The best part of this deck tech was Snail talking about all of the ways the deck struggles. I often see budget deck techs that go on & on about how strong the deck is in all sorts of scenarios, and how reliable the gameplan is, but never talk about the shortcomings when compared to non-budget builds or the most common ways the deck might get disrupted.
I agree. Just about any deck will feel powerful if you get the perfect hand and ideal situations. It's nice to acknowledge what the hiccups are when you don't have that ideal hand and how you're intending to work around that.
I feel like every video completely changes the way i look at this format. They are thoughtfully put together by someone who knows what they are talking about. Thanks for the snailful wisdom! On another note, is there any chance you could show one of your decks in action? I would love to see when they shine or don't in play. Thanks!
You're the gameplay theory equivalent to Rhystic Studies' art deep dives and historical essays. You're got a gift for seeing the big picture that I wish I had as a player and I greatly appreciate your input helping to educate me as a player. Keep this up man.
Honest hate having two commanders, for some reason my play group never allows me to keep both out ever. Some one always tunnels one of them so I end up having to spend ten mana for one of them by turn 4. At that point I just said screw it but wasting all my interaction keeping them on the field wasn’t working. Now I just run one and only ever play home if I have at least three four cards of interaction for him/her. Noob problems 😕
imagine if some deck just started the game with an extra card in hand. That unto itself would be extremely valuable. Now imagine you tutor for a specific card at the start of each game and put it into your hand. Now repeat that one more time. That is partially why partners are so powerful.
@DREADEDuuubGAMING a lot of partner commanders I've found fall into the category of and work best as "removal bait" as in; what appears to be a juicy, high value target that can be redeployed that fishes out your opponents interaction so you resolve something more worrisome out of the 99. My anecdotal example: trynn and silvar are both great bait for me to be able to resolve a winnota or a felidar sovereign
Futher pushes my mindset that Wizards has never added a single Commander specific ability that is good for the format. The more they leave it alone, the better.
for less than a dollar Grazilaxx, Illithid Scholar is a Coastal Piracy effect that only triggers once per player but is 3 mana and provides a small amount of protection for your blockable creatures, Call of the Ring is over a dollar but is a 2 mana Phyrexian Arena effect that tempts providing your small creatures with evasion and even more card advantage might be a bit win more however
I run that in my favorite $100 comp deck (Malcolm Kediss) and it does serious work. I’d also suggest it. It’s def better than the postal piracy affects. Kediss w Malcom make curiosity, tandem lookout, and ophidian eye honestly broken but even in that deck I find Graz well worth the include.
This is effectively Yuriko with extra steps haha Great breakdown of what makes a cEDH list through the perspective of a casual deck. Commanders with card advantage and mana ✅ Efficient combo ✅ Interaction + tutors ✅ A winning strategy no matter the price point!
I agree 100%. He's the best imo. He's getting there, and it's very well deserved. He has blown up quite a bit recently though, considering I can recall that it was not that long ago where he was around 6 or 7K
yeah i feel really lucky i randomly clicked on him from recommended videos. so many content creators in the MTG space don't do nearly as much with their videos.
You should totally post gameplay with your friends, i feel like these decks would make way more interesting games than other channels like game knights
Game knights only plays decks that wizards tells them to play. They've completely sold out. In order to be sponsored by Wizards, you have to give them a lot of say in your business.
Syr Ginger, the Meal Ender would be great in this deck. Sacrificing 5 artifacts per turn once you pop off will give it +5/+5 per turn, and it's also a lifegain resource in a pinch
I like this deck for a few reasons not the least of which is how this demonstrates how EDHREC isn't always "right" (as you demonstrated in your ode to Skeleton Ship a bit back). I tried to build a Francisco/Malcolm deck shortly after Francisco was released but gave up, figuring that Malcolm and Breeches just makes more sense. Adding the Time Sieve combo really gives this deck an identity beyond "pirates in worse pirate colors" or "bad ninjas/rogues/etc."
The principle outlined at the end of this video reminds me of the Gruul Control deck previously covered on this channel, and a version of such a deck I had built prior on a budget of only 5$. Having a value engine in the command zone is extremely potent to allocate deck space for interaction and alleviate issues of low card quality, but having an interaction engine offers the same benefit, ensuring you almost always have an answer and can defend yourself while your deck works its magic. As someone who enjoys the mechanical intrigue of tinkering with a deck's power level, but does not enjoy particularly high level play, building well-tuned and optimized decks on a hyper-budget of 5 dollars gives me room to try to exploit cards for every penny they're worth, without becoming too oppressive in play. While I love thinking about and designing with complex commanders that explore interesting concepts, it's really this idea of value/interaction efficiency and making the most out of deck space that makes these decks punch above their weight in brass.
Hey, do you have a decklist for that budget Gruul control deck? I'm always interested in looking at interesting builds, and that one sounds very interesting.
The discussion of interaction and removal here reminded me of an interesting concept from yugioh dexkbuilding: managing your deck's ratio of engine to nonengine. Basically, the fewer total cards in deck you need to dedicate to your gameplan of wining the game, the more card space you can instead spend on yugioh's high-power suite of generic interaction- cards that sre the equivalent of situational free counterspells, one-sided boardwipes, etc. This deck sounds like it would be doing very well by that yugioh standard
The most informative part of the video is when you say that your combo piece commander hasn't been removed on the turn it came down more than once or twice. You're running 13 counter spells and your opponents can't be bothered to run half a dozen removal spells and appropriately identify your combo piece?
I remember i did something similar with Selvala once. Some people on my LGS used to roflstomp casual tables with their expensive, fast mana full decks and people complained a lot about being able to "buy" power, so i built a list that was both powerful anc affordable, ending up at about $130 total (currency is different over here so it cost me less than $100 actually). To this day i only pull it out on the fastest of tables and even some cEDH pods and it always performs, and most inexperienced players dont believe its a budget deck until i show them the decklist. Power on a budget is very much achievable and very, very fun to do so
This is the reason channels like this one and Commanders Quarters are important and worth recommending to newer players. Budget decks can slap, it just takes more thought than opening your wallet.
I do love time sieve, as it fits perfectly into my Lurrus / Bjorna / Wernog artifact token deck. It fits the Lurrus restritction, is a win condition, and perfectly utilizes the mountain of tokens I vomit out. The problem is however that the deck has difficulty winning quickly, mostly building up a sir ginger or similar, and swining with it until the opponent runs out of blockers. This takes a lot of turns, and since most of my engine pieces are two mana, I generally do not achieve a deterministic infinite turns combo, but one that heavily relies on scrying about 10x a turn, finding some artifacts, drawing those, and looping graveyard artifacts. If this would happen sometimes, it would be fine, however as the deck has a lot of draw and scry, since it needs to make the most of 2 mana cards, it can quite consistently find time sieve, and with time sieve being by far the most consistent way to close out games, it basically loses everything else. The main ways to counteract it I thought of where adding disciple of the vault, as an aristocrat that can shorten the amount of turns needed. Or add thopter foundry + sword of the meek as a combo to make it deterministic, and thus be able to be shortcut. Diciple of the vault is currently being tested, sword + foundry simply does not work, as the cards are mostly dead when they are not used as combo pieces (you would think that thopter foundry would do things in an artifact deck, however three games showed that it does close to nothing normally)
I have the same deck built! ThopterFoundry/Sword of the Meek/Time Sieve is the classic combo, letting you make thopter tokens for 1 mana each, which even after the 5 you sacrifice every turn will close out a game pretty fast. If I can't get those online, or my backup animate dead combo, I typically try to win with Cranial Plating or Michiko's Reign of Truth. Sword of the Meek isn't quite dead because I can recast a 1/1 from my grave every turn with Lurrus, and Bjorna can sacrifice it for more goads. Thopter Foundry is more likely to be dead; it has niche applications as being a way to get some artifacts into my graveyard if Bjorna is dead or if I'm trying to kill multiple artifacts per turn.
@@bekeleven Reign of Truth sounds like a nice alternative to cranial plating I might try it. What is the Animate Dead combo? I know it has a lot of combo's associated, however worldgorger dragon is not quite Lurrus material. Thank you for responding by the way, I really appreciate it
Thank you for making RUclips videos at this level of quality. I gain so much insight and learn so much about commander deck building by watching your videos. Keep creating such great content. Cheers.
We have converged on the same idea. However, I went Izzet and used Kediss as my 2nd partner with Malcolm. Kediss allows Malcolm to gain +2 treasures, and if Kediss can find an opening with an Amoeboid Changeling or Imagecrafter activation, even more. Glint-Horn Buccaneer + Malcolm/Curiosity/Tandem Lookout/Ophidian's Eye is the primary combo, but you never feel bad slapping any of those on Malcolm and drawing 3 with Kediss. The secondary wincon is burn/burst with Price of Progress, Fireblast, Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time, with Surge to Victory or Candlekeep Inspiration. Funny how that plays out!
Malcolm really is one of the commanders of all time. It's crazy that he doesn't need to deal damage nor does the pirate need to deal combat damage. Why is he an uncommon?
Thanks for sharing! You definitely appeal to the analytical strategist in me. I feel kindred with you in that building for fun/casual play is my priority, but I do try to maintain competitiveness and build some decks on the "sweatier" end of casual. Your thought processes are excellent and helpful for any player to think through. That being said, you challenge me to think through my decks and what I might need to do to change them or even why I should/shouldn't change them.
just recently built malcom and fransisco, i went futher into artifacts and holy it feels strong, the curve is so easy and so consistent. i also have a lower power non combo centric version of this deck and my experience is no one ever wants to remove fransisco cause killing a 2 drop feels bad. the other version i run focuses more on the evasive creatures and card draw on combat damage
Love the deck, I have a similar Malcolm partner deck and one card that does absolute work is March of swirling mist, could easily take out one of your harder removal spells for it like slaughter pact
You made making this deck sound so simple and easy, you really know your stuff! This is making me want to relook at all my decks, especially my control and combo decks, to make their curve and their turn to turn strategy super clean. Great video!
I really like this decklist and your deck building philosophy, it reminds me a lot of my Minn deck. Although I don’t run any combos, my deck has a very low curve and is extremely consistent with lots of filtering, interaction and redundant cards with a straightforward plan (turn 2 play a Merfolk Looter, turn 3 play Minn, turn 4-6 play more engine pieces and draw engines and just run the opponents over with armies of tokens and drawing a dozen cards a turn cycle). Love your well thought out videos!
I'm surprised to not see irenicus's vile duplication. It is 2 dollars but having 2 of either commander makes the deck play much faster. Not to mention 2 malcolms makes the time sieve combo a lot easier
You don't mention it (probably 'cause it ain't important to your deck) but Malcolm and Francisco's triggers do NOT trigger off of combat damage specifically. They trigger off of any damage dealt by a Pirate. Now, I don't think this really matters with Malcolm/Francisco -- without radically changing the deck, I don't see a way of exploiting that. However, it's very important to Malcolm/Breeches decks using e.g. Glint-Horn Buccaneer or Lightning-Rig Crew.
I played a few (5) games with a 4 pod of my friends playing $100 ‘optimized’ decks (we love the $100 format) and found that this list struggles HARD when setback, just like in the video, but also against competitive-minded non-casual “cedh mentality” (even at $100) decks the turn 4/5 win that is heavily depending on a commander pair is both too slow and far too easy to disrupt. You hit the nail on the head with interaction density. Since Hulk combos can be $100 and consistently win on turn 3 (often on 2!) you ignore them, every player is running some sort of stax piece or is expecting to slam removal early. Malcolm dying is a BIG setback and felt like I was being taken out of the game entirely by one player playing a card. The effectiveness of the deck is hugely based on whether or not you’re allowed to scale up over a few turns and smack people - casting malcolm “fairly” on turn 3 versus on turn 1 (like the cedh versions) is huge. I wasn’t even close to participating meaningfully in any of the games. I love this deck. It’s straightforward and relatively fair. Its a fun, interesting, low salt way to play a reasonably powerful gameplan. A lot of competitive-minded $100 decks are just looking to abuse low $$$ cards that are busted to hopefully cheese out a turn 2 win against decks not ready for the sauce. Love just trying to smack people and get a combo off that takes setup.
Competitive game? Casual format? Sounds like a conflict of interest. If your playing to win, play standard or CEDH. Casual isn't turn 4 win. I have a Malcom breeches deck that can combo turn 3. CEDH is fun but you have to call it for what it is. When I sit down with random people and pull out a pre con or jank, 100% of the time 1 person pulls out a sweaty competitive deck. Be honest guys.
This is a beautiful video, thank you so much man. In deep analysis and bomb content. I took a look at your list and I'm definitely going to try it out since I own almost all of the cards. Do you think a list with both time sieve and thoracle/consultation combos might work? Maybe cutting some counterspell or removal? again, thank you so much for your videos they inspire me to keep building and testing
Thoracle + Demonic Consultation is SOOO bland and boring. I'm glad you also agree. It's such a stupid combo, the same as all of the "I mill myself and just win..." combos. Yeah, they end the game. But it's just stupid and it feels bad to lose that way. Losing to some cool combo or an excellent power play is much more "Good play!" feeling and OK.
A lot of the reasons you outlined in your conclusion is why I so enjoy Artisan Commander aka Commander with No Rares. A lot more interesting games seem to happen when the late game doesn’t have the most broken haymakers and at the same time the combos are a lot more convoluted (generally). And the other upside is a No Rares commander deck is still legal against regular decks, just like a budget restricted deck
Interesting. So i have a friend who has a deck like this, but plays breeches instead of Francisco. It uses allot more staples to get draw and interactions and such, but still has the same card quality problem with that 10/15 jank pirate core. Weirdly even though this deck does have more haymakers, if brecches fails to grab high value cards from opponents, the deck dropa off post turn 6-7 hard. Its interesting that though you need it to work, those pirates really drag the deck down.
My Dargo + Keddis pEDH deck which I think I got from you is like that. So focused and on plan. It's gross. I have another pEDH Imoti deck that I brewed that is out of control as well. I have come to the conclusion that building for power on limited budgets allows you to play more magic per game.
These videos are amazing, but every time I watch one I’m blindsided at least once by one of the most reasonable deckbuilding choices ever being talked about as something completely absurd. In this video it was “gemstone mine is a spicy choice of land” and “most players think 10% of your deck being counterspells is excessive”.
Don't you think a good 'ol budget Edric Turns could be doing what you're trying to do here but with the benefit of being more playable at slightly lower power levels? You're taking out the tutors, combo, and control but in return, you're more removal-proof and slightly more streamlined which makes it more consistent.
I’m always struggling to stop myself from periodically upgrading my decks. I have a Galadriel, light of Valinor deck that feels really strong but fair andI know it could super broken if I just build it more closely around a common strategy like counters
i've build this deck played in FNM last wek,and i can you it is strong with the low mana curve,once the time sieve get's tranmuted and put onto battlefield its brutal ☠🏴☠🏴☠
Honestly, I understand the design space is budget, and I agree that you are missing a few recursion pieces. Malcolm is nutty. The fact you can subvert how many rocks you run in the 99. Treasures are messed up lol.
Let’s say you had an extra $500 to upgrade this deck, what would you change? For example it seems like some of the tutors could be swapped out for demonic tutor, counter spells could be upgraded etc
Are we really saying a 2/2 flying for 3 and a 0/1 for 2 are too strong? Really? Does noone plays any interaction at your tables? if out of your 3 opponents, 0 are able to read your cards and deal with them, you're not playing mtg, your playing goldfish.
For context this is a good example of what the proactive decks in the $100 comp format look like. Not being able to win on turn 3 or 4 is fine. Lots of $100 decks can’t, but lots can. The speed of the Hundo Comp meta prob will surprise you. ruclips.net/video/n1--e5bNJuM/видео.htmlsi=7b--fg7w8m2mtGz-
Malcolm is disgusting in all levels of commander, I have two malcolm decks, one for cedh and one for casual. Budget malcolm is a great example of price doesn't equal power!
Seat of the synod and vault of whispers seem like free includes. I understand that mistvault bridge coming in tapped is a hinderance to the decks game plan, but why not run the untapped artifact lands?
Kinda surprised you didn’t put a mechanized production or a revel in riches in there since you’re doing a ton with artifacts and treasures already makes for good alternative win conditions in case you time sieve gets nuked.
I have to ask if Mirkwood Bats would be a good addition to end games a little faster with all of the token generation. It also has flying. It isn't a pirate, but it follows the game plan of making tokens to generate advantage of some sort.
I have a 40$ version with malcolm and kediss where the goal is to turn a reckless fireweaver or a similar creature into a pirate, put a curiosity on it and storm off with cantrips
So that explains a strategy someone was trying to pull off with these two, dropped a trouble in pairs early on and they just never really did anything for the rest of the game
dear lord. 13 counter spells and 7 kill spells all to take extra turns where no one else gets to play. im very glad i have the nice casual playgroup i do.
Question: if your 1-2-3 is so well defined, why run 2 mana artifact ramp at all? I can see how they fit in well at 4 but at that point (assuming your games don't last until turn 15+ due to the high power level), a draw spell or smth might be more useful no? There is this article on channel fireball (prolly frank karsten) about running 40 lands and no rocks, basically having a constructed curve, did you try that for this deck? Seems like the perfect opportunity to test the theory!
My friend Hans has suggested cutting the rocks and that may be correct, but they always feel fine and never bad. I also sometimes play them on turn 2 depending on the matchup, for example turn 1 pirate, turn 2 talisman into pirate, turn 3 malcolm is a curve-out I might go for if I have a one mana counterspell in my opening hand and I'm worried about early interaction.
Aw yeah. Snail knowledge for my 1:30 AM mtg itch
me fr
Litterally did 3 exams back to back to back in the middle of the night and THIS is how i close out the night. Lol.
Usually I get a 130am ass itch
@@TheRealLachlan damn dude you might have a parasite in your bunghole
Snailedge
The best part of this deck tech was Snail talking about all of the ways the deck struggles. I often see budget deck techs that go on & on about how strong the deck is in all sorts of scenarios, and how reliable the gameplan is, but never talk about the shortcomings when compared to non-budget builds or the most common ways the deck might get disrupted.
This is huge, really improves the video
I agree. Just about any deck will feel powerful if you get the perfect hand and ideal situations. It's nice to acknowledge what the hiccups are when you don't have that ideal hand and how you're intending to work around that.
this is a snail trademark i have come to find
I feel like every video completely changes the way i look at this format. They are thoughtfully put together by someone who knows what they are talking about. Thanks for the snailful wisdom! On another note, is there any chance you could show one of your decks in action? I would love to see when they shine or don't in play. Thanks!
You're the gameplay theory equivalent to Rhystic Studies' art deep dives and historical essays. You're got a gift for seeing the big picture that I wish I had as a player and I greatly appreciate your input helping to educate me as a player. Keep this up man.
Hundred likes I was here for it let's go!!
this one two three curve shows why partners have so much more advantage over a single commander
Doubling the amount of turns you auto curve out is pretty good
Honest hate having two commanders, for some reason my play group never allows me to keep both out ever. Some one always tunnels one of them so I end up having to spend ten mana for one of them by turn 4. At that point I just said screw it but wasting all my interaction keeping them on the field wasn’t working. Now I just run one and only ever play home if I have at least three four cards of interaction for him/her. Noob problems 😕
imagine if some deck just started the game with an extra card in hand. That unto itself would be extremely valuable. Now imagine you tutor for a specific card at the start of each game and put it into your hand. Now repeat that one more time. That is partially why partners are so powerful.
@DREADEDuuubGAMING a lot of partner commanders I've found fall into the category of and work best as "removal bait" as in; what appears to be a juicy, high value target that can be redeployed that fishes out your opponents interaction so you resolve something more worrisome out of the 99.
My anecdotal example: trynn and silvar are both great bait for me to be able to resolve a winnota or a felidar sovereign
Futher pushes my mindset that Wizards has never added a single Commander specific ability that is good for the format. The more they leave it alone, the better.
for less than a dollar Grazilaxx, Illithid Scholar is a Coastal Piracy effect that only triggers once per player but is 3 mana and provides a small amount of protection for your blockable creatures, Call of the Ring is over a dollar but is a 2 mana Phyrexian Arena effect that tempts providing your small creatures with evasion and even more card advantage might be a bit win more however
Oh yeah I forgot about Grazilaxx! That might be a sweet addition.
I run that in my favorite $100 comp deck (Malcolm Kediss) and it does serious work. I’d also suggest it. It’s def better than the postal piracy affects.
Kediss w Malcom make curiosity, tandem lookout, and ophidian eye honestly broken but even in that deck I find Graz well worth the include.
Grazilaxx is probably the best coastal piracy effect since he can also theoretically reuse etb effects. but mostly just because he's only 3 mana.
This is effectively Yuriko with extra steps haha
Great breakdown of what makes a cEDH list through the perspective of a casual deck.
Commanders with card advantage and mana ✅
Efficient combo ✅
Interaction + tutors ✅
A winning strategy no matter the price point!
Except yuriko is broken and kinda lame
@@BingbongRectoAt least killing these commanders does something, but both seem kinda lame NGL.
so strange you dont have more subs, such a good content every time
I agree 100%. He's the best imo. He's getting there, and it's very well deserved. He has blown up quite a bit recently though, considering I can recall that it was not that long ago where he was around 6 or 7K
yeah i feel really lucky i randomly clicked on him from recommended videos. so many content creators in the MTG space don't do nearly as much with their videos.
he's a very new channel so there's more to come I'm sure of it
You should totally post gameplay with your friends, i feel like these decks would make way more interesting games than other channels like game knights
Game knights only plays decks that wizards tells them to play. They've completely sold out. In order to be sponsored by Wizards, you have to give them a lot of say in your business.
Syr Ginger, the Meal Ender would be great in this deck. Sacrificing 5 artifacts per turn once you pop off will give it +5/+5 per turn, and it's also a lifegain resource in a pinch
Or even an emergency sacrifice artifact because Syr Ginger is ALSO an artifact.
I like this deck for a few reasons not the least of which is how this demonstrates how EDHREC isn't always "right" (as you demonstrated in your ode to Skeleton Ship a bit back).
I tried to build a Francisco/Malcolm deck shortly after Francisco was released but gave up, figuring that Malcolm and Breeches just makes more sense. Adding the Time Sieve combo really gives this deck an identity beyond "pirates in worse pirate colors" or "bad ninjas/rogues/etc."
The principle outlined at the end of this video reminds me of the Gruul Control deck previously covered on this channel, and a version of such a deck I had built prior on a budget of only 5$. Having a value engine in the command zone is extremely potent to allocate deck space for interaction and alleviate issues of low card quality, but having an interaction engine offers the same benefit, ensuring you almost always have an answer and can defend yourself while your deck works its magic. As someone who enjoys the mechanical intrigue of tinkering with a deck's power level, but does not enjoy particularly high level play, building well-tuned and optimized decks on a hyper-budget of 5 dollars gives me room to try to exploit cards for every penny they're worth, without becoming too oppressive in play. While I love thinking about and designing with complex commanders that explore interesting concepts, it's really this idea of value/interaction efficiency and making the most out of deck space that makes these decks punch above their weight in brass.
Hey, do you have a decklist for that budget Gruul control deck? I'm always interested in looking at interesting builds, and that one sounds very interesting.
Genuinely, how do you make a deck on a $5 budget? Even commons are like a dime a piece.
The discussion of interaction and removal here reminded me of an interesting concept from yugioh dexkbuilding: managing your deck's ratio of engine to nonengine. Basically, the fewer total cards in deck you need to dedicate to your gameplan of wining the game, the more card space you can instead spend on yugioh's high-power suite of generic interaction- cards that sre the equivalent of situational free counterspells, one-sided boardwipes, etc. This deck sounds like it would be doing very well by that yugioh standard
Yeah, that's why I'd still go for the thoracle/consult/doomsday package - probs still worth it even though it takes out a chunk of your budget.
The snail is back!
techo pfp😭
Deck's so fresh the boat got stuck near magnetic north
Your twist on the archetype gives very good ideas!
The most informative part of the video is when you say that your combo piece commander hasn't been removed on the turn it came down more than once or twice. You're running 13 counter spells and your opponents can't be bothered to run half a dozen removal spells and appropriately identify your combo piece?
I remember i did something similar with Selvala once. Some people on my LGS used to roflstomp casual tables with their expensive, fast mana full decks and people complained a lot about being able to "buy" power, so i built a list that was both powerful anc affordable, ending up at about $130 total (currency is different over here so it cost me less than $100 actually). To this day i only pull it out on the fastest of tables and even some cEDH pods and it always performs, and most inexperienced players dont believe its a budget deck until i show them the decklist. Power on a budget is very much achievable and very, very fun to do so
This is the reason channels like this one and Commanders Quarters are important and worth recommending to newer players. Budget decks can slap, it just takes more thought than opening your wallet.
Wouldn't running artifact lands make sense here? Emergency artifacts for Time Sieve and they come in untapped anyway.
OAKEN SIREN MENTIONED
Theres some fun Izzet version of this with a partner pirate that has a fun steal effect
Holy shit. That is one dirty deck. Love it.
"this video ended up a little longer than i was intending" that's how it goes, lol. no one from youtubers to published authors can escape length creep
I do love time sieve, as it fits perfectly into my Lurrus / Bjorna / Wernog artifact token deck. It fits the Lurrus restritction, is a win condition, and perfectly utilizes the mountain of tokens I vomit out.
The problem is however that the deck has difficulty winning quickly, mostly building up a sir ginger or similar, and swining with it until the opponent runs out of blockers. This takes a lot of turns, and since most of my engine pieces are two mana, I generally do not achieve a deterministic infinite turns combo, but one that heavily relies on scrying about 10x a turn, finding some artifacts, drawing those, and looping graveyard artifacts.
If this would happen sometimes, it would be fine, however as the deck has a lot of draw and scry, since it needs to make the most of 2 mana cards, it can quite consistently find time sieve, and with time sieve being by far the most consistent way to close out games, it basically loses everything else.
The main ways to counteract it I thought of where adding disciple of the vault, as an aristocrat that can shorten the amount of turns needed. Or add thopter foundry + sword of the meek as a combo to make it deterministic, and thus be able to be shortcut. Diciple of the vault is currently being tested, sword + foundry simply does not work, as the cards are mostly dead when they are not used as combo pieces (you would think that thopter foundry would do things in an artifact deck, however three games showed that it does close to nothing normally)
I have the same deck built! ThopterFoundry/Sword of the Meek/Time Sieve is the classic combo, letting you make thopter tokens for 1 mana each, which even after the 5 you sacrifice every turn will close out a game pretty fast. If I can't get those online, or my backup animate dead combo, I typically try to win with Cranial Plating or Michiko's Reign of Truth.
Sword of the Meek isn't quite dead because I can recast a 1/1 from my grave every turn with Lurrus, and Bjorna can sacrifice it for more goads. Thopter Foundry is more likely to be dead; it has niche applications as being a way to get some artifacts into my graveyard if Bjorna is dead or if I'm trying to kill multiple artifacts per turn.
@@bekeleven Reign of Truth sounds like a nice alternative to cranial plating I might try it.
What is the Animate Dead combo? I know it has a lot of combo's associated, however worldgorger dragon is not quite Lurrus material.
Thank you for responding by the way, I really appreciate it
Thank you for making RUclips videos at this level of quality. I gain so much insight and learn so much about commander deck building by watching your videos. Keep creating such great content. Cheers.
We have converged on the same idea. However, I went Izzet and used Kediss as my 2nd partner with Malcolm. Kediss allows Malcolm to gain +2 treasures, and if Kediss can find an opening with an Amoeboid Changeling or Imagecrafter activation, even more. Glint-Horn Buccaneer + Malcolm/Curiosity/Tandem Lookout/Ophidian's Eye is the primary combo, but you never feel bad slapping any of those on Malcolm and drawing 3 with Kediss. The secondary wincon is burn/burst with Price of Progress, Fireblast, Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time, with Surge to Victory or Candlekeep Inspiration. Funny how that plays out!
Grim Hireling
Yep, I built this same deck on a $30 budget and it's both super fun and quite strong. Nice video!
Malcolm really is one of the commanders of all time. It's crazy that he doesn't need to deal damage nor does the pirate need to deal combat damage. Why is he an uncommon?
Yeah, for every possible way WotC could have made the card worse they chose not to.
Thanks for sharing! You definitely appeal to the analytical strategist in me. I feel kindred with you in that building for fun/casual play is my priority, but I do try to maintain competitiveness and build some decks on the "sweatier" end of casual. Your thought processes are excellent and helpful for any player to think through. That being said, you challenge me to think through my decks and what I might need to do to change them or even why I should/shouldn't change them.
just recently built malcom and fransisco, i went futher into artifacts and holy it feels strong, the curve is so easy and so consistent. i also have a lower power non combo centric version of this deck and my experience is no one ever wants to remove fransisco cause killing a 2 drop feels bad. the other version i run focuses more on the evasive creatures and card draw on combat damage
Would love a deck list as I tend to dont run combo in my group
Love the deck, I have a similar Malcolm partner deck and one card that does absolute work is March of swirling mist, could easily take out one of your harder removal spells for it like slaughter pact
Put grim hireling in here
You made making this deck sound so simple and easy, you really know your stuff! This is making me want to relook at all my decks, especially my control and combo decks, to make their curve and their turn to turn strategy super clean. Great video!
most definitely trying this at my LGS, seems really fun and strong
I really like this decklist and your deck building philosophy, it reminds me a lot of my Minn deck. Although I don’t run any combos, my deck has a very low curve and is extremely consistent with lots of filtering, interaction and redundant cards with a straightforward plan (turn 2 play a Merfolk Looter, turn 3 play Minn, turn 4-6 play more engine pieces and draw engines and just run the opponents over with armies of tokens and drawing a dozen cards a turn cycle). Love your well thought out videos!
I'm surprised to not see irenicus's vile duplication. It is 2 dollars but having 2 of either commander makes the deck play much faster. Not to mention 2 malcolms makes the time sieve combo a lot easier
That's actually a really good play, I'll have to try that out.
You're an amazing deckbuilder. All of these cards just have so much synergy
You don't mention it (probably 'cause it ain't important to your deck) but Malcolm and Francisco's triggers do NOT trigger off of combat damage specifically. They trigger off of any damage dealt by a Pirate.
Now, I don't think this really matters with Malcolm/Francisco -- without radically changing the deck, I don't see a way of exploiting that. However, it's very important to Malcolm/Breeches decks using e.g. Glint-Horn Buccaneer or Lightning-Rig Crew.
I played a few (5) games with a 4 pod of my friends playing $100 ‘optimized’ decks (we love the $100 format) and found that this list struggles HARD when setback, just like in the video, but also against competitive-minded non-casual “cedh mentality” (even at $100) decks the turn 4/5 win that is heavily depending on a commander pair is both too slow and far too easy to disrupt. You hit the nail on the head with interaction density. Since Hulk combos can be $100 and consistently win on turn 3 (often on 2!) you ignore them, every player is running some sort of stax piece or is expecting to slam removal early. Malcolm dying is a BIG setback and felt like I was being taken out of the game entirely by one player playing a card. The effectiveness of the deck is hugely based on whether or not you’re allowed to scale up over a few turns and smack people - casting malcolm “fairly” on turn 3 versus on turn 1 (like the cedh versions) is huge. I wasn’t even close to participating meaningfully in any of the games.
I love this deck. It’s straightforward and relatively fair. Its a fun, interesting, low salt way to play a reasonably powerful gameplan. A lot of competitive-minded $100 decks are just looking to abuse low $$$ cards that are busted to hopefully cheese out a turn 2 win against decks not ready for the sauce. Love just trying to smack people and get a combo off that takes setup.
Competitive game? Casual format? Sounds like a conflict of interest. If your playing to win, play standard or CEDH. Casual isn't turn 4 win. I have a Malcom breeches deck that can combo turn 3. CEDH is fun but you have to call it for what it is. When I sit down with random people and pull out a pre con or jank, 100% of the time 1 person pulls out a sweaty competitive deck. Be honest guys.
This is a beautiful video, thank you so much man. In deep analysis and bomb content. I took a look at your list and I'm definitely going to try it out since I own almost all of the cards. Do you think a list with both time sieve and thoracle/consultation combos might work? Maybe cutting some counterspell or removal? again, thank you so much for your videos they inspire me to keep building and testing
BRuhhhhhhh... i told myself i WOULDNT buy another deck... Here you go changing my mind again snail.
Thoracle + Demonic Consultation is SOOO bland and boring. I'm glad you also agree. It's such a stupid combo, the same as all of the "I mill myself and just win..." combos. Yeah, they end the game. But it's just stupid and it feels bad to lose that way. Losing to some cool combo or an excellent power play is much more "Good play!" feeling and OK.
A lot of the reasons you outlined in your conclusion is why I so enjoy Artisan Commander aka Commander with No Rares. A lot more interesting games seem to happen when the late game doesn’t have the most broken haymakers and at the same time the combos are a lot more convoluted (generally). And the other upside is a No Rares commander deck is still legal against regular decks, just like a budget restricted deck
Interesting. So i have a friend who has a deck like this, but plays breeches instead of Francisco. It uses allot more staples to get draw and interactions and such, but still has the same card quality problem with that 10/15 jank pirate core. Weirdly even though this deck does have more haymakers, if brecches fails to grab high value cards from opponents, the deck dropa off post turn 6-7 hard. Its interesting that though you need it to work, those pirates really drag the deck down.
My Dargo + Keddis pEDH deck which I think I got from you is like that. So focused and on plan. It's gross. I have another pEDH Imoti deck that I brewed that is out of control as well. I have come to the conclusion that building for power on limited budgets allows you to play more magic per game.
These videos are amazing, but every time I watch one I’m blindsided at least once by one of the most reasonable deckbuilding choices ever being talked about as something completely absurd. In this video it was “gemstone mine is a spicy choice of land” and “most players think 10% of your deck being counterspells is excessive”.
Don't you think a good 'ol budget Edric Turns could be doing what you're trying to do here but with the benefit of being more playable at slightly lower power levels? You're taking out the tutors, combo, and control but in return, you're more removal-proof and slightly more streamlined which makes it more consistent.
Malcolm plus sigil of valor plus anything that gives him double strike ensures victory within 3 combat phases. I run him and kediss in Izzet.
I’m always struggling to stop myself from periodically upgrading my decks. I have a Galadriel, light of Valinor deck that feels really strong but fair andI know it could super broken if I just build it more closely around a common strategy like counters
i've build this deck played in FNM last wek,and i can you it is strong with the low mana curve,once the time sieve get's tranmuted and put onto battlefield its brutal ☠🏴☠🏴☠
Snail never disappoints me with his simple, effective and elegant wisdom. Good vid Snail!
Honestly, I understand the design space is budget, and I agree that you are missing a few recursion pieces.
Malcolm is nutty. The fact you can subvert how many rocks you run in the 99. Treasures are messed up lol.
Let’s say you had an extra $500 to upgrade this deck, what would you change? For example it seems like some of the tutors could be swapped out for demonic tutor, counter spells could be upgraded etc
Ignorant me hoping you didnt cram a bunch of countermagic into this. However when you are looking to play near cEDH, sure, I get that.
Nice build!
Are we really saying a 2/2 flying for 3 and a 0/1 for 2 are too strong? Really? Does noone plays any interaction at your tables? if out of your 3 opponents, 0 are able to read your cards and deal with them, you're not playing mtg, your playing goldfish.
For context this is a good example of what the proactive decks in the $100 comp format look like.
Not being able to win on turn 3 or 4 is fine. Lots of $100 decks can’t, but lots can. The speed of the Hundo Comp meta prob will surprise you.
ruclips.net/video/n1--e5bNJuM/видео.htmlsi=7b--fg7w8m2mtGz-
Tarrian’s Soulcleaver isn’t expensive and would put in some serious work if you have to win through combat damage.
Malcolm is disgusting in all levels of commander, I have two malcolm decks, one for cedh and one for casual. Budget malcolm is a great example of price doesn't equal power!
just a heads up, "is:commander legal:commander" is a slightly more efficient way to type out in scryfall, and it also includes backgrounds.
Okokok… you don’t understand the power of malcolm. My best deck is a malcolm sakashima partner deck called malcolm tribal
this commander pair is my weakest commander deck, i have a deck running all flying pirates
its literally flying pirates beat down
Curious why the deck wouldn't run Goldvein Pick and Prying Blade if the goal is to generate at least five treasures per attack?
Nice.... I brewed a really gross Pirate deck with Tormod as the other partner/wincon.....
Seat of the synod and vault of whispers seem like free includes. I understand that mistvault bridge coming in tapped is a hinderance to the decks game plan, but why not run the untapped artifact lands?
One of those videos that make the deck total value go up by like minimum 20$ and makes some of these cards go up by 0.20$ on its own lmfao.
Malcolm/Breeches is somewhat better combo. You get Access to glinhorn and an ability to grind from the CZ
Kinda surprised you didn’t put a mechanized production or a revel in riches in there since you’re doing a ton with artifacts and treasures already makes for good alternative win conditions in case you time sieve gets nuked.
I have to ask if Mirkwood Bats would be a good addition to end games a little faster with all of the token generation. It also has flying. It isn't a pirate, but it follows the game plan of making tokens to generate advantage of some sort.
Doing something like this with Laughing Jaspar Flint with low cost outlaws. Deck is now a strong steal and exile mil deck low mana cost outlaws
I have a 40$ version with malcolm and kediss where the goal is to turn a reckless fireweaver or a similar creature into a pirate, put a curiosity on it and storm off with cantrips
Looking to make a very similar derevi bird or flying tribal deck. Derevi being a mana doubler that is always available.
Would love if you did these videos for other formats like modern!! Love ur deep dives but DONT love Cedh
So that explains a strategy someone was trying to pull off with these two, dropped a trouble in pairs early on and they just never really did anything for the rest of the game
Would love to see a higher budget version of this deck while still keeping its overall systems
I'd probably cut like a land or something for grazillax and maybe Delay.
dear lord. 13 counter spells and 7 kill spells all to take extra turns where no one else gets to play. im very glad i have the nice casual playgroup i do.
the land count seems too low. it looks like you really want to hit your 4th land drop, in which case 36/37 lands is ideal
double down (blue enchantment from thunder junction) with help this deck dont know if it will help the budget
Doesn't francisco get stopped easily just by hitting a land on the explore trigger?
man i wish i wasnt a fucking idiot so i could build a deck with this much thought put into it. i wish i was as smart as you man :( awesome vid though!
Great video as always! The amount of mtg insight you pack into these is impressive
is there any case for including both win conditions if i like the concept but dont care about the firm budget?
U should put sun quan in your deck it makes all of your creatures have horsemanship
You say a lot of words a bit weird. But "Niv-Mizz-eht" was silly af.
This seems like a black/blue Magda, Brazen outlaw Deck.
Man, this is almost the same as my edric deck but UB, it’s even in the same price bracket
I want a full video on upgrades for every possible increase in budget
Francisco + Malcolm is most similar to the cedh commanders... Francisco + Malcolm.
babe wake up new salubrious snail dropped
I would contend that Malcolm is balanced (for CEDH)
With the amount of treasure being made and sacced have you considered Mirkwood Bats for this deck?
By the time you actually got that card into play, its either slowing down your wincon, or you've already won and it does nothing.
Enjoy getting your time sieve null elemental blasted forever after next release
Just wait till you discover PDH and cPDH :)
Have you ever considered: Just taking a single extra turn?
ngl am yugioh player but this was good video
interesting stuff
Question: if your 1-2-3 is so well defined, why run 2 mana artifact ramp at all? I can see how they fit in well at 4 but at that point (assuming your games don't last until turn 15+ due to the high power level), a draw spell or smth might be more useful no? There is this article on channel fireball (prolly frank karsten) about running 40 lands and no rocks, basically having a constructed curve, did you try that for this deck? Seems like the perfect opportunity to test the theory!
My friend Hans has suggested cutting the rocks and that may be correct, but they always feel fine and never bad. I also sometimes play them on turn 2 depending on the matchup, for example turn 1 pirate, turn 2 talisman into pirate, turn 3 malcolm is a curve-out I might go for if I have a one mana counterspell in my opening hand and I'm worried about early interaction.
sooo a cuter version of Tivit. ngl, this is awesome.
Saw my boy malcolm on the thumbnail, instantly clicked on it
reminds me of my edric deck somehow 🤣 deck is interesting!!!!