Strixhaven, Episode 7: This Week in Brewing (April 23, 2021)
Zach Ryl aka ManaCymbal makes his triumphant return to break down the first week of Strixhaven results in Modern and Pioneer. Among the top tier decks, Dredge got a new toy and Prowess got a new color, but there were also a few surprises in the 5-0s. The crew also lends a critical eye to two different listener takes on Galazeth Prismari in the Brew Review.
Where to find Zach:
Twitch: https://www.twitch.com/manacymbal
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/manacymbal
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqRdjisnv8bhjdsa27UU9qg
Podcast: https://serumvisions.podbean.com/
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Episode At a Glance
[1:51] Catching up with Zach Ryl
[8:35] The case for Magic lore
[18:30] Dredge w/ Thrilling Discovery
[20:57] Clever Lumimancer decks
[21:30] Fortifying Draught
[23:47] Keruga Fires
[25:50] Dimir Control w/ Magma Opus
[26:34] In praise of Shadows’ Verdict
[28:53] Stompy w/ Decisive Denial
[30:55] Naya Winota w/ Blade Historian
[36:28] Brew Review: Temur Turns (ft. Sai) by Been395
[47:30] Brew Review: Temur Galazeth Ultimatum by Camberleaf
[1:00:00] Ecological Appreciation redux
Full Episode Transcript
Automated transcripts are not 100% accurate. Please use this transcript only for cursory reference. If you need to quote any of our content, please contact us.
Damon Alexander: [00:00:00] You are listening to Faithless brewing a magic, the gathering podcast for the spike rogue. Each week we design new decks and modern and pioneer. We put our creations to the test and share our findings on the air. This week, we are joined by special guests to Zach ManaCymbal Ryl to discuss his out of Strixhaven magic storylines and more.
This is episode seven of Strixhaven season. Thanks for listening and enjoy the show.
David Robertson: [00:00:52] hello and welcome to the Faithless brewing podcast. I am David Robertson. Join you from a very relieved in Minneapolis. This is the day of the verdict in the George Floyd trial. Um, I’m joined as always by my guy on the left coast. He is Damon Alexander, Dan what’s going on?
Damon Alexander: [00:01:10] Hey, just got back from my backpacking trips, the Olympic coast, and I’m a little bit sunburned on my nose. It was a great time. Beautiful weather in Seattle recently. Very hard to hear the news out of Minnesota.
David Robertson: [00:01:21] Excellent. Yeah. Damon is looking very, uh, Hale and hearty for, uh, those of you listening. And unfortunately we are, uh, without the CEO or the Faithless room podcast, uh, this week, Dan Schrieber has, uh, taken his newly vaccinated status and allowed him to visit some family.
So a great reminder to everyone. This is why you should get vaccinated so you can spend time safely with your loved ones, but we have a special treat. We are joined by ManaCymbal. He is Zach Ryl. He is here as our first third time guest host, Zach, welcome to the Faithless brewing podcast.
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:01:51] Hey, how’s it going, Dave? Happy to be here. Uh, we’re going to find out if this is like the star Wars prequel trilogy, where this one is incredibly disappointing and lackluster and just awful. Or if it’s like the original trilogy and the third appearance is a really nice closer, or, or maybe it’s even going to be like the new star Wars trilogy with the third one was just, um, better left, perhaps forgotten.
David Robertson: [00:02:16] So you’re hoping to be an Ewok slash Jabba the Hutt, like figure,
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:02:21] let that three pronged. Fight where you had the light saber duel and the battle on the planet and the space battle. That was killer. That was so cool. I mean, and it’s, it has not aged poorly. You watch it like 40, what is it? 40 years later.
We’re we’re we’re going to be on 50 soon enough. I’m sure. And it’s still fantastic.
David Robertson: [00:02:39] Yeah. Those movies very famously saved in the editing room. George Lucas was married to an incredible editor and, uh, one of the reasons why he’s been less successful as his career has gone on is they had a very acrimonious divorce.
So if your wife has literally a major part of your creative success, you should probably do whatever you can to keep working with her. Even if maybe the marriage isn’t for the best,
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:03:01] do it for the fans.
David Robertson: [00:03:03] Absolutely. So we are going to pick Zach’s brain on the latest and greatest, uh, but first, just a quick reminder, we are releasing two episodes a week.
This week, we will be talking about Strixhaven cards that are showing up in the format, the state of modern pioneer. We have two sweet, uh, brew reviews from Patreon who have submitted these lists in our discord. And then our second episode, we are going to go over our results for Kasmina week, and then talk about our newest brew card.
We are very excited about magma Opus. So let’s give a shout out to our newest increase pledge Benjamin S thank you very much for the support. Just a quick reminder. If you would like to support us, you can go to patreon.com, backslash Faithless brewing. And, uh, one of the things you get as a patron is you get to submit, uh, deck for brew review.
We’ll be going over a couple of them, but first, just a quick intro for people who are not familiar. Zach Ryl is ManaCymbal Cymbal. Like the instrument. He streams@twitch.com backslash ManaCymbal. His Twitter handle is twitter.com backslash ManaCymbal, but his YouTube page is Zach rile, a Z, a C H R Y L. Um, and he co-hosts the very delightful Serum Visions Podcast.
You’ve heard us reference various lists and some concepts from them all the time. So Zach, welcome to the pod. And, uh, what are your impressions of Strixhaven?
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:04:36] Well, I, uh, I mean, first of all, it’s a, it’s a wonderful little set. Um, and I don’t normally need to say that because usually there’s some crazy shakeup cards or very hot takes going on all over the place.
Um, This, this just feels like a nice there’s little upgrades and cards that are worth tinkering with, but nothing that’s sort of blowing, blowing the hinges off of monitor. And we, we had some, uh, shatter before the set came out that this, uh, Lumimancer deck with the white red, or maybe even Jeskai prowess deck was going to be totally busted.
And, uh, just turned seems to be a new entry into modern as me maybe to compete with blue, red prowess. But time will tell, um,
David Robertson: [00:05:19] just real quickly you’re referencing Clever Lumimancer, Oh one, whenever you cast insert or sorcery or copied in citrus rush, we spell it gets plus two plus two until an return for,
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:05:28] right. Yeah. And, and it turns out that instead of putting this together with the, um, Nivmagus elemental, most people are just playing a Lurrus prowess, a white red deck, um, to reasonable success already. So that’s exciting too, to see that that’s out there and guests. Really hosed by Chalice of the void as I’ve already experienced from the other side of the table.
Damon Alexander: [00:05:50] Yeah. Whenever I see a streamer playing against that deck, they’re dead on turned three. They try to bowl the Lumimancer. They go mutagenic growth, mutagenic growth. Whenever I see a steamer playing with the deck, they’re stuck on two lands with a Swiftspear and play with her point 18 life with a Wrenn and Six to the ministers in the graveyard.
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:06:04] That’s that’s been the experience.
David Robertson: [00:06:06] Yeah. Passive toughness of one with Wrenn and Six around is no joke. I mean, that can really ruin your day. If you’re on the draw and you’re, you know, your keep your double threat hand, you have to Lumina Lumimancer and your opponent plays Wrenn and six. I mean, that’s just sucks.
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:06:24] Yeah, no haze, no nothing. So w we’ll see if that actually has the tenacity to stick around, but when you say, what am I excited about this set? I mean, I wanted to be excited about stuff. Um, this is an incident in sorcery themed set, so they claim, um, but I. It took me a long time to find that out. And even though we had seen a good chunk of cards, somehow, I don’t know, it just feels like this is like thoroughly in the standard power level and that’s fine.
That’s totally fine.
Damon Alexander: [00:06:53] You know, people who play standards say it’s not in the standard power level.
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:06:56] Yeah, well, they’re comparing it to things like Eldraine, right. Which has had cards banned in every format. So, I mean, I played Through Mirrodin Kamigawa. Uh, maybe we’re more in the Kamigawa part of that.
We’re in the cooler and that’s okay. We just have to, uh, you know, take the role-players where we do. And, um, I’m sure it’s a fabulous limited environment. I haven’t plumbed to that too much, but it looks very cool. And, uh, you know, the, the card we, you guys were looking into last week and I got a chance to play with today, um, was amazingly fun.
Um, so, you know, sometimes it’s not just about competitiveness or power, but sometimes there’s just cool stuff. And, um, maybe in the future, we’re going to find out that, that, um, some of these are building blocks for decks and archetypes to come.
Damon Alexander: [00:07:44] So which college would you say you’re affiliated with?
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:07:47] Oh man.
Uh, it, I mean, I’m a professional musician. I think it’s gotta be Prismari and, you know, uh, if we’re going to get into the content creation thing, I mean, the reason that I do any of the things that I do is because, uh, when I was growing up, all the, all the people I wanted to be like were, were entertainers.
And then, uh, um, some of the more charismatic scientists, I guess, um, I had some science idols, but, uh, people who are more able to, to talk about and teach through, you know, examples and entertainment and, uh, uh, all sorts of entertaining writers. So making content accessible and pleasant, uh, in addition to being educational or thrilling is, uh, right where I’m at.
So I’m all about that. Prismari just a mastery plus passion or any variation thereof.
David Robertson: [00:08:35] So it says here you want to take, we’re going to give you a chance to speak your piece on, uh, both Damon and my lack of lore knowledge.
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:08:43] Yeah. So, I mean, I throw
David Robertson: [00:08:46] that in there. No, no, no, no,
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:08:48] no. I’m just, I’m just come on Damon, come on.
The wonder people were speculating. It was going to be LCFF and we have known for a good long time. Now it’s not a wonder thoroughly unique. Yes. There was a terrible, terrible book. I mean, you should burn it if you own a copy of the war, the spark book. Um, but I mean, there was a book, there are online stories.
Uh, the Ixalan story was fabulous. I’ve heard good things about the, um, Strixhaven story. I haven’t touched it yet. That the magic lore is a wonderful, wonderful thing, guys, nothing to, uh, to, to poopoo on. If you don’t have time or interest, that’s fine, but it’s, it’s, it’s fabulous. And then Kasmina nobody knew who Kasmina was going to be.
Um, and, and of course now we know Elspeth was in the underworld in fact, and then escaped and everyone acted like we all knew that was going to happen, even though it was not actually true. So th th the, the magic lore is a wonderful, wonderful, uh, layer to the onion. I mean, I’ve been around this game for.
1516 years. And over time, I’ve, you know, some had Time, times had times where I haven’t been able to play as much. Um, and, uh, the magic is, is sometimes an interesting way to engage with the, uh, property, you know, the little bits of flavor texts. There’s sometimes they’re funny. Sometimes they lend themselves to these greater worlds.
And even though the rate, the writing is not always best. Um, it’s some good stuff, you know, they do good work.
Damon Alexander: [00:10:15] Have you ever read the book arena?
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:10:17] I haven’t. And that was before my time, but with the
medics set revised. Oh, yes.
Damon Alexander: [00:10:24] The book cold opens with like a dude waters into this wizard battle where it’s like fireball versus Drudge skeletons.
And it just gets better from there. Magic Lore just kind of peaked with that book for me. And then I read their brother’s war and I think I read one other book and I just read the arena book. Like every time I went home for a winter break, well, good.
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:10:46] The Mirrodin in story is like really, really violent in a bunch of places. It’s crazy. And the rabbinic, uh, story is a, has got like this kind of cool, like cop vibe in the first book. And then it’s like this weird, not particularly well-written political entry in the second book. Anyway, it’s all beautiful stuff. So, you know,
Damon Alexander: [00:11:07] unless you’re a fan of Chandra or Nissa which cases?
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:11:10] Oh, well, I mean, that was part of the dumpster fire. That was the war of the spark novel and, and, uh, and, uh, It’s a terrible book should be de canonized, blah, blah, blah.
David Robertson: [00:11:21] Wow. That’s very selective, very selectively. The lore is excellent.
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:11:26] It’s excellent concept. And, uh, you know, the, the, uh, the people who were enthusiastic about it, you know, let them let as much as we are, uh, interested in the mechanics and the execution of cards, questing beast is a lumbering monster, just spaghetti of text. And sometimes the books are the same.
David Robertson: [00:11:44] So, so you referenced your interests outside of magic. One thing people may not realize is that Zach ManaCymbal is responsible for some of these wonderful ad roles that we’ve run. Um, I think you’ve done three that we’ve shown, and one of them was for your pod. And two of them were really delightful ones for us.
It sounds like you’re like you keep working on soft. You’re always putting super sweet, uh, Simpsons memes in the discord. You have a lot of creative energy that is not being consumed by your podcast and your, uh, job, et cetera.
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:12:17] Yeah. Well, you know, when I was being a professional musician, um, that, that, that really, I was able to bring a lot of my creative energy to, to bear there at the moment.
That’s not really going. So, uh, that whole industry is not going as hot as it was before. So, uh, I’m just, you know, I just put my energy where I can and, you know, um, back when, uh, on, I think my second appearance, um, Brian Madden, who I’ve started the podcast with asked a question, it was like, How do you know that you want to do content creation or just make something?
Because like, you know, it feels like broadcasting to the world on Twitter that you had something for breakfast, you know, and you just have to know that, that you’re, you’re putting something out there. This isn’t just like, you know, our breakfast as, as magic content creators as deck brewers, it actually sometimes happens that you are the first person to come up with our deck idea, or you’re the first person to run it a third time through release or to iterate on it, you know?
Um, there’s, there’s plenty of, uh, work to be done. And some ideas really, they haven’t been fully realized that the community is not quite as huge when it comes to offbeat cards. Offbeat deck concepts are things that require a little extra effort. There’ve been times through all the magic’s history where, um, really competitive decks weren’t found until late in a season or, you know, until, uh, an extra card came out.
And inspired people to, um, experiment with things and the card that inspired them. Sometimes it doesn’t even end up in that deck. So if you want to go out and do something, go out and do something. And if nobody’s interested, just, uh, keep doing stuff and eventually you’ll find something. My MTG kitchen videos don’t have a lot of views still, and that’s fine.
It was not a good idea, but it got me going down the road where I, I get to hang out with you, find folks and contribute to all this wonderful stuff. Um, I just on a random whim, um, I found out that, uh, the. Wonderful steamed hams section of the Simpsons. Uh, I’m sure you know it, well, Dave is just 25 years old last week.
So I tweeted at Ross Merriam. We have a very loose, uh, sort of, uh, understanding of each other’s existence or him of me, and I know him existing well, and I said, Hey, do you want to read one of these roles? We can, we can do, uh, a MTG personalities, um, just re reading steamed hams. I saw Jeff Goldbloom video where he read, uh, I think it was Skinner’s part.
I’ve seen other celebrities asked to read different parts and I thought this would be funny. And he said, yeah, yeah, I’ll get it to you later this week. And so that should be coming out maybe this weekend, you know, just stuff like that. It’s a, it’s a good time. I did a tweet directly, not sub tweet. I tweeted directly at Faithless brewing, uh, just to make sure that if he did snub me, uh, that you guys would have the opportunity by the way. To, uh, to read for a part. And, uh, Dave, if you want, I’ll split a roll with you.
David Robertson: [00:15:10] No, I think I’ll let you guys do it. I mean, uh, so just so people know the steamed hams comes from the, um, was it 22 short films about Springfield? Yeah. Um, the, maybe the most famous one is the, the, uh, pulp fiction. Parody that ends it, but in one of them, um, principals Skinner has the superintendent Chalmers over he, the, he
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:15:36] burns his roast. Then he comes up with this crazy idea to replace it with crusty burgers and absolutely, I mean, it’s it’s, and it’s, it’s funny too, because, uh, in the, in the article I was reading, they sort of had a retrospective by the writers where they were saying, I don’t know, we just, we were literally pulling ideas out of a hat.
We pulled out these characters, this scene, whatever we wrote it, voice actors did it. We didn’t think much of it. And it’s become one of the, um, sort of most remixed. It’s just become a huge meme in the sort of internet era.
David Robertson: [00:16:07] So, uh, anyway, it lends itself very well to memes in the sense of you can. Put a lot of like the templating allows for you to put a bunch of sort of ridiculous modern day, you know, sort of, you expect me to believe you shot a, you know, an unarmed person at this time of year.
Like it just lends itself to all these sorts of ridiculous things that have been happening. So yeah, they could never have imagined the internet would be so stupid 25 years from then, but here we are.
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:16:36] Well, I mean, it just, again, it had this wonderful sort of post-modernist sense of humor already where Aurora Borealis, like that’s, that’s a, it’s a very current kind of joke turns out.
David Robertson: [00:16:50] And we do have a note here for anyone who is hosting a podcast themselves, if they want. Zach to make a mid-roll ad for you. He is open for business. I am absolutely. So we’ll be, we’ll be playing one on this. Uh, I, I don’t know which one will select he’ll surprise us, but, uh, it will be delightful, but yeah.
So if, if you want something, um, it sounds like you’re pretty open to anyone’s ideas that you’ll, you’ll make it work.
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:17:17] I will do my very best, you know, um, as Dan explained last time, I did not let the, um, lack of, um, exploitative pharmaceutical ads in Canada. Stop me last week from, uh, coming up with a pharmaceutical ad for zero envisions.
And, uh, the funny thing was I had to take, like most of my inspiration was from parodies and I had to go actually watch some real ones and see like, well, how far is this parody from reality? And it turns out sometimes really not far. In fact, sometimes it felt like they had to de exaggerate it for it, actually, to be funny, rather than, uh, kind of horrifying.
There was one where I swear it was 95% side effects and the horrible things that were going to happen to you have used this product.
Damon Alexander: [00:18:00] What happen to you? You could die.
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:18:05] Yeah, no statistics were provided there, but, um, speaking of statistics there, there’s probably been. Uh, a couple of these Strixhaven cards, even though I’m not super high on the set, it looks like there are a couple of cards making their way into different, um, modern decks.
Uh, so let’s, let’s, let’s, let’s take a look at that. Cause I I’m sick of talking about me. Let’s get to, uh, let’s get to the magic.
David Robertson: [00:18:30] Yeah. So I think one of the cards that immediately, you know, uh, people got excited about if they were into this archetype was thrilling discovery and dredge. Um, there are, you know, some known dredge aficionados.
They were already tweeting about this card. They were saying, you know, basically this is. A duplicative version of the best car that we want. And, you know, we saw a bunch of five old lists. I actually think right now, maybe dredge is bad because it’s so good. That place is so crowded. No one goes there anymore.
Kind of thing. Like, because dredge is so powerful with thrilling discovery, every deck is forced to pack, you know, have a plan for it, you know, have the graveyard, uh, handled it in their 75 somewhere. Um, yeah. So you don’t get those three wins against, you know, the blue, red majors like myself who just like, ah, maybe I can just not play them.
Damon Alexander: [00:19:19] Yeah. It was a quick reminder. Uh, for those of you haven’t memorized, the Strixhaven set like me Thrilling discovery is red, white sorcery. You gained to life. Then you made a scar two cards. If you do draw three cards. And so the strategy has got to cut probably the 50th best card out of Eldraine merchant of the veil.
Uh, and I think they looked like just did kind of a four for four swap.
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:19:37] Yeah, well, they had a whole bunch of garbage in addition to the, um, sort of cathartic reunion slash street corns that rotated in and out of, uh, how playable was, how much they were sort of enthusiastic about it. And this is just like a nice clean, um, replacement.
And the crazy thing about it is I’ve played with the deck now. Uh, I, I fired that one off last night and finally had an excuse to try some dredge. And it’s still managed to, uh, two, three, two with not a lot of resistance in some cases. Um, so people aren’t totally switched onto it, but, um, one of the things that you don’t.
No, until you really experience it is that density of having multiple of these cathartic reunion effects in your hand is unbelievable because you just get to do it like these big dredge turns like two or three turns in a row. I mean, the consistency’s crazy now. They don’t Mulligan anywhere near as often as it seemed like they did before.
Um, so at one, one of the modern challenges on the weekend just now, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it’s still doing quite well and the players who are very good with it, the, when they know how to sideboard, which is the sort of interesting dance for a deck like that, it’s still something to watch out for.
I mean, I don’t know why they’re playing one Leyline of the void and when one Leyline of sanctity and their sideboard, but they want a challenge. So I assume they do
David Robertson: [00:20:55] anything else catching your eye.
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:20:57] Um, well, out of, out of the other cards, um, we, we mentioned the Boros promise deck. Um, that’s got the Clever Lumimancer, um, blue moon with Prismari command made a bit of resurgence this weekend, but, um, I don’t know if we mentioned it on the recording yet, but, um, there was a pretty severe bug with Prismari command that may have helped them, uh, rise to the top there.
I’m not sure. Um, but that is going to be fixed in the patch tomorrow. So by the time people are listening to this episode, that’ll be a thing of the best. So it’ll be interesting to see if bloomin’ can keep that up. Uh, and then vanishing verse, the removal spell is showing up in a few different, um, piles, NIV and control decks, not to any particularly powerful finish.
And there’s a crazy fortifying draught deck that is sort of like the burning Shoal decks of your, um, sometimes playing in fact creatures sometimes not.
David Robertson: [00:21:52] So, yeah, just a quick point on that, because I literally look up the scarred myself. This is one green instant. You gained two life target creature gets plus X plus X until end your turn where X is the amount of life you gain the stern.
So it’s at minimum plus two plus two, uh, this is a deck that’s playing, you know, Griselbrand, uh, with allosaurus rider. So, you know, it’s that Summoner’s pact into, um, you know, Eldritch Evolution effect. But when you’re gaining all this life with your nourishing Shoal, when you eventually resolve your fortifying draught, it gives plus bajillion plus bajillion.
And so you actually just kill them with your Rite of consumption. And it’s important, Rite of consumption is black, your Mox ambers make black with Griselbrand in play. So it’s a nice little sidestep that you don’t have Simian spirit guide anymore. You need to find a way to win and you don’t get that easy transition into, you know, making blue, blue, uh, to, to just win because you don’t have any cards left.
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:22:48] Yeah. And there are sort of more aggressive decks floating around using nourishing Shoal plus aggressive creatures. Um, that kind of look like infect decks as far as I’ve seen them. Um, maybe they would be better served by actually playing in fact creatures. I don’t know yet, but, um, it’s certainly a meme you might get killed by probably once, but I think you’ll, you’ll end up winning the matches.
You’re playing anything. That’s good.
Damon Alexander: [00:23:13] So basically it’s kind of like a build your own blazing shoal, which was banned for awhile is still banned.
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:23:19] Still. The show is still there. Yeah, because inkmoth nexus is legal. So in come off nexus lives, but blazing social ties for it since. At Myojin of infinite rage, the manta cost is too damn high.
David Robertson: [00:23:31] I wonder if that is a car that could look at on banning, but it’s like, all it’s going to do is make that deck slightly feasible. So it’s just like another sort of Neo brand deck.
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:23:39] Do you want more Neobrand in modern. We got enough. We were dying on turn three as it is
David Robertson: [00:23:45] to just agro creature sometimes.
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:23:47] Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, it looks like the pioneer format as a suspected is getting a few more beneficiary cards from, from the set.
David Robertson: [00:23:58] Yeah. I saw a really cool list. This is a Keruga fires, uh, played by doom. Wake Keruga is the forgotten. Um, or one of the forgotten,
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:24:11] I haven’t forgotten,
David Robertson: [00:24:13] forgotten myself, but by others, uh, Keruga’s condition is.
All cards and your starting deck have to have converted manna costs, uh, three or greater, or be a land. Um, so just a reminder, converted manta cost is now what’s the nutrient value of value and Keruga the macroSage is three and then two blue-green hybrid manner for a five, four. And when enters a battlefield draw card for each other permit, you control with converted mana costs three or greater.
So this deck is taking advantage of that with fires of invention, and he was even playing to lorehold command. Um, as a card that I guess you’re, you’re not looking to play at instant speed nominally playing it, uh, for zero mana with your fires. And I think what it’s supposed to do is give all your creatures plus one plus, Oh, and he’s trying to get in there when you’re, you know, you have your cavalier of flame and everything else, you’re giving them all haste.
And then this is, uh, making a three-two to absorb those. Uh, boss, as well as I’m putting a plus ever giving them postmenopausal and indestructible until underturned also, it is a source of card or life gain if you’re playing an agritech. But yeah, it’s a very clever use of a way, you know, there’s, there’s multiple bonecrusher giants and brazen borrowers.
So it’s not like you have no plays on to you a few, but they’re not,
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:25:31] I mean, this, this was a standard deck, um, and it’s not super surprising to see it here. Also, Lorehold command does have a mode where you can sacrifice a permanent and draw two cards. So if you played that as your second spell, you could sacrifice your fires and maybe play one more spell off of that.
Um, so that’s a potentially kind of cool line. So yeah, I mean, it’s, I mean, this is one of those things that’s just crazy enough to work. Right. Um, but there it is. And then Dimir control with magma Opus and I believe you had a note, maybe we’ll, we’ll talk about this more later, but it’s barely splashing into red for the Opus, which is pretty crazy, but the, um, The hybrid blue, red mana on the Opus means you can just ditch it for a treasure in the early mid game, if you need to.
David Robertson: [00:26:14] Yeah. And that treasure can even help you cast, you know, the second Opus, if you were to draw it later.
Damon Alexander: [00:26:18] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And a quicker market. I think this deck is primarily casting the magma Opus off of Torrential Gearhulk, which doesn’t care about the red and the manna.
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:26:27] Right. Of course, which we will definitely talk more about later as, uh, I love me some torrential gear Hulk,
Damon Alexander: [00:26:34] but we were looking at this deck when did the card shadows very, just become like the best sweeper in magic.
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:26:40] Apparently a trophy leader, uh, PieGonti would like to marry that card if it was possible. So, uh, as far as I understand that maybe he’s just been keeping it off the streets and it’s just one of those great kept secrets.
Damon Alexander: [00:26:53] Yeah. You just see more and more of this card showing up. It used to be extinction event.
One was like the cool new sweeper that people would play in pioneer. And now it’s shadows verdicts just without a doubt.
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:27:02] Well, I, I did take your, um, best deck and pioneer, uh, out for a spin the other day, which is the BTL, uh, Narset deck, which was really, really fun. And extinction event did have the problem against auras where they do actually have a split of even an odd creature sometimes, and not having the ability to wipe them out was not quite good enough, but, um, Dave can speak more to how many Lurrus decks there are, but just being able to wipe out everything that’s three or less has to have more value sometimes then extinction event.
David Robertson: [00:27:31] Yeah. The XL clause is not trivial. Uh, I actually don’t like it myself, maybe just to kind of decks that I play. It’s actually hard to bring to light for, unless obviously you need the full five colors, but index like blue, black, I think basically just checks all the boxes. Right. They they’re probably way behind by the time they cast it.
And so they just needed to get everything that small. Um, it also is just a card that is a built in way. It leaves your Torrential Gearhulks behind. Um, but it clears everything else. So. Yeah, I love that. There’s, it’s not obvious, which is the best sweeper, right? Certain sweepers do things really well. Uh, certain other sweepers do different things better.
Obviously the three managed sweeper might be better, you know, there’s multiple crime coronaries and a lot of these sideboards, no extinction events in this 75. And at other times, maybe two or three in your extinction events, there’s 75 was right. So I love that. There’s no obvious, um, best sweeper, just playing blue, white to play Supreme verdict.
Isn’t really worth it. I think, um, because shadows verdict gets rid of Planeswalkers at three, you know, that’s pretty useful sweeping Narset and everything else. Narset, that’s a really hard permanent for a blue-black to deal with. Yeah.
Damon Alexander: [00:28:40] Yeah. The Mono black agritech I think has taken a real hit and it’s a pioneer equity as a result of this card alone.
David Robertson: [00:28:46] Yeah. And then it becomes a thing where like, maybe child’s work isn’t the best Weaver because there’s so little Mono black left and then, you know, around, around it goes,
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:28:53] yeah, the beautiful cyclical metagame. And here at the end, we have a, there’s a green stompy deck that, uh, has a sideboard decisive denial for the last couple of years, since there’ve been so many pushed green creatures coming out, things like steely champion is a five, four for three, and now old growth troll for four for three that’s, uh, has trampled and is kind of sticky.
Um, the, the archetype of like a green beater deck with some sideboard, stubborn denials, um, or other, uh, sort of disruptive counter magic has been a thing that’s popped up from time to time, especially in, um, standard or historic. And now pioneer and decisive is denial is a from Strixhaven green and a blue instant.
You choose one, either target creature, you control fights, target creature, you don’t control which all of your creatures are likely to be bigger or counter target, non creature spell unless it’s controller pays three, which is going to get rid of the wrath. So it’s kind of like the perfect split card for this specific archetype.
Damon Alexander: [00:29:50] Yeah. Lots of tech play actually eight counter spells in this out of the sideboard. Which has a ton of flexibility. Whenever you play against these dream decks, we’re always playing these techs to try and be like synergistic and build things that are better than some of their parts. And these are simply a three minute, five, four, and you’re like, man, like my car, except for the heroes blade is still, doesn’t really rumble that well into the score card.
And of course the answer they’re like old growth troll and then I just die. Um, it can, it could bring me a game to a shocking conclusion. Just how quickly five fours kill you.
David Robertson: [00:30:20] Yeah. And this tech is even all in on the agro because they’re playing for aspect of Hydra and that’s a card with steely champion and old growth troll.
I mean, you’re just getting plus four plus four plus five plus five for one mana. Yeah. They’re taking you right to the house and all these creatures have built in trample now or some kinds of Asians. So yeah, while you’re kind of duping around and trying to be your cool synergy piece, sometimes your parents it’s like, what if you were dead?
And none of that matters.
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:30:45] This is the, uh, pioneer equivalent of, uh, your Modern opponent going mountain goblin guide it’s was like, Oh, okay.
Damon Alexander: [00:30:55] Meanwhile, a naya Winota deck got a third place in a challenge featuring two blade historian, they still play three anchor, us marauders, or a hypothesis of blade historian might completely replace anger as marauders is not completely born out.
Um, but it partially partially true.
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:31:11] Someone proposed a split of some percentage. And I know when I was listening to the episode, I thought, well, w one in three would be sort of the way to do it. Cause then you never stack the double strike, but you have the sort of best possible hit of multiple marauders or Marauder plus double strikes.
So, I mean, it’s not totally shocking, but it’s good to see that the card popped up and then is more castable.
Damon Alexander: [00:31:33] So yeah. So the theory that Zach is mentioning is Blade Historian and is four Redway hybrid for a two, three that gives a tack and critters. You control a double strike and it’s a human, which means we know it can hit it.
But the problem is that even though the first historian doubles your damage output, the second one doesn’t compare to Angrath’s marauders where each one doubles doubles, doubles
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:31:52] until they release some kind of sweet rule where giving double strike twice gives you triple strike someday.
Damon Alexander: [00:31:58] Yeah. So the Angrath’s Marauders, I guess, get together and they, they get really, you know, uh, become, uh, what is the card boisterous crew,
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:32:08] a roving band of a roving band of pirates go Michael Bolton will serenade us about for years
Damon Alexander: [00:32:14] now, the two blade historians get, get together.
And one of them just kind of just takes him out couch.
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:32:20] You got a double strike? Well, they’ve got double, double strike. It doesn’t matter. All right. Take a seat.
David Robertson: [00:32:26] So yeah, lots of cool tech. I think people are still trying to find, you know, the right numbers, the right places to fit some of these cards. And, uh, we’ll, we’ll keep doing that too.
And, and, uh, Zach on his twitch.com backslash ManaCymbal, we’ll be streaming a lot of these cool lists. He likes to, uh, find the most promising, uh, or maybe just the sweetest of these Five-O lists and take them through a quick run. We have two very excellent lists for our brewer review and we are going to get to them after this break.
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:32:58] Faithless brew and lane. That means so much to all of its fans and patrons, but what does it really legacy of quality burdens by narrative, Minnesota and now with nationwide production from the Carolinas and East to Washington in the West brewmaster David Robertson and selects from over 18,000 unique magic cards, sub unknown, mintages some modern flavor of the months and combines them weekly and to bruise of a delicious character, spicy sweet, fresh, and strong.
These fledgling combinations are then vetted and quality controlled by head of competitive testing. Damon Alexander who’s always abreast of changes in their fields. And CEO, Daniel Schriever, who has never ceased to have a, the hands-on approach to testing and enjoying their product, the result bruise, and it uplifted and inspired a community of people who stand by Faithless brilliant professionals and even dip their toes into the Faithless, fold and have presented these brews to the world to great success.
Sounds good. You could join in by listening to Faithless brewing every week available on your podcast player. If you lack it, a small weekly contribution allows you to take part in the discord where you can participate in community, relate to with like-minded brewers and brew reviews, where your own brews can be Faithless the roasted by experts and special guests such as Jerry Thompson and Everett moved Faithless. Gruul. Some people say we have no stinks. We say no standard is good enough for us.
David Robertson: [00:35:04] so that was a sampling of some of the, uh, the creative juices of ManaCymbal. Uh, that was the first. Ad role he ever created for us, um, referencing Boone farms among many other old ad references. Did you drink a lot of Boone Farms when you were a young man? Maybe when alcohol was not actually technically legal?
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:35:25] I have to be totally honest. I still don’t know what boon farms is. I looked up a boon farms ad after, uh, Dan told me that you were like, Oh, it’s just like the boon farms at. And, uh, the only ones I got were with some crazy old lady popping up and like harassing a couple with a bottle of Boone farms. So I, I think I got a different era of ads than you, but, um, for me it was sort of, um, there’s just sort of a cultural knowledge from watching things like the Simpsons of these sort of old, old timey ads.
And they would always have that idea of you remember when times were different and , and, um, I, I tried
David Robertson: [00:36:02] to give it,
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:36:05] yeah. And I tried to give it a really. Uh, uh, sort of touching heartfelt feeling because that’s, there’s a, a level to that, which I get when I think about, uh, Faithless brewing and, and, uh, some of the things that I love, you know, and, uh, I thought, uh, the, the line, uh, brewmaster David Robertson just, just, just made me smile and I thought, well, I can spin this into a whole thing.
I’m sure. And so I did
David Robertson: [00:36:28] absolutely love it. All right. So as promised we have our brews here, so these are two takes on Galazeth. Prismari just a quick reminder. Galazeth Prismari is the elder dragon legend in the blue, red colors. The Prismari, uh, school, or is it if you’re a Ravnica fan to a blue and a red for a three-four flying dragon, when it comes into play, create a treasure token, and you may tap any artifact you have in play to make a man of any color.
But this man may only be used to cast incent or sorcery spells. So the first deck comes to us from bin three 95. This is a pioneer list trying to take advantage of Prismari. So it has four Gilded goose for Kinnan bonder, prodigy for Sai master Thopterist, three Galazeth Prismari. Then has a bunch of basically a sort of cycling artifacts, the instance, and sorceries, we’re looking to Cass our four paradoxical outcome, three Alrund’s epiphany been three 95 rights.
You use size, a fuel Prismari. So size has whenever you cast an artifact, you make a one, one artifact or a thought or correct to Cass Aldrin’s epiphany and hopefully win. Largely, probably too slow and dependent on hoping your opponent doesn’t interact. So notably this deck has no interaction itself, uh, but it is worth noting that Kinnan does work with, um, Galazeth tap trigger on artifacts, but again, that extra manner also has to be used, I believe, to, uh, only cast in center.
Sorceries. So what do you think of this deck? Damon?
Damon Alexander: [00:38:00] So there’s some really cool parts here. So the navigator’s compass is this wonky car that I made fun of and Dan was like, it’s really good. Um, it’s one amount of, for an artifact ETB, you gained three life and then it can convert a land that you control, uh, into the basic land of your choice.
Until an tourists. It was like this weird, stupid Arcum’s Astrolabe card. But the thing is that it’s a cheap artifact. It helps fix your colors. And with Galazeth, Prismari becomes this pseudo Mox Sapphire, uh, cost one man up. So not quite mock Sapphire, but still, um, it’s kind of doing all the things that the Zach wants to do.
Um, in that sense, although I guess it doesn’t really work with Kinnan. Uh, the major concern I have is that the Galazeth Prismari Sai interaction is really cool that your thoughts have for manna with the caveat that unlike Urza, Urza taps, the cards, they don’t have to worry about something. Sickness Galazeth gives them an activated ability.
And so you have to wait for them to, um, way to turn cycle for them to become tappable. And in a deck like this, I think that with no interaction, you just gotta be fast. And that, that single turns cycle, I think really can slow it down a lot.
David Robertson: [00:39:05] Yeah, it’s worth noting. You know, Galazeth is kind of like the fixed Urza, right?
You don’t get to just use the mana for whatever you can’t use it to pop clues. You can’t use a tack debate, Sai master with opera’s ability to draw cards. Um, you do have to wait for the, the artifact to not be sick if it’s a creature. So those are the things that sign makes. However, the other things, you know, the food from your goose, the treasure token you get from Galazeth itself, the whatever witching whale or Springleaf drum, those can all be tapped for mana.
So I think the hope is you’re resolving Galazeth and, and maybe going for it that turn casting your, um, origins epiphany. The other problem is Galazeth stability can not be used to foretell, um, either. So you can cast orange epiphany from the foretells zone for six men and using Galazeth. But I guess my concerns were splashing red just for Galazeth and it’s only allowing us to cast seven specific cards.
What do you think, Zach?
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:40:04] Yeah, I mean, I’m, Galazeth being a fixer as a, that, that it definitely is. Um, the idea here seems like it might certainly have some legs and this deck probably could grind better than I think we’re thinking, um, I’ve played some matches of pioneer games of pioneer that, that become more grindy than people know that it can be a lot of the time, although that was in a different era.
This deck definitely has the potential to do what it’s setting out to do, play a huge turn, get the Alrund’s Epiphany and then just sort of alpha strike your opponent down on the next turn. I don’t know what your success rate is going to be. And I don’t know how badly, uh, the, the decks in the beta game are going to take you apart.
Um, I would guess that on a medium draw, maybe you could get past Mono green devotion or that Mono green, um, sort of beaters deck that we were looking at a second ago. Um, but, but you’d have to run running it to, uh, to find out maybe the opters can buy you time against some of the creatures. Although, as we were saying, a lot of them have some form of evasion either.
They can’t be blocked by creatures with two or less power or, or they actually have trample. It’s worth it. It’s worth a look. And it’s pretty cool. It’s an excuse to cast a paradoxical outcome. But when you do cast the paradoxical, the outcome, I mean, you’ll have maybe some tokens and stuff that you can bounce, but only Mox Amber comes down and produces mana.
Then you can cast a Springleaf drum with it that will produce extra mana. Assuming you have a candidate in play. Yeah. I mean, it’s something to try and, uh, prophetic prism, um, will produce mana when you filter through it, uh, with a Canon, but it doesn’t give you a net man, a recasting it after a paradoxal outcome, you will get, you will go man, a neutral on it.
Damon Alexander: [00:41:53] But as a quick aside, one thing that took the legacy world by storm is that the car Jeweled Lotus was appearing in lists and people were like, why would you play jeweled, Lotus in legacy? You don’t have a commander to pay, uh, you know, use jewel Lotus for it, trended the card, Doubling cube doubles here, manna.
And so that man I’ll lose is when it gets doubled. The double part of it loses the restriction. They can only use a Castro commander. And now it’s just kind of like a black Lotus or half a black Lotus, I guess, or something like that. Galazeth, Prismari has a similar action with Kinnan, where if you tap an artifact with a Kinnan out, you’re going to get one man that can only be used for instance, the source raise, but one man that could use for whatever your heart desires, perhaps it’s just a replay, your prophetic prisms, post paradoxical outcome.
And that that’s neat. Um, I liked that interaction.
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:42:39] Uh, I, I’m not a hundred percent sure on that if only because Kinnan actually reads, whenever you tap an online permanent format, admin, one manner of any type that permanent producer night that may actually have the restriction attached to it. Whereas doubling cube, if yeah, doubling cube, I’m going to look up the text on it, but I believe it is slightly different.
Um, and Dave did mention earlier that this does not work, so I’m inclined to believe.
Damon Alexander: [00:43:06] The gatherer pitch for Kinnan says the types of manna are white, blue, black, red, green, and colorless. And so it doesn’t mention, uh, can only be used to cast instead of source. Cause that’s not a type of manna. So I think that this means it’s fine.
Yeah. Kinnan doesn’t care about any restrictions or writers than online permanent put on the manna. It produced additional mannequin. It produces won’t have any restrictions or writers. So I was wrong last week involving a Kiora, but I think I got this one, right?
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:43:30] Oh, there you go. So, um, so that, that, I mean, that has certainly some more potential and that kind of solves part of the issue in that while you’re tapping your permanence for manna.
Um, the first time when you play your paradoxical outcome, use the manner that is earmarked only for instance, in sorceries for that, uh, any leftover can be used for your future. Alrund’s epiphany that you hopefully draw. And the other half of the mana that you’re hopefully producing can be used to recast those cards and go maybe even up on mana, more so potentially removed a barrier for that deck.
And, uh, I’d love. I’d love to hear. How, how that is going for, uh, for being three 95.
Damon Alexander: [00:44:10] Yeah. Some, some things that I would recommend trying is actually swap the numbers, do three Sai for Galazeth Prismari just because I think the interaction there, um, Galazeth Prismari becomes your more important card of the two.
And likewise, I try to squeeze in some Mishra’s baubles, uh, with Galazeth Prismari up, they become just this Mox Sapphire. Oh, we’re in pioneer.
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:44:30] Yeah. Um, but you, but you can play, uh, Emry somewhere in this list, um, which is a legend for mocks Amber, although your legend count is probably close to. Okay. Um, but the ability to be able to replay things like hanger back Walker, um, which you could have made deck or, um, the serpent, um, the X cost, a stone quail serpent, uh, would be.
Maybe, maybe something that you need to do, especially if you’re finding, you’re getting beaten up in the early game.
David Robertson: [00:45:03] Yeah. Yeah. And one thing in general is try to imagine if you build your deck around like a crypto birthright effect, instead of Galazeth, would that have paid you off more or less? You know, so there’s times when Galazeth is a better car, obviously the format of comes with a better body, but Cryptolith Rite.
Does not require you to go in an extra color. And if you are, you know, just making a bunch of one-on-ones with Sai, it’s actually a, you know, a much better turn the next turn. If you have a Kinnan plus the Cryptolith Rite, you actually just make a ton of money. You can do whatever you like, including Cassie Martin facts, sacrificing the Sai, et cetera.
So, you know, that’s kind of the competing space. I think when we’re looking at these sort of manta doubling effects is, um, Galazeth. Versus I think Cryptolith Rite. They, they they’re kind of server serving different functions. Although obviously the car choices, uh, you’re selecting to put in around them are a little different, but they, they serve the same kind of function with Kennan where they’re creating that turbo Mono.
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:45:59] Um, I think navigator’s compass has got to go. I know it’s part of the man of fixing, but there’s, there’s gotta be something better that synergizes with this deck more that’s
David Robertson: [00:46:08] Dan compared it very favorably to a band card and modern.
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:46:12] So yeah, once upon a time, but it doesn’t do any of the things that card does in this archetype.
It doesn’t go up on mana with Kinnan and it doesn’t draw you a card. So, I mean,
Damon Alexander: [00:46:24] that was working with Galazeth Prismari and this Texas needs a lot of cheap artifacts with the paradise, with outcomes,
David Robertson: [00:46:30] maybe with no removal. It just, the lot three life is just hopefully buying you at that half term, I guess is the,
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:46:36] I guess, so I just, is there not a card that is exactly pre prophetic prism?
Um, Or maybe it’s not pioneer legal. I don’t remember. But there, there must be something that floating around that that can go in that spot. That is an artifact that is somewhat better. Although I know I’ve done the Skyfall search for pioneer legal artifacts and it is a thin unplayable.
David Robertson: [00:46:58] Yeah, exactly. You get to a tough spot in a quick hurry.
We, yeah, this is a super cool idea. Um, like you said, you can see what we’re, where we find this idea to be really fascinating. Uh, been three 95, you know, it’s just about tweaking the numbers and we can’t really do that until we’ve actually played with it. But I think there’s a lot of cool synergies here.
And I think there’s a ton of power. I think if you can resolve Galazeth and that term resolved paradoxical outcome, or Oren’s epiphany, you actually are in incredible shape. So it’s, it’s just, you know, manipulating the counts to, to get to that point. I do agree with Damon though, if you’re going to do this, you got to go all in on your dragons and don’t worry about Sai so much.
And I kind of tend to think size a little underpowered anyway. So. All right onto our second list. This is a teamer Galazeth ultimatum by Camberleaf. So we have four gilded goose for Kinnan Bonder prodigy. We had those in last list. We had a card I love from the new set Zimone Quandrix prodigy. We’ll.
Describe that in a second year four Galazeth Prismari three gold span dragon one dragon Lord at Tarka. Then we have three metallic rebuke to escape to the wild for Genesis ultimatum for mocks, Amber for Springleaf drum for prophetic prism, 19 lands. So I think the goal here is again, we’re going to resolve our Galazeth.
We’re going to use the ability from Kinnan. We are going to use the goose food and we’re going to use the mocks, Amber Springleaf trauma, et cetera. And we’re going to try to cast a very quick Genesis ultimatum. So what do you think about this list, Zach?
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:48:32] I really hate the card Genesis ultimatum. Um, just read it again for the first time since I saw it.
And, um, green, green, blue, blue, blue, red, red, looking at the top five cards of your library, put any number of permanent cards from among them onto the battlefield and the rest in your hand. So I guess at worst, you’re drawing some of these cards, but there are a number. Of non-permanent cards in this list that are just not going to be exciting.
The metallic rebukes the escape to the wilds and the extra Genesis ultimatums when they go in your hand and then the 19 lands, I guess they go into play, but this is not a card I’m at all excited to get up and put this much energy into casting. There’s four copies in here. So clearly this is a main focus.
Um, do you guys have a more favorable opinion of that? Cause me, I ain’t collected company even in deck full of three drops. So I, I just, I like getting, knowing a little bit better, what I’m going to get out of this
David Robertson: [00:49:31] same page. I don’t like my payoff to be a thing where I’m just like crossing my fingers and hoping the top of my deck is kind to me.
I think the deck that was very good that used this was that four color lists when Omnath and Uro were legal. The thing that was cool there is because you had an omnipath and, uh, loaders Cobra. All these extra land triggers did something for you. So you’d resolve your Genesis ultimatum and you’d often get, you know, three to four to seven, sometimes mana back, and you’d maybe recast and it’s this ultimatum or you’d cast escape to the wilds that also had a lot of more powerful permanent.
So if we’re resolving Genesis ultimatum and we hit five permanents, they could be gilded goose, Kinnan Bonner prodigy, you know, two lands. And as Zimone, we’ve hit three, we’ve hit all five permanents. Three of them are non lands and we have not materially improve our position on the board very much. So I CA I guess I share some of your concerns.
We’re having to spend so many cards to do our cool thing. We’re actually going to do our cool thing, and it’s not going to feel like we got seven men out worth, uh,
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:50:33] On the flip side, I love the car Dragonlord Atarka. So there’s only one of it in here, but, uh, that, that is something worth accelerating to, and in my, in my opinion, so I, I mean, and this is splitting, you know, there’s some metallic rebukes in here and there’s Goldsman dragons and Galazeth, Prismari, Zimone Kennan.
I mean, this is one of those ones where I think if there was a more worthwhile top end to get to something that, that paid you off in a different way, I’d be more excited about even something like Armageddon. And I know there isn’t a pioneer legal one. Oh, there kind of is, um, the, um, Fall of the Thran or something like that.
I’d be like, Oh, okay, you’re going to put a creature in and then just nuclear lands or something like that, like that. You know, is, is something, but this Genesis ultimatum, I’m not sure. And it, there’s no trick here to give all your creatures haste. There’s no Kolaghan. There’s no, you know, you’re just going to get all your stuff into play and then pass the turn.
I’m just not sure how that, well, that’s going to work out for you. If your opponent has a, um, uh, extinction event, that’s going to take out all your, your big odd cost creatures. And you’re going to be sitting around with a three-four dragon, then a bunch of humans.
Damon Alexander: [00:51:44] Yeah, I think the cards is Zimone is pretty weak in this list.
I agree that she’s a really cool, cool addition to magic. Um, but it’s the 19 land decks or activity ability. It doesn’t really even necessarily do that much. Uh, the main thing she does is she helps turn on Mox Amber, and I guess spring leaf drum. But I feel like you just need more out of your cards than that.
I agree with your concerns that. Because this deck is going for this kind of kin and artifact angle. You’re not playing cards like Lotus Cobra. Um, and also you no longer can play cards like Earl. And so the question is like, could you build a Lotus Cobra version of this? Um, but then why are you playing?
Galazeth Prismari if you’re focusing on lands are artifacts. So I wonder is like, maybe we should take this shell and make it, you know, the, the Jeskai ultimatum, but that one is good, but not great.
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:52:36] Yeah. I mean, I feel like Genesis ultimatum could be massaged into a place where it’s more exciting if you included things like, um, Uh, um, the, the Cola metalwork Colossus, just because it’s so freaking big, but then since you’re already on this artifact theme, you could get things in there, like the paradox engine or other non creature artifacts that are of a reasonable, um, casting cost to reduce it so that you could both honestly cast it or ultimatum into it and just.
Dial up the sort of Timmy factor of just like, well, sometimes we do something really, really spectacular. Like if you want to go big, I want to go big. If you want to play Genesis ultimatum, I want big, incredible things to put into play. Not a handful of legends that are gonna, you know, um, die to each other on a state-based action or, um, or, you know, hitting your one 77 or one eight, eight flying triple.
David Robertson: [00:53:34] Yeah. And it’s kind of strange. So we have Galazeth Prismari obviously a focus of the stack is only helping us cast six bells in this deck with the understanding that tapping an artifact to make a man up, uh, functions the same, basically, if it goes out as in play or not for Metallic rebuke. So it doesn’t make me telegraphy cheaper is what I’m suggesting.
So it’s only adding man into six different cards. And again, we’re, we’re bending, uh, the rest of our deck. We’re playing prophetic prism. Uh, and, and I think that that forced thing where you’re kind of locked into playing the goose and Kinnan and Galazeth together. And so if that’s your core, then you need to figure out what the other cards that go around it are.
And so, um, I think you see, uh, Camberleaf and Been395, both trying to figure that out. And you see us even kind of grappling with, you need to have enough artifacts. Maybe that Prismari helps you, but do you need that many? I mean, maybe just that stuff on the bottom and a couple of Prismari is enough and you can just play normal ramp cards and, you know, just a bunch of lands because Prismari also sort of like helps you cast growth spiral.
Right. Maybe she’d be playing a bunch of lands and like two Prismari, um, You don’t need to be all in on this like crazy term where you resolve Prismari and generate like 15 mana. Because a lot of times we know your partner is going to get to interact with you. And if you’re all in on a resolving, your formatted dragon, and it doesn’t resolve, you know, you’ve cast a lot of guilt of geese and, you know, Sai, Master Thopterist and Zimone Quandrix and your 19 land deck.
And like Damon says, if you’re not using Zimone to like put an extra land in play after the first new player, that’s pretty tough for a it’s a two man and one to Textless cars.
Damon Alexander: [00:55:09] Yeah, one card also that I think would help this deck out a lot. It’s not as flashy as these ultimatums, but it’s such a workhorse.
It’s Alrund’s Epiphany. Um, the more I play with that card, the more I’m so impressed with, with those two, one one’s to do for you. You’re like, wow, because these one ones I now have lethal that I wouldn’t otherwise happens all the time.
David Robertson: [00:55:26] Yeah. And orange epiphany also doesn’t require you to play like a ton of random permanents, right?
So it’s always going to do the thing Genesis ultimatum. Sometimes it’s not going to give you very much. Origins of pivot is always going to give you another turn and giving you another turn with a three-four dragon in play is much better. Uh, so in addition, so you’re automatically doing five damage, more or less in the air.
So I would look at that as my payoff. It’s also easier on your manna. Escape to the wilds, I think is a fine card. Um, and it does help you ramp up to your origins, epiphany, uh, et cetera. I don’t like metallic rebuke and a list like this where nothing else has flash either. Um, you’re gonna have a hard time leaving up a bunch of manna and I don’t think it’s good interaction against the kind of things that are going to be good against a static.
Damon Alexander: [00:56:07] Yeah. Yeah. So the more I think about Galazeth Prismari from our discussion, the more I think that this card is just made to go with Erin’s epiphany, that’s like your, your A-plus B it Prismari Alrund’s Epiphany what are the other 52 cards?
David Robertson: [00:56:20] And, you know, I think goldspan dragon just fits so nicely in there. It lets you put two treasures in play the next turn and those casts Hilgard scorn without you having to actually sacrifice them.
So that means on the next turn, those can both sacrifice for, to manna so that you’re effortlessly casting alarms epiphany. So I think that kind of shell is where I would go. You don’t have to be all in on your artifacts. You have a hidden artifact in your gold spanned dragon, which is just generically a good card.
Uh, and you have a hidden artifact in your Galazeth Prismari you’re not forced to play prophetic clothes. Plus Kinnan plus got Gilded goose. I just have been really frustrated by that kind of shell where you draw a bunch of Gilda, geese, but not your kinins or a bunch of cannons and no ramp. And you’re just like, man, I’m just getting rinsed by my opponent.
Who’s like Damon saying casting a five, four on turn two and just turning it sideways a few times.
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [00:57:08] It’s worth it. If that whole engine actually works well enough, a percentage of the time, but when it doesn’t, when you went into speculative, Oh, it’s so tough. Two cards that I think are great food for thought with a Galazeth Prismari in any deck, that’s going to produce this kind of manna or, um, fight with fire and expansion.
Explosion fight with fire for reference is two and a red deal, five damage to target creature only. Uh, I think it’s got a kicker that is six. Which enables you to deal 10 damage divided as you choose to anything. So in, um, standard once upon a time, this was, uh, so yeah, the kicker is six, five and red. So there’s a total cost of nine when you’re doing that.
So you have to do 10 damage divided as you choose. So in the early game, this is a reasonable removal spell. Even against those huge green creatures. There are very few of them that will survive this. And in the late game, 10 damaged divided as you choose, if you have a reasonable board board, reasonable board of creatures can really close that game, uh, in a hurry.
Um, expansion explosion is a split card from, uh, First of the newest Ravnica sets, the expansion side is a fork effect for anything that costs four or less. So an incident or a resource where you can copy it. If it costs more or less, that’s yours or theirs, and that’s a blue or red hybrid blue, red hybrid, and the explosion side is blue, blue, red, red, X, uh, DLX damage to a target and draw X cards.
So the explosion side is something you could pour a reasonable amount of manna into a, you can have X equals three X equals four. I mean, that is eight mana, but this deck is capable of doing that. And you draw a bunch of cards and maybe deal with problem permanent and bridge your way forward.
Additionally, the expansion side for two mana can copy a kicked fight with fire because the kicker cost is not added to the converted manta cost. So for 11 mana, you can get 20 damage divided as you choose. Sort of, I’m not going to go into the rules of why it’s a sort of, but, um, you, you can do 20 damage.
So that’s going to close out a lot of games in a hurry. So. I think I’ve played those cards in a deck that wasn’t playing ramp. I’ve played those cards in a deck that was playing wilderness reclamation. And, um, they’re quite flexible up to the curve and at the end of the game when you need them.
David Robertson: [00:59:24] So yeah. Super cool ideas. We are certainly going to do a Prismari dragon week. Uh, obviously it’s a little bit more interesting in pioneer because, uh, as Damon alluded to it’s no Arizona, you know, it’s, uh, what’s the meme of we have, or is at home and Prismari is the winner Prismari is the guy your girlfriend told you not to worry about or vice versa or is it is, um, but yeah, I think the, the numbers and counts, uh, are, are still to be solved.
And so, uh, super cool ideas from both Camberleaf and, uh, Been395. And it’s something that, you know, we’ll, we’ll be exploring in this podcast. So just a quick throwback to a previous week, we took a look at. A card and kind of, poo-pooed it a little bit, uh, Zach, you actually took one of these lists out into a league.
So we just wanted to quick check in with you on, on tell us about the card and your expense.
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [01:00:12] Yeah. So ecological appreciation is a ex, uh, two and a green. You search your library and graveyard for up to four creature cards with converted, man, it cost X or less. You reveal them to your opponent and much like gifts on given.
Uh, they choose two of those cards. They do not go into your graveyard. They go back into your library, shuffled and the other two go directly onto the battlefield. They do not pass go, and they do not collect $200. The idea was that in a probably 80 card list, you could construct a bunch of piles. Um, that would be beneficial in different ways and maybe have some kind of combo, um, creature combo master Davius minimus, um, did submit to you guys a list.
You were scratching your heads a bit at it. And, uh, I decided to just boot it up and take it into a league. Um, I have a passing, um, Association with Davius, he he’s, we’ve swapped some lists back and forth. And, uh, he’s a wonderful, wonderful, uh, brewer and streamer, as you guys mentioned. So got a great level head, great mind for all of these creature combo two, a box stacks, and you can check out the full recording of that.
And, uh, my, my motto more up-to-date thoughts on that, on my YouTube channel. Um, so it was surprisingly good. I three to the league with some very, very close losses and some very, very close wins. Um, as I was talking to him, it definitely needs some massaging and a bunch of different directions that the next version is going to have Arbor Elfs, because there were already utopia, sprawls, um, having more explosive manna.
It’s definitely something that the debt could use. And the ecological appreciation was as you guys, uh, guest a little lackluster, a lot of time, the X two pile basically draws you to cards and put some dorks into play. Uh, and the, the larger piles at any size larger than that is going to be difficult to get to there.
He literally hadn’t solved a pile for four. If you were casting X equals four, it was like, no, it’s up to you. Um, five gets the EEG and the pile before. Good luck
David Robertson: [01:02:18] concept that, you know, there’s something there. Um, it does sound like sort of what we were saying, ecological appreciation. It’s not a powerhouse and you’re doing a lot of work to build around it.
And it’s not necessarily winning games. You know, five men are for two Oh four walls is not even collected company power levels. So, um, a little bit of a red flag to me, even though it sounds like there’s been some success, uh, you know, Davius for one and sound like you were even having some stuff, some success.
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [01:02:47] Yeah. I mean, it was just a blast to do it. And it’s one of those things that I believe that even at its worst, uh, there will be benefits in experimenting with a lot of the cards that go into it. So if anyone is interested in that, uh, go check out the video TECO, Davius his upcoming streams. It’s just a blast and you’ll, you’ll get to play things like zealous conscripts, which I’d never registered before in modern.
And I stole someone’s, uh, Niv-Mizzet reborn and killed them with it. And it was wonderful. So, um, playing sweet decks has its own value.
David Robertson: [01:03:14] Excellent. Well that is going to do it for brewer review. Thank you very much to Been395 and Camberleaf for their ideas. If you are a patron and want to submit a brew review, please contact the CEO, Daniel Schriever on the discord.
If you’re someone who’s listening and wants to start kicking ideas around with us, go ahead and, uh, become a patron. And, uh, this is one of your perks. So we’re going to leave it there. Uh, like I said, we will. Say goodbye to Zach and thank you. He is going to join us on our Sunday pod as well. We’re going to go over our results with Kasmina as well as some new magma Opus brews.
But Zach, thank you very much for joining us.
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [01:03:52] Anytime you guys need me, just send up the Zach signal and I’ll be there.
David Robertson: [01:03:57] It looks like the bad signal, but it’s the fact that as a ponytail,
Zach Ryl (ManaCymbal): [01:04:02] as a pony tail, it’s the fat bat from a, from a dark Knight returns. I got the quarantine 15 to work off now that I’m not at the restaurant anymore.
David Robertson: [01:04:11] Don’t we all. All right, gentlemen, take care.
Damon Alexander: [01:04:15] See ya. That’s a wrap on episode seven of Strixhaven season tune in on Sunday for our brew session. Featuring magma Opus support for this podcast is provided by brewers like you. If you like what we do, be sure to join our community@patrion.com slash Faithless brewing for discord access bonus content and more that’s all for today. Stay safe and we’ll see you next time.
