S3E13: COMMANDERCAST.COM

Posted by ANDY aka GHoooSTS

Season three, you just started and already you're done. Where did the time go? Oh wait, it disappeared into over a hundred hours of recording, editing, writing, proofing and posting material for the site.

This postcast has about five minutes of me thanking people at the end of it for helping support the website, so I'm not going to mention them all again here. I do think it's worth reiterating that the site is only as successful as the audience makes it. For CommanderCast this goes way beyond the realm of just having people look at the site; it's the e-mails I get with constructive criticism, the funny Tweets my Twitter Team throws at me, the comments posted on the site; all been great. But some of our audience takes it to the next level by providing written material, joining the podcast for a show, and hooking me up with free graphics and other materials or resources. It's become a true community project and that's for the best, because if I was doing this alone, it'd be mad shitty.

Season 4 approaches, and with it we move closer to our new website CommanderCast.com. This is a hugely exciting development for us, and hopefully it will be for all of you as well. Bookmark that joint now and join me there on September 19th for the Season 4 Premiere.

That's all for three weeks, and the end of CommanderCast.blogspot.com. I hope you all make the transition to the new site with us and join us--as a consumer or contributor--again for another thirteen episodes of the continued audioscape adventure though MtG's premiere casual format.

LETS GET IT

>>>>> DOWNLOAD IN MP3 FORMAT HERE <<<<<

SHOW NOTES

00:00 to 06:22: Intro: It's a show and we are on it.

COMMUNITY

06:33 to 21:38: Free-For-All Roundtable: The Kokusho Case: This is Byron's jam. Kokusho, the Evening Star has been banned in Commander for around three years. For about a year, Byron has been calling for it's unbanning. Here, we're finally discussing the contentious issue of whether this card should be unbanned or not. What would it add to the environment? Has the recent unfettered escalation of creature's power left Kokusho in the dust?

21:50 to 50:44: The Best/worst Thing About Commander: In something we have oddly never discussed before, in this segment each host provides the reasons they like playing Commander and what they find problematic about the format. It's a simple premise that leads down some winding roads, with complex issues like the identity crisis of the format, the competitive/casual debate, and how the singleton restriction affects the format as a whole.

50:58 to 52:32: Community Spotlight: Three To The Face!!!: Instead of blurbing here, I've prepared a haiku: 

Calvin's blog, ballin'

Commander theme decks for days 

Check this hot fire out

I'm the GZA of the haiku game.


STRATEGY

52:45 to 1:10:48: False Idols: "Life Gain Is Bad": The presence of life gain in a deck is often considered a flag indicating 'new player', 'bad player' or 'funny theme deck'. But this logic is typically ported-over from limited and 60-card constructed formats. Is the value of Life Gain different in multiplayer Commander? We examine the worth of this often-overlooked mechanic.

TECHNOLOGY

1:11:00 to 1:22:42: Lifegain Tech: In a follow-up on the value of life gain, here we're supplying a few cards that we've found useful to us personally in our quests to not die. There's no particular system behind these choices; they're just cards that have served us well.

Carlos' Picks:

Martyr of Sands, Soul Warden

Andy's Picks:

Feudkiller's Verdict, Polluted Bonds

Byrons' Picks:

Arbiter of Knollridge, Collapsing Borders

Donovan's Picks:

Overrule, Shattered Angel

1:22:54 to 1:44:06: Curving Out: CMC 3: Arguably our simplest segment continues. Here we're examining one creature, one non-creature, and one miscellaneous card that you can use to occupy a 3 CMC cost slot in your deck. Each recommendation comes with an explanation of why we like the card, what it does, and why you should put it in your deck.

Donovan's Picks:

Hammer of Bogardan, Chandra's Phoenix, Drift of Phantasms

Andy's Picks:

Blood Moon, Preacher, Sudden Death

Carlos' Picks:

Primal Growth, Adamaro, First to Desire, Realms Uncharted

Byron's Pick's Picks:

Propaganda, Yavimaya Dryad, Recross the Paths

1:44:18 to closing: Outtro.

PERTINENT LINKS

• Andy's 'Douchebag' article
• Entourage Follow-Ups:
• Imshan's Chisei deck
• Cassidy's Celestial Kirin deck
• John's Celestial Kirin deck
• Donovan's Pauper Child of Alara deck
• Cast Through Time by Luke Sonnier
• You Lika The Juice? by Bennie Smith
• Dear Azami by Sean McKowen
• Cassidy's TCGPlayer.com articles

CONTACT INFORMATION

• General show contact/Andy: E-mail CommanderCast(at)gmail(dot)com / Twitter @CommanderCast
• To Contact Donovan: E-mail donokun(at)gmail(dot)com / Twitter @d0su
• To Contact Byron: E-Mail surgingchaos19(at)gmail(dot)com / Twitter @surgingchaos
• To Contact Carlos: E-Mail cag5383(at)gmail(dot)com Twitter @cag5383

Friday Flashback: August 19

Posted by ANDY aka GHoooSTS

CommanderCast.com approaches with the close of Season 3! Bookmark that bitch now because next season it's going down strictly over there. We'll be jumping ship from this old battered hulk onto our sleek, USABLE, not-so-ugly new site. What does this entail for you, as a reader/listener/viewer? Let me count the benefits you can expect to reap:

• The new site's design does not make eyes bleed like this one. You will save hundreds on optometrist bills and get to retain a lot of blood.
• Old content will be transferred in it's entirety (all of it), save the blurbs I preface updates with. It will be categorized and easier to find with our new indexing systems. If there is an old article you want to see, you will be able to locate it quickly and efficiently.
• We will have an improved comments section, which many people have asked for. You will be able to leave comments with multiple mediums. It's a lot better than this hunk of shit system we have now.
• There will be new banner graphics. Don't worry, the old one will remain. But we will have new banners as well. They will be awesome.
• New peeps will be bringing you new content. In addition to guest spots and community submissions, we will have three new writers on board bringing you delicious Commander material multiple times weekly.

It's either going to be awesome or a train wreck. I doubt the train wreck end of things, though. Like I said, make sure CommanderCast.com is on your radar because it's going to be fucking biblical.

AFFILIATE LINKS

• On Castles & Cooks, Jesse has posted an article regarding Financial Analysis and Speculation for the new FTV: Legends set. If you are one of the many people planning to retire on Magic cards then this is your jam.
• Three to the Face!!! is back in our grills with Captain Red Zone posting up a new R&G Stonebrow deck, first in a series of dual-colour lists.

CMDRDecks: Argus Kos

This week we're dual-wielding YouTube, as MistveilPlains releases another of his in-depth video primers; this time we're checking out a Big Red-style Urabrask deck.

MISTVIELPLAINS: Urabrask

This is the final non-podcast update that will appear on this website. There is no article this week, but rather a sort of credits roll for people who have helped produce CommanderCast whose involvement you may not have been aware of. None of these people have ever appeared on the actual podcast; it's possible you've never heard of them. But you should because they're awesome and they make this podcast work the way it does.

This is Randy, or at least, the image that represents him:

Randy is an editor. He ensures that articles on CommanderCast retain a certain level of quality that I can not promote. Before Randy showed up, our articles were edited by me. It's kind of like having your food QC checked by a dog. Then Randy showed up and used terms like 'split infinitive', which I previously would have assumed was associated with quantum mechanics, and made our articles snazzy. PROPER-type snazzy.

He has a website, which calls him some kind of 'freelancer'. Initially I assumed this meant he piloted a spacecraft and conducted intergalactic trade, but then realized how unlikely this was. I later figured out that it meant he can be hired. This meant he should probably be paid for the FREE work he does on CommanderCast. So I'm pretty super lucky in this regard. However, if you need somebody to edit your jams or do the other stuff he talks about on his website, you should contact this man: randyjdavenport(at)gmail(dot)com or you can scope him on Twitter, where he represents as (at)randyjdavenport.

To sum it up, Randy is fucking awesome. If this little blurb is full of typos, in an ironic twist, it's because he didn't get to proofread it.

This is Conor, FOR REALZ:

Conor hit me up for prooflistening sometime at the end of season 2, I think. I assumed he was just a super helpful guy who would listen to CommanderCast and email me saying "you left in a really specific death threat at 45 minutes" every now and then. Instead I get things giving me exact times on minor audio glitches, things I can do to improve the quality of the music overlays, AND the death threat stuff. I just thought maybe he was a shaolin monk or some shit (I guess this is still possible) and listened while meditating, so nothing escaped his audio equivalent of the fatal flying guillotine style.

Then one day I found this website.

Oh, so he's a sound guy. Like, professionally. Hm. Well, thanks to his volunteer work, we all benefit; he keeps me from releasing a shoddy podcast full of dead air, racial slurs, and "flush the crack" with the sound of cops banging down the door. He saves me a ton of time and embarrassment by ensuring I no longer have to prooflisten the show, which I hated doing (this is a responsibility him and Donovan both take, but you should all know him). With Conor on board, our show has been improved significantly in a way that unfortunately many people do not know, and he doesn't get enough props for. So that's why I'm writing this.

If you need a sound editor or just a handsome young man with a goatee, you can contact Conor via electronic mail: sound(at)conorpodonnell(dot)com. He also uses this "Twitter" device, where (at)conorpodonnell is his tag. Working on a project with an audio component? Contact this man. He will not disappoint.

We also have Chris Otwell of MTGCast. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to find a photo of him, but Google makes life ridiculously easy and creepy when you can just dial up photos of a guy with his name. Check this shit out:

CARD HALO

This man does pretty much all the work that makes MTGCast functional. I would assume a sizable portion of our listenership came from that website, so thanks are in order. He makes the machine work. There's not a whole lot else I can say about Chris since I don't know much about him. He's always been super helpful and incredibly quick to reply to any inquiry I've ever had for him, and he asks for literally nothing from me in return. It's amazing.

Even when some fucking mouthbreathers managed to get internet access and banged on a keyboard in a way that hacked MTGCast, Chris basically made the Fortitude save most of us never would have bothered with and kept the site together. Pretty much every Magic podcast you listen to owes Chris thanks, and I'd be hugely remiss to leave him out of this article. He's not part of my team but I guess you could say I'm part of his, and he rolls deep.

So, those are the behind-the-scenes grinders that make CommanderCast the functional enterprise it currently exists as. I just wanted to take a moment and thank these three classy gentlemen for their contributions to everything that has gone down since day one.