As somebody who 1. Runs Chainer, and 2. loves Flayer of the Hatebound, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
And also NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
It's obvious that the most selfish colors have the most representation in mono colored decks while the most group centered colors by philosophy have the least.
I read it more as a byproduct of the social contract. Most people play Commander within the social contract of "no land destruction, Stax isn't a violation but you're a dick if you play control, etc.." That just means some strengths aren't welcome in our format, with White and Blue excelling at hatebears and control tools. Boros also suffers from the same meta problems, but in a different and better discussed way. Linear aggro strategies are hard to pull off. For my part, I love Stax/hatebears/control playstyles, but I do it in Esper, and aggro in Mardu. A little black fucking magic is all it takes to make it palatable often.
Actually, I don't want to sound arrogant, but you're all wrong. Mono black sees the most representation because it has the most payoff for being mono colored, and has ways to work through every single one of its shortcomings, not to mention that its game plan is best served by being single color. Mono red sees the second most representation because mono red has some really unique, fun commanders that HAVE to be built mono colored like krenko, zada, zozu, etc, mono blue is third place because some of the most popular mono colored commanders just happen to be in blue and blue can maintain value, mono green sees the least representation because most of its mono colored commanders are beat out by 2 or 3 color variants with similar effects that allow you to run more colors, and whilst green is a strong splash color it's mono gameplan is pretty one note (get lots of mana, play big guys). White sees the least play because the only viable way to build mono white is permission/ stax decks
Does Jared and Druid's Call actually Work? Druid's Call requires the target to take damage, but Jared specifically says "prevent that damage". So in my opinion, the damage dealt is zero so no squirrel are produced? Correct me If i am wrong :)
You are correct that it doesn't work with Jared. That said, Jared decks tend to have creatures like Stuffy Doll and Brash Taunter which Druid's Call does work on. So while it doesn't work with the commander, it works with the deck.
I would love to see you guys revisit this topic sometime soon, I feel like the last 2 years or product and a lot of the shifts in how people play the game may have made some huge changes to the rankings
People gotta realize that playing Red in EDH right now is soooooo much fun. Red has been getting so many fun and exciting cards (many of them powerful too!) lately that a lot of people have been playing more of it. Why get bored with stax or spinning your wheels for value when you can do crazy, wild stuff with Red?
@@iudexumbra609 totally agree. Mono-red has a lot of really unique commanders and the cards they have access to include big creatures, removal, ramp, impulsive card draw, recursion, and card selection. Its almost like black but they use their hand as a resource instead of life.
@@lordofgarbageprogenitoroft4147 I find this to be quite the exaggeration and easily disprovable. Just go to EDHREC and see the most popular cards by color. It is not difficult to find more than 10 amazing cards for each color.
A few points about the popularity of mono colored decks: what makes a color good on its own and what makes it good in conjunction with other colors are not the same thing. Joey sort of touches on this, but I want to emphasize that flexibility is really important. Green has trouble with creatures, probably the most common nonland card type, as well as doing anything about spells or the stack. Black has most difficulty with probably the least common permanent type (enchantments), and can interact with spells if needed. The next point has to do with variety. Monogreen does a few things really well, but I think some of the other colors have more options for different themes. You have a lot of ramp, and a lot of fatties and elfball. In contrast, monoblack can go wide or tall, but can also work with reanimator or life gain/drain strategies, etc. And as Dana points out, the top black commanders are very open ended in comparison to green. Third, *good* and *popular* may not be the same thing. Is Ayula the 3rd best commander in mono green? Probably not, but the fatty decks are split between Ghalta, Goreclaw, Omnath, Selvala, Grothama, and probably others. Making a green deck that does green things is easy. Making a white deck is more difficult, but that challenge can attract a certain kind of player. edit: these points may apply to 2 color combinations as well. For example, you can play a graveyard-heavy token deck in orzhov, golgari, or rakdos, but izzet is probably the only way to make spellslinger in 2 colors.
While true, there are a lot of other creatures in that usual deck build that Druid's Call does work with. Stuffy Doll and Brash Taunter can keep the Call on them and do take the damage.
You must expand your ways of Necromancy Joey: Imagine...spells...countless flashbacking, cast from yard, exile to use, aftermath, etc. It's very necromancer.
One could say that Boros ain't equiped enough to leave the bottom spots of the race. However, Azorius looks imprisonned at the last place. Surprising indeed. (in my "focused" playgroup, barely noone plays Simic but Rakdos and Gruul is very popular)
But some of the other creatures in the deck don't. Brash taunter and stuffy doll, for example. Maybe that's what they were implying, but yea, I can see how it's confusing.
I think its because you end up putting lots of Pariah effects in to attract damage to other creatures because you're right, seems like a nonbo on Jared.
Gotta step in here at the mono white discussion. I have a Darien, King of Kjeldor deck that is truly a blast to play, and usually raises some eyebrows around the table. I think he’s greatly under appreciated!
Blue I think is kind of top heavy as a mono-color imo. Everyone always talks about the top but if you try to play more "fair" mono-blue decks I think it kind of lacks some oomph that fair decks of the colors have. A lot of powerful stuff blue has that goes into fair decks are more geared toward single player games and lose some punch in commander because of it. Counters get alot more complicated with more people in the game for instance. Its fairly obvious to counter a combo card or something that makes your life hard but what happens if it is just a really good spell and there are three other players before it gets back to you? Your other opponents probably also have really good spells that might even be better than what is on the stack right now. And if its resolves and is in play your removal might be more temporary in comparison to the other colors.
I'm only about 7 minutes in, but I guessed correctly the mono color popularity. I'm well aware that only a handful of mono-green commanders really get built, so I wasn't at all surprised. It also makes me happy, because most of my commanders aren't something that people see all the time. It's not like 'oh, another Chulane deck, how original.'
Red doesn't surprise me at all. Monored provides a welcome change of pace and a challenge for people who have been playing for a little while, but isn't as boring as monowhite.
It's so crazy that Yuriko is #4. Except, as someone who has been playing since day one, she's amazing and versatile and fun as hell. And they keep printing cards that synergize with her in new, fun ways.
I'd like to see Devotion be a mono white evergreen ability, particularly in commander. I could see it's card draw and ramp being tied to it as it would keep with it's themes of small creatures and permanent based removal like oblivion ring. Some thing like 2WW 3/3, at the beginning of your combat step, if you have the most devotion make a 1/1 white soldier token, at the beginning of your end step if you have the most devotion draw a card, at the beginning of your upkeep if you have the most devotion you may search your library for a plains and put it on the battlefield tapped. Maybe 2 out of 3 wouldn't be too broken but I could see all 3 abilities on creatures somewhere in the deck.
Jared and Druid's call (around the 20 min mark) wouldn't work, since Druid's Call makes tokens equal to damage dealt, and Jared prevents all the damage to itself. 0 damage = 0 squirrels. It would work great with indestructible creatures though, like stuffy doll.
I wonder how popular white has become with new additions such as Giada , Light-Paws, Adeline because as of today these three decks make up around 10.000 decks by themselves.
I wonder if you could use Elvish Clancaller's 2nd ability to search for itself with certain setups? I'm thinking if you have a Wheel of Sun and Moon out (enchanting yourself) you could put the ability on the stack, let Wheel of Sun and Moon's ability put it on the bottom of your library and then let Clancaller's ability resolve to search for itself and put it back on the battlefield., Come to think of it you could do this with any green creature with verdant succession and wheel of sun and moon.^^
I wouldn't be surprised to see more Freyalise decks with the reprint. She works good in mono green good stuff, stompy or green plainswalkers and good stuff.
quick question, are you guys still not pulling data from Tappedout? Not that you *have* to per se, but that's the main website everyone I know uses for keeping decklists. If you're not factoring in tappedout, you might be basing all this off of skewed data.
Flayer of the Hatebound, cast it, let it die, comes back shoots for 5. cast it with chainer, let it die, comes back shoots 5. I won many games with shooting 5 dmg every single turn
I once killed somebody by kicking a rite of replication targeting their omnath locus of rage. 90 damage to the face feels good after they threatened the win on their next turn
You can design any ability to fit the color pie, including red reanimation (Feldon), blue destroy (Polymorph), and white ramp (Smothering Tithe). WotC is just very bad at attributing a balance between colors. (My obligated "Hullbreacher should've been white" comment) It took WotC a long time to design non-combat W/R because Ravnica is very popular and people are more familiar with "Boros" than other type of W/R, and new players need a "guideline" when they start this game. In short most of the color pie imbalance is due to WotC being lazy.
Trying to figure out what Dana's point was about Chainer and Flayer. My small brain cannot figure out what he's trying to say. Like how is it a "non-bo"? Does this mean cards like Squee the Immortal don't trigger Flayer?
Flayer only triggers for one specific zone change; Graveyard -(put on)-> Battlefield If you cast something from your graveyard (like Squee or with Chainer), it goes like this: Graveyard -(put on)-> Stack -(put on)-> Battlefield So the card will end up enter the battlefield from the stack, not the graveyard
you have a few poblems in this episode: 1. your data is biased in its source - you dont include tappedout data (also other sites, but tapped out is the larget as far as i know) and i know myself and many other people only use tappedout 2. your data doesn't actually count the number of decks built, just the number of decks submitted - this is actually very noticeable in blue and green, where people just take an urza or selvala deck off the net, or even just build the average deck from edhrec. also, some players post a new decklist each time they update thier deck, while others dont upload their decks at all 3. assuming powerful will equal popular - it is because mono green and mono blue are so powerful, people want to build them less, and if they build them, they might just copy a list from the net. you briefly mentioned the fact that you cull decks that are older than 2 years, but i would have liked to see you mention these points in the episode. otherwise, great episode, and i hope i dont come off as too harsh.
People who watch this kinda go into it with these assumptions already, so pointing them out is kinda meaningless. This is the asterisk at the beginning of every episode of this podcast.
as an Black, Orzhov, and Rakdos player, I am truly happy. Oddly enough I don't like Mardu very much I am liking it more with Ghen. I'm more of an fan of Esper and Sultai. Edit: I think there is something to be said for Izzet being the most popular and Azorius being the least popular. Izzet is spellslinger colors and Azorius is you can't do anything colors (aka no fun allowed)
as a mono color deck, black is certainly the best. i just did a video about this with the new kaldheim commander, varragoth. but in combination with other colors, green is by far the best color in edh now.
A bit surprised about mono R, but for the rest...can be explained pretty well - the most linear color combinations (or colors) are the least interesting ones - mono G is mostly big dumb beaters, mono U is well...fish tribal or some kind of combo mostly - mono B is the most versatily - mono R...well..maybe because it's flashy? regarding the guilds - Azorious is just pretty miserable to play in a lot of the decks - the guild of law and order - control...that just doesn't work too well in commander vs 3 enemies - stax is hated upon, which is what would make this guild work well - wouldn't be surprised if Esper is the least favorite 3C combination for the same reason (well...although they have Oloro and Zur for numbers over time, Alela for recent deck builds..so I may be wrong with that) - boros, gruul and selesnia are also mostly pretty linear strategies that don't have too much variety in their color pie - similar for Orzhov and rakdos as they are mostly really about death triggers and tokens The top is the more versatile combinations - the big jump is between rakdos and dimir and everything above that is kind of head and shoulders above the rest - Golgari is similar to Orzhov for the most parts, however it has some more interesting commanders - dimir has a lot of variety in the commanders that are available (from copies to mill, from aristocrats to hand attack and discard and so on...) - simic and izzet are the most versatile and also the most flashy in my book - Simic has a lot of token, creature and tribal builds - izzet has spells, prowess, suspend, artifacts and artifact tokens - just a lot of popular themes in that color combination.
Jund is probably the most pigeon holed of the three colored into the fewest commanders. Why do you think after the top 3-4 decks it drops off so fast and what can come to help diversify the decks. no other color combo has such a steep drop off.
@@jakeapplegate6642 What i mean by narrow is there are a paltry few built and then there is a drop off. Jeskai has 5 over 1000 decks and 2 more close to 1000. Temur has 7 with 1 close. Jund has 3 and 1 close. Jund for all its power in other formats seems to be the Korvy, Windgrace, or Prossh show and nothing else. Yurlock i think will eventually get up into the 800-900 range but its a gimmick like thantriss(my second deck i built). It seems when a Jund commander is good its good but when its not an op level like korvold they're like Gyrus or Wasitora which is unfortunate.
@@Asmith218 that’s interesting. I hadn’t really thought about it like that. It would be cool to see some new strategies in jund. I like the idea of the new “mana burn” commander but it seems tough to build around as anything other than a infinite mana combo deck.
im still disappointed in anje. She is not a madness commander. I wanted a madness commander, not a card that lets you play a 60 card deck if you ignore all the awesome madness cards that've been printed
16:30 01/08 : the first two white legendaries from Kaldheim are utter trash while black get repeatable tutor and green get Vorinclex. Yup, R&D must have a "Fudge White with a drilldo" policy at this point, can't be convinced of otherwise. Also without some real white draw synergies implemented thoroughly, - and not just a couple overpriced mythics options (Fudge mythics and rare lands by the by)- like they did in red with "impulse draw", white's dead in the water.
Izzet is Nr 1 because: A. Mono blue is Meh B. Mono red is Okish C. Adding a third colour means changing your game plan. These changes are often Meh. ... So Izzit is kind of stand alone IMHO.
I had guessed that mono black was the most popular due to the "Justin Parnell effect". He's been passionately repping his color for such a long time and he has a solid history of being a huge voice for commander in the community that he has likely influenced the popularity of the color. Of course you can't take away from some of the unique and powerful options printed in black, but I think the personality that creators bring to the community has an effect on the popularity of colors and cards.
In my playgroup we target decks with green then decks with blue if all else is equal. I've stopped building Simic or a wedge with Simic bc of how easy it is to make the deck OP, it's a deck building restraint to build Mardu and fun "achievement unclocked" to win that or Boros. My point is people building more Mardu and less Simic does not mean that Simic isn't more powerful/ just better. It means people in EDH don't tend to build the best deck possible. Caveat: I have all the cards and a lot of experience so I tend need to self reg. my power level.
As a elfball player, I wouldn't play elvish clancaller. The tribe is already so synergistic, the color has so many creature tutor and card draw, that you just don't need another lord that doesn't do anything else (ramp, forestwalk, etc)
![Mindustry (Dia:289) Setor [202], hordas 1-20/20, fácil, hordas de bombardeio e linha de defesa fácil](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/dksmvjhT0AM/mqdefault.jpg)
"You can't do necromancy in Izzet!"
Feldon of the Third Path: Am I a joke to you?
To be fair, that’s just a very macabre form of artifice. Feldon is a very sad character
As somebody who 1. Runs Chainer, and 2. loves Flayer of the Hatebound, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOO Thats a deck I'm building now
And also NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
If it is in your budget, replace it with Terror of the Peaks. Better card in 90% of all situations.
@@TheOneAndOnlyCrawl In my deck I'm putting 3/4 of these effects. Flayer, warstorm, terror and sarkhans unsealing
@@TheOneAndOnlyCrawl Thanks, but Terror and Warstorm are already in there.
It's obvious that the most selfish colors have the most representation in mono colored decks while the most group centered colors by philosophy have the least.
I read it more as a byproduct of the social contract. Most people play Commander within the social contract of "no land destruction, Stax isn't a violation but you're a dick if you play control, etc.." That just means some strengths aren't welcome in our format, with White and Blue excelling at hatebears and control tools.
Boros also suffers from the same meta problems, but in a different and better discussed way. Linear aggro strategies are hard to pull off.
For my part, I love Stax/hatebears/control playstyles, but I do it in Esper, and aggro in Mardu. A little black fucking magic is all it takes to make it palatable often.
Actually, I don't want to sound arrogant, but you're all wrong. Mono black sees the most representation because it has the most payoff for being mono colored, and has ways to work through every single one of its shortcomings, not to mention that its game plan is best served by being single color. Mono red sees the second most representation because mono red has some really unique, fun commanders that HAVE to be built mono colored like krenko, zada, zozu, etc, mono blue is third place because some of the most popular mono colored commanders just happen to be in blue and blue can maintain value, mono green sees the least representation because most of its mono colored commanders are beat out by 2 or 3 color variants with similar effects that allow you to run more colors, and whilst green is a strong splash color it's mono gameplan is pretty one note (get lots of mana, play big guys). White sees the least play because the only viable way to build mono white is permission/ stax decks
Does Jared and Druid's Call actually Work? Druid's Call requires the target to take damage, but Jared specifically says "prevent that damage". So in my opinion, the damage dealt is zero so no squirrel are produced? Correct me If i am wrong :)
You are correct that it doesn't work with Jared.
That said, Jared decks tend to have creatures like Stuffy Doll and Brash Taunter which Druid's Call does work on. So while it doesn't work with the commander, it works with the deck.
Put you to the top. :)
@@k9commander n.m o o99
It can also work if you're not the monarch, which you won't always be.
I would love to see you guys revisit this topic sometime soon, I feel like the last 2 years or product and a lot of the shifts in how people play the game may have made some huge changes to the rankings
People gotta realize that playing Red in EDH right now is soooooo much fun. Red has been getting so many fun and exciting cards (many of them powerful too!) lately that a lot of people have been playing more of it.
Why get bored with stax or spinning your wheels for value when you can do crazy, wild stuff with Red?
Red also seems to have the more creative commanders in my opinion.
@@iudexumbra609 totally agree. Mono-red has a lot of really unique commanders and the cards they have access to include big creatures, removal, ramp, impulsive card draw, recursion, and card selection. Its almost like black but they use their hand as a resource instead of life.
Just started building a boros deck and after the first 10 or so good cards from each color the quality of cards just divebombs.
@@lordofgarbageprogenitoroft4147 I find this to be quite the exaggeration and easily disprovable. Just go to EDHREC and see the most popular cards by color. It is not difficult to find more than 10 amazing cards for each color.
For the mono color decks, I would like to point out that black has some sick art.
Tinybones is the finest
YES!!!
A few points about the popularity of mono colored decks: what makes a color good on its own and what makes it good in conjunction with other colors are not the same thing. Joey sort of touches on this, but I want to emphasize that flexibility is really important. Green has trouble with creatures, probably the most common nonland card type, as well as doing anything about spells or the stack. Black has most difficulty with probably the least common permanent type (enchantments), and can interact with spells if needed.
The next point has to do with variety. Monogreen does a few things really well, but I think some of the other colors have more options for different themes. You have a lot of ramp, and a lot of fatties and elfball. In contrast, monoblack can go wide or tall, but can also work with reanimator or life gain/drain strategies, etc. And as Dana points out, the top black commanders are very open ended in comparison to green.
Third, *good* and *popular* may not be the same thing. Is Ayula the 3rd best commander in mono green? Probably not, but the fatty decks are split between Ghalta, Goreclaw, Omnath, Selvala, Grothama, and probably others. Making a green deck that does green things is easy. Making a white deck is more difficult, but that challenge can attract a certain kind of player.
edit: these points may apply to 2 color combinations as well. For example, you can play a graveyard-heavy token deck in orzhov, golgari, or rakdos, but izzet is probably the only way to make spellslinger in 2 colors.
Feather is pretty strong as a spellslinger deck in Boros.
@@TribeWars1 and Wort is a great Gruul spellslinger.
As a person with 7 months worth of future experience, I can safely say Prosper is a great spellslinger commander in Rakdos
Jared and Druid's call is a nombo, because Druid's call says is dealt damage, Jared says prevent that damage
While true, there are a lot of other creatures in that usual deck build that Druid's Call does work with. Stuffy Doll and Brash Taunter can keep the Call on them and do take the damage.
You must expand your ways of Necromancy Joey: Imagine...spells...countless flashbacking, cast from yard, exile to use, aftermath, etc. It's very necromancer.
One could say that Boros ain't equiped enough to leave the bottom spots of the race. However, Azorius looks imprisonned at the last place.
Surprising indeed.
(in my "focused" playgroup, barely noone plays Simic but Rakdos and Gruul is very popular)
I feel like "more" decks are getting made bc people are making more deck bc of quarantine but not playing more
Doesn't Jared prevent damage so Druid's Call wouldn't do anything...? I'm confused by that Challenge this week
But some of the other creatures in the deck don't. Brash taunter and stuffy doll, for example. Maybe that's what they were implying, but yea, I can see how it's confusing.
Damage is prevented only if you're the monarch and only to Jared, so you could enchant another creature
I guess you're not always the monarch. So then you'll get squirrels. Otherwise you get counters. Feels like Jank based politics tough...
I think its because you end up putting lots of Pariah effects in to attract damage to other creatures because you're right, seems like a nonbo on Jared.
Oh ok, the title confused me. This is popularity not power. This makes a lot of sense.
well put. I said that in way too many words lol
Yeah, kinda boring. Really don't care about populaty
Popularity
For unknown reasons, the game designers forgot about azorius. They were all in with esper and jeskai.
I am blown away by the Flayer of the Hatebound interaction.
Red has some of the most interesting and diverse commanders. Not surprised from a fun perspective.
Gotta step in here at the mono white discussion. I have a Darien, King of Kjeldor deck that is truly a blast to play, and usually raises some eyebrows around the table. I think he’s greatly under appreciated!
Blue I think is kind of top heavy as a mono-color imo. Everyone always talks about the top but if you try to play more "fair" mono-blue decks I think it kind of lacks some oomph that fair decks of the colors have. A lot of powerful stuff blue has that goes into fair decks are more geared toward single player games and lose some punch in commander because of it. Counters get alot more complicated with more people in the game for instance. Its fairly obvious to counter a combo card or something that makes your life hard but what happens if it is just a really good spell and there are three other players before it gets back to you? Your other opponents probably also have really good spells that might even be better than what is on the stack right now. And if its resolves and is in play your removal might be more temporary in comparison to the other colors.
I'm only about 7 minutes in, but I guessed correctly the mono color popularity. I'm well aware that only a handful of mono-green commanders really get built, so I wasn't at all surprised.
It also makes me happy, because most of my commanders aren't something that people see all the time. It's not like 'oh, another Chulane deck, how original.'
The challenge the stats on this episode is most excellent. Great content guys!
Red doesn't surprise me at all. Monored provides a welcome change of pace and a challenge for people who have been playing for a little while, but isn't as boring as monowhite.
It's so crazy that Yuriko is #4. Except, as someone who has been playing since day one, she's amazing and versatile and fun as hell. And they keep printing cards that synergize with her in new, fun ways.
Interesting to note that while Black and Red are the two most popular mono colors, Rakdos is a relatively unpopular combination.
I'd like to see Devotion be a mono white evergreen ability, particularly in commander. I could see it's card draw and ramp being tied to it as it would keep with it's themes of small creatures and permanent based removal like oblivion ring. Some thing like 2WW 3/3, at the beginning of your combat step, if you have the most devotion make a 1/1 white soldier token, at the beginning of your end step if you have the most devotion draw a card, at the beginning of your upkeep if you have the most devotion you may search your library for a plains and put it on the battlefield tapped. Maybe 2 out of 3 wouldn't be too broken but I could see all 3 abilities on creatures somewhere in the deck.
BIG UPS TO JON AVON ART! used in the Deck Colour Popularity screen
Jared and Druid's call (around the 20 min mark) wouldn't work, since Druid's Call makes tokens equal to damage dealt, and Jared prevents all the damage to itself. 0 damage = 0 squirrels. It would work great with indestructible creatures though, like stuffy doll.
dana you are the MAN. Enya absolutely slaps - i feel so validated xD
As a Bruna Light of Alabaster player, there's more to azorius than blinking or role-playing a cop. Bruna SMASHES!
love the unset art in the mana symbols in the mono colored deck section of the data.
I wonder how popular white has become with new additions such as Giada , Light-Paws, Adeline because as of today these three decks make up around 10.000 decks by themselves.
I wonder if you could use Elvish Clancaller's 2nd ability to search for itself with certain setups? I'm thinking if you have a Wheel of Sun and Moon out (enchanting yourself) you could put the ability on the stack, let Wheel of Sun and Moon's ability put it on the bottom of your library and then let Clancaller's ability resolve to search for itself and put it back on the battlefield.,
Come to think of it you could do this with any green creature with verdant succession and wheel of sun and moon.^^
I'm still thinking about asking people I play with if I can make a Mothra deck
Go for it man. If your playgroup is cool they will let you. And I think Mothra will make a sick deck, mono white reanimator is really neat
When you see the pairings and the bottom 5 are with white minus grull, it really feels bad to see how white could be bringing down the color pie
I wouldn't be surprised to see more Freyalise decks with the reprint. She works good in mono green good stuff, stompy or green plainswalkers and good stuff.
GOD ETERNAL-OKETRA MONO WHITE TEAM :)
This.
@@Durtaz YEAH BUDDY!
literally just built this deck yesterday. very fun and ended up winning a couple games already.
@@ShinjiGetsGrounded welcome to the club!!! it really is fun.
8 1/2 Tails man myself
quick question, are you guys still not pulling data from Tappedout? Not that you *have* to per se, but that's the main website everyone I know uses for keeping decklists. If you're not factoring in tappedout, you might be basing all this off of skewed data.
Challenge the Stats
Heartless Summoning doesn't show up on Gyruda, Doom of Depths page (
I’d love to see how average cost of the top 3/5/7/10 decks both guilds and mono might effect the popularity.
My playgroup is allowing me to use 5 prismatic pipers in my command zone for my Seb art deck. Is the deck good? No. But it looks damn good!
feather can be built for between 100 and 200 dollars. that makes it a cheap and powerful deck to build. which i'm sure leads to it's popularity.
Sucks that all of the guilds with white are in the bottom 5.
I'm not that surprised mono G isn't that popular. Green is a great support colour but has FAR fewer busted commanders than black.
It would be great to revisit this topic
LMAO DANA!! The cold hand ✋ is hilarious
Loved this video
Jared Carthalion + pariah or pariah's shield
Why take damage when you can make your stuff bigger :D
Flayer of the Hatebound, cast it, let it die, comes back shoots for 5. cast it with chainer, let it die, comes back shoots 5. I won many games with shooting 5 dmg every single turn
Mitch at Commanders Quarters made a Marwyn deck for $50. Gotta recognize the content creator influencve.
I once killed somebody by kicking a rite of replication targeting their omnath locus of rage.
90 damage to the face feels good after they threatened the win on their next turn
You can design any ability to fit the color pie, including red reanimation (Feldon), blue destroy (Polymorph), and white ramp (Smothering Tithe). WotC is just very bad at attributing a balance between colors. (My obligated "Hullbreacher should've been white" comment)
It took WotC a long time to design non-combat W/R because Ravnica is very popular and people are more familiar with "Boros" than other type of W/R, and new players need a "guideline" when they start this game.
In short most of the color pie imbalance is due to WotC being lazy.
Having interesting commanders is the biggest reason to play a color imo, generically good commanders or only old ones aren't exciting for most
Omg I need an Enya Falkenrath alter...
Trying to figure out what Dana's point was about Chainer and Flayer. My small brain cannot figure out what he's trying to say. Like how is it a "non-bo"?
Does this mean cards like Squee the Immortal don't trigger Flayer?
Flayer only triggers for one specific zone change;
Graveyard -(put on)-> Battlefield
If you cast something from your graveyard (like Squee or with Chainer), it goes like this:
Graveyard -(put on)-> Stack -(put on)-> Battlefield
So the card will end up enter the battlefield from the stack, not the graveyard
Feather i feel is a weird one because i feel she would be super strong no matter what her color is
Colorless: Am I a joke to you? Yeah probably.
you have a few poblems in this episode:
1. your data is biased in its source - you dont include tappedout data (also other sites, but tapped out is the larget as far as i know) and i know myself and many other people only use tappedout
2. your data doesn't actually count the number of decks built, just the number of decks submitted - this is actually very noticeable in blue and green, where people just take an urza or selvala deck off the net, or even just build the average deck from edhrec. also, some players post a new decklist each time they update thier deck, while others dont upload their decks at all
3. assuming powerful will equal popular - it is because mono green and mono blue are so powerful, people want to build them less, and if they build them, they might just copy a list from the net.
you briefly mentioned the fact that you cull decks that are older than 2 years, but i would have liked to see you mention these points in the episode.
otherwise, great episode, and i hope i dont come off as too harsh.
People who watch this kinda go into it with these assumptions already, so pointing them out is kinda meaningless. This is the asterisk at the beginning of every episode of this podcast.
as an Black, Orzhov, and Rakdos player, I am truly happy. Oddly enough I don't like Mardu very much I am liking it more with Ghen. I'm more of an fan of Esper and Sultai.
Edit: I think there is something to be said for Izzet being the most popular and Azorius being the least popular. Izzet is spellslinger colors and Azorius is you can't do anything colors (aka no fun allowed)
As a Gruul player, I am personally offended at these puny numbers. I reject your reality and substitute my own!
as a mono color deck, black is certainly the best. i just did a video about this with the new kaldheim commander, varragoth. but in combination with other colors, green is by far the best color in edh now.
Wait I'm confused by the flayer of the hatebound ruling to me? Can someone explain it to me?
The creature isn't entering directly from the graveyard, it's entering from the stack since Chainer has you cast it.
@@jacobjensen7704 ohhhh okay I didn't realize "the stack" was a place a card could literally be, aight thanks!
I still don't get it
Kaldheim might boost Azorius with its new precon commander
A bit surprised about mono R, but for the rest...can be explained pretty well - the most linear color combinations (or colors) are the least interesting ones - mono G is mostly big dumb beaters, mono U is well...fish tribal or some kind of combo mostly - mono B is the most versatily - mono R...well..maybe because it's flashy?
regarding the guilds - Azorious is just pretty miserable to play in a lot of the decks - the guild of law and order - control...that just doesn't work too well in commander vs 3 enemies - stax is hated upon, which is what would make this guild work well - wouldn't be surprised if Esper is the least favorite 3C combination for the same reason (well...although they have Oloro and Zur for numbers over time, Alela for recent deck builds..so I may be wrong with that) - boros, gruul and selesnia are also mostly pretty linear strategies that don't have too much variety in their color pie - similar for Orzhov and rakdos as they are mostly really about death triggers and tokens
The top is the more versatile combinations - the big jump is between rakdos and dimir and everything above that is kind of head and shoulders above the rest - Golgari is similar to Orzhov for the most parts, however it has some more interesting commanders - dimir has a lot of variety in the commanders that are available (from copies to mill, from aristocrats to hand attack and discard and so on...) - simic and izzet are the most versatile and also the most flashy in my book - Simic has a lot of token, creature and tribal builds - izzet has spells, prowess, suspend, artifacts and artifact tokens - just a lot of popular themes in that color combination.
Mono red has a higher number of viable commanders than any other mono color tbh
Jund is probably the most pigeon holed of the three colored into the fewest commanders. Why do you think after the top 3-4 decks it drops off so fast and what can come to help diversify the decks.
no other color combo has such a steep drop off.
Say hello to Yurlok of Scorch Thrash.
I thought temur or jeskai were the most narrow. Jeskai got some interesting commanders recently though so temur seems like the most limited to me.
@@jakeapplegate6642 What i mean by narrow is there are a paltry few built and then there is a drop off. Jeskai has 5 over 1000 decks and 2 more close to 1000. Temur has 7 with 1 close.
Jund has 3 and 1 close. Jund for all its power in other formats seems to be the Korvy, Windgrace, or Prossh show and nothing else. Yurlock i think will eventually get up into the 800-900 range but its a gimmick like thantriss(my second deck i built). It seems when a Jund commander is good its good but when its not an op level like korvold they're like Gyrus or Wasitora which is unfortunate.
@@Asmith218 that’s interesting. I hadn’t really thought about it like that.
It would be cool to see some new strategies in jund.
I like the idea of the new “mana burn” commander but it seems tough to build around as anything other than a infinite mana combo deck.
im still disappointed in anje. She is not a madness commander. I wanted a madness commander, not a card that lets you play a 60 card deck if you ignore all the awesome madness cards that've been printed
16:30 01/08 : the first two white legendaries from Kaldheim are utter trash while black get repeatable tutor and green get Vorinclex. Yup, R&D must have a "Fudge White with a drilldo" policy at this point, can't be convinced of otherwise. Also without some real white draw synergies implemented thoroughly, - and not just a couple overpriced mythics options (Fudge mythics and rare lands by the by)- like they did in red with "impulse draw", white's dead in the water.
And then they spoiled Vega, the Watcher ! There's hope for Azorius
Izzet is Nr 1 because:
A. Mono blue is Meh
B. Mono red is Okish
C. Adding a third colour means changing your game plan. These changes are often Meh.
...
So Izzit is kind of stand alone IMHO.
Click bait, but love it. ❤️
Kwain in azorius is actually fun.
I had guessed that mono black was the most popular due to the "Justin Parnell effect". He's been passionately repping his color for such a long time and he has a solid history of being a huge voice for commander in the community that he has likely influenced the popularity of the color.
Of course you can't take away from some of the unique and powerful options printed in black, but I think the personality that creators bring to the community has an effect on the popularity of colors and cards.
Why is my mans in the thumbnail?! MUST CLICK
Black, Red, and Green all have non-basic hate. Azorius should become the color combo of 'civilization' aka cities
when even the people who make the game dont understand the rules and included flayer in the pre con
Hey, we just wanna draw cards and blow stuff up.
I hope we talk about the best Boros card advantage : board wipes and mass land destruction!
Its really what holds white back is all the people that get salty about mldestruction, taking away whites most powerful spells.
In my playgroup we target decks with green then decks with blue if all else is equal. I've stopped building Simic or a wedge with Simic bc of how easy it is to make the deck OP, it's a deck building restraint to build Mardu and fun "achievement unclocked" to win that or Boros. My point is people building more Mardu and less Simic does not mean that Simic isn't more powerful/ just better. It means people in EDH don't tend to build the best deck possible. Caveat: I have all the cards and a lot of experience so I tend need to self reg. my power level.
Boros is my fav😔
4 out of the 5 bottom 2 color guild decks have white...
As a lot of things, people's perception doesn't reflect the reality
What you mean you can't make Necromancy in Blue Joey??? Geralf and Ludevic are very disappointed in you. 😡
Mono red represent!
Izzet represent
Xenagos is my favorite deck. Gruul Gang💪
As a elfball player, I wouldn't play elvish clancaller. The tribe is already so synergistic, the color has so many creature tutor and card draw, that you just don't need another lord that doesn't do anything else (ramp, forestwalk, etc)
Boros is good if you can afford it $$$
2nd
17,000 of those decks are joey mono black decks
boros isnt the least popular guild and simic isnt the most popular... Theyre the SECOND least and most popular... iSnT ThAt CoOl???
So in this episode we learn what colors a top and which is a bottom
So does Joey just want to play with and against mono black all the time? I don't get the "everyone should play black" thing.
Big beard... medium beard... no beard...
Unpopular opinion: I skip the first 4 mins.
Y'all talk fast