Hi everyone. I'm Joel and I designed and played that Xenagos deck. If anybody has any questions or comments let me know, I'd love to talk. Also, yeah. Polis Crusher is the dumbest thing I've ever done in over twenty years of playing Magic and I am embarrassed it was caught on video. Haha. Oh well!
@@philllllllll Yeah, that was really unfortunate. I was wondering something... Why didn't you played Sol Ring and Mana Crypt on turn 1 or 2? Were you worried about drawing a target on your back, or just didn't wanted to tryhard?
@@P4CCHU I wanted to cast a mana dork on turn 1 so it so it would be useable on turn 2. I didn't have any use for the mana from Mana Crypt and Sol Ring on turn 1 so I decided to keep them in hand to save myself from a potential 3 damage from Crypt but also to protect them from early removal (meta has lots of 1mv artifact removal)
Hello Muddstah! My fiancé and I are a big fan of your content! He's way too polite to ask about it, but he subscribed to you on Patreon a while ago at the highest tier and has been excited to see his name in the credits, but it looks like they either haven't been updated in a while or his name isn't showing up correctly or something on Patreon. I mean absolutely no offense or anything, I just know he's been excited about it and wanted to help haha. Thank you for all the content you put out!
Hi Eloise! Thank you for reminding me, and sorry about that. Please let him know that I just recently updated it. The new version will be going live Jan 13th.
@@MTGMuddstah No worries!! We both know that stuff happens and it's totally no biggie - thank you very much! I know it's absolutely going to make his day.
Just came from a commander game where my opponent forgot for four turns he could sacc the zombie he controlled that was causing him to lose a lot of life to his ashnods altar. So it does happen.
3:47 Wait, how was 2 damage enough to take out Zaxara? It looks as though the Scourge of Valkas trigger hit Vrondriss, which created a 3rd Dragon, which is enough to take out Zaxara, but then the token disappeared for some reason.
Maybe the token 3rd dragon did come in, did 3 damage to zaxara and died because he has to sacrifice himself? Scourge of Valkas reads "Whenever Scourge of Valkas or another Dragon enters the battlefield under your control, it deals X damage to any target, where X is the number of Dragons you control.", it being the third dragon, and by being the one who did the 3 damage, has to sacrifice himself.
vrondriss took 2 damg and created a token , token on stack was responded by exile spell and deflected to the elf,tokken enters the battle field and kills the zaxara with 3 damg ,Token has to be sac cuz it did 3 damg " "When this creature deals damage, sacrifice it." , i was under impression that scourge did the damg but from what i read its the the dragon that enter that does the damg
Always happy to see a fellow Xenagos player. Makes me wonder how should improve my deck. I'd like to point out that the icons for Zaxara and Vrondiss are inversed. I had to make a double take that it wasn´t me. BTW happy holidays!
Having played Xenagos for a few years and not running any infinite combos on purpose I can tell you the key thing for an effective Xenagos deck is ramp. You want to nearly guarantee casting Xenagos on turn 3 and a fat creature on turn 4. For this reason, I run every single 1mv mana dork that I can and then every creature that can produce 2+ mana that costs 3 or less to cast. That way, you can go dork > dork > Xenagos, needing only two land drops to accomplish. Then, you want big creatures that cost 6 or less. With a few exceptions, creatures that cost more than 6 are usually not worth it, as you'll struggle to cast them immediately after Xenagos and end up wasting valuable momentum. Those creatures MUST have Trample or some form of evasion like Flying. I have maybe 2-3 exceptions in my deck. Finally, power/damage doublers are great, extra combat steps are even better. One extra combat step is equivalent to quadrupling your damage output. For this reason, you want damage doublers to be cheap to cast and extra combat step cards to be game-ending. Be careful of trap cards like Scourge of the Throne. Getting an extra combat step for attacking the player with the most life is useless when you're hitting them so fast and hard they're unlikely to ever have more life than you. Make sure to complement your deck with enough removal to deal with problematic cards your opponents might play to disrupt your game plan. While there's some cards to replenish your hand, this deck is NOT built for the long-game. So you want quick, efficient removal to get those obstacles out of the way quick. What kind of removal you need is meta dependent.
@@philllllllllI plays xenagos and I've never been disappointed by scourge of thrones. Another option since you're running so many manadorks is natural order into an old gnawbone. It seems like at your table a pyroblast and red elemental blast would also be useful.
@@MrHanderson91 Natural Order is great, yes. Cut it from my deck on purpose just so the deck would have a bit more variance when I play it but definitely a good idea.
I have them both in my as well as Hellkite Tyrant, its a really fun deck and gets crazy when you get all the treasure tokens, especially with Inferno of the star mounts.
At 3:47, if Nick intended to cast the Deadly Rollick in response to the Scourge trigger his commander would have been hit by the damage regardless since the damage trigger was already on the stack (which still wouldn't have killed Zaxara since it has 3 health and the Scourge could deal at most 2 damage). If he intended to do it in response to Dom casting Vrondiss, then Dom shouldn't have been able to cast the Deflecting Swat since his commander wasn't out at the time.
Massive brain fart on my part. I didn't rtfc and that was the first time I drew the card in an actual game which made me realize how big of a mistake it was. If there was audio from the game you'd hear me curse and swear a lot as soon as I cast it realizing my mistake.
Yeah. It was in my deck for MONTHS without me ever drawing it and that was the first time I played it. Luckily you can't hear the audio of that game or you would hear me cursing a whole lot.
3:45 only 2 damage pointed at zaxara wouldntve killed her (via Vrondiss Enrage it wouldve been enough, but that wasn't the play) 5:40 not using yawgmoth twice for two grave pact triggers and therefore losing it mightve cost fred the game in the long run 10:20 shouldntve gotten the magic mirror, its cmc is too high since x was only 6; not that it mattered in the end
Brain fart. Ran it in my deck for MONTHS and this was the first game I actually cast it and immediately realized what a huge mistake that was. Replaced it with something else as soon as the game was over.
Damn what a game Fred misplayed he could have done so much more with yogmoth and that grave pact. And when he jump blocks I would have paid the One Life to draw the card and put - 1 counters on something. But also the guy across from just bullied him
Really sad to see such a sad showing from Zaxara, it was grown to be one of my favorite decks. X spelltribal is just so fun. It unfortunately does rely on the commander to stay on the board
Animist's awakening is such a bad card... I see Zaxara players using it just because its a X-spell, but just play an efficient ramp instead and it will be much better, even in Zaxara.
The tables and especially NICK biggest mistake was not answering the Wandering Archaic. I point out NICK because he decided not to take it with the Mass Manipulation. The card is a kill on sight card, it offers too much value and clearly did this game. I would argue DOM won because of it not getting answered. If NICK would have taken it. I don't think he would get as much value as DOM did because NICK was the one casting most of the instants and sorcery but it would have removed that brutal tax that he did pay for and had him pay in a game loss.
Myself (Joel) I've been playing Magic for over 20 years. I didn't buy a Cradle upfront with cash. I traded in a whole modern deck that wasn't working out as well as intended for it. If you spend 100$/month on the hobby, it can add up over the years.
@@supermassivi1995 yep. I was just looking for big creatures with trample that cost less than 6 mana and saw him and the utility he brought and completely forgot he had protection from enchantments. Oops!
I hate Mana Crypt in non cedh games. Completely unnecessary and a card that power creeps decks beyond the others at the table. Second video tonight I've seen and can say both times has made me watch barely a few mins of the video because it's such a boring thing to see.
The art for Vrondiss and Xaxara on Dom’s and Nick’s life totals are flipped around.
Spent 2 minutes trying to understand why a Sultai player played a grull land lol
Peak editing skills on my part!
@@clrl936 I noticed it when Nick played a Dimir land while I was looking at the Vrondiss art.
haha yeah it caught my eye when the art for vrondiss played the blue pathway XD
Lol I didn't notice Zacara and Vrondriss were swapped
Hi everyone. I'm Joel and I designed and played that Xenagos deck. If anybody has any questions or comments let me know, I'd love to talk.
Also, yeah. Polis Crusher is the dumbest thing I've ever done in over twenty years of playing Magic and I am embarrassed it was caught on video. Haha. Oh well!
I hope after this game you swapped it for Sunder Shaman.
@@sofer2230 who?
Decklist?
"How much mana would you like on your opening hand, Joel?"
"Yes"
Just sad I didn't have a proper threat to follow through with until much much later in the game. Polis was a gigantic brain fart on my part too.
@@philllllllll Yeah, that was really unfortunate. I was wondering something... Why didn't you played Sol Ring and Mana Crypt on turn 1 or 2? Were you worried about drawing a target on your back, or just didn't wanted to tryhard?
@@P4CCHU I wanted to cast a mana dork on turn 1 so it so it would be useable on turn 2. I didn't have any use for the mana from Mana Crypt and Sol Ring on turn 1 so I decided to keep them in hand to save myself from a potential 3 damage from Crypt but also to protect them from early removal (meta has lots of 1mv artifact removal)
Hello Muddstah! My fiancé and I are a big fan of your content! He's way too polite to ask about it, but he subscribed to you on Patreon a while ago at the highest tier and has been excited to see his name in the credits, but it looks like they either haven't been updated in a while or his name isn't showing up correctly or something on Patreon. I mean absolutely no offense or anything, I just know he's been excited about it and wanted to help haha. Thank you for all the content you put out!
Hi Eloise! Thank you for reminding me, and sorry about that. Please let him know that I just recently updated it. The new version will be going live Jan 13th.
@@MTGMuddstah No worries!! We both know that stuff happens and it's totally no biggie - thank you very much! I know it's absolutely going to make his day.
Poor Fred throwing the game via not sacrificing the bitterblossom tokens out with gravepact in response to declaring attackers.
Just came from a commander game where my opponent forgot for four turns he could sacc the zombie he controlled that was causing him to lose a lot of life to his ashnods altar. So it does happen.
Trying to wrap my head around why Fred didn't sac any of his tokens to Yawgmoth the moment his grave pact hit the board to remove the polis crusher.
Or sac them as he chump blocks.
We wondered the same thing.
100%.
Because he might think it would put him so much ahead and this may be a more casual table
it hurt my eyes just watching it
Vrondriss played way better than I expected. Seeing Zaxara makes me excited to finish up my deck and test it at my lgs
New to the channel. Thank you for showing just game play and nothing else! And breaking down mistakes!! Exactly what I want!
fred, pls sac ur tokens in response when u get a grave pact and a creature atacks u...
This really was Fred's game to lose, Yog should have been flinging fairies left and right to keep the board clean.
Was just about to say this lol
I was thinking the same thing. He could have been drawing cards.
3:47 Wait, how was 2 damage enough to take out Zaxara?
It looks as though the Scourge of Valkas trigger hit Vrondriss, which created a 3rd Dragon, which is enough to take out Zaxara, but then the token disappeared for some reason.
I was asking myself the same. Have no idea what happened there
Maybe the token 3rd dragon did come in, did 3 damage to zaxara and died because he has to sacrifice himself? Scourge of Valkas reads "Whenever Scourge of Valkas or another Dragon enters the battlefield under your control, it deals X damage to any target, where X is the number of Dragons you control.", it being the third dragon, and by being the one who did the 3 damage, has to sacrifice himself.
vrondriss took 2 damg and created a token , token on stack was responded by exile spell and deflected to the elf,tokken enters the battle field and kills the zaxara with 3 damg ,Token has to be sac cuz it did 3 damg " "When this creature deals damage, sacrifice it." , i was under impression that scourge did the damg but from what i read its the the dragon that enter that does the damg
10:29 not that it mattered, but Dom cannot have played the magic mirror since villanous wealth says X or less
Was about to say this.
Glad to see Vrondiss doing some work with Broodmother and Scourge. That deck gets super spicy w/the right build!
I love my Vrondiss deck, 75% of the time i win with it its just the cascading amounts of damage from Vrondiss.
Always happy to see a fellow Xenagos player. Makes me wonder how should improve my deck.
I'd like to point out that the icons for Zaxara and Vrondiss are inversed. I had to make a double take that it wasn´t me. BTW happy holidays!
Having played Xenagos for a few years and not running any infinite combos on purpose I can tell you the key thing for an effective Xenagos deck is ramp. You want to nearly guarantee casting Xenagos on turn 3 and a fat creature on turn 4. For this reason, I run every single 1mv mana dork that I can and then every creature that can produce 2+ mana that costs 3 or less to cast. That way, you can go dork > dork > Xenagos, needing only two land drops to accomplish.
Then, you want big creatures that cost 6 or less. With a few exceptions, creatures that cost more than 6 are usually not worth it, as you'll struggle to cast them immediately after Xenagos and end up wasting valuable momentum. Those creatures MUST have Trample or some form of evasion like Flying. I have maybe 2-3 exceptions in my deck.
Finally, power/damage doublers are great, extra combat steps are even better. One extra combat step is equivalent to quadrupling your damage output. For this reason, you want damage doublers to be cheap to cast and extra combat step cards to be game-ending. Be careful of trap cards like Scourge of the Throne. Getting an extra combat step for attacking the player with the most life is useless when you're hitting them so fast and hard they're unlikely to ever have more life than you.
Make sure to complement your deck with enough removal to deal with problematic cards your opponents might play to disrupt your game plan. While there's some cards to replenish your hand, this deck is NOT built for the long-game. So you want quick, efficient removal to get those obstacles out of the way quick. What kind of removal you need is meta dependent.
@@philllllllllI plays xenagos and I've never been disappointed by scourge of thrones. Another option since you're running so many manadorks is natural order into an old gnawbone. It seems like at your table a pyroblast and red elemental blast would also be useful.
@@MrHanderson91 Natural Order is great, yes. Cut it from my deck on purpose just so the deck would have a bit more variance when I play it but definitely a good idea.
YES FINALLY SOME ZAXARA ACTION, first deck I ever seriously built and is so much fun to play!
Vrondiss deck had some cool cards I need to put in mine. Old Gnawbone would be sweet there as well as goldspan.
I have them both in my as well as Hellkite Tyrant, its a really fun deck and gets crazy when you get all the treasure tokens, especially with Inferno of the star mounts.
Love to see some more high powered games!
At 3:47, if Nick intended to cast the Deadly Rollick in response to the Scourge trigger his commander would have been hit by the damage regardless since the damage trigger was already on the stack (which still wouldn't have killed Zaxara since it has 3 health and the Scourge could deal at most 2 damage). If he intended to do it in response to Dom casting Vrondiss, then Dom shouldn't have been able to cast the Deflecting Swat since his commander wasn't out at the time.
I saw that the photos for zaxara and vrondiss were flipped and was confused why a Zaxara deck has Stomping ground in it lol
I saw when he played the pathway and was like but he’s red green than realized that it was just the pictures swapped
wow, last time I was this early Oko was still legal in standard
then what the hell is polis crusher doing in a xenagos deck xD, just a bit funny
Massive brain fart on my part. I didn't rtfc and that was the first time I drew the card in an actual game which made me realize how big of a mistake it was. If there was audio from the game you'd hear me curse and swear a lot as soon as I cast it realizing my mistake.
Running a creature that has protection against Xenagos in a Xenagos deck... WHA?
yeah haha he realised it during the game
Yeah. It was in my deck for MONTHS without me ever drawing it and that was the first time I played it. Luckily you can't hear the audio of that game or you would hear me cursing a whole lot.
@@philllllllll Lol I was like WTF he should be swinging for 32 against nick... ohhhhh Facepalm. Rec sage FTW
love the debt to the deathless mat that Fred has
That Vrondiss deck was gas
FYI those double combat steps for xenagos cause him to trigger additional times.
Oh I’ve never seen a casual Zaxara deck. Nice!
During the savage beating turn, shouldnt the polis have hit nick for 32 total damage, since Xenagos would have triggered once more ?
Xenagos can't target it
Has the xenagos deck been updated? There is no polis crusher in the decklist....hopefully he realized that card should be replaced with kogla
I had a massive brain fart with Polis Crusher. Replaced it immediately after the game ended with Dragonborn Champion.
What playmat did Fred have? It is really cool
fred, why you no sac with grave pact out smh
That's what I was thinking lol
I love that proxy of Cradle that Dom has! Where did he get it?
3:45 only 2 damage pointed at zaxara wouldntve killed her (via Vrondiss Enrage it wouldve been enough, but that wasn't the play)
5:40 not using yawgmoth twice for two grave pact triggers and therefore losing it mightve cost fred the game in the long run
10:20 shouldntve gotten the magic mirror, its cmc is too high since x was only 6; not that it mattered in the end
Good catches! Sorry for the mistakes.
Thx for an awesome show
That's how Vrondiss works! I love when people underestimate him and then they take 30 damage in a turn. Vrondiss is way better than people think.
Polis crusher in a xenagos deck seems super strange to me. Why run a big creature like that that xenagos cant pump?
Brain fart. Ran it in my deck for MONTHS and this was the first game I actually cast it and immediately realized what a huge mistake that was. Replaced it with something else as soon as the game was over.
Wandering Archaic is my top card pick from 2021.
Happy to see the Scarab God deck be the first eliminated.
I love seeing Joel/Xenagos
Thank you! But... Why? Haha
@@philllllllll It gives me a certain kind of pleasure to see you play that type of deck
Should host a game with the most toxic commanders printed. Would be interesting to see which one brings home the win.
What’s Fred’s playmat?
Debt to the Deathless by Seb McKinnon
Not meant as an insult but are they playing with a real gaeas cradle?
Damn what a game Fred misplayed he could have done so much more with yogmoth and that grave pact. And when he jump blocks I would have paid the One Life to draw the card and put - 1 counters on something. But also the guy across from just bullied him
Really sad to see such a sad showing from Zaxara, it was grown to be one of my favorite decks. X spelltribal is just so fun. It unfortunately does rely on the commander to stay on the board
Animist's awakening is such a bad card... I see Zaxara players using it just because its a X-spell, but just play an efficient ramp instead and it will be much better, even in Zaxara.
Here for the thiCC commanders in the command zone.
What a game!
Nick should have taken 28 from polish crusher as it gets doubled again during the second combat
The tables and especially NICK biggest mistake was not answering the Wandering Archaic. I point out NICK because he decided not to take it with the Mass Manipulation. The card is a kill on sight card, it offers too much value and clearly did this game. I would argue DOM won because of it not getting answered. If NICK would have taken it. I don't think he would get as much value as DOM did because NICK was the one casting most of the instants and sorcery but it would have removed that brutal tax that he did pay for and had him pay in a game loss.
Did anyone realise that nick and dom have the wrong picture of their commanders
I always wonder if they really own the gaia cradle and if they do where they work at 🤣😭
Myself (Joel) I've been playing Magic for over 20 years. I didn't buy a Cradle upfront with cash. I traded in a whole modern deck that wasn't working out as well as intended for it. If you spend 100$/month on the hobby, it can add up over the years.
When it comes to yawgmoth don’t you also have to pay a life and sack a creature because I never see the loss of life
Nick best friend of Dom
Gruul lesssss gooo
The villainous wealth shouldnt have been able to cast the magic mirror. But it happens. Lol
Why is he playing a pro enchantment creature on Xenagos?
Because I'm an idiot.
@@philllllllll fair enough. just unlucky to find this nonbo in a recorded game 😅
@@supermassivi1995 yep. I was just looking for big creatures with trample that cost less than 6 mana and saw him and the utility he brought and completely forgot he had protection from enchantments. Oops!
Zax and vondris I’m the wrong spot
Have I been pronouncing Zaxara wrong this whole time? I thought it was Zax -zara
😂 I run vrondiss and xenagos
ZaXara bro ZaXXXara
Scarab God is like Zur or a few other decks with a certain reputation. Sometimes people just know to kill it on sight.
how can he berserk his carnage tyrant that has hexproof
hexproof only stops opponents from targeting the creature
@@caex thx forgot it's been awhile
Worst use of a Grave Pact ever 🤦♂️
First
Boomer Xenagod playing Polish Crusher. smh.
So many misplays/weird plays it hurts to watch.
I hate Mana Crypt in non cedh games. Completely unnecessary and a card that power creeps decks beyond the others at the table. Second video tonight I've seen and can say both times has made me watch barely a few mins of the video because it's such a boring thing to see.