Hey, listen to Comedic Cook Podcast episode four oh five. I'm Brando with here with Ryan. Today we're gonna revisit revisiting planes now in our theme s. Hey Ryan, We're back for yet another whirlwind adventure. How you doing good? What is going down? Whole tons? Going down again again? We're back in the same close, in the same place, at the same time. An hour after recorded yesterday's show. We did the big announcement. We thanked some people, we told some stories. Today we're gonna do it
all again. But before we get to any of that, we have to thank our official business Daddy's Fusion Gaming Online dot Com, your source for all your gaming needs and the official sponsor of season Deuce of Sidewalks, Slamb Pile of Bones Brewing. They are the second best thing to come out of Vagina, next to our friend Keel correct who said we are too kind and we should stop being so kind to him. Thanks, we're too kind. We should stop being kind man. You know you know what he did. You
know what he did. He sent me a picture of his collector boosty box of Vixi land. Oh yeah, and like a crazy looking knife. Oh and it's like, who do you think is gonna get wrecked war like me? Obviously me. And then he sent me like a picture with all of his rears and stuff the knife stuck in his head. Man, did he ever got a fucking good box? Dude? Did he? He got like
all the stuff I wanted? Then I opened my mind thinking, oh, this is gonna be totally good, Like these boxes are wreck Yeah, seventeen Basic Lands from Jurassic Park. How many is that in twenty four packs? No? Oh no, across all the packs I opened of Jurassic Park, there's more than twenty four. But let's call it. Let's call it thirty open thirty collector packs. Case. Sure, I ended up with seventeen Basic Lands, four command towers. Well is that good? No? That means
I ended up with like nine actual Jurassic Park cards. That means seventeen times. When I opened up a thirty Canadian dollar booster pack, I opened two Basic Lands in it. Is that good? No? No, it's not good. Oh, So what you're saying is you got the worst box out of the way, absolutely two of them. Oh, you guys are all welcome. So when you go to Fusion Gaming Online dot Com and order some lost caverns of exelon collector packs or boosters and use CCO Summer Promo code to
get a discount. I've opened to the worst ones already, gonna give better stuff than Uncle Brandle. Probably you've seen the Brando's box opening on the Commander Cookoat YouTube channel already because we're recording this far in advance. Yes, And if you're spending over one hundred dollars like you will on a collector booster, if it's your first time using that code or this code CEO Perks, you're gonna get ten percent kickback in store credit onto your Fusion account that you can
then use with CEO Summer Promo code again to get further discounts. And here's the here's some math. Here's some math for you guys. If you do that situation that Ryan just talked about, you can then use the kickback because it's enough to get most of the singles that you didn't open in your box. Yeah, singles prices have gone down, which is great. Yeah. I always sound like I'm oh, I'm complaining so much because my boxes aren't
worth anything and one of these cards are worth shit. But you know what, as much as that sucks for like trying to turn a box into another box sometimes, which is what I do with my singles. Full disclosure. I don't pay money for these boxes. I pay store credit for them, yep. And I trade my cards back in to get more so I can keep doing this. Uncle Brandle's putting the work in for your entertainment. I am, and I'm getting bad boxes out of the way too, right.
But the fact is, I'm glad that singles have so little value. We talked about it yesterday with the Doctor Who dex. I'm so happy they can just go and buy basically whatever you want unless it's Everybody Lives or Displaced Dinosaurs. Every card is cheap, yes, right, and I love that, and I'm happy that with sets like Excellent, unless you're going for the high end premium shit, the single prices are very reasonable and I'm happy for that.
Yeah. I just did an order from Fusion used CEO Summer Promo code to save five percent of my order. I got vehicle cards from Warhammer, forty k from Doctor Who, and dinosaur cards from Lost Caverns of Exelon, all in the same order for my Dinosaurs driving Vehicles deck that I'm building did you get vehicles from excellent? Lots of boats? Oh yeah, I got a boat both for playing and another one for painting. And I got that
runaway like mine cart. Oh yeah, I got that one too, and I got a clown car, and I got some Lord of the Rings cards going to my new guy here in Gandalf Deck. I got lots of stuff. I got lots of new deck builds on the go. Inspired a little bit by CCO Nation wanting to help with the community, Calamax building in our discord again, and of course dinosaurs with our revisit to Exelon, which kind of what inspired this episode. Yeah, very much inspired this episode. We're
going to talk about that in a minute. If you want to get into the discord, you become a patron over at patreon dot com slash CEO podcast Sorry still recovering, and you get in with the community. You help us pick decks for sidewalk Slam where you can see us play these decks that we talk about so much, and you can become part of the best community in magic, not close. They're the most seven out of ten people you'll ever meet. My favorite. One of my favorite things in real life is when
and and the last person who did it was Lenny. Lenny is our good friend that we met through the cast who is part of CECO Nation on the Discord and at events that we go to, he's come and he's come to our country to spend time with us. Yeah, and he says something like this on Twitter, or when people say something like this at a magic Fest they say something like, I know that you guys say it and everybody says it. But I'm so happy that I found CECO Nation and Commander Cookout because
everybody in this community really is the fucking best. See. So if you want to be part of that, see Patreon is a great way because you get access to the Discord and also you get an invite to the CCIO Experience which is coming up in Chicago. And if you're gonna be in Chicago and you're gonna be at the event, even if you're not part of one of the houses, you can certainly stop buy the official content Creating Creator area where you will see you boys. That's that's Ryan and myself, as we have
been given a past this year. There you go, because watsy's smartening up, I guess, so they're classing up the joint. Yeah, this stinking it out. Yeah yeah, even if you're not part of the house. Of course, we're gonna have our own commander cookout area at the event, a bunch of tables usually where sometimes we drink some beer, sometimes we have some food. Sometimes we just play games all day and talk about all of the expense of stuff that we buy, and we play the game like who's
been the most money today? That's my favorite game at Magic CON's man, And then somebody just dejected. I bought boxes and stuff. Yeah, I bought a plate, desk card or whatever it is, right, I love that game. And there's already been talk because there's there's ten or twelve of us in the house. Hell yeah, and there's a bunch of people that are like, hey, I'm gonna be there. It's me and my buddies.
We rented out three hotel rooms or we have our own house. Like dozens and dozens of people have been like, what how do we be involved? What do we do? And probably we're just gonna meet up at the convention center, and and anybody who knows anything about Chicago anywhere is gonna say pizza that way or sushi this way. Or there's a liquor store that way, and we'll just go. Yeah, there's not really a hard and fast plan this time. Yeah, because we're so kind of disparate or dispersed,
there's the word it is. Yeah, And and maybe this will be a little bit of a learning experience when we're dispersed as much as we are this time, maybe they'll need to be a hard and fast plan. But I want to keep it loose. I want to keep it stress free for everybody just to come and go as they please, and for myself so I don't have to freaking plan like a meetup or a restaurant booking or like a banquet room somewhere because there's like thirty people. I just want everybody to come together
and play magic, because that's what we're there to do. And see a shit fountain and also eat pizza. Those are two things I have to do. In Chicago. I'm sure there will be quite a lot of pizza. I think I definitely want to try Chicago style pizza, and then it'll be inevitably go to New York. I'm going to be disappointed in New York style pizza, yes, because everybody tells me that New York style pizza, while tasty, is flimsy and not in pizzas. I like lots of flimsy stuff.
Sure, sure pizza, I mean no kink shaming in the nation. Like they had to fold it in half just so it doesn't like fall down. Thinking you could put other stuff in there. It becomes like a like a vehicle for their foods as well. Oh, Nacho pizza, right, Nacho New York pizza. They're even the same shape, you know what.
Yeah, you dip them in all the same stuff. Yeah, you know what, going back to the Magic con real quick, you know what, I you know what, I really have enjoyed the last two or three cons I've went to tell me, I've enjoyed sitting down at the grand stand and
watching the causeplay contest. That is fun, I like, you know what, just to see the work that people put in and how happy they get when they win or to be on stage, and just like when they when they talk about what they make and they add like character to their answers, and you know, you could sit and have a beer or not if it's not Las Vegas. I think that that's lots of fun. So that's something
that I'm actually planning to do and I will probably enjoy you. I missed it in Vegas this year and I'm still kind of kicking myself for it. The one ring card guys in a box at the one ring and he's just like, oh yeah, it was freaking that's a funny one. That's a funny one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, yes, continuing anyways, today's topic. Wait, we've got last week's giveaway. Last week's giveaway, well do it. Yesterday we did not because we got the bonus show.
Today we do. Yeah, so here we are for it's just a reflex, man, it's right here. You can't edit it out because they're on video. That's right, Rick, Okay, last week's hints. We're guessing the guy, the little cute guy that looks like Mamra from ThunderCats. Yeah, this is Zoyawa zoa lava tongue. What is that the person they're guessing? No, that's the card. Yes, that's the card. What
okay, now you just picked the picture. I wrote down the name, all right, yes, okay, so lots of people got it Zova lava tongue. So ya do you think that they call themselves that? Because they're like one of those like people who eat really hot things and like their tongue is just made of lava at this point, like so much funny. I don't know the I don't know the story behind it. With a cultural significance behind it, why that'd be just the worst mutant power of all time.
Oh my my, mic just floppy danked itself because I touched it. Ah, look at that, look at it on YouTube, but you should be But uh, I got it, I got it. Don't touch it again. I'm not gonna tell it. Probably sounded so terrible. Probably did. But if you're watching on YouTube, which should be, you would see how ridiculous it look. This mic sucks. Yeah, I keep forgetting to bring a screwdriver, like it's my freaking job. The shelf out there sucks too.
By the way, of course, I need a multi screw driver because they've got different ends. Sonic screwdriver. Yeah, yeah, that's what Last week's Winter, Last ye's Winter Lava tongue winning the booster Pack game by leaving a comment on the CCO pre show. You should do that because it's fun. It's play a game and you win free stuck gissing games are fun.
And then when you win, which you will, you can send an email to Comanical Code of gmail dot com and you can tell us whether you want the stickers or the tokens or the regular old skanky back of magic cards. I don't know why you, but you can have one of those three things. Hit us up with your name and your address, including your postal zip code, and we'll send that crap off to you, and then you're gonna have them to hold and enjoy. And couple of that stuff, A couple
of funny things. Tell me a skanky pack of magic cards? I said, it is that stinky and crappy? Yes, and also hit us up, hook us up and hit us up. Oh that was me misspeaking. But also yes, yes, okay, so at Judge Canada, whoever you are, because that's your YouTube pandle and I don't know what your real name is. Hit us up. You're the winner. Yayo yeah go you also you for playing? Yes? If you for being here? Yes? Okay, so uh re visiting planes, here's why we're talking about this. Hit
them up with the truth. Brando, so ixelon was everybody's pumped about Xelon? I'm not here to dump on anybody's fun. I think it's neat too. I really liked it, and you had some very positive things to say, along with some general criticisms of every Magic set like we have. You can listen to it all in our review as you can, as you have of every set. There's always something to critique about it, because nothing's perfect.
Here is my thought on Exelon overall. If you take out all of the fancy arts and all that stuff, it feels a lot like the first time it went to Xelon, like jungle dinosaurs, pirates and vampires trying to get into temples, and there's murphok and there's a bunch of right Like it's not a carbon copy of the exact same set, but it kind of is.
And I think my thoughts on this during the review were it feels like there's lots smushed in here, and all the things that are smushed into one set are the same things that were smushed in last time where it wasn't very well received for different reasons. But also this time there's like this Temple of Doom exploring Indiana Jones kind of theme that we kind of got off of Zenda car A couple times as well. Yeah, and it just I don't know, like did it did it hit super hard? And I know some people
really liked what they did here, and that's super cool. I like the set. Yeah, I'm so pumped that people had all the stuff to look forward to and they felt represented and seen. That's always important. But I think the fact is mechanically, I feel like this was kind of just a retread of the first time we went to Chelon. It's got the things that flip over into lands, which I enjoy, but again here we are doing the same thing again. It's got big dinosaurs that do stuff. It's got
pirates that do stealing stuff. I've got murph folks that do draw cards, put lancemic stuff. And what was the other thing that they had vampires that do get bigger when they do damage stuff. Yep. Right, And this time we had cascade sort of which I appreciate sure some and some of the new mechanics minus uh, whatever the hell that one you're talking Discover felt kind of lazy to me. Even Discover felt a little lazy. It's just fixed
cascade. It's it's ETB cascade instead of cast cascade castcade. Yeah, and it's cool, like I played with it at the pre release and it's really neat and I enjoyed it, but it just it felt a little lazy. And the simile I draw, and this might make me vastly unpopular on the internet, is all the times we've been back to Ravnica where Ravnica is the same set every time it's ten two color guilds that fight against each other.
I don't think that's a simile whatever, where it's just it feels very same sy and while the guilds always they're not doing the same thing, it's not like they every one of them. You have, Yeah, but like Demerors the Milk Color and Groll kind of has big stuff and creative things and about the graveyard and Ractose a bunch of cycles and is it moral? Boris is
the attacky guild. Yes, every time we go to Ravnica during Ravnica Block, Ravnica City of Guilds Block and then return to Ravnica Block to return to Ravaca and then the War the Spark, I think War of the Spark, but it was Ravnica Allegiance and yeah, they just the other one is that I have it up. It doesn't blow me away when we go back to a plane like that, because they're never they're cool and they're they're fun sets, But like, do they do they innovate past? Should we just go
to somewhere else? Like could we go somewhere new and do something exciting that way? Guilds of Ravnica? There we go. They just they were just like, yeah, we're doing guilds. They did you try? You already know that we're doing this. Yes, we were doing guilds the whole time, and now we're gonna tell you we're not even going to try to make it like we're Yes, And I guess I just thought it would be interesting to have the conversation like, is it do we like when we go back
to when we revisit popular planes? Is it? Is it? Do they explore a bunch of new ground when they go back with Ravnika? I would suggest that they do not. With excellent I would suggest that they do not in terms of art direction or story progression. Maybe there is, but like in terms of just like yeah, tertiary, like not being very entrenched magic story buffs. I don't think that you or I could speak to that with any no, but being just people authority, read flavor, text and look
at cards. Yeah, like all the Ravnica sets look the same. Both the excellent sets look the same. Contrary maybe to that would be what's it called? We just? We were just? And then Neon Dynasty, Yeah, Camagawa and yeah super different like ancient like Ninjas in Japan to like cyberpunk super Duper City. Those did not feel the same, but they were the same. Yeah, Okay, I got two things. I got two things.
Before we move too far past sets looking the same, there is something to be said about x X thing being a popular thing and then going and
doing it again. Yeah, that's a different marketing strategy. Yeah, and if there's more design space that they either discovered or intentionally left to go back to, going back to that and giving us more of the same feel and mechanics and look both the look mechanically, the look actual visually, the flavor, the maps, the lands, the temples, the dinosaurs, those are
all things that people like. Hell yeah, And that is again why I think that Los Cavern's Exelon is a cool set, because I like that setting and I do like the presentation of it even more since I looked like in Vegas at the preview panel, and I met some of the some of the world builders and designers for the set backstage after like the preview panel, and
actually talked about kind of their culture that they poured into this set. Like, we're not saying none of that, We're not saying that doesn't matter. Hell no, I'm just you're saying that it feels the same as it did before, despite the changes that they made either mechanically or story wise to fix it. I'm saying all having all of it back again feels squished. I just want them to break new ground, you know what I'm saying. Like, Yeah, I think the one that I look at kind of especially visually
would be Eldrain. It was kind of like the the very whimsical hand painting fairy Tailey castles and Shrek. Yeah that is when we were in with all of the humans and the nobles and we saw it from like the the very known fairy tale standpoint. Yeah, and then when we wouldn't back to the wilds of Eldrain right in the name. Now you're out in the backwoods, Yes, you're in the real pretty shit now where there could be a troll in every tree or every tree could be a troll, or every tree could
be a troll that's actually made out of candy. Yeah. Yeah, and it just that was That's a good example. Yeah, and it felt different while it was still the same. And I know that Aaron kr R really liked El Draine and I know that he was really excited about the return in that way. And I feel like it serviced that grew who wanted to go
back to El Drain and do it again. But for people like me who always kind of want to see, like, what's the new thing, what's the new direction you're gonna try, especially artistically, they did that as well, and I think they did it very well. Camic Gow was another good example where it felt like an entirely different world with just some names that we
knew from before. Yeah. And I think we talked off the air when we go back to Zenda Car both times, like we did Zenda Car with the I shouldn't say with the avatar esque everything, because Avatar lifted it from Zendacar. I thought, well, they didn't, but I'm gonna say they did. I really think, Okay, this is the evolution of the conversation. Is that going back to the same place for an actual very different or very different and or right hand turn and or completion in the story feels like
a different reason to go back. And I'm okay with having the same setting and characters and obstacles, challenges, visual look, mechanical feel of the game. I'm okay with that if it's very evident where the story is happening and
how it's happening. And I think that War of the Spark is an excellent way, Like, Okay, we had Gilds of Ravnica and Ravnica Allegiance where it's like, oh, yeah, this is Ravnica set seven and eight at this point, and then War the Spark happened and it's like, oh, this is what it's been about the whole time, and this is what Kaladish has been about. Kaladish is a great example of going somewhere new that feels
totally different. Yeah, and then to bring Kaladesh to Ravnika with with like the Inventor's Fair and Tesret stealing the bridge and shit and the nickel Bolis the oldest longest time villain, like and I know I'm getting into the story of it, which the only reasons now the only reason I'm getting into the story of it is because War of the Spark the set did such a good job
in telling the story. I know what the story is, and this is a good example of using the story to make the ninth fucking Ravenica feel interesting and engaging and like it matters. Yes, that, and they give us some really freaking good cards. Yes, the really freaking good cards. I think might be kind of a bit of an aside in a lot of ways, because I mean, if you take the art off of a magic card, it still does what it does, right, Yeah, So a lot
of the setting kind of is important here. Like let's just say, for an example, if we went back to Caladesh and it was another inventor's fair and they had a bunch you know what, and it was just the same yeah, right, and it's but we're here again. Look, and there's a bunch of new keywords, like is that gonna be as exciting as if they just took all that mechanical business and dropped it into the Wild West set? That's coming out right? Got them again? Wait? You know what
I mean? Wait, because they could very easily do that or instead of just hey, we're going back to Caldash because everybody loves Kaladesh and it's gonna be kind of the same. Nah, We're gonna put some wild West skins on it and it's gonna be the same but different because it's got cowboy hats. Now, yeah, how old magic cards and a cowboy hat? Right?
Like that way you can do that and that that's really cool and I would prefer them to do that, I think, unless they're going back for like a really good story reason, or if they're gonna break some new ground. I'd love to see them go back to Almondcat now that Nick Bollis is gone and Hazard that's the only god that's left and he's beat it out into
the desert. Now he's gonna come back. It's like three thousand years later and then he's like the god and like Plan, the Plan's coming back to life because it was dead plane, right, Yeah, it's dead And you'd like to see that like come back to life. And that could come from We're pretty we're potentially treading onto the twenty twenty four look ahead episode, I know, but that would be cool and I would just I would love to see more of that sort of thing. Unless here's that set that you guys
liked before again again as the Undertaker would say yes again. So without getting too much into predictions, because later on in December, as we always do, we're gonna do our are you our year end wrap up the year that was twenty twenty three, which which is always fun, like the successes the failures, where we're fucking right and where we're wrong, which one of those categories is far bigger than the other. Yeah, the right, because we're
always right. We're also gonna do a thing. We're gonna tell you everything's gonna happen next year and the year twenty twenty four look ahead. That's my favorite one because just some of its baseless speculation and some of it's like educated guesses because we're entrenched in the magic verse, bunch of stuff that we want and sometimes we get it, like New Soul Rins and Shiit. The Western set and the universe is beyond stuff that's coming, and just the predictions that
we're gonna see. Oh man, I like that stuff. I'm a fan of. Ah Man, I can't wait for this Western set, you know, Okay, I'm nope, I'm not. We can't get but off air when I was getting a drink of water. I was like, you know that this is going to be a car? Do you know that this is going to be a card? You know that this is going to be a card. We're all pumped about it. Yeah, Western set, and you know that they've been freaking working on that Western set and brainstorming ideas to keep
the cultural sensitivity around that genre. You know that they've been working on that for like ten years. So the set is going to be a banger. Yeah, oh man, I can't wait. Cowboy hats, oh yeah, ten gallon hat is going to be a card. Man, That's gonna be something so good, so good. I'm not gonna go into my predictions back to going to new planes old planes. Now, speaking of the reason that Ryan Produced speculates that we did not get a Western set back in the nineties
is because it was difficult for Watzi to get off of Dominaria. They didn't have the creative kind of technology that they have now with planes walkers and pre mending, post mending and the bubble that they were trapped in and Dominaria was
where magic happens blah blah blah. So was Dominaria set that ever got boring, No, because it had so much like and was it not boring because it was like what we always knew And this is just what magic was because we did do what the first dozen sets we'll just say, yeah, from ninety three to two thousand and two. Yeah, like up to time Sparrow, everything's on domin Area essentially. Well, no, up to mirrored in was our first way where we left and that had that had a connection to
domin Area through carn and stuff. Right, So we had all these years and Dominaria never felt old because I mean, they gave us the ice Aye, and they gave us different times in history. It wasn't all just one story. It was different times in history. It was different parts of the world. Over the course of dozens of novels and dozens of books and comics and sets and online stories, the world got deep and rich and it felt real, right, And that's why when we went back to Dominari in twenty
seventeen that was such a big deal. Seventeen or eighteen, they were so pumped in the back. Yeah, just before our inaugural trip to Xelon, which was great, we went to Dominaria, which was like the most popular set ever at the time because it got people back in. It's like, oh, look at all these these returning characters. Returning characters ruins places.
It almost felt like Time Spiral, which was another popular set, but this was like a boiled down what's important version of Time Spiral, which felt like very matured and very distilled down to all of the best things with the best points in history being referenced from Dominaria, with all of our favorite characters from
Pivotable, Pivotable, pivotal, pivotal, pivotal moments in Dominaria's history. Like that's why the Dominaria set was so good, and never did that set feel like they're taking Dominaria and going boo, I'm doing it again, which is great. Yeah, they did something storyline wise and creatively and throwbacks. They did just enough throwbacks and mechanistics, yeah, to make to keep it fresh
even though the setting is not. I suppose when stuff I suppose when you have an entire like history worth of a world and you pick all of the best things and put them into one product, it better be good. That that's gonna be good, right, versus saying here's in an entirely the whole of everything we have of Exelon, here's everything we know, let's take it, and it's like only this big and and let's just do it again.
Even though since then we've added a world building team and we've created more depth sort of artificially, but really it's all artificial. It's artificial depth. Yet it's artificial depth. And again not knocking because I like the set and I appreciate having people from the culture that they're emulating being part of the design. I think that that That's Dope adds a level of realism to the artificial depth, though artificial it remains. Yes, I wonder if the Duke is going
to be involved with the Cowboys set. That's dead. The Duke I can never remember his real name. He was the guy that played Genghis Khan in that movie where everybody got radiation poisoning and he was a cowboy and he says, uh, what in the ass are you talking about? What's his name? He's like the most famous Western actor of all time. Everybody knows what I'm talking about. Is he the guy that does like the dodge ram commercials? No? No, that's another guy whose name I can't remember. Also
very famous Western also starting a movie called Frogs. That guy, the guy that Ryan's talking about, the guy I'm talking about, was like he's in every movie you have. You know this guy's name, and I just like, it's everybody is yelling and throwing stuff. Clint Eastwood. No, it's the other Clint Eastwood. He's like the guy that came out. He's Clint Eastwood before Clint Eastwood. Hey, we're going down to that thing pil Grum and we're gonna get into some fights with some people at boat Hill. You
a bunch of fucks. I forget that's that's that's just me talking. That sounds pretty Clint Eastwood. The point is going places is dope. Are there any other planes that we've like kind of gone to? And I guess we did the Crimson vow Wear Wolf wedding and yeah, so that a good one. Let's know, it wasn't well, the sets were shiit og was fantastic. It was our first real top down tropy place that we got. Everybody like that one in a extrade og On in twenty twelve or whatever was like
man vampires versus werewolves. That's a thing I like, like Frankenstein and jecculin Hyde and classics from literature that I that I that I know, even if I've never read them, I know what they are. Those are things that I like. Those are things that I like. And because it was they took the name of the card and then they like Jecklin Hyde for example,
and then they built a card around it. It's a sucky card, but it was so cool that he had a card and I know exactly the trope and I know exactly what it does and what it means and what it represents. Industrade was fantastic. Fast forward to Crimson Val. They tried to do something different and it's like the vampire wedding with these characters that they've introduced over the course of disjointed products like Commander products, and a return to Inustrade with
the El Drazi war that was in the forefront. Instead of developing like is it a regular horror, it's cosmic horror, which is cool. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, that was me. Is it is it traditional classic horror trope or is it like love crafty and cosmic, unexplainable horror, which is not even really. I don't think the original intention for the major El Drasi when they were introduced in Zenda Car, So they kind of repurposed this thing to build off of the success that they had at Innustrade, which
is great. If they didn't want them to be Cthulhu, they shouldn't have made them into Cthulhu. And then we go back for this wedding with these characters that we got like in Commander Products and on different planes, like Nihiri and she's like trapped somewhere and fighting sore and like what, I don't know,
Yeah, what is this? And we weren't that We're not I should say that into the story of that particular plane, So we didn't get it, and the cards and the setting didn't really do a good enough job explaining to us A why we should give a shit or B what the hell is going on? And then there was another werewolf set in there too that was also on in Austrade and I don't even well fast Okay, So we had original Innustrade and then we had Dark Ascension, right, and then Avison restored
and that's fine. There's a little arc there, like the zombies and the bad guys are taken over because Avison got trapped in the hell of vault and then she gets out and she like cleans house. That's kind of cool, and it kind of is again classic horror, kind of follows this Redeemer kind of arc where she saved like their their religious figurehead saves their world. Cool. I think that's cool. I think that's that's cool. That's something that
people might be into. Right, And she's a fricking smoking Haney angel and she's got to fight this demon who's got like a club for a hand. Grizzle Brand. Eh, grizzle Band man. I played one game against grizzle Brand. I'm like, holy fuck, this card's good ten days later yep. Anyways, then we got like Shadows over Innustrade Eldrich Moon. That was the El Draws stuff where tentacles were coming out of everybody's everywhere. I like
that one. That was cool. Well yeah, but that was the repurpose del Drawsy Like, hey, let's let's keep using these characters so we can write. Then we go, uh, Crimson Vow and Midnight Hunt? What even happened in mid What is going? Because Vampire Wedding? We all remember what the hell happened in Midnight Hunt? Like why was it even there? Was that worth stapling in Austrad to And if they didn't staple in Astrad to it, how much worse would it have done? If Crimson Vow and Midnight
Hunt weren't on Innustrad. Would they have killed Magic the way that Kamagawa did the first when everybody was like, oh fuck this game, this sucks? Yeah, Like would people just have just hopped in the boat and just sailed away? Do you think you know what? Like I look at this one. I look at this from a couple things, Like we've mentioned mechanically or or within the game of Magic, then we've mentioned it from like the story
perspective as well. Of course they're trying to tell this vampire story with Crimson Vow. Sure, but we also need to service like zombies and werewolves and all the other monsters that people expect in Industrade, So we need like Midnight Hunt. It's like, Okay, what's going on here? I have no idea, I don't even care, and I don't care because werewolves still suck day and night. Really, who cares? That's what you're gonna do to
us? Get So that's an example of where they're trying to do the story thing and the mechanical trope flavor thing and just and not him, And then they're like, hey, you guys like black and white stuff too. Hey, that's like that's like classic nineteen twenties horror cinema. You ever seen Nosferatu? It was like the scariest movie of all time in nineteen twenty two. Eight, It's the only scary movie in nineteen twenty two is fucking the only
one? Yep? And b No, we don't like black and white stuff, no, especially when it's not new or designed to be in black and white, and it looks terrible. The stuff that's designed to be in black and white, I do love, and I like colorizing those. I like that's I'm sure that that's very fine. I like that. But let's remember that none of that art was meant to be in black and white. It's all just xerox. Yep, that was your actual freaking review of it is
it's just xerox black and white eyed color art. Oh? Not good? Those were not very good. I think I think I still got someone em in the in the stinky onion bag. Maybe maybe the next person who wants a booster pack will get one of those. Actually, if you had to foil out of some foil rare, some that are actually worth some dollars. Foil talks real black and white as shitty as it looks. What about a snapcast? Mate? He come and foil? And that's maybe because they did
like the silver screen. They even meant it to be like old school horror movies, right, They were like, this is the silver screen edition. And then it was all etched foil. Oh was it? Yeah? Man, what a failure that sucks. What a failure as a product, etched foil. Just take a minute and just make sure that everybody knows how terrible
everybody thinks etched foil is. And I've even heard some people say things like edged foil is not that bad, or I like etched foil more than x y Z. You don't, or you're just saying that and being untruthful, or you're wrong, and it's okay to be wrong when you listen and learn and improve your ways of thinking and articulating your thought through speech or writing. Yes, etched foil sucks and we don't want to see any more of it.
Sure don't never again. Saver sucky. Okay, So I'm building decks the other day Okay, I got the deck building, but bug from people in the nation helping me with the new Calamax building, right, we got some good suggestions. Keep them coming on the discord. If you want to be a part of it, join our freaking patron. So you're doing Calimax and guy here and Gandalf and dinosaurs driving trains like three decks on the goal.
So Calamax is gonna be like Calimax, and then you're gonna take the dinosaurs riding trains thing out of that do its own thing plus another Lord of the Rings deck. Correct. Holy good guys, Good guys guys. Yeah. Yes, tough to find good ways to tap Calimax at instant speed without attacking. That's the challenge. Anyways. So I'm going through cards and I've got this stack of jank foils that I just I don't know why I have them. They just there's freaking foils here, are you mean? There's just
commons and oncommons and shit and just whatever. So I'm going through looking for this one random thing that I know that I own from four years ago. It's like, why do I have this? And I'm just flipping, flip and flipping all of a sudden just gray. Oh, must be at the Commander Masters, Commander Legends, Commander Legends, and I'm like, these are so terrible. Not only were they gray, they were like taco shells, but the inconsistency in how gray they are also is cause for concern and complaint.
So I'm flipping through and I'm like Commander Master or A Legends, Legends, Legends, Legs, Legends, and i get this one taco shell Commander Legends, and I'm like, huh. Holding up two of them, I'm like, this one still sucks, but it looks really good compared to this one. And then you held up next to a real card and you're like, man, both of these suck. And then I held it up to yeah Foil from like Onslaught, and I'm like, wow, that was when
Foyle was the shit. Yeah. Anyways, so where else do we go from here? We've had a couple instances of Dungeons and Dragons sets, which I know that you're a fan of all of them, sure, but Forgotten Realms I think much better and more well received than what is it balder Gate Battle for Boulder's Gate. And I think that's compounded by the fact that Battle for Boulder's Gate was marketed as Commander Legends two, which was different substantially than
actual Commander Legends. Yes, right, So is that a successful way that you think that they should do it again and it was just the product that was bad or was the implementation of Commander Legends to just poor? I think the answer to that question is yes, and let me tell you why.
The answer right the I think the implementation wasn't the greatest because they basically just added in a bunch of Commander stuff, increased the price of the packs to a D and D set, yes, okay, to a Dungeons and Dragons set. I think that they used the Dungeons and Dragons thing as an afterthought to try and cash in on one of their outside ips that was successful the first time. Yes, okay. They were also using it to advertise for the new boulders Gate game, which is that a thing? Yep, and
everybody's playing it now. Lots of people like it in the nation. I know that so cool. I haven't played it myself, but the point is I don't think that the set itself was fantastic. Although I did buy and open lots of it, I did enjoy the Treasure Hunt aspect of it. I don't think the set itself was that good. I don't think the implementation of the Commander Legends of it. Yeah, it didn't feel like a Legend set in any way, no, right, and it didn't feel like it
was meant to push Commander to the next level. It felt like they were just trying to I don't even know what they what it felt like they were trying to do with that particular set, because they immediately released another Master's set right after that had all the shit that should have been in Balder's Gate in
it. Yeah, well it was like six months after, but it was like actual Commander Masters where it was like, yeah, Jeweled Lotus was back, and all of the Commander Andy Warhol things were back, and dock Side Extortion is Dockside and Fierce Guardianship cycle was back, and it's like, Okay, you could have put the D and D spin on these cards easily.
You've got lots of very brilliant designers that you pay. I'm sure not enough because your corporation and your fucking bunch of assholes and let's be Dungeons and Dragons is it's some deep shit, man, Yeah, you can put the spin on it, and we combined Commander Legends Masters. Let's call those the same product slot with your D and D thing that you were trying to hype at
the time. And because I don't know, are they even gonna be able to go back to Dungeons and Dragons again because of kind of how sort of botched and cash any balders Gate felt, Oh man, because that's because I would runch that's a good question. That's one that I will, regardless of the entire last forty minutes of conversation that we had, if we go back
to the Dungeons and Dragons playing again, I'm going to be excited. Yeah, and I'm going to buy in, be able to get all the shit and be so pumped for it just because it's got a a thing that I like connected it is the D and D thing. But people outside of people like me might look at that and think, oh man, like Walder's Gate was for me, Yes, why are the packs next to two bucks? And that's that's that's the thing that always, that's always the dichotomy that they
play with. That's always the balancing act, right is is some people love Camagawa and the ancient Japanese art and culture and references. Some people love cyberpunk, and a lot of the times those people aren't the same people, right. Some people love Lord of the Rings and know nothing about Doctor Who.
That's me, right, So you're never going to capture everybody. And I think I think the crux of everything that we're talking about today is we want and I'll use the word complexity, But I don't mean complex mechanics like yesterday's Deck Tech trying to demonstrate cascade spells. I don't mean complex rules lawyer minutia, and I don't mean seven thousand word essays on every single card in the set. Also, what I mean is complexity. Like when I drink a
fine whiskey, I want to taste different layers. I want a different smell and a different aftertaste or finish. I want it to be something that I can enjoy over and over and over again and discover new parts of I want complexity in my world building storytelling. I want diversity in my art and in my flavor text and in characters being depicted. I just want it to be
creative and not lazy. I don't want it to be artificially inflated and then plucked up and then set back down and say, here's your new set. I want some kind of reinvention and some kind of way to demonstrate complexity just through the cards, like War of the Spark gave us, like Neon Dynasty
gave us. Yeah, storytelling through cards like Tales from Middle Earth gave us partly because I know the story, partly because I'm biased because it's my favorite thing, or what's the most recent in March of the Machines did the same thing, Like March of the Machines told us the Brother's War. And even if you didn't know that story, you hadn't read that book or whatever, you could say, what is March Thechter, what is Brother's War? Like
this is the product? What is it? You google Brothers War MTG, you get the story on Wikipedia and you can read it in ten minutes, and it's like, oh, now I know. Culturally, there's some significance not only to people who play Magic outside of the game, there's some meta significance. There's also some in world Dominaria and Greater Magic Universe significance to the
Brother's War. Yeah, right, so that's the kind of complexity that I want, and I don't think that we're gonna get that in a Western theme set. No, that's gonna be top down trophy shit like Industrade, which which is great also fucking fantastic. Right, So I can't say that one is better than the other because they're not, because they're not the same thing.
That's right, I'm saying as a twenty plus year Magic player, I want complexities, callbacks, reach arounds, things that are like, hey, this is a reference to this thing, this nugget, this thing, this is an ability like don't bring Banding back, but bringing Discover back so I can put it in my Cascade deck. Good. Yes, bringing back the exact same dinosaur as I saw in Exelon one. It's not as good. Yeah, So I don't know. How do you feel if it's the same
creature that says draw card on it. Now, it's not you're not doing anything new. It's it's still a six' five for green green four. It's the same thing when it dies, draw card, give me one of those. I'll put it in Lord of trustor it's green, it's green, you can't, yeh fucking god, I'll put in Calimax. When it dies
draw Card. I think that for me all I'm I'm less in depth with my thought on it than Ryan's in this particular case, because I'm a very I like to look at it as this is a thing that's in front of me and appreciate it for what it is. But I get my back up a little bit when I feel like the designers have been lazy in the aspect that and this is it's just me talking. They're not lazy. The perception through the product is it was lower effort. The stuff that matters to me
feels like there was left effort put into it. And we'll use the Excelon one again. It's like, here we have all the stuff from first Exelon again with a beautiful coat of paint, because that's what it had. Like all of the kind of act was great. There was like the the the art was cool, the throwbacks were neat. But at the end of the day, it's just here's dinosaurs and pirates and murph folk and I can never
remember the last one. I don't I don't even care. We've said there's four things that happened in Nixelon. We've been there, vampires, and I just it felt like we just did it again. And I hate it when it feels like we're just doing it again and I'm not. It's not a cash grab, and it's not like it's not a cash grab because the set
is popular and it has all the things that people love. Murphok Classic Pirates, something that we've been begging more for, Dinosaur, we've been begging for more dynasts, begging for vampires because it's one of the most popular creature types. Yeah, we're begging for it, and they're all there, and it's like, there's so much stuff to like about it, but it just feels like, is this is this Uncle Brenda having a first world problem? Absolutely,
it is a luxury cardboard. We're allowed to have first world problems. This is what it feels like to me. This lost cap of Xcelan would have fit back in when they used to do the three card or two card blocks blocks if they did exelon lost Caverns of excel and then like Collision of the Sun and there'd be the two where the inside sun on the outside sun lights touch tips everything ship right, Yeah, that cool, But when you wait three however many years it's been to go back to Xelon. Something on
Exelan should have changed, something significant should have happened there. Yes, and I don't feel like it did. I see what you're saying. Exelon was Oh man, here's a time check six years ago. There we go, like six or five years ago, and that could be decades or centuries in the story and nothing changed. It's nothing, nothing visibly changed through the cards telling me what the story. I'm sure if I read the story, lots has changed. But as somebody who didn't and is not planning to, nothing
changed. It's just it's the same thing. And that's what gets me sometimes, and that's kind of what gets me to like, oh man, I like there's cards that I like, and I'm happy people have things that they like, but I just wish that they had pushed it. I'm not even sure what they could have done, you know what I mean, Like, I don't have a suggestion that, well, Brando, how would you?
Yeah, you know what, I don't particularly have necessarily that That's the thing about Let's say the vampire's criticism and the murfok are rising up and the dinosaurs have been enslaved, and they're like with a Tolley gone. They don't have their like spiritual leaders, but there could have been some kind of artistic or story driven just really simple visual cues you could give on cards that shows this is a progressed world. We've put time into this and it's progressed, and
I don't feel like we really got that. And when we do criticisms, we always like to be solution providers, tell yeah, right, like this is this is a good that they could have to go back to the set block system. Yeah, okay, man, In this case, I don't know if we need to provide a potential solution because the set's already out and it is received well and popular, and we're talking about it under this critical kind of eye even though we fucking like it. Yeah right, And we
criticize things, you like, that's a thing. Just because I criticize something, that doesn't mean I don't like it, and I do like excelan I do. I just wish they had given it a little bit more oomph so they didn't feel so samesy. That's as a twenty plus year old Magic player, Magic veteran, you want more complexity, and not complexity in a novel, but complexity in I want to see a story develop when I play my
cards. I think that that after twenty years is the place where you find freshness and enjoyment and new when you play, right, Like, I love the magic novels, they went away, I stopped reading magic stories. There you go, because I like the novels. So now I rely on the cards and the stories and the press releases to tell me the story. And if they don't, I don't know what the story is. Right, And that again, going back to war the Spark, they did a good job
with that. Right, With this exelon, maybe hey, maybe we're freaking wrong, and I would be I'm always open to hearing that I'm wrong. And why, oh yeah, and why if the world has progressed an exelon, there's the criticism. I like the set and the product, and I like the creatures and the aesthetic, but they haven't done a good job in conveying how that world has progressed. Yeah, there it is. And if you disagree with us, let us know down in the comments after you've slapped
the shit out of the like button. Yeah, drop your Dino dink right on it. Yeah, that would not be what it would sound like. It would be more of a thwump, but well, we don't know. They might have a weird like a flappy one looks like a pterodactyl's wing. We're like a like a real like front heavy. Oh it has a claw on the end like a raptor toe yea or a cat? Oh yeah not good? Yeah? Cats? It and hyenas also have weird ones. Oh okay, well, speaking of not weird ones, you should be not weird.
Go to Fusion Gaming online dot com. Use any of our promo codes that can be found in the notes below. Wherever you find the show, get a discount on the stuff you're gonna buy anyways, save money. Also check out Sidewalk Slam and hear about Pile of Bones, the second coolest thing to come out of Regina. And what are we gonna do next week? Rhyme? What are we gonna do? Are we gonna I'm gonna text some
decks. I've got a deck tech prepared. We're catching up on Doctor Who, and we're catching up on Exelon stuff because we've been hype training so long. We've got some classic deck techs coming up from Patreon supporters. If you want to have your deck tech check out the different levels on Patreon. Pledge it the appropriate ones, send us a list boom, that's the best way to get it done, and we'll we'll. I think this one's gonna be I have a feeling from the title of the deck. It might be Grix's
and it might be me as the player of the deck. Playing your stuff. OHI is one of my very favorite things deep cut hint, and you're gonna hear lots about that on the next episode of cook Man or cook Out Podcast. In our theme song,