Richard always blows my mind ... He is always about don't 1 for 1 but then a 3 for 1 exile spell comes out and he still is down on it. I just think he doesn't believe in any removal.
His philosophy is more “don’t piss people off” and a 3-for-1 removal spell is the epitome of “make the table hate you” And in some respects that makes sense. did you really need to remove permanents 2 and 3? Because now that player hates you. Whereas a board wipe feels less targeted “sorry I’m nuking everything. It’s not personal” I completely disagree with this blanket philosophy personally, but I understand it
The big thing you and Richard missed : It's a "may" spell ! You NEVER have to piss off the table... Also Richard has kind of a parasitic approach to spot removal in EDH, like "people will deal with problems, I'll save my deckslots for synergy" which only works if everybody else at the table eats their vegetables and plays enough removal like a responsible EDH player
@@DonWanri Richard does play removal, he jams 8 wraths in every deck. If you're playing a 2 card combo at instant speed for like 6 mana you stuff Richard decks because he won't have anything to interact with that unless he's in blue for his 1 counterspell.
@@TonyScimeca This card is inherently political too. Sure you are removing something from everyone but you can still make choices that are good for the pod and not just detrimental to a single player. Sure im getting rid of player As best card but im also removing player Bs lock piece.
Crim is the only one who's right about Unexplained Absence. You get to exile UP TO 3 permanents (or 4 if you want to cloak your own card), it's instant speed, and all they get is a 2/2 in return. And, if that 2/2 isn't a creature, you've effectively removed another card from their library. For 4 mana? The card is so good.
Unexplained Absence is notable "up to" so you don't need to target things that don't matter and incidentally annoy people. Without that text I agree that it's not a strict upgrade over generous gift, but since it doesn't need to hit something for each player it should be the first non-swords removal you put in every white deck
You lose the option of hitting lands, but you also get the upgrade of exile over destroy. And you kill up to 3 of your opponents’ things. Card is great.
Unexplained Absence; i get that 4 mana seems steep nowadays, but 4 mana is only boardwipe territory for *creatures*, not nonland permanents, which basically starts at 6 and is not instant speed. You are not pissing off anyone you don't need to, because you are targeting UP TO one permanent for each player - only if they have something gross.
Yeah, Delney is pretty narrow with what'll actually work with it, especially if you're using it as the commander: Esper Sentinel, Spirited Companion, Solemn Simulacrum, Mentor of the Meek, Welcoming Vampire, Wall of Omens Knight of the White Orchid, Archivist of Oghma, Adeline, Rumor Gatherer, Mangara, Soul Warden, Loran, Soul's Ateendant, Thraben Inspector, Skyclave App.... Huh, wait that's barely even scratching the surface... Not to mention other colors: Ewit, Dockside, Rec Sage, Blood Artist, Zulaport, Gary, Scute, Emeritus, Pitiless Plunderer, Champion of Lambholt, Mulldrifter, Baleful Strix, Lotus Cobra, Toski, Recruiter, Guttersnipe, Vito.... The list just keeps going, I've barely even mentioned other Commanders that would slam this like they did Roaming Throne. Every card I've listed is played heavily in the format, many of which in the same decks that would all benefit from Delney on the field. Don't sleep on this card, it's early price is high for a reason.
I always have the opposite experience than Richard with the "randomly remove something from each player's board." Typically you have one big threat, a secondary threat, and something that doesn't really matter. The person with the big threat is set back, the person with the secondary threat is sad but understands it had to happen, and the person with nothing was in no position to argue. It balances out because while you set people behind, you also saved their bacon.
I am that player, someone blew up my mana rock because they had one of these modal spells to answer the threat and I countered every one of his spells until we both lost.
Their logic on suppressor skyguard is faulty. Just because it gets board wiped, does that mean every card is garbage? Even sheoldred can get wiped. Supressor forces your opponents to attack each other and lose life or creatures OR if they don’t have enough creatures it protects you. The added bonus of being a flyer and a knight makes it essential for the esper knight precon. It’s so so for all other decks. If it is randomly going into a deck I’d give it a B- not amazing, but not trash like Seth thinks.
If you’re ever in a pod with Richard, just take him out first when he’s sitting on his empty board with 7 lands. He’s not going to have any removal to help out if someone else starts to get out of control anyway, so might as well put things better in your favor and make it a 3-player game.
@burnsboy101 you have to respect the "don't get mad at me" clause because at some point they will switch to a grixis+ on the stack combo win deck, and then no one has fun but them
So it's good, but the problem is that it can still compete with other removal. Reason why swords and path get a lot of play is part of the fact that they're cheap to play. I could be playing Get Lost for half the mana and still do my game plan, and probably make one person aggro'd compared to 3
I think they're just not comparing it to the right cards. This is more akin to Reality Shift or Excise the Imperfect. It's also Sunforger'able, flexible if you have top deck manipulation to replace a token with a morph/neater or if you need to remove something an opponent is trying to steal or gave you as a spoiled gift (anti-Jon Irenicus tech? :p). I wouldn't give it an S as it is 4 mana, but that's a solid A for me.
I find the Vandalblast-Anzrag's Rampage discussion kind of funny because the moment I saw that card, I knew I was going to use it to replace Vandalblast in my Rionya Fire Dancer list. Warleader's Call makes me finally want to pull the trigger on building the Rocco, secret-commander-Norin the Wary list that I have been kicking around for a while.
The mole god also had a hidden win condition. If you Fog preventing all COMBAT damage not all damage. This plus the lure effect let’s any pinger kill the whole table
It says up to one. If your worried about making people upset don't choose one of their cards. That's a really bad argument for the card. Its 1 more many to lose ability to target lands but gain ability to hit up to 3 more things, and exile not destroy. You can exile your own pointless thing to make a 2/2 blocker if getting attacked by more then 1 creature. It just has so much diversity that it seems really good to pay the extra 1 mana
Unexplained Absense is WAAAY better than Chaos Warp. 1) It's EXILE any nonland permanent. 2) It's instant speed. 3) It's for each player, but you don't have to do it to yourself, because it's UP TO one. 4) They can only uncloak the card if it's a creature. 5) If they want to uncloak it, they have to pay its mana cost and don't get its ETB if there is one.
I think the stax part of Trouble in Pairs is actually a good way to give decks that would otherwise have no answers to the extra turn decks a way to fight back (they already did that with Gerrard’s Pendant to be fair). It’s not narrow like the goad hate creature. It’s organic nerfing of an archetype.
Right up until Richard started talking about Aurelia I thought he knew his stuff :P... its literal Sera Angel with haste that can also draw cards and deal extra damage to the table or forces opponents to choose not to attack. What do you want? There's so much up side and zero down side. Its free value that fits in basically any go wide build. Then you guys get to Suppressor Skyguard and he completely argues against his earlier argument. He's now saying people can always attack with 3 creatures, where 10 minutes earlier he said they almost never do except the last attack to win. Sheer insanity. What the card reads is, if a player cannot attack every other player, you don't need to block AND you get a free attacker with evasion. Add on to all this that in the past he's argued heavily for little chump blockers to keep your life total up. How can he not see that this is basically the best chump blocker ever printed? THEN, as if the crazy train hadn't already left the station, he argues that its a bad creature because it dies to wraths and spot removal... Because that doesn't describe every other creature in the game too. Unfortunately you can't pair it with something that removes a single attacker and get the trigger. That would be nuts.
Richard’s style of playing is durdle around, do literally nothing the whole game, make other people remove things, then come in at the last moment and try to steal the win. He’s even said before he doesn’t like cards that put you ahead because people will target you, so in his mind good cards actually = bad cards.
@@totakekeslider3835 This is what made no sense.... Suppressor Skyguard is custom made for a durdle deck. Its perfect for his playstyle... his reasoning totally broke my brain. :)
Can’t believe it took you that long lol. By the third card it should have been obvious that his takes are terrible. 4 mana exile 3 things at instant speed is bad? Hell no. His philosophy of “if it’s good it draws aggro so you shouldn’t play it” is terrible. I actually agree with him about Aurelia though. By the time you get her out (turn 4 or 5 usually) most of the time, people will have enough creatures that anyone attacking with 3+ creatures is pretty unlikely because those creatures will probably die, and it becomes more unlikely that they’ll be attacking the longer the game goes on, the only exception being that they’re about to win, in which case Aurelia won’t help you. It’s so rare that you’ll be in a situation where Aurelia does something other than attack on her own, that it’s not worth it. The only exception is if she’s leading a flying tribal deck.
@@Crunchatize_Me_Senpai You mean like if she's part of a boros angels deck... like she's obviously intended to be. :P She takes your deck, that is attacking with multiple vigilant creatures anyway and pays you for doing what you're already doing.
I'm with Crim As someone who is usually the archenemy i have absolutely no qualms with 3-for-1'ing the whole table if it means dealing with immediate threats
I like spot removal but Im going to say what needs to be said: a lot of people use spot removal to replace threat evaluation. Instead of figuring out what an opponent will do withtheir threats, its easier to just remove it from the game.
At 29:30 don't forget cards like faithless looting and wheel of fortune that can pitch lands to graveyards. Red's non-impulse card draw is almost all that way, so decks that use their graveyards more will love this card with the package of pitch/draw red cards
Delney with: Malcolm,Tymna, Ragavan, Derevi, Dockside, Esper Sentinel, Lotho, Archivist of Oghma, Orcish Bowmasters, Imperial Recruiter, Recruiter of the Guard, Toski, Ohran Frosfang. Welcome to Cedh my Beloved Delney. Shout-out to Archdruids Charm for having exile clause.
dismantling wave and unexplained absence is the kind of removal we need. As a rule. I try to not run spot removal. I want to hit all the other players with my removal suite. And unexplained absence as well as dismantling wave allow me to do both.
1:01:23 I love that Richard complained about Aurelia saying nobody ever has three creatures let alone five, and Seth here is saying everyone always has 1/1s to spare every single combat. The different perspectives on how a game goes and when a card is relevant is so good. These discussions are great.
A weird thing about Anzrag's Rampage is, while yes it only destroys artifacts you don't control, it exiles cards based off any artifact sent to the graveyard this turn. I'm assuming this means if you sacrifice 5 treasures to cast it, you get to exile 5 cards + any artifacts destroyed by its effect.
I feel like I don't understand how that card isn't terrible. It exiles X cards off your deck. You pick 1 creature get it for a turn then the creature goes to your hand. So if someone's running Academy Manufactor and treasures and there's, let's say 40 tokens on the battlefield, that card permanently exiles almost half your deck for a single turn haymaker? Isn't that dead in hand quite a lot on most tables? Either there's not enough targets for it to be worth it's mana cost, or it won't dig deep enough to actually find something, or the amount of your deck it exiles won't be something you can play around.
@@RanDOmNumBErs108 I agree, its not great. The first time I read it, I assumed it put the exiled cards back on bottom or something, but nah it just straight up exiles them. Its not a terrible effect, but the people saying its a straight replacement for Vandal Blast are mental.
@@RanDOmNumBErs108 That situation with Manufactor will never happen. If you let it create that many treasures, then you die regardless. Or they're a bad player, since somehow they haven't won yet. It's a great artifact clear, and on average it'll be really impactful. I'm not terribly concerned about the stuff I exile, either.
@marshallscot To be honest with you the first thought I had when I saw this card was it'd be funny to run it in my Breya Artifacts deck so I could cast it with Mycosynth Lattice out, and deck myself into Thorcale. That was the only use case I could come up with. So that might say more about me not understanding the opportunity cost of casting this in a dedicated creatures deck and the type of people/decks i regularly play with rather than the quality of the card.
trouble in pairs hates on extra turns because two turns is like a "pair," just like all the other conditions are "pairs" of actions. Like drawing two cards that turn, or "playing a second spell" that turn.
In reality, Unexplained Absence will hit every single thing that this crew has valued as problematic or super strong; 4 mana to exile two The One Ring and a Toski. I don't get why they don't value this card higher judging by how they value the cards mentioned above who all have "indestructible" as the cherry on top and that everybody should play according to them.
the crew always gets me with these convos... we see you guys play like 2 spot removal spells in your entire deck but you're also saying Anzrag is just going to be spot removed? uhhh by what? he's gonna come down, get boots or somethin slapped on him and you're not gonna be able to touch that big boy until he's beating you to death. I'd be surprised if everybody except crim in this group didn't get bodied most of the time by actual aggro decks.
I must be the only player that thinks Archdruid’s Charm is trash. Crim is correct in that the triple green is a difficult ask for the spell. Not to mention that the three modes it provides are overcosted. I wiuldn’t wven play this in mono green, let alone any 2 plus color decks. Certainly not a 5 color deck. Once people start playing with it they will see it for the garbage that it is.
God Richard is consistently bad at evaluating new cards. He seriously doesn’t understand so many aspects of the game. Maybe it’s by design to people like me to comment.
People seem to miss read anzrags rampage. You don't get the cards you exiled back only the single creature. So the more artifacts you destroy the more cards you exile and you could actually end up neutering yourself
One small correction on Delney: Welcoming Vampire will still only trigger once even with Delney out; the “only triggers once per turn” clause overrides their replacement ability.
Crim was so sensible of archdruid's charm. That card is just so mid in like 3 color plus decks. Ramping mana works out, but you don't keep 3 land. If you want to play casual edh or in other words bad decks, sure it's not bad. If you want to play " cedh" marwyn, sylvala, or yissan which aren't really that great to begin with sure. A or B would be valid since it would be pretty low.
What are you even talking about? This whole channel is centered around casual EDH, not competitive. The card is cracked for 99% of the player base in every single deck with green.
@@totakekeslider3835 the use of "good in casual" is an excuse for running bad cards. If it was an actual good card, it would be used in the 3+ color cedh decks. Of the decks that run green, more often than not, the colors are 3+ when including green. This is okay in mono colored and mid in 2 color, but it is awful in 3+ colors. I'm quite sure 99% of decks that have green are 1 or 2 colors. It would be even more narrow to try and find a deck that runs those few colors that someone would even play. You can play casual but dont call a card "S" tier when it clearly isn't.
@@asdfasgdfgsd107 I think you honestly just have a fundamental misunderstanding of this channel and also this grading system. A card doesn’t have to only be good in CEDH to make it viable in regular commander. Plenty of cards that are amazing in CEDH are niche/pretty bad in regular commander, for example. Cards like Stifle, Red Elemental Blast, Autumn Veil, etc. are S-tier in CEDH but mediocre in casual. On the flip-side, power house cards like Craterhoof Behemoth, Farewell, Elesh Norn, etc. are mediocre in CEDH, but in no way could you possibly say these are “bad cards,” even when their viability stems from “casual” where 99% of the player base lives.
@@totakekeslider3835 edh is a singular format. Competitive edh is still apart of that format. For a card to be s tier if must be in all decks that can play green. Cedh decks that have green often do not play it. Therefore it is not S tier.
Unexplained absence isn't just for creatures, and its an UP TO, meaning you can choose not to aggro the whole table. It can also potentially ruin your opponent's future plans and give you a chump blocker if you have a card you dont want or need on your field. Its a pretty flexible card for 4 mana. Anzrag's Rampage will only work in the big stompy or sacrifice decks, because you dont get the other exiled cards back. Its also a little too dependant on the board. Hit too few artifacts, and you might not get anything. Hit too many, and there goes your library, and the card you bring back isnt gonna stay for long. Notably, it hits your artifacts too, so if you need those, too bad. Doppelgang can hit non-creature permanents too. Worse case, you can make a copy of Rhystic or Sol Ring, or a Yavimaya's cradle for 5. The fact it gets multiplicative the more you pump it means its not a dead card ever in mid to late game. Aurelia will work with any goad or token deck, which is 50% of boros (the other 50% being Equipment), so its honestly not a bad card by any means, just generically good. 5 mana haste commander also means you should be building your boardstate anyway, so its not that hard to build around. Immortal Obligation does kinda suck with no targets and i dont see it being cEDH by any means...but it is a really good politics card and even if you don't care, using it on the biggest creature in someone else's graveyard means it'll put in a lot of work for a 2 mana instant. Portal Manipulator is actually a deceptively good card, specifically because of the colors its in. The colors that get the most value out of interacting with opponents as well as the ideal colors for blink decks are probably going to be holding up mana. I'm just convinced at this point the Richard doesnt like playing anything at instant speed with mana value 4 or greater. Suppressor Skyguard is a meh card. Sure, It'll protect you from being player targeted somewhat, but its not that hard of an effect to get around and at least Portal Manipulator has flash. That being said, it has potential to add more value to an Azorius stax deck, so there's at least some hope for it.
Welcoming vampire still says this only triggers once a turn while the other card says triggers an additional time. Doesnt that mean it can still only trigger once?
Anzrag's Rampage is too big of a trap. Treasures, Clues, and Foods being so prolific in commander makes it that this could literally deck you as people just won't sacrifice them to see you get wrecked.
People can still sac them in response. Rampage specifically checks for number of arti entering the yard this turn, not just ones put there by it's resolution.
Neat idea for a clash episode. Each of your opponents gets to put 3 cards in each opponents deck of their choice. So for example - crim would build a deck of 88 cards and seth, Richard and Tomer would each decide 3 cards that deck plays. This way you can build around what your opponents are playing or create combos or chaos in your opponents decks
here's the problem with the portal mage and the way you guys see it. you treat it as a 1v1 game when it's most times 4 player. You're also in azorius which is known for holding up countermagic. That aggro player could easily assume you're going to hold up counter magic or play an eot draw spell, etc. or maybe you're holding it up for someone elses turn, so they attack and you redirect it. Albeit the blue artifact does the same thing and more, but still.
Aurelia is great, Richard isn't thinking with perspective. You can nudge people to not attack you with things like firemane commando, gix, ghostly prison etc. You think they'll greed less and send dudes at you when they can draw more by just smacking the other 2 people? Yeah right lol. Tag card draw and you better believe all the etb dorks are going to battle! It's just a matter of gently steering them in the proper direction.
@@Shimatzu95 No, I didn't misread it. Yes, you are drawing. But if you provide some incentive for the other guy to attack someone else, they will even if it gives you a card.
@@l0k Oh you were seeing it from THAT axis, honestly i doubt people will even check with how much they are attacking(aka if you draw from it), as most people dont realy care how much you draw unless it direktly impacts them (like with triggers on drawing).
Delney does NOT cause you to draw two cards with Welcoming Vampire because the latter has a restriction on how many times it can trigger, i.e. it cannot trigger twice. This is different from copying an ability.
Suppressor Skyguard is cool for my fliers deck, since it (and Windborn Muse) let me be a little more reckless swinging my flying dorks around. Less worrying about the crackback.
Also...about Portal Manipulator...yeah maybe there are more OPTIMAL cards for 4 mana but let's be honest, it's REALLY satisfying haha. I once played a Windshaper Planetar which does pretty much the same thing and redirected all combat damage over to someone else and killed them instead. Hilarious and satisfying to be able to say to the person who thought they'd kill me "Actually, no, you're killing them instead". I will also say as someone who sorta religiously plays all the blue and white pillowfort cards...Propaganda, Ghostly Prison, Windborn Muse, Baird, even Champions of Minas Tirith (and until recently Norn's Annex) that Suppressor Skyguard HAS TO BE better than Windborn Muse (though I will include BOTH in my deck). The reason it's better is because players ROUTINELY feel fine paying the 2 mana for Windborn Muse just to try and smack me with their one 12/12 pumped up creatures just to try and spite me. "I'm gonna hit you since you have the pillowfort" sort of comments. The difference is that Suppressor Skyguard engages them in a different kind of math. They can't just pay 2 of their own mana to hit me, no, NOW they have to piss off the rest of the table JUST to try and hit me. And of course, it won't be the only pillowfort card I'm playing. Ok great, so they've committed to hitting everyone else with at least one creature, but now they have to get through my Ghostly Prison cost or my Maze of Ith. Is it REALLY worth it to them to do so? No. So they'll probably just target other players until they feel like they can take me on or can deal with my pillowfort in some way. Which, provided I build my deck well, will give me the time to build a strategy with my Azorius flyiers/soldiers (Harbin is a great commander for this) in order to end the game before they can properly respond. There are a dozen pillowfort cards that say "you can't attack unless you pay x" but there are almost NONE that say "you can only attack if you fulfill this politically awful choice". Again, paying 2 colorless to attack me feels like a 50/50 or maybe a 30/70 where there is enough of a chance that someone will pay the 2 just to hit me with 1 bigass creature. Suppressor Skyguard, for Azorius pillowfort decks, is an absolute UPGRADE because it covers that extra blindside. It punishes players in a couple ways that your standard pillowfort cards do not. If you run too few creatures and focus on building up maybe one or two creatures, then you cannot attack me. If you are in a situation where attacking the whole table is scary or you know will backfire on you, you WILL NOT attack me. In any case, that's what Azorius is all about: it's about making your opponents make awful decisions for you so that you can build a fortress around their uncertainty to act. It's a perfect Azorius card and yeah, 2/4 isn't that great but who says it will stay a 2/4 when humans or flying tribal is so easy to build around?
Unexplained Absence is a tricky one. I think it's a very good card but yeah the politics of it could be tough...if you hit everyone you piss them all off. HOWEVER, how is that different than many board wipes that many people play anyway? In some sense, it's better to piss everyone off rather than have everyone piss ON you (lol Robin Hood Men In Tights reference). That is to say, if everyone has stuff on their board state that enables them to threaten you, you could remove that stuff so EVEN IF they're pissed off, you shut off their combo or their strategy momentarily. OR let's say you ARE the threat and they all team up to get you, well...then what's the harm in playing this and targeting everyone anyway? Also...for an Azorius pillowfort, flyers (sorta kinda human/ human soldiers tribal deck) this set has given me so many gold options to run. Trouble In Pairs, Unexplained Absence, Suppressor Skyguard, Portal Manipulator...As if Lost Cavern of Ixalan's "Thousand Moons Smithy" wasn't already AWESOME for my go wide, soldiers strategy. Loving all the love coming my way haha
Crim, you said your New Year Resolution was to to play more combo, AND you say that you hate artifacts, well have a look at Mycosynth Lattice + Anzrag's Rampage! LETSGOOOOO!!!
Why is the argument “5c is a green base deck” a reason to say Archdruid’s charm is playable there? Yes you are primarily green, but in a 4C/5C you are ramping to find OTHER COLORS. Unless you are okay with not playing this on curve, I would not slot it in a 5c deck.
Archdruid’s charm: A, seems quite good, there are some fun things you can do with instant speed, but color requirement is steep Trouble in Pairs: S, just want to point out that the theoretical upper limit of this card is 27 cards per turn cycle (won’t happen, but still) Unexplained Absence: A, Richard is trolling. Realistically, you’re rarely going to get full value of killing 3 great things, but you can politics this card easily. How can you highly rate skullwinder and then give this a C? Anzrag: B, it’s going to get targeted so much and needs support to consistently do the thing you want Worldsoul’s Rage: B, will be good in the right deck but hardly a staple Warlord’s Call: B, same deal as above, but looks fun Anzrag’s Rampage: B, needs to be in big creature deck, lacks the flexibility of vandalblast Delney: A, the value is too good, and there are plenty of cards you want to play anyway along with this Doppelgang: C, basically bad until you pay 8 mana or more, and it’s a sorcery. Just seems overcosted. Aurelia: high C or low B, there are just better payoffs at this mana value in these colors, and 3 creatures attacking is kind of a lot Immortal Obligation: C, but really depends on your playgroup. There are a lot of ways that this can go wrong. Portal Manipulator: C, but getting someone with this is going to feel good Suppressor Skyguard: B, again attacking with 3 creatures is kind of a lot, so this is going to prevent all combat damage for you a lot of the time. It’s one of those cards that people usually won’t target with removal unless they need to kill you.
For Unexplained Absence, i think its more comparable to Guff Rewrites History, but i'm considering it compared cards in its own color identity like Grasp of Fate. For one more mana, the opponents are not getting the cards back if it's subsequently removed, and it's at instant speed. Huge upgrade, at minimum a B+/A-... Def not as low as C IMO.
Im with Crim for Unexplained Absence. You can wait till the end of the last turn cycle or combat attackers declared. Worldly, vampiric, basically fix the top of your deck with a Tutor. Then "Unexplained" remove an Ulamog, manifest your own Blight steel, or Etali. Whatever you chose won't have summoning sickness when the turn passes to you. It's white so you can flicker it up, so even top fixing for a non-creature spell might be fine.
Portal mage and suppressor skyguard do WORK alongside oracle en-vec and misleading signpost. My Faramir, Steward of Gondor deck is a NIGHTMARE to play against, but it works
There are several white cards from this set that are absolute bangers. Trouble In Pairs slots perfectly into a control deck. You are slowing people down and gaining value. Plus, F*** extra turns 😅. I love it. I can't wait to slot it into my decks. Unexplained Absence is really good too. Especially if you have a token to exile to gain value yourself. Send a stupid 1/1 Human into oblivion and flip over something else that you can still cast. Not bad.
The crew's S ranks are very optimistic. Maybe rightly so but... Forcing Archdruid's charm in many 3+ color decks is probably going to lead to lots of headaches and disappointment if you're on any kind of moderately budgeted mana base. Players get color screwed in mono-colored decks. It's an issue that always comes up more than intended -- especially if you're trying to keep it up as a reaction spell. Having said that I am forcing it into most of my three color green decks. Trouble in Pairs just feels like another card in the long line of reactive white card draw that never performs as good in practice as it does in theory. I don't like my opponents dictating when I get to draw cards and in a design space where Wizards is constantly designing alternative methods of card advantage such as impulse draw, play off top of library, returning milled cards, etc there might be games where the Trouble in Pairs only feels like trouble for you. It's that inconsistency which sours me on the card.
I think of it as similar to a white Rhystic Study, except the triggers are more niche but can't be countered by paying mana. I think it'll actually perform really well because of that. It'll likely draw you at least 2 cards a turn if not more simply because the conditions for the draw, while niche individually, are pretty easy to meet when put together. It ensures that your hand will almost never be empty while it's there.
Yo Crim, if you want to see Trouble in Pairs pop off, check out the first Spike Feeders MKM precon video. It was something along the lines of a 4 mana, draw 15 over 2-3 turns.
I always trust Crim the most in these videos. The way I see most of them at this point is: Crim- The most logical overall, especially in terms of true raw card power Seth- Middle ground between casual and competitive rater Tomer- Very good at rating cards for casual and seeing potential in cards, but not as good at knowing the EXACT power Richard- Insane, but will be right in unpredictable ways at random, a complete wild card
I've seen vandalblast cast twice. Once overloaded while 90% of my mana came from rocks and once for one on t1 targeting my t1 sol ring on a one land keep. Vandalblast, in my experience lol, is very strong. The mole gods Rampage is slightly more niche but still very powerful
Richard, please look at these comments. I know you think you're being some clairvoyant visionary, but you're just proving video after video that you don't understand commander. I have played the new Aurelia in 3 games already. You are straight wrong with your whole take about her. Which unfortunately is par for the course for you.
Richard, if you think of a boardwipe as the baseline for removal, then single targeted removal is the Skullwinder of boardwipes - you don’t kill other opponent’s stuff lowering group aggro, essentially giving them creatures, while doing the same for yourself, and here’s the kicker: multiple times cheaper to cast. It took a long time of itching to figure out why your conflicting stated philosophies bothered me so much and now I think I’ve defined the paradox.
Have to pay attention to what equipment you're using with Delney only doubles triggers off creatures. If the equipment doesn't give the creature the ability, then it will only triggers once. Whenever equipped creature attacks .vs. "Whenever this creature attacks"
Suppressor Skyguard is a great fog effect. Seth is wrong about this card. He’s like it doesn’t do anything. By it not doing anything, it’s doing a whole bunch. You’re not gonna be attacked. A combo has to kill you or a board wipe. Suppressor is such a good card
Delney will not cause you to draw two cards off Welcoming Vampire. Triggers only once each turn overrides triggering multiple times. Still good in a Delney deck tho because it still draws when you play your other dorks Edit: Also, none of those equipment work unless they give the creatures themselves abilities, so sword of the animist and such will not double
Crim is spitting...Unexplained Absence will be straight gas. I've seen Chaos Warp some permanent that doesn't matter [in the current board state] into value. Why not pay [1] more to remove things and maybe even set up a creature with a top deck tutor?
![FendiDa Rappa - Clock Dat ft. Shamar Marco [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/3NBU8KHdxYY/mqdefault.jpg)
Richard always blows my mind ... He is always about don't 1 for 1 but then a 3 for 1 exile spell comes out and he still is down on it. I just think he doesn't believe in any removal.
His philosophy is more “don’t piss people off” and a 3-for-1 removal spell is the epitome of “make the table hate you”
And in some respects that makes sense. did you really need to remove permanents 2 and 3? Because now that player hates you.
Whereas a board wipe feels less targeted “sorry I’m nuking everything. It’s not personal”
I completely disagree with this blanket philosophy personally, but I understand it
The big thing you and Richard missed : It's a "may" spell ! You NEVER have to piss off the table... Also Richard has kind of a parasitic approach to spot removal in EDH, like "people will deal with problems, I'll save my deckslots for synergy" which only works if everybody else at the table eats their vegetables and plays enough removal like a responsible EDH player
@@DonWanri Richard does play removal, he jams 8 wraths in every deck. If you're playing a 2 card combo at instant speed for like 6 mana you stuff Richard decks because he won't have anything to interact with that unless he's in blue for his 1 counterspell.
@@hammernnaila7031I was specifically talking about spot removal
@@TonyScimeca This card is inherently political too. Sure you are removing something from everyone but you can still make choices that are good for the pod and not just detrimental to a single player. Sure im getting rid of player As best card but im also removing player Bs lock piece.
Crim is the only one who's right about Unexplained Absence. You get to exile UP TO 3 permanents (or 4 if you want to cloak your own card), it's instant speed, and all they get is a 2/2 in return. And, if that 2/2 isn't a creature, you've effectively removed another card from their library. For 4 mana? The card is so good.
I used to think Richard was on to something but now I just think he’s crazy 😂
He is
Unexplained Absence is notable "up to" so you don't need to target things that don't matter and incidentally annoy people. Without that text I agree that it's not a strict upgrade over generous gift, but since it doesn't need to hit something for each player it should be the first non-swords removal you put in every white deck
They don't even read the cards they talk about.
You lose the option of hitting lands, but you also get the upgrade of exile over destroy. And you kill up to 3 of your opponents’ things. Card is great.
It is excellent. You can politic advantage w secondary targets offering opponents opportunity they might like, or avoidance if they prefer
Damn, Richard is in all your heads. Crim spitting facts for Unexplained Absence. Crazy
"Bury me with 7 cards in hand" is a heck of a quote.
Seth: *Makes cogent argument*
Crim: "But like...C'mon!"
Richard logic: Don't play targeted removal
Also Richard: don't play a creature that dies to doom blade
It's actually "don't play a creature that needs to sit out on the battlefield to do anything if you plan to wrath the board anyways"
Solution: Only play interaction never cast your commander. Play a deck with only counter spells and board wipes and a wincon.
@@6ixpool520 there are so many situations where I don't wanna wrath the board, EDH games are diversed.
Unexplained Absence; i get that 4 mana seems steep nowadays, but 4 mana is only boardwipe territory for *creatures*, not nonland permanents, which basically starts at 6 and is not instant speed. You are not pissing off anyone you don't need to, because you are targeting UP TO one permanent for each player - only if they have something gross.
Yeah, Delney is pretty narrow with what'll actually work with it, especially if you're using it as the commander:
Esper Sentinel, Spirited Companion, Solemn Simulacrum, Mentor of the Meek, Welcoming Vampire, Wall of Omens Knight of the White Orchid, Archivist of Oghma, Adeline, Rumor Gatherer, Mangara, Soul Warden, Loran, Soul's Ateendant, Thraben Inspector, Skyclave App....
Huh, wait that's barely even scratching the surface... Not to mention other colors:
Ewit, Dockside, Rec Sage, Blood Artist, Zulaport, Gary, Scute, Emeritus, Pitiless Plunderer, Champion of Lambholt, Mulldrifter, Baleful Strix, Lotus Cobra, Toski, Recruiter, Guttersnipe, Vito....
The list just keeps going, I've barely even mentioned other Commanders that would slam this like they did Roaming Throne. Every card I've listed is played heavily in the format, many of which in the same decks that would all benefit from Delney on the field. Don't sleep on this card, it's early price is high for a reason.
I always have the opposite experience than Richard with the "randomly remove something from each player's board." Typically you have one big threat, a secondary threat, and something that doesn't really matter. The person with the big threat is set back, the person with the secondary threat is sad but understands it had to happen, and the person with nothing was in no position to argue. It balances out because while you set people behind, you also saved their bacon.
Preach
Exactly. Most times people are relieved that you dealt with the biggest threat on the table, even if it comes at the cost of something small they had.
I am that player, someone blew up my mana rock because they had one of these modal spells to answer the threat and I countered every one of his spells until we both lost.
If a spell says "target" on it, Richard thinks that it's trash. Case in point: he thinks Cyclonic Rift is bad.
He thinks any card that isn't "(1) Richard wins the game" is bad.
Their logic on suppressor skyguard is faulty. Just because it gets board wiped, does that mean every card is garbage? Even sheoldred can get wiped. Supressor forces your opponents to attack each other and lose life or creatures OR if they don’t have enough creatures it protects you. The added bonus of being a flyer and a knight makes it essential for the esper knight precon. It’s so so for all other decks. If it is randomly going into a deck I’d give it a B- not amazing, but not trash like Seth thinks.
The more I listen to them, the more difficult it is to watch these podcasts. It's just so out of touch they are with commander it seems.
If you’re ever in a pod with Richard, just take him out first when he’s sitting on his empty board with 7 lands. He’s not going to have any removal to help out if someone else starts to get out of control anyway, so might as well put things better in your favor and make it a 3-player game.
Crim is really me when playing mtg. If everyone is targeting me anyway, why flinch away from value?
Seth looks like Bo Rai Cho from Mortal Kombat.
Is that drunken fist master?
@@colecarmichael5724yea lol
Unexplained Absence not getting S from everyone is so crazy. Like....what. its so powerful.
It's because they don't realize it's a may ability since it says "up to"
@@singularleaf3895even if it wasn’t that, I hate the, aww but people will be mad at me for playing it, it’s horrible logic
@burnsboy101 you have to respect the "don't get mad at me" clause because at some point they will switch to a grixis+ on the stack combo win deck, and then no one has fun but them
So it's good, but the problem is that it can still compete with other removal. Reason why swords and path get a lot of play is part of the fact that they're cheap to play.
I could be playing Get Lost for half the mana and still do my game plan, and probably make one person aggro'd compared to 3
I think they're just not comparing it to the right cards. This is more akin to Reality Shift or Excise the Imperfect. It's also Sunforger'able, flexible if you have top deck manipulation to replace a token with a morph/neater or if you need to remove something an opponent is trying to steal or gave you as a spoiled gift (anti-Jon Irenicus tech? :p). I wouldn't give it an S as it is 4 mana, but that's a solid A for me.
I find the Vandalblast-Anzrag's Rampage discussion kind of funny because the moment I saw that card, I knew I was going to use it to replace Vandalblast in my Rionya Fire Dancer list.
Warleader's Call makes me finally want to pull the trigger on building the Rocco, secret-commander-Norin the Wary list that I have been kicking around for a while.
Welcoming Vampire would only trigger once. Explorers Scope doesnt give the creature the ability, so it would only trigger once aswell.
The mole god also had a hidden win condition. If you Fog preventing all COMBAT damage not all damage. This plus the lure effect let’s any pinger kill the whole table
It says up to one. If your worried about making people upset don't choose one of their cards. That's a really bad argument for the card. Its 1 more many to lose ability to target lands but gain ability to hit up to 3 more things, and exile not destroy.
You can exile your own pointless thing to make a 2/2 blocker if getting attacked by more then 1 creature. It just has so much diversity that it seems really good to pay the extra 1 mana
Unexplained Absense is WAAAY better than Chaos Warp. 1) It's EXILE any nonland permanent. 2) It's instant speed. 3) It's for each player, but you don't have to do it to yourself, because it's UP TO one. 4) They can only uncloak the card if it's a creature. 5) If they want to uncloak it, they have to pay its mana cost and don't get its ETB if there is one.
uhm youre right but warp is also instant?
I think the stax part of Trouble in Pairs is actually a good way to give decks that would otherwise have no answers to the extra turn decks a way to fight back (they already did that with Gerrard’s Pendant to be fair). It’s not narrow like the goad hate creature. It’s organic nerfing of an archetype.
Right up until Richard started talking about Aurelia I thought he knew his stuff :P... its literal Sera Angel with haste that can also draw cards and deal extra damage to the table or forces opponents to choose not to attack. What do you want? There's so much up side and zero down side. Its free value that fits in basically any go wide build.
Then you guys get to Suppressor Skyguard and he completely argues against his earlier argument. He's now saying people can always attack with 3 creatures, where 10 minutes earlier he said they almost never do except the last attack to win. Sheer insanity. What the card reads is, if a player cannot attack every other player, you don't need to block AND you get a free attacker with evasion. Add on to all this that in the past he's argued heavily for little chump blockers to keep your life total up. How can he not see that this is basically the best chump blocker ever printed? THEN, as if the crazy train hadn't already left the station, he argues that its a bad creature because it dies to wraths and spot removal... Because that doesn't describe every other creature in the game too. Unfortunately you can't pair it with something that removes a single attacker and get the trigger. That would be nuts.
Yeah Richard is wild with his philosophy of floor and ceiling. 😂 I literally tune out when he talks.
Richard’s style of playing is durdle around, do literally nothing the whole game, make other people remove things, then come in at the last moment and try to steal the win. He’s even said before he doesn’t like cards that put you ahead because people will target you, so in his mind good cards actually = bad cards.
@@totakekeslider3835 This is what made no sense.... Suppressor Skyguard is custom made for a durdle deck. Its perfect for his playstyle... his reasoning totally broke my brain. :)
Can’t believe it took you that long lol. By the third card it should have been obvious that his takes are terrible. 4 mana exile 3 things at instant speed is bad? Hell no. His philosophy of “if it’s good it draws aggro so you shouldn’t play it” is terrible.
I actually agree with him about Aurelia though. By the time you get her out (turn 4 or 5 usually) most of the time, people will have enough creatures that anyone attacking with 3+ creatures is pretty unlikely because those creatures will probably die, and it becomes more unlikely that they’ll be attacking the longer the game goes on, the only exception being that they’re about to win, in which case Aurelia won’t help you. It’s so rare that you’ll be in a situation where Aurelia does something other than attack on her own, that it’s not worth it. The only exception is if she’s leading a flying tribal deck.
@@Crunchatize_Me_Senpai You mean like if she's part of a boros angels deck... like she's obviously intended to be. :P She takes your deck, that is attacking with multiple vigilant creatures anyway and pays you for doing what you're already doing.
This set is crazy for my #1 - council of four
I feel the same way. Council 4 the win
Can't wait to add Pairs and Delney to the Council! All the value!
For sure, haven't gotten this many pieces for it since LOTR.
What didnyou add from lotr@@malmasterson3890
Don't expect Richard to make sense he's been playing mind games with the crew for years with his stratagems
I'm surprised they didnt compare trouble in pairs to mangara. It almost has the same text and mana cost but in enchantment form.
Trouble in pairs also triggers from opponents drawing extra cards, which is probably the strongest aspect
I'm with Crim
As someone who is usually the archenemy i have absolutely no qualms with 3-for-1'ing the whole table if it means dealing with immediate threats
I like spot removal but Im going to say what needs to be said: a lot of people use spot removal to replace threat evaluation. Instead of figuring out what an opponent will do withtheir threats, its easier to just remove it from the game.
At 29:30 don't forget cards like faithless looting and wheel of fortune that can pitch lands to graveyards. Red's non-impulse card draw is almost all that way, so decks that use their graveyards more will love this card with the package of pitch/draw red cards
Delney with: Malcolm,Tymna, Ragavan, Derevi, Dockside, Esper Sentinel, Lotho, Archivist of Oghma, Orcish Bowmasters, Imperial Recruiter, Recruiter of the Guard, Toski, Ohran Frosfang. Welcome to Cedh my Beloved Delney. Shout-out to Archdruids Charm for having exile clause.
Richard is going to realize his mistake pretty soon. This card is going to warp every format it sees play in.
Krark, lol
@@baconsir1159 Displacer Kitten, Zur, Academy Manufacturer, Academy Rector, Raffine...
dismantling wave and unexplained absence is the kind of removal we need. As a rule. I try to not run spot removal. I want to hit all the other players with my removal suite. And unexplained absence as well as dismantling wave allow me to do both.
new aurelia is now the best commander of boros angels
Richard thinks 3 for 1 is bad? What a dork
I think Worldsoul’s Rage is potentially interesting in Magus Lucea Kane
If you tune it to fill the grave, it could def take advantage of the obscene X potential.
17:31 It doesn't activate etb effects (which is part of the power from many creatures.)
1:01:23 I love that Richard complained about Aurelia saying nobody ever has three creatures let alone five, and Seth here is saying everyone always has 1/1s to spare every single combat. The different perspectives on how a game goes and when a card is relevant is so good. These discussions are great.
There's a million cards in white and read that make attackers or tokens on attack. Not sure what he is thinking.
A weird thing about Anzrag's Rampage is, while yes it only destroys artifacts you don't control, it exiles cards based off any artifact sent to the graveyard this turn. I'm assuming this means if you sacrifice 5 treasures to cast it, you get to exile 5 cards + any artifacts destroyed by its effect.
I feel like I don't understand how that card isn't terrible. It exiles X cards off your deck. You pick 1 creature get it for a turn then the creature goes to your hand. So if someone's running Academy Manufactor and treasures and there's, let's say 40 tokens on the battlefield, that card permanently exiles almost half your deck for a single turn haymaker?
Isn't that dead in hand quite a lot on most tables? Either there's not enough targets for it to be worth it's mana cost, or it won't dig deep enough to actually find something, or the amount of your deck it exiles won't be something you can play around.
@@RanDOmNumBErs108 I agree, its not great. The first time I read it, I assumed it put the exiled cards back on bottom or something, but nah it just straight up exiles them. Its not a terrible effect, but the people saying its a straight replacement for Vandal Blast are mental.
@@RanDOmNumBErs108 That situation with Manufactor will never happen. If you let it create that many treasures, then you die regardless. Or they're a bad player, since somehow they haven't won yet.
It's a great artifact clear, and on average it'll be really impactful. I'm not terribly concerned about the stuff I exile, either.
@@RanDOmNumBErs108 this is my one hesitation with the card. if it returned the cards, to graveyard or deck either one, It would be a sure S.
@marshallscot To be honest with you the first thought I had when I saw this card was it'd be funny to run it in my Breya Artifacts deck so I could cast it with Mycosynth Lattice out, and deck myself into Thorcale. That was the only use case I could come up with.
So that might say more about me not understanding the opportunity cost of casting this in a dedicated creatures deck and the type of people/decks i regularly play with rather than the quality of the card.
sam and frodo have a LOT of
Unexplained absence is UP TO ONE target… you don’t HAVE to exile something it’s ALL UPSIDE
Archdruids charm is definitely S-tier and I’m surprised it isn’t increasing in price a little. Really freaking good for a 3 cost.
Sometimes it feels like Richard simply goes "It's not farewell... C-"
trouble in pairs hates on extra turns because two turns is like a "pair," just like all the other conditions are "pairs" of actions. Like drawing two cards that turn, or "playing a second spell" that turn.
Unexplaines Absence and Trouble in Pairs are must play autoincludes in almost every white deck
In reality, Unexplained Absence will hit every single thing that this crew has valued as problematic or super strong; 4 mana to exile two The One Ring and a Toski. I don't get why they don't value this card higher judging by how they value the cards mentioned above who all have "indestructible" as the cherry on top and that everybody should play according to them.
the crew always gets me with these convos... we see you guys play like 2 spot removal spells in your entire deck but you're also saying Anzrag is just going to be spot removed? uhhh by what? he's gonna come down, get boots or somethin slapped on him and you're not gonna be able to touch that big boy until he's beating you to death.
I'd be surprised if everybody except crim in this group didn't get bodied most of the time by actual aggro decks.
I must be the only player that thinks Archdruid’s Charm is trash. Crim is correct in that the triple green is a difficult ask for the spell. Not to mention that the three modes it provides are overcosted. I wiuldn’t wven play this in mono green, let alone any 2 plus color decks. Certainly not a 5 color deck. Once people start playing with it they will see it for the garbage that it is.
God Richard is consistently bad at evaluating new cards. He seriously doesn’t understand so many aspects of the game. Maybe it’s by design to people like me to comment.
People seem to miss read anzrags rampage. You don't get the cards you exiled back only the single creature. So the more artifacts you destroy the more cards you exile and you could actually end up neutering yourself
im suprised you guys didn't rate snarling gorehound that card is insanely gas at 1 mana
One small correction on Delney: Welcoming Vampire will still only trigger once even with Delney out; the “only triggers once per turn” clause overrides their replacement ability.
Portal manipulator and immortal obligation are exactly the kind of gotcha level jank that I want to play in my decks.
Delney is the perfect card for Burakos//Folk Hero decks. Doesn't even need party typing.
Crim was so sensible of archdruid's charm. That card is just so mid in like 3 color plus decks. Ramping mana works out, but you don't keep 3 land. If you want to play casual edh or in other words bad decks, sure it's not bad. If you want to play " cedh" marwyn, sylvala, or yissan which aren't really that great to begin with sure. A or B would be valid since it would be pretty low.
What are you even talking about? This whole channel is centered around casual EDH, not competitive. The card is cracked for 99% of the player base in every single deck with green.
@@totakekeslider3835 the use of "good in casual" is an excuse for running bad cards. If it was an actual good card, it would be used in the 3+ color cedh decks. Of the decks that run green, more often than not, the colors are 3+ when including green. This is okay in mono colored and mid in 2 color, but it is awful in 3+ colors. I'm quite sure 99% of decks that have green are 1 or 2 colors. It would be even more narrow to try and find a deck that runs those few colors that someone would even play. You can play casual but dont call a card "S" tier when it clearly isn't.
@@asdfasgdfgsd107 I think you honestly just have a fundamental misunderstanding of this channel and also this grading system. A card doesn’t have to only be good in CEDH to make it viable in regular commander. Plenty of cards that are amazing in CEDH are niche/pretty bad in regular commander, for example. Cards like Stifle, Red Elemental Blast, Autumn Veil, etc. are S-tier in CEDH but mediocre in casual. On the flip-side, power house cards like Craterhoof Behemoth, Farewell, Elesh Norn, etc. are mediocre in CEDH, but in no way could you possibly say these are “bad cards,” even when their viability stems from “casual” where 99% of the player base lives.
@@totakekeslider3835 edh is a singular format. Competitive edh is still apart of that format. For a card to be s tier if must be in all decks that can play green. Cedh decks that have green often do not play it. Therefore it is not S tier.
Unexplained absence isn't just for creatures, and its an UP TO, meaning you can choose not to aggro the whole table. It can also potentially ruin your opponent's future plans and give you a chump blocker if you have a card you dont want or need on your field. Its a pretty flexible card for 4 mana.
Anzrag's Rampage will only work in the big stompy or sacrifice decks, because you dont get the other exiled cards back. Its also a little too dependant on the board. Hit too few artifacts, and you might not get anything. Hit too many, and there goes your library, and the card you bring back isnt gonna stay for long. Notably, it hits your artifacts too, so if you need those, too bad.
Doppelgang can hit non-creature permanents too. Worse case, you can make a copy of Rhystic or Sol Ring, or a Yavimaya's cradle for 5. The fact it gets multiplicative the more you pump it means its not a dead card ever in mid to late game.
Aurelia will work with any goad or token deck, which is 50% of boros (the other 50% being Equipment), so its honestly not a bad card by any means, just generically good. 5 mana haste commander also means you should be building your boardstate anyway, so its not that hard to build around.
Immortal Obligation does kinda suck with no targets and i dont see it being cEDH by any means...but it is a really good politics card and even if you don't care, using it on the biggest creature in someone else's graveyard means it'll put in a lot of work for a 2 mana instant.
Portal Manipulator is actually a deceptively good card, specifically because of the colors its in. The colors that get the most value out of interacting with opponents as well as the ideal colors for blink decks are probably going to be holding up mana. I'm just convinced at this point the Richard doesnt like playing anything at instant speed with mana value 4 or greater.
Suppressor Skyguard is a meh card. Sure, It'll protect you from being player targeted somewhat, but its not that hard of an effect to get around and at least Portal Manipulator has flash. That being said, it has potential to add more value to an Azorius stax deck, so there's at least some hope for it.
I'm with Crim we need cards that punish drawing extra cards and tutoring.
Welcoming vampire still says this only triggers once a turn while the other card says triggers an additional time. Doesnt that mean it can still only trigger once?
Yes, only once
No mention of Reenact the Crime?! Would love to see Crim’s reaction to it.
Anzrag's Rampage is too big of a trap. Treasures, Clues, and Foods being so prolific in commander makes it that this could literally deck you as people just won't sacrifice them to see you get wrecked.
People can still sac them in response. Rampage specifically checks for number of arti entering the yard this turn, not just ones put there by it's resolution.
Delney also fits really well in a Doran the SeigeTower deck. Makes all your big butts much harder to block. And if one or two happen to have Infect...
Bold of crim, mr 3 lands, to fight for a 4 mana removal spell.
Anzrag really shines in the 99 of a Xenagos deck
I am hoping it will shine in my General Marhault Elsdragon deck too.
Neat idea for a clash episode. Each of your opponents gets to put 3 cards in each opponents deck of their choice.
So for example - crim would build a deck of 88 cards and seth, Richard and Tomer would each decide 3 cards that deck plays.
This way you can build around what your opponents are playing or create combos or chaos in your opponents decks
I aways love these for new sets, but i kind of want to see you all go back and revisit some of your old rankings
here's the problem with the portal mage and the way you guys see it. you treat it as a 1v1 game when it's most times 4 player. You're also in azorius which is known for holding up countermagic. That aggro player could easily assume you're going to hold up counter magic or play an eot draw spell, etc. or maybe you're holding it up for someone elses turn, so they attack and you redirect it. Albeit the blue artifact does the same thing and more, but still.
I think unexplained absence is excellent. We’ll see if it’s an “every deck”, but I’m buying quite a few. “Up To” is crucial.
Unexplained absence is absolute gassss
It seems like Richard hates all new cards 😂
Trouble in Pairs is easily my favorite card of the set. Adding it to every 3c and less white deck!
Looking at unexplained absence. I think it's s tier for sure. I'm usually archenemy and being able to pop 3 targets for 4 it's valid.
Aurelia is great, Richard isn't thinking with perspective. You can nudge people to not attack you with things like firemane commando, gix, ghostly prison etc. You think they'll greed less and send dudes at you when they can draw more by just smacking the other 2 people? Yeah right lol. Tag card draw and you better believe all the etb dorks are going to battle! It's just a matter of gently steering them in the proper direction.
I belive you mistead aurelia, YOU are the one drawing, no matter who attacks with 3 or more.
@@Shimatzu95 No, I didn't misread it. Yes, you are drawing. But if you provide some incentive for the other guy to attack someone else, they will even if it gives you a card.
@@l0k Oh you were seeing it from THAT axis, honestly i doubt people will even check with how much they are attacking(aka if you draw from it), as most people dont realy care how much you draw unless it direktly impacts them (like with triggers on drawing).
Funny how your grades for Immortal obligation spell "poop" in Spanish. Maybe that's foreshadowing 😂
Wow. A card that finally makes Richard compliment Swords? Didn’t have that on my bingo card today
Delney does NOT cause you to draw two cards with Welcoming Vampire because the latter has a restriction on how many times it can trigger, i.e. it cannot trigger twice. This is different from copying an ability.
I think Unexpected Absence might be the first time Crim has swayed me on a card. It's Grasp of Fate+ and I already like Grasp of Fate
Always fan of the Commander Clash FOGcast.
Suppressor Skyguard is cool for my fliers deck, since it (and Windborn Muse) let me be a little more reckless swinging my flying dorks around. Less worrying about the crackback.
41:37 ❤ delney. Bowmaster. Mastermind. Ledger shredder. Snapcaster. Ogma, tymna.
Also...about Portal Manipulator...yeah maybe there are more OPTIMAL cards for 4 mana but let's be honest, it's REALLY satisfying haha. I once played a Windshaper Planetar which does pretty much the same thing and redirected all combat damage over to someone else and killed them instead. Hilarious and satisfying to be able to say to the person who thought they'd kill me "Actually, no, you're killing them instead".
I will also say as someone who sorta religiously plays all the blue and white pillowfort cards...Propaganda, Ghostly Prison, Windborn Muse, Baird, even Champions of Minas Tirith (and until recently Norn's Annex) that Suppressor Skyguard HAS TO BE better than Windborn Muse (though I will include BOTH in my deck). The reason it's better is because players ROUTINELY feel fine paying the 2 mana for Windborn Muse just to try and smack me with their one 12/12 pumped up creatures just to try and spite me. "I'm gonna hit you since you have the pillowfort" sort of comments. The difference is that Suppressor Skyguard engages them in a different kind of math. They can't just pay 2 of their own mana to hit me, no, NOW they have to piss off the rest of the table JUST to try and hit me. And of course, it won't be the only pillowfort card I'm playing. Ok great, so they've committed to hitting everyone else with at least one creature, but now they have to get through my Ghostly Prison cost or my Maze of Ith. Is it REALLY worth it to them to do so? No. So they'll probably just target other players until they feel like they can take me on or can deal with my pillowfort in some way. Which, provided I build my deck well, will give me the time to build a strategy with my Azorius flyiers/soldiers (Harbin is a great commander for this) in order to end the game before they can properly respond. There are a dozen pillowfort cards that say "you can't attack unless you pay x" but there are almost NONE that say "you can only attack if you fulfill this politically awful choice". Again, paying 2 colorless to attack me feels like a 50/50 or maybe a 30/70 where there is enough of a chance that someone will pay the 2 just to hit me with 1 bigass creature. Suppressor Skyguard, for Azorius pillowfort decks, is an absolute UPGRADE because it covers that extra blindside. It punishes players in a couple ways that your standard pillowfort cards do not. If you run too few creatures and focus on building up maybe one or two creatures, then you cannot attack me. If you are in a situation where attacking the whole table is scary or you know will backfire on you, you WILL NOT attack me. In any case, that's what Azorius is all about: it's about making your opponents make awful decisions for you so that you can build a fortress around their uncertainty to act. It's a perfect Azorius card and yeah, 2/4 isn't that great but who says it will stay a 2/4 when humans or flying tribal is so easy to build around?
Unexplained Absence is a tricky one. I think it's a very good card but yeah the politics of it could be tough...if you hit everyone you piss them all off. HOWEVER, how is that different than many board wipes that many people play anyway? In some sense, it's better to piss everyone off rather than have everyone piss ON you (lol Robin Hood Men In Tights reference). That is to say, if everyone has stuff on their board state that enables them to threaten you, you could remove that stuff so EVEN IF they're pissed off, you shut off their combo or their strategy momentarily. OR let's say you ARE the threat and they all team up to get you, well...then what's the harm in playing this and targeting everyone anyway?
Also...for an Azorius pillowfort, flyers (sorta kinda human/ human soldiers tribal deck) this set has given me so many gold options to run. Trouble In Pairs, Unexplained Absence, Suppressor Skyguard, Portal Manipulator...As if Lost Cavern of Ixalan's "Thousand Moons Smithy" wasn't already AWESOME for my go wide, soldiers strategy. Loving all the love coming my way haha
Crim, you said your New Year Resolution was to to play more combo, AND you say that you hate artifacts, well have a look at Mycosynth Lattice + Anzrag's Rampage! LETSGOOOOO!!!
Why is the argument “5c is a green base deck” a reason to say Archdruid’s charm is playable there?
Yes you are primarily green, but in a 4C/5C you are ramping to find OTHER COLORS. Unless you are okay with not playing this on curve, I would not slot it in a 5c deck.
Archdruid’s charm: A, seems quite good, there are some fun things you can do with instant speed, but color requirement is steep
Trouble in Pairs: S, just want to point out that the theoretical upper limit of this card is 27 cards per turn cycle (won’t happen, but still)
Unexplained Absence: A, Richard is trolling. Realistically, you’re rarely going to get full value of killing 3 great things, but you can politics this card easily. How can you highly rate skullwinder and then give this a C?
Anzrag: B, it’s going to get targeted so much and needs support to consistently do the thing you want
Worldsoul’s Rage: B, will be good in the right deck but hardly a staple
Warlord’s Call: B, same deal as above, but looks fun
Anzrag’s Rampage: B, needs to be in big creature deck, lacks the flexibility of vandalblast
Delney: A, the value is too good, and there are plenty of cards you want to play anyway along with this
Doppelgang: C, basically bad until you pay 8 mana or more, and it’s a sorcery. Just seems overcosted.
Aurelia: high C or low B, there are just better payoffs at this mana value in these colors, and 3 creatures attacking is kind of a lot
Immortal Obligation: C, but really depends on your playgroup. There are a lot of ways that this can go wrong.
Portal Manipulator: C, but getting someone with this is going to feel good
Suppressor Skyguard: B, again attacking with 3 creatures is kind of a lot, so this is going to prevent all combat damage for you a lot of the time. It’s one of those cards that people usually won’t target with removal unless they need to kill you.
For Unexplained Absence, i think its more comparable to Guff Rewrites History, but i'm considering it compared cards in its own color identity like Grasp of Fate. For one more mana, the opponents are not getting the cards back if it's subsequently removed, and it's at instant speed. Huge upgrade, at minimum a B+/A-... Def not as low as C IMO.
Im with Crim for Unexplained Absence. You can wait till the end of the last turn cycle or combat attackers declared. Worldly, vampiric, basically fix the top of your deck with a Tutor. Then "Unexplained" remove an Ulamog, manifest your own Blight steel, or Etali. Whatever you chose won't have summoning sickness when the turn passes to you. It's white so you can flicker it up, so even top fixing for a non-creature spell might be fine.
Portal mage and suppressor skyguard do WORK alongside oracle en-vec and misleading signpost. My Faramir, Steward of Gondor deck is a NIGHTMARE to play against, but it works
There are several white cards from this set that are absolute bangers. Trouble In Pairs slots perfectly into a control deck. You are slowing people down and gaining value. Plus, F*** extra turns 😅. I love it. I can't wait to slot it into my decks.
Unexplained Absence is really good too. Especially if you have a token to exile to gain value yourself. Send a stupid 1/1 Human into oblivion and flip over something else that you can still cast. Not bad.
The crew's S ranks are very optimistic. Maybe rightly so but...
Forcing Archdruid's charm in many 3+ color decks is probably going to lead to lots of headaches and disappointment if you're on any kind of moderately budgeted mana base. Players get color screwed in mono-colored decks. It's an issue that always comes up more than intended -- especially if you're trying to keep it up as a reaction spell. Having said that I am forcing it into most of my three color green decks.
Trouble in Pairs just feels like another card in the long line of reactive white card draw that never performs as good in practice as it does in theory. I don't like my opponents dictating when I get to draw cards and in a design space where Wizards is constantly designing alternative methods of card advantage such as impulse draw, play off top of library, returning milled cards, etc there might be games where the Trouble in Pairs only feels like trouble for you. It's that inconsistency which sours me on the card.
Trouble in Pairs just gets better as the power level goes higher. I always slam it on turn 3/4 and it draws so many cards it's insane.
I think of it as similar to a white Rhystic Study, except the triggers are more niche but can't be countered by paying mana. I think it'll actually perform really well because of that. It'll likely draw you at least 2 cards a turn if not more simply because the conditions for the draw, while niche individually, are pretty easy to meet when put together. It ensures that your hand will almost never be empty while it's there.
"I am a boompile believer" - how can you not love Richard ❤😂
Edit: Who are we kidding, people will play Aurelia SIMPly because of her character ^-^
Yo Crim, if you want to see Trouble in Pairs pop off, check out the first Spike Feeders MKM precon video. It was something along the lines of a 4 mana, draw 15 over 2-3 turns.
I always trust Crim the most in these videos. The way I see most of them at this point is:
Crim- The most logical overall, especially in terms of true raw card power
Seth- Middle ground between casual and competitive rater
Tomer- Very good at rating cards for casual and seeing potential in cards, but not as good at knowing the EXACT power
Richard- Insane, but will be right in unpredictable ways at random, a complete wild card
I've seen vandalblast cast twice. Once overloaded while 90% of my mana came from rocks and once for one on t1 targeting my t1 sol ring on a one land keep. Vandalblast, in my experience lol, is very strong. The mole gods Rampage is slightly more niche but still very powerful
Richard, please look at these comments. I know you think you're being some clairvoyant visionary, but you're just proving video after video that you don't understand commander. I have played the new Aurelia in 3 games already. You are straight wrong with your whole take about her. Which unfortunately is par for the course for you.
Richard, if you think of a boardwipe as the baseline for removal, then single targeted removal is the Skullwinder of boardwipes - you don’t kill other opponent’s stuff lowering group aggro, essentially giving them creatures, while doing the same for yourself, and here’s the kicker: multiple times cheaper to cast. It took a long time of itching to figure out why your conflicting stated philosophies bothered me so much and now I think I’ve defined the paradox.
Have to pay attention to what equipment you're using with Delney only doubles triggers off creatures. If the equipment doesn't give the creature the ability, then it will only triggers once.
Whenever equipped creature attacks .vs. "Whenever this creature attacks"
I immediately took impact tremors out of my Jinnie fae deck and replaced with warleaders call. So worth it for 1 more mana.
Welcoming Vampire will only draw one card with Delney. Can't beats can. Welcoming Vampire can't trigger twice, just saying.
Suppressor Skyguard is a great fog effect. Seth is wrong about this card. He’s like it doesn’t do anything. By it not doing anything, it’s doing a whole bunch. You’re not gonna be attacked. A combo has to kill you or a board wipe. Suppressor is such a good card
Delney will not cause you to draw two cards off Welcoming Vampire. Triggers only once each turn overrides triggering multiple times. Still good in a Delney deck tho because it still draws when you play your other dorks
Edit: Also, none of those equipment work unless they give the creatures themselves abilities, so sword of the animist and such will not double
Crim is spitting...Unexplained Absence will be straight gas. I've seen Chaos Warp some permanent that doesn't matter [in the current board state] into value. Why not pay [1] more to remove things and maybe even set up a creature with a top deck tutor?
Archdruid's Dream just replaced Chord of Calling in my Gruff Triplets deck. So powerful.
As a note: Delney does NOT work with Welcoming Vampire. You should probably still run it though.