Oct 20, 2026 · 35 min · 28 segments
Are you playing to win, or are you playing your deck? In competitive Magic, there's a difference between optimizing the 75 cards you already know and choosing an entirely different deck because it's…
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Zac ClarkHostPhil BlechmanHost:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(733x139:735x141)/adams-clark-1-2000-cdfc4dd8d3bb4e8a83f219aa74a2880b.jpg)
The process by which I prefer to play Magic the Gathering, which is trying to determine if the deck that I'm playing is the best for the field, as opposed to sitting down like you do and trying to determine if your deck build is the best for the field.
So one of the ways I determine that is by what the power outliers of that deck are.
You know, if we look at Cephalid Breakfast, we're obviously looking at Thassa's Oracle as a power outlier.
The way that Thassa's Oracle works is the Power Outlier, right? That deck doesn't exist with Mob, sorry, Lab Maniac or Jace, Wielder of Mysteries, right? Thassa's Oracle ends the game, but more importantly, the things that get you there are important too.
So when I talk about Thassa's Oracle, I want to contrast that with a Power Outlier in... urza saga urza saga to me is is one of the main reasons why i like to play uh cephalid breakfast i think that cephalid breakfast is powerful because it has these b and c plans in in thos's oracle and sorry in in urza saga and in loki
yeah tell me more about loki i like loki let's let's go slight tangent how's loki been
Now my kill plan is either I have drawn more cards than my opponent and they give up, which does happen sometimes, or I outpace them with chip damage from my guys and my Urza Sagas, or I just get them with the combo.
Is that where you have fallen or would you consider that a pet deck in this scenario? Yeah.
You do that with, with miracles, right? Like everyone, when they think of miracles, they think of Phil Black, right? For me, I think that in the short term, people might think Zach Clark and Cephalid Breakfast, but if I were to change that deck and start playing another deck in a semi, you know, serious form, they would not be surprised to see me on Affinity or to see me on Beanstalk or something like that.
That can be detrimental in some ways, right? Because what we talked about with the main decking episode was like, yeah, that will put you in a situation where you might not know your deck as well as somebody who just sticks to one deck and plays that constantly.
It does allow you to... play the best cards, right? If you're choosing decks based on what's happening, you get to play the best new cards, right? You also get to choose the best tools in that deck to attack the metagame.
So sometimes you might think, Phil, man, I sure wish I had access to this card, but it's just not available in your archetype, right? And so I think that that's a big reason to look at meta decking as well, is it allows you to say, oh, people are drawing a lot of cards.
The process by which I prefer to play Magic the Gathering, which is trying to determine if the deck that I'm playing is the best for the field, as opposed to sitting down like you do and trying to determine if your deck build is the best for the field.
So one of the ways I determine that is by what the power outliers of that deck are.
You know, if we look at Cephalid Breakfast, we're obviously looking at Thassa's Oracle as a power outlier.
The way that Thassa's Oracle works is the Power Outlier, right? That deck doesn't exist with Mob, sorry, Lab Maniac or Jace, Wielder of Mysteries, right? Thassa's Oracle ends the game, but more importantly, the things that get you there are important too.
So when I talk about Thassa's Oracle, I want to contrast that with a Power Outlier in... urza saga urza saga to me is is one of the main reasons why i like to play uh cephalid breakfast i think that cephalid breakfast is powerful because it has these b and c plans in in thos's oracle and sorry in in urza saga and in loki
yeah tell me more about loki i like loki let's let's go slight tangent how's loki been
Now my kill plan is either I have drawn more cards than my opponent and they give up, which does happen sometimes, or I outpace them with chip damage from my guys and my Urza Sagas, or I just get them with the combo.
Is that where you have fallen or would you consider that a pet deck in this scenario? Yeah.
You do that with, with miracles, right? Like everyone, when they think of miracles, they think of Phil Black, right? For me, I think that in the short term, people might think Zach Clark and Cephalid Breakfast, but if I were to change that deck and start playing another deck in a semi, you know, serious form, they would not be surprised to see me on Affinity or to see me on Beanstalk or something like that.
That can be detrimental in some ways, right? Because what we talked about with the main decking episode was like, yeah, that will put you in a situation where you might not know your deck as well as somebody who just sticks to one deck and plays that constantly.
It does allow you to... play the best cards, right? If you're choosing decks based on what's happening, you get to play the best new cards, right? You also get to choose the best tools in that deck to attack the metagame.
So sometimes you might think, Phil, man, I sure wish I had access to this card, but it's just not available in your archetype, right? And so I think that that's a big reason to look at meta decking as well, is it allows you to say, oh, people are drawing a lot of cards.
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