These Decks Never Run Out of Gas 

Can't lose steam if you never get going to begin with *points to forehead*

The effect of shuffling the library back was the determining factor of choosing old kozilek instead of the new one. Every deck runs some sort of graveyard recursion, and the feeling that my deck will NEVER END had some friends just quit the game because they just "can't deal with this card for the fourth time in a row". I love it, the grave is just my extended hand.

thanks dunkey

This video further reinforces my love for graveyard hate. Nothing more satisfying than having instant speed graveyard hate to stop someone’s plans fast 🤣

That "Skimp out on the graveyard hate" is soooo true. My best and most favourite deck is Raffine Reanimator. Even though I've cut souch removal and counter magic just to add more big dumb creatures to bring back (I'm down to like 4 pieces of targeted removal and 2 or 3 counterspells) They still tell me it's too oppressive and out of control. The only graveyard hate in the entire Meta is when someone runs farewell or bojuka bog. Which is like... 2 people. They won't take my advice to add more things that interact with the yard. Hell the EZURI player doesn't run scavenging Ooze!

Best commender channel for casual players on the planet.

This is how my Pantlaza deck is. I’ll get board wiped 3-4 times but always right back in it next turn. Lots of draw engines and ramp and I run Struggle//Survive so I can keep getting everything back. And the new Vaultborn Tyrant coming out is just gonna make even better

Trying to unpack this video is a nightmare but I'll give it my best go 1) A deck should be built with 4 types of card draw in mind repeatable like a phyrexian arena, burst like Night's whisper, and synergistic card draw these being draw based on something your deck is already doing. Leaning too heavy into any one of these will actually hurt the consistency of a deck. 2) I don't think all decks need to use the graveyard but all decks should be able to interact with it. A player should figure out if they are more interested in being able to reuse cards multiple times, a single time, or not at all and go with the appropriate options. For example a spell slinger type deck may not want to cast the same spells too many times as they may actually interfere with their ability to dig into their decks to hit their mind's desire or tendrils of agony. 3) Every play group and player is different so making the claim that this type of deck is going to work for every group can actually be really bad advice. Based on personal experince in the 15ish years I've played commander there have been some playgroups where the average win turn was 6 to 9 and others where the win turn was 12+. This deck would fit well into the the 12+ category but would do terrible in the 6 to 9 turn win range. I was going to say more but the other points I was going to bring up didn't really match anything you brought up in the video or in comments, I think the video is well done and offers some interesting takes on deck building philosphies but I also think it ignores the most important thing about commander which is just to have fun.

I really like this video! Really opened my eyes to something I felt a few of my decks were missing that I really like! Thanks

I have been screaming about seasons past since 2018, it is so good and no one is playing it I have a boomer jund edh deck built around this card and it's done wonders

My favourite advantage engine was definitely ephara, god of the polis in the command zone. Every creature draws a card and playing instant speed interactive piece drew a card if it was stapled on a creature or made a creature

Lurrus is my value engine and she's pretty great, if she gets exiled tho it's all over. Also for that deck I have 1 infinite combo I can recur with lurrus so that if I do run out of steam I have a fallback

Once I had only 1 peice of graveyard hate in my deck (Soul guide lanter) and my opponent cast a Surge to Victory targeting a World at War , and man it felt good to crack that Sould guide lanter.

Very helpful video on what cards can you put in your deck that will make it so you won't run out of gas. If you run a tokens deck that has green, a card that would slot well in it is Timeless Witness. It is a more expensive to cast Eternal Witness, but you won't run out of gas since you exile it and make a token copy with it's Eternalize ability. It is even better if you have ways to populate that token. I have it in my Ghired, Conclave Exile deck and it has been really good.

I've always felt weird about my Yurlok of scorch thrash deck being played for value instead of combo. After watching your video I understood that deck was always meant to just jund players out and that's totally ok ✨👌. thank you!

I love my Kethis, the Hidden Hand deck. Kethis himself provides recursion and can help get some big threats down a turn early if nobody answers him. He also makes stuff like Urza's Ruinous Blast and Kamhal's Druidic Vow absolutely disgusting. There's a lot of good legendary specific value engines too

Thank you so much for this video! I remember when I watched your vid about "how to not build around your commander" and feeling like 'that's great but how do I build a deck that isn't a copy of the example they made'. This video helped me make changes to my decks to feel less bland and powerless in large pods (I had a lot of one-off draw so my deck either won explosively early or got wrekt by combat damage lategame on an empty hand) Keep up the great work and keep challenging the status quo about commander :)

I was impressed by the saga praetors - Elesh Norn, Sheoldred, Jin-Gitaxias, and Vorinclex - for how little deck construction they need to support while they set themselves up to be re-activated into the saga so the whole process repeats. Urabrask at least wants more cheap instants and sorceries as a limit. Fun engines to sit back and wear down opponents with.

Now i'm sure that i want to be on ur patreon and let you help me with my deck haah. Amazing content

Midrange grind decks is an archetype I love, but I have struggled to create a deck that has the tools to disrupt combo decks while also keeping the midrange identity. How would you navigate a midrange deck, in deck building and in game, against play group that leans toward combo decks? Any advice would be much appreciated.

Heyyy, another salvaging station enjoyer ! It's my favorite card, I especially like playing lantern control with it. I also really enjoyed ransom letter with it recently.

Regrowth effects are my favorite part of green's color identity, that and i love running past in flames or underworld breach in alot of my red decks. Utilizing cards for a second time instead of stalling out is almost like a tutor effect. Its so powerful

Reminds me of Adrian Sullivan’s “Baron Harkonnen” deck from back in the days and later during Timespiral standard.

Personally I like REPEATABLE interaction. Font of Agonies in Vilis, Retribution of the Ancients in a counters deck, Lux Cannon in a proliferate deck, Constant Mists in lands decks, etc.

Deck needs more Gaea’s Blessing 😉

Added the og legendary eldrazi for the annihilator 4, kept them for the shuffle triggers. All of my casual decks have ways to avoid decking out, and I include 3-4 cards that provide lifegain+stax/interaction such as Meathook Massacre, Blind Obedience, Authority of the Consuls, etc. Not dying to decking out or attrition damage and still having 94~ cards in the deck to choose from for whatever I’m doing has helped dominate long games by never losing heavy hitters.

Righteous cause and grim feast are great ways to pad your life total in causal. There's always something dying and always someone attacking.

I got a Jan Jansen deck that is grindy as hell too. With all those goblin welders we habe nowadays, plus the recursion from mardu colors... oh boy. My fav wincon is machine gunning with marionette master and cranial plating!

I will say probably one of the best ways I’ve seen for deck building. I do like putting a combo or two in EVERY deck that wins me the game that turn for when games get too long or tiring (I’m not the type to typically scoop unless you blow up my lands or mana rocks turn 1-2 if you had a better start). Sometimes I just don’t want to play a 6+ hour game in a 6-8 person pod. Over all great video. I think possibility storm is an underrated card and is an auto include in every red deck. It definitely tests people’s deck building/deck knowledge/skills. 🤣🤣

I have a pure colorless Karn, Legacy Reforged commander deck that uses KCI, Mirrorworks, and Nim Deathmantle with artifact creatures (some with etb triggers) to create an overwhelming board state over time. I've only made it work one time so far, and I used Jhoira's Familiar as my creature for Deathmantle to do its thing. It works by Sacrificing a Nontoken Artifact Creature to KCI, which triggers Deathmantle, pay 4 to reanimate the creature, and then pay 2 for Mirrorworks to make a clone of it. Repeat until you can't pay for Deathmantle since the KCI mana pays for the Mirrorworks trigger. You can also use Karns mana to pay the cost of the Mirrorworks and Deathmantle triggers too, so over time you net more and more free mana and more artifacts which give you more mana the next turn.

Another strategy I like which usually works best in some combination of red/white/black is what I’ll call ‘hyper-aggression’. You come out of the gate swinging with 14 board wipes in the deck, all the artifact and enchantment destruction under the sun. You hit them hard and fast, tackle them to the ground, and never let them get up. It’s what I do for my Syr Gwyn Voltron deck. You don’t need to worry about running out of steam if you never let your opponents generate any of their own in the first place. Of course this won’t work for as many groups because it’s much more of a ‘feels bad’ strategy than grindy midrange because your goal isn’t to outlast what your opponents are doing, it’s to not let them do any of it in the first place. Sort of mardu’s answer to azorius/selesyna stax.

Regrowth and Shigeki is one of my favorite late game value engine

My favorite solitaire combo is Time Spiral + Riftsweeper.

my Sharuum Salvaging Station deck was one of my favourite engine decks to play

My Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker deck kept getting flatlined by having Shirei removed. I combatted that with a bunch of protection pieces, but thanks to this video i now know of a different approach that i can try. Thank you for such well explained and insightful content, i really liked the creative value engines in particular.

Good Ty for thèse Strategic Minds 👍

Would also something like command tower + the new Tower Winder, and then use the command tower for discard effects? (and then repeatable copy the tower winder)

Also would you say something like Shigeki, Jukai Visionary + Colossal Skyturtle as an engine?

Would Sunbird's Invocation be considered a value engine? It allows for a second spell to be cast from the top of your deck EACH time you cast a spell from your hand (and no, the cast spell DOES NOT have to resolve).

as someone who LOVES being able to re-use cards as many times as possible (not just flashback once and exile it forever) I feel you. One of my favorites is using faerie mechanist to put pressure on because 3 in the air is just pushing that uncomfortable to take multiple hits from line so people kill it, then a simple skeleton shard to return it to hand for one mana, play faerie mechanist again, and pull another arifact from my top 3 cards. Because I like doing it myself I've always been conscious of packing graveyard hate to keep anyone from doing it back to me, but also in turn trained my friends to always be cautious of graveyards. My current project is trying to use Scion of the Ur dragon for it's 2 cost copy ability to throw highly situational dragons into the graveyard and copy their abilities at instant speed while being immune to counterspell because it's an ability not a spell, and trying to carry enough cards to keep shuffling them back into my deck, and Nylea's Bow is gonna be a BIG target every time it hits the field for it's ability to put 4 creatures from graveyard on the bottom of my deck. It's gonna be gimmicky and kinda loaded with bad draws, but hopefully there's also enough wheel effects to throw those cards away for a new hand and then once again shuffle those high cost dragons back into the deck so I can copy them for abilities later. Basically the end goal is to have yugioh anime bullshit levels of situational silver bullets at all times for 2 mana and then to keep shuffling them back for reuse while a flyer commander that keeps getting beefier with counters over time is a constant boardstate threat.

I’ve had a lot of luck with seasons past. Feels busted af every time it resolves

shorikai or any other 1-toughness token maker plus skullclamp is a great value engine, even better if youre running iso/rev as your value engine fits into your infinite combo value pieces that also fit in combos are just good in general too, having a combo in a deck that has nothing to do with what the deck wants to do otherwise feels kinda bad imo. another example i can think of is dualcaster mage + twinflame/heat shimmer in krark/sakashima, both dualcaster and the copy spells are good on their own in the deck but also make another win condition together

The thing with the arena vs. whispers debate is this, it comes down what you aim to do: arena costs 3 mana and will only do something if you get around to your next turn with it still being on board. even then it still is more expensive than whispers, and has done less for you. only if another rotation passes around the table and arena doesnt get removed, it somewhat starts to break even, while still costing more. only if a third rotation can be completed, arena has been worth playing over whispers. also, if you play whispers on turn 2 you will be able to start using the cards on turn 3 you drew with it, in contrast to playing arena there. so generally, whispers is just the better effect. however, decks with other synergies/gameplans (enchantment focus, grinding playstyle, recursion heavy) are able to make great use out of arena, it just is not the be all include for black card draw that it sometimes gets made out to be

Hey what commander do you like do use for salvaging station?

I want to make a mono white deck that is like this (on a budget, so no Emeria), but I can’t think of any good value engines. The deck I am building does not have a critical mass of particularly good ETBs, so repeated blink is out. Any ideas?

Here comes Lurrus / Bjorna / Wernog Infinite value> every card is meant to be a conditional make a guy every turn, or a conditional phyrexian arena, then load it up with removal, and pesto, value. With lurrus as a backup

Salvaging Station got exiled? Karn the Great Creator can't pull from sideboard (in Commander), but he can pull from exile.

The closest thing to a value piece that I use is Chainer, Nightmare Adept plus any evoke elemental. You discard a card, target your elemental, pay the evoke cost, the elemental dies and you recur the value both from the elemental and from permanents with death triggers over and over again.

Turdo fog commander deck tech pls

I was wondering if you do any deck doctor stuff. Maybe for patrons? I have a deck that I built with your bottom up design but I got a lot of weird looks when I shared the deck idea and deck list.

Great video

Playing ewit in a blink deck is a devious way to out grind anybody

There are plenty of Partner pairings that draw if you don't want to run out of things to play. Tevesh, Tymna, Kraum, Thrasios... just play those, ezpz

as a glissa player i know this too well

Its meta to bring at least 1 card to seal with graveyards

The golden age of Modern, when those mythics pictured were $80+ a pop

Bro, idk where you play, but in my lgs half of the games are over turns 4-8, so instants that draws cards or removal are WAY better than an enchantment that only draws me a card in the upkeep (night whisper x phyrexian arena), but it depends a lot on the deck and meta. A grixis spellslinger deck for example gains a lot more with an instant than the enchantment. The point here is that each deck needs to be curated by the player, people need to learn how to build decks first. 60 cards constructed formats are perfect for netdecking, but edh, not so much

Hi

Sythis

Hmm, "Casual games often go long so you should play slower, grindier value pieces over instant draw" seems like a 'cart before the horse' situation to me. Casual games would likely be a fair bit faster if people played Night's Whisper over Phyrexian Arena!

Hakkon, Stromgald Scourge + Nameless Inversion Not a value engine, more like a removal engine, as long as you keep the mana open, most of the time, people will give you time to set up your other engines, also opens up the chance for political favors if you remove things other players wants out of the field, i run this on my Dina, Soul Steeper

i mostly play muldrotha and holy it cannot be fun to play against, just abusing the best permanent based control cards it the colours so i can recast with my commander and then using carapace and such to keep my commander around, combine that with multiple instant speed ways to save my graveyard from being exiled and youve got yourself a really obnoxious deck

Sol ringg is never a bad draw. It always makes you go up in mana. I could imagine it could be a dead draw if you are hellbent

Just play stax

This type of gameplay wins games but not as fun. People just surrender or makes me say gg go next after a couple games with grindy decks.

Good bideo. The Seasons Past tech is 👌

My Henzie deck is pretty much the embodiment of "Jund em out" super grindy, aggressive beatdown (my favorite) and lots of reanimation to make sure we're never running out of gas. Blitz is one of the most fun mechanics I've ever played with and i always feel like theres something I can do (unless there's GY hate...that always sucks lol)