We Rank Political Cards | Commander Clash Podcast #52 

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Tomer hates Secret Rendezvous so much he caused a nationwide internet outage JUST to avoid talking about it

(Tomer here) for the record, I rank most of the Offering cycle, especially Intellectual and Volcanic Offering, much higher than the rest of the group. I also like Pir's Whim more.

I love how Richard arguments with "dies to doomblade" when he is the player least likely to actually play the doomblade.

If volcanic offering kills two creatures and two lands, it’s like 2 murders and 2 stone rains all in one card at instant speed. That’s a pretty good deal mana wise.

S-tier literally stands for Secret Rendezvous this week.

Richard likes secret rendezvous for the value but hates all these other cards because they give value to your opponent? Does Richard not realize that secret rendezvous gives an opponent the most value?

Richard giving Volanic Offering C rank means He doesn't get OBILTERATED enough by non-basic lands, it's very easy to lose a game to flipped Hadana's Climb or Journey To Eternity in mid-power games. It's an instant. 5 mana means it's most often castable on turn 4 and while passing with open mana feels bad, this card is amazing. It's red spell hitting for 7. Difference between 6 damage from Unholy Heat and 7 damage from Offering is dying to Drakuseth, Ancient Greenwarden, Ancient Bronze Dragons, Elesh Norn, Elderscale Wurm, Sire of Stagnation, The First Sliver and buttload of other scary creatures which red have problems dealing with.

For wedding ring: play it in Boros, and have all of your card advantage cards be impulse draw.

It's probably harder to understand the appeal of Wedding Ring when you don't have to play against the same Chulane/Tatyova/Arcades/Sythis/Tymna "do thing draw card" commanders and other UGx value piles all the time.

tomer's editing for intellectual offering is accurate. Zndrsplt's Judgment wasn't even mentioned. i actually play and like this card. no Cut a Deal in a secret rendezvous list? crim at least gave pendant a B. I am very surprised with the hunted cycle rating.

Oh Richard, you exist to make me angry. But I love hearing the diversity of opinion on the podcast, keeps me grounded and questioning my own views about the format. Keep it up!

This is the best possible send-off for Richard before he's officially terminated from Clash for the next few months

"I'm in pain editing this..." You sir, owe me a coffee, for the one I just lost expelled through my nose.

Your Temple is definitely better than secret. Yes the draw ability is weaker, but the instant speed alone is insane. The difference between an instant and a sorcery is so vast in the world of magic. Then you tack on the optional indestructible play. C'mon Richard. 1 extra card is not worth all the extra potential. Lets you keep up for one of your removal spells then if you do not need pop off for draw. Or how about this situation: You can now hold up with this card to protect against a whole round of removal, then if you do not end up needing pop off the draw anyway. You are unlikely to have the mana to do the drawing and play a whole lot more anyway. You aren't generally losing out waiting until the end of the last opponents turn to draw. Way too much versatility, totally worth the 1 less card. Secret is ONLY better in decks without creatures. And guess what your commander is a creature! So the chances are low. That one extra card basically has to be worth more than your command sometimes for you to pick Secret over Temple. And in most decks I would say that is not the case. That or have giant draw synergies and that 1 card is indeed worth it. Also not many cases. And lastest remember, you are also giving that opponent one less card. So the cost is also a fraction less in that respect. I am not even saying Secret is Tier S card, all I am doing is comparing these two entities in a vacuum.

Richard contradicts himself in so many ways that it could be a drinking game.

I use Keen Duelist not as card draw, but for ramp in Rakdos, Lord of RIots. Any colorless creature you reveal you can cast for free; from Solemns to Eldrazi.

Love how tomer is still technically here yelling at them about intellectual offering

Most folks I've seen touting Wedding Ring have this strategy: give the opponent who is running lifegain or storm (something generating a lot of draw or life) a wedding ring, then use clone effects to copy your side of the ring - Osgir, for instance. If you can get 3 or four copies of Wedding Ring on your board, you're disincentivizing your opponent from doing whatever their deck does because you'll just do it harder. I don't know how viable that strategy is, though, since you still don't have the synergies they have, but I think that's the thought process.

Just wanted to stop by to say thank you all for your guys hilarious content. You guys brighten my commutes and often bring a smile to my face, you rock!

I LOVE how the ghost of Tomer is just adding things to the video as he is editing it. I honestly think it made his argument better because no one who was recording actually herd it lol.

richard lives in an alternate universe where every commander player has the most janky casual decks and never play interaction.

IDK how they didn't discuss the best offering of the cycle - benevolent offering. It literally has the same token making rate as Sylvan offering except the tokens fly. And then the lifegain you can so easily give to the player with the least creatures. Meanwhile you're making 3 flying tokens and gaining at least 6 life. All at instant speed too

This episode whole-heartedly confirmed to me that Richard is a much more casual player of commander, where as Crim is my spirit animal.

Richard: "Yo if my partner gave me [wedding ring] I'd be like this is trash" 💀💀💀

I’m surprised you guys didn’t talk about Gluntch, the sweetest benevolent Selesnya jellyfish boi!

Yes Richard. Sweepers exist. We get it. All effects on a body are bad when a sweeper is played every turn.

Skullwinder getting hit with the 100th board wipe that it helped bring back: *at peace*

I've been playing with Master of Ceramonies in Mono White for a while now. Anecdotally, it's performed very well. While most people do try and give tokens, usually one person buckles and takes the card. One time it lived for 3 turn cycles and drew me 9 cards. That was a hard lesson for the Pod.

I definitely feel Keen Duelist is heavily underrated and is a lot more versatile than it looks. It's done work in a lot of my commander decks initally as a cheap bob / phyrexian arena and it's been outperforming my expectations in a lot more ways than I originally thought: -Uses two of the best tribes in Magic -The political aspect of only giving only 2/4 players an extra draw adds a lot of depth / and decision making to each turn. Do I give it to the most behind? Go for the cantrip deck? Go for DMG? -The russian roullette aspect is a ton of fun for the table and is engaging for players even when it's not their turn -The burn becomes more and more significact the later the game gets -The card can be built around multiple different types of synergies, whether it's BIG CMC stuff or Burn Synergies like Rakdos Lord of Riots, there's a lot of decks this card turns into an utter HOUSE idk if it's CEDH level good but it's a 10/10 for my play group!

Would have loved to see you guys talk about the “Mastery” cycle from Strixhaven.

I often play 5 player games and have played the Secret Roles/King/Bang format where there is a king, knight, a rogue and two assassins. The only role that is public is the king. The assassins have to kill the king and the knight wins if the king wins. The rogue has to kill the king last. We have also made a rule where the king always goes first and begins with the monarchy. All of these cards are amazing in that variant and I highly suggest trying out this variant to spice up games.

The playmats looks sick. Just ordered one, thanks!

Wedding Ring played fairly may not be the best option, but it always leads to these hilarious story moments in games where someone "purposes" to an opponent, only to suddenly enter a polygamous situation when someone else decides to copy it, and then have someone else blow up their ring enforcing a "divorce" etc. It's just a fun card I wish I could afford.

I didn’t know I needed a tier list like this, but man did I like this one.

Regarding Wedding Ring: First of all, it's a way to draw extra cards in white that doesn't involve giving everyone at the table extra cards (Howling Mine, etc.). That makes it worth considering as a baseline. The plan, though, is to give it the green player. It might sound unintuitive, but green draws a lot of cards, and they always do it on their turn (Hunter's Insight, Rishkar's Expertise, Harmonize, Shamanic Revelation, Soul's Majesty, ETB abilities, Garruk's Uprising, Elemental Bond, Sylvan Library, Garruk Primal Hunter, etc.). On it's face, you get an extra card draw every turn for 4 mana (similar to Coercive Portal without the risk of it exploding on you) which gives you a leg up on 2/3 of your opponents. Because you choose where the ring goes, though, you will almost always get more value out of it than the opponent who has the copy. As a fringe benefit, it makes cards like Defend the Temple better. Cast it on the opponent's turn, and they'll draw two cards and you'll draw 4. In a pinch, as a very fringe benefit, this saves you from Blood Artist and Sanguine Bond/Exquisite Blood loops.

do i play sign in blood? yes, nights whisper? also yes

Tomer's asleep, everyone post your favorite Secret Rendezvous cards!

There is a Secret Rendezvous tribal commander deck! The Breena precon (Silverquill Statement) from Strixhaven is basically that.

I love Intellectual Offering in my Phenax deck, its forced card draw when you need to finish someone and it also untaps all your big toughness creatures to mill someone else while giving you three cards.

Pir's Whim is horrible early game against non-green decks; say turn 2 you cast Rampant Growth, Farseek, Nature's Lore etc. and your opponents cast a signet or Talisman - turn 3 you cast Pir's Whim, time walking your opponents while you ramp.

I love Tomers edits! 🤣 "I'm in pain editing this"

Virtus's Maneuver would be sick with the casualty precon commander

"In in pain editing this" 😂 31:00 didn't catch that when I listen to this the first time

Some cool cards that weren't talked about: -Tenuous Truce (New Capenna set booster) -Cut a Deal (Baldur's Gate) -Iwamori of the Open Fist -Hunted Wumpus -Braids, Conjurer Adept -Show and Tell -Tempting Wurm (that one is a really good chuckle)

Intellectual Offering is really good, because it's a 3 mana draw 3 WITH a dramatic reversal stapled onto it. If you have a good amount of rocks, or dorks, or are in any colour other than green, this can sometimes be a free card draw spell, with other upsides added to it? Untapping your opponents blockers, like Richard mentioned, to surprise someone who thought it was a free attack, or just untapping someone to give them the mana to cast a wrath or such! Or untap someone with no meaningful nonlands, etc etc.

A strategy often underappreciated with the hunted cycle is making one of your opponents a bigger threat. For example, give the tokens to the token player or the goblins to the Krenko player. Your other opponents will likely have to deal with the player getting the tokens before dealing with you.

The Tomur notes regarding Intellectual Offering are so funny 🤣

Richard, king of nasty utility lands, just wants to keep the guys from throwing in Volcanic Offering. Every game Richard has at least 2 powerful lands that should be destroyed but no one ever has land destruction. Volcanic Offering is S tier against Richard!

I'm a big fan of these tier list shows you guys have been doing lately. Would've been nice to know what you all think of the Demonstrate cycle of cards printed in Strixhaven commander. They all allow you to copy the spell if you give an opponent a copy.Cheers.😎

One thing about the wedding, which seemingly is not mentioned either in the video nor in the comments, is that if you draw cards on somebode else's turn, the ring of your opponent will not trigger, means you can just draw with Opt or sth willy-nilly on your opponent's turn.

Wedding Ring is popular because: Couples that play EDH together will use it. Couples that play mtg together can use the card as part of their proposal. That, + it being a set booster exclusive in a set that was opened in very small; amounts, is why it is expensive.

Consecrated sphinx and wedding ring is a build your own trade secrets that you control the outcome of. It's very mana intensive though, but funny

Regarding wedding ring: I didn't look through all the comments, but I looked through quite a few and didn't see this mentioned. The spike thing to do with wedding ring is copy it so you draw 2 for every 1 the opponent draws and they still just get one when you draw. But also the memes. And I think it's generally just good to lay out there and get value.

Wedding ring does put in quite a lot of work in a life gain/drain deck since it pairs nicely with tainted remedy.

I love Tomer defending Intellectual Offering with the editing lol

Great topic!

Ok Richard, it's ok you like Secret Rendezvous, but Sign in Blood and Night's Whisper are pretty premier card draw spells for getting you to Third Land World. Love me a two mana draw two, or Sylvan Library/Search for Ascanta which perform the same job. I think there's few things more critical in a game of commander than simply hitting those land drops. Also, Ingenious Mastery seems much better to me than Rendezvous, and I've been enjoying running the card. The drawback is very similar to SR's drawback, but you're not actually drawing someone gas.

You can break symmetry on wedding ring. Put it in Sharuum or something esper. Blue cards that put to hand rather than draw eg. memory deluge, fact or fiction, a little chat, etc. Things in white like board the weatherlight if you’re artifact focused. You get a couple more in black necropotence, dark confidant, and blood price. Cards that dig down for specific types. Seems like a fun deck based on an unexpected build around card.

You can't even destroy the opponent's Wedding Ring, because now yours does factually nothing!

Sylvan Offering was amazing in my Riku, hidden Brudiclad deck - turning all those 1/1s into X/Xs with haste would end games.

Lol tomer's comments at the 30:43 Mark had me dying

may I suggest a political week where you each play these cards and other political cards? Would be fun to see them in action

I feel like they need to do that topic again. They didn't include several of the cumulative upkeep cards and the cards like Pulsemage Advocate or the other cards like the hunted cycle clickbait troll, varchild war riders, and probably some more. Maybe the tempt with vengeance cycle?

It's crazy to me that crim is valuing wedding ring so low when it rewards you for playing and drawing at instant speed on your opponents turn so the person you give the wedding ring to only gets your for-turn draw

Keen Duelist is weirdly great for 'Gyruda beasties,' love that deck.

"Yo if my partner gave me this trash" -Richard about wedding ring

I'm going to try both the G and B Offerings in Hogaak. That deck is the epitome of bad-but-fun. These cards seem exactly perfect for that 'archetype.'

I hope I see Scheming Symmetry on the list.

I see a toski at almost every table i'm in. If I throw a wedding ring on the Toski player, I draw cards on every one of their attacks. I personally don't have a wedding ring to play in those situations, but I think that might be one of the keys. Toski, and draw on attack effects are so common now, it just seems like a good way to draw like they do.

I’m surprised you guys didn’t cover the demonstrate cycle!

Infernal Offering actually looks really good since you can select an opponent without creatures on the battlefield for the first ability, and an opponent with no graveyard for the second.

A cute trick with Wedding Ring, use Psychic Possession on your betrothed, you don't draw on your turn and draw double on theirs

I think Infernal offering is the most playable offering because you can manipulate it to help you most. Hit a player with either no creatures and they don't draw or a really threatening creature. Hit someone with no yard and they don't reanimate. Intellectual offering is a dramatic reversal plus secret rendezvous for the price of the two combined, which sounds fine until you find an opponent does both too, then not so much

Don’t sleep on Master of Ceremonies 👁

I tend to like effects like this, where you almost always end up with a modal effect because of how versatile their actual effect can be, ranging from throwing a dead in the water player a life saver as you dig for your combo to actually win, up to pumping up your ally (who is drawing aggro for you) to help take down the archenemy, these can do a lot of work. My personal favourites off the top of my head are the Advocates, they are shockingly good cards in Commander on the whole. You can hate on graveyards with them, you can refuel an ally with them, and you usually get access to a really pushed effect for a negligible cost. I know they aren't exactly symmetrical, but neither is Shadrix. The actual Secret Rendezvous is not a bad card, but I think A or B is probably right for a card you usually don't want to run in a 5 colour deck (it's clunky to cast for a so-so effect in some situations), but often want to run in sans Blue decks. It's sister card, Your Temple is a neat card, but it's pretty clunky at this point, 3 mana to draw 2 is pretty insulting to a Magic player. Pir's Whim is a really useful card if you really need to dig for a non-basic and are in Green, it's a solid effect at 4 mana keep in mind, Expedition Map is 3 mana to put a non-basic into hand, Reap and Sow is 4 mana to have a modal card that can fetch out a non-basic, and Hour of Promise nets you 2 non-basics but is 5 mana. There is Crop Rotation, but this also costs you a land, so it's fairly hard to ramp with it (I have done it, Temple of the False God is G for 2 colourless), Whim will always ramp you. The question is really 'how badly does my deck need to find a non-basic land?', and if it's not 'agonizingly so', I think you don't bother with Whim and it's ilk, but if you have a land combo it's a very solid pick. Virtus' Offering seems too small as Richard notes. Forced sac is good, but compared to Soul Shatter this looks like a really bad card, only run it if you need lots of Edicts. Sylvan Offering is pretty good/cool, but it really stinks if you don't use it with Anthems at all. I like it and Volcanic the best of the cycle AFAIK, Volcanic is just brutal vs an archenemy, and Sylvan likewise can turn a game very quickly, and the ability to put the bodies where they are less useful is huge for Sylvan. Volcanic becomes absolutely hilarious if you end up casting it in 1v1, you take their best and worst land/creature for only 5 mana and 1 card at instant speed, so you can even hit annoying things like man-lands. Intellectual Offering is what they call a 'skill tester card', you can gain insight into how good a player is by what they think of that card... If they hate it, they're probably fairly spikey, if they love it they had better be using mana dorks or this is DEFINITELY not worth it, how many mana rocks is Tomer expecting people to run?? Hunted stuff is a mixed bag, I think you're clowning quite so hard on the Lammasu, even if it's not especially good. The troll has exactly 1 thing going on, and has the downside of giving very good bodies away. Wedding Ring is a good card, but it's way too pricey, both mana and $$$. I haven't tested it, and probably won't anytime soon, but in mono-white you probably want the card draw that badly. It would have been a reasonable card at less mana, but this is what we get, I guess it's really good with forced card draw? I think I agree with your ratings of C for it, I can see it doing work, but I can see you getting better results in some other way.

Keen Duelist is great with cards that have built cost reductions! I use it on my party deck, where many cards cost less when I have creatures on the board.

Wedding Ring is FUN. It's a unique effect that offsets games in ways that can be memorable. It's political where you may get an ally that help you kill the other two players etc. I play it in my Kenrith deck where my Rule 0 is that I may only use his abilities on other players. So I can heal my betrothed to heal myself etc. It's not as much FUN to swap it for a "better" card.

Best tier on RU-vid

So Sylvan offering, no one brought up the fact that the 1/1s it poops out are elves, which honestly reading the card seemed like the most relevant thing to me. Are there other cards that mass produce elf tokens? I’m imagining this thing being awesome in Voja

I was anti-S.R. for the longest tome, but I've recently been converted after casting Cut a Deal in mono-white. Refilling my hand and still having mana to cast spells, what a rush!

Surprised that the Tempt With cycle didn't show up. I think Tempt with Discovery is best, basically a Sylvan offering that puts the land on the field untapped for 4. Great if you're looking for a specific land, and if no one takes the offer it's still ok value

What about the "Technique" cards with Demonstrate? I personally love Incarnation Technique and also. This first appeared in my Meren deck knowing that what I was going to mill and get will be better than what you will. I am thinking about getting a Replication Technique for my Gisa and Geralf deck.

Is that tomer excuse to avoid talking about secret rendezvous?

What about the Mastery cycle from Strixhaven? i.e. Baleful Mastery (exile creature for reduced cost, but let an opponent draw). To me that seems the obvious recent cycle, since it's in the Strixhaven set!

If you blow up either wedding ring, the effect stops working. it specifically cares about an opponent _that controls an artifact named wedding ring_ If you blow up yours, you lose all the benefits of it If you blow up the opponents copy, it will never trigger because the opponent doesn't have a copy Also, if you give copies to multiple opponents, they will trigger of one another Perhaps useful, but I don't think that's what you were after

I like keen duelist, in the sense that it's cool, but it's also pretty bad. The problem with it is that giving the opponent with the low CMC deck draw tends to be bad, because they are far better at using extra cards, where as giving the player with a higher CMC deck extra draws, they make use of the cards less (the dino deck that is going to play 1 thing a turn is not going to make as good use out of extra resources), but you also get domed for way more.

Wedding ring is a fun card. It’s pretty good, but also tons of fun to use. It’s really fun to team up with someone to draw each other cards.

Tuesdays are my favorite days!

The one time I've seen Secret Rendezvous cast, the player who was low on lands got the draw, and proceeded to win the game the turn after.

If you kill your opponents wedding ring, you get nothing because your wedding ring only triggers when someone else with wedding ring draws a card. The trick is to copy it.

It might have been useful to have heard a little more about how these cards play when the game is down to a one-on-one. Some of the good ones, like Sylvan Offering, turn into nearly-blank draws when the game has come down to one opponent and you. It probably doesn't change the relative rankings, but might go some way to explaining why they don't see as much play.

Crim should have Secret Rendezvous in S-Tier so he can notion thief more tables.

Master of ceremonies is normally treasure and cards. I've literally never EVER seen someone give the citizen. It's just SO much worse than a card or a mana, that if you give the citizen and the other opponents don't do that, you are so far behind.

Virtus's Maneuver is basically a Fleshbag Marauder, but instead of having a 3/1 and having to sacrifice a creature, you get to Regrowth a creature. Pretty much any deck where you would play Marauder, Maneuver is going to be good.

For this one I think you missed the "x - mastery " cycle from strixhaven. I've played a few of them (I think the red one must be the only unplayable there)with very good results

Pir's Whim is fine. You can look for non basic lands. It's like Sylvan Scrying and Rampant Growth combined. That's worth 2 mana unto itself. So for 2 more mana, you get to destroy 3 enchantment/artifacts. Combine both into the same card, and you get Pir's Whim. The option to allow opponents to search won't generally be much use, but you could use it as a political tool too.

So wedding ring is interesting. In the lower power playgroup I'm in one of the players uses it fairly casually and it basically doubles the amount of card draw across 2 players, which is really good when you need to team up against someone. Thats the core strength of it, especially in a mono white/white/X deck that doesn't have too much card draw. The other sneaky upside with it is being able to give the ring to the best choice out of the players at the table. That way you can draw the maximum amount of cards potentially. In addition, it only counts cards drawn on the controllers turn, so if you draw cards at instant speed, they don't get to draw extra cards (Probably a Crim thing he would like). It also has weird combo potential where if you are able to draw more cards than an opponent, you can deck them out, but that's definitely the least relevant part of the card. Also, if you destroy a wedding ring, it does nothing. There needs to be at least 2 wedding rings on board for the card to do anything.

Nothing about the Demonstrate cycle from Strixhaven Commander? Incarnation Technique is incredibly powerful, politics or no

Holy shit Crim has the coolest signature with the bolas horns damn.