How Broken Cards Saved Magic For Me

[@christopherb501]

"Scotland voted to remain part of the UK" And as recent developments continue to show, _probably_ not the best move.

[@refundreplay]

Why?

[@xtensioncordtv1969]

​@refundreplay I'd guess Brexit, but the Tories are also running the country slowly into the ground as well.

[@ThymeTwister]

​@@xtensioncordtv1969both of those are amongst pretty valid reasons. Most of all though, I think it's just... time. The Empire is gone, it's time to have a respectful, adult relationship with England.

[@faiir]

A major argument for why Scotland should stay in the UK was the need to negotiate becoming a part of the EU after the split. And then Brexit happened, and now not only Scotland's not a part of the EU, joining back would require splitting from the UK again.

[@killpioo2]

​@@xtensioncordtv1969pig p

[@RyanCase1124]

The fetches in Khans were not a problem until they printed the dual land types in Battle for Zendikar and suddenly the entire format warped into 4/5-Color Good Stuff. I'll forever argue that fetches are fine for Standard (and are a good reprint card to give people access to Modern) if you just don't print dual/tri-land types in the same format (or do it JUST as the fetches are set to rotate).

[@bobertbojo2]

If there's no fetchable dual lands, then there's virtually no difference between a fetchland and a pathway. Unless you have something like domain in standard, in which case you should probably have dual lands instead of fetchlands in your domain deck anyway. Pathways are one of the best designs in recent years, and I think people don't spend enough time thinking about how healthy they are for formats like pioneer. For all the other nuances that fetchlands provide (filling the graveyard, shuffling, etc.) I think that fabled passage does a pretty decent job at giving you the option if that's something your deck cares about, while not having it be something that every deck gets to do for free on accident. They could probably get away with printing prismatic vista in standard, though.

[@justjoe8397]

Love these trips down memory lane, especially for my favourite era of the game (RTR through Khans) And Gitaxian Probe 😭 i used to jam that in all my jank pauper brews to try and make them play better

[@ARCANEbyNATURE]

This man really just gave us his villain origin story and smiled 😂

[@doc1739]

Getting a friend back into magic who hasn’t played since apocalypse. He was amazed by how magic was now. Also didn’t realize he was playing around manaburn all night

[@refundreplay]

That poor soul came back at the worst time.

[@armadyllan2351]

Yea, I remember when I bought a leftover Japanese fate reforged box, and it happened to be one of the legendary boxes where all the lands were fetches. It immediately opened up other formats for me and it was an amazing experience.

[@TheSheeplesChamp]

I almost had the opposite experience; I started playing Standard between New Phyrexia and Innistrad, and I loved Birthing Pod. When I learned that card rotated in Standard, I was bummed. "But wait!" another player told me, "You can use some of your cards in Modern!" At the time, I was like 13 and didn't have a lot of money. Even though I had 4 Birthing Pods, I couldn't buy the cards for a Modern deck. So, the flame died briefly until I started working with my dad over the summer. Finally, I could afford to finish out these crazy-expensive decks! Lo and behold, by the time I was ready to put together a Modern Pod deck, it got banned... That moment killed my desire to play Modern. That's around the time the first WotC-made Commander decks started dropping, and that became much more appealing to my friends and me who couldn't afford to keep up with rotating formats. Nowadays, I can enjoy every format and mostly play casually, but it's funny how much we get tied to specific cards! I'm still holding out for the day I can play a legitimate Birthing Pod or similar toolbox deck in modern again!

[@eduardoserpa1682]

That short period where Treasure Cruise was legal in Legacy and Modern was magical as a Delver/UR spells type of player. Specially because I was only playing with proxies and Cockatrice at the time. Shoutouts to Melira Pod and Eternal Command as well, I have never played anything that feels quite like those decks since.

[@atlys258]

That persistent smile beginning around ~16:00 kinda says it all about how sentimental and fond of a memory that is.

[@d-boyzinfinity1614]

I love this. I always love hearing how people got into a particular hobby

[@kylebrochill21]

Great story time with this one. Can't wait to have Khans on arena, wake me up when we get aether vial and leonin arbiter too

[@scottcampbell9515]

I still have my Azorius Sphinx's Revelation deck from that era built. I love it so much.

[@Aigis31]

Taking a trip down memory lane is very nice because it can remind many of us how we fell in love with the game in the first place. Lovely video!

[@Pandahboymtg]

It's great to hear how you made your way down the path to D&T.

[@DevStarkiller]

Original Theros & Tarkir was such a blast for standard. I was on black/green delve with Nyx Weaver and Soulflayer at the core of the list.

[@lukegriffiths1755]

Such a cool video. Nice history lesson plus the DnT origin. I had a similar mind blowing moment my first time at FNM and playing against the Sphinxes Rev deck. Those moments that make everything click together are great.

[@HKLives]

The biggest issue with what happened with Fetchlands in Standard was a combo of both cycles being allied, and the tri-color payoffs in khans being the wedges. If you were playing a Jeskai deck it was better to just splash black so your off-color mountain and island fetches become on color. Drew a Mire and you need blue? Just fetch the Blue/Black land.

[@williamsimkulet7832]

I'm in favor of Standard Fetchland reprints (and 2-year rotation, for obvious reasons). The best way to balance this, I think, is to make sure Fetches and good duals/triomes don't overlap; I think the DOM (C) duals can occupy the same Standard as Fetches w/o too much problem, for example. More importantly, though, the standard needs to have some decent nobasic hate. A 2/2 for 1W that makes each nonbasic enter tapped, for example, isn't format warping in older formats, but would hurt fetchlands a lot. Similarly, a 2/2 for 1R that deals 1 to a player every time a nonbasic enters under their control, and a 2/2 for 1U that requires a player to bounce a land if a land enters w/o being played, would do the trick (the blue one's a combo engine, though, so test it first, obv.). Similarly, I think there should be standard viable cards that encourage you to play basic lands (to be fair, these work with fetches, so that's good); imagine a (U) 1/1 trample , Haste for 2GG that gets +1/+1 for each basic land you control, for example.

[@TheEvolver311]

Well I'd say that WotC never plans to have them standard legal ever again given they banned them at the inception of Pioneer

[@alonsocarrasco5460]

Your U idea already exists in Confounding Conundrum and it sees zero play.

[@michaelsander2878]

RTR - Theroes was my favorite standard. But I don't play standard anymore, so some of them might be okay. I'm like a minute into the video so I'm just down here being a me. Anyway. Now that I've started thinking about this tangent, Standard has been an abusive predator format for the entire time and they've figured out how to force rotation into eternal formats and that makes me sad. Back at the time when RTR was rotating, legacy seemed like a hell of a lot better investment, because you could play a deck for years without having to do more than add maybe one playset of a card here or there. I was hurt by DTT's banning because it ruined Omnitell (the deck i played in legacy, when I should have bought into elves instead). Now it feels like you need to have 3 legacy decks to rotate between and each one of them might need 4 - 10 cards a year.

[@michaelsander2878]

Okay. I heard treasure cruise and I'm even more invested in this video now. I did play some standard with treasure cruise in it. That was a blast. It was also weird that it was banned almost everywhere while it was still legal in standard. AND THEN the released hogaak.

[@Tvboy777]

You mean Pack Rat format?

[@michaelsander2878]

@@Tvboy777 Yeah. I liked playing against pack rat decks. UWx control brought me to the finals of a lot of local tournaments.

[@shirosilverost2542]

When talked about how D&T "rewrote his DNA", that was the exact same feeling I had when I went to my first FNM with a fun Naya Dinosaurs deck only to run into Scarab God esper control. It was after that game that I embraced evil and became the control player

[@WitherFang]

This is almost exactly how I got into Blue Moon and later Temur Rhinos! My first Modern deck was Affinity.

[@benjaminlehman3221]

13:45 one thing I loved on a custom card Reddit was “dragon delve” you can only exile dragons to pay the cost. I think murktide would have been a lot less warping if it was “instant or sorcery delve”

[@narvuntien]

I have a very similar story. RTR was when I first started going to a LGS. My Innstard + RTR deck was Grixis control with Lone Revanant as a win con. It sucked but UW was too expensive. My rtr + theros deck was UB control headlined by Ashiok who everyone thought suck but they did not suck. My theros + Khans deck was UB dragons winning my first game day with Ashiok being nothing by hits that day (then into esper dragons). My first modern deck was mono-red storm, that I got for a few dollars, it was a meme, but I once survived being hit be emrakal and won. I also rotated my extremely casual birthing pod deck into modern where it was dominating, when the first modern master set came out I cheaply picked up all the pieces.

[@tahlialysse]

It's interesting to hear this story. Before khans, I had made a bit of a name for myself in modern playing "hatebears" or whatever you want to call the deck (hatebears was the go-to name at the time). But then Cruise dropped, and despite how much I wanted it not to be the case, it was just not a favorable matchup. So i swapped to cruise. And at a GP, I ended up getting some bad beats and started playing side events for some consolation prizes on the weekend. One in particular sticks out in my mind. I sit down across from someone, and he's talking smack about how his deck is so good vs delver, how it was unfair that he scrubbed out of the tournament, etc. Well, it turns out he's on my list. I mean, he never said that he netdecked, and continuously claimed that it was his own creation, but since my list had been published a couple weeks before, and he was playing what appeared to be an exact 75, including my atypical choices... Anyway, I quickly wipe his face in the match. I know both his deck and my deck better than he knows either...so while it was a good matchup for me anyway, I made it seem like even worse of a matchup. Anyway, the guy couldn't believe that I beat him so effortlessly and wouldn't stop talking on and on about it. Bc of course lol. I just found it funny how that memory was so similar to what happened to you, but sorta reversed in a few ways.

[@WillySnake01]

I was a new player when Modern first came around. And since I loved playing White Wennie decks, back then I did not understand why Fetchlands (or Fetches, like we call them here) were that big of a deal. So I got myself some of the Zendikar Fetches and started playing a custom Selesnya brew thanks to the Fetches and Temple Gardens, trying to do a T1 Birds of Paradise into T2 Loxodon Smitter, and also running Fauna Shaman trying to have a little toolbox here and there. Also I threw in a random Sigarda and Baneslayer Angels to the deck, why not. It was fun. (Side note: that deck had cool tricks with Vengevine and Valor) But then I somehow met the Cat himself, Leonin Arbiter. I don't remember how or why, but what caught my eye was how that card punished pretty much all Modern players for using Fetches. I was wowed by that card and presto, suddenly my Selesnya deck had 4 Leonin Arbiter, 4 Ghost Quarters, 4 Tectonic Edges and 2 Aven Mindcensors (because of course I also learned about them after the fact) and ZERO fetches. My friends were disgusted by the Ghost Quarter + Leonin interaction, and with good reason. But it's an interaction like none other. Later, a friend told me my deck had an archetype name, it was called "Selesnya Hatebears", who would have thought? And as I managed to built up my collection further I managed to get a playset of Noble Hierarchs and also ran a 1-of Crucible of Worlds, just for fun. I still remember to this day playing back then on a LGS against a Control deck who, on the draw, played a Celestial Colonnade for turn and me, on Turn 2, played an Arbiter + Ghost Quarter thanks to a mana-dork played the turn before. My opponent looked at the Quarter, at his land, at his hand, and drew for turn and played a Fetch, next turn played another Fetch and conceded. That was cool. I stopped playing regularly around 2018. I was not playing that much even before that. So when I got back to Magic during the pandemic thanks to Arena, I started getting into paper Pioneer and Pauper, and I knew how Modern and Selesnya Hatebears were probably unplayable for me in the current state thanks to the Horizons sets. So when I picked up my Selesnya deck from its box to unsleeve it and put its cards into a binder, I felt a little bit sad and nostalgic. Those cards earned their rest.

[@dgreen7464]

D&T was my first modern deck too. I have similar experiences flashing in those arbiters

[@FaithlessLooter]

I was in highschool during this time and it was when I first started playing magic

[@theequivalanceofammotheory]

funny cause you mentioned a ccard here that was my gateway too. My bud who had been teaching me the game, one day bought me 8 packs of cards on about our 3rd ir 4th time playing his decks. they were time spiral and future sight. In my last pack was a foil Tombstalker, and I just remember his exclaimation when I said on opening my last pack, "ooooh I got a foil demon" "YOU GOT A FOIL DEMON?!?!" can you tell he was a black mage? I still got it. It was worthless for years but priceless to me.

[@americanxlove]

I love a good villain origin story.

[@ef4068]

I miss the Temurai deck from KtK-BfZ era of standard. Playing rattleclaw mystic into mantis rider or a haste savage knuckleblade was a wild ride.

[@energy-turtle]

Great story ! Thanks for sharin

[@hostandersson4301]

I hated playing against Ponza for years in Modern, but when I started running my jeskai ctrl as a UW+br instead, I loved vindicating lands :D

[@Professor_Smoak]

The time you're talking about is when I got back into magic. Ah, the good ol' days.

[@TheDarkElder]

History time with Papa K. Well, sometimes an opponent gets us into the best deck archetypes we have, like that D&T. One small trigger and we're lost to the lure of a good deck!

[@bobfranklin2572]

Based khans block as per bloody usual! 😤💪

[@SilverAlex92]

I remember that when Treassure cruise came, it was so busted and easy to get online that some mono red burn and boros burn players would splash blue just to play it xD Fun times.

[@joshuadempsey5281]

I look back on two moments fondly that shaped who I am. First was Affinity. I was in middle school, and could buy only a pack or two each week with my lawn-mowing money. I know now that Affinity was broken and probably bad for the game, but it was fun for a casual kid, and it kickstarted my life-long love of wheel-spinning decks. And my affinity deck was trash lol; I was not winning, but I was reallllly spinning my wheels for the first time and I haven’t stopped since lol The other moment I remember was a few years later on high school. It was an FNM type 1 event. Kind of impromptu cuz we had enough people not playing standard. I went up against this guy who reacted to me casting a game-winning spell. I don’t remember what I tried to cast but I remember his reaction lol He cast intuition (which I had never seen) on my turn, tutored for 3 counters, and stopped me in my tracks. Man that was so cool. I know he could have just cast the counter if he had it in hand, but intuition into counter was so cool to me. Blew my mind. I fell in love with the stack at that moment.

[@scottmacwatters]

I love hearing about how people find their way to what they think is fun in Magic.

[@blargd]

Magic has never quite had the same feel to me since RTR, Theros era I still enjoy MTG today but nowhere near as much as I did back then Also an event in a school at Axion Now that takes me back a few years, I remember rocking Grishoalbrand before it became hugely known as I saw it on MTGSalvation and my first round opponent saying "Oh so you're just playing a random pile of cards" and then watching their face as they realise what's going down on turn 2 after thoughtsezing myself

[@gazza4589]

I played UW miracles at this time!!! Love it!

[@carlhannah1884]

Somewhat related to your Khans story: it might be the best limited environment of all time and I can't wait for that to hit Arena.

[@jole5468]

the b&r announcement that banned dtt, tc and pod was the thing that got me into legacy. i had just been to a gp and bought everything i missed for a pod deck and got to play it twice at fnm before pod was banned which caused me to want to get into a more stable format where well established combo decks rarely get banned. ended up in reanimator and loved it for years despite it not being the best at the time. just being allowed to do powerful shit way too fast and then win or lose depending on what the oponent could do against my threat was amazing

[@JohnFromAccounting]

Treasure Cruise is broken in a fun way. Vintage is a broken format in a fun way. Sometimes broken cards are enjoyable to play with and against. My favourite deck in the Treasure Cruise era was Burn. It was the same as a regular burn deck, but it splashed blue for Treasure Cruise. Dump your hand, and draw another one. It was so much fun, and there were so many varieties of busted decks at the time and it was extremely creative.

[@Sonicron86]

"Oh fuck, I need to stax some bitches." --Papa Kenobi, 2023 I don't know why that made me laugh so hard, but damn I'm crying. Thanks for the cool story time, Vince.

[@brennanclement8582]

I'm excited for fetches on arena. Historic is where I actually fell in love with 1v1 formats instead of just using arena to scratch the magic itch between commander games. I hope other people will see fetches, try it out, and also get introduced to what higher power magic is like and fall in love with it too.

[@michaelsander2878]

I only wish they'd divide historic into alchemy historic and non-alchemy historic. I hate that they errata'd bowmasters and the one ring.

[@TheMgborn]

Our weekly Leonin arbiter reading.

[@kieranharwood7186]

@14:15 You talk like we aren't all awaiting the "debut" of Gravestorm. The last decade has been a bitter ordeal, but I'm sure it'll come along soon.

[@jakeelephant006]

This video reminded me that Ensoul Artifact was a hell of a drug in 2014.

[@yes.thatjanedoe]

That was my entry to mtg, theros, I love theros

[@hunterstrong3318]

My break into modern was being told about grixis shadow after expressing how i loved tempo type decks

[@Zabrakjedi]

Treasure cruise was/is my favorite card of that set.

[@Siffy5654]

Pleasant "Let's stax some Bitches" Kenobi delivering another fun video

[@WizWiteKnight]

Vince proves that hurt people hurt people!

[@generic3592]

Man I still am in love with storm. I may not play modern too much anymore but god damn do i still goldfish gifts 🤣

[@blakebrown7068]

As your were describing the dig through time deck. I'm like 😏😏 say it....mmmm some tasty delver. I hated that it wasn't the shit when they reprinted it into standard I tried.

[@egoish6762]

I still cast sphinxes rev in pioneer, it's only a 1 of though

[@theguardian9629]

I still like playing 1-2 copies in mine 2. Best draw spell ❤

[@fatpad00]

And now you know the *rest* of the story. For those who old enough or aren't in the US, there was a radio program by Paul Harvey that ran from 1976-2009 where he would tell some interesting story, but leave out the subject until the very end (think "and that kid was Albert einstein" memes) Every story ended with "and now you know the rest of the story"

[@erfarkrasnobay]

Cruise was such good that it makes monored into treasure cruise monored 😂

[@Greg501-]

Speaking of Storm, have you tried the new Arena event that gives both players the Immortal Sun benefits?

[@jamiehello]

there is nothing more beautiful than a delver deck

[@greg6538]

What a pleasant story.

[@ebush279]

Im waiting for a good death and taxes deck to show up for arena, i havent seen anything that catches my eye yet. For not ill play Thali and Gitrog Historic brawls.

[@zackpumpkinhead8882]

This is why I'm obsessed with legacy

[@dawn_oh420]

pioneer is a great format because i can cast treasure cruise :3

[@Th3Treasoner]

9:37 I knew Vince was based but I didn't know he was Super Based 3, he went even further beyond with this reference.

[@nathanwilkowski3131]

When Cruise got banned, Grave-Troll was unbanned, and I built a deck that had half it's cards banned soon after...it was a little degenerate.

[@patrickaquilina4374]

9:38 Fear the thumb

[@marcelschreier7624]

Okay, so I started this video, and moved the tab. Didn't realize that by doing so I started a music video I had open in another tab (kzbin.info/www/bejne/h4m0eaKdbad7iqs). And for a full 45 Seconds I just thought that Vince decided to start this video of his with this epic medieval music intro explaining his 2014. Just didn't realize that was me, on accident. BUT: ngl, it was kinda good this way.

[@JohnFromAccounting]

With Phoenix now the best deck in Pioneer, the Treasure Cruise ban is on the horizon. Think fondly of this time if you're a Phoenix player.

[@LilTuba]

City of Bolas is a such a broken card 😢😢😢

[@TheVejh]

love these videos :D

[@TheEllis197]

I remember getting hit with shadow of doubt the first time 😂

[@guidocampostrini]

yes man, we all love the cat jesus!!

[@Asmodean1111]

Totally agree that typed lands with fetch lands was the real problem in Tarkir as it made 4 color decks too free in a format without a punish like bloodmoon lurking in the shadows. I think the main problem when it comes from the MH sets, is that the card are too pushed or just people are blind to how warping Modern designed cards will be to make them worth trying to get. I don't mind run back with invoke on Grief and Fury but people found a way to break them with the one mana revives. Fury just is sad for anyone wanting to play something wanting to stick to the board.

[@RyanCase1124]

The typed lands never came out in the Tarkir block - BFZ was when things went haywire. Khans block was one of the most pure, healthy, and great Standard environments of all time - looking back at the meta breakdowns of the time was fascinating.

[@TheRovingPunster]

It's not even just that. The best cards were wedge cards, and due to the mix of ally fetch + tangos, wedge manabases ended up having a free splash just to function. If you wanted to play crackling doom, your manabase already had the requirements to play blue or green cards (your choice but only 1 of the two), so why wouldn't you? The format would have had far less 4c nonsense if we got enemy tango lands instead

[@CarterPSN]

I take it you were talking about Shaun Caley. He's a top guy.

[@toedrag-release]

Member the good old days when treasure cruise was considered "broken"

[@g.n.s.]

Jeez, I completely forgot how horribly Khans messed my Standard deck too.

[@juanjorodriguez1895]

The compelling story of how a man found religion. The religion of Cat Jesus.

[@kieranharwood7186]

He's here to stop players searching libraries and sniff some catnip, and he's all out of catnip.

[@ilyannattv]

Every magic player has once thought to themselves "OMG I need to stax some bitches" and that is when we turn to the darkside and start really enjoying magic at the expense of our poor opponents. Long live Thalia, long live Leonine Arbiter.

[@cablefeed3738]

Never have. Never will stax sucks

[@lordgherkinface]

90% sertain Sean from the story runs my PGS, lovely guy but my dog hates him and we dont know why

[@maarten0104]

Just watched the last 30 secs. Another van list prediction video…. 😂

[@SeiShinjitsuShi]

Cruise is pioneer legal

[@PleasantKenobi]

I know.

[@magicaljellyfish]

Modern Horizons didn't bring a ton of new people into modern because most players who aren't playing modern aren't playing because it's expensive (based on talking to people at the different LGS I've been to). Modern Horizons was a premium priced set for boosters and the singles that were any good quickly climbed to the $60+ mark not counting Arcum's Astrolabe. MH2 has only exacerbated that issue by reducing deck diversity. As an enfranchised player I still kind of balk at the price a new player would need to play just to build a shell like you bought. I'm hoping the new push from the community to accept proxies allows for more players to try the format, I've had a ton of fun with modern when it's good.

[@magicaljellyfish]

Not even looking at lands, a playset of Ragavan, Fury, Grief, Wren and Six, Chalice of the Void, Orcish Bow masters, the One ring, Endurance, etc. is crazy expensive, I own entire 40k armies that are cheaper than these decks

[@pauldaulby260]

imagine how miserable instead of joyful your thoughts on treasure cruise would have been if it was a mythic instead of a common

[@brendans1983]

Eels boy! 😂

[@mattstewart1724]

Eels! Eels! Eels! Eels!

[@LibertyMonk]

Oh, you're saying "Khans". I keep hearing "Karns" and I'm so confused.

[@seangerrity9217]

And you prove the point once again that the game is fun when you win and sucks when you lose! I think the Commander format should be banned lol

[@Alex-pk1iy]

I feel like a fraud for watching your videos. I have zero MTG cards but have been playing MTGA in order to get used to playing the game and rules etc. I am looking at starting my first deck and I know MTGA is a drop in the ocean for MTG, but I’m really enjoying learning about the history of MTG, the formats and concerns the community has

[@TheEvolver311]

11:57 Cards no longer being competitively viable isn't them Rotating dishonest to say otherwise

[@DarthTUK]

So someone DID hurt you...

[@danielmcarthur8169]

😢HOOF THERE IT IS

[@dervakommtvonhinten517]

calling yourself papa is so cringe

[@Otacon2099]

First

[@9-b_b-9]

Ahh modern decks costing around $100 dollars. Those were the days. The very short and long missed glory days 🥹