Decks We Built...But Hated | The Command Zone 426 | Magic: The Gathering Commander EDH
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 ส.ค. 2024
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Show Notes:
It's time for you to learn from our mistakes! The Command Zone team joins Jimmy and Josh to talk about the decks we built, but ended up hating. Learn where we went wrong and what we'd do differently now. Best case, you'll learn from our cautionary tales and become better deckbuilders. Worst case, at least we've embarrassed ourselves for your amusement!
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What We Talked About on The End Step:
Dune (HBOMax - 2021 - directed by Denis Villeneuve):
www.dunemovie....
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Find Our Guests Online:
Jake Boss:
Twitter: @JakeBossMTG
TH-cam: / mtgtonight
Ashlen Rose:
Twitter: @AshlenRose
Twitch: / ashlen_rose
Instagram: @RawrItsAshlen
Josh "Murph" Murphy:
Twitter: @alsonamedjosh
Twitch: / alsonamedjosh
Jamie Block:
Twitter: @Jamblock
Arthur Meadowcroft:
Twitter: @TheShadowcroft
Jordan Pridgen:
Twitter: @JordanPigeon
The Broken Pact RPG: / savingthrowshow
Shauna Gilles:
Instagram: @phantomlegionn
Gaurav Gulati:
Twitter: @DoubleGXG
Damen Lenz:
Twitter: @DamenLenz
Truc Thai:
Twitter: @Truc_Month
Manson Leung:
Twitter: @bufeeg
Instagram: @the_manson
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Commander Rules and Ban List:
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Episode idea: everyone has the same commander but they all take it in different directions
Imagine 4 Morophon Sliver Tribal decks going at it...
make them all mono red decks
Omg yes!
So, everyone plays Kenrith?
yep, that sounds cool
Cool Jimmy should be a guest on Game Knights. Seems like a cool guy.
He's a politics master
I’d pay {1} to see that
Bet he'd play grouphug😂
Yeah I bet he’d never miss a land drop
@@mkill572 Hell, I'd sacrifice my own creature, pay 2 life, and discard a random card to see that.
Josh: "Yeah I only have like 3 force of wills"
Me going to sleep at night wishing I could have just one.
Proxies are your friend
@@joshhutchins6747 Unless your entering a "tournament" because they won't allow "freeplay" and the judge requires you to actually own a legit copy of the card.
@@MageSkeleton tournaments? in this reality?
@@MageSkeleton There are replica cards that would get you into any tournament with ease. No one really cares anymore except the pro tour.
Fierce Guardianship, Pact of Negation, and Foil are my substitutes. Thwart would be nice for Aesi
When Ashlen showed up, I wanted her to be all, "I regret building Kozilek, The Great Distortion. I just win too much."
Kozilek: Suffering from Success (also the Gatewatch killing him like a punk in his second-ever appearance).
Also, it's great to see format analysis episodes, instead of product-review overload.
I'm surprised they have time for anything else.
Not going to lie I kinda wish that they would give up in set reviews it is just too much now a days
I think they said in the last set review that they will try to do less set reviews/condense them in less videos or just one video, so things will get better
That would be good, I entirely skipped their Midnight Hunt set review for that very reason.
100% agree, I honestly stopped watching most of their set reviews
Decks I think I want to build: intelligent graveyard value decks
Decks I actually play: Play big creatures, smash face
Are you me? I tried my first Izzet spellslinger deck last weekend, it broke my brain and I never went back so fast to my Human Tribal deck lmao
That's why I built chevill.
It just kills stuff and increases the value I get from killing stuff. Its a fun golgari control deck usually.
But it leeches so hard off the more intelligent graveyard decks.
Big mood, my only non tribal deck is an Oloro deck
@@tyrannuslapis5107 I just make my boyfriend build gruul decks and then I claim them. He can have my graveyard stuff
@@banaanuitdeboom4784 I am almost you, because I would not build a deck without black in it, but the overall sentiment is the same
Repetitive gameplay is the thing that makes me break apart a deck the most. I now usually see in advance if the deck is going to be too streamlined and avoid building it at all. Less tutors, more variance makes me much happier
Amen.
Even in my cEDH decks its the same. I have najeela because of how many different ways it can play and just interact.
That's my experience with Zur the Enchanter. Loaded up the deck with all these clever enchantments to fit the given situation, only ever used the same 3-4 in a given game. The deck barely lasted a week.
My best deck has no tutors. For some reason its very resilient. Sometimes aggrolike, but it can also win by midrange strategies and also has enough high mana wincons for late game. The deck is gahiji tokens with a little bit of random fun stuff
My solution for that is simply "I play tutors I can afford", which is... not many. But cheaper tutors are often restricted in their application which doesn't make the deck that much more streamlined.
It also helps to consciously play the kinds of tutors that you know won't always grab the same thing. Mystical Teachings in my Nymris deck can grab about any card I want, just not my wincons.
Really excited to see Shauna on the team. She's 100% spot on about cEDH playgroups still wanting to have interactive games and crafting their own meta. Really nice to have a breadth of playstyles on the show!
thanks a lot! I’m glad my point got across :)
I don't play cEDH but I'd think it'd be interesting if they tried to do cEDH games with the Command zone magic touch.
I absolutely agree! i see a lot of misconceptions about cEDH around, and i know for a fact some of them are perpetuated by the command zone, so its nice to see that they have a voice from the cEDH community to challenge their misconceptions stigmas and against the format
I'll be honest though, it is hard to play cEDH and not bring your absolute BEST list to the table for any given game. Especially when there are Urza, Zur, Lavinia, First Sliver, Grand Arbitor, Tymna/Kraum, T&T, Koll, Godo, and every other insanely busted list at your regular tables. Honestly, I was on Narset Turns for 11 months (it was removed from the database btw) and I never felt bad for winning with complicated and lengthy non-deterministic loops because it was SO hard to pull off in the face of all that was in front of me. I was just excited to place in cEDH tournaments with the deck because it was so difficult to get through my opponents. I don't think I'd be particularly upset knowing that I'm playing cEDH if an opponent just wins with their deck that is built to win in a certain way ._. That's kind of the point at our tables most of the time, to get there with the most efficient combination of pieces. But it's also why we play several games at a time, because it gives everyone more chances to pull off their list's intended function while also challenging other players to play through or around complicated and difficult to navigate puzzles of rules. I just think that I'm more acquainted with the goal of playing to win for the sake of the puzzles in the game itself. Like, not to bully others or lie to pod mates or anything socially unacceptable like that, but just to look at a complicated boardstate and try my hardest to navigate as far through it as I can in any given game. cEDH is a math game for me, so I'm 100% down to take a crack at abominable and vile deck lists.
Paco should had been a "Combat damage" trigger. Reason why people hate the eldrazi's is because Annihilator X is an ATTACK TRIGGER. (not saying Paco is an eldrazi, but that it's attack trigger is "on parr" with Annihilator).
I was literally working on my Stuffy Doll/Brash taunter deck as Josh was talking about his dislike for it hahaha
I've remade mine about 8 times and it never works, but imma keep trying hahaha
If you ever crack the code, let me know! -JLK
It can be done with Jared. So naya Colors. With the green ramp. And the tutors for your creatures. And white targeted removal with red damage based board wipes. And remember. Spiteful sliver can be another good creature.
Add in a sun forger package. There are like 8 creature cards now with boros reckoned effects plus 2 equpitment. Plus Jared himself. Deck seems super playable. You add a equiptement subtheme. So like 4 equiptement tutors. And the 2 equipment, sunforger, and 2 lifelink equipment. Ramp is 10 card. Throw in like 4 creature tutors. 10 burn boardwipes. 10 targeted removal. 10 carddraw. 9 slots for jank theme cards. And there is a deck.
Yea, mine is Sevinne, the Chronoclasm. It's just ok.
I play mine with Piru as the commander
Another bad feeling- you make a deck around a commander you like in a certain color combination, then the next set release a card in the same color combination you love even more
So true though
Izzet fan?
True. Im trying to have one deck of each color combination... Then I end up with 3 or 4 Dimir decks
@@DLselduto Probably a simic player. No other guild got so power creeped so quickly in the past 2 years.
@@bobby45825 no im a mono color player. My first was an unesh deck which is my favorite of all time, second was konrad when konrad was released, but tegrid was way more tempting when that was released, gargos was my mono green, but yedora from that precon seemed even more spicy. My mono white is rune tails though and I doubt I will regret that decision
One of my favorite episodes ever. Meeting your team that makes all of this possible was amazing. Such awesome people with awesome thoughts on commander.
That moment when you just got back into MTG after 10 years, and bought a precon and upgrades, and assembled a deck list online, but both decks made it into this video hahaha
You’re allowed to like a deck that other players wouldn’t.
“You don’t want to play a deck that makes you think a lot”
As said by Mr Monored Jimmy.
Math is for blockers, thinking is for blue mages
@@nik700 Math is just a different way of thinking.
@@coddmodd That sounds like Black to me. *Hurls Fireball*
Love this topic!! I do it all the time.. I realize i dont like decks with massive board states where i have to keep track of alot of things :( And Thank you all for bringing this show to us Specially Manson!!
Appreciate the love man!
I had such a massive board state once, I forgot I had a worm coil engine that would have saved me and as I was scooping I saw that and asked if I could rejoin the game since I didn't lose
This episode was interesting. As someone who has literally only ever dismantled one deck, I like to hear why people do that. I have 24 decks built and, while they don't all do their things well, I still like all of the decks. But, of course, I have a deckbuilding problem
My favorite part of this video was that it was a great format to introduce a lot of the team members of the command zone. It’s always cool to see the individuals behind the scenes that make the content we all know and love!
I usually hate decks that are too linear in what they want to accomplish. I like a bit of variance.
Belbe is one I built awhile back that I took apart after a few nights. Was just not fun, if you didn't have the black 1 drop that makes your opponents lose 1 life on attack on turn 1 so you could have 6 mana on turn 2, it just didn't work.
I'm kinda similar; I like decks that know what they wanna do but have multiple ways of getting there.
Saaaaaame. I changed mine because I don’t have a pod anymore, just play one on one with my husband and Belbe in 1-1 sucks. Replaced it with Beledros and it had the exact same theme and was so much better.
I feel you there!! Turn 3 or 4 ulamog actually felt bad.
Tried making a 5-color "win the game" deck. Turns out having like 15 combos of "winning the game instantly" combos isn't very fun for anyone involved lmao
Golos?
I've been planning on making win-con tribal with Karona as commander. I think I'd enjoy it as it wouldn't be optimised at all and just be a game of "how does the deck want me to win today".
@@ne0komodo Jodah!
@@danielshaw8648 That's how mine was too, but I guess it depends on the group you're playing with.
Friends losing outta nowhere can sometimes make 'em feel discouraged.
Idk, when I built my first Commander deck, it was a soldier Tribal, I now have Odric, Master Tactician as the Commander and now it seems to be almost cEDH with the rebuilds over the years. A favorite of mine but not of others so I don't play it as often but my most hated has to be Vannifar where it takes 15+ minutes per turn cuz of the tapping and untapping
I would love to see the same format video with the same people, but now with the decks they love to play the most.
My worst one was Group Hug Tasigur. I thought “if I put cards in my graveyard that my opponents would want to benefit themselves, they’d give me the choice I want”
It ended up more like “hay thanks for the extra resources; now ur gonna die” so that was 2 games before it was immediately dismantled 😕
I built Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain. She ends up being a game of solitaire and it just becomes super boring. Aesi, Tyrant of the Gyre Strait also suffers from this too, but I took out a lot of the stuff that slowed the deck down. I haven't played it in its current form, but I have high hopes.
Turned my Aesi deck into a Kodama/Sakashima deck and it turned into even more of a solitaire deck lmao, but at least you can end it relatively quickly if you get Meloku resolved
@@DrivetheParkway I know Mill to Lab Man is a tired option, but I put all three Lab Man effects into the Aesi deck to try to make it more consistent. At least then it isn't *Jeopardy Theme plays* all the time. I took out most of the stuff that would confuse me or make me have to do a crapload of math (Scute Swarm...).
All the Jhoira decks I have seen play like solitaire. I tried to build a less competitive version, but it unfolds the same way.
I had a Jhoira deck that was just super degenerate
You could try Slogurk in place of Aesi. I built a Slogurk lands deck and it's a blast.
You guys have an amazing crew. We need to see more of you in gameknights/extra turns :)
This is a super-sweet idea for an episode. I love the episodes that aren't just set reviews, plus seeing the team on camera is great! Keep up the great work, everyone!
This is one of the best episodes in a while in my opinion. Interesting topic and was great to hear from the CZ staff and talk about decks instead of the constant card reviews (though the recent card review was a much better pace)
Jhoira, fell in love at first sight, but then when playing is just everyone at the table with a angry or bored face and me trying to combo off using every card in the deck at the same time
Worst deck that has ever seen the light of day. One guy was banned from an LGS because of annoying everyone with it
@@heraxunhex1056 So...every single player at that LGS refused to run premium hate cards (Drannith Magistrate) or removal in general, and instead elected to just straight up ban the player himself? That's way past salty. That's seething territory.
@@stayathomedad4830 Depends on your power level. Plenty of people enjoy more cutthroat games. I can't stand 3 hour games where people end up spinning wheels doing nothing. My yarok deck is highly, highly consistent and honestly i enjoy playing it every time i pull it out.
@@bobby45825 It sounds more like he was either A) an asshole about it, or B) the deck made for such a miserable gameplay experience, regardless of whether or not he won, that either it had to go or he did and he wouldn't give it up. Generally there has to be something the player themselves did to warrant getting banned from a store, and the fact that it was specifically a ban for being "annoying" with it suggests the easy wins weren't the problem.
@@noesunyoutuber7680 If someone plays like that, you just run premium hate spells that bury their strategy until they get the message. If more than one person at the table does that, they SHOULD (even the most stubborn of combo players) get the message. I really don't like the idea of banning an archetype or a player. Just improve your own deck or lean it towards making that frustrating style of play equally frustrating for the player attempting to initiate it.
To me Ashlen seems to have two goals in every game. Step 1) ply phyrexian arena step 2) drop be scary eldrazi
Step 3) lose the game
What can I say? I'm a simple person. I like my outdated card draw and tentacle monsters.
That Rhystic Study/Blenders spot was absolutely hilarious xD
That Asmira story was pretty interesting to me. I proxied up a list with that commander that I would call reanimator instead of aristocrats, and it was usually good fun to play it: ramp, reanimation effects, giant angels and wurms, some thopters for easy to cast chumps and card filtering with Smuggler's Copter, a few desert lands... Okay actually it was a Dune deck
I really loved the interview with Truc!
I built Azusa, Lost but Seeking because her ability and art are awesome. Thennn I realized that throwing down lands every turn is much more fun in modern than it is in commander
The first and only deck I’ve retired so far was Rayami. I either had to explain the incidental graveyard hate for people to change to a deck that’s not effected too harshly by it, or even worse I’d forget to explain it pregame and I’d hose their graveyard just by playing my commander.
I'm happy Shauna is on the team! It's great to see some cEDH representation.
I have a cEDH Rashmi deck that is hard control (draw-go style). I hate that play style. I want to be the *threat* and not the police personally.
I had the same problem with my Rashmi deck (but a casual one). I just was not comfortable to be the one to answer everything, I want to force the answers from others. Also I like playing during my own turn much more.
Rashmi 4fun player here… slowly finding out that I hate it. Too clunky sometimes, too oppressive otherwise and always unpleasant for other people to play against
I loveeee Rashmi cEDH. My playgroup hates when I go full control in casual, so I save all of that for cEDH
My favorite deck I’ve seen on the show is Josh’s Athreos/Shadowborn Apostle. I’m slowly working towards it with my own twist.
That deck is godlike!!
Whats the twist?
I LOVE this one. Reminds me of my Sydri deck…aetherflux reservoir or bust. When you got the laser and got to use it, it was fun! Otherwise I just felt useless.
Relate to Ashlen so much on that, one of my first decks I built was humans tribal and have the same problem. So much math and keeping track of counters and triggers
I can totally relate to the Morph problem of having a bunch of face-down cards to remember. Werewolf decks are the same but on steroids because you also have to keep track of all the transform triggers.
Jadzi sounded like a lot of fun. I went the degenerate route and built the deck around playing every card in my deck and either storming off or lab man. And it worked like a charm. The budget version never lost a game. But the book-keeping was a nightmare and I literally had to play every card in my deck to win sometimes. Opponents hated it because it became solitaire the second he dropped. Never playing that thing again.
Zedruu: Every time i see this commander, player playing it always says "Its a group hug deck" what i always see in play is "A group HATE deck". You cant attack, you cant draw cards, you cant play spells, you cant this and that... . And best of it is that Zedruu often waits for some combo win. So all those "group hug" draw engines helps him draw to his combo. No... Zedruu dies first and then i see what other players are playing.
lol this video isn't about other people's commanders that you hate
Damen I can relate to you on how you watched gameknights. I was the same way and found Jimmy from VGHS as well. Such an underatted show ever!
VGHS is so good 👍 10/10
I have 196 commander decks, and I like them all. I never take decks apart, I just keep adding more. I enjoy all play styles, so I never hate anything I actually spend time building. It was great to see the new crew members! Keep growing this great sector of the MTG community.
Oh my god.
I remember like a year ago I built an OG Bolas control deck that had literally zero win con. It wasn't fun for ANYONE at the table and we agreed that the deck would never see the light of day again. I later changed it to a grixis Rogue tribal that my playgroup had much more fun with.
I had bolas discard with the bolas planeswalker ravager, liliana and torment of hailfire as wincons...it was uber gross.
@@thatman8848 that's kinda schnasty ngl
Original Bolas was a big creature... wouldn't that be the wincon?
Great episode! My personal list of least-favorite/fun decks:
Edric cedh - too linear, too goldfishy/samey
Child of Alara janky reanimation - people hate losing their board over and over
Zur low-budget enchantments - people think it will be competitive, deck almost never won/game plan was too hard to enact.
They’re singing at the beginning of the episodes again! What a good sign!
56:06 I hear that. That's why I got me an Abomination of Llanowar deck. It served my voltron tendencies, and is also a great tribal deck. Two strategies at once, and I can rely on one or the other :)
I really enjoyed this video. I'd love to see what everybody's favorite decks are, as well.
Luckily I was able to flip my most hated deck into something super fun!
When I was new to commander I got really excited about making a Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord deck; I wanted to throw a bunch of creatures into the graveyard and then use Jarad ability to sacrifice big creatures, typically ones that have a power and toughness equal to the number of creature cards in graveyards. Sounded fun on paper but I found the deck suuuuper boring to play; each game was exactly the same with little to no variance. Even after a few attempted modifications the deck ended up collecting dust.
It wasn’t until I saw someone play a deck that utilized a hidden commander within the 99 (Syr Konrad inside of Hogaak) that a new idea sparked for my Jarad deck: I removed Jarad as the commander and replaced him with Sidisi, Blood Tyrant. With just a little bit of modifications made to the mana base the deck totally came alive with essentially no other changes! The self mill already in the deck made each Sidisi trigger exciting and I also now had creatures to work with as I fill up my graveyard for the big Jarad finish.
Utilizing hidden commanders is definitely a fun way to spice up a deck that you would otherwise discard. My most recent hidden commander is Squee the Immortal inside of Chainer, Nightmare Adept. Hope that helps some of you out there. :)
I have an Umori companion deck that before each game I randomly choose either Jarad, Old Stickfingers, or Hogaak as the commander. The companion adds a ton of variance and the rotating commanders makes each game play out slightly differently. Also it's hella janky!
That's really interesting with Squee the Immortal inside of Chainer, Nightmare Adept as a "hidden commander" type of thing. i don't even understand how that works. Chainer loves Grave Titan and Gray merchant of asphodel.
@@MageSkeleton The goal of my OG Squee deck is to reduce/generate the mana needed to cast Squee to the point when you’re just casting and sacing him over and over again for free and generating value via creature enters, leaves, dies, and leave graveyard triggers. The deck definitely has its moments where it pop off and gets crazy out of nowhere (almost feels like storm) but the deck can be hard to get things started and it’s recovery after key removal is very poor. I liked the shell of the deck but I think that adding some additional colors to it’s color identity might give it some more consistency and resilience especially since Squee doesn’t really matter until you have a decent board setup anyway. Black seems to make sense since you can easily tutor things to the graveyard or hand, (and the card Lost Legacy is particularly good with Squee) and I like Chainer because you can put combo pieces from your graveyard back into play (important pieces like Birgi, Skirk Prospector, Pitiless Plunderer). The deck still isn’t quite fine tuned yet but I think I like it more than the original mono red deck.
@@lukechamberlain8425 I'd love to see that decklist! I have a few multi-commander decks (as I call 'em) too: dimir zombies, bant-chantress, and Abzan reanimator!
I'm a *very* new player... but I was kind of surprised that no one called themselves a Vorthose player. The first deck I built, with the help of my experienced son, was a Chulane deck, featuring Fable of Wolf and Owl. It plays a lot of wolves and owls, and I'm always tinkering with it. It's great fun. Now I'm approaching a Lord Windgrace deck that's going to purr....
Vorthose players are pretty rare all things considered. Not surprised for them to be absent in a small pool of people. But good on you for finding a fun way to build Chulane, and I hope the Lord Windgrace deck goes well!
I'd wager most Vorthos players wouldn't fall into an episode like this: they don't really care about play experience or winning as much as flavor, and it's hard for a deck to be a flavor fail when you rank flavor above power level. Vorthos players are easy to satisfy.
The Game Knights episodes are getting better and better with the team. It’s crazy to see y’all’s skills and team growing in “real time”. I remember watching the command zone my freshman year of college and you guys have offered me some awesome level up moments in game and in life. Thank you for the amazing work!
-Ps I love the shorter form card reviews. I hope they let you guys do more podcasts like these. They’re a great way to get more conversation rolling about game philosophy.
I havent been playing EDH for that long so I've only played two decks, Lathril Elf Tribal and Gavi Cycling and I enjoy both of em. The last game I played with Lathril, nobody pulled any board wipes or creature removal so I kinda steamrolled my opponents and I can tell they didnt enjoy the game as much as I did so the victory was bitter sweet. TBH though, I drew one of the best starting hands I ever had because usually its more of a level playing field/fair game. Im currently in the process of building a deck around Killian, Ink Duelist. It just blows my mind that he's a 2-drop uncommon
I was the one who decided to try Kadena in my play group and after a few games of the same issue with morph I took it a totally different direction.
If you want to make Kadena fun run a lot of morph, but only as a foundation for Eldrazi colorless. It makes for a surprisingly interesting combination.
Much Love to Manson, and to the rest of the crew
Ashlen - I feel you about falling out of love with Arahbo. I turned mine into a Rin and Seri cat tribal (with a Kaheera companion), with the main aim to try and get a bunch of cats and dogs on the table, then play Luminescent Rain so it "rains cats and dogs". Everybody I've played with it has loved it and it's a blast to play, would highly recommend giving it a go!
The best part of this video was the return of Cool Jimmy
First commander deck I made was Zur. Definitely way too linear, and my play group would focus me down every time I pulled it out after the first three or four times I played it.
I think this is one of the best episodes that you guys have done. The topic was very refreshing, and just a lot of good thoughts on playstyles and individuals.
Very nice way to introduce the new members of the team, while at the same time presenting instances in which the decks built did not met the player gamestyle or playgroup 👍
Ps: All of the decks Mason has shown gameplay for are Amazing 👍
I built Yorion, Sky Nomad: while I love when the value engine starts pumping, it quickly evolves into a game of solitaire that just doesn't let my opponents do a whole lot with me playing during their turn, and whatnot. It also takes a while to close out the game with mostly value and control and no real player removal, so its basically just torture for my opponents :/
I had the same experience with an Ephara God the the Polis. Same thing, bounce creatures, play on your turn, etc. It drug the game on forever and had no real win con. I took it apart and used the good blue stuff for my Jalira eldrazi polymorph deck. Way more fun.
I tried both and settle on brago, it draws alot of hate, but I wasn't playing solitaire so much anymore
Always prefer these theory crafting, hypothetical videos from you guys. Really interesting and a nice break from the norm. Also, your whole team is awesome!
Asmira's trigger seems extremely easy to solve. You sac things at the end of the prior player's turn. Ashnod's Altar, Phyrexian Altar, Spawning Pit are all in Selesnya.
I tried making a Feather deck, it came out good, in the sense it was effective, but it was also incredibly linear and boring. I took it apart and salvaged the landbase towards a Kykar deck instead.
I feel ya, one of my best friend's deck is Feather and it's always the same (unless he's unable to get his second white pip to actually play her, which happens surprisingly often)
I built feather as well, and i felt the same, but i turned it into a skullclamp/sunforger build with tons of 1/1 tokens
Thank you Manson, the best content from this channel In my option comes from the unique gameplay that I can only find on this channel. Quite literally the only game play videos I can stand.
With that said, I would love more content specifically gameplay with alternative commanders of the past and current. There is quite a few decks I’ve never seen played on game knights that are part of recent commander releases even.
Regarding the Ashleen player type question: I’d say a great mix between Johnny and Timmy. Powerful and splashy but with the good synergies to back the splashy Eldrazi-like spells.
Also I built my Kozilek deck because of her display and I adore that deck. Just won with it yesterday 😁
I tried at some point to make a mono-colored deck for each color for new players to use if they wanted a matching power level. The issue came in trying to make the red and white decks playable at all. I playtested the decks against each other a lot and blue and green were always the best ones by quite a bit because white and red lagged draw and ramp and black was inconsistant with its aristocrats theme. I didn’t have the cards or money to make them good enough and thus put the idea to the side. I still have all the decks and I pull out the monoblue here and there because it’s a voltrol deck with a horsemanship commander and I love it! I love playing meme decks or surprise people by pulling out a commander that they might think does one thing but when I build it, it’s something new and fun. I was famous in my playgroup for having build a very casual Narset superfriends deck and people would just let me play it - it was a flavour deck where every card had to reference a planeswalker in the name or flavourtext and I ran as many cards as possible called “Narset’s *something*”. I’d say it was probably a powerlevel 4 or so just because you still got to cast stuff for free. I had a blast with those meme decks :D
I need to figure out a way to build decks I enjoy winning with. I enjoy playing all my decks but enjoy winning with none of them
The "too linear" part hit home for me. The reason I changed my Sliver commander from Sliver Overlord to the First Sliver was that. I found it was just to predictable and boring.
Sliver overlord was the only deck I took apart for that reason. Plan to rebuild it as first sliver
But....first sliver is literally the most linear sliver deck in high power
@@V2ULTRAKill not in my opinion. I never know what I will pull off the top. With sliver overlord I was search for each sliver in a particular order.
The warning sign is choosing a Simic Solitaire Commander!
What about grixis solitaire *stares at cedh Kess*
We got Dune in HK 2 weeks ago. I watched the original movie to get back in the mood before I watched the new version. Definitely recommend going to it!
Lately I’ve realized that I’ve been tending towards decks that incorporate ways to play opponents cards: Prosper, Lonis, Wrexial since they inherently cannot get stale unless the playgroup becomes super insular. That and I feel like they inhabit a powerful strategic position without the feelbads of taking resources that the opponents have already committed to the board.
Yes, I 100% agree. One of my favorite decks is a Phenax graveyard theft deck based almost entirely on that idea. One of my favorite aspects of stealing is being far too liberal with the use of the word “my.”
TCG Player also has the option for you to buy only from LGS. It's a badge right next to the seller name LOL.
I like Channel Fireball so far. From what I can tell you can't do mass entry like TCG or CardKingdom, but it is perfect for finding cards the mass entry didn't find. The prices are slightly higher for cards right now, but I imagine those prices will go down after 3 months.
@@jwomackandcheese73 you can do mass entry in the want list, but it still needs some work
I get bummed out when I’m super excited for a really unique deck I’m planning, buy a bunch of singles specifically for that deck that would absolutely have no business being in anything else, and then the deck ends up sucking turd (**coughcough-BLIM!-coughcough**). Now I’ve got decks I can’t deconstruct because many of the cards are useless anywhere else!
I DIED when you said BLIM. OH MY GOD that is the best example of that in my time collecting
Love this episode! I'd love to see you all talk about your favorite decks
I second that
These ads are of the highest quality, idk why but I'm huge fan
What if your playgroup hates your favorite deck?
Personally, I love group slug. And everyone loves the deck, the first time I play it. Second time however, not so much.
I once built Thantis Enchantress with all the beautiful red and black enchantments that punish opponents for, well, doing things. Tainted Aether, Burning Sands, Painful Quandery. I played it just once. Then my playgroup collectively decided that I'm not allowed to have this much fun.
@@corhydrae3238
Thats what my deck does. Klothys enchantress. Buts only punishments that deal damage, gain me life, and draw me cards.
Its basically group slug with damage mitigation.
@@tyrannuslapis5107 I'm thinking of rebuilding that deck right now, and you just reminded me that Klothys exists, thanks. The deck already has Pharika und Mogis, and she should be a nice addition.
@@corhydrae3238
If you run urborg in that, I reccomend roots of life. (Its all opponents, not target.)
I think that if they hate it a lil and attack you accordingly and you're okay with it, the it's not really a problem.
I love that y’all have cool Jimmy as if Jimmy isn’t already cool. That cracked me up.
for starters, I'm a spiky cEDH player at heart, which I learned in part from the lesson that building (and not liking) Zada, hedron grinder. I built it early in my commander career, and when the deck worked it was a ton of fun. my problem with it was this: when my commander was destroyed, or otherwise not on the table, the deck wasn't working. I learned quickly that i don't like playing decks that crumble to dust as soon as the commander dies.
my favorite decks are those where either the deck functions perfectly well without the commander, or where the commander is not difficult to get back. my favorite deck, and an example of the latter, is Derevi empyrial tactician because its activated ability lets you ignore commander tax
I shelved all of my tribal decks. I realized i was a johnny when i trended towards prefering decks with mechanical themes over aesthetic themes. Tribes work well together but what's missing for me is variety and the feeling that i was proactively building towards a win condition. Tribal decks basically just win off of casting a lot of cards from the tribe and that doesn't tickle any of my timmy sensors. If everything is a cool elf, then nothing is really a cool elf. Tribal synergies felt too much like playing yugioh archetypes, magic was my escape from yugioh's narrow deck building.
I feel like ashleen, in the words of Dan from commander sphere, “ If your playing a powerful deck, or commander your the heel of WWE.”. She makes the game she’s in feel like the hero’s fighting the villain and I enjoy every game she participates in.
Actually looking forward to this one.
I stopped playing MTG altogether around February. But I still watch your videos. I’m happy to see your channel keeps growing! To the point you now have this HUGE work team🤘🏼
I actually have an Asmira deck. It is quite similar. Me and my buddies did a challenge where we built commander decks only using cards printed before the 2000s it is definitely one of my weaker decks, but I have done some weird and interesting things with it.
Please do a ET with Truc. Dude is a BAMF.
Wait until you hear his puns though... dude has dad jokes for daaaaaaays
TBH he may have been the best part!
Yep, I really don't like decks that require a lot of "board maintenance." For me, Emmara was that deck. And, I never built it, but the simic Merfolk commander from Ixalan was like that.
Pita hahaha
This is a very interesting topic! I had a Balan the Wondering Knight voltron deck that I loved but it telegraphed what it was doing so everyone could prep for it. I never really got to swing with Balan and it doesn't do much when it enters the battlefield. Then going through 3 other players was tough especially if she got removed. It became kind of a bore to play with so I took it apart. Great topic and welcome new members of the Command Zone!
Cool to see all the people on y'alls team. Definitely a lot of future there.
Tergrid god of fright is only really fun to play with in the 99. she's just not fun as the commander, either to play with or to play against. But some people just don't understand you can have fun with a powerful card without dominating the entire table by focusing exclusively on how 'broken' you can make that card :/
tergrid is very fun! one of the most fun things in the format is playing with ur opponents cards
There's no way to "fairly" play Tergrid at the helm. She's a ban worthy card as is, regardless of in the 99 or not. When you can't even crack myriad land scape's and invalidates wheels and aristocrat strategies....well....she literally does it all. You don't even have to go pedal to the metal with her; she builds herself around even subpar discard spells.
@@epicnessbrian5295 I agree, I play Tergrid in my Vaevictis Asmadi, the Dire deck, and use her with my commander to get a blatant thievery every turn. She draws a fair amount of salt but that deck can already drop Vaevictis and an eldrazi on turn 3, so its been established as my most powerful deck
@@bobby45825 That's a general problem that I see with a lot of the "unfun" cards in EDH: they destroy every deck, whether or not that deck deserved it. MLD? Slows down ramp decks, completely obliterates decks without lots of fast mana. Fast instant win combo? Delicately balances fragility with power, unless you just always win because your opponents don't play decks with a critical mass of counterspells, hand attack, and combo hate. Taxes? Present a sensible challenge for optimized decks, but render splashier decks unusable. Tergrid's the same way - she's a serious threat even if you're not that soft to her, but she shreds any deck that uses the strategies she hoses (namely sacrifice and discard, both of which are used for value in many decks) and any deck that's unable to answer her - in a way that dovetails with her ability, because forced discard and sacrificing are also common ways Black gets rid of answers.
@@noesunyoutuber7680 On top of even simple starter lands like Myriad Landscape suddenly becoming a liability. Tergrid hits a bit too many things just SITTING there. Fetches, discard, sac effects....she's housing multiple archetypes at 0 effort. If the player using her had to work for it by activating an ability of some sort...then at least they'd have to project their intent, but her passive is just It That Betrays on crack.
i built an aesi simic landfall deck and i regret it bc it takes toooooo long to play due to all the searching and since aesi draws i cant shortcut bc it might effect the game if i did :(
Saaaaaame. I took it apart because it just felt like going through the motions.
This title reminds me of my Grand Arbiter Augustin IV deck.
I really loved the idea of building it, acquired the cards, managed to get a winter orb lock on games, and finally accepted that I would no longer want to play like this anymore...
Guy in our group tried to force those kinds of commanders but they literally force the table to dog pile that one player. It's an Archenemy commander the moment it hits the board.
We had a game where one of our guys were fucking around and they cloned the Grand Arbiter on their side, not to their benefit (they carelessly thought it would) and it basically taxed everyone out of the game and he was laughing it off. Those tax commanders pull HEAT.
Really interesting topic! I actually almost had the same thing that happened to Jordan with my kadena, what I I find helpful was, don't try to remember the card, remember the effect. You don't have a bane of the living, you have an X wrath, you don't have willbender, you have a deflect. I find it helped remember what I have until the cards stats became ingrained
do the opposite of this video were all the people on the command zone team say their favorite deck
That would be sick
They did that video at one point
@@techoutsider5631 ok but with all of the new people
Pulled Winter Orb out of my Urza deck as it felt dirty.
I did EXACTLY the samething.
Analysis Paralysis or AP is the term used in the Board Game space. Loved hearing Decision Paralysis because some decks can indeed have loads of AP or be Fiddly.
Also this episode got me thinking how many jobs ya got there!? Haha. Congratulations on growing so much from the ground up.
My deck that I ended up hating was "Hanna, Ship's Navigator." The reason? It had only two power levels: janky and clunky to no end, or completely busted as an evil combo deck. Basically, the goal was get as much of my library into the graveyard, then keep returning the important cards to my hand. The really evil combo was Solemnity + Decree of Silence. Or, keep using Sun Titan to return Scribe of the Mindful to play, then using that creature to constantly keep Cyclonic Rifting everyone. So yeah, CLEARLY a fun time for everyone else at the table.
My "Hanna, Ship's Navigator" deck was dismantled into what became my favorite deck, "Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun." THIS deck is actually quite powerful and has a lot of weirdly strong value, but doesn't ruin everyone else's day.
For me it was a lord wingrace landfall deck, I thought oh everything you do is pure synergy but the value was just out of control and too easy to get everything going and I didn’t enjoy it.
That was exactly what happened when I built my Golos lands deck. It was just absurdly full of value, but so many triggers and so few ways to actually stop the deck just became unfun for everybody including myself. That deck won all 5 games I played with it before I disassembled it.
So glad to have Jimmy and Josh talking about something that isn't a set review or deck tech. Heck yeah!
Hi Jamie! Welcome!
How cool is the name -Arthur Meadowcroft- ??? I mean, it’s literally the name of a heroic DnD Character! I’m going to build that Character!😀
That Truc guy really made the video, great one again
We love Truc too ❤
Love you Alex
Brilliant video. Cheers to everybody in it!
I'd be curious to see the decklists for any of these if possible!
Love that there’s finally a big enough break in product for y’all to get ur old style original podcast. First time I’ve watched y’all since forgotten realms. I missed y’all’s original takes :(