We Design Secret Lair Cards | Commander Clash Podcast 99 

We created our own Secret Lair cards! Check out the latest video and then vote for your favorite here www.youtube.com/@MTGGoldfishCommander/community

Yusuke is absolutely heinous in every way 😂

i love how insanely overpowered Crim's cards are 😂😂

I’ve got to say, Richard’s first card is super impressively designed. Like wow, I need resets to exist please

What we have learned today is that Crim is VERY bad at balancing cards.

Crim being so insistent that Yusuke is balanced is REALLY funny

Richards first card feels like a really well designed card that I could totally see being made in magic and it being super fair and not overpowered but still really good

Crim being the epitome of playground talk "Well actually my card gets +50/+50 and also can't be destroyed and also wins the game if he hits you", you've gotta love it! Keep up the great work guys!

I loved NBA Jam and Seth is a genius for coming up with it and the flavor text.

Sonic with "the ring tempts you" is absolutely hilarious and also totally makes sense

Tomer's Sonic is really well thought out.

Why is crim obsessed with making every card broken 😂

I need a secret lair X Jurassic Park when ixalan comes out

i always love to see richards inner weeb shine

Zerg rush is amazing. Richard is the next great card designer.

I would like to see a legendary Perry flipping into Agent P whenever a contraption is cranked. Agent P has some evasion and whenever it deals combat damage to a player it puts a contraption on the bottom of its owners contraption deck. Then it flips back to Perry at end of turn.

Heating Up for the win!

14:12 You could make the second ability transform Walter White and then have him create a treasure and put a +1/+1 counter on him and when his power gets high enough he wipes the board. It prevents you from camping out on the treasure side and represents how he gets so big he destroys himself and everyone around him. Also, make him an artificer instead of wizard. Maybe make him a citizen as the first type. Double duty as a wire reference. I like him being a horror because while in magic horrors are supernatural they do weird stuff in universes beyond. Stranger Things had a cop be a soldier.

He’s warming up/He’s on Fire is my favorite one

Upvoted for Crim saying Yu Yu Hakusho is his #1 shonen anime.

I'm actually gonna build a Seele deck now, she look super fun and rakdos voltron/equipment seems interesting. The deck seems like it'd be a fun combination of a greven deck and a shagrat deck. Very excited to hopefully play it with a willing group one day.

WW/Heisenberg feels like it could be a cool place for vanishing or cumulative upkeep or something else to restrict his time on board. Maybe placing -1/-1 counters on it on upkeep and you can sacrifice treasures to remove them. Definitely some really cool ideas in this video

I actually cackled at Tomer’s Sonic 😂 perfect card, no notes

Zerg Rush needs to be a legendary enchantment

Every time they call a TDFC an MDFC Maro sheds a tear.

100% Agree with Crim. I remember watching Yu Yu Hakusho on Toonami and it was way better than DBZ. Show has a lot of heart and great characters.

I just need a SL with Jem and the Holograms💜✨ I am not into the other Hasbro's UB cards, but I could not resist having more Glitter and Gold in my life 😝

Crim's best take on this whole podcast series is Yu-Yu Hakusho makes DragonBall grabage. True AF

Hank Schrader, legendary human 2WW 4/4 Vigilance, etb: "THEYRE F***ing MINERALS MARIE!!!" you gain control of all artifacts with mana abilities. when an artifact is tapped for mana you gain control of it.

This really feels like an episode where Phil's input would have been great

I just want everyone to know that I designed the cards to be pretty powerful and so the backside of Yusuke was meant to essentially win the game 🤣 Also, Yusuke’s power level will be fine by the time the next few commander masters drops 🤣🤣

1:03:10 Tomer, you can fully kill a player when you're at 15 above your life total, and still no one plays Angel of Destiny. I think this needs to do more when it's the cost of a sword but more restrictive. I'd give the skeleton lifelink and have it put a +1/+1 counter on itself. That not only snowballs but references the swords since it's two abilities. I get the no evasion but maybe give it shroud from black on the front and shroud from white on the black. Keeps the needing evasion, powers it up, gives two abilities like a sword, and is flavorful.

Richard's first card design was so good it made me download Honkai: Star Rail

This was pretty cool. I'd love an episode where we can submit our own custom/universes beyond cards, and hear your opinions on which ones the crew liked the most.

Shoutout to everyone who grew up watching Yu Yu Hakusho on Toonami instead of sleeping at 3AM

Both of Crim's cards are super cool (I LOVE how getting more Spirit cards is balanced by making Yusuke harder to flip) but can totally be toned down when you consider that you have other cards in your deck to build around them. Yusuke's Spirit Gun ability is like Hidetsugu's, wanting you to Brainstorm high MV cards on top, so you should also have to pay for them. Either you hit for 10 damage and that's it, or you hit for 3 and get a utility spell. Either way, you're closer to flipping. Demon Gun Mega should read "{T}: Exile target instant or sorcery card from a graveyard and copy it. You may cast the copy. If you do, Mazoku Form Yusuke deals damage equal to the exiled card's mana value to any target." His back side would be tapped from transforming anyway, so he doesn't need haste, and he's Grixis, so he shouldn't have vigilance. He should also just be smaller, like a 5/5 or a 6/6. That makes the choice between attacking and using Demon Gun Mega more interesting (i.e., 10/12 lifelink damage vs. 5/6 lifelink damage + virtual card advantage). When it comes to making his demon form feel OP, being a big hexproof creature does most of the heavy lifting. As for Shuichi, the front side's fine, and the back end just needs two tweaks: 1. Don't make everything else plants. If you want that buff, play Plant tribal! You've at least got Avenger of Zendikar (which pairs nicely with Death Tree) and if you really want fake plants, you've got Maskwood Nexus. 2. Death Tree needs to happen at sorcery speed. Even at 7 mana, the threat of activation is too high to hold over people. You wanna send a message, you gotta commit to it. You've got a bunch of 2/3 first strike, deathtouch blockers anyway.

Zerg Rush Version 2.0 (1R) Enchantment You can't play lands. When Zerg rush enters the battlefield, create six 1/1 red Zergling creature tokens. At the beginning of your upkeep, create two 1/1 red Zergling creature tokens . At the beginning of combat on your turn, starting with you, each player sacrifice any number of lands they control. For each land sacrificed this way, that player creates a 1/1 green Worker creature token.

People sincerely doubt the power of Elenda, the Dusk Rose as an equip commander. I used to run one and it was disgusting. Remove it? Bam, I go wide. Run sac outlets with it for synergies and potential infinite combos if you're into that. At the end of the day, Elenda cares about power more so than aristocrats. I'd give it a shot if you're looking for an Orzhov Equip theme.

I think you can fix Heisenberg by having it say if you control 20 blood tokens you win the game. If not then do everything it normally does. And you fix the front side by not making it an activated ability. Make it if you control 5 treasures transform. Or something like that.

Seth, considering what Magic used to use for creature types (looking at you specifically, The Dark) you could have gotten away with 'scientist' or 'alchemist' if you slapped a classic border on the card. ;)

Ok, picture this: Zerg Rush, but with a slightly tweaked version of the Leyline clause, where, at the beginning of the game, you can put it onto the battlefield for free if it’s in your opening hand. But without the additional upkeep triggers because then it’d be insane.

It's kind of funny how Crim's Shuichi/Yoko card synergizes with Tree of Perdition on the front side and Tree of Redemption on the back side

The Walter white card needs to have something that says "when a artifact is sacrificed or destroyed, create a tapped treasure token" because he also can't spend his money right away, needs to be laundered.

i agree with crim Yu Yu hakusho is #1, i mean i love dragon ball but yu yu is my favorite by far only thing tied with it is hunter x hunter which was also made by the same creator

Both of Richard’s cards are obscenely well designed

Saw the Seele in the thumbnail and immediately had to see what monstrosity was created

22:47 oh absolutely this is the number one shonun screw almost everything else. I did just start getting into one piece and one piece is really good but this is still way better

Heating Up should be "...source you control deals damage to one or more opponents." That way you can do it at instant speed, but would need 3 instances.

Sonic needed Day/Night to turn into a werehog on the back to make sure you got all the annoying mechanics in there.

At minimum yusuke needs to remove the no mana cost clause on the front side and only transform when there are no counters left.

Wow Seth designed the most complicated card ever. It's like 4 cards. 😢

I love Tomer's Sonic the Hedgehog card, but it is missing one thing: it needs to transform to Super Sonic.

I think the backside of Walter White should read “Whenever a creature dies, create a treasure and blood token. Then put a Doom counter on Heisenberg. Once Heisenberg reaches 5 Doom counters. Heisenberg destroys all nonland permanents” I chose 5 because there are 5 seasons of Breaking Bad, which plays into the flavor that over the course of the show his decisions led to an ultimate collapse.

Walter White/Heisenberg is a great top down design. References are obvious and fun to read on the card. Man, this format is really cool! Love to see the goldfish crew getting creative.

YuYu Hakusho will always own my 90's kid heart 🥺

Crim absolutely SPITTING on dragon ball. Crim extreme W

Sonic is super flavourful and a very elegant design. Love it! My favorite so far

Yu yu hakusho is probably the best anime ever made . Nice flavor on yusuke but the back is way too OP

Crim is right tho, yu yu hakusho the best anime

The only Secret Lair I want to see is a Kaldra set

27:55 I think you need to make the backside smaller (i suggest 5/5 and/or no double stroke) and then naybe make it dimir or rakdos. Then you either have way less haste or way less untap. Tomer's idea of once per turn is smart. You could also have him ETB tapped (he does start out dead after all). You could remove him in resonse to the ETB so he casts nothing. Also just pull an Urza and make you shuffle so you cabt scroll rack.

For Walter White, instead of a Wizard, he could be an Advisor; he was a teacher, after all 😉

Crim read my mind with yu yu Hakusho

Richard, not only does Yoko Kurama have 9 tails, but the writer of Naruto actually named his 9 tailed Fox demon Kurama after him! Yu Yu Hakusho is a legendary manga that's had a huge influence on shonen, including being the prototype that Bleach followed, and Jujutsu Kaisen after that.

I like Walter White's mid ability being the place you'd rather stay, because that's accurate to the show. End stage Walter is not desirable in the show, and on the card, you don't want it until you want to burn the world down. I dig it.

Okay Sonic was kind of an awesome way to make some very specific flavor mechanics work outside their boundaries.

36:02 I feel like the Zerglings need to be like Mites where they can't block. More accurately Zerglings could have something like Second Strike or 0.5 toughness since they Can block but die easily.

Yu yu hakusho enjoyers unite. Still some of the greatest fits in anime

I think if you lost the Ring emblem when Sonic died would be even more fitting as well as resetting the ring benefits

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles WURG Legendary Creature - Turtle Ninja Ward - Sacrifice a Pizza token Cowabunga! Whenever TMNT enters the battlefield or attacks, create a pizza token (tap, sacrifice: give target creature one of the following until end of turn: double strike, lifelink, trample, soulbond, haste, +4/+4, Myriad, Connive) Other Turtles and Ninjas you control have Cowabunga! 4/8

Idea to make Yusuke not this op but still flavourfull and very powerfull. Front side: exile cards from the top of your library until you exiled four nonland cards. Shuffle all lands exiled this way into your library. Put a spiritcounter on each card exiled this way. (U)(R), tap, and remove a spirit counter from a card exiled with Yuzuke: deal damage equal to the total manavalue of all cards exiled with Yuzuke without a spirit counter on it to any target. If no cards exiled with Yuzuke has a spirit counter on it, transform Yuzuke. 4/4 Backside: Hexproof, first strike, Vigilance, lifelink, Menace (U)(B)(R) and tap: exile the top card of target player's library. Yuzuke deals damage equal to the total mana value of all cards exiled with Yuzuke to any target. 9/9 What do you guys think? Still to op?

While I didn't necessarily get the power level I'd have wanted for many cards, Baldur's Gate was just amazing for me, I played the first 2 games an awful lot of times, and have fond memories of doing so. I like the idea of a 6 mana wipe being stapled to this Walter guy, he's a living time-bomb waiting to go off. I also like that you're in Mardu, so you can give your board Indestructible before Heisenberg's ETB resolves. Yu-Yu-Busted-Ass-Card is a bit much, but it's not Dragonball, so that's nice! I'd rather see other anime IPs used first. Maybe if the first side of the card cost like 8 mana, OG Bolas's mana? Sonic seems neat (needs Menace, or even Menace and Flanking), I never cared for the IP compared to Mario, and the various Mario rpgs like Thousand Year Door really highlight the relative creativity of Nintendo. I'd vote PM:TTYD drops, so many great characters. I've always wanted to use some Rumiko characters from shows I liked in Magic, Inuyasha would actually be strong enough to not stagger imagination, like making Rick a dude that can fight an elephant/hill giant to death and chug a beer after, having 1 toughness left. Just nuts, how is this guy this tough??? I feel like there hasn't been a person alive who could actually fight a hill giant without significant magic or tech intervention, and we see Rick isn't some guy in a mech or something, he's just got a jacket on. It's insulting! Anyways, not sure what stats Inuyasha or Ranma would have, but both would have transformation abilities that (dog or girl form) at least. Lum the Invader would have flying and have solid stats I guess, maybe flash? Sesshomaru and Ryoga, the antagonists, would also have transformations, one humorous, and one terrifying, though you might skip the transform ability on Sesshomaru, as he so rarely uses it. Sailor Moon would also be a cool idea, start with the original 5 at least, and have Luna and Artemis on the backside of their 'owner'. Zerg Rush would be a nightmare in Legacy, but probably would be a chase rare/mythic and a new staple, limiting the land base would slow you down in Commander, but 8 1/1 Haste on each upkeep is bonkers. I bet it'd be a great build around in Commander, but Zerg would need a sick Commander. The NBA Jam card is pretty cool actually, and it's awkward enough to pull off that I think it can cost only 1 mana, you almost have to play it in Stax. I feel like FF3/FF6 would have been pretty cool for a drop, I loved that game and it was popular, it was a rare congruence.

I love tinkering with custom cards and thinking of merging other IPs into the MTG space. Richard’s designs are solid even if I’m mostly unfamiliar with the source content and probably give 2nd place overall, I would want to make a Zerg rush deck for sure. For Seth, Walter/Heisenberg seems like a lot which is perfect for a fake secret lair and Heating Up has easy potential to be real, the only criticism that I’m not sure if it’s a seth-ism is MDFC’s are where you can play either side, not ones that have to transform! For Crim’s I give a 10/10 only for Yu Yu Hakusho, but Crim and everyone else knows the cards are pushed if not broken. Tomer’s I think are the best overall designed and I love the utilization of the ring and initiative on Sonic with Ashbringer looking like it could be the next mythic equipment! Cool idea Goldfish team!

Zerg Rush is great😂 I like it even more because the lands of the opponents would only be able to block as Workers if untapped. Very fitting to the zerg rush situation. Plus, they can only be used for defense with this design - perfect flavor.

I'm going to create a card called Superman. He's a 50/50 who has double strike, haste, hexproof, flying, indestructible, lifelink, vigilance and ward 10, because he's Superman. He has two abilities: 1) Laser Vision: destroy target creature; 2) Frost Breath: Tap all creatures an opponent controls. What do you think?

I love it that Yuyu Hakusho is mentioned in this episode, but I would overhaul my fave anime character of all time: Kurama. Kurama is 4/4 Human and has Vigilance and at the beginning of the combat create a Seed token; 1, Sacrifice a Seed token: create Rose Whip Artifact - Equipment token attached to Kurama with ability "tap creature to deal 1 damage to any target" and "if this artifact is not equipped to Kurama, sacrifice it"; If Kurama receives 3 or more damage, Transform Kurama to Yoko. Yoko is a 6/6 Fox Demon and has Vigilance and at the beginning of the combat create a Seed token and all plant tokens have vigilance, first strike and deathtouch; 1, Sacrifice a Seed token: Create a 1/1 plant token; Death Tree - Sacrifice a Seed token:Target legendary creature an opponent controls gains Shroud and Indestructable, loses all other abilities and cannot block and/or attack. It deals 3 damage to its owner and if that player's life total will become 0 or less, it will become 1 instead. This ability can be used only once per game.

Seele - very flavourful, love the way it captures the "reset" mechanic, just feels a bit swingy and doesn't really do much unless it's killing someone. still a great design Walter - Way too wordy! The podcast raised a good point that the treasure generation encourages you to not transform him, but thematically I think there could be a way to represent Walter's greed and make his transform mandatory? Good start, needs more tweaking. Yusuke - stupidly overpowered, back to the drawing board. Might be balanced in Yu-gi-oh. Sonic - not sure how I feel about mixing multiple mechanics together like this, but it is very flavourful. Gets my vote in the end.

Actually... how about 4-faced cards in Commit-Memory style? Let's say, it's a creature/artifact/whatever with tap ability, and when you tap it, it becomes another thing. And you can flip it on another side, it's another 2 things, which is space for even MOAR WORDS!!!1!1!! 😂😂😂

Zerg Rush - absolutely love the implementation but this card is just begging to be broken. Heating up - Very clever design. Probably a little too strong without the suggested restriction of only counting damage on your turn, but that's not a major tweak. Or have it only trigger once if you hit all opponents. Gets my vote. Shuichi - this card was sounding reasonable until Crim added the 'kill one person' ability. It's not completely busted, but isn't good design. The anthem is definitely too strong, probably needs one of the keywords taken off. Ashbringer - still lots of words, but captures the flavour well. Like the way the mana costs keep it balanced and interesting.

Richards 1st card was amazingly designd, Walter needs a nontoken clause and maybe a tapped treasure clause, Yusuke is wayyyy too busted and needs 100 tweeks(bad design), Sonic is definitely on flavor but i personaly dont like the ring tempts you mechanic, Zerg Rush imo makes a few too many tokens but i love the design, He's on fire should maybe be combat damage or ounce each turn but i really like it, Shuichi would be a cool plant commander but i would fix death tree to either force you to exile all the lands in your deck or have a condition like control 6 plants also maybe swap deathtouch with life gain, Ashbringer seems great no notes 10/10

Ashbringer is kind of a terrible representation of what it does in lore. Lore wise it should start on the Non Corrupt Side since the Ashbringer was originally forged in the non Corrupt Form so that is the original form, and it shouldn't stay on the backside permanently. The Wrath effect should only affect Devils, Horrors, Zombies and Demons, and the Front Side shouldn't have Lifelink.

Shuichi is pretty cool too. Very Jund-y that you will need removal to flip it. I would change the Rose Whip effect for damage or -1/-1 counters instead of a permanent stat reduction though, because in praxis it can be pretty unintuitive to track the permanently reduced stats. The death tree ability seems particularly fun and interesting though. Because once you have assembled enough lands, you can go and exile the rest of them, to filter all unneeded extra lands and improve your upcoming draws. I do think it needs an extra layer of punishment for summoning the Death Tree though. Maybe actually forcing yourself to pay life to not make it feel like just a fool-proof "i kill you" button. Forces you into a more narrow route of deck building, maybe saproling aristocrats or so, to ensure you have enough life to not kill yourself with the Death Tree as well. Another way of going for it, would actually be to make the Death Tree a token creature scaling with the size of the exiled lands or so.

Crim, love your zealous energy and enthusiasm, but your cards look like something you’d laugh at on the custom MTG subreddit. XD Highlight was Zerg Rush by far I think. Maybe give the Resource Drones the ability to block an additional creature so the defending player can save themselves from lethal by blocking more but lose their resources in the process?

Seths Version of Walter White/Heisenberg is an absolute masterpiece of storytelling through top down design, 10/10 Maybe the abilities should have a limitation, e.g.: "after this triggers 3 times he transforms" Yusuke is def. Super op in this state, why not just make it so you atleast have to pay for the spells?

Zerg Rush is awesome and love how flavourful it is. It represents the cheesing in warcraft really well. Imho it should be Gruul or even Jund colors though for a permanent that repeatedly makes hasty things. The black mabye added, due to the fact that they are a form of pests and the because the strategy is super greedy and kind of self-punishing. Or if you wanna keep the flavour in green, go for 4 green pips instead. Those would represernt the Eggs even better. Both of these color changing options would also make, so that it's not too easily combined with blink effects as well, which are usually in white/blue.

If I wanted to balance Yusuke, then I would add a mana cost to his tap ability; something like UBR and/or remove the "cast without paying mana cost" clause. Maybe make it so you can only play non-creature cards too. The main issue I see is that Dramatic Reversal + Isochron Scepter would enable easy combos alongside extra turns and blink effects. There's also the issue that it can become a Eldrazi Titan enabler since it allows the cast trigger and a large chunk of damage to opponents plus potential reshuffle nonsense.

Backside of Yusuke to fix it - Front side: Add you have to fire off four times not two. Backside: Mazoko Form Yusuke cannot deal combat damage to players. I.E., you have to finish people off with the Demon mega gun. Also, no free cards off it lol

I really liked tomers' cards. I think I would've altered Ashbringer to do its damage to each creature defending player controls, then destroy all zombies, skeletons, (etc). And maybe if equipped creature dies, it transforms back.

Ashbringer is fucking brutal. I would've picked Thunderfury as my personal favorite sword in WoW, but great representation of it. Maybe the backside should be changed to trigger on connect instead of trigger on attack. Would make it a bit more fair and less arbitrary to just blow everything up after declaring attackers without a battle taking place.

i would love the reset mechanic. the only ip that i know is sonic so theme wise it had the most pull to me but i would love some of this cards. the ashbringer looks awsome.

Sonic does go infinite with Frodo Baggins. Also, from both a flavor / personality perspective and a game mechanics perspective, I think Sonic should be RW instead of UR. Really cool design, though.

Richard was so close to making Zerg Rush such a flavour win. If I had designed it I would make a Bitterblossom 2.0, that just say at your upkeep you make Zerglings equal to the number of time counters on Zerg Rush.

Ngl I kinda wish this was actually full secret lair designs (I. E. Chosen artist/theme/art style, etc.) and not just single universes beyond choices. Itd be super cool to see everyone choices of 4/5 cards and the artists/themes they’d choose.

For Walter White / Heisenberg: the final transformation should only be 4 or 5 black + sacrifice 3 creatures. Heisenberg's power should be BBB: each player creates a treasure token, then Heisenberg deals 2 damage to each opponent for each treasure they have.

Turn 1 Spear Spewer. Turn 2, Heating Up! End of your last opponent's turn, activate Spear Spewer to ping all players and get 3 fire counters. Then untap and flip into He's on Fire! Then ping your opponents each for 4 each turn. Easy win.

"Whenever sonic attacks, put a ring counter on it" "when sonic dies, create X gold tokens where X was the amount of ring counters on it" (R)(U): Put Sonic onto the battlefield. Activate this ability only if you control a gold

26:22 okay here's how I would fix Krim' Yuske. First in order to transform he needs to use all four shots. Second drop the keyword soup down to just haste vigilance double strike. Drop the backside's power by one. And then it's a lot fairer. If you need to power it down a bit then he loses to demons in combat.

Shame one me, dunno the referenced anime as well, but Yusuke seems like a very interesting design and gotta love Crim's passion about it. I think the backside needs a nerf though and maybe a more unique ability, rather than so many key words. Maybe some discard or clone effects, to also represent the Grixis color pie better.

Why not secret lair monopoly man? Something like a 1/1 legendary horror creature. For each nonlandpermanent your oponents controll you may give them 1 treassure for its manavalue and exchange controll. At the beginning of your upkeep each opponent lose 1 life per manavalue of a permanent you controll but they own. If you create more then 4 treassures a round phase this permanent out. It only phases in if you roll a 6. You may sacrifice a treassures to roll a d6 as long as its phased out.

The disrespect against Dragonball is unreal. I will grant that Dragonball isn't great, but it had to walk so every Shonen afterwards could run. It's like disrespecting your wholesome grandfather.