Taylor: 0:10

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

Shawn: 0:15

And I'm Sean. It is our hope that through our combined 20 plus years experience of playing all forms of magic 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's something in the world of magic that has you excited this week?

Taylor: 0:33

Modern Horizons 3 spoilers have started. It's always wild to see just how far Wizards will try and push some of their design spaces, and Modern Horizons 3 is a place where we get to see all of those dreams and wild crazy ideas kind of come to fruition. I don't follow the modern meta all that closely, but I'm sure that a lot of these cards will Warp some of the formats, change some of the formats that are played in. This happens every time one of these sets comes out. We see it happen in commander. We see it happen in legacy and vintage and all these other different formats. I think about Ragavan, that was a modern horizons card and how that just completely changed a lot of the ways that people play magic and some of those older formats, one of the cards that Strikes me as interesting is this new popper staple that might get the band very quickly. And it's cranial Ram. It's a red and a black for an artifact equipment. It's a living weapon equipped. Creature gets plus X plus one, where X is the number of artifacts you control and it has equipped too. So you pay two mana and it comes in with a little zero, zero body. But the Ram gives it enough stats so that it'll become a one, one on its own, but this will be played in affinity shells. And so you'll have this massive creature that you can get down for just two mana and it lives through a lot of different. because you have to kill this artifacts, not just the germ that's created. But anyways, I love popper and this card is absolutely insane, especially when you think about cards like cranial plating that have already been banned. But one of the things I'm really looking forward to are more MDFC lands, the modal double faced cards and having some of those lands that Can come in either tapped or you can untap them for certain costs, but I love those lands just because I can replace a basic and not feel so bad about it. I do that in a lot of my decks and I think more players should do that. I don't mind to take a turn off and have a land come in tapped. If it gives me the flexibility of also having a spell that I could play. So I'm really excited for it. Have you been looking at any of the spoilers for a modern horizons

Shawn: 2:31

I have indeed, I looked at the blue, green, bird, simic bird, and anytime, It's targeted with a spell or another creature you have is targeted with a spell. I can't remember. It basically allows you to put lands from the top of your deck into play or draw cards. And strange, I feel like I've lived in this world before where Simic has this weird ability to put lands into play and draw cards and put lands into play and draw cards and To me it just, it resets on a blink on its own. It says at the end of the card like only two times per turn But that's very easy to beat in blue or with a displacer kitten which is what everyone's talking about putting it with And so basically I envision a world and I hope that I am wrong where one player is just endlessly taking game actions and all the other three other players are just eating a sandwich on the side and then waiting for something to happen that's non deterministic and then be like, are you really good to go? Are you done? Seriously? Okay. Can I take, can I do something now? I don't know. I just, I hate the design space. So I hate to be a negative Nancy. But the most exciting card I've seen from Modern Horizons 3 for me was Phyrexian Tower reprint.

Taylor: 3:42

and that art on that? Special extended borderless version is insane. I love it. It's so sick. That's something I love too. The art in this release is really cool. I love the profiles that they do of some of the legendary creatures. I don't know if you saw the six profile art. It's got the cute little blue bird in it. And I think that's really adorable. But then you have some really ferocious ones like these new demon in skier, iron eater, and some of these other ones are really cool. I just love that art. I think it's really beautiful.

Shawn: 4:12

Yeah, overall I think I'm excited to see it. I feel overwhelmed at the moment by the amount of cards that we have to process through for Commander. So once I get over that hump, I will finally be able to parse through at my own pace and sort of take everything in. Probably pick out two or three cards that I actually like and then the rest will just Enter the dustbins of history for me and at least until I play arena draft where it is being draftable So I'll definitely see everything there

Taylor: 4:38

I'm excited for that. I'm afraid, I'm worried how they're going to change their pricing structure for the drafts just because if they're already bumping up the cost, I think you can buy those fetches. And it's just exorbitant how much it costs to buy those. I worry if the drafts are gonna be that much more expensive. If they stick to like 10, 000 gold, that'd be fine. I mean, you can accrue that pretty naturally and freely. And if it's six to 1500, gems, you can accrue that if you're. Winning enough or whatever. And so I just don't want to have to spend a lot of money to also have to draft that, you know, I spend too much money on cards as it is

Shawn: 5:12

Yeah, fair enough and especially not cards that you can't do anything with afterwards like I love arena for what it's worth but compared to Buying cards for real you have something tangible you can sell later if you need to on arena You can sell your account quote unquote, but it's kind of like not Recommended or frowned upon. I think it's probably against the rules actually and Yeah, and I think they give you a lifetime ban if they found out you've done it. But otherwise you're just stuck like with a loss and a lot of pretty digital objects. So It's the world we live in. Yeah, we can do

Taylor: 5:46

Yes. Scrolling through my cards is not the same as like flicking through them. So one sensory interaction is better than the other, in my opinion. So

Shawn: 5:57

But let's kind of jump into today's topic, which I think is something that is common for, magic players who've played for any amount of time in their lives. They've made a deck, the play group plays against it, the play group sighs and frowns and gives off a lot of other non verbals to say Oh This is this really what we're doing right now? And then you feel terrible and but you want to keep doing your thing because you were really proud of the deck and it's just a whole bag of confusing emotions and Well, you have a deck like that. It started off as a very innocuous super fun commander from 2014, I believe.

Taylor: 6:35

The tech that this happened to me with was my dirty scrap savant deck. I came from the 2014 commander set. Like you said, it's one of the planes walkers that can serve as your commander. It's a four drops or three in a red, and it has a few different options and they all sync together really, really well. So that it's plus two led to a discard two card and draw two cards, which is really good. It's minus two ability lets you sacrifice an artifact and then return an artifact from your graveyard to the battlefield. And it's got a minus 10 that I think has ever, never actually been used. Uh, but it gives you an emblem that says whenever an artifact is put into your graveyard from the battlefield, return that card to the battlefield at the beginning of the next end step. And so it's got this really cool graveyard recursion artifact synergy style of play that goes along with it. And I, like many other people really. Like jamming in the really big expensive artifacts, things like micro synth lattice and dark seal forge that can create really intense board States into this deck because you can discard them early and animate them early. And so there's a potential for that happening, with this deck, because you're just going through so much of your deck so quickly with that plus two ability. You don't care if you're discarding cards because you're drawing back up and you don't care if those cards are in your graveyard because you can usually find a way to animate them or tinker them back into play or weld them back into play. Goblin welder is one of my favorite. Cards there is, and to tap it and swap two things, I can swap a treasure token for that dark seal forge. That's insane. And I love doing those types of things. And so when I built this deck, I kind of tinkered with it since it came out in 2014, and have had different versions of it and haven't played it for a while. But for me, I love artifacts. I love getting to try and puzzle piece these things together and find these really cool. Loops and synergies, but it kind of goes like with the cynic bird. Like you're saying, you know, sometimes in these types of settings, it's a problem because it's just me sitting there tapping and untapping artifacts while everyone else is like, cool, do I get to play ever or, or what? And so too many of those games happened. And I realized as much as I love the concept of this commander sitting in the command zone, there's not. Really a fair way to play it or a way to play it at an appropriate power level. Because part of what this deck relies on is getting extreme value out of the graveyard. And so if I'm not playing into that, I, all I'm doing is handicapping myself. Now, maybe there's. A way to play it that I haven't thought about, or maybe I could tone it down a bit, but I feel like the spectrum or the notches on it, like one notch to the next, it's a really big drop in capability. And so I just don't think it would really sit at a table. Well, at a lower level, Unless everyone else is playing at that lower level too. And so I had to retool it. And instead of forcing my friends to sit through and suffer through, I decided to readjust this deck some, and I brought in Perforos.

Shawn: 9:37

awesome, so I Remember playing against the you know, and it's not the only time I've ever played against micro sense lattice dark steel forge plus vandal blast But

Taylor: 9:49

Yep. That's what it does.

Shawn: 9:50

that is what the ready likes to do at its maximum point and those cards all existed prior to 20 14 however, I think the deck's gotten much more out of hand by doing the thing you just said as you started sacking a treasure to get a, you know, Ian Trini Formm or something like the, you don't even lose anything, you know, it's like It's so usable now, and it used to be even usable then, you know, it does have a lot of fun cards like I love sacking worm coil engine to get two little worms But that is nothing compared to what the deck can really do. It's like Zula doc when I I put that on the shelf And so that was a deck that I think no one really enjoyed playing against I enjoyed playing with it every once in a while when it would go off, but In those games no one else enjoyed playing against me because I was annihilating on turn four or whatever but but if you take out those Mana crypts soul ring all that stuff Zulidoc and your 10 mana Eldrazi become a lot worse So there's a real line that i've never found where it feels fair Like it does in modern which is what I was trying to relive When I played Eldrazi and taxes in modern in 2015 when I'm playing like reality smashers and thought not seers and not oolamogs and spawnsire of oolamog, etc.

Taylor: 11:21

That's what's so hard, right? Is in commander, you have to think about three other players, not just one other player like you do in modern. That thought non seer is just not pulling its own weight in a, in a four player pot and a 100 card deck where it's a one of, and so you have to play some of those cards that can pull their own weight. You know, you've got to play the woolen logs. You've got to do that. And that's, what's so tricky because walking that line of how do I. Make sure I can play this game, but how do I also not create all these feel bad and you and I have had this conversation. We had it last night talking about how commander is such a nuanced game. And it really is this kind of deep dive into the psyche of people. And these types of decks really reveal that. And I think we are good. Pod mates, play group of friends, whatever you want to say, because we're conscious of these things. And we talk about these things and you know, you recognize if you pull out Zula doc, Ooh, that's good for one game. That's fine for one game. And that's how I felt with Doretti. But I wanted a, a mono red deck that I could play a couple of times a day. Whenever we get to sit down, it's nice to get to play a deck a couple of times just to see if it does its thing or not, or if Doesn't do it the first time. Maybe it does the second time. And that's what this deck I want it to be. I love motto red, I think at my heart. That's probably what I am as a red player. I mean, when I found out that Kiki Jiki was a card, I never turned back and I kept on that mono red train. And so I've been trying to find a mono red deck that works for me. And I've had so many different iterations of a mono red deck. And this one I think is scratching the itches. The right way.

Shawn: 12:54

What I want wanted to highlight to for the listeners before we dive in completely is that I think if you haven't tried it Because I think it's so much more out of style now than it used to be. Mono colored decks have a lot of benefit to them. And we're really going to highlight a lot of those benefits in talking about this build in particular. There are a lot of things that you can exploit using just one color or many, many basic lands, et cetera, that all these other multicolored decks, which while can be super powerful and usually are, There are things that they can't do and for example play price of progress which we won't really highlight but you know if you want to do like 20 damage to all those multicolored decks all for two mana at instant speed well yeah they can't do that you can so let's jump into Purphoros.

Taylor: 13:45

Yeah. Uh, I feel like I've talked for a while. Would you mind to read Perfrose for us?

Shawn: 13:50

Perforos, bronze blooded, four and a red, for a legendary enchantment creature god, indestructible, as long as your devotion to red is less than five, Perforos isn't a creature. Other creatures you control have haste. For two mana and a red, you may put a red creature or an artifact creature card from your hand onto the battlefield. Sacrifice it at the beginning of the next end step. It is a seven six on its own, extremely powerful, and creates this fun surprise factor that I enjoyed so much with the Sark and Dragon build of I am basically hasting out a big beater unexpectedly. We'll see what happens dealing a lot of damage to the face, but this deck gets pretty tricky because it has all those fun artifacts synergies that we talked about with welder and ready, et cetera.

Taylor: 14:36

Yeah. So I'm not playing the big, scary micro synth lattices and dark seal forges as much as I want to. But this commander, I think, is asking you to do a couple of things. Number one, you want those big scary creatures in your hand and you want the manna to, to push them onto the battlefield pretty quickly, and then they go to your graveyard. So you need some way to recur them back, or you don't care if they die. And so you either need a really good ETB effect or you need a really good on dies trigger. And, and that way you can. Maximize this because unlike sark and where the dragon that you cast gets to stick around this creature that I sneak out with it is going to die at some point. I have to sacrifice it at some point unless I'm stopping the turn, but I'm not playing sundial of the infinite. And so that's kind of important to note. I'm doing that by design. I think sundial leads to some really. Too many shenanigans for me. And I'm okay with not playing it. I just think it's a little bit too dirty for my play style, that I want for this deck. And I mentioned this a couple of times. I said sneak out. And so this, reference to the card sneak attack, which Which is an enchantment for a red and three that lets you pay a red to put a creature card from your hand onto the field. It gains haste and then you sacrifice it at the beginning of the next instep. And this is a really powerful card. It's used in vintage, to sneak out really crazy things like Emery cools and grizzle brands and other big, bad, scary creatures. This one costs a little bit more. And I thought about running sneak attack in the deck, but I figured having it in the command zone was good enough. And by the time that I can cast perforers, I can probably also cast those creatures. And so I didn't want to duplicate that effect. Too much. But if I say sneak out, that's what I mean is that ability to take something directly from your hand and put it onto the battlefield. And this matters too, because you're not casting it. And so if it's an Eldrazi that has an on cast trigger, you're not getting that. And so you have to be conscious of all the types of creatures that you included.

Shawn: 16:28

Absolutely, there's a lot of really fun cards in this build. I enjoy the play style that it presents. Let's jump into some of these cards, I think, and let's, there's some other, like, key points that you might want to highlight for folks.

Taylor: 16:42

Yeah, absolutely. Before we talk about what works well, I just, just want to point out, you started to mention this, mono colored decks, I think do really have a lot of benefits and they've got some drawbacks and it's important to know what some of those are so that you ensure up some of those weaknesses as best as possible. I don't think it's super important for us to go into all of those nuanced details. The command zone has a series that they're working on. I think they've got everything but black. Maybe they have black now where they have. Really good players. Talk about what it's like to play a mono color or what this one color does really well and command zone. It was Jimmy Wong. He talked about playing red and I would recommend listeners to go and check out that episode. We won't step on their toes here, but Sean, what's one of the cards you pulled out that you think works really well in a deck like this.

Shawn: 17:25

So in this first section, we're going to highlight some cards from the deck that seem to be pretty sweet. One of which is a brand new one. It is, uh, so yo, yo, so your was justice. That's a tricky one to say for me. Sorry, world. Uh, so yo was justice. One in a red instant speed. The owner of target artifact or creature with mana value one or greater shuffles it into their library. then that player discovers X where X is its mana value. Discover is the kind of quote unquote fixed cascade where you X out cards from the top of your library until you hit a non land card with mana value X or less and then play it without paying its mana cost. So what I like about this, it's got modes. It's not a modal card per se, but it has different options. We'll Perforos sacks the creature at the end of turn so you can do this to the creature before it gets sacked To get some value off the top of your deck and then shuffle your card back into the library Which could be pretty sweet if you need it, especially if you're playing against like a ley line of the void or something On a off chance that you need to get rid of like a big scary monster on the other side of the board Well at instant speed you have this two mana removal that yeah, it'll get something random off top of the deck But it won't get the thing that's about to combo off Necessarily, right? The second card I really enjoy is Sandstone Oracle. It's a seven mana, colorless, artifact creature, sphinx. It's a four, four with flying. When Sandstone Oracle enters the battlefield, choose an opponent. If that player has more cards in hand than you draw cards equal to the difference. You highlighted how Perferos wants cards in hand because you need more creatures. Mono Red, one of the weaknesses is that it has some difficulty keeping up with card draw. It has a lot of looting effects, but those are not necessarily the same as just drawing a bunch of cards and keeping them in hand. My feeling on this is that flies hits you in the face, comes in with haste, but then also there's always going to be a player at the table who has more cards in hand than the amount of red player. So this will draw you up to be at parody with them. Two uncommons as my top picks time to get on some peasant cube. Seriously.

Taylor: 19:36

Yeah. I love both of these cards. I'm glad you pulled out these two. So so you always justice. I think I just say it with confidence and very quickly and it. Sounds fine. I think you did a great, um, I love this because it can be used in so many ways. You mentioned, I think two of the ways, you know, you can, Discover your own thing, or you can discover somebody else's thing, but I really love the flexibility of how peripherals can play out. And so some of the play patterns might include, you know, somebody attacks you thinking, Oh, they don't have a blocker surprise. Here's a worm coil engine that I had in my hand, but you need that again later. And so With the justice, it lets you put it back in and replaces itself because discover, I think is so cool because you don't have to cast it. You can, but say you hit, a spell of some sort of, some sort of instant or sorcery, just want to hang on to that for whatever reason. You can put that to your hand, which is really nice. Or if you had a creature and you want to sequence your play better, you put that in your hand as well. You don't have to cast it. And so I love that flexibility. There where you can play maybe a little bit defensively or try and look for the longer game, because I think oftentimes with red, it's really easy just to go full steam ahead. And this card allows you to think about some potential cool play patterns and yeah, the Oracle, I think it's so good because. Drawing cards is great. This is not a red card. It's an artifact card. So it's, you know, shoring up some of the weakness that monitor red has because monitor red really likes to exile cards and you can play it from exile. I do not want to be doing that with this deck for the most part. I mean, later in the game, that's fine when I've got the mana to do that. But early on, I want those cards in my hand. And so I really love being able to. Fill back up. I mean, a lot of people in our play group like to play blue and can draw cards out the willy nilly. And it's great to match them for that. And I think too, while we're looking at some of these cards, sure, this is a seven drop, but I am probably never actually hard casting this. I'm usually sneaking it in. So anytime the. Cards cost is too much. Just replace that with two and a red. And that's what Perfro says I get to play this for. And so I love that. So for two and a red, I get to draw as many cards as the next player has. That's pretty good.

Shawn: 21:47

Yeah. And what I like about it too, is that unlike, say. Goblin weldering in a micro synth lattice. If you goblin welded in a sandstone oracle, I don't feel bad at all. I think it's great. So if you are trying to build a dirty deck for whatever reason, listeners, and you're trying to go the 75 percent route, just consider cards like this that really benefit you a lot, but don't also like really punish or prison stacks your, your opponents as much. And I think you'll probably get to the point you want to get to with that type of build.

Taylor: 22:20

Yeah. I, I should also say, I'm really glad you never had to play against the version of my dirty deck that had a mind slaver in it, because that was the opposite of fun for everyone.

Shawn: 22:29

Everybody's got to do it once. That's the problem with it. Mind slaver. I've done it before. It's a blast. Like we talked about in an old, deck tech with Zedru it's great. And then it's not, and then you lose all your friends and then you have to go back to the drawing board.

Taylor: 22:46

I think that that's something that I've learned a lot over my course of playing is it's fun to do that thing one or two times, you know, we've talked about paying into cabal coffers and getting just squillions of money. That's fun to do every now and then. But doing it too often, it feels like you're, you're cheating almost or something. I don't know. I just. You do it one time. You're like, okay, I'm good. I did the thing.

Shawn: 23:07

Yeah. I think for listeners to like, if you go rule zero with this to a play group, this bring a deck that is the nuclear option and then make sure everybody else has a deck. That's a nuclear option. Then pull those decks out lay them on the table like you're in a tense 1985 movie about nuclear devastation And be like, all right, we're gonna fight this out right now war game style And then I think everything's okay. The problem is that you don't get to play those decks a lot So don't expect to I think because sometimes people want to like bring the tension down a notch in this relaxing casual format that people seek to enjoy banter in.

Taylor: 23:47

And that's where I like where you mentioned seeing the sandstone oracle versus some of those really crazy, powerful cards. You still get to do the cool thing, but you're not, you know, hitting that, crazy big red button. That's just gonna send everything into this downward spiral. And so it's really nice to temper yourself that way. And that's where. I think it's just good to have that ability. And I think I've said this before, just because you have a card doesn't mean you have to play that card. And that's okay because last night at the, at the game shop, it was nice to meet a couple of new people that I haven't met before and get to talk with them and just. See what they like to do in magic and, and hear what they get to do. And if I had been microsynthesis, latticing, dark steel forging them, I probably wouldn't have gotten to have that conversation or make a new friend. So I'm glad you said that.

Shawn: 24:32

All right, let's jump into a couple cards that I think are awesome that you wanted to highlight about the deck.

Taylor: 24:38

Yeah. Thanks. So the first one I pulled dovetails really well with. Sandstone Oracle and that's a ruin grinder. It's five in a red for an artifact creature construct. It has menace. And when it dies, each player may discard their hand and draw seven cards and it has mountain cycling for two and it's a seven four. I think everyone should know this about me by now. I love cycling all forms of it. It's my, one of my favorite things to do. And this card lets you go and fix your mana, which is great. You get to go and search for a mountain card, which is important. I don't think I've gotten any in the deck, but it's just looking for that mountain type. And so I could go and get, something that has the mountain type to it, not just a basic land, but I love it because I can put it into my graveyard early. If I want to just go and fix my mana a little bit, and then I can usually find a way to tinker it back into play with say a goblin welder and. Then I have a seven, four, and that's really cool or similar to sandstone oracle. I can sneak this into play a little bit later to refill my hand because when it dies, which I care about, it lets me wheel of fortune, everyone, and everyone gets to choose, which I think is really cool because again, sometimes people don't like wheel of fortune, which is two in a red and it forces everyone to discard their hand and draw seven new, you get to choose. And so if you really like your hand, you don't have to discard and draw seven new ones. But in this deck, I do not care. I want to draw, draw, draw. And so this is, similar to the Oracle. I love that it has menace menace. I think it's sneaky. Good. I don't think people realize that it's. Maybe as powerful as it is just because you can usually use the ruin grinder to force some unfavorable blocks and then get in another creature. Because seven damage is nothing to scoff at

Shawn: 26:13

No, think about like all the times that somebody has left back a Sakura Tribe Elder thinking, I'll just block with that and then sack it. Or the new tower winder, which is Death Touch and Reach. Great rattlesnake, literally, effect, but Ruin Grinder, any kind of menace creature, gets right past that without fear. And I think a lot of people leave back just one blocker, thinking they're totally fine.

Taylor: 26:33

And that's a good way to segue into this next card to Ilharg the raised boar, because it's never just one creature that's attacking with Ilharg. Ilharg the raised boar is three, a red and a red for a legendary creature, boar god. It has trample whenever Ilharg the raised boar attacks. You may put a creature card from your hand onto the battlefield, tapped and attacking, returning that creature to your hand at the beginning of the next instep. And when Ilharg the raised boar dies or is put into exile, the From the battlefield, you may put it into its owner's library third from the top. So this card is actually the reason why I don't play a sneak attack in this deck. I think this is a great general second commander, whatever you want to say, because it helps me to sneak stuff into play whenever it attacks. And this can attack usually pretty freely. A six, six with trample again, that can usually attack somebody without repercussions and it sneaks in something with it, which is really cool. And I can get that ETB effect or just. Get another attacker in, imagine attacking with Ilharg and sneaking into play that, Sandstone Oracle. I'm drawing up, I'm swinging in the air for four and I can usually attack freely in the air and bounce that back to my hand and get more value later on, because ideally I want Perforos out and I want to be playing with Helm for the most part, and Ilharg is a great Lieutenant. In this deck because it doesn't force me to sacrifice like sneak attack does. It lets me reuse them again. And I really like that flexibility here. So what do you think about the old, uh war pig

Shawn: 27:58

I love Warpig. Warpig's one of my favorite, red cards. I remember trying endlessly to build a all bore tribal deck in Brawl, but that's not the environment for such a thing, because Oilhark was too good. Sorely outshined. in those games. But overall, I love the pig. I love that it's aggressive. I love that it's putting creatures on the battlefield. I love that it doesn't really die, yeah, great second general. The only other thoughts I have on it are that, well, So this would be great for like a Princess Mononoke theme deck, right?

Taylor: 28:32

Yeah. That's, I, part of me wants to rebuild that deck because in the opening scene, it's one of the bore gods who comes barreling through the forest, and Ashitaka has to defeat it and that's what starts his hero's journey. Uh, yeah, I, I think I should go back and rebuild the princess Mononoke theme deck because this would fit wonderfully.

Shawn: 28:52

like a blast. Awesome. So unfortunately we gotta get to some things that, well, I felt didn't work, right? It's all opinions. I always hate telling people about this card cause it, it feels like I strike a nerve with it. I have opinions and they're sort of strong. One of them we talked a little bit before the show started recording. I think you already took it out of the deck. Palantir of Orthanc for three, legendary artifact at the beginning of your end step. Put an influence counter on Palantir of Orthanc and scry two. Then target opponent may have you draw a card. If that opponent doesn't, you mill X cards where X is the number of influence counters on Palantir of Orthanc. And that player loses life equal to the total mana value of those cards. It's a word sandwich, but, I think people probably understand what it does. Basically, the opponent is given a choice. Do I make you mill cards or do I let you draw cards? If I let you draw, I don't lose life. If I let you mill, I lose life and you've already kind of set it up, perhaps. What do you think about this card? Why did you take it out, actually?

Taylor: 29:53

So to start with why I had it in there, my thought was I have these big, crazy creatures. And so I could potentially, like you said, stack it up. It was to teach the table to let me draw. And so the idea was the first time that it goes off, somebody's like, yeah, I And I flip it over and they're like, Oh, that's nine damage. I'm taking out of nowhere. No thanks. And it happens one time. And then from then on people like, Oh, we're just gonna let him draw the cards. What I realized though is I'm only ever drawing one card off of this each turn. And while I do want to draw cards, I just, I thought that it wasn't as impactful as it could have been, because there's always an off chance that there's a chaotic player. Who's like, give it to me. I'll take the damage. And I really just put a land on top because I needed that for my next turn. And I wanted to ensure that I had that land in hand and they're like, Ooh, gotcha. I take no damage and I milled your land. So I didn't like that. This left. Too much up to my opponents to choose just because you never know. And so I took it out and I replaced it with terror of the peaks because that can deal with some targeted removal for me, which I think this deck needs a little bit of, more than what I had. When we first started looking at this deck and I opened a terror of the peaks at the shop last night, I was like, Oh, I'm slotting this in

Shawn: 31:06

Yeah, fantastic card. You will never be sad about a Terror of the Peaks, I don't think. Unless, I guess, you need a counterspell, but in red What are you hoping for here? Um, so the next one is Sensei's Divining Top. And if you will allow me, I just want to go on a little bit of a, appeal, a tear. I don't know what you want to call it. Um, it's not against you. It's just against Sensei's Divining Top 1. It's super boring to watch like it's just There's often times and I don't begrudge anybody for this because i've done it myself when i've run top in the past with like Gishath where I do want to stack my deck. Sometimes I forget what I put on top Because there's only eight million things to keep track of in commander And then it might take 10 minutes before you get back to your turn So you may actually forget what you had on top and then have to do it again All that adds time in fact, it was so bad that even professional players and legacy events were like often given warnings for top when they would play top counterbalance because those games would go on so long. Just the added actions in the game adds time. It's always something that we're concerned about as far as like whether or not we want to make the play group have to deal with that. I also think it gives people the illusion of control. And I come from this. from a place where I used to play Mary's Guile all the time because it has a sweet cat on it. And I have a great old Korean black border card. It's very fancy to me. A version of it. However, stacking the top of my deck, not great. It's just, I'm like, what if I have three cards that are bad and I have a handful of cards that are bad and I'm just like putting bad cards and I'm just flopping them around like fish all over the place. Does that help me at all? No. Uh, no, it makes me feel worse and I think this sensei's demonic top unless you're in very specific builds counterbalance miracles deck It gives people the illusion of control that's my rant. I'm done. Sorry

Taylor: 33:03

No, I'm, I'm glad you talked about it because I actually, I, I respect your opinion on this and I think that it's not as good as another card could be in the slot. However, we talked about modern horizons three at the start of this. There is the red. New balance card this coming out. And so there was counterbalance and now there's power balance. And so I wanted to read that really quickly. And that's one of the reasons I, I want to at least see if I can make it happen and then I'll take it out. But power balance is too red for an enchantment. And it says, whenever an opponent casts a spell, you may reveal the top card of your library. If you do, you may cast that card without paying its mana cost. If the two spells have the same man of volume. I just think that's a crazy cool effect. Especially if you can kind of adjust the top of your library, which is neat. You can do some interesting things. I mean, the potential synergy there is possible. And looking at the spread of the deck, the mana curve of this deck, we have everything from one up until nine. And so I love the idea of making this happen at least once, but I get what you're saying. I do recognize that It's really easy to top and then forget, and then have to do it again. And to create these weird loops where you're trying to draw a card because you can't, you don't want to remove it because you waste your removal spell on it. It creates these crazy patterns. I just want to power balance once. I think that'd be cool.

Shawn: 34:25

for sure like live the dream, I wonder what kind of deck that would be good in My my thought would be initially And I could be wrong, but instinct tells me that in legacy, counterbalance was so good because the amount of mana costs that go above four is really thin. So you're more than likely going to have cards in hand that are one, two, three, or four, or maybe even zero, I guess. When a commander, the swath of cards that you might need to effectively power balance Is a lot greater so like if they're casting a nine mana spell or you know, I don't know like it could Could be a lot more difficult to make it fly But maybe in a storm deck or something like where the only interaction you maybe it's a good CDH card actually Because that's a lot more limited Sort of environment

Taylor: 35:16

no, you make a good point. I think we've mentioned the commands on earlier. They did an episode talking about Talion, the blue, black, creature that makes you choose a number. And they talked about the math behind that and why two is the best

Shawn: 35:28

you know, even though it's crazy

Taylor: 35:29

Oh, it is. I think this is one of those cards where wizards just said, Hey, we have a text box. Let's fill it. And they did.

Shawn: 35:36

AI generated text box. Oh

Taylor: 35:46

Uh, oh man. Power balance is nowhere near the power. I think of Italian, especially in ETH. And I'm glad you mentioned that just to help me temper my own expectation for how this might actually work or might not work. Cause that's a really good point. As much as I might be able to manipulate the top of my library, if I have four cards that can potentially match it, because you could always draw the card, put the top back on top. And if they cast a one minute spell, I could get the top back, but that's just so tricky. And that's just such. A gamble, but we're going to talk about another gamble later.

Shawn: 36:18

and I think it would be fun regardless. I definitely want you to live the dream, find your joy, play some Power Balance, and I hope it goes off. But if you ever want to be downed, or like, somebody to bring you down, come on down to Sean's House of Downness. That's what, I'll always give the other side of things, let's say.

Taylor: 36:40

You're sticking true to your old drossy roots. You're, you're smashing realities one card at a time.

Shawn: 36:46

of hope. Um,

Taylor: 36:48

Ooh, Ooh, that's a good one. Yeah.

Shawn: 36:53

of downing things, I guess let's talk about the cycling lands. Boy, Taylor loves to cycle. I know this is true. But then I see this other land that I have a fondness and a passion for if you've listened to previous episodes Valakut the molten pinnacle. What is Valakut like? Basic mountains. And what is this deck like? I think Having lands that come into play untapped that allow you to get your monsters out as quickly as possible I Like the idea of cycling lands. I won't often poo poo them. But in this deck, there's Valakut Valakut There's like we talked about earlier, price of progress. So you'll take more damage, the more of these you have on the battlefield. And then also there's another card that we're going to talk about soon that I think benefits from having more basic lands, as many as you can basically, because you're going to like be able to double your mana with this card.

Taylor: 37:47

the cycling lands are so tricky for me because I come from this space where if that's a regular mountain and I draw that late in the game, I just feel bad because I've got a million man on board. And now I've got one more, man. So it's tricky because my thought behind it is that. I could cycle it away and draw something that might give me some action, but I recognize, like you said, especially with Valica, that basic mountain turns into a lightning bolt. And so that's pretty good. So I'm not opposed to swapping that out. This deck has 38 lands. If we count the MDFCs, 21 of those are basic mountains. There's no covered because that's just what I have. That's matching and I'm weird. And I like my lands to match.

Shawn: 38:28

great because that act directly helps the next card that we're going to talk about at some point, but keep going

Taylor: 38:33

Yeah. And so I've got the other one in here too. I've got the forgotten cave in here and that one's a little bit better because only costs one red to cycle it away. So yeah, I don't know. I think I could cut those and just create a more streamlined deck. I've got the third one in here as well. I've got smoldering craters. I've got the three that can cycle. I think I could pretty easily cut those, add in some basic mountains and treat those in my mind as just extra lightning bolts to go with the Valley

Shawn: 39:00

or if you run like a cough of the hammer or something like that You can abuse mountains. You can search for them with the new cough. I think there's reasons that Like with mono colored decks in general like you can find ways to exploit the fact that your deck is kind of basic Basic lands basic. Otherwise, there's ways to make that kind of hum for you if you want to

Taylor: 39:19

To kind of continue the train of what doesn't work well. It was hard for me to think about cards that I thought didn't work so well. I'm already mentioned my qualm that I had with Palantir and I'm happy to see that go. I think that. I got to play the terror of the peaks that I replaced it with as soon as I did. And that always just feels good to get to see one of those new cards you swap in. And especially when it's a powerful one like that, what I realized in this game is I saw you before the show, I did a lot of crazy stuff early on. This deck, I don't have any of our like rule seven restrictions on. And so I'm playing some of those crazy fun cards that red really likes to play with, which are explosive and can do a lot of things and generate a ton of mana. And man, what I realized is it's very easy to become the arch enemy with this deck, just because. If you're able to cast perforates, you're probably also able to cast the other cards. And so I love the idea of sneaking out a bunch of things all at once, if you've got a full grip, but you can also just accrue value over time. And people kept forgetting that perforates gave everything haste. And so I could cast a really big bone hoard Dracosaur and then attack with it. And they were like, what, how is this flying first strike five, five coming at me right away. And it's like, well, My commander gave it a haste. Isn't that cool? And so, what I realized in playing this is you really have to think about that because I, I died to a board wipe essentially. It took me forever to rebuild. I mean, sure. The border wipe kept peripherals around, but I'd overextended and I was hoping to use the bone whore Draco sword to Excel some cards and get to play those because I had a ton of man at that point and I just wasn't able to. And so my biggest kind of caution for this is. If you overextend, it's going to be hard to get back into this game. Just because Reddit, like you said, so bad at drawing cards. And I unfortunately was thinking, Oh, let me just fill my graveyard with faithless looting. And so I drew a faithless looting and then played it right away. And so I just put the top two cards, my library into my graveyard, which was really awful because one of those cards was reforged the soul, which would have been great to refill my entire, hand. And that goes with the top. That's a miracle card. So just a

Shawn: 41:32

think it's because yo, absolutely. I I did see that later. And that tempered my my undying fury. It's not really for sensei's divining top a little bit. Think what you strike on a good point With red and a deck that is this explosive, it is also a little bit of a glass cannon. Like once it gets board wiped and somehow Perfrose isn't on the board anymore. Like you're in trouble like you're just kind of either not doing anything But by that point you may have also really hurt a lot of people a whole bunch so Shields down is not a good place for this deck to be In that vein it might be worth it to run a few counter spells that don't just bolt bend type effect but more tybalt's trickery or something like that just to like prevent that Untimely demise of all of your stuff Or maybe a scrap mastery to return every artifact from the graveyard to the battlefield could be something if you had enough artifact creatures to do it.

Taylor: 42:33

Yeah, I definitely have, I tried to find this balance between like really good, powerful magic cards that are red creatures and really good, powerful magic cards that are artifacts. Because one of the hidden gems I'm going to talk about isn't a hidden gym. It's just one of my favorite cards. And it can do something similar, but, uh, out of the graveyard, but yeah, no, it definitely struggles against that. I think the Tybalt's trickery is a good one to think about. I love Scrap Mastery. I played that in the Doretti build. It was always fun to just load up the graveyard with all these artifacts and then dump my graveyard onto the table and say, let's have fun friends. Yeah, it's so hard. I love the idea though of doing that because I love those big swingy plays. And I think that could work for

Shawn: 43:13

Yeah, they're absolutely a lot of fun. Did you want to jump into the hidden gems for the deck? Things that we think we could maybe add? Okay. I am really excited about one of them to share with you and I'm sure you've already seen it by now, but I love, well, What it does. I don't know. I think I think it's gonna be really fun addition. The first one I see snow covered mountains I immediately think it'll give the audience time to fill in the blank See if they get it to extra planar lens three man artifact imprint when extra planar lens comes into play You may remove target land you control from the game. That sounds horrific. Why would I do such a thing? Well, because whenever a land with the same name as the imprinted card is tapped for mana You Its controller adds one mana to his or her mana pool of any type that land produced effectively doubling all of your red mana by Using the snow covered mountains. You are basically preventing anyone else to have this effect because it could be universal doesn't say just any or doesn't say just your mana could produce double but it says any land that is imprinted on this will produce double most people don't run snow covered mountains even now with snow covered mountains being sort of like out in the wild and this card feels slow but i promise it is crazy good like i've never had problems with this Just sending me to the stratosphere as far as mana goes you would think maybe not it On its face when I look at it now i'm like it does look a little slow, but it doesn't play that way If you untap with this It doesn't matter anymore

Taylor: 44:47

Well, I think two people would play explosive vegetations, right? Or Kodama's reaches and things like that. And so in green with an explosive vegetation, it's four mana to go and get two lands tapped. Okay. So if you cast it on curve and you're doing that on turn four, that means on turn five, you're untapping with six mana. That's really good. But if you play this extra planar lens on curb and you do this on turn three, you're untapping with two lands, but those tap for four, you play your third, and now you tap for six on turn four. And so it really does launch itself ahead of those cards. Now, Kodama's reach, it gets a little more nuanced there because that's just a three cost sorcery to go and get a land and it puts them to your hand. Sure. Um, but. Yeah, I just, I don't have one. I think I should pick one up. I used to keep one, for this exact reason. I play the snow covered and I would do that fun little tech. But I also know that you have an extra planar lens and your mono red deck. And so if we ever turn the gender dome into, the mono red, uh, speed racer course, then, uh, I'll just use your extra planar lens. It'll be fine.

Shawn: 45:46

That's fair, but I think i'll be using it so Uh, I don't know we might have to fight that one over fight that one out calamity the flaming horse needs To the extra planar lens just needs it Craves it. Well, this next card is a card I've never seen before, but in looking over the deck, I was like, well, this looks really funny. Let me, let me read this and then reread this and make sure I was reading the right thing. Homura human ascendant. It's a legendary creature, human monk, four, four from Kamigawa block. Sounds terrible so far. It can't even block. So now it sounds worse But when Homura is put into a graveyard from play return it to play flipped This is an old mechanic where you have to turn upside down to read your dang card And we have to do that as podcasters now I'm just gonna try and read upside down and right to left to make this happen So when it flips it becomes Homura's essence it's a legendary enchantment. Creatures you control get plus two, plus two and have flying and have tap a red mana. This creature gets plus one plus zero until end of turn, otherwise known as fire breathing. Purphoros is going to sack it as soon as the turn it comes in. From every turn there on out all of your creatures are flying plus two plus two and have fire breathing that goes with that extra planar Lens extra mana to really just maybe even one shot somebody I don't know. What do you think about this thing?

Taylor: 47:13

I love this. I remember. Earlier this week, you sent me a text and you were so excited to, talk about this card. And I love it. I think it's great. I think that like you said, I can get this online. The same turn that I cast it. That's great. And the, the flying is huge. We've talked about this before. We'll keep talking about it. People don't play enough flyers. And so just having flying blockers is great. If that's. Your, you know, baseline, if that's where you're starting, having a bigger flyer out there, that's great. But yeah, getting to attack into somebody. That's really good. And then the fire breathing is great. Like I said, you're usually saving a lot of manna because you're sneaking in to play your creatures. And so if they're bigger already by this buff from the essence, and then you can also fire breathe them. Ooh, that's some dangerous territory. I love this card. I think, anytime we get to play old cards, I love it too. Just because people are like, wait, what the heck does that do? And I love the like actual physical design of this card because of where they have to tuck the set symbol. Cause there's like no good spot for it. And so I'm just waiting for somebody to say, that's not a real card. And I say, nah, actually this is from Kami Gawa, a notoriously

Shawn: 48:22

set. Yeah, so that set symbol is really funny I just noticed that it's literally like above the border on the very bottom, right? I Like you can't see it at all. It's so funny looking, but I'm glad you like this. I figured you really loved older cards. And this one is so bizarre. I've never seen it in play in a game of EDH in my entire life of all the decades or years that I've been playing. So it'll definitely bring some kind of like looks of confusion. And then I think looks of just like, Oh no, what just happened is my hope.

Taylor: 48:54

Right. There's a, you played a four, four for six mana that can't block. Oh, this guy is so bad at magic. And I'm going to go, oh, but wait, and I'll just push my glasses up and, you know, anime blink flashes will happen. And I'll just swing in for the wind. It's going to be great.

Shawn: 49:09

We'll go to this next card, which I know is one of your passions. So can't wait to talk about it. Do want to mention to the listeners, go check some of those flip cards and Kami Gawa. Like this is not the only one that when it flips has a really, really powerful effect. I can't remember necessarily the card I used to run, but it was mono white and it basically prevented all damage from happening ever.

Taylor: 49:33

And it flips immediately. It requires your life total to be 30 or higher. And so you just flip it immediately and

Shawn: 49:39

That deck was really funny

Taylor: 49:42

the mono blue one is banned. I

Shawn: 49:44

Is it really there's a mono black one, I think Nezumi grave robber or something. That one's also not bad. I

Taylor: 49:52

one is the one that counters the first spell. Each opponent casts each turn. And so again, the rules committee was like, Oh, that's too good.

Shawn: 50:00

fool you guys we got gen get axius number 17 out there now and it's countering every spell

Taylor: 50:08

yeah, uh, yeah, truly. So for my hidden gems, uh, these are some that are already in the deck and they're just my favorite cards because they do what this deck wants to do. And I love them. I, this, this monored passion project of mine really actually started with this first one. And it's Felden of the third path. It's a legendary creature, human artificer for one. Yeah. It has an activated ability. It says two and a red and tap it, put a token onto the battlefield. That's a copy of target creature card in your graveyard, except it's an artifact. In addition to its other types, it gains haste, sacrifice it at the beginning of the next in step. And so it does what perforce does, but from the graveyard. And so if I can have those two cards out perforates and felt on, I just feel unstoppable because I can cheat them into play with perforates and then attack with them that turn they die in the next turn. I bring them back with felt on and get to do it all over again. It feels great. I love this card and I included a particular art in our show notes because I've got one of the judge. Versions of this card. And it's a beautiful foil and it was only like 10 bucks. And I thought it was worth it just because I love this card as a commander. I think it was just a little too slow and it really telegraphed the plan of the deck. And so people knew just to be juke about me and get rid of my graveyard. And so in Perforos, where. He gives all of my creatures haste. If I draw this late in the game, I feel great playing that because I can activate his ability right away. And there are a few lines where I can just win the game. If my graveyard set up the right way. Unlikely, but it could happen. And that's where one of the next card comes in. I mentioned this earlier. It's Kiki, Jiki mirror breaker. It's everything I love about red. It has haste, and it does crazy stuff. So it's red, red, red, and two. So it's a five mana legendary creature, goblin shaman, which is one of my favorite creature typings. It's a two, two with haste and it has tap create a token. That's a copy of target non legendary creature. You control that token has haste. Sacrifice at the beginning of the next instep. And so, like I said, I want to worry about cards that have good ETB effects, and I also have good when they die effects and kiki jiki helps me to double up on that by creating a token that does both of those things, ETBs, and I have to sacrifice it. There's like a really convoluted combo, with Feldon and zealous conscripts. That's the one I mentioned just a minute ago. So if I have both kiki jiki And zealous conscripts in my graveyard, then I can just reanimate them both with felt on because conscripts comes back. Sales conscripts is a foreigner red, and it gains control of target creature and it untaps it. And so that's the one infinite combo in this deck. I've got a couple of versions of that. I've got Kiki cheeky. Sorry. I have two infinite combos. I lied. Um, just because I think it's important to have multiple ways to win. So Kiki, Jiki, zealous conscripts. I think a lot of people know that one, but it just makes infinite hasty attackers. And then the other one that I run is, dual caster, mage, and twin flame and cards like that. And so you can make copies, infinite hasty copies of your dual caster mage that doesn't always win the game. And when we talk about Carl a lot and how he plays Kind of some prison effects. And so I can't always pay to attack them. And so that's what this deck I think struggles with too. It can be a little too explosive, but it can't always close out the game outside of the combat step. But I wanted to mention those just because I love those cards. And I also put in, into the show notes, fable of the mirror breaker, which is just Kiki Jiki jr. And it has some really good effects that line up with what this deck wants to do. What do you think about those

Shawn: 53:36

I mean, they're all fun. They're all excellent. I do love Kiki Jiki. For anybody who used to watch the old Tick cartoon, it does look like the mad bomber who bombs things. He, he looks nuts on the card. Like, he is just about to blow something up. It looks like he's almost got some brass knuckles or something. He's come to party and, uh, the party doesn't stop until everybody's on the floor. Except for him and his one million copies. So, and Felden's a beautiful card. I mean, Just the story, the art, everything to it, and it's effect is amazing, and you're right, it does telegraph itself, so playing it in the 99 is probably the better call on that one. Mirror Breaker, well, it was banned in standard, and for good reason, and it's great in commander, and cube, and any other format, so always play it.

Taylor: 54:23

So I mentioned a couple of my own traps with this. So while we were going along, I've noticed it's been too explosive. I recognize that I can, become hell bent really quickly where I just don't have a hand and I can also become the arch enemy really quickly, but looking at this deck list, talking about it, what are some of the nondos and traps that you've noticed along the way that you want to make sure that I and our listeners know about,

Shawn: 54:42

We hit it on the head with, you know, If we come out of the gates hard, I hope that we're winning soon because if not and we get wiped and we're out of cards in hand, then, well, it's all over. So to that effect, I was thinking maybe having one more board wipe, even something wacky, like a contagion engine or something that you can pull out of the graveyard might be weird. I don't know. I was thinking about how do you deal with token decks? Portal to Phyrexia is a fantastic card, but. Killing three one one human soldier tokens is not really the benefit. You really want to get out of that

Taylor: 55:18

right?

Shawn: 55:19

um, so the last card I was thinking about in here that would be great would be gamble It's reds one of reds only tutors that I know of Yes, you have to discard a card at random, but it's card. I mean, this deck loves the graveyard, so I don't think it would be that scary of an effect, especially if what you fetched was an artifact. Because then you have plenty of ways to get it back regardless. So it's like, it doesn't matter anymore if you make me discard this thing. So other than that, I think it there is an amount of acceptance you have to have as the amount of red player two of like I'm going to attempt to make this game into a fiery pit of destruction. And if everybody's still alive after that, well, that's good beats. You know,

Taylor: 56:02

right.

Shawn: 56:03

just didn't get there. I'll work harder next time at blowing everybody's face up.

Taylor: 56:07

Yeah. You know. My final comment that I wanted to give for this, you know, I think gambles a great addition. It can help me find the blasphemous act that's in here. It can help me do a lot of other things. And it is a gamble because you do have to potentially discard, but I will say having a goblin welder on the battlefield and then some really good artifacts that you can target in your graveyard always feels great. And that happened in one of the first games I played with this. I just kind of held somebody hostage, because I had a duplicate in the graveyard and a goblin welder, and I could just. Exile their commander when it attacked me and he didn't believe me. And then I did it and I said, no, I told you I was going to,

Shawn: 56:45

Yeah, I mean, you gave them fair warning. Like, why in the world would I not bring the Duplicant out of the graveyard? It's an amazing card.

Taylor: 56:52

it's like my, it's my rock, paper, scissors strategy. Anytime I play rock, paper, scissors, I just look at the person in their eyeballs and I say, I'm going to throw a rock and it always throws them for a loop because you know what? I always throw a rock. So I don't know. I'm just a man of my word. That's

Shawn: 57:09

I Mean Nothing to hate about that. Like like you held up the deal. We always want players in EDH to uphold their end of the deal, right?

Taylor: 57:17

That's what I thought. I'd love this deck. It's been a fun retooling. I still have to ready in the list and I still get to play with some of those wacky shenanigans, but I've made them more wacky and less spiky. And I think that has led to more fun games because even if people are on the backside of the beat stick from this deck, they still get to say something like, Whoa, you did what? And that's a lot cooler than, Oh, you did this again. And that's what I'm hoping to do because I love this style of play and I wanted to maintain that. And so in retooling the dreaded deck, I didn't want to scrap everything. I love that deck. I love the play patterns. I loved how it builds up and this deck, I think preserves some of that, even if it doesn't. Played the same high level that the Reti deck did or could.

Shawn: 58:03

Well, I think you'll definitely get a lot of oohs and ahhs from Homura human ascendant The next time this

Taylor: 58:09

I will pick one up today.

Shawn: 58:10

I mean, it seems so much fun like anytime you can get make anything into a shiv and dragon basically You Let's, let's do it.

Taylor: 58:17

a hundred percent. Well listeners, if you enjoyed this discussion and this talk about my perverse list, be sure to follow us on X or Twitter at Rule zero podcast or emails at Rule Zero podcast@gmail.com. That's rule the number zero podcast@gmail.com and let us know if you want us to take a look at any of your decks. If you'd like for us to highlight one of your decks. We'd love to. Just reach out to us and don't forget.

Shawn: 58:39

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