0:01

Greetings, humans. You have

0:04

entered the Command Zone, your

0:06

destination for all aspects of

0:08

Elder Dragon Highlander. Enjoy

0:10

your stay. Hello,

0:14

everybody, and welcome back to another episode

0:16

of the Command Zone podcast. I'm your host, Rachel

0:18

Weeks. I'm Jimmy Wong. How's it? It's Josh

0:20

Lee Kwey. We're all here. Just

0:22

everybody. We're all doing it, making a

0:24

podcast. Wow. You guys want to do

0:26

a podcast? Let's do it. Today, we

0:28

are bringing the fantasy draft back. If

0:31

it's your first time joining us for

0:33

a draft episode, this is not a

0:35

magic draft. We're not going to be

0:37

drafting magic cards from a pack. We're going to

0:39

be drafting magic cards from all time.

0:43

Fantasy draft style. More like the NFL

0:45

draft, I'd say, than drafting limited.

0:48

Right. And we've

0:50

been having our patrons vote on what

0:53

categories of cards that we're drafting, and

0:55

today our patrons voted on Gotcha

0:57

spells. We're going to

1:00

get into what those are and get into

1:02

the draft. But if you want to pick

1:04

up any of the sweet instance flash speed

1:06

tricks we've got planned to talk about today,

1:08

go to cardkingdom.com/command and pick up all of

1:10

those cards in one place. When I'm building

1:12

a deck, especially when there's a new set

1:14

out, I like going to one website and

1:16

buying a ton of cards all in the

1:19

same place and waiting on one package to show

1:21

up on my doorstep. That way I get

1:23

to do all of my building L at once. Plus,

1:25

I know that when I buy cards from Card Kingdom,

1:27

the cards that I order on the website are going

1:29

to be the ones that show up on my doorstep

1:31

because they have the professionalism, they know the cards and

1:33

they're going to package them well. So

1:36

I trust them with when I'm building,

1:38

I trust them when I'm shopping for

1:40

new staples. If you trust them as

1:42

well, you can also support the show

1:44

while doing it. Again, cardkingdom.com/command. And

1:46

when you get those cards, make sure they're

1:49

protected. Go to ultrapro.com/command. UltraPro is a

1:51

brand new line of product out called

1:53

Mana 8. Oh yeah, this stuff is

1:55

sweet. See it on your screen right

1:57

now. These are just a really sort

1:59

of elevated. collection around the mana

2:01

symbols. So if you are a person that has

2:03

monocolor decks or has a way to organize your

2:05

binders in the way that matches this, this is

2:07

like a perfect time for you to get in

2:10

on the organization game. And ultrapro.com/command has the best

2:12

quality stuff in the biz. Josh, myself, Rachel, we've

2:14

all trusted our collections to this company for a

2:16

long, long time now and for good reason, because

2:18

they're always coming out with great new product. Their

2:20

product is known to be super sturdy, lasts a

2:23

long time. They also have technology like Apex Sleeves

2:25

that's a part of this new mana aid lineup.

2:27

So check all that stuff out when it comes

2:29

to getting your cards protected,

2:31

looking really sweet as well. And these play mats

2:33

are great to bring the conventions to get signed

2:35

by artists or your favorite content creators. So if

2:38

you're in that world, mana aid is calling out

2:40

to you. And so is the URL ultrapro.com/command. Yeah,

2:42

I walked down into the kitchen just the other

2:44

day and Rachel was

2:46

playing in a pod and you

2:48

had the mana aid stuff,

2:51

the deck box, the sleeves and the play mat out.

2:53

And that was the first thing I said, I was

2:55

like, whoa, it just jumps at you. Like, yeah, that

2:57

stuff looks amazing. And of course, the

2:59

final way to support all of our content is

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directly if you go to patreon.com/command zone, our patrons

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get all kinds of cool perks like chatting with

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of our team on Discord. We're on there each

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other perks. We have exclusive content. If

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you're interested in supporting our content, joining

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our community, again, patreon.com/command zone. Plus we

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shout out one lucky patron. Yeah, every

3:27

single episode. This one is dedicated to

3:30

Francis A. Laco. Francis.

3:33

You rock. You rock. You

3:35

definitely rock. Quick announcement before we move on. We're

3:37

going to be at Gen Con. Oh, yeah. Yeah,

3:41

we're having a game nights live on August

3:43

2nd. I

3:45

believe that show is already sold out. It's

3:47

sold out in the first few hours of

3:50

the announcement getting made. I don't know what

3:52

the process is if people aren't able to

3:54

make it, if there's going to be some

3:56

sort of standby line or something. So definitely

3:58

we'll pull that out. put a link in the show as

4:00

to what we know at the time this

4:02

episode comes out. And maybe there is a

4:04

chance to still sneak in there. We're not sure. This is our

4:06

first time at Gen Con, and we're not sure exactly how it's

4:08

going to work. But if you are going to be at Gen

4:10

Con, we are also going to be there that weekend. Even if

4:12

you can't make the game night's live show, which

4:15

hopefully you can, we'll probably be

4:17

around trying to jam games and just check

4:19

everything out. Yeah, signing stuff, taking pictures, all

4:21

that good stuff. Yeah, sound off in the

4:23

comments if you're going to be there and

4:25

what you're doing and maybe I've never been.

4:28

Yeah, same. I'm excited. Yeah, so if there's

4:30

something cool that happens over here at Gen

4:32

Con or something cool you're doing, let us

4:34

know. Maybe we'll show up. All right. It's

4:36

time to draft, though. Da-da-da-da-da-da-dah-dah. Dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah. That's what

4:38

I felt. I think that's the Fox thing.

4:41

I like, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-basket ball. Da-da-da-da-da-da-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah. Basket ball. Basket

4:43

ball. We've been singing that song in the

4:45

office for weeks. Because it's so good. It's

4:47

so good. Just live in your brain. OK,

4:51

let's talk about Gotcha Spells, which we were about to draft here,

4:54

because I don't like,

4:57

how are we exactly defining Gotcha Spells? And I

5:00

think we had conversations like you and me, Rachel.

5:02

You and me, Jimmy. I know you guys talk.

5:04

Yeah, did we land on exactly what it is?

5:06

Or is it just kind of, yeah, exactly. So

5:09

the more I did research on this, the

5:11

more that I decided that

5:13

Gotcha Spells universally are recognized as

5:15

instant speed, for the most part.

5:17

They're tricks that can be flashed

5:19

in. That you

5:21

don't see coming. That you don't see

5:24

coming. Related to that, they're also pretty

5:26

narrow. So these are the kind of

5:28

effects that you don't see a ton

5:30

of. But when they're good, they're great.

5:33

Yeah, there's an unexpectedness to the word

5:35

Gotcha. So it has to be,

5:37

in my mind anyway, I was thinking of

5:39

something that my opponent wouldn't expect. So a

5:41

counter spell would meet some of the criteria.

5:44

But yeah, it's not really a Gotcha spell, because.

5:46

They were holding a blue blue. What could they

5:48

have had? When somebody counters your spell, you don't

5:50

like it. But it's not like, well, that's crazy

5:52

that you could even do that, which is kind

5:54

of, you want Gotcha's to kind of feel like

5:56

that? There is another layer to it. But I

5:58

think when we started talking, we were like, yeah,

6:00

it's like instance, and it's like, you know, really powerful

6:03

and narrow, and like, kind of surprising. And the more

6:05

I looked into it, and the more I found spells,

6:07

the more I think the most important thing about

6:10

a gacha spell is that

6:12

it is causing something positive

6:15

for an opponent to backfire in

6:17

a major way. It's like

6:19

a huge blowout. It's not

6:21

just like, oh, my spell got countered. It's like,

6:24

not only did your spell got countered, you die?

6:27

Like, it's very... Yeah, it

6:30

has it. That kind of swinging. I was thinking

6:32

about like a judo move, where they take your

6:34

forward momentum and use it against you. And so

6:36

it's, yeah, I felt like the most, the things

6:38

that felt the most gacha to me were things

6:41

where they're almost proactively

6:43

doing something, and you turn that into a

6:45

negative for them. So that's where the blowout,

6:47

I think, comes from. Because the gap between

6:49

what they thought was going to happen and

6:51

what actually happens is so large. It's not

6:53

like just this didn't happen. It's like, it

6:55

was actively bad for you. Yeah, or they're

6:57

so positive that nothing's going to happen. You're

7:00

playing mono-black. What could you do against this thing

7:02

I'm going to do right now? And it turns

7:04

out they get their minds blown or whatever. Yeah,

7:06

for sure. Color pie breaking stuff does tend to

7:08

feel gacha-y. Because you don't expect the

7:11

counterspell from white, or you don't expect certain

7:13

effects from certain colors. And I think there's

7:15

some aspect of that. We did

7:17

talk about this beforehand, because we were talking about very

7:20

powerful, very popular instants that kind of

7:22

do these things. Like, we were like,

7:24

it's Teferi's protection, a gacha spell. And

7:28

technically, I think, especially Teferi's spot,

7:33

they are. But when they

7:35

become so much of a staple

7:37

that people play Teferi's protection,

7:39

you rarely these days are like, oh my god, I

7:41

didn't see that coming. You're like, yep. That's the thing

7:44

that could happen. Teferi's

7:46

spot. Yeah, so they almost become not gacha

7:48

spells by virtue of just the amount of

7:50

usage they see, how popular they are. So

7:53

everyone's just going to pick Teferi's protection and

7:55

deflecting SWAT. And what was the other one?

7:58

Orgish bowmasters. And Orgish bowmasters. if

8:01

we allow those to be in the pool. So we

8:03

just said, let's imagine, yes, those probably

8:05

could be defined as gotcha spells, but we're just

8:07

not going to put them in this pool, because

8:10

you know about those cards. They're good. A lot of the fun of

8:12

this is sort of us getting to talk about

8:14

sort of fringe cards we sometimes play in cool things that

8:16

we've done with them that you might not even know about

8:18

and might be like, I've never even heard of that card.

8:21

So yeah, I think those would technically

8:23

be considered gotcha spells. Yeah,

8:26

all the free mana spells are kind of

8:28

gotcha spells, but you see them a lot.

8:30

So at this point, you're never like, oh

8:32

my, actually, I think also gotcha spells often

8:34

elicit multiple players around the table going, what?

8:36

No way. Oh, that's a bummer.

8:40

Yeah, they feel like such

8:42

a huge trick, where it's

8:44

like they subvert expectations so

8:46

hard that it's not just

8:48

like, ugh, that's a bummer.

8:50

It's like, oh, no. I

8:54

didn't plan for that. Yeah,

8:56

oh, god. Some amount of like, you have

8:59

that in your deck. Right. You

9:01

shouldn't be playing that. It's great

9:03

here. But

9:06

that's kind of the fun of gotcha spells. That's

9:08

what makes them fun to put into decks that

9:10

they make for huge moments that are completely out

9:12

of nowhere and change the game on its head.

9:15

Yeah, I love playing gotcha spells, and I

9:17

actually never really thought of it

9:19

in terms of gotcha spells. But generally, in my

9:21

decks, I like to have two to three effects

9:23

that I would say are attacking from a strange

9:25

angle or do weird things, because I like having

9:27

the reputation as a player that does it. I

9:29

think anybody that's played against me knows, Josh

9:32

will probably have something, and

9:34

it might be weird. Mm-hmm.

9:38

And I like just having that reputation, and I do

9:40

think it kind of gives

9:42

you advantages in weird ways sometimes, even when you don't

9:44

draw those cards and you don't have them, just the

9:46

people you play with all the time just knowing, he

9:50

might have something. Right, yeah. I

9:52

don't know what it is exactly, but in

9:54

other situations, I might feel very

9:57

comfortable, but I got to account for more than just a

9:59

counterspell here. Yeah, I mean, it's sort of being

10:02

the kind of pit player who plays these things

10:04

makes you scary when your man is open. And

10:06

not just like, oh, they don't have anything. They

10:08

didn't play anything. It's like, no, they definitely

10:10

have something, and they have the man to cast

10:12

it. Yeah. And then when you don't have it,

10:14

you still get the benefit of them worrying about

10:16

it, and maybe just not doing the best thing

10:18

they can do so that it doesn't

10:21

get weirdly subverted or whatever. Yeah. I

10:23

love to have a few. Yeah.

10:25

And I think if you're looking for places, just

10:27

allow yourself to do it. And think of the

10:29

advantages in terms that aren't deck building

10:32

synergy sometimes, too, which is I know hard

10:34

to do. Sometimes they're just fun to cast.

10:36

Yeah. Very true. And they're fun to have

10:38

in your deck. Yeah, go ahead. I was going to

10:40

say a couple of things. As the viewers watch along,

10:43

you will likely go, wait a minute. This is a

10:45

new Bequita spell. How dare you say this is a

10:47

gacha spell when you're saying to Ferris Protection whatever isn't?

10:49

I think that's totally fine. We all sort of made

10:51

our own, I think, judgment calls when it came to

10:53

our list of what we think is like, well, I've

10:55

seen this 1,000 times. I'm not going to

10:57

count this as a gacha spell. But of course, your opinion and

10:59

your mileage may vary. Yeah,

11:03

one of the things that I've realized as we've

11:05

done more of these drafts is there's this weird,

11:08

when you're making your list and then determining your pick order,

11:11

there's this weird sort of tug and pull

11:13

between what you think is the most powerful

11:15

and the best and what you

11:17

actually put in your decks. There's a few cards that

11:20

I just disallowed myself from picking because even

11:22

though they're probably would

11:24

be power level-wise top three, but

11:28

I don't play those cards probably because they're

11:30

so powerful. So

11:32

there's absolutely cards I think that each is. And that's fine. I

11:34

don't mind if somebody else plays them for the most part. So

11:37

I think what Jimmy's saying is really important

11:40

for these things. And we've always talked about in every

11:42

one of these, we talk about the fact that everybody's

11:44

picks really mirror their play style, which I always find

11:46

to be one of the most fun parts about it.

11:49

It's like, oh, this type of player, it's funny how

11:51

they value this and that would be their pick and

11:53

that makes sense. Whereas I'm like, I would never

11:55

play that card because of XYZ, but definitely you will kill

11:57

me with it sometimes. Nothing is bad.

12:00

Yeah, I also want to say before we start,

12:02

I don't know about you all, but I found this to be one

12:06

of the more difficult ones

12:08

to make a list for and my confidence

12:10

level that I haven't like missed something obvious

12:13

is kind of low because you

12:15

can't just go in a Scryful and type gotcha.

12:17

Yeah. So you're like, I found myself looking through

12:19

every single card with Flash that's ever

12:21

existed, every single Morph card, every single Ninjutsu card,

12:23

every single instant. Oh my gosh. You know, like

12:26

you're like, okay, well what else do you... Yeah,

12:28

I definitely missed something. Yeah, exactly. And there's like

12:30

cycle triggers and there's tons of stuff.

12:32

Oh crap, cycle triggers. See, I totally forgot about that.

12:34

So if there's a sweet cycle card, because

12:37

they're not the kind of cards that you

12:40

easily find. You're going to get gotcha'd by the

12:42

cards you didn't think about. So

12:45

all this to say, if you've got cool gotcha cards, you should put

12:47

it in the comments because... There's definitely going to

12:49

be a lot. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And this is so

12:51

fun. I love that this category was picked.

12:53

And don't forget, the stakes are high. We do have

12:55

this weird self-imposed rule that any of the spells that

12:58

we drafted, they are the only quote unquote

13:00

gotcha spells we will ever build. Wait

13:02

forever. No, no, that's forever. We

13:06

were drafting as if that were the case. That's not

13:08

the actual case. Yeah, it is. No, it's hot. I've

13:11

gone through all your decks, Josh. I pulled a lot of cards

13:13

out. It's funny. I played a card on the last game. I

13:15

just thought it was a deck. Josh, you can't play Skullclamp. Rachel

13:17

drafted that. Hilarious.

13:21

As if it was going to be. No, it's

13:23

not real. We'll be doing a serpentine draft today,

13:25

so I mean, whoever's randomly decided to go first

13:27

and second and third, and then we'll go third,

13:29

second, first, first, second, third, first, third, second, first.

13:31

So it's sort of like a woo, woo, woo, left

13:33

and right. Yeah. Keep it as

13:35

fair as possible. And as usual, I went

13:38

to a very real website called random.org and

13:40

put us in order. And

13:42

I'm going first. How fair is that?

13:44

Oh my God, random.org. I love you.

13:46

I mean, honestly, I don't know that going first

13:48

is the best. I know. Especially for these, where

13:50

it's just like personal preference, kind of. Yeah, yeah,

13:52

yeah. Jimmy, you will be drafting

13:55

second and Josh going third. Okay.

13:59

We've done. Let's get into it. Yeah. Do

14:02

what you picked for number one. Do what you picked for

14:04

number one. I'm very curious. I'm very curious too. I had

14:06

a really hard time even just ranking mine once I... Me

14:08

too! I had a hard time making the list and then

14:10

a really hard time... How do you even rank it? I

14:12

have no idea. Yeah, yeah. I don't feel

14:14

confident about it. I... So

14:16

for this one, because the power level is

14:18

so all over the place and all of

14:20

the power level can be so high and

14:22

also can be so low. Like floor and

14:24

ceiling on Gotcha spells are so far apart

14:26

that I was like, what spells do I

14:28

just like casting the most? Yeah. What

14:31

are the ones that I have in my hand that I'm

14:33

excited to find the moment that they're great? And I think

14:35

for the first pick, I've got to take Ink Shield. Ah!

14:38

Ink Shield. Yeah. Not

14:41

super surprised. This is my first pick. This

14:43

is a five mana black and white instant

14:45

that prevents all combat damage and makes inklings

14:47

for the amount of damage prevented. It

14:50

also just wins the game. A lot, yes.

14:52

It's the kind of fog that says, you

14:55

thought you had it, but you're dead now.

14:57

On the way back, this just wins the

14:59

game quite often. It's creeping up there probably

15:01

for me on the single

15:03

year cards I've lost to the most. Craterhoof's

15:05

on there and Torment of Hellfire's on there and

15:07

Ink Shield, it has been around for less time

15:09

so I think it's lower on the list, but

15:11

it's moving at a higher rate than those other

15:13

ones at this point, I think. It's really high.

15:15

I mean, I have trouble finding a spot to

15:17

put it in decks because it is two colors,

15:19

it's five mana and instant speed, not every deck

15:21

can do that. It

15:24

is the kind of card that I

15:26

want to put into decks because it's

15:28

so swingy and so fun, at

15:31

least for the caster. But

15:34

it can definitely, it's the perfect gacha spell where it's

15:36

like, oh, that attack where you thought you had it,

15:39

you do not. You do not. Jimmy, you said that was

15:41

also your number one? That was my number one. I

15:44

love Ink Shield, I do play it a lot, so pardon

15:46

me, it was like, this is a little too ubiquitous to

15:48

put on here, but I looked at the card again and

15:50

I went, nah, it's incredible. Yeah,

15:53

I actually didn't have it on my list, but it was my

15:55

honorable mention, it's one of those cards I mentioned where I think

15:57

it's probably like top three, but I just don't play it. Because

16:00

I've found playing against it to be like, there's just

16:02

too many instances where you're like, I

16:05

don't know what I'm supposed to do against it. There's

16:07

nothing I've got. My deck

16:09

just, or my colors just don't give me the chance.

16:12

So I tend to not play it. It's

16:14

in that Jessica's Will category for me. We're like,

16:16

only eight and above. But yeah, the card is

16:19

insane. It is insane. I like that it's only

16:21

good in certain spots. Jessica's Will is never dead

16:23

in your hand. This is dead a lot of

16:25

the game. Yeah, I like the best part about

16:27

this is that it's for each damage prevented, you

16:30

make a two at one. So it could just

16:32

be a 10-10 swinging at you. And all of

16:34

a sudden, you have 20 in

16:36

the air coming back. And that's enough to close out a

16:38

game, usually. That's what takes Ink Shield up

16:40

and above the rest, I think. All

16:42

right, well, I'm second pick. Yeah, second pick. Ink Shield's

16:45

gone. And now I'm like, do I even care about

16:47

fogs anymore? Because the best one's gone. So I'm going

16:49

to skip over my next two picks. Wait, your top

16:51

three picks were fogs? My first and second picks were

16:53

both fogs. But they're kind of like split. I want

16:55

to guess what those were later. Yeah, yeah. I mean,

16:57

the second one is nowhere near as good as Ink

17:00

Shield. So I don't even think I'm going to mention

17:02

it. My number

17:04

one pick for best gotcha spell

17:06

is hatred. I'm

17:09

bad trick. An oldie but a goodie. You don't

17:11

see it that often because it is a pretty

17:13

older. It's an older card. It's not as imprint.

17:15

It's three block for an instant pay x life.

17:18

Target creature gets plus x plus o until end

17:20

of turn. I love a haters. So many places

17:22

to use this on your own attacks, on your

17:24

opponent's attacks, on a random. I

17:28

love that he went from a fog to a combat

17:30

trick. Yeah. Are you picking all your life? I take

17:32

no damage to it. You suddenly die out of nowhere.

17:35

I might die from paying 40 life forever. Exactly.

17:37

That's why it's a very Jimmy card. I'm going

17:39

to kill you. But also, I go down to

17:41

two to do it. But hopefully, I'm only paying

17:43

nine for your infect creature to hit someone's head.

17:46

That's true. Probably 19 for your commander. Yeah. Yeah,

17:48

exactly. So yeah, I

17:50

like hatred a lot. It's just a

17:52

ridiculous card. Another five mana sometimes does

17:55

absolutely stone cold nothing. But when it

17:57

does something, oh boy. You

18:00

can target any creature, right? So it doesn't even have

18:02

to be your creature. Any creature, instant

18:04

speed. Yeah. So that's why I like it. It's like

18:07

commanders that were like, oh, I've only had two more

18:09

damage. You're like, hold on. Hold on. I'll

18:12

help you kill them. Yeah, easy. Atre, it's

18:15

so fun. And it's exactly what

18:17

you want out of a gacha spell, where

18:19

it's like, why are you running a combat

18:21

trick? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we should say

18:23

this is the one where you instant speed pay life and

18:25

give a creature plus x plus 7. Yeah, yeah. Oh, he

18:27

read it? Yeah. I'm sorry. Yeah, so you can make an

18:30

infect creature super bad. Yeah, you can just do some very

18:32

silly things around the table. Yeah, you

18:34

can even just win a combat with it sometimes.

18:36

Yeah, totally. Yeah. It's definitely the type of card

18:38

that sometimes it is dead, and that's not going

18:40

to do much. But there's almost always

18:42

a point in the game where someone's going to get hit

18:44

with something, and even if it's

18:46

not your thing. Yeah. I like cards like this, that

18:49

hatred, it sits in your hand, and you're like, I

18:51

could use it here, and I already do this. If

18:53

this happens, then I could maybe use it aggressively or

18:56

defensively. And it only does

18:58

a specific thing, but in your hand, you feel

19:00

very smart with how you're going to deploy it

19:02

and when it's going to be most gotcha,

19:05

which I think is really fun. Yeah,

19:07

it's really good also in Dexon. I think gotcha

19:11

spells get better

19:13

generally in shields, not ways, but where

19:15

they have different modes on them. And

19:17

one of the modes is

19:20

maybe not the most powerful way to

19:22

use it, but something that's going to come up

19:24

often enough. This isn't that. Hatred has other modes.

19:26

We're like, if you've got a Shandra's Ignition in

19:28

your deck or you've got other ways that power

19:30

might matter on a creature, then

19:32

it becomes a lot better because it's like,

19:34

all right, well, in a scenario where it's not a

19:36

blowout, kill you, it still has some utility in other

19:38

ways. Although if it's on a Shandra's Ignition, it's way

19:40

better because it kills everybody. Bad

19:43

example, but yeah. Great example. Gotcha. I

19:45

love going third because I get to go

19:47

fourth, and one and two were my

19:50

hardest. I was like, how would I put as one and what would I

19:52

put as two? What's good that probably neither

19:54

of these were on your list. I'm going to

19:56

get it. Yeah, right? I actually had had, well,

19:59

I had. That was like five, man. Ew. I

20:01

had hatred, but you know

20:03

how there's a cat that, like you said,

20:05

Ink Shield was a fog card. And hatred

20:07

is a sort of got you pump spell

20:09

trick. I have a couple others of those.

20:12

And hatred was in the mix, but I knocked it off in favor. So we'll see

20:15

if I get one of those later. OK, but

20:17

I'm pick number three. And it's my

20:19

first pick, and I'm going to go with Rakdos Charm. Yeah. There

20:23

it is. So Rakdos Charm is

20:25

a red and a black for

20:28

an instant. And it has three modes. One

20:30

is exile target players graveyard. One is destroy

20:32

target artifact, and the other is each creature

20:35

deals one damage to its controller. Another just win

20:37

the game. This has two gotcha modes, which is

20:39

one of the reasons I like it. And it

20:41

has that thing I was talking about where destroy

20:43

target artifact as like a fail safe. Oh, yeah.

20:45

Yeah. In the scenarios where like nobody's playing a

20:47

graveyard deck or nobody's making a lot of creatures.

20:50

Very rare these days, though, because there's so many tokens

20:52

and so much boards get so

20:54

huge so fast, I feel like there's very few

20:56

games where somebody isn't going to at

20:58

least take like 12 to 15 from this on

21:01

the small side. So yeah, I find

21:03

that in the old days, it used to

21:05

be exile graveyards more and deal one damage less.

21:07

And these days, it's deal one damage more and

21:09

exile graveyard less, even though exile graveyard's still amazing

21:11

at instant speed when they go to do something.

21:13

They have a lot of redundant effects for that

21:15

now, too. Or just sometimes individual cards is all

21:17

you need. You don't actually need the whole graveyard.

21:20

Yeah, but Rakdos Charm has killed me. I've killed people

21:22

with it. It is just the type of card that.

21:25

Love it. Yeah. And you

21:27

very much punish them for doing something awesome. They're

21:29

like, I make infinite squirrels. Sweet, you're dead. Yeah.

21:32

No sac outlet? Sorry, buddy. Yeah. You

21:35

flew too close to the sun. Which is

21:37

awesome. That's exactly what I want out of a

21:40

Rakdos Charm, certainly. But of a gacha

21:42

spell is just like, oh, you thought

21:44

you were winning. You were doing so

21:47

good. Look how big your board is. Oh,

21:49

you're so proud. Dead. Or

21:51

you heard me drew it in and you got the cards

21:53

in your graveyard and you did all this work and you're

21:55

about to, no, shovel that back in.

21:57

Yeah. Do all that work one more

21:59

time. Yeah. Yeah. Such

22:02

a good one. I think if that didn't go in

22:04

the top three, I would have been sad. I

22:06

also don't play a lot of creatures. I am

22:08

definitely on the side of like, I

22:10

don't have a lot of token decks, and I definitely tend to

22:12

not commit to the board as much as a lot of players,

22:15

because I like to play tricky stuff. And Ractors' Charm is in

22:17

your favor for that too, right? Because I'm not usually the player

22:19

that's going to die to the Ractors' Charm. Good

22:21

point. OK. We

22:24

talked so much about how this was a really tough decision,

22:26

just ordering this. I want to talk about the priorities before

22:28

we go on to the next one. I wanted to ask you,

22:30

and I want to ask this for every pick, because I think

22:32

find it interesting, where on your list did you have Ractors' Charm,

22:34

if you had it? I had it number two. Oh,

22:37

wow. I had it like number six or seven.

22:39

OK, so it was on everybody's. You also had

22:41

it high. I think Ink Shield, we all had

22:43

very high. I purposely left it off, but I

22:45

admitted it was high. Sorry. Yeah, priorities for I

22:48

don't know if I have an answer, honestly. Because

22:51

it's interesting for this one, because it's not

22:54

as straightforward as just what's the most

22:56

powerful one. Planeswalker. Yeah,

22:59

or I think this one is like we're

23:01

grading at sort of on a different scale,

23:03

and it's interesting to talk about

23:05

just what you were looking for in these spells.

23:08

Definitely stuff that I would play. I think that is because

23:10

the stipulation, if you're only going to be able to build

23:12

around these cards forever, and

23:15

I do because it is gotcha, I

23:17

want the cards that will elicit the

23:19

best groans or yelps of excitement or

23:21

whatever. So it's almost funny,

23:23

because I care a little bit more about

23:26

the other player's reaction, as well

23:28

as how fun it is to cast it for myself. I

23:30

love that. The reaction is a huge part of gotcha.

23:33

It's everybody going, gotcha! And

23:36

you get to go, gotcha! That

23:38

was a big stipulation for these, is they have to be

23:41

worth you being like, ha ha! Yeah, yeah.

23:43

If you can't make that noise afterwards, then

23:45

it's not a gotcha spell. Yeah,

23:48

I think this one, more than any of the other

23:50

drafts we've done, one of the things I thought about

23:52

a lot was like, do I have a cool story

23:54

that goes along with this card? Do I have experience

23:56

with this card? And also, because they're narrow, I think

23:58

there's this very high chance. And one of the reasons people don't

24:00

play them, or you end up putting it in your deck and then

24:02

a couple months down the line taking it

24:05

out, is because you've noticed it's in your hands of

24:07

rotting there. It reads cool, but

24:09

you don't find moments in actual games to deploy it

24:11

and do anything with it. So a lot of it

24:13

was like, have I not just read

24:15

this card, but played it or seen it and played do

24:17

cool things? Does it actually do that

24:20

thing? And so yeah, I don't think I thought

24:22

about specific cool moments with Skull Clamp or whatever

24:24

as much as in this one I was like. And that did affect

24:27

my pick order when I was trying to decide. I

24:30

listed out 25, 30 cards. And then

24:32

I was like, yeah, but which ones do I want to pick? Well, a lot of it

24:34

had to do with, well, there's a couple of

24:36

cool moments I can remember with this card. For

24:38

sure. Cool. Well, Josh,

24:40

let's move on to round two. All right.

24:43

Pick number one. Yes, so this

24:45

is the fourth pick overall and my second pick.

24:49

And it actually goes pretty well with Ractive Charm and

24:51

pretty well with almost anything. And

24:53

a card I think I'm pretty well known to love.

24:55

It's a pet card of mine, which is Fury Storm.

24:58

Ah. I like the good job, card.

25:00

That card is nuts. I love this

25:02

card. And it is a card that

25:05

I play in most red decks, even

25:07

if there's no theme going along with

25:09

it. Because I just have so many

25:11

moments where it just steals games or

25:14

stops a win or just does stuff that

25:16

you like. Because it copies things so you

25:18

can't necessarily always predict what your opponents are going

25:20

to do and what you're going to be able to do

25:22

based on copying their stuff. But you just have so many

25:24

insane things that happen. So this is too red for an

25:27

instant. When you cast it, copy it for

25:29

each time you've cast your commander this game.

25:32

And then you can choose new targets for the copies.

25:34

And it's a fork. It copies target instant or sorcery

25:36

spell. So if you've cast your commander one time, then

25:39

you will copy it once. And you

25:41

will make two copies of something else.

25:44

Yeah. Yeah. You love forks. I

25:46

love forks in general. It's been historically seen on

25:48

game nights, forks, and things that double your spells

25:50

or get you to. Because a fork is also

25:52

kind of a counterspell. And so can that be,

25:54

right? Yeah. One of the things I love about

25:56

it is its versatility. So it does have, just

25:59

like Raxors, where I said, well, destroy an artifact

26:01

is like, makes it so it

26:03

doesn't rot in your hand. Fury Storm does have

26:05

this, like, ah, just fork a removal spell, kill something

26:08

else. They could try to counter your thing,

26:10

fork their counter with your copy of

26:12

it, counter their counter. Those are easy

26:14

uses. And you can count on those

26:16

things coming up in most games. But the cool stuff

26:18

is when they're like, villainous wealth, you for 12, and

26:21

you're like, cool. I'll make three villainous

26:23

wealth targeting each of my opponents. I've done that. And

26:25

those are just insane moments where you're just like, that's

26:27

just you doing most of the work with my four

26:29

mana being like, cool. What do we get? Yeah,

26:32

exactly. Let's do it. I'm in. Yeah. The Torment

26:34

of Hailfire. And you're like, oh, yep, I'll make

26:36

two copies of Torment of Hailfire. I'll win before

26:38

yours resolves. Like, that kind of stuff. I

26:40

don't think a lot of people think of orcs

26:43

as gotcha spells. But they certainly are, right?

26:45

Where they take your spell and turn it against

26:47

you. Obviously, it can magnify what you're doing as

26:49

well. But the fact that you can just

26:51

put it, like, yours on the stack on top

26:53

of them, makes it so

26:56

fun. And when you're in red, people

26:58

don't expect that kind of thing. Yeah,

27:00

I prefer to copy somebody else's things

27:03

because that's them. And Sheldon had this great

27:05

thing he used to love to say, which is

27:07

you did this to yourself. And

27:09

you can't really be mad if I'm doing

27:12

what you're doing. Because you put

27:14

that in your deck and thought it was OK to do to

27:16

me. So how can you really? So it gets rid of a

27:18

lot of salt, too. Like, hey, you play an extra turn spell?

27:20

I don't have to feel bad about copying it three times. You're

27:23

the one that did it. If you don't introduce

27:25

that to this game, there's no extra turns in this game.

27:28

And tutors, I don't play a lot of tutors anymore.

27:30

We've talked about that before. But if you demonic tutor,

27:32

and I want three demonic tutors, that's great. You

27:35

introduced that to this game. That's not my fault.

27:38

And I love that feeling of, like, sure, I'm allowed to

27:40

do something really, really powerful. Torment of Hailfire, I don't put in

27:42

a lot of decks anymore because it's on

27:45

the Craterhoof scale. But hey,

27:47

listen, if you do it, I don't feel bad

27:49

about it. No, I'm in. It also

27:51

does randomly, like you said, randomly can just be

27:53

like, I cast the Swords of Blouse Shares. I

27:55

hold priority. I make two more Swords of Blouse

27:57

Shares. That's fine. Kill lost everything. Yeah. does

28:00

sort of go infinite with itself and gave you infinite

28:02

magecraft triggers, which I try not to do, which is

28:04

kind of annoying, because you're like, if I have a

28:06

Stormkill Nerds in my deck, do I want to put

28:08

Furystorm in my deck? And usually the answer to that

28:10

question I found is no. So that sucks, because I

28:12

can't put my favorite card in the deck if I

28:14

have Stormkill Nerds. Right, and they're both super powerful in

28:16

this kind of deck. But you've got to be able

28:18

to look yourself in the mirror. Yeah. It's

28:20

true. When you have that kind of thing,

28:22

it's on board. You're

28:26

just like, I'm just not.

28:29

There's no way I'm going to do this and not

28:31

go infinite, because it feels like an insult to your

28:33

opponents in the game if you just have

28:35

the win, and it's happening on the

28:38

board. Cool,

28:40

I love that answer. That was not on my list anywhere. Was

28:42

that on your list? It was not on my list either, but

28:44

it probably should be. It

28:46

is the type of card that I think a

28:48

lot of people have. Yeah, they've even

28:51

seen it in action, but it is scary to put

28:53

in, because it doesn't specifically do

28:55

anything. Right, right. But it's so good with partner commanders,

28:57

because you're casting your commanders a bunch. There's just so

28:59

many other uses for it, yeah. I would encourage people

29:01

out there to just put in your deck a few

29:04

times. I guarantee in games it will do some cool

29:06

stuff, and then you'll be like, I feel

29:08

fine putting in decks. It's going to do something. I just don't know what that

29:10

thing is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is fun. Sometimes those

29:12

things are gifts the deck builder can give to the

29:14

player to be like, here's a weird tool. Figure out

29:17

how to use that. Oh, yeah. And it doesn't feel

29:19

good as a deck builder, but it's very fun. Right,

29:21

right, right. That's a really good point. I found there's

29:23

at least a few cards on my list that I

29:25

learned about and now play, other

29:27

people's decks and play them. Where I was like, this is a

29:30

card. Never put in my deck. And then I was like, wait

29:32

a minute. In a game. Holy crap, it did. The next time

29:34

your deck building, that card shines out of the pack or out

29:36

of the stack, because you're like, I

29:38

know that's pretty sweet. Yeah. Because I used

29:40

it once. OK. Up

29:43

next, Jimmy, this is your second pick. Well, this

29:45

is a strange world where Josh has picked two

29:47

cards with red before I pick a single one.

29:50

And even stranger in that my next pick is

29:52

Monoplu. Oh, I'm

29:54

really curious what it is. This is

29:56

actually kind of similar to Furystorm, but

29:59

it's the blue version in a way.

30:01

It's Narset's reverse. Oh this one's so

30:03

good So it you know you're

30:05

holding up blue blue and everyone's expecting the counter

30:07

spell But no one is expecting the copy spell

30:09

and put your spell back in your hand So

30:11

blue blue instant copy target instant or sorcery then

30:13

return it to its owners hand you may choose

30:16

new targets for the copy So

30:18

similar it could be a villain as well. It

30:20

could be you know an extra turn spell Whatever

30:23

it is the bigger it is the better because that means

30:25

they can't recast it this turn And

30:27

I do love the ability to copy in blue I think

30:30

it exists in some other places But this to me is

30:32

I would much rather run narcissist reversal

30:34

over a counter spell almost any day of

30:36

the week It's so fun for me personally

30:39

We I don't know if

30:41

that game will be out yet But we saw a very

30:43

sweet narcissist reversal on an extra turn so I may or

30:45

may not be Now

30:48

every extra turns you watch is gonna be like is this the

30:50

narcissist Someone's playing low it

30:52

was such a sweet moment though in that game

30:54

It's the kind of it's the kind of card

30:56

that when it gets cast you're just like I'm

31:04

gonna fall over and die now Yeah,

31:06

it's an interesting spell because it is worse in some

31:08

spots and counter spells like they've cast Oh, yeah, board

31:10

wipe or things like that, but it's way better in

31:12

a lot of other spots. Yeah, where you're like, yeah

31:15

I want that yeah Sometimes it just becomes a deflection

31:17

where it's like, you know, they go to remove something

31:19

and you just go You know, okay,

31:21

that's gonna go over there and you know, man to

31:23

cast it again Yeah, and it can do a lot

31:25

of what fairy storm does like you said, which is

31:27

like torment of a fire Okay, fine. Nerza through versatile

31:29

copy your own spells or just opponent spells. It's any

31:31

incident or sorcery So you can do something? Let's say

31:33

you yeah You can do something if you have cast

31:35

trigger off and then bounce it back to your hand

31:37

But that's a little more like well if they go

31:40

to counter it you can cast a net Yeah, yeah

31:42

on top of it bounce it back to your hand

31:44

and then get the copy on top of the counter

31:46

Correct. It's really good with fury storm actually. Yeah. Well

31:49

We got to build a deck with all gotchas,

31:51

but I wouldn't allow I would never allow myself

31:53

both in the same deck Yeah, I actually nurses

31:55

reversals so good that like I started not playing

31:58

it as well It

32:00

crossed the Jessica's rule line. Yeah.

32:02

When it happens, it's like it's

32:04

backbreaking. Yeah, it hurts. Which is

32:07

like, I don't know. I think that's part

32:09

of the fun, is when you play

32:11

a spell that is such a high ceiling and such

32:13

a weird floor, that

32:15

I never feel bad when people

32:18

play certain. I guess that's

32:20

not true. There's some gacha spells. That's not true. We're

32:22

going to talk about some later that I'm like, actually,

32:24

no, that one does. I am going to. I do

32:27

feel bad or something. Actually, you're right. I think that

32:29

Bone Masters is probably a step too far. So

32:32

I take it back. But

32:34

it's fun. Did you have

32:36

narcissism reversal on your list of weird gachas? I didn't

32:38

think about it. It's great. Yeah. It's a great idea.

32:41

I had it on mine, but it was well down.

32:43

I actually don't have very many blue spells, I think,

32:45

because in my head, I don't think of them as

32:47

gachas. As much, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Probably

32:49

because I play blue all the time. That's

32:52

not a gacha that's just a spell. It's my

32:54

favorite gacha spell. Every time

32:56

you get a spell, gacha. Gotcha,

32:58

Deepa. You got me the one? Gotcha.

33:01

All right, Rachel, you're up. It's pick number six.

33:03

OK, OK. My

33:07

god, there's so many fun ones. I

33:10

think for this pick, I'm going to actually

33:12

draft a card that I think I drafted

33:14

before. Oh, really? Yeah.

33:16

So you can have two of these in your

33:18

collection for all time. Yeah, yeah. Nice. In the

33:20

singleton format. Yeah. Unless

33:23

you played 1v1 with it, I don't think you think

33:25

of this as a gacha spell. But

33:27

I'm going to take Ember Cleave. Oh, yeah. Ember

33:29

Cleave. Because. This is in the hatred mold, I'd

33:31

say. This is in the hatred mold for sure.

33:33

And I like that it sticks around. I like

33:35

that it's trample and double strike. The

33:38

first non-instant, by the way. Yeah,

33:40

this one just says flash. So

33:43

it's an equipment that flashes in, auto

33:45

equips, gives the attacking creature double strike

33:47

and trample and plus 1 plus 1.

33:50

If you played in standard against Ember Cleave, you're

33:53

like, save Ember Cleave, I'm dead. Yeah, they

33:55

have Ember Cleave. They got cheaper, too, by the way. That's

33:58

the big one. That's the big one, too, there. they

34:00

always have it. And I always

34:02

have it. That's the joke about it, yeah. Yeah. It's

34:04

just like, if they have Ember Cleave, I'm dead.

34:06

They always have it. Dead, yeah. It

34:09

just feels like that kind of spell, where I

34:12

think commander players forget about it. And

34:15

where 1v1 players live in fear of Ember

34:17

Cleave, you can still get commander players with

34:19

Ember Cleave. And it's a ton of fun

34:21

to be able to do so. I

34:23

mean, most games, there's a moment

34:25

where somebody's swinging for 10-ish, maybe a little

34:27

more, where it's enough that it's like, oh,

34:30

that's going to hurt. But

34:32

you'd have to lose a creature to put it in front of

34:34

it. And yeah, we've

34:36

all been there. I'll take the 12. It

34:39

sucks a little bit, but I'm going to go down to 19.

34:41

It'll be fine. And you're like, no, you take 24. You're dead.

34:44

Yeah, sorry. That's my commander. Are you blocked with a 1v1

34:46

token? You're dead. Yeah, exactly. The trample

34:48

is huge here, right? This is

34:50

a hatred level spell for me, for sure. I

34:53

love that. Kill him out of nowhere. Ember

34:55

Cleave is so, so much fun to cast. And I

34:57

think people only think about it in Voltron decks,

35:00

but it's great in Stompy decks. It's great.

35:02

Bow-wide decks, it's super, super cheap. And

35:05

you get to shout, believe in

35:08

the Cleave, as it comes down. I

35:10

think, similar to what

35:12

I was talking about earlier, about me, like, and

35:14

putting a few number of these spells into my

35:16

deck, this is a card that is really good

35:19

for that. And in fact, playing against Rachel, I

35:21

know that she will

35:23

play these type of cards, which will cause me to have

35:25

to sort of chump block in moments where I wouldn't otherwise.

35:27

And if she doesn't have Ember Cleave, it might be bad

35:29

to do, but just the fact that I'm like, hmm. But

35:32

it's Rachel, so I might die. So

35:35

I am going to put my 4-4 in front

35:37

of that thing. Don't love it, but got it.

35:39

Yeah, and it's going to die. And she doesn't

35:41

have to cast Ember Cleave, but at least I know I'm

35:43

not dying here if I do that. And that causes you

35:45

to have to play the person and their

35:48

style. And that can be to your advantage,

35:50

right? Because now I'm just giving away card advantage in situations

35:52

where I wouldn't have to, even if you

35:54

don't have it. I

35:56

love casting combat tricks in Commander. They're never

35:58

ready for it. We're starting

36:00

to get ready now. Because it's just

36:03

like, they're like, combat tricks are bad.

36:05

Why would you play those? Because you

36:07

could kill someone. One

36:09

shot someone. Yeah. Would you pay five men in

36:11

a knockout on a player? Yeah. Oh, yeah. And

36:15

laugh all the way. They

36:17

got you all the way. That's true. Gotcha!

36:23

That's round two. We've got three more

36:25

rounds in this draft. We're going to

36:27

get into some deeper cuts, some personal

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draw. And Jimmy, I'm going to

37:37

have to destroy your commander again.

37:39

What? No. Oh, no. How much is it

37:41

going to cost next time? Yikes.

37:43

Wow. 15 is not so

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really good deal. Exactly. I gotta sign up too,

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but first, Josh, I'm going to sort your commander.

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Mobile for details. Buenos dias world from the

38:41

San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. I'm Marco Wendt.

38:43

And I'm Rick Schwartz. And

38:46

we're your host for season three of

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Amazing Wildlife, a show from iHeartRadio Ruby

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Studio and the global conservation organization behind

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the San Diego Zoo and the San

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we dive into the efforts here in

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San Diego and spotlight the heroes working

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worldwide to care for the species you

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know and love. Listen to Amazing Wildlife

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on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or

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wherever you get your podcasts. Yes,

39:11

I win. Probably,

39:14

anyway. Probably, what's going on?

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Nice, so this is a track zone. All

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39:50

All right, we are back.

39:52

We are talking about gotcha

39:55

spells in Commander. We're drafting

39:57

the best ones. We've gone through our. Each

40:00

of us have picked two, which means we

40:02

each have three more picks remaining, nine total.

40:05

Rachel, you ended the last round

40:07

with Ember Cleave. So

40:10

you are the first pick in round three, which will

40:12

be your third overall pick. Exciting. The

40:15

order on these is so hard. Yeah,

40:17

I'm constantly changing mine up. And there's

40:19

so many that I'm like, that's

40:21

kind of similar to that. But

40:25

I think the one that I'm going

40:27

to take next is Reigns of Power. This

40:31

is 2 Blue Blue for an instant. Untap all creatures

40:33

you control and all creatures target opponent controls.

40:35

You and that opponent each gain control of

40:38

all creatures. The other controls until end of

40:40

turn. Those creatures gain haste until end of

40:42

turn. This is

40:44

just one of those blowout moments. I

40:46

like playing decks that are kind of behind

40:49

on board and you get to slam it

40:51

and they watch people

40:53

lose their minds. It's

40:57

hard to find spots for in decks. I think people tend

40:59

to put it in group hug things. Obviously it's been felt

41:01

for forever. So it's one of my favorite

41:03

spells to cast. It's one of the sillier

41:05

wincons for sure. Because you've given them all the

41:07

pre-kinder tank. And then take all the

41:09

hippos I've given you. It

41:11

tends to be good in similar spots to Rakkosh charm. Exactly.

41:15

It's one of those, this player is impossibly far

41:17

ahead. How could we ever beat them cards? And you're

41:19

like, kill them with their own stuff. Reigns

41:21

of Power. Yeah. Reigns of Power, baby. That's

41:25

a little bit of a deep cut. I did not have Reigns

41:27

of Power on my list. Did

41:29

you have it, Jimmy? No, it's a card I

41:32

look at all the time and go like, huh,

41:34

what if? But I've never had the gusto to

41:36

put into a deck yet. It's really good with

41:38

a sack outlet as well. Oh, yeah. For sure.

41:40

Yeah, so I've got in a couple of decks

41:42

in it. When you pull

41:44

it off, you have to have a

41:46

big disparity between your board and somebody

41:48

else's. And you generally want that player to

41:50

be the player in the lead too. Because you don't want to

41:52

take the third place player and just

41:55

decimate them. But yeah, if you

41:57

can ever steal all their stuff for the turn, attack.

41:59

Sometimes you. if you have a sack

42:01

health, you attack player number three, sack

42:03

all their stuff, and now you've killed that player and

42:06

taken away the whole board from the other player and it puts

42:08

you in an amazing position, yeah. Yeah, it's so big. And

42:13

I think putting these kind of spells in your deck make

42:15

for those moments where it's like, I thought I had it

42:17

and then they had it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And

42:19

they switch. What? And

42:21

it feels sort of more interesting than insurrection and

42:23

also it's 4 mana. You can even

42:26

do this at instant speed and

42:28

be like, all right,

42:30

I'm getting attacked with a lot of creatures. Give me your

42:32

board. I'll block with your whole board and then

42:35

your board goes back. Like there's a lot of

42:37

really interesting things that you can do with the

42:39

reins of power that I don't think a

42:41

lot of cards give you the power to do. Yeah, it

42:43

also is just a fog, right? Like if nobody else has

42:45

stuff, you just take the stuff attacking you. Yeah. And

42:48

you're like, well, that takes out of combat. Yep. There

42:51

you go. 4 mana, which is a lot to hold up, but it's a ton of

42:53

fun when you get to cast it. We're talking about hatred

42:55

and ink shield in this show. So I think 4 mana

42:57

is okay. Hatred is proactive though. You

43:00

don't necessarily have to hold up that mana. Sometimes it's just like,

43:02

that is my turn. Well, stay with the

43:04

right power, right? If you're doing your turn to attack. I

43:06

think you mostly do it your turn, but it just does

43:08

have this other mode. Yeah. Yeah. It's

43:12

a, this is making me want to build an Esper

43:14

gacha deck, which is not

43:16

very fun, but it's so fun. A

43:19

lot of my cards on my list, actually almost every single

43:21

card on my list can be put into

43:23

an Esper gacha deck, except for three. Martu's got

43:25

some really good cards. Two cards, yeah, oh my

43:27

gosh. That's funny. White and blue

43:30

are the least represented in my

43:32

list. Not

43:34

completely unrepresented, but yeah. Probably

43:37

because I play those colors a lot. Yeah. And I

43:39

don't see them as gachas. You feel less gacha about it. Those

43:41

are called just cards I put in my deck cards. Oh

43:45

man, what am I gonna choose next? Round three, Jimmy,

43:47

you are up next. Okay, I was

43:49

gonna do another mono-black card, but in order to

43:52

keep my color pile a little varied here. So

43:54

that you don't just have to build mono-black decks.

43:57

For the rest of your career, yeah. I'm gonna go with

43:59

a mono-white card. And this is one that's blown

44:01

me out many many times and I sometimes

44:04

don't want to put it in decks Because

44:06

of how bad it makes me feel It's

44:09

actually not symmetrical it's only opponents and

44:12

that's even mindset So

44:15

this is two in the white for a

44:17

flash to one flying bird if an opponent

44:20

would search their library that player searches the

44:22

top Four cards of that library instead so

44:24

brutal when they crack a fetch it you

44:26

did Cranking on fetch is by far the

44:29

worst the mono white stone rain it rules

44:31

if you want to make caches really

44:35

Just do this to him yeah There's a

44:37

reason this shows up in cedh a lot because

44:39

it really shuts down decks that are trying to

44:42

you know win by tutoring Or whatever it is

44:44

or just have incidental tutor effects or ton of

44:46

fetch lands. Yeah, this is also How

44:50

you test how how good people's mana

44:52

bases are? This

44:54

is how good you test out your friendships. Oh, yeah And

44:57

your friendships totally I don't know if I've ever

44:59

cast me even mind sensor in commander, but it

45:01

really does make me laugh It's

45:04

hilarious I've casted a few

45:06

times it is brutal Barbeware

45:09

it's not for every table, but

45:11

it is a gotcha It's interesting because it's it's

45:13

more brutal on like things like fetch lines than

45:16

it is on things like demonic tutor Cuz at

45:18

least they still get some card yeah But they're

45:20

when you can get it in a spot where

45:22

they get nothing it is just hilarious and especially

45:24

if it's like pretty early Like turn three fetch

45:27

land hey you reverse ramped right you just sacked

45:29

a land. Yeah, I'm gonna hate you in the

45:31

effort to next People

45:33

are looking for ways to like counterbalance Rammics

45:37

inland like oh yeah, you definitely played

45:40

in response to rampant growth. Yeah Absolutely,

45:43

it's like let's find out how many basics you have It's

45:46

turned to my tutor into a mulch or whatever

45:49

so it's someone you're fetch line stifled

45:51

or something It feels like when that when that happens to you

45:53

Which I put this case it just sits and does it that's

45:55

the rest of the game That's what I was gonna say the

45:57

the thing about this card is like it's not done right yeah

46:00

Like, then everyone's like, hot crap. Well,

46:03

there goes these two cards in my hand.

46:06

This is the kind of gotcha spell that I feel like

46:10

in an untrusted play grip, you're like,

46:12

you find it, you're like, oh, we're playing that sort

46:14

of game. That type of game. Yeah. Because

46:16

in most casual play groups, I feel like

46:18

they don't expect to play against even mind

46:20

sensors. So they won't look for it. They

46:22

won't read the table for that kind of thing.

46:24

They won't fetch accordingly. Usually, they'll just fetch sorcery

46:27

speed and not really paying attention. You're holding up two

46:29

in the white? That's a nefarious protection. Yeah. I'm not going

46:31

to think about you. I feel like if

46:33

you're the type of player to play these sort of

46:35

things, you can be like, look, I'm going

46:37

to play these, and I'm just going to give you the

46:39

information to play around them. But you

46:42

have to play around them because I might have them. Yeah,

46:44

right. It's true. Which

46:46

is only fair, but it

46:48

does make it less funny. I

46:51

would say even mind sensors is the least funny gotcha

46:53

spell in my entire list. Yeah. Yeah,

46:55

this one's legit. Very powerful and

46:58

definitely will make some people salty. But I think hatred

47:00

is number one so that you could be out of

47:02

the game. At least you got to look at four

47:04

cards. It's funny, though. People wouldn't get as salty about

47:06

that, which is weird. But

47:09

you had to get in there with a creature or somebody had to.

47:11

You had to pay a bunch of life. I

47:14

think in general, people will weigh less

47:16

salty about that than you played a card that just

47:18

stopped my fetch land and maybe had one less land

47:20

or whatever, or stopped my enlightened tutor or whatever, even

47:23

though tutors are kind of cheating.

47:25

So you shouldn't feel that bad about it. But

47:28

it's really the land searching. People hate to

47:30

lose. Yeah, that's the most brutal one. I

47:32

have definitely had an evolving wild stifled. Oh.

47:35

Oh, gosh. Yeah. That's

47:37

that kind of game. I've had a

47:39

turn one fetch land stifled, and it's just like,

47:41

yeah. OK, I'm not going to win now. It's

47:43

amazing. I'm not like that one thing. Yeah. You

47:45

got to stop playing Krim. Josh,

47:49

you're up next. Did you have an even mind sensor on your list?

47:51

I didn't put even mind sensor on my list. I don't tend to

47:53

put it in commander decks. I do love playing it

47:56

in 1v1, though. Oh, yeah. It's the kind of card

47:58

that I love playing. But I. It

48:00

doesn't quite fit my play group for commander. I think

48:02

it was 12th on my list nice unlikely to

48:04

get to it But it was on there. Yep.

48:06

Okay. Yep. This is my Third

48:09

pick third pick nine pick overall oh

48:15

And I'm gonna get the next pick too. Yeah, you get two in

48:17

a row jeez This is great. So then

48:19

I don't have to worry that you guys are like what order what

48:21

order? I'm like, well I get two in a row every time Okay,

48:25

so I'm gonna go with sudden spoiling

48:27

Ah Good one.

48:29

That's my next one. Nice. Yeah, that's a such a

48:31

good one Yeah, this is

48:33

a split second card for one black black

48:36

an instant Obviously until end of turn creatures

48:38

target player controls lose all abilities and have

48:40

base power toughness 0-2 Yeah,

48:43

yeah, so this is second. That's the the

48:45

real kicker on this one. Yeah, it's a

48:47

fog But it's also just

48:49

a combo stopper. It's also just a

48:52

Delayer sometimes so I've definitely used in places where I'm

48:54

like, I don't know if they're gonna win or what

48:56

but on their upkeep I'm just gonna cast this turn

48:58

off their commander turn off their key pieces Yeah, you

49:00

could take your turn But I just know you're not

49:02

gonna win on your turn and sometimes that the value

49:04

of that is just so high It's kind of like

49:07

a silence in that case. I suppose for sure. Yeah,

49:09

it's not the exact same They can obviously still cast

49:11

stuff, you know and still do

49:13

things But most of the time you can find a

49:15

spot where like whatever they're going to deploy without, you

49:17

know Their commander having a text on it isn't gonna

49:19

do anything. Yeah, well all their creatures having no text

49:21

on it Yeah, yeah I mean being

49:23

able to turn off trample and flying and

49:25

even that stuff just ground their board is

49:29

And then you block a bunch of things and kill stuff.

49:31

Yeah is a huge blowout Yeah, it definitely works really

49:33

well in combat as well as just a way to

49:35

sort of eat a bunch of stuff and you can

49:37

Do it in other combats too So there's an attack

49:39

going between two players that aren't you a bunch of

49:42

blocks get lined up You can kind of make somebody

49:44

get blown out whoever's ahead Yeah,

49:46

I've just found that when I have this in my deck and

49:48

in my hand It's not it's

49:50

a it's a gotcha spell, but it's not that hard to

49:52

find a spot where you get value out of it Right.

49:55

Yeah. Yeah, it's not the type of card. You're like I

49:57

have to hold until the best moment comes along You're

49:59

like, hey, am I gonna get? two or three cards worth of value

50:01

here. That's pretty good for the remand. I'm going to do it. Yeah. Yeah.

50:04

I like this one a lot. I never think to

50:06

put it in decks. I

50:08

think I lean toward soul shatters and that kind

50:10

of thing. And the instance be more expensive black

50:12

removal. But it's so

50:15

powerful when it happens. And I think it is the

50:17

kind of spell people forget about. They're like, why

50:19

does black have this ability? Yeah, yeah. I

50:21

think you should try it and you really like it. Because

50:23

you and I both have a love for bounce spells. And

50:25

this sits in a similar category to me, where it's like,

50:27

I find that one of the things that gets really underrated

50:29

in commander is just delay effects. It's like,

50:31

yeah, I'm going to bounce that back to your hand.

50:34

It's basically the same as removing it, even though most

50:36

people in their mind think, well, they still got the

50:38

card in their hand. But because commander is, that's why

50:40

fogs are good in commander, commander is more about just

50:42

making it one more turn, one more step closer to

50:44

me winning and slowing you down. And that speed bump

50:47

from sudden spoiling is often just enough of like, I

50:50

can advance my board enough, hold this open, slow you down

50:52

so you don't win on my turn. Something like that. Yeah.

50:55

Yeah. Very cool. All right, round four. Two picks

50:57

in a row. This next

51:00

one's, oh, did either of you have sudden spoiling? Yeah.

51:02

It was actually the next on my list. Oh, yeah?

51:04

Yeah. Sniped it. It's such

51:06

a good card. For some reason, and not that there's any

51:09

stakes on these, that makes me feel better. Yeah. Oh, good.

51:11

I got it right before you did. Yeah, yeah. Well, if

51:13

I didn't choose to even mind sensor, I would have taken

51:15

sudden spoiling. But again, I don't want to be playing Monoblack

51:17

for the rest of my life. That

51:20

was the Monoblack card you were saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, man, I

51:22

always missed out on that. I actually have

51:24

three choices for Monoblack card in that

51:26

slot. But yeah. All

51:29

right, my next one is a weird one. I

51:31

wonder if either of you will have it on your

51:33

list at all. But I do love this card. It's

51:35

Mirror Weave. Yeah. That's on my list.

51:37

My literal next card. Oh, my

51:40

god. Mirror Weave game. Sudden

51:42

spoiling a Mirror Weave, I think, they bear

51:45

some similarity, for sure. I agree. I was thinking about

51:47

whether I wanted both, and then I was like, but

51:49

I do love both cards. Yeah, Mirror Weave's nuts. Yeah,

51:51

and they give you a similar

51:53

feeling when you have them in your hand. Mirror Weave

51:55

is a little more volatile. Yeah.

51:57

Yeah. It's a little more variable. I

52:00

don't know if people actually know this one. OK.

52:02

It is two and two hybrid Azorius. So

52:05

you can either pay two white white, two blue blue, or two white blues,

52:07

forming a total for an instant. Each other creature

52:09

becomes a copy of target

52:11

non-lendatory creature until end of turn. Each

52:13

other creature. Every

52:15

single creature on the board turns into

52:17

a one-one human or something. I've

52:20

seen them all turn into blood artists. Oh, no. And

52:25

then the stack, in response to a board wipe, it

52:28

just becomes brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Nut, yes. Yeah, I was in

52:30

a game at a GP years ago, and I

52:32

mirror-weaved an it that betrays. Oh, my god. Non-legendary,

52:36

yeah. Yeah, so I had six it that betrays.

52:39

I attack, but everybody else's creatures are it that betrays. So

52:41

when the Annihilators go off and they sacrifice stuff, we had

52:43

to call a judge to be like, who gets what? Yeah.

52:46

And it was weird. The person to the left got

52:48

the stuff from the person to the right or something

52:50

like that. Yeah, it's app nap order.

52:53

Yeah, it's app nap. We were like, what the hell

52:55

happened? You

52:57

were probably like, you should have chosen something else.

52:59

No, it's the best. Everyone was

53:02

like, this is so funny. Yeah, that's exactly why you put

53:04

Mirror Weave in the deck. That's a story, yeah. I

53:08

used to run it in, I had a germ equipment deck,

53:10

so all of them were living weapons, so I

53:12

could turn all of the creatures into germs and wipe

53:14

all their parts and mine are equipped. That's sick. That's

53:17

pretty sweet. Which was pretty cool. Yeah, that's pretty, yeah. And

53:20

then you get the opportunity to run Mirror Weave because

53:22

it synergizes, and it's good in all those other weird situations

53:24

where you're like, that's

53:27

why it's in there for the germ thing, but you look around and

53:29

you're like, but if I do that. Yeah. Everything's

53:31

a Nyxbloom ancient? What happens? That's hilarious.

53:34

Oh, that's nuts. I've

53:36

used it a lot on gutter snipes because you

53:39

can often find a spot where you're like, oh, I'll have nine gutter snipes and

53:41

then I'll just cast two incense and win or reckless fire waver, I've

53:44

done that a few times. Another thing

53:47

I love about this is you can actually, if

53:50

you have mutivault or creature land,

53:52

there's tricks you can do where you activate your creature land, turn

53:55

everything into the creature land and dodge like

53:57

a cyclonic rift. Dodge, destroy all non-

54:00

land permanence type of thing.

54:02

Now you will also sell everybody else's.

54:04

But if you're the one ahead in the moment,

54:06

it can be used. Maybe twice ever I've done

54:08

something like that. That's neat. That is a moment

54:10

where everybody goes, oh, that's cool. MirrorWeave

54:13

has a lot. I would say of all the

54:15

cards on the list, MirrorWeave has the most whoa,

54:17

what type of things. I think it's a couple

54:19

of people in the office's pet card too. Yeah,

54:21

I know Jake really loves it. Yeah, Jake likes it a lot,

54:24

yeah. Yeah, I've got it in the

54:26

next couple of pecs, I think. It's good.

54:28

Yeah, it's so fun. It's good and

54:30

just causes. And there's many times where

54:32

you're just like, I don't even know what's going to happen. Let's

54:34

just find out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not doing this

54:36

to win the game. I'm doing this because what the

54:38

hell is going to go on? Let's find out. Yeah,

54:40

it's going to be crazy. That's

54:43

why I'm such a huge fan of

54:45

this kind of spell is you put

54:47

them in your deck not because it

54:49

might kill somebody, but not because of

54:51

that. It's because of the memory

54:53

that you make at the table. So if you're

54:55

building your deck toward it being

54:58

fun and memorable and a game being big

55:00

and swingy, these are the kind of cards

55:02

that can really contribute to that and really

55:04

make for these crazy things happening

55:07

where you're like, I was in

55:09

a game where this happened and

55:11

it was not stewed. Yeah, that

55:13

if-it-be-trays game I talked about is

55:16

10 years plus ago. There were

55:18

GPs still. And I guarantee everybody

55:20

in that game remembers that moment.

55:23

First of all, how many games you've ever played can't even give a

55:25

moment like that, the card that can

55:27

give you a moment where you're just like, I'll

55:31

be 60, 70 years old and still be able to

55:33

tell that story. Yeah, that's pretty crazy when you think

55:35

about it. Yeah, that's cool. And

55:37

again, it's hard to find spots

55:39

for them in deck building, but in the games,

55:42

it's worth it. They're worth it, yeah. Jimmy, pick

55:44

four. Geez, what do I do? Two more

55:46

picks left. Yeah, I don't think Red's going to make it into

55:48

my list this time. It's just like, I don't have

55:50

much blue, you don't have much red. I think that's

55:52

a thing where you don't think of it as much of a

55:54

gotcha. Because I play it way more often. Exactly.

55:57

OK, so my next card is.

56:00

is just both a pet card in terms

56:02

of what it looks like and then the text on it.

56:05

It's time stop. Oh, man. Oh, yeah.

56:08

So I mean. It's

56:11

a Google card. It's a gotcha. It's a gotcha.

56:13

You're like, more Blue Bull instant. End

56:16

the turn. So remove all spells

56:18

and abilities on the stack from the game, including this

56:20

card, the players whose turn it is, this card's down

56:22

to hand size, damage wears off, and then this turn

56:24

until end of turn effects end. I'm

56:27

kind of ashamed I didn't have this on my list at all,

56:29

actually. But still, this is

56:31

a gotcha, for sure, even for a blue player. And

56:33

I've played this so many times where it's just like,

56:37

oh, this is the best feeling. Sorry, but

56:39

you're just kind of screwed. It's

56:42

an extra turn spell that actually

56:45

eliminates time from the game, kind of. It

56:50

gives you that extra turn, yeah. Especially

56:52

when the player over-commits, oh, there's no way

56:54

they're going to get back from this. End the

56:56

turn. Why don't you

56:59

just stop right now, yeah. It's a fog,

57:01

it's a counterspell, and it makes everybody

57:03

go, just end? Yeah,

57:06

it's over. You got this. Do

57:08

I sell this card to hand size? Yup. Yes.

57:10

But you're going, you're doing that right now, though.

57:13

Wipe the slate clean. Yeah. This

57:15

is a brutal card. These

57:17

kind of counterspells, I feel like we

57:21

don't think of counterspell and delay and

57:23

arcane denial as gotcha spells, but

57:25

five mana or six mana counterspells,

57:28

like spell swindle or time stop,

57:30

that have extra, like, no. Yeah,

57:34

get rekt. Well, this has so much more utility, right? You

57:36

don't even have to do it in response to a spell.

57:38

You can just be like, I go to combat. Yep, you

57:40

end your turn. There's no attack that's going to happen. You're

57:42

done. Also, if you did the

57:44

thing played correctly and you're waiting to cast your spells on

57:46

your second main, you just got

57:48

hosed, sorry. Yeah. And usually. This is brutal on

57:51

someone's upkeep. Untap upkeep, sorry, skip your turn. You

57:53

do not even draw. Last

57:56

turn you took was 30 minutes, so we're just going to

57:58

skip that around this time. It's great

58:00

for those turns where you're like, if they do that again, we're gonna

58:02

lose. And you're like, well, I'll just stop them from doing that again

58:04

then. Yeah, all right. Or wait until they're at, I love it when

58:06

you can wait until like, all right, they're gonna do this, they're gonna

58:08

pick that person off. All right, then they're gonna

58:10

do this and try and do this to me now. Okay, great,

58:13

now you've done the damage to them, I'm gonna stop it right

58:15

here. That's why I love about the spell too. You usually put

58:17

it in your deck because you have some proactive

58:19

way to use it as well, like you're playing Gys of St.

58:21

Travdent and you get to keep the token or whatever it is.

58:23

A lot of times it is about keeping things that would go

58:25

away in an upturn. And that's the

58:28

main reason it's there. That's why I love the spell.

58:30

It's like the destroy artifact part of Ractors'

58:32

Charm. But then you get into

58:34

these moments where you're like, but this is gonna be really good as

58:37

a gotcha in this game, in this

58:39

scenario. Oh, it's such a gotcha. I get to run

58:41

Stifle effects in my Lord of Tresserhorn deck because

58:43

it stifles the terrible ETP on Lord of

58:45

Tresserhorn. But also you get

58:47

to like, tails end people when they're not

58:50

ready for it. There's no way they're expecting

58:52

it because no one plays that. Nobody plays

58:54

tails end, they should. That's awesome. Brawl knows

58:56

this. All right, Racheal, you

58:58

have two more picks in a row here for four and

59:00

five. This is so tough. These are your last two picks

59:02

today. These are my last two picks all at once. These

59:04

are the last gotcha spells you're ever gonna be able to

59:06

have in any of your deck time. No! For

59:09

all of us. For all time. Oh my god. I should've

59:11

picked more blue spells. I didn't think about that. Sorry. Now

59:13

when we know our- I know, because then I just have counter

59:16

spells and Narts with three personal buy. They're not gotcha to me,

59:18

they're just cards. Yeah, Furiesnorm is

59:20

not gotcha. It's a great value piece. You get

59:22

to just run it. So

59:24

funny. All right,

59:26

I have two spells and there's no

59:28

way either of them are on either

59:31

of your lists. But that's what's fun

59:33

about this. I

59:35

think I'm gonna pick another combat trick

59:37

next. Okay. I'm gonna take

59:40

Mercadia's Downfall. What? I

59:42

don't know what this card does. I believe I

59:44

killed you with this. What? Then

59:46

I definitely forgot. This is two and a red for an instant.

59:48

It says attacking creatures get plus X plus

59:51

O until end of turn, where X

59:53

is the number of non-basic lands defending

59:55

playoffs. Oh yeah. This is

59:57

such a gotcha. It's such a

59:59

great- because you attack somebody with

1:00:01

like four spirits or something

1:00:03

like that. They're like, no blocks, I'll take four. And you're

1:00:05

like, gah, gah, gah, gah, gah, gah. They all get plus

1:00:08

nine, plus nine. Yeah, even if they get plus five, plus

1:00:10

five, you're like, I take 20? Yeah.

1:00:13

That's not the math is bad. I'm probably dead. 24 is

1:00:15

24. 24, yeah, yeah. I did

1:00:17

24 for, it was four a second ago.

1:00:19

There's definitely punishes that Josh Lee quies to

1:00:21

the world, right, because it's just non-basics? It's

1:00:23

only non-basics. Oh, yeah. So it like, I

1:00:27

like that it says you have a greedy

1:00:29

manabase, you're playing a lot of colors, I'm

1:00:31

getting you for that. And I'm also getting

1:00:33

you because you're like, ugh, no blocks, whatever,

1:00:35

doing the commander thing. I'll take, you know,

1:00:37

eight. Lethal. And you're like, mm. Yeah,

1:00:40

it's Ember Cleavy, but for Go Wide. It's

1:00:42

Ember Cleavy, but for Go Wide. And it's

1:00:44

not one that people anticipate. No,

1:00:46

definitely not. Nobody knows what Mercadia is doing. You're

1:00:48

like, do what you have, a trumpet horn? Like,

1:00:50

yeah, trumpet blast? There's not a lot of like

1:00:53

instant speed mass pump that gets played in the

1:00:55

format. There's not a lot of instant speed pump

1:00:57

period that gets played. Especially at

1:00:59

three mana. That's so cheap. Yeah, that's

1:01:01

a good point. And you

1:01:03

can do this on opponent's attacks. Like, this

1:01:05

is just attacking creatures. So this is, again,

1:01:07

it's a combat trick, but it will

1:01:10

kill multiple people in the right spot. This

1:01:12

is what I'm saying, you always have to

1:01:14

block Rachel. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I got something dumb

1:01:16

I'm trying to do. It's in my playbook

1:01:18

now, yeah. Yeah. It's four one ones,

1:01:20

I don't know. I better block two of them. I

1:01:22

don't know what's going to happen. Rachel's

1:01:24

all about combat, by the way. Ink

1:01:26

Shield, Ember Thieve, Rains of Power, Mercadius

1:01:29

Downfall, all combat based. It

1:01:31

is exactly play style. If you look at my

1:01:33

list, they kind of all are. They're

1:01:36

all combat based. I aperized, settled, erected. I was like, these

1:01:38

are all the same. I picked all

1:01:40

of these. I do have

1:01:43

one that is not combat based, and I do want

1:01:45

to. Is it going to be them live? OK, this

1:01:47

is your pick number five? Yeah, this is round five.

1:01:49

So what are we at, the 13th

1:01:51

pick overall? 9, 12, 13, yep. All

1:01:54

right. Is it a new card? Oh.

1:01:57

And it's a creature. It's smirking. spelljacker.

1:02:00

Oh, yeah. Smurking spell. Born a blue

1:02:02

for a 3-3. Gin,

1:02:04

wizard, rogue. It has flash and

1:02:06

flying. When it enters the battlefield,

1:02:08

exile target spell and opponent controls.

1:02:11

Whenever a smurking spelljacker attacks, if a card

1:02:13

is exiled with it, you can cast the

1:02:15

exiled card without paying its mana cost. Most

1:02:18

of the time, it steals a spell off the

1:02:20

stack. It exiles it. So it's like an expensive

1:02:22

counterspell on a creature now, but you get to

1:02:24

cast whatever that spell was on your turn. Yeah,

1:02:26

it's narcissist reversal-ish, although in some ways better because

1:02:28

if it's a board wipe, you will stop it,

1:02:31

and you never have to cast it if you

1:02:33

don't want to or you could later. More

1:02:35

expensive, obviously. So very easy to attack

1:02:37

with it. And it's not limited. Our

1:02:40

narcissist reversal is just

1:02:42

non-creatures? Wow, you're just going to diss on my

1:02:44

narcissist reversal. No, no, no. No, no, no. It's

1:02:46

a personal cost, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's an

1:02:48

personal resource. It's an personal resource, right? But this

1:02:50

can steal crater hoofs and both citadels. It's

1:02:52

not great with X spells because you don't get to cast it, but

1:02:55

it's different. You stop it. You stop it.

1:02:57

Yeah. And it's exiled, too. You can't get

1:02:59

it back, and it stays exiled even if

1:03:01

the spelljack dies. So minimum is a counterspell.

1:03:03

It's also a counterspell you can blink. They're

1:03:05

very careful with putting that kind of stuff

1:03:08

on ETBs of creatures, and this is a

1:03:10

very powerful one. So

1:03:12

you can do some neat stuff with it.

1:03:14

Nobody sees Smurking Spelljack are coming these days.

1:03:16

Because it's brand new. Yeah, it's brand.

1:03:18

This is from OTJ. It's

1:03:20

from Thunderjawtian. Yeah, I

1:03:22

didn't even have that on my list. I did consider

1:03:24

the morph one that says Spelljack. Yeah. There's a couple

1:03:27

of sweet new spelljacks. There's this one, and then it's

1:03:29

not on my list because I didn't think about it,

1:03:31

but I think Invert Polarity, the new red

1:03:33

blue one. The flip coin

1:03:35

one? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that one. It's counterspell. I love

1:03:37

that one. Flip a coin. That's insane. You get the copy, yeah.

1:03:39

It's too good, yeah. So cracked. Because

1:03:41

the bad side just gets countered?

1:03:43

Yeah, you're like, uh. 50-50, I

1:03:46

get it? Three

1:03:48

mana? It doesn't even feel like a gacha spell

1:03:50

because it's so efficient. It's too good, yeah. It's

1:03:53

not like it's only going to be a gacha

1:03:55

for a little bit. Yeah. Until people realize this

1:03:58

card is busted. This card is too good. Yeah.

1:04:01

Yeah. The thing I don't like about that's, I

1:04:03

like your spell, and I think they should cost more

1:04:05

when they do this. The thing I don't like about

1:04:07

when they cost cheap or lower amounts of mana is

1:04:10

it really does encourage to not get punished by those

1:04:12

things to not cast really big things, which is what

1:04:14

Commander wants to be about. But

1:04:16

it's more encouraging speeding up the format, because you just want

1:04:18

to play more twos and three drops. Because fine, whatever, you

1:04:20

steal one of my things, but. At least it's not a

1:04:22

10-drop or whatnot. It's half of the things I'm going to

1:04:24

do this turn instead of the whole turn. Yeah. Yeah.

1:04:27

Yeah. Yeah. Spelljacking is just

1:04:29

very powerful. It's so powerful.

1:04:31

Yeah. It's like, instead of a one for

1:04:34

one, it's a one for zero. It's

1:04:36

exactly the judo, right? They threw the punch, and you're

1:04:38

like, nope. Spin you around. Bottom to ground. You're on

1:04:41

the ground now. You punched so hard.

1:04:43

Thanks for giving me all your momentum. I'm so

1:04:45

glad. I'm so glad. I'm so glad I pointed

1:04:47

at you and not me. Oh my god. What

1:04:49

am I going to do for my last pick

1:04:51

here? Last pick, one left, Jimmy. OK. It's

1:04:54

going to be another white card. And

1:04:58

I play this a lot, so I think this

1:05:00

one makes the most sense for me. It is

1:05:03

clever concealment. Oh, yeah. So

1:05:05

this is a two white white instant with

1:05:07

convoke, so you can tap creatures to pay

1:05:09

for the mana cost. And

1:05:11

then any number of target non-land permanence

1:05:14

you control phase out. This

1:05:16

is an interesting one, because I was

1:05:18

definitely thinking about is heroic intervention a

1:05:21

gacha spell. Because it kind

1:05:23

of is, where it's like, oh, all right, I'm

1:05:25

going to cast a board wipe, and then the

1:05:27

board wipe backfires. Sorry, got you. You almost always

1:05:29

do it in response. Every once

1:05:31

in a while you attack, they block and use it

1:05:33

as a protect your things stuff. But in general,

1:05:35

yeah. So I think that's the definition, right? They

1:05:37

did something. You stopped here from doing it, yeah. I

1:05:40

like clever concealment because you can cast it with no

1:05:42

mana open. So because you just have

1:05:44

creatures, I like that it's any number of target non-land permanence

1:05:46

you control phase out. So if you want something to stick

1:05:48

around, like a smothering tide, let's say, to

1:05:51

keep doing its thing, then you can make

1:05:53

sure. And there is oftentimes just

1:05:55

conditional board wipes, only artifacts, only

1:05:57

enchantments, or artifacts and enchantments. And so having

1:05:59

the. ability again to be really flexible with it is

1:06:01

why I like clever concealment. Yeah, you can also just save

1:06:03

one thing, right? Like single target removal and

1:06:06

that, we really want that. Yeah. This

1:06:08

isn't going to give you like this

1:06:10

same huge backfire unless you're in that

1:06:12

board wipe scenario, but I do think

1:06:14

that there's moments where people cast a

1:06:16

board protection spell where you're just like, well,

1:06:19

that went terribly. Yeah. Uh-oh.

1:06:22

Sometimes, a lot of times it's like, oh, they're going to win now.

1:06:25

The only hope we had was get rid of their board. Right.

1:06:28

Yeah. Yeah. Or

1:06:30

specifically. Yeah. Or it's for a different

1:06:32

player and it handles that player, but it leaves somebody else. Right. Now

1:06:35

in a commanding position. Yeah. Now, none

1:06:37

of us have everything except Jimmy. Yeah. I do

1:06:39

think board protection is getting to the point where it is

1:06:41

ubiquitous enough that you have to

1:06:43

expect it. You're like, what if that's heroic

1:06:46

intervention? What if that's Teferi's protection? Oh, yeah.

1:06:48

I think knowing a heroic intervention or Teferi's

1:06:50

protection man is up stops a lot of

1:06:52

action in games now. You have to

1:06:54

be careful. Otherwise, it's just nothing. Yeah. Yeah,

1:06:57

I didn't have a single piece of board

1:06:59

protection on my list, even though I thought

1:07:01

heroic intervention could be a card on here.

1:07:04

But I was like, yeah, there's enough of that now that

1:07:06

if I never get to play with a certain one again

1:07:08

because you've all picked it, I'll just use one of the

1:07:10

other ones. Yeah. I

1:07:12

didn't really think about it as a gotcha spell, but it

1:07:14

definitely has that same emotional like,

1:07:17

oh, no thing. Yeah. That's

1:07:19

a good one. That's

1:07:23

my five. Okay. The

1:07:25

final draft of the official

1:07:28

draft of the draft. This is the first

1:07:30

draft we've ever done where you guys,

1:07:32

you haven't taken any of the ones

1:07:35

in my like, I've just gone

1:07:37

in order. One, two, three, four. And

1:07:41

by the way, I could go five,

1:07:43

six, seven, eight, nine before I would

1:07:45

hit even mine sensor that I was

1:07:47

taking. Wow. So I have my pick of

1:07:49

the next five and I like

1:07:51

them all. Yeah. Blue.

1:07:54

Blue. I don't

1:07:57

think it's going to be a blue one. Whoa. I

1:08:00

think I'm going to say word of seizing. I

1:08:02

love that effect. This was a last minute edition.

1:08:04

I was like, wait a minute. I played this

1:08:06

card. Yeah, that's great. I mean, instant speed is

1:08:08

good. Right until the last minute, I'm like, look

1:08:10

at all the morph cards, look at all the

1:08:13

new jig cards, look at all the split second

1:08:15

cards, look at all the split second. Yeah.

1:08:17

And I was like, oh crap, word of seizing. I have that in

1:08:20

like four decks. So

1:08:22

OK, let me read it real quick. It's an

1:08:24

instant speed threaten effect. It is three

1:08:29

red red for an instant, has split second, and

1:08:31

says untap target permanents and gain control of

1:08:34

it until end of turn. It gains haste

1:08:36

until end of turn. Permanent. Permanent

1:08:38

is bonkers. Yeah. So

1:08:40

it's also an instant, right? Yeah. Split

1:08:42

second. Split second. Yeah. So yeah,

1:08:45

permanent part, easy to overlook, but you can take their bullets

1:08:47

to sit at all and then go off on it yourself.

1:08:50

If they somehow didn't win with their bullets to sit on

1:08:52

their turn rare these days, but whatever. You can take their

1:08:54

planeswalker. You can take all kinds of things. Also, they just

1:08:56

play a big scary thing. They're

1:08:58

going to kill you with it. No, I'm going to kill you

1:09:00

with it. Yeah. Another thing you can just

1:09:02

do a lot is somebody attacks somebody else or

1:09:05

attacks you. You grab the best thing from somebody else, put

1:09:07

it in front. And if you can organize a trade there,

1:09:10

you can sort of two for one your opponents get rid of

1:09:12

their two best things. That can happen.

1:09:14

That sounds awesome. Yeah. And also,

1:09:16

not very fringe. I've done this quite a

1:09:18

bit is you can give haste to your

1:09:20

own thing on those

1:09:23

big turns where you're like, I

1:09:25

love manneguyser and I like to have big turns. And how often

1:09:27

are we in the case where you're like, they're doing this, this,

1:09:29

and this. Do you have a concordant crotch ropes? Do you have

1:09:31

this? Do you have some way to make that matter now? And

1:09:34

Word of Seasons can also build that role as like,

1:09:36

well, I can give this haste. And it's

1:09:38

like, cool, that's going to do it. So

1:09:40

this all adds up to pretty powerful

1:09:43

stuff. Also, just taking somebody's really important thing

1:09:45

during their upkeep and saying, during this turn,

1:09:47

you will not have it, even if it

1:09:49

is not something that I can actively use

1:09:51

very well often does the sudden spoiling thing

1:09:53

where you're just I will just live through

1:09:55

your turn now. And that's really what I need to do. Right.

1:09:58

And on top of it as the upside of being. Yeah,

1:12:01

complicated. Anyway, okay, I'm

1:12:04

assuming neither of you had a word of seizing on

1:12:06

your list. I love that pick. I do like that

1:12:08

pick, I thought about it. Because again, split seconds, real

1:12:10

nice. So let's go to

1:12:12

honorable, oh no, we wanna recap what we got

1:12:15

here. Yeah, I wanna talk about

1:12:17

the final five before we move on to

1:12:19

the many, many, many other spells that we

1:12:21

could talk about in this category. There's a

1:12:23

lot of those. Jimmy,

1:12:26

what is your pool? So

1:12:28

I have hatred, followed up

1:12:30

by narciss reversal, avian mind

1:12:32

sensor, time stop, and clever

1:12:34

concealment. Nice. So I

1:12:36

think a nice little balance of different types of

1:12:38

effects, and people will not like me for avian

1:12:40

mind sensor and time stop. And

1:12:43

narciss reversal. But they won't see

1:12:45

it coming. They won't see it coming. Well, now they will

1:12:47

if they've listened to this episode. Yeah,

1:12:49

we're telling all our secrets. I'm gonna switch my

1:12:51

list to Rachel's, and then when you play me,

1:12:53

like what the heck? The thing is, what do

1:12:55

you do if you think they might have narciss

1:12:58

reversal? Do you just not play any instance of

1:13:00

narciss? Yeah, okay. Yeah, exactly. How

1:13:03

about you, Rachel? I wound up with Ink

1:13:05

Shield, Ember Cleave, Mercadia's

1:13:07

Downfall, Reigns of Power,

1:13:09

and Smurking Spelljacker. A

1:13:12

lot of combat stuff. I'm ready for

1:13:14

combat coming at me. I'm ready for

1:13:16

combat going at you. If

1:13:18

you might get Rachel, you better block. Yeah, you

1:13:20

better block. Just block. Especially with that Mercadia's Downfall.

1:13:22

It feels bad, but jump block, just do it,

1:13:24

yep. It's interesting, is there a single

1:13:27

green card? I don't think any of us chose a green card, did

1:13:29

we? No, I don't even think there's a green card. No, I do

1:13:31

have a green card on my list. I have a green card on

1:13:33

my list as well. We'll talk about that after this. Yes. Yeah,

1:13:35

I did. This is the first time ever I

1:13:37

made my depth chart, and I just went down

1:13:40

one, two, three, four, five. Yeah, that's pretty wild.

1:13:42

I got my top five, so I'm happy about

1:13:44

that. Racto's Charm, Fury Storm, Sudden Spoiling, Mirror Weave,

1:13:47

Word of Seizing. No green card to be

1:13:49

found, though. No green card to be found. I love

1:13:51

this. Mirror Weave is such a perfect card for this

1:13:53

list. Yeah. What was

1:13:55

the green card you had on your list before we get into honorable

1:13:57

mentions? I wonder what it is about green that makes

1:13:59

it so. sort of less tricky. The

1:14:01

green card that I have, I would say, is probably a pie

1:14:03

break. So it makes sense.

1:14:05

But it's tangle. Oh. I wanted

1:14:07

a green for an instant, prevent all combat damage that

1:14:10

would be dealt this turn. Attacking creatures don't untap

1:14:12

during their controller's next untap. Yeah, yeah,

1:14:14

yeah. Fog freeze. Yeah.

1:14:16

That's nice. It's a I

1:14:19

love tangle in my decks. I decided not to

1:14:21

take it because I had ink shield and I

1:14:23

already had the blue one. So I was kind

1:14:26

of like, I've got fog stuff sort of

1:14:28

covered. But I've had

1:14:30

a tangle force of wield, which feels incredible

1:14:32

when you're like, I cast this bing bong.

1:14:34

And they're like, oh, no. I

1:14:36

cast my 25-foot card. Yeah. I have

1:14:38

to pitch two cards to not

1:14:41

have that happen. Tangle's

1:14:43

a ton of fun to cast. Yeah, it's a very

1:14:45

good card. And my card is similar to arachnogenesis. Yeah,

1:14:48

I have. Again, another fog. I already had time

1:14:50

stops, so I figured Arachnogenesis was on my list.

1:14:52

I had berserk as my next card, actually. Berserk

1:14:54

is a great one. Berserk is my hatred and

1:14:56

Berkeley. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's my

1:14:59

kill you out of nowhere. I also

1:15:02

like that berserk can kill all the opponent's creatures when

1:15:04

they attack. Yeah, because it makes them sack. Yeah. Berserk

1:15:06

is such a great option. I was thinking about berserk

1:15:08

over amber cleave, but. It's funny, though.

1:15:10

We had that category. All of us had that

1:15:12

category. Yeah, kill them out of nowhere category is

1:15:14

huge. None of us talked about tainted strike, which

1:15:16

is also in that category. Yeah. And that was

1:15:18

actually my two away for me. Yeah, I definitely

1:15:20

have it. It's on here,

1:15:22

but I only play it in one deck,

1:15:24

I guess. I think I have it in two.

1:15:27

Yeah, it's definitely a card I've died to a lot.

1:15:30

I've killed people with a lot, and I think is

1:15:32

in the same mold of hatred

1:15:34

and amber cleave berserk. For sure. Yeah. It's

1:15:36

just one mana. Yeah. Yeah. I had all

1:15:38

those cards that are squirreling around. Yeah,

1:15:41

and I like the one mana one, so that's

1:15:43

why I had those two. Yeah. Tainted

1:15:46

strike also can't kill my opponent's things, so

1:15:48

that's why I bumped berserker ahead of it.

1:15:50

Yeah. Although berserk doesn't always kill somebody, whereas

1:15:52

tainted strike, I'd say more often a killing

1:15:54

bullet bow, although they have to have at

1:15:56

least 10 power. Berserk's more flexible than

1:15:59

tainted strike. I would say. Yeah. But

1:16:01

at its most powerful, or it's less likely to be

1:16:03

at its most powerful, because you really need a commander

1:16:05

that's 11 plus power, or a creature that's like 15

1:16:07

or 20 plus power. I don't think I'd run either

1:16:09

in a deck that I'm not going to proactively use

1:16:12

it. You're going to be the one doing it. Yeah.

1:16:14

Like, I don't think I'd throw a tainted strike in a

1:16:16

deck that I'm not reliably going to be able to kill somebody with it.

1:16:19

Right, exactly. And then Berserk being in

1:16:21

green, you're way more likely to have

1:16:23

a green creature that's 10 plus power.

1:16:25

Yeah, duh. More effects. Yeah, exactly. So

1:16:27

yeah. What were some of your other

1:16:30

honorable mentions? Well, Josh, you're actually first on this list.

1:16:32

So why don't you start? Oh, I'm first on the

1:16:34

other one. Yeah, we're still kind of snake-trafft-ing, I guess.

1:16:36

Oh, OK. All right. I

1:16:39

had Ink Shield on my honorable mention. I had

1:16:41

Opposition Agent on my honorable mention. Which I thought

1:16:43

was a top three powerful card. But I don't

1:16:46

play it. I don't like the card. So. It's

1:16:48

like your even mind-sensor, basically. Yeah, but if we

1:16:50

were just dispassionate, time-traveling

1:16:52

supercomputer saying, which is the best gacha card out

1:16:54

there, I think Ink Shield might be there above

1:16:57

it. But Opposition Agent probably in the next one

1:16:59

or two. For sure, very high. I used to

1:17:01

refuse to play that card, so it wasn't on

1:17:03

my list. Yeah, that's the thing about gacha

1:17:05

cards, is we talk about them making the game

1:17:07

and being cool and worth playing for that reason.

1:17:10

I think Opposition Agent is the kind of gacha card that

1:17:12

can be like, oh, this makes the game

1:17:14

a lot smaller and scarier and less

1:17:17

dynamic. It's just definitely a gacha

1:17:19

moment. You know, we talked about even

1:17:21

mind-sensor feeling bad. It's double. Double, yeah.

1:17:23

It feels twice as bad. Yeah, exactly.

1:17:26

And then you have to kill it to cast

1:17:28

your rampant growth. Oh, god. It

1:17:31

definitely should be high on a list of

1:17:33

strictly most powerful, though. Yeah, exactly. I don't think we

1:17:36

really, you know, you want to mention that as, yeah,

1:17:38

it's a gacha card, and it is very good. Yeah.

1:17:40

Yeah, everyone out there knows it exists now. I

1:17:43

would say the honorable mentions for me would

1:17:45

be Withering Boon, which is a great black

1:17:47

card, one in the black instant pay-through-life counter,

1:17:49

a creature spell, which is hilarious.

1:17:51

No one ever sees that coming. And

1:17:54

then Deflecting Palm, surprisingly, didn't make

1:17:56

anyone's list today. This was actually

1:17:59

too, like, after Berserk for me. Yeah.

1:18:01

Yeah, I think with Ink Shield, I didn't take

1:18:03

Deflecting Palm, but it's high on the list.

1:18:05

It's definitely the kind of card that will kill

1:18:07

people, and I've seen people to die to, as

1:18:10

well as come up and this kind of thing. And

1:18:12

then I didn't do Galadriel's Dismissal, but that's also

1:18:14

another clever concealment type card that can actually

1:18:16

feel like your opponent's creatures, which is hilarious.

1:18:19

And then Mystic Reflection, I think, is a card I do play

1:18:21

a lot, but I just didn't find the space for it to

1:18:23

stay on the list. Mystic Reflection is good. That's a great answer.

1:18:27

You can be like, I get a Dockside X.

1:18:29

See, it's a plant. Sorry. It's a

1:18:31

plant. It's a plant, sorry. It's a Josh

1:18:33

Lee Kway token. It's

1:18:35

still pretty cool, though. Yeah, Deflecting Palm,

1:18:38

I really like, and I definitely have it in

1:18:40

a couple of decks, and you win with it

1:18:42

quite often. It does work. I think there was

1:18:44

a time when I played against Kenji. One

1:18:47

game of Commander randomly here or at an event. He,

1:18:49

Deflecting Palm, killed me. And then it was like a

1:18:51

year and a half later, we're playing, and I Deflecting

1:18:53

Palm killed him. Gotcha.

1:18:57

Delayed Deflecting Palm. Yeah. It

1:19:00

deflected over a course of a year. Yeah, exactly.

1:19:03

I used to have a, it was very similar

1:19:05

to Sheldon's list, though. You did this to yourself,

1:19:07

Liz. It was Queen Marchesa, and it had a

1:19:09

lot of gotcha spells in it. And

1:19:12

one of my favorites to cast was Backlash,

1:19:15

which is red and a black for an

1:19:17

instant. It says, tap target, untapped creature. That

1:19:19

creature deals damage equal to its power to

1:19:21

its controller. Rough. And

1:19:24

I did it in response to a Craterhoof.

1:19:27

And it was like, I'd go to combat, and you

1:19:29

just like, you die, actually. You die.

1:19:31

Yeah, you don't even get to

1:19:33

swing. Brutal. And you're like,

1:19:35

I've got it. No.

1:19:39

Amazing. It's

1:19:41

so narrow, though. It's a very hard card

1:19:44

to use unless you have a ton of card advantage or

1:19:46

you're specifically doing Sunforger things.

1:19:48

Which I think, if you're going to run a lot of

1:19:51

gotcha spells, Sunforger is really helpful with that. I'm surprised

1:19:53

I had it farther down my list. I'm surprised

1:19:55

nobody said portal mage. Oh,

1:19:57

portal mage. Which is designed to be very gotcha.

1:19:59

Yeah. Yeah, there's the new

1:20:01

misleading signpost. It's a

1:20:03

mana rock that has a portal mage effect on it. I

1:20:05

think that's kind of really cool. Yeah, so this is the

1:20:07

creature that comes in, and then you can sort of reassign

1:20:09

where attackers are going. I think I've played

1:20:12

it in too many games where it's hard to find

1:20:14

a spot where it feels like you get a lot

1:20:16

out of it. Yeah, it's like, oh, yeah, because you're

1:20:18

looking for the maximum, oh my gosh, I can't believe

1:20:21

that happened. But it's like, OK, two creatures died as

1:20:23

a result or whatever. Yeah, it's like, a lot of

1:20:25

times the whole game will go by, and you really

1:20:28

got attacked by singular creatures every time.

1:20:30

Yeah, yeah. And you're like, this

1:20:33

would have saved me five life, is kind of all it would

1:20:35

have ever done this game. And you're looking for a spot where

1:20:37

it's better than that. And then sometimes, though, you're like, OK, cool.

1:20:39

Well, this is great. I'm going to attack by 12 things, and

1:20:41

now we're going to do the thing. Yeah, but it's like Master

1:20:44

of Warcraft has a similar. Yeah, Master of

1:20:46

Warcraft reads amazing, and then you try to play

1:20:48

it. The scenario

1:20:50

that's in my mind doesn't happen very often. Yeah, yeah,

1:20:52

yeah. One of my favorites that I'm

1:20:54

so glad I get to run is Crafty Cutpurse.

1:20:56

Yeah. Crafty Cutpurse is a

1:20:59

creature. It says, when it enters the

1:21:01

battlefield, each token that would be created under

1:21:03

an opponent's control this turn is created

1:21:05

under your control instead. Tokens. So

1:21:07

see a darkside. Yeah. And defend

1:21:09

the car. Yeah. But you picture all

1:21:12

of those moments, and you're like, ah, I'm going to

1:21:14

get them. And then they have like, Fields of the

1:21:16

Dead, which they're like, all right, I'll stop playing lands.

1:21:18

And you're like, no. Well, yeah, you

1:21:21

really need something that's going to create a lot all

1:21:23

at once for that to work. Yeah, I tried to

1:21:25

run it for a while. I've taken out mostly. I

1:21:27

run it in Feldergrift because I have a way to

1:21:29

like, make it give me hippos. Like, there's

1:21:31

additional synergy. But I did

1:21:33

use it against an ancient

1:21:35

copper dragon, the red one that makes treasures.

1:21:37

Oh my gosh. And I was like, oh

1:21:39

my god, it's happening. And I flashed

1:21:42

in the Crafty Cutpurse in response to the trigger.

1:21:44

And I was like, ahh. And

1:21:47

he rolled a one. It

1:21:53

was already unlikely that they played like, was it

1:21:55

a seven or eight mana dragon, got it to

1:21:57

fly an attack. I had mana open.

1:21:59

It was. And that's an error that

1:22:01

was the equivalent of them were rolling a nat 20. Yeah Person

1:22:04

playing their character in the big game in

1:22:06

the sky rolled a 20 which caused them

1:22:08

to roll one Hey,

1:22:15

at least you got something out of it. Yeah, you're

1:22:17

right. I got a treasure Yeah, one

1:22:19

more card. I wanted to call out that neither of

1:22:21

us said but I think is in the opposition agent

1:22:24

category Well, there's two more notion thief notion. That was

1:22:26

on my list. Yeah, that feels like a card just

1:22:28

power low wise again I don't really play the card,

1:22:30

but I acknowledge is incredibly powerful and then angels

1:22:32

grace I think is another one that oh, yeah

1:22:34

a ton of sees a ton of playing like

1:22:36

siege and stuff and is very powerful But

1:22:40

again, I don't tend to play it. Yeah, it's

1:22:42

like Orem's chant and stuff stuff That's just like

1:22:44

you thought but no you can't do anything this

1:22:46

turn or I'm not gonna die that sort of

1:22:48

stuff Yeah I don't know if those

1:22:50

like the angels grace definitely

1:22:52

has the blow-up potential where they over commit think

1:22:54

you're gonna die and then you Have one more turn,

1:22:57

but I think the big part about it

1:22:59

is is you definitely need that huge that

1:23:02

huge reaction So I

1:23:04

don't know if I would consider Orem's chant one,

1:23:06

but it's a it's not bad for sure

1:23:08

Yeah, no should keep to a wheel or whatever

1:23:10

is yeah, so you're just like or they you

1:23:13

know consecrated things or something Do

1:23:17

notion thieves on the battlefield know yourself out. Yeah, so

1:23:19

be careful, but Yeah,

1:23:23

I mean there's so many that are like That

1:23:27

are really good when the game feels hopeless.

1:23:29

Yeah, yeah, and I think that's cool

1:23:31

Like there's a lot of times when you're digging for a

1:23:33

board wipe You're like only a board wipe will save us

1:23:36

only a board wipe will save us and then you draw

1:23:38

like the weirdest card And you're like this

1:23:40

will also does this save us. It'll

1:23:42

kill one person I

1:23:46

really like gotcha cards because they cause you

1:23:49

to root for weird things. Yeah, like you're

1:23:51

In a scenario often like with word of season

1:23:53

where like I hope they double the power of

1:23:56

their creatures somehow or do something Like that, you

1:23:58

know where you normally when obviously I hope

1:24:00

they play something really scary so I can mirror-weave it.

1:24:02

Yeah, it just gets even more exciting. I hope they

1:24:04

play something awesome, like an exclamation. Normally you don't want

1:24:06

them to do that, but in this case it'd be

1:24:09

sweet. Yeah, and I kind of like that just for

1:24:11

variety and gameplay. Yeah. Yeah. I

1:24:14

mean, being able to cast, like one

1:24:16

we didn't mention was Batwing Broom is really sweet

1:24:18

fog. It's black and white. If

1:24:20

you spend white on it, you prevent all combat

1:24:22

damage. If you spend black on it, you drain

1:24:25

the attacking player for the number of attacking creatures.

1:24:28

And that's one of those things that sits in your hand and you're

1:24:30

like, I don't even have to fog the combat. I

1:24:32

could just cast black, cast

1:24:35

this with black, black, black, colorless, and drain

1:24:37

the attacking creature. The

1:24:39

player, they make you feel very smart and

1:24:41

they make you pay

1:24:43

very close attention to the game because

1:24:46

a lot of them are like only going

1:24:48

to be good in very specific moments of

1:24:50

the game. And you can make a weird deal. Like, how

1:24:52

about you do that? It's a little,

1:24:55

yeah, just do that that way. Or

1:24:57

you make an attack to leave yourself open because

1:25:00

you want them to attack the board. Yeah,

1:25:02

and bait them. Yeah. So you're

1:25:04

trying to craft scenarios, which is fun. It creates

1:25:06

a little mini game. And there's also social interactions

1:25:08

where you're trying to subtly nudge or manipulate people

1:25:10

towards certain actions to open up that little window

1:25:13

you need. I like that.

1:25:15

And I think the fact that it causes you

1:25:17

to be more focused on the game makes the game

1:25:20

more fun. Totally. Yeah,

1:25:22

when you're fully engaged in the game is when the game is the most fun. We

1:25:24

talked a lot about how, we talked

1:25:27

about it in the Game Nights episode, is about how

1:25:30

interaction makes games dynamic. And these are

1:25:32

sort of super interaction spells that

1:25:35

are like take interaction and

1:25:37

turn it into a weapon. And that is

1:25:39

so explosive. And if you're looking for the kind of cards that

1:25:41

are just going to make memories or make your table go, what?

1:25:45

Yeah, like we had a fan come in,

1:25:48

was talking about selfless squire, which just flashes

1:25:50

in and becomes a huge thing and prevents a

1:25:52

bunch of damage. And he's like, it was the

1:25:54

sweetest thing in our play group. And now we're all

1:25:56

afraid of selfless squire. Like that's an incredible

1:25:59

method. I got myself on fire,

1:26:01

so busted. I love that. Like

1:26:03

what a very cool thing for you guys all

1:26:05

to be aware of. Yeah, so

1:26:07

this is all to say, if you're not playing some

1:26:09

gotcha cards in your decks, I think. Try

1:26:11

it out. Yeah, you should definitely do it. You'll be

1:26:13

surprised. I do make it a point to have like two or

1:26:15

three, you know, and

1:26:17

I just think of them as tricky cards. But I

1:26:20

want two or three just weird kind of tricky cards

1:26:22

in all my decks. A,

1:26:24

to maintain my reputation, but also because they

1:26:26

do cause cool moments. We also put

1:26:28

a lot of these in Game Night's live decks. Yep.

1:26:31

Because they make for huge moments and they

1:26:34

like big reactions from the crowd and like

1:26:36

they might be a little dead in your

1:26:38

hand, but if they happen, oh my gosh,

1:26:40

what a stage moment. So they're cool.

1:26:44

All right. To the listeners, what is your first pick

1:26:46

gotcha spell? Did we miss any who came out on

1:26:48

top in this draft? That's a really tough one to

1:26:50

answer this time around. Yeah, yeah. If of course you

1:26:52

even disagree with some of our spells that are gotchas,

1:26:54

or you're like, you know what? I'm all about opposition

1:26:56

agent. Let us know in the comments. I'd

1:27:00

love to see, because again, this is a really broad

1:27:02

category and everyone's got a different play style. Yeah, tell

1:27:04

us your cool story about your gotcha card and what

1:27:06

you did with it. I would love to hear that.

1:27:08

Yeah. And if you're going to Gen Con,

1:27:11

let us know if there's anything we can't miss. Or

1:27:14

if you're gonna come see us, that would be

1:27:16

awesome. We're looking forward to it. Again, that's on

1:27:18

August 2nd. And we'll be around the con hall

1:27:20

as well. Yeah, yeah, we'll be floating around. So if you

1:27:22

miss the show, if it's sold out, which it looks like

1:27:24

it might be, there are other ways to meet us. We'll

1:27:26

be jamming games, doing all that good stuff. Yep, we'll be

1:27:28

there all weekend long. All right, big

1:27:31

shout outs to our sponsors. cardkingdom.com/command. That is the

1:27:33

best place to go to buy all of your

1:27:35

gotcha spells. They have a huge inventory. They got

1:27:37

all the versions. They gotcha. They gotcha. If you

1:27:39

want to get gotcha, no wait. If you want

1:27:41

to gotcha someone else, then

1:27:43

Card Kingdom gotcha. There you go.

1:27:46

Yeah, cardkingdom.com/commands. We love

1:27:48

them because huge inventory, all the

1:27:50

versions, all the different conditions. And

1:27:52

like Rachel said earlier, they are professionals. They're going

1:27:54

to package it correctly. It's all going to come

1:27:56

in one package, all at once to your doorstep.

1:27:59

And. or

1:30:00

ask us on Twitter at jf1 and at joshleaquai. See

1:30:05

you later, alligator. Greetings, humans.

1:30:07

Ha ha ha ha ha

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