Hearthstone Player Rates SPOOKY Magic Cards w/ CovertGoBlue

[@eewweeppkk]

Already spotted 4 comments pointing out that ball lightning is a real thing, ignoring the fact that the explanation of it being a real thing is literally in the video during the segment.

[@MusicalBoarder]

Ya well youtube commenters arent the smartest people to be fair

[@drask1988]

well, yeah, you hear something stupid, wait 1-2 sentences if they clear it up and then you pause and type the comment. who tf checks for the segments or waits until the end of the video for the low chance of a correction

[@eewweeppkk]

@@drask1988 Because the earth would simply stop spinning if we didn't point out things that don't matter, right?

[@drask1988]

@@eewweeppkk true, our comments are prove enough that it must be so.

[@hugomendoza5665]

@@drask1988 Patient people. Which, to be fair, is not generally what the internet is comprised of.

[@dynesaurus8264]

CONGRATULATIONS Rarran!! You just achieved level 2 of being a magic player by discovering llanowar elves

[@briankelly1240]

I so want there to be actual levels to being a magic player!

[@itze_]

​@@briankelly1240 there are 415 levels.

[@MainTopmastStaysail]

It's worth mentioning that you can speed up the 7 turn Approach clock. Regular card draw speeds it up, as does self-mill. So does running more than one copy: sometimes one of your other Approaches is on top of your deck! Standard Approach decks didn't have to wait the full 7 turns very often. They had a lot of incidental card draw, they had a land that could mill them for 4, and they ran multiple Approaches. What kept the deck in check was that there was an absolutely insane red aggro deck in the format that warped everything around itself. Approach is nigh unbeatable for slow value decks but there were none to prey on. Approach is also worth mentioning as a the ringer win con for a lot of convoluted combos, even today. If you're going off and can cast and draw whatever card, it's a clean way to win that the opponent can do nothing about.

[@serenolopez-darwin1975]

Rarran is actually exactly right at 7:50 lol, he says "if the metagame has a lot of nonbasic lands, you can run Blood Moon and win a lot of games from it." This is perfectly correct, he just doesn't realize that *most* metagames have a lot of nonbasic lands.

[@saevin7th]

Yup, modern decks that play 2+ colors just run 80-90% of their lands just off fetches, duals and triomes, not to mention 5 color/domain piles

[@Hakokoro]

Blood Moon allows Free Win Red deck to thrice. Where you just win by playing hate cards it's great

[@pepper7880]

@@Hakokoro what

[@celeschan90]

But see, I played Magic during that era, and I didn't know that non-basic lands (that give you colored mana) were commonly played back then. I mostly just saw basic lands used for colored mana. There were the double lands like Tundra, but they were quite expensive and rare iirc. I only knew two people who had them.

[@matthewgagnon9426]

@@celeschan90 Depending on how early that was, "expensive" could have been like 30 dollars.

[@cn-hd2xj]

Summon creature as text makes way more sense to me because it kind a reinforces that creatures are spells as well which was really counterintuitive to me when I was learning magic

[@tinfoilslacks3750]

Ironically when Magic first released creature cards were "summons", and they only became creatures when on the field. It was changed to how it is now because people then were arguing it was unintuitive in exactly the opposite way.

[@juliandacosta6841]

​@@tinfoilslacks3750in a similar vein, permanents are no longer spells when they stick around on the battlefield. Or else it'd be even harder to block emrakul

[@laytonjr6601]

@@juliandacosta6841 You have cards in hand, graveyard, exile, commander zone, companion zone and ante zone. You have spells and abilities on the stack. You have permanents on the battlefield. Getting used to this is one of the first step to learning magic

[@nirast2561]

Approach of the Second Sun is basically the Wheel of Death we have now. Except, you know, with a significantly more metal name.

[@theemathas]

Season Of The Witch is also known as a rulings nightmare, because the rules of magic don't actually define what counts as "could have attacked". Nobody knows how it's supposed to interact with Silent Arbiter, which allows you to only attack with one creature at a time.

[@VVheeli]

Basically every attack-limiting card with Season of Witch is immediate grounds for a judge call. Ghostly Prison, Propaganda, even Laviathan. it’s a massive headache. In order to attack you pay mana for Propaganda, but when SotW checks if a creature can attack does it take it into account if you’re out of mana? Does it do the check at the moment, seeing if there are any restrictions on creatures attacking at the end of turn, or is it a continuous check to see if at any point it could have attacked? Even though this card isn’t good, every locals and commander pod would have this card on a community ban list because no one wants to deal with it.

[@calemr]

Current official rulings state that any of your creatures that could have attacked at the start of your combat phase, but then couldn't due to an effect like Silent Arbiter, are still destroyed. (EDIT: This is an older ruling, that has been changed Again, and now it is once again unclear.) If, however, those creatures cannot attack, and then you grant them the ability to do so by paying the cost for a Propaganda type effect, then the creatures you paid the cost for can attack, and the rest are safe. But it's entirely optional, as you're not forced to tap your lands.

[@rajamicitrenti1374]

​@@calemr Where is this ruling? There's nothing on Gatherer for Season of the Witch that explains a situation other than situations where you have an option to enable additional creatures to attack (such as a way to give Haste to a creature that just entered). It doesn't explain a Silent Arbiter type situation.

[@calemr]

@@rajamicitrenti1374 Alright, maybe it got changed Again. Y'know, just when you think you finally understand this card, they go and alter the wording again... But as of a couple years ago, it had "Every creature that could have been declared as an attacker during that turn’s Declare Attackers Step but wasn’t will be destroyed." And having checked just now, it no longer does, you're right.

[@BackyardDuelist]

It's ok it doesn't effect me I'm Non-Binary(I'm not actually it's just for the joke)

[@Dr_Ragon]

Ah blood moon, my rules nemesis, we meet again. This judge respects your ability to create the weirdest scenarios and force people to look up layers rules, but despises how often they come up in a tournament setting.

[@lachlanmcgowan5712]

Blood Moon vs Urza's Saga, who wins? (Blood Moon wins, Urza's Saga is sacrificed as soon as Blood Moon activates)

[@magicalgirlanime]

Especially when creature lands come up. "Does my activated inkmoth nexus still have infect under blood moon?"

[@Ossum123]

“if I ever play Commander,” he says. LOL. Someone tell Kibler to invite him to Commander At Home with Ben Brode xD

[@AzyxA]

This

[@AzyxA]

That would be incredible if they both were invited for a game. 😂

[@thebitterfig9903]

One thing I love about these videos is seeing the old art which often had somewhat clashing styles: Anson Maddocks, Kaja Foglio, Rebecca Guay, Richard Kane Fergusson. The really distinctive stuff from early Magic. I haven’t played MtG in decades, but I miss that. The variety of styles was interesting, and I feel like card games tend to smooth the edges off these days.

[@Sindraelyn]

Fun fact, there are rules for multiplayer on how “you win the game” works. Basically, it gets changed to “every opponent you can interact with loses the game”; this is why you see things like “your opponent can’t win the game and you can’t lose the game”. This rule is mostly for larger games where it really isn’t feasible to have like 8 people trying to influence board state.

[@seandun7083]

The "your opponents can't win and you can't lose" wording is required because it doesn't get changed to "each opponent loses the game". There are rules that I believe work similar to that, but they only apply if you are playing with the limited range of influence rules. 801.14: If an effect states that a player wins the game, all of that player's opponents within that player's range of influence lose the game instead.

[@connorlomas1108]

Can't wait for Rarran to show up on shuffle up and play with his approach combo deck

[@adamn7777]

I'm so glad this has Maze of Ith in it. To me that's the most memorable and iconic card from this set and one of my all time favorite cards. I played it in every commander deck by default. I loved playing it in legacy with Tabernacle and Pendrel Vale, Rishadan Port, and Wasteland. Approach of the Second Sun reminds me very much of the brand new Hearthstone card Wheel of Death!!! which turned out playable

[@seandun7083]

Would have loved Sorrow's Path as well since it was rare compared to Maze's uncommon but so much worse.

[@thechrisgrice]

" I loved playing it in legacy with Tabernacle and Pendrel Vale, Rishadan Port, and Wasteland." Woah, slow down Satan.

[@Brntnugget]

Something covert forgot to mention about second sun is that you don’t necessarily need to cast it seven turns later. Your most likely a control deck so you will be drawing/digging for this card and you might find another copy of the card before the original one. Or you might just have two in your hand and you cast them back to back

[@Danceofmasks]

There used to be a game mode called prismatic, where each player played 1 colour, and they are arranged just like the back of the magic card. The players next to you are your "allies," and the players opposite you are your "enemies." The normal win con is the first person whose enemies are both eliminated. I'd imagine in a prismatic game, casting approach of the second sun might provoke the blue player to counter the spell. :P

[@jaxsonbateman]

Approach is one of my favourite cards in Magic, and is almost surely the wincon I use in a lot of my infinite mana OTKs. The tempo loss isn't really a tempo loss if you're comboing off that turn with it, after all! =P One cool thing about it that many people who haven't had a lot of experience with it may not realise, is that the first copy doesn't have to resolve - it just has to get cast. A play back at release was to Remand it back to your hand (1U, return target spell to its owners hand + draw a card), then cast it again the next turn. Now that we have Reprieve (1W, same effect), that's a bit more common. As part of the wincon of my combo decks I typically counter it with Sublime Epiphany while creating a token of something like Eternal Witness, then get it back with the Witness token to cast it again.

[@_Max_Fan]

Dark Heart of the Wood (and the other two multi-color cards in The Dark) have the text about their colors because it was still a new mechanic. In Legends each pack had an insert card explaining new mechanics, including the fact that multi-color cards were all of their colors, but that was not the case for this set

[@romajimamulo]

I'm so glad I suggested Approach of the Second Sun. We got that card really wrong at first

[@Shukentenable]

Funny that Rarran said Approach of the Second Sun might be playable in Hearthstone, considering its extremely similar to Wheel of Death. And Wheel had a similar review cycle, of coming out and being better than expected.

[@izaiahsundquist6877]

17:19 MTG finance for The Dark makes perfect sense, it's either half or double what Rarran thinks it is.

[@marvalice3455]

18:49 ball lightning is a mysterious phenomenon in which lightning seems to form as a sphere. It is very rare, and nobody knows how it works, so it is pretty neat inspiration for a magic spell

[@orionaffect]

Honestly love this series with you and cgb one of my favorites on youtube right now

[@lachlank.8270]

+11

[@stryfer1989]

The part they didn't get to mention about Approach is that it's not so much about cheating the cast as following up with big draw effect to where you can basically cast it on your next turn (or same turn on rare occasions).

[@FunkyToe369]

You guys make some great collabs, always so entertaining

[@lachlank.8270]

+2

[@pilarius3973]

One of the first Magic decks I ever played against was my roommate’s lotus field combo deck that would cast omniscience, approach of the second sun, draw their whole deck, and play a second approach of the second sun all in one turn. That card was a bonkers introduction to Magic lol

[@DarkShinyMagikarp]

You two make such a great duo. Would love to see more of these videos.

[@grantharriman284]

7:04 "I'll have to really start undershooting... the next card's gonna be like 3 grand" *BLOODMOON* pops up on screen That timing was impeccable. If only it didn't have a dozen reprints that would be a 4 possibly 5 digit card

[@Dom_Maretti]

Approach of the Second Sun is my 2nd favorite "Win the Game" card after Laboratory Maniac (Simic Omniscience is one of my favorite decks ever).

[@mobiasjoe2807]

These cards bring me joy. 😢 I don't remember when I started playing but we are getting to the old stuff that I love

[@Xenobears]

10:00 I actually had a couple of Leviathans back in the day… I NEVER used it because I also had Killer Bees, Keldon Warlord, and a bunch of other creatures that were easy to make just as big without permanently impairing my mana generation. (I first got into the game around the time the Ice Age set came out)

[@Balthazar228]

I remember when I thought Leviathan and Polar Kraken were the best cards in the game

[@meanberryy]

I played elves of deep shadows in decks that did't even use black mana back in the days. Even a collorles mana was worth taking ping dmg for.

[@gordonramsey7379]

I’m glad they’re continuing this, it’s really interesting

[@cobyabilock5924]

Love your collabs with cgb!

[@meanberryy]

CGB: ball lightning Rarran: I've seen enough Leroy to see were this is going.

[@Sdogofdoom]

Ball lightning is Leroy jenkins for 1 less mana, in a game where the the enemy has 2/3rds the health. Even playing no magic, I could tell that was busted back in the day.

[@notgryphon]

I really hope you get to review Fallen Empires, it truly is The Grand Tournament of MtG.

[@dennisyoung6122]

"I play Approach for the second time." "I flash out Platinum Angel" :D

[@Akiram1445]

CGB should also be showing you the Gatherer text for most of these older cards. WotC errataed most of them to fit modern wording and templating, and it makes what a TON of shit does way clearer and less convoluted.

[@totoru4ever]

"Ball lightning is a rare and unexplained phenomenon described as luminescent, spherical objects that vary from pea-sized to several meters in diameter." -wikipedia

[@marcushead9985]

Best play with Approach of the Second Sun in my experience is to wait until you have two of them in your hand (not in Commander, obviously) and cast them on successive turns. Or the same turn, if the game's gone on long enough you have fourteen mana to play with.

[@Joseph125]

I know the CGB collabs are a trip through Magic's past, but have the two of you talked about doing a set review together for the upcoming Outlaws of Thunder Junction set? Pick out a few cards, talk about them, talk about whether they're likely to see play. Perfect chance to get some wins under your belt if you predict a card will be good and CGB thinks it won't see play.

[@itsfort2098]

Bringing up Season of the Witch without it's partner Silent Arbiter. SADGE

[@zenithquasar9623]

Dark Heart of the Wood has such an awesome flavour and I think that contributes to it being played a lot.

[@sockweaver1741]

I love these videos with CGB, I haven’t played magic but I love getting a kinda history lesson on magic as well as a really funny video

[@marshalllenhart7923]

With approach of the second sun, you can a. Run 4. B. Dig with cantrips. I remember having a 80%+ winrate on arena soonish after this came out.

[@G4meC0be]

As a little child I ate that leviathan card my dad had. I don't know why but I guess It was delicious. I still think my father is mad about this but I assume it's just because he couldn't taste it himself.

[@Jlizard27]

I'm trying to imagine what my reaction would be if I was panicking and told my friend that there was a second sun approaching the Earth, and their response was "poggies!!"

[@Blueflameraven17]

My best friend has a copy of Leviathan and every time i see it in his collection i mess with him and am like oh man hiw are you playing this cars you have a sea monster deck this is perfect for it. The death glares are always perfect so i love his "why was printed" response 😂

[@senken12]

A couple of key points to bare in mind when trying to guess the cost Lands are generally higher than non-lands If it's not on the reserved list and is playable, it's probably been reprinted a whole bunch of times

[@Mechsrule1]

One of my favorite things about The Dark creatures, is Nameless Race, which has no creature type.

[@weshverified]

Huge fan of the CovertGoBlue collabs! Perfect excuse for me to start slacking off near the end of my shift.

[@Red_Mag3]

Instead of "play only as a sorcery" I propose we bring back "may be played as an interrupt" lol

[@matthewgagnon9426]

It's wild to me to see someone say they didn't get Ball Lightning at first. I adored that card as a kid, because it was 6 damage for 3 mana. It won me so many games.

[@rickwoods5274]

I think if Rarran remembered the existence of City of Brass and how good it is (from the Arabian Nights video) he would have correctly evaluated Blood Moon

[@RiverM8rix]

Hey Rarran, I have a couple of cards that I’d like to recommend to show to your guests. 1) Barnes 2) Cataclysm 3) DOOM!! 4) Emerald Spellstone

[@andredepadua8799]

28:19: "Wheel of Death for Paladin"

[@Darkorinth1]

I have played in a 12 player ga,e. It was fun. We did multiplayer a lot before commander was even a concept. If someone played a win con like second sun what we usually did was say "you win, now who gets second" and just continued playing without them.

[@LucRio448]

i guess casting approach of the second sun is the greatest commander global taunt ever :D

[@Jintasan]

My friend has a scry deck where he has approach of the second sun. He is very good at just getting it back in his hand.

[@Dragostorm21]

The 9 mana 10/10 was probably as bad as it was at least partially because blue isn't supposed to have great stated creatures usually. Maybe I'm coping for the designers from before I was born

[@donb7519]

Blue did use to be the big creature color

[@Dragostorm21]

@@donb7519 fuck, 25+ years change a lot

[@randommaster06]

I love how Raran reacts to hearing about the IRL loot boxes from the 90's.

[@ClefTheMouse]

18:34 It's called 'ball lightning' because there is an actual phenomenon that goes by the same name: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning

[@sharlockshacolmes9381]

I'm sure there is some finance Bro somewhere sitting on 30 copies of Frankenstein monster repeating to himself "one day this will see competitive play in some legacy dredge list and I'll be rich!"

[@JaykTheJackal]

The text could read that I take 3 damage every turn and Mana Crypt would still be busted.

[@Klaital1]

Next up is Fallen Empires, which is probably the weirdest set in all of M:tG history, in that pretty much all the rares/uncommons in the set were awful, but it had lots of absolutely busted commons.

[@Kevmoeman]

I love ball lightning and every red creature like it, theyre so fun to play with because you dont have to care what happens to it at all haha

[@AndrewRogue]

Zuran Orb intensifies during Rarran's assessment of Dark Heart of the Wood.

[@GaleStream]

Me halfway through the video checking the video timeline: "Oh, wait, that last card looks like Approach of the Second Sun." "... wait why is Approach of the Second Sun here?"

[@dustdevilmech]

I bought a bunch of this set. It was half the cost compared to other magic booster packs during that time.

[@mrcrowe1848]

i love my old casual ball-lightning fling deck

[@NotASummoner]

I love this series!

[@Fibonochos]

Ball lightning is actually supposed a real weather phenomenon

[@hellcopterts8895]

Was expecting Rarran to compare Ball Lightning with Lerroy on crack

[@Klaital1]

Covert should have shown Rarran Marsh Viper also to get him in the whole rabbit hole with alternate win conditions.

[@SpellingBeeWiner]

I want to see Rarren get handed a crazy commander deck and play it.

[@BFND357]

You’re almost at 200 K bro I’m happy for you

[@livedandletdie]

Approach is actually a really good card, especially if you just play Green White Ramp + Boardwipes. Who cares about your opponent, toss in a couple Gaea's Blessing, and you're set. Mill protection. I mean. 15 Forests 9 Plains, 4 Explore, 4 Harrow, 2 Approach, 4 Farewell, 4, Gaea's Blessing, 18 other boardwipes. Yeah, it's a nice win con, although some of those boardwipes are wincons as well, why not toss in the good ones, like Sunfall and White Sun's Zenith and of course we need cheap mass removal, Doomskar. I mean, when your opponent has nothing to beat you with, then winning isn't hard.

[@0047David]

Ball lightning reminds me of leeroy

[@Bleesotron]

And then after Ball Lightning, they made Small Ball Lightning, Two Small Ball Lightnings, Green Ball Lightning, Red/Black Ball Lightning, Red/White Ball Lightning.

[@joebobby1412]

The content flows and I consume

[@TrimutiusToo]

Ball Lightning is an actual physical phenomenon... it is old name, they didn't just invent it for MtG...

[@streiifi]

rarran is crushing now the content for mtg with cvg

[@colinfun]

I have an issue with CGB, Arena was a good card, there were 2 good cards you could get from the book series, not just mana crypt. Sure mana crypt was better, but arena was very useful at the time.

[@TwoRedOneBlonde]

All Hallows Eve was my favorite card for a very long time

[@flintston3r]

I just wanna say that one of my friends got salty the moment I pulled mana crypt 2/3 in a car from a box of mystery boosters. I'd also like to point out that my first mana crypt was pulled in a car. So maybe there's something to cracking packs in cars.

[@KDurahan]

im gonna be so satisfied if these videos go all the way to current

[@KerDogg]

Just wanted to say the cost of mana crypt is definitely one reason it's annoying but for me it's more about the play pattern. It just warps games. And yes Sol Ring too but we are past the point of no return on that one

[@harz632]

Damn, I guessed 25 for the season of the witch, was pretty on the money

[@nickjoseph77]

Can't wait to watch this video! Spooky old cards. Lol

[@brycemiller831]

I remember I borrowed a friends commander deck and almost won with the second son by comboing off and playing it twice in a single turn. I was 2 mana off. Then everyone murdered me.

[@Kirby950]

Question for the Magic players on ruling for Dark heart of the Wood. It says sac a forest, but it never mentions it has to be yours or your opponents for the three life. Can’t you just slowly mana drain a green player or is it just assumed to only work on your own forest lands?

[@cptnkaladin]

I’m pretty sure Sacrifice can only target your own things, implicitly.

[@Sonitus523]

Ahhh Approach of the Second Sun lol. I've only pulled the card off once in a commander game and god it felt good.

[@creepykoala7255]

Magic newbie here: Wouldn't casting Approach of the Second Sun from hand and then copying it just win you the game on the spot? Cause the copy resolves first, and the original that was cast from hand resolves second?

[@Petros_Flames]

From rules: A copy of a spell isn’t cast at all, so it won’t count for either of these.

[@josephcomawas8729]

a bit short though. It just fueled the hype for more collabs from GCB

[@Dhips.]

I've never in my life seen anybody get mad at a Mana Crypt being played.

[@E3Zen]

You dont even want to know about Wood Elemental

[@fallendeus]

Approach of the second sun is the best card. Dont care what anyone says. It's also funny that rarran doesn't know that the "second sun" is actually referring to nicol bolas not an actual sun.

[@p.ayebasco6645]

I wanna see a Commander game where you can only win by alteranative win conditions.

[@askmeagain43]

Okay but when is CBG goin to show you the glory of... Form of the Approach of The Second Sun