@lurch Sure! I went here with my mobile browser and directly downloaded it: https://newpipe.net/#download
I've had my phone open to non-Play Store APKs for a long time, so I don't know if your mileage will vary, but it was pretty painless for me.
Welcome to our big, weird Magic family; I'm glad you're here! A *lot* of people have been unhappy with the price points for the upcoming Commander Masters release. I just want to reassure you that you absolutely do not have to buy any of that product to enjoy the game - especially Commander, which began as, and still primarily is, a casual-play format. I'm running out of space but I want to encourage you to not give up! Most of us don't spend a ton (all at once) on the game.
@lurch Yes, it's a YouTube front-end. It suits my purposes because I can listen to my old playlists of game music, etc. (stuff not typically available on streaming music platforms) without having to plow through a thousand ads every hour, but it's not a competing service to YouTube, per se.
If you want to completely get away from YouTube, I don't have any personal experience yet, but I've heard nice things about the federated video tool, @peertube ! (NewPipe will also integrate with PeerTube.)