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You can for sure cast the Ruinator from your hand. You MAY cast it from the graveyard, but that doesn't mean you can't do it as normal.

When even a new player who doesn't fully understand how Planeswalkers work can point out why Oko is so strong, you know you've made a busted card.

I think the Aurelia's Fury segment highlights why an almost completely new player is always going to struggle with stinker vs staple - not knowing about other cards that can do the effects efficiently. You might think that spending 5-6 to temporarily deal with an opponent's board is viable if you're not aware that almost every format has a 4 mana sweeper that permanently deals with them.

Note for magic players, when talking about Tarmogoyf he mentioned Maju, he meant Gren Maju da Eiza, which scales based on removed from play cards.

Correction not mentioned on screen, Tribal did exist when goyf was printed originally. There was a tribal rebel enchantment in the same set.

Making newbies try to evaluate Magic cards is one of the funniest new ideas in MtG and even TCG games in general.

I was just listening to this while playing Arena and when i heard that you can't cast Skaab Ruinator from your hand I Alt-Tabbed in the middle of the game to write a comment how you can cast it from your hand but fortunately I noticed the addendum on the screen.

Every one of these type of videos should include Lion's Eye Diamond, it's so hard to evaluate and it used to be junk before it became awesome

If Oko only was 3 loyalty and had the transform on -1 and Food on +1 instead of 2, that would have been ok then. A lot of “ifs” for a card haha

You really talked him out of the Tarmogoyf there

Skaab Ruinators artwork is so great. Sad its unplayable. Walking Balista seems too much carried by other cards (Tron lands, Heliod, Constrictor) to be evaluated by someone who doesnt know all these cards.

Yeah as far as the Tarmoghoyf card, Tribal cards did exist IN THAT SET. There was like one of them, Bound in Silence, which was a Tribal-Rebel card, but still.

Neropotence, Jace The Mindscuptor, Island, all were criminally underrated in Magic’s distant past when they first came out. In modern times Ledger Shredder was at first considered a bulk rare. Didn’t take long for that to change.

I think it should be mentioned that it is so easy to tutor for the Ballista. It's a 0 cmc spell that counts as a creature and an artifact, so many cards let you search for it from your Deck. Even Mono White Decks have enough Tutors to find this card, when they are ready to combo off with it.

People didn't think Oko was awful, they just didn't think he was the best planeswalker ever printed and playable in every eternal format.

Ah Aurlia's Fury. Another in a proud line of cards that are just Fireball with basically what amounts to really sexy sounding flavor text.

I don't know ANYONE who thought oko wasn't broken when it was spoiled. It was a +1 for a Beast Within every single turn.

wait why wouldn't you be able to cast Skaab Ruinator from hand? The extra payment is that you must exile three creatures from the graveyard but it's not mentioning having Skaab in the actual graveyard... the 3rd ability is that YOU MAY so I guess Carl maybe described it a little bit by his own words :) Cool video!

Aurelia's Fury is *only* really good in Hinata edh. It is so good in that deck, tap all you're opponents creatures, kill the 1 toughness ones, and make it so nobody can cast counterspells or any other flash/instant all for 2 mana.

Good idea for content, just a shame the host missed some key information about some of the cards.

Aurelia’s Fury actually had a recent revival in playability in Commander due to the new legendary creature Hinata from Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty. With Hinata in play, Aurelia’s Fury when cast using only as little as RW, can silence all 3 opponents and tap all of their creatures. Hinata turns Aurelia’s Fury from a near unplayable bulk mythic into a potentially game-ending support card/silence effect.

It feels so f***ing good to see a total novice to the game immediately sniff out the exact reasons Oko would eventually get all but errata-ed from the game.

Adam: Mentions GREN Maju (Da Eiza) and how it keeps getting bigger and bigger by the number of banished (=exiled/removed from play) cards. Video: Shows GREAT Maju (Garzett), which gets a one-shot boost upon being Tribute Summoned (put into play by sacrifice) ...what.

Some of the OGs of people missing the power of a card at first - Necropotence (one of the mags at the time called it the worst card in the set), Force of Will (the free card was "too expensive"), and Memory Lapse ("but they just get to cast it again next turn!")

You actually can cast skaab ruinator from your hand you just also need 3 creatures in your graveyard

Absolutely love this series guys, it's been incredibly helpful and insightful as a new magic player. Pleasseee keep em comin

The excitement to tell him the answer about Walking Ballista was clearly to see. I could feel his excitement as well. He did his best to throw him off about his powerful ability. Great episode

Haven't played magic in 20 years. Guessed literally the opposite on every card so I went 3-2. No clue how Plainswalkers fit the game so that one was kinda hard to guess.

I love these vids, and I'd love to see more, but you know what would be great? Having an actual new MTG player run the game. Say, a player who has just picked up the hobby, and is familiar with the basic flavour of the colour wheel, maybe evergreens - has familiarized themselves with a deck or two, but lacks encyclopedic knowledge. Ideally, someone who's played just enough to catch The Bug. To use examples from this vid: if we're asking a player to rate Aurelia's Fury, I'd love for that to be someone who sees X/W/R and thinks "Wait, Boros has mana sinks? Does this...work?" Or, someone who scoffs at Tarmogoyf because "oh, that's the Greenest thing I've ever seen - Staple, right?" and then hits Skaab Ruinator and kicks themselves for forgetting how little Blue relies on creatures by comparison.

Wasn't Oko arround 20€ at pre-release? No one in their right mind thought the card was bad. Especialy after seeing it in action even at pre-release.

Oko can still be played in Commander, one of the most popular formats in magic. This is why the price is so high.

I remember people saying that Arclight Phoenix would be trash.

To be fair on Walking Ballista, I think it rates the same as Aurelia's Fury- In a vacuum, not great. But an amazing combo piece with a lot of stuff! As opposed to stellar in a vacuum, but outperformed everywhere else

Aurelia’s Fury was the first time I preordered a playset of mythics as a spec…man, never made that mistake again

I heard the yugioh player coming through when he said eldlich instead of eldritch

I knew Oko was going to be busted. I definitely underestimated how busted. Walking Ballista definitely got me

This was cleaver. Do more of these

Skaab Ruinator can be cast from hand, 'may cast from graveyard' is very different to 'can only be cast from graveyard'

Love watching people evaluate magic cards. And its also funny how often we as magic players miss evaluate card power. Thanks

Just wanted to comment and say you guys are reigniting my love of magic! Keep up the content ❤

At the time Planeswalker didn't exist but tribal did exist, Bound in Silence is a Tribal Enchantment - Rebel Aura printed in Future Sight, part of the original Time Spiral block

The cold read on oko +1?! Nice job new player

When he mentions Gren Maju, they show Gren Maui Garrett which is not the card he was talking about. The effect he’s describing is Gren Maju Da Eiza, which is a Yugioh! Card which pops up every few years when big attack stats and banishing is really strong.

Wish someone had made the analogy between Walking Ballista and Catapult Turtle/Cannon Soldier

The funniest thing about Tarmogoyf is that it was a couple Cent card for a very long time after release. And then it exploded in some weeks in price.

They put GREAT maju next to tarma lol. It's GREN maju. Pretty different cards

This episode missed a chance to just play a copy of Cannon Soldier over the ballista. The last ability on ballista and cannon soldier are broken in basically the exact same way, he would instantly understand lol

My whole red and green agro deck is based on cheap +1/+1 counters and buff instants, and I had the same problem as the guy rating the last card. I didn't realize that other cards can interact with this one! It would make my already powerful in my opinion deck insanely op. Idk how I didn't realize this before you explained why it's banned.

Aether Revolt was such a fun set. The Revolt mechanic, energy counters, Hidden Stockpile, Winding Constrictor, Atherflux Reservoir... There were so many ways you could make decks that looked like utter jank but somehow were viable enough to have fun with in standard, and win in silly and unexpected ways.

a note about aurelia's fury, in a horizon deck or another mana commander deck it is versatile enough to be a counterspell that works by removing the player from the game

In future episodes of this series, you should hit some of the classics, like Necropotence, Yawgmoth's Will, Oath of Druids, or Memory Jar.

The editor didn't know what gren maju was lmao

The first two cards I thought of are Lion's Eye Diamond and Flash.

I had stopped playing standard when Oko came out, and I immediately knew it would be busted in standard and Modern. I don't know how so many people missed it.

One of the funniest memories I have with oko is a friend said that they found this card that is “the perfect answer to oko!” When he went to play test, oko just kept turning it into an elk 😂

I appreciate this kind of content so I'll like sub and comment :)

as a newer sub to the channel ive gone in reverse order of your vids as player of both tcgs yugi knowledge gives a good idea for combos but mtg has aspects that dwarf yugiohs combo flow this was a fun video

Am i missing a correction on Skaab ruinator? cause you can cast it from hand.

Fun fact: Htarmy was only supposed to be an okay limited creature that was a sneaky preview for Planeswalkers (IIRC they were actually going to have a Planeswalker, but didn't have them ready in time so they made our boi instead).

DV for not knowing what a lhurgoyf is Also Goyf could become a 6/7 at the time of its printing (artifact, creature, enchantment, instant, sorcery, LAND) just for clarification. Dropping 2 in a game often meant winning that game for a very long time, and the card even hit the $200 mark in the US for a little while prior to its first reprinting in 2013 in Modern Masters.

I have a question. Does Aurelia's fury is only 1 red 1 white with Hinata,down crowned ? And can you deal infinite damage for free with her ability ?

I've got a mono-blue self-mill deck that Skaab Ruinator is the star of! It's quite strong in the correct build. Exile a Misthollow Griffin, then you can cast it from exile! Yes a tad jank, but still super fun to play.

I love the magic player editor editing this putting the wrong gren maju 😂

My buddy introduced me to magic around Invasion block, so when I started buying my own cards I went back a few sets and really liked the MM block. Right from the start I always knew Rhystic Study was an awesome card, I had an annoying blue deck (is there any other kind?) that was constantly making them pay more for spells and/or take damage for doing it/not doing it just so I could draw a ton of extra cards. We were filthy casuals that mostly bought boosters/boxes and built decks out of what we got so it's not like it was a top tier deck or anything, but it was pretty fun and it almost won a tournament at my local card shop around the Judgment block when people had some kind of infinite loop deck (been so long I can't even remember, green threshold creature was involved I think?). I say almost won only because I got greedy (because I'm an idiot) and cost myself the game. I stopped playing several years ago but recently I heard that the price on Rhystic Study skyrocketed.

Fun video! I liked it.

walking balista pairs exceptionally well with mephidross vampire.

was smiling during the whole walking ballista segment, i play commander and generally can tell if a card is going to be a staple or banned in other formats if i've seen it often, and man I love walking ballista. I don't think it's ever even really been the most perfect synergy with any of the decks i've put it in, but dang if it can't find a way to synergise with any deck that makes any reference to +1/+1 counters. one of those nice little cards that can just synergise with a very palpable percentage of the strategies in the game

I still love the future sight frames, and I make commander decks entirely out of proxies of that frame.

The one staple I called back in the day wasn't a huge sleeper, but I called out that Delver was a flying Wild Nacatl and would be very good.

Balista is a kill card for any infinity mana deck, is a combat trick, is a mana dump, is a removal card, is a comba card with deathtouch or any noncombatdamage special effects (like sigil of sleep), it just does it all. And it wors on generic mana.

honestly I got tripped up with the ballista question for the same reason, for some reason my brain just defaulted to considering them 'ballista counters' rather than something other cards could also give to it.

Really good concept for a video

There's a trick when you request to someone evaluate Oko or, for example of a new card, Kiki Jiki's saga. The most of players don't have idea how powerful those cards are when they were released and it's hard to evaluate it without playing it before or watching a match with those cards in play.

The first few Tribal cards were printed in Future Sight, the same set as Tarmogoyf. And the first Planeswalker cards were printed in the very next set, Lorwyn.

17:43 what if it's used to stop the player from counterspells on that turn?

Cool idea for a series of videos.

The main problem with Oko is that it's second ability is +1 when it should have been -1. I'm surprised he didn't mention that.

Skaab Ruinator was a house alongside Myr Superion in my Vial and Company modern deck for a while.

Skaab ruinator existed in standard with misthallow gryphon witch can be cast from exile I won quite a few fnm using it

The walking ballista has to be one of my favorite mtg creatures

Walking ballista also effectively has "when this creature dies, it deals x damage distributed as you choose among any number of targets, where x is it's power"

I was in attendance at a prerelease for the original Innistrad. The only cards people were willing to trade binders for was Snapcaster Mage and Liliana.

I think a lot of people forget that Skaab Ruinator and Birthing Pod were standard legal together.

I thought oko was okayish until i realized that I misread the card and the 2nd ability was a +1 instead of a -1 like I originally thought. Then I thought it was busted.

Speaking of "ballista counters", Icatian Javelineer entered the battlefield with a javelin counter that got removed to ping... And I don't think there was any way to get more...

15:00 “can’t play anywhere” -Commander players screaming in the corner

I made a Oathbreaker Deck around Using Oko to turn my own creatures into 3/3 elk It was far better then i thought it would be.

I dunno. I almost feel like that one X damage spell could have some great utility for someone trying to rush an enemy. Like if you're running something that relies on getting through your opponent's defensive line, that would punch a nice hole in it.

Something that went unmentioned with Ballista is how the 4 mana ability works as an outlet for mana, and an outlet that serves a very nice purpose overall. I'm not familiar enough with Modern and eternal formats other than commander to say if that's important there? But I do know that commander and its combo-centric meta can use that in many situation, including at the highest levels of play for it, where games can end with an infinite mana combo being poured into ballista to kill everyone else.

It shows how long it's been since I've had a proper game that I forgot about Heliod because Walking Ballista was already an insane infinite combo piece BEFORE Heliod existed.

I wasn't around for when Oko dropped, but I can't imagine so many people thought stinker on this one. A three mana planeswalker that is going to be on the board for awhile and can ultimate on its second turn is already going to be solid.

I hurt a lot of feelings back in the day with goyf. Love that creature!

I would love to do this except in reverse. I played hardcore from 4th edition up to Alara block and stopped. Give me some new cards to try and judge their meta usage.

Also, Planeswalkers and tribal cards were in lorwyn block, which was released directly afterwards.

There is a much simpler solution to making Ballista a win condition and it is to lower activated ability costs. If you can lower the cost to 0, you can pay nothing to gain a counter until you have more counters then the other player's life total.

Really good job oft evaluating the card either way. Knowing the Ballista is good requires knowledge of combo pieces and common mechanics in general. On its own it surely is just ok.

I was in the Oko isnt very good boat until i opened one at pre release and got to play with it. I realized very quickly that i was wrong.

Would Aurelia's Fury be good if it cost 1 less mana to cast? 2?

I think I'd be pretty good at this game. I literally thought to myself the Ballista seems bad, but there's probably cards out there that generate insane amounts of counters and then it's amazing.