As I was rebuilding my kozilek deck today I saw that 11% of kozilek decks play arcane signet, which doesn't make mana in the deck. maybe a challenge the stats mention would help some people out.
I love how Segovia started out as a joke about the incongruity on the card Segovian Leviathan, and now the plane gets its own card commemorating its invasion by giant Phyrexians (also known as regular-size Phyrexians).
I like the idea that there are different types of battles. I can totally see a group hug type of battle (everyone can attack or defend it), where the attacker and owner of said battle get a bonus for transforming it. Or a defense battle that you, yourself defend… I think there are a lot of cool directions for this type of permanent.
The flavor of most of these battles seems off anyway. Almost all of them are the Phyrexians invading a different plane. Your opponent defends it, meaning you are the invader and plan to best the defende and once you do that, somehow the non-phyrexians (in most cases) get some powerful creature or spell to help them defeat the Phyrexians. Really weird.
I like the idea of a battle you defend yourself. Maybe something like a static effect that would be on an enchantment but it's super undercosted because you can remove it, or instead of it being undercosted it has "whenever you remove a counter" or "At the beginning of your upkeep, if a counter has not been removed since your last turn"
My favorite battle by far is Invasion of New Capenna. I use it in my Clavileno deck that focuses on a vampire tribal aristocrat deck. The front side is just good removal in that deck and the 4/3 flyer my commander creates makes it pretty easy usually to be able to flip and start buffing up all my vampires with the back side. Bonus points if one of my pinatas are on the battlefield getting bigger from the death and the subsequent pumping.
I quite like Invasion of Moag, being able to put +1 counters on your whole team always feels good to me, and the backside of the card being able to repeatedly add counters on your endstep is just gravy! I look forward to seeing other battle types and effects in the future!
A king of the hill battle could be cool, like once it loses all of its counters, the player who removed the last counter gains control of it and it regains its defense counters. Kind of like a new version of the monarch and it would give the controller a passive bonus like an extra draw, an emblem or some sort of treasure/token maker. It would almost feel like the players/Planeswalkers fighting for control of a high point of interest in a war zone, to gain certain advantages in battle.
Other subtypes of battles could include Contests. The battle would sit around for everyone to get a turn and reward whoever drew more cards or did the most damage.
Finallyable to watch the episode now that I am back from Minneapolis. It was great to meet the three of you and play games with Dana and Joey! I just put Invasion of Amonkhet into my Taigam, Sidisi's Hand deck and am excited to try it out.
I don't agree with the logic at around 11:13. If a battle taking 4 damage to kill is 'effectively' gaining your collective opponents 12 life because you could have been attacking their life totals instead, then attacking an opponent directly with any non-miriad creature is gaining the table life, because for every x damage you would deal in combat damage, you missed doing the same amount of damage to your other 2 opponents. Therefore, if you attack every round, eventually everyone will have unlimited life points!
I think invasion of Fiora is one of the best ones. It's potentially a 1 sided board wipe that can clear out blockers and let you swing in and defeat it the turn it is played. It then turns into a draw engine that again was supported by its front side by wiping out things that could have attacked you and it self-enables being a deathtouch creature with a big butt (capable blocker). On top of all that, it also has the anti-counter ability which is icing on the cake. This one and Segovia are both very playable because the front side helps you defeat the battle and get to the back side, and the back side of both of these are very good.
I haven't played with or against any battles yet. I was under the impression you needed to have mana open to cast them transformed. The cards don't indicate on them in rules font "without paying its mana cost." This video doesn't go over the rules either. So those as confused as me here's the ruling. 310.11b Sieges have the intrinsic ability “When the last defense counter is removed from this permanent, exile it, then you may cast it transformed without paying its mana cost.”
If they ever want to cover a group of cards for Rivaz of the Claw, barely anyone's running cards like Feign Death and Supernatural Stamina! Instants like these remove the exile effect from Rivaz's reanimation, letting you play one dragon effectively four times. The first time, first reanimation, using an instant when it dies this time to return to the battlefield again, then reanimating it when it dies again. Also Ashnod's Intervention goes here, for those pesky Swords to Plowshares other exile cards on your biggest dragons like Utvara or Valkas.
I bought all of the battle cards and have them in a "battle deck". My group treats it like a planechase deck. At the start of game, we flip the first battle and the starting player casts it for free. Anyone can attack or defend it. Whoever defeats it gets to cast it. At the next upkeep, that player flips and casts the battle for free.
A challenge I've noticed is in Moira and Teshar (a new deck I've absolutely come to adore), living weapons are a bad call to reanimate with their ability. It gives haste to the equipment, not the germ token that gets made, so it can't immediately swing without outside intervention.
Im curious how Battles feel and play in Goad Decks where you are forcing your opponents to attack anyone but you. Trying them out in my Baeloth/Noble Heritage deck
I agree making battles that you have to defend encroaches on planeswalker territory, but a space I think they could explore is an arena like battle, where it's a race to get it because whoever gets it gets the back side transformation. Another possible idea would be them playing around with the transform variations they've been doing and have a creature that transforms into a sorcery or instant of some sort and then bounces to hand or goes to graveyard. I love cards like Journey to Eternity and Growing Rites of Itlimoc and would love to see more of this style of mechanic explored by WOTC
Invasion of Kaldheim is really underrated, imho. It's not actual "real" impulse draw because you exile the cards from your hand, exactly knowing what you'll be able to play until the end of your next turn. This obviously negates the biggest downside of "real" impulse draw, namely the random nature of what you happen to have on top of your library.
Really happy to see how well these sieges are panning out. Pretty much all of them seem like they have a reasonable home somewhere, even the really janky ones, especially the ones that flip into creatures for tribal consideration.
I think battles are especially good in decks that care about devotion. You can play a few of these for just the front side, and they're hard for opponents to interact with as they sit in play. Sure they can attack them, but then you get to cast the usually nifty back side at no cost to you and get some "incidental life gain" since they're attacking the battles and not you.
Invasion of New Phyrexia is a battle that opponents of the controller can benefit from attacking. The backside is a planeswalker, so if you flip it another opponent can kill the Teferi on the back before the controller ever gets the opportunity to activate it's abilities.
If i assign Freddy to defend the battle i played, is the permanent still under my control? I assume it's like Auras/Curses that i put on Freddy's battlefield for better visualization, but it's actually under my control. That correct?
What would happen if you gain control of a battle an opponent owns? Especially if you are defending it? Can you still attack it? And when its exiled, do you get the flip side?
the fact that battles ar exiled, then casted from there when defeated made me shift my Faldorn wolf deck to a Faldorn Wolf/battle deck (The Huntmaster if you will), and I can't wait to try my new list
Pretty sure the other kind of battle that will exist at some point is one that you defend yourself, but they made all be defend by opponent to make it more understandable for now. If you defend it, battle can have like upkeep benefit but give a something to the opponent if they kill it, so you wanna keep it longer, but those would have been super bad in commander, so they didn't wanna introduce that yet.
I'm rebuilding Octavia again, and while Invasion of Segovia has people excited for the convoke and the untap, meanwhile I'm like "I'm gonna turn those two trampling 1/1s into 8/8s."
I think a neat idea for the next set of battles would be to have incentives for other players to attack your battle. Like a “any creatures controller that does combat damage to this draws a card”
@@brendans1983 not agreeing. If battles worked the way you’re proposing no one would play them unless their decks are designed to guarantee that they remove the final counter and not give their opponents a chance to do so. They would be very niche cards as opposed to cards that can go in any deck.
My suspicion for non-siege battles is to allow space to design some that have a one-time effect when they're completed, so that you can print some in a set that doesn't otherwise have dual faced cards. Based on how I'm reading the current rules for battles, anyway.
I really like that idea. Maybe there will be a subtype that the controller defends. Then it becomes like an attackable enchantment with an LTB effect so opponents need to decide if a continuous effect or a big, splashy effect would be better.
Posting early, so we will see if it comes up, but you can be political with them. "Hey, whoever destroys that battle for me will get protection from that creature for the game." "Hey, I see you could defeat the battle, but would you rather I attack you and force you to block or will you let me get my battle?"
I got some friends to flip my battles with my Thantis deck because they didn’t want to trade creatures and they needed each other to maximize their chances of removing my Thantis that had swift foot boots and a dark steel plate attached to it
I would love to see Dana take a look at Energy Tap for X cost decks. I think it's in a total of four decks from the top commanders in the archetype? Very potent mana generating card
i think it's also interesting to note that Siege is only the first battle type so far and that there will be others. i could definitely see future types that have the caster designated as the defender (in which case, Doubling Season would be beneficial, just like for your own Planeswalkers and would similarly play like Planeswalkers in commander, where you now might have up to 3 other players trying to defeat it). there could also be a type where anyone could attack like a 'king of the hill' kind of mechanic like the Monarch.
Doesnt matter if explosive vegetation gets outclassed mechanically. Nothing can outclass the original border in foil. And everything outclasses cards with ugly black bars and stickers
Guys plz release a separate video cut of the 'challenge the stats' segment, sometimes the topic of the main show isn't always of interest to everyone but I imagine the ' challenge the stats' would gain traction on youtube regardless of the topic for the week.
Planeswalkers are the best card type in MTG and basically are the face of the game. All the planeswalkers hate in this episode is a huge L. Calling battles “fixed walkers” when planeswalkers don’t need a fix.
Even in EDH they aren't overwhelming, but yes, many of them fit just the right deck strategy which makes them playable. I don't think that necessarily makes the card type bad, it just means that the design team was conservative with the power level on their first go round with it. I have been playing the game since the 90s and I quit playing magic for a while shortly after they made planeswalkers. The first set of planeswalkers were just too strong at the time and there were few ways to deal with them. I appreciate that they went with the side of caution on the first release.
Josu Vess definitely has no place in Sidar, but nor does Council. The card is 5 mana for a creature that can only block and that can't be reanimated by the deck, and the supposed synergy, that it may make you one 2/2 on each player's turn, is not nearly enough benefit unless you're playing Sidar as a tokens deck. The card draw is nice, but it's an overcosted body and it's not reliable. There are far better options for the deck, including ones which are actually knights.
As I was rebuilding my kozilek deck today I saw that 11% of kozilek decks play arcane signet, which doesn't make mana in the deck. maybe a challenge the stats mention would help some people out.
that challenge the stat did occur (I don't remember on which episode though, I think it was a year and a half ago or smth like that)
I love how Segovia started out as a joke about the incongruity on the card Segovian Leviathan, and now the plane gets its own card commemorating its invasion by giant Phyrexians (also known as regular-size Phyrexians).
I agree, and yet the itself card is no joke. It's cheap enough that those small bodies are useful, while the backside is seriously worth flipping.
I like the idea that there are different types of battles. I can totally see a group hug type of battle (everyone can attack or defend it), where the attacker and owner of said battle get a bonus for transforming it. Or a defense battle that you, yourself defend…
I think there are a lot of cool directions for this type of permanent.
The flavor of most of these battles seems off anyway. Almost all of them are the Phyrexians invading a different plane. Your opponent defends it, meaning you are the invader and plan to best the defende and once you do that, somehow the non-phyrexians (in most cases) get some powerful creature or spell to help them defeat the Phyrexians. Really weird.
I like the idea of a battle you defend yourself. Maybe something like a static effect that would be on an enchantment but it's super undercosted because you can remove it, or instead of it being undercosted it has "whenever you remove a counter" or "At the beginning of your upkeep, if a counter has not been removed since your last turn"
My favorite battle by far is Invasion of New Capenna. I use it in my Clavileno deck that focuses on a vampire tribal aristocrat deck. The front side is just good removal in that deck and the 4/3 flyer my commander creates makes it pretty easy usually to be able to flip and start buffing up all my vampires with the back side. Bonus points if one of my pinatas are on the battlefield getting bigger from the death and the subsequent pumping.
I quite like Invasion of Moag, being able to put +1 counters on your whole team always feels good to me, and the backside of the card being able to repeatedly add counters on your endstep is just gravy! I look forward to seeing other battle types and effects in the future!
A king of the hill battle could be cool, like once it loses all of its counters, the player who removed the last counter gains control of it and it regains its defense counters. Kind of like a new version of the monarch and it would give the controller a passive bonus like an extra draw, an emblem or some sort of treasure/token maker. It would almost feel like the players/Planeswalkers fighting for control of a high point of interest in a war zone, to gain certain advantages in battle.
Other subtypes of battles could include Contests. The battle would sit around for everyone to get a turn and reward whoever drew more cards or did the most damage.
Finallyable to watch the episode now that I am back from Minneapolis. It was great to meet the three of you and play games with Dana and Joey! I just put Invasion of Amonkhet into my Taigam, Sidisi's Hand deck and am excited to try it out.
I don't agree with the logic at around 11:13. If a battle taking 4 damage to kill is 'effectively' gaining your collective opponents 12 life because you could have been attacking their life totals instead, then attacking an opponent directly with any non-miriad creature is gaining the table life, because for every x damage you would deal in combat damage, you missed doing the same amount of damage to your other 2 opponents. Therefore, if you attack every round, eventually everyone will have unlimited life points!
Can’t wait for the battle of helm’s deep!
I think invasion of Fiora is one of the best ones. It's potentially a 1 sided board wipe that can clear out blockers and let you swing in and defeat it the turn it is played. It then turns into a draw engine that again was supported by its front side by wiping out things that could have attacked you and it self-enables being a deathtouch creature with a big butt (capable blocker). On top of all that, it also has the anti-counter ability which is icing on the cake. This one and Segovia are both very playable because the front side helps you defeat the battle and get to the back side, and the back side of both of these are very good.
I'd be VERY surprised if there were no Battle Cards in Middle Earth with the LoTR sets. I'm so hyped for that series of product.
I love how Joey always tries to keep it when Matt goes on his dad joke adventure, but always end up losing it anyway. Love it! ❤
Man, all these MTG planes can't catch a break, there's always a war.
Its like being on earth, always a war
I haven't played with or against any battles yet. I was under the impression you needed to have mana open to cast them transformed. The cards don't indicate on them in rules font "without paying its mana cost." This video doesn't go over the rules either. So those as confused as me here's the ruling.
310.11b Sieges have the intrinsic ability “When the last defense counter is removed from this permanent, exile it, then you may cast it transformed without paying its mana cost.”
You should really watch and attend prerelease
If they ever want to cover a group of cards for Rivaz of the Claw, barely anyone's running cards like Feign Death and Supernatural Stamina! Instants like these remove the exile effect from Rivaz's reanimation, letting you play one dragon effectively four times. The first time, first reanimation, using an instant when it dies this time to return to the battlefield again, then reanimating it when it dies again. Also Ashnod's Intervention goes here, for those pesky Swords to Plowshares other exile cards on your biggest dragons like Utvara or Valkas.
@EDHRECast are you going to list battles with their own category on commander pages? I dont think I have seen them there yet.
I bought all of the battle cards and have them in a "battle deck". My group treats it like a planechase deck. At the start of game, we flip the first battle and the starting player casts it for free. Anyone can attack or defend it. Whoever defeats it gets to cast it. At the next upkeep, that player flips and casts the battle for free.
A challenge I've noticed is in Moira and Teshar (a new deck I've absolutely come to adore), living weapons are a bad call to reanimate with their ability. It gives haste to the equipment, not the germ token that gets made, so it can't immediately swing without outside intervention.
Invasion of Alara is such a fun politics piece. Offer people the draw effect and ignore them for the removal while you get the goodies
Im curious how Battles feel and play in Goad Decks where you are forcing your opponents to attack anyone but you.
Trying them out in my Baeloth/Noble Heritage deck
I agree making battles that you have to defend encroaches on planeswalker territory, but a space I think they could explore is an arena like battle, where it's a race to get it because whoever gets it gets the back side transformation. Another possible idea would be them playing around with the transform variations they've been doing and have a creature that transforms into a sorcery or instant of some sort and then bounces to hand or goes to graveyard. I love cards like Journey to Eternity and Growing Rites of Itlimoc and would love to see more of this style of mechanic explored by WOTC
Invasion of Kaldheim is really underrated, imho. It's not actual "real" impulse draw because you exile the cards from your hand, exactly knowing what you'll be able to play until the end of your next turn. This obviously negates the biggest downside of "real" impulse draw, namely the random nature of what you happen to have on top of your library.
Really happy to see how well these sieges are panning out. Pretty much all of them seem like they have a reasonable home somewhere, even the really janky ones, especially the ones that flip into creatures for tribal consideration.
I think battles are especially good in decks that care about devotion. You can play a few of these for just the front side, and they're hard for opponents to interact with as they sit in play. Sure they can attack them, but then you get to cast the usually nifty back side at no cost to you and get some "incidental life gain" since they're attacking the battles and not you.
Matt sealing the segue was my favorite battle !!
Invasion of New Phyrexia is a battle that opponents of the controller can benefit from attacking. The backside is a planeswalker, so if you flip it another opponent can kill the Teferi on the back before the controller ever gets the opportunity to activate it's abilities.
If i assign Freddy to defend the battle i played, is the permanent still under my control? I assume it's like Auras/Curses that i put on Freddy's battlefield for better visualization, but it's actually under my control. That correct?
Wow. I can't believe I never noticed that the focus on dad jokes on this channel was a play on the word "data."
I will keep playing explosive vegetation, no matter how many better versions they print. I just love it 🥲
Invasion of Ikoria is my favourite. Its basically a Green Sun’s Twilight that becomes a Thicc Boi.
I recently watched the Burakos video, and I’ve been thinking about having Invasion of New Capenna as one of the removal spells.
i'm planning to use it for this and the Jabari knights deck
What would happen if you gain control of a battle an opponent owns? Especially if you are defending it? Can you still attack it? And when its exiled, do you get the flip side?
the fact that battles ar exiled, then casted from there when defeated made me shift my Faldorn wolf deck to a Faldorn Wolf/battle deck (The Huntmaster if you will), and I can't wait to try my new list
How do battles interact with solemnity?
No effect. Solemnity hasn’t been errata’d for battles.
Pretty sure the other kind of battle that will exist at some point is one that you defend yourself, but they made all be defend by opponent to make it more understandable for now. If you defend it, battle can have like upkeep benefit but give a something to the opponent if they kill it, so you wanna keep it longer, but those would have been super bad in commander, so they didn't wanna introduce that yet.
“Without a Baddle” is an underrated film..
I'm rebuilding Octavia again, and while Invasion of Segovia has people excited for the convoke and the untap, meanwhile I'm like "I'm gonna turn those two trampling 1/1s into 8/8s."
I recently made a Queen Marchesa Legends Matter deck and didn't even know about Invasion of Fiora... I feel so seen...🥹🥹🥹
So like with planeswalkers goaded creatures can attack battles?
Goaded creatures must attack a player. They can’t attack Planewalkers or battles.
Battles are double spells where the back half costs attacking power.
I think a neat idea for the next set of battles would be to have incentives for other players to attack your battle. Like a “any creatures controller that does combat damage to this draws a card”
The person who removes the last counter should just get the card.
@@brendans1983 no one would play the battles without the guarantee of getting that payoff.
@@andreviljoen7157 I think you misunderstood what I said. Because your comment makes no sense in relevance to my comment
@@andreviljoen7157 or are you sarcastically agreeing with me?
@@brendans1983 not agreeing. If battles worked the way you’re proposing no one would play them unless their decks are designed to guarantee that they remove the final counter and not give their opponents a chance to do so. They would be very niche cards as opposed to cards that can go in any deck.
I'm interested in testing out Invasion of Tarkir in my Miirym Dragon deck. I'm envisioning the combos now.
MTG King of Tokyo: yo I heard you like Richard Garfield games
My suspicion for non-siege battles is to allow space to design some that have a one-time effect when they're completed, so that you can print some in a set that doesn't otherwise have dual faced cards. Based on how I'm reading the current rules for battles, anyway.
I really like that idea. Maybe there will be a subtype that the controller defends. Then it becomes like an attackable enchantment with an LTB effect so opponents need to decide if a continuous effect or a big, splashy effect would be better.
Invasion of Alara already is a one-time effect by turning into a Sorcery on the backside.
I actively ignored battles, then I saw Invasion of Tharkir and that one will go in my Jund dragon deck.
Posting early, so we will see if it comes up, but you can be political with them.
"Hey, whoever destroys that battle for me will get protection from that creature for the game."
"Hey, I see you could defeat the battle, but would you rather I attack you and force you to block or will you let me get my battle?"
Waiting for the “Rap” Battle type 🎤 🔥
lol
I got some friends to flip my battles with my Thantis deck because they didn’t want to trade creatures and they needed each other to maximize their chances of removing my Thantis that had swift foot boots and a dark steel plate attached to it
So are battles just anti-planeswalkers?
Sort of, plus a transformation effecr.
I would love to see Dana take a look at Energy Tap for X cost decks. I think it's in a total of four decks from the top commanders in the archetype? Very potent mana generating card
i think it's also interesting to note that Siege is only the first battle type so far and that there will be others. i could definitely see future types that have the caster designated as the defender (in which case, Doubling Season would be beneficial, just like for your own Planeswalkers and would similarly play like Planeswalkers in commander, where you now might have up to 3 other players trying to defeat it). there could also be a type where anyone could attack like a 'king of the hill' kind of mechanic like the Monarch.
Im enjoying invasion of amonket
I really want Josu to be a good card, it's not but I want it to be
So my question is: Why would anyone attack the Battle for you?
I think these are neat mechanically, but thematically something just seems weird about forcing an opponent into defending a plane.
Yarok likes battles :)
Vampire hexmage.
Doesnt matter if explosive vegetation gets outclassed mechanically. Nothing can outclass the original border in foil. And everything outclasses cards with ugly black bars and stickers
They've come a long way from Tribal.
Matt looking good with the facial hair
Matt, the sen triplets of segways.
I really want to go back to Fiora
Guys plz release a separate video cut of the 'challenge the stats' segment, sometimes the topic of the main show isn't always of interest to everyone but I imagine the ' challenge the stats' would gain traction on youtube regardless of the topic for the week.
Planeswalkers are the best card type in MTG and basically are the face of the game. All the planeswalkers hate in this episode is a huge L. Calling battles “fixed walkers” when planeswalkers don’t need a fix.
19:20
This interaction has always upset me. 😡
I dont know why buy I laughted my ass off when I saw the miniature
Invade Rabia
Void Mirror.
Conspiracies were release less than 12 years ago!
Before watching: they better have Spice8Rack as a guest...
I still dont feel like any of the battles are good an only playable in edh
thats fine players only play EDH anyhow.
Even in EDH they aren't overwhelming, but yes, many of them fit just the right deck strategy which makes them playable. I don't think that necessarily makes the card type bad, it just means that the design team was conservative with the power level on their first go round with it. I have been playing the game since the 90s and I quit playing magic for a while shortly after they made planeswalkers. The first set of planeswalkers were just too strong at the time and there were few ways to deal with them. I appreciate that they went with the side of caution on the first release.
Josu Vess definitely has no place in Sidar, but nor does Council. The card is 5 mana for a creature that can only block and that can't be reanimated by the deck, and the supposed synergy, that it may make you one 2/2 on each player's turn, is not nearly enough benefit unless you're playing Sidar as a tokens deck. The card draw is nice, but it's an overcosted body and it's not reliable.
There are far better options for the deck, including ones which are actually knights.
No mention of Ishkanah when talking about delirium? Smh