CCO Pre-Show, Ep 479 - Commander Game Changers and What We'd Cut

On he didn't say one. Is it an industry thing? Yes? Ah, there we.

Go right, welcome to and listen to this the CEO pre show for episode four seventy nine and and the awesome bracket game. Holy shit, that didn't sound as awesome as I thought I was going to.

No, but we know how people are going to enter to win stuff today, which is finn Yes, yes we do.

Okay, So here's the thing brought to you by the wonderful patrons at patreon dot com slash CECO podcast whether they like it or not, and they do or they will. So here's what we have. You've heard of Commander bracket.

Everybody has heard of the bracket at this point.

I believe most like that's what we're talking about this week on the pre show today, on the regular show tomorrow. We've been asked about our extended thoughts. I've done some discussion with the members of the CCO nation and our discord.

I'm sure you've lurked in there.

We've watched some of our own content or like stuff and formulated some opinions.

I talked to the Dude bros yesterday. Oh yeah, what did they say while they're drinking beer. Oh good idea. They say most of the same things that I was saying or will be saying. Lots of threes, lots of threes out there, and I have the numbers to back it up written on this piece.

I have the numbers to back it up as well. And you know what I got to say.

Lots of ones is threes. And you will not be able to guess which one is my strongest deck according to the bracket. No, you'll never guess.

Oh man, okay, see it's it's It opens up so many different avenues for conversation. You'll never guess, like where one or a couple of my decks land based on having one card in them or whatever. Right, bellows a one bellows a one fellow.

And it's fucking not one. No.

So that's why we talk, and that's why we kind of make our way through everything and discuss like the the intent, right intent?

Very important?

Do I follow the law or do I follow.

The intent of the law? Very important? Oh, Maggie agrees with that one for sure, very much. So what a dog? What is it? Timmy stuck in the well? She's sad because producer Gary not here today, and Maggie is Gary's Girl.

Yes, producer Dragoon on the ones and twos. Yes, as another industry buzzword.

Yes, Panzer Dragoon. If you've played that game, yes, the rail Shooter, it's pretty good. Yes.

Okay, So speaking of game, here's the thing games. Okay, I've got in front of me. I just got to got to bring it up because it's not in front of me. I have in front of me the list of Game Changers. Okay, So we've got forty cards that are help you determine what level your games are at. Right, We're gonna get into it tomorrow, but you're watching a magic podcast on the internet, you probably already know what they are.

Yeah.

I want to ask you me each color or each color, what card would you take off of the list? And what card would you maybe have or put onto the list. That one's a little bit harder because it's a little bit on the spot. Yeah, okay, So I don't care though I'm putting you on the spot.

Are you prepared with answers as well? Or is this just me playing and everybody else? Also, if you put your answers in the comments below, you could win yourself a Ceco sticker. Pack, a Ceco token back or a lame masshold pack of magic the gathering cards. Did you see.

Somebody I did and call themselves a trollock? You you even started and flagged it in the email. You're like, well's got this? This is awesome? Yes, yeah, last week's booster has gone out. And when I say booster pack, I.

Mean yeah, they asked for a booster packs. It's so, here's the thing.

I've got the list White Grandith, Magistrate, Enlightened Tutor, Sarah's Sanctum, Smothering Titties or trouble in pairs?

Which card do you take off mothering tithe s mothering ties, smothering tithe and.

Reason sir in I don't know twenty seconds.

Or twenty seconds or less. I think that it's ubiquitous enough, and it's we've all seen smothering Tithe played and how many games has it actually absolutely taken over and blown out in a way. It's like, man, I wish they just banned that card unless somebody else is drawing a degenerate number of cards like it's it's fine, it's because it's white.

And you know what the thing about smothering tie, This is the kind of card that gets better as your opponent's decks get better because the manna that they're using is tighter, and probably they're drawing more cards than what is normal, Like smothering Tithe versus the one ring better than smothering Tithe versus turn six h six drop go yes, right, yeah, so smothering Tithe.

Okay, you know what.

I I have trouble with the redundancies within the bracket explanations and having tutors in the in the game changers list, So I would want to say enlightened tutor, but I'm gonna say Sarah's sank.

Because nobody has that. A.

Nobody has it. B if you're playing in sanctioned tournaments like like it face to face opens where they have like the ceed h five k's, yeah, those are sanctioned magic events, no proxies. Yeah, everybody's got like four hundred and five hundred dollars magic cards kicking around. Also, it's only good if you chock your deck full of like one and two drop enchantments like Utopia, sprawl and and wild growth and stuff, and and that's a very specific

What would you add in white test protection? Oo. I feel like looking at this list and listening to the explanation of why things are on this list from a couple other people, there's a lot of I'm not gonna use the word butt hurt, but I do want to say the word but hurt out loud. There's a lot of feel bad inclusions on here, and I think that Tefts Protection falls under that umbrella where it just takes a win and turns it into a probably a loss because somebody's like, yeah, I'm gonna win, damn.

It, I'm gonna win, but except for one guy, and then I'm probably gonna lose because all my marbles are gonna be in one basket over in Timbuctoo and this guy coming straight down Broadway right at my nuts.

Yeah, yeah, now I'm dead. So yeah, I think in the spirit of the list, I feel TEFT Protection does belong on here. Originally I thought Armageddon, but I feel like that's a good one. They've talked about the land denial stuff and we'll talk about that more tomorrow. Goes back to the redundancy, So I just well, I'm not gonna waste my you put on.

You know what, I like Teft's Protection. I don't think it needs to be on the list. If it were on the list, I would cite a different reason. I would cite the not the feel bad reason like you do, but the reason that it gets It doesn't feel like it's a card that gets better the higher kind of competition you play it at.

Right, the card is good when.

You're playing core and upgraded, like the lower tier or the lower brackets, when mostly you're gonna win the game with combat damage. You're you're you're Teft's protecting when you're gonna get attacked, and it's powerful there, and it's also powerful when somebody's comboing on a single turn in ceed eight. So it's like powerful everywhere. Yeah yeah, okay, So onto

This is so easy, and it's ginga taxes. And I'm going to tell you with somebody that plays Ginga taxes in a deck. I have never, not one time, not a single time ever ever seen somebody discard their entire hand to a Ginga taxis. And I have never drawn seven cards at the end of my turn. And it's a four to three for fucking ten, it does cost ten. It costs ten in it does cost ten. It's a five to four. But it's whatever. It's a minuscule sized

Very specifically, it can give you chained extra turns, and then then it introduce is like a redundancy again in the game changer's list and the bracket kind of rules system. So it's already redundant. It costs eight. No sorry, it costs nine even more, and it is when you're at nine. Maybe you're at the point in the game if you're playing like upgraded or three or four level where it's like, hey, we should kind of expect spells of this kind of altitude to do this powerful of a thing.

So which one would you add in blue? Hm? Kind of tough the Sphinx. If I have to add one, I would put constipated Sphinx because it provides, like if you're gonna put ristic study on here, which I think probably shouldn't be on here beyond the fact that it's expensive and annoying, I would put constipated Sphinx on because it probably gives you as much, if not more, card advantage plus a giant flying body. Yeah blocks really good. Yeah, so they I don't think that should actually be on here.

A knife to my head, I don't think that's the saying. But I know what you mean.

The intent.

The intent, Ah, that's a good one in my mind. I would maybe say like force of negation because it's like fierce guardianship and force of will. Yeah, but I mean that only is free when it's not your turn.

Maybe I mean an I don't know. I feel like that is irrelevant. How good that card is.

Yeah, it's a defensive card instead of like it can't really be used. It can be, but you have to have the mana. It can't be used as an offensive counterspell. When I'm trying to win on my turn, I need the manna to play it. Yeah right, so maybe maybe it's not quite as good. I've probably won more games and not lost as many games when I cast Packed of Negation. Yes, that's a good one too, because that literally has a freaking zero on it, right, or or

Like, yeah, let's move on to black.

Yes, Ollis Is said Itel Detoots, Imperial Seal, Opposition Agent, tur Grid, Vampiric Tutor, and ad nauseum.

This is another super easy one, and you take Turgot off. When was the last time you saw somebody play a Turgrit onto the the table and have the game just warp all the way around her? What that time you even heard of somebody putting a Turgrit in their ninety nine? Besides me, have you ever seen a Turgrid deck ever? And I only built it because everybody said I shouldn't.

Yeah, and you also don't have it anymore. Yeah, I took it apart because everybody hated playing against it. Yeah, it kind of socially, it worked itself out, worked itself out, like if it wasn't a game changer, it would work itself out in the bracket kind of first part of this new ruling system, where you're playing Turgrid, you're sacrificing, you're making people sack creatures or lands or discard cards, and then.

You freaking get them.

Yeah, you're doing all of the things that the bracket system tells you not to, unless you're playing at levels four or five, in which case she's fine, she's fine, or she just gets all the way blown out because people actually run removal in those brackets.

Yeah right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, Turgrid is a good one. And to answer your other question, when have I seen Turgern in A ninety nine since what twenty what twenty nineteen when that card came out?

Yeah?

Maybe once, maybe, and maybe it was actually just your Turgrid that she was in the.

Command zone has already put it back into my hand and I played it from there, and I'm gonna put it one step further for anybody who's like, man, Turget is so game warpingcase, when was the last time you saw somebody go just And I gets so demoralized when a target hits the table as opposed to a talks rill. Talks rill is a game warping card, and HiT's not

Conclusion, there's no denying that Turgrid, like talk shrill, is a game warping card. If I sit down and say I want to play my third deck because that's my deck that's maybe closest to like A one, right, it's probably my least powerful deck. And you say, well, my Turgrad deck is h doesn't have any game changers. It's maybe A two or three because it is powerful, right.

That would blow me out of the water.

Yeah, maybe I don't want that. So, like I can get why Turgerid's on the list, Sure should I I don't know the thing about a game changer being a legendary creature, though, is like that counts as one of your things and that that means that your tur grid deck can't be a one or two a one or two. Yeah, and I'm not sure. I'm not quite sure how I feel about that yet. Yeah, I'm not sure how I feel about that.

I'm percolating on that one as well. If I could add a card to black, it would be a Torrent of Haillfire all day, every day, because that is one of those And I remember hearing a couple of other people have said that cards that just go from nothing to I win. And there are very few cards that exemplify that more than Torrent of hell Fire for ten, Like, you're probably gonna win that game.

Yeah, Tormented Hailfire for ten when everybody's at like, well thirty, Yeah, thirty means my opponent's boards have nothing on them or they're dead or well, if they're at thirty, they're not dead because they'll just sacrifice all their shit. Yeah, and then that's not fun for them. That a lot of these things, and I'm gonna probably use this phrase over the next day or so quite a bit, is they remove agency from your opponent. They don't allow your opponent to play.

That's kind of saying the same.

Thing they eliminate choices, they eliminate contributions, tormenttal health fire can do that.

Yeah. The only caveator, and the.

Reason I think it's not on the list is because you need well sixty five man, yeah, exactly twelve man in your case. Yeah, which you're not just making twelve man. You actively have to try to do that right now. You could be playing Mono black. You could have some maybe other game changers that we're going to see, but let's move on. This is an easy one.

Red.

We got Jessica's will and underwear breach. Which one are you taking off?

Jessica's will? I play it the most because I think under underwear breach is certain. Yeah, you know what, this is harder than I think it is. When I was building my rev deck, this is what I thought in my head because I wanted my rev deck to scale really well. And when I thought in this hang with like the big swing in CDH Dick And the reason that I thought maybe is because of underworld breach, I could use their underworld breach to breach Combo myself. Right,

I was just That's what I was gonna say, is when you look at the floor and ceiling of every card on this list, which again I'm sure the people who made this list did, at least I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt of doing because there are lots of people who are.

Smart and Caribout magic.

Sure, okay, not just us, we at least Caribout magic. So Jessica's will, I think the floor and the ceiling is actually quite a bit narrower than the floor and the ceiling for Underworld Breach. The thing about Underworld Breach is nobody's building it.

For the floor. No, No, everybody's.

Building it saying I'm gonna make the floor equal to the ceiling, and then the ceiling is going to be shooting a fucking rocketed outer space, right like Underworld Breaches is a game changing card.

Yes, and Jessica's Will could be, but it requires other things to happen. If your deck isn't built to be flow you out, not strong, Jessica's will isn't gonna.

Get you there, And the same is true art about Underworld Breach. If it's not to blow you out with Underworld Breach, Underworld Breach doesn't do anything. So you know what, We're gonna leave both those cards on that line.

If I had to have at a red one, and this is controversial because I do play this in every one of my mono red decks, I'd put blood Moon on it. Blurred Moon. It goes back to manad denial, and I feel like that's a little bit different because I think that people are going to hold things like Armageddon,

Yes, yeah, and you know what the other thing, too is And it says it right in Gavin's article, and everybody's talking about, oh yeah, you could probably go up or down like a level and you could say, oh my, my level two deck has one game changer in it.

Fucking blood Moon. Nube. I guess you don't play magic.

Yes, yes, you could do that, Yes, yes you could do that. You shouldn't, so blood Moon could be on this list. Sure, yeah, Green we got another short one Survival of the Fittest vorny Clx Voice of Hunger that was, and then Guya's Cradle.

That's a good card. I'd play all of those cards.

I yeah, you know what, if I were going to remove a card, I would remove born CLEAs because it's not a repeatable tutor, and it doesn't give you overwhelming card advantage or like man advantage on turnfucking one. Yeah, and I'm going to cite your reason for Jinga Taxis coming off of blue is this is an eight drop and very very very rarely have I ever and usually this out works, especially in casual magic.

Who's going to kill that?

Warn Clex, anybody who kills it, We're going to leave alone because your mana stay's tapped.

For a turn. Yep, We'll give you a turn away from us doing anything bad to you, and you make the deal amongst your fears. Maybe they get it for one turn and then it's dead and it's gone. Yeah, yeah, you know what I would put on instead? What would

Yeah, you know what, Crater hoofin in a Green deck feels an awful lot, like, oh, he's got eight guys? Does he have eight mana? It's like, oh he's untapping with seven man o guys too blue because you got riffed. And guess what's on the list ye contic rift wreck right, So again you you gotta do some work. You've got to have guys.

Right, So you're playing if you're playing Green and you ain't got guys, I don't know if you're actually playing Green. I have tried that.

Now you can't play blood no uh Winter orb no more though, and they got okay, multicolor.

This is the weirdest section. These are all Banda's commander essentially. Right, We're like, these commanders are this level now, period.

And we're we've reached the point where we reached the top this list and we're gonna talk about it tomorrow. I love this list for this reason. We can put commanders on here. Okay, the opposite of what I said for Turgrid. We can put commanders on this list and it relegates them, by the nature of the rules of this system.

To not casual tables anymore. Yeah, and I think I like that. Also.

I don't like playing against Innan Bonder, Prodigy, Rico, Tiger's Shadow, Winona, and Joiner of Forces Grand Armitder Augustine the Fourth.

We can advise Eric. Yeah, yeah, there we go.

I don't like playing or Urza or Turgered. I don't like playing against any of those guys, and now they're relegated to level three, four or five.

There you go. That's I would leave all these guys on here, and like I talked we talked about earlier, I would add talks rel this. You would add talks and I play talks Real. I have a talks Real deck, and I would put him on here just to make sure that, Hey, everybody, my Talks Real deck, isn't it two, because I think it might be Hang on just a second, gonna look you talk while I find.

Well, I was gonna move on to colorless because I don't know who I would add as far as multicolor is concerned.

My Talks Real is a two talks. Anybody who's ever played against my talks real like, it's not a fucking two.

I I I'm sure that there's multicolor like multicolor commanders that.

I also don't like playing against.

I'm not sure if okay, Edric Spy Master of Trust, because there's not one single Edric Spy Master of Trust that is an extra turns and flying men yep, and oh no, that would create a redundancy because they already say no chaining extra turns prick. All right, well, continuing on onto colorless, Ancient tomb, Chrome, mox, the one Ring, Tabernacle, peddro Veil, Trinisphere, come on, grim monolith, binds eye diamond, what mox diamond a joke?

This sucks this list. This is where I think we run into the well. I don't own knees, so we should just ban them. Is you can't have things that well it gives you two man on turn one and then not have Solaring on the list, and Solaring shouldn't be on the list, and neither should I would argue all of these cards except for maybe the Tabernacle, the Tabernacle, and nobody has I've seen I've run into a table Tabernacle of Pendrol Veil once and all the time I've

Okay, while I can recognize that there is a portion of the player base who is in the camp that you're in, sure, I like that they're on this list because it says, again, there is a rules system that keeps this kind of magic play to a certain group of magic players. Sure, and that I hate to use the word like it creates a safe space for other magic players, like we're trying to physically harm them, but

Okay, I've got two decks.

That are in the three category that play the one ring. And that's the only thing me too, that puts them in a three. If I say, hmm, this play pattern or this card or this type of card isn't what the official people want for their game, or it's not the kind of culture or environment or play patterns that they envisioned.

For that card, they shouldn't have printed it. They shouldn't have printed it. You're right, but they did. Yeah, they did. Now we have to deal with it.

Now there's a rules system to say, hey, we printed this, Uh oh, we shouldn't have. How about just relegate that to your more competitive or tuned powerful decks. And what that does is clear up a spot in my shrewfus deck, because what the fuck is a.

One ring doing in there except drawing me card? That deck is terrible. It needs a one ring to work, that's what it's doing in there.

And then the other one is for thematic reasons, my modified pre con Souron deck.

Of course it's in there because it's the one ring and it's sourn Yes, the deck's a fucking one and theme fully on theme. Just say, so, does that make it a three because it's got a one ring?

Does that make it a one because it's got a one ring? Or does it make it a do? And I'm gonna put the difference. And then I sit down and say, hey, this is my modified pre con Souron deck. I probably made it worse, so it stays at a two because I'm not a Watzi deck designer only uses Lord of the Rings cards.

Oh it's got a one ring, right, So what do I do? We'll pack it up, Sucker.

Pack it up, sucker, go play somewhere else, complete the tables.

What would you take off? What would gun to your head? You can only take one off? Oh? Only one one?

I take a one ring off?

Well, I mean I would argue for the one ring to stay only because you know what, fuck that Lion's Eye diamond, Lion's Eye diamond. I would take off. Yes, that that that because that's a card that you have to build a specific, specific type of deck to take advantage of. I think people look at it, see it makes three man out of any color, costs zero, and think, holy fuck, that's gotta be too good. It costs so much money. It has to be so strong.

It also says, discard your hand, doesn't it?

Yeah, it just you just carge your hand before you get to play anything with it. You gotta make, you gotta make do.

And you can compare Lion's Eye Diamond to Underworld Breach. If it's if you know, you know, if you're using it, or because you know then you're gonna you're gonna do the.

Thing, then it's sure it's a three. But like, I don't know, man, like I play.

It in its funny lines, Eye Diamond and Underworld Breach go hand in.

Hand with Yeah, and they do, and you you just want to play the other all the time because they fuel each other, right, Like that's the point. But Nicholson, right, So I don't know. I take Lions I Diamond off just because I think it is a very niche card and the decks that it's going to be in and be good in aren't going to be twos anyway. Otherwise you're just making something. Hell make three man on just card my hand and play my commander.

It's essentially a jewel lotus at that point, man, I want Jewel Lotus to be on this list. And you know what that means it means it's unbanned. That's the card I would put onto this list because that would mean it's unbanned.

Oh that's good. Smart, Yeah, that's very good. I'd put manacrypt on here then yeah, yeah, yeah, there we go.

We got it.

We did it. We did it, baby you read yeah, Oh we did it. Boys.

So okay, we're gonna talk about the game Changers some more tomorrow. We're gonna we're gonna give our expanded thoughts on the bracket system with examples from our decks. I think it's important if we want to be if we want to, you know, cultivate CECO Nation to be a great place to play magic, regardless of whether you're a neck breather.

Or or a beard mouth.

Yes, yes, if you're either of those things, as long as you're not an asshole. And and we can use this as a tool to kind of kind of gauge assholeness. We're gonna talk about it tomorrow and John's got a great video out. He beat us to the punch based on our recording schedules. So check out all the bracket stuff on the c CEO y DC all week hit our theme song