Sedgemoor Witch: 99 Problems But a Witch Ain’t One

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:00:00] You are listening to Faithless brew in easy magic, the gathering podcast for the spike room. Each week, we design new decks in modern and pioneer. We put our creations to the test and share our findings. All the air coming up on the brew session. Monastery mentor is back in black. We’ve got five decks for such rich and Tom, the forbid then on the flashback, our latest trophy with elite Spellbinder.

This is episode 12 of Strixhaven season. Thanks for listening. And did you join the suit?

David Robertson: [00:01:01] Hello and welcome to the Faithless brewing podcast. I am David Robertson joined by my guy on the West coast. He is Damon Alexander Dane. What’s going on? Hey,

Damon Alexander: [00:01:10] Hey, just sitting pretty with some cool new RL acquisitions. After selling off a bunch of RL cards that had sitting in my collection, like keep getting dust and it looks at prices and they’ve gone up and it’s just a matter of time before my Oboro, Palace in the Clouds got printed into some secret layer.

So I took action.

David Robertson: [00:01:30] Excellent. So, uh, Damon finance continues, uh, reaping the Oboro heavy portfolio for a sweet treats.

Damon Alexander: [00:01:38] Best way to make a million dollars to start with $2 million as they say.

David Robertson: [00:01:41] Yeah, exactly. Um, and a man who does not have $2 million, he is the CEO of the Faithless brewing podcast, joining us for his first Sunday pod after a week away.

It is caved in Dan Schriever. What is going on, buddy?

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:01:57] No, I was doing great until that intro. And now I’m like, uh, no longer in my palace, in the clouds. I’m coming back down to earth. I will be subscribing to the Damon finance newsletter to try to right the ship here. What other tips do you have for me?

Damon?

David Robertson: [00:02:13] Is there like an NFT magic card? You can try to convince us to invest heavily.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:02:18] Oh gosh.

Damon Alexander: [00:02:19] Well, I mean, I actually not. Joking. Like if you have a bunch of cards you don’t play with that are non reserved list, I think it’s not a bad time to consider liquidating them.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:02:29] Right. And all kinds of stuff could be happening on this front.

And we know that the game is growing at crazy pace. Um, arena’s doing well and commander’s doing super well. Hasbro has changed the way they report their earnings. Now that wizards of the coast is like its own subdivision. So we’re seeing a little more in your face number is like, wow, they’re doing really, really, really well off magic.

Does that mean you just sell now or sell later though? I don’t know.

Damon Alexander: [00:02:53] Yeah. Well, the thing is like with the non reserved list, it’s just seems like over time wizards will reprint everything. Um, when I was going through my collection, it was very obvious, like the cards that I would search on the buy list, the cards that had seen a reprint or worth like, you know, a few dollars or whatever.

And the cards that hadn’t seen repairing were worth like 50 to 100 or whatever. Um, with the exception of Rhystic study, which somehow just was worth a ton. And fortunately, as a kid, we played a lot of prophecy, uh, is that a bunch of Rhystic studies sitting around

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:03:23] distinctly remember a Damon like pooling our, our allowance money to like buy a box of prophecy because we were convinced that this was like the best and he was similar limited funds because you can open an avatar of Woe or maybe an avatar of Might

David Robertson: [00:03:37] and how Rhystic Study by far the most expensive car from this set. And it was,

Damon Alexander: [00:03:41] yeah, I didn’t even bother it by listening to the avatar of woes

David Robertson: [00:03:45] all right. Well, well, a lot of stuff to get to, so buy low, sell high in the, uh, Damon Alexander mode. Just a quick reminder, we are releasing two episodes a week. Uh, hopefully you listened to our Friday podcast where we broke down a bunch of the new technology.

In a modern, as well as look at some sweet bruise from people in our Patrion this week, we are going to look at our flashback section too last week, where we played with the Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa himself. But first we are going to explore the world of Sedgemoor witch, and a little bit of sort of the non prowess, major craft ability.

So Damon start us off. What is Sedgemoor Witch all about.

Damon Alexander: [00:04:30] Yeah. So this is two and a black for a three to human warlock. One of the more rare tribes. Yeah. First off, uh, has menace and then ward pay three life. So ward is whenever this creature becomes a part of a speller ability and opponent controls counter it.

And once they pay, uh, three life in this case, and then lastly, Magecraft who make a one-on-one black and green pest creature token, uh, with the typical pest, when this creature dies, you gain one life. So we get a lot of abilities here and it’s, it’s almost questing beast in terms of just how much it fills the textbox.

Although not quite. So a couple of comments is first magecraft is cast or copy. And so unlike a natural Carter, compare this to young Pyromancer this card sees a fluster storm and sees every little bit of that storm go by and makes perhaps a ton of pest depending on the storm count. Okay. Meanwhile ward is a lot of the abilities recently in this realm have been, you know, bone crusher giant is kind of, kind of like a ward, but it only functions on an opponent casting, a spell, the targets, bone crusher, giant.

Um, but ward will trigger if you’re pulling tries to cast the cards, like cast out, um, things like that. And then lastly, the pests are clearly better than the elementals, uh, unless you had like the spooky elementals with trample on MPG because of the glitch. So. Kind of some, some key questions we have going into considering this card is we have a couple of natural competitors or things, cars that do similar things.

Monastery mentor is that one, the cost three manner. But of course the monks have promised themselves young Pyromancer creates elementals and has the advantage of coming in at two mana uh, meanwhile, If you’re gonna play Sedgemoor Witch you have to give up a card, like Lurrus as your companion. And so all these things just leave us with a lot of questions of, is this card going to be awesome, or should we be playing some sort of Lurrus Pyromancer deck, uh, if we’re going to do the same thing.

So this has more, which is going to ask us to do namely cast spells and be down with one month.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:06:32] In our previous show, I felt like that was the biggest question, because at the time all the young Pyromancer decks that existed and they were mainly in pioneer, but they all use Lurrus. So it was, you had your own Pyromancer.

You had your Kroxa, you had maybe stitcher’s supplier or your village rites et cetera. None of that costs more than two CMC in any three CMC card you want to propose for that deck list means you give up your companion and they give up a lot of the grinding inevitability that Lurrus being, you know, that two for one, or possibly three for one at a later stage in the game, I still kind of feel like that’s the biggest consideration, but I’m heartened to see that Sedgemoor Witch has gotten a lot of play.

Uh, and, and older formats, legacy CA’s and vintage granted, you can’t play Lurrus in those formats, but, um, people seem to like the power on this car. So maybe it is worth

David Robertson: [00:07:22] it. Yeah. Lurrus still banned. Even after the, uh, companion rule got nerfed, uh, in vintage where it was the most powerful card in the entire format.

Um, yeah, I think one of the things you noted Damon, when we were talking about this is the three manna on this effect is actually like more than you think, because to maximize the Magecraft ability you want to cash your spells after the creatures in play. So one more men and normally not that big of a deal, obviously get a much more impressive body in combat.

But, you know, every turn later you cast, this might be one less bell or even multiple less bells you have in hand. And so you’re not getting paid off on the major ability, or maybe you have to play it without the extra amount of optic cast thought sees that same term and make sure you get a one, one.

Damon Alexander: [00:08:11] Yes, that leads me to think that, um, as I mentioned during previous season, this card really wants to be playing a fundamentally aggressive deck, not a card, like a control deck that plays a single young Pyromancer and turn five, and then suspend counter spells or dive downs or whatever to protect it.

Uh, but rather it has your opponent getting low on life before this has more which even enters play. And so then they can kill it, but they have to pay three life. And if they don’t kill it, of course you’re attacking with it and making the pests. And so you want to make your point. I face these difficult decisions with his car.

It seems like the natural home, or you just play it in vintage where it’s Monastery mentor is number two through four, because mentor itself is restricted. And, uh, you don’t want to splash red for Pyromancer.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:08:54] Yeah, I forgot the mentor is restricted and vintage. That’s kind of crazy to think about, obviously in vintage, you’re playing a lot of Mox in and other artifacts that trigger the mentor, but would not trigger the witch.

And yet they’re still finding that the, which is worth it, which will only trigger off of instance and sorceries or copies thereof. In a format like modern or pioneer, you have the option. So two is between the witch and the mentor, and that same difference applies, you know, the mentor will trigger off your Mishra’s Bauble, it’ll trigger off of your Planeswalkers besides Ryl, which will not.

So when the head-to-head there’s that, but on the other hand, the, which has all the other abilities and perhaps most importantly, it’s in black. So it’s entirely possible that you can construct a black deck that is interested in the effect, what is not interested in bending them into, into white, just for mentor that would happily play the witch.

Damon Alexander: [00:09:45] Yeah. Although I challenged in vintage, um, the deck tend to place in a recent challenge. They play a three-two split of Arcadis says Arcanist Sedgemoor witch so I guess it just, they just like both.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:09:58] I kind of disagree with your assessment, that it should be attacking. Obviously some of these abilities, the menace and the word pay three life rewards you for pressuring the opponent’s life.

Total. But the pests are a much more defensive kind of creature. And I almost feel like Pyromancer decks in the past have leaned more towards the defense. They would love it. If their elementals gained extra life that could easily like take a game that’s on a Razor’s edge and you give you a much more comfortable, uh, patting of your life total.

So I kind of think that despite the menace and the word pay through life, you should still be thinking, put this on a Pyromancer style deck, perhaps alongside young Pyromancer. And then it’s the question of like, how many copies do you want?

David Robertson: [00:10:40] Yeah, it’ll be interesting to see, and we’ll probably get impressions of that as we play out games, right?

When games go along, if we’re getting a bunch of value from this, it’s like, Oh, this is a card that pays us off for taking a bunch of turns after we resolve it, or is it just getting path? And they just pay the three life. And if we don’t have enough pressure, it’s like, it didn’t really have ward at all.

Um, losing life for your opponent, doesn’t matter. Unless you know that the life total is actually going to become an axis around which the game gets decided.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:11:06] In order to see the and action, maybe it would be helpful to think about this car in the context of some necklace. So, David, you got some ideas here in modern.

You have some ideas in pioneer. Where do you think we should start?

David Robertson: [00:11:17] Let’s start in pioneer. Um, you had mentioned that there were lists or were playing a young Pyromancer and Arcanist and those were really, uh, Kroxa lists. They’re playing Stitcher’s supplier and they were trying to fill up their graveyard and just randomly hit this Kroxa.

And when they did, you know, they tried to basically win with Kroxa and when all that failed they’d fall back on Lurrus. Uh, I’m just not a Kroxa believer. I just don’t really like the card. So the fact that we’re getting to play a three-minute creature, at least try it out means I don’t have to bend my, uh, deck around playing Kroxa.

Um, so this list to your point, Dan is, is trying to play the full eight affects. So for young Pyromancer for such more, which, uh, we have 14, one minute spells, uh, Thoughtseize fatal push  for villageRites. One claim, the firstborn, one lash of males, which I think is both, uh, a fine card. I also want to try it out with archivists.

Um, it lets Arcanist flashback Dreadbore Kolaghan’s command. Uh, we mentioned this during spoiler season. True Dreadbore to plumb the forbidden. Uh, this is a card you’re going to see me constantly trying to pair of such more, which, because these cars are incredibly powerful together, uh, for bone crusher giant, which is both just a reasonable card.

Anyone who plays standard knows it also hides, uh, for additional instance resource sorceries, uh, in the stomp half. And then, uh, Extus Oriq overlord, a car that, uh, Dan kind of had his eye on during spoiler season. I think the white splash is kind of free. Um, but we can always just play the sorcery side cause we are going to have a lot of tokens.

So, uh, if we can’t cast Extus we, we just, we have outs to just make a giant, a guy and get them.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:12:56] I know most of these cars, but I think plum the forbidden and Extus Oriq Overlord might be readers. What do these cars do? Exactly.

David Robertson: [00:13:04] So Plumb the forbidden is a card, which sort of functions like storm. It’s a one and a black instant.

As you cast it, you may sacrifice a number of creatures and you create a copy for each creature sacrificed. Uh, each copy will read you draw a card and, uh, lose one life. So it’s comparison to village, rites is kind of interesting. Obviously at one man village rites is much better at to man up on the forbid and only draws two cards.

If you sacrifice one creature, however. If you have multiple pagers, you can trigger this multiple times and it is much more resistant to counter magic because each of the copies is its own unique effect. Uh, in addition, you can resolve the front half of Plumb the forbidden with no creatures on board. So it’s a much better top deck in the late game.

If your board is already clear the interaction with such more, which is that each of these copies triggers, which if it’s in play. So if you let’s say you have three, one one’s in a, which you cast Plumb the forbidden, you sacrifice your three tokens. Um, so you draw four cards take for damage, but then which makes four new cards for new one, one pests.

So if they were one month from young, Pyromancer you upgraded them. If they were already past you gain a life back for each pass sacrificed, and then you just replaced them all, but you’ve. Added a bunch of cars to your hand. So it’s an interaction. Uh, I’m going to be referencing in a few other, uh, lists that we see.

So I think that’s an important interaction to be conscious of.

Damon Alexander: [00:14:31] Yeah. And if you have two Sedgemoor witches out, then Plumb the forbidden needs double your pests, draw your whole deck. Basically

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:14:37] it does seem tailor made for Sedgemoor Witch, uh, I can’t wait to have all these and play at the same time.

David Robertson: [00:14:43] And then this Oriq overlord has a ton of texts, but we will get through it for you.

So the front half is a two, four double strike. For one white, black, black human warlock, and each craft, whenever you cast or copy and insert or source you spell return, target non legendary creature card from your graveyard to your hand. So cast raised dead for each copy. Again, trading off all the copies.

If you cast a big plum, the forbidden, we have a bunch of, you know, relatively high value creatures. We wouldn’t mind buying back, you know, and Pyromancer archivist bone crusher, giant. You know that two for one train again. And such more, which itself. And then the back side, which is the side that Dan really targeted, something he was interested in was, is Awaken the blood Avatar

so that’s Six, uh, black and a red for a sorcery as an additional cost to cast this spell. You may sacrifice any number of creatures. This spell costs to colorless to less to cast for each creature, sacrifice this way. Um, as this resolves each opponent sacrifices or creature, you create a three, Six black and red avatar creature token with haste and.

Whenever this creature attacks, it deals three damage to each opponent. So the theory is between the young Pyromancer and the Sedgemoor Witch we should have a bunch of fodder for the Awaken the blood avatar. But if we’re playing a very mobile heavy deck that our opponents blowing up a bunch of stuff, hopefully we can just resolve the front half the Extus and.

In casting, a bunch of spells, we just buy back all the creatures that they were sort of proactively having to kill.

Damon Alexander: [00:16:08] Yeah. This tech is awesome. There is no way Will and Rowan Kenrith can stop us with cards. This powerful

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:16:17] meddling Plains Walker. Yeah. I do think this deck is actually going to perform very, very well. I mean, the cards in it are just very good. Fine tuning. The question that I have is with four village rights, that’s the same number that the existing Rakdos Pyromancer organisms X play, but they’re also playing Stitcher’s supplier and Kroxa so they have a lot of fodder for the village Rites

we’re playing, not just the four village rites but also two Plumb the Forbidden. And so we have like 50% more of this. Altar’s Reap type effect that demands having fodder in play. And if you, if you want to count awaken the blood avatar, we have eight effects that demand having fodder in play. Do we have enough creatures to support that many effects?

And I guess I’m mainly looking at the bone crusher giants as cars that could be just like cheaper fodder creatures.

David Robertson: [00:17:05] Yeah, the problem is there just, aren’t a lot of actually good fodder creatures. Um, I think bone crusher giant, just as, uh, as, okay. I guess my working theory is such more, which wants us to go a little bit longer and that case I want to play at bone crusher giant, because I think it’s just one of the better red cards in the entire format.

I would, I could be talked into cutting, maybe a couple of village rites I do think the fact that you can just cast foot pulling the forbidden as like a bad Opt with no creatures in play. Uh, it means it’s just never a dead card in your hand.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:17:31] Hmm. Yeah, that’s true. I guess I was thinking that you have to have a creature in play for that, but you don’t, and that’s actually very important.

Damon Alexander: [00:17:37] Yeah. As a result that actually might be interested in going up, up on Plumb the forbidden and perhaps down on village Rites I would like to get at least one Kroxa in here. I feel like the duck could use the graveyard a little bit more than the, just the Arcanist and Kolaghan’s commands do alone. There’s not that much graveyard hate in pioneer.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:17:53] I guess Extus uses the graveyard too, but yeah, I think the first collagen, as long as David is not the one playing this, we can slip the co Kroxa in.

David Robertson: [00:18:00] Yeah. I mean, you guys, you guys tweak all these lists anyway. I’m not going to proposal as with Kroxa and I am not interested in just losing every game where I cast Kroxa on and turn to yeah.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:18:09] Listeners. You can play Kroxa it’s okay. It’s good, but yeah, I think claimed the firstborn could be perfect with as many sacrifice outlets. Lash of malice. We’ll have to see, I guess I was envisioning that more as a card that will support Soul-Scar Mage. Um, so it sort of dual purpose punching damage Through slash removal, but here, I think you’ll, you’ll use it as a removal most of the time.

And maybe once every six teams you’ll do a sweet thing with the organist, but there’s not like a ton of two and three minutes spills. That you would you’d really be paid off for on the interaction.

David Robertson: [00:18:44] Yeah, I just w I want the ability to buy back Plumb the forbidden, um, and dread bore and Kolaghan’s command.

I mean, there’s just, these are just really high value targets. So just having the ability to do so, uh, in, in match-ups where there are no, uh, you know, X twos to kill, uh, I think it was just worth it queer

Damon Alexander: [00:19:01] for play. I forget her name. I feel bad. Uh, Judith Judas, Judith Judah. The scourge diva, the scourge diva.

Yeah. Um, the card really makes all these little tokens get a little bit bigger. It makes archivists have to power to flashback, Plumb the forbidden. It makes your pests both gain life and deal damage when they die.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:19:23] I think Judith has just been out of class buy cards like mayhem devil. She only has two toughness.

I was excited about her when she was first printed, but I think Time has shown this. He’s just not as powerful as we would hope. But, I mean, this is a deck where you can obviously tweak around the edges and you know, we’ll test that and come back with our report. Do you want to go to your next shell?

Cause this one I think is actually super promising.

David Robertson: [00:19:46] Yeah. So my next two shells will both be black green lists. The first one is a little more fair. So this is eight men and elves, and then I’m playing a pretty extensive, um, adventure package. So for Edgewall innkeeper four Foulmire knight four lovestruck beast  three murdeours rider.

So the reason I’m doing that is I want to play collected company. That’s a spell that triggers such more, which it’s also a way to flash it in at the end of my opponent’s turn. But when we’re playing enough hits for collected company, it’s hard to get enough spells for such more, which to really pay you off.

And so we have these like, Creatures that are maybe a little weaker on average, but they have this two for one built. And in fact, and then we have both innkeeper and such more, which is kind of a rule of eight that pays us off for having these spell effects. Uh, four Thoughtseize. I just think you need to be disruptive, but maybe that’s too many.

And then at the top end of the curve, I have to Toski bearer of secrets. This is a car we really poop hoot when we spoiled it, uh, aspiring spike five ode and inspired a bunch of people to play like band Toski list and modern, uh Toski is just really good with all of the pests running around. Um, in addition to, uh, your Foulmire Knight or your like one, one from love struck beast.

Um, I think this is technology that people in standard have kind of been adopting. And so I’m kind of interested in trying it out in this kind of a list.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:21:09] What I really like here is that I think the adventure package is underutilized and pioneer. I think it’s, um, I mean, a dominated standard continues to dominate standard.

Somehow Eldraine is still legal for a time. The black green of venture is, was like a top tier contender and standard. And those cards seem to support the segment of which, and just a beautiful way. So Edgewall Inkeeper Foulmire Knight Lovestruck beast murderous Rider. You somehow managed to get 19 spells out of a deck that also supports collected company, which is really impressive.

I think if I played this, like I might find that I want like a L a few more spells and whether that’s going to come from plumb the forbidden, or even just like a splash for bonecrusher giant, just to have more adventures. Uh, I kind of just want that number to be slightly higher because, because unlike the Rakdos based deck that you just described for us, they actually had a lot of card draw between village rites.

I’m telling the forbidden lay that one. Aye. I see that duck having its hand much more full this, this deck apart from edible, I think keeper. It doesn’t have a lot of like raw card draw to keep things, uh, keep the fuel in your hands to guarantee triggers of the Sedgemoor Witch return.

David Robertson: [00:22:18] Yeah. And one of the ways I was trying to mitigate that is you can cast that more, which on turn to, um, which is hopefully setting up the fact that, you know, you’ll, you’re more likely to have spells in your hand.

Um, and yeah, this is just a more aggressive deck to sort of Damon’s point. You know, if we, if we have lovestruck beast in play as an attacker, um, You know, it, it becomes a little bit more painful for our opponent to take the three life, to kill our, Witch.

Damon Alexander: [00:22:43] Yeah. And I think with all these adventure cards is that, uh, even if you don’t have an innkeeper in play, you still just spend a lot of manna casting spells,

David Robertson: [00:22:52] but yeah. To your point about car draw, we have to Toski. For Foulmire Knight and then Collected company’s a two for one and Callous Bloodmage replaces itself. So,

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:23:01] mm, okay. So you’re not tempted to play bonecrusher giants.

David Robertson: [00:23:05] Well, I, I am always tended to play bonecrusher giant. I have learned the hard way about three collar manner basis when we’re also trying to play man elves on turn one, and Damon might be able to speak to that a little bit.

When we get into our, uh, flashback section later on in this episode.

Damon Alexander: [00:23:21] Yeah. If you’re playing a deck with a wedge, a set of colors, which, you know, for example, the Temur, then you play a cadre, a Triome and you’re great if you play a deck like this, um, in a shard, uh, like Jund than the mana base is just a lot harder without the triumphs available.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:23:38] And let’s compare this to the second black reenlist here. Cause we have a lot of similar cards. Yeah.

David Robertson: [00:23:44] So I’m calling this second list, black green combo tokens. So one of the things that we wanted to try is like, let’s go all in on four plumb the forbidden for Sedgemoor Witch so one of the things we need to do in addition to that is get a bunch of creatures.

So when we talked about tend the pests, and so just a quick reminder, that is a black green instance. As part of the cost of casting, it sacrifice a creature and then put a number of pests, tokens into play equal to the power of the creature you sacrificed. So I mentioned at the time that that card was incredibly powerful with rotting registrar, um, and I think it’s also quite powerful with lovestruck beasts lovestruck beasts is already a car we’ve kind of targeted as a way to like hide a spell that works great with Sedgemoor Witch. Sedgemoor Witch makes one, one. So we can often attack with our beast. Et cetera, et cetera. So we’ve got our eight one, one of elves. We’ve got four, Tend the Pests.

We’ve got four Plumb the forbidden. We have four Witherbloom apprentice. This is another car with magecraft, black green two to whenever you cast or copy and spell your opponent, uh, loses a life. You gain a life. So another car that works pretty well with Plumb the forbidden. At least replacing the life that you lose and doing a few damage to your opponent.

We have four Lovestruck Beast for rotting Regisaur for Sedgemoor Witch again, the one Mage and then three great Henge. So the theory here is we kind of have multiple avenues of attack. We’ve got a man elf into Rotting register for into great henge. And now we’ve got, you know, our engine going, or we could play lovestruck Beast, rotting Regisaur, sack, and get a bunch of Pests.

And then cast L Sedgemoor Witch, and like plumb the forbidden for five or six or something like that. And we’re getting all this value. A car I’m really interested in and playing with is Valentin, uh, which is one of the, the black green Dean. And the backside is Lisette. So, um, Lisette is a for, for, for, for, and whenever you gain life, you may pay a colorless.

If you do, you may put a plus one plus one counter. On all of your creatures and they gain trample until and of turn. So we have all these passive ways of gaining life. First of all, the great Henge, every turn, just taps for manna in life. So it can activate us at every turn by itself. And then all these Pests, whatever they die, they also gain life.

So if one pest dies, you can pay A mana and you buff all your remaining living pests. And then every time Witherbloom apprentice triggers that gains a life. So if you’re going like big with all of your Plumb the forbidden triggers, um, all of a sudden you can, you know, turn your Witherbloom apprentice into, you know, each of these individual triggers lets you put a possible possible counter and all of your creatures.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:26:28] I kind of forgot that Lisette had that ability. It’s basically like an Archangel of Thune, but you have to have men available.

Damon Alexander: [00:26:36] Yeah. And treble is a meaningful upgrade compared to Archangel who can sometimes take two combat steps for a big attack to do its thing.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:26:43] Although I was about to say that literal Archangel is a big opportunity.

Everything else about. At one 10 and less. And if we want the interaction, I’d be willing to go into Abzan colors to see if we can make it work.

David Robertson: [00:26:54] Then you also have the, the split card. So you can just play Valentin, uh, Dean of the vein that has synergy against X and are trying to use a graveyard, uh, thinking specifically of like cat combo, um, you know, Phoenix, uh, et cetera.

And that does also make a bunch of pests, um, in certain circumstances.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:27:15] So combo, I assume you mean Cauldron Familiar Witch’s Oven.

David Robertson: [00:27:20] Yeah. Right. And pioneer. That is the combo.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:27:24] It’s just so many different decks that you’ve described as cat combo as a synergy. That’s this offering with the demonic pact.

There’s nine lives cat combo. That’s Esika’s Chariot, there’s been a cat called cat combo on this podcast.

David Robertson: [00:27:40] It’s like, we’re a great ape. Orangutan is a great ape noble. That’s a great ape, just many types of great apes. Okay.

Damon Alexander: [00:27:48] Yeah, the tech has some clearly powerful capabilities. The question from you is that with these sorts of things is, you know, what are the right ratios?

How often do you get everything to work out the way you want, when you do, do you definitely win or do you still sometimes fall short and the best way to really figure these things out is just spin up a 75 card list and try it out.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:28:06] Yeah. Rotting register is the card. And that scares me a little bit. And I know you’re excited about the ability to like sacrifice it to 10th of the PEs, but.

Um, you do to like discard other card there, and then it’s like, I’ve lost a lot of resources and all I have to show for it is all these pests do they win? I’m like, I hope so. I hope I drop my plum, the forbidden, but I feel like. If I don’t draw it, I was about to say if it gets countered, but as he explained, it’s immune to Turner spills.

Yeah. Maybe this is maybe this is actually a good enough of a package to keep the combo engine going. I mean, you

David Robertson: [00:28:37] also kind of have like a rule of eight. We’re not playing for great hands, but great. Hands is also just a great follow up to registrar, right? Like if they choose to let it live so that you have to discard a card and you resolve rate hinge on the following term, then you’re also in a very good position.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:28:50] What about Toski for this deck?

David Robertson: [00:28:51] Yeah. I thought about it. You could easily replace the Bloodmage with Toski for sure. Um, you could even get rid of like the Valentin Dean Lisette thing. Uh, you could play zero of those and just go all in on Toski as a possible source of card advantage.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:29:08] Right. And like, I look at these, I’m not sure which one I will play, but just the idea of heart’s desire triggers has, which then cast Lovestruck beast.

Alright, either of these, like, re-index just looks sweet. So let’s dip over to Modern and take a look at the concepts there.

David Robertson: [00:29:24] All right. So in modern, I have a list I’m calling Grixis token swarm. So again, I’m playing for such more, which for young Pyromancer, um, for plum the forbidden and in modern, there is actual storm cards you can play.

So I have four empty the Warrens. Which is both sort of a source of creatures for a plumb the forbidden, as well as a source of multiple triggers for such more, which, and then the rest of the deck is sort of the storm shell. So we have, uh, eight one man, I can’t trips. We have four Manamorphose, the eight red rituals, uh, two passed and flames to reckless Bushwhacker and, um, that’s the list.

Damon Alexander: [00:30:10] Would we ever want to play the new card first day of class over the Bushwhackers?

David Robertson: [00:30:15] I thought about it. The problem is that it only, it actually functions as a Bushwhacker. If you cast it at the start of all your stuff. So if you draw it like your fourth or fifth spell and the turn and you just miss out on giving all those creatures, uh, plus X plus whatever, and haste.

Also, I think that the sideboard loss is like a really big deal. As you get into older and older formats of cyber cards are way more important because all these decks become very narrow. And so I feel like in modern, especially, I always want a extra space for cyber cards. Oh, for the lesson? For the lesson.

Yeah.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:30:50] No. I had the same instinct as Damon and I was thinking, yeah, first day of class seems like right at home. When this strategy I’ve been thinking more and more people tinkering with learn and modern. Um, there was a amulet Titan deck that made top eight in a challenge using four copies of field trip, the three men, uh, get a forest and get a lesson from your sideboard.

Um, I was also playing in the leagues and I actually lost playing for a five-oh against . And I actually was playing for copies of igneous inspiration, the three men of sorcery deal three, and grab a lesson from your sideboard. So it’s not totally out of the question. I mean, some of these affects that live in the sideboard are all you need to actually turn a game one loss into a game.

One fair fight. So I think it’s like, not totally out of the question, but I see what you’re saying. So I guess you’re envisioning that you will draw a lot of cards with Plumb the forbidden, and eventually you find the Bushwhacker at the end of the sequence.

David Robertson: [00:31:48] Yeah. I mean, the, the problem is not just that I’m saying that is weak I’m I’m seeing a different thing, which is they don’t actually do the same thing.

The lesson card only functions as an actual replicant of Bushwhacker or the surge version, whichever you prefer. If you cast it at the beginning of your sequence, every creature that you create before, then doesn’t actually get those bones,

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:32:11] but it’s a permanent bonus. So that’s also a difference. Yeah. I don’t know.

Well, this is an interesting deck. I mean, I want to believe, I actually don’t think it’s going to function. Like it doesn’t have enough car draw or cost reduction to actually feel like it’s an equivalent to the existing storm to X. And I don’t know if there’s a way around that while still supporting says, which.

Maybe if we replaced the blue spells with more village rites. So we’d have plumb and village rights as our car draw. And maybe, I don’t know, I’m not sure

Damon Alexander: [00:32:45] maybe the trick is yeah, just plumb the forbidden.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:32:48] Yeah. How many maybe you’re right. Maybe I just need to try and believe. Yeah.

Damon Alexander: [00:32:52] You get an early Empty for Six goblins.

He can further to six cards go off big, next term.

David Robertson: [00:32:57] Yeah. I mean, it remains to be seen. I can’t imagine this is actually better than normal storm, but you know, we got to see what types more which can do.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:33:04] So the last style of deck we can consider for Sedgemoor Witch is something much closer to the beaten path, just put it in a modern version of the young Pyromancer style deck.

And here we have some guidance from a ductless that five-oh, uh, both on Friday and on Tuesday in the hands of captain Ahab and BoDingle. It’s basically your, your standard Rakdos or Mardu mediums as David likes to call it. This list is for Dreadhorde Arcanist for young Pyromancer for Sizemore, which two Kroxa.

Okay. So they’ve, they’ve taken the plunge and they’ve gone up to three CMC so they can no longer play Lurrus. That also means that they’re free to play one of the big red creatures that draws three cards, although they have chosen to shoot with the Ox of Agonas and instead of play Bedlam, leveler, Two copies of that, then the rest of the deck is the car, as you would expect to find without these push lightning bolts, inquisition dreadbore take command to cling to dust and for village rights, no plumb the forbidden here.

So this is the basic kind of shallower. If you don’t want to have too many knuckleheads in the list, as we would say, you just want like a mostly functional pile of cards put for a segment, which into it and see what happens. I think this is a starting place. Are there any tweaks you would make to this kind of concept or any cars you think could fit into this show?

David Robertson: [00:34:29] Yeah, so I’d be interested in actually playing Mardu so we could play a real marketing medium list and I would try to get Extus in there and see if it’s any good. I do not like playing for dread her darkness to Kroxa and to Bedlam reveler um, that’s just burned me way too many times. So, uh, cut.

Whichever those you dislike the least we know which ones mine would be. But there’s I found and there’s too clean to dos. I just feel like I’ve played decks like this and can never support them there, even that many fetch lands in this list. So I’m just super nervous about that.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:35:02] What about lingering souls? Any love for that?

David Robertson: [00:35:04] Yeah, exactly. Lingering souls, the modal black white spell from modern horizons that you liked and I’m spacing on it, gained for life. Make a one on one. Yeah. I think white actually adds quite a bit, uh, that’s worthwhile, um, even sideboard stuff. So I would look to that. And, but other than that, I mean, the fact that they’ve had continued success with this is pretty encouraging actually.

Damon Alexander: [00:35:29] Yeah. One girl, I like to try out in this as a plumb, the forbidden, I mean, maybe it is better and modern than pioneer.

David Robertson: [00:35:37] Yeah. And if I’m playing Plumb the forbidden, then I’m really feeling incentivized to play lingering souls. And then if I’m playing lingering souls, maybe I at least want to get like one Extus in there.

Cause I feel like that really pays me off for having all these one on ones running around

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:35:51] any love for smallpox? If you have a Pyromancer or a Sizemore, which in play, you have a token that will come into play recreated rather before the smallpox results.

Damon Alexander: [00:36:00] If you played a Mardu list with a bunch of flagstones, that starts to get interesting.

Of course, it’s hard to cast smallpox off flagstones, but then you have the .

David Robertson: [00:36:08] Yeah, my, my general sense is I don’t want that many, like three men of permanence in my parks list.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:36:15] Mm. Yeah. Okay. Just an random thoughts. All right. Well, we have a spread of Sedgemoor decks in front of us. I’m probably going to start with one or both of these modern builds.

And we’ll see where it takes us. Uh, we’ll report back next week with our findings. Of course.

Damon Alexander: [00:36:34] Yeah. I’ll probably start off with the Mardu tokens list and pioneer.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:36:39] Speaking of reporting back, uh, we are going to tell you all about our test and results from last week with elite Spellbinder. We will have that for you after the break.

David Robertson: [00:37:04] All right, we are back. So our card from last week was Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa himself, elite Spellbinder just a quick reminder. This is two in a white for a three, one flying human cleric. When elite Spellbinder antelope enters a battlefield. Look at target opponent’s hand. You may exile a non land card from it.

For as long as that card remains exile, its owner may play it a spell cast this way, cost to colorless mortar cast. So one of the effects, uh, that we really like is that this is permanent. So unlike other types of this effect, uh, when the creature was dead, they would just get the swell back with no penalty, uh, Elite Spellbinder applies that tax into the future forever.

Um, let’s start at pioneer Damon. You took the, a very speculative Naya possibility storm into the QueueS. What did you think.

Damon Alexander: [00:37:54] When you look at elite, Spellbinder it doesn’t scream, combo potential, but David had the chain of thinking that says, well, if you play track with magistrate, they can never cast a spell that you bind and try to magistrate also as a complete lock out of casting new spells with possibility storm.

And there’s already this kind of fringe, shell and pioneer called the, just the Naya possibility storm deck that seeks to play a possibility storm and then cast a heart’s desire, which is a sorcery. Uh, and then you go find from possibility storm, your only real sorcery in the deck, which has an enter the infinite that puts back a Borborygmos enraged.

Then you cast a, you know, you’ve drawn your whole deck. You cast in Elvish mystic or whatever for a single man. Uh, you then possibly storm into the only creature in your deck. The only card in your deck, the board where Rick muslin raged get out of the play. You have a bunch of lands in hand, pitch them for three demonstrate opponent each and win.

Um, And so that was the hypothesis that Spellbinder was sitting in this deck, provide interference for the combo lines while also being a, you know, working with Drannith magistrates. So I took it into a league and started off hot, uh, with a two, one and two over Red white heroic and Red white agro. I had a win off the Enter the infinite line.

I had a win off the Drannith magistrate possibility to storm line. I played. Lovestruck beast and my opponent conceited. Um, you know, I felt great. And then I ran into Niv to lights, and I’m all going to five, both games, thanks to this Naya manna base, um, brief rant about this. So the pathways are great and pioneer.

They support multiple colors very easily, but this deck is pretty PIP intensive and the metal stills and very good. And you look at a hand that has like two pathways and a bunch of land or else. And you’re like, okay, well I have to convert one to green, which means I have to come off the other to. A different color, which means I just don’t have my third color.

Um, and not having your third color in a three color deck is in fact bad. Um, of course you will naturally draw, uh, you know, a bunch of cars of that color. And so the thing is, if you’re playing a wedge deck, you can play some triumphs. And the thing with the triumphs, the first half they fix you. But second off, they let you play a much heavier set of check lands.

That’s what actually what their real strength is. Once you have the first one, you can just kind of lean on check lands, uh, more heavily than you would otherwise, um, evenly you lose the tempo loss off the triumph. It, it works out fine. I think of course, the, the Naya and other ducks have the same manners as we do in there.

They, they do well. Um, But anyway, then I went to blue, red scissors, and that was a tough matchup. I just got killed very quickly. Also had some Mulligan problems in that match. And then in the last round, I played against a kind of colorless Mono Brown for sake and monument deck. And I will say I ended up leaving, got a high note.

Uh, I cast a possibility storm, uh, threatening to untap and combo off. If I could actually top deck a castable card, I was locked out of white men. And at this point, um, so my opponent had a forsaken moment and play. And so they cast a Ulamog. Uh, exile two permanence and then they possibility storm into another Ulamog exile two more permanence.

So, uh, I definitely did not win that match.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:41:07] That’s amazing. And that’s like a interaction. It sounds like we should brew around that. I know

Damon Alexander: [00:41:12] when you’re cards or

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:41:14] cash trigger.

Damon Alexander: [00:41:16] Yeah. So some takeaways were that the Drannith magistrate was a little bit too cute. It just doesn’t do anything in pioneer. Like nobody’s casting spells in ways that Drannith magistrate shuts down in modern, it’ll stop people from doing things like cast off, light up the stage, or a, I guess, expressive iteration or cast Baubles off of Lurrus or any number of, you know, Snapcaster as you name it, turn it off.

Magistrate stops the small handful of cards that don’t see most play. It stops bring to light, but those decks kill, like they, the it’s tough anyway. Um, so it felt like it was a little bit too cute. Meanwhile, even if you establish the Drannith magistrate, possibly storm quote-unquote lock, there’s a lot of ways where you could just wind up being behind on board.

If you cast, you know, seven mana and worth of stuff. Uh, and your opponent has enough inertia going to kill you, or if there’s cards that hit the battlefields such as blast zone, which gets around the Cabo entirely and then disrupts it, or they have like a hearing, uh, which results before your combo and then exiles your possibility storm.

So it just felt like the beauty of the, a combo is that it wins that turn. And then the lockout combo magistrates seems a little bit, uh, too fragile. When it comes to our title card of the episode, uh, spell the elite Spellbinder himself, the card was fine. I thought it actually did a really good job in this deck of helping support the, a plan, uh, of going for the combo lines and making sure the coast is clear or at least, um, harder for your opponents navigate while also helping with the B plan.

I’m not even sure. What is the B plan might be the, a plan of just playing cards like love struck beasts and bone crusher giants. And killing your opponent with combat damage. Uh, and Spellbinder being a three and a flier fits into, uh, this plan in a way that the deck doesn’t have any other flyers. So your, your first one is better than your second one.

So that part was good. The hard part was the manna and, uh, yeah, the, the mulligans and the dryness magistrates.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:43:13] So it sounds like a case of once we’ve identified that we don’t want the Drannith magistrates. We no longer have incentive to splash into white and we no longer have that synergy between the magistrate and the Spellbinder.

So it seems like the Spellbinder just wouldn’t be at home anymore in the green, red shell.

Damon Alexander: [00:43:33] Yeah, that’s possibly true. Um, I did like the adventure package. I wonder if there’s ways to play even more adventure creatures in particular giant killer just seems to have a lot more targets than the former than you’d think.

So. Runway heroic is all about building these big creatures, Niv to light. You know, you sometimes you need to take down and I’m going to throw a Niv and giant killer takes him down to size. Blue, red scissors gets. Big creatures for sake and monument Eldrazi deck has reality smashes. I want a game where I killed a reality smasher.

Uh, obviously this is a small sampling of decks and pioneer. Uh, there’s certainly match-ups like Lotus where it’s a completely useless,

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:44:09] so you’re still open to play Naya

David Robertson: [00:44:13] with

Damon Alexander: [00:44:13] the mannequins. We’ll get a Naya Triome dam,

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:44:17] the Ikoria horizons 2

Damon Alexander: [00:44:20] exactly return to Ikoria.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:44:23] Well, it’s always sweet to see possibly a storm taken into the queue is, I mean, we’ve seen they’re straight green and red version without Spellbinders of course, occasionally pop up and lead and sometimes even challenges.

And it’s definitely one of the most exciting ways to win in pioneer.

Damon Alexander: [00:44:38] Yeah, of course. Yeah. I wonder if this, that can ever truly be a real deck. I mean, you just draw the stupid, enter the infinite, um, you know, kind of a lot, um, you know, you can draw the Borborygmos, which isn’t fatal to the combo line, but is fatal to your chances.

If you need that last car to be useful. Mmm. And the combo itself takes a ton of manta to go off. You need five manna for the possibility of storm, one more men, and for your sorcery, when were men and for your creature. Um, so that’s seven mana, total, if you have to go for an instant to share it, summons, uh, which is the other way you can win.

If you have like a bonecrusher giant, but not a heart’s desire available, then it is even more manna.

David Robertson: [00:45:15] Well, you have one Stonecoil Serpent in there. So in theory, the creature you cast is zero man, but it’s still expensive, but. Yeah. I think if you went all in on it, maybe you’d have to play like Valakut awakening to always be able to put back the, uh, the cards you don’t want in your hand, back into your library for a future accountable potential.

Damon Alexander: [00:45:33] The problem with that is the front side of the spell. Oh yeah. Yeah. So you can’t play that or cards like fire prophecy. When you like a creature, lets you put a card from your hand back on top. Hm, uh, or like Jace, the Mind Sculptor in a pioneer deck that doesn’t play blue

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:45:50] or a second enter the infinite.

Damon Alexander: [00:45:53] Yeah. Which has its own set of problems.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:45:58] Double infinity is still infinity. Yeah.

Damon Alexander: [00:46:01] That’s, it’s interesting. I certainly think that if this tech speaks to you, I would recommend trying something like this out. Uh, and again, just kind of follow the advice, cut the Drannith magistrates and see how it. Does, uh, there’s certainly some powerful stuff here, but speaking of other ways to play at least felt by under Dan, how did you do?

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:46:19] Yeah, I played in modern end and it actually went really well. I got to start off with a slight correction. So when you were discussing this car last week, you had said that it has been showing up in five-oh is doing okay, but it wasn’t winning challenges. Uh, that is no longer true. It actually won the biggest event of the weekend, which was the modern PTQ on magic online.

Damon Alexander: [00:46:38] So still black and white.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:46:40] Well, yes, this is a PTQ, not a challenge. I had even more planned, uh, 80 card Yorion black, white, taxes with four elite Spellbinders took down the whole thing. Um, there has also been, I think, two or three weeks back. Uh, there was a version with 60 cards that got third place in one of the challenges.

Well, that was a bit of a suspect build. So it’s not the case that the deck is not actually competing with the top tier. It is competing with the top tier. And when you look at the deck dumps and the results every weekend, really they’re dumps. You see a lot of different taxes, variance, some 60 cards, some 80 cards, and increasingly they’re playing four copies of elite Spellbinder.

Now, why are they doing that? That remains to be seen. So I figured I should try my hand at it as well on and try to just get a feel for how it plays in modern. So I took David’s proposed list. I stared at a bunch of the other, um, five-oh results and the techs that have been having success and concluded that like, I just.

So I don’t think I have the right creatures to support Ephemerates. So this was a card that was for have in your list. David, I decided that Flickerwisp was just going to be more reliable for me. So I, I cut all the Ephemerates and put in the flickerwisps instead played two leagues. The first league I went four and one, but I almost, this never drew the Spellbinder.

So I felt like I didn’t really have that. So I joined a second league and that league went five-oh. So on the whole nine and one, although, uh, one of those, I think my opponent just like, didn’t show up so eight in one technically, but yeah, I mean the second league I drew the Spellbinder a lot and that was an absolute slog of a league.

I played against, Eldrazi Tron, Jund shadowed, dredge, uh, Boros prowess with Lumimancer and Sultai reclamation. These were like very, very difficult match-ups I was pretty stressed out the entire time trying to maneuver my way through these. I was like losing game one most of the time. Um, but yeah, I mean, the dad got there, uh, got back on the trophy board.

David Robertson: [00:48:41] Yeah, I see you lost game one, four of the five times, which is often a sign that the deck itself has maybe like miss constructed and that your sideboard is the thing that’s most attractive. Is that the case or are you just like randomly on the draw a lot?

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:48:55] No, it’s I think it’s the former and yeah, if you look at my first league, I also lost two more.

Sorry. I also won two more rounds in which I lost game one. So this deck is one of more like game one, your, a plan, your varsity team is like not as good as their varsity team. And then when you go into like the sidebar, you bring in the interaction and like, you can like line up a little bit better, then you can like squeak out the sideboard games.

So I feel like this is a sign of like underpowered decks, but that’s often the case of. You know, black based or even white Texas-based bid rangy, Dex, and modern

Damon Alexander: [00:49:29] in your favor by game one, you Mulligan to two cards ever play a single spell concede on turn four for knowing your opponents on pretty well.

You want to go to game two, as soon as you’re on some sort of degenerate, Cabo sideboard, weirdly against you, you get a free win game two. Then you go to game three, where we believe based off this premise, you’re naturally favored.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:49:46] Maybe the next level, next level place. The thing is like these, these medium mid range decks, there is no sideboard against them.

Like I have no idea what my opponent’s sideboard against me. Cause like all their stuff is fine. If you think I’m bringing the rest of the piece and get your dredge deck, you’re supposed to Mulligan and better and try to find your Nature’s claims. But I mean, apart from that,

David Robertson: [00:50:07] and so your report here is that, um, Paolo is just a fine card, nothing special.

You know, without the ephemerates to kind of really take it into overdrive, I guess I’m not surprised this card, it looks to be among the least powerful in your deck as constructed. And I think that was kind of the, what you found to be the case.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:50:26] Yeah, I would rate it like B, B minus. One thing I was looking out for was, was the texting effect from elite Spellbinder ever worth a card.

Like did it ever actually prevent my opponent from playing the card before the game ended? And that never happened? I think. Almost every time they eventually cast the card. I say almost because occasionally wasteland strangler would eat the card. And that was actually pretty good at wasteland strangler over-performed throughout these, uh, these matches.

But yeah, so like at that point, it’s like, if you’re trying to ephemerates, the elite Spellbinder and now you’re spending cars to like, get that effect again, that wasn’t even worth cars in the first place. Uh, it’s a huge liability. The three one body is a huge liability against all of the Lava Dart decks.

Um, so I had a lot of that effects between four Spellbinders for flickerwisps. Uh, that’s a lot of Lava Dart fodder. So you have to like slide down on the card there and when you add it all up, it’s like, I’m not totally convinced that at least Spellbinder is the right card for these decks. It’s nice that it lets you set your vial on three and still have access to draw step disruption.

So the build that I was playing use Tidehollow Sculler, and a nice line you can do is have a vial set on to go to their draw step, activate the vial Tidehollow Sculler takes their card. But what you really want to do is put your vial on three because that’s where most of your creatures are. And then you can’t do that line anymore.

Uh, so spell by an early gives you a little bit more of that. That’s that’s kinda cute. Um, let me go fly and came in a little bit handy. Some of the time I tried to screenshot every time the Spellbinder did something nifty, you can see you and the extended show notes here for the patrons that, uh, you know, there’s about six screenshots where that happened.

Damon Alexander: [00:52:04] Yeah. One thing I found was spelt binder and pioneers that against deck, like sort of a roadway burn deck, for example, All our cards are kind of trying to do the same thing. And so you can pick whichever one you want, but where they’re going to do is we’re going to cast all their cards until they eventually run out.

And then when they do, they’re going to have extra manna and they can just cast the last card. And so it doesn’t really change the flow of the game too much. Um, obviously some mashups where it would cause a more meaningful disruption. Um, but again, stacks like that. Yeah. It just, the Spellbinder was so, so

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:52:33] I did like knowing their hands. Between the scholars and the Spellbinders like I often had most of their hand revealed. You might think that doesn’t matter. Cause like I’m not trying to resolve anything special. I’m not like playing counterspells or anything, but just like you can make decisions with a little more confidence that way.

Um, so that was kind of nice. And you know, I’ll put some more notes here in the extended notes, but basically if you’re going to play this deck, I mean, silent clearing was by far my best card. I was shocked just how often I needed to crack all my silent clearings. And yeah, I mean, this is like a deck that doesn’t win by a lot.

They win by a little bit, uh, usually in games, two and three kind of surprises is doing as well as, as it is also kind of surprised that the Ephemerate build is the one that won the PTQ. So maybe I just don’t understand how Ephemerate functions with these cards.

David Robertson: [00:53:24] Well, I think Ephemerate gets a lot more valuable when you go the full, like Yorion route, you are going to draw your like Aether vial draws a lot less often, but that is compensated for, by kind of having this built in.

Hopefully fingers crossed draw two for one manna.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:53:39] Yeah. And I should add that, um, the, the Yorion builds often don’t play silent clearings because they’re. Going to have other violin, less alternative. They’re actually looking to use all their men and like spend it on retrieving Yorion and casting Yorion.

And at that point it’s like not worth it to have taken so much damage when you’re not aggressively sacking your horizon lands. So I guess there is a divergence between 60 and 80.

David Robertson: [00:54:04] The winning list and have three silent clearings in it.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:54:07] Yeah, but I would have played five or six out of 60 if I do them.

David Robertson: [00:54:12] But then your record would have been, Oh, and five, because you would have been kicked out of the league. So.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:54:16] Correct, but not at FNM and F and M

David Robertson: [00:54:20] no one would ever know.

Damon Alexander: [00:54:21] Yeah. I think part of going to 80 cards involves patting your deck with cards like wall of omens and charming Prince, which has played pretty well with the Ephemerate.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:54:30] So it’s interesting. I mean, obviously, hopefully the deck that I played will be in the deck dump on Friday, but you know, there’s room to tinker.

I don’t know if I would play for a Spellbinder again, there’s other considerations are kind of a Marriott is pretty good. People have been asking about Eldrazi displacer as in their option. I wouldn’t have minded more copies of giver of ruins. I think you could trim a Thalia. I think four was too many and Maul of the sky claves.

Well, it’s definitely better than the swords. There’s actually a better than both swords. So I played one league without them all and one league with them all. And I think at this point you just need them all. It’s too important to have the ability to impact the board more cheaply.

Damon Alexander: [00:55:08] Yeah, I think I’ll drop the displacer is a great suggestion.

If you want you to displace your MPG tickets, that card has had his chance to shine for many years now and has not shown. I don’t think it’s chances now.

David Robertson: [00:55:20] I’m just excited to see wasteland strangler again. I mean, part of it is these exile effects, but part of it is the fact that there’s just a lot of cards with X, two toughness lying around and strangler being both a body and a kill spell, uh, for three manages really well positioned against these prowess decks.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:55:34] Yeah, it was really good. Surprisingly good. So I think that’s where we’re going to leave it on, at least Spellbinder for now. Um, What grade are we going to give to Paolo world?

David Robertson: [00:55:47] Great. Perhaps the greatest magic player of all time.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:55:50] Fair enough.

David Robertson: [00:55:51] But it’s coming as hope is that his card sees like somewhat semi eternal play, you know, in the, in the mode of like a dark confidant.

I know it sees a lot of play in like older format. So hopefully it’s played forever. I mean, Paulo is just a great player. Great advocate. Oh, I think the best article writer. Mmm. And the history of magic, the gathering is my opinion. And so he deserves a card that has some, you know, semi permanent place in one of these on rotating four minutes.

If it’s not modern, although just want a challenge. Uh, hopefully it’s, it’s in legacy or vintage.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:56:21] And if he’s not happy with Elite Spellbinder. All you have to do is win the world championship again. Yeah.

David Robertson: [00:56:27] Give it flash. And we’re back in there. Maybe super elites as well, ponder

Damon Alexander: [00:56:33] Vendilion Spellbinder

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:56:37] all right. That wraps up this episode. As always, if you’re listening, you have some sweet ideas for the elite Spellbinder that we missed. You can tweet us. We are @FaithlessMTG. We would love to see what you’re working on.

David Robertson: [00:56:47] All right, gentlemen, take care. See, right.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:56:49] That’s a wrap on episode 12 of the Strixhaven season tune in next week for our testing results and download the latest tech list at Faithless brewing.com.

Support for this podcast is provided by brewers like you. If you like what we do, be sure to join our community@patreon.com slash Faithless brewing for discord access. Oldest content and more that’s all for today. Stay safe and we’ll see you next time. .