What's the Best Color in Commander? | Commander Clash Podcast #44

[@MTGGoldfishCommander]

Here's an image of all our rankings from this video: i.imgur.com/pdiWIJH.png

[@vincentcolaianni4012]

So if you assign each ranking a number value S:5 -D:1 then Green and Black would currently be tied at 70 and Red would be the lowest at 35.

[@ArleneMarvell]

Rot wolf's commentary was fire, is there any chance of making them a permanent member of the cast?

[@Fromaginator]

Their charisma is infectious

[@RLKC8]

@@delathenleso5793 to be fair crim is the spike of the group, and while you may not like them, spikes definitely exist

[@bodaciouschad]

Sadly, Rot Wolf caught a nasty infection and cannot make any reapperances for the foreseeable future.

[@ArleneMarvell]

@@RLKC8 crim is my favorite member of the cast, him raging against green, while playing control is just like me. He resonates with me, this was just a joke on rot wolf

[@RLKC8]

@@ArleneMarvell I think it kinda sounded like he was hating on crim, but maybe I’m just dumb

[@pablocastilla1176]

I’d love it if you show each of your tier lists visually, side by side when you each say your list. Would help a lot!

[@MTGGoldfishCommander]

I wasn't happy with how I tried to add it in this video but I'll have it done for next time. Thanks for the feedback!

[@SmashCentralOfficial]

@@MTGGoldfishCommander appreciate it! I scrolled through the beginning a couple times trying to find the Letter Grades on screen or something but realized it was all verbal

[@derallianzler4164]

@@MTGGoldfishCommander I'd like that too! Also it would be great to do a combined List for each segment were you diskuss your Lists to make one combined list you all can agree on. This would make it easier to draw conclusions from this potcasts. At least I often don't really know, what to "take home" from your videos because you talk so long discussing but rarley agreeing on anything. And when you finish with the follow up you could do a end rating for each color just by combining all previous lists.

[@towelociraptor]

In casual play, blue's strengths are very muted since players will assemble stable value engines that can't all be disrupted by 1-for-1s. In cEDH when everyone is running tons of interaction, as well as 1v1, its stack interaction is a hallmark of the most powerful decks in formats where games routinely end before turn 5

[@baconsir1159]

I wouldn't even say just CEDH, I'd say as soon as you're no longer in a combat meta

[@eon2330]

Its actually more based on how people give up green and white ramp in cedh for the more explosive and more powerful Red and black ramp (and high tide... lel). So people use counterspells to break the red/black chain ramping and combos. Again ramp is ramp. Playing cards earlier than their turn in cost. For example I can drop omniscience turn 1 in my izzet deck.... can't do it in my simic deck tho.

[@qqpit1]

Did everyone forget about red's artifact recursion? Goblin welder, goblin engineer, trash for treasure, deretti, etc.

[@AbyssArray]

I would say the category missing for me is interaction, I know I rate it highly, being able to interact or disrupt my opponents from finishing their gameplan before mine is really important.

[@MTGGoldfishCommander]

Next week we discuss interaction including targeted removal, board wipes, and countermagic, along with other categories such as protection.

[@Xiko37]

I really wish we could've seen the ratings on screen while they talk about it. This visual aid would be so good

[@stankylegg1782]

The commander clash podcast! Where W is considered a "good" mono color and U is considered the worst mono color. Never change team.

[@kkhello823]

I can’t believe y’all did colorless dirty like that in ramp

[@kylejohnson4662]

Richard: “Black doesn’t have the 5-mana draw a billion cards.” Ad Nausem: i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/242/692/07f.jpg Also the most efficient draw spell in the game is peer into the abyss, based on cards per mana. If you average 35 cards from peer, that’s 5 cards per one mana. Rhystic Study I’ve never seen draw more than 10 cards before being destroyed and that’s still only a little more than 3 cards per one mana.

[@RyanEglitis]

Not to mention Necropotence. Black draw was so good it was even banned w/ Griselbrand and Yawgmoth's Bargin.

[@ConstanceMists]

Not the first time they’ve forgotten about necro

[@sushicuit14]

you're technically correct, however I think that in mtg 90% of the time 3 mana draw 10 is much stronger than 7 mana draw 35

[@sushicuit14]

@@ConstanceMists they talk about it it's even litterally on screen around min 48

[@ConstanceMists]

@@sushicuit14 ya i wasn’t even past the ten min mark on this vid when i commented that. Its was in reference to them leaving it off of their “best card at every mana value” vid

[@wchenful]

Surprised red was so low for ramp. I would've put it in second position after green: Dockside, Jeska's Will, Treasonous Ogre, Ragavan, Red Rituals plus a few casual all-stars like mana geyser and mana echoes. Blue's weird in the sense that it doesn't have great generic ramp options but it has amazing ramp commanders - Malcolm, Urza etc.

[@atevalve]

I think you may have missed out on a key piece of red's recursion suite, artifact reanimation. It's very good at putting artifacts into play from the graveyard, and although that is archetype specific it's still incredibly powerful.

[@Larghz]

Red also does the Shamanic Trance type thing where it gives spells a flashback type effect. There are a few red planeswalkers that do this too.

[@atle853]

Goblin welder defines red recursion better than gamble defines red tutors.

[@cannibalskitchen8421]

Blue does have a little bit of secret tech that the crew forgot to mention in the ramp section. Fatestitcher style effects let it untap lands and mana rocks which effectively turns them into an arbor elf that can do other shenanigans. That doesn't save its ramp package by any means, but it does make it better than they were giving credit for.

[@fernandotanigushi8310]

i think the problem with this argument is that, if you're only using it for ramp, another mana rock does the job, just fine. untaping your stuff is your gameplan with the ramp as an upside, not the other way around

[@egoish6762]

@@fernandotanigushi8310 yeah, but i see his point, blue seems to have the most playable free spells with the untap land stuff and other stuff like the counterspells which is pseudo ramp by the definition they used. "Doing stuff sooner."

[@Larghz]

I was thinking the same thing, also you can make token copies of lands / artifacts in blue.

[@chorizoahumaseco]

You also have Mitotic Manipulation, retrace image and energy tap, among other things like stealing mana producing permanents and counters that give temporal mana like mana drain.

[@atle853]

You also have paradoxical outcome and the best artifact synergies for a clutch of moxen, and dramatic scepter

[@nathanialshicks]

Blue does have a regrowth: "Recall" (not the one you're thinking of). Starting at three, and having to pitch another card for each card you recur is not always great look, but if you really want to have access to that effect to grab a key piece, you can. It is bad, but I play it in every mono blue deck because I like niche colour breaks even if they're not on rate.

[@hunterthorne4671]

You have to do a board wipe category, also you could do a stack interaction category: S - Blue A B C D F - Everything else Blues ability to interact with the stack makes it overwhelmingly powerful. Torment of hailfire for x = inf always will win a game... unless theres a blue player at the table, they dont even need to have mana open to counter spells anymore with the amount of free counters they have access to. I can understand the sentiment to want all colours to be equal in commander, since commander is essentially the only popular format in mtg, but it makes sense that the colour identity for each one doesnt lend itself as well in a slower format. Almost every single standard theres a monored aggro deck that has tournament success, but red doesnt do as well in commander, and thats okay

[@sethstarr2903]

Reiterate would like a word with you

[@firstandlast.1254]

Blue is clearly the best, but Red seems to stand out above the other three. Spell/ability redirection, spell copying, in some cases the anti-Blue REB effects are all stack interaction. Nowhere near as good as blue, but I think Red has at least separated itself from the bottom three.

[@leonjakobsen272]

Does "can't be countered" count as stack interaction? Because if so, green has a few things as well

[@fernandotanigushi8310]

blue still takes the cake. best stack interaction, it's board interaction also doesn't get behind. best card draw that doesn't need a preboard and easiest to combo off.

[@MTGGoldfishCommander]

We talk more in length about Blue's stack interaction next podcast. More than makes up for other areas imo

[@towelociraptor]

I agree in 1v1 and cEDH, but in casual blue's stack interaction is much less powerful because it's all 1 for 1, which is disadvantageous against 3 opponents

[@spudster8887]

@@towelociraptor Which doesn't matter if you build your deck correctly. If your blue deck can't get that card back, its built incorrectly imo. Also by your logic, almost all spot removal is bad, because its generally a 1 for 1 trade, which has put 2 players down in resources compared to the rest of the table. People always use this sort of argument to downplay counterspells, but it just doesn't work in practice. If you are playing removal properly, you've gained yourself advantage which outweighs the card loss.

[@goosecollins2344]

@@towelociraptor But you don't have to stop every card, you play a rhystic study, draw a bunch of cards and counter anything that could win the game, at that stage you should have enough counters to stall the board and protect your combo, I personally feel counters are the most powerful form of interaction in the entire game and its not even close

[@Cyberium]

Blue's weakness of speed was severely negated with 40 life and four players, not to mention in EDH you can use almost as many mana artifacts, tutors, and draw as vintage. If EDH is a 30 life format, it would've allow white/red to exercise their power more readily.

[@hinatasninetailedfox]

What other color can effectively interact with the stack? It used to be simic decks were green decks that added blue to be able to instant speed interact on other turns to make up for the more sorcery speed nature of greens acceleration. I think if Blue gets consistent hyper efficient ramp the it would eclipse the other colors. In most formats it's the best color for being the only color that has access to stopping spells before they resolve and often for free. I think it's okay for blue to have one format or two where it's not the strongest solo color.

[@RyanEglitis]

I wish they'd just open up stack interaction to black and white. It's silly to have it in only one color.

[@NotSoSerious69420]

@@RyanEglitis all colors have their own interactions. Gentrification of the colors isn’t the way to go. Make color combos better at interaction if you want but don’t make every color do every other colors thing like green has kinda become.

[@lrdrandom]

Green has a lot of "can't be countered". And stack interaction is usually blue removal, so you are playing counterspell because other colours have swords, terror/whatever, beast within or chaos warp. Is it better? Most of the time yes, but it is situational as in, it has to be on the stack. A remove soul reads "destroy target creature card that is on the stack". I do agree that more ways to interact with instants and sorceries would be better that just plain "can't be countered". But then again, it depends on what your instant and sorceries are doing, you interact with the stack with instants and abilities (protect a creature from removal, remove a creature to prevent pump, get proteccion from stupid everything...), and all colours have that, blue is just the best at it.

[@RyanEglitis]

@@NotSoSerious69420 Every other mechanic is spread across multiple colors - it's silly that such a basic mechanic is only allowed to one color. Especially when that mechanic is as overpowered as stack interaction. It doesn't need to be in every color, but it would be best to open it up to more than a single color.

[@TransformersBoss]

Gotta disagree with Richard on Red card draw. Red is VERY good at using “discard your hand then draw X” effects while it’s hellbent. Not just with Wheel, but with things like Ox of Agonas. Burn out your hand, then discard nothing and draw 3 cards. White doesn’t get that kind of luxury

[@gerogero2011]

I think its not Draw or card advantage… its more likely looting… u sacrifice something to get something

[@kymballhight1659]

@@gerogero2011 I feel wheels are reds ONLY card positive draw by Tomer's wording. Soon as he said "cards to hand" it threw impulse draw out. By the wording if you include in exile but can be played, black gets way stronger because of it's various effects. Wording matters, and ESPECIALLY with a game as complex as mtg. Red is VERY good at cycling through the deck to get what tou need but by definition, aside from wheels when you are hellbound or close to it, red has no card draw that doesn't sacrifice cards in return or is the very niche card (like browbeat). White still adds cards to hand which puts it above red for card draw, but not necessarily for card advantage.

[@dasfabelwesen]

Crim is not there, but the cast still relies on him having the answer.

[@atle853]

Poor blue, it was like hearing your friends talking shit about you before entering the room and then getting sad and leaving instead.

[@frosty980]

I’d usually agree that blue is the worst at ramp but got to wondering if that’s really the case. Blue’s untapping and copying abilities can allow it to milk the lands and rocks it does have more than other colors. I’m sure we’ve all seen blue decks untap or copy their Thran Dynamos and Sol Rings loads of times, does this make it stronger in ramp than black or red?

[@NotSoSerious69420]

Yes, because that’s generally permanent ramp lots of red/black ramp is either temporary or easily disreputable ramp black especially. Or they have ramp (mostly black) that requires things from other people like black market to be REALLY good

[@mibbzx1493]

I agree untapping lands and ovar the all form recycling lands and counter spells that untap lands with the combination of card draw you’ll never miss land drops for sure i think its in B tier

[@JacobSmith-rh2sr]

no there's too many loopholes in order to make blue competitive ramp wise so it sucks

[@frosty980]

@@JacobSmith-rh2sr surely no less loopholes than black or red which rely heavily on rituals. We just saw tomer copy sol ring and arcane signet several times each and this sort of artifact copying is fairly common, at least in my meta

[@JacobSmith-rh2sr]

@@frosty980 no red doesn't need loopholes. Has the most treasure synergies and treasure producers, the best burst mana...none of which blue has. Usually it has to like copy high tide ten times to do anything

[@RedBossTV]

1:18:30 For me it’s a mix of budget and deck focus. I used to play more tutors to make my deck work, but at the same time I didn’t own many of the staple tutors, like Vampiric, Demonic, Diabolic Intent etc. I now run Eldritch Evolution on my green decks (Reaper King and First Sliver) and Scheming Symmetry on my black decks. On my Edgar Markov I run a Vampiric Tutor I opened on Commander Legends but that’s it

[@RyanEglitis]

I think one reason they're ranking black lower is that all the good black draw is really only run in combo decks, which they never really see in their meta. Ad Nauseam & Necropotence are really good at drawing, but they're gonna get the table looking your way next time they go to combat. Which is why you want to run these when you combo out and can win, not just as a value play. Similar reason you don't see them mentioning Urza as good blue ramp.

[@FearOgre]

Which is why their "tier lists" and "best list" are subpar everytime.

[@alecolson8360]

Yup there’s a ton of 5 mana draw 10s in black but they cost 5-10 life so it does add up

[@alexmanzanares200]

@@FearOgre more like subjective.

[@FearOgre]

@@alexmanzanares200 Which is not best/tier.

[@alexmanzanares200]

@@FearOgre To them it is, and to anyone with similar groups or game enviroments. Just like every single best/tier list video youd find on the internet for any game.

[@ZakKmak]

So The Commander Theory podcast did an episode about basically this in 2019, so the data is a little different now, but basically shows similar trends. Play experience usually matches data, but in the case of things like red tutors you can usually find that depth is extremely important. Red was definitely worse off in 2019 due to lack of draw and tutors, but has definitely come around now IMO! Another example is white: what's the second best Disenchant? Third? Why are there a million naturalize variants and almost no functional reprints of disenchant? And there's no Reclamation sage in white because....? Anyway love the episode! Love seeing convos like this about the format!

[@mrbelbobaggins8959]

I really enjoyed this episode. I loved seeing the group have opposing viewpoints and having to explain their rankings.

[@Yontanian]

When talking about card draw/advantage I'm surprised no one talked about cards that let you play the top card of your deck, like the absolute powerhouse Bolas's Citadel (is it ramp? is card draw? Nope, it's a bit of both!). They are often permanents that stick around, often with other uses so you aren't down a card, and they are often lasting effects.

[@Garl_Vinland]

It’s card advantage, but neither ramp, nor card draw

[@Garl_Vinland]

You essentially always have +1 cards in hand, but you can’t use “play from hand” effects, in exchange for being immune to discard while being interactable to mill, scry, shuffle etc. It’s very powerful, but nothing beats having multiple card options in hand.

[@colinbrown5646]

I actually might have to agree with Richard on the card draw argument. Now, I do believe impulse draw is good, but you know whats better than impulse draw? Normal draw. And recently, more and more, White is getting actually no joke staple level card draw effects. Esper Sentinel, Smuggler's Share, Welcoming Vampire, Mangara, Sanctuary Warden, Rumor Gatherer, Bennie Bracks... these are all incredibly strong card draw effects in Commander that will net you tons of card draw over the course of a game. Red, while it can explode one turn, can easily find itself in a spot where its top decking, running low on resources, and in general just not being able to keep up. White, as long as you put some of these cards in your deck, does not run into that issue as much anymore. But Richard saying Black doesn't have high end draw a billion cards... he has clearly never played Black stuff like Peer into the Abyss, Ad Nauseum, and Vilis. My personal rankings would be: Card Draw S- Blue A- Black, Green B- White C- Red D- ??? Ramp S- Green A- White B- Black C- Red D- Blue Recursion S- Black A- Green B- White C- Red D- Blue Tutor S- Black A- Green B- White C- Blue D- Red

[@qwormuli77]

Your ranking mirror mine pretty much 1 to 1, except I'd swap green and white in the recursion. White has so much more variety in types and targets, that green plain and simple can't compare. It does selective hand recursion often focused on creatures well, but relies on singular outliers or very rare/inefficient effects for anything else. If Regrowth is your specific need, green is your choice (out of the two), but white leads in everything else.

[@TheGFFA]

My ranking is virtually identical to yours. I'd have put white two spots lower on card draw just a year ago, and one spot lower on ramp. However, as you mentioned, white has been getting a lot of good cards of late.

[@darkflame9410]

MaRo's commented before, they don't want to give Blue treasures because blue has too many artifact synergies that can easily abuse a free artifact token. he's even gone so far as to say giving pirates treasure in Ixalan was a mistake (a "if we were making Ixalan today, either pirates wouldn't get treasures or Pirates would only be RB").

[@oORoOFLOo]

prints hullbreacher

[@darkflame9410]

@@delathenleso5793 I get what you mean but it is important to keep in mind that, as one of WoTC’s Senior Lead Designers and the head of the Council of Colors, his opinions do hold a lot of sway. That being said, from his responses this decision seems to come from the Council. Treasures been labled a firmly Jund mechanic: primary red (because red is the best color at producing “burst” / temporary mana), secondary green (because green is the best color at producing mana outside its own color), and tertiary black (similar reasons as red, but at a cost usually. Also sacrificing for gain). White is severely limited because white is supposed to be the worst at producing mana outside its own color as a weakness, and blue for the same reason plus the aforementioned “blue has way too many strong artifact synergies” reason.

[@darkflame9410]

@@oORoOFLOo yes, and MaRo, as well as Gavin, Melissa, and others have all agreed Hullbreacher was a mistake on multiple fronts.

[@FearOgre]

@@delathenleso5793 And the most recent visible way, Companion.

[@SmashCentralOfficial]

1:08:00 this happened a couple times throughout the episode. Tomer is ranking things 1-5 Best to Worst, and the rest of you are using your Tier Letter grade system.

[@sirrzoidberg3771]

What are you talking about black has like 5 rituals turn 1-2. Dark ritual is insane ramp. Take out smothering tithe and black is insanely better than white at ramp.

[@pauldyson8098]

"No one expects the first Fade Away, Tomer."

[@ThePyroFirestorm]

i feel blue does have access to ramp, it just needs to use artifacts to do it. it has stuff like tezzeret the seeker and teferi, temporal archmage, which untap artifacts, as well as urza and grand architect, which let you tap permanents to add mana. it's definitely still the worst ramp color, but it can leverage artifact ramp the best.

[@ringoderbar1522]

1:10:00 Do you count Long-Term Plans as tutor for any card? Even though it tutors it into a specific position in your deck?

[@erysecret]

Interesting podcast and discussion! I generally agree. One of my favorite blue tutors is Long-Term Plans, which is: (2)U, Instant: Search your library for a card and put it 3rd from the top. In most decks, this ends up becoming a 3 mana vampiric tutor because Blue is just so good at drawing cards in basically any strategy.

[@treytonmoore9006]

Regarding blue, I think a big way it currently gets around needing ramp is via cheap counter spells that allow you to trade up on resources.

[@BobardeZanzibar]

Not against the table, though.

[@TyphosTheD]

I feel like a hugely underappreciated aspect of Blue recursion is Graveyard Shuffle Wheels and Draw spells. Wheeling your Graveyard back into your Library and getting a full grip can be absolutely game changing, and really leans into Blue's card draw strength - alongside their strong library searching synergies.

[@Shabzhader]

Dreamscape Artist turns all the cards in your hand into Harrow. IT'S FINE. Discarding a card is the same as casting the card (in this case). Casting Harrow also costs you the card itself and a land.

[@alaraplatt8104]

problem is its actually spending 2 cards to cast one Harrow. imagine you manage to tap it once before the board gets wiped, and there youve spent both the dreamscape artist and whatever card you discarded

[@Shabzhader]

@@alaraplatt8104 Ehhh, i get what you're saying but I don't think that's correct. What you're describing is just the mana dork life. They get collateral effed all the time. So here's my opinion: Firstly, you're not actually casting a Harrow. You're discarding a "dead card" to ramp. You didn't have to draw a harrow. Instead all the cards in you hand become "Modal Harrows" you can cast them as they are OR you can cast them as "harrows". Secondly, I think it's incorrect to say that you're "spending" 2 cards to cast the harrow. I think this for the same reason you wouldn't say that you spent 2 cards to cast a turn 2 Kodama's reach if you used a Llanowar elves that dies the next turn. (I know, it's not the same thing at all but that's the best comparison i can come up with right now). I'm not saying Dreamscape artist is an insanely broken card or anything, but it's at least decent (and fair). In mono blue, you can smooth out your curve by consistently dropping lands on each turn but there are very few ways to actually ramp (outside of mana rocks and Animist/Hearth & Home/Retraced Image). Not to mention that this lets you hold up interaction as well. But yeah, all the points above are very meta dependent too. The games in my playgroup are much slower because we use much more casual decks (bordering on straight up bad. It doesn't help that we also play like garbage). I can very easily see that this is worse in a faster meta. But I still think the card is at least Okay.

[@chibichanga1849]

@@alaraplatt8104 This is a problem for any creature with a tap ability and thus any spellshaper. Some of those creatures are worth it because their tap ability is impressive, some are not. Paying 2 mana and a card and waiting a turn cycle to turn the worst card in your hand into a Harrow could be exciting to some people and not so much to other people. Things to consider: it puts 2 cards into your graveyard each time you use it, it triggers discard effects, it's a repeatable shuffle effect, triggers landfall. I actually kind of agree with Shobz, as land ramp it's fine, leaning toward less fine with the format getting faster. If you can make use of some synergies, I could see it being pretty nice.

[@SamuelKacerik]

honorable mentions for tutors in blue: Intuition, Long-Term Plans and also we can't forget cards like Acquire and Bribery

[@almogdov]

I've cut most of the tutors in my decks, after 10+ years of playing commander, I appreciate the variance much more as it leads to more interesting game. If I wanted to play the same sequence of cards every game, why play a 100 card singleton format?

[@MapWryte]

One of my favourite topics from you guys. I would love for y'all to maybe rank the different categories at the end of this series in terms of importance and then have a summary discussion about which Mono-Colour wins out overall. As for topics: Interaction (Spot, Board Wipe, Counterspells), Protection, Win Conditions. Figure out a way to touch on Stax and Hate Pieces?

[@Yontanian]

Oh and to answer Tomer's question - I like this broad topic podcast style. It worked well. Looking forward to hearing about best in removal.

[@hilleleisenberg6382]

yall really got me with the ranking of blue at recursion, like, if green gets a pass for needing creatures to draw then blue deserves one for needing spells to recur stuff. it should be at A with black: only gets back creatures= only gets back non-creatures. also archaeomancer is over rated as heck, just play flood of recollection (half the mana), bond of insight (twice the cards) and spell-twine (won me every game I played it, gives you an average of 12 mana regularly). if your not comboing don't play the creature versions of the effect. also reanimating Razaketh on turn two isn't recursion its a combo\main plan for a deck

[@leonjakobsen272]

Archaeomancer is good because you can loop it, which all 3 of those are specifically designed to avoid. Spelltwine is going to depend on your playgroup and your deck. I probably wouldn't play it in something like veyran, where most of the deck is cheap spells. Bond of insight seems really good as a standalone card though. I'm probably going to start playing that in some of my decks. Edited because i misread spelltwine

[@classymofo1059]

okay, yall are completely missing the dreamscape artist. To put it simply, you tap dreamscape artist to turn any card in your hand into a harrow. Because harrow is 3 mana, artists ability is 3 mana, the card you are discarding is the card you would have lost casting a harrow from your hand. Artist is better than just color-shifted harrow because it is repeatable, on an activated ability, and can discard cards with gy effect or to help with treasure cruise effects. Dreamscape artist is a fantastic card.

[@merakimagic7764]

On white ramp, I would do a half split or so. Some mana rocks and some catch up. The catch up ramp cards are usually creatures and they have a relevance on white weenie decks. The white ramp works very well mainly in mono white decks. Once you add another color, rocks in general are much better to me personally. It also depends on your meta. My LGS doesn't use a lot of artifact removal so I feel safe running rocks. If my LGS had a lot of artifact hate I would lean more on catch up land ramp as its more protected besides land destruction. I'm curios if blue will be the worst color in a year because of the focus on buffing the other colors and leaving it in the dust.

[@Renuzithatesyou]

"black doesn't have 5 mana draw a billion cards" its not 5 mana but peer into the abyss is insane and game winning if it's resolves. I would say black is actually the best at drawing cards. In a 40 life format the life loss isn't even a factor.

[@jamiebasarab7409]

That varies pod to pod if your playgroup is an agro mindset lifeloss matters a lot when you halfing your life total to draw some of your deck especially when your not guaranteed to have the mana afterward to just combo out before the table just murders you. Some cards do break that mold like bolas Citadel and ad naus cause they can be instant speed. But a "fair" necro or peer gives people a turn usually. And for the incremental card draw like sign in blood one and two life adds up not to the extent of th big spells but given enough time you can be put in danger zone

[@NotSoSerious69420]

@@jamiebasarab7409 that’s actually not really a counter argument. The only lofe point that matters is the one that if you lose it you lose the game. If you draw half your deck and are unable to make the mana to combo/boardwipe or do something to not die that’s not the card/color being bad that’s just a bad deck.

[@JonaxII]

Wait, black doesn't have Ad Nauseam? Black doesn't have Necrologia?

[@brothertobias]

Necropotence lmao

[@KykyJyky]

Good podcast and subject. I missed seeing Crim's individual commentary, but I'm glad you tried to incorporate his stances into the podcast

[@connorgaughan1935]

I am not sure what the categories are but blue is at least decent at ramp. It has the best synergies with artifacts. Also, are extra turns ramp?

[@Larghz]

At the very least, you to draw a card and try again lol... I think that counts for something

[@FunnyGorillaHaha]

Blue tried treasure ramp and made Hullbreacher. Maybe blue could try something else, but blue hits land drops pretty consistently since it's drawing more cards in general and I think that's enough with the other options it already has.

[@fernandotanigushi8310]

ramp is not THAT necessary when your color wants the game to go long. sometimes playing control is just as simple as not dying

[@revan9106]

In 2022, hitting 1 land a turn with no extra help isn’t enough anymore. Every other color accelerates fast enough as to where the late game no longer matters as much

[@thebagger1733]

“Why tutor when you could just play good cards?” I seem to remember quite a few games, including this last clash, where someone drew almost half their deck looking for a boardwipe or an answer and just died instead. Seems like a tutor might have been a good way to avoid that. Don’t get me wrong, unless I’m playing cEDH, I tend to play less tutors than everyone else at my LGS. Sometimes none. But they definitely have their place.

[@FearOgre]

Yep, a tutor always gets you exactly what you need. A good card is not always what you need.

[@wesleywyndam-pryce5305]

don't play tutors is also saying don't play tool box decks. and it seems like most people I've seen speak against tutors or doesn't use tutors does use redundant card effects still which is the same thing. id rather play and play against a tool box deck with a lot of tutors than a deck thats effectively trying to play 4 copies of every card anyway

[@rosspenney5158]

I'm surprised y'all didn't factor in that colorless ramp is kinda S tier which makes blue and black late game ramp patterns really easy. If you're not met with interaction you can charcoal diamond into Crypt Ghast into Nirkana Revenant, that's like 16 mana on turn 5

[@benjiboy1337]

Definitely agree that impulse draw is effectively card draw. Sure, you have to play those spells, but the fact of the matter is that you end up casting more spells over the course of the game than if you weren't using the impulse draws. It works especially well with the explosive ramp that Red has. Impulse 2, cast a ritual, cast the other impulsed card basically for free; you cast an additional spell with an effect without using the resources on your board, meaning your hand is free to use still. You're just as far ahead as if you had cast a Divination.

[@leonjakobsen272]

Noone ever said it wasn't card draw, just that it's worse than all the other options. Yeah, in that example it's pretty good, but what if you get 2 lands? Or a combo piece and a piece of interaction with no good targets. Yes, you can build your deck in a way where that rarely happens, but that restricts your deckbuilding options in ways that normal draw doesn't require.

[@nomenomerson23]

For BLUE: Why not have blue ramp be a copy spell for lands? like "Cost = UU" "Sorcery = Create a tapped legendary token of target land an opponent controls. Scry 1."

[@nomenomerson23]

Or a temporary Control effect like "Cost = 1U" "Instant = You gain control of target land until the beginning of your next end step. Untap it."

[@BigDrew49]

Apprentice Wizard: "Am I a joke to you?!"

[@alaraplatt8104]

possibly good in devotion

[@michaelbecker1093]

Really enjoyed this episode definitely need to do another with board wipes single Target removal and other things

[@robertbilodeau6073]

For sure; I thought it was going to be in this one.

[@brothertobias]

"Crypt Ghast is not ramp" This is going to be great.

[@_claymore]

I really enjoyed this episode! the only thing I'd change is a "agreed upon" ranking list. I guess Tomer and Seth had the overall similar idea for ranks S to D, but Richard for example understood the tiers differently, so he also applied the colours differently.

[@SP-ik6cc]

I think I would appreciate a visual overview of the tierranking you have done either at the end of each category or at some other point in the video

[@Soeupe]

I'd like to echo Tomer's thoughts on red and white card draw. While it's true that both colors require you to jump through hoops for somewhat middling card draw, red often needs to jump through the same hoops (dealing damage) over and over, whereas different white cards have different hoops you need to jump through (playing weenies, gaining life, paying mana). It's easy to play a bunch of the red card draw spells in the same deck because once you've met the deckbuilding requirements for one you've probably met the deckbuilding requirements for all of them, whereas with a lot of the white card draw spells, they're often at odds with one another.

[@smelltank]

The 'blue is bad' argument severely underrates the power of tempo and interacting on the stack. On paper it seems bad but in play it is the most oppressive and powerful play style. I think there's more to hating counterspells than 'psychological reaction'. When it is in skillful hands it outranks all. The problem, and its weakness, is it's the most skill-based colour.

[@casteanpreswyn7528]

To answer Seth's question about tutors, I used to run as many as possible but now I run 0 in every deck, even in my Kenrith vehicles deck. It's much more fun for me to have that variety than to have consistent win conditions.

[@simongpunkt]

36:40 - The reason wheels are playable in red even though it refuels your opponents is that in red you don't want to trade your cards for advantage anyway. You trade your cards for damage.

[@SuenteusPi]

Why is Rot Wolf always the "404 Item Not Found" image? I remember there was a story behind this years ago but I've forgotten what it was.

[@MTGGoldfish]

The first time it happened was on an early season of Commander Clash when someone (I think it was Jen?) was playing an Infect deck with Rot Wolf but their camera broken so we didn't have their hand cam, so we replaced it all with Rot Wolfs as a joke and it sort of stuck.

[@eon2330]

Tutors. Green/Black S> White B> Red/Blue C. Red and blue tutor archetype. Red is more for dragons/goblins. But Blue tutors artifacts. Red and Blue both have 1 or 2 universal tutors, but at a massive cost/drawback. But Green is only S at creatures, but still its creatures do everything. For non-Creature based decks.... stop running green?

[@jochenkirn9468]

On the ramp conversation... on Moxfield, I tag spells up to MV 4 (think up to Migration Path) as ramp. Everything else, in particular Mirari's Wake, Zendikar Resurgent, or Nyxbloom Ancient is tagged as Big Mana rather than ramp. If card doesn't get me ahead of curve turns 1-3 or so, it needs to help win the game within 1-2 turns. Untap with Nyxbloom, you have to win.

[@SilverMyr73]

Id love to see more tier lists of colour combinations, please do this for the rest if you can find the time, love the content!

[@benjamingrubb6314]

I definitely think Blue tutoring is underrated. Solve the equation, mystical tutor, reshape, whir of invention, fabricate are all really good, miles ahead of what red gets

[@leonjakobsen272]

It kind of depends on what you want from your tutors. If you only need 1-2, gamble is much better than all of those, because it's cheap, gives you the card immediately, and can get anything. Reshape and whir of invention can potentially be much better, but they require more setup, and are restricted to artifacts.

[@DrakeAMV]

I think the card draw definition needs a revision. It should be based on how much of your deck the color allows you to utilize at a time. So Red doesn't technically draw cards well; but it does give you access to a larger amount of your deck at one time than most other colors.

[@hallorette5059]

Y’all are sleeping on Blue Transmute cards. If you play Dizzy Spell, Muddle the Mixture, Drift of Phantasms, and Tolaria West, and build around them, you can find just about everything you need. That’s on top of stuff that finds artifacts like Whir of Invention, Trinket Mage, and Tezzeret the Seeker and stuff that finds spells like Solve the Equation and Mystical Tutor. Blue should always be able to find whatever it needs.

[@basti6073]

A consistent way of grading (relative to each other vs. playability lvl) would have been nice. That way, you could actually throw together a comparison like "In our 4 categories with 4 people voting(16 votes total), green got 5 S rankings, 3 A....". Or actually come up with an average ranking out auf the 4 votes and then compare. Otherwise, appreciate the individual thoughts and discussion!

[@Lucarioguild7]

I think how low blue is in a lot of stuff like ramp just goes to show how crucial card draw is in commander because despite it vastly underperforming in a lot of categories it's still considered one of the best colors. On the topic of ramp I never run white "ramp" outside of smothering tithe obviously but I do occasionally run black and red ramp depending on the deck, but the meta of the format as it stands now you should just run artifact ramp over almost everything if you're not playing green.

[@Constant_Threat]

It is kind of strange that blue is the color of all the big sea creatures like serpents, krakkens, leviathans, octopuses etc. which usually have a mana cost between 6 and 8, yet it doesn't have the ramp to get those cards out. I think what Seth said about Simic happens because of this for many super casual players who just want to play sea creature tribal or similar commander decks. Also, for black's card draw, isn't all of it or mostly all of it at sorcery speed?

[@TheMagician3000]

I enjoyed listening to your podcast. Thanks

[@aramfingal]

Loved this style of podcast!

[@jpscrazy403]

Fun (but probably not good) blue land ramp if you run a ton of basics: Mitotic Manipulation "Look at the top seven cards of your library. You may put one of those cards onto the battlefield if it has the same name as a permanent. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in any order."

[@Logical_Panda]

I think the reason blue doesn't have much recursion, aside from the color break, is that it usually relies heavily on either counter spells or bounce effect to protect it's permanents. This gives it a versatility that is different from the other colors where recursion is necessary. Because a good blue player should have the answers in hand to protect there permanent more so than the other colors.

[@eon2330]

Guys.. 24:26 yall seem to be missing something important. Blue ramp is cost reductions. Cost reductions allow you to cast MORE low cost spells per turn. For every spell you cast -1, you generate a mana. A simple baral, can give the equivalent of (tap) add 4 colorless mana use this mana only on instants and sorceries. I can think of tons of cards like the myriad card who reduces them by 1, AND gives sorceries flash. Blue jumps through hoops for mana. Thats its niche on the mana ramp. Tap/untappers, only X cards mana, cost reductions, etc. It has fine ramp. Its just not great at allowing you to steam off and cast 7 and 8 drops on turn 4. Its more about casting 4, 3 drops on turn 4.

[@blainerodgers5294]

No tutors outside of fetch lands or ramp. Unless there's a specific card the deck is built around, like a secret commander or jank. Considered running vamp or demonic for black non-green ramp. Feels fair, question is does that count as pulling punches if I need something that isn't ramp?

[@Drayvax]

I feel like top-deck manipulation cards like Bolas's Citadel and Courser of Kruphix deserve some sort of mention in the card draw/advantage tier list discussion, especially considering the green options.

[@Doznac]

The two decks that probably have the most tutors in them are my Daretti and Emry decks. Mono red and Mono blue. Emry has all the artifact mages and some, and Daretti had 4 tutors with a sweet Imperial Recruiter/Goblin Matron package. After that I have a couple that usually I only put tutors in if they go crazy with the deck or find very specific cards like Astral Slide or such. And usually even then it's a one of tutor.

[@alecolson8360]

Green is S tier card draw for sure, blue has good options but almost all of them are less efficiently costed

[@awfullyfunmtg]

A point I'd like to add that I don't generally hear enough when people talk about the colour pie - especially during the blue ramp discussion - is that, from a commander perspective, the 2 important things a deck can do is draw cards and ramp. So when we talk about if blue should have ramp, i tihink the simple answer is no, because form a commander perspective, it draws cards SO WELL. I think this was also the contention for so long with white, and to a lesser extend red because for so long they did neither of those well, which was OK in 1v1 formats because they have other considerations there. And this is also why I'm OK with white getting only OK card draw (you and target opponent) and OK ramp (catch up) because by having "OK" ramp and card draw, it gives it its own place in the colour pie - not good at either, but doable. It's now starting to get a bit over the line, but only just. This is also my problem with green because obviously it ramps super well, and is now drawing cards so well too!

[@ethanhughes3515]

In all my decks I don’t really have much for tutors I have one in my goblin tribal deck with goblin matron but I find I cut most tutors because I’d prefer to just have a fun card to draw then go find it in my deck

[@omnigames7396]

No love for deranged assistant in the blue section lol. Great episode

[@nickrossi5992]

Anecdote but I will say that my first time out with my Dimir Horrors deck, I drew 45 cards in a single turn…..because I had cast a Rishkar’s Expertise with Brainstealer Dragon (great on it’s own though at “drawing” multiple cards a turn 👀)

[@heliaxx]

Richard is so wrong about black ramping that it hurts. He need to rethink things.

[@MadcookieBG]

On the Dreamscape Artist discussion: It is slower due to Summoning sickness and to use it you basically played 2 mana tapped 1/1 (bigger mana investment and more cards lost than Harrow). In the average deck it is horrible. You play this either due to desperation for ramp or if you are using heavy discard/graveyard dependent strategy.

[@RowanJanse]

Mitotic Manipulation and Savor the Moment are blue explores that cost 3 mana... sort of. Blue's land ramp currently is stealing lands and taking extra turns to make more land drops.

[@iandierks9012]

Regarding tutors... I've gone 2 opposite directions depending on what power level I'm playing at. If I'm playing competitively, I'll have 10+ of the most efficient tutors, otherwise I've pretty much removed all of my tutors in favor of more ramp and draw. I'd rather have the variation in gameplay at the lower power levels. To expand on this, I agree with Seth in terms of red not having the depth that other colors have, despite having one of the most efficient tutors in all of MTG. It helps to break it down into a point system or something similar. Example of possible point system. Efficiency (CMC): 1-5 points Specificity (any card VS card types): 1-5 points Potency (direct to hand VS in GY or top of library): 1-5 points Gamble: 5 efficiency, 5 specificity, 4 potency (puts in hand with possible discard downside) = 14/15 points. But now compare that to red's overall depth of tutors, none of the other ones even come close. On average, most of red's other tutors would rank extremely low so I agree with red being in C/D Tier for tutors.

[@Redragonclaws]

I haven’t heard any mention of Archeomancer’s Map and Restoration of Eiganjo in white ramp. Are those cards not cracking it anymore?

[@marianpriebe3155]

Red has some really good artifact recursion with Goblin Welder, Daretti etc that can be quite powerful

[@waterborder6136]

When I play gamble I make sure to play Echo of Eons if I can! There are probably other spells you can play in that slot but anything that you can cast if you discard it/if gamble is your only card in hand is great.

[@caasIsirhC]

I do understand counting card draw as coming out positive on cards in hand. However, to jump to Red's defense, I think card selection is a comparably important category especially because, when you think about it, card draw turns into looting with discarding to hand size. Having more cards in hand IS better than not. However, it's like fixing is to ramp, card selection gets what you need into your hand, draw gets more into your hand. Having 7 lands IS worse than 3 or 4 relevant cards. In terms of selection, I think Red stands pretty tall with rummaging as well as impulse draw to find the cards you need to progress your board state or find answers. As true as Richard saying all cards are good in a commander deck, not all cards are good for the game state and I think that after Black and Blue, Red does give Green a run for its money. You can see A LOT of your deck very efficiently with Red and I think that's why I don't feel left behind in terms of relevant plays in a Red deck because it is great at digging. Mono Green is probably better than Mono Red but I think Red wins out because it is generic enough to be useful and desirable in a wide range of multicoloured decks and archetypes, especially recursion. Red is certainly better than White at card selection with its draw and tutoring being so narrow.

[@alecolson8360]

Here’s my argument for dreamscape artist, once it is on the battlefield it only really costs 1 mana since the lands enter the battlefield untapped. I think it’s great if you think of it as turning all the cards in your hand into harrows

[@leonjakobsen272]

It seems like one of those cards that are really good on curve, and pretty terrible otherwise. Also, you can't really say it turns all your cards into harrows, if you can only do it once per turn

[@ToxicAtom]

"Crypt Ghast is not ramp because it costs 4 whole mana, but Hedron Archive is because it only costs 4 mana." -Richard

[@leonjakobsen272]

The difference is that crypt ghast is a creature, and a big threat. So if you play it on turn 4, it's probably gone before you can use it to actually ramp. But if you play a hedron archive, you can almost guarantee that you will have access to those 2 mana on your next few turns. If you're playing crypt ghast correctly, it's either on a turn where it gains you more mana than it costs, or where you can go infinite with it

[@Javors_UndeathAscendant]

blue has several shuffle graveyards back to library effects, which is quite unique on its own

[@MrEsyphelon]

The only time I really put tutors in my deck is if I am playing at a close to cEDH level, or I am playing a hidden commander sort of thing(like a Wild Pair deck)

[@Devynwithawhy]

Shoutout to Codex Shredder: Blue's 6 mana Regrowth, that also mills you. I use it to get back thousand year storm in case it needs it.

[@XionXLR8]

I typically play as many of the efficient tutors as possible. I’ll exclude things like imperial seal if my deck can’t consistently draw the card off the top however.

[@robertbilodeau6073]

I'm with Richard on ramp for Blue. Decks want ramp; before it was you had to run Green, or rocks, and that's been broadened. I think there is enough now (And blue has a few more untap, and instant/sor discounting than you might think). You can choose Green/White/Red/Black for your mana gen. It's the same idea of how you don't go to Green when you're looking for creature boardwipes, you don't go looking at blue for ramp.

[@benjiboy1337]

"If I play blue, I get no ramp. That's the tradeoff" - okay. So colors should have costs and benefits associated with them. What's the cost associated with playing Green?

[@IAOIceland1984]

exactly I think green has been getting way to much power lately

[@BobardeZanzibar]

Lack of board wipes. Not really much of one but there it is.

[@shayneweyker]

Very limited creature removal, mass creature removal in just one card (ezuri's predation), no exiling creature removal (unless you count Duplicant), and instant speed removal limited to fight spells and effects.

[@benjiboy1337]

@@shayneweyker So the color that has the best creatures is a B for removal (those fight spells are rather potent when you have a 7/7). I mean, it does satisfy my question of "what does green give up," but I feel like it also highlights the fact that anything another color does well, green does passably at worst. These are also problems that Blue has, btw, with its removal being largely limited to bounce effects, so you get tempo instead of actual answers, meaning you need another card to handle the spell on the stack after you've removed it from the battlefield. Heavens forbid the card you want to answer is a Carnage Tyrant.

[@drunkenwhaler6890]

blue has a sneaky style of ramp in effects like boomerang and wipe away. it is anti ramp that put's your opponents behind. the same way i'd argue tax cards could potentially be ramp as well