I've played Magic:The Gathering on and off since 2004 and EDH since 2017. I recently found out I like video editing so it felt natural to share some mad brews or discuss flavor, mechanics, art and other Magic related stuff.
I do hope you find my videos helpful and also enjoyable. Cheers!
Thanks as well, mate. As for Urza, in this particular list I'd say no - most of the artifacts (esp those part of the combo) themselves require to tap and sac, meaning Urza can't tap them for mana and the very niche way this list can make infinite mana is with 3+ mana reduction on artifacts + Commander's sphere (which would also draw a card so maybe 60 to 80 mana realistically before deck runs out). Where there is a will there is a way tho, so if you really want to play Urza you can add [[Krark-Clan Ironworks]](maybe replacing reservoir or maniac) and sac and replay artifacts with Emry and Mirran spy. Tap artifact with Urza>{U}, then sac with Ironworks>{C}{C}, tap Emry to replay artifact and untap Emry with spy. Cheers!🙂
@MadcookieBG most of the deck is 2 and 3 cmc (34 cards are less than 4 mana, and I'm not counting the X spells) but the cards that wins you the game are 5 or 6. There are 12 cards with cmc 3 or less that help you find the 4th land drop, I don't know if that's consistent enough. I would cut Empyrial Plate and Hand of Vecna for two more islands. The reason is that you only have 2 beaters with innate evasion and 3 cards that help the others get through. You'll be getting chumpblocked most of the times.
@@erosbronzo6518 In my experience it is consistent enough, esp when the commander can be played at t2 and can scry 2 next turn. The deck also has deceptively more evasion. Flipped Behold the unspeakable also has flying, 3 out of 5 board wipes bounce stuff with low toughness and are not only potentially one sided but open the way to eliminate a player that relies solely on chump blocks. Gadwick can also tap a blocker(s) if needed. I also really like empyreal plate and Hand of vecna, not only for potential to *promote* the 7 other creatures that don't scale with hand size but also for the one-shot potential they give.
@MadcookieBG I'll give your deck a try next time I play on cockatrice, I built a list more than a year ago but scrapped it because I was less experienced and it looked garbage to me 🤣😅
With this deck, Ghyrson Starn and Curiosity can help with pushing damage through along with drawing cards. Many Stella Lee decks are using Twisted Fealty as it is a game finisher if there’s no interaction that stops Stella from untapping while the original Twisted Fealty is on the stack and being copied.
Good suggestions, but I feel that Twisted Fealty would ruin the janky flavor of "make Prodigal sorcerer great again" / "Stella and her cowboy gang of pingers" that I'm going for with this build.🙂
I am also big fan of yawg-daddy, I thought you had some nice picks in the deck, I'm a fan of putting sudden spoiling in the mix for the split second nope-ability it can be really devastating for the opponents and a real MVP!
Great suggestion! The ceiling (stopping certain combos, foiling alpha strikes) is quite high but thinking about it even the floor level (strip hexproof and shrink creatures within range of our -1/-1 counters) is also good. Thanks!
Strived Twinflame should work for the combo as well. Cerulean Wisps or Refocus allows Stella to draw the whole deck, making the combo available. Who needs tutors?
Great suggestions, especially the duo of Wisps/Refocus! Also the combo works with a new card that came out after I had recorded - [Great Train Heist] with spree paid for the first mode. Cheers!
I think the link is not working Edit: Nvm, I see it now. Love the deck btw, you got yourself a new subscriber. Have you though about building a Massacre Girl, Known Killer deck?
I see you have referenced my work without attribution, and without indicating what changes were made, which is required under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license. It would be nice if you can remedy that by adding the required information in the video description. I also think that you have missed the point of my work. My site clearly states that communicating numbers is not the intended use of the guides. For their intended uses it’s not required for anyone but yourself to know about them. Still, I applaud any and every effort to try and help players overcome these challenges of the EDH format. And I am happy you wanted to use my work to facilitate a fruitful discussion. So thank you.
I try not to read or watch anything when making my videos as to keep them original as much as possible. For this one, however, I was curious as to what a new player would see if you search for "reddit power level scale mtg" in Google and visualized my impressions of the first 3 or 4 images that appeared. Now that this situation has arisen, it would appear that the 2nd and 4th images were yours, that they were part of a guide and that that guide was consequently published in a site/licensed there by CC BY-NC 4.0. I was not aware of that, I apologize and will credit you (as well as the other reddit creators I could find) in the description. Again I did not read anything past what was on the image file, but since you mention it I also disagree with not communicating numbers with others. I think that the point of having a scale at all is to be able to have a nice balanced game and it is difficult to do so if the powers of decks do not match and you don't talk about it with the group.
Clear. Do note that the CC license is in fact also present on the images themselves. I understand that you missed that. That can happen. Glad to hear it was not your intent, and that you’ll add the information. Thank you. In my experience, the fact that EDH is played in so many different ways at the same time is a very tough challenge to resolve on your own. I spent a lot of time iterating on my take on tools to help players navigate that aspect of the format. In this process I was helped by feedback of hundreds of other EDH players and community figures. I do respect your take on not doing research to stay original in your content, but if you are serious about developing your power solution further, it could be valuable to understand what came before. And although I am content with what I was able to achieve, I would love someone else to come along and do a better job. I wrote a primer about my project on TappedOut (it is linked on my website). Apart from sharing my own considerations for my attempts, I also list links there to guides which I used as a reference, and their original video or article. Good luck, and thanks for your reply. @@MadcookieBG
@@oneofthosebeebles I'm glad that we were able to resolve the matter as civil as possible. For the record, I do understand. I simply do not agree. Thank you and good luck to you as well.
I focused heavily on instant speed effects since once people knew what was going on, Judith was hard to keep alive for multiple turns. Still, I agree that at least one of these can definitely go in the place of Arc Lightning, which is also a sorcery.
My deck is a 9 on this scale and it does feel incredibly accurate. I played the most in the Navy during deployments. Out of the 5,000+ people on that carrier I never lost a proxy less game of EDH over a period of 16 months. It wasnt a serious deck but I was running all fetches and all 3rd E dual lands. The power and value was just too much for them. If they brought the proxy competitive EDH i would be getting washed consistently. My deck was mostly planeswalkers, and the main combo was Door to Nothingness, and abusing Unexpected Results to hit big. Only ran about five creatures, commander was Child. Feels accurate to me, I felt the same way but never knew how to describe it. Before this video i would describe it more as a bracket system of just low, mid, high, and comp based on the cards. During my games i came to the conclusion that i was winning with value instead of skill but that just reinforced the idea that EDH is more about value and interactions instead of skill. Unexpected Results into a T2 Narset, Nicol, Omniscience or Emrakul got me through so much. Entire deck was just gambling, even ran that red enchant that would replace a casted spell with another to go from a Vraska into Karn or Ugin.
Happy to hear that my scale works as I have been thinking over it (and the power level problem as a whole) for quite some time. Skill in EDH is very hard to measure because it is not just one thing that you can put your finger on. It shows in multiple aspects of the game such as deckbuilding, threat assessment, noticing interactions both during deck construction and at the table, finding lethal and so on. Still, I definitely think that skill is a factor. Possibility Storm is indeed a very fun card and can also be very strong especially if you build around it. The fact that it often messes with what the opponents are trying to achieve is just gravy.
wonderful discussion. personally, when i see pubstompers i just assume there is some personality disorder on display that renders them completely oblivious to the rest of the table.
I have been reworkeing and tuning Yawgmoth for a while. I like the ideas you have with a few things in here. I might just have to take the gravestorm into my deck
Started playing Arena with a Yawgmoth brawl deck and fell in love, so I immediately went looking for a proper EDH deck tech and stumble upon this absolute gem. Thank you brother!
It's not a sin if it's in mono black brother. I'm on my way to build a Liliana, Heretical Healer deck, I'll eventually get my hands on a copy of Yawgmoth too
That is good to hear😅. As for Liliana, I've always found the creature-walker cards to be very flavorful cards, especially their mini-quests that flip them. Are you going for more Liliana tribal or aristocrats?
I with i could post a link but here's the list if you want to take a look. I've been playing it on cockatrice with friends and it works great, I'm purchasing a couple cards every major holidays because they're expensive as hell. Commander: 1 Liliana, Heretical Healer Mainboard: 1 Abhorrent Overlord 1 Arcane Signet 1 Ashnod's Altar 1 Blood Pet 1 Bojuka Bog 1 Bolas's Citadel 1 Braids, Arisen Nightmare 1 Buried Alive 1 Cabal Coffers 1 Cabal Stronghold 1 Carrion Feeder 1 Charcoal Diamond 1 Chittering Witch 1 Crypt Ghast 1 Crypt of Agadeem 1 Cult Conscript 1 Dark Ritual 1 Deadly Tempest 1 Defile 1 Diabolic Intent 1 Dictate of Erebos 1 Entomb 1 Expedition Map 1 Force of Despair 1 Geier Reach Sanitarium 1 Geth's Grimoire 1 Ghoulcaller Gisa 1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel 1 High Market 1 Hostile Negotiations 1 Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia 1 Jet Medallion 1 K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth 1 Karn's Bastion 1 Liliana of the Dark Realms 1 Liliana of the Veil 1 Liliana Vess 1 Liliana, Death's Majesty 1 Liliana, Dreadhorde General 1 Liliana, Waker of the Dead 1 Liliana's Scrounger 1 Liliana's Triumph 1 Malicious Affliction 1 Massacre Girl 1 Mind Stone 1 Morbid Opportunist 1 Mutilate 1 Myriad Landscape 1 Nether Traitor 1 Night's Whisper 1 Ophiomancer 1 Phyrexian Arena 1 Plaguecrafter 1 Professor Onyx 1 Reassembling Skeleton 1 Rise of the Dark Realms 1 Sangromancer 1 Settle the Score 1 Sheoldred 1 Sign in Blood 1 Slaughter Pact 1 Sol Ring 1 Solemn Simulacrum 1 Stitch Together 25 Swamp 1 Syphon Mind 1 Tenacious Underdog 1 Thought Vessel 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth 1 Victimize 1 Vilis, Broker of Blood 1 Viscera Seer 1 Witch's Cottage 1 Woe Strider 1 Yawgmoth, Thran Physician Considering: 1 Demonic Tutor (the Lili artwork) 1 Nirkana Revenant 1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx 1 Snuff Out (the Lili artwork) 1 Waste Not
@@erosbronzo6518 Seems quite good. You can also consider Liliana the Last Hope (mostly for her emblem) and The Chain Veil, which is supposed to drop in price now that it has been reprinted.
One thing though: you might want to reduce the amount of creatures you run, my list only had like 7 in the 99. For example Faldorn can be replaced with The Lost and the Damned, or cut the "put a land" creatures for more Explore effects. My build was also more controlling, with more spot removal and goodstuff cards instead of the landfall payoffs. Some of them are Tidal Barracuda, Swarm Intelligence and of course Soul's Fire
@@erosbronzo6518 The lost and the damned is very cool suggestion! Explore effects are a good option but I personally don't like them too much because they are one-time use. P.S. Why put more removal when you can exile and play it from other players' decks (taps forehead)
It could be possible that Elesh Norn only took control of the hive mind fully after the rebellion in All Will Be One, believing up until proven otherwise that the praetors could be trusted to lead their own forces. It's also possible that, as you said, Jin-Gitaxias still had some power over(at least)his Phyrexians even after Norn gained control. This would explain why Tamiyo was capable of hesitation; her connection to Elesh Norn wasn't as strong as Ajani's, who is very clearly from his appearance a direct servant of hers. This control Jin has would also explain his ability to turn the Phyrexians against Norn, perhaps with an override command he kept to himself. The oil falling inert could then be explained by both of them dying, as the only two people capable of controlling it are now gone. It's also possible that servants who show less resistance would require less direct control from Norn in her eyes. Ajani is a strong willed character, meaning he'd require constant control. Tamiyo on the other hand is a person controlled by logic, and therefore perhaps more easily manipulated into supporting Phyrexia's goals. In regards to your complaint regarding the oil being from old Phyrexia: The oil used to create the Praetors would most certainly be that oil, yes, but the oil used to create the current generation of Phyrexians came from New Phyrexia. Think of it like this: If a person is genetically Canadian, then they can trace their bloodline back to people living in Canada. If they have a child with someone who is not Canadian, then the child they have will have less Canadian in them than their parents. The further down the family tree this goes, the less and less Canadian there will be in each new generation. Following this logic, the oil of New Phyrexia likely distilled old Phyrexia's oil to such a massive extent that its plane of origin would have no hope of impacting the new Phyrexians. I'd also like to address the death of Vorinclex, as I interpreted the death differently. Rather than he looked behind him and because of this he was killed, I took it as meaning he looked behind him and that's where his killing blow came from. I don't believe the trope has a name, but I felt it was less of a distraction attempt and more of a "I want you to see your demise" moment from Teferi. Granted, as a novice writer myself I much prefer your version. The other praetor deaths didn't bother me, I thought they were logical with the exception of Jin who dies rather unceremoniously. Then again he's also not primarily a combatant, so I could excuse that. The part I would've much preferred to see changed was with Elspeth's angelic awakening. I would've preferred her to be depressed and resigned to death after the events with the cylex, but then the planeswalker Calix appears before her. He tells her he's going to kill her, but becomes confused when she doesn't fight back, saying it's not like her. After having a conversation with him, she goes back through her motivations and remembers what she's fighting for. With newfound strength she's approached by Sera and the story continues as normal. I was disappointed by the lack of Calix in the story, since his whole deal was "I'm going to chase down Elspeth and discover why she decided to defy destiny." Him showing up to help her in her darkest hour-or getting compleated and fighting against her-would've been poetic. Lastly, I'd like to say I'm glad you attacked the writing with your points and not the writers themselves, as I've seen several other people doing. There's a lot of factors that go into the creation of stories such as these, and without knowing the full extent of what pressures, obstacles, and/or benefits the creators had it's most unfair to judge them. This doesn't, however, disqualify their work from valid criticism such as this video
Thank you for commenting. I'd like to address some of the point you make. First off I dismiss the hive mind thing entirely, I don't think that is how the oil works even though it is presented as such in stories MoM 9-10. I didn't say Jin still had some control over his faction, I said even if installing a hive mind feature to the oil was possible, he wouldn't give it to Norn, but keep it for himself. But let's assume that he did and gave it to Norn, but secretly kept control of his forces like you suggest, it still wouldn't explain his death - some girl from Zhalfir hits him with a hammer, he breaks through the glass and falls into his warmachine's water tank, filled with his own newts, who proceed to eat him. He couldn't command them to stop? Do they seem linked to his mind or are they more akin to following the basic principles imprinted within the glistening oil itself: “Let weak(newts) feed on weak(injured Jin), that we may divine the nature of strength.” -Phyrexian Scriptures (flavor text of Bog Raiders from Urza's Saga) On Tamiyo - She was given an order but hesitated in front of Norn, so if resistance required more control, wouldn't Norn crank her control of Tamiyo to 11 after seeing that? And if she couldn't exert control, because Jin prevents it wouldn't a red light flash in Norn's head that something is amiss? If Jin had control of Tamiyo, would he let his servant commit Sudoku and fail the invasion of Kamigawa? As for the genetics part - yes sexual reproduction works like that, but the oil is basically a virus that simply replicates itself using the host merely as a resource/viral vector to spread further. Granted viruses can mutate but this is due to environmental/host immune pressure, not because of dna/rna intermixing with the host. I believe the oil from Old Phyrexia is nearly identical to the one from New Phyrexia, except the latter got much more viral, thanks to compleating an entire new plane and some enhancement from Jin-Gitaxias in order to overwhelm a planeswalker's system. I like your suggestion about Elspeth. I don't like her divine intervention story arc but if it absolutely had to happen, yours makes much more sense. Also people meme about Lukka and his story arcs, but poor Calix got completely forgotten. Once again thank you for taking the time to comment. I love having such discussions as sometimes I even get inspiration for new videos. Cheers! :)
@@MadcookieBG You make a good point, I was thinking of the oil as more of a life blood thing, not a virus. But yeah, it functions like a virus now that I think about it. It's important to be able to have intelligent discussions, and I always try to approach thing with that in mind. Cheers, and good luck to you in all future endeavors (:
00:28. I felt every single one of those, lazy writing, plot armor, divine intervention and friendship. The whole thing ended like the first Marvel movie and every single other movie that had to wrap up an invading army really quickly. So much was left out, so much was just ended faster then Captain Fasma in Episode 8. Atraxa arrived on the plane, got a few lines of fighting, a lot of lines of destroying a museum, then got crushed by a building, simple as that. As in, she failed to notice the Riviteers, building falls, she is dead. Nothing else. Every preator, except for Norn got one-lined. For all of their significance since their introduction, they got killed in less then a paragraph, a few times by no one significant to the plot or ever mentioned again. Somehow, when every other compeated Phyrexian fell apart and died, Nissa and Ajani survived, which means the others, magically sent off plane for the final battle, the chapter before the final battle probably lived. Also, correct me if I am wrong, but jetting New Phyrexia off into the abyss of the blind eternities shouldn't have even cause that because A: They had been cut off from all of the other planes for a long time and the Phyrexians of those planes survived and B: The oil and Phyrexians originated in the Caves or Koilos on Dominaria, so why would a secondary plane of oil matter in the scheme of things, especially for the sleepers and spys that had been working on different planes for millenia? The worst thing was the fact that they pretty much wrapped up the whole invasion in a SINGLE chapter while wasting most of the time on bickering planeswalkers and pointless side stories of planes that had no impact on the final battle. That and the card flavor text and card design barely fits or totally contradicts the written story accepted by WotC. This is also what happens when you have 10's or more of writers making every chapter based on their opinions.
On your question: A) Phyrexians were confined on New Phyrexia, but as far as I know that wasn't due to magical barrier but because the planar portals that Old Phyrexia loved to use don't work after the Mending and Phyrexians couldn't planeswalk, because compleation removes the spark (before Jin managed to circumvented it). This changed when they recruited Tezzeret and his Planar Bridge, which is the only portal that works. Also cut off or isolated and phased out (in game sense reads as "treat this permanent as though it doesn't exist") are two different things. So in the story when they phased New Phyrexia it is as if it ceases to exist. This however *should do nothing to the oil and the phyrexians* because: B) The oil originates from Old Phyrexia (caves of Koilos only house the portal to Old Phyrexia) and Karn brought it to Mirrodin, which in turn got corrupted and became New Phyrexia. This means phasing New Phyrexia means nothing and should do nothing to the oil. I talk about this in a bit more detail after 9:50. As for the cards and flavor text: things have been deteriorating quite steadily in the last 10 years or so in this regard. I red that on much older sets like Urza's Saga or maybe Invasion you could line the cards, look at the pictures and the flavor text and basically piece together the story. I feel you could never do this with newer sets.
I haven’t read the story yet, but I know how it ends and I have to say I like war of the sparks ending better. Don’t get me wrong, there were several glaring problems with that story, especially the character continuity issues with Chandra. But the ending of Bolas made perfect sense. There was no deus ex machina, no suddenly overwhelming force to save the day. An already established character of similar power and intelligence outsmarted Bolas, his brother Ugin was the true hero. It was an incredibly satisfying ending, and I honestly thought the death of Gideon was very well done too. That’s all I enjoyed about that story tho. Just feels like a more satisfying ending over the destruction of Phyrexia imo
I read back one set's story to Phyrexia: All Will Be One. It progresses but it is a mess. They draw out pointless stories to "Assemble the Avengers"(Again) and have them beat the enemy in a few short chapters. Honestly, they took a lazily written MCU story that was only interesting on the big screen 10-15 years ago, and put it into text. It doesn't translate the same way and just seem bad, expecially with the way that they are making the expansions.
I pretty much feel the same. It had problems with style, continuity and scale(minimal number of named characters died), but the main events made sense. Liliana's defiance, Gideon's sacrifice, Bolas' pride before the fall, even his imprisonment.
its so sad. the worldbuilding is always so intriguing but these storylines are just nonsense. how could they not have gone for a good old big evil defeating itself storyarc? simple, elegant, a bit too foreseeable but still...
@@avatar2xl it wasn't amazing sure, but it tied up loose ends in a narratively logical way, created room for future stories and sets allowed some fan favorite characters to return while still having narrative weight and did it all in an enjoyable manner, it was better than war of the spark and was pretty good in general
@@illegitimatebusinessperson You can like the story and that is fine, that is a matter of opinion. But when it comes to logic, claiming the story ends in "a narratively logical way", after I spent some 15 minutes talking and showing examples of how *the story contradicts itself on numerous occasions* either means you didn't watch the video at all or you willfully ignore evidence in order to blindly defend the mess we were served because you personally enjoyed it.
@@MadcookieBG oh yeah no I didn't finish your video, but I believe the story did a passable job of explaining at some level why the story ended in the necessary way for the medium to function, from a gameplay and narrative perspective every plane for the foreseeable future ending up like Mirrodin but with different architecture would suck so liberties were taken in such a way that they can be believed, the suspension of disbelief needed to except them isn't that wild or outlandish
@@illegitimatebusinessperson You base your argument is on the premise that the Phyrexians were going to win, so liberties had to be taken to avoid that. Two things. First off The Phyrexians were never going to win. They could not be allowed to win, because if they did every further set would be New Phyrexia III, then IV and so on. Second, there are liberties and there are contrivances. What we got was lazy and contrived. Everything happens simply because it has to happen. The Phyrexians need to lose, so they do. The praetors gotta go, so they kill them off. Oil is now inert for convenience reasons. And each of those things happens in one or two short sentences.
Wizards has sealed their own fate for multiple properties at this point. DnD is still in major trouble, and the way they are treating MtG (as a piggy bank) is absolutely pathetic. Glad I got out of the hobby ($ wise) last year before the major Modern crash. Only kept a couple EDH decks, in case friends want to play on game nights.
@@johnnymccreery4692 I'll admit I've missed the part where you can't sacrifice permanents you don't control. So in order to Demonic Tutor every turn and not give the opponent the token Wishclaw you need to sack it. As is the deck offers the following options (7): Throne of Geth / Sai, Master Thopterist / Yawgmoth, Thran Physician / Kuldotha Forgemaster / Arcum Dagsson / Trading Post and also Master Transmuter, which can return the talisman copy to hand, after you've activated it, but before its ability resolves. Technically, you can also use the Wishclaw and search for Scrap Mastery, which would make them sacrifice their copy of the talisman and return all artifacts from the yard.
Great summarization of how flavor in cards is supposed to represent in game actions. We all start playiong magic because it looks cool, but we keep playing because of this amazing immersion we cant experience in other tcgs
The Starke of Rath and Mangara of Corondor interactions don't work like you think. You can't get one part of the effect while cancelling out the other, either both happen or neither happens. If you activate the hasty token's ability to exile something, but then sac it before it resolves, then the target won't be exiled. And for Starke of Rath, once an opponent gains control of the token copy, you can't sacrifice it (701.17a "a player can't sacrifice something that's not a permanent, or *something that's a permanent they don't control*"). So you've just given them a copy of Starke to use against you.
You are wrong in almost everything, mate. First off from Mangara notes, which you can read in Scryfall or Gatherer: "If Mangara leaves the battlefield before its ability resolves, the target permanent is still exiled. Mangara won’t be exiled from the zone it’s in". Secondly a token is not considered a card, but is actually a permanent nonetheless as per their own rule and this is also mentioned in rule 111.1. "Some effects put tokens onto the battlefield. A token is a marker used to represent any permanent that isn’t represented by a card". While it is true that if I give the copy of Starke to the opponent, he or she can keep/use it as their own perhaps against me even, 1) it is still removal, albeit one that makes the game more chaotic and/or fun and 2) the majority of the interactions I covered with Starke include the sacrifice of both him and the token at one of the altars, before the activated ability resolves and changes control.
