Support Cards: The True Commander All-Stars | EDHRECast 343

[@Wojtek36762]

Loved Dana’s point about seeking out set-themed versions of staples and support cards. Playing some Pauper EDH really helped me appreciate that, when you start looking for red card draw at common, you start poking around for little bits of marginal value and appreciating the way Limited design brings us stuff like this.

[@FernandoGonzalez-hu3id]

My favorite example of this is the entire "Aristocrats" archetype Nowdays when people think aristocrats they think "Blood Artist" or "Zulaport Cuthtroath", any of those "When X dies do Y" efects, but when the deck was first named (during the Innistrad-Ravnica Standar) the name refered to "Falkenrath Aristocrat" and "Cartel Aristocrat", both of whom are free sac outlets... So eventualy the Support cards overshadowed the cards the deck was actually named after

[@harleybaker4684]

I was coming here to say a similar anecdote! My two favorite decks are Chatterfang and Shirei. Both aristocrats themes. Both entirely supported by their support cards to the point where those payoff effects seem like the keystone cards! Funny how the theme has switched in identity like that

[@FernandoGonzalez-hu3id]

@harleybaker4684 aristócrats Is a 3 part engine... Fooder, Sac Outlets and Payoffs. Chatterfang and Shirei both give you Fooder, so Sac Outlets and Payoffs shine with them

[@myanrueller91]

Aristocrats is also an incredibly delicate balance to find, as they mentioned in the episode. Your deck building attention is pulled in 3 directions between Outlets, Payoffs, and Fodder. Having the numbers right so you can sequence plays to enact the plan is difficult to find

[@Gimpocalypse]

I actually ended up building a deck with Sai, Master Thopterist as the commander *because* I kept noticing how all the previous iterations of blue artifact decks always had him included as one of the best (support) cards in the deck. Now with him at the helm, I just know that nearly every card I play comes with a free thopter on the side.

[@pauldyson8098]

I also have a Sai deck, for similar reasons. I'd love to see an episode of EDHRECast in which they discuss commanders that ARE support cards. Salubrious Snail has an OG Radha deck that runs NO 1-, 2-, or 3- mana spells; Radha is literally only there to be a two-drop mana dork. The rest of the deck is Explosive Veggies variants and bombs. Somewhat similar, Dana's Reki deck uses the commander as a draw resource. (I've also played Reki for about ten years and I have won with commander damage exactly one time.) I know that the commander is supposed to be the star of the show, but I love commanders that are there as support pieces. Sai is a great example of a card that helps you win but isn't your wincon and a card that gives you emergency valve card advantage. Sai is mad underrated in the CZ. Well said.

[@AxillaryPower2]

I run a Boros Equipment deck and it's funny that Joey mentioned it while Akiri Fearless Voyager was on screen because I set her as my commander for reasons you mentioned. She is another one of those support cards that show up in every list, and putting her in the CZ frees up the 99 to do several strategies since Akiri will smooth out whatever you're doing, and protect it too.

[@rodrigonarvaes7032]

Syr Konrad is that card for me. So far, he won me 3 games in 3 different decks and I will always slot him into any deck I play that has black. At some point, he'll be running his own pile.

[@JaqueraGray]

I'm not in the discord, but if someone wants a Challenge the Stats suggestion: Animation Module in Black Panther, Wakandan King is in ~5% of decks, but because its trigger cares about counters put on "permanents" not creatures, and Black Panther triggers whenever a creature enters, you can basically pay X to create X servos and put X counters on target land whenever you play a creature.

[@bladethebeast2]

Thats crazy low. That seems like an auto for BP

[@stevenkoski5058]

Damn that's a sick tip! I glanced over animation module too and didn't add it to black panther. Gonna go add it and give it a chance

[@1notdeadfred]

I want to highlight the life jacket analogy. Suppose you have a set buoyancy determined by your support cards and swimming speed determined by your payoffs. Your goal is to reach a certain distance before you can no longer breathe: a distance determined by your opponents. It is possible to reach it without any support, but you are relying an absurd amount of speed in such situations. Any deck that is by its nature very grindy (Hi Rachel Weeks, yes, I'm talking about many mono-white decks here, among others) can still reach that finish line with just huge amounts of buoyancy... it's just going to take an absurd amount of time! Optimizing the balance between the two depends on the deck's strategy- there isn't a one-size-fits all scenario.

[@harleybaker4684]

Love this analogy! I’m definitely a Rachel like player where I might be doggy paddling but BOY am I unsinkable. I only need 1 life to stay alive and boy howdy will I make it very difficult to take that from me. And then when I get to critical mass, I let the air out of the vest and go carrening to the finish line like a cartoon when a balloon pops, team rocket style,

[@Adam86Gower]

This is a top conversation. Totally relevant. Can't count the amount of decks I've played against where it's clear (just taking this narrative one step further), the builder isn't even sure what their win con is. Went down the rabbit hole of the theme of the deck.

[@itslexactually]

Yupppp one of my dear friends in our play group is still struggling with this, and I’m hoping to help them out with that this year 🥰

[@KirbytronicWouldLiketoBattle]

As a fellow Necromancer and servant of the graveyard, I swear my favorite card in those reanimator/graveyard decks... is Stitcher's Supplier. 1 mana 1/1 zombie that mills you three when it enters or dies? Ooo lala~

[@harleybaker4684]

Loved this conversation! I am a player who tends to fixate on the support cards. My favorite strategy is aristocrats. And it’s a strategy that really emphasizes the little guys behind the scenes. You can have every sac outlet in the world and every creature to throw away, but nothing gets done without a blood artist. Or all the creatures and an artist, but no way to sac them. You really need every piece of the puzzle to make the strategy work and that’s why I love it. If done right, just as it’s hard to build, it’s hard to dismantle. 3 sac outlets and 3 blood artists effects and armies in a can all leave you with no clear target and you just have to wipe the field and hope I don’t bounce back. One of my favorite decks, Shirei, is the perfect example. Every single card fits together to make what’s a pile of mostly uncommons and commons come alive and slay some formidable decks rather efficiently. All in all I love shining light on the little unsung hero, bread and butter type cards that just grease the wheels and make the entire thing work. They’re my favorite genre of card!

[@harleybaker4684]

Got further into the video and realized you basically said the exact thing I did about aristocrats! Maybe that’s why it makes so much sense to me as a theme. And like Joey decks like Voltron tend to feel weird to me. I’m used to having my eggs in so many baskets, just one basket feels odd

[@justintolentino9222]

It's Seedborn Muse for me. Nobody really builds a "Seedborn Muse" deck, but once it hits the board, it instantly takes over, especially in Simic. People usually just add Seedborn to support {tap} activated abilities, but it can easily become a payoff that converts ramp and/or card draw to wins.

[@itslexactually]

It is the best card in my Agatha deck, and Wilderness Reclamation and Fires of Invention do worse (but serviceable) impressions of her. It’s pretty cracked for taking a turn on everyone else’s turn.

[@jacquesdespadas]

My first enchantress deck was in Naya colors specifically to take advantage of Sunbird’s Invocation. The card you dig for with the Sunbird’s trigger is _cast_, so if it’s an enchantment, you get all your cast triggers as well as all the Constellation (etb) triggers. Seriously underrated support card.

[@Aerix]

Reminds me of my Mr. House deck. It is interchangable what is rolling the dice that House sees, just that they're rolled. (Bigger the die the better odds though.) What snowballs the deck is treasure generators. House can roll 5 dice a round on his own with treasures, more if you can untap him.

[@andrewpeli9019]

When I first started deck building commander, I was drawn to voltron strategies because the support cards were the win condition. Doing the thing meant making your commander a lethal threat. I got away from Voltron because of the trend of killing off one opponent and then losing the game an hour later. But I still have 3 Voltron decks and a few decks that often kill a player incidentally with commander damage.

[@azazelmorningstar5631]

This episode really gave me a new perspective on deckbuilding, I'd already noticed that in my Eisenhorn deck, anything that makes him unblockable is a lot more relevant than clue/artifact synergies

[@1notdeadfred]

@mathimus55 I have a long word you should add to your repertoire for brownie points: sesquipedalian. It's an adjective meaning containing multiple syllables, but it literally translates to "foot and a half long", as in "foot and a half long words."

[@chrisdomingo9143]

My support card is Lithoform engine … such a good card

[@zackkelley2940]

I'd argue that Animate Dead is VERY good in Muldrotha as it's a permanent she can recast.

[@itslexactually]

Agreed. Enchantment is one of my less-played types in Muldrotha, and while some creatures are also enchantments, I sometimes want two “regular” creatures instead. The -1/-0 doesn’t matter at all

[@mofomiko]

​​@@itslexactually -1/-0 incredibly lost me the game once, an absolute commander moment

[@chef2chiefchef2chief61]

'When' or 'whenever' are the most powerful words in mtg?

[@doctorrobz]

Basic lands, nuff said

[@EDHRECast]

Honestly, big mood 👍

[@TheEzzran]

I have two examples of this, I think, though both can be considered somewhat "obvious." 1) Anje Falkenrath, and the Madness cards. My Anje deck runs literally every card with Madness that is red and/or black. Most of them never get cast ever, even for their madness cost. They're just a way to thin out my deck, when combined with Anje. The deck is actually a reanimator deck that ramps up to a big explosive "put a bunch of creatures from the graveyard onto the battlefield" and Anje is actually the support card for the deck. She makes sure I hit lands drops and consistently have cards in hand to do stuff with. 2) Zethi, Arcane Blademaster (AKA Chun-Li). The deck casts lots of instants, and the wincons are effects that give benefits when I do that (usually creating a creature token of some sort). The deck obviously runs a lot of cheap bounce spells to send Zethi back to my hand or control the board state, but the real secret support cards are the counterspells. Sure, they counter an opposing spell sometimes, but more often I use them to counter my own spells. Most of the time my spells only cost 1 or 2 mana, so I can layer on multiple counterspells on each Zethi attack trigger, and so make a ton of flying creatures. Bonus points because a lot of the counterspells are cheap and have "drawbacks" of giving the controller of the countered spell some benefit.

[@joedoe7572]

Cool bonus point with the drawbacks turning beneficial

[@kissenger8454]

In my sovereign okinec deck. Armored armadillo and temperamental oozewagg are huge. As good as the sovereign is not having a way to boost power over base power and trample is kinda worthless.

[@brendans1983]

So I've been watching the channel for a few years now, always known Matt is the Selesnya guy. Everyone has their faults. Was looking up some Ravnica lore the other day and read about Mat'Selesnya. Epiphany moment 😂

[@imaginarymatter]

I would challenge the stats on some of the artifact support cards that trigger off of artifact cast triggers like Sai, Master Thopterist or Efficient Construction. Many artifact decks don't "cast" many artifacts and instead use methods like reanimation or artifact token producers that aren't artifacts themselves to populate the battlefield with artifacts.

[@marcoottina654]

34:20 Grafted Hexoskeleton? +2/+2 and Infect, also good to equip on other creatures while Alesha is not on field, then move the G.H. to Alesha and reanimate said creature all in one go. Also, "Transmogrant's Crown" is an overlooked and underrated Equipment in black that is the "fixed" version of "Skullclamp", but the +2/+0 can be good here as well!

[@Kjos_jax]

Dana meant horizontally

[@vasylpark2149]

Support cards are the accessories to your outfit. They tie the whole ensemble together.

[@sarahbuck2506]

Do you ever follow up on your challenge-the-stats picks and see if they had an appreciable effect afterward? That might be an interesting thing for a year end review, which challenged card was added/removed from the most decks

[@Thoughtmage100]

For my Galadriel, Light of Valinor deck, my favorite support cards are creatures like Tendershoot Dryad and Illustrious Wanderlyph that make a token on every upkeep so I can take full advantage of Galadriel's triggered ability. For Marvo, Deep Operative, any card that allows me to manipulate the top card of my library is an all-star.

[@Spencer4686]

The biggest support cards so many people under value are their lands.

[@itslexactually]

So true

[@rulamagic]

I've heard the term enabler for the sort of thing you are talking about. They enable your strategy or your deck to do "its thing". Versus the payoffs which are the things that give you a benefit when doing the thing.

[@narvuntien]

Ponder, Preordain, Impulse etc. are massively underrated in commander but they are critical for my blue control decks functioning, I need a land drop every turn, I have some very power cards that are only good in certain game situations that I need to either find or filter out. The efficiency of these cards are just as important in EDH as in 60 card.

[@FroPlamondon]

I love the Ich-Tekik and Malcolm deck. My favorite weird deck is my Ich-Tekik and Keskit golem tribal deck, i added in some stuff to get value from like ichor wellspring/solemn simulacrum/etc. and then whatever golem artificiers were in BG because it was just so fun to build a BG artifact deck and have access to great card selection when stuff might die

[@shadowmyst9661]

I love Spellslinger decks but it’s hard hard sometimes to find the right number of boring Cantrips so I can find the actual fun payoff cards. My favorite Commander is Narset, Enlightened Exile and it’s really difficult to find the right balance of Cards Advantage, Interaction, and Spellslinger payoffs for my build of the deck so it’s constantly getting adjusted after every I play it.

[@zeondidnothingright9477]

I built a Dragons approach deck with Ojer Axonil as the helm commander. It also helps to recur Ojer axonil from being a land consistently since dragons approach is dealing at least 9 damage consistently.

[@endersblade]

Yeah, the Black Friday Death Count website hasn't been updated in years. I think COVID kinda killed off the mad rushes we used to get.

[@johnvogel1331]

Fun / silly green hate tech support: Breath of Dreams For izzet pingers - magmatic core

[@Jerhevon]

Heh. Got milled out by a Hare Apparent deck with Altar of the Brood. Shame I was Abzan dungeons with Shilgengar in play locked and loaded. So, during my upkeep work Draws on the sac from using Blood Tokens, I brought all of my creatures back into play and began speed running the Tomb of Annihilation to drain out their life total. 😂

[@Jerhevon]

More to the topic, I have a Syr Gwyn list. To balance going wide with equipped creatures the deck leans into Living Equipment that provides its own bodies. In another category for the deck, I want enough haste equipment to have one available, but only one. I settled on three such equipment and a tutor (current Boros Kellan, though before that was Fighter Class. Also good.)

[@MargaretThomas-x2q]

Thanks for the analysis! A bit off-topic, but I wanted to ask: My OKX wallet holds some USDT, and I have the seed phrase. (alarm fetch churn bridge exercise tape speak race clerk couch crater letter). What's the best way to send them to Binance?

[@DarkJusticeMetal]

Bro Dana what are you cooking with the Hares? Who's the commander?

[@MidnightAge]

I absolutely love my Hare Apparent deck. XD

[@jessadams3435]

Irencrag in wick goes super hard

[@kamakazi339]

Having an apostles and a petitioners deck i think 28 is about the perfect ratio for inclusion

[@Dawstlin]

Confused when he says to hold phone vertically, but he's demonstrating horizontal.

[@kamikazechicken8794]

play styles matter as well

[@philopoemen1806]

I am kinda hoping the hare apparent decks in Arena Brawl chill out a little or I’m gonna have to switch from green blue to green red

[@commiecommandermtg]

Commie Commander here, This is a topic I’ve been trying to get my playgroup-and especially my son-to understand. My son has been playing Magic for about seven years now, and he has a Daxos deck that he’s built as a Voltron-style deck. It’s an Azorius deck featuring a card (I can’t recall the name) that lets him play off the top of other players’ libraries. His strategy is very straightforward: build up one massive commander creature and beat people down with it. I decided to take his deck as a base and rework it, introducing an entirely new theme to show him other creative ways to approach the game. I leaned into blinking and flickering creatures that let you gather important information about the top cards of your opponents’ libraries or manipulate what cards they draw by forcing them to put specific cards on top. I also swapped out some of the overused counterspells like Mana Drain and Fierce Guardianship-great cards, but not really thematic for this build. Instead, I included counterspells and removal that synergize with the idea of putting cards on top of libraries or otherwise disrupting their plans in a more nuanced way. Another key aspect I emphasized was including creature-copying effects to duplicate his commander. That way, instead of focusing on hitting one player at a time, he could spread the pressure across multiple opponents in a single turn. Despite these changes, he’s still not entirely sold on the idea, and I get it-it’s a shift in strategy and playstyle. I’ve tried to explain that this approach adds layers of support and flexibility to the deck, making it more dynamic and harder for opponents to deal with. That said, I appreciate this video; it’s a great discussion of alternative strategies, and it really resonated with the points I’ve been trying to make. Well done, folks!

[@elmothejunkie]

Nalfeshnee (tits mcgee) is an all star in my averna the chaos bloom deck

[@Phe0nix1986]

Did enjoy Joey’s strange British accent moment

[@jacob510]

Seems like a large swing on "what's a support card". They're the not sexy, boring cards but also Anointed Procession and Cathars Crusade are support cards? Those two seem like pay off to me

[@rulamagic]

I think they are neither. They are augmenters. They neither enable or payoff. They make the enablers better or the payoffs better. But are not really part of the equation most of the time.

[@jlaw131985]

Making a budget deck without SurisMTG? What a shame.

[@akitoemery8651]

29 views in 1 minute bro fell off

[@brendans1983]

Is this the new thing all the cool kids are saying now? I'm seeing it everywhere lately. 6 months ago it was the, 'babe, new video from X just dropped!'.