0:09

Hello everyone and welcome to the EDH

0:12

recast. It's our first episode of April

0:14

and that means just by showing up

0:16

my co-host has showed up more this

0:18

season than the entire Chicago White Sox.

0:20

It is Dana Roach. What's going on

0:23

buddy? George R.R. Martin and Patrick Rothvest

0:25

walk into a bar and that's all

0:27

I have. That's the end of the joke

0:29

and I'll maybe finish it in like 10

0:31

or 12 years. We'll see. Just whenever you

0:34

get around to a few of markets, you

0:36

know. Yeah, you've got so much other stuff

0:38

going on, like golden ring and stuff. Easily

0:40

distracted by things other than writing books.

0:42

Well, speaking of easily distracted, why don't

0:45

we get into the actual show today?

0:47

Because we do have a topic. Why

0:49

don't you tell us what we're talking

0:51

about today on this episode? Given the

0:53

the recent release of All Display ves

0:55

from Tarkier Dragons, we're going to talk

0:57

about what it takes to build a

0:59

kind of kindred or typal deck. Yeah, it's

1:02

a hard process. If you're not just buying a

1:04

pre-con, you want to make your own brew. Building

1:06

a type of debt can sometimes be a little

1:08

hard. So we just want to take you through

1:10

our steps that we go through on our end

1:13

and just kind of line things out. So it

1:15

just helps you with your brewing process for dragons,

1:17

zombies, elves, whatever you're building, we want to help

1:19

out with that. But before we get into the

1:21

main topic, we have some quick shout-ups to do

1:24

first. We are excited to be teamed up with

1:26

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1:37

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1:39

rec cast sleeves or even get a

1:41

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1:43

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1:45

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1:48

up here soon. If you click on the

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link in the description below, you can

1:52

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You want to make sure you want

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to catch up? You can do that

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all over at patreon.com/EDH Redcast, including get

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in the running for the coveted patron

2:42

shout out. So this week we are

2:45

going to give a very special shout

2:47

out to Angela Toby. So Angela. you

2:49

decided to ask yourself to be a

2:51

patron or not to be a patron

2:53

and went to patron.com/EDH broadcast. So thank

2:55

you so much Angela for all of

2:58

your support. I was waiting for you

3:00

to notice that Angela Toby is named

3:02

after two different characters in the office,

3:04

Matt. That's what I was expecting you

3:06

to go with there. I do look

3:09

like the typical office fan, but I

3:11

didn't go there. I hope I shattered

3:13

your expectations. In the appropriate way. Absolutely.

3:15

And with all that out of the

3:17

way, let's get into the main topic

3:20

today. So Dana, you and I were

3:22

talking, and yeah, Dragonstorm previews are still

3:24

going on, and by the time this

3:26

episode releases, they will be completely done.

3:28

But building a type of deck is

3:31

super, super hard, and with Tarkier, Dragonstorm,

3:33

being all about dragons, go figure. I

3:35

imagine you're correct. A lot of people

3:37

are going to be building type of

3:39

type of decks, especially Dragon decks, here

3:41

in the next coming months. kind of

3:44

easy to do, but sometimes it's way

3:46

harder than others. Dragons are probably the

3:48

easiest deck to do this with. If

3:50

you go to EDH Rec and look

3:52

at the stats of the most popular

3:55

type of decks in the database, dragons

3:57

are the most popular type of deck.

3:59

People do build when they want to

4:01

build around a specific creature type. There's

4:03

78,000 dragon decks in the database. The

4:06

second most popular type would be elves

4:08

at 65,000, then zombies at 62, vampires

4:10

at 53,000, and dinosaurs in fifth at

4:12

48,000 decks. So, dragons have a pretty

4:14

big lead over even the type in

4:17

second place, and given the amount of

4:19

dragons we're getting in this set, I'm

4:21

gonna guess that that lead is gonna

4:23

expand even further. So, so what you're

4:25

saying is just. creature types are popular

4:27

themes to build around is what I'm

4:30

gathering from you. It's a popular theme

4:32

and among that popular theme dragons are

4:34

the most popular version of that theme.

4:36

Yeah absolutely there's so many out there

4:38

and it's easy to see why dragons

4:41

are kind of the top of the

4:43

mountain when it comes to what is

4:45

a creature type you think of in

4:47

this high fantasy type of setting so

4:49

people obviously get very very excited but

4:52

also they're powerful they do big and

4:54

dumb things that I love to do

4:56

as a player so I get really

4:58

excited about this anyways. Nobody plays Dungeons

5:00

and Hydris. It's Dungeons and Dragons. That

5:03

is true. Yeah, it's the archetypal creature

5:05

in fantasy for a reason. Awesome. Yeah,

5:07

so to help people out with this

5:09

episode too, we found ourselves when we

5:11

built just any creature type. type of

5:13

deck. We ask ourselves a few specific

5:16

questions because it helps guide that whole

5:18

deck building process. So we're going to

5:20

ask those questions for you as the

5:22

audience to kind of take you through

5:24

if we were building any given dragon

5:27

deck going out there and building with

5:29

something maybe from Turkey or Dragonstorm. Yeah.

5:31

So the first question you kind of

5:33

want to ask is like what do

5:35

you want or need from that commander?

5:38

And we're using dragons as the creature

5:40

type we're picking here because it's easy

5:42

to use because everyone's talking about it

5:44

with Dragon Storm. This will apply to

5:46

whatever creature type you're going to pick.

5:49

So, you know, if you look at

5:51

the most popular commanders in a dragon

5:53

type of deck, or dragon's the most

5:55

popular, 22,000 or dragon decks, Mirum sent

5:57

a worm is next 16,000 followed by

5:59

Tiamat, a tark a road render and

6:02

revax of the claw. But Earth Dragon

6:04

is number one with a bullet. And

6:06

Miram's right behind it at 16,000. The

6:08

drop-off's pretty steep after that. Yeah, it's

6:10

enormous. Those are the decks people are

6:13

building by and large. If they're building

6:15

dragons, it's those two commanders. And they

6:17

kind of do a few different things.

6:19

That really kind of answer this first

6:21

question of what do you want slash

6:24

what do you need from the commander

6:26

when you're building that decking that. in

6:28

the game, you're cheating so many manicos

6:30

where my room's setting a warm is

6:32

all about, whenever you get that one

6:35

dragon, you're gonna get an extra copy,

6:37

you're really maximizing the drops of every

6:39

single one that's coming out. So yes,

6:41

they're still dealing with dragons, but they're

6:43

doing it in a different way. And

6:45

the same is true with T and

6:48

Matt, with Atarka, with Rivax. A team

6:50

that lets you search for dragons and

6:52

put them on your hand. A target

6:54

gives your dragons double strike and revacts

6:56

of the claw, revas of the claw,

6:59

makes manna to cast dragon spells and

7:01

you can cast dragons from the graveyard.

7:03

Well, in a brand new commander that

7:05

we're getting in Tarkier Dragon Storm, is

7:07

Ureni of the unwritten, which is that

7:10

new teamer, legendary dragon. So it's four

7:12

in teamer for a seven seven with

7:14

flying trample with flying trample and whatever.

7:16

You look at the top eight cards

7:18

of your library, you can put a

7:21

dragon creature card from among them onto

7:23

the battlefield and the rest on the

7:25

bottom of your library in a random

7:27

order. That right there is kind of

7:29

a myrum type of ability where your

7:31

entity enters a battlefield, you're gonna search

7:33

for the top eight and just grab

7:36

a dragon. It's gonna be a little

7:38

random for sure, but I love that

7:40

randomness. Also, like, Rich Card's expertise is

7:42

one of my favorite cards. So, I'm

7:44

very excited to see if people latch

7:46

onto this. I don't think it's gonna

7:48

be near as popular as Myram kind

7:50

of doing the work for you, and

7:52

it's a sure thing with Myram versus

7:54

Urenny. There is random misinvolved. And just

7:56

a note, it, yes, it's pronounced Myrum,

7:58

I don't know why I pronounce it

8:00

Miriam, like it's the. the fifth member

8:02

of the Golden Girls can ask, but

8:04

I do. For some reason, I mentally

8:06

default to that. It is my. I

8:08

think you just explained why you got

8:10

there, because you just wanted to be

8:12

a Golden Girl. Well, you know, to

8:14

answer the question, what do you want

8:16

her needed from the commander? If you

8:18

want to get specific beyond just like

8:20

it interacts with the creature types you've

8:23

picked, a lot of times the specific

8:25

thing that's important depends on the creature

8:27

type too. Earth Dragon makes Dragon Spells

8:29

cost less and lets you play Dragons

8:31

for free, that's particularly relevant in Dragons

8:33

because Dragons tend to be very expensive.

8:35

So being able to do that is

8:37

way more important in an Earth Dragon

8:39

deck, that same ability would be in

8:41

an Elf deck, where elves tend to

8:43

cost, you know, one, two, three, mana.

8:45

Yeah. Castinging them for free means a

8:47

lot less. I'm playing them for free,

8:49

means a lot less, means a lot

8:51

less, versus a lot less, versus a

8:53

lot less. that will be way less

8:55

relevant in the Dragon Deck because like

8:57

making one-one Dragon tokens is that really

8:59

what Dragon Ducks want to do. You

9:01

very rarely have a board that's so

9:03

wide where you're going to be a

9:05

tap ten of them. If you have

9:08

ten dragons out, you're just killing everyone

9:10

because they tend to be five, five,

9:12

six, six, or whatever. So you want

9:14

your commander to have an ability that

9:16

works well with that particular creature type

9:18

and what that creature type does in

9:20

the game as well. Yeah if any

9:22

of the unwritten was an elf commander

9:24

I don't think anybody would care at

9:26

all because entering and looking at the

9:28

topic to maybe grab a three drop

9:30

that's not very exciting but grabbing a

9:32

seven drop right the story changes very

9:34

quickly there so so yeah making sure

9:36

that the abilities are helpful to just

9:38

in general what that creature type likes

9:40

to be doing and how you're executing

9:42

that given strategy. Super super important question

9:44

you have to answer for yourself. So

9:46

I really like this question to kind

9:48

of guide from the beginning. Are you

9:50

picking the commander? What creature type are

9:52

you playing? And what kind of strategy

9:55

can you kind of mentally prepare to

9:57

be carrying out I should say with

9:59

that deck that you're going to be

10:01

playing? And this is really like true

10:03

even if you go beyond dragons. You

10:05

know, we mentioned the other five most

10:07

popular creature types, elves. The most popular

10:09

commander in elves is Lathro makes elf

10:11

tokens and lets you tap elves, so

10:13

deal damage to your opponents. A will

10:15

health is the most popular zombie commander.

10:17

Will help makes zombie tokens and let

10:19

you sacrifice zombies to draw cards. Edgar

10:21

Markov is a most popular vampire commander.

10:23

Same thing. Yeah, you know, same thing.

10:25

Edgar makes vampire tokens. Gishath, the most

10:27

popular dinosaur commander, does dinosaur stuff. Like,

10:29

yeah, and we did a little bit

10:31

of a deep dive a while back

10:33

when we were talking about some of

10:35

these most powerful commanders in these certain

10:37

creature types. They're just so head and

10:39

shoulders above what the rest of the

10:42

field is doing. They're probably always going

10:44

to be the most powerful thing you

10:46

can be doing at the head of

10:48

that given creature type. At least I

10:50

hope it is, because if Lathrol gets

10:52

power crept out and isn't the most

10:54

powerful elf commander anymore, there's probably a

10:56

bigger issue at play there. But these

10:58

things, so, so powerful. But any deck

11:00

that's built around a certain creature type

11:02

can always be super powerful because you're

11:04

able to tie in so many different

11:06

synergies, and oftentimes the commander's just the

11:08

easiest and best way to do that.

11:10

So should we go out of the

11:12

next question here that we want to

11:14

ask ourselves and how are you going

11:16

to support that theme? Yeah, and I

11:18

think the way that you kind of

11:20

support the creatures in that theme is

11:22

what cards are you playing that aren't

11:24

that creature type? And so you really,

11:26

you have to make sure you're being

11:29

very, very specific and intentional with these

11:31

cards because it's super, super easy to

11:33

get carried away and play 30 support

11:35

cards for your dragon deck, but then

11:37

you forget it's like, oh. I actually

11:39

have to put dragons in this deck.

11:41

And so this is a really important

11:43

question you kind of have to ask

11:45

yourself because you need to budget through

11:47

the rest of your deck how much

11:49

space you really do have. Right. So

11:51

if looking at something like Urania particularly,

11:53

it's a new commander, so he's that

11:55

it's a new commander, so he's out

11:57

for an example, where you have to

11:59

look at the top eight cards of

12:01

your library. But it's probably easier just

12:03

to have a bunch of dragons. versus

12:05

something like Tiamat, where you just search

12:07

your library for dragons and put them

12:09

into your hand. You can get away

12:11

with less really impactful dragons in that

12:14

Tiamat deck, since you're just tutoring them

12:16

up, versus. the already deck where you

12:18

have to hit them and have to

12:20

have them basically spread among your deck

12:22

and a density enough to get several

12:24

from the top eight. Yeah, Tiamat decks,

12:26

you might need five or six dragons

12:28

only because you're just gonna tutor them

12:30

up. Right. And they're gonna be the

12:32

biggest impact to dragons for any given

12:34

game. There's probably a lot of homogeneity

12:36

in Tiamat decks I would wager because

12:38

you're probably tutoring up the same five

12:40

dragons in every single game. factor that

12:42

we talked about so making sure yeah

12:44

you have that density in any given

12:46

deck or even the air dragon you

12:48

still have to have those dragons to

12:50

have their costs reducted or reduced I

12:52

should say reducted that's not even a

12:54

word but reduced taking that out there

12:56

so the cost can actually be reduced

12:58

and be casting throughout there that's so

13:01

so important so you always have to

13:03

make sure no matter what creature type

13:05

of deck you're building you have to

13:07

have that density and so making sure

13:09

you're not over committing to non creature

13:11

types that you care about, that's so

13:13

so important because it's so easy to

13:15

get carried away. Things that support the

13:17

theme, though, extend beyond just the dragons

13:19

that you're putting in the stack or

13:21

whatever the prick or creature type is.

13:23

There's a lot of support cards that

13:25

work with the theme you're picking that

13:27

synergize with it beyond just the actual

13:29

creature specifically. And some of this is

13:31

easy to find. If you go to

13:33

EDH rec and, you know, Dragons being

13:35

the most popular creature type and er

13:37

dragon being the most popular commander, you

13:39

can go to the er dragon deck

13:41

and in EDH rack and go to

13:43

the left of the screen and click

13:45

on high energy cards. Just get a

13:48

list of cards that work well with

13:50

dragon decks. There's just so many dragon

13:52

decks. There's so many er dragon decks.

13:54

Most of the includes are going to

13:56

just wind up being in this list.

13:58

you could just go through there and

14:00

be like, oh, well, not only do

14:02

I want to run a bunch of

14:04

things that work well with her dragon, crux

14:06

of fate, for example, as a board

14:08

wipe works really good in this deck.

14:10

It's a five-manna, sorcery, three double black,

14:12

and you choose one, choose all dragons

14:14

or choose all non-dragons, and destroy whichever

14:16

one you chose. So like, well, I'm just

14:19

going to pick non-dragons, obviously, and in

14:21

my her dragon deck can destroy. all

14:23

of them to keep all my dragons

14:25

around. So like there's a lot of

14:27

those things that if you just go

14:29

look and see that people have done

14:32

the homework for you to a degree

14:34

already and found a lot of those

14:36

synergistic cards and you can just find

14:38

them on EDI track really easily. Yeah,

14:40

the high synergy cards just for any

14:42

creature type are kind of, probably the

14:44

closest you're gonna get to staple quality

14:47

cards just because they're gonna be so

14:49

popular, so powerful, so powerful, type of card.

14:51

It's so just so so easy to get

14:53

out of hand there. But there's also a

14:55

whole category of cards too. You get stuff

14:58

like Dragon Speaker, shaman, and Dragon Lord servant

15:00

that those just cost reductions being able to

15:02

reduce the cost of your dragons by two

15:04

manna. That is huge. That's so much. It's

15:07

basically a soul ring on a creature. Yeah,

15:09

and the fact that it's a reducer means

15:11

it can apply multiple times per turn. You

15:14

know, that's tricky to do with dragons, for

15:16

example, but like if you're about an

15:18

elf deck, there's something that reduces the

15:20

cost of your elves, well, they're cheaper,

15:22

and many times you're going to be

15:24

casting one or two or three elves

15:26

in a single turn, and that will

15:29

stack, so like that cost reduction is

15:31

going to every single elf spell you

15:33

cast. Well, and you really like the

15:35

medallion cycle cycle cycle, that's... In general, though,

15:37

you cast that on three and on turn

15:39

four, you're casting six drops? Yeah. That gets

15:41

out of hand or really, really quickly too.

15:44

So Dragon Speaker shaman is super powerful. There's

15:46

a new one. Teamer Battlecrier that's coming out

15:48

in Dragonstorm as well. That's a blue, a

15:50

green, and a red for a four, three,

15:52

ork Ranger. During your turn, spells you cast

15:54

cost one less to cast for each creature

15:56

you control with power four or greater. So

15:58

it does count itself. So right away it's

16:01

just reducing the cost of everything by

16:03

one. But man, if you're playing in

16:05

a dragon's deck where compounds on top

16:07

of each other, if you have three

16:09

or four dragons out there, this is

16:11

reducing future dragons by five mana. You're

16:13

casting a Tarco world render for a

16:15

red and a green. That's enormous. Yeah.

16:17

I mean, there are things like the

16:19

Dragon Orb cycle from Battle of Boulder's

16:21

Gate. Yeah, love those of them. A

16:23

Manor Rock cycle, there's three of them,

16:25

and each one taps from mana, but

16:27

if you use the mana to cast

16:29

a dragon spell, you'll get like a

16:31

temporary buff. The red one gives your

16:33

creature haste, the green one gives your

16:35

creature a plus one counter and hex

16:37

proof. And the green one in particular,

16:39

I think, is really powerful. You get

16:41

to land that dragon and have it

16:44

sit for a full turn. It doesn't

16:46

gain permanent hex proof, but like it's

16:48

going to survive more than likely all

16:50

the way around to your next upkeep

16:52

at the very least before anyone can

16:54

interact with it. Yeah. Particularly in a

16:56

dragon deck where you're casting things that

16:58

are almost always a huge man investment.

17:00

That is so useful being able to

17:02

feel like my dragon is going to

17:04

be very difficult to remove for at

17:06

least a full turn. Well, because the

17:08

worst feeling in the world is spending

17:10

six or seven manna on some big

17:12

powerful dragon and then it just gets

17:14

killed right away or targeted whatever, having

17:16

that hex proof just to linger around

17:18

for a turn. So at least you

17:20

get to untap with it. That's so

17:22

important. We talk about that all the

17:24

time with high impact creatures with high

17:26

impact commanders. Sometimes as long as you

17:28

just get to untap with the thing,

17:31

that makes a world of difference and

17:33

just, yeah, having that on a manorock,

17:35

it's so powerful. how good of effect

17:37

that is. Yeah, and a lot of

17:39

times there's really useful payoffs you find

17:41

in there too, or even just like

17:43

buffs. So, crucible fire. It's an enchantment,

17:45

dragon creatures you control, get plus three

17:47

plus three. Dragon Tempest, whenever a creature

17:49

you control with flying enters, it gains

17:51

haste. Well, almost every dragon has flying.

17:53

And it also says whenever a dragon

17:55

you control enters, it deals X damage,

17:57

any target wrecks number of dragons you

17:59

control. I mean, you don't even. to

18:01

have a ton of dragons out for

18:03

that to be useful. Two or three

18:05

dragons in play and you're sniping your

18:07

opponents really good utility creatures just for

18:09

free for having that enchantment out. Yeah,

18:11

absolutely. And these all just, again, they

18:13

start relying on having a bunch of

18:16

dragons either in your deck, in your

18:18

hand, or in play. And there's just

18:20

powerful cards. Draco Genesis is a new

18:22

one that's coming out in Dragon Storm

18:24

and that one is. just stupid how

18:26

good that is. It's basically your rooftop

18:28

storm for dragons where it's six and

18:30

red red, you can cast dragon spells

18:32

without paying their manicos. So not only

18:34

are you just cheating manicos, like you're

18:36

just cranking through them so quickly, and

18:38

if you have cards like the great

18:40

hands, you have anything that lets you

18:42

draw cards and you cast creatures, that's

18:44

gonna let you just crank through your

18:46

deck. But again, it all goes back

18:48

to you can't have too many of

18:50

these effects in the deck. call the

18:52

spirit dragon is another big one that

18:54

has an alternative wind condition on the

18:56

card, you still have to have the

18:58

dragons out there on the battlefield, which

19:01

means they have to go in the

19:03

deck to begin with in order to

19:05

put them on the battlefield. Well, out

19:07

wind condition and it makes dragons indestructible,

19:09

which might be even more frustrating than

19:11

the alternate wind condition to play against.

19:13

Yeah, in Avison, just for your dragon,

19:15

it seems pretty good. So should we

19:17

take our little challenge of stats, break

19:19

your mat, and then we can come

19:21

back and delve into things that are

19:23

a little bit less obvious to like

19:25

just going to our dragon page and

19:27

finding good utility cards? Yeah, we probably

19:29

could. So yeah, good call. Let's break

19:31

it up real quick and we'll come

19:33

back and get into the rest of

19:35

finding the dragons. And challenge of stats

19:37

is brought to you by card sphere.

19:39

The best way to turn your unplayed

19:41

cards into played cards. I just put

19:43

together a run the last troll troll

19:45

type of deck and a good bit

19:48

of the cards came from card sphere

19:50

So thanks for the person who sent

19:52

me a pigmy troll. I appreciate it

19:54

You can send out cards you don't

19:56

need for credit toward cards you want

19:58

or simply deposit credit directly into your

20:00

account and other users will send you

20:02

the cards that you want straight to

20:04

your mailbox Go to card account our

20:06

favorite way to our favorite way to

20:08

build up decks. So Dana, I'm gonna

20:10

get to start us then with a

20:12

challenge, I think you're going to love.

20:14

So everybody knows how good Tamio safekeeping

20:16

is. It's one green mana, target permanent,

20:18

you control, gets hex proof, an indestructible,

20:20

tentative turn, and you gain two life.

20:22

That's not my challenge, it's very good.

20:24

But Tamio safekeeping for a common is

20:26

like fairly expensive, it's almost $3. I

20:28

have a nice little alternative that does

20:30

the same thing for much much less

20:33

and one that I've been super super

20:35

high on and that is defend the

20:37

rider. That is one green for an

20:39

instant that says choose one either target

20:41

permit you control gets hex proof and

20:43

indestructible until end of turn. Or create

20:45

a one one colorless pilot creature token

20:47

with this token saddles and saddles mounts

20:49

and cruise vehicles as though it power

20:51

were too greater. So not all the

20:53

time are you going to care about

20:55

having the the crew ability on there,

20:57

but having the flexibility to either have

20:59

that Tamio's safe keeping alternative where giving

21:01

a permanent, not just a creature but

21:03

any permanent, hex proof and indestructible is

21:05

super super super powerful. But say you

21:07

just need a blocker in a pinch

21:09

or something's going wrong, you still have

21:11

the ability to cash that. in make

21:13

a one-one jump blocker and save yourself

21:15

from maybe a lethal attack. There's a

21:18

lot of play there. I just I've

21:20

absolutely been having so so much fun

21:22

and luck with defend the writer. It's

21:24

just been a great alternative to Tamio

21:26

safekeeping. There's a ton of cards in

21:28

this category too, whether you're looking at

21:30

Guy's Gift, Thai Vars, Stand. It's a

21:32

category that Dana I think you especially

21:34

play a lot of in your decks

21:36

because it's just such a great and

21:38

efficient way to protect these big creatures

21:40

in your decks. So the newest in

21:42

this line, I'm just, I have to

21:44

tell people, play Defend to the Rider.

21:46

It is such a powerful card. Tamio

21:48

Safekeeping, over 164,000 decks. This I think

21:50

just has so much more flexibility. Unless

21:52

you're playing Ivy Gleeful Spell Thief, you

21:54

probably want to be playing Defend to

21:56

the Writer because I mean, Ivy, yes,

21:58

I get it, you're gonna gain two

22:00

life every time a copy resolves. But

22:03

this has the ability to make tokens.

22:05

Again, there's just so much good flexibility

22:07

around this. Make sure you keep a

22:09

copy of Defender rider in your sideboard

22:11

because it's. It's always just going to

22:13

be super handy. And my challenge today

22:15

is brought to us by listener MoJ

22:17

and it's for the card, the infamous

22:19

Cruel Claw. Cruel Claw is from the

22:21

most recent Eldrian set. It's one and

22:23

black and red three manifold 33 with

22:25

menace. And it says whenever the infamous

22:27

Cruel Claw deals combat damage to a

22:29

player, exhale cards from the top of

22:31

your library until you exhale a non-land

22:33

card. You may cast that card by

22:35

discarding a card by discarding a card

22:37

rather than paying its manicost. And Moge

22:39

writes, currently there are many cruel claw

22:41

decks that run a sorcery speed extra

22:43

combat spells, such as relentless assault or

22:45

full throttle. The problem is that all

22:47

of them have the wording, if it's

22:50

your main phase on the card. For

22:52

example, full throttle reads, after this main

22:54

phase, there are two additional combat phases.

22:56

which means it only works if it's

22:58

cast during a main phase. Since the

23:00

crew claw trigger takes place during combat,

23:02

those extra combat steps will not have

23:04

the conditions met to give you an

23:06

extra combat. So those would probably be

23:08

overplayed in crew claw decks. However, there

23:10

is one that does work. Great train

23:12

heist and a great train heist is

23:14

worded in a way that does allow

23:16

you to cast it and and use

23:18

it. during your combat step because it

23:20

says untap all creatures you control. And

23:22

if it's your combat phase, there's an

23:24

additional combat phase after this phase. So,

23:26

you know, some overplayed cards, perhaps in

23:28

crew claw decks, if you're planning on

23:30

using them as the free spell proc,

23:32

maybe play less copies of things like

23:35

relentless assault or full throttle and play

23:37

more copies of the great train heist.

23:39

It's a good suggestion. MoJ, thanks for

23:41

pointing those cards out. All right, Daniel,

23:43

let's get back into the main topic

23:45

then. So we've talked about a few

23:47

things that maybe to a lot of

23:49

players, it's pretty obvious. Like look at

23:51

high synergy dragon cards, you're gonna find

23:53

good dragons. Well, we get it. What

23:55

if we're looking for some synergies that

23:57

maybe aren't so. obvious though because that's

23:59

a super important question because you can

24:01

really find some amazing hidden gems if

24:03

you just learn where to look. Sure,

24:05

so for like for a popular creature

24:07

type like dragons you could very often

24:09

go to EDH rack and just click

24:11

on you know the most popular commander

24:13

and get 90% of the useful synergy

24:15

card just off that list. If you're

24:17

digging a little bit deeper and you're

24:20

playing a less popular creature type for

24:22

example You have to a lot of

24:24

times just start doing some kind of

24:26

keyword searches. Scryfall is really useful for

24:28

things like this. You can go to

24:30

Scryfall and just do a search for,

24:32

usually I make it not for creatures,

24:34

that way I don't see all of

24:36

the creatures that way I don't see

24:38

all of the creatures that I've already

24:40

probably picked from my deck, but just

24:42

do a keyword search for that creature

24:44

type. So like if you just go

24:46

through and do a keyword search for

24:48

dragons, That's really useful when you're like

24:50

looking for something a little bit weirder

24:52

or a little bit less likely to

24:54

show up on 88 track. Well, and

24:56

Dan, I really like a strategy that

24:58

you mentioned here in the show notes

25:00

that I'm gonna steal because I found

25:02

myself doing it, but I didn't realize

25:05

I was doing it, but I didn't

25:07

realize I was doing it. When I

25:09

recently built my hair apparent deck with

25:11

JetMear, Nexus of Rebels. And so you

25:13

mentioned going to scryfall and going to

25:15

advanced search and just searching advanced search

25:17

and just searching to advanced search and

25:19

just searching to generic that you just

25:21

want anything that has to do with

25:23

creature types in general. And you find

25:25

so many amazing results just by doing

25:27

that alone. Yeah, like if you want

25:29

to, you know, for example, make your

25:31

dragons unblockable, you're not going to find

25:33

the card cover of darkness if you're

25:35

doing a search for dragons. Right. But

25:37

if you do the search for the

25:39

phrase creature type, for the phrase creature

25:41

type, have fear. It's a really useful

25:43

enchantment, maybe not so much in dragons,

25:45

because they already have flying, but like,

25:47

it's a card I run. in a

25:49

wizard, a demer wizard's deck I run,

25:52

the wizards are trying to win via

25:54

combat damage, and they don't have evasion,

25:56

giving them fear is very, very useful.

25:58

And then that's the kind of card

26:00

you can find if you're just kind

26:02

of generically searching for the term creature

26:04

type because. That's usually found in cards

26:06

that let you pick the creature that

26:08

kind of make your own type of

26:10

deck or make your own type of

26:12

card if you will. Yeah, it's super

26:14

helpful to find something that's just these

26:16

cards can go in any type of

26:18

deck that you're building that aren't just

26:20

limited to elves, not just limited to

26:22

zombies. I know tribal force mage was

26:24

a card that I found that I

26:26

really really have been trying to find

26:28

room in my hair apparent deck for

26:30

and it's a morphy. of the type

26:32

of your choice get plus two plus

26:34

two and trample until end of turn.

26:37

So it's just an overrun that I

26:39

can pay over the course of two

26:41

turns. That is super super handy when

26:43

I'm trying to go wide and don't

26:45

have any inherent evasion built into my

26:47

creatures. That's just such a powerful effect.

26:49

So it's definitely something I've been looking

26:51

through and just I've really just had

26:53

a ton of success. So I'm really

26:55

glad you put this note in here

26:57

as you can find things for your

26:59

creature type of deck without looking for

27:01

that type specifically and that's such a

27:03

forgotten type like search term I feel.

27:05

Yeah, it's the kind of thing that

27:07

you that they tended. Not do it

27:09

as much anymore or at least when

27:11

they do it now You kind of

27:13

are aware of the card whereas there's

27:15

a lot of old cards haven't seen

27:17

reprints in a long time that do

27:19

this as well Yep, a lot of

27:22

the ones we mentioned as Stevie Resolve

27:24

jumps out to me. Oh, yeah, one

27:26

in the green and lets you pick

27:28

the creature type and gives those creatures

27:30

shroud now shroud can be a problem

27:32

in other ways But like if your

27:34

deck isn't one where you are interacting

27:36

with your creatures or targeting them giving

27:38

them all shroud, it, it's really powerful,

27:40

Yeah, absolutely. And there's another twist on

27:42

this too that I really think is

27:44

super good is finding things of a

27:46

certain color too, like finding things, okay,

27:48

all green creatures get X or all

27:50

red creatures get that. So it's not

27:52

just searching by creature type, but searching

27:54

by color too. is a really, really

27:56

effective way to find so many powerful

27:58

things. Yeah, because I mean, even if

28:00

your deck is multi-colored, that doesn't mean

28:02

your creatures tend to be multi-colored. I

28:04

have a blue-white sphinx deck. I think

28:06

only two of these things that are

28:09

actually a zerious colored, including the commander,

28:11

the rest are all motto blue, which

28:13

means they're all blue. So like, it's

28:15

spelled that. or doesn't affect blue creatures

28:17

is going to work really well in

28:19

that deck, even though it's a multi-color

28:21

deck. A lot of times you'll see

28:23

in an angel deck, even if it's,

28:25

you know, two colors, most of the

28:27

angels are model white. So, you know,

28:29

something like Ravnica at war is a

28:31

sorcery board wipe, exiled, all multi-colored permanence.

28:33

Well, that's gonna miss most of your

28:35

stuff, even if you happen to be

28:37

playing a two-color angel deck. Yeah, just

28:39

to circle back to dragons. Most dragons,

28:41

especially dragon tokens, if that's the way

28:43

that you're going, they're going to be

28:45

red. They're going to be motto red,

28:47

whether it's terror, the peaks, or Lathless,

28:49

I think, is a really great example

28:51

where you might be searching for things

28:54

that only benefit dragons. But if you

28:56

have a Lathless dragon queen deck that

28:58

makes a bunch of five-five tokens that

29:00

are red, well, this is just perfect.

29:02

Yeah, I mean, you're, you know, you

29:04

have to think outside the box a

29:06

little bit for some of this stuff,

29:08

but like, particularly when you get down

29:10

to more obscure, you know, maybe color

29:12

parrots, maybe you're looking to play something

29:14

that's not like traditional for that creature

29:16

type, or you're just playing a weird

29:18

creature type. then you might have to

29:20

dig a little bit deeper because there's

29:22

just not going to be as much

29:24

obvious synergy, but there's still synergy there

29:26

if you want to dig into it.

29:28

Sometimes the synergy is like with shared

29:30

characteristics. So yeah, yeah. Maybe all of

29:32

your creatures in your deck have flying.

29:34

Well, then something like gravitational shift that

29:36

gives all creatures a flying plus two

29:39

plus, oh, and creatures without flying minus

29:41

two minus so, you know, that's a

29:43

huge swing. Yeah, and maybe not as

29:45

useful in dragons, even though your dragons

29:47

all have flying, but if you're playing

29:49

a fairy deck, where all your fairies

29:51

had to be one, ones, and two,

29:53

twos. Well, turning those eight fairies you

29:55

have that are relatively low power, Muffing

29:57

them all by two is a pretty

29:59

big swing, especially when it also makes

30:01

everyone else's ground creatures weaker. Yeah, just

30:03

to continue the thought on flying, Bower

30:05

Passage is another great way just to

30:07

mess around with flying and just finding

30:09

ways to give your non-flying creatures evasion.

30:11

Like, there's so much going on there.

30:13

It's a lot of just really, really

30:15

powerful effects just by searching by. Keywords

30:17

by anything that you just is outside

30:19

the box just a little bit. Yeah,

30:21

you're still able to find those common

30:24

threads in your creatures So your creatures

30:26

all have the common thread of having

30:28

that creature type But not all your

30:30

cards need to I mean a mudslide

30:32

is another good one To red creatures

30:34

creatures without flying from from ice age.

30:36

Yeah, right. Yeah, and creatures out flying

30:38

don't untap unless our controller pays to

30:40

you know you're playing a dragon deck

30:42

every single one of your dragons have

30:44

flying so like it's an enchantment that

30:46

you can play and you can ignore

30:48

it and every one of your opponents

30:50

has to pay an up keep to

30:52

untap their their non-flying creatures like there's

30:54

a lot of those weird kind of

30:56

things if you kind of dial in

30:58

and what specific thing your creature type

31:00

and your type of deck is going

31:02

to be doing you can find weird

31:04

things that arts synergistic and feel like

31:06

they are buffing whatever your particular kindred

31:08

deck is doing, despite not actually being

31:11

built for that deck. Yeah, absolutely. And

31:13

as a last resort too, I feel

31:15

like people just kind of forget sometimes.

31:17

You can just search for changelings and

31:19

find some good things. Just fill in

31:21

those last few gaps in the deck

31:23

to round things out because yeah, changelings.

31:25

they're not gonna show up when you

31:27

search for a certain creature type, but

31:29

when you search for them specifically, you

31:31

find things that are always, almost always

31:33

going to be helpful. And things can

31:35

get even like less specific, the more

31:37

obscure your kindred deck gets. I built

31:39

a troll deck recently, because I thought

31:41

it was kind of funny. There's 30

31:43

legal mono green trolls, and five of

31:45

those are vanilla or French vanilla creatures.

31:47

So like, If the troll isn't named

31:49

Thron, it's probably not very good. But...

31:51

Most of them have regenerate and while

31:53

there's not a ton I can do

31:56

to build around regenerate as you know

31:58

a theme in that deck, something like

32:00

wilderness reclamation or bare umbra that let

32:02

me untap my lands. Let's me do

32:04

all the things I want to do

32:06

on my turn and still leave man

32:08

a free to regenerate all those trolls

32:10

Sure sure like while it's not necessarily

32:12

a theme for that deck or something

32:14

that that supports that type It kind

32:16

of does it lets me like find

32:18

a way to utilize a common shared

32:20

characteristic among that particular creature type in

32:22

a way that that benefits me. Yeah,

32:24

I mean that's Super deep and I'm

32:26

not surprised you built a troll deck

32:28

to kind of almost literally troll us

32:30

with that Yeah, come on. I have

32:32

played three games with it so far

32:34

and I've managed to win all three

32:36

somehow so it's it's not as bad

32:38

as it should be Fair, awesome. Well,

32:41

so, okay, so there's finally a last

32:43

question that we ask ourselves, and this

32:45

is the exciting one that we've kind

32:47

of focused on maybe too much, but

32:49

there's a reason we put it last

32:51

because, again, you have to make sure

32:53

you're rounding everything out pretty well. And

32:55

that is, how do I pick the

32:57

creatures that I want to play that

32:59

are this given creature type? How do

33:01

I finally pick the dragons that are

33:03

going in the dragon deck? with unlike

33:05

trolls, there's a ton of dragons that

33:07

you can be picking from. And one

33:09

good thing to do is I just

33:11

find the sub-themed, is there a certain

33:13

thing in common with the creatures? And

33:15

again, particularly with dragons, there's so many

33:17

dragons, there's so many choices you can

33:19

make. And to give you an example

33:21

of this, I have a Selesnia dragon

33:23

deck with Tremok, the eternal as a

33:25

commander, and Jamaica has bolster, so when

33:28

he attacks, it puts... two plus one

33:30

counters on your dragons. Okay, well then,

33:32

you know, there's reasons, therefore, to run,

33:34

say, hardened scales or doubling season in

33:36

that deck, because the commander's gonna be

33:38

out a lot. I'm putting plus on

33:40

counters on stuff. Why not increase the

33:42

number of plus one counters on stuff?

33:44

Well, if I'm already doing that, then

33:46

why don't I run dragons that tend

33:48

to do. plus one counter stuff too.

33:50

So like. I've thematically leaned into running

33:52

as many of the Silesnia dragons that

33:54

do plus one counter things as possible

33:56

in that deck because it just makes

33:58

sense with what the commander's doing, what

34:00

those colors do. So there's just a

34:02

strange little synergy I found there, even

34:04

in something as niche as running Silesnia

34:06

dragons. And sometimes the colors can really

34:08

dictate that sub-themed too. You know, having

34:10

a dragon deck in green and white

34:13

is going to be very different than

34:15

a dragon deck that you have example,

34:17

because I know you have one, in

34:19

demere colors too mere colors too. in

34:21

the blue and black. So there's sub

34:23

themes that you can build in that

34:25

just kind of play naturally with what

34:27

the creatures like to do just because

34:29

of the nature of their colors. And

34:31

so yeah, like I have a humans

34:33

deck, I have my Kyler's Seguarding emissary

34:35

deck, and it also has a sub

34:37

theme of plus one plus one counters

34:39

just because Silesniac colors do that very

34:41

very well anyways. And so sometimes. the

34:43

deck kind of handholds you in a

34:45

certain direction with that sub theme so

34:47

your creatures just inherently like to do

34:49

that given thing just because that's what

34:51

right every creature in that color combination

34:53

does yeah and a lot of times

34:55

your commander will dictate that like you

34:58

said um yeah last was dragon queen

35:00

is or is mono red dragons and

35:02

whatever you you cast a dragon spell,

35:04

you make a 66 dragon token, that's

35:06

gonna look a lot different than say

35:08

a Tarca road renderer where you want,

35:10

where it gives all your dragons double

35:12

strike. Yeah, absolutely. A Tarca wants you

35:14

playing big beaters that can be even,

35:16

they can do even more damage when

35:18

you're swinging at them at somebody by

35:20

giving a double strike. Lathless a lot

35:22

of times is running really efficient dragons

35:24

that you're doing things like bouncing back

35:26

to your hand to recast. is pretty

35:28

good in a last list deck because

35:30

a lot of times you're going to

35:32

cast it, make your 6-6 Dragon token,

35:34

bounce it back, cast it again, do

35:36

that multiple times in a turn in

35:38

a way you can't do with a

35:40

7-minute dragon. Yeah, and unfortunately too, like,

35:43

there's only so much wiggle room with

35:45

dragons. A lot of different other creature

35:47

types, they have a little bit more

35:49

flexibility with like, what can you do

35:51

with that sub-themed? Sometimes dragons are dragons.

35:53

They're gonna be big six and seven

35:55

drop creatures. They're gonna do big six

35:57

and seven drop things. But when you

35:59

look at different creature types out there,

36:01

like zombies are really good about this.

36:03

Sometimes you want to just go super

36:05

super wide and get an army of

36:07

20 zombies out there. So maybe you

36:09

want like a zombie master or any

36:11

type of lord effect where you're gonna

36:13

pump them up, you're gonna be doing

36:15

a lot of combat damage. Or you're

36:17

not really ever untapping or your zombies

36:19

never lose some sickness because you're sacrificing

36:21

them. In that case, you probably want

36:23

a few extra aristocrat type of effects

36:25

or anything like that. So really finding

36:27

out what you want to be doing

36:30

in that deck and what that sub

36:32

theme is, that might help influence. those

36:34

creatures that you are putting in the

36:36

deck because that's just how you're gonna

36:38

maximize the efficiency when it comes to

36:40

actually playing the games. Well, one thing

36:42

I remember us talking about in one

36:44

of our earliest shows, to show you

36:46

how long we've been doing this podcast,

36:48

Edgar Markov had just came out and

36:50

Matt and I both had put Edgar

36:52

Markov decks together really early on. And

36:54

I remember us having this conversation talking

36:56

about like, yeah. people were building Edgar,

36:58

you know, vampire decks and putting the

37:00

usual suspect like big splashy powerful vampires

37:02

that I heard Russ both having the

37:04

conversation. No. No, you want to put

37:06

really bad one and two drop vampires

37:08

as many of them as you can

37:10

in that deck and like just make

37:12

the craziest widest part you can. That's

37:15

a very different, and that tends to

37:17

be now when I look at Edgar

37:19

decks, most of them go that route.

37:21

That's a much different way to build

37:23

a vampire deck once people kind of

37:25

realize how Edgar plays than the initial

37:27

knee jerk thought, which is just put

37:29

in the big... you know explosive splashy

37:31

vampires people tend to want to run.

37:33

Yeah it used to be the only

37:35

one drop you ran in the Edgar

37:37

Markov deck was a vicier because it

37:39

just happens to be a vampire right

37:41

but there aren't very many other vampire

37:43

decks especially in commander that are playing

37:45

stuff like vampire of the dire mood

37:47

that we tends to get played and

37:49

so it is funny just how quickly

37:51

that shifted though but yeah you are

37:53

right back when we when Edgar Markov

37:55

first came out and EDH rec wasn't

37:57

really the thing that it was. People

38:00

were still bidding on like these archaic

38:02

deck building sites. Edgar Markov, yeah, we

38:04

had that conversation was like, why are

38:06

people playing all these five manna, or

38:08

five manas vampires when you could just

38:10

be playing a bunch of one and

38:12

two drops and just kill them by

38:14

the time they cast their spells? Yeah.

38:16

It's so funny to see that. And

38:18

just think about that conversation we had.

38:20

Yeah. And that's just such a perfect

38:22

distillation of how you have to figure

38:24

out maybe what the, how the creatures

38:26

that you're going to pick for your

38:28

particular deck are going to impact what

38:30

your deck is doing based on that

38:32

commander. Absolutely, there's so many different ways

38:34

that you can take and it just

38:36

all comes back to what are you

38:38

trying to do? What is the commander

38:40

helping you do? And then maybe what

38:42

are the colors enabling too? So there's

38:44

so many different levers that you can

38:47

use just lean into making sure you're

38:49

not having the exact same deck because

38:51

I know Dana you hate it when

38:53

you have the exact same deck or

38:55

even yeah, a half of the same

38:57

deck as somebody else. Sure. And so

38:59

there's so many ways you can just

39:01

lean into that freedom into that freedom

39:03

to be creative. important to you and

39:05

it doesn't have to be if you

39:07

just like want to play the you

39:09

know prototypical or dragon deck and that's

39:11

fun for you that should be fun

39:13

for you like there's nothing wrong with

39:15

that but one of the things that's

39:17

cool about commander is it's like the

39:19

one magic format where if you want

39:21

to dig deep and like build something

39:23

as a creative expression and still play

39:25

the deck in a way that like

39:27

can win games you can do that

39:29

in commander so like that's one of

39:32

the things that's nice about this. There's

39:34

just so many different ways to find

39:36

that path to build that cool different

39:38

unique deck if that's what you want

39:40

to do and have it also work.

39:42

Yeah, Dana, absolutely. It's fun just getting

39:44

to see all the creative things people

39:46

can come up with. Hopefully people get

39:48

to be creative things people can come

39:50

up with. Hopefully people get to be

39:52

creative with dragons. You know, there's so

39:54

many different options that are going to

39:56

be coming out in the set. Even

39:58

even. and you know, my, Selesnya deck

40:00

and my demer dragon stack, I'm finally

40:02

gonna be able to pull out, you

40:04

know, young blue dragon and a luxury

40:06

dragon. I was running some pretty bad

40:08

creatures and I'm getting enough tools that

40:10

I'm no longer having to run that

40:12

kind of stuff to have enough bodies

40:14

in those decks. So that's gonna feel

40:17

pretty good. Some real bottom of the

40:19

barrel options there. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. All

40:21

right. Well with that, let's get out

40:23

of here. We'll cut it short. But.

40:25

If anybody wants to get a hold

40:27

of you and ask questions about your

40:29

dragon's decks, Dana, where can people do

40:31

that? You can find me online at

40:33

Blue Sky most of the time at

40:35

Dana Roach. I read articles for EDH

40:38

Rec and we are all able to

40:40

be found at patreon.com such as EDH

40:42

Recast. And then you can find me

40:44

on pretty much any social media platform

40:47

at Mathemus 55 that's MATH5. And don't

40:49

forget we are proud to work with

40:51

Dragon Shield to provide. It's just some

40:53

of the best accessories to protect all

40:55

of your cards. You can't protect your

40:58

life total from dragons, but you can't.

41:00

a whole of Joe you can do so find

41:02

him on social media at Joseph M. Schultz and

41:04

with that I think we don't really have anything

41:06

else to say other than make sure to EDH

41:08

wreck your deck before you wreck your deck.