Addendum for Huatli Poet of Unity/Roar of the Fifth People. An idea occurs to me for an alternative build for Huatli. Rather than going all in on dinosaurs (though you'll still want some in here) why not counter manipulation/populate? Huatli is unique in that she transforms into a saga... which naturally gains counters. Why simply let it progress when you can add or remove counters to get whatever effect is currently most useful? Also note that the saga will trigger whenever you add a counter to it (there are effects that can let you do this at instant speed). Use proliferate effects to add counters (The Huatli planeswalkers and artifacts such as Everflowing Chalice and Pentad Prism can also benefit from this). Remove counters with cards like Scholar of New Horizons, Power Conduit, and Ferropede. You can also use Dramatist's Puppet or Quarry Hauler to add OR remove a counter from a permanent (though you'll want ways to bounce or blink them if you want to use them more than once). You can also MOVE the counters with Nesting Grounds and Resourceful Defense. Myth Realized and Scroll of the Masters are great cards to put any extra lore counters on (as they also technically use lore counters) and can be proliferated as well. The populate effects are to make MORE dinosaurs. Huatli makes dino tokens, might as well make more of them with cards like Growing Ranks, Song of the Worldsoul, and Selesnya Eulogist. Also note that you can prevent Roar of the Fifth People from sacrificing itself if you remove the 4th counter in response.^^
Daryl (Hansk) is a really fun commander, I recommend. He used to have more decks on EDHrec, but when the Universes within version came out the deck numbers got reset. My list of course runs loads of pyroclasm effects, but you can go a lot of different directions with him. You can do dinosaur stuff with enrage, you can go more political with the tokens and goad things, or you can just build whatever and have a great draw engine in your command zone. One last thing: don't be like 46% of Daryl players and run Compost in your deck. Compost only draws cards when black CARDS go to graveyards, so it does not synergize with Daryl at all. Don't play it.
Thinking about Korvold as a Baba Lysaga-type deal where I'm trying to sac permanents with multiple card types. I like the idea of The Ever Changing Dane, will investigate further. I also wanna see about Huatli being a dino token deck
I play Ever-Changing Dane deck, which I solely built because I also have a deck around Halfdane. The new Dane ended up significantly more powerful, unsurprisingly. It's mostly Corpse Dance loops. It's one of those decks where I run Junji and end up choosing the non-reanimator trigger because I get surprised every time how most of the targets are dragons.
If I had to guess, Mizzix was likely overshadowed by Riku who has access to green and can do the same thing for instants, sorceries, and creatures AND the copied creatures don't go away. Mizzix also requires an enabler of some sort to get started (not terribly difficult with easy access to impulse draw, but an extra step nonetheless.). That said Mizzix does have a FEW unique options that Riku does not. He can also copy artifacts, enchantments, planeswalkers, and battles.
Yeah , that would make sense. My thought about her though is she is such an exile deck , while riku is more of a ETB , copy stuff deck. Which opens us up to running stuff like wild-magic sorcerers and Nelfeshnee. Also for newer or budget players, having a 2 color option over 3 is nice. Lot of data...
@@zackkelley2940 Your 100% statistically right , but I'm not building for pure efficiency is the thing. There's better versions of every deck I run, but that's no fun. Riku , yuriko, yarok, they dont inspire me much...
@@NicksLotus I'm not saying it has to be super efficient but you do want SOME way of producing extra mana. Any Mizzix deck is going to be VERY mana hungry. Personally, I'm leaning towards Izzet planeswalkers with proliferate effects (and a smidge of 'ignores the legend rule' effects). Run cards like Astral Cornucopia, Pentad Prism, Empowered Autogenerator, and Iceberg that you can proliferate to make even more mana to help pay for Mizzix's ability (and proliferate anything you may already have out). Sandstone Needle and Saprazzan Skerry would also work very well here as you can just keep adding counters to them. Tendo Ice Bridge and the vivid lands would also work well here.
Grolnok, the Omnivore is my new go to commander. Such a fun and underrated commander. First time I play it against anyone it’s a guaranteed win. Nobody sees the Hermit Druid and Thassas combo coming
Just watched the vid for the first time. Katsumasa, the Animator is in the 99 of my Cosima, God of the Voyage Mono-Blue Vehicles deck. I sometimes swap him into the commander slot.
I love my Lucius the Eternal deck, hes just so tricky! He has a major weakness though that if you can remove what hes targeting before he exiles, then he gets stuck in the grave. Luckily with black there are recovery cards to get him back out, but it can really throw a wrench into plans. The most toxic combo is Dictate of Erebos and Goblin Bombardment, instant speed saccing which then makes everyone have to sacrifice a creature is really nasty. Hes definitely not the best but for the power level we play at I get to have a lot of fun with him.
I built Lucius after watching this video and i agree. It's challenging and fun, while also not being extremely oppresive. Perfect for a casual table. Also, if the target you choose with him, dies before Lucius' ability resolves, the whole ability will just fizzle and you can put him back in the command zone. Now I am coming back to this video, to find another commander to build.
My favorite obscure commander is Feldon Of the Third path. Let's you pump out tons of tokens with haste and either run the opponent over or go for infinite combos.
I think the issue of a bunch of these is the fact that they're overshadowed, y'know? Some of these have quite a lot of hoops to jump through (Korvold w/ the limitations), others are limited to weird archetypes that other Commanders do better (Jirina, Dauntless General & Lurrus) while others are unfocused like Mizzix who wants to focus on different things (Copying/Exile). Doesn't mean they're not fun, just people like having an easier time with what they're building when it's clearly laid out before them! I'm working on a Ravos/Kodama Blink deck and I have very little information to go on and I'm loving it while I know some people that would hate trying to build something like it due to the severe lack of data even with the EDHREC advanced searching features.
Thats 100% my build style as well. I dont net deck or try to go for maximum efficiency. I feel like its taken away the learning curve which is easily one of magics strong points for hooking players that "OHH SHIT , WHAT IF I RAN THIS?" moment yknow?
Korvold, Gleeful Glutton isn't built more... because Korvold, Gleeful Glutton is TERRIBLE. You need to jump through a LOT of hoops for a middling payoff. First, tokens are NOT cards. It's questionable if they'd count towards the first ability and they definitely DON'T count towards the second (tokens MIGHT have a card TYPE but they are indisputably NOT cards). This rules out the easy stuff like treasures, creature tokens, etc. Second the cost reduction is not permanent. It only counts card types you've sacrificed THIS turn. To wit if it's a different turn and you want the discount to recast him you'll need to sacrifice MORE things. Third it requires that the permanents in question be SACRIFICED. It won't count at all if you're creatures DIE to a boardwipe or an artifact of yours gets DESTROYED or someone decides to EXILE a problematic enchantment you had out. Fourth, both abilities have a cap of 6. Creatures, Lands, Artifacts, Enchantments, Planeswalkers, and Battles are the card types that count towards these. Realistically it's 3... creatures, lands, and artifacts. Good luck trying to find ways to sacrifice enchantments, planeswalkers, and battles in JUND (exceedingly rare but there are a FEW cards such as Infernal Tribute). The ABSOLUTE BEST CASE scenario is a creature that draws you 6 cards.... on dealing combat damage. This will almost NEVER happen as it requires that you build a deck with an even mix of SIX different card types WITH ways to sacrifice ALL of them in play AND, should you happen to manage THAT, you need to make sure your graveyard doesn't get VAPORIZED by a random Bojuka Bog, Soul-Guide Lantern, or Tormod's Crypt. FAR more likely you'll probably stick to the permanents jund can reliably sac (creature, land, artifact) and capping at 3 for each of his abilities. Korvold, Gleeful Glutton SOUNDS like he's doing something interesting... when he's just doing EXACTLY what the original Korvold does.... but WORSE and with a bucket-load of attached restrictions and quid-pro-quos.
it doesn't help that the other korvold is perhaps the most busted jund commander of all time and if you wanted to play a deck where you sac different permanent types for value you can just drop red and play Baba Lysaga Night Witch. Where you jump throw way less hoops to get similar value. Though if i'm reading korvold gleeful glutton right his first ability does count tokens as those do have card types despite not being card. his second ability wants you to do self-mill stuff which can feel a bit awkward if you don't get the synergies lined up and hey, if you're playing one korvold you have no reason to be playing the other
@@jmanwild87 Precisely. Why play worse Korvold... when I can just play Korvold? Not to mention if I wanted to play something that cared about having multiple permanent card types I'd just play Muldrotha or Atraxa Grand Unifier.
If nothing else, that is a dang useful ability to have in the command zone. For a start I would run untap effects such as Sting, Thousand Year, and Patriar's Seal to get the most mileage out of her ability and artifacts like Unwinding Clock and Clock of Omens to untap all the mana rocks to help pay for the ability.
Katsumasa seems really... clunky. Not only is he painfully slow to start (4 mana to get out and another turn cycle AND 3 mana per activation of his ability before he actually DOES anything) not having access to white really hurts (you lose access to cards like Swift Reconfiguration, Peacewalker Colussus, and Scourglass). There is also the fact that, while his ability CAN work on non-vehicles, it's usually not worth the bother. Sydri works MUCH better for that AND you have cards like Rise and Shine and Cyberdrive Awakener for turning masses of clue/treasure/etc tokens into an army. He feels like he'd be much better in, perhaps, the 99 of Optimus Prime since he's already doing vehicles and 1/1 counters AND gives you access to white and red as well. Even for mono-blue vehicles Cosima and Orvar seem like they'd be MUCH better.
Jirina Dauntless General? These effects are nice to have but they're not exactly exciting. She's much better as a support for her father... or her OTHER card for that matter. General Kudro and Jirina Kudro bring far more to the table than Jirina Dauntless General. Her dad comes with repeatable gravehate, repeatable removal, and an anthem. Jirina Kudro isn't really doing anything exciting either (Makes an extra body on ETB and +2/+0 anthem for other humans you control) BUT adding red is huge as you get easy access to haste effects, damage buffers, and a LOT more humans.
The problem with Hanna is that she is just straight up bad. 3 mana and tap to get one thing back that has to then be cast again is just way too clunky.
Huatli is.... painfully slow. You need 3 to get her out (that the land goes to hand instead of field is frankly insulting), another 5 to transform her, and then SEVERAL turns for the saga to finish. There is also the fact that it is EXTREMELY telegraphed. How helpful are chapter 3 or 4 really going to be when everyone knows what's coming well in advance and can simply hold up interaction for it (counterspell/removal for whatever you search for and a fog for the overrun effect)? Then the saga dies, goes back to your command zone as Huatli, and you have to start the process all over again. This... feels like the textbook definition of slow, predictable, and repetitive.
Addendum for Huatli Poet of Unity/Roar of the Fifth People.
An idea occurs to me for an alternative build for Huatli. Rather than going all in on dinosaurs (though you'll still want some in here) why not counter manipulation/populate?
Huatli is unique in that she transforms into a saga... which naturally gains counters. Why simply let it progress when you can add or remove counters to get whatever effect is currently most useful? Also note that the saga will trigger whenever you add a counter to it (there are effects that can let you do this at instant speed).
Use proliferate effects to add counters (The Huatli planeswalkers and artifacts such as Everflowing Chalice and Pentad Prism can also benefit from this).
Remove counters with cards like Scholar of New Horizons, Power Conduit, and Ferropede.
You can also use Dramatist's Puppet or Quarry Hauler to add OR remove a counter from a permanent (though you'll want ways to bounce or blink them if you want to use them more than once).
You can also MOVE the counters with Nesting Grounds and Resourceful Defense. Myth Realized and Scroll of the Masters are great cards to put any extra lore counters on (as they also technically use lore counters) and can be proliferated as well.
The populate effects are to make MORE dinosaurs. Huatli makes dino tokens, might as well make more of them with cards like Growing Ranks, Song of the Worldsoul, and Selesnya Eulogist.
Also note that you can prevent Roar of the Fifth People from sacrificing itself if you remove the 4th counter in response.^^
Daryl (Hansk) is a really fun commander, I recommend. He used to have more decks on EDHrec, but when the Universes within version came out the deck numbers got reset.
My list of course runs loads of pyroclasm effects, but you can go a lot of different directions with him. You can do dinosaur stuff with enrage, you can go more political with the tokens and goad things, or you can just build whatever and have a great draw engine in your command zone.
One last thing: don't be like 46% of Daryl players and run Compost in your deck. Compost only draws cards when black CARDS go to graveyards, so it does not synergize with Daryl at all. Don't play it.
But what does synergise with him? Aether Flash.
The Ever-Changing 'Dane looks like it could be super cool and I may try to build it soon!!
He is neat
Basically the way I play him was creature theft
Thinking about Korvold as a Baba Lysaga-type deal where I'm trying to sac permanents with multiple card types. I like the idea of The Ever Changing Dane, will investigate further. I also wanna see about Huatli being a dino token deck
As I play mostly on cockatrice, I love unusual and unpopular commanders.
They are so rewarding and teach you a lot about deck building strategy!
Couldn't agree more!
I play Ever-Changing Dane deck, which I solely built because I also have a deck around Halfdane. The new Dane ended up significantly more powerful, unsurprisingly. It's mostly Corpse Dance loops. It's one of those decks where I run Junji and end up choosing the non-reanimator trigger because I get surprised every time how most of the targets are dragons.
If I had to guess, Mizzix was likely overshadowed by Riku who has access to green and can do the same thing for instants, sorceries, and creatures AND the copied creatures don't go away. Mizzix also requires an enabler of some sort to get started (not terribly difficult with easy access to impulse draw, but an extra step nonetheless.).
That said Mizzix does have a FEW unique options that Riku does not. He can also copy artifacts, enchantments, planeswalkers, and battles.
Yeah , that would make sense. My thought about her though is she is such an exile deck , while riku is more of a ETB , copy stuff deck. Which opens us up to running stuff like wild-magic sorcerers and Nelfeshnee. Also for newer or budget players, having a 2 color option over 3 is nice. Lot of data...
@@NicksLotus Izzet has enough options that let you cast from exile but the big problem is having enough mana to actually do that.
@@zackkelley2940 Your 100% statistically right , but I'm not building for pure efficiency is the thing. There's better versions of every deck I run, but that's no fun. Riku , yuriko, yarok, they dont inspire me much...
@@NicksLotus I'm not saying it has to be super efficient but you do want SOME way of producing extra mana. Any Mizzix deck is going to be VERY mana hungry.
Personally, I'm leaning towards Izzet planeswalkers with proliferate effects (and a smidge of 'ignores the legend rule' effects).
Run cards like Astral Cornucopia, Pentad Prism, Empowered Autogenerator, and Iceberg that you can proliferate to make even more mana to help pay for Mizzix's ability (and proliferate anything you may already have out).
Sandstone Needle and Saprazzan Skerry would also work very well here as you can just keep adding counters to them. Tendo Ice Bridge and the vivid lands would also work well here.
I actually have a daryl deck, I use daryl as a draw engine together with 15 or so tutors to turbo out combos. It's great
Grolnok, the Omnivore is my new go to commander. Such a fun and underrated commander. First time I play it against anyone it’s a guaranteed win. Nobody sees the Hermit Druid and Thassas combo coming
I love Grolnok!
I LOVE my grolnok deck! Frog typal all the way. I think it's marginally more popular nowadays cause of Bloomburrow
The Garza one could be fun if I wanted second Grixis voltron. but there are some fun ones here with Ever changing Dane and Lucius the Eternal.
Just watched the vid for the first time. Katsumasa, the Animator is in the 99 of my Cosima, God of the Voyage Mono-Blue Vehicles deck. I sometimes swap him into the commander slot.
I have a Fransisco/ Ishai bird tribal deck that is one of my favorites. 65 total on EDHrec
I love my Lucius the Eternal deck, hes just so tricky! He has a major weakness though that if you can remove what hes targeting before he exiles, then he gets stuck in the grave. Luckily with black there are recovery cards to get him back out, but it can really throw a wrench into plans.
The most toxic combo is Dictate of Erebos and Goblin Bombardment, instant speed saccing which then makes everyone have to sacrifice a creature is really nasty.
Hes definitely not the best but for the power level we play at I get to have a lot of fun with him.
I built Lucius after watching this video and i agree. It's challenging and fun, while also not being extremely oppresive. Perfect for a casual table. Also, if the target you choose with him, dies before Lucius' ability resolves, the whole ability will just fizzle and you can put him back in the command zone.
Now I am coming back to this video, to find another commander to build.
When I play a lower powered game with my Esper deck I swap Merieke Ri Berit for the Ever-Changing Dane. Those two are fun together ;p
I have a Lucius deck but it doesn’t really work because often people will use Mithril coat or heroic intervention to exile him
My favorite obscure commander is Feldon Of the Third path. Let's you pump out tons of tokens with haste and either run the opponent over or go for infinite combos.
Garza seems very similar to Thraximundar ! Except he doesnt work as well with Chandras Ignition, but he works with Grave Betrayal instead
I think the issue of a bunch of these is the fact that they're overshadowed, y'know? Some of these have quite a lot of hoops to jump through (Korvold w/ the limitations), others are limited to weird archetypes that other Commanders do better (Jirina, Dauntless General & Lurrus) while others are unfocused like Mizzix who wants to focus on different things (Copying/Exile).
Doesn't mean they're not fun, just people like having an easier time with what they're building when it's clearly laid out before them!
I'm working on a Ravos/Kodama Blink deck and I have very little information to go on and I'm loving it while I know some people that would hate trying to build something like it due to the severe lack of data even with the EDHREC advanced searching features.
Thats 100% my build style as well. I dont net deck or try to go for maximum efficiency. I feel like its taken away the learning curve which is easily one of magics strong points for hooking players that "OHH SHIT , WHAT IF I RAN THIS?" moment yknow?
Korvold, Gleeful Glutton isn't built more... because Korvold, Gleeful Glutton is TERRIBLE.
You need to jump through a LOT of hoops for a middling payoff.
First, tokens are NOT cards. It's questionable if they'd count towards the first ability and they definitely DON'T count towards the second (tokens MIGHT have a card TYPE but they are indisputably NOT cards). This rules out the easy stuff like treasures, creature tokens, etc.
Second the cost reduction is not permanent. It only counts card types you've sacrificed THIS turn. To wit if it's a different turn and you want the discount to recast him you'll need to sacrifice MORE things.
Third it requires that the permanents in question be SACRIFICED. It won't count at all if you're creatures DIE to a boardwipe or an artifact of yours gets DESTROYED or someone decides to EXILE a problematic enchantment you had out.
Fourth, both abilities have a cap of 6. Creatures, Lands, Artifacts, Enchantments, Planeswalkers, and Battles are the card types that count towards these. Realistically it's 3... creatures, lands, and artifacts. Good luck trying to find ways to sacrifice enchantments, planeswalkers, and battles in JUND (exceedingly rare but there are a FEW cards such as Infernal Tribute).
The ABSOLUTE BEST CASE scenario is a creature that draws you 6 cards.... on dealing combat damage. This will almost NEVER happen as it requires that you build a deck with an even mix of SIX different card types WITH ways to sacrifice ALL of them in play AND, should you happen to manage THAT, you need to make sure your graveyard doesn't get VAPORIZED by a random Bojuka Bog, Soul-Guide Lantern, or Tormod's Crypt.
FAR more likely you'll probably stick to the permanents jund can reliably sac (creature, land, artifact) and capping at 3 for each of his abilities.
Korvold, Gleeful Glutton SOUNDS like he's doing something interesting...
when he's just doing EXACTLY what the original Korvold does.... but WORSE and with a bucket-load of attached restrictions and quid-pro-quos.
it doesn't help that the other korvold is perhaps the most busted jund commander of all time and if you wanted to play a deck where you sac different permanent types for value you can just drop red and play Baba Lysaga Night Witch. Where you jump throw way less hoops to get similar value. Though if i'm reading korvold gleeful glutton right his first ability does count tokens as those do have card types despite not being card. his second ability wants you to do self-mill stuff which can feel a bit awkward if you don't get the synergies lined up and hey, if you're playing one korvold you have no reason to be playing the other
My friend took his Korvold deck apart because it was killing people too quickly and every one was getting pissed at him
@@jmanwild87 Precisely. Why play worse Korvold... when I can just play Korvold?
Not to mention if I wanted to play something that cared about having multiple permanent card types I'd just play Muldrotha or Atraxa Grand Unifier.
Hanna is another one i've wanted to build for awhile!
If nothing else, that is a dang useful ability to have in the command zone.
For a start I would run untap effects such as Sting, Thousand Year, and Patriar's Seal to get the most mileage out of her ability and artifacts like Unwinding Clock and Clock of Omens to untap all the mana rocks to help pay for the ability.
Katsumasa seems really... clunky. Not only is he painfully slow to start (4 mana to get out and another turn cycle AND 3 mana per activation of his ability before he actually DOES anything) not having access to white really hurts (you lose access to cards like Swift Reconfiguration, Peacewalker Colussus, and Scourglass).
There is also the fact that, while his ability CAN work on non-vehicles, it's usually not worth the bother. Sydri works MUCH better for that AND you have cards like Rise and Shine and Cyberdrive Awakener for turning masses of clue/treasure/etc tokens into an army.
He feels like he'd be much better in, perhaps, the 99 of Optimus Prime since he's already doing vehicles and 1/1 counters AND gives you access to white and red as well.
Even for mono-blue vehicles Cosima and Orvar seem like they'd be MUCH better.
Jirina Dauntless General? These effects are nice to have but they're not exactly exciting. She's much better as a support for her father... or her OTHER card for that matter. General Kudro and Jirina Kudro bring far more to the table than Jirina Dauntless General. Her dad comes with repeatable gravehate, repeatable removal, and an anthem. Jirina Kudro isn't really doing anything exciting either (Makes an extra body on ETB and +2/+0 anthem for other humans you control) BUT adding red is huge as you get easy access to haste effects, damage buffers, and a LOT more humans.
Song list?
Those are my beats my friend
PUBLISH THEM PRETTY PLEASE@@NicksLotus
The problem with Hanna is that she is just straight up bad. 3 mana and tap to get one thing back that has to then be cast again is just way too clunky.
Shes commanding a good stuff list.
I see korvold a lot tbh
Huatli is.... painfully slow. You need 3 to get her out (that the land goes to hand instead of field is frankly insulting), another 5 to transform her, and then SEVERAL turns for the saga to finish. There is also the fact that it is EXTREMELY telegraphed. How helpful are chapter 3 or 4 really going to be when everyone knows what's coming well in advance and can simply hold up interaction for it (counterspell/removal for whatever you search for and a fog for the overrun effect)? Then the saga dies, goes back to your command zone as Huatli, and you have to start the process all over again.
This... feels like the textbook definition of slow, predictable, and repetitive.
These aren’t played mostly because they are overcosted version of decent commanders that already see play.
These probably make good budget replacements of said better versions though.
Promo-SM