Hello everyone and welcome to CommanderCast Episode 452! This week Mark and Adam’s pockets are hurting with trying to keep up with all the new cards that WotC keep churning out. In the current year we’ve seen set after set go by almost completely unnoticed because of how soon the “next big thing” is a few days or a week after it came out. So today we have to ask if it’s worth it to try and keep up with the cards that are being printed or is it just best to take time to enjoy the ones we have already collected before we move on to the next thing? Then the guys want to take a moment to ponder over how much card draw do you really need in a deck where your Commander has a built in draw effect already? Finally, we wrap things up with a quick look at so cards that might help with so of our low funds by finding us a ton of treasures!
All that, plus our usual interstitial fodder, and all you have to do is Click the IB!!!
CommanderCast Episode 452
Posted: August 9, 2021
Intros:
Adam
Mark
Keep up with the conversation on Facebook & Twitter.
Community
Do you (or should you) try to keep up with the new cards in EDH?
Interstitial fodder:
- Panzer Dragoon Saga is the platypus of JRPGs (and still fun to play).
- Mark listened to the D&D audiobook read by Ice-T so you don’t have to.
- Bo Burnham’s “Welcome to the Internet” and “White-Woman’s Instagram”
- “Olympic Highlights with Kevin Hart and Snoop Dogg” is the best part of the Olympics.
Strategy
How much can/should you skimp on draw effects when your commander draws cards? (Yuriko, Sevala, Chulane, etc.)
Technology
- Academy Manufactor
- Brass’s Bounty
- Deadeye Plunderers
- Dockside Extortionist
- Forsworn Paladin
- Goldspan Dragon
- Goldvein Pick / Prying Blade
- Grim Hireling
- Hoard Robber
- Magda, Brazen Outlaw
- Monologue Tax
- Old Gnawbone
- Pitiless Plunder
- Prismari Command
- Prosper, Tome-Bound
- Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
- Revel in Riches
- Shiny Impetus
- Skullport Merchant
- Smothering Tithe
- Spell Swindle
- Storm-Kiln Artist
- Storm the Vault
- Surly Badgersaur
- Tireless Provisioner
- Treasure Vault
- Xorn
Outtro/Contacts:
CommanderCast – Email: commandercast(at)gmail(dot)com // twitter: (at)CommanderCast
Calvin – Email: captainredzone(at)gmail(dot)com // twitter: (at)CaptainRedZone
Mark – Email: mahlerma(at)gmail(dot)com
Adam – (at)squire9999
Be sure to check out our CommanderCast Facebook page.
And a big thanks to everyone here at the CommanderCast Network. We’ll see you next week with more community, strategy, and technology. Until then, LET’S GET IT!
Sadly, I do try to keep up with all of the new cards. I’m a dumb completionist when it comes to to sets. I eventually buy all of the cards I don’t already have. I try to do it at the most economical level I can afford, but when you’re raking in all that sweet, public-school teacher lucre, it’s hard not to splurge. I think it’s because I’m a constant deck builder. About half of my decks are established and I mostly don’t touch them except to try out a few new cards now and then, the other half of my decks I’m always changing up and constantly rebuilding to try something new. 30 decks makes me happy with its balance of fluidity and consistency.
I never owned a Saturn. I had a friend from high school who did. He bought Virtua Fighter and then I’m pretty sure he sold the whole thing after he got bored of it. I did buy a Turbografx 16 at the end of its lifespan. It was on sale for $50 and I had a paper route as a kid that went towards games and comic books. I do have to say that my Dreamcast was still probably my favorite console out of all of the ones I ever had. I did know that one guy who had a Neo Geo. He was my friend’s rich cousin, and he would let us play it a few times. That’s the closest I’ve ever come to meeting royalty. I never owned a 3DO, but I borrowed one from a friend and played the hell out of Road Rash 3D, I never owned or played the Atari Jaguar, but I did trade a keyboard for a handheld Atari Lynx. Thanks again for that lovely trip down nerd memory lane.
I’d like to mention Malcom, Keen-Eyed Navigator as a good source of treasure and a commander to boot. You pair him with another hyphen-lovin’ pirate, Glint-Horn Buccaneer, and to quote Carl Weathers from Arrested Development, “Baby, you’ve got a stew going.”
No worries about Garza Zol. I play her because she’s a Timmy control win condition who loves to hand out Savage Beatings while living in Homicidal Seclusion. A control deck that’s very rough on creatures and knows it has a 7-drop commander in colors with limited ramp. So it works to slow the game down and disrupt people. If anything the deck is now an example of how the format has sped up. Probably always needed more card draw and such, but for a while was good enough. Now that there’s more decks at her level, she probably needs to be doing more.
As I’ve said about her, she’s a 7-drop flying haste 5/5 draw a card. And if her other ability ever kicks in, it means something has gone horribly wrong.
On treasure vault. I put it in Mairsil because it’s another artifact with an interesting ability that could be caged, and because the deck does have Marionette master as a kill condition. Likewise, I managed to open a second copy and it’s likely to go into Syr Gwyn for similar reasons. That’s a deck that happens to include Mayhem Devil. So a land that goes pop! Here’s a bunch of treasures! Is of value in both.
I do want to vouch for Skullport Merchant. Costly on the activation cost, but sacrificing treasures or creatures to draw cards is excellent utility.
I admit I have trouble viewing Dockside Extortionist and Smothering Tithe as staples. Both unlikely to get reprinted and having a ton of power and utility. They both, especially Smothering Tithe, can essentially be win conditions on their own because of what you get out of them vs what you put in. I can’t justify paying a ton to put one of either in each deck.
Regarding new cards, it really depends how the set catches me. In the case of Ikoria, I saw Vadrok and just had to build that deck. But like nothing from Theros at all. Not really anything from Zendikar either, though I did want a bunch of spell lands and adjusted a couple decks accordingly since I was just trying to generally tune them up. Kaldheim I actively wanted a bunch of cards, but all as role players and upgrades for decks. Similar for MH2.
Then with AFR, I just really wanted to make Venture into the dungeon work. And really wanted to do it in Abzan, with partners. So new deck using the Abzan partners from the ikoria commander decks. I’m still waiting for the last three cards to arrive.
In general this is typical, maybe even more exaggerated because of the Pandemic slowing everything down. Got a couple chances to play with my play group, but that was only back in may, since my scheduling disagrees. Grrrr.