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I appreciate everything about this video: the decks chosen, the pod of PDH players, Daxx's "what went wrong" confessional, Brad's expert narration, and big red pigs!
I wasn't actually familiar with the non Arena version of Minthara. Really interesting to see how they changed her. As a commander, it seems far better to have that ward than the permanace of Intensity. Also interesting to see how they just sort of get around the whole intensity thing by just having the player gain the counters instead.
The link to our discord is in the sidebar of the PauperEDH subreddit. Currently, most of the channels are for patrons only, but we're working on opening some of them up to the general public. :)
Fierce Empath into Treasure cruise is such bull***. It can only tutor creatures and especially drawing that spell would make me doubt the character of my opponent. I hope Ruff had no such intentions...
Some weeks back, I put together a Minthara deck using only scryfall for help since I'm pretty ignorant on Orzhov. Our lists differ by about 40 cards due to some choices I made to go against with normal EDH precons, but I'm glad I mostly came to the same strategy conclusions. She's fun to play!
11/10 video 🤩 I think Hive had the right idea in that game against Mayhem Devil. Step 1 is kill the combo player and step 2 is kill the Mayhem Devil player. Drawing interaction helps
I've tried countless times to build a Minthara deck but always end up with 200+ playables and give up before getting it down to 100. Thanks for sharing your brew!
I think you're right that white doesn't want the non-creature artifact but lately I've been running Ornithopter of Paradise, Gold Myr, Manakin, Flywheel Racer, and Guardian Idol. The 2 mana ones fit really nicely in a curve and I like protecting them with anthems like Silverflame Ritual. They also both fuel and benefit from big Steadfast Unicorn turns too.
Definitely. For me, white benefits a lot from artifact creatures and/or vehicles. Some of the better vehicles are so cheap to crew that weenies love them.
I don't think Reinforcements is as awesome as you think it is. "Shuffled into my library" is approximately the last place I want my cards to go during a game. They're pretty inaccessible there. You can access them eventually by drawing cards, but "maybe I'll draw a creature next turn" is *always* true of your white weenie deck, regardless of whether or not you've spent a card to shuffle three cards back into it. If I'm on Rebels, Reinforcements is *outstanding*. It lets me re-use Samite Censor Bearer, which, topically, can completely blank a Breath Weapon. Outside of Rebels, I'm not spending a resource as precious as a "one card in hand" to move things from my graveyard (where they're moderately accessible with Last Breath and Remember the Fallen) into my Library (where they're not accessible at all). Also, I'm impressed (and a little jealous) of your occurrence-rates for the board wipes! I see at least one of them in about 50% of my games; hearing these "twice in 100 games" numbers is wild. The general message though - that board-wipes are preventable and recoverable - is hella on-point. Great work.
I would agree with your analysis of Reinforcements if the card shuffled cards from graveyard into library. Your comment made me re-check the oracle text to be sure: Reinforcements puts those cards on top of library. So the idea would be similar setting up your next three draws so you don't flood or hit cards you don't need. Typically the problem with a board wipe is that you've committed those resources to the game and you either want to re draw them to reuse those etbs they have or to keep gas in the tank. I may have gotten very lucky on my encounters with board wipes! If I saw a sweeper every other game, I'd probably quit PDH 😅.
Oh damn, u rite! I only play it in Rebels - I'm so used to casting it and then immediately shuffling for the rebel tutor that I forgot what the card did. Good catch. I... uh... still don't like it XD I don't think spending a card is worth setting up future draws. I don't even like Gravepurge, and it cantrips. I think white has better ways to get value out of dead creatures. @@PauperBrownie
This is good stuff XD I didn't entirely realize that you were the reason folks were talking about ramp in the discord servers a couple weeks back, but I jumped into those conversations to mention that "Ramp is for decks with bad curves." (That said, I definitely have white decks with bad curves that run a bunch of ramp. I regret nothing.) Glad to see we're on the same page here XD
First: the Scrollshift <-> Quick Study comparison is *on point*. Great work. That said: "How have you managed the problem of card draw?" is, I think, VERY close to the right question. I prefer to frame it as a running-out-of-gas question. Blue solves it's running-out-of-gas questions by drawing more cards, because it spends it's cards on individual game actions (like counterspell) and needs to put more cards into hand to be able to keep taking game actions. White, being more based in permanents like you say, has other answers to the running out of gas question. For example, if you have 8 mana up, you don't need cards in hand if you've got Dawnglare Invoker online. A lot of white permanents give you access to game actions even on an empty hand. Like Rebel tutors. The other thing I dearly love about white is that it has some of the best Cards-you-get-to-use-twice. Stuff like Recruit the Worthy, Ephemerate, Pegasus Guardian, Prismatic Strands - None of these have the text "draw a card" but they're all really elegant and powerful solutions to the problem of card draw. Great video!
I'm *WAY* behind on watching these (Sorry!) but I wanna say: Ephemerate and Scrollshift are absolutely *garbage* tier protection pieces in any voltron list. (Also why Center Soul over Emerge Unscathed?)
Yes I agree, excellent point. Protection pieces have to fit the overall game plan. Point of this video was to underscore that we can think about cards in more than one way: ephemerate can be both a way to reuse etbs AND to protect game pieces. If you are on a Voltron plan y 2:01 ou want Pro auras/instants. I picked Center Soul because of the equivalent mana cost to Shelter. That said, Emerge Unscathed is also great!
There might be a decent amount of wipes that you have to plan for but I can assure you there's enough protection you can pack to make it a nonissue and like Brownie said as well, you definitely won't be running in to them every single game. Best way to avoid boardwipes is to target the player that's running the most as well. Player removal is the best kind of removal
Nice find. In Pauper Benevolent Blessing sees play sometimes. What would your assessment be over negating an opponents spell with Flash versus replacing the card in your hand with the draw effect for one more mana?
Benevolent Blessing & Cho-Manno's Blessing in Pauper EDH MonoW decks are both great! The argument for Pentarch Ward is "in addition to the Blessings", not in the place of them, if that makes sense. I think if you play the blessings, it's worth considering Pentarch Ward as another pro-Aura in addition to the blessings. Great question!
I prioritize the instant-speed versions of this over the sorcery-speed + Card Draw. If I need a fourth protection-granting-aura, this is the one I reach for. I love the design of this card and I used to have it in everything, but it's slowly come out of decks over time. I never felt great paying 3 mana for it at sorcery speed.
Great video! I still think Pentarch Ward is a bit dependent on already having synergistic cards in the deck, but it's certainly nice in a list like my Park Bleater deck!
Another small downside to shelter that wasn't mentioned, in a situation where you have a highly contested creature, there's a decent chance that your opponent tries to kill it, you shelter it, and then they kill it in response. In those situations, your shelter fizzles, and you don't even get to draw your plains.
Big fan of this kind of video! Personally I prefer Shelter and Benevolent Blessing from this list. Flicker effects are great, but they mess with counters, tokens and auras, all of which white uses a lot. Plus drawing cards and going through your deck is fun :)
I would recommend against the visual flickery static effect in future videos, its going to be irritating for newer players who don't already know what those cards do and are trying to read them. Even more so for people watching on small phone screens that may have data saving on so its low resolution.
Hi! When they're available, I can put them in there. Sometimes, especially with the casual nature of these Saturday streams, the decks are built right before the games start. Good suggestion, though! Thanks
