The talk about the leviathan and merfolks makes me think of Kogla in a Human deck, I like the idea of “off-tribe” big beefy creatures, like my goblin deck has a dragon in it, why not give the merfolk a big sea monster as a pet boss.

Episodes like this are why the EDHRECast has become my favorite MtG content out there. Not only can I steal dad jokes with which to make my students groan, but I often get fun ideas for my own decks from these kinds of discussions: I’m barely 10 minutes into this episode, and I’m already looking at new includes for two of my decks. I wouldn’t have imagined what is now one of my favorite decks (Boros Control headed by Tiana) if Dana hadn’t brought up the concept in a previous episode of this nature. Love what you’re doing, guys!

I use Satoru Umezawa as the commander for demons! It works much better than ninjas because demons tend to have high mana value costs and explosive attack triggers.

I love that this episode so far just feels like one big Challenge The Stats

Monologue Tax should see more play in group hug decks, especially ones that like to double mana. Your opponents are gonna be playing more spells than normal if they're getting hugged, and you should be benefiting from that. This card doesn't belong in artifact or token decks

You can also use Nesting Grounds in decks with the new Myojins if you can get indestructible counters on anything else.

Burgeoning is really good in Enchantress for sure! I will say, the place I enjoy it most in landfall is a landfall deck including bouncelands (especially with a way of searching them up)! Being able to trigger all of your landfall effects every turn, sometimes multiple times a turn, by just playing and bouncing the same bounceland is really, really good. Gonna need to grab some new cards for my Sythis deck though, dang, those are spicy...

I would like to put forth the possibility that Joey writes the dad jokes into the show notes and Matt is in fact an imposter!

If you are considering running Mental Discipline, run Compulsion instead. It's less Mana and you can ditch the enchantment for a new card if you want to.

Im glad you guys mention Burgeoning. I first played it with Yidris wheels and it was amazing. I saw how good it was I blindly threw it into other decks thinking it was one of the best ramp spells. I realize if you aren't constantly drawing lands it just sits doing nothing. Might have to put it with my enchantress deck.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that Satoru gives an additional instance of Ninjutsu for the other ninjas in your hand. If you have a ninja in your hand with Ninjutsu U, it'd now say Ninjutsu U Ninjutsu 2UB.

And Dana's "controversial yet so brave" comment about Heliod's Hall is spot-on: I've played Hall in multiple enchantress decks since the card came out and have activated it maybe three times and never in such a way that it set me up to win the next turn.

Awesome topic. Would love to see this revisited in the future, as well.

So yeah. MEGA props to Mana Curves for the little easter egg in the podcast title graphic at the start of the cast, anyone else catch the impostor letter? EDIT: Actually, it's so subtle it's easy to miss it. She spelled impostor with a zero as the second o. (impost0r)

I understand Dana's 'Urza's Flask' labeling for Mental Discipline. Those sets came out so close together that my playground called them: Urza's Gear, Urza's Hammer, and Urza's Beaker.

This show is awesome! Thank you guys for all the info, stats and entertainment! Some of my favorite magic content to listen to at work!

My Imposter Mech once copied Proper, Tome bound, and complete steam rolled my opponents because of it (Prosper is just like that anyways). I remember my friends were telling me my Kycar Vehicles deck would have no chance to do stuff, it would be too slow. But there are some sneaky vehicles now that elevate that archetype, and are so helpful other places too.

Wolverine Riders in my Chatterfang Deck is also quite awesome. 🤙

Hey, the whole gang is here

Imposter Mech your opponent's Devoted Druid. It's not a two-card combo if one of the cards isn't even in your deck *taps forehead*.

I played settle the wreckage in various token decks, it's always great. An important detail is that creatures are still considered attacking in the end of combat, after damage. Not much better than hitting someone with 10 small tokens, and then go get 10 lands with your mono white card

Know what else works great with Shimmer Dragon? Howling Mine, Genesis Chamber, and Blinkmoth Urn. Symmetrical, sure... until you tap them with Shimmer Dragon and turn them off.^^ Turn them off for everyone else AND you get an extra card... On each of your turns... Unless of course you're running things like Clock of Omens and Unwinding Clock... In which case you can get SEVERAL extra cards per turn... And you can even tap Clock of Omens/Unwinding Clock for MORE.^^

With Matt talking about cascade early in the episode, I thought the Faldorn challenge the stats would also mention cascade. Faldorn also benefits from cascade, I play it in my First Sliver cascade combo deck.

Ah yes, the Among Us episode

This is a "level up"/"achievement unlocked" episode, thank you.

Glad to have you back Joey! It's great to have all three of you back together again :)

Uh... Madness works for Prosper too! Matt...what have you done!?

Most landfall decks, at least from what I've seen (YMMV), want a bunch of landfall triggers in quick succession, and Burgeoning doesn't do that. Thinking about Avenger of Z, Moraug, etc. (especially if you have a haste anthem), where 2-3 or more landfalls in a row make for a sudden "out of nowhere" change to your board state. Burgeoning is still great value, and it synergizes well with other "on every turn/each upkeep" cards, but it needs LOTS of card draw most of alll. Great topic! Thanks for feeding my brain🙌

I've had the exact realization about my own enchantress decks that you point out here. Y'all also kinda skirt around a similar issue of hand size versus recursion. When am I willing to discard for instance? Do I need more ramp or less cards?

This is basically a whole episode of challenge the stats

Burgeoning with bounce lands is OP(Replay the same land over and over). T1 Burgeoning into 4C Omnath makes for a crazy game. No reason for Infinite combos when the value is so good.

Thank you Matt, Faldorn is now going in to my Windgrace madness deck

I made a Volrath, the shapestealer deck that cares about putting counters on other peoples creatures to copy them. Nesting grounds is such an underrated hit in that deck and it can always be held up as a tiny threat in some situations lol

Settle the wreckage can also be used after damage is dealt. During the end of combat step.

Kwain looks like a cute friendly group hug rabbit, but my build runs extra draw effects per turn with smothering tithe. I Make a ton of mana to play anything in my deck which happens to be clones and theft cards to copy/steal the best card on the battlefield, because when you give players so many cards they psychologically play the best card in their hand which I want. Its my anything you can do, I can do better!

Settle the wreckage and winds of abandon are great when you have other white catch up ramp spells

The card isn't out yet but heres a combo I haven't seen anyone mention and I think should have more attention paid to it - Arna Kennerüd, Skycaptain doubles counters when you attack, so if you have a planeswalker attack, such as a gideon or one equiped with the luxior giada's gift you can double your loyalty counters on a planeswalker with one swing letting you get ultimates out super fast. It can even go infinate if you get a planeswalker with an extra turn mechanic like Teferi or Ichormoon Gauntlet (though if you use the gauntlet and a planeswalker with Giaga's gift you do need to pay the equipcost to unequip the sword in order to -12 your planeswalker to get the extra turn) Basicly if you have Gideon with Ichormoon/Teferi with the sword/Any planeswalker with the sword and Ichormoon once you get to 12 loyalty you swing with the planeswalker, this doubles your loyalty to at least 24, letting you activate the ability to get an extra turn, where you can swing again, double your counters and repeat. If you have Teferi master of time with the sword you just need 8 loyalty before you hit on your turn which is just one turn cycle in a four player game, (You have 7 loyalty, you attack going to 14, you -10 to get two additonal turns going to 4. Turn 1 you +1 him going to 5 and then attack to 10, turn 2 you attack and go to 20 then -10, you now have an additonal two turns and are at 10 loyalty, when you next attack you go to 20 and are now profiting on turns.)

I love and have Imposter Mech in several decks! it's a great way to get a copy of something impactful for only 2 mana. My favorite situation is when they cheat something in early and I can just copy the etb effect for so little. I once copied a Reflector Mage and that was just a good time...

the Stormtide Leviathan is soo true. it comes with the Reap the Tides precon 8aesi, tyrant of gyre strait), and it was the first card I removed from it simply because anytime i played it i could only attack with 1-2 creatures until it left the battlefield

Great episode, took exploration and burgeoning out of my Gitrog deck, because yeah enchantress would really love it.

Can confirm, trove warden is great in my Quintorius list!

I would imagine if you're running Satoru in a Ninja deck, it's for the card advantage ability, which is not tied to the 4 mana ninjutsu ability. There is nothing stopping the deck from activating the cheaper ninjutsu cost and then getting a free Anticipate each time. Ofc Satoru also makes a lot of sense in decks ruining huge Eldrazi or something as well to cheat the costs.

Have you guys looked at the Timmy/Johnny/Spike post? If you haven't, it could make for a nice bit of content for the 3 of you to read through together.

Got a challenge for those who enjoy "Krond the Dawn Clad", all 4 of us. The commander is vastly underrated, with only 86 decks, but that isn't what I want to talk about. The challenge is to include more Bestow Creatures in not just Krond decks, but other Aura decks. Only 3 show up in his 50 options for creatures, and there are like 15 options for his deck. They synergize surprising well, as they can be a creature or an enchantment, and help with the big creature problem Aura based decks have, not being able to have enough creatures to enchant, since they can be both.

Heliod's Generosity is very good in my Ghen deck, when I am always sacking small enchantments to put them on top again to sack them for another round with Ghen and gain value from the big ones in my graveyard. And in Alela is good because I have Wound Reflection, Sanguine Bond, Shark Typhoon.... and I love to see them again xD

When I had had Hall of Heliod’s Generosity in Tuvasa. I think I activated it once… other than that one situation, it was never a better option to use my mana for Hall than just casting another enchantment.

Cascading with cards like Profane Tutor is how I made it so my Codie, Vociferous Codex deck work. In fact, all of the suspend cost cards from MH2 work wonders in cascade decks.

What do you think the application of Trove Warden would be for an artifact heavy deck most of them have a CMC three or less like the Mana rocks of a good ones anyway

Love the dad jokes, too funny:)

"Stormtide Leviathan stops your other monsters from attacking." Cool, but I can still attack with Krothuss and three unblockable 8/8s though, right? :P In addition to Mental Discipline, you should check out Compulsion.

On Dana challenge the stats what do you guys also think of compulsion and using these cards in Sefris deck

I tend to use Settle The Wreckage as a rattlesnake/aikido card or as a Fog, rather than seeing it as a board wipe. It's there to utterly hose a player trying to swing out for an advantage, not to clear the board of everything.

I initially ordered a Tezzeret, Betrayer of Flesh for my izzet artifact deck but then put it into my Will/Eleven deck and omg does it do work in there. Clue decks in general are a great place for him because if you can make enough clues you will be drawing 1 card for free on each players turn. 😀

burgeoning with ghost town hit that special spot for me

Settle the wreckage seems really good for Maja, Bretegard Protector decks

Interesting for settle the wreckage in a ruin crab clone token azorius style deck- you wouldnt be attacking with ruin crabs but tokens, it could add to a mill or landfall strat.

With nesting grounds we should think about charge counters on our artifacts

Thanks for reminding me that wolverine riders exists cuz I have a jund warrior deck that could use that.

Speaking of Insurance with Hall of Heliod's Generosity. A good enchantment to run alongside Hall of Heliod's Generosity if you have enchantments you REALLY want to stick around is Sacred Ground. If they want your enchantment gone, they'll have to remove Sacred Ground, Hall of Heliod's Generosity AND your enchantment.^^ Does double duty too if you're running other spicy lands you don't want getting removed like Serra's Sanctum or Shrine to Nykthos.^^ If you want to make it extra EXTRA hard for anyone to remove anything of yours use Heliod God of the Sun to make a Cleric Enchantment Creature and slap a Coalition Flag on it. If they remove THAT one make another and move the flag onto it with Autumn-Tail. And liquimetal torque to answer their liquimetal torque... on the off chance they have something that only targets artifacts and try turning your enchantment into an artifact. Mass blink and phasing to answer board wipes. I have a deck to build.^^

this episode felt like a really long challenge the stats and i want more

Imposter Mech feels REALLY good in metas that run lots of mana dorks, paying 1U for an Arcane Signet that's named 'Birds of Paradise' is just ducky IMHO, and the card can do a lot more than that. Yeah Stormtide actually is bad in decks lacking islandwalk, but it's also fine if your deck runs lots of flyers, or can create them. I run it in my Talrand deck atm, where it's a fun card to Proteus Staff into. I used to run Archetype of Imagination in the same deck, so I could find both, but I seemed to constantly random into Archetype first, which was always bad. Ha, that's funny, Dana then mentioned he runs it in Talrand too. Well, it's a good card in there so why not? As DJ pointed out in a video, Nesting Grounds can let you put a Lifelink or Deathtouch counter on a permanent that normally won't be able to get one, like Pyrohemia or Pestilence. I could see someone building a very nostalgic Rat deck based around putting various counters on a Crypt Rats and then finding a way to win via it, I would have mad respect for someone who built a Secret Commander: Crypt Rats deck. They could use all the tutors they want, they just better be killing me with Crypt Rats. Mesmeric Trance is a similar card to Dana's challenge the stats, only jankier. It's better if you want to use the ability a ton of times right away (I wondered about it in Zur for that reason), but bad otherwise, cumulative upkeep is awful after even a couple turns. The flavour on Mesmeric Trance is also amazing, so yeah.

I built the Umezawa deck, best play I had was ninjustsu one skulk creature for Rune Scared Demon, then I tutored for good ol One Shot Robot and killed another player with infect. He's not a ninja commander he's a ninjutsu commander.

Totally right about Burgeoning! I have to say tough: Tatyova or Aesi draw alot of cards. Burgeoning is an MVP in those decks. Drawing you a ton of cards and ramping you on opponents turns

Am I missing something? Rielle and Mental Discipline can be triggered together once a turn? Including opponents, so 4x a round the table total, not until you run out of mana. Right?

I played a Wolverine Riders in my Chatterfang deck and I could never get it at the right moments. After 30+ games I took it out but I’ll give it another go

Hey guys! Could you plase make a Mimeoplasm upping the average? 🥺

Burgeoning works great with Storm Cauldron!

Monologue Tax shoud be this : Wenever an opponet cast a spell, and its not a first spell they cast this turn, you create a tresure token. Then it would be good card.

Wolverine Riders is the truth!

That Segway hurt in my dad heart. Bravo.

I run Wolverine Riders in my Jetmir deck!

I used to play stormtid3 in my Aesi sea creatures deck, but so often I would cripple myself because I could then only attack with stormtide and my other big creatures couldn't... I moved it over now into my Sphinx tribal dedk where everyone rl83s when it's so much better

Korvold actually is an imposter for henzie! Youd think it plays ok with all the free sacrifice and draw, but henzie draws more than enough on her own and doesnt keep enough permanents around to sac for korvold!

another thing with imposter mech is you can use it to copy devoted druid for infinite mana if that ever happens

Put the Monologue Tax in a Group Hug deck where you're giving your opponents resources thus upping your chance of them casting more spells.

Rules question about Settle the Wreckage: If i use it to exile 10 creatures attacking and that player to look for the lands buuut doesn't have 10 basic lands left. What happens? Can he choose to bring 3 lands in play? Or do the rules say 10 or nothing? (Note: it doesn't say up to that many lands)

Burgeoning is an AMAZING card when you put it in a deck that has a lot of card draw. Don't put it in decks that don't draw 4+ cards per turn. Good example of an imposter.

I kept saying this at the beginning. Satoru does not make sense in yuriko. The top 3 part is nice but it isn't necessary. You are already doing that the whole game!

intro Song go hard

Comments are good for the KZfaq algorithm

Mental Discipline may not be once per turn but Rielle shure is...

I copied an opponents archetype of imagination with imposter mech. I proceeded to use creature removal to get rid of his but he didn’t have artifact removal so I let the mesh just sit there with animating it

Wait, does nesting grounds work with suspend counters?

Isn't Mental Discipline an older form of Compulsion?

I was going to comment "Sus" but someone beat me to it... I'M the imposter!

Can we talk about the fact that in the title card Impostor is spelled with an O and a zero, nice touch 😂

Volrath’s Stronghold is so much better in Sir Konrad, you can use it to trigger Konrad from a creature leaving your graveyard and then activate Konrad to mill that creature and trigger Konrad again.

Am late but Laelia actually doesn't really care about Madness effects. Laelia triggers when you exile cards from your LIBRARY or GRAVEYARD. She does not see when you DISCARD into exile or CAST FROM exile. So Madness does nothing for her. I love my Laelia deck but she is pretty unique in what she does. When I was building the deck, it took me a minute to realize Flashback is actually a non-bo with her too--technically you cast the card from your graveyard, which moves it to the stack, and then it goes from the stack to exile, meaning you don't actually exile it from your graveyard and it does not trigger Laelia.

As a rielle player I much prefer stuff to discard my whole hand at instant speed, like dangerous wager

I feel like most goad cards are impostors at baeloth barrityl, entertainer. Instead you could just play all the reflection spells or other protections so he stick in play.

One of my favorite cards to use in my Teysa Karlov Aristocrats Deck is Leechridden Swamp. It pings each opponent for 1 damage. I played a game where I had Exquisite Blood and Sanguine bond on board and I activated it by paying a swamp and tapping then winning the game off that. It really does do quite a bit of work in my Teysa Deck.

Use burgeoning with the land Ghost Town.

Imposter mech is also great when you use it against a Mykul deck. You can use it to copy any of the creatures that they are planning to turn into enchantments (Devoted druid being the big one) and basically never crew it. Also copy cards like toski or koma and have the passive utility protected since it's not a creature and it's indestructible

@Dana Not Mental Discipline. Compulsion.

someone please take all there dad jokes they ever did and make it into one video and credit them for there funny jokes

There is an imposter among us

Satoru Umezawa is weirdly better at the head of a big creature deck

Monologue Tax qualifies as a imPOOPster card.

Satorou Umezawa is an amazing Ninja Commander though, and buffs Ninjitsu enough with his card selection that I felt comfortable actually building him as a ninja tribal commander instead of just big nasty creatures. for that reason i'd still include him as a card draw engine in ninjadecks in the 99

You can crack clues when they are tapped