Strixhaven, Episode 14: Prismari Potpourri
Expressive Iteration is making its presence felt. Already a staple in Izzet Prowess in Modern, more and more decks are realizing that they might be able to get good use from this powerful Prismari sorcery. Meanwhile, Galazeth Prismari himself continues to pose a riddle: make artifacts, to cast instants and sorceries, while also winning with medium sized Dragons. Its a formula that David just can’t quit as he’s back again with four new decks to test in Modern and Pioneer.
Meanwhile on the Flashback, Sedgemoor Witch had a tough outing. Whether in more speculative Golgari token brews, or in the tried and true Rakdos shells, it was hard to unlock the promise of the Witch, even if the combo with Tend the Pests was decidedly sweet. Still, the Witch keeps showing up in Modern 5-0s, and Dan has some ideas for promising new directions.
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STX #14 At a Glance
Brew Session: Prismari Potpourri
[3:17] Prismari Command
[5:19] Izzet Rielle
[13:22] Galazeth Dragons
[18:19] Expressive Death’s Shadow
[22:53] Jeskai DragonBlade
Flashback: Sedgemoor Witch
[28:15] BG Tend the Pests
[31:00] BG Sedgemoor Adventures
[35:06] Mardu Plumbing
[41:45] Mardu Mediums
[46:54] Sultai Landcraft
Full Episode Transcript (click to expand)
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:00:00] You are listening to Faithless brewing magic, the gathering podcasts for the spike rogue each week we design new decks is modern and pioneer. We put our creations to the test and share our findings, all of the air coming up on the brew session for new decks, with Galazeth the Prismari and expressive iteration that other, the flashback.
Testing results with such more, which this is episode 14 of Strixhaven season face for listening and enjoy the show.
David Robertson: [00:01:01] Hello and welcome to the Faithless brewing podcast. I am David Robertson joined by Damon Alexander, Damon. What’s up?
Damon Alexander: [00:01:08] Hey, I got some sweet new Urza’s saga brews thought about what we said last episode. And man, that card is cooking
David Robertson: [00:01:14] and a man who we cannot keep out of the kitchen with Urza saga, kicking it up a notch with this spice weasel.
He is the head chef. He is the Lodestar. Cavedan online. Dan tree runner hearts, Dan, what’s up
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:01:28] doing well and guys, yeah, Damon. I see you. And finally followed us on Twitter after that Urza’s saga tweet thread that I had last week only took two years.
Damon Alexander: [00:01:37] Oh yeah. I was looking for the freshest content, the best memes
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:01:41] I have been trying to like make the Twitter account a little more helpful for people.
So I’ve actually been putting out more stuff on there. We are at Faithless MTG. I’ve been going through the deck dumps. Uh, specifically a moderate and a couple of times a week, and just posting some of the interesting this there with commentary. And you can also find those if you’re not a Twitter person, uh, which is actually probably a good thing.
If you just like to read sober journalism and trusted news sources, I also put them on pizza spring.com in article format. So you can find them there as well.
David Robertson: [00:02:11] I think there’s any new sub stack accounts and are only fans.
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:02:17] I mean, that’s all coming.
David Robertson: [00:02:19] That’s all it can be picked or the, uh, uh, highest price subscribers.
So we have a lot to get to today. If you listen to our recording from Friday, you heard some hot takes or Moss on the latest spoilers, five new cards from modern horizons to five new cards from the D and D inspired. Uh, set, that’s replacing the core set today. We’re going to take a look back at some of our sophomore, which experimentation.
Um, we’ll see, we’ll see how that all went for everybody. Um, I was to speak only for myself and it didn’t go great. Um, and then as we get near the end, we’re getting hyped up for modern horizons. We just have a few like miscellaneous brews. We wanted to take a look at, uh, of course I’m very partial to Izzet cards.
And so, um, That’s what we’re going to take a look at this week. So if you’ve been wanting to experiment with some, uh, is it color pairings in modern or pioneer? Uh, stay tuned
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:03:17] is this Prismari command week, David.
David Robertson: [00:03:20] No, this is not
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:03:23] every is a car except
David Robertson: [00:03:24] Prismari Prismari command. Uh, I, I, again, I don’t think it’s a card you want to play fair.
And my instinct is always to play fair, but I think in combo decks, it actually is good because it often accelerates you a turn and, um, card quantity. Doesn’t always matter. It’s combining, you know, or like Damon always says you find one of your eight copies of AA and one of your eight copies of B and you don’t have to have any other cards left in your hand.
If that’s going to actually win the game.
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:03:49] Yeah, I’m seeing it all over the place. And I’m thinking about what you said, David, about how poor it’s been in pioneer and I’m trying to like figure how it isn’t actually good and modern are people just like sneakily getting people with, through the breach.
Cause that seems to be like the main use of Prismari command right now. Breach is having like a nice little moment. I’m not convinced that that could actually be that good though. For the command. Is that good?
David Robertson: [00:04:10] It’s funny looking all the way back to like our second podcast. I think you and Damon were arguing incessantly about the like 75th card.
And you were just saying like, I just want to play like an Izzet card just to like, have a chance to hit it. So I think like the first Prismari command, both accelerating Niv-Mizzet by a turn and just being an extra Niv-Mizzet hit is just a thing to have in your modern. Niv-Mizzet
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:04:32] true. Yeah. That’s the other places found like, um, Sometimes full place that of Prismari his commands in Niv-Mizzet bills in both modern and pioneer
David Robertson: [00:04:40] Izzet is like the blue card pitches to force a will.
You’re like, well, this terrible card is Boros. So it’s a hit, like Lorehold command could be in this Niv-Mizzet deck. There’s no other Boros cards in there.
Damon Alexander: [00:04:53] Oh, lighting helix is actually like the best garden visit and believe it or not.
David Robertson: [00:04:57] Yes. I’m just saying like, Lorehold command maybe in pioneer format.
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:05:00] This Niv with Lorehold command. I’ve seen a couple in the pioneer.
David Robertson: [00:05:06] Five-oh lock it in too
Damon Alexander: [00:05:07] good. Yeah. Yeah. When you’re replacing Izzet charm, the bar is not very high.
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:05:14] All right, so let’s get on with the show.
David Robertson: [00:05:19] All right. So the first, uh, shell I want to talk about is in pioneer and it is built around, um, a few cards. There was a discard, I don’t know what you want to call it. Synergy that kind of runs through a few cards. And so the cards I want to highlight Plargg, Dean of chaos.
And conspiracy theorist. So Plargg has a front side and a backside. The deck I’m proposing would not necessarily be able to cast the backside, although, because it’s just blue, red, you could probably get away with playing just like two, um, Jeskai Triomes just in case. Uh, you know, it’s probably not the worst thing in the world.
I tend to like my lands to come into play on tap in this kind of shell. But if you just wanted the out to do so, so it was really built to take advantage of the, the discard effect. So. Plargg is a straight up what we call rummage discards first, then draws two men. And two, two has an additional effect, five mana, um, functions like a Bloodbraid elf.
So you just flip through your deck until you, uh, find a, uh, spell the cost through your last and you cast without paying it’s man, a cost has to be non legendary. So this sort of combines with Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy to mean that you have a bunch of opening lines where you play a looter on turn two, and then you follow it up with a Rielle, the Everwise.
So that already just turns it into basically like a super archivist. If you’re an old man like me, uh, basically tapping to do better than draw card. Another card that I think is very interesting as conspiracy theorist. So we talked about this card again, it has this attack ability that we’re not that interested in, and it’s a two minute to two.
When it attacks, you may pay a colorless and rummage that has synergies in the stack again with real, but what I’m really interested in is how it combines. With, um, these discard effects that are free. So the alluding from Jace, the looting from, or the rummaging from Plargg, basically it gives whatever card you put into your graveyard.
Um, madness for the turn and the madness costs is the actual casting cost. So let’s just say you have adjacent play on turn Through you. Cast conspiracy theorist, you play your third land. You tap, you draw, you discard an opt. Or let’s say a spike field hazard. You cast a spike field hazard on there and you’re up, you’re just up a card.
So you’ve, you’ve tapped a draw card basically on turn three. So this list takes advantage of these grind engines. If you want to call them that they generate card advantage. But what I found in pioneer is you just can’t do this like mid-range thing without having counter spells or without playing Niv-Mizzet because Niv-Mizzet just goes over the top of you.
You can draw two cards to turn for many turns. And, uh, resolve Niv messages, beats all the stuff you did. You, you got all this advantage and you, you know, resolve whatever. So this deck, because of how it interacts, we’re not playing, um, like magmatic Channeler specifically because we want to play counter spells and Censor and neutralize, both have synergies with conspiracy theorist.
So for five men and you can cycle you neutralize and then cast it. Or a Censor for three manner, you can cycle Censor and then cast it with conspiracy theorist in play. They also have a ton of synergy with real. So, you know, against aggressive decks, you’re just turning these discard effects into like hard advantage.
And then against control decks, you just have these cheap cards are hopefully getting under them, uh, that are turning into sort of Karn advantage with the ability to counter their kind of big boom booms as you get late into the,
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:08:46] so I played a bit of Plargg this week. I didn’t realize you were going to be featuring him.
I’ve actually played in modern today. Yeah. I had a mix of magnetic channelers and plugs didn’t really know that what to expect Channeler as a card that all liked, but it’s like a little unclear, like how your turn is going to go when you activate the channel or you don’t know what spells, you have to commit your manna to, to get your value off the channeler.
And Plargg was actually kind of nice. So just like. You know, I just want to run it at the end of the day. That’s what I want to channel it to do. Often plug does that. So I was like reasonably happy with him and I almost aggravated the five minute ability, even though that wasn’t why I put them into my deck.
This was a sophomore wish deck. Um, so red, black, mid range, uh, it seemed like something that could have come up if, if I played more with the list. So I’m kinda intrigued by, you know, Plargg being featured here as one of your main looters alongside Jace.
David Robertson: [00:09:44] Yeah. So it’s kind of interesting. You say that Dan, and the reason I’m playing park instead of magmatic Channeler, and like you said, I re I’m quite a big fan of magmatic Channeler is because we’re playing counter spells.
I think you detailed trying to blind, flip into Counterspells on your opponent’s turn. You know, are you going to hit that Izzet charm? Are you gonna hit that Censor? Are you going to hit that neutralize? If not, you’re probably going to lose. So the plot gives you a little bit more control, right? It can.
Digitals cards when you don’t need them or it can help you find them, but it stays in your hand. So the, that the counterspells are useful. The counterpoint to that though, is that if you’re not post boarding out, most of those counterspells, the actual, um, cascade ability is, is quite bad because it might hit a neutralizer sensor.
So you kind of have eight whammies to hit, to hit in your deck.
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:10:29] It also doesn’t hit legendaries. So between the rails and the Jason and the players, there’s not very many things that you can hit off. The five-oh activated ability here. You’re probably just hitting a neutralize.
David Robertson: [00:10:40] Yeah. It’s mostly deference lieu.
Inability is I guess, just what I wanted to highlight.
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:10:45] And you already answered this, but basically you’re saying that dropping the blue and playing Thoughtseize instead of is not going to cut it. Because that’s not going to stop a Niv-Mizzet tech from killing you.
David Robertson: [00:10:54] Well, I tried this so many times. I literally have notes in my deck lists titles, like try this, do not add black to your blue, read that list.
I don’t know why. Maybe I’m just billing the decks wrong. I’m willing to be open to that. I’ve tried like every combination. And like when I play blue, blue, red, even though the cards are worse, like you’re playing spike field hazard and like shock, uh, which, you know, Damon has a lot of disdain for appropriately.
So. Instead of fatal push and Thoughtseize. You’re like you’re, Manacymbal Mox. You just, you can never do the things you want to do. You take a ton of damage from your lands. You’re actually worse against agro, even though you have better removal. So I just think Grixis is not a thing that I want to be doing.
And every time I’m quote unquote, make my deck worse by taking out the third color, it actually just does better for me. So I play blue, black, straight. I play blue, red, straight. I played black, red, straight adding the third color, just. It’s not a thing you can do anywhere near free.
Damon Alexander: [00:11:46] Yep. This, this is interesting.
We’ve tried a lot of these kind of like real adjacent decks that are like, well, we’re gonna be doing a lot of things that would be good with rails. We’ll throw a few copies of her and, and see what happens. This, that seems like it was really just, okay. None of the adjacent stuff, we’re just playing looters and we’re going for it, which that’s a good idea.
I wonder if we just play for real and that case, you know, the benefit playing a lot of looters is that everything pitches to them. Um, my big plan trepidation would just be that this, this came plan of. You know, if people go over the top, we just neutralize the cards that are hard. Sometimes it’s just, it has a lot of problems where you’re pointing.
It has like wrinkles or whatever. And you’re like, well, that card isn’t really going over the top. Exactly. But it is still a problem for our board state. We have to like sack our only creature to the attack trigger. Um, but we’ll see.
David Robertson: [00:12:33] Yeah. I feel like only person who likes real, uh, I find mode with it on our YouTube, uh, season for the coast.
I’ve had a ton of success with it. No one else was ever playing it. I, I, the car, it seems great. Every time I put it in my deck, I’m just like, man, I want to draw more real.
Damon Alexander: [00:12:47] Yeah, no, I mean, I think it’s a good hypothesis. I mean, maybe we should just be playing blue, red Rio.
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:12:53] I want real to give me something to turn, I play it.
And I think that’s what this can do. I mean, it’s very likely that you will either already have a leader in play or that you’ll be able to play a real and follow that up with cycle sensor, our platform.
Damon Alexander: [00:13:05] Our one thing I learned from our Sedgemoor Witch lists is that if you just play, you know, eight of a given effect, even if your parking kill some of your looters, some of them wind up surviving a good chunk of the time.
So between the four Jace and the three Plarggs, you know, there’s a good chance that maybe one dies, you play the other, then you play Rielle.
David Robertson: [00:13:22] Another cool effect. I want to point out is see the truth. Uh, obviously a car that’s very cool with Jace, Vryn’s prodigy also works with conspiracy theorists. So conspiracy theorists actually cast it from exile that term, uh, if it’s, if it’s discarded.
So just another cool little, uh, effect and you know, just a, one-off like a Damon size because you have so many looters, you can play a card that might often be bad, but it’s sometimes great in shells like this. All right. So that is our discard value. The next list I want to talk about still in pioneer is a Galazeth deck.
So Galazeth, we talked about it a little bit and some combo shells from, uh, some very cool lists from our discord. The list I’m proposing is a little more, uh, back to a blue, red control shell, uh, taking advantage of Galazeth interaction with Silumgar’s scorn. So if you have another artifact in play, the turn you resolve Galazeth you actually have Silumgar’s Scorn and up, uh, Galazeth makes a treasurer plus whatever artifact you might have.
The possible sources of artifacts we have are a Prismari command, uh, two Magma Opus and a one of mazemind tome. In addition, we’re just kind of playing the normal Dragon package. So for Goldspan Dragon, we want an eighth Dragon. So I have one Niv-Mizzet parun here, uh, because we are playing to Magma Opus and one Dig Through Time that makes Torrential Gearhulk a little more attractive.
And then the bottom end is just ops, you know, Censor one Draconic roar for bonecrusher giants, and then just a few, uh, cheaper interaction spells Magma spray, um, two Censor. So just bending kind of the blue, red Dragon shell to include Galazeth just to see what Galazeth can do for us.
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:15:04] I’ve said before that, I don’t know if the Galazeth puzzle it can be solved.
So I’m always like super interested. And when I see Galazeth popping up in a five-oh list or analyst and, you know, historic or standard that people seem to be hyped about, and yeah, maybe the answer is that I’m just like, Wanting too much from the card. Cause I see decks that have no synergies per se at all with Galazeth they just like, you know, one or two Galazeth plopped in and it’s actually a fine card on its own.
Like that, uh, you know, we talked on Friday about that random prosperous innkeeper that is just like a acceptable creature that makes a treasurer and Galazeth, there’s an acceptable creature that makes a treasure and actually gives that treasurer an added bonus. So maybe the mistake I’ve been making is thinking that I need everything in my deck to synergize with Galazeth and like really go nuts when he’s in play.
And maybe that’s not the case. I mean, you’ve got just like a nice pile of cars here. Although you do have that extra layer of synergy between the and the Goldspan dragons to unlock something special here,
Damon Alexander: [00:16:02] Time I bought into a Silumgar’s Scorn on and play four of, I finished my league and swore off her playing the card again.
But here you have me tempted once again, promising me that with a total of what is it? Eight dragons tracks. It’ll be live.
David Robertson: [00:16:18] You can always Prismari command them away if you don’t want.
Damon Alexander: [00:16:22] Exactly. All right. Well, this, this list plays a lot of pretty cool cards. It definitely has the higher top end. And the last deck between the Goldspan dragons, uh, the Gearhulk the Niv-Mizzet the Magma Opus is it looks like a lot of fun.
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:16:36] Yeah. I think that the Magma Opus might not be necessary. Like you have a very light package, right? Torrential Gearhulk that’s a, one of two Magma Opus. You can get up to that manner with Galazeth maybe assisted by Goldspan Dragon, but maybe you won’t and then you have a discard, the Magma Opus just to make a treasure.
And that’s like, not so good. So maybe you just like, don’t need that. Maybe you have enough. I mean, you have car draw here. I think the adventure creature is for Bonecrusher giants that you have here will do a great job of, um, making Galazeth as men, our ability, uh, lead to some really efficient turns. It just gives you a lot of stuff to spend men on already.
Damon Alexander: [00:17:13] Yeah, a card that I’ve tried to sneak into. A lot of these lists is Alrund’s Epiphany, which I find is just a really good card that generically goes over the top. And nothing is more over the top than your opponent. Not doing anything while you take an extra turn, especially in this type of the Goldspan Dragon is to ramp into it and the Galazeth to, to use your treasure for, it seems like it could be a good card actually in the last act to wherever it turns likely you have like a real and a looter out, you’re just strung into more, you know, you’re going up so many more resources in every incremental turn.
David Robertson: [00:17:40] Yeah. I mean, this, that can get to seven men on much easier than the previous deck. Um, yeah, I’m, I’m a Alrund’s Epiphany believer, but yeah, to your point, Dan, I’m not actually play with Galazeth. So I guess my starting point would probably be this just to see how many artifacts I need to have synergy with it.
Um, I really do want to play Galazeth and have sensor or cylinder score, not the term I play it. I mean, that’s kind of like my mindset. Because you can’t, if you, the problem is if you play Galazeth and they played Niv-Mizzet they’re Dragon bullies, you’re dragon out of that town
Damon Alexander: [00:18:16] and then you play your Niv-Mizzet.
David Robertson: [00:18:19] All right. So two fun lists to kind of poke around with in pioneer, in modern. I really am interested in, in playing the card expressive iteration. Um, I know that it has seen a lot of play in blue, red prowess uh, I know doom wake has. That and encouraging people to play it.
I know, I don’t know if there’s a stock list yet, but I feel like most people have adopted it as a four of, so I’m, I was interested in other decks that could find a use for it. And a one list I’m interested in exploring is a Grixis expressive iteration, Death’s shadow. Um, I think this card really just keeps the flow of cards going.
So you don’t have that many threats and death shadow. They’re already playing Mishra’s Bauble and a street wraiths. Often to cycle through their deck. And so expressive iteration is just another car that helps fill your graveyard for Gurmag angler helps you kind of like search for the right card, right?
You, you want the first Stubborn denial. Uh, once you have a Death’s shadow, you don’t want that shadow early. Um, so you can like stride away as your expressive iteration and finding ways to, you know, damage yourself, et cetera. So I haven’t seen anyone playing exactly this shell yet, and maybe people have been trying it and just, haven’t been five owing by interested in sort of playing expressive iteration and Grixis Death’s Shadow.
It’s something Damon and I’ve talked about, we don’t understand why isn’t better than it is. Uh, people haven’t been having a lot of success with it. And so this is an angle I’m interested in exploring
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:19:42] a lot of questions about expressive iteration. I think a lot of people are on the same pages as you David over there, they’re seeing the car and having a great success.
And is it prowess showing up in other places? And now they’re wondering, and maybe we should be paying more attention to this card. Like maybe it actually boosts up a whole bunch of different decks. So let’s sort of think through what is your deck need to be able to do to. Take full advantage of it. It’s a two minute sorcery.
One card you look at your top three, one goes to your hand. One goes to the bottom of your deck. And one goes into exile to be played this turn. And if you can, so you, you really want to make sure that’s good. Obviously hitting a land drop will be ideal, but if you don’t have that, you know, maybe you’re looking for a cheap, proactive spell and something that works at sorcery speed.
You don’t necessarily want like a lot of fatal push type things or summer denial type things, because they’re a little bit less good at sorcery speed, but then again, expressive generation gives you the choice. You know, you just put it in your hand or tuck it on the bottom. So maybe, maybe it’s just like, no questions asked two for one.
David Robertson: [00:20:44] Yeah. I mean, the thing that interests me is dash and I was already playing a bunch of effects. So Mishra’s Bauble is a free play. You can, so that means that there’s a chance if you needed to Expressive iteration on too. Um, you could put a land into your hand and put a Bauble into play. You’re still getting your two for one.
Uh, you’re playing a bunch of discard spells already. You’re playing thoughts got to fill your graveyard. Dismember is a hidden one minute play. You don’t mind playing the Grixis manna base and having blue, red and turn to cause you’re going to fat shock anyway, cause you want to play your shadow, you know, ASAP.
And then oftentimes in the late game, Gurmag angler is actually a one minute play. So, yeah, I think this is a reasonable home for it, and I’m kind of interested in seeing how good it is and in this kind of a shell.
Damon Alexander: [00:21:26] Yeah. My guess is at the right number in this sort of list is probably more like two or three expensive iteration.
The problem that I foresee is that Grixis Death’s Shadow, like doesn’t really want to have a ton of lands in play and express expressive Federation wants you to be hitting your third land drop possibly or fourth land drop. If you’re trying to play cards like a team or battle rage off of it, which is kind of a weird hit, but a it on the less.
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:21:49] Well, they don’t want to flood out. They don’t need a lot of lands, but it’s not like they have no use for lands. You know, they have Snapcaster, that’s like a three-minute play. And a lot of the saddle decks are Lurrus configurations these days. Although this one is not, um, uh, you’ve opted for a Street Wraiths and Gurmag Anglers, which I think is a defensible choice.
David Robertson: [00:22:09] Well, I think with the amount of prowess and the fact that Heliod is good, you know, Heliod his main way of interacting is apparition. Um, apparition is really good against the Lurrus shells. It exiles the creatures that Lurrus, uh, wants to bring back or an exiles Lurrus itself. Uh, Gurmag Angler is a threat that, that deck actually has a hard time dealing with.
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:22:29] Yeah. A lot of decks. Do you, I mean, we’ve talked about the demise of path to exile people just aren’t playing that card anymore. Some people are replacing it with vanishing verse, but like a lot of decks just can’t cast that either or don’t want to. So you just don’t see Beth that often. It’s still in the taxes next, but they’re like 80 card decks more often than not.
So yeah, Gurmag angler, maybe that’s like just the plain.
David Robertson: [00:22:53] All right. The lash Alanna propose is a Galazeth deck in modern. I was kind of interested in seeing like, what is a way to just add artifacts to our deck that was sort of free and Stoneforge Mystic is a car that just wants you to play three artifacts that it’s going to tutor up.
So you really, you’re only adding three artifacts of your deck, but. You have a bunch more than you, you know, you, you expect to see more than you would in a normal deck with three artifacts and the artifacts don’t mind being tapped. So it’s just a free mana source, as long as you have a Galazeth around.
So this is a Jeskai Galazeth stone blade list. So we’re replacing the countersuit with cylinder score and which will be like the last week or two that we can do this before Counterspell makes this card woefully irrelevant in the format. Um, I am playing a Prismari command again, just a generic card that, you know, may or may not be good.
I don’t know. Um, and then I’m adding the Dragon package. So four Goldspan Dragon three, Galazeth the rest of the control package. Three Archmage’s Charm and one Force of Negation to Valakut awakening, you know, to Snapcaster Mage for Bolt for Opt one snare, uh, pretty similar to what you’ve seen on of something like white, blue stoneblade shells, and then, you know, the two swords in the batterskull.
So the thought is that you’re going to be able to. Do your stone for domestic thing. And then when you play a Galazeth, you can, you basically have this extra mana source in play with all of these extra, uh, equipment lying around or possibly treasures.
Damon Alexander: [00:24:24] So basically the hypothesis is kind of the, if Galazeth cost to effective manner, it will be a great card.
David Robertson: [00:24:30] Yes, exactly. Sort of like Nissa, isn’t really a five minute card. And the Goldspan Dragon I have in this deck is also not really a five minute card. So it’s you just have these super efficient turns. We like. Resolved Galazeth but you’re leaving up, you know, scorn or Archmage’s Charm or something, um, on your opponent’s turn.
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:24:48] I see you. And it’s nice that the equipment. Don’t need to be on tap tour. Right. You can just tap them and they continue to function. Yes. Clue is also do that. And I kind of just want to play tireless tracker. Now I know you’ve built this Jeskai. My preference is always to like cut all Archmage’s Charms and cryptic commands and just like not play counterspells, especially when I have to just decide between.
Holding my men up for these heavy blue counter magic or trying to resolve for men have five minutes. Sorceries now I understand what you’re saying. That they’re not truly that because if they resolve, then you, you get some mana back, you know, Goldspan is like, almost like it’s a Teferi five, right? It’s like a five drop that actually calls three because it leaves your men and up.
But I don’t know, like, do we have to play counter spells? Can we just like play a different supporting core with Galazeth and Stoneforge?
Damon Alexander: [00:25:38] Yeah. If you like losing to Karn liberated.
David Robertson: [00:25:41] Well, I guess that’s what I like about Archmage’s Charm is the modal ability. It is a removal spell against prowess.
It just takes their one, two or whatever. So you’re not just stuck with these cards in your hand.
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:25:52] Necessarily. All right. I think I’m going to make this my project for the week. And we had a tinker with this build and trying to figure out I’ll play your bills first. Cause I know that my instincts will make me cut all things to say instant and blue and counter.
I should at least like, try it first. See
David Robertson: [00:26:08] what we already forced to play blue if you want to resolve Galazeth then. So you have to play a little bit of blue.
Damon Alexander: [00:26:13] Yeah. You’re kind of fighting uphill against it. I mean, if you’re not playing spells or discard, you have to be able to, you know, be like a deck that goes way over the top or way underneath.
Galazeth doesn’t seem like it does either of those. So then you can play Tireless tracker and Thoughtseize in your Galazeth stack. I mean, that’s a modern can support
David Robertson: [00:26:30] that. I mean, Galazeth does let you cast thoughts either. Turn your resolve it. That’s another thing you can do. So I’m interested in maybe that in like a Grixis shell, I just have been bitten so many times, like Grixis and pioneer.
I can’t do it, but maybe in modern Grixis mediums is a thing you can do.
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:26:45] I mean, I was thinking. Possibly for color Omnath colors. If you want to include the storm forest package, um, maybe just like a light touch, metallic rebukes for counter magic. Uh, yeah, I mean, Silumgar’s Scorn. We don’t really believe it in a pioneer.
I don’t think that’s going to work in modern either, but we could awfully see, swap that out for counter spell and just a few weeks time, if we like the rest of the, what the deck is doing
David Robertson: [00:27:06] well, I believe it in pioneer. I think it’s awesome. Damon doesn’t like it and pioneer. Damon just had bad luck. I guarantee you this week, he plays his last he’s like, man, this was sweet and going to have all these screenshots of them casting a Magma Opus.
And he explained to me and him to counter it. He’s like mystic dispute is a waste of my time. Blue, blue baby. Put that in the graveyard GGS. Shake my hand
Damon Alexander: [00:27:28] counters phone and I’ll still play Soul-Scar scoring.
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:27:34] All right. So we have our work cut out for us. A few different takes on is it’s expressive iteration and Galazeth Prismari and a little bit of Prismari commands. Uh, we will put these to the tests this week and let you know how that all turned out. Speaking of which, uh, we need to tell you about how last week’s decks turned out, featuring and such more, which we will have that for you in our flashback segment. After the break.
Damon Alexander: [00:28:15] welcome back. Our card from last week was Sedgemoor Witch two and a black for a three-two human warlock with menace. Ward pay three life and lastly, magecraft. Uh, you get a one-on-one pest creature token that when it dies, you gain a life. And so we thought this card was, uh, you know, similar to monastery mentor, young Pyromancer, uh, triggers off your casting.
Spells has some interesting angles with storm type cards that young Pyromancer doesn’t and provides a good aggressive creature on its own. Right? So first to try it out, was David tell us how things went and pioneer.
David Robertson: [00:28:51] So I proposed two different, uh, black green lists to try and pioneer. One was a little more combo ish.
One was a little more, um, kind of big beater ish. So the first deck I took into the format was, um, the beater deck. So I had eight men and elves. I was playing my three draw payoffs were for love, struck beasts for routing registrar for such more, which of course. I had to Blex the vexing past one Nissa Voice of Zendikar, three great henge.
And the, my kind of like pay off synergy pieces where for plumb the forbidden for Tend the Pests and one Witherbloom apprentice, the thought was the kind of like opening lines you could have is like turn to Rotting registrar. If they didn’t kill it right away, you could like great hinge and start getting value that way.
Otherwise you could. Sack you’re registrar for a bunch of pass and then either like pump them with blacks or putting the forget in the past with, you know, central or which, and play the deck just very medium to me. Uh, the games that I won were when I got a quick rotting Regisaur down, I’m just beat my opponent down and use Plumb the forbidden as a way to kind of like hold their removal, um, essentially air, which never really did anything.
Um, Sometimes the ward was okay if I’d already done a bunch of damage to them with rotting registrar, basically I just made a much worse, great henge deck said more, which does not play that well with that card. But the rest of the deck was quite powerful. I think you kind of need to be like all in on more wage.
It just doesn’t give you very much, uh, for what it asks of you. It was hard for me to resolve like spells after which was in play. I would get up past too. That just isn’t worth three manna. You know, the normal three-minute card you get in these types of lists is like four or five power naturally with some upside.
So I, I felt like that this wasn’t quite where I needed to be. So I went two, three, and my losses were pretty convincing. And so I tried the more calm or excuse me, I tried a version that was true to sort of wedge the, um, and yeah, well, innkeeper adventure package in with Sedgemoor Witch. So again, we have the eight mana creatures plus four Edgewell innkeeper.
I had a Order of midnight, four Foulmire Knight, two murderous rider for lovestruck beast and then four collected company, two Toski. Again, the Toski is, are trying to take advantage of all these extra ones I should have lying around. Uh, collected company was just kind of another value play. We had so many cards that could be, uh, affected by the three or less hits.
One, two, three, again, again, the, which felt very weak. Um, I was just stealing wins with lovestruck beast, basically against aggro, the value you get from Edgewall innkeeper and Sedgemoor Witch just doesn’t matter. It’s just so incremental and eventually decks that are actual value machines. I played like blue, black control with Magma Opus.
They just go over the top of you. I mean, one resolved, Magma Opus, just beat Sedgemoor witch and whatever else you were doing. I think fundamentally. The, the basic shell where you’re trying to get by which out quickly with a manta creature has fundamental flaws. That mean that the decks are kind of consigned to be very medium minus.
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:32:07] That’s very interesting. I mean, I’ve never actually seen anyone attempt mana elf into Pyromancer style creature before is one of the flaws that you just have too many creatures in your deck and not enough slots left for like interaction or shoring up the vulnerability. Is that a cliche, a deck will have,
David Robertson: [00:32:23] well, I think the flaws are again. And we talked about this a little bit and such where a, which is a card that wants you to play a bunch of turns. Cause if you’re not getting a bunch of one one’s from her, she’s not, uh, actually worth three manna, but if I’m playing a landlord elephant, turn one, I actually want to end the game quickly because I’m playing, you know, probably 30 mana sources.
Cause I’m trying to accelerate out my three drops. So if you’re accelerating out at three drop that doesn’t actually end the game quickly. Then your mana elf play into, you know, skipping and turn on turn two, isn’t giving you that much. So she’s in this weird spot where you want to get her out as early as possible, because once she’s in play, that’s the only way she can generate value.
You’re casting your thoughts eases your casting, um, collected companies. But the, the more you try to accelerate her out, the more you get punished by the fact that a three, two for three is his way, Hey, under the, uh, rate of what you need to be getting in a pioneer right now.
Damon Alexander: [00:33:14] Yeah, spending eight slots on manta dorks are eight spots. Not on spells. I can see the problem here,
David Robertson: [00:33:21] but that’s why I was winning when I wasn’t drawing my Sedgemoor Witch so I just play like love struck beast or whatever, and just get in there and win the game. That’s what normal, like green beaten XR. So I just made that way less good. The plan a to have this plan B, which doesn’t be anything central R which plus for pest, let’s say you could generate them and that doesn’t beat us single day.
Right? And the format maybe model red, which just kills her for one minute.
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:33:43] So in either of these two versions, your combo version with Tend the pests or this adventure package version, how was the card flow? Did you find that you had enough stuff on your hands so that when you did draw, which you, you at least had stuff to trigger it or was it just, was that also an issue?
David Robertson: [00:33:59] The card flow was very high. Um, often I had more cards that I could kind of ploy during a game. And the problem is a lot of your effects. Aren’t as powerful as they ought to be. Like, if you Plumb the Forbidden draw four cards and draw like Foulmire Knight and other Plumb the Forbidden a minute elf and a land, you know, you’ve lost that game.
So, you know, the Plumb the forbidden, it was actually an impressive car to me. Uh, it, it was really good at Kolding removal. Uh, it turned mana elves into real cards like games. So it was almost a way to like cannibalize your main sources into possibly threats. Uh, so I actually found that car to be very promising the such more, which itself was really only good if I was actually gonna cast a plumb the forbidden with a bunch of creatures in play.
But if I have a central switch and a bunch of creatures in play, I’m so far ahead in that game. So she’s really only good, like in cases where you’re already ahead. So I felt like the basic shell here, and it was just kind of a non-starter and I thought that the games where she would be more useful would be index that we’re looking to go like much longer playing a lot more disruptive pieces.
And I think that’s kind of what Damon, uh, took into the cues.
Damon Alexander: [00:35:06] Yeah. I ran the Mardu witch tokens, uh, list, which was a pretty similar to these, um, Lurrus Kroxa decks, although it doesn’t really play either of those cards. Uh, but Ford red Arcon is for young Pyromancer some bonecrushers forest Sedgemoor Witch.
For a fatal push around a split of three village, writes three Plumb the forbidden one cake, man, four Thoughtseize, and then kind of a smattering of one of those trying out like a, you know, a single Kroxa to Extus Oriq overlord slash. Awaken the blood avatar, a single lash of malice, a single Claim the firstborn, a Dreadbore 24 lane.
So I took it into a league and I went two and three, uh, not the best result, but the deck was a really fun list to play. And I think that it needs some tuning. It could be substantially better. Uh, the deck definitely felt like a better home for such more, a witch than David’s. Lists this deck. Once you had a, Witch in play, it felt like the world was your oyster.
As soon as you have a single spell to start playing then with access to Plumb the Forbidden, then you can just go nuts. Plumbing for was, was such a good synergy piece was such more which where you have, you know, like. Yeah. I R to password ever be like, all right, I’m gonna draw three cards. If I draw another Plumb the forbidden, I just go even further.
Or maybe I take a, you know, turn off, play a young Pyromancer build even a bigger board. And so you have this, this interesting end game that’s a little bit clunky and a little bit weird, but is still quite powerful. None. The less. Uh, going more into the matches. I lost my first round as load as ultimatum.
Actually the first game was pretty funny. I wound up dying to a set of Alrund’s Epiphany, these birds, they topped like a, you know, I thought sees their hand a bunch of times and they topped like an immersion ultimatum. And I had put myself on a Six life Through Plumb the Forbidden off of young Pyromancer.
Um, and I just died two, a two Alrund’s Epiphany is chained together. Interesting. This ultimatum build actually, um, with the Time warps more than the traditional, like granted into UHIN lines. Then I, I split, uh, two matches against the green red aggro on the same pilot of the pioneer Q was a little bit quiet at that time of night.
It felt like it matched that that was overall pretty favorable. You know, it’s true that they play their old growth troll and you play your sophomore witch and right then they’re, they’re, you know, winning, but it doesn’t take that long before your millions of pests kind of outmatched their board.
Meanwhile, the cards like claim the firstborn and fatal push and all these cards to kind of cleanly interact with our board where we’re amazing. Then I lost Jund food. It was an interesting matchup. I had a Mulligan, uh, I think he’s just a five in the critical third game. And lastly, I beat Lotus combo in the one-three bracket.
Uh, pretty cleanly, just, uh, shout outs to the one Alpine moon and the sideboard. And that card is great. Yeah. So just in terms of specific cards, um, this tech has too many village Rites Plumb the forbidden. I had some awkward draws where I could have opening hand with the Village Rites, a fatal Push a Thoughtseize, four lands. He’s like, I’m going to keep this. If I draw a single, you know, such more, which I’m in great shape, draw step one village where I strive to have two three, four land land, and then I just die. Um, this deck, we, we call it the citrus flyers, which are normally, and this sort of deck. And so as a result of having this many sacrifice things.
Requires a little bit too much to be going right to then spend time, darling. Um, you have to first get your Sedgemoor Witch, and then play a fatal push and then play a Plumb the forbidden. It’s just a lot of hoops to jump through. You kind of want actually save the plumb, the forbidden until you have a nice army of pests.
It’s not that great. Second, you know, a single card is actually just an overprice village rites at that point. And so a little bit tuning there, probably just cut a couple of copies of those question, Mila, Steve, and I’m glad we tried this card. I will tell you that you should not play. Um, it just misses too many cards.
Scavenging news. You know, you look at they’re scavenging you. If you look at a Lash of Malice, you’re like, well, can I can’t wait, but what if they’re doing to respond to how they have to? And what if, and the answer is no, you can never use lash, emasculate, scavenging news. Uh, whereas bloodchief’s thirst. I know you hate it.
Uh, it works in a pinch. The car that I thought was the most fun was. Awaken the blood avatar. I never actually cast Extus. Uh, the manager’s never quite lined up, but I don’t think I ever really wanted to, but every time I cast the awaken the Blood avatars, I was just such a, it’s a smiled. Um, you know, even though you’re doing something very grizzly thing and magic Lord, it was delightful.
Uh, Ray of sun on a late night pioneer queue.
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:39:15] I think a lot of our listeners have not awakened the blood avatar. I got to where they can get to. And it was sweet. It was so sweet. It was everything I hoped we could be. So this card makes a three, Six token with haste forces them to sacrifice a creature. And then every time you attack with it, they take three damage.
So it was like a terrific closer, but also functions as a removal spill.
Damon Alexander: [00:39:35] Yeah. Yeah, it was funny. It was like one game. And this wasn’t the one, three bracket. Mind you. But I was up against Lotus combo when they were fending me off with like, they cast two Fae of Wishes, which I looked at my blood and I was like, Oh, it’s a three Six.
It actually doesn’t get through them. But I was like, wait, claim the firstborn one wishes, sack it to awaken the blood avatar, the sacrifice, the other one swing through for lethal easy peasy. And so even though the card is like awkwardly statted at three Six, Uh, you know, actually doesn’t get through big blockers, like an old growth, full blocks it, and they just take the three damage and they have like another couple of creatures.
They actually trade with it quite effectively, but it wound up working off better than I would’ve expected based off of just looking at it.
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:40:15] So I’m looking at some of your screenshots here and the extended show notes, uh, which if you would like to see them, uh, these are available to all of our patrons and our discord.
You’ve got some gorgeous Plumb the forbidden stacks, both of you where you’re getting like four or five copies of Plumb the forbidden was that normal. Cause I never was able to achieve that in the deck that I played. I rarely got it for more than actually I never got it from more than one. It was like, I was just worse than village Rites.
David Robertson: [00:40:41] I plumbed for four or five, like four or five times over the course of my two legs. And I think I lost every game and giant Plumb because you give away your, this board. It’s like, if you’re bored, if you have five creatures in play, you’re not winning. Like that’s weird. And then drawing five cards and taking five damage.
And not if you’re, if, unless you have the witch and play, you just erase that from your board. You’re probably worse off. Like you don’t have one spell, it just catches you up after doing that. So.
Damon Alexander: [00:41:07] Yeah, it’s tricky. I felt like if you have like an Arcanist in play, right. And you try and to like a discard piece, then you kind of getting two spells to, to follow your plumb.
Meanwhile, if you have a set of more, which in play, you get your, your value straight back. So I was, I was impressed with plum. Um, I don’t think that you don’t get the big plumbs that often. Uh, and as David mentioned, when you do, you don’t always win. But it’s a card with keeping our eye on, even though it could be a little bit clunky.
The life loss could suck, you know, cycling for two minutes to draw card whose life was was not good but necessary. Occasionally we should. We should, we should keep an eye on this card, huh?
David Robertson: [00:41:45] So Dan, you took a similar shell to Damon. Uh, you have a fondness for what we have, uh, jokingly called Mardu mediums, uh, in modern.
And so you kind of built, I didn’t even propose a list cause I knew you’d have one in mind. You tried out a bunch of cards. I see a lot of fun offs, um, including the, uh, uh, Schriever special one, Ox of Agonas, walk us through the list and, and how your league with this is in modern now.
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:42:11] And this is a modern, I should’ve played more ox of Agonas.
And that was like my best card. Um, in modern, there is a deck with Forrest Sedgemoor Witch for young Pyromancer for Dreadhorde Arcanist for Village Rites It’s, it’s basically an interpretation of the pioneer Pyromancer deck, but with such more, which I think a few people have sewed up in the five-oh is with this.
I think that deck is various suspiciously constructed. It’s 20 lands, and that’s just like, not enough lands, but I thought, you know, maybe they’re onto something. Maybe I should just like take that as my base template and just like tweak out the cars that I don’t like. So I don’t really want to play young Pyromancer into a field of love of darts.
So let’s just rely on the Witch for that. And with fewer witches or if you were token makers, I don’t want as many village rites. So I just cut down to one village rites, one plumb, but you have your inquisitions, your Thoughtseize as your light Naples to fatal pushes your cleaner does all the usual suspects here supported by four Dreadhorde Arcanist.
Then my sort of fun of is I had to Plargg Dean of chaos to maybe made Channeler one Extus Mox. And we’re going into S as a K command. Yeah. Uh, two lingering souls. Cause I was thinking maybe if I’m going to go for this late white splash for Extus, you know, why and why not use lingering souls as like another way to both have more spells for the Sedgemoor Witch, and if I happen to draw village rites or plumb the forbidden, um, maybe there’ll be the fodder that I need for that.
So that was the theory and kind of the suspicious number of 20 lands is still here. I ended up keeping that land count just to see what would happen, uh, went to a league and it didn’t go very well. I went to, and three, I basically, this doesn’t function the way that it’s supposed to, but the biggest let down is that such more, which is just not the right card for it.
It should have been young Pyromancer and I hate to say it cause I caught the young Pyromancer is. But like the, you look at your hand and it’s like, does my hand have a term, one discard spell into a two drop creature? That’s going to pull me ahead. Like, if it does great, I’m like in the game, if it doesn’t have that, if it’s got like a discard spill into nothing into such more, which you’re probably behind, I’m probably like hopelessly behind getting the Sizemore, which while still having men on to like, do something else that turn requires.
Making for land drops, which is not very likely for this 20 land deck, and then still having something in your, in your hand to play in. I’m not playing like blue card draw. So this is like a very much attrition deck. Get both players hands empty. Even though I had four alluding creatures between the Chandlers on the player.
Cause they was just like, it wasn’t happening for me. And on top of all that, you know, it was my choice to like do the late white splash. It just didn’t work out with my men. I was under siege for like three of the five matches. I lost two, uh, Nahiri land destruction deck, I lost a Ponza where, you know, I knew they were going to play blood moon and they just got me with it, even though I, I tried to fence around it and they just pillaged me out of the game.
Split matches with your Tron and beat mill. But yeah, I mean, two, three for the mediums deck is, you know, might as well be Oh five. If it’s a three, two with a medium Zach, then it might as well be a five-oh. This is like, this is the full range you’re going to get with these Rakdos lists, either two, three, or three, two.
David Robertson: [00:45:17] I mean, I was wondering why you played 20 lands, so I’m glad you explained that. I mean, just seems so low to me. You don’t have any can trips unless you want to call to clean the dust, you know, like a homeless man’s ops on turn one, but that’s from a deck that has been five-oh.
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:45:31] Yeah. And I think it’s just wrong.
David Robertson: [00:45:33] Yeah, that’s trying to resolve it. Like you say, you’re trying to resolve Sedgemoor witch and then cast a spell that turn.
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:45:39] Yeah. And like, maybe that list is like, you know, that was us four village rites. So maybe they’re not trying to play a Sedgemoor Witch until like much later in the game. Um, and they’re just trying to operate off two lands for awhile until you get your first Pyromancer and your first village rites.
But I don’t know, like why do that? Why not just play more lens lands or great play more lens. It’s on me. I knew that that was going to happen and indeed it happened. So I’ll pose less. I play, but I don’t recommend it to anyone.
Damon Alexander: [00:46:06] White splash. Could you just play Rakdos mediums and just never cast Extus precast the back half of a week in the blood avatar.
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:46:13] Yeah, actually, it was really happy with it, but awakened the blood avatar. So I would go up to two or three copies of that and given how much trouble the many base was just like fetching, the white was throwing a lot of things off. Just ignore. Extus do exactly what Damon suggesting, just play straight.
Rakdos play like 23 lanes, 22, 23 lands, responsible land count. And you don’t even have to play Sedgemoor Witch. You can just play Young Pyromancer instead, and get your tokens that way.
David Robertson: [00:46:40] And even in the list you’re proposing Dan, you could just play one Mardu trial just because, and that wouldn’t hurt anything.
Like you’d have an out to cast excess. If you’re not going to have thoughts, he’s entered one or whatever.
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:46:54] All right. So, uh, that, that list is kind of in the bin. The one that I played, but it didn’t make me think that like, man, if only I had more lands and more resources, so I’m, I’m in the middle of a second league with a totally different take.
Forgetting the Mardu colors and dropping a red, dropping white and picking a blue and green. Instead, I have a Sultai magecraft list with three, such more, which, and three Quandrix apprentice. This is blue green for a Tutu it’s maze credibility. As you, whenever you cast and incidence sorcery or copy and paste or sorcery, look at your top three cards.
If there’s a land among them, you may reveal that land, put it into your hand, the rest, go on the bottom. So it’s essentially a Magecraft draw land. And yeah, you won’t hit every time, but like, I mean, think about that for a second magecraft draw card is insane. You know, we’ve been talking about how to like, get a token every time you cast a spell.
Like what if you just like had a land every time you Uro spelled? So I’m secretly thinking that Quandrix apprentice is like maybe like low key broken. Uh, I haven’t seen anyone playing it yet, but I’m four matches in I’m three and one so far. And I really like this, like a lot. So I’m supporting it with.
Growth spirals. I got a lot of growth spirals here. Four of them fatal push thoughts, use inquisition for ops. That’s like a big get that these Rakdos decks don’t have. So this is more of like a high resource kind of game. My, my, my hand usually has like multiple cards in it and I’m much more likely to play a size more, which with men available to them, like follow it up with an opt or something like that.
A couple of Snapcaster and a couple of Abrupt Decay. And then to actually win the game. There’s three, bring two lights and two Valkis. The other car that’s kind of spicy here as I’m playing two main deck Flusterstorm plus, or storm, you know, maybe it has targets, maybe it doesn’t, but if you have either a Sedgemoor Witch or a Quandrix apprentice in play, you can just like Flusterstorm, your own spell, get a ton of triggers off magecraft and get value that way.
Damon Alexander: [00:48:47] Have you ever tried to Flusterstorm your own Flusterstorm? I have notes. It is. It is a complicated set of clicks. You have to make, to make that work out properly.
David Robertson: [00:48:56] So, I mean, what do you do with all these lands? So, okay. You’re and you get lands into your hand and then what.
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:49:01] Well, so far nothing, you just play them.
And then, you know, you eventually empty your deck of lands. You cast like a Tibalt at some point, or you can just, you know, bring to light. Whatever three of my lands are Triomes in case you want to cycle, I built this, that kind of easily. So I was trying to think, is there like something that dumps lands for something else?
So I have one collective brutality here in the main deck and in my sideboard, I have a single Raven’s crime. For like grindy match-ups cause they actually be kind of a funny way to lock someone out. You play a Quandrix apprentice, Raven’s crime, get a land retrace with another Raven’s crime trigger landfall again, or trigger magecraft again.
David Robertson: [00:49:37] I like that, even with, I mean, just like I kind of liked the look of this deck, I just don’t know. It’s such more, which the right threats to be playing.
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:49:45] It’s almost certainly not. I mean, it was Sedgemoor Witch week, so I put them in, like, you could just play a Lurrus instead and put Mishra’s Bauble in it and have a better deck go up with the four, but go up to four contract apprentice.
I think that’s, that’s actually where a lot of the power lies. So basically tireless tracker.
Damon Alexander: [00:50:04] So something, if you have Quandrix apprentice and an Urborg in play. Raven’s Crime becomes like a better mind twist.
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:50:12] It’s like a mind twist that thins out your deck. So you’ll never draw land again.
David Robertson: [00:50:16] I was not a Quandrix Apprentice believer, but I’ve come to, you’re kind of selling me on it a little bit.
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:50:21] Yeah. I mean, I’m going to probably play another league with this, um, after we finished recording, but yeah. Yeah. I beat do Mike, uh, on his, a breach. I beat hard and scales. I beat Yorion Taxes deck lost the Jones, but you know, three and one’s not a bad start. So I’m still in the very earliest stages of this build.
David Robertson: [00:50:37] What about the green, green, green discarded light and make a 2/2?
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:50:41] Oh, Ayula’s influence a little bear actually. Okay.
Damon Alexander: [00:50:46] It was that kind of just converting your Quandrix apprentice into a session. Yeah,
David Robertson: [00:50:50] exactly. Let’s skip the wish. Let’s play it on Indomitable.
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:50:55] Yeah. Hmm.
Damon Alexander: [00:50:56] But think you’ll have, Urza saw, I’ve got to go find with your Quandrix apprentice pretty soon.
Oh my goodness.
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:51:02] I know. I mean, I think that’s like, Worth exploring. Uh, definitely. I was thinking like, what lands pay me off and triumphs are like, not that exciting, but I mean, if I had a land that did something, uh, Urza’s saga is perfect. So our verdict on Sedgemoor Witch sounds like our little witch trial here as a, it did not end favorably.
David Robertson: [00:51:22] We had four, two threes, uh, in multiple archetypes across multiple formats. So despite the three-two printed on this card, um, I think the final verdict is media minus.
Damon Alexander: [00:51:32] Yeah. As David said, it’s a three, two creature, but the results are two, three.
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:51:36] Yeah. It’s I think when you just like go down each color, you’ll find like a better creature in almost every color, uh, title that tracker is probably a better, I think the seasoned Pyromancer is better.
So it’s not about like Sedgemoor Witch versus Monastery mentor. It’s like, what else could my deck be cast? And, you know, Lurrus is almost certainly better. It’s tough competition out there at three men. I’m encouraged that people are winning with Sedgemoor witch, but maybe they’re winning in spite of it.
David Robertson: [00:52:00] Yeah, it could be.
Damon Alexander: [00:52:01] Yeah. I think in a well-tuned Mardu list, I think that are just straight Rakdos. I think that the card is not quite as bad as you guys are saying. I think that list I played in pioneer felt close to being decent with a slightly better tuning. Hmm. That’s what I don’t think, you know, the switch is overpowered or anything and it was, I can be getting banned anytime soon, but I think it does enough things that it’s not, it’s not that bad.
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:52:26] All right. Well, I think that concludes our discussion for this week for Sedgemoor Witch we are going to be testing out these sweet. Is it bruise this week? We will report back on them next Friday.
David Robertson: [00:52:38] All right, gentlemen, until then take care.
Damon Alexander: [00:52:40] Sounds good. See you guys. On the other side of Prismari command,
Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:52:45] that’s a wrap on episode 14 of Strixhaven seasons tune in next week for our testing results and download the latest deck list at FaithlessBrewing.com.
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