Graham: Oh, I'm guessing this set has a hand size matters theme! Me: Correct. Graham: So that explains why sweep is a thing, to make your hand bigger. Me: Correct. Graham: ...Sweep still seems bad. Me: Correct!

The "joke" with Footsteps of the Goryo is Protean Hulk, if anyone was wondering

I'm a Tim R.! I didn't send the pack, but I am one.

The trick with Footsteps of the Goryo is you don't care if your Griselbrand attacks, you just want to pay the life to draw the cards. Also Protein Hulk.

The thing about Glitterfang is that it triggers "cast a Spirit or Arcane spell" abilities every turn for one mana. Very much a synergy card. Also, Oboro Envoy was misprinted. The -X/-0 is only until end of turn, as Graham correctly surmised.

I'm a fan of the white sweep card (for each plains you return to your hand, all your creatures get +1/+1 until end of turn). It has won me quite a few games where I've been able to surprise an opponent by giving my entire army +5 or 6 power.

Champions is the Torii gate, because as the first set it's the gateway to the block.

say what you will about Barrel Down Sokenzan, but that thing is a house in a Borborygmos Enraged EDH deck. It basically reads "Destroy target creature, then destroy target player"

The "janky, but people did it" play with Footsteps of the Goryo in Modern was to get back Woodfall Primus, so you can blow something up, and then it comes back because of Persist, so you blow something up again. There were other targets in the deck, but I can't recall them at the moment.

I long for the day that there is high enough density that I can make a moth tribal deck. But only because I want to say, "And now I'm playing my favorite moth. Tapping for 2BB, and playing Yawgmoth."

Loving that force of habit (or as I might say in my technical life, "common collocations") are leading Graham and others to say "kamigawa neon genesis" more often than you might otherwise expect.

"Everything here is sort of unsettling" says the man talking about a moth dwarfing clouds in size and it having butt breathing! I don't like when a moth is the size of a quarter and only has the abilities flying and find lights!

If this set were an album it would definite get called "conceptual"

Ah Oboro Envoy, notable for not saying "until end of turn" even though it was supposed to. Fixed in Oracle text.

The "where's the haste" reaction is what I have every time I see another card from this set, Skyfire Kirin. It lets you Act of Treason a creature, but doesn't untap or give haste to the creature, so it is basically a more complicated "target creature can't block this turn" with sacrifice synergies. Footsteps at least lets you get ETB/LTB value, and access to effects like Griselbrand for cheap.

Graham, this is the block that brought us One With Nothing, so they were definitely printing black cards just to explore design space, even if it meant bad cards in all but the narrowest of circumstances

Taunting Elf was the card name you were searching for, it's a 0/1 elf with a lure effect. The flavor text on that card involves elves learning swear words

Yes, you are correct - the set theme was to have more cards than opponent, which made for a bad game experience (as opposed to, you know, playing your cards and the game)

Where's your mnemonic Graham, now you'll forever get Champions and Saviours of Kamigawa confused.

Oh yeah, Shinen of Life's Roar was an MVP in one of my earliest decks, where I suited it up with a Blanchwood Armor and kill some blockers.

Oh wow. That lure spirit seems amazing in multiplayer since it's not "target creature you control".

When this set came out, one popular thing to do in standard was to sacrifice legendary dragon spirits like Kokusho and Yosei to Greater Good. Not getting to attack with the creature you reanimated wasn't that big a deal.

Graham: I hate sweep. Me: Same. Do you know how many degenerate combos that mechanic enables? Woof. Same page. Graham: It’s bad. Me: Different page.

Watching a lot of curling? So you opened a lot of collector boosters?

“Sorry, I’ve been watching a lot of curling recently” is very Canadian

I think Footsteps of the Goryo was supposed to go with the kamigawa dragon cycle that had on death effects.

Reki is one of my favourite commanders! Great buildaround

The original Kamigawa block had some of the most subtle and hard hitting flavor text in the game. I highly recommend going through and looking through it sometime

Footsteps of the Goryo: it's called the Aristocrats.

You keep crackin' 'em, I'll keep watchin' 'em! Thanks G.

Sweep mid game + Landfall = whomp.

I suggest targeting your Griselbrand with Footsteps of the Goryo, draw a bunch of cards, and cast Burnt Offering.

thanks for the video. these crack a packs are some of the highlights of my week.

"I've been watching a lot of curling" - it's OK, Graham, you're a Canadian in the time of the Winter Olympics, we know

I feel like Footsteps of the Goryo is also pretty good when you have return to hand effects.

Yeah, Saviors came from a time where they didn't plan their blocks as well, so they sometimes struggled for a theme for the third set. The first two sets had things like splice, soulshift, ninjutsu, the moonfolk mechanic, etc that meant players had more cards in their hand, so they naturally went with "hand size matters" as the theme for the last set in the block.

fun fact Oboro Envoy is one of only a few IRL cards with rules text errata changing the nature of the card since importantly the original printing does not say "until end of turn" on its ability. So you could shrink all your opponents creatures powers forever and lock them out of winning via combat damage.

The Sweep cards are actually a lot better than they seem. Barrel Down Sokenzan deals 4 damage for 3 mana if you return 2 lands. That can be instrumental in limited. I really like these, but it's true that there are more powerful cards out there.

I could see sweep being good in a deck that uses landfall effects alot, it's a second way to get more landfall triggers without having to draw more lands from your deck.

yeah, I dunno. Footsteps of the Goryo doesn't seem like it's that hard to break open. yeah, in limited it seems like it's bad, but just from a kitchen table perspective, it's effectively an extra copy of Fleshbag Maurauder style effects, you can get back Gary, you can get something that sacrifices the body anyway to do it's thing, etc... Or you could get it to get your Kamigawa Dragon back and get it's dies trigger, or you can do the degen thing people are talking about and entomb your Gristlebrand or your Protean Hulk and go to town. Personally, I'd run Footsteps of the Goryo in my Obeka, Brute Chronologist deck because you can end the turn to exile the sac trigger off the stack and thus have made myself... bad Reanimate! Or I could just suck it up and do the same thing with Goryo's Vengeance.

You know he's Canadian by the fact he watches curling. :P

Footsteps of the Goryo did not forget a sentence. Oboro Envoy did forget the clause "until end of turn".

Footsteps is actually pretty good outside of Kamigawa. It’s one of my favorite enablers for flayer of the hatebound. Might not be competitive, but it’s a consistent turn three nine damage in my flayer unearth deck.

2:22 It was consider a bad block for a reason, Graham.

Damn forcing someone to block your creature with all of their capable ones is good especially if your creature has death touch, ouch!

Heck yeah new crack a pack

I am actually playing Glitterfang and Yuki-Onna in an Old Kamigawa Spirit Commander Deck. A lot of those old Kamigawacards trigger off casting spirits e.g. Yuki-Onna. So Glitterfang is pretty nice because you can cast it every turn.

I am sad that the interpretation of a Yuki no Onna (lit. Snow Maiden) is to blow up artifacts and then run away when another spirit shows up. She, in lore, was a human looking creature in the mountains that would lead people to freezing death if they were bad or save them from dying of exposure if they were honorable and pure.

You draft champions/betrayers/ Saviors. Second why do EVERYONE forgets the original dragons Kokusho, Yosey, Keiga not forgetting Ryusei and Jugan death triggers that literally ended games also discard Myojin bring it back remove divinity counter win game I EXPECTED MORE!!! lol I love you

Don't ever call me or my regulars irregular

It's an expensive reanimate, but it's still a reanimate, with no restriction on what it can grab

Champions at the gate Betrayer's Shuriken Saviors light the way

“There’s a card from… neon genesis”

foots steps of the goryo an ashen rider, exile 2 permanents for 1 card. worth. If you can flicker it before it dies, even better.

Engagement for the engagement god!

Descendant of Doramaro is actually pretty okay in a casual Narset deck i think

Did you even realize you called the new set Neon Genesis? 😁

"This moth has butt breathing". Alright

algorithmic punch!

used to play a mono black life draining deck with 4 kokusho the evening star and 4 Footsteps of the Goryo fun deck back in the day but there are much more abusable cards to go with it now lol

I also thought Sweep was just terrible & realized this set had a hand size mechanic at the same time as Graham.

I mean Gush is basically unkeyworded sweep for 2 and is vintage restricted isn't it?

Strange request, could you pull a pack out of the front or back of the left or right side? I feel like it's always the middle center row. Probably for video purposes but...yeah

If I’m not mistaken, there were at least a couple ways to remove your max hand size.

That red sweep card would go well with Toralf

I would take Glitterfang as its a one drop hast creature. I use as a one drop for my R/W spirit deck.

I would take the Death Denied, bring back 2-3 creatures on OP's end phase.

I use glitterfang with mutate abilities. Its not the most efficient way to use it im sure, but i know i cant mutate onto the human version that really is strictly better

I like these but I think the editing template could use an update, such that the card talked about remains on screen until the next card is brought up, thank you.

Rare drafting lol

Repeatable Reorder is good with new hidegatsu and new omnath and other commander stuff

Saviors is one of those limited environments where all the big payoffs incentivize people to not actually play Magic, and I think earnestly it's a major reason OG Kamigawa gets unfairly maligned. Triple Champions as a limited environment was rad, but Betrayers didn't make it better and Saviors actively made it worse. But Champions is exactly the kind of rock-em-sock-em-robots weirdo battlecruiser Magic I love.

Gnat miser doesn't say until end of turn...

Crack! A! Pack!

ther's like only 4 cards with sweep, why'd they bother?

6:00 a great example of Power Creep.

The subtitle of this show is packs aren't worth the money

Not if your a Zombie

glitterfang is actually superior to ronin in regards to Mutate creatures because ronin is a human and bouncing at end of turn lets you reuse the mutate every turn

Would sweep be more viable if there were basics in this set that had: 'You my play a second land this turn. All land played this turn after the first enter the battlefield tapped.'

Saviors was crazy underpowered even for the time. The shinen was prolly the best pick followed by the barrel down. Truly a bad pack in a gimped set.

Jesus christ the cards are baaaad. 1/1 with haste you return to hand? Literally worse than raging goblin. 3 mana 2/1 flying? 3 mana 0/1? Terrible unsummon? Jeez

God i hate magic cards that use real non English words so much. Destroys any magic feeling for me. I mean come on. Yukki onna? Since when are real ass japanese part of a magic plane?