Truth be told, the vast majority of these cards are fairly recent, and many, me included, stopped updating theyr decks due to the overwhelming amount of product coming out. We get upgraded versions of existing decent/good cards all the time now and people are getting more and more tiered. Keeping up now feels more like a chore than actual enjoyment. That's the reason why many solid good cards aren't taking over old timers
I don't think it's even just new product I think the number of possible commanders has skyrocketed so now its more exciting to build that new commander rather then upgrading your existing decks.
100% agree. I love playing commander, but I enjoy other TCGs and games as well. I don't have it in me anymore to actively scrub through every new magic release like I used to.
Super super true. A lot of these cards I either didn't know or were on my "to buy list" but slipped my mind. Naturally I got real life stuff to do so I just can't keep track with updating my decks, brainstorm new possible synergies and Yada yada. I need a lot of free time and be in the right mood to do that whole updating process
@@LilSenwolfFew of the new Commanders ever do anything new. They just power creep the same deck archetypes, so you can effectively just replace a Commander in an existing deck (moving the old Commander into the 99) and buy any new staples that offer significant power creep. The Doctor Who release was the only set that did something new with the Timey-Wimey deck (which notably now costs 2x the other precon decks for Doctor Who). Fallout will finally give an Energy deck (so that will probably go up in price significantly) but otherwise just an Equip/Aura deck, a Token deck and a Mill deck. Hardly innovative or inspiring any new creativity to the game. I was looking forward to Fallout but then I was like “I already have these decks more or less”. Most of the new mechanics are just we-worked old mechanics.
2:34 - Sword of Once and Future 6:36 - Hoarding Broodlord 10:30 - Feast of the Victorious Dead 14:47 - Make an Example 21:00 - Tribute to the World Tree 21:20 - Sarinth Steelseeker 27:35 - Glimmer Lens 32:56 - Green Sun's Twilight 38:54 - Mishra's Research Desk 42:35 - Wildfire Awakener 47:21 - Open the Way 53:28 - Symmetry Matrix 59:15 - Irenicus's Vile Duplication
I think Make An Example is good for every reason Crim and Tomer said, but nobody even mentioned the political component. There are so many times when I have cast Fact or Fiction and got all 5 cards because I had a friend at the table. Make An Example allows you to wheel and deal and pick and choose who are your friends, and reward people for those alliances. There are so many possible decision paths with this card.
oh absolutely. I've played make an example and had people make deals to spare their commanders or just kill one problem creature and spare the rest. On top of that, it ignores hexproof, indestructible, and protection! this is basically 4 mana cripple each opponent's board (if you so choose) and your board stays squeaky clean. I jam it in every black deck and it does great work every time.
Yep, the Richard guy was absolutely clueless on this card. at WORST, it's 4 mana delete everyone's best creature dodging hexproof/shroud, which is already great. And on top of that, you will likely hit even more, and you can rebalance the power dynamic of the table. fantastic card
Any card that has the wording "whenever an artifact eneters the battlefield" should hold a lot of respect. Treasures, clues and foods along with any played artifact can quickly make those cards become extreme threats.
My buddy has a temur artifact deck that makes food, clue, treasure, thopters, basically all sorts of artifacts. He just added the blue card that turns all artifacts he controls into 4/4s, then had artifact tokens gain flying, and we thought we delt with it for him to play the new Dino card that turns them into 7/7s. We all laughed and couldn't believe how evil all his tiny token artifacts became just pure terror
I really like Hoarding Broodlord in a reanimate deck. You can mill it and then cast reanimate on it, tutor for any card and have a 7/6 flying body. You can sacrifice it for value and reanimate it again. The convoke ability on it is just the cherry on top for me
My reanimator deck pulls this nonsense. Broodlord>saw in half>entomb Scholar of the lost Trove>reanimate Scholar>re-cast saw in half on Scholar>re-cast entomb (any target)>re-cast reanimate on scholar>to cast second entomb target. You can reanimate any creature/artifact (instead of the second Scholar), OR, cast any instant/sorcery...
It would be nice to see them rate what % they all think it *should be* and THEN look it up to make their conclusion on it being underrated or overrated
Not only is Irenicus's Vile Duplication criminally underplayed, but Quantum Misalignment from Dr. Who I'm SURE is going to track that way as well. Its 1 extra mana... but it rebounds making 2 copies. 1 extra mana to clone your commander this turn, and again next turn... yes please.
Hording broodlord can be a 1 card win con with saw in half! The combo package has been making it's way into cEDH! And the convoke is what pushes it over the edge!
Yeah, it really is a 7 mana tutor+fast mana card... And you can only answer the fast mana unless, of course, they tutored an instant. My gy deck likes to pull this nonsense. Broodlord>saw in half>entomb Scholar of the lost Trove>reanimate Scholar>re-cast saw in half on Scholar>re-cast entomb (any target)>re-cast reanimate on scholar>to cast second entomb target. 4 cards, cast for a total of 8 times, for the lols...
I like Sword of Once and Future in my Zada deck, being able to get those cantrips that target Zada back is really nice plus that protection can be really helpful for keeping Zada alive
Something that gets overlooked a lot with aristocrat decks is that you’re still flooding the board with creatures. So even in a deck that doesn’t specifically care about counters, Feast of the Victorious Dead gives you the ability to swing for huge chunks of damage before sacrificing all your creatures. That’s just value.
I love dropping IVD in my Adric and Nev deck. "I'll have three copies of my commander now, thanks! Then, since a creature entered the battlefield, my Gala Greeters will now make 8 treasure tokens."
I agree that Hoarding Broodlord is underrated, especially for its immediate mana discount effect. I have, on more than one occasion, used it to tutor a Bone Shards or Tragic Slip or similar 1 mana removal spell, that can be cast for free off of just the Broodlord itself. Same goes for cards like Reanimate, Entomb, Dark Ritual, etc.
Hoarding broodlord is so good in blink decks that make tokens. It'd one of my favorite cards from most recent sets. And I love make an example because it gets around indestructible, shroud, hexproof , protection and other things it. An also be like a 4 mana 12 for one which is insane. Like I don't understand how richard doesn't get these things especially if you're running sac payoffs in the deck already. Also Open the Way can be cast for 4gg [[Pheobene, Boss's Confidante]] is a criminally underrated commander. Had it built as landfall tokens and it was insane
Is Richard actually trolling on Make an Example? It basically reads, "4 mana, for each opponent, kill their best creature plus a little extra, regardless of hexproof and indestructible." The only thing that could make it better would be if it also gave you a sac outlet for your creatures, since you have an option to make an empty pile.
Brood-lord makes kriik cedh lists and people seem to really love it. I think it’s rated well it’s just not expensive(which is nice) bc you need it to fit in your deck the right way. It’s not a jam.also I love the twilight cycle.
I’m on the other side of the camp of just jam it in anything without Ad Nauseam. The 4 card package is compact enough to just slam in anything, all you need is a combo that you can just put out immediately post Peer.
My underrated picks are : - bitter reunion (80% of the time a better thrill of possibilities) - scale the heights (kinda on a cultivate/kodama's reach power level if you have a 37ish land count and counter and/or life gain synergies)
Crim is absolutely right about Make an Example... The card is an absolute slapper. Because you get to choose which pile you are always going to choose the best decision. If you think Merciless executioner is an alright card because he takes a creature from every opponent for 3 mana this card is WAY more bonkers in that you will be often getting more than one creature and also will always be getting to make the best decision for yourself. And I havent even mentioned the fact that it doesnt hurt you.
Green Sun's Twilight isn't just a worse Genesis Wave. It can get a creature of any mana value, not just X or less. That's a big deal. It means it's much more like a worse version of See the Unwritten!
Yeah I don't think Genesis Wave, Green Sun's Zenith, or Finale of Devastation are proper comparisons over stuff like See The Unwritten or Summoning Trap. I think the main thing that Green Sun's Twilight offers is the "divination" mode, being castable for less mana.
@@babatazyah AKA the "Gift of the Gargantuans" mode, yes. I'm not a big fan of how few cards it looks at in that mode; feels like you have to be really desperate to fire it off for X
I got a list of cards that are underrated (2% or less on EDHREC), from most underrated to least: AUTOINCLUDE TIER - Tenuous Truce - Basically Ghostly prison + secret rendezvous. Let the aggro player 1v2 the others while you draw some cards. Also lets you keep 2-land hands. Protection Racket - Cognitive bias prevents people from understanding that exile-milling doesn't really matter unless you go to mill out or depend on tutors. This card draws me on average 6-7 cards a game and deals like 10 damage. Sculpting Steel & Copy Artifact & Thieving Skydiver & Dack Fayden - 3-mana sol ring is still an amazing card. Ghostly Pilferer - draws you like 2 cards if it comes out early enough. CEDH but not EDHREC for some reason Ingenious Mastery & Skullwinder - I got these from Richard so enough said. unexpectedly absent & soul partition & alchemist's retrieval & submerge - CEDH but not EDHREC. People don't value premium temporary removal all that much. Tithe - CEDH but not EDHREC it's like land tax but less cool I guess? This, weathered wayfarer, land tax, ten truce lets you build low-land countdecks. ALMOST AUTOINCLUDE TIER - Keen duelist - like tenuous truce but painful and more fragile. Allows you to keep 2-land hand. Primeval Herald & Atalan Jackal - can ramp you 2-3x potentially for cheap. usually someone is not playing early blockers or is mana screwed. Only reason to not play these is green has so many good ramp options. One with Nature - if you have a cheap or evasive commander, this is a 1-mana sword of the anime ACTUALLY THESE ARE KINDA BAD TIER - Jailbreak - 2 mana recursion. Generally can find garbage to give an opponent or helps in archnemesis situation. Vicious Shadows - underrated red wincon to play before a big ol' wipe. Mystic Reflection - so versatile Relic of Legends - The best 3-mana mana rock maybe? Rona, Herald of the Invasion - superlooter Diluvian primordial - Surprised that this is below 2% but easily the best of the primordials. Erinis, Gloom Stalker - generally ramps you if playing with fetches Masterwork of Ingenuity - meta-dependent but equipments are good See the Truth - just needs a small shell to be a 2-mana draw 3. Otherwise it's a preordain in a pinch. Gluntch, the Bestower - it blocks for days and gives you some good stuff Walk the Aeons - imo the premium extra turn spell in landfall decks. Also it's like $2 Lethal Scheme - kills and loots Goggles of Night - a little worse than mask of memory TOO NEW TO SEE I GUESS BUT NOT ENOUGH TALKERS: Zoyowa's Justice Kellan, daring traveler The Indomitable - better reconnaissance mission The Belligerent Brass' Tunnel Grinde
If you're untapping with Krenko after putting 4 mana into a card that does nothing, I'd really hope you have better things to do than spend 1 mana to draw 1 card over and over. You should be winning if you untap with Krenko, not filling your hand.
Broodloord is good cause it's a one card combo. With the etb you serach for saw in half, csat it on itself. With the 2 new broodlords you get sacrifice and peer into the abyss.
It's always wild to me that they'll see a card like Mishra's Research Desk, and be like "I'm going to combine every possible cost on this card into a single mana cost" as though there aren't times you'd play it as the last card on your turn, wait a round, then activate it on your upkeep or next end step, or play it on turn two, activating it the next turn to draw a land. Like, it's only bad because it hits two and you only get one, but Prosper would appreciate that card because it's both an impulse effect and an artifact. And even in a pure artifact deck, you can always fish cards out of exile with Karn.
As a person who built a Bess deck with literally only 1/1s, I can say from personal experience that symmetry matrix isn’t worth it. There’s no amount of mana paid into this artifact that makes the card draw worth it, the rate is always bad. I would much rather prefer a Tocasia’s welcome or a welcoming vampire.
For green suns twilight, seems like the group was missing the fact that its x+1. You cast it for 5, you look at the top 5 and grab a 5 drop and a land. You cast gen wave for 5, you'll look at your top 2 and whiff. Def underrated with any green deck that has a high concentration of utility creatures.
I use once and future in my Mizzix Voltron deck! Yes, OG Mizzix voltron and yes I’ve won with commander damage. Also no storm or copy spells in the deck. 😂
Hoarding Broodlord I think is rated and underpriced. If you can't use his etb multiple times it's better to just run a diabolic tutor. If you can use his etb multipe times there's still a chance that other cards do a better job like Sidisi, Undead Vizier or Burning-Rune Demon or some massive etb card draw like Regal Force or Keruga. That being said it does have the saw in half combo to draw half your deck for 10 mana and for 12 there's a blink line that tutors your entire deck (broodlord, felidar guardian, eerie interlude, glorious protector, cloudshift).
I'm not trying to make fun of Richard's vendetta against spot removal but like all the problems with spot removal don't apply to make an example. Spot removal is bad in Commander because it's a one-for-one but MaE when used correctly is a three-for-one with extra potential that you lose nothing for. One-sided board wipes are in a completely different overcosted category. This lets you actually do things. If your board wipe has to remove more than three things it's an escape button which this won't replace but it isn't trying to be it's just syphon mind for removal. 29:05 a lot of equipment decks do try to have a lot of creatures. Akhri wants at minimum two other creatures a turn. Most go wide decks already play pretty small creatures so an 2/2 with a curiosity effect is fine. It's also only two mana to equip so it's pretty easy to get going after a bosrd wipe. Equipment decks really suffer from essentially having two pieces: equipments and creatures to equip to and that solves this problem. A sword is five mana for your first activation plus a creature; this is 2 plus a(nother) creature and after they gets removed both are two mana a piece. Obviously swords are more powerful but they're also more expensive in every sense of the word. 49:49 comparing this to hour of promise is a massive mistake. The ability to get non-basics is an upside to having an explosive vegetation that scales with the game. Still, I think this only goes in really big mana decks. Many decks already don't need four mana for two lands so tapping 5 or 6 mana for 3 or 4 is a lot to ask, especially because if it's really situational, just run Skyshroud's claim and get untapped Forests of any kind.
I think volcanic offering is underrated you should be running more incidental land removal and volcanic offering lets you take down two creatures and two lands at instant speed.
Only 20 minutes in and Richard is already making me crazy lol. His thoughts are so linear. Make an Example is a sweet card and his defense of why it is bad is "well it doesn't work against Teferi's Pro" - that's one card my dude and that shuts down almost anything. Even then you are getting effects that are essentially multiple single target removal against your other opponents because you can choose the pile with the creature you were going to target and it gets around protection. Please make an example out of him, Tomer!
Make an Example *is* terrible though. Letting your opponents make the piles is awful, a 4 drop is standard for boardwipes so not even getting all your opponents best creatures for 4 mana at Sorcery speed is a terrible rate. Like he said, the only good part is that it is sacrifice and not destroy. The rest of his logic was dumb though. Honestly, if it exiled, it'd at least be playable. Toxic Deluge is better, Damnation is better, Supreme Verdict is better, Wrath of God is better, Damn is better, Cyclonic Rift is better, Meathook Massacre is better. Like, unless you are running boardwipe only why would you include it with so many better options?
@@casteanpreswyn7528 Your assessment isn't correct though; You choose which pile they sacrifice. Each opponent loses at least 50% of their creature assets, because you'll always choose the pile that's the worst option for them. Make an example also gets round indestructible, is only 4 mana and is one-sided. 4 Mana wipes aren't usually one-sided. heck, if it just said "For each opponent, choose a creature, that player sacrifices that creature." it'd be playable. Opponents have no choice here. Sure they make they piles, but you will still choose which pile they sacrifice.
One that comes to mind is [[Master Warcraft]] in Boros. Being able to control both attackers and blockers on ANY turn for any player is just game-breaking. Great offensive card but can also save lives in a pinch (just declare no attackers, or full send and tap down an opponent's board). It's one of those cards that's so good it's almost boring to play, because it pretty much always kills a player (sometimes more). [[Out of Time]] is another great one..pseudo-boardwipe (and commander prison) for 3cmc. Depending on your playgroup, sweeping up 3-4 threats for 3-4 turns can be enough to end the game, and situationally is much stronger than outright killing everything. It's the perfect balance of strong and fun, IMO...people tend to really get into the ticking timebomb aspect of it.
Master Warcraft stinks after you try it once. You can declare attackers, but you do not declare who they attack. You're opponents still can full send against you. I prefer a fog instead. Does the same thing now.
The only point I feel is worth pointing out for Sword of Once and Future: Surveil 2 is very real if your deck cares about the graveyard (it's an EDH deck, so it does care) - it's so much better than Scry 2. I don't think SoFI is all *that* much better when taking that into consideration: the shock and flashback triggers are both just... fine, and Surveil 2 is actually pretty equivalent to Draw 1. While the flashback takes up much more space, it's the weaker trigger imo. That said I think the Swords fall off extremely hard after "untap all your lands" anyways.
I'm a Runescarred Demon/Hoarding Broodlord believer. They get reanimated or cheated into play in another manner. Hard casting is the backup mode forwhen you didn't cheese everyone by dodging a board wipe for lmao
Make an Example is INSANE!!! It gets past Hexproof and Shroud. It gets past Indestructible. At its worst, you are killing the best creature each enemy has on board with nothing stopping you. At its worst, youre getting half of a one-sided-board-wipe for only 4 mana. This is so damn good. Richard not getting how this is good confuses me so much. Yes you can only kill half of their stuff if they choose right, but lets say the enemy is playing combo: they either split their combo up into piles and you kill half and disrupt it, OR they pile poorly and you kill their whole combo lol And against agro its pure gas
Sword of once and future is absolutely underrated. I think the primary reason y'all don't rate it very highly is because you're intentionally lower power level, but when half of your combo pieces/answers are 1-2 mana instants and sorceries, it shines far more than in decks with a curve of 4 and up.
I love when Richard's contribution to a discussion about an under rated card is "well this 50 cent card isn't as good as this 20 dollar card," yeah no shit dude, you are missing the point.
You guy's experience with Tempt of Discovery is way different than mine. Everyone always takes the tempt and gets Strip Mines or Wastelands and blows up the person that casted Tempt's lands.
This is a popular reply, but the problem with this is now you've given the Tempt player their best lands in their GY to recur later. Instead of simply saying no and not letting them Entomb 3 times for free.
@@MTGGoldfishCommander that's true. Most of the ppl in my play group don't have a lot of graveyard decks. And the couple that do just have creature ones. So it hasn't been an issue. But yeah, I agree, just don't accept the tempt.
50:19 and 6 mana ramp, its each player so in theory you could get 4 of your next lands onto the battlefield tapped. I think it is super underrated I finally was building a green deck and slammed it, sadly haven't drawn it yet so I don't know how it plays yet. Also Open the Way gets around opposition Agent.
I play Sword of Once & Future in my Historic Wizards deck because the limit of pulling back low value mana spells & even pumping up Dreadhorde Arcanist is a great effect since I'm using low cost spells anyway, but in Commander, it's probably only for the Protection.
Yeah but the point is that running this sword just for a handful of targets isn't worth it. You gotta have 20-ish or more 2mv instants or sorceries for it to reliably hit something. Can you find 25 2mv instants/sorcerers worth playing in your deck?
@darianm9741 Yeah, but you're not gonna just jam this is any deck. You're gonna put in a deck which is already Conniving and Surveilling stuff to the graveyard, so by the time you get the sword in for damage you already have targets in the graveyard. Not to mention you could just be getting second casts off your early ramp, draw, or removal spells.
I think Once and Future becomes more appealing if you've stacked your deck with things like tutors (Demonic/Vampiric,Mystical,) and the suspend cards without mana costs (Ancestral Vision, Crashing Footfalls, Inevitable Betrayal.) I can see myself using it in my deck if I had more creatures in it.
Irenicus's Vile Duplication reads "you win" in my Brudiclad HB deck. The turn the copy comes into play, it's already doing numbers and could very well take the win, but if the copy sits out one more turn, you get exponential growth and have like 38 4/4 flyers. It completely demolishes board stalls and closes games, and that deck runs a lot of Yung Peezy effects like Third Path Iconoclast, so it being a spell that creates a token is huge. I know that that's kinda the optimal scenario to run this card, but I have never lost a game where I got to cast this card with Brudiclad out.
I think Invasion of Kaldheim is a criminally underrated card, it's in 1% of decks on edhrec and is less than dollar. Red's card draw can be a little dicey, but it can function similarly to a red harmonize. It's not unreasonable to cast it, play a land you exiled with it, and then play a land and spell from exile with it the next turn. Plus you get upside if you flip it, since you can basically cycle dead lands in the late game while hitting opponents for two, picking off utility creatures, or even mucking combat. I think people get too caught up on the backside and don't think of it as generic red draw.
When do you consider Symmetry Matrix profitable? It's 4 mana to start and 1 for each draw. Draw 3 is 7 mana. Draw 5 is 9 mana. I don't think it ever gets to a point where it's an attractive option. You also have to play off-curve -- any token generating spells or creatures need to be paid with 1 or more mana in reserve, limiting your ability to deploy the cards that you're drawing. I think a lot of people tried it out when it first dropped, realized how underwhelming it is when it works, and how often it fails, and cut it.
Open the way can look for 4 cards in a game. X can be the amount of Players, not opponents. It's not just 3, 4 ,5 mana ramp, but can also be a 6 mana +4. In a landfall deck or lategame if you want to filter your deck paying 4GG for 4 lands is amazing.
Underrated and pet cards: Stormtide leviathan- A great budget finisher. Comes down after everyone has used up their resources and locks out most creature decks. If your group plays lots of board wipes, then getting rid of it generally won't open you up to being attached because everything else will also be dead. Hits for 8 a turn unblockably. Also fixes your mana just for fun. Morbid curiosity - does your deck get out creatures for less than their retail price? Do you play big creatures with a good etb but not much else? Draw a whole lot of cards for pretty cheap. Dig through time, treasure cruise - remember these? They are both under a dollar and still just as good as they were in standard. Congregate: does your deck have sanguine bond in it? This card will just kill someone. It gains an average of over 30 life. Works with tainted pact too.
My thoughts on Make an Example: it's actually a really good card and underrated IMO. It's a great blend between a board wipe and spot removal, allowing you to nueter your opponents' creatures without harming yours. Yes, they still get to keep something but the point is you lose absolutely nothing while each opponent loses value. And 4cmc is the gold standard of a boardwipe-ish effect. If MaE was 3cmc, the card would be a staple
@@ammonaustin9081 my bad, I didn't mean both 3 and exile. I meant one or the other. At 4, if it exiled, you no longer have a chance of helping/not impacting a player or 3 and it makes it nearly impossible for them to get back their resources. At 3, it is better, but I still don't think it gains a spot in most decks, especially while Toxic Deluge exists. I will say though, it is an auto include in Tergrid.
@@casteanpreswyn7528 I wouldn't really compare MaE to true boardwipes because the main attraction of MaE is that it doesn't affect your own board state. In order to get the full effect of a 1 sided boardwipe, you're paying like 9 mana IE Kindred Dominance. So I view MaE more like a Kindred Dominance that exchanges having selective destruction for lower cmc
@@ammonaustin9081 it's entirely fair to compare it and real boardwipes, especially when you yourself did. That's the whole reason it is in this video, cause people think it is just as good just because you keep all your stuff when your opponents only keep half their stuff. To make it even worse, common strategies straight up make this bad. In a token deck, are you making them sacrifice the 40 1/1s they have or the 6 token generating creatures that'll give them those 40 tokens back next turn? Either way, you might just be dead anyway. You don't have to worry about that with an actual boardwipe. With stop removal, the cost is low enough to not care if you only get one thing, especially when it comes to off color removal. What if your choice is a stack of 3 eldrazi titans and 2 eldrazi titans and a Blightsteel? Again, probably dead either way. Always evaluate a card at its floor before checking what the ceiling will be. The floor of this card is you spend 4 mana and don't set anyone back more than a single turn, you can't kill, and then are killed in response. There is no upside in the floor of this card, in fact, it's all downside(and in this situation I'm assuming an opponent put all creatures in one pile to be nice to you and you chose to have them sac them all). The ceiling is very high, especially in Tergrid, but with a worthless floor it has no spot in a deck. Also, let's not pretend like Dictate of Erebos and similar effects straight up make this card pointless and those effects are very common in many archetypes.
This appears to be the start of the CClash crew's Open the Way saga! We went from Crim debating if this card is even good enough at 5 CMC ramp 3, now it's one of Crim's most hated cards AND it's on the chopping block for house bans!
Open the Way is so good in my Omnath Locus of Creation deck. The X cost making it able to scale during longer, more drawn out games makes it sing. My ramp package in that deck is: - Crop Rotation - Entish Restoration - Awaken the Woods - Farseek - Nature's Lore - Open the Way - Pir's Whim - Reshape the Earth - Scapeshift - Three Visits - Titania's Command - Invasion of Ikoria (for Dryad Arbor) Plus a bunch of "you may play an additional land this turn" cards, "you may play lands from your graveyard" cards, landfallers that generate mana, and 9 fetch lands (6 dual color fetches, fabled Passage, Prismatic Vista, and Krosan Verge). I only run four basics so the Entish Restoration and 2 basic fetches may feel excessive but the odds that I see all of those in one game is slim and if I do i can usually stick a Rootpath Purifier backed up with a counterspell or some other protection and opps all its all basics lol. Easily my favorite deck. I love lands.
For Kane decks, turn 2 you ramp a land with a 2 mana ramp spell like Three Visits or Arcane Signet. Turn 3 you play Kane. Turn 4, you tap kane, play Open the Way X=4, and put 8 lands into play (basic + nonbasics). It's incredible. And this doesn't even factor in things like Instill Energy or Twiddle or whatever else you run to untap Kane.
Broodlord>saw in half>entomb Scholar of the lost Trove>reanimate Scholar>re-cast saw in half on Scholar>re-cast entomb (any target)>re-cast reanimate on scholar>to cast second entomb target. Lets you reanimate any creature or artifact, OR, cast any instant or sorcery... Lols
Collector's Vault and Currency Converter I think are underrated. Lots of incidental synergy. Colorless card filtering and ramp. Seems like everything I want to be doing early game and still useful late game.
I like research desk for eggs. I run this in a couple different decks that care about playing little eggs and drawing cards. Kurkesh likes it, Kykar likes it, Osgir likes it, and Jhoira likes it. Really any deck where you want to storm off with little low mana artifacts can use it pretty effectively. Plus, it's another thing that's nifty to loop around with welders and such. Farid probably loves this card.
I run sword of once and future in my Legolas Master archer mono green deck, since i am running 22 instant/sorceys with manavalue of 2 or less. The whole deck is filled up with fight/bite spells and the sword lets me use them again
On Irenicus's Vile Duplication: Building a deck AROUND your commander is not an ideal circumstance. But building a deck around a theme, where your commander shines, is ideal. Or else your deck just flops when you commander is solved, just folds your opponents too easily for it to be fun.
24:50 I do run Sarinth Steelseeker in Lonis. It's pretty absurd, especially if you have Kodama of the East Tree as well. That being said, it's in 68% of Lonis decks and close to 50% in Samwise. It might be more of a very archtype specific then an underrated card.
My favorite card that I never see anybody else play is Wildfire Devils. Its good early to mid game at snagging ramp and card draw spells. Late game it often requires some politicing to make work. I think of it highly in prowess and spellslinger decks to recast your own card draw or big finishers. In Fireson and Sunspeaker it is really good for example.
Hope you guys see this comment… but damn, Sword of Once and Future is EXTREMELY GOOD. But in the right deck. Mirko, Obsessive Theorist has flying, and gets a +1/+1 when you hit with Sword of Once & Future. You get to bin big creatures with Surveil or cards like Reanimate, Persist, Exhume, Chart a Course - the list goes on. In a graveyard/Reanimator deck the card is insane. Especially since Mirko grows and reanimates bigger creatures each turn. Granted, I also play Blackblade Reforged. But always happy to see SOOF in my Mirko deck!
I think make an example can be really good, it will get around hexproof, industructible, its 4 mana for a 3 player edict that might hit more than 1 creature.
My underrated card is Glimmer Bairn. Discounted color-shifted Nantuko Husk that procs off of sac'ing TOKENS in the token doubling color. The card works really well, and it is showing up in only 1,700 or so decks on EDHREC. It's in only 2% of Lonis and Chatterfang decks, when it's one of the most reliable one drops you can get in those decks. I have no idea why it doesn't see more play.
50:58 Another part of the argument is the opposite of what Richard had said, Commander as a format was created for variance, so a card that let's you grab a bunch of lands without tutoring is a pretty big deal, same goes for Green Sun's Twilight. Personally built a Tovolar Werewolf deck with no tutor effects, I run all ramp cards that play an addional land from hand since Tovolar draws so many cards.
Glimmer Lens was in the precon commanded by either Neyali or Otharri. It does work in there, but I believe the reason they are both hovering around a 65% usage has more to do with the fact that people did not cut it from the deck when upgrading the precon.
A fairly underrated card, I’ve found, is Odric, Master Tactician. He’s definitely a card that needs support, but the ability to control which creatures block when you attack and how they block is very powerful, especially in formats that don’t run as many boardwipes.
Mishra's Research Deck is really good in VERY narrow scenario: red artifac resurrection It is an artifact that can put itself in grave, and can get itself to the battlefield! It's perfect when you have your Blightsteel Colossus in grave and Welder on the battlefield, but you have nothing to swap
I would really love to see ‘make an example’ pop up again in clash. I think the floor and ceiling for this card is surprisingly high and Richard might change his mind? Unless your opponent has some wild recursion, the best the deal can ever get for them is they retain ~50% of their board state’s value, but any suboptimal pile just lowers that percentage. In a lot of the games I play, the creature values tends to be really skewed as well. A big bomb or commander makes up most of the board value. Taking ~half of it in one pile then sniping the commander could remove up to 90% of their creature value, and you get to make this calculation for potentially any of your opponents! The card leaves a lot of agency in your gameplay which is fun. 4 mana for a pseudo one sided wipe that doesn’t make you arch enemy is gas. Lastly, 7 mana for a full board wipe is super expensive, and the true one sided wipes always just get followed up in my experience with another bird wipe killing your stuff. People are extremely motivated by returning punishment, even if it means losing their turn just to kill all your creatures.
Sword of Once and Future is great in Feather the Redeemed. Having it in the deck gives fat protection colors (green would be better to have protection from but still) i NEED to target her with red/white so those colors are fine. Moreover, if i know she’ll be a target i can actually choose to not cast her and just leave stuff in the grave knowing I have tutorable cards like this sword to attach to any creature or cast her later and this combat damage trigger gets incredibly good mid to late game. Note: my feather deck is a spellsplinger/equipment go wide deck so it’s not really the worst thing to go without feather as again she gets targeted a lot. She just makes the deck churn way faster. It’s designed to outgrind rather than voltron kill a player then die to the other two.
I like Sword of Once and Future in Young Pyromancer style decks. Like Aragorn the Uniter, which I also run with every other young Pyromancer I can get my hands on. Otherwise, it feels very hard to both reliably have a creature to equip this to, and a cheap spell in your GY
Hoarding Broodlord is used alot in cEDH, it normally grabs saw in half if its not already in hand and then gets two combo pieces. It is probably a low percentage because its a tutor and can create bad feels for casual pods. Saw in half is the same percentage. Sarinth Steeseeker in Brenard seems like its a great card and Crim saying no to this is kind of funny, he was pretty pumped to build Brenard IIRC
Underrated: -champion of stray souls is hardly played even in go wide/token/aristrocrats decks in B and B/x. It is pricey but a single activation easily is worth the mana investment. Several commanders like izoni and sek'kuar can easily make a bunch of tokens which you can then easily sacrifice to bring back all the creatures in your yard directly to play. -death denied is blue sun's zenith at common. Late game, you just put your whole graveyard into your hand, as black should have no problem filling the yard. It does depend on your yard which is worse than BSZ, but costs 1 colored mana less, gives you selection, and ensures you get gas instead of lands in the late game.
My vote for an underrated card for commander is Majestic Genesis (Imposing Grandeur is another favorite of mine if you want to talk about it). It’s run in about 1% of valid decks with the most popular commander being Ghalta at 38%. With the right commander, this card becomes “eight mana: put any permanents from the top 7, 8, 9 cards into play”. That’s insane. For a similar scenario with Genesis Wave, for eight mana, you look at the top five cards and can only put permanents 5 CMC or less into play. I think Majestic Genesis should go in pretty much every single deck with commanders 7+ CMC because you are probably ramping to that number anyway and it gives you incredible value. I also like this over Last March of the Ents for a few reasons. Yes, March is un-counter-able, but people can respond by killing the biggest thing on board, drastically reducing its effect. Casting March onto an empty board becomes “eight mana put one or two creatures from your hand into play”. Majestic Genesis on the other hand is always going to get you a lot of value (once again, as long as the commander is big enough). You don’t need cards in hand or creatures on board. You just need eight mana and you can plop a bunch of creatures, lands, artifacts, etc. into play. This card at least deserves 3% in my opinion (matching Genesis Wave) as a lot of commanders that could be running it simply aren’t. Maelstrom Wanderer comes down, you play Majestic next turn and destroy everyone. You play Majestic the turn before Ur-Dragon and get a pack of dragons and lands on the field. You play this off the Etali Primal Conquer ETB (magical Christmas land of course) and you feel great about life. Anyways, rant over. I just love this card 😊
With the camera framing during the intro I thought crim had a shirt that just said Eno and was blown away by the drip til I realized it’s a venom shirt. When we getting our misspelt emo merch?
I think Glimmer Lens is very underrated, at its worst it’s a spirited companion but can have a lot of extra synergies. In equipment decks there are many cards that care whenever an equipped creature attacks like Nahiri and Akiri and Glimmer Lens comes with a free body that you can just throw away to trigger those cards while also drawing a card from itself. The fact that it’s very cheap and replaces itself is nice for voltron commanders that care about the amount equipment you have rather than care about equipment that need to boost the power of a commanders that are keyword soups (like roghrakh for example). In go wide decks this has potential to draw multiple cards while triggering cards like Welcoming Vampire, Mentor of the Meek etc.
I agree that people really need to think through that card and how it works when reading it, but I don't know that it's severely underrated like you say, just a tad underrated.
All this tells me again is we need more blood moons, price of progress, back to basics, magus of the moon, and from the ashes(to be nice, they may actually have basics).
I want to see a Lone Voice of Reason episode of Clash - each person has to build their deck around as many cards as possible that they were the only supporter of on an episode of the podcast. Prove that your pet fog or spot removal or actually-good-card-at-home is worth playing.
Mishras research Desk is quite good in things like Prosper. Artefact count for things like Mopal, Sac triggers for mayhem devil. I have it in my Cedh Prosper Deck and it does some good work. There are so many times you have 1 colourless around. Wrens resolve is obviously better but Id still recommend to try this in Prosper. You have enough mana and the unearth comes up a lot of the time surprisingly. Also Hoarding broodlord is very good with things like saw in half and clone effects.
I'm not sure about criminally underrated, but March of Swirling Mist is a fantastic card. It can cost 1 mana and some blue cards in a pinch. It protects your creatures, equipment, and Auras from removal. It stops attackers in their tracks. It opens attack options when you are ready to get in. Depending on turn order, it can do all three at the same time! I have won so many games on the back of this card. I usually have a lot of cards or mana, but even X=2 tends to be enough. EDHREC says its in 4% of decks. That seems low to me. Slip out the back is cool too, though more restricted.
Shriveling Rot is underrated. Board wipe comes and you survive your own toughness that can equal a win. And in aristocrats decks you can turn a Blood Artist into a multi creature sniper. Entwine it and you get the best of both worlds, it’s just so versatile. Only downside is mana cost.
I play once and future in my orzhov and boros control decks mainly just for protection from dimir. I feel like 75% of games I play are against dimir. There are so many good one and two drops in R/B/W (cut down/go for the throat/ destroy evil ect.) And white is so easy to cheat equipment then u get to cast all that removal again for free. I even like it in golgari sometimes.
I tested Symmetry Matrix in Greensleeves and it's been one of the best cards in there. Landfall strategies (without blue) sometimes have card advantage issues and playing a land then using it to pay for the draw after a token is made feels so good
Truth be told, the vast majority of these cards are fairly recent, and many, me included, stopped updating theyr decks due to the overwhelming amount of product coming out. We get upgraded versions of existing decent/good cards all the time now and people are getting more and more tiered. Keeping up now feels more like a chore than actual enjoyment. That's the reason why many solid good cards aren't taking over old timers
I don't think it's even just new product I think the number of possible commanders has skyrocketed so now its more exciting to build that new commander rather then upgrading your existing decks.
100% agree. I love playing commander, but I enjoy other TCGs and games as well. I don't have it in me anymore to actively scrub through every new magic release like I used to.
Super super true. A lot of these cards I either didn't know or were on my "to buy list" but slipped my mind. Naturally I got real life stuff to do so I just can't keep track with updating my decks, brainstorm new possible synergies and Yada yada.
I need a lot of free time and be in the right mood to do that whole updating process
Pretty sure that’s why they’re doing the podcast episode lol
@@LilSenwolfFew of the new Commanders ever do anything new. They just power creep the same deck archetypes, so you can effectively just replace a Commander in an existing deck (moving the old Commander into the 99) and buy any new staples that offer significant power creep.
The Doctor Who release was the only set that did something new with the Timey-Wimey deck (which notably now costs 2x the other precon decks for Doctor Who).
Fallout will finally give an Energy deck (so that will probably go up in price significantly) but otherwise just an Equip/Aura deck, a Token deck and a Mill deck. Hardly innovative or inspiring any new creativity to the game. I was looking forward to Fallout but then I was like “I already have these decks more or less”.
Most of the new mechanics are just we-worked old mechanics.
Open the way can also be 6 mana ramp. Doesn't say opponent just players.
Did you mean 6 CMC ?
Correct They got this fact wrong. You yourself are always counted as one of the players. So in a 4 player game you can pay 4 into x.
I came to say the same thing!
Came to say the same thing, they got this wrong
Richard likes it so he'll figure it out once he plays it to kill everyone
2:34 - Sword of Once and Future
6:36 - Hoarding Broodlord
10:30 - Feast of the Victorious Dead
14:47 - Make an Example
21:00 - Tribute to the World Tree
21:20 - Sarinth Steelseeker
27:35 - Glimmer Lens
32:56 - Green Sun's Twilight
38:54 - Mishra's Research Desk
42:35 - Wildfire Awakener
47:21 - Open the Way
53:28 - Symmetry Matrix
59:15 - Irenicus's Vile Duplication
Is Tribute to the World Tree under rated? Everyone I talk to thinks it's really strong.
I think Make An Example is good for every reason Crim and Tomer said, but nobody even mentioned the political component. There are so many times when I have cast Fact or Fiction and got all 5 cards because I had a friend at the table. Make An Example allows you to wheel and deal and pick and choose who are your friends, and reward people for those alliances. There are so many possible decision paths with this card.
oh absolutely. I've played make an example and had people make deals to spare their commanders or just kill one problem creature and spare the rest. On top of that, it ignores hexproof, indestructible, and protection!
this is basically 4 mana cripple each opponent's board (if you so choose) and your board stays squeaky clean. I jam it in every black deck and it does great work every time.
Plus sac synergies and gets around hexproof & indestructible.
I will have to try this card out!
Yep, the Richard guy was absolutely clueless on this card. at WORST, it's 4 mana delete everyone's best creature dodging hexproof/shroud, which is already great. And on top of that, you will likely hit even more, and you can rebalance the power dynamic of the table. fantastic card
Any card that has the wording "whenever an artifact eneters the battlefield" should hold a lot of respect. Treasures, clues and foods along with any played artifact can quickly make those cards become extreme threats.
My buddy has a temur artifact deck that makes food, clue, treasure, thopters, basically all sorts of artifacts. He just added the blue card that turns all artifacts he controls into 4/4s, then had artifact tokens gain flying, and we thought we delt with it for him to play the new Dino card that turns them into 7/7s. We all laughed and couldn't believe how evil all his tiny token artifacts became just pure terror
I really like Hoarding Broodlord in a reanimate deck. You can mill it and then cast reanimate on it, tutor for any card and have a 7/6 flying body. You can sacrifice it for value and reanimate it again. The convoke ability on it is just the cherry on top for me
My reanimator deck pulls this nonsense.
Broodlord>saw in half>entomb Scholar of the lost Trove>reanimate Scholar>re-cast saw in half on Scholar>re-cast entomb (any target)>re-cast reanimate on scholar>to cast second entomb target.
You can reanimate any creature/artifact (instead of the second Scholar), OR, cast any instant/sorcery...
Or in Prosper/Tibalt.
It would be nice to see them rate what % they all think it *should be* and THEN look it up to make their conclusion on it being underrated or overrated
Not only is Irenicus's Vile Duplication criminally underplayed, but Quantum Misalignment from Dr. Who I'm SURE is going to track that way as well. Its 1 extra mana... but it rebounds making 2 copies. 1 extra mana to clone your commander this turn, and again next turn... yes please.
26:02 I really need crim to say what card he was thinking of because "that card that cares about artifacts and graveyard" narrows it down to 255.
I think he misspoke and was trying to talk about Teething Wurmlet
Hording broodlord can be a 1 card win con with saw in half! The combo package has been making it's way into cEDH! And the convoke is what pushes it over the edge!
Yeah, it really is a 7 mana tutor+fast mana card... And you can only answer the fast mana unless, of course, they tutored an instant.
My gy deck likes to pull this nonsense.
Broodlord>saw in half>entomb Scholar of the lost Trove>reanimate Scholar>re-cast saw in half on Scholar>re-cast entomb (any target)>re-cast reanimate on scholar>to cast second entomb target.
4 cards, cast for a total of 8 times, for the lols...
I like Sword of Once and Future in my Zada deck, being able to get those cantrips that target Zada back is really nice plus that protection can be really helpful for keeping Zada alive
That’s an acceptable use of it 😂
I feel like they're just a tiny bit too harsh on the sword. It's narrow, but in the right spot it definitely has a solid role to play.
Yeah. I was talking about feather the redeemer.
@@zoeysheldon5634 solid and passable but never great:/
Something that gets overlooked a lot with aristocrat decks is that you’re still flooding the board with creatures. So even in a deck that doesn’t specifically care about counters, Feast of the Victorious Dead gives you the ability to swing for huge chunks of damage before sacrificing all your creatures. That’s just value.
The best part about vile duplication is the fact that it makes a token, and there are now so many token doublers it’s amazing!
And now tripler's ! and you can triple those doublers and double those triplers!
It's just gotta feel SO bad when someone blows up your copy target while it's on the stack.
@@jeffe2267 it hurts, not gonna lie
I love dropping IVD in my Adric and Nev deck. "I'll have three copies of my commander now, thanks! Then, since a creature entered the battlefield, my Gala Greeters will now make 8 treasure tokens."
I agree that Hoarding Broodlord is underrated, especially for its immediate mana discount effect. I have, on more than one occasion, used it to tutor a Bone Shards or Tragic Slip or similar 1 mana removal spell, that can be cast for free off of just the Broodlord itself. Same goes for cards like Reanimate, Entomb, Dark Ritual, etc.
Hoarding broodlord is so good in blink decks that make tokens. It'd one of my favorite cards from most recent sets. And I love make an example because it gets around indestructible, shroud, hexproof , protection and other things it. An also be like a 4 mana 12 for one which is insane. Like I don't understand how richard doesn't get these things especially if you're running sac payoffs in the deck already. Also Open the Way can be cast for 4gg
[[Pheobene, Boss's Confidante]] is a criminally underrated commander. Had it built as landfall tokens and it was insane
Richard just has brain rot from playing in a pod with such an absurd amount of boardwipes.
Is Richard actually trolling on Make an Example? It basically reads, "4 mana, for each opponent, kill their best creature plus a little extra, regardless of hexproof and indestructible." The only thing that could make it better would be if it also gave you a sac outlet for your creatures, since you have an option to make an empty pile.
Brood-lord makes kriik cedh lists and people seem to really love it. I think it’s rated well it’s just not expensive(which is nice) bc you need it to fit in your deck the right way. It’s not a jam.also I love the twilight cycle.
Broodlord plus Saw in Half is crazy 😎
@@Amascutsaw in half > peer into the abyss & sacrifice > win
I’m on the other side of the camp of just jam it in anything without Ad Nauseam. The 4 card package is compact enough to just slam in anything, all you need is a combo that you can just put out immediately post Peer.
@@Amascut true.
My underrated picks are :
- bitter reunion (80% of the time a better thrill of possibilities)
- scale the heights (kinda on a cultivate/kodama's reach power level if you have a 37ish land count and counter and/or life gain synergies)
these are 2 solid cards 👍
Crim is absolutely right about Make an Example... The card is an absolute slapper. Because you get to choose which pile you are always going to choose the best decision. If you think Merciless executioner is an alright card because he takes a creature from every opponent for 3 mana this card is WAY more bonkers in that you will be often getting more than one creature and also will always be getting to make the best decision for yourself. And I havent even mentioned the fact that it doesnt hurt you.
Green Sun's Twilight isn't just a worse Genesis Wave. It can get a creature of any mana value, not just X or less. That's a big deal. It means it's much more like a worse version of See the Unwritten!
Good point!
Yeah I don't think Genesis Wave, Green Sun's Zenith, or Finale of Devastation are proper comparisons over stuff like See The Unwritten or Summoning Trap. I think the main thing that Green Sun's Twilight offers is the "divination" mode, being castable for less mana.
@@babatazyah AKA the "Gift of the Gargantuans" mode, yes. I'm not a big fan of how few cards it looks at in that mode; feels like you have to be really desperate to fire it off for X
I got a list of cards that are underrated (2% or less on EDHREC), from most underrated to least:
AUTOINCLUDE TIER -
Tenuous Truce - Basically Ghostly prison + secret rendezvous. Let the aggro player 1v2 the others while you draw some cards. Also lets you keep 2-land hands.
Protection Racket - Cognitive bias prevents people from understanding that exile-milling doesn't really matter unless you go to mill out or depend on tutors. This card draws me on average 6-7 cards a game and deals like 10 damage.
Sculpting Steel & Copy Artifact & Thieving Skydiver & Dack Fayden - 3-mana sol ring is still an amazing card.
Ghostly Pilferer - draws you like 2 cards if it comes out early enough. CEDH but not EDHREC for some reason
Ingenious Mastery & Skullwinder - I got these from Richard so enough said.
unexpectedly absent & soul partition & alchemist's retrieval & submerge - CEDH but not EDHREC. People don't value premium temporary removal all that much.
Tithe - CEDH but not EDHREC it's like land tax but less cool I guess? This, weathered wayfarer, land tax, ten truce lets you build low-land countdecks.
ALMOST AUTOINCLUDE TIER -
Keen duelist - like tenuous truce but painful and more fragile. Allows you to keep 2-land hand.
Primeval Herald & Atalan Jackal - can ramp you 2-3x potentially for cheap. usually someone is not playing early blockers or is mana screwed. Only reason to not play these is green has so many good ramp options.
One with Nature - if you have a cheap or evasive commander, this is a 1-mana sword of the anime
ACTUALLY THESE ARE KINDA BAD TIER -
Jailbreak - 2 mana recursion. Generally can find garbage to give an opponent or helps in archnemesis situation.
Vicious Shadows - underrated red wincon to play before a big ol' wipe.
Mystic Reflection - so versatile
Relic of Legends - The best 3-mana mana rock maybe?
Rona, Herald of the Invasion - superlooter
Diluvian primordial - Surprised that this is below 2% but easily the best of the primordials.
Erinis, Gloom Stalker - generally ramps you if playing with fetches
Masterwork of Ingenuity - meta-dependent but equipments are good
See the Truth - just needs a small shell to be a 2-mana draw 3. Otherwise it's a preordain in a pinch.
Gluntch, the Bestower - it blocks for days and gives you some good stuff
Walk the Aeons - imo the premium extra turn spell in landfall decks. Also it's like $2
Lethal Scheme - kills and loots
Goggles of Night - a little worse than mask of memory
TOO NEW TO SEE I GUESS BUT NOT ENOUGH TALKERS:
Zoyowa's Justice
Kellan, daring traveler
The Indomitable - better reconnaissance mission
The Belligerent
Brass' Tunnel Grinde
Green suns twilight is X+1 so if the rest of your deck is all creatures and lands you could cycle it for G or even get a draw 2 for 2 if your lucky.
No worries, I feel quite fine about my highlighted comment. My card has hit 20% in many cedh decks haha.
Symmetry Matrix does great in my Krenko deck. Not many good budget draws in red.
If you're untapping with Krenko after putting 4 mana into a card that does nothing, I'd really hope you have better things to do than spend 1 mana to draw 1 card over and over. You should be winning if you untap with Krenko, not filling your hand.
Broodloord is good cause it's a one card combo. With the etb you serach for saw in half, csat it on itself. With the 2 new broodlords you get sacrifice and peer into the abyss.
It's always wild to me that they'll see a card like Mishra's Research Desk, and be like "I'm going to combine every possible cost on this card into a single mana cost" as though there aren't times you'd play it as the last card on your turn, wait a round, then activate it on your upkeep or next end step, or play it on turn two, activating it the next turn to draw a land.
Like, it's only bad because it hits two and you only get one, but Prosper would appreciate that card because it's both an impulse effect and an artifact. And even in a pure artifact deck, you can always fish cards out of exile with Karn.
Never heard of “make an example” but that’s a nice partial one sided board wipe.
As a person who built a Bess deck with literally only 1/1s, I can say from personal experience that symmetry matrix isn’t worth it. There’s no amount of mana paid into this artifact that makes the card draw worth it, the rate is always bad. I would much rather prefer a Tocasia’s welcome or a welcoming vampire.
Thank you for being a voice of reason, this was my exact thought when looking at 7 mana draw 3.
For green suns twilight, seems like the group was missing the fact that its x+1. You cast it for 5, you look at the top 5 and grab a 5 drop and a land.
You cast gen wave for 5, you'll look at your top 2 and whiff.
Def underrated with any green deck that has a high concentration of utility creatures.
Not to mention, with top deck manipulation it becomes much better.
You can grab a 10 drop even. This card can grab any mana value even if X is 5. Card isnt too bad.
sword of once and future , in a thousand year storm deck , storm / relay , attack choose your 1 or 2 mana card and Multiply.
I use once and future in my Mizzix Voltron deck! Yes, OG Mizzix voltron and yes I’ve won with commander damage.
Also no storm or copy spells in the deck. 😂
Hoarding Broodlord I think is rated and underpriced. If you can't use his etb multiple times it's better to just run a diabolic tutor. If you can use his etb multipe times there's still a chance that other cards do a better job like Sidisi, Undead Vizier or Burning-Rune Demon or some massive etb card draw like Regal Force or Keruga. That being said it does have the saw in half combo to draw half your deck for 10 mana and for 12 there's a blink line that tutors your entire deck (broodlord, felidar guardian, eerie interlude, glorious protector, cloudshift).
The fact that it's a 7/6 Dragon ain't bad though. Also that it instantly synergizes with any deck that is casting from exile.
I'm not trying to make fun of Richard's vendetta against spot removal but like all the problems with spot removal don't apply to make an example. Spot removal is bad in Commander because it's a one-for-one but MaE when used correctly is a three-for-one with extra potential that you lose nothing for. One-sided board wipes are in a completely different overcosted category. This lets you actually do things. If your board wipe has to remove more than three things it's an escape button which this won't replace but it isn't trying to be it's just syphon mind for removal.
29:05 a lot of equipment decks do try to have a lot of creatures. Akhri wants at minimum two other creatures a turn. Most go wide decks already play pretty small creatures so an 2/2 with a curiosity effect is fine. It's also only two mana to equip so it's pretty easy to get going after a bosrd wipe. Equipment decks really suffer from essentially having two pieces: equipments and creatures to equip to and that solves this problem. A sword is five mana for your first activation plus a creature; this is 2 plus a(nother) creature and after they gets removed both are two mana a piece. Obviously swords are more powerful but they're also more expensive in every sense of the word.
49:49 comparing this to hour of promise is a massive mistake. The ability to get non-basics is an upside to having an explosive vegetation that scales with the game. Still, I think this only goes in really big mana decks. Many decks already don't need four mana for two lands so tapping 5 or 6 mana for 3 or 4 is a lot to ask, especially because if it's really situational, just run Skyshroud's claim and get untapped Forests of any kind.
Yeah, I agree. I never even knew of the card but glad to know about it now haha. I'm definitely putting it in a few of my black decks
I think volcanic offering is underrated you should be running more incidental land removal and volcanic offering lets you take down two creatures and two lands at instant speed.
Card is literally juiceddddd
Only 20 minutes in and Richard is already making me crazy lol. His thoughts are so linear. Make an Example is a sweet card and his defense of why it is bad is "well it doesn't work against Teferi's Pro" - that's one card my dude and that shuts down almost anything. Even then you are getting effects that are essentially multiple single target removal against your other opponents because you can choose the pile with the creature you were going to target and it gets around protection. Please make an example out of him, Tomer!
Teferi's Protection makes almost any card useless. Using that as an example makes no sense.
@@michaelgwartney2672 Agreed. Following his logic Cyclonic Rift would be considered unplayable garbage.
Make an Example *is* terrible though. Letting your opponents make the piles is awful, a 4 drop is standard for boardwipes so not even getting all your opponents best creatures for 4 mana at Sorcery speed is a terrible rate. Like he said, the only good part is that it is sacrifice and not destroy. The rest of his logic was dumb though.
Honestly, if it exiled, it'd at least be playable. Toxic Deluge is better, Damnation is better, Supreme Verdict is better, Wrath of God is better, Damn is better, Cyclonic Rift is better, Meathook Massacre is better. Like, unless you are running boardwipe only why would you include it with so many better options?
@@casteanpreswyn7528 Your assessment isn't correct though; You choose which pile they sacrifice. Each opponent loses at least 50% of their creature assets, because you'll always choose the pile that's the worst option for them.
Make an example also gets round indestructible, is only 4 mana and is one-sided. 4 Mana wipes aren't usually one-sided.
heck, if it just said "For each opponent, choose a creature, that player sacrifices that creature." it'd be playable.
Opponents have no choice here. Sure they make they piles, but you will still choose which pile they sacrifice.
@@NessiahAriesHe HAS said that Cyc Rift is bad before...
One that comes to mind is [[Master Warcraft]] in Boros. Being able to control both attackers and blockers on ANY turn for any player is just game-breaking. Great offensive card but can also save lives in a pinch (just declare no attackers, or full send and tap down an opponent's board).
It's one of those cards that's so good it's almost boring to play, because it pretty much always kills a player (sometimes more).
[[Out of Time]] is another great one..pseudo-boardwipe (and commander prison) for 3cmc. Depending on your playgroup, sweeping up 3-4 threats for 3-4 turns can be enough to end the game, and situationally is much stronger than outright killing everything. It's the perfect balance of strong and fun, IMO...people tend to really get into the ticking timebomb aspect of it.
Master Warcraft stinks after you try it once. You can declare attackers, but you do not declare who they attack. You're opponents still can full send against you. I prefer a fog instead. Does the same thing now.
@@twilightwolf90 You're 100% right! Misplayed the card and didn't catch that detail.
The only point I feel is worth pointing out for Sword of Once and Future: Surveil 2 is very real if your deck cares about the graveyard (it's an EDH deck, so it does care) - it's so much better than Scry 2. I don't think SoFI is all *that* much better when taking that into consideration: the shock and flashback triggers are both just... fine, and Surveil 2 is actually pretty equivalent to Draw 1. While the flashback takes up much more space, it's the weaker trigger imo.
That said I think the Swords fall off extremely hard after "untap all your lands" anyways.
I'm a Runescarred Demon/Hoarding Broodlord believer. They get reanimated or cheated into play in another manner. Hard casting is the backup mode forwhen you didn't cheese everyone by dodging a board wipe for lmao
Make an Example is INSANE!!! It gets past Hexproof and Shroud. It gets past Indestructible. At its worst, you are killing the best creature each enemy has on board with nothing stopping you. At its worst, youre getting half of a one-sided-board-wipe for only 4 mana. This is so damn good. Richard not getting how this is good confuses me so much.
Yes you can only kill half of their stuff if they choose right, but lets say the enemy is playing combo: they either split their combo up into piles and you kill half and disrupt it, OR they pile poorly and you kill their whole combo lol And against agro its pure gas
Sword of once and future is absolutely underrated. I think the primary reason y'all don't rate it very highly is because you're intentionally lower power level, but when half of your combo pieces/answers are 1-2 mana instants and sorceries, it shines far more than in decks with a curve of 4 and up.
I love when Richard's contribution to a discussion about an under rated card is "well this 50 cent card isn't as good as this 20 dollar card," yeah no shit dude, you are missing the point.
You guy's experience with Tempt of Discovery is way different than mine. Everyone always takes the tempt and gets Strip Mines or Wastelands and blows up the person that casted Tempt's lands.
This is a popular reply, but the problem with this is now you've given the Tempt player their best lands in their GY to recur later. Instead of simply saying no and not letting them Entomb 3 times for free.
@@MTGGoldfishCommander that's true. Most of the ppl in my play group don't have a lot of graveyard decks. And the couple that do just have creature ones. So it hasn't been an issue. But yeah, I agree, just don't accept the tempt.
I feel like you're wasting your resources just to be cute. Why wouldn't it be easier to leave the cards in their deck?
50:19 and 6 mana ramp, its each player so in theory you could get 4 of your next lands onto the battlefield tapped. I think it is super underrated I finally was building a green deck and slammed it, sadly haven't drawn it yet so I don't know how it plays yet. Also Open the Way gets around opposition Agent.
Symmetry matrix is cracked in a watcher in the water deck. Makes as many 1/1s and draws as many cards as you have mana
Nice 🤯👍
I play Sword of Once & Future in my Historic Wizards deck because the limit of pulling back low value mana spells & even pumping up Dreadhorde Arcanist is a great effect since I'm using low cost spells anyway, but in Commander, it's probably only for the Protection.
When Richard starts listing off the 10% of deck cards while vile duplication is 3% 🙈🙈🙈
Make an example is great. Being a sorcery isn't ideal, but it's too powerful to be an instant.
Irenicus Vile Duplication goes in every single deck i make that includes even a modicum of blue in it
As far as sword of once and future I can think of 4 great green 2 mv sorceries everyone plays
and at least 2 1-2 mana black sorcery/instants
Yeah but the point is that running this sword just for a handful of targets isn't worth it. You gotta have 20-ish or more 2mv instants or sorceries for it to reliably hit something. Can you find 25 2mv instants/sorcerers worth playing in your deck?
My izzet spellslinger deck loves this sword
@darianm9741 Yeah, but you're not gonna just jam this is any deck. You're gonna put in a deck which is already Conniving and Surveilling stuff to the graveyard, so by the time you get the sword in for damage you already have targets in the graveyard. Not to mention you could just be getting second casts off your early ramp, draw, or removal spells.
Hoarding broodlord is the truth. If you get saw in half you can generate insane value with.
I think Once and Future becomes more appealing if you've stacked your deck with things like tutors (Demonic/Vampiric,Mystical,) and the suspend cards without mana costs (Ancestral Vision, Crashing Footfalls, Inevitable Betrayal.) I can see myself using it in my deck if I had more creatures in it.
Irenicus's Vile Duplication reads "you win" in my Brudiclad HB deck. The turn the copy comes into play, it's already doing numbers and could very well take the win, but if the copy sits out one more turn, you get exponential growth and have like 38 4/4 flyers. It completely demolishes board stalls and closes games, and that deck runs a lot of Yung Peezy effects like Third Path Iconoclast, so it being a spell that creates a token is huge. I know that that's kinda the optimal scenario to run this card, but I have never lost a game where I got to cast this card with Brudiclad out.
I think Invasion of Kaldheim is a criminally underrated card, it's in 1% of decks on edhrec and is less than dollar. Red's card draw can be a little dicey, but it can function similarly to a red harmonize. It's not unreasonable to cast it, play a land you exiled with it, and then play a land and spell from exile with it the next turn. Plus you get upside if you flip it, since you can basically cycle dead lands in the late game while hitting opponents for two, picking off utility creatures, or even mucking combat. I think people get too caught up on the backside and don't think of it as generic red draw.
When do you consider Symmetry Matrix profitable? It's 4 mana to start and 1 for each draw. Draw 3 is 7 mana. Draw 5 is 9 mana. I don't think it ever gets to a point where it's an attractive option. You also have to play off-curve -- any token generating spells or creatures need to be paid with 1 or more mana in reserve, limiting your ability to deploy the cards that you're drawing. I think a lot of people tried it out when it first dropped, realized how underwhelming it is when it works, and how often it fails, and cut it.
Yes this is me, I tried it in a bunch of decks didn't work out so i've now removed it from my decks.
Open the way can look for 4 cards in a game. X can be the amount of Players, not opponents.
It's not just 3, 4 ,5 mana ramp, but can also be a 6 mana +4.
In a landfall deck or lategame if you want to filter your deck paying 4GG for 4 lands is amazing.
Underrated and pet cards:
Stormtide leviathan- A great budget finisher. Comes down after everyone has used up their resources and locks out most creature decks. If your group plays lots of board wipes, then getting rid of it generally won't open you up to being attached because everything else will also be dead. Hits for 8 a turn unblockably. Also fixes your mana just for fun.
Morbid curiosity - does your deck get out creatures for less than their retail price? Do you play big creatures with a good etb but not much else? Draw a whole lot of cards for pretty cheap.
Dig through time, treasure cruise - remember these? They are both under a dollar and still just as good as they were in standard.
Congregate: does your deck have sanguine bond in it? This card will just kill someone. It gains an average of over 30 life. Works with tainted pact too.
Richard; *** hates sword of blue black
also richard: Surveil is extremely powerful!
Surveil is good cuz its usually far cheaper mana cost wise and works well in little bursts when you need it
My thoughts on Make an Example: it's actually a really good card and underrated IMO. It's a great blend between a board wipe and spot removal, allowing you to nueter your opponents' creatures without harming yours. Yes, they still get to keep something but the point is you lose absolutely nothing while each opponent loses value. And 4cmc is the gold standard of a boardwipe-ish effect. If MaE was 3cmc, the card would be a staple
Even at 3 it'd be hard to include in most decks, however if it exiled it'd be playable at least.
@@casteanpreswyn7528
Sacrifice-exile a minimum of 3 creatures for 3cmc would be absolutely absurd lol
@@ammonaustin9081 my bad, I didn't mean both 3 and exile. I meant one or the other.
At 4, if it exiled, you no longer have a chance of helping/not impacting a player or 3 and it makes it nearly impossible for them to get back their resources.
At 3, it is better, but I still don't think it gains a spot in most decks, especially while Toxic Deluge exists.
I will say though, it is an auto include in Tergrid.
@@casteanpreswyn7528
I wouldn't really compare MaE to true boardwipes because the main attraction of MaE is that it doesn't affect your own board state. In order to get the full effect of a 1 sided boardwipe, you're paying like 9 mana IE Kindred Dominance.
So I view MaE more like a Kindred Dominance that exchanges having selective destruction for lower cmc
@@ammonaustin9081 it's entirely fair to compare it and real boardwipes, especially when you yourself did.
That's the whole reason it is in this video, cause people think it is just as good just because you keep all your stuff when your opponents only keep half their stuff. To make it even worse, common strategies straight up make this bad. In a token deck, are you making them sacrifice the 40 1/1s they have or the 6 token generating creatures that'll give them those 40 tokens back next turn? Either way, you might just be dead anyway. You don't have to worry about that with an actual boardwipe.
With stop removal, the cost is low enough to not care if you only get one thing, especially when it comes to off color removal. What if your choice is a stack of 3 eldrazi titans and 2 eldrazi titans and a Blightsteel? Again, probably dead either way. Always evaluate a card at its floor before checking what the ceiling will be.
The floor of this card is you spend 4 mana and don't set anyone back more than a single turn, you can't kill, and then are killed in response. There is no upside in the floor of this card, in fact, it's all downside(and in this situation I'm assuming an opponent put all creatures in one pile to be nice to you and you chose to have them sac them all). The ceiling is very high, especially in Tergrid, but with a worthless floor it has no spot in a deck.
Also, let's not pretend like Dictate of Erebos and similar effects straight up make this card pointless and those effects are very common in many archetypes.
This appears to be the start of the CClash crew's Open the Way saga! We went from Crim debating if this card is even good enough at 5 CMC ramp 3, now it's one of Crim's most hated cards AND it's on the chopping block for house bans!
Open the Way is so good in my Omnath Locus of Creation deck. The X cost making it able to scale during longer, more drawn out games makes it sing.
My ramp package in that deck is:
- Crop Rotation
- Entish Restoration
- Awaken the Woods
- Farseek
- Nature's Lore
- Open the Way
- Pir's Whim
- Reshape the Earth
- Scapeshift
- Three Visits
- Titania's Command
- Invasion of Ikoria (for Dryad Arbor)
Plus a bunch of "you may play an additional land this turn" cards, "you may play lands from your graveyard" cards, landfallers that generate mana, and 9 fetch lands (6 dual color fetches, fabled Passage, Prismatic Vista, and Krosan Verge).
I only run four basics so the Entish Restoration and 2 basic fetches may feel excessive but the odds that I see all of those in one game is slim and if I do i can usually stick a Rootpath Purifier backed up with a counterspell or some other protection and opps all its all basics lol.
Easily my favorite deck. I love lands.
For Kane decks, turn 2 you ramp a land with a 2 mana ramp spell like Three Visits or Arcane Signet. Turn 3 you play Kane. Turn 4, you tap kane, play Open the Way X=4, and put 8 lands into play (basic + nonbasics). It's incredible. And this doesn't even factor in things like Instill Energy or Twiddle or whatever else you run to untap Kane.
Broodlord>saw in half>entomb Scholar of the lost Trove>reanimate Scholar>re-cast saw in half on Scholar>re-cast entomb (any target)>re-cast reanimate on scholar>to cast second entomb target.
Lets you reanimate any creature or artifact, OR, cast any instant or sorcery...
Lols
Collector's Vault and Currency Converter I think are underrated. Lots of incidental synergy. Colorless card filtering and ramp. Seems like everything I want to be doing early game and still useful late game.
I like research desk for eggs. I run this in a couple different decks that care about playing little eggs and drawing cards. Kurkesh likes it, Kykar likes it, Osgir likes it, and Jhoira likes it. Really any deck where you want to storm off with little low mana artifacts can use it pretty effectively. Plus, it's another thing that's nifty to loop around with welders and such. Farid probably loves this card.
I run sword of once and future in my Legolas Master archer mono green deck, since i am running 22 instant/sorceys with manavalue of 2 or less. The whole deck is filled up with fight/bite spells and the sword lets me use them again
On Irenicus's Vile Duplication: Building a deck AROUND your commander is not an ideal circumstance. But building a deck around a theme, where your commander shines, is ideal. Or else your deck just flops when you commander is solved, just folds your opponents too easily for it to be fun.
24:50 I do run Sarinth Steelseeker in Lonis. It's pretty absurd, especially if you have Kodama of the East Tree as well. That being said, it's in 68% of Lonis decks and close to 50% in Samwise. It might be more of a very archtype specific then an underrated card.
My favorite card that I never see anybody else play is Wildfire Devils. Its good early to mid game at snagging ramp and card draw spells. Late game it often requires some politicing to make work.
I think of it highly in prowess and spellslinger decks to recast your own card draw or big finishers. In Fireson and Sunspeaker it is really good for example.
I play Hoarding Broodlord in my Prosper deck and the convoke + Tutor is broken. Not to mention a flying 7 power. This card is balanced and powerful
Hope you guys see this comment… but damn, Sword of Once and Future is EXTREMELY GOOD. But in the right deck.
Mirko, Obsessive Theorist has flying, and gets a +1/+1 when you hit with Sword of Once & Future. You get to bin big creatures with Surveil or cards like Reanimate, Persist, Exhume, Chart a Course - the list goes on.
In a graveyard/Reanimator deck the card is insane. Especially since Mirko grows and reanimates bigger creatures each turn. Granted, I also play Blackblade Reforged. But always happy to see SOOF in my Mirko deck!
I think make an example can be really good, it will get around hexproof, industructible, its 4 mana for a 3 player edict that might hit more than 1 creature.
My underrated card is Glimmer Bairn. Discounted color-shifted Nantuko Husk that procs off of sac'ing TOKENS in the token doubling color. The card works really well, and it is showing up in only 1,700 or so decks on EDHREC. It's in only 2% of Lonis and Chatterfang decks, when it's one of the most reliable one drops you can get in those decks. I have no idea why it doesn't see more play.
50:58 Another part of the argument is the opposite of what Richard had said, Commander as a format was created for variance, so a card that let's you grab a bunch of lands without tutoring is a pretty big deal, same goes for Green Sun's Twilight.
Personally built a Tovolar Werewolf deck with no tutor effects, I run all ramp cards that play an addional land from hand since Tovolar draws so many cards.
Glimmer Lens was in the precon commanded by either Neyali or Otharri. It does work in there, but I believe the reason they are both hovering around a 65% usage has more to do with the fact that people did not cut it from the deck when upgrading the precon.
Having more twincasters than there are known stars is one of my favorite ways to win. Every way to copy legendary creatures helps.
Richard, I need to know your take on Healing Technique. It's a skullwinder without the deathtouch body, but you get 2 cards and some life.
A fairly underrated card, I’ve found, is Odric, Master Tactician. He’s definitely a card that needs support, but the ability to control which creatures block when you attack and how they block is very powerful, especially in formats that don’t run as many boardwipes.
Mishra's Research Deck is really good in VERY narrow scenario: red artifac resurrection
It is an artifact that can put itself in grave, and can get itself to the battlefield! It's perfect when you have your Blightsteel Colossus in grave and Welder on the battlefield, but you have nothing to swap
Richard says make an example gets got by teferi protection but in that case you're still trading 3 for 1 minimum and getting their protection
I would really love to see ‘make an example’ pop up again in clash. I think the floor and ceiling for this card is surprisingly high and Richard might change his mind?
Unless your opponent has some wild recursion, the best the deal can ever get for them is they retain ~50% of their board state’s value, but any suboptimal pile just lowers that percentage. In a lot of the games I play, the creature values tends to be really skewed as well. A big bomb or commander makes up most of the board value. Taking ~half of it in one pile then sniping the commander could remove up to 90% of their creature value, and you get to make this calculation for potentially any of your opponents!
The card leaves a lot of agency in your gameplay which is fun. 4 mana for a pseudo one sided wipe that doesn’t make you arch enemy is gas.
Lastly, 7 mana for a full board wipe is super expensive, and the true one sided wipes always just get followed up in my experience with another bird wipe killing your stuff. People are extremely motivated by returning punishment, even if it means losing their turn just to kill all your creatures.
Unfortunately it's not available on MTGO. Lots of New Capenna Commander cards aren't, which is probably why I'm not familiar with those cards.
@@MTGGoldfishCommander I'm devastated, but also, oh well it's just one card lol. Thanks for all the content y'all create though!
Walmart puts up Christmas stuff in September. 😓
I don’t shop at Walmart any more, but that’s when the stuff was put up when I did shop there.
Sword of Once and Future is great in Feather the Redeemed. Having it in the deck gives fat protection colors (green would be better to have protection from but still) i NEED to target her with red/white so those colors are fine. Moreover, if i know she’ll be a target i can actually choose to not cast her and just leave stuff in the grave knowing I have tutorable cards like this sword to attach to any creature or cast her later and this combat damage trigger gets incredibly good mid to late game. Note: my feather deck is a spellsplinger/equipment go wide deck so it’s not really the worst thing to go without feather as again she gets targeted a lot. She just makes the deck churn way faster. It’s designed to outgrind rather than voltron kill a player then die to the other two.
I like Sword of Once and Future in Young Pyromancer style decks. Like Aragorn the Uniter, which I also run with every other young Pyromancer I can get my hands on. Otherwise, it feels very hard to both reliably have a creature to equip this to, and a cheap spell in your GY
Hoarding Broodlord is used alot in cEDH, it normally grabs saw in half if its not already in hand and then gets two combo pieces. It is probably a low percentage because its a tutor and can create bad feels for casual pods. Saw in half is the same percentage.
Sarinth Steeseeker in Brenard seems like its a great card and Crim saying no to this is kind of funny, he was pretty pumped to build Brenard IIRC
Underrated:
-champion of stray souls is hardly played even in go wide/token/aristrocrats decks in B and B/x. It is pricey but a single activation easily is worth the mana investment. Several commanders like izoni and sek'kuar can easily make a bunch of tokens which you can then easily sacrifice to bring back all the creatures in your yard directly to play.
-death denied is blue sun's zenith at common. Late game, you just put your whole graveyard into your hand, as black should have no problem filling the yard. It does depend on your yard which is worse than BSZ, but costs 1 colored mana less, gives you selection, and ensures you get gas instead of lands in the late game.
My vote for an underrated card for commander is Majestic Genesis (Imposing Grandeur is another favorite of mine if you want to talk about it). It’s run in about 1% of valid decks with the most popular commander being Ghalta at 38%.
With the right commander, this card becomes “eight mana: put any permanents from the top 7, 8, 9 cards into play”. That’s insane. For a similar scenario with Genesis Wave, for eight mana, you look at the top five cards and can only put permanents 5 CMC or less into play. I think Majestic Genesis should go in pretty much every single deck with commanders 7+ CMC because you are probably ramping to that number anyway and it gives you incredible value.
I also like this over Last March of the Ents for a few reasons. Yes, March is un-counter-able, but people can respond by killing the biggest thing on board, drastically reducing its effect. Casting March onto an empty board becomes “eight mana put one or two creatures from your hand into play”. Majestic Genesis on the other hand is always going to get you a lot of value (once again, as long as the commander is big enough). You don’t need cards in hand or creatures on board. You just need eight mana and you can plop a bunch of creatures, lands, artifacts, etc. into play.
This card at least deserves 3% in my opinion (matching Genesis Wave) as a lot of commanders that could be running it simply aren’t. Maelstrom Wanderer comes down, you play Majestic next turn and destroy everyone. You play Majestic the turn before Ur-Dragon and get a pack of dragons and lands on the field. You play this off the Etali Primal Conquer ETB (magical Christmas land of course) and you feel great about life.
Anyways, rant over. I just love this card 😊
With the camera framing during the intro I thought crim had a shirt that just said Eno and was blown away by the drip til I realized it’s a venom shirt. When we getting our misspelt emo merch?
I think Glimmer Lens is very underrated, at its worst it’s a spirited companion but can have a lot of extra synergies. In equipment decks there are many cards that care whenever an equipped creature attacks like Nahiri and Akiri and Glimmer Lens comes with a free body that you can just throw away to trigger those cards while also drawing a card from itself. The fact that it’s very cheap and replaces itself is nice for voltron commanders that care about the amount equipment you have rather than care about equipment that need to boost the power of a commanders that are keyword soups (like roghrakh for example). In go wide decks this has potential to draw multiple cards while triggering cards like Welcoming Vampire, Mentor of the Meek etc.
Cracks me up when Richard says a card is weak against single target removal when he doesn't play any and says they are trash lol
Doesn't matter what he thinks if he still lives in a world where people play spot removal.
I think the most underrated recent card is Barrow Blade from LTR. Cards gas and makes any voltron commander even better for super cheap
I agree that people really need to think through that card and how it works when reading it, but I don't know that it's severely underrated like you say, just a tad underrated.
All this tells me again is we need more blood moons, price of progress, back to basics, magus of the moon, and from the ashes(to be nice, they may actually have basics).
Sword of Once and Future is perfect in the new Ojer Axalon
Magda and Hoarding Broodlord is so good in my Mardu deck
I want to see a Lone Voice of Reason episode of Clash - each person has to build their deck around as many cards as possible that they were the only supporter of on an episode of the podcast. Prove that your pet fog or spot removal or actually-good-card-at-home is worth playing.
Mishras research Desk is quite good in things like Prosper. Artefact count for things like Mopal, Sac triggers for mayhem devil. I have it in my Cedh Prosper Deck and it does some good work. There are so many times you have 1 colourless around. Wrens resolve is obviously better but Id still recommend to try this in Prosper. You have enough mana and the unearth comes up a lot of the time surprisingly. Also Hoarding broodlord is very good with things like saw in half and clone effects.
I'm not sure about criminally underrated, but March of Swirling Mist is a fantastic card. It can cost 1 mana and some blue cards in a pinch. It protects your creatures, equipment, and Auras from removal. It stops attackers in their tracks. It opens attack options when you are ready to get in. Depending on turn order, it can do all three at the same time! I have won so many games on the back of this card. I usually have a lot of cards or mana, but even X=2 tends to be enough. EDHREC says its in 4% of decks. That seems low to me. Slip out the back is cool too, though more restricted.
I like open the way in greedy mana bases. Getting "4" random lands is going to help quite a bit.
Shriveling Rot is underrated. Board wipe comes and you survive your own toughness that can equal a win. And in aristocrats decks you can turn a Blood Artist into a multi creature sniper. Entwine it and you get the best of both worlds, it’s just so versatile. Only downside is mana cost.
I play once and future in my orzhov and boros control decks mainly just for protection from dimir. I feel like 75% of games I play are against dimir. There are so many good one and two drops in R/B/W (cut down/go for the throat/ destroy evil ect.) And white is so easy to cheat equipment then u get to cast all that removal again for free. I even like it in golgari sometimes.
I tested Symmetry Matrix in Greensleeves and it's been one of the best cards in there. Landfall strategies (without blue) sometimes have card advantage issues and playing a land then using it to pay for the draw after a token is made feels so good