Several times: > me building a deck: "Panharmonicon makes this setup so busted" > me actually: wishing I had anything other than Panharmonicon in my hand

The trap: Americans playing red/white/blue

Even tho I’m mostly a cedh player here, i am glad that so much more content is aiming at helping newer and casual players tighten up their lists

but my gremlin self wants to hold my library in my hand...

I do indeed win more when I equip my Helm of the Host to Aurelia, the Warleader. In fact I usually win immediately.

You say "You can't make a deck with just removal, ramp, and card draw" as you show a green, red, white, and blue spell... I smell an Aragorn build in the near future... I like to call it "Aragorn Only Eats Veggies"

Congratulations on the Cool Stuff Inc. sponsorship! I'm happy to see some big companies have taken notice of your channel

Absolutely agree. I built a Greasefang deck, with the plan of using discard engines to bin a giant vehicle and then use Greasefang to reanimate it, punch face, then when the vehicle jumps back to my hand I rinse and repeat. I quickly realized that a "vehicle reanimator" deck doesn't work too well when your only way of reanimating big vehicles is stuck in your command zone all game after eating a buffet of removal or is turned into a 0/1 bug. The thing is, any sensible opponent is not going to just let you do anything you want. After looking at my decklist with the expectation that my opponents are probably going to attempt to stop me from winning gave me a much more clear picture. As you say, there's no real one solution, and my answer was that I didn't need ALL the vehicles and the more greedier, "staple" cards ("surely every white deck should run Smothering Tithe & Ghostly Prison," I said...) and slot in a lot of protection, flickers and alternative discard pay-offs for my discard package when Greasefang isn't around. Flicker effects _especially_ made the deck run so much smoother, using it as a defensive way to protect Greasefang, or flicker my own vehicle to make it avoid Greasefang's bounce effect. Even though the term "Discard-Flicker-Vehicle-Reanimator Deck" sounds like an unsynergetic nightmare on paper, the reality is that every single card still goes towards the same game plan of "kill you with vehicles", and it's easily my most consistent and strongest deck nowadays.

I remember hearing someone say recently that Reliquary Tower should be an auto include in any deck. I really only ever had it in my Locust God deck that was centered around drawing cards. Thinking back on it, the only times I've had to discard to hand size, and I didn't want to, was when I was mana screwed.

Reliquary Tower, the bane of my existence. I think I have discarded to hand size...one time in all the EDH games I've played, and I did not care because I still had 7. I always see it and go "This is literally making your deck worse, person."

For all the people here convinced they still need Reliquary Tower, just run Thought Vessel and Decanter of Endless Water instead, there the floor is at least a rock that gets you ahead on mana instead of a land that cuts you off a color. Sure it feels less "free", but you need rocks/ramp anyway, you might as well use some for synergy.

Great video as always. I recently removed "Teferis Ageless Insight" from my Anowon (Dimir Rogues Tribal) Deck, because I realized it mostly only works with my commander and is worse than a "Bident of Thassa". Same with "Helm of the Host" in Zhulodok, it is just an overkill.

You are so close to applying quadrant theory to EDH, something I recommend all players learn to do. Also, Teferi's Ageless Insight only sees so much play because it's a budget card that makes your other budget card draw spells ALMOST as good as their nonbudget equivalents while it is in play. Some people just want a CHANCE to keep up with more expensive and usually more powerful decks. It's not the same, but I really can't fault them for trying. Sometimes, you just have to work with the tools you have, ya know? Lastly, I think that the inclusion rate for Reliquary Tower is artificially inflated by the "precon effect." Let's face it, that card was included in every precon for a long time, and there is a growing movement to play more unmodified or only slightly upgraded sealed commander decks.

its funny, I actually run Teferi's Ageless Insight in my Sidar Jabari deck specifically for the example you used in this video, because all of my knights cantrip when they attack its super useful for digging for more knights to discard to reanimate

This reminds me of the one time I asked another player how he wants to get 8+ cards in hand after seeing the Tower in his Boros deck, back in 2015. He was quickly enlightened that there are better cards out there. Nowadays there are some Boros Commander that can draw you enough cards (Nelly Borca easily getting 10+ cards in hand makes Tower really good).

I agree on this. The only deck I play helm of the host in is my Silumgar the Drifting Death deck because he has the hexproof to dodge that spot removal that would normally get thrown at him in response to the equip, and his -1/-1 ability gets multiplicatively better when duplicated, since each of them triggers off each dragon they see attacking and silumgar is of course a dragon itself. This makes the clone effect much better than in most decks. Sure its still a bit win more, but its also a great way to repeatedly duplicate other strong dragons in the deck considering I'm in dimir and my options are limited for that tribe.

I run reliquary tower in my Ghalta primal hunger deck. In that deck you're using greater good and every other card that lets you draw for power, so you generally have 12+ cards in hand as early as turn 4

Teferi's Ageless Insight is really nice with Looters too. Draw two discard one cause you tapped a dude is pretty neat.

seagate restoration is the best example of this. it only draws you lots of cards if you already have lots of cards. tap out on my turn to draw cards when my hand is already full? no thanks.

The only deck I run reliquary tower in is my Narset enlightened exile deck and this video is making me look at it more critically. The negatives, as you have highlighted, are that it's a colorless land for my three color deck without green which can make it hard to cast some spells, and that at the end of the day discarding spells to the graveyard isn't all that bad because I can reuse them with Narset. BUT, on the contrary, I kinda like how it removes one decision point that I don't have to think about, and with all the triggers I have to keep track of, the ordering of spell slinging and deciding what mana to leave up for instant interaction I actually like having one fewer thing to worry about. Also narset is one of the decks that, in my experience has a strong correlation between big hand size and having a lot of creatures on the board, so I really want to keep both protection spells, cantrips and big buff spells all at the same time. So while I agree that a lot of players get too focused on the highest ceiling instead of the average floor, I think that you're underestimating a bit how "comfortable" certain cards can make you feel, especially if you have to account for a lot of things having (sometimes) less mental load is worthwhile on its own

Another thing about Reliquary Tower that some people don't consider is that in any Graveyard deck you might actually WANT to discard to hand size to be able to pitch things to your graveyard

Helm of the Host is a bad example because a number of decks go instantly infinite with it

Someone suggested I run Reliquary Tower in my Goreclaw deck which can and often does draw a ton of cards. I'm not ruling out ever adding it, but I'm generally only ever discarding excess forests so it doesn't really do anything for me except make me look scarier than I actually am.

While watching this I started taking a look through one of the decks I have and got to Warren Soultrader right as it got on the screen. Was a real neat experience

"you can't make a deck with only removal, ramp and card draw" That's my favorite kind of deck!

I draw a lot of cards in group hug Zedruu. But I don't play Reliquary Tower, you know why? If I have ten or fifteen cards in hand, people might be scared of me, even if I have like two protection spells, three creatures, a Propaganda, and a ton of lands. But those magical words, "discard to hand size," takes half the target off youe back. A couple players' turns later, you'll be asked "how many cards in hand?" and you'll say "seven" and they'll go "oh yeah, that's a normal number of cards. Not so scary."

the only deck i include any "no max hand size" cards is my baba lysaga deck, in which i want to trigger her 1-2 times per turn, drawing me 4-7 cards a turn. i dont absolutely need reliquary tower or thought vessel in the deck, but i think that they are valid in that deck as the no max hand actually does help out somewhat, and when it does do nothing having a colorless land/colorless mana rock isnt hurting my deck at all

really liked this video. I myself have been playing for a long time (1993) and had to figure these things out the hard way. Great that you're offering new players a toolbox for building their deck better!

My izzet spellslinger deck felt so upgraded after such a small change; taking out reliquary tower and adding a thought vessel. Sounds kinda silly at first glance, but being able to ramp in the early game with rocks is huge for my later big mana turns. I still can’t bring myself to take out teferi’s ageless insight though… 😅

Great analysis. I’ve been trying to make my deck’s power level more consistent and things are this have been on my mind. Keep up the good work.

I'm pretty new to magic in general this vid helped me a lot since right now I'm just starting to finish up my list.

The funny thing about the ur-dragon and reliquary tower is that "ceiling" of reliquary tower where you have attacked and drew a bunch of cards that you want to keep, it means you attacked with a bunch of dragons. The game is either over or almost over if you just drew 10 cards. Not because now you have a ton of cards for whatever situation, but because you have a huge board. So the land is useless

You should know this is basically Quadrant Theory, something some pro players came up with for card evaluation a while ago. The essential idea is splitting your evaluation into 4 parts - Developing, Winning, Parity, and Losing. Figuring out which quadrants each card is strong in helps quantify the value of the card in your deck, etc etc.

Thankfully, because of my time playing yugioh I already had experience w/ ensuring that most cards accomplished something on their own before coming to magic.. But my lord EDH has soooooooo many more temptations for this, I especially love it when old cards just kindaaaaa fit in. But then when I need space for cards that actually further my strategy, I look at the first card and go "Nope, thats my favourite piece," look at the next one "No, thats also my favourite," next one, "I just haaaave to keep this in its so good when it works!"

do nothing win more cards are like having a graphic designer in your group research project

fantastic video, thank you for your insight 😤

I appreciate the analysis being more than “Reliquary Tower bad”

Thanks to your videos I made a commander deck of only cards from MOM with the commander Zurgo and Ojutai and no synergy other than himself. It was just good cards no synergy. And it was enough to get back to back wins cause it had good removal, good card draw. And it didn't need to go crazy just those things can put in the work.

Excellent topic. I just pulled Legion Loyalty from my Caesar deck, because I NEVER had it when it could be useful.

Great to see you getting sponsors! Love the content!!

Reliquary Tower converts unknown information into mitigation especially if you run a healthy amount of card draw. Many players aren't willing to risk attacking into potential interaction, even if my hand is 6 Islands, Evolving Wilds and Sorrow's Path. In such games, Reliquary Tower's opportunity cost pays for itself.

Ageless Insight sucks me in every time I play mono blue. As you said it's great in my Watcher deck, and in my Ormos deck. Otherwise though it is usually a trap.

I run *a lot* of no max hand size cards in Guff but that's because Guff just churns through so many cards and can put so many of them out.

I have Reliquary Tower in 2 decks for very specific reasons. My Azami, Lady of Scrolls cEDH/High Powet deck has powerful effects that reward my large hand sizes. Oftentimes I will have upwards of 20 cards and being able to pitch cards with Dream Halls is super effective. My second deck is Ranar, the Ever-watchful, and it is one of a dozen colorless mana producers to enable Eldrazi Displacer. If I were to remove the Displacer, it would come out in a heartbeat.

I enjoy drawing a ton of cards, so I tend include the tower, and two or three other similar effects. But there are two decks that I intentionally left it out of, Slimefoot and squee, and Damia, because both of those decks want to use the end step for discarding if I end up with too many cards drawn.

I love how I'm waiting for the video to end so I can explain why Teferi's ageless insight and reliquary tower belong in my Gin-Gitaxias cantrips deck and then you just so happen to make an exception for my specific archetype. It is also great because there is no other card like it. It's not like it's enhancer number 5. It is the only piece of card advantage in that deck that doesn't directly draw cards.

I'm playing Teferi's Ageless Insight in my cycling deck with 40+ cycling cards; it's a real bomb there. It doesn't really fit in anything else I've ever built though :]

Easy tip: take out “win mores”, add removal to fill the newly formed gap in the deck. Also greater good is a great way to discard creatures to reanimate in my Meren deck. I could sacrifice a Blood Artist to greater good and still get value. Also awesome synergy with dredge creatures.

I totally agree. Though I doubt you're going to circle around, if you ever talk about "teferi's ageless insight" again, it has a much stronger synergy with commanders that themselves cantrip. "Sidar Jabari of Zhalfir" becomes a powerhouse when combined with cards like it and "The council of 4". It's also great in something like "Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer", where you're using it with a morph/colorless cost reducer and a flash enabler to ensure you can play your whole deck.

For me, I see this as a more recent issue with effects like Reliquary Tower as lands have gotten better (same with mana rocks getting better in the case of Thought Vessel), so now space within decks has gotten way more competitive, especially when playing more colors

Grats on the sponsorship!

I am glad you are talking about this. Most of the people I end up helping with decklist fixes only focus on the ceiling and explaining to them how the ceiling doesn't matter if there is not a good floor to support can sometimes be quite hard(I'm convinced over 90% of MTG players are denser than nuclear pasta). Side note, reliquary tower is a trash card, even in a deck that has a goal of getting a 50 card hand.

So, making a stance here for Reliquary Tower. The scenarios, imo, where you want the old Waste With An Upside are: 1) If your deck plays a lot of interaction aiming for late game and draws a lot of cards without you doing much. I play a Talion clones deck that passively draws so much and plays so much interaction that I always want to keep in hand to leave my opponents in a long game where my Talion(s) can chip them away until I can win, that in practice, the roof of Reliquary Tower means I can genuinely control a 3 player table effectively, while its floor is a colorless land in a 2 color deck. 2) If your deck plays very bad card quality but has ways of drawing a burst of cards or 3+ cards in a turn. This happens to me more than anything in lower powered decks where a burst card draw effect doesn't just win me the game by me sculpting my hand into the perfect 7 cards I will need. If you had ever thought "It is fair to put Necropotence in this casual deck, it is not like I have 7 cards that just win me the game on their own" first, fuck you, and second, you probably could use a Reliquary Tower. 3) If your deck's win condition is the "control threshold". If you don't play finishers and instead your win con is doing the same busted things a couple turns in sequence (Landfall without combo, go wide creature beatdown without haste, etc) you will need ways to protect your stuff during your opponents' turns to allow you to secure your win without dying to a wrath. You will need counterspells or heroic intervention effects, probably more than one, plus whatever setup you need to do the thing again next turn and continue whatever the value engine you have is to try to close the game. That could use a reliquary tower. 4) Your deck can draw 20+ cards in a turn and you really, really don't want to think. This might be my pods' exclusive but we kind of have an understanding that if you drew 20+ cards in a turn and untap with all of them, you kind of won game once you reach a certain power level. That kind of makes Reliquary Tower basically a combo piece if you stretch the definition

I currently have 8 decks I play around with. Of those 8, I have and use Reliquary Tower in 2: My upgraded Deep Clue Sea (with added Detectives and more Clue synergy, as well as at least a handful of cards that care about hand size) and My Zethi, Arcane Blademaster (there are times where I want to keep my interaction in hand to use rather than discard it to the graveyard. It also partly runs on a Cycling engine, so it draws a lot of cards). In those decks, it is useful for multiple reasons, not just because they want to draw cards, but because they want a LOT of card draw to enable their game plan. Simply put, many of the best cards in DCS are triggered by card draw. Zethi is a spellslinging deck, so you want to be refueling your hand often and hold up removal.

Reliquary Tower is most appropriate when you're mass drawing at end step: Necrodominance. Helm of the Host is most appropriate when the creature has a powerful combat effect: Godo or Aurelia.

I really love teffaris ageless insight in my my Stenn enchant deck because it leans more into mono white where i dont run many blue cards other than removal so the teffaris gets a lot more value as a result of that

I love this video. First of yours I've watched. And I learned this lesson in a weird way. I built a pirate themed deck when ixilan first came out. And everyone around me kept saying the deck was terrible looking at the floor of every card. Which was all steal/copy effects (piracy) but turns out having the best card on the board averaging the other 3 decks. Turns out is better than expected.

On the note of reliquary tower I was absolutely baffled when I saw it on lists for magar of the magic strings, a commander that actively wants you to have stuff in your graveyard.also In 31% of varina decks, and Varina cares about your graveyard as well.

I think Terferi’s Ageless Insight absolutely has a home in certain decks, those decks being commanders that encourage looting effects (any of the connive commanders from SNC for example) - in those decks it turns your connives from card selection that sometimes get you a counter into genuine card advantage, the card does some work in a Raffine list and I play it in cedh Raffine. But yeah it shouldn’t just be jammed into any blue deck without a thought of synergy and I think the cases I’m talking about do have the synergy to justify them

Reliquary Tower in general is one of the biggest traps in commander. So many other utility lands have much better effects. I would not put it in any deck. If I ever actually need dozens of cards in hand, I'm probably doing something wrong.

I run Scion of the Ur-Dragon in my Ur-Dragon deck, so I usually want some (dragons)in my graveyard in order to gain their etb. I found out that if I use Scion go get Teneb, the Harvester and do combat damage to someone then I can use Teneb's effect to pull himself out of the graveyard. TLDR: I don't run Reliquary Tower in my Ur-Dragon specifically for situations like that.

Telling myself “Play more removal” over and over as I add 10 cards to deal with artifacts and enchantments

1:14 it's funny that you mention Crucible of Fire. In a Ganax, Astral Hunter deck that uses Fewild Visitor as its Background commander, you actually want CoF because you're making a bunch of 1/1 tokens that are Dragons. Usually, the tokens just get used as chump blockers, but with Crucible, they're 4/4, meaning you need less to block big things and can live against other small creatures.

I find that I have the reflex to put a Reliquary Tower in all my decks from back when Commander design was a lot more lax in its deckbuilding philosophy. Back then Reliquary Tower was pretty new, and a lot of people were still playing battlecruiser style decks, which often missed land drops and had several cards in their hands with high cmc. Since then, mana curves have gotten a lot tighter and lower as decks became more focused, and now Reliquary Tower is more of a bane than a boon in many decks. For me, though, I grew up playing with the old deckbuilding ways, and it's hard to break out of that. I do alright, though, and I still have it in some decks.

I am a HATER of reliquary tower. However! The new Nelly Borca Boros commander, NEEDS it. She naturally draws dozens of cards through a game. It's so nice holding up a wall of instant speed interaction in your "boros" deck

Yea I came to this conclusion recently when trying to tighten my imotekh build. I'm playing it more as an anthem version of the deck rather than aristocrat and my table is pretty strong so that variant has trouble holding up and I was like "yea I'm never gonna be in a winning situation all these win more cards make no sense"

I’m much more particular about when to include Reliquary Tower and other “no max hand size cards” than I used to be. Most of the time, replacing those with recursion is way better. I think my Alandra deck is my only one with “no max hand size” stuff because it fuels her overrun effect. As for “do nothing” cards: I built a Naya enchantress deck a few years ago in which 32 of the 42ish enchantments were not auras or creatures, and the auras were almost all ramp. I keep it updated and still play it, and it is a beast in casual.

I feel helm of the host, is sort of a win more, but doesn't become worthless unless it's spot removed. It just depends on the deck it's certainly a key card if your deck has a lot of ETB/Combat or its a win con for your commander (Aurelia). As it gives a good ETB repeater for consistency at the lower power level tables that isn't stuffed with tutors. But I do agree it's too often used because only the commander really benefits.

Is Reliquary Tower a great example of this? In one and two colour decks(the majority) it’s usually going in a free land slot anyway.

I used to run ReqTower and Helm in many decks; now they are only in 1: OG Kozilek. I discovered the trap, and found better things. But those do do work in Kozilek because, well, colorless utility has no downside, and do you know how awesome it is to have several Kozileks, Ulamogs, or Emrakuls on the board? I once had 3 Kozileks in a game that had gotten down to me and 1 other person. And there's no coming back from a 3-Kozilek swing.

This video confirming to myself that i am indeed bad and i love it.

I have a Yarok, the Desecrated deck that I always find my self discarding to max hand size and since I have so much ramp I have been thinking of adding a reliquary tower

Reliquary Tower is different though. It‘s a quality of life include, a courtesy to the table and yourself, so nobody has to wait for you choosing which 14 cards to discard.

farewell is maybe a bad example because of how modal it is, it likely has a mode that hits the rest of the table significantly harder than it hits you

A playgroup that doesn't use much removal, that must be nice, my group is one person gets a good board state and three other people go "damn itd be a shame if somewhere were to wipe that" and then proceed to immediately do just that

a lot of "do nothing cards" are cards that are only tangentially related to the decks strategy. To give an example using the Teferi's Ageless Insight example, it can be a really do nothing card UNLESS your game plan IS to draw cards (like a cycling deck). The reason they end up being no nothing cards is because they don't advance your strategy.

Now imagine if tower winder could search for reliquary tower, now thatd be insane

Should I play relequary tower in my pearl-ear aura deck ? I almost always have more than 7 cards in hand, but colorless mana is less valuable than white mana.

As someone building a budget commander deck I was thinking exactly this "Hmm, my deck aims to have a ton of creatures to attack, I don't know if a boardwipe would fit-" well, now I'm adding a boardwipe and some removal lol. I guess my experience with yugioh is to blame. YGO is so quick and explosive that it's usually better to make sure that you can push your advantage state as much as possible AND THEN add defensive cards as deck space allows. Some types of decks like Pendulum barely play any defensive cards at all because you need a lot of monsters to make it consistent.

Play Fire Whip and Brash Taunter in your red decks, you won't be disappointed.

This logic is why I only included ashes of the fallen in Disa. Never felt good paying 4 or 5 for the effect. It always felt awful falling that far behind on tempo to play a card that does nothing if my commander ate a removal

It's funny to see these types of conversations come up in edh when this evaluation standard has been used in legacy forever

Congratulations on the sponsorship, man!

i only run reliquary tower in my sheoldred the apocalypse deck because i have lot's of howling mine type effects that make evryone's hand fill up quickly and i've found that i want to use any reanimation i have on my commander instead of stuff i discarded to stay ahead. so in that specific case, it isn't as much of a "win more" card in that deck

i feel like this is general with pretty much any enablers they’re really good if you have your commander or if your engine is online but the minute that gets broken apart it’s just a dead card i learned this when i had a bunch of counter doublers in the deck but not enough counter generators in my vorinclex monsterous raider deck

i love teferi's ageless insight for kwain, even if im behind on untap engines i always get some value out of it. also if another player has something threatening on the board it can stick around for a few turns before people start getting concerned by how many cards im drawing

So CLEARLY that means I should run cards that get Omniscience out as early as possible so I can play all the cards from my hand

Hey! Don't you bad talk my beautiful boy Lotus Cobra. He goes in every deck, don't question it.

What I like to do sometimes is also ask „how much does this have to do to be good and how often does this minimum happen?“. I recently had a conversation where this was especially useful when a guy told me „Gaeas cradle is not THAT good since it doesn’t make mana when you have no creatures“ my response was exactly this thing. How much mana does cradle have to produce to be good? The answer is 2. what percentage of the time does it do that in your deck? Pretty much 100% in this guys case so we agreed it is good. Anyway the argument does work on less obviously example and it also works during gameplay to reduce the greediness of plays. The new Ghalta for example that lets you put on the board as many creatures on the board as you like. How much does it have to do to be good? In reality bringing in 1 creatures is already strong. So you do not have to keep him in your hand because next turn you have even more to put into his trigger and repeat this thought next turn u til you loose without ever playing him

I put both Teferi's Ageless Insight and Reliquary Tower in my Kess wheel deck. i use them to make the wheels bigger to punish my opponents more. Sometimes its the difference between victory and loss.

Helm of the Host is such a great card and when curved into it performs amazing. I would hope it draws board wipes and removal, because if so then I’m playing the correct cards. Remember, play cards which require an answer. It forces plays to happen sooner than your opponents normally would want to and throws off their game plan, and it helps shake up the edh pod 😂

My deck to use Reliquary Tower is Hidetsugu and Kairi, as I want to store the right instant and sorcerys for an explosive turn later, so drawing a bunch off of Rhytic Study and then losing it all isn't helpful. But it's an exception. I find you only need reliquary if you're going to be drawing tons of cards at once.

Reliquary Tower is such a trap - a basic is infinitely better in most scenarios. Of the 23 decks I currently have built, I run it in 3. Two are enchantress decks (Narci and Tatsunari) and the other is a mono blue deck built around drawing cards on everyone’s turn (Minn). I would definitely consider removing it from Narci if it ever causes problems…

I have a brenard deck running WAY to many “winmore” cards but I haven’t lost with that deck this year 😂

I like reliquary in 2 or less color decks. But most cases it's bad. Thought Vessel is a little more usable though imo.

I mainly run it in my aesi land drop deck, where I can be drawing 4+ cards per turn, though I could probably remove it since I added titania voice of geae

I love teferrris ageless insight, but i play a lot of looting effects and thats when its really good. It just depends on the deck. But i leave it out of the deck that plays enter the infinite 😂

I have one deck that tuns the tower, and that is in my deck where my commander gives me unlimited hand size. The reason being that I have a card that makes my handsize four, so I do want more ways to fix that and keep my often 9+ cards on hand.

I have one friend who loves "no maximum hand size"-cards. Guess I gotta send this to them xd

There are a lot of great points. I've been cutting generic win more cards from decks where the synergy just isn't there. Sometimes, if the synergy works, I may want it. Reliquary Tower really doesn't hurt much to have in most decks. However, if I have 3 or more colors, I probably only can tolerate one colorless land. Maybe two if one filters and also has a nice effect. And if I don't get a direct benefit from having extremely large hands, like playing control or getting benefits from a large hand, then I don't need it. I also like to discard often and have stuff in the bin. As for your point that pretty much all cards do nothing without anything, except for removal, ramp, turors and card draw...I do think this is a little off. Many creatures do so much on their own. One they provide a body, and two they almost all have effects that don't require other things. Each of these other cards has an opportunity cost and the potential to do nothing or at least not do enough as well. 1. Draw almost never does nothing, because if it didn't, that means you lose (or win with one of the few Thoracle type cards). So we definitely want a fair amount of draw, but considering a variety of draw so that all of your draw cards don't rely other things to draw) 2. Tutors are best when built around so you know what to get. If they have no purpose and you don't know your toolbox well, this becomes painful for other players and yourself. 3. Ramp can fail to find, similar to the problem of tutors. This is especially true for things like Cultivate that want you to be basic heavy. Mana rocks on the other hand are very prone to mass destruction these days and provide a lot of benefits for those Dockside players and such. It's still often worth playing them, but that come at a cost and I think many are overused. 4. Removal needs targets when it targets and it wants you to be behind or to be immune to its effects when you play it. It can often be detrimental. It doesn't mean you shouldn't play it, but I simply want to point out that many of these don't work without targets and can be dead cards at times. Either way, great points and I do consider the 4 categories as well as bodies on board (or enough prison effects) to be essential, but I evaluate which cards of each type go into a deck so that it makes most sense and I am almost positive you've made this point in other videos. Great video!