Expensive Cards Not Worth Their Price | Commander Clash Podcast 115 

Richard, bless his heart, is a good moderator, and then he goes full flatearther.

I've been listening to this podcast for a little over a year and I'm finally convinced that Richard is just a huge troll in disguise.

Gotta disagree with Crim here 100% on Esper Sentinel. Even with 0 synergy, it’s 1 mana draw 2-3 minimum that they have to remove AND it taxes them. It’s probably one of the most efficient cards in the whole format, and an auto-include in every deck with white. It could be double that price and I’d at least understand.

Cyclonic Rift also gets rid of tokens so its not a complete redeploy

Zaxara uses both sides of doubling season VIGOROUSLY

Esper Sentinel and Force of negation are not expensive because of commander tho, it's cause of modern

I only have Cyclonic Rift in two decks, but every time I have played it, it was into someone's alpha strike and I won the game the next turn.

Sylvan doesn't just guarantee draw, it's also like a free brain storm every upkeep...

I swear Richard is trying to trigger us with these absurd hot takes

the idea behind the doubling season is not that you need to use both sides in a single deck. It is that you can also just transplant it into two different decks as well.

Seth to me always has the most rational justifications on cards.

I had no opinion about it beforehand but all the arguments against Damnation were about different cards that cost twice as much and do different things, Richard and Tomer helped make the case for Damnation IMO. Even busted, three times as expensive cards like the meathook massacre, people are too distracted by the upside and not the cost. 4 mana wrath is still good.

On doubling season, I feel like counters and tokens often go pretty well together. Think Ghave. I run a monogreen tyranids/hydras deck with Old One Eye at the helm. The deck is mainly counters, with a few token cards sprinkled in (33 vs 7), but one of those is my commander. So I'm always at least getting an extra 5/5 for a card that is good enough in my deck on it's own. It won't be a hit in every deck, but it will in enough to be noteworthy

Also that cyclonic rift take was so horrible it caused me physical pain, i Couldn't imagine thinking cyclonic rift was bad.

it's kind of wild that ancient copper is 2.5x as expensive as the next dragon in that cycle

Sylvan Library still has a place in green-based creature decks because, ironically, it doesn't depend on creatures. If all of your card draw spells need you to have a board (whether they be drawing cards based on number of creatures, power/toughness, attacking, etc), then your card advantage suite has the glaring weakness of being absolutley useless after a sweeper. I think that the lionshare of card advantage being creature-centric is fine. But, not diversifying can come to bite you.

Commander Clash Podcast drinking game: Take a shot every time Richard starts his sentence with 'like..' and ends it with 'right?'

Mtg Goldfish should do a draft next season like they did on Game Nights where everyone gets to draft six of each card type that they get to use the next season and the other players can't use chosen picks.

I think Sylvan Library is still a powerhouse. Cards that make more opening hands keepable are awesome. Sylvan does a better job at ensuring you hit those land drops than just about any other card in the game in the 2cmc range. Cards like Search for Ascanta and the rare 2 cmc draw 2 spell like Night's Whisper and Expressive Iteration are excellent cards that do a poor imitation.

The funny thing for me is that Richard's core argument for why Cyclonic Rift is overrated amounts to "People don't know how to use this card optimally."

To answer the question about rad Black Wraths. Black Sun's Zenith. It becomes more and more common the longer the game goes on. I love it.

The only deck I've had Doubling Season in is my Slimefoot deck, where it REALLY wants both sides - it's a Thallid deck, so doubling the number of spore counters you get is really big for the deck. It effectively quadruples your saproling generation. Edit - just saying to give another example of a deck that uses both sides. I think that it's very likely that Doubling Season is very overplayed and isn't worth it for many decks.

I love how the crew is like "Timeless Lotus? Yeah, that's worth $12, there's nothing else equivalent out there for that slot" while Prismatic Geoscope is over here like "Am I a joke to you?" In a 5 color deck they're THE SAME CARD except geoscope let's you make any combination of mana and only costs $.83

I just took psychic damage listening to richard talk about cyc rift

23:10 - you forgot about fungus decks! You definitely want Doubling Season specifically because it doubles the amount of saproling tokens you make as well as double the amount of 'spore' counters you generate :)

Black Sun Zenith is pretty good, plus gets rid of indestructible.

Doubling season is worth the price - so worth it, I bought one as I listened to this show - I didn’t realise it had dived in price. Thanks!

I actually can't believe they didn't have Mana Crypt on the list. That card is worth way to much money to ever be worth it outside of cedh

Ghave and Doubling Season literally go hand in hand.

I own all of the older cards on this list. As someone who bought all these cards long before they became so pricey, I've just always played with these cards, and if a deck would want one of these, it feels unfinished to me without these. Recently though I've actually replaced all of them with proxies. I haven't sold them, but I either leave them at home or in a case near my decks and use the proxies as true proxy. I'm just getting to the point I'd rather not walk around with thousands in my commander bag, and I personally have no issue with other players playing them without owning them, so what better way. Doubling Season does all types of counters, most other counter-adding cards outside of proliferate only do +1/+1 counters. Which gives it a 3rd home in some janky non +1/+1 counter decks as well. In my personal play experience March of Swirling mists has performed better than Cyclonic Rift. Although they are not the same cards at all, they can react to very similar situations by temporarily dealing with a problem board (depending on cast time, March actually denies those cards longer) and March is much more versatile. I do tend to still play both as the Rift doesn't target and it's still a strong way to deal with the board, probably my #2 blue card. I would argue that Wheel is very strong if played properly (unfairly) and bad catch-up draw if played inappropriately or at an inopportune time, and IMO every time I have played Wheel of Misfortune it has been a trap card that is not worth playing at all. Thanks for the fun topic.

I play Sylvan Library in my Atraxa deck and to me just the fact that I can choose which out of 3 cards I get to pick every draw step is insane. Most of the time I don't even pay life (unless I really need to dig for an answer or a land, or if I'm already full of mana and/or life) is it just me that thinks that "at your upkeep look at the top 3 cards and draw one of those" is actually really good (and worth the price)?

I really like this podcast. Always makes me happy to hear expert's takes on certain cards. In this episode Tomer is just jumping over Ghave as a commander who's so severely profiting from Doubling season that it just ends games.

Rift is really really really strong, especially if your running decent interaction, or looping it. On mtgo I used to play it in my morph deck but it was way too strong.

So a fun thing I’ve been doing is in my Phylath, World Sculptor landfall deck uses doubling season as a core piece to a win. I’ve got doubling season with avenger of zendikar and all will be one, make way too many tokens, put an insane number of counters on them, then watch nature eat the table if the burn doesn’t end it all. 27:39

In my Korvold Treasure deck, Doubling Season tends to be more of a priority target than not.

Never loved Cyclonic Rift more than I do now with all these Treasure/Food/Clue synergies everywhere - you aint re-casting your 20 treasure back out. Other than that Richard was spot on with all the other cards

I’m usually on board for richard’s hot takes, but boy oh boy his cyc rift take is wild. I wouldn’t spend money on cyc rift, but it’s because it’s too strong and not fun to play against, not too weak

Oldie but a goodie. Primal Vigor came in the Prossh pre built, but immediately got moved to my Marath. Found Doubling Season and it was a slam dunk.

Timeless Lotus is played in some versions of amulet in modern. Probably helps beef up the cost.

There is a glaring downside to doubling season.. you spend 5 mana, and (usually) do NOTHING to the board the turn it comes out.. the higher the power level of your game/playgroup is, the WORSE doubling season becomes. "Yes, I'd like to spend 5 mana, put a scary permanent into play that effectively does nothing the turn it comes in, and pass my turn" Is playing doubling season fun? Sure.. is it worth the price? NO

I agree with Tomer, Doubling Season is only really good when you're using both halves. Either half has dupes that are more mana efficient and/or are cheaper.

I think Doubling Season at $40 is worth, and at $80 it was not.

Damnation is really cool. I'm glad I got four secret lair version with Seb McKinnon's art.

My Gruul landfall deck makes incredible use of Sylvan Library. I think that dropping it turn 2 propells me so far ahead with my exploration effects and my Oracle of Mul Daya effects that on turn 6 or so Im so favored to win its nasty. It definitely still has its place in the format.

Honestly, if you're playing a two color deck or even a tri color deck, there's A LOT of dual lands that you can use and they work PERFECTLY with their play requirements like "you need an island or plains in play" or "you need two basic lands in play" or "you need two or more opponents" and so on. Nimbus Maze, Hengegate Pathway, Sea of Clouds, Prairie Stream, Skycloud Expanse, Glacial Fortress, Fortified Beachhead, Abandoned Beach (or whatever it's called) and so on (depending on which colors you're playing in of course the names change) will get you totally where you need to be plus the usual Command Tower, Reflecting Pool,

The misdirection part had me in tears laughing 😂

I appreciate Richard bringing in some spicy takes here, even if I don't agree with the takes. It's bringing in a new perspective where I've just always thought those cards are objectively good, and helped me reevaluate them which I haven't really done since they were printed.

Sylvan is definitely worth it at $20, you don’t absolutely need it but it does improve any deck it’s a part of

I have ALL 10 duals (revised) in my Tiamat deck. I had 7 of them from when i played in high school, bought the other 3 just to have one of each. 😊

Jeweled Lotus take: I have Jeweled Lotus (I opened one) in my Sheoldred, the Apocalypse deck. There’s something wonderful about getting my commander out turn 1, and I’m *already* the archenemy because everyone hates Sheoldred.

To the doubling season topic: Ghave, guru of spores... outside of planeswalkers that's really the only commander that comes to mind that breaks more than 1 part of its effects very easily, and at one time

I totally agree that Doubling Season is overrated especially in +1/+1 counters decks, cause most of those decks don't place a bunch of counters all at once they place 1 on each of their creatures multiple times. So hardened scales is just doubling season but 4 less mana and there are a bunch of creatures with the hardened scales effect

I think Beseech the Queen is a pretty good black tutor, especially if you play a Yuriko deck or a Vampire deck with Twilight Prophet. But also very good simply for monoblack decks.

Doubling season with rocco street chef is amazing (totally slept on commander btw)

For mono-black board wipes, Living Death should also be counted! It can potentially reanimate your opponents graveyard, but in any deck that runs I make sure to also run a couple of graveyard hate cards!

Perfect way to start the day! Thanks!

Just today I was looking for a "just counters' half of doubling season for green/white. Tons of stuff for +1/+1 counters specifically but for what i wanted it was like... lae'zel, pir, and vorinclex as the only alternatives. To be fair voinclex is a pretty nice body to have on the field and his negative counters on opponents can be really incredible sometimes. Now I'm just really stuck between choosing him or doubling...

I know I'm about 7 months late, but I will argue that Grismold the Dreadsower makes great use of both sides of doubling season. The number of tokens that Grismold creates are doubled, and then the +1/+1 counters from any creature token on the field dying that go on Grismold are also doubled.

Dual lands make sense for cedh decks. Any advantage you can get, the better off you are. Say you need an untapped land type, but you only have a fetch land that gets a different color? What do you do if you already have your shockland out with that color combination?

Richard, a master-mind beyond comprehension of ordinary mages. I love you dude

Black also has Mandate of Abaddon, Massacre Girl and Last One Standing in rakdos

I like that some cards are "money-banned". There are quite a few powerful cards that would just be in every deck if they weren't so expensive so in pods that don't use that many proxies they are just not there which I think is actually nice

I'm so glad y'all mentioned Boompile because I think I found my default board wipe. That card is silly and that is wonderful

I think in quite a few token decks Doubling Season is win more. For example, Rhys for 6 mana can double your tokens and Ghave has plenty of Commander based comboes that don't need the additional tokens. Commander now has so many efficient token producers and Commander who can chain into more tokens that you ever need that you're often times better off with another card that isn't a 5 cmc do nothing enchant. The strength of Doubling Season I think is decks that can utilize both halves or Enchantment decks like Callix or Anikthea that can turn Doubling Season into a token and turn it into Exponential-ling Season.

I use Doubling Season in my Glissa Herald of Predation deck who makes 2 incubate tokens which comes out with 2 +1/+1 counters so with doubling season it’s 4 tokens with 4 +1/+1 counters which is nice.

I just built a Jasmine Boreal of the Seven deck and it makes a good amount of tokens AND makes a lot of +1+1 counters. Great use for Doubling Season. Not sure I want to spend the money, but it's uniquely suited for that deck

I've won or swung a game with Cyclonic Rift, more than it's whiffed.

What Richard is seeing that the others sometimes miss is that even if a card isn't creme de la creme, if it goes in every deck, it's a better investment than a perfect card for one deck.

Other black board wipes on the more expensive side that I like are Nightmare Unmaking, Deadly Tempest, Life's Finale, and even Necromantic Selection

I'm kind of curious, with Imperial Seal would it's price be the fact it's 1 mana and combos with Bolas's citadel which allows you to play the top card of your library paying life for it instead the sole reason why it's like twice the price of Demonic and Vampiric tutor or am I missing something?

The strongest argument against Jeweled Lotus is the "it will get killed" one IMO. Getting a 4-mana commander out on turn 1, or 5-mana one on turn 2, is so strong, and people will be so salty, that they will 100% run out that removal and be right to do so. And then you're down a card, the hand you kept on the basis of assuming the lotus play would work is probably crap now, and your commander costs 2 more. You're honestly probably just out of the game at that point.

Something not touched on about the duals - in 3-4c decks, it’s common enough that you’ll want 2 untapped fetchable lands that are the same colors untapped. If you play any particular deck enough you’ll know which 2 colors . Triomes are nice, but frequently not good enough.

Doubling season is SICK in Ghave.

Great Henge does not need to be over $25, ever

For Doubling Season, I'd like to use it for Ayula, since she uses both halves. Her own effect will get more 1/1 counters. Bearscape and Ayula's Influence will both benefit from the second half. Esper Sentinel is a card that I'm keen to pick up for my Zabaz Modular deck. If the day ever comes where both are $10-15 then I'll probably pick them up.

In all of my multicolor decks, I am already cutting dual lands that come into play untapped. There are now so many cycles that do that, that zebra lands are just not required AT ALL.

Hey goldfish crew, an idea I would love to see for an episode of the podcast is a draft like the one on game nights but the pool is the top 20 most played cards from the previous season. Each player for the next season can only play the five of the 20 they drafted for the next season. This accomplishes a big goal you have stated in the past. It avoids the same cards showing up over and over across a season. It helps you not have to make bans like cyclonic rift because it kept popping up over and over.

Sylvan Library is a house in my Landfall deck where I run nearly every fetch, and I shuffle constantly due to ramping.

The only exception for imperial seal is if you want the card on top of your deck. Miracle strategies or Yuriko. Cards that let you play cards off the top.

As someone who doesn’t like cyclonic rift since it’s OP, if you’re in mono blue or heavy blue two color spectral deluge is definitely the best cyclonic rift replacement that feels way more fair since it’s sorcery speed

Esper Sentinel is the single best white card I've ever bought and it was worth every penny.

Esper Sentinel does work in my friend's Heliod life gain deck. By turn 4, it typically is already costing 4 or more mana to not let him draw a card. Timeless Lotus is nice and totally worth the cost in my Sisay, Weatherlight Captain deck, especially with Amulet of Vigor, Voltaic Key, Ioreth, and Sonic Screwdriver in the deck. It's in my Jodah the Unifier deck, too but Sisay is in there, as well.

I'm with Crim on the lotus. It was a card I wasn't willing to buy but ended up opening a copy in a draft. I use it in my Rodolf deck. It's a life gain, angel, reanimation deck and Rodolf is a 6 mana commander that doesn't usually do anything the turn you play him. For decks like that it feels like a totally fine card. I also play dark ritual in the deck and even cabal ritual since self mill is part of the strategy.

I personally have replaced cyc rift with Turn About in any blue deck. Rift bores me, and the utility Turn About offers is insane. It doesn't force a board reset like rift, but it can prevent a huge attack, tap out an opponents mana on their upkeep, act as a mana ritual or a combat trick for sneaky blockers.

As or doubling season, not only is is good for planeswalkers, it's also great for an artifact deck with the right things. Many, MANY artifacts have unique counters that can ONLY be amplified with this to great effect, not to mention running in the same deck some of the vanishing enchantments to nuke more of the board, do more things, etc before saccing them. When it comes to timeless lotus, you have to think about the manabase to NOT use it. To consistently get 1 of each by turn 4-6, depending on rocks, etc, you have to spend far more than $13 when this card just kinda does it. It is value in itself in that way, as well as ignoring getting screwed out of one color by a land nuke or just not drawing one color.

Richard, gotta love the instant fireball.

Another argument in favor of Doubling Season is if you are using treasures as a significant component of your ramp strategy. It also does double duty in a deck designed around making token copies of permanents that create their own token copies. I have Gruul artifact deck designed around making copies of stuff like Wurmcoil Engine, Phyrexian Triniform, and modular creatures. It can really come out of nowhere and has solid yard recursion to rebuild if needed.

I got my Doubling Season for 28€ when WOE was released. I think in a Dragon tribal playing Sarkhan Unbroken it does really good work. You can tutor for all of your dragons and put them onto the battlefield the same turn you play Sarkhan. Especially if your commander is Miirym, Doubling Season is a great card. You can also double all your treasures from Ancient Copper Dragon, Old Gnawbone, Ganax, Rapacious Dragon or Dockside, which is a great pay-off for the relatively high cmc of Doubling Season. Also, in green it is relatively easy to get to the five mana you need to cast it.

Imperial seal is good for decks that cares about cards at the top of the deck more than the hand. Jodah the unifier for example. Is it worth it? Ehhh

I like how almost contentious the Doubling Season convo was. Like, it's a powerful card but I tend to agree it's just not worth its price tag. Every time I ran it back before it became 50+ dollars I'd get targeted hard so I wouldn't token or +1/+1 swarm and start clipping huge chunks of people's life totals. Or it was a card I had to hold in hand for several turns AFTER I'm able to cast it so I get value immediately and start doing some damage so I'm not just outright telegraphing what I'm about to do. I feel it's five mana that is not well spent if anyone is running even a half hearted amount of removal because they're going to get rid of it ASAP anyway, if not immediately (or outright countered). I've cut it from a lot of my decks and instead opted for the incremental ones like Hardened Scales, Pir, Good Fortune Unicorn, etc. Having multiple means of producing extra +1/+1 counters and just having better token generators on their own has worked better for me in the long haul. Less 'generic' than Doubling Season but also means I don't get pressured nearly as hard as I would if I slap that card on the table. Too much money to 'invest' in a card that gets me blown out of a game every time.

A lot of the discussion got bogged down to "Is this card good" rather than "Is this card worth it's market price". I feel like for some cards that's a huge difference. Yes, Damnation is one of the best mono black board wipes. Yes, if you're going for power level, it's probably correct to put it in your mono black decks. But that doesn't mean the price is justified. This card isn't worth 20 dollars. You can get 5 different good black board wipes for less than half of that.

3mana for a shock, one for the cracking and one for the coming into play tapped.

Esper Sentinel I believe is good. I think not only does it do card advantage, but most importantly while you're advancing your opponents have to take a detour. They either have to pivot and waste a removal spell or use mana to prevent drawing which can still postpone their plans.

I'd say just about any card is not worth $20+ if you're looking to get it so you can play casually. If you're looking to collect or play competitively then the value of any card can change wildly... I bought a damnation at I think $17~ and thought it was overpriced but it's also just my favorite card? so idk lol definitely depends But yeah casual commander people should almost never be spending that kind of money unless you're really happy with dumping money into the hobby to enhance whatever fun you're having. Some people love blinged decks or really love certain cards or really want specific combos or whatever and don't wanna run proxies. /Shrug but I'd say reasonably speaking $20+ is really too much across the board for a general baseline of fun commander games (Tomer has shown you can make decks wayyyyyyyyy cheap that are pretty awesome) EDIT: btw you can buy damnation for $15 and under now if you're lookin carefully. (at the time of me posting this there's multiple listings on TCGplayer 15 and under

It's nice to hear the casual sides perspective

1:19:26 kind of, but if you play a sol ring and are dropping timeless lotus t3-t4, you have less lands on the board for miraris wake.

23:10 Ghave for sure. That's the only one I can think of though since my Ghave Enchantress deck is one of my most favorite decks. It enables 4 combos in my deck. Ghave + Phyrexian Altar + Doubling Season, Ghave + Ashnod's Altar + Doubling Season, Ghave + Cryptic Trilobite + Doubling Season and Ghave + Earthcraft + Doubling Season enabling infinite man, infinite tokens and infinite death triggers that end games with things like Corpse Knight/The Meathook Massacre/Blood Artist or control board states with Grave Pact/Aura Shards.

Esper sentinel goes hard. It is a great card for mono white decks. I've pulled several play sets. It's very useful.

Doubling Season is simply the best in class of what it does, and it’s not hard at all to find ways to use both halves.

I run Timeless Lotus in my Garth one Eye untap theme deck with gates as the land base, and I run Amulet of vigor, it's still not optimal but it fits well in that deck.