The end was the single messiest turn I have ever seen in my life. It exuded "They can't guess your plan if you don't have one" in the best way possible.
Well it wasn't the easiest of turns to get through. Multiple players talking through her turn, making her not able to completely focus (other players had the best intentions, but still a lot of noise). Playing in front of that incredible crowd on stage. You would've done way better of course, from your chair at home. Just be happy for her. She got there in the end and it was an incredible match. Absolutely happy for Kathleen and you could see it meant a lot to her.
To those saying there was a missed pyrohemia damage, you’re right. But it’s not Kathleen (Rachel corrected it later but also gave her damage early which created the impression that it was later missed). It was actually Jimmy. I spent too long breaking it down, so here you go. Start of the turn: Jimmy 9 | Rachel 28 | Josh 13 | Kathleen 15 3 Devil tokens Protection racket trigger resolves in upkeep with Jimmy paying 0 and Rachel paying 4 life: Jimmy 9 | Rachel 24 | Josh 13 | Kathleen 15 3 Devil tokens Kathleen casts Jeska’s will, targeting Rachel. This triggers Talion which resolves. Kathleen loses 2 and Josh draws his first card of the turn which triggers Zurzoth. Josh then counters Jeska’s will with fierce guardianship. Zurzoth’s trigger resolves, and devil token is created, triggering impact tremors which also resolves: Jimmy 8 | Rachel 23 | Josh 12 | Kathleen 13 4 Devil tokens In Kathleen’s combat phase, Rankle and Torbran attacks Rachel. She does not block. Damage step occurs: Jimmy 8 | Rachel 20 | Josh 12 | Kathleen 13 4 Devil tokens With the damage, Rankle and Torbran trigger. Kathleen chooses all modes. Each player makes a treasure token. Then, everyone sacrifices a creature (in order, a Devil token, Sphinx of enlightenment, Asmor…, and a spirit token). Then R&T has an affect for all damage to players (and battles) for the rest of the turn. The Devil token has a death trigger which targets Rachel, and Akim triggers since Rachel made her first token of the turn. Rachel makes a bird and takes 1+2 damage: Jimmy 8 | Rachel 17 | Josh 12 | Kathleen 13 3 Devil tokens Note that Kathleen has 2 mountains, Ramunap ruins, foreboding ruins, and 1 treasure token as sources of red mana for pyrohemia. Kathleen taps foreboding ruins to activate pyrohemia once. Each player takes 3 damage, and all creatures take 1 damage. This kills 3 devil tokens, triggering their death effects. Long discussion, and Kathleen accidentally taps lands early, but it was corrected later. Kathleen sends 2 triggers to Rachel and 1 to Jimmy: Jimmy 2 | Rachel 8 | Josh 9 | Kathleen 10 0 Devil tokens Kathleen taps a mountain to target to cast spikefield hazard, targeting Rachel: Jimmy 2 | Rachel 5 | Josh 9 | Kathleen 10 0 Devil tokens Kathleen uses her treasure and last mountain to float 2 red mana, threatening pyrohemia twice. In response (which I’m not sure you can respond to mana abilities, but she can also do this in response to the first activation; doing it like this makes the stack easier), Rachel uses her clue token. It resolves, and she draws her first card of the turn which triggers Zurzoth. That resolves and gives Kathleen a Devil token which triggers impact tremors. In response, Jimmy uses 1 of his 2 food tokens to gain 3 life. Everything resolves. This is the board state at 2:11:21 and is accurate: Jimmy 2 | Rachel 2 | Josh 6 | Kathleen 10 1 Devil token Kathleen activates pyrohemia once, bolting all players and pinging all creatures. In response, Jimmy uses his last food token to gain 3 life. Also in response, Rachel uses currency converter to draw a card. Pyrohemia resolves, devil death triggers and targets Jimmy as Rachel is knocked out: Jimmy 2 | Rachel 0 | Josh 3 | Kathleen 7 0 Devil tokens, but 1 death trigger on the stack. **Note that this is where the confusion and mistakes come in. They begin talking about the devil trigger, but both Jimmy and Kathleen were not properly damaged by pyrohemia. When Jimmy goes to take the damage from the Devil token, he is really correcting himself. ** I’m going to continue playing it out how it should have gone. In response to the Devil token trigger (which he did in response to the next pyrohemia), Jimmy activates underworld cookbook, discarding from under the floorboards. The cookbook gives him a food token, and he casts from under the floorboards for its madness cost where X=3. He gains 3 life and creates 3 zombie tokens. The Devil trigger resolves: Jimmy 2 | Rachel 0 | Josh 3 | Kathleen 7 0 Devil tokens Kathleen uses her 2nd (and last) floating mana to activate pyrohemia again. (Note that Rachel, upon this activation, correctly says that Kathleen missed the last pyrohemia damage. She says that Kathleen is at 4, which is correct once this pyrohemia resolves. Since her damage from this activation was done sooner than others’, that gives the impression that it was later missed.) In response, Jimmy uses his last food token (which he did in response to vicious rumors) to effectively negate the damage. Pyrohemia resolves for a 3rd time, knocking out Josh and killing Zurgoth: Jimmy 2 | Rachel 0 | Josh 0 | Kathleen 4 0 Devil tokens Kathleen casts vicious rumors, targeting Jimmy. (Just like how he had nothing in response to the 4th pyrohemia, he would have no response to this.) The spell resolves, dealing damage, healing Kathleen, and putting cards into the graveyard: Jimmy 0 | Rachel 0 | Josh 0 | Kathleen 5 0 Devil tokens Kathleen wins 1 ability sooner.
I'm thrilled that Kathleen De Vere won the championship, she got so emotional, what a moment! She deserved it. It was such an epic victory, I couldn't help but applaud her for a minute afterwards, even though I was in my room watching this lol
Spoilers: I can't believe Kathleen misplay with spike field hazard led to Rachel drawing cards to ensure Josh's death which then led to the death of every player, what a turn of events.
i didnt run the numbers, but im pretty sure if she just casted vicious rumors at that point instead of the spike field hazard, rachels play wouldnt have been necessary to kill everyone
@@xDarthix I ran the numbers and you're right. Rachel did gain a life instead of losing one at 1:53:30 though so the whole thing could have been way easier with her at 12 life in the first place. Happy it didn't skew the outcome of the game her ways in the end.
Jimmy missed a Pyrohemia damage at 2:12:07, which would have made it a lot simpler. Kathleen missed that damage too, but Josh fixed it for her later (2:13:26).
Absolutely brilliant! Without a doubt an amazing show, set, intros, costumes, a/v quality, and a game for the ages. Congrats to the new Game Knights Live Champion, long may you reign! One of if not the best commander games I’ve ever sat and watched, I think Sheldon would be proud. Thank you all for the incredible effort that goes into the preparation and execution of a production like this.
While the game is great, I’ve rewatched that ending multiple times. The emotions from Kathleen are incredible, and everyone praising her is what we want to see in the community. Even if Wizards keeps trying to prevent it, they will never stop Magic from being about The Gathering.
I Just have too say. I Love watching MTG in camera publications like this. The in game with the pressure of the clock is amazing. It also looks so much fun The playing and acting is amazing. We have an amazing Community!
@@TehFoamyI thought it was an act. That’s concerning 🤣 He’s never gonna live down the fact he won the trivia segment, probably boosted his iq another 5 points lol
Lol yeah, they deliberately staged it to have him appear. You can look closely and notice that he has a Guest badge Fun fact: After the trivia game, WotC reps brought him backstage and gave him a special "1 of 1" shirt that had a big gold printing of the "001/001" on it
1:36:54 Oh hey, this was me! I wasn't sure if I should have taken out Rachel's Ethereal Investigator with 2 damage and hit the Skycat Sovereign with the third damage, but I figured that Chainer would have gotten Jimmy a lot of value if it had stuck around. But then again, all it takes is two Pyrohemia activations to get rid of it, so idk 😅 Plus if I had distributed the damage differently, then maybe we wouldn't have gotten such a dramatic finish haha
Hindsight is 20/20 but given the circumstances I think Chainer definitely needed to go. When a card's downside becomes an upside---as I like to say, when "I have to" becomes "I get to"---it becomes infinitely more threatening, and Jimmy's deck was absolutely built around being able to discard at will. Chainer was a discard outlet, a reanimation enabler, and a haste enabler all in one. Plus Kathleen won in the end so you shouldn't doubt the choice too much.
@@HakureiIllusion Lol yeah, when I sat back down several people came over and told me that I definitely made the right call by going for Chainer, so that reassured me even further
What a game knight ending. Everything burning brightly like blazing candles, but in the end, only one flame could keep burning, for as always, ONLY ONE MAY STAND!!!
I got all confused with Josh being able to cast Deadly Rollick after the Kindly Lord died. That cards warps games so much I forgot that he wasn't Josh's commander.
Love that time because I like playing counter spells and other weird color breaks in my black deck. I got extra turns, counters, take control of other peoples creature, take their turns, exile hand for a turn, discard their hand and hand pick their new one, all of the random shit haha.
I dont think she did as shes been playing magic for longer than most of us, having 4-5 people in your face questioning plays on a stage in front of a massive audience would be hard.
Not only that, judging from her facial expression both Kathleen and Rachel had a mini-anxiety attack during play. I have had those when playing in my LGS, no wonder they had issues when playing for 300 live people.
Kinda confused as to why everyone guessed under 250 Knights… when the previous question mentioned that there are 338 Birds. There’s no way anyone could think there were fewer Knights than Birds. 😂
What a great show they put on now that's value! I wonder if more mtg content creators are going to be trying to get onto the gameknights live shows having a chance to get into the finals looked very exciting and rewarding to be a part of. I also like how there are no tutors, and no cheezy infinite combo's being played in these decks, making it all about casual commander and not CEDH nonsense that ends in the first three turns every game. And huge shout out to Victoria, BC girl Kathleen from LRR for taking down our favorite commander podcast team.
Jimmy is allowed to say whatever he wants. It was just really dumb when they _actually_ brought it out. Because obviously they should never have brought it out. I gave a nice middle finger to Jimmy when it landed on 2! 😆
Seeing Kathleen win was the most warm and fuzzy I've ever felt watching a win on Game Knights. To get to win playing your very good friends in a big stage like that was amazing.
Not to take away from her win, but Kathleen kept missing her Pyrohemia damage, especially at the end. When Josh died, she never took her 3 damage from Pyrohemia, which would have put her at 1. You can also hear it in the background, where "Kathleen may have missed a Pyrohemia trigger."
@commandcast I would LOVE to see games like this, costumes and full-on entertainment, but in sit-stand stools. That would free up body movement, allow for standing to be more relevant and entertaining, AND show off the costumes better, which all of this and then some would add another layer to the game in the entertainment aspect. I love this set up so much and I hope we get more Magic content like this is the future!
I will say, the cube being a thing is understandable, I will also say though, Josh not choosing the number would be fair, especially because he was basically peer pressured into using the cube, the warning was out of line in my opinion and I was not even cheering for Josh xD
I thought he was just gonna dock 5 mins or something for wasting everyone's time with the cube, that woulda been way more fair... forcing him to use the cube is just silly
Jimmy and Kathleen tied as they missed a Pyrohemia trigger for Kathleen(The one that killed josh) she started the turn with 15 health gained one health taking her to 16 but paid 1 life and took 12 damage and lose two from josh by jeskas will
Wrong, go back to 2:09:30 and watch it back, she is at 10 and only 2 additional pyrohemia triggers take place. The devil rachel gets katheleen triggers impact tremors for that "missed" pyrohemia trigger.
Her turn starts with her at 15, she takes 2 playing her commander, there is only a total of 3 pyrohemia triggers for 9 dmg. So her being at 4 is correct.
2:13:55 Kathleen is at 4, josh 3 Jimmy 2. Kathleen casts final Pyrohemia. Jimmy creates 3 zombies and goes to 5. Josh takes 3 dies. Jimmy takes 3 and goes to 2. Kathleen takes no damage. Casts Vicious rumours. Jimmy uses food and takes 3, goes to 2. Kathleen gains 1 and goes wrongfully to 5 while she should go to 2. Kathleen while wrongful at 5 uses pain land and casts Pyrohemia killing Jimmy and goes to 1. Jimmy got stolen
@@fnt0rz Josh resolved that pyrohemia on stack for Kathleen beforehand because she didnt have anyway to respond to it, she was at 10 and Josh at 6 when she does 2 pyrohemia triggers for 6 dmg. This puts her at 4.
A sweet deal would have been for Jimmy and Rachel to use their artifact draw effects on not their turn to trigger zurzoth, in order to make an additional 2 devils (3 total). That way they would need fewer activations of pyrohemia, leaving them all at healthier life totals.
Jimmys intro was absolutely incredible, best thing I've ever seen Kathleen's reaction at the end is so sweet oh my god So proud the enchanter Aggro got it!
I cant believe Cathleen needed so much help to win. If she messes up it’s her misplay. Game would have been totally different if they didn’t help her so much.
Rachel Weeks @ 1H/53 Mins/ 45 Sec you give yourself 1 life (i dont know why or maybe missed it) go from 22 to 23, take one life by the trigger of the devil thing, go back to 23 but you should be on 22? Doesnt really matter just saw it. Was fun to Watch, Peace.
What happened is that she accidentally taps wrong on the phone and going up one life at 1:53:30 instead of losing one life, she than cracks a fetch putting her down to 23 but should should have been at 21 after the whole situation.
I am not trying to be a hater here, but this was no doubt one of the worse episodes of Game Knights I've ever witnessed. I love the serie, the team and their amazing effort to provide free entertainment, and I always find myself very happy once a new video comes out, since it's usually top-quality content. That's why I hope they can get something positive even out of this very negative comment. I loved the effort to involve people in the game, I think it is wholesome and a nice idea overall, but in my honest opinion it turned out to be quite chaotic. I especially did not appreciate the attempt of Jimmy to force the use of the die just for entertainment. Sure, commander is supposed to be a format just for fun, but I also think that it fun as long as it is fair. Imposing the die and letting the audience make certain decisions is not what I would consider fair. I especially did not like the fact that everyone was trying to pick at Josh for being the bad guy, while he was almost a victim to begin with. The best example is probably the "I am giving you the 1st warning, after the 3rd you are out" threat. Please don't be as petty, especially if you would like your games to look more friendly and less competitive. I also felt like the use of the timers was quite unnecessary. It almost felt like they were trying to convey the idea of a serious, competitive game while allowing sub optimal decisions like in a casual friends game of Magic. Sometimes it seems like you are trying to sell something instead of creating content, please pick a side or it will look even worse. The last part was very disappointing. It lasted far too long for the options that were available, and, I am sorry for Kathleen, but certain misplays were almost painful to watch. I understand that maybe she was just tired or overwhelmed, but the result is that they tried to make a huge fuss for an ending that was borderline anticlimactic. I sincerely would have preferred more adequate reactions. In addition, I am not too fan of the hosts talking over the players, but I understand that their job of commenting every now and then is not a trivial one. For my final remarks: CGB is a wonderful host, please give him more space on the stage and less screen time as a player where he can be at times toxic. Props to the players for being professional, entertaining and overall nice people as usual. Love GameKnights, please keep up the marvelous work. Thanks for the tons of free (and almost ad-free) content. Sorry for the comment. I know it is not a nice one but I feel like being honest and speaking my own mind may still be a positive thing to do.
I view Game Knights Live as primarily being about "trying to put on an entertaining and dramatic show for an audience". Not as much about trying to play "100% strategically optimal and 100% rules-wise correct Magic the Gathering". Though those are worthwhile goals too, as those two aspects also make the show more entertaining for a significant percentage of viewers (including myself), they aren't as important as "the show being dramatic and exciting". Letting players from the audience vote who to attack, or come up and sit in the chair and make gameplay decisions, makes the show less like "Watching a Pro Tour top 8 game between Jon Finkel and Kai Budde in their prime", because it's looser and will tend to decisions being made on a less sound basis than the four fairly skilled players at the table would make on their own. But it makes the people in the live audience THRILLED and happy to be participating. And the viewers of the video get to hear more yelling and cheering which entertains us, and experience the vicarious thrill, and those of us who can also enjoy a little gratuitous chaos and drama over "more technically and tactically perfect Magic the Gathering" can find it entertaining on that basis. Which I did also. It's a spectacle, like Roman gladiators fighting only without the actual blood and real killing. More like fake TV wrestling in that regard. The dramatic entrances with costumed minions for all four players contributes ZERO to making the rules compliance 100% correct and towards making the tactical and strategic gameplay decisions 100% perfect. Zero. But it's big on Entertainment Value. Likewise playing fast and loose with "what are the rules about whether Josh can be made to roll the cube at all, and whether he can then ignore its result or has to obey it" has Entertainment Value unless you're so obsessed with Optimal Plays and Rules Compliance that you can't enjoy "Goofy convention stage show entertainment for the cheering masses". And even when it comes to "rules compliance" - this is a Wacky New Rule that Game Knights made up. It's not in the Comprehensive Rules for Magic. It's not in the Tournament Rules. It's not even in any rulings the Commander Rules Committee made for Commander. No, it's a totally new rule that the producers of Game Knights made up. And when a situation comes up that they hadn't run into before, and they have to make a ruling on it, I think it's fair for THEM to decide on the fly what that ruling will be. If you want rules consistency, I think all that's needed is for them to make that SAME ruling if the exact same type of situation comes up with the cube again in a future episode. I also think the timer is perfectly reasonably. There are not only time constraints making a four to five hour commander game less enjoyable for most home viewers - which is why movies in the movie industry are more often 2 hours than 3 to 5 hours... But also at a live event, the audience there has a finite amount of time to enjoy both this live stage show AND all the other things to do at the Magic Con. So I think putting in some mechanism that allows them to put a viable upper limit on how long the game will take to complete is a good call on their part, not for "selling things" but for the sake of their audiences, both live and at-home.
Really good game, fun to watch. If I have one suggestion while having live commentary from gavin and CGB was cool it does kind of talk over the players a lot when they are trying to do stuff. especially at the end of the game there when everyone was trying to do the math the commentary was quite distracting.
