The History of Caw-Blade Decks | MTG Deck History #15

[@allan7236]

Nice video, i think you should explain the Jace TMS + Squadron Hawk interaction, because it was THE CA generator and the main reason the first caw go appeared.

[@charliemallonee2792]

Oh dang. Hadn’t even thought of that interaction.

[@SirZapdos]

Specifically, using JTMS's Brainstorm ability to put extra Squadron Hawks back into your deck, and then casting a leftover Squadron Hawk to get a free shuffle and bring back the other Hawks. Note also that Stoneforge Mystic also provided a shuffle, as did the various fetchlands that the deck ran. Insane value engine.

[@DopeyDragonz]

Surprised there was less talk about Jace's impact in standard. I remember it being so bad, people would jam Jace Beleran just to kill JtMS since the legend/planeswalker rules still affected both players and made both sacrifice their Jace.

[@asdffjsdjasd]

Good old Seal of Jace.

[@NStripleseven]

The guy was right, the seal of jace was a thing

[@SirZapdos]

To clarify, Gideon Jura didn't actually rotate along with Squadron Hawk, since Gideon was reprinted in M12. Also, the 4-colour Legacy Stoneblade decks, also called Deathblade, were around well before 2017. Leovold just gave them a big boost. The "death" part of the name came from Deathrite Shaman, which turned out to be too good for even Legacy and eventually ate a banhammer, killing the deck.

[@ClexYoshi]

I feel like this video does a bit of a disservice to what it is that these decks did. yes, they were named for squadron hawk and the Stoneforge package, but just saying they won on the backs of their strong planeswalkers is a bit of an understatement. Grabbing additional suqadron hawks was nice and all, but Jace the Mindsculptor has brainstorm stapled to him, and that's where the real card advantage avalanche comes from... well, that, and the eventual pain of getting fatesealed as the hawks start to eventually pick apart your hand with Feast & Famine. the fact that some of these decks main decked the copy of Jace Beleren to deal with the mirror match is incredibly telling. Patrick Chapin's infamous talk on the Magic cruise about the warping effect of Jace is where Caw Blade got it's true dominance, just as Oko is what enabled the dominance of the Urza builds in modern up until his banning there.

[@a_fuckin_spacemarine7514]

Nah, Jace was totally fine when it came out, BBE ate him for lunch.

[@golgariguy]

A recent card that has been seeing some play in Stoneblade decks is Kaldra Compleat

[@zacharydixon9432]

Kaldrea Kompleat is a nightmare drop on turn 3 man A lot harder to interact with than Batterskull imo

[@TheMaskedHero]

For my money, this is one of the most important decks that has ever graced Standard and the story of it should be known by any Magic player that wants to invest themselves in competitive Magic. Thank you for making this, I will likely watch it over and over again.

[@dennisvogel5982]

i loved this deck so much when it was around - especially bevor the printing of batterskull. It was just a masterpiece of design with the tons of different interactions between the hawks and jace and sword of feast and famine and a crontrol shell around it. Then tons of stuff got printed that took this deck over the top leading to the banning. This single handedly brought me into playing legacy so i could keep on playing my favorite deck- Just bought some tundras and FoW from a friend and had a pretty competitive legacy deck. Played it a lot over the years especially with the delver/true name shell, before switching to miracles. But still to this day JTMS, Squadron Hawk and Stoneforge remain my favorite magic cards of all time

[@falnica]

One day we will have that Splinter Twin video, we must have faith

[@crawdaddy2004]

Part of what made that deck silly is that JTMS could Brainstorm two (or one) Squadron Hawks back into your library. And then you just cast the one you kept. I played UWr Caw-Blade for Grim Lavamancer, Bolt and Pyroclasm.

[@pyro2708]

I used to have a deck with a similar strategy back during the first mirrodin era, I had 2 swords of ice and fire and 2 light and shadow and 4 steelshaper's gift (for tutoring them), the best creature was skyhunter skirmisher but I also had leonin skyhunter and pteron ghost, it wrecked havoc at my FNM and I was very proud of it because I came up with the deck myself instead of netdecking it. Too bad I didn't play during the return to mirrodin era.

[@swahilimaster]

Caw Blade was easily the least fun time I actively played Magic during. I remember playing at a PTQ where over 150 of the roughly 200 people playing were using Caw Blade, every single tournament I played in at that time was well over half Caw Blade, to the point it was the end of me playing paper Magic for a long time.

[@TyrMcDohl]

I remember GP Dallas 2011, because I didn't go, but two out of town randos came into my LGS's Friday Night Magic standard, and ran the table with Cawblade. I and the regulars were really pissed.

[@Insanonaga]

The talk of legacy stoneblade makes me wanna hear about the history of legacy miracles

[@LowellLGraves]

Happy Birthday, Jacob! Hope you have a great day, thanks for all the great content!

[@asdffjsdjasd]

Right before the standard bannings some pros (forgot who) invented TwinBlade which added the Splinter Twin + Deceiver Exarch combo into the shell. I remember some really bold claims about how powerful it was but it never really saw the light of day.

[@tylerannand3777]

Put eggs/second breakfast on the poll, I loved those decks

[@bladerz1191]

I will continue to vote for splinter twin each week. Eventually my efforts will payoff.

[@TritiumMedia]

This video def falls short on explaining all the important interactions of the early to late caw blade decks and ways people tried to play around it. It's a good video, but shame for such an important time of magic history for so much to be left out

[@bradcallahan3546]

Literally, nobody cares about your opinion of the video. If you think you have such a superior perspective on everything that is MTG, make a video of your own, and prove your point.

[@FrozenSpector]

Have you done Eggs yet? Also, is there a Playlist of these I can binge? Great series!!

[@kingginger3335]

Have you seen the new art for Delver of Secrets? It's getting a reprint in Innistrad

[@RafaelAAMerlo]

Nizzahon always delivering high quality education. Thank you, love from Brazil

[@MoonWatcher.]

A bit early, but have a great birthday Nizzahon, thanks for the great content

[@TheEvolver311]

What a miserable standard Caw-go was. We didn't have one that bad until Oko

[@bgcno2]

Never forget the Eldrazi Winter

[@TheEvolver311]

@@bgcno2 I disregard Modern or any non rotating formats since they are prone to being broken at any set release, but Standard WotC should be able to control better

[@rodzeroher]

I would have liked to see some list form the extended format

[@kaydenchapman3094]

My favorite type of decks are ones like bogles and caw blade so fun

[@MichaelJones-rg3hv]

An excellent video, as always.

[@gdiridium5525]

surprised to see nothing about the Hammertime deck in modern of which Stoneforge Mystic is fairly key

[@bugsySA]

Glad to see Joe getting represented in a deck list here.

[@nicklittle8399]

I wonder if the Caw half of Caw Blade has seen any decent play in Pauper...

[@vinnythewebsurfer]

I really wish I could’ve been able to be there in whatever meeting that happened at wotc that informed everyone that they wanted Stoneforge mystic to be the in the same standard as Mirrodin block 2. Like did they willingly want to see how bad things could get before they had to clean up their mess or were they that ignorant; I guess we’ll never know

[@ryanwonderschool]

those meetings are run by AI

[@BenjaminLodge]

I got to know Kibler through Hearthstone. I knew that he played Magic but it's interesting to see him feature in one of these vids. Top work as usual dude!

[@mosspage9360]

Can we get a delver video? Like the change from Canadan threshold to delver

[@alaraplatt8104]

nice

[@Based_Goddd]

66.6k subs sheesh

[@cspeeds96]

Wooooo

[@WillfulVisions]

#JusticeForSplinterTwin

[@Davisnacho]

What about snow blade?

[@brianhelmick1105]

DRS be like 🤨

[@rfs8194]

Too bad "Paw Blade" with Alpine Houndmaster never went anywhere in Standard.

[@Fellknauel]

history of red prison?

[@futurez14]

66.6K subscribers All Hail Satan!

[@afikolami]

Is it possible that caw-blade was and still the strongest standard deck of all time?

[@jfb-]

Oko decks may be stronger

[@nikmidclayton5933]

Mono black devotion?

[@TheShinyFeraligatr]

Lord no, post-Clamp Affinity and half the shit that spewed out of Combo Winter still exist.

[@thebfunk5228]

Here's your random fact of the day: Cagou (pronounced just like Caw Go) means "(he/she) pooped" in portuguese.

[@a_fuckin_spacemarine7514]

Jace never deserved his ban.

[@swahilimaster]

Jace was one of the most centralizing cards standard had ever seen, the only reason it went unbanned so long was to sell packs.

[@dennisvogel5982]

@@swahilimaster But Jace also followed a time where control was dead - i mean literally dead. Jund in the Meta was a nightmare since everything they did where 2 for 1's and control simply could not hold up - Even when jace was printed most peaople agreed that he was incredible broken but he still could not compete with a bloodbraid elf. Caw go and Caw blade where so refreshing at first, when they where designed because the hawks got you enough value to compete with jund and the blade was also extremly powerfull and allowed to play tap out and still have countespell mana. I think jace was the try to get control back on the map and pushed by design to an extreme so it can compete - problem was the moment jund rotated.... suddenly jace was overpowered without anything to stop him and mirrodin brought extremly powerfull tools that fitted perfectly in a deck that was able to compete even before.

[@nikmidclayton5933]

Booooo. #freetwin