Posted by ANDY aka GHoooSTS
I can’t even pretend that this week’s topics have any real relation. There’s just… nothing between them. Normally there’s at least some thin undercurrent between topics but this week, but this week is a dirty grab-bag. Maybe it’s because I had to hit up THE RESERVES after a record-setting flakeout from some guests! I managed to get Byron, Pat and Matthew on short notice to spit fire into the cipher this week and we threw together a pretty good show; Pat wanted to talk Horde, Byron wanted to talk fogs and Matthew agreed to appear with the stipulation we gave him the opportunity to shit on the PDiddy ban. This show was born!

Important: Gifts Given 2012 orders are closed! An invoice is on the way for those who participated in the drive that will detail the next step. After everyone has paid, we’ll be making the shirts and shipping them! Thanks to everyone who placed an order. In a few weeks, the MtG community in the real will be swarming with well-dressed CommanderCast boosters and it’s going to be awesome!

Show notes and pertinent links below. Enjoy.

SHOW NOTES

00:00 to 04:08: Introduction: REAL TALK

• Facebook page
• YouTube Hub
• Gifts Given 2012
• Wild Research, Pat’s column

COMMUNITY SEGMENTS

04:20 to 19:36: FFART: The Primeval Titan ban: This was the biggest deal in the recent update to Commander’s ban list–maybe the biggest change to it in a long time. This week Matthew wanted to debate the issue of P Diddy getting banned because he’s super mad about it, but also because we’re not all sure it makes sense yet. Was Primeval Titan really such a huge offender, or game-ruiner? Was he worse than the other obnoxious, commonly-played Commander heavy hitters like Consecrated Sphinx? All this and more on a lively but civil debate on whether Prime Titties deserved the ban or not.

19:48 to 37:27: Horde Variants: Pat likes Horde magic. He’s played it a lot. Over time he’s engineered some cool variations on the typical Horde ruleset which can help spice up your Horde experience. In this segment we review Pat’s ideas on how to switch up Horde from fighting a mindless mass of tokens into something more dynamic and threatening. The two primary variants Pat presents are:

Archenemy Horde: At the start of each turn, the Horde gets to play an Archenemy card. This is the best use for Archenemy cards there is. You need to modify the Horde’s Archenemy deck to ensure that the number of choices it needs to make are minimized, and then you need to be ready to roll the dice and work out funny interactions on the fly. But adding the power of Archenemy schemes to the Horde give it a lot of extra punch and variance.

Boss/Layered Horde: In this variant, the Horde’s deck is stacked with multiple types of tokens that are progressively more dangerous. An example would be Squirrel tokens, followed by Beast tokens, and finishing with Godsire offspring tokens. This lets the Horde’s difficulty gradually ramp up and also serves to just add a bit of diversity. To divide these token types, you add ‘boss’ creatures that serve as a divider in the deck; this boss can’t be milled into the graveyard, and will ALWAYS be played. To continue the example, for bosses in the Squirrel/Beast/Godsire horde, you could use Jedit Ojanen of Efrava, Homura, Human Ascendant and Borborygmos.

• The original Horde Magic article, and companion follow-up
• My video that serves as an introduction to Horde magic

STRATEGY SEGMENTS

37:40 to 48:13: Fogs!: We’ve all probably used a Fog effect occasionally in limited, but what’s going down with Fogs in Commander? Why use a limited trick in a format full of ancient power cards and power-creepin’ haymaker creatures? This week Byron is bringing the straight dope on fog effects to shut down all kinds of increasingly popular strategies.

• Surprise Fogs: Fog, Moment’s Peace, Tangle and the like
• Persistent Fogs: Kami of False Hope, Spike Weaver, Sunstone, Glacial Crevasses and so on

48:30 to 1:05:19: Countercreep and Dying Strategies: Some strategies don’t get strong cards printed for them much anymore. Land and hand disruption are the main examples, but hard-counterspell based control decks also are getting less and less strong cards compared to ramp-heavy, midrange ‘battlecruiser’ decks. Graveyard hate keeps getting more and more options. As the ‘tuck’ options continue to grow, are Voltron decks going to suffer? This week we look at strategies that seem like they might be in trouble because of low-opportunity cost hate cards that get released combined with a lack of new, powercrept support cards.

• Sean McKeown’s Maralen of the Mornsong evil combo deck article

TECHNOLOGY SEGMENTS

1:05:36 to 1:28:35: Entourage: Starke of Rath: Ugh! Timothy suggested a bit of a stinker for this Entourage (as the mono-red ones tend to be). We try to polish up this turd with some strategies and card selection for our skeezy traitor.

• “Gimmies” and Home Version Suggestions:
  • Starke Boosters:Liquimetal Coating, Rings of Brighthearth, Mycosynth Lattice
  • Stark Retention: Homeward Path, Brand, Confusion in the Ranks
  • Starke Untappers: Thousand-Year Elixir, Puppet Strings
• Byron’s Joints: Spine of Ish Sah, Warp World
• Matthew’s Cards: Erratic Portal, Threaten effects
• Pat’s Picks: Darksteel Plate, and verse counter cycle (like, you know, Lilting Refrain)
• Andy’s Silliness: Reroute, Burning Sands

OUTTRO

1:28:29 to closing: Outtro: Thanks for listening!

• YouTube hub
• CommanderCast on Facebook
• Gifts Given 2012
• MistVeil Plains YouTube channel

CONTACT INFORMATION

• Andy: E-Mail: CommanderCast(at)gmail(dot)com // Twitter: (at)CommanderCast
• Byron: E-Mail: surgingchaos19(at)gmail(dot)com // Twitter: (at)surgingchaos
• Pat: Contact via MTGS (username “irpotential”)
• Matthew: Contact via MTGS (spezza19) or YouTube (MistveilPlains)

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