AggroCast — Gather Up For Some Magic [Episode Twenty-One]

TRANSCRIPTION

Raymond Bruels: Hi. This is the Aggro Cast. This is Ray.

David Hades Becker: And this is David.

RB: And today, we are talking about Magic: The Gathering.

DHB: It’s a long time coming, but here we go.

RB: I stopped playing in 1996-

DHB: (laughs)

RB: …because Magic was just too expensive for the Type 2 tournament format that I was playing in. And being a college student at the time, I recognized, I did like to eat and do other things other than buying packs of cards. But here I am, 30 years later, and I have fallen back into Magic: The Gathering. Part of this is because I went to MagiCon here in Las Vegas, and they had released the Final Fantasy set. And I got sucked in, and my partner, Juliet, was a huge Final Fantasy fan. And I was like, “Okay. Maybe I can dig out some of the old stuff that I had,” uh, after I had sold off a bunch of stuff back in the day, and maybe toss some stuff together. I heard that there was a couple of new formats, and I was like, “Cool, we’ll check it out.” So tonight, I’m going to try to convince David to get back into Magic: The Gathering.

DHB: Well, again, I like money and I like to, to be able to eat. My dogs like to go and do stuff, so it’s gonna be, be rough, ’cause it’s been quite a while since I’ve played. I wanna say back when Fourth Edition came out. I think that’s the last time I actively played. I had a few people buy me packs here and there, so we can do…I think right around the ta- time, um, they were introducing planeswalkers.

RB: Mm-hmm.

DHB: And that’s kinda been the last time I’ve ever played.

RB: So, I…That was around the Fourth Edition. And like I had started with Arabian Nights, which was right after Beta. And I played up to about Fourth Edition, got through Revise, g- played in the Fourth Edition. And then like you, I had bought some packs and some decks over the years, just to kinda see what was going on. And when I would open things up and see some of the mechanics, I was like, “What the fuck is horsemanship?” And stuff like that.

DHB: Yeah.

RB: So, when I, I went down the deep dive, I learned about a format they have these days called Pauper. And I was like, “Oh, Pauper. So you’re building your 60-card decks out of just common cards. Cool.” I figured, “Okay. I can build some common card decks out of the stuff that I’ve got, and then, you know, kinda play and see what’s going on.” And as I was going and, and learning more about Pauper and Magic in general, and then looking at what I had, I was like, “Holy shit. It’s really difficult to build a common deck, especially one that would be competitive.” Because Pauper, like Standard or any of the other formats, is still a competitive format. So, what happened was, I then learned that they had created this thing called Commander, and Commander itself was not created by Wizards of the Coast. Commander was originally called Elder Dragon Highlord, and you’ll often hear people talk about EDH-

DHB: Mm-hmm.

RB: …or C-EDH, which, which is Competitive Elder Dragon Highlord. And here’s the benefit, and this is why would c- I would try to convince you to play casual kitchen table Commander, because you build a 60-card deck. So, back in the day when we used to play, you know, when we got, when we were not worrying about playing in tournaments-

DHB: Yeah.

RB: …we would, we would often build like these 200-card stacks and we’d play until the wee hours of the morning. And it’s very similar to that vibe, but you’re building a 100-card deck, and it’s singleton, which means every card, you’re only got one, unless it’s something specific. Like, there’s a card called the Seven Dwarves where you can literally have seven copies of the card in your deck. But for the most part, everything is just one copy of a card.

DHB: Okay.

RB: Which definitely saves you on money, ’cause back in the day it’s like, “Oh, well, I need four copies of this badass card to get my deck to work.” In this regard, so you have 100, uh, 100 cards. One card is your commander, which can either be an engine for whatever m- strange and interesting mechanic or deck design you’re, you’re doing, or it can just be a color piece. For instance, there’s a well-known goblin commander called Krenko. Krenko, one of the versions of him, ’cause I think there’s a couple out there, is he grows exponentially building out goblin tokens.

DHB: Okay.

RB: And I built one of these just out of a lot of the random goblin shit that I had sitting in my box, and I picked up a copy of Krenko. Played it with Juliet a couple of times, and she hates that deck.

DHB: (laughs)

RB: Because he just grows out of control. But there’s also one…So when, when Commander started getting super popular, Wizards of the Coast was like, of course, they’re looking to find ways to monetize.

DHB: Yeah.

RB: Hasbro loves money-

DHB: Yeah.

RB: …just like we do.

DHB: Yeah. I love money.

RB: “I like money.” And, uh, “Go away, I’m beatin’-”

DHB: “I’m beatin’” (laughs)

RB: And, (laughs) and so they started building out and selling these pre-built decks based off of whatever the newest set is.

DHB: Okay.

RB: That…And, and a lot of these sets introduce new commanders.

DHB: Is that similar to like what they’re trying to do with the Spider-Man set that we checked out at Comic-Con, or-

RB: Yeah. So-

DHB: Okay.

RB: …when you’re…So, the, the, the welcome decks that we picked up at Comic-Con for Spider-Man, those were just to kinda teach people how to play. So, we picked up these. They were 60 cards, but they were split into two 30-card packs so people could sit down and play through and learn how to play Magic. But within that, you could see some of the cards said legendary, and legendary characters can be commanders. They also, because of the new- one of the newer sets that came out, Into the, Into Eternities-…which is a space-themed, uh, in-universe Magic: The Gathering set. They have spaceships. So they d- they came out and said, “You know what? If you’ve got a legendary ship, it can be your commander.” And some of these ships actually have some super cool mechanics. But the thing about ships, just like in Aether Drift, Aether Drift was kind of a racing set, a fantasy, steampunky kind of set where you had vehicles.

DHB: So you say Aether Drift and all I can think is Tokyo Drift and then I’m like, “Family.”

RB: Family!

DHB: I’m waiting for Vin Diesel to show up.

RB: Oh.

DHB: Is there a Vin Diesel card?

RB: No.

DHB: Okay.

RB: But there totally should be.

DHB: (laughs)

RB: There’s probably something out there for a commander to make a, a family deck. Oh, now I’ve-

DHB: (laughs)

RB: …got to look. But (laughs), but yeah, so you could, you could have these vehicles or you could have these spaceships or space stations and they could be your commander. Here’s the other thing about Pre-conS and all of the Magic. We’re talking about like 30 years that we have m- kind of missed. They started bringing in, and this is, this goes back to that Spider-Man set, they, they brought in these other universe, other IP sets.

DHB: Mm-hmm.

RB: So they’ve had Lord of the Rings, they’ve had Doctor Who, they’ve had Warhammer 40K, they’ve had Fallout, uh, Spider-Man, they’re about to release Last Avatar, which we were in line and looking at trying to get that card at Comic-Con.

DHB: Yeah, at Comic-Con, yeah.

RB: And, well, of course the line was insane because everybody wanted the, and of course-

DHB: The one exclusive, yeah.

RB: Yeah. And then of course, like I said, Final Fantasy came out and so everybody’s like, “Oh, I got my Cloud deck! Yay!” And not being a Final Fantasy enthusiast, there was really only one card I wanted out of the Final Fantasy, which was Vivi.

DHB: Mm-hmm.

RB: And then lo and behold, Vivi is one of the character cards from the set that has become super popular and powerful, to the point that they, there’s a lot of people that are wanting Vivi to be, uh, banned because of how powerful-

DHB: Oh, geez.

RB: …Vivi is. Yeah, so they’ve brought in all these other IPs to bring in people that, uh, that may not know Magic but know these IPs to get involved and invested in the game. And, you know, they create the, the, the named characters for the, uh, these IPs become legendary characters and you can build, you know, your commander decks around them. And, and some of these Pre-conS are also built around these. Like I picked up one for Fallout because I have this adorable Shepski pup. They had a Dogmeat deck.

DHB: That makes sense, yeah.

RB: And I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is so damn cute.” And the whole thing behind Dogmeat is Dogmeat brings you random junk and that’s what happens in the deck, is Dogmeat will bring you junk cards, which are essentially a special artifact that can be tapped that do an effect. And a lot of the game in the last 30 years has become tokens and so there was a Rav- Ravnica or…There was a, there was one set that was built around mystery and so they had a clue token and they had a bunch of detectives. Uh, they can do investigation and so they create clue tokens. They had some that created food tokens. So one of the decks that I built was, uh, uh, essentially it’s a Magic: The Gathering version of Gretel, only she’s called Greta.

DHB: Okay.

RB: And she’s a black/green commander and so that whole deck I built around food stuff because you can sacrifice food tokens to do different things. And I also created a-another food one for Juliette. Whatever the newest space set, they had a lobster, Ragost, and it’s a lobster chef that’s Boros-

DHB: Zoi- It’s Zoidberg.

RB: Yeah, it’s Zoidberg. And it’s, uh, Boros, Boros being red and white. So in Strixhaven they have all of these guilds that were, are based off of the colors of Magic that have special names. So that’s the other thing, there’s a, you’ll learn all of these different names for, for things like Dimir. Dimir is black and blue and you’ll hear people talk-

DHB: Mm-hmm.

RB: …about these things and unless you’ve got a fucking sheet to translate these things-

DHB: (laughs)

RB: …you, at first you’re like, “What the hell are they talking about?” And you start to learn as you go what this is in reference to. But it’s such a fun thing that you can sit down, look at your old cards. There was the, the Legend set back in the day.

DHB: I remember this, yeah.

RB: And that’s where this came from is, so evidently from what I’ve heard about the history of, of Elder Dragon Highlord, which is also referred to as Commander, when people were going to Magic conventions and they were having to wait for their next matches to start, they needed something to do. And so one, a couple of the Magic judges and a couple of people that worked for Wizards came up with this format of Elder Dragon Highlord and in the Legends set they had elder dragons as legends.

DHB: Yeah.

RB: And so they came up with this, this thing based off of these dragons and there were other legends in the, like, uh, Dakkon Blackblade.

DHB: Oh. Yeah, I remember, yeah, I remember all the legends ones because I, I remember collecting those ones because I, the, the one that always pops in my head is Nic- Nicol Bolas.

RB: Yep, and Nicol Bolas, a lot of people love Nicol Bolas and actually when you, if you ever play the Magic Arena online-

DHB: Mm-hmm.

RB: …Nicol Bolas shows up and they actually have, like when you’re going through the tutorial, he actually, they have a talking, uh, you have to defeat him. “I am Nicol Bolas.” And yeah, so it’s fun, it’s a fun throwback to shit that we remembered when it first came out-

DHB: Yeah.

RB: …that now, you know, there’s, there’s a whole generation of people that have been born and have grown up not knowing what those things, or they’ve only heard about those things. They weren’t there when those things were being released at the time.

DHB: Yeah, and they, and they have very little access to get that now because most of those cards are probably going to be way out of most people’s price ranges.

RB: And that’s the other thing that I thought was really interesting as I was digging through this stuff is, not only the cards that I had……the cards I used to have and how much the prices have spiked on various things. And even, like, damaged versions of some of these cards can be worth a ton of money.

DHB: Oh, I know that all too well because I was going through, uh, scanning in all my cards, putting it into the app so I can track, track their price range and all that stuff, and then just have a digital thing if, if I ever did want to sell them. And I want to say I have, like, two cards that I think together would net me almost two grand, just for these two cards.

RB: Yep.

DHB: ’Cause of how old they are and th- they’re in mint condition.

RB: Well, and they talk about the Power of Nine.

DHB: Yeah.

RB: Whichever, like the Moxes and the Black Lotus, and then even the Dual Lands.

DHB: Yeah. Uh, I, that, that Dual Lands are the ones that I’m talking about because I have, like, multiples of all of them ’cause when I was younger I just liked the way they looked. And I’d prefer to have, like, was it the Volcanic, uh, Mountain or whatever, ’cause, like, I played with a lot of black and red.

RB: Yep.

DHB: So I had a bunch of those just so I can keep tapping it and have a ton of black and reds. And I had them in sleeves, all that stuff, and then just went into storage for the longest time, and now I think one of ’em, one of them in mint condition is worth like $600 or $700.

RB: Yeah. Well, and back when I played in tournaments, there was one deck that I played that was white, green, and red. And I had Dual Lands for all of those combinations to be able to play out my deck effectively.

DHB: Mm-hmm.

RB: And, yeah, the, the prices are just crazy. And, and over the last 30 years, there have been cards that have been released that have shot up in value and have not been reprinted, and so then you get into the argument which…I joined some social media groups on, on Facebook.

DHB: Well, well, there’s your problem right there.

RB: Yeah.

DHB: You joined social media.

RB: I know.

DHB: (laughs)

RB: But I wanted to see what people were talking about in this space, and there’s one group that it seems like every day somebody posts about proxies.

DHB: Okay.

RB: So back, back when we played, proxies were like somebody would write a name of, uh, uh, the name of a card on a land or something. They would use that card either because they had it and it was worth some money or they didn’t have it and they just wanted to play test a deck to see the effectiveness of it, because we didn’t have all of the online tools that we do today.

DHB: Yeah, exactly.

RB: We know shit. We had Scrye Magazine and Duelist. That’s how we got our information about cards and about, you know, d- deck design and, and building. Now, because everybody’s got laser printers and, and that sort of thing at home, and Magic has expanded out their print range of cards, so there are foils, there are special foils, there are all of these different formats. You can do this stuff at home where you can print. And the difference between proxies and counterfeits is proxies you were specifically playing with something that is a test card or a replacer because you don’t want to play with a $600 card in your deck.

DHB: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

RB: And they’re, they get into so many arguments online about, “Well, I will never play with somebody that uses proxies.” And it, and it comes down to are you playing because of your wallet or are you playing because you want to face people’s skill level? You know, and then, of course, you’ve got people that are like, “Well, get good.” Like, you know, play with cards that don’t cost that much, you know. You don’t need those cards in your deck. But if you’re trying to be competitive with competitive Commander, you, you almost need some of these cards.

DHB: Well that and, and, uh, some of the, some of the cards that are out there, it’s not even they, they do anything, like, anything overly important. The artwork is on it. Th- they, that’s usually what drives up some of those prices.

RB: Yep.

DHB: And I can get that it’s like if it’s a basic card, it’s like, yeah, it doesn’t do much, but I want to put a proxy in because the artwork is worth more money. Like that makes more sense to be like, “Yeah, I don’t want to damage my fucking card.”

RB: And, like, meme, being the nerd that I am, everything I do these days is meme-related.

DHB: Mm-hmm.

RB: And I found somebody on, on Instagram that sells proxies high-end quality artwork that they themselves are doing. And there was one set, they were lands, but it was all horror icons.

DHB: Ooh, nice.

RB: And so, like, they…I didn’t quite agree with some of their choices, but like the island was Pinhead.

DHB: Mm-hmm.

RB: And I…Of course, being-

DHB: Yeah.

RB: …a huge H- you know, Hellraiser fan, I loved that. And so I was like, “Holy shit.” And this person sells them. I think it’s like $10 a pop. You have to tell them exactly what you’re looking to, to order because they have to be careful selling these proxies because they trip into the idea-

DHB: Yeah, the weird IP.

RB: …of counterfeits and IPs, and-

DHB: Counterfeits and IP infringements, yeah.

RB: Yeah. And if…And some of them, if it’s not artwork they themselves have developed, then there’s the legality of, well, they’re printing somebody else’s artwork. But some of these proxy artists, they are literally artists that are taking Magic cards and they are just doing new art on them. Or some of the, the, the groups that I’ve joined, there are people literally hand painting cards.

DHB: I’ve s- I’ve seen that. I’ve seen some of that for like the, the Pokemon stuff.

RB: Yeah. And, well, and, and even in some ways you could say that Magic wi- with Wizards of the Coast, they’re doing proxies because there’s this thing called Secret Lair. And Secret Lair is a specialty set and they’ve, they’ve released a bunch of them where they’re like, “Okay, here’s five cards that are themed Monty Python’s The Quest for the Holy Grail.” So they’re basically making what would essentially be proxies because they’re not brand new cards, they’re just cards with new art. Some of them could be new cards, but for the most part, they’re just re-skinning old cards-

DHB: Yeah.

RB: …with new artwork.

DHB: Yeah.

RB: Like-

DHB: Because they like money.

RB: Yeah. They like money, and, you know, they, they want to take our money. They want to take all our money, which is why some of the prices recently for sets, a lot of content creators have been going nuts over the cost of…’Cause they, they not…They have not only the normal play sets, they also have collector editions. And the collector editions for Final Fantasy, there was one box, it was $1200.

DHB: Jesus Christ.

RB: And I’m like, “Why?” And it’s just because driving the hype train, you’ve got like every other thing, you have people that are scalping, and so they’re buying all this stuff up. They’re driving up the price. Like, even the Spider-Man stuff that we, we picked up, the welcome decks?

DHB: Yeah.

RB: That opened the door to people not only trying to sell those welcome decks for a fair bit of money, which these welcome decks are gonna show up in gaming stores, and last I heard they were gonna be free. Like, they were gonna hold events so people could go get a free deck and learn how to play. They were doing speculation based off of the, the Spider-Man set, and I was looking, there was a Doc Ock card, it’s a, it’s a black/blue, Dimir.

DHB: Yeah.

RB: And I’m like, “I love Doc Ock. He’s one of my favorite characters.” And they also have a Superior Spider-Man, which is where Doc Ock takes over Spidey’s body. That card, they were already projecting the value at $40.

DHB: Yeah, well I, because I remember when I was scanning mine in, the Miles Morales one, who’s just like a legendary that I guess would be your commander?

RB: Yeah.

DHB: I want to say it was like $70 to $80 just for that one card. And I’m like, “This was a free giveaway that they had for-”

RB: Yeah.

DHB: “…that they’re giving away.” It’s like, why is that so expensive?

RB: And one of the other cards that they have recently shown, they’re essentially introducing the Infinity Stones.

DHB: Yeah.

RB: And, and for people, ’cause th- the one that they showed is tied to Swamps, so black ma- black mana. People are like, “Oh, this is gonna have to be an instant in every deck.” But the cost of that card is gonna be just outrageous, because everybody’s gonna want it.

DHB: Yeah.

RB: And you’ve got scalpers. You’ve got their, the MSRP that Wizards of the Coast is putting on these things, and there’s, they have flooded the zone. So when we went out to Comic-Con, we got invited to the press party for the Spider-Man Magic: The Gathering.

DHB: Mm-hmm.

RB: The same weekend, since Julia didn’t go with us to Comic-Con, she went and she played in some releases for Into Eternity. While they were releasing that set and trying to drive hype, they overrode all the hype because people that went to the press party and who got in for the normal people that were, were going to the convention, they were then posting up pictures of all the cards from the welcome decks.

DHB: Yeah.

RB: That just completely overshadowed Into, Into Eternities. And so they’ve done the exact same thing, so everybody’s like trying to get excited and pumped for Spider-Man, and they’re like, “Oh, but by the way, we have Last Arc.”

DHB: Last A- and here’s the Last Airbender.

RB: And here’s the Cabbage Man, and here’s all these cards, and it’s like all you’re doing is undermining the, the excitement of the, of the set by pushing out the next set. And originally, like when we used to play, there was maybe three sets a year.

DHB: Uh, if-

RB: You know?

DHB: If that.

RB: If that.

DHB: And it was like you’d have like one major set and then maybe a couple of expansions-

RB: Yeah.

DHB: …at most.

RB: Yeah, ’cause you had your primary set, like third edition, fourth edition.

DHB: Yeah.

RB: And then you had your expansion sets, which is why, like, when I played type two tournaments, it was whatever the primary set was and the last two expansions. Now, they have pushed out six different sets a year, and some of that’s in, in-universe, some of it’s outside. IP stuff. And it’s a l- how people keep up with it financially is a mystery to me.

DHB: Well, they don’t do drugs. That’s the big thing.

RB: (laughs) Well, and that’s the thing is if you ever want to keep your kids off drugs, just get them into either war gaming or Magic: The Gathering.

DHB: Yeah, done. They won’t have money to spend on drugs.

RB: And so that’s why a lot of the content creators that I watch talk about just buying singles. Don’t buy packs. Because we all know that packs is just another version of gambling.

DHB: Oh, yeah. It’s, it’s a loot box.

RB: Yeah. And so, you know, you’re, you’re gonna pick these things up, and it’s gonna be a crapshoot as to what you get out of these things. Going back to why you should play Magic.

DHB: Okay.

RB: So-

DHB: ’Cause you, ’cause you’ve been u- under- uh, unselling me on all of it.

RB: Well-

DHB: With the, with the, with the cost, cost thing, ’cause I like my money.

RB: I-

DHB: I like, I like spending my money on certain things.

RB: I like to, I like to, to put it all out there, and then bring it all back.

DHB: Okay.

RB: So yes. There is a lot of some negativity that happens, not only within the community, but also in how things, since we, we are mindful of these things, how these things are being ran by Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast. But when it comes to Magic: The Gathering, it’s the last part. The gathering.

DHB: Okay.

RB: So if you’re looking to get out there and meet new people, to make new friends, to just be able to, to kind of channel some of those old play times back in the day where you’re, you know, telling dick and fart jokes and killing, you know, somebody’s massive creature on the board, that’s the fun that you can find playing Commander, especially when you keep it casual. You can build your deck. You can go and play. And they’ve even created a rating system, so one to five, four and five being more competitive strength decks.

DHB: Okay.

RB: One being like, this is a mean deck. I just put, you know, every stupid 1/1 creature I could find into a deck. It, it’s not gonna, uh, I’m not expecting to win.

DHB: Yeah. You’re gonna, you’re gonna play with a bunch of fairies this time.

RB: Yeah. And like even, uh, allegedly, the pre-con for Final Fantasy, there’s a Cloud deck that, oh, it’s, it’s what they call a Voltron deck, because you take your Commander of Cloud, or there’s a couple of other, you know, like Tifa’s in there.

DHB: Mm-hmm.

RB: But you load them up with equipment, and it’s like building Voltron. You just build out this massive character that then everybody has to, like, try to take on, because it’s just huge. And this Cloud Voltron deck, I have played against somebody with one a couple of times. It’s insane, but it’s only supposedly ranked three on the scale.

DHB: Okay. Interesting.

RB: Which, which to me tells me, “Just get good.” And so I have tried to. I have bought some pre-con decks, mostly for intellectual purposes, like-…actually seeing how they’re stacked out, ’cause a lot of these pre-cons are kind of optimized for the set that they come out.

DHB: Yeah.

RB: And they do, they do actually, do, uh, do, do-

DHB: (laughs)

RB: …they do some reprints of older cards to flesh out these decks, so sometimes these pre-cons, they have new cards, older cards, but they- there’s a synergy generally around the deck. I really like seeing that, which is why I pick up the pre-cons, and I have some, you know, I’ve, I’ve picked up probably a good six to eight pre-cons, because they’ve got them in different colors, they’ve got different shticks. And that’s the thing I really enjoy is the deck construction, ’cause that was always something when I, when I used to play, building out different deck ideas, or looking at the last 30 years of content. Some of these sets that have come out have come out with really interesting mechanics that you can then build decks around. Like I built a big stompy deck. It’s in mono green, and it’s dinosaurs and giant creatures with trample. But one of the mechanics that I found from one of the sets, it’s basically when a creature comes out and you can go, “You and me fight!” And you can basically pit your creature against somebody else’s creature, and it’s not during the combat phase. And they even came out with a card, it’s a green artifact that’s a boxing ring.

DHB: (laughs)

RB: And, and so basically you’re like, “You and me fight!” And if you win, you get a treasure token. So you’re b- you’re, you’re winning a prize fight. And so I built this big stompy green deck around this concept, and I actually got to play it with Juliette, her, against her lobster deck last night. And, but the first game, I, my deck was really on point. And there were instances like she would put out her, her lobster, which is a very powerful commander because it can, you can sack artifacts to do three points of damage to commanders.

DHB: Mm-hmm.

RB: And with the way the commander works, you start with 40 life. But if, if a commander does damage to a player, it only takes 21 points to, to knock them out. And so her commander can sack artifacts once every end step to do three points of damage to a player. So it can be really dangerous.

DHB: Yeah.

RB: And she was starting to flood the board with artifacts. And so there was one point where I’m like, “All right, I’m putting this creature out. You and me fight!” And I killed her commander. (laughs)

DHB: (laughs)

RB: And what happens when you kill somebody’s commander, it goes back to the command zone.

DHB: Mm-hmm.

RB: And then it adds two mana to the cost to put them back out. And that, that’s cumulative. So every time you kill them, it’s, it’s two, four, six, et cetera. But my stompy, dumb deck that was just me taking a bunch of random things that I had actually worked fairly well, and this mechanic is kind of fun. It’s, it’s a Kaiju fight battle.

DHB: (laughs)

RB: Um…

DHB: Potentially Kaiju fight.

RB: Potentially, ’cause the second round, it was only because of my commander that I was even being able to, to stay competitive. But I made some misplays in, in what I was doing, and Juliette actually won. So her-

DHB: Mm-hmm.

RB: …her lobster deck got the better of me, as she was feeling more comfortable with the mechanics of her commander. But that’s the fun, is you get to learn how your deck works. You can see what needs to be tweaked or, you know, what can, what can, what can be altered with other cards that come out in new sets. And after 30 years of, of content, there are cards that I, I still see cards I’ve never seen before. Which to, to me is again something interesting, ’cause like my, one of my greatest loves is zombies.

DHB: Yeah.

RB: I love all the damn zombies. And back in the day, zombie swamp walk decks, oh, that was-

DHB: I love those ones.

RB: …my jam. And there’s like 300 zombies.

DHB: Holy crap.

RB: And all of these zombies, you know, some of them have some really interesting, they call them ETBs, they’re, they’re the triggers when they enter the battle-

DHB: Mm-hmm.

RB: …the battlefield. And some of these have awesome effects. But you might pick up a zombie and you’re like, “Man, this is super cool.” And then you find another zombie from another set that’s not all that dissimilar to the first one, but has a different effect or might be cost, more cost effective. And so you start switching things out. And you can t- re-tinker your decks and things. So there’s a lot of, depending upon what you enjoy of Magic and deck construction games, you could find in Magic. The only, the only thing I’d then, you know, trying to keep it real, ’cause here at Aggro Gamer we talk about integrity and we talk about trying to keep it real and not blowing smoke up people’s asses.

DHB: It’s true.

RB: You’ve, you’ve always got to, to be mindful of who you play with. You’re gonna f- you’re always gonna find people out there that are, that might be jerks with what they’re doing, or who might not be, you know, friendly. So you just have to, you have to build the play group that you, that you enjoy playing with.

DHB: Yeah. You got to go out and find, find your little social group and all that stuff and see if people are going to be okay playing with proxies or not playing with proxies, if you’re going to be playing against somebody’s wallet or somebody’s actual skill or a combination of the two.

RB: Yeah. And, and there are so many game stores, especially like here in the Vegas area, we have so many game stores that support Magic and they support commander nights, both competitive and casual, that you can drop in. And as long as you’ve got a deck and you have a general idea of what the deck strength is, you can find people to play with. And that’s how you get to meet new people and you, you build that community. And they even, some, some of these game stores run events where you can go in, uh, even to play casual, and you can win some packs. And it just kind of fuels the addiction.

DHB: I like how you use the word “addiction.” Thank you.

RB: It, well-

DHB: (laughs)

RB: …keeping it real, ’cause it, you know, I, yes, I will occasionally open packs. But for the most part, I only, since getting back into the hobby, I only buy singles. And I only buy singles that are generally k- kind of trash. Like Juliette looked the other day, she, David 3D printed this thing where you can put your phone in and you can scan your cards through Mana Box.…and she, she picked up some cards I picked u- I had picked up recently for a deck I was building, and she’s like, “Oh, this card’s three cents and this card’s 15 cents.” And, and it’s like, yeah, I’m only buying cards that are kind of dirt cheap, but that’s the thing is I can pick up these cards and because of how they interact with the rest of the deck, they are effective. That’s the fun for me, is keeping it cheap, keeping it flexible, and also fun.

DHB: So, and, and that’s the bigger thing is making sure it’s fun.

RB: And at the end of the day, if you’re doing something and it’s not fun, then why are you doing it?

DHB: Exactly.

RB: And so yeah. I, I definitely recommend you c- reconsider Magic. And like I said, I have bought like eight different pre-con decks.

DHB: Okay.

RB: And I’ve built like four or five Commander decks on my own, based off of different ideas that I found or things that I thought were interesting. So I’ve got a bunch that you can use to just kinda see what- how the style of gameplay that you were accustomed to back in the day has translated to today’s format. I loved black and I loved blue.

DHB: Mm-hmm.

RB: And a lot of the black/blue Commander decks, and especially the pre-cons, it’s all around milling and reanimation. So you’re milling cards out of your deck, putting them into your graveyard, and then bringing them back, and, and basically treating your graveyard like a second deck.

DHB: Yeah, like your actual deck. Yeah.

RB: And while we had some of that back in the day with third and fourth edition, you had some, some animation cards, you never had that level of self-milling. Milling back in, in my day was more of a blue artifact thing. Like, I, I was that guy, I’m gonna, I’m gonna out myself. I had the Island Sta- Stasis Sanctuary Millstone deck.

DHB: Yeah.

RB: Which would basically lock somebody down and then all they could do is sit there and watch you mill them on your turn until they got bored and they, they did what is nowadays called scooping, where they just picked up their cards and they, they quit playing.

DHB: Yeah.

RB: And it was not a matter of me being a dick at that time. It was a matter of me seeing if I could make it work, which is also another thing that has translated into Commander. There are some folks that build their Commander deck, it’s like, “Okay, I got this one shtick, and if I can get this one shtick to go off,” and then they’re happy.

DHB: Yeah. “I’m happy, I’ll probably win, but I’ve, I built everything for this one instance. Let’s get there.”

RB: But you know what’s funny about Commander as opposed to the competitive play that we used to do in the day?

DHB: Mm-hmm.

RB: Competitive play back in the day was one on one. Now with Commander, generally it’s three or four people at a table. A pod.

DHB: Okay.

RB: Which means you might have a shtick for your deck, but then all of a sudden you’re playing against somebody and, or you’re playing against three people. So you put down your creature, I don’t think your creature’s a problem, I leave you alone. But somebody across the table from us suddenly decides that they’re gonna aggro on you and they start attacking your, your Commander. And then it becomes a matter of also table diplomacy. So you’re like, “Hey, David, I’ll give you this thing, th- you know, I’ve got the, I’ve got this card that can give you, you know, a card draw if you don’t attack me this turn.” And so suddenly you start like negotia- negotiating around the table, or like, “Hey, uh, Juliette’s at the table and she’s got her lobster out there-”

DHB: Yeah.

RB: “…with a bunch of artifacts. I have a card that can destroy her al- all artifacts if you take on her Commander.” And so you start, like, you can do some team ups, but mostly it’s just also just threat assessment. And they also have some Commanders that are pretty much, “Hey, let’s be cool.” And it’s, and it’s like the Fonzie of Commanders.

DHB: (laughs)

RB: Like, “Hey, I’ll give you this thing and I’ll give you this thing if you leave me alone.”

DHB: Yeah.

RB: And-

DHB: “And now, and now I’m immune for the next turn.”

RB: Yeah. Because I’m the, I’m clearly not the threat. And so like you get some really interesting table dynamics that can occur as people start negotiating, and it’s just another added d- dimension to Commander that I think is entertaining.

DHB: Okay. I could see that. I, I will say though, it, it, it might take a little bit more convincing-

RB: Sure.

DHB: …or a specific deck coming, like if they put out a Gwar deck, I’d be like, “I’m in. Let’s do this.”

RB: You know what? I bet you I can find s- proxy cards of, of-

DHB: Of, of-

RB: …the, the Gwar band.

DHB: Oh, okay. Yeah.

RB: Wouldn’t that be great, an odorous Commander?

DHB: Oh, p- that, that’s exactly what I was thinking.

RB: (laughs)

DHB: An odorous Commander and a Gwar Gwar, uh, ti- a Tyrannosaurus rex that was trample, I’m like, “I’m down with that. Let’s do that.”

RB: Well, and, and there are a shit ton of dinosaurs because they did a Jurassic Park set.

DHB: Yeah.

RB: So, uh, like I, a friend of mine was a huge fan of Jurassic Park. I found them a copy of Ian Malcolm.

DHB: (laughs)

RB: And, and so of course there’s Jeff Goldblum and all his glory.

DHB: In his glorious, you know, unbuttoned shirts and everything.

RB: But I bet you, I’ll take a look a- I, I’m gonna take a look around and see if I can find somebody who has done a Gwar.

DHB: Okay.

RB: Uh…(laughs)

DHB: ’Cause I, ’cause the reason I mention that is because the other one would have been Evil Dead, but I know they put out official Evil Dead cards where Ash was one of the Commanders.

RB: Yep.

DHB: And-

RB: Well, and they even did some, uh, Ghostbusters.

DHB: Yeah.

RB: ’Cause you can get a Slimer.

DHB: (laughs)

RB: But yeah, so that’s the fun, that’s an- that’s another element that I think is hilarious. I picked up a pre-con that’s called Eternal Punishment, and it’s a red/black deck that basically just punishes everybody at the table, and I was like, “I totally wanna rebrand this a Hellraiser deck.”

DHB: Oh, that’d be pretty, yeah.

RB: And, and I even found essentially what would be a puzzle box. It’s not very powerful as a card, but thematically-

DHB: Yeah.

RB: …I’m like, “Okay, I have my puzzle box.”

DHB: “Here’s my, here’s my lament, uh, configuration.”

RB: Yeah.

DHB: “Let’s do this.”

RB: And, and there are some cards that I have found that I just find super entertaining, like there’s one, it’s a black Cleric, Jaren the Corrupted. And Jaren, if you hit his requirement-…flips over, and it’s a demon. It’s the demon that-

DHB: Oh, n-

RB: …corrupted him.

DHB: Nice, okay.

RB: There’s also a land card that’s an abbey, that I think it, I think it taps for white. But if you hit the, if you hit the trigger, it turns over and it’s a demon. And I’m like, “Oh my God, these are so cool!”

DHB: (laughs)

RB: It’s…(laughs) And you also get some of the characters from the games, like, in Final Fantasy, uh, Ardyn?

DHB: Mm-hmm.

RB: The…I don’t remember which version it was. It’s the Final Fantasy where you’re driving around in a car, and you’re basically taking selfies and cooking meals.

DHB: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The Final Fantasy XV?

RB: But, f- in, in that game, the villain is a guy who is essentially like an advisor, ’cause he himself was turned, turned down for the kingship.

DHB: Yeah.

RB: He, they have a commander card for him-

DHB: (laughs)

RB: …and it’s all around demons.

DHB: Nice.

RB: I’m like, “This is awesome!” And he’s an all black commander. And so you can do your mono colors, or you can, you can spread out.

DHB: Yeah.

RB: They even have some commanders that are all five.

DHB: That are, uh, the full rainbow?

RB: And you have to build them so you have your mana coverage to be able to put out your, your commander or any of the, the…’Cause they do have spells that are all, all colors or multiple colors, and being able to have the mana draw to do these things. So there’s a lot of fun stuff. But going back to your point, I’m gonna see if I can find a Gewir commander.

DHB: All right. Yeah, I’d be…I’d, I’d give that one a shot. Especially if it’s a proxy, and that means I gotta pay even less.

RB: Yeah. (laughs)

DHB: And of course, I…Uh, I…The only issue I’d run into is finding a group that’s gonna be okay with proxies. Is, of cards that don’t exist.

RB: Well, but the fun, the fun thing is, if…’Cause a lot of the proxies are just re-skinned Magic cards.

DHB: Yeah.

RB: So if I find an Oderus, but it’s actually just another card, depending upon the, the cost of the other card, some of these commanders are dirt cheap. They’re under a dollar.

DHB: Okay.

RB: I could…If I can find you an Oderus, and then you can be like, “Here’s my, here’s my commander. It’s Oderus.” And they’re like, “Well, who’s, who’s that?” “It’s a proxy of this card, motherfucker!”

DHB: “This, this one right here, motherfucker.”

RB: And you, and you pull it out, you know, then they have no complaint ’cause you actually own the original card.

DHB: Yeah.

RB: You’re just playing because of the thematics of the, the deck. So that’s my pitch-

DHB: Okay.

RB: …for Magic: The Gathering. And that’s also been our podcast for, you know, the Aggro Cast, talking about Magic: The Gathering. And we could talk about so much when it comes to Magic: The Gathering because again, 30 years.

DHB: Uh, exactly, yeah. 30, 30-plus years or so. And, uh, obviously my, my experiences with the older stuff, ’cause again, stop, stopped playing around fourth edition, and yours is all the newer stuff. So it’s kind of that, we could’ve had that a l- much longer in the talking about the history of it-

RB: Yeah.

DHB: …as well.

RB: Yep. And maybe we’ll come back and revisit this. If it’s something that you want, you, our, our listeners are interested in, we’ll come back and we’ll talk about these things and give you more s- perspective, especially if I can pull David into it. We can see what David’s thoughts are getting back into Magic, ’cause you’ve kind of already heard me kind of gush about things. But-

DHB: Yeah. You, you’ve already been sucked back in. You’ve already posted your article about how you got sucked back in and all the other stuff. So we, we know you’ve, you, you’ve, you’ve already r- tied off and you’re taking it, Magic right to the veins right now.

RB: But, but now, now we have a, a, a potential.

DHB: You’re trying to get me to relapse. I see how this i- is. (laughs)

RB: Yep, yep. Hey, you know what? We’ve gotta have some hobbies or habits. (laughs)

DHB: (laughs)

RB: ’Cause we don’t do any of the bad, the really bad habits, so you know, things like card games-

DHB: Yeah.

RB: …and, and video games are where, where it’s at for us.

DHB: Exactly, yeah. It’s a different, different dopamine hit.

RB: So if you’ve enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and put a like, subscribe, give us a comment. If there’s something you disagree with my assessment of things, let me know. I have no problem with, with hearing some of that feedback. Or if you think that there’s something regarding Magic: The Gathering that we should touch on or explore, let us know and we’ll do an, uh, a follow-up. Well, this has been Ray.

DHB: This has been David.

RB: And this has been Magic: The Gathering.

Thank you for listening to the AggroCast Resurrected, the official podcast of AggroGamer. For more gaming news and reviews, please check us out at aggrogamer.com. If you enjoyed today’s content, follow and subscribe to get notifications of our next episodes.