Web Video / commodoreHUSTLE

A Web sitcom that updates approximately once a month starring the cast and crew of LoadingReadyRun as exaggerated versions of themselves in their everyday lives doing odd geeky things in geeky ways.

Season 1 had a plot about an artist scorned and a myriad of subplots. Episodes ranged from 13 to almost 20 minutes long. They also got on the Jay Leno show.

Season 2 and Season 3 have shorter episodes and no overarching plot but the characterizations are still the same and they maintain continuity. Currently the series is split into eight rough seasons, the last of which was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However in October of 2023 it made a surprise return.

From 2012 to 2019 it got its own Spin-Off, Friday Nights, which was based around the group's love of Magic: The Gathering and was sponsored by Wizards of the Coast. The crew intends to produce more episodes once they're able to, the current plan being some time in 2024.

This Web Original contains examples of:

• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Paul's run up against this trope a couple times. His Laugh-O-Tron took over one Moonbase, and "Blame James" has the offscreen example of the File-O-Tron which manages to cripple the International Standards Organization (and apparently the entirety of Geneva) when it runs amok.
• Bottom of the Barrel Joke: In-universe. While the show itself rarely reaches for Toilet Humour and the like (despite the ongoing Groin Attack plotline in Season 1), the 'Hustle version of LoadingReadyRun is heavily implied to resort to low-brow humour way too quickly and easily (at one point Graham describes them as the "seventeenth most popular Canadian flatulence-based internet comedy troupe").
• Buxom Beauty Standard: After her failed attempt at viral fame, Kathleen discovers that D-cups aren't big enough for YouTube.
  Graham: It's the internet. Anything smaller than a cantaloupe stapled to a xylophone is considered small.
• Call-Back: Practically every punchline in the second half of "Mustache You a Question" is a callback to the first half. The biggest stinger is probably the one about Your Mom.
• Christmas Episode: "Santa Secrets".
• Comedic Sociopathy: The huge creepy doll Tally made for Graham as James' Secret Santa present, as Graham is terrified by it.
• Convenience Store Gift Shopping: A very specific kind in Santa Secrets, where everybody except James and Morgan buys everybody else a Magic: The Gathering booster pack. Hilariously, Morgan's gift, the only one which was bought from a convenience store (some glass baubles to use as Magic counters), was the only gift which was appreciated by its recipient (James). Further played with in that James hadn't bought it himself because he could only find it at the card shop at a huge markup; Morgan got the same thing for a dollar.
• Conversation Cut: Used aplenty as a means to transition between side plots in an episode.
  Alex: You want to talk about bad beats? I'll tell you about bad beats. Are we hungry?
  Cameron: ...A little?
  Alex: Then I guess we should...
  [cut to Alex's Magic: the Gathering match]
  Alex's opponent: Feed the Clan, Ferocious off Siege Rhino, I gain 10 life.
• Credits Gag: Occasionally, such as with "Sir James von Landlord" in "The Arms Race", and Kathleen as "Anchor-Wrangling Technician" in "Sickness", both referencing events from the episode.
• Cute Kitten: Subverted. Kathleen's plan to make money of her cats didn't work out. They are still cute.
• Deus ex Machina: In the "Giving Up" episode, after a string of episodes about how the crew is desperate for money and can't afford rent on the moonbase, it turns out Beej is independently wealthy and offers them an unused office in one of his properties. Even Graham calls this out.
• Did Not Think This Through:
  • The fictional version of the crew stopped making sketches the same time the real crew did. Then they realized that unlike the real crew they didn't do any other shows and had no other marketable skills.
  • In "Workplace" the crew pulls off pretending to be a group of super-consultants hired to help IBS, only to realize that the only fake part was their qualifications - now they have to actually complete the task of bringing a new paradigm to beige.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Ian inexplicably appears as a team member for one brief cut and gives one line in Free Candy, several episodes before they meet him.
• Even Nerds Have Standards: Graham's explanation of LARPers.
  Graham: It's like what Jer does with the dice and the bits of paper, except that the people Jer hangs out with look down on these guys.
• For Science!: Why did Paul invent the ball-kicking robot? "Because I could".
  Jer: Isn't that the kind of thinking that lead to the nuclear bomb?
  Paul: Gee, I hope so.
  • Also his explanation for why they are watching My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Quotes the trope name verbatim, in fact.
• The Friends Who Never Hang: In the episode Discovery it becomes a plot point that Beej and Heather have somehow never interacted in the years both have been involved in the channel and were completely unaware of each others' presence. As in real life the two are married; they just never put together that their work stories were about the same people.
• Gilligan Cut: Many times.
  Matt: I think that's the trick with customer service. You just need to know what to say.
  (cut)
  James: Screw you too! Asshole!
• Groin Attack: Played straight and played with during the first season, where Geoff's objection to LoadingReadyRun is their reliance on this in their comedy.
• Halloween Episode: "Roll For Treats" and "Free Candy".
• Hand Wave: Why was there such a long gap between "The Quest" and "Back from the Past"? The crew took an extended vacation in the Dinosaur Past.
• Hammerspace: Paul has goggles and cookies in hammerspace.
  • James apparently keeps a copy of Bad Dudes for the NES... in his collar.
  • Alex apparently keeps a bunch of Magic cards concealed on his person, and a bandoleer or two of soda cans.
• Heavy Sleeper: Both Bill and Morgan. The only reliable way to wake Morgan is to uncap a sharpie in his presence. The only non-ninja-related way to wake Bill is to hold his nose.
• Hurricane of Euphemisms: Testicular trauma. Scrotal assault. Reproductive carnage. Wang misery. Dong distress.
  Bill: You put way too much thought into this!
  Morgan: Oh no, it just comes naturally. Ha. Comes.
• I Have My Ways: Heather's typical method of accomplishing anything.
  Beej: Where did you get that?
  Heather: Do you really wanna know?
• Imagined Innuendo: Alex invokes this in "Bros Clubbing Bros".
  Alex: Hey James, you wanna play Bros Twisting Bros?
  James: (backs away) Is this another trick question?
• Immune to Mind Control: After being cured of his Paul-induced compulsion to speak only in memes Beej is the only one able to resist Cameron's mind-control app in "Improvements".
• Klatchian Coffee: the Coffee of Life/caffeinated super-serum/caffeine ichor from "Coffee Time".
• Lower-Deck Episode: "The Bee Team" mainly stars Tally, Kate, and Cameron (the latter having not even appeared in the series yet and the former two only appearing occasionally as minor roles) while the rest of the crew is away. The only main crew members to actually appear are Graham, James, and Matt, and Matt doesn't even have any lines.
• Mistaken for Gay: Graham, apparently: in "Street", he explains that Matt won't give him a lift anywhere in his car, because when he does, people mistake them for a gay couple. He uses the same rationale for why he won't take Morgan to the hospital anymore.
  • The hospital bit, according to a story told on Desert Bus is based on actual events.
• Mundane Utility: Beej suggests summoning a wizard as a solution to several common problems. It turns out he's serious; he employs a wizard he summoned as a construction contractor.
• Nerds Are Sexy: Pretty much played straight. Almost all are in stable relationships. It helps that their partners are often just as nerdy as they are.
• No Fourth Wall: Graham following up eleven cups of coffee with what Heather calls "The Coffee of Life" causes this to occur, resulting in the second Recursive Reality moment below, along with a brief break into the Loading Ready Live stream.
• Noodle Incident:
  • Cameron's word choice over Beej using VR to "merge" with the parking lot complex in "Stake Out" implies that Beej has done something similar ("gone full Lawnmower Man") before.
  • "Coffee Time" establishes that Beej did... things before dropping the coffee habit. He refuses to elaborate and apparently went to some lengths to erase all mention from the internet. It's not explicitly connected to how the the same episode established that his wife knows how to distill The Coffee of Life but the odds seem high.
• Not So Above It All: James being this is a plot point in "Kitted Out", when he forces everyone but Graham, Paul and Beej to undergo a series of ridiculous tests to see if they can go to PAX.
• Offscreen Teleportation: Played for Laughs when Paul crosses the room, presents a slideshow in a labcoat and goggles, then reappears next to Kathleen in his normal clothing with no transition or explanation.
  • Reappears in "Pony Time" and similar videos where Paul's manic energy allows him to shatter physical laws.
• One-Hour Work Week: Beej makes his money by renting out properties, which explicitly doesn't take up much of his time and is why he can hang around with the crew instead of working. Presumably, he does his actual work during Friday Nights episodes, since he doesn't play Magic and at most appears in cameos in them. Ian's storyline is based on this; his job is nebulous and leaves him a lot of free time during the day (it apparently mostly involves presenting at industry conventions), but by his third appearance it's a plot point that he's been neglecting his job to hang around with the crew.
• One-Steve Limit: Used in The Arms Race:
  Graham: Oh, hey, Landlord James.
  Landlord: Why do you guys always have to call me that?
  Paul: We already have a James, so...
  Landlord: Well, how about "Sir James von Landlord"?
  • Which comes back as a Credits Gag.
  • There's also a specific, extremely odd single case aversion in that there's now apparently a second Beej running around in the Commodore Hustle continuity. First appearing in the stinger of "Coffee Time" ostensibly as a result of Graham's coffee-induced shenanigans, he goes on to be the villain behind the parking complex issues that Beej is having in "Stake Out".
• Only Sane Man: Most often applies to James, who is variously credited as "The Fixer" and "A sensible guy".
• Portmanteau Couple Name: "Stake Out" has Cameron invoke this by calling for "Kathlian"(Kathleen and Ian) when Beej goes full Lawnmower Man. Kathleen isn't overly pleased with this.
  Kathleen:First off, don't ship me with anyone.
  Cameron:Sorry.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: Several times, always exaggerated for laughs.
  • Matt really was actually moving out at the time they filmed "Matt Gets His Groove".
  • They really had to change offices.
  • Geoff used to work at Yo!Video.
  • Graham moved out of Bill's and Morgan's because of an... incident.
  • Graham and Morgan actually had to go to the hospital, and the doctors thought they were a couple.
  • The entire "Fallout" episode was inspired by the results of their viral videos.
  • They are now heavily into Magic: The Gathering.
  • Tim really had to leave the group, though it was to get married, not due to realizing how terrible they were.
  • During a LRRcast, Graham revealed that the episode probably most based on real life was "The Gay Chicken". Virtually everything in that episode really happened at some point, with the exception of Tally being led to believe that "gay chicken" was Bill's D&D character. Including how Bill eventually won.
  • Penelope (Graham and Kathleen's daughter) was added to the show a few months after her birth. As a prop. Yes, that's right, a prop baby.
• Recursive Reality: In one scene, Graham reveals that he's editing the very scene he's talking in. He does it again in "Coffee Time", albeit to a somewhat greater degree.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Paul and Graham respectively; Graham, while not completely sane, is much more down-to-earth than Paul, who is very separated from reality. Other pairs that form during the course of the first season: Kathleen and Jer, Morgan and Bill, Matt and James. Only the last one transitions into future seasons, as Morgan and Bill stop appearing and Kathleen and Jer don't interact nearly as much.
• Remember the New Guy?: Cam and Beej both pop up as established members without comment in their intro episodes. The first episode that had Ben as part of the crew (he had previously played several bit parts) claimed that he'd been working there for two years on a night shift and Cam just never noticed.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: An extremely low-key version that's Played for Laughs in "Kitted Out". James forces almost everyone to undergo a series of ridiculous (and completely unnecessary) tests to see if they're worth taking to PAX as retribution for the pranks pulled on him in absentia during "Blame James"- having his dayplanner messed with, geting "#BlameJames" trending on Twitter, being permanently banned from anything involving the ISO and a ten year ban on being able to enter Switzerland.
• Scooby Stack:
  • At the beginning of "The Gay Chicken", Kathleen, Alex and Kathleen's cat do it to prove that there is no room in Graham's house for another guest.
  • Later, in "The Bee Team", this is done by Tally, Kate, Cameron, and Dale to check on the moonbase to see if the bees are dead.
• Seven Minute Lull: During the gang's fight in the episode Street where we get this interesting line from
  Matt: "And just because Rodamus Prime got the matrix of leadership doesn't make him the best leader they've ever had!"
• Speaks in Shout-Outs: Thanks to one of Paul's experiments Beej spent several episodes speaking only in internet memes. He was eventually cured by Cameron.
• Shout-Out: In "The Bee Team", Graham's sister Kate remarks that "there must always be a Stark in the Moonbase".
  • In "Rude Subreddit", James mentions that Captain Disillusion tried and failed to debunk Paul's poorly-photoshopped cryptid.
• Stylistic Suck: Graham Stark himself mentions on the DVD commentary that the LoadingReadyRun of the commodoreHUSTLE universe seems to be mostly comprised of fart, poop and ball kick jokes with added pelvic thrusts. Probably also doubles as self-deprecation. However, they seem to be slightly less obsessed with hats.
• Take That!:
  "I'm watching all the good Next Gen movies."
  "See you in one hundred and eleven minutes."
  • Eternal Sonata has horribly paced cutscenes.
• The Tape Knew You Would Say That: Episode 10: Judgment does this with Geoff's ransom note on the computer.
• Troll: Jer during the Bros Clubbing Bros episode, complete with Troll Face just to drive the point home.
• Twisted Echo Cut: "Mustache You a Question" has a few of these.
  Kathleen: James! Why are you wearing a scarf?
  (cut to Matt playing with his cell phone, and Paul scolding him for it)
  Matt: I'm not!
  Paul: Yes you are! You're doing it right now!
  • And later:
  Graham: K2 is a harder climb.
  (cut to Kathleen talking to James, who is reading a magazine)
  Kathleen: Is it?
  James: Yup.
  Kathleen: Really? Your favorite magazine?
• Two Lines, No Waiting: "Mustache You a Question" features two different subplots woven together: one about Matt's Reddit addiction, one about James' mustache.
• Understatement: When Bill and Morgan discover Jer's "acid pit", their response is uncharacteristic.
  Morgan: The landlord lives in the basement, by the way.
  Bill: He's not thrilled.
• Very Special Episode: Discussed; proposed as a way to explain how Paul's character in their Warriors of Darkness videos lost his beard. This conversation doubles as a Take That! at Degrassi.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Type 2, this is the nature of 95% of James and Matt's interactions with each other to the point where James threatens to kill Matt for visiting his home and Matt haunting James's nightmares.
• What, Exactly, Is His Job?: Beej doesn't seem to have a job in the crew; originally he explicitly wasn't a member, just some guy who hung out at the Moon base, but later he started doing odd jobs around the place. After they were driven out of the third base he took the role of The Team Benefactor by setting them up in a building he owns.
• Wrote the Book:
  Morgan: James, please. When it comes to gay chicken, I practically wrote the book. Remember the groundbreaking assault that was International Cup Bill's Balls Week?
• Your Mom: Kate's gang called the "West Coast Mother Lovin' G's" not because they love their mothers, but because they love your mothers.
  • James's first attempt to get a replacement iPhone ended with Apple customer service laughing at him, and making fun of his mom.
    Graham: That's not cool, I like your mom.
  • The subject of a gag or two in "Mustache You a Question."
• X Called; They Want Their Y Back: Graham spent $130 on a gadget that makes his cell phone ring just so he can make this joke.

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Friday Nights (and "It's Magic") contains examples of:

• All for Nothing: In "Quizmasters" Cam and Kathleen make their own complicated version of the Ravnica guild quiz after they get guilds they don't identify with. (Boros and Izzet respectively) When they finally finish, however, Cameron gets the same result.
• Back for the Finale: Every person who has been in the series gets to return for "The Gathering", the final episode the crew has produced on the MtG channel.
• Book Ends: The first episode of Friday Nights original run starts off almost instantly with Paul asking how to play Magic: the Gathering, with Jer running into the room out of nowhere to help out, much to Graham's confusion. The fourth episode — and conclusion of the arc — ends similarly, only difference being that Paul asks how to draft.
• Call-Back:
  • In "Friday", Alex gets defeated in a Mono-Red Mirror Match because his opponent sided in Dragon's Claw. He takes this lesson into "Mono-Decent" and wins an mirror match offscreen with the same sideboard tech.
  • "Brewmaster Showdown" is filled with these, including the aftermaths of "White Loxodon Exchange" and "A Very Friday Night".
  • The ultimate example is in "Amon-Cats", where Kathleen playing Steppe Lynx on turn 1 gives Alex flashbacks all the way to him getting curb-stomped in "It's Magic!" and he concedes immediately. The episodes are 7 years apart.
  • In "Lockdown", not only does Alex finally overcome the turn 1 Steppe Lynx, he's also been using the Time Walk that he got off Jer at the end of "Time Walking" to figure out how.
  • The Stinger of "Allegiances" has Ben chewing on some salad he found in the freezer. What's in it? Lots of things. What he ate proceeds to become the focal point of "The Meal".
• Continuity Drift: For most of it's run Friday Nights was presented as just Magic-related stuff the Hustle crew got up to on the side. In 2018 they started to drift apart^note very early in 2018 — the first 2018 Commodore Hustle mentioned them having bought a door for a gag in Friday Nights; for example, the Friday Nights version of Ben is just a random player they know instead of part of the crew. However, the effects of Alex disappearing in Friday Nights stuck in Hustle as well.
• Couch Gag: The Friday Nights opening sequences features the cast in custom Magic: the Gathering joke cards with different nonsensical abilities each episode. In "Unusual", an episode focused around official joke set "Unstable", these cards are reasonably balanced and wouldn't look mechanically out of place in an official set. In "The Exile Zone", an homage to exactly what you're thinking of, instead of featuring the cast, the opening consists of un-edited cards thematically appropriate to the episode.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: When the crew gets back into Magic, we get a montage of Jer, Graham, Matt, and James trying to play against Alex.
  Alex: Swing for 37...
  Alex: And I mill your whole deck...
  Alex: Six makes ten poison counters...
  Alex: Now you can't cast spells, ever.
• A Day in the Limelight: "Day in the YJ" focuses on Nelson, the shopkeeper of the local game store, and his interactions with the cast in the span of a day.
• Entertainingly Wrong: The main joke whenever Beej shows up is that he knows absolutely nothing about Magic. For instance, he doesn't know about sets so he sorts cards by collection number and then color (in alphabetical instead of WUBRG order). He also shows up once in a variant of the "phases" shirt, only the phases are replaced by random nonsense. In the final episode, when Graham goes to him for advice, Beej finally shows off his real knowledge of Magic: The Gathering... Puzzle Quest.
• Exact Words: Graham's signature deck Bear Force One contains only bear spells. That can mean actual bear creatures, 2/2 for 2 creatures (which are referred to as "bears" by players), enchantments that create bears of either type, or just cards that happen to have bears on the art. Cards with just "bear" anywhere in the name are fair game too, as demonstrated when he plays Forebear's Blade:
  Graham: It's literally four bears, my dude.
• Fractured Fairy Tale: To match the theme of Eldraine, "Tooth Fairy Tales" features meta MTG parodies of fairy tales played by the cast.
• "Groundhog Day" Loop: In "Time Walking", Jer obtains a copy of Time Walk for his singleton deck to play against Alex, and whenever he plays it, he finds himself back in his bed at the start of that morning.
  
  Years later, in "Lockdown", Alex invokes this trope using the same Time Walk he received from Jer. Turns out he's been stuck trying to beat Kathleen's turn one Steppe Lynx for a while. He succeeds, and fades out of existence as he's finally freed from his loop.
• Insane Troll Logic: The Friday Nights episode "Jeskai Mysteries" has Kathleen try to find Cam's missing deck by, after first making sure he hasn't left it in his bag again, following a series of "clues" that start with looking for it at the Victoria Bug Zoo because it had Mantis Riders in it. Somehow this does lead her to the "culprit" who's been calling Cam all day - but he left his phone in the bag.
  Kathleen: Don't you see? Swiftwater Cliffs! A clue! To the beach!
• Klingon Promotion: In "Monarch", the crew plays with the monarch mechanic, but take it quite a bit farther by having the winner roleplay their monarch status and keeping at it beyond games. The status gets passed from person to person as each member challenges and defeats the crown holder.
• Left the Background Music On: Done in "The Meal" when the ominous "Exile Zone" music starts up and Cam yells at Graham to change his ringtone.
• Local Reference: The crew heavily favors the Canadian Highlander format of Magic, which is pretty much exclusive to Victoria and to the Yellow Jacket store specifically.
• The Loonie: Adam's Commander deck in "Hold Priority" is designed solely to disrupt everyone else's strategies and combat. He openly admits he doesn't even know how it could win.
• Malaproper: Gibb constantly wrongly announces the names of his cards and game terminology as he plays.
  Gibb: End of your time, I'm going to zip in Pesterman, and when I unturn, I'm going to cast Splinter Tom, targeting Pesterman.
• Mushroom Samba: In "The Next Day", James returns to the Moonbase to find it in shambles and everyone else completely disoriented. Flashbacks to what really happened don't match up and make about as much sense in context as out, making it seem like they were exposed to a hallucinogen. Turns out it's the fault of a pest fumigation taking place next door.
• The Oner: "Commandeered" comprises a shot panning around a gridlocked Commander game as Paul, Kathleen, Cameron and Graham try to maneuver through it to finish the game.
• Orphaned Setup: "Throwback" opens with Graham telling Paul that mentioning Zendikar too much and too loudly will cause Jer to show up at the Moonbase and crack packs before anyone can draft. It then cuts to Jer reacting to the word at a faraway place and jumping on the nearest train to the Moonbase. By the end of the episode, the crew manages to draft Zendikar properly with no further appearance of Jer anywhere.
• Overly Long Name: Each time the crew gathers for a game of Commander, they introduce their deck's Commander and its name. Some silly ones tend to crop up.
  Alex: My commander is Sheoldred. ...The name of my deck is "I'm Not Saying She's a Gravedigger, But She Certainly Pulls Creatures Out of the Graveyard With Startling Efficiency."
  ...
  Graham: My commander is Ezuri, he's an elf, the deck is full of elves, elves that go looking for other elves, I call the deck "Seriously You Guys, Look at All These Friggin' Elves."
• Overworked Sleep: In "Merfolk Surprise", Cam gets over-excited over fine-tuning his Merfolk deck, looking very disheveled and sleep-deprived the next day. When he realizes that he's overly skewed the deck towards control to the exclusion of any Merfolk^note "This isn't Merfolk, it's Turbo-Fog!", he crashes immediately.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: Alex wanted to step out of LRR projects to focus on his own work, and thus asked to be written out. Thus, in "Lockdown", he is written out by fading from existence after spending a "Groundhog Day" Loop trying to beat the turn 1 Steppe Lynx that defeated him at the beginning.
• Recursive Reality: One shot of "Amon-Cats" has Graham editing the very shot he's in. Happens again in "Coffee Time".
• Serial Escalation:
  • Alex's sleight of hand in "It's Magic" starts out realistic (using real card tricks), then gets increasingly ridiculous until he is somehow able to replace his entire Magic deck with a red one.
    Graham: I need you to be straight with me. Is magic real, and are you a wizard.
    ...
    Graham: Well, you still cheated at Magic. The game.
    Alex: (reading a book; all cards have vanished from the table) Did I?
  • James pulls some similar maneuvers in his conversation with Jer about the spending limit, opening a large pile of boosters and sending a text message to Matt, each in the space of a few seconds while the camera is pointed at Jer.
  • "Speechless" opens with Graham losing his voice across several back-and-forth cuts in less than a minute, with his problem worsening with each cut.
  • "Monarch" starts with the crown holder losing their status after being bested in different formats of Magic, but then as the episode progresses, each successive monarch loses their status in simpler games, until the crown ends up being literally stolen.
• Serious Business: The after-credits scene of "Strange Brew" has a woman none of them have met before ^note Alison Luhrs, Wizards of the Coast's Senior Narrative Designer; in reality, she had been invited to take part in one of LRR's Pre-Prerelease events) come in and give them a Magic version of Blake's speech from Glengarry Glen Ross about them not preparing enough for an upcoming prerelease (which is about as non-competitive as Magic gets).
  Alison: Ya see this deck? Do you see this deck?
  Graham, nervous: ...yes?
  Alison: These sleeves are more valuable than your entire Sealed pool.
  Graham, confused: ...where are you buying your sleeves?
• Terrible Interviewees Montage:
  • In "Two Heads are Better", Graham is looking for a partner for the Two-Headed Giant prerelease for Oath of the Gatewatch. This ensues as he interviews every player he knows who hasn't partnered up yet.
  • In "Assortment", Graham goes looking for a partner for the Battlebond prerelease, only this time it's framed like a Speed Dating program. This is also how they introduce newcomers Ben and Adam.
• Theseus' Ship Paradox: "Hold Priority" starts with Paul ducking out of a Commander game to tinker with his deck. When he returns at the end of the episode, he explains all of the changes he made, only to find nobody wants to play against it. He then pulls out his backup deck... which is exactly the same as his original deck, having swapped out every single card over the course of tinkering.
• This Is Gonna Suck: In "Allegiances", Paul declares he has no preference for a guild and will make his decision based on the skew of his Sealed Pool. He discovers his first pack's contents are perfectly balanced across all five guilds in Ravnica Allegiance. Resolving this ensuing conundrum comprises half the episode.
  Paul: Uh oh.
• You Do Not Want To Know: "Politics" combines this trope with Noodle Incident. It then becomes a Brick Joke in The Stinger of that episode.
  Graham: Don't go in the Moonbase, it's being fumigated.
  James: What? Why?
  Graham: ...You don't want to know.
  ...
  James: ...I went in the Moonbase.
  Graham: (sighs) And...?
  James: I didn't want to know.

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