transcript

Speaker 1:
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Speaker 2:
[00:43] Hello, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of The Command Zone podcast. I'm your host, Rachel Weeks, and today joining me is a very special guest. It's Manson Leung. Hi. Thanks for coming, Manson.

Speaker 3:
[00:53] Yeah, of course.

Speaker 2:
[00:54] Tell them what you do around here real quick.

Speaker 3:
[00:56] Yeah, so I'm one of the Game Knights editors here at The Command Zone. And so, yeah, I have a heavy hand in that.

Speaker 2:
[01:03] Yeah, if you watch any extra turns, Manson's been on there a few times. So make sure you've checked those out as well. You've done a few pre-con upgrades as well.

Speaker 3:
[01:10] Just a few.

Speaker 2:
[01:11] Today, we're doing just that. We're upgrading a pre-con. We're talking specifically about the Quandrix Unlimited pre-con from Secrets of Strixhaven. This is an X spells pre-con. It's green, it's blue, it has a lot of math.

Speaker 3:
[01:27] The best thing you can ask for in magic.

Speaker 2:
[01:28] Absolutely. That's what we wanted in our magic was mathematics. Today, we're going to be talking about all the things that come in this box that you can get if you buy it off the shelf. We're going to talk about some of the new cards, the face commander, the backup commander, and we're going to give you 10 cards to add to it to get it in peak fighting shape and the top 10 cards that we would cut because they're doing something else. All right, let's get right into it with the star of the show. It's the face commander, Zemone.

Speaker 3:
[01:59] Zemone.

Speaker 2:
[02:00] Can I read this one?

Speaker 3:
[02:01] Yeah, of course. Zemone, Infinite Analyst. So it's for one green and a blue legendary creature, human wizard, zero four. The first spell you cast with X in its mana cost each turn costs one less to cast for each plus one plus one counter on Zemone. And whenever you cast your first spell with X in its mana cost each turn, put two plus one plus one counters on Zemone. It's its own little engine here.

Speaker 2:
[02:29] Absolutely. So we're trying to cast X spells with our commander in play and that'll reduce the X spell that you cast, assuming it's not the first, and the next X spell that you cast.

Speaker 3:
[02:39] And then the next one.

Speaker 2:
[02:41] Uh-huh. You can see this is a bit of a spiraling threat here. Zemone's really sweet. It only limits you to the cost reduction once per turn, which makes sense. But again, she becomes more and more powerful the longer she stays on the battlefield. So the big thing that I think I noticed with Zemone is the once per turn limitation gets a lot less of a limitation if you can cast spells at instant speed. Yeah. So you're trying to include cards that you can cast like instance or creatures with flash that you can cast on your opponent's turn to get multiple instances of that cost reduction per turn rotation. And of course, she gets even huge, bigger and more powerful, the more expells that you can cast.

Speaker 3:
[03:26] Yeah. So by the time it gets back to your turn, your big sorcery now is going to be huge.

Speaker 2:
[03:32] Yeah, costs six less to cast, assuming that you've hit three of the four turns. Really, really powerful card can do some cool splashy stuff. It also has a backup commander, which usually lives in a similar space. This one is no different. This is Primo, the Unbounded. It is X green, green and a blue for a legendary creature, Fractal Wolf. It is a zero, zero with Trample. But when it enters, it enters with twice X plus one plus one counters on it. So if you spend four mana, this is a 2-2. If you spend five mana, this is a 4-4. And it snowballs from there. But then it says, whenever one or more creatures you control with base power zero deal combat damage to a player, create a zero, zero green and blue fractal creature token. Put the number of plus one plus one counters on it equal to the damage dealt. So the bigger that Primo is, the bigger the fractals are when you hit with them. It also works with zero, zero hydras and all sorts of other fractals, that kind of thing. You can make up to three fractals a turn with this, as long as you can hit three players.

Speaker 3:
[04:35] Right. So this one is more so creature based than Zimone.

Speaker 2:
[04:38] Definitely. I would consider this one even more like plus one plus one counter based. This is more, definitely more hydra based or more fractal based than Zimone, which wants to be like, I want to be a little bit trickier with it, it seems like. Okay, so, I mean, we're expecting a lot of different X spells in this deck, hopefully plenty. But it is interesting that Primo doesn't actually like interact with X spells in any meaningful way, only interacts with the hydras. So that's something, the zero zero hydras at that, not even the one one based hydras, which we're looking at already. So there's a little bit of different decks going on there. Primo a little bit more creature based, and Zimone a little bit more spells based likely, but.

Speaker 3:
[05:19] Zimone's like all around.

Speaker 2:
[05:20] Yeah, she could be, she could be hydra based.

Speaker 3:
[05:22] Yeah, she could use the hydras, she could use the instance sorceries.

Speaker 2:
[05:25] You just gotta be a little flashy with it. All right, so we're gonna talk about some really cool cards today. The set is awesome, this pre-con is awesome. If you wanna pick up anything that we're talking about today, either from the pre-con or in this upgrade, you can support the show by going to cardkingdom.com/command. Card Kingdom has a huge selection of singles and sealed product, so if you haven't bought these pre-cons yet, you should take a look. They're really awesome. And what I do whenever a new set comes out is I just make a list of all the cards that I want from the set, and then once the prices have stabilized a little bit, I paste them all into Card Kingdom, order them all in one place, click exactly the ones that I want on their advanced deck building tool, and then hit checkout and I get to move on with my life. It's so easy, it's so nice, especially with a new set, they've got a ton of those cards in stock in one place, and you know they're gonna ship them to you safely and professionally. So, support the show and get some sweet cards along the way by using our affiliate link over at cardkingdom.com/command. And once you have those cards in your hand, you're gonna need to protect them, keep them safe and organized. Go to ultrapro.com/command to get all of the accessories that you need in your life. We're talking about playmats, binders, deck boxes, sleeves.

Speaker 3:
[06:33] All the accoutrements.

Speaker 2:
[06:34] All the stuff. Dice, I don't think I said dice. We know that Magicon is coming up around the corner, so if you haven't picked up a Mana 8 playmat for Magicon, we highly recommend it. They're like these bright white playmats with symbols on them so you can get the one that sort of matches your favorite color. And then they're perfect to get doodled on by artists that are at the event or to get signed by your favorite creators or to get signed by the people you play with. It becomes a really nice memento and it's really legible and cool looking by the end of the weekend. So consider that picking that up before Vegas. They're really awesome and people bring them to us all the time.

Speaker 3:
[07:11] Yeah, I've definitely seen them and they're so sweet. Seeing all the signatures from like past years, seeing how many Magic Cons you've been to. I think it's a nice memorabilia.

Speaker 2:
[07:22] It's very, very cool. So check out the Mana 8 line if you're going to a big event. It doesn't have to be Magic Con or if you just like something clean and cool looking. Plus you support the show if you use our affiliate link at ultrapro.com/command. And if you're going to Magic Con, we'll be there. We're so stoked. Game Knights Live is happening once again on Friday. We've got some amazing guests lined up with some pretty crazy surprises. They gave us way too much time to think about what we could do for this Game Night. So we are elevating. We've got big plans. We've got some cool surprises and we can't wait to show you. So if you're going to Magic Con, make sure you're there Friday to come see the show. And if you don't have your ticket yet, or you've still been considering it, make sure that you buy that ticket right now. It's so much fun. Very well worth the effort to get out there. Plus, we'll be hanging out on the floor when we're not doing Game Nights Live. We'll be playing in events. We'll be signing stuff. Yeah, you can meet members of our staff. Meet Josh, Jimmy on the floor if you're quick. And you've got to go to a good eye. Keep an eye out. We'll be around.

Speaker 3:
[08:26] We'll be there all weekend.

Speaker 2:
[08:28] It's so fun.

Speaker 3:
[08:29] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[08:29] All right. And if you want to support the show directly, you can go to patreon.com/commandzone. And that's how you join our community. You can support our content directly. You can get access to Game Knights Extra Turns a day early without ads. Very cool. Plus you get access to additional perks at certain tiers, like seeing turn talk, which is a conversation we have after every game of Extra Turns about what would have happened if we got one more turn or one more draw, or if you hadn't done this, then I had this, or what kind of changes you're going to make after the game. It's a really interesting conversation, especially if you're somebody who wants to improve your playing or deck building skills. I think it's a cool resource. So sign up for that Patreon. We appreciate it. And we shout out one lucky patron every single podcast episode. And this one is dedicated to Tony Borth. Tony, you rock. Thanks for supporting the show. Let's get into it. We're talking about this Quandrix Unlimited pre-con, and we're going to start with what comes straight out of the box with a little bit of Quandrix's favorite, math.

Speaker 4:
[09:32] Yay, math.

Speaker 2:
[09:35] We're going to talk about the reprint value here. We do a couple of caveats before we get into these numbers. Of course, these are all taken at time of recording, which is before this pre-con is announced. So some of the numbers that we have today are not going to be the numbers that you have on your screen in front of you. These are relative numbers that you can use to compare the value of this pre-con to past pre-cons, not necessarily literal, because when things get reprinted, they go down. That's how it works. And this pre-con's MSRP is currently set at $50. We don't know what's going to happen to that price once the list gets boiled. Hopefully, you can find it for $50, but you can also adjust the math based on what you find it on the shelves. Just know that the base number that we're using is that this is a $50 pre-con. And that is $5 more than it has been last year.

Speaker 3:
[10:21] Yeah, they did add a lot of stuff in here.

Speaker 2:
[10:24] They did, so they changed pre-cons a lot in the last couple of years. They took some, they took like the Collector Booster thing out and then they increased the price a little bit. But we're going to look at this reprint value and this reprint value is serious. Where are we sitting at?

Speaker 3:
[10:39] So the reprint value here is at $230.

Speaker 2:
[10:44] 25 cents, huh?

Speaker 3:
[10:45] Yeah, 25 cents.

Speaker 2:
[10:48] Don't take that quarter from them, Manson.

Speaker 3:
[10:51] Sorry.

Speaker 2:
[10:52] This is a huge number. This is significantly above the average reprint value from 2025, which was $152.71. So we're looking at an additional $80 in reprint value.

Speaker 3:
[11:03] That's insane.

Speaker 2:
[11:04] Truly a ton. If that's what you're looking for when you buy this pre-con is just bang for your buck. These decks have them in spades more than ever. And I would say all of the Strixhaven pre-cons have very good value and more than what we are used to. $230 is sort of in the middle of the pack. It's not the most valuable of the five, but it is also not the least.

Speaker 3:
[11:26] Ain't that crazy.

Speaker 2:
[11:27] Pretty serious. If you're spending $50 on this and you get $230 worth of value back, that's a big deal.

Speaker 3:
[11:32] Yeah, I was a little sad that they got rid of like the collector boosters in there.

Speaker 2:
[11:37] I think those are so fun. Such a nice little treat. So you're losing a little bit of like fun pack opening.

Speaker 3:
[11:44] But you get a lot of value back.

Speaker 2:
[11:45] A lot of value back.

Speaker 3:
[11:46] They definitely jammed this with a lot of cards that, you know, you would just want to buy for this deck itself.

Speaker 2:
[11:53] Yeah, especially if you're interested in Zimone or in Primo. I want to keep you to keep in mind that the $230 actually only represents the 72 reprints. Those are the only numbers that we have. It doesn't include the 12 new cards. There's three main set cards and the 13 basic lands in it. So plenty of good value there. Hopefully, you're interested in this one. We do like to do a bang-for-your-buck value for pre-cons because they've changed the MSRP of pre-cons so much that it became very difficult to actually measure value when they're changing how many reprints are in each one and what the price is off the shelf. So we've been taking the overall reprint value and dividing it by the MSRP we have and the reprint value $230.25 divided by $50 is $4.60 worth of reprints for your one American dollar spent. So quadrupling your money and a little bit more there. If you're after these expel reprints. And again, that's well above the average from 2025, which was $3.06. So a lot of good general value there. And I know you're like, OK, we get it. Move on. Let's talk about the actual cards.

Speaker 3:
[12:57] We want to see the cards.

Speaker 2:
[12:59] Show us the cards they reprinted. We're going to talk about the notable reprints. These are all the cards over $5. And there's 15 of them. Holy. I know. That's crazy. I had to go on to the second page. Oh, no, I had to like condense this down so it would fit on to one page. Let's talk about this first one. It's a $23 reprint.

Speaker 3:
[13:19] Yeah, it's Unbound Flourishing.

Speaker 2:
[13:21] Nice.

Speaker 3:
[13:22] Insane.

Speaker 2:
[13:23] This is a great card. It's perfect in any X spell deck. So I think that gives you an immediate understanding of what we're doing here. When you cast a permanent spell with a mana cost that contains X, double the mana value, the value of X, excuse me. And whenever you cast an incident or sorcery or activate an ability, if that spell contains X, copy that spell or ability, you may choose new targets for the copy.

Speaker 3:
[13:44] Holy moly.

Speaker 2:
[13:45] If X on the stack, two times. If X on the battlefield, two times. Yeah, it's pretty good.

Speaker 3:
[13:52] Yeah, it's exactly what this deck wants. You want big X spells. You want a huge board of big X spells or creatures, I guess.

Speaker 2:
[14:01] Yeah, I'm so glad that this was included in the deck because it would have gone sort of nuts if it wasn't. The next one is a $19 reprint. This is Benevolent Hydra. Weirdly, this is a base 1-1 Hydra, so it doesn't work with Primo, who only works with base 0-0 things, but it's a nice big X spell type of Hydra that can redistribute plus 1 plus 1 counters.

Speaker 3:
[14:24] Yeah, so Benevolent Hydra enters with X plus 1 plus 1 counters on it, and if one or more plus 1 plus 1 counters would be put on another creature you control, that many plus 1 plus 1 counters are put on it instead. Nice hardening scales.

Speaker 2:
[14:38] Yeah, I didn't know that.

Speaker 3:
[14:39] Then it has another activate ability of tap, remove a plus 1 plus 1 counter from Benevolent Hydra, put a plus 1 plus 1 counter on another target creature you control.

Speaker 2:
[14:48] So two plus 1 counters because it increases that ability. So yeah, it can take its counters and put it onto Zamoan to spiral it out of control. That's sweet.

Speaker 3:
[14:56] Yeah, that's sweet.

Speaker 2:
[14:57] The next reprint is sitting at $18. This is Ozolith, The Shattered Spire. This is another hardened scales effect. So if one plus 1 plus 1 counter, actually two plus 1 plus 1 counters, and it can put plus 1 plus 1 counters on stuff. So this is great to play before your commander and then follow it up with Zamoan and you can start getting even more counters on her. This next one is $17.

Speaker 3:
[15:23] Oh, this is crazy. I did not expect this.

Speaker 2:
[15:25] I couldn't believe how expensive this card was.

Speaker 3:
[15:27] But it is a good card. Guardian Augmentor, Flash, Commander Creatures you control get plus two plus two and commanders you control have hex proof.

Speaker 2:
[15:38] Yeah, so this is from Strixhaven. This is a reprint from last Strixhaven. And it protects your commander, probably Zamoan who is exceptionally powerful. So having a little bit of protection for her is a good idea. The next one is $15.25. This is Primordial Hydra. This Hydra does work with Primo, it's base zero zero. At the beginning of your upkeep, double the number of counters on the Primordial Hydra and it has trample as long as it has 10 counters on it. So a big lad that only gets bigger. Oh, speaking of good Hydras.

Speaker 3:
[16:11] Oh yeah, Goldvane Hydra. Love this card. So it enters with X plus some counters, I guess that's all Hydras. And when it dies, create a number of tapped treasure tokens equal to its power.

Speaker 2:
[16:23] Pretty sick. Space zero zero. This one also works with Primo. We're getting there. This is a $14 reprint right now, so pretty good. Ugh, I can't believe how expensive Three Visits is now. All the way up to $10, we got a Three Visits reprint here.

Speaker 3:
[16:39] Excellent.

Speaker 2:
[16:40] And another Hydra at $9, it's Steelbane Hydra. This is a base zero zero Hydra that can remove counters and blow up artifacts and enchantments. Pretty sweet. It's Turtle Hydra.

Speaker 3:
[16:50] Good card.

Speaker 2:
[16:51] Oh, this next one's awesome.

Speaker 3:
[16:52] Oh yeah, Call Me of the Whispered Hopes. So if one or more plus one plus one counters will be put on a permanent control, that many plus one plus one counters are put on that permanent instead. And then you can tap to add X mana of one color where X is its power.

Speaker 2:
[17:08] Yeah. So huge mana creature as long as you can get counters stacked up on it. So you combine this with your Benevolent Hydra and start making a whole lot of mana to make X even bigger.

Speaker 3:
[17:20] Yeah, it's amazing.

Speaker 2:
[17:23] Elementalist Palette is the next card on this list. It's a three-mana artifact. It says, whenever you cast a spell with X in its mana cost, put two charge counters on the Palette. And then it taps for one mana of any color. So it's a three-mana rock, but fancy. And it says, tap add colorless for each charge counter on the Palette. Spend this mana only on costs that contain X. So it's sort of like your Commander. The more X spells you cast, the more mana you have for X spells.

Speaker 3:
[17:47] Yeah, it's great. We love, what is it, having more ways of just getting mana.

Speaker 2:
[17:53] Yeah, it just means that you're not dead in the water if your Commander gets removed. Huge deal. And it's an $8 reprint and perfect for this deck.

Speaker 3:
[18:01] Nice. And then next we have Fable Passage, Classic Land, $5.50. Love seeing that in the decks.

Speaker 2:
[18:08] Dika Fractal Theorist is up next. Dika is sitting at $5.50. This is, again, another Strixhaven reprint. So whenever you cast or copy an Instant or Sorcery spell, create a Fractal that's that big. And then it can make a Fractal or any Token unblockable.

Speaker 3:
[18:23] Hey, look at that.

Speaker 2:
[18:25] All right.

Speaker 3:
[18:27] And then the next one is Open the Way. Wow, I'm surprised this is up there.

Speaker 2:
[18:31] At $5.50, I agree. I think this one just didn't see a ton of reprints. It was like originally from Aftermath. So it just got expensive kind of fast and was in a product that didn't get open that much. It's very good here.

Speaker 3:
[18:42] It is very good.

Speaker 2:
[18:43] Expelled that ramps you basically. I was shocked by this price. Reliquary Tower is currently sitting at $5.50. So if you're looking to have a Reliquary Tower, here it is. And it's good with all your big like draw expells that's in the deck.

Speaker 3:
[18:57] Yeah, keep all those options in your hand.

Speaker 2:
[19:00] And finally, Nature's Lore is sitting at $5.00. A nice little reprint, hopefully to get that price a little bit more approachable. So those are the 15 reprints over $5.00. A couple of really good ones, especially for this archetype. A couple that are like Reliquary Tower that I wouldn't spend $5.00 for, but I guess I'm happy that it is just in here.

Speaker 3:
[19:19] Same thing with Nature's Lore, three visits. I'm just glad they're in there, you know?

Speaker 2:
[19:23] Continuing to reprint these cards is the only way we get those prices down. So those are the financial details of this deck, but we're gonna get into the mechanical details in just a moment, which means it's time to break down the...

Speaker 5:
[19:37] Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do.

Speaker 2:
[19:43] That's it, all right, we're doing it. We're having all the Quandrix moments right now because we're talking numbers. In the stats we like to talk about the nuts and bolts, what make the deck work, and how many cards are in each category. We're gonna get started with the stuff that goes into every commander deck, starting with the amount of ramp cards.

Speaker 3:
[20:01] So we got 18 ramp cards in this deck.

Speaker 2:
[20:05] Huge, including one in the Command Zone.

Speaker 3:
[20:07] Yeah, exactly. It's awesome. We want to be casting big spells, we need the mana for it, so this is great.

Speaker 2:
[20:14] Yeah. I mean, this is a big mana deck at its heart, so you need to make sure that you've developed your mana to the point that you can actually cast these kind of overcosted X spells for Axis 10 or whatever, to make sure that you're really competing on the board. The next category is card advantage, and we have 12 cards that are counting as card advantage. That's the number that we expect we would like to minimally hit, and I will say that the card advantage in this deck is often like draw 20, or draw six, and you're like, okay, easy. So you should have full hands throughout the game with this number.

Speaker 3:
[20:49] And then the next one is targeted disruption, which we have 10 of.

Speaker 2:
[20:53] Yeah, that's a little under what I would expect, but for a Simic deck, it's not all that surprising.

Speaker 3:
[20:57] It's a little on the low side, but I think the way this deck plays, I think you don't necessarily need that much disruption.

Speaker 2:
[21:04] You're the aggressor.

Speaker 3:
[21:05] Yeah, you want to be hitting in with your big creatures, and those are going to be the things that get rid of your opponent's creatures. They are forced to block.

Speaker 2:
[21:12] Absolutely. When you have a 10-10 coming down, you've got to deal with it. Four pieces of mass disruption. Again, that's a little under what we would expect in your average pre-con, but I think for a deck that's committing so much to the board and is piling up so many counters, this number isn't all that surprising. We'll have to take a look at it as you go to make sure that you're not just going to lose if somebody gets out from under you, but I don't think for is crazy.

Speaker 3:
[21:37] Yeah, I think it's a great number.

Speaker 2:
[21:39] Yeah, good. Finally, we're talking about lands. There's 37 lands, 16 basic lands. This is a little under what I would expect for a deck like this.

Speaker 3:
[21:47] I would expect a little more lands just to make sure that you are able to get your commander out on time, just to make sure that you're going to hit your land drops to cast these X spells.

Speaker 2:
[21:57] The biggest thing about decks like this, like a big cost reduction decks, is you need your colored pips. Missing a land drop means the difference between casting two X spells in a turn rotation and just one X spell in a turn rotation because your colored mana is so choked. Having the lands to make sure you're hitting the land every turn and you have these big ramp spells like open the way, they get multiple lands out of your deck, you want to make sure that you continue to draw them and are pushing ahead as you go. I would increase this, I'd probably be closer to 39. Yeah, probably. But 37 is a fine place to be. All right, let's break down the more deck-specific stats. This is how we get to know a deck, what is really prioritizing and what kind of cards you might need to, what kind of numbers you might need to tweak. Let's start with the big question, which is how many X spells?

Speaker 3:
[22:49] 31. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2:
[22:54] So many.

Speaker 3:
[22:55] Insane.

Speaker 2:
[22:56] Because X spells tend to be pretty mana hungry, so the idea that your whole deck is like X spells is pretty wild. Did you feel that that was too many when you were playing this deck?

Speaker 3:
[23:07] Surprisingly, no.

Speaker 2:
[23:09] Yeah? That's sweet.

Speaker 3:
[23:10] I think like there's a lot of X cost spells in this deck that doesn't require an X to be huge. Right. So you're able to play it early and grow your Zemone, and that helps you with the X spells that you do want to be huge.

Speaker 2:
[23:25] Right. Because you do need those X spells in the early game to get Zemone going, so you can slam the big X spells in the later game.

Speaker 3:
[23:33] Right. Because there's definitely stuff that's like, you know, X, green, and then it fights a creature.

Speaker 2:
[23:38] For, yeah. You don't need it to be.

Speaker 3:
[23:39] You don't need it to be more than just a green. And if you cast it for zero, that's still casting it, casting an X spell, which still grows your Zemone.

Speaker 2:
[23:49] Yep. That's big to know for sure. Even if X is zero, you're still casting an X spell, as long as you cast it, of course.

Speaker 3:
[23:55] Yeah, of course.

Speaker 2:
[23:56] This next number is X Costs Matters. So these are payoffs for X spells. I like to look at these because it shows how deeply invested a deck is in this archetype. And there's seven of these.

Speaker 3:
[24:08] A little on the low side here.

Speaker 2:
[24:10] Lower than I would expect for a deck that is so committed to the X cost bit. And this doesn't necessarily include Primo because Primo isn't specifically paid off for X spells. But it shows that we're not necessarily 100% in on the X spell thing. Even with that many X spells.

Speaker 3:
[24:27] It is probably just mostly just your commander is the big pay off that you want to be doing here.

Speaker 2:
[24:32] Right. And we've seen a couple already in the reprints like Elementalist Pallet, or the Unbound Flourishing, that kind of thing. But there's only five beyond that. The next one, I wanted to see how focused it was in on plus one plus one counters because we did see a couple of enhancers for that. And we counted up the number of cards that just put counters on two things. So either on to themselves or on to other things. There's 31.

Speaker 3:
[24:59] That's a lot. That's a lot too.

Speaker 2:
[25:01] We're definitely focused on the plus one plus one counters of it all. And that means that all the enhancers that we've seen already do make a ton of sense.

Speaker 3:
[25:07] Yeah. And it all makes sense in this deck. You're playing a bunch of Hydras, you know, Zimmon is growing bigger itself. So if there's ways to like move them or proliferate them, it makes sense in this deck.

Speaker 2:
[25:18] Great. Finally, we checked the counters matter. So the payoffs were putting plus one plus one counters onto things. And there were eight of that. So pretty even balance between the XCOS mattering and the counters mattering, not necessarily pulling in two different directions, but it's showing you that we do have like a bit of a split focus.

Speaker 3:
[25:36] Yeah. Yeah. Especially because, you know, just the way both Zimmon and Primo are, I think they just are a split strategy that don't really work well together because one wants, you know, creatures, mostly the other one can play all these incident sorceries. It kind of just shows that this deck is still a pre-con.

Speaker 2:
[25:56] Yeah. It's not 100% in on one thing or another, so a rebuild would probably focus more. But the two aren't necessarily fighting each other in this deck because they, like, X spells often go with counters. So, interesting. But it gives you a good idea of what the deck is doing. Finally, the average mana value of this deck is sitting at 2.5. Not super surprising for a deck that is all X spells.

Speaker 3:
[26:23] Yeah. This is really low.

Speaker 2:
[26:26] A bit misleading, I think, because generally you want X to be more than zero. But with X spells, we default to zero, of course, to get you that mana value. Okay. So, having looked at the deck sort of from afar, we're going to upgrade this deck. We're going to add 10 cards to it. We're going to take 10 cards out. But I like to stop and talk about what your goals were with these upgrades. So, what we were trying to improve, what screws we were trying to tighten with the upgrade we're going to get to in a moment.

Speaker 3:
[26:55] Right. So, I think most of the upgrades are pointed towards building around Zimone. I think Zimone is the more fun commander, to be honest.

Speaker 2:
[27:05] I agree. Yeah. I think Primo is a little not as interesting.

Speaker 3:
[27:10] Yeah. And, you know, because of all these, like, flashy spells and all these other, like, counters synergies that are in this deck, we could take some out, we can put some in, and readjust it so that Zimone is the star of the show here. Sure.

Speaker 2:
[27:26] Yeah. Making sure that we've really zeroed in on one of the strategies that the deck is representing. And cutting down on a few, these precons did some cool things. They put a lot of flavorful reprints in there, focusing on like Strixhaven reprints or like other Zimones, that kind of thing. Which are cool, but aren't necessarily super synergistic with the strategy of this deck. So we're going to try and tighten some of that up, even if it is pretty fun.

Speaker 3:
[27:55] I will say though, coming out of the box, it works really well. I think I was having a hard time finding like reasonable cuts. I think there's a lot of cards that will just work just straight out of the box. And I think maybe I found like maybe like five cards that I was just like, this just has to go. And the other five are like, arguably, you could lose them.

Speaker 2:
[28:19] But it's a matter of taste kind of thing. Very cool. I went to go check in on you guys after you were playing this game, and I was like, what happened? And they were like, Manson, what's the problem? And I'm like, yeah, simic. But so the deck is definitely functional out of the box. But yeah, the other thing we talked about was just like making sure you could cast at least a couple of X-Bowls with that reduction. So having some flashy stuff and being able to make Zemmone bigger a little bit faster. So we've got some ideas for some cool changes, but there are a few new cards in the deck that I do want to highlight because it'll give you an idea for the direction that the deck is going to go for and the new cards that you should be excited about. So let's start with this first one, which is certainly very powerful in X-Bowl decks.

Speaker 3:
[29:08] This card is sweet.

Speaker 2:
[29:09] This is Owlin Spiralmancer. Do you want to read this one?

Speaker 3:
[29:12] Yes, Owlin Spiralmancer. So it's a Flying Vigilance 3, 4 for 4 mana. Whenever you cast your first spell with X in its mana cost each turn, you may copy it. You may choose new targets for the copy.

Speaker 2:
[29:26] Yeah, I mean, that'll do. Talk about ways to maximize the use of Zemone. So it doesn't necessarily trigger her additional time to put more counters on it, but it does sort of duplicate the reduction that she gave you, which is very powerful.

Speaker 3:
[29:43] Which is sweet. Like being able to get two Hydras there, being able to draw 20 cards. Like this card is like an all-star in this deck. And I guess a little spoilers. It did work on Game Knights too.

Speaker 2:
[29:59] It's a very scary card when it hits the battlefield because X spells can be as powerful as the amount of resources that the X spell player has. And this says, oh, you think that's bad. How about twice as bad? It also fits really well into her play pattern where it's does, does Simone reduce the first one you cast? Yes. So you don't get to choose which one you reduce. But it does mean that you could like cast Owlin Spiralmancer and then follow it up with an X spell and immediately double it on that turn. So they can go from like a reasonably large Simone to all of a sudden having a ton of power on the board or having a huge splash of a X spell on the stack.

Speaker 3:
[30:39] Yeah. If you think about it, like with this deck, it could just be five mana and you could just go off after playing this island Spiralmancer man.

Speaker 2:
[30:49] Yeah. They're giving you a little bit of a challenge there. This next card we wanted to highlight was Neve the Practical Dean. Neve is back to the green for a legendary Murphok Wizard. Creatures you control with counters on them have trample. And whenever you cast your first spell with X and its mana cost, put X plus one counters on Neve. So big.

Speaker 3:
[31:11] Huge.

Speaker 2:
[31:12] Big, trample-y lad. That makes sure that you can punch through with your hydras. They're not guaranteed to have trample, and your fractals rarely have trample.

Speaker 3:
[31:24] And I guess if Zamoan gets big enough, Zamoan can also crash into... Zamoan too!

Speaker 2:
[31:28] She's such a moose in this deck. She can get so big. So you can punch through for commander damage. Yeah, huge point.

Speaker 3:
[31:35] So this guy is great on its own with Zamoan. Itself gets bigger, so it itself will just punch in damage by itself without any other real X spell or Hydras, I guess. Hydras on the creature or on the battlefield, geez.

Speaker 2:
[31:53] Yeah, I mean, trample is one of those things that says whatever you're doing, I'm not as worried about it. Because it's always disappointing to have a 15-15 Hydra, and it just gets blocked by their worst creature. Yeah, that's not so good. But Nev, make sure that all of your work goes somewhere. You get to eat that creature and do some damage as well. All right, let's talk about this next one. This is hilarious. I love this card.

Speaker 3:
[32:16] Yeah, I love this card too. It's called Kinetic Ooze. So it's X and a green for a zero zero. So this creature enters with X plus one plus one counters on it. When this creature enters, destroy up to one target artifact or enchantment with mana value X or less.

Speaker 2:
[32:32] Nice.

Speaker 3:
[32:32] If X is five or more, you draw a card. If X is ten or more, double the number of plus one plus one counters on any number of other target creatures. Any number.

Speaker 2:
[32:43] Gross. I mean, this card is sort of does it all. I love that it just eats a Sol Ring for two mana. Like that's a great way to spend this card. But it also can cantrip. So it can draw you a fresh card and it can be a threat all on its own. I know ten sounds like a lot, but when you're in the Quandrix College, it's not that much.

Speaker 3:
[33:04] Quite easy with this deck.

Speaker 2:
[33:05] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[33:06] Quite easy.

Speaker 2:
[33:06] Very cool. I like highlighting those a lot. I did want to mention that all of these precons come with cards from a new cycle of lands that are very powerful in multiplayer. I wanted to mention them in each upgrade because you should know they exist. This is Turbulent Wilderness. It is a land, it's a forest island and it enters tapped unless your opponents control eight or more lands. So this is fetchable with duels or stuff that says forest, so Nature's Lord can go find this card. And it can enter untapped in the three plus turn of the game.

Speaker 3:
[33:45] Kind of like a fetchable slow land that we already have. Yeah, that's amazing.

Speaker 2:
[33:49] Really, really powerful land. And the nice thing about it is it is balanced where it comes in untapped if you are like third or fourth earlier than if you're first or second.

Speaker 3:
[34:00] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[34:00] So it is a little bit of a bump for the players that are going later in the turn order because of the way that this is designed. So super clever design, really powerful multiplayer land cycle. And I'm hoping that we see a lot of reprints of these because they're a natural fit.

Speaker 3:
[34:14] Yeah, these are sweet. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[34:16] Okay. So that is the pre-con. That's all of the stuff that comes in the box automatically. We have an upgrade for you. We're going to give you 10 cards to add, 10 cards to take out using a budget of only $50. But we've got to take a quick break. While we're taking a break, I want you to leave a comment below. Tell us what you think about this pre-con. Is this the one that you're most excited for or are there more down the line that you're like really clamoring for? I promise we're going to get to all of the upgrades for Strixhaven, but there are five, so it is going to take us a little bit. So, let us know in the comments what you think and we'll be right back.

Speaker 6:
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Speaker 8:
[38:15] K-pop demon hunters, Saja Boys Breakfast Meal and Huntrix Meal have just dropped at McDonald's. They're calling this a battle for the fans. What do you say to that, Rumi?

Speaker 5:
[38:24] It's not a battle.

Speaker 4:
[38:25] So glad the Saja Boys could take breakfast and give our meal the rest of the day.

Speaker 9:
[38:29] It is an honor to share.

Speaker 5:
[38:31] No, it's our honor.

Speaker 1:
[38:33] It is our larger honor.

Speaker 4:
[38:35] No, really, stop.

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[38:37] You can really feel the respect in this battle. Pick a meal to pick a side. Bada bada bada bada.

Speaker 3:
[38:43] Participate in McDonald's while supplies last.

Speaker 7:
[38:46] Hey everybody, we wanted to tell you about something we're pretty excited about around here. It's from a close personal friend of ours, iconic magic artist and avid commander player, Johannes Voss.

Speaker 2:
[38:54] If you don't know the name, you definitely know his work, the Phyrexian Metamorph maybe or Blood Artist.

Speaker 6:
[38:59] Restoration Angel, one of my personal favorites. Yeah, Johannes has made some of the best magic art of all time.

Speaker 7:
[39:03] And now he's launching a limited time Kickstarter called the Johannes Voss Token Collection, featuring over 50 tokens all in his own style.

Speaker 6:
[39:10] Yeah, he's great at Magic's high fantasy, but his range goes way beyond that. From the super cute cat and bird tokens to the more anime style dragon, you've really just got to see these tokens for yourself.

Speaker 7:
[39:18] I think my favorite is the Construct Token with the robot in the field. It feels straight out of Studio Ghibli.

Speaker 2:
[39:23] Yeah, that same robot shows up on Power Stone.

Speaker 7:
[39:25] Yeah, he's on a few different tokens, right?

Speaker 2:
[39:27] Yeah, it's a cute little story. And there's actually a few things like that hidden on the collection, but they're all in order right out of the box so you can't miss them.

Speaker 6:
[39:33] Oh man, the attention to detail here is wild.

Speaker 2:
[39:36] Even down to which tokens he included. You can tell he put a ton of care into picking ones Commander players actually use.

Speaker 6:
[39:41] I know, it feels like every deck these days makes 10 plus different tokens, and looking through these, there are 50 of them. It's gonna cover a lot of Commander decks.

Speaker 7:
[39:47] And you know, this is the first time these designs are being printed in cardboard. Johannes told us it is super important to him that these were black bordered, exact Magic card size, and just ready to sleep up and play.

Speaker 6:
[39:56] This guy is so passionate about the game, works so hard on everything he does, and this Kickstarter is a great way to support him. So make sure to get your pledge in at tinyurl.com/jvtokens.

Speaker 7:
[40:05] Each box comes with 52 tokens, plus there are some really cool backer rewards, from sparkly plastic tokens to real Magic card artist proofs. So go to tinyurl.com/jvtokens or scan the QR code on screen to get your pledge in before it's too late.

Speaker 2:
[40:17] Man, I cannot wait to get mine.

Speaker 7:
[40:19] Oh, he sent us some, you can have that one.

Speaker 6:
[40:20] Thank you. Oh, one's for me?

Speaker 7:
[40:21] These are spoken for. Oh.

Speaker 6:
[40:24] You know what my favorite thing is about Archidekt? How easy it is to build decks. When I'm brewing for Game Knights, my first draft comes together super fast because I can drag and drop cards straight from EDH REC or Scryfall, and Archidekt even sorts them into categories like ramp or card draw automatically. But I can always add new ones or move things around based on my strategy. It's quick, intuitive, and it just makes deck building fun.

Speaker 2:
[40:42] Archidekt is the best place to browse, brew, and playtest Commander Decks. Just go to archidekt.com/commandzone to get started.

Speaker 7:
[40:49] That's archidekt.com/commandzone.

Speaker 2:
[40:53] Welcome back, everybody. We are talking about the Quandrix pre-con from Secrets of Strixhaven, excuse me.

Speaker 3:
[41:00] This name is killing me.

Speaker 2:
[41:01] It's so long and the Strixhaven set, the new one. This is Quandrix. All right. We've got 10 cards for you to add to this deck to get it into peak fighting shape while using a budget of only $50. We're only going to change 10. We're not going to change the mana base. Like we said, you could probably add a land or two, but that is a taste thing. So let's talk about this first edition because I do think that this is a very practical edition.

Speaker 3:
[41:34] Yeah, this one is more so of just how you want to play this deck. So what we're adding is Birds of Paradise. It's $14, it's a little on the pricey side.

Speaker 2:
[41:45] It is.

Speaker 3:
[41:47] But I think it's well worth the money. And if you want budget alternatives, there's Llanowar Elves, there's Elvish Mystics, all those one mana mana dorks. But I think those one mana plays to ramp you into your commander next turn is very important in this deck.

Speaker 2:
[42:04] For sure. I mean, your plan doesn't really get started until Zimmon's on the battlefield. So waiting until turn four, it would be to start casting X spells unless you've ramped really hard. Just feels a little bit slow. You want to cast a one mana creature on for turn one, cast Zimmon on turn two, and then turn three, start getting that reduction piled up, start building up some of those counters. And Birds of Paradise in particular is quite good because it flies and you're largely a ground deck. The hydras are bound to the ground and the way that decks like this lose is flyers.

Speaker 3:
[42:40] Not a lot of these hydras have reach for some reason.

Speaker 2:
[42:43] Nope. They're not that tall. They're wide. Yeah. That's what hydras are known for, being wide. I don't know. So having a little bit of things, something that you can jump with in the later game, may actually save your life and get your commander down a turn earlier. So let's move on to this next one. This is something that we mentioned a few times, is just trying to maximize your ability to cast spells in your opponent's turn.

Speaker 3:
[43:08] Right. Since Zamoan wants an X spell each turn, we want to be able to cast them on our opponent's turn. So something like High Fade Trickster, which is $17. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[43:20] Crazy.

Speaker 3:
[43:21] It is wild.

Speaker 2:
[43:22] High Fade Trickster is the best huge beater and it flies. Second of all, it is like the ability to flash it out on end step and then go off in the next turn rotation is really powerful.

Speaker 3:
[43:34] It's huge. And I think along the same lines, Wilderness Reclamation kind of helps with that. Being able to untap your lands so you can cast your instants on other people's turns.

Speaker 2:
[43:46] Yeah, for sure. Having a Wilderness Reclamation, especially for there are a fair amount of instance in the stack, I believe there are 15. Being able to untap your mana and cast like multiples if you have them, does matter a lot. Plus, you're blue, you can play Disruption. So, only $1.50 for Wilderness Reclamation, that's an easy one to add in.

Speaker 3:
[44:06] Not too bad. Yeah, it's mostly Birds of Paradise and Hi-Fate Trickster that blew a lot of the budget here, but I think it is well worth the money that you spend for this deck.

Speaker 2:
[44:15] They're going to feel very good when they're on the battlefield, and if you end up taking this deck apart, they're both good things to have invested in, easy to move around. I think that's worth doing. This next category we're talking about, adding a few more instants, especially instants that are like only have one pip, I think is really nice, because you can cast multiples, and are good in the early game and in the late game, these ones.

Speaker 3:
[44:39] So we have Condescend, Repeal, and March of Swirling Mist. All right.

Speaker 2:
[44:45] Let's start with Condescend. This one's only at 50 cents.

Speaker 3:
[44:48] Great.

Speaker 2:
[44:49] But I don't think they'll know this one. You want to read it?

Speaker 3:
[44:51] Yeah. So it's X and a blue for an instant, counter target spell unless its controller pays X, Scry 2.

Speaker 2:
[44:57] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[44:58] Solid, solid counter spell. And I think with this deck, you want to be able to keep Zamon alive. So any removal that is targeting Zamon, any board wipes, I think this card, you just have to keep up at all times.

Speaker 2:
[45:14] Yeah. I mean, one blue is so easy to leave untapped. And even if it has a reduction of like two or four in the early game, when Zamon just hit the battlefield, it's great protection because most of the time, they're not going to have the mana up to pay for it. And in the late game, it's going to be reduced by eight.

Speaker 3:
[45:31] Yeah. No one's paying for that.

Speaker 2:
[45:33] Nobody's paying eight. So this counter spell is going to feel really, really good. A one mana counter spell that also scribes two.

Speaker 3:
[45:40] Yeah, scribes two, setting up your draws, insane.

Speaker 2:
[45:43] And it makes your commander bigger. It's only 50 cents. Condescend is worth a shot. Let's read Repeal as well. Repeal is like one of my favorite cube cards.

Speaker 3:
[45:52] I love this card.

Speaker 2:
[45:53] Nasty in this deck.

Speaker 3:
[45:54] I love this card. Whenever it's in a draft set, I love playing this.

Speaker 2:
[45:58] Oh yeah.

Speaker 3:
[45:58] It's X and a blue instant, return target, non-land permanent with mana value X to its owner's hand. Draw a card.

Speaker 2:
[46:05] Oh yeah.

Speaker 3:
[46:06] Yay.

Speaker 2:
[46:07] Bounce a token for one blue and you draw a card.

Speaker 3:
[46:10] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[46:11] So good. But in this deck, you can bounce basically anything.

Speaker 3:
[46:17] If you have Zimone going, I don't see what problems you will have. You can even bounce Zimone itself.

Speaker 2:
[46:22] Yeah. Protect Zimone and bring her back to hand and draw a card in the meantime.

Speaker 3:
[46:27] Huge.

Speaker 2:
[46:28] It's also really good with all of the expel copying effects that we've seen. So if you have the spiral monster that we were talking about, you can bounce two things with the same mana value and draw two cards. Oh yeah.

Speaker 3:
[46:40] That's for one mana.

Speaker 2:
[46:42] Nasty. So it's worth saying that the X cost is reduced on repeal. So let's say that Zimone has eight counters on her. That means it costs eight less to cast. That doesn't mean that X has to be eight. You can still declare X to be whatever mana value you want it to be. It's just reduced by eight. So if you're like, okay, I'm going to bounce this Rhystic Study in your commander, they're both three mana value. I'm going to declare that X is three, even if this spell could, like X could feasibly be eight.

Speaker 3:
[47:13] Yeah. Great role to know and to explain to people.

Speaker 2:
[47:17] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[47:17] It's definitely something I did not know until making these upgrades.

Speaker 2:
[47:21] Yeah. And it's, I think this will feel really, really good in your hand and it's only 25 cents.

Speaker 3:
[47:27] Great.

Speaker 2:
[47:28] What I like about these two picks is they're also early game X spells that don't have to be X equals a million. So they're great things to have in your hand if you're building in the early game or you're rebuilding in the later game if Simone gets taken care of.

Speaker 3:
[47:40] Yeah. They're great all through the course of the game here.

Speaker 2:
[47:44] Yeah. All right. Let's read this last one because I think this card is so underrated.

Speaker 3:
[47:48] Oh yeah. March of Swirling Mist. X and a blue for an instant. As an additional cost to cast this spell, you may exile any number of blue cards from your hand. This spell costs too less to cast for each card exiled this way. Up to X target creatures phase out.

Speaker 2:
[48:04] Phasing. Phasing is such a useful tool. It's protection, it's disruption. It's so you can protect your entire board from a board wipe. You could single target protect Zimone from a removal spell. If you're being attacked by four things, you could phase all of those out.

Speaker 3:
[48:20] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[48:20] Or phase out the three that are a problem and eat the fourth one for free with your Hydra. There are so many ways this card goes right.

Speaker 3:
[48:27] This card is so versatile in this deck, as you pointed out. Because you're such a big creature deck and sometimes they don't have trample, you're able to just phase out some creatures of your opponents, crack in for huge damage.

Speaker 2:
[48:43] Phase out all their blockers. I didn't even think about that. What blockers? Bonk.

Speaker 3:
[48:48] It is huge and also serves as a protection spell for Zimone, as we keep pointing out here.

Speaker 2:
[48:54] Yeah, this card is going to feel great. $3.50 is definitely worth it for Zimone. Plus, if she doesn't have a ton of plus one plus one counters on her, having that ability to pitch one card to phase out two things is really, really nice and makes you feel a lot safer as if this was just blue and X. All right, so those are the Instant Speed Disruption Spells we wanted to talk about. But there's a couple cool other X spells that are just sweet and are really cool with your Commander that we wanted to include and lead to some very spicy plays. So let's read this first one here.

Speaker 3:
[49:34] Yeah, so this is Doppelganger. So it's XXX, green, blue. It's a little expensive, but wait and see what it does. It's a sorcery for each of X target permanents. Create X tokens that are copies of that permanent.

Speaker 2:
[49:51] Yeah, so it's five mana. Make one copy of one thing. Doesn't have to be your thing. Doesn't have to be a creature. It can be whatever.

Speaker 3:
[49:59] It can be a land if you really are desperate for that.

Speaker 2:
[50:01] Yeah, and it's only, that's only if X is one. So that's three colorless mana. If you are reducing things by six, for example, which only, you know, that's pretty easy in this Zemone deck, as we've seen. Now you can make two copies of two different things, right?

Speaker 3:
[50:21] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[50:22] So you can be like, all right, I'll copy that Sol Ring twice and your Commander twice. I don't know why you do that, but maybe, maybe they got a cool Commander. Like that's very cool.

Speaker 3:
[50:33] Yeah, thinking of even just stuff in this deck, Alan Spiralmancer, get a multiple of that.

Speaker 2:
[50:42] Nasty. Yeah, I mean, this is the best like late game X spell I think you could put in this deck. And this is only a dollar and it's like, it's going to do the coolest thing. Like when you're playing this deck, this is the kind of spell you want to cast.

Speaker 3:
[50:54] Of note, there is like a little bit of a non-bow with your Hydras. You can't be copying your Hydras because they will just end up being 0-0s and then immediately dying.

Speaker 2:
[51:04] Yeah, don't do that. Copy something cool.

Speaker 3:
[51:07] Yeah, but it's any permanent on the field, including your opponents. So you should be able to find some target that is great.

Speaker 2:
[51:16] I'm going to copy your Field of the Dead twice. Oh. That's so gross. You can do some very cool stuff with Doppelganger. This next card is sweet as well. It's one of the really powerful early game X spells. It's Mockingbird. X and a blue for a 1-1 bird bard. It has flying and you may have Mockingbird enter as a copy of any creature on the battlefield with mana value less than or equal to the amount of mana spent to cast Mockingbird, except it's a bird in addition to its other types and it has flying. So a little bit of a nambo here because the cost reducer means that you're spending less mana on it, but with the amount of cheap things in the world these days, like Esper Sentinels and mana creatures and all sorts of things, this is going to be a really great early play that will help you get counters on Zimone and get you the value out of whatever you're cloning.

Speaker 3:
[52:11] Even if it's cloning just a mana dork that you have, it's great.

Speaker 4:
[52:15] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[52:15] That's going to feel really good. It's an expel that triggers Zimone in the early turns. 650 for a Mockingbird.

Speaker 3:
[52:22] It's a little up there.

Speaker 4:
[52:23] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[52:24] I think it's very good.

Speaker 2:
[52:25] It's a cool card. It's a cool one.

Speaker 3:
[52:28] And the next we have, Drown in Dreams. So this is X2 and a blue for another instant. Choose one. If you control a commander as you cast a spell, you may choose both. Target player draws X cards. Target player mills twice X cards.

Speaker 2:
[52:45] This is another one that's kind of nasty to copy. And only the blue pip on an instant is so perfect for this deck.

Speaker 3:
[52:53] Yeah, it's so great because I think this deck is very mana hungry in terms of just the amount of pips you need. The amount of colored mana you need in your spells is, you know, insane. Yeah. So just having just one single blue pip, great for this deck.

Speaker 2:
[53:11] Yeah. And if X is big enough, I mean, you can draw 10 cards and mill somebody for 20. If you copy it, you're milling them for 40. If X is bigger, you can deck somebody all in one go. Maybe you've got a Josh Lee Kwai in your play group, whose deck is a little thinner than everybody else's. You can get them out of nowhere with the Drown in Dreams. At instant speed, no less. It's got 75 cents and is going to be very flexible and cool in your deck.

Speaker 3:
[53:35] There are a lot of these instant X spell draw cards that are out there.

Speaker 2:
[53:41] There's a fair amount of them in the deck, actually. It's got the Stroke of Geniuses in here as an instant, I think.

Speaker 3:
[53:47] Hole from Tomorrow, I believe, is in there.

Speaker 2:
[53:50] I'll have to do it.

Speaker 3:
[53:51] There's a lot of already good ones in here, but there's definitely some other ones that have not been included that you can add in. I would suggest it, just because this deck, if you run out of gas, is just difficult to win, I would say.

Speaker 2:
[54:07] For sure. For sure. You've got to make sure that you consistently have stuff in your hand and stuff to do with it. And I think this next edition that you have actually really helps with that.

Speaker 3:
[54:16] Yeah, I love this card. So it's Wildest Dreams. XX Green Sorcery. Return X target cards from your graveyard to your hand. Exile Wildest Dreams.

Speaker 2:
[54:27] Okay. So normally it would be like three mana, get one thing back from your graveyard. But because this is an X spell and because this is reduced, you could get back easily three or four things with this card.

Speaker 3:
[54:38] All your hydras that died, all your protection spells that you might have used early, more draw spells if you're running out of gas. This card is just such versatile in this deck on getting like what you need.

Speaker 2:
[54:53] Yeah. Wildest Dreams is awesome. And the fact that it gets back any card, you can get back fetch lands and put them back like so you can hit your next land drop. There's a lot of different options here. And the fact that it can be cast early reasonably and trigger your commander and be an absolute bomb in the late game really lives up to the upside of X spells. I think something that makes this deck really cool and interesting to play is the flexibility of all of the cards in the deck. Being like pretty good in the early game, but enormous threats in the late game.

Speaker 3:
[55:23] Yeah. And I think that's an important note to building this deck. If you want to take it out of the pre-con environment is understanding that you need early X spells too. Because you can't always have Zemone at eight counters or whatever. You know, that is, it could happen. But I think most of the times you're wanting Zemone to just grow big with all these tiny X spells that eventually you will find a big X spell that will blow the game out of the water.

Speaker 2:
[55:53] Yeah, absolutely. All right, those are the ten cards that we are adding, bringing the total budget to $45.50. Well done using the budget.

Speaker 3:
[56:01] Yeah, I know last time that I did a pre-con upgrade. I didn't use it all and folks were really upset about that.

Speaker 2:
[56:10] So you get the whole upgrade for you there. And some really cool cards that I think are going to really check a lot of boxes in the deck, which I think is my favorite thing to do in deck building right now.

Speaker 3:
[56:22] And there's always budget alternatives to the expensive cards too. I like playing on a budget myself. So some of these expensive cards are out of reach for me.

Speaker 2:
[56:35] Yeah, we're like, I'm going to skip the birds, but I've got an Elvish mistake.

Speaker 3:
[56:39] I've got to land where else.

Speaker 2:
[56:41] Those kind of things. Very easy changes to make here. Of course, we have added 10 cards, which means it's time to cut 10 cards. And as you said, this is pretty challenging with this deck. There's a lot of cards that are pretty good. It's mostly about not necessarily cutting bad cards, but cutting cards that don't synergize with all of the deck, or that don't do what you want all of the time. I think that's a big thing. So let's start with this first one, which is a card I like a lot.

Speaker 3:
[57:08] I do like this card a lot.

Speaker 2:
[57:08] But is a weird fit in this deck.

Speaker 3:
[57:10] Yeah, so it's Quandrix Apprentice. It has Magecraft. Whenever you cast or copy an Instant Resort you spell, look at the top three cards of your library. You may reveal a land card from among them and put that card into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.

Speaker 2:
[57:26] Yeah, I mean, this card's great. It's really good in decks where you're casting a lot of Cantrips, where you're casting three or four Instants and Sorceries in a turn. This deck isn't necessarily going to do that and does have a lot of creatures in it.

Speaker 3:
[57:41] Yeah, it has a surprisingly amount of creatures in it.

Speaker 2:
[57:43] Yeah, so Quandrix Apprentice isn't guaranteed to trigger every turn that it's down and you really want to be able to trigger this multiple times.

Speaker 3:
[57:50] Yeah, because we're casting such big X spells, we want our X spells to be as big as possible. So it's really only one X spell a turn unless we have one of our flash enablers or instants that we can cast.

Speaker 2:
[58:05] Yeah, this card's okay, but not a perfect fit for this deck, I agree.

Speaker 3:
[58:09] And next one, we have Zemone, Quandrix Prodigy. So this one, I can put a land from my hand onto the battlefield for one mana. Or for four and a tap, draw a card and if I control eight or more lands, draw two cards instead.

Speaker 2:
[58:22] Yeah, again, this is a perfectly acceptable card, but it is a little weird when you have a three-mana commander.

Speaker 3:
[58:28] Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2:
[58:29] Because this is great in the early game if you can play Zemone and you can activate it and ramp into like a, like a, what do you have? Not four, it would have to be, oh wait, does this, so you could activate it, get the land into play, but it comes into play tapped. So you can't play Zemone the next turn. Yeah, it's only really good to get something bigger down a turn earlier.

Speaker 3:
[58:50] I think like a five-mana play or something.

Speaker 2:
[58:52] Yeah, it fits in much better.

Speaker 3:
[58:54] Yeah, it's a strange include, but I guess because it's Zemone.

Speaker 2:
[58:58] It's Zemone. The other one that's very strange in this deck is Zemone All Questioning. This is the card I really liked a lot from Dusk Mourn. It says, at the beginning of your end step of a land, enter the battlefield under your control this turn and you control a prime number of lands. Just make a primo, which has some amount of plus and plus encounters on it where it's the prime number, which is cool, but we're not really a lands deck and this doesn't have anything to do with X spells. I guess it's good if primo is your commander. It gives you a base zero zero.

Speaker 3:
[59:35] It works well with primo, but other than that, it's not amazing.

Speaker 2:
[59:40] All right, let's move on to the next one. This one also works better with primo, I think.

Speaker 3:
[59:45] Yeah, I agree, so this is Dika, Fractal Theorist. So this one has Magecraft as well, and it creates a fractal whenever you cast or copy an instance of sorcery. And then it has an activate ability to make a token not able to be blocked this turn.

Speaker 2:
[60:01] Yeah, this is one of the higher reprints in the deck, and it's fine. But again, we're split between instance and sorcery, well, instance and sorcery is end creatures in this deck, and we just have other ways to sort of make threats that I don't think you need to play a five mana creature first, and then follow it up with a big spell.

Speaker 3:
[60:22] Yeah, and you're not really using this activation that often either. You want to be using that mana to cast your X spells, and I can't really see us having too many creature tokens that are like huge to crack in with.

Speaker 2:
[60:35] You're pretty good on mana sinks. You don't really need this as well. All right, let's move on to the next one. These were also included in all the precons, I believe. It's the Charm Cycle from the main set.

Speaker 3:
[60:47] So this one is Quandrix Charm. So it's an instant, choose one, counter a target spell unless its controller pays two, or destroy a target enchantment, or target creature has base power and toughness 5-5 until end of turn for a green and a blue.

Speaker 2:
[61:06] Those just aren't great effects.

Speaker 3:
[61:08] Yeah, they're not great effects. It is good. The counter spell side is good early.

Speaker 2:
[61:14] It's good early. The enchantment side is okay late. But the 5-5 thing really isn't gonna happen.

Speaker 3:
[61:23] Not really.

Speaker 2:
[61:25] It's what you want in a charm is like three abilities that you're very likely to use or want. And this just doesn't really have that much flexibility or much to do with what the deck is doing.

Speaker 3:
[61:35] Yeah. You can find better counter spells.

Speaker 2:
[61:38] We added one.

Speaker 3:
[61:39] Yeah. Exactly. Condescend. Great. You can find better counter spells than this, for sure.

Speaker 2:
[61:46] Let's move on to the next one. This is Elusive Otter, which has got the spell on the other side, so it's totally different. This is an otter with an adventure that has an X spell in it. It distributes X plus one plus one counters among any number of target creatures you control. So it's a decent early X spell to cast. You can put some counters on Zamoan and trigger her counter ability. But then the other side is just sort of like an otter with prowess.

Speaker 3:
[62:19] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[62:20] And I don't think we would play Grove's Bounty as just a spell.

Speaker 3:
[62:24] Not really.

Speaker 2:
[62:25] It's not as impactful as you really want out of your X spells. And I think we've added some better early game X spells.

Speaker 3:
[62:32] I think like the best case scenario is like it pumps Zemone.

Speaker 2:
[62:35] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[62:36] And that's about it.

Speaker 2:
[62:38] Yeah. Like if you cast this and she doesn't have any plus encounters on it. Like X is three, you put four plus encounters on it.

Speaker 3:
[62:45] It's not bad.

Speaker 2:
[62:46] It's fine. But then next turn it does some stuff. I just think we've put in better early game.

Speaker 3:
[62:50] We have better ways to utilize our mana here.

Speaker 2:
[62:53] Yeah. All right. This next one is another X spell. Yeah. I don't love this card.

Speaker 3:
[63:00] Yeah, me neither. I don't think I like this card just in general, but it's called Fractal Harness. When it enters, creates a fractal and put X plus one counters on it.

Speaker 2:
[63:12] It costs X two and a green.

Speaker 3:
[63:14] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[63:14] So if five mana, it makes you a two, two fractal.

Speaker 3:
[63:16] And whenever equipped creature attacks, double the number of plus one, plus one counters on it.

Speaker 2:
[63:20] Yeah. So it gives you like a, if you spend five mana on this or like if X is, let's say X is big, let's say X is four.

Speaker 3:
[63:28] Sure.

Speaker 2:
[63:29] Four, because it's reduced by six. That is in a good situation. You've got a four, four that the next time it attacks, it becomes an eight, eight. It's pretty slow and it definitely seems better with Primo than it does with Zimone.

Speaker 3:
[63:46] Yeah, I agree. I think this card is not really catered towards Zimone. I can, I do see scenarios where maybe Zimone's like a little big that you can like crack in and double your counters, but.

Speaker 2:
[63:59] Yeah, but you also need something to give her Trample for that to really start doing some damage. Yeah, it just doesn't quite check enough boxes for me.

Speaker 3:
[64:07] Yeah, I agree. It's just very expensive for what you actually get from it.

Speaker 2:
[64:12] Yeah. The next spell is an instant, but it's an instant you don't really want to cast on your opponent's turn. This one's Biomass Mutation. So it's X and Hybrid Simic Simic, or excuse me, Quandrix, Quandrix. And it says creatures you control of base power and toughness XX until end of turn. This is a bit of a nambo with Primo.

Speaker 3:
[64:35] Yeah. That's really funny. It doesn't work with either of the commanders.

Speaker 2:
[64:40] Yeah, like, I mean, it's good. It'll make your stuff kind of like big after blocks. That's good. But you're going to have big stuff anyway, I don't think.

Speaker 3:
[64:48] I don't think making them even bigger at that point really helps.

Speaker 2:
[64:53] Yeah, and the instance that we want in this deck are ones that are good on your opponent's turn, so you can cast them with the reduction and trigger Simone. So it's neat. I don't think it's necessarily bad, but it just doesn't quite do what you want, I think.

Speaker 3:
[65:08] Yeah, and so the next card is one of the new cards, actually. It's Nexus Mentality, three and a blue for an instant. Choose one. If you control a commander as you cast this spell, you may choose both instead. Move all counters from target Nonland Permanent you control onto another target Nonland Permanent you control. And then the other one is remove all counters from target Nonland Permanent you control. Draw a card for each counter removed this way.

Speaker 2:
[65:36] Okay. So it's draw, it's move some amount of counters, draw some amount of cards for remove, after removing those.

Speaker 3:
[65:45] Yeah. So this, I feel like this card is just mediocre in this deck. I think like the draw side, I think is, is what you mostly want to play this card for. And I think for this deck, you don't really want to be removing your counters.

Speaker 2:
[66:02] Not from Zimone.

Speaker 3:
[66:03] Not from Zimone, not from your Hydras.

Speaker 2:
[66:05] A lot of your Hydras will die if you remove all of them. You have to remove all the counters?

Speaker 3:
[66:09] Yes. You have to remove all of them.

Speaker 2:
[66:11] So it's like sacrifice your threat to draw more threats is like what that draw spell is, or make your commander much worse. It is an instance. You could cast it in response to a removal spell, but that's pretty weak.

Speaker 3:
[66:24] Yeah. And it's not even an X spell itself.

Speaker 2:
[66:26] Right.

Speaker 3:
[66:27] So I think this card, I think will be good in certain decks.

Speaker 2:
[66:31] It's cool. Yeah. But I agree. It's sort of bizarre.

Speaker 3:
[66:34] Yeah. I think for this deck, it is a little lacking.

Speaker 2:
[66:37] Yeah. And we've added some protection that will be better in the situation that I think Nexus mentality is.

Speaker 3:
[66:43] And some better card draw spells too.

Speaker 2:
[66:45] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[66:45] All right.

Speaker 2:
[66:45] We've got one more card to cut. And this one is also a new card, which I feel a little bit bad about.

Speaker 3:
[66:52] Yeah. This card is kind of sweet.

Speaker 2:
[66:53] It's cool, but I don't think it's good in this deck.

Speaker 3:
[66:56] Yeah. I agree. So it's called Yavi Maia Bloomsage. It's two and a green for a creature Dry Druid. And it also has a new mechanic.

Speaker 2:
[67:08] Yeah. Prepared spell is what we've been calling it. I don't know what it's actually technically called.

Speaker 3:
[67:14] OK. Well, on the creature side, at least, it's at the beginning of your end step, put a plus one plus one counter on target creature you control. Then if that creature has power seven or greater, this creature becomes prepared.

Speaker 2:
[67:27] OK. So it doesn't enter prepared. It does do something. It puts plus one plus one counters on your creatures once per turn, which is fine. Yeah. And then it prepares a very powerful spell.

Speaker 3:
[67:39] Yes. So talk about a banned card. Channel for green green sorcery until end of turn. Any time you could activate a mana ability, you may pay one life if you do add colorless.

Speaker 2:
[67:54] Yeah. So channel is banned in commander and it's banned because on turn two you could pay thirty mana and cast your entire hand. Basically, this is channel, but it is very much restricted by when you can cast it because you have to cast your Yavimaya Bloodsage first and then you have to have a seven power creature. Then you can cast channel.

Speaker 3:
[68:18] It's a lot of hoops to jump through to get channel online.

Speaker 2:
[68:23] Yeah. Then once it is online, you have your commander that reduces the colorless mana, which is exactly what channel does. Channel gives you colorless mana. So it's this weird thing where you're like, we have a card that does this, and it would be good if we don't have our commander in play, but we're hoping to have our commander in play.

Speaker 3:
[68:44] That is the plan.

Speaker 2:
[68:47] We do already have a seven-seven. So we have a big thing on the battlefield and channel will help you sort of over commit to the board. So the way that I looked at this card was like, okay, let's say this is mid-game when you have a seven-power creature. You've taken some amount of licks. What do you hope is in your hand when you cast channel? And it's like sort of a draw spell?

Speaker 3:
[69:12] Yeah, that's probably the best case scenario. Another draw spell.

Speaker 2:
[69:15] Yeah, like Stroke of Genius or something, but those are like, but you can't cast an instant with it because channel's a sorcery. You can, you can, but like you can't cast it on your opponent's turn.

Speaker 3:
[69:24] Right.

Speaker 2:
[69:26] So it just sort of makes your draw spells a little bigger, like 10 bigger or something like that.

Speaker 3:
[69:31] Right, and if that's the first spell you cast, you know, then now the next spell that you draw from those, don't get discounted from Zamo now, and now you have to pay more life into this.

Speaker 2:
[69:41] And you spent double green on the channel, so it's eating up some of your colored ability, mana.

Speaker 3:
[69:46] Right.

Speaker 2:
[69:46] I don't know. It's cool, and I totally, I totally understand that you're like, I'm not taking that card out, but I think it's a little strange here, and I think you want to put it in a deck that wants a three mana 2-2 that puts plus one plus one counters on creatures.

Speaker 3:
[69:58] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[69:59] And this is fine in this deck.

Speaker 3:
[70:02] It is okay.

Speaker 2:
[70:03] But I wouldn't consider it like a primary motivator of the deck is to have like, like I wouldn't put the brush wag in there that puts counters on stuff, you know what I mean?

Speaker 3:
[70:13] I would not put that in here.

Speaker 2:
[70:14] Right, and that's sort of what this card reads like to me, with the possibility of casting, like of having a big turn that maybe is good.

Speaker 3:
[70:23] Yeah, I agree. Like we just have to jump through too many hoops to make this thing good.

Speaker 2:
[70:29] Yeah, it's interesting. Because you go through the deck and you're like, most of these cards are quite, quite good in here. I don't want to really cut too much of the destruction. I would mostly like, so it was a challenging cut, but you can let us know in the comments what you think we should have cut over Yavamaya Blood's Bloom Sage, because I'm sure, I'm sure there will be thoughts. But that is the upgrade. We've added 10 cards. We've taken 10 cards out. Hopefully, we've tightened the screws on this, giving you a little bit more disruption. A lot more protection, I think, was a big upgrade from these 10 cards. If you want to pick up any of the cards that we added to this deck, or the deck itself, maybe you're trying to buy the singles and you need a couple Yavamaya Blood Sages, because it is really sick.

Speaker 3:
[71:15] It is so cool.

Speaker 2:
[71:16] Go to cardkingdom.com/command and you can get those cards while supporting the show. Honestly, Card Kingdom is the best right after a new set drops, because they've got a ton of inventory already. So just keep a list of all of the cards that you want from the set. Go to Card Kingdom, you can buy them all at once, and have a field day when they arrive, upgrading all your decks and building a bunch of new stuff. So Card Kingdom is the best, and you know it is the rainy season in most of the United States right now. So if you are worried about your package getting stuck in the rain, we are like, mine has. And you are worried about your cardboard cards making it safely. Card Kingdom did package my cards well enough that they survived the rain. So they are the best, we like them a lot, and you can support us and Card Kingdom by using our affiliate link at cardkingdom.com.

Speaker 3:
[72:02] Their buy list is also just incredible.

Speaker 2:
[72:05] Their buy list is really easy if you haven't used it yet. It's nice, I actually need to do that. I should put that on my list.

Speaker 3:
[72:11] Yeah, me too, actually.

Speaker 2:
[72:14] Also, once those cards are in your hand, you're going to need to protect them, keep them safe, keep them organized and looking great by going to ultrapro.com/command. I don't know what phase of your magic journey you're in, but if you need more sleeves and deck boxes for building new decks, they're a good place to go. If you're reorganizing your collection, make sure you've got fresh binders that you can customize and label really well. If you're going to Magic Con or you're going to events, make sure you've got a cool playmat that you can turn into a memento like the Mana 8 sleeves. They also have a new line. It's called the Patchcraft Binders and Deck Boxes that you can put. You can put Velcro patches right on the outside. That's sweet. They've got binders that you can stick it on, and they also have deck boxes that you can buy Velcro commander sleeves that go right on the front of the box. You can display your commander. They're pretty cool.

Speaker 3:
[73:04] Yeah. They always have a bunch of sales going on. There's a lot of clearance sales that just run throughout the year.

Speaker 2:
[73:11] Yeah. Sign up for that newsletter, and they'll let you know when stuff goes on sale. Again, use our affiliate link. It helps us out so much at ultrapro.com/command. Finally, come see us at Magicon. We're so excited to be there. Game Knights Live is back on Friday. You don't need any extra ticket or anything. As long as you have access to the floor on Friday, you can come see the show. Make sure to get there a little early because seats do fill out. But we've got some amazing surprises for you. In this one, there's a lot. I don't want to spoil it because we've got some cool stuff planned.

Speaker 3:
[73:42] Like we said, there's a lot of time that we had to just prepare for this big big show.

Speaker 2:
[73:47] It's been like nine months since the last one, so we're like, what if we did this?

Speaker 3:
[73:51] Ready.

Speaker 2:
[73:53] It's going to be really cool. Plus, if you're not going to be there on Friday, there will be signings for Josh, Jimmy, and myself, and a ton of our staff is going to be on the floor walking around and playing and participating in events. So keep an eye out and come say hi. We'd love to meet you. All right. We are going to talk about how this deck plays before we get out of here, because I do think that's a big thing to keep in mind when you buy a pre-con. And now that we've made some changes, maybe it plays a little bit differently.

Speaker 3:
[74:18] Yeah. You know, I think we've kind of hit on these points throughout the episode, but just to put like a nice little summary on it. So this deck wants to get Zamone out as soon as possible. Like that's the big early game plan that you want to be doing. So you can accrue the value as you keep casting more X spells throughout the game. So then you can cast even bigger X spells later on. And then it's all about just protecting Zamone once Zamone is on the battlefield with either counter spells or other protection spells that give Indestructible or Hex Proof.

Speaker 2:
[74:58] Your opponents will figure out very quickly that Zamone is a big problem. I play a Rakdos Lord of Riots deck that can reduce a lot of casting costs and that's exactly what Zamone is going to do. They know that she is the reason you can cast these crazy spells and they will come for her. So be ready for your stuff to get removed.

Speaker 3:
[75:16] Yeah, because if Zamone just leaves the battlefield at any point, now your whole game plan has to start over again.

Speaker 2:
[75:22] Get Zamone back, cast a bunch of X spells, put a bunch of counters on her and then get her rebuilt up to a big power.

Speaker 3:
[75:30] So it is very important to keep your counter spells, keep your protection spells up at all times once Zamone is on the battlefield.

Speaker 2:
[75:37] Yeah, especially once she has four or six counters on her, I think is when things will start to get pretty crazy.

Speaker 3:
[75:43] Yeah, and once that happens, now you can cast all these big X spells. Draw cards, big Hydras, copy them.

Speaker 2:
[75:52] Once you get to turn six or seven with Zamone on the battlefield, things get out of control.

Speaker 3:
[75:58] It is insane. And then obviously there's a bunch of counter doublers or additional counters that get placed. We have cards in the stack that do that.

Speaker 2:
[76:08] Yeah, there's a ton of enhancers that give a win counter more counters.

Speaker 3:
[76:11] Yeah, so being able to keep those counters accrue that value will just slam face, I guess, with all these big old creatures.

Speaker 2:
[76:21] Absolutely. I think if you're into a big, splashy, stompy style deck, Asamone is going to be a great fit for you. It's got some cool stuff going on. You are going to be doing a lot of math.

Speaker 3:
[76:31] Yeah, as per Quandrix.

Speaker 2:
[76:33] So yeah, it's on the tin. You can't blame anybody if you're like, this deck is complicated. You asked for this. Sulfure X.

Speaker 3:
[76:43] Yeah. And as a little side note of like, as I was making these upgrades, I thought about what if Asamone could just be a Voltron commander here? Asamone's getting big herself.

Speaker 2:
[76:54] Especially with instance, you could like attack with her and just like, par, par, par, par, par, par. Yeah. That's pretty cool. Cause she does trigger, she gets counters every time you cast it, even if it's not. Yeah. That's pretty cool.

Speaker 3:
[77:06] So just food for thought out there. I haven't actually brewed it yet, but it's something that I'm thinking about right now.

Speaker 2:
[77:12] Math hurts. Math hurts. All right. That is our upgrade. Again, we've got more on the way. So be a little patient with us. There's a lot of content coming out about Strixhaven. This set's awesome. So big thank you to our team who made this episode and all of our episodes possible. Thank you to Karina Cruz, Josh Diaz, John Schneider, Garav Gulati, Jamie Block, Jordan Pridgen, Jake Boss, Becky Bell, Eric Lem, Josh Murphy, Evan Leberger, Sam Waldo, Josh Lee Kwai, Jimmy Wong, and of course, to Manson Leung for taking the time. Thanks for doing this work with me.

Speaker 3:
[77:40] Of course, it was fun. It was fun.

Speaker 2:
[77:42] We'll see you next time.

Speaker 4:
[77:44] Bye. Bye-bye.