Starter Deck for Vial Smasher + Gilanra

Hey, I'm Kyle, thanks for joining me and Andy for the Legendary Creature Podcast. So if you're listening with your kids or your conservative grandma, maybe don't. Because we swear. Also, when you're done listening, I've been working on a little side project and would really love your support there as well. It's another podcast and it's called you know what's Cool? It should be anywhere. You get your current podcast and the link will be in the show notes as well. You.

All right, man, am I doing too many of these. Now that I'm thinking about it, these three episodes, I think I've rattled off quite a bit. I mean, I'm not doing as many as you, but I like them. Well, then. Then it's all right. Yeah, because you're into it, and that's what matters. Yeah. This content is for me. Really like file Smasher. Kyle, you sure? Deuce. Do I just do? I'm. I don't owe anybody an explanation for that. I mean, it's a goblin. Yeah, it's a berserker. What else do you need?

I just I just like the effect. I like that it comes in cheap, and then you can't really decide who it's hitting, but it adds something to what you cast. That's. Tiff seems to like it. I don't, I think the only person that has actually said I don't like File Smasher is Brad, but it may be because he's a grump, and it may be because he rolls the worst a lot of the time. And that's actually true. Okay, I haven't thought about that. He has really bad luck with violence.

Yeah. So to him it's just always it's always him. So this episode series is just to remind dear listener, Kyle and I have decks that we've been playing for years. In some cases, a decade for maybe one. Right. I think Arabist is probably going to get. Probably close. Where we've upgraded the hell out of it. We've invested capital into them and then taken money out of them because, you know, tutors and stuff.

But we played them for so long that they've become really an expensive proposition for anyone who's never played with this thing before. Yeah, yeah, we're really passionate about them. And and we advocate for their use as a, as a legendary creature, as a commander. But it's just kind of a hard ask to have somebody just go out and like, put an order in for cards for something that's really expensive. Yeah. You know, and if you're not of the mind to print card, that is.

So we, do this where we revisit the deck and really reimagine it under a budget umbrella. Yeah, sometimes it's doable where the strategy that we feel is the best for that deck can be realized through a strict budget, and sometimes it just can't really work. Maybe we should do one of those episodes with a deck where, like, I tried to make a budget pre con and I cannot. Yeah. I wonder if we have any of those. Yeah. I think the one that was that went really well for me was Glisser.

I think that's a cheap deck to do is this XY artifacts are not pricey. Oh yeah. Yeah that's right. Marcus though that was really hard like that. There was just some really big Iki to week cards. I wish I could have included in the list and just couldn't. And I think they're really needed. If you're going to play that strategy, you know sums right. Like I just I can't pass it. I got to make room for it. I have to subtract out other stronger cards.

Oddly, the blink deck, if you're doing blink based off of instance, is really cheap. But if you want to use the permanent to do blink and it gets really. Expensive deep dwelling thoughts or whatever. Yeah, yeah. So that's the idea behind this. We take a list that we know pretty well, and then we try to roll it back in time or, or undo a lot of the budget and see if it sticks and if we're happy with it.

Yeah. Yeah. And honestly, along the way I discover things I'm like, oh, I actually want this for my actual build. Oh, sure. Which is really cool. Yeah. Like where I'm going, hey, this is actually pretty good. And I'd be happy to put this in the in the real deal. Yeah. So, my list is going to be a Jund spell slinger deck that I've had for fuck was like four years now. I remember we had MTG muster on the podcast, and they had a Jund spell slinger in there orbit or they. He in there or. He did.

I think it was somebody that was featured that was. Yeah. Yeah, some of those. And that was definitely the inspiration. It was a long, long time ago. Somebody was playing basically Smasher and I think it was Iqra. Oh, that was the person that was playing it. Yeah. And it wasn't. Mean it was a spell slinger list for sure, but it had made some like kind of practical, exceptions into its list because, you know, you're not really using the best lubricated colors for that strategy.

But I really liked it, and I didn't build my own until, I think, two years later. Yeah, we had I had moved here to where you and I are at right and right now, and that wasn't until 2020. So I'm pretty sure I built this thing in either late 20 or early 21. So it's got to be somewhere between 3 to 4 years at this. Okay. Okay. Is when I actually put it together. Yeah. Yeah, but you've been fantasizing. But before that, I had used Vial Smasher with Thracian. Yes, indeed. And it wasn't spell slinger.

It was really just like. Well, you've done a few different things with that, with that combo, right? It's okay. You want to go all up? Yeah. All right, I might. Yeah, let's do it. Let's talk about your. Experience with Smashers. Dude, the first. Deck I ever built was with was Vile Smasher and Thracian was. This is when they very first came out. Yeah. I didn't get that deck. If you remember, it was the first time we ever played with Ape and Yang. They came over, we all broke out the pre cons.

Cody missed out. He he didn't get the bro free con because he had to go to some hockey game with his now ex-wife. You see, people don't skip on magic for your bitch. You see, Cody, if you can hear me, you know I was right. You had that bray up recon. At the time, we just had no notion of, like, what these were going to be worth or whatever. Yeah, Cameron was on the Idris. Idris one app was on the Chi and Ty one, I think. Yes. I think I took the Braille one because Cody was gone and I think Yang.

Yeah, got the one that had a track. That's right. Right. That's right. So he ended up walking away with like a pretty good because we all just basically like, I think I preordered them at the time or just. Sit down and. Play. And we just paid retail and I just walked away with my. And that's how we did. Yeah. And Cody just didn't make it. So yeah, I don't remember our plans for that night. But anyway, I didn't see Smasher or Thrasher was played that entire night.

I think Cameron stayed on on Idris and then ended up going on to make his own. Idris list. Yeah, and it lasted for maybe two years or three years, and he ended up just being like, this is lame and got rid of it. Yeah. But I at some point when we moved out of the Wizard Tower, which was like this place that me and Kyle were renting years and years and years ago together, we moved out of the Wizard Tower, down to that place on whatever out in. East now Fox in.

West. Jesus. We I built a Thracian and Smasher list, and it was full of just stuff that the cost really wasn't the cost, you know, like it has, like delve and it's cost or it's just outmoded where the mana cost is really high. But I'm not usually paying something like that. And it worked pretty well as a four color deck. Would it just it had a solution to everything.

Because you were focused on this ability, that vial smasher has that whenever you cast your first spell each turn, choose an opponent at random and Vial Smasher deals damage equal. That spells mana value. Yes. Every time I do a vial smasher list, he's the star for sure. It wasn't like, hey, let's do Thracian. Yeah, okay, I just hold up mana. And with an incident or something that I could do, and if I didn't need to do it, then I'd activate. That was kind of the idea.

Yeah, I think I had a training ground in my collection and it was like, okay, it's your your net less mana if you cast it for that ability because I think it's four. Oh that's right. But anyway, the list was pretty, pretty cool. But it was really just it was eating up a lot of card equity for me. I had a lot of dual lands and just different things, like just getting swallowed up by this deck. So I ended up shutting it down somewhere between 2017 and 2020. Somewhere I let it go, I don't know.

And then later on I decided to take a jab at the spell slinger version of Smasher. But. But sans blew. Yeah. And that happened around 2020. But also I made another smasher deck that was tandem to this with Thracian in it again, but it was a pinger deck and that was the strongest iteration. That was a really good it was. To me, probably the strongest version of of that I ever could come up with.

We all build around the idea of if you put like a keen sense or a curious city or a tandem lookout paired with Smasher, every time you cast your first spell, you just replace it. And yeah, which is a cool middle ground because you don't end up with some infinite combo loop. But like, man, it's. Cool. Yeah, it drew a lot of cards because in the deck where things like The Thermal Alchemist and that was a way better vehicle for curiosity.

So. Sure. And I think you even did have it in there, but you had to find it, right? Yeah, I had to find it. I can't I think we weren't off tutors yet, but we were getting close. But again it was just eating up too much card equity. It just was. I can't handle 4 or 5 color decks if I want to make other decks. I don't want to buy these lands again. So I ended up just scrapping that one down. Yeah, and the John 21I think might have happened right after that or was happening at the same time.

I can't really remember, but I make the John list and I, I play, I play I think spell slinger is the first place I want to go with magic. I think this is where I land on a lot of things. Like my Voltron lists are very spell slinging focused. I'm just looking to do that. Sorcery and instance are my among my favorite card types. I don't think they're the best card types, but they're my favorite. So I tried the list out and it worked pretty well, actually, without blue. And you just feel cool.

You do it just feel cool. It's like, wow, you didn't even need blue fuck. Blue dude. Yeah. So right away when I was playing the list, what I loved about it is just play the biggest spell in your hand. It's it's just like, just shoot the big spell. It doesn't, it doesn't. Which is you don't. Need to read or you. Just don't need to really think about what you don't need to plan ahead. There's nothing to do.

Just shoot this big spell, try to get the biggest smash and it would just like kind of work out a lot of the time. Sometimes it didn't, but it just kind of worked out where, yeah, you're hauling the biggest spell off every turn and you're just kind of snowballing a little bit. And you're, you're you're in a footing where you're not really reacting so much. You're proactive about everything. That's going on. Yeah, and pretty reckless with your mana. And it felt really good.

And then, you know, starting to think like, can I get the curve like shoved up on the higher end, even more because I wanted to smash bigger. I want to just peel off more damage. Yeah. And I noticed that the opponent there, you know, sans Brad, they are like, it's doing damage to not me. And I love that. Like our table is really into writing out someone else's card for as long as we possibly can. If it if especially damage based cards. Going to say, can we hold on that for a second?

Maybe there's there's a bigger conversation. But I think you were observing recently that it seems like not everybody shares that philosophy. I don't think so. I don't think people do. Yeah. I was playing a game with this where I resolved the merciless. Who is. Is it definitely a problem? But it got instantly past the exiled right before I even did anything with it. And I thought about it, and I'm like, I just don't see that happening here.

I think people will just say, hey, I'll remove this thing if it ever targets me. And I'd say, done. Yeah, and leave it out. You know, we never lie about what's in our hand. Like we always say, like, yeah. We don't deceive. Yeah, we just say, I'll just kill it, dude. So if you pointed at me once, I'll just nuke it and I'll say, okay, done deal. I leave it out and just hammer somebody else. You have to leverage everything in our. You just have to leverage more with. Yeah. I don't know.

We we did that this last weekend where I had a game where I was playing my Doran deck, which makes it so that all creatures assign damage with their toughness. Right. And I had I was a tulpa. Yeah. And Andy was like, I can remove it, guys, this is a problem. Am I doing. Damage with. Should I? And I was like, Andy, I won't pointed at you. And when I say done you're like done immediately. Yeah. Because that's damage done to somebody else and I. Don't you I don't care like set to work on Brad.

Set to work on Chris. And in the end I won that game by a little bit of help. Yeah. Because you had they were way ahead of me and you descended doing so. Smacked both of them with. Yeah. So I let them deal with it. Yeah. Right. And they just sit there and go, I can't match Andy's offer. Right. So, that's just how we play. I, I like that way where you're leveraging better. You say I can remove this, but how about you don't send it my way.

And if somebody is like, but you're really the problem, then you would make that deal. If you felt like I needed to go, you don't even know if you'd play it. I don't know, but you just be like, I can't do that, man. Then remove it, because then what you want to see is one removal spell out of you, right? Right. So. But you got to be flexible. But in the case of Vile Smasher, I think our group has an attitude of like. Just let it write. Out damage is damage.

And unless it gets me to where my life is in jeopardy. Then they'll look to remove. It. Yeah, I'm not not too worried. Brad seems to have weird luck. He rolls dice and it no matter what I pick high or low. He ends up just taking the heat, ends up taking the smash. A lot at the time. But it. But what I've noticed is you have no appetite to remove it. Camera in or let it right out. Tiff loves it like Tiff just loves Smasher.

And then probably only Goblin in the game she likes and Chris leave it out too. It's really only Brad is looking to remove it. Yeah, my my thing is, unless my life total is very low or you've got like damage doubling or something like that out. But I've been in the game with you where you were low, I was low, everyone was low. And you even said out loud, I can remove it. But there's a possibility that Andy could just take out Tiff on accident because she was like it for life, right?

And you looked at me, you're like, do you have a. Because we were all like, within like a certain life total. And I think you worked it out where I needed to cast something that was like a five or higher and then no matter what, someone's dead. Right? Right. Do you have a five in your hand? I'm like, I do. And you were like, I'm just going to roll with it. I just end you, like, let me go to the turn, because I don't think you had a way to leverage anything past that. Sure.

Like I just don't see a way out for me right now. I'll just. I'll just see what happens. Just go. And I shot the spell, and I. I think it took Tiff out. Dude, I'm pretty sure it was one of her last throw games. Oh, and she got knocked out with it. And you were like, okay. But now it's down to 50%. Right now, I think. Right before your turn, you did nuke it. But like, you let it right out to see if, you know, like. Because it can turn out. Right.

Yeah, it can turn out it was it's a this is how we play. I don't know I don't know if it's the right way or what, but we generally will let things right out. We're not about that with like, you know, like something like an ash Norns altar or consecrated Sphynx or just stuff that's like, it's not helping. Oh, no. Her life totals. Yeah. To me, imminent threats to other opponents or. It's or it's a pitch like I think if File Smasher had lifelink, you wouldn't tolerate it.

That's that's something different. You're pulling everything back over to you. That's something different too. But things that like, kind of just bounce around and wreak havoc. That's why I think Brad's, Lord of Payne list is going to do pretty well in our meta, because it does two things. It blocks people from gaining life, and it hammers other people. That's not the person casting the spell. So you're really safe. One turn.

Yeah, I think what I worry about with where Brad's taken it is he's added lifelink to it. He is going. To it's not going to be okay at that point, but he doesn't need to figure out what he's going to do. If he ends up in A1V1 with somebody because of the way the Lord of pain will work. Yeah, because when they cast. They have to get pointed back at him. And so he could be in a, he can be in bad shape. That's going to be a tricky one for him to figure out.

But I think it'll do well because we just love to write shit like that out. Hell yeah. Yeah, right. So anyway, I've had a lot of decks on and off. I had some theory ones, two ones that I've theorized might be good. Yeah. As an IV, I just love the little guy, I just do. He's a guy, I love. Him, and it's just a weird. Interesting way to make him cooler is that if he was writing a robotic version of nemesis.

So, yeah, vile smasher, the fear CRT read it, but it's one to read in a black for A23 legendary creature Goblin Berserker. He's $3 right now. That's pretty dope on card Kingdom dollar oh nine is what I'm getting from my architect plug in. But yeah, whenever you cast your first spell each turn, choose an opponent at random. Vile Smasher. The first deals damage equal to the spells mana value to the player. To that player.

Or a planeswalker that player controls that doesn't really come up very often. That planeswalker element. The way we handle this is everyone just rolls off. They roll a d20. Yeah. And we just either pick high or low. I've seen people go, you're one, you're two, you're you're you're one and two. You're, two and three. I, I don't think you get a lot of charity with that one. I think you should let people roll their dice because then it's their own downfall.

For some reason that does have play like a really interesting element to it, right? Yeah. Like to play commander is to play head games. Yeah. That's why you're here. We we have fallen away from that. In recent years. This game has become very sweaty, with everybody. And it really wasn't. It's not. It's just it's not supposed to be that it's in. So it's something as simple as just giving someone a dice to roll themselves.

However you want to solve that randomization thing, if you want to make like a stupid little, you know, the price is right wheel and spin it, just give someone some tactile involvement. And it's weird. Because some people literally will, like, switch out the dice roll. They throw it. Away because he's like, this d20 sucks. I need that one. Give me that one. Yeah, yeah he hasn't. He likes that like piss colored one that they got from right from excellent or whatever. He can't even read it.

He's like that. That's that's my dice. Yellow on piss or white on piss yellow. So there is a number of partners to get to joined. You could pick a number of them to make it a junk deck because. Because Vile Smasher by himself would be a reckless commander. But what I chose was Gillen recolor of The Wire would two in a green for A12 legendary creature elf Druid. You can tap and add green when you spend this mana to cast a spell with converted mana. Cost six or greater draw card.

Not a great mana to work. You're paying three to get one. You. It's like a warm power stone in your zone ish, I guess. Not even that. You only get the green, and and candidly, I'm not really preoccupied with the six or greater claws on this thing too much with the with the diet build. Weirdly. Sure. The the pre con, it's just it sets me up for a different start I think is why it's there. If I have a hand with no ramp, it's got to be Gillen Room. If I have a hand with ramp it Smasher shows out.

That's that's really why I like this. There. Yes. There are cards that will get me the card draw. You could go pretty wild with this if you wanted to, and come up with some kind of untap tap strategy with Calandra. I've thought about this. Where, hey, let's revisit Pingers because if you untap Tap Glasner a bunch of times and add that much green, then cast the spell. You get the draw. Don't try to draw because you didn't get it. Sees every green. Yeah. And gives you.

The cup loaded kind of that one spell. Yeah. There's kind of a kooky setup, but glanzer is just fine. The other thing I like about Glanzer is they're just not really a target for removal. Like, people aren't looking to break their true story. They just leave it. So, yeah, you could do it. Gives you some life gain. Pretty good blocker. And and also something of note is that it doesn't share the mana slot with its partner. Oh, no. Don't get in your way. Sometimes it really does.

It does with this one. I'm just warning you, dear listener, you'll run into that where both cost the same and you're unsure about what to capitalize on. Do I want to smash out, or do I want to jump up to a higher mana altitude? I think you're safer to just jump up to a higher altitude and then introduce smash or somewhere else. Lately that's what it's been, but it's been better for me. Rather than greedily trying to smash out sooner rather than later.

Okay, but if you have multiple ramp spells in your hand, I think it's better. It's just, I don't know, it's hard to track. Like, was that first four damage or three damage I did off of a cultivate or something like that. The decider at a game where people are, people are in single digits like that single digit number is now starting to matter. Yeah, it's. Hard to track that through through the many, many, many things that can happen in a commander game. Yeah. You get me? Yeah. That's fair.

So those are my two picks. But okay. One could think about different partners. Non blue spells slinger. Let's talk about that. Oh why is blue so irritable. So just really involved with spell slinging. Do you think. You know boiling down to it like asking actually why am I. I don't know that I have a solid answer for it. I mean, I do think that is there is legitimately some design around that, right?

Like there's probably I would guess there's a higher volume of instance in sorceries in blue than maybe some of the other colors, but I don't know. Yeah, it's got a lot. How true that is. And then the wizard RPG element of it probably gives that notion. I yeah, I think, I think thematically that's what the designers or at least the, the. The it's like, it's, that's the, the theme. Like you're, you're ahead of the game. You're smart.

That's that's blue. Yeah. So if you can do things at instant speed or do something ahead of what other people can do, you're setting the tempo for the game with blue better than most colors, right? It's it's it can counter things. Yeah. You can counter stuff effectively. You can just say, nah, I really can do that. It's a really strong ability.

There's games even outside of magic, like there's a game that me and Tiff play with her friends because they can't handle stuff like what I handle called unstable unicorns. And there's a counter spell in unstable unicorn corns. It's called neigh, where you just block or whatever action they're trying to do. And I'm like, this is really strong. Like this is just really strong. Like they put they put some kind of resource barrier in front of this most of the time over here in magic.

But it's got a free counter spell in the game just called neigh. Just stops whatever they're doing, you know. Yeah. It looks like just. Doing a cursory search as instance go. Yeah I think blue has 826 on a search. And this is cursory like. I don't think any of the other colors crack 700 on instance. Yeah, like it likes instant. So you know. Yeah.

The other thing I think, I think the other thing is just when you're talking about spell slinger is you need ways to recuperate the spells you've shot because they don't have any persistent effect on the game. They're not an ongoing effect. They're not a permanent. They're not a blocker. They're not an attacker. You cast divination and you draw two cards and the divination is now gone. And that's that. If you cast, I don't know, the name of a wall of blossoms while it blossoms.

Only draws you one card, but it's a blocker. Yeah, it can save you life. So you could read it. As you know, the next time somebody comes out, you with a four for its draw card gain for life, I think is the way you could think of it. Essentially. Yeah. Or if you put a cast, one of the cards I like in green is the okay adversary. Right. It's it's basically for an a green for a death touch when I dealt combat damage draw card and it cost two less.

If somebody controls a green permanent but it it can get way more cards over the course of the game and and reduce people's life total because they're not likely to block A23. It's you can set it up where you're attacking the right person who was very unlikely to block. Like the only thing they control is their precious ask fucking commander and you hit them for two and draw a card. So the way that one reads is pay four or maybe even I think it's two, man, I think is what it can go down to.

On your next turn, combat, somebody loses two life and you draw a card, and then it just keeps happening over and over again. Right? So when you start thinking about permanence in that way, when when you're looking at it through the lens of somebody who's playing spell slinger, you, you dynasty, do look at that weakness, which is. Yeah. The reason why I think blue is so inextricably related to spell slinger is that it can replace the cards that were shot. That's a really good insight.

It has not just about casting the spells, it's that there's as as is thematically there. You're, acquiring new knowledge out of your library. Yeah. And replacing what you've shot. Right? Like canned chips are great, but they are only great to me when they set off a trigger. Yeah, like an immediate trigger or I don't I don't find them to be that great. Outside of ponder or preordained in isolation. I'll use them to set off triggers because they're they're small

and they replace themselves. Yeah. I don't put brainstorm in most of my decks because I don't think it's a great grand cantrip unless you've got a lot of fetch lands and you're able to do that stuff. I'm just not playing that level of sweat where I'm playing is it's great and never miss it because it deals for damage just. Because of the draw. You can draw for draw and then draw and trigger, and then I can put a I can put some stuff back, but I just don't automatically go for brainstorm.

Brainstorm makes sense for a top deck stuff because you set up your top deck. That's what it's for. Yeah. But to me, ponder and pre-ordained or the premier cantrip above brainstorm. Yeah, they'll get you out of some stupid opening hands or you're like, oof, I haven't hit a land drop. Let me kind of settle for something. You know? I love those two cards. Yeah, but my point with blue is, is like, yeah, it's got permanents that buy you back, right? That's got permanence that are magnified.

But by casting in instant sorcery, it's got permanence that reduce the cost of instance sorceries as well. Like red has some they're a bit fussy, but like you can you can get stuff back. So yeah, that's got its own beast whisperer in the form of the arc mage emeritus.

Like it has those things going on where you're you're lubricated and you're able to get through and you have a version of game permanence through the instance and sorceries you're casting, either by dealing damage, milling cards, replacing them, making tokens like, that's that's why I think blue is so related. Yeah. So you have to compensate for that if you're going to take blue off the table. Sure. You have to create some kind of board presence.

In some way, meaning either life totals are going down meaningfully. That's a that's a board change. Like people are dying, right? People aren't able to hold on to stuff like removing permanence is a way of permanence. Yeah. If you're going to lose a card out of your hand and somebody else should lose a card somewhere. Removing permanence is a form of board permanence. I don't you get what I mean? Like you've introduced a change to the to the equation because something's gone.

It wasn't I just cantrip. Yeah, that doesn't change a lot. If you don't have a permanent seeing it or whatever, it might set things up for the next. But if all you're doing is hitting cantrip after cantrip after cantrip, you'll find that your card quality is not matching what people are doing. These. No, no. Like you were talking earlier, where her, me and you were talking earlier. Where I was kind of saying, like you had made a comment.

You're like, yeah, you got to do something in these these days. You got to find something to abuse. Yeah, yeah. And I think the thought I threw out at you was, that's because we have these genetically engineered commanders and genetically modified cards that are meant for commander, that will rubber band the fuck out of anything that's going on, and. Yeah. And the thing I gave that, the one I threw out was like Jessica's will, for example. Right. Like it, it can just look out of nowhere, right?

It's essentially reads draw three ad, in my experience, five or more. Read back to your pool. It's it's crazy. It's just this crazy card. So if you're not, like, abusing something over the course of the game to keep up with the inevitable rubber band card gets cast by an opponent. I don't know how you play. Yeah, because, I mean, the game inherently is synergistic, so you have to assume your opponents are abusing synergy.

But to your point, like another one you had brought up was like reckless endeavor. You know, where where somebody could literally wipe the board but have the mana to recover from the board wipe. Yeah, there's a version of of reckless endeavor where they do nothing. Totally. But there's also like a middling version where it does quite a bit. Yeah. And then there's like the crit version where, holy shit, like this is and look at the price of the card. Like, people have found that it's valuable.

And it's actually hard to acquire. It's a. Great card. Even if, you do go out and want to purchase it. Yeah. You you got to you got to abuse something. That puts that out there. I think of like, what I'm thinking about when I'm taking blue out of the spell slinger equation a little bit.

If you're going to take it out, which we've done here, you just have to kind of be mindful of you've letting you're letting go of a very well lubricated color that likes this type of card being played in since and sorceries. Yeah. And it wants to pay you in the form of, you know, just board presence and velocity from cards or whatever. Right. And cost reduction tokens, it just it does it does a lot. Red does too. Red is also a very yeah. It's instant sorcery.

Thrilled. Color. But it's really blue that that it's got some of the best ones in the game. Yeah. Especially to protect whatever you're trying to do. That being said, what I've done here is I have turned this into a control deck. Is really. Is really it? I don't love the blue options for spell slinger control because it doesn't do enough for the.

Card parity equation thing that you and I talk about so much, the tempo problem that we run into, we say it we've talked about it a couple times, but just to like reiterate, if I use a, let's just say like a regular card that we see, right, the Chaos warp, if I use Chaos Warp on Kyle's commander or let's say that Zootopia. Right. If I use Chaos Warp on Kyle's a top. I'm down. Chaos warp. Kyle is now down to the top of possibly into something else.

So really, I might just be down chaos warp and that's that. But let's say he whiffs on the chaos or I'm down. Chaos warp, Kyle's down. Top tulpa. And Brad and Chris are now up. Not to the top and not chaos. Warp to threads. I've seen a game turn on a a turn, turn on a chaos warp. I've seen it happen a time, but that's not great. That's not great. This is kind of what you sign up for with commander. I don't I don't think I'm an advocate for overthinking about that kind of thing.

If you're just playing the game, I suppose, unless you're playing. But it does impact the. Yeah, like the higher speed meta, right? The CDH meta where like the stuff starts to add up. Right. These, these interactions because that's how they go. But out here, if that's what the deck is all, that's all it's going to do. It becomes a losing strategy. It might not be losing play. I definitely, probably should zip.

That is the top if I'm going to be taking, sure, a copious volume of damage into my fucking skull and I and you're definitely coming my way with it. But my point is, if that's all I set out to do, I play control. And that's what I do is I control. Then I'm going to just fall apart. It's not a winning strategy to my mind. Can we. Well, sorry, I don't want to cut you off if you're still hanging on that thought. Yeah. So my point is, is that blue.

It doesn't seem like it rewards you for doing this. There's not like a. Yeah, there's a couple and the and the reward is kind of annoying. Like if you look like a guard the frozen flame. That could be a way to look at, spell slinger type control. If you focus on the, the sorcery and instant side of it when they deal damage and if they take excess and die, you draw. But all you're doing is drawing into more control.

And I think, I think one of the things to me, hailing back to some of that earlier conversation. Yeah, With blue. You. Blue control a big swath of that is counter spells. Right. And so you have to rely on your own intuition for what these plays are going to mean for you. Right? As in, like I'm going to counter that as a top, because I don't want it to be a problem for me. Yeah. Whereas with the Chaos Warp, even though there is that disparity

between the opponents. Right. Yeah. It might not come at you first. Right. You can write it out. So what we said earlier. So exactly. So you could just be like, well, I have the chaos Warp force a top when I need it for the top. Whereas if you have a counterspell there's only one time to use that. Exactly. And I. Yeah. So I do like that proposition of ignoring blue. Yeah. Because these other, these other colors might actually allow you to leverage

things better. Yeah. Like you're going you're going to have to at least for me, I have to start thinking about things and layers all the way up and out. When we're talking about playing against the same people every every week. Yeah. So I need to try to leverage your stuff against my opponents if I can, in the form of hey, I hey, Kyle, I can remove it. Okay. I'll send it somewhere else. Done. Right. That's good enough. Don't lie. I do have it. I'm not lying.

And then if you see me, drain it on something else later than. Like, I don't have any leverage anymore. And that's happened right then. It's like really thinking about the strategy just for control. Like you often have to arrive at that conversation if you're going to make a control deck. I, I'm probably the most controlling player in our meta. Second, probably only to you depending on the area. Depending on the. Depending on the era me and Kyle go through.

We have different eras tours and I don't know, it's true lately I'm not really on one actually I don't. I think I'm more on like an aggro era right now. You're kind of on a combo era. It just depends. Yeah, but but I think if you look at Andy's lists compared to Brad's, I am way more on the controls side of things because I think it's necessary.

It's a necessary part of this game, I think going up and over everyone's head every game, just I just don't think that's it's it's not part, you know, I just not always I like the balance. It provides a little bit. Yeah. But I want to just kind of acknowledge that it has its serious pitfalls. Like one, it tends to piss people off if all you're doing is just controlling them. And it's into my mind.

Also, it is absolutely a losing game when you're not engaging in the real hard control stuff, which is forcing discards on people, making them edit their creatures and denying them mana. That's the real control. That's like the the 1984 style control. That's and is the only one that works. That guy didn't do anything in 1984. He did did it? He accomplished nothing because he was playing in a stacks country, right? It wasn't. It wasn't loose. They were playing Texas. Right?

Like the American Revolution should have never fucking happened if the Spanish were in charge. You know, the British just kind of played little loose with us. And here we are. If the Spanish were in. Charge, you're just like George Washington would have been subject to the Inquisition. Been like, yeah, you. Exactly. You're stand on this by. That's what would happen. So there's there's different forms of control. I don't play stacks because of what it does to people's time.

It's it's one of our it's a time violation for us. Yeah. Right. And eventually it becomes an agency violation, which is something that me and Kyle just like and our group try to stay away from. Yeah. But I will engage in the, the other type so long as I can justify it with a winning strategy. Yeah. And I have to back it up. I hear a lot of people, like, ask a lot of anecdotes about people who play spell slinger.

And it's it's just this crazy game where this goes, this goes, that goes, I did this and that and I twin that, and everyone lost. That just doesn't happen here. It just doesn't. People can see what you're up to from a mile away. If you don't have blockers around on this table. Your life total is coming down. It just is. You will be constantly challenged.

And they'll call the defense as your commander to like, I'm going to send a creature that's bigger than your commander, and I don't think you're going to hinder. Yeah, people will even do matches like I'll if Brad has his three three commander and I have my three three commander, we'll just attack each other. And we know Brad will likely not block. Yeah, and if he does block, I'll be like, he's got some fucking reanimation or something, right? Right. Sends it to graveyard.

Yeah, but when my, my, the people I play with Will will constantly ask you to defend yourself. So that's also harder to do when you can't lubricate your draw and lubricate your effects with blue and cyclonic at rifted all the way like that's that's off the table. Yeah. So my solution to that was I need to be controlling the board, but I need to be doing it in a fashion where I'm getting more bang for my buck than one to ones.

There are one to ones in, sure, but I need to try my best to stay away from that. Unfortunately, with my list, that means edict effects. Like I'm forcing people to drop creatures quite, quite often with the smasher list. Which some people kind of lump into, like a Stax type feel, right? Like like some people see that as. Yeah, stack. See, I'm just being honest about what this episode is going to be about. This is not, I cast big spells.

And when that's not how this is going to shake out, you could modify my list, take some of the control elements off. If you have a meta that's just more forgiving to you. Just popping the fuck off out of nowhere, then, okay. But my deck does pop off the pop the fuck off out of nowhere, and that weirdly, is met with more vitriol than you keep making me lose creatures. Unless you're Brad. Like it? He doesn't seem to like I don't. Is that a good enough setup, do you think I. Do like that?

I think that was great. I just want to. I just want to tell people like what's on the tin before they commit to listening to this. Yeah. Look, we've read the Surgeon General's warning. Yeah. Cuz. You know, I just. Yeah, I got a I got to be honest about what I'm up to. This is one of my heavier control ideas and the, the pre or the pre con version of it I think will be dug in even further with that because it just has to be it. It can't do the big bombastic things because the sugar too expensive.

Yeah. But if what you're looking for is some crazy I'm going to twin spells and and just do things twice then I don't know don't look at CarMax. Go look at these other ones that already they're already doing that for you. That's not what this is. This is a I'm not playing blue and it's a little bit different of a spell slinger idea. And really it's it's kind of fun to play honestly. And it can have it has those outcomes. It definitely has those moments where you're like oh shit.

And I'll go through those. But but they're that's that's the setup. Yeah. Okay okay. Let's focus first on the ramp. And this is, this is the OG or this is the pre. We're doing the recon. Okay, 12 ramp sources and 35 lands. So I'm 12 and 35 land count seems okay because once you just hit some of these ramp cards, you jump. I think you jump up out of pretty fast. Notice that the ramp is pretty high on the CMC. Yeah. They are. There's like the soul ring that's below.

Where you could just cut soaring. It like, breaks the budget. Still a to a 1 to $2 card. It's crazy. Which feel like that's not a lot. I was working on a budget deck with Zach Lee yesterday. He's like, it's only a dollar. And I'm like, Zach, if we keep adding $1 deck cards, you end. Up with $100 deck if you just keep doing that. Yeah. And he's like, oh yeah, that is right on. Like you got to try to stay around $0.35 $0.25 if you want the cheapest shit. Yeah. Is what you want. Yeah.

It seems like the majority of your ramp are for. Yes. And they mostly get to lands. I want to be up in a way. Yeah, either with a big smash or gallon. Right. Helps me get up in a way. And then I resolve Smasher, and then we move forward. Gotcha. So there's 12 of them. Some are kind of like, forked, like. So like there's the beanstalk worm. It has the plant beans, one in a green.

You may play an additional land this turn, but really it's it's also got a five mana five four reach that attached to it that you could cast later. But, you know, we're in budget. This is a five cent card, 35 cent card, depending on who you're letting rip you off. It's it's a blocker. Later on, it is which people are going to be coming after you. They are, they're not too happy. Yeah. Beanstalk giant two and a Green cert. Your library for a basic land card.

Put it into the battlefield and then shuffle. But later on, if we've hit a lot of these land drops and we've cast a lot of these spells, it should be a pretty big beanstalk giant which has the star star power, toughness where that's equal to. It's how many lands you control, which is an item, and it's a seven mana smash. Yeah, that's a good. Smash for seven. And now have this big clunky guy in the beanstalk. You could smash for seven and have A77 in their way. Yeah, yeah.

Is the idea, circuitous route. It's four mana. You can search for either two basics or two gates. I put gates in the 99 so you can fix your colors and a budget. Nice. In a budget? That's, like, not cheap. It's like a dollar card. I'm crazy. Gates are kind of a oddly loved archetype. Yeah. Let me switch this to categories. Multiple, because some of these that I try to get as much buy function out of everything here. Okay. So this next one is a removal card but it's also ramp.

It's binding the old gods Andi that's not an instant or sorcery. Yeah. All right. But I we get a lot of mileage out of that here. So it's two a black and a green for a saga when it enters, when this saga enters. Destroy target non land permanent and opponent controls, you can break anything short of a land, but it's second mode is search your library for a forest car or second chapter not mode. Second chapter is search your library for a forest card and put it into the battlefield.

Tap, then shuffle. It's pretty fucking. Good. Yeah, I'll take that. And this last mode is creatures you control, gain death, touch on the turn. And that and that card. Honestly, that second mode is pretty handy even if you're upgrading your budget, right? Because it searches a forest, right? But not a base case. You can go grab the cinder glade and dump it in. Yeah. It's awesome. Yeah. But for four mana, you've destroyed something and got to land. This is what we have to do.

It's just like I need to create board presence where I can get it. Yeah, the other one would be Death Sprout. I almost never run this card, but here, it's an instant you can smash off. Turn with it. It's one. A black and a black and a green. Destroy target creature. Search your library for a basic land card. Put it in the battlefield, tap, then shuffle your library. Yeah, so if you do something on your turn, let's say you have five mana and a two minute spell, and then. Or sorry, six mana.

Two men. A spell on this one. Just pick your border, do the two mana spell during your turn. Smash for two. Yeah. Go around the table. I don't know, maybe somebody attacks you. Maybe nothing happens. You're going to kill some. You're going to. Kill some. Because you have to. Really? I'm going to ramp up. I'm taking somebody with me. That's. Yeah, that's how I see this one. I like that. You got to start. I just start thinking like this one.

I think that's a good example of what you're describing of like, you don't just want to like 1 to 1, right? Like you got the removal discards out of your hand. Yeah. You also got a land and you also got to smash. I also got to smash exactly like you're getting. And if you can get all three, like, if it's a six mana spell where you get the Gillen roll, you get the yeah, that's great. The spell gives you something on top of it and you smash for a for an amount. Oh, that's that's awesome.

Disorienting choice three in a green sorcery for each opponent, choose up to one target, artifact or enchantment that player controls. Its controller may exile it. Then if the if it then if, one or more of those chosen permanents are still on the battlefield, you search your library for up to that many land cards. So land cards straight up put them in the battlefield, tap, then shuffle. So this is like a alternative to peer's whim?

Yes, you target a bunch of stuff that people you aren't going to just let go and you just go grab that many lands in this deck. I don't think it's super potent because the land choices aren't going to be very powerful, sure, but still, I think people will let you do it. I don't think people are going to be super freaked out, but we'll see. But if you're targeting my, I very much need it. And Kyle's I very much need it. And Brad's I very much like it. Do you like Herb or Cabal coffers? Hello?

Yeah, yeah, that won't be happening here. Explosive vegetation here. Harrow is great because it makes you able to smash one more time off, turn and pop. Possibly a third time. Like if I smash on my turn, leave three up. Yeah, and I have a two mana spell. I can smash with Harrow at instant speed off, turn, and then follow up on the next turn with the last two minute spell. Yeah, so I've smashed three times because remember, it's only the first spell you cast each turn and then he shuts off.

Sure. Or she or whatever. Yeah. Hunting wilds three in a green. Search your library for two forest cards, put them into the battlefield, tap and shuffle your library. It has a kicker for twice the cost. You can pay three in a green if this spell was kicked. Untap all forests. Put the, put on the battlefield. This way they become three three green creature tokens with haste that are still lands. It's just a cool card. I it's just the but most budget version of the grab two I could find.

I don't know if you're ever going to be able to really capitalize on that kicker thing. But the kicker if it does, the kicker goes into the mana value, right? Or is an additional cost. It's an additional cost. Okay. Yeah. But either way, like still you grab two. Still, if you're playing like a mono green deck, I think this is a great card because you potentially could kill somebody. Like, you might have an empty fucking board. Ooh. And all of a sudden, your forests untap all forests.

Oh, wait, there's the forest that you. Came in there. So it's like, six is the most you could do. Yeah, I know, I like I, I'm kind of thinking you pay eight mana to smash somebody for four and then hit them for six on top of that. Is that a good rate? Well, I tend down I would say if they're if they have, if you have no blockers. Yeah. And I go grab two forests. I paid eight. You get somebody get smash for four. Probably not you, but let's say it is. Sure. Grab the two forests.

They come in, they untap, they turn into three threes, and I attack you with those? Yeah. I mean. I think I just don't do anything and smash later. This card. This card is a template in design, right? Like the four mana for two lands like three and a green. That's a. And then some other thing is a pretty common design I think in in magic. And so I like that we're like, oh, I could have them become bodies that hit like, that's pretty fucking good.

Yeah. This is expedition four in a green has convoke. They both can. I mean, glamor can just give you mana for it anyway, but they both can reduce this. Smasher can do it by a colorless and glenrock. Yeah. Glamor is a matador, but you get what I mean. But, yeah, I searched your library for two, basically on cards, put them into the battlefield, tapped, then shuffle. But then you'd smash for five. Yeah, pretty, pretty great solo rings there. I really like this card.

It's called Tara Moore three and a green sorcery. Search your library for a basic land card and put it into the battlefield. Then shuffle so it comes in on tapped. It's, it's a basic land. I feel like it's for mana. Yeah, but it's got rebound, so it goes off again, which I love. Yeah. Really potent. Germane to Smasher because you smash on this turn and then you rebound and then you smash again. So you've done eight damage. I think one cast. To to the table. Yeah. Off of one cast.

It blocks you for that turn. I hope you have like a five minute spell. You want to cast that next turn. You're down one. But it's just great. And they come in untap. I think that's so cool. Sets it apart. Right. It's it's great. So yeah, that whole section. $11.22. Nice. Let's go to draw next. That's the next like chunk that needs to be focused on. So $6.48. I had to make some concessions for this because like Knights Whisperer and stuff like that, they're oh yeah, they're too much.

They add up pretty quick. So I'm looking really to scrunch the budget down. Do we see how much this deck costs? I don't think you mentioned off the top I have. 5887 with Card Kingdom. Yeah. Mine is showing TCG player for 34. We'll it don't believe us on that guys. It's you know how those things go. Yeah, probably somewhere between ancient. Craving you pay for, you draw three, you lose three. That's that. The greed, the bonuses. Too much. After listener, you have read the bonus.

Yeah. That that truly costs you. I'm acting like you have none of these cards in hand. The death ritual. With the way we've set this deck up, I thought this might be good for the mileage. It's two a green and a black for morbid. At the beginning of each end step, if a creature died this turn, you draw a card. You're not the only person that's going to trigger this. People will attack each other. Yeah, people are going to blow up.

People sacrifice their creatures like, it it's not great, but it's $0.35, and I feel like you'll get some mileage out of it. Dire sight's actually pretty cheap. It's the real to me, a pretty damn good. Yeah, yeah. Competitor for Read the Bones two and a black for a sorcery. Survival two, then draw two, then lose two. Life. We like it in smash for three. Grab the prizes a new one, it's one in a red. As an additional cost to cast this card, discard a card. You draw two cards.

If the discarded card wasn't a land card, grab the rain. Grab the prize deals two damage to each opponent, so somebody's taken four. Everyone's taking two. I would love to see this one twinned because then you draw four. Deal. Four and if you do, if you meet the additional costs. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Or would you. Actually, I'm actually unsure now that I'm seeing because draw two cards. If the discarded card wasn't a land card, grab the prize deals, dude with the twin.

See this part because you didn't discard anything for the twin because it's part of an additional. Oh, I actually don't know. Let us know. I don't know. What. Let us know which one. I'm actually unsure. I think it still does it. I think it's just looking to see now, like, am I here? And was like, I don't know. Anyway, gruesome realization. It's one a black and the black. This is actually a cheaper Knights whisper for one more mana. Knights whispers like $1.20 or something like that.

But this is like, yeah, $0.10. Gruesome realization one a black and a black. Choose one. You may draw two cards and lose two life. That's knights whisper a sign and blood, whatever you want to call it. Or creatures your opponent's control. Get negative one. Negative one. Till I've turned. The fucks up tokens. Sure as shit does. Somebody playing humans kill our list like this? Will for Kyler shows up. Just like I'm not letting you have your bodies.

This would hurt you if you've been working with Adeline for how long and all these humans are down and I'm just like, let's restart them negative ones just enough and a lot of cases harmonize to two green, green. Can I say especially for a spell slinger deck that doesn't typically handle people going wide through. Right. Like you don't usually have very many creatures. Yeah, I've got solutions later on for more of that. But you're right. Harmonize to I really should put this is okay.

So it's by functional right. It's removal and draw or draw. Sure, sure. The other two or both. Like you get your land with binding or gods and your way. Yeah. Harmonize to green. Green. Just draw three cards. It's the ancient grieving classic, but for not, you know, the same adversary, the one I was talking about. It's $0.22. Yes. Let me check my memory on this one. Three and a green for a two. Three. Elf warrior. This spell cost to list a cast. If an opponent controls a green permanent. Yeah.

Someone's going to control a green permanent. What? What day is it? It's Tuesday. You playing commander? Somebody. Somebody is controlling. Is it Wednesday? Somebody is controlling a green harmony. Death touch. Whenever an adversary deals combat damage to a player, draw a card. Yeah. Death touch. The. You need to be able to defend yourself. This will this will become a blocker pretty quick. You'll get some cards. But this is specifically here to defend your life.

Total. Yeah. To give you more time. People don't wantonly. In least where I lose where I work, they don't throw themselves away on death. Touch the wait until they can deal with it. Yeah, painful truths. Incredible three color card. Love it. Two and a black converge. You may draw X cards and you may lose x life, where x is the number of colors of mana spent to cast painful truth. So if you play the green, the red and the black into it, you draw three, lose three for three. Dope $0.84.

Good card. Yeah. Love it. Pirates pillage is in here. Although I'd probably. If there's some instant speed versions. Right. But the sorcery version one is cheap. Yeah, they're two, but the sorcery. Version. Is three in a red sorcery is initial cost the cards discard to discard a card, you draw two cards, you create two treasures. It's it's great. It's a great way to weirdly ramp. You could see this is ramp. Yeah. Oh. Wait. Never mind. Read the bonuses here. Cool.

Read the bonus. Two in a row, a two and a black. You scry two, draw two, then lose two is really what people do with this. It's $0.33. Siphon mind is also a great card to twin. It's great for Smasher because you smash for four. It's three and a black. Each player discards a card. You draw a card for each card discarded this way. It's been a really long time since I've cast a siphon mind where no one had a card in hand. Yeah, I just don't.

I don't probably over a decade, dude, everybody's got cards. Always a solid card. Yeah, it's not the best draw card, but it's a pretty damn good one. Yeah. It's delete three card, delete three cards out of the game. Or at least put them in the graveyard, I don't know. And then you draw three. Yeah. And then smash for four. Yeah. Snake. Umbra. This is the cheapest variety of this. But it it's a little bit functional I guess.

Two in a green for enchant creature and Shannon creature gets plus one plus one and has. Whenever this creature deals damage to an opponent, you may draw a card. It has. What are we calling it? This. The version I have is totem armor, and they're calling Umbra Armor now. Oh. That's right. So Smasher deals damage. That's why this is here. So you cast a spell. There really careful with that design these days, aren't they? Because there's a number of these, say, when they tell combat damage.

Yeah, they're I believe I believe somebody can correct me the this is primarily a green and blue effect. There's three blue cards and two green cards that do it. Yeah. So it's awesome. But it also gives Smasher some persistence. If somebody was to destroy or a board right goes off, you lose the umbra. You hold on to your little guy for a little longer. That might not be something you're interested in when you find out what the win condition is in this later on, but it's there.

You got me. Sure. How you feel about that? That's already set six. I'm curious what card draw you and I come up with when we're doing budget lists, and so this feels pretty solid. Yeah. Let's talk just defending yourself a little bit. Let's just get this out of the way. I put Carter the doom Scourge in, to a black and a red for a for three. Legendary creature. Demon berserker. When Carter Doom scourge enters until your next turn.

Creatures your opponent's, control attack each combat fable and attack a player other than you a fable. This is another piece that matters. Whenever an attacking creature dies, each opponent loses one life and you gain one life. So it's like this. Walking, blood artist, Zulu port, cutthroat kind of story thing going on while it's down. But the big thing is, is that that ghost effect will put a lot of damage on your opponents. If the board is pretty thick.

If you have board wipe, you could clear it, but you could Carter at first. And then when the Carter effect finally wears off, then clear it. Brad's survived the other night because he top deck one of these into play. It's incredible. He was about to die. Yeah, I think he was, he was below five for sure. It's incredible. And that saved his life. There are instance and sorcery versions of this, like disrupt the quorum. Sure. Twinning. It just doesn't do anything. Yeah. Like it?

Yeah. There's not a reason and doesn't have this persistence to it. So this is one of the places where you're kind of like thinking, I need to be a little bit smarter and flexible about my card choices. This one, over the long term, eventually blocks for you. It can attack for you. I just I love Carter, yeah. In any color identity that fits it. Nighthawk, scavenger and, vampire. Nighthawk. They're both one. A black and a black. They have flying death touch and Lifelink. The Nighthawk is A23.

That's static, but the scavenger gets a one plus three where its power is equal to one plus the number of card types among cards in your opponent's graveyards. They're just really good flying defenders. They sip on life totals when you don't need to defend to keep yourself in the game, especially two for the Nighthawk Scavenger when it gets kind of chubby. Yeah, or hard, however you want to think of it. I guess it's kind of the same thing. Well, you're chubby first, then you're hard.

That right. There we go. You got a chub. And then I remember they call it a half chub. It's on, it's on it's way. Yeah. Anyway, it's on its way. Poison tip Archer. Also a great card, too. A black and a green for a two. Three with reach and death touch. Whenever another creature dies, each opponent loses one life. It's. It's fucked. Like, with how much we're destroying creatures. The little you're smashing, you're killing. Things are coming down. And then there's things in the way people.

People will suicide this one off. Actually, this is. This is one of the death touches that Brad will just give a good creature right? Like we gotta get rid. He's like, I'm attacking you with my five five commander. I'm like, you know, I have a death to. I know you have a death touch. Reach. It's crazy. Right? These are crazy. If someone's toking like crazy, if you've got your lateral across your meal and you've got your poison tip arch, and then you do your, I don't know,

your innocent little gruesome realization and delete a bunch of tokens. Yep. People are hurting. It's a great locker, great creature. Pound for pound. I love the poison to love it. It's one of those that I it's it's, it's an uncommon that I'm glad they've done reprints because I'm like, that thing's going to go up, and that's going to be one of the few uncommon that's expensive. Yeah, but they've done some reprints, which is. Skull Winder two in a green for A13. It's $0.06.

By the way, this entire section is $2.31 that touch when the skull winder enters the battlefield. Target, return target card from your graveyard to your hand. Then choose an opponent. That player returns a card from their graveyard to. Then, to somebody who either doesn't have a graveyard. If you want, or choose somebody and work out a deal. There are plenty of instances, sorceries that are rather cheap that do this return cards to hand.

Reap is a great one in this budget list, though I'm thinking it's A13 death touch blocker to slow some attacks, and I might be able to buy a favor. I think a little bit. So just if you want to replace it, you can. But eternal witness is more, more expensive. It's just a more expensive. Yeah, yeah. And it doesn't. It doesn't block as well as this. One. Yeah, man, this thing will take down whatever it's. I love this card, but that's that's they're these are these.

You can kind of see the theme here. There's death touch. There's ways to keep people off us. That's what they are. Why these creatures are here. You get it? Yeah, I'm seeing them. Let's just talk about removal. Let's get into it. Are we all right, dear listener? $8.59 for 15 cards. Baleful mastery for. And a black for an instant. You may pay one and a black rather than pay. This spells mana costs. If the. If this cost is paid. If you're the one in the black was paid, an opponent draws a card.

Exile, target creature or planeswalker? It's just fucking gone out of the game. 50 cent card. It'll smash for four, but you really only need to pay two. Yeah, give not that person a card. I don't know, work out a deal. We'll do something. Sure. Bedevil is pretty cheap lately. It's black, black and red. Destroy target, artifact, creature or planeswalker. So. So far, we're, like, one for one on this, right? Yeah. Here's binding of the Old Gods again.

We already talked about it, but it's back in this section as well. Chaos warps here. This one I wanted to try out for a while. I don't know how you say this is it, but. Bituminous blast. Bituminous blast, bituminous blast. Three a black and a red for some Raymond Swann land art on an instant. Can instant with cascade and deals for damage a target creature, but it's got cascade. And it's five. So you'll deal five with Smasher.

You obviously won't get the cascade trigger from him, sure, but you cast this, then you go to your next thing. There's a lot of four mana ramp in this deck. My hope is that that's fair. He hit a four mana. Maybe that freaking blocking, reaching elf piece of shit like, I don't know, I just cascades. Cool. Yeah. Curtains call. It's pretty cheap. It was had a minute where? It's pretty pricey, but it's down to $0.17 now it's five and a black, but it's undaunted.

It costs one less to cast for each opponent. So early game, it's really just two mana to destroy two target creatures. Yeah, but if you've got Gillen or out and that one helped you cast it. So if you go lander and a swamp, shoot it. You'll draw for the lander, you'll smash for six, and you'll destroy two. Target creature. Well, it. Should be three, right? It should be reduced by three for each opponent. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you're right, you're right. Yeah. So it goes down to.

Yeah. 3 to 3 to destroy to one. But still you three. It's ready to cast early. Yeah. But it's still I'm pretty sure. Yeah. You get the Glenn Retrigger the fight. The fire is absolutely. Yeah. Fiery confluence. It's two a red and a red. Choose through this. Remember, this card was up there. Two in a red and a red. Choose three. You may choose the same mode more than once. You can duel one damage to each creature. So you could just kill three to everything or to never.

Fiery confluence does two damage each opponent? Or you can destroy target artifact if you win a spell. I don't think there's a card with a better rate than this. When we're talking deal damage to to players. Yeah, because you deal six damage on its normal mode, right? Four mana. Right. So it's a six to good. It's a 6 to 4 ratio to everybody. If you're wanting to be crazy about it you could say you dealt how much is out to the top. He did six to me it's a lot. It's a lot.

It's 18 for three opponents. If you if you twin it. Yeah. That's almost an entire person's life total with a twin fiery conflict. Yeah. Choosing that mode each time. Right. I don't know how the game will be going where you have the luxury of doing that mode, but I think it's pretty good. It's pretty good finisher. Yeah. Natural reclamations. Another cascade card. It's an instant for an A green destroy target. Artifact or enchantment. So five mana, you blow up something that needs to go away

and you look into something else. Yeah, I love that. I actually like this card a lot. You know, I'm kind of have to think about it. You kind of have to think about cards like this, the cascade having a little bit of a cost to it. Right. Like it's like you could find instance that destroy an artifact or enchantment for cheaper, but they. Don't have Cascade. Yeah, yeah. Sadistic shell game.

I wasn't super up on this card in the review, but it seems pretty good if you want to hold your two legends out, it feels like almost like a board wipe for an A black, starting with the next opponent and in turn order, each player chooses a creature they don't control. Destroy the chosen creatures. It's like a 60 cent card right now. And this creature you don't control. Correct? Right? Yeah, exactly. They have to blow. They have to destroy their own stuff or somebody else's. Yeah.

So you earn and you. Get choose last, which I think they call that out in the review. Oh that's right. So it's awesome. Like you kind of you know, you have a creature in mind you want to destroy and you just kind of, you know, that's will is another incredible card for an a black for an instant. Choose one. If you control a commander, as you cast the spell, you may choose both. Each opponent sacrifices a creature they control with the greatest power.

Exile all cards from all opponents graveyards. Then you make zero one black through all creature tokens where X is the greatest power among creatures. Cards exile this way. So you suddenly flood up a board presence of this. That art is a little disturbing, right? Some guy getting, like, sucked down by some just like, technically rapey worms. It's like the triple X version of doom. He's like mother. And she's like, no, only I get to fuck here. Oh, and then this cool, win graces judgment.

I don't use this card, but I think it's really good here, especially in a budget context. Five mana for an instant, three black and a green for any number of opponents. Destroy target online permanent. That player controls. That's just a lot of bang for your buck. It really is right? Really? Yeah. You just blow it all out. You can hold off, wait to see if you really need to cast this, but it's like it's a lot. And then you smash for five. Yeah, yeah. Ragdoll charm I that's another card.

I just if it's in erectus identity, I think I run it. It's black in a red instant. Exile. Target opponents or target players. Graveyard destroy target. Artifact. Each creature does one damage to its controller. Ha! I think I've seen people lose to that. Pretty sure they had a lot of shit. Absolutely. Exiling yards is is good. It's just good. It's like all. All three of those modes are very. Valuable. Yeah. Some just, like, miscellaneous stuff for removal. It's more.

It's a it's more of the sweep category. It's got it. Just these are all, like, more targeted ish. Blacks and zenith I love it. It's black. Black. Put X negative one one counters on each creature, shuffle blacks and zenith into its own library. There's a chance you can hit it later if you need it. It's great. And whatever you put into the X you smash for, that. Becomes a smash. Blasphemous act. It's just a really good rate I couldn't pass on.

It's probably one of the more expensive cards in the deck. It's like $2 right now. Eight in a red cost. One less to cash for each creature on the battlefield deals 13 damage. Each creature will draw your card, and Smasher will smash for nine, which is dope. Structural assault is something that I've been using lately because I'm really over people's treasure use. That's almost why I wanted to take the pirates pillage out. It's three a red and a red. Destroy all artifacts.

Then structural soul deals damage to each creature equal to the number of artifacts that were put into the graveyard. Put into graveyards from the battlefield. This turn. I like what you've mentioned with this card, is even if you've got treasures out, you can't escape. You can't escape doing this damage. Yeah. Volcanic vision. It's a way to kind of recapture what we've been doing. But it's to me, it's a board wipe more than anything.

Five a red and a red return target instant or sorcery card from your graveyard to your hand. Volcanic vision deals damage equal to that card's mana value to each creature, your opponent's control, so it's a little asymmetric. Then, unfortunately, you have to exile volcanic vision. So really like if we're thinking most of the time it might be a four mana spell that you have options for you. Just deal for to everything that you don't control and put it back in your hand.

That's a really good, in the right circumstances. That thing fucks, right? It does fuck Kyle. It does, it does. And now everyone sees your card again. Like back in. They know now like, great cool. Or like you already win Grace's judgment and then you pull it back with this, right. You just debuff going to do. Seven and five. Love it. Right. Or let's say it's that, I mean it's like you just name it dude. I don't know, like let's say it's that.

What's the one that's it's got the undaunted curtains call. Oh yeah. It's like all right. Yeah. Go get. It. Yeah. So it's it's cool. Sucks. It exiles itself. I don't usually complain about stuff like that, but I'm like past seven goddamn mana. But it is asymmetric like it is. It does definitely like it does a lot of work for you. Massacre worms here. This used to be a pretty pricey card. They keep doing some reprints. Which is nice. I fucking love massacre worm dude.

I love Massacre Worm. I love how well it takes care of its teeth. I love what it does to my opponents. Three A black and a black for A65 by Rex. Iron worm when the Master Worm enters your opponent's, creatures, your opponent's control get negative two. Negative two until end of turn. Whenever a creature an opponent controls dies, that player loses to life. This thing just shuts up aristocrat decks. Oh hell yeah, I get crunched by this thing.

It's always that persistent ability on the bottom and that negative to like, I. I was gushing over minus one. What do you think about minus two? Hell yeah. That's half way chub. Full hard. Oh, hard. You've seen people die to massacre worm. For sure. For sure. You've had you've had games yourself where you just could not progress because a massacre worm was presence present. You're like, well, I can't do what I want to do. You love it. Healing technique three in a green for demonstrate.

When you cast the spell. It's a sorcery. Yes. Demonstrate. You may cast. When you cast a spell, you may copy it. If you do choose an opponent to also copy it. Players may choose new targets for their copy. So I kind of say, hey, it's kind of like the, the skull whiner a little bit. Yeah. Although they gain life, though. Return target card from your grave right to your hand. You gain life equal to that. Cards mana value, exile, healing techniques, 14 cent card.

But with the mana value of this deck. Like I need to get my mask or back. So I'm going to recall that for six. And while I'm at it, I'm going to bring my, tarot morph also. So I six plus I gain ten and pull these two cards back. That's pretty good. And my opponent gains a little. You could cut this a little. Sure. With the smasher going on, I don't know if you want to be giving people life, but you kind of want to gain life. So decide whether you want it is.

A little bit of a like slug deck, right? Exactly. You do need to be conscientious of that. This is my section that I call. Okay, pal. Okay, pal. Yeah. Which is just stuff people generally shouldn't let you do but work. You just put it out, and it just writes right. To the heart. See what happens. The first, it is a little. These are very this is a you could call this your greed. Like this is I'm just pressing the like I said, you just playing just whatever it is, it's true.

It it don't don't you don't have counter magic. You can't just fucking go. Just get it. I gave you some death touch blockers. Figure it out. But these, they work. If they ride around too long, you win games over it. And look. Is there a reason I turned myself into a pickle? No, I did it because I could. Because I could for a. This is, I was about to read the price as mana for a point a four and a five. It's it's $4.45. The segment that I talk about, the sweep sections price. Let's go back.

The sweep is $7.65. It's that blasphemous act. It's in. Yeah, I just it smashes so hard. It's smash is so hard. No, it's smash is so hard. Daddy. Or was I okay, pal? Hey, pal. Arcane bombardment for a for a red and a red for an enchantment. This is probably the most greedy card in the deck. Whenever you cast your first instant or sorcery spell each turn. Exile an instant or sorcery? Instant or sorcery card at random from your graveyard. Then copy each card.

Exiled with arcane bombardment, you may cast any number of copies without paying their mana costs. Wow, this just starts to spiral like crazy. We're not filling up our graveyard at the velocity of like an exact deck or a blue shirt. So what's in there is likely like a ramp spell or a removal spell that we've already shot. And now we're going to keep doing sadistic shell game. We're going to keep doing, sky shroud claim.

Like every time you cast a spell and it gets just kind of, you know, this is I like this, this spell. When the the you have high impact incense and sorceries. Yeah. I don't love it when it's like, okay. And I get, ponder or something like it's nice, but not for six mana. I think this thing pays off pretty fast. If you cast a four mana spell and Arcane Bombardment sees another four mana spell, then I guess you could look at it like I paid six to get eight mana worth of design. Yeah, going.

Yeah, it's a bit of an investment upfront. But if you defend the enchantment, if anybody lets you go, this is what I love about Smasher is that it isn't. It's never a do nothing enchantment. That is a good point. At least you minimum power level. It deals six to some fucking guy. You get it? Yeah, yeah. That's what I love about our little guy. I just love that you think you just at least got something out of it. But if this sticks around, it probably shouldn't.

But I don't know. I don't know, man. Hit the motherlode for a red, a red and a red. Discover ten. If the discovered cards mana value is less than ten, create a number of treasure tokens equal to the difference you smash for. What is that? Seven? Yeah. You discover into the next spell. If you go low, you get the difference in treasures. If you go high, you get a big ass spell and some treasures. It's one of the rubberband cards they talk about.

Yeah, there's guys that we hear about. At least they come into. Care of the merciless heat. He's in here. Five a black and a red for a five for legendary creature, human, a shaman. Whenever an opponent cast a spell care victim. Merciless. Do. Is it care or care of it? Care. Evac deals damage equal to the spells. Mana value to any target really threatening. So I actually I actually forgot its only opponent so it doesn't trigger off you. You get the smash or smash or. Oh, yes, that's all.

And he'll trigger Garland. I think I missed everything in this category. Well. Oh, sure. But the way I've played this out is just stick lands, and I like to hurry up and follow up with you guys. Get to choose the targets. If you don't remove them and and stuff. Of course it ain't my stuff. Of course you choose whatever and I won't target your stuff every time you get something. How about that? Oh, oh, I know somebody might be like, nah, I'm not going to do that. Like, I'm not treating.

You live under the yoke of your oppression and you die. Ultimately. Yeah, you are merciless. And they'll just take me out. But you can try it. It it smash for seven. Yeah, yeah. Card for a gallon. Right. All right. This one's nuts. These next two I think are pretty whack. The first is just sunbirds invocation. This is, a very potent card in this deck five and a red. Whenever you cast a spell from your hand, reveal the top X cards of your library where X is that spells mana cost.

You may cast a spell with mana value x or less from among the cards revealed this way without paying its mana cost. Put the rest in the bottom of your library in random order. Yeah, so the higher the mana value, the more you have option to hit. Funner, it gets. Funner it gets you. It's really hard, and it works really well because it's at or less, not less only. Yes. So it's pretty because I'm packed in pretty hard on the four mana slot. Sure. With this deck. And then. Yeah. So it's really good.

It's really, really crazy if it lands, as you say, I. Haven't seen somebody have time to stick a card like this in a while, but this is the perfect deck to stick it with, right? Yeah, yeah, it's pretty awesome. Miss X's mastery. You overload this one. You only smash for four, but it's bonkers. With everything that you've got in your graveyard, you'll rubber band pretty hard with all of the ramp and the removal that you will likely have by the time you make it to eight mana.

Yeah. Exile target card. That's an instant or sorcery card from your graveyard for each card exiled this way. Copy it and you may cast the copy without paying its mana cost. Exile mystics is mastery. It's over. Lotus for eight. It's crazy though. Yeah, if the if the game has gone on long. This. Yeah, you'll only smash for four. But holy fuck all. Your ramp is now recast. You're you're waking up with a ton more mana. Then probably the rest of the table.

All of this removal nonsense that we've been shooting left and right goes off again. Again? Yeah, that hit the motherlode goes off again. Yay! Yeah, but it kind of nine bows with the arcane bombardment. But we're. Whatever. No, there's no tutors. You're likely to. You. They probably won't see each other. Right? Yeah, they probably won't until they do. How do you feel about that one? I like that, that section of the deck, because it just, you know, a little budget like potent, right?

Yeah. It's this, this little $4 and 45 cent way to take your best stuff further. Do some damage. Lincolns are not that inspired. $5.97 for three cards. The most expensive is cut and cut to ribbons. So cuts really good. It just deals for damage to turret creature. But ribbons is essentially like the damage side of an Excel grenade. It's black. Black aftermath. Each opponent loses its life. Yeah, so you smash for whatever you've dumped into this thing.

Plus the black, black, and then everyone just loses that life. 20 games, but cut kills a lot of stuff. Yeah, a lot of stuff's in range. Just emulating Inferno. You would need to control one of your legends or some kind of legendary permanent to get this to work. X red red legendary sorcery dies emulating Inferno deals X damage to each of up to three targets. It's a dollar, 99, or dollar 20, depending on who you're yeah devoted to. Yeah. So three up to three targets is nice.

It's your three opponents usually. And you do a lot of damage to ship them out. Last one is Skull Storm which is my favorite in my build. And I think it works here too. But it's seven a black and a black, so it's a lot of mana. When you cast the spell, copy it for each time you've cast your commander from the command zone this game. So if everything went correctly and you didn't lose control of either of them, it should give itself two copies, because you've cast Calandra and you cast Smasher.

Yeah. If you've had to recast any of them, this spell is getting pretty fucking wild. Yeah. Each opponent sacrifices a creature. Each opponent who can't loses half their life, rounded up. This is a really great finisher when you are engaged in destroying and controlling and destroying and controlling. Yes, it sets you up for okay, no one has any creatures or someone gets just irritated and bored, wipes your commanders away or whatever.

Sure, it it just really it's incredible on an empty board and it will kill them because it rounds up so they've been smashed this whole game. We've done ambient damage with different things. They'll just have one games with it. It is the card that that Brad and Kyle are worried about. When I play this game, when I play this deck, they they think that's where the game's going to end. Yeah. To the point that I would say sometimes we've had an unreasonable expectation of its impact.

Like I've tried to calm myself down where I'm like, it's best after a board wipe. We still have creatures. But yes, regardless, it's a really fucking good card. Because even if you didn't have an appetite to win with it right now, just the fact that it gets so many copies of it and it's such a big smash. And it's hard for even a blue player to stop because the copies go up and it's like, Like you can't. Stop and it's a little extra. That's really stopping them. So yeah.

So maybe board ideas I threw in here. Magnetic mind if you took the two ways to make treasures out of this, I think this would do a lot of damage in the current environment. It's more mana. Whenever an artifact is put into the graveyard from the battlefield, my mind tells to damage to that artifact. God. That's right. It's a 50 cent card. You really will force them to deal with it. Otherwise they're going to get flayed alive for messing with. Yeah, these treasures.

There's the squirrel that gives them, in fact, or whatever, but, like, we're not really on a vertices like an axis. We're, in fact, I think really pays unless you give smash or infect, but then you're ready to watch it get two for one. I've never tried that. It doesn't seem like it'll work, but you could do that. The idea is that a meta meta choice, they'll get rid of those two things that are in the deck, maybe, or play around, I don't know. But this magnetic mind I think is a is a good Add.

Yeah. Culling ritual would be an upgrade for this. It's not expensive. I just couldn't fit it in and be happy with the budget. It's $1.27, but it's to a black and a green because this also does crazy work with artifacts and treasures and stuff like that. Destroy each non land permanent with mana value two or less and add green or black for each permanent destroyed. This way. Well, your commanders are three, so they'll survive.

But then you're inflicting a lot of mana into your mana pool to hurry up with ram spells or. Fuck. I mean, I've I've just yoked out a a sunbirds invocation with the one mountain I had remaining. Oh, yeah. Because five things were destroyed, and now it was out way early and just stuck around for a little too long. So it's a that is, I think, a one that you should acquire if you don't. Yeah, I like that. Basilisk collar is an interesting one because it does two things at once for us.

One mana equip for it's an artifact equipment. It's equip is to equip creature has death touch and lifelink. So now smasher is a threatening blocker. People I don't know, you know, like, I never block with the guy anyway, but now I'm really threatening that I if I do, if you take somebody with me and with that skull swarm going on, it's like, maybe I actually need him to die so I can get one more. I reckon I've done that. Where? I'm going home. I've been attacking with Smasher and will go.

He'll be like looking at my manage, try to figure it out. Like, does he have enough for the skull storm? What is he trying to do? So yeah, but the other thing is it gives him lifelink. So now every time you smash someone, lose his life and you gain that, you get it. It's a send. It's pretty. Pretty nice. I like that $0.82. Yeah. Beast within is in here. I didn't actually include beast Within because its price is just never going to. Really. But you probably already own one, dear listener.

Yeah, probably. Include it. Whatever you're up to. I don't love it. We'll talk about my main build, but for this build, I think it'd be fine. Suspended sentence, it seems, it seems pretty good. It's three in a black for an instant. Destroy target creature and opponent controls the. That player loses three life, so you smash for five, and then someone loses for three. It could be the same person who knows, right? Yeah, yeah. Exile suspended sentence with three time counters on it.

So after three turns, it goes off again. Yeah. And you smash again. It seems like a really good source of repeated removal. And persistence is what I'm looking for. And smash and life loss. Okay. Because it's got this kind of quasi rebound. Yeah, I like that. Yeah. Tempt with mayhem. I don't know. I won a red and a red for an instant with tempting offer. It's a 23 cent card, so I could have included it. But choose a target, a choose target instant or sorcery spell.

Each opponent may copy that spell and may choose new targets for the the copy. They can, for the copy they control. You copy that spell once for once, plus an additional time for each opponent you copy. Dispel. This way you may choose new targets for the copies you control. So the idea I think here is you can sit around and wait for someone to shoot some big instant or sorcery and have everybody get it. Yeah. Like let's say Kyle shoots, I don't know, generous gifts.

And I go, hey, let's all generous gift. Yeah, it seems okay. Or you could twin one of your ramp spells, which is kind of a lot, right? Because the ramp I've got in this deck is for mana. You're talking about seven mana or more. Or something like that to get the spell. And then copy it once for yourself and then see if someone's

crazy enough to take it. Also, which, yeah, they're gonna ramp, but boy howdy, are you going to ramp it for the outcomes we're looking for, like the arcane bombardment and the like, you kind of want to be there. You do want some more mana? Yeah, I'd be interested in seeing that one. Yeah, I would. I take it would I take it? I'd be up the beanstalk. It's one in the green for an enchantment up enters the battlefield.

And whenever you cast a spell with mana value five or greater, draw card, it's like $1.71. Probably could have made work space for it, but it's carja for how big this deck is, and it draws the minute it comes down. It's pretty, pretty nice. There's part of me that's like, what if you got yourself that skull storm? Like when there's just a bunch of skull storms going off? What do you mean with that? Tempt with. Oh, tempt with mayhem. Yeah. Do you guys just want to fucking die? Let's just go.

But I die to kinda. Do you? I just want to fucking die, dude. Here's another fun one. It's. It's not. It's a fun one. I think you should do it. It's one. A black and a red for an enchantment called pain men. Pain magnification. Whenever an opponent is dealt three or more damage by a single source, that player discards a card. Oh, so you smash a lot for three or greater? Yeah, it just adds a little bit of salt to the wound. Oh, that's so rude. It's just kind of.

It's a little fiddly because it matches the same mana value of both your commanders. I've tried it. It also sees other effects, like if I attack Kyle with three three and Brad controls pain magnification, then guess what? We pain magnify like that there. Yeah. So yeah, I think that would be a good add. If you want to just add an extra layer to to stuff where. Oh by the way you took three from something. You got to draw card pain magnification. That's pretty well.

That actually feels like fun one that would be really interesting. I just feel that should be at this one. Cheap as hell. But and that would be I don't know. That would be a fun one in a go deck for sure. Oh, we forgot a section. Let me just throw some out. This is doubling spells, so that's actually not cheap to do. We missed this, but I found it to some cheap ones. It's $3.61. I won't go through all of them, but the one that really stood out was the cursed recording that we were talking about.

Yeah, two red in a red for an artifact. Whenever you cast an insert or sorcery spell, put a time counter on cursed recording. Then if there are seven or more time counters on it, remove those counters and it deals 20 damage to you. But you can tap cast. The next insert a sorcery spell when you cast it. Yeah, when you cast the next instant or sorcery spell this turn. Copy that spell. You may choose new targets for the copy. Just go. Dude. Just fucking go. Yeah.

Get the double ramp. Get the double removal. If you double the removal, you probably could just remove this eventually. It just seems like a really good I don't I'm not afraid of it. I'm. Maybe I'm crazy, but I'm not afraid of it. Yeah, I'm into it. And people might remove it. Or they might be like how many counters you have? And I have three. It's like, dude, there's a lot. It's a lot of counters that you need. You're not doing multiple spells.

It's this seems like the right deck for this. It's big. Huge. Like just big ones. Yeah. That's what it's for. It's not like I'm can tripping. Like that's. No interesting. You're not looking to storm. You're just looking to smash. Yeah. You're only looking to skull storms. The only thing. Yeah. Double vision. It's just five mana. Three red. Red for enchantment. Whenever you cast if your first instant or sorcery spell each turn, copy that spell you may choose.

And targets for the copy. Trigger smasher for five. Yeah. If it sticks around, things are going to get nutty. Pretty. Pretty quick. Yeah. Pretty quick, Yeah. What do you think. I dig this when you send it to me the other day, I was like, ooh, I kind of forgot how much remover you fucking use in your smasher and calandra list, but B, I just, it's it's effective. And I think you found really good one to ones from what you're actually doing. Yeah. Let's jump over to my actual list.

Boy, $621.74, if this is to be believed. Wow. A lot of that is in the land base. Of course, the land base alone is 248 bucks. Three colored decks will do that, too. Yeah. Let's not focus so much on, like, ramp and boring stuff. Let's look at just some standouts that are that are just good, I think deadly relic is in the list. It's four mana to $25 goddamn card, but you smash for nothing, you pay nothing and smash. Hit smash. And you just exile a card and you smash. Yeah, sorry.

You pay nothing, you smash for four and you exile a creature. Yeah, it's just it comes out of nowhere. Takes. Takes people's most important personnel. And you just get one more on them. Soul shatter is two in a lack. Each opponent. Sacrifice is a creature or planeswalker with the highest converted mana cost among creatures they control. That one hurts. Everyone hurts. Instant hive. You just like somebody is attacking you. It's your only creature. Yeah, tearing it out.

Venus. Hunger. It's incredible. It's like a mini board wipe. Almost two and a black. It has ascend. Meaning if you control ten or more permanents, you get the city's blessing. So, yeah, each bonus sacrifice creature. But if you have the city's blessing instead, each opponent sacrifices half the creatures he or she controls, rounded up. It's incredible. Instantly for three, etc.. Yeah, another one I've been messing with. It's a it's less fun. I don't think it's that effective.

If things shake out. It's a pretty cool rate, but it's capital punishment six mana. So it gives me Calandra, it gives me a big smasher, for black, black for a sorcery Council's dilemma. So remember that it's not. We go on the biggest vote. We do all of the votes, starting with you each leech player votes with death or taxes. Each opponent sacrifices a creature for each death vote. And each, each death vote or. Yeah, and then they'd discard a card for each tax vote. I usually do taxes.

I usually just do taxes because if everybody votes tax, they all discard four cards. Which is fucking heavy. Fucking wild. That's heavy. A lot of the time people will go, shit. And they'll vote. Like, if they have a lot of creatures, the next guy will usually go, I'll vote death. And now they're discarding a card stacking creature because I've already thrown taxes on it.

Then the next person will be like, if they have less creatures, they'll look at everyone else and be like, So a lot of the time people choose death is what I would have noticed, weirdly. Yeah. Because if they don't have a lot of creatures, the hit to their hand gets passed on. Yeah, if they just pile on. Right, right. So if you. Look at the board and one person only controls one creature, the they're likely to they're likely to do tax if you vote death.

But if somebody controls a lot of creatures, just vote. Vote tax. They're like. They're going to go with death because. No one wants to discard. Yeah, it's not amazing, but I just love to figure it out. And by the way, it's opponents only it's not everybody. You're not a part of this. You don't discard anything. You don't sack anything. Brotherhood's end is a credible card to just deal with early development. One read, read, choose one.

You can dole three to every creature and every or each creature and each planeswalker that will take out your commander's, but or destroy all artifacts of mana value three or less. It just kneecaps people so fucking bad. Yeah, like the watch them lose signet in arcane and so they're remnant stuff that I can't. I'm playing in spite right now because it's supposed to be banned and then you just Brotherhood's end it out and they're just like, oh, my whole hand was just ran up and now I'm fucked.

It's really good. Bane of progress is here. Also, I just like to melt down all of Kyle's enchantments. He's a very enchantment hate player. Oddly, I did that to you the other day. I know right? Your bane of progress. I was like, ooh, it doesn't feel. Good, does it? Have subterranean tremors I think is pretty fun. With Smasher. It's X in a red subterranean tremors deals X damage to each creature without flying. But if X is four or more, destroy all artifacts.

But if X is eight or more, put an eight eight red lizard creature token into the battlefield. So for nine mana you burn everything off. I don't know what survives to have like, very little. Yeah, destroy all the artifacts and you just walk away with an eight eight. I went smash for nine. Yes, I it's pretty cool. I it. Is pretty. Pretty into it. Reckless endeavors in this one obviously because it can give you a lot of treasure. Maybe your dome damage. Maybe. Yeah, brass is bounty.

So I'm kind of not watching treasures from a pain standpoint with this deck, but brass is bounties. Another crazy one to twin manic mana geyser gets you into a winning. Yeah, your next spell will be probably the biggest ever. Some salty ones that that kind of don't. People don't love. I've got worst fears in here. Kyle loves. Worst fears? Yeah, his worst fears is worst fears. Worst fears. It's actually interesting. They didn't reprint worst fears. And does more.

That is true. And it's all just like the phobias or something. Because they had a bunch of fear. And. Tears in there. Oh wizards, this is why you won't ever be the perfect bride. Worst fears seven in a black for a sorcery. You control target player during that player's next turn. Exile worst fears you smash for eight. You hit somebody I don't know, but then you gain control of whoever has necro potency and you get them out of the game. Yeah, yeah. If that's the case for sure.

Like if there's an easy. It's funny, I've actually had some taking people's turns lately. I didn't used to do it, but it it's harder to it's harder to choose who you should do that with than you might think. Yeah, yeah. Peer into the abyss. It's pretty heavy hitting. I've, I've pushed somebody out of the game with it, but it's for a black, black and a black. So it's a lot of mana. But target player draws cards equal to the number of cards in their library and loses half their life.

Round it up each time so one could go further than me and put in as your death touch blocker. Children of the apocalypse is one of your death touch. I'm going to stay safe. Yeah, and I'm going to slowly gain life. If you hit somebody with this, I think they're just out. That's right. If you have orcish bow masters, they're just out. If you have that new needle head pinhead guy, they're just out. So there would be ways to just combo off, I think with this spell.

Sure. It also allows you just to grab your whole library. If you're if you're in a healthier shape or whatever, you just lose half your life and grab a lot of cards. Yeah, the lower life you are, the less it hurts. For how much cards you're getting, I suppose the scarier it gets. Preacher of the schism is an amazing card. It's two in a black for a death touch, two for when preacher of the schism attacks the player with the most life. Oh are tied for the most life.

You make A11 vampire creature token with wife link. Whenever preacher the schism attacks a player, while you have the most life are tied for the most life. You draw a card and you lose one life. It kind of leaves a blocker behind. If you're just attacking. It's really annoying. The trade with it's on. It's a two for death touch. It's honestly hard to trade with. They gotta get you something that's kind of big, right? Not have it dying.

Speaking hard to trade with glyphs of the sun Slayer is just in this list. I think she's just a good role player in a lot of decks. One a black and a green for a three. Three she's got for a strike. She's got death touch. So she won't be blocked. And you won't be attacked. Yeah. And when she deals combat damage to a player, you choose one. You can draw a card, lose a life, or destroy target enchantment or remove three counters from target permit. Oddly, all of those are very useful.

You wouldn't think the removing counters would be, but it's more useful than you might think. Oh, I could put my. I could put that TV in this deck. Just kidding. There you go. Probably should put that fucking honestly was like, yeah, yeah. So this this has got some upgrades for sure. It's mostly the land base. It's got, you know, more bomb cards. I don't need to go over them. But that's that's the idea. It holds true a lot of what the budget version did.

Drawing cards, removing things at Mana to mana death touch defenders. You can take it a step further with something like No Mercy. I still have the poison type archer in mind, I, I love it. The Duncan Ori is is weirdly good with not weirdly it's very good with Smasher because it allows you to squeeze more smashes out. Or bigger ones. Right. You might have something that's it's sorcery speed that's big in your hand that you could just do.

Yeah. So you do something small and you're something big on somebody else's vice versa. I, I think vice versa. I think, you could introduce seed more muse to this, but I just it's mostly it's, I don't know by itself. The card. Calls. Yeah. Like, it doesn't, I don't know, you have a lot of instance in the deck. I always think about it because, you know, I don't mind playing with tutors. How does this work if I never draw the other half of what this is about? So, like, that, peer into the abyss.

I'm like, it's a really heavy hitting draw spell, or it does heavy damage to somebody and then it smashes for for seven. That's what I think. So if I only draw it, I am I okay with that? You know, like that's how I have to think about things when you're not tutoring. Yeah I'm unsure about seed form using this list, but I'm pretty sure about the Duncan worry. You get. Me? Yeah, I totally feel that. Yeah. That's it. That's the list. How do you, What do you think this is?

You know, I mean, a, like, as we started the episode, you have a long history with vial smasher with some different ideas. This has been a really solid one. I think it it, Yeah. Dude, this measure, this this deck. I think, fits into many different, many different games, right? Like, I think we all have those commanders that, you know, if there are certain other decks at the table, you're like, ooh, I better not get that out. Like, yeah, this one, I think you could get out and feel good

about what you're going to deal about. Just with just about anybody. I've got a good enough control. I can handle an aggro. If somebody is like, calm going, I don't feel like I'm going to be the target. Yeah, it can backfire a little bit if the combo player is not eating the smasher stuff. But sure, I will point the rest of what I need to at that person to keep them off their combo. Yeah, I love it. I love playing it.

It definitely is a little new player unfriendly because of how much removal it has and because it's not super obvious. I think right away they can think, oh, this fun little mini game where the other people are losing life. Just being just admitting something. This is of all my lists, I think this is my least favorite of Brad. Brad doesn't like this deck. Sure, sure. He's been very vocal about it. He's like, you have to just keep removing shit and you're just dealing damage as you go.

I fucking hate it. He doesn't like it. I think he doesn't like that. Everyone else doesn't take Smasher as seriously as he does. I think that's his. I think that's his real problem is that people just let me kind of get away with a little more than he thinks I should be getting away with, and because, for whatever reason, he just eats a lot of those smashes. I think there's people who just have a bad luck when it comes to the smash damage. Yeah, it can happen, right? But I love the commander.

I'm always looking to to play this deck if I can. It's up there with like Marcus where it's like, is this a good game for this? Is this going to be fun to play? You could dial back off of the removal. Just thinking about this episode and you're like, yeah, Andy, I just don't want to play control, man. I don't think that's what Jun is about. You could likely go for just bigger, bombastic creatures on a budget. So there's actually a lot of Cascade cards in in this, mana got man identity.

Yeah. Color identity. Yeah. Just, you know, like the the spider, the sweet gum recluse. Oh, yeah. You can flash that in, get an extra spell. Of course. You're you're not getting smashed for everything, but that's. There's no way around that. Like, it's not a really an easy way to solve for that anyway. Yeah, but you can do those big bombastic creatures something like. Yeah, like like like Chris's Ruby deck, right?

Where he's just really looking to jump up and get up to higher mana values and just skip that, that part of the game. Right. Calandra kind of does this for you. Sure. So really if you want you could do like I'm going to build a Jund aggro you know big stompy deck where Smasher is just around for the ambient damage. Yeah. And I have access to red and black. I think that that's fine. That looks like a totally doable.

And in a way, you can do it where you're like, yeah, my version of Beast Whisperer is just I have keen sense on Smasher or something. Like, you can do clever things like that. Yeah. And take the removal stuff off. Probably just 1 to 1. Just take the removal section I have delete it and just put in like bigger creatures. Maybe keep the sweepers some of the specific target ones. Sure. Shit, this is blowing up everything. Like win graces, judgment that has no business and a not a control deck.

It's not. It's not a good card. I like that as a direction to go. Like, hey, this can be a foundation for a Jund Stompy deck. If you really wanted to, I but it's a good starting point. Believe that I do. I think you'd be fine. Like if that basilisk colors in the middle and you don't control smasher, you just move it to your big creature. Yeah, yeah, totally. Lifelink with Smasher, I think is a great idea lightly.

If when a big creature just keeps you in the game for too long, Lifelink is just a really out scale. It's two scalable. It's like the reverse. In fact, it's it's wild. Yeah. I've been thinking about other things to do with Smasher. Another one would be, I would never do this because I just don't I don't know, I don't I'm not going to say never, but you could pair Smasher with Krak. A lot of people have tried this.

You really, I think, should go in the opposite direction than where you're thinking actually smaller mana value. You've got these two, I don't know, like idiot savant goblins in your command zone. Crack will throw it back in your hand. So, yeah, the smasher is good for that because you can smash again, right? You really need to be careful with the mana value, but if you win off of it, great. But now the spell's gone.

So you're like, oh, it's like, so you're two goblins are kind of just you're I see you smashing more often with that. What sucks? You don't have a way to pull cards back. You lose the green or the blue way to suck the card back. Yeah. And from, like, a keen sense or whatever. But but when you do land the twin, I think the cantrip is actually make a lot of sense there. So the even like the little ones, like there's black ones.

Exile a card from a graveyard and then draw a card, but it goes off twice so you can make the attempt smash for one. You fail. Krak! It comes back to your hand. Wait a turn. Do it again. Wait a turn as we as we go around the table. Because it's all an instant. Sure. So you'd have to stay on the front foot, I think more with that. Yeah, but I can see that. I think that's a game I think that works. Another idea I've been thinking about lately is damage from exile.

There's a new demon that does that does cost reduction. It sees cost reduction if you pay the diff, if you don't pay the full cost of whatever you're casting target opponent loses equal to the difference. There's also, a demon from 40 K that says every time you cast a card from exile, it deals damage to target opponent. Yeah. There's also a battleground that does the same. It's called passionate archeologist. So my thought was, I'm pretty.

I'm pretty close to I almost want to make this deck, but that'd be to smash her decks. Andi has. So I don't know how people feel about that. Like, you got to listen. Like, listen. The, listener, like, we, we try to think about our roster at for our opponents, too. Does Andi really need to smash your decks? You know, like, diversity. Of experience as an opponent? Exactly. The important thing. Exactly.

But my idea, my harebrained idea is you take C4, or if you've got if you've got guts, you do the pirate, the guy who can't be blocked by guy. He's a he's a kind of a skulking pirate. Yeah. Ramirez. DiPietro. Yeah. You load those up with cipher cards. Oh, so they're evasive. They hit, and you cast the cipher. That's pretty. Cool. Smash. And then all these other effects that see it, that demon's like, well, hey, you didn't pay the cost burn.

And then that other demons like, oh, hey, that was from exile. Burn. You are magic. Sorcerer is like, oh, hey, that's from Exile Cascade. Yeah. And you've got this vehicle that kind of carries a level of persistence that I'm looking for. Lots of cool. Eggs in one basket, like if that. Yeah, if the card. If the creature that has all the cyphers is gone. Zactly. And there's my. I think if I'm being generous, there's 11 ciphers that make sense for Commander.

Really? There's ten. Okay. But there's some really cool one. There's a mechanic I want more of. But, dude, there's just, like. Cipher. So cool. I think work. Yeah, I think they put out two really cool ones for for that commander. There's one that grabs like a creature and puts him right into play, and there's one that actually steals and instant sorcery out of somebody's grave. And you cast without paying its mana costs like arcane Heist or something. But I'm thinking that might be a cool list.

Yeah, it shouldn't feel too much like this one. I don't think I'd be interested in control, and I think what I'd be more interested in is keeping this fucking bird alive. And it has like a level of ward to it. It has like a Ward three type prototype. The prototype Ward. Yeah. On on there. That's the one idea where you're kind of casting out of exile more than you normally would, and you're smashing. And if you lose control of Smasher, you're not too unhappy. It's really your your cipher vehicle.

Right? Hold on to. Right. I just I've been playing with the list and without tutors, I'm like, goddamn like, if I don't draw a cipher, this deck feels weird. So I started just including, like, more get things into exile, like prosper. Yeah. And, what is the truth? Yeah. And, stealthily where it's like. Yeah. Second spell. I just shove something into exile and I have till next turn. Feels okay. And honestly, does. I'm like, this is feeling okay. Yeah, I'm into it.

I've been experimenting with playing out of exile a little bit. That's another idea for Smasher. You could do a Marty version of this deck. Marty, who has very good control colors. Yeah, and I. I just not allowed to use Timna. I just think that speaks to. You're just not allowed. I don't know why I. Say men of value can't do. Can't do. Yes, that's why, Vile Smasher just demonstrates, I think, that, like, early partners concept of just the flexibility the partner provided.

Yeah. A mardi version I think would be fairly effective because you have or is off control stuff. You've got a lot of like, anguished unmaking. Like you can you can say when I remove things, it's fucking going. It's going to I do not want to see it. It's just the ramp you'll have to solve for sure. Hey, you can ramp using artifacts and those smash just as well as they do. They're less permanent. But fuck it. Maybe you can still do Skull Smasher or Skull Storm. Skull storming.

You could probably do Braavos, which will just at least you can get Smasher back to your hand. Yeah, but the skull, they have to be cast from commands on. I don't know, there's a mardi version of this. That's true. You could. Okay, you could do Smasher. And who's the chick that just gives all your artifacts? Ward? So your ramp just doesn't get touched? Oh, They're like they're protected from their mana value or something, you know? No, I'm talking about. Oh, you mean like a Caroline slinger?

Yeah. No, no, it's, it's glacier's chick. I don't remember them in the name. Is it Rebecca? Yeah. Rebecca. Oh, yeah. It says all the artifacts you control, they're protected from their own man. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, like, if you get a three man a rock, well, that shuts off all the generous gifts. Chaos works. Whatever they are, they're just pretty much there permanently. I just don't know how that works with spell slinging, I'd need to be thinking about the wind con. Like, am I looking to.

Ooh, that's going to itch my brain. What am I looking to do if I do that? Anyway, I love Smasher. You bring him up and I'm like, who? How do we make this work? There's a too many smasher. I think we kind of pass on that on our too many deck. Or you're just looking to clone the fuck out of him. I don't love the idea of that. It just gets kind of little, like resolving that. All right, everyone, smash and smash. Smash smash smash smash smash smash. I, I don't know. It's, You can call that deck.

Vile smash or. Dude, he might be like, really up there. As far as legendaries go, I really like it. It's vile Smasher. He it's it's it's a cool ability. Right? Yeah. It's cheap. It's it's not, it's. Not too salty. Yeah, I love it. Yeah. What's next? I don't know. We. We have a conversation. We were brewing an idea about. But I'm not positive where where we are with that. Yeah. We are wanting to talk about more like play group dynamics.

Yeah. We haven't had time to connect very well about it, but I think we want to do another episode about that. Yeah, a golden mean episode, but for your play group instead of just for. Yeah, play group. I think we also want to look at our rules. And I think what you should do on this podcast is type them up for us. So it's on them. Actual document. True. So we all just know and true. We need to send it to the church. Yeah. Have them like agree.

So it's somewhere because we had interaction and interaction with Brad a couple weeks ago. Was it you? It was with me. Yeah. And then there was one before that with Brad. And I'm like, we need to just get these down. Like we all know them. We don't really step on them too much, but. Or ever really. But it's more like, oh, okay. Like, but we just have them out where people can. Yeah, I. Think it is it is helpful to have that documented.

Yeah. What I'd like to do is just kind of, illustrate our aims of why we're thinking the way we're thinking. Yeah. And what we're trying to guard against. It may seem like to outsiders. I think a lot of it does. I think people hate house rules, and I. I'm with you. Yeah. Unless I, I don't want to operate off of past somebody else's past experience. Yeah, but that's the only thing I can do with me and my friends.

We only have each other's past experiences and maybe what we can do on this episode is go through it and just go tell the story of, like, where this came from, the moment of when everything blew up. Yeah, I remember the moment we did meld and what happened. Yeah, Brad lost his shit, man. And there's. And that stuff matters, right? Because like, in as much as we want to fancy ourselves reasonable creatures. Yeah. We are not dispassionate. You show up with your preconceived notions and feelings.

Yeah, that is part of the game. Yeah. Let's do that. That should be our next episode. Yeah, let's do it. This. Is.