I've never played HS and this is still interesting. Seeing someone from a different background analyze a Magic card is eye opening to how I approach cards, especially in a more casual setting.
As a longtime magic player who has never touched hearthstone I agree. You are much better at it than watching Yu-Gi-Oh players play this game. It's far more entertaining because from how you talk the games are similar enough that you can easily think about the cards in a far more critical way. YGO players don't even seem to try.
@Sid The sloth I honestly have no idea what you're point is. You're talking about Oko being bad in a casual multiplayer format. I agree. I think you got lost in the sauce here.
Gotta love how PVDDR was explaining Oko and said "if you played the second one you'd remove a loyalty". PVDDR designing Oko as it should be since the beginning.
@@caseywellington4761 i think to balance it without changing the abilities, itd have to start with three loyalty, +1 to make a food, and -1 to elk something. And its still probably pretty good
@@nickthejack Eh, I don't know if he would have to start at 3. -1 to elk would mean that elking something right away with an empty board means the elk cracks back and kills him, but making a food should have absolutely been just +1.
As a magic player I have to say two things: 1: It is amazing how well you evaluate cards. Not only are you reliable in evaluating if they are good or bad, but you also tend to hit the finer gradient of somewhat good/bad or very good/bad. And your reasons why they are good or bad are also spot on. 2: You said that you would love to continue to do this, and I would be super happy if there were more episodes to come. This has been super entertaining.
As a magic player that's also played a little hearthstone, this type of evaluation is how you know this guy is actually GOOD at hearthstone too! His reaction to Oko +1 especially of "That effect alone is actually really good" then describes exactly the thing that every magic player hated about him, "Elk your guy".
the funny thing about evaluating cards in a game you're unsure of: a lot of the time people resort to fundamental knowledge and core philosophies (drawing more cards is generally good, a strong creature for a low cost is helpful.) his comparing and contrasting the Magic cards to HS cards is also a helpful key. Side note: I see this man here is like many souls, desperate to make the "worst card" in magic the gathering "good". Almost a fools errand imo, but the brewing does flex those creativity muscles, so who am i to judge xD
I mean, yes and no. Yes in the sense that he ended up on the right answer. But no in that he was as much judging the (to him) new card type as what the card itself does.
During the period from about Amonkhet to Theros 2 wizards just did not give a shit about balance, like at all. Edit: it was probably more like Kaladesh to Ikoria
I find it HILARIOUS that wizards R&D’s excuse for Oko being so busted was “we didn’t anticipate that it would be used solely to turn your opponents creatures into vanilla 3/3s” and yet the first thing you noticed as a player with almost no mtg experience was how good that effect would be
Probably because in HS there’re a bunch of polymorph spells that do similar thing, cost a lot more, and still being viable in their environment, making Oko incredibly op in comparison.
Isnt the 3/3 polymorph effect not actually that great in magic? Most of the "turn a creature into a 1/1" effects are pretty bad in draft etc because you are using a card to not totally remove another. Like if you just turn something into a 3/3 that thing still hits oko. The more insane issue with oko is just that its a 3/3 elk factory that gets harder to remove and can protect itself.
@@luminous3558 it’s a combination of both. Yeah using a spell to turn something into something worse isn’t as good as just removing it but Oko can do it every turn for no resource investment. You can spend your mana to cast things and use Oko to elkify something every turn. As long as whatever you’re drawing is better than a vanilla 3/3 you’re going to be ahead. And once they’ve finally run out of cards you start pumping out your own elks every turn/every other turn
Things like this famously happen a lot. Case in point. The Lightning Thief was originally going to be called “The Son of Poseidon.” Rick Riordon’s middle school student we’re the ones to point out to him that the title would ruin the mystery of who Percy’s dad was. Sometimes when you’re too close to something, you just don’t notice these kinds of mistakes.
One thing he forgot to tell you I think is that everything other than lands are spells. So any counter card can counter creatures as well as anything else
@@MashBrettato But that's how the dev want it to be from the beginning, a lot of casual players look at Magic and doesn't want to invest in to play because of how complicated the game can be. But for HS, it's more straight to the point, more linear so everyone can spend like 10min thru the tutorial and then pretty much good to go.
@@MashBrettato HEarthstone fullfills a completely other playrole than magic u can play hearthston between waiting times whereever you want with no effort of going into a hard rulbook magic has a far more complexe rulebook
I feel like this is the perfect evolution of this format. Do these kind of "single" format ones for a little bit, but of course eventually that will get less fun because he'll learn more and more about magic. And THAT is when you evolve to the "duel" comparison style, to keep things fresh and difficult!
"One With Nothing" Ahhh, the classic card that traps new and experienced players to this very day. It's like a cognitohazard. The flavour text is so perfect. It's such juicy bait that the only thing holding players back is the fact that, after over a decade and a half, we've tried everything and it's *still* terrible. I mean, look at it: 1 mana, discard you hand. Terrible card. Yet it even to this day it's a card that just won't leave people's minds.
It's very alluring. Until you compare it to Putrid Imp. Exact same mana cost and lets you do effectively the same thing, except you can do it selectively in case there's a card you don't want to discard, and as a creature it has the upside of creating board presence. And that card's a mediocre common.
Yeah well jokes on you I kept Blazing Rootwalla Blazing Rootwalla Vengevine Vengevine Vengevine Blood Crypt One With Nothing and you're catching 12 damage turn 1
It's not that the card itself is horrible, MtG has a lot of discard/graveyard dumb shit. It's just that LED and Putrid Imp exist and have existed before this so why would you ever play it
To be honest I think it was because it's a planeswalker. Newer/less experienced players tend to overvalue planeswalkers. It would've been interesting if he was shown a rather meh planeswalker first. But yeah oko is just ridiculous.
15:58 I love how PCDDR makes the mistake of saying that the second ability removes a loyalty, because thats what you would guess, because gaining a loyalty for that is broken as shit xD
@@dizzycriminal The entire problem of Oko is the tuning of the card. It is super easy to fix Oko, except we can't really change already printed cards. Just make him +2,-1,-5 and 4 mana, and he would still be good, without beign broken. Easy. Making food while gaining 2 loyalty is still good agasint aggro at 4 mana. Invalidating big artifacts or creatures is still a very powerful effect (it would be playable as a 3 mana instant, maybe even as sorcery in standard/pioneer/historic). And the cheap ultimate has never been the reason to play the card, just a nice bonus wen you sit thre with tons of food. But having him as 4 mana, rather than 3, and not gaining loyalty while elking things, there's a lot more room for him to be dealt with. Just playing him and turn a big dude into an elk, would mean the elk would be able to kill Oko alone. That is a great balancing factor. You need to set up some defense for Oko to make him do his thing. You can't just play him and he'll run away with the game.
@@Taeerom I mean, to be fair, Elspeth, Knight Errant was underrated when she came out for the same loyalty issue. The game was slow enough to justify 4 CMC walkers fairly easily and sitting behind tokens was good enough. 3 is just that magic number where walkers go from decent to amazing, much in the same way that bumping up boardwipes to 5 mana from 4 really hurt control in standard for awhile (though arguably that was necessary once we started dealing with planeswalkers accumulating value to begin with).
@@GrimoireM 3 to 4 become alot more relavent when 1 mana dork's exist, can't remember if they existed with oko though. his playability and 4/5 mana with negative 2nd ability would have been dependent on the decks that could suport him, pretty sure u/g had that titan and some other gross control cards while oko was in standard.
I like how PVDDR said remove a loyalty for brOko's second ability when it's a +1. Such a busted card. Edit: If I was PVDDR, I would have started the Tarmogoyf power level revelation with, "This card used to cost 200$."
He just did what every reasonable player does and the read the card like it should have been printed. Even if that was -1 that card would still be absurdly good.
Even if he didn't bring up price he should've mentioned the history. Goyf is alright now, but it was literally the best creature in the game for years. It completely dominated every format, revolutionized how we look at creatures, and forever changed mtg threat evaluation.
My favorite magic fun fact is that when it came out, one with nothing did actually see some tournament play, specifically as sideboard tech against a deck called owling mine, named for the cards howling mine, which causes each player to draw an extra card each turn, and ebony owl netsuki, which dealt 4 damage a turn to opponents that had 7 or more cards in their hard. these effects combined with cards that could return your opponents cards to their hand created a top tier strategy at the time, and one of the ways players would counter this would be to play 2 one with nothing in their sideboards to prevent the owl from killing them for a bunch of turns while the howling mines mitigated the downside of discarding your whole hand.
I'd love to see a video of this with a bunch of "You win the game"/"Opponent loses the game" effects. Try and gauge how viable they are to trigger. Can someone tell if Thassa's Oracle is more or less viable than Azor's Elocutors, for example.
@@hugobarillo5773 What he means is: from an outside perspective, is it easier to have devotion to blue higher than the number of cards in your deck, or to keep a creature alive for 5 turns? I would also love to see Rarran tearing his hair out trying to work out whether Door to Nothingness is a really good combo finisher or a trollbait.
@@Ceracio oh, I see well, that will depend on your deck building, since there are cards that can make you exile your hole deck on some formats. In almost every deck, there is a form of creature removal, but counter magic is more imitated to blue. Basically to win with tahssa's you just need to play at the right moment, azor's you need to keep on the battlefield (you can proliferate to get more counter on it, but it's easier to interact with him, interrupting the win con)
About the Force of will kind of thing: Spell is pretty much everything in magic thats is not a land. its "Creature-spell", "Planeswalker-Spell", etc. so FoW can be used to counter pretty much everything that doesn't say otherwise.
Counter is OP - especially if you go first, Blue is easily the best. My best deck is a 3-color Blue/Black/Red Nicol Bolas deck, and it's got ridiculous spells lol. Scry, Draw, Counter, Mind Control, Destroy, Sacrifice, Discard, Search, etc.
This is why hullbreaker horror is so strong - remember everything is a spell when it’s on the stack waiting to resolve so bouncing a spell is like a soft counter.
It's so funny to hear "Oh so this is ramping in magic?": yes, it's called that because of Rampant Growth. "Is Middrange a thing in magic?": the years of articles and game theory put into describing what is between aggro and control is mind boggling and it's amazing that the top players were having success with middrange in '02. Even good articles in '07 were arguing whether good middrange decks were ramp decks vs had efficient 2 drops for example and how we know the term today comes directly from these magic discussions! Also not hating obviously, it's very cool to be reminded that most card games are so reliant on magic's foundations :D
@@nidungr3496 Eh, bit different for DotA and LoL since they both spawned from the same WC3 map mods. They're more like branching paths from a common ancestor than one taking inspiration from the other.
@@nadoghost146 I... know that. I assumed he was talking about the modern version, though I guess that does technically have a '2' pinned to the end. No one calls it 'DotA 2' though.
Hearthstone player who knows little to nothing about Magic: "Oh you could use Oko's +1 on their creatures." WOTC's excuse for Oko's 2nd ability not being a minus loyalty: "Oh during testing we never thought about targeting opponents creatures"
Kenrith's Transformation, which is LITERALLY THE TEXT OF OKO'S +1, is in the same set as him and is meant to be used as a removal spell, how did they not see it at all
that's not even the issue, make food, turn into elk = endless tokens, trade their artifacts for your food tokens, it's a infinite value engine that works against all archetypes
I love the fact that you were so taken by planeswalkers that you absolutely nailed Oko. During preview season the card mostly flew under the radar, because people were used to planeswalkers doing slightly different stuff (drawing cards, outright killing creatures, having a game-winning "ultimate") and Oko doesn't really do that. Then it started being put into decks and it turns out it was the best Planeswalker ever printed and it got banned in every format.
There was some noise made (no broken planeswalker has ever truly been a sleeper since Mind Sculptor), but yeah, I saw this during previews and immediately went "so it's *+1* is excellent removal and it costs 3? Auto include."
Lol realizing it could be busted targeting opponent's creatures after just learning about Planeswalkers. Meanwhile wotc playtesting basically completely wooshed on that interaction.
@@Umezete As Jon Corpora's Pretty Deece notes, when you reach the market share Magic has, banning means nothing to consumer confidence, so why not make busted nonsense that will sell more packs?
No, you’re not completely right. First of all, Oko was not the first “non-standart” planeswalker, there were others alike, lots of them to be honest, like Gideon of the Trials/Ally of Zendikar, Sarkhan Masterless, or Narset Parter of veils, (And half of the WAR planeswalkers to be honest). They also lack game-ending ultimates, or removal option or even card advantage. But still saw lots of play. Oko was not recognized as broken, because his effect are super weird and confusing especially for standart environment, turning something into something else without any other permanent attached, is a weird ability for magic, I’m sure half of players firstly misread it as “until end of turn” effect, because it didn’t make sense otherwise. Second of All, Oko is not banned in “Every” format. He is still legal in EDH, wich is the mist popular format right now. And in Vintage.
Pvddr's One with Nothing bait is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I think Wizards of the Coast released design notes for this card. Can't find it right now, but designers were arguing over whether the card should be printed or not.
The lead designer on the set it was printed in tried to kill at every chance he got and in chat with the other developers he said "if this sees print as is I'm going to pound my head into a cement wall until I get a little scab" Aaron Forsythe who is now the vice president design for Magic responded a month later with "print this bad boy."
@@tymandude1510 “Contenders at Pro Tour Honolulu owe their thanks to Forsythe’s hubris. One With Nothing, in all [of] its glory, made its way into the sideboard of decks that season to combat the Howling Mine combo - builds that utilized Howling Mine effects in conjunction with Ebony Owl Netsuke, the deck would kill opponents by stockpiling their hands full of cards. The obvious logical response? Discard your entire hand.” -Rhystic Studies, June 3rd, 2017 Was just reminded of this while reading your comment and watching the video, and figured that the story was spoken so eloquently that I had to quote it
IIRC One with Nothing actually saw some play as niche side board vs a very specific deck (Howling Mine + Ebony Owl Netsuke) that killed you by making you draw cards. The deck could easily force you to draw 4-5 cards a turn and if you had 7 or more cards in hand at upkeep you take 4 damage. One with nothing was the only reliable way to get rid of cards to not die.
It's a card that makes you rethink the fundamentals. In a card game where card advantage means more options and gas discarding your hand for nothing seems ludicrous yet you keep second guessing since it was created by intelligent design where a good card in the rare spot of a set means money to WoTC.
i was also assume this card is good just like rarran. in yogioh,we have cards like foolish burial and that grass looks greener,all see tons of plays,both have been limited in ocg,grass has been banned in tcg.apparently that's not how mtg is working.
When talking about AEther Vial, I'm reminded of when learning the game I would hear the term "engine" and later on I realized that term is what makes mtg so good. During a match a deck's strategy can be around building "an engine" that produces outcomes and that is the greatest part of the game for me.
@@bransonallen2925Eh? YuGiOh tends to reply on one-turn combos, rather than engines over the course of a game. Hearthstone relies a little more on them, but it's more either modular synergy where each card works with each other card (e.g. Murlocs-style) or one big pay-off card at the end (e.g. Yogg/Deathwing) - it's quite rare to find a true engine card like Vial; they do exist but the game doesn't revolve around them as much as Magic. Pokémon is probably the closest, but it's still closer to YuGiOh/Deathwing-approach-in-Hearthstone in the "eggs in one basket" way, than accumulated value from one or two key cards over the course of a game. So no, while it's not completely exclusive to Magic, no other game comes quite as close to replicating how big of a piece of Magic's gameplay that style of play is.
Yeah I think any planeswalker would kind of read as insane when you first find out about them. I remember the Lorwyn 5 (minus Ajani) just feeling unfair since nothing snowballs quite like a walker and you can't doom blade them.
necropotence is even crazier when you consider that you're not technically "drawing" cards, the card doesn't say draw, it says it moves the card into exile and then into your hand, so players cannot punish you for drawing a card
It's no yawgmoths bargain but the difference in 3 mana between necropotence and bargain is big though. The difference is the speed of when you get the card.
@@MunchKING but necro potence was dominant in mono black ( the draw prize isn’t a thing compare to blue). It’s funny that the best draw engine ever are not in blue but black ( Yagmoth Bargain and of course Necropotence), just because they thought those card were balanced or just hard to play with ( which is true if you don’t implement life gain)
Something I felt worth noting: one with nothing did see some competitive play as a niche tech card. There was a deck called “owling mine” which basically had the win condition of forcing your opponent to draw cards and punishing them for having a lot of cards in hand, so one mana to discard your entire hand at instant speed could be and often was game winning against the deck
It was experimented with. But they quickl figured otu that it was still bad to pay one mana to discard your hand. You'd be much better off using any other tech card agaisnt Owling mine
Rarran reading "One with Nothing": My inner warlock says discarding can be good. This must be good PVDDR: This card is horrible Best moment of the video
This card isn't horrible. It is the very best card at doing what it does. Sadly, what it does, usually, is horrible. That being said, if it was to be free instead of B, it would absolutely see play in every eternal format.
@@Geroaergaroe the main problem is that lion's eye diamond exists, and you would usually use that instead since it's effectively -3 mana for the same effect. the diamond also combos with yawgmoth's will in a way that One with nothing just doesn't.
A lot of magic players stop at nothing to try to justify it or make the card good. It’s something that feels like it should work somewhere, but doesn’t.
Discarding your entire hand is actually sometimes an effect you want. However Breakthrough is blue for forces and allows you to pay more mana to keep cards. Being an instant is rarely relevant for this effect.
@@ifyouwantmoneythengivemeev8094 It’s an instant and the discard effect goes on the stack, which means whatever interacts with those things won’t work with LED. That being said, I can’t think of any discernable advantage that could possibly give, except maybe allowing you to discard your hand twice with a copy effect for twice the meme.
Seeing him analyze "One with Nothing" reminds me of one of those riddles where it seems like a really complicated trick question but it's actually just as obvious as it sounds.
@@oz_jones Trick question, white horses didn't exist during Napoleon's time. (Don't roast me if I got it wrong, in French the joke is usually about Henri IV and he was king way before Napoleon)
I was about to say this... I don't think he has ever played commander... EDIT: I got further into the video and he admitted he doesn't play it... So why say untrue things?
I avoid it, bc im a bitch, and am afraid of turn 3 losses from stax and combo decks. I like makin fun builds while seeing what others decks do. Otherwise i bring out the satoru umezawa for turn 4 blightsteel and no one has fun
@UCH4mSxECUAYKK2OQn0MqfSA this card is interesting. If the ace synergy or spades synergy is strong maybe it could be really good. You could probably make some cool plays with it if you build the deck specifically for it. With other aces it could be crazy, but on its own... Yeah idk. I'm gonna say it's pretty good
Magic: The first ever card game where the deck archetypes of aggro, control, and midrange were born Rarran: Is midrange an archetype in Magic? In seriousness, all in all, pretty nice vid. These are one of my favorite types of vids on this channel. EDIT: So there is another card in Magic that is very similar to Browbeat called "Risk Factor", the only difference is that you target the person **taking** the damage, it's an instant, and it deals 4 damage instead. It's the same mana cost of 2 generic and 1 red, but Risk Factor actually saw play. EDIT2: I don't remember if this was talked about in the last iteration of this video, but I gotta remind/say that most cards in Magic that have mana costs are spells. So creatures, artifacts, and enchantments are also spells in conjunction with sorceries and instants. So Force of Will is basically "Counter any card that isn't a land".
Risk factor saw play in a standard environment where mono-red was strong, and jump start also makes it a lot better imo. If browbeat was legal in that standard it might’ve seen play, but having the ability to cast it a second time also adds so much as well.
Risk Factor also had Jump start, so it could be cast from the graveyard by discarding a card in addition to the cost. Wich helps a lot with getting extra gas, specially if they make you draw cards and they are not relevant.
The risk factor deck was insanely offensive aggro deck in a format that could not deal with that high quality aggression. If Browbeat would have been legal in that format it would have seen play. In an overly aggressive deck its a draw 3 and thats just a very powerfull magic card.
Yeah risk factor was fine, though what helped was being two instances of draw or burn vrs one. It's much harder to ingore 8 damage or 6 cards than it is to ignore 5 and 3
I feel like the aether vial explanation wasn't quite right. Missing two of the major reasons to play the card. It allows un-interactive creature decks to play their creatures at instant speed. And it also allows you to make them un-counterable.
The Opponent also doesn't get to see what creature you put into play until they let the Vial trigger resolveso something like meddling mage can gets to choose a card name without your opponent getting a warning
He doesn’t have time to go into all the intricacies. Like he also also didn’t mention part of why Oko is so good is because it’s only 3 mana whereas the typical Planeswalker is more expensive.
@@draheim90 Oko being 3 mana was part of the information that was literally on the card though. The relevant part that he could've gone into is the existence of golden goose, making oko into a t2 play.
I'd love to see LED, Daze, Standstill, and especially Lotus Petal since the Coin in Hearthstone is literally the same card and it's "meh" in that game. Other fun cards to judge could include Vigor, Ignite Memories, City of Traitors, Flying Men, and Darkblast.
@@Skyblade12 Historically going first gave you like 53-58% winrate depending on the expansion and on arena it was even higher. The coin is good but couldn't outweigh going first. But I also preferred it when playing Rogue.
Lotus Petal is not *just* a coin. It's a coin that can be recurred and manafixes you and can chill in play before activation and sometimes have its body be used for something other than its ability. I think a better comparison to Coin (in terms of power level and usual use-case) is Simian Spirit Guide.
This was hilarious. And quite good guesses most of the time, despite some serious baiting. Not realizing Necropotence can be used multiple times is more of an oversight, instead of wrong evaluation, that I'd attribute to not being used to how cards are written as well. Add one more to the list who'd like to see more. Small thing I'd like to say about the whole "cards can't be evaluated for commander because you're only trying to have fun, not to win" though. No, competitive commander is absolutely a thing. Sure, the majority of the format is about rather casual and is not just about winning. I think the intent to win is a lot downplayed here though, and it's very much possible to evaluate cards for it. Not necessarily strictly on how good they are, but in what situations/decktypes. Then again, it also (massively, somtimess) depends on if you're playing casually or competitive, so it's probably easier to evaluate cards based on 1v1 formats.
Following through with the cEDH mention.... card evaluation in competitive multi-player is INSANE compared to card evaluation in 1v1 formats. Especially when you get an extra 20 life.
Its funny because Hearthstone players think there is Control in HS, but there really cant be because you cant counter in HS. What they call control, is basically just midrange with more removals.
@@alexandersnider734 to be fair, the definitions of Control, Midrange etc in different TCGs are all context dependent, both from game to game and even within a given game, and just because a game doesn't have counterspells doesn't mean Control can't exist. There are plenty of examples of Control decks in Magic past and present that don't play counters. From a super high level perspective, I think the definitions of aggro/midrange/Control fall into: Aggro - try to win the game quickly, before opponent can use their own cards effectively Control - try to stop opponent from winning the game, to draw the game out and overwhelm the opponent with your own more powerful cards, whether that's a big bomb or just out-resourcing the opponent with card advantage Midrange - do the opposite of what opponent is doing ie if they're Aggro, be the Control deck, and if they're the Control deck, be the Aggro deck. If you're both Midrange, it'll change game to game based on the specifics of decks, hands, who was on the play etc. This is without even getting into another major subset of decks, Combo, or countless micro-archetypes that could fall within those four macro-archetypes, like Ramp, Tempo etc. TCGs are complex! :)
@@alexandersnider734 well, you can play control with no counters, just eliminate every threat they play In Magic you must have counters because they are the most effective way to eliminate threats, but you could have something like Mardu or Orzhov control with lots of removal and no counters
@@Blooke987 Definition of these terms definitely changes from game to game. You'd have to see my surprise when my "control" deck in yugioh is a control deck because it tries to stop my opponent from killing me on their first turn, to then go kill them after their first turn in one go.
One With Nothing actually saw competitive play in sideboards - there was a deck that made both players draw a ton of cards, put out an enchantment that makes it impossible to cast more than one spell per turn, and drained the opponent for having a bunch of cards in hand. If you cast One With Nothing just once in that matchup, you were basically guaranteed to win.
yeah but one with nothing was just the only version of that effect. if putrid imp was in that small standard environment nobody would play one with nothing.
@@zecaveira1 it was true useless draft chaff from 96 to 98, when yawgmoth's will saw print and only really became really good when storm was printed, in 2003.
Honestly i wouldn't really call LED bad in a vacuum. Sure, by itself it'ss useless, but there are many ways to get use out of it, not just a few. And then it's broken. That said, i don't think Rarran has seen any card it would work with, so it sounds good. I also kinda wanna see more reactions to draft chaft kind of cards. I get the feeling cards showed thus far lean too much toward eternal staples.
i can’t believe you didn’t explain my favourite amateur fact about Tarmogoyf, the fact that if you use a new card type to damage it (e.g. casting Lightning Bolt (3 dmg) to take out a 2/3 goyf) that spell is “in play” before the spell resolves, the goyf becomes a 3/4, and no longer dies to bolt lmaooo
The spell is not "in play", but it fully resolves before the damage marked on Tarmogoyf can kill the Goyf. Therefore, the Goyf "sees" the Lighning Bolt in the graveyard and becomes a 3/4 before the 3 damage marked on it can kill it.
to be fair, i think most planeswalkers would've been evaluated as busted. The concept itself easily seems busted, especially if they aren't too expensive. Wonder how 7 mana ugin would be evaluated.
@@Umezete I remember like 80% of players saying its hot garbage, and 10% saying they weren't sure, and the rest saying it looks good and then getting downvoted to hell. We were all so wrong.
@@alexandersnider734 Complete revisionism. The first response was "what the fuck is a food token?" But after that everyone evaluated it as "pretty good." Obviously it was a lot better but even in the very first reddit threads about it, many people pointed out that they were worried about a 3-mana walker with 6 starting loyalty (which did end up being a major issue). Look at the top comments on any reveal thread from the time: "I already hate playing against him." "I know we are all wondering what Food Tokens are, but that +1 as a Beast Within is pretty powerful." "Can someone explain why this needed 4 loyalty and 2 + abilities, one is a +2? Because what's more fair than a turn 3 PW with 6 loyalty." "The fuck is a food token and why can he go up to 6 loyalty the turn you play him?" "Even without knowing what Food tokens do, this looks pretty pushed?" "Personally not a fan of all these 3 and 4 cmc walkers starting with 5+ loyalty after they use their plus. Making it hard to aggro them out. Looking at you t3feri and KCG and now this one starts at 6!! For a three cmc planeswalker!"
This is the best, clearest and most wholesome description of what Commander is and should continue being I have ever seen. Thank you. Many Commander players tend to forget.
Oooh, those are so much fun. Please give us round 3! :) I wish there had been a bad planeswalker before Oko. Also, Tarmogoyf's history is pretty interesting. From penny rare to so expensive that someone drafted a foil version in a high stakes game instead of taking something better in the format (Pascal Maynard at GP Las Vegas), to slowly falling off due to power creep.
I think Tarmogoyf is still the best creature in the game, but it's definitely having that title challenged on a regular basis. One of the reasons it continues to see play is because it's easy to cast and you can splash it into any deck with the right dual lands.
A comparison that I feel was missed was Collected Company to Call to Arms. The card has an extremely similar ability at the same mana cost. If you think about how strong just getting a couple cheap minions with some sort of advantageous stat can be-- you can see where CoCo ends up being pretty powerful. Tribal decks like Elves and Humans have used it to great effect and my favorite deck 'Vizier Company' utilized this card to assemble an infinite combo-- or it helped just grind the game out in matchups where the combo wasn't relevant.
re: necropotence - This was underestimated pretty badly at first too. Inquest magazine famously rated it as the worst card in Ice Age when they initially reviewed the set.
Only the magazine underrated it. It wasn't played until Black Vice was banned because black Vice countered Necropotance exactly. It's not a coincidence it only saw play 3 months after being released, because that's exactly when Black Vice was banned.
@@entothechesnautknight1762 it wasn't just the magazine the hated it. There were a lot of people that didn't like the card at face value because they didn't understand it at the time.
InQuest was notorious for their terrible card evaluation skills. They called Dream Halls the worst card in Stronghold, Grinning Totem one of the best cards in Mirage, and Jester's Cap got a 5 out of 5 in the same issue Necropotence was called the worst card. They covered a bunch of games besides just Magic, and I don't think they had many (or any) professional players on staff. A lot of players recognized the power of Necropotence, but were wary of running it in a field where Black Vise decks were top tier. Necropotence decks quickly entered the field after Black Vise was restricted in Standard (Type 2 at the time) and made top 8 of the very first Pro Tour.
I like watching these specific games comparison, because it is the journey I took in my TCG experience. Super interesting to see these evaluations. Side note, while I get that commander is a casual format mostly, there is cEDH where you are trying to kill everyone at the table as fast as possible. It would be interesting to see evaluations of cEDH staples.
and on top of that, there are various power levels in the 'casual' side, of which "high powered" still exists. Most people seem to think that everyone wants 3 hour battlecruiser games, where that is not the case at all.
I don’t really think that evaluating cEDH cards would be interesting. The fundamentals of it are just so wildly different from “fair” 1v1 TCGs that it’d be pretty similar to asking someone who had just completed the Arena tutorial to review cards regardless of previous TCG experience. Like, Dockside Extortionist would look like absolute garbage if you don’t understand how integral to the format fast mana is to the point that you can rely on your opponents that much.
1:10 There's also one other important rule besides "have fun" in commander, and that's "You must style over your opponents whenever possible." Because sometimes it really isn't about winning at all, but sending a message.
Watching my opponents gush over, and play their foil pimped out commander decks. One-upping them with custom high-quality hand-painted alters by some of the best alter artists out there. An entire fucking deck of Alters. I see your foil. I raise you, ART.
As a Commander player myself, I feel Elite Spellbinder kinda shit on Commander for basically no reason. Yes, SOME tables might just want to dick around and have fun, but I'd still say a good majority of Commander players, myself included, have the most fun by winning the game, which is much harder to do with 2 more decks at the table who could potentially have answers to your board.
This format is AWESOME. I like Hearthstone, Magic, Runeterra and this gueses just so cool to compare all these games. Do more of this, please) Also try Gwent)
So you open a booster pack, you're filled with excitement and that amazing smell of fresh cards fills the air. You're having fun looking at each card and the anticipation grows as you get closer to the rarer cards at the bottom. ...and then Magic decides to ruin your day with the one gold card in the pack being "Discard your hand."
Thanks to Rhystic Studies (I love his channel :) ), there was a synegy with "One with Nothing" !!! Back then some tournament decks played it in the sideboard to beat decks, which symmetrical filled both players hands with a lot of cards and then punished their opponent with an artifact, which deals more damage equal to the amount of cards above 4 in the opponent hands! :) And in that tournament time there was no other efficient card for discarding cards, so casting One with Nothing once or twice got you a really good winning change against those decks :)
The funny thing about one with nothing is that I was a niche card against a mill style deck around the time it was printed. The deck in question would have things that make you draw multiple cards per turn and aimed to counter/bounce your stuff and you probably would discard to handsize (7 by default). This was sued by black decks in their sideboard for that specific matchup. The saying was that playing it once would win you save you from a hard spot but playing it twice would win you the game. Rhystic Studies has a great video on it's design process and it's life cycle.
I’m still watching the video, but one thing to note about evaluating force of will, is that every card in magic that you cast is a spell, creatures, artifacts, enchantments, are all spells. So you can stop your opponent from doing ANYTHING with it. For future reference if this happens again.
I was recommended the first video and the one PVDDR evaluates hearthstone cards and I've been loving the series! I'm always a fan of X player being shown something from Y game and trying to see if its good or not. Always cool to see a new person's impression of things that you've been around for so long you might take for granted
"That effect is really good because you can just target enemy creatures" The guy who doesnt play magic saw it right off the bat but the people who are paid money to make the game had no idea Oko would be used like that.
to be fair hearthstone has a lot of this kind of effects,even some of the most vanilla cards are spells that turn minions into 1/1 or 0/1 so it's pretty easy to see the value when you're used to this kind of mechanic
Only if you take Wizards employees at their word, which seems like a bad idea. They could just lie about being incompetent very easily, because that is preferable over confirming their malice. Oko being so ridiculously format-bending OP means people are willing to open a lot more packs to get their hands on him. $$$ > integrity.
This is great content! And I’m not one to argue with a world champ. I do have to say though that commander cards can absolutely be evaluated for power level. There’s a ban list, and people legitimately do play high power or competitive commander (cEDH) and there are objectively insanely good commander cards. Dockside extortionist for example.
CEDH is still a casual format in practice as can be seen by its community frowning on metacompetitive plays like Pact of Negationing when it's gonna make you lose or surrendering before dying to deny deal damage triggers. Competition is about utilizing every resource available and your reputation is a resource like any other.
@@milanmach2379 how are either of those things metacompetitive? If you're going to lose the only time messing with who wins matters is if you're doing a best of 3 and someone already has 1 win. Conceding to deny triggers doesn't help you in any way, it's just being a prick.
@@CC-kp7ge no competitive game is played in a vacuum, there is always another game, reputation matters, and you play the opponent. Even in chess, you'll practice different lines against Magnus than against Vishy because they have different styles. If my reputation for Pacting turn 1 wins lower the likelihood the opponent goes for it from 95% to 90%, I should be pacting - 0 opportunity cost for extra win chance. If an opponent has to choose between killing me and getting their damage triggers, I should be conceding before damage if they throw everything at me so they can't simply expect their triggers from killing me - 0 opportunity cost for extra win chance.
About force of will, a thing that hasn't been pointed out is that "spell" in magic is basically any card that isn't a land. So it's not just like, instant and sorceries, it's also creatures.
I'd love to see him react to Nicol Bolas, Dragon God. The insane mana cost, stealing loyalty abilities, a minus that destroy a creature or planeswalker, and that insane ultimate, but in the end, a middling card. I think it would be very cool
It was definitely a good finisher in the Grixis deck, but unfortunately Teferi-5 (and 3 for that matter) were just better for that kind of a deck. Probably would have seen more play otherwise.
I absolutely love this series and thoroughly enjoy the back and forth! You have to be the most respectful / well spoken Magic Player I've ever encountered. The explanations are amazing! You have helped my wife understand the ins & outs of mechanics!
I don't play Magic, I don't play Hearthsone. I only play a little bit of LoR, but I'm still enjoying every single one of these videos! I really appreciate being able to listen to everyone's thought process and taking everything into consideration. Keep it up!
Browbeat still works in RDW decks, because you each effect is equally useful to that type of deck, so most of the time you wouldn't really care which of them your opponents chooses. Also since RDW already can put a lot of pressure on the opponents life, by turn 3 or 4 they would consider just giving you the card draw in many cases. But yes overall the Browbeat is too narrow to be considered a good card in general.
Yeah, many years ago is was sometimes a 2-of (ish) in Legacy burn but even then it's downsides were pretty huge. Opp is at 4, you cast it, they go "oh, guess you draw 3". Their turn comes around, they attack with 2 goyfs and bolt you, ggs, too bad that wasn't Price of Progress or Flame Rift etc. And opponent being dead to it and the card draw is almost guaranteed dead next turn is it's best possible moment and even then you're not super happy to have 3 lands in play as burn XD
It usually sees play in Standard anytime it rotates back in. You don't get to play Light Up the Stage, Grim Lavamancer, Cursed Scroll, or Wheel of Fortune in every format, so having a 3 mana draw spell is worth having in a slower format where you can easily have 3 or 4 creatures on the board. You don't even need to get them to 5 life. You just need to appear to have lethal so they're forced to play around Lightning Bolt or other direct damage. Can't just take 5 to the face when you're facing down two Raging Goblins and a possible Shock when you're at 9 life!
I wish you would’ve talked about the history and mentality about the cards, particularly Necropotence and Goyf, when they were released. It took a bit for both of those cards potential to be fully realized. It would’ve been cool to have him evaluate Lion’s Eye Diamond after One with Nothing.
Don’t agree at all. Commander is supposed to be what you and your play group decide it to be. If you want to be very competitive and aggressive and play just for the win that’s fine as long as this is established in the play group. There are a lot of competitive commander players and the format works fine for not just casual play in my opinion.
"That second ability seems really good because you can just target your opponent's creatures." Already more well thought out than R&D while designing the card
The thing to remember in magic is that a base creature has converted mana cost of it's power and toughness usually. So, a flat 3/3 will cost 3 converted mana usually. There are exceptions. So a 2 converted mana cost that will probably come out as a 1/2 or higher is great (on the Tam)
I LOVE THIS SERIES!!! PLEASE DO MORE!!! Magic cards are so bonkers LOL. Thanks my dude! You're a freakin' genius at content creation, I'd have NEVER thought of this!
A good way to think of a card like Legion Angel is that you are “drawing” a card with it, even if that card is just another Legion Angel. Control decks like them as finishers because they only take up 1-2 maindeck slots and replace themselves, and control decks love card advantage.
I don't play any card games strategy games, but thank you RUclips for recommending this video anyway. What a fantastic video concept, the card was presented and the effects explained so that people who are unfamiliar with the game can understand what it does and why, then you give your opinion on the card and explain your thought process based on how you believe it would potentially be used in a game you don't play, but can intuit because you play similar strategy games, then the other fella explains exactly how the card fits into magic and why it's specifically good or bad. Never read a magic card or hearthstone card in my life before watching these videos, but I felt like I could easily follow along with both of you, and never got lost or confused, which would be easy to do with a concept like this. Liked and subbed my man
i love that your evaluation of necro was the same as players when it came out, and force was in line with how players see it now lol. also yes, one with nothing is one of those cards that feels like as soon as they print SOMETHING it'll be insane. but that hasn't happened yet
Some cards I would like to see an attempt at evaluating are: Sensei's Divining Top, Isochron Scepter, Grave Pact, Phage the Untouchable, Serra Avatar, and Devouring Greed.
actually that last card was printed because in kamigawa spirits had a way to come into play from the graveyard, BUT those same spirits have always been garbage ahahahha
I only really play Battlegrounds so I don't really watch any non-battlegrounds Hearthstone RUclipsrs anymore, except you. I started watching only in the past couple of months and both your video topics and your energy that you bring are so fun. I don't know why the algorithm only blessed me with you recently, but I'm glad it finally did.
Fun way doing this: all the good cards have nicknames. If I said CoCo, Vial, Necro, Force, Goyf, then you would know what card I meant. Obviously not Component Collector, Vial of Poison, Necrobite, Force of Savagery, or Lhurgoyf. There's no nickname for browbeat or legion angel though. Oko sorta counts too because there's two Oko walkers but you still know which one I meant.
The funny thing about Force is that, if you're playing Modern, you're referring to Force Of Negation... You know, the "nerfed" version of Force of Will that's still amazing to play.
I'm always impressed with how good your analysis is on these magic cards, especially when PV is basically taking you through a greatest hits list of "Cards even the seasoned veterans got horribly wrong at first glance" - Even a card like One with Nothing, I think it's solid instincts to look at that and say "okay, this effect looks horrible, but also it's a big effect, so probably it exists for a reason... there must be some way this can be made good" - When the card was first spoiled, that is almost exactly what people thought would be the case... Turned out it's just the worst card ever printed, and might as well just say "Lose the game" as it's effect, but still... it's really interesting how closely your read on these cards mirrors the average player's first impressions of them
20:00 When Rarran says that Necropotence would be unplayable in Hearthstone I flat out laughed. The equivalent in hearthstone would be a spell for three mana that changes a Warlock's Life Tap Power to "Loose 1 life, draw a card at the end of the turn. Refresh this."
Collected Company is basically Call to Arms. It's a 4 mana summon creatures from your deck card. Super powerful because it thins your deck and floods the board with good creatures you put into your deck.
Would've loved to see Rarran react to Dream Eater, which on face value is extremely powerful, but saw very little play. Another "bait" card for non-magic players for sure.
i cant get over how perfectly you evaluated oko, a broken card that was notoriously underestimated by practically everyone, and then went on to say one with nothing is probably good these types of vids are such a treat
The thing about “from outside the game” effects, like Legion Angel, is that you’re only limited to your sideboard in competitive play. In casual play, you can look “outside” to your entire collection. So the number of Legion Angels you can hypothetically recruit depends on how many you’ve collected.
He makes EDH seem a lot more chill than it actually is 😂😂 Every EDH player I’ve met, me included, is extremely competitive. We just find really stupid ways to win the game.
This. My playgroups and all the EDH tournaments I went to in my LGSs all did Competitive EDH. If someone didn't combo off by turn 6 it was a pretty slow game (stasis decks aside). EDH can certainly be fun if you're just wanting to chill and everyone is down to play low power fun decks, but most of the EDH players I know prefer playing on the higher end of deck power.
EDH exists specifically so that all of the stupid, crazy, mana-expensive win conditions would have a format in which they could be viable. I've played so many games with my Umbris deck where I've stumbled into a weird combo I've never drawn before and milled my opponents out by exiling their entire deck in two turns, and that's awesome. My playgroup has a rule against infinite combos tho, I think they take a lot of the fun out of the game.
From a former HS player and current Magic player: please do more of this! Like... A LOT more of this! I find it so entertaining.
Same, my favourite type of those card guessing videos
From a former Magic player and current HS player, same. These videos are great.
I've never played HS and this is still interesting. Seeing someone from a different background analyze a Magic card is eye opening to how I approach cards, especially in a more casual setting.
Funny, I'm a former MTG player and former HS player
As a longtime magic player who has never touched hearthstone I agree. You are much better at it than watching Yu-Gi-Oh players play this game. It's far more entertaining because from how you talk the games are similar enough that you can easily think about the cards in a far more critical way. YGO players don't even seem to try.
"If he activate the second ability, he loses 1 loyalty"
Yeah, you'd like that. We all would...
@Sid The sloth Yes, let's make Oko MORE broken...
@Sid The sloth I can’t believe you’re complaining about Oko not being strong enough
@Sid The sloth Oko is bad in EDH. That doesn't at all showcase how broken the card is.
@Sid The sloth It's not a matter of it being easy to deal with, it's power level is insignificant in multiplayer game.
@Sid The sloth I honestly have no idea what you're point is. You're talking about Oko being bad in a casual multiplayer format. I agree. I think you got lost in the sauce here.
Gotta love how PVDDR was explaining Oko and said "if you played the second one you'd remove a loyalty".
PVDDR designing Oko as it should be since the beginning.
Even that Oko would be broken, but maybe less of a mistake at least
@@caseywellington4761 Yeah, then there probably wouldn't have been decks that splashed blue AND green to run him.
@@caseywellington4761 i think to balance it without changing the abilities, itd have to start with three loyalty, +1 to make a food, and -1 to elk something. And its still probably pretty good
For real. If his second ability was a -1 then he would still be extremely powerful, but maybe wouldn't have been so outright oppressive.
@@nickthejack Eh, I don't know if he would have to start at 3. -1 to elk would mean that elking something right away with an empty board means the elk cracks back and kills him, but making a food should have absolutely been just +1.
PVDDR’s ability to keep a straight face as Rarran gets incredibly close or hilariously off base is incredible!
You don't become a world champion by reacting easily haha
As a magic player I have to say two things: 1: It is amazing how well you evaluate cards. Not only are you reliable in evaluating if they are good or bad, but you also tend to hit the finer gradient of somewhat good/bad or very good/bad. And your reasons why they are good or bad are also spot on. 2: You said that you would love to continue to do this, and I would be super happy if there were more episodes to come. This has been super entertaining.
yes, I fully agree.
As a magic player that's also played a little hearthstone, this type of evaluation is how you know this guy is actually GOOD at hearthstone too! His reaction to Oko +1 especially of "That effect alone is actually really good" then describes exactly the thing that every magic player hated about him, "Elk your guy".
the funny thing about evaluating cards in a game you're unsure of: a lot of the time people resort to fundamental knowledge and core philosophies (drawing more cards is generally good, a strong creature for a low cost is helpful.) his comparing and contrasting the Magic cards to HS cards is also a helpful key. Side note: I see this man here is like many souls, desperate to make the "worst card" in magic the gathering "good". Almost a fools errand imo, but the brewing does flex those creativity muscles, so who am i to judge xD
This man who doesn't play magic had a better evaluation of Oko than the entire R&D team did.
I mean, yes and no. Yes in the sense that he ended up on the right answer. But no in that he was as much judging the (to him) new card type as what the card itself does.
During the period from about Amonkhet to Theros 2 wizards just did not give a shit about balance, like at all.
Edit: it was probably more like Kaladesh to Ikoria
He had also never seen a Planeswalker before.
If they did a blind rate this Planeswalker and had like 10 of them it could be very easy to misjudge Oko
@@AggressiveLemur That's true, he should have probably shown a different planeswalker first for him to compare it to.
I feel like he should have shown him 2 mana tibalt right before this to baseline a bad Planeswalker lol
I find it HILARIOUS that wizards R&D’s excuse for Oko being so busted was “we didn’t anticipate that it would be used solely to turn your opponents creatures into vanilla 3/3s” and yet the first thing you noticed as a player with almost no mtg experience was how good that effect would be
Probably because in HS there’re a bunch of polymorph spells that do similar thing, cost a lot more, and still being viable in their environment, making Oko incredibly op in comparison.
Isnt the 3/3 polymorph effect not actually that great in magic? Most of the "turn a creature into a 1/1" effects are pretty bad in draft etc because you are using a card to not totally remove another.
Like if you just turn something into a 3/3 that thing still hits oko.
The more insane issue with oko is just that its a 3/3 elk factory that gets harder to remove and can protect itself.
@@luminous3558 it’s a combination of both. Yeah using a spell to turn something into something worse isn’t as good as just removing it but Oko can do it every turn for no resource investment. You can spend your mana to cast things and use Oko to elkify something every turn. As long as whatever you’re drawing is better than a vanilla 3/3 you’re going to be ahead. And once they’ve finally run out of cards you start pumping out your own elks every turn/every other turn
People that don't play Magic can evaluate cards better than Wizard's R&D. It's sad that this is true.
Things like this famously happen a lot. Case in point. The Lightning Thief was originally going to be called “The Son of Poseidon.” Rick Riordon’s middle school student we’re the ones to point out to him that the title would ruin the mystery of who Percy’s dad was. Sometimes when you’re too close to something, you just don’t notice these kinds of mistakes.
One thing he forgot to tell you I think is that everything other than lands are spells. So any counter card can counter creatures as well as anything else
Another problem is that he doesnt told him that magic has shuffle mecanics
@@TheCotzi he did in a previous video
Hearthstone is fun but is so basic compared to magic. This video made me want to get back into mtg
@@MashBrettato But that's how the dev want it to be from the beginning, a lot of casual players look at Magic and doesn't want to invest in to play because of how complicated the game can be. But for HS, it's more straight to the point, more linear so everyone can spend like 10min thru the tutorial and then pretty much good to go.
@@MashBrettato HEarthstone fullfills a completely other playrole than magic u can play hearthston between waiting times whereever you want with no effort of going into a hard rulbook magic has a far more complexe rulebook
It'd be interesting to see a "which card is better?" side-by-side comparison of two similar cards
Claustrophobia and narcolepsy!!
I feel like this is the perfect evolution of this format. Do these kind of "single" format ones for a little bit, but of course eventually that will get less fun because he'll learn more and more about magic. And THAT is when you evolve to the "duel" comparison style, to keep things fresh and difficult!
I feel like that’s pretty hard to say for certain a lot of the time though
That could definitely be interesting. Do you think it would be better if it was just any cards, or ones with similar effects?
I think it'd be very subjective on his opinions though
"One With Nothing"
Ahhh, the classic card that traps new and experienced players to this very day. It's like a cognitohazard. The flavour text is so perfect. It's such juicy bait that the only thing holding players back is the fact that, after over a decade and a half, we've tried everything and it's *still* terrible. I mean, look at it: 1 mana, discard you hand. Terrible card. Yet it even to this day it's a card that just won't leave people's minds.
It's very alluring. Until you compare it to Putrid Imp. Exact same mana cost and lets you do effectively the same thing, except you can do it selectively in case there's a card you don't want to discard, and as a creature it has the upside of creating board presence. And that card's a mediocre common.
Yeah well jokes on you I kept Blazing Rootwalla Blazing Rootwalla Vengevine Vengevine Vengevine Blood Crypt One With Nothing and you're catching 12 damage turn 1
@@Beowulfgang_Amadeus Poggers I guess.
they are very interesting volleyballs indeed
It's not that the card itself is horrible, MtG has a lot of discard/graveyard dumb shit.
It's just that LED and Putrid Imp exist and have existed before this so why would you ever play it
It’s wild that rarran did a better job of judging oko when he first saw it than 90% of magic players
My exact same reaction, I was impressed how he nailed it.
To be honest I think it was because it's a planeswalker. Newer/less experienced players tend to overvalue planeswalkers. It would've been interesting if he was shown a rather meh planeswalker first. But yeah oko is just ridiculous.
I want to see Tibalt in the next one.
I think he was overwhelmed by the Planeswalker wall of text. If he was showed Nicol Bolas God Pharaoh he would have said the exact same thing.
Yeah. This card pretty much flew over my head until my Questing Beast was turned into a 3/3 elk.
15:58 I love how PCDDR makes the mistake of saying that the second ability removes a loyalty, because thats what you would guess, because gaining a loyalty for that is broken as shit xD
Yep. Oko would be balanced at +1, -1, -6 I think. Or if it was the same but 5 Mana. As it stands it's simply busted
@@dizzycriminal The entire problem of Oko is the tuning of the card. It is super easy to fix Oko, except we can't really change already printed cards. Just make him +2,-1,-5 and 4 mana, and he would still be good, without beign broken. Easy.
Making food while gaining 2 loyalty is still good agasint aggro at 4 mana. Invalidating big artifacts or creatures is still a very powerful effect (it would be playable as a 3 mana instant, maybe even as sorcery in standard/pioneer/historic). And the cheap ultimate has never been the reason to play the card, just a nice bonus wen you sit thre with tons of food.
But having him as 4 mana, rather than 3, and not gaining loyalty while elking things, there's a lot more room for him to be dealt with. Just playing him and turn a big dude into an elk, would mean the elk would be able to kill Oko alone. That is a great balancing factor. You need to set up some defense for Oko to make him do his thing. You can't just play him and he'll run away with the game.
@@Taeerom I mean, to be fair, Elspeth, Knight Errant was underrated when she came out for the same loyalty issue. The game was slow enough to justify 4 CMC walkers fairly easily and sitting behind tokens was good enough. 3 is just that magic number where walkers go from decent to amazing, much in the same way that bumping up boardwipes to 5 mana from 4 really hurt control in standard for awhile (though arguably that was necessary once we started dealing with planeswalkers accumulating value to begin with).
Back in Oko's hayday I'd hear that mistake all the time. Some things never change.
@@GrimoireM 3 to 4 become alot more relavent when 1 mana dork's exist, can't remember if they existed with oko though.
his playability and 4/5 mana with negative 2nd ability would have been dependent on the decks that could suport him, pretty sure u/g had that titan and some other gross control cards while oko was in standard.
I like how PVDDR said remove a loyalty for brOko's second ability when it's a +1. Such a busted card.
Edit: If I was PVDDR, I would have started the Tarmogoyf power level revelation with, "This card used to cost 200$."
He just did what every reasonable player does and the read the card like it should have been printed.
Even if that was -1 that card would still be absurdly good.
@@tymandude1510 actually facts I never realized that shit was a +1
in before he realises that most HS legendaries cost similar just that you cannot liquidate it :D
@@tymandude1510 Actually, I think that the "correct" version should be +1, but can transorm only YOUR food tokens.
Even if he didn't bring up price he should've mentioned the history.
Goyf is alright now, but it was literally the best creature in the game for years. It completely dominated every format, revolutionized how we look at creatures, and forever changed mtg threat evaluation.
I was waiting for "One with nothing" from the begining of this series!
And yeah. Amazing content! Keep it up, you and your guests are awesome!
Same. It's one of my favorite cards due to rhysticstudies video essay on it.
My favorite magic fun fact is that when it came out, one with nothing did actually see some tournament play, specifically as sideboard tech against a deck called owling mine, named for the cards howling mine, which causes each player to draw an extra card each turn, and ebony owl netsuki, which dealt 4 damage a turn to opponents that had 7 or more cards in their hard. these effects combined with cards that could return your opponents cards to their hand created a top tier strategy at the time, and one of the ways players would counter this would be to play 2 one with nothing in their sideboards to prevent the owl from killing them for a bunch of turns while the howling mines mitigated the downside of discarding your whole hand.
I'd love to see a video of this with a bunch of "You win the game"/"Opponent loses the game" effects.
Try and gauge how viable they are to trigger.
Can someone tell if Thassa's Oracle is more or less viable than Azor's Elocutors, for example.
With thassa's you just need the effect to go to the stack, azor's cam be removed more easily. Thassa's has even been banned in some formats.
@@hugobarillo5773 What he means is: from an outside perspective, is it easier to have devotion to blue higher than the number of cards in your deck, or to keep a creature alive for 5 turns?
I would also love to see Rarran tearing his hair out trying to work out whether Door to Nothingness is a really good combo finisher or a trollbait.
@@Ceracio oh, I see
well, that will depend on your deck building, since there are cards that can make you exile your hole deck on some formats. In almost every deck, there is a form of creature removal, but counter magic is more imitated to blue. Basically to win with tahssa's you just need to play at the right moment, azor's you need to keep on the battlefield (you can proliferate to get more counter on it, but it's easier to interact with him, interrupting the win con)
day9 has actually made a combo deck with that card before. i think the vod is up on his youtube channel too?
When they brought up One with Nothing, I was hoping it would lead into mentioning Barren Glory
About the Force of will kind of thing: Spell is pretty much everything in magic thats is not a land. its "Creature-spell", "Planeswalker-Spell", etc. so FoW can be used to counter pretty much everything that doesn't say otherwise.
Yeah, my first "this wasn't taught in tutorial" experience was when opponent countered my creature
Counter is OP - especially if you go first, Blue is easily the best. My best deck is a 3-color Blue/Black/Red Nicol Bolas deck, and it's got ridiculous spells lol. Scry, Draw, Counter, Mind Control, Destroy, Sacrifice, Discard, Search, etc.
This is why hullbreaker horror is so strong - remember everything is a spell when it’s on the stack waiting to resolve so bouncing a spell is like a soft counter.
@@hanburgundy4317 this is the most scrubquotes thing i’ve ever read congratulations
@@hanburgundy4317 Technically colorless is the best as it powers a truly absurd amount of combos.
I love the use of magic terms followed by "Is this a thing in magic?" not hating just impressed by how influential the game really has been
It's so funny to hear "Oh so this is ramping in magic?": yes, it's called that because of Rampant Growth. "Is Middrange a thing in magic?": the years of articles and game theory put into describing what is between aggro and control is mind boggling and it's amazing that the top players were having success with middrange in '02. Even good articles in '07 were arguing whether good middrange decks were ramp decks vs had efficient 2 drops for example and how we know the term today comes directly from these magic discussions!
Also not hating obviously, it's very cool to be reminded that most card games are so reliant on magic's foundations :D
Dota and LoL have a similar relationship. People talk about "jungling" or the "fountain" all the time.
@@nidungr3496 Eh, bit different for DotA and LoL since they both spawned from the same WC3 map mods. They're more like branching paths from a common ancestor than one taking inspiration from the other.
@@DeepVoicedDude DotA is the WC3 map mod.
@@nadoghost146 I... know that. I assumed he was talking about the modern version, though I guess that does technically have a '2' pinned to the end. No one calls it 'DotA 2' though.
Hearthstone player who knows little to nothing about Magic: "Oh you could use Oko's +1 on their creatures."
WOTC's excuse for Oko's 2nd ability not being a minus loyalty: "Oh during testing we never thought about targeting opponents creatures"
"lets reprint beast within into standard, but better and with 200 additional lines of text"
1
Still unbelievable that Oko got through development lol. One of the most busted cards in like 20 years
Kenrith's Transformation, which is LITERALLY THE TEXT OF OKO'S +1, is in the same set as him and is meant to be used as a removal spell, how did they not see it at all
that's not even the issue, make food, turn into elk = endless tokens, trade their artifacts for your food tokens, it's a infinite value engine that works against all archetypes
I love the fact that you were so taken by planeswalkers that you absolutely nailed Oko. During preview season the card mostly flew under the radar, because people were used to planeswalkers doing slightly different stuff (drawing cards, outright killing creatures, having a game-winning "ultimate") and Oko doesn't really do that. Then it started being put into decks and it turns out it was the best Planeswalker ever printed and it got banned in every format.
There was some noise made (no broken planeswalker has ever truly been a sleeper since Mind Sculptor), but yeah, I saw this during previews and immediately went "so it's *+1* is excellent removal and it costs 3? Auto include."
"Looks like standard card, no way this is good in older formats."
Lol realizing it could be busted targeting opponent's creatures after just learning about Planeswalkers.
Meanwhile wotc playtesting basically completely wooshed on that interaction.
@@Umezete As Jon Corpora's Pretty Deece notes, when you reach the market share Magic has, banning means nothing to consumer confidence, so why not make busted nonsense that will sell more packs?
No, you’re not completely right.
First of all, Oko was not the first “non-standart” planeswalker, there were others alike, lots of them to be honest, like Gideon of the Trials/Ally of Zendikar, Sarkhan Masterless, or Narset Parter of veils, (And half of the WAR planeswalkers to be honest).
They also lack game-ending ultimates, or removal option or even card advantage.
But still saw lots of play.
Oko was not recognized as broken, because his effect are super weird and confusing especially for standart environment, turning something into something else without any other permanent attached, is a weird ability for magic, I’m sure half of players firstly misread it as “until end of turn” effect, because it didn’t make sense otherwise.
Second of All, Oko is not banned in “Every” format.
He is still legal in EDH, wich is the mist popular format right now.
And in Vintage.
Pvddr's One with Nothing bait is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
I think Wizards of the Coast released design notes for this card. Can't find it right now, but designers were arguing over whether the card should be printed or not.
The lead designer on the set it was printed in tried to kill at every chance he got and in chat with the other developers he said "if this sees print as is I'm going to pound my head into a cement wall until I get a little scab" Aaron Forsythe who is now the vice president design for Magic responded a month later with "print this bad boy."
@@tymandude1510 “Contenders at Pro Tour Honolulu owe their thanks to Forsythe’s hubris. One With Nothing, in all [of] its glory, made its way into the sideboard of decks that season to combat the Howling Mine combo - builds that utilized Howling Mine effects in conjunction with Ebony Owl Netsuke, the deck would kill opponents by stockpiling their hands full of cards. The obvious logical response? Discard your entire hand.” -Rhystic Studies, June 3rd, 2017
Was just reminded of this while reading your comment and watching the video, and figured that the story was spoken so eloquently that I had to quote it
IIRC One with Nothing actually saw some play as niche side board vs a very specific deck (Howling Mine + Ebony Owl Netsuke) that killed you by making you draw cards. The deck could easily force you to draw 4-5 cards a turn and if you had 7 or more cards in hand at upkeep you take 4 damage. One with nothing was the only reliable way to get rid of cards to not die.
It's a card that makes you rethink the fundamentals. In a card game where card advantage means more options and gas discarding your hand for nothing seems ludicrous yet you keep second guessing since it was created by intelligent design where a good card in the rare spot of a set means money to WoTC.
i was also assume this card is good just like rarran.
in yogioh,we have cards like foolish burial and that grass looks greener,all see tons of plays,both have been limited in ocg,grass has been banned in tcg.apparently that's not how mtg is working.
When talking about AEther Vial, I'm reminded of when learning the game I would hear the term "engine" and later on I realized that term is what makes mtg so good. During a match a deck's strategy can be around building "an engine" that produces outcomes and that is the greatest part of the game for me.
Æther Vial
I mean pretty much any of the big card games operates that way, it's nowhere close to MTG exclusive.
Ah the Classic Johnny trope!
If you enjoy engine-building, you should get into strategy board games ("euro-games").
@@bransonallen2925Eh? YuGiOh tends to reply on one-turn combos, rather than engines over the course of a game. Hearthstone relies a little more on them, but it's more either modular synergy where each card works with each other card (e.g. Murlocs-style) or one big pay-off card at the end (e.g. Yogg/Deathwing) - it's quite rare to find a true engine card like Vial; they do exist but the game doesn't revolve around them as much as Magic. Pokémon is probably the closest, but it's still closer to YuGiOh/Deathwing-approach-in-Hearthstone in the "eggs in one basket" way, than accumulated value from one or two key cards over the course of a game. So no, while it's not completely exclusive to Magic, no other game comes quite as close to replicating how big of a piece of Magic's gameplay that style of play is.
I love the reaction to Oko; it’s wild how he sees that it’s insane so quickly, although it might be because he’s not seen a planeswalker before
Yeah I think any planeswalker would kind of read as insane when you first find out about them. I remember the Lorwyn 5 (minus Ajani) just feeling unfair since nothing snowballs quite like a walker and you can't doom blade them.
necropotence is even crazier when you consider that you're not technically "drawing" cards, the card doesn't say draw, it says it moves the card into exile and then into your hand, so players cannot punish you for drawing a card
But you also can't reward yourself for drawing cards. Which is more of a blue thing, admittedly, but is a thing.
@@MunchKING true
It's also worse when you consider you don't get to see if you drew what you needed until the end of the turn. Still busted tho
It's no yawgmoths bargain but the difference in 3 mana between necropotence and bargain is big though. The difference is the speed of when you get the card.
@@MunchKING but necro potence was dominant in mono black ( the draw prize isn’t a thing compare to blue).
It’s funny that the best draw engine ever are not in blue but black ( Yagmoth Bargain and of course Necropotence),
just because they thought those card were balanced or just hard to play with ( which is true if you don’t implement life gain)
Something I felt worth noting: one with nothing did see some competitive play as a niche tech card. There was a deck called “owling mine” which basically had the win condition of forcing your opponent to draw cards and punishing them for having a lot of cards in hand, so one mana to discard your entire hand at instant speed could be and often was game winning against the deck
It was experimented with. But they quickl figured otu that it was still bad to pay one mana to discard your hand. You'd be much better off using any other tech card agaisnt Owling mine
Why losing all your cards when you Can just destroy target artifact ? 🤔
One with nothing is actually played in legacy 8walla right now, it's still useful as a fringe enabler.
Rarran reading "One with Nothing": My inner warlock says discarding can be good. This must be good
PVDDR: This card is horrible
Best moment of the video
This card isn't horrible.
It is the very best card at doing what it does.
Sadly, what it does, usually, is horrible.
That being said, if it was to be free instead of B, it would absolutely see play in every eternal format.
@@Geroaergaroe the main problem is that lion's eye diamond exists, and you would usually use that instead since it's effectively -3 mana for the same effect. the diamond also combos with yawgmoth's will in a way that One with nothing just doesn't.
A lot of magic players stop at nothing to try to justify it or make the card good. It’s something that feels like it should work somewhere, but doesn’t.
Discarding your entire hand is actually sometimes an effect you want. However Breakthrough is blue for forces and allows you to pay more mana to keep cards. Being an instant is rarely relevant for this effect.
@@ifyouwantmoneythengivemeev8094 It’s an instant and the discard effect goes on the stack, which means whatever interacts with those things won’t work with LED. That being said, I can’t think of any discernable advantage that could possibly give, except maybe allowing you to discard your hand twice with a copy effect for twice the meme.
I was hoping for One With Nothing and I am so happy you reacted exactly the way I assumed you did
As somebody only slightly more familiar with MtG balance levels than Rarran, my immediate response was "This is garbage or banned. ... or both."
Seeing him analyze "One with Nothing" reminds me of one of those riddles where it seems like a really complicated trick question but it's actually just as obvious as it sounds.
"what colour was Nspoleons white horse?"
"Uhhh, dunno, chestnut?"
@@oz_jones Trick question, white horses didn't exist during Napoleon's time.
(Don't roast me if I got it wrong, in French the joke is usually about Henri IV and he was king way before Napoleon)
PVDDR: “Commander is for casual play only.”
CEDH: “.. and I took that personally.”
I was about to say this... I don't think he has ever played commander...
EDIT: I got further into the video and he admitted he doesn't play it... So why say untrue things?
@@Osurne it was obvious he didnt play commander before even saying it lol
The CEDH community is so much smaller than the casual kitchen table commander so I don't blame him
@@misterjoedickinson no one i know plays non cedh
I avoid it, bc im a bitch, and am afraid of turn 3 losses from stax and combo decks. I like makin fun builds while seeing what others decks do. Otherwise i bring out the satoru umezawa for turn 4 blightsteel and no one has fun
I'd love to see you get kibler in one of these, he can play your game in either HS or magic
Hearthstone Player Tries to Guess How Good Poker Cards Are w/@Rarran
yeah same with Day 9 he probably also would be hillaruous in this :D
@@Dazllingston that's real easy tho unless someone has 0 exposure to poker
@@ChaoZzBladex without a doubt, day9s troll energy would make for a great episode
@UCH4mSxECUAYKK2OQn0MqfSA this card is interesting. If the ace synergy or spades synergy is strong maybe it could be really good. You could probably make some cool plays with it if you build the deck specifically for it. With other aces it could be crazy, but on its own... Yeah idk. I'm gonna say it's pretty good
Magic: The first ever card game where the deck archetypes of aggro, control, and midrange were born
Rarran: Is midrange an archetype in Magic?
In seriousness, all in all, pretty nice vid. These are one of my favorite types of vids on this channel.
EDIT: So there is another card in Magic that is very similar to Browbeat called "Risk Factor", the only difference is that you target the person **taking** the damage, it's an instant, and it deals 4 damage instead. It's the same mana cost of 2 generic and 1 red, but Risk Factor actually saw play.
EDIT2: I don't remember if this was talked about in the last iteration of this video, but I gotta remind/say that most cards in Magic that have mana costs are spells. So creatures, artifacts, and enchantments are also spells in conjunction with sorceries and instants. So Force of Will is basically "Counter any card that isn't a land".
Had the same thought!)
Risk factor saw play in a standard environment where mono-red was strong, and jump start also makes it a lot better imo. If browbeat was legal in that standard it might’ve seen play, but having the ability to cast it a second time also adds so much as well.
Risk Factor also had Jump start, so it could be cast from the graveyard by discarding a card in addition to the cost. Wich helps a lot with getting extra gas, specially if they make you draw cards and they are not relevant.
The risk factor deck was insanely offensive aggro deck in a format that could not deal with that high quality aggression. If Browbeat would have been legal in that format it would have seen play. In an overly aggressive deck its a draw 3 and thats just a very powerfull magic card.
Yeah risk factor was fine, though what helped was being two instances of draw or burn vrs one.
It's much harder to ingore 8 damage or 6 cards than it is to ignore 5 and 3
I feel like the aether vial explanation wasn't quite right. Missing two of the major reasons to play the card. It allows un-interactive creature decks to play their creatures at instant speed. And it also allows you to make them un-counterable.
The Opponent also doesn't get to see what creature you put into play until they let the Vial trigger resolveso something like meddling mage can gets to choose a card name without your opponent getting a warning
He doesn’t have time to go into all the intricacies. Like he also also didn’t mention part of why Oko is so good is because it’s only 3 mana whereas the typical Planeswalker is more expensive.
@@draheim90 That's not true to be honest. There's a lot of three mana planeswalkers and already has been when Oko came out.
@@draheim90 if oko was like 5 i think it'd be mostly fine, true, but there are unplayable 3 drop pws, re: basri ket
@@draheim90 Oko being 3 mana was part of the information that was literally on the card though. The relevant part that he could've gone into is the existence of golden goose, making oko into a t2 play.
I'd love to see LED, Daze, Standstill, and especially Lotus Petal since the Coin in Hearthstone is literally the same card and it's "meh" in that game. Other fun cards to judge could include Vigor, Ignite Memories, City of Traitors, Flying Men, and Darkblast.
Isn’t the Coin great? I thought people typically preferred to get the Coin than go first.
@@Skyblade12 Historically going first gave you like 53-58% winrate depending on the expansion and on arena it was even higher. The coin is good but couldn't outweigh going first. But I also preferred it when playing Rogue.
Lotus Petal is not *just* a coin. It's a coin that can be recurred and manafixes you and can chill in play before activation and sometimes have its body be used for something other than its ability. I think a better comparison to Coin (in terms of power level and usual use-case) is Simian Spirit Guide.
Lol LED would be funny, given he just learned One with Nothing is awful
Raging river and camouflage would be funny
This was hilarious. And quite good guesses most of the time, despite some serious baiting. Not realizing Necropotence can be used multiple times is more of an oversight, instead of wrong evaluation, that I'd attribute to not being used to how cards are written as well.
Add one more to the list who'd like to see more.
Small thing I'd like to say about the whole "cards can't be evaluated for commander because you're only trying to have fun, not to win" though. No, competitive commander is absolutely a thing. Sure, the majority of the format is about rather casual and is not just about winning. I think the intent to win is a lot downplayed here though, and it's very much possible to evaluate cards for it. Not necessarily strictly on how good they are, but in what situations/decktypes. Then again, it also (massively, somtimess) depends on if you're playing casually or competitive, so it's probably easier to evaluate cards based on 1v1 formats.
Following through with the cEDH mention.... card evaluation in competitive multi-player is INSANE compared to card evaluation in 1v1 formats. Especially when you get an extra 20 life.
@@fromheartfeltplaces_4627 people still think mana drain is good in cedh lol
If winning wasn't important/was downplayed in EDH, Cyclonic Rift & Doubling Season would be $3 rares
"I don't know if midrange exists in magic"
Magic invented midrange.
Its funny because Hearthstone players think there is Control in HS, but there really cant be because you cant counter in HS. What they call control, is basically just midrange with more removals.
@@alexandersnider734 to be fair, the definitions of Control, Midrange etc in different TCGs are all context dependent, both from game to game and even within a given game, and just because a game doesn't have counterspells doesn't mean Control can't exist. There are plenty of examples of Control decks in Magic past and present that don't play counters.
From a super high level perspective, I think the definitions of aggro/midrange/Control fall into:
Aggro - try to win the game quickly, before opponent can use their own cards effectively
Control - try to stop opponent from winning the game, to draw the game out and overwhelm the opponent with your own more powerful cards, whether that's a big bomb or just out-resourcing the opponent with card advantage
Midrange - do the opposite of what opponent is doing ie if they're Aggro, be the Control deck, and if they're the Control deck, be the Aggro deck. If you're both Midrange, it'll change game to game based on the specifics of decks, hands, who was on the play etc.
This is without even getting into another major subset of decks, Combo, or countless micro-archetypes that could fall within those four macro-archetypes, like Ramp, Tempo etc. TCGs are complex! :)
@@alexandersnider734 well, you can play control with no counters, just eliminate every threat they play
In Magic you must have counters because they are the most effective way to eliminate threats, but you could have something like Mardu or Orzhov control with lots of removal and no counters
@@Blooke987 Definition of these terms definitely changes from game to game. You'd have to see my surprise when my "control" deck in yugioh is a control deck because it tries to stop my opponent from killing me on their first turn, to then go kill them after their first turn in one go.
@@zaifir8119 lol, sounds like that matches the definition for Control, it's just that Yugiohs 'late game' is turn 2 on the draw 😀
One With Nothing actually saw competitive play in sideboards - there was a deck that made both players draw a ton of cards, put out an enchantment that makes it impossible to cast more than one spell per turn, and drained the opponent for having a bunch of cards in hand. If you cast One With Nothing just once in that matchup, you were basically guaranteed to win.
yeah but one with nothing was just the only version of that effect. if putrid imp was in that small standard environment nobody would play one with nothing.
Yeah, but that's Standard for you. Plenty of bad cards see Standard play because that's the best they get.
It was tech against Owling Mine, but fairly suspicious tech at that.
Really love PVDDR’s card choices on this series. Now I’m curious whether Rarran thinks LED is good or not after seeing one with nothing. lol
I was thinking that when he showed Necro, I would also like to know how he would evaluate Birthing Pod or Gifts Ungiven
LED is a vacuum is pretty bad I guess. It was considered bulk for a long time before people started using it. Would love to see they evaluating it
@@zecaveira1 it was true useless draft chaff from 96 to 98, when yawgmoth's will saw print and only really became really good when storm was printed, in 2003.
Honestly i wouldn't really call LED bad in a vacuum. Sure, by itself it'ss useless, but there are many ways to get use out of it, not just a few. And then it's broken.
That said, i don't think Rarran has seen any card it would work with, so it sounds good.
I also kinda wanna see more reactions to draft chaft kind of cards. I get the feeling cards showed thus far lean too much toward eternal staples.
Notable that force if will can also counter “minions”. Good to see a hearthstone player learn about the cool magic mechanics. Join magic Rarran!!
i can’t believe you didn’t explain my favourite amateur fact about Tarmogoyf, the fact that if you use a new card type to damage it (e.g. casting Lightning Bolt (3 dmg) to take out a 2/3 goyf) that spell is “in play” before the spell resolves, the goyf becomes a 3/4, and no longer dies to bolt lmaooo
The spell is not "in play", but it fully resolves before the damage marked on Tarmogoyf can kill the Goyf. Therefore, the Goyf "sees" the Lighning Bolt in the graveyard and becomes a 3/4 before the 3 damage marked on it can kill it.
Guy who never played Magic knows that Oko is busted. Hilarity.
not sure how wizards R &D slept on that one.
to be fair, i think most planeswalkers would've been evaluated as busted. The concept itself easily seems busted, especially if they aren't too expensive. Wonder how 7 mana ugin would be evaluated.
@@zaifir8119 He specifically talked about using Oko +1 against opponents, which was very key for the card.
@@Kool212 that's true, it was very spot on, i still feel like the very first planeswalker you see will almost always feel kinda busted.
@@zaifir8119 7 mana ugin is also veryy strong tbf.
Great card selections PVDDR! It's worth mentioning that Oko and Necropotence were famously underrated by the MTG community when they were revealed.
Necro definitely, oko was more mixed.
Sure pretty much nobody said it was the best Planeswalker ever printed but alot did think it was powerful
@@Umezete I remember like 80% of players saying its hot garbage, and 10% saying they weren't sure, and the rest saying it looks good and then getting downvoted to hell. We were all so wrong.
@@alexandersnider734 Complete revisionism. The first response was "what the fuck is a food token?" But after that everyone evaluated it as "pretty good." Obviously it was a lot better but even in the very first reddit threads about it, many people pointed out that they were worried about a 3-mana walker with 6 starting loyalty (which did end up being a major issue).
Look at the top comments on any reveal thread from the time:
"I already hate playing against him."
"I know we are all wondering what Food Tokens are, but that +1 as a Beast Within is pretty powerful."
"Can someone explain why this needed 4 loyalty and 2 + abilities, one is a +2? Because what's more fair than a turn 3 PW with 6 loyalty."
"The fuck is a food token and why can he go up to 6 loyalty the turn you play him?"
"Even without knowing what Food tokens do, this looks pretty pushed?"
"Personally not a fan of all these 3 and 4 cmc walkers starting with 5+ loyalty after they use their plus. Making it hard to aggro them out. Looking at you t3feri and KCG and now this one starts at 6!! For a three cmc planeswalker!"
Not to mention Tarmogoyf, which was total bulk for the first month or two.
I made a lot of money of oko, unfortunately never got to spend it. since oko killed the local MTG community
Seeing Rarran slowly realise why Oko is so broken was a joy to see!
I don't think he realized that Food = artifact = 3/3, which would be easy to miss. But even if it only hit creatures he might still be good
This is the best, clearest and most wholesome description of what Commander is and should continue being I have ever seen. Thank you. Many Commander players tend to forget.
Oooh, those are so much fun. Please give us round 3! :)
I wish there had been a bad planeswalker before Oko.
Also, Tarmogoyf's history is pretty interesting. From penny rare to so expensive that someone drafted a foil version in a high stakes game instead of taking something better in the format (Pascal Maynard at GP Las Vegas), to slowly falling off due to power creep.
I think Tarmogoyf is still the best creature in the game, but it's definitely having that title challenged on a regular basis. One of the reasons it continues to see play is because it's easy to cast and you can splash it into any deck with the right dual lands.
A comparison that I feel was missed was Collected Company to Call to Arms. The card has an extremely similar ability at the same mana cost. If you think about how strong just getting a couple cheap minions with some sort of advantageous stat can be-- you can see where CoCo ends up being pretty powerful.
Tribal decks like Elves and Humans have used it to great effect and my favorite deck 'Vizier Company' utilized this card to assemble an infinite combo-- or it helped just grind the game out in matchups where the combo wasn't relevant.
re: necropotence - This was underestimated pretty badly at first too. Inquest magazine famously rated it as the worst card in Ice Age when they initially reviewed the set.
Worst card in Ice Age >> restricted in Vintage
They grow up so fast
Only the magazine underrated it. It wasn't played until Black Vice was banned because black Vice countered Necropotance exactly.
It's not a coincidence it only saw play 3 months after being released, because that's exactly when Black Vice was banned.
@@entothechesnautknight1762 it wasn't just the magazine the hated it. There were a lot of people that didn't like the card at face value because they didn't understand it at the time.
InQuest was notorious for their terrible card evaluation skills. They called Dream Halls the worst card in Stronghold, Grinning Totem one of the best cards in Mirage, and Jester's Cap got a 5 out of 5 in the same issue Necropotence was called the worst card. They covered a bunch of games besides just Magic, and I don't think they had many (or any) professional players on staff.
A lot of players recognized the power of Necropotence, but were wary of running it in a field where Black Vise decks were top tier. Necropotence decks quickly entered the field after Black Vise was restricted in Standard (Type 2 at the time) and made top 8 of the very first Pro Tour.
I like watching these specific games comparison, because it is the journey I took in my TCG experience. Super interesting to see these evaluations.
Side note, while I get that commander is a casual format mostly, there is cEDH where you are trying to kill everyone at the table as fast as possible. It would be interesting to see evaluations of cEDH staples.
and on top of that, there are various power levels in the 'casual' side, of which "high powered" still exists. Most people seem to think that everyone wants 3 hour battlecruiser games, where that is not the case at all.
I don’t really think that evaluating cEDH cards would be interesting. The fundamentals of it are just so wildly different from “fair” 1v1 TCGs that it’d be pretty similar to asking someone who had just completed the Arena tutorial to review cards regardless of previous TCG experience. Like, Dockside Extortionist would look like absolute garbage if you don’t understand how integral to the format fast mana is to the point that you can rely on your opponents that much.
Someone else can do that, but as pv said he doesn't play commander so he doesn't rly have knowledge about commander cards powerlevel.
This is so fun being a hearthstone and magic player. I love seeing you reason out what makes a card good or bad. You're definitely a talented gamer.
Man, we need like a whole lot more of these MtG evaluation videos. As an MtG player, it's fun seeing these from a new perspective.
1:10 There's also one other important rule besides "have fun" in commander, and that's "You must style over your opponents whenever possible." Because sometimes it really isn't about winning at all, but sending a message.
Its no fun unless you can one shot everyone at the same turn with your one drop Commander that everyone laugh at.
Watching my opponents gush over, and play their foil pimped out commander decks.
One-upping them with custom high-quality hand-painted alters by some of the best alter artists out there. An entire fucking deck of Alters.
I see your foil. I raise you, ART.
As a Commander player myself, I feel Elite Spellbinder kinda shit on Commander for basically no reason. Yes, SOME tables might just want to dick around and have fun, but I'd still say a good majority of Commander players, myself included, have the most fun by winning the game, which is much harder to do with 2 more decks at the table who could potentially have answers to your board.
Bein a grouphug darryl, only to ezuri predation and fresh meat when someone gets a little too big for their britches🤣🤣🤣
A Card to look at: Skullclamp
It's fun to hear people think about it.
This format is AWESOME. I like Hearthstone, Magic, Runeterra and this gueses just so cool to compare all these games. Do more of this, please) Also try Gwent)
So you open a booster pack, you're filled with excitement and that amazing smell of fresh cards fills the air.
You're having fun looking at each card and the anticipation grows as you get closer to the rarer cards at the bottom.
...and then Magic decides to ruin your day with the one gold card in the pack being "Discard your hand."
Thanks to Rhystic Studies (I love his channel :) ), there was a synegy with "One with Nothing" !!!
Back then some tournament decks played it in the sideboard to beat decks, which symmetrical filled both players hands with a lot of cards and then punished their opponent with an artifact, which deals more damage equal to the amount of cards above 4 in the opponent hands! :)
And in that tournament time there was no other efficient card for discarding cards, so casting One with Nothing once or twice got you a really good winning change against those decks :)
Paulo, please do Ice Cauldron and Chains of Mephistopheles in the next review. Just to see Rarran's mind melt trying to figure out what they do.
i was waiting for chains to pop up, god that would be hilarious
lmaoo Sylvan Library and Oubliette would also be good for this.
The funny thing about one with nothing is that I was a niche card against a mill style deck around the time it was printed. The deck in question would have things that make you draw multiple cards per turn and aimed to counter/bounce your stuff and you probably would discard to handsize (7 by default). This was sued by black decks in their sideboard for that specific matchup. The saying was that playing it once would win you save you from a hard spot but playing it twice would win you the game. Rhystic Studies has a great video on it's design process and it's life cycle.
I’m still watching the video, but one thing to note about evaluating force of will, is that every card in magic that you cast is a spell, creatures, artifacts, enchantments, are all spells. So you can stop your opponent from doing ANYTHING with it. For future reference if this happens again.
Rarran getting excited for successfully guessing is the best mood.
I was recommended the first video and the one PVDDR evaluates hearthstone cards and I've been loving the series! I'm always a fan of X player being shown something from Y game and trying to see if its good or not. Always cool to see a new person's impression of things that you've been around for so long you might take for granted
Yes! My favorite one of these! ...Mainly because I play Magic the most, but you know.
I love all these collab videos, please never stop making them!
Man, now I’m kinda wanting to see Rarran try Magic with how much fun he’s been having while learning all these cards
"That effect is really good because you can just target enemy creatures"
The guy who doesnt play magic saw it right off the bat but the people who are paid money to make the game had no idea Oko would be used like that.
to be fair hearthstone has a lot of this kind of effects,even some of the most vanilla cards are spells that turn minions into 1/1 or 0/1 so it's pretty easy to see the value when you're used to this kind of mechanic
Only if you take Wizards employees at their word, which seems like a bad idea. They could just lie about being incompetent very easily, because that is preferable over confirming their malice. Oko being so ridiculously format-bending OP means people are willing to open a lot more packs to get their hands on him. $$$ > integrity.
Also the same guy that said necropotence was bad and didn't realize you could draw more than one. Don't give him too much credit here
That's the obvious use though... What's the other option? Converting 1/1s to 3/3s one a turn is very slow growth
The rumor is it was supposed to be a -1 not a +1. Which would still be strong.
This is great content! And I’m not one to argue with a world champ. I do have to say though that commander cards can absolutely be evaluated for power level. There’s a ban list, and people legitimately do play high power or competitive commander (cEDH) and there are objectively insanely good commander cards. Dockside extortionist for example.
CEDH is still a casual format in practice as can be seen by its community frowning on metacompetitive plays like Pact of Negationing when it's gonna make you lose or surrendering before dying to deny deal damage triggers. Competition is about utilizing every resource available and your reputation is a resource like any other.
@@milanmach2379 how are either of those things metacompetitive? If you're going to lose the only time messing with who wins matters is if you're doing a best of 3 and someone already has 1 win. Conceding to deny triggers doesn't help you in any way, it's just being a prick.
@@CC-kp7ge no competitive game is played in a vacuum, there is always another game, reputation matters, and you play the opponent. Even in chess, you'll practice different lines against Magnus than against Vishy because they have different styles.
If my reputation for Pacting turn 1 wins lower the likelihood the opponent goes for it from 95% to 90%, I should be pacting - 0 opportunity cost for extra win chance. If an opponent has to choose between killing me and getting their damage triggers, I should be conceding before damage if they throw everything at me so they can't simply expect their triggers from killing me - 0 opportunity cost for extra win chance.
@@milanmach2379 how do you know that it increases your chance of winning? If you were in my pod I'd go to take you out first
@@CC-kp7ge so you would play suboptimally to punish optimizing plays and still wonder why is cEDH a casual format?
About force of will, a thing that hasn't been pointed out is that "spell" in magic is basically any card that isn't a land. So it's not just like, instant and sorceries, it's also creatures.
Definitely understated how good aethervial is when it gets around counters and let's you play at instant speed.
I'd love to see him react to Nicol Bolas, Dragon God. The insane mana cost, stealing loyalty abilities, a minus that destroy a creature or planeswalker, and that insane ultimate, but in the end, a middling card. I think it would be very cool
Saw some play in WotS to counter a bunch of Planeswalkers, but ya, never really meta defining.
It was definitely a good finisher in the Grixis deck, but unfortunately Teferi-5 (and 3 for that matter) were just better for that kind of a deck. Probably would have seen more play otherwise.
Effect: "You can't lose the game"
"Well, this card doesn't really help you to not lose the game..."
I absolutely love this series and thoroughly enjoy the back and forth!
You have to be the most respectful / well spoken Magic Player I've ever encountered.
The explanations are amazing! You have helped my wife understand the ins & outs of mechanics!
I don't play Magic, I don't play Hearthsone. I only play a little bit of LoR, but I'm still enjoying every single one of these videos! I really appreciate being able to listen to everyone's thought process and taking everything into consideration. Keep it up!
Browbeat still works in RDW decks, because you each effect is equally useful to that type of deck, so most of the time you wouldn't really care which of them your opponents chooses. Also since RDW already can put a lot of pressure on the opponents life, by turn 3 or 4 they would consider just giving you the card draw in many cases.
But yes overall the Browbeat is too narrow to be considered a good card in general.
Yeah, many years ago is was sometimes a 2-of (ish) in Legacy burn but even then it's downsides were pretty huge. Opp is at 4, you cast it, they go "oh, guess you draw 3". Their turn comes around, they attack with 2 goyfs and bolt you, ggs, too bad that wasn't Price of Progress or Flame Rift etc.
And opponent being dead to it and the card draw is almost guaranteed dead next turn is it's best possible moment and even then you're not super happy to have 3 lands in play as burn XD
It usually sees play in Standard anytime it rotates back in. You don't get to play Light Up the Stage, Grim Lavamancer, Cursed Scroll, or Wheel of Fortune in every format, so having a 3 mana draw spell is worth having in a slower format where you can easily have 3 or 4 creatures on the board. You don't even need to get them to 5 life. You just need to appear to have lethal so they're forced to play around Lightning Bolt or other direct damage.
Can't just take 5 to the face when you're facing down two Raging Goblins and a possible Shock when you're at 9 life!
I wish you would’ve talked about the history and mentality about the cards, particularly Necropotence and Goyf, when they were released. It took a bit for both of those cards potential to be fully realized. It would’ve been cool to have him evaluate Lion’s Eye Diamond after One with Nothing.
Don’t agree at all. Commander is supposed to be what you and your play group decide it to be. If you want to be very competitive and aggressive and play just for the win that’s fine as long as this is established in the play group. There are a lot of competitive commander players and the format works fine for not just casual play in my opinion.
"That second ability seems really good because you can just target your opponent's creatures."
Already more well thought out than R&D while designing the card
The thing to remember in magic is that a base creature has converted mana cost of it's power and toughness usually. So, a flat 3/3 will cost 3 converted mana usually. There are exceptions. So a 2 converted mana cost that will probably come out as a 1/2 or higher is great (on the Tam)
I LOVE THIS SERIES!!! PLEASE DO MORE!!! Magic cards are so bonkers LOL. Thanks my dude! You're a freakin' genius at content creation, I'd have NEVER thought of this!
Ohhh been looking forward to this! “Uploaded 1 minute ago”
Just want to reinforce the sentiment that you two should do more of these videos
A good way to think of a card like Legion Angel is that you are “drawing” a card with it, even if that card is just another Legion Angel. Control decks like them as finishers because they only take up 1-2 maindeck slots and replace themselves, and control decks love card advantage.
Well with Giada as a prime angel, plus pearl medallion being a staple in mono-white, i feel like especially now legion angel is a bit better
I don't play any card games strategy games, but thank you RUclips for recommending this video anyway.
What a fantastic video concept, the card was presented and the effects explained so that people who are unfamiliar with the game can understand what it does and why, then you give your opinion on the card and explain your thought process based on how you believe it would potentially be used in a game you don't play, but can intuit because you play similar strategy games, then the other fella explains exactly how the card fits into magic and why it's specifically good or bad. Never read a magic card or hearthstone card in my life before watching these videos, but I felt like I could easily follow along with both of you, and never got lost or confused, which would be easy to do with a concept like this. Liked and subbed my man
i love that your evaluation of necro was the same as players when it came out, and force was in line with how players see it now lol. also yes, one with nothing is one of those cards that feels like as soon as they print SOMETHING it'll be insane. but that hasn't happened yet
Man, this series is so entertaining. Please keep doing these!
Some cards I would like to see an attempt at evaluating are: Sensei's Divining Top, Isochron Scepter, Grave Pact, Phage the Untouchable, Serra Avatar, and Devouring Greed.
uuuuuuuuh i can se some serious baits in here
@@christiansandrini96 But of course
Necropotence would be broken in HS too, even without the whole graveyard/exile mechanic that does not exist in HS. Pay 20 life: draw 20 is broken AF.
actually that last card was printed because in kamigawa spirits had a way to come into play from the graveyard, BUT those same spirits have always been garbage ahahahha
I only really play Battlegrounds so I don't really watch any non-battlegrounds Hearthstone RUclipsrs anymore, except you. I started watching only in the past couple of months and both your video topics and your energy that you bring are so fun. I don't know why the algorithm only blessed me with you recently, but I'm glad it finally did.
Fun way doing this: all the good cards have nicknames. If I said CoCo, Vial, Necro, Force, Goyf, then you would know what card I meant. Obviously not Component Collector, Vial of Poison, Necrobite, Force of Savagery, or Lhurgoyf. There's no nickname for browbeat or legion angel though. Oko sorta counts too because there's two Oko walkers but you still know which one I meant.
My friends have always called Oko Broko (you know, because he's broken)
Next up Bob, BOP, Bolt.
The funny thing about Force is that, if you're playing Modern, you're referring to Force Of Negation...
You know, the "nerfed" version of Force of Will that's still amazing to play.
I'm always impressed with how good your analysis is on these magic cards, especially when PV is basically taking you through a greatest hits list of "Cards even the seasoned veterans got horribly wrong at first glance" - Even a card like One with Nothing, I think it's solid instincts to look at that and say "okay, this effect looks horrible, but also it's a big effect, so probably it exists for a reason... there must be some way this can be made good" - When the card was first spoiled, that is almost exactly what people thought would be the case...
Turned out it's just the worst card ever printed, and might as well just say "Lose the game" as it's effect, but still... it's really interesting how closely your read on these cards mirrors the average player's first impressions of them
20:00 When Rarran says that Necropotence would be unplayable in Hearthstone I flat out laughed. The equivalent in hearthstone would be a spell for three mana that changes a Warlock's Life Tap Power to "Loose 1 life, draw a card at the end of the turn. Refresh this."
That's a fantastic comparison
It's because he didn't realize you could activate it more than once. If he knew that, he'd realize it was broken.
Love seeing stuff like this because I get to see someone else's perspective and get to hear how they think about these cards.
Collected Company is basically Call to Arms. It's a 4 mana summon creatures from your deck card. Super powerful because it thins your deck and floods the board with good creatures you put into your deck.
this is easily the best series you´ve ever done, mtg is such a brilliant game
Would've loved to see Rarran react to Dream Eater, which on face value is extremely powerful, but saw very little play. Another "bait" card for non-magic players for sure.
Un-sets would be great too
Dream Eater was a fine card for Standard, it just didn’t have a home in the rotation. Cards like it have seen play in the past.
I want to know what he thinks about show and tell
Aw I loved playing Dream Eater :( RIP Ravnica, those were the days
I'd love to watch you play a game on magic online with PV coaching you through it
i cant get over how perfectly you evaluated oko, a broken card that was notoriously underestimated by practically everyone, and then went on to say one with nothing is probably good
these types of vids are such a treat
Me, a Magic player: "This card looks pretty good"
PVDDR: "This card is bad"
Me: "Yeah this card sucks"
The thing about “from outside the game” effects, like Legion Angel, is that you’re only limited to your sideboard in competitive play. In casual play, you can look “outside” to your entire collection. So the number of Legion Angels you can hypothetically recruit depends on how many you’ve collected.
He makes EDH seem a lot more chill than it actually is 😂😂 Every EDH player I’ve met, me included, is extremely competitive. We just find really stupid ways to win the game.
This. My playgroups and all the EDH tournaments I went to in my LGSs all did Competitive EDH. If someone didn't combo off by turn 6 it was a pretty slow game (stasis decks aside). EDH can certainly be fun if you're just wanting to chill and everyone is down to play low power fun decks, but most of the EDH players I know prefer playing on the higher end of deck power.
I was looking to see if anyone said anything. I hardly call infinite combos casual fun.
EDH exists specifically so that all of the stupid, crazy, mana-expensive win conditions would have a format in which they could be viable. I've played so many games with my Umbris deck where I've stumbled into a weird combo I've never drawn before and milled my opponents out by exiling their entire deck in two turns, and that's awesome. My playgroup has a rule against infinite combos tho, I think they take a lot of the fun out of the game.
Commander is either cup tribal or convoluted combo, depending on the play group
I absolutely love this content. Do 100 more and I’d watch.
Fascinating indeed, wish there would be more episodes of it.
15:45 Hahaha Oko's +1 is so broken that even PVDDR thinks it's a -1 :D