Essential Deckbuilding Tools & FAQ | EDHRECast 276

[@CrabBaskets]

Scryfall advanced search is my favorite tool. I have discovered so many unique cards in the process!

[@jackrose3086]

Yeah, it can be so helpful. Using that along with EDHREC advanced filters has helped me get lists for a few of my commander brews.

[@Nidrog]

I both love and hate Scryfall. Like it's such a good tool for finding things. But man it feels like I'm back in high school doing coding homework whenever I want to search things. Edit: WELP I just got to Matt's bit about Scryfall and oh my god I am feeling like such an idiot because I never knew this bit was a thing! I've just been using the syntax stuff before this!

[@Oopsall]

@@Nidrogit’s like a puzzle haha, I usually like doing crazy detailed scryfall searches or using a very generic search and just scrolling

[@xanderjones6239]

Ayeee! My prosper challenge made the show! ❤ thanks Matt, your dad jokes always brighten my Friday. (Dana too) Y'all are treasures, kinda like propser makes 🪙

[@robboomsma6739]

And street urchin was added to my wishlist for prosper. Just when I thought the deck was finished....

[@xanderjones6239]

@robboomsma6739 it's obviously a personal favorite of mine. I've been able to play politics pretty well with it. Also, it's great for pinging down planswalkers

[@tortle1055]

It was a great challenge

[@xanderjones6239]

@@tortle1055 thanks! I appreciate it!

[@NoTengoIdeaGuey]

Bro I discovered Street Urchin awhile back looking at all the backgrounds to see what I could find and when I realized the synergy with Prosper I was so pumped. You go off a few turns with Academy Manufactor and you can just sac like 5 food, 5 treasures and kill the 5 biggest creatures in one go. Sheeeeesh.

[@scaredycat3146]

I really wish they would add 'sets' to the advanced filter options. It would help me soooo much to update decks specifically with new cards from the last year or so. The 'new cards' section is just not enough when you don't update everything with every new release. I have about 30 more or less active decks, that's just not feasable.

[@Akoustikus]

Yes! Set filters please! I feel like I semi-inspired the timing of this video with similar commentary on last weeks episode. The other side of set filters is to exclude a set you don't like/that is overly saturated in a strategy! Idk how much effort is involved, but I would *love* that feature!

[@tortle1055]

If you’re talking about scryfall, then yes they do have it. For example, typing in set:mom would filter to only cards from March of the Machine

[@scaredycat3146]

@@tortle1055 Nope was talking about edhrec advanced filters. The filters of scryfall are great and I use them frequently. But I want to for example know what cards from NEO and SNC specifically found their way into Marath decks that I may or may not have missed. That's what I want to filter for.

[@IneptCardCollector]

That would be really clutch.

[@ecogeek13]

I love the new UI for the advanced filters on EDHREC. It's super simple simple of clear.

[@Gshadewolf14]

Dana joking about reading emails over and over was honestly one of my favorite Dana moments of all time, never a dull episode with you three!

[@lelandwhitehead56]

Dana's Email bit had me rolling the entire time. Good episode!

[@TravvyBear262]

In regards to historical data, it would be cool if you made a "archive" of each year as they fall out of the two year window. You could have some really neat visuals that would show the trends through the years of cards popularity. Granted this would probably be wayyy too much work to be realistic but could serve as a "historical" tracking of this massive format.

[@samcyphert860]

Love this idea. I started commander in 2014 and always reminisce on playing big spells, battle cruiser magic style. In reality it would be like doing nothing for the first 5-6 turns. Would love to play some of the original decks for a reminder of what the meta used to be.

[@lukes9550]

I wish more people talked about things like this. Thank you!

[@dustinchang5089]

Ouch…I still use mortify and vindicate…

[@ayylith]

imo there's absolutely nothing wrong with them, but since there's cards that are just that tiny bit better now, it's still more useful to get recent data so it actually shows that more people are running the newer removal spells than those ones

[@whipstitchzombie]

i didn't know about that find-my-combos thing, that's cool as hell

[@drsherifff]

moxfield and archidekt having edhrec search is so great

[@Palolz123]

@27:36 I think Street Urchin works well with Ashnod the Uncaring in the same way

[@surplusvalue5497]

I've watched a lot of your videos and not gonna lie I usually skip through the jokes. The bit about reading our emails actually had me dying laughing though, cheers

[@delailama736]

Archidekt is probably my favourite deck building tool.

[@slackwellman5499]

HAHAHAHA excellent podcast. A little off the rails at times but absolutely had me rolling 🤣

[@SeeToTheLemson]

Matt is such a combat guy that the very *second* Dana said combo at 46:22, Matt's body reacted immediately with a yawn. It just shows these guys live and breathe what they say. Literally.

[@mightyone3737]

I used to not understand how to use Scryfall, but once I 'got good' it proved itself better than what I was using before. I think I can see your point about a 'sugar' score being less useful than a salt score (I hadn't really thought of that), but you could do a 'jank' score, it'd be nice to see how janky a deck is 'at a glance'.

[@tommieboi707]

Just got my tickets to magic con Vegas! Hope to play a few games with you guys there!

[@unseeliedream42]

I use the advanced fitler alwayssss. especially when I find a card I am all excited about after researching the deck and I see it could be a blast but it's not used much :3

[@tortle1055]

Didn’t know about judge chat before, but am very glad to have found out about it

[@pletato4729]

I dont know how possible it would be, but a cool potential option could be having past two years as the default data and being able to filter for specific longer time ranges I think its wonderful to keep the data current but sometimes i really want to see what was happening with a deck years ago it’s a lot to potentially implement so its understandable if it just isnt feasible but it would be so cool to see

[@WarrickRanger]

I just got back in to Magic after being out for about a decade. I've been playing since Ice Age and was there for the beginning of Commander circa 2011, but then kids and family and less time. Now that my kid is older I've got more time to get into hobbies. Your channel (and EDHRec) has been instrumental in getting caught up, things are so much different than they used to be! I'm still going through your backlog, and so maybe you've already covered this (and if so maybe someone can link it for me), could you do a video on "deckbuilding philosophy"? What I mean is some of the advice I've read is to start with the win condition and work backwards, some say build around your commander, and others yet say start with the theme and chose commanders/colors afterwards. Curious how you and your community approach it.

[@TheManOfBlues]

Speaking to Street Urchin in Challenge the Stats, I'll say it's best with Ashnod the Uncaring. She also has deathtouch, but adds another trigger. Most of her decks are going to have tokens lying around, and Street Urchin turns them all into a better Executioner's Capsule, which is already in 57% of decks. Street Urchin is in 5%. I have this in an Ashnod deck with a Salvaging Station, which can create an "infinite" combo when I have an artifact land or a sol ring out. Tap and sacrifice a Great Furnace to Ashnod via Street Urchin, destroy two creatures, get the land back with Salvaging Station. Keep going until there's no more targets. Sol Ring and Mana Vault produce mana this way 😂

[@aeorling]

Thanks for digging into this!

[@IneptCardCollector]

I'm bullish on advanced filters. 33:54 oh nice! I freaking love Dana's sense of humor 😅😅😅😅😅

[@JustSully420]

One time i was just finished building my deck and wanted to look at similar decks at EDHREC. So I clicked on decks and started looking at decks within my budget. And this one deck looked exactly as mine. Even some pet cards and weird pick. I was shocked! Turned out I was looking at my own deck haha.

[@brycehinson2005]

I can attest. Street Urchin in Prosper is OP

[@wesleyvansteenburg9970]

I was told to remove Viridian Longbow because it was so oppressive in my playgroup. I can't wait to show them Street Urchin.

[@brycehinson2005]

@@wesleyvansteenburg9970 I use Viridian Longbow along with Sorcerer's Wand as well. I consider them repeatable single target removal.

[@pauldyson8098]

Challenge the Stats suggestion: Chief Jim Hopper/Sophina, Spearsage Deserter in General Ferrous Rokiric. The card doesn't appear on GFR's EDHREC page. While GFR decks are not clue-focused, Boros needs all the card draw it can get, plus Ferrous decks tend to have at least some token synergy (token doublers like Mondrak and Anointed Procession and token-based card draw like Idol of Oblivion and Bennie Bracks).

[@aaronmorgan1989]

Genius play by Dana, slow rolling his Segway until it became uncounterable (its a word.) Anyways, thanks for all the suggs

[@20x20]

if only Advanced Filters let you look for decks with its search criteria... for no commander in particular - in order to give you an idea of which one to choose.

[@crabshack101]

Joey and Matt: Shutting down the idea that EDHREC scraps all your emails Dana: *Disaster Girl meme*

[@TheLordSorin]

Yo can you fix your website you put ads on there now it sucks. I'm fine with you guys making money off of ads. The quality of your website shouldn't go down too😊

[@joelynch4698]

I literally dropped a second harvest into my Glissa deck five minutes before watching this video.

[@hanschristopherson8056]

Putrefy and mortify are still in WAY too many decks

[@pletato4729]

one of my favorite features is looking at cards and their top commanders they are used in So often I find a cool card and want to find somewhere to play it and thats so helpful for it

[@paperwatt]

1:45 And unlike onions, the puns didn't make me cry like they usually do!

[@ItsReallyColdOutside]

This feels like a response to that one video about edhrec and cEDH

[@M1XYF1T]

Question that may not get answered since this video is 10 days old. When someone says their deck typically wins in x turns, and uses that as a power scale, that usually means "as long as the player gets unimpeded" right? Example I say a deck wins in 5 turns, as long as I'm not counterspelled.

[@EDHRECast]

Good question! In general, we haven't meant "will win by X turn if unimpeded" in our pregame conversations, but it's a great idea to clarify even more of that info for sure! "Games I play with this deck most often end around turn X by if it pops off unimpeded it could probably win as early as turn Y" is even more information to help everyone get on the same page.

[@billberndtson]

29:10 I had to stop the video at this point to look - "Prosper has deathtouch?"

[@lightfut]

Matt for the RC, but his emails!

[@nharviala]

I'm happy I was the first person to submit a combo for Tayam, Luminous Enigma to Spellbook. Still my baby to this day! It's the Tayam + Hallowed Spiritkeeper + Ashnod's Altar one, if folks are curious.

[@chamaohug0]

This discussion remember that when I put together my Farideh deck back then when Forgotten Realms came out, and because there weren't enough card with roll a dice I put a token copy subtheme, then when I used the advanced filter on EDHREC, there was only my deck (nowadays there are 70+ Farideh decks that run Rite of Replication).

[@garryhewitt1053]

Hell the RC has all the judge levels….

[@teradul2480]

Second harvest might not work with Glincubator, but you know what works amazingly there? Song of Titania. It literally becomes a cheat on the 2 mana you have to pay for Incubate while also doubling down as artifact and even more so treasure hate.

[@jackrose3086]

I added my decks to deck building websites because I wanted to know how years of upgrades changed the original budgets. It was fascinating to see how my Dual Deck goblins became a Krenko, Mob Boss EDH deck after my friends taught me how to play commander.

[@akselhansen304]

Well you could have a drop down meny to select how old data you would like to have displayed New data can also be clouded by a new mechanic reviving an older commander

[@scottricks1676]

I’d love to see a deep dive into scry falls syntax. I’ve watched some others but would love to see yalls breakdown!

[@juuuurgenful]

Tried advanced filters for my most niche deck, found 1 deck xD

[@ToddOnATangent]

Any chance of incorporating pauper commanders in the future?

[@kiritokaguya9180]

I like to lookup on games with the commander on KZbin or on twitch to see how it plays or how other people build some decks. Joey, Brian Kibler, Milch from commander quarters are all inspirations for some changes in my decks

[@kiritokaguya9180]

I propably missen around 10 or more people 😄 the Prof., Olivia, Eilidh the command zone people!!!

[@aklepatzky]

The issue with edhrec is you get too many bad cards suggested as well cause people are bad at building decks or play timmy magic

[@danaroach29]

Well, they're not necessarily bad cards. They might be, don't get me wrong, but they might just be bad for your particular take on that commander. Regardless it's absolutely an issue with raw data aggregation.

[@vincentkuijpers9219]

forge?

[@Ultinuc]

11:43 I actually cannot. I can look within a theme OR I can look for budget. Once I select one or the other it cancels out the other filter

[@ayylith]

You should be able to select both (I can, at least) but yeah I have noticed there seems to be some kind of limit to the number of different filters you can apply. Not sure exactly how it works but I often find myself with 3 similar tabs open because clicking a certain filter cancels out another. But, filtering only by theme and budget seems to work fine for me.

[@andreusemanuel4868]

A tool I believe it's not on edhrec yet but I always wanted to see is something like: "popular cards for a commander that were made in the last 2 years/last year" (we can find a better name). Catching up with new sets is hard, and we currently have only popular inclusions from the last set/last two sets available. Let me see what new cards have been added to their decks.

[@LeonBelmont13]

eh... I'd argue the sugar score is just the inverse of the salt score for any one card. they are just two different sides of the same scale.

[@dapperghastmeowregard]

Implying Vindicate isn't the first card I put in every Orzhov deck :P

[@errinscroggins291]

Love edh rec, but Joey is possibly one of the most annoying people to listen to

[@retribution2760]

Mirkwood bats won't trigger when you transform the incubate token with no counter, they will die for sba and mirkwood check if they are sacrificed. Nadier's nightblade would tho.

[@EDHRECast]

Mirkwood Bats triggers whenever you create a token, that's what Dana was referring to for the purposes of Second Harvest.

[@burnsboy101]

“Reading the card explains the card”

[@kl3r1k3r-7]

Changing a one sided boardwipe to just a regular boardwipe seems a bit meh. If you just want a boardwipe okay. But the one sided aspect makes garuks wake a bit more special. At the end of the day it depends on how you want to improve your deck.

[@rosinx]

Twitter is now X, need to change the Twitter logo!

[@danaroach29]

Istanbul not Constantinople.

[@xanderjones6239]

You notice they didn't say Twitter