As a werewolf player, what annoys me the most about day and night is that it doesn’t work with the old werewolf. If it’s already night and you play old wolves, you have both sides to track. And even if your new and old cards are in sync, you have to track it differently, because the old ones flip easier. A big errata to make all old cards daybound instead would have been nice.
My blood pressure still spikes thinking of how MID did us dirty by not having a Werewolf commander precon. It's their design and they can cook up new mechanics nobody remembers past the set it comes out in, but making a precon for werewolves was too much trouble.
@@marauder340 MID at least have a good legendary creature, but i think the stronger wolves were accutally in VOW. Caretaker has won me most games where she came out of the deck and piper, loner, arsonist and outcast are all ggod to important pieces. MID had huntmaster, naturalist, liberator, stormseeker and fangblade brigand, but they feel less impactful
@@Thimbrethil yes, it's better for stable play when they are out, being reliant on the active player, but the tracking gets very stale over time. and my friends keep playing this vid when i play the deck ruclips.net/video/Ln2Xq8fCNI8/видео.html
To sum up my takeaway from this video, I feel like there are at least 2 big categories that annoying cards can fall into: 1) Cards that create a lot of triggers that only impact your own board state 2) Cards that create a lot of triggers on other people's turns / board states For (1) I like to think its a nuisance of the upkeep, and in cases where they aren't may abilities can cause some headache as you try to play your deck to the best of your ability. I would also say that this plays some part in long turns and or speaks to certain deck strategies that we describe to be very solitaire like. Then for (2) I would say that they are disruptive either actively or passively on other player's turns -- what I mean by that you the controller of the effect having to ask or remind people of it, or the other players constantly having to look at your board and play into / around the card that you have in play. And in both cases it can feel like that card you just played becomes the center of attention and or becomes the new threat to the table that people want to get rid of it. All in all, I really enjoy this topic and thank you always EDHRECast for the amazing content that you consistently deliver on a weekly basis ❤❤
Felidar Retreat can fall under the same umbrella as Cathar's Crusade. My Mogis deck requires I ask each player, "Are you sacking a creature or taking 2 damage?" each & every turn.
I've played against Wheel of Misfortune enough times that I've got it boiled down to a pretty simple explanation. Everyone chooses a number. Whoever chooses the highest number Wheels and takes damage equal to the number they chose, middle numbers only Wheel and don't take damage, lowest number does neither. Now there's still the mind game of trying to figure out what number the guy who cast it can afford to pick or what result they personally want but that's a Player thing and not a Card thing.
I'm pretty new to commander - I'm playing with some friends who are learning the game and It's something I had on my mind for a long time. I supply everyone with decks and sometimes I'd rather not buy certain precons/include certain cards because explaining them, or keeping track of them is just making game less fun for everyone included. Explaining all kind of exiles is propably one of the best examples.
Thanks for sharing my Challenge the Stats! I was listening to the podcast like I normally do every weekend and I heard my name and had a mini heart attack! Love you guys and love the cast every week!
Solution for Matt for Cathar's Crusade, and you can thank Ladee Danger for this one. Instead of fumbling with dice trying to find the correct number to flip to the top, go with a dry erase marker on the clear face of your sleeved creature. I also was frustrated with the time I spent trying to flip my dice to the correct face on 5,10, 20 creatures, and this dry erase method made it so easy. It cut the time by minutes each turn. Just add a tick for each counter added. I find this faster than erasing a number and rewriting a new number. Easy to wipe off a tick as well if they get a counter removed. When killed, the dry erase wipes off the sleeve face in a second or two. I went from loving Cathar's Crusade, to dreading it, and now back to living it. Oh, if you're creating tokens, just slide those in a sleeve ahead of time as well, so you can use this method.
14:22 for my play group, we just say "I'm going to assume you're NOT paying the 1 unless you tell me", and then any time it triggers, we do a little wave at the person who has the opportunity to pay
As someone that plays Perrie ... I get it. It's also that thanks to Proliferate effects, there are multiple numbers of counters to track. Sure, it doesn't matter if Perrie has 1 or 5 Flying counters ... most of the time, but I still need to know how many there are.
I've watched competitive players use a scratch pad to keep up with their opponent's life totals, and I've thought about trying it (my play group has started using spin downs instead of a life tracker app on a screen, there's something relaxing about not having an electronic device with a screen involved in a tabletop game). I feel like a scratch pad isn't that much of an ask on having something else on the table, and covers a lot of things, like Perrie's types of counters for example. But I love Joey's Brazilian restaurant green/red coins example, I think cool mental shortcut things like that are useful because they're easy to use, as long as you can keep track of them and keep them with your deck.
Yeah I think I've resolved telepathy once or twice and immediadly took it out after the game. It can also backfire pretty bad since the other players don't have anything to fear from each other and can coordinate perfectly. Turns out being able to trust others makes alliances way more powerful.
In my old Ghave deck, I actively would sandbag Cathar's Crusade until I could go infinite with it and not have to worry about the exact math. I eventually just cut the card entirely.
The Cathar's Crusade reason is the same reason why I stopped playing my Winota and Ally decks. Too many individual triggers and buffs and whatnot. Same with Perrie and Kathril, too much tracking and rechecking and forgetting what I said so I have to re check again.
I have large dice for Cathars crusade, and start making ranks (rows) of creatures, each with the big die off to the side for that rank. Normally I have 3 rows of land, non-creatures, and creatures. But Cathars makes me multiple creature rows for me if that makes sense
I just built Thalia and the gitrog monster and it’s one of my favorite decks so far but creatures and non basic lands coming in tapped is amazingly powerful but mentally taxing to monitor. I’m doing it because the deck is new and fun but I can see a point when I take it apart because I’m over thinking about it. Also I love smugglers share so much. I guess I’m just the accountant player at heart
Cathars' Crusade is definitely a powerful card I've seen pop off a few times and YET I just know I'd never include in any of my decks. Tracking my bad +1/+1 counter stuff is already taxing enough.
I have a temur cascade deck. I put in momir vig in the deck so I can tutor and put a creature on top on the deck so I can cascade into it..... Sounds efficient and awesome. However it is a cast trigger... I usually have 3-5 other cast triggers Including the cascade trigger on the stack. Then as they are resolving I have ETB triggers as well.. it ending up being a rules nightmare and taking 15 minute turns. I did develop a very good understanding on how the stack works because of this deck.
I would respect Unfinity so much more if they didn't do away with the silver borders. The acorn stamp is absurdly small and it is near impossible to tell at a glance whether the card is legal or illegal to play. The silver border was such a great indicator, and I think people could be more excited about some non-acorn cards from the set, too, if they stuck with that convention.
I converted from D20s to track +1/+1s to using infinitoken counters. you can have a whole lot more of them than you'll ever have of d20s, and you'll never bump the die or anything that way.
If you think Clone Legion is a nuisance, you should try it out in a Zevlor deck, copying it for each other player. I put it in there thinking how sweet it would be, then had it in hand and said to myself nah, I don’t want to deal with this. Took it out immediately after.
It's also symmetrical, so then you have to keep track of how many of a type each opponent has. God forbid if someone has a random creature that shares a type with yours, now they have an enormous crackback threat that wasn't there before. So, yeah, I guess it should have been here, too.
The fact that sphinx of the second sun gives you your additional beginning phase after your second main phase is really silly because that’s not what it says
I really don't think it's a complicated card at all. You go to your second main phase, after the second main phase you untap your permanents, get a second upkeep if that is relevant for something on your board, and then you draw a card. After that you go to the end step as normal. I don't understand how they don't understand that.
@@Cynsham I could see it getting confusing if you also played something that gave additional main phases, but if your turn structure is otherwise normal, then the card seems pretty intuitive to me, too.
For me, the difference of cutting or keeping a card/mechanic in is if i myself can gatekeep check the triggers I throw into the game A single day&nightbound creature is like a morph creature. You know it happens when it happens, and your responsible for the tracking. Cards like Rhystic Study or Sensei’s Top, ask constant or repititive time and attention from everyone.
I keep debating on taking Rite of Reflection out of my Roalesk deck. 5 triggers of 2 +1 counters and then 10 proliferate triggers. If a Hardened Scales or Pir is out it gets even more complicated
My nuisance card is simultaneously one of my favourite commanders: Karametra, God of Harvests. It's basically unmanageable with Great Henge/Beast Whisperer/Guardian Project in play. For each creature you cast you technically need to get a land, shuffle, then draw. And you usually want to play a lot of cheap creatures, so you could end up doing that half a dozen times per turn...
@@Thimbrethil Sadly no. Karametra triggers when you cast creatures and Henge/Guardian Project when creatures ETB. But even with Beast Whisperer (also a cast trigger, so I can choose the order) you would need to shuffle every time.
Can I toss “Arcane Bombardment” into the ring for overly complex cards? I have this in my Veyran deck and honestly, resolving it twice each turn is to much. I often choose to not cast certain spells like removal or boardwipes that get exiled with this, or I use my own counter spells to target these so it doesn’t get to oppressive. It’s great with magecraft abilities but boy is it complicated
C's crusade can be managed by small notes. I have a tiny block of notes where I can just jot down the number of counters and it is faster than rolling dice around and knocking them over during the process.
If anyone is as crazy as I am and loves that Perrie deck, keep a Counter counter. I have 2 infinitokens with a checklist of counters i can make. That way you only have to check if the ones you have when they etb
Instead of annoying people by asking "Do you pay the" every single time it triggers, I'll say it for the first few times, and if they don't pay for anything I'm just going to say "I am just going to assume that you do not pay the X every time it triggers unless you specifically say otherwise." And then even after I say that, every time it triggers I will just say "I draw a card" for rhystic study or "I make X treasures" for smothering tithe, and they can still decide if they want to pay without me constantly having to specifically ask "Do you pay the X?"
Joey dropping a RPDR reference and then having to explain it as “another reality series” when he remembered his current audience was a magical moment for me.
Question for rules fans : I control an Opalescence (3W for a world enchantment that turns every non-aura enchantment into creatures with P/T equal to their MV). I also control another enchantment (let's say a Rhystic Study) which is a 3/3 creature. I mutate a creature on it, let's say a Vadrok (ignore the trigger, it is already in play). Vadrok is "above" the study, which means it is Vadrok having Study ruletext. Somebody removes my Opalescence. What happens?
You have a Vadrok with Rhystic Study abbilities. Whether or not Opalescence is still in play after the mutate resolves no longer matters. The same way that if you mutated on top of a planeswaker that was temporarily turned into a creature, at the end you'd have a creature with planeswaker abilities and loyalty.
I have no clue but I'm commenting because you just made me curious and I hope someone will give the answer. This is the first rules question in a while that I absolutely have no clue about.
I run a Karona deck that has Blind Obedience, Authority of the Consuls, Tithe, Rhystic Study, Rhystic Buddy, Aura of Silence, Suppresion Field etc. etc. I am the IRS.
I like mutate a lot, I like the comic book style artwork on those cards, and I like infect, so of course I made a deck that 'combines' infect and mutate and it's great!
As a Celestus enjoyer I think criticism on the complexity/nuisance of keeping track of day/night is a bit exaggerated. First the "gotta track it for the rest of the game" part: In reality you can just forget about it once the day/night card is gone, because it's so easy to find out who the last player was to either cast 2 spells in their turn or cast no spells in their turn. Like 95% of the time just looking at the player that came before suffices, because those situations typically occur in the later parts of the game, where multicasting and draw-go are really common. Secondly with The Celestus specifically, it really isn't relevant enough for other players to design their turn around whether it will become day or night. So as long as the guy who brought the card to the table is fine with taking care of the effect themselves, it hardly adds any nuisance to the table.
Last week I had a hard time trying to make some new players understand how Breena's ability works. They we're so focused in not understanding it that almost convinced me that I was the one wrong. Lol.
An easy-to-track but powerful way to use Cathar's Crusade is, instead of running a bunch of small nontoken creatures or cards that create tokens over time, just run cards that create a bunch of tokens at once (e.g. Secure the Wastes, Grand Crescendo, Increasing Devotion, Conqueror's Pledge, Storm Herd, Finale of Glory, etc.). Since the tokens enter the battlefield at the same time, they have the same number of counters, so you can just use one die to represent the number of counters on that group of tokens. Storm Herd + Cathar's Crusade is also absolutely hilarious. Cards that create a bunch of tokens at once are generally better than cards that create tokens over time anyway. How many turns would a Thraben Doomsayer have to survive before it could make the same number of creatures you could make instantly with Call the Coppercoats? Usually quite a long time.
Yeah, when I was updating my Isshin deck to be a more typical token generator, I considered Mardu Ascendency right up until I realized how it would interact with CC. Wound up going with Basri Ket instead for basically the same effect but much easier to track.
I play combat decks that give everyone else creatures and counters. It's great. All my opponents beat each other's face and do all the math for me! It's pretty helpful.
Tayam, Luminous Enigma was a bit complicated. Somewhat rewarding, and a fun angle, but very clerical. Most of these cards get a lot better on Magic Online, except for Smothering Tithe and friends which get much much worse for the people subjected to them every game.
One of these days i want to build a deck that is intentionally annoying to play, where every card has at least 2 activated abilities and only perminates, just so i can have it and be able to pull it out whenever the people i play with want to play a game where we want to melt our brains. But i already know how much of a headache it can be because of my wizards tribal-storm deck, i bearly play it because of the storm part and tribal part fighting against each other
I find stories like this fascinating, how have you not closed out the game before needing that many dice? I'm genuinely interested in the kind of boardstate that leads to this problem
@joris reichert my play group loves fogs and mono white struggles to get enough trample to beat over chump blockers. Usually by that size though I have so much life and blockers I win but it grindy.
Ugh you know what gets me is all the different blood artist effects. I can never keep straight what happens when a creature I control dies as opposed to a creature my opponent controls. Blood artist deals 1 damage to a single player whenever a creature leaves the battlefield and you gain a life. Zulaport Cutthroat deals 1 damage to each player whenever a creature you control leaves the battlefield. Meathook massacre does one damage to each opponent whenever a creature you control leaves the battlefield and you gain a life whenever a creature an opponent control dies ilas-il kor says whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control you gain a life and whenever a creature leaves the battlefield under your control each opponent loses a life. Cruel Celebrant: Whenever a creature or planeswalker you control leaves the battlefield each opponent looses a life and you gain a life Mayhem Devil: Whenever a player sacrifices a permanent mayhem devil deals one damage to any target Corpse Knight: Whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control each opponent loses a life
Im a big fan of wheel of misfortune. Its a powerful effect and the minigame is fun, tho usually itll get skipped because at least one player is clearly going to choose 0
My sidisi graveyard deck is a nuisance to play in general. the bigger the graveyard, more lines of play emerge and it becomes a massive headache to figure out a nice turn. it's a first game of the night only deck.
I dont remember the name of the card but there is a black creature that lets you return a RANDOM creature from your grave if you gained life (I think?). I had this in a Meren deck and quite frankly, it was just annoying to deal with
i have a rhystic study that i've tried using in so many decks, and every time it's always the same story. It annoys me enough that i just take it out and replace it with a much cleaner draw spell. Same with smothering tithe
It's interesting to see what other people see as nuisance, we never at our table though authority of the consul and blind obedience type any thing to be annoyed with. I really hate mass complicated token thingy and mass counter hard to track, because it physically take alot of time to resolve. We don't play smothering tithe and rystic because of power, not because the interaction is annoying, I don't feel like it's that hard to follow. As for the initiative, I have the skeleton token, the initiative and 4 undercity in my token pile, and it never felt like a problem since!
My approach to rhystic study and smothering tide is instead of asking "do u pay the 1 and do u pay the 2" I ask "do u mind if I draw, or do u mind if I make a treasure?"
I like cards like mangara the diplomat and smugglers share because you don’t have to bother people about it, you just get your value if they meet your condition
Hard agree on cathars’ crusade. Lots of extra steps to track how you’re going to win the game when you can just pay one more mana to play a true conviction instead.
Just play “Starlight Spectacular” instead of “Cathar’s Crusade”. Same end result in combat(for one less mana) and you don’t have to deal with +1 counters.
If your not running day or night cards like werewolves what does it matter? Day and night don't really effect gameplay or make the game more complicated... Your either transforming creatures or using it as a makeshift draw/life gain engine.
I cut Perplexing Chimera from one of my decks because while it can be hilarious, it just as often is super annyoing for everyone at the table, me included.
Is Mutate really that much of a headache? Aside from weird, niche interactions that deal with power/toughness settings effects, it's fairly straightforward. Whenever the mutate creature comes down, you choose if you want it to be on top or not, and if so then the creature has those types and P/T, and you only have to do this once as it's mutating. I think people just hype themselves up over Mutate and make it out to be so complex that they never learn it and just assume it's this big complicated thing
Clone Legion is even worse because if someone wipes the board (and you just doubled the reasons for them to do so) you spent a significant amount of time and effort for an ultimately empty board.
Wheel of Misfortune isn't a nuisance, people just don't have good reading comprehension(I'm being nice). Simply put, if you want a new hand pick 1. If you want to keep your hand pick 0. That said, you can tell people up front that's how it works, and someone will always either waste a counter on it because they don't want to discard their hand, or pick a number over 20 because they really want a new hand.
ngl, as a player of Nekusar since it came out. Nekusar and every incremental card those decks like to play are a great way to get killed first from annoying the rest of the table.
Sphinx of the Second Sun is tricky but it's not actually that complicated. I used it heavily in my Braids deck. It triggers at the start of your second main phase and makes a new beginning phase happen after that main phase. If you want to make someone's brain melt though, use Myatic Reflection and choose the Sphinx if anyone plays an Avenger of Zendikar. Making all those plants enter as the sphinx can be hilarious.
Our playgroup has pretty much stopped playing anything with +1 +1 counters on stuff. I've mostly stopped playing things that put tokens in play. Especially creature tokens that are copies of a creature. Token creatures with +1 +1 counters on them? ZZZZZZZZZZZZ 😴
Y'all aren't thinking big enough with Cathars' Crusade. Play it in Marath, and make infinite, infinitely big elemental tokens by simply adding 1 Trilobite.
I love my esper blinky dungeon deck. But for me personally, I do not wanna make the rest of the table track a dungeon. So I avoid the initiative. (Even if the playoffs for the Undercity are very good)
inititive sucks partly because its on a bunch of good cards. I have to put Ravenloft adventurer into my Etrata the scilencer (as seen on SCG Commander) because it cares about hit counters. first time I cast it, I didn't even have the dungeon because I just didn't care about that part. But the table insisted so I get to get the dungeon up on my phone and try to track it on there with counters (and the phone kept going black etc.) I managed to find an initvite token now but I hope I don't have to use it.
How dare you call out my next Kenrith deck where it’s King of Text and Rules. All cards need to have super long text. All my lands either have long text like ancient ziggurat or the AFR lands with quotes on them. And then it’s all these extra mechanics it adds. Both Marchesas for undying and monarch, Initiative, Poison via Infect and now Toxic! Proliferate, Core set Trample cards that have long text mechanic explanations, Day/Night Midnight cards, phasing (old oubliette was the inspiration honestly), morph, manifest, all types of dumb counters like ghost counter, experience counter, silver counter, instead of card draw it’s ‘look at the top X and do blahblah’ double win using Delve on Treasure Cruise.
monarch, day/night and initiative are the epitemy of what a nuisance mechanic is to me. However, attraction I was actually very positively surprises about, I didn't want to hear anything about it, I tried it and it is lit. Stickers I do not like playing, though I have no problem with my friends playing it (though I don't always understand everything I must admitt)
@@christianroot6287 though it is true thatvit isn't hard to keep track of, it is still something to keep track of, and I don't like tha mechanic either (though itvisn't the worst)
No no no, keep the Initiative in your decks! It might be a little annoying but it greatly expedites the game! Now people want to attack. Plus it can be a good bargaining chip for those players behind on land. I sprinkled it in so many decks after playing it once and fell in love. I too have a full on initiative deck*please ignore the Atraxa commander* and it's crazy fun!
We agree, they're excellent cards! We don't think anyone 'should' take ANY of these cards out of their decks! Just sharing personal headache stories and why we sometimes play worse cards on purpose.
I have a theory about math. If you add two numbers together they magically become a different number. You can't explain how the two numbers become one, you just have to have faith. That is why is am a math atheist... math, not even once!
"I wanted a win condition and not a math lesson" is the quote of the day. 😅
For real though, I kind of DO want a math lesson. Like, I often play magic to overstimulate my brain, so I like a lot of these cards. Oh well!
I would like to point out that Cream of the Crop is a "may" ability, so you don't actually have to utilize it.
But the Cream always rises to the top.
I was just about to comment this! If you do it the first time and get the card you definitely want, then just don’t do it after that!
I was also going to say this. Also if you run it put lurking predator in there too.
Continuing the trend of Dana complaining about cards based on incorrect readings 😂
As a werewolf player, what annoys me the most about day and night is that it doesn’t work with the old werewolf. If it’s already night and you play old wolves, you have both sides to track. And even if your new and old cards are in sync, you have to track it differently, because the old ones flip easier.
A big errata to make all old cards daybound instead would have been nice.
True. Also I think day/night mechanic is better but worse because you have to keep track of it to the end of the game
My blood pressure still spikes thinking of how MID did us dirty by not having a Werewolf commander precon. It's their design and they can cook up new mechanics nobody remembers past the set it comes out in, but making a precon for werewolves was too much trouble.
@@marauder340 MID at least have a good legendary creature, but i think the stronger wolves were accutally in VOW. Caretaker has won me most games where she came out of the deck and piper, loner, arsonist and outcast are all ggod to important pieces. MID had huntmaster, naturalist, liberator, stormseeker and fangblade brigand, but they feel less impactful
@@Thimbrethil yes, it's better for stable play when they are out, being reliant on the active player, but the tracking gets very stale over time. and my friends keep playing this vid when i play the deck ruclips.net/video/Ln2Xq8fCNI8/видео.html
Easy fix for my group is that all cards respect the day night cycle. Pretty easy blanket fix.
To sum up my takeaway from this video, I feel like there are at least 2 big categories that annoying cards can fall into:
1) Cards that create a lot of triggers that only impact your own board state
2) Cards that create a lot of triggers on other people's turns / board states
For (1) I like to think its a nuisance of the upkeep, and in cases where they aren't may abilities can cause some headache as you try to play your deck to the best of your ability. I would also say that this plays some part in long turns and or speaks to certain deck strategies that we describe to be very solitaire like. Then for (2) I would say that they are disruptive either actively or passively on other player's turns -- what I mean by that you the controller of the effect having to ask or remind people of it, or the other players constantly having to look at your board and play into / around the card that you have in play. And in both cases it can feel like that card you just played becomes the center of attention and or becomes the new threat to the table that people want to get rid of it.
All in all, I really enjoy this topic and thank you always EDHRECast for the amazing content that you consistently deliver on a weekly basis ❤❤
I'd also comment on 'Minor Nuances' like when an effect makes a tapped 2/2 zombie, or the impulse draw or flicker.
Felidar Retreat can fall under the same umbrella as Cathar's Crusade.
My Mogis deck requires I ask each player, "Are you sacking a creature or taking 2 damage?" each & every turn.
I've played against Wheel of Misfortune enough times that I've got it boiled down to a pretty simple explanation.
Everyone chooses a number. Whoever chooses the highest number Wheels and takes damage equal to the number they chose, middle numbers only Wheel and don't take damage, lowest number does neither.
Now there's still the mind game of trying to figure out what number the guy who cast it can afford to pick or what result they personally want but that's a Player thing and not a Card thing.
I'm pretty new to commander - I'm playing with some friends who are learning the game and It's something I had on my mind for a long time. I supply everyone with decks and sometimes I'd rather not buy certain precons/include certain cards because explaining them, or keeping track of them is just making game less fun for everyone included. Explaining all kind of exiles is propably one of the best examples.
Thanks for sharing my Challenge the Stats! I was listening to the podcast like I normally do every weekend and I heard my name and had a mini heart attack! Love you guys and love the cast every week!
Solution for Matt for Cathar's Crusade, and you can thank Ladee Danger for this one. Instead of fumbling with dice trying to find the correct number to flip to the top, go with a dry erase marker on the clear face of your sleeved creature. I also was frustrated with the time I spent trying to flip my dice to the correct face on 5,10, 20 creatures, and this dry erase method made it so easy. It cut the time by minutes each turn. Just add a tick for each counter added. I find this faster than erasing a number and rewriting a new number. Easy to wipe off a tick as well if they get a counter removed. When killed, the dry erase wipes off the sleeve face in a second or two. I went from loving Cathar's Crusade, to dreading it, and now back to living it. Oh, if you're creating tokens, just slide those in a sleeve ahead of time as well, so you can use this method.
14:22 for my play group, we just say "I'm going to assume you're NOT paying the 1 unless you tell me", and then any time it triggers, we do a little wave at the person who has the opportunity to pay
As someone that plays Perrie ... I get it. It's also that thanks to Proliferate effects, there are multiple numbers of counters to track. Sure, it doesn't matter if Perrie has 1 or 5 Flying counters ... most of the time, but I still need to know how many there are.
I've watched competitive players use a scratch pad to keep up with their opponent's life totals, and I've thought about trying it (my play group has started using spin downs instead of a life tracker app on a screen, there's something relaxing about not having an electronic device with a screen involved in a tabletop game). I feel like a scratch pad isn't that much of an ask on having something else on the table, and covers a lot of things, like Perrie's types of counters for example. But I love Joey's Brazilian restaurant green/red coins example, I think cool mental shortcut things like that are useful because they're easy to use, as long as you can keep track of them and keep them with your deck.
Yeah I think I've resolved telepathy once or twice and immediadly took it out after the game. It can also backfire pretty bad since the other players don't have anything to fear from each other and can coordinate perfectly. Turns out being able to trust others makes alliances way more powerful.
I run it in a cedh deck because then everyone has amazing cards so there’s always another visible threat lol
34:32 Joey with the Last Airbender reference
In my old Ghave deck, I actively would sandbag Cathar's Crusade until I could go infinite with it and not have to worry about the exact math. I eventually just cut the card entirely.
The Cathar's Crusade reason is the same reason why I stopped playing my Winota and Ally decks. Too many individual triggers and buffs and whatnot. Same with Perrie and Kathril, too much tracking and rechecking and forgetting what I said so I have to re check again.
I have large dice for Cathars crusade, and start making ranks (rows) of creatures, each with the big die off to the side for that rank.
Normally I have 3 rows of land, non-creatures, and creatures. But Cathars makes me multiple creature rows for me if that makes sense
Infinitokens is fantastic and that joke was pretty good too 🤣
I just built Thalia and the gitrog monster and it’s one of my favorite decks so far but creatures and non basic lands coming in tapped is amazingly powerful but mentally taxing to monitor. I’m doing it because the deck is new and fun but I can see a point when I take it apart because I’m over thinking about it. Also I love smugglers share so much. I guess I’m just the accountant player at heart
Cathars' Crusade is definitely a powerful card I've seen pop off a few times and YET I just know I'd never include in any of my decks. Tracking my bad +1/+1 counter stuff is already taxing enough.
I have a temur cascade deck. I put in momir vig in the deck so I can tutor and put a creature on top on the deck so I can cascade into it..... Sounds efficient and awesome. However it is a cast trigger... I usually have 3-5 other cast triggers Including the cascade trigger on the stack. Then as they are resolving I have ETB triggers as well.. it ending up being a rules nightmare and taking 15 minute turns.
I did develop a very good understanding on how the stack works because of this deck.
I would respect Unfinity so much more if they didn't do away with the silver borders. The acorn stamp is absurdly small and it is near impossible to tell at a glance whether the card is legal or illegal to play. The silver border was such a great indicator, and I think people could be more excited about some non-acorn cards from the set, too, if they stuck with that convention.
YES
I converted from D20s to track +1/+1s to using infinitoken counters. you can have a whole lot more of them than you'll ever have of d20s, and you'll never bump the die or anything that way.
I see perplexing chimera in the thumbnail, I click.
If you think Clone Legion is a nuisance, you should try it out in a Zevlor deck, copying it for each other player. I put it in there thinking how sweet it would be, then had it in hand and said to myself nah, I don’t want to deal with this. Took it out immediately after.
I’m surprised Coat of Arms wasn’t mentioned. It’s great in tribal except for the fact that now you have to track EVERY SINGLE CREATURE TYPE
It's also symmetrical, so then you have to keep track of how many of a type each opponent has. God forbid if someone has a random creature that shares a type with yours, now they have an enormous crackback threat that wasn't there before.
So, yeah, I guess it should have been here, too.
@kirbyfanprime or they just play mask wood nexus after you play coat of arms
You don't have to track thier creature types. Math is for blockers
Mental load is real. Like, it's cool to Aminatou's Augury after attacking with Yidris and having Sunbird's Invocation in play... but...
The fact that sphinx of the second sun gives you your additional beginning phase after your second main phase is really silly because that’s not what it says
This made me annoyed because I thought the card was relatively simple
That actually is what it says. It triggers at thr beginning of your second main and says you have a second beginning phase after that main phase.
That's exactly what it says.
I really don't think it's a complicated card at all. You go to your second main phase, after the second main phase you untap your permanents, get a second upkeep if that is relevant for something on your board, and then you draw a card. After that you go to the end step as normal. I don't understand how they don't understand that.
@@Cynsham I could see it getting confusing if you also played something that gave additional main phases, but if your turn structure is otherwise normal, then the card seems pretty intuitive to me, too.
For me, the difference of cutting or keeping a card/mechanic in is if i myself can gatekeep check the triggers I throw into the game
A single day&nightbound creature is like a morph creature. You know it happens when it happens, and your responsible for the tracking.
Cards like Rhystic Study or Sensei’s Top, ask constant or repititive time and attention from everyone.
I keep debating on taking Rite of Reflection out of my Roalesk deck.
5 triggers of 2 +1 counters and then 10 proliferate triggers. If a Hardened Scales or Pir is out it gets even more complicated
My nuisance card is simultaneously one of my favourite commanders: Karametra, God of Harvests. It's basically unmanageable with Great Henge/Beast Whisperer/Guardian Project in play. For each creature you cast you technically need to get a land, shuffle, then draw. And you usually want to play a lot of cheap creatures, so you could end up doing that half a dozen times per turn...
Can’t you stack the triggers so you draw first and look for a land second?
@@Thimbrethil Sadly no. Karametra triggers when you cast creatures and Henge/Guardian Project when creatures ETB. But even with Beast Whisperer (also a cast trigger, so I can choose the order) you would need to shuffle every time.
I'm so happy day/night got brought up. There's so many cards I would want to play except that they have day/night and I just don't want
Of One Mind is also great in Volo, Guide to Monsters 😎👍
How can anyone take issue Wheel of Misfortune? Nobody knows what it does!
Can I toss “Arcane Bombardment” into the ring for overly complex cards? I have this in my Veyran deck and honestly, resolving it twice each turn is to much. I often choose to not cast certain spells like removal or boardwipes that get exiled with this, or I use my own counter spells to target these so it doesn’t get to oppressive. It’s great with magecraft abilities but boy is it complicated
C's crusade can be managed by small notes. I have a tiny block of notes where I can just jot down the number of counters and it is faster than rolling dice around and knocking them over during the process.
If anyone is as crazy as I am and loves that Perrie deck, keep a Counter counter. I have 2 infinitokens with a checklist of counters i can make. That way you only have to check if the ones you have when they etb
Agrus Kos would still only be legendary creatures "that the ability could target"
Rin and seri deck with cathars crusade, branching evolution, and anointed procession. So many counters, so many tokens
How did you manage to make a dog deck sound like not the best thing ever?
@@mathimus55 i love it but when I get all of those things into play I have to count so many +1+1 counters.
Appreciated Matt's reference to Will Ferrell's Architect impression from the MTV Movie Awards. LOL
Alaundo is a commander who can get to this level in his dedicated deck with time counters.
Biggest nuisance for me is still the ubiquitous “Do you pay the…?”
Instead of annoying people by asking "Do you pay the" every single time it triggers, I'll say it for the first few times, and if they don't pay for anything I'm just going to say "I am just going to assume that you do not pay the X every time it triggers unless you specifically say otherwise." And then even after I say that, every time it triggers I will just say "I draw a card" for rhystic study or "I make X treasures" for smothering tithe, and they can still decide if they want to pay without me constantly having to specifically ask "Do you pay the X?"
Joey dropping a RPDR reference and then having to explain it as “another reality series” when he remembered his current audience was a magical moment for me.
Question for rules fans : I control an Opalescence (3W for a world enchantment that turns every non-aura enchantment into creatures with P/T equal to their MV). I also control another enchantment (let's say a Rhystic Study) which is a 3/3 creature. I mutate a creature on it, let's say a Vadrok (ignore the trigger, it is already in play). Vadrok is "above" the study, which means it is Vadrok having Study ruletext. Somebody removes my Opalescence. What happens?
You have a Vadrok with Rhystic Study abbilities. Whether or not Opalescence is still in play after the mutate resolves no longer matters. The same way that if you mutated on top of a planeswaker that was temporarily turned into a creature, at the end you'd have a creature with planeswaker abilities and loyalty.
I have no clue but I'm commenting because you just made me curious and I hope someone will give the answer. This is the first rules question in a while that I absolutely have no clue about.
@@Libery300 thanks! Nice timing too, lol
I got that drag race reference there Joey ;) 'it's a lot of effort for safe"
I run a Karona deck that has Blind Obedience, Authority of the Consuls, Tithe, Rhystic Study, Rhystic Buddy, Aura of Silence, Suppresion Field etc. etc.
I am the IRS.
I like mutate a lot, I like the comic book style artwork on those cards, and I like infect, so of course I made a deck that 'combines' infect and mutate and it's great!
As a Celestus enjoyer I think criticism on the complexity/nuisance of keeping track of day/night is a bit exaggerated.
First the "gotta track it for the rest of the game" part: In reality you can just forget about it once the day/night card is gone, because it's so easy to find out who the last player was to either cast 2 spells in their turn or cast no spells in their turn. Like 95% of the time just looking at the player that came before suffices, because those situations typically occur in the later parts of the game, where multicasting and draw-go are really common.
Secondly with The Celestus specifically, it really isn't relevant enough for other players to design their turn around whether it will become day or night. So as long as the guy who brought the card to the table is fine with taking care of the effect themselves, it hardly adds any nuisance to the table.
Last week I had a hard time trying to make some new players understand how Breena's ability works. They we're so focused in not understanding it that almost convinced me that I was the one wrong. Lol.
I have an Orzhov Aristocrats deck devoted to drive people insane with triggers...
I call it "Trigger Warning".
An easy-to-track but powerful way to use Cathar's Crusade is, instead of running a bunch of small nontoken creatures or cards that create tokens over time, just run cards that create a bunch of tokens at once (e.g. Secure the Wastes, Grand Crescendo, Increasing Devotion, Conqueror's Pledge, Storm Herd, Finale of Glory, etc.). Since the tokens enter the battlefield at the same time, they have the same number of counters, so you can just use one die to represent the number of counters on that group of tokens. Storm Herd + Cathar's Crusade is also absolutely hilarious.
Cards that create a bunch of tokens at once are generally better than cards that create tokens over time anyway. How many turns would a Thraben Doomsayer have to survive before it could make the same number of creatures you could make instantly with Call the Coppercoats? Usually quite a long time.
Yeah, when I was updating my Isshin deck to be a more typical token generator, I considered Mardu Ascendency right up until I realized how it would interact with CC. Wound up going with Basri Ket instead for basically the same effect but much easier to track.
I took apart my enchantment deck cause of all the draw and life gain triggers. My turns took way too long and felt like I took the games hostage.
I play combat decks that give everyone else creatures and counters. It's great. All my opponents beat each other's face and do all the math for me! It's pretty helpful.
Tayam, Luminous Enigma was a bit complicated. Somewhat rewarding, and a fun angle, but very clerical.
Most of these cards get a lot better on Magic Online, except for Smothering Tithe and friends which get much much worse for the people subjected to them every game.
One of these days i want to build a deck that is intentionally annoying to play, where every card has at least 2 activated abilities and only perminates, just so i can have it and be able to pull it out whenever the people i play with want to play a game where we want to melt our brains. But i already know how much of a headache it can be because of my wizards tribal-storm deck, i bearly play it because of the storm part and tribal part fighting against each other
As someone who runs a mono white lifesaving +1+1 counter deck carthers crusade gives me a headache and even with 90+ dice I never have enough.
I find stories like this fascinating, how have you not closed out the game before needing that many dice? I'm genuinely interested in the kind of boardstate that leads to this problem
@joris reichert my play group loves fogs and mono white struggles to get enough trample to beat over chump blockers. Usually by that size though I have so much life and blockers I win but it grindy.
Ugh you know what gets me is all the different blood artist effects. I can never keep straight what happens when a creature I control dies as opposed to a creature my opponent controls.
Blood artist deals 1 damage to a single player whenever a creature leaves the battlefield and you gain a life.
Zulaport Cutthroat deals 1 damage to each player whenever a creature you control leaves the battlefield.
Meathook massacre does one damage to each opponent whenever a creature you control leaves the battlefield and you gain a life whenever a creature an opponent control dies
ilas-il kor says whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control you gain a life and whenever a creature leaves the battlefield under your control each opponent loses a life.
Cruel Celebrant: Whenever a creature or planeswalker you control leaves the battlefield each opponent looses a life and you gain a life
Mayhem Devil: Whenever a player sacrifices a permanent mayhem devil deals one damage to any target
Corpse Knight: Whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control each opponent loses a life
Joey could you maybe post a link to that Initiative deck because I’ve been looking at making one and I’m very curious.
Sure thing! All our decklists (including Joey's family's lists) are linked in the description :D edhrec.com/articles/edhrecast-our-decks/
Im a big fan of wheel of misfortune. Its a powerful effect and the minigame is fun, tho usually itll get skipped because at least one player is clearly going to choose 0
My sidisi graveyard deck is a nuisance to play in general. the bigger the graveyard, more lines of play emerge and it becomes a massive headache to figure out a nice turn. it's a first game of the night only deck.
I dont remember the name of the card but there is a black creature that lets you return a RANDOM creature from your grave if you gained life (I think?). I had this in a Meren deck and quite frankly, it was just annoying to deal with
i have a rhystic study that i've tried using in so many decks, and every time it's always the same story. It annoys me enough that i just take it out and replace it with a much cleaner draw spell. Same with smothering tithe
It's interesting to see what other people see as nuisance, we never at our table though authority of the consul and blind obedience type any thing to be annoyed with. I really hate mass complicated token thingy and mass counter hard to track, because it physically take alot of time to resolve. We don't play smothering tithe and rystic because of power, not because the interaction is annoying, I don't feel like it's that hard to follow. As for the initiative, I have the skeleton token, the initiative and 4 undercity in my token pile, and it never felt like a problem since!
My approach to rhystic study and smothering tide is instead of asking "do u pay the 1 and do u pay the 2" I ask "do u mind if I draw, or do u mind if I make a treasure?"
Crystalline Giant.
Great card.
A nightmare to play in paper.
All those RANDOM counters.
What is that thing doing again now?
This is SUCH a good example!
agrus kos is fire! thanks!
ya..imo the day/night mechanic in paper magic is a fail
I like cards like mangara the diplomat and smugglers share because you don’t have to bother people about it, you just get your value if they meet your condition
I feel like wheel of misfortune was written wrong and a missed oppratunity for a fun card
Hard agree on cathars’ crusade. Lots of extra steps to track how you’re going to win the game when you can just pay one more mana to play a true conviction instead.
Stellar, Cosmic Pup and Saw in Half are legal Unfinity cards that don’t require you to do homework prior
Just play “Starlight Spectacular” instead of “Cathar’s Crusade”. Same end result in combat(for one less mana) and you don’t have to deal with +1 counters.
If your not running day or night cards like werewolves what does it matter? Day and night don't really effect gameplay or make the game more complicated... Your either transforming creatures or using it as a makeshift draw/life gain engine.
I cut Perplexing Chimera from one of my decks because while it can be hilarious, it just as often is super annyoing for everyone at the table, me included.
The only deck I have more then one fetchland in is my muldrotha landfall deck
Run Clone Legion in Zevlor.^^
Then flip a coin as to whether to laugh at the insanity of it... or groan at how much you have to keep track of now.
Is Mutate really that much of a headache? Aside from weird, niche interactions that deal with power/toughness settings effects, it's fairly straightforward. Whenever the mutate creature comes down, you choose if you want it to be on top or not, and if so then the creature has those types and P/T, and you only have to do this once as it's mutating.
I think people just hype themselves up over Mutate and make it out to be so complex that they never learn it and just assume it's this big complicated thing
Clone Legion is even worse because if someone wipes the board (and you just doubled the reasons for them to do so) you spent a significant amount of time and effort for an ultimately empty board.
I thought I was smart by playing Perplexing Chimera in my Volo deck. Then I used Full Flowering on the token.
Chaos ensued.
Wheel of Misfortune isn't a nuisance, people just don't have good reading comprehension(I'm being nice). Simply put, if you want a new hand pick 1. If you want to keep your hand pick 0.
That said, you can tell people up front that's how it works, and someone will always either waste a counter on it because they don't want to discard their hand, or pick a number over 20 because they really want a new hand.
ngl, as a player of Nekusar since it came out. Nekusar and every incremental card those decks like to play are a great way to get killed first from annoying the rest of the table.
No card is as annoying to resolve than Scrambleverse
Yeah, no more Cathars Crusade for my decks.
Mesmeric Orb is another one for me... great card, but what a pain for everyone involved :)
Now I start to wonder if Planechase in commander will create new types of nuisances.
Tatsunari, toad rider is a lot of fun my build has zero blue in it just straight black/green enchantress
Sphinx of the Second Sun is tricky but it's not actually that complicated. I used it heavily in my Braids deck. It triggers at the start of your second main phase and makes a new beginning phase happen after that main phase.
If you want to make someone's brain melt though, use Myatic Reflection and choose the Sphinx if anyone plays an Avenger of Zendikar. Making all those plants enter as the sphinx can be hilarious.
Cream of the Crop should probably be in the new Yargle and Multani, right?
Our playgroup has pretty much stopped playing anything with +1 +1 counters on stuff.
I've mostly stopped playing things that put tokens in play. Especially creature tokens that are copies of a creature.
Token creatures with +1 +1 counters on them? ZZZZZZZZZZZZ 😴
Y'all aren't thinking big enough with Cathars' Crusade. Play it in Marath, and make infinite, infinitely big elemental tokens by simply adding 1 Trilobite.
I love my esper blinky dungeon deck. But for me personally, I do not wanna make the rest of the table track a dungeon. So I avoid the initiative. (Even if the playoffs for the Undercity are very good)
inititive sucks partly because its on a bunch of good cards. I have to put Ravenloft adventurer into my Etrata the scilencer (as seen on SCG Commander) because it cares about hit counters. first time I cast it, I didn't even have the dungeon because I just didn't care about that part. But the table insisted so I get to get the dungeon up on my phone and try to track it on there with counters (and the phone kept going black etc.) I managed to find an initvite token now but I hope I don't have to use it.
How dare you call out my next Kenrith deck where it’s King of Text and Rules.
All cards need to have super long text.
All my lands either have long text like ancient ziggurat or the AFR lands with quotes on them.
And then it’s all these extra mechanics it adds. Both Marchesas for undying and monarch, Initiative, Poison via Infect and now Toxic! Proliferate, Core set Trample cards that have long text mechanic explanations, Day/Night Midnight cards, phasing (old oubliette was the inspiration honestly), morph, manifest, all types of dumb counters like ghost counter, experience counter, silver counter, instead of card draw it’s ‘look at the top X and do blahblah’ double win using Delve on Treasure Cruise.
Wow I had no idea that Sphinx skips your second main
The segue mechanic: Storm Scale 1!
monarch, day/night and initiative are the epitemy of what a nuisance mechanic is to me. However, attraction I was actually very positively surprises about, I didn't want to hear anything about it, I tried it and it is lit. Stickers I do not like playing, though I have no problem with my friends playing it (though I don't always understand everything I must admitt)
I have to disagree with monarch, its a simple mechanic thats easier to keep track of than day/night and initiative
@@christianroot6287 though it is true thatvit isn't hard to keep track of, it is still something to keep track of, and I don't like tha mechanic either (though itvisn't the worst)
@@beurtalvarez i like that it makes combat in the early game a bit more important
No no no, keep the Initiative in your decks! It might be a little annoying but it greatly expedites the game! Now people want to attack. Plus it can be a good bargaining chip for those players behind on land. I sprinkled it in so many decks after playing it once and fell in love. I too have a full on initiative deck*please ignore the Atraxa commander* and it's crazy fun!
We agree, they're excellent cards! We don't think anyone 'should' take ANY of these cards out of their decks! Just sharing personal headache stories and why we sometimes play worse cards on purpose.
A card a day, keeps the damage away.
I have a theory about math. If you add two numbers together they magically become a different number. You can't explain how the two numbers become one, you just have to have faith. That is why is am a math atheist... math, not even once!
Shout out to the other 21 people running Of One Mind
If your patron shout out member of the day was a car. She’d be A-Lexus 😂