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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.ย. 2024
- With the release of the newest sets, there are hundreds of new decks you could build! What qualities specifically make a commander stand out amongst the rest?
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"Solving a rubik's cubes then changing the stickers around" is a fantastic analogy that is horrifying at the same time
The whole "just solve it by peeling stickers" thing is 1/3 of the reason why I prefer using stickerless twisty puzzles.
I loved playing with my Naya tokens deck. Jetmir was fun and consistent but it got boring after a while. I changed the deck to Jinnie Fay tokens trying to make more obscure tokens into cats for a cool cat tribal/tokens deck. I put Jetmir in the deck because he fits nicely
Good choice. Sounds fun.
Jinnie Fay was my first commander I built on Arena and I absolutely adore her, and she's still one of my most powerful decks I've built so far. People undermine her until she drops 12 2/2 cats with haste and storms you to death
I'd add personality to the list of compelling commander traits. I love a commander that could allow me to take on a certain persona, like the irony of "I'm just helping everyone out!" in group hug strategies when Xyris, the Writhing Storm is sitting pretty in the command zone. There's also the political decks like Firkraag and Queen Marchesa where I could play an evil mastermind, and Neera, Wild Mage who encourages you to fill the deck with weird obscure 8-drops because it's on-theme.
Compared to generically good cards like Sythis, where I find you have to go out of your way to be creative, I much prefer flavor wins and commanders that naturally generate interesting player dynamics.
My first experience was playing w my $50 Krenko deck against fully decked out decks (lord wind grace, korvald, and I don’t remember the 3rd). I was targeted every time I tried to cast my commander…
Ever since then, I build unpopular commanders. I just scroll down to 250 on EDHREC, and see if something speaks to me.
This is why I love the new Sauron, Lord of the Rings. Is Dark Lord more powerful? Sure, but there's more variation with the Precon Sauron. Sometimes I win with the big creatures I reanimate, sometimes I win with giant orc armies, sometimes I win by protecting Sauron and swinging with him. It's a lot of fun to know the deck is powerful, but not necessarily know how you will win.
For how long did you have deck already? Lol sounds like you have 100 games under your belt already
@@serafimb2319 I got it a week early at pre-release and have played it maybe 20 times since. We had a big LOTR commanderfest haha
Commander that compelled me?
Minsc & Boo, Timeless heroes.
No i didnt build it on release, it sat in my fatpack of Baulder's Gate since launch. I only looked at it twice when oathbreaker came out. I built a few oathbreaker decks and while I didn't have a big enough following in my area, goldfishing M&B was fun. I played a few games with my wife and it was stellar. I mused about making it a mutable list to bounce it between formats... but nah it got the full commander upgrade.
It has gone through a few iterations since I put it together. Right now it balances +1/+1 counters and doubling them, power doubling, modified matters, haste/trample matters, and a ton of legendaries in gruul. I'm truly suprised how well it all puzzles together.
Matt's joke was savage as hell, loved it.
I don’t get it?
Matt’s MUSTACHE is savage as hell!
What did he mean
@@DailYxDosE @F4xP4s many large/popular sub reddits went offline for a couple weeks in protest of Reddit's new API policy only for Reddit to stand firm and nothing to change to the new API policy
People were protesting the enshittification of Reddit and it happened anyway. Adds and sponsored crap on your feed.
Questing Beast was the first Commander I ever built. I still play the deck. I STILL forget that he hits a planeswalker when you attack the player. 😂
I would love to see a video of where you guys talk about old mechanics that magic introduced that hasn’t been explored enough
I have a very tight deck that's in the Boros colors. It's a combo reanimator deck in Gerrard, Weatherlight Hero. It called to me as I played the deck that inspired me in building the deck.
31:36 for me, it’s not about winning in a different way, it’s about how the deck plays. Two artifact combo decks may win the same way, but the path to the combo was different. Turns 1-8, and the strategy of the decks that i love, so i usually stick to engines 😅
IDK about anyone else, but I'm still building/optimizing/testing out my Errant & Giada deck. It's sorta difficult finding ways to make it optimal but it's super fun and totally all my own. Sure there's some staples as far as "which cards let you cast spells as if they had flash?" and there are just some very obvious choices for that, but otherwise, the deck's combination of strategies: pillowfort, token, flash, convoke is super fun. Maybe it has too many strategies going on but the playstyle in general is super fun for me. I doubt it's gonna be like a 9 or 10 level deck but it's competitive enough at my LGS that I have won one game with it and generally fair pretty well vs some really scary decks. It's a challenge for sure, but I wouldn't be playing Magic if I didn't see the possibilities and want to explore them. Games that have a played out meta and right and wrong decisions become boring VERY fast. I want something unique, all my own, something that allows me to express myself and something where I can potentially try to outsmart the meta by playing cards that no one expects in ways that aren't expected.
for me I am always tinkering on my bears... my current version is +1/+1 counters but I have quite found the perfect way I want it to be built
Hearing you guys give crap to the “revolt” mechanic in an environment with treasures and fatal push being a very heavily played card is so odd
The deck that keeps pulling me in is Dihada. I've tried building it as reanimator, lifelink, and aggro. I keep rebuilding it and it never feels right. But someday it will all come together
I think Matt's Salt Score has gone through the roof on this Episode LOL
Appealing decks are decks that can do the thing, that about sums it up.
Just for all correctness: French fries are from Belgium, not France nor Greece (I know the dad joke was applying to grease, as in fat but as a Belgian I do find it important that the actual information is correct :p)
For me, the most important thing is that the commander makes cards that are otherwise bad or underhwlming become really good and only function in that specific deck.
I look for:
Fun and unique mechanic
Doesnt superimpose long games or unfun interactions for opponents
no color identity duplicates among my decks
can end the game when it gets ahead
Challenge the Stats idea for Gisa, Glorious Resurrector. Gisa reads; If a creature an opponent controls would die, exile it instead. At the beginning of your upkeep, put all creature cards exiled with Gisa, Glorious Resurrector onto the battlefield under your control. They gain decayed.
The decay counters mean the usage of the creatures she resurrects is a bit more limited. However, Thief of Blood allows you to remove all counters from all permanents, getting a +1/+1 counter for each other counter removed. This would remove all the decay counters from the creatures Gisa has resurrected, pump the Thief of Blood and hit any other counters your opponent might incidentally have. Yet Thief of Blood only appears in 2 out of 1250 Gisa, Glorious Resurrector decks.
Are they gaining decay counters or just gaining decayed though? I dont think they get counters
What makes it compelling is it's the only fucking format anyone plays anywhere I go. I honestly can't stand it.
Didnt know Matt sees himself on the site of money hungry capitalists. Rather sad to see.
How am I on any "site" exactly?
What are you talking about?
@@mathimus55he might’ve meant “side” but even then I have no clue either.
I would love an episode where the guys dive into each of their favorite archetypes. I've been trying to get into reanimator like Joey, but I have no idea how to balance draw vs self mill, how many recursion spells, etc.
Or for Matt, how do you balance bodies vs lords for go wide strategies, or as an aggro strategy, how do you identify how much you'll commit to board vs holding things in hand?
Or for Dana, how do you find the weird angles for your commanders?
All of them depend on which facet the commander handles for sure, which makes it even more complex to figure out new archetypes
I love this idea, this would be a fun episode! Or maybe three separate episodes? Whatever the case, I would enjoy it
In which Joey gets handed the Challemge the Stats segue on a sliver platter but instead just slaps the platter out of their hands to talk about elephants instead.
Just hearing challenge so many times in the context of unique cards had me just waiting for the segue to drop
You could almost say he was offered a...Generous Gift...
Don't put cards in your deck you don't wanna use, or will feel bad about using.
Joey dislikes Jetmir because the win condition is in the command zone, but loves Konrad because the win condition is in his command zone. Yes, Joey, it IS because Jetmir isn't a necromancy commander :)
Nah it’s just boring
I kinda have to say, both commanders are a win on a stick, but with syr Konrad there are more paths to victory(mill, sacrifice, discard etc.), whereas for jetmir there is only one (hella creatures + buff), so that is likely why Joey finds Syr Konrad more engaging to build and play.
My favorite thing about Shelob is that the copies still have the abilities of the creature, even if they aren't creatures anymore and don't have the "type" any more.
Since Bell Borca is the only legendary noncommissioned officer in MtG, I tried really, really hard to make him work. Didn't go well.
In a similar vein to Detention Sphere here's something I think Dana will get a kick out of.
Eye of Singularity:
3W:
When Eye of Singularity enters the battlefield, destroy each permanent with the same name as another permanent, except for basic lands. They can't be regenerated.
Whenever a permanent other than a basic land enters the battlefield, destroy all other permanents with that name. They can't be regenerated.
World Enchantment
This not only gets rid of all tokens etc on ETB, it also gets rid of any cards that have the same name. It will continue to do this as long as it remains on the field. There can be only ONE.... of anything that isn't a basic land.
Essentially it brings back the old legend rule... and applies it to everything that isn't a basic land.^^
Enjoy.^^
37:15 Indeed, Joey. I too find that commanders/commander decks that do the same thing every single time get boring very quickly. This is one of the reasons I really started liking my Mr. Orfeo, the Boulder, built as a "punisher" type of deck. I run a lot of creatures that become stronger based on what my opponents are doing, such as Managorger Hydra, Lord of Extinction, and Sardian Avenger (or Sardine Avenger, as I call it). This makes every game different, even though the end goal is similar (punch my opponents REALLY hard); some games it's a Nighthawk Scavenger whittling away my opponents, other times it's because my board was drastically pumped because I had a Mizerak, Kraul Death Priest and someone cracked 10+ treasures. In any of the cases, every game feels different and each is entertaining, in its own right.
That’s legit my sol ring…😭 it was a rough time
I think the best feeling when it comes to building decks is making it yours. I have popular commanders like Muldrotha or Orvar, but in each of those decks I built it in a way that not a lot of the cards are on the EDHREC list or common deck lists. Like in my orvar deck I made it to copy my opponent’s permanents then I make a lot of copies of those things. So I have to wait for my opponents to pop off before I can do anything.
Thank you for building Tyvar! He's my favorite elf commander so far, and he's a wonderful himbo, and I've been enjoying him so much.
The absolute perfect deck to put kami of whispered hope in.
My favorite metal band is " Be'lakor " and they named their band after the Warhammer 40k Be'lakor the dark master character. I also love demon lore and demon cards in MTG is really fun to me so I had to build the deck. And it's my baby for so many reasons.
Jam is not my food.~ 😏
I find commanders compelling that present an interesting build challenge, the same way I like to challenge these stats. BOOM segue stolen 😎
Before watching through this video, as a new player to Commander, (not to MTG, been playing off and on since 1995), only been playing a little over a month, My answer to the title question is somewhat simple. When reading the card, do I get ideas for a theme? To use a thumbnail card as an example, when I pulled Shelob in the pre-release, I immediately wanted to build a golgari spider tribal. I've seen plenty of decks that are golgari with Shelob at the head, but the rest of the 99 has been the usual stuff.
I admit I don't do cEDH, it's all casual commander nights for me, so it's not about power level. For me it's can I build around a theme I want, and can I make it fun? I'm finishing off an orzhov spirits tribal with King of the Oathbreakers that I can't wait to run at a casual night. Will it be some crazy powerful deck? Probably not, but from my playtesting and theory-crafting, it can be incredibly fun.
TL:DR, what makes a Commander compelling to me as a new player to the format, is how much it engages me in ideas. Now off to watch the vid and see some other answers!
My most recent commander that I immediately knew I wanted to build was Yargle and Multani because I'd had an idea floating around in my head for a deck where the theme was sacrificing my commander as many times as I could to generate value while using cards like Kaya's Ghostform to get around commander tax. I had been looking at rakdos because of fling effects to pair with recursion,as a janky win condition, but the instant I saw that 18 power on a vanilla creature I knew that I was on my way to building another golgari deck.
I built a Tibor and Lumia deck because their names and overall aesthetic reminded me of Gol and Maia from Jak & Daxter. Ended up being a wizard tribal field nuking spell slinger deck, one of my favorites.
lmao you should play the Jak and Daxter theme song every time you bring it onto the battlefield xD
You're unreasonably based for this. Never thought I'd see Gol and Maia referenced... Anywhere, really.
@@brunopintaric8997 Oh dude so many people love Jak and Daxter, it's just that there's not often a good reason to reference it because it's such a unique story with unique characters! But yes, agreed, OP is OP
What makes a commander compelling to me is usually if it makes older cards retroactively better or deals with a common problem. For instance, I had a lot of fun building a Beamtown bullies deck based around garbage cards from back in the day to send to my opponents, and also have a Hinata, Dawn Crowned deck that has a bunch of x spells that are terrible in other decks
"Tell me you use Apollo without telling me you use Apollo" , Mat - "hold my beer"
The whole time they were talking about deckbuilding challenges and saying the word "challenge" so many times, I was expecting someone to take the segue. lol.
What makes me want to build a deck is a commander that makes a bunch of meh cards work together in a fun way. My favorite deck I’ve built is a Friends-Forever Lurrus companion deck that focuses on artifact recursion, almost entirely because my opponents have played mind control effects, looked at my board, and said “all of your cards suck how are you winning?” on more than one occasion
For me the commander must suggest a theme, and be an engine for that theme. Then I rate the power of that deck on how much value the commander engine can make in a round.
Tyvar is a great commander thats really fallen under the radar. Hes won 10 of 11 games ive played woth him. All while never once being archenemy.
I love Tyvar at the helm. Switched him over from Lathril. How many dorks do you run? I have 21 myself.
@@brycehinson2005 i'm also running 21, although 1 doesn't count because he's an arbor elf and doesn't trigger tyvar. also i'm still missing a heronblade elite, he's not expensive i just don't have one yet. i'm also running elven chorus which turns everyone into a dork.
Excellent! Waiting on my Chorus to come in to swap out for Cryptolith Rite. I thought about Elite bit I already run 5 mana sinks that buff the board. What do you think would suit better between Leyline of Abundance and Great Henge?
@@brycehinson2005 i mean if price isn't an option than henge. it's not only draw but it'll buff your creatures that make mana based on power essentially giving them all an extra turn of growth. i'm running all of the dorks that produce mana based on power regardless of tribal type since every tap is doubling both power and mana production.
so with them the henge is so much better because of only going 1 to 2 on the first tap i go from 2 to 4 basically acting like a psuedo extra turn. although i suppose so would the abundance. still i think the card draw still easily tips the balance.
my tyvar is pretty versatile. it will either beat you to death with very large elves, laser you by creature storming off the top with bolas's citadel or elven chorus, dumping the entire deck out on the table with genesis wave or last march of the ents, or just melting everyone with torment or exsanguinate.
l've built a lot of decks but none have spoken to me more than Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons. Her ability enabled a build where I could tie together proliferate, poison counters, -1 counters, going wide, and aristocrats without them tripping each other up.
It goes a long way to making the deck feel and play differently each time and feeds my inner Johnny. I'm not as keen on commanders that are too specific with how their deck wins that it steers toward being the same each time.
I often compare commanders I'm considering building by looking at their 10th most synergistic card. Higher the %, higher the uniqueness/budget friendliness of the commander. This led me to building Zada, Hedron grinder and picking the Nalia de'Arnise precon. Obscure tribes score highly here (like Shelob's spiders) but it also helps find decks that don't need to be packed full of staples.
With the Lord of the Ring the flavour is everything 😍😍😍
I definitely agree that something that makes me interested in building a commander is how unique it can be. I definitely have some decks that are close to standard builds (Things like Dragon or Angel tribal tend to be fairly standard) but I also like the fact that I can make certain decks that are very different than what that commander usually does, like my Dihada, Binder of Wills deck that is superfriends instead of legendary creatures, or Liberator, Urza's Battlethopter being the commander for an Eldrazi tribal deck.
I'm planning to build a Golgari elf deck, and I plan on putting Tyvar Kell in the command zone, so I'll probably grab the other planeswalker card and the Bellicrose to put in the 99
Dana's point about cards having lots of paths is valid and a reasonable ask. We know it's reasonable to ask because of the original commander precons. Kaalia decks will look similar to each other, Mimeoplasm decks will have some overlap, but Rikku and Zedruu decks? Lots of directions to go there.
And there are more recent examples too. Morophon was a commander for any tribe. What tribe? You decide.
Jodah wants you to play cards that like having an alternate cost, so there's gonna be mana-intensive cards, but other than that... No real push. You could play expensive creatures, like Eldrazi. Or grab all those ultimatums, and things like In Garruk's Wake, Time Stretch, etc...
Niv Mizzet Reborn wants you to play multicolor cards, but there are a lot of two-colour cards out there, and I'm sure you could find some weird directions to go.
Sisay, Weatherlight Captain implicitly encourages legendary creatures, but you could also go superfriends, shrines, etc... A lot of dragons are legendary, so Sisay Dragon tribal go.
I like commanders, that like Dana said, suggest a build. Specifically a build that is along my preferred playstyle. I like turning creatures sideways. So yes, I will have infinite combos and so on, but they're reliant on creatures and turning them sideways. Like Aurelia and Helm of the Host. Though I do have a couple where I choose the commander for other reasons. Like my Jenara voltron deck. Bant voltron usually has Rafiq as the commander, but I like how Jenara is flying and slightly cheaper (4 cmc vs 3 cmc). Just by having flying, Jenara has more consistently been able to connect and deal damage. Plus being slightly cheaper has helped me to continue to cast her when I'm getting some serious hate.
Also, I swear to God that Dana sounds like a guy I play with. He also looks similar, just needs to cut his hair a bit.
The First Thing i thought whenni saw Falco spara was this Looks Like a great Explore Commander xD... Noone Else thought that until they SAW IT in Action. :D
Now i have a Falco Dora the Explorer Deck
As a basic thing, my choice of commander is the that reacts the most to the things that can go in the deck. For instance the elf commander of LotR is so far Elron Healer, since he does a thing every time you scry, which a lot of the other cards do in scrying.
My current pick of a commander to work on is Saruman the White a Hand in building and Army every time you cast a non creature, which means everything that isn't a creature will also make it tougher. I can pull the zombie army cards out of my Zombie deck, where they didn't do much there, but now could just bolster here. My follow up is making a single army token stronger and better protected, where anything not a creature will will passively build it up. But still it can come back even if destroyed, or even if the commander was knocked out of commissions.
Dana: “if finding unique, interesting ways to win isn’t your thing, there’s nothing wrong with that”
BUT make sure to ask yourself what you enjoy. Before throwing Craterhoof in every green deck, ask yourself: “do I enjoy playing this card or do I just feel like I need to include it?”
I think the mechanics of a commander appeals most personally, i've been trying to move away from draw a card commanders and pick commanders that interact with the rest of the deck.
On colours i'm not a huge fan of 5c commanders as they're nearly always degenerate good stuff piles.
On the question as the commander as engine or pay off, I am pretty split equal between them. What I dont like is when the commander is BOTH the engine and pay off.
Im pretty disappointed in the lotr set.
Gimli art is straight trash.
2. Was super hoping for an orc commander that wasn't voltron. What did we get? Voltron 🤦♂️
Commanders compelling because it’s just 1 copy of a strong card instead of just playing at most 4 each of 15 different cards
I blocked a craterhoof swing and then used command the dreadhorde to kill them with their own hoof the next turn. I love my Orah deck.
I have 90 decks lol
No one is playing temporary lockdown which is way better than detention sphere. I used it against players with a lot of rocks and tokens and they got most of their stuff taken away.
Glad you brought up jetmir. I can’t possibly think of a more boring commander or deck. Talk about easy mode
Tick tock Dana, it's 2024, where are those MOM Aftermath decks? 😂
I wish Tom bombadil would of been for something different cause sagas are just bad
Satsuki got all of 1 year to be the Saga teibal girlie before some bear from Middle Earth took the spot.
The difference between the two quintorious reminds me of looking between ravnica sets with guild higher ups getting way powercrept versions.. only, quintorius is straight better from one to another... Costs the same.. and is only like.. two yeaars apart. The magic arms race going bonkers
It should also be noted that old Quintorius was only an uncommon, as well.
Matt, revolt was solid.
Tom bombadil my dad
Baba Lisaga be like "I PROVIDE"
Revolt is a good mechanic, it's just not super interesting on the face of it, and there aren't a ton of cards with it. It's also not a keyword, it's an ability word.
I'd say about a third (6/17) of the revolt cards are impactful in Commander, with the three enchantments being particularly nice. With the abundance of treasures and now food, it is pretty easy to meet the condition for revolt in a wide variety of decks.
I'm actually thinking of putting Hidden Stockpile in my Merry and Pippin deck, since it's so easy to get working, and it can make the artifact to trigger Merry on your turn, letting Pippin make a food to trigger Merry on a different player's turn.
Great video! I find that I’ve leaned into good tribal commanders up until now. Play pattern wise I’m now looking to shake things up since it’s gotten boring playing decks with a similar strategy.
I love that they mentioned my boy Quintorius!!! As soon as a friend showed me Loremaster I realized I could use him to helm a Boros enchantress deck and I was so freaking excited!
I've gotta say I'm just like Dana. I definitely love the feeling of someone going "I've never seen a deck like this" or "I've never seen that commander." Dana we're both magic hipsters and I love that.
I love casting primal surge in my Rishkar peema renegade deck...it's always got the chance to either puke my deck into the battlefield and win right then....or deck myself to draw triggers. It's a blast
Matt and Dana, I'm sure your pronunciation of Hannah's last name was wrong. If I'm not mistaken, Hannah is most likely Dutch. Hannah's last name is pronounced as the speaker company Bose.
I wanna argue Tom can be built was a predator tribal, with the artifact that brings them all into play and they all have a saga version as well. Which can tutor for more sagas that might provide support toward the predator cards. Which is interesting.
I built an ezuri claw of progress when his precon came out with a bunch of scraps from YEARS of simic drafts with goofy counters going everywhere stuff
Over the past couple of years downsized the amount of my built decks.
Any duplication is an auto delete for at least one of the decks that do the same thing(s).
... My lgs always ran dspheres in commander in color. it wiped token decks and had lots of blink shenanigan's. It is an S tier card for philly players
It was really funny how Joey lost that segue to Challenge the Stats, I was thinking that hi got this one after saying the word Challange soo many times. Great episode as always
That’s why I like Hofri Ghostforge so much, a total different commander in Boros with copying and tokens that was not there before
Would love to see an episode of secret cmdrs or what cmdr would you love to give an extra color.
Been playing Narset, Enlightened Exile from Aftermath recently and she is super fun.
Imagine an episode where Joey challenged the stats a second time on an episode
Dana just went baroque
4 color aragorn tho
Speaking of Aftermath, I built the Danitha from that set and it is very good. Played it twice yesterday and nearly won both times. Just need a bit more removal
I'm liking tyvar from that set. It's done really well for me so far.
You guys are talking about putting Choof in decks like its a bad thing. Unique wincons are nice but why bother if you still kill everyone but save time by saying "Play hoof swing out" instead of 5 minutes fiddling with weird cards
I am quite certain tokens, like treasures, do not have a name. so detention sphere doesn’t work on them! the “name” is simply the artifact type!
It’s Tom Bombadil, that’s why. I didn’t even read his card just plugged it in to EDHREC… literally
I love Joey, but I wish he would just clean up that beard. Such a privilege to be able to grow such a fantastic beard, but gta put in the work, trim all those fly hairs, get a fresh line-up
So, my playgroup has a 7 minimum CMC for Commanders as a rule zero.
It goes like this: A Commander always costs 7 or more to cast. If a commander would cost less pay the difference with any color mana. Add tax from there.
In this probably narrow case a Cosmos Elixer is pretty good.
In any case a Cosmos Elixer IS fun. Neener neener.~ Heheh 😁
Sounds stupid
Sauron isn't that bad when you're actually playing the deck, the most important things to remember are what tier of the ring you're on and that you can toss your hand when an army does damage. It's admittedly easier playing it on Arena because it tracks all of that for you. For Aragorn however, I loath that card and don't know how people keep up with everything it's doing