The effect of shuffling the library back was the determining factor of choosing old kozilek instead of the new one. Every deck runs some sort of graveyard recursion, and the feeling that my deck will NEVER END had some friends just quit the game because they just "can't deal with this card for the fourth time in a row". I love it, the grave is just my extended hand.
Vat of Rebirth consistently provides so much value throughout the games i play. Its one mana, cheap to buy, and just hangs out casually gaining value and letting you recur your creatures occasionally
This video further reinforces my love for graveyard hate. Nothing more satisfying than having instant speed graveyard hate to stop someone’s plans fast 🤣
Fairie macabre is probably the most underutilized card in the entire format. If you are in green and you have shared summons in hand, you can tutor it and a value piece and interact in instant speed.
@@ant7433 you are welcome. at some point in the past i went on a spree looking for all the free interaction in the game. there are so many hidden gems. i recommend that a lot of decks need to run gush as well. in general free interaction is great. don't use cards like foil though. i am cutting me from my niv mizzet deck most likely. i should sit down and make a deck list with all the free interaction in the format tagged with the specific use of it. if not the free the efficient. because yeah some of it we know, but there are some underutilized cards. for instance i don't see many players play gush even in tatyova decks and that seems insane to me. i learned about many cool cards by looking older cedh decks and competitive pauper edh deck. this is where i found fairie macabre actually. i think it was in the dimir decks in the format.
Thank you so much for this video! I remember when I watched your vid about "how to not build around your commander" and feeling like 'that's great but how do I build a deck that isn't a copy of the example they made'. This video helped me make changes to my decks to feel less bland and powerless in large pods (I had a lot of one-off draw so my deck either won explosively early or got wrekt by combat damage lategame on an empty hand) Keep up the great work and keep challenging the status quo about commander :)
Well, you see, when you have your head firmly up your own butt you don't notice when you are talking nonsense, just like this guy. He has zero internal consistency and he thinks with his feelings and elitism 80% of the time. Probably not the dude to be listening to. He didn't even bother to read your comment and just put some nonsense hoping for more engagement and subs.
This is how my Pantlaza deck is. I’ll get board wiped 3-4 times but always right back in it next turn. Lots of draw engines and ramp and I run Struggle//Survive so I can keep getting everything back. And the new Vaultborn Tyrant coming out is just gonna make even better
Very helpful video on what cards can you put in your deck that will make it so you won't run out of gas. If you run a tokens deck that has green, a card that would slot well in it is Timeless Witness. It is a more expensive to cast Eternal Witness, but you won't run out of gas since you exile it and make a token copy with it's Eternalize ability. It is even better if you have ways to populate that token. I have it in my Ghired, Conclave Exile deck and it has been really good.
Once I had only 1 peice of graveyard hate in my deck (Soul guide lanter) and my opponent cast a Surge to Victory targeting a World at War , and man it felt good to crack that Sould guide lanter.
So I play magic all over the US, because I travel for work. I don't know who came up with this idea that games end on 7 or before in fact very few games end before 10. I'd say that most games go to 15 on average. I guess at least you said "9 or longer". So you aren't that bad of an offender here, but many podcasts and RUclipsrs say there games go to 7 or 8 turns. When I play a deck that wins on turn 5-7 usually people don't want to play against that deck again. Sorry for the rant just ill just assume I'm shouting this into the aether
I love my Kethis, the Hidden Hand deck. Kethis himself provides recursion and can help get some big threats down a turn early if nobody answers him. He also makes stuff like Urza's Ruinous Blast and Kamhal's Druidic Vow absolutely disgusting. There's a lot of good legendary specific value engines too
I know you contrasted this playstyle against combo, but honestly I think the two work really well together. Combos are very deck-space efficient, leaving you plenty of room to grind out the time and card advantage you need to find combo pieces. You also emphasized recursion, which can be used to re-attempt combos that are disrupted. Opponent hit your combo piece with a counter spell? E-Wit it back to hand and see if they have another. I think the real melding of these two concepts would be something like a landfall combo deck. There's a million and one ways to get infinite landfall triggers, and a lot of the individual pieces also serve as more generic value like ramp, card advantage, or board advantage.
Tablet of ancestry in any deck that goes somewhat wide is absolutely fantastic. My Emmara, soul of the accord deck has a tendency to just dump its hand in the first few turns making a super wide board full of tokens, and discarding the last one or two cards to draw what's usually at least five feels so good, plus since it's on an artifact, it's a repeatable effect for when I dump the new hand I just drew.
I've always felt weird about my Yurlok of scorch thrash deck being played for value instead of combo. After watching your video I understood that deck was always meant to just jund players out and that's totally ok ✨👌. thank you!
i have a shigeki deck that i call mono blue control because it plays mostly at instant speed. the entire gameplan is ramp an absurd amount then just use spot removal and fogs to get there eventually, the most common win condition is casting ezuri's predation (sometimes multiple times) and swinging with an army of 4/4s after everyone else is out of cards
Heyyy, another salvaging station enjoyer ! It's my favorite card, I especially like playing lantern control with it. I also really enjoyed ransom letter with it recently.
Midrange grind decks is an archetype I love, but I have struggled to create a deck that has the tools to disrupt combo decks while also keeping the midrange identity. How would you navigate a midrange deck, in deck building and in game, against play group that leans toward combo decks? Any advice would be much appreciated.
I was impressed by the saga praetors - Elesh Norn, Sheoldred, Jin-Gitaxias, and Vorinclex - for how little deck construction they need to support while they set themselves up to be re-activated into the saga so the whole process repeats. Urabrask at least wants more cheap instants and sorceries as a limit. Fun engines to sit back and wear down opponents with.
I saw an ephara control deck use saltskitter to consistently draw 3 or 4 cards per turn cycle which was really cool to me because I had never seen the card saltskitter before.
Lurrus is my value engine and she's pretty great, if she gets exiled tho it's all over. Also for that deck I have 1 infinite combo I can recur with lurrus so that if I do run out of steam I have a fallback
My Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker deck kept getting flatlined by having Shirei removed. I combatted that with a bunch of protection pieces, but thanks to this video i now know of a different approach that i can try. Thank you for such well explained and insightful content, i really liked the creative value engines in particular.
Regrowth effects are my favorite part of green's color identity, that and i love running past in flames or underworld breach in alot of my red decks. Utilizing cards for a second time instead of stalling out is almost like a tutor effect. Its so powerful
That "Skimp out on the graveyard hate" is soooo true. My best and most favourite deck is Raffine Reanimator. Even though I've cut souch removal and counter magic just to add more big dumb creatures to bring back (I'm down to like 4 pieces of targeted removal and 2 or 3 counterspells) They still tell me it's too oppressive and out of control. The only graveyard hate in the entire Meta is when someone runs farewell or bojuka bog. Which is like... 2 people. They won't take my advice to add more things that interact with the yard. Hell the EZURI player doesn't run scavenging Ooze!
I will say probably one of the best ways I’ve seen for deck building. I do like putting a combo or two in EVERY deck that wins me the game that turn for when games get too long or tiring (I’m not the type to typically scoop unless you blow up my lands or mana rocks turn 1-2 if you had a better start). Sometimes I just don’t want to play a 6+ hour game in a 6-8 person pod. Over all great video. I think possibility storm is an underrated card and is an auto include in every red deck. It definitely tests people’s deck building/deck knowledge/skills. 🤣🤣
Another strategy I like which usually works best in some combination of red/white/black is what I’ll call ‘hyper-aggression’. You come out of the gate swinging with 14 board wipes in the deck, all the artifact and enchantment destruction under the sun. You hit them hard and fast, tackle them to the ground, and never let them get up. It’s what I do for my Syr Gwyn Voltron deck. You don’t need to worry about running out of steam if you never let your opponents generate any of their own in the first place. Of course this won’t work for as many groups because it’s much more of a ‘feels bad’ strategy than grindy midrange because your goal isn’t to outlast what your opponents are doing, it’s to not let them do any of it in the first place. Sort of mardu’s answer to azorius/selesyna stax.
Added the og legendary eldrazi for the annihilator 4, kept them for the shuffle triggers. All of my casual decks have ways to avoid decking out, and I include 3-4 cards that provide lifegain+stax/interaction such as Meathook Massacre, Blind Obedience, Authority of the Consuls, etc. Not dying to decking out or attrition damage and still having 94~ cards in the deck to choose from for whatever I’m doing has helped dominate long games by never losing heavy hitters.
I have a pure colorless Karn, Legacy Reforged commander deck that uses KCI, Mirrorworks, and Nim Deathmantle with artifact creatures (some with etb triggers) to create an overwhelming board state over time. I've only made it work one time so far, and I used Jhoira's Familiar as my creature for Deathmantle to do its thing. It works by Sacrificing a Nontoken Artifact Creature to KCI, which triggers Deathmantle, pay 4 to reanimate the creature, and then pay 2 for Mirrorworks to make a clone of it. Repeat until you can't pay for Deathmantle since the KCI mana pays for the Mirrorworks trigger. You can also use Karns mana to pay the cost of the Mirrorworks and Deathmantle triggers too, so over time you net more and more free mana and more artifacts which give you more mana the next turn.
I have been screaming about seasons past since 2018, it is so good and no one is playing it I have a boomer jund edh deck built around this card and it's done wonders
Weird tech that I've found as well is that if you cast belzenlok late game and you have a relatively middle-of-the-ground to high mana curve, he exiles a ton of your lands for you, getting rid of dead draws if the game goes REALLY long
75¢ card and it's capable of winning games on its own quite frankly Add a seedborn muse type of effect and you control where the game goes and I'm so happy that it's getting traction in other spaces besides my tables
I love playing for the long grindy game, though I usually do not play midrange (more of a control player personally). But one deck I have that I think fits this really well is my Eriette of the charmed Apple deck. The deck's gameplan is actually quite simple. I play Eriette, then I enchant my opponents' biggest threats (to me) with some cheap aura that gives them +1/+1 and pro creatures, or flying or some other beneficial effect. Then I just kind of sit there are and slowly drain my opponent's. I'm still missing several card draw pieces for the deck, but it plays surprisingly well. With a few other cards to disincentivise attacks and several auras that can recur themselves, I can usually keep it going for a long time. I also run plenty of protection for my commander, but even so, I can usually recast her two or so times without much issue. I think it is a very different kind of deck, but functions much the same as what you were talking about.
I got a Jan Jansen deck that is grindy as hell too. With all those goblin welders we habe nowadays, plus the recursion from mardu colors... oh boy. My fav wincon is machine gunning with marionette master and cranial plating!
"The original king of midrange was Modern Jund." Meanwhile, Extended The Rock is over here, unappreciated. 0:50 -- I remember when Midrange was first being painfully birthed into existence. We didn't quite understand what we were looking at, as the deck not only didn't fit neatly into the Aggro, Combo, Control paradigm, but "looked bad" on paper. We called them JUNK decks, for crying out loud. XD
Personally I like REPEATABLE interaction. Font of Agonies in Vilis, Retribution of the Ancients in a counters deck, Lux Cannon in a proliferate deck, Constant Mists in lands decks, etc.
I've seen ping engines put in an absurd amount of work in a commander game. Think Goblin Bombardment, Outpost Siege, Blasting Station, and Dragon Tempest (naturally a lot of these effects are in red). People often rely on small utility creatures dodging dedicated spot removal because they're not the big "I'm going to kill you" threats. The ability to pick them off over and over can really rack up value.
as someone who LOVES being able to re-use cards as many times as possible (not just flashback once and exile it forever) I feel you. One of my favorites is using faerie mechanist to put pressure on because 3 in the air is just pushing that uncomfortable to take multiple hits from line so people kill it, then a simple skeleton shard to return it to hand for one mana, play faerie mechanist again, and pull another arifact from my top 3 cards. Because I like doing it myself I've always been conscious of packing graveyard hate to keep anyone from doing it back to me, but also in turn trained my friends to always be cautious of graveyards. My current project is trying to use Scion of the Ur dragon for it's 2 cost copy ability to throw highly situational dragons into the graveyard and copy their abilities at instant speed while being immune to counterspell because it's an ability not a spell, and trying to carry enough cards to keep shuffling them back into my deck, and Nylea's Bow is gonna be a BIG target every time it hits the field for it's ability to put 4 creatures from graveyard on the bottom of my deck. It's gonna be gimmicky and kinda loaded with bad draws, but hopefully there's also enough wheel effects to throw those cards away for a new hand and then once again shuffle those high cost dragons back into the deck so I can copy them for abilities later. Basically the end goal is to have yugioh anime bullshit levels of situational silver bullets at all times for 2 mana and then to keep shuffling them back for reuse while a flyer commander that keeps getting beefier with counters over time is a constant boardstate threat.
and just for example of how silly the idea is if it actually ends up working, for 2 mana on a turn an opponent looks like they're about to pop off I can suddenly have a Niv Mizzet on field and draw a card for every spell they cast, I might as well have just ported Maxx C from yugioh over to mtg and people want that card permabanned for being so strong and played in 99.9% of decks
My new favorite deck has been my Zask deck, and it only gets to be a better deck over time as better insects and value engine cards like Six get printed. He's so fun, the deck churns, digs, recycles things and runs fun, thematic removal like the two grists and the bugs that eat artifacts/enchantments. It just kinda does everything decent.
I would argue that in a vacuum, a creature’s ETB trigger is better than an instant or sorcery doing the same thing, even if that creature costs 1 or 2 more mana. Even ignoring all the ways to get more value out of ETB triggers, eternal witness is also a 2/1 creature on the board vs regrowth going straight to the graveyard. Regrowth is a 1 for 1 value spell, eternal witness is a 2 for 1 value spell. On top of getting the card back from your graveyard, you now have a blocker or something to attack with for chip damage against someone with no blocks. If I had to choose between an X cost sorcery or an X+1 cost creature that does the same thing on ETB, I’d probably choose the creature. If the effect was on an instant instead, then I’d only choose the creature if I had additional synergies with it
My Henzie deck is pretty much the embodiment of "Jund em out" super grindy, aggressive beatdown (my favorite) and lots of reanimation to make sure we're never running out of gas. Blitz is one of the most fun mechanics I've ever played with and i always feel like theres something I can do (unless there's GY hate...that always sucks lol)
Road of Return is another solid recursion spell. I like versatility and if my commander tax is too high, it gives me an option for a cheaper late-game cast. But often its just Regrowth.
The thing with the arena vs. whispers debate is this, it comes down what you aim to do: arena costs 3 mana and will only do something if you get around to your next turn with it still being on board. even then it still is more expensive than whispers, and has done less for you. only if another rotation passes around the table and arena doesnt get removed, it somewhat starts to break even, while still costing more. only if a third rotation can be completed, arena has been worth playing over whispers. also, if you play whispers on turn 2 you will be able to start using the cards on turn 3 you drew with it, in contrast to playing arena there. so generally, whispers is just the better effect. however, decks with other synergies/gameplans (enchantment focus, grinding playstyle, recursion heavy) are able to make great use out of arena, it just is not the be all include for black card draw that it sometimes gets made out to be
Would Sunbird's Invocation be considered a value engine? It allows for a second spell to be cast from the top of your deck EACH time you cast a spell from your hand (and no, the cast spell DOES NOT have to resolve).
I was wondering if you do any deck doctor stuff. Maybe for patrons? I have a deck that I built with your bottom up design but I got a lot of weird looks when I shared the deck idea and deck list.
@@thetrinketmageI assume the discord is private to teir 1 patrons? It's not linked on the YT or twitter or anything. Also another great video keep up the good work.
kozilek is a mainstay in my ovika deck. i dont run any unlimited handsize cards, and whenever id draw like 15-35 cards a turn, kozilek would be discarded on my end step to tuck my grave back into the deck.
Salvaging Station seems to need a bunch of colours in the decks identity though. In a two colour deck, there won't be a sufficient amount of targets, I'm afraid.
Would also something like command tower + the new Tower Winder, and then use the command tower for discard effects? (and then repeatable copy the tower winder)
shorikai or any other 1-toughness token maker plus skullclamp is a great value engine, even better if youre running iso/rev as your value engine fits into your infinite combo value pieces that also fit in combos are just good in general too, having a combo in a deck that has nothing to do with what the deck wants to do otherwise feels kinda bad imo. another example i can think of is dualcaster mage + twinflame/heat shimmer in krark/sakashima, both dualcaster and the copy spells are good on their own in the deck but also make another win condition together
The closest thing to a value piece that I use is Chainer, Nightmare Adept plus any evoke elemental. You discard a card, target your elemental, pay the evoke cost, the elemental dies and you recur the value both from the elemental and from permanents with death triggers over and over again.
I want to make a mono white deck that is like this (on a budget, so no Emeria), but I can’t think of any good value engines. The deck I am building does not have a critical mass of particularly good ETBs, so repeated blink is out. Any ideas?
Here comes Lurrus / Bjorna / Wernog Infinite value> every card is meant to be a conditional make a guy every turn, or a conditional phyrexian arena, then load it up with removal, and pesto, value. With lurrus as a backup
My favourite advantage engine was definitely ephara, god of the polis in the command zone. Every creature draws a card and playing instant speed interactive piece drew a card if it was stapled on a creature or made a creature
To summarise the main points: 1a. Board wipes for aggro. 1b. Spot removal for combos. 2. Recursion. 3. Value pieces (like phyrexian arena) 4. Scaling (mana sinks) 5. Value engines.
I built my lord windgrace deck that is ultra resilient :D my simulations work on the premise that there is a board wipe every other turn :D my friends complain I dont run out of gas haha
Trying to unpack this video is a nightmare but I'll give it my best go 1) A deck should be built with 4 types of card draw in mind repeatable like a phyrexian arena, burst like Night's whisper, and synergistic card draw these being draw based on something your deck is already doing. Leaning too heavy into any one of these will actually hurt the consistency of a deck. 2) I don't think all decks need to use the graveyard but all decks should be able to interact with it. A player should figure out if they are more interested in being able to reuse cards multiple times, a single time, or not at all and go with the appropriate options. For example a spell slinger type deck may not want to cast the same spells too many times as they may actually interfere with their ability to dig into their decks to hit their mind's desire or tendrils of agony. 3) Every play group and player is different so making the claim that this type of deck is going to work for every group can actually be really bad advice. Based on personal experince in the 15ish years I've played commander there have been some playgroups where the average win turn was 6 to 9 and others where the win turn was 12+. This deck would fit well into the the 12+ category but would do terrible in the 6 to 9 turn win range. I was going to say more but the other points I was going to bring up didn't really match anything you brought up in the video or in comments, I think the video is well done and offers some interesting takes on deck building philosphies but I also think it ignores the most important thing about commander which is just to have fun.
Alright let me unpack your comment here... 1 - I don't know if you need a mix of types of draw. If something like a phyrexian arena is best early game would it not make sense to max out on those effects to try and land one early game? 2 - I think almost every deck will benefit from some recursion. And I also think everyone should be able to interact with the yard. Graveyard hate is important. I disagree with your example. As someone who has been playing storm decks for 10 years recasting the storm card especially mind's desire is usually game winning and recursion is really important there. 3 - I've been playing edh for like 12 years and have played in shops all over the country and online on various websites and discord servers. I have seen a lot of playgroups and I can say with confidence that this strategy works very well. There is no playgroup where there is a hard average turn 6 win. You can always play a control deck to push that. 4 - How am I ignoring fun? I think unfun games are where you do nothing. Telling people to put more long term value in their deck so they can play more cards will almost certainly increase their fun.
Bro, idk where you play, but in my lgs half of the games are over turns 4-8, so instants that draws cards or removal are WAY better than an enchantment that only draws me a card in the upkeep (night whisper x phyrexian arena), but it depends a lot on the deck and meta. A grixis spellslinger deck for example gains a lot more with an instant than the enchantment. The point here is that each deck needs to be curated by the player, people need to learn how to build decks first. 60 cards constructed formats are perfect for netdecking, but edh, not so much
In a spell slinger deck you are correct an instant or sorcery might be better! As for where I play. I’ve moved around a lot so I’ve played in shops all over the country and I also play online. Where are you going where games end on turn 4? Last time I went to a cEDH tournament no game ended sooner than turn 6. I think people are not playing enough removal if games end that fast
Phyrexian Arena to me is almost unplayable. It does nothing tge turn its dropped so you have to wait 3 turns for it to equal nights whisper and thats if it doesnt get removed.
Man, I just... really hate Bojuka Bog. I wouldn't mind if it was like, "Exile up to 3 target cards from target player's graveyard", but the fact that it exiles the WHOLE graveyard means it just destroys GY-based strategies if it hits, and running it has almost zero opportunity cost for black decks, so it is a pretty common card. And since it is on a land, the only way to counter it is with a spell that counters triggered abilities (not very common and usually not worth it to run), or something that gives you as a player hexproof/shroud/protection from lands, which is also not very common... It is not impossible to come back from, but if you spent several turns setting up the TY and then need to do it all over again, you lose several turns, at essentially the cost of 1 black mana and 0 cards/deck slots from your opponent. Imagine if there was a Bojuka Meadow that taps for white mana, and when it enters you destroy all enchantments target player controls. A lot of the time it would not do much, but then if there is a player who runs a bunch of enchantments, you just totally screw them over for free. That's what Bojuka Bog feels like to me, and I hate iiiit...
I remember when i was trying out modern with my shop owners tron deck. Mulled down to a 4 card hand in my first game vs a jund deck when it was in its prime. Ended up getting lands and creatures destroyed, cards discarded but still held strong vs the jund deck and still ended up winning. It was a great experience and the skilled jund player was losing his mind. Both of us had a great time though.
Hmm, "Casual games often go long so you should play slower, grindier value pieces over instant draw" seems like a 'cart before the horse' situation to me. Casual games would likely be a fair bit faster if people played Night's Whisper over Phyrexian Arena!
Hakkon, Stromgald Scourge + Nameless Inversion Not a value engine, more like a removal engine, as long as you keep the mana open, most of the time, people will give you time to set up your other engines, also opens up the chance for political favors if you remove things other players wants out of the field, i run this on my Dina, Soul Steeper
i mostly play muldrotha and holy it cannot be fun to play against, just abusing the best permanent based control cards it the colours so i can recast with my commander and then using carapace and such to keep my commander around, combine that with multiple instant speed ways to save my graveyard from being exiled and youve got yourself a really obnoxious deck
I don't like your suggestions and here's why. "Tribal boardwipe" (what you suggest at 9:40) may be an efficient strategy. But is DREADFUL to play against. And in the end, if the deck you build makes everyone hate you, you're not gonna be playing for long with your pod. So yeah, I understand it's a strategy that wins. But the casual nature of the format makes it unviable.
Learn to play around things. That isn't that strong of a card interaction. He's just purposing a loop of value with cards you'd already be playing and seasons past its far from a boardwipe or unfun to play against.
![Blox Fruits Dragon Rework Update [Full Stream]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EqDAp8udhm0/mqdefault.jpg)
Can't lose steam if you never get going to begin with
*points to forehead*
The effect of shuffling the library back was the determining factor of choosing old kozilek instead of the new one. Every deck runs some sort of graveyard recursion, and the feeling that my deck will NEVER END had some friends just quit the game because they just "can't deal with this card for the fourth time in a row". I love it, the grave is just my extended hand.
I love the shuffle titans for exactly that reason! Though I do also use new Kozilek too!
Best commender channel for casual players on the planet.
Vat of Rebirth consistently provides so much value throughout the games i play. Its one mana, cheap to buy, and just hangs out casually gaining value and letting you recur your creatures occasionally
This video further reinforces my love for graveyard hate. Nothing more satisfying than having instant speed graveyard hate to stop someone’s plans fast 🤣
Fairie macabre is probably the most underutilized card in the entire format. If you are in green and you have shared summons in hand, you can tutor it and a value piece and interact in instant speed.
@@hellNo116 I’ve been mostly running soulguide lantern but dam thanks for a new cards
@@ant7433 you are welcome. at some point in the past i went on a spree looking for all the free interaction in the game. there are so many hidden gems.
i recommend that a lot of decks need to run gush as well. in general free interaction is great. don't use cards like foil though. i am cutting me from my niv mizzet deck most likely.
i should sit down and make a deck list with all the free interaction in the format tagged with the specific use of it. if not the free the efficient. because yeah some of it we know, but there are some underutilized cards. for instance i don't see many players play gush even in tatyova decks and that seems insane to me.
i learned about many cool cards by looking older cedh decks and competitive pauper edh deck. this is where i found fairie macabre actually. i think it was in the dimir decks in the format.
Bojuka Bog *Enters the chat*
Crop Rotation for Bojuka Bog is one of my favorite plays
Thank you so much for this video! I remember when I watched your vid about "how to not build around your commander" and feeling like 'that's great but how do I build a deck that isn't a copy of the example they made'. This video helped me make changes to my decks to feel less bland and powerless in large pods (I had a lot of one-off draw so my deck either won explosively early or got wrekt by combat damage lategame on an empty hand) Keep up the great work and keep challenging the status quo about commander :)
Thank you very much! I’m glad my videos have helped!
Well, you see, when you have your head firmly up your own butt you don't notice when you are talking nonsense, just like this guy. He has zero internal consistency and he thinks with his feelings and elitism 80% of the time. Probably not the dude to be listening to. He didn't even bother to read your comment and just put some nonsense hoping for more engagement and subs.
I really like this video! Really opened my eyes to something I felt a few of my decks were missing that I really like! Thanks
That’s my goal so I’m happy to hear it!
This is how my Pantlaza deck is. I’ll get board wiped 3-4 times but always right back in it next turn. Lots of draw engines and ramp and I run Struggle//Survive so I can keep getting everything back. And the new Vaultborn Tyrant coming out is just gonna make even better
thanks dunkey
Very helpful video on what cards can you put in your deck that will make it so you won't run out of gas. If you run a tokens deck that has green, a card that would slot well in it is Timeless Witness. It is a more expensive to cast Eternal Witness, but you won't run out of gas since you exile it and make a token copy with it's Eternalize ability. It is even better if you have ways to populate that token. I have it in my Ghired, Conclave Exile deck and it has been really good.
I do like timeless witness as well! I play eternal witness in my deck cause it can be grabbed off of a woodland bellower
Timeless witness also has some niche uses in Muldrotha decks, if you take the time to put a few fail-safes into it.
Once I had only 1 peice of graveyard hate in my deck (Soul guide lanter) and my opponent cast a Surge to Victory targeting a World at War , and man it felt good to crack that Sould guide lanter.
So I play magic all over the US, because I travel for work. I don't know who came up with this idea that games end on 7 or before in fact very few games end before 10. I'd say that most games go to 15 on average. I guess at least you said "9 or longer". So you aren't that bad of an offender here, but many podcasts and RUclipsrs say there games go to 7 or 8 turns. When I play a deck that wins on turn 5-7 usually people don't want to play against that deck again. Sorry for the rant just ill just assume I'm shouting this into the aether
That’s cool you get to play all over! And I’ve been tracking some stats on my games recently and for sure many end later than turn 8!
Yeh people need to run more interaction if games are ending that soon. Keep plenty of shiny wrenches in your belt for those engines they’re building.
I love my Kethis, the Hidden Hand deck. Kethis himself provides recursion and can help get some big threats down a turn early if nobody answers him. He also makes stuff like Urza's Ruinous Blast and Kamhal's Druidic Vow absolutely disgusting. There's a lot of good legendary specific value engines too
I know you contrasted this playstyle against combo, but honestly I think the two work really well together. Combos are very deck-space efficient, leaving you plenty of room to grind out the time and card advantage you need to find combo pieces.
You also emphasized recursion, which can be used to re-attempt combos that are disrupted. Opponent hit your combo piece with a counter spell? E-Wit it back to hand and see if they have another.
I think the real melding of these two concepts would be something like a landfall combo deck. There's a million and one ways to get infinite landfall triggers, and a lot of the individual pieces also serve as more generic value like ramp, card advantage, or board advantage.
Tablet of ancestry in any deck that goes somewhat wide is absolutely fantastic. My Emmara, soul of the accord deck has a tendency to just dump its hand in the first few turns making a super wide board full of tokens, and discarding the last one or two cards to draw what's usually at least five feels so good, plus since it's on an artifact, it's a repeatable effect for when I dump the new hand I just drew.
I've always felt weird about my Yurlok of scorch thrash deck being played for value instead of combo. After watching your video I understood that deck was always meant to just jund players out and that's totally ok ✨👌. thank you!
i have a shigeki deck that i call mono blue control because it plays mostly at instant speed. the entire gameplan is ramp an absurd amount then just use spot removal and fogs to get there eventually, the most common win condition is casting ezuri's predation (sometimes multiple times) and swinging with an army of 4/4s after everyone else is out of cards
Heyyy, another salvaging station enjoyer ! It's my favorite card, I especially like playing lantern control with it. I also really enjoyed ransom letter with it recently.
Midrange grind decks is an archetype I love, but I have struggled to create a deck that has the tools to disrupt combo decks while also keeping the midrange identity.
How would you navigate a midrange deck, in deck building and in game, against play group that leans toward combo decks?
Any advice would be much appreciated.
Removal and being very careful about what you remove is key! Keep note of what combos are getting you and keep an eye on those pieces
I was impressed by the saga praetors - Elesh Norn, Sheoldred, Jin-Gitaxias, and Vorinclex - for how little deck construction they need to support while they set themselves up to be re-activated into the saga so the whole process repeats. Urabrask at least wants more cheap instants and sorceries as a limit. Fun engines to sit back and wear down opponents with.
Now i'm sure that i want to be on ur patreon and let you help me with my deck haah. Amazing content
Hope to see you in the discord server soon!
I saw an ephara control deck use saltskitter to consistently draw 3 or 4 cards per turn cycle which was really cool to me because I had never seen the card saltskitter before.
Lurrus is my value engine and she's pretty great, if she gets exiled tho it's all over. Also for that deck I have 1 infinite combo I can recur with lurrus so that if I do run out of steam I have a fallback
I played Lurrus in the command zone for a while and she worked great!
My Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker deck kept getting flatlined by having Shirei removed. I combatted that with a bunch of protection pieces, but thanks to this video i now know of a different approach that i can try. Thank you for such well explained and insightful content, i really liked the creative value engines in particular.
Regrowth effects are my favorite part of green's color identity, that and i love running past in flames or underworld breach in alot of my red decks. Utilizing cards for a second time instead of stalling out is almost like a tutor effect. Its so powerful
That "Skimp out on the graveyard hate" is soooo true.
My best and most favourite deck is Raffine Reanimator.
Even though I've cut souch removal and counter magic just to add more big dumb creatures to bring back (I'm down to like 4 pieces of targeted removal and 2 or 3 counterspells)
They still tell me it's too oppressive and out of control.
The only graveyard hate in the entire Meta is when someone runs farewell or bojuka bog. Which is like... 2 people. They won't take my advice to add more things that interact with the yard. Hell the EZURI player doesn't run scavenging Ooze!
Not running ooze is a crime!
cant stop me from putting bojuka in!
@@ittybittybunnymilkies6577 brother I'm trying to get them to run GY hate and they're not doing it! Haha
I play 2-3 gy exile in every deck because every deck uses it at some point
I also have a raffine reanimator deck and my play group also hates it lol!!!
I will say probably one of the best ways I’ve seen for deck building. I do like putting a combo or two in EVERY deck that wins me the game that turn for when games get too long or tiring (I’m not the type to typically scoop unless you blow up my lands or mana rocks turn 1-2 if you had a better start). Sometimes I just don’t want to play a 6+ hour game in a 6-8 person pod. Over all great video. I think possibility storm is an underrated card and is an auto include in every red deck. It definitely tests people’s deck building/deck knowledge/skills. 🤣🤣
Another strategy I like which usually works best in some combination of red/white/black is what I’ll call ‘hyper-aggression’. You come out of the gate swinging with 14 board wipes in the deck, all the artifact and enchantment destruction under the sun. You hit them hard and fast, tackle them to the ground, and never let them get up. It’s what I do for my Syr Gwyn Voltron deck. You don’t need to worry about running out of steam if you never let your opponents generate any of their own in the first place. Of course this won’t work for as many groups because it’s much more of a ‘feels bad’ strategy than grindy midrange because your goal isn’t to outlast what your opponents are doing, it’s to not let them do any of it in the first place. Sort of mardu’s answer to azorius/selesyna stax.
This has given me much to consider as I'm currently building a Jund deck, and my pod's games tend to run to turn 10 at least.
Added the og legendary eldrazi for the annihilator 4, kept them for the shuffle triggers.
All of my casual decks have ways to avoid decking out, and I include 3-4 cards that provide lifegain+stax/interaction such as Meathook Massacre, Blind Obedience, Authority of the Consuls, etc.
Not dying to decking out or attrition damage and still having 94~ cards in the deck to choose from for whatever I’m doing has helped dominate long games by never losing heavy hitters.
I have a pure colorless Karn, Legacy Reforged commander deck that uses KCI, Mirrorworks, and Nim Deathmantle with artifact creatures (some with etb triggers) to create an overwhelming board state over time. I've only made it work one time so far, and I used Jhoira's Familiar as my creature for Deathmantle to do its thing.
It works by Sacrificing a Nontoken Artifact Creature to KCI, which triggers Deathmantle, pay 4 to reanimate the creature, and then pay 2 for Mirrorworks to make a clone of it. Repeat until you can't pay for Deathmantle since the KCI mana pays for the Mirrorworks trigger. You can also use Karns mana to pay the cost of the Mirrorworks and Deathmantle triggers too, so over time you net more and more free mana and more artifacts which give you more mana the next turn.
I have been screaming about seasons past since 2018, it is so good and no one is playing it
I have a boomer jund edh deck built around this card and it's done wonders
It’s such a good card late game
would you share it if i said please?
Weird tech that I've found as well is that if you cast belzenlok late game and you have a relatively middle-of-the-ground to high mana curve, he exiles a ton of your lands for you, getting rid of dead draws if the game goes REALLY long
I, in the other hand, just play it silently. I know how awesome it is, and i really don't want to be on the receiving end of it😂
75¢ card and it's capable of winning games on its own quite frankly
Add a seedborn muse type of effect and you control where the game goes and I'm so happy that it's getting traction in other spaces besides my tables
I love playing for the long grindy game, though I usually do not play midrange (more of a control player personally). But one deck I have that I think fits this really well is my Eriette of the charmed Apple deck. The deck's gameplan is actually quite simple. I play Eriette, then I enchant my opponents' biggest threats (to me) with some cheap aura that gives them +1/+1 and pro creatures, or flying or some other beneficial effect. Then I just kind of sit there are and slowly drain my opponent's. I'm still missing several card draw pieces for the deck, but it plays surprisingly well. With a few other cards to disincentivise attacks and several auras that can recur themselves, I can usually keep it going for a long time. I also run plenty of protection for my commander, but even so, I can usually recast her two or so times without much issue. I think it is a very different kind of deck, but functions much the same as what you were talking about.
I got a Jan Jansen deck that is grindy as hell too. With all those goblin welders we habe nowadays, plus the recursion from mardu colors... oh boy. My fav wincon is machine gunning with marionette master and cranial plating!
"The original king of midrange was Modern Jund."
Meanwhile, Extended The Rock is over here, unappreciated.
0:50 -- I remember when Midrange was first being painfully birthed into existence. We didn't quite understand what we were looking at, as the deck not only didn't fit neatly into the Aggro, Combo, Control paradigm, but "looked bad" on paper. We called them JUNK decks, for crying out loud. XD
Personally I like REPEATABLE interaction.
Font of Agonies in Vilis, Retribution of the Ancients in a counters deck, Lux Cannon in a proliferate deck, Constant Mists in lands decks, etc.
I've seen ping engines put in an absurd amount of work in a commander game. Think Goblin Bombardment, Outpost Siege, Blasting Station, and Dragon Tempest (naturally a lot of these effects are in red). People often rely on small utility creatures dodging dedicated spot removal because they're not the big "I'm going to kill you" threats. The ability to pick them off over and over can really rack up value.
as someone who LOVES being able to re-use cards as many times as possible (not just flashback once and exile it forever) I feel you. One of my favorites is using faerie mechanist to put pressure on because 3 in the air is just pushing that uncomfortable to take multiple hits from line so people kill it, then a simple skeleton shard to return it to hand for one mana, play faerie mechanist again, and pull another arifact from my top 3 cards. Because I like doing it myself I've always been conscious of packing graveyard hate to keep anyone from doing it back to me, but also in turn trained my friends to always be cautious of graveyards.
My current project is trying to use Scion of the Ur dragon for it's 2 cost copy ability to throw highly situational dragons into the graveyard and copy their abilities at instant speed while being immune to counterspell because it's an ability not a spell, and trying to carry enough cards to keep shuffling them back into my deck, and Nylea's Bow is gonna be a BIG target every time it hits the field for it's ability to put 4 creatures from graveyard on the bottom of my deck. It's gonna be gimmicky and kinda loaded with bad draws, but hopefully there's also enough wheel effects to throw those cards away for a new hand and then once again shuffle those high cost dragons back into the deck so I can copy them for abilities later. Basically the end goal is to have yugioh anime bullshit levels of situational silver bullets at all times for 2 mana and then to keep shuffling them back for reuse while a flyer commander that keeps getting beefier with counters over time is a constant boardstate threat.
and just for example of how silly the idea is if it actually ends up working, for 2 mana on a turn an opponent looks like they're about to pop off I can suddenly have a Niv Mizzet on field and draw a card for every spell they cast, I might as well have just ported Maxx C from yugioh over to mtg and people want that card permabanned for being so strong and played in 99.9% of decks
Just found this video! it seems very interesting. Do you have any decklists? I'm a bit of a new player so it would help to see some examples!
I do! It’s actually in the description of my channel page! There is a moxfield link to all the decks I currently play
My new favorite deck has been my Zask deck, and it only gets to be a better deck over time as better insects and value engine cards like Six get printed. He's so fun, the deck churns, digs, recycles things and runs fun, thematic removal like the two grists and the bugs that eat artifacts/enchantments. It just kinda does everything decent.
I would argue that in a vacuum, a creature’s ETB trigger is better than an instant or sorcery doing the same thing, even if that creature costs 1 or 2 more mana. Even ignoring all the ways to get more value out of ETB triggers, eternal witness is also a 2/1 creature on the board vs regrowth going straight to the graveyard. Regrowth is a 1 for 1 value spell, eternal witness is a 2 for 1 value spell. On top of getting the card back from your graveyard, you now have a blocker or something to attack with for chip damage against someone with no blocks.
If I had to choose between an X cost sorcery or an X+1 cost creature that does the same thing on ETB, I’d probably choose the creature. If the effect was on an instant instead, then I’d only choose the creature if I had additional synergies with it
Righteous cause and grim feast are great ways to pad your life total in causal. There's always something dying and always someone attacking.
My Henzie deck is pretty much the embodiment of "Jund em out" super grindy, aggressive beatdown (my favorite) and lots of reanimation to make sure we're never running out of gas.
Blitz is one of the most fun mechanics I've ever played with and i always feel like theres something I can do (unless there's GY hate...that always sucks lol)
Road of Return is another solid recursion spell. I like versatility and if my commander tax is too high, it gives me an option for a cheaper late-game cast. But often its just Regrowth.
I definitely didn't start to plan out a new golgari Value grind deck watching this, nuh-uh...
Reminds me of Adrian Sullivan’s “Baron Harkonnen” deck from back in the days and later during Timespiral standard.
my Sharuum Salvaging Station deck was one of my favourite engine decks to play
I haven’t seen anyone play Sharuum in so long I’m thinking about building her!
The thing with the arena vs. whispers debate is this, it comes down what you aim to do: arena costs 3 mana and will only do something if you get around to your next turn with it still being on board. even then it still is more expensive than whispers, and has done less for you. only if another rotation passes around the table and arena doesnt get removed, it somewhat starts to break even, while still costing more. only if a third rotation can be completed, arena has been worth playing over whispers. also, if you play whispers on turn 2 you will be able to start using the cards on turn 3 you drew with it, in contrast to playing arena there. so generally, whispers is just the better effect. however, decks with other synergies/gameplans (enchantment focus, grinding playstyle, recursion heavy) are able to make great use out of arena, it just is not the be all include for black card draw that it sometimes gets made out to be
Would Sunbird's Invocation be considered a value engine? It allows for a second spell to be cast from the top of your deck EACH time you cast a spell from your hand (and no, the cast spell DOES NOT have to resolve).
Totally! I think sun bird is really good
I was wondering if you do any deck doctor stuff. Maybe for patrons? I have a deck that I built with your bottom up design but I got a lot of weird looks when I shared the deck idea and deck list.
I do! Anyone in the discord can share a deck but tier 2 or higher patrons can do a 1 on 1 discord call to get help with their deck
@@thetrinketmageI assume the discord is private to teir 1 patrons? It's not linked on the YT or twitter or anything. Also another great video keep up the good work.
It says "one time help" Does that mean one time a month or one time forever? @@thetrinketmage
Yea discord is for patrons only
The 1 on 1 discord call is a 1 time but I’m always giving advice in the discord when people post lists
kozilek is a mainstay in my ovika deck. i dont run any unlimited handsize cards, and whenever id draw like 15-35 cards a turn, kozilek would be discarded on my end step to tuck my grave back into the deck.
Salvaging Station seems to need a bunch of colours in the decks identity though.
In a two colour deck, there won't be a sufficient amount of targets, I'm afraid.
Regrowth and Shigeki is one of my favorite late game value engine
Deck needs more Gaea’s Blessing 😉
I play it in my dandan deck and that card is so fun
Reassembling skeleton and skullclamp. Turns out infinite divination is a lot of value
Would also something like command tower + the new Tower Winder, and then use the command tower for discard effects? (and then repeatable copy the tower winder)
for graveyard recursion i love, eternal witness + genesis + phyrexian alter + corpse churn
I’ve had a lot of luck with seasons past. Feels busted af every time it resolves
It’s like drawing 5+ cards!
shorikai or any other 1-toughness token maker plus skullclamp is a great value engine, even better if youre running iso/rev as your value engine fits into your infinite combo
value pieces that also fit in combos are just good in general too, having a combo in a deck that has nothing to do with what the deck wants to do otherwise feels kinda bad imo. another example i can think of is dualcaster mage + twinflame/heat shimmer in krark/sakashima, both dualcaster and the copy spells are good on their own in the deck but also make another win condition together
That’s a good point as well, if your value piece and become part of a win condition it does double duty and can be an all star in a deck
The closest thing to a value piece that I use is Chainer, Nightmare Adept plus any evoke elemental. You discard a card, target your elemental, pay the evoke cost, the elemental dies and you recur the value both from the elemental and from permanents with death triggers over and over again.
Chainer is an excellent value piece!
Also would you say something like Shigeki, Jukai Visionary + Colossal Skyturtle as an engine?
Salvaging Station got exiled? Karn the Great Creator can't pull from sideboard (in Commander), but he can pull from exile.
Extus oriq overlord any sac outlet and any 2 adventure creatures if you’re choice has been great I specially been mind slashing people
I want to make a mono white deck that is like this (on a budget, so no Emeria), but I can’t think of any good value engines. The deck I am building does not have a critical mass of particularly good ETBs, so repeated blink is out. Any ideas?
Maybe salvaging station actually. Didn’t realise it was so nice and cheap. I got it confused with the expensive station in my brain.
11:35, nah bro i've had my midnight reaper swords to plowshared frame 1. people dont care, they see draw a card they want it gone
Hey what commander do you like do use for salvaging station?
Currently it’s R/U Tawanos but I’ve played the station in almost every color combination
Here comes Lurrus / Bjorna / Wernog Infinite value>
every card is meant to be a conditional make a guy every turn, or a conditional phyrexian arena, then load it up with removal, and pesto, value. With lurrus as a backup
Do you have the deck full list for your Mina and denn?
My favorite solitaire combo is Time Spiral + Riftsweeper.
Can I get the decklist of the kozilek deck you mention in this video?
My favourite advantage engine was definitely ephara, god of the polis in the command zone. Every creature draws a card and playing instant speed interactive piece drew a card if it was stapled on a creature or made a creature
Playing ewit in a blink deck is a devious way to out grind anybody
To summarise the main points:
1a. Board wipes for aggro.
1b. Spot removal for combos.
2. Recursion.
3. Value pieces (like phyrexian arena)
4. Scaling (mana sinks)
5. Value engines.
Never snuff the instant-speed card draw spell though.
Shigeki + any regrow that effect
Turdo fog commander deck tech pls
Good Ty for thèse Strategic Minds 👍
There are plenty of Partner pairings that draw if you don't want to run out of things to play. Tevesh, Tymna, Kraum, Thrasios... just play those, ezpz
Great video
Thanks
as a glissa player i know this too well
I built my lord windgrace deck that is ultra resilient :D my simulations work on the premise that there is a board wipe every other turn :D
my friends complain I dont run out of gas haha
Control and Midrange woooooo
Trying to unpack this video is a nightmare but I'll give it my best go
1) A deck should be built with 4 types of card draw in mind repeatable like a phyrexian arena, burst like Night's whisper, and synergistic card draw these being draw based on something your deck is already doing. Leaning too heavy into any one of these will actually hurt the consistency of a deck.
2) I don't think all decks need to use the graveyard but all decks should be able to interact with it. A player should figure out if they are more interested in being able to reuse cards multiple times, a single time, or not at all and go with the appropriate options. For example a spell slinger type deck may not want to cast the same spells too many times as they may actually interfere with their ability to dig into their decks to hit their mind's desire or tendrils of agony.
3) Every play group and player is different so making the claim that this type of deck is going to work for every group can actually be really bad advice. Based on personal experince in the 15ish years I've played commander there have been some playgroups where the average win turn was 6 to 9 and others where the win turn was 12+. This deck would fit well into the the 12+ category but would do terrible in the 6 to 9 turn win range.
I was going to say more but the other points I was going to bring up didn't really match anything you brought up in the video or in comments, I think the video is well done and offers some interesting takes on deck building philosphies but I also think it ignores the most important thing about commander which is just to have fun.
Alright let me unpack your comment here...
1 - I don't know if you need a mix of types of draw. If something like a phyrexian arena is best early game would it not make sense to max out on those effects to try and land one early game?
2 - I think almost every deck will benefit from some recursion. And I also think everyone should be able to interact with the yard. Graveyard hate is important. I disagree with your example. As someone who has been playing storm decks for 10 years recasting the storm card especially mind's desire is usually game winning and recursion is really important there.
3 - I've been playing edh for like 12 years and have played in shops all over the country and online on various websites and discord servers. I have seen a lot of playgroups and I can say with confidence that this strategy works very well. There is no playgroup where there is a hard average turn 6 win. You can always play a control deck to push that.
4 - How am I ignoring fun? I think unfun games are where you do nothing. Telling people to put more long term value in their deck so they can play more cards will almost certainly increase their fun.
Its meta to bring at least 1 card to seal with graveyards
Bro, idk where you play, but in my lgs half of the games are over turns 4-8, so instants that draws cards or removal are WAY better than an enchantment that only draws me a card in the upkeep (night whisper x phyrexian arena), but it depends a lot on the deck and meta. A grixis spellslinger deck for example gains a lot more with an instant than the enchantment. The point here is that each deck needs to be curated by the player, people need to learn how to build decks first. 60 cards constructed formats are perfect for netdecking, but edh, not so much
In a spell slinger deck you are correct an instant or sorcery might be better! As for where I play. I’ve moved around a lot so I’ve played in shops all over the country and I also play online. Where are you going where games end on turn 4? Last time I went to a cEDH tournament no game ended sooner than turn 6. I think people are not playing enough removal if games end that fast
Got it. Just play Jund.
Phyrexian Arena to me is almost unplayable. It does nothing tge turn its dropped so you have to wait 3 turns for it to equal nights whisper and thats if it doesnt get removed.
Man, I just... really hate Bojuka Bog. I wouldn't mind if it was like, "Exile up to 3 target cards from target player's graveyard", but the fact that it exiles the WHOLE graveyard means it just destroys GY-based strategies if it hits, and running it has almost zero opportunity cost for black decks, so it is a pretty common card. And since it is on a land, the only way to counter it is with a spell that counters triggered abilities (not very common and usually not worth it to run), or something that gives you as a player hexproof/shroud/protection from lands, which is also not very common...
It is not impossible to come back from, but if you spent several turns setting up the TY and then need to do it all over again, you lose several turns, at essentially the cost of 1 black mana and 0 cards/deck slots from your opponent. Imagine if there was a Bojuka Meadow that taps for white mana, and when it enters you destroy all enchantments target player controls. A lot of the time it would not do much, but then if there is a player who runs a bunch of enchantments, you just totally screw them over for free. That's what Bojuka Bog feels like to me, and I hate iiiit...
I am rather fond of Lazotep Quarry and Crucible of Worlds
Jund ‘em out!
I remember when i was trying out modern with my shop owners tron deck. Mulled down to a 4 card hand in my first game vs a jund deck when it was in its prime. Ended up getting lands and creatures destroyed, cards discarded but still held strong vs the jund deck and still ended up winning. It was a great experience and the skilled jund player was losing his mind. Both of us had a great time though.
I have been preaching about Seasons Past for years. Glad to see it get some love elsewhere.
Hi
Hello 👋
Wait, was mine the first comment? Damn, nice@@thetrinketmage
Hmm, "Casual games often go long so you should play slower, grindier value pieces over instant draw" seems like a 'cart before the horse' situation to me. Casual games would likely be a fair bit faster if people played Night's Whisper over Phyrexian Arena!
Perhaps but you can’t control for everyone else’s deck! So I just play the meta
Hakkon, Stromgald Scourge + Nameless Inversion
Not a value engine, more like a removal engine, as long as you keep the mana open, most of the time, people will give you time to set up your other engines, also opens up the chance for political favors if you remove things other players wants out of the field, i run this on my Dina, Soul Steeper
Sythis
i mostly play muldrotha and holy it cannot be fun to play against, just abusing the best permanent based control cards it the colours so i can recast with my commander and then using carapace and such to keep my commander around, combine that with multiple instant speed ways to save my graveyard from being exiled and youve got yourself a really obnoxious deck
I don't like your suggestions and here's why. "Tribal boardwipe" (what you suggest at 9:40) may be an efficient strategy. But is DREADFUL to play against. And in the end, if the deck you build makes everyone hate you, you're not gonna be playing for long with your pod. So yeah, I understand it's a strategy that wins. But the casual nature of the format makes it unviable.
Learn to play around things. That isn't that strong of a card interaction. He's just purposing a loop of value with cards you'd already be playing and seasons past its far from a boardwipe or unfun to play against.
The golden age of Modern, when those mythics pictured were $80+ a pop
Sol ringg is never a bad draw. It always makes you go up in mana. I could imagine it could be a dead draw if you are hellbent
Or u can just play simic hahahahs