“Corrupting Influence” Budget Upgrade Guide - Phyrexia: All Will Be One | The Command Zone 511

foreign your destination for all aspects of Elder Dragon Highlander enjoy everybody welcome back to another episode of the command zone I'm your host Rachel weeks and I have a very special guest joining me today it is in fact expert Craig Blanchard what up I'm excited for impact to make its return excited to be back for a pre-com that has infect in it yeah today we're doing the budget upgrade for corrupting influence yeah it's toxic yeah call Brittany uh this is one of the pre-cons for all will be one and we are going to be upgrading it on a budget today we're to adding 10 new cards taking 10 cards out of the deck to put it in fighting shape but before we get into it uh if you're gonna buy some cards for this deck please go to our Affiliates over at guardkingdom.com command go there pick up all of the cards for this pre-con they have an enormous inventory of all of the cards you need in all of the printings that you want them in uh plus they have the best packaging around uh when you shop at Car Kingdom all of your cards show up in one nice plastic box and a giant mailer and all of your cards come out at the same time so you're not chasing envelopes and expectation dates and trying to figure out when the rest of your deck is going to get here and super quick too yeah compared to a lot of the other places you get them within like a day or two which is awesome yeah I'm always usually I say I'm out here in California there yeah so it's a long ship yeah it's a long ship they've got some great customer service to make sure that you you know where your cards are at all times our other affiliate is ultrapro.com command uh go to Ultra Pro to protect all of your game pieces all of the cards you're gonna buy to upgrade this pre-con they have official art licensing which means that you can get the play mats the deck boxes the sleeves that you want to match your deck to to set up an intimidating Battlefield to uh plus I use that official art license to create super exclusive secret layer products uh they did Transformer play mats that sold out crazy fast uh they did foil Nils ham play mats that were really amazing so keep an eye on ultrapro.com command for amazing new products coming out all of the time with your favorite magic Art yeah make sure you get the forexian stuff for this deck you're definitely going to need the forexian sleeves for there's gonna be some amazing stuff from them all we'll do it I'm really really excited go check it out at ultramro.com command the other way that you can support our show is directly you can become a patron which means that you get to be a part of our Discord you can chat with Jimmy Josh me all of the members of the command Zone team are on our Discord plus you'll get early early access to gameplay videos so exclusive content there's you get to play against uh people at the at the office which is really cool at certain tiers so once a week we do a spell table with our patrons and I have a blast every time we do it it's so much fun you've gotten one in right I have I've gotten to play with one it was a blast it's so much fun we have the best people following us and yeah they're great games another Patron perk of course is we shout out one lucky Patron every episode this episode is dedicated to Stuart King you rock Stewart congratulations King let's get into it today we are upgrading the corrupting influence pre-con uh the rules like I said said before we're going to add 10 new cards all for a budget of 30 dollars and we're going to remove 10 cards from the pre-con we're gonna leave the Mana base as it is like it's if you're gonna invest 30 into a pre-con likely and upgrading the Mana base isn't gonna make a huge difference in how the deck plays so totally the Mana base should be just fine as it is uh we're gonna save your thirty dollars for some super sweet cards yeah totally all right let's get into it there's two new commanders that could be at the helm of this deck uh they're both abs and so white black green do you want to read the first one Craig yeah I like this it's a 2-5 flyer vigilance and toxic two for one and abs in that's as you said a white black and a green it has corrupted which means at the beginning of your end step corrupted means if you have three or more poison counters or if your opponents have three or more poison counters they are corrupted so at the beginning of your end step each opponent who has three or more poison counters Exiles the top card of their Library face down I like it so far you may look at and play those cards for as long as they remain exiled and you may spend Mana as though it were Mana of any color to cast those spells so it's kind of like is it gaunty it's sort of ganti-ish I mean it's like for for every player who's corrupted you get just the top card of your their Library it doesn't have quite the selection of Gandhi but you've got up to three players so you could see as many cards totally totally I like the the toxic 2 aspect of it too it does make it you know you have to hit them twice but the vigilance makes it you know nice end with the flying you can attack and still block with it which uh with a big butt seems Seems worthwhile a reminder that toxic is a little bit different from infect it is a combat damage trigger that when Excel deals combat damage uh they will put two poison counters on the opponent that was damaged uh no matter how big excel's Power is so you could put a bunch of plus one counters on them or anything but it's still going to be too uh too toxic right um I guess you could you could like double that trigger you could electronic resonator it then you get four that's cool that's interesting it's a little bit different from what was it uh poisonous one or whatever sure so the the toxic is stackable whereas poisonous wasn't so if something had poisonous one or poisonous two or poisonous three if it hit it would deal the damage and they'd also take those poison counters so there's certain cards and that will add toxic levels to this which if it's a toxic two you can add a toxic level making a Toxic three which makes it just slightly different from poisonous right yeah so there's a lot of different ways you can become infected keep an eye out make sure you know the rules if you are upgrading this deck uh the other Commander that we're looking at today is vishgrass the Doom Hive for two white black and a green this is a legendary creature phrorexian insect it is a three three with Menace and toxic one when viscross enters the battlefield create three one one colorless virexian might artifact creature tokens with toxic one and this creature can't block bishgrass gets plus one plus one for each poison counter your opponents have so this is a base three three but if your opponents have any sort of poison counters on them it could be very big very fast totally also the monache makes it uh you know it gives it some evasion yeah and it does give you kind of four toxic on the board it's a ton of bodies so this is it's five Mana for four bodies all with toxic one yeah um that's a ton of power that's very scary like if that immediately makes you wider than anybody if you have an annoyed procession or anything like that totally yeah if you have any sort of token enablers or token doublers you're you're well ahead I do like how both of them have evasion you know the first one has flying and uh vigilance which very very good and the other has menache which is also very very good and more overlooked than you know I would have thought in Commander but they they seem very you can build them very different which is very cool you know the but they also have a lot of advantages with the evasion and you know going wide with this one but this one you you know you can do some interesting things with I think that's pretty cool yeah I love this I I love that we're seeing a new take on on infect neither of these are super super aggressive cards right fish cards can get overwhelming quickly but it is a five Mana Commander um so we're looking at a slightly different tempo for infect which is kind of neat I agree um so let's look at what is actually in this box of cards uh we're gonna go through the stats yeah we're gonna uh look look at what's in the deck just to see what the deck is trying to do as is uh currently there are 13 ramp cards in the deck uh which is pretty high that is very high for a pre-con but around what I usually play so so it's not a bad number um especially with uh the five Mana Commander I think it makes sense to have that much ramp uh there are currently eight card draw spells in the deck okay could be a little bit higher all right yeah we could take one or two more than that there are eight single Target removal spells that's pretty good for these days you definitely need that single Target removal in these games these days yeah I like this number I think Eight's a solid place to start um the number of board wipes of course there's a whopping five that's a lot that seems like too many to me um especially in a deck that really wants to commit to the board yeah right that's it makes it sort of tough for you to uh 100 to keep a board up totally uh there are 21 cards in the deck that will give your opponents poison counters in some way whether by damage or just giving it to them I like that a lot that's 21 is a huge number that is a big number and hopefully we see a lot of new cards too you know that's that's what I'm excited about yeah it's uh there's 14 cards in the deck that proliferate also awesome which is a lot and wonderful uh and then there's 11 cards in the deck that are poison counter payoffs so there's a couple cards with corrupted uh like Excel um things that reward you for having done uh Elder North spinning this is exciting me a lot I am very excited for all the new stuff we get to see here so now that we've we've looked through some of the stats what what's Your Gut you think we should run as the commander of this deck I mean personally I'm drawn to excel because I do love the infect strategy but I think that uh that vishgras is the the more solid choice for if you're gonna put 30 into this you can really do some cool stuff uh for thirty dollars with this deck and it plays very very well yeah I I I am tend to agree like fish grass doesn't offer the same card advantage that Excel does but in fact is such a specific strategy that I wonder how much your opponent's cards help you all that much it totally yeah you're basically searching for other board wipes or other targeted removal when you search right yeah yeah so I I really like that fish cross is super dedicated to the plan it gives you a huge huge word after a board wipe which um you know it is often the problem with infectax no totally totally like a board wipe will come down destroy your whole board and then you're like well I have two cards in hand this guy says that you have a way to put four bodies on the board immediately after your Midway right which is terrifying uh and very cool and it's an ETB trigger which you know we'll get into but there are ways to exploit that yeah yeah super cool yeah all right let's get into the reprint value of the deck it's everybody's favorite part uh just a reminder the prices are taken prior to the deck reveal some of these May fluctuate um once the deck has been spoiled uh this is taking into account the value of the reprints in the set not the entire deck in this in this deck there are 56 reprints uh because there are a ton of new cards but there are also a ton of cards from all will be one in the decks so we don't know the values of those cards right now so just keep in mind 56 is a little bit lower than what we would Norm normally see in terms of reprints in the deck that being said the total reprint value of those 56 cards is 95.90 that's pretty good it's pretty good for just being just over half the deck is reprints right um this is fairly comparable to to dexa we've seen recently the brothers wore pre-cons averaged out to be about 95 dominary United was about 97. so I think this is about what we're expecting of precons these days plus it's there's so many cards from all will be one that that price is even higher and plus with the you know with the new cards that they print in these that tends to be where the value goes in the future you know it's the reprint value has something but you know the the real value of these decks is typically in the new cards that they print specifically for these decks for sure and there are ton of cool ones but let's go into the specific reprints in the deck we're going to start with the reprints that are five dollars and above and there are a couple of these yeah uh and some very good ones yes some of my favorites yeah what's the first one the first one's my favorite car one of my favorite cards crafted exoskeleton yeah so it's not trying for the hordes but it's the next best thing and honestly I think this is the first print that they've had of it since the original which is like awesome yeah excellent excellent nine dollars and fifty cents which uh so that's a great reprint we'll bring it down to a much more manageable level especially because I feel like we're gonna have we're gonna see a lot of impact coming out of all totally totally I just want to say with exhale that turns it into six infect with the first hit and gross I'm all about that that's uh what is four seven flyer yeah yeah oh God the next reprint that is notable is norn's annex coming in it's six dollars uh that is again the first reprint of norns Annex this one is also a free uh the first reprint it is phyrexian swarm lore such a crazy card yeah it's a cool one it's 6.50 yep but it still creates a ton of bodies and there are very scary board State very very good card the next reprint over five dollars is chromatic Lantern which is exactly five dollars and a very cool reprint is noxious Revival which is all the way up to five dollars for this card I never would have thought for an uncommon but it definitely does work when you play that card it does work yeah I I'm really pleased with this list of of reprints especially because I I think we'll see a lot more infect cards so these are going to be in high demand totally um so very exciting there are also a number of reprints between two and five dollars the first one is Karns Bastion that's the land that proliferates yep Karns Bastion is a four dollars and fifty cent card uh the second one is Trailblazers boots Trailblazers boots is a four dollar card ghostly prison is still a 4 dollar card it's crazy but crazy good yeah calling ritual caught a reprint and this one is clocking in at three dollars and fifty cents uh sword Supply shares is three dollars crazy how that's still that much it's in every day I it's uh it's bananas uh nights whisper is two dollars and fifty cents and then we have the necro Blossom and shine Shadow snarl at two dollars and fifty cents and two dollars and thirty cents respectively nice yeah that's pretty good I mean that's eight cards between two dollars and five dollars and five cards uh five above five above above five so thirteen thirteen and they're legit five dollar cards too all of them you could definitely use which is great yeah very exciting yep uh all right well speaking of great cards you could definitely use let's get into the best cards in the pre-con just naturally the the if this is in your hand if this is on the battlefield you feel really good yep uh my favorite for for me in the deck is the evolution Sage uh this card's insane it's two in a green for an elf Druid three two it has landfall whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control proliferate yeah that's incredible with both commanders because once you get that first poison counter on somebody you start proliferating that out it's yeah gets very very uh ugly very quick yeah what do you think what's the next one I'm definitely into ferrisis outbreak uh I think one of the coolest new cards in this deck it's a two in a black for a sorcery says each opponent gets a poison counter I like it already then each creature your opponent's control get minus one minus one until end of turn for each poison counter its controller has that is one of the best board wipes that you could possibly play in this deck it's three Mana it yeah it's just you can clear out somebody else's board if you've already attacked it's very very very cool so when you're playing an aggro deck the late game is is like a tough time right for you because you're trying to get through people have developed their board and pharisa's outbreak is insane in that moment a hundred percent yeah for three Mana two because it's most board wipes are four or higher right and for three men yeah it's it's a one-sided board wipe essentially because you're likely not to have any poison counters I guess you have one each opponent gets a poison counter you don't so yeah it's just crazy no it's each creature your opponent's control you can't yeah that's unbelievable yeah I I think this is great when you're like you've got five or six creatures with toxic on board you've done like you've gotten your your opponents to corrupted they all have like three toxic counters on them or something like or impact counters on them and then you're just like all right I need to clear the way a little bit and uh that really does that because even if you don't kill them outright it's giving them minus x minus X until end of turn so you can reduce them low enough where you your stuff is bigger so you can trample over yeah yeah very very cool pretty insane yeah the next one is also insane it is norn's choir Master for three white white this is a forexian angel it is a 5'4 with flying and First Strike it says whenever a commander you control enters the battlefield or attacks proliferate or attacks yeah wow I mean that's a ton like it's a little strange because you have to have infected counters on them when they attack sure uh but in this deck you certainly are going to I mean I think Norman's choir Master goes in like a ton of decks but in this one it is a lethal threat that makes sense I mean I was just thinking of all the Decks that that could go into and it's like yeah you do Super Friends you could do yeah unbelievable stuff and also partner commanders like yeah but in this deck very very good especially with both of these commanders uh I had one that I kind of thought was a pet card I really like that emergence uh it's four in a black for a sorcery put Target creature card from a graveyard onto the battlefield under your control proliferate so I really like this for both this deck because again late game you need you know you're going to be destroying creatures and stuff like that there's some removal in here there's a lot of board wipes so hypothetically you have a lot to choose from late game from somebody else's creature and then you also get to proliferate so yeah you get one more poison counter on everybody I really like this in a Super Friends deck because again you're going to be rafting a lot there's going to be a lot of you know juicy creatures in everybody's graveyard so you get the best creature back proliferate your your Planeswalkers um I think this is a really cool cool card and correctly uh CM seed or Mana valued at four in a black I just get thrown into a ton of decks yeah that are like uh basic Staples like like this that are just reanimate a creature or there's a regrow effect that have proliferate on them yeah and those are great in so many decks and plus one counters decks in in Super Friends text um and this one specifically they could kill a player so don't underestimate how powerful proliferate is and I'm excited about how many proliferate cards that all will be won and this pre-con are just introducing I actually think the proliferate is the the biggest thing that they've added because it with infectex before you had to get you know you had to get as many infect counters on the player as possible and the sneaky way to win and the kind of the only way to win because eventually people get their defenses up right the only way to win was proliferate and the the additions to proliferate that they've added in this uh in this set and in this deck I think are going to make in fact a viable strategy again yeah it's very exciting stuff um speak thinking of exciting we are going to get into the upgrades of this deck but first things first we're going to take a quick break to hear from our sponsors hello it's me ISU the Abominable here in snow all meals are frozen animal Frozen vegetable Frozen puny Warrior Frozen is gross but New Year is time to make change so if you sign up for factor factor is service that deliver fresh never frozen meals that ready to eat in just two minutes eat faster and cheaper than takeout and every meal is Chef made and dietitian approved so they always 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whatever life throws at me they guided me towards healthy coping skills and becoming a more patient person and if you're thinking about therapy better help is a great option it's convenient affordable and entirely online just fill out a quick questionnaire to be matched with a therapist then you can switch at any time thanks to therapy now when I get salty it's just for the lulls ha crater Huff I win and I'm emotionally healthy enough to accept that congratulations me if you want to live a more empowered life therapy can get you there visit betterhelp.com command Zone today to get 10 off your first month that's betterhelp help.com command Zone whoa easy there buddy hey guys it's me tatsunari tone Rider now I love bouncing around on my toad friend Kami but I'll say this the ride is far from smooth that's why when I want some Bop swap we hops I use my Recon wireless earbuds whether I'm listening to frog and roll music or a riveting historical podcast raycons deliver top tier audio 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think you know they they've gotten really good at developing these decks uh to a point where they're good out of the box these days um so I I am very happy with the deck out of the box but I think there's a lot of cards in here that I'm going to be adding to a lot of my other decks because they really they really gave in fact a power boost with a lot of these new cards that they created for this set and uh a lot of those obviously come in this deck so yeah I'm excited for this deck I'm really excited about the commanders I think those are the most interesting thing to me on these decks but there are definitely some individual cards that'll be going in every infect deck that I have for sure I we talk about this a lot in the actual deck reveal that Josh and I did a little bit ago but um Excel is interesting because the it introduces this different pace for in fact that we were talking about before where it's a little bit more controlling it's a little bit like you get your aggro in at the beginning and then sit back and control the board and to proliferate throughout the game so it's a little bit less and it uh Excel also encourages you going wide and hitting all of your opponents rather than zeroing in on one player I think that's why I'm kind of drawn to Exhale a little bit because you know the typical old infect strategy was you have to get in and you have to get in quick and with Excel you know by the time you get to four Mana you've been playing abzan there's enough infect creatures where you should have been able to get at least one player so by the time you get to four Mana you can play Excel and then that triggers at the end of the turn so by turn three or four you could be getting extra card draw with your commander and it's a it's a typical old infect strategy where you're trying to infect your opponent very quickly and then you get this Advantage from them and the advantage is card draw which you really need in infect so I I am really drawn to Exhale for that reason also the big butt with the flying and the vigilance and the I I really like it yeah I but we're talking about so if we're upgrading the deck with vishgras does this change like what kind of deck it is all that much or do you think that they lend themselves to the same kind of play I think they're a different deck strategy I think you know you will play maybe 20 cards that are the same in both decks but uh you know I'm drawn to the Excel strategy because of my typical way of playing infect but I'm very excited for vishgras because it's adding a whole new take on this on this infect strategy where you can use regular damage as well as infect counters I think that's actually one of the biggest benefits of toxic is you know a lot of times you know you'll be playing a game playing infect and one of the players will be down to 11 or you know nine life and at that point your infect is kind of useless against that player so uh I I am very interested in this also the ETB effect of vishgras's uh very cool it's so powerful yeah all right well uh considering so we're gonna upgrade the deck with as the commander and we're gonna go through 10 cards that you can add to the deck to really bump it up to the next level to take the take the power one step up because we're just trying to make this deck as powerful as possible out of the gate totally um so the first one that we have is going to eat up a huge amount of the budget tell us tell us about this one so yeah Oran frostfang so Oren frostfang is three green green for a two six snow creature snake that says attacking creatures you control have death touch whenever a creature you control deals combat damage to a player draw a card and yeah this was a card that you picked out that I I didn't see it at first but the more you think about it it is brilliant can you explain what you were thinking uh well viscarz makes So Many Bodies right so it's it's five Mana four creatures and they don't naturally have evasion but they do want to deal combat damage and they do want to be annoying to block and or in frostfang does both of those things so well so well yeah who's gonna block a 1-1 with like yeah it's such a good such a good ad so giving infect creatures death touch I think is so powerful because it just puts them in a lose-lose situation it's like you're gonna lose a creature or you're gonna be a little bit closer to death and Oren frostbang while it is 17 quite expensive it is a lot I think it's going to be worth every penny with fish cross in the commands well you get creature destruction which you need you know but and that they get to choose but if they don't destroy their creature you get card draw which you need it's so so good really strong in this deck um along the same lines the next one is sarath the Vipers Fang this is two green in green for a legendary human warlock it is a 3-4 it says other tapped creatures you control have death touch and other untapped creatures you control have hex proof one in tap untap another Target creature or land you control also sweet for two dollars and fifty cents a similar concept right yeah I mean so other tap creatures you control have death touch includes attacking creatures um which just makes them difficult to block and then it protects your value pieces that you're going to leave back as defense or like if you have Excel on the board it gives Excel all the time yep um and then if you have a very important piece that you want to attack with but still have protect it it untaps it um I think it just kind of does it all for only only two dollars and fifty cents absolutely and this card you know another one that you picked out brilliantly I wasn't able to the past couple years have just been a whirlwind right and like this is one of those new cards you know new cards like a year and a half old but is such a cool effect that I think we'll be seeing more of like it's uh very very good yeah it's really strong in this deck yep uh the next one offers a little bit of different Evasion for these little these little mites yeah a little old school evasion you want to read it yeah cigar cigar condo it's uh two green white for a two five legendary creature human night it has flanking so flanking says whenever a creature without flanking blocks this creature the blocking creature gets minus one minus one until end of turn so they get a little debuff creatures your opponent's control without flying or reach Camp block creatures with power two or less that's probably the most important part of this card so again creatures your opponents control without flying or reach cannot block creatures with power two or less makes all your mites great and it has Partners so you can whatever we're not gonna worry about that I mean it I think it's really good with so many of the little infect creatures that are in this deck yeah it just gives them it just gives them all flying um which is insane with fish cross in the command Zone and also generally gives you that reach that you need it really is pseudo-flying isn't it yeah it's basically Flying Without flying interesting he's riding a horse is it horsemanship yeah it should be it should be it really should be he's so proud and flanks um evasion I think is really where the deck needed a Big Boon so this last one is a Big Boon indeed it is champion of lamb Holt yeah this card is only 69 cents it has one green green for a human Warrior one one says creatures with power less than champion of land Holt's power can't block creatures you control creatures with power less than champion of lamb holds power can't block creatures you control and then whenever another creature enters the battlefield under your control put a plus one plus one counter on champion of lamb holds so you get that down first yes then you play vishkras yes and creatures that are 4-4 yeah I know it puts four counters on Champion so it becomes a five five so four fours cannot four fours and less can't block your creatures that's insane that's insane it's also great with all the proliferates in RJ in the deck because it puts plus one counters on it oh I didn't even think of that right because they are counters it's not just they get that's awesome yeah that's super gross on the stack totally uh we mentioned that the deck was a little light on card draw uh this next one here uh will hopefully help it out yeah low Shield Clockwork scholar is two in a white correctly uh costed at three Mana that's good for a card draw spell 2-4 for a legendary creature elephant artificer prevent all combat damage that would be dealt to attacking artifact creatures you control okay whenever one or more artifact creatures enter the battlefield under your control draw a card this ability only triggers once per turn now interesting artifacts why why is that good uh these mites are artifacts get out of town yeah so you're yeah they're your little one ones in the deck uh are not great attackers but this means that you can send them into battle and not worry about losing them plus they draw you a card and they enter the battlefield yep and they haven't made artifacts strong enough this year yeah this is from the lorehole pre-con which was just absolutely yeah for artifacts for boros artifacts I want to say there's more artifact creatures in the deck um yeah it's like Igor claw mirror and plague mirror there's a lot of artifacts a mere convert um is so so good too there's a lot of artifact creatures that have infect and I think low Shield is great at protecting those and then also turning them into a little bit of extra card draw yeah totally oh very cool right uh so your commander has a super super strong ETB yeah like absolutely insane etb3 creatures with with toxic one yeah yeah I um artifacts with toxic one yeah relevant yeah yeah um so I think anything that you can add to this deck to Blink viscross is going to be insane yeah totally like if you blink it once you have six that's so many um seven creatures on the board six tokens right yeah what end your TR your commander has monache so yeah yeah so I think this next one is going to be super solid in the deck for very cheap it's far traveler two in a white for a legendary enchantment background Commander creatures you own have at the beginning of your end step Exile up to one target tapped creature you control then return it to the battlefield under its owner's control very cool yeah so it's like a little bit of a budget conjurers closet as long as you have your commander in play yeah totally and as long as you've attacked or tapped your commander for some reason yep I mean it hasn't cool it has Menace you're going to want to attack with this anyway so if you can get Graz onto the battlefield even if they have you got like two poison counters on your opponents sure this is a five five with Menace it's easy to attack with uh and then use far traveler to Blink it re to be get three more mites that's crazy that's absolutely awesome and far traveler is only 35 cents of a card it's a very good impression of teleportation Circle for just over quarter that seems money well spent yeah the next one is the best blink spell In The Biz yeah totally for one white it's an instant ephemerate uh basically you blink Target creature comes back in uh at the into the battlefield under its owner's control uh immediately and then you get to rebound it at the beginning of your next uh at the beginning of your next upkeep so you get two triggers out of it so you get to hypothetically you usually use it to protect your spell or to protect your creature so let's say somebody goes to Target uh your vishgras you ephemerate it it blinks it out it enters immediately you get the three more mites and then at the beginning of your next upkeep you blink it out again it comes back in you get three more mites that's crazy yeah yeah ephemerate's great and it's only a dollar and 30 cents yep uh we talked about a little bit of a little bit more stability in the deck and I think one of the best reanimation spells that you could put in here especially with the new blank toys is revelark for four in a white it is a creature Elemental it is a 4-3 with flying and it says when reveler leaves the battlefield return up to two target creature cards with power two or less from your graveyard to the battlefield evoke five and a white yep so if you can evoke this you can return stuff to like basically anything in this deck it's an infect deck the power is low oh the power is low on almost everything yeah exactly this works on almost every creature that you have in the deck you get two of those if two of your best infect creatures back into the battlefield or toxic or you know poisonous whatever it is whatever you've loaded into the deck your card draw spells you know a lot of these uh editions that we've made that uh draw you cards their two power so it it does a lot of work it's definitely a good ad and for 35 cents they've printed this card a lot this card used to be worth a lot more than 35 cents yeah it's worth uh it's worth all those pennies yeah totally totally yeah the next one is the reason to play abzan totally one of my favorite new cards that they've come out with in the past couple years it's Eerie ultimatum basically for two white white three black black black green green it's a sorcery so seven Mana again white white black black green green return any number of Target permanent cards with different different names from your graveyard to the battlefield like what a perfect uh what a perfect Commander card and you need that late game it's definitely you know you look at this card in your uh hand early on you're like but man late game this this card is just such a house yeah you get every card in your graveyard back into the battlefield if somebody wipes you oh my God it's such a such a house can you imagine like you've you've been pressed to this whole game by infect you're like on the back foot the whole game right you finally find an answer yeah exactly you're like okay yeah yeah we're safe yeah totally Eerie ultimatum comes in it's the best I've this card has come in uh in two games that I've played in the past month that has just won me the game you know yeah it's incredible and it's hard to cast but seven Mana is not that much when you're in green yeah especially you know you could typically get this out turn six turn seven which is when you really really need it that's when the game is kind of starting to turn a little bit yeah yeah it's uh it's one of the pricier cards on the list it's four dollars but it is worth it agree uh for that moment when you can see the Hope leave your opponent's eyes if that alone right is worth the pennies there is a one more card that we want to add to this deck it's been the Fang Bearer there's a 35 Cent card from call time it is one in a green for a legendary creature human Warrior he is death touch and it says whenever a creature you control with death touch deals combat damage to a player that player gets two poison counters so he's just a nice little infect creature all on his own yep plus he synergizes with the death touch things that we've added to the deck already yep and he's an insane little blocker like he's just I I think Finn is worth throwing into basically any infect deck even if you don't have death touch synergies he's only 35 cents yeah totally I mean and he's also the uh the character that gave us the little inkling that maybe we'd start to see some sort of poison coming back right it's coming exactly oh that once once he came out I was like oh yeah when's it happening paid off yeah I love it and there are some cards that naturally have death touch in the deck so Finn I think Finn's a nice little boost because this does stack with toxic love it uh so that brings our total budget upgrade right into the wire to 29.88 we've done it he used the whole stuck right under that one there are a couple of honorable mentions that uh didn't quite fit into that into that budget uh that you could absolutely add to the deck and there would be a great addition uh but there's one or two reasons maybe not to add them normally it's price it's too expensive totally uh the first one is along the same lines that we've been talking about it's tusky bear of Secrets great card when they deal that combat damage you draw a card uh when when a deck's trying to go wide and deal combat damage tusky is one of the better ads you can do but of course it is 13 it doesn't quite fit in uh with that juicy oron frosting in there it's gone up quite a bit because I think people have realized how good it is it uh seemed a little bit overpriced at you know for CMC for uh or four Mana value for a one one but then yeah the indestructible and all that extra stuff it uh hard to deal with yeah definitely hard to deal with and the value unbelievable and then the other one kind of like uh the conjurers closet is teleportation Circle it's uh three in a white for an enchantment at the beginning of your end step Exile up to one target artifact or creature you control then return that card to the battlefield under its owner's control so just another way of blinking your commander at the beginning your end step but for four Mana instead of five yeah that's great so you can cast this on turn four or you can cast your commander on turn five it's just a great little curve um that's great so that's if you really want to lean into the blank strategy with bishgras but I think I think he does just fine without it and it is five dollars so if you want to rearrange the budget a little bit to get maximize your blinking teleportation circles are great include totally all right so because we're adding 10 new cards to the deck that means we have to take 10 out cry the worst part of deck building this is making it's always the hardest part final 10 cuts we're gonna make some room for the cool cards that we are adding uh and the first card we are cutting is one of the five board wipes there's too many that's yeah totally and I think it's the one that makes the most sense too it's five CMC it does gain your life but yeah yeah fumigate as 3A white white Destroy All Creatures you gain one life for each creature destroyed this way yep it just doesn't quite do enough in this deck I think not a terrible card but probably not here yeah I like I only these days I only run fumigate if I have life gain Synergy and like I'm really looking like that life gain is going to be a huge boost because otherwise it's just it's a little too expensive and doesn't quite give you the natural advantage that you really that you really want from a boardway and it's typically yeah in a life game deck or something like that like life gain tokens or something is its ideal spot but yeah uh the next is culling ritual which is also a you know great card but you probably don't need it in this deck there's not too much High CMC stuff typically you play this it's two uh black green first sorcery destroy each non-land permanent with Mana value two or less add a black or a green Mana for each permanent destroyed this way so it's a nice way to kind of like wipe your opponent's talismans and you know other Soul Rings all that stuff you get a bunch of man off of it and you know you typically play something huge with it but not too many big payoffs in this deck you want to you want to be quick you want to be agile so it's uh it seems like uh maybe for another deck yeah I agree calling ritual is underplayed and undervalued it's an insane card if you can take advantage of that Mana um but yeah you really need a ton of cards in your hand or like a really big thing to cast or a Mana sync and I don't think the deck really has it yeah um the next one is mycosynthe it's a two in a green for a refraxian horror it is a tutu but it gets plus one plus one for each poison encounter your opponents have it's big yeah it's a three Mana big poison counters it doesn't do anything other than it like chip away at their life total I guess it's a good blocker but I don't think it necessarily furthers your plan yeah it has uh it has its place but it's kind of an easy take out on this one uh next is you know as good as this card is uh for the proliferate in it contagion clasp uh just a little bit uh just not enough it's not a direct kill spell you know because you have to keep pumping Mana into it to turn it into that so you know it is two Mana for an artifact when contagion class enters the battlefield put a minus one minus one counter on target creature so you put a minus one minus one counter on something and then four and tap it to proliferate late game that is fantastic but like yeah it's they printed so much proliferate into this stuff right right they're so like and it stapled on so many cards where it's just sort of free value right I wonder if that changes where contagion clasp and contagion engine like sit on the priority of these kind of decks I think yeah I think I agree they're they're not in every deck anymore but the Decks that do need that proliferate strategy will still use it but six Mana to get one proliferate trigger is is too much yeah I not quite making the cut anymore similarly that some of these old proliferate spells just aren't just aren't good enough compared to some to the ones that they printed and this one is the same it's grateful Apparition or one in a white it is a one one flying spirit and when it deals combat damage to a player or Planeswalker proliferate yep it just it just doesn't do enough anymore because it's you have you still have to get through with your 1-1 flyer and then you're only proliferating one time like Norton's choir Master says proliferate every time your commander does anything yeah right exactly right and it's more Mana but the you know it's better than thrummingbird because it works when you hit a planeswalker as well but yeah totally it's only one damage and then you get the proliferate trigger and you have to wait a turn for it it's not good enough um next would be bile a skull dweller which is a awesome name this is the one one Mana one one with death touch I was talking about so it's one black for a creature for X forexian insect uh for a 1-1 death touch with toxic one um it's you know it's a card with toxic that's okay but you know as as you start playing these decks you'll start to realize infect is better um and if those cards are still not a lot of money those might be considerations too but yeah just not good enough I think yeah Billy is so that's an important distinction to make so when you get attacked but with a 1-1 infect yep you can be like afraid for your life oh yeah totally because they could be playing any sort of hidden pump spell any sort of yeah any sort of instant speed thing but even if if you pump up Billy's skull dweller skull dweller yup too excuse me billius a skull dweller uh even if you pump him up to be a 10-10 he still only deals one poison counter right so it it just doesn't have that quite that like real threat of impact uh as as those infact creatures totally which again in some games you know your your opponents will have taken other people down with their life total so maybe in those instances it's more of a consideration but yeah the the infect payoff is much higher which is what we're going for here yeah the next one's similar it's blight belly rat yep uh this is also a card from the main set from all we will be one it's it's one in a black furry for rexion rat it is a tutu with toxic one and when Blake belly rat dies proliferate okay it's it's okay but like this card if you draw it on turn you know six seven it's not really gonna get through it really doesn't have the natural evasion that you really want like a card to have totally and I think when your commander just makes a ton of one ones yeah another one with toxic for two yeah yeah like these these things stop being as valuable as like a card should be worth in Commander totally yeah uh next is norn's annex uh another great card uh it's three white white for an artifact creatures can attack you or Planeswalkers you control unless their controller pays two life or a white for each of those creatures so it's kind of like a ghostly ghostly prison uh it's worth noting it is three forexian white for xan white so you can pay for up to four life or an up to two white Mana for the casting costs you just see for you just see I the the forexian manuscript it's just regular Mana that's just the man I know norn's Annex is interesting I it's the most expensive version of this it's an artifact so it's the easiest to kill of these kind of effects that's an interesting point yeah and it's also you can pay the life like if somebody wants to attack you and can kill you they'll just pay six life and attack you with those three creatures you know like it that is very true it just when it's free like that it's not quite as impactful um as as you really want these defensive cards to be um so I I think Norm's Annex is a little outclassed these days um it's a super sweet card it's very forexian but um like I used to run this in photograph but I it just it wasn't enough yeah that makes sense I mean there's definitely a lot of cards in here that can either go in a planeswalker deck or an infect deck I think that's one that if you do have a Super Friends deck worth a consideration in that because it protects your Planeswalkers sure uh where you know ghostly prison doesn't but uh other than that I agree with you it's kind of outclassed these days for sure yeah um the next one is similar it's wind-born Muse it's three in white for a spirit with uh flying it is a two three it says creatures can't attack you unless their controller pays two for each creature they control that's attacking you so it's a little flying body that is also a ghostly prison there was three ghostly prison effects in this set right with a bunch of boardwifes and like it has this very strong defensive presence right which is is very interesting interesting for a mid-range strategy yeah yeah yeah I I wonder I wonder how effective that is like a defensive uh infect strategy you do need the defenses yeah I will definitely say because once people start to see that strategy they know that their life went from 40 to 10. so their their life got cut in half and then in half again right yeah and so it's you're immediately the threat usually because people also are wondering okay are you playing infect creatures in there are you playing pump you know what there are a lot of different ways to as you were pointing out earlier kill somebody within a turn where they don't really see it so you know the it kind of makes sense but I don't know I don't know how how much you really need other people not attacking you yeah yeah you're trying to you're trying to get them dead right faster right and I I feel like taking turn four off to cast a win-borne muse is just sort of strange in and from an infect strategy I the only way that it works is if you have the grafted exoskeleton on the winboard Muse so now it's a threat and a protection piece right like and this poor grafted Spirit she's such she's an angel she wouldn't turn her in hey there's another corrupted Angel too that's uh is pretty good so I would say the angels are wearing the grafted exoskeleton yeah that's where I'm at I I I I think this is a little strange I I agree that you are going to be flagging the threat but I don't know how like you said I don't know how worried about your life total you are you're like yeah especially like how many creatures like they'd have to have a token strategy to really make it worth it or yeah yeah um the next one that Josh is gonna love that we cut this three mana mana rocks yeah chromatic Lantern oh this is the last cut yeah chromatic Lantern I did a three Mana artifact it makes lands you control a tap for any color and it adds one Mana of any color to itself I mean it makes your Mana base good but that's not really a concern that you have in this deck I don't think yeah there's whatever we say there's 13 ramp effects in this deck there's a ton right there's a huge yeah there's 13 ramp effects on this deck and you're in green I think your fixing is solid without chromatic Lantern um yeah if somebody blows it up it's just a huge Tempo hit yeah um so I think I think chromatic Lantern can be worth it in certain decks especially if you're playing on a budget Mana base I think in this deck the fixing just isn't that important you're pretty long on black and green anyway totally and here's the thing if this is your first commander deck that is a great staple for your second commander deck yep I agree I I like I like that they're doing these reprints um that is is something worth noting is we did cut a number of the like more expensive reprints in the deck we like Norman Xanax was over five dollars uh chromatic Lantern is a like a four dollar card uh the other one is culling ritual um love that these cards are being reprinted yeah uh but you know maybe they're they're just not adding they're not in service of this deck as well as they should be I think totally and one of the sicknesses that we all have is once we have one we have to make two and then we have to make three and then we end up with 10 decks 10 decks so these will go great in your other decks yes I appreciate it okay so let's let's just talk about how this deck works like how do you especially with viscrows as the commander because like it's all designed to function around around Excel but how do you how does you see this playing out with fish cross as your commander with vishkras I think you know creating that immediate board presence is definitely uh uh something that's worthwhile you have a bunch of ground blockers that you know you you are protecting yourself which takes away the you know the needs for all those uh ghostly prison effects and stuff like that but also you have a threat on the board that man I'm surprised I didn't see this this last part of it where however many infect counters your opponents have vishgrass gets that much bigger and it's just I think late game that's going to be incredible um I think there's enough ways to kind of get uh infect counters onto your opponents they printed a lot of new ways that give direct poison counters without any sort of interaction which I think is cool um and then you have all your traditional ways that you can you know you can add in whatever you want here we've just made some suggestions but there's definitely ways where you can get more infect counters on people quicker um and that's definitely something that I'm interested in but I think out of the box it plays great and I think it's something that you could build around too which is awesome yeah I mean it's interesting because it's it plays the first few turns look very similar to a regular infect deck you're still trying to cast your one drops and your two drops uh with in fact ideally toxic's okay early but if you can get those infect creatures down they're very threatening yeah totally um and just start start getting those like spreading those counters around because remember the more in fact you can do in those first couple of turns the bigger and more scarier Commander is going to be so um yeah and honestly your uh situation of a five five with monache that's bad enough but once you get up to like eight or higher yeah you're like that's basically unblockable because now you're yeah yes you have two if you have two poison counters on each on each Commander an H player yep that's like which is doable in those first couple of turns it's now a nine nine it's a nine nine with Menace yeah that's huge that's huge that's gonna kill both things that block it so it's again giving them the the option of like okay do you want to lose both of your creatures that probably have other abilities too yeah it's uh it's interesting how it's making people make decisions yeah and then you get to kind of take advantage of their missteps which is kind of cool the cool thing about that is bishgrass is designed to be really big and take the blockers away from your mites right so you have you cast Bish cross you he's this big commander and then you have these three little guys and so they have to figure out whether they're gonna block this truck with Menace right or your three little one ones right because let's say you go after one one player they have to have five creatures to not have viscerals grow yeah right yeah I mean that's that's crazy yeah yeah I dig it and it's something where yeah my thought process was like oh you have three you kind of want to infect everybody so you but you only have one but man if you target one player and go off the you know the dog latching on technique yeah I I think vishgrass will play more traditionally than Excel will uh like traditionally in fact because it's a little bit more aggressive um and it's a little less controlling than Excel sort of wants you to be sure um but I think the control strategy is very tricky in within fact because like you said everyone's coming for you now right like you have put a commander on like in the command Zone that says toxic on it now you got three players gunning for you 100 and it's like are you gonna you're you have two options it's like are you gonna try and win the race or you're going to try and control three players that are all coming at you and you kind of do need to control those three players because if they're all coming at you you need a way of protecting yourself but also getting them so any sort of you know protection or way of messing with their board and you have it built on your commander but also with these abs and colors there's a lot of answers that you have you can answer artifacts you can answer uh enchantments you can answer creatures with these colors you know there's just there's a lot of control manipulation that you can do yeah or you can just leave viscross back to block like you want to tag into my 99 right right fine yep I will block I've got a big boy all right well super sweet deck I love that they're playing around with uh what in fact actually looks like in multiplayer I'm sure you're absolutely thrilled thrilled yes options toys it's been years so many like attraxa just I'm so excited oh my goodness well one like a final part of with the recommendation for people playing this deck how would like what's your hint at playing in fact well uh that's a loaded question uh it's uh I don't even know I mean like with this deck I would say go after one person and start with that uh go after the person who's the Josh at the table first [Laughter] and through until they're out and then maybe you can kind of get enough uh other pieces of the puzzle together where you can take out the other two players but you know I think the uh don't overlook the regular damage aspect with your toxic creatures you know with uh your commander specifically with fish Gras specifically you're going to be able to kill somebody with regular damage likely so you can kind of focus on two people with infect or even one person with infect and then take out the other person maybe let the third person be taken out by one of the other two players um with your control aspects cool yeah it's a very sweet deck uh to the listeners what do you think of this pre-con uh any cards that we missed that you would be adding into the pre-con right away and any card suggestions to take out or add that you disagree with do we go in the wrong direction uh is it not worth it for the Oren Frost Fang let us know in the comments we appreciate it very much we also appreciate you going to our affiliate Links at cardkingdom.com command pick up all of the awesome cards that we talked about today to make your cover-upting influence pre-con as lethal as possible it's already so scary and guard Kingdom knockout as all of the cards that you need to terrify your playgroup and it's all going to show up on your doorstep in one tidy package it's good the cards are going to be safe your cards are going to arrive on time and you're going to have the customer service to make sure that any issues are handled uh also once you have those cards in your hand once you have this uh pre-con in your hands go to ultra pro.com command to pick up all of the tools that you need to protect your new game pieces get sleeps get uh play mats get deck boxes all the pharexian kutra mall yes yes threatening as possible get that oil all over everything you just play with a slave get sleeves double sleeve them from ultrabro.com commands so you can cover your play your play mat in oil become the villain of your playgroup establish dominance with a um with a a praitory forexian playmat from ultrapro.com command uh all right it's now time for the end step where we talk about one cool thing Outside The World of Magic what are you doing that's cool right now Craig uh right now I am uh building a lot of stuff out of woods so um yeah doing some renovations to the house so kind of learning how to frame a door and yeah learning how to put up uh you know molding and stuff like that so I've got a couple hundred feet of molding that I've gotta cut up and put up and sand and paint and fun stuff yep the end step crown molding everybody hey it's worth it but it's fun it's you know it's interesting it's uh something that I used to do when I was younger you know uh helped my parents kind of like fix up stuff around the house and stuff and uh it's fun to get back into it but man it is it's it's interesting you know you you mess up and you got to throw everything out and yeah I've done that a couple times it's uh by using YouTube tutorials or anything oh of course oh my goodness thank goodness for YouTube these days because yeah there's so many places that you can anything you don't know how to do you just look up a YouTube video but using plenty of YouTube uh and yeah just getting the hands dirty and I love that have fun it's fun uh you're you're building a deck literally yeah I don't know you're not doing a deck of crown molding that's a bad idea [Laughter] switch for Christmas so that's mine uh it's awesome I've been playing I've been playing a switch what what games are you uh on right now uh Pokemon Snap has been really fun and my my boyfriend got it for me because I can't handle like high stress videos he's like this one's driving around in a car and taking pictures of little guys that's great and I love it that's awesome that's awesome there's very little skill involved I can do it as many times I want there's no Stakes that's what I want for my video games I imagine that's what they need after yeah after everything just a little relaxing the holidays were intense yeah just drive around on Pokemon Safari it's nice all right let's move to the cleanup step say thank you to our team here at the command Zone big thanks to Damon Lentz Arthur metacraft lady danger Manson lung Craig Blanchette Josh Murphy Josh Jake Boss Patrick Nan Jordan prison Sam Waldo uh garof Galati Jamie black Mitch Trafford Evan limberger Gabriel pozos Megan Yip Eric Lem Jimmy Wong and of course Josh Lee Kwai thank you so much for joining us thanks for having me doing double duty with me talking about it in fact I appreciate it man that team has grown so much that's awesome great people and the best Edition man man thanks for watching guys see you next time [Music] thank you for your attention for further inquiries send an email to command cast rocketjump.com or ask us on Twitter at jf1 and at Josh Lee Kwai see you later alligator greetings humans

Channel: The Command Zone

Views: 150,253

Keywords: video game high school, ted wong, vghs, wong, jfwong, jimmy, magic, the, gathering, mtg, magic the gathering, strategy, game, trading card game, deck, tactics, commander, general, elder, dragon, highlander, politics, josh, lee, kwai, cards, Card Game (Game Genre), negotiations, command, zone, podcast, the command zone, edh rules, mana, mana bases, Game Knights, GameKnights, gameplay, mtgone, phyrexia, all will be one, budget upgrade, infect magic, mtg toxic, infect mtg

Id: 21ExoXSsFvU

Length: 65min 47sec (3947 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 23 2023