optimized You're very worried about how

44:16

fast you're moving and how fast you're going

44:18

off And that's to me is similar to

44:20

like chromox or something where mmm. The alarm

44:23

bells are ringing a little bit Yeah,

44:25

I'm worried about it. I'm just gonna keep an eye on

44:27

you. Yeah The next one is interesting.

44:29

I'd love to get your take on this one, which

44:31

is cabal coffers. Yeah, how do

44:33

you feel about? That

44:37

card and I think it's impossible to talk about it

44:39

without pairing it with herb org Yes, because the deck

44:41

that has cabal and not herb org I don't think

44:43

matters at all, but let's assume on

44:45

a black deck Let's assume it is a

44:47

deck that has herb org wants herb org

44:49

and you put cabal coffers in is that

44:52

a card? That has in effect

44:54

similar to ancient tomb or is it not that

44:56

big of a deal? So here's my thing on

44:58

cabal coffers in two color deck. Yeah, if you're

45:00

running cabal coffers I know you're running herb org.

45:02

Yep, and I know you're running tutors to find

45:04

them Yeah, like I have a because

45:07

it doesn't do anything if you don't have both

45:09

in a two color deck So now I've already

45:11

been like, okay, you're running a powerful land You're

45:14

running the combo piece with it and I you've

45:16

got to be fun at having at least What

45:19

one or two slots dedicated to just assembling

45:21

that yeah, I think the normal package

45:23

is Expedition map plus demonic

45:25

tutor plus vampiric. Yeah, then I sort

45:28

of assume you're running those other things

45:30

which moves it up for me Yeah,

45:32

but that's again. It's an assumption. It's

45:34

not like I don't think those two

45:36

cards on their own really move the

45:39

needle but I assume You're

45:41

gonna use them because otherwise cabal coffers is a very

45:43

big downside in a deck where you're that you're gonna

45:45

have like You have to get

45:48

to what if to get to four swamps in play

45:50

for it to be mana positive if you don't have

45:52

an Or Bergen play.

45:54

Yeah, if you have three, it's equal

45:56

three mana positive is four it taps

45:59

for two Until then, it doesn't have to happen.

46:01

And even at that, it's actually two. It's not like... Yeah. It's

46:04

not... Temple of the false gods.

46:06

Exactly. Right.

46:08

So yeah, Temple of the false gods, they're not broken.

46:11

No, no. Temple of the false gods is a little

46:13

slower. Yeah, so that's my assumption with Cabal Coffers, is

46:15

like, if you're there, then you're here. Well, it's

46:18

in black, so often blacks do have a couple of

46:20

tutors lying around anyway. So

46:22

yeah, let's assume that they do

46:24

have, you know, two to three tutors, just

46:26

their deck already did because they're black. Right.

46:29

So they're not like, you know, the fall coffers in and it didn't

46:31

before. Do you think it changed the power level of their deck? Yeah, I

46:33

think so. Yeah. So it'd be tough to be

46:35

a seven or an eight? I mean, it's tough to be a seven? It's

46:37

definitely... I don't think it's a six. I

46:40

think it's pretty tough to be a seven if you

46:42

have those and the tutors to find them. Yeah. Yeah.

46:46

Okay. Yeah, I kind of agree. Yeah.

46:50

And I think game nights is like in the seven and a half range generally.

46:52

Yeah. The eight low eights. Yeah.

46:55

Yeah. It's generally how we build. The next

46:57

one I think is interesting. It's a smothering type. Yeah.

47:00

This is almost like at its own

47:02

category? Yeah. I have it just listed

47:04

as smothering type. It's definitely fast mana. Yeah. Yes.

47:07

Yeah. I don't know if it's a mana

47:10

rock. It's not a dork. Yeah. It's

47:12

not fast mana until like... It's not that fast. It takes

47:14

a little bit of time. The thing about smothering type is

47:16

it's a mana source. And I think it's definitely going to

47:18

be more mana than you cast, especially

47:20

if you have ways to abuse it or if your

47:23

opponents are drawing extra cards, which they should be. They're

47:25

always are. Somebody is. Somebody is. Somebody

47:28

is drawing extra cards. Yeah. It's a permanent

47:30

that has to be removed that

47:32

takes advantage of your opponents taking regular

47:34

game actions that doesn't cost you anything

47:37

beyond that, right? And if nobody answers

47:39

a smothering type, they win. Yeah. It's

47:42

very difficult to beat a smothering type that

47:44

just goes unmolested. Even just two

47:47

rotations of normal play plus six

47:49

mana is because

47:51

of the fact that they're treasures. And

47:53

I think when this card originally came out, a

47:55

lot of people sort of misevaluated it

47:58

because they sort of... There's

48:00

a thread dynamo or something like that for me

48:02

and I'll get three back. But tracers as you

48:04

mentioned earlier are not the same thing. I can

48:06

store them up for later. I can get effects

48:09

when I you know they they synergies with things

48:11

that make capital. They go toward yards account they

48:13

are sacrifice Triggers has all kinds of different reasons

48:15

they're good but even just had a base level

48:18

of like states I cast this I don't use

48:20

any. The man of for two turns and now

48:22

on turned six. I have twelve manner and twelve

48:24

man is. No. Possible.

48:27

Starting to move towards winning the game

48:29

amount of man rs and so yes

48:31

and. That's. In the most modest

48:34

a possible scenario like how many games

48:36

have you been in of Commander Ever?

48:38

that. On. You know when

48:40

you're when you're at the for seem see

48:42

points of the game. To.

48:44

Rotations go by and no

48:46

one draws and Exenatide whilst

48:48

now at his never happens. Usually

48:51

it's it's. Dramatically. In

48:53

the other direction where let me drive eight and you're

48:55

like sweets. I eat a paper

48:57

that death is. I've eleven treasure. not every

48:59

line I'm on tapping with a C. Huge

49:02

advantage that you have not.west's because it's very

49:04

difficult the you can't pay the to and

49:06

on a tight and expect to keep up

49:08

with that's as asustek than every time we

49:11

drop arts. Nice thing about treasures that make

49:13

them so much more powerful us is that

49:15

they're emergency manager right where you can hold

49:17

up for a tennis ball. And

49:20

if. They. You don't need to spend the

49:22

counters volume filigree. I don't lose the man. I also

49:24

don't like if you hold up to lance nephew lose

49:26

that manner. We have. A bunch of

49:28

saves hours. Yeah, I didn't spend

49:31

anything, I didn't say anything, and I had the kind of spell

49:33

up. And that so is. It

49:35

makes you so flexible. End.

49:38

It. That and that's the power. As modern type right

49:41

where you like you have to pay the tooth

49:43

so they don't have a second treasure so they

49:45

don't have a counter spell up. It's is this

49:47

whole heart of you know to raise the to

49:49

because any spending to manage to stop you from

49:51

having one is a bad trails. If it was

49:53

one for one may maybe yeah but to for

49:55

one is bad enough that I don't actually believe

49:57

is even right to pay for most of the

49:59

tiger. A. It ever recent study or like list. never

50:01

got a pay. yeah and when you don't you're like. Usurper.

50:04

You split? Yeah, that's worth of

50:06

your i can't say you can

50:08

pay, Just wait. Yeah, exactly. Yes.

50:11

I'm sorry but you're wrong. Not that I've

50:13

never done it before. My mother entire that

50:15

would be will pay. I'm like yeah I

50:18

I kind of don't think you should know

50:20

I did. It's what he supposed to do.

50:22

Yes it's just and that if you're trying

50:24

to draw cards, remove at your for feeding

50:26

and more us It's brutal So let me

50:28

ask you jump on our scale Here we

50:30

when referring to let's just call it the

50:32

you know man a crib scale. Or whatever

50:34

it or if smothered ties in your deck do

50:36

you believe in intrinsically to Powell can you be

50:38

a six with his mother? Tie the deck as

50:40

six know announcing some be a seven with his

50:43

mother. time in X. Probably,

50:45

but. It. It

50:48

And that means that. You don't have a ton of

50:50

other acceleration in that acts like it is. This

50:52

affair with a man crept in. the Samsung turn

50:54

to my god it's like a. But.

50:56

Still has this America events rather die but smoking

50:58

at all myself We said turns around and eight

51:00

no matter what. Anyway, here's a snake. I I

51:02

think it would probably be a seven where the

51:05

smothering tides, but that means you're not trying wheels.

51:07

I think one thing I'll say what's on the

51:10

eyes of for drop? Yeah, so it's unlikely to

51:12

cause like a ton. You know for

51:14

when or turn five, when it's likely to

51:16

cause it turned seven or eight when buzzer

51:18

and maybe even a turn five when a

51:20

few months depending on that. But but if

51:22

your deck and went on turn five even

51:24

with my time as a modest have enough.

51:26

Yes Ah. Tigers. I'd I'd put

51:28

it in your desk as well. I'm closer than

51:31

it's it's of would dockside America up a little

51:33

bit higher than I'd put smaller time desk as

51:35

well. See I agree. Yeah I'll get the next

51:37

one's another one that's source hands on. some says

51:39

it is. If. Ass Man

51:41

I. Met

51:44

a drain and. We

51:47

as your toys r us all right? Yes, I

51:49

saw it as up with a lot of cards

51:51

were Race or Eric go through time Iraq? Where.

51:54

this would go i don't know sort of

51:56

enough money to talk about it where you

51:59

pointed out Because

52:01

I do believe the powerful part about it is the

52:03

mana you get, right? Because counterspell we're not going to

52:05

talk about. Yeah, counterspell doesn't change the power level. Yeah,

52:07

the fact that it counters a spell is actually not

52:09

what makes it powerful. It is the mana you get

52:11

for counters... Let's say this same card existed but didn't

52:14

counter the spell. Yeah,

52:16

you play that. And it would still be... Like,

52:18

blue, blue makes that much mana on your upkeep? You play

52:20

that. And it would almost be as

52:22

powerful. It's definitely less, but it would be... The

52:25

gap is not as huge as

52:28

the inverse of that, which is a counterspell that it doesn't give

52:30

you the mana, which we know because a million of that card

52:32

exists, but none of the other one does. Yeah.

52:35

The fact that, like, you

52:37

go ramp, ramp, have your

52:39

two things there, they're like, cool, five-drop, and

52:42

you're like, yep, counter that. Now

52:44

my turn comes around and I have 10 mana. Oh

52:46

my god. You know, I've got your

52:48

five and my five or six or whatever. There's

52:50

no limitation on that. You can spend it right

52:52

away. It's a... Yeah,

52:54

I mean, I don't... I think mana crypt is... Excuse me,

52:57

I think mana drain is mana crypt level. I think it's

52:59

like, if you're running mana drain, it's an eight. Like

53:02

I do, if I see mana drain in

53:04

a seven, I have big questions. Yeah, that

53:06

doesn't seem... It's better than smothering tithes. Not

53:08

better, but it's... It changes it for me

53:10

more than... It changes it more than... Yeah.

53:13

Yeah. I agree. I

53:16

think... Yeah, it's hard for me to envision a

53:18

seven that has a mana drain and is legitimately...

53:20

Like, yeah. Yeah, not closer to an eight. Yeah.

53:23

Yeah. I... Mana drain

53:26

is... It's part of that, the cost consideration though, because it is an

53:28

expensive card. It's possible. Like, let's imagine

53:30

a parallel universe where they've reprinted mana drain

53:33

so much that it's $2.12. Yeah. Does

53:37

it still do that? I think so. There's

53:40

so much mana. Yeah, it is. Like, the amount of times

53:42

I've seen people be like, sorry, I have to counter this,

53:44

I just need the mana. Right? That's

53:47

why they do it. That's why they do it. Yeah. So

53:50

it's like, it's a huge ritual that doesn't cost you a card

53:52

because it's naturally a one for one. So

53:54

you trade your one for their one. Yep. And

53:56

then you're up mana. And then you're like, oh, my seven

53:59

drop commander's coming out right. now, by the way, and

54:01

I still hold up mana for the next counter spell

54:03

when you try and kill it. Yeah. Okay. Up

54:07

next, we are going to talk about some

54:09

more very powerful spells in our format, specifically

54:11

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54:14

yeah. The free guys. We're

54:17

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56:32

Alright, welcome back. We are talking

56:34

about cards that change the power

56:37

level of your deck. The next

56:39

category we're talking about is free

56:41

spells. Spells that have an

56:43

alternate casting cost that isn't

56:45

mana. And of course, the first

56:47

one we're going to talk about is just

56:50

the free counterspell suite. That

56:52

means Force of Will, Fierce Guardianship, and

56:54

for me, Force of Negation are the

56:57

big three free counterspells that

56:59

I'm like, if you're running these, I have

57:01

a hard time believing you're a seven. Yeah.

57:04

Yeah, I don't have any rebuttal.

57:06

If I'm sitting at a seven table and my

57:08

commander gets free counterspelled, I'm like, okay,

57:11

I wasn't ready. Like, I didn't, I would

57:13

have played differently if I knew we were

57:16

playing there. Yeah, I believe you could have like

57:18

one Fierce Guardianship and maybe be a seven. Yeah,

57:20

I think that's fair. If you have two of

57:23

these, you're not. No. Yeah.

57:26

I think you have to have one Fierce Guardianship and

57:28

like, if you have a Fierce Guardianship and a Jessica's

57:31

Will, you're already above seven in my book. I think

57:33

so. It's like, I have this because I

57:35

opened it or whatever, but the rest of my deck is

57:37

not, you know, doesn't have any of the crazy cards we've

57:39

talked about. Yeah. But if you have three of

57:42

these, yeah, you're at least an eight and you're pushing

57:44

nine just with the three of them. I have like,

57:46

my Feldergrift deck is a very interesting, my Feldergrift deck

57:48

has a terrible plan, right? It's trying

57:50

to give you infinite hippos and take advantage of that. But

57:53

that deck runs Fierce Guardianship, it runs Force of

57:55

Will, it runs Smothering Tides, and it is not

57:57

a seven. Right. And it has a dumb.

58:00

It's a very good deck. It is a cool deck. And it's

58:02

sweet. And

58:05

I love it, but it is

58:07

like I would never tell you that it

58:09

is a casual, like it is playing powerful

58:11

cards. Yeah, I think you're just at the

58:13

top of casual. I still believe it's casual. It's not CEDX, right?

58:15

It is. Certainly not. Yeah.

58:19

But I love that about our format. And I think this is

58:21

a good thing to bring up here. I believe that like there

58:23

are some strategies that the only way to really make them viable

58:25

and by viable I mean like I get to sometimes do the

58:27

thing I want to do is to add

58:29

the powerful cards. Yeah.

58:32

Like I have a Tim deck. And my Tim deck I believe

58:34

is close to an 8. It's probably a little, I haven't updated

58:36

it in a little while, so it's probably a little below it

58:38

now. But it

58:41

has powerful cards just to allow to do the stupid thing it wants

58:43

to do. Because the thing it wants to do is pretty bad. But

58:46

if you back it up with Force of Will,

58:48

Force of Fierce, Guardianship, Jessica's Will, and something else,

58:50

then all of a sudden you're like, okay, cool.

58:53

My plan's still dumb, but these powerful cards

58:55

allow me to still try that plan. And

58:57

I think that's great. I think that's a

58:59

good thing. That's one of my favorite decks

59:01

in the world. Yeah. Just

59:03

be open-eyed about it. And I like that you're like, listen,

59:05

but that deck's an 8. I'm not really saying it's a

59:07

6 because of what it's trying to do. How it's trying

59:09

to do it makes it up in

59:12

the upper echelons. And that's often a smart way to build

59:14

if you know your playgroup and the people you're playing with

59:16

just to say like, because I won't have any fun if

59:18

I straight up build it in a manner that doesn't

59:21

have enough powerful cards to let me get to the

59:23

point where I can try the stupid thing. Yeah.

59:26

Yeah. We play in the

59:28

kind of playgroup where it's like you need

59:30

these powerful cards to sort of survive and

59:32

make these dumb, crazy things possible. So yeah.

59:35

It's a ... This

59:37

is an interesting category because I do think that

59:39

these cards, fundamentally if you're in your

59:42

deck, change it regardless of what your win

59:44

con is. And this is a little like Mandorks

59:46

where multiple of them. I think you get away

59:48

with one and still not be quite 8, but

59:50

multiple of them and you kind of immediately are.

59:53

Right. Pact of Negation is an interesting one. I

59:55

was gonna say because we haven't mentioned it. Where do

59:57

you put that on? Because it is

59:59

intrinsic. different from the other three in that

1:00:02

the downside of it is way larger. Yeah,

1:00:04

you have to pay five on your upkeep

1:00:06

to not lose the game immediately. Yeah. Pact

1:00:10

of Negation for me doesn't change,

1:00:13

like it's the worst of those, but

1:00:15

if you're playing Pact of Negation, I assume you're

1:00:17

playing others because it's

1:00:19

the lowest on the list. Yeah.

1:00:23

So I assume it also is

1:00:25

this only, no it's Counter-Target Spell. Yep. I

1:00:28

assume if you're running that, you're minimally running

1:00:30

for your Scardianship, and I'm going to be

1:00:32

more aware of Free Counter-Spells coming out of your

1:00:34

deck than I would normally. But

1:00:37

Pact of Negation is usually a defensive spell. It's usually

1:00:39

to protect your big turn. It's like you don't plan

1:00:41

on paying the five. You're just trying to like... I'm

1:00:43

not going to pay five because I'm going to win.

1:00:45

I'm going to win now, which

1:00:48

indicates a more powerful deck, but I don't

1:00:50

necessarily think of it as like this huge scary

1:00:52

boogie man. I've seen a lot of

1:00:54

Pact of Negation's cast to like save for a

1:00:56

boardwiper or whatever. And they

1:00:58

end up paying the five, and the paying

1:01:00

the five is like so bad that the

1:01:02

boardwipe almost would have been better for them.

1:01:04

Yeah. To the point where like I don't

1:01:06

believe Pact actually does change your deck too

1:01:08

much. It obviously is

1:01:11

a powerful effect, but it's so narrow

1:01:13

and situational that, yeah, unless you have

1:01:15

the other stuff, I don't believe Pact

1:01:17

sort of falls into the category of

1:01:19

changing your power level. Yeah. What do

1:01:21

you think about... Because this

1:01:23

is the Free Spells category. Yeah. And I put

1:01:25

in a bunch of one drops. In

1:01:28

this cusp category for this one. Which feels

1:01:30

fair to talk about stuff like Flusterstorm. Yeah.

1:01:33

So these are hyper efficient

1:01:35

spells that are narrow interaction.

1:01:38

So this category is like,

1:01:40

for me, it's like Flusterstorm, a

1:01:42

red elemental blast, Pyroblast, even something

1:01:44

like Silence. All of these are

1:01:46

one-mana instance that interact with your

1:01:48

opponents on a very specific axis.

1:01:51

And while these, I don't think, change the power

1:01:53

level of your deck, they say a lot to

1:01:55

me about what kind of things you're used to

1:01:57

or designed to interact with. And I think if

1:01:59

you're... running stuff that specifically counters

1:02:02

blue spells like Veil of Summer or

1:02:04

Pyroblast or stuff that specifically

1:02:06

stops storm turns like Silence,

1:02:08

you are prepared to play

1:02:10

in a very powerful, very

1:02:12

explosive meta which says

1:02:14

to me that your deck is designed to play

1:02:16

in a powerful explosive meta. And it therefore must

1:02:18

be powerful. If you can interact with that then

1:02:20

you are also probably in that category. Yeah. So

1:02:23

they're warning belts for sure. Yeah,

1:02:26

I agree. I can't, it's hard for me to

1:02:28

imagine a Veil of Summer in a six. Yeah.

1:02:31

Because a six just isn't worried about what Veil

1:02:33

of Summer is giving you. Those protecting a sword's

1:02:35

departure isn't garbage. Yeah, exactly. Yeah,

1:02:38

that's a really good way to look at

1:02:40

it I think. Those cards don't

1:02:42

intrinsically actually change probably your power level of your deck

1:02:44

but the fact that you've decided to put them in

1:02:46

and keep them in your deck. It means they do

1:02:48

something. It means you've been playing against powerful stuff and

1:02:50

if your deck can hang with powerful stuff it's probably

1:02:52

powerful. Yeah.

1:02:55

The more general category of free spells,

1:02:57

we're going to talk about just sort

1:02:59

of omniscience-ish cards. So

1:03:01

cards that allow you to play other cards for free. Okay.

1:03:06

Well, we should start with omniscience. Yes. Because

1:03:09

that's the category. Let's start with omniscience. Omniscience

1:03:12

is interesting to me because if you have omniscience

1:03:14

in your deck I do not think you're just

1:03:16

casting omniscience. Yeah, you're probably cheating

1:03:18

it out. You're probably like tutoring it to the battlefield somehow.

1:03:21

Nobody is just like I'm putting this in my

1:03:23

deck so that I can pay 10 mana someday

1:03:25

and do that. Yeah.

1:03:27

They're probably decks are decks that do do

1:03:29

that but that's not my experience with omniscience.

1:03:32

So I assume if you're playing omniscience you're

1:03:34

playing powerful like tutor to the battlefield type

1:03:36

stuff. Yes. Where

1:03:38

does it fall? Do you think it changes the-

1:03:41

But if you just throw an omniscience into your

1:03:43

deck, I don't think that makes your deck more

1:03:45

powerful. Right. It's just like now you

1:03:47

just have a 10 mana spell that you have to figure out how to cast.

1:03:49

But if you're an OG Jota deck, the difference

1:03:52

between a version of that deck that has omniscience

1:03:54

and doesn't is pretty big. It is a big

1:03:56

difference. Yeah. So that could push your

1:03:58

power level up. Right. What kind of

1:04:00

matters what's around it? It's a combo card, I think,

1:04:02

in most times that I see it. There's

1:04:05

a card called Dream Halls that

1:04:08

is pretty rare to see these days because it's an old card

1:04:10

and I believe it's on the reserve list. I think so. It's

1:04:13

very expensive. Yeah, but it is a very

1:04:15

powerful card that allows you to discard a

1:04:17

card of a color to cast another card

1:04:19

of that color for free. Turns

1:04:21

everything in your hand into force of that

1:04:23

card. Force of whatever the card is you're

1:04:25

casting. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good way to put

1:04:27

it. This

1:04:30

one is extremely powerful because it basically allows you

1:04:32

to cast half the cards in your hand for

1:04:35

free and ends up playing

1:04:37

a lot like Omniscience for

1:04:39

five mana rather than ten. Now, there's

1:04:41

a caveat. It does give your opponents the ability

1:04:44

to do the same thing, but generally you win

1:04:46

the turn you play Dream Halls. Yeah, or you

1:04:48

put it in decks that draw a huge amount

1:04:50

of cards. Yeah, and you're saying if I get

1:04:52

Dream Halls, I'm just waiting until I have 20,

1:04:54

30, 40 cards in hand and then

1:04:56

I cast it. Then you're like, whatever, you can

1:04:59

cast one card or two cards if you got an instance,

1:05:01

but I can cast 20 and

1:05:03

that'll just be the end of the game. So

1:05:05

Dream Halls is a card that I would earmark

1:05:08

as something that does change the power level of your

1:05:10

deck if you put it in. Because if you

1:05:13

have the wherewithal to put it in your deck, it's kind of going to be

1:05:15

like ... It's like how I say if Clamp's in your deck, it's probably the

1:05:17

best card in your deck. Yeah, Dream Halls is

1:05:19

kind of like that. Probably like in your deck. If it's

1:05:21

in your deck, it probably is very powerful at changing the power

1:05:23

level. Another one

1:05:25

I wanted to talk about in this category isn't

1:05:27

exactly free, but it is sort of this repeatable,

1:05:30

caster-free thing, is Isochron Scepter. Isochron

1:05:33

Scepter, of course, is a traditional combo piece. If you're

1:05:35

playing it, it's most likely that

1:05:37

you're playing it with Dramatic Reversal. But

1:05:39

even if you're not playing it with Dramatic Reversal, which

1:05:42

usually gives you infinite mana, I think if

1:05:44

you're playing it, it means you're running a very high

1:05:46

density, a very cheap instance, which

1:05:48

makes ... To me, that sounds

1:05:50

like your deck is very ...

1:05:52

It's highly interactive. It's

1:05:55

very efficient, and it's designed

1:05:57

to use this to put a counterspell on it

1:05:59

or to put a fog. on it or some

1:06:01

very difficult to interact with thing

1:06:03

that you get to use over and over again. Yeah.

1:06:06

I don't know that I think Isochron is

1:06:09

particularly different

1:06:12

than a lot of powerful cards if you don't have

1:06:14

dramatic version once your deck though. Like let's just say

1:06:16

it's counterspells and brainstorms. If you get

1:06:18

a counterspell on it, that's annoying for sure. But that's not ...

1:06:21

The table could overcome it. Yeah, for sure. And

1:06:23

probably will because that's annoying. Like it's super annoying. Yeah, it will

1:06:25

be hard a lot. Yeah. I've never

1:06:28

seen brainstorms on Isochron's Septors before which is like cool

1:06:30

and something I would like to do. The DIY since

1:06:32

they've defined that. Yeah, I would like to do that

1:06:34

personally myself because I see it was fun. Yeah.

1:06:37

Yeah. So I don't know that I

1:06:39

think if you just put an Isochron in, it changes much. But

1:06:41

yeah. It's a synergy piece. It

1:06:44

really depends on what you're putting under it and what

1:06:46

you're doing with it. But I think if you take

1:06:48

your average blue deck that just has let's say 15

1:06:50

cards that are

1:06:54

two mana or less than our instance, Isochron's

1:06:56

going to be good but I think it's

1:06:59

probably not insane. Not at all. Yeah.

1:07:02

Yeah. There's one more card in this category

1:07:04

I wanted to talk about and I think this is a cusp card. It's a card I

1:07:06

played with. It's

1:07:08

Fires of Invention. This lets

1:07:10

you cast two spells for free on

1:07:12

your turn. As

1:07:15

long as their mana value is less than the number of

1:07:17

lands that you have. And then

1:07:19

it's like you can't cast ... You can only cast spells

1:07:21

during your turn is the limitation. So

1:07:24

I used to run this in Kenrith. Yeah,

1:07:27

because you can use your mana in other ways.

1:07:29

Yeah, I'm using my mana. So I'll cast spells

1:07:31

for free and then I can dump all that

1:07:33

mana into activated abilities. And every time a Fires

1:07:35

of Invention comes down, I'm kind of like, whoa,

1:07:37

all right. What

1:07:40

are we doing? Yeah. So I think

1:07:42

it ... But it does require a huge build

1:07:44

around and it's like a very specific card. So

1:07:47

that's one of the ones that sets up Alarm Bells

1:07:49

but doesn't necessarily I think like jump your deck in

1:07:51

its power level. I was already playing Kenrith. It was

1:07:53

pretty good. Yeah, I agree. Every time I've seen Fires

1:07:55

of Invention, which admittedly is not that many times, I've

1:07:57

just thought, well, that's a good include. That's cool. Yeah.

1:08:00

Yeah, and it's often been very good, It felt

1:08:02

every time I've seen it. It

1:08:07

felt like, yep, that's pretty sweet. Yeah. Like

1:08:09

a little one. Yeah, but I think you could still

1:08:11

be a six with fires of invention. It depends on

1:08:13

what's going around. Yeah, that's true. What you're using your

1:08:15

mana for, for real. Yeah. OK,

1:08:18

the next one, the next category,

1:08:21

is life for mana. Also

1:08:23

kind of life for cards. Yeah, so well,

1:08:25

this first section is life for mana, and then

1:08:27

we'll talk about life for cards in a second.

1:08:30

I have this card in both categories. Yeah. Both

1:08:33

with the Citadel. Unless you

1:08:35

spend life to cast a card off of the top of your library.

1:08:39

It's just, if you get it into play,

1:08:41

it launches you into the stratosphere, especially if

1:08:43

you get it down early. This

1:08:47

is a card that I think for

1:08:49

myself fits in the category of Jessica's

1:08:51

Will, where you can easily

1:08:53

put it in every deck that has black.

1:08:55

And I started not

1:08:57

doing that purposefully to keep

1:08:59

my decks below a certain power threshold, which is,

1:09:02

I believe, the seven to eight line. Yeah. I

1:09:04

think it can be a seven with a bolus

1:09:06

to Citadel, but it's like a smothering

1:09:08

dive situation, where it's like, I don't put it in

1:09:10

every deck, because I know it could

1:09:12

go in every deck. Yeah. And it could

1:09:14

go in every deck because it is so

1:09:17

good. Like, if you cast it, your

1:09:19

chances to win the game go up a lot. Yeah.

1:09:22

Yeah, I've definitely seen bolus to Citadel's resolve

1:09:24

where that person didn't win, but it's rare.

1:09:26

This usually means that the deck isn't designed to take

1:09:28

advantage of bolus to Citadel, but. Or they're kind of

1:09:31

casting it at a point where it's a little bit

1:09:33

desperate. Like, they're behind and they know, I

1:09:35

just got to try and do something now and see what's up there.

1:09:37

But usually you set it up at a point and cast it where

1:09:39

you're going to win, yeah. The next one

1:09:41

you have, Alyssa, is Kirik, son of Yagmoth. And

1:09:43

this lets you turn all your black

1:09:46

pips into Phyrexian mana so you can pay two life

1:09:48

for all the black pips on all your stuff. Yeah,

1:09:52

this is turning life into mana, which

1:09:55

this whole section. It's, you know,

1:09:57

Channel is the banner card for this,

1:09:59

which is banner. Yeah in the format for

1:10:01

a reason just because even in 20 life

1:10:03

it's broken But in a 40 life format

1:10:05

all of a sudden this really kind of

1:10:08

almost could be talked about in the fast mana category We

1:10:10

had earlier. Yeah, yeah, this is sort of it I wanted

1:10:12

to talk about This because there's some

1:10:14

interesting cards like I want to talk about noxious revival

1:10:17

and get taxi and probe Because these

1:10:19

are these are cusp cards for me where they're

1:10:21

like they're not gonna change the power level of

1:10:23

your deck But if I see them they indicate

1:10:25

a more powerful deck to me because it means

1:10:27

that your deck is as Efficient

1:10:29

as it possibly can be yeah,

1:10:31

like you you're including free

1:10:33

spells intentionally Because you

1:10:36

need to be able to play on that access. I mean, I love

1:10:38

a good get probe I think your probe

1:10:40

is probably a little less powerful than noxious revival,

1:10:42

which is noxious rival is ridiculously good Yeah, and

1:10:45

another card that you could just play in every

1:10:47

deck with crane and it probably makes most of

1:10:49

the decks better But you're right they're

1:10:51

so efficient and the fact that you're so worried about efficiency

1:10:53

means that you're playing probably playing in a meta that is

1:10:56

very powerful and Sort of

1:10:58

indicative, you know the card that belongs this category

1:11:00

that I just thought of is treasonous ogre Oh,

1:11:03

yeah another card that I started pulling from decks

1:11:05

because I felt it was just pushing the power

1:11:07

level too much Which is let you pay life

1:11:10

for red mana three life for rad Yeah, and that sounds

1:11:12

crazy, but you often would play it and just be like

1:11:14

pay 30 get 10 mana win Try

1:11:16

and win. Yeah Because

1:11:18

how many games just you know you think about and

1:11:21

you're just like if I just had two more mana I had a

1:11:23

chance to win on this turn, you know, you're you're doing all the

1:11:25

sequence in your like crap I could cast this and this but

1:11:27

I'm just too man of short. Yeah. Yeah Okay

1:11:31

Okay, the next category is

1:11:34

draw engines. So these are very

1:11:36

powerful draw engines in the format. How

1:11:38

dare you? His

1:11:46

first category is called do you pay And

1:11:51

this of course is Rhystic study mystic

1:11:53

remora and s for sentinel are all

1:11:55

extremely powerful Draw engines that take advantage

1:11:57

of your opponents doing

1:11:59

stuff I

1:12:02

think risk of study is the kind of card that I don't

1:12:05

know if it like it's mothering

1:12:07

tide level for me. It's both just that it'll

1:12:09

just cause well category. I don't

1:12:11

think it's not automatically innate.

1:12:14

It's not mandatory. But you don't have a

1:12:16

lot to have a lot more going on to this gets you

1:12:19

most of the way to eight. Yeah, for

1:12:21

sure. Yeah, it's the kind of card that that

1:12:23

like if I see it, I'm like, okay, all

1:12:25

right. Well, maybe we need to I

1:12:27

need to keep a closer eye on you. They pay

1:12:29

the one but keep a closer eye on

1:12:31

you. Mr. Gromora

1:12:34

is interesting. That's

1:12:38

like I have a tough time placing. Well,

1:12:41

it's because it naturally becomes less powerful in

1:12:43

more casual. Right. Pods

1:12:46

and just by the nature of how the card

1:12:48

is designed. Yeah. So it's it

1:12:50

is an interesting sort of almost self policing one where

1:12:52

I do think it's probably more powerful than risk of

1:12:54

study. And when I see it, it tends to be

1:12:56

in more powerful decks. But

1:13:00

I believe and I've but I've seen it in casual decks

1:13:02

where people just happen to have it or have come across

1:13:04

it. And because lower

1:13:06

powered decks tend to be less

1:13:08

efficient, not casting

1:13:10

a lot of spells in turn

1:13:12

casting more single spells, they tend to be more

1:13:15

creature focused. Mr. Gromora often sort of does less

1:13:17

in those pods and therefore is kind

1:13:19

of an interesting card that is almost like I

1:13:21

don't believe putting a Mr. Gromora in your six

1:13:23

changes it much. Because

1:13:25

if you're playing against eight, it'll help you more in which case

1:13:27

you need it. And if you're playing against sixes and fives, it's

1:13:29

not that good. Yeah, you'll draw a couple cards

1:13:31

off of it. But the Cumulo Lovekeep, there's

1:13:34

more turns. Each turn is less impactful. So

1:13:37

it's going to just sort of do less for you.

1:13:39

Probably still be an okay card to include, but not

1:13:42

game breaking. Yeah. Yeah. So

1:13:45

it fits in a really good spot. It's almost like I wish they could design

1:13:48

more cards that fluctuate with the power level

1:13:50

in this way. Probably hard to do. Sorry,

1:13:52

Gavin. This is a

1:13:54

pretty cool place to sit where, you know,

1:13:57

in casual, it does something but it's not

1:13:59

broken. broken, but as you go up the

1:14:01

power scale, it gets better and better and is

1:14:03

still playable up, you know, 10s play Mystic Remora.

1:14:06

Yes, for sure. But if I

1:14:08

see a Mystic Remora, I don't assume you're a 10. Yeah,

1:14:10

it's really interesting. Yeah. It's, as

1:14:12

for Sentinel, sort of walks and

1:14:15

talks like a Mystic Remora, but isn't quite

1:14:17

a Mystic Remora. Yeah, limited

1:14:19

to one. Yeah. It's a big deal. Well,

1:14:22

it's limited to its power. You could buff it. No,

1:14:24

no, I meant one card. Yeah, you can't get multiple

1:14:26

cards, which is a big deal for Mystic Remora, because

1:14:28

in high power levels, they're going to play a lot

1:14:30

of Git probes, noxious revivals, you know, a lot

1:14:33

of low CMC stuff. And so

1:14:35

you're going to draw three or four cards

1:14:37

off one person sometimes, whereas S-Percentaels

1:14:39

capped at one. But you don't

1:14:41

have a cumulative upkeep. That's true. You can keep

1:14:43

it forever. I will say

1:14:45

S-Percentaels is extremely easy to pay the one for. If

1:14:47

it's just a one-one and you're not paying the one

1:14:50

for S-Percentaels, watch it. Watch

1:14:52

it. You should be paying. Watch

1:14:54

yourself. You can do it. Check yourself.

1:14:58

I mean, for the most part, I think a lot

1:15:00

of the reason why Mystic Study and S-Percentaels are

1:15:02

good is opponent's player. Yeah,

1:15:05

for sure. Yeah. And that's

1:15:07

probably another argument sort of, I'm going

1:15:09

to say, against them at lower casual tables,

1:15:12

because those players are, you know, often sort

1:15:14

of newer. They're not as veteran. And

1:15:17

they haven't learned yet to pay for it. So

1:15:21

it's taking advantage of sort of that

1:15:23

part of it, which might, you know, might be okay. Like part

1:15:25

of what we're trying to do is be smarter. You learn eventually.

1:15:27

Yeah. Yeah. Some

1:15:30

people don't though, because it's play area that's

1:15:32

hard to identify. At the end of the

1:15:34

game when they cast, you know, Craterhoof and kill

1:15:36

you, it feels like Craterhoof killed you when a lot

1:15:38

of times, Mystic Study killed you. And

1:15:41

that's just a hard thing to go back, replay the game

1:15:43

in your mind and identify that that was the reason you

1:15:45

lost. If I had just paid the one and my opponent

1:15:47

said, done the same thing, you know, three or four more

1:15:49

times, they probably don't have as many creatures. They don't hit

1:15:51

their land drops. Craterhoof comes out two or three turns later.

1:15:53

Maybe they never even draw it. It's

1:15:56

totally different game. So yeah. What

1:15:58

do you think that's for Sennel? as

1:16:01

a Citadel or is it off that list? I think it is,

1:16:03

but I definitely think you can be

1:16:05

a seven and have it as for Sentinel.

1:16:13

I don't think I'm going to see it in a

1:16:15

six probably because of price. But

1:16:18

it probably could. But it probably could operate.

1:16:20

Again, it's non-creature, so I don't

1:16:23

think it would be absolutely broken in a six

1:16:25

environment. But if you also

1:16:27

had some other entire something, then it's all of

1:16:29

a sudden that's a different proposition. I think it's

1:16:31

just for Jessica's Will for me, but it's not

1:16:33

far. If there's a third tier, so we've got

1:16:35

Manicrypt Dioxide in that top tier and we've got

1:16:37

Jessica's Will smothering tied Bull as a Sill in

1:16:39

that second tier, I think S-Percental is in the

1:16:41

third tier below that. S-Percental is something, yeah, is

1:16:43

there. I would put it somewhere even like a

1:16:45

Lotus Petal maybe where it's like, I expect if

1:16:47

there's something that you're taking advantage of, like there's

1:16:49

some synergy built around it or something like that.

1:16:52

You can pump it in some way. You can pump it or it's a human

1:16:54

or there's a reason it's there. Then it's just

1:16:56

cool. Then it's cool. I love

1:16:58

synergy. It's also in white, which

1:17:00

I think we didn't talk about how color matters, but

1:17:03

I think it does for something. It does, yeah. For

1:17:05

a card draw, it's like, it's white's

1:17:07

best card draw engine, I think. I

1:17:09

think if you're in a Boros deck or

1:17:12

a Mono white deck and you play an S-Percental

1:17:14

and you say you're six, I don't bat an

1:17:16

eye. Yeah. Because- You

1:17:18

don't have a ton of options. Yeah, exactly. You need card draw

1:17:20

and this is a good one and it doesn't change the power

1:17:23

level of your deck. It's different if

1:17:25

you're like in a five color deck,

1:17:27

you're in a Kenrith deck and you say you're

1:17:29

a six and you go turn one S-Percental. Yeah,

1:17:31

yeah. That's totally different than a Mono white deck.

1:17:33

Exactly. Yeah. This

1:17:35

next category is life for cards. The

1:17:38

first one I think is automatically innate. It's

1:17:41

automatically innate. Yeah, I actually think

1:17:43

it's automatically innate. Is this above?

1:17:45

Yeah, it's ad nauseam. This

1:17:48

is three black black. For those who haven't had the pleasure,

1:17:51

ad nauseam is three black black for an instant, reveal

1:17:53

the top card of your library and put that card

1:17:55

into your hand. You lose life equal to its converted

1:17:57

mana cost. You may repeat this process

1:17:59

at any number. of times. Have

1:18:02

you ever seen this card played in what

1:18:04

you would be what you would consider to

1:18:06

be a casual deck? I have a friend

1:18:08

who built specifically an adnause casual deck. It's

1:18:11

not a CEDH deck. It is not as it

1:18:13

is a Monoblax CEDC deck that came in, exploited

1:18:15

itself, tutored for adnause, drew the whole deck and

1:18:17

then usually he either

1:18:20

drew aether flux and won or didn't draw aether

1:18:22

flux and died. How do you not draw it?

1:18:24

You draw everything, don't you? Oh you die before

1:18:26

you get to it? Yeah, yeah. Okay.

1:18:28

And like I guess it's an eight but

1:18:31

it's really it's just a bad nine. It's

1:18:34

a bad nine. It just felt like it was a

1:18:36

nine that wasn't quite fair. That's

1:18:39

what all the plays are. Like it wasn't quite fair. Like

1:18:41

adnause for me if you're playing it in casual at all

1:18:43

you are not... it doesn't belong,

1:18:45

right? It makes no sense. You're gonna draw three

1:18:47

cards and take a bunch of damage. What are

1:18:49

you gonna do? It doesn't, yeah. I

1:18:52

think adnause just doesn't really have a place in casual

1:18:54

which is interesting. Like Dockside doesn't have

1:18:56

a great place in casual but you see

1:18:58

it. Adnause I feel like. You

1:19:00

could be an eight and be a Dockside. Yeah. You

1:19:02

probably technically could be an eight and be an adnause.

1:19:04

But for adnause to be correct to run in your

1:19:06

deck, your CMC has to be so low and you

1:19:08

have to be so combo driven to

1:19:11

make it worth it that it's almost

1:19:13

by default a nine. Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

1:19:15

It's not like I think adnause. It is probably

1:19:17

one of the higher possible

1:19:20

to be banned or on the possible, you know,

1:19:22

ban list cards on the list. I'm not saying

1:19:24

I would put it above Dockside or anything like

1:19:26

that but oddly enough I do believe

1:19:28

it pushes the power level of your deck or

1:19:30

it indicates a power level that's even more than

1:19:33

Dockside and Mana Grift. Yeah. It does sort of

1:19:35

do a Mr. Gromora thing where it's really bad

1:19:37

in casual and it's really good in CDH. Yeah.

1:19:41

Well Mr. Gromora I think is fine in casual. Yeah,

1:19:43

it's fine in casual. Adnause is bad

1:19:45

in casual. Bad. Bad. Yeah. Yeah, somebody

1:19:47

can tell you like this card is

1:19:49

amazing. In every CH deck, you put

1:19:51

it in your deck and it kills

1:19:53

you. It kills you. High. Pay

1:19:55

five mana, you draw two cards and you take eleven

1:19:58

damage. Yeah. This was good. It's

1:20:00

terrible. I could

1:20:02

play sign in blood. We lose two for two mana. Speaking

1:20:09

of losing life, Necropotence I think is

1:20:11

sort of mana drain, mana crypt level

1:20:13

for me. Like

1:20:15

if you're running an Necropotence, for me, I think

1:20:18

it makes your deck an eight. Yeah,

1:20:20

I think I agree with that. And this is

1:20:22

another card that's on my list with Jessica's Will

1:20:25

and mana crypt and Dockside where I purposely do

1:20:27

not play it in what I

1:20:29

want to be sevens and below. Yeah. I

1:20:31

mean, I run it in Lord of the Dresserhorn,

1:20:33

which is funny because I spend so much cards

1:20:36

to get this one stupid thing into play. There's

1:20:38

like, I need really powerful draw engines. But

1:20:40

it's sort of the Feltigraph thing where it's like, that deck

1:20:43

has a Rhystic Study and it has these things that make

1:20:45

it powerful even though the plan is hidden with a big

1:20:47

thing. I think you like that.

1:20:49

That's a stupid plan. I do. Yeah.

1:20:52

And then how can I enable my stupid plan so that it is in some way

1:20:54

viable? Yeah. Like I said, I think that's

1:20:56

one of the cool things about the format. It's fun. Embolism

1:20:58

Citadel, of course, is here, lets you cast spells off

1:21:00

the top of your library by paying life. So it's

1:21:02

sort of both life for cards and mana. I

1:21:05

think if it costs less than 6MC, it

1:21:07

would be in that top mana crypt here,

1:21:09

although we just created a nest here, which

1:21:11

is Adnaz. We just had no. Yeah.

1:21:15

But it's 6MC, so it's with Jessica's Will and Smothering Tithe

1:21:17

in that B tier. Cuspier

1:21:20

is Sylvan Library. I

1:21:23

think you can't have a 6 with

1:21:25

a Sylvan Library in it. Interesting. I

1:21:28

think... Okay, no. Tell me your... That

1:21:30

might be price-based. It's so much

1:21:33

card selection and it's so

1:21:35

much card acceleration so early

1:21:38

that it

1:21:40

just feels like it's

1:21:42

an insurmountable thing early. But

1:21:46

I do think in a lower powered thing,

1:21:48

I don't know. Maybe

1:21:50

having all of those cards that early isn't as

1:21:52

good. But

1:21:54

for me, Sylvan Library is just... It's

1:21:57

sort of like Sensei's Demining Top, where if you're playing it...

1:22:00

I expect you know how to use it and I

1:22:02

expect you're really looking for something. Yeah, the you know

1:22:04

how to use it part is really interesting and something

1:22:06

that just occurred to me is that no

1:22:09

place in our calculation are

1:22:11

we able to sort of factor in player skill but

1:22:13

this is a card that is

1:22:15

much more powerful in better players hands

1:22:17

than in worst player hands. Yeah.

1:22:21

So if Brian Kibler tells me his deck is a six and then he

1:22:23

plays a Sylvan library, he's gonna

1:22:26

utilize that card to a degree that maybe his

1:22:28

deck couldn't be a six because he's so good

1:22:30

at magic. Right. But

1:22:32

whereas my cousin who's still learning how to play or has only

1:22:34

played for a little bit of time and this is their first

1:22:36

upgraded pre-con and they put a Sylvan library into it and they

1:22:38

said this is a six. It might make your deck worse. Yeah,

1:22:41

they probably, my cousin won't pay the

1:22:44

life every time, won't know you know,

1:22:46

won't have learned yet like crack

1:22:49

a fetch and do the thing and like you know even when

1:22:51

you don't want the card pay because you want the card under

1:22:53

it and all this kind of stuff and

1:22:55

so it's probably is a six in

1:22:58

that deck. So it's like, I

1:23:01

don't know, I don't really know how to categorize it.

1:23:03

Yeah, it's really tough to use correctly but

1:23:06

I think the power level for the

1:23:08

efficiency just puts it in that

1:23:10

category where it's like I would

1:23:12

assume it's a seven or

1:23:15

at least has the cards of a seven. Interesting.

1:23:17

I don't think I'm quite there with it but

1:23:19

I see what you're saying. Yeah. Okay,

1:23:22

the next one though. Yeah. Man,

1:23:24

a crit. It's about life of cards. Man, a crit.

1:23:27

It's the one ring. Wow.

1:23:31

If the one ring is in your deck, I think it automatically makes

1:23:33

it an eight. Yeah,

1:23:35

I do agree. It's

1:23:37

yeah, it's so

1:23:39

good. I would never put it in a

1:23:42

six or a seven just because it's so

1:23:44

free, it's so powerful. It's

1:23:46

like the fairies protection plus card draw. It's

1:23:49

crazy. Yeah, it feels right. I think

1:23:51

it's eight and above. It's definitely in

1:23:53

the category with, is it, I'm

1:23:56

debating in my mind right now, is it closer to Jessica's will

1:23:58

or is it closer to Jessica's will? Darkside.

1:24:01

I. Think it's. I

1:24:04

think for me, it's closer just as well. Yeah, Where.

1:24:08

By. Still talks barrier as we talked it through

1:24:10

I still was idea of which has his wasn't

1:24:12

savage anymore in the air South's yeah it's one

1:24:14

of those cards as a similar just as well

1:24:16

in that for us specifically it wasn't clear see

1:24:19

how just how good it was and then you

1:24:21

played a few times and you see other people

1:24:23

play a few times you like wow holy cow

1:24:25

the app pens. Every time

1:24:28

is amazing. Death and it's versatile

1:24:30

and that it protects you and

1:24:32

stuff like yeah, it's it's against

1:24:34

Oh hey, I got this next

1:24:37

categories the name of one of

1:24:39

our shows sides Extra Turn. Ssssss

1:24:42

ah we named that. It's because much

1:24:45

as the spells would give you actually

1:24:47

turns his We thought like a weird

1:24:49

you do game night skies Answer: extra

1:24:51

thirty small town returns of more gameplay

1:24:54

turns out remittances. I'm sorry what we

1:24:56

call it x. T. Assistance

1:24:58

It's been an easy yeah that's

1:25:00

the own home fear as cel

1:25:02

are too young. Yet

1:25:06

just that hasn't yet. Or that's. Ah

1:25:08

exes earns I to. I feel like. Are.

1:25:11

Like manner dorks where if you have

1:25:13

one, maybe two, Fine. Young

1:25:16

A dozen. A dozen really move the needle. Mind.

1:25:18

As for why be two hundred and

1:25:21

one is like this year? Ah, but

1:25:23

if you have any more than that,

1:25:25

I feel like extra turns. really? Six

1:25:27

your deck to be a Italy's to

1:25:29

Seven strategies probably. and probably in a

1:25:32

year and a rough three, Exeter and

1:25:34

smells? Yes, you're probably. You're

1:25:36

right, The cusp of eight and legacy of

1:25:38

one, You know? Snapped. Up to

1:25:40

cast her major something and one of those are

1:25:42

stern says and shuffle yeah event an artery or

1:25:45

mansour the youth and yep, you're there are zero

1:25:47

mansour. It's even worse it I guess. Now you

1:25:49

can access the internet, access every deck and take

1:25:51

infinite turns. It's an eight. Because

1:25:54

that's the set, has a feeling that

1:25:56

the winter months that most. Sevens.

1:25:59

Are Not prepare. to fight against. Because

1:26:02

oftentimes your only way to fight against it is

1:26:05

character spells. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

1:26:08

An interesting part of this category. So that's

1:26:10

like we're talking about expropriates and nexus of

1:26:12

fates are the extra turns. But I

1:26:15

do think that Seedborne Muse also goes

1:26:17

on this category. There's also an extra turns

1:26:19

card. It's an extra turns card. As a

1:26:21

Seedborne Muse lover, I concur. I also said

1:26:23

unwinding clock, I think, is very similar. Yeah.

1:26:27

Whereas it's very difficult

1:26:29

for me to envision. No sixes can

1:26:31

have a Seedborne Muse unwinding clock. And

1:26:33

you're probably pushing eight. You

1:26:36

could probably get away with being a seven if your

1:26:38

plan is really dumb and you

1:26:40

don't have any of the other

1:26:42

powerful cards we talked about. But in general, those

1:26:44

cards let you on top of another player's turns. And assuming that's

1:26:46

a thing you want to do because you can use that man

1:26:49

on other players' turns, like you got Kenrith or you just have

1:26:51

a lot of instance or whatever. Yeah,

1:26:53

you're taking four turns for everybody else's one. Yeah.

1:26:55

Which I love to do. Don't get me wrong.

1:26:57

Super fun. But it is. You have a Seedborne

1:26:59

and you're like, I get to play so much

1:27:01

magic. The thing is, you're picking up a lot of

1:27:04

the chess clock, which is not

1:27:06

necessarily expected

1:27:08

at a lot of tables. Not just that. Just

1:27:10

you are able to spend 28 minutes at everybody's

1:27:13

seven. And

1:27:16

you're just going to win. If

1:27:19

you can use it, that will win you

1:27:21

the game. Yeah, it's just too powerful. This

1:27:23

is a tax on an axis, these extra

1:27:25

turn things. And going back to like, Nexus

1:27:27

of Fate and whatnot, that

1:27:29

a lot of decks are not prepared to deal

1:27:31

with it all. Right. Yeah. At least Seedborne means

1:27:33

you can remove. Yeah. Basically,

1:27:35

any time you have a

1:27:38

thing. We're going to talk about this a little

1:27:40

bit later, I guess. But any time you have

1:27:42

a thing that you cannot interact with without a

1:27:44

counterspell, I think it bumps the

1:27:46

level of your deck. Where if you are expecting

1:27:48

your opponents to have a counterspell to be able

1:27:50

to interact with you, it means

1:27:55

that you're certainly not a six. OK.

1:28:00

next category in the next category here? Yes.

1:28:03

Okay. This is a lonely card. This

1:28:05

is a one-off card. We couldn't figure out where to

1:28:07

put. It is Cyclonic

1:28:09

Rift. Yeah. And

1:28:13

I sort of want to talk about it with the

1:28:15

next card, but I can't exactly explain to you why.

1:28:18

Interesting. I don't

1:28:20

put Cyclonic Rift. I don't think Cyclonic Rift goes in

1:28:22

sixes. It's like Jessica's Will to

1:28:24

me. It's Jessica's Will. It's just like it's just

1:28:27

not a card that you put in a deck

1:28:29

lightly because it

1:28:31

does have that powerful shift in

1:28:33

balance that's in one card. Yeah.

1:28:36

And it doesn't really require you to have a

1:28:38

setup. It doesn't really require anything of you to

1:28:41

provide that shift. Obviously,

1:28:44

if you have like a ton of stuff on board and

1:28:46

you cast something and you like an

1:28:48

overrun, that's a shift in power, but it's something that took

1:28:50

a lot of work to do. If a

1:28:53

single card can throw the balance of the

1:28:55

game out of whack, then it feels like

1:28:58

it's going to be at least a seven or an eight. I

1:29:01

think the fact that it has a two-mana mode

1:29:03

is sort of what puts it. Because I think

1:29:05

if it just had the seven-mana version and that's

1:29:07

all it could do, it'd still be very good.

1:29:10

And that's what you do 85% of the time. But

1:29:13

the fact that it does save you sometimes when

1:29:15

someone's like, cool, suit up

1:29:17

my commander, give it Unblockable that you didn't

1:29:19

see coming and attack you for lethal. You're

1:29:22

like, it saved me. And

1:29:24

anybody who's played Commander for a very long time has

1:29:26

done that on multiple occasions. And I think if it

1:29:29

didn't have that mode, it would be a different proposition. But

1:29:31

because it's like, keep

1:29:33

me safe, and then when I don't have to use it,

1:29:35

win with it. That's not a

1:29:38

lot of cards fit that thing, but it is kind of a

1:29:40

unique... We're not going to talk about

1:29:42

another board wipe, right? No. The

1:29:44

only other one that even came close, and I decided

1:29:47

that it probably didn't make the list was Farewell. But

1:29:50

Cyclonic Rift doesn't do what Farewell does. Well,

1:29:53

if Farewell doesn't do it, Cyclonic Rift. Yeah,

1:29:55

that's what I mean. Is

1:29:57

like one just zeroes the board. Rift

1:30:00

shifts the board. It puts weight on the scale.

1:30:02

Yeah. So, Cyclonic Rift is definitely the kind of

1:30:04

card that if you cast it, you are likely

1:30:06

to win that game all on its own. And

1:30:10

I think this next card is kind

1:30:13

of the same. Interesting. It's

1:30:16

Tefarious Protection. Yeah. Because Tefarious

1:30:18

Protection is the kind of card that I feel like it went

1:30:20

in every white deck and you were like, yeah, of course. Yeah,

1:30:23

Tefarious Protection is Sol Ring in white deck. There's no

1:30:25

argument you can make from a power level point that

1:30:27

Tefarious Protection doesn't belong in the deck that has white.

1:30:29

If it's in white, it's going in the deck. Yeah.

1:30:34

And I think more and more to me, this is

1:30:36

just as well. Where it's like, it's

1:30:39

because it's not just board protection. It's

1:30:42

a fog. It's

1:30:44

an extra turn spell at

1:30:48

instant speed for three mana that can

1:30:50

interrupt or even counter an opponent's

1:30:52

turn. Tefarious Protection is

1:30:54

so flexible and

1:30:57

so powerful that it just

1:30:59

guarantees you a

1:31:01

second shot at the game. Right? Or

1:31:04

less. More or less. Like, it's an

1:31:06

instant speed extra turn spell that

1:31:08

can win you the game because you can like, all right,

1:31:11

I'll fog your attack and now I untap with my board

1:31:13

and I can attack back and you didn't expect that. Or

1:31:16

it can just be like, all right, there's a board wipe. I'll save

1:31:18

my whole stuff. Now it's a one-sided board wipe. And

1:31:20

I do think it's that level of powerful

1:31:23

that maybe we should be taking a second

1:31:25

look at where Tefarious Protection goes. Because again,

1:31:27

it's white. So we were like, eh, let

1:31:29

white use whatever tools it

1:31:31

has. But these days, white has gotten a

1:31:33

lot of tools. It has a lot of great board

1:31:35

protection pieces that Tefarious Protection

1:31:37

may just be too pushed

1:31:40

for asixis. That's

1:31:43

interesting. I sort of

1:31:45

thought about or think about Tefarious Protection. Like,

1:31:48

it doesn't, you

1:31:50

need to have stuff to protect. It doesn't like,

1:31:53

stop anybody from doing anything exactly. Obviously if

1:31:55

they're attacking you or whatever, but it doesn't

1:31:58

like, affect their boards in any way. way.

1:32:00

So if you don't have stuff

1:32:04

to protect, then it doesn't do anything.

1:32:07

Yeah. Which is, I

1:32:09

guess, Cyclonic Crypt is kind of like that. If you

1:32:11

Cyclonic Crypt and you don't have a lot, it won't

1:32:13

win you the game, but it will often even out

1:32:15

the game. Extra turns are kind of the same way,

1:32:17

where if you take an extra turn, it could just

1:32:19

be an explorer if you don't have stuff to take

1:32:21

advantage of. True. Yeah, and Tefarious Protection doesn't give your

1:32:23

creatures haste in the way that extra turn spells do.

1:32:25

Yeah. It's not, and

1:32:28

I guess it is kind of similar. It sort

1:32:30

of does. If you cast them in Cast of Furies Protection, you're

1:32:32

going to untap with them. That's

1:32:34

true. Yeah, it's interesting. But

1:32:36

your opponents get to act in between. Yes.

1:32:39

So which is kind of a big deal. So yeah, I

1:32:41

don't know. I don't have any good arguments against

1:32:43

you. And the more I think about it, it

1:32:45

is Jessica's will powerful, I think. Yeah. In

1:32:48

that second tier, or I guess now third because

1:32:50

of Ad Nauseam. Yeah. The first thing

1:32:52

you asked here was Manacrypt and Dockside, but that's Ad

1:32:54

Nauseam. And now A tier is Manacrypt,

1:32:57

Dockside. And now B tier

1:32:59

is Jessica's will. A bunch of

1:33:01

cards. The Fariest Protection, Smothering cards. Yeah, exactly. A

1:33:03

lot of these cards. Which means I think you

1:33:05

can have one or two in your seven,

1:33:08

but once you're above that, you're an eight. Yeah.

1:33:10

I mean, I think you could probably have one or two in your six.

1:33:13

Oh, interesting. And like, if you have just

1:33:15

a Tefarious Protection in your six sec, I

1:33:17

think that's probably fine. But if you have

1:33:19

Tefarious Protection and a Smothering Tide...

1:33:21

You probably already have seven. You're a seven. Yeah.

1:33:24

Tefarious Protection and a Jessica's will. Yeah. You're

1:33:27

a seven. That feels like a seven to me. Interesting. Okay.

1:33:29

I could buy that. Yeah. Tefarious Protection

1:33:31

is undoubtedly amazing and very good. It's extremely,

1:33:33

extremely powerful. And it's possible that it

1:33:36

doesn't do this. But for me, I

1:33:38

feel like I underrated Tefarious Protection, like

1:33:41

the impact that it has on a game. I knew

1:33:43

it was powerful, but I think it's the kind of card

1:33:45

that like, maybe if you

1:33:47

pull it out, you're like, the

1:33:49

difference is between with extra turns, well, this does exile

1:33:51

itself. You can't like loop Tefarious Protection. Yeah. Which a

1:33:53

lot of extra turns fells do, but not the old

1:33:55

ones. Yeah. Let me throw a few curve

1:33:58

ball here. Hit me. pots

1:34:00

in my head while we were talking about this. What about Ink Shield? Yeah,

1:34:05

I mean, it's

1:34:07

close, right? Like,

1:34:09

Ink Shield has two colors, so

1:34:11

it's not in every deck, but it

1:34:13

goes in every black-white deck. And

1:34:16

if you cast it, having done nothing, if

1:34:18

it like, it's narrow, it's narrower than

1:34:20

Teferi's Protection, but it

1:34:22

will win you the game after the, and

1:34:25

like, you didn't do anything. It fits your

1:34:28

earlier example of like, if

1:34:31

a lot of times the only way to stop

1:34:33

it is a counterspell. Mm-hmm, yeah. And, you

1:34:35

know, I don't know, a lot of decks, I'm

1:34:37

not sure what they're supposed to do, maybe just,

1:34:39

hey, I have 28 power, but I'm willing to attack you

1:34:41

for seven, thinking you got an Ink Shield, and hope that

1:34:44

I can live through the crackback of 14. 14

1:34:46

in the air? Still pretty big crackback. I probably still lose that

1:34:48

game, even though I'm trying to play around it, but what can

1:34:51

I do? Right. So,

1:34:53

the sixes are ill-equipped to deal with an Ink Shield, and

1:34:55

it might fall into, it's not as good

1:34:57

as Teferi's Protection, but it might just

1:34:59

the way it's positioned. That's interesting, yeah. And

1:35:02

it's like, if you cast

1:35:04

it at the right time, you

1:35:06

win that game. Yeah.

1:35:08

Like, for sure. It's interesting, yeah. Yeah,

1:35:10

it's more narrow than Teferi's Protection, but

1:35:13

again, it doesn't

1:35:16

cost much, other than holding

1:35:18

up five. There's been a lot of games I've been

1:35:20

in where I'm like, oh

1:35:23

man, they might have Ink Shield. And then I

1:35:25

think through, what do I do knowing that? Like,

1:35:27

let's imagine they showed it to me, and

1:35:30

your brain goes through the options, and

1:35:32

you're like, there's like- Hit

1:35:35

them with one turn? Yeah, what do

1:35:37

I do? Like, I don't have

1:35:39

a good option in my green-red deck to do

1:35:41

anything about it, so I either choose to attack

1:35:44

them with just one creature, which gives them more turns

1:35:46

to try and draw the Ink Shield, or I just

1:35:48

hope they don't have it here. Yeah. But

1:35:50

it's not like I didn't consider it, but what can I do? Yeah.

1:35:52

Yeah. It's interesting. You

1:35:55

fog back. Yeah. Fog the your

1:35:57

combat. Counter the thing. You

1:36:01

attack and then you go, crap, blasphemous act, I

1:36:03

guess. Yeah, you maze-vist, you big thing, I don't

1:36:05

know. Tiferi's protection and those kind

1:36:08

of things live in an interesting place where white

1:36:10

is getting these pieces that blue has,

1:36:12

that red has, that black has. Yeah. And, uh... That

1:36:14

are hard to interact with. That are really hard to

1:36:16

interact with. Okay, up next we

1:36:19

are going to talk about some of the

1:36:21

more controversial cards in the format. Very powerful

1:36:23

permanents, highly interactive. If they're not careful, they

1:36:25

can take a whole deck out of a

1:36:27

game if they're not ready for it. But,

1:36:30

we're going to get to those after a

1:36:32

few words from our sponsors. Where's

1:36:35

Jimmy? He's usually so punctual. Yeah. Hey,

1:36:38

sorry about that. I was just getting

1:36:41

my deck together. Or, most of it.

1:36:43

But that's just a really big stack

1:36:45

of envelopes. Ah, I prefer to think

1:36:47

of it as pre-sleeved. Well, where's your

1:36:49

commander? Um, let me check. Tracking says

1:36:51

he's in shipping label created. Jimmy,

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Kingdom's huge selection of singles, sealed products,

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and more. Again, that's cardkingdom.com/command. Alright, welcome

1:37:25

back. We are talking about the cards

1:37:27

that change the power level of your

1:37:29

deck all by themselves. And

1:37:31

this next section is, uh, it's a doozy.

1:37:33

The next category that we're talking about is

1:37:35

hate cards. And this was sort

1:37:37

of an interesting name. Um, for

1:37:40