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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.ย. 2024
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One of my favorite things about commander is you can build 10 decks in 10 minutes (with edhrec perhaps) or spend 10 years building one deck
The real land fall was the friends we made along the way...
This was a cool "How a deck becomes a Soul of Windgrace deck" prequel
As an English professor (no, not THAT English professor), I appreciate Joey's diction, inflection, and all-around well-spoken-ness.
This journey was amazing, thank you for sharing! As they say, a commander deck is never finished. I reflected on the journey of my simic deck which bounced around from the myriad of powerful engines from Tatyova which I changed for not being the power level I liked, to Prime Speaker Zegana. I wanted my commander to give me card advantage (I have an aversion to playing a bunch of draw spells and running a commander that draws card gives me an excuse to cut more vegetables). I LOVED the spirit of Zegana as it being this fantastic payoff for playing fun creatures, and I really enjoy +1/+1 counter synergies. However, I found she was too slow, telegraphed, and linear.
I recently made the switch from Zegana to Volo, Itinerant Scholar with Master Chef and I loved that shift. I got to keep the counters synergy and run a bunch of creatures. I always loved the menagerie style of deck building, but OG Volo wasn't the payoff I was looking for. I did enjoy the restriction of limiting the variety of archetypes to include, and the book the new Volo adds creates such a fun dorky play experience for all players as I get to roleplay a British explorer documenting the discoveries of nature.
Your anecdotes about deck weaknesses really resonated with me. What I learned from my deckbuilding journey was that I really enjoy a self-imposed restriction. Another favorite deck of mine is a blinking Elemental Horde of Notions deck that has the restriction of a Jegantha partner. Now to do everything in my power to avoid turning my dorky legendary good stuff deck into a Jodah deck that will get smacked off the table before I play it.
My friends tell me that what I like is to play with one hand tied to my back xD I see Im not alone on the self impossed restrictions hehe
Welp, this is the most relatable thing I've seen in a minute. I have been on the same journey just with Tatyova mixed in. Titania is my favorite card of all time, such an interesing design.
I am on a similar boat with my Vadrik deck, which currently is a Veyran deck, which then will turn into Anhelo, and from there to Kalamax. The izzet spellslinger core pieces and the landbase allows for the rest to be replaced. I carry the additional pieces all together, in case I wanna switch between the different play strats. Thinking about doing something similar with my Tivit deck, and potentially using it as a Raffine reanimator deck after changing 40% of it. Next on the chopping block are Killian, who is going to turn into Sigarda Host of Herons. Then it's Yawgmoth. It used to be a Tergrid deck that won games but I didn't play many games with her after a while. Now, Yawgmoth feels the same way which is why it will first turn into Braids, Arisen Nightmare and then K'rrik, Shadowborne Apostles. Lastly, Koma, who will turn into Kumena Merfolk.
I'm glad you shared this deckbuilding journey. It resonates a lot with my experience with Commander, which started with a Korvold deck out of all things! So I feel like I ended up falling on some of the same pitfalls you mentioned, only looking at raw power more than anything. I´ve branched out a lot during these years in terms of commanders and strategies and I'm now at a point where I'm starting to value way more things like whacky themes, politics or unique gameplay patterns. That Korvold deck is now a Henzie deck, by the way. Not a big step down in power, but I make sure I blitz out the most dumb funny big creature that makes me happy, even if it's very suboptimal to do =)
I really like this content where you just discuss a personal journey with deck building.
I've been playing commander since 2013, and I have only ever shifted commanders twice.
The first time was with my original commander Crosis the Purger. It was focused on forcing my opponents to discard. As I slowly started to shift the deck to wheeling effects to better bring the pain.
I realized Nekusar would be a better commander, so I made the shift. I nvr really regretted that change. The deck just became so much more fun for me. Crosis always felt like he did nothing, but Nekusar, he just enhanced my game plan!
The second time was much more recent. My dragon commander of choice was Lathliss Dragon Queen. She was slow to get going, but once she did the deck was a ton of fun.
When Myrim Sentinel Wyrm was recently revealed in Baulder's Gate I was faced with a decision. Myrim seemed like a no brainer upgrade to Lathliss. The addition of green solving my ramp problems, giving me access to more playable removal, and the fact Myrim made non-legendary copies of my dragons on ETB rather than simple tokens was insane. This commander would work with all the combos, and interactions I had grown to love with added benefits.
After a few weeks of thinking about it I reluctantly made the change.
Theoretically the deck should have played the same way as Lathliss, but that wasn't the case. I wasn't having as much fun. At first I didn't really get why, but eventually I realized it had to do with Myrim, and not how the deck was built. Myrim's ability was so much more powerful than Lathliss' ability that it made me reluctant to cast any dragons whatsoever without having Myrim out. It's that tunnel vision that Myrim created for me that made me regret the transition!
I absolutely love this episode.
I had a similar journey with daretti into urza into ozgir back to daretti.
Each deck was cedh as stax and casual edh as cheat big dumb artifact creatures in.
Each can do it in different ways, daretti wound up being the most enjoyable for me.
Joey you are so good at these personal essay-style videos. Great work.
I could listen to Joey's non-judgemental, non-condescending explanations all day.
Really enjoyed this video & hope to see more like it in future. From both the EDHREC crew & other content creators too.
I can really relate with your story. I also built a Titania deck when she was released. Then, years later, I converted most of that deck into a Prossh (for Jund color purposes, no real alternative at that time), with Omnath, Mina&Denn, Gitrog, our girl Titania etc. And finally I destroyed this deck (and not yet recreated it) as in the end, only the mechanic and interaction of Titania was interesting to me.
I did the same thing recently turning my own Meren deck into Henzie. Meren just became an oppressive hard to deal with commander that is very resilient while Henzie gives you card advantage and instant value with attacks while leaving you wide open. Some times it’s nice to have a weakness with a deck to make games more dynamic
This is a really cool video. Thanks for sharing. I've had a very similar journey with Omnath Locus of Rage -> Lord Windgrace -> Omnath Locus of Rage -> Mina and Denn -> Slogurk -> and finally Titania. I've even been considering returning to Omnath Locus of Rage. I just can't quit that angry green jellybean and his direct damage. I have also had some interesting deck building journey's with my Glissa the Traitor and Lozhan Dragon's Legacy lists.
I just wanted to say you really opened my eyes. When I had gotten into Magic, I had been bullied and if that was the thing that would allow me to get out and be able to get things out of the way. I just wanted to say that this was one of the best times ever, and I love EDH. Thank you so much.
Er ma gerd, I'm actually in the same predicament right now with my Titania deck! I've had my mind made up to change it to Soul of Windgrace since I've had past experience with Lord Windgrace, but I've had this voice in my head telling me I won't enjoy it as much as Titania. Thanks for this video! I think I'll hold off for now and keep living on the edge with Titania 🤙🏼
Titania is by far the most interesting mono green commander. If I wasn't a sucker for tribal synergies (I need Risen Reef in that deck!) I would build her ASAP
Ah Joey the heart you have put into this one is amazing. Thank you for sharing, I love your content I really really do but this one is on another level.
God I love you Joey! Everyone should aspire to be a magic player like you! I know I do!
I had a similar journey. Started with the Frog, then switched to Windgrace just to try it out. I didn't like that he could be attacked (though maybe I didn't understand that aspect when i built the deck) and I felt like red didn't bring enough to the table. Just made me realize how much I love Gitrog and so i switched back. Slowly Gitrog has become more and more tuned to the cEDH version, but I maintain a "sideboard" that I can swap with the combo elements, fast mana, and tutors so I can play at more casual tables. Great to hear a story like mine from a content creator I respect. All hail the hypnotoad!
I love this video and I can relate to this. My first EDH deck is actually Angry Omnath, and he’s still alive, but the original deck contents are scattered between my two other land decks: Beledros and Slogurk.
I tried turning Omnath into an Elemental Tribal deck, but like you said it lost the soul of what I want the deck to do. I love Omnaths churn elementals and burn elementals style of strategy; it’s what got me into EDH and soon I’ll find the pieces to rebuild him better than ever without losing his soul.
A+ video
I love looking at your old lists. I got into EDH in fall of 2015, and these lists do remind me of that time. How different that format was! And before anyone comes along: No, I didn't say it was better. I'm happy that the curves are lower now, the packages are more efficient now, and the win cons are stronger now. Still. Those were fun times.
My first EDH deck started as Mono Red, then it turned to Naya, then Esper, then ended up ordering Blue with UW splash.
I literally did the same journey! I love titania but instead went into angry omnath then into vaevictis asmadi, the dire and which lead to me building my gitrog cedh.
This was a really enjoyable journey, thank you for sharing it! I really enjoy this kind of content
Nice journey you shared! I got one too when i first plunged into edh world using my friend's deck Ghalta as my firstmost commander. I had so much fun casting a monstrosity so huge that i could trample out any situation i was in. The thing i love it the most is how cheap and fast it could be casted. Even commander tax is not a problem. I was captivated and try to build my own. I tried other deck because i dont want to make something i already played. I thought it was not worth it due to my limited budget. So i came upon my real first commander Otrimi. I had so much fun with him. He hit very fast and hard to block. He did good in 1v1 but in multiplayer, i always lose. His commander tax started out of control on his 2nd cast onward, and i can't aggro anymore. Then i saw someone sold his Xenagod deck and i thought it was good for me. Hard hitting commander that was hard to remove. After few tries, yes he was good. But turned out that i didn't really like him. He went online only from Turn 4-5 and easily got countered. The strategy was summon high impact creature to give iy haste and power like Godo and Moraug. But the deck was not as resilient as i thought. Xenagod was not removed, but my other creature was. I had high risk high return play and i dont like it. I briefly regret my decision to bought him. Them i imagine again more suitable strategy for me. Then i return to Ghalta. Recreate my Xenagod deck for Ghalta and it proved good! I love the playstyle and more resilient than i first thought. I just summoned creatures and quickly put threat on board. I used it many times that my friend frowned when i cast Ghalta. Because my deck could one hit someone if not taken care early. It didnt give me wins, but i still happy with it. Currently my Ghalta deck is disassembled to make room for other green deck. From this experience, i discovered my love for red green color and it stick to me till now.
I, too, have had a Gromnath deck, turned into Lord Windgrace, turned into Titania deck haha. I like the restriction mono green has given!
my deck building journey has spanned my whole time playing since starting in 2020, my first deck was eldrazi because I didnt know what color to approach or how to approach them so decided to do away with colors all together, at first it was eldrazi tribal playing basically all the ones that had some form of utility but at some point I was introduced to my very first infinite combo with top + forge + helm of awakening and tried to build around getting to that combo + infinite mana and for awhile I was really fascinated with infinite combos or explosive interactions alongside with trying out different tribes like dragons, vampires, and slivers all of which I found infinite combos within which made me more interested. I think people started recognizing my pattern before I did that at the core all my decks were the same thing; play draw stuff + mana stuff to go infinite in multiple ways and win. None of these decks REALLY had their own identity and I started to look into other ideas or commanders with unique abilities such as Obeka, Aegar, and Tovolar, the latter 2 I dont play anymore and Obeka took several revisions across months to actually find a version that actually works and doesnt feel like a cheap gimmick. Over time I found my true niche is within Reanimator, at first I tried dimir reanimator with Tormod + Rameriez partners but it was a really 50/50 deck if it would work at all and when it did work it was from a gravecrawler infinite and otherwise did very little else. I learned a lot over 2 years I would discover simic is broken and Aesi isnt meant for casual play, any strategy even energy can work in commander though some ideas work less well than others and it's important to recognize when something just doesnt work well enough, some decks are too good for casual play but not good enough to fight the whole table yet not good enough for cedh and a deck being stuck in that awkward area can be tough to work around, recognizing when your deck is cedh or a very high 8 / 9 is also super important, it's fine to love those sorts of decks but to know when to keep them off the table or when to bring them out. Going back to reanimator though, that was definitely the niche I needed to find, it's definitely the way I enjoy playing and I still find neat ways to implement explosive combos or infinites from time to time and other times I just enjoy games where my deck has strong enough value to win without combos but just great synergy and interactions like my Old Rutstein deck, I couldnt find a golgari commander I liked but I wanted to make golgari so I picked Old Rutstein since he gives me a tiny bit of value every turn but I dont need to build around him, this has become my favorite deck because I can truly build it however I want because the 99 is more valuable than the commander in this scenario. I do still try other ideas from time to time like I recently built a Roon blink deck and a Koma deck that plays all ramp spells and removal since Koma makes my creatures for me, instead of a creature lineup I play polymorph and a handful of really explosive creatures like blightsteel and craterhoof, it's a really fun idea in theory but the OP of Koma and Simic in general tends to overshadow the creative approach I made when building it. At the time of writing this I have 15 decks put together having made 33 decks in the last 2 years and it's really neat to look back and see how my deck building and playstyle have grown and evolved over time and how I continue trying to find neat ways to implement reanimator themes and combos into the decks I build
Amazing idea for a video, and it was done to perfection. Alot of us can learn from your journey with this deck.
I took the same journey that you did up until you were talking about Korvold. Instead, I had already (at least I think I did ... can't remember exact set release dates) switched to Golos when M20 came out. Everything was perfect, I found the commander I didn't even know I was looking for. I was able to play maze's end, dark depths, field of the dead, bojuka bog, all my fetches, plus all the omnaths, gitrog, tatyova, and lord windgrace all in the same deck. That was the most fun deck I've ever had, then the ban happened and I haven't figured out what to do since. I've been playing EDH for nearly 25 years now and that was the first ban that really soured my mtg experience. I've proxied almost all of the reasonable 5c commanders since and they just don't feel right. I'm going to try the new Soul of Windgrace and see how that goes. Maybe the answer is to just return to Titania where the deck began.
Loved your admiration of Magali's artwork. She's one of a select few artists in our fine game who can make me interested in playing a card merely by virtue of her artwork.
Anyway, back to turning my Nekusar deck into a Queza build.
Edit: Also super into your points on empathic play. Teaching new players recently has really reminded me of the value of letting others experience those big plays/cool synergies on their own terms.
I had a somewhat similar journey. Where my first deck was Karador, and I got hooked on dredging, KotR, and other cool land shenanigans, Eldritch moon came out, and I immediately went full gitgrog. I kinda got tired of winning, and everyone played kinda resignedly, so when red came out with cavalier of flames, I knew that switching to windgrace would be everything I wanted.
Now I get to play all the cool red cards like Cav of flame, Omnath, Anger, and KESSIG WOLFRUN.
Saw the thumbnail and realized!”I have all those cards in a deck!! Can’t wait to see what you end up doing with it”. I ended up settling on a lord windgrace self land destruction (but ofc I can point it at opponents but only if I need to)
I've had a similar experience with my artifact deck. When I first learn how to play Magic colourless artifacts really drew me in. When I bought a booster box of Mystery Booster after learning about commander, I pulled a Sen Triplets. I thought they were really cool due to being them selves an artifact, and giving me access to some of my favourite colours. So I built a really bad Sen Triplets artifact deck. But I soon realised that nobody liked playing against that deck. I had always loved the idea of playing a colourless deck, so I build a Hope of Ghirapur deck. It basically just had a bunch of mana rocks and equipment so that my thopter commander could kill everybody. But I always ran into the problem of that deck not really having much staying power and card advantage. At this time I was starting to get more into obscure commanders and deck building, so I built a Tiana, Ship's Caretaker deck, to play this sort of control/voltron sort of deck with lots of pacifism effects. I liked both of these decks, but both still had their shortcomings.
So I actually split Hope of Ghirapur into two decks. The artifact portions of the deck landed themselves into my Sharuum the Hegemon deck, which used my old Esper mana base from Sen Triplets. The voltron equipment sort of parts of Hope Of Ghirapur and my Tiana deck ended up in my Wyleth deck. This was right after Wyleth came out, I felt that his insane card advantage was something I was really missing.
I had these decks each for more than a year I think. But after a while, both also had their problems. Sharuum was the deck I was always tinkering with. As it was 3 colours and Sharuum's ability was generically good to artifacts, I would just play whatever Esper artifacts I wanted to. But at some point I learned how to do Sharuum's combos, and they were the most fun thing to me. To have a grand machine where all pieces had to be moving perfectly to work, where the commander was the central piece. It was a blast. Though after time the deck started to lose its identity. I didn't go full into the combos, but they would come up often enough to where my playgroup was aware of how powerful the deck was. On the other hand, I was still playing all my favourite big mana rocks and other artifacts that were still there from when the deck was Sen Triplets. Once I digitally recorded all of my decks, I realised how throughly confused my Sharuum deck was. But at this time, I had started brewing and building many more decks, and had become good at finding a focus for my decks. It pained me to admit to myself, but Sharuum wasn't a deck that I felt represented me anymore. It had been my longest standing deck. I took it apart.
I also took Wyleth apart. I don't know, something about him just got boring after a while. At least with Sharuum, I would see different cards and probably win unexpectedly and still have a good game. But Wyleth was extremely consistent. He had good mana, a really focused wincon, and impressive card advantage. But nothing about him surprised me anymore. Once the novelty of a high-advantage voltron deck wore off, he just became stale. The cards I used in my Wyleth deck are currently unused. I really want to try building Boros again in the future, but no Boros commanders are really doing it for me currently.
The cards from Sharuum have found themselves in my New Tameshi deck. I wasn't sure what route at first I wanted to go with Tameshi. And since I was so nostalgic to my Sharuum deck, I spent ages trying to get the exact gameplay Ideas for that deck to feel as "me" as possible. I settled on artifact creature aggro. although, this deck does have a quite high density of enchantments, much like my old Tiana deck. I've only really just finished conceptualising my vision for this deck, so I haven't had much play experience with it. I'm looking forward to seeing if I find that I'll really enjoy it. At this stage I am basically restarting my archive of commander decks. All of my current decks are less than a few months old now, and I, and a mad deck-builder, am always looking for weird decks to rock up to game night with.
I'm currently wielding:
Tameshi, Reality Architect
Wyll, Blade of Frontiers + Passionate Archaeologist
Jacob Hauken, Inspector
Esix, Fractal Bloom
Kodama of the East Tree + Ravos, Soultender
Jetmir, Nexus of Revels (Mainly my GF's deck)
Sheoldred, The Apocalypse
If you've read this far, thanks! If you are still at all interested, you can see my ideas and lists on Moxfield: www.moxfield.com/users/Library_Speaks_Volumes
My weirdest deckbuilding journey was probably my FIRST deckbuilding journey.
Having just gotten into Magic (and Commander) in 2013, I immediately fell in love with Landfall as a mechanic and started putting together a list of the coolest cards in the archetype. Many of which just happened to already exist in the just-released Marath and Prossh decks. Lacking any other decent (and decently priced) alternative, Prossh helmed the deck.
The Shattergang Brothers did get to step in for a while, but everyone in the play group hated having to constantly sacrifice things, and that's fair.
I kept finding neat synergies to that I could improve on, though, and eventually the deck morphed into half-Landfall, half-sacrifice combo with Ob Nixilis, the Fallen there as a payoff for a Bloodghast + Perilous Forays + Lotus Cobra loop. It was a mess, and I did eventually disassemble the deck in 2016.
I still love Landfall decks, though, and if I can find the time and focus I'm sure I'll end up with at least four of them in different color combinations. I already have a Naya deck thanks to Obuun, and would like to build a Soul of Windgrace (Jund), Yarok, the Desecrated (Sultai), and a more aggro-focused Radha, Heart of Keld (Gruul). Possibly even a mono-green Titania deck featuring all three of her incarnations.
Omnath has punched many people in the face.
As somone who's introduction to magic was the windgrace commander deck landfall has been my favorite theme in the game. I resonate a lot with the themes of this videos haha
A single minute into the video and I'm laughing at the similarities between Joey and I. I also started with Titania and progressed the same route he did although I skipped Windgrace and went back to Titania before jumping to Golos.
100% Agree. The Titania to Titania Pipeline is real evidently. It can't be coincidence. I went Titania -> Omnath -> Azusa -> Gitrog -> Windgrace -> Titania. Edits - I forgot Slogurk and Tatyova.
I feel like I'm still on this journey. I first started with a Zada, Hedron Grinder deck, and loved the cantrip replication but wanted some additional resiliency. I added a color and went to a Feather deck, that focused less on traditional Voltron and more along token generation and spell replication with Zada and Mirrorwing. After a time I changed the deck to Kykar, with even more focus on token generation, but now I was having problems mana fixing all the individual cantrips and finding Zada for a finisher. Now I'm prototyping a 5 color Tazri deck with Zada and Orvar as hidden commanders, and I wonder if maybe I should just run it back to Zada for that clear, focused strategy. Zada to Feather to Kykar to Tazri, and now maybe back to Zada where it all began.
Casting a X=10 commune with lava in a omnath locust of rage deck is my favorite thing to do. Playing lands from exile, hand, top of library and the graveyard
Thanks for this Joey! I have done a similar journey. I finally settled on archelos "bad" lands. (For now)
Definitely the most interesting commander deck transformation that occured for me, was moving from Lathrill into two separate decks (Skullbriar and Iname), then Skullbriar turning into Ezuri,, and finally Ezuri turning slowly into Titania (I am still in the process of transforming the deck.)
During Kaldheim when Lathrill was revealed, I immediately started putting my bin of elves to good use, and I slowly started crafting a deck more high budgetted deck (for me at the time). But I, being me, have a strong aversion towards popular commanders, so when Lathrill exploded in popularity, I lost all interesting in playing the deck, because it wasnt that unique, it didnt have its own spin, and it was just a bunch of staples- which is fine, I just like having a level of uniqueness to my decks, so each game against new opponents, they see what my creativity can truly bring.
Anyways, I didnt want to just dip out, because I spent a pretty penny on the land base, along with cards like hours of devastation, ad nauseum, and I just ADORE skirge familiar (and everything that three card combo stands for!), so I swapped the commander for Skullbriar, I kept the elf theme, but I replaced much of the sacrificing and Aristocrats theme with counters.
All of the powerful black cards slowly sifted into a commander deck (A deck that I had no intention at the time to spend a lot of money on) was Iname, Death Aspect. And during this time CEDH really interested me, however I have a highschooler’s budget, so my solution to keeping a low mana cost for a Ad-Nauseum deck was to just remove as many cards as possible from the deck, and only have combo pieces. So, I added like 25 spirits, all of which was just fodder for my commander to remove, leaving me with a much higher chance of getting the singular combo-piece. Of course, I built that deck roughly 2 years ago, and its transformed focusing far more on a more casual agenda. Because after a while I just realized I didnt have the budget (and I dont like proxying) for CEDH. So, I thinned the count down to just 13 (The 13 best spirits imo), focusing far more on graveyard shenanigans. And I am still making minor edits to it till this day; trying to just decrease the overall mana cost of the deck.
anyways, that was one side, the other side (the elf side) of the Lathrill deck encompassed into Skullbriar. And it was good, it did its job well. However, I just, it felt boring. It was always the same. It just ramped out, buffed the commander, swung a few times and I sacrificed Skullbriar to draw a bunch of cards. And it got boring.
So, I decided to swift heavily to Simic after I cracked a misty rainforest in a MH2 pack.
The new deck was the experience counter Ezuri, and its good. It’s too evil though, because it focused on elf-ball, I decided to give it a side plot of Permanents-only for Primal Surge, along with a bunch of infect to distract my opponents with.
and it works well, at the time it was my most powerful deck because it could just insta-win.
But after a while, and a lot of like “Dang this commander is just not *unique* enough” (because everyone has seen a elf-ball deck, everyone has seen a primal surge deck, everyone has seen a infect deck), this simic deck was just a bunch of powerful themed stitched together. Anyways, I eventually just stopped playing with the deck. Because it wasnt interesting, it was just boring value. It didnt even have the risk of life-loss value like skullbriar. There was no risk with the deck, there was no uniqueness, there was no *jank*.
Which is why now, there has been a slow exodus of cards from my simic deck into a slowly forming Titania deck…
My only issue is I feel like Titania is too powerful on its own, but I still want a mono-colored commander that likes land sacrificing.
Also Copper Angel is a pet card of mine and i want to throw it in SOMETHING.
thats my rant for the day; thanks for reading!
I’ve made about 6 versions of shadowborn apostles now. Initially inspired by that old game knights video before realizing it wasn’t as fun. After many many iterations I’m currently at a rakdos partner companion list and it’s really fun. The deck helped me learn that you can still keep
Things interesting even with extreme restrictions, and that just because one version of something is more visible or popular, doesn’t guarantee it’ll be enjoyed
Oh man. This journey started as the Roon of the Hidden Realm Precon, which was my first commanded deck ever. First it was Roon, Then it was a really aggressive Derevi blink, flyers deck. That became 2 decks. Edric (which is still Edric) and Roon blink. That deck became a Brago deck which was quite oppressive. That deck eventually became unfun and I radically changed it into a 5 color Niv-Mizzet reborn all creatures blink deck. That deck was fun, but it stumbled a lot. When Omnath locus of Creation came out, I subtracted black from the to get Omnath in the command zone. After that we trimmed red to get where we are today. The present deck is a chulane deck that actually has Roon in the command zone and chulane in the 99.
Started playing EDH in 2015 with Feldon artifacts/reanimator and loved getting massive value/damage out of unorthodox reanimation targets. I then changed it to Alesha because she helped me figure out some stuff gender-wise, but I couldn't find a build that felt as fun as Feldon. I tried out Olivia, Mobilized for War, which was super explosive with giant reanimated threats, but felt too linear. The parts from the previous decks made their ways into Slobad combo, Yahenni control, and Mono-W Anafenza blink.
I eventually went back to Alesha with the release of Modern Horizons 2. Graceful Restoration helped me refocus it into what is now my all-time favorite deck, one now built around Reveillark and Restoration as much as it is around Alesha. And with several new ways to generate value (ex: Jaxis and Ardent Elementalist) and damage (ex: Embodiment of Agonies and Quintorius), it's finally recaptured what I loved about Feldon to begin with: repeatedly reanimating weird cards that do more work than people expect
This was AWESOME!
I have a plan for all 4 of these decks and various versions of them - this was VERY helpfull!
I love adding a bunch of board wipes into Omnath Locus of Rage, swing in with the team then wipe on the second main phase. You can do a ton of damage in one turn.
I went on the same jurney with titania accepted I also tried playing with tatiova in the mix for 5-6 months and every time I go back to the titania build because as you said high risk high reward. I love the all in way she plays
Loved this video! I currently have been working on morphing my Ghave -> Yoshimaru/Reyhan and Kamahl/Prava! The thought behind it was that while Ghave is a fine token commander, what I really enjoyed about the deck was the tokens. From boiling that down, I discovered I really want to build Kamahl/Prava to be more "go-wide" and then split of parts from there for a different "go-tall" deck. I also have a Soul of Windgrace deck brewing with many of the elements you talked about XD. Baba Lasanga would actually be a great fit (considering Braids Arisen Nightmare shenanigans)!
My current gruul omnath deck went on a journey as well. It started as a Zozu the punisher from the prof deck and people just hated me out of games. I turned it into Torbran "dwarf tribal" and surprise all dwarves blow up lands. I realized after a while what I really wanted was a group slug deck and I switched it to a Kloyths deck and added classic stax pieces like trinisphere, smoke, and choke. I really needed a way to finish out games and omnath just made sense, i could still have the game slug away until i had enough lands, and then enough 5/5s to win.
I had a similar situation happen to me with a casual historic deck I tried to make back when Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths came out. See, I love "Nethroi, Apex of Death" and I was certain that he would be a great key piece to a graveyard-based deck which would mill itself then slam Nethroi for a big attack to win games. However, nothing I did really worked as well as I wanted it to. I built the deck and pulled it apart several times, trying to add in other graveyard lovers like "Fiend Artisan" and "Death's Oasis". I even tried adding blue so I could use "Titan's Nest" and "Brokkos, Apex of Forever", but to no avail. It wasn't till Innistrad: Crimson Vow came out with some new golgari cards that I solved the equation. See I wanted to make a "Meren of Clan Nel Toth" deck, which obviously uses cards like "Demon's Disciple" and "Plaguecrafter". I then realized how well those cards work for fueling Nethroi. Combined with something like "Tergrid, God of Fright" and self-millers like "Glowspore Shaman" and "Stitcher's Supplier" meant that 2.5 ish years later I finally assembled a deck that captured the essence of what I was trying to achieve.
Hey Joey Just wanna say I love the videos! Always a great mood-lifter and a great inspiration! Keep it up and I look forward to the upcoming vids!
I didnt switch commanders, but fell love with deck and began constantly upgrading. I started with a budget version of Ayula, Queen Among Bears. I loved the puns and the challenge of making such a limiting tribal deck. Then i went heavy into the protection route, then made the deck more universal. Followed by adding more changelings/shapeshifters (thats when a good chuck got printed). I then took out some of the changelings worrying about having to many not true bears. That lands where i am at now, going with +1/+1 counters while maintaining the lethal commander damage queen pressure, but expand into a better multiplayer game. Im currently trying to figure out which way i should do card draw wise, tossed between three cards riskar's expertise, return of the wildspeaker, and greater good. So im ever evoling with my favorite deck.
I've only done this sort of thing once. My second deck was Teysa Karlov and I got incredibly bored with her after a little while. She got tabled as I built other things. When Commanders Quarters released their budget Alesha I dug up Teysa and swapped her to Alesha. The deck was so much more fun. A year or so after that Extus got spoiled. For Mardu Aristocrats he was better in every way. I got Commander synergy from Sign in Blood, not Reconnaissance. It turns out Extus was exactly what I wanted. It's easily my most played deck and I love it. But I have taken out all of the tutors and combos and play a "fair" 2.4cmc, blisteringly fast aristocrats deck these days.
this is by far the best deck building video !!!...I think that this is the main reason why the lgs environment is less appealing to others due to the fact that most decks just run the same most powerful cards and just try to make the others most misreable with their "lose your fiends" decks...this state of mind of yours when deck building seems to best and intended way to build for commander..I share your opinion on the subject and hope others do too and that we can bring back the fun in edh before caring about winning first
Found this quite interesting. I never do this, I tend to start from scratch. I like Spellslinging decks, but I didn't evolve Mizzix into Kalamax. I'd just stopped playing the one, and then restarted with another. I'm working on two others, Elminster and Anhelo, and both are not the same.
My lands deck is still currently problematic. It was an Omnath deck; Locus of Rage, then Locus of the Roil, then Locus of Creation. Then when Golos came out, I updated to five colour as I really wanted to put Gitrog and Windgrace into the deck. I really love how the deck plays now in five colours, but with Golos banned there isn't another five colour commander that cares about lands. That ban really stung for a deck that didn't use Golos in any broken way.
My first EDH deck was Thraximundar. It went through so many changes that it could fill another episode instead of a YT comment. Basically started as Zombie tribal/edict/Grixis good stuff and is now all about theft. I actually may change the deck to using Marchesa now, but I'll need to test that out before I commit.
Gosh Joey, you really opened my eyes here. I came into the world of Magic, specifically EDH, around Ravnica Allegiance set. My first deck was Edgar Markov because Vampires. Edgar was great and still is a great commander but it wasn't what I wanted. A few months or so after Throne of Eldraine came out and believe it or not, I went for Korvold. I immediately thought wow, what a great card to just put counters on for sacrificing things; completely ignoring the fact of how many cards I could and have drawn from Korvold himself. I've gone through many deckbuilding challenges and growth as a player. I know I want to have fun with my friends and it was a slow thing to learn. I still do have Korvold but Edgar turned into Isshin since your fabulous self made an UTA video on him. I couldn't resist. Anyway, thank you for being open about your process as an EDH player and deck builder. You've inspired me so much since I've started watching EDHRECast content.
I just did this with 2 of my favourite decks to play. I had a Seton, Krosan Protector druid tribal big mana stompy deck that I changed into Raggadragga, Goreguts boss. Because of what Raggadragga does as a commander, I found it to be a natural evolution of the deck. And then I changed my favourite ever deck, The Locust god, into a Malcolm and Tana combo deck. it dawned on me one Saturday evening how much that deck relies on red tutors like gamble after casting gamble and seeing the card I tutored for go to the graveyard. so I decided to add green for more creature tutors. I might have lost out on a couple of win cons, since I don't have the Locust god and Sage of Falls in the deck (they make infinite locusts with Eldrazi shuffler in the library), but finding the Malcolm and glinthorn combo is much much easier now
My current weirdest deckbuilding journey has been with Edgar Markov. My first commander deck was Edgar Markov. He was powerful but I was more attracted to Orzhov as a color combination so I removed Edgar and Red from the deck and went with Kambal Vampires. Kambal was drawing too much aggro so I switched to Obzedat, Ghost Council. Eventually I realized it had a powerful token theme, so later when Krav and Regna came out I immediately switched to them. Eventually I started cutting the vampires who didn't make tokens, and then all of the vampires so it became a pure token deck. A few years later I missed playing Edgar so I rebuilt and revamped the deck (pun intended) and kept Krav and Regna as a separate deck. Now I have another Orzhov in Lurrus and am trying to make that deck work, with as many CMC 2 or less cards as I can.
As a player whos first deck was Teysa Karlov, I definitely know what its like to be a threat from turn 0, for good reason. There was a time I used to play to win. Now I play to laugh. my favorite card used to be annointed procession, now its mystic reflection lol. which says a LOT about my journey as a player.
What a video. I had a similar journey with my first ever EDH deck I built from scratch, Zaxara. I was brand new to MTG at the time, and I wanted a commander that was different from the Precons I had owned at the time. Thinking back now this is very funny because Zaxara also came in precon, I just didn't know this at the time. So I set out to build a new deck using the Professors deck guide (th-cam.com/video/1jO2fmsef0g/w-d-xo.html) and, of course, EDHREC. I did build the deck, and it was very fun. I loved the deck so much, I pulled apart my other decks to add upgrades to it.
This is where I think I learned my first lesson. Zaxara is a commander that has a 1 card combo with Freed from the Real and Pemmin's Aura. I only owned Freed from the Real at the time, but I added many tutors in my deck to increase how quickly I could find the combo to win the game. It honestly made the deck too strong for my friend group, who were all beginners at the time. I think I even drove some of my friends away from magic for a while just because of how consistent and fast my deck was. Also, I realized the deck stopped being about Hydras, when that was why I had built the deck in the first place. But the quick wins were so intoxicating, it took me a long time to realize what I was doing. Unfortunately, even before I could self nerf the deck to better match my play group's power level, disaster struck.
So because I was a brand-new player to MTG I wasn't as well versed in how the rules worked exactly, but this was something I really enjoyed learning about. And one day I found out that many of the cards in my deck didn't actually work with my commander. The issue was with cards like Elemental Bond, where you would get a trigger if a creature of a big enough power entered the battlefield. So when ever I would play a big hydra, my commander would create a new token hydra and I would get to draw 2 cards. But Zaxara is worded in a way where the counters are added AFTER the token enters as a 0/0 which means the token doesn't trigger these effects. Unfortunately, many people's decks on EDHREC had these cards in their deck, so this wasn't my idea, but this bummed me out anyway. Having the double card draw per hydra was my favorite part of the deck, besides combo winning. So now neither of the things I liked about my deck were possible to do, either from a rules perspective or from a pod health perspective.
So I started again and built the deck list from scratch using a guide made by Aristocards (th-cam.com/video/My9gzWWRNRM/w-d-xo.html) to focus on X spells and to focus on flash. And I had even added many of my own twists to this deck idea. Unfortunately, I no longer found this deck to be as fun anymore. The deck now became too focused on playing at instant speed and countering spells, and strayed away from the mana ramp and big X spell casting theme of the deck. So I slowly retired the deck and started playing other decks instead.
I had a brilliant idea one day. I thought about how many really cool hydras are in red and how Hydras actually started in the color red (look it up) I wished Zaxara had the color red. But I didn't want to add the color red to Zaxara or make some kind of proxy. So I came to the conclusion that I wanted to build my first hidden commander deck. But what commander to use. That's when I saw the partner combo Vial Smasher and Kydele in edhrec's X spell theme page. This was such a great idea in my mind. I would get to play Zaxara and Kydele and Vial Smasher would keep my opponents busy in the meantime. Plus, if I am tutoring my commander with cards like Chord of Calling and Green Sun's Zenith I might as well also add other creatures that work well with X spells like Zaffai, Rosheen, and Nyxbloom. Also, red had some really cool X spells that Zaxara couldn't run like Crackle with Power and Lavalanche, and HUGE rituals like Jeska's Will and Mana Geyser. After adding effects that essentially did the same as Zaxara (Metallurgic Summonings, Shark Typhoon, Manaform Hellkite, and Deekah) I had a pretty consistent deck. Now I no longer had to worry about an Elemental Bond type card, and the deck had enough damage to kill everyone without a combo.
I actually stuck with the deck for a very long time. I was very satisfied with the deck and build, but now I just didn't like the feel of the deck anymore. It felt too complicated. There were too many steps before I got to do the interesting things I wanted to do. So I went back to regular Zaxara. And it was REALLY TOUGH to go back. I loved the new red cards. I think me moving away was a good thing. Because this deck had again deviated so far from Hydras and 1+/+1 counters that It no longer felt like a Zaxara deck to me. But I will say I will probably go back some day to my partner pair deck (Have you seen Shivan Devastator, it's so cool). It was a lot of fun to rebuild Zaxara again. I got to add some new deck building spice like Urza tron lands, and now I have the combo and a tutor in my sideboard as a way to power up my deck if I ever have to play against stronger decks.
So many parts of this deck feel so nostalgic to me. Alchemist's Refuge from when the deck was flash themed. The X draw spells when one of my commanders was Kydele (even have her in the deck). Anyway, thanks to anyone that actually read this far. Here are what I have left from my deck lists. I think I changed some things retroactively, but I can't check if I have.
OG Zaxara: www.archidekt.com/decks/732337#Zaxara
OG 4 Color Secret Zaxara: www.moxfield.com/decks/UBdEI70AEkGYeXJLhy65zw
My current Zaxara: www.moxfield.com/decks/HhF36-0j8kmoe2zp-U44wQ
Mine would be with my Osgir deck. From the precon, to the combat, to equipment, to stax, to artifact, to now being an Oswald Fiddlebender deck 😅
I accidentally changed my Group Hug decks into a Stax Light deck.
Long story short, I built K&T when their pre-con came out. It was almost a pure Group Hug deck and the only way to win was to draw everyone out. Inevitably, the "I don't like Group Hug decks because it makes the best deck win faster" guy showed up and beat me down. This made me add more removal, pillow fort, board wipes, etc. This kept happening so I added mill effects to actively try to win.
In the last evolution of the deck, I figured out that the way to make people draw a lot but not speed them up was to add Rule of Law/Damping Sphere effects. I also had 6-8 Counterspell effects in the deck. Thats when I realized I wasnt having fun and neither was anyone else.
Side note: If you're that guy who thinks the next level move is to plow over the Group Hug deck, you're part of the problem. By saying "it only makes the best deck win faster," your assuming that deck will win anyway, so why even play?
I love this story. I had a similar lightbulb moment about a year ago. Anyone can win with powerful cards; I wanted to do something interesting, flavorful, less powerful that would let the game develop into stories, not rush to its conclusion. Sure, I have a few of the most popular commanders, but now I also have more than a few with under 300 decks on EDHrec. My next Jank adventure: Can I clone Lymrith, Desert Doom enough times to have a 1 dragon army and a board of non-legendary copies? I don't know, but I'm going to find out!
I went Kwain Group Hug, to Chulane Group Hug, to Chulane Control, to Kwain Control. Now it is a counter balance/ time walk deck. All the cards are about time. Suspend, temporal mastery, walk the aeons, time warp, time wipe, predict, telling time, timetwister, so on.. to match the flavor text on Kwain.
My shadowborn apostle deck went from Athreos, to Shirei, back to Athreos, Lurrus, Taborax, back to Athreos. And that's just considering the commander changes!
Haha thanks for tips, I'm going through that process right now!
had a very similar situation switching from tatyova to omnath locus of rage then omnath locus of the roil then back to tatyova/aesi. still the same objective with lands but I loved tatyova bc of the draw/ramp effects then drawing into a win con or infinite combo. The angry jellybean didnt have as much draw and was more beat down focused. Then locus of the roil was a weird mix of the two with an elemental subtheme. Now with more printings of wincons in simic landfall I've found my way back to tatyova/aesi.
I have a nekusar deck that I've kept constructed since 2013. But boy is it a different animal from when I got it first goin
I did this before with my angel tribal deck, it went from Gisela to Lyra to kaalia then back to Gisela
First of all, thank you for putting this struggle into words. Secondly, stop copying me. I had the exact same journey (Titania-Omnath-Gitrog-The Lord-Korvold-Soul of the Lord) with landfall decks except that I only played Gitrog a few months before my Lord came out and I jumped onto that quickly (I don't much care for remove on sight commanders anyway). When Korvold came out, I saw that it was objectively better and swapped it over. I didn't get out of goldfishing it before I realized I hated its playstyle and just gave up on landfall hoping that one day a new Jund lands commander would appear. I was so enraptured at the second coming of the Lord that I made a decklist the day I saw the preview.
I just built a baba lysaga deck because of your videos, Joey, and I really enjoy it. I had almost all the pieces and hadn't really enjoyed a landfall strategy before, even though in theory it's all pieces I like.
I tried a Tatyova Benthic druid deck, but it was honestly too good. Getting the automatic draw and life gain from lands just made it too easy to go hog. I had the whole table gunning for me and board wiping multiple times and they couldn't stop me because I had so many cards and so much land. I took that deck apart after that one night because it didn't feel like a challenge. It almost felt like I was cheating, or everyone else was playing with one hand tied behind their back.
Baba Lysaga though, feels a lot more like a puzzle to solve. What do I play and what do I sacrifice? How do I maximize what I get from the cards in the deck?
In Tatyova, I could throw in basically any green good stuff cards, and it was fine. In Baba Lysaga I have to think a lot more, and that's fun.
I made basically this exact journey, except I went from Lord Windgrace Commander to Lord Windgrace Oathbreaker.
I think I've had a similar story, except I made my first lands deck with Windgrace then went down to Gitrog, then switched to Omnath, and now am considering switching to Soul of Windgrace hahaha
You know the cool thing about magic is you can have your cake and eat it too... I had that R/G omnath deck, then the 4 color jelly bean omnath came out and I was like, WELL I want that deck too, so I built both,lol right now I have 4 lands matter decks, Omnath Rage/ omnath jelly bean/ Aesi / Tatyova. Wind Windgrace and Gitrog are both on that list to be made, different commanders play differently even tho they have majority of the same cards and effects.
My most changes i got with haldan and pako:
1) it was a combo flicker deck
2) to a copy, reflect and flicker deck
3) to a xyris combo and controll deck with all the fun things from second point
4) to a xyris wheel,
5) to a xyris pump
6) to a grouphug
7) to know a chaosgrouphug deck.
I had so many cool cards in these colors but it feeled allways like a hardcontroll deck.
Esp cause pako had so much value that it needed to be removed.
After swaping to xyris it was better but i still had so many removals and Interactions that it just seemed more harmless.
After going to wheel it feeled more fair, but it had not the punch i needed him to finish the game (i bought my first singel cards way later and had my weard pride to build with what i get)
So then it was a onepunch and draw your next onepunch deck. Not that funny for my mates. Better then hardlock fullcounter everything and flicker those spells back. But onepunch to just next round maybe punch the other two was not solid.
So next is grouphug and it feelt better. It still needed one more thing. CHAOS!
And yeah thats fine now. It does what it suposed to do and yeah it might be mean sometimes, but everyone can still play the game. I just might switch things around. Btw no i dont play the locks neither those cards that just need a long time to resolve.
I did a similar thing with my Meren deck. It was my first commander deck ever and i built it up to cedh levels. But then i got bored with it because it was too powerful and always looking for the same win condition. So one day i found and idea for it online, (wish i could remember who's it was to give props where due), but i changed the deck to just be based on mana value 4. Essentially, majority of creatures in the deck are mana value 4 for a specific reason, (i'll let you all guess), It has become alot more fun to play for me as well as play against for my opponents. Its still powerful but not as oppressive as my last version.
I really wanted to have a Azorius Flying Tokens deck. Yes, I wanted to have this specific. It was the first commander deck idea I ever had so I wanted to accomplish that.
First off, with a commander that isnt really working with that idea, being Lavinia, Azorius Renegade.
I quickly switched it to a Isperia, Supreme Judge deck.
Again I wasnt happy, I switched to the Isperia, Inscrutable for a short time.
After that with the release of commander legends we got Prava/Siani which finally let me accomplish what I really wanted: To have a bunch of fliers. But it still wasnt feeling right.
Some time passed while I wasn't really happy with the deck. I tweaked it a bunch but it never worked right, but i could feel the potential.
And then Elminster came out. A commander which itself can make a bunch of flying tokens. Also its a planeswalker commander which gives you carddraw and also costreduction for all your stuff. And the flying tokens can protect your commander so good. It all came together and now I finally have the deck I wanted so long.
I had a similar situation with landfall decks as well. I started with Gruul Omnath which i liked but i wanted to try something new. I switched to Tatyova and the deck became combo/control which i didn't really liked. It had all the landfall cards from Omnath with control and better draw. It was more powerful but not my piece of cake. Then i switched to 4color omnath. Oh boy, this deck really kicked ass. It also kicked my brain and all the ETBs made me do maths all the time and i didn't enjoy it. Then i switched back to 2 color omnath and then i changed it to Damia, Sage of Stone because i got bored of Omnath (again). Damia added black to the mix for all the big splashy black (ad other) spells, cabal coffers combo with the Tomb but then i was like "this isn't for me". -_-
Now, i have all my staples for landfall decks laying around and i have no commander to run. Then i thought "what about Titania?" So, this is what i will do. I will make my first Titania deck and i have a feeling that i will love it!
My second strategy that i had back and forth was zombie tribal. My deck started with Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver which turned into Ghoulcaller Gisa. Then i turned her to Varina which turned to Sidisi (sultai), to Grimgrin. I tried Scarab god for one game but meh. I now have my deck with Grimgrin at the helm and it is the most fun i have ever had with my zombies.
Generally, your video made me feel good with myself because now i know that i am not the only one with such changes of mind about their decks. All of us go through different thoughts about our strategies and it maes me glad. All these experiences transform us and sculpts us in to our current selfs!
I kept brewing landfall decks, Phylath, Windgrace, Chulaine, Karametra, Windgrace (build that one, love it)....and currently looking and probably building Omnath Locust of the Roil and even Ashaya.
What I have learned is that even though the theme is the same, you should try to incorporate a subtheme so that the decks still play/feel a bit different.
My omnath deck will have elementals as a subtheme obviously. But Chulaine will try to use as many legendary creatures as possible because well...his name is Chulaine, teller of TALES.
Ashaya is a forest matter deck. So I will put in elves, treefolk and green elementals. No Garruk's packleader. So i am giving myself building restrictions.
Regarding Windgrace, that is simply a value engine with a lot of different wincons like you said. And i have not build an actual subtheme with him, because i want to win with it. But on the other hand, I only use it in groups where they play higher powered decks/efficient decks. So not vs precons and the like.
In regards to building "mean" commanders like Gitrog without even trying to make them that way. I had a Nekusar deck that I tried to build not mean. But it just begged me to include wheels and other multiple draw stuff or it just wouldn't perform at all. So it was either mean or wimpy. So I switched to Seizan, Perverter of Truth. I was still able to play the draw/damage game without it automatically being degenerate. Now that the new Sheoldred is coming out though, I've been contemplating switching Seizan for Sheoldred. But now I'm remembering that Nekusar deck and how it made everyone feel. So, while I may put it in the 99, I don't think I'll be running Sheoldred as the commander. Putting it in the 99 though, I can easily switch them if everyone wants to play a mean game.
9:40 the funny thing is this is the first video I saw of you and what you said make me respect you. Self reflection is hard and changing even harder.
I personaly want to have fun and easy is not fun not that winning is easy but the race to make a better stronger and faster deck make it lose is charm.
I've never had that trouble, mostly because it's the highly-specific ability of a commander to do highly-specific things that makes me want to make them to begin with. Korlash Grandeur is irreplaceable, no other Grandeur card has even that one nonsense combo. Hazezon hasDesertfall and leads to at least 16 cards difference for any landfall deck. Nevinyrral ends up half zombie and half aristocrats but no other deck fixates as hard on huge zombie blowouts. Swapping any one of these would mean basically starting over.
Not a real journey, per say, but I had an Anje reanimator deck with speed and huge Eldrazi's. Then, last week, I built a Jodah colorless deck and moved the Eldrazi's to this deck. I was like... hummmmm my Anje deck is screwed now... or not. I looked up for other options of big creatures and found my Ancient Brass Dragon, my Elder Brain, and stuff like that. The deck is less powerful but sooooo much more fun to play, now ! I love it
The moment you realized the switch from windgrace to korvold would be better seems to me like a (subconscious?) realisation that the deck was becoming way closer to cEDH. Meanwhile my current deckduilding journey upgrading my cEDH dina deck to be more competitive and have a higher win density, see what feels good and in the future think about playing minsc hulk or abzan hulk. That's for later though cause i just got the cards to put the basic BG hulk line in dina and haven't played a game yet.
I build a Borborygmos enraged deck, buy the naya obuun precon deck and take out all the white cards. that first version of borbo was really explosive but not reliable at all so I decided to actually test the Obuun mul daya ancestor (wich I had dismantled as soon as I could) and it tourn out to be real fun, specially adding a Realm Razor. But now, like three months ago, I rebuild the borbo, better, faster and stronger. a Journey of taking in and out the white "land matters" and focusing on gruul. sorta.
Something similar happened with my Sai, since i love tokens and wanted an artifact deck he seemed perfect and it was, but monocolor has a lot of limitations and i was in an highly competitive group, so i switched the deck to alela, at first i tried to keep the artifact theme but it didn't work out the same so it was switched to a more control/stax deck, but it just wasn't the same and it was slow and never impactful enough, also neon dynasty came out and so many of the new cards supported Sai and i was excited about the cool synergies with sai so i rebuilt the deck recently, and found many of the problems came from my own flaws as a deckbuilder as this new version feels more streamlined and focused, and i get to enjoy the original synergies which made me love the deck, also i found there's a greener on the other side syndrome, when i swapped to Alela it was because i wanted many of the synergies other colors offered without realizing those synergies could only work with Sai and not Alela, i wanted Sai to be more powerful no to replace him and that made me realize he was the right commander for me even with his weaknesses, which would get fixed as more support was printed
Lol, I'm literally in the process of going Titania to Lord Windgrace rn. Felt like Titania just could never have enough card draw to not fold to boardwipes
I find that morphing one deck into another rather then just building a new deck tends to be the death knell of that deck. It might last for another 6months or so as I morph into different commanders and/or themes but that tends to be it.
Daretti to glissa to shattergang to Yidris (yes I played artifacts, not storm) and… back to Daretti, which is currently being converted to meria. I like artifacts I just have a hard time figuring out what exactly I want to do with them. I like to turtle and be difficult to interact with, but I also need to be able to close a game.
What I learned most is probably that I’m a red player at heart and you don’t need big mana to make big plays
My journey with landfall was very similar! Titania > Omnath > Windgrace > Korvold > Hazizon > Thalia and the Gitrog Monster. I keep eyeing Jund though.... I really hope one day we get a WBRG Landfall commander so I can brew again
My weirdest deckbuilding journey was probably my copy/steal deck.
It started off as Empress Gallina with a bunch of mind control effects but people really hated playing against that so I ended up changing it to Lazav (from RTR block) and going for a copy/ steal from the yard theme
Then I decided to try adding red to the deck for spell copying/redirecting and put original Bolas as the commander
Then Kess, Dissident Mage came out and since the deck was already mostly instants/sorceries and bolas wasn't doing anything it seemed like an easy switch
People generally seemed to enjoy playing against copy stuff much more than steal but this deck had a different issue it was too hard to actually track what I had copies of, especially with cards like Clone Legion.
I got stuck at that point and wasn't really sure how to progress so I just scrapped the deck entirely.
That was a few years ago now and I'm wondering if I should go back to it, perhaps this time focusing on one-shot copying effects (and maybe a bit of borrowing) so its easier to track?
My thoughest deckbuilding journey is and was my yuriko deck. Starting playing commander and building my first deck ever, i wanted it to be as consistent and explosive as possible. No matter what the price would be. It ended with too many tutors, so my casual playgroup said it's just not fair. Not alone cause of commander ninjutsu, more because of the enormous card prices in this deck compared to their decks. So i started it to be more casual, more ninja focused and i tried to play as many real ninjas to call it a full ninja typal. But guess what, at this point the deck didn't work well anymore. But everyone was still focused on me. What is no surprise to me. Yuriko as a commander will always draw the attention.
So i decided to go back, but no all the way. I rebuilt it, less real ninjas, more fast evasive non ninjas. But no tutors. No cards like search your deck and then smash 20 life loss cause yuriko. I use more cards like brainstorm/-stone. It feels more fair, its not that expensive, but it does what i want and need. Topdeck manipulation. At this moment i have some legendary clone cards (irenicus vile duplication) in it, to get more yurikos. Everyone had more fun against this deck than ever actually. And its still not done. There are still some points i wanna work on. Maybe a never ending story. But so far, that's it. And now, im as happy as i never was with it. And that's the most important thing. 🥷
We had the same story except I stopped at gitrog he is my special little boyo
I recently turned my Adrix and Nev deck into 4 color Omnath, I wasn't really happy with how Adrix was playing out. The token strategy was kind of throw out the window and it just turned into a manual Lab man deck. 4 color omnath still shares al ot of the same cards from Adrix but the playstyle is completely different. It feels less like a simic.deck with no real with condition, it plays out a lot more natural and at a better tempo.
Same thing with my Ghave deck, I had a cEDH Ghave deck and I love the deck. It's fun with it's many combo lines and interactions with sac outlets and token doublers, but I played it too much and well, it kinda got boring. I wanted a more of a 'beat down' style of deck. Something that tried to win with hard control and combat damage. So i turned Ghave into the new Xira, it still plays with all the sac outlets and payoffs like Gavepact and some new additions like Mahadi from baldurs gate. I took the approach of adding powerful cards in the 99 and not just win conditions and combo lines, as a deck builder it's easy for me to add a few win cons and draw/tutor power into a deck and have it win. Sure that's easy, but I found myself having more fun with powerful/fun synergies and interactions with my cards and more importantly having fun with the other players.
I have gone from gitrog, to windgrace, to korvold, to titania, to temur omnath, to muldrotha with my lands deck 😂😂, such a fun archetype to switch around