also, if you dont have too many instant speed stuff to do, so you dont have much leftover mana.

Dropping a 4/5 cmc value card in turn 3 in certain decks is devastating if the board doesn't answer inmediately. I agree with you here. Especially in casual tables.

I see what you are saying. But why play chrome mox over mana crypt, sol ring, lotus petal, the spirit guides, or rituals? If you just need the value engine in play early is it not better to play fast mana that doesn’t cause card disadvantage?

@@thetrinketmage I feel like it really comes down to the gameplan and rather than just card adv, it matters what youre denying the opponent, if youre hitting something insane that is a crucial piece to a combo or just something you cannot let resolve as it tends to take over the game, losing that 1 card is often worth it when you look at the long term effects of not countering. additionally having the ability to tap out in some archetypes is huge obviously. I also don't really agree with the comparison since chrome mox while good doesnt always affect the game the same way.

@@thetrinketmageI feel like in reality people aren’t playing chrome Mox over those cards, but with those cards. Sure it’s probably on the lower end of that group but that group is that group for the reason.

@@thetrinketmage Chrome Mox is a permanent, colored mana source which only eats the exact worse card in hand. It's a known play pattern for spirit guides to go into a Chrome Mox because they're only temporary mana. It gives extra turns of use for many MDFC lands. If you lean into the collect evidence or delve mechanics, Squee and Misthollow don't even put you down a card. Wish-style effects are starting to be printed so they can grab from exile as well. Even the relatively common case of needing to dump cards after a big draw spell (oops, my Rishkar's Expertise drew 9 cards and I'm out of mana). But all that's theory, let's use some concrete commanders: Kalamax can drop T1 and eliminate a player T2 with Chrome Mox (Land-Ring-Guide-Manamorphose-Chrome Mox-MDFC with Battlerage/Twinferno + Invigorate/other pump spell with land in the remaining four) or start using copied draw spells to refresh the hand; Shanna drops T1 with Mox + Guide and starts regaining cards T2 (getting great use out of the continuous mana aspect); Urza, Prince of Kroog can dump a Sharding Sphinx to retrieve later with Karn the Great Creator, making it safe from hand disruption methods. Grist can even flip T1 with Flare-Guide-Mox-Reanimate/Unearth. There's plenty of reasons why a mid- to high-power casual deck would want a Chrome Mox in its ramp suite.

Flip Gitaxis does have some extra synergy there. But in the average blue deck it probably won't do anything

Lier definitely doesn't want to run it

@@thetrinketmage I guess to an extent it’s a matter of opinion, and what the pod is like. Btw what do you think about commandeer?

@@austinchuilli3652 it seems good in lier as long as you have instant and sorcery synergies mainly if you run effects like baral or archmagus emeritus

@@angrypotato2526 why would you run counterspell when you commander makes it a dead card?

Dies to removal is a weak argument, but I still maintain it does not slow down your opponents nor speed you up very much. I bet you can easily find a better 4 drop

it's just such a huge leap, any 20 health format, that card is a menace, not even needing any synergy "force the opponent to draw" cards, just putting a 10 turn clock and setting the health disparity is so strong, and it's got incredible stats. In edh stats like this are puny, and the life drain is miniscule due to 40 life. An aristocrats deck is going to deal similar damage per turn but without any risk of needing to draw the opponents cards or waiting around for them to draw each turn. Because of politics, regardless of whether it is the correct play or not, people often swing at the person with the highest life total because they don't wanna anger the other two players, so while the card certainly will keep you alive and steady despite said attacks on you, it's not effectively getting you very far ahead of the other players like it does in a 1v1 format.

Really? I've seen it a few times and people make remarks but ultimately it does nothing. I have yet to see a player lose the game because of the card

​@@thetrinketmage I've only played one game against it, but that also involved Teferi's Puzzle Box, a Howling Mine and tutored for a Memory Jar The Box was probably the worst, the Jar didn't get played because the player lost before he got the chance

@@thetrinketmage it sounds like the example you used in your video (sheoldred) was someone keeping a hand they shouldn't have. They saw jeweled lotus in their opening hand and kept it without any sheoldred payoffs. Reminds me of the video you made a while back about mulligans. Love your content man.

that might be a different vid

To be fair, EDH Deckbuilding is one of the worst players to ever have a KZfaq channel. Nothing he says should be taken seriously.

I’m really glad more people are getting into the game on TTS! It’s such a cheap way to get into the game!

For sure as you scale up the power level cards like FoW get better because you do see more and more combos or must answer threats

Title and thumbnail have changed, I encourage you to finish the video and let me know what you think. I think the original is still accurate. In your precon or casual mid power deck force is just outclassed by other spells which don't cause card disadvantage. As for clickbait on the whole... Ultimately the title and thumbnail need draw or some kind of hook. It's something every creator does. I've spoken to and worked with many other youtubers about thumbnails and titles. And everyone does this. Any good title and thumbnail is click bait in some way. I guess I'll tone it down? Though other than this one, I don't think any others are really that clickbaity. Do you have an example?

Valid criticism

Yes you can still get that win rate. The answer is politics and efficient removal. In casual edh many times the player who gets the turn 1 sol ring does not win. Why? Because everyone else gets scared and takes them out. I recently guest started on KJ the hero’s stream and that exactly happened. The player with the sol ring did nothing all game cause the fast start had 2 players rushing to take him out. And if you saw the stream you might’ve noticed I didn’t use much removal on the player who has the fast start. I was able to deploy value engines and get ahead that way

I guess Cedh players are better off spending their money on dual lands and McDonald's rather than fast mana since the win rate stays the same either way? Run a precon and politic your way to victory like you're a bastard in game of thrones?

Spoilers!

Reliquary tower is unironically only good in decks that would also choose to play Spellbook. My Masumaro deck plays and utilizes both, but I wouldn’t include them in any other type of deck.

I’m glad to hear that! And I agree deck building is a fun puzzle!

So... We are two!! :D

I also love cryptic command!

This person gets it

@@thetrinketmage I think people who primarily play Commander aren't as familiar with the play patterns of Force, and when/where it's good. I play a lot of Legacy, mostly Grixis control, and that deck is a FoW deck by necessity, not because it wants to be. There's matchups where I board out some or all of my Forces because they're just not good. Commander compounds the downsides of Force pretty heavily. You're gaining an upward tempo swing in exchange for going down a card, but in commander? It's more like going down 2 cards relative to half your opponents, and that tempo swing is pretty minor, since you're only getting it versus one player. Force in Commander is more like a panic button, you cast it when the outcome of a spell resolving is worse than discarding two cards. Maybe you're protecting your 5+ mana commander, maybe an opponent's going to win, those are basically the only times where it's good to do it. Side note: the density of stuff like Esper Sentinel, Mystic Remora, and Rhystic Study make the downsides of casting Force even worse in a lot of cases, and those cards do show up at a significant portion of tables.

Yeah… unfortunately a turn 1 grief cannot be force of willed

@@yoyoguy1st i mean, if you force the T1 Grief then they can just reanimate it, leaving you down 3 cards instead of 2. But my comment was honestly more pointed at the fact that Rescaminator is a fast combo deck that USES Force of Will to protect its own combos

Scaminator isn't a fast combo deck. You're dying at the earliest like turn 4 or 5. Even "turbo" reanimator running dark rituals won't kill you until turn 3 on a goldfish. Fast combo is stuff like Oops All Spells, Doomsday, and various Storm variants. All of these decks have a pretty reasonable chance to turn 1 or turn 2 you, particularly Oops All Spells. Oops All Spells actively mulligans for a turn 1 win, and probably doesn't keep a hand that doesn't try to win on turn 1 or 2. Even something like Cephalid Breakfast is a faster combo deck than Rescaminator, since it goldfishes T2.

That deck is not a “fast combo deck” by legacy standards. I’m talking oops all spells. Those decks can be fast but not fast for legacy

@@thetrinketmage I think you’re vastly overestimating the actual pace of legacy. Decks like Oops and Breakfast are losing to Leyline of the Void or themselves more often than Force, and Rescaminator fielding a Turn-1 Atraxa backed up by free had rips and protection spells is one of the fastest clocks that actually happens on a regular basis. Idk where commander youtubers keep getting this idea that decks like Charbelcher are secret metagame mainstays and not like, a novelty that people break out at locals for fun.

yea but the templating on this one more clear. Maybe I should've gone with the old art

I’m probably going to skip denial in the next vid cause I’ve talked it to death tbh

I did address the ramping into stax point in this video. It's one of the reasons to play fast mana I listed. And yea, if you don't have good things to ramp into the card disadvantage is not worth it. That's the video. There is something to be said about rushing out some value card one turn early like a rhystic study but you still have to consider if it is then worth it to lose the card to maybe draw more later. When you could have just played a 2 drop into a turn 3 study. And in casual turn 3 study is still good enough so most of the time I would not play chrome mox in a casual deck

@@thetrinketmage What about black lotus? If it were legal?

@@thetrinketmage I admit I hadn’t heard the stax part of the video when I made those statements but just consider a commander that may play those cards.. like Winota. What does it mean to “waste” a card to ramp winota out a turn early? And that would be more like simian spirit guide (which I still absolutely would play in the deck even as a “casual” deck) But getting extra triggers for winota not just one turn but also reaping the benifits of the snow ball affect of having started moving a turn early?? It’s worth it on balance and I don’t think it’s particularly close. Your own example of R Study.. that’s not worth a card to get out early? I can’t imagine that. And remember that the “cash value” of drawing those extra cards is to actually help WIN the game. So it isn’t just a case of “ok, cards that draw more cards are worth ramping but only cards that draw cards” because the card draw doesn’t do anything unless we convert it into more mana and more action cards that can help you survive and/or win.

Ultimately you need to decide this on a deck by deck basis. Is it better to get winota out one turn earlier or better to have another thing on board to trigger the commander more when it comes down. In casual commander I am partial to the latter.

That's the point of the video right. Why play these cards. What advantage can I gain here? I really don't think adding mox diamond to a precon is worth it. Ultimately it won't help the deck very much

I do agree force is great as a panic button. The thing is in casual games how often does the must answer unbeatable card get cast? As for the 2 mana argument I think your point actually lines up with what I said. Yes holding up 2 mana interaction from turn 2 onwards is bad. But in casual commander do you need to do that? Is it not true that you have the early turns as times when you can fully tap out. I’m not expecting you to hold up UU until turn 6+ and by then with some ramp in the early turns it should not be that hard to do

@@thetrinketmage I'd say that the panic button mode is the least important part. It's there if you need it, but you don't run force because you're expecting a combo in casual EDH. You run it so you don't have to tax your mana to hold up counter spells and so that you can play and protect YOUR value engines/wincons/etc regardless of the current game state and available mana. You don't NEED it, but it's REALLY GOOD. The downside is hardly a downside (as long as your deck has reasonable card draw etc, which shouldn't be an issue for a blue deck) and the upside is undeniably strong.

It's such a lukewarm-piss take lol Then again, Trinket Mage also claimed Arcane Denial was a garbage card, so he might genuinely believe FoW is terrible. Clearly, every other content creator and mid-high power EDH player is missing something.

It’s a bad card in a “it’s not mathematically good”, and shouldn’t just be shoved in any deck. Obviously, it’s great against combos, and he covers the cases where it *is* good. It’s just not ~generally~ good/worth running unless you’re expecting to run into those sorts of cases. At least watch the video before making a piss take like this >.>

Getting some didn’t finish the video vibes here…

@@Lardo137And yet here you are not only watching his videos but commenting XP

@@healdrop9313 lmao you must be especially salty if you're copying my phrasing like that. But moving on to the actual point: Trinket Mage is choosing to show specific viewpoints and ignoring others to make FoW seem worse than it actually is. He uses a combination of strawmanning, oversimplification, and cherrypicking to make his point. He says over and over how CEDH only uses this card due to the speed and frequency of combos, and compares it to 1:1 removal in how bad it is in normal EDH. All other things being equal, you're trading one card for one card (or two, in FoW's case), which is a disadvantage against three opponents. That's the crux of his argument: "Card advantage is king, and so losing cards is always bad." Except that's a load of actual dog water. Merely looking at the idea of "two cards for one" is such a shallow and pedantic way to assess the complexities of a game of EDH. Especially considering the price and reputation of the card; you aren't going to be seeing it at budget or low power tables *anyway*. He would have you believe that the only thing it's effective against is combos, which is why it's only good in the combo-heavy metas of cEDH and Legacy and the like. But when you ignore the holistic viewpoint for the sake of generating clickbait content, you also ignore the value of card quality and mana efficiency. Firstly, players at even moderately powerful tables can and will draw a lot of cards. You don't need to be playing Esper Sentinel-level cards to still have card advantage engines set up; Archmage Emeritus, Struggle for Project Purity, Teferi's Ageless Insight, Coastal Piracy effects, etc. Losing a card in hand when you have three is not the same impact as losing a card in hand when you have seven, or ten. This is why higher power tables generally lean toward lower mana costs; drawing and casting more lower-cost cards is almost always a better strategy than drawing and casting less high-cost cards, this is true for both casual and competitive. Secondly, with that point in mind: The One Ring, Bowmasters, Mystic/Rhystic, Dockside, etc etc. These are all cards that generate absurd amounts of value. By ignoring how targets can themselves be 2-for-1's, or 4-for-1's, or even more, he's misrepresenting the true value of a counterspell. Combo pieces are not the only cards you want to counter; you can protect your own win condition or even your own counterspell on the stack in addition to shutting down massive value engines that may not *win* a game on the spot, but can easily get a player a huge chunk of the way to it. New Etali doesn't win the game on the spot (at least, at lower power tables), but there are still times where you would want to counter it. A voltron commander can be shut down if you counter their protection spell at the right time. You don't have to play CEDH or against combos to encounter moments where countering a crucial spell can heavily swing a player's chances of winning or losing, if not outright secure a game. Lastly, mana efficiency. FoW being (basically) a 0 mana counterspell is not only effective for the early game like Trinket Mage claims. If you want to use a two-mana Counterspell, you need to hold up two mana: This effectively means that you're playing with two less lands on your own turn, and if you don't actually use your counterspell (because you couldn't get a valid target or an appealing one) you banked those lands for nothing. That's two less mana to enact your own game plan, whether that's combo or typal or playing Settlers of Catan, whatever. This also telegraphs to your opponents who will see your lands untapped. The inconvenience of needing to hold mana, the flow of information to your opponents, and how it slows your own game plan is precisely why 0-mana interaction is so highly valued by the majority of EDH players, because it allows you to bypass that inconvinience. Cards like Slaughter Pact wouldn't see play, period, if held mana was as easy to come by and 1:1 interaction were as weak as Trinket Mage claims. To summarize: The cost of losing a card in hand is not universally devastating, especially with a competent deck with consistent card draw. There are valid targets at all but the lowest levels of play where losing a card can be worth it to counter. And the flexibility of a 0 cost interaction spell is downright incredible. Therefore, FoW does not "suck," and if you're going to make inflammatory clickbait titles and thumbnails and swap them out thirty minutes later, you should at least make them even moderately sensible.

When bolting the bird no longer suffices we turn to the darker ways. The bluer ways.

It does counter Nadu!

You can even say "nah dude" and feel superior

I’m not low on FoW. I use it in some decks. It’s just not an auto include

@@thetrinketmage it was more that you seem to value it less than most people (or at least me). The example deck you talked about playing it in is also basically the opposite of where I consider fow to be best. IMO it's at its best in decks looking to tap out for big advantage pieces that if protected will more than make up the card advantage rather than in a draw go control deck that intends to hold up lots of mana. I'd argue that applies to most commander decks since at the very least most commanders are themselves going to generate more than 1 card per turn. In the way you talked about fow as well as the moxen I think the main disagreement between us the the ratio of importance between mana and card advantage with you favoring card more than me

It happens, partly my fault I should try and be more clear about my opinions

Study is a good point, but I also feel like it is different than Force. Study is raw card draw which almost any deck can use. Force is removal that 2 for 1s you. Not every deck will want that effect

I'm lost on this comment. Haven't played that game in a long long time

www.moxfield.com/decks/zcN_HxwrJUCo0VVz8d0c5Q

That’s not exactly a combo, though, those are just cards with high synergy, no? And sure, it’s going to take them a bit to get something that good again, but you also could have had two good things yourself; FoW is only good if it saves you from what should be a loss; otherwise, you’d have been better off running other spot removal or a wipe.

Bingo!

But this is just an argument for using spot removal which I agree with! Why FoW specifically? A swan song hits greater good too

@@healdrop9313 If you commit several cards' worth of card quality to an all-or-nothing synergy that gets you close to winning or very close to winning, on the game theory level it's not that different from an actual factual combo. And sure, FoW is generally worse than the perfect interaction piece you could have had at the time, held up with perfect information. But real games don't work like that. In real games, you draw cards when they show up, have to hold up mana for interaction without knowing what will be played, and can't hit everything with your interaction. And force of will, which can be held up for no opportunity cost and against pretty much any threat or answer, plays into this uncertainty better than anything else.

@@thetrinketmage Breadth of coverage (pretty embarrassing to have swan song up when someone drops a hasty Voja, or swords when someone drops an emergent ultimatum) and a lack of opportunity cost. The less sure you are the mana you hold for interaction will be needed, and the more you need the mana to spend on other things, the stronger FoW becomes compared to other countermagic.

right but then why play force over other free spells or 1 mana disruption. You are right things are powercrept so you should play removal but if you don't lose on turn 1 why force

@@thetrinketmage A few reasons I guess. An unexpected counterspell is worth 10x the one that your opponent has sniffed out. There's 0 telegraph on it, it's practically unconditional and it WILL catch greedy players going for that Torment of Hailfire or Craterhoof. It just stops everything. Would it be better for me to run FoW, FoN and the likes to pitch a card for tempo or wait extra turns to hold up mana? The answer is always keep tempo. If there's one resource blue can stockpile it's cards in hand/draw, so pitching a card is not that much a punishment to a blue deck. This is blue's "ramp", I need free spells because my opponents have twice the mana I do and I don't have time to take off turns to play some kinda 1v1 control strategy in EDH.

I’ve got some plans for that! Give me a bit more time

@@thetrinketmage let's goo!!!

Not the first time I’ve done that. Most videos will have a second title and thumbnail prepared. Usually the second one is more click bait than the first in case it flops. I went the other way around this time

It’s in the video at the 6:30 mark

I'm willing to bet you are a much better player than every other Sheoldred player I have run into! I just see people jam this in random decks without any real benefit

@@thetrinketmage I would like to think so but I know I can always improve! I built my Sheoldred deck to be mono black control. I want the game to go longer. I pack a lot of removal and protection spells to dig me to my big pieces then when I have them in hand I attempt to remove the entire table in one or two turns. Sheoldred is important and ideal to my game plan but she is not the entire focus of the deck in stark contrast to my Faldorn deck. These are my two loves in this game! Thanks for the thoughtful discussion I really enjoy your videos and take on the game.

There are a few other cards like that. Famously necropotence was given a 2/10 by channel fireball. But people quickly learned how good the card was for both force and necro

I started playing in Masques block and Force of Will cost more than Revised dual lands at the time. Also, Uzra's Saga was still in Type II (what we used to call Standard), and I must have bought 100 packs for original retail. Those were the days....

I’ve yet to see sheoldred do anything. Outside of wheel decks

@@thetrinketmage While I can appreciate that you don't have enough experience to formulate a complete opinion on Sheoldred, you may have to trust other people when they say she's good.

I see that and I hear "double the release schedule."

@@yugioh1870 Dear god no 😂

@@TheCatHerder what gives i thought you wanted to have the experience of "whoa I've never seen that card before."

Would you rank it higher than other free spells like, pact and fierce?

@@thetrinketmage Definitely. And I mean don't get me wrong, Pact and Fierce are great and I'd run them alongside FoW. And in some ways they can be better than FoW in certain situations since they dont cost an extra card, I totally get that. But the fact that FoW can stop ANY card at ANY point in the game is just insane. Literally nothing can top that. My logic with FoW is if you have enough blue cards in your deck that you'd more often than not have a card to pitch to it, then it's worth running. The only reason I could see NOT running it in a "casual" deck would just be to make your deck weaker and in that sense more "casual" but like from a logical perspective I consider it basically a staple in ANY deck with enough blue cards to warrant running it.

Yea, happens. Other vids have had names changed and thumbnails altered. I will try to have backup titles and thumbnails so I can test things and change things as needed ultimately still new to KZfaq so I am experimenting

I mean I guess you summarized the video. Yea the card is strong within the context of certain formats and decks. But since you already know that it’s not a video for you. A lot of players I see just play cards cause they are “strong and expensive” without thinking about it. As for the title that is addressed in the video but I guess you didn’t watch. At some point you need to realize if I title the video “force of will is good but sometimes not” it’s just doesn’t work as well. The title will never be as nuanced as an entire script for a 10 min video.

The clickbait levels are off the charts today… anywho beanstalk isn’t played in edh cause of the fact that it needs a high density of free spells to be good and for however many edh has, 60 card is always going to have 4 times as much.

It was dragging from the discussion at hand. For most videos I have a few thumbnails and titles prepared. Usually one is more extreme/click baity than the “normal” one. Usually I just go with the softer approach. And if the video does poorly it gets changed. A few other titles and thumbnails have changed. This time as a test I wanted to try the more extreme version first. But it just led to a lot of comments about the title rather than the content of the video. Ultimately I’m not trying to get people to debate me on what the title should be. Rather the ideas being presented. So I swapped it.

@@thetrinketmage Ok, thank you for the response. Finally someone answered when I pointed it out. I appreciate the honesty. I’ll be honest, When I saw the first one I wasn’t going to click and watch until I saw the change. (kind of ironic)

I spend a lot of time slacking off at work to read comments so if you commented before and I missed it my bad. Ultimately I appreciate the feedback and I’m an open book, you can ask me most anything

@@thetrinketmage oh no I wasn’t referring to you specifically. I meant when other KZfaqrs change their title/thumbnail. Keep up your work 👍