Welcome back to another session with the Epic Experiment!
Normally I try to provide a more in depth consideration of an idea, or dive deep on a deck, or just other thoughts that deserve a little more exploration. However, if you have ever caught our podcast, you will often hear us ping pong ideas around. There are loads of ideas that never make it to a segment on the show, or an article, so today I decided I wanted to share a smattering of ideas. I call these… Bruce’s Deep Thoughts.
Ok, if you haven’t ever played this card, you are forgiven. It looks 100% like it should never see the light of day because, really, how often do people tap creatures for something other than attacking?
Turns out… all the time.
This can leave a very reasonable impression of cards like Rhystic Study or Mystic Remora and help keep your hand. With a return of vehicles in Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty there could be an uptick in cards that get tapped to crew vehicles, not to mention mana dorks, utility creatures, or even tokens that are being used to convoke out larger spells. The truth is, this card draws piles of cards… and can be found for about 30 cents. It doesn’t get much better than that.
There are plenty of Commander decks that are very heavily reliant on creatures to help secure victory. Token decks, Voltron decks, and plenty of others rely on creatures. However, the Achilles heel to all of these decks is also their strength… the creatures. Creatures can be, and are regularly, killed. This forces creature decks to rebuild, which robs them of their opportunity to win.
What’s the best way to protect your board? Why, Teferi’s Protection, of course. But what if you don’t have $30 to buy a copy of Tef’s Protection? You go for Semester’s End. It isn’t a perfect solution and your opponents can make a mess of your lands and other permanents, but you can dodge a board wipe and come back with your board intact.
I don’t understand why this card doesn’t see more play. It appears as a Commander in only 846 decks, and in 4335 decks as a card overall. I can understand why in 1 on 1 formats you might shy away from this card because the fact that you need to give value to your direct opponent is a bit of an issue.
However, in a multi-player setting the cost of these benefits quickly disappear and Shadrix looks significantly more appealing. My play experience against the card has been in a small sample size, but the negative drawback of giving something to an opponent in a multi-player setting is very easy to circumvent.
You give a 2/1 flier to a player with a weak board state, meaning that you can draw or pump your team. Once Shadrix has a counter or two, it is very difficult to manage it through blocking, meaning it now needs to eat a removal spell. Those those two conditions can be managed through things like Mother of Runes, Gods Willing, or something as simple as Feat of Resistance. This card should probably be more widely adopted… but I think I have a few reasons for why it is not.
Ok, I need to come clean here. I misjudged these. Initially I thought these were highly underwhelming and weren’t as powerful as their counterparts from other sets. I was seriously wrong.
These cards are very good and should probably garner consideration for your deck, particularly since they are all really quite affordable and can go a long way in keeping your budget down. What has changed, you ask? The fact that these sagas have two modest modes and then flip into a creature seems very weak comparatively. But, I forgot a major point. I thought the creature was a drawback, not a benefit.
Whelp… turns out having something that impacts the board, even in many Commander games, is just good. Once the sagas are transformed, you can easily return them to your hand. There are countless ways to return non-land permanents to your hand including stuff like Temur Sabretooth, Teferi, Time Raveler, or even Chulane, Teller of Tales, so you can reuse these sagas. If that isn’t enough, blink decks that lean into Emiel the Blessed, Thassa, Deep-Dwelling, or just Conjurer’s Closet and Teleportation Circle can reset these and get more utility out of them.
So, the long and the short of the whole thing is: don’t undersell these sagas. They provide significant utility and are great budget tools for your decks!
I have often thought about what lands I put in my deck. We are currently at a stage where we are being given plenty of budget options for our decks that are excellent. My attention these days is mostly drawn to the pathways from Zendikar Rising and Kaldheim as being a cycle that is outstanding and ought to be scooped up by budget players everywhere. Yes, they are all more than $5 and some are closer to $10 but compared to many options these are bargains. Similarly, the slow lands from Innistrad:Midnight Hunt and Innistrad:Crimson Vow are also excellent budget options that are hovering between $5 and $10 and are going to be long term staples of the format.
So, that makes two very strong and affordable options to power up the mana bases for decks. The third option is the new Legendary land cycle from Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty. But with Boseiju, Who Endures and Otawara, Soaring City being already sought after, it is a little unclear how much some of the others will be priced. Truthfully, if Boseiju and Otawara are generating the sort of play that they seem to getting, Takenuma, Abandoned Mire really should be far behind. Takenuma is essentially a Corpse Churn stapled to a land, which hardly seems bad. Even Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance seems like a reasonable option to ambush attackers as needed. Clearly, we have now added a whole bunch of new tools to the game that will make our mana bases much smoother and consequently. Don’t miss out on these opportunities to give your decks a shot in the dark at prices that are fairly reasonable.
Once again, I need to admit that I misjudged this card. I had initially undersold this because I felt that there simply weren’t enough sagas to warrant a proper G/W commander. What I failed to consider is sliding Satsuki into an existing shell where you are running a number of sagas. 5 colour sagas/enchantress was my first reaction, but it could be simple as an Abzan deck playing Teysa to double up on death triggers and packing a number of powerful sagas.
Bottom line, Satsuki is far better than first considered because rebuying your sagas is objectively good, but what is even better is using Satsuki in conjunction to manipulate counters on your sagas to all sorts of great effect. Don’t sell her short – she can help give those sagas a new life.
I think the big reason that Shadrix is seemingly underrepresented is that he plays right into what I am calling Boomer Magic. I recently spent a night playing Commander and just getting trounced. It was like I was playing a completely different game where I had little real opportunity to win, or even be an impact in the game.
I like to play EDH games where I accrue incremental advantage over time, kind of like Shadrix, and leverage that to a win. I like the initial stages of the game where we set the foundation, and there is some posturing about who has what and how much. I like the ebb and flow of the game in successive turns as we establish who the greatest foe at the table is and make moves to counteract each other. I like how there is a moment that dictates who is going to win and the story we are telling comes to a crescendo.
Then, it usually comes down as the eventual winner consolidates their win. But every once in a while, there is a surprise victory that twists the ending in an unusual way. I like the story, I like telling the story through my gameplay. This may be a very simplistic way of looking at the game, but it is an accurate way to describe how I play.
Unfortunately, on this night of playing, I was playing Boomer Magic looking to tell a story when my opponents had completely different ideas. I never stood a chance.
More thoughts on Boomer Magic in the weeks to come.
Well, there we have some of my deep thoughts about Commander. I apologize that I jump around a little, but sometimes that is just how the brain works.
If you enjoyed my thoughts or have something you would like to see explored in more detail, please check out our decks and much more each week on our podcast on iTunes, Google Podcast, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere else you find better podcasts. Just look for the name The Epic Experiment Podcast! We’d love to have you join us!
Get all your board game news from The Bag of Loot! www.thebagofloot.com
Get all your board game needs from Three Kings Loot! www.threekingsloot.com
Welcome back to the Epic Experiment!
Boy, oh boy, does it feel good to be back at it after a month off. Off from the podcast and only submitted a single article in order to work as a director of a summer camp north of Mont Tremblant in Quebec. However, summer camp has come and gone. Now, rotation approaches.
Today, I thought I would share with you some of what the experience was working at the camp, from a Magic: The Gathering stand point.
In 2018, I was working up at this same summer camp when some of the counsellors expressed a lack of interesting things to do after hours. I suggested that we play some Magic. At the time, many of the staff didn’t own a collection but were willing to buy cards in order to learn how to play.
Well, summer 2021 arrived and I suggested a similar setup, in no small measure because the staff were completely isolated from the rest of the world due to COVID protocols. In previous summers, staff could go to the local village and grab a snack after hours, hit the grocery store to buy some toiletries, or make use of the local services (like the golf course) on a day off. However, 2021 and COVID denied the staff these simple diversions. So, they were looking for something to do after hours and playing some Magic seemed like an excellent option.
Eight counsellors opted in and we ordered a smattering of Zendikar Rising, Kaldheim, and Strixhaven. Three Kings Loot was also generous enough to provide some extra goodies in the delivery to help bring some extra smiles to the faces of the counsellors. The guys were all very excited and as soon as I passed out the boxes the guys got to work. Everyone loves the smell of fresh booster packs.
The rules were simple. Build a Limited deck from the cards in your pool, however I did allow guys to trade cards between pools. I figured since we were playing for fun… why not. But they couldn’t add anything from their regular collections.
The trading was almost as much fun as playing the games and the guys got right into it. The result was there was a very interesting deck from one of the players where they played every version of Heated Debate and Curate he could get his hands on. We had another player go to great lengths to trade for Landfall parts and to build a pretty formidable Green/White Landfall deck. I believe the competitiveness of the decks were marginally changed by the acts of trading and that the games still remained fun and interactive.
Another point worth mentioning is the absurd power level spike that the Mystical Archive cards held in Strixhaven. The fact that we could open things like Mizzix’s Mastery or Natural Order in your pool was cool, but also kind of scary. Seeing a T4 Beledros was pretty scary and was totally unexpected. I think, going forward, such re-prints need to be handled carefully because they do create a very tangible power increase and are challenging to balance in the Limited format. However, they still made the games fun and spicy, so I didn’t mind particularly.
Playing the Limited format also gave us a chance to see a few of the cards in action and gauge how useful they might be if we ported them to Commander. In our group, a Shadrix Silverquill, a Galazeth Prismari, and a Beledros Witherbloom were all opened and were bombs. But we knew that. However, there were some excellent cards that were able to see the light of day. Let’s have a check.
I would like to once again thank Three Kings Loot for so generously supporting our little Magic: The Gathering sealed league this summer. I made the staff members involved very excited and happy to spend time together. Many of the guys hadn’t been friends prior to the league, and over the course of the three weeks of August session, they became close friends. I provided hours of entertainment and was well worth the small investment made by the staff. Thank you very much and the staff can’t wait for summer 2022 to reprise the league and make some more memories.
Well, there we are folks. We had a load of fun this summer up, and hopefully we can make this a yearly tradition. If you want to hear more about my thoughts on Commander picks or any other Commander related topic, please check out our weekly podcast on iTunes, Google Podcast, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere else you find better podcasts. Just look for the name The Epic Experiment Podcast! We’d love to have you join us!
Get all your board game news from The Bag of Loot! www.thebagofloot.com
Get all your board game needs from Three Kings Loot! www.threekingsloot.com
Welcome back to The Epic Experiment!
I usually delve into the world of Commander, but I am more involved with Magic than just playing Commander. I am a teacher at middle school where I run a Magic: The Gathering club.
One of the questions people ask me is how do I teach new players? This is an important question because Magic: The Gathering is a very challenging game to pick up because of the complexity of play (not to mention the cost that can be incurred). I wanted to lay out my approach in the hopes that it may help steer players out there who are seeking to help new players, and to spark a little conversation around the topic in the community so that we can all learn and grow. Let’s have a look at what I have done.
As mentioned previously, I usually run a MTG club at my middle school but I have to admit, the last time I was able to host my club I was less than thrilled with my results. Unfortunately, due to me being out of school for a year on account of COVID, I have not had the chance to run my club.
However, I have still had the privilege of teaching new players how to play. I have two young sons who wanted to take part in daddy’s hobby. The experience of teaching my children to play has really helped give me some perspective about what new players may experience as they enter the game.
With both my sons, the basic building blocks of the game are essential. Teach them how to read the Mana Value of the card. What is power and toughness? How to attack/block etc? All of those elements are important. We walked through it pretty slowly because my sons were so young.
When they thought they were ready for their very first game, I gave each boy a stack of cards that were very simple. Vanilla creatures, ever-green abilities, instants and sorceries that were easy to follow. I had a similarly constructed deck, but neither of us had any land in our deck. Our land was set off to the side and on each of our turns we could either elect to draw a land, or to draw a card off the top of our library. This practice removed the variance of getting mana flooded or mana screwed and was important in terms of helping to make the game fun.
I started with my eldest son. He was keen to play and wanted to play with me, and so we set up our stacks and our land off the side. Each turn, when we entered into our “draw” phase, we could elect to either draw a land from the land pile, or to draw a card off our deck. This ensured that, if you needed a land, you always had access to it.
I was all about ensuring that he enjoyed his games, and admittedly he often won. The way I had built our piles, my deck was reactive while he had the creatures with evasion and cards that were more difficult to interact with. Slowly but surely, we built his confidence up and he was having fun.
The next evolution of my son’s development was where we built a scaled back deck that had the mana base shuffled into the deck. Now he was playing Magic properly with a 60 card deck, a mana base that was in his deck, and no more than 4 of any one card.
Unfortunately, this didn’t work as well as we would have liked. My son couldn’t understand why his five colour pile couldn’t beat daddy any longer. I tried to explain the inconsistency of only playing basics lands and how each new colour stretched his mana, but by his logic that meant he needed to add MORE cards and yet more land. Eventually, I had to stop him because each new loss brought along more tears. I needed a better solution and was wracking my brain.
It dawned on me when my son asked me, “Daddy, why do all of your decks have those funny looking cards?” What he was asking about was my Commander decks. Suddenly, it dawned on me how to help steer him in the right direction. The easiest way to walk back the number of colours he was playing was to have him take up a form of singleton format where his colours were dictated by a Commander. It was also very useful because it meant that he had access to a key piece of his deck, the commander, at almost all stages of the game meaning he could feel like he wasn’t going to lose a key piece of his deck to removal.
Brawl was the most expedient and straightforward way to get him up and playing. We immediately set about brewing up Brawl decks using commanders from Dominaria, namely Adeliz, the Cinder Wind and Tatyova, Benthic Druid. It proved to be a terrific teaching tool and one of the best methods I have encountered to help put new players in a lane and let them follow the lane to a logical conclusion.
Fast forward a few years – my eldest son is almost eight and his younger brother of almost six are now both keen to play. As I sit here tonight writing, my basement is littered with cards from their decks.
What struck me so greatly in watching them play is that they no longer need dad in order to make in game decisions. As we play, we periodically stop and talk about a certain choice that was made, but I try not to influence their decisions. Yes, there were plenty of mistakes, do-overs, and takesy-backsies. But they are able to make in-game decisions such as threat assessment, in game card sequencing, and combat with complex blocking and damage without daddy’s input. I was shocked as it dawned on that my two young boys could actually play the game, mostly on their own.
As if their game play wasn’t enough, they have started being interested in brewing decks, but don’t always have the requisite rare and mythics to brew exciting decks in paper. Fortunately, I have an MTG Arena account and between the two boys we have built a dozen different brawl decks. Many of those decks are far from perfect, but the two boys have developed a pretty good grasp of the strategy each commander offers. They are now finding pockets of synergy that I have missed.
Having taught my two young sons to play by employing small steps and using Brawl as a stepping stone has done wonders to assist them with building their skills. It will still be a few years before I am prepared to take them with me to an LGS to play, where the stakes are higher. However, the lessons learned here will prove invaluable in terms of me continuing to help them as they grow, but also when I return to leading my Magic: The Gathering club at my middle school. Let us hope that I help to foster a whole host of new players who are the future for this great game. Only time will tell.
Thanks everyone, if you want to hear more about my thoughts on teaching new players or any other Commander related topic. Please check out our weekly podcast on iTunes, Google Podcast, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere else you find your podcasts. Just look for the name The Epic Experiment Podcast! We’d love to have you join us!
Get all your board game news from The Bag of Loot! www.thebagofloot.com
Get all your Magic needs from Three Kings Loot! www.threekingsloot.com
Welcome back to more from The Epic Experiment!
Today on The Epic Experiment, my intention was to highlight some gems that are in the current Standard format, but are either underplayed or under priced. With Time Spiral Remastered being the talk of the town, people are forgetting how soon Strixhaven and Commander 21 will be flooding the Commander format. So, before we forget, let’s grab a few of these other hidden gems that you may be very excited to play the next time you play webcam EDH or (fingers crossed) in person.
On a recent episode of Brainstorm Brewery, Jason Alt said, “Cosima might be a better version of Rhystic Study in landfall decks.” Now, this is a pretty extreme position to take, but he may be right. The appeal of Cosima is that on upkeep you can exile it and make it very difficult for your opponent to target it. A couple of land drops later, you bring Cosima back and draw enough cards to fill your grip back up.
Where does Cosima go? Landfall decks like Omnath, Locus of Creation, Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Straight are all obvious homes. However, Cosima can do much more. One option is to include Cosima in self mill lists like Sidisi, Brood Tyrant where casting something like Splendid Reclamation could now be doubly impactful. Don’t forget, a deck like Nevinyrarral could also leverage Cosima because you can exile Cosima, wrath away the board, and start accruing value just by making land drops.
So far I have only addressed the front portion of Cosima. But the vehicle, the Omenkeel, is equally intriguing. Early in the game it is very powerful to cast the Omenkeel, crew it for 1, and then attack an open player to steal potential resources. However, it does indeed seem like a powerful option and one that probably bears more exploring.
I didn’t have a copy in paper, but I did have a copy of Cosima on Arena and so I took my testing to Brawl. The list I’m going to share has had very positive results and Cosima has tested extremely well. That deck is far closer to a tempo build looking to leverage drawing the game out longer and wrapping the game up with Ominous Seas and Kiroa Bests the Sea God, but Cosima, in both versions, are key to the game plan.
Drafter’s know that this card is a powerhouse in Limited, but is it any good in Commander? The testing of this card has helped me to see that this card is very strong and may warrant the inclusion in token builds. I asked the question, “Is Giant Plow/Ox actually a viable deck?” From there it was a natural discussion to build the deck using whatever vehicles I could find. After Giant Plow, Esika’s Chariot was the next biggest payoff and thus four Chariots were added.
Let me tell you, more than a few opponents discovered just how rapidly the vehicles can run away with the game.
Esika’s Chariot is extremely impactful and opponents often have no idea how to effectively deal with a vehicle. They often pack artifact removal, but they may not prioritize the Chariot and seek to remove other artifacts from the board. While the vehicle deck has proven effective in Standard to populate a 1/1 or 2/2, in Commander the value from populating a more punishing token is far more noticeable.
Entreat the Angels, the spiritual predecessor of Starnheim Unleashed, appears in 2% of all decks that could play it. The drawbacks to the card are numerous. You are very disappointed if you draw Entreat the Angels in your opening 7, or even in the first 5-8 turns of the game.
Meanwhile, Starnheim Unleashed has far fewer of the drawbacks. If you draw it early, you can foretell it and then forget about it until the later stages of the game. Yes, the casting cost is a bit challenging due to the double X in the Foretell cost, but you are paying for the increased flexibility.
I expect Starnheim Unleashed to see the price continue to decline. It may dodge reprints, but it may see even less competitive demand because of the continued decline of Legacy and no real competitive paper scene in the future. I would be looking pick this up in the next few months to be played in a whole host of Commander Strategies.
This week’s deck sees me thoroughly captivated by the idea of Boros equipment. A couple of weeks ago I built a list using Feather and treasure makers… well this time I went further down the rabbit hole of Boros equipment. My fear is that the budget version is a trap and not very good and that I need a couple of powerful inclusions like Teferi’s Protection and Smothering Tithe to get a leg up on the competition.
The game plan is to suit up Wyleth with cheap pieces of equipment like Prying Blade, Bone Saw, or Honed Khopesh. This way, you can draw yourself some more cards, and then leverage these extra cards to get the beat down. It is a simple strategy, but Boros keeps getting strong options to the point where it is hard to ignore.
So, without further adieu, welcome to yet another Budget list!
That’s all for me this week… Thanks for stopping by, and don’t forget to check out this week’s Podcast on iTunes, Google Podcasts, or wherever you find podcasts!
Do you have suggestions of what to help boost these deck’s potential? Then leave your suggestions in the comments below!
Check out The Epic Experiment podcast where ever you get your podcasts!
Follow The Epic Experiment Podcast on Twitter! https://twitter.com/epicexpcast?lang=en
Read more of The Epic Experiment articles like this on The Bag of Loot! https://www.thebagofloot.com/
Buy all the cards you need to set up this deck now at Three Kings Loot! https://www.threekingsloot.com/
