I think “the most ‘commander’ commander deck ever made” perfectly describes this deck, it plays objectively bad cards and uses politics to get the gimmick to win I love it
Early days yet, I find the algorithm takes a couple days sometimes to start pushing my longforms so we'll see! Thanks for helping by commenting, I'll do my best!
Angry Green Jellybean exposes the real reason the Kenriths where dead in Aftermath : after the Courts fell into choas, the people of Eldraine finally made them answer for their war crimes.
I have a feeling, and it could be entirely wrong, that Aethedrift will introduce “Race” or something similar as a battle type. Something where all players have the opportunity to gain the effect and it’s literally a race to see who gets it first would fit well into the theme. Perhaps in the future we’ll also see Battles that give the person defending it a boon, because so far I have never ever seen a person block for a battle lol
That could be fun! I do think there being some kind of neutral battle would be a fun space, and am interested to see how they'd design around the obvious potential downside for the caster! Yeah, people seem to be pretty unbothered about their effects!
@ANGRYGREENMTG an easy out would be to have the backside have 2 effects. 1 for the Owner, 1 for a non-Owner who controls the card. Example, if I Own and Cast the Battle, and then I flip it, I get a really good effect. If my opponent instead flips my Battle, they get a good, but less good effect.
I made a very similar deck when Battles first released; I only used 28 Battles, rather than the full 36, but it was very much built around those Battles.
There's a lot of value between the battles we have tbf, given they represent a lot of reasonably common effects between them - no doubt you can make a much more functional deck through choosing to cut some of the ones like Tarkir or Theros that require commitment to a strategy to really do something!
2:20 I think a non-siege battle could be a "Skirmish", as you said. I think that any creature could block the Skirmish, as opposed to just one opponent. It would have to have a positive enough upside on the face to make it worth the risk of the backside. Furthermore, if you have a battle with a backside that is incredibly strong, it could have the restriction of only being cast in a post-combat main phase. This risk/reward ensures that you have to have a good army built up to defend the battle until your turn comes back around and you can swing to flip it yourself. Speaking of defending battles, the other way I could see new subtypes of battles existing would be a "Defense". These battles would have upkeep triggers that are beneficial to the caster, and instead of an opponent defending them, the caster does. The backside is more of a consolation prize than a payoff, a 2/2 survivor, a waste that taps for colorless - anything really, the benefit of this card is the front side and keeping it around as long as possible is the goal. I feel like an effect that is the opposite of Unearth would help keep it balanced. It would read like "if this card would leave the battlefield, sacrifice it instead," and would help to avoid flicker abuse for either of these types of battle.
There are definitely a number of ways that a neutral battle type could be balanced to make it a worthwhile risk, I like your idea! Defenses would be great for things like conditional exile, Phyrexian Arena-style effects and the like! Conditional exile particularly feels great as it means the reverse could still have a positive effect for the caster, but the opponent is motivated to remove it to get their permanent back. There's definitely room for a Finality counter-style line of rules text to prevent playing them with flicker effects, but I think any permanent/ any nonland permanent effects are few and far enough between that they didn't feel the need to tack that onto the first set of Battles - if the ETB were to be significantly stronger however it could be good for safety.
@ANGRYGREENMTG ooooh, I didn't even think about fiend hunter style effects like you mentioned. Something like a catch 22 where the battle removes important creatures until its gone, but then has a backside that might be more annoying for opponents to deal with if they want their creature back.
I've been trying to work on a Kenrith build that feels political and not a powerful deck as Kenrith in the past left a bad taste in our play group. I think this build is very fun to try and i know my group loves to make deals.
The temptation with Kenrith is definitely it just becoming a good stuff pile! Focusing on using his abilities, while you don't have to take it this far, to bribe other players, feels like a very fun way of playing the game and not just going for power! Making that more efficient with the reduction from Zirda, Agatha, Training Grounds if you also want it, and the copy from Ertha Jo, is a great aspect to build around, and can let you quietly strengthen your own board while distracting others by buffing theirs!
Love to see some battle love tbh, its understandable, but still a real shame they aren't used that often as someone who made a similarly janky battle deck with Omnath, Locus of All (cuz it felt like a fun bit of flavor to have the wubrg phyrexian invading), a fun thing to know is that you can remove the counters from the battles to instantly flip them due to the wording on the card (they're cast once the last counter is removed, nothing says it had to be removed in combat)! So this means silly things like: -Begin the Invasion into Aether snap just lets you get all your battles active immediately (and usually ends the game if you pull it off) -Vampire hexmage is a free battle flipper, and pretty much always gets found by Invasion of Ikoria when applicable to get the big dino for what is basically 4 mana Also adding to this, Invasion of Karsus and Refraction Elemental do see other battles flipping, since the other side is worded as being cast for free. This makes the goober really really good at burning people down once you get things up and running regardless though, thanks for the wonderful video, and for finding a fun way to give this card type some much needed love
I think they're great fun and would love to see their potential better used! These are some great includes, and this is definitely the fun of Marchesa, Resolute Monarch as well! The damage from Refraction Elemental really does end up adding up, it's probably the one thing I've flipped into that people seem actively concerned about - getting two triggers out of each battle is a massive bonus! Glad you enjoyed it and thanks so much for watching and taking the time to comment! 💚
Love this sm, I always enjoy hearing about absolute jank decks. I also had an idea for another battle type “war” it would have 20 some odd defense counters but if you destroyed it then you would get a near game winning effect or flat out win the game. I did not think about balance or play at all just thought about the idea. Maybe there could be “skirmish” battles that force the defender to assign a number of creatures to defend that battle,and they would be the only creatures that could block attacks to the skirmish battle.
Honestly, hearing the creative process behind something earnestly designed to be bad is fascinating, glad you enjoyed it! Could be an interesting direction for Battles, might need some testing but something hugely impactful that is harder to flip is definitely a potential avenue for design - I like the idea of assigning creatures to a battle when it enters (almost like Space Beleren and Space Sculptor), it could create an interesting way to play around the defender's creatures, being able to remove those assigned to leave the target defenseless!
I might suggest checking out innocuous researcher, it has (most of) sevalas parley ability on its attack trigger, and it untapping your lands even if you can't cast spells until your next turn is totally fine with a commander with activated abilities. Plus I guess flavor wise it's a form of espionage
This was really funny to me because the first commander deck I ever bought cards for was a political rp Kenrith deck with a ton of crossover in the card pool of this deck, save for battles which didn’t even exist yet (this was just after Ikoria came out)
@@ANGRYGREENMTGI don’t unfortunately, I took it apart to spread the WUBRG resources around to new decks and I wasn’t keeping lists back then. I’m @thicctactoe on moxfield tho, I actually got on there pretty recently and still am adding my current decks
I have a meme kenrith deck that is just kenrith and the conpanions. At the start of the game i choose one companion legal with kenrith to be the companion then put any remaining legal companions into the deck swapping out the 99 basic lands as needed
ok so i just tried ittoday (i had the cards) and its actually superfun if the pod is okay to play the roles ! it's was like a dnd game where i was creating a story guiding the other players ... just so cool ! i rly think it can be one of my favorite junk deck
I mean.. a siege that gives everyone a buff for attacks, maybe also gives the controller some kind of smol tribute of extra HP or something, then the flip is a board wipe. It creates a mutual reason to push to a board wipe to stop Jeff over there, if Jeff hits me for casting it, I gets a bit of HP, and everyone can chose to punch Jeff or punch the battle to blow up the board. There's definitely some design space for the idea of mutual skirmish especially for commander
That Jeff sure is a menace... It's definitely an interesting territory to tie a battle design to a Punisher mechanic, though I think that's one the fans would like more than R&D!
Wild, you have my attention! So either player in the pair can play the battle and then when both sides have resolved/ left the battlefield it can be replayed for an increased cost? Sounds fun!
Love this deck concept, exactly my style of goofy jank build, and introduced me to a card I didn't know existed (Leyline Immersion) - So thanks for that, for sure!
Thanks so much, glad it's up your alley! I love Leyline Immersion, understandably snuck under the radar due to being in Aftermath but it's a great ramp piece and protection aura, particularly if you've got a Commander that doesn't need to swing or rely on a tap ability!
I’ve wanted to build something like this since battles came out! Also, on your idea of a neutral battle that everyone can hit, I think I may have an idea. Rather than focus on transforming, it instead focus on the removal of defense counters. The idea could be you or an opponent swings into it, removes X amount of counters equal to the damage, and gains an effect; drawing cards, gaining life, or something more advanced. To counteract this in multiplayer formats, allow ALL players the ability to block when an opponent attacks it. Don’t want the Archenemy to draw cards by hitting the battle? Band together to thwart their advance.
This is a nice idea! It could have a positive effect for the caster when it is defeated as well to make it worthwhile to cast, as well as create a situation where the opponent has to consider whether the upside gained by removing counters is worth the effect resolving quicker!
26:11 Primordial Plasm's ability is a reference to the card Muraganda Petroglyphs, a future sight enchantment that gives all creatures with no abilities +2/+2 :)
They do feel like a great narrative vehicle, though the bar was kinda set at 10 with their introduction - would be great to see them used for something other than "the greatest conflict the multiverse has ever seen"!
I am a massive fan, the fact it maintains the meat of a strategy game while streamlining turn structure and decision making makes for a big box game you can actually introduce less enfranchised tabletop players to, rather than being overly intimidating or drawn out like some others in the genre!
I have a battles deck with Niv Mizzet being the commander. Helps that your commander is 5 colors that can also search out your 2 color battles when it enters as well as any other helper cards you put in that are 2 colors. It also has flying and at 6/6 it can flip your battles quite well.
He seems like a natural fit for a battles list! Particularly with the two colour synergy from Invasion of Ravnica, not that it has two colours itself (whomp whomp)
Cant help but feel like you could’ve helped the “x type matters” battles by adding in a Maskwood Nexus. That way you wont need to worry about creature types and the battles get to trigger/buff more of your creatures The only issue i see is if you cast Maskwood before Invasion of Ikoria. Cuz then unfortunately Ikoria cant target anything
I like the idea off a battle you have to defend because you could give it very strong effects for the down side that it is easy to destroy and it could be more usefull to spell slinger type decks who dont have a whole lot of creatures
For the similar dan dan mode. It could be something like: a starting "neutral" deck. Same for both, maybe soldier themed or colorless. All the battle in a neutral zone. Beating a battle give you the price and access to a set of card to shuffle in your deck. The other player can decide to assign creature to defend a battle. Something risiko like but for both. You have different condition to win: A number of battle, or kill your opponent, maybe the last one having to get a battle first as your "HeadQuarter" before you can attack the opposition.
I like where your head's at! A "Battlestack" is an idea I've toyed with in the past as a variant, and one that I might come back to! I like the idea of having a homebase and an expanding deck, very reminiscent of the Fantasy Flight Star Wars Deckbuilding Game!
Battles are a potentially interesting card type. Remove the Siege subtype and you have a 'Planeswalker Enchantment' - a non-Creature permanent that can be destroyed in combat, thereby either having an inherent upside (less damage aimed at you) or an inherent downside (you have to protect it) depending on how the rest of the card is designed (a mild effect that draws Aggro away from you, or a strong effect that you have to protect). Honestly I consider Sieges to be the least interesting way the Battle type can be used.
This is definitely an interesting way of looking at them! I think there's potentially a space (though I'm not sure we've ever seen it on a card, correct me if I'm wrong) for Battles that any/ either player can crack with the inclusion of a "when you cast this spell, if you own it, do x, otherwise do y"-type rules text. Offering a higher benefit to the caster for cracking them, but still creating motivation for any player, might lead to an interesting blueprint and greater interactivity!
@ANGRYGREENMTG From memory, the way a Battle works is that it's a permanent with HP, and it's the Siege subtype that makes your opponent 'protect' it and lets you attack it. So by default, a Battle with no subtype is essentially just an Enchantment with the Planeswalker Loyalty mechanic strapped to it, perfect for giving what would otherwise be an Enchantment/Artifact an alternative way of being killed. Or as you say, you could introduce a new subtype (let's say 'Melêe' as a placeholder) that gives it a special rule that lets everyone protect/attack it and giving whomever kills it a boon; the Melêe subtype would then be good for 'encouraged combat' effects, or maybe effects like Howling Mine that gives everyone a benefit but you can try to 'turn off' once you feel you've gotten the most from it.
There's definitely a lot of different avenues the design could go down, it's reassuring that Siege is a subtype and that there's room for them to create different subtypes that could operate in any number of different ways! Hopefully it won't take years to see what they've got in mind for them, always a shame to see something, particularly with so much potential design space, sidelined for an extended period of time.
I made a battle deck using the wubrg commander from unfinity, choosing realmbreaker as the named magic character, which discounted any card by wubrg if it has realmbreaker in it, which almost every battle has realmbreaker on them, mostly in the background and sometimes he’s barely even visible but still there. It work ok as a deck, it gets out of had quickly as most battle are basically free and the amount of things happening on my field got a lil overwhelming and hard to keep track of 😅
That would be a fun include! Unfortunately, this deck is impossible to accurately goldfish, pretty webcam-unfriendly, and otherwise I'm happy leaving gameplay to the gameplay channels! Though if it gets to make an appearance on a show in the future I'll definitely be letting everyone know!
What pisses me off most, is its only in the one set, where its a whole card type added to the game for them to treat it like a set mechanic. I want to see 3 or 4 if them per set 2 or 3 atleast! And there need to be more destroy target non-x thing, so it can hit battles and planeswalkers.
It would be great to see them a LOT more frequently, but you've touched upon an important problem, which is alongside that we require more interaction with them - going the nonX route would make a lot of sense, but this might cause an influx of too much strong removal, or require them being overcosted to accommodate for the other things they could hit!
What if you added a way to burn an opponent for lethal, but only one opponent? It would basically be a nuclear deterrent. You can't kill all your opponents, but the first one to attack is dying.
Back when I was playing Yu-Gi-Oh regularly, I played a lot of underwhelming archetypes and liked optimising them to their limit. I'm trying to find something like that also in MGT but there are so many cards in the game that it's very easy to make anything work. That's both a positive for my sanity and a negative for the building challenge. 😅
Oh god, I'm not going to even start considering what the worst Yu-Gi-Oh strategies look like 😅 I think the fun with Magic is that pretty much everything has a context that makes it work when you have access to the whole card pool - hell I even put One with Nothing in a deck recently!
Domain Format is a fan-made format for yugioh that's similar to commander, i've been playing it for a year now and i've actually gotten several "underwhelming" cards to work really well! You could check it out if you'd like, it's really fun.
Hajar is great! He gives a little bit of redundancy for Jirina which is nice, but given there's only twelve non-battle creatures including Kenrith it feels a little overkill 😅
I did think about including it, and might grab a copy at some point if just for the completionist aspect, but damn is it costly mana-wise! It might have to be exempt from the Asset rules because otherwise I don't know how I'd ever cast it 😅
I'll probably end up caving and slotting it in at some point 😅 I'm really hoping we see some more battles soon, particularly with more innovative designs rather than mainly being variations of existing effects! Thank you 💚
@ANGRYGREENMTG ah, i thought for a sec that kenrith has all tap abilities and then thought marvin would be good so you could tap both of them for double kenrith effects. Opps.
@@topgear178 no such thing in this deck 😅 The struggle is more the cost and how it works with the asset ruling of the minigame - having to have already flipped 6 battles to tutor up one is ROUGH
Man I've been struggling to choose between Kenrith and Jodah for a wubrg deck for a while now and I wish I thought of this myself. I'm never a fan of copypasting ideas from youtubers but I might have to make an exception in this case and steal your entire gameplan because it is too good to ignore
alt battle subtype could be something where it's rlly strong for you on the front & your opponent gets a minor sorcery type effect when they clear the counters. this probably still isnt good for super competitive play, but RedCatMagic had a video where he theorized the point of battles should be kinda like planeswalkers, where they passively incentivize slower/longer games by presenting the dilemma of "hit their face, or hit their kinda scary thing?" he thinks sieges failed bc most players don't want to give themselves that dilemma for the cost of attacking and flipping; at best they're good for sideboarding like you said, no bueno for building around bc what if you cant flip it & you need to just start swinging for face? idk what i would name this battle subtype, best i can think is like blockade cuz it's kinda the opposite of siege (which matches my proposed hypothetical lol) but idrk. i am a battle enjoyer tho cuz i like longer games lmao sue me
Honestly a battle type that forces the opponent to attack or deal damage to it before they can hit you would be a great pillowfort/ anti-aggro piece! The fact that proliferate effects would essentially patch up your defenses is quite an interesting potential space, as well as them potentially having recurring effects for as long as they're there, maybe a Phyrexian Arena style trigger?
@ somebody call wotc lmao i also think this would just make more sense when accounting for 1v1 formats too but i could def see some neutral, free for all type battles as well esp if they make them commander exclusive. i think even then theyd want to incentivize the caster somehow like maybe it flips for whoever casts it, but whoever removes the last counter (caster included) gets to make a copy of the flip side. that could be cool lol
Yeah there definitely has to be some upside for casting them, but I think there's a lot of potential ways to create a neutral battle that have recurring or static effects that you would want to get off the table as the non-caster given the choice, with the flip maybe checking for ownership/ control when it resolves and changing accordingly!
The fact that you could logically justify running training grounds, you know.. to train your dudes on 1 mana before youre allowed to send them out strong, but dont do so is killing me haha Also I miss me some throne of the high city in your manabase, and various other flavor lands that ruin your mana base even further
Oh I HEAVILY considered it given it fit, but resisted given how efficient it is 😅 Thanks for bringing it to my attention, not one I knew about! The flavour is great and it is not!
@@ANGRYGREENMTG Oh I totally get that, you don't want to be the person that introduces a jank deck and then plays training ground turn one with kenrith in command zone... :D Another card I came across is "Begin the Invasion", that could be more up your alley! :) (and you built the only deck where this is a playable card haha)
@ANGRYGREENMTG I have sadly played with some people who actually refuse to politic (its was still jovial) and one person who refused to talk to anyone. And did not want anyone else to talk to each other. 😵
@ANGRYGREENMTG Ah, yeah. That's fair. Part of me figured it'd be an exception since it specifically tutors battles into play, since battles themselves are exempt from the restriction (there are no zero or one drop battles afterall)
*they made a comment about wishing to wage a slow war of growing political and cultural influence and displayed an American flag on screen. They never said that the USSR did not engage in puppet conflicts in the Cold War. Hope this clears things up!
![[MSEM2] GPK Decklist Stream VOD](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnxQ6PC8Lxc/mqdefault.jpg)
I think “the most ‘commander’ commander deck ever made” perfectly describes this deck, it plays objectively bad cards and uses politics to get the gimmick to win
I love it
Honestly some of the best Commander games are born of downright refusing to play optimally
It makes me sad when genuinely interesting and engaging videos like this are unloved by the UA-cam algorithm. Keep up the good work!
Early days yet, I find the algorithm takes a couple days sometimes to start pushing my longforms so we'll see!
Thanks for helping by commenting, I'll do my best!
@@that1kiduwu475 we're here, the algorithm will come soon
🫡
@@ANGRYGREENMTGthe algorithm put this in my feed and I’m loving it :)
Angry Green Jellybean exposes the real reason the Kenriths where dead in Aftermath : after the Courts fell into choas, the people of Eldraine finally made them answer for their war crimes.
Totally forgot to include "100% LORE ACCURATE" in the title 😂
I have a feeling, and it could be entirely wrong, that Aethedrift will introduce “Race” or something similar as a battle type. Something where all players have the opportunity to gain the effect and it’s literally a race to see who gets it first would fit well into the theme.
Perhaps in the future we’ll also see Battles that give the person defending it a boon, because so far I have never ever seen a person block for a battle lol
That could be fun! I do think there being some kind of neutral battle would be a fun space, and am interested to see how they'd design around the obvious potential downside for the caster!
Yeah, people seem to be pretty unbothered about their effects!
Holy shit, I really really hope so 👀
Seconding this "Race" idea. If they introduce that and it works, that all on its own will make Aetherdrift interesting to me
@ANGRYGREENMTG an easy out would be to have the backside have 2 effects.
1 for the Owner, 1 for a non-Owner who controls the card.
Example, if I Own and Cast the Battle, and then I flip it, I get a really good effect.
If my opponent instead flips my Battle, they get a good, but less good effect.
I made a very similar deck when Battles first released; I only used 28 Battles, rather than the full 36, but it was very much built around those Battles.
There's a lot of value between the battles we have tbf, given they represent a lot of reasonably common effects between them - no doubt you can make a much more functional deck through choosing to cut some of the ones like Tarkir or Theros that require commitment to a strategy to really do something!
1:01 Tarkir is commonly used in dragon decks as a removal spell and a way to clear blockers.
Yeah it is a very good card in the right deck and probably the best of the mythics!
Hell yeah, I made a deck that runs almost all the rooms, beside one that doesn’t do anything for the deck at all
28 rooms huh? That seems... Doable...
Deck list? :D
2:20 I think a non-siege battle could be a "Skirmish", as you said. I think that any creature could block the Skirmish, as opposed to just one opponent. It would have to have a positive enough upside on the face to make it worth the risk of the backside. Furthermore, if you have a battle with a backside that is incredibly strong, it could have the restriction of only being cast in a post-combat main phase. This risk/reward ensures that you have to have a good army built up to defend the battle until your turn comes back around and you can swing to flip it yourself.
Speaking of defending battles, the other way I could see new subtypes of battles existing would be a "Defense". These battles would have upkeep triggers that are beneficial to the caster, and instead of an opponent defending them, the caster does. The backside is more of a consolation prize than a payoff, a 2/2 survivor, a waste that taps for colorless - anything really, the benefit of this card is the front side and keeping it around as long as possible is the goal.
I feel like an effect that is the opposite of Unearth would help keep it balanced. It would read like "if this card would leave the battlefield, sacrifice it instead," and would help to avoid flicker abuse for either of these types of battle.
There are definitely a number of ways that a neutral battle type could be balanced to make it a worthwhile risk, I like your idea!
Defenses would be great for things like conditional exile, Phyrexian Arena-style effects and the like! Conditional exile particularly feels great as it means the reverse could still have a positive effect for the caster, but the opponent is motivated to remove it to get their permanent back.
There's definitely room for a Finality counter-style line of rules text to prevent playing them with flicker effects, but I think any permanent/ any nonland permanent effects are few and far enough between that they didn't feel the need to tack that onto the first set of Battles - if the ETB were to be significantly stronger however it could be good for safety.
@ANGRYGREENMTG ooooh, I didn't even think about fiend hunter style effects like you mentioned. Something like a catch 22 where the battle removes important creatures until its gone, but then has a backside that might be more annoying for opponents to deal with if they want their creature back.
Also I'm biased but maybe Sphere effects and the like would be good for this too, Charitable Levy from MH3 comes to mind as a template!
I've been trying to work on a Kenrith build that feels political and not a powerful deck as Kenrith in the past left a bad taste in our play group. I think this build is very fun to try and i know my group loves to make deals.
The temptation with Kenrith is definitely it just becoming a good stuff pile!
Focusing on using his abilities, while you don't have to take it this far, to bribe other players, feels like a very fun way of playing the game and not just going for power!
Making that more efficient with the reduction from Zirda, Agatha, Training Grounds if you also want it, and the copy from Ertha Jo, is a great aspect to build around, and can let you quietly strengthen your own board while distracting others by buffing theirs!
Love to see some battle love tbh, its understandable, but still a real shame they aren't used that often
as someone who made a similarly janky battle deck with Omnath, Locus of All (cuz it felt like a fun bit of flavor to have the wubrg phyrexian invading), a fun thing to know is that you can remove the counters from the battles to instantly flip them due to the wording on the card (they're cast once the last counter is removed, nothing says it had to be removed in combat)! So this means silly things like:
-Begin the Invasion into Aether snap just lets you get all your battles active immediately (and usually ends the game if you pull it off)
-Vampire hexmage is a free battle flipper, and pretty much always gets found by Invasion of Ikoria when applicable to get the big dino for what is basically 4 mana
Also adding to this, Invasion of Karsus and Refraction Elemental do see other battles flipping, since the other side is worded as being cast for free. This makes the goober really really good at burning people down once you get things up and running
regardless though, thanks for the wonderful video, and for finding a fun way to give this card type some much needed love
I think they're great fun and would love to see their potential better used!
These are some great includes, and this is definitely the fun of Marchesa, Resolute Monarch as well!
The damage from Refraction Elemental really does end up adding up, it's probably the one thing I've flipped into that people seem actively concerned about - getting two triggers out of each battle is a massive bonus!
Glad you enjoyed it and thanks so much for watching and taking the time to comment! 💚
How did this amazing creator not have more subs
Thank you so much! I've done fairly well off of this one, but there's definitely room to grow!
Love this sm, I always enjoy hearing about absolute jank decks. I also had an idea for another battle type “war” it would have 20 some odd defense counters but if you destroyed it then you would get a near game winning effect or flat out win the game. I did not think about balance or play at all just thought about the idea. Maybe there could be “skirmish” battles that force the defender to assign a number of creatures to defend that battle,and they would be the only creatures that could block attacks to the skirmish battle.
Honestly, hearing the creative process behind something earnestly designed to be bad is fascinating, glad you enjoyed it!
Could be an interesting direction for Battles, might need some testing but something hugely impactful that is harder to flip is definitely a potential avenue for design - I like the idea of assigning creatures to a battle when it enters (almost like Space Beleren and Space Sculptor), it could create an interesting way to play around the defender's creatures, being able to remove those assigned to leave the target defenseless!
Game strategy:
Bribe your opponents to attack all the battles for you.
This is the way
I might suggest checking out innocuous researcher, it has (most of) sevalas parley ability on its attack trigger, and it untapping your lands even if you can't cast spells until your next turn is totally fine with a commander with activated abilities. Plus I guess flavor wise it's a form of espionage
I'm a big fan of the card, definitely a potential include!
"36 battles eh? That means there's enough for each color combination--maybe there will be a colorless one so colorless decks can use it"
"oh wait the colourless one cares about two colour spells"
This needs so much more traction that it has right now, this deck is genius.
@@KingRoni1222 aw shucks, thanks so much!
The steady flow of views and comments like yours are definitely helping 💚
This was really funny to me because the first commander deck I ever bought cards for was a political rp Kenrith deck with a ton of crossover in the card pool of this deck, save for battles which didn’t even exist yet (this was just after Ikoria came out)
Great minds think alike! Honestly sounds very fun, do you have a list?
@@ANGRYGREENMTGI don’t unfortunately, I took it apart to spread the WUBRG resources around to new decks and I wasn’t keeping lists back then. I’m @thicctactoe on moxfield tho, I actually got on there pretty recently and still am adding my current decks
I have a meme kenrith deck that is just kenrith and the conpanions. At the start of the game i choose one companion legal with kenrith to be the companion then put any remaining legal companions into the deck swapping out the 99 basic lands as needed
This got better and better, incredible
ok so i just tried ittoday (i had the cards) and its actually superfun if the pod is okay to play the roles ! it's was like a dnd game where i was creating a story guiding the other players ... just so cool ! i rly think it can be one of my favorite junk deck
So glad you got to give it a go and enjoyed it, warms my little heart 💚
I saw Ertha Jo and my immediate thought was, "well now I have to play this"
Honestly so underrated, I saw her ability for the first time and my mind boggled at the possibilities!
@@ANGRYGREENMTG I have a PEDH deck with her, and its just full of walls that tap for target effects. Either damage or preventing damge
I mean.. a siege that gives everyone a buff for attacks, maybe also gives the controller some kind of smol tribute of extra HP or something, then the flip is a board wipe. It creates a mutual reason to push to a board wipe to stop Jeff over there, if Jeff hits me for casting it, I gets a bit of HP, and everyone can chose to punch Jeff or punch the battle to blow up the board. There's definitely some design space for the idea of mutual skirmish especially for commander
That Jeff sure is a menace...
It's definitely an interesting territory to tie a battle design to a Punisher mechanic, though I think that's one the fans would like more than R&D!
What about a version of two headed giant where each team uses a battle like a commander?
Wild, you have my attention!
So either player in the pair can play the battle and then when both sides have resolved/ left the battlefield it can be replayed for an increased cost? Sounds fun!
Love this deck concept, exactly my style of goofy jank build, and introduced me to a card I didn't know existed (Leyline Immersion) - So thanks for that, for sure!
Thanks so much, glad it's up your alley!
I love Leyline Immersion, understandably snuck under the radar due to being in Aftermath but it's a great ramp piece and protection aura, particularly if you've got a Commander that doesn't need to swing or rely on a tap ability!
I’ve wanted to build something like this since battles came out!
Also, on your idea of a neutral battle that everyone can hit, I think I may have an idea. Rather than focus on transforming, it instead focus on the removal of defense counters. The idea could be you or an opponent swings into it, removes X amount of counters equal to the damage, and gains an effect; drawing cards, gaining life, or something more advanced. To counteract this in multiplayer formats, allow ALL players the ability to block when an opponent attacks it. Don’t want the Archenemy to draw cards by hitting the battle? Band together to thwart their advance.
This is a nice idea! It could have a positive effect for the caster when it is defeated as well to make it worthwhile to cast, as well as create a situation where the opponent has to consider whether the upside gained by removing counters is worth the effect resolving quicker!
I wanted to make that deck, thank you for doing all the heavy lifting for me
You are welcome 🫡
I honestly thought that battles were a subtype of enchantments like sagas or classes
You'd be forgiven for thinking given how little fanfare they arrived with 😅
Oh my gosh this video is EXACTLY what I was looking for a month ago when I wanted to make a deck with every battle😂
I'm only sorry I wasn't faster!
26:11 Primordial Plasm's ability is a reference to the card Muraganda Petroglyphs, a future sight enchantment that gives all creatures with no abilities +2/+2 :)
Nice one, thanks for sharing! What a little freak 😅
There’s no way I couldn’t click on this video or subscribe. This is perfect.
I might cry, thank you! 💚
It bugs me so hard that they haven’t done something like having one battle per set that shows a large conflict that occurs within the story.
They do feel like a great narrative vehicle, though the bar was kinda set at 10 with their introduction - would be great to see them used for something other than "the greatest conflict the multiverse has ever seen"!
Absolutely wild to pick Queen Marchesa instead of Linden, for a Kenrith meme deck
Embracing scandal in favour of interesting mechanics 👀
Love to see another scythe enjoyer
I am a massive fan, the fact it maintains the meat of a strategy game while streamlining turn structure and decision making makes for a big box game you can actually introduce less enfranchised tabletop players to, rather than being overly intimidating or drawn out like some others in the genre!
Hopefully we get more battles printed
I BEG
I have a battles deck with Niv Mizzet being the commander. Helps that your commander is 5 colors that can also search out your 2 color battles when it enters as well as any other helper cards you put in that are 2 colors. It also has flying and at 6/6 it can flip your battles quite well.
He seems like a natural fit for a battles list! Particularly with the two colour synergy from Invasion of Ravnica, not that it has two colours itself (whomp whomp)
Cant help but feel like you could’ve helped the “x type matters” battles by adding in a Maskwood Nexus. That way you wont need to worry about creature types and the battles get to trigger/buff more of your creatures
The only issue i see is if you cast Maskwood before Invasion of Ikoria. Cuz then unfortunately Ikoria cant target anything
Definitely a good fix for the issue with those battles, but I didn't want to break theme for the sake of playability!
Also i wanna build this deck now😅
DO IT
please put some googly eyes on your mic
Now this is the feedback I need
@@ANGRYGREENMTG little santa hat for next month too
For me or the mic?
@@ANGRYGREENMTG yes
🫡
I like the idea off a battle you have to defend because you could give it very strong effects for the down side that it is easy to destroy and it could be more usefull to spell slinger type decks who dont have a whole lot of creatures
This would be great for conditional exile effects like Grasp of Fate or Oblivion Ring!
You madman. You did what i couldn't.
I live to serve 🫡
For the similar dan dan mode. It could be something like: a starting "neutral" deck. Same for both, maybe soldier themed or colorless. All the battle in a neutral zone. Beating a battle give you the price and access to a set of card to shuffle in your deck. The other player can decide to assign creature to defend a battle. Something risiko like but for both. You have different condition to win: A number of battle, or kill your opponent, maybe the last one having to get a battle first as your "HeadQuarter" before you can attack the opposition.
I like where your head's at! A "Battlestack" is an idea I've toyed with in the past as a variant, and one that I might come back to!
I like the idea of having a homebase and an expanding deck, very reminiscent of the Fantasy Flight Star Wars Deckbuilding Game!
Good video!
Thanks so much!
Battles are a potentially interesting card type. Remove the Siege subtype and you have a 'Planeswalker Enchantment' - a non-Creature permanent that can be destroyed in combat, thereby either having an inherent upside (less damage aimed at you) or an inherent downside (you have to protect it) depending on how the rest of the card is designed (a mild effect that draws Aggro away from you, or a strong effect that you have to protect).
Honestly I consider Sieges to be the least interesting way the Battle type can be used.
This is definitely an interesting way of looking at them!
I think there's potentially a space (though I'm not sure we've ever seen it on a card, correct me if I'm wrong) for Battles that any/ either player can crack with the inclusion of a "when you cast this spell, if you own it, do x, otherwise do y"-type rules text. Offering a higher benefit to the caster for cracking them, but still creating motivation for any player, might lead to an interesting blueprint and greater interactivity!
@ANGRYGREENMTG From memory, the way a Battle works is that it's a permanent with HP, and it's the Siege subtype that makes your opponent 'protect' it and lets you attack it.
So by default, a Battle with no subtype is essentially just an Enchantment with the Planeswalker Loyalty mechanic strapped to it, perfect for giving what would otherwise be an Enchantment/Artifact an alternative way of being killed.
Or as you say, you could introduce a new subtype (let's say 'Melêe' as a placeholder) that gives it a special rule that lets everyone protect/attack it and giving whomever kills it a boon; the Melêe subtype would then be good for 'encouraged combat' effects, or maybe effects like Howling Mine that gives everyone a benefit but you can try to 'turn off' once you feel you've gotten the most from it.
There's definitely a lot of different avenues the design could go down, it's reassuring that Siege is a subtype and that there's room for them to create different subtypes that could operate in any number of different ways!
Hopefully it won't take years to see what they've got in mind for them, always a shame to see something, particularly with so much potential design space, sidelined for an extended period of time.
Oohhh that primordial plasm is begging to be included in my ruxa deck
Ruxa is definitely a home for that lil weirdo
I made a battle deck using the wubrg commander from unfinity, choosing realmbreaker as the named magic character, which discounted any card by wubrg if it has realmbreaker in it, which almost every battle has realmbreaker on them, mostly in the background and sometimes he’s barely even visible but still there. It work ok as a deck, it gets out of had quickly as most battle are basically free and the amount of things happening on my field got a lil overwhelming and hard to keep track of 😅
I take it people let you Rule 0 that once, then learned the error of their ways 😂 that's a very fun use of the card!
I run invasion of amonket in my pioneer reanimator deck along with [[render inert]] in a control shell, its actually quite nasty
Render Inert is a bit of a gem for getting value out of battles, and Amonkhet definitely does a good amount for 3 mana!
This was such a good video!!! You make learning the backgrounds of magic more digestible and I appreciate that 🩵
Thank you so much!! I always do my best to make everything as approachable as possible 💚
What about bloom tender and faeburrow elder for mana ramp?
These are both great ramp pieces in WUBRG!
You can see why they didn't make it in... 😅
I'd really enjoy if the videos included an example game with the deck.
That would be a fun include!
Unfortunately, this deck is impossible to accurately goldfish, pretty webcam-unfriendly, and otherwise I'm happy leaving gameplay to the gameplay channels! Though if it gets to make an appearance on a show in the future I'll definitely be letting everyone know!
What pisses me off most, is its only in the one set, where its a whole card type added to the game for them to treat it like a set mechanic. I want to see 3 or 4 if them per set 2 or 3 atleast! And there need to be more destroy target non-x thing, so it can hit battles and planeswalkers.
It would be great to see them a LOT more frequently, but you've touched upon an important problem, which is alongside that we require more interaction with them - going the nonX route would make a lot of sense, but this might cause an influx of too much strong removal, or require them being overcosted to accommodate for the other things they could hit!
here you go
Thank you!
Not running War Room in this deck feels like a flavor fail
Oh yeah it would be a perfect fit!
But once I had committed to the bit with the manabase it had to be done 😅
God damn it i watch one video from you and now a hundred dollars is missing from my bank account. You have earned a subscriber
May your wallet forgive me 👀 thank you so much! 💚
What if you added a way to burn an opponent for lethal, but only one opponent? It would basically be a nuclear deterrent. You can't kill all your opponents, but the first one to attack is dying.
A lot of the burn is targeted which definitely helps the vengeance angle! They're also 100% getting Xantcha 😤
I’m dying to hear of your dandan battles list!
In time, I think I have 2-3 other sub/microformat WIPs to finish first! (Spoiler?)
bestie really decided to make the elesh norn roleplay deck lmao
Honestly if there was a WUBRG Phyrexian that would've been great!
Back when I was playing Yu-Gi-Oh regularly, I played a lot of underwhelming archetypes and liked optimising them to their limit.
I'm trying to find something like that also in MGT but there are so many cards in the game that it's very easy to make anything work.
That's both a positive for my sanity and a negative for the building challenge. 😅
Oh god, I'm not going to even start considering what the worst Yu-Gi-Oh strategies look like 😅
I think the fun with Magic is that pretty much everything has a context that makes it work when you have access to the whole card pool - hell I even put One with Nothing in a deck recently!
Domain Format is a fan-made format for yugioh that's similar to commander, i've been playing it for a year now and i've actually gotten several "underwhelming" cards to work really well! You could check it out if you'd like, it's really fun.
THEY PLAY SCYTHE LETS FUCKING GO
BUT OF COURSE
Can we see some gameplay with this deck?
In time...
If I may I make a suggestion: hajar loyal bodyguard you can sacrifice him to give your legendary creatures +1/+0 and indestructible till end of turn
Hajar is great! He gives a little bit of redundancy for Jirina which is nice, but given there's only twelve non-battle creatures including Kenrith it feels a little overkill 😅
And what about "Begin the Invasion"? Above that, very nice idea!
I did think about including it, and might grab a copy at some point if just for the completionist aspect, but damn is it costly mana-wise!
It might have to be exempt from the Asset rules because otherwise I don't know how I'd ever cast it 😅
@@ANGRYGREENMTG totally understand. I really liked the idea of Battles but it is truly hard. This seems as a nice build really so kudos to you!
I'll probably end up caving and slotting it in at some point 😅 I'm really hoping we see some more battles soon, particularly with more innovative designs rather than mainly being variations of existing effects!
Thank you 💚
Lorwyn is good for one thing: going in the bin…. For delirium/goyf count of course
WHERE IT BELONGS
Marvin should also be in this deck.
I thought about Marvin, but the lack of tap abilities kinda leaves him feeling a bit... Limited. Didn't especially see the thematic connection either!
@ANGRYGREENMTG ah, i thought for a sec that kenrith has all tap abilities and then thought marvin would be good so you could tap both of them for double kenrith effects. Opps.
Is begin the invasion too bad to run?
@@topgear178 no such thing in this deck 😅
The struggle is more the cost and how it works with the asset ruling of the minigame - having to have already flipped 6 battles to tutor up one is ROUGH
I’d like to see you play the deck
If only there were some good actual play channels that might let me on 🤔
Don't forget Etrata
Which Etrata? Not seeing how either fits...
Man I've been struggling to choose between Kenrith and Jodah for a wubrg deck for a while now and I wish I thought of this myself. I'm never a fan of copypasting ideas from youtubers but I might have to make an exception in this case and steal your entire gameplan because it is too good to ignore
Honestly I think this is one of the biggest compliments, take the list with my blessing!
did put in Biomancer Familiar? How demure of you!
Kenrith loves cost reduction! It's perfect for... Gifts
alt battle subtype could be something where it's rlly strong for you on the front & your opponent gets a minor sorcery type effect when they clear the counters. this probably still isnt good for super competitive play, but RedCatMagic had a video where he theorized the point of battles should be kinda like planeswalkers, where they passively incentivize slower/longer games by presenting the dilemma of "hit their face, or hit their kinda scary thing?" he thinks sieges failed bc most players don't want to give themselves that dilemma for the cost of attacking and flipping; at best they're good for sideboarding like you said, no bueno for building around bc what if you cant flip it & you need to just start swinging for face? idk what i would name this battle subtype, best i can think is like blockade cuz it's kinda the opposite of siege (which matches my proposed hypothetical lol) but idrk. i am a battle enjoyer tho cuz i like longer games lmao sue me
Honestly a battle type that forces the opponent to attack or deal damage to it before they can hit you would be a great pillowfort/ anti-aggro piece! The fact that proliferate effects would essentially patch up your defenses is quite an interesting potential space, as well as them potentially having recurring effects for as long as they're there, maybe a Phyrexian Arena style trigger?
@ somebody call wotc lmao i also think this would just make more sense when accounting for 1v1 formats too but i could def see some neutral, free for all type battles as well esp if they make them commander exclusive. i think even then theyd want to incentivize the caster somehow like maybe it flips for whoever casts it, but whoever removes the last counter (caster included) gets to make a copy of the flip side. that could be cool lol
Yeah there definitely has to be some upside for casting them, but I think there's a lot of potential ways to create a neutral battle that have recurring or static effects that you would want to get off the table as the non-caster given the choice, with the flip maybe checking for ownership/ control when it resolves and changing accordingly!
This seems like such a funny and bad build... And it's one I'm 1000% here for, 10/10 😂😂
Happy to have you comrade 🫡
The fact that you could logically justify running training grounds, you know.. to train your dudes on 1 mana before youre allowed to send them out strong, but dont do so is killing me haha
Also I miss me some throne of the high city in your manabase, and various other flavor lands that ruin your mana base even further
Oh I HEAVILY considered it given it fit, but resisted given how efficient it is 😅
Thanks for bringing it to my attention, not one I knew about! The flavour is great and it is not!
@@ANGRYGREENMTG Oh I totally get that, you don't want to be the person that introduces a jank deck and then plays training ground turn one with kenrith in command zone... :D Another card I came across is "Begin the Invasion", that could be more up your alley! :) (and you built the only deck where this is a playable card haha)
Kenrith best politics.
To quote me in a previous video, "people love free stuff" 😅
@ANGRYGREENMTG I have sadly played with some people who actually refuse to politic (its was still jovial) and one person who refused to talk to anyone. And did not want anyone else to talk to each other. 😵
Was it a pickup game? This is definitely an issue I've run into in the past, but after some warming up people tend to come around!
I thought you said "Vassals."
How I see the other players at the table 😅
@@ANGRYGREENMTG Well played. Very well played.
Also, just for the record. I do love the accent. Even if I don't always understand it. :P
I do my best to speak clearly but the accent can be a struggle, appreciate the effort on your behalf!
@@ANGRYGREENMTG No worries! It does stand out in the youtube videos I watch.
Really sad there's no Begin the Invasion on your list. Just put X Battles in to play from our deck for XWUBRG.
Begin the Invasion would be great but doesn't play nice with the restrictions - having to flip six battles to tutor up one is a bit rough!
@ANGRYGREENMTG Ah, yeah. That's fair. Part of me figured it'd be an exception since it specifically tutors battles into play, since battles themselves are exempt from the restriction (there are no zero or one drop battles afterall)
I might finagle it at some point, it is very fitting (if deeply expensive mana-wise)!
Using the cold war for an example just picks the USA not the USSR which did exactly what he's talking about
*they made a comment about wishing to wage a slow war of growing political and cultural influence and displayed an American flag on screen. They never said that the USSR did not engage in puppet conflicts in the Cold War. Hope this clears things up!
Please make a video where you play this deck 😂
It might not be on my channel, but I'm sure there'll be some gameplay soon!
Civ6 simulator
You KNOW I'm trying to win that cultural victory
Yoooooo.
jumpscare warning please
Do you fear Math Rock?