Taylor: 0:10

What's up Wizards, it's time for Rule Zero, the show that helps you prepare for the best game of Commander. I'm Taylor.

Shawn: 0:15

And I'm Sean. It is our hope that through our combined 20 plus years of experience of playing EDH and cultivating a great playgroup, tons of great decks, and also trying a lot of outside the box variants and homebrew rules, that we can pass that golden knowledge on to you. Taylor. What is going on in the world of Magic for you this week?

Taylor: 0:33

I'm really excited about the Bloomboro previews that are starting. I read Redwall as a kid, and I loved that world, and so getting to see magic cards that have squirrels and rabbits on them, and seeing planeswalkers turn into critters, I think it's going to be a lot of fun to get to play this set.

Shawn: 0:51

How much of a cope is it that they made Ral Zarek, the blue red planeswalker, into an otter? I guess what I'm getting at is like, are they just sad that they made Lutry unavailable to play for all commander players ever?

Taylor: 1:05

Well, here's the thing. Wizards didn't make Lutry unavailable to play. The Rules Committee did. So I think, maybe this is their chance to get another Red Blue Otter out there. I think it'll be fun. We'll see what he actually does hopefully it'll be a card, but nevertheless, it's got great art on it. I love seeing him zapping things. So maybe it'll be a playable Lutri. We'll see.

Shawn: 1:30

Yeah, no, I'm excited for the set too. I'm sad to know that Carl, our mutual friend, will have more terrible rabbits to play in his decks.

Taylor: 1:39

In his grifty quain deck.

Shawn: 1:43

Yeah, for those who are unfamiliar, it's a blue white, just values propaganda style effects. No one can play the game ever again. It's not Stax, it's just he won't do anything and you can't do anything to him.

Taylor: 1:57

And you don't really want to, because he's helping you draw a ton of cards often, and so he prioritizes knocking other people out, but all of a sudden he has played a Smothering Tithe and you didn't realize it? And he has all the man in the world from you drawing all the cards in the world.

Shawn: 2:11

Well, I don't think Carl will find this to be a secret, but I actually really want to kill him first. Anytime I see a propaganda, I take it as a personal affront. Because I am a hit you in the face type player, and I will find a way. Somehow.

Taylor: 2:27

You'll pay the two.

Shawn: 2:28

I will absolutely pay the two. Even if it's detrimental to me later, I will take it as winning the game actually means killing the propaganda player, even if I lose to everyone else.

Taylor: 2:38

Whatever metric helps you feel that way in your heart.

Shawn: 2:42

EDH is what you want it to be. It's your own playland, right? Sure. Anyway, speaking of big dumb monsters.

Taylor: 2:50

This week we're talking about a deck from somebody else in our play group. We are talking about Jude's Budget Azusa deck. At the time of recording, this deck comes in at just under 33 on TCG player low, excluding basic lands. By no means does that budget mean this is a weak deck. Would you mind a read Azusa for us?

Shawn: 3:12

Sure. So Azusa is a human monk, legendary creature, a one, two that costs two and one green. It has one simple line of text on it. That is pretty devastating. You may play two additional lands on each of your turns. See he's modern play. It's really good

Taylor: 3:30

I think What makes it so good, and I think this is the case for a lot of magic cards, is that it breaks the rules of magic. Normally, you play one land a turn and you've got to take a turn off to start to ramp and build up. Maybe you're playing a mana rock or you're playing a rampant growth. But the fact that you can get two extra lands on as soon as she comes into play means that Jude can go from having three mana on turn three, say, to five mana going into turn four. That's just a leap ahead of where it ought to be, right?

Shawn: 3:59

Right, it's a cheap commander to put out it helps you ramp even further It's a good possibility you're playing on turn five or six and your opponents are playing on turn three still

Taylor: 4:08

I think that there are a number of things that work really well in this deck. Let's talk about some of those things that work well.

Shawn: 4:14

Sure

Taylor: 4:15

have an ability that saw some, some bannings in Legacy play, but not in Commander. And so it fits in at a budget. What ability is that?

Shawn: 4:25

There's two cards that Jude sent to us on his list that have the ability initiative. Now initiative comes from the Battle for Baldur's Gate Commander Legends set that Wizards released and then immediately kind of released another set on top of so everyone kind of forgot about a lot of the cards in it. But initiative in this style of budget deck is a really. Powerful effect that basically introduces something like the monarch, which is called the under city and the under city is a dungeon in which every turn you get a special dungeon card and you get to, as long as you have the dungeon during your upkeep or if you hit somebody and get the dungeon, then you get to advance your way through it getting more and more powerful effects until you eventually complete it for like sort of an ultimate type effect. The under city has a lot of paths. It's important to note if you play the initiative, it will slow the game down. So I highly recommend that you one know this card like the back of your hand before you just drop it in a deck. You really want to respect the other players at the table this way. And that may sound kind of harsh. But this is a complicated card and when you see it in play, you will be adding about 10 to 15 minutes of game time as people make their decisions about where to go. In this powerful effect. Also, always bring multiple Undercity cards. You will be at a different point in the Undercity than your friends will be. So when they steal it from you, inevitably, it's important that you can give out these cards, because it is not a common thing for anybody to carry, like a treasure or a monarch.

Taylor: 6:05

My two cents on the Undercity is the far left path is the only path you should really go down. Is there going to be a time where you maybe want to go to Creature? Sure. But the value that you get going down the far left path I think is much better than the potential value you can get anywhere else. And so I think the correct path is Secret Entrance, Forge, Trap, Archives. Throne of the Dead 3. If you memorize what each of those things do, then it makes your life a lot easier and you can speed that up, like you were saying. I think getting the draw card is better than making the 4 1 token, in most cases. But, again, there are times where you maybe want to go down a different path. Just know each of those paths, is what you're saying, right?

Shawn: 6:50

Yeah, know these paths, so that you can kind of even explain what you just said. What I would say is, honestly, the far left path is I am in control of my own game right now. The far right path is I need help. So, the effects on the far right are scrying to, looking for answers, creating extra mana, creating a 4 1 skeleton creature that can be a blocker. Like, that's what the far right says to me. The far left, however, is like, I'm hitting you in the face, I'm drawing more cards, I'm putting counters on my creatures that I already have. And the goad right there in the center is, who knows.

Taylor: 7:28

That's a really good way of putting it and not a way that I thought about it. Left means I've got it, right means I need some help to get where I want to go. I believe that I think really happens here is Jude is able to get in that driver's seat really quickly with this deck because he gets so ahead on mana. And so some things that he's built into this deck that are kind of some obvious includes, but I think it's important to talk about is landfall, right? You're able to get multiple of those triggers every turn. And so he's got a card that seems to be good at every stage of the game that I wanted to talk about, and that was Roaring Earth. It's green and one for an enchantment whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control put a plus one plus one counter on target Creature or vehicle you control he doesn't play any vehicles in this. For the most part he's buffing up Azusa to make it harder to remove But I think what my favorite ability out of this card is, is if you draw it late in the game the channel ability is really good. Green green X discard roaring earth, put X plus one plus one counters and target land you control becomes a zero zero green spirit creature with haste. It's still a land. And so you can get that one extra attacker you might need and it can be a huge threat later in the game when he's got 10, 15, 20 lands out.

Shawn: 8:49

Garruk's Uprising, another enchantment we haven't talked about but it's in the deck, gives creatures trample. So with that said I love Roaring Earth in the deck because I Hate it when I have a ground creature that can get just chump locked by a tiny little thing But this deck is pretty proficient at giving things trample. So this could be just a fireball effect

Taylor: 9:10

Which is Pretty outstanding, especially if you're trying to knock out one problem player Maybe they're a spell slinging deck and don't have many creatures or they've got that one chump blocker Or they can make a 2 2 Drake off of Talrand or whatever and so you've got to be prepared Okay, I know they can chump block. How can I get through? Let's channel this

Shawn: 9:29

Yeah, or maybe they're playing a propaganda and they have only just a

Taylor: 9:34

one

Shawn: 9:35

A helpless rabbit to block that has very little toughness and you could just roll right over the top

Taylor: 9:43

You're not, you're not still thinking about Karl's decks,

Shawn: 9:45

Not at all

Taylor: 9:46

No? Okay. One more card that I think is really good here, and I think it's important to know how this can play out for Jude, is he can very easily have a turn for Rampaging Beyloths and get a 4 4 Green Beast out of it. So Rampaging Beyloths, 4, green, green. It's a beast creature, trample, landfall, whenever land enters the battlefield under your control You may create a 4 4 green beast creature token, and it itself is a 6 6 with trample So it can get through, it can run over some of those chump blockers, but it is not uncommon for him to play turn three Azusa, turn four Baelos, and have that token, and that's just hard to get past sometimes

Shawn: 10:33

Yeah, I absolutely love this card. This is classic green for a while it actually was Creeping up in price because they'd hadn't reprinted it and now they're doing a great job of reprinting this card Constantly so everybody can enjoy the big dumb power This is what green, in my opinion, in this deck, also wants to do. It has landfall, it has big dumb beaters, make many many beaters attack.

Taylor: 10:56

When you're playing 41 lands on this deck like he is and you can play three a turn, it's really easy to get out a lot of those beaters

Shawn: 11:05

Army in a can, right? Yeah. There's a few things in the deck or maybe not even in the deck, that we thought weren't working well, or if we had the chance to change things up, this might be the path we would go. For me, there was because of the budget, there's a lack of recursion or an ability to surprise my opponents that scares me in the deck. So I feel like I'm playing this deck almost at sorcery speed a lot and That's not a position I love to be in. I like to play a lot of surprise effects. So if I was building this to fit my metrics and style, I would add maybe two cards that are pretty cheap. 170 cents and one is 88 cents. I would add Creeping Renaissance, which is three and two green. It's a sorcery. Choose a permanent type. Return all cards of the chosen type from your graveyard to your hand. It has flashback for five and two green so you can get this effect twice throughout the game. It's a little slow but also you may in this deck you have over 30 creatures at least in the list you can easily just pick creature

Taylor: 12:12

I like this pick a lot. Creeping Renaissance, I think, is one of those cards that people forget about and you forget how you can use it in different ways, like you just mentioned. This deck is really susceptible to board wipes, and so when you get that wipe that hits you and you get knocked out, getting those creatures back, because that's the main way this deck wants to win, is by swinging in for damage, trying to knock people out in the combat step. If you don't have that, you're not able to do that. Creeping Renaissance helps you get that back. I think a cool little option here would be to include something like Zurin Orb, which has seen a bunch of reprints lately and so you could sacrifice your lands to that to gain some life if you're maybe on the back end, if you've been hit a bunch of times and you just need to get back ahead

Shawn: 12:58

Yeah, for sure.

Taylor: 12:59

to help do that.

Shawn: 13:01

And the flashback can help with that, too. So this can serve both functions for you in a single game, perhaps, just depending on where you're at in the game. I just like being able to use a card more than once. You've already got my attention. The next selection I have is a Planeswalker. For two and a green. Vivian, Champion of the Wilds. This is 88 cents. It has an important line of text. The top static ability says, you may cast creature spells as though they had flash. And it, get it out early, and you just sit back, and before it becomes your turn, that's when you're playing your Rampage and Baloth, or whatever.

Taylor: 13:37

Getting to play at instant speed I think is a great thing to help this deck a little less clunky because you're playing at sorcery speed it's really easy to feel kind of helpless and this gives you a few options. Getting to play at instant speed lets you do a little bit more with what's in your hand. And, her minus ability helps you to get a little bit deeper in your deck. It lets you look at the top three, exile one of them face down. And, you can cast it if it's a creature. So you can have a surprise blocker, which I think is a great thing to be able to do.

Shawn: 14:10

Yeah, absolutely, because that can be cast at flash speed. Her plus one I think is often overlooked too, it's not bad. She comes down with four loyalty. So she's a little on the tougher side for a three mana planeswalker. Plus one, until your next turn, up to one target creature gains Vigilance and Reach. I'm just thinking off the cuff of like, some big, beefy creature, Vigilance and Reach, well you now have a great blocker in green for things in the air. Which, you can attack and block with that same creature, and that's really valuable.

Taylor: 14:41

I think there's something to be said about planeswalkers that can protect themselves. There's one planeswalker that I included as well, that I would try and swap into the deck somehow. And my favorite thing that it can do is protect itself the turn it comes down.

Shawn: 14:53

Oh,

Taylor: 14:54

Vivian does it in a way by saying, Okay, I'm gonna make sure that this creature you've got can stay up, even if it wants to attack, which is what this deck wants to do. So, Sean, I think this is a great include.

Shawn: 15:04

thank you. So the next little addition I would add there's some budget constraints that limit one of my favorite types of spells, fog effects, if you listen to our deck building episode. It's episode two, you should check it out. But in green, there are a tremendous amount of fogs that are actually very expensive. We're talking six, seven, eight, nine dollars for just a fog effect. Things like moment's peace, obscuring haze, tangle, constant mists. However, along that line, I would consider adding a very cheap one for 34 cents called Winds of Khalsisma, an instant for one and a green, prevent all combat damage that would be dealt this turn, then it has ferocious. If you control a creature with power four or greater, which you usually do in this deck, instead prevent all combat damage that would be dealt this turn by creatures your opponents control. This allows you to, you know, kill off their whole board, so to speak, if they try to bum rush you.

Taylor: 16:01

I think it's great to have that utility because your creatures are still doing damage.

Shawn: 16:05

And the other piece I had in here was more of like enchantment and artifact sort of removal. I'm a sucker for the cards from Commander's Battle for Baldur's Gate set. So, this is Tuna Green for Green Slime, Creature Ooze. It's Tutu, with Flash. When green slime enters the battlefield, counter target activated or triggered ability from an artifact or enchantment source. If a permanent ability is countered this way, destroy that permanent. And as a weird thing on the bottom, you can foretell this card for one green. So you can pay two to put it upside down in the foretell zone, in which people will be like, what is green that is also foretell and have no idea what you're about to play? And for one green, flip it, at flash speed. Some common ones that you might be able to hit with this that would be really fun, and I mean this in sort of a troll y sort of way would be like black market connections. You pay a lot of life into it to trigger the ability of getting, I'm gonna flunge, I'm gonna pay six life, okay, cool. Now you get nothing for that, if I'm remembering the card correctly. I don't think it's three separate triggered abilities. It might be. Either way, something like that, or I would spitefully hit a soul ring.

Taylor: 17:18

Yeah.

Shawn: 17:20

Two mana, I destroy your soul ring and I prevent you from getting extra. Ha ha.

Taylor: 17:25

Yeah, we've talked about how Sol Ring can launch you in a game. into just a different play field. And so getting people to check themselves, having some checks on a deck is so important in our deck building episode. We talked about how important it is to have that interaction because if you just let other people run their decks without that interaction, you're not guaranteeing that they'll win, but you're not guaranteeing that you'll win. I think.

Shawn: 17:55

to have, I think, some green slime type effects in your deck that you can interact on a level instead of just playing a dumb beater and hoping for the best. This will allow you to prevent some pretty bad things from happening. If you go through the list of artifacts and enchantments with activated or triggered abilities, there's some pretty insane ones out there. Like Aetherworks Marvel coming up in the new Fallout Energy set. You definitely want to interact with that one. So

Taylor: 18:22

opponents get whatever big dumb creatures off the top for essentially free when you're working with energy that way. That's a great include. Getting to counter the ability, devastating, and destroying the thing out of this world.

Shawn: 18:36

I've hogged the mic for a while. What do you got?

Taylor: 18:38

I wanted to include some more ways to draw cards. Because you're emptying your hand so much by dropping those lands, and I think in a deck like this, you want to get as close as possible to playing three lands every turn as you can. That's what this deck wants to do, is to trigger landfall, it wants to get a ton of mana, so you need to make sure that you're refilling your grip every time. So I included two cards that I think can really help with that. And this first one was expensive for a while. It's been reprinted a ton in Commander Masters and the Murders of Karloff Manor precons. And that's Oren Frostfang, 3 and 2 green. It's a snow creature snake. Attacking creatures you control have death touch. And whenever a creature you control deals combat damage to a player, draw a card. And it's a 2 6. It's got a great butt, it's gonna be a wonderful blocker, and it's also gonna be a good attacker now because it gives itself Death Touch and all of your other creatures. when you're making all of those 4 4s with Rampaging Baloths, you're gonna be getting in somewhere. And this deck has a lot of trample, and so it's now really unprofitable to block, when you have something like this. You're going to refill those cards into your hand. This one's a little bit expensive right now compared to some of these other cards we're going to suggest. It's 2. 26 on TCG right now, but I think that it's kind of worth it. And I think that a good bar for a budget deck is to keep it under 50 and got 17 to play with right now. I think this is a great thing to include to help get that extra card draw.

Shawn: 20:14

I absolutely 100 percent support this pick and it being worth the 250k. One of the other suggestions we made earlier gives all your creatures flash. So with flash, Auron Frostfang hits a absolutely new level of usefulness. You can cast it after blockers have been declared for your enemies and totally change the dynamics of that combat and probably draw a lot of cards that they did not expect you to draw.

Taylor: 20:44

Drawing cards is what you want to do. He's got a sweet include here that I think is a wonderful thing in a budget. EDH deck that cares about landfall, and that's Seer's Sundial. Four mana for an artifact. It's got landfall. Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, you may pay two to draw a card. That's a pretty good rate, and it's only 18 cents. This was a great find to include. I know this is one they included in some of the pre cons a while back, but the number of cards you can draw here is pretty insane when you've got three triggers of landfall potential every turn with Azusa out. Even without Azusa, you still can get at least an additional card every turn here.

Shawn: 21:24

Yeah, the sundial always overperforms. It's often forgotten about, looks clunky, but in a landfall deck, not a problem. You're gonna really be happy that you played it.

Taylor: 21:33

in my second card that I wanted to include is another planeswalker and it's Garrick primal hunter. It's 1. 75. Again, maybe not the best budget card here, but I think it does two things really well. Number one, it's going to make you a bunch of creatures and number two, it's going to draw you a lot of cards. So the plus ability is out of this world. You just make a three, three green beast creature token, having a planeswalker that can defend itself. Again, I said that earlier. It's wonderful so you can put another creature on the battlefield. It's minus three ability draw cards equal to the greatest power among creatures you control. Even if it's just that four four from rampaging bail off, or the three three you just made with Kerik. Three from four cards is nothing to scoff at. But his ultimate ability at minus six, I think is what really solidifies this for me. Minus six, put a six six green worm creature token onto the battlefield for each land you control.

Shawn: 22:26

Yeah,

Taylor: 22:26

could protect Garrick for a couple of turns, it'll take him a little while, but this would be a devastating effect.

Shawn: 22:32

I think this is hilarious. In a deck like this, don't you want to do the biggest, dumbest thing you can do, and Garruk's negative six is, is one of those, for sure.

Taylor: 22:41

Yeah, would be remiss to not include this last one. And I try to recommend this card. In any deck that has green as a great budget alternative to heroic intervention, we don't play heroic intervention in our rule seven decks where we have our own house ban list. And this card is a wonderful replacement for that. It's green and one it's rap and vigor. It's an instant and it has regenerate each creature you control. The only time this isn't going to work is when we have cards like wrath of god damnation where regenerate is. Explicitly said to not work anymore, as wizards is printing more and more board wipes. We're seeing those board wipes that care about regeneration less and less. This is I think an outstanding replacement to protect your board because that's what this deck wants to do is keep that really big board presence. That's what most green decks want to do.

Shawn: 23:34

Yeah, when we look at what Azusa wants to do as a deck, I think protecting the creatures that she unleashes on the world is probably top two, maybe after a landfall or something, but this is how you're gonna win, so protect your board the best you can. And this is a fun pick to do it. People will have to read it, which I always enjoy.

Taylor: 23:55

And regenerate is something that doesn't really happen that often anywhere. I've not seen it on a card in a long time. Make sure you know what it does or moves them from combat. It taps them down and much rather have a tapped board state. than to not have a board state at all.

Shawn: 24:11

yeah, for sure, if you feel like you're playing classic magic, then

Taylor: 24:15

The way that Richard Garfield intended us to play it was regenerate. He never would have anticipated this next card that you put down as a hidden gem.

Shawn: 24:24

Again, I'm going back to the well of Battle for Baldur's Gate. Hidden gems galore. Look upon the Tarisk. For four and a green at instant speed, you choose one. Run and hide, aka prevent all combat damage that would be dealt to you and creatures you control this turn. Or, gather your courage. Target creature gets plus five plus five, gains indestructible until end of turn, all creatures your opponent's control able to block that creature this turn do so. You play this on Auron Frostfang, I believe that gives it deathtouch well then you've got your seven twelve, Monster snake that's about to wipe the opponent's board because you can assign that deathtouch damage one at a time as Lethal to say six different creatures this is a really fun card. It is a fog and it is also a board wipe in one card Which means I play it

Taylor: 25:17

I love cards that give you options. Because you never know what scenario is going to play out and being able to have some potential outs built into the card already. It's great. This is very similar to winds of Calcisma where it only prevents the damage happening to your creatures. And so it's kind of like a green board wipe. It's using what advantage it does have, which is It's massive board state to potentially wipe somebody out, but then the gather your courage, this lure effect means that, you know, one creature's gonna get blocked, you choose what it is. Like you said, maybe it's the orange frost thing that's going to wipe their board anyways, but the rest is getting through like that channeled land from roaring earth. We mentioned earlier,

Shawn: 26:00

Yeah, for sure. My second favorite that Jude has picked to be on the deck An oldie but goodie, this is about the time that I started playing Magic again, after a small break, so it always had a special place in my heart. Bellowing Tangle Worm. 3 and 2 green, a creature, worm, 4 4, with Intimidate. That means this creature can't be blocked except by artifacts, and or creatures that share a color with it. So only green or artifact creatures can block it. It also gives all of your green creatures Intimidate. So, unless you're playing against another big stompy deck, there's a good shot that you're going to be getting through for free with this card on the battlefield.

Taylor: 26:36

I think a lot of decks have. Tokens they're making or trying to make, and they typically have a color associated with them. Be it a blue Drake, be it a red elemental, things like that. Exactly. I think that you can then really try and get rid of those problem creating creatures and get through for the win. It's pretty good.

Shawn: 26:58

Yeah, and if you have an Artifact deck in your meta, green has so many ways to make their life miserable. So you can do that in a different way.

Taylor: 27:06

Easy enough, right?

Shawn: 27:07

Right, Viridian Revel, I can't remember all of them. There's green cards that destroy all artifacts, which is great in this deck.

Taylor: 27:13

Absolutely.

Shawn: 27:14

Unless you've got this card out, which Jude has in his deck.

Taylor: 27:17

Sean, I might be a really bad person because I'm the one who suggested that he put this card in there. It's a five drop artifact, Storm Cauldron. I love this card. I played it in my Borborygmos deck for a long, long time, because I wanted those lands back in my hands anyways. Stormcauldron is an artifact that says each player may play an additional land during each of his or her turns. Outstanding. Everyone gets to ramp. Until the next line hits. Whenever a land is tapped for mana, return it to its owner's hand. When Jude can play four lands a turn now, he is by no means feeling the ill side effects of this. He is getting the full stax approach. And I think that I'm okay with seeing this across the table because I should have some artifact removal in my deck somewhere. But this does a great job of setting everyone back to the Stone Age and launching Helm into the technological revolution. Or the the Kamigawa Jukai revolution. Something like that.

Shawn: 28:13

on flavor. I think this is a card that is built for Azusa. Cause as you said, if this sticks around for one turn, it means your opponents either do nothing, or they get a lot of lands bounced back to their hands and get reset back two or three turns trying to get rid of it. I'm okay with that cause you're playing a 50 Stompy Green Beat Em Up deck. You need some cards that are gonna, you know, help you compete against these 300 400 piles.

Taylor: 28:41

Yeah. Everyone tries to play some sort of ramp option. Now, if you're in green and you're playing land ramp, this one hurts you. If you're outside of green and you're playing artifact ramp instead, you might be okay to get ahead for a little while. You might be able to catch up, but you're gonna be losing your lands and there's just not many great ways to advance your own board state. and counter this negative side effect.

Shawn: 29:03

Great pick.

Taylor: 29:04

So this last one isn't in the deck, but I think it's a hidden gem because of what it wants to do. It's very similar to your Creeping Renaissance. Jude, I think you should give this a shot. It's only 50 cents right now, a little less than that. And it's Shigeki Jukai Visionary. It's green and one. It's a legendary enchantment creature, Snake Druid. It's got two abilities. The first one is one in green and tap it, return Shigeki to your hand. Reveal the top four cards of your library. You may put a land card from among them onto the battlefield tapped, put the rest into your graveyard. It's totally fine that those creatures or enchantments or artifacts or whatever else are going to your graveyard because of the next ability channel X, X, green, green, discard Shigeki, return X target non legendary cards from your graveyard to your hand. In this deck, Jude has very few. Legendary creatures outside of Azusa.

Shawn: 29:56

Mm hmm.

Taylor: 29:57

And so being able to get back a ton of things and then recast them again, I think it's great. So I would highly recommend that he find a way to cut this in. I think there are a couple of easy cuts here. I think that some of the creatures that go to get Other lands are fine to cut out things like the Farhaven elf that's in here.

Shawn: 30:18

Mm hmm.

Taylor: 30:19

That's a great piece of ramp and it's got a bit of a body to it. It's just a one, one. So it's could be a fine block or maybe you can pump it up with the roaring earth. But I think that if you include things like Shigeki that makes a better block around a one, three. I'd much rather have that because it's going to dig for a land anyways. So that'd be the simple swap that I would make right there.

Shawn: 30:38

Yeah, I think that's totally fine. Shigeki gives you options. The more cards you can get that give you more options in the game, the better you will be able to react to the ever changing world of Commander. So rather than a Farhaven Elf, which is just it gets a land, that's what it does in certain decks, that's really great. But it's just a 1 1. If you pull that late game. I'm sorry

Taylor: 31:02

Yeah, that's something I think I've tried to think about in my own deck building a lot lately is what happens when I draw this on turn seven. So I just put together a new deck. It's a Samut deck and I've got a rampant growth in there and I'm asking myself what happens when I draw that on turn seven. Samut wants to attack every turn if possible. It's not helping me do that. So I'm trying to think of something to replace that with. So I think in this case, Farhaven, it's just a really feel bad card to draw late in the game. Sean, what are some other things that might cause people to feel bad when they're playing this deck? What are some non bos or some traps that we should be weary of?

Shawn: 31:39

Well having played against Azusa quite a bit in brawl on arena I think one of the funniest things and by that I mean saddest I hold both in the same time depending on which side of the table. I'm on Is when I see an Azusa player Play their Azusa turn three and they put out only one additional land and then for the rest of the game They draw no more lands And it's really funny because you're like, well, you did not build this deck quite properly, did you? You didn't realize that you need to have a ton of lands in your hand to actually benefit from her ability. So, long story short, play more than 40 lands and feel okay doing it. Even if that means you're playing some lands that maybe cycle in a pinch or channel in a pinch, like you can with Besaju if you've got a really expensive budget. Just lands that have some variety to them that you won't feel terrible drawing. Because Azusa needs fuel. Your landfall needs fuel. And if you don't have lands, you don't have fuel. Kind of simple.

Taylor: 32:41

Yeah, I think that's a great thing to mention. I have a cycling deck and I play all the cycling lands that I can in it. And It's great to have a slippery karst, that's the green one that cycles for two, because if you draw that late game, you don't feel bad about it because you have a ton of mana to cycle it and still be able to do something with that card you draw. I think swapping in some of those types of lands makes it great, and if they come untapped while you have a Zeus out, fine, they came untapped, but you know what else made a land come untapped? Is that rampant growth.

Shawn: 33:11

Yeah.

Taylor: 33:11

I think being able to recognize that you need to play to your deck's strengths and what it's trying to do, it's a great call.

Shawn: 33:17

So what do you have here for traps to be wary of? I

Taylor: 33:22

maybe it's just in our meta, and we've mentioned him a couple of times this episode, with Karl's decks that shut down the combat step. Azusa could probably pay enough to get through a propaganda effect, but there are a lot of other types of ways to stop the combat step. And a new one that Carl has showed us and introduced us to is Web of Inertia. And that's in his Umbras deck. And for Web of Inertia, you must exile a card from your graveyard in order to attack. But Umbras is making sure you don't have a graveyard anymore. So I think it's really important to think about how can I win outside of the combat step and in green, that's difficult to do. I think there are two ways to go about it and a really fun one, not necessarily budget, but if it was the only card that you chose to include might be a fun option and that's the card helix pinnacle. And so with Jude making enough mana every turn and putting on a ton of lands that way, Helix Pinnacle can help him win the game. It's an enchantment for one singular green that has Shroud. And X, put X tower counters on Helix Pinnacle at the beginning of your upkeep. If there are 100 or more tower counters on Helix Pinnacle, you win the game. It's just over 8 right now, so I think it's a little bit beyond. a normal budget pick, but the second card I have that can maybe help you win outside of the combat step is a card all the way back from alpha and it just doesn't see play. So it's relatively cheap at just a few cents. It's hurricane green and X hurricane deals X damage to each creature with flying and each player. It's a green fireball. Now, are you burning yourself a little bit? Yeah, but if you have a bunch of blockers and you've not been taking damage, you should ideally have enough life. That you're going to be able to withstand the hurricane, but knock other people out.

Shawn: 35:14

don't know if this is a controversial opinion, but I love the camp. That if I can kill three other players at the table with a hurricane, but that means I also kill myself That's a victory. I will do it 100 percent of the time

Taylor: 35:28

I'm with you. And I think as much as Carl tries to pull a fort up, he would agree that that's a totally fine way to go.

Shawn: 35:34

We're gonna have to do Carl favor and review one of his decks here because we're giving him so much flack But he's truly a mad scientist of how to find ways to not Allow you to hit him

Taylor: 35:44

He has to be one of the best deck builders I know. That's all there is to it.

Shawn: 35:47

He pulls out some real specific gems for sure

Taylor: 35:51

yeah, he is the king of going on those deep dives and finding ways to interact that I never would have thought of. And I think this card that you have included as another way to win has to be one of the cutest cards I've seen, especially with us going back to Bloomboro.

Shawn: 36:06

This would fit right in, I think, with Bloomboro. And it's been here since Legends, I believe. It was the very first printing. It is Killer Bees. One and two green for Summon Bees. So, Oprah memes aplenty. Zero, one but also, it has flying and has green fire breathing. So, if you just pay one green, you can give it a plus one, plus one until end of turn. We've talked about previous episodes how people do not play enough flyers and sometimes you can catch them sleeping and then that's when Killer Bees hits them for 32 in the air.

Taylor: 36:41

Yeah, maybe not fire breathing here, but pollen breathing?

Shawn: 36:45

Ha ha,

Taylor: 36:46

That'd be a fun, like, way to win. Welcome to allergy season, punk.

Shawn: 36:52

Gotta work on those tag lines for the Killer Bee deck, but you're getting there.

Taylor: 36:57

We can maybe try and think of something better. Maybe Drood'll do better. Yeah. So, let's start to wrap it up here. What are some final thoughts you have? When it comes to Jude's budget Azusa deck here

Shawn: 37:08

one. thing that I want to reference here is that our play group is Great at coming up with new variants new ways to build around theme and and budget is sort of a theme Variant you're you're really constricting yourself, which allows you to seek out cards that are outside the box cars that you haven't played in a while That's one thing I love about this is use of build. It's big Timmy magic at its purest form I'll share a small anecdote when I was First, getting into magic. I remember playing on the floor, cards unsleeved. I'm very old, so I saw Thicket 4 with deathtouch and I thought, that's amazing. For 5 mana, it's invincible. Nobody can get through. Then I saw Cockatrice, and it was like wow it has flying now Amazing Sarah Angel has nothing Mahamoti the Jin Sarah Angel can no longer get through and then I saw somebody with a force of nature deck and 88 with Trample for six mana. Yeah. Okay, you got to pay some mana for it in the upkeep, but still Imagine hitting somebody with that. And so this awakened that same feeling I had sitting on the carpet there juice Deck does that every time I sit across the table from it.

Taylor: 38:17

I think there's something to decks that have a very clear plan versus many decision trees in this deck. Jude has made this clear before, and I think it bears repeating this deck knows exactly what it wants to do. It wants to play a whole bunch of lands and cast creatures. That's it, and I think there's something elegant about the simplicity of it. With that said, I think I would feel comfortable giving this exact decklist to a brand new player of Magic because it's pretty straightforward. You play all the lands you can, you cast all the creatures you can, and then you attack. But I think that there are some really cool intricacies that an older player, a more entrenched player could appreciate. And I think that's what our recommendations that we gave to this deck helped to facilitate are some of those decision trees. modal cards, planeswalkers, they complicate the game just a little bit, but I think the recommendations we have can really help to give this deck just a bit more.

Shawn: 39:14

Absolutely. And with that that is our deck tech for Azusa Lost but Seeking. You can follow us on Twitter at Rule Zero podcast or email us at Rule zero podcast@gmail.com. That's rule the Number Zero podcast@gmail.com.

Taylor: 39:29

If you enjoyed this deck tech, be sure to check it out on our moxfield page where we link all the decks we talk about. And if you would like for us to highlight one of your decks, we'd love to just reach out to us. And as always, don't forget.

Shawn: 39:40

In magic, there's no problem that a rule zero conversation cannot solve.