How to Build a Deck You Love to Play | The Command Zone 519 | Magic The Gathering Commander EDH

foreign your destination for all aspects of Elder Dragon Highlander enjoy [Music] watching slash listening to the command Zone podcast I am one of your esteemed hosts today my name is Jimmy Wong and I'm the other slightly less esteemed toast for two weeks nah you're more esteemed you got a better win record on game nights that's all that matters so uh this is a fun episode today Rachel uh put together a very lovely outline as you often do and this is sort of in the realm of some other topics we've had but now we're going on the more uh fun positive route it's how to build a deck that you love to play as opposed to the cards you hate or whatever else it is well we spent a lot of time talking about how to build a powerful deck or how to build like a synergistic deck but I I think it's also something that we we could talk about is building a deck that's just fun to play for yourself because like like building building decks is one of my favorite things to do and I still put a deck together that as soon as it's in front of me and I'm playing against people I'm like I hate this go whoops like this is not like either it's too powerful or it's not powerful enough or I just personally don't like the play style so uh We've assembled some stuff that we've learned to hopefully make sure that every deck that you get in front of you on your play mat you absolutely love to play yeah and it's really important to also order the deck so that you can actually play it and we recommend you head on over to cardkingdom.com command because this way when you order your deck and you've done this episode's research you know what you're gonna get in a single package is your entire deck ready to go and you're gonna love to play it because you've obviously followed our advice and card kingdom.com command does all of that for you they have a huge inventory they've got tons of different styles as well as qualities of cards so that if you're looking to build a budget build you can put all the cards in it can find them for you and say you know what I want near me on this but heavily played on this and you can actually bring that price down get everything in one package and save some money as well as build a deck that you're trying to play anyway it's magically Gathering gonna get those cards so support the show while you're doing so at cardkingdom.com command it's so easy yeah and while you're using affiliate links go to ultrapro.com command to pick up all of the accessories that you need to protect this new deck that you absolutely love to play get the matching sleeves and a matching deck box a matching play mat make sure you're representing the decks you truly love and that truly represent you and you can do that at Ultra Pro because they have all of the official magic Art so they have your favorite art on on cards or on the pro like a lot of the time when the pre-cons come out yeah they'll have matching play mats these are they do all the secret lair Arts as well due to the secret layer ones as well so make sure that you have signed up for their newsletter because they're always doing drops for secret layer product and that will go quickly so make sure that you have the are on the up and up and you're visiting ultrapro.com command frequently it also makes it more fun to play a deck when you have everything all set up for sure like I have decks where I'm like oh I love this Tech because it's I always play this playmat with it blah blah blah uh finally last with what it shows directly patreon.com command Zone we love our patrons we talk to them every single day on Discord that's right every single level of the patreon gets you Discord access and the further up you go you get even more cool stuff like exclusive content everyone else also by the way gets to watch episodes of extra turns and Game Nights a day early so you get to know what's happening uh what's on the up and up and watch it again when it comes out the next day but best way to support the show directly is at patreon.com command Zone and of course we shout out one lucky Patron every episode so this week's episode is dedicated to David love you rock David you do rock you rock so much that we're gonna dedicate a whole podcast to you yeah all right here we go you love to play so Dex are investments I think that's an important reason why it's important to uh have a deck you like to play because it's our mental energy it's the time it takes to build it and of course the money so getting it right is just a goal I think amongst every player whatever that means to you and wanting to have your commander X be fun to play is you know also means it's fun to play against maybe for your opponents maybe that matters to you maybe you just want to inspire the table and do something that makes everyone go holy crap let me take a picture of that card whatever it is though building a deck you want to play is complex and so we're going to talk about a bunch of the different facets of what goes into this decision and also how to make sure that at the end of the day you make a deck that you do love to play so I think we should start off with the obvious question which is what does it mean to build a deck you don't like to play yeah there's a couple of things that could go wrong when you build a deck that that there's a couple of reasons that you could find out that you don't like it yeah the first one is you just didn't you've never played this archetype before and now you don't know what you were got yourself into yeah built your first storm deck oh boy you built your first you know a graveyard or Dredge deck oh man I still mess up on dredge they're so complicated they're very very complicated decks to Pilot they're very specific strategies so it can be difficult to learn those lines yeah and you can find yourself really overwhelmed by a deck of a new archetype that you aren't necessarily used to yeah I think a lot of people do this when they watch content so I'll watch a streamer play a vintage Cube and draft storm and the entire time I'm like this is so cool oh my gosh what did they just do they did what for what oh and they won and then when you go and try and build your blue red musics of the is Magnus deck or whatever it is you are in for a lot of things that you have to have like a different like dice to count the red mana and black Mania float right like there's so many different things that go in the storm and it's there's a reason there's a thing called a storm scale you know the storm scale is yeah yeah so Mark rosewater I think is the one they established it which is like from zero to storm How likely is something going to get a reprint and storm is literally at the top of it because it's so complex and it takes way too much mental energy and also dangerous it doesn't really work great sometimes because you're just playing by yourself casting 20 spells to try and do a big effect so storm is one of those difficult things dredge any of these my complex mechanics you may see shown on the pro tour or in the commander game online that makes you go I really want to do it but turns out actually playing the deck is different than watching it and sometimes you may be enjoying the player versus the actual play style more than that and that kind of gets you into confusing spots yeah I mean and some another thing that can happen with is when you sit down and the deck just doesn't work like you had this great idea and you were like wouldn't it be cool if I get this card together with this card together and then you have them on the table and you're like oh it's a non-bow this is I misunderstood yeah where someone goes actually the card doesn't work like that and everyone whips out their phones someone tweets at us inevitably maybe gets into our Discord yeah this happens a lot this happens to me because I put too many sub themes into a deck right when you went like when you add a cart you're like oh I should add support for equipment because I put all these equipment in right and and then I'm doing combat damage so I also want all these combat damage triggers and so I I'm attacking and if I if I'm doing all these creatures I should put more creatures and every time I cast a creature I draw and now you have an equipment damage creature deck wait that sounds like a normal day just kidding it is true though there it's easy to throw way too many things in because you do that it's like right you catch an idea off of one card right that's brings into another and then that Sprints into another and then very quickly you're just sub themed out and your commander is sitting there going well what about me yeah you draw the equipment cards and you have none of the payoffs yeah your commander isn't doing anything uh so that's definitely a possibility um oh this one's pretty fun your playgroup was not pleased or and or neither were you yeah so this I think happens to a lot of players where maybe they'll show up with a deck that's a relative 9 out of 10 compared to the play group that's like pre-cons upgraded and you're just you're busting down the Mana Crypt you're doing this and that and then it quickly becomes a ad that wasn't fun you kind of ran away with it and did you have fun and you're you're looking and you're going I don't think I had that much fun either yeah I mean Commander's fun when you have a balanced fight when you have like uh something that everybody's prepared and brought their decks and their decks are evenly matched because that's when it feels like you're really playing the same game if one deck runs away with it then it's terrible for everybody or if a deck is is more controlling than you thought it would be I've only done that where I put together a list that I thought was cool and you're like actually I can just recur removal over and over and over again and I hadn't really planned to do that didn't that happen for a game nights deck you were looking to build and then yeah there and you're like oh no this is not the kind of car I'm hoping to drive on this episode I was trying to build glissa Sun Slayer and I liked it with sagas I was like you can keep reusing your sagas that's right yeah but the sagas that are in green and black are often like everybody's hex creature or everybody discards a card or destroy something or deal and it just became this deck that I was like this is so grindy and like it's not going to be very fun for people to watch yeah or play against yeah I think that happened as well with orvar was a card that I think was like hey let's build around this and then it very quickly became no this is not pleasant um like this is a combo card and it's really hard to play too right and you don't want to do something that you know it's I think it's fun if you're like I want to learn how to play this Commander and over time you practice and stuff but similar to storm where if you show up and maybe it's like you played a Stacks deck but you didn't build in the right wincons so now you're really not having a good time right and the rest of the table is not pleased either yeah I mean orvar is actually a really interesting example because orvar is a deck that I loved initially I started building the list for for game nights actually for the game nights called him and I was like oh God I cannot figure this deck out in time to be able to play it well well on game nights so I scrapped it but I did build it for my personal collection and I I played it a few times and I was like oh this is really powerful and I played it again and it was like this is like too powerful like there's no way for me to take this deck and make it a casual fun deck it's just the deck the card wants to combo so badly yeah yeah that it's very hard to rein it in so now it's a CDH deck but I don't play CDH very often so I barely ever play it yeah and I guess other people too once a card becomes known for something removed on site yeah and then all of a sudden the brand new deck you built well sorry it's kind of one of those commanders that if it sticks around everyone starts having a bad time yeah so I think yeah like understanding what you're building into as well um and the fair fight thing I really think is really important everyone I mean like if anyone watched this year's Super Bowl for example incredible game because it's so back and forth it was determined at the very last moment by a crucial play um there was some controversial moments but it was only controversial because it was so close right if the game is a blowout like sometimes you'll see college games where it's like 92 to five yeah you just turn it off yeah you turn it off and sure maybe it's the best time ever for the winning team that one time but I can almost assure you that's not the kind of thing you want to have happen over and over again because it just feels bad sometimes even for the other team there's like concession rules of like Hey we're beating you too hard we're gonna just stop playing yeah actually we're just you're you're good never gonna play this game yeah so yeah having a balanced fight is important so there's a lot of factors about why a deck you Belt doesn't work and you don't like it in fact we record an entire episode yeah uh 426 decks we built dot dot dot but hated so you should check that out if you want to find out more anecdotes stories and fables I guess a fable uh about why a deck wasn't fun for someone yeah all right so that's like those are the ways that it can go wrong right where you can find out that your deck isn't for you but what are the steps you can take before a deck is in your hands or maybe after you've built it and you want to Pivot it into something you like more and we've got a list of them a whole bunch of them we're going to talk through them first up this one's fun we just kind of talked about it but watch the deck if you know it's a brand new commander and people are Brewing around it maybe there are deck techs available that show how some combos work or how a goofy interaction Works um there's at this point so much YouTube content that and twitch content that you should be able to find what you're looking for either in an upcoming video or when that's already been released yeah there's a ton a ton of gameplay now because there's so many streams where like the people are streaming Commander live and they'll take vods and post them right onto YouTube so a lot of the time if you're like all right I want to see how this new glissa plays out you can search glissa sunslayer like gameplay and you can find a deck with it and be like okay this is what it looks like is that the kind of game I want to have is that the kind of deck I actually like yeah and if you if you're like you know what that deck list doesn't actually match what I want to do with it go online and search up deck lists I think that's one of my favorite things to do when they see a new Commander is I have not been able to put in the brain power to think of all the six different ways you might build it but maybe six different people out there have come up with those or versions that mix them together so I'm never afraid to go out check out see what other people's lists are and it's really easy once you get a you know especially for veteran players you can just scroll through the cards get a flavor of what it's like a lot of websites will tell you this is like a 10 out of 10 competitive build or whatever and I think that's a really good way to gauge too like oh is this the kind of deck I want to play like oh I didn't realize tauren was all all counter spells maybe I don't maybe maybe my weird tutu Drake flying deck shouldn't be a tall Rand deck so that I think helps out quite a bit yeah go to edhrek.com and look at the commander and the common cards that are played in it or go to moxfield and just look for look for towel Rand decks and see what comes up and that way like it'll give you some helpful hints on like how to build the deck but it'll also show you what the average deck looks like yeah and what your opponents will be expecting when you play it against them like I think if a new player looks at toweran they may not necessarily see the like oh mono blue permission yeah yeah thing from it they're like oh I just played all my draw spells and I make a ton of Drakes and then they sit down at their table they'll be very confused why everyone is attacking them and counterspelling them and stopping brutally attacking they're like that's a Drake deck and it's because of the perception of tolerant is different than that player may have thought it was yeah and that's probably something you can negotiate and talk to your play group about but we're also trying to be more Broad and vague here because you may bring it to a magic con or just be at an event or an LGS and you don't want to get caught off guard by the perception of a card because you just didn't take a couple seconds to even look it up yeah yeah um okay yeah pretty chill pretty chill uh I like watching it in action there's also tons of game nights episodes I was gonna say so much inspiration from game nights and every time we have a different episode we have different players different styles or extra turns yeah well actually that's a great Point yeah returns is a great source too yeah checking online is going to be one of your best resources for figuring out what a deck actually looks like but if you're not sure if you're like I think this deck's cool I've watched a video and it looks cool there too and you're not but you're not sure if it's going to match up it with your playgroup well talk to them like if you have a group of buddies that you play with regularly you can be like hey I'm thinking about building this deck is this a deck that you're cool playing against is this a deck that you think your decks will match up against well yeah it's also like just a great way to talk about cards yeah maybe a player will be like oh you're gonna do that actually I want to do this and then all of a sudden you have this like cool Brew off which I find is a great way to reinvigorate the play group is everyone yeah sees a new card from the new set and they're like hey let's all just build one see what happens but it's also great because if you're playing a group hug deck or a stack stack or a combo deck that's a really good way to find out uh you know what Stacks let's not play Grand Arbiter Augustin I get what you're going for but it we only have two hours every night to play so let's not do that I think bringing it up before you've built a deck really like tries to stop some of those feel bads right where you're like you show up to game night and you're and you're so excited and you've got this Grand Arbiter deck and you're like I put it all together I'm excited to play it tonight and then your friends are like I don't want to play against that yeah or they start and then very about 20 minutes in everyone's like oh faster and cool yeah yeah everybody's in this horrible mood and I absolutely could have saved yourself like what a couple hundred dollars and also your any hours yeah if uh if you had send a text to your play group to be like hey I'm thinking about this is that something we're into yeah I've also found myself like I'll build a deck and it's just a little too powerful for my playgroup and I don't play it as often as I like as I want to whereas the deck I like like I have a Cortana deck where it's gruel storm and it like you pump up Tana with with Quirk and you make a ton of guys and it's fairly fast and it's also like a it's like a Fast Glass Cannon deck so it sort of does powerful things fairly quickly but is also incredibly easy to interrupt yeah and I it's very hard to find a table for that kind of deck right because you're like it's too it's too bad for the good tables and we're saying bad not in a negative bad meaning low power you're controlling your your speed you want to go fewer like longer turns yeah longer games that's a really good point every actually every magic con I try and bring a selection of decks my play with anyone deck is like my oboon landfall deck that's like right in the middle it's trying to kill you with a six six most the times and then the top end is like a paco and haldan deck that's trying to make sure that if I'm playing in a very competitive pod I can disrupt things and use their cards and try and kill someone quickly but there's a whole range in between and we're not saying don't build the deck but just check in with your play group and know hey if I'm only going to have the budget slash time to build two decks maybe I want to do ones that I can have a lot of use out of and as to the title of the episode a deck I love to play yeah but you actually feels good because it doesn't feel good to bring a deck to the table that's too powerful or not powerful enough yeah and I find that you know for newer players that want to just get that feeling out of the way of the I came in and I stomped everyone yeah that does fade pretty quickly pretty quickly because you're still playing with a group of four and it's about the group dynamic most times not so much the who can stop who first yeah the other we're talking about this one way where it's like you want to build a powerful deck and you're not sure if your friends can handle it the other there is another version of this where your friends often build very high power decks and you're like I want to build a budget deck is like do you guys want to build budget decks right and just making sure that that there's a place for the thing you're building is uh you know because you're not going to build like a popper deck without having a pop or play group it's exactly sort of the same thing yeah good point good points all right something else you can do instead of checking with your play group is checking in with yourself in more ways than one how are you doing how am I doing how are you doing good Jimmy how are you well I was checking in on you I should have been checking out yeah checking on your checking on yourself Jimmy yeah so what do I like to do in Commander tables I like doing explosive things but I don't like going infinite but I also don't want to end the game so quickly that no one can play okay so that that makes sense so these are the kinds of plays that make the most sense for fun is like Insurrection you know or a terror of the Peaks types cards so cool now I know what I want I can now continue to build down that line until I've satisfied that urge right and maybe in the future I don't need to do it as much but now I know I really like haste so I'm gonna put more haste in my decks because it makes me feel good yeah I think this is a really important thing that people don't do as much where it's like people are like I want to build all the different types of colors I want to build a white blue deck and a green black and a red like and I want to have them all and I can take a picture and put it on Twitter and they're all going to be color code the deck cases yeah I feel like we're like magic players are collectors we wanna we're we're completionists we want to build all the decks but a lot of the time you'll you just end up building a deck that you don't want to play because you're like I'm a girl player this is an azorious deck I can't figure like I don't enjoy playing it because what I like about Commander is playing gruel cards and I think that's like making sure that you're building a deck that actually does the things you like to do in Commander is harder than it sounds do you like I'm sure there are players out there that don't know what makes them feel good at a table yeah probably because they they play a lot or they don't play enough I mean it could be any kind of player right I feel like this is a question I barely started asking myself until I did game nights and then I went oh I'm always just doing that kind of thing yeah must make me happy that must be something I like doing and I keep doing it now yeah I mean mean like like my play style tends to be I like gotcha cards I like haha I had the answer like I think those are very fun I also like very like recursive Decks that are hard to interrupt and like keep pushing forward and like because of that I have trouble building uh like is it is not something I'm very good at because it's it's like it's all go go go go go go go go it has some cool gotcha cards but it it's very easy to break apart yeah so I feel that recognizing that about myself and making sure that it's like when I'm if I build an is it deck I want a deck that still does the kind of things that I like about magic yeah you'll play the monomic mnemonic mnemonic mnemonic wall in there and get some spells back get the recursion you're going for exactly like I I got a plane as a deck like a white deck yeah Ah that's not something you thought you would heard in here in Commander Josh and I both built music stacks and we both disassembled them because they were it was a deck that we hated to play and it wasn't a deck that we loved to play because we just kind of like funneled into what does blue red want to do as opposed to what do I want to do with blue with blue red yeah or with just specifically this Commander which is reduced spells and so like our brains were like well we just got to go to the point where it's powerful and then you find yourself pigeonholing yourself into what the cards are dictating but you can always change the commander and there are so many different choices now you can add in a new color so I think if you find yourself going in the direction just because that's what the deck wants to do that is a moment to stop and reflect and go what do I want to do and am I only doing what the deck wants to do because you know I'm a spike can I naturally gravitate towards this inevitable conclusion yeah you build the deck the deck doesn't have to build you wow this is like a life advice podcast now yeah I think so this is this is just the personal zone now the personal Zone you know my personal Zone okay this next point is pretty important um and you can do this without paying a single Cent which is my favorite part about this it's the cheapest part of the the deck building process testing yeah test it just practice with your deck before you actually buy the cards there's a lot of great tools to do this um I personally like to use moxfield the best because I like I like their their play tester you can put a full you can copy and paste somebody else's list into moxfield and test that deck be like do I like how this deck plays not really do I like this version of the deck I can play that or you can just throw in a pile of cards that you like and see how those cards start to work together yeah or even test like you know what I'm gonna see what happens if I put in 32 lands yeah and then start drawing sevens over and over again I think we'll see how many Mulligans you have to do yeah back in the early days of Commander we would build a deck and you would take it to play with friends and you wouldn't really actually know what was wrong with it or why it wasn't functioning until you get in like three to four gameplay night sessions right but now with mocks field we use tapped out a bunch you can just hit draw seven the bunch you can play all the first few turns and you can goldfish the deck to the point where you go oh you know what I think I'm actually over indexed on Mana rocks yeah maybe I should do this instead and see how it works instead of having to wait for three friends to gather around your Mulligan and you don't know if it's a good keep or not you can just do it in add infinitum by yourself and that is so very valuable because the only way you're going to understand how the deck plays is just repetition yeah and it's a lot of the time you'll like if I'm if I want to try a new card especially if that new card is expensive I will play test with it with a list online to see if it fits into the deck before I spend you know twenty thirty dollars on a card like this where you're like does it actually give me 20 to 30 worth of value is this actually a good place for it because it's just magic is expensive if and if you find out after two or three plays that you're like this deck is not yeah it's not my style yeah you've already spent 200 on it what are you gonna you just take it apart and build a new one I guess yep yeah a good anecdote for this is I have a polymorph deck and it's also a deck that wants to give its Commander hey so I do have anger in there yeah and there have been now multiple times because I didn't test it enough for I playing the deck I go all right cool polymorph this token I'm gonna get that gin cataxias But Here Comes anger not just once but like three to four times which made me go you know what if I play tested this deck and understood what was happening I knew I could either build a different way or just take anger out right or like figure out something but it took me having to make the same mistake multiple times and maybe even ruin that game I was playing in before I finally got the lesson right so play testing really important something that I've been trying to do lately is when I build a personal deck I start with a commander usually a new one and I'll just build a 99 out of what's around the house right just with cards I have and I'll put them all together and then I'll take it and play it against my friends a few times and be like okay what are the cards I really like in this deck like is this what the deck actually wants to do do I even care about this Commander before I you know put a whole list into Card Kingdom and hit and hit go yeah because you know I don't want to pay a hundred and fifty dollars in new cards and then find out it's terrible so if I if I and it gives you some time to get to know the commander before you build the 99 I like that and it makes it makes the deck building process more of a process and less of like a one and done it's I made it and it's perfect now we all know how that works it never works out never it never the rough draft isn't the best trapped yeah yeah it's not like you're playing limited and you have a small amount of cards you choose from I actually like that approach a lot because it also brings back the original Joy of deck building which is like oh wow this card could be really cool yeah and I think when you start getting into the further Advanced stages of Commander you get to the point where you go well I'll obviously never play this card and now you've just cut off Pet cards entirely from your deck building process and so I think a great way to re invigorate that spirit is serve to do what you're doing there and to know that you can play test it without needing to invest lose money and time and mental energy yeah and still get the same result and maybe you go wow this actually pet card this is the best place for it to go and they wouldn't have known it because I was too busy optimizing otherwise right and then sometimes you yeah there's there's this little secret where where you're like actually I didn't think that this is the direction I want the deck to go in yeah but because I like what it what the deck feels like when and these two cards are together I'm gonna try and find more of those effects and I'm going to build more around that effect yeah uh kind of like how Josh got to his hidden Commander decks exactly I just want to play this effect all right I got a couple of tutors I'm running more of this inside this shell and then all of a sudden it starts to work but you can't get to that point unless you really have it again that clear idea of and testing it over and over again to make sure it works yeah for sure all right we got a bunch more points to talk about but before we do let's take a quick little break here and hear a message from our mineral sponsors 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indeed.com command Zone again indeed.com command Zone terms and conditions apply cost per application pricing not available for everyone need to hire you need indeed hi-ho human friends we're the Seven Dwarfs I'm talking this is working jumpy greedy shouty Smiley and Ted what up hi ho we're here to talk to you about raycons it's the time of year to make big changes which can be just as hard as mining through rock and stone but take it from us even small things can add up to a big impact in Life or on the battlefield you can start by shaking up your routine with raycon wireless earbuds I use mine when I mine the water sweat resisted and not big tunes that really helped me keep my energy going eight hours of Play Time make them perfect for getting through a long day counting my rubies it's premium audio and the price of other brands so you want to buy a pair and a spare and one for me I'll take a pair I got mine in Sleek Frost white or should I say Snow White oh dwarf human ready to buy something small with a big impact go to buy recon.com command today to get 15 off your raycon order that's by raycon.com command to score 15 off again buy recon.com command howdy doodah everybody we're back with the command Zone podcast I'm your host James Wong James now huh yeah Jimmy doesn't have a real Western Twain to it does it yeah James James Jimmy my name is funny because I always tell people that the first two names sound like a president and then the last name is Oh no you're not a president because it's James Franklin oh Wong it really does take a lot it takes a whole left turn yeah James Franklin oh my gosh this guy should be on some money I think I was facing the coin my middle name is Georgina so I should be on a coin too wow Rochelle or Rachel Georgina weeks that's pretty sweet pretty sweet huh yeah that's a whole it's a big one to wear I'm glad it's on my first all right decks building a deck that you love to play um this is one that is very true for me and I've watched it play out on camera enough times I should probably know better but find the pain point so pain points are like why does a game become unenjoyable to you and sometimes it's politicking sometimes it's just the environment that you're in but a lot most of the times I would say it's probably as a result of your deck building and it could be a trend too that you find uh oh it's here oh it's there oh it's in all my decks I need to fix this so for instance are you the deck that always loses to a single board wipe yeah you're you're not running enough board protection you're over committing to the board constantly or you just playing Decks that it's all about I only have one and two drops in here because I want to play play yeah you just don't have enough of a top end or don't have enough reach and this is one of those so a lot of the points that we've made up until now are like before you buy the deck yeah and I think this is a big one where you're like you know what I built this deck and I have it now and it's fine yeah how do I get it from fine to I love playing I enjoy playing it and and finding those those weaknesses and finding those really those frustration points in it and recognizing those is gonna is gonna further that journey of course yeah I think a big one too is just the inability to interact at all either at instant speed activate abilities what have you you find yourself with five Mana unused passing the turn gets back to you five Mana unused and all of a sudden you just fallen way behind in the game and the deck no longer is able to keep up and thus you feel bad so I think like that's another thing that works out often in my case is like I over commit I do something so big and flashy I'm ready to wait but I'm just gonna pass turn first I'm ready to win sorry and then it takes all the time to go around there's a billion things that could happen I can't respond and then they go why did that feel bad well maybe you put yourself there bucko something that can really frustrate me about new decks is when I haven't figured out my Mana curve yet yeah and I because I have a tendency to just load the deck up with four drops I love a four drop I don't know what the deal is it's the perfect Commander like power level right it's pretty like I love that you can go like turn to Signet turn three four drop that feels good yeah but then but then turn four now you have five man up four drops turn five now you have six Mana four four drops and then you just have all this handful of four and five drops that you're like I can't double spell yeah I'm down to one card to turn just you really it's because the curve has I haven't paid enough attention to how the deck will actually play out yeah and usually that's a result of not goldfishing enough because you don't know what what cards are getting stuck in your hand yeah another big one too is that my Mana bases will sometimes I'll just like count the Pips up and be like all right sure like two more Islands here one more for us there and then you get into the game you realize oh all of my early turn plays are blue blue or blue something and I actually need to build much more heavily towards this to actually not be stuck with one because I don't know how many games now I played where I sit there and go oh that's awkward okay um past turn it's because I have like a colorless a black and like us a filter land and it doesn't do what I'm actually trying to do I put way too many lands in to try and make this a field of the Dead deck and I ruined my own chances of playing by just making bad Mana bases yeah I I absolutely did this with my kumena deck it's blue green merfolk of course the deck is predominantly blue yeah but I just put in like ads simic Mana base here we go print again went to the game store and you're like there are I have eight forests on the board I don't know we were like how are they how were this many in this in the deck yeah and then you go home and you're like all right I need to order five new islands and these five forests are just gonna sit in the Box because I didn't even think about sometimes too You'll Play Too Many ramp spells that look for basic lands and your deck just does not have enough or you're doing Nature's Lord to find a forest but turns out you actually don't have enough Forest X whatever else land and so you should maybe think about a different ramp spell yeah but I I think this often comes to to like autopilot type of stuff where you're like yeah like you default to putting generous gift in as a removal spell in white decks but then you're in gameplay and you're like well this deck doesn't have any defense if I give them a 3-3 that will actually hurt just they're killing me you will actually start hitting me with this thing and that is gonna be a problem yeah so maybe I want a bounce spell or maybe I want you know something that doesn't give them a huge beater right more flexible removal right to fit what you're going against yeah I like this next one a lot this was one that you brought yeah this one's good so a lot of the time I think especially when I'm goldfishing or when I'm uh or when I finally bring it to the play group for the first time I'll find cards that just hang out in my hand there's just never a moment to play them like it doesn't feel right or it feels it feels too early or if it's too late or it'll feel too slow or powerful or it's too powerful where it's like I just I can't cast this again in this game are you kidding me do outside extortionist I think has that exact effect on me many times where I'll draw it and go oh am I about to turn it into that kind of game yeah I can't I can't I don't know I don't think I'm gonna play this yeah and it's I I think people are like oh well I like to run some powerful cars in case in case I find myself in a pod that's too powerful right but then I then it's like you might as well discard that card if it's stuck in your hand and you're not playing it for one reason or another so I'm a big fan of just not putting in cards that you don't actively love to cast yeah like I have I farewell in one of my decks right now oh that's a good and that card is incredible but against some decks and in some pods farewell is such a nuclear option that I'm like I can cast this right now it'll it will age yeah absolutely wreck this game and so it just sits in my hand and I it's be I haven't put it in more decks because of that yeah um now we're sort of foregoing like I want to win the game to like I just want a good game right so I I think putting in a card that you're like you know what I always want to cast this card I'm always excited this is always front of my hand yeah whether that's like a card you like a lot or a card that synergizes really well or maybe it's just a cheap like a low CMC card making sure that you have cards in like all the cards in your deck you're excited to cast yeah totally at any moment yeah that's like a uh like a sensei's divining top for me I'm sure damn it to get that thing on the table and just smooth other things out it's like it's sort of this o-ring effect like you don't realize how powerful soul ring is until you're like if I draw it it's the first card on the battle yeah yeah yeah no it's the only decision where you're like I drew a soul ring get it out of my hand yeah put it on the battlefield so it's those kind of cards that make you excited like if it's in your hand you get it out yeah it's really fun I think it's easy to get pigeonholed into have to play these cards because you go to your edhrx or your mocks fields and it says like top ninety percent of decks play this with this card yeah and it's like oh I guess I gotta do it too and then you start playing it or you don't want it or it's like oh this is so expensive should I really buy it I've never played it I really like the effect but everyone else is doing it that's you're on the fast road to not building a deck You Love by doing stuff like that yeah there's like this happens a lot with like infinite combos with commanders where it's like March it's like March of the machines I think is the one that turns all artifacts into creatures oh yeah there's like yeah yeah it goes in infinite with Eloise and like a blood artist and I have a Eloise deck and I was like do I just get one to have it and then there's like an easy win Con in the deck and I was like you know what I don't want to win that way I don't want to win in like a two card maybe stalemate uh that's that's not how I enjoy playing my Eloise deck so I just didn't buy it I never put it in yeah and that's that's a choice that I made for my own enjoyment yeah it's like those life came index that do the sanguine blood Exquisite no Exquisite blood sanguine Bond bonds combos like I know a lot of people that just say like well I have to put it in there and it's like you don't actually have to and not only that or they're both High Mana cards everyone's gonna look at you if you do so only do it if you really just want to win that way I actually started taking like doubling season out of a lot of decks that have Planeswalkers that could alt yeah and just in general because I don't like it I don't like playing this five Mana spell that makes everyone turn at me and then that if I don't get the full value off it I feel bad and if I do then I'm starting to crush so I'm like you know what I can actually make do like crater of Behemoth I just replace it in all the Decks that would play it with some other version the path breaker Ibex yeah because I just want to see that work because I know Craig Hope is going to do a thing and I don't actually want to play that card most of the time right if you're like it just feels too strong for my play group it just doesn't it just doesn't feel great or in my case it's like this is just too easy yes play this and go I win and that to me kind of gets rid of the joy right you're like jaws of defeat yeah it's something that I've discovered with cards like this like I I have a dragon's approach deck and um the one one that the Ripple won that throwing Stone yeah drumming zone is a win the game button and a dragon's approach deck right you can trigger it multiple times you will just kill the table uh and I have one and it's in I keep it in the sleeve of the commander where it's like uh if I am playing a powerful game with it sure I'll put it in and I'd like it's it's still fun to do like throwing stone is fun yeah but if I'm playing in a pod where I'm like you know what I don't it's not necessary I'm not like I'm not trying to combo off I'm not trying to combo off like I'm just gonna cast dragons approaches and see if I get there then I'll just keep another card in there and you can swap it around and it's like having a little sideboard yeah don't have a sideboard to sideboard against your opponents don't do side obviously obviously that's a good point though you can take it out you can put it back in that's the big thing you're not losing it forever you're also just maybe doing a little bit more of that play testing point we did which is like how about you try the deck without that card that you don't like to play and see what happens yeah you don't have to throw it out you could keep it you could keep it in the deck box if you want yeah don't throw it out don't don't throw out crater Behemoth extend it to me no get it out of here the only Creator if I want to see is the secret layer one that the kid Drew I love it okay yeah all right we're going through some good lessons here this next one is just eat your veggies that's it that's the actual point there's nothing else to it just make sure you eat vegetables everybody yeah it'll make you feel good and your decks You'll Play better if you eat carrots yeah so what does eating your veggies mean in the context of building a deck do you love to play it's just make sure you have the boring cards in there the ones that make your deck work well veggies are not boring oh you're I'm sorry a little balsamic vinegar can turn any veggie into a balsamic vinegar it just tastes like now it's just vinegar oh it's it's crunchy vinegar grapes right this is yeah but these are foundational right you need these to survive they it's your fiber it's your protein into whatever it is to get you through the day but in your deck it's the cards that are a little more boring sometimes yeah I think it's it's like you're you're playing your deck and you're like I used to like this deck worked at one point it used to play and now every time I play it it feels like I don't have enough of this or I don't know but this or like it just doesn't work yeah the way I used it in there and that's that's always it is you just always cut too many lambs and you're like I'm gonna take this land out and slip in this cool new car why think about the hard things just take a land down take a land out everything else is an emotional decision but I think it's important to check in with your decklist every so often especially if that's how you make Cuts if you don't make it digitally if you just make the card cut oh yeah yeah lay out your deck in front of you count the number of lands you have count the number of ram spells look at your curves non-creatures like go back to the beginning and make sure you're like you have your fundamentals right in the deck especially if it's a deck you've had for a long time yeah it's I think it's really easy to just be like oh whatever sure that should be fine yeah it's like you just put necropones in your deck you need to put some more swamps like that that's a huge point where it's like I've made a bunch of changes over the years but I haven't touched the man baits at all yeah like this Mana base used to be for a totally different deck let's make sure this Mana base works for the deck it is right now totally making making sure that you're being diligent and and doing your deck right yeah I also think another thing people could just experiment with is try putting in more card draw than you think you need yeah because you're never going to get too unhappy if you card draw card a card draw and oh whoops I just drew more card draw so I just draw more cards but you are going to be unhappy if you're at that you know turn four zero cards in hand don't have any sources of card draw so I think having more sorts of card draw is a great way to prune out the ones that you're like oh you know what I don't need uh this one because I'm not trying to discard as much I just want to draw straight cards yeah um you know what I really don't think Mystic Memorial works because it just it's not the kind of play group I'm in so I think having more sources to begin with is a great way to see all of your whole deck and eat your veggies and then over time cutting card draw it feels way better than and replacing with a real card instead of cutting a land or a ramp spell that you really need to make sure you're getting going I'm also a big fan of like I would say a lot of decks especially Decks that were built in the last three or like three to four years like in that longer uh term could cut two sources of ramp and add just add in two pieces of cardra oh yeah because if like if you can if you're drawing more cards you're gonna find more ramp and you're gonna you're gonna find more lands like the having making sure that you have enough card velocity that you're turning through your deck and you're seeing a lot of cards yeah make sure you are actually hitting all of those points like obviously card draw is fun you're like oh I draw 80. nice nice but like drawing just having a harmonize yeah is so nice in game just to reset and make sure you're hitting your lane drops and getting your ramp out and making sure you have your utility creatures before I went to Magic on Philly I have powerful Decks that have you know your Mana Crips and like tons of early fast and REM to it I literally every single one of my decks are brought to Magic on Philly I took cards out until I could have 37 lands in every single one of them that's great because I was like I don't want to ever have a non-game and those are the games I absolutely hate to play and if I want to make my deck into one I love to play I need to hit my land drops absolutely no so I just was like I don't care I'm gonna get rid of this cool card or half the time I was like cutting just because well doesn't matter like just get me another land I don't even need like just because well obviously it's not the best example because it gets you to your lane yeah don't cut just as well but I was you know I was kind of just more powerful stuff just yeah I don't care just give me lands make sure I can always have a good easy seven when I draw so then you waste time mulliganing and just be able to play my games and that's like that's you're you're playing self is so different than your building self like when I'm building a deck I'm I'm so excited about getting these cards in there and then you know when you're actually playing the deck you're like who put these cards in here why is this not a draw spell this is useless and like but then building me is like but it would be funny if I got to cast it and it and if you just structure everything around passing this card like you just get you follow these rabbit holes and I think you're you're playing self will thank your building self for doing this step and making sure that like I put I start with 38 lands in all my decks and that includes modal cards modal spells so I usually include at least two modal spells in any deck um but then I just know I'm hitting land drops then I just know I'm casting spells and you don't have to sit there and not play while your friends are playing yeah and your building self is yelling at you and you're playing something and you're playing something here like you should have mulliganed I actually while we were at Philly oh yeah tell me this yeah I was playing against a kid who who kept a really sweet hand and he was like it's gonna be so awesome when it happens when I can do it and they didn't draw a second land until turn 10. and and at one point the vampiric tutored for a Mana Crypt instead of a land instead of a land and I was like get a land get a land and they were like no no I'm doing the Crypt it'll be sweet Vandal blast you will cry and then after the game I feel I I was like just make sure that the hand you have means you get a game yeah yeah even if it's 20 less sweet than that hand it's like even if it's 80 less sweet at least you played yeah you're not hoping to literally go runner runner runner and get land land or whatever and like the alternative is your sweet hand wins immediately yeah and then the game's over yeah cool great you're like all right we lost tweet about it I'll go find another game then like cool that was and everyone else is like I was really hoping to play a game against Rachel yeah that allows you to play a game and allows your opponents to play and you just get to have a good game and maybe the the real takeaway is that like your lack of a game actually makes the the rest of the game for everyone else worse yeah now it's just weird three-player game yeah and then we have to leave you alone because you're not doing anything it just changes the vibe of the game if you don't yeah but totally inside you are two wolves Rachel there is a builder Builder wolf and the player wolf yeah make sure both wolves are says and one of them eats lambs and the other one loves them stop eating them stop vampiric tutoring to that manicrypt just get a land get a land get a get a command Tower right now all right next Point yeah uh this is a big one especially if it's a deck that you used to love um if you have this deck that you're like I love I loved this deck it was my pet deck yeah and you don't play it anymore because it's just gone a little stale and I think a way that you can fix that is is turning off autopilot by pulling out all of the tutors oh and like the cards that just are like this is what you do in this sequence before this happens because sometimes you build a deck and it's you you play it so much that you know exactly what the deck wants you're like oh I want to get a tutor so I can do this so I'll get it and then that will find this and then the game's over and I've won yeah or everyone goes like oh this again cool okay yep okay I know what's happening yep okay and then you just stop playing it because your opponents are tired of it and you're tired of it and I think most of those decks would be more fun to play long term if you cut all of the tutors in it and added draw spells oh so you can spark Joy once more yeah the beauty of randomly drawing something off the top of your deck and you get to like figure something out yeah yeah like that's the fun part of Commander is like working with what you have I think like I love I love a wheel because then you see we and you're like all right what can I do with these yeah yeah yes it changes everything you have to like rework out what what's going on yeah make more decisions do cool new game actions and be forcing the situations that maybe you're like uncomfortable all of a sudden yeah oh no I usually I usually just go Vamp tutor into this and that and then now I don't know what to do but wait I can do this instead right yeah these I never thought about putting these two cards together right or or this actually this card works really well in this moment because they're playing this deck and you can you can get to actually actively engage in playing the deck yeah rather than you know being on being on autopilot and just running through the steps that you've run through before yeah that's a good point um if you are a limited master or something you may be going autopilot but in Commander I think that's yeah you probably want to stray away from them um or speaking of turning off autopilot if you don't know what's gonna happen then maybe you have to be more reactive in the moment so maybe it's important for the deck that you love to build to play to play the build whatever inside your two wolves is to uh always have action lights yeah camera counterspell um Commander is just not fun when you tap out and then you die or you tap out and then someone does something and you go oh maybe I should have held up mana for this uh or wish I had a card to do anything because I've always caught in this situation so always having something to do with your Mana I think Josh is like a master at doing this and always fully using it like why didn't he pay for the aristic study he's like oh I think he's exactly holding up mana for something he wants to do later and he's not going to stack right so understanding that and having action to play on everything else is turn or just in responsive stuff makes you have more fun in general I think because you're never out of it yeah and it means you always have choices yeah where it's like I could either do this or I could do this I really like to run cards with activated abilities because you they they act like cards that you know counter spells or something like that but you're like I can hold up a counter spell but if I don't do that well I can draw with my war room right or something like that where it's uh there's a lot of like artifacts that you can you can creatures so many things yeah pay two mana and tap this to make a one one and you're like a one one isn't particularly powerful but it's better than not having something to do with that Mana better than like holding up this spell and then not needing it and now you haven't now you haven't used it yeah so I really like where it's like okay I've got I'm gonna hold up this but if if not I've got I can scry too yeah yeah and also like if you just don't do anything then you're also giving away a lot of information about your play and your stay in your hand and that can sometimes lead to non-games too yeah there's also just so many new I feel like Wizards the way that they make cards more more complex is adding activated abilities but there's so many great like lands like Castle locked Wayne yeah you know and just other things that allow you to there's one that lets you scry to and there's the one one maker but like stuff like that is happening all the time if you're paying attention and they're like hey I'm playing a two color deck I could definitely afford this one dollar land or whatever and it's gonna make me have just those moments where I can go oh you know what past turn to various protection and Castle are the veil up at the same time yeah I could either make a one one or save myself save my Goose yeah I am making sure that you're there's always a moment where you're making choices because that's the fun part of Commander it's like if you're if you're like I've done my thing and I could go to the bathroom and I'm F6 I would rather be engaged in every part of the game yeah or at least consciously make the choice you know what I do always have actions but in this particular case Shields down I gotta go do this yeah it's worth it for me to attack yeah yeah the guy on tap with this something sweet's gonna happen yeah like knowing having that control of the situation for sure sure yeah okay this last one's kind of a kind of a weird one but it's a big step that I've been taking lately in my deck building it's making cuts to preserve my mental bandwidth when I'm playing the game okay so what does that mean so there's so many cards in Magic now that are like whenever this happens this happens and then whatever but only this one this happens yeah and this one this one only happens on the second time I do it but something different happens on the third time I do it and this one says each opponent but this one's only one and this one's only one apartment and that those cards are so exhausting to your brain when you're playing Commander yeah like trying to track all the liquid this goes into this and this and that and and then it turns like oh I'm so sorry I missed like three triggers can you do you guys mind and I have been just cutting a lot of triggers that don't actually impact the game in a meaningful way oh I see like interesting a big one that I cut recently I have a like a mono green devotion deck and I was running Sylvan Anthem which is green green for all green creatures get plus one plus one and and whenever a creature enters the battlefield Sky one oh and I cut it because it was like every time I cast anything you're like there's a check bottom check top okay check oh yeah check uh wait did I just bottom that other car I think I know oh like it's just so many choices yeah that ultimately matter very little yeah yeah and ultimately are just stressing me out it's like day night is a great example too yeah there's two versions of day night now and when someone plays the new one I just go someone tell me what's happening I don't care yeah I have cut cards that I like like what they do because they suddenly introduce day night yeah I have I have regarded the card in one of my Decks that I have just blacked out day night I was like I don't care what's on the back this is here for the front it's I'm I'm never doing it yeah and then you also just it's like juggling plates or spinning plates right and there's you have five of them all of a sudden you're all spinning them and then someone's just like I'm gonna do this to you and you're like hold on I'm still trying to figure out my board works I can't actually make enough I don't have enough mental bandwidth to correctly block here right because you're busy thinking about two it's just too much yeah and I think that can be really stressful when you're playing Commander when you're when you're like oh I don't know what's I like sequencing this is a nightmare yeah because there's too many things and I can't make a decision and it's making your turn last longer and then that's making you self-conscious because you're taking people's time and then you and then you're just scrying constantly there's just too many things for you to keep track of and I think it yeah it makes you a worse player because it's like you it's like when you have too many screens on like you're you're not fully watching the show and you're not fully playing the game on your phone and you're not fully listening yeah nothing and now now you're doing nothing so I think just reducing some of the noise in the deck and just cutting three triggered abilities especially if you're playing spellslinger or some sort of like oh yeah very complicated deck already goes a long way yeah that's a really good point it's also something I think a lot of like high-powered business people do which is it's true right in your day-to-day when you wake up and you have to go what am I gonna wear today do I do these socks or those socks how about these pants or those pants you're actually cutting away energy from later on in the day because you're just making so many decisions out the game so a lot of people will you know literally just the night before lay out their outfit wake up I know exactly what I'm gonna wear and I don't need to add extra tension or stress or or just work to my mental bandwidth so that I can have it for the more important things later on the day when I need to go to this meeting or have this interview or play this game of Commander yeah I think I think that's actually like people ask why like why aren't you running this why are you running cathar's Crusade because I don't want to do it perfect example like it would be great yeah but I don't wanna yep I don't want to do it yeah I'm considering cutting just guy ascendancy from one of my decks where it's like literally the best card in the deck it's rules but then you're like I have to keep a dice for how big everything is for that oh this creature got created as the commander so there's a different dice for that so this one has prowess but it's also getting buffed by this oh man there's probably that's probably the reason I don't play my card deck anymore it's just it can just be too much and I think it happens a lot in spellslinger abilities because there's so spell selling or decks because there's so many powerful ones yeah and that like you've got the the one from strix Haven that's like whenever a permanent triggers from you casting an instant Source it triggers twice also it has prowess harmonic prodigy or something well harmonic Prodigy is one of them and then this is this is like a Veyron yeah duel really powerful yeah but what a pain in the butt yeah I think that's the commander where Josh had to take when we were playing on the game nights Josh had to take a lunch break and it took him three hours to figure out what he wanted to do next yeah it's insane and it's just it's just stress when you're just trying to hang out with your friends yeah totally yeah exactly like sometimes I do like just that's why I want to build the uh the freaking whatever the Juggernaut deck yeah it's really rules because it's just juggernauts so I'm just trying to swing out with a juggernaut you know I think that's why I like mono colored deck so much honestly it's like I'm doing blue stuff and the blue stuff all sort of goes in the same direction and it's not interrupted by like other yeah like other sounds yeah sometimes too like in a five color deck even just knowing what to fetch in what order doing your life total every single time that is a lot of mental load right and at the end of it if it doesn't yeah shuffling yeah for sure um yeah Take a Hint right that's our last serve thing here yeah I think once that something becomes irritating or not fun you should use that as a flag on the play to make you go oh what exactly is actually causing this you know pinpoint where the problem is um like I think Aristocrats is another great example if you have you have a blood artist and then you have another one that does this one but this it's the each one opens this one's for non-tokens only think about the number of choices you make in that game compared to another player because or the number of times you have to tell everyone uh everyone can you please take one and I'll gain one or you're the one handling right so it's just there is a lot of times where I think you're you're the victim of your own inside your two Wolves of your own deck building and once you figure out what the pain point is Take a Hint do something against it to to mitigate that issue yeah I I think this is a huge point it's just listening to your deck when you're playing it it's like what do I not like I'm not having a good time right now I'm recognizing that what is frustrating me is it because I have to keep track of all these Soul Warden triggers is that driving me crazy is it because I don't like I'm in firm control but I don't have like a firm wincon here is it because like my my opponents clearly aren't having a good time and how can I solve that to make sure that like I'm I'm working towards making this deck more fun to play yeah and more fun to play against because yeah there's a lot of a lot of stressors yeah even just thinking about all the triggered abilities in my chi card deck now is making me go should I just rebuild it like how many of the like how much better would it be if you just have an opt and one sick thing that happens when you cast the opt yeah that'd be cool yeah right and then and then where you replace the other enchantment that does something else yeah with a brainstorm and now you get to do it again yeah and you know exactly what's going to happen yeah it's super fun even brainstorm like too many things to think about oh yeah do I have a fetch land like maybe you cut everything but Jessica's tendency if you're like this is what I love this is my my favorite part about it yeah you just get rid of all the other stuff I get it Jessica's tendency and no non-creature spells that perfect yeah and All Creatures no decisions yeah just by creatures actually happening this is my Kai car creature deck it's Spirit tribal just Spirit tribal that's right with never triggering kaikar um all right to the listeners what do you love about playing Commander what do you love about building your decks and how do you make sure your decks enable the result of what you love playing and how do you build in a way that makes you love to play that deck basically what we just talked about yeah um if you have tips for fellow deck builders on ways to spice things up make things not as stale or maybe even like I don't think people enough I don't think enough people realize this but X Y and Z love those comments please leave them in the comment section below the YouTube video you can tweet at us you can find us on our Discord to continue the discussion tons of amazing people there of course you have to be a patreon member to be on your Discord but it's super worth it yeah go be a patron go do it also if you're realizing that you're not running enough lands in any of your decks or you want to pick up some lens with activated abilities go to cardkingdom.com command they have great selection of all of the Lands End non-land things that you want to put into your deck just to chill it out a little bit make sure pillow you're having fun when you're playing card Kingdom has the selection that to make sure that you can find the cards that you love and you're looking for plus all of the different versions of that card I'm very specific about what version go in my decks yeah bling decks some decks are like this is first printing non-foil it's a very business deck uh so I love that when you go to Card Kingdom they have all of the options right in front of you and you can switch between foil and non-foil so go to cardkingdom.com command to pick up some cards and support the show yeah supporting the show for sure you can also support your deck and make sure that it plays smoothly without scuffing the corners because you're buying sleeves at ultrapro.com command you're buying a playmate you're buying a deck box you're buying one of their amazing assortment of different binders maybe you want a Pokemon binder guess what they got it maybe you want a binder from another thing another thing here and okay ultrapro.com command they have great deals all the time they have tons of exclusive products you can't usually find somewhere else not every LGS orders everything Ultra Pro releases so if you find that you're like hey I don't actually have this at my local game store you can probably find it online and if you're not finding that you may find a great deal on something else one thing that I saw recently that I was like wait this is actually really cool they have like uh just like slip and lock magnetic cases for that one card you really want to show off so like if you have a really nice fancy card you just kind of slow case it's magnetic you pop it off put the card inside and now it feels like you've got one of those cool PSA graded cards or whatever yeah without waiting but there's so many different accessories for cards and card games I didn't know about and I only found out about them because of ultra pro.com command and their amazing newsletter so check that out you can also support our show by doing so or just buying Ultra Pro products because they are a sponsor right well let's move to an end step do you is there what have you what are you doing outside of the side of the clay Loop Jimmy there's a world outside of magic I know I I've been deeply entrenched in the magic world lately yeah yeah after coming from Magic on Philly and stuff too I've been watching a lot of shows we were talking about the last of us right oh it's so good yeah so for those of you that don't know Pedro Pascal and Bella Hadid it is the girl that played the young Mormont uh lady from Game of Thrones uh she's incredible um so both of them play uh the two main characters in The Last of Us which is a video game adaptation into a full-blown HBO series yeah with the original uh director Neil druckman is on as well as Craig Mason I think is his name he did an amazing show called Chernobyl and oh my God chernobyl's heartbreaking and also good yeah and so is The Last of Us they are about almost all the way through the season now I think I know it's making me so sad I think they're probably playing on a few more but this is one of if not the best video game adaptation and just straight up show I've seen in a very long time um I'm a massive Pedro Pascal fan yeah he's so fun he's just knock out in the role and he really Nails it and the show is just so well built there's never an episode where you're like that was weird and filler every episode has a purpose it is shot beautifully and it has everything that if you're a game Lover from the original game you'll enjoy it and even if you've never seen it and watching it with my wife right now she's like oh that's so good it's what I really love about it is is I I I've watched my boyfriend play the second one oh wow pretty good spoilers no idea what happens in the first one no idea just know who isn't in the second one yeah yeah yeah um but it's I I think there's a lot of surprises in the show for even him who has played through the whole show because they really zeroed in on certain aspects and they changed certain things to make the narrative stronger and cleaner and it make it a better show yeah there's a lot of video game yeah totally there there's a lot of attention to making it making it just a good product on its own yeah uh so even if you play the games and you're like I know the story it'll be fine uh there are a lot of surprises and it's really beautiful yeah last of us is one of the few games I've played like four or five times because every time they come out of the remaster I just want to experience the story again I just jump back in so that is a good thing to say because the show is also very good so check it out if you haven't already it's on HBO Max all right let's move to the cleanup step and say thank you to our big team here at the command Zone thank you to Craig Blanchette Damon Lentz Arthur metacraft lady danger Manson long Josh Murphy Jake Boss Jordan Pridgen Sam Waldo Groove Galati Jamie black with Trafford Aaron lamberger Gabriel pozos Megan yep Eric LEM and Josh Lake why thank you Josh thanks guys thank you everyone we appreciate you all uh again find us in the comments let us know about how you build a deck you love to play and we'll see you for the next episode of the command Zone a podcast hello and oh it's never leaving [Music] [Applause] thank you for your attention for further inquiries send an email to command cast rocketjump.com or ask us on Twitter at jfwong and at Josh Lee cry see you later alligator greetings human

Channel: The Command Zone

Views: 352,019

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, rachel, weeks, cag, 40k, lord, rings, lotr, doctor, who, dr, eldraine, wilds, lost, caverns, march, machine, mom, ixalan

Id: -1cF7-WCQeQ

Length: 69min 31sec (4171 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 14 2023