I liked the insight into the commanders printed lately like Xyrus and Tinybones that are very pushed, but also very linear. I feel like Wizards keeps overdesigning commanders, making obviously strong cards that require little thought when deckbuilding, and then they end up never reaching the level of popularity of commanders like Jhoira or Golos who are extremely open-ended
As a stats nerd I would have loved to see the line graph showing the decline in weekly submissions per commander! Heck I wish that was just generally available on edhrec for all commanders. Also, Estrid hit home for me - she's my first commander but I took her apart for every reason you talked about.
That's interesting I took estrid apart (she was my first deck) but I used tuvasa instead just because the card advantage was too useful (it was also when I started to understand how important card advantage really is)
I love my Licia deck! I think some of the reason it's so low in popularity is because you need to devote slots to gain that life efficiently, and then it becomes a huge target once it swings once.
My Mairsil deck is essentially activated abilities tribal, I took most of the combo likes out and now I have a lot more fun playing it bc essentially every game I get a different combination of abilities I can use
As always, the height of my week! Three very entertaining podcasters and entertainers, explaining a wonderful site and the information they get from it!!
I've had this with Syr Gwyn. Never jumped on a deck faster or been so disappointed. She's an equipment commander, not knights, and costs far too much. Lost the red and the equipment, made it Aryel, was much happier.
WHAT! I love Unesh!! He's currently my favorite casual commander, especially with the recent additions of Scholar of the lost trove and Ormos, Archive Keeper from jumpstart. Being able to generate a completely absurd amount of value and play these normally underpowered 6-7 mana sphinx creatures is super satisfying. Also the new thassa and conjurer's closet just feels so good to play with that deck. I'm honestly surprised that he's as unpopular as he is.
Don't know if it was just at my school, but it was VERY popular to run angel edh decks, so my deck was Bruna, light of alabaster and I had a lot of fun with it when she first came out
I still do, though enchanting in UW is more difficult than it was as we don't usually get new additions anymore :(. I'm having a lot of fun with Feather nowadays
As a player of an Unesh NON-combo Sphinx tribal deck, I was mildly offended by your analysis of my favorite Mono Blue Commander. Just kidding! But he is fun and just the right power level when not doing degenerate combos, and he's a good boi that looks like a flying winged goat-dog. I kinda like he's less popular now, feels more unique for me to play him. Great episode! Very interesting takes on cool data. Im going to use this video as a reference for new decks I want to build. New subscriber here. Keep it up!
Unesh was my first deck and is still my favorite. At first it was very casual, but so was my playgroup so it won a lot. Then people targeted me early on and I changed it for it to win faster than they could kill me and it turned into a combo deck. However I like the thought of my deck being the most powerful it can be and like you say, it being less popular means its more unique which feels really good
He's a unique commander and gives card draw and ramp, the only bad thing is he only has so many sphinxes to play with, a lot of them being not that great/too vanilla. I have an Unesh deck, I like it, but I'm probably not going to put any more money into it.
Bill Cypher Someone quoted his vendor citing October for the date. Cardmarket has it still set as end of August, but says they actually don‘t have any reliable date on the jumpstart products.
I was thinking recently about how different the landscape of commander was when I started playing the format. I know it predates EDHREC, but who remembers when Kresh the Bloodbraided was by far the most played commander?
Kresh was an easy budget build, and no one cares too much about the legends in Alara. Most were $1-2. I had Sharuum back then. Also a Sedris combo deck of fun
Joey, two things: -One, you have the best COVID hair of all, perhaps the best hair of all of all. -I'm so happy you started pronouncing "Bant" as "rhymes with 'can't'" instead of as "rhymes with 'aunt'" ("aunt" as we say it in New England).
I really enjoyed this episode, i was in the camp of trying to build vannifar, and i quickly found that the combo was not fun to play, and often discouraged me when i couldn't get to it. For me in genreal, the first time i build commanders i often maximize their tutors and combo pieces, and that leads to me taking them apart. I've since found commanders with diverse gameplay, or at least tool box aspects that encourage interactive games.
Marisil charge counters was pretty fun; its not for the efficiency, but for cool interactions with those Charge counters; making and spending them, and having certain activates that care about how many counters.
RE the question at the end, for me personally it was Emry. She was the first deck I ever built, and whilst I do still have her and play her, I tend to find that it's rarer - both because it's not fun to always do the same play pattern, and people tend to not appreciate you getting the God hand and comboing out turn 3.
Speaking of Unesh- it is an EXCELLENT combo piece for draw, like you said. I use him in my Changeling tribal combo deck to go get my combo pieces and to put the ones that I want in the graveyard (The deck also runs Haakon)
Y'all mentioned the "fun of the table" a few times near the end and I have to say, that is my absolute favorite thing about Xyris. My cousin built a pretty good Xyris deck and it is an absolute blast to play against. He gives the opponents so many cards that the game becomes this crazy race to see who is going to finish first and it ends up being pretty wild crazy fun.
Lots of good DATA, guys! Keep it up. On fun commanders with staying power, I think Pako and Haldan will hold up well. Currently, #211 but is a fairly open-ended commander(s). The restriction isn't massive and thief decks, I think, are balanced and work in any playgroup because your power level is slightly dictated by your opponent's power level.
I gotta thank y'all. I was recently putting together a forked version of my Atraxa Hydra deck using Zaxara as an alt commander, then decided Hydra wasn't the way and started building a dedicated Zaxara deck. I saw Evolution Sage but decided not to use it (I'm making an X spell deck, not a +1/+1 counter deck) and so that's all I considered it for. Never did it cross my mind to add it to my Windgrace deck so I greatly appreciate bringing it up because yes, while my deck does fine without Windgrace, he does make it run more smoothly and I wanna keep him on the board as long as I can. Thank you for bringing the synergy to my attention.
So I just got to utilize Evolution Sage in my Windgrace deck and it helped pull a clutch. I am so happy and appreciative of y'alls recommendation. While it really was everything coming together that enabled the win, the fact that it wouldn't have been possible without the new addition, Evolution Sage, is why I am giving it the credit. I had Evolution Sage, Prismatic Omen, Elvish Reclaimer, and Squandered Resources already on the battlefield. I had somehow missed some land drops (42 lands btw) and had just tapped my 4 only lands and sac'd one to Squandered Resources to cast Windgrace. My opponent had me on the ropes -Hexproof everything Arcades wall deck with two turns for her to win. Thanks, Shalia, Voice of Plenty. I neg'd Windgrace to get the two fetchlands I had in my graveyard, turned them into other lands that I then proceeded to tap into Elvish Reclaimer, sac'ing one to get Valakut. I now had 5 "mountains," including Valakut, thanks to Prismatic Omen. Hexproof everything Arcades player swings in for 16 unblockable (thanks Tetsuko Umezawa), leaving me with 6 health left. I'll clearly be dead if she gets another turn. My drawn card and land for turn ended up being Vesuva, which I had come in as a copy of Valakut. 6 Damage to the opponent. Because of Evolution Sage, my land for turn, the first Valakut, and the 4 lands (2 fetches into regular) had bumped Windgrace back up to 8 loyalty, allowing me to neg him again. The same 2 fetches to 2 other lands. 24 damage to my opponent for just a little over lethal. Thank you so much again for the recommendation. It literally led to me winning the game.
I built an Estrid deck. The points you guys made are the reason I dismantled the deck. Play stax and pillowfort effects. It makes a long grinding game. I started not having fun with that play style and my play group didn't have much fun playing against it.
I'm not convinced by Dismantling Wave now that we have Heliod's Intervention outside of cycling decks. Sure, Wave is more mana-efficient, and Return to Dust and Crush Contraband get to exile (Usually relevant only in a God or Blightsteel heavy meta), but Intervention is just so flexible. The 8-mana mode on Wave is arguably worse than casting Intervention for X=6, there's not many times when there's more than 6 artefacts and enchantments that need to die, and drawing a card is more of a consolation for blowing up all your mana rocks than a real upside. Plus the lifegain mode isn't useless.
For me, the three commanders that comes to mind were Najeela, Jhoira Weatherlight Captain and Yidris. All of them turned out very linear, and two of them ended up being storm builds, so I guess there could be something to your theory of storm boring people. I have to say, though, that it's not limited to storm. Any deck where you end up taking 10 minute turns in the late game to then win will become annoying, both for yourself and your opponents. This is why I've set a rule for myself: The only storm win I allow in my decks these days is Aetherflux Reservoir, as it's comparably faster than any classic storm win.
I have a possible Challenge the Stats. I am new to the site and don't properly know how to look things up, so I may have incomplete information. I also don't know if this pairing was already challenged. If I'm reading the site right, I doubt it's been challenged. As far as I can tell, the card Fortitude, doesn't appear in Korvold, Fae-Cursed King decks. Fortitude is 1G for an enchantment aura. Enchant creature Sacrifice a Forest: Regenerate enchanted creature. When Fortitude is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, return Fortitude to its owner's hand. The idea is to enchant Korvold, and sack a forest to protect him from many if not most removal. Most spells that destroy a creature or wipe the board don't prevent regeneration. At the cost of sacking a forest (which will draw you a card and buff your commander) you keep Korvold alive. Build the deck with decent ramp (and for those who can afford it, land recursion) and you won't have to worry about sacking those forests. When an opponent plays a spell that gets around the regenerate, the enchantment goes back to your hand instead of the grave. You can even just sack it to Korvold when he attacks to keep all your other permanents. Just that alone is a repeatable 2 mana draw a card and add +1/+1 to Korvold on each of your turns. The card is used with lots of green commanders, (even Gitrod) but for some reason isn't used with the Korvold. Am I missing something, or should the stats be challenged?
I run Fortitude in my Korvold deck - it's a great card that I totally can vouch for. When I built my deck, I did a search for all the auras with the Rancor return ability and stumbled across that one. Had never seen it played in 16 years of Magic, but it was recurring sac fodder with its own sac outlet and a way to protect my Commander. I've loved it in every game I've drawn it, and it's driven my friends crazy as they all scramble to kill Korvold but can't because of the regenerate.
Could be because Korvold is Jund so you have fewer forests to work with. That said it sounds like a neat card, I might have to grab one and play it in my Korvold deck and give it a go.
I actually had an Unesh Sphinx tribal deck. Combo’d off with dream halls. Also didn’t use any changelings, was mainly sphinxes. Very fun deck and my friends were amused by all the fict or factions
Honestly Dana's explanation of the deck about how it is "annoying" is exactly why I built Mairsil. I just love the literal thousands of options I have for cards. So many old things I can add and remove just on a whim. Only occasional new things to play with but I feel like there will always eventually be a new activated ability to use. Like Asmodeus that recently came out. There are the most efficient and best combos for Mairsil but getting to use cards in ways they shouldn't be used is fascinating for me. Combos that literally don't work anywhere else.
Mathis is the one I hear of the most for what is ideal as a non blue control deck. And I've had a few friends build him just because someone recommended him as the perfect control commander in non-blue.
Much like there are dragons in most every new set, there are also new activated abilities if one is carefulluy watching. I do think that all except for maybe 3 cards in my Mairsil are pretty well optimized though so I haven't noticed any great fits in a while. More haste was added several sets back.
The deck which fell out of my interest was Riku of Two Reflections, the commander where I first discovered how mind-numbingly boring infinite combos are... ... I soon after built Shattergang Brothers from the remains, and got my butt handed to me from table aggro. Shattergang Brothers are still together after probably the same amount of time when the commander was still new, and I'm still getting new pieces, especially from the Ghired (Conclave Exile) precon. The deck even inspired me to build Slimefoot, so I could experience aristocrats from a different perspective. Both are still nostalgic brews, since Shattergang Brothers has been my replacement #2, with #1 being my Nekusar, and I'm ready to build a zombie tribal iteration, once things go back to normal.
Mairsil while it's often built the same way (and with the same combos) it's actually way less linear in principle than most. Too bad we don't get that many cards with activated abilities lately
Maralen of the Mornsong is a commander that I really enjoyed putting together, but the concept of turning the game mechanics on their head is more enjoyable in mind than in practice for me. Originally it came froma Tiny Leaders deck, and was nice to decrease the viciousness to be a full commander deck (intrinsically gentler). Even so each play came down to a formula of how close I wanted to be to becoming the Table Asshole.
I built Maralen 85-Swamps Adnauseum-combo years ago. Played her exactly once, combined off, and realized that she would always play the same or worse. Stripped it apart after game one. Did that with Crouching Tazri, Hidden Zada, too.
love Mairsil. Ill cage cards with a tone of abilities even if they dont do much just so my opponents get fatigued and stop paying attention to how far along I am.
Okay now that I've seen that interaction between Kothophed and Smothering Tithe, I really want to see someone win in an esper deck by using Fractured Identity on their own Kothophed while they have a Smothering Tithe, so that as soon as anyone can't pay for Smothering Tithe the entire table dies because they all were given Kothophed tokens from Fractured Identity.
Neheb is great, just built my deck and the first game i played i was almost able to pull off 42R mana but when he dies in combat or before that all goes away, looks great under a microscope but the group slugging that he does often makes him a huge target
I think Illuna Apex of Wishes is an underrated commander as a "hidden commander" deck in which you only play a couple key non-land permanents so you reliably polymorph into e.g. Thousand-Year Storm.
So I built a xyris deck, but more focused it on being a snake tribal deck. Yes it has wheels but more on the snake side with a bit of jank stuff in it (ex; hive mind + endless swarm). The problem with the deck is that it’s easily countered by stuff like Elesh Norn, wrath of god, and any deal damage to all creatures spells. I personally have fun playing it, it’s just the deck gets focused on by other players a lot due to the mass army building of snakes. Has potential with Brudiclad, but not sure how to go about it just yet
I ran Vanifar as a Sharktocrab commander deck essentially. And then it morphed into my Animar deck that is now...bordering on Cedh. Vannifar started me towards some interesting times...
I still love my Mairsil deck. I do have five infinite combos that can be assembled, but I deliberately put no tutors in it. Sometimes he just gains a ton of weird abilities (Ovinomancer, Shauku, etc.), other times he just keeps replicating himself (Spark Double and Pack Rat). It plays differently every time. Lots of fun.
@@marvin5342 Getting only the activated ability is what makes it awesome. Cards like Ovinomancer and Shauku have big drawbacks, but Mairsil only gets the good part. And Mairsil is legendary, but the Spark Double clone isn't, so you start replicating that one and get an army of nonlegendary Mairsils, all with the same abilities, and you even add to their abilities as each one ETBs.
When Nikya the old ways was mentioned I had flashbacks of wanting to build it, and I did, but it was shut down to easily by my playgroup. One board wipe and you're screwed. I found out the hard way I hated decks that can be blown out by one board wipe and run into a wall and just stop, can't get back up. I steered away from those decks from then on. On the flip side of things, I recently built a Brallin/Shabraz deck to be my strongest deck and I'm loving these 2 for the simple reason that it's not just a combo deck. I built it specifically to take advantage of both commanders, meaning I can cast Shabraz, pump him up just by drawing a lot and have him eat someone alive. The commander I go into first depends on my early game, it's not "Ok I must cast brallin first and try to combo" it's whatever is most efficient for me at the time. It's just enough flexibility that I can say I'll keep this deck for a long time.
Bit old, but fertilid is also absolutely bonker with the Ob Nixilis creature card that forces any opponent who searches their library to take 10 damage. Since Fertilid reads "target player", you can force someone else to search their library and take the 10 damage. Assuming 40HP, it takes a measy 4GGGG to kill someone, discounting the CMC for Ob Nixhilis and Fertilid themselves.
Xyris is my funnest commander as i switched from Locust God. My friend built Brallin and loves it. To each his own but those are our main staples at this point.
Mairsil the Pretender is my favorite decks, but i can agree with the issues you pointed out to explain why he isnt more popular. But i will say that the fact that every game is a puzzle that you have to solve is so much fun
I think a really cool episide would be the inverse to this data if theres enough commanders. Commanders that didnt really takw off at first, but did at a later date.
Dana is my spirit guide Legit, when I want to build a new commander, I either head straight to Boros or a random color/color combo and scroll straight dooooown
For me the deck that I played once and never touched since then was Kathril, Aspect Warper. I was very excited at first because I liked the idea of ability counters but when I played it, it just felt like a very linear commander to me. Fill up your graveyard with keywordsoup -> play kathril -> have either kathril or another strong creature become indestructible, hexproof etc -> win. Or you don't get there and then it does nothing. Since you want most of your cards from the deck in your graveyard it also feels like you are playing with very few of them.
I had the same experience when I was playing Kathril. I switched over to Tayam because they allowed me to be more flexible in what cards I picked out of my graveyard, while at the same time being a value engine on its own to get cards into the gy in the first place. I still focus on the keywords so it is not just another version of a Muldrotha deck, and I have loved the changes! I have found that I adapt to each game a lot more with Tayam than I ever did with Kathril, and that makes the deck feel way less linear.
Also I play Windgrace, I had evolution sage in my list for awhile but there is little to no other counters synergies in the deck. It always felt win more and didn't contribute enough on it's own.
I'd add that while Yuriko may not get new ninjas very often, any big spells can also be a welcome addition to the deck and most sets will have some of those.
I think kenrith is the perfect wuberg commander. He is like having a commander that is as flexible as say staff of domination in your command zone is really cool.
As far as WUBRG Commanders, I prefer Sisay, Weatherlight Captain. feels very fun, there's different ways to build her (as a Voltron commander, as a combo tutor, or as value engine).
@@a.velderrain8849 haven't built her yet but she does seem like fun. I was actually considering making an all legendary humans tribal version of her lol. I also have ramos cascade. that one is pretty fun. although it is mostly temur.
@@zealous944 Yeah, I'm building Ramos Charm Tribal and also have a Sliver Hivelord deck as far as WUBRG decks go. I have 2 Sisay decks, one is more competitive with infinite combos and such, the other is a Weatherlight themed deck with all the crew members and cards featuring the Weatherlight like Vindicate and Evasive Action.
I run both Nikya and Ruric Thar in a Morph deck and they are MVPs there. Ruric can be absolutely devastating to any sort of deck that relies on casting a bunch of spells at first. Even taking it down with removal is the opponent risking 6 damage to the face. Pretty good deterrent
My Vilis deck has lich effects for that reason because I'm not ever going to be responsible with my life total and neither are my opponents tho to a lesser extent.
I just want to give a shout out to Hivis of the Scale he used to be the top commander for understandable reasons but now unfortunately, it's very rare to see a deck with him. Even tho there are many more ways to make him viable even as one of the 99 or in his native colour identity habitat. Really enjoyable video ty y'all ( :
I think a lot of the mutate decks will fall off, but Nethroi is a bad example. He's a super unique commander even if you're mutating him on to a vanilla 1/1, and any new 0/0 that enters with counters is something to consider for his deck.
I don't think Xyris will die out, he's just going to be known as Nekusar alternative. The whole reason I ripped apart the mindrazer to make Xyris is cause I can actually play him, isn't he doesn't have the stigma everyone's favorite lich has.
@Jack Absolutely. Just where Xyris is the current threat; Nekusar has a legacy that precedes him. I'd actually argue green ramp makes Xyris actually stronger then Nekusar, but for the time being he still has the "new commander" veil that covers him a bit.
Xryis has a lot more creative space than Nekusar. Xyris doesn't require a full wheel deck to be playable, and it could also let only your ally but no one else draw cards, a useful bargaining chip. Snake tokens also have more applications than Nekusar's pure damage (which is one-way to boring hell).
First video of yours I've watched. Great content, very interesting! At some points you were theory crafting a lot. When I clicked on the video I thought you were going to take a look at the cards played lots in the decks and how they changed over time to see if that's contributed to their change in popularity. As a geeky guy who loves analysing data I think there's a lot to gain from this and that viewers would enjoy it.
Nikya was my first edh deck. I learned to play magic during her set and loved the deck at the time. I wanted to rebuild that deck recently and just couldn't do it. I needed my non-creature spells. I've described her as "babies first budget beatdown" commander.
Prime Speaker was solved before it was made, people just took their already made pod decks, and put Prime Speaker at the helm. There were already many strategies already known for that commander.
Lazav the Multifarious is similar to Mairsil in that the combos are hard to identify and you definitely end up explaining cards very often. But that's why I love the deck.
Return to dust should be replaced by heliod's intervention. It's more flexible than any of your suggestions, hits 2 of your choice artifacts or enchantments at 4 mana, and can scale to large sizes. Also If nobody has a juicy target, or if you need, you can use it to gain a bunch of life
Personally the exile is more valuable to me than the scaling, and that also made for a good apples-to-apples comparison with Return to Dust since it also exiles, but I'm not gonna tell anyone they're wrong for running Heliod's Intervention as it's very good.
Yidris is my Wheel commander and I don't play it as storm. It's a graveyard deck. Xyris, is exceptional in the 99 regardless if your on a dedicated wheel plan.
As much as I like the play patterns from Tayam, luminous enigma, it definitely feels like a deck that can be “solved” and also has elements shared from Mairsil. You can go value style, but as soon as you do you have to think “oh how do I win” you kinda get funneled toward combo anyways. I’ll probably keep it as one of my focused decks but man that feels rough
I'm having a lot of fun with my Xyris deck, but that's probably because I've never piloted a wheels deck. Also, I don't really rely on playing that many wheels in my deck. There's a lot of flexibility in the gameplay.
I am also playing a Xyris deck and I really enjoy it, I built it to be a bit more political and I find it to be a lot of fun. The wheels aspect is great, but the political/group hug aspect is really fascinating and enjoyable to me
It's easy for people to build new commanders base on existing strategies, which limit themselves from thinking bigger. My Xyris doesn't go wheel theme either, instead replace them with cards synergizes with tokens and snakes.
Lord Windgrace at first because I have always loved land matters strategies, for a long time I was the only player in my area with an Azusa lands deck, then Gitrog came up but the price of a copy and availability were restrictive to Gitrog. Therefore, out of 8 players on our Friday Tournament, I saw 3-5 Windgrace combo decks and it really became boring to me, losing the game because I had built Value Windgrace not Combo Windgrace. In fact, I had a player go as far as to say, "Then you built the deck wrong." That was the final nail in the coffin for me. I stopped playing that rather cool commander and even left the shop. Since then I have stuck with Titania lands.
Another factor for Estrid possibly is the fact that Melissa Detora had a really good W/G enchantress deck prior to the release and many probably changed it to Bant enchantress and then noticed Tuvasa did what you wanted more of the time and that Estrid made more sense in the 99.
I'll be honest I was watching this and when Dana said at 20:53 "you could also have added advantages like Xenagos..." I really had a "What??!" moment, but no I was right you can still play Xenagos in Nikya
Ive had WIP decks for Lavinia and Mathas since they were printed, I finally built Mathas after Chevill was printed and the Ikoria precon gave me the shell for a mardu deck. Licia I just ended putting 2 mountains in a standard White/Black lifegain deck and calling it a day....
Friend of mine built a Chulane deck and was really hype about it. First game he dropped a sheriking drake turn 4 after a turn 3 chulane. Turn 5 he had 8 lands to untap and went off from there. He never played the deck again and scavenged it within a week.
Yuriko also got allways some different ways to get things: you can clone, you have changelings, you can turn your creatures into other types, you have normal ninjas. But Yuriko also let you draw cards for doing your stuff.
I play mine like a Dimir spellslinger, and focus on split cards and high cmc+low cycling cost spells to whack people. Clearing the way for Yuriko is a careful, surgical cut to get to the most vulnerable player, while setting up the top to deliver a few haymaker triggers. It feels really rewarding!
As soon as Atraxa was spoiled I knew I had to build her, but I got tired of the eye rolls and Atraxa vs Atraxa vs Atraxa games. Another that I was excited about and built was Unesh (I’m a statistic!), I build an actual Sphinx tribal deck, but took it apart due to games going so long waiting for opponents to split piles.
I would say Kenrith lends itself much more to a "social" kind of deck since his abilities can be an advantage to any player, while Golos is probably more popular because he's just a little bit of ramp + free spells
Edgar remains and will remain popular because not only are vampires a pretty cool tribe, he's the only Aggro commander that can win beyond the Craw Wurm/Precon metas. He is the hammer for the "40 land 60 counterspells" nail.
@@VexylObby I missed that spark Double doesn't copy "legendary". I can't think of a reason why Sakasima's 'Legend rule not applying to my permanents' might help in Marisil. Guess I'm trying to figure if I should run 1, either or both in My Mairisil, the pretdender edh
Regarding Mairsil: We all had our brains spinning wonder what awesome jank combos there are. But in the video, you guys also appeal to the frustration of such jank. Which is it? I think if we want the brewing discovery to happen, we have to accept that we will have to explain these interactions to people.
Nikya gives you a limitation, and Commander is all about limitation, she's s a very interesting deckbuilding challenge, in theory. In practice, she's just the most Feelsbad commander, since you can't play all the cool cards and interactions and a bunch of lame ones become staples.
Probably due to my meta, I appreciate Return to Dust "exiling" two artifact/enchantment of my choice. Crush Contraband is my supplement. Dismantling Wave is also a good supplement, but the exile clause from the other two is just too useful against dedicated artifact/enchantment decks, whom have too many ways to bring back the cards from graveyard. And you're not required to go full wheels in Xyris. I go tokens, snakes and politics.
I had a similar experience with sevinne the chronoclasm I saw the commander and was like yes this is awesome played it a handful of time and took it a part
I really enjoy my Xyris deck, but I can see how wheels being solved make him repetitive. In terms of Nethroi though I don't think it will fall off because even though a lot of players see him as a way to just end the game after casting him once, and I am one of them half the time, it still does give you so much value as a graveyard toolbox. The other half of the time I play Nethroi I just want to get out all of the cards like new Polukranos and Ghave that I can get without taking anything away from the amount of power I can bring to the board.
I liked the insight into the commanders printed lately like Xyrus and Tinybones that are very pushed, but also very linear. I feel like Wizards keeps overdesigning commanders, making obviously strong cards that require little thought when deckbuilding, and then they end up never reaching the level of popularity of commanders like Jhoira or Golos who are extremely open-ended
oh hey JmCrofts, didn't you played edh. keep up with the good content!
As a stats nerd I would have loved to see the line graph showing the decline in weekly submissions per commander! Heck I wish that was just generally available on edhrec for all commanders.
Also, Estrid hit home for me - she's my first commander but I took her apart for every reason you talked about.
Me too thanks
Same. I'd love just selected graphs.
That's interesting I took estrid apart (she was my first deck) but I used tuvasa instead just because the card advantage was too useful (it was also when I started to understand how important card advantage really is)
The Vannifar comments about boredom and linear strategies are spot on. Had the same experience with Zur the Enchanter.
Really liked this one guys. Has inspired me to tear apart some decks and build less linearly.
*Whispers* Join the jank deck builders...
That’s awesome!
Joey had an epic line
"I build like a Timmy, but play like a Spike."
I am completely in the same boat.
I'm Joey now!
I am the exact opposite. I wonder which is better/worse lmao
@@damagedjoker69 Joey is definitely spikier than he will admit, yes.
That was Matt who said that though right?
Ye I get what Matt said as a Johnny who's half spike 1/6 Timmy.
Has anyone ever told you guys that your intro is an absolute banger?
Its actually a remix of one of the songs from Magic the Gathering:Shandalar, an old PC Magic RPG
@@aidanquiett668 ..It isn't tho. The source is right there in the description.
It's a Kevin Macleod song, probably the most prolific public domain composer around
I love my Licia deck! I think some of the reason it's so low in popularity is because you need to devote slots to gain that life efficiently, and then it becomes a huge target once it swings once.
My Mairsil deck is essentially activated abilities tribal, I took most of the combo likes out and now I have a lot more fun playing it bc essentially every game I get a different combination of abilities I can use
I have a Mairsil deck, he's one of my favorite commanders of all time. I am upset they never put him into MTGO.
As always, the height of my week! Three very entertaining podcasters and entertainers, explaining a wonderful site and the information they get from it!!
You forgot the most important part; the endless supply of dad jokes.
I've had this with Syr Gwyn. Never jumped on a deck faster or been so disappointed. She's an equipment commander, not knights, and costs far too much. Lost the red and the equipment, made it Aryel, was much happier.
Kelly Tracy yeah I built it and then it inspired me to rebuild Edgar markov instead.
Gwyn is fun af as a knight's commander
WHAT! I love Unesh!! He's currently my favorite casual commander, especially with the recent additions of Scholar of the lost trove and Ormos, Archive Keeper from jumpstart. Being able to generate a completely absurd amount of value and play these normally underpowered 6-7 mana sphinx creatures is super satisfying. Also the new thassa and conjurer's closet just feels so good to play with that deck. I'm honestly surprised that he's as unpopular as he is.
Don't know if it was just at my school, but it was VERY popular to run angel edh decks, so my deck was Bruna, light of alabaster and I had a lot of fun with it when she first came out
I still do, though enchanting in UW is more difficult than it was as we don't usually get new additions anymore :(. I'm having a lot of fun with Feather nowadays
Someone in my playgroup who's favorite tribe is angels would love your playgroup ( :
As a player of an Unesh NON-combo Sphinx tribal deck, I was mildly offended by your analysis of my favorite Mono Blue Commander. Just kidding! But he is fun and just the right power level when not doing degenerate combos, and he's a good boi that looks like a flying winged goat-dog. I kinda like he's less popular now, feels more unique for me to play him.
Great episode! Very interesting takes on cool data. Im going to use this video as a reference for new decks I want to build. New subscriber here. Keep it up!
Unesh was my first deck and is still my favorite. At first it was very casual, but so was my playgroup so it won a lot. Then people targeted me early on and I changed it for it to win faster than they could kill me and it turned into a combo deck. However I like the thought of my deck being the most powerful it can be and like you say, it being less popular means its more unique which feels really good
Lol same I played unesh as just bad Sphinx tribal before taking it apart since I got bored
He's a unique commander and gives card draw and ramp, the only bad thing is he only has so many sphinxes to play with, a lot of them being not that great/too vanilla. I have an Unesh deck, I like it, but I'm probably not going to put any more money into it.
"if you want to play commanders from jumpstart..."
cries in european
Yeah, it is starting to get ridiculous, with it shifting into October.
@@GeorgBauer waitwaitwait.... last i heard was end of august o.O
Bill Cypher Someone quoted his vendor citing October for the date. Cardmarket has it still set as end of August, but says they actually don‘t have any reliable date on the jumpstart products.
It's going to be finished on arena before we get anything....
God what a clusterfuck this product is. I really hope commander legends has a flawless start
I was thinking recently about how different the landscape of commander was when I started playing the format. I know it predates EDHREC, but who remembers when Kresh the Bloodbraided was by far the most played commander?
Kresh was my first commander deck way back then when I mostly played legacy.
Kresh was an easy budget build, and no one cares too much about the legends in Alara. Most were $1-2. I had Sharuum back then.
Also a Sedris combo deck of fun
Joey, two things:
-One, you have the best COVID hair of all, perhaps the best hair of all of all.
-I'm so happy you started pronouncing "Bant" as "rhymes with 'can't'" instead of as "rhymes with 'aunt'" ("aunt" as we say it in New England).
I really enjoyed this episode, i was in the camp of trying to build vannifar, and i quickly found that the combo was not fun to play, and often discouraged me when i couldn't get to it. For me in genreal, the first time i build commanders i often maximize their tutors and combo pieces, and that leads to me taking them apart. I've since found commanders with diverse gameplay, or at least tool box aspects that encourage interactive games.
Marisil charge counters was pretty fun; its not for the efficiency, but for cool interactions with those Charge counters; making and spending them, and having certain activates that care about how many counters.
I made one as a Megamind theme deck, but it takes a big blue brain to track of all his abilities, especially with a couple -lings!
RE the question at the end, for me personally it was Emry. She was the first deck I ever built, and whilst I do still have her and play her, I tend to find that it's rarer - both because it's not fun to always do the same play pattern, and people tend to not appreciate you getting the God hand and comboing out turn 3.
Speaking of Unesh- it is an EXCELLENT combo piece for draw, like you said. I use him in my Changeling tribal combo deck to go get my combo pieces and to put the ones that I want in the graveyard (The deck also runs Haakon)
Y'all mentioned the "fun of the table" a few times near the end and I have to say, that is my absolute favorite thing about Xyris. My cousin built a pretty good Xyris deck and it is an absolute blast to play against. He gives the opponents so many cards that the game becomes this crazy race to see who is going to finish first and it ends up being pretty wild crazy fun.
Lots of good DATA, guys! Keep it up.
On fun commanders with staying power, I think Pako and Haldan will hold up well. Currently, #211 but is a fairly open-ended commander(s). The restriction isn't massive and thief decks, I think, are balanced and work in any playgroup because your power level is slightly dictated by your opponent's power level.
I gotta thank y'all. I was recently putting together a forked version of my Atraxa Hydra deck using Zaxara as an alt commander, then decided Hydra wasn't the way and started building a dedicated Zaxara deck. I saw Evolution Sage but decided not to use it (I'm making an X spell deck, not a +1/+1 counter deck) and so that's all I considered it for. Never did it cross my mind to add it to my Windgrace deck so I greatly appreciate bringing it up because yes, while my deck does fine without Windgrace, he does make it run more smoothly and I wanna keep him on the board as long as I can. Thank you for bringing the synergy to my attention.
So I just got to utilize Evolution Sage in my Windgrace deck and it helped pull a clutch. I am so happy and appreciative of y'alls recommendation. While it really was everything coming together that enabled the win, the fact that it wouldn't have been possible without the new addition, Evolution Sage, is why I am giving it the credit.
I had Evolution Sage, Prismatic Omen, Elvish Reclaimer, and Squandered Resources already on the battlefield. I had somehow missed some land drops (42 lands btw) and had just tapped my 4 only lands and sac'd one to Squandered Resources to cast Windgrace. My opponent had me on the ropes -Hexproof everything Arcades wall deck with two turns for her to win. Thanks, Shalia, Voice of Plenty.
I neg'd Windgrace to get the two fetchlands I had in my graveyard, turned them into other lands that I then proceeded to tap into Elvish Reclaimer, sac'ing one to get Valakut. I now had 5 "mountains," including Valakut, thanks to Prismatic Omen.
Hexproof everything Arcades player swings in for 16 unblockable (thanks Tetsuko Umezawa), leaving me with 6 health left. I'll clearly be dead if she gets another turn.
My drawn card and land for turn ended up being Vesuva, which I had come in as a copy of Valakut. 6 Damage to the opponent.
Because of Evolution Sage, my land for turn, the first Valakut, and the 4 lands (2 fetches into regular) had bumped Windgrace back up to 8 loyalty, allowing me to neg him again. The same 2 fetches to 2 other lands. 24 damage to my opponent for just a little over lethal.
Thank you so much again for the recommendation. It literally led to me winning the game.
I built an Estrid deck. The points you guys made are the reason I dismantled the deck. Play stax and pillowfort effects. It makes a long grinding game. I started not having fun with that play style and my play group didn't have much fun playing against it.
I'm not convinced by Dismantling Wave now that we have Heliod's Intervention outside of cycling decks. Sure, Wave is more mana-efficient, and Return to Dust and Crush Contraband get to exile (Usually relevant only in a God or Blightsteel heavy meta), but Intervention is just so flexible. The 8-mana mode on Wave is arguably worse than casting Intervention for X=6, there's not many times when there's more than 6 artefacts and enchantments that need to die, and drawing a card is more of a consolation for blowing up all your mana rocks than a real upside. Plus the lifegain mode isn't useless.
Heliod's Intervention has replaced Return to Dust in my white deck - the flexibility is just great.
For me, the three commanders that comes to mind were Najeela, Jhoira Weatherlight Captain and Yidris. All of them turned out very linear, and two of them ended up being storm builds, so I guess there could be something to your theory of storm boring people. I have to say, though, that it's not limited to storm. Any deck where you end up taking 10 minute turns in the late game to then win will become annoying, both for yourself and your opponents. This is why I've set a rule for myself: The only storm win I allow in my decks these days is Aetherflux Reservoir, as it's comparably faster than any classic storm win.
I have a possible Challenge the Stats.
I am new to the site and don't properly know how to look things up, so I may have incomplete information. I also don't know if this pairing was already challenged. If I'm reading the site right, I doubt it's been challenged.
As far as I can tell, the card Fortitude, doesn't appear in Korvold, Fae-Cursed King decks.
Fortitude is 1G for an enchantment aura.
Enchant creature
Sacrifice a Forest: Regenerate enchanted creature.
When Fortitude is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, return Fortitude to its owner's hand.
The idea is to enchant Korvold, and sack a forest to protect him from many if not most removal. Most spells that destroy a creature or wipe the board don't prevent regeneration. At the cost of sacking a forest (which will draw you a card and buff your commander) you keep Korvold alive. Build the deck with decent ramp (and for those who can afford it, land recursion) and you won't have to worry about sacking those forests.
When an opponent plays a spell that gets around the regenerate, the enchantment goes back to your hand instead of the grave. You can even just sack it to Korvold when he attacks to keep all your other permanents. Just that alone is a repeatable 2 mana draw a card and add +1/+1 to Korvold on each of your turns.
The card is used with lots of green commanders, (even Gitrod) but for some reason isn't used with the Korvold. Am I missing something, or should the stats be challenged?
I run Fortitude in my Korvold deck - it's a great card that I totally can vouch for. When I built my deck, I did a search for all the auras with the Rancor return ability and stumbled across that one. Had never seen it played in 16 years of Magic, but it was recurring sac fodder with its own sac outlet and a way to protect my Commander. I've loved it in every game I've drawn it, and it's driven my friends crazy as they all scramble to kill Korvold but can't because of the regenerate.
Could be because Korvold is Jund so you have fewer forests to work with. That said it sounds like a neat card, I might have to grab one and play it in my Korvold deck and give it a go.
I actually had an Unesh Sphinx tribal deck. Combo’d off with dream halls. Also didn’t use any changelings, was mainly sphinxes. Very fun deck and my friends were amused by all the fict or factions
Honestly Dana's explanation of the deck about how it is "annoying" is exactly why I built Mairsil. I just love the literal thousands of options I have for cards. So many old things I can add and remove just on a whim. Only occasional new things to play with but I feel like there will always eventually be a new activated ability to use. Like Asmodeus that recently came out. There are the most efficient and best combos for Mairsil but getting to use cards in ways they shouldn't be used is fascinating for me. Combos that literally don't work anywhere else.
Mathis is the one I hear of the most for what is ideal as a non blue control deck. And I've had a few friends build him just because someone recommended him as the perfect control commander in non-blue.
Much like there are dragons in most every new set, there are also new activated abilities if one is carefulluy watching. I do think that all except for maybe 3 cards in my Mairsil are pretty well optimized though so I haven't noticed any great fits in a while. More haste was added several sets back.
The deck which fell out of my interest was Riku of Two Reflections, the commander where I first discovered how mind-numbingly boring infinite combos are...
...
I soon after built Shattergang Brothers from the remains, and got my butt handed to me from table aggro. Shattergang Brothers are still together after probably the same amount of time when the commander was still new, and I'm still getting new pieces, especially from the Ghired (Conclave Exile) precon.
The deck even inspired me to build Slimefoot, so I could experience aristocrats from a different perspective. Both are still nostalgic brews, since Shattergang Brothers has been my replacement #2, with #1 being my Nekusar, and I'm ready to build a zombie tribal iteration, once things go back to normal.
Mairsil while it's often built the same way (and with the same combos) it's actually way less linear in principle than most. Too bad we don't get that many cards with activated abilities lately
Maralen of the Mornsong is a commander that I really enjoyed putting together, but the concept of turning the game mechanics on their head is more enjoyable in mind than in practice for me. Originally it came froma Tiny Leaders deck, and was nice to decrease the viciousness to be a full commander deck (intrinsically gentler). Even so each play came down to a formula of how close I wanted to be to becoming the Table Asshole.
I built Maralen 85-Swamps Adnauseum-combo years ago. Played her exactly once, combined off, and realized that she would always play the same or worse. Stripped it apart after game one. Did that with Crouching Tazri, Hidden Zada, too.
Love the content guys. Graphs really would be nice to see in this type of episodes.
love Mairsil. Ill cage cards with a tone of abilities even if they dont do much just so my opponents get fatigued and stop paying attention to how far along I am.
Okay now that I've seen that interaction between Kothophed and Smothering Tithe, I really want to see someone win in an esper deck by using Fractured Identity on their own Kothophed while they have a Smothering Tithe, so that as soon as anyone can't pay for Smothering Tithe the entire table dies because they all were given Kothophed tokens from Fractured Identity.
Neheb is great, just built my deck and the first game i played i was almost able to pull off 42R mana but when he dies in combat or before that all goes away, looks great under a microscope but the group slugging that he does often makes him a huge target
I think Illuna Apex of Wishes is an underrated commander as a "hidden commander" deck in which you only play a couple key non-land permanents so you reliably polymorph into e.g. Thousand-Year Storm.
So I built a xyris deck, but more focused it on being a snake tribal deck. Yes it has wheels but more on the snake side with a bit of jank stuff in it (ex; hive mind + endless swarm). The problem with the deck is that it’s easily countered by stuff like Elesh Norn, wrath of god, and any deal damage to all creatures spells. I personally have fun playing it, it’s just the deck gets focused on by other players a lot due to the mass army building of snakes. Has potential with Brudiclad, but not sure how to go about it just yet
I ran Vanifar as a Sharktocrab commander deck essentially.
And then it morphed into my Animar deck that is now...bordering on Cedh.
Vannifar started me towards some interesting times...
I still love my Mairsil deck. I do have five infinite combos that can be assembled, but I deliberately put no tutors in it. Sometimes he just gains a ton of weird abilities (Ovinomancer, Shauku, etc.), other times he just keeps replicating himself (Spark Double and Pack Rat). It plays differently every time. Lots of fun.
@@marvin5342 Getting only the activated ability is what makes it awesome. Cards like Ovinomancer and Shauku have big drawbacks, but Mairsil only gets the good part. And Mairsil is legendary, but the Spark Double clone isn't, so you start replicating that one and get an army of nonlegendary Mairsils, all with the same abilities, and you even add to their abilities as each one ETBs.
When Nikya the old ways was mentioned I had flashbacks of wanting to build it, and I did, but it was shut down to easily by my playgroup. One board wipe and you're screwed. I found out the hard way I hated decks that can be blown out by one board wipe and run into a wall and just stop, can't get back up. I steered away from those decks from then on.
On the flip side of things, I recently built a Brallin/Shabraz deck to be my strongest deck and I'm loving these 2 for the simple reason that it's not just a combo deck. I built it specifically to take advantage of both commanders, meaning I can cast Shabraz, pump him up just by drawing a lot and have him eat someone alive. The commander I go into first depends on my early game, it's not "Ok I must cast brallin first and try to combo" it's whatever is most efficient for me at the time. It's just enough flexibility that I can say I'll keep this deck for a long time.
Pulled a foil Prime Speaker out of a box and was very excited to make the deck. Halfway through...well it never saw the light of day.
Bit old, but fertilid is also absolutely bonker with the Ob Nixilis creature card that forces any opponent who searches their library to take 10 damage. Since Fertilid reads "target player", you can force someone else to search their library and take the 10 damage. Assuming 40HP, it takes a measy 4GGGG to kill someone, discounting the CMC for Ob Nixhilis and Fertilid themselves.
Xyris is my funnest commander as i switched from Locust God. My friend built Brallin and loves it. To each his own but those are our main staples at this point.
Mairsil the Pretender is my favorite decks, but i can agree with the issues you pointed out to explain why he isnt more popular. But i will say that the fact that every game is a puzzle that you have to solve is so much fun
I think a really cool episide would be the inverse to this data if theres enough commanders. Commanders that didnt really takw off at first, but did at a later date.
Dana is my spirit guide
Legit, when I want to build a new commander, I either head straight to Boros or a random color/color combo and scroll straight dooooown
Dana and cure for the common game are mine they both build in a weird Janky synergistic way like me and it's lovely to see.
@@kingfuzzy2 one thing that I find enjoyable is working with cards that can only get so strong rather than cards that can only get so weak
@@rachelmcrachel6589 right on ( :
For me the deck that I played once and never touched since then was Kathril, Aspect Warper. I was very excited at first because I liked the idea of ability counters but when I played it, it just felt like a very linear commander to me. Fill up your graveyard with keywordsoup -> play kathril -> have either kathril or another strong creature become indestructible, hexproof etc -> win. Or you don't get there and then it does nothing.
Since you want most of your cards from the deck in your graveyard it also feels like you are playing with very few of them.
I had the same experience when I was playing Kathril. I switched over to Tayam because they allowed me to be more flexible in what cards I picked out of my graveyard, while at the same time being a value engine on its own to get cards into the gy in the first place. I still focus on the keywords so it is not just another version of a Muldrotha deck, and I have loved the changes! I have found that I adapt to each game a lot more with Tayam than I ever did with Kathril, and that makes the deck feel way less linear.
@@dorsalfin22 Ok cool, thanks for sharing. I will try that out sometime then. Just build a Rin and Seri deck though, so that will have to wait a bit.
Zacama player here, I love that its a combo/control naya list I have so much fun with it.
Also I play Windgrace, I had evolution sage in my list for awhile but there is little to no other counters synergies in the deck. It always felt win more and didn't contribute enough on it's own.
I'd add that while Yuriko may not get new ninjas very often, any big spells can also be a welcome addition to the deck and most sets will have some of those.
I think kenrith is the perfect wuberg commander. He is like having a commander that is as flexible as say staff of domination in your command zone is really cool.
As far as WUBRG Commanders, I prefer Sisay, Weatherlight Captain. feels very fun, there's different ways to build her (as a Voltron commander, as a combo tutor, or as value engine).
@@a.velderrain8849 haven't built her yet but she does seem like fun. I was actually considering making an all legendary humans tribal version of her lol. I also have ramos cascade. that one is pretty fun. although it is mostly temur.
@@zealous944 Yeah, I'm building Ramos Charm Tribal and also have a Sliver Hivelord deck as far as WUBRG decks go. I have 2 Sisay decks, one is more competitive with infinite combos and such, the other is a Weatherlight themed deck with all the crew members and cards featuring the Weatherlight like Vindicate and Evasive Action.
I run both Nikya and Ruric Thar in a Morph deck and they are MVPs there. Ruric can be absolutely devastating to any sort of deck that relies on casting a bunch of spells at first. Even taking it down with removal is the opponent risking 6 damage to the face. Pretty good deterrent
The first 5 color commander deck I built was Atogatog. There were no other atogs in the deck.
Built around the colours just the way I like it ; )
Kothophed-Smothering Tithe sounds a lot like Vilis-Nekusar.
My Vilis deck has lich effects for that reason because I'm not ever going to be responsible with my life total and neither are my opponents tho to a lesser extent.
Neheb has gotten plenty of new cards. Torbran, the next Neheb after him, maybe some of the spectacle cards.
I just want to give a shout out to Hivis of the Scale he used to be the top commander for understandable reasons but now unfortunately, it's very rare to see a deck with him. Even tho there are many more ways to make him viable even as one of the 99 or in his native colour identity habitat. Really enjoyable video ty y'all ( :
I think a lot of the mutate decks will fall off, but Nethroi is a bad example. He's a super unique commander even if you're mutating him on to a vanilla 1/1, and any new 0/0 that enters with counters is something to consider for his deck.
I don't think Xyris will die out, he's just going to be known as Nekusar alternative. The whole reason I ripped apart the mindrazer to make Xyris is cause I can actually play him, isn't he doesn't have the stigma everyone's favorite lich has.
Xyxris is one of the two commanders I hate and will only target unless they are Janky.
@Jack Absolutely. Just where Xyris is the current threat; Nekusar has a legacy that precedes him. I'd actually argue green ramp makes Xyris actually stronger then Nekusar, but for the time being he still has the "new commander" veil that covers him a bit.
Xryis has a lot more creative space than Nekusar. Xyris doesn't require a full wheel deck to be playable, and it could also let only your ally but no one else draw cards, a useful bargaining chip. Snake tokens also have more applications than Nekusar's pure damage (which is one-way to boring hell).
Great episode guys.
Great topic!
First video of yours I've watched. Great content, very interesting!
At some points you were theory crafting a lot. When I clicked on the video I thought you were going to take a look at the cards played lots in the decks and how they changed over time to see if that's contributed to their change in popularity. As a geeky guy who loves analysing data I think there's a lot to gain from this and that viewers would enjoy it.
Nikya was my first edh deck. I learned to play magic during her set and loved the deck at the time. I wanted to rebuild that deck recently and just couldn't do it. I needed my non-creature spells. I've described her as "babies first budget beatdown" commander.
Prime Speaker was solved before it was made, people just took their already made pod decks, and put Prime Speaker at the helm. There were already many strategies already known for that commander.
Lazav the Multifarious is similar to Mairsil in that the combos are hard to identify and you definitely end up explaining cards very often. But that's why I love the deck.
Return to dust should be replaced by heliod's intervention. It's more flexible than any of your suggestions, hits 2 of your choice artifacts or enchantments at 4 mana, and can scale to large sizes. Also If nobody has a juicy target, or if you need, you can use it to gain a bunch of life
Personally the exile is more valuable to me than the scaling, and that also made for a good apples-to-apples comparison with Return to Dust since it also exiles, but I'm not gonna tell anyone they're wrong for running Heliod's Intervention as it's very good.
@@danaroach29 I can definitely see where the advantage is to exiling, especially against graveyard synergies.
Yidris is my Wheel commander and I don't play it as storm. It's a graveyard deck. Xyris, is exceptional in the 99 regardless if your on a dedicated wheel plan.
As much as I like the play patterns from Tayam, luminous enigma, it definitely feels like a deck that can be “solved” and also has elements shared from Mairsil. You can go value style, but as soon as you do you have to think “oh how do I win” you kinda get funneled toward combo anyways. I’ll probably keep it as one of my focused decks but man that feels rough
I'm having a lot of fun with my Xyris deck, but that's probably because I've never piloted a wheels deck. Also, I don't really rely on playing that many wheels in my deck. There's a lot of flexibility in the gameplay.
I am also playing a Xyris deck and I really enjoy it, I built it to be a bit more political and I find it to be a lot of fun. The wheels aspect is great, but the political/group hug aspect is really fascinating and enjoyable to me
It's easy for people to build new commanders base on existing strategies, which limit themselves from thinking bigger. My Xyris doesn't go wheel theme either, instead replace them with cards synergizes with tokens and snakes.
Lord Windgrace at first because I have always loved land matters strategies, for a long time I was the only player in my area with an Azusa lands deck, then Gitrog came up but the price of a copy and availability were restrictive to Gitrog. Therefore, out of 8 players on our Friday Tournament, I saw 3-5 Windgrace combo decks and it really became boring to me, losing the game because I had built Value Windgrace not Combo Windgrace. In fact, I had a player go as far as to say, "Then you built the deck wrong." That was the final nail in the coffin for me. I stopped playing that rather cool commander and even left the shop. Since then I have stuck with Titania lands.
Another factor for Estrid possibly is the fact that Melissa Detora had a really good W/G enchantress deck prior to the release and many probably changed it to Bant enchantress and then noticed Tuvasa did what you wanted more of the time and that Estrid made more sense in the 99.
I'll be honest I was watching this and when Dana said at 20:53 "you could also have added advantages like Xenagos..." I really had a "What??!" moment, but no I was right you can still play Xenagos in Nikya
Interesting how many of them were command zone preview cards. I wonder if that was why there was a spike at the start then nothing
Honestly, there are also excellent control Zakama decks too. Very unique from the colour combination aspect too.
Time to add Ulrich of the Krallenholde to that list, cause Tovolar's making him a VERY contested Alpha.
Ive had WIP decks for Lavinia and Mathas since they were printed, I finally built Mathas after Chevill was printed and the Ikoria precon gave me the shell for a mardu deck. Licia I just ended putting 2 mountains in a standard White/Black lifegain deck and calling it a day....
Friend of mine built a Chulane deck and was really hype about it. First game he dropped a sheriking drake turn 4 after a turn 3 chulane. Turn 5 he had 8 lands to untap and went off from there. He never played the deck again and scavenged it within a week.
Yuriko also got allways some different ways to get things: you can clone, you have changelings, you can turn your creatures into other types, you have normal ninjas. But Yuriko also let you draw cards for doing your stuff.
I play mine like a Dimir spellslinger, and focus on split cards and high cmc+low cycling cost spells to whack people. Clearing the way for Yuriko is a careful, surgical cut to get to the most vulnerable player, while setting up the top to deliver a few haymaker triggers.
It feels really rewarding!
I wonder how many commanders featured got a boost from this video? I wonder if there are any more that found a second wind?
Does anyone know/do they say how they get their data? It sounds like there are a bunch really fun fun things to look at
As soon as Atraxa was spoiled I knew I had to build her, but I got tired of the eye rolls and Atraxa vs Atraxa vs Atraxa games. Another that I was excited about and built was Unesh (I’m a statistic!), I build an actual Sphinx tribal deck, but took it apart due to games going so long waiting for opponents to split piles.
no one plays her here so she's my next commander haha
I still jam my unesh deck, love it
I have fertilid in an elemental tribal deck. I really, really don’t think it’s correct to put an evolution sage in there.
I would say Kenrith lends itself much more to a "social" kind of deck since his abilities can be an advantage to any player, while Golos is probably more popular because he's just a little bit of ramp + free spells
I've seen enough kenrith group hug decks to confuse me when the rest of the table hates kenrith to death.
Edgar remains and will remain popular because not only are vampires a pretty cool tribe, he's the only Aggro commander that can win beyond the Craw Wurm/Precon metas.
He is the hammer for the "40 land 60 counterspells" nail.
I’m actually building a xyris group hug that I’m excited for.
I do like that it's group hug not 281 9/9 snakes turn 3 ( :
Someone at my local card store plays a Neheb commander deck and it's ridiculous. I'm super surprised it's not played much at all...
Yep neheb can be low tier cedh.
Even without new toys, I still love occasionally playing my Mairsil deck against fresh opponents because they are so totally "wait, WHAT DOES THAT?!
And Mairsil actually does get a few new toys a year. Like Pendant of Prosperity, or Thassa.
I believe Mairsil is getting maybe a new toy from Commander legends with Sakashima of a Thousand Faces
@@williamschaefer1822 Spark Double also filled that void!
@@VexylObby I missed that spark Double doesn't copy "legendary". I can't think of a reason why Sakasima's 'Legend rule not applying to my permanents' might help in Marisil. Guess I'm trying to figure if I should run 1, either or both in My Mairisil, the pretdender edh
Neheb is my favorite deck! So fun and explosive
Regarding Mairsil:
We all had our brains spinning wonder what awesome jank combos there are. But in the video, you guys also appeal to the frustration of such jank. Which is it? I think if we want the brewing discovery to happen, we have to accept that we will have to explain these interactions to people.
Nikya gives you a limitation, and Commander is all about limitation, she's s a very interesting deckbuilding challenge, in theory.
In practice, she's just the most Feelsbad commander, since you can't play all the cool cards and interactions and a bunch of lame ones become staples.
Probably due to my meta, I appreciate Return to Dust "exiling" two artifact/enchantment of my choice. Crush Contraband is my supplement. Dismantling Wave is also a good supplement, but the exile clause from the other two is just too useful against dedicated artifact/enchantment decks, whom have too many ways to bring back the cards from graveyard.
And you're not required to go full wheels in Xyris. I go tokens, snakes and politics.
Surprised feather managed to stay off this list... seemed like a flash burst from my play group...
I had a similar experience with sevinne the chronoclasm I saw the commander and was like yes this is awesome played it a handful of time and took it a part
Plenty of ways to make him unique and not just in a combo fashion. Also making him a stuffy doll is hilarious.
Why would the Kothophed effect trigger if tokens don't go to the graveyard?
I really enjoy my Xyris deck, but I can see how wheels being solved make him repetitive. In terms of Nethroi though I don't think it will fall off because even though a lot of players see him as a way to just end the game after casting him once, and I am one of them half the time, it still does give you so much value as a graveyard toolbox. The other half of the time I play Nethroi I just want to get out all of the cards like new Polukranos and Ghave that I can get without taking anything away from the amount of power I can bring to the board.
Do you guys ever do merch or have a patreon and things of that nature?