What's up, Wizards? It's time for Rule Zero, the show that helps you prepare for the best game of Commander. I'm Sean. It is our hope that through our combined 20 plus years experience of playing EDH and cultivating a great playgroup, tons of great decks, and also trying a lot of outside the box variants and homebrew rules that we can pass that golden knowledge on to you. First up, some housekeeping. For regular listeners to the show, you have probably noticed a bumpy transition period. That's We've remained consistent with the YouTube side of things, but we've not updated our podcast side for three episodes now. That's something we plan on correcting soon. Taylor, whom I started the show with, had to make a decision to step back from the show due in part two, and I don't think he would mind me sharing a feeling of burnout with Commander as a format. In the decade that I've known him, he's always been a bard class type of cat. Jack of all trades, master of none. Though I don't mean that in any sort of Diminishing way, whereas I am on the other hand, very much sort of a hyper focused wizard fighter, someone who enjoys playing 15 years of the same format and is still brewing, still enjoying myself with that. He is very much the person who I met many, many years ago and brought a space card game for us to play in the middle of another game. And then consistently, I think over time has like been the pusher for like, let's try this variant. Let's try this cube. I have Dan Dan now. Like there's almost always a bag of tricks up Taylor's sleeve. So he's had a huge impact on the show. He's literally the explosion that started the fire. Within one night podcast, Taylor had already created spreadsheets, signed up to five different apps and services, and we had everything we needed to begin. He even edited all of the shows and tracked viewership numbers, whereas my role was more of brewing decks, creating rough scripts we would tune later. I'm an idea man. I'm kind of big picture things. Anyway, we're still amicable, good friends. He participated in our recent Chaos Draft Part Deux. Part Deux? How do you pronounce that? I'm not French. But listeners may remember a discussion he and I had about how a playgroup should be open. To have people come and go as they please not everyone has to be there on game day And there's no bad blood because of that So if he wants to take a step back in and do some co hosting again when things settle for him We will make that space happen Because we've had listeners talk about how they enjoyed the two of us in our dynamic, and I really appreciate that, and I think he does, too. Until that point, though, where he wants to step back in or try things out, I've taken on double duty to restructure, seek out new co hosts who I think everyone will enjoy, who can bring some new fire and new energy. And I'm now writing scripts and editing shows and posting them, and yeah, it's been a little bit bumpy. Not going to lie, that is not my forte and I felt kind of like, oh, now I have to learn a whole bunch of stuff really fast. And, uh, I'm getting there. Currently, we are working on getting the last three episodes up on the podcast. It is literally happening right now. As I'm recording this episode, Taylor is working on getting those podcast episodes up using some of his light and magic to make that happen. And for the future, uh, our next episode we'll have Sharla, the owner of Gamers Haunt, the LGS in Asheville, North Carolina, on with me to discuss the often talked about, but there've been some hiccups in getting it fully recorded podcast on mental health, more specifically tilt. How do we fight that? How do we combat that? Um, We started to record, we had about an hour of recording time in, and what wound up happening was we realized one, we had so much more to say, uh, than was allowed in just a limited format. So we're going to kind of fine tune, hone down and talk specifically about a couple different things rather than having this sort of broad shotgun approach. Um, so that we can maybe make two or three episodes out of the information. And I think there was some really fascinating and Interesting things that kind of blew my mind in the middle of that discussion that we're like, Oh, we need to maybe look at this thing a little more in depth that we hadn't even thought about before our minds came together and just kind of spit ball. I would say. This is pretty exciting. I didn't think I was going to be excited for the Bloomboro set and we're finally getting there. Thank you so much for listening to the five minute preamble. Um, but I'm going to share with you 10 cards that I think are really going to do a number in EDH because we've gotten a lot of spoilers so far and I am aware the set is not out. Typically, I like to have some play time with these cards, but we're going to go into the palace. Om Bloomboro, land of squirrels and rats and other fuzzy creatures. Number 1, Dawn's Truce. An instant for one and a white. Gift a card. This is a new mechanic. You may promise an opponent a gift as you cast this spell. If you do, they draw a card before. It's other effects. This is a card that can work in competitive 1v1, but it really doesn't number in commander. So any of the gift of card cards have some potential, I think, but this one is a rare and what it does is you and permanence you control gain hex proof until end of turn. If the gift was promised permanence, you control also gain indestructible. until end of turn. A heroic intervention in white for only two mana, whereas usually things like unbreakable formation require three. I am here for this. This is a lovely card. It's going to see a lot of play. I'm glad it's rare and not mythic, so maybe there will be more of them floating around, but I would suggest you pick up a couple copies of this one whenever it hits stands. Next up, number two, artist talent. This is a enchantment class. I love classes. If you know me, I love D and D cards. So I loved all of those classes. Some did better than others, but they brought it back for Bloomboro and they brought some really funny ones back. I like some of the classes. So we're going to use this one. I think this one in particular can be pretty strong. One in a red, whenever you cast a non creature spell, you may discard a card if you do draw a card that's level one. Then, because it's an enchantment so it's on the board, you can pay two and a red to go to level two. Non creature spells you cast cost one less to cast. So already you're getting kind of a rummage effect, and your spells cost less at that level. Level three, for two and a red. If a source you control would deal non combat damage to an opponent or a permanent in opponent controls, it deals that much damage plus two instead. This is everything that a little spell slingy burn deck might want. Um, it has an otter painting a painting, so it's adorable. Number three, Sunspine Lynx. For two and two red, a five four. Big beater. Players can't gain life. Great. Damage can't be prevented. Great. When Sun Spine links enters, it deals damage to each player equal to the number of non-basic lands that player controls. I think they've been coming up with some cutesy names for this, but it's basically like ruination cat, or not ruination, but uh, da, da da. Price of progress. Um, pause of Progress, p Price of Progress. I don't know what you wanna call it, but this cat is dynamite. Number four. Mockingbird for X and a blue creature bird bard. It is a 1 1 flyer. You may have Mockingbird enter as a copy of any creature on the battlefield with mana value less than or equal to the mana spent to cast it, except it is a bird in addition to other types and has flying. A clone effect that has a tribal synergy that does matter. Birds do matter in EDH. There's some pretty good birds out there and also, You can just give it flying, which is nice. There aren't a lot of clones out there that I can think of. And granted, there may be one, but that have flying, there may be none. I don't know, but this is excellent. Um, yes, it's going to be expensive to try and clone like the bigger creatures on the board. So that is, it's one downside, but for anything that's like four or five under, I think you're more than happy to play one extra mana to make it a bird and make it fly. Seems good to me. Number five. Lumrah, Bellow of the Woods, a star star creature for four and two green, elemental bear, legendary creature. Vigilance, Reach, Lumrah, Bellow of the Woods, power and toughness are equal to the number of lands you control. When Lumrah enters, mill four cards, then return all lands from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped. The third line of text is the thing that really stood out to me. Because if you're playing in one of these decks that mills a ton of lands, you've been using That world shaper merfolk. We'll put it on the screen for the youtube video Um, I can't remember its full name at this moment But it's three and one green and if it dies, it's a three three then you get all your lands back This does that on enter the battlefield where enters now so I think that is very important. I do not know if there are any cards that get back all your lands from the graveyard on a creature body on enters. And I think that's going to be super important because sometimes people do not have to attack into or take damage from, um, or block. I mean that world shaper, uh, creature. And so you have to do all these, Or a couple extra steps to get all those lands back now you don't and I think that's a big deal In fact, this is a big creature So looking forward to maybe running this and like a Golgar east meal style shell number six Another legendary creature that I am super excited about because I think it's gonna be super powerful And it may be so powerful that I get a little hesitant to play it Because the temptation will be so great to use things like sensei's divining top that I don't know if it's the right deck for me. None other than legendary creature weasel mercenary the infamous cruel claw for one a black and a red. We get a 3 3 with Menace. Whenever the infamous Cruel Claw deals combat damage to a player, exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a non land card. You may cast that card by discarding a card rather than paying its mana cost. So immediately my brain goes to things like portal to Phyrexia or Emrakul and, and giant, scary, horrific spells that you can sort of vampiric tutor to the top of your deck or, you know, sensei's divining top to the top of your deck, that sort of thing. Because of that, I do worry that this card is going to be a little too powerful to run in a casual pod. It's going to be hard as a deck builder. And I think we should all like introspect a little bit and pay attention to the little voice inside that says, I am definitely going to put an Eldrazi in this deck. And because of that, we really need to be in tune and in check and make sure our group knows that that is a possibility. Cause, uh, You can get one of those creatures out. I'm talking as early as maybe turned three with some fast mana, that kind of thing. And at that stage in the game, it is so hard to deal with one of those creatures. So really pay attention and you are casting it. So like if you want it to cast like an Ulamog that exiles two permanents, you would get that cast trigger. Um, yeah, it's, it's pretty intense, but it's so powerful. I felt like I had to mention it number six or number seven, rather. Season of Loss. Now there are five different Seasons cards, and they all follow the same template. I don't have them all listed here, but you're more than welcome to look them up. Um, I usually use a website called MythicSpoiler. com, and it shows things lickety split, um, as soon as they are spoiled anywhere, and you can see them all there. But I wanted to pick one because I think they're all good. I wanted to pick just one as an example. So we're going to do the black one just to get some variety in here. We've had, you know, white, red, blue, green, and one kind of black split card, but we'll just have a black card on its own. So it is a three and two black sorcery. You choose up to five pause worth of modes. Now, Paul is a little sort of symbol. It's almost like energy or something, but it's not like an additional resource. You don't save pause. This is just a way for the card to be formatted so that you can make it more modal, more choosable. And what this means is you get five pause. And you get to spend them as you like. There are three abilities on the card. The first is one paw. Each player sacks a creature. Two paws draw a card for each creature you controlled that died this turn. Or three paws, each opponent loses X life. Where X is the number of creature cards in your graveyard. So for five mana sorcery, what you could do is you could spend five single paws to make everyone sacrifice five creatures. Not too shabby. Or you could do that three times and then pay an additional two paws to draw a card for each creature you controlled that died this turn. So that would be everybody sacks three creatures, you draw three cards, if you have three creatures on your board. Or you can have each opponent lose X life for three, where X is the number of creature cards in your graveyard, say that you're some kind of deck that really cares about that, like a Golgari mill strategy or something, and then get a little incremental value on top of that. So it's a lot of different options. I really enjoy these type of cards. I think that they fit the moment that you need them to, but this can do a lot of different stuff and sacrifice is more and more powerful these days as things like indestructible and a hexproof and all kinds of other problems have started to arise. Number eight, mist breath elder, one green for a two, frog warrior. At the beginning of your upkeep, return another creature you control to its owner's hand. If you do, put a plus one plus one counter on Misbreath Elder. Otherwise, you may return Misbreath Elder to its owner's hand. One, it's a 2 2 for one mana. Incredible. Two, it is a frog and it has a trident and it has a bunch of spirit frogs that are sort of like hopping all around it. It's very confusing, but it's cute. Uh, if you like frogs. Um, three, this is a card that is going to be excellent in a blank deck. And if you've seen the other frogs in this set, they are really pushing that idea of blank hard. So we're going to be bouncing creatures all over the place as frogs are flavorfully meant to do. So it's a flavor one too. I'm excited to see what we can do with this card. I'm excited to see all the frogs in the set as they're revealed. This one is a rare again. So if it sees plan constructed and it may, the price may be a little bit up there, but I don't know. It's hard to imagine a one to two frog, one minute to two frog being too crazy. We'll see number nine. Dire Sight. Two and a black for a sorcery. This is a common. Surveil two, then draw two cards. You lose two life. It is a strictly better black card draw spell. Previously we had Scry two, draw two cards, lose two life. And I'll post that card on the video because I can't remember the name of it for the life of me right now. I'm thinking Signing Blood in my head, but that is the wrong card. So, so instead of Scry two, We have surveil too and surveil we've found it's just a much better mechanic. There are so many decks that care about what's in the graveyard. And this way you're kind of getting a card into another pile that you can access. Whereas if you scry a card to the bottom, it is really hard to get access to that card later. But if it's in the graveyard, there are a lot of things you can do with that. You can recur it, you can reanimate. So, Surveil is just strictly better, I think, in every way for EDH, maybe for every format. So I'm really looking forward to how this common shakes things up a little bit. Number 10, the final card. Let's leave the color pie completely and talk about a land that's been getting a lot of hype. Three Tree City, a legendary land. As Three Tree City enters, choose a creature type. Tap add colorless or pay to tap choose a color, add an amount of mana of that color equal to the number of creatures you control of the chosen type. So obviously people have compared this to Gaia's Cradle for typal decks. However, It's not as good because if you have any creatures that aren't of that type Then you won't get an additional mana for them However, I think it's still plenty good enough very strong Even if you have you have to have at least three to make this even so that's a pretty steep cutoff But if you have four or five and if you make a lot of tokens, for instance I think this card is going to be excellent in those decks in particular Um something like renin seri that makes a bunch of dogs or cats Something like that will be fiending for this card. Anyways, that's been 10 Bloomboro cards that I think are going to have a serious impact in EDH. This set is filled to the brim, um, with all sorts of not only like really cute and flavorful gems, it's a nice return to a more fantasy setting than cowboys or detectives or whatever. Um, Even though I've enjoyed some parts of those sets as well. And so I've hope you've enjoyed this episode of Rule Zero. Again, I'm Sean. Thank you for listening. Next week we will be tackling mental health and magic. This is the third time I've noticed that I've kind of previewed this episode, kept thinking we'll get it done this week. Well, life happens and as I said, we're in a deep transition period here. So things are a little rocky, but it's fine. On the docket. And like I said, we recorded for about an hour previously only to realize that like, Oh, there's some other things we want to do before we release that episode to make it just right. So that's going to be recording on Tuesday and you can expect it next week. Thank you so much for watching. Have a great day, everybody. And remember in magic, there is no problem that a rule zero conversation cannot solve.