Last Call for Strixhaven: Conspiracy Theorist, Quandrix Apprentice, Prismari Command

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:00:00] You are listening to faithless brewing the magic together in podcasts for the spike rogue each week we design new decks in modern and pioneer. We put our creations to the test, share our findings on the air, coming up on the brew session. It’s last call for Strixhaven. Now we’ve got unfinished business with Quandrix apprentice, conspiracy theorist, and Prismari command.

That’s all coming up on episode 16 of Strixhaven season. Thanks for listening and enjoy the show.

David Robertson: [00:01:01] hello and welcome to the faithless brewing podcast. I am David Robertson joining you from Minnesota, and I am joined as always by the CEO of the faithless brewing podcast. He is cavedan online. He is Dan Schriever. Dan, what is up?

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:01:17] Hey, I’m doing well, David, how are you? What’s new in Minnesota,

David Robertson: [00:01:20] in Minnesota. Things are beautiful. The sun is out. We just had a world weekend. It was a little abbreviated because no one actually opened up their studio space, uh, due to some, you know, lingering COVID restrictions, but everybody was out and about. Obviously Minneapolis comes alive in the summertime cause everyone’s been cooped up inside.

Plus the COVID mask thing is lifting. The vaccination rates are super high. It’s a beautiful time to be alive.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:01:44] I love . You live pretty close to that. Right? The Northeast arts district.

David Robertson: [00:01:48] Oh, I’m in the arts district. There was all kinds of people, a vomiting in my front yard and all kinds of stuff. It was nice to see young people having fun.

Although, you know, maybe if they could have crossed the street to do that, but I was going to let it go this year. Got out the hose and cleaned everything up and got some, a nice young lady, some water and made sure they got home. Okay. And then that was fine with me.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:02:10] I’m gonna make some Prismari joke there, but I don’t know

David Robertson: [00:02:15] we are at the end of the Strixhaven season. I think you call this last call for Strixhaven. You do not have to go home, but you cannot stay here. Uh, next week we are going to be, I don’t know, the full up, I think on a moderate horizon spoilers demon will be back to help guide us through that. If people were listening to our Friday podcast, we went over the big announcement about the MPL.

We had a bunch of interesting questions about. Uh, what modern horizons too might auger as well as some, uh, interesting, uh, deck ideas from our discard today, we are going to go over our Prismari popery from last week, including a five-oh from our very own CEO. But first we want to kind of just, you know, empty out the, uh, the canister here, if there’s any ideas left and we’ve got a few, I would say, speculative brews that we want to try before, uh, you know, all these formats kind of began up ended by the latest modern horizons release.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:03:14] Yeah. We got to like shaking out the boots. There’s a few deck lists rattling around in there. Exactly. We’ve only done, I think, six weeks of actual decks with Strixhaven, but I feel like that was the right number. It’s been a quiet set for modern apart from like the obvious ones. Clever Lumimancer leading to an increase interest in prowess.

There haven’t been that many cards, uh, that really like shook up the format with the exception of Velomachus Lorehold that’s a card that’s I didn’t actually think it was going to work, but, you know, forgot to tip the cap to the players who have been grinding with that deck, tweaking it out, iterating on it.

Uh, are good friend, Zach ManaCymbal Ryl had a great finish over the weekend in the super qualifier within, I think he went seven and two, and then he ran it back the next day and the managed traitors event and went seven and two again. So that’s exciting. And there’s like a whole new archetype from just like one card.

Now. Are there other cards like that? Other hidden gems? In Strixhaven probably not. They probably not, but we’re going to talk about a couple of them here and I am keen to hear more about this first one here, the Quandrix apprentice. So, David, do you want to talk us through sort of what you’re thinking for this card and what skills sets us to have?

David Robertson: [00:04:32] Yeah. So Quandrix, Quandrix apprentice, blue-green 2/2. Major crafts. So whenever you cast or copied incident sorcery spell, you look at the top three cards and you may plot a land from among them into your hand. So this was a card on the spoiler sheet, Dan highlighted. He was really excited about this card and Dean and I kind of talked him out of it.

I don’t even think we addressed it in the spoiler season. Uh, whereas I bullied Dan. I was like, Velomachus is sweet or for sure talking about it, we’re talking about at least all the dragon Lords and I was right there. So right there, maybe we’re on here. We were brewing around, uh, sophomore, which last week.

And, um, because that was also asking, for instance, in sorceries Dan snuck, a couple of Quandrix Apprentice in there and he really liked it. He was like, man, this card is sweet. You got all these lands in your hand and you know, how can we turn those lands into advantage? So we said, all right, we should probably at least like put this card through its paces.

You know, maybe we just gave it short shrift. The first thing I was trying to think of, and I think we were even, um, brainstorming a little bit about this last week. Dan was how do we turn lands in our hand? Or recurring lands in our hand into advantage in a way to win the game. And so the original thought that I had was the car that does it.

Easiest is Dryad of the Elysian Grove, which allows us to play an extra land to turn that’s already attractive. And then B it means we don’t have to play all mountains, which is important because we’re trying to play this blue, green fellow on turn two or three, and it still lets us win with Valakut.

So that interaction is of course known. We’ve talked about it the day Dryad of the Ilysian Grove was spoiled and I was making the case, it was going to alter the way we build our Valakut decks forever. And here we are talking about these, Bring to Light, Scapeshift concoctions. So this list is playing a bunch of chiefs spells to trigger Quandrix apprentice of which it has four.

And it kind of has two Wrenn and Six as the backup Quandrix apprentice, or maybe the superior Quandrix apprentice. We have six interaction spells with creatures. So that’s four lightning bolt, two path. We have four explore one growth spiral. Obviously those cards are great with Quandrix apprentice and just generically.

Great. If you’re trying to hit a bunch of lands, a one Eladamri’s Call, cause we have a few cards we want to, to, to be able to tutor for the, for Dryad. And then what I would like to call like the bring to light package. So one Valki God of lies. One scapeshift, one Supreme verdict and one Omnath Locus of creation.

For bring to light and then 30 lanes. This deck is not that dissimilar from a bunch of different variants that have kind of existed in the post band, modern, where people are using, uh, bring to light and only having to play sort of the one scapeshift. It is kind of cool that bring to light and, you know, an incident afterwards, they both trigger Quandrix they both count as cast.

So you can get a bunch of triggers, uh, from the stack, almost everything in the deck, uh, triggers Quandrix apprentice. And, um, this is a shell that I know you’d already kind of started toil around with Dan. So can you tell us a little bit what your impressions from your first, uh, go with this deck?

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:07:34] Yeah, I played just two matches in our Faithless brewing community league that we run on the discord because I was thinking along the same lines you were David.

I like this card. I want to see like what it needs to succeed. What pieces do I need to surround it with? And this Dryad of the Elysian Grove Bring to light deck has been tearing it up lately. A lot of people are saying that, you know, they, they feel like this is a new tier one strategy. Maybe it’s one of the better strategies that deck has, like a one flex slot.

You might say you have like your early play that generates men. So some people use Elvish reclaimer for that. Some use Wrenn and Six we’re going to try out Quandrix apprentice and just see what happens. So the list that I tested David was just off by like structurally. The only big difference was that I wanted to play cantrips.

So I trimmed some lands and played for Opts. And I’m curious if you like. Would endorse that strategy or not? My, my thought process was that’s, you know, I really want to make sure that on the turn I land Quandrix apprentice, I can immediately have something on one man out to like start spinning up for lands.

David Robertson: [00:08:46] Yeah. I don’t mind that, I guess my thought process, like in the list that you have up is I would just play Serum Visions. Then I don’t think opt is actually a modern powered card, unless you are getting a ton of value out of the instant speed aspect of it, whether that be a way to make your Snapcasters, you know, kind of stumble on three, um, or you’re know, leaving up various counter magic.

I just don’t think you actually get enough. It’s not that good of a search effect. Um, and so I, I’m not fundamentally opposed to the idea of. Playing cantrips, but I think you have highlighted here that as soon as it becomes legal, we will be playing Abundant harvest and we will never be speaking of opt again.

It also, I think makes our man a little bit better. So yeah, for right now we don’t have, uh, options for abundant harvest. That’s something to keep in mind is once modern horizons is out. I know historic players can already play it because it was in the, um, the layer drops or whatever. So I guess with no other incidents or very few other incidents, my instinct would always be to play Serum Visions because it actually does help us fund the cards we’re interested in and helps us scribe away, for instance, our Valki, which we never want to draw.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:09:59] So my other feedback from just testing it a little bit was that. Quandrix and Dryad of the Elysian Grove kind of compete with each other in an awkward way. It doesn’t feel great to play Quandrix on turn two and just expose it to removal because more likely than not, it will die and you didn’t have anything to show for it.

And then you think, man, that could have been a Wrenn and Six, if that had been a Wrenn and Six, I wouldn’t be in the money right now. So Quandrix apprentice, you’re much more comfortable playing it’s either on turn three, when you can then immediately fire off another spell or if you’re just like, no, the coast is clear.

So in that sense, when I look at my hand and then it has a Quandrix apprentice and a Dryad of the Elysian Grove, I’m like not as excited as I thought I would be. Cause it’s the sequencing is a little weird.

David Robertson: [00:10:43] Hmm. Yeah. And that’s kind of insoluble of course. I mean, Quandrix apprentice is just need man out. They’ve done a good job getting rid of the free spells. So it has to be played on three or later and obviously same Dryad.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:10:59] Yeah. I mean, it made me think what free spells would I want to play? What I want to play gunshots? No, what I want to play a mutagenic growth. No, what I want to play at force of negation?

Uh, yeah, actually I probably would, um, I didn’t play them in this list, but Quandrix apprentice has a blue card, so you can always pitch it to Force as well. And that makes it much more attractive to just slam the apprentice on to if they try to remove it on their, turn, your forest and get a land.

David Robertson: [00:11:24] Yeah, it actually mitigates the, uh, card disadvantage a little bit.

Obviously all land is not always as good as a blue spell. Sometimes it’s much better. Sometimes it’s much worse.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:11:34] Do you have any consideration for a flusterstorm as like a main deck card that you, you could play as like bad spell Pierce that might have a spectacular synergy with Quandrix apprentice?

David Robertson: [00:11:44] You know, I saw that you played it in one of your lists, but you also had, um, Sedgemoor, uh, Witch to pay off for it.

I don’t think that fluster storm is a main deco card. And I noticed that almost no one’s playing in their 75 period. This is not a deck that can initiate a lot of like counter magic. Uh, you’re not playing any other than flusterstorm itself. So I think it’s hard to really get paid off. And my payoff is drawing like three lands instead of one, uh, was Spell Pierce or something more liable.

I don’t quite think that that’s worth it to me. I noticed that there’s not a lot of counter magic played period in a lot of these bring to light lists.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:12:21] Yeah. I mean, they’re like 30 land decks. So at a certain point going one for one, you just don’t want to do that. That much. You just want to make your land drops and win that way.

So it occurred to me that another way to get the turn to Quandrix with a little more confidence will be that if I knew my opponent did not have an answer, if I Thoughtseize one term one, for example. So I’m curious if you consider it like a Sultai color as the base for this.

David Robertson: [00:12:48] I have. Yeah. So I think in passing, you mentioned, oh, I had the sideboard plan, which was to bring in like Ravens crime and then with Quandrix apprentice in play, I can basically cast Raven’s Crime assuming we hit a land every time, which is not a lock, et cetera, but I can basically for every black guy in play, I get to discard a card from their hand.

And so you were like, oh, that’s my kind of sidebar playing for these grinder matchups. And I was like, wow, that just sounds amazing. Like maybe that should just be the main deck plan. And so I do have a proposed kind of tweak out from your assault. I list last week, I’m abandoning the Sedgemoor Witch that you were sort of obligated to play because it was Witch week.

Trick or treat and all that. Instead, I’m replacing that with the Dryad of the Elysian Grove again, um, I’m adding one dread presence, dread presence, obviously benefiting from Dryad. And I think we could put an Urborg or two in our list and then kind of just bringing in, you’re already playing the, bring to light package.

So, you know, just trimming a few extra cards so we can play the four Quandrix apprentice. And then it’s pretty similar to the other list. We’re playing fatal push at a lightning bolt. Uh, we’re playing six, uh, discard spells. So one Thoughtseize three inquisition, and then two Ravens crime. Uh, we have Snapcaster Mage kind of buys back, you know, whichever one of these is useful.

And then we just have some, you know, little filler cards, one abrupt decay, a one damnation, one scapeshift, four bring to light.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:14:11] So the total land count here is something I wanted to ask you about. So in your first sketch, you proposed 30 lands. And I was suggested let’s cut some and play catch up. Instead.

Now this one being more in the Sultai colors feels maybe closer in spirits to one of these John dish style decks, low resource decks. So you’re proposing 27 lands again without cantrips. And if you want to find room for cantrips, like I did dirt with that Sizemore, which deck last week, you’re going to even fewer lands.

I think I played 23 and that, that was far too few, but I mean, I, I liked having the cantrips. I didn’t like flooding out great that I wasn’t playing Dryad of the Elysian Grove. But how do you like arrive at this number?

David Robertson: [00:14:55] I was trying to figure out what the lowest number of lands I felt comfortable were explore was always going to be good on two and where I could still reasonably hit my Quandrix apprentice.

You know, so, you know, I put in the old Frank Carson, uh, meter, um, and felt comfortable with my head percentage there. It’s also, you know, it’s also not all numbers, right? It’s a little bit of feel I want to make sure I’ve got enough appropriate hits for bringing to light. You know, I do think that the dread presence adds something as a car that just can start to accrue a ton of advantage.

And then how many discard spells to play? I want to play six. Yeah. I want to play four fatal push the first card I would cut out of this list. If I had to cut anything would be the second Snapcaster mage or the fourth Quandrix apprentice. Uh, if we wanted to play more cantrips that obviously both mixed Quandrix apprentice or Snapcaster made better, um, So it’s hard to figure out which one of those you’d caught.

So yeah, some of it is some of it is math and, and some of it is, is, uh, is feel,

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:16:00] I think the concern I would have with this one based in salt lake colors has to do with the  and what it does to your sequencing. Now you need to have, I think three, maybe four Rakdos so that you’ve got what three here to compliment the Dryad to actually let, let you win.

But just because of the color requirements on Quandrix apprentice being blue and green, and then your interaction being black makes it very hard to like, not have an early Valakut throw off your sequencing. And the reason that, you know, you would want to do that is just because you occasionally draw the Valakut.

You don’t really want the draw, but there it is. And you just have an opportunity to play it on turn one. And then you find out that it doesn’t actually contribute to all of the spells you want to cast on turn three.

David Robertson: [00:16:45] Yeah, that is true. I mean, it’s worth noting that this is basically you could build exactly the manna base you had in your last deck from last week with Valakut as like a colorless land.

So you could still play all the normal lands. You draw on your normal sequence from your 23 land deck from last week, one Urborg. So the reason you have Urborg and Dryad of the Elysian Grove is hopefully to turn Valakut into a useful color in the later game. But yes, in the early game, if you are forced to play Valakut as a functional colorless land in this deck, that is a pretty big cost, but because you have so many lands, hopefully Valakut would yeah. Be your third land or your fourth land or, or whatever.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:17:25] So thinking about other ways to turn potential lands in hand into something right? Ravens crime does it, we talked about, uh, Ayula’s influenced the bear or seismic loam and chairman. There was even like a seismic assault deck, just classic Jund seismic assault with Life from the Loam that 4-0’d a prelim this week is not a space we should consider as another possible home for Quandrix apprentice.

And if we did so well, we line Quandrix apprentice up head to head against light from the moon. What would we find?

David Robertson: [00:17:58] Well, I think in one, I think it’s worth thinking about, I do think that life from the loan and Quandrix apprentice, maybe shouldn’t even be in the same deck because life from the loan is functionally then a two man, a draw for lands and that.

Interacts with, I basically consider people we’ll start with about 16 life. So that means it’s a two turn clock with, um, when you’re, when you’re turning each of these lands into a, to T into a shock, basically. So I actually think you, you don’t have to like cut Quandrix apprentice. You can still play like three Life from the loam and all of a sudden, you’re just, you always have the lands there.

It’s almost like that rule of eight that Damon likes to point to a lot of times.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:18:39] Yeah, that’s true games where you don’t have the Quandrix apprentice or kind of a bummer. Cause it’s like, oh, I have all this stuff to take advantage of extra land plays. And I don’t have extra lands in my hand now Wrenn and Six is another way to get that.

And you were saying maybe Wrenn and Six is actually better than Quandrix apprentice. So you can play them side by side, like we’ve done in your first deck. But if we’re in different colors, you know, blue, green, blue, green, I don’t know why not play Quandrix apprentice and life from them together. I think there’s definitely some potential there.

David Robertson: [00:19:11] It’s also worth knowing that it kind of puts your point in a little bit of a bind. One of the things you do when your opponent is playing life from the Loam Wrenn and Six is you get to bring in all your graveyard hate and you know, rest in peace just makes Life from the Loam Texas card. It makes Wrenn a borderline Textless card, but your clinics apprentice like engine, whatever that would be, you know, plus your cancer, plus your explores or whatever that’s still happening.

So your opponent’s making their dive much worse and much less interactive. If you have no other creatures to kill. So post, they should probably take out the removal. Right? Your, you don’t have any other two twos or one ones? No, there’s no man elves. So you’re your two, two that doesn’t need the graveyard to still like help your deck function to still functions and engine.

Like, that’s really interesting to me as sort of like a juke.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:19:56] All right. So those are some directions to explore with the Quandrix apprentice. We have a couple more decks in the Strixhaven boots to shake out, uh, what else we got. Yeah.

David Robertson: [00:20:05] So you mentioned the car thrilling discovery. I think thrilling discovery was another card, much like Lumimancer that kind of slotted into an existing home and people could imagine how it did.

I think clever Lumimancer has actually been kind of a bust. I think the default way to build prowess is still blue, red, and of course people have great screenshots and spectacular turns, uh, where they, you know, do 19 with Lumimancer after they make it a six power creature with. Snake form and all this stuff, but God, um, thrilling discovery as not been a bust, I think it’s been really powerful in dredge.

Uh, dredge adopted immediately. Everyone has to play graveyard hate. Now it’s just, uh, something you have to be aware of. So I’m interested in trying thrilling discovery in a little bit different shells. One of the things we’ve been very interested in is these like hollow one decks, obviously, you know, Goblin Lore thrilling discovery, a burning inquiry.

These are all cards that fit there and a car that works well with all of them is conspiracy theorist. This is a car we talked to him about a little bit last week in a, in a deck that we’ll talk about later that did not put to good use at all. But I think you or I, or I can’t remember which one of us highlighted the interaction between conspiracy theorist burning inquiry and hollow one.

It’s such that if you have a conspiracy theorist in play, you resolve a burning inquiry. All you want is the ability to cast Hollow Ones, but sometimes the random shuffler is not kind. And you find yourself discarding your hall ones that you were gonna get to play for free. Conspiracy theory still lets you play it.

Uh, one for, uh, for every discard iteration. Sometimes you have a hollow one in your hand and it’d be like, oh man, I’m to have flashback my Ox of Agonas or I escape my Ox of Agonas. And unfortunately we’ll get to this hollow ones this loss of time. No, it gets you get to play it with you’re a conspiracy theorist.

So this is basically building, uh, the sort of legacy version of our, uh, old Halloween deck, but adding conspiracy theorist, uh, that has I think a very positive interaction with a bunch of the cheaper effects in the stack.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:22:05] This is the exact home that I was hoping for for conspiracy theorists. So I really hope that this shell performs.

I’m definitely going to try this out. But let’s talk about thrilling discovery, cause that is red, white, this the only card in this deck that requires you to splash into a second color. And it’s so close to cathartic reunion, is it really worth a splash?

David Robertson: [00:22:26] That’s part of what we’re going to find out. There are a few things to recommend at one, it gives you life back.

So the reason you often don’t splash is because maybe you want to play a blood moon. That’s a consideration we can make or not. Uh, but two, you want to preserve life total, but if you consider that there are the, this act does not need a lot of land so we can play the red, white, fast land. We already probably don’t want to ever get flooded with land.

So we were going to play, um, Sunbaked canyon. Um, and then you can play the fetch shock and maybe just play one sacred Foundry because there’s very minimal white requirements. I think the live game is actually pretty minimal and thrilling discovery, gaining to life. Each time means like to resolve thrilling discoveries probably gains you more, less than you lost.

So it’s a net game and then two, it discards not as a cost. So when your opponent remands it or whatever, it, you don’t have a discard. This isn’t a deck like dredge where the discard first somehow benefits you in some way. Um, you will quickly run out of cards if you, uh, constantly get your various, uh, rummage effects countered.

So I think those two are both like legitimate pluses to thrill thrilling discovery.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:23:37] Yeah. Being better against countermage makes a huge difference. On a life. Total thing, something to keep in mind is that the old hollow one decks when they were black or red, they usually had to play a lot more shock lands than you would normally expect because Burning inquiry is random draw and discard.

If you spin, you’re bringing inquiries. That’s one of your better cards and happened to discard your sacred Foundry. And you’ve only got one in the deck you’re screwed. So you’d see those decks playing like four blood crypts when they really only need one, maybe two black men for Gurmag angler, the occasional Bloodghast, somewhat similar to how like a crab vine, a whole yak self mil deck plays a lot more fetch lands or fetchable lands and shocks than you might think it needs just because you don’t want to lose them.

So I think you’d have to do at least something like that. I would probably play three sacred foundries, maybe two, if I was feeling really confidence and they have to fetch it right away, just to be sure that you don’t accidentally lose it. So like the costs add up and then that means that you’re playing a lot more fetches than you might otherwise need to, I guess, Ox of Agonas likes fetches.

David Robertson: [00:24:45] Yeah. That’s a good point though. Then I had not thought about that in terms of needing to have more flexible targets. Um, but yeah, again, to your point, maybe Ox of Agonas you. We already should be playing a bunch of fetch lines anyway, and the extra, hopefully we’re mitigating the extra life with the life gain from thrilling discovery.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:25:01] And you still like Flamewake Phoenix here.

David Robertson: [00:25:03] Well, I’m not a Flamewake Phoenix lover, but I know you actively dislike the card and have found it to be, you know, one of the weaker cards in these types of shells. Um, I kind of have a note here that maybe we should consider splashing Unearth, although you kind of spooked me with the, uh, possibility that maybe we’d have to put a bunch of, you know, maybe I’ll try them.

And then two black lands the idea of being able to cycle on earth with conspiracy theorist in play and then get to cast. It is interesting. I have four Seasoned Pyromancer is in the shell, so I think. Uh, on earth becomes a lot more powerful when you have that as a target, but I think you’re also making a good point about you’re really upping the variability of your deck with the extra color to splash.

It’s certainly not free.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:25:49] True. Okay. So those are three modern bills to consider between the Quandrix apprentice and the conspiracy theorist. Uh, do you have anything for the pioneer fans?

David Robertson: [00:26:01] I do. I have one brew that I really want to try out. I don’t know if it’s going to be good. It’s a little speculative, but you know, Prismari command is it was a card.

I think that was one of the first cards spoiled from Strixhaven. And I said, you know, this card just does not impress me. It’s a much worse Kolaghan’s command. And I think that has been true index are trying to play fair, but I think that’s just a misuse of the card. It has seen a lot of play when it’s doing something unfair.

And so one of the unfair things I want to do is combine it with notion thief. Um, and so I think we said this when the card was spoiled, even if notion deep is in play. And I target my opponent with the draw. Um, it functions as a, I draw to you discard two for three manner, and then I get another random effect stapled on.

So it’s either a three man, four for one, um, and, uh, treasure and to damage or, and, uh, destroy an artifact. So that interaction is very interesting to me. Additionally, the treasure is secretly very valuable in, um, pioneer, because it always turns on fatal push, which is, you know, not a given like it is in modern.

We’ve tried a bunch of different shells at various points that take advantage of notion thief, you know, with the days on doing, combining it with Narset, this deck is a little bit more mid rangy doing that. So it has our eight, uh, one minute interaction pieces, four Thoughtseize four Fatal push. To drown in the lock to Censor, to baleful mastery.

Again, another super sweet car with notion thief, a four Prismari command to Narset then to brazen borrower, to bonecrusher, a Kolaghan’s command of Day’s Undoing two Galazeth, which has been really impressed me and will take advantage hopefully of any extra treasures we get from our Prismari command.

Uh, Nicol Bolas, which is unplayable and pioneer, but is maybe fine if we’re going to be attacking an opponent’s hand and then a commit to memory, which has obvious synergies with notion, thief and Narset. And then one Dig Through Time. The first one is always very free.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:28:02] I’m excited to get this synergy off between notion thief and Prismari command slightly concerned about how much men is involved in all of that.

And if a happened until the notion thief in response, I’ll be a sad Panda butts. I mean, instant speeds. So you can set it up. You can clear the path with Thougthseize first Niss, parter pf  doesn’t interact quite as favorably with Prismari command, but it does still give you that. Instant speed. They discard two optionality if you have both.

So the, so set up, right. So would you consider playing like a full plate ahead of Narset?

David Robertson: [00:28:37] Um, I’m a little concerned about playing Narset when we don’t have that many creatures in the deck to block, you know, one of the things that was great about the sort of Narset list in Salta was we were already playing four of SylvanCaryatid.

So we had a built-in blocker at home that kind of kept it safe. They had to really over-commit to kill it. Uh, it is a little bit of a clunky card. It’s not very good against agro and yeah, it’s interaction with Prismari command and baleful mastery means we have to always cast them on our opponents turn, which gives them chance to draw away to kill Narset in response or, or to counter our spells, et cetera.

One of the nice things with notion thief, for instance, like your opponent, let’s say they resolve Niv-Mizzet and that’s, that is really like a fulcrum around which a lot of high level pointer games, uh, function. Typically the resolve to visit is almost the end of the game, unless you’ve got a combo. This deck, let’s say they take their turn five before you, and we don’t have a counterspell.

We can resolve notion thief on that EOT on tap, Prismari command them. And then a baleful mastery Niv-Mizzet and we’re actually up on cards and on board. And that is just something that no other deck can say. Like, it’s just an incredible, uh, interaction if you’re able to do that. And we’re not talking about magical, magical Christmas land opponents, tap out on turn five to result in them.

Is it all the time? And also having formatted unturned forecast notion thief is very,

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:29:56] of course Niv-Mizzet doesn’t draw. So they’ll still look at their cards,

David Robertson: [00:30:00] right. But I’m saying the Prismari command going four for one, and then baleful master killing admits and replacing itself. And, and it leaves notion to even play.

So they probably actually have to kill it again. Um, so you actually just end up in that exchange and, and that’s very rare.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:30:15] True, true. So I think that’ll be like the full test that we could just play that scenario over and over and see who wins. Like my suspicion is that the NIV deck is fine with that exchange.

They have a discard two cards and you draw three, but they kept their bring to light. So they just do it again. I don’t know. I’m not sure. We’ll have to see. I think it’s like, you know, you throw it on the gauntlet. She’s like, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to try and go over the top of you in this way.

I challenged you to see if you can impose your will on me with, with your strategy.

David Robertson: [00:30:48] Yeah. And, and, you know, I, I actually think I’m, I’m quite ahead in that scenario, if they bring the light for another Niv-Mizzet. Um, but I guess bring to light for Valki is the, uh, is maybe the place where the rubber hits the road.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:31:01] All right. So those are four decks for us to consider. As we round out our Strixhaven roofing season, pretty excited about these, you know, I know I’ve been kinda down on Galazeth Prismari a little bit iffy on Prismari command, but I’m coming around, I’m coming around and I’m excited to see what these cars can do for us.

Absolutely. So we’re going to take a short break. When we come back, we will tell you all about the performance of our brews that we proposed last week, including our latest five-oh. So stay with us.

David Robertson: [00:31:51] Welcome back. So as Dan intimated, that he was able to five-oh last week, we were looking at some is it cards and we called it a Prismari Potpourri. In both modern and pioneer. Uh, one of the cars we were interested on exploring was expressive iteration. It sort of found an immediate home in blue, red prowess.

We’ve seen a lot of success, but we want to see are there other places where I would look good or one of them was Grixis death shadow. And, uh, I mean, five-oh speaks for itself. So Dan, walk us through the list that you ended up playing and, uh, how the deck felt.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:32:29] Yeah. So Grixis, that’s shadow. I think probably the reason why this deck played so well is because it doesn’t deviate that much from the understood to be stock shadow.

This boomer Grixis Shadow, that means  and street wraiths. There’s no, Lurrus here. There’s no green splash for Tarmogoyfs Traverse the Ulvenwalk or anything like that. Yeah. It’s just your standard eight threats for Death’s Shadow for Grameen Gurmag, no scourge of the sky claims or anything like that for a Stubborn Denials, your black discard spells the headline by Thoughtseize with some inquisitions, uh, running support and fatal push.

So when I looked at the list that David had drawn up, it turns out that a few other people had this like similar idea let’s let’s test expressive iteration into shadow. And just over the weekend, uh, there was a high finishing list Ari Zax. So I just looked and it was like four cards off. And I think their list had more fatal pushes than you were as David.

And I was like, I kind of think fatal pushes probably a Carter’s of max out on given how well the saddle decks did this weekend. So yeah, I just started with their lists and took us into the queue and they were playing three expressive iterations, debated going up to four, having played the league. Now I think, I think I would consider going up to four.

The car performed very, very well. But three felt like a reasonable number to start with.

David Robertson: [00:33:51] Yeah. So how was the, uh, iteration itself? Obviously you went five-oh the, the deck had to feel pretty good, but the iteration, I mean, obviously what we were trying to do, help fill a graveyard for Gurmag angler help keep the card flow.

You know, we don’t get to play tutor effects in Grixis. So we’re just trying to make sure we’re finding our threats in a reasonably timely manner or our answers in the form of stubborn denial or hand disruption.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:34:15] Expressive iteration has taken the spot of Light up the stage in the, is it priceless for the most part, when you’re trying to make use of a sorcery speed draw effect like this, you, you do need to make sure that you’re not going to miss on the bonus card essentially.

So you look at your top three, one goes through your hand. One goes to the bottom of your deck. So you’re already getting some selection that way. And then the bonus card is you exile a card. You can play that card, this turn that lets you get to two for one. Can your deck make use of that card? Do you have enough things that are cheap that you can play?

Ideally for one, maybe two men are on the same turn. You cast expressive iteration. Obviously you can play lands. That’s a big difference. So if you hit a land, you’re, you’re good. This like has Mishra’s Bauble is it has discard spells. It has a cantrip in the form of thought scour. It has one man of creatures.

So it seemed like the Grixis Death’s Shadow meets the criteria, but it also has some awkward hits, right? If you look at your top three and it’s like, you know, street Wraith, land land, and you don’t need this rate rate service late in the game and you can’t cycle the street rate because their life total is too low, then it’s like a, that’s not a super exciting card.

And that sense Grixis shadow meets the criteria for an Iteration deck, but like just barely.

David Robertson: [00:35:28] Yeah. So I see you, uh, even have a screenshot here where you have an example of like the fail case, right. Where you basically cast a two minute Cantor up, which is way under the power level. Um, but that could not have happened too often, uh, because we were success.

So do you think that if you go up to four, you’re really risking, you know, having a, maybe too much of a density as effects you’re increasing the chances that you miss a little bit more often?

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:35:54] Yeah, that’s possible. I mean, maybe I should just try it and see what happens. So the places where the card really shines are that in many match-ups the Grixis that shadow deck pivots to a controlling role.

So this is another thing that’s your deck needs to be able to do to really take advantage of with effectively a two men card draw spell. There are a bunch of decks that just aren’t going to make good use of a two for one, because they just will lose the longer the game goes. The more likely things are going to slip out of control.

Grixis Death’s shadow has enough of the classic interactive spells between discard removal and Stubborn Denial that you’ll often get yourself into a long game. And one of the ways to attack a Shadow deck is to go over the top of them with a bunch of two for ones killing their threats. If you pass their first couple of threats, suddenly the Shadow deck might just flood out and lose.

So this is where in those match-ups I feel like the iteration is offering something that no other card was doing as well. I mean, the only other way to get that effect is to play it like an awkward Plains Walker or to try to. Play more Snapcaster as, and hope that those get the job done for you. But Snapcaster is don’t did you tour towards that shadows?

David Robertson: [00:37:00] Interesting. And how did you feel about this? Sort of like you say, boomer, so you’re playing the street wraith, the Gurmag angler package, instead of Lurrus the kids out there, you know, they’re listening to the rock and roll there, they’re reducing all the permanent costs and their data to, to, to get this Lurrus out of their sideboard.

Um, w how did you feel about the, that choice?

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:37:22] Yeah, I mean, Gurmag Angler is so good. It’s been so long since I cast it. That car never died, never died. You know, I talked about Velomachus Lorehold and the reason that tech works, just because people just don’t kill the car, they just can’t. It’s so hard to kill.

Gurmag Angler is like a one man. Velomachus Lorehold amazing. Right? The thing about Lurrus is I started tracking this cause I was also curious about the same question. You see Lurrus revealed all the time now, but how many games does Lurrus actually get retrieved from the companion zone and used it’s like less than 25% of, of games.

So maybe it’s like not worth it.

David Robertson: [00:38:02] Gurmag Angler is sort of like your, a Stormwing entity equivalent, basically costing one or two, man. I requires you to maybe do a little bit of setup, but the payoff is a card that other decks, you know, they bring in their fatal pushes and stuff to handle your shadows, but they, the, that removal does not line up well with your sort of secondary threat.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:38:21] Yeah. And Gurmag Angler is better than storming entity for this particular deck, because you need to have something that can block. This comes down as a five, five, and doesn’t matter how many Soul-Scar Mage or Swiftspear. Is there going to be spending several cars to get through the Gurmag And, and that’s just what you want.

Death Shadow’s is a deck that you’d pick if you’re expecting to face a lot of red decks, because that’s like one of the big strengths of Death’s shadow is that it uses their game plan, like in judo or jujitsu, you like take them their momentum and like turn it back against them. So you really want to make sure you’re solid against that and just having the most solid blockers possible.

You know, I think Gurmag is better than any other card you could play in that slot, including Tarmogoyf.

David Robertson: [00:39:05] Did you feel like expressive iteration, uh, was a good supporting player to thoughts, scour and keeping your graveyard full? So you’re always able to play Gurmag angler relatively early for relatively few mana.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:39:16] Yeah. I mean, I think expressive iteration. It’s not a turn to play. It’s not even a term three play. You play it like when everything else is done. So in that sense, like it wasn’t really competing with anything. It’s like my late game spell that being said, you know, even before Expressive Iteration was printed, the dust settle decks were pretty effective at filling their graveyard between fetches and baubles and felt scours.

So that was not a problem. But yeah, I was like, generally, it’s like very pleased with this. It’s a fun archetype to play and it’s nice to see, you know, a new card giving it a little fresh coat of paint and an excuse to take it back into the cues.

David Robertson: [00:39:54] And so it sounds like other than maybe experimenting with the fourth iteration, you were pretty happy with this configuration as it currently.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:39:59] Yeah, I was. You’re going to redo the sideboard. The sideboard is whatever, but you know, the main deck is good.

David Robertson: [00:40:05] All right. So that is a Semia salvage archetype. It was exciting that the list we’ve proposed was very close to what the sort of masters were proposing that tells us our head is in the right space, understanding the deck, understanding the format.

The second deck we want to talk about is the, uh, the rantings of a madman here. We were trying to figure out a way, why would you ever play Galazeth Prismari in modern when Urza exists or is it so good? They had to steal hundreds of dollars from modern players, banning a Mox, Opal. It gives you an actual body.

It taps it. The man, it can be used for anything, not just spells. So we kicked a lot of ideas back and forth, and we ended up on a, I would say a classic, uh, Daniel Schriever brew here. There is a lot of colors on this screen. There’s a lot of great, one-offs walk us through this, this deck archetype, you’re calling it gingerbread Galazeth BTL.

I mean, this deck does everything.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:40:59] Yeah. Um, believe it or not, this started off as the Jeskai stone blade list that you proposed on the cast last week, we were like, well, maybe this is not the right shell. No, are these Counterspells the right things to pair with it. And I didn’t feel like I had enough early plays to feel confident that I was going to get to my late game with Galazeth and Goldspan.

So then we were like redoing that, trying to figure out what makes Prismari command a good car. Cause I thought that was also important to have extra chargers. And from there, where do we go? Well, extra treasures, unable things like indomitable creativity. They enable things like shape Anew. Shape Anew targeting a treasure token is like, but it can’t be interrupted by fatal push.

It can’t be interrupted by lightning bolts. So you’re actually very, very likely to execute whatever the line is. And as I mentioned before, I think I was also interested in gingerbread cabin with a green base, uh, fetch land and a base as another way to make sure I always had something for shaping it. So that’s kind of like the core idea for like why I built a deck of this way.

Three gingerbread cabins three Galazeth Prismari, three Prismari commands and three tireless trackers as another way to get artifacts, uh, either to feel the new or to generate men on once Galazeth Prismari is in play. Um, what to actually do with the Shape Anew package and how many is a play. So this, this was another complicated question and David and I were going back and forth all afternoon and like trying to like figure out what other right payoffs is it placed to the clauses?

Is it Sphinx to the steel wind? Uh, I think at one point that you suggested inkwell Leviathan. Wurmcoil Engine. And I just didn’t know. And partly because I did not know, I wasn’t sure how often I wanted to draw the super new. So I realized I could take a page from the list you were talking about at the top of the cast, David, with bring to light and maybe just play for, bring to light instead.

So for bring to lights can find the tape. I knew when I’m ready for it. And they have a very small package of, to shape a new and one artifact payoff, which is plate steel Colossus in this case. So that’s kind of how I’m planning to win. If that makes sense. If you can picture this deck, that’s my, uh, my artifact engine, my tricksy bring to light thing and the rest of the deck is my early interaction to make it all work.

So now we’re talking about all right, I need to kill things I need to make land drops. So Wrenn and Six grow spiral, fatal push lightning bolts on abrupt a key. Once they’re playing a deck, that’s just trying to. Fetch for a forest, every chair, and you’re going to have a lot of shocks. You have a lot of triumphs, so you’re basically free to play as many colors as you want.

And the beautiful thing that really ties it all together for me is that Galazeth Prismari is also a color fixer in a way that Urza Lord high artificers simply cannot be.

David Robertson: [00:43:48] Yeah. And then at the end, we kind of had the master stroke that if you’re gonna play, bring the lights, obviously you’re going to have a Valki in there, but we were like, you know, it’s actually pretty feasible to just have a Singleton.

Niv-Mizzet not only are there a reasonable amount of hits with two Abrupt Decay, four Wrenn and Six for growth spiral for Bring to Light Galazeth and Prismari of course are also hits casting it for five was reasonable. You pointed out because Galazeth, uh, if you don’t want to sack the treasures, let, just let you tap them for it

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:44:18] or other way around if you don’t, you know, you can just second the treasure.

David Robertson: [00:44:23] Exactly. And, um, if you want to bring to light for it, that’s what Galazeth lets you do. It lets you tap the, the treasurers to, uh, they can even stick around in a postnup Izzet world.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:44:34] Yeah, to be honest, I didn’t appreciate this about Galazeth until I played this deck. Just the fact that the treasure token is a real treasure tokens.

So even if you’re looking at your hand, then it’s like, oh, it’s a tireless tracker and you know, some other creature, I’m not getting any benefit off of the fact that, you know, I can tap my treasure to task that incident of sorcery who cares, you know, just sack the treasurer, like a normal treasure gets your men.

I was getting out of blood moons that way. It’s just like a really nice effect to have access to as long as you’ve slowed the game down enough to actually cast Galazeth and not be dead. And I think this deck more or less succeeded, um, with that, I, I played one league. Uh, I think I went three and one. And then I think David, you tagged in and we finished three and two, right?

I think the last round didn’t go well,

David Robertson: [00:45:25] I, I, yeah, I played the fifth game against Esper control and I got absolutely housed. So, uh, tip of the cap to my opponent there, uh, already playing Kaya’s guile. So getting an Inkwell Leviathan employee was less than impressive to them seemingly.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:45:44] So my early impressions are that I actually really like the Galazeth gingerbreads.

I like all that stuff. I love it. Galazeth would bring to light that that felt really cool. I don’t know if the same, a new package is working. The payoffs just were not as threatening as I hope they will be like all the payoffs that we mentioned. Blightseel Colossus Mendeck we put a Sphinx in the sideboard.

We put a inkwell Leviathan in the sideboard. These cars don’t have haste, so you just play them and pass the turn and hope that eventually they win. This is a far cry from through the brief Emrakul that just ends the game. Uh, it’s even a far cry from Madcap experiment for platinum Emperion which prevents your life total from changing, I actually lost around because I Shape Anewed and God’s Sphinx to the steel wind, which has life link.

And I was like, oh, I’m playing this really aggressive burn deck. How can I leave as well? It just turns out the skullcracked my combat step and burn me out. And that was like a very, very disappointing to say the least. So there needs to be a better artifact. Like I better, no questions asked this artifacts puts me ahead for shape a new to like, be really exciting.

And it goes all the way back to, you know, my obsession with Bolas’s Citadel, because that card, what excited me so much about it was that it kind of has hazed. You know, if you keep that in play, somehow you could potentially win right away. And these other cards, including Blightsteel Colossus, don’t really do this.

David Robertson: [00:47:15] Yeah. And you and I scoured the, uh, sky fall list of possible cards to do that. And so they’re, you know, they’re fine cards. Um, you know, under most circumstances, Sphinx, uh, is, is quite good against red decks, et cetera. But man, there’s, there’s just no, like catch all. There’s no car that wins that turn you’re going to need done tat no matter what I actually think blight sale’s really poorly positioned right now.

Yeah. So maybe we just have to wait for the better finisher to really get paid off for the shape of new package

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:47:43] going forward. I, I might just set the safe, a new package aside, even though that was one of the impetuses for me to actually play this configuration. I don’t think that that actually needs it.

It played much more like a junk deck, much more like a Niv-Mizzet deck. So in that sense, the combo finish was kind of like the gimmick that could’ve just been solid cards instead. It could have just been more tireless trackers, and maybe I would have been better off. Similarly, the growth spiral was a card.

I was like, oh, I need to like hustle to get, you know, get my gingerbread shape. I knew lying down. I actually don’t think you do. I think that could also just be interaction. So there’s actually plenty of customization. Uh, this is just like the very earliest exploration of the shell.

David Robertson: [00:48:24] Yeah. Well, there’s about 70 moving parts. It’s a, there’s definitely a lot of iteration left here.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:48:31] Yeah. Uh, I mean, I, you can’t see you, but I’m like, I’m smiling. I had so much fun with this deck. It’s definitely going to be trying something similar to this. Again, Galazeth in modern. Uh, I’m a believer now I’m a convert, but so much for modern. Let’s hear more about Galazeth in the decks that you played.

David Robertson: [00:48:47] Yeah. So I was a Galazeth I think I was a little higher on it than Dan was. Um, and I wanted to play it. So I was advocating for a Galazeth week almost. And one of the things I was interested in playing it with was hilum Gar scorn. There is no Urza in pioneer, but even still, there aren’t as many ways.

There’s no shape of new either. Right? So what I really want to do is play this as, as a package. And I wanted to find a way to have artifacts in play, uh, when Galazeth resolved so that I could resolve it, pass a turn and have Silumgar’s scorn slash Censor up for that turn. And so, uh, the list I propose is a little different than the one I played.

Um, I had a couple of Magma Opus opuses in there along with the Torrential Gearhulk and I think you recommended cutting that package. And that, that is what I ended up doing. And I’m glad I did. And so I went up to three Mazemind Tome, which is a, another car that I know Dan has advocated for in the past.

And man, that was really nice. Uh, Mazemind Tome was just generically fine card. And in any control match up against him, Izzet against blue, black control, et cetera. Just it’s a four for one over the course of the game. They’re not going to kill you before you get all your cards on a bit. And then it also is just like crazy man advantage.

If you ever resolve a Galazeth, um, the rest of the shell is, is kind of what you’d expect. You have ops for bone crusher for Silumgar’s Scorn for Goldspan Dragon one Niv-Mizzet as our eighth dragon. I had one Alrund’s Epiphany, two Dig Through times a Singleton brazen borrower, a Singleton Prismari command is like another hidden artifact.

And then, uh, one Kiora two, I dunno, untap Mazemind Tome, which I did a surprising number of times. Um, Yeah, this lesson was really sweet. I went for one, I a beat up on blue, black control. I beat a, uh, a Sultai, uh, bring to light list. I be black, red, Arcanist, best I beat. And I Winota. I lost a match to mono green, uh, beats with aspect of Hydra.

They just not drew me twice on the play and it was pretty violent. Uh, I think the aspect of Hydra is, were like literally one green pasta and plus 10 or something crazy. Uh, did not draw my other Gus when it counted. And, um, that’s the end of that? I think that matchup is a little unfixable. I mean, I already have three gusts in the side.

I don’t think you can really justify playing a fourth, but yeah, this deck was sweet. Uh, I have a few screenshots here that just show how insane its opening is, where you Galazeth with the artifacts. You just like countered their spell and then you want to have with basically like seven manner. I actually think I would play another Alrund’s Epiphany because the natural curve is so perfect.

Um, if you play tome on two Galazeth on four, you have SIlumsgar’s Scorn up on their turn. Then if you play your fifth land, you have the five lands, plus the tome on the treasure. You just get to cast Alrund’s even if it’s not suspended from the game. And so, I mean, that’s just the end of that. So yeah, Galazeth I think is just better than glory.

Bring her right now in the current pioneer meta. So I think it’s just as a generic dragon is very powerful and only having to play a few tomes to really extract even the extra value out of it was something maybe I was already interested in doing, just because of how good it is and the control match-ups and yeah, the deck felt really nice.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:52:05] So for those listeners who have not played that much pioneer lately, or maybe they’re playing historic, and there’s a pretty similar meta games, what are some of the decks that you’re afraid of when you’re, you’re sleeping up this blue, red, mid range strategy and what are some of the decks or hoping to see.

Cause he played a bunch of this style over the past.

David Robertson: [00:52:25] I was excited to get to play a lot of what I considered to be like tier one ish pioneer builds. So mano green, black, red archivist, blue, black control, and a four color bring to light. Those are all like tier one list. You’d expect to play those in the four oh five old brackets of, uh, you know, One case if we ever had those again, Naya Winota is a garbage deck, but, uh, it was good to beat it, nonetheless, um, with a deck like this, I’m looking to play like Niv-Mizzet yeah.

Types of decks, where I’m just, I’m getting to counter their smells that matter, uh, that are a little clunky and, and get in there. Your, uh, any Yorion and type of build. That’s what, this is great against your tougher match-ups are the super aggro lists, uh, the better draws from model red, this like mano green deck with aspect of the hydraulic.

Not every mom in Greenland is built this way, but mano green. Uh, Planeswalkers also very powerful mainly because your removal just lines up very poorly with any of the resolve cards. So if mano green resolves a four or five minute, Planeswalker, that’s tough if, uh, they are resolving, uh, four toughness or five toughness, you know, that they were attacking me with the doorbells that were like six, six or seven, seven on turn four, you know, it’s really hard for the tech to deal with.

So, um, Yeah, it’s it, it doesn’t have like super bifurcated match-ups you can still like beat these accurate acts. I mean, you can always, you know, bone crushers often in actual two for one against them, but if they draw these big creatures and they get into play or the big powerful green Plains walkers get in play kind of ahead of you, it’s, it’s hard to catch up because you’re having to trade car for car.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:54:02] Yeah. That makes sense. I mean, just looking at the removal available in red, it’s like all damaged based. It’s pretty small and it’s pretty one for one with the exception of anger of the gods and it doesn’t hit plan’s Walker.

David Robertson: [00:54:15] Yeah. And even anchor the gods, you know, it’s good against red. It’s good against like, Winota, it was awesome there, but it’s not actually good against green there.

The creatures are playing on turn two off there, man at elf has, uh, uh, but that’s at least for larger. So, you know, anger, I almost don’t even bring it in. Again, some of these decks it’s only good against like the scavenging ooze, the, the green green, uh, to, to troll that comes in with a plus one plus one counter. It doesn’t kill that much out of theirs.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:54:41] Yeah, that that makes total sense. So if we can Dodge the agro matchups, that sounds like we have a very nice deck here that functions as intended defeating the, uh, the slower source re speed bring to light Yorion index. And that’s a great place to be in pioneer.

Absolutely. So our last deck to talk about is a little more speculative. It does have conspiracy theorist. If I’m not mistaken,

David Robertson: [00:55:06] it does. Uh, so this was a, what I call is it looting? Um, it’s built around the interaction. I want to try out plargg I guess, sort of looter, uh, five through seven. So we’ve got our four Jace, Vryn’s prodigy on adding into three park.

Uh, I even added two conspiracy theorists to sort of function as like real four and five. Um, and then the deck is for Censor, for neutralized, for bone crusher giant. And I took this to a league. I actually played a bunch of weird match-ups here. Uh, none of these are anything you’d expect to see. I don’t know if it’s just the time of day or whatever, but so, uh, the, the last league played a bunch of tier one decks, and this one played a bunch of strange off meta decks.

I played Chonky Red, which you don’t see anymore, which I lost to. I beat white, green collected company quite easily. I lost two a mono blue, like spirit tempo list. I B possibility storm. And then I lost two to a Marvel, but the energy Marvel combo deck. Oh wow. Which, which I hadn’t seen in a long time. So. I will say this deck felt really sweet when it worked.

Um, when it didn’t work, it was pretty clunky. The unfortunate conclusion I was forced to draw as a conspiracy theorist in this type of deck is really poor. It does not pay you off for discarding cause you just never have enough mana. You’re kind of making like early plays in our little tempo, negative, like turn to Jason.

It turned three real is fine, but you’re actually affecting the board. And then everything after that, because you have so many cars just needs to like start to catch you up. And conspiracy theories just doesn’t do that. It doesn’t block anything to generate carbon advantage. You have to actually pay extra mana and then to get its looting ability, you have to attack with it into probably an empty board and pay Amanda again.

So it just doesn’t do anything in this list. I’m much more excited for it in the modern show that we propose we’re hopefully can do things for free.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:57:02] Right? So here you’re looking to use it to accrue card advantage, maybe one card at a time, whereas the modern list. You’re looking to explode onto the battlefields with ones.

David Robertson: [00:57:14] Yeah. It’s a unique spot in that list too. I mean, the removal that’s good against hollow. One is not good against conspiracy theorist. Right? So the things that your opponent might try to board in, or aren’t well-suited, whereas here, everything is just a small creature. So even if they cared enough about conspiracy theorist to kill it, they, they just would,

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:57:33] apart from conspiracy theorists, you have all these looters for Jace, Vryn’s prodigy two, sorry, three Plargg Dean of chaos, and then some counterspells.

Some removal is a charms here. And of course the reels was that plan like effective. Was it working the way you thought it would?

David Robertson: [00:57:50] Yeah. Uh, the key is you need real in play and then you just start winning the game. So for real, it was a mistake. Damon had kind of said it jokingly, but he was right. Uh, replacing one of the conspiracy theorist with real.

You don’t need to see the truth. You don’t need a conspiracy theorist. I think you just want to put some cheaper interaction. Then I think I started another league. Replacing one of those with a Magma spray and the other one with a brazen borrower and then the, for real, and yeah, the, the deck kind of just like works like a dream.

I mean, I just crushed black, red Arcanist just right before we started recording. Uh, first of all, black or darkness, if they can’t kill reveal all their effects, like every CRO. Cause I was just, where are you? She’s it’s just miraculous. Um, but yeah, the key with, with always it gets something out of it, the turn it comes down.

So if you play your turn to looter and they don’t kill it and you play real. Jay’s is just a better than a draw card, uh, that turn. Um, and then, you know, like Censor turns into one blue draw to that card is never going to be printed in the history of magic. And so like all these cards in your deck just do incredible things like is it charm just starts to fly through deck at this incredible rate.

And once you do that, all you do is just play simple one for ones, because you’re a real becomes like a eight three. It can win the game by itself. All you need to do is just not die at that point. So the, the focus on playing, like, see the truth, conspiracy theorist reality is your value engine, and she’s going to provide everything you need.

You just need all the cards you accrue in your hand. You’ve seen a way to start to pulling them onto the battlefield, um, because you, you have the tools to win the game just to need to make sure you don’t die before you get into.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:59:23] So you’re a fine with paying three manna for neutralize at that point.

David Robertson: [00:59:27] Oh yeah. Well, the neutralizes only say in when the threats that they’re covering are more than three manner. So when I’m neutralizing new visit, Narset, uh, You know, whatever four or five minute plays bring to light, that’s where neutralizing and center stay in. And with Rielle in play neutralizes a two minute instant draw too, which again is unprintable in magic.

So it still has some use, even in the quote unquote fail case.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [00:59:59] Yeah. One man that droughts you is crazy one man to draw three, you’d have to give it bill or something to make it fair.

David Robertson: [01:00:06] Exactly. And then it would be legal and modern for up to three weeks.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [01:00:11] Yeah. So it sounds like we’re not quite ready to endorse this deck yet, but it seems like real delivered on her promise.

Try to get back to that real Five-O list from last year.

David Robertson: [01:00:24] Yeah. And I think, again, real is just something to revisit. Putting discard on cards is just a way for them to kind of balance them out. Right. It’s not quite a draw effect. And if they don’t have a, an effect, like make a food or make a clue, uh, as, as their mechanic of choice in that set, they, they often just put like, oh, instead of drawing two and a half cards, it’s like draw to discard one and all those cards over the course of time, we’re just going to add up to make reality even better.

So any card was cycling that they ever print is always going to just be somewhat playable real. It’s just a card to keep an eye on.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [01:00:58] Yeah, for sure. So any last thoughts on these Strixhaven brews from the week?

David Robertson: [01:01:05] I think after a week of us two, three, and every format with a bunch of different shells with such more, which, uh, we had very successful outings in multiple formats with a bunch of wildly different brews with all these Izzet cards.

So I think it is confirmed to be the best Guild or Prismari is confirmed to be the best school or whatever you want to say. And, uh, you just got to look at the scoreboard, I guess.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [01:01:28] I can’t believe I’m saying it. I mean, when I sleeved up that Galazeth deck and modern, I was like, this is going to be a complete flop.

But by that time I was actually playing. I was like, yeah, I’m winning. Like even the match I lost to a red deck. I was like, yeah, I almost won. I probably misplaced or something. It felt like I’m pretty good deck. And it was just nice to have these fun cards.

David Robertson: [01:01:48] Yeah. I mean, Galazeth, it’s sort of like Goldspan Dragon and they don’t look that good when you’re like looking at them.

You’re like, all these other cards have to be better, but the first time you double spell with it, you just. Like that is just like, the veil gets lifted from your eyes. You just like play Galazeth and cast your Magma spray. And you’re like, wow, like, I’m way ahead now. Like I almost can’t lose or you play your Galazeth and have a counter spell and a player Galazeth and your case and cast fatal push it’s just like, it’s just an effortless, double spell that also leaves a treasure in place.

So next turn, I always can cast my five minute spell and I could possibly catch a six minute spill. It’s just when it, when that happens, it’s something like hidden in there. It’s just like, oh, w once it plays out, you’re like, this was insane. Wasn’t it? I can’t lose now.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [01:02:32] Yeah. I think Dell is that to bring to light is something to explore in modern, even in pioneer.

I don’t know if the name of decks and pioneer are playing Galazeth, but they should look into that Galazeth printer light was sweet because it’s like, yeah, I played Galazeth. I play a woman as spell and I still have it. It’s crazy. All right. I don’t think we’ve heard the last of these cards, but we have heard the last of them for this week.

With that we will build you a Jew.

David Robertson: [01:02:55] Yeah, look out next one week, David will be back. He will be walking us through some of the sweet, modern horizons to spoilers that will be out everyone. Keep your fingers crossed that a, there are some sweet designs for us to start brewing around. And, uh, until then, Daniel, may you, uh, Always be holding your treasure close.

Daniel Schriever (cavedan): [01:03:16] Exactly. I keep my friends close and my treasurer closer. Yes. Take care. On episode 16 of Strixhaven seasons, two days next week for our testing results and download the latest sectors. Faceless brewing.com support for this podcast is provided by through his life. If you’d like what we do, be certain. Join our community at patreon.com/faithlessbrewing for discord access bonus content and more that’s all for today.

Stay safe and we’ll see you next time.