Commander Sphere

The show (and my content career) is coming to an end.  If you'd like to continue supporting my work, you can do so at either of the below links. The substack will be periodically updated with news about Magic sets I've written and other projects I'm involved with and my website is the best place to keep up with my work more broadly.  Thanks for all the time you've given to the show over the years, everybody. See ya somewhere down the line. My website: www.ReallyVeryHuman.com The Pie Break Substack: www.PieBreak.Substack.com

AD and I walk you through some studio ghibli inspired custom cards

The long awaited "Universes Beyond: Mad Men" set has been revealed

We make our way through the films of Nic Cage, figuring out what color identities and cards we'd assign to his characters. Enjoy!

Mike and I did a fake Universes Beyond for Game of Thrones! Come check out our hypothetical precons!

Eric (Writer of Manga Book Club/Tales of the Mana Crypt) joined me to talk about his love of architecture! He walked me through the history of architectural styles and we figured out some color identities along the way! This is a really informative one so if you've ever wanted to learn some cool architecture facts to impress your friends, this is the episode for you!

Kyra returns to finish the work we started in her Pop Girlies episode last year! More pop! More girlies! And we finally figure out which color trio is for the gays!

TV Writer Grace Freud joined me to talk about Dragonball and Dragonball Z. Distract yourself from whatever's going on in American politics with this deepling important piece of journalism.

Aaron David DeFazio is BACK for a month of design-centric episodes and we're starting with a much-needed dose of autumnal calm: OVER THE GARDEN WALL

Mike joined me on the pod to talk about Magic's art, the artists who make it, and the ever changing game that commissions it. We also talked about the color identity of various Dorm Room posters

After the cocktail episode, it was time to give the beer drinkers the color pie treatment! Tyler (@BasicLandBin) and I had a great chat about where different types of beer would fall on the color pie while also discussing how beer could be integrated into the game mechanically. It's a Universes Beeryond! Universes Brew-yond? Anyway, it's an episode about beer!

Ify (Dropout) joined me to talk about his love of MONSTER HUNTER and how it might look in a hypothetical Universes Beyond set!

Kyle Javelli (Cute Monster Props) joined me to talk about our love of King Of The Hill. We figured out where the main cast and a bunch of niche characters fall on the color pie! That is, after all, the concept of the show.   Find Kyle on Twitter @CuteMonsterProp

Aaron David (Director, Filmmaker, Stang Gang Member) joined me to talk about curse words. We go from the benign all the way up to the big ones. We say 'em all. Grandmothers, babies, et cetera...please exercise caution. Seriously, do not get mad at me if you play this in the car and your kids learn a bad word, I warned you!!!

Mike and I swung for the fences, designing 4 precon commanders for a potential Game of Thrones UB set!

Mike's residency continues with an episode about pasta sauces! 

This month's guest host is comedian Mike Carrozza (Am I The Bolcast, Commanders Herald) and we've got some bangers to share with you! This week's episode is about SODAS and their color identities. Listen in and enjoy!

Jehan (Another Commander Channel) joined me to talk about the color identities of various high school required reading stalwarts. Why not put down the cards and think about BOOKS for once in your life, huh??? 

Kyra's August residency concludes with an all-timer! We make our way through the films of Nic Cage, figuring out what color identities and cards we'd assign to his characters. Enjoy!

Kyra's residency continues with an episode about shit that sucks! These are the daily headaches that we hate the most! Also, we learned that the two of us were at the same Lady Gaga concert in 2011. The world is small and full of wonders.

Kyra joins me for her first week guest hosting to talk about memes and internet phenomena! We trace the internet's odd obsessions all the way from Star Wars Kid to Barbenheimer. Don't miss it!

Talkin' ATLA with ALK! This has been one of our most requested topics and up until now it was exclusive to $10+ members of the patreon! Now it's free to the public. Enjoy!

Great news! You're about to be getting a bunch more episodes of Pie Break. There'll now be a new episode of the show available every week. Each month, a guest host will join me for 3-4 episodes about more general topics. These episodes will be a little more loose, topical, and experimental and they'll feature some of your favorites from the past as well as some new faces. Some of these new episodes will only be available to patrons, but others will be free! The breakdown is simple. If you're not a patron, you'll get three free episodes of Pie Break per month. If you're a patron at the $5 or higher level, you'll get access four episodes of Pie Break per month If you're at the $10 tier or higher, you'll get five episodes per month! Simple as that! If you like these changes and want to see more like them, there's never been a better time to support the show. Just a few dollars a month gets you a bunch of bonus content and helps this show keep the lights on. In the meantime, get excited for your first guest host: author and Magic Story writer K. Arsenault Rivera. Kyra is a fantastic writer and a good friend of mine and I'm thrilled to have her joining me throughout the month of August to cover everything from Internet Memes to Nic Cage. Tune in and enjoy. Thanks again for listening.  

Mike Carrozza AKA Mark Carbonza joined me to go on an incredible journey through the world of potato chip flavors. Turns out, Canadians have access to a whole bunch of weird ones. We went on a beautiful journey and you oughta join us. While you're at it, check out Mike's EDH Advice show: Am I The Bolcast! 

Eilidh (Elder Dragon Hijinks, AliasV, PlayMTG Commentator) joined me to talk about the color identity of various video game genres!   Elder Dragon Hijinks: https://www.youtube.com/@EDHijinks Twitter: @AliasVEDH

Alec joined me to talk about the color identity of a handful of famous cocktails as well as a few deep cuts! Alec is an incredibly interesting person who runs a great show called The Faerie Conclave! Go check it out!

Joey Schultz joined me to talk about the color identity of various musicals! We had an absolute blast, you'd be a fool to miss this one.

Jay Annelli (Magic's Loremaster, Vorthos Cast) joined me to talk about disasters!

You'll never believe what this episode is really about...but as a hint....it's about the playmat Kickstarter I'm running to raise money for the show.   Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/itsdansheehan/know-your-pie-a-pie-break-fundraiser

Jack and I both used to drink too much! Then we found Magic. This is a little bit of a departure from form for the show! We talk about our experiences finding Magic in the early days of sobriety and why protecting the things that bring you joy is important in recovery and in everyday life. While nothing terribly edgy gets talked about in this episode, we do play it pretty fast and loose discussing drinking, drugs, and addiction. If that's not your cup of tea, I'd recommend skipping this one!

Each month, $10 Patrons get an exclusive episode. This is one of those episodes. As I record season 2 of the show, I'm unlocking those special episodes to the public. This one is a lovely discussion with Council of Colors member Megan Smith about GREEN! Enjoy!

Each month, $10 Patrons get an exclusive episode. This is one of those episodes. As I record season 2 of the show, I'm unlocking those special episodes to the public. This one is a lovely discussion with Council of Colors member Corey Bowen about Black! Enjoy!

Apologies for the audio irregularities on my end this week, I changed office setups and the recording session auto-grabbed my webcam instead of my podcast mic. Big shoutout to Jake Browne for helping make it listenable. This week, I'm joined by my buddy Casey Malone and we share a lovely chat about THE MUPPETS.

When I heard Jim was super into Battlebots, I knew we had to do this episode. Jim and I opened the episode talking about why the rest of the world needs to catch up to the quality of Canadian PSAs and it only got goofier from there. Enjoy!

Andrew Orvedahl joins me to talk about the color identity of various comedic genres. Is ventriloquism blue? Is podcasting black? Only time will tell!

K. Arsenault Rivera (The Tiger's Daughter, Oath of Fire, Magic Story Team) joins us to talk about the color identity of Pop Girlies! We cover 30 years of pop sensations and figure out where they fall on the color pie. We're basically scientists!

Had a great time talking to Sam about Elden Ring for this episode! It's a source of great passion for both of us and it shows!!   Here's that blog Sam found! https://bogleech.com/souls/er01-landsquirt

One of my best pals Tyler Snodgrass came on the show to talk about our mutual love of insane Midwestern foods. We talk about the objective best part of the country and discuss our favorite foods it's produced. Enjoy!

Rachel comes back to the show to talk about the color identity of various dog breeds! She was a Kennel Club obsessive as a kid so she knows her stuff! We also stumble across one of the best, most well hidden, copywriters in history.

We have Magic: The Gathering Story Lead, Writer, and all around Nice Guy Roy Graham on the show today discussing the color identity of Fast Food. One of the show's first Five Colors makes its appearance here and the world will never be the same.

Today I chatted with illustrator and comics artist Sage Coffey about the color identity of slasher villains! It's a Halloween spooktacular!

Newly minted PT Magic Player and Commander Sphere editor and friend of the show Jake Browne is here to talk about competition reality shows! We also go on a 15 minute digression about how Castaway is an anticapitalist text. Wow! 

Welcome to Pie Break!  A show where a guest and I take something from the real world and figure out where it falls on Magic's color pie. This show is all about the point of intersection between the game we all love and the things we love outside it.  This has been an ambitious project and it only felt right to start it with a bang. So, I talked to Magic's foremost Color Pie scholar: Lead Designer, Mark Rosewater! Mark is an incredibly passionate person and I was thrilled to be able to get an hour of his time. Enjoy the interview and the beginning of this new project! As always, we're completely Patron funded, so if you can spare a few bucks a month, feel free to find us over at www.Patreon.com/PieBreak

Been missing regular podcast episodes from the Commander Sphere feed? Well miss it no more, PIE BREAK, Dan's new show about the color pie starts this Tuesday! Take a quick listen and learn more!

Due to his role in a number of different multiversal threats, the silver golem Karn has been the butt of jokes for years. But beneath the jokes and oversimplification lies a richly built but ultimately tragic character. Karn is trying his best to improve a broken world, all while indelibly marked by the sins of his father, Urza. While other characters have since taken the forefront of Magic's story, Karn has been a crucial part of it since the beginning and his overall arc was recently brought to what many could speculate is a conclusion (at least for the time being). Enjoy this in-depth look at a character near and dear to many.

The uniqueness and versatility of Magic's color pie is a crucial part of the game's success over the years. It's impossible to imagine the game without the constant interplay and competition between the five colors and their conflicting philosophies. But, in this humble writer's opinion, one of these colors has been given a bad deal as of late: It's Green, baby. Green is often maligned as too homogenous or too powerful. Enfranchised players often view it as too simple, or maybe even boring. But what these folks don't know is that Green is Magic's most interesting, flavorful, color. In twenty minutes, you'll agree. This episode breaks down some of the common complaints players have about Green ranging from the somewhat misguided to the completely incorrect. This is a celebration of a color that knows exactly what it is. Support the show on Patreon for early access to episodes, Discord access, and more: https://www.patreon.com/CommandSphere   Check out the decklists referenced in this episode on Moxfield: https://www.moxfield.com/users/SweetDaniel   For literally anything else, we have a LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/CommandSphere  

For about as long as Commander has been a format, power level discourse has been ubiquitous. The more the format grows, the less the standard 1-10 scale of discerning a deck's power level can be relied on. In this video, I discuss the fact that maybe it's time to we stopped trying to evaluate decks and started trying to evaluate the people piloting them. This episode looks at the different things players value and places them into two camps, not as a means of describing the power level of their decks but as a means of introspecting and learning what we as individuals want from our games. This is Sizzle & Steak.

Excited for March of the Machine but don't have enough time to catch up on 30 years of lore? Looking for a quick brush up on the basics? Look no further! This Spring, Magic is going to be more fun if you know the story behind the cards and in just about five minutes, we'll get you caught up! Magic's lore has surrounded Phyrexia and Phyrexian influence for nearly all of its 30 year life span and looking at the totality of the stories told can be intimidating. Take a seat and get a birds eye view so that you can jump on board the lore train just in time for all the payoff!

Give me fifteen minutes and I'll convince you to concede more Commander games

Rachel says farewell to the show, the show says farewell to Rachel. We celebrate the only way we know how: being really goofy and gross.

As Commander Sphere comes to a close, Rachel and Dan take a look at the ways in which the game, the format, and their own philosophies about both have changed in the last three years.