The Talk Box Plays Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel - Part 2

The next episode of Harry and Chad's Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel playthrough is out! Join them as they navigate Elpis and take on the jump-pad-loving scav, Deadlift!

Khans of Tarkir Booster Box Unboxing - Part Two

The epic conclusion of Harry and Adam opening the Khans of Tarkir booster box!

The Talk Box Plays Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel - Part 1

Hey everyone! First episode of our Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel Let's Play is out, so go check it out! Come join us as Harry and Chad explore the story behind Elpis, Pandora's moon.

Khans of Tarkir Booster Box Unboxing - Part One

Join Harry and Adam as they open a booster box and explore the new Magic set, Khans of Tarkir!

Part Two will be coming soon!

The Talk Box Presents: CONSPIRACY! - Part One, Pod Two

If you'd like to listen to the podcast featuring the drafting process, click here!

Pod Number Two: Chad, Matt, Jared and Morgan

In the pod containing Chad, Matt, Jared, and Morgan, the match escalated quickly and never slowed down, with flashy spells and big plays being made all over the place. Chad was playing Orzhov (white-black), Matt was playing Mardu (red-white-black), Jared was playing Jund (black-red-green), and Morgan was playing Izzet (blue-red). And now, decklists!

Chad's Orzhov

Matt's Mardu

 Jared's Jund

(Sadly we didn't get a photo of Jared's deck)

Morgan's Izzet

Before dice could even be rolled to see who went first, Morgan revealed his Power Play conspiracy, making him the player to start the game. The game began tame enough, with a few creatures played and a Tyrant’s Choice from Jared clearing the board early.

Eventually, Chad made the first big move, dropping a 15/15 Lurking Automaton that caused everyone’s chairs to shift unsettlingly towards him. The hidden agenda conspiracy of Secret Summoning allowed him to tutor up another one, and he eventually had two giant Automatons that threatened to end the game within a few turns. Luckily, Jared and Matt both had removal spells to respond to his threat, Jared casting a Tragic Slip and Matt casting an Assassinate.

As the game progressed, Jared kept his hand full with not one, but two Deathreap Rituals, benefiting from the mass amounts of removal getting slung around the table. Eventually, Jared drew enough cards and ramped enough mana to cast Phage the Untouchable, the next big threat to appear. With all combat drawn to a stalemate with Phage out, everyone began bolstering their defenses. Chad played multiple copies of Rousing of Souls, giving his opponents some diplomatic card advantage while he built up an army of 1/1 flying spirits. Matt kept himself protected with multiple defenders such as Vent Sentinel, Cinder Wall, and Pride Guardian, doing what he could to find an answer to this clogged board state.

Morgan was the one to break the silence, first casting a Dack’s Duplicate to copy Jared’s Phage. He immediately began swinging away to force blocks and build up +1/+1 counters with his copy’s dethrone ability. In the following turn, Morgan cast Mana Geyser to amass 16 red mana, all of which he filtered in to a multikicked Deathforge Shaman that instagibbed Chad, dropping him immediately to zero life.

With Chad and his army of spirits out of the way, the focus was now mostly between Jared and Morgan, each with a Phage and ready to strike for lethal. Jared was unable to draw a removal spell for Morgan’s, and Morgan dropped a Marchesa’s Smuggler, making his copied Phage unblockable and killing Jared. Meanwhile, Matt was busy durdling and pinging with his Vent Sentinels, hoping to draw into an answer. In a topdeck of the ages, Matt drew into the Assassinate that he then cast to kill Morgan’s Phage, and proceeded to ping him down with his Sentinels over the next few turns for the victory.

Overall, the game was chaotic and fun, and was finished much quicker than Pod Number One's game. Everyone got the chance to be a supervillain mastermind and make a big flashy play, and the consensus of the group seemed to be that the game was hilariously enjoyable.

Why The Trolls Actually Won: Satire, Offending Material, and The Internet in General

Ladies and gentlemen, I hate to break this to you, but those internet trolls that everyone warns you not feed have actually won. And no, I don't mean those people you see in the comments sections, purposely trying to get a rise out of people. I speak of a new breed of troll, coming out from under their respective bridges. The kind of people who will probably be offended by the fact that I am calling them a troll because it offends troll culture as a whole.
Cheapshot jokes aside, the internet has gave birth to a new and terrifying group of people. Everyone knows one. The grandma on Facebook who links an article not realizing that it's not real. The aunt who believes every rumor they see and pass it along as fact. The people on various who take things out of context and get outraged. The people who make comments on articles and posts that have nothing to do with the original post at all. Everyone knows at least one and sigh with a mixture of disbelief and embarrassment for that person.
In my own personal opinion, I believe that it takes almost nothing for people to be offended these days. There are countless amounts of posts about things that get people all riled up over nothing. Before I start digging into these people, let me start by saying this (by putting it in bold so I don't get roflstomped about being just as bad as the people I am talking about): I think that it is great that people have opinions about things. That people are supportive about things. That people have issues they care about. Everyone should have them and spread them if they are supportive and caring in nature. I love people like that. The group of people who I am talking about are the kind of people who don't care or don't bother to do the research or actually read what they are commenting on. It's like a plague on the internet these days. In the age of Google and other search engines, you would think that people would go, "Wait, this doesn't sound right. Let me do a quick internet search on one of 5 devices that have internet access around me before I post about this." But my good people, they do not. No research, no reading, not one thing. It's all headlines, quick skims and rumors with this group. If anything looks offensive or scandalous, they will be the first ones to post about without bothering to see what it is they are talking about. My favorite examples of these include the "original Statue of Liberty the US turned down", the "joke out of context here", and basically the whole anti-vaccine campaign (which baffles me to as why that is an actual thing).
I myself have been a target of this phenomenon. One day, I was just scrolling through Tumblr, minding my own damn business about things. That week, I had been seeing a lot of posts telling people not to listen to Robin Thicke's song Blurred Lines because it was going to be number one on some sort of chart. Being the person that I am, I got upset. Not because I like the song, but because this website prides itself on telling people to stop telling people to not listen to something because they don't like it. So I pointed out the hypocrisy of those posts, telling people to chill. (Quick sidebar: I don't thing anyone on that site was listening to Blurred Lines anyway and the popularity of the song can be contributed to the following: People confusing Robin Thicke for his father, the catchy beat that middle aged white people can dance too, and the other two points combined. End side bar.) No more than five minutes had gone by, when someone re-blogged my post , replying to it "Says someone who has never been sexually harassed," not only missing the point of my post entirely, but starting an argument over something I wasn't even talking about. I can only assume that the person saw the words Robin Thicke, Blurred Lines, listen and to. Luckily, I had a friend reblog the person's response, calling them out on it.
So what does satire have to do with all this? The people I have been talking about do not get it. The point of it is lost to them. As a quick example, some may believe that The Colbert Report is actually for real and not the genius piece of satire that it is. This causes a lot of problems for the rest of us. People are up in arms about offensive jokes that are actually making fun of the people who do the real thing. If anything sounds slightly offensive, they will jump on and start a crusade against the "offensive" person. And then when it's pointed out that it was a joke/satire, they go "Oh yeah. I knew that." NO. NO YOU DIDN'T.
As much as I would like to say that we can stop these...I'm gonna call them trolls again...I fear that we cannot. We can provide links to accurate information. We can show them the wrongs they made in a civil manner. Sometimes they will apologize and correct their mistakes. Sometimes they will spit venom back at us like that dinosaur with the frill thingy in Jurassic Park. As long as there are things to stand for, there will be people who make the other people look bad by screwing up royally and not admitting it.
The trolls won people. We might as well start listening to Gangnam Style and What Does the Fox Say again. Because trends and memes are beautiful things. Right? Right? Guys where are you going.....
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Adam Bento, The MC of The Talk Box Podcast
Send  me hate mail or love letters to:
@CaptainDadam on Twitter
captaindadam on Tumblr

Deck Tech: Chad's Child of Alara (EDH/Commander)

Hello everyone! Chad here, known by most as CaptainTempest and/or CaptainToaster, and welcome to the second edition of Deck Tech!

Today I'll be going over the Commander deck that I'm notorious for, Child of Alara. Though it isn't one of my oldest Commander decks, it has certainly proved itself worthy to be among the ranks of my top favorites. The other members of the Talk Box like to joke that I'm obsessed with boardwipes and casting spells at instant speed. Well, they're not really joking. It's true. At least with this deck, it's true. I was inspired to build it after discovering a list from rtsands45 on MTGSalvation.

Scary little fella, isn't he?

Child of Alara commands the helm of a ramp deck that plays a grindy control game, using the titular card as a consistent way to reset the board when things get too cluttered, or when I don't have as stable of a board state compared to other players. Since he's also a sturdy 6/6 with trample, it's not uncommon for me to swing into the red zone with him to rack up damage, though to this date, he hasn't killed someone by dealing 21. Child specifically has to be sent to the graveyard in order for its built-in boardwipe ability to work, which means that it wouldn't be sent back to the command zone for recasting, so I require ways to recur it. In addition, nonland permanents do not stick around with Child constantly clearing the field, so most permanents that are in the deck are either a.) indestructible, b.) benefit from dying, or c.) don't need to be on the field that long to be effective. I back this up with a lot of spells that draw cards and spells that 'X-for-1' in some way to provide card advantage. The biggest con to playing this deck is that if Child gets tucked or shuffled into my library somehow, the deck loses a majority of its staying power and is usually neutralized for the remainder of the game.

Here's the full list.

Now that you've gotten a basic picture, let's dive in and see some details about the 99.

LANDS:

Lands are the most important part of this deck. They're the only permanent Child of Alara doesn't destroy when it boardwipes, and as such provides great opportunities for utility lands to shine. Since I'm running all five colors, getting access to all five of them is vital. As such, I run a lot of nonbasic lands that can tap for multiple colors of mana. This is rather budgeted compared to most five-color decklists I've seen. I don't have the luxury to acquire sets of original duals and fetches, but I haven't had any issues with this current setup.

1-10: Hallowed Fountain, Watery Grave, Blood Crypt, Stomping Ground, Temple Garden, Godless Shrine, Steam Vents, Overgrown Tomb, Sacred Foundry, Breeding Pool

Since their reprinting in Return to Ravnica block, the ten shocklands became much easier to acquire. Thus, I was easily able to trade for a set of them to include in this deck. The fact that they have basic land types is vital, as they become searchable with my ramp spells.

11-16: Seaside Citadel, Arcane Sanctum, Crumbling Necropolis, Savage Lands, Jungle Shrine, Murmuring Bosk

Similarly to the shocklands, the tri-lands also seemed like an auto-include. People tend to forget the "sixth tri-land" Murmuring Bosk. Even if we're not running Treefolk, it still gets the job done. And its a Forest, so its searchable with some of my ramp spells.

17-21: Command Tower, Exotic Orchard, Reflecting Pool, Rupture Spire, Transguild Promenade

These lands are included since they can tap for mana of any color.

22-23: High Market, Miren, the Moaning Well

These allow us to sacrifice Child at the drop of a hat. They won't be destroyed from the ensuing boardwipe, and they also can be used to sac creatures that would otherwise be stolen or targeted.

24: Volrath's Stronghold

The best reusable way to reclaim Child from the graveyard, and generally one of the top lands in EDH. Sacrifice Child to either High Market or Miren, place it back on top of your library before your draw step through the Stronghold, then draw him, cast, and repeat as necessary.

25-26: Kor Haven, Prahv, Spires of Order

For those pesky Voltron generals and otherwise troublesome creatures, Kor Haven and Prahv do an excellent job of nullifying them.

27-30: Alchemist's Refuge, Bojuka Bog, Krosan Verge, Reliquary Tower

These four round off the remainder of my utility lands. Alchemist's Refuge is a superior Winding Canyons that allows me to cast anything I want at instant speed, Bojuka Bog is an EDH staple that can deal with problematic graveyard recursion, Krosan Verge is the only real "fetch" that I run in this deck, and Reliquary Tower is another useful EDH staple.

31-40: 2x Plains, 3x Island, 1x Swamp, 1x Mountain, 3x Forest

The last ten slots in my land count are basics, included in the increments that I need based on the majority colors of my spells.

SPELLS:

41-54: Coiling Oracle, Cultivate, Darksteel Ingot, Explosive Vegetation, Kodama's Reach, Mana Reflection, Mirari's Wake, Oracle of Mul Daya, Reap and Sow, Recross the Paths, Skyshroud Claim, Solemn Simulacrum, Urban Evolution, Wood Elves

The ramp package. Pretty standard in terms of spells, allowing me to get my basics out quickly and drop multiple lands a turn. Darksteel Ingot persists through Child's destruction. Oracle of Mul Daya allow me to "dig" through my library when paired with top-card manipulation like Darksteel Pendant and Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Skyshroud Claim and Wood Elves get some mileage, as they can hit shocklands. Mana Reflection and Mirari's Wake, despite being permanents and thus weak to Child, can fuel some backbreaking plays if left unchecked.

55-63: Aeon Chronicler, Conflux, Deep Analysis, Fact or Fiction, Mulldrifter, Sphinx of Uthuun, Steam Augury, Time Spiral, Wheel of Fortune

Drawing cards is another key piece of this deck. Aeon Chronicler is a great consistent engine while he's suspended. Conflux allows me to tutor up pretty much anything and everything I need. Everything else is just standard issue.

64-80: Annihilate, Bind, Decree of Justice, Decree of Pain, Dismantling Blow, Dismiss, Exclude, Into the Roil, Nihil Spellbomb, Overwhelming Intellect, Resounding Silence, Resounding Wave, Second Thoughts, Slice in Twain, Squelch, Teferi's Response, Twisted Justice

Cantrips! This is what I was really impressed by in rtsands45's build, and what inspired me to make my own. These cards can cycle and draw cards in addition to being awesome spells. Decree of Justice can win games just by cycling for X at the end of someone's turn, especially if I happen to have Mirari's Wake out. Resounding Silence and Resounding Wave can be used under effects that limit casting spells (I'm looking at you Teferi) via cycling, and can also be near uncounterable when cycled. Bind, Dismiss, Exclude, Overwhelming Intellect, and Squelch are all great counterspells, albeit situational ones. Teferi's Response in particular is really specific, but I guarantee you'll see some form of land destruction in a game from cards like Terastodon or Sylvan Primordial. I might consider including Scatter Arc if I can find room for it. Twisted Justice can also be used to sacrifice Child in the event that one of the sac lands is not available.

81-99: Akroma's Vengeance, Bound // Determined, Colossus of Akros, Constant Mists, Creepy Doll, Cyclonic Rift, Darksteel Colossus, Darksteel Pendant, Eternal Witness, Fracturing Gust, Gift of Immortality, Invulnerability, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Progenitus, Reiterate, Stuffy Doll, Time Stop, Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, Wurmcoil Engine

Rounding off the rest of my spells are finishers, utility spells, and backup boardwipes. Darksteel Pendant is my budget replacement for Sensei's Divining Top, though I prefer the Pendant thanks to it being indestructible. Cyclonic Rift and Fracturing Gust are boardwipes that provide some advantageous virtual card advantage, and Akroma's Vengeance is a classic. Constant Mists and Invulnerability can protect me in combat situations similarly to Kor Haven and Prahv. Gift of Immortality is dirty in combination with Child, and Bound can be both a sacrifice outlet for Child as well as a way to return him to my hand. Big goofy creatures like Colossus of Akros, Darksteel Colossus, Progenitus, Ulamog, and Wurmcoil Engine stick around after Child clears the field. Creepy Doll and Stuffy Doll are the only creatures that I'm iffy about, but I haven't come across anything in my collection that can replace them as of yet. If I can get my hands on a Blightsteel Colossus, I guarantee that will replace one of them.

And that's the deck! It can a force to be reckoned with once it gets going, though it does have its downsides if it gets focused early or loses access to Child. I've certainly caused my share of headaches with this deck, and I imagine I'll only continue to do so as time goes on. Thanks for reading my first deck tech! I'm open to suggestions if there's a card you think could synergize well with my particular build. Let me know your thoughts in the comments section below!

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Chad Dominique
CaptainTempest of the Talk Box Podcast
Twitter: @cmdominique
Steam: CaptainTempest