58:37 Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Goldspan Dragon synergizes just fine with Kalain. Her ability cares about the amount of mana that came from treasures, not the number of treasures sacrificed. So if you sacrificed 2 treasures with Goldspan out and use all 4 of that mana to cast 1 creature, it would still get 4 counters.
@@JamesSamson487 Heavily out of practice based on his Arena Everything is Content episode. He knew a lot of the basic rules, but the moment they busted out Cavalier of Flame, he was like "dafuq is this gift that keeps on giving"? He would have to learn commander on the fly just to get back in the game though he could have picked it back up as a hobby. But as far the game goes, he is not experienced with the format.
Also from Unstable, "As Luck Would Have It" is an Enchantment that counts every dice you roll and makes you win the game if they ever total 100 or higher, which is much easier with d20s than d6s.
1:56:05 You cannot fail to find when there's no specific target like in black tutors. If it was like a mystical tutor that specifically says instant/sorcery you could fail even if you have them in deck still, but with a black tutor like scheming symmetry you can not fail to find since it's any card, and you have cards in deck
Exactly! It’s so old, and it’s so annoying that they tend to be pushed. How many “Draw cards and play extra lands” Simic commanders have we gotten in the past couple years?
@@aaronpyrez1573 About four thus far: Aesi, Gretchen, Thrasios, Uro and Zimone. Honorable mention to cards that involve card advantage and caring for lands: Jadzi / Journey to the Oracle, Kiane / Imbraham, and Tatyova.
I think mutate is neat with Volo. Mutating still is casting a creature spell, and then if you put the mutate card on the bottom of the pile, the creature type "disappears". So you don't have to be as careful and you get double mutate triggers.
Interestingly, though, since Volo doesn't have the "you may choose new targets for the copy" text that many cards have, both mutating creature spells will end up targetting the same creature. But maybe that is exactly what you want.
1:55:56 You actually can only fail to find if there's a restriction of what card you're searching for (because otherwise you'd have to show your whole library to prove that you don't have a valid choice). So you can fail to find off a fetch, but not off a demonic tutor or scheming symmetry.
For Volo, any of the OG Eldrazi Titans. Legendary rule works in your favor there; you can choose to sac either the card or the token, so you sac the card, they go to the graveyard, and you shuffle everything back.
- Cast Barrowin T3 if you have ramp - spend next 3 turns venturing into the dungeon with suboptimal cards - swing with a 3/3 on T6 and hope they don't have something bigger than it in play already - you get a creature with MV 3 or less for all this work This seems really weak.
Its kinda like a weaker, conditional Sun Titan. It has its place, but sun titan is great because it has so much versatility in what it can grab and the size of its body. You're right that barrowin looks pretty weak for edh.
One really interesting pick for the Orcus deck would be Songs of the Damned (B, Instant, add B for each creature card in your graveyard). I think it might be better than Mana Geyser in this deck (though obviously you play that too), since you want the mana when you have a full graveyard.
1:55:53 correction: you can’t fail to find with scheming symmetry because it has no restriction on what you can find (as long as you have cards in your library). You can however fail to find a land with rampant growth or an enchantment with enlightened tutor because they are restricted to a type of card.
@@haldir1991 Absolutely, the bombardment of spoilers of the next set starts almost at the same time of the release of the current set. I have almost no time to enjoy the new cards without being thrown a lot new new cards to the face
@@haldir1991 It also shows how @Command Zone inflates their set reviews. I remember days not that long ago they did one video for legendaries and one video for the rest for each set. Those videos had like 1-1.5 hour and were much easier to digest, at least for me. I just do not have time to sit and watch 10+ hours of content just about one set. Here they spent 5 minutes talking about Hama to decide it has little support and is not that good and 8 minutes about Farideh to end up with the same result.
For the Farideh, Devil's Chosen deck, I feel like the sword of Dungeons and Dragons from Unstable would be one of the best cards in that deck due to the fact that it's a combat based way to roll a d20, and maybe even multiple times if you're lucky.
so the naming thing is actually based on flavour but also on DnD terms. Like an experienced DnD player knows that large creatures like the rock/earth elemental are siege monsters, and the term siege monster has meaning in DnD in the sense those monsters do more dmg to objects/non living things etc. So its making the content more relatable and sorta easier to picture/imagine, which I think is pretty cool- drawing more DnD players into Magic the Gathering.
Volo would work interestingly with escape, since that allows you to exile all the creatures from the graveyard that might share a type. Escape is also a cast trigger, so two of the escaped creature would enter the battlefield then. Seems like a good value.
One good combo is Old Gnawbone with Galazeth Prismari. You create treasure from combat damage. Then you can just tap it, instead of sacrificing it. With Tiamat as your commander, you can tutor for both or get other big dragons and use your large amounts of mana to cast them.
Correction at 58:38 Goldspan Dragon works fully with Kalain, Reclusive Painter since Kalain doesn't care about the number of treasures sucked but the mana they produce
The reason is because Volo's effect doesn't CREATE a token copy. It copies the spell which makes a token of the creature as a result of the copied spell. Spells that CREATE tokens, like Chatterstorm, say CREATE which specifically line up with the wording on Parallel Lives and Doubling Season. Kinda a pain but makes sense.
Inalla is great for venturing into the dungeon. Not only is Bar the Gate a blue counterspell that ventures into the dungeons, but there's Eccentric Apprentice, which is a 3 cost wizard that ventures as an ETB. So just tap 1 more and you're going 2 rooms into a dungeon. Or Acerak the Archlich, which is a 3 cost black wizard. If you haven't completed Tomb of Annhilation, bounce it back into your hand, then venture into the dungeon.
Kalain not that complicated. Mana from the treasure is doubled, but still comes from from treasure so still gives a counter for each mana spent to cast it.
You can use Delve cards in Volo to alleviate the grave yard issue. There are already some very strong Delve cards that slot in easily (Dig TT, Treasure Cruise), so it seems like an easy win win situation for that issue. You could slot in some of the more situationally useful stuff (Logic Knot, Temporal Trespass, Set Adrift) as well if you found yourself lacking redundancy.
First of all, great job with consistently releasing content. That said, am I a black sheep here or are there other MtG players that feels burnt out by the ridicolous pace with which WotC is pumping out new products? It feels like two weeks ago that we were still excited about Modern Horizons 2 and here we are already hyped with a new set ... one barely has the time to think of a new deck to build and it could already be obsolete before having the chance to play it once. Is anyone else feeling the same? I think this time around I will skip the set entirely to take a break and breathe.
i feel you 100% In my mind i am still somewhere in strixhaven or even kaldheim. Built one deck from each set and haven't been able to play one of them. I completly skipped Modern Horizon to free my mind for Forgotten Realms, because i am a great DnD fan.
The way I see it, there's a lot of product, but that's because there's a lot of formats. Kaldheim and Strixhaven were aimed at standard, sealed and draft. Yes, you get a couple cards that are useful in EDH, modern, pauper or even vintage, but that's not the target audience. MM2 on the other hand was aimed at modern players with a lot of cards playable in EDH, but standard players completely missed out on this one. Last year we saw Jumpstart, an entirely new format aimed at beginners and causal players, and Mystery Boosters that were packed with so much value cards for all formats it's ridiculous. Forgotten Realms so far seem very fun to draft, but most cards won't see play outside of standard or the odd EDH card. If you feel exhausted by all the new products, maybe ask yourself if you need to follow alllllllllllll of them. I'm an EDH only player, so I usually just pick up singles and sometimes buy a precon if it's interesting enough, so releasing a new set every month or two really works for me.
@@kylemcgowan1 I use Filigree sages+ Training Grounds/Biomancers Familiar+Orrey/Gilded Lotus Power Artifact+Basalt Monument Garruk Relentless+Mana Doubler+Teferi Time Bender+Chain Veil (Also does infinite Turns) I like me mana
Volo, Guide to Monsters could include Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath to help get creatures out of your graveyard with their Escape cost and it helps with some ramp, life gain, and card draw. And with a sack outlet like Phyrexian Altar or Ashnod's Altar you can get rid of more creatures if needed by sacking Uro and Escaping again.
I'd just like to say, I know DJ has been on a lot of Command Zone stuff, and I just hope he's a permanent mainstay. He's just an absolute joy to watch in these videos.
1:55:50 You cannot fail to find if the tutor card instructs you to find a card with no specific characteristics or qualities. This is because a player can show that they have retrieved a card without revealing what the card is or any other cards in the searched zone.
I've been kinda looking at stuff for Volo, and perhaps the most unusual choice I made is actually a Sliver. You do make a copy of it, so technically you will have 2 of it, and you *don't* want very many of the same type so there isn't much competition for space. The best ones are the ones that are still totally fine if you don't have many Slivers. I specifically chose Dormant Sliver -- it will draw 3 cards in total, since the copy draws 1 and the original will be seen by itself and the copy. And the Defender is actually relevant because I'm also including Overgrown Battlement, which is good copied because even alone it goes from ramping by 1 to ramping by 4, as well as Sylvan Caryatid which is just a ramp card that doesn't have much creature type competition. (I also considered Carven Caryatid but it was competing with Eidolon of Blossoms which I think is just better.)
I do the shuffle thing you mentionrd for Boros commanders with my Kaalia package, its really fun! It adds a bit of variety and surprise to the deck and allows me to add new cards without worrying about what to cut. I'd definitely recommend doing it with the Boros commanders if you're intrigued by the idea
Gretchen sounds like they'd also make a fun Druid Tribal deck - focus on making mana with Seton or Freyalise, Llanowar Fury and then get a Gilt-leaf Archdruid or Kamahl, Fist of Krosa for payoff.
I'm personally building the Shessra, Death's whisper using the idea of Eldrazi Spawns/Scions as ramp and as a way to activate her ability, not meant to be my most powerful deck but as a more fun casual deck!
Volo can do so much! Clever impersonator or phyrexian metamorph can become two noncreature permanents. Vizier of many faces or Amphin mutineer can be amazing and then exile themselves from the grave. skaab ruinator can be two 5/6 flyers who keep your graveyard in check. Also spark double. For ones it finds a home in commander ;). I'm hyped about Volo!
Commenting early in the video, but dare DJ say we.don't care about pumping power 😉 I actually like Bruenor A lot, and I don't usually get excited.about any of the equipment stuff we've seen. I like this better than Akiri or that one guy from the pre cons (forgot his.name). I don't like hearing "well it doesn't draw cards" when evaluating commanders. Are those.commanders good? Of course. But they definitely don't NEED it to.be good.
Other tricks with Volo: Morphing creatures have no creature type when cast face down, so you get a "free" 2/2 token no matter what is on the battlefield or in the graveyard. Also, mutate has the advantage of allowing you to replace a creature's types (doesn't work with humans, bu that's fine since Volo is human) with a different set of types to avoid a collision.
Tiamat’s best combos are probably Dream Halls and/or Food Chain. With either, use them to cast Tiamat, then grab Morritte of the Frost, Bladewing the Risen, Scourge of Valkas, and two other dragons. If using Dream Halls, pitch Scourge to cast Bladewing, and reanimate Scourge; then, cast Morritte with the other green/blue dragon you tutored, and have it be a copy of Bladewing. Legend rule and keep Moritte, bring back Bladewing, and loop this, pinging opponents to death with Scourge in the process. With Food Chain, just use your infinite mana to cast these; you can cast Dragonlord Dromoka beforehand to stop interaction.
I think Barrowin can work quite well with a priest of fell rites. Just constantly bring the priest back from the dead to bring back bigger black and white creatures. I think that seems like a pretty good combo.
Bruenor Battlehammer isn't the most interesting commander but I think he does carve a niche for himself, we honestly haven't had a creature that is very synergistic with high equipe costs before, the others really prefer you have a bunch of low equipe costs. This could be taken in a combo way so you give him unblockable and/or protection of some kind and throw down Colossus Hammer or something that makes him huge and then he kills an opponent from nowhere, which is something we haven't seen much. Arden or Halvar don't cheapen the initial cost to equipe they only let you reequipe for free. So I think he is more interesting than you gave him credit for. But he isn't a massive game changer like Feather, the Redeemed either.
The bit that jumps to my mind with all the treasure token based ramp in boros now, is Bludgeon Brawl. Treasure Tokens are now +2/+0 with 0 equip. I just picture this dwarf going ham with a giant pillar of gold coins and gems. Lol.
I think Volo is a great budget commander, because you can just go around the house and find random commons and uncommons with different creature types, smash them together, and Volo's going to double them all up and just make some great value. I think it could play pretty well.
The only thing I will say about Bruenor is that since he is a dwarf there are certain ways to also take it in a tribal direction with cards like Magda, torbran, and koll the forgemastwr which could also bring a lot of good functionality to the deck
Volo interacts well with Mutate cards, since they are creature spells, but if you mutate under something, their types don't matter. Same with the Bestow mechanic as long as they're auras. In both cases, copies resolve still as Mutate or Bestow spells, not normal creatures.
1:56:00 you can NOT fail to find with Scheming Symmetry (or most black tutors) because there's no fail case. There is always A card in your library to find (unless you have an empty library obviously, but then what were you tutoring your library for?). Compare these to most tutors, where it's possible to actually have 0 targets to find. The easiest way to know if you can fail to find is if you have to show/reveal the card you find to prove you're not cheating. If you DO reveal, you can fail.
For Orcus, prince of undeath a really good synergistic card is ashnods alter and I know that’s a good card in general but playing a creature with like an ETB and death trigger you play it then sac it to the alter get 2 mana for orcus to just bring it back easily
I think you may only fail to find something from your deck if you're searching for something particular (i.e. a land, an artifact with mv = 2), but if you need to search for a card, you NEED to find one unless that library is empty. You can always find a "bad" card instead to block Vanathar in Scheming Symmetry, tho.
Yes, that's exactly correct: "701.19b If a player is searching a hidden zone for cards with a stated quality, such as a card with a certain card type or color, that player isn’t required to find some or all of those cards even if they’re present in that zone. [...] 701.19c If a player is instructed to search a hidden zone for cards that match an undefined quality, that player may still search that zone but can’t find any cards. [...] 701.19d If a player is searching a hidden zone simply for a quantity of cards, such as “a card” or “three cards,” that player must find that many cards (or as many as possible, if the zone doesn’t contain enough cards)."
Everyone is saying Xanather is busted but it’s a less good version of Etali (cast four things for free), stolen strategy (only costs 4 and gets 3 cards), thought dilation (costs one more and play stuff for free). The latter two are enchantments hence harder to remove as well.
On failing to find: “…if a player is instructed to find a card, and there are not additional qualities of characteristics given, then this player must find one. This is because a player can show that they have retrieved a card without revealing what the card is or any other cards in the searched zone. For example, when resolving Diabolic Tutor, its controller will have to find a card and cannot ‘fail to find.” So, you can’t always fail to find, only when a specific card type is being searched for or there are no cards left in library.
I like that you talked about Volo not working with Doubling Season and Parallel Lives, but you totally missed that it is possible to get 3 Mulldrifters or whatever. The secret is "Twinning Staff", which says "copy a spell", not "copy an instant or sorcery". So it works with Volo, but also for example with Verazol (where i found out about this interaction for the first time).
You can't fail to find on Scheming Symmetry. You can fail to find if searching for a card with a specific characteristic (ie a basic from a rampant growth) because it could be possible that there is no such card in your deck. If you are searching for any card you must find something as long as your deck isn't empty.
Correction: any spell you cast that has changling will shut off your commander because that spell is all creature types so please do not include them in Volo!
Btw, Volo Copies of Evoked Creatures would not leave behind a body, for the same reason that Doubling Season won't work.. it's not being CREATED, it's being COPIED, hence it's copying the evoke cast as well, so it'd still die. So the best Elemental, imo, is Risen Reef.. That's A LOT of value, 3 triggers! Greenwarden of Murasa is also great as an E-Wit alternative, and what's nice is it Exiles itself, so you don't have to worry about it conflicted with other Elementals if it dies.
Did a lifegain deck hurt Josh? They threw "Trelasarra, Moon Dancer" to the side like trash. With the right cards that commander can pop off! You can basically cycle through your deck everytime if you understand lifegain.
Q: For Tomb of Annihilation's second room or any sacrifice land mechanic, can you use the lands that tap and sacrifice themselves to satisfy the requirement?
If you mean use the sacrifice ability on the land, no because you need to sacrifice a land to satisfy the ability with no bonuses. Sacrificing the land in response doesn't remove the rules text.
I assume you're referring to lands like fetch lands. You can't: if you activate a fetch land, sacrificing it is part of the cost, meaning that you pay it when you put its ability on the stack. By definition, if you're doing this, you have priority, meaning that the room's triggered ability isn't resolving (you don't have priority and cannot activate abilities* when an effect is resolving). This means that the land won't be on the battlefield anymore by the time that effect resolves, since it will have been sacrificed as a cost to put another ability on the stack; therefore, you won't be able to sacrifice it to that effect. (*: nitpicker's corner: yes, there's a specific case in which this is incorrect; if you have to pay a cost that includes mana during the resolution of an effect, you may activate mana abilities before paying that cost. This is obviously not the case in this example.)
Tiamat loves a kilnmouth dragon! I use bladewing the risen on my second Tiamat to bring Kilnmouth back from the grave with at least 5 dragons in hands. Then cast a Old Gnawbone to get a crazy amount of treasures to use on my Inferno of the starmounts and get a 40/40... Thats if the 20/20 kilnmouth was not enough...
I wish Bruenor had an ability along the lines of "Tap, create a legendary equipment artifact called Aegis Fang. This artifact says equipped creature gets +2/+2, trample, and at the end of combat, equipped creature deals damage to target creature, equal to the number of equipment you control." Something to capture the flavor of the hammer Bruenor forges for Wulfgar.
FYI, you have to find a card for scheming symmetry since its impossible to not find a card in your deck. This is due to SS having no restrictions on the cards it can get.
personally i think Xanathar is the meaner version of Sen triplets. put some mill in it to manipulate your opponents library. and you might dig deep into their decks. also put in discard to screw their hands 2.
Krydle might not be the most powerful legend in the set but he has the coolest art and a nice ability. I’m building him as rogue tribal with effects that trigger on combat damage.
If you are playing Xanathar, while meaner, it's probably technically correct to leave lands on the top of your opponents deck. If their commander doesn't have card draw stapled to it, it's kinda like playing against lantern decks in modern. Only recommend for higher power levels, because you arent going to make many friends playing that way.
My group has been letting me use Tiamet as my commander and I like her, everytime I cast her, I grab, Morophon, Ur-Dragon, Dragonlord Dromoka, Karthas and then a changing one, usually Utvara tho lol
Kalain and Prosper go hand and hand. The impulsive draw seems good, but Prosper can go on a madness streak paired with Asmorandomardicadaistinaculdicar.
Mutate with Volo gets pretty wild though, since you get 3 Mutate triggers off 1 cast. Migratory Greathorn is my Beast of choice for my deck. Triple ramp? Don't mind if I do..
![Kodak Black - Catch Fire [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/A4ch-olIuZo/mqdefault.jpg)
58:37
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Goldspan Dragon synergizes just fine with Kalain. Her ability cares about the amount of mana that came from treasures, not the number of treasures sacrificed. So if you sacrificed 2 treasures with Goldspan out and use all 4 of that mana to cast 1 creature, it would still get 4 counters.
came down here to say exactly this, you're 100% right
Was gonna say the same thing. They even read it again to assure themselves they were right, and they're not.
Inspiring Statuary. Tap the treasures to improvise creatures.
@@jamespatterson5644 that doesn't work because improvise doesn't use mana, while kalain count mana spend from treasures.
@@jamespatterson5644 you need something like prismari to do that but he’s wrong colors. Improvise isn’t having them make mana.
CORRECTION: Kalain cares about the amount of mana from treasures, not the number of treasures you sacrifice. Great synergy with Goldspan Dragon.
Maybe in 2 years when goldspan rotates out from standard I will be able to get one
That was exactly what I thought and looked in the comment section just to find your comment! 👍
If only there was a way to put Galazeth Prismari in with him
@@wave2632 I have one 🤫
I was going to make a joke of a Grixis Treasure deck using Kalain and Urza to make big beefy monsters
You guys HAVE to get mathew mercer to play with you when it comes out!
Maybe that is the special guest...
Does anyone know if Matt Mercer plays MTG?
@@JamesSamson487 Heavily out of practice based on his Arena Everything is Content episode. He knew a lot of the basic rules, but the moment they busted out Cavalier of Flame, he was like "dafuq is this gift that keeps on giving"? He would have to learn commander on the fly just to get back in the game though he could have picked it back up as a hobby. But as far the game goes, he is not experienced with the format.
@@JamesSamson487 yah, he has talked about playing it before when arena sponsored critical role.
And Becca Scott.
@@JamesSamson487 my guess is the special guest is B. Dave Walters
11:45 Barrowin of Clan Undurr
21:15 Bruenor Battlehammer
25:52 Drizzt Do'Urden
34:01 Farideh, Devil's Chosen
42:18 Gretchin Titchwillow
47:52 Hama Pashur, Ruin Seeker
54:05 Kalain, Reclusive Painter
1:01:14 Betterhelp Commercial
1:02:22 Upstart Commercial
1:03:38 Ritual Commercial
1:04:57 Krydle of Baldur's Gate
1:08:20 Minsc, Beloved Ranger
1:14:25 Orcus, Prince of Undeath
1:19:43 Shessra, Death's Whisper
1:25:24 Targ Nar, Demon-Fang Gnoll
1:28:22 Tiamat
1:38:21 Trelasarra, Moon Dancer
1:40:12 Volo, Guide to Monsters
1:47:24 Xanathar, Guild Kingpin
The hero we need
You're the MVP.
Also from Unstable, "As Luck Would Have It" is an Enchantment that counts every dice you roll and makes you win the game if they ever total 100 or higher, which is much easier with d20s than d6s.
I was going to reply this, thankfully I saw your comme t first and can boost yours instead.
@@milohobo9186 Thank you, you're so kind
It's a green enchantment though, hard to fit in a Izzet deck
@@ignaciofernandez3322 Maybe with Animar or Riku as Commanders?
@@KalElelVigilant maybe a riku dice rolling could be a fun brew, that way you could also add cards from the gruul precon.
Mad respect for the Game Knights team pumping out these set review eps
Are you serious?
Me playing against a Volo deck: “This is getting out of hand. Now there are two of them!”
Ah yes, prequel memes. That's...why I'm here.
the Sword of Dungeons and Dragons rolls a d20
I cant believe they just didn't mention this in the Dungeons and Dragons set
1:56:05
You cannot fail to find when there's no specific target like in black tutors. If it was like a mystical tutor that specifically says instant/sorcery you could fail even if you have them in deck still, but with a black tutor like scheming symmetry you can not fail to find since it's any card, and you have cards in deck
Simic the new Boros pumping out the same legendries set by set!
But it’s not white so it’s actually good.
Another example of green taking stuff from other colors
Exactly! It’s so old, and it’s so annoying that they tend to be pushed. How many “Draw cards and play extra lands” Simic commanders have we gotten in the past couple years?
@@aaronpyrez1573 or counter synergy
@@aaronpyrez1573 About four thus far: Aesi, Gretchen, Thrasios, Uro and Zimone.
Honorable mention to cards that involve card advantage and caring for lands: Jadzi / Journey to the Oracle, Kiane / Imbraham, and Tatyova.
I think mutate is neat with Volo. Mutating still is casting a creature spell, and then if you put the mutate card on the bottom of the pile, the creature type "disappears". So you don't have to be as careful and you get double mutate triggers.
Interestingly, though, since Volo doesn't have the "you may choose new targets for the copy" text that many cards have, both mutating creature spells will end up targetting the same creature. But maybe that is exactly what you want.
@@therealax6 That's true. I guess targeting isn't really a thing for creature spells most of the time.
1:55:56 You actually can only fail to find if there's a restriction of what card you're searching for (because otherwise you'd have to show your whole library to prove that you don't have a valid choice). So you can fail to find off a fetch, but not off a demonic tutor or scheming symmetry.
I was so damn proud of myself knowing this as a super casual player who HAPPEN to watch the Iceberg Magic rules videos.
For Volo, any of the OG Eldrazi Titans. Legendary rule works in your favor there; you can choose to sac either the card or the token, so you sac the card, they go to the graveyard, and you shuffle everything back.
Dungeons, Dragons, Diners, Drive-Ins & Dice: Magic Set of Flavortown.
Heard of the Board Game D6? Dungeons, Dragons, Dudes, Dames, Danger, Dice.
This is amazing!
I dig it.
What happened to Mel? I hope she returns to Game Knight soon. Her episode against Craig was hilarious.
Mel works for Riot games. She was working on legends of runeterra story and lore but i believe is now a game dev at riot.
It's a jerk card for jerks!
- Cast Barrowin T3 if you have ramp
- spend next 3 turns venturing into the dungeon with suboptimal cards
- swing with a 3/3 on T6 and hope they don't have something bigger than it in play already
- you get a creature with MV 3 or less for all this work
This seems really weak.
Its kinda like a weaker, conditional Sun Titan. It has its place, but sun titan is great because it has so much versatility in what it can grab and the size of its body. You're right that barrowin looks pretty weak for edh.
Hey awesome people, you're breathtaking. Review starts at 4:23!
No, you're breathtaking!
One really interesting pick for the Orcus deck would be Songs of the Damned (B, Instant, add B for each creature card in your graveyard). I think it might be better than Mana Geyser in this deck (though obviously you play that too), since you want the mana when you have a full graveyard.
*Game knights deck box*
The Profesor: i will give it an A-
He reviewed the deck box (not the Game Knights version) and gave it a B+.
I threw it out a plane at 3000 ft, going 174 mph. It didn't break open, but it got a scratch from the fall. C+.
1:55:53 correction: you can’t fail to find with scheming symmetry because it has no restriction on what you can find (as long as you have cards in your library). You can however fail to find a land with rampant growth or an enchantment with enlightened tutor because they are restricted to a type of card.
I freakin' love DJ, he's such a good dude.
Seems like they named abilities as spells, abilities or choices you could make in a game of D&D for flavor. Nice!
We've been through one episode that wasn't a set review, I got scared.
It shows that wotc is over whelming us with sets. They have to stop. For real. It's way too fg much
@@haldir1991 Absolutely, the bombardment of spoilers of the next set starts almost at the same time of the release of the current set. I have almost no time to enjoy the new cards without being thrown a lot new new cards to the face
@@haldir1991 It also shows how @Command Zone inflates their set reviews. I remember days not that long ago they did one video for legendaries and one video for the rest for each set. Those videos had like 1-1.5 hour and were much easier to digest, at least for me. I just do not have time to sit and watch 10+ hours of content just about one set. Here they spent 5 minutes talking about Hama to decide it has little support and is not that good and 8 minutes about Farideh to end up with the same result.
For the Farideh, Devil's Chosen deck, I feel like the sword of Dungeons and Dragons from Unstable would be one of the best cards in that deck due to the fact that it's a combat based way to roll a d20, and maybe even multiple times if you're lucky.
so the naming thing is actually based on flavour but also on DnD terms. Like an experienced DnD player knows that large creatures like the rock/earth elemental are siege monsters, and the term siege monster has meaning in DnD in the sense those monsters do more dmg to objects/non living things etc. So its making the content more relatable and sorta easier to picture/imagine, which I think is pretty cool- drawing more DnD players into Magic the Gathering.
Volo would work interestingly with escape, since that allows you to exile all the creatures from the graveyard that might share a type. Escape is also a cast trigger, so two of the escaped creature would enter the battlefield then. Seems like a good value.
Indeed! Would also work great with Delve, cause Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time certainly needed even more upside =P
One good combo is Old Gnawbone with Galazeth Prismari. You create treasure from combat damage. Then you can just tap it, instead of sacrificing it. With Tiamat as your commander, you can tutor for both or get other big dragons and use your large amounts of mana to cast them.
Correction at 58:38 Goldspan Dragon works fully with Kalain, Reclusive Painter since Kalain doesn't care about the number of treasures sucked but the mana they produce
Wouldn't Sword of Dungeons and Dragons synergize pretty well with Farideh?
Came here to say this its a mystery how they missed this
wow, the set got a glow-up.
Josh: why are all the cards the same?
Josh reading a card that does something different: Why would I ever use this?
1 mana: amazing
2 mana: garbage unplayable
The reason is because Volo's effect doesn't CREATE a token copy. It copies the spell which makes a token of the creature as a result of the copied spell. Spells that CREATE tokens, like Chatterstorm, say CREATE which specifically line up with the wording on Parallel Lives and Doubling Season.
Kinda a pain but makes sense.
Inalla is great for venturing into the dungeon. Not only is Bar the Gate a blue counterspell that ventures into the dungeons, but there's Eccentric Apprentice, which is a 3 cost wizard that ventures as an ETB. So just tap 1 more and you're going 2 rooms into a dungeon. Or Acerak the Archlich, which is a 3 cost black wizard. If you haven't completed Tomb of Annhilation, bounce it back into your hand, then venture into the dungeon.
Most excited for Bruenor: Leonin Shikari was the missed tech in this evaluation, as you can then free equip "each" turn.
That’s probably just a weaker version of what’s already available though. I mean yeah sure I’m the 99.
@Karl Webb; That is a nice tech indeed! Have fun building him, I am sure he'll pack a punch. Bruenor's abilities are pretty dang solid.
Kalain and gold span works perfect as it counts the mana not the number of treasures.
Josh: “Oh man, I hope I do it again tonight...”
I too want to blink my mulldrifter...
Blink will be really good for the d20 creatures because you can get the effects multiple times. Maybe getting a 20 and getting good effects
Kalain not that complicated. Mana from the treasure is doubled, but still comes from from treasure so still gives a counter for each mana spent to cast it.
Volo is a love letter to deckbuilders.
You can use Delve cards in Volo to alleviate the grave yard issue. There are already some very strong Delve cards that slot in easily (Dig TT, Treasure Cruise), so it seems like an easy win win situation for that issue. You could slot in some of the more situationally useful stuff (Logic Knot, Temporal Trespass, Set Adrift) as well if you found yourself lacking redundancy.
First of all, great job with consistently releasing content.
That said, am I a black sheep here or are there other MtG players that feels burnt out by the ridicolous pace with which WotC is pumping out new products?
It feels like two weeks ago that we were still excited about Modern Horizons 2 and here we are already hyped with a new set ... one barely has the time to think of a new deck to build and it could already be obsolete before having the chance to play it once. Is anyone else feeling the same?
I think this time around I will skip the set entirely to take a break and breathe.
i feel you 100% In my mind i am still somewhere in strixhaven or even kaldheim. Built one deck from each set and haven't been able to play one of them. I completly skipped Modern Horizon to free my mind for Forgotten Realms, because i am a great DnD fan.
Haven't gotten around strixhaven and kaldheim yet lol, I feel you
The way I see it, there's a lot of product, but that's because there's a lot of formats. Kaldheim and Strixhaven were aimed at standard, sealed and draft. Yes, you get a couple cards that are useful in EDH, modern, pauper or even vintage, but that's not the target audience. MM2 on the other hand was aimed at modern players with a lot of cards playable in EDH, but standard players completely missed out on this one. Last year we saw Jumpstart, an entirely new format aimed at beginners and causal players, and Mystery Boosters that were packed with so much value cards for all formats it's ridiculous. Forgotten Realms so far seem very fun to draft, but most cards won't see play outside of standard or the odd EDH card.
If you feel exhausted by all the new products, maybe ask yourself if you need to follow alllllllllllll of them. I'm an EDH only player, so I usually just pick up singles and sometimes buy a precon if it's interesting enough, so releasing a new set every month or two really works for me.
"It pains me anyone would play chromatic orrey"
(Looks at my deck where it's one of 5 infinite mana generators)
"Aww...maann now i feel bad..."
It's a great mana fixer. What are the other infinite mana generators in your deck?
@@kylemcgowan1 I use
Filigree sages+ Training Grounds/Biomancers Familiar+Orrey/Gilded Lotus
Power Artifact+Basalt Monument
Garruk Relentless+Mana Doubler+Teferi Time Bender+Chain Veil (Also does infinite Turns)
I like me mana
It’s a good mana fixer in a 5 color deck, without spending da $$$ on the real lands like triomes etc…
Volo, Guide to Monsters could include Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath to help get creatures out of your graveyard with their Escape cost and it helps with some ramp, life gain, and card draw. And with a sack outlet like Phyrexian Altar or Ashnod's Altar you can get rid of more creatures if needed by sacking Uro and Escaping again.
Yes DJ, doubling a dungeon room seems good when you use the last room of the hardest and longest dungeon as the example :P
I'd just like to say, I know DJ has been on a lot of Command Zone stuff, and I just hope he's a permanent mainstay. He's just an absolute joy to watch in these videos.
1:55:50 You cannot fail to find if the tutor card instructs you to find a card with no specific characteristics or qualities. This is because a player can show that they have retrieved a card without revealing what the card is or any other cards in the searched zone.
I've been kinda looking at stuff for Volo, and perhaps the most unusual choice I made is actually a Sliver. You do make a copy of it, so technically you will have 2 of it, and you *don't* want very many of the same type so there isn't much competition for space. The best ones are the ones that are still totally fine if you don't have many Slivers. I specifically chose Dormant Sliver -- it will draw 3 cards in total, since the copy draws 1 and the original will be seen by itself and the copy. And the Defender is actually relevant because I'm also including Overgrown Battlement, which is good copied because even alone it goes from ramping by 1 to ramping by 4, as well as Sylvan Caryatid which is just a ramp card that doesn't have much creature type competition. (I also considered Carven Caryatid but it was competing with Eidolon of Blossoms which I think is just better.)
I do the shuffle thing you mentionrd for Boros commanders with my Kaalia package, its really fun! It adds a bit of variety and surprise to the deck and allows me to add new cards without worrying about what to cut. I'd definitely recommend doing it with the Boros commanders if you're intrigued by the idea
Props to whoever did the thumbnail, what a slam dunk.
It was good ,I chose to watch this one over several other reviews because of that.
Glad you liked this one! It was my brain baby
Gretchen sounds like they'd also make a fun Druid Tribal deck - focus on making mana with Seton or Freyalise, Llanowar Fury and then get a Gilt-leaf Archdruid or Kamahl, Fist of Krosa for payoff.
I'm personally building the Shessra, Death's whisper using the idea of Eldrazi Spawns/Scions as ramp and as a way to activate her ability, not meant to be my most powerful deck but as a more fun casual deck!
Volo can do so much! Clever impersonator or phyrexian metamorph can become two noncreature permanents. Vizier of many faces or Amphin mutineer can be amazing and then exile themselves from the grave. skaab ruinator can be two 5/6 flyers who keep your graveyard in check. Also spark double. For ones it finds a home in commander ;). I'm hyped about Volo!
Commenting early in the video, but dare DJ say we.don't care about pumping power 😉
I actually like Bruenor A lot, and I don't usually get excited.about any of the equipment stuff we've seen. I like this better than Akiri or that one guy from the pre cons (forgot his.name).
I don't like hearing "well it doesn't draw cards" when evaluating commanders. Are those.commanders good? Of course. But they definitely don't NEED it to.be good.
Other tricks with Volo: Morphing creatures have no creature type when cast face down, so you get a "free" 2/2 token no matter what is on the battlefield or in the graveyard. Also, mutate has the advantage of allowing you to replace a creature's types (doesn't work with humans, bu that's fine since Volo is human) with a different set of types to avoid a collision.
Tiamat’s best combos are probably Dream Halls and/or Food Chain. With either, use them to cast Tiamat, then grab Morritte of the Frost, Bladewing the Risen, Scourge of Valkas, and two other dragons.
If using Dream Halls, pitch Scourge to cast Bladewing, and reanimate Scourge; then, cast Morritte with the other green/blue dragon you tutored, and have it be a copy of Bladewing. Legend rule and keep Moritte, bring back Bladewing, and loop this, pinging opponents to death with Scourge in the process.
With Food Chain, just use your infinite mana to cast these; you can cast Dragonlord Dromoka beforehand to stop interaction.
I think Barrowin can work quite well with a priest of fell rites. Just constantly bring the priest back from the dead to bring back bigger black and white creatures. I think that seems like a pretty good combo.
Bruenor Battlehammer isn't the most interesting commander but I think he does carve a niche for himself, we honestly haven't had a creature that is very synergistic with high equipe costs before, the others really prefer you have a bunch of low equipe costs. This could be taken in a combo way so you give him unblockable and/or protection of some kind and throw down Colossus Hammer or something that makes him huge and then he kills an opponent from nowhere, which is something we haven't seen much. Arden or Halvar don't cheapen the initial cost to equipe they only let you reequipe for free. So I think he is more interesting than you gave him credit for. But he isn't a massive game changer like Feather, the Redeemed either.
The bit that jumps to my mind with all the treasure token based ramp in boros now, is Bludgeon Brawl.
Treasure Tokens are now +2/+0 with 0 equip. I just picture this dwarf going ham with a giant pillar of gold coins and gems. Lol.
I'm a little disappointed that they didn't make a card for Jarlaxel (probably misspelled).
And add the partner mechanic with Artemis
They could of made a decent mercenary tribal commander
Felt the exact same way about not getting Artemis!
Same, i thought for sure when i drizzt spoiled
I think Volo is a great budget commander, because you can just go around the house and find random commons and uncommons with different creature types, smash them together, and Volo's going to double them all up and just make some great value. I think it could play pretty well.
You can only fail to find if the tutor specifies the cards you're searching for. If not (like in Scheming Symmetry), you're forced to find a card.
You're forced to find a card, but you can also choose a card at random and act as if you looked for it specifically.
Happy to see josh back on the set review
The only thing I will say about Bruenor is that since he is a dwarf there are certain ways to also take it in a tribal direction with cards like Magda, torbran, and koll the forgemastwr which could also bring a lot of good functionality to the deck
Setting these, I really look forward to the Deck reviews
Volo interacts well with Mutate cards, since they are creature spells, but if you mutate under something, their types don't matter. Same with the Bestow mechanic as long as they're auras. In both cases, copies resolve still as Mutate or Bestow spells, not normal creatures.
1:56:00 you can NOT fail to find with Scheming Symmetry (or most black tutors) because there's no fail case. There is always A card in your library to find (unless you have an empty library obviously, but then what were you tutoring your library for?). Compare these to most tutors, where it's possible to actually have 0 targets to find.
The easiest way to know if you can fail to find is if you have to show/reveal the card you find to prove you're not cheating. If you DO reveal, you can fail.
(5:00) We've had trap instants. I run them in my Thantis, the warweaver spider dack.🕷
I really like DJ, but I miss Josh and Jimmy together. When are you coming back together?
Right? He’s fun to have on the show but damn do I miss Jimmy and Josh together
For Orcus, prince of undeath a really good synergistic card is ashnods alter and I know that’s a good card in general but playing a creature with like an ETB and death trigger you play it then sac it to the alter get 2 mana for orcus to just bring it back easily
I think you may only fail to find something from your deck if you're searching for something particular (i.e. a land, an artifact with mv = 2), but if you need to search for a card, you NEED to find one unless that library is empty. You can always find a "bad" card instead to block Vanathar in Scheming Symmetry, tho.
Yes, that's exactly correct:
"701.19b If a player is searching a hidden zone for cards with a stated quality, such as a card with a certain card type or color, that player isn’t required to find some or all of those cards even if they’re present in that zone.
[...]
701.19c If a player is instructed to search a hidden zone for cards that match an undefined quality, that player may still search that zone but can’t find any cards.
[...]
701.19d If a player is searching a hidden zone simply for a quantity of cards, such as “a card” or “three cards,” that player must find that many cards (or as many as possible, if the zone doesn’t contain enough cards)."
Everyone is saying Xanather is busted but it’s a less good version of Etali (cast four things for free), stolen strategy (only costs 4 and gets 3 cards), thought dilation (costs one more and play stuff for free). The latter two are enchantments hence harder to remove as well.
25:25 I do this. All of my decks have a “second” commander to swap out so I can choose the power level, but the deck synergies with both.
On failing to find: “…if a player is instructed to find a card, and there are not additional qualities of characteristics given, then this player must find one. This is because a player can show that they have retrieved a card without revealing what the card is or any other cards in the searched zone. For example, when resolving Diabolic Tutor, its controller will have to find a card and cannot ‘fail to find.”
So, you can’t always fail to find, only when a specific card type is being searched for or there are no cards left in library.
New guest, Josh keeping it a mystery, it's rakdos, Josh said it was a he, crafty deck build: What if the next guest is Matthew Mercer!?
I like that you talked about Volo not working with Doubling Season and Parallel Lives, but you totally missed that it is possible to get 3 Mulldrifters or whatever. The secret is "Twinning Staff", which says "copy a spell", not "copy an instant or sorcery". So it works with Volo, but also for example with Verazol (where i found out about this interaction for the first time).
When you mix d&d and Magic the gathering what do you get? answer awesomeness
Alot of money 💰
Super rules lawyering?
Im glad jimmy is gonna be playing Minsc. He was the first deck i built from the new set.
Scavenging Ooze and friends would be great in a Volo deck that wants multiple of the same type, to selectively empty out your graveyard.
You can't fail to find on Scheming Symmetry. You can fail to find if searching for a card with a specific characteristic (ie a basic from a rampant growth) because it could be possible that there is no such card in your deck. If you are searching for any card you must find something as long as your deck isn't empty.
Correction: any spell you cast that has changling will shut off your commander because that spell is all creature types so please do not include them in Volo!
Nope. Volo speccifically cares about creature spells and cards, so Tribal spells don't interact with it, even if they do have all creature types.
Life's legacy, rishkar's expertise, soul's majesty, and hunter's prowess would be great for card draw/life gain in minsc. Also xenagos!
Btw, Volo Copies of Evoked Creatures would not leave behind a body, for the same reason that Doubling Season won't work.. it's not being CREATED, it's being COPIED, hence it's copying the evoke cast as well, so it'd still die. So the best Elemental, imo, is Risen Reef.. That's A LOT of value, 3 triggers! Greenwarden of Murasa is also great as an E-Wit alternative, and what's nice is it Exiles itself, so you don't have to worry about it conflicted with other Elementals if it dies.
Did a lifegain deck hurt Josh? They threw "Trelasarra, Moon Dancer" to the side like trash. With the right cards that commander can pop off! You can basically cycle through your deck everytime if you understand lifegain.
Q: For Tomb of Annihilation's second room or any sacrifice land mechanic, can you use the lands that tap and sacrifice themselves to satisfy the requirement?
If you mean use the sacrifice ability on the land, no because you need to sacrifice a land to satisfy the ability with no bonuses. Sacrificing the land in response doesn't remove the rules text.
I assume you're referring to lands like fetch lands. You can't: if you activate a fetch land, sacrificing it is part of the cost, meaning that you pay it when you put its ability on the stack. By definition, if you're doing this, you have priority, meaning that the room's triggered ability isn't resolving (you don't have priority and cannot activate abilities* when an effect is resolving). This means that the land won't be on the battlefield anymore by the time that effect resolves, since it will have been sacrificed as a cost to put another ability on the stack; therefore, you won't be able to sacrifice it to that effect.
(*: nitpicker's corner: yes, there's a specific case in which this is incorrect; if you have to pay a cost that includes mana during the resolution of an effect, you may activate mana abilities before paying that cost. This is obviously not the case in this example.)
Tiamat loves a kilnmouth dragon! I use bladewing the risen on my second Tiamat to bring Kilnmouth back from the grave with at least 5 dragons in hands. Then cast a Old Gnawbone to get a crazy amount of treasures to use on my Inferno of the starmounts and get a 40/40... Thats if the 20/20 kilnmouth was not enough...
I wish Bruenor had an ability along the lines of "Tap, create a legendary equipment artifact called Aegis Fang. This artifact says equipped creature gets +2/+2, trample, and at the end of combat, equipped creature deals damage to target creature, equal to the number of equipment you control." Something to capture the flavor of the hammer Bruenor forges for Wulfgar.
FYI, you have to find a card for scheming symmetry since its impossible to not find a card in your deck. This is due to SS having no restrictions on the cards it can get.
With Volo, you can create an infinite colourless mana loop with Ashnods altar and myr retriever or workshop assistant
Trelasara combos extremely well with Heliod, sun crowned if you can get your hands on him
"Psychic Surgery" 🔮 is a great enchantment that would probably go well in a Xanathar deck.
Death's Whisper is a good card with Afflict, deathtouch, and rampage. My personal favorite though is Elven Warhounds.
personally i think Xanathar is the meaner version of Sen triplets. put some mill in it to manipulate your opponents library. and you might dig deep into their decks. also put in discard to screw their hands 2.
Krydle might not be the most powerful legend in the set but he has the coolest art and a nice ability. I’m building him as rogue tribal with effects that trigger on combat damage.
I absolutely can’t wait for the GameKnights for this set.
Other great options for a Shessra deck are things that want to get blocked, like Engulfing Slagwurm or Elven Warhounds
If you are playing Xanathar, while meaner, it's probably technically correct to leave lands on the top of your opponents deck. If their commander doesn't have card draw stapled to it, it's kinda like playing against lantern decks in modern.
Only recommend for higher power levels, because you arent going to make many friends playing that way.
Pretty much. Technically it's "More fair" than Triplets, but even a half step down is still pretty rough.
My group has been letting me use Tiamet as my commander and I like her, everytime I cast her, I grab, Morophon, Ur-Dragon, Dragonlord Dromoka, Karthas and then a changing one, usually Utvara tho lol
Kyrdle is the rogue I want for Anowon rogue deck.
Yes! They really ignored the fact that he is a rogue.
Kalain and Prosper go hand and hand. The impulsive draw seems good, but Prosper can go on a madness streak paired with Asmorandomardicadaistinaculdicar.
Mutate with Volo gets pretty wild though, since you get 3 Mutate triggers off 1 cast. Migratory Greathorn is my Beast of choice for my deck. Triple ramp? Don't mind if I do..
Wow! This is a long video.
It took a while but we finally got an AFR video! Can't wait.