The worst feeling is cutting a fun card because it is too niche or simply much worse than the rest of the deck :/

I understand shifting away from Counterspell, but we're in the Voja era now, where countering a creature can come to the rescue of the table in a way that a lot of other removal struggles with.

In general I think "good stuff" tends to clutter decks more than any other archetype of card. Very easy to just thumb right over that kind of card when you're updating a deck without considering that it might be the weakest card with all synergies considered.

There’s also the cost and hassle of changing out some cards that are outdated when they do 95% of what the latest and greatest hasbro crept version of it existing. It’s worth replacing if it provides new gameplay options but for building your engine and for keeping your pod balance stable, if it ain’t broke fixing it is optional.

20:23 Benjamin Wheeler has a story of flipping omniscience and then emrakul to a dark confidant. And dying. It's gold.

People that started know that the Invasion tapped duals were incredible for deck building. Guild gates became staple cards for deck-building. When the gain-lands came out in Tarkir, we BOUGHT UP all of them from chaff boxes because they were just a superior option. Nowadays gain-lands are relegated to budget decks. Back at the start, these were actually incredible as commons.

I agree with you guys that regenerate isn't as common now a days, but it is funny you mentioned it because just last night I cast a fumigate to while the board and one of my opponents regenerated all his creatures and I passed the turn, he untapped and won because it became a one sided board while where only his stuff lived

Notice how for damnatiion they mentioned only white wraths apart from toxic deluge 😂

Smugglers share has performed super well for me for drawing cards, I run it in my gay kings commander deck (Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis) I can constantly make my opponents draw two cards per turn drawing at least 4 cards per round with it

I don't see Smuggler's share as a way to ramp in white; it is more of a card draw engine. With that card, I have drawn more cards in a game for its 3 CMC cost.

Regarding the “counterspell vs dispel” argument…I find it funny sometimes how Commander players as a community can never seem to agree on which is better…flexibility vs efficiency. One moment a modal spell is way better because it can handle multiple situations…the next moment it’s casting cost is “too restrictive” compared to a more narrow card that has a lower mana value. Maybe it’s an issue of established playgroup/meta vs LGS random players, but I see a massive variety of win cons. Sometime I need to deal with a Nyxbloom Ancient, sometimes it’s a Bolas’ Citadel, sometimes it’s an Aetherflux Resevoir, sometimes it’s a Tainted Strike, and sometimes the problem is a player’s commander itself. A counterspell being able to prevent so many problems hitting the field or prevent instant death vs having the wrong answer for the current problem just sucks. And generally it’s not some massive, unbearable burden to keep an Arcane signet and an Island open just in case. Unless I’m hoping to just pop off on my turn, I generally find it better to keep some cards in my hand so I can rebuild after a wipe or bluff that I have responses, so I generally don’t just dump my hand out every chance I get.

Building off of the Terramorphic Expanse and evolving wilds discussion, the two color choose lands (the thriving and CLB gate cycle) are better options for mana fixing in 3+ color decks if you don't care the shuffle or landfall. Also the Gate cycle can be especially good with Circuitous Route, which is another strictly better explosive vegetation.

I cant let Explosive Vegetation go just because I love my Onslaught Foil copy so much D:

I totally knew I was going to put Escape Tunnel in my Arcades deck as soon as I saw it spoiled. And I did and it rules.

40:20 absolutely. If everyone can reliably get engines going, especially when cards like Rhystic Study are out and everyone is drawing off of everything, Smuggler’s Share can become a white Phyrexian Arena+ that sometimes give ramp off of the landfall deck or late game fetches. This is niche (pronounced neesh, not nitch, unless you want me to notch your nethers, Neanderthals), but when I sleeved it up I was the sole reason one of my lgs’s regulars stopped playing Mind’s Eye in their colorless deck and that makes me feel warm and fuzzy

I run Brainstorm in my Maelstrom Wanderer deck. being able to take a card from your hand and put it on top of your library to cascade into it is pretty strong.

An observation/prognostication about Escape Tunnel: it may suffer from the (temporary) curse of Idol of Oblivion. The extra text (in the case of Escape Tunnel, the watered-down Rogue's Passage ability) might cause people--at least initially--to shy away from the card, only to rediscover it after some time passes. The card might experience a renaissance in the future when folks realize that it might be worth running just for the additional fetch/landfall trigger, as they discovered that decks that don't necessarily care about making a 10/10 token still might want Idol of Oblivion.

I feel the same about Grave Pact and Dictate. I used to run both in my Edgar deck, and I vividly remember getting one out pretty early. I ran away with that game, but I felt bad about winning because one of the other guys just could not build his board. Now, I only run one of them.

The thing about Brainstorm is it's "draw three" and not "look at three," and the cards you put back can be any cards in your hand, not just the ones you drew. If you have something like Teferi's Ageless Insight, you draw six and then put two back. If you've got card draw triggers, it triggers at least three of them. As an individual card, there are better cards for drawing 3 cards for one mana, but there's a lot of utility in Brainstorm that isn't immediately obvious on its own. That being said, it's a trap if you've got an opponent with a Smothering Tithe on the board, because you're giving that mfer 3+ treasures.

I like a generalization you can make here and it's one I've had to painfully realize as well: Many cards do not do what they say on the tin, INSTEAD what they do is cause your opponents to play differently/carefully/slower to work around your potential advantage. And you have to evaluate those cards as having that effect rather than great card draw or great ramp or whatever.

I will forever defend treasure nabber, It does one of three things really well! 1.) Ramp you. Your opponents decide its worth it to just let you borrow the mana rocks. 2.) Slow down your opponents: they refuse to use their own mana to prevent you from borrowing it. 3.) Removal check the table: Better the annoying borrower than an important creature right? Its almost always 2 until 3 happens for me. Three mana to prevent people from using their own mana rocks? Pretty good. If by some miracle they use the mana rocks, then you get a temporary boost as well, great! They kill it outright or counter it? Better that than something more impactful right?

Boardwipes that aren't wrath of god or damnation and also "destroy" (rather than -x/-x, exile or put on bottom of library) can also be cool if YOU are running regenerating creatures. I'm guessing that even was the original intend of the "they can't be regenerated" clause. Not to punish the opponent for playing regenerating creatures but to prevent the caster from abusing regenerating creatures, when they were still more prevalent. WotC really seemed to care about symmetry for global effects back then.

I totally agree with cutting brainstorm. I recently cut it in from my Heliod deck and didn’t realize what I’ve done!! Orcish bow master made it a little worse,too.

No one plays Duplicant for whatever stats it happens to get... they play it for the EXILE effect. It ending up as a vanilla creature is essentially irrelevant.

The worst feeling is buying a $10 card and realizing it doesn’t do what you want and cutting it feels rough

I recently replaced Evolving Wilds in my Aminatou deck for the same reason Dana championed but with a card that Joey brought up: Path of Ancestry. It's a tapped tri-land so is always better fixing than Evolving Wilds so worth it despite it having 0 chance to Scry.

...I used to play pickleball competitively :c

Burnished hart and solemn sim for me was a sad realization they’ve been power crept out. 5-10 years ago the big impactful spells were 5-8 mana, now they are 3-6 mana, so they don’t accelerate your gameplay anymore, and if anything actively hinder it because you are casting ramp spells instead of impactful spells. I have like 10 of each piled up and play them in maybe 2 or 3 decks total. 90% of my ramp is 2 cmc or less now, if I’m paying 3 for a ramp card it’s got to do more than just find lands, and I’m not paying any more. I’m surprised solemn didn’t get mentioned in the video tbh, it’s probably one of the most iconic cards in the format.

I left Emurakul Evangel in my Chatterfang deck for over 2 years after I realized it was the weakest card in the deck. It was winmore and only worked in magical christmas land but I really wanted to hit the big moment. The moment after it popped off for the only time, I finally took it out.

I do think Smuggler's Share is a good card, but I guess it depends on who you play with. I draw at least 1 card per round. The treasure part is a bit of flavor text as people tend to be done ramping. Trouble in Pairs (I have it, just never played it) appears to be the better one though.

I have recently started powering down decks, it feels bad when you play a game and nobody is on the same level. I have started by removing the fast mana and have never felt better about it. Additionally if there is a deck that has a win condition readily available in the command zone I wont play a single card in the deck that has the phrase "you win the game" on it. I feel it just leads to "feels bad" games or non games

I haven't cut it out yet, but I am debating taking In Search of Greatness out of my Sliver Overlord deck. It's great when it works, but it feels a bit bad when you essentially play a 2G scry 1 every turn enchantment especially in a WUBRG deck.

I relate so much to what Dana said about his Athreos deck. I built an Arjun, the Shifting Flame deck because I thought it would be fun to weaponize card draw. And yeah, it was STRONG, but I played it literally once and took it apart because its play patterns didn’t seem fun for me or my opponents.

I cut rhystic study from my jodah the unifier after a lot of time trying it. What i ultimately came to the conclusion of was that the deck had enough draw engines without rhystic study, and i never wanted to cast rhystic study over ramp or a temur ascendancy for haste and powerful card draw. I am happy for where my rhystic study ended up, but man i wish i pulled it out of jodah sooner.

I play duplicant in a very specific deck, Meria, Scholar of Antiquity. Creature exile is hard in red green, and the duplicant is searchable with many of my spells as it is a creature, so it is a good fit, but I don't have it in any other deck. When they staple creature exile to a red or green creature for less, I'll probably make the switch.

I always love hearing you discuss your own decks and how you build them.

30:58 I don't have escape tunnel in any decks because I haven't bought any MkM. I also haven't bought any because I have so many terramorphic expanse and evolving wilds that I haven't needed to buy escape tunnel

The Burnished Hart remark felt personal.

Great episode. I would really like to see the video cut into chapters!

I really love Blood on the Snow as a boardwipe. It forces me to play snow lands but the pay off it could be really good, a boardwipe that can reanimate a 6 mana value creature at best. You even can cast it with your commander on the field and reanimate it with his effect because it doesn't target. Or even you can choose to destroy all planeswalkers just to reanimate a creature.

53:23 I really like that adage too. I’ve found that my decks have toned down over time and are actually more fun now. They can still win, but it’s more fun for everyone now

I’m not sure I agree with the challenge the stats on escape tunnel.. Almost every time I play it the whole pod usually sings “SECRET TUNNEL!!” “SECRET TUNNEL!” I’m almost always playing with different people btw..

I agree about Burnished Hart. Looks like such an op card and then you realize how expensive it is to get lands out of unless you're running decks that give discounts to abilities and artifacts and have those out first. Totally possible! But a Wayfarer's Bauble is so much better because you can play it turn 1 when you probably can't play anything else anyway, then on turn 2 after your land play, you can crack it for a third land, or do that whenever else if you have something better to play on turn 2. Something else about Burnished Hart that rarely comes up but could is that if you have like 6 mana to crack it immediately, you can't, because it's a creature with summoning sickness. It's way more niche than it looks.

Hard agree with the board wipe section. A 4-mana symmetrical wrath is efficient in that you can follow it up. But what's better, a wrath and a 3-drop from your hand, or a 7-mana wrath that keeps your entire board? I'd rather keep my board in 99% of cases.

Interestingly, the extra mana to cast a Winds of Abandon instead of a Wrath of God is not relevant BUT the two blue pips of counterspell VS. An offer you can't refuse are?

Public Enemy in a Gwafa Hazid deck. Basically, goading the table against a Pacified creature 😈

I play damnation MOSTLY because I traded for it with a friend. Its the OG Planar chaos version. And ofc its such a cool card! Gonna squeeze in Nuclear fallout into my zombie deck.

I cut Sheoldred, Whispering One from a dimir wheel/reanimator deck. Locking folks out of creatures was awful, the 'reanimator' portion was very narrow. Sepulcher Primordial took the spot and is so much fun to pull out after a Breach the Multiverse.

After we got the removal spell ranking episode and now they again talked about boardwipes and how there are quite a few different versions, I would really love a boardwipe ranking or even tierlist episode. That would certainly be fun.

Brainstorm is a card that generally gets better the more powerful the table is. If you're playing against decks that are looking to ramp out a bunch of big fatties and overrun, or pull off a janky seven card combo and the card pool generally avoids being too mean, then yes, Brainstorm is going to under perform. If you're playing decks with Wheels, tutors, fetches, rhystic/mystic, free spells, and the usual cEDH shenanigans, my experience is that Brainstorm excels in that kind of format.

I'm throwin escape tunnel in my thalrog deck tonight. Just pulled a foil today. Ohhh the synergy with crucible effects!

Smuggler's Share ended up being... right about where I expected. You end up getting an extra card or two per turn cycle from the 'draw two or more cards clause'.. and essentially nothing from the 'two or more lands entering' clause (The only things that will reliably trigger this are dedicated landfall decks and fetches... and there is a tendency to crack fetches ON the endstep).

I picked up like 10 Escape Tunnels to slot into various decks (I also play pauper) but honestly, if the second ability doesn't synergize, and I don't need yet another terramorphic expanse in my deck, I'm sticking with the titans

Smuggler's share works great in Nelly Borca... but she gives people other cards so the synergy gives it more value

Always enjoy the content! Keep up the good work! Hopefully I'll get to see a Hakbal of the Surging Soul upping the average in the near future

Never have I heard of pickle ball till today, when I saw a sign after work. Then y’all bring it up and now I have to look it up.

I use brainstorm in my Maelstorm wanderer deck, not as a draw spell but to setup cascades. Works decent there.

Oh boy, I hadn’t seen Public Enemy before, but you could be mean and throw Vanishing and Gaseous Form in with it to really twist the knife.

The scry 2 draw is likely better than brainstorm in most edh scenarios

I was with y’all till counterspell. Genuinely think the benefit of running An Offer over counterspell is so fractionally insignificant that I’d just run counterspell

Migration Path only got that kick it needed because it was included in the Dinosaur deck.

Okay, first I see an audition for Pickleball footware, THEN I get a magazine for it, NOW MATT'S SAYING IT. WHAT IS GOING ON WITH PICKLEBALL?!

Duplicant still slaps in my Daretti deck.

Awesome group and discussions

The thing about eternal witness it’s great when the deck cares that it’s a creature which is most green decks lol. But it’s not necessarily an auto include in non creature decks

No mention of Noxious Revival around the Regrowth effects? That card is damn strong when you are running a GY deck or even to replay an instant or sorcery on your draw step.

About edhrec, what decks feed into the data? Is it just the once over the last year so newly made decks or all, that are put onto it since the beginning? 🤔

I really liked Dana's final comment on this, having played most of these cards, and continuing to do so in some cases. Especially Duplicant is still a regular part of my toolbox, for decks that struggle with indestructible creatures while caring about artifacts or etbs themselves

Having recently cut Burnished hart from my toggo & keskit deck, i feel this. The card had crazy synergy there but always felt like it took 2 or even 3 turns of me timewalking myself to pay me off.

Cheers Dana, you are the first person i have ever heard mention Public Enemy. Couldn't believe it never became popular, causes so much to happen. And what it causes is usually not achieved in blue.

Sometimes the reason folks ain't cutting certain cards is because they are playing the cards they have rather than the cards they do not have, really it is simple as that because new cards cost money and once you have a certain amount of bulk when you go to build a new deck purchasing say 20 cards vs 40 cards because the newer cards are better because they are an instant instead of a sorcery but do the exact same thing.. most folks grab the sorcery and call it good simply to save money because all those little savings add up over time and you easily end up with 2 or maybe even 3 new decks to play vs the 1 deck you could have built instead when you buy all of the "better/best" cards for that one deck. I often will use less than the best cards when building a new deck to try it out and if it sticks around and I like it and want to keep it then I start to slowly upgrade the specific cards in it as finances allow.

My very slow Azorius Control List still runs Burnished Hart. It already includes wayfarer's Bauble, Mindstone etc, and it just needs yet another copy of this sort of effect. Yes it is clunky / expensive, but I couldn't find better options that I am not already running. The list runs several "wipe all permanents" effects, so most mana rocks are out.

I had smugglers Share, deep gnome teramancer, and archivist of ogma, All in the same deck, after three or four games I realized I had drawn less cards than I had played so even when it seemed like they were "working" I wasn't actually gaining anything

I play a thalirog landfall deck and I definetly found myself running seer's sundial for way too long, I can't remember a time I got value of it

Curious, may we get the link for Dana's Athreos deck?

Divination is a great example of card used in limited CORE SET tournaments. Loved those, but they really felt weird...

33:41 Also I feel there is still the idea that deck thinning with fetch lands is impactful.

I really liked the card Disallow in my first deck but ended up cutting from my list of go to cards. Unfortunately the gulf between 3 mana and 2 mana is huge.

SOL RING !!!! No more busted cards in casual decks, keep it fun :)

If you're cutting counterspell then you better be playing a near CEDH level counter because the only thing better are free counters, mana drain and one mana counters, and how many of those counters hit creatures. E Wit is still really good in lower powered games because many decks don't have enough wincons and those that do usually have very fragile win conditions. E wit rarely underperforms, It gets back removal, key pieces that either got removed/countered before they could do their thing, it chump blocks, it sacrifices, it blinks etc. I may not want it in my opening hand but in my weaker decks its one of the first cards in and only worth cutting if you want to increase the decks powerlevel.

Me, putting duplicant in my new Science deck. Dr li can recur it which is nice and so its an exile spell that gets ok value for what it is, now I want a power crept version.

Swan song and an offer you can't refuse are the best counters in the format

Im never removing "discontinuity" bc the play "on your upkeep uno skip" is way too funny

Smugler's Share Is great in Queen Marchesa deck.

I took a lot of Solemn Simulacrum out of my decks when I they introduced the initiative mechanic.

I disagree with the take on e-witness. It doesn't just get your wincon back from the yard. It gets whatever you need. Maybe you recur the swords to plowshares you played earlier to remove something that would otherwise kill you. If your graveyard is big enough it's more like a tutor

Curious what y'alls opinion is on Supreme Verdict as a 4 mana boardwipe. Is the uncounterability worth it?

Smuggler's share also got reprinted. Hence it goes down in price from a year ago

Worst feeling is not knowing what to cut but you have to cut something as for some reason Side Boards don't exist in EDH

I had Sylvan and Moriok Replica's in my Glissa the traitor deck for so long after they were just too much mana for what they do.

I have a question. Why is Quick Study shown as "in 13704 decks, 2% of 705371 decks" and divination shown as "in 11444 deck, 1% of 1802207 decks". Shouldnt the number of eligible decks for Quick Study and Divination be the same?

I play escape tunnel/evolving wilds/terramorphic expanse because I hate drawing lands. Those 3 mean over the course of a game i have the opportunity of drawing 3 less lands and they get me whatever color i might need. If I was allowed to run more command towers over those 3 i would still play them because I hate drawing lands that much.

smuggler share is a power house in Nelly Borca bc it always give you 2 draw card in each of your opponnents turn

Dana giving a "isn't it weird" comment rather a dad joke in the beginning... honestly works.

Duplicant is amazing, because you can flicker it. It doesn't have to a be a combo. -.-

My mom became opposed to Halloween because “all year long we tell our kids not to talk to strangers and not to accept candy from strangers and not to go to strangers houses, and then we take them to strangers houses to all for candy.”

Hearing Joey down on burnished hart is surprising to me, and has me reevaluating even in my meren deck

Not a consistent watcher so maybe this has already been said. Challenge the stats mass blink spell in Kaust, Eyes of the Glade. They can save your board state and cheat the morph costs.

You can take the e wit out of my cold dead hands.

Someone surprised me with burnished heart.... Recurring it with landfall ...