Cards We Should've Cut Sooner | EDHRECast 307

The worst feeling is cutting a fun card because it is too niche or simply much worse than the rest of the deck :/

I understand shifting away from Counterspell, but we're in the Voja era now, where countering a creature can come to the rescue of the table in a way that a lot of other removal struggles with.

20:23 Benjamin Wheeler has a story of flipping omniscience and then emrakul to a dark confidant. And dying. It's gold.

In general I think "good stuff" tends to clutter decks more than any other archetype of card. Very easy to just thumb right over that kind of card when you're updating a deck without considering that it might be the weakest card with all synergies considered.

There’s also the cost and hassle of changing out some cards that are outdated when they do 95% of what the latest and greatest hasbro crept version of it existing. It’s worth replacing if it provides new gameplay options but for building your engine and for keeping your pod balance stable, if it ain’t broke fixing it is optional.

Smugglers share has performed super well for me for drawing cards, I run it in my gay kings commander deck (Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis) I can constantly make my opponents draw two cards per turn drawing at least 4 cards per round with it

I don't see Smuggler's share as a way to ramp in white; it is more of a card draw engine. With that card, I have drawn more cards in a game for its 3 CMC cost.

People that started know that the Invasion tapped duals were incredible for deck building. Guild gates became staple cards for deck-building. When the gain-lands came out in Tarkir, we BOUGHT UP all of them from chaff boxes because they were just a superior option. Nowadays gain-lands are relegated to budget decks. Back at the start, these were actually incredible as commons.

I agree with you guys that regenerate isn't as common now a days, but it is funny you mentioned it because just last night I cast a fumigate to while the board and one of my opponents regenerated all his creatures and I passed the turn, he untapped and won because it became a one sided board while where only his stuff lived

Regarding the “counterspell vs dispel” argument…I find it funny sometimes how Commander players as a community can never seem to agree on which is better…flexibility vs efficiency. One moment a modal spell is way better because it can handle multiple situations…the next moment it’s casting cost is “too restrictive” compared to a more narrow card that has a lower mana value. Maybe it’s an issue of established playgroup/meta vs LGS random players, but I see a massive variety of win cons. Sometime I need to deal with a Nyxbloom Ancient, sometimes it’s a Bolas’ Citadel, sometimes it’s an Aetherflux Resevoir, sometimes it’s a Tainted Strike, and sometimes the problem is a player’s commander itself. A counterspell being able to prevent so many problems hitting the field or prevent instant death vs having the wrong answer for the current problem just sucks. And generally it’s not some massive, unbearable burden to keep an Arcane signet and an Island open just in case. Unless I’m hoping to just pop off on my turn, I generally find it better to keep some cards in my hand so I can rebuild after a wipe or bluff that I have responses, so I generally don’t just dump my hand out every chance I get.

Building off of the Terramorphic Expanse and evolving wilds discussion, the two color choose lands (the thriving and CLB gate cycle) are better options for mana fixing in 3+ color decks if you don't care the shuffle or landfall. Also the Gate cycle can be especially good with Circuitous Route, which is another strictly better explosive vegetation.

Notice how for damnatiion they mentioned only white wraths apart from toxic deluge 😂

I totally knew I was going to put Escape Tunnel in my Arcades deck as soon as I saw it spoiled. And I did and it rules.

40:20 absolutely. If everyone can reliably get engines going, especially when cards like Rhystic Study are out and everyone is drawing off of everything, Smuggler’s Share can become a white Phyrexian Arena+ that sometimes give ramp off of the landfall deck or late game fetches. This is niche (pronounced neesh, not nitch, unless you want me to notch your nethers, Neanderthals), but when I sleeved it up I was the sole reason one of my lgs’s regulars stopped playing Mind’s Eye in their colorless deck and that makes me feel warm and fuzzy

No one plays Duplicant for whatever stats it happens to get... they play it for the EXILE effect. It ending up as a vanilla creature is essentially irrelevant.

I cant let Explosive Vegetation go just because I love my Onslaught Foil copy so much D:

I will forever defend treasure nabber, It does one of three things really well! 1.) Ramp you. Your opponents decide its worth it to just let you borrow the mana rocks. 2.) Slow down your opponents: they refuse to use their own mana to prevent you from borrowing it. 3.) Removal check the table: Better the annoying borrower than an important creature right? Its almost always 2 until 3 happens for me. Three mana to prevent people from using their own mana rocks? Pretty good. If by some miracle they use the mana rocks, then you get a temporary boost as well, great! They kill it outright or counter it? Better that than something more impactful right?

Burnished hart and solemn sim for me was a sad realization they’ve been power crept out. 5-10 years ago the big impactful spells were 5-8 mana, now they are 3-6 mana, so they don’t accelerate your gameplay anymore, and if anything actively hinder it because you are casting ramp spells instead of impactful spells. I have like 10 of each piled up and play them in maybe 2 or 3 decks total. 90% of my ramp is 2 cmc or less now, if I’m paying 3 for a ramp card it’s got to do more than just find lands, and I’m not paying any more. I’m surprised solemn didn’t get mentioned in the video tbh, it’s probably one of the most iconic cards in the format.

An observation/prognostication about Escape Tunnel: it may suffer from the (temporary) curse of Idol of Oblivion. The extra text (in the case of Escape Tunnel, the watered-down Rogue's Passage ability) might cause people--at least initially--to shy away from the card, only to rediscover it after some time passes. The card might experience a renaissance in the future when folks realize that it might be worth running just for the additional fetch/landfall trigger, as they discovered that decks that don't necessarily care about making a 10/10 token still might want Idol of Oblivion.

I feel the same about Grave Pact and Dictate. I used to run both in my Edgar deck, and I vividly remember getting one out pretty early. I ran away with that game, but I felt bad about winning because one of the other guys just could not build his board. Now, I only run one of them.