The Pre-Game Podcast by WZKD-

We have Storm-Kiln Artist at home. Apparently, we also have tournament wins.I recently won a LandGO Qualifier with Vraska, Soul of Stone—and in this Pregame Podcast deck tech, I’m breaking down the list, the mulligans, and how all those Treasures turn into wins.From the top down, it looks like Rog/Ishai. Behind the wheel, it’s a midrange control deck that builds draw engines, fights over the stack, and saves up for an explosive turn.We’re covering:🍔 Why Vraska is our “Storm-Kiln Artist at home”💰 Treasure engines, haste enablers, Academy Manufactor, and Xorn🤫 Silence effects and choosing your window to win🔥 Underworld Breach and the secret Magda plan🐉 Niv-Mizzet, Hullbreaker Horror, and alternate finishes🃏 Draw engines, clones, and what makes an opening hand worth keepingAnd yes—we’re talking about the game where I tutor-chained into a Breach line DURING a stack battle with Niv-Mizzet already on the battlefield.You should have seen their faces. Priceless.📋 FULL DECKLIST:https://moxfield.com/decks/iLagAXcOXnScboVvDDLv5QWould you sleeve up Vraska? Drop your questions and card suggestions in the comments, and subscribe to The Pregame Podcast for more cEDH deck techs, tournament talk, and interviews.Clown on the commander if you want. You’re about to Vraska ’round and find out.#cEDH #MTG #Vraska

What separates a great cEDH player from someone with a powerful deck? Jordan and Lily Drake of Drake Academy and Team Monolith join Craig Mack and Andrei to talk coaching, tournament preparation, threat assessment, and the future of competitive Commander.Also: what happens when the person standing between you and the top cut is the person you married?On Episode 19 of the Pregame Podcast, we get into the decisions, practice habits, and honest feedback that help players improve—and why being competitive doesn’t mean making everyone at the table miserable.IN THIS EPISODE:• The mistakes Jordan and Lily see when coaching cEDH players• Mulligans, threat assessment, and trusting your decisions• How Team Monolith practices, reviews games, and develops players• Competing against your spouse—and surviving the ride home• Teamwork, tournament integrity, and the line between preparation and collusion• What cEDH needs from tournament rules, qualification, and championship events• The weekend’s tournament report and Events You Should Be AtAnd yes, Craig may need professional help learning to win before turn eight. Fortunately, this time we mean coaching.👇 What’s holding YOUR cEDH game back: mulligans, threat assessment, table politics, or knowing when to go for the win? Tell us in the comments.Subscribe to the Pregame Podcast for cEDH interviews, tournament reports, deck discussions, and more Magic: The Gathering.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━SUPPORT & FOLLOW THE PREGAME━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━WZKD Games Patreon:https://www.patreon.com/WZKDGAMESCraig Mack — all socials, content & links:https://linktr.ee/CraigmackWZKD Games:https://wzkdgames.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━cEDH COACHING WITH ANDREI BLANTON━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Want help tuning your deck, improving your decisions, or preparing for your next tournament?Coaching inquiries: [email protected]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━TABLE READY CARDS━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Check out Table Ready Cards:https://tablereadycards.com/password━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━DRAKE ACADEMY — JORDAN & LILY━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Watch Drake Academy on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlFNc9TrgcEInstagram:https://www.instagram.com/drakeacademymtg/X:https://x.com/DrakeAcademyMTGDiscord:https://discord.gg/F8DsU3UUsUJordan’s Moxfield:https://moxfield.com/users/JordanDrakeAcademyLily’s Moxfield:https://moxfield.com/users/HellaLily━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━TEAM MONOLITH━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Website:https://monolithmtg.gg/YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@MonolithMTGX:https://x.com/Monolith_MTG━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━PRISMARI DECKLIST━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━View the Prismari deck on Moxfield:https://moxfield.com/decks/zC5McfdD0EWpvKa8agS9bA#cEDH #MTG #Commander

Six mana. One commander. Anybody have a response?Dack Fayden, Helping Hand brings BIG DACK ENERGY to cEDH—a mono-white combo deck built to turn its commander into a game-ending chain of creature loops and dungeon triggers.This is the deck Etali, Ang, and Gyruda wish they could be. With the combo pieces available and the loop protected, we’re skipping the suspense and getting straight to your opponents picking up their cards.🔗 DECKLIST ON MOXFIELD:https://moxfield.com/decks/1QmhAfnYGnurqbK_6yKB7w🔗 ALL OUR LINKS — SOCIALS, CONTENT & WAYS TO SUPPORT:https://linktr.ee/CraigmackIn this Pregame Podcast deck tech, we break down:• How Dack’s creature package builds the winning loop• Fast mana and explosive turn-one and turn-two possibilities• Setting up a turn-three win attempt• Stax pieces and creature removal that buy you time• Silence effects and protecting your combo• Which opening hands to keep—and when to mulligan• The counters, bounce spells, and disruption you need to respectMono-white. An extremely direct game plan. The confidence of a guy blasting Creed in a modified Camaro.Would you bring Dack to a tournament—or are you already holding up interaction? Tell us below.Subscribe to Pregame Podcast for more cEDH deck techs, tournament reports, and competitive Commander conversations.#cEDH #MTG #DackFayden

Is your deck holding you back—or is it how you’re playing it? Logan from CriticalEDH joins Craig Mack to talk cEDH strategy, threat assessment, better practice, and turning tournament experience into better decisions.Welcome to Episode 18 of the Pregame Podcast! We’re getting into competitive Commander, the community that keeps us coming back, and why “just get more reps” isn’t the whole answer.I played 141 games of cEDH in one month. That’s a number you say proudly to your playgroup—and very quietly to your wife.Logan and I discuss how the Crit League helped get me hooked, what players can learn from established meta decks, and when loyalty to your favorite commander becomes staying together for the sleeves.IN THIS EPISODE:• Meaningful practice, online leagues, and improving at cEDH• Threat assessment, table politics, and when to spend interaction• Mastering one deck versus learning multiple strategies• Off-meta brewing and understanding why the best decks work• Logan’s Even Flow Krark–Thrasios brew• Welcoming new players and growing the cEDH community• Tournament standards, transparency, and honest prize support• Baked Ziti 4 and Mulligan Championship Series tournament reports• BIG DACK ENERGY: our Dack Fayden deck tech• Sunshine Showdown: last call for October 10–11, 2026Logan has opinions. I have follow-up questions. Neither of us knows how to leave it at “yeah, fair enough.”👇 What improved YOUR game the most: mastering one deck, trying different decks, coaching, or reviewing your mistakes?PREGAME PODCAST — FOLLOW & SUPPORTAll our links, socials, and content:https://linktr.ee/CraigmackSupport us on Patreon:https://patreon.com/WZKDGAMESCRITICAL EDH — FOLLOW, PLAY & SUPPORTOfficial links, YouTube, socials, and league information:https://linktr.ee/CriticalEDHJoin the CriticalEDH Discord:https://discord.gg/rkrJsqy8HDCriticalEDH Patreon:https://www.patreon.com/CriticalEDHAd Naus — cEDH community discussions:https://adnaus.ggcEDH coaching directory:https://pregame.ggBIG DACK ENERGY — DACK FAYDEN cEDH DECK TECHWatch the full deck tech:https://youtu.be/nanBy6ZBnv4My decklist on Moxfield:https://moxfield.com/decks/1QmhAfnYGnurqbK_6yKB7wTOURNAMENT REPORTSBaked Ziti 4:https://edhtop16.com/tournament/baked-ziti-4-goldsabertooths-ny-cedhMulligan Championship Series:https://edhtop16.com/tournament/mulligan-championship-series-october-w-guaranteedEVENTS YOU SHOULD BE ATSunshine Showdown — October 10–11, 2026Coconut Creek, FloridaEvent details and registration:https://topdeck.gg/event/sunshine-showdown-cedh-tournamentSubscribe to Pregame Podcast for cEDH interviews, tournament reports, deck techs, and conversations about the future of competitive Commander.#cEDH #MTG #Commander

Seven straight wins. A Breach the Bay 2 Open victory. And yes… Lurking Predators.Craig Mack sits down with Andrei Blanton to break down Witherbloom, the Balancer—a Golgari cEDH deck built around creature engines, instant-speed combos, and some absolutely BASED card choices.Andrei explains the strategy behind his tournament-winning build, the changes he’s made since, and how this deck turns an innocent-looking board into a table-ending problem. From Corpse Dance loops to Sprout Swarm combos, we walk through how the pieces work—and when to go for the win.IN THIS DECK TECH:• Why Andrei chose midrange over turbo• How to build your board and when to cast Witherbloom• Corpse Dance, Entomb, and Eternal Witness combo lines• Sprout Swarm combos and their different outlets• Razaketh and Hoarding Broodlord tutor chains• Why Lurking Predators earned its slot• K’rrik, Chatterfang, Yawgmoth, and Warren Soultrader synergies• Removal, table politics, and winning at instant speedDECKLIST + PRIMERhttps://moxfield.com/decks/05oZVnIK4EOL5O3A6osldQQUESTIONS & cEDH COACHINGWant help piloting Witherbloom or taking your cEDH game to the next level? Reach out to Andrei Blanton for deck questions and coaching:[email protected] CRAIG MACK / WZKD GAMESFind our socials, streams, and more:https://linktr.ee/CraigmackCHAPTERS00:00 Meet the Breach the Bay 2-winning deck01:53 From abandoned brew to tournament winner06:21 The Beledros Witherbloom origins10:55 Witherbloom, the Balancer explained15:30 Token engines and creature synergies19:11 Lurking Predators is absolutely BASED23:48 When should you cast your commander?26:57 Braids, card advantage, and table politics32:34 Disruptive creatures and stax34:10 K’rrik and Corpse Dance synergies39:04 Chatterfang and Warren Soultrader41:00 Opposition Agent and Wandering Archaic44:00 Tutors and sorcery choices50:26 Removal and the interaction package59:09 How the deck wins1:00:07 Corpse Dance combo walkthrough1:04:43 Sprout Swarm combos1:09:17 Hoarding Broodlord combo walkthrough1:12:20 Razaketh ties it all together1:13:08 Strengths of the deck1:15:26 Coaching and closing thoughtsWhat’s the most BASED card in this list—and would you sleeve up Witherbloom? Let us know in the comments.Like the video and subscribe for more cEDH deck techs, tournament breakdowns, and the Pregame Podcast:https://www.youtube.com/@WZKDGAMES#cEDH #Witherbloom #MTG