CommanderCast S3E7: Like A Hurricane

Posted by ANDY aka GHoooSTS

Monocoloured madness continues! The mono-green episode uppercut my computer and is now available to uppercut you in the ears, if you think this sounds good. Even if you don't like getting hit by regular uppercuts, this is the sweetest type, so download it anyway. It's not only mono-green we're spouting off about, though; we're also looking at scalable strategies and even sneaking in a set review of Mirrodin Besieged!

As we venture into the verdant abyss of mono-green's possibilities, we're joined by Cassidy Silver, who runs You Can't Handle the 'Nath and now can be found writing for TCGPlayer.com. As reinforcements, I bring my two mightiest mono-green warriors, Byron and Justin, to support my bumbling ass though this perilous journey of land ramp, bad removal and trampling mans.

Show notes and related links below. Enjoy.

>>>>> DOWNLOAD THE MP3 HERE! <<<<<

00:00 to 03:33: Intro: Introducing the podcast, your hosts, and a brief rundown of podcast news for the week.

COMMUNITY

03:41 to 15:31: Free-For-All Roundtable: Colour Identity Rules: Mark Rosewater wrote an article, a lot of people e-mailed me, and many others spoke on it at length. Now that we've burned through the prerecorded material, we can speak on this subject. It's about as close to discussing current events as CommanderCast gets.

15:39 to 34:27: Scalable Strategies: Cassidy proposed discussing the possibility of building and playing a deck that nicely scales to the power level, skill ceiling, and so on. Can it be done, and what would the value in this exercise be? What kind of strategies can scale, and why should you worry about it anyway?

STRATEGY

34:38 to 56:16: Mono-Green: We peer into the the savage, beast-mode-engaged world of mono-green decks. Why bother playing one? What makes them good enough to bother? Any outside-the-box strategies in green you might not have considered?

TECHNOLOGY

56:26 to 1:11:42: Mono-Green Technology: Following up the mono-green strategy, we're putting some solid mono-black cards in the scope for your pleasure.

Cassidy's Picks:

Riftsweeper, Willow Satyr

Andy's Picks:

Gaea's Touch, Garruk's Packleader

Justin's Picks:

Beacon of Creation, Dauntless Dourbark

Byron's Picks:

Lignify, Desert Twister

1:11:53 to 1:40:14: Hands-On Set Review: Mirrodin Besieged: Back with the latest of our fasionably-late set reviews! We're changing up the format a bit in a suggestion from a listener. Instead of the usual "good card/flop/hidden gem" format we've been following, this time we're giving a list of new staples and briefly discussing them before giving a card we each individually liked or disliked.

New Commander Staples/Honourable Mentions:
Sword of Feast and Famine, Green Sun's Zenith, Darksteel Plate, Treasure Mage, Consecrated Sphinx, Blightsteel Colossus, Preator's Counsel, Knowledge Pool

Personal Picks:

• Andy likes Sangromancer (suck it haters) and thinks Green Sun's Zenith is a big stinky poop.
• Cassidy is feeling Thrun, the Last Troll and gives Blightsteel Colossus a big old thumbs-down.
• Justin is 'yea' on Glissa the Traitor and 'nay' on Consecrated Sphinx.
• Byron is a total Into the Core fanboy, and can't stop hating on Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas.

1:40:27 to closing: Outtro.

PERTINENT LINKS

• Cassidy's TCGPlayer.com writings.
• Cassidy's Omnath deck, in it's most recent form.
• Mark Rosewater's Colour Identity Article.

CONTACT INFORMATION

• General show contact/Andy: E-mail CommanderCast(at)gmail(dot)com / Twitter @CommanderCast
• To Contact Byron: E-mail surgingchaos19(at)gmail(dot)com / Twitter @surgingchaos
• To Contact Justin: E-Mail jagteq(at)gmail(dot)com
• To Contact Cassidy: E-Mail csilver85(at)gmail(dot)com / Twitter @writerofwrong

CommanderCast S3E3: The Man in the Mimeoplasm

Posted by ANDY aka GHoooSTS

This week's CommanderCast has Andy and his right-hand man Carlos joined by newcomer Justin, CommanderCast's first DCI Judge guest-commentator and all-around baller. Justin was present for our first call-in show (the second is coming!) and also recently began writing for CommanderCast with his most recent article. I wouldn't be surprised to see Justin join the ranks of CommanderCast regulars as he fits into the show's crew quite well.

This week we're talking about the upcoming Commander product, 1-drops, barriers to entry for the format, and some other odds and ends. Be advised we recorded this on Wednesday last week, and literally saw Kaalia five minutes before recording the segment about new cards. After I finished having a 'joy seizure' and composed myself, we were all quite excited to discuss the ups and downs of the new set. We don't normally talk about unreleased product on CommanderCast, but how many times are we likely to see a product released specficially for the niche subgenre of the game we podcast about? It seemed like the best time to break the rule.

Join us next week where we'll be giving the raw, gritty, hands-on reviews from our initial days of playing with the new product! You can also get in on the action by e-mailing us your experiences with the precons and ideas for taking the new cards in bold and money-making new directions.

As a few quick reminders before you start listening to the show:

• Season 3 Contest. This one has been awesome, but time is running out! Get your entries in NOW!
• The Deckbuilding Challenge, in the upper-left corner, has moved on to Phase 2. Have your say!
• Check out the mid-week update on Thursday. It may be the last (for realz), before mutating into something new and... awesome?

Show notes and links below. Enjoy!

>>>>> DOWNLOAD IN MP3 FORMAT! <<<<<

00:00 to 05:05: Intro: Introducing the podcast, your hosts, and a brief rundown of podcast news for the week.

COMMUNITY

05:15 to 06:08: Deckbuilding Challenge: White-Border Only: PHASE TWO ENGAGE. In the second voting segment of the Deckbuilding Challenge, we're picking a colour! Our Commander will be from Portal: Three Kingdoms, one of Magic's most exotic sets ever that just so happens to be white-bordered.

06:20 to 20:18: Free-For-All Roundtable: Commander Tower: One of the spoiled cards for the Commander product, the Commander Tower is a fascinating and somewhat controversial card. Delve into the discussion with this roundtable!


20:25 to 35:38: Barriers to Entry: Commander is probably Magic's fastest-growing format. Can I support that statement with evidence? Of course not. But will there be barriers to entry for these new Commander players, and are new ones cropping up? How can we deal with these as a community to strengthen the horde of 100-card deck slingers?

STRATEGY

35:48 to 58:18: Archetype Rundown: Ramp: A focused discussion on the ramp archetypes, broken down into both Artifact-based and Land-based. Why play these, and how do you fight them? Similar to our past segments on these subjects, but unique as we examine the two subsects of Ramp-style decks in parallel.

TECHNOLOGY

58:31 to 1:09:28: Curving Out: 1-Drops: In a new series, we're looking at points on the mana curve and suggesting some cards for them individually. Dialing things back from our discussions on Ramp strategies, we take things back to the foundations of MtG with the simple, yet oft-overlooked one-drop. In Commander, a card with a CMC of one needs to be truly awesome to hold up to a format where colossal-cost bombs are thrown throughout games. We each pick a creature and non-creature CMC one spell to put on a pedestal.

Andy's Picks:
Mystic Remora and Entrails Feaster
Justin's Picks:
Voyager Staff and Spikeshot Elder
Carlos' Picks:
Exploration and Weathered Wayfarer


1:09:40 to 1:11:14: Preview Card Hype Session: We take a look nat the upcoming Commander sets, examining the cards that excite us, take a brief detour into Hater Country to rag on what doesn't work for us, and then swing back into pure, unfettered glee to talk about the Commanders we can't wait to put our filthy hands on.

Carlos' Picks:
Non-Legendary Card of Choice: Acorn Catapult
Biggest Disappointment:  Ruhan of the Fumori
Favourite Commander: The Mimeoplasm

Justin's Picks:
Non-Legendary Card of Choice: Hydra Omnivore
Biggest Disappointment: Karador, Ghost Chieftan
Favourite Commander: Kaalia of the Vast

Andy's Picks:
Non-Legendary Card of Choice: Mana-Charged Dragon
Biggest Disappointment: Basandra, Battle Seraph
Favourite Commander: Kaalia of the Vast

1:41:47 to closing: Outtro.

PERTINENT LINKS

• Season 3 Contest (in case you somehow missed the other links or something)
• Justin's Article from the mid-week update.
• The Command Tower, and here's the complete visual spoiler for new cards.
• Brian's blog, the Command Zone.
• Carlos' Valakut deck article.

CONTACT INFORMATION

• General show contact/E-Mail Andy: CommanderCast(at)gmail(dot)com
• To E-Mail Carlos: cag5383(at)gmail(dot)com
• To E-Mail Justin: jagteq(at)gmail(dot)com
• To Tweet Andy: (at)CommanderCast on Twitter

CommanderCast Episode 05: Fight Against Fate!

Posted by ANDY aka GHoooSTS

This week's CommanderCast was released despite the resistance of DESTINY ITSELF. Byron? Dead. Or busy with family. Something like that. Our planned guest host, Carlos (one of our very first listeners)? Technical problems struck him down while I listened. Things were looking pretty grim. I was ready to throw in the towel when like a total 80s action hero, my man Adam aka Fugu rappelled INTO MY INTERNET and saved you all from an incredibly boring hour of me droning on by myself. Wicked awesome!

Then my computer corrupted the entire podcast we recorded. Everything was going against this podcast existing at all. However, Adam continued to be a superhero and swept in to save me, recording a second podcast less than 24 hours after the first time. He is the only reason this is being released and for that I am super grateful.

Keep in mind our Generals Remixed contest is still going on; you have until the sixth episode to get your submissions in. Let's see what you can do. We've received some very cool entries. Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to design a card for us.

Show notes and links below. Enjoy.

>>>>> Download the show in MP3 here! <<<<<

SHOW NOTES

00:00 to 00:00: Intro. Introductions of your hosts; Andy mentions the mid-week update and Generals Remixed contest. E-mail shoutouts and Andy gives ups to the University of Toronto MtG group for inviting him to play with them.


00:00 to 00:00: Community: Hypercreatures Theory. Adam presents his theory on Hypercreatures and their impact on EDH. For examples of Hypercreatures, see Emrakul, Kokusho, Sundering Titan, and Iona. We cover the definition, effect on games, the ban list, and social regulation. This spawned from Adam's recent thread on Hypercreatures at the 'official' EDH forums.


00:00 to 00:00: Strategy: Colour Responsibilities. When you take your slices of the colour pie for a deck, you get the right to tap into it's powers... but does that come with responsibilities? We look at the concept of 'expectations' attached to the different colours and their roles, what happens when you break ranks, and the overall influence of playing by colour in a multiplayer EDH context.


00:00: to 00:00: Technology: Retro Cycle Review: Prophecy Avatars. In a new feature, we will be examining an 'old' (flexibly defined) cycle of cards from a past set and give them another look. The cycle is then ranked in terms of usefulness in EDH from best to worst be each commentator. This week, we are looking at the Prophecy Avatars of Fury, Hope, Might, Will, and Woe.


00:00 to closing: Outro. Let us know your thoughts. New content on the way! Get in touch with us with the contact information below.

PERTINENT LINKS

• Sandreline's card modifications.
• Generals Remixed contest.
• Hypercreatures thread.

CONTACT INFORMATION

•  General show contact: CommanderCast(at)gmail(dot)com
• To E-Mail Andy: CommanderCast(at)gmail(dot)com 
• To E-Mail Adam: adnelso(at)gmail(dot)com