Weird Old Cards | Commander Clash Podcast 140 

Seth: We are all going to die. It's not about how we die but about how we live and I choose to live drawing cards. What a hero. ❤

Its me, budget commander, coming at w ya w a $60 storage land.

The irony of Tomer hating Mind’s Eye and loving Symmetry Matrix is gold.

Finally! A topic for a dinosaur like me who hasn’t played in 20 years but watches like 15 magic videos a week

You know its a good topic when the hosts are pissed they can't listen to it instead of being on the pod

I'm a fan of Energy Tap: U, Sorcery -- "Tap target untapped creature you control. If you do, add an amount of {C} equal to that creature’s mana value." It is a weird blue ritual effect that has the prerequisite of having creatures. However, with creatures that have alternate casting costs or reduced master costs this can be a fairly powerful ritual in the early game that no one ever expects.

Suggestion for a commander clash episode: Everyone gets 3 expansions (not base sets) that they're allowed to build from (as in they can only use cards that were in those expansions) other than basic lands. The expansions could be picked at random or even drafted. Basic lands are a "freebie" because sets like Homelands, Fallen Empires, The Dark, Legends, Arabian Night etc. do not have any basic lands.

Is Phill really wearing t-shirt with est. 1992 because they discuss old cards? Phills t-shirt game is on whole another level! We need list of Phils t-shirt references.

Gaea's touch found a really solid home for me in my mono green storm deck. It takes advantage of every aspect of this card. It's an enchantress deck, so it draws an extra card on entry, it sacs to extend a storm turn, green has a lot of ways to return enchantments from the graveyard to replay for more card draw in a rut. The card is easily one of the best in the deck.

18:36 Take a shot. Someone said "this bad card is good because it's so bad it sticks around."

more of this style of video would be awesome didn't even get to abeyance

Don't apologise Phil, you being terrified of dogs is what made that episode so good 🍻🤘

Arcanum Wings - the only card in the game with the "Aura Swap" ability!! At instant speed, it can replace itself with any aura in your hand. Initially flying over a defender, then switching the wings with a larger damage aura or one with an 'on damage' trigger... so fun. (Honorable mention to Tallowisp for helping find those egregious auras!) Also, kudos on mentioning Vanishing! Cheaper than Flickerform to activate, and it protects the enchanted creature, itself, AND any other auras already attached to it at instant speed. It's like having an extra copy of Counterspell every turn and it's one of the top items on my list of underrated cards!

Somewhat along the lines of Withering Boon is Burnout. --- {1}{R} Instant Counter target instant spell if it's blue. Draw a card at the beginning of the next turn’s upkeep. --- It's the third-child version of Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast

One of my personal pet cards is Hall of Gemstone. 1GG World Enchantment At the beginning of each player's upkeep, that player chooses a color. Until end of turn, lands tapped for mana produce mana of the chosen color instead of any other color. It's such a goofy card, but it's so hilarious to see folks with 2+ color decks squirm when my Mono-Green Prison deck gets this on the field.

Old gems are my jam! The cycles (plural!) of free spells in the MM block are so underrated, especially in monocolor decks that draw a ton of cards. Yes, the rare spells of MM like Reverent Mantra, but Submerge, Abolish, Mogg Salvage, Massacre, Foil...

Seth: ..those people in the deep dark depths of commander... Thomer: that was me 😂

Nice combo: Tombstone Stairwell + Altar of Dementia ❤

Would love a part 2 of this, I want to hear the rest of your lists! Jabari's Influence is crazy!

Great video! I'd love one where all of the crew goes over their top 3 commanders right now. Might be a good way to spotlight some underrepresented commanders and put them on people's radars!

City of Shadows makes a great sacrifice outlet for commanders like Dragonlord Silumgar. Any deck with a stealing sub theme where you don't really intend to give things back. And it's exile as a cost. So really hard to muck with. Another old card in that vein is Synod Sanctum. My favorite 1-drop artifact. 2-mana+tap to exile a permanent you control. And 2+Sacrifice the sanctum to return them all to play... under your control. (Most similar effects say Owner's control, but not the Sanctum. XD)

Tombstone stairwell with Cathar’s Crusade produced one of the greatest moments my playgroup ever had.

Marton Stromgald is my favorite old card, it’s kinda like a mono red craterhoof. Any deck I have that I care about combat and is red has him in it, my favorite pet card for sure.

I run Mind’s Eye in my Liesa, Shroud of Dusk deck, my slowest and most controlling one. Because of Liesa’s life taxing, I don’t cast more spells than I have to, and card draw isn’t a big priority (especially since I don’t want to pay life per card or on top of a life for cards spell). It’s not uncommon to wipe the board or cast Liesa and then have a few mana open to use instants if needed or throw at card draw. I don’t think it’s great in most decks, but if you’re both dragging the game out, have some instants, and don’t need to constantly push your board development, it can work. You guys sold me on Vanishing for my Tuvasa deck. Not the easiest place to keep UU up, but seems worth it.

I've been wanting to pick up a City of Shadows for awhile and this has convinced me to pull the trigger

I love that you bought up Vanishing. I run it in my Ivy Gleeful Spellthief auras/mutation deck and it's so good.

This should be a recurring topic. Love this one.

This is excactly my kind of content and the reason why I love EDH, because I wanna play all the weird old cards!

Thanks for making me feel old... i have Gaea's touch, Smoke, glacial chasm, and retraced image in decks. just went through bulk when i started playing commander and found those.

I love seeing City of Shadows here, I've been running it in my Atraxa superfriends deck for a few years now. A little bit rough being a colorless land in a four-color deck, but I'm already running Urborg. Might be able to get away with getting the counters started with a creature token from a planeswalker, but most of the time I'm playing it down on five before casting Atraxa and using it to get some value and soften the blow of her being subject to targeted removal. Then when you get her back down and can start proliferating every turn with her effect or any of the other numerous proliferate effects in the deck, it's very strong. This is probably a cute interaction rather than a strong one, but you can also use nesting grounds to move storage counters from the other storage counter lands that actually produce colored mana to city of shadows, which is kind of ramp in a way, since city of shadows doesn't make you remove the storage counters to use it, unlike the other lands.

12:36 I threw this card into my Talrand, Sky Summoner Combo deck, where I draw all my cards and I keep bringing it back and I have all my lands into play! I love this card!

Super fun episode. Great collection of cards. I going to pull some of these out or retirement and get them back into the action.

Seth, pair War’s Toll with Price of Glory and ascend to Crim’s mortal enemy.

I immediately bought a copy of the Stairwell. Thanks guys ❤❤

I have War's Toll in my Yurlok of Scorch Trash, and it's insane. Bringing back mana burn baby

There is a blue card a dragon or bird, that CAN BE CAST FROM EXILE. It is usually part of chulane or food chain combos. But it would work here.

Shout out to the Fog Meta: Fog Patch is a weird old card that is reasonable against any attack that doesn't have a lot of Trample damage, but it's extra-interesting with Anzrag, the Quake-Mole. If your opponent doesn't block Anzrag, you can cast Fog Patch to still give yourself an extra combat!

This card is pretty narrow but I love playing Glacial Crevasses. I have a Toralf deck that runs lots of snow-covered mountains and sometimes having a red fog is helpful 😂

One cool/weird thing with Tombstone Stairwell is that if you let it die to the upkeep, if you stack it right, you get another round of death triggers before it goes.

Smoke is so dope when you have vigilance lol

Love this concept and would love a sequel with only budget picks.

Tombstone Stairwell seems like a monster of a card for The Master, Multiplied

I love Reverent Mantra! It's won me a game before. Used it to stop a Ghostly Flicker combo, which bought me another turn and let me swing out. It's so sneaky good!

The thing nobody mentioned about Tombstone Stairwell that I think everyone kind of glossed over (though they probably realized it without saying it) is that it seems that EVERY upkeep EVERY player gains a ton of zombies for that turn, and then they all just die at the end of the turn, and a new wave comes on the next player's turn. So the self-mill player is gaining and then sacrificing a ton of zombies 3 times before they even have to pay the upkeep once. This card is really strong in commander for the same reason a card like Rhystic Studies is strong: it triggers on every player's turn.

I've been a big fan of Wild Research recently. It's a 3 mana red enchantment that basically lets you gamble for an enchantment for 1w, or for an instant for 1u. I've found that there's a lot of graveyard-y combos it's really good at setting up (especially with flashback cards), but then once you've set up your combo it also doubles as protection because you can search up counterspells or teferi's protection (which you might be able to cast from your graveyard with some other pieces)

Thank you for mentioning Retraced Image. I had never heard of this card, but it should be great in my Lord of the Nazgul deck. The potential for T1 ramp in Dimir is pretty good, but late game it should also be strong, as the deck features a lot of draw, so I usually have extra lands in hand. With the Lord in play, spending U to either ramp or drop an additional Nazgul into play at discount while also making a Wraith token seems pretty strong.

Gaze of Pain is the weird old card I wish people knew about. 1B sorcery, any of your unblocked attackers you can redirect their damage to a creature. You do this for each creature individually, so can make them all bite different things. So it's like a mass bite spell that you tap your creatures for and simply need to convince an opponent to not block so you can kill someone else's creature(s) (they take no damage from the attack). What makes it good is the mana efficiency and if you have a lot of attack triggers or deathtouch. You can also politic so your creatures not being left back to block doesn't mean you'll be attacked. If you're looking for a cheap way to remove 2+ creatures at once, especially annoying little utility stuff, then see if it could work for you. I love it for my Nalia de'Arnise deck which is essentially go-wide deathtouch.

The art on Ritual of the Machine is a reference to Phyrexian influence during the Ice Age.

Mind's Eye was pretty good... In 2010.... In mono White!

With Tombstone Stairwell, it will trigger Wilhelt's ability to create Decayed Zombies at the end of every turn. So say you only have 3 creatures in your graveyard, with Wilhelt and Tombstone Stairwell on the field. You pass turn, make 3 TS zombies, they die, you make 3 decayed zombies. Third players turn, do the same. When turn order gets back around to you, you have 9 decayed zombies, plus the 3 new TA zombies you.make for turn. It's an extremely good synergy.

Cool episode, more like this please!

Tomer -- want to note an additional relevance for griffin canyon -- it combos with mutavault and manascape refractor to make an infinitely large griffin.

Urabrask's Forge and the City of shadows work great together. You sak the tokens anyway, might as well get something for them.

I love Tombstone Stairwell, it's a pet card every time I do Zombies. It produces the highest amount of Zombies for the mana of almost anything, and churns out ETB and Dies triggers for those tasty Zombie value engines. Hell, by the time you have to pay the upkeep it's already made and eaten 10+ Zombies for you, and even more if you can exploit your opponents. Even on the turn you pay if you don't pay you can order the zombie-making to come before the upkeep, so you get the zombies and the dies triggers anyway.

City of Shadows in my Derevi equipment deck is one of my favorite cards 🙌🏻

How to combine ETB meta and smoke meta in one card? In face (symbol?) card of Stronghold they managed to do that - Portcullis is amazing if you want to ensure that there are not too many creatures on the battlefield, while still benefiting from your ETBs (sometimes more than once).

I've been running against a lot of Glacial Chasm recently, the one card that I use as a finisher and also as a way to counter that (and teferis pro) is Isengard Unleashed, triple damage and damage prevention along side a big commander is usually enough to kill even the most resilient of players.

My favorite underrated card is Tortured Existence, goes so well in reanimation decks. I rarely see it in people's decks though

I’ve seen Tombstone Stairwell before but I’ve never really liked it until Tomer explained it out to me so thanks

I love Retraced Image in the mono-blue original Thassa deck I play. Unfortunately the only time I've had it on turn one (island, retraced image to put another island into play, ponder, t2 thassa), I got hit with a curse of opulence in a pod where all 3 other people had one-drop creatures. Also the deck plays some free pitch spells (Force of will/Negation + Commandeer) so it's still good late-game.

My first and only atraxa deck ran city of shadows along side a set of lands that tap for 2 mana but use a counter and enter with like 2, plus the vivid cycle. Atraxa only really existed as the commander to keep my land's mana abilities usable in the deck and it really played like a super unoptimal ramp deck but was so much fun as a low power level helix pinnacle deck that didn't cheat infinite mana and instead did at most like 10 mana a turn unless city of shadows was out as it went up by 2 or 3 counters a turn which turned a 10 turn win into a 5 turn win. Again it was super low power level edh.

I play Mind's Eye in Meria, Scholar of Antiquities with unwinding clock and seedborn with a crap ton of mana rocks. Works pretty well in my pods.

Carry Away from Darksteel is in my Dimir and Mono-Blue decks, there is always a pair of shoes on the battlefield that would look much better on my feet 🥳

Tomer you are a mad scientist. When you were reading tombstone stairwell, I thought you were on an illegal substance. But after explaining how you use the card, I’m convinced that cards broken.

Smoke also hoses decks that play lots of mana dorks & other creatures that tap for utility.

Omg didn't know tombstone stairwell existed! It's so good for my Malik deck

These old cards have such cool art!

Tombstone Stairwell with Eldrazi Monument, you keep the tokens :)

A lot of people threw shade on Mind's Eye, but in most casual games, it's going to be solid.

I love retraced image and mitotic manipulation in my mono blue decks where I often run close to 40 lands, usually it is better with a commander who can recast stuff like gale or lier, then you can dump a few lands that you drew later in the game too

I'm all about lands that don't produce mana. Glacial Chasm, Maze of Ith, Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, Adventurers' Guildhouse, Thawing Glaciers.

I would really love, if you had a page were you show us your paper decks. Phil talking about his Jadar deck I want to see it :D

Gonna throw my hat in the ring for Sapphire Charm. Easily the best cantrip in commander, works well in voltron, spellslinger, and any other shell involved getting beaters through. My Gale + Scion deck appreciates the delayed card draw, and my Umbris deck loves getting through for massive damage. Nevermind the fact that it can phase out combo creatures in an emergency. It’s a house!

I recently put Haunted Crossroads in my Marvo deck to help recycle creatures and win clash triggers.

There is another tech that works just fine with glacial chasm. If you copy it you just reset the cumulative upkeep. It is possible to slow the game time enough to find a way to close the game.

I love that venser + city of shadows interaction. I have it in Ranar deck and it’s silly

Tombstone Stairwell is neat, I might slot it into my Marneus Calgar deck to see how it does

I love old cards, and I especially love Glacial Chasm! I play it in my Muldrotha deck. I use multiple landfall per turn plus a ramunap excavator style card exactly like how tomer hates it! Plus playing it in this style it's very unfair as Seth said. Can confirm this causes much salt when properly setup, and it's very easy to perma fog a table.

I play glacial chasm in my version of no more bad turns. No upkeep :)

Mind’s eye is perfect in the clash meta because richard plays twelve boardwipes so the games are super grindy

Im not sure how under-rated they are, but i love Eye of the Storm and Talorian Winds. Two very different cards, but theyre just a ton of fun.

I have a city of shadows in my Ezuri Proliferate deck. Reatrced Image in my Lier deck (Good ramp for flashback and High Tide combo)

My favorite old card is: Debt of Loyalty - It can protect one of ur creature against.a board wipe (nobody plays Wrath of God or Damnation anymore) OR you can steal a dying creature your opponent control for just 3 mana :-) (

Got to know where Phil got Retraced Image from... I started trying to get people to play it in commander about couple years ago by comments on RU-vid, etc. Would love to know it made it to you guys :) As for how good it is, you want to play it in decks with sorcery synergies and card draw. Without that its trash. With those things you can do some broken stuff. For example, I run it in Kefnet, where I have cantrips that let me stack the top and then cast it twice. That kind of thing. The other cards in the "BLUE RAMP PACKAGE" to note are Mitotic Manipulation, which is basically straight 3 mana untapped ramp and Savor the Moment, which gives you a land drop, an attack, planeswalker activations, etc.

the commander clash gang, spiking card prices everytime the podcast

Minds Eye, it makes you say do *I* pay the 1, and Seth actually pays this one..

I play City of Shadows in my Ranar deck using it to trigger exile synergy, makes colorless mana for Eldrazi Displacer, helps pay commander tax, and single-handedly got a buddy to stop playing Slicer lol.

I’m still a believer in minds eye. There’s plenty of games where I don’t really have any other plays on turn 3-4 and it plays dividends for the rest of the game. In a vacuum it’s certainly mana efficient, but this just works on the assumption that every hand you play will always be making plays on curve. Obviously that can vary with the overall power level of your deck but especially in more casual games it’s going to pop off consistently.

Debt of Loyalty for white is a great version of gimme your creature =D It's 1WW, regenerate target creature, gain control of it. That's it.

Tombstone stairwell goes in Ayara, First of Locthwain post haste!

Mind's Eye is one of my fav cards to have on the battlefield. In white and red. Nowhere else :p

I've found a home for Mind's Eyes in monoG Omnath Locus of Mana. Runs very few creatures and tries to finish the game with Hurricane, Squall Line or Borrowing the East Wind. It is indeed mana pool.deck and usually has far too much mana than it does card draw. (It's funny, green has excellent card draw...though usually tied to casting or dropping creatures.) Also Mind's Eye goes really good with Urban Burgeoning, even on a basic land. 1 extra mana each turn at opponent's untap, feed it into Mind's Eye.

Mind’s Eye is the best when an opponent plays Rhystic Study now you never pay the one, but you always Pay the 1.

If Gaea’s Touch even gets you one single forest that’s ramp on your delayed ritual, it’s the sauce

I like glacial chasm in my eriette deck, gives me a little cushion, and the life loss is off set by her drain.

Tombstone Stairwell in Sultai-Sidisi is so very, very good. Add Altar of Dementia and Path of Discovery for real fun times :)

Minds eye vs power creep. 1. Minds eyes good. Time to win low. 2. Minds eye bad ttw fast, average player doesn't use interaction. 3. Minds eye good. Interaction is common place and minds eye isn't worth sniping, and people will feed the eye. Minds eye is fine for artifact/copy/trigger decks and instant speed decks. You can cheat it into play. The cost is miniscule after a board wipe.

I use City of Shadows in my Yawgmoth deck. It's slow but cool!

MIND’S EYE!!! FINALLY! Good to know I’m not alone. I love this card. Play it, sit, and when an opponent draws, you can draw. I’m with Seth.

Tombstone Stairwell is 100% my favorite card to play in my Varina deck