When you reach 100 episodes of Crack-A-Pack, then you should build a deck with your 100 picks. Either for Draft or a very special commander fight.

Yes. Take each of the cards you've picked from each pack. And put them all in a draft (cube) set. And see how that plays out in a chaos draft.

As an Old who remembers drafting this set, I love Graham's limited analysis here. When he went by Aven Fisher the first time and dismissed it, I thought to myself, "he'll probably regret that, it's one of the best blue commons." He was completely spot on to come back and talk it up, it's the best common in the pack and not really close. (Aven Flock might be second.) Green, blue and black were the best colors in the set and you got exactly no good cards in green or black... ...except Cabal Patriarch, which was one of the top 5 rares in the set. That's just how it was 21 years ago. Don't forget about sacking with damage on the stack!

Notably, back then combat damage went on the stack, so sacrificing creatures mid-combat for double value was totally a thing.

I think the missing piece for Graham here is that Torment (the second set in this block) would introduce Madness as a mechanic and make those discard effects make more sense. Graham's also doing a good job of showing off why Odyssey block was such an important lesson for R&D. Spikes loved the resource management and obtuse interactions between the cards, but a lot of the cards just felt really bad if you didn't know what was happening, and having to wait a few months for Madness to materialize and make the synergies more obvious certainly didn't help. Relatedly, I mostly stopped playing Magic from about the time this set came out until Shadowmoor. It was a popular time for quitting!

It's funny that Graham says that having the blue "Burst" card be a draw spell would be too strong, because Accumulated Knowledge is exactly that, printed ~2 years earlier.

I used to have a pauper deck that ran Diligent Farmhands, Muscle Burst, Pardic Firecat and Flame Burst. It wasn't the strongest deck ever, but it was fun.

Graham: "Check out all the fun stuff." Text on screen: "Your local library." Yes, excellent.

The Rites cycle of cards isn’t great UNLESS you’re getting benefit from discarding and graveyard effects. In which case they’re BANGERS.

Graham's guess of the blue member of the Burst cycle drawing cards was particularly reasonable given that they'd already printed that card two years earlier in Nemesis, under the name Accumulated Knowledge. And it was, indeed, very powerful.

"pro tour winner Aven Flock" got me

I JUST got the Ivan Floch joke

I love watching Graham open packs and halfway through be like, "i'm not sure how this set worked, but I'm trying". The older the pack is leads to more confused Graham, leading to my happiness.

Graham burying the lead here by not saying that the diligent farmhand was the most valuable card.

remember damage stacked when it was the new set and was drafted... so in limited you can wait for damage to stack and then use the cabal patriarch's ability to get the max value your 2/2 bear can do the 2 and you still get to sac it to cabal patriarch and removed it from the grave killing a 6/6 while in combat

it's not just a bearpig, it's a man fighting a bearpig! that's so close to manbearpig!

Woo, Diligent Farmhand rep! I used it in so many of my decks as bad ramp, it's become a bit of a meme. Surprised to see it as the most expensive card of the pack, as well. Must see some Pauper play or something.

this was also when damage was on the stack, so the cabal is super brutal, basically can't attack into your opponent ever lol

That Gallantry art is so muscular. Even the ruins in the background look like they're carved out of flesh. Classic Tedin!

"Pro Tour winner Aven Flock" nearly made me choke with laughter; thanks for that

I don't know who decided to start the bitcrush SFX for the pack opening ASMR, but I am HERE FOR IT.

At this point in time I’ve seen so many first pics in this cracker pack series I want to see Graham make a commander deck with all of his first picks.

Odyssey was my first magic set. And black was my first color focused. Good memories from this. I was nine years old then

There was an entire cycle of cards instants/sorceries caring about how many copies of itself you have in your graveyard, but diligent farmhand and pardic firecat are the only cards with a line of text like that. The other three spells in the cycle don't have an accompanying card. You just happened to open them both

If I recall flashback is in Odyssey that would make the discard spells at least considerable.

Graham, please continue saying Bear. It makes my heart beats.

I had to get an ointment for Aven Fishers once, I think.

I actually just opened a pack of Odyssey yesterday (nostalgia Xmas gift to myself). I happen to be building a Magda Dwarf fortress deck, and lo and behold: Mine Layer (the rare) and Pardic Swordsmith, two dwarves I do not own yet, in the pack. Sometimes coincidence smiles, and it certainly brought one to my own face. I love these old arts, really evokes the memory of being 13 years old and nerding out at all this stuff.

odyssey was the set that was out when i first started playing. being in middle school at the time i didn't really know how to properly play until years later. but i did get the 'one-two punch' precon deck. roar of the wurm, firebolt, elephant ambush, nantuko mentor, aw ye

I believe sir that is Manbearpig depicted on Primal Frenzy.

1999: Rancor 2001: Primal Frenzy

The Diligent Farmhand/Muscle Burst combo was a big part of the first deck I actually built. A blue/green deck focused around getting threshold to pump a bunch of things (either especially creatures w/ trample or with Stone-Tongue Basilisk). Just ramp a bit (Werebear helped) and if I was using the tramplers, and not the Basilisk, sac the Farmhands after blockers (unless I already had threshold), then cast the Muscle Burst (or 2) as the combat trick. Worked great in the middle school lunch room.

Really just out here face shaming that beautiful creature, whose already under duress having to charge that armoured thug. I expected better, Graham.

"Pro Tour Winner Aven Flock" *lol*

I had 4 Dilligant Farmhands and 4 Muscle bursts in my first ever mono-green deck. Its one of my favorite cards of all time!

Me chewing on a handful of nuts. Frantically searches for the cameras.

Turn 2, cast Rites of Spring, discard four Basking Rootwalla...

Rites of Spring was a favorite of black/green reanimation decks.

I find it hilarious that they created two creatures to interact with the red and green cards of the Burst cycle, and then just decided that was enough. Could they not figure out how to give Life, Aether, and Mind Burst support creatures as well?

now you have to build a commander deck around the patriarch just for the memes

Guy laughing at Rites of Refusal and all the other discard cards - "I don't think that's particularly good" Well it's worth checking the mechanics of this block. Madness, Threshold...

rites of spring enables threshold, which was a mechanic in this set

Odyssey was the big set of the block, the very next set (Torment) introduced Madness, so as the block went on, you got pay offs

Nut Collector- first I lol'd, but then [sees price] I srs'd

Enduring together.

Primal Frenzy clearly depicts a Bearboon

Yeah, they were still figuring out how to make that whole "graveyard matters" thing work at the time.

This set was slow and creatures were small, so my recollection is that Cabal Patriarch is pretty much a windmill slam bomb. I was actually surprised by the pack being better than I expected for an old set. I like Odyssey.

Love Flame Burst. Have a whole pauper deck built around it and spells like it.

I remember there was something like a 100 card "booster" although it was the entire block rather than just Odyssey. Young me mistook it for a deck and added lands for the worst 5-color deck of all time. It did have Worldgorger Dragon as one of the rares at least.

I bought this set when it was new.

"unappealing in the nose realm" is definitely how I will describe challenging olfactory experiences from now on.

I started playing Magic with the Odyssey pre-cons, so this brought back a lot of memories. Thanks, Graham.

was not expecting the Ivan Floch joke.

Rites of spring seems mad good in Sultai.

Cabal Patriarch . . . That is just Q from ST:NG

The onscreen editor comments where great!

I really like the art from Odyssey, lot of cool styles and some of the first magic cards I ever saw, so major nostalgia points!

I actually prefer Rites of Refusal in my pauper UR Madness deck. (Fun fact: you discard as part of resolution not cast so if they counter it you dont get hosed)

Love the quote on Pardic Firecat

eyy its the set with my most favorite mountain art!

For years I thought that the woman on gallantry art was a satyr cause the left leg looks a lot like a hoof

Disappointed that I wasnt called a Wild Mongrel

Rite of Spring is great in Sasaya, Orochi Acendant. Basically, you want 7+ forests in your hand so you can flip Sasaya and use their Essense to literally get exponential amounts of mana

Sphere of Law exists for that era of Magic where you have "a white deck", and your friend has "a red deck", and you keep losing, and instead of like, getting better, you just add white cards that say "if your opponent is playing red, absolutely fuck their shit" and hope you draw them when you're playing that friend. If you're devious, you'll sneakily add your little anti-red package into your 80 card deck right before playing them so you don't have to draw them against your friend's blue/black deck.

Scrivener was part of a cycle that Gravedigger was also part of. The other cards are Anarchist, Cartographer and Auramancer.

NGL I both loved and love this set. Was one of the sets I started with too, and it may have started my love of graveyard decks.

just collectin that Nut.

I would like to see a Crack-a-Pack cube, if only done as a chaos draft of sorts. I don't think it would make sense to try something using only the first picks, as that would be very difficult to actually pull together. However, taking, say, the top 24 highest-dollar-value packs -- or just 24 packs -- and tossing them into a draft environment would be fun, especially being able to compare actual first picks against your theoretical first picks (The first pack may line up well, but the second pack is informed by the first, so pack 2 pick 1 could see wildly different results). I may just be biased towards chaos draft videos, as they are quite fun...

You seemed to have fun with that "greetings you nut collectors" intro

Engagement for the engagement god!

My first ever draft was when Odyssey was new. I started collecting more afterwards

My Rielle, the Everwise EDH deck loves Rites of Initiation, the red card of the cycle. Pumping the team by my hand size is a pretty fun aggro play.

The art of Primal Frenzy is half man, and half bear-pig. Just thought you should know

I am doing well. Thank you Graham.

This video made me curious enough about the set to draft the format on forge, it was a lot of fun recommend.

Ahhh! It's Manbearpig!

Funny enough, I used to run Sphere of Law in the SB of Strawberry Shortcake because the burn matchup is just THAT bad.

Polearm classification police! That’s not a halberd! Looks more like a naginata to me.

Had to look up Muscle Burst, and oh god. A playset of that and Diligent Farmhand would be insane.

Grahm, I'm pretty sure the term for buttbreathing is called a fart.

1:40 Rite lf Spring: G doesn't appear to be interested in dredge or The Gitrog Monster. My commander deck be like: 🥲🥲🥲 *sounds of broken heart glass*

scriviner is a human wizard

I have collected so many nuts. Cashews are the best :3

I'm here just for the humour, never mind the cards. Fantastic! I'm also wondering whether there has ever been a time when the name Graham has chosen for the viewers turns up as a card in the pack

Protour winner aven flock ....ded...xD hahahahah

I think putting a lo pass filter over the pack-opening part kind of defeats the asmr thing Graham is going for

Worth noting the Rite cycle had some utility in Odyssey because it enabled Threshold

Manbearpig. Sweet.

Diligent Farmhand: actually a banger in edh as a worse Sakura Tribe Elder, if you care about your ramp spells also being creatures

I would love to see an odyssey draft

I would say the enchanted creature looks more like a cross between a bear and a baboon. The bearboon?

ManBearPig is real, I am cereal

I started in Odyssey, love to see the Patriarch

I'd name it Firefarting though

A janky Jadzi, Oracle of Arcavios reanimator deck might use rites of spring

Rites of spring could technically be good in green black with for specific things

Odyssey was famous for having a high power level if you played unintuitively (by discarding cards for threshold, to exploit flashback, and to enable madness from the next set, Torment), so it doesn’t surprise me that you’d look at these cards and be astonished by the low apparent power level. (not that I’m vouching for any of these specific cards as particularly good, mind you)

Butt Breathing is great. But I think it should be Fire Farting.

_lonely sigh_ I wish _I_ had a diligent farmhand with muscle burst.