Matrix is bad too honestly, I ran it for a bit in some White / Boros decks and thought it might be good enough but now it only makes the cut in the most extreme budget brews
They are both subpar card draw because they have a sizeable do-nothing investment cost from playing the artifact and even after that investment the return rate on card draw is overcosted. However, Symmetry Matrix has much better combo potential. It still is bad card draw but it is bad card draw that can also win you the game. Even outside of comboing it is better since the card draw trigger is reliant on you doing things instead of you opponents doing things. For example, with a Haste enabler like Anger in your graveyard any mana dork with power = toughness can enter the battlefield then immediately tap itself to pay for the trigger -- like a really, really bad Guardian Project... ... ya, nevermind they are both terrible. But I do think Symmetry Matrix can be justified in a deck like Locust God while Mind's Eye can't be justified anywhere.
Symmetry Matrix technically very good in Watcher in the Water but I took it out because the reality is I don't want to deal with the annoying triggers on MTGO
I'm a fan of Energy Tap: U, Sorcery -- "Tap target untapped creature you control. If you do, add an amount of {C} equal to that creature’s mana value." It is a weird blue ritual effect that has the prerequisite of having creatures. However, with creatures that have alternate casting costs or reduced master costs this can be a fairly powerful ritual in the early game that no one ever expects.
Is Phill really wearing t-shirt with est. 1992 because they discuss old cards? Phills t-shirt game is on whole another level! We need list of Phils t-shirt references.
Gaea's touch found a really solid home for me in my mono green storm deck. It takes advantage of every aspect of this card. It's an enchantress deck, so it draws an extra card on entry, it sacs to extend a storm turn, green has a lot of ways to return enchantments from the graveyard to replay for more card draw in a rut. The card is easily one of the best in the deck.
Suggestion for a commander clash episode: Everyone gets 3 expansions (not base sets) that they're allowed to build from (as in they can only use cards that were in those expansions) other than basic lands. The expansions could be picked at random or even drafted. Basic lands are a "freebie" because sets like Homelands, Fallen Empires, The Dark, Legends, Arabian Night etc. do not have any basic lands.
Arcanum Wings - the only card in the game with the "Aura Swap" ability!! At instant speed, it can replace itself with any aura in your hand. Initially flying over a defender, then switching the wings with a larger damage aura or one with an 'on damage' trigger... so fun. (Honorable mention to Tallowisp for helping find those egregious auras!) Also, kudos on mentioning Vanishing! Cheaper than Flickerform to activate, and it protects the enchanted creature, itself, AND any other auras already attached to it at instant speed. It's like having an extra copy of Counterspell every turn and it's one of the top items on my list of underrated cards!
One of my personal pet cards is Hall of Gemstone. 1GG World Enchantment At the beginning of each player's upkeep, that player chooses a color. Until end of turn, lands tapped for mana produce mana of the chosen color instead of any other color. It's such a goofy card, but it's so hilarious to see folks with 2+ color decks squirm when my Mono-Green Prison deck gets this on the field.
Somewhat along the lines of Withering Boon is Burnout. --- {1}{R} Instant Counter target instant spell if it's blue. Draw a card at the beginning of the next turn’s upkeep. --- It's the third-child version of Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast
Old gems are my jam! The cycles (plural!) of free spells in the MM block are so underrated, especially in monocolor decks that draw a ton of cards. Yes, the rare spells of MM like Reverent Mantra, but Submerge, Abolish, Mogg Salvage, Massacre, Foil...
I run Mind’s Eye in my Liesa, Shroud of Dusk deck, my slowest and most controlling one. Because of Liesa’s life taxing, I don’t cast more spells than I have to, and card draw isn’t a big priority (especially since I don’t want to pay life per card or on top of a life for cards spell). It’s not uncommon to wipe the board or cast Liesa and then have a few mana open to use instants if needed or throw at card draw. I don’t think it’s great in most decks, but if you’re both dragging the game out, have some instants, and don’t need to constantly push your board development, it can work. You guys sold me on Vanishing for my Tuvasa deck. Not the easiest place to keep UU up, but seems worth it.
you're gonna die from giving them creatures faster than you can mill them no? I like it for sangromancer/meathook. or in pillow fort where they can't swing at me
City of Shadows makes a great sacrifice outlet for commanders like Dragonlord Silumgar. Any deck with a stealing sub theme where you don't really intend to give things back. And it's exile as a cost. So really hard to muck with. Another old card in that vein is Synod Sanctum. My favorite 1-drop artifact. 2-mana+tap to exile a permanent you control. And 2+Sacrifice the sanctum to return them all to play... under your control. (Most similar effects say Owner's control, but not the Sanctum. XD)
Marton Stromgald is my favorite old card, it’s kinda like a mono red craterhoof. Any deck I have that I care about combat and is red has him in it, my favorite pet card for sure.
One cool/weird thing with Tombstone Stairwell is that if you let it die to the upkeep, if you stack it right, you get another round of death triggers before it goes.
The thing nobody mentioned about Tombstone Stairwell that I think everyone kind of glossed over (though they probably realized it without saying it) is that it seems that EVERY upkeep EVERY player gains a ton of zombies for that turn, and then they all just die at the end of the turn, and a new wave comes on the next player's turn. So the self-mill player is gaining and then sacrificing a ton of zombies 3 times before they even have to pay the upkeep once. This card is really strong in commander for the same reason a card like Rhystic Studies is strong: it triggers on every player's turn.
Thank you for mentioning Retraced Image. I had never heard of this card, but it should be great in my Lord of the Nazgul deck. The potential for T1 ramp in Dimir is pretty good, but late game it should also be strong, as the deck features a lot of draw, so I usually have extra lands in hand. With the Lord in play, spending U to either ramp or drop an additional Nazgul into play at discount while also making a Wraith token seems pretty strong.
This card is pretty narrow but I love playing Glacial Crevasses. I have a Toralf deck that runs lots of snow-covered mountains and sometimes having a red fog is helpful 😂
I've stalled a game 10+ turns with glacial crevasses before hahahaha and the best thing is no one can say shit because red has almost 0 options for Enchantment removal
Gaze of Pain is the weird old card I wish people knew about. 1B sorcery, any of your unblocked attackers you can redirect their damage to a creature. You do this for each creature individually, so can make them all bite different things. So it's like a mass bite spell that you tap your creatures for and simply need to convince an opponent to not block so you can kill someone else's creature(s) (they take no damage from the attack). What makes it good is the mana efficiency and if you have a lot of attack triggers or deathtouch. You can also politic so your creatures not being left back to block doesn't mean you'll be attacked. If you're looking for a cheap way to remove 2+ creatures at once, especially annoying little utility stuff, then see if it could work for you. I love it for my Nalia de'Arnise deck which is essentially go-wide deathtouch.
With Tombstone Stairwell, it will trigger Wilhelt's ability to create Decayed Zombies at the end of every turn. So say you only have 3 creatures in your graveyard, with Wilhelt and Tombstone Stairwell on the field. You pass turn, make 3 TS zombies, they die, you make 3 decayed zombies. Third players turn, do the same. When turn order gets back around to you, you have 9 decayed zombies, plus the 3 new TA zombies you.make for turn. It's an extremely good synergy.
Shout out to the Fog Meta: Fog Patch is a weird old card that is reasonable against any attack that doesn't have a lot of Trample damage, but it's extra-interesting with Anzrag, the Quake-Mole. If your opponent doesn't block Anzrag, you can cast Fog Patch to still give yourself an extra combat!
I love Tombstone Stairwell, it's a pet card every time I do Zombies. It produces the highest amount of Zombies for the mana of almost anything, and churns out ETB and Dies triggers for those tasty Zombie value engines. Hell, by the time you have to pay the upkeep it's already made and eaten 10+ Zombies for you, and even more if you can exploit your opponents. Even on the turn you pay if you don't pay you can order the zombie-making to come before the upkeep, so you get the zombies and the dies triggers anyway.
I've been a big fan of Wild Research recently. It's a 3 mana red enchantment that basically lets you gamble for an enchantment for 1w, or for an instant for 1u. I've found that there's a lot of graveyard-y combos it's really good at setting up (especially with flashback cards), but then once you've set up your combo it also doubles as protection because you can search up counterspells or teferi's protection (which you might be able to cast from your graveyard with some other pieces)
Tomer -- want to note an additional relevance for griffin canyon -- it combos with mutavault and manascape refractor to make an infinitely large griffin.
I love Retraced Image in the mono-blue original Thassa deck I play. Unfortunately the only time I've had it on turn one (island, retraced image to put another island into play, ponder, t2 thassa), I got hit with a curse of opulence in a pod where all 3 other people had one-drop creatures. Also the deck plays some free pitch spells (Force of will/Negation + Commandeer) so it's still good late-game.
I also play War's Toll in a Kykar enchantment combo deck. It's a nice tutor target that stops opponents from interacting on your turn when you go to combo off. On that note, Wild Research is another fun and spicy old card.
It's anti-synergy though isn't it? The War's Toll saves him from the temptation to kill his lands with Price of Glory. The real trick is making sure his lands are always untapped with an Awakening or something and then playing stuff he has to answer at instant speed while Price of Glory is on the battlefield.
I don't think it does anything with The Master. Stairwell is a "weird old card": it doesn't sacrifice or exile the tokens, it "buries" them- meaning destroys. just like the Abyss, which doesn't sacrifice, it destroys a creature.
12:36 I threw this card into my Talrand, Sky Summoner Combo deck, where I draw all my cards and I keep bringing it back and I have all my lands into play! I love this card!
I've been running against a lot of Glacial Chasm recently, the one card that I use as a finisher and also as a way to counter that (and teferis pro) is Isengard Unleashed, triple damage and damage prevention along side a big commander is usually enough to kill even the most resilient of players.
I love seeing City of Shadows here, I've been running it in my Atraxa superfriends deck for a few years now. A little bit rough being a colorless land in a four-color deck, but I'm already running Urborg. Might be able to get away with getting the counters started with a creature token from a planeswalker, but most of the time I'm playing it down on five before casting Atraxa and using it to get some value and soften the blow of her being subject to targeted removal. Then when you get her back down and can start proliferating every turn with her effect or any of the other numerous proliferate effects in the deck, it's very strong. This is probably a cute interaction rather than a strong one, but you can also use nesting grounds to move storage counters from the other storage counter lands that actually produce colored mana to city of shadows, which is kind of ramp in a way, since city of shadows doesn't make you remove the storage counters to use it, unlike the other lands.
Gonna throw my hat in the ring for Sapphire Charm. Easily the best cantrip in commander, works well in voltron, spellslinger, and any other shell involved getting beaters through. My Gale + Scion deck appreciates the delayed card draw, and my Umbris deck loves getting through for massive damage. Nevermind the fact that it can phase out combo creatures in an emergency. It’s a house!
Great video! I'd love one where all of the crew goes over their top 3 commanders right now. Might be a good way to spotlight some underrepresented commanders and put them on people's radars!
How to combine ETB meta and smoke meta in one card? In face (symbol?) card of Stronghold they managed to do that - Portcullis is amazing if you want to ensure that there are not too many creatures on the battlefield, while still benefiting from your ETBs (sometimes more than once).
Thanks for making me feel old... i have Gaea's touch, Smoke, glacial chasm, and retraced image in decks. just went through bulk when i started playing commander and found those.
I love retraced image and mitotic manipulation in my mono blue decks where I often run close to 40 lands, usually it is better with a commander who can recast stuff like gale or lier, then you can dump a few lands that you drew later in the game too
My first and only atraxa deck ran city of shadows along side a set of lands that tap for 2 mana but use a counter and enter with like 2, plus the vivid cycle. Atraxa only really existed as the commander to keep my land's mana abilities usable in the deck and it really played like a super unoptimal ramp deck but was so much fun as a low power level helix pinnacle deck that didn't cheat infinite mana and instead did at most like 10 mana a turn unless city of shadows was out as it went up by 2 or 3 counters a turn which turned a 10 turn win into a 5 turn win. Again it was super low power level edh.
There is another tech that works just fine with glacial chasm. If you copy it you just reset the cumulative upkeep. It is possible to slow the game time enough to find a way to close the game.
Carry Away from Darksteel is in my Dimir and Mono-Blue decks, there is always a pair of shoes on the battlefield that would look much better on my feet 🥳
Tomer you are a mad scientist. When you were reading tombstone stairwell, I thought you were on an illegal substance. But after explaining how you use the card, I’m convinced that cards broken.
My favorite old card is: Debt of Loyalty - It can protect one of ur creature against.a board wipe (nobody plays Wrath of God or Damnation anymore) OR you can steal a dying creature your opponent control for just 3 mana :-) (
Got to know where Phil got Retraced Image from... I started trying to get people to play it in commander about couple years ago by comments on RUclips, etc. Would love to know it made it to you guys :) As for how good it is, you want to play it in decks with sorcery synergies and card draw. Without that its trash. With those things you can do some broken stuff. For example, I run it in Kefnet, where I have cantrips that let me stack the top and then cast it twice. That kind of thing. The other cards in the "BLUE RAMP PACKAGE" to note are Mitotic Manipulation, which is basically straight 3 mana untapped ramp and Savor the Moment, which gives you a land drop, an attack, planeswalker activations, etc.
I love old cards, and I especially love Glacial Chasm! I play it in my Muldrotha deck. I use multiple landfall per turn plus a ramunap excavator style card exactly like how tomer hates it! Plus playing it in this style it's very unfair as Seth said. Can confirm this causes much salt when properly setup, and it's very easy to perma fog a table.
Yes OMG Minds Eye was in every single commander deck in 2007, 2010 era. But yeah if you cast it for 5 on turn 5 and you have no mana open, it feels really bad. I am going to put minds eye back into Urza lord high artificer casual
I love Reverent Mantra! It's won me a game before. Used it to stop a Ghostly Flicker combo, which bought me another turn and let me swing out. It's so sneaky good!
Makes sense that Seth and Richard would be coming back around on Mind's Eye, since that card is just "we have The One Ring at home". You dump your turn 4/5 mana into an artifact that just keeps accruing value over the course of the game until the advantage of drawing 4+ cards a turn cycle just completely takes over. It even has a form of built-in protection, b.c. at most tables you're going to get the Tomer-esque reaction of "ok, this guy's not a threat; he's playing a card that was *maybe* good over a decade ago". They'll leave you alone, and you'll easily recoup the initial investment. Especially if you subscribe to the Richard philosophy that says you should sit back and let everyone else expend their resources answering threats. It just needs a Darksteel variant to really make it shine. As it is, it does fall victim to tangential/incidental artifact hate.
Last season of Clash Seth played Mind's Eye and spent the next turns tapping out to draw all the cards. I killed him because of it. The reason is that if you're drawing cards without advancing your board then you fall behind on board state, and when you're behind on board the best follow-up is a wipe. I had a board, he did not, so I took him out before he could do anything about it. So I do in fact consider Mind's Eye a threat, the difference is if you're going ham with it then you're vulnerable to just dying, that's why I don't like it.
My pet card, since 1994, is Ifh-Biff Efreet. Opened one in the last pack of Arabian Nights (the only pack of the set I ever opened) my local store had. I've been looking for a home for it ever since.
I play City of Shadows in my Ranar deck using it to trigger exile synergy, makes colorless mana for Eldrazi Displacer, helps pay commander tax, and single-handedly got a buddy to stop playing Slicer lol.
I've found a home for Mind's Eyes in monoG Omnath Locus of Mana. Runs very few creatures and tries to finish the game with Hurricane, Squall Line or Borrowing the East Wind. It is indeed mana pool.deck and usually has far too much mana than it does card draw. (It's funny, green has excellent card draw...though usually tied to casting or dropping creatures.) Also Mind's Eye goes really good with Urban Burgeoning, even on a basic land. 1 extra mana each turn at opponent's untap, feed it into Mind's Eye.
Minds eye vs power creep. 1. Minds eyes good. Time to win low. 2. Minds eye bad ttw fast, average player doesn't use interaction. 3. Minds eye good. Interaction is common place and minds eye isn't worth sniping, and people will feed the eye. Minds eye is fine for artifact/copy/trigger decks and instant speed decks. You can cheat it into play. The cost is miniscule after a board wipe.
Glacial chasm has save my korvold feild,valakut deck more then any other card. croping into this card is brutal. Plus you can play it ever turn with a crucible effect and never pay the upkeep. this card is super powerful.
City of Shadows: Nice card to use alongside Threaten/Act of Treason effects, if you have a commander that does that, highly recommend. Prefer it to Diamond Valley. I think I like High Market and Phyrexian Tower more, though. Retraced Image: It's tough to make this good for the whole game in commander. It is at its strongest I think when you have a monoblue commander that wants to come down on turn 2, Cosima was a great example, but I think it's still pretty sketchy to burn a card this way. Not really a Lotus Petal format. Mind's Eye: I can kind of respect it once it's on the battlefield, and it can be a good choice for some big mana colorless decks. Most decks with access to colored mana can do better. 1% of all decks in the entire format on EDHREC seems like a lot of decks, for any card. And although I don't like the mana cost of a Mind's Eye, it's probably still smart to blow one up if someone plays it. It's half of a Consecrated Sphinx and that's still a pretty strong tool. Tombstone Stairwell: It's kind of busted. Usually ends the game before you have to pay the Cumulative Upkeep if you've got something nasty enough like the new Vein ripper or the similar Rage Thrower. Kinda feel bad playing this card, it's extremely strong. Also a bit time consuming for each player. Glacial Chasm: Also a bit busted. There was a period of time where Flaring Pain was a popular card in a playgroup I was in, just to gotcha people who ran Chasm and fogs. Not taking damage is pretty good, especially at instant speed off of a Crop Rotation. Smoke: I like Smoke a lot. I also forget it exists a lot. Remember Uphill Battle? Neat little 'combo.' This is a pretty powerful creature hate card that wouldn't really see print in modern magic design, which is unfortunate, because all these creatures have more power than mana cost with upsides now. Gaea's Touch: Loved this card for a long time. Proto-exploration for monogreen with an additional, very relevant ability. You just need forests for it to work, and sometimes your deck ends up not having that many forests. I love playing extra land drops and Loam as my ramp package rather than a bunch of Rampant Growths, just because it makes more room for silly stuff and is still really powerful. Withering Boon: Robert Bliss is unique among all artists. There will never be another guy who draws humans with these weird, disgusting proportions. Very unsettling but also pretty cool. The card is just ok most of the time. I think counterspells that only hit creatures are a tool that will cause the user to realize just how popular Cavern of Souls is in the format. Vanishing: Ran into a guy on MTGO that over several games with different commanders played Vanishing on his commander and sorcery speed phased it out. Guy just didn't wanna hold the mana up. Card is pretty decent but the triple blue is a big starting ask. Pretty potent anti-interaction piece. Not necessarily my type of card. Griffon Canyon: It's ok. It's no Mammoth Graveyard, though. You ever regenerate a Generous Gift elephant for value? That's gameplay right there. Elephant good. Reverent Mantra: I like the Belbor Baggins interaction here, but I think I like Shining Shoal a bit more. Also, someday Vine Dryad will be good. It was a nasty turn 0 beater with rancor back in the day, but someday we'll have some five drop you want to Neoform into with this thing. Ritual of the Machine: This card slaps. It's got targeting restrictions, though, so be prepared to loot it away to something. War's Toll: I played this on MTGO. My opponents told me it was bugged, but I think they just autoyielded to the trigger and got tapped out by it. It's not worth playing if your opponents are gonna get wrecked by the client instead of by the card. I think it might be better to run Tectonic Instability. I think I remember Price of Glory being absolutely bugged and destroying lands at the wrong time too, so I'd avoid that one. A weird card I don't see ever that should probably see a little more play is Portcullis. What do you think about it?
27:53 I am with Tomer, every single Time I've seen Glacial Casem it was part of an extremely unfun and extremely uninteresting landfall deck (looking at you windgrace both of you) and it always ends one of two ways. Person with the Card grinds the win slowly or someone has/finds removal for it and the yard and the person gets destroyed. It is for the person who wants to play a blink deck, but as a landfall strategy.
Retrace Image seems like a funny way to make a token copy of a creature you already own on the battlefield, bounce the actual creature back to hand, and then replay it for one mana. Dumb, but funny. You're really only getting the ETB again and even then if you're making token copies on a regular basis you're probably only bouncing to save something from a board wipe.
You're better off playing literally any other card advantage effect. 6 mana for 1 card, 7 mana for 2, 8 for 3 cards, etc. The rate of return is never good on this.
The use of Mind's Eye is to round out your mana, and this is fundamentally why people underrate it. Yes, it's not Rhystic Study or Necropotence, but it means that any turn in which you end with 1 or 2 open mana, you can convert the mana into cards. The main fault of the card is that when the meta is dominated by "anyone have any counters? OK here's a two-card combo from-hand, game is over," getting extra value turn-by-turn is pretty pointless.
I just dropped 20$ on a foil from the vault glacial chasm yesterday for my Vilis deck. Because it's just nuts there. It's incredibly strong in the right decks.
Mind’s Eye is budget One Ring 🤷♂️ (that’s an inside joke I make in my pod cause I’m a Mind’s Eye fan) Mind’s Eye is a decent single card draw engine. Yes it’s rate is high to start out but it’s a card that isn’t seen as a threat and allows you to draw extra cards each turn if you have the mana and chose to do so. If you look at cards like Quick Study, 3 mana for 2 cards. Fair rate. Sift is 4 mana, draw 3 discard 1 for a net gain of 2 cards. This is a more of an exaggerated example but say you draw 15 cards off of your Mind’s Eye, that would cost 20 mana in total including the CMC, that is a fair rate in my eyes. Is 3-4 mana gets you 2-3 cards then 20 getting you 15 is the same rate. And the thing about Mind’s Eye that makes it particularly useful is it works when your opponent draws period. Off of spells, abilities, for turn, whatever. And it’s a may ability. You can’t accidentally deck yourself. Or flood your hand. Or get killed to someone else’s draw punisher because you aren’t forced to do it. Minds Eye is not some format breaker and isn’t likely to be the game deciding card but for a single card consistent draw engine that costs like 5-8 bucks for a single, it’s worth it. Sure it’s no One Ring, but I look at it as the One Ring at home.
I’m still a believer in minds eye. There’s plenty of games where I don’t really have any other plays on turn 3-4 and it plays dividends for the rest of the game. In a vacuum it’s certainly mana efficient, but this just works on the assumption that every hand you play will always be making plays on curve. Obviously that can vary with the overall power level of your deck but especially in more casual games it’s going to pop off consistently.
Withering boon is sick, you can go for the throat for 2 mana and hope that its not an artifact or you can boon and get rid of anything before it even gets its etb for an extra 3 life
Interesting thing about gaea's touch: it's actually an activated ability to put the land into play. So it CAN be responded to! Which means you can kill landfall creatures in response to you attempting to put the land into play.
Seth: We are all going to die. It's not about how we die but about how we live and I choose to live drawing cards.
What a hero. ❤
That was a really deep statement that came out from a magic podcast
Finally! A topic for a dinosaur like me who hasn’t played in 20 years but watches like 15 magic videos a week
Find a group and play again! Buy a precon commander or a budget deck and start with that!
Its me, budget commander, coming at w ya w a $60 storage land.
Haha, yes so true.
I laughed so hard
The irony of Tomer hating Mind’s Eye and loving Symmetry Matrix is gold.
Fr plus the amount of mana reducers ,rocks, and put artifact into play cards it rarely has to be a five drop. Tomer is tripping.
Matrix is bad too honestly, I ran it for a bit in some White / Boros decks and thought it might be good enough but now it only makes the cut in the most extreme budget brews
They are both subpar card draw because they have a sizeable do-nothing investment cost from playing the artifact and even after that investment the return rate on card draw is overcosted. However, Symmetry Matrix has much better combo potential. It still is bad card draw but it is bad card draw that can also win you the game. Even outside of comboing it is better since the card draw trigger is reliant on you doing things instead of you opponents doing things. For example, with a Haste enabler like Anger in your graveyard any mana dork with power = toughness can enter the battlefield then immediately tap itself to pay for the trigger -- like a really, really bad Guardian Project...
... ya, nevermind they are both terrible. But I do think Symmetry Matrix can be justified in a deck like Locust God while Mind's Eye can't be justified anywhere.
@@imaginarymatter minds eye in wheels lol
Symmetry Matrix technically very good in Watcher in the Water but I took it out because the reality is I don't want to deal with the annoying triggers on MTGO
I'm a fan of Energy Tap: U, Sorcery -- "Tap target untapped creature you control. If you do, add an amount of {C} equal to that creature’s mana value."
It is a weird blue ritual effect that has the prerequisite of having creatures. However, with creatures that have alternate casting costs or reduced master costs this can be a fairly powerful ritual in the early game that no one ever expects.
Goated in tasigur
goes hard in artifact decks
Love it. Play it with scornful egotist 8 mana wizard morph
@@magicbanding1095 ALL HAIL THE GREAT LORD EGOTIST!
Have it in my Orvar Deck. Copy a Creature and then maybe cast an eldrazi or copy more permanents with Buyback.
Is Phill really wearing t-shirt with est. 1992 because they discuss old cards? Phills t-shirt game is on whole another level! We need list of Phils t-shirt references.
Gaea's touch found a really solid home for me in my mono green storm deck. It takes advantage of every aspect of this card. It's an enchantress deck, so it draws an extra card on entry, it sacs to extend a storm turn, green has a lot of ways to return enchantments from the graveyard to replay for more card draw in a rut. The card is easily one of the best in the deck.
Do you have a decklist for this?
You know its a good topic when the hosts are pissed they can't listen to it instead of being on the pod
Suggestion for a commander clash episode:
Everyone gets 3 expansions (not base sets) that they're allowed to build from (as in they can only use cards that were in those expansions) other than basic lands. The expansions could be picked at random or even drafted.
Basic lands are a "freebie" because sets like Homelands, Fallen Empires, The Dark, Legends, Arabian Night etc. do not have any basic lands.
Arcanum Wings - the only card in the game with the "Aura Swap" ability!!
At instant speed, it can replace itself with any aura in your hand. Initially flying over a defender, then switching the wings with a larger damage aura or one with an 'on damage' trigger... so fun.
(Honorable mention to Tallowisp for helping find those egregious auras!)
Also, kudos on mentioning Vanishing!
Cheaper than Flickerform to activate, and it protects the enchanted creature, itself, AND any other auras already attached to it at instant speed. It's like having an extra copy of Counterspell every turn and it's one of the top items on my list of underrated cards!
Love it! Definitely gonna try to pick up a copy of Wings!
18:36 Take a shot. Someone said "this bad card is good because it's so bad it sticks around."
One of my personal pet cards is Hall of Gemstone.
1GG
World Enchantment
At the beginning of each player's upkeep, that player chooses a color. Until end of turn, lands tapped for mana produce mana of the chosen color instead of any other color.
It's such a goofy card, but it's so hilarious to see folks with 2+ color decks squirm when my Mono-Green Prison deck gets this on the field.
That's evil I love it
Doesn't stop Utopia Sprawl or mana rocks however
Sure, but it does mess up their lands enough to make them think. Especially with things like Cursed Scroll or Karn + Mycosynth Lattice out
more of this style of video would be awesome
didn't even get to abeyance
Don't apologise Phil, you being terrified of dogs is what made that episode so good 🍻🤘
Somewhat along the lines of Withering Boon is Burnout.
---
{1}{R}
Instant
Counter target instant spell if it's blue.
Draw a card at the beginning of the next turn’s upkeep.
---
It's the third-child version of Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast
Old gems are my jam! The cycles (plural!) of free spells in the MM block are so underrated, especially in monocolor decks that draw a ton of cards. Yes, the rare spells of MM like Reverent Mantra, but Submerge, Abolish, Mogg Salvage, Massacre, Foil...
I've been wanting to pick up a City of Shadows for awhile and this has convinced me to pull the trigger
I run Mind’s Eye in my Liesa, Shroud of Dusk deck, my slowest and most controlling one. Because of Liesa’s life taxing, I don’t cast more spells than I have to, and card draw isn’t a big priority (especially since I don’t want to pay life per card or on top of a life for cards spell). It’s not uncommon to wipe the board or cast Liesa and then have a few mana open to use instants if needed or throw at card draw. I don’t think it’s great in most decks, but if you’re both dragging the game out, have some instants, and don’t need to constantly push your board development, it can work.
You guys sold me on Vanishing for my Tuvasa deck. Not the easiest place to keep UU up, but seems worth it.
Nice combo: Tombstone Stairwell + Altar of Dementia ❤
you're gonna die from giving them creatures faster than you can mill them no?
I like it for sangromancer/meathook. or in pillow fort where they can't swing at me
Seth: ..those people in the deep dark depths of commander...
Thomer: that was me 😂
City of Shadows makes a great sacrifice outlet for commanders like Dragonlord Silumgar. Any deck with a stealing sub theme where you don't really intend to give things back. And it's exile as a cost. So really hard to muck with.
Another old card in that vein is Synod Sanctum. My favorite 1-drop artifact. 2-mana+tap to exile a permanent you control. And 2+Sacrifice the sanctum to return them all to play... under your control. (Most similar effects say Owner's control, but not the Sanctum. XD)
I have War's Toll in my Yurlok of Scorch Trash, and it's insane. Bringing back mana burn baby
Marton Stromgald is my favorite old card, it’s kinda like a mono red craterhoof. Any deck I have that I care about combat and is red has him in it, my favorite pet card for sure.
Tombstone stairwell with Cathar’s Crusade produced one of the greatest moments my playgroup ever had.
One cool/weird thing with Tombstone Stairwell is that if you let it die to the upkeep, if you stack it right, you get another round of death triggers before it goes.
I like it for sangromancer and meathook massacre.
@@wesleywyndam-pryce5305 Cathar’s crusade for the Orzhov brethren
The thing nobody mentioned about Tombstone Stairwell that I think everyone kind of glossed over (though they probably realized it without saying it) is that it seems that EVERY upkeep EVERY player gains a ton of zombies for that turn, and then they all just die at the end of the turn, and a new wave comes on the next player's turn. So the self-mill player is gaining and then sacrificing a ton of zombies 3 times before they even have to pay the upkeep once. This card is really strong in commander for the same reason a card like Rhystic Studies is strong: it triggers on every player's turn.
Tombstone Stairwell*
Thank you for mentioning Retraced Image. I had never heard of this card, but it should be great in my Lord of the Nazgul deck. The potential for T1 ramp in Dimir is pretty good, but late game it should also be strong, as the deck features a lot of draw, so I usually have extra lands in hand. With the Lord in play, spending U to either ramp or drop an additional Nazgul into play at discount while also making a Wraith token seems pretty strong.
There is a blue card a dragon or bird, that CAN BE CAST FROM EXILE.
It is usually part of chulane or food chain combos.
But it would work here.
Misthollow griffon? From memory
This card is pretty narrow but I love playing Glacial Crevasses. I have a Toralf deck that runs lots of snow-covered mountains and sometimes having a red fog is helpful 😂
There is an artifact with a simmiliar effect, sunstone i belive was the name
I've stalled a game 10+ turns with glacial crevasses before hahahaha and the best thing is no one can say shit because red has almost 0 options for Enchantment removal
Gaze of Pain is the weird old card I wish people knew about. 1B sorcery, any of your unblocked attackers you can redirect their damage to a creature. You do this for each creature individually, so can make them all bite different things. So it's like a mass bite spell that you tap your creatures for and simply need to convince an opponent to not block so you can kill someone else's creature(s) (they take no damage from the attack).
What makes it good is the mana efficiency and if you have a lot of attack triggers or deathtouch. You can also politic so your creatures not being left back to block doesn't mean you'll be attacked. If you're looking for a cheap way to remove 2+ creatures at once, especially annoying little utility stuff, then see if it could work for you.
I love it for my Nalia de'Arnise deck which is essentially go-wide deathtouch.
With Tombstone Stairwell, it will trigger Wilhelt's ability to create Decayed Zombies at the end of every turn. So say you only have 3 creatures in your graveyard, with Wilhelt and Tombstone Stairwell on the field. You pass turn, make 3 TS zombies, they die, you make 3 decayed zombies. Third players turn, do the same. When turn order gets back around to you, you have 9 decayed zombies, plus the 3 new TA zombies you.make for turn. It's an extremely good synergy.
This should be a recurring topic. Love this one.
Smoke is so dope when you have vigilance lol
Shout out to the Fog Meta: Fog Patch is a weird old card that is reasonable against any attack that doesn't have a lot of Trample damage, but it's extra-interesting with Anzrag, the Quake-Mole. If your opponent doesn't block Anzrag, you can cast Fog Patch to still give yourself an extra combat!
Tangle is a personal favorite if you haven't checked that one out yet.
I love Tombstone Stairwell, it's a pet card every time I do Zombies. It produces the highest amount of Zombies for the mana of almost anything, and churns out ETB and Dies triggers for those tasty Zombie value engines. Hell, by the time you have to pay the upkeep it's already made and eaten 10+ Zombies for you, and even more if you can exploit your opponents. Even on the turn you pay if you don't pay you can order the zombie-making to come before the upkeep, so you get the zombies and the dies triggers anyway.
I've been a big fan of Wild Research recently. It's a 3 mana red enchantment that basically lets you gamble for an enchantment for 1w, or for an instant for 1u. I've found that there's a lot of graveyard-y combos it's really good at setting up (especially with flashback cards), but then once you've set up your combo it also doubles as protection because you can search up counterspells or teferi's protection (which you might be able to cast from your graveyard with some other pieces)
Tomer -- want to note an additional relevance for griffin canyon -- it combos with mutavault and manascape refractor to make an infinitely large griffin.
I love Retraced Image in the mono-blue original Thassa deck I play. Unfortunately the only time I've had it on turn one (island, retraced image to put another island into play, ponder, t2 thassa), I got hit with a curse of opulence in a pod where all 3 other people had one-drop creatures. Also the deck plays some free pitch spells (Force of will/Negation + Commandeer) so it's still good late-game.
I also play War's Toll in a Kykar enchantment combo deck. It's a nice tutor target that stops opponents from interacting on your turn when you go to combo off. On that note, Wild Research is another fun and spicy old card.
Seth, pair War’s Toll with Price of Glory and ascend to Crim’s mortal enemy.
It's anti-synergy though isn't it? The War's Toll saves him from the temptation to kill his lands with Price of Glory. The real trick is making sure his lands are always untapped with an Awakening or something and then playing stuff he has to answer at instant speed while Price of Glory is on the battlefield.
Tombstone Stairwell seems like a monster of a card for The Master, Multiplied
I don't think it does anything with The Master. Stairwell is a "weird old card": it doesn't sacrifice or exile the tokens, it "buries" them- meaning destroys. just like the Abyss, which doesn't sacrifice, it destroys a creature.
12:36 I threw this card into my Talrand, Sky Summoner Combo deck, where I draw all my cards and I keep bringing it back and I have all my lands into play! I love this card!
I've been running against a lot of Glacial Chasm recently, the one card that I use as a finisher and also as a way to counter that (and teferis pro) is Isengard Unleashed, triple damage and damage prevention along side a big commander is usually enough to kill even the most resilient of players.
The art on Ritual of the Machine is a reference to Phyrexian influence during the Ice Age.
I love seeing City of Shadows here, I've been running it in my Atraxa superfriends deck for a few years now. A little bit rough being a colorless land in a four-color deck, but I'm already running Urborg. Might be able to get away with getting the counters started with a creature token from a planeswalker, but most of the time I'm playing it down on five before casting Atraxa and using it to get some value and soften the blow of her being subject to targeted removal. Then when you get her back down and can start proliferating every turn with her effect or any of the other numerous proliferate effects in the deck, it's very strong. This is probably a cute interaction rather than a strong one, but you can also use nesting grounds to move storage counters from the other storage counter lands that actually produce colored mana to city of shadows, which is kind of ramp in a way, since city of shadows doesn't make you remove the storage counters to use it, unlike the other lands.
Gonna throw my hat in the ring for Sapphire Charm. Easily the best cantrip in commander, works well in voltron, spellslinger, and any other shell involved getting beaters through. My Gale + Scion deck appreciates the delayed card draw, and my Umbris deck loves getting through for massive damage. Nevermind the fact that it can phase out combo creatures in an emergency. It’s a house!
Urabrask's Forge and the City of shadows work great together.
You sak the tokens anyway, might as well get something for them.
Great video! I'd love one where all of the crew goes over their top 3 commanders right now. Might be a good way to spotlight some underrepresented commanders and put them on people's radars!
How to combine ETB meta and smoke meta in one card? In face (symbol?) card of Stronghold they managed to do that - Portcullis is amazing if you want to ensure that there are not too many creatures on the battlefield, while still benefiting from your ETBs (sometimes more than once).
Thanks for making me feel old... i have Gaea's touch, Smoke, glacial chasm, and retraced image in decks. just went through bulk when i started playing commander and found those.
I love retraced image and mitotic manipulation in my mono blue decks where I often run close to 40 lands, usually it is better with a commander who can recast stuff like gale or lier, then you can dump a few lands that you drew later in the game too
My first and only atraxa deck ran city of shadows along side a set of lands that tap for 2 mana but use a counter and enter with like 2, plus the vivid cycle. Atraxa only really existed as the commander to keep my land's mana abilities usable in the deck and it really played like a super unoptimal ramp deck but was so much fun as a low power level helix pinnacle deck that didn't cheat infinite mana and instead did at most like 10 mana a turn unless city of shadows was out as it went up by 2 or 3 counters a turn which turned a 10 turn win into a 5 turn win. Again it was super low power level edh.
There is another tech that works just fine with glacial chasm. If you copy it you just reset the cumulative upkeep. It is possible to slow the game time enough to find a way to close the game.
My favorite underrated card is Tortured Existence, goes so well in reanimation decks. I rarely see it in people's decks though
Smoke also hoses decks that play lots of mana dorks & other creatures that tap for utility.
Mind's Eye was pretty good...
In 2010....
In mono White!
I play Mind's Eye in Meria, Scholar of Antiquities with unwinding clock and seedborn with a crap ton of mana rocks. Works pretty well in my pods.
Carry Away from Darksteel is in my Dimir and Mono-Blue decks, there is always a pair of shoes on the battlefield that would look much better on my feet 🥳
Tomer you are a mad scientist. When you were reading tombstone stairwell, I thought you were on an illegal substance. But after explaining how you use the card, I’m convinced that cards broken.
My favorite old card is: Debt of Loyalty - It can protect one of ur creature against.a board wipe (nobody plays Wrath of God or Damnation anymore) OR you can steal a dying creature your opponent control for just 3 mana :-) (
Im not sure how under-rated they are, but i love Eye of the Storm and Talorian Winds. Two very different cards, but theyre just a ton of fun.
Mind’s eye is perfect in the clash meta because richard plays twelve boardwipes so the games are super grindy
Got to know where Phil got Retraced Image from... I started trying to get people to play it in commander about couple years ago by comments on RUclips, etc. Would love to know it made it to you guys :)
As for how good it is, you want to play it in decks with sorcery synergies and card draw. Without that its trash. With those things you can do some broken stuff. For example, I run it in Kefnet, where I have cantrips that let me stack the top and then cast it twice. That kind of thing.
The other cards in the "BLUE RAMP PACKAGE" to note are Mitotic Manipulation, which is basically straight 3 mana untapped ramp and Savor the Moment, which gives you a land drop, an attack, planeswalker activations, etc.
I’ve seen Tombstone Stairwell before but I’ve never really liked it until Tomer explained it out to me so thanks
I love old cards, and I especially love Glacial Chasm! I play it in my Muldrotha deck. I use multiple landfall per turn plus a ramunap excavator style card exactly like how tomer hates it! Plus playing it in this style it's very unfair as Seth said. Can confirm this causes much salt when properly setup, and it's very easy to perma fog a table.
This is excactly my kind of content and the reason why I love EDH, because I wanna play all the weird old cards!
I recently put Haunted Crossroads in my Marvo deck to help recycle creatures and win clash triggers.
I'm all about lands that don't produce mana. Glacial Chasm, Maze of Ith, Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, Adventurers' Guildhouse, Thawing Glaciers.
Yes OMG Minds Eye was in every single commander deck in 2007, 2010 era. But yeah if you cast it for 5 on turn 5 and you have no mana open, it feels really bad. I am going to put minds eye back into Urza lord high artificer casual
I love that you bought up Vanishing. I run it in my Ivy Gleeful Spellthief auras/mutation deck and it's so good.
I love Reverent Mantra! It's won me a game before. Used it to stop a Ghostly Flicker combo, which bought me another turn and let me swing out. It's so sneaky good!
I would really love, if you had a page were you show us your paper decks. Phil talking about his Jadar deck I want to see it :D
Makes sense that Seth and Richard would be coming back around on Mind's Eye, since that card is just "we have The One Ring at home". You dump your turn 4/5 mana into an artifact that just keeps accruing value over the course of the game until the advantage of drawing 4+ cards a turn cycle just completely takes over. It even has a form of built-in protection, b.c. at most tables you're going to get the Tomer-esque reaction of "ok, this guy's not a threat; he's playing a card that was *maybe* good over a decade ago". They'll leave you alone, and you'll easily recoup the initial investment. Especially if you subscribe to the Richard philosophy that says you should sit back and let everyone else expend their resources answering threats. It just needs a Darksteel variant to really make it shine. As it is, it does fall victim to tangential/incidental artifact hate.
Last season of Clash Seth played Mind's Eye and spent the next turns tapping out to draw all the cards. I killed him because of it. The reason is that if you're drawing cards without advancing your board then you fall behind on board state, and when you're behind on board the best follow-up is a wipe. I had a board, he did not, so I took him out before he could do anything about it. So I do in fact consider Mind's Eye a threat, the difference is if you're going ham with it then you're vulnerable to just dying, that's why I don't like it.
My pet card, since 1994, is Ifh-Biff Efreet. Opened one in the last pack of Arabian Nights (the only pack of the set I ever opened) my local store had.
I've been looking for a home for it ever since.
I play City of Shadows in my Ranar deck using it to trigger exile synergy, makes colorless mana for Eldrazi Displacer, helps pay commander tax, and single-handedly got a buddy to stop playing Slicer lol.
Debt of Loyalty for white is a great version of gimme your creature =D It's 1WW, regenerate target creature, gain control of it. That's it.
I've found a home for Mind's Eyes in monoG Omnath Locus of Mana. Runs very few creatures and tries to finish the game with Hurricane, Squall Line or Borrowing the East Wind. It is indeed mana pool.deck and usually has far too much mana than it does card draw. (It's funny, green has excellent card draw...though usually tied to casting or dropping creatures.)
Also Mind's Eye goes really good with Urban Burgeoning, even on a basic land. 1 extra mana each turn at opponent's untap, feed it into Mind's Eye.
I love that venser + city of shadows interaction. I have it in Ranar deck and it’s silly
Minds eye vs power creep.
1. Minds eyes good. Time to win low.
2. Minds eye bad ttw fast, average player doesn't use interaction.
3. Minds eye good. Interaction is common place and minds eye isn't worth sniping, and people will feed the eye.
Minds eye is fine for artifact/copy/trigger decks and instant speed decks.
You can cheat it into play. The cost is miniscule after a board wipe.
Minds Eye, it makes you say do *I* pay the 1, and Seth actually pays this one..
Glacial chasm has save my korvold feild,valakut deck more then any other card. croping into this card is brutal. Plus you can play it ever turn with a crucible effect and never pay the upkeep. this card is super powerful.
City of Shadows: Nice card to use alongside Threaten/Act of Treason effects, if you have a commander that does that, highly recommend. Prefer it to Diamond Valley. I think I like High Market and Phyrexian Tower more, though.
Retraced Image: It's tough to make this good for the whole game in commander. It is at its strongest I think when you have a monoblue commander that wants to come down on turn 2, Cosima was a great example, but I think it's still pretty sketchy to burn a card this way. Not really a Lotus Petal format.
Mind's Eye: I can kind of respect it once it's on the battlefield, and it can be a good choice for some big mana colorless decks. Most decks with access to colored mana can do better. 1% of all decks in the entire format on EDHREC seems like a lot of decks, for any card. And although I don't like the mana cost of a Mind's Eye, it's probably still smart to blow one up if someone plays it. It's half of a Consecrated Sphinx and that's still a pretty strong tool.
Tombstone Stairwell: It's kind of busted. Usually ends the game before you have to pay the Cumulative Upkeep if you've got something nasty enough like the new Vein ripper or the similar Rage Thrower. Kinda feel bad playing this card, it's extremely strong. Also a bit time consuming for each player.
Glacial Chasm: Also a bit busted. There was a period of time where Flaring Pain was a popular card in a playgroup I was in, just to gotcha people who ran Chasm and fogs. Not taking damage is pretty good, especially at instant speed off of a Crop Rotation.
Smoke: I like Smoke a lot. I also forget it exists a lot. Remember Uphill Battle? Neat little 'combo.' This is a pretty powerful creature hate card that wouldn't really see print in modern magic design, which is unfortunate, because all these creatures have more power than mana cost with upsides now.
Gaea's Touch: Loved this card for a long time. Proto-exploration for monogreen with an additional, very relevant ability. You just need forests for it to work, and sometimes your deck ends up not having that many forests. I love playing extra land drops and Loam as my ramp package rather than a bunch of Rampant Growths, just because it makes more room for silly stuff and is still really powerful.
Withering Boon: Robert Bliss is unique among all artists. There will never be another guy who draws humans with these weird, disgusting proportions. Very unsettling but also pretty cool. The card is just ok most of the time. I think counterspells that only hit creatures are a tool that will cause the user to realize just how popular Cavern of Souls is in the format.
Vanishing: Ran into a guy on MTGO that over several games with different commanders played Vanishing on his commander and sorcery speed phased it out. Guy just didn't wanna hold the mana up. Card is pretty decent but the triple blue is a big starting ask. Pretty potent anti-interaction piece. Not necessarily my type of card.
Griffon Canyon: It's ok. It's no Mammoth Graveyard, though. You ever regenerate a Generous Gift elephant for value? That's gameplay right there. Elephant good.
Reverent Mantra: I like the Belbor Baggins interaction here, but I think I like Shining Shoal a bit more. Also, someday Vine Dryad will be good. It was a nasty turn 0 beater with rancor back in the day, but someday we'll have some five drop you want to Neoform into with this thing.
Ritual of the Machine: This card slaps. It's got targeting restrictions, though, so be prepared to loot it away to something.
War's Toll: I played this on MTGO. My opponents told me it was bugged, but I think they just autoyielded to the trigger and got tapped out by it. It's not worth playing if your opponents are gonna get wrecked by the client instead of by the card. I think it might be better to run Tectonic Instability. I think I remember Price of Glory being absolutely bugged and destroying lands at the wrong time too, so I'd avoid that one.
A weird card I don't see ever that should probably see a little more play is Portcullis. What do you think about it?
27:53 I am with Tomer, every single Time I've seen Glacial Casem it was part of an extremely unfun and extremely uninteresting landfall deck (looking at you windgrace both of you) and it always ends one of two ways. Person with the Card grinds the win slowly or someone has/finds removal for it and the yard and the person gets destroyed. It is for the person who wants to play a blink deck, but as a landfall strategy.
Retrace Image seems like a funny way to make a token copy of a creature you already own on the battlefield, bounce the actual creature back to hand, and then replay it for one mana. Dumb, but funny. You're really only getting the ETB again and even then if you're making token copies on a regular basis you're probably only bouncing to save something from a board wipe.
A lot of people threw shade on Mind's Eye, but in most casual games, it's going to be solid.
You're better off playing literally any other card advantage effect. 6 mana for 1 card, 7 mana for 2, 8 for 3 cards, etc. The rate of return is never good on this.
I'd literally play any other card advantage bc wotc has printed card advantage in every color since this was popular...
@@imaginarymatter but it does keep giving returns, and in longer grind games it can keep a hand full
It also doesn’t look like a threat so people don’t want to remove it
The use of Mind's Eye is to round out your mana, and this is fundamentally why people underrate it. Yes, it's not Rhystic Study or Necropotence, but it means that any turn in which you end with 1 or 2 open mana, you can convert the mana into cards. The main fault of the card is that when the meta is dominated by "anyone have any counters? OK here's a two-card combo from-hand, game is over," getting extra value turn-by-turn is pretty pointless.
I play glacial chasm in my version of no more bad turns. No upkeep :)
I just dropped 20$ on a foil from the vault glacial chasm yesterday for my Vilis deck. Because it's just nuts there. It's incredibly strong in the right decks.
Mind’s Eye is the best when an opponent plays Rhystic Study now you never pay the one, but you always Pay the 1.
Mind's Eye is one of my fav cards to have on the battlefield. In white and red. Nowhere else :p
Cool episode, more like this please!
Mind’s Eye is budget One Ring 🤷♂️ (that’s an inside joke I make in my pod cause I’m a Mind’s Eye fan)
Mind’s Eye is a decent single card draw engine. Yes it’s rate is high to start out but it’s a card that isn’t seen as a threat and allows you to draw extra cards each turn if you have the mana and chose to do so. If you look at cards like Quick Study, 3 mana for 2 cards. Fair rate. Sift is 4 mana, draw 3 discard 1 for a net gain of 2 cards. This is a more of an exaggerated example but say you draw 15 cards off of your Mind’s Eye, that would cost 20 mana in total including the CMC, that is a fair rate in my eyes. Is 3-4 mana gets you 2-3 cards then 20 getting you 15 is the same rate. And the thing about Mind’s Eye that makes it particularly useful is it works when your opponent draws period. Off of spells, abilities, for turn, whatever. And it’s a may ability. You can’t accidentally deck yourself. Or flood your hand. Or get killed to someone else’s draw punisher because you aren’t forced to do it. Minds Eye is not some format breaker and isn’t likely to be the game deciding card but for a single card consistent draw engine that costs like 5-8 bucks for a single, it’s worth it. Sure it’s no One Ring, but I look at it as the One Ring at home.
I’m still a believer in minds eye. There’s plenty of games where I don’t really have any other plays on turn 3-4 and it plays dividends for the rest of the game. In a vacuum it’s certainly mana efficient, but this just works on the assumption that every hand you play will always be making plays on curve. Obviously that can vary with the overall power level of your deck but especially in more casual games it’s going to pop off consistently.
These old cards have such cool art!
Withering boon is sick, you can go for the throat for 2 mana and hope that its not an artifact or you can boon and get rid of anything before it even gets its etb for an extra 3 life
I like glacial chasm in my eriette deck, gives me a little cushion, and the life loss is off set by her drain.
Love this concept and would love a sequel with only budget picks.
I have a city of shadows in my Ezuri Proliferate deck. Reatrced Image in my Lier deck (Good ramp for flashback and High Tide combo)
Interesting thing about gaea's touch: it's actually an activated ability to put the land into play. So it CAN be responded to! Which means you can kill landfall creatures in response to you attempting to put the land into play.
If Gaea’s Touch even gets you one single forest that’s ramp on your delayed ritual, it’s the sauce
Omg didn't know tombstone stairwell existed! It's so good for my Malik deck
I immediately bought a copy of the Stairwell. Thanks guys ❤❤