3:45 Challenge Accepted. Muraganda Petroglyphs works better with Walking Corpse. If you were playing casually and played with un sets and you ran Squirrel Farm it would be beneficial to run a split between Walking Corpse and Khenra Eternal as they have different artists. Can anyone else think of other reasons?
Man, I've fallen prey to the "that's a bad card" more than once. This is a great lesson on "read the details on the card and apply them to the context". Thanks for this!
Awesome video Seth. You speak the truth! This type of evaluation is what needs to happen more in Magic and such. Also, if anyone is wondering why there are bad cards, I recommend checking out Mark Rosewater's articles "When cards go bad", parts one and two. Also also, shout out to Magic Man Sam's video on One With Nothing, Magic's best worst card.
Great video! The first thing I think of when I look at a card is: "What is this used for?" Finding out what's *good* about cards is the kind of thinking that builds great decks! Remember that once even Shahrazad was thought of as a "bad" card. Okay, maybe that's a poor example. :3
Perfect examples of situations where this happens are amulet Bloom and Lantern control. Those are very good Decks that the pieces for which have existed for years and it's just took someone looking at cards that were perceived as bad and deciding to try to make them work. Also even for those cards that have strict upgrades sometimes you play them because you want copies 5 through 8. You might not play them instead but there are plenty of situations where you play them alongside because you need more.
Seth, thanks for pumping out sooo much content this week before you vacay! You make Magic sooo much better with you in the community! have an awesome vacation!
Thing about that combo is it's still wildly inefficient. Once you have Paradox Engine, Sol Ring, and Gilded Lotus out, there's tons of ways to win the game. Like, instead of Trophy Mage (or any other creature) and RB you could instead use Grinning Ignus and Isochron Scepter with any spell that damages a player like Bolt - if you have out as much as a single Manalith that wins you the game. And those are both going to be more useful in more situations.
Hey guys a combo's a combo, just cause it is bad doesn't mean we can't make it better, because saying you've killed someone with one of the worst cards in Magic is hilarious. For example, the more combo pieces Throphy mage can get, the less likely it'll be a dead draw so add basalt monolith to your deck.
Another potential reason is real world money. Some people don't have the cash to make there decks as good as possible and don't have friends that will lend them the cards they need. But that doesn't apply in THIS case, because Khenra Eternal is cheaper in paper, and costs 1 cent more online. (I didn't check every price, but I think I checked enough).
Not standard legal... But I wouldn't discount strictly worse cards, because sometimes you need the redundancy. I had a standard deck that played Disperse, despite Compelling Deterrence being legal because I wanted more than of this effect (and my deck had no Zobies so functionally I was just playing 8 Disperses).
Muraganda Petroglyphs is great for morph decks because it makes your morphs go from 2/2 to 4/4 until they flip. Other than a morph deck, I'm not quite sure where you would use it.
That's how I ended up with my favorite deck main cards being brutal hordechief / bitterblossom / foul-tongue shriek. Get a kill Turn 4 if opponent is tapped out, with 1/1 flyers. Gotta feel bad man.
A friend of mine plays that in his Mono-black burn. Geralf's Messenger that already came back once and is about to die? ahahah, how about two more recursions?
I play super budget commander decks, and most of my friends play top tier type stuff, and it's amazing because half the time I'm with in the last 2 people left in the pod, and I almost never end up being the first out. Good post, getting ready to convert Unesh tribal into Azor sphinx tribal. Thanks for the inspiration dude
Lol old comment I know. However I must say, they left you alone because they assumed you were a goldfish lol. Since you weren't playing top tier stuff. Good strategy
I know I’m a year or more late, but other people don’t give you enough credit for your content. You’re a casual players best friend, and I’m glad people like you exist, Seth. As much as people call you Jank, we need some of that as Magic players. You’re as cool as Ridge Wallets 😋
I'm playing a variation of Tomer's Zada commander deck. Some of those card are absolutely terrible (as in tear them in half when you draft them). But when they become "Draw X, where X is number of creatures you control" for a single red, you get drowned in value. Some time ago I played with a random guy that was kind of new to commander. He was like "Your deck must be super strong, I don't want to play against it" So I showed him the trash cards I was playing - his confidence got a huge boost (at that time he didn't know that I was running Zada). I beat him in a dastardly combo, but he complimented me on how sweet it looked anyway.
Worth pointing out that there are some narrow situations where a change which would make a card what would normally be referred to as "strictly better" would actually make it worse. For example, Phyrexian Unlife would be better at 4 CMC, at least in Enduring Ideal combo, because it would dodge abrupt decay, which is just about the only way to beat that combo once it gets going.
A good example....Death's Shadow. Once was a bulk rare, now people are wanting it banned. Great video. Still holding on to my Steamflogger Boss collection. ;p
Totally agree with this idea I remember way back when pack rat was spoiled and everyone was hating on it except a few people. Picked up my set before black devotion goodness lol.
hey seph is there any place or way we can submit decks to budget magic. I think i got one you might want to try, it's a budget red deck wins. Not really running the burn variation that you did a while back but running more the creature side of RDW. A side i feel like isn't viewed, but the deck looks to get more sustain then just burst out the opponent, it still goes fast and it still bursty but it sacrifices alittle less of that burst for more sustain in the mid game. So it doesn't crash and burn by mid game
Jank is why I got into magic. When I saw the crazy shenanigans I could pull I immediately fell in love with trying to build the dumbest things. Who here loves fungus among us? Dumb? Yes. No one wins? Nope. But did I do a jank? Heck yeah
Hi, not sure if you look at the youtube comments but idk a way to contact you. I really want to get into modern, and I want to play control. The problem is I'm not a fan of u/w control, and I'm also on a budget. Can you create a good modern control deck for under $400?
Tappedout is a decent website to build an idea by browsing deck list. I would recommend either mardu control (white, black, red) or Grixis control (blue black red). Black and red give you good destruction and discard. the last color depends on what you want: white gives more removal and sacrifice effects to get past hexproof ( crackling doom and others) while blue gives counterspells to limit what gets onto the board.
I mainly play the commander format. When I'm deck building, I love looking for strange cards to create synergy in the deck. Sometimes, I have created decks based on gimmicks like this. The power of changing colors with blind seer, the benefits of banding when fully understood (not available on MTGO), and the gamble you take on coin flipping cards for high rewards. One favorite cards in this game is Goblin Game. Ridiculous? Yes. Fun? Also yes. I only consider cards to be "bad" once they have proven to not synergize with other cards, there are better cost alternatives, and/or it is not fun to play.
Overall I agree with your argument: treat all cards as potentially good and don't buy into what community opinion leaders claim. However, that becomes a lot more difficult in Eternal formats like Commander. There are just too many cards to evaluate individually. Websites like EDHREC and youtube commentators can at least provide useful heuristics for information and give us a starting point. I love finding niche good cards that aren't format staples. It makes me feel like the deck is "my own". However, information from other sources at least can start guiding me in a certain direction for "good cards" in my deck
I would want to just add as a tangent, some cards might not be great for one format, but are amazing in another. I'll use the example of Combustible Gearhulk is killer in EDH. I run it in my Breya deck because it has a decent ETB effect and can be reanimated since I'm already running an artifact build. Plus in a format like that with a lot of 4-6 CMC spells in a deck, it really does make your opponent think about if they're going to have to take a much larger amount of damage by not letting you draw. On that same note, I also run it in Jhoira since her creatures are even higher CMC, and not letting me draw off it could potentially mean losing the game.
Great addition. There's also cards like Crested Sumare, which in standard or modern is not bad by any means, but in commander is very good because there is a ton of commander that give you life on upkeep or once a turn. Makes it like a whole new card
Love call the bloodline. I actually play it as a 2 of in my budget vampire deck and I've beaten tier 1 and 1.5 decks by flooding the field and getting rid of lands I don't need or madness creatures in and it helps turn on captivating vampire to steal my opponents best creatures.
Hey Seth, I have found an infinite creature combo that is standard legal, and is legal even after the next rotation. If this intrigues you, let me know.
3:46 "there is literally no conceivable reason you would pick walking corpse over khenra eternal" Challenge accepted: you are playing a deck with mostly jackal and/or warrior creatures and want to avoid having your board wiped if the opponent plays that new tribal wrath.
Giampaolo Fini actually that board wipe destroys all creatures EXCEPT for the chosen type so actually having more types is better for you if you're worried about the board getting blown up by that card
Giampaolo Fini your on 1 life and have khera eternal and a 1/1, opponent gains control of khenra until end of turn, then you loose. Walking corpse you can live
If your opponent is playing a deck like death's shadow where they want to take more damage, khenra could be worse since they can block it in a way they lose a more specific amount of life. Maybe for some kind of triskaidekaphobia options. My friends and I refuse to ever use strictly because we always try to find ways to make the "strictly worse" card better
this reminds me of why I'm playing architect of the Untamed. the card is fairly mediocre in terms of green 3 drops but its ability to get around hour of Devastation in particular is why I love playing it in my energy deck. Just a thought
The thing for me is the way I categorize cards in my mind has a big difference between bad and useless. I'll call aethertide whale bad. But it's not useless. It's pretty much exactly what you said of how you consider a card truly bad, I just think about it differently.
Paul Zellerhoff,,,, There was a pre made deck that used Egotist back in the day, it had a lot of cards that used "Highest CMC among permanents you control" so Egotist for 3-morph & U to flip (4 mana total) for a CMC=8 should have been great... it was absolutely terrible. I got that deck and the pre made "Max Attax" deck, Green creatures 6CMC deck (with Fierce Empath to tutor, and Krosan Drover=all 6+CMC creatures cost 2 less to cast. Deck was surprisingly playable) got both and the blue deck just got wreaked so badly it was sad because it had some great cards like Parallel Thoughts & Rush of Knowledge (that actually benefits from Egotist) Mischievous Quanar (a morph creature that when flipped up copies a spell being cast, great with the two spells I mentioned) but the deck had Egotist & other terrible creatures so it was really hard to last long enough to play anything good. So even in a deck made for it to work Scornful Egotist is still really TERRIBLE!!!! P
Not even remotely joking - Everyone at my local meta was complaining how the black collective in the cycle was just awful - it didnt do anything and it was underpowered and I was sat there going "I'm at least sideboarding this in EVERY single black deck I am playing right now." bothers me so much how people just write off cards based on mass opinion.
Although I see your point Seth, Burn plays, strictly worse versions of Lightning Bolt (Lava Spike and Chain Lightning) and that doesn't make them bad cards.
@MTGgoldfish have you thought of Aethersquall Ancient as bad. Well you should look at what it can do. I may die to removal, but not fatal push, grasp, and swltering suns. Check it out and just think of the possibilities. I personally run it in a G/U energy deck. No, seriously it is really good.
I bought you Paradox Engine budget deck and added an Aethertide Wale because I could feasibly cast it an infinite number of times to charge up my reservoir
First couple of minutes I couldn't agree with you more. As a good brewer, I purposely have not paid attention to magic articles and what not because of how they view cards.(I'm actually back to paying attention to articles again after not doing so for years) I disagree with your definition of what makes something a bad card. Specifically, due to redundancy. Decks like allies, storm, and boggles need a bunch of cards that do the same thing. Honestly, a bad card is limited to the creativity of the brewer. Granted, you have to make the deck competitive so you have to make it within the confines of competitiveness of the format; for example in modern you need to be able to win by turn 3-4 or interact with your opponent Overall, I agree with you that you shouldn't automatically presume a card is bad. The question when looking at a card should be, what tricks can be done with this card? Is it a stand alone card? What potential synergy can happen with this card and others? One thing I do as a good brewer is to go back and look through older card sets. It's really easy to miss interactions if you never thought about them. I've ended up using really old cards in my brews because they fit so well. It's kind of like a treasure hunt.
Another bit of food for thought. I come from the competitive Smash Bros Melee scene, and in there, *EVERYONE* knows that fox is the best character. It isn't even debatable. However, most people don't play Fox. This is because everyone knows what to expect out of Fox. In fact, for some people, Fox is the easiest character to fight, because they've practiced fighting him so much. Now to get to my analogy, the better a card is, the more popular it is, because people will expect it.
I agree with you with regards to strictly better cards. However, there are a lot of commons that are just terrible; needlessly complex 1/1s for 4, for example. It's worth noting that had they slapped Cycling on Open Fire, we wouldn't even bother complaining about it. Yeah, it would not GREAT... but there's a conceivable situation where in we'd run it - especially with cycling R. The problem is that 2/3rds of contemporary sets are garbage. It'd very disappointing.
Seth is talking constructed, but you bring a great point. A lot of cards are designed for limited and people rarely evaluate them for that purpose. While nichce in constructed, Aethertide Whale is legit in limited.
the reverse is also true. dont think of every seemingly good card as always good.emrakul the aeons torn is super broken in a deck that can cast it or cheat it out but is completely useless in something like zoo or burn or ad nauseum
Just remember Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crap. However, do be aware that this applies recursively. 90% of the things you evaluate as "good" aren't really that good and 10% of crap is actually good. Or to put it another way, for every card you thought was good but turned out to be bad, there's a card that you thought was bad but is actually good.
"Train yourself to think all cards as potentially good" I do that since i started playing, i get teased because i use weird and "bad" cards, then i beat their asses! hahaha
"Good vs bad cards" just isn't a good way to think about Magic cards. We must know how to discern cards by their context. Magic is a huge game, and expansion sets are not 100% designed to be tournament playable. They must tell a story, showcase sweet art, test design concepts, etc; 10% of a Standard pool sees tournament play because those are the cards meant for that, with maybe another 10-20% of the pool with similar competitive potential. Around 70% of a set is meant to see only or mostly Limited play, and after that, they're collectibles, not pieces of a puzzle (i.e. some mechanics are much more powerful in Limited, like Awaken, where you gather more lands and your animated land isn't so sure to eat removal). Detecting cards playability should probably be much more about understanding what are you looking for in a card, for which a previous episode, about "competitive advantage", was a lot more helpful. Keeping an open mind about cards doesn't sound specially helpful to brewing. I believe understanding what you're looking for is the key.
If you want to know what cards are bad, just go down to your local game store and you will have plenty of people telling everyone else what cards are bad.
some people may argue that wind drake is better but they forget that wind drake gets hosed by plague engineer on drake while storm crow doesnt. boom wind drake isnt strictly better
Combustible Gearhulk is better then Verderous Gearhulk, Combustible Gearhulk is Legacy playable and it works in more different types of decks and gives you a form of card advantage. Verderous Gearhulk works in two decks Stompy decks and go wide decks thats it has so little potential unless another card gets made and it some how breaks Verderous Gearhulk in a format or two
I still want to see a deck that uses Combustible Gearhulk for its interaction with Aftermath cards :'( Drawing 3 out of your 6 Mana 6/6 first strike would never be bad anyway, after your opponent knows the jank.
Rodrigo Silva I run an blue red deck with combustible, sin prodder fevered visions and some double Sider like reduce/rubble and refuse/coop with contingency plan and scries to set up cards in order to Max sin prodder, combustible and fevered visions. PS all the damage from those cards are Planeswalker transferable,so it has that control mechanic built in
3:45 Challenge Accepted. Muraganda Petroglyphs works better with Walking Corpse. If you were playing casually and played with un sets and you ran Squirrel Farm it would be beneficial to run a split between Walking Corpse and Khenra Eternal as they have different artists. Can anyone else think of other reasons?
Seth I really have to say you present this so perfectly, this is a great series, please keep it up!
Is card "Panharmonicon"? No? Does card have ETB trigger? No? Bad card.
Man, I've fallen prey to the "that's a bad card" more than once. This is a great lesson on "read the details on the card and apply them to the context". Thanks for this!
Awesome video Seth. You speak the truth! This type of evaluation is what needs to happen more in Magic and such.
Also, if anyone is wondering why there are bad cards, I recommend checking out Mark Rosewater's articles "When cards go bad", parts one and two.
Also also, shout out to Magic Man Sam's video on One With Nothing, Magic's best worst card.
Moral: every card is innocent until proven guilty
Great video! The first thing I think of when I look at a card is: "What is this used for?" Finding out what's *good* about cards is the kind of thinking that builds great decks! Remember that once even Shahrazad was thought of as a "bad" card. Okay, maybe that's a poor example. :3
Perfect examples of situations where this happens are amulet Bloom and Lantern control. Those are very good Decks that the pieces for which have existed for years and it's just took someone looking at cards that were perceived as bad and deciding to try to make them work. Also even for those cards that have strict upgrades sometimes you play them because you want copies 5 through 8. You might not play them instead but there are plenty of situations where you play them alongside because you need more.
I'm two minutes in. If he doesn't mention getting nearly wrecked by Chaplain's Blessing on stream, I'll be mildly disappointed in him. :P
GrandDracolich Which Stream?!? I got to see this.
It was the rg vengevine deck I think
It was the RG Vengevine deck. I think it was around the 1:08:00 mark when the match begins
lol i came down to ask if the idea for this brewer's minute had anything to do with that match
greatest match of all time. for real
These brewers minutes are so awesome every time!!! Keep this series up!
Seth, thanks for pumping out sooo much content this week before you vacay! You make Magic sooo much better with you in the community! have an awesome vacation!
Wedge needs to join the discussion.
Sebastian Shammer I also, see what you did there.
Once in a game of EDH I killed all three opponents with... Razor Boomerang.
So, great video, right on point!
So this plus paradox engine and some mana dorks?
Neat
EphemeralWMD This, Paradox Engine, Gilded Lotus, Sol Ring, Trophy Mage.
Thing about that combo is it's still wildly inefficient. Once you have Paradox Engine, Sol Ring, and Gilded Lotus out, there's tons of ways to win the game.
Like, instead of Trophy Mage (or any other creature) and RB you could instead use Grinning Ignus and Isochron Scepter with any spell that damages a player like Bolt - if you have out as much as a single Manalith that wins you the game. And those are both going to be more useful in more situations.
Well, I find the efficient ways boring.
Hey guys a combo's a combo, just cause it is bad doesn't mean we can't make it better, because saying you've killed someone with one of the worst cards in Magic is hilarious. For example, the more combo pieces Throphy mage can get, the less likely it'll be a dead draw so add basalt monolith to your deck.
3:15. No conceivable reason? Muraganda Petroglyphs.
Another potential reason is real world money. Some people don't have the cash to make there decks as good as possible and don't have friends that will lend them the cards they need. But that doesn't apply in THIS case, because Khenra Eternal is cheaper in paper, and costs 1 cent more online. (I didn't check every price, but I think I checked enough).
Not standard legal... But I wouldn't discount strictly worse cards, because sometimes you need the redundancy. I had a standard deck that played Disperse, despite Compelling Deterrence being legal because I wanted more than of this effect (and my deck had no Zobies so functionally I was just playing 8 Disperses).
In the case he was pointing out, both are standard commons and therefore will both be pennies.
+Face Octopus I was literally about to comment the same thing.
Muraganda Petroglyphs is great for morph decks because it makes your morphs go from 2/2 to 4/4 until they flip. Other than a morph deck, I'm not quite sure where you would use it.
That's how I ended up with my favorite deck main cards being brutal hordechief / bitterblossom / foul-tongue shriek.
Get a kill Turn 4 if opponent is tapped out, with 1/1 flyers. Gotta feel bad man.
All cards are equal, but some are more equal than others.
Supernatural Stamina.
Waiting for that to get the recognition it deserves.
A friend of mine plays that in his Mono-black burn. Geralf's Messenger that already came back once and is about to die? ahahah, how about two more recursions?
I play super budget commander decks, and most of my friends play top tier type stuff, and it's amazing because half the time I'm with in the last 2 people left in the pod, and I almost never end up being the first out. Good post, getting ready to convert Unesh tribal into Azor sphinx tribal. Thanks for the inspiration dude
Lol old comment I know. However I must say, they left you alone because they assumed you were a goldfish lol. Since you weren't playing top tier stuff. Good strategy
Remember when peoples said that "Champion of Wits" was a bad card?
Hahaha.
I know I’m a year or more late, but other people don’t give you enough credit for your content. You’re a casual players best friend, and I’m glad people like you exist, Seth. As much as people call you Jank, we need some of that as Magic players. You’re as cool as Ridge Wallets 😋
Thanks!
Some recent "bad" cards:
-painful truths
-tireless tracker
-vessel of nascency
-champion of wits
-thraben inspector
None of those cards are bad. An actual example of a bad card is Uncage the Menagerie
I'm playing a variation of Tomer's Zada commander deck. Some of those card are absolutely terrible (as in tear them in half when you draft them). But when they become "Draw X, where X is number of creatures you control" for a single red, you get drowned in value.
Some time ago I played with a random guy that was kind of new to commander. He was like "Your deck must be super strong, I don't want to play against it" So I showed him the trash cards I was playing - his confidence got a huge boost (at that time he didn't know that I was running Zada). I beat him in a dastardly combo, but he complimented me on how sweet it looked anyway.
Worth pointing out that there are some narrow situations where a change which would make a card what would normally be referred to as "strictly better" would actually make it worse. For example, Phyrexian Unlife would be better at 4 CMC, at least in Enduring Ideal combo, because it would dodge abrupt decay, which is just about the only way to beat that combo once it gets going.
A good example....Death's Shadow. Once was a bulk rare, now people are wanting it banned. Great video.
Still holding on to my Steamflogger Boss collection. ;p
Totally agree with this idea I remember way back when pack rat was spoiled and everyone was hating on it except a few people. Picked up my set before black devotion goodness lol.
This is my favorite series to listen to
hey seph is there any place or way we can submit decks to budget magic. I think i got one you might want to try, it's a budget red deck wins. Not really running the burn variation that you did a while back but running more the creature side of RDW. A side i feel like isn't viewed, but the deck looks to get more sustain then just burst out the opponent, it still goes fast and it still bursty but it sacrifices alittle less of that burst for more sustain in the mid game. So it doesn't crash and burn by mid game
I play EDH, so I agree with this. When I looked at Aethertide Whale I was amazed by the energy it produced.
Where can I find that match where you played Combustible Gearhulk?
best series in the channel! keep on rolling
You're right, all cards are potentially good. Cool video.
I try to find a home for all cards no matter How Jank, Cascading Cataracks with boom//bust is godly
No matter how jank the card is, I try to find a place for it in my decks too.
Jank is why I got into magic. When I saw the crazy shenanigans I could pull I immediately fell in love with trying to build the dumbest things. Who here loves fungus among us? Dumb? Yes. No one wins? Nope. But did I do a jank? Heck yeah
Cascading Cataracts is amazing for multicolored decks in Commander since the normal mana base ramp is colorless artifact mana dorks
All we are saying, is give cards a chance!
Hi, not sure if you look at the youtube comments but idk a way to contact you. I really want to get into modern, and I want to play control. The problem is I'm not a fan of u/w control, and I'm also on a budget. Can you create a good modern control deck for under $400?
Tappedout is a decent website to build an idea by browsing deck list. I would recommend either mardu control (white, black, red) or Grixis control (blue black red). Black and red give you good destruction and discard. the last color depends on what you want: white gives more removal and sacrifice effects to get past hexproof ( crackling doom and others) while blue gives counterspells to limit what gets onto the board.
Could you do a video on spikes, (mostly in commander)?
I mainly play the commander format. When I'm deck building, I love looking for strange cards to create synergy in the deck. Sometimes, I have created decks based on gimmicks like this. The power of changing colors with blind seer, the benefits of banding when fully understood (not available on MTGO), and the gamble you take on coin flipping cards for high rewards. One favorite cards in this game is Goblin Game. Ridiculous? Yes. Fun? Also yes. I only consider cards to be "bad" once they have proven to not synergize with other cards, there are better cost alternatives, and/or it is not fun to play.
Any card can cook- I mean work- in a deck. Nice lesson!
Overall I agree with your argument: treat all cards as potentially good and don't buy into what community opinion leaders claim. However, that becomes a lot more difficult in Eternal formats like Commander. There are just too many cards to evaluate individually. Websites like EDHREC and youtube commentators can at least provide useful heuristics for information and give us a starting point. I love finding niche good cards that aren't format staples. It makes me feel like the deck is "my own". However, information from other sources at least can start guiding me in a certain direction for "good cards" in my deck
One with nothing was op in it's meta, the 'worst' card ever was a sideboard card in every deck, because of the ebony mine deck
I would want to just add as a tangent, some cards might not be great for one format, but are amazing in another. I'll use the example of Combustible Gearhulk is killer in EDH. I run it in my Breya deck because it has a decent ETB effect and can be reanimated since I'm already running an artifact build. Plus in a format like that with a lot of 4-6 CMC spells in a deck, it really does make your opponent think about if they're going to have to take a much larger amount of damage by not letting you draw. On that same note, I also run it in Jhoira since her creatures are even higher CMC, and not letting me draw off it could potentially mean losing the game.
Great addition. There's also cards like Crested Sumare, which in standard or modern is not bad by any means, but in commander is very good because there is a ton of commander that give you life on upkeep or once a turn. Makes it like a whole new card
Biggest Bad Card Blowout: Playing Elspeth and getting it destroyed by Boulderfall on the very next turn. >_>
Thanks Seth! I'm gonna go build Mono-Red Canyon Minotaur!
Love call the bloodline. I actually play it as a 2 of in my budget vampire deck and I've beaten tier 1 and 1.5 decks by flooding the field and getting rid of lands I don't need or madness creatures in and it helps turn on captivating vampire to steal my opponents best creatures.
Interesting video. Nice job.
love this type of video. great job bud! I dnt comment on much vids but I like this one.
I read here there are no bad cards. There aren't? What can you say about Mudhole?
Hey Seth, I have found an infinite creature combo that is standard legal, and is legal even after the next rotation. If this intrigues you, let me know.
3:46 "there is literally no conceivable reason you would pick walking corpse over khenra eternal" Challenge accepted: you are playing a deck with mostly jackal and/or warrior creatures and want to avoid having your board wiped if the opponent plays that new tribal wrath.
I was trying to come up with a tribal reason why it would be worse. I tip my hat to you.
Giampaolo Fini actually that board wipe destroys all creatures EXCEPT for the chosen type so actually having more types is better for you if you're worried about the board getting blown up by that card
Giampaolo Fini your on 1 life and have khera eternal and a 1/1, opponent gains control of khenra until end of turn, then you loose. Walking corpse you can live
If your opponent is playing a deck like death's shadow where they want to take more damage, khenra could be worse since they can block it in a way they lose a more specific amount of life. Maybe for some kind of triskaidekaphobia options. My friends and I refuse to ever use strictly because we always try to find ways to make the "strictly worse" card better
Love the Video and 1 thing the wail does not gives you 6 mana.
He can give you infinite mana.
this reminds me of why I'm playing architect of the Untamed. the card is fairly mediocre in terms of green 3 drops but its ability to get around hour of Devastation in particular is why I love playing it in my energy deck. Just a thought
The thing for me is the way I categorize cards in my mind has a big difference between bad and useless. I'll call aethertide whale bad. But it's not useless. It's pretty much exactly what you said of how you consider a card truly bad, I just think about it differently.
Aethertide whale is awesome in my draw go deck! Board wipe proof, it's an awesome finisher.
I like the Potential: Undying + Persist + Clone combo
So then Tibalt is not a bad card??
very useful video !
I've been trying to make Scornful Egotist work in pauper. No luck so far.
Paul Zellerhoff,,,, There was a pre made deck that used Egotist back in the day, it had a lot of cards that used "Highest CMC among permanents you control" so Egotist for 3-morph & U to flip (4 mana total) for a CMC=8 should have been great... it was absolutely terrible.
I got that deck and the pre made "Max Attax" deck, Green creatures 6CMC deck (with Fierce Empath to tutor, and Krosan Drover=all 6+CMC creatures cost 2 less to cast. Deck was surprisingly playable) got both and the blue deck just got wreaked so badly it was sad because it had some great cards like Parallel Thoughts & Rush of Knowledge (that actually benefits from Egotist) Mischievous Quanar (a morph creature that when flipped up copies a spell being cast, great with the two spells I mentioned) but the deck had Egotist & other terrible creatures so it was really hard to last long enough to play anything good. So even in a deck made for it to work Scornful Egotist is still really TERRIBLE!!!! P
AMAZING video!!!!!
Not even remotely joking - Everyone at my local meta was complaining how the black collective in the cycle was just awful - it didnt do anything and it was underpowered and I was sat there going "I'm at least sideboarding this in EVERY single black deck I am playing right now." bothers me so much how people just write off cards based on mass opinion.
Although I see your point Seth, Burn plays, strictly worse versions of Lightning Bolt (Lava Spike and Chain Lightning) and that doesn't make them bad cards.
@MTGgoldfish have you thought of Aethersquall Ancient as bad. Well you should look at what it can do. I may die to removal, but not fatal push, grasp, and swltering suns. Check it out and just think of the possibilities. I personally run it in a G/U energy deck. No, seriously it is really good.
Insult//injury with Boros Reckoner in a Skred Red build 👍
I bought you Paradox Engine budget deck and added an Aethertide Wale because I could feasibly cast it an infinite number of times to charge up my reservoir
First couple of minutes I couldn't agree with you more. As a good brewer, I purposely have not paid attention to magic articles and what not because of how they view cards.(I'm actually back to paying attention to articles again after not doing so for years)
I disagree with your definition of what makes something a bad card. Specifically, due to redundancy. Decks like allies, storm, and boggles need a bunch of cards that do the same thing.
Honestly, a bad card is limited to the creativity of the brewer. Granted, you have to make the deck competitive so you have to make it within the confines of competitiveness of the format; for example in modern you need to be able to win by turn 3-4 or interact with your opponent
Overall, I agree with you that you shouldn't automatically presume a card is bad. The question when looking at a card should be, what tricks can be done with this card? Is it a stand alone card? What potential synergy can happen with this card and others?
One thing I do as a good brewer is to go back and look through older card sets. It's really easy to miss interactions if you never thought about them. I've ended up using really old cards in my brews because they fit so well. It's kind of like a treasure hunt.
I remember playing BW call the bloodline knight tribal with Hakon, the fact that they're knights is underrated
I miss the paradox marvel deck. I loved playing it.
I'm the Aethertide Whale in the thumbnail.
Another bit of food for thought. I come from the competitive Smash Bros Melee scene, and in there, *EVERYONE* knows that fox is the best character. It isn't even debatable. However, most people don't play Fox. This is because everyone knows what to expect out of Fox. In fact, for some people, Fox is the easiest character to fight, because they've practiced fighting him so much.
Now to get to my analogy, the better a card is, the more popular it is, because people will expect it.
I agree with you with regards to strictly better cards. However, there are a lot of commons that are just terrible; needlessly complex 1/1s for 4, for example.
It's worth noting that had they slapped Cycling on Open Fire, we wouldn't even bother complaining about it. Yeah, it would not GREAT... but there's a conceivable situation where in we'd run it - especially with cycling R.
The problem is that 2/3rds of contemporary sets are garbage. It'd very disappointing.
when glorybringer was first spoiled i thought it was another bulk rare dragon, like freejam regent for example.
TauntedSymbol
Freejam regent isn't that bad. It can arrives on turn 3 quite consistently and close the game really quickly.
This reminds me I have a friend that I need to kill with Vizzerdrix....
For me the only cards i think are bad are commons in the 4 or higher cmc slot 4 cmc commons to occasionally have good effects though
Hope you're watching this, Wedge.
Destroyed a 16 man limited tournament with aethertide whale. It literally will chump big attackers until you get removal
Seth is talking constructed, but you bring a great point. A lot of cards are designed for limited and people rarely evaluate them for that purpose. While nichce in constructed, Aethertide Whale is legit in limited.
the reverse is also true. dont think of every seemingly good card as always good.emrakul the aeons torn is super broken in a deck that can cast it or cheat it out but is completely useless in something like zoo or burn or ad nauseum
Great video! :)
Just remember Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crap. However, do be aware that this applies recursively. 90% of the things you evaluate as "good" aren't really that good and 10% of crap is actually good. Or to put it another way, for every card you thought was good but turned out to be bad, there's a card that you thought was bad but is actually good.
"Train yourself to think all cards as potentially good"
I do that since i started playing, i get teased because i use weird and "bad" cards, then i beat their asses! hahaha
this is a great video.
*Silently staring at my 4 NM copies oj Break Open*
I really do write off too many cards. Thanks a lot seth, (probably better known as saffron olive)
used topplegeist in BW gifts, 100% viable vs any aggro deck
I LOVE one with nothing, i made a sweet brew with it, and lupine prototype is great. together forever
There are no bad cards, only cards that make you win differently.
My favorite bad card, eternity share. It's so bad that it's funny
The only objectively bad cards are overcosted vanillas.
You missed a key word there. OVERCOSTED vanillas. Your Grey Ogres, your Armored Cancrix/Aincient Carp.
Pretty sure Chimney Imp is just a bad card.
Unless you can't win with the card...
Good video well said
I recently made a processor + scarab god edh. I always thought processors were awful but they are really good at abusing opponents graves
"Good vs bad cards" just isn't a good way to think about Magic cards. We must know how to discern cards by their context. Magic is a huge game, and expansion sets are not 100% designed to be tournament playable. They must tell a story, showcase sweet art, test design concepts, etc; 10% of a Standard pool sees tournament play because those are the cards meant for that, with maybe another 10-20% of the pool with similar competitive potential. Around 70% of a set is meant to see only or mostly Limited play, and after that, they're collectibles, not pieces of a puzzle (i.e. some mechanics are much more powerful in Limited, like Awaken, where you gather more lands and your animated land isn't so sure to eat removal). Detecting cards playability should probably be much more about understanding what are you looking for in a card, for which a previous episode, about "competitive advantage", was a lot more helpful. Keeping an open mind about cards doesn't sound specially helpful to brewing. I believe understanding what you're looking for is the key.
If you want to know what cards are bad, just go down to your local game store and you will have plenty of people telling everyone else what cards are bad.
*cough* storm crow: best card * cough cough*
some people may argue that wind drake is better but they forget that wind drake gets hosed by plague engineer on drake while storm crow doesnt. boom wind drake isnt strictly better
This is exactly how I think about cards
Combustible Gearhulk is better then Verderous Gearhulk, Combustible Gearhulk is Legacy playable and it works in more different types of decks and gives you a form of card advantage. Verderous Gearhulk works in two decks Stompy decks and go wide decks thats it has so little potential unless another card gets made and it some how breaks Verderous Gearhulk in a format or two
I have my personal opinion, but how many would consider the common Zubera's good?
I want to see this guy justify Sorrow's Path.
Séance in modern. Bad card....or the best card no one is playing.
I totally agree; not all these cards are bad! We have to find the right deck... HOWEVER! I ask you, or the public this:
Merchant Dockhand.
WTF?
I still want to see a deck that uses Combustible Gearhulk for its interaction with Aftermath cards :'( Drawing 3 out of your 6 Mana 6/6 first strike would never be bad anyway, after your opponent knows the jank.
Rodrigo Silva I run an blue red deck with combustible, sin prodder fevered visions and some double Sider like reduce/rubble and refuse/coop with contingency plan and scries to set up cards in order to Max sin prodder, combustible and fevered visions. PS all the damage from those cards are Planeswalker transferable,so it has that control mechanic built in
+gentlemansfury Sounds super fun!
More like, Brewer's 8 minutes and 33 seconds?
Stop giving away all the secrets! People abandon great mythics to the $1 bin that are completely busted, and I want to make janky stuff for cheap!
I could want walking corpse if there was aflict, or warrior specific hate in the format (there Isnt BUT THERE MIGHT BE).
Well said babe. You tell em😊
>90 something percent of Standard cards are bad cards
But that is true, naglammit :'D