Regarding 2U cost draw cards - Keep Watch is a Blue instant for 2U that draws cards equal to the number of attacking creatures. It can oftentimes draw you three or four (or more!) cards.

This is a fascinating topic. I feel like deciding when to play around and when not to play around something can be one of Magic's most difficult subjects. It's always a question of risk vs reward. I remember a scenario many years ago where a guy played an early turn Land Tax when everyone's lands were at parody. I sandbagged my land, thinking that I can just drop my mana rock instead and develop my mana that way, and if the opponent wants to start playing that game as well, he'd be the first of us to start discarding cards. Then a newer player after me just played his land without even thinking about it and the Land Tax was turned on. While you could say it was a poor play to not even give the Land Tax matter any consideration, I think the bigger error was on me, as I had taken a stupid risk by skipping my early land drop, not knowing what the other players' plans at the table were gonna be. And ultimately, even if things had played out like I had initially thought, my "reward" was just going to be "one opponent doesn't get to tutor some basic lands".

Speaking of Final Fantasy, I'm looking forward to Phoenix Down being an artifact next year.

a little terrifying bc I was wearing a shirt with the atom joke on it as he said it

Queza is also a popular pauper edh commander, as there's few 3 color legends at uncommon. Might be affecting divination rates in that deck

No Mercy is even better; it's not just combat damage, it's any damage. So a creature that damages via noncombat would also be destroyed.

I'm genuinely surprised how many times I've had to explain to other players that I am allowed to draw and look at the card before I pay the two for Smothering Tithe. Lots of players seem to think I don't get an opportunity to even look at the card. 🙄

As a red player, the best removal is player removal. Get em before they play stuff and then you don't need to play around anything

Challenge the Stats tends to feature Universes Beyond cards a lot nowadays. I wonder - perhaps the reason those cards aren't getting run very much is because some folks don't like UB cards in their decks? Personally, I only run UB cards either as the commander of an otherwise "universes within" deck, or the whole deck (including lands) is UB. Maybe I'm alone in that?

I have never cast Armageddon, but I have countered a cultivate 😂

Glacial Chasm players are something else

Love what your said about forcing the issue. I've joked that the only reason I still play Doubling Season is to bait out counterspells. Then on the off chance it sticks, all the better.

I literally won a game last night due to being the second threat. I very much agree with your comment

I just live in a constant state of "I want to play commander"

Joey making a drag race reference within the 1st minute is exactly why I love him. Mama, kudos for saying that, for spilling

Inkshield in the thumbnail is 💯

I never thought' I'd say this but I miss the "steal the challenge the stats from joey" minigame :(

I just want Joey to know, I got his opening joke. Mama, kudos to you. For memeing.

I have to say it. Please correct me if I'm wrong but I think a Queen's Gambit is not giving up your Queen. It is a specific opening in chess where you offer a pawn (the Queen's side pawn).

18:40 I have been catching people offguard with Fangren marauder for YEEEARRRSS. It does WOORK. My Pirate+Golems Ich-Tekik+Malcolm deck already wants artifacts in graveyard to grow my golems. rewards my removal and "Stasis-es" my opponents treasures.

37:46 - 39:18 - a perfect example of this kind of Mutually Assured Destruction ("dare I threaten someone when it makes me almost certain to lose as a result?") happened in the Brandon Sanderson episode of Game Knights... (spoilers!) ... when Josh Lee Kwai had an Altar of Dementia and just enough power on board to mill out anyone who dared attack him or mess with his board state. He was hanging on by a precarious thread, but the threat of "anyone who kills me gets taken out with me" let him persist longer than he would have otherwise. It was an excellent game. By the way, missed opportunity to put a picture of the card Impending Doom when Dana made a reference to the sword of Damocles!

One of my favorite cards to play that forces my opponents to play around it is War’s Toll. Suddenly everyone has to decide a) am I really ready to risk all my utility creatures in combat, and more importantly b) do I play out my hand, or hold up mana for answers. You don’t lock anyone out, but you do make their brains hurt.

The thing with big scary enchantments though, is that no one is running enough enchantment removal, and there are a handful of 'staple' scary enchantments now that will eat the removal when it does come up.

Psychic paper should probably be in more than 10 captain n'ghathrod decks. Giving a creature you steal ward 1, unlockable and making it a horror to let you steal more things is just really good

I was a little surprised to not see Gravepact/Dictate of Erebos in this discussion. Its really a unique one to play against, and can be a really interesting(frustrating) puzzle to play against.

Maybe the Bant want a nonchalant debutant savant as a confidant 🤣🤘

47:55 Ixidron in a deck that can flash out creatures is a nightmare. It's one of the silliest ways to deal with a blightsteel, but the thing that makes it gross is how many problems it can solve. My brother has a deck built around just having answers to most board states, and it's a powerhouse there.

This whole episode is reminding me of a game where my friend told me he had a vandalblast in hand, and subsequently turned me (the artifact deck) into his own vassal state for the rest of the game with the threat of casting it 🤣🤣🤣

My tables answer to the disc is "everyone play nothing and attack them until they pop it"

I usually don't stop playing for tithe and rystic, but I kill them on sight or attack that player as much as possible if I can't kill it, otherwise it's ending up snowballing way too hard.

Pauper EDH messing up Queza's data there. Perhaps this was a joke that EDHrec is too rich to understand xD

P.S No mercy says “deals damage” not combat damage. So even creatures that say “it deals X damage”

That 95% chance to lose Vs 100% really resonates with me. Last week I was playing with some buds, down to 3 people and the Kozilek player is fully shields down but ready to just annihilate the rest of us on their next turn; I own a very messed up Jon Irenicus deck that recklessly donates haymakers and I have exactly enough mana to play both my commander and Blightsteel Colossus to donate it to our Kaalia player next in rotation and guarantee that Kozilek is taken out.. but I had no way to get it back for the 1v1 when goad no longer works. Went with it anyway and got a lucky Release to the Wind off Irenicus' draw trigger and was barely able to clutch out the W the turn after I got Blightsteel back by making it unblockable with a Manifold Key that I'd been sandbagging to get past Avacyn and a bunch of indestructible blockers.

I am sure there is a good reason for it, but I hope we get some shows with all three hosts again soon. I find the difference of perspective from three hosts the best!

Is there going to be another precon recon or upping the average.

As someone with a drag themed deck… I wanna play vs Joey 🥲

Okay - question about Dana’s challenge. Why does Nerd Rage show as a pool of 415k decks versus Divination showing a pool of 1.9m decks? Should they not have the same pool of possible decks that include blue? (Minus maybe a handful for very specific Companion restrictions, which I am not even sure show up as a filter). Thanks!

With Vihaan, Goldwaker a Smothering Tithe is just stupid powerful. I once popped off with a Smothering Tithe and Mondrak, Glory Dominus while someone else had a Teferi’s Puzzle Box on the board. I made well over 50 Treasures in 2 turn rotations and won with an overwhelming force of 3/3 Treasure Assassins.

I strongly considered Noble Heritage and Orzhov Advokist for Kros even knowing how they worked, because they accomplish what you want and also setup proliferates. The real reason to cut them is because they don't work with the secret commander of a Kros deck, Generous Patron.

Plane Jane with the villain edit!!

Just remove it would be a valid point if the game wasn’t designed to make removal narrow and have counters. You can’t be prepared for everything.

I have a Purphoros deck and know I can't deal with enchantments well. I run Wasteland and Strip Mine for Glacial Chasm and Song of the Dryads.

Worth noting as a Kros player, noble heritage is a fine nombo in the deck as is Gluntch because I’m going to proliferate those counters, while noble heritage is a great “don’t touch me” and Gluntch is a great politics card

Inkshield is the most amazing card in my Oloro, lost count of how many games that it's single cast made me win in the next turn.

Random question for the community: I was trying to figure out how to submit combos to Commander Spellbook to expand that database and help with sites like EDHRec that reference them, but it wanted me to gain access to a Discord server and the invitation never worked. Is this something that is simply a me problem, or is that process actually broken across the board?

'Bahnt' commander has 'trahmple'

I would like to submit Descent into Avernus as the greatest 'play around' card of all time

Easiest way to counter draw punishing cards is in deck building. Play impulse draw in red and play cards that put cards from library in hand or to the battlefield instead of drawing. The new nerfed Necropotence is an example of WotC providing counter-play.

Joey Pitiless Carnage, is way to work around song of the dryad

Good episode, but i really hope you get the whole crew together again soon :) love your trio dynamic

Fangren marauder is a pet card that I refuse to cut from most of my green decks

I run nerd rage in my cecily elmar deck, where i try and convert draw power and hand size into commander damage…. Its such a bonkers card holy

i had a player play a rest in piece against my chainer nightmare adapt deck.... did not draw removal i had him at 4 life in 3 swings. player c wants to keep player b in play and has me dead to commander damage in one rotation. i said if you help keep me alive i wont swing at you the rest of the game. so i helped the rest in piece player kill his defender. didnt hurt that his commander could do wxtra combat swings at 5 power with a partner. it was a fairly fun game and the guy playing rest in piece wasnt too upset since player removal was my option.

For me I do have a osgir deck and so the deck it mostly around him and I can protect him but someone played a overwhelming splendor just kinda shutting me down and with only a few answers in the deck I just scooped. To stop my time from being wasted

Ive been lately thinking putting tear asunder in my deck and i recently put vats in my deck

I got hit by oblete in my Erata the scilencer deck and I was just dead, I don't really have any other way to win, except maybe torment of hellfire. I also have put in Ravenform after getting punked by a hate artifact as well.

Dana rocking the Detroit Tigers hat again!

Nerd Rage definitely goes in Tatsunari, Toad Rider.

I have been the one groaning when a wheel is played on smothering tithe. I've also been the culprit ... Everyone groaned ... And yet, neither I or the Tithe player won that game.... And that felt like an AMAZINGLY good call.... I.e. I'm out of this game.... But if I wheel.... Maybe I'm not.... And that player gets a chance to pop off or play removal first.....

I mean the other thing about atoms is when you really look at them, they are out of touch from everything.

Overwhelming splendor, it has solutions. Hate it though. Land destruction in all it's variants unless it replaces the land. I really hate that stuff and I should know if it exists in the game I'm about to play. Early win cons and infinites. Early land destruction. All that stuff is nasty and doesn't improve magic gameplay.

Bānt. They're good shards, Bont.

It may be a meta thing, but if everyone is using only free counterspells and not running much removal, Im less likely to care about the Treasure of a Tithe than a card from Study

I play malignus and life loss plan

My very casual table only has one card soft banned and thats ink shield. Its just super good in a low power environment

Everyone talks about ink shield. And forgets about Selfless squire

just be blue!

Don't get blindsided by lands and don't let the stigma around land destruction stop you from removing a problematic land. Targeted and limited land destruction is not mass land destruction and people need to get over having their nykthos or cabal coffers blown up

i had a player b play a rest in piece against my chainer nightmare adapt deck.... did not draw removal i had him at 4 life in 3 swings. player d was playing dragons approach. player c wants to keep player b in play and has me dead to commander damage in more one rotation. i went to player b and said I know your stopping me from playing the game but I can't play the game if I'm out. help me kill player c and if you help keep me alive i wont swing at you the rest of the game. and we deal with player c's 10 commander damage trample non pumped. so i helped the rest in piece player kill his noble defender lol. it was a fairly fun game and the guy playing rest in piece wasnt too upset since player removal was my option.

Seems like it's almost never correct to pay for smothering.

Imo, you dont play lurking predators without setting up your topdeck. Do gross things. This is the way.

play blue

I appreciate the drag race references Joey keep them coming! Ps, plane should have won

Joey forever being the only gay in the magic podcast village. What’s up with that! Lol thanks for spilling, for sharing sister

I know that all 3 of you cant be on every episode, but you can still have 3 highlights for challenge the stats - you each get one then a community pick?

Instead of lurking predators or minds dialation consider using defense of the heart... it's cheaper and is a guarenteed 2 cards. It can combo outbut doesnt have to.

don’t attack.

Aunt Baunt Cant Bant

51:30 Does Joey even know wat’s Final Fantasy & Fenix Down?😝

How do you get "Bont" out of "Bant"? Lmao. It's as bad as M Night Shyamalamadingdong's Avatar Aang being called "Ong"...

The Joey rant about addressing vulnerabilities sounds like a speech about why you should play Stax. 😂

Ban rhystic.

Lose to it and ask them not to play it against you. Rule zero fixes everything that can beat you doesn’t it? Cmon now.

Atoms joke is the most lamest and overused pun in existence i am down voting this video solely for that

Okay, sorry, buddy, but pronunciation isn't as weird as that example. The wrong way to pronounce Bant is the way that makes it sound like all the French derived words, as Bant isn't French derived. I CAN'T stress that enough.

These guys absolutely SUCK at evaluating cards. Fangren Marauder is a SIX MANA 5/5 with no combat abilities. I would only even think about putting it in a deck with MASSIVE LAND RAMP.