in trynn and Silvars case, I don't run toxic deluge since Silvar is great with destruction based board wipes since it can become inmune to them but not to deluge
Exactly. That, and while it can get huge, its power is far higher than its toughness, so it’s more likely to hit it than if you had, say, a 5/5 commander with five +1/+1 counters on it.
My guess of why Gavi doesn't run swords to plowshares as much as other decks is because Gavi is from a precon, so there are lot of decklists online that are just the unchanged precon.
@@Sky-dy4vnfor example, I put the recent Masters of Evil precon on Tappedout so I could more easily sort the cards into categories to help with upgrading. There are many different directions to go with that deck depending on who you put at the helm, and I want to explore them all (for example, playtesting on Cockatrice) before settling on a single path to upgrade. That said, I do think EDHREC’s gathering feature should include something to check against precons to make sure they’re not exact replicas before including them in the database. Versions with small upgrades and tweaks, sure, since that does show what people are taking out and adding in, but exact replicas do nothing but skew the numbers.
As soon as You Find Some Prisoners was challenged, I pulled up a notepad to remind myself to slot it into Nassari... And then they go on to challenge it for Nassari. Great minds think alike.
Rienne is my favorite commander, and I ended cutting Sol Ring too. With so many cheap multicolored creatures, there ended up being barely any colorless pips in my early game, and it just felt dead
great episode! im my klothys enchantress burn deck, i swapped my removal for things like lignify and seal of the primordium. my ramp is no longer rocks and spells, but fertile ground and wild growth (still got a sol ring that i need to replace haha). very fun when you dont need to have the same cards in every deck
Wacky theory with Kathril and Gavi: they're precon faces from when the last swords reprint was 4 years behind us and did not themselves have swords in the box. It might honestly have just been a case of "well, whatever, I'm doing fine" as people either upgraded the decks with what they had on hand or decided to leave them as they were. Complete shot in the dark, but yeah.
At least for Gavi, I think it's because it typically runs Astral Slide and Astral Drift, so you can blink some problematic creature for your turn or you can just add a Containment Prist and you have a repeatable Swords.
Kathril doesn't run swords or path bc it has access to Assassin's Trophy and Feed the Swarm which are just better. Path & Swords only exile creatures while Trophy takes out any permanent & Swarm can hit Enchantments & creatures these are more versatile. Also for Kathril, it's better to destroy creatures than to exile them bc if somebody cast Deflecting Swat or Bolt Rend & target your creature they at least go to the graveyard which benefits Kathril more than if get exiled.
@@pinkvillajuice And this isn't true for every other Abzan commander because... Why, again? And even accounting for the graveyard thing, plenty of those decks exist in Abzan under commanders like Karador. Feed the Swarm in particular is a pretty shaky argument when you have access to everything Orzhoz and Golgari have to offer. It's not a bad card, but it's kinda a bad card when you have access to either white or green, let alone both. And sure, Path and Swords are slightly more narrow, except creatures are still the most important type an average to deal with and you cannot beat 1 mana at instant speed short of a Deadly Rollick, the price of which could by playsets of these cards. Feed the Swarm is a sorcery, for crying out loud.
@@TrueTgirl Feed & Trophy are 2 mana that 1 mana extra ain't a big difference, plus in a Kathril deck you're gonna have more Black & Green mana bc black & green cards are the colors that mill you & tutor stuff to the graveyard which Kathril wants. You also have access to Deathsrprout which ramps you in addition to destroying a creature, you also have Despark in Abzan which exiles any permanent. Again the versatility is king here, some decks won't play many threatening creatures but they'll have annoying enchantments like Rhystic Study, Smothering Tithe or some annoying artifact like Shadowspear & Path/Swords won't help you there. Kathril is also newer as is Nethroi so they're gonna go for the newer cards, Feed came out it in 2020, Despark in 2019 and they are dirt cheap to buy. And it saves more space in the deck, instead of having a creature removal card + one for Artifacts/enchantments you can have both in 1 card.
@@TrueTgirl As for why the older Abzan decks don't have these newer cards, probably bc ppl haven't updated those older decks to include the newer cards. But I always advise ppl to switch to Despark, Feed, and if they can afford it Assassin's trophy for Abzan decks. And in a Kathril deck specifically which I have one of my own, I favor board wipes to target removal as they'll get a ton of creatures into my graveyard at once while also clearing the opponent's boards.
I think the curve is too high for rush of knowledge to be in an Octavia deck. When I ran it, it was sort of in the vein of Edric, really small cheap evasive creatures that you buff up with Octavia. Speaking of decks that hate staples, Octavia was a deck I didn’t run a sol ring in, let alone any ramp. You only cared about colored pips because you’re generally casting spectral sailor, flying men, etc, and rather than run ramp, better it be self mill or cheap cantrips because those fill the graveyard and “ramp” Octavia into play. Spend the five mana to cast two or three instances to deal 24 damage instead.
BATWING BRUME IS MY FAVORITE!!!! love it in my breena deck to punish anybody for attacking me instead of drawing cards by attacking my opponents :) also for trynn and silvar with deluge, its definitely about board wipes that silvar can get around with indestructible! so playing blasphemous act and vanquish the horde for cheaper sweepers make sense! (i also have deluge anyway, but its not the best board wipe in the deck by a mile).
Agreed with price being a factor … I have been playing for years and have acquired many staples over time when you could open them … would not likely have the option to play Rhystic Study if I didn’t have 4+ of them in my Prophesy commons.
@@Bongus_Bubogus Not only did you not choose a Capenna card, you chose a card where half of it can't even interact with Krark in combat when it's attacking? Bad shout!
@@andrewsparkes6275 They can’t interact anymore because both lost their thumbs…also a New Cappena would not only be too lame but there isn’t really a good one.. I took 2 hours to find the perfect reference and I immediately get shot down, smh
@@Bongus_Bubogus I agree they can't interact, but...that's the point? Hookhand couldn't have interacted with Krark properly in the first place, and you said Krark lost his thumbs in a thumb-wrestling match WITH Hookhand?? Body Launderer, Extraction Specialist or pretty much any Riveteers creatures would work. Deal Gone Bad - though an instant - is just **chef's kiss** to Krark's story, from a Vorthos perspective though (and would destroy Krark mechanically to boot)!
@@Bongus_Bubogus For the record, though: I jest. I don't mean to seriously hate on your comment; it at least got me to think of fun, flavorful Capenna cards that Krark would traumatically think twice about going against!
My Mulraotha deck's main wincon is Primal Surge, so I went "Oops All Permanents" with it. That means there's no room for non-permanents, which makes me have to get somewhat clever about what I use in place of certain staples.
@@JacobSmith-rh2sr Because it's a riff off decks with names like "Oops! All Lands" or "Oops! All Spells." I don't care if you don't find it cute or funny. It's not your deck, now, is it?
I don't run a lot of these staples in my decks simply because they're so ubiquitous. They take up slots that I could use to make more unique choices to the deck in question.
I took a cue from Dana and actually brewed a permanents-only Anax (Hardened in the Forge) deck with lots of legendary creatures, and it definitely stays away from almost all staples, except for probably Sol Ring and Arcane Signet. Also... My Volo (Guide to Monsters) brew stays away from most staples, because I'm looking for creatures with powerful ETB's and legendary creatures with as such and high utility/power death effects... instead of the blue, green, and artifact stuff which would usually fill the respective slots.
A lot of these decks probably don't use some of the staples because they are precons, and those players usually balk at purchasing cards that are about as expensive as the decks themselves
I find it very interesting that you talked about swords/plowshares, path to exile, counterspell, beast within, and chaos warp, but not about generous gift. Given two white slots in a deck, I'd take gift and one of those two rather than both of those. I like the versatility of "target permanent"
8:25 Pretty sure that's how Yorion works. Nowhere on the card it says target, so you very well can blink shrouded creatures. Pretty sure the reason the Greaves are uninteresting, is simply that you get no opportunity to reequip after the blink.
How many of the decks not playing cards have pre-cons? Many start with the pre-con and sub out cards, no Swords to Plowshares in the pre-con, higher chance it is not subbed in.
Toxic Deluge is a particular kind of boardwipe that has the flexibility to be one-sided: You choose X so if your creatures or commander can get to a high toughness, you’re the only player left with a creature if the opportunity presents itself. I therefore run it in my Karlov deck, but not in many creature based decks where it loses its opportunity to be one-sided.
Every deck I have has sol ring except Sidisi Brood Tyrant. Most of the cards go to the graveyard rather than drawing them, and many cards in my deck care about number an quality of creatures and lands in my graveyard so I stick completely to land and creature based ramp.
I have an Ayara, first of locthwain deck that tries to run everything in the form of creatures as I draw cards when I sacrifice creatures and drain opponents for each creature.
When it comes to staples I usually only run them if they synergize with whatever my deck needs, i.e. I only run Sol Ring in decks that have a high mana curve, I only run Smothering Tithe and Rhystic Study in a Stax/Hatebear deck, etc.... Not a big fan of auto including cards (especially expensive ones) unless the deck as a whole has the same strategy as the card itself. Oh, and I do have a Nikya deck, the only staple mentioned that I run in that deck is Sakura Tribe Elder
I run a gavi deck and there a couple of reason why swords and path is not needed. -opponent creatures arent a huge issue to your deck since Gavi makes a bunch of cat tokens and most of the time it deters creatures into attacking. -astral slide,astral drift makes it great blinking opponent creatures as well as your own etb creatures so running creature base creature removal to recur gets value. -the deck needs a mass amount of cycling cards and having cycling base removal cards are often sufficient. The cycling counterspells are your main removal and the flexibility is welcome.
For the prisoners challenge the stats, I feel etali might like it. With etali top decking like a maniac, you might have some spare mana to spend on opponents spells
My Vazi, Keen Negotiator deck does not use any of the land ramp package for multiple reasons. Number one being that I make so much treasure I feel confident I’m not needing to, and the bigger reason is that I pack multitude of mass land destruction and artifacts in order to force my opponents to use the treasures I give them. It’s a little mean but I pack so much renewable treasure generation that I can afford to cut off my opponent’s land in return for giving them lots of treasures
My Beckett Brass deck is so focused on attacking that I am often trading stealing a permanent for a counterattack from the offended player. Generally only wins games at a low life total. Combine that with the low toughness of most pirates, they are the first to fall, so I need to put a lot of life in to get value. The high setup cost of Brass makes me hesitant to run any symmetrical board wipes other than blasphemous act, because you just don't get more of an effect for 1 mana.
One sided board wipes are so good in aggressive decks! this is where white really shines, there's many wipes that keep small critters around or even create a new army for you. Mass Calcify I find particularly funny. In my pirates deck I run Fiery Cannonade of course, as well as Volcanic Vision and a number of cards that act as fog effects. Like in your deck, blasphemous act is the only card allowed to touch my creatures.
With regards to Lier, I will note that while you don’t want to run Counterspell, cards that are modal and have one of the modes be a counterspell are probably fine for the deck. That way, you can counter stuff when Lier’s not out and when Lier’s out you can flash it back for the other modes. I’d imagine cards like Archmage’s Charm, Cryptic Command, Mystic Confluence, and Sublime Epiphany are more common than single-function counters. Regarding Trinn and Silvar, I’ll note that Silvar has rather low toughness but more importantly can get indestructible. Why run a board wipe that would kill Silvar as well when you have access to so many board wipes he would survive?
My prediction for why Kathril isn't really running Path is because it's so focused on keywords, it prefers it's removal to utalise those keywords? If you can get something with deathtouch in the yard, especially if you can do so consistently, bite effects can deal with things very efficiently? Also, as someone else pointed out, both of these are face commanders presumably suffering from the precon effect, and were printed in an era where swords was a significantly more expensive card than it is now! People probably reached a point where they went "I don't need it, I've done well enough without it thus far".
I think for some of these the explanation may be "the commander came from a precon deck, that staple card wasn't included, and the data for those commanders is biased towards decks that made minimal changes to the original decklist." I have a few precons I juiced up with whatever apt cards I had lying around, but wasn't going to go out of my way to buy new cards for. And precisely because the staples automatically go into so many other decks, I'm less likely to have extras lying around (or if I do, there's a "real" deck I mean to put them in).
I know personally a lot of these cards mentioned I do not run specifically because of price. I build too many decks to get copies of some of these for each of them or to be constantly moving the copies I own between decks (used to do that with the 2 Cyclonic Rifts I own, but I have waaay too many blue decks, so I stopped running it). That said, in my Arixmethes deck, I don’t run too many land ramp cards. For the most part, I want my ramp to be at the 2 MV spot so Arixmethes can come out one turn early. Additionally, the deck does a lot of shenanigans untapping lands multiple times (since Arix taps for 2), so a lot of my ramp is also Aura based. And for a simic deck, I probably run more mana rocks than most other simic decks would, mostly because its a sea creatures deck, so it’s really a largely blue deck and I don’t want all my ramp spells to be green spells when my mana base needs to skew blue way more
I just had a game where I was playing Hinata and my opponent put Shield of Duty and Reason on their commander, pretty much all the removal is targeted blue but at least I still play swords to plowshares.
I feel like not mentioning that Silvar can give itself indestructible is a bit of an injustice, and that's probably the key reason they don't want a -X/-X board wipe. The same for one of my personal commanders, Kresh, who cares about the power of creatures as they die. Deluge sees play in less than 10% of Kresh decks because Kresh wants board wipes that don't reduce the power of creatures.
My first commander, although it didn't perform well, was a Nykia of the old ways. It was fun, though. And it defined more or less my next decks, big stuff for not so much mana
5:40 "doesn't need those" it literally wouldnt make mana, I played someone with a kozilek deck recently and he was very happy to go land, sol ring, arcane signet. He was very sad to learn that it did literal nothing in his deck
I'm playing a Heliod Sun Crowned deck in a playgroup without infinite combos and I've found myself pulling out Smothering Tithes, Path to Exile and Swords to Plowshares. The last 2 because there are so many enchantments that take care of creatures that I would rather play to increase Heliod's devotion and fuel my Nyx Lotus and Reverent Hoplite. And the Smothering Tithe is just a playgroup thing, I've cast that thing 16 times since buying it and its always destroyed on site. Exactly once I've made 3 treasures. So to me Smothering Tithes is just a bad Thran Dynamo. I swapped it out for Endless Horizons and have been much happier.
Honestly, if you're playing in Selesna colors and you happen to have a Serra's Sanctum, that's reason enough to play the land auras instead of the usual staples, enchantress or otherwise.^^
I purposly cut cyclonic rift and farewell from my esper arisocrats deck because wiping the board is a win con for me with blood artist or zulaport cutthroat.
Maybe I missed it but I think xenagos really doesn’t want lightning greaves. Indestructible enchantments are barely removed anyway and all you need is one other creature that you don’t want to have shrowd and that’s also easily replaceable.
Another reason not to run smothering tithe in Hamza is timing. You want to be, on average, popping off by the time four mana available. By the time for setup has passed. For that reason doubling season never worked out for in that deck.
I don't play mana rocks at all in my Illuna, Apex of Wishes. It feels bad to mutate and hit something like a Sol Ring. With that being said, I consider Sol Ring to be an auto staple because you add it first and need a reason to cut it.
Graveyard/ETB decks headed by Muldrotha or Yarok, for instance, often rely on creatures do so the heavy lifting. However if Torpor Orb is in your meta, Beast Within and similar spells are necessary cards, despite synergy. Torpor Orb laughs at Rec Sage.
I had this deck idea for a while now. Since there are so many good cards. How about a deck filled with nothing but staples. From the commander down to the lands
@@herzerj.5045 Haha. I dont know about that. In my experience people still build around their commander with sinergy, leavingat least some staples out because it would make the deck play less smooth and maybe less powerfull. Only reason i havent and probrably wont build a staple only deck is because it doesnt sound fun to pilot in my opinion.
My dragon lord Atarka deck doesn't run sol ring or a few other staples because it's predominantly an enchantress deck that hates on arifacts, run a lot of mass artifact hate cards and ways to turn stuff into artifacts.
As a Vaevictis player, I think that Demonic tutor is also really low on numbers because it is a Sorcery. I'm already facing the possibility of upgrading my opponent's permanents, I don't want to EVER run the risk of not flipping SOMETHING off the top of my deck. If you wanna run tutors, there are quite a bit of those on permanents, including the ones that put cards to the top of the library, stuff like Brutalizer Exarch is kinda awesome, and you can also tutor stuff to your hand with cards like Sidisi or Rune-Scarred Demon.
Another commander that doesn't need Teferi's Protection is Arcades, the Strategist - just use Ghostway o Eerie Interlude to proctect boardstate AND cash in so many ETB's
Where is ma baby gaddock teeg when talking about smothering tithe ? It's only in 21% of all decks and that's probably too much already ! You know what I challenge these stats, you definitely don't want a 4 CMC enchantment that both ramps you in a deck that has such a low curve in the first place and is a total nonbo with the commander
I don't play Sol Ring in my OG Omnath deck, since it cares only about green mana...the deck basically already revolves around untapping mana dorks and doubling mana already, so the Sol Ring is completely unneeded!
I don’t run Sol Ring on my Omnath, Locus of All for the same reason as the Niv-Mizzet Reborn decks, but in my case it’s even more useless for casting my 30 3+ color pip spells on the deck.
I think it’s worth noting how many of these are precon commanders. Those unchanged decks will nudge the numbers, and those who do make upgrades might be looking for stronger synergy pieces over some staples.
I don’t tend to run sol ring in my lord wind grace deck. Not only is it a green deck with 3 colours where sol ring is neither a land nor a land fetch, but on top of it all I run a lot of artifact sweepers in windgrace. no point in running sol ring if i am just gonna kill it with my own bane of progress
I had a deck that opted to play Pathbreaker Ibex over hoofyboi because of mana value. My deck let me me cheat 6 drops and lower into play consistently, but not 8s.
Since Command Tower and Arcane Signet state they tap for "a color" in your commander's color identity, tapping them in a colorless deck doesn't produce *any* mana!
Yikes, I can barely afford most of these staples for my decks 😅 It's fun to find budget replacements, though it does show when going against decks that have spent much $$/££/€€/¥¥!
Any commander that’s fun enough to play ought to defy at least one aspect of common game wisdom, especially what it makes unexpectedly good and unexpectedly bad. Hazezon is one of my favourites, since it is a green landfall deck that actively dislikes most standard ramp and rewards the higher-risk sacrifice searches. Or Chishiro, who doesn’t want spell ramp since aura ramp works way better when it feeds you bodies in midgame.
I don't play sol Ring in Niv-Mizzet Parun, it doesn't help me cast him and most of the deck is 1 mana cantrips. Sol Ring doesn't help me cast any of those
What I mostly see are some very expensive cards which are not included because they are a significant part of the overall budget and might not fit the targeted power level or budget you're aiming for. Not every deck actually needs 20+ usd cards to make it work, especially if they are not the best synergistic fit
I don’t think Yasharn deck should be playing smothering tithe or tireless provisioner. Yasharn’s ability shuts down treasure tokens. That’s a pretty big non-bo
I have a breena politics deck. Batwing brume would be perfect in it and I love Inkshield in it. I won't play it though because I hate the art. First time this has happened. Definitel hoping for a new print.
14:49 I don't play Tefari's protection because it's boring. I have never won after using Tefari's protection and didn't feel like the win was cheap. I feel like it is too try hard
wort the raidmother, glass cannon storm, zero interaction and most staples are too high on the curve for that deck minn, wily illusionist mono blue aristocrats, with Akroma's Memorial or Tetsuko Umezawa as finishers
in trynn and Silvars case, I don't run toxic deluge since Silvar is great with destruction based board wipes since it can become inmune to them but not to deluge
I can't believe they missed that interaction. I came running to the comments the second they glossed over it.
@@maidenman987 same...
Exactly. That, and while it can get huge, its power is far higher than its toughness, so it’s more likely to hit it than if you had, say, a 5/5 commander with five +1/+1 counters on it.
My guess of why Gavi doesn't run swords to plowshares as much as other decks is because Gavi is from a precon, so there are lot of decklists online that are just the unchanged precon.
aka this entire episode
the unchanged precon shouldnt show up on deckbuilding sites tho right?
@@domotoroOfficial people often upload their unedited precon to catalog or help with upgrading
@@Sky-dy4vnfor example, I put the recent Masters of Evil precon on Tappedout so I could more easily sort the cards into categories to help with upgrading. There are many different directions to go with that deck depending on who you put at the helm, and I want to explore them all (for example, playtesting on Cockatrice) before settling on a single path to upgrade.
That said, I do think EDHREC’s gathering feature should include something to check against precons to make sure they’re not exact replicas before including them in the database. Versions with small upgrades and tweaks, sure, since that does show what people are taking out and adding in, but exact replicas do nothing but skew the numbers.
As soon as You Find Some Prisoners was challenged, I pulled up a notepad to remind myself to slot it into Nassari... And then they go on to challenge it for Nassari. Great minds think alike.
MDFC commanders like Planar Bridge and Awaken the Blood Avatar are also decks that don't have much use for a Lightning Greaves
Well a creature based Planar Bridge would still love the Greaves, to easily give those creatures haste
Rienne is my favorite commander, and I ended cutting Sol Ring too. With so many cheap multicolored creatures, there ended up being barely any colorless pips in my early game, and it just felt dead
I gave my husband a Batwing brume that it is amazing in his Thalisse deck, love it.
Very interesting data for sure! Removing certain staples from a deck opens the door for more creativity, in my opinion.
great episode! im my klothys enchantress burn deck, i swapped my removal for things like lignify and seal of the primordium. my ramp is no longer rocks and spells, but fertile ground and wild growth (still got a sol ring that i need to replace haha). very fun when you dont need to have the same cards in every deck
Going Sol Ring-less in enchantress is strangely liberating.
Even stuff like Planar disruption is good on a budget.
Wacky theory with Kathril and Gavi: they're precon faces from when the last swords reprint was 4 years behind us and did not themselves have swords in the box. It might honestly have just been a case of "well, whatever, I'm doing fine" as people either upgraded the decks with what they had on hand or decided to leave them as they were. Complete shot in the dark, but yeah.
At least for Gavi, I think it's because it typically runs Astral Slide and Astral Drift, so you can blink some problematic creature for your turn or you can just add a Containment Prist and you have a repeatable Swords.
Kathril doesn't run swords or path bc it has access to Assassin's Trophy and Feed the Swarm which are just better. Path & Swords only exile creatures while Trophy takes out any permanent & Swarm can hit Enchantments & creatures these are more versatile. Also for Kathril, it's better to destroy creatures than to exile them bc if somebody cast Deflecting Swat or Bolt Rend & target your creature they at least go to the graveyard which benefits Kathril more than if get exiled.
@@pinkvillajuice And this isn't true for every other Abzan commander because... Why, again? And even accounting for the graveyard thing, plenty of those decks exist in Abzan under commanders like Karador. Feed the Swarm in particular is a pretty shaky argument when you have access to everything Orzhoz and Golgari have to offer. It's not a bad card, but it's kinda a bad card when you have access to either white or green, let alone both. And sure, Path and Swords are slightly more narrow, except creatures are still the most important type an average to deal with and you cannot beat 1 mana at instant speed short of a Deadly Rollick, the price of which could by playsets of these cards. Feed the Swarm is a sorcery, for crying out loud.
@@TrueTgirl Feed & Trophy are 2 mana that 1 mana extra ain't a big difference, plus in a Kathril deck you're gonna have more Black & Green mana bc black & green cards are the colors that mill you & tutor stuff to the graveyard which Kathril wants. You also have access to Deathsrprout which ramps you in addition to destroying a creature, you also have Despark in Abzan which exiles any permanent. Again the versatility is king here, some decks won't play many threatening creatures but they'll have annoying enchantments like Rhystic Study, Smothering Tithe or some annoying artifact like Shadowspear & Path/Swords won't help you there. Kathril is also newer as is Nethroi so they're gonna go for the newer cards, Feed came out it in 2020, Despark in 2019 and they are dirt cheap to buy. And it saves more space in the deck, instead of having a creature removal card + one for Artifacts/enchantments you can have both in 1 card.
@@TrueTgirl As for why the older Abzan decks don't have these newer cards, probably bc ppl haven't updated those older decks to include the newer cards. But I always advise ppl to switch to Despark, Feed, and if they can afford it Assassin's trophy for Abzan decks. And in a Kathril deck specifically which I have one of my own, I favor board wipes to target removal as they'll get a ton of creatures into my graveyard at once while also clearing the opponent's boards.
Saw Joey in the background of the tabletop jocks recent video.
I think the curve is too high for rush of knowledge to be in an Octavia deck. When I ran it, it was sort of in the vein of Edric, really small cheap evasive creatures that you buff up with Octavia. Speaking of decks that hate staples, Octavia was a deck I didn’t run a sol ring in, let alone any ramp. You only cared about colored pips because you’re generally casting spectral sailor, flying men, etc, and rather than run ramp, better it be self mill or cheap cantrips because those fill the graveyard and “ramp” Octavia into play. Spend the five mana to cast two or three instances to deal 24 damage instead.
BATWING BRUME IS MY FAVORITE!!!! love it in my breena deck to punish anybody for attacking me instead of drawing cards by attacking my opponents :)
also for trynn and silvar with deluge, its definitely about board wipes that silvar can get around with indestructible! so playing blasphemous act and vanquish the horde for cheaper sweepers make sense! (i also have deluge anyway, but its not the best board wipe in the deck by a mile).
Agreed with price being a factor … I have been playing for years and have acquired many staples over time when you could open them … would not likely have the option to play Rhystic Study if I didn’t have 4+ of them in my Prophesy commons.
I expected Dana's intro joke to be explaining how Krark lost his thumbs.
You didn’t hear? He lost them in a thumb wrestling match with Hookhand Mariner.
@@Bongus_Bubogus Not only did you not choose a Capenna card, you chose a card where half of it can't even interact with Krark in combat when it's attacking? Bad shout!
@@andrewsparkes6275 They can’t interact anymore because both lost their thumbs…also a New Cappena would not only be too lame but there isn’t really a good one.. I took 2 hours to find the perfect reference and I immediately get shot down, smh
@@Bongus_Bubogus I agree they can't interact, but...that's the point? Hookhand couldn't have interacted with Krark properly in the first place, and you said Krark lost his thumbs in a thumb-wrestling match WITH Hookhand?? Body Launderer, Extraction Specialist or pretty much any Riveteers creatures would work. Deal Gone Bad - though an instant - is just **chef's kiss** to Krark's story, from a Vorthos perspective though (and would destroy Krark mechanically to boot)!
@@Bongus_Bubogus For the record, though: I jest. I don't mean to seriously hate on your comment; it at least got me to think of fun, flavorful Capenna cards that Krark would traumatically think twice about going against!
My Mulraotha deck's main wincon is Primal Surge, so I went "Oops All Permanents" with it. That means there's no room for non-permanents, which makes me have to get somewhat clever about what I use in place of certain staples.
@@JacobSmith-rh2sr Because it's a riff off decks with names like "Oops! All Lands" or "Oops! All Spells." I don't care if you don't find it cute or funny. It's not your deck, now, is it?
I don't run a lot of these staples in my decks simply because they're so ubiquitous. They take up slots that I could use to make more unique choices to the deck in question.
I just love terrible $0.30 and under cards so that's what I play I also love coloured mana so I rarely ever run sol ring.
I took a cue from Dana and actually brewed a permanents-only Anax (Hardened in the Forge) deck with lots of legendary creatures, and it definitely stays away from almost all staples, except for probably Sol Ring and Arcane Signet. Also...
My Volo (Guide to Monsters) brew stays away from most staples, because I'm looking for creatures with powerful ETB's and legendary creatures with as such and high utility/power death effects... instead of the blue, green, and artifact stuff which would usually fill the respective slots.
Great episode. Lots of interesting alternative strategies.
This was so interesting. I was really more intrigued then I thought I would be by this topic.
A lot of these decks probably don't use some of the staples because they are precons, and those players usually balk at purchasing cards that are about as expensive as the decks themselves
I find it very interesting that you talked about swords/plowshares, path to exile, counterspell, beast within, and chaos warp, but not about generous gift. Given two white slots in a deck, I'd take gift and one of those two rather than both of those. I like the versatility of "target permanent"
8:25 Pretty sure that's how Yorion works. Nowhere on the card it says target, so you very well can blink shrouded creatures. Pretty sure the reason the Greaves are uninteresting, is simply that you get no opportunity to reequip after the blink.
How many of the decks not playing cards have pre-cons? Many start with the pre-con and sub out cards, no Swords to Plowshares in the pre-con, higher chance it is not subbed in.
This episode feels like a one-hour challenge the stats episode. noice!
Batwing Brume is definitely underrated
Also comeuppance.
I just got my ticket for Commandfest Richmond and I’m so excited to maybe meet y’all!
Toxic Deluge is a particular kind of boardwipe that has the flexibility to be one-sided:
You choose X so if your creatures or commander can get to a high toughness, you’re the only player left with a creature if the opportunity presents itself.
I therefore run it in my Karlov deck, but not in many creature based decks where it loses its opportunity to be one-sided.
Every deck I have has sol ring except Sidisi Brood Tyrant. Most of the cards go to the graveyard rather than drawing them, and many cards in my deck care about number an quality of creatures and lands in my graveyard so I stick completely to land and creature based ramp.
Took Sol Ring out of my Feather deck. It has so many cheap spells with colored pips that I can't justify the colorless rocks.
I have an Ayara, first of locthwain deck that tries to run everything in the form of creatures as I draw cards when I sacrifice creatures and drain opponents for each creature.
I'm surprised you didn't another big exception for Lightning Greaves - commanders that natively have hexproof, like Silumgar, the Drifting Death.
There's no way the interns for this show haven't memorized each of the average deck lists
When it comes to staples I usually only run them if they synergize with whatever my deck needs, i.e. I only run Sol Ring in decks that have a high mana curve, I only run Smothering Tithe and Rhystic Study in a Stax/Hatebear deck, etc.... Not a big fan of auto including cards (especially expensive ones) unless the deck as a whole has the same strategy as the card itself. Oh, and I do have a Nikya deck, the only staple mentioned that I run in that deck is Sakura Tribe Elder
That is why I like Lier, Disciple of the Drowned the most. A mono blue deck with absolutely no counterspells.
You get a few weird ones. Mind break trap, venser shaper savant, and divide by zero.
Love "you find some prisoners". use in in prosper by searching for it when casting "scheming symetry" 😊
I run a gavi deck and there a couple of reason why swords and path is not needed.
-opponent creatures arent a huge issue to your deck since Gavi makes a bunch of cat tokens and most of the time it deters creatures into attacking.
-astral slide,astral drift makes it great blinking opponent creatures as well as your own etb creatures so running creature base creature removal to recur gets value.
-the deck needs a mass amount of cycling cards and having cycling base removal cards are often sufficient. The cycling counterspells are your main removal and the flexibility is welcome.
For the prisoners challenge the stats, I feel etali might like it. With etali top decking like a maniac, you might have some spare mana to spend on opponents spells
My Vazi, Keen Negotiator deck does not use any of the land ramp package for multiple reasons. Number one being that I make so much treasure I feel confident I’m not needing to, and the bigger reason is that I pack multitude of mass land destruction and artifacts in order to force my opponents to use the treasures I give them. It’s a little mean but I pack so much renewable treasure generation that I can afford to cut off my opponent’s land in return for giving them lots of treasures
My Beckett Brass deck is so focused on attacking that I am often trading stealing a permanent for a counterattack from the offended player. Generally only wins games at a low life total. Combine that with the low toughness of most pirates, they are the first to fall, so I need to put a lot of life in to get value.
The high setup cost of Brass makes me hesitant to run any symmetrical board wipes other than blasphemous act, because you just don't get more of an effect for 1 mana.
One sided board wipes are so good in aggressive decks! this is where white really shines, there's many wipes that keep small critters around or even create a new army for you. Mass Calcify I find particularly funny. In my pirates deck I run Fiery Cannonade of course, as well as Volcanic Vision and a number of cards that act as fog effects. Like in your deck, blasphemous act is the only card allowed to touch my creatures.
Batwing brume is one of my favourite got ya cards :)
Great choice!
With regards to Lier, I will note that while you don’t want to run Counterspell, cards that are modal and have one of the modes be a counterspell are probably fine for the deck. That way, you can counter stuff when Lier’s not out and when Lier’s out you can flash it back for the other modes. I’d imagine cards like Archmage’s Charm, Cryptic Command, Mystic Confluence, and Sublime Epiphany are more common than single-function counters.
Regarding Trinn and Silvar, I’ll note that Silvar has rather low toughness but more importantly can get indestructible. Why run a board wipe that would kill Silvar as well when you have access to so many board wipes he would survive?
My prediction for why Kathril isn't really running Path is because it's so focused on keywords, it prefers it's removal to utalise those keywords? If you can get something with deathtouch in the yard, especially if you can do so consistently, bite effects can deal with things very efficiently? Also, as someone else pointed out, both of these are face commanders presumably suffering from the precon effect, and were printed in an era where swords was a significantly more expensive card than it is now! People probably reached a point where they went "I don't need it, I've done well enough without it thus far".
I think for some of these the explanation may be "the commander came from a precon deck, that staple card wasn't included, and the data for those commanders is biased towards decks that made minimal changes to the original decklist." I have a few precons I juiced up with whatever apt cards I had lying around, but wasn't going to go out of my way to buy new cards for. And precisely because the staples automatically go into so many other decks, I'm less likely to have extras lying around (or if I do, there's a "real" deck I mean to put them in).
I know personally a lot of these cards mentioned I do not run specifically because of price. I build too many decks to get copies of some of these for each of them or to be constantly moving the copies I own between decks (used to do that with the 2 Cyclonic Rifts I own, but I have waaay too many blue decks, so I stopped running it).
That said, in my Arixmethes deck, I don’t run too many land ramp cards. For the most part, I want my ramp to be at the 2 MV spot so Arixmethes can come out one turn early. Additionally, the deck does a lot of shenanigans untapping lands multiple times (since Arix taps for 2), so a lot of my ramp is also Aura based. And for a simic deck, I probably run more mana rocks than most other simic decks would, mostly because its a sea creatures deck, so it’s really a largely blue deck and I don’t want all my ramp spells to be green spells when my mana base needs to skew blue way more
I just had a game where I was playing Hinata and my opponent put Shield of Duty and Reason on their commander, pretty much all the removal is targeted blue but at least I still play swords to plowshares.
The second you finished Batwing Brume I was already thinking of Liesa
Bold assumption that I wouldn't be in for the the two hour deep-dive EDHrecCast. Give the people what they want (more content)!
I feel like not mentioning that Silvar can give itself indestructible is a bit of an injustice, and that's probably the key reason they don't want a -X/-X board wipe. The same for one of my personal commanders, Kresh, who cares about the power of creatures as they die. Deluge sees play in less than 10% of Kresh decks because Kresh wants board wipes that don't reduce the power of creatures.
My first commander, although it didn't perform well, was a Nykia of the old ways. It was fun, though. And it defined more or less my next decks, big stuff for not so much mana
5:40 "doesn't need those" it literally wouldnt make mana, I played someone with a kozilek deck recently and he was very happy to go land, sol ring, arcane signet. He was very sad to learn that it did literal nothing in his deck
I'm playing a Heliod Sun Crowned deck in a playgroup without infinite combos and I've found myself pulling out Smothering Tithes, Path to Exile and Swords to Plowshares. The last 2 because there are so many enchantments that take care of creatures that I would rather play to increase Heliod's devotion and fuel my Nyx Lotus and Reverent Hoplite. And the Smothering Tithe is just a playgroup thing, I've cast that thing 16 times since buying it and its always destroyed on site. Exactly once I've made 3 treasures. So to me Smothering Tithes is just a bad Thran Dynamo. I swapped it out for Endless Horizons and have been much happier.
Lier really should be running Narset's Reversal and Mindbreak Trap. Neither of them are stopped by Lier and are amazing at 'countering' spells.
Honestly, if you're playing in Selesna colors and you happen to have a Serra's Sanctum, that's reason enough to play the land auras instead of the usual staples, enchantress or otherwise.^^
I purposly cut cyclonic rift and farewell from my esper arisocrats deck because wiping the board is a win con for me with blood artist or zulaport cutthroat.
Maybe I missed it but I think xenagos really doesn’t want lightning greaves. Indestructible enchantments are barely removed anyway and all you need is one other creature that you don’t want to have shrowd and that’s also easily replaceable.
Another reason not to run smothering tithe in Hamza is timing. You want to be, on average, popping off by the time four mana available. By the time for setup has passed. For that reason doubling season never worked out for in that deck.
I don't play mana rocks at all in my Illuna, Apex of Wishes. It feels bad to mutate and hit something like a Sol Ring. With that being said, I consider Sol Ring to be an auto staple because you add it first and need a reason to cut it.
Any deck touching white other than the Cascade decks should be running Swords to Plowshares (yes, including Niv-Mizzet).
With the new equipment to Planeswalkers making them a Creature Lighting Greaves maybe a thing
Graveyard/ETB decks headed by Muldrotha or Yarok, for instance, often rely on creatures do so the heavy lifting. However if Torpor Orb is in your meta, Beast Within and similar spells are necessary cards, despite synergy. Torpor Orb laughs at Rec Sage.
I had this deck idea for a while now. Since there are so many good cards. How about a deck filled with nothing but staples. From the commander down to the lands
Like every 5C Commander nowadays unintantionally?
@@herzerj.5045 Haha. I dont know about that. In my experience people still build around their commander with sinergy, leavingat least some staples out because it would make the deck play less smooth and maybe less powerfull. Only reason i havent and probrably wont build a staple only deck is because it doesnt sound fun to pilot in my opinion.
They ready have that, it's called "cEDH". Jokes aside, that is basically what you would end up with though lol
There's staples in edh? News to me the only card I usually play is path here. I love jank and slow games ( :
My dragon lord Atarka deck doesn't run sol ring or a few other staples because it's predominantly an enchantress deck that hates on arifacts, run a lot of mass artifact hate cards and ways to turn stuff into artifacts.
As a Vaevictis player, I think that Demonic tutor is also really low on numbers because it is a Sorcery. I'm already facing the possibility of upgrading my opponent's permanents, I don't want to EVER run the risk of not flipping SOMETHING off the top of my deck. If you wanna run tutors, there are quite a bit of those on permanents, including the ones that put cards to the top of the library, stuff like Brutalizer Exarch is kinda awesome, and you can also tutor stuff to your hand with cards like Sidisi or Rune-Scarred Demon.
Same. I don’t run any non-permanent spells in a deck like that.
Another commander that doesn't need Teferi's Protection is Arcades, the Strategist - just use Ghostway o Eerie Interlude to proctect boardstate AND cash in so many ETB's
Where is ma baby gaddock teeg when talking about smothering tithe ? It's only in 21% of all decks and that's probably too much already ! You know what I challenge these stats, you definitely don't want a 4 CMC enchantment that both ramps you in a deck that has such a low curve in the first place and is a total nonbo with the commander
I don't play Sol Ring in my OG Omnath deck, since it cares only about green mana...the deck basically already revolves around untapping mana dorks and doubling mana already, so the Sol Ring is completely unneeded!
I don’t run Sol Ring on my Omnath, Locus of All for the same reason as the Niv-Mizzet Reborn decks, but in my case it’s even more useless for casting my 30 3+ color pip spells on the deck.
I think it’s worth noting how many of these are precon commanders. Those unchanged decks will nudge the numbers, and those who do make upgrades might be looking for stronger synergy pieces over some staples.
You should do a podcast where you list commanders that break EDH staples and milk them for the most value, like Osgir the Reconstrctor and Sol Ring.
kess is one for me for the simple reason that im running to many staples particularly st removal so i have to make cuts
I don’t tend to run sol ring in my lord wind grace deck. Not only is it a green deck with 3 colours where sol ring is neither a land nor a land fetch, but on top of it all I run a lot of artifact sweepers in windgrace. no point in running sol ring if i am just gonna kill it with my own bane of progress
I have a Hamza deck that's one of my favorites, I always like to see him mentioned
I had a deck that opted to play Pathbreaker Ibex over hoofyboi because of mana value. My deck let me me cheat 6 drops and lower into play consistently, but not 8s.
The reason sylvar and trynn do not run toxic deluge is it will kill sylvar when he's indestructible.
Nikya is so cool. I have a creature-only build.
My Animar deck is built to bounce my own creatures and only has 2 non permanent spells. No Sol Ring, no Sakura Tribe Elder, no Cyclonic Rift
Since Command Tower and Arcane Signet state they tap for "a color" in your commander's color identity, tapping them in a colorless deck doesn't produce *any* mana!
Yikes, I can barely afford most of these staples for my decks 😅 It's fun to find budget replacements, though it does show when going against decks that have spent much $$/££/€€/¥¥!
Any commander that’s fun enough to play ought to defy at least one aspect of common game wisdom, especially what it makes unexpectedly good and unexpectedly bad. Hazezon is one of my favourites, since it is a green landfall deck that actively dislikes most standard ramp and rewards the higher-risk sacrifice searches. Or Chishiro, who doesn’t want spell ramp since aura ramp works way better when it feeds you bodies in midgame.
I dont run mana rocks in ghalta
I don't play sol Ring in Niv-Mizzet Parun, it doesn't help me cast him and most of the deck is 1 mana cantrips. Sol Ring doesn't help me cast any of those
Lol I'm the 1% of Kadena decks that ran Phyrexian Arena, and yes, its not needed
What I mostly see are some very expensive cards which are not included because they are a significant part of the overall budget and might not fit the targeted power level or budget you're aiming for. Not every deck actually needs 20+ usd cards to make it work, especially if they are not the best synergistic fit
*Looks at my Daretti deck and sees Lightning Greaves* :x
I don’t think Yasharn deck should be playing smothering tithe or tireless provisioner. Yasharn’s ability shuts down treasure tokens. That’s a pretty big non-bo
I'm not running Swords or Path to Exile in my Elenda the Dusk Rose deck, I want creatures to die, not get exiled
My Sarulf deck can't run mana rocks or low cost permanents.
ANJE laughs in the face of sol ring and embraces the song of the damned 😅
I have a breena politics deck. Batwing brume would be perfect in it and I love Inkshield in it. I won't play it though because I hate the art. First time this has happened. Definitel hoping for a new print.
Gavi has astral slide but I think I still ran swords
I play command tower in mono colored in case of basic land hate
My commander is more of an Office Depot girl anyway
14:49 I don't play Tefari's protection because it's boring. I have never won after using Tefari's protection and didn't feel like the win was cheap. I feel like it is too try hard
my omnath deck runs 43 lands and does not run a sol ring
wort the raidmother, glass cannon storm, zero interaction and most staples are too high on the curve for that deck
minn, wily illusionist mono blue aristocrats, with Akroma's Memorial or Tetsuko Umezawa as finishers
Fun Fact: 10% of Lier decks are running Fierce Guardianship, for some reason.
Chris Evans is Captain America
Animar dont give a shit about arcane signet, or sol ring, or mana rocks period.
You either go t1 dork t2 animar, or you go turn 3 animar.
Autumn willow can’t run teferis protection
My Yuriko doesn't run Sol Ring.
Not me realizing there's no comments because I'm first?