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

Shawn: 0:15

And I'm Sean. It is our hope that through our combined 20 plus years experience of playing EDH and cultivating a great play group, 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 something happening in the world of Magic that has you excited this week?

Taylor: 0:34

So in our last episode that we just recorded, we were talking about theme decks. And we're recording right around the time that Outlaws of Thunder Junction came out. And I picked up the Grand Larceny Precon. I'm a huge fan of pre cons. I think they're a great way to get into the game. I think they're becoming more and more powerful. And so I thought, what a cool little concept here when we were talking about theme decks and I got this new pre con that I came up with this stipulation for myself. So Grand Larceny is led by Gonti Kani Aquisitor, and it's all about stealing other people's cards and playing them to then try and win the game. So I thought to myself, here's my restriction that I'm going to give myself. Every time I play this deck, I'm going to allow myself one singular upgrade. So instead of doing a one big hot swap where I take 10 out, put 10 in, or do a full revamp before I even play it, I figured this would be a really cool way to learn the ins and outs of this deck and become an expert on it. So I'm going to keep a bit of a deck blog. For it in the primer section, and I'll link that in our show notes so that people can follow along and see how I play the deck and what I do to upgrade it. But I think this would be a really cool one to work on and really fine tune through this process. We'll see how it goes.

Shawn: 1:49

I think that's an awesome idea. And it reminds me that even though we're older and have careers and whatnot, and have a budget. To buy collector boosters or to upgrade decks willy nilly There's a lot of people out there playing magic who may not be in that same situation And maybe they have only one or two decks but the joy in that is honestly like as the more you play it and master it as you say like I think you just have such a It's such a different experience to like build slowly over time than it is to try and just all in one shot, put together the perfect build, quote unquote. And it sounds like a fun project to follow along with. And it could be pretty informative for folks that are trying to figure out how to upgrade their own pre cons.

Taylor: 2:38

This, idea came to me because I thought about the classic way to get into commander, which is to build a deck. You have a hundred cards. You pick your commander as Aisling, the pilgrim. One in a red and you just burn the table out and all 99 other cards are just mountains. And so my thought was every time I played the deck, I could replace one of the mountains with a new card that seemed kind of insurmountable to me. And this, I think is a really workable way to go about it. You buy the pre con, you get some sleeves, you get a deck box. You are set to play commander forever. And now we can build it up and slowly fine tune it instead of dumping a whole bunch of money into it. Cause that's always the scary part for me is seeing the total at the checkout.

Shawn: 3:19

And it does tie in with sneak peek into the next episode, which we'll talk about a little bit later as well. But for this week, what we are dealing with is a deck that our friend Matt sent to us. It is Indoraptor, the perfect hybrid. One, a hybrid black green mana and a red, so John DeColors, a legendary creature dinosaur mutant. It is a 3 1 with Bloodthirst X. Bloodthirst is this creature enters the battlefield with x plus one plus one counters on it where x is the damage dealt to your Opponents this turn so you often want to cast this after the attack phase perhaps or after you've dealt some damage early To make it bigger the creature itself has menace Hard to block and it has the dinosaur ability of enrage Whenever endoraptor the perfect hybrid is dealt damage choose an opponent at random Endoraptor deals damage equal to its power to that player unless they sacrifice a non token creature It's a lot of words. What are you thinking as soon as you see this card?

Taylor: 4:23

I think that people underestimate lightning bolt all the time. And at its very worst, Indoraptor is a lightning bolt. It's ceiling is so much higher than that. And it gets really difficult later in the game to begin trying to sacrifice specifically a non token creature. And so it's that phrasing right there on this card that I think really pushes this card up A notch really turns the heat up on the opponents who are playing against this one, because later in the game, you might be churning out some token creatures, but if you have to sacrifice your value piece or the thing that's creating those tokens, it becomes so much more difficult to. Really survive what this deck wants to do, which is throw a ton of damage around and the blood thirst ability. The fact that it's on ETB enters the battlefield and not on cast, I think creates some really cool potential synergies and I've got one that I think is a fun little way to finish the game that we'll talk about towards the end of the episode, Sean. You love big damage decks. You love burning out the tables. So run us through it. What do you think about this card? And what are some cards that work well in the stack that we've found?

Shawn: 5:29

With pleasure. I Love that this deck will attack people on three different fronts. Matt kept it dinosaur themed. I think maybe it peaked some hidden child in there with the Jurassic Park love and you know, he just wanted to live the dream of dinos without playing Gishath or something like that, which I can respect. And so we did respect that in this rebuild of the deck. That means. that outside of Indoraptor, we're going to have some really strong creatures on the table. On the first level, Indoraptor works as just a regular old beat them down. Eventually they're going to have to spend removal on your dinosaurs because they are big enough to chomp and smash. The second level is a combo level. Indoraptor has a sneaky combo ability to it because green cares so much about putting Tons and tons of plus one plus one counters, sometimes doubling those counters that interrupter can get enormous. Not only is that good for Voltron, which is the third strategy, it has menace, but it's also good for particular spells that we'll talk about that deal damage in one damage increments. So every time you do that, you are randomly hitting somebody for eight, eight, 10. 12 if they don't sacrifice a creature and it's not hard to get there So the first card that works well that helps you get there is a pet card of mine Halana and Alina partners to red and green legendary creature human ranger first strike and reach on a 2 3 body Not bad. I love secret reaching commander Every once in a while, you get somebody. Because on the picture, it's just somebody with a bow and a sword and Yeah, they don't think it has hidden flying basically, but it does. Then, at the beginning of combat on your turn, put X plus one plus one counters on another target creature you control, where X is Halana and Elena's power. That creature gains haste until end of turn, so This acts like a mini Xenagos God of Rebels, which gives things haste and doubles their power, but it makes it permanent, which leaves an effect on the board, even if they take this card away, which I appreciate. So imagine this little scenario. Turn two, Xurta Druid, which we'll talk about soon. It taps for a mana, but also does a damage to each opponent when it does. So in turn, Two, you play that, and then turn three, you tap it, deal three damage to each opponent. Cast Indoraptor, with one green mana up for protection. You have enough mana to do it at that point. You're coming down with a 6 4 Indoraptor, it has three plus one plus one counters on it at that point, because it hit three different opponents for one damage. Then turn four, Halana Nalina hit. Again with that protection backup at one mana instant green spell There's plenty in the deck that can save your interrupter if it gets hurt so It puts two more plus one plus one counters on it making it an eight six with menace and now you have protection backup and That's a monster on turn four and a lot of commander games Like somebody's gonna have to block that and if they don't they're getting hit for eight commander damage that early You It's scary

Taylor: 8:39

The fact that Indoraptor is a three drop makes it so that these lines of play are really possible because. I think that's something really valuable in a commander these days is playing a little bit faster And so the fact that for only three mana you can get this out for the first time If i'm casting this for five mana the second time I still don't feel bad about that and even I think on the third time when you've got to play seven total mana we're gonna see ways this effect of just Throwing out damage is going to be worth whatever the mana price is

Shawn: 9:10

Absolutely, and that's I think key to playing these aggressive style decks your your play style I know some people are afraid to kind of single people out and hit you don't have to single folks out but you need to deal a lot of damage early because You want people to have to spend a lot of mana on their turns to turn themselves shields down? They have to remove your early boards because later in the game, the way you're going to win is I'm not going to be able to be countered anymore. You're going to have spent all your mana dealing with my dinos. And now I'm going to have that big combo kind of turn or big Voltron kill turn because you've already spent all your resources trying to handle me in the early game when I'm ramping out of control.

Taylor: 9:51

And I think you really hit the nail on the head in terms of how many potential fronts that this can attack on. And I think it's really cool. I think these colors do a really good job of indiscriminately. Damaging the table. And so the fact that it can leap ahead like this, it can surge ahead. And if they deal with Indoraptor, you still have great creatures left on the battlefield. And so I think it's kind of sneaky in that way too, because Zertod Druid, which we'll talk about in a moment is one of those cards that if you don't deal with that, it only amplifies the potential out of Indoraptor. But if you do deal with it. Well, now what are you going to do about Indoraptor when it hits the table? So we'll talk about Zertat Druid in just a moment. Really cool potentials here. This next card that you have, I think is a wicked cool one. Especially if it comes down after or even before Indoraptor, what's this, common that you've got?

Shawn: 10:44

So out of a set that I opened a bunch of packs up, but didn't get one of these was urban dagger tooth two and two green creature dinosaur sticking with Matt's theme, a four three with vigilance. So for four, that's a four three with vigilance. It doesn't have to tap to attack. It can block a little bit. That's the, that's the floor. Not bad in a dino deck that wants to deal damage when it can, but the enrage ability, Means that it proliferates and this deck has really hyper focused on if you check out our moxfield list Let's put in every synergy we can That is both maybe dino theme but also adds plus one plus one counters to our creatures. Sometimes if you've got like a pestilence out you're not only pinging endoraptor But you're pinging urban dagger tooth which allows you to then proliferate counters on both of them Which means that you can then Pestilence without fear because it will always remain ahead on toughness total Of everything else that's dying on the board And it's also doing tons of damage with endoraptor as you do that So it can combo out like that and that's a pretty cool effect for just a little common card People won't see it coming. I don't think until it's already happened

Taylor: 11:56

Yeah, I think in magic we sometimes see cards like this that at first glance you can see maybe how it could work itself in your favor, but it takes a while and experience to see how it actually plays out. This kind of reminds me of Ivy Lane denizen. It's a really popular combo card. But I think if you're new to magic and you read that for the first time, you might not realize just how powerful that denizen actually is. Same thing with this dagger tooth. I think if you were to show this to an experienced player, even they can see the potential upside. But when you build this shell, like we've got here in this Indoraptor list, the ceiling is. Huge.

Shawn: 12:34

Let's talk about one of your favorite cards, and it has a giant flame breathing monster. We'll assume it's a reptile for the purposes of this deck. Tell us about this next Instant Speed spell, Taylor.

Taylor: 12:45

this is a Tarka's command. It's red and a green for an instant spell. It's a modal option that gives you four choices. You get to choose two of them. I love modal spells because they are useful. All the time in any type of scenario. When we talked about my cycling deck, I love getting to be able to cycle as replacement for one of the other effects. A Tarka's command here does, I think everything a Junt deck wants to do. And it plays into what Indoraptor is trying to do. So the first option is your opponents can't gain life this turn. If you're going up against a life gain deck with Indoraptor, it might be hard to burn them out. Even if you're slinging tons of damage, sometimes life gain decks just get ahead of you. And so if they're about to do something crazy, like say an Aetherflux Reservoir, and they're about to gain a ton of life off of that. Let's stop that from happening. Or maybe you're playing against Judith that can regularly gain 200 life. Let's stop that from happening for this turn. I think it's really sneaky good in that way. And it makes sure that your game plan is effective. That's option number one. Option number two, a Tarka's command deals three damage to each opponent. So if you're going to cast Indoraptor and you can cast an Tarka's command before it, which is not unlikely. You could get nine potential counters on Indoraptor with this card. That's exactly what this wants to do. Option number three, a little bit of ramp. You may put a land card from your hand onto the battlefield. Notably, it doesn't say tapped. And so you could potentially do something else with it. So for instance, if you cast this and you choose. To deal three damage to everything. And you get to put a land card down. Maybe you're putting down a forest to have that one green mana. You need to protect Indoraptor from removal. I think it's a really cool piece of utility here. The final option is creatures. You control get plus one, plus one and gain reach until end of turn. You just mentioned how good sneaky flying is. And that's exactly what reaches. I think the fact that you get to choose two of those options when you cast this for just two mana. Insane potential value here and I think it's a perfect utility card for this deck because whatever the deck needs to be doing in That moment this card can do

Shawn: 15:00

As folks who listen to the show know, I like to say. But I'm really behind this one. I, I, Modal cards are Chef's Kiss, so Perfect there allow you at instant speed for very low cost and mana in this case To do a lot of very very powerful things. So on board 100 percent Now unfortunately, we have to get to this little section where we find what didn't work Well in Matt's deck and Matt's a newer commander player. I don't think you would mind us sharing that but You know, he started off with angel tribal and now I think he's wanting to get a little more vicious in his life with this endoraptor build. So I'm happy to help. And in order to do that, we have to take out some of these clunkers that we found. One of those is Obelisk of Jund, three mana artifact tapped, add black, red, or green to your mana pool. This brings me back, you know, I got back into magic around a Laura block At that time, perhaps it was okay to play obelisks but particularly in green we have so many more options for ramp and ramp that sticks around or through things like rampant growth or just One mana ramp spells that this kind of gets outclassed. So What I've done in the deck refurbishing is taken out things like this and replaced it with things that I think we can get to work based on our mana base like Wild Growth or Ig Noble Hierarch. Ig Noble Hierarch is one. A 0 1 Goblin Shaman has Exalted, which means that whenever your creature alone attacks, it gets a plus one, plus one until end of turn, which could be slightly meaningful in an Indoraptor build, but it taps for Jund Colors. Wild Growth, Enchantment, Aura, one mana. You play a Forest or a Forest like Shockland on your first turn. You tap. Now, all of a sudden, this Enchantment Aura enchants that land and makes it tap for an additional green in addition to whatever else you're casting. So, Endowraptor costs three. The idea is, if we can get it out on turn two, just in a pinch, or some other three mana spell that we really want to play, why not? And in green, the sky's the limit for this kind of thing.

Taylor: 17:08

And one of my rule seven decks. My commander is Sam and it's a three job commander I am trying to get that card down on turn two every chance I can. So I don't necessarily play the two mana signants and I definitely don't play the three mana signants. Because in the worst case scenario on turn three I do not want to be playing something like a three mana signant like commander's fear or this obelisk. Because I would much rather get down my commander. And I think that's something to think about when you're building these decks is to look and see where the mana slots fall, because if your commander is in contention with a lot of your other cards, I think that's maybe hindering what the deck wants to do now. You know, your decks and you get to play them and you can see potential lines where maybe you are ramping to get to a point where you can create some really cool synergies, like doing a little bit of damage before getting to cast your commander, that's a three drop. So there is some flexibility there. My point is let's limit the number of cards that are in contention with our commander to make sure that our decision tree is as focused as possible. So a noble hierarch, wild growth, one green mana to get these down means ideally we can do this on turn one so that we can get that turn two commander out or make for a really powerful turn three or four.

Shawn: 18:27

Next card that we took out of the list is Endowraptor. Shield of Kaldra. Tomer is crying somewhere out in the magic multiverse. This is a four mana legendary artifact equipment. Equipment named Sword of Kaldra, Shield of Kaldra, and Helm of Kaldra are indestructible. And when you equip it for four mana, your equipped creature is also indestructible. It's eight mana. I think Matt maybe just had a copy of this and like most people are like I should use that one day. Well Not in this deck, I don't think if you play this in your endo Raptor deck I don't know. I feel like you've already set yourself back two turns just playing this because you want to be doing so many more powerful things with eight mana at sorcery speed nonetheless. There's a couple other great options in the deck. We've added some more instant speed ways to make your creature indestructible or to come back to the battlefield. So I think this one can, you know, hit the high road and let's replace it with another four mana spell that we both love. Bolt Bend. Three and a red. Instant speed this spell costs three less to cast if you control a creature with power four or greater But Sean in the Raptors power three not in this deck. It's not so when it costs One which is what it will always cost in this deck almost all the time, especially with many dinosaurs out on the table You can change the target of a target spell or ability including stuff like planeswalker ultimates with a single target Can't beat it. It's budget friendly. I'm here for it

Taylor: 20:02

And I think I'm always going to sing the praises of bolt bend because I think it is more flexibly powerful than something like deflecting SWAT. I recognize that deflecting SWAT, which is two generic and one red for an instant. If you control your commander, you don't have to pay this. And it does the same ability to change the target of a target spell or ability with a single target. Yeah, it's potentially free, but what happens if people keep removing Indoraptor and now you're stuck with it costing three mana versus bolt bin. When you've got these other massive dinosaurs, that's always going to cost one red, I'd much rather hold that up and have that in my hand than something like deflecting SWAT and the fact that it's a fraction of the price makes us even better deflecting SWAT comes in at some really crazy prices. Like I think it hovers around 50 versus bolt bin, which is a dollar or less. What a good card.

Shawn: 20:54

Yeah, I'm glad that we're both on board with the Bolt Bend Train Before we jump into this next card that you kind of want to take out Let's add to how sad it is that Deflecting Swat is the one with the giant Stegosaurus on the front. If only Bolt Ben had a dinosaur, it would be the perfect replacement. But for 50, I can lose out on the one dinosaur art that we're losing out on by using this. So tell us what this next card is. This universe is beyond favorite that Matt has kind of thrown in the deck.

Taylor: 21:23

Yeah, I think that it reminds me a little bit of the Shield of Kaldra in that it's way too expensive for what it does. It's Mount Doom, a legendary land. You can tap it, pay a life, and you get to add either black or red mana. That's its first ability. The second ability says one generic, a black and a red and tap this Mount doom deals one damage to each opponent. And then it's last ability is five generic, a black, a red tap it sacrifice Mount dune and a legendary artifact. Choose up to two creatures, then destroy the rest, activate only as a sorcery. So I get why this is in the deck. You want to use that second ability to try and ping everyone for one damage. That's going to get you potentially three counters on Indoraptor, but you're essentially paying four mana to do that. That's a terrible return on your investment, I think. So it doesn't seem like it fits that well in this deck where for one mana, you could play a lightning bolt and get the same result. That just seems like a bad return on investment. Like I said, and if we're looking at the deck list, uh, we don't have the one ring in here. And so that last ability isn't going to work out maybe the way you want it to, because I think that's part of what you want to have happen. You were playing the mythril coat coat now, but do you really want to sacrifice that for a board wipe? Uh, do you want to sacrifice your Ozalith for the board wipe? I don't think so. I think I'd much rather just play a blasphemous act, uh, because then you get the enrage trigger off of Indoraptor on its way out of the field. So I think this is a bit of a trap because I, I see what it wants to do. But I think that the ceiling is so low because at most you're ever going to get is three plus one plus one counters. We can play something else that can do some pinging. I mean, if you play a desert, the new deserts do a damage on the ETB. And so. There's one that you didn't have to pay anything for one damage to put a counter on it just by playing your land. I think that's a better return on your investment there. So maybe we could replace this with something like one of those deserts or just a better land.

Shawn: 23:23

Yeah, you hit the nail on the head with this card. I see this going really well in a deck that wants to lose life. Like there are some Rakdos style builds that can benefit from you, the player using it or casting it, losing life. This is great in there, but in Indoraptor, us losing life doesn't really help Indoraptor at all. We need opponents to lose life. So Exactly a black red desert That pings somebody for one when it comes into play. That's a free plus one plus one counter on endoraptor I'd much rather play that than this and just constantly lose life Which does add up in these decks over time like if you're lasting into turns eight nine ten, and this is like your first land You've already like Quartered your life total almost for everyone else. Try to stay away from these unless the effect that you get from it is super powerful. So let's talk about some hidden gems in the deck. Unless you had something extra to add there, Taylor,

Taylor: 24:18

No, take us into Zertodt Druid, we've mentioned it enough. We should probably tell our listeners what it is.

Shawn: 24:23

you know, every once in a while we get these pet cards and we just can't leave them alone. This is one of mine. It is a red and a green, a one, one human Druid. You tap to add a green mana to your mana pool. Whenever you tap Zerta Druid for mana, it deals one damage to each opponent. It doesn't sound that big, but Indoraptor is the kind of deck that the more people that are in your pod, heck, let's imagine you're in one of those wacky playgroups that has like six, seven people. You're tapping for a mana and you're now doing six damage, but even in a regular pod, every time you tap for a mana, you're dealing three damage spread out. And Indoraptor eats that up. So it is the perfect card to go in this deck. But I often play Zertat Druid in other decks because you never know when that one life that somebody lost or two life that somebody lost from Zertat Druid comes into handy. It's something that you shouldn't overlook.

Taylor: 25:17

Yeah. And the fact that this card is doing what you want to do as a good deck builder, anyways, it's helping you ramp. It's helping you get a head on curve. It does everything this deck wants to do. And so I'd much rather play this than say, even just an Elvish mystic for this kind of deck. Yeah. We want to get the Indoraptor out early, but in this case, it's Not only is it helping to ramp me for all my other spells, it's doing what my commander is asking me to do, which is to do incremental damage to everyone.

Shawn: 25:46

Exactly. And Indoraptor is one of those cards that you do want to get out early, but only if it's under the criteria of like, I'm going to add some plus one plus one counters to it because otherwise it's not going to do that much on the table. And so let's say you're in an instance now we'll talk about the next hidden gem where you have a three man a spell that conflicts with your commander. Well, this one benefits it in the long game. We're playing for the long game here. Uh, this is rhythm of the wild. One, a red and a green enchantment creature spells. You control can't be countered important in a deck with 30 dinosaurs or so. Non token creatures you control have riot, which is an ability that says they enter the battlefield with your choice. And I always love choice of a plus one plus one counter or haste. Both good with Endoraptor, depending on if you're attacking as a Voltron or if you're going for the more combo y, kind of, plus one plus one counter build. This is a card I don't leave home without in a red green creature deck, honestly, because, you need some redundancy for that Cavern of Souls type effect to protect yourself.

Taylor: 26:50

Yeah. Getting blown out by a well timed counter spell, I think is really detrimental because if you spend your early mana to try and get all that incidental value, you're trying to do that damage. And then you try and cast endoraptor if it gets countered and you just wasted your resources. Heartbreaking. And this one always gets me, I forget it's out there. And I forget that it says that very first line of text creature spells you control can't be countered. It always gets me, it seems, and I'm not saying I'm a perfect player by any means, but I've been doing this a while. I should remember that this card says that. So I think it's a great one to include as just good protection, because a lot of removal does damage to remove creatures. That might be one way to go about it. Right. And so if you can just stick the Raptor onto the battlefield and then they destroy it, or they do damage to it. now you get to lightning bolt somebody again at the floor level. It's a cool one. What about this next, uh, dinosaur you found

Shawn: 27:48

So thanks art search that we just talked about in our previous episode. As I was looking for art that had dinosaurs in it, I found a little card that Matt didn't have in his list, even though he already had 30 dinosaurs or so. Labyrinth rapture, black and a red, a nightmare dinosaur menace. Whenever a creature you control with menace becomes blocked, defending player sacrifices, a creature blocking it. And. For a black and a red colon creatures you control with menace get plus one plus zero until end of turn. It is a two, two. This is a quick to put on the board sort of innocuous creature that helps Indoraptor do what it wants to do in multiple ways. One Indoraptor has menace. So this makes Indoraptor very difficult to block. With any sort of profitability or any way to get rid of it They're gonna have to block with like three creatures perhaps instead of two next There are times when that little infinite pump ability as much black and red mana as you might have Might make Indoraptor big enough to start dealing a ton of extra damage at random Whenever it gets hit so I love this Little Include. It's a rare, but it's very cheap. It's only an 18 percent of Indoraptor Dex, period. And I think it keeps Matt on theme for cruel, angry dinosaurs.

Taylor: 29:13

Sean? Let's play a game real quick. Uh, Matt, if you listened to this episode. And you mentioned this to me. I have a foil labyrinth Raptor that I'll give you for free. So make sure you claim that from me after this episode comes out,

Shawn: 29:26

Great test. I love to test our listeners to see if they're actually listening. I mean, our friends, I'm sure our listeners are listening because that's inherent in the word. Um, well, love it. You've always got to keep your students guessing. Like what's he going to do next? So Taylor, tell us about this next card, which you added in the deck. I didn't think of, but it's, it's great.

Taylor: 29:54

Yeah. So we have some of these one mana green spells that give things like indestructible. And I think that those are really valuable in this deck because we're playing things like pyrohemia and, uh, pestilence that deal one damage to each creature. And so. We want to give Indoraptor indestructible to help us survive that. So I thought, why not balance that out with something like Malachir rebirth, which is just one black mana. It also has a land on the back. I love these MDFCs that can be both a spell and a land. I never feel bad drawing them, but I think you mentioned earlier how this can potentially have some combo potential here to really do a lot of damage. So the way that I see playing. Cards like Malakir rebirth that say, for instance, speed, choose target creature. You lose to life until end of turn that creature gains when this creature dies, return it to the battlefield tapped under its owner's control. Okay. We cast Indoraptor. It comes in with a bunch of counters and we pestilence it out and it kills it. Before that last ability of pestilence resolves, we can cast Malakir rebirth. Every trigger of pestilence of pyrohemia causes that enraged trigger to go on the stack and it does damage to a random opponent. When it ETBs again, when our Indoraptor comes back, because of the way that bloodthirst is worded, it will see all of the damage it already did and put that many counters on it. So let's think about on the very bottom floor level. If you get Indoraptor out as a 3 1. At its base level and you pyrohemia for one, it does three damage somewhere else. And we count the pyrohemia or the pestilence and the damage it does playing in a pod of four, that's three more damage is going to go on it. When we cast Malachir rebirth and it comes back. It's going to come in with six counters for two mana. I think that's a really good return. And that's again, at its very base floor level, I think some of these recursive black instance that bring creatures back when they die really fit in here. So I think in this case, we could cut a swamp and replace a swamp with a malicure rebirth because it's a land on the back, but I think we could also balance it out with some of those green one drops that do a similar effect just for some really cool combo potential.

Shawn: 32:10

Absolutely, I mean the the height on this card is Phenomenal, you may even want to cast it like mid pestilence streak sort of the endgame just so you do like for pestilence effects Resurrect into raptor now it comes back in with like 16 counters or something crazy And then you do even more pestilence effects that you have with your remaining like four or five mana because then you're doing 16 to each random opponent it's gonna add up. It's gonna end the game usually So you can kind of play with it to see math wise Is this gonna, where's it going to be most effective at? And it's always going to be effective. So this next card was a surprise edition I made into the notes for you. What do you think about it?

Taylor: 32:53

I love it. It's power fist. It's one of the green for an artifact equipment equipped creature has trample. And whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, put that many plus one plus one counters on it. Menace is a wonderful keyword, but it's really easy to chump block. Unless you have something like the labyrinth Raptor from earlier, it's easy to chump block and throw in a couple of tokens in front of the Indoraptor and say, ha ha, I got you. Even though those tokens will cause the enrage trigger to happen. It could potentially kill endoraptor because of its low toughness. Power fist does some cool stuff with trample and how it does damage. When it deals that damage, it can get some extra counters on it. And then that enrage happens and it does even more damage. So if it survives, it can just continue to grow and become more and more powerful and trample now makes it even harder to block. Indoraptor, because if it can grow over the size of those chump blockers, you are never going to be able to block profitably. So I think this is a great include. It came out of the fallout set. It's got some wicked art, maybe a little backwards because I know that's a alpha death claw and, it's getting punched. And I think the, we shouldn't punch our dinosaurs, but. This shows you how powerful, of a punch Indoraptor can give.

Shawn: 34:09

I would love to see like a reverse Altar art for this of like the deathclaw like chopping the head off of this guy Maybe having a power fist on its deathclaw finger or something Just to make it even more powerful, but Yeah, I'm glad that you found this include interesting It's something I thought of last minute as I just got all the fallout sets to me We've got to give if we're going Voltron plan Let's have a couple ways in the deck to be unblockable or have trample and there's another one in there It's a land called kessig wolf run where you can pay red x and green And just give something trampled plus x it's just a land that taps for colorless, but it's a pretty incredible little addition Anytime you're going to have a really power heavy Voltron a type of commander to just you know Maybe you don't have any cards drawn But you do have a Keswick Wolfern on the table or a power fist or something like that And that means you can get in a massive amount of damage with just your commander and just this one other card That's kind of just sitting there after a board wipe or something

Taylor: 35:14

So what are some non bows or traps to be weary of? Give us some cautionary tales when we're playing this deck.

Shawn: 35:19

Well, I think that this type of deck you don't want to rush out or overextend So I've seen endoraptors come out before at like three power Without any kind of plus one plus one counters on them I don't think that's the right move. I don't think you should do that. I think you should only put out Indoraptor when we have things that give it some plus one plus one counters or you're able to do some damage early with your dinos because we want it to be threatening and we also have want to have some mana in the backup to cast like a Malakir Rebirth or one of these green hex proof spells to prevent somebody from exiling it or something. Would say just don't rush. Let your dinosaurs, which you have a lot of in this particular build, do a lot of the work. Like who cares of urban dagger tooth gets destroyed with a removal spell. You killed my common dino. Oh no. Please let them, let them feed on those first because when Indoraptor comes down, it's going to get real.

Taylor: 36:16

really similar to my note. And I think I can piggyback off of what you said. I think that oftentimes. As players, we look to maximize value. We try to maximize mana spent. And so just because you can play a card, it doesn't mean you always should play that card. Something I just started thinking about while you were describing that is, wow, this is actually a dinosaur deck. With a secret commander that you don't really have to ever cast because you can just do normal damage. You know, if your dinosaurs are swinging in and you're just playing kind of an aggressive dino build, and then you cast into Raptor and it looks all the damage or dinosaurs just did, it can grow huge that way. But I think this is really cool because you can let them take care of your big, scary dinosaurs. I mean, there's a poly Raptor in this deck for crying out loud. That card. Is insane. It makes copies of itself. It's a five, five where in rage damage happens to it. You make another one that's scary. And if it's not dealt with, it can get out of hand really quickly. So this deck, I think is really cool in that sense, just because he can play a card, doesn't mean you always should just because you can get into Raptor out doesn't mean that you need to. So I think that's a really good reminder for our listeners. And I just had that little epiphany of, Hey, this is a dinosaur deck. That just happens to have this really insane value in the command zone.

Shawn: 37:38

I am so happy to hear you say that. And I, I think that is what I clued in on as we were really refurbishing this deck is that I want avenues. I want modal play styles. I want to be able to be assured that even if my commander plan doesn't work out that the rest of the deck is going to function well. And I think this deck does that very well. It kind of fires on all these different cylinders and it doesn't depend on any one, just simple. easily stoppable thing. The resiliency of it is, is killer. And, uh, yeah, I'm, I'm glad you've got a converting moment in this, this epiphany that you've had. Now you see what I see in Indoraptor and hopefully we'll not be seeing too many times across the table from us, or hopefully, actually, I w I would love to see it in action.

Taylor: 38:24

So what are some final thoughts, Sean? I think this is a really cool revamp that we did. You can check the list out on moxfield for the full deck list. We have some of the cards that work well here. Uh, but what do you think about it? How did we do on this one?

Shawn: 38:36

Personally, I think we knocked it out of the box, but. This is why we put up both versions of the deck on Moxfield. Matt's been so kind as to lend us his original deck list. So we have the original and the revamp version that when this podcast comes out, they will be available on our Moxfield page so that you, the listener can give us a grade. Because I would give myself all the gold stars if allowed to. I've gotten over the humble parts of my life where I'm like, I should underplay what I'm doing here. The reason we have a podcast is because we love building insane decks. So. You know, I think we did a great job with this one.

Taylor: 39:11

I've seen Maldhound play this on elder dragon hijinks and. I can see where if you lean too far into just the endoraptor plan, it kind of bit mold hound in the game, a lot of really cool potential, but I distinctly remember from that episode, him saying, Oh, if I could have just gone to the next turn, I was going to do this. And this list says. No, we're playing dinosaurs and beating face. Indoraptor happens to be a really cool potential for what this deck can do. Personally, I would love it if Matt were to keep even just on a piece of scratch paper in his deck box. What's the most damage that he's done with the Indoraptor? Because I think, again, the ceiling is insanely high and there's some really cool synergies and ways to capitalize it. When it comes for a rule zero conversation, I think that Matt really needs to focus in and say, this is my dinosaur deck. It has some really cool potential in it. I think it's a little bit higher powered level. There's no infinite combos in this deck, but it does have a pretty high ceiling. That way our players at the pod know. Okay. I need to play a little bit of a higher powered deck because this one can get out of control quickly. And nobody wants to sit down with their brand new grand larceny outlaws of thunder junction, pre con against the deck that can destroy poor Ganti before he even gets cast.

Shawn: 40:36

Let's not destroy poor, poor Ganti, the Lord of luxury himself. Oh, whoa. To those who

Taylor: 40:43

Whoa.

Shawn: 40:47

poor Ganti. Well, I would love it. If listeners want to send us some decks, cause we have, you know, such great time rebuilding these things, And hopefully we're doing a good job with it. Leave a comment, share, like, do all the things. If you want to suggest the deck, you can follow us on Twitter at rule zero podcast. That's the rule number zero podcast or email us at rule zero podcast at gmail. com on next week's episode, we're going to tackle a common issue that many newer or even more veteran commander players face that does tie in with this Ganti build that Taylor's working on. Pre constructed decks. What are the common problems that these pre con decks kind of face when pitted against other more resilient or stronger older builds? And how do we upgrade them to stay in the game?

Taylor: 41:37

I'm looking forward to it. Hopefully I can give myself some tips or at least open my ears to Sean's infinite wisdom for when I'm working on my own pre con upgrade for grand larceny. But in the meantime, if you enjoyed this deck, be sure to check it out on our mocks field page, where we link all of 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. If you're listening to this on YouTube, be sure to check out our podcast. It comes out a day early and you can get it wherever you get your podcasts and don't forget.

Shawn: 42:06

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