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 experience of playing EDH, 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: 0:28

Sean, what's something that's going on in the world of magic that's got you excited this week?

Shawn: 0:32

Well, we'll be releasing some bonus content. In fact, the first episode is out right now on YouTube in the form of some box openings. We're going to try and give them a little bit of a commander centric focus. In particular, I am working on my Jose's on desert theme deck. I built one a long time ago. It didn't go off like I wanted it to. It didn't have the flavor of the deserts that I wanted and it became just a good stuff. Naya token deck, which was not fun for me to play. So I'm really excited to see what this new set, As silly as some of the cowboy Western stuff can be, I think there's amazing like desert landscapes, cacti, all kinds of like cool deserty cards that I could potentially add and probably enjoy the deck a lot more with.

Taylor: 1:14

That's awesome. I think that oftentimes when we watch box openings, it's just looking for the cards that are high in value, but you're looking at this for particular cards, and I think that's something that people should think about when they buy cards, when they buy boxes, things like that is. If you're really into that set, if you like the art, look for things. You don't just have to sell your, your winnings out of your box.

Shawn: 1:38

Yeah. And to be fair, like, and I mentioned this in the first video, even like it's gambling. So you should go into buying a box, especially a collector booster box like we have for these first couple of videos. Knowing that I'm probably not gonna make my money back and even if I quote unquote made my money back Am I really gonna sell the most expensive or cool card that I got out of the box? Or do I really want to play with it? So do it responsibly do what you can afford and whatnot And that way you can more or less just enjoy like opening shiny rocks, which is what us goblins love to do.

Taylor: 2:12

Well, thanks for taking the financial hit for us so that we can watch you open the packs and live vicariously through you.

Shawn: 2:18

I find them soothing. Strangely enough, they're like ASMR for me. I'll put on a box opening video and I'll just watch it for 45 minutes glued to the couch. Maybe that's just me. Maybe it's not for y'all, but if you enjoy it, leave a comment. something like that that will help the YouTube algorithm recognize that like, Hey, people are actually paying attention to this thing. And Hey, thanks for taking that so called financial hit. But we're going to talk about something much more perhaps exciting to commander players right now. And that will be themed decks. A lot of people want to build them. A lot of people maybe don't know where to start. What are some tips and tricks, things that we've learned over the years of building our own theme decks. And we're going to introduce to you one of my favorites that I've been building for the longest time. Thrax and Moondar, a heavy metal theme deck.

Taylor: 3:05

So before we stage dive into this rock and roll metal themed deck, we want to throw out a couple of helpful tricks to listeners who might be interested in building their own theme deck, but maybe they struggle with where to start or what to theme around things you might not consider without experience, but can be very time consuming or difficult without some guidance. So Sean, what's one of the first tips and tricks that you've got?

Shawn: 3:29

For me, a theme deck is a challenge in deck design, unlike any other. So you're not just trying to win. The way I picture it is that there's a Venn diagram. And for those of you unaware, just Google that real quick and then you'll understand where we're coming from. It's a Venn diagram between two different things. We're trying to match both form and function and by that form is the art, the beauty, the theme itself. How does this card represent that theme? And function is, can I actually play a game of commander without crying into my deck box? So we need it to meet both. And to me, that's an issue. Really interesting challenge, and we have enough cards and magic these days, but particularly with these off the wall secret lairs Crazy arts all kinds of stuff that often those things can actually enhance our themes Where's a lot of EDH players? I think bristled at first to those ideas and those universes beyond now We can actually maybe even make a rock and roll theme deck even better because of these secret lairs

Taylor: 4:34

When these secret layers get spoiled, I oftentimes look to see the most powerful reprints or cards that are busted. And I equate a secret layer to potential value either on the power scale or on the financial scale. And when we're building theme decks, it's wonderful to look at this through a different lens of, Hey, this is a really cool version of this card. It's going to fit really well in my deck. So. For instance, we're going to talk about Thrax and Mondar and a secret layer came out recently that was super metal and they Mondar. So it was a perfect fit and it makes it more exciting to look forward to that instead of, I think, just equating it, like I said, to potential financial value. There's a lot of intrinsic value that comes from secret layers that have a special place in your deck box, a special place in your collection. So I'm glad you mentioned that. And then to follow that up. You mentioned the numerous cards available in magic's history with 30, 000 plus cards and magic's history. You've got a note here that says one way to go about it is to create a mini game. And so you might be trying to assemble the different pieces of Vecna you have here, or Tomer from MTG goldfish is famous for trying to assemble caldra. And so there are certain types of cards that you can try and combine and make function. And then that guide of whatever you're trying to build. Is your route to victory or it could be a personal victory. I think that another popular one right now is trying to assemble the boots on five feet Felix or five foot Felix. You mentioned that I think in our box opening video and doing that can be a personal victory because something that started us in doing theme decks or trying to think about playing magic in a different way is there's a certain point where just winning the game with a higher life total. Isn't always. The way you want to win, maybe you're looking for that actual flavor win. And so themes can be based around assembling certain cards or something that's just intrinsically cool for you.

Shawn: 6:34

One of the things that I think you really get with those mini games, quote unquote, is that even if you're not winning, maybe your mini game is that, I think Rachel Weeks of Command Zone fame has a detective or an investigation theme deck. And, I'm not 100 percent sure what her minigame is, but I know that it involves just sort of a detective on a case, investigating some mystery that she is talked about just playing almost solo style. Even if she's not necessarily like beating the other players, she is creating this funny thing in her own deck that brings her joy. And while I think there's a danger of taking that perhaps too far, like many, I don't know, Joyra players in the past have done where my, my quote unquote theme is drawing cards and I just draw 800 cards while everyone sits and watches. I think, you know, you can use some healthy moderation and enjoy your own funny little game that you're playing on your own turns and then it doesn't really matter anymore cause we're only going to win 25 percent of the time anyway. Might as well have a blast doing it.

Taylor: 7:40

Absolutely. And I think that's something to think about is if you're winning more than 25 percent of the time, That can be a bit of a struggle for your play group, I think, because everyone kind of expects or hopes to win 25 percent of the time. And if one person's starting to take away that lead or, or excuse me, run away with that lead, it makes it more difficult to play. And so it's a fun way to scale back the power, maybe a little bit. Reduce the arms race. I think that's something that's common in play groups is that when one person buys a demonic tutor, then everyone else feels like they need to, and it scales the power up and up and up, but theme decks help to kind of keep it at a neutral area. You mentioned, in the show notes that a theme deck is probably pretty low on the power scale. It's probably going to be not as efficient as some of these higher tier decks, but that's okay. I've got some things we'll talk about later on that I think can keep your deck in the running, but it doesn't have to run away with it. You've got a note here about using, Scryfall. So how do you use Scryfall to help contribute to your deck building process for a theme deck?

Shawn: 8:42

Glad you asked. This is something that is not new, but it's unfortunately new to me cause I've been building theme decks for a decade now and I used to just scroll through scry fall or whatever the equivalent was back then. Um, Just looking at thousands of pieces of art, for instance, for like a hand tribal theme deck where every card had to have hands very prevalent within the deck, uh, the, the art. There is a much better way. And it's because of the hard work of like, users prescribe all that actually pay a little bit extra and they're allowed to tag cards with all of the types of art that they might see, whether it be a dinosaur, a hand, a chair, whatever the theme you might be looking for in your artwork. You can find it by using the art tag, which is basically you just type into scryfalls main search bar, ART colon, no space and whatever that thing is that you're wanting. So if it's art tag, colon chair, then you will find all of the cards in magic's history that have been tagged with chair art. And it's a very, very handy thing. In fact, in the next episode that we record, I found a dinosaur gym just by looking for dinosaurs in the art, which is clearly there's a lot more dinosaurs in art than there are in the creature, bar. So it's a good way to just improve on your theme. Find little hidden gems here and there that you never would have thought of.

Taylor: 10:15

When I first started watching Commander Versus, there was a theme deck on there. I forgot who played it. Maybe it was Steven Green But the theme was ladies looking left and all of the cards had to have Female presenting characters looking in the left direction. And so some of the themes can be really restrictive, right? And then you've got themes that are really broad. And so if you head over to EDH rec and you look at the top of the bar, there's a section that says themes and you can click on that and they can be as broad as say, Artifacts or life gain, but the more you look into it, you can find other ones that might be themed around sea monsters or royalty. And so there are different neat places to get started there. And I think it's a lot easier to start off broad and then narrow it down. And so if you start to scroll through that and find some inspiration, that might be one way you go about setting up that theme. And to kind of segue us into how you built this deck, I think another great source of inspiration are movies. So I'm a huge fan of Hayao Miyazaki films, and I ran a theme deck based on my favorite movie of his Princess Mononoke. And this is, I was inspired because Partners just came out and I saw. Tan on the blood sower and Rehan last of the Abzan. And I thought that was a perfect pair of cards to represent Princess Mononoke and Ashitaka. And you can draw all these cool parallels and connections because if it's Rehan last of the Abzan and Ashitaka's character was one of the last from his village. I think it can create a lot of parallels. And so I tried to build that deck with really strong connections. This card represents this character. Tell us a little bit about the impetus of. Thrax and Mundar, how did you come up with Thrax and Mundar? What's the connection to the movie that you were inspired by?

Shawn: 12:03

So one of the things that initially spawned Thrax and Moondar was one, I've been listening to metal music since I was young. Thrax and Moondar, the meme was before. This idea even happened or before the secret lair that had a metal version of Thrax and Moondar even happened People would write Thrax and Moondar's name as if it was in the anthrax band's font Because it has that same sort of cadence, the sound has the big X in the middle. And so I've been thinking about building metal Thrax and Mundar since, I don't know, before I can even really remember playing EDH necessarily. The movie in 2008 that came out that kind of inspired this deck was Anvil, The Story of Anvil. It's a 2008 Canadian rockumentary film about a Canadian heavy metal band. And it got like a ton of critical praise at the time. Surprisingly, even though it was about these big dopey Canadian rockers, just the persistence that they showed in their life, got them this cool documentary about they were sort of a underrated gym in the eighties and then they just keep rocking on into their fifties and sixties. So Thrax and Moondar was born. Now, I wasn't going to be able to create a movie or a deck about a movie necessarily, especially not one about a band that nobody knows about. So I just went with more generic metal. And in doing so, what I found was that one of the coolest things you can do with a bunch of legends in Magic is that you can make bandmates. Because all of the Mundar are represented in this deck and if you look on our moxfield page you can find Things like Nim the paint artists, things we won't necessarily describe in here, but they're all, imagine they're all bandmates and or like a crooked record deal guy or whatever. Like any kind of legendary creature you see is just represented in the story of Thrax and Moondar's rise. And the first one I want to share, first of all, let's talk about Thrax and Moondar itself. Four, blue, black, red. It has haste. It's a zombie assassin, which is important for later. Whenever Thrax and Mundar attacks, defending player sacrifices a creature. Whenever a player sacrifices a creature, you may put a plus one plus one counter on Thrax and Mundar and it is a 6 6. But anytime it attacks, it basically becomes a 7 7. What works well is in the band, we have the bassist. There's a long history of like kind of quirky, awesome female bassist in rock music and Marchesa the Black Rose. was perfect for this deck. This is where form and function, the Venn diagram come together as a beautiful full circle. It is like the full eclipse. She is one blue, black, red. We'll just call it Grixis from here on out. Legendary creature, human wizard. She has dethrone. So it says whenever this creature attacks the player with the most life or tied for the most life, put a plus one plus one counter on it. Other creatures you control have dethroned. So you could attack the player with the most life, but you don't have to because what Thraxmoondar does is it puts counters on itself, which matters for the second and last ability. Whenever a creature you control with a plus one plus one counter on a dies, return that card to the battlefield under your control at the beginning of the next end step. She's a three, three. Marchesa allows Thraxmoondar to attack without fear. If it gets double blocked doesn't matter if it dies doesn't matter because it's going to make them sack a creature It's gonna get that counter and then it's gonna return to the battlefield even if they take it out So for me the dame of the stage Marchesa take it away. Love it What do you think about her?

Taylor: 15:39

It's awesome. And I think you mentioning the overlap, right, between form and function is, I think, critical when people are thinking about building theme decks. You don't have to go out on a limb that's shaky. You don't have to Neuter the power of your deck all the way down. You can create these cool connections that have synergies that overlap. And you found one here with the plus one plus one counters. It's a perfect synergy. Then you can create the storyline as well. I think this is a great pick. And when our audience goes to look at the moxfield list, there are some other really cool synergies in the other band mates that can be inspiration for them to think about, Oh, Hey, yeah, I can still play good cards. Cause I think oftentimes when people think of theme decks, they think of jank. And you don't always have to think of it that way. My chase is a great example of that.

Shawn: 16:29

The next card is another card that is very powerful in this list And for me again meets form and function perfectly It's rooftop storm Five colorless and a blue for an enchantment. You may pay zero rather than pay the mana cost for zombie creature spells that you cast. There have been several famous rooftop shows in rock music history. Primarily the Beatles. If you look up Beatles rooftop, it is a big deal. U2's had some, Jefferson Airplane, The Boss, Bruce Springsteen. It kind of became a meme in rock music at some point for a band to have a rooftop show. So this car signifies a pivotal moment in the band's career. It's when they really take off and by that I mean cast Thrax for free because he's a zombie. Keynote important to know Disappointing as it is. It does not negate commander tax, but it does reduce his cost by seven, which is strong.

Taylor: 17:26

Rooftop Storm, I think, is a really cool card. Again, you've blended form and function really well here. And then for some of the cards that I pulled out of your deck list, I wanted to just try and highlight what I said earlier, you don't have to sacrifice functionality for powerful magic. And so this first one I pulled out, I think fits the theme of maybe one of those crooked record company executives or whatever the case might be, but it's also a really strong magic card. It's an offer you can't refuse. It's an instant blue spell for one singular blue mana. Counter target non creature spell is controller creates two treasure tokens. This card, I think it kind of does it all when it comes to form and function as well, it can help protect your really expensive commander. It's a good card on its own to stop your opponents from taking over the game. And it fits the theme just because you're doing something wacky and fun doesn't mean you can't also play good cards. And I think this is the one that really stood out to me as doing it all. What do you think about an offer? You can't refuse. Was I right in assuming how it was connected here?

Shawn: 18:29

100 percent whenever new capenna came out. I was very excited because it supported the grixes three color synergy. I forget exactly what it was called in New Capenna. However, you get the picture. And this is one of the cards that highlights the, the boss of that gang, basically giving an offer that they can't refuse. And in heavy metal terms, I imagine that very much as like a record contract or something that's not really working out for Thrax and Mundar. But it also follows a lot. I have like three or four counter spells that are all very serviceable in the deck. Swan song, rewind, syncopate, and this helps me protect, but it also meets the theme of music in general. So thanks for picking this one out.

Taylor: 19:14

Yeah, absolutely. Something I started to highlight here when we are trying to blend a deck tech plus how to do a theme deck. I fall in this camp of when new sets come out, I look for the best, the most powerful cards. I think a lot of people do too, and there's nothing wrong with that. But I think for purposes of keeping the game fresh and exciting, when these new sets come out. You just mentioned it right there. This gives us a chance to be excited for something other than just pure power. Maybe there is a cool upgrade to a deck. And I think that's really important for people to think about because it gives us a different lens of looking at new sets. And when we have so many new sets coming out, it can be a bit overwhelming. So one way to simplify it is, Hey, what's going to be the most metal thing in there in the case of Thraximundar. Speaking of metal things, uh, the other card that I pulled out was Wand of Orcus. And so my assumption here is that this is a microphone for our lead singer of the band, Thraxum Mundari. Wand of Orcus is two and a black for a legendary artifact equipment. It has equip three, whenever equipped creature attacks or blocks it in zombies you control gain death touch until end of turn and the second ability, which I think is the really powerful one. Whenever equipped creature deals combat damage to a player, create that many two, two black zombie creature tokens. This card is nuts. It's kind of expensive to cast and equip, but I think it's shores up. One of the biggest weaknesses of Voltron strategies is. In that it gives you a wide board presence to help block creatures that are swinging in on you, but also to finish the game, because if they can just chump block Thrax and Mundar repeatedly, and you're not getting in with that damage, this allows all the zombies that you maybe created off of another player to swing in as well. I think this is great. It's flavorful. It can give you a bored state out of nowhere and it synergizes really well because Thraxmundar grows every time somebody else has to sacrifice a creature. And so when you do connect and Wand of Orcus is equipped, you get more and more zombies every time. So was this our microphone for our lead singer or how's your, how do you connect this back to our theme?

Shawn: 21:26

100 percent anytime you find equipment in the deck on list on Moxfield, recognize that it is either a guitar or a microphone. Like I have axes in particular in the deck because a guitar is often called an ax. So. This seems like the most metal microphone you can have. It is a spine. If you're just listening to the podcast, it's a spinal cord with a skull with fire coming out of its mouth, at the top. And that is the quote unquote wand. But yeah, with Thrax and there are ways that are music themed in the deck that make Thrax unblockable, such as distortion strike, which allow you to just keep going. Making insane amount of zombies on a hit and yeah again. Thanks for picking this one out This is a labor of love this deck. I do enjoy it quite a bit I think it can outlast most pre cons even at this stage in the game Because i've just spent so much time scouring for like form function cards

Taylor: 22:24

So what are some of these hidden gems? This first one you've got here has, I think, some really metal art. The title lends itself really well, but I love it.

Shawn: 22:33

Howl from Beyond. I am an old, old player. And so I started during revised years and Howl from Beyond was one of the biggest pump spells you could make. And at instant speed, it still works for Thrax and Moondart. It's X and a black, instant, target creature gets plus X plus zero until end of turn. Let's just say Magical Christmas Landy, you have 14 mana out. It's real late in the game. You've got your rooftop storm, whatever. You're making Thrax and Mundar come out very cheaply. If he attacks and gets through, and you have enough mana, it's just a one hit kill, period. Rare, but it has happened in this deck, and so I do like to mention it. In fact, it happened against our friend Karl. At that time I was using a quote unquote sound guy, Echo Mage. which was able to double the spell and that just how from the largest, most metal scream ever, which for me a huge flavor win and how to take somebody out.

Taylor: 23:28

That's awesome. I think being able to play cards that are fun is a neat way to go about it. You know, Again, we're talking about finding the good balance between really powerful magic cards and really fun magic cards. In our group text this past week, we were talking about my Nadar deck that was in our last episode, and I mentioned I love getting to play Feldon's Cain. Are there better cards out there? A hundred percent, but playing that card brings me joy and hearing you talk about how from beyond I can see the joy and pride you have in that. And I think that's what's really cool about these theme decks is it gives us that sense of pride. You've created Thraxamundar, the story of Thraxamundar. Tell us about this next powerful magic card that actually fits really well too.

Shawn: 24:14

Thanks for the lead in the card is reverberate to red. Instant speed copy instant or target instant or sorcery spell. You may choose new targets for the copy First of all, it's great because it copies counter spells to counter the counter spell that they used Next it also copies Insane effects like a say torment of hail fire or Whatever kind of game ending villainous wealth type spell somebody wants to play against you for two mana now you get that and If you're holding up a couple mana here and there no big deal right in a game of magic We're often holding up to three mana and this isn't the the ceiling on this card is as big as commander gets Literally, so Not only does it fit the music thing and also fits destroying the opponent's thing.

Taylor: 25:09

I love that you found these cards that have. Musical terminology connections, reverberate, distortion, and Again, this is a great card. That's a fun gotcha just in terms of interactions. If somebody is dumping all of their mana into that torment of hail fire, and you cast this for just two mana and it knocks them out before their torment of hail fire resolves, you've done a crazy thing. And it's pretty metal to steal somebody's most powerful magic spell and to turn it against them and absolutely destroy them. I love it.

Shawn: 25:42

I have no more joy in life than redirecting powerful effects, which is why I love when when ship your planet are so much. It's like, I love it when people think they're going to do a thing and then all of a sudden they do it to a totally different person or themselves. It brings me such joy. The sound of drums Is this next card that I just found again looking for art looking for words that cue into music from the doctor who decks I don't know anything about Dr. Who, but when I look at this card, it's two and a red and enchantment aura, enchant creature. Enchanted creature is goaded. If enchanted creature would deal combat damage to a permanent or player, it deals double that damage. Instead, pay two and a red, return the sound of drums from your graveyard to your hand. So you can get it back really easily. So you can either put this on Thrax and Mundar, or you could put it on another person's giant creature. But the thing that Puts it over the top for me besides just the name. I love the art The art is just four stuffy british guys, and I have no idea about the doctor who lore so I apologize But like they're all like covering their ears Looking sad and to me. This is like thrax and mundar's best day that he's ever had is when he gets to like look at teacher and stand up on top of his desk and like make a horrible sounding power cord and the teacher just like crumbles into mildew on the floor.

Taylor: 27:06

I think about the sound of drums as like the kid who's just learning how to play drums and he's tucked away in his bedroom. And for those of you that have seen love, actually, it's the series of scenes where the kid who's trying to, Fall in love with his, elementary school. Sweetheart is learning to play the drums and he starts to write really aggressive things, the chalkboard outside of his room. And this has to be his stepfather walking by just wailing. Oh my gosh. When's it going to stop? And the idea is that metal stops for no man.

Shawn: 27:34

I think in order to be a great metal artist you have to have that person in your life who really doesn't like to hear you practice. And you have to have that piece of yourself that's like, I'm going to do it twice as loud anyway, suck it. So this card, this whole deck is about me saying suck it to the world. There you go. Enjoy. What's your next card, Taylor, that you thought would be a really cool addition?

Taylor: 27:57

Yeah. So again, thinking about universes beyond, I think that from Warhammer 40 K, The Astartes warriors are the ones who are saying suck it to the universe. This card is noise Marine. It's four in a red it's an Astartes warrior. Astartes warrior, he's a three, two, so not great stat line, but I think it could potentially really fit the theme. I mean, in the artwork, the dude is literally playing a guitar to defeat his enemies. And he's playing his music so loudly and intensely that it's pulling and ripping the spines out of his enemies. That's pretty metal. As far as the text box goes, it has cascade, which is a very powerful effect. So cascade says when you cast a spell, exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a non land card that costs less, you may cast it without paying its mana cost, put the exiled cards on the bottom of your library in a random order, and then it's. Actual ability is sonic blaster. When noise Marine enters the battlefield, it deals damage equal to the number of spells you've cast this turn to any target. So the cascade, I think is just a cool mechanic to kind of build up your board state at the noise Marine here. In terms of band mates, not legendary. So it might just be a fill in for the rocker. Who's a little sick that day, but I think cascades are pretty powerful ability. It can hit some other important, powerful spells that you might have in the deck. And then the damage ability that it has isn't. Always be a ton of damage, but it might be enough to knock out, say somebody that tried to block Thrax and Mundar, or maybe there's a really important value creature on the board. And this will always do at least two damage. And so it might be enough to hit their birds of paradise. It might be enough to hit, something that's drawing them cards, like a beast whisperer. So I think this is a. Cool thing. It doesn't necessarily have to go in the deck, but I thought, you know, you just showed us a universe is beyond card. Here's another one. Here's how it can look at sets that maybe we know nothing about. I know nothing about the 40 K universe, but when we think about looking for art that fits names of car that fit, I thought this was a cool example.

Shawn: 30:04

Absolutely. And this could be like a backup guitarist or something for the band. The ceiling of the card for me is just looking at the deck list. If I can cascade into Unscythe, Killer of Kings, like Thrax and Mundar's best guitar, That would just be epic. I would love to see that happen in the game, even if it only did 2 damage to like, You know, just some little civilian token or something. To me, that would be even more flavorful. Here's this guitarist who just makes one riff and then literally melts the face off of just a random stranger in the audience. Let's talk about some non bows and traps to be wary of in building a theme deck or playing a theme deck. The first thing I wanted to bring up was playing your deck that is a theme deck, maybe a five or a six level in power, whatever you define that as against people that have really tuned, hyper powerful decks in short, don't do it because you won't have any fun and you will feel outmatched and unable to keep up. And then you won't get to enjoy your cool deck. Hopefully your play group is healthy enough to where you can enjoy your deck have them build themed decks or like everybody can do this together. Like for instance, one thing we did over the pandemic was we decided to build guilds of Ravnica where every card had to come from the Ravnican block sets. So you only had nine sets at that time to work with, but you could use planeswalkers, whoever guild masters were of each guild. You could use those as your commander and they want to be a really interesting, well balanced decks. So In short, if you're debuting your theme deck for the first time, maybe debut it against the people that are more casual or ready to kind of lower their own power level a little bit, just to help you enjoy your shining moment.

Taylor: 31:52

Yeah, I think playing something like Thrax and Mundar against our rule seven decks would work really well just because it puts a cap on the potential power and so the table is playing at that equal footing and That will be more fun because nobody wants to try and take your heavy metal deck that is super thematic and maybe not crazy powerful and play against something that's got an infinite combo in turn two or three. You got to be able to have that rule zero conversation with your group. So maybe keep it for your play group. The people you play regularly with, maybe don't take it out to FNM with. A bunch of random players that you don't know because maybe they don't have a deck that's going to be able to play at that same level. And so I think that's a really interesting thing to think about is you've got to take responsibility and be willing to have that conversation. To use that as a segue into my nonbo or trap to be weary of, I've tried to talk about it a few times, and I think that this is my takeaway. I want to give to the listener. Just because you're playing this theme deck doesn't mean it has to be bad. It can look good. the surface, but you can play some really cool cards. We've mentioned some of them here. Marchesa, it's an incredibly powerful creature that can create a lot of recursive loops. It's awesome. These great counter spells, like you mentioned, Swan Song is one of the best counter spells in the game. But the theme connection is really strong there. The final song of this metal band, it might be the card that lets you end the game because you stopped that board wipe from happening and you're able to swing in for the win. I think that's something to really think about. You don't have to play the worst version of a deck. You get to play the most thematic version of the deck.

Shawn: 33:34

Absolutely. And I think in building theme decks, there is a trap, like you're saying here, where newer people to the idea. put in cards that are just bad because they don't want to break their theme. But I think when you're building one, if you're finding yourself in that place, it's okay to have, you know, 10, 20 cards or whatever in your deck that don't perfectly fit. that theme that you're trying to accomplish, but do allow you to play the game of commander. For instance, I'm playing all of the signets and talismans in this deck. Do those fit with metal? I don't think so. I mean, they are metal, but like, I mean, other than that, there's really no connection. Maybe Thrax wears them as jewelry's like a Keith Richards type character. I don't know. But like I'm saying, Without those cards, this deck might not even function. So it's okay to skirt the rules just a little bit because you need to get to those big rooftop storms, et cetera, in the first place.

Taylor: 34:39

Absolutely. Sean, what are some of your final thoughts on this? And if you were to have a rule zero conversation with your play group, how would you introduce your theme deck?

Shawn: 34:48

My final thoughts are that if you find your play group is having some stagnation and they are in stasis lock, this is a way to to help everyone feel re energized, look at new cards, express those creative muscles that we all have. Even if you feel like you don't have the strongest one, the only way to get better is to work on it a little bit. And the limited scope of themes often helps people even build decks easier because you're not overwhelmed with choice. You're kind of like, well, I only have these two different things to, to work on because they fit my theme and the other stuff doesn't. So. I would say give it a try. If you haven't built a theme deck before, it's great to have one in your bag and hopefully you can convince others to join you in on the fun. It's what EDH is at its core, is a way to express ourselves in deck building that a lot of other formats just don't have because you're restricted to building the best. A way to describe this deck in a rule zero conversation would be Hey, I am coming to the table today with about a mid power, a pre con or above level deck that is based solely on rock and roll and heavy metal. Thrax and Moondar is the commander. It wants to win through Voltron commander damage, but it has a lot of cards in the deck that are more thematic than they are powerful. So if I do get wins with it, it's usually fairly lucky. I take more joy. in playing it than I do necessarily winning with it. So if you have any sort of decks that are a little lower in power level, pre con ish, that would be appreciated if we could play with those just so I can see what this deck does and actually show you all the story of what I've built.

Taylor: 36:31

That's awesome. I think that having that rule zero conversation and talking to new players, new to you players is always a challenge. So thanks for showing us a little bit about how you would handle that conversation when you sit down to a new table, I think theme decks are great. Thank you. There's the old saying that restrictions breed creativity and this intense restriction you have here is one of the most creative decks I've ever seen. I love it. And I see the joy that you have when you play this and it brings the table joy to see how cool this deck actually is when it plays out.

Shawn: 37:05

Well, thank you so much. It is a work in progress and as every magic set comes out, new cards will be added. They're not going to leave sound or sound. On the table, I imagine is like some kind of sensory mechanic or name or whatever There's always gonna be sound cards in the future to add I Hope that you all the listeners took some joy out of this deck as well. Do you give the deck a look? I'm very proud of it you can follow us on Twitter at rule zero podcast. That's the number zero or email us at rule zero podcast at gmail. com with your ideas, changes, thoughts you might have on how to add even more flavor to Thrax and Moondar. Next week we're going to tackle a rebuild of a friend's Indoraptor, the perfect hybrid deck. And as we've technically already built it, I can tell you listeners that it is nuts. I am so excited to share with you this deck tech that we've worked on together and that it may be my most favoritest Jun build ever.

Taylor: 38:07

I can't wait to share with the listeners if you enjoyed Sean's Thraxum Mundar deck, be sure to check it out on our moxfield page, where we link all of the decks that we talk about on the show. And if you would like for us to highlight one of your decks, we'd love to just reach out to us. If you regularly watch this on YouTube, you can also check out our podcasts, which comes out a day early, anywhere you can get podcasts and don't forget.

Shawn: 38:30

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