You gotta have a proper fear and respect for the battlecruiser Barry at the table. Once they get that critical mass of mana they can become extremely dangerous
I really do not think you should be playing Heartless Summoning as it is a non-bo with many of your token creators like Adeline Resplendant Cathar, Elendra the Duskrose, Elenda and Azor, and Hero of Bladhold. Leyline of Sanctity seems out of place in this deck as well. 4 mana just to not be targetable, does not seem to support the Knights' plan. Since you are playing Haakon Stromgald Scourge, I recommend Crib Swap and Nameless Inversion as reusable removal spells that can be cast from the graveyard when Haakon is in there. Wonder is quite easy to get into the graveyard with Sidar's Eminence ability and should be added to give all your Knights flying.
Definitely agree with heartless the summoning, there was a time I was messing with the idea; but the deck functions well without it. As for leyline of sanctity, I always go back and forth whether to throw them in graveyard based deck to protect it from bojuka bog, endurance, Nautiloid Ship, type effects in addition to the other effects it provides. Leyline and heartless are in the sideboard/maybeboard for that reason respectively. 100% agree the changeling spell type effects though, should do that asap. Wouldn't hurt to throw wonder in there for more evasion options too.
I’m sometimes milling sometimes battlecruising but the one closer to what I do is combo carl I guess even tho I don’t ever play infinite combos but I do like to win out of nowhere with a OTK
If a combo player has 2 cards in hand and someone else has 10 cards in hand and CANT interact with simple creature combo in ANY way, then they shouldnt be playing in a pod with combos.
As the grouphug player with minimal wincons in my group, i don't blame them when I'm considered the threat. Turns out fast decks don't like when the slow decks get free ramp from me.
I don't have a problem playing/against these cards in casual but I think a bigger issue is people don't pull punches at casual tables if they do have higher power cards.
What about Lil Bean Benny - they seem unassuming at first but become a threat because people think they're smol beans Side note - I need that jojo proxy of kynalos and tiro of meletis
Mpcfill, has a lot of MTG Arts. I love this comment, smol bean Benny oftentimes tries to play the part of being just a little guy so that no one notices him and reassures everybody that he's not the threat
Im non of these players and it cant be copied based on how i do things irl. Which is scorched earth and i counter everything possible without counter spells
I try not to remove Commanders unless it is ABSOLUTELY necessary. Reason: they ALWAYS come back. Being perfectly honest, Stax is the playstyle that has the most of my ire (especially Brago). Mill is bad to the extent that I now have to focus on recycling (which many of my decks do) instead of drawing into answers and removal. My own playstyle is more of a battlecruiser with group hug thrown in. I do admit that I love running a mill deck if I have to go against stax.
yo this is a boring deck, remember edh is a casual format, do less protection spells and focus on your deck having fuel and win cons, you should never stall out and building a dreadnaught should not be the goal, the goal is to end the match while letting others play.
Yet more counterpoints... MLD: mass land destruction is absolutely fine in an environment where massive land ramp and mana doubling is prevalent. I commented about something similar to this on your last video on this topic, about Dockside Extortionist, pointing out that other players should be careful not to overextend themselves. Stax: we've all played in a pod where that one player gets slowed down just enough to keep from going off. Stax is a time management thing, as long as you don't overdo it. Combat buys time directly from other players, Stax buys time from the game, itself. Mass Discard: players are still seeing their cards, and have time to utilize at least some of those resources. If you're not going with a hard Narset lock, there are options. Board wipe tribal: board wipes are good in small numbers, but Grave Pact and Martyr's Bond effects are repeatable, indiscriminate removal, and do what you're looking to do with a wrath, if you can outrun the other permanent generators at the table. It can also save you from having your whole plan wrecked if you play it into a Teferi's Protection. As previously stated, having a board state is a privilege, not a right. If you can't keep it, you don't deserve to have it. We're no longer living in an age of bad precons and moderately-powered sets, so why are we rolling up to commander pods with our kid gloves on? Things need not be hyperefficient, but style, and swinging for the fences, matter. Broken toys make for better forethought in deckbuilding, all around.
Agree with your list Plus : 1-2 cmc tutors 0-1 cmc mana rocks Free interaction The one ring Gaeas cradle Sylvan library Demonic consultation / Thassas oracle Ad nauseam Tainted pact Cards that prevent interaction like grand abolisher , ranger captan of eos, silence I don’t believe that a single one would remove your deck from the list of casual But they indeed push the power level
@@MoMoVsMTG your video was awesome because I was having this conversation with a friend that have a eldrazi deck with : mana crypt, mana vault, grim monolith, the one ring , lions eye diamond , unwinding clock, metal worker And he swear it is a mid deck
@@vccavalcanti @vccavalcanti right which all comes down to everybody's perspective of how powerful one deck or cards within the deck make it. A lot of good discussion was had here which prompted me to make another video about taking a look at what is not seen as so casual within casual commander; but more importantly, also some general guidelines I use when assessing my own deck (or others) when trying to gage the "strength" of a deck instead of typical power level (7s) ratings.
here are a few thoughts 1. these are cards that are staples in their colors 2. if the card is legal to play in edh....play it 3. play interaction/responses to these cards 4. play better. 5. burgeoning isn't even a cEDH card.
Of the cards in this video the only one i wouldn't put in a casual deck is Faerie Mastermind. All the other ones i have no problems with, but mastermind in mist cases is just a vanilla 2/1 in casual, it may block some flying damage but it will very rarely actually draw a card unless you pay 4 into it.
The 3w cost of smothering tithe makes it not worth it to me. By the time you have enough mana to cast it, it's almost irrelevant. Huge card draw is not a feature of every casual game, so utility goes down in casual. Every game ive ever played it, its benefit was marginal. I stopped running it in my selesnya deck bc it just didnt give enough value to justify continuing to have it. So i disagree with that one.
The proxy situation is intresting, everybody has their own opinion my general thoughts on the matter is as long as I can read the card and the text is unchanged then that's cool, there's some secret lair cards that are almost impossible to read anyways and phyrexian text cards which you can't lol. Every play group is different, but rule zero can be as simple as " hey I'm looking to have a faster game" or " I'm looking to play some jank". I'm pretty fortunate with my playgroups where we can match up accordingly so one deck is an extremely skewed more powerful than the other which I feel ends up leading to more interesting games and not saying anything at all.
I do not like the idea that you have to exclude "x" card(s) to be considered casual. Casual is really a subjective term to the types of decks in a playgroup. If everyone is playing optimized, then no one is at an advantage and it feels like a casual game of magic. It is one thing to not know something exists because you are new to the game and format. However, at a certain point just refusing to play certain cards to remain "casual" is kind of just dumb. Most people are opening up to the idea of proxies. I get not everyone has hundred to thousands of dollars to put into real copies of cards, but it isn't hard or expensive to make a functional proxy to run. I find a lot more people who move into the "competitive" side find it more fun than the "casual" side. The games have more interaction. Games don't end in a feels bad situation because people felt like they had no chance to begin with.
I agree, there shouldn't be a label: "casual card or not". As a lot of people were saying and something I tried to touch on is that most cards can't be labeled as "casual" or not; but more over, the combination of a lot of these cards together have a tendency to lean towards a less casual deck tho. If I wanted to see everydeck optimized with the best card draw, Ramp, tutors, combos, free spells, etc; I would play cEDH or precEDH pods where many staples are the same and decks look similar to eachother because it just makes sense there. Yeah casual is pretty subjective like you say, but generally speaking, imo there is more creative room in deck building. Instead of just throwing every genetic good staples into a deck because one can.
@@MoMoVsMTG No disagreement in the idea that there can be more creativity in deck building then just using best in slot options. I am only going after the mindset that X card is not casual or that best in slot is not casual objective stance people tend to take. Competitive and powerful are not synonymous and you don't have to run any particular card(s), but to complain about others doing it creates the perpetual problem with subjective power levels to begin with.
I know you didn't name it in your top 5-I just saw it in your thumbnail-but opposition agent really isn't a game breaking card in casual. In fact, you'll rarely ever get value out of its ability unless your opponents are all playing tutors or fetchlands. It does shut down ramp, but that's pretty necessary when opponents are playing huge bombs like Scion of the Ur Dragon, for example. When you're playing a deck that's 1 to 3 colors and not green, your only methods are to either slow down their plan or board wipe. Having your deck filled with boardwipes is far more toxic gameplay than playing cards that just slightly even the playing field, I'd argue.
See that's an very intresting argument, for instance oppo agent is kinda where I draw the line, but everybody is different which is the beauty of it. I do agree with a lot of your points, as to why I play pillow fortish effects in place of extra board wipes etc. But I'd run something like aven mind sensor, and save it for primary tutors. I didnt have the guts to use it against a myriad landscape when I could have.
@@MoMoVsMTG Normally, I avoid flashing it in unless my opponent is doing something crazy. I like to give people the chance to not get punished by it. But I think it's more of a feel bad card than a game winning card, unless your opponents rely on tutors. Sometimes it makes the game fair by protecting tables from pubstompers who play cards that search for turn three win cons or cheat cards from their library into play. I've seen an opposition agent create a lot more healthy play environments than it has created toxic ones, even if it does make some people salty. But I can see where you're coming from.
I'm a Group Hug Gary because when I play combo I'm instantly targeted. Vazi, Keen Negotiator Bjorna, Wernog, Lurrus Jon Irenicus Norin the Wary Are my gotos. When I want to win, it's Slicer, Hired Muscle Drafna, Founder of Lat-Nam Elenda and Azor
Counterpoints for some of these cards... Dockside Extortionist: if people were more reserved, instead of overextending on artifacts and enchantments without expecting repercussions for doing so, it would be little more than a moderately-powered ritual. It's a brick on the accelerator for the person who plays it, as opposed to the slowdown caused by, say, Vandalblast. Smothering tithe/Rhystic Study: drawing cards is almost as valuable as the mana provided by not paying your taxes. If you don't want to be punished for value plays, deal with the issue first. "Casual" isn't just shorthand for playing like a greedy moron, run suitsble ways to protect your gameplan, be it in the form of keeping up, or in the form of interaction with the board, and understand that we're not all here to just watch you durdle about with your cardboard. Burgeoning: this card is grossly overrated if you don't have a strong enough draw engine to support it. Also, tutors are for players that can't find interesting and/or interlocking lines of play during deckbuilding that keep their plans viable in the event that they have to pivot mid-game. Power creep has been so bananas, as of late, that you need only do a bit of searching in Gatherer for key terms to find cards doing more of what you want your deck to be doing, or things adjacent to what you're already trying to do. Also, getting the cards you want to play onto the table, and keeping them there, isn't a right, it's a privilege and a responsibility. If you can't maintain your board state, you didn't deserve to have it to begin with.
I don't think it's relevant if people are playing 'correctly' against rhystic study. If it just said " your opponent spells cost 1 more mana", it's already an insane rate for this asymmetrical effect. If it gets removed it costed very little tempo, and it's one less removal to deal with the things that will actually win the game. If smothering tithe just taps two lands of each opponent each turn, you're probably just winning even harder.
@@Vilegorico My dude, you're not seeing the potential of these cards as enablers for other strategies. With Altar of the Brood, and Psychic Corrosion, respectively, they're pretty effective as an incremental mill engine. Played alongside Brudiclad, in Jeskai+ piles, Smothering Tithe is an extremely effective token generator. Rhystic Study can also serve as chip damage off of Psychosis Crawler, and as a means to overfill your hand to serve as rudimentary self-mill for graveyard strategies in Dimir or Grixis. Don't just look at the cards for the immediate value, look at them for everything they can enable you to accomplish. Build engines, do clever things, make a boatload of Eldrazi tokens. People mostly complain about these cards because they don't see anything interesting done with them, beyond the most rudimentary uses. Play the game holistically, and turn minor nuisances into viable threats. Be the archenemy despite missing 3 of your last 6 land drops, and show people what's possible. Then shotgun the legs off of them with back-to-back Tezzerets...
If you dont get burgeoning in your opening hand/first turn (8% chance, roughly 1 out of 12 hands), its basically useless. You're not sitting with a lot lands after the first 1-2 turns. Super overrated card. I dont run it because its a waste of deckspace
@@tr0798 I will give Burgeoning it's due, if coupled with copious land tutors, but that's only really relevant if you're trying to do some really sideways Gitrog, Maze's End, or Scapeshift/Valakut setup, and you there are far more effective ways to go about something like that. It does, however, grant you a T2 Marit Lage, if you live in Magical Christmas Land, so, that's a thing.
Esper sentinel, mana drain and gilded drake don’t strike me as cards that break casual. Two of them are just good removal and one of them is efficient non-engine card draw. The things that make Esper sentinel insane in CEDH don’t exist in casual very much, and I don’t think there’s a peice of single target removal in the game that I would ever have a problem with showing up in a casual match. Stealing an Eldrazi with a guilded drake vs a legerdemain isn’t that big of a difference, it’s just two mana less with fewer conditions to cast.
It's often less about individual cards but more about card combinations. For an example from earlier today, I was playing with a mono-white guy who had wiped the board. Sure. I start to rebuild. Next turn he wipes again. With a different board wipe. Repeat for the next 2 turns. Turns out guy had 20 different board wipes in his deck. No board wipe, individually, would be that bad. But a solid third of your entire deck is just a collection of board wipes? That's just miserable. I scoop and refuse to play with these guy again. That ain't casual, that's toxic. EDIT: This is my first time on your channel, and missed that you're referring to commander specifically. This game in question was standard, but same general idea applies.
Yeah commander specifically, but still can apply the principles to historic brawl on arena or even any other format. I agree that the conjunction of many of these cards make em even stronger. A very basic example like a [[tooth and nail]] for generic creature vs [[tooth and nail]] for let's say a [[createrhoof behemoth]] and a [[myr battlesphere]] makes for a lot stronger of a deck. But a similarly to a comment made earlier, MLD, mass discard, mass board wipe, mass counterspells, heavy stax I definitely would few as not very casual, yet definitely not cEDH either, just kind of a rude(ish) thing to play unless the (3 other people) in commander are alright with a game of that; because generally speaking most players don't want to see themes like that since it leads to potiental unfun games and some player not able to play their decks pretty much. **edit: further note, a deck I have is massacre girl, a favorite deck of mine I've built, but I play it less often since it's heavier on board wipes/removal. I usally announce that fact if I'm looking to play it, and only bring it out if it's going to be hopefully on the same power levels of the decks others are playing.
for me what makes a deck not casual is basically just if its miserable to play vrs stuff like chaos and hard stax (winter orb stasis levels not like thalia blind obedience etc) or strategies like mass discard and board wipe tribal that limit how the game can be played don't feel as casual to me, basically my metric for if a deck feels casual or not is if the next payer just won would I be happy it was over or sad I didn't get to play more xD
I think this logic is true, through the lens of the "casual commander format" which is an angel I didn't touch on too much. Was mostly looking at cEDH vs regular commander play. But to further run with your point, I'd agree that mass board wipe "tribal", mass discard, or pure counterspell/heavy stax, MLD, etc is not cEDH, but it wouldn't qualify as a casual deck either. More along the lines of something strange like "man I don't wanna see that deck cause I'll never have a board state, or I'm going to get staxed out from playing anything" etc.
Consider a couple questions: Who is the soonest threat at this point in the game? and Who is your bad matchup late game? 1) Who is the soonest threat at this point in the game? Those decks are the ones that could eliminate you. Voltron and other Aggro strategies are often immediate early game threats while resources are low. As time goes on Voltron remains a threat but Combo and midranged decks (Battlecruiser Barry in the video) field faster clocks. At this point Combo is the fastest (0 turn clock) but might not have the threat in hand, the Voltron and midranged have a 2 turn clock on board. Late game soonest threat is Combo regardless of board state, and whoever between Voltron & midranged vs Control won control of the field. 2) Who is your bad matchup late game? If you ignore a deck, they might survive to the late game. Which of their late game positions are the hardest for you to deal with? This depends a lot on your deck. Usually it is the Combo deck and either the Control deck or the grinding midranged deck that is this late game threat to you specifically. Combo fears Control's greater ability to disrupt the combo. Control fears the midranged deck that survived the control attrition. You need to handle the imminent threats. You want to improve your odds vs your bad matchup with surplus resources not needed for handle the imminent threats. 3) Bonus question: Will the game even reach late game? That depends on the balance of interaction vs threat speed and on how much each players' threats contribute to the other players' win conditions.
These are all great points. In a well balanced commander pod, regardless of what type of deck everyone is playing, the group dynamic of the table should keep each other's decks in check so that one player doesn't run off with the game. But then you have your personal match ups that might be worse for you, (for example), you are a graveyard based deck, and someone is running decent graveyard hate you gotta prioritize that player otherwise your deck can't function well regardless of others position at the table sometimes. Or vice versa, against a mill strategy, the graveyard based player usally isn't nearly as bothered with that and can turn his attention to the other 2 player. Needless to say, the main point I picked up is that threat assessment often times constantly chages turn by turn, and match up to match up. Great observations!
