Cards That Have Gotten Even Better Over Time | Commander Clash Podcast 141 

Goldfish crew: Seth: Howdy 🤠

Biggest takeaway from this episode is that Seth can pull off a cowboy hat (even if it is a bit crooked)

Crim's so real for calling out card draw that way. It really is just the illusion of getting to play the game against commanders that outdraw the rest of the table.

Seth petting his beard whenever he is anxiously waiting to rebuttal is entertaining.

So happy to hear the Skullbriar shout out from Tomer. Such an absolute house of a commander that continues to get stronger and stronger. Playing him feels like playing an unstoppable force, and I love how optimizing the first 4 turns are so crucially important for success. I love my list too. It feels like my commander magnum opus.

I think it proves Crim point that Legendary non-permanents are so bad everyone forgot they've been around for 6 years and were in Lord of the Rings.

Richard I have a sick crop rotation story: I had the 3 mana Vivian on board (the one that gives your creatures flash). One of my opponents dumped a huge threat in the bin and cast reanimate, they were going to win the game. I flashed in a spellseeker to tutor for crop rotation and crop roatationed for a bojuka bog to blow them out at instant speed. It was the sickest play.

-Richard: “I’ll finally play an edict when it lets me literally choose the creature they sacrifice.” -Make An Example exists (plus it’s even better than what he asked for.) -Richard: “yeah but Teferis Protevtion!” Honestly though, I wish we could have a discussion about removal that didn’t have Richard ignoring valid points and spouting the conversation-ending “Dies to removal”-style response that is “yeah but Tef Pro!”

The crew losing their mind about bouncelands entering the battlefield untapped while describing the literal play pattern of Archelos, Lagoon Mystic since 2020

Crim is speaking facts with edicts. I have an Anhelo deck running a hefty amount of edicts, and it being a sacrifice effect matters pretty often due to how much protection is available on creatures or being held in hand nowadays. Soul shatter, make an example, szats will, sheoldred's edict, and vona's hunger do a great job keeping the board clean with most being at instant speed which also matters pretty often.

Petition to update Seth's thumbnail pic to be with the cowboy hat 🤠

Agree about Edicts. Make an Example is the biggest overperformer printed in the last few years. It plays way better than it reads.

Cards that get better all the time based off the first couple of topics are the nonbasic hate cards like Ruination, Back to Basics, Wave of Vitriol etc.

Fun fact: Blood Moon and Back to Basics are actually legal and you can play them!

I am an avid fog believer. The past couple of years, I've been adding one or two in every deck, and it has saved me countless times. Never angry when i draw one. "Blessed respite" is my favourite sleeper fog

As someone from Oklahoma I can verify, people do indeed tip their cowboy hats.

Lookin sharp Seth!

Path To Exile started off as a removal spell. But now can be hailed as THE best ramp spell in the format! 1 MANA GET A LAND!

I’m with Crim about Edict effects. Check out Shadowgrange Archfiend in Be’lakor. We be discarding and we be blinking.

They need to introduce mass non-basic land destruction into the game... like A LOT of it. Put it in every single color. Basic runners wont get hurt at all and everybody else will cry and they deserve to cry.

I love Seth calling Blind Obedience a "crim con" instead of a "win con"

38:09 - And here Richard has a minor meltdown over Mind's Eye, because it showed him that despite oodles of extra card draw, his deck was terrible in that last game (they all were).

The red card you were looking for to punish a large hand size is: Vicious Shadows. If only it was less mana :P

As someone with a blinged out, equipment voltron deck (Raiyuu), I can say Richard's argument is bad. Seth's idea of using Sunforger to get these Sprees is high tier sauce. The main issue with richard's argument is that youre obviously going to be playing the cards he mentioned already in the deck (The one ring and yada). Games are not always that smooth where you have tons of card draw established or just dont have the wrath in hand. The whole point of Sunforger is that it allows equipment decks to tutor for the very few yet powerful instant spells we will be using. Between wanting to tutor out a Teferi Protection, Everybody Lives!, or Deflecting Swat & Boltbend, I would love having Spree (an instant speed 1-side boardwipe) available to my package. This can be vital not only to clear the board cause of "big bad creature" but maybe the target you wish to attack has a a very specific blocker that you cant get by - Like for example, this happens often if you have tons of Sword of XnY stacked up but the 1 guy you wish to kill has a colorless creature.

Dress Down mentioned! One of my favorite cards that is nearly always a nuclear blowout when I play it, always has good targets, and cantrips to boot. Such an amazing card.

Crim, I have unironically considered running Isildur's Fateful Strike for draw hate.

Huge shoutout to the Skullbriar spotlight! Every other set for the past 2 years have had huge hits for the deck and he becomes increasingly more enjoyable to pilot. Benevolent hydra, scavenged brawler (especially if you have some sort of entomb package), kodama of the west tree, Ozolith the shattered spire, vraska joins up just to name a few of the newer hits 💚

As a Dimir+ supporter, I also like the typed tap lands, snows included, for making cabal coffers better in 2 and 3 colors

My friend loves to play Vicious Shadows to punish hand size. Balor does a good job of it too.

1:22:36 Richard with the "conounding confundrum" 😂

One of the things about Amulet of Vigor that was left out is that Blind Obedience style effects have been becoming more common lately. And Amulet of Vigor negates all of those effects.

I think the cards that often get better in general are cards that play off of other cards rather than solely doing something themselves… thus keeping up with power creep. Just as an example - re-animate or animate dead. These are good in that they return a creature to play from a graveyard but as creatures get more and more powerful, so too do these cards making them better and better…

Crim, here's a great white edict: Gideon's Triumph. Ignore the Gideon text, this is just 2 mana sacrifice removal at instant speed. I've found it's so easy to catch the creature you want because you can get involved in any combat and go after damage dealt too. It absolutely wrecks voltron but more often simply deals with one problem attacker coming in at you. You guys on commander clash don't go too crazy on protection pieces like greaves, but in a meta like that it's great.

@1:18:00 I totally agree, especially those green/blue value decks that just draw cards for doing what they want to do as well as ramping. So they actually have mana to do everything and still hold up counters, or protection and for some reason a good amount of removal in green/blue because the just keep printing color pie break removal in those colors.

1:20:15 If it hasn't been mentioned already, Khorvath's Fury is a 5-mana sorcery from Battlebond that burns each player you want for their hand size and lets everyone else discard their hand and draw that many plus one. It's the only one that comes to mind but I can imagine some weird old cards having a similar effect.

Yes, Tomer i wanto to have a bad manabase now and build a deck around amulet. You guys convinced me

I want to see a week where the team have a budget of like $15 specifically for lands so they can't play obscene land bases.

I am not sure if it fits entirely for this episodes theme but a card I am always impressed by when I cast it is Final Parting. I have always heard from people that 5 mana is too much for a tutor but like this one lets me set up sweet combos like pitching a Villis, Broker of Blood and putting a Reanimate into hand to refill the hand. Or grab a Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord and throw Lord of Extinction in the bin to just end the game after a reanimation spell. The card just has cool built in synergy with a lot of strategies.

The basic land typed tap lands I put in all my multicolored decks. I don't have fetches and I only one 1 shock land. But I do have the cheaper multilands that need for you to show a land of the correct type, or for you to have a particular land type in play for it to enter untapped (reveal and check lands I think they are called). The multilands that enter tapped are important because they help smooth out your other multilands that need the land types. Also, they are fetchable with Farseek, Nature's Lore, Three Visits, etc (I play mostly green).

I like the discussion on Fetch lands. Often I hear people will say things like fetches are overrated or they're not necessary. This paints the picture well. You can always find a reason to load up on fetches. They're so good. Just don't run them if you don't want to. run them. The surveil lands have been fantastic. I've been very impressed by them. I do have a rule about surveil lands though. Don't just jam all of them in unless I'm ready and willing to increase my land count. Going to heavy on tapped lands is very real.

Hard agree with Crim, edict style cards that get all opponents: Szat's Will, Soul Shatter, Crackling Doom, Olorin's Sealing Light, etc just keep getting better with time. Also agreed with Seth on the fetch lands, sure maxing out is the optimal play but it "feels" better to limit to the actual decks colors and prismatic vista / fabled passage if you really want more fetches.

Constant Mists is such an incredible fog effect, especially in ramp decks

My playgroup builds decks with proxies so we have access to the full card pool with limited cost and I for one play off-color fetches in whatever color is the deck's primary, typically green when available for things like Nature's Lore and other tutors.

Seth, the card you wanted to remember that does damage equals to hand size is Runeflare Trap. The red trap from the trap cycle of og zendikar. It costs 6 mana and deals damage to target player equals to its hand size, but if an opponent drew 3 cards this turn it only costs a single red mana.

There are edicts that are old cards that have certainly gotten better: the Fleshbag Marauder like options. Recursion options for 3 cost permanents has improved massively. Great episode! Bouncelands are underated for sure!

When they’re talking bout sunforger, I love how they all forget that cyclonic rift is 7 mana too.

I like the bit at the end, I have been thinking of a card that makes players sacrifice a land each end step if they have more than 7 cards in hand.

The biggest problem I have with fogs is this idea that they will guaranteed save you. From what the Goldfish Crew is saying, every deck is going to try to surprise kill you with haste (or haste like) combat damage, in which case a fog is very useful. The problem with that argument is that is assumes you'll only ever get hit with one surprise kill in a turn cycle. I have played so many games where the dragon player tries to go off with concordant crossroads, is stopped, and then the rakdos reanimator deck kills everyone with a rise of the dark realms and a haste enabler, or anything similar to that. You can't really use the idea that "fogs protect you from the constant surprise alpha strikes," because that argument also assumes you'll get hit by more than one surprise alpha strike a turn cycle. Now, to be fair, certain cards like Teferi's Protection, The One Ring and Constant Mists get around this issue. That's why those cards are actually good as fogs. But most fogs aren't like these cards, most fogs only protect you from one person in a four person game. And this is to say nothing about how Teferi's Protection and The One Ring can also save you from combos, which lets be honest, do still happen in commander. I know the Goldfish crew doesn't play against many combos, but that doesn't mean they don't exist, and you also have to take into account spellslinger wincon's like a massive crackle with power or guttersnipe. All in all I just think that fogs in general (with like two or three exception's) just still aren't good enough. Even in a combat meta, they are too narrow and only protect against one person.

Just here for Seth’s cowboy hat vibes

Howdy from Texas Seth!

I looooove Amulet of Vigor, Tiller Engine, and Spelunking. Even Stone-Seeder Hierophant. I think they do belong in land decks mostly but in them they are so worthwhile. Amulet is great against certain Blind Obedience type effects which is not very broad but 1 mana and a bounce land is a mini ritual but you're up a card. I feel running the fetchable tapped lands is more relevant in lands decks too and they are all og duals with Amulet out. Tiller Engine is one I would think Richard would love. It does what Amulet does for lands but it turns fetch lands into one-off Mazes of Ith! Spelunking cantrips and ramps. It's literally Amulet + Explore stapled together and with a bounce land, it's like you draw 2. Stone-Seeder Hierophant costs 4 and has summoning sickness which makes it significantly worse than the others but the upside is greater. If you are putting one land into play it ramps you 2 or X+1 lands you play per turn.

Seth, I think the card you might have been thinking about at the end was Molten Psyche. It's a wheel that can punish your opponent's card draw.

I love how Richard constantly shoots down everyone's valid points only to essentially say" bounce lands = rhystic study on a land" . God I love the episodes where he's absent . Crim and Seth you guys are great .

I love Amulet of Vigor in my Jodah Archmage deck playing all 10 triomes. In my opening hand, it is such a treat.

Sunforger + Inventory management feels like a solid combo.

2 weeks in a row! Love you guys.

Amulet and Spellunking are both in my gates deck. Perfect deck for those cards.

For a single target Notion Thief/Orcish Bowmasters kind of effect give it some activation condition to punish. For example, when this creature deals combat damage to a player, until your next turn if that player would draw a card other than the first in their draw step . You would want some caution though as printing something like that into commander product still means Legacy gets to use it so it can't be too absurdly punishing or value generating.

First 5 minutes and Richard is already adding cards to be able to shuffle more XD

I play Amulet and bounce lands in my Gitrog Monster deck. With the additional land drops and the sac for two colored mana lands it goes ham!

Tomer, I cared about Darien. He was my first commander deck!

Vicious Shadows, whenever something dies you deal damage to a player equal to the cards in their hand

I look forward to when Crim dresses up as an assassin for the next one :D

The card draw punisher you're looking for is Vislor Turlough from the Dr. Who decks. If they can't remove it immediately, they literally explode.

COWBOY SETH IS BEST SETH!!!!

In my playgroup everyone plays strip mine and permanent bounce and people are punished for playing bounce lands every single time. They are the first cards people remove from every single deck

I love make an example. I play it in Anhelo where I can copy it, sometimes multiple times

I'm actually interested in Skullbriar! What a sweet lukewarm commander! As someone who plays mostly people with precons, I like to find commander options that are fun and unique, but unassuming. I've been having a ton of fun with Kambal, Profiteering Mayor in this vein as well.

Bounce lands are great in crop rotation decks. Instant speed pick your boseiju to kill an enchantment is pretty cool

Love my skull briar deck. I got back into the game around Ikoria. I was going through my old cards and I found Skullbriar. It was love at second sight. I wipe the floor with tables at my LGS with Skullbriar. Love to see a glow up.

I love how Richard still counts his mana as if he never untaps in a game

Tomer: Noone plays Black Suns Zenith anymore, its gone! My haptra deck:

I love Tale's End. I have it in my Mirko deck. It doubles as Graveyard Protection. And it ALWAYS hits something valuable. Yeah legendary spells are rampant plus you can counter commanders, but activated abilities are also very rampant and extremely powerful. I hit someone's command beacon in their Eldrazi deck when their commander costed 12.

i play zimone and dina and the bounce lands are combo pieces so they are auto includes. ive played a basic turn 1 into amulet then surveil land then bounce land then surveil land again the amount of value i got with no downside felt real good.

Richard's argument against any card: "I'd rather play [literal best card in the meta]."

Darkness may be the only real fog in black, but sudden spoiling can be used as one as well, has more utility AND has split second.

16:27 I firmly believe that in any heavy ramp deck spelunking and it are amazing. Everyone knows that tireless provisioner is good. These effects enable degenerate sequencing. Tiller engine is another good card. Also imo bounce lands function as two lands when counting cards, so I like them for that factor

I have been playing Rune Flare Trap for years and it worked once. It was a plane chase game with the demonstrate plane out. So I'm not sure if it really can get there in its own.

I know skullbriar, the walking grave is the first card to do this, but Me, the Immortal is an alternative way to get the same effect with different colors. Me, The immortal also naturally can get different types of counters with good keywords, and ways to cheat commander tax. Me, the immortal also grows more consistently because Me doesn't have to attack or deal damage to get the counters. The only downside is the first cast is more expensive and doesn't automatically have haste (though you can give it haste easily in temur).

one alternative to Runeflare Trap is Toil // Trouble - the Trouble side is essentially 3-mana Runeflare Trap

As a response to Crim's Draw Hate, the best solution for Card Draw ever printed is Chains of Mephistopheles. They still get to sculpt their hand but they don't get to keep a giant grip of answers to everything. I recommend playing MORE WHEELS. Specifically wheels like timetwister and time spiral that shuffle (unless you're in a mill deck). It doesn't matter if a player draws 30 cards if they have to shuffle them away. Obviously if you are built around the graveyard, then go with the discard wheels. Add to those Pox and Fraying Omnipotence and similar effects. The answers exist... people just don't play them enough because other whine. Its a bit of a pick your poison situation.

Archelos, Lagoon Mystic is an amulet in the command zone. I run him in my “powerfull” lands deck and I feel like amulet is a slept on card. Mazes end can be ran in 3 colors along side magosi combo as well as the mdfc and channel lands we love. All can be found in my turtle lands deck

Bounce lands are even worst now. It's getting easier and easier to destroy lands nowadays. You know which card has gotten better and better... Solemnity.

crop rotation is great, but lands like channel lands are better in your hand. It should be 2 mana for you may put in hand or on battlefield.

Seth's Grizzly Adams cosplay is incredible.

Tales End is good in dedicated graveyard decks to protect you from graveyard hate. Stifling a bog is protecting your win condition in those deck, the counterspell mode is secondary.

About fogs, you forgot about Jaheira’s Respite. It is a little slower that Inkshield, but the payoff is very interesting.

Crim as a disciple of Bolas you've forgotten to mention that God Pharaoh got better with the printing of Displacer Kitten. You can cast most if not all of your opponents decks for free off the +1 by flickering it off the non creature spells

On the topic of edict effects, don't forget about Tariff in white.

Soul Shatter is so good at instant speed. And Szats Will I love too. I’ve got every opponents commander multiple times.

Polluted Bond for ramp punish...kinda. Hits fetchlands double, too!

I'd love to see your current Skullbriar list Tomer. I've love several of your decks (Ob nix King pin, Braids, Council of Four) and I don't have a desk in Golgari colours

48:09 perfect counter for The One Ring

Seth is rocking that hat! Looks great!

I've had a Skullbriar deck for like a decade now and it indeed only got better and better. No tuck rule and no one plays -1 counters. It's extremely resilient, doesn't need swords and such, just a bit of counters and he's good to go. My deck is tuned to have the option to play him on T1 and he can wreck people. the curve ends at 4 basically lol. The best reanimation spell for him is Call of the Death-Dweller, giving him menace and deathtouch is ridiculous.

1:10:00 I believe skullbriar still loses the counters to a cyc rift. Your commander changes zones before you put it into the command zone which is why we get death triggers now.

With all the talks about Crop Rotation and Ward… I can’t believe you missed one of the most interesting land which got a LOT better: “Boseiju, Who Shelters All”

Richard understands the current commander meta better than most.

Crim with the absolute best shirt ever this episode. Unreal!!!

Around 1:20:35 the card Seth is thinking of is called Sudden Impact which is the red version of Storm Seeker that was originally a green card in Legends.