I relate to that idea of having a deck you've built basically go through a schism, where it's two themes that were supposed to compliment or fill out one another suddenly begin competing for attention in the deck. I have a particular pile of black, green and blue graveyard shenanigans that's seen every commander under the sun as it's pilot. It's currently host to a Meren pile, but Savra really feels like a maliciously good commander to be super oppressive control. If I ever solve the ratios of recursion, draw and win cons to make Savra not a diminishing resource-sink, it might just become the deck's currently 5th incarnation. If you do go through with the idea of splitting goad from your Tymna/Jeska deck, but still want to play goad in Mardu, I can't recommend Queen Marchesa enough. Monarchy is a really good theme to go alongside goad, because it serves two purposes. When you are the monarch and you force everyone to swivel around you, you're getting really great advantage off of those draws. When you're not the monarch, not only does the allure of regicide already a form of indirect goad in itself, but goad itself is also super good at basically rolling down the red carpet for you to come steal the monarchy, which Marchesa enables with the assassins. I loved that deck, but I built it too early, when I wasn't still aware of what I was doing. I might need to go put that back together. I tend to not be too stuck on the idea of trying to be unique with my Commander choices, mostly just because I am still fairly inexperienced with the game, but a new commander in Duskmourn that has really excited me and got me wanting to try something new was The Master of Keys. I was originally just supposed to make a dumb "Haunted House" theme-deck for Halloween, but I actually really got interested in this card's design. Turning a dredge-package into an enchantment strategy is something I've never really played around with, so I wanna see how it would work out.
I've been lovingly polishing an Etrata, Deadly Fugitive deck that's themed not around theft but *ransom* The idea is I'm stacking exile-then-return-to-owner options so that I can use the ability to return someone's card to them *on the battlefield* as a bargaining chip.
I like how unique you make your decks, I’m not sure if I could handle this much control though, I’ve gotten where I don’t really long games in commander anymore.
I knew you were one of my favorite MTG RUclipsr when you said you love the Goad mechanic I recently made your TJ’s fight club and it’s been such a blast. Thank you Trinket
Your Heliod deck is the coolest idea I have heard for a dech in a long time. As someone who started in Theros block, I will definitely be giving this strategy a go as a homage to my favorite set.
I love hearing you talk about Mina and Denn. I saw the video of you talking about them a year ago. Was the first video I saw of yours. It’s always clear you truly love that deck
One of my new favorite decks I just built is my new Nihiloor monarch/initiative value deck. I've been enjoying it so much because it's one of the first non commander-centric decks I've built, as I've definitely built a bit too commander centric in the past and just wanted a deck that felt more unique. The deck balances the main theme of both initiative and monarch with a blink and theft sub theme and ots been so fun to play.
Thank you for making this video. This video inspired me- building around a card in the 99 or a general strategy rather than a Commander is something I definitely haven't done enough of. I did recently do something of that variety- built my friend a Selesnya Aura deck by making the 99 first and then searching up a Commander, and they had a blast with it (we went with Ellivere of the Wild Court, btw). I'm off to go build the blue/red spellslinger deck of my dreams, and figure out who the Commander is along the way. Cheers!
Related to The mono white heliod - My Big mana deck (Progenitus) has a Sacred Mesa in it. If I draw that, I often don't even need to cast other spells until they deal with it. I can just hold up mana for interaction, and then dump the remaining mana into it, every turn. If my opponents don't have efficient answers, they're forced to use inefficient answers, or lose. Anyway, +1 for unlocking the 4th dimension on card advantage
Your decks seem fun! I think we share a lot of sentiments about deck building in the whole hipster commander selection and trying to make your theme not guessable based on the commander.
I think things like secret rendezvous can be strong if you politic the person into being your ally. They go from "I get cards BUT my opponent gets cards" to "I get cards AND my ally gets cards??". They're costed well because of the drawback, but if the target is now your ally they just become incredibly strong. 3 mana to get a 6 card swing in what is now a 2v2. You'll obviously have to worry about that ally later, but that's something you can try to prepare for.
I oscillate between Jayce High Tide and Chain Veil Teferi for my blue cEDH deck (and Yisan for my other, mono-green cEDH deck) and absolutely love it. You're exactly right about combo decks and storm decks being solitaire in low power, but incredibly complex in cEDH, I think that's what got me hooked on cEDH. Figuring out how to bait out and win through interaction or how to choose my interaction correctly to stop everyone else from winning.
I used to have a Slobad deck back in 2015 or 2016 and immediately turned it into a Tawnos deck when he came out. I was super excited to find your list last year as Tawnos seemed to never get as popular as I expeted him to and no one was playing him. I had never seen Salvaging station before, but I decided to add your bauble package to my deck and have really been enjoying it. I'm curently trying to get Dino DNA to work but the sorcery speed limitation might be a little to slow. I'll probably keep trying because the idea of reanimating 6/6 dinos and doubling it with Tawnos tickles my brain.
A few comments! 1. Love how thought provoking you always are 2. Sidar + Tana the bloodsower is a silly strong low to the ground aggro deck, but youd be changing the whole thing at that point so... 3. I actually loved the Fight Club deck idea so i built it but threw in some hatebears because randoms can have anything out there ya know? 4. Cant wait for the next podcast! Yall are killing it
I actually have a very similar list to the Tormod one, but it's a hyper-budget list with Ghost of Ramirez DePietro as the other partner. It's nothing too crazy, but I find that Ramirez leads the deck in other, more interesting directions than just recurring value, e.g. cycling Dirge of Dread to make Ramirez evasive, and then returning it to net a card and a zombie. It's all very low-power (the deck is 5$) but it's pretty cute synergies and gives a home to some cards I don't normally play.
@@thetrinketmage Yep! I have about a dozen 5$ budget decks that I play, when I play with new players or just wanna keep things low-power. Individual cards are usually
That Kozilek + High Market value engine is really nice in my Atla Palani deck, where I only have 11 creatures and they're all bombs. He's definitely an exile magnet, so being able to sacrifice him in response (if I didn't use High Market to sac an egg) is great. That Heliod deck sounds cool! I appreciated how you pointed out that the activated ability to create creatures is basically card advantage. I love learning concepts like that, I feel like it's been really improving my deck building. I'm looking forward to the rating and roasting in the podcast!
Loved the video, thanks for your work. The prevalence of control across your collection isn't my style as I find control uninteresting and uninspired (personally), however I love the angles you've chosen to explore and express the themes. Well done. I have also followed your podcast on Spotify.
Honestly, seeing creative decks like these is what got me to finally try building my own instead of playing with my friends' spare ones like I have been for years. As far as political commanders go, I'm trying to put together a Xyris decklist that leans into politics since I think it could be a lot of fun, but I think it might end up being more group hug. It's very inspired by Snail's vid on his group's Xyris deck. I really liked the idea of flying under the radar and wanted to do something similar in spirit. I like the concept I have a lot, but I am kinda new to building decks and have no clue how viable it would be in actual play. The idea is that you deliberately play slow and stuff your deck with cards that benefit other players or can be used to help them out in a pinch. That way, players see you as a more passive force and a valuable asset to bargain with; A sort of neutral party. Almost all the card draw in the deck will cause an opponent to draw as well. There are group ramp cards like Rites of Flourishing and Upwelling that benefit the entire table. Cards like Akroan Horse and Varchild's War Riders can give other players tokens to use as they please. Folio of Fancies gives everyone no maximum hand size to hold all those cards you gave them. Even the stack of instant-speed buff spells I included can be used to help other players, since most say "target creature" rather than "target creature you control." You can broker deals with other players, offering them card draw, counterspells, fog effects and the like in exchange for a bit of peace or so they can help get rid of a bigger threat. If anyone does try to come after you, you'll have an army of snake tokens from all the cards you gave to your friends. Then, once your opponents have done the job of weakening eachother for you, you turn on them all and stab them in the back. Xyris is a snake, after all.
My only thing with top commanders is that some enable jank, like morophon for the 3 color dragons that want combat damage, I love it reducing their mana by 3 basically, having 3 more mana to pay for their effects
Love the vid! If you're looking for a politics-control deck with a different angle, Tasigur the Golden Fang is a ton of fun. "I will do x if you agree to give me y from my graveyard" makes for an engaging and group oriented approach to control
Every time you mention the top 100 rule, I used to feel the exact kind of person you were trying not to be. But now Brago (The goat) is ranked 106, so he's okay
I recently made an Inniaz the Gale Force deck where it's basically blue/white agro with control elements. It's my first deck I built myself and from what little play I've have done with other people with it I have had fun with it. It's really neat to see your decks too! I am thinking on focusing on reanimator next so it's interesting to see how thigs are for your stuff.
I also play manual storm in cedh. Yidris isn’t meta, but watching opponents try to figure out when to interact is pretty funny since you can always throw a brainstorm over the top of the stack and cascade into a pact of negation or slam born upon a wind to find a ton of the 1 mana interaction
I got a serialized Juri for a really good price and tried for a while to make a deck around him. I could never get it right. I'm with you on Mina and Denn 100%, btw.
Enjoyed the video and really cool, varied lists that you have. I built a Foxglove deck, very different from yours. Honestly kinda hated it. Foxglove seems pretty good at first read, but I found I just really didn't like him in practice. Very common for you and all of your opponents to have 3 cards in hand when you want card draw. Less of a problem if you fully optimize the deck to have something big to drop, but still found that somewhat inconsistent. He's a 5 mana commander that needs to untap (unless you use haste enablers) to do anything, which gives opponents tons of time to remove him.
i love krark I have a pl8 krark ishia crazy coinflip deck that uses the Tumb and cheap cards. and because i got blue and white i can protect my thumb. i have regularly pulled it out of exile with pull for eternity multiple times a game. its an amazing deck and i love it.
I have quit playing magic before commander was a thing, I relatively recently got sucked up again by the game because of some friends. I am having a blast playing commander and I got way too deep way too fast. The first deck that I made and still have to finish will probably be something that people already are fed up with, even tho it is not copied from anything is a dragon deck so yea, people will not be happy to see yet and other one, but on the flip side all the other deck are the complete opposite, I am having so much fun looking for interesting cards to use as commander like Ratadrabik or Irenicus, the deck that I had the most fun with and that I am constantly changing a little to suprise friends with annoying gifts and weird interactions. The fact that commander compared to other formats is so free and has so many possibilities is what brought me back to play after so many years. Love it
I'm working on a Wandering Rescuer deck that focuses on human tribal and making myself and my board impenetrable. Lots of stuff to give her and myself hexproof and my whole board indestructible. I also run Resplendent Mentor so I can tap my creatures at instant speed to gain life and give them hexproof. Works really well with stuff like Drum Bellower and Prop Room that untap them every turn. She only has 275 decks on edhrec, but I think I can make her stand up to some big threats. Your Heliod deck is really cool btw.
I only have two decks in paper, an Obuun +1/+1 deck and a Yenna enchantress deck, but my goal is to build two Moxfield decks for each color combination (a cEDH and a casual). I’ve always enjoyed learning about people’s self imposed rules for casual deck building so I’d love see if that’s brought up in the podcast.
My OG deck that i started edh with back in 2021 is Klauth Unrivaled Ancient as a Gruul Dragon deck. Like your Mina and Denn deck, it has alot of sentimental value and will never be taken apart. The other deck that i have that i like quite a bit is my Quintorius Loremaster deck. With the help of a friend that has been playing magic for quite a while, it has risen to compete for the top spot with Klauth. And finally I am currently working on a Numot Devastor deck where instead of Land Destruction Control, it looks to set up a big copy turn for a price of progress effect. Decklist for that one is still in the works and will likely need some heavy goldfishing to get the ratios right.(Also it was semi inspired by snails boros egg deck video)
An repeatable activated ability being "an infinite number of cards" is so funny. I love weird and ridiculous comparisons like that because they stretch both definitions so far but don't break.
Idea for Espir control. I have a Second Doctor and Vislor Turlough deck where I force my opponents to draw a bunch and limit what they can do with pillow fort +. Then I can either mill them out with Psychic Corrosion type effects, cast a rise of the dark realms, or kill with damage from Turlough+. I could see you making a busted version of that deck.
I'm very proud of my werewolf tribal, spent years on the thing... And it started as a modern deck because I'm a moron But I love how it turned out The commander is Rocco White gives me rule of law to keep the werewolves on the good side Winota and voja go hard as everybody knows And I'm also a primal surge deck According to edhrec there is literally not a single deck that runs primal surge with Rocco as the commander and a werewolf theme I'm pretty proud of this one It's also fairly strong, at least, has a good winrate of about 30 to 40% at my table (yes they don't run much interaction I know) But as a mainly combo player I built an aggro deck I truly enjoy in commander, the worst format for aggro decks, so there's that And there are also my friends arguing winota and voja are combos, but I digress
My kentith goad deck has a similar reason for your pair funny enough. His first two abilities I use to buff up goaded creatures then his life gain and draw to keep up in the game. Also let’s me run all of the goad auras, I like those cards a lot
Not sure if it counts as a guild but in my patreon discord I help people with their decks all the time. And patrons of a certain tier can submit a deck and at the end of each month I will review all the decks on stream and give them 5 cuts and 5 adds
I wish you’d make an actual rss feed for your podcast so I could load it in with every other podcast that I listen to while working out or on long drives.
I have only ever taken apart one deck, I don't build too many decks myself and get very attatched to the ones I do build The one I took apart was Chatterfang and the reason was to split the 2 themes into seperate decks, I realized the overrun and the combo ideas were clashing, I basically only ever won with combo and the overrun stiff hindered that and didn't have enough support, so now I have both seperately I'll possibly return to this after brewing the stuff I have on the backburner, e.g. Tom Bombadil with at least one Saga from each franchise and as many planes as I can, where I can commit to the bit and improv the story of how all these events are happening at once (Urza's BS caused the Horus Heresy, on the fringes of which a rogue techpriest created the Daleks)
Well I’m definitely in a different vain when it comes to choosing my commanders. It’s more just having a deck for each power level. Malcolm/ Breeches and Pako/Haldan are $10 builds that aren’t gimmicks. Lagrella is a high power blink/theft build which I’m turning into a cedh tempo . Ellevere is just the upgraded precon.
Tragically the deck was taken apart almost two years ago now and I never put it anywhere online… but check out Stark of rath’s page on edhrec it’s a lot of stealing and sacrificing stuff
What are your tought on token kambal? I think between the "hunted" creatures, "replace" removal and gift cards there is enough density for an intetesting political deck.
@ thanks! I got 4 games in with it, and in my last one finally got to pull the goblin charbelcher combo. The pod knew it existed but they were still in awe when someone got domed for 41 damage.
I spent too long finding the six card mirrorpool combo but I think I found it. 1. Cast Splendid reclamation. 2. Copy with Mirrorpool 3. Sacrifice lands to Sylvan safekeeper 4. Have spelunking so with splended reclamation all lands come back untapped 5. Have a token generators like titania so there are more targets for Sylvan safekeeper 5.5. Use Mirrorpool again 6. Valakut pew-pews the table to death
You don’t need Titania just hold priority when you sad the lands and copy the splendid rec then respond to the valakut triggers by doing the loop and just never let the safekeeper’s effect resolve.
Like you I'm also a big fan of Salvaging Station (really all the stations) and my friend and I have been working back and forth on Ashnod the Uncaring Station list for the last 8 months or so and it's been fun. I've also been working on trying to brew Erinis and Street Urchin in a cool way and just realized last night Erinis+Urchin will be an incredible home for Station working on putting the list together right. Would love for you to check it out if you want!
this video is very inspiring, but man do I feel like I've fallen from grace with my own commander deckbuilding in favor of cube. I did try coming back but I am having such a hard time finding **that** deck. That and making something that works for me and my playgroup. Its really inspiring however to want to find that deck that you just love and don't want to get rid of.
To me deck building is more interesting than playing. The problem I have is I have a play group and not an lgs so I know what to expect so sometimes I'll throw in bad cards to have fun.
Love your decks! I won't lie, I built a budget Grenzo after seeing your video on it. Also I built Borborygmos Enraged before ever finding your channel and it features Mina and Denn. Swap the commander and I was pleased to see our decks are very similar again :)
Really cool decks but I'm surprised you have so few of them. Many creators I follow seem to have less than 10 decks. I just get bored too easily but my problem is trying to maintain the hundreds of decks I build... It becomes daunting and you spend more time upgrading than playing so I'm scaling back but I'd never be comfortable with less than 20 or 30
I have an azorius control deck that I love, and I want to build a non-blue control deck, but I have no idea where to start. What exactly defines "virtual card-advantage" and what are other ways of getting it in non blue colors?
Tawnos sounds cool, but I don't think any artifact churning compares to Glissa the Traitor. I had a deck very similar to your Heliod, but I used Oketra the True :')
Regarding the Tymna/Jeska Goad deck, I may have something similar: a Tymna/Kraum 4-color Stoneforge Mystic/Weenie list I affectionately call "Blue Farm Got Hit With Layoffs". Would anyone like to see it?
Your statement about both not doing any top 100 commanders or the top for any color combo has made me curious if there is a color combo whose top commander isn't in the overall top 100 Ok Edit time: I went through edhrec and checked and the only color combos whose top commander isn't in the top 100 are glint-eye(UBRG) with Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder at rank 160(at time of writing) and dune-brood(BRGW) with Saskia the Unyielding at rank 222(at time of writing) just found this intresting
@@GabbyBarbara infinite as long as I have the mana. Like I never run out of angels I just spend 8 mana a turn to get 2. Sorry if my wording was weird in the video
I expected to see less generic good stuff, especially since you don't really mention that when talking about these decks. Maybe I'm just too used to seeing my own cheap synergy piles.
After 10+ years, I finally told myself to built a commander deck i want to play. So I am buying a bunch of cards to have winota as my commander so I can play Ryu and Ken. 😂😂😂
6:13 No, no, go to jail, disallowed, you are not allowed to say making tokens is effectively card draw, I refuse this, bad trinket mage. I flip this coin to deal 2 damage, which is like drawing a card if that card was shock cannot be a position earnestly believed. Its so reductive that to treat one thing in this manner is to treat all things as drawing cards, and the meaning is lost forever. To bolt me, ah, the card advantage created, insurmountable
Virtual card advantage is not a term I invented for this video. It’s a normal thing within the game. And a good framing device for understanding how the deck operates
@@thetrinketmage understandable, as a base building block to determine a mathmatical basis for positive, but I still kinda find the framing rather silly. Sure you have to pick cards drawn vs life lost as a baseline, but equating it to card draw conjures images that are very divorced from reality, and I don't think "virtual card advantage" can be broken down into a small enough chunk to ever be an accurate measurement outside of specific hypothetical vaccums that leads to false equivalents in actual cold cardboard.
@@thetrinketmage sorry bro it Was very late here in Italy and I was tired and in anxiety, so I've written a rally random comment. If you notice the time, the video had been out for only 5 minutes. It was actually really good and I loved the staxy controlly heliod deck. All the best
Love to see that Snail is officially a co-host of The Magic Mirror. Great trio 🙌🏾
Now we only need Deck Driver MTG, i feel like he would be a perfect fit 🥳🥳
Let's see Paul Allen's card
Eggshell. Understated.
Oh my god... It even has a watermark
Your deck building choices make me think you like bands "Before they were cool" and then don't listen to them after they've been discovered 😂
Although I do listen to a lot of weird bands nobody has heard of I’m always rooting for them to make it big! And if they do I’ll still listen!
Me
love how snail just have become the (unofficial) 3rd host. i'd love to see you three (+ one other guy, maybe hans?) play a game once
I relate to that idea of having a deck you've built basically go through a schism, where it's two themes that were supposed to compliment or fill out one another suddenly begin competing for attention in the deck. I have a particular pile of black, green and blue graveyard shenanigans that's seen every commander under the sun as it's pilot. It's currently host to a Meren pile, but Savra really feels like a maliciously good commander to be super oppressive control. If I ever solve the ratios of recursion, draw and win cons to make Savra not a diminishing resource-sink, it might just become the deck's currently 5th incarnation.
If you do go through with the idea of splitting goad from your Tymna/Jeska deck, but still want to play goad in Mardu, I can't recommend Queen Marchesa enough. Monarchy is a really good theme to go alongside goad, because it serves two purposes. When you are the monarch and you force everyone to swivel around you, you're getting really great advantage off of those draws. When you're not the monarch, not only does the allure of regicide already a form of indirect goad in itself, but goad itself is also super good at basically rolling down the red carpet for you to come steal the monarchy, which Marchesa enables with the assassins. I loved that deck, but I built it too early, when I wasn't still aware of what I was doing. I might need to go put that back together.
I tend to not be too stuck on the idea of trying to be unique with my Commander choices, mostly just because I am still fairly inexperienced with the game, but a new commander in Duskmourn that has really excited me and got me wanting to try something new was The Master of Keys. I was originally just supposed to make a dumb "Haunted House" theme-deck for Halloween, but I actually really got interested in this card's design. Turning a dredge-package into an enchantment strategy is something I've never really played around with, so I wanna see how it would work out.
I've been lovingly polishing an Etrata, Deadly Fugitive deck that's themed not around theft but *ransom*
The idea is I'm stacking exile-then-return-to-owner options so that I can use the ability to return someone's card to them *on the battlefield* as a bargaining chip.
Soooooo
Livio with attitude?
I like how unique you make your decks, I’m not sure if I could handle this much control though, I’ve gotten where I don’t really long games in commander anymore.
I'd rather lose than play a 3-hour game of control lol
I knew you were one of my favorite MTG RUclipsr when you said you love the Goad mechanic I recently made your TJ’s fight club and it’s been such a blast. Thank you Trinket
I'm sorry but endless horizons + belcher might be the coolest thing I've ever seen. I love it
It's genuinely rough to not run any utility lands in Monowhite, but it can be a cute way to finish a game for sure
@@Kryptnyt oh yeah absolutely, that's why I think it's super cool. And I'm a big basic land guy
Your Heliod deck is the coolest idea I have heard for a dech in a long time. As someone who started in Theros block, I will definitely be giving this strategy a go as a homage to my favorite set.
I love hearing you talk about Mina and Denn. I saw the video of you talking about them a year ago. Was the first video I saw of yours. It’s always clear you truly love that deck
One of my new favorite decks I just built is my new Nihiloor monarch/initiative value deck. I've been enjoying it so much because it's one of the first non commander-centric decks I've built, as I've definitely built a bit too commander centric in the past and just wanted a deck that felt more unique. The deck balances the main theme of both initiative and monarch with a blink and theft sub theme and ots been so fun to play.
Thank you for making this video. This video inspired me- building around a card in the 99 or a general strategy rather than a Commander is something I definitely haven't done enough of. I did recently do something of that variety- built my friend a Selesnya Aura deck by making the 99 first and then searching up a Commander, and they had a blast with it (we went with Ellivere of the Wild Court, btw). I'm off to go build the blue/red spellslinger deck of my dreams, and figure out who the Commander is along the way. Cheers!
Related to The mono white heliod - My Big mana deck (Progenitus) has a Sacred Mesa in it. If I draw that, I often don't even need to cast other spells until they deal with it. I can just hold up mana for interaction, and then dump the remaining mana into it, every turn. If my opponents don't have efficient answers, they're forced to use inefficient answers, or lose.
Anyway, +1 for unlocking the 4th dimension on card advantage
Your decks seem fun! I think we share a lot of sentiments about deck building in the whole hipster commander selection and trying to make your theme not guessable based on the commander.
Great minds think alike
I have...close to 100 decks >.> seeing your builds and how few you have, hmm... very impressive!
I think things like secret rendezvous can be strong if you politic the person into being your ally.
They go from "I get cards BUT my opponent gets cards" to "I get cards AND my ally gets cards??".
They're costed well because of the drawback, but if the target is now your ally they just become incredibly strong. 3 mana to get a 6 card swing in what is now a 2v2.
You'll obviously have to worry about that ally later, but that's something you can try to prepare for.
I oscillate between Jayce High Tide and Chain Veil Teferi for my blue cEDH deck (and Yisan for my other, mono-green cEDH deck) and absolutely love it. You're exactly right about combo decks and storm decks being solitaire in low power, but incredibly complex in cEDH, I think that's what got me hooked on cEDH. Figuring out how to bait out and win through interaction or how to choose my interaction correctly to stop everyone else from winning.
I used to have a Slobad deck back in 2015 or 2016 and immediately turned it into a Tawnos deck when he came out. I was super excited to find your list last year as Tawnos seemed to never get as popular as I expeted him to and no one was playing him. I had never seen Salvaging station before, but I decided to add your bauble package to my deck and have really been enjoying it. I'm curently trying to get Dino DNA to work but the sorcery speed limitation might be a little to slow. I'll probably keep trying because the idea of reanimating 6/6 dinos and doubling it with Tawnos tickles my brain.
Always great content! I look forward to every video. Keep up the good work man!
A few comments!
1. Love how thought provoking you always are
2. Sidar + Tana the bloodsower is a silly strong low to the ground aggro deck, but youd be changing the whole thing at that point so...
3. I actually loved the Fight Club deck idea so i built it but threw in some hatebears because randoms can have anything out there ya know?
4. Cant wait for the next podcast! Yall are killing it
I actually have a very similar list to the Tormod one, but it's a hyper-budget list with Ghost of Ramirez DePietro as the other partner. It's nothing too crazy, but I find that Ramirez leads the deck in other, more interesting directions than just recurring value, e.g. cycling Dirge of Dread to make Ramirez evasive, and then returning it to net a card and a zombie. It's all very low-power (the deck is 5$) but it's pretty cute synergies and gives a home to some cards I don't normally play.
The deck is $5 in total?
@@thetrinketmage Yep! I have about a dozen 5$ budget decks that I play, when I play with new players or just wanna keep things low-power. Individual cards are usually
That Kozilek + High Market value engine is really nice in my Atla Palani deck, where I only have 11 creatures and they're all bombs. He's definitely an exile magnet, so being able to sacrifice him in response (if I didn't use High Market to sac an egg) is great.
That Heliod deck sounds cool! I appreciated how you pointed out that the activated ability to create creatures is basically card advantage. I love learning concepts like that, I feel like it's been really improving my deck building. I'm looking forward to the rating and roasting in the podcast!
Loved the video, thanks for your work. The prevalence of control across your collection isn't my style as I find control uninteresting and uninspired (personally), however I love the angles you've chosen to explore and express the themes. Well done. I have also followed your podcast on Spotify.
Love the idea of the Heliod deck. I may try doing something similar with Oketra or Nemata.
8:15 Have you tried Extraplanar Lense with all Snow-Covered Plains in addition to Endless Horizons?
I actually have that in my Jace deck! I might try it out in heliod as well if I keep the horizons in the deck
I would love to get an update on the Foxglove deck when you finish messing with it! It's such an interesting idea.
I love the snail/elk/trinket mage expanded universe.
Honestly, seeing creative decks like these is what got me to finally try building my own instead of playing with my friends' spare ones like I have been for years.
As far as political commanders go, I'm trying to put together a Xyris decklist that leans into politics since I think it could be a lot of fun, but I think it might end up being more group hug. It's very inspired by Snail's vid on his group's Xyris deck. I really liked the idea of flying under the radar and wanted to do something similar in spirit. I like the concept I have a lot, but I am kinda new to building decks and have no clue how viable it would be in actual play.
The idea is that you deliberately play slow and stuff your deck with cards that benefit other players or can be used to help them out in a pinch. That way, players see you as a more passive force and a valuable asset to bargain with; A sort of neutral party. Almost all the card draw in the deck will cause an opponent to draw as well. There are group ramp cards like Rites of Flourishing and Upwelling that benefit the entire table. Cards like Akroan Horse and Varchild's War Riders can give other players tokens to use as they please. Folio of Fancies gives everyone no maximum hand size to hold all those cards you gave them. Even the stack of instant-speed buff spells I included can be used to help other players, since most say "target creature" rather than "target creature you control." You can broker deals with other players, offering them card draw, counterspells, fog effects and the like in exchange for a bit of peace or so they can help get rid of a bigger threat. If anyone does try to come after you, you'll have an army of snake tokens from all the cards you gave to your friends. Then, once your opponents have done the job of weakening eachother for you, you turn on them all and stab them in the back. Xyris is a snake, after all.
My only thing with top commanders is that some enable jank, like morophon for the 3 color dragons that want combat damage, I love it reducing their mana by 3 basically, having 3 more mana to pay for their effects
You inspired me to make my own Jace cedh deck! He compliments my Ral storm high power list
Love the vid! If you're looking for a politics-control deck with a different angle, Tasigur the Golden Fang is a ton of fun. "I will do x if you agree to give me y from my graveyard" makes for an engaging and group oriented approach to control
Is he on the edhrec top 100 I think he might break that rule. I know it’s dumb but I’ve stuck to it for years don’t want to change that now
@@thetrinketmage Currently rank 201!
Every time you mention the top 100 rule, I used to feel the exact kind of person you were trying not to be. But now Brago (The goat) is ranked 106, so he's okay
Super love ur Heliod deck! Hmmm i always wanted a mono white deck but doesnt go into the typical equipment theme so hmmmmm🫣🫣🫣
I recently made an Inniaz the Gale Force deck where it's basically blue/white agro with control elements. It's my first deck I built myself and from what little play I've have done with other people with it I have had fun with it. It's really neat to see your decks too! I am thinking on focusing on reanimator next so it's interesting to see how thigs are for your stuff.
4:38 I'll see mirror trinket mage in my nightmares
I also play manual storm in cedh. Yidris isn’t meta, but watching opponents try to figure out when to interact is pretty funny since you can always throw a brainstorm over the top of the stack and cascade into a pact of negation or slam born upon a wind to find a ton of the 1 mana interaction
I got a serialized Juri for a really good price and tried for a while to make a deck around him. I could never get it right.
I'm with you on Mina and Denn 100%, btw.
Enjoyed the video and really cool, varied lists that you have. I built a Foxglove deck, very different from yours. Honestly kinda hated it. Foxglove seems pretty good at first read, but I found I just really didn't like him in practice. Very common for you and all of your opponents to have 3 cards in hand when you want card draw. Less of a problem if you fully optimize the deck to have something big to drop, but still found that somewhat inconsistent. He's a 5 mana commander that needs to untap (unless you use haste enablers) to do anything, which gives opponents tons of time to remove him.
Ultimately he is very fair I think even if the effect is in theory strong
i love krark I have a pl8 krark ishia crazy coinflip deck that uses the Tumb and cheap cards. and because i got blue and white i can protect my thumb. i have regularly pulled it out of exile with pull for eternity multiple times a game. its an amazing deck and i love it.
I have quit playing magic before commander was a thing, I relatively recently got sucked up again by the game because of some friends. I am having a blast playing commander and I got way too deep way too fast. The first deck that I made and still have to finish will probably be something that people already are fed up with, even tho it is not copied from anything is a dragon deck so yea, people will not be happy to see yet and other one, but on the flip side all the other deck are the complete opposite, I am having so much fun looking for interesting cards to use as commander like Ratadrabik or Irenicus, the deck that I had the most fun with and that I am constantly changing a little to suprise friends with annoying gifts and weird interactions.
The fact that commander compared to other formats is so free and has so many possibilities is what brought me back to play after so many years. Love it
I'm working on a Wandering Rescuer deck that focuses on human tribal and making myself and my board impenetrable. Lots of stuff to give her and myself hexproof and my whole board indestructible. I also run Resplendent Mentor so I can tap my creatures at instant speed to gain life and give them hexproof. Works really well with stuff like Drum Bellower and Prop Room that untap them every turn. She only has 275 decks on edhrec, but I think I can make her stand up to some big threats.
Your Heliod deck is really cool btw.
Yoooo you answered my question zone outside the zone! JUDGE!! 😂
I only have two decks in paper, an Obuun +1/+1 deck and a Yenna enchantress deck, but my goal is to build two Moxfield decks for each color combination (a cEDH and a casual).
I’ve always enjoyed learning about people’s self imposed rules for casual deck building so I’d love see if that’s brought up in the podcast.
it would be so awesome if yall could collab with Deck Driver MTG. I love the content and super fan of the podcast so far.
My OG deck that i started edh with back in 2021 is Klauth Unrivaled Ancient as a Gruul Dragon deck. Like your Mina and Denn deck, it has alot of sentimental value and will never be taken apart. The other deck that i have that i like quite a bit is my Quintorius Loremaster deck. With the help of a friend that has been playing magic for quite a while, it has risen to compete for the top spot with Klauth. And finally I am currently working on a Numot Devastor deck where instead of Land Destruction Control, it looks to set up a big copy turn for a price of progress effect. Decklist for that one is still in the works and will likely need some heavy goldfishing to get the ratios right.(Also it was semi inspired by snails boros egg deck video)
An repeatable activated ability being "an infinite number of cards" is so funny. I love weird and ridiculous comparisons like that because they stretch both definitions so far but don't break.
Idea for Espir control. I have a Second Doctor and Vislor Turlough deck where I force my opponents to draw a bunch and limit what they can do with pillow fort +. Then I can either mill them out with Psychic Corrosion type effects, cast a rise of the dark realms, or kill with damage from Turlough+. I could see you making a busted version of that deck.
I'm very proud of my werewolf tribal, spent years on the thing... And it started as a modern deck because I'm a moron
But I love how it turned out
The commander is Rocco
White gives me rule of law to keep the werewolves on the good side
Winota and voja go hard as everybody knows
And I'm also a primal surge deck
According to edhrec there is literally not a single deck that runs primal surge with Rocco as the commander and a werewolf theme
I'm pretty proud of this one
It's also fairly strong, at least, has a good winrate of about 30 to 40% at my table (yes they don't run much interaction I know)
But as a mainly combo player I built an aggro deck I truly enjoy in commander, the worst format for aggro decks, so there's that
And there are also my friends arguing winota and voja are combos, but I digress
That sounds like a very creative Rocco deck!
@@thetrinketmage at least it works
Which you can't say of many werewolf decks, from my experience
My kentith goad deck has a similar reason for your pair funny enough. His first two abilities I use to buff up goaded creatures then his life gain and draw to keep up in the game. Also let’s me run all of the goad auras, I like those cards a lot
Can you do a deck building guid if you haven't done it? I want to build decks around Riku of the many paths and Haylen decks
Not sure if it counts as a guild but in my patreon discord I help people with their decks all the time. And patrons of a certain tier can submit a deck and at the end of each month I will review all the decks on stream and give them 5 cuts and 5 adds
I wish you’d make an actual rss feed for your podcast so I could load it in with every other podcast that I listen to while working out or on long drives.
We also have it on Spotify if you use that. Maybe I’ll find out how to make an RSS feed
Great video! 👍
The mono white deck is actually really is interesting to me.
I have only ever taken apart one deck, I don't build too many decks myself and get very attatched to the ones I do build
The one I took apart was Chatterfang and the reason was to split the 2 themes into seperate decks, I realized the overrun and the combo ideas were clashing, I basically only ever won with combo and the overrun stiff hindered that and didn't have enough support, so now I have both seperately
I'll possibly return to this after brewing the stuff I have on the backburner, e.g. Tom Bombadil with at least one Saga from each franchise and as many planes as I can, where I can commit to the bit and improv the story of how all these events are happening at once (Urza's BS caused the Horus Heresy, on the fringes of which a rogue techpriest created the Daleks)
Well I’m definitely in a different vain when it comes to choosing my commanders. It’s more just having a deck for each power level. Malcolm/ Breeches and Pako/Haldan are $10 builds that aren’t gimmicks. Lagrella is a high power blink/theft build which I’m turning into a cedh tempo . Ellevere is just the upgraded precon.
really like your approach to deckbuilding. can you by any chance publish the scrabbed mono-r-controll deck? thanks in advance!
Tragically the deck was taken apart almost two years ago now and I never put it anywhere online… but check out Stark of rath’s page on edhrec it’s a lot of stealing and sacrificing stuff
What are your tought on token kambal? I think between the "hunted" creatures, "replace" removal and gift cards there is enough density for an intetesting political deck.
That’s a cool idea and I do run that Kambal in my mardu deck right now, maybe I could lean into it more
Sick decks!
I tried the Heliod deck the other day and had a blast!
Have there been any changes to the deck or suggestions you have for new cards to add?
The list on my archideckt page is up to date I’ll try to only make changes if I make any irl
@ thanks!
I got 4 games in with it, and in my last one finally got to pull the goblin charbelcher combo. The pod knew it existed but they were still in awe when someone got domed for 41 damage.
Babe wake up Trinket Mage dropped
I love your heliod deck
I want to see your Mina+denn go up against Snail’s Radha list
Imma squash the snail 🐌
I spent too long finding the six card mirrorpool combo but I think I found it.
1. Cast Splendid reclamation.
2. Copy with Mirrorpool
3. Sacrifice lands to Sylvan safekeeper
4. Have spelunking so with splended reclamation all lands come back untapped
5. Have a token generators like titania so there are more targets for Sylvan safekeeper
5.5. Use Mirrorpool again
6. Valakut pew-pews the table to death
You don’t need Titania just hold priority when you sad the lands and copy the splendid rec then respond to the valakut triggers by doing the loop and just never let the safekeeper’s effect resolve.
@@thetrinketmage Oh yeah you sac all lands and then mirrorpool
Like you I'm also a big fan of Salvaging Station (really all the stations) and my friend and I have been working back and forth on Ashnod the Uncaring Station list for the last 8 months or so and it's been fun.
I've also been working on trying to brew Erinis and Street Urchin in a cool way and just realized last night Erinis+Urchin will be an incredible home for Station working on putting the list together right. Would love for you to check it out if you want!
this video is very inspiring, but man do I feel like I've fallen from grace with my own commander deckbuilding in favor of cube.
I did try coming back but I am having such a hard time finding **that** deck. That and making something that works for me and my playgroup. Its really inspiring however to want to find that deck that you just love and don't want to get rid of.
To me deck building is more interesting than playing. The problem I have is I have a play group and not an lgs so I know what to expect so sometimes I'll throw in bad cards to have fun.
digging the idea of the Heliod deck, but is there anything you can run to mitigate the high af activation cost? 💀
Interesting video, thanks
PS : 16:44 Why cast High Tide during your upkeep ?
Bait the removal then crack the fetch to put hight tide on top and since this is before my draw step I now draw high tide for turn and can use it
im thinking of making ertai as a high power archenemy deck.
Love your decks! I won't lie, I built a budget Grenzo after seeing your video on it.
Also I built Borborygmos Enraged before ever finding your channel and it features Mina and Denn. Swap the commander and I was pleased to see our decks are very similar again :)
Really cool decks but I'm surprised you have so few of them. Many creators I follow seem to have less than 10 decks. I just get bored too easily but my problem is trying to maintain the hundreds of decks I build... It becomes daunting and you spend more time upgrading than playing so I'm scaling back but I'd never be comfortable with less than 20 or 30
I have an azorius control deck that I love, and I want to build a non-blue control deck, but I have no idea where to start. What exactly defines "virtual card-advantage" and what are other ways of getting it in non blue colors?
I love videos like this one
How would you build keranos stax?
Interesting video! What's your favourite graveyard commander right now?
Thanks a lot! :)
Does Jace count? If not Tormod is still cool I just need to find a new list for him
ghyrson starn is manual storm and its based
Brb gonna build a Heliod deck
If you want an interesting build around that people will underestimate try Yasova or Rocco.
Tawnos sounds cool, but I don't think any artifact churning compares to Glissa the Traitor.
I had a deck very similar to your Heliod, but I used Oketra the True :')
I don't really get how humility+opalesence is a finisher. Could someone explain pls?
I love trinket mages thoery crafting and play philosophy stuff, but damn some of these decks sound like pulling teeth to play against
Regarding the Tymna/Jeska Goad deck, I may have something similar: a Tymna/Kraum 4-color Stoneforge Mystic/Weenie list I affectionately call "Blue Farm Got Hit With Layoffs". Would anyone like to see it?
Control
Control
Control
Control
Control
Stax
High-power value pile Eldrazi
cEDH mono-blue storm
"Soo fun"
I need a restraining order.
Bro has no sense of creativity… also Tymna Jeska is not control
😂
What do you want him to play, then?
@@Kryptnyt Ox Tribal!
@@Kryptnyt Whatever he wants as long as it's not in the same pod as me.
Your statement about both not doing any top 100 commanders or the top for any color combo has made me curious if there is a color combo whose top commander isn't in the overall top 100
Ok Edit time: I went through edhrec and checked and the only color combos whose top commander isn't in the top 100 are glint-eye(UBRG) with Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder at rank 160(at time of writing) and dune-brood(BRGW) with Saskia the Unyielding at rank 222(at time of writing)
just found this intresting
I don't understand. How does divine visitation combo like that with heliod??
When I activate heliod to make a 2/1 it replaces it with a 4/4
@thetrinketmage im still lost. How does that generate infinite angels
@@GabbyBarbara It's theoretically "infinite" in the sense that he can convert all his unspent mana into angels at any time if he wants to
@@GabbyBarbara infinite as long as I have the mana. Like I never run out of angels I just spend 8 mana a turn to get 2. Sorry if my wording was weird in the video
AYYY XIRA SHOWN THATS MY BABY
I think most brewers stay away from the meta since imo there is so much more flavors to be discovered.
Let’s go
Have you considered Iron man leading your trinkets deck?
No the problem is I have too many cards that are 1 mana value and not enough stuff I want at 2 or 3
I don't like to take apart my decks, it took so much time and effort to build over the years
I play Tawnos and so I remove Tawnos when I can. Lol. I see through his unimpressive visage
WHERE IS JURIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
I expected to see less generic good stuff, especially since you don't really mention that when talking about these decks. Maybe I'm just too used to seeing my own cheap synergy piles.
yea thats way to little aggro for my taste. Im not that big into control and tokens. Interesting takes, but nothing for my collection.
After 10+ years, I finally told myself to built a commander deck i want to play. So I am buying a bunch of cards to have winota as my commander so I can play Ryu and Ken. 😂😂😂
6:13 No, no, go to jail, disallowed, you are not allowed to say making tokens is effectively card draw, I refuse this, bad trinket mage.
I flip this coin to deal 2 damage, which is like drawing a card if that card was shock cannot be a position earnestly believed. Its so reductive that to treat one thing in this manner is to treat all things as drawing cards, and the meaning is lost forever.
To bolt me, ah, the card advantage created, insurmountable
Virtual card advantage is not a term I invented for this video. It’s a normal thing within the game. And a good framing device for understanding how the deck operates
@@thetrinketmage understandable, as a base building block to determine a mathmatical basis for positive, but I still kinda find the framing rather silly.
Sure you have to pick cards drawn vs life lost as a baseline, but equating it to card draw conjures images that are very divorced from reality, and I don't think "virtual card advantage" can be broken down into a small enough chunk to ever be an accurate measurement outside of specific hypothetical vaccums that leads to false equivalents in actual cold cardboard.
I disagree with the end part of the video as well as with the middle part. The initial part is ok. Fuck I'm crazy. Let's go to sleep
What? There isn’t anything to disagree with these are the decks I play. That’s just a fact
@@thetrinketmage you've been...Goaded.
@@thetrinketmage sorry bro it Was very late here in Italy and I was tired and in anxiety, so I've written a rally random comment. If you notice the time, the video had been out for only 5 minutes. It was actually really good and I loved the staxy controlly heliod deck. All the best