2O commanders from last year that I think deserve more love. Patreon / edhdeckbuilding The T-shirt I'm wearing intotheam.com/EDHDeck promo code: EDHDeck
And when you look at how people like to personalize their commander decks, it's also hard to look at a new commander and think "yeah, I'll replace my old commander with this." I like the new Bant pre-con, but I'm not going to turn my clue deck Bant just to fit the non-simic cards in, no matter how cool they are.
Exactly, ppl will come aroundneventually. I’m just getting going with all the Ixalan and doc who commanders I’ve been wanting to build, and still researching the Karlov. Im always 2-3 sets behind lol
@@PhoenicopterusRFelt the same with Ixalan. Oh, two new Grixis pirate commanders! Yeah, but my current one is so fun, and I already have a different reanimator.
@@ryftedmage1404 I love Jank decks, as long as that’s what other people are playing… It’s not fun to play overpowered decks where you’re never going to be able to do that Jank thing your deck wants to do…
they release lik 40+ new legendaries each set and not to mention the commander sets and then the universes beyond bull Too much legendary creatures not every squirrel dude and random sorc/warrior needs to have a name and be legendary
I have a Samut, Vizier of Naktamun deck, and it is one of the most fun decks I own. It just feels like you're playing the game on fast forward. You drop creatures and swing immediately, every turn. And there are a ton of unique cards that help out the deck. Anything that makes things tapped and attacking. A bunch of things give a buff to creatures as they come into play.... It's so fun, and you draw like crazy. One of the best parts is that because it draws so much and because it only cares about creatures that came out this turn, the deck basically ignores board wipes. I wipe the board myself a lot of the time, because I can recover faster than anyone else.
i have samut in the 99 of my ognis haste tribal deck. hes insanely good. maybe he suffers from the competition (jolene, ognis, ...) but he has a different angel that i like. my ognis deck is my most fun deck as well... always action =)
So happy to see my boy The Watcher in the Water on here. In my experience a lot of players ignore it until it's too late because its not an immediate threat. I've had a huge amount of fun playing it, it can certainly be run as a sort of "aggro" mono blue deck. Keep Watch is such a hilarious card to run, especially if an opponent swings out against you with a swarm of tokens, chump their swing with tentacles and then put an absurd amount of stun counters down (and probably actually untap the Watcher). I've also overrun opponents by having Eldrazi Monument out and wheeling a giant hand with Tolarian Winds.
The reason Saint Traft/Rem Kromulus had the convoke ability added is because he was the secondary commander in one of the MOM precons, Kasla, the Broken halo. It's all based around jeskai convoke. If you just build it from scratch you could go any direction, sure, but I think they wanted it to work seamlessly with the rest of the precon.
@@mr.wafflesrz1137 I bought that precon for my wife and it's actually pretty decent. It took a bit of massaging out of the box to get it to pop off but it's pretty good now. I def think Kasla is the better commander for it tho. Flying, vigilant, haste 5/5 can do alot of damage really quick.
I adore my Saint Traft and Rem deck. It's a token deck that plays no token synergies except the commander itself and never has an issue getting multiple each turn. Every turn is a little minigame to try to get them tapped 3x. Your idea to add Crackleburr was CLUTCH. That thing does so much work in the deck.
i just built a saint traft and rem karolus deck. its pretty fun. i use vehicles to have a tap outlet every time i want to, and a bunch of untap abilities. intruder alarm is hilarious... i love to play it (the help from your discord was apreciated=) )
I want to say that I'm not surprised a lot of these aren't popular, but these are some really fun builds! This was a good video to do. The Master Formed Anew + Deadeye Navigator + Peregrine Drake... He really could be a blast to play. It's pretty easy to force this. This would be really fun to build around. You make solid points with a lot of these commanders and I would love to see more people do these unique build arounds.
I run 13th and Yaz and it's one of my favorite decks because of the build around. I focus on casting from exile and library to get big chaotic value. The biggest card that clicks is Passionate Archeologist. With two commanders that enable it, it's exciting to do a big cascade on your opponents.
As someone who is terrible at deck building but has lots of commanders I’d love to build; would really like to see your takes on an updated Polukranos list and how you could take Watcher in the Water on. Two cards I can see the potential in but can’t make work. Great video!
Nice Video, Shelob was on my sight couple month ago. But a friend told me to do another challenge instead: Build a Deck around Bilbo, Retired Burglar. So thats also veeeeery underrated. Build it of course with a Dwarf, Dragon, Ring-Tempt/Blink an treasure/artifact subtheme like an aristocrats deck. Pumping the treasures into big dragons und damage triple effects. Max the Ring-Tempt in Turn 4 or 5. And still very budget friendliy for around 90 $
I built othhari after u spoke about it in a video previously and I will say it is absolutely bonkers good. It’s practically unkillable and has an immediate impact when it enters the battlefield
There is no doubt otharri is strong, is just a super boring commander, il you want to make a token deck there is 30 more commanders to build around that might not be as strong but way way more interesting and fun to play
@@healusion8912 that's subjective though, I love my Otharri deck :) It's Boros aggro at heart, but can still grind insane value and get super scary later in the game thanks to experience counters.
Omarthis is amazing, I have used him in the 99 in mono white and selesnya colored reanimation decks as a source of card advantage/sack fodder. My selesnya Samwise Gamgee deck revolves around him, as he cares about nontoken Creatures entering to create foods that you then can sack to regrow Historics. It is rather easy to manifest your whole library. My wincon also revolves around having a lot of creatures out - I wanna flip a manifested Rotpriest and cast some multitarget spell like Eerie Interlude giving every opponent 10 poison counters. For my white aristocrat combo deck w/ Mikaeus, the Lunarch I run a lot of colorless mana dorks that I can easily put counters on and thus create a massive Omarthis rather quickly and then sac or swing depending on the boardstate. Very fun card and can be used in so many ways! Have not tried him as a commander yet though.
I was really excited by Rem Karolus and Saint Traft the first time I saw them as I really liked the flavor of the team up, but I never built them because I assumed that they would be too weak. When I first saw you pushing them as underrated I honestly kinda rolled my eyes because I was still pretty convinced they weren't any good. But after seeing you recommend them multiple times I decided to give them a go since I have a jeskai tokens deck that has been in major need of a total rework and I'm extremely glad I decided to give these guys a chance. Turns out Saint Traft and Rem Karolus are actually quite strong, after some testing I've been absolutely blown away by how easy it is to create the angel tokens. I think the big thing I missed was that I think you should have mentioned is that Vehicles make it very easy to tap these guys whenever you need to. Another thing that's worth mentioning is that extra combat effects often let you tap and untap them all at once. Anyway thanks for the suggestion these guys have been extremely fun to build and I'm extremely excited to go out and play them at my LGS later this week.
I have three of these commanders built and took a fourth apart. Ayara I knew I had to build immediately. She's a great deck and built around the front ability with etb abuse. It's the kind of deck that doesn't seem like it's doing much then bam! You are in control and winning the game. Love it. Otharri is just fantastic. One of my strongest and most fun decks. Kinzu is another etb abuser with some lifegain as well. A lot of fun and a regular I reach for. I tried Polukranos and just found him way too slow for the groups I play in. Ended up taking it apart unfortunately. Saint and Rem I made a vehicle list for and was very excited to try it but never built it. I'm currently doing a Zangief deck and considering a Mazzy enchantress with all the new Eldraine cards.
The other thing I like about the Master is that he works with steal strategies (or in a mirror match). You can only exile a creature you "control," but you can have him copy any creature exiled with a takeover counter on
People play monoblack shelob in the golgari one; Not only because it's stronger but also because having access to green makes you ramp and that means more black shelob activations in a turn.
13th Doc landed a home in my Perrie the Pulverizer build, but it's a bit weird to make a commander. Polukranos is one of my favorite jank city decks because I built Hydra Stickers, lovingly called Polly want a Sticker? Notably, most hydras are 0/0 and trash reanimation targets ....unless you've changed the power/toughness with a sticker! The wurmcoil effect is just bonus! Plus, getting abilities to stick to Polly is great because they stick around through all visible zones. All around fun
I do have a water in the water deck, I built it as mono blue aristocrat back when I was trying to design an aristocrat deck for each mono-color, only really have green/blue from that and a start on colorless.
A commander I really enjoy that I don't see a lot of is Moira and Teshar, with the ability to (basically) free unearth a nonland permanent in your graveyard with haste whenever you cast a historic spell, and I put in some big creatures with nasty etb effects and blink cards, and it's pretty strong.
for the balrog my first thought is running graveyard cards that move it back to your hand then you can summon it, get its big effect then use it as a mana generator with tokens until you put it back on the battlefield.
I play a Malcolm, Alluring Scoundrel deck and it's really fun. I have 12 slots for big, splashy blue spells that I randomly cycle in each game from a stack of about 25. It is surprisingly easy to get to 4 Chorus counters and drop things like Subjugate The Hobbits that would otherwise never see play. It's the only mono Blue deck I would even consider playing
The master, formed anew is EASILY my favorate! The fact that it also stacks, so you can build your commander each time throughout the game to make it versatile, is absolutely flawless! Use some cards that reduce mana cost to get around the commander tax, and you'll quickly be able to get an absolute BEAST out for very cheap, entirely custom tailored to whatever you need. Although I kinda wish it had green, there's a lot of green creatures I really like, but I can't be too picky Aside from that, Polukranos is second place, completely uncontested. Absolutely love hydras, without a doubt my favorate tribe in the entirety of magic, and the fact they got such a useful commander was a massive uplifter for me that year. Though I am sad that it doesn't really support the hydra strategy, but at the same time I'm greateful that it introduces a new strategy for the tribes arsenal, making it WAY harder to counter your deck overall. Personally I think they could have added a small ability involving counters, either for the front or backside without feeling unnessecary or going overboard, which is why it gets second place despite being my favorate tribe, compared to the master whose only design flaw is a minor personal preference
I’m definitely gonna build a mono-black Shelob deck, that card is really sick. I built Child of Ungoliant first for Spider Tribal. Really new to magic and tribal decks seemed like a cool concept remind me of pile decks from yugioh.
I just built The Thirteenth Doctor and Peri Brown. When I crafted it, there was only 1 other deck with this pairing on edhrec (there's 7 now... 3 are mine lol.). It's a +1+1 counter deck going for flash convoking historic spells on everyone's turn.
I haven't tried Ayara as a Commander, but she makes an amazing lieutenant to Mishra, Tamer of Mak Fawa. Just include a Sundial of the Infinite and ways to search for it.
The meneldor deck Idea look really fun. I have cracked the bird from murder at Karlov and i was thinking about some Idea to play it. I really hope you choose to build this deck. Look a ton of fun.
I have one of the 88 shelob decks 😂🎉, it had got an above avarage win % (i run almost all the creatures that say destroy target creature) also a lot of mana rocks in order to abuse the carddraw option. The ability to exile is Great to shutdown reanimator theme decks, i dont use it to play my opponents creatures 😁
Commander surplus definitely has a lot to do with it. I did build Polukranos and it was kind of fun but it's just a lot of mana to get to the back side and he becomes a huge removal target.
One commander that I built that released last year and is super unpopular is Geth, Thane of Contracts with only 84 decks on EDHRec. It is tough to build around with its passive of giving your other creatures -1/-1, but it has a decent reanimation ability only costing 3 mana, but the route I went with, inspired by EDH Jank Center, was using Geth’s -1/-1 ability to auto kill any 1/1 creature tokens I made and drain opponents using some of the typical black aristocrat cards. Definitely not my best aristocrat deck, but still fun to play.
LOVE Sharae. Built a merfolk spellslinger deck with her that managed to play both of the other two Azorius legendary merfolk. Just put a bunch of ETB merfolk in the deck, tapping creatures matters cards, and a bunch of blink spells and I pretty much had full control over every game I played. All of this just because her art is so pretty. MTG needs more two-tailed mermaids.
I actually am building the Watcher in the water deck and you can go infinite on your opponents turn with something like arcanis, + something that turns him into a kraken and a sac outlet or just intruder alarm.
Hey Demo! Ever had a look at Hidetsugu and Kairi? It's a fun and strong commander that I've built, never seen you mention it. I think there's a couple of ways on how to build it.
I have an Otharri deck, and I agree that it should be more popular. Admittedly my list functions on the back of expensive pieces, but Otharri single-handedly packs such a punch that it could still dominate with a really good draft deck assuming it has synergy. Especially if you open vessel of volatility. A turn 2 or 3 Otharri backed up with a deflecting swat is magnificent. Since I'm a divergent transformations list it's got tons of deck space for instants to play around most things after that first untap with Otharri. Even without non-token creatures, there's no shortage of ways to amplify the damage output, if not go outright infinite. Every game with it has either ended up with Otharri sustainably locked down before getting in 3 swings, or Otharri archenemy snowballing out of control.
Golum says what? This GAME?! ive been playing this guy wrong in my Frodo/Sam Food and fellowship all of last year. Thought it said this “TURN”… Thx for clearing that up!!
Carmen is great pick for this list. She's so explosive and because she works in so many different directions you can build a deck where almost every card has some sort of direct synergy.
Hey demo. I built Korvold and had lost of fun doing it, for the reasons you are stating. However i found that Korvold also suffers from the same-name-recognition problem in games, where people are killing it very fast just because it shares the name Korvold. I found that even when i had an empty board and other players were more a threat than me, they other players would still target Korvold. And i think it’s because of the name-stigma. They even Said stuff like “well its Korvold, i gotta kill it, its powerful!”. So i have taken it apart since.
So I built the new Korvold because I wasn’t enjoying my Baba Lysaga deck that much. It’s not overpowered at all but a lot more fun and challenge to pilot compared to a lot of Jund good stuff commanders! You’re defo right, its name puts people off!
Turn 2-3 glutton is a lot of fun and very obtainable Diamond lion has a great home in it since it's an extra +2 towards getting korvold out, and discarding your hand for the mana just gives korvold permanent types to see in the GY
The Balrog of Moria if I had to take a guess after looking at how many decks another verson of him having over a thousand decks was from the main set, The Balrog Durin's Bane. He has a cost reduction based on sacrifice and can't be blocked except by legendary creatures. He also has an on death trigger that while not as strong can also destroy an artifact so there's some flexibility if it comes out.
Carmen is secretly cracked as a aristocrat's voltron commander. Built in evasion, has a fantastic synergy with fetch lands. Has a few 3 piece combos that can pump her infinitely
I built an Otharri Rebels deck (all of the maindeck creatures were rebels). Certainly not the most powerful way to build this commander, but it was a blast to play. I've also been having a lot of fun with my Omarthis deck. Unfortunately, Omarthis came out in the same precon as the most popular colorless commander of all time.
I think it’s getting easier for cool cards to fall through the cracks because there are just so many commanders released each year. Majority of players aren’t full time on Magic and so you gotta Marie Kondo which decks you end up putting together.
Even better with the Master is if you gain control of an opponent's creature that is outside B/U color pie, THEN cast your commander and exile their creature, but you gain the ability, and they can't do anything about you copying it over and over again because it's in exile.
I have Watcher in the Water in my binder - I've tried to brew a deck for it a bunch of times but it just keeps ending up feeling like way too much durdling for the payoff. I'd be interested to see what you put together.
I've made a deck with the Master, formed a new a weeping angel deck, so when I get my weeping angel which is just a normal artifact creature can finally make my angel the commander we deserved lol
I'm surprised more people aren't playing the new Malcolm. I threw together a deck for him when i opened a copy and it's fun even with just random big jank I had lying around. Slap double strike on it and you only need to hit twice. He flies so you're almost guaranteed to be able to hit someone at the table. And then the double strike means you can cast two spells per turn for free. Of course you put Omniscience in the deck and then you're off to the races. You can pretty easily get the fourth counter on turn 4. Cast it the end of turn 2, swing turn 3, proliferate somehow, turn 4 give it double strike, bam.
As a complete noob to the format, Rielle, the Everwise looks very interesting to me as an izzet commander - turning a 'wheel' effect into a mass-draw for yourself is a bit spicy.
what do you think of legolas, counter of kills? im currently making a scry commander deck thats kind of built around him and i wanna know your thoughts.
Otharri is absurdly strong and the only reason I don't run him myself is because I am trying to conceptualize a Zabaz, Glimmerwasp as my Boros deck and am fine-tuning a Yuma, Proud Protector deck.
So i built polukranos and my biggest gripe is it has to transform, so it's either a 10 mana commander or a commander that takes 2 turns to even start utilizing. Stack on top of that he's got no built in protection and you're essentially using all your resources to cast the same guy over and over
Sharae plays out a lot like Bennie Bracks. I run a pauper edh build where I have a bunch of creatures with tapdown abilities so I can trigger Sharae 3-4 times a round. It's pretty fun.
I just finished building a Hydra edh deck a few weeks ago and if Gargos wasn't so amazing Polukranos would be my commander. I'd be happy if I could just put him in the deck
Here's a neat tech for Gollum, Obsessed Stalker. Use Psychic Paper to give another creature unblockable and change its name to Gollum, Obsessed Stalker and then proceed to hit players with it. Gollum's end step trigger only cares that they were hit by a creature with that name even if it wasn't actually Gollum itself.
Amusingly, I don't actually like stun counters in my Hylda deck. I want the tap triggers so I get the effect. You can't tap an enemy that's already tapped. ETA: Of course, as I said in the video where you discussed Hylda, I'm not playing her as a tap deck, I'm playing her as a vaguely tap-themed Elemental Tribal deck
Traft and rem have potential to go infinite with intruder alarm. I think I'm going to try and build this deck. Since we're in Jeskai we can play stuff like recruiter of the guard and imperial recruiter to get ourselves a card called chief engineer. With chief engineer we can make a majority of our deck artifacts making them free. Intruder alarm will make us go infinite if we have a draw engine set up. This probably has a high chance to fizzle but it would be amazing to see it happen. Or he could honestly just attach paradise mantle to this commander with a intruder alarm in play and just make infinite tokens that way.
I absolutely want to build omarthis at some point when we have a few more cool colorless cards that work with him. Like please there's just not enough yet T_T
Cathodion is so good in Korvold. Sac it and you just have to pay jund to cast Korvold thanks to it being an artifact creature and its death trigger generating 3 colorless. Then it also counts as two permanent types in your graveyard as well
I can't really afford to build too many commanders more than one for each colour combination and there are like a thousand new commanders a year, there's no way anyone can keep up.
I may be new to comander but i definitely understand why these aren't popular when some are way to mana pricey for very mediocre effects or just have a very fragile strategy
honestly you have some good ideas on these commanders with the exception of The Balrog of Moria, which is a banger of a card but an absolute bust as a commander. cant cycle as a commander or likely a very bad idea to do so, really expensive to get on the field and missed out on blue when compared to the many other better choices in LOTR theme set. Sure it has haste and trample which is good for almost any creature to have but this card benefits much more from being a noncommander card than it even would be successful as a commander. No real surprise to me that there are so few of this card as commandeer
I tried out Malcom on my mono blue turns shell but turns out kefnets zombie that I was using before is slightly better. Being able to snag turns at instant speed instead of being locked into doing it only on my turn. He is solid in the 99 tho.
There's so many commanders being released it's easy to lose track now days lmao
So many Sagas, so many utility artifacts... last year must have set some kind of record for new Magic cards.
And when you look at how people like to personalize their commander decks, it's also hard to look at a new commander and think "yeah, I'll replace my old commander with this." I like the new Bant pre-con, but I'm not going to turn my clue deck Bant just to fit the non-simic cards in, no matter how cool they are.
Exactly, ppl will come aroundneventually. I’m just getting going with all the Ixalan and doc who commanders I’ve been wanting to build, and still researching the Karlov. Im always 2-3 sets behind lol
@@PhoenicopterusRFelt the same with Ixalan. Oh, two new Grixis pirate commanders! Yeah, but my current one is so fun, and I already have a different reanimator.
You can slim down on choices if you choose to not count any universe beyonds and secret lairs.
*janky/tough build commander comes out*
Demo: I am SHOCKED this isn’t popular
I can’t believe normal people aren’t building 10 new commander decks every year.
I mean I get it, not all people wanna play jank commanders. But they are the only ones that catch my eye
@@ryftedmage1404 I love Jank decks, as long as that’s what other people are playing… It’s not fun to play overpowered decks where you’re never going to be able to do that Jank thing your deck wants to do…
A lot of the commanders he mentioned are not hard to build around tbh
they release lik 40+ new legendaries each set and not to mention the commander sets and then the universes beyond bull Too much legendary creatures not every squirrel dude and random sorc/warrior needs to have a name and be legendary
I have a Samut, Vizier of Naktamun deck, and it is one of the most fun decks I own. It just feels like you're playing the game on fast forward. You drop creatures and swing immediately, every turn. And there are a ton of unique cards that help out the deck. Anything that makes things tapped and attacking. A bunch of things give a buff to creatures as they come into play.... It's so fun, and you draw like crazy.
One of the best parts is that because it draws so much and because it only cares about creatures that came out this turn, the deck basically ignores board wipes. I wipe the board myself a lot of the time, because I can recover faster than anyone else.
Any chance of linking a deck list?
Decklist?
i have samut in the 99 of my ognis haste tribal deck. hes insanely good. maybe he suffers from the competition (jolene, ognis, ...) but he has a different angel that i like. my ognis deck is my most fun deck as well... always action =)
I wouldn’t say “ignores board wipes” 😋
deck list!
So happy to see my boy The Watcher in the Water on here. In my experience a lot of players ignore it until it's too late because its not an immediate threat. I've had a huge amount of fun playing it, it can certainly be run as a sort of "aggro" mono blue deck. Keep Watch is such a hilarious card to run, especially if an opponent swings out against you with a swarm of tokens, chump their swing with tentacles and then put an absurd amount of stun counters down (and probably actually untap the Watcher). I've also overrun opponents by having Eldrazi Monument out and wheeling a giant hand with Tolarian Winds.
The reason Saint Traft/Rem Kromulus had the convoke ability added is because he was the secondary commander in one of the MOM precons, Kasla, the Broken halo. It's all based around jeskai convoke. If you just build it from scratch you could go any direction, sure, but I think they wanted it to work seamlessly with the rest of the precon.
@@mr.wafflesrz1137 I bought that precon for my wife and it's actually pretty decent. It took a bit of massaging out of the box to get it to pop off but it's pretty good now. I def think Kasla is the better commander for it tho. Flying, vigilant, haste 5/5 can do alot of damage really quick.
I adore my Saint Traft and Rem deck. It's a token deck that plays no token synergies except the commander itself and never has an issue getting multiple each turn. Every turn is a little minigame to try to get them tapped 3x.
Your idea to add Crackleburr was CLUTCH. That thing does so much work in the deck.
If you put Divine Visitation in the deck, you only have to tap it once.
Aura of Dominion is the best card in the deck. 1 mana, do everything.
Got a list?
Demo thanks for dropping these cards. Very informative 👍
i just built a saint traft and rem karolus deck. its pretty fun. i use vehicles to have a tap outlet every time i want to, and a bunch of untap abilities. intruder alarm is hilarious... i love to play it (the help from your discord was apreciated=) )
I want to say that I'm not surprised a lot of these aren't popular, but these are some really fun builds! This was a good video to do. The Master Formed Anew + Deadeye Navigator + Peregrine Drake... He really could be a blast to play. It's pretty easy to force this. This would be really fun to build around. You make solid points with a lot of these commanders and I would love to see more people do these unique build arounds.
I run 13th and Yaz and it's one of my favorite decks because of the build around. I focus on casting from exile and library to get big chaotic value. The biggest card that clicks is Passionate Archeologist. With two commanders that enable it, it's exciting to do a big cascade on your opponents.
As someone who is terrible at deck building but has lots of commanders I’d love to build; would really like to see your takes on an updated Polukranos list and how you could take Watcher in the Water on. Two cards I can see the potential in but can’t make work.
Great video!
Nice Video, Shelob was on my sight couple month ago. But a friend told me to do another challenge instead: Build a Deck around Bilbo, Retired Burglar. So thats also veeeeery underrated. Build it of course with a Dwarf, Dragon, Ring-Tempt/Blink an treasure/artifact subtheme like an aristocrats deck. Pumping the treasures into big dragons und damage triple effects. Max the Ring-Tempt in Turn 4 or 5. And still very budget friendliy for around 90 $
I built othhari after u spoke about it in a video previously and I will say it is absolutely bonkers good. It’s practically unkillable and has an immediate impact when it enters the battlefield
There is no doubt otharri is strong, is just a super boring commander, il you want to make a token deck there is 30 more commanders to build around that might not be as strong but way way more interesting and fun to play
@@healusion8912 that's subjective though, I love my Otharri deck :) It's Boros aggro at heart, but can still grind insane value and get super scary later in the game thanks to experience counters.
I have the Thirteenth Doctor Inside my Vhal+Raised by Giants deck. That deck was build as a "human tribal" and that card gave me one game 😺
Me: Oh wow, that's such a unique commander and deck you're playing!
Also me: I'm playing Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow...
I feel you, I like these ideas but I like even more wining, so I play urza and oloro
Omarthis is amazing, I have used him in the 99 in mono white and selesnya colored reanimation decks as a source of card advantage/sack fodder.
My selesnya Samwise Gamgee deck revolves around him, as he cares about nontoken Creatures entering to create foods that you then can sack to regrow Historics. It is rather easy to manifest your whole library. My wincon also revolves around having a lot of creatures out - I wanna flip a manifested Rotpriest and cast some multitarget spell like Eerie Interlude giving every opponent 10 poison counters.
For my white aristocrat combo deck w/ Mikaeus, the Lunarch I run a lot of colorless mana dorks that I can easily put counters on and thus create a massive Omarthis rather quickly and then sac or swing depending on the boardstate.
Very fun card and can be used in so many ways! Have not tried him as a commander yet though.
I was really excited by Rem Karolus and Saint Traft the first time I saw them as I really liked the flavor of the team up, but I never built them because I assumed that they would be too weak. When I first saw you pushing them as underrated I honestly kinda rolled my eyes because I was still pretty convinced they weren't any good. But after seeing you recommend them multiple times I decided to give them a go since I have a jeskai tokens deck that has been in major need of a total rework and I'm extremely glad I decided to give these guys a chance. Turns out Saint Traft and Rem Karolus are actually quite strong, after some testing I've been absolutely blown away by how easy it is to create the angel tokens. I think the big thing I missed was that I think you should have mentioned is that Vehicles make it very easy to tap these guys whenever you need to. Another thing that's worth mentioning is that extra combat effects often let you tap and untap them all at once. Anyway thanks for the suggestion these guys have been extremely fun to build and I'm extremely excited to go out and play them at my LGS later this week.
I broke my Brion Stoutarm deck to build a Kethek one. I reused all my "threaten" to steal and sac my opponent's creatures. I don't regret it ! :)
I have three of these commanders built and took a fourth apart.
Ayara I knew I had to build immediately. She's a great deck and built around the front ability with etb abuse. It's the kind of deck that doesn't seem like it's doing much then bam! You are in control and winning the game. Love it.
Otharri is just fantastic. One of my strongest and most fun decks.
Kinzu is another etb abuser with some lifegain as well. A lot of fun and a regular I reach for.
I tried Polukranos and just found him way too slow for the groups I play in. Ended up taking it apart unfortunately.
Saint and Rem I made a vehicle list for and was very excited to try it but never built it.
I'm currently doing a Zangief deck and considering a Mazzy enchantress with all the new Eldraine cards.
Just saw a samut deck on commander at home and it was really cool to see as a deck, i dont like gruul but did enjoy the uniqueness of the deck.
The other thing I like about the Master is that he works with steal strategies (or in a mirror match). You can only exile a creature you "control," but you can have him copy any creature exiled with a takeover counter on
People play monoblack shelob in the golgari one; Not only because it's stronger but also because having access to green makes you ramp and that means more black shelob activations in a turn.
13th Doc landed a home in my Perrie the Pulverizer build, but it's a bit weird to make a commander. Polukranos is one of my favorite jank city decks because I built Hydra Stickers, lovingly called Polly want a Sticker? Notably, most hydras are 0/0 and trash reanimation targets ....unless you've changed the power/toughness with a sticker! The wurmcoil effect is just bonus! Plus, getting abilities to stick to Polly is great because they stick around through all visible zones. All around fun
I do have a water in the water deck, I built it as mono blue aristocrat back when I was trying to design an aristocrat deck for each mono-color, only really have green/blue from that and a start on colorless.
Thanks for this list. I can bring a fresh new deck to my LGS
A commander I really enjoy that I don't see a lot of is Moira and Teshar, with the ability to (basically) free unearth a nonland permanent in your graveyard with haste whenever you cast a historic spell, and I put in some big creatures with nasty etb effects and blink cards, and it's pretty strong.
20:18 this commander is one of my favorite commanders, it runs my Convokens deck. It's incredibly powerful
just made my polukranos deck a few weeks ago and really digging it so far
for the balrog my first thought is running graveyard cards that move it back to your hand then you can summon it, get its big effect then use it as a mana generator with tokens until you put it back on the battlefield.
I play a Malcolm, Alluring Scoundrel deck and it's really fun. I have 12 slots for big, splashy blue spells that I randomly cycle in each game from a stack of about 25. It is surprisingly easy to get to 4 Chorus counters and drop things like Subjugate The Hobbits that would otherwise never see play. It's the only mono Blue deck I would even consider playing
The master, formed anew is EASILY my favorate! The fact that it also stacks, so you can build your commander each time throughout the game to make it versatile, is absolutely flawless! Use some cards that reduce mana cost to get around the commander tax, and you'll quickly be able to get an absolute BEAST out for very cheap, entirely custom tailored to whatever you need. Although I kinda wish it had green, there's a lot of green creatures I really like, but I can't be too picky
Aside from that, Polukranos is second place, completely uncontested. Absolutely love hydras, without a doubt my favorate tribe in the entirety of magic, and the fact they got such a useful commander was a massive uplifter for me that year. Though I am sad that it doesn't really support the hydra strategy, but at the same time I'm greateful that it introduces a new strategy for the tribes arsenal, making it WAY harder to counter your deck overall. Personally I think they could have added a small ability involving counters, either for the front or backside without feeling unnessecary or going overboard, which is why it gets second place despite being my favorate tribe, compared to the master whose only design flaw is a minor personal preference
I’m definitely gonna build a mono-black Shelob deck, that card is really sick. I built Child of Ungoliant first for Spider Tribal. Really new to magic and tribal decks seemed like a cool concept remind me of pile decks from yugioh.
I built Polukranos, Engine of Ruin as soon as it got spoiled. Super fun and powerful as well!
I just built The Thirteenth Doctor and Peri Brown. When I crafted it, there was only 1 other deck with this pairing on edhrec (there's 7 now... 3 are mine lol.). It's a +1+1 counter deck going for flash convoking historic spells on everyone's turn.
Korvold 2 is one of my favorite decks in a long time. The goal is to not be greedy, and just ride out the June value engines the deck wants to run.
You mentioned my sharae deck so of course i gotta smash that like button and leave a comment haha
I haven't tried Ayara as a Commander, but she makes an amazing lieutenant to Mishra, Tamer of Mak Fawa. Just include a Sundial of the Infinite and ways to search for it.
The meneldor deck Idea look really fun. I have cracked the bird from murder at Karlov and i was thinking about some Idea to play it. I really hope you choose to build this deck. Look a ton of fun.
I have one of the 88 shelob decks 😂🎉, it had got an above avarage win % (i run almost all the creatures that say destroy target creature) also a lot of mana rocks in order to abuse the carddraw option. The ability to exile is Great to shutdown reanimator theme decks, i dont use it to play my opponents creatures 😁
Commander surplus definitely has a lot to do with it. I did build Polukranos and it was kind of fun but it's just a lot of mana to get to the back side and he becomes a huge removal target.
i built a deck with Shagrat of the LOTR set, infect and LD. One of my favorite deck.
One commander that I built that released last year and is super unpopular is Geth, Thane of Contracts with only 84 decks on EDHRec. It is tough to build around with its passive of giving your other creatures -1/-1, but it has a decent reanimation ability only costing 3 mana, but the route I went with, inspired by EDH Jank Center, was using Geth’s -1/-1 ability to auto kill any 1/1 creature tokens I made and drain opponents using some of the typical black aristocrat cards. Definitely not my best aristocrat deck, but still fun to play.
LOVE Sharae. Built a merfolk spellslinger deck with her that managed to play both of the other two Azorius legendary merfolk. Just put a bunch of ETB merfolk in the deck, tapping creatures matters cards, and a bunch of blink spells and I pretty much had full control over every game I played. All of this just because her art is so pretty. MTG needs more two-tailed mermaids.
I built a Samut deck. Very fun. My Table asked me to not bring it anymore as it was slightly too powerful (it was ^^).
I actually am building the Watcher in the water deck and you can go infinite on your opponents turn with something like arcanis, + something that turns him into a kraken and a sac outlet or just intruder alarm.
Hey Demo! Ever had a look at Hidetsugu and Kairi? It's a fun and strong commander that I've built, never seen you mention it. I think there's a couple of ways on how to build it.
I've got a watcher in the water deck. Its such a fun and strong one
Love me some Samut action; dropped him into one of my decks and have not been disappointed at all
I ask myself - "Why do I not have a Polukranos deck?" Demo with the deep in the weeds hit; will have to look up that decklist
I have an Otharri deck, and I agree that it should be more popular. Admittedly my list functions on the back of expensive pieces, but Otharri single-handedly packs such a punch that it could still dominate with a really good draft deck assuming it has synergy. Especially if you open vessel of volatility.
A turn 2 or 3 Otharri backed up with a deflecting swat is magnificent. Since I'm a divergent transformations list it's got tons of deck space for instants to play around most things after that first untap with Otharri. Even without non-token creatures, there's no shortage of ways to amplify the damage output, if not go outright infinite. Every game with it has either ended up with Otharri sustainably locked down before getting in 3 swings, or Otharri archenemy snowballing out of control.
Golum says what? This GAME?! ive been playing this guy wrong in my Frodo/Sam Food and fellowship all of last year. Thought it said this “TURN”… Thx for clearing that up!!
Carmen is great pick for this list. She's so explosive and because she works in so many different directions you can build a deck where almost every card has some sort of direct synergy.
They're so unpopular because Hasbro is attempting to kill the golden goose at breakneck speed.
Hey demo. I built Korvold and had lost of fun doing it, for the reasons you are stating. However i found that Korvold also suffers from the same-name-recognition problem in games, where people are killing it very fast just because it shares the name Korvold. I found that even when i had an empty board and other players were more a threat than me, they other players would still target Korvold. And i think it’s because of the name-stigma. They even Said stuff like “well its Korvold, i gotta kill it, its powerful!”.
So i have taken it apart since.
As budget player it would be awesome if you could include price on screen with your vids. Thanks for the cool vid
Curious to see what you do with Meneldor .. Gilded Drake is one of my favorite removal pieces.
So I built the new Korvold because I wasn’t enjoying my Baba Lysaga deck that much. It’s not overpowered at all but a lot more fun and challenge to pilot compared to a lot of Jund good stuff commanders! You’re defo right, its name puts people off!
Turn 2-3 glutton is a lot of fun and very obtainable
Diamond lion has a great home in it since it's an extra +2 towards getting korvold out, and discarding your hand for the mana just gives korvold permanent types to see in the GY
The Balrog of Moria if I had to take a guess after looking at how many decks another verson of him having over a thousand decks was from the main set, The Balrog Durin's Bane.
He has a cost reduction based on sacrifice and can't be blocked except by legendary creatures. He also has an on death trigger that while not as strong can also destroy an artifact so there's some flexibility if it comes out.
Plus this one is an archenemy because it threatens everyone's commander.
For Gollum, Obsessed Stalker, you can equip Psychic Paper to any creature and change their name to Gollum's and that would trigger Gollum's ability.
Are we getting the yearly update vid of your commander decks soon?
Carmen is secretly cracked as a aristocrat's voltron commander. Built in evasion, has a fantastic synergy with fetch lands. Has a few 3 piece combos that can pump her infinitely
so just elenda 2
Another point on the Master, Formed Anew is if you steal their creature, that still can get the takeover/exile treatment.
I built an Otharri Rebels deck (all of the maindeck creatures were rebels). Certainly not the most powerful way to build this commander, but it was a blast to play. I've also been having a lot of fun with my Omarthis deck. Unfortunately, Omarthis came out in the same precon as the most popular colorless commander of all time.
I think it’s getting easier for cool cards to fall through the cracks because there are just so many commanders released each year. Majority of players aren’t full time on Magic and so you gotta Marie Kondo which decks you end up putting together.
Even better with the Master is if you gain control of an opponent's creature that is outside B/U color pie, THEN cast your commander and exile their creature, but you gain the ability, and they can't do anything about you copying it over and over again because it's in exile.
I got so many legendary creatures from the Baldur's Gate box I bought. I wish there was a deck for all of em
I have Watcher in the Water in my binder - I've tried to brew a deck for it a bunch of times but it just keeps ending up feeling like way too much durdling for the payoff. I'd be interested to see what you put together.
I put Omarthis in the 99 of a lot of decks, great to grab with Ranger of Eos/Ranger Captain
Saint Traft and Rem Karolus is my favorite commander deck to play right now.
My buddies Balrog deck is super fun to see in action
I've made a deck with the Master, formed a new a weeping angel deck, so when I get my weeping angel which is just a normal artifact creature can finally make my angel the commander we deserved lol
I'm surprised more people aren't playing the new Malcolm. I threw together a deck for him when i opened a copy and it's fun even with just random big jank I had lying around. Slap double strike on it and you only need to hit twice. He flies so you're almost guaranteed to be able to hit someone at the table. And then the double strike means you can cast two spells per turn for free. Of course you put Omniscience in the deck and then you're off to the races. You can pretty easily get the fourth counter on turn 4. Cast it the end of turn 2, swing turn 3, proliferate somehow, turn 4 give it double strike, bam.
Got a list?
As a complete noob to the format, Rielle, the Everwise looks very interesting to me as an izzet commander - turning a 'wheel' effect into a mass-draw for yourself is a bit spicy.
I have a Rem and Traft deck. It's nuts.
what do you think of legolas, counter of kills? im currently making a scry commander deck thats kind of built around him and i wanna know your thoughts.
You should do a deck tech on the watcher of the water deck!
Otharri is absurdly strong and the only reason I don't run him myself is because I am trying to conceptualize a Zabaz, Glimmerwasp as my Boros deck and am fine-tuning a Yuma, Proud Protector deck.
So i built polukranos and my biggest gripe is it has to transform, so it's either a 10 mana commander or a commander that takes 2 turns to even start utilizing. Stack on top of that he's got no built in protection and you're essentially using all your resources to cast the same guy over and over
Sharae plays out a lot like Bennie Bracks. I run a pauper edh build where I have a bunch of creatures with tapdown abilities so I can trigger Sharae 3-4 times a round. It's pretty fun.
Palokranos is an awesome selesnya commander I built mine with the lifegain strategy cause the 6 lifelink is actually a lot lol
I just finished building a Hydra edh deck a few weeks ago and if Gargos wasn't so amazing Polukranos would be my commander. I'd be happy if I could just put him in the deck
Anyone playing kinzu should try out promise to aclozat. Giving you populate in black alongside a sac outlet is exactly what you want.
Here's a neat tech for Gollum, Obsessed Stalker. Use Psychic Paper to give another creature unblockable and change its name to Gollum, Obsessed Stalker and then proceed to hit players with it. Gollum's end step trigger only cares that they were hit by a creature with that name even if it wasn't actually Gollum itself.
Amusingly, I don't actually like stun counters in my Hylda deck. I want the tap triggers so I get the effect. You can't tap an enemy that's already tapped.
ETA: Of course, as I said in the video where you discussed Hylda, I'm not playing her as a tap deck, I'm playing her as a vaguely tap-themed Elemental Tribal deck
Traft and rem have potential to go infinite with intruder alarm. I think I'm going to try and build this deck. Since we're in Jeskai we can play stuff like recruiter of the guard and imperial recruiter to get ourselves a card called chief engineer. With chief engineer we can make a majority of our deck artifacts making them free. Intruder alarm will make us go infinite if we have a draw engine set up. This probably has a high chance to fizzle but it would be amazing to see it happen.
Or he could honestly just attach paradise mantle to this commander with a intruder alarm in play and just make infinite tokens that way.
well infinite is a strong word because the fourth trigger doesnt give u any token anymore... but 3 tokens on each turn is pretty sweet =)
Carmen seems fun! Right up my alley.
I absolutely want to build omarthis at some point when we have a few more cool colorless cards that work with him. Like please there's just not enough yet T_T
Cathodion is so good in Korvold. Sac it and you just have to pay jund to cast Korvold thanks to it being an artifact creature and its death trigger generating 3 colorless. Then it also counts as two permanent types in your graveyard as well
I like Carmen, any deck that will pay me off for playing Smokestack in slow pods is always fun.
The beard looks fantastic
i can see the Balrog(LTC), Kinu, and Kethic would work in a deck together throw in Syr Konrad and Ayara, first of Locthwain
Kinzu plus Altar of Baal would be raaaaad! You can exile the token to get the creature back and loop etbs forever
I can't really afford to build too many commanders more than one for each colour combination and there are like a thousand new commanders a year, there's no way anyone can keep up.
Polukranos is really cool for budget decks. I just wish it wasn't splashed into white. The into blue, or black, would've been better.
Kethek reminds me of Dreamshape Shaman. You could run both to double dip.
I may be new to comander but i definitely understand why these aren't popular when some are way to mana pricey for very mediocre effects or just have a very fragile strategy
honestly you have some good ideas on these commanders with the exception of The Balrog of Moria, which is a banger of a card but an absolute bust as a commander. cant cycle as a commander or likely a very bad idea to do so, really expensive to get on the field and missed out on blue when compared to the many other better choices in LOTR theme set. Sure it has haste and trample which is good for almost any creature to have but this card benefits much more from being a noncommander card than it even would be successful as a commander. No real surprise to me that there are so few of this card as commandeer
I built Carmen. I've played it a handful of times in two separate pods and she draws a lot of hate.
Play a bunch of Act of Treason effects in any Ayara deck. Sacrificing someone else’s creatures is much better than sacrificing your own.
I tried out Malcom on my mono blue turns shell but turns out kefnets zombie that I was using before is slightly better. Being able to snag turns at instant speed instead of being locked into doing it only on my turn. He is solid in the 99 tho.
I have a 13th Doctor/Yasmin chaos deck that I think is one of my dumbest but most fun decks in my relatively short time playing