I built a shalai and hallar deck a while ago, and I honestly love it. When I’m going against a more competitive table, I’ll run shalai, but against a more casual table I (normally) rule 0 retaliatory griffon as my commander and it’s still fun but much more balanced.
Sidar is fine. It only lets you draw ONE card no matter how many knights you swing with, and you still need to discard one after. The first eminence commanders were pretty busted, but the idea itself isn't a problem if the effect doesn't SCALE at all. It should only really have an effect that matters in the early game, and teeter off in the mid/late game as just not as good. Like Sidar.
So discarding your strongest knoght and cheating it into play on turn 4 isn’t strong to you? Haha it’s not a discard, it’s a graveyard setup mechanic, extremely strong
@@prestonjohnson1537I’ve got plenty of discard stuff in my decks. I normally discard strong things to cheat them back in. My artifact Jan Jansen deck has multiple ways to cheat stuff back from the graveyard. It’s just another resource to utilize.
@@prestonjohnson1537you’re thinking in terms of ability. Oh one card isn’t so bad. But if it’s a good pilot and an optimized deck. That one card could be very impactful.
@@johnnoreau3570 again, I didn't say the ability wasn't useful. I said it doesn't scale. No matter what, with that eminence ability, you only get one draw and discard.
It is not about the Commander, It is about the cards around them. For example take out the combo pieces out of shalai and hallar and the deck is more friendlier. Just build a sideboard for powerlevel
I respect your standpoint on eminence but I think its fine on Sidar. I am more annoyed by the engine/fuel design of commanders. I do own Sidar because I love Knights.
I built Will and I love it. Like he said, its a lot harder to gain the life, if i make 3-5 life in a turn im happy with that, dont run any of tue untappers either, id rather just play a card thats like, destroy target artifact or enchantment, gain 3 life. I have never built an azorius commander since white is my least fav color but when I saw him I knew i needed to build him. But yeah its just way to easy with Rowan, I wouldnt build her
I like playing rowan and phyrexian Arenas, and the sort of cantrips, so the deck only playas like 5 X spells, and 5 haymakers that are 5+ colorless amd 2 or 3 colored, so I'm never dropping more than one spell, or storming off, also punisher cards give you upside of ramping, so good tip for making it more "fun"
@@W4llh4k thats a good idea, similar to my Will strat. You can play with busted commanders as long as you make the deck in the right way so its not overly oppressive
I built a Shalai and Hallar deck simply because all the tables around me play at a higher more competitive level and was openly being specifically targeted by certain people. After months of trying new tech, decks, tweaking, and play I got tired of having not won a single game so I decided to make something new and cheesy. The Result: I should have gone 3/3 (missed triggers on the first game and misunderstanding on keyword definition meant I would have won, won the second game because an opponent was about to go infinite and no one removed the combo so that meant there was no removal and I beat them to the punch, and at this point I realized I could win/hold my own so took a step back, played more relaxed, and threw the 3rd game but we all had fun) With friends or more casual groups I swap out the commander for Bright Palms or also house rule Retaliator Griffin as a commander (or if I have time swap out the combo cards for card draw and land). Is it strong? Yeah. Is it easy to build? I mean I am not a great player but I found success with it so yeah. Can I understand why people wouldn't want to play it? Yes, but I like it and so far no one has said they don't like playing against it, so I think I will keep this deck around for a while or at least until folks start to complain.
I love videos like this. My playgroup is all about making the best strong sometimes most BS decks and it makes it easier for me to find the commanders i need.
I've got 1 friend who likes to counter everyone, 1 friend that plays innocent while they gain a million life, 1 friend that likes to pop every card that i play and get my life low when im not a threat, and another friend who has a crazy obsession with going infinite or being chaotic. Ive been waiting for a tap/untap commander for so long, and with all the bs that my friends play, i will gladly play hylda without hesitation.
Working on that one now, as well. Our group will entertain any new deck a couple of times to stretch its legs. I have a couple I rarely play now (Toxrill and Tergrid) because of the salt they induce. But they let them out at the beginning for test runs.
My first ever commander deck had vanilla creatures and other draft chaff. The card my opponents laughed at was not the vanilla 6/6 for 4gg but congregate.
To be honest I kinda think you are wrong (if it is even possible since it's personal opionions lol). I think the beauty of casual commander is that you arent forced to build super optimized decks. You don't need to build some kind of combo Rowan deck where the point of the deck is to finish the game with some cheap combo every time. Why not build a deck around her ability to cheat some big creatures into play instead? Damn, maybe even some tribal or voltron deck? Same with Will since they are very similar.
He literally says he knows you can build some of these in different ways but him being the player that he is he is going to want to build it that particular way. That is why HE personally doesn’t play them
I hope there are more Eminence cards to support the tribes that need a boost. Because that's the thing, it HAS to be a tribal to work. All the eminence cards do have a restriction, and it's a deck construction one.
Shalia and halar has been my favorite commander. I use calix as the secret commander and semi voltron shalia with enchantments that can get pretty nutty.
The Shalai and Halar complaint is a weak one. "If you make 20 tokens you can put counters on them".....if you make 20 tokens, you're likely winning anyways. Is overrun unacceptable for the same reason?
I haven't played MTG in ages. Interesting to see you and other players favouring non-instant win/non-annoying decks. Last I played, that's all that was around.
All depends on your play group. Definitely still plenty of people with oppressive decks especially if you are playing with randos but if you only play within a certain group and you constantly win because no one else wants to build that kind of deck or play that kind of game it gets not fun pretty quick
Commander is a lot more about having fun with board state/playing through multiple cards than always just going for the fastest win. Not always, and definitely depends on your play group, but people are a lot more interested outside of Competive Commander (cEDH) for that over Thoracle combos and turn 3 wins.
i keep decks that are oppressively annoying to play against as insurance for friends to not play their own oppressively annoying decks. either we have fun in our MTG cold war or the gloves come off and card-shaped hands are thrown. i will never be the first one to play these decks but i will be the second. some people deserve it.
My favorite deck I own is a mono black liliana heretical healer black control deck. It's all about discard and sacrifice. Honestly my friends like playing against it since it changes how they play their decks. That being said my friends are fine with stax and land destruction so high power high salt level is fine just be upfront about it so they can match it.
I use Hylda as my police commander. I police the board lol. It's fun but no i didn't build it super strong. Eminence is super strong, no matter what. But there should be more but with more of a companion downside. Also, more partner and "partner with" and "background/ choose background" commanders. Imagine an eminence that says, "only works if you control 'Only' x things" like only Knights or only elves. And they could add "creatures with more than 3 types cancel this ability" to stop changelings
You have a prebuilt prejudice against eminence from other commanders. I am glad you admitted to YOU being salty and not like your last video where you tried playing off "Bad commanders" But let's talk about it. If Edgar and the Ur dragon never existed and this was the first eminence commander created would you have an issue with it? I don't believe so as I have asked this question to several people who hate eminence and they have all agreed probably not. Sidar's eminence mechanic while good is almost not even used while he is in the command zone. You are typically getting Sidar out on turns 3-4 you could use his eminence trigger once before casting him. For Sidar to function he needs to be out dealing that sweet sweet combat damage. Now the fact they printed him with first strike flying and gave a Knight commander access to blue is way more busted than the eminence IMO. I agree Edgar is busted and UR making dragon's cost 1 less from the command zone is kind of busted. Sidar just isn't busted because he will be played ASAP where guess what you can remove it from the game.
Eminence is perfectly fine. Oloro has basically had eminence since forever, and while oloro decks can be obnoxious, it certainly isn't broken. You mentioned leylines, and people play leylines all the time. What about color identity? You get to play more colors than me just for picking a specific commander? Your commander has always given you a bunch of free benefits, just not always something so obvious as manipulating the actual game state from the command zone. In fact, a bunch of older commander cards interacted with the command zone in really cool ways. I would actually like to see more design space like this, where your commander has some sort of minor effect from the command zone, maybe something like derevi that gives you an activated ability so people don't complain about it being "free."
I threw Aclazotz in the 99 of Isshin and when I did in one pod, they all immediately scooped. I was like wait huh? Then they humored me and let me play it out and I saw why. It's so back breaking if your opponents aren't set up.
I really dislike the "team-up" legends from March of the Machine, probably for the same reason I hate Partner... it just feels so, lazy? uninspired? The Two Teferis! meme perfectly describes the set...
Sidar Jabari is stronger than Edgar Markov but weaker than the Ur Dragon. He makes your deck unbelievably consistent with the eminence trigger allowing you to dig past a greedy opening hand, or to find answers (a lot of which are also knights), secondly his damage trigger cheats you in stuff you should not have like the elemental knights, the paladins of directions (northern, southern, eastern, western, and pentarch), returns things removed for a reason like herald of hoofbeats or vadolian wave knight, but best of all he rebuilds you after board wipes really quickly which is something Edgar Markov does not do. Never mind Haakon (who comes with the precon) is actually easy to use in this deck with the eminence trigger.
Heliod gives you access to blue you don't need any wheels Just shit like rhystic study or the MOM Jin-Gitaxias if you flip him and you can flip him for 4 mana when you have 7 cards in hand and you draw cards equal to the amount of cards in hand plenty of ways to just draw cards in blue you mentioned brainstorm Sensei's divine top+reality chip you can just draw the top of your deck with top then for 1 mana play the top from the top of your deck So many ways to just draw cards
Problems at the table tend to arise not from specific commanders, but from general power level discrepancy. Not a single one of these commander decks I would refuse to play against purely based on the commander. Aside from Sidar Jabari who has an eminence ability in the command zone (which I agree is an unhealthy mechanic for the format), most of these other commander-centric decks are really disrupted by cheap and mana efficient removal spells people should be running. If you play into decks of similar power levels as yours and be sure to run a good interaction suite and none of these are necessarily a big deal. There's certainly commanders I'm not a fan of seeing (such as Jonah the Unifier), but I think the only deck that popped up and I refused to play against it all last year was Lightpaws.
I can see the point for all your picks, save for Sidar Jabari. You're entitled to your outrage at 'free stuff', of course, but it is a fact that this eminence ability, unlike the earlier varieties, is bounded, and rather heavily so. I don't think that an early iteration being badly balanced is enough of a reason to scrap an interesting concept altogether. Imagine if we were to judge the existence of artifacts that taps for mana based solely on the moxen and black lotus. The game would be radically different these days if that was the case. As with anything else, Wizards shouldn't scrap it, but integrate it better into the game. Make ways to interact with it from across the board. And it's quite easy to interact with in Sidar already. You realistically can interact with it, every turn, and for very little investment of your own. Compare to trying to stave off the horde of vampires a fairly optimized Edgar deck pukes out with blinding speed. They're not even on the same planet when compared. Those are my two cents on the topic.
Come on, mitch, the bat god is awesome. I love magic. I love control. ppl have to learn to play dispell cards in the4e decks . Finally, you don't have friends when you play magic lolo good video.
MTG Commander player: Yeah I don't want to play these because they aren't very fun for everyone else Yugioh player: If my opponent gets to play a single card I have failed as a human being
Shalai and Hallar is so fun! It combos with a ham sandwich but doesn't need to combo to win. Just an all around fun deck that can go tall with counters or burn people out super fast.
I have a S&H deck that I intentionally left the combos out of and it's still a ton of fun. Slamming down a Conclave Sledge Captain and getting a ton of counters is a great time with or without the commander in play.
@@cylonsteve2511 eh idk. I'd rather play 2 or 3 faster games than a single game that drags on and on. I like having a strong deck with a solid gamplan that can do the things it's built to do with a certain level of consistency.
I had a Hylda i just broke because after a few plays, I realized how easy it becomes a solitaire style of play. I rapidly lost interest after that. Ashnod's altar plus Opposition? You win.
Heliod warped eclipse should not work during your own turn. Blue white has enough draw that a 10 mana discount is basically "play my entire deck" but they also have enough instants that are totally fine if a commanders effect said "cast for free if your opponents draw too many cards"
As someone who built Heliod before official release (and still plays him) yeahhh your table won't like him. My table doesn't like him. I love him tho 😂
I can understand the saltiness towards eminence but tbf towards Sidar Jibari his is by far the least offensive. The biggest offense towards the old eminence commanders besides it’s uninteractable is that you don’t even need to play your commander to get insane value from it. In Sidar Jabari’s case you actually have to cast him and have him interact with the board to really get any value out of him to begin with. Otherwise he just becomes a really meh looting ability, which I guess is better than nothing, but you’re also in blue so it feels even more unnecessary.
About the only time I watch this channel anymore is to listen to him overreacting negatively and crying about cards. Used to be such a good channel before his format swapped to the click baity cry about stuff junk he does now.
I get the "too easy" comment when it comes to shally and hally. Even in cEDH, it was easy to build and easy to pilot, even if it is a B tier deck in the format. I still love it though and its actually decently cheap to build and can stand up to tough tables
Lol I waited the whole episode to see what broken shenanigans he would come up with as to why he won't play Sidar....and it's just eminence lol. All the others are "I go infinite or kill you in one shot"
9:36 Absolutely Busted. I built it pillowfort, giving my opponents lots of cards. Leaving them to fend for themselves killing each other while a instant speed respond with enchantments and artifacts. Mono white but w/ with Folio of Fancies, caphalod coliseum, and academy ruins
My biggest problem with a lot of these cards are that they are obviously designed for commander but printed in non-commander sets. Its always rough when your sealed rarers are taken up by these kind of cards.
Buy singles, don't play sealed? Not everyone drafts and WotC doesn't cater to those who just play one type of MTG. Nor are they going to not cater to the format the majority of players are playing. (Commander)
@@AngelusNielson I absolutely play all of the formats. And when its a standard set it should cater to all players, im not complaining when your specific commander sets are designed for commander, im complaining when sets designed for standard or stuff like modern horizons 2 are catered towards commander.
@@vegatablesoup6409 "I'm complaining." No, really?. It's clear you're in a high winge because... I don't even know why. Wizards want everyone buying every set irregardless of how they play MTG....
You don't know this but u are inspiring lots of casual players lmfao bro I love this episode I love playing against hateful players lol don't mind losing and the ppl that do this are a good challenge lol magic is magic
He runs a budget commander channel so I’m sure he figures he’s influencing a lot of casual players. It’s also why he clarifies that he’s not saying to not play these just that he doesn’t for whatever reason
Don't you lose with the red terror and shalai? Both those effects aren't may I thought if you made an infinite combo that you can't stop that you lose (or tie or something?)
I love Shalai and Hallar! I got the precon it was in and swapped it with the face commander because it's just so much cooler and better. I absolutely abhor infinite combos though so I refuse to put them in my decks. Without those I think it's perfectly fine. I don't understand why people are so sensitive and try to dictate what people can and can't play. In a lot of instances it just comes off as childish, and maybe this is not the game for them.
I think it’s important for everyone to have a power level that that want to play at. I’m not going to go as far to tell people what they can and can’t play because people can do whatever they want but at the same time they can’t automatically expect me to play with them when I know my lower power deck is just not going to be able to stop them and I’m going to spend most of the time watching them play
I didn't know what I wanted for Christmas, so I threw on the backup precon last second, and I'm just gonna keep it as a precon, but just play it with Shalai and Hallar as Commander.
I flat out built Rowan (my daughter's name) and have enjoyed it a great deal. She's wildly deadly, and can kill the group in around 4 turns consistently. But as Rakdos, our rather competitive group (not CEDH, but high powered) has a lot of interaction, and that makes it easy to fizzle Rowan out if you aren't careful. Will, however, is one I'm also working on, and I love the life gain mechanics for him. He's also heavy stax and has a LOT of interaction (counter spells, etc), so I think he will be better received and more overall fun to play. But janking the whole group with Rowan is a blast... literally (Banefire, Crackle with Power, etc).
I build a Rowan deck and tried it out thinking I would sometimes be able to get off a lethal one turn combo. Oh boy was I wrong. In every single test game I did I got to combo off on turn 4-ish. Of course that is with no interaction but still way too powerful and uninteractive for me. I'll try to build her without a single card which let's me pay infinite life points, maybe then it'll be a fun deck?
I’ve personally warmed up to eminence for the most part. I personally don’t like playing against most Edgar decks but otherwise the trade off of playing such a weak commander for the pretty meh effect is something I again personally can totally live with.
I builded Hylda when it cames out. I played it once got an OTK turn 6 with budget build around 45$...Commander is broken, i havent played with since. It looks awefull to play against, i actually felt bad winning this game. You just stop everyone from actually playing until you get the OTK.
My boyfriend uses a Heliod deck, and every single time, he’ll win, but the process of him having us discard our hand, draw like 50 cards, putting everything back into the deck, redrawing 7, discarding to hand size, repeat the process…is kinda fun 😂
The upside when playing Aclazotz: You get to say "look Ma, no hands !" and all of the other players at the table will laugh alongside you and a great time will be had by all.
Surprisingly, Heliod is more fun as a group hugs commander with Prosperity like effects...EVERYONE DRAWS X CARDS!!! Add in Non-discarding wheel effects and a Smothering Tithe, you can force opponents to deck out in as little as say...2 or 3 turns?
My play group has been fine with Sidar. We usually just do slightly upgraded precon power range though. So I'm not sure how a fully decked out one looks.
I actually want to build heliod, but not as a “wheel into with X mana.” But more as an enchantment commander with a slight wheel subtheme (because who’s just IGNORING that?) I feel green/white(plus any other color) to be a bit easy mode with all the enchantment effects, so i either don’t want green or white. I feel heliod would be good for a windfall into a omniscience with some other wincon. Seems like a fun control deck.
I have an entire color combo that I can’t/ won’t play. In my case I won’t play Sultai, it’s too easy, you have the best ramp, the best tutors, counter spells, graveyard recursion, and most of the best combos/infinites.
it´s funny I played against Rowan decks multiple times now and everyone on the table just focuses on removing Rowan as fast as possible so I never saw it going off
I had a rowan and Hylda deck before, I really like the gameplay but I’m not the type of player that sticks with only one commander. And playing it over and over again became really boring. My pod also hates my Hylda since they can’t blocked or use their artifact rocks. The shalai card I really hate, esp when you are using it in a casual pod where players just do combat damage and not doing infinite pings.
I got a friend that plays aclazotz with oppression, painful quandary, waist not and all the Lilliana's caress effects suffice to say it's a very effective deck for him
What an opponent ‘enjoys playing against’ usually isn’t a concern of mine. It’s up to them to make their own fun in spite of my best efforts to beat whatever they come up with.
Heliod and wheels makes Blue Sun into a full-auto nuke for people. Wheel, cast it for 1b for 22, then copy it with one of your now very cheap copy spells, then keep wheeling until you draw blue sun again.
I'm with you on most of these. Sidar is the only one that I might run after retuning the precon, for now it's still a precon. I look at most of them and go "Is this strong? Yes. Will this be fun for the table? Probably not." I still prefer Bright-Palm over Shalai and Hallar because it's just more fun despite being less powerful. Shalai and Hallar just feels too easy, you just throw +1/+1 counter effects in the deck and it practically runs itself. I have more fun finding my route to the win, even if it means I need to make a bigger board full of threats.
I don't have an eminence deck, but i think I'll try a budget brew of sidar jabari. Been wanting to make a reanimation deck too so ill probably lean into that
He is insane to play with, key standout cards are the knights of particular directions (northern, eastern, western, southern, and pentarch paladins), Ayara's oathsworn, pyre of heroes, vadolian wave knight, Herald of hoofbeats, Haakon, and the black and the white elemental knights (they blow things up on etb).
@@michaelcollins4534 great inclusion but not as funny as stromgald cabal or order of the sacred torch. especially when you stick helm of the host on them.
I built a shalai and hallar deck a while ago, and I honestly love it. When I’m going against a more competitive table, I’ll run shalai, but against a more casual table I (normally) rule 0 retaliatory griffon as my commander and it’s still fun but much more balanced.
Same. Its like "ewww, i'll take one of that"
Sidar is fine. It only lets you draw ONE card no matter how many knights you swing with, and you still need to discard one after. The first eminence commanders were pretty busted, but the idea itself isn't a problem if the effect doesn't SCALE at all. It should only really have an effect that matters in the early game, and teeter off in the mid/late game as just not as good. Like Sidar.
So discarding your strongest knoght and cheating it into play on turn 4 isn’t strong to you? Haha it’s not a discard, it’s a graveyard setup mechanic, extremely strong
@@gaceagain and no matter what, you only get ONE draw and discard. Like I said before. It doesn't scale with the excessiveness of late game.
@@prestonjohnson1537I’ve got plenty of discard stuff in my decks. I normally discard strong things to cheat them back in. My artifact Jan Jansen deck has multiple ways to cheat stuff back from the graveyard. It’s just another resource to utilize.
@@prestonjohnson1537you’re thinking in terms of ability. Oh one card isn’t so bad. But if it’s a good pilot and an optimized deck. That one card could be very impactful.
@@johnnoreau3570 again, I didn't say the ability wasn't useful. I said it doesn't scale. No matter what, with that eminence ability, you only get one draw and discard.
I'm throwing a lot of grouphug draw in my Aclazots deck. I don't care about making my opponents discard to nothing, I just want bats.
It is not about the Commander, It is about the cards around them. For example take out the combo pieces out of shalai and hallar and the deck is more friendlier. Just build a sideboard for powerlevel
I respect your standpoint on eminence but I think its fine on Sidar. I am more annoyed by the engine/fuel design of commanders. I do own Sidar because I love Knights.
Man taught me to build Rowan, then forsake her..... jk, built the deck then hardly played it, not fun, minimal interaction, too explosive
same, played it, upgraded it, realised that I consistently win on turn 4 and took it apart
I built Will and I love it. Like he said, its a lot harder to gain the life, if i make 3-5 life in a turn im happy with that, dont run any of tue untappers either, id rather just play a card thats like, destroy target artifact or enchantment, gain 3 life. I have never built an azorius commander since white is my least fav color but when I saw him I knew i needed to build him. But yeah its just way to easy with Rowan, I wouldnt build her
Built Rowan as a group slug deck amd it's my favorite deck 😈
I like playing rowan and phyrexian Arenas, and the sort of cantrips, so the deck only playas like 5 X spells, and 5 haymakers that are 5+ colorless amd 2 or 3 colored, so I'm never dropping more than one spell, or storming off, also punisher cards give you upside of ramping, so good tip for making it more "fun"
@@W4llh4k thats a good idea, similar to my Will strat. You can play with busted commanders as long as you make the deck in the right way so its not overly oppressive
I built a Shalai and Hallar deck simply because all the tables around me play at a higher more competitive level and was openly being specifically targeted by certain people. After months of trying new tech, decks, tweaking, and play I got tired of having not won a single game so I decided to make something new and cheesy.
The Result: I should have gone 3/3 (missed triggers on the first game and misunderstanding on keyword definition meant I would have won, won the second game because an opponent was about to go infinite and no one removed the combo so that meant there was no removal and I beat them to the punch, and at this point I realized I could win/hold my own so took a step back, played more relaxed, and threw the 3rd game but we all had fun) With friends or more casual groups I swap out the commander for Bright Palms or also house rule Retaliator Griffin as a commander (or if I have time swap out the combo cards for card draw and land). Is it strong? Yeah. Is it easy to build? I mean I am not a great player but I found success with it so yeah. Can I understand why people wouldn't want to play it? Yes, but I like it and so far no one has said they don't like playing against it, so I think I will keep this deck around for a while or at least until folks start to complain.
For my club, we play tough decks for casual
i like eminence. I would rather play against an eminence commander than say a chatterfang or ghyrson starn deck that wins on turn 2.
I love videos like this. My playgroup is all about making the best strong sometimes most BS decks and it makes it easier for me to find the commanders i need.
Yeppers. I took the bat and Shalai ideas. Gonna build them up and proxy them to playtest.
I've got 1 friend who likes to counter everyone, 1 friend that plays innocent while they gain a million life, 1 friend that likes to pop every card that i play and get my life low when im not a threat, and another friend who has a crazy obsession with going infinite or being chaotic. Ive been waiting for a tap/untap commander for so long, and with all the bs that my friends play, i will gladly play hylda without hesitation.
Working on that one now, as well. Our group will entertain any new deck a couple of times to stretch its legs. I have a couple I rarely play now (Toxrill and Tergrid) because of the salt they induce. But they let them out at the beginning for test runs.
Still don't know why Golos is banned in Commander, but Rowan is legal killing you really fast. This card is not really starting the commander game...
That’s because Rowan players are very easy to kill off the table.
The more i watch the commander quarters the more i realize hes just one of those whiny casual thats never played cedh
When someone has a problem with cards like CONGREGATE being played as too powerful they don't seem like the type of person fun to play a game with!
My first ever commander deck had vanilla creatures and other draft chaff. The card my opponents laughed at was not the vanilla 6/6 for 4gg but congregate.
To be honest I kinda think you are wrong (if it is even possible since it's personal opionions lol). I think the beauty of casual commander is that you arent forced to build super optimized decks. You don't need to build some kind of combo Rowan deck where the point of the deck is to finish the game with some cheap combo every time. Why not build a deck around her ability to cheat some big creatures into play instead? Damn, maybe even some tribal or voltron deck? Same with Will since they are very similar.
He literally says he knows you can build some of these in different ways but him being the player that he is he is going to want to build it that particular way. That is why HE personally doesn’t play them
I hope there are more Eminence cards to support the tribes that need a boost. Because that's the thing, it HAS to be a tribal to work. All the eminence cards do have a restriction, and it's a deck construction one.
Except the first one.
Shalia and halar has been my favorite commander. I use calix as the secret commander and semi voltron shalia with enchantments that can get pretty nutty.
The Shalai and Halar complaint is a weak one. "If you make 20 tokens you can put counters on them".....if you make 20 tokens, you're likely winning anyways. Is overrun unacceptable for the same reason?
It's easy to build a deck that can win fast/easily. It's more fun to build a deck that can win with flare.
I haven't played MTG in ages. Interesting to see you and other players favouring non-instant win/non-annoying decks. Last I played, that's all that was around.
All depends on your play group. Definitely still plenty of people with oppressive decks especially if you are playing with randos but if you only play within a certain group and you constantly win because no one else wants to build that kind of deck or play that kind of game it gets not fun pretty quick
Commander is a lot more about having fun with board state/playing through multiple cards than always just going for the fastest win. Not always, and definitely depends on your play group, but people are a lot more interested outside of Competive Commander (cEDH) for that over Thoracle combos and turn 3 wins.
i keep decks that are oppressively annoying to play against as insurance for friends to not play their own oppressively annoying decks. either we have fun in our MTG cold war or the gloves come off and card-shaped hands are thrown. i will never be the first one to play these decks but i will be the second. some people deserve it.
My favorite deck I own is a mono black liliana heretical healer black control deck. It's all about discard and sacrifice. Honestly my friends like playing against it since it changes how they play their decks. That being said my friends are fine with stax and land destruction so high power high salt level is fine just be upfront about it so they can match it.
22:50 "Opposition"? "Thraben Doomsayer" and the notorious "Intruder Alarm" might want tho have a word or two
I use Hylda as my police commander. I police the board lol. It's fun but no i didn't build it super strong.
Eminence is super strong, no matter what. But there should be more but with more of a companion downside. Also, more partner and "partner with" and "background/ choose background" commanders.
Imagine an eminence that says, "only works if you control 'Only' x things" like only Knights or only elves. And they could add "creatures with more than 3 types cancel this ability" to stop changelings
For Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal
1.Waste not
2. Rise from the darl realms
3. Any of those cards that let you see your opponents hand and discard a card
You have a prebuilt prejudice against eminence from other commanders. I am glad you admitted to YOU being salty and not like your last video where you tried playing off "Bad commanders" But let's talk about it. If Edgar and the Ur dragon never existed and this was the first eminence commander created would you have an issue with it? I don't believe so as I have asked this question to several people who hate eminence and they have all agreed probably not. Sidar's eminence mechanic while good is almost not even used while he is in the command zone. You are typically getting Sidar out on turns 3-4 you could use his eminence trigger once before casting him. For Sidar to function he needs to be out dealing that sweet sweet combat damage. Now the fact they printed him with first strike flying and gave a Knight commander access to blue is way more busted than the eminence IMO. I agree Edgar is busted and UR making dragon's cost 1 less from the command zone is kind of busted. Sidar just isn't busted because he will be played ASAP where guess what you can remove it from the game.
Eminence is perfectly fine. Oloro has basically had eminence since forever, and while oloro decks can be obnoxious, it certainly isn't broken. You mentioned leylines, and people play leylines all the time. What about color identity? You get to play more colors than me just for picking a specific commander? Your commander has always given you a bunch of free benefits, just not always something so obvious as manipulating the actual game state from the command zone. In fact, a bunch of older commander cards interacted with the command zone in really cool ways. I would actually like to see more design space like this, where your commander has some sort of minor effect from the command zone, maybe something like derevi that gives you an activated ability so people don't complain about it being "free."
I threw Aclazotz in the 99 of Isshin and when I did in one pod, they all immediately scooped. I was like wait huh? Then they humored me and let me play it out and I saw why. It's so back breaking if your opponents aren't set up.
My cup of tea. Even if I only get to play it a few times.
I really dislike the "team-up" legends from March of the Machine, probably for the same reason I hate Partner... it just feels so, lazy? uninspired? The Two Teferis! meme perfectly describes the set...
Sidar Jabari is stronger than Edgar Markov but weaker than the Ur Dragon. He makes your deck unbelievably consistent with the eminence trigger allowing you to dig past a greedy opening hand, or to find answers (a lot of which are also knights), secondly his damage trigger cheats you in stuff you should not have like the elemental knights, the paladins of directions (northern, southern, eastern, western, and pentarch), returns things removed for a reason like herald of hoofbeats or vadolian wave knight, but best of all he rebuilds you after board wipes really quickly which is something Edgar Markov does not do. Never mind Haakon (who comes with the precon) is actually easy to use in this deck with the eminence trigger.
Heliod gives you access to blue you don't need any wheels Just shit like rhystic study or the MOM Jin-Gitaxias if you flip him and you can flip him for 4 mana when you have 7 cards in hand and you draw cards equal to the amount of cards in hand plenty of ways to just draw cards in blue you mentioned brainstorm Sensei's divine top+reality chip you can just draw the top of your deck with top then for 1 mana play the top from the top of your deck So many ways to just draw cards
Problems at the table tend to arise not from specific commanders, but from general power level discrepancy. Not a single one of these commander decks I would refuse to play against purely based on the commander. Aside from Sidar Jabari who has an eminence ability in the command zone (which I agree is an unhealthy mechanic for the format), most of these other commander-centric decks are really disrupted by cheap and mana efficient removal spells people should be running. If you play into decks of similar power levels as yours and be sure to run a good interaction suite and none of these are necessarily a big deal. There's certainly commanders I'm not a fan of seeing (such as Jonah the Unifier), but I think the only deck that popped up and I refused to play against it all last year was Lightpaws.
I can see the point for all your picks, save for Sidar Jabari. You're entitled to your outrage at 'free stuff', of course, but it is a fact that this eminence ability, unlike the earlier varieties, is bounded, and rather heavily so. I don't think that an early iteration being badly balanced is enough of a reason to scrap an interesting concept altogether. Imagine if we were to judge the existence of artifacts that taps for mana based solely on the moxen and black lotus. The game would be radically different these days if that was the case.
As with anything else, Wizards shouldn't scrap it, but integrate it better into the game. Make ways to interact with it from across the board. And it's quite easy to interact with in Sidar already. You realistically can interact with it, every turn, and for very little investment of your own. Compare to trying to stave off the horde of vampires a fairly optimized Edgar deck pukes out with blinding speed. They're not even on the same planet when compared.
Those are my two cents on the topic.
Come on, mitch, the bat god is awesome. I love magic. I love control. ppl have to learn to play dispell cards in the4e decks . Finally, you don't have friends when you play magic lolo good video.
MTG Commander player: Yeah I don't want to play these because they aren't very fun for everyone else
Yugioh player: If my opponent gets to play a single card I have failed as a human being
Shalai and Hallar is so fun! It combos with a ham sandwich but doesn't need to combo to win. Just an all around fun deck that can go tall with counters or burn people out super fast.
Sounds very... not fun 😅
I have a S&H deck that I intentionally left the combos out of and it's still a ton of fun. Slamming down a Conclave Sledge Captain and getting a ton of counters is a great time with or without the commander in play.
@@therealcamallu Conclave sledge captain is a huge bomb! I've ended quite a few games with it before.
@@cylonsteve2511 eh idk. I'd rather play 2 or 3 faster games than a single game that drags on and on. I like having a strong deck with a solid gamplan that can do the things it's built to do with a certain level of consistency.
My LGS punishes unlimited combos... so I took them all out. It's still hilarious how often I'm pushing a win turn 4 or 5.
I never thought to play Heliod that way and now I kinda want to build a deck around it.
Think I'm gonna try Heliod Eldrazi Wheels
I had a Hylda i just broke because after a few plays, I realized how easy it becomes a solitaire style of play. I rapidly lost interest after that. Ashnod's altar plus Opposition? You win.
Heliod warped eclipse should not work during your own turn. Blue white has enough draw that a 10 mana discount is basically "play my entire deck" but they also have enough instants that are totally fine if a commanders effect said "cast for free if your opponents draw too many cards"
As someone who built Heliod before official release (and still plays him) yeahhh your table won't like him. My table doesn't like him. I love him tho 😂
I can understand the saltiness towards eminence but tbf towards Sidar Jibari his is by far the least offensive. The biggest offense towards the old eminence commanders besides it’s uninteractable is that you don’t even need to play your commander to get insane value from it. In Sidar Jabari’s case you actually have to cast him and have him interact with the board to really get any value out of him to begin with. Otherwise he just becomes a really meh looting ability, which I guess is better than nothing, but you’re also in blue so it feels even more unnecessary.
About the only time I watch this channel anymore is to listen to him overreacting negatively and crying about cards. Used to be such a good channel before his format swapped to the click baity cry about stuff junk he does now.
Heliod had been so much fun lol. Cost reduction is cool, but everything at instant speed is too insane. No wheels. More of a "group thug".
5:41 me over laughing in Jin-Gitaxias at aclazotz. That’s some nice card draw you got, get rid of it now.
I get the "too easy" comment when it comes to shally and hally. Even in cEDH, it was easy to build and easy to pilot, even if it is a B tier deck in the format. I still love it though and its actually decently cheap to build and can stand up to tough tables
Lol I waited the whole episode to see what broken shenanigans he would come up with as to why he won't play Sidar....and it's just eminence lol. All the others are "I go infinite or kill you in one shot"
Play them. Why not? Blow them out after a few losses. Get your 25% of the wins. Then play something normal.
I mean aclazots goes well in a syr Konrad deck and would trigger things when creatures are put into graveyards and or dies
9:36 Absolutely Busted. I built it pillowfort, giving my opponents lots of cards. Leaving them to fend for themselves killing each other while a instant speed respond with enchantments and artifacts. Mono white but w/ with Folio of Fancies, caphalod coliseum, and academy ruins
Commanders I won’t play: any “outside of magic” IP commanders
My biggest problem with a lot of these cards are that they are obviously designed for commander but printed in non-commander sets. Its always rough when your sealed rarers are taken up by these kind of cards.
Buy singles, don't play sealed? Not everyone drafts and WotC doesn't cater to those who just play one type of MTG. Nor are they going to not cater to the format the majority of players are playing. (Commander)
@@AngelusNielson I absolutely play all of the formats. And when its a standard set it should cater to all players, im not complaining when your specific commander sets are designed for commander, im complaining when sets designed for standard or stuff like modern horizons 2 are catered towards commander.
@@vegatablesoup6409 "I'm complaining." No, really?. It's clear you're in a high winge because... I don't even know why. Wizards want everyone buying every set irregardless of how they play MTG....
Crap i have 3 of these commanders! 😅 Sidar is so freaking cool though!
Everyone hates discard until it saves them from the inevitable shenanigans of combos
Li-Fly-ink? Seems too close to be the new Flample. Maybe FlifeFlink?
Seems like there mjst be something wrong with me
I like plahing stuff that is unfun for a litta people
Yeah i don’t make commander for other people lol. I prefer the challenge of having a target on my back.
>my 20 card board wipe deck
Me laughing in child of Alara
Sounds like your playgroup really doesnt like wheels
I have a guy in my play group that play Shallai and hallar and I don't get how he plays it, it's so boring
You don't know this but u are inspiring lots of casual players lmfao bro I love this episode I love playing against hateful players lol don't mind losing and the ppl that do this are a good challenge lol magic is magic
He runs a budget commander channel so I’m sure he figures he’s influencing a lot of casual players. It’s also why he clarifies that he’s not saying to not play these just that he doesn’t for whatever reason
Thanks for a list of decks to piss off my friends with.
Are there any actual gameplay videos on this channel anymore and proof of decks in action?
Probably not. Just always saying what he doesn’t like.
why do so many cards spell complete as compleat
It's the specific process of Phyrexians turning their organic bodies inorganic.
Thats what the phyrexian transformation process is called. Compleation
It's an archaic form of the word complete that leans more towards 'to perfect'. The Phyrexians consider compleation 'making life perfect'.
Don't you lose with the red terror and shalai? Both those effects aren't may I thought if you made an infinite combo that you can't stop that you lose (or tie or something?)
If you kill your opponents, you win. Therefore you progressed the boardstate and the game ends at that point.
I love Shalai and Hallar! I got the precon it was in and swapped it with the face commander because it's just so much cooler and better. I absolutely abhor infinite combos though so I refuse to put them in my decks. Without those I think it's perfectly fine. I don't understand why people are so sensitive and try to dictate what people can and can't play. In a lot of instances it just comes off as childish, and maybe this is not the game for them.
I think Commander is truly not for most people.
I think it’s important for everyone to have a power level that that want to play at. I’m not going to go as far to tell people what they can and can’t play because people can do whatever they want but at the same time they can’t automatically expect me to play with them when I know my lower power deck is just not going to be able to stop them and I’m going to spend most of the time watching them play
This is why the turn 0 talk is so crucial in Commander.
I'm in the same boat! Have a S&H deck that I left the combos out of and it's still such fun :)
I didn't know what I wanted for Christmas, so I threw on the backup precon last second, and I'm just gonna keep it as a precon, but just play it with Shalai and Hallar as Commander.
i play aclazotz on heavyt blue players :)
Wilds of Eldraine is very overrepresented here.
It's Flink.
HEY! Drop some respect on my Rowan 😭
I flat out built Rowan (my daughter's name) and have enjoyed it a great deal. She's wildly deadly, and can kill the group in around 4 turns consistently. But as Rakdos, our rather competitive group (not CEDH, but high powered) has a lot of interaction, and that makes it easy to fizzle Rowan out if you aren't careful.
Will, however, is one I'm also working on, and I love the life gain mechanics for him. He's also heavy stax and has a LOT of interaction (counter spells, etc), so I think he will be better received and more overall fun to play.
But janking the whole group with Rowan is a blast... literally (Banefire, Crackle with Power, etc).
Look at you taking the moral high ground.
XD VERY FIRST ONE IS ONE IM EXCITED TO BUILD
but completely understand why you and others dont wanna play/go against it.
I guess shalai and hallar modular can be fun
There was no Commander which could defeat my Goblins this Year! After 200 Games my Goblins are undefeated at my place!
I build a Rowan deck and tried it out thinking I would sometimes be able to get off a lethal one turn combo. Oh boy was I wrong. In every single test game I did I got to combo off on turn 4-ish. Of course that is with no interaction but still way too powerful and uninteractive for me. I'll try to build her without a single card which let's me pay infinite life points, maybe then it'll be a fun deck?
Newest add imo to this would be Voja, Jaws of the Conclave. Should’ve just been +X/+X based on number of wolves and had nothing to do with elves.
I’ve personally warmed up to eminence for the most part. I personally don’t like playing against most Edgar decks but otherwise the trade off of playing such a weak commander for the pretty meh effect is something I again personally can totally live with.
flying plus lifelink equals flynk
I builded Hylda when it cames out. I played it once got an OTK turn 6 with budget build around 45$...Commander is broken, i havent played with since. It looks awefull to play against, i actually felt bad winning this game. You just stop everyone from actually playing until you get the OTK.
My boyfriend uses a Heliod deck, and every single time, he’ll win, but the process of him having us discard our hand, draw like 50 cards, putting everything back into the deck, redrawing 7, discarding to hand size, repeat the process…is kinda fun 😂
If only Shalai and Hallar had access to blue I could team them up with Ghyrson Starn... Now there's some disgusting shenanigans
The upside when playing Aclazotz: You get to say "look Ma, no hands !" and all of the other players at the table will laugh alongside you and a great time will be had by all.
Surprisingly, Heliod is more fun as a group hugs commander with Prosperity like effects...EVERYONE DRAWS X CARDS!!! Add in Non-discarding wheel effects and a Smothering Tithe, you can force opponents to deck out in as little as say...2 or 3 turns?
My play group has been fine with Sidar. We usually just do slightly upgraded precon power range though. So I'm not sure how a fully decked out one looks.
I actually want to build heliod, but not as a “wheel into with X mana.” But more as an enchantment commander with a slight wheel subtheme (because who’s just IGNORING that?) I feel green/white(plus any other color) to be a bit easy mode with all the enchantment effects, so i either don’t want green or white. I feel heliod would be good for a windfall into a omniscience with some other wincon. Seems like a fun control deck.
I have an entire color combo that I can’t/ won’t play. In my case I won’t play Sultai, it’s too easy, you have the best ramp, the best tutors, counter spells, graveyard recursion, and most of the best combos/infinites.
it´s funny I played against Rowan decks multiple times now and everyone on the table just focuses on removing Rowan as fast as possible so I never saw it going off
I had a rowan and Hylda deck before, I really like the gameplay but I’m not the type of player that sticks with only one commander. And playing it over and over again became really boring. My pod also hates my Hylda since they can’t blocked or use their artifact rocks.
The shalai card I really hate, esp when you are using it in a casual pod where players just do combat damage and not doing infinite pings.
hmmm idk why but the video title says commanders that you should totally play
I got a friend that plays aclazotz with oppression, painful quandary, waist not and all the Lilliana's caress effects suffice to say it's a very effective deck for him
What an opponent ‘enjoys playing against’ usually isn’t a concern of mine. It’s up to them to make their own fun in spite of my best efforts to beat whatever they come up with.
Flying lifelink flyflink.
Hylda, if you don't make a token, she would be totally useless and underpowered and unplayable.
Heliod is so powerful, I have won CEDH games with Eldrazi Tribal 😅
In defense of Will, Beacon of Immortality is that card that just goes "I gain 30 life, Entreat the Angels"
Heliod and wheels makes Blue Sun into a full-auto nuke for people. Wheel, cast it for 1b for 22, then copy it with one of your now very cheap copy spells, then keep wheeling until you draw blue sun again.
I'm with you on most of these. Sidar is the only one that I might run after retuning the precon, for now it's still a precon. I look at most of them and go "Is this strong? Yes. Will this be fun for the table? Probably not."
I still prefer Bright-Palm over Shalai and Hallar because it's just more fun despite being less powerful. Shalai and Hallar just feels too easy, you just throw +1/+1 counter effects in the deck and it practically runs itself. I have more fun finding my route to the win, even if it means I need to make a bigger board full of threats.
I understand eminence hate (even if I disagree), but out of all of them. You chose the weakest one for this list?
O-p-p-r-e-s-s-i-o-n not opposition haha not usually a grammar nazi buuuuut thats not even close to the same name 😂
I don't have an eminence deck, but i think I'll try a budget brew of sidar jabari. Been wanting to make a reanimation deck too so ill probably lean into that
He is insane to play with, key standout cards are the knights of particular directions (northern, eastern, western, southern, and pentarch paladins), Ayara's oathsworn, pyre of heroes, vadolian wave knight, Herald of hoofbeats, Haakon, and the black and the white elemental knights (they blow things up on etb).
@@mzurran1003 and of course, our boy changeling outcast
@@michaelcollins4534 great inclusion but not as funny as stromgald cabal or order of the sacred torch. especially when you stick helm of the host on them.
After taking a turn 4 loss the other day at a pod at my LGS, maybe some of these commanders have the juice I need to fight back.
gaddock teeg single handedly ruined the day of commander. i took apart the deck shortly after