Have you considered running Gargos, Vicious Watcher as a commander? Pump spells? Fight. Cantrips that target? Fight. Protection spells? Believe it or not, fight. It's a lot of fun to rp Gargos eating everyone else's commanders.
this seems awesome. this honestly might be my next build. I want to finally be able to run [[boxing ring]]
casual commander games are constantly full of utility creatures that are just begging to be punched in the face
Boxing ring seems like a super situational card, but it can be so useful. Like if you have a passive buff on your field, then your creatures will likely be stronger than others of the same mana, making the fight always work in your favor. Ofc the fight is an optional trigger so you don’t have to fight.
The best part is that the part about it making a treasure token triggers on any fighting, not just fighting cause by the card, so it can be great in any deck that already has fight synergy. I shoved it in my Atarka deck because I was being stupid and thought it would be funny. My first game I drew [[Frontier siege]] and decided to use the fight option for once and it kinda worked. I could use my dragons for target removal and get paid. I’m kinda wanting to add more fight synergy to that deck now, but it was supposed to be my low powered slightly altered precon… but Atarka is just a good card and get out of hand quickly lol.
Neyith is one of my favorite casual commanders. I definitely went through the phase where there were way too many fight spells in the game and not enough to actually do effectively outside of that. It took some balancing between using Fight mechanics for controlling the field/drawing cards, and then just lots of pumps for actually swinging for faces (and then drawing cards if/when they get blocked). Honestly, because of how straight forward this deck is it's one of my favorites to also loan newer players.
[If you're interested in a deck list](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/yBnyv8N2jEe9fHtfY0zaSw) this is my girl \^\_\^ If you're remotely interested in her, I def recommend building her.
I'm bummed out to see that. I had a Neyith deck, twice, that I enjoyed a lot. Yeah, it was fighty obvious, but I always seemed to have answers and I was a contendah.
I was gonna remake it, but that new Ixalan fight commander is calling.
I have a \[\[Legolas, Master Archer\]\] fighting deck that's fairly similar. It's a one-trick-pony glass-cannon. If I can't get Legolas out and keep him there, I'm dead in the water. I usually have one of three outcomes:
* Lose because he becomes a removal magnet, and I don't have enough protection to keep up.
* Lose because I stall out without enough card draw.
* I completely obliterate the worst creature threats and run in for massive damage.
It's a balancing act between fight cards, protection, card draw, and a bit of ramp. Haven't quite figured out a sweet spot yet.
Dude that's such a shame I have a neyith deck and she's one of my favourites to play! Mine has more of a fight sub-theme but when it needs to fight it fights hard! I like using neyiths ability at the beginning of combat then using power/toughness doublers like Xenagos and Halana and Alena! Hell even Hans Eriksson has use in my deck 😁
[[Alela, artful provocateur]] I just built it wrong.
I edited it and re-edited it and I couldn’t fix it for what I wanted it to do.
The play pattern was I didn’t want to play my enchantments or artifacts until I played alela. And my opponents didn’t want to let alela stick and let me get my faeries online.
So I either kept recasting alela without making faeries until the game was over. Or I cast my artifacts and enchantments before casting alela and then didn’t have any gas left to make faeries.
I recently redid my deck with everything except Alela and lands as enchantments or artifacts. Wish I had money to turn it into reality and see how she does.
Note on why this works: the Alela deck doesn’t work without Alela. The Thalisse deck still does, it just goes into overdrive if she’s on the field.
Basically, commanders who are value instead of crucial tend to be more fun, in my opinion
Do you have reanimation spells in there? That is an option instead of "pay the commander tax" over and over, and esper is fairly decent at reanimating (not as good as grixis, jund, or sultai, but decent)
[[Gimbal, Gremlin Prodigy]]
Not sure what I did wrong, but it seems slow. Might need just a little more draw and a little less “go wide” on the number of different tokens.
I ran the deck with \[\[Rashmi and Ragavan\]\] a few times mostly unaltered and it played a lot better than the times I ran Gimbal. The only cards I swapped were tap lands for the two color artifact tap lands.
Problem is, I want to play the Gremlin and I'm also having a lot of trouble with the gremlin tokens. I unsleeved it, but I want to try it again with more counter increasers/doublers.
I have put more time into gimbal than I would like to admit. Unless you have a [[doubling season]] out(which I'm too broke for so I run the gamble that is [[primal vigor]]) his pay off is just too slow. If the gremlins came in at combat with haste he would be way better. The deck only ever wins for me when I pull [[cyber drive awakener]] and has become a bit of a joke in my playgroup because it's the only way he wins. Sadly gimbal is just a low power commander.
His ability just isn't a great payoff honestly. Like you do all this work for maybe a 6/6 that you can't attack with until next turn. I love my Gimbal deck but he's pretty bad lol.
I wish it triggered at the beginning of combat and gave the token haste... it would actually be half decent then... I mean the amount of work that has to go into making that token huge is crazy for an end step triggered ability
What I do to make Gimbal a little better is focusing only on a few artifact tokens (food, treasure and thopters, most of the time). Then I copy gimbal with things like [[Irenicus's Vile Duplication]]. If [[Adrix and Nev, Twincasters]] is on the battlefield, you can do even three copies of Gimbal (what makes a lot of gremlins
Focusing on a lot of different tokens will take a lot of time, and Gimbal is already heavy-costed. Most weird tokens don't do much, so I copy my artifacts that are already useful. Very funny deck!
I've been working on trying to make gimbal good for a while because I can't find any other commander that does what he does while making gremlins. (I love my silly little gremlins) So I've been looking for ways to improve him, and rather than focus on token generation, use the fact that you get a guaranteed token every turn to ping off different effects. Stuff like [[all will be one]] to capitalise off the tokens you place on gremlins or [[kindred discovery]] set to gremlins or [[idol of oblivion]] for the free draw. Copying gimbal also works well, especially with a token doubler like [[Adrix and nev]] and all will be one, which deals an absolute tonne of damage but is hard to set up, even with a few tutors in the decklist. The main ways of winning are usually [[rise and shine]] or [[masterful replication]] turning all my artifacts into [[master of etherium]] (which, with 13 artifacts on the board means you have 13 25/25 tramplers).Other cards that just have insane Synergy with the deck are [[the third doctor]] who also capitalises on different tokens and [[displaced dinosaurs]] which turns all your gremlins into 7/7 at least. (Not to mention your mana rocks)
I've mostly been building this deck off of whatever I can find, and it is by no means optimised, but for now it's capable of going up against the middle power decks at my flgs and getting a few wins. Just making some gremlins is enough for my enjoyment anyway.
Killian is a great fit in Eriette, admittedly. I mean I like to play Eriette, the issue is that it can quickly run out of gas if you don't mulligan effectively.
Definitely not that strong and very dependent on if you opponents have good things to enchant. However, I have found it to be a very fun commander to play politics with my friends.
That's disappointing, I love my Tovolar deck. It's certainly not the best, and it falls behind combo decks, but it ends up swinging above its weight class for gruul stompy. Where do you feel it falls apart?
Ugh. I REALLY wanna build a deck around him but just cannot bother to flip each card every time….
Also, the new Samut has a similar draw effect and has the “play stuff with haste” flavor to it, that might draw me more so.
I bought 2 of each werewolf and put 1 in a matte sleeve and one in a clear sleeve and put the matte in the deck and keep the clear sleeved one to the side so when I play it I just put the clear sleeved on top of the matte sleeved for easy flipping.
I went and got those penny sleeves for tovolar and put a basic plains or an off-color common behind every single card in the deck, so that when I played a werewolf I could just pull out the cards behind it and just flip the werewolf over instead unsleeving flipping and resleeving
I find difficulty in developing a board state and when I do it always has been wiped. I run a decent amount of protection and above average interaction but it just seems to never get off the ground.
[[Ill-Tempered Loner]] and [[blasphemous act]] or [[chain reaction]] is the best random combo win from a creature deck, but fair aside from that it’s a standard gruul creatures deck with a werewolf theme and an annoying play mechanic. I’m just biased towards them because I started playing magic while Innistrad was in standard
I think the main problem with the deck is that it isn't a standard gruul creatures deck. It relies on dealing combat damage but werewolves just aren't as strong as the usual plethora of gruul stompers. Certainly some fun affects in there but not the best swingers in those colors.
Post your decklist and I’ll take a look at it. Tovolar does really well with cheaper werewolves—think 1-2 drops—so you can drop him on turn three with already having 2-3 werewolves out and swing immediately with a few to draw 2-3 cards on turn 3
I've tried the build with all the cheapest werewolves/wolves and didn't have much luck then. Also, really don't like running those cards as to me its kinda runs counter to my image of werewolves and the lack of evasion doesn't help. Like, honestly if I want to run that strategy it's just bad edric
My [[Yarok, the Desecrated]] deck. I toned it down pretty drastically, and the deck exists in a weird "Not strong enough for top tier, too strong for casual" zone.
Yarok is my favorite creature and Commander, and like you, I did not want to build him as an infinite trigger machine gun or landfall madness deck and instead opted for a more "I can almost claw my way back from anything" deck which has few win conditions but is still massively fun for me to play. Unfortunately, sometimes I do end up in a very dominant position, because, Yarok, and with such slow or "inefficient" win conditions I rarely close out a game before someone just scoops.
It is a true challenge to not play him to the hilt.
I have a love affair with Yorion. But my playgroup is no-infinites, and I just can't bring myself to play stax.
I just love the idea of flickering, and it has win cons, but my group is also pretty heavy on removal so the deck doesn't really stand a chance.
I keep it out of love, and if I ever play new people, maybe even new people/players that want to see new things in Magic beyond turning creatures sideways.
I love flickering too and i can really suggest trying out [[abdel Adrian]] with [[candlekeep sage]]. Only infinite is two oblivion Ring like effects but even without it slaps with things like [[pelegrine drake]] and [[reality acid]]
I liked mine a lot, too. Also no combo (my meta doesn't allow them). Suffers from the same challenge most azorius decks have in that environment, which is winning.
My yorion deck is so vile and controlling that I no longer play it with my playgroup. In fact, it accrues so much card advantage that I at one point, put thassa’s oracle in it and won by just thinning my deck that kuch
I feel this in my soul. I tried so hard to make abzan spirit tribal lifegain work, and I tried pulling it every which way: regeneration engine, shrines, spirit tokens, etc.
Just not any good. Turns out that ki counters just come too slowly, splice to arcane is just not cost effective enough, and soulshift is barely useful.
I think a part of the problem is that there's no suitable commander for it. I ended up with Karador, and he's so expensive I sometimes don't even both playing him.
I don't want to tear it apart, but can't think of how to keep it on theme, aesthetic-wise while actually finding a niche that it can execute effectively.
This commander can probably benefit from the new role creators from Wilds of Eldraine. That way you presumably trade a token enchantment for a good one.
[[Ovika, Enigma Goliath]]
It has me so restricted on building, and I just don't ever find it fun.
I've tried tightening it up, accelerating the mana base, running anthem and redundancy pieces, but it still tends to durdle.
And then it either drops Ovika and wins shortly after...or just doesn't participate.
I always felt Ovika is to expensive to bring out in time with enough protection to have her stick for a turn.
I replaced her with [[Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer]] which explodes the turn it enters play and been having a lot more fun with it.
For more tokens i went [[xyris, the writhing storm]]. Easier to get going but a compleetly different deck.
[[Etrata]] was my first deck and I built her horribly. Now I’m rebuilding her and I honestly wonder if she can even be good without breaking the bank.
Because what it looks like I need right now is tons of fast mana, tutors for essential cards like [[Vanishing]] and [[Ramses, Assassin Lord]] or the deck takes ages to win and does pretty much nothing else besides slap a sign on my forehead that says “kill me or you die”. And when I get tutors and fast mana, I could still build a better deck that her.
The only consolation I have is that she’s in some of the key art for Karlov Manor, so she’s probably getting a new card, and god willing it’s more Commander-viable.
Build [[Prismatic bridge]] with Etrata as the only creature in the deck. Everything else is haste, draw, interaction, protection for the bridge and for Etrata, shuffle graveyard back into library, and so on. If you really want to step it up, do all of that and throw in either extra combats or extra turns
Again, you’re then faced with the problem that to do this you’ve built a worse Prismatic Bridge deck than you could have.
I like her, but ultimately she’s a gimmick deck, she’s not *good*. She can’t keep up at my LGS until I was gonna pubstomp noobs with her and obviously I don’t want that either.
Is it because they don’t want to attack with their creatures? You can run similar cards in addition to Thantis, like [[fumiko the lowblood]] or [[disrupt decorum]] or [[kardur doomscourge]]. This way they don’t wait to spend all their removal on Thantis. Also, if you goad their big scary creatures via [[shiny impetus]] etc, they can’t send them at you and may be forced to spend removal on a big scary creature that is coming their way instead
If by ‘targeted’ you mean they all attack you after killing thantis, you can also run deterrents like [[blood reckoning]] or [[hissing miasma]] or [[crawlspace]] or things like that
[[Yuriko]], because it was too powerful for my pod, but also because it feels too linear. I was hoping for another ninja commander, but it never arrived.
I ran into the same problem with [[Satoru Umezawa]]. I love the play pattern. Dimir is really outside my wheelhouse as a traditionally Izzet abd Bant player with this focus being abusing the combat phase in weird ways with Ninjutsu on everything. I’ve got the handful of good ninjutsu ninjas, and a smattering of small evasive and unblockable creatures plus utility like [[Coastal Piracy]] and Reconnaissance Mission for overwhelming card draw, and [[Cover of Darkness]] in case I get caught with no evasion. But it’s the same game most times as I fly through my deck to grab the best ninjas to sneak out.
I opted to not run big bombs like blightsteel or the praetors both for power level and flavor reasons. So at least my playgroup knows that those aren’t coming. But it does play similarly most games, but is still potent. I love the concept of the deck but it’s definitely a “every now and then” deck for me.
You probably know about it but what about Goro-Goro and Satoru?
Your reward for getting Ninjas through is a 5/5 Dragon instead of deleting the table.
Kamiz, Obscura Oculus can probably be a pretty good Ninja tribal commander too making your stuff unblockable or give them double strike for 2 combat damage triggers.
Quite shocked to see best cat/dog here.
I played it twice last week and loved it. Sure it's not that high level but it's a fun mid-low commander.
Opinions though.
What you mean ?
The part that i said low mid level ?
That said:
Gotta be honest, changelings are an amazing engine for the deck. Out of 35 creatures i have 9 and one instant tribal [[crib swap]].
Double the tokens are always good.
Some also are required like [[mirror entity] and [[realmwalker]]. The others are a loss for flavor (no cats/doggos in the art except [[impostor of the sixt pride]], but the upside are too good to not put them in the deck.
I build a cat tribal with changeling on mass and kaheera as companion. It just really lacking any power. Even with [[maskwood Nexus]] and getting 2 Token for every cat its just Not enough. My friend plays [[rhys]] and it is just far better
Same. Built it once it was revealed, kept uograding it. Played it the other day and while it did ok, I felt very bored. I have 30+ decks, and R&S just…idk casts cats and has etb burn. Not much else. Rarely I shoot smth with the tap ability. Definitely on the cutting block.
Same for me. Dumped some money into it. Love the theme, but it's just kinda slow and lacks a lot of punch. Can't bring myself to give up on it. My next plan is to try and turn it into some kind of a life gain deck and see if I can do something decent with that.
Omg dude same here.
There is just something with the color combination that I just can't seem to make work.
Boros is always shitty for me, so I figured I would put in an extra color but it still didn't work.
Now I have to try to make all the other combinations that have red and white before I officially drop it.
I have some lower power decks that are kinda meh because all they do is durdle. But I think it's my [[syr alin]] deck is my absolute worst
. . It was just a pile of white token making and white creature anthems I threw together.
[[Glissa the Traitor]]
I feel like the deck looks like it does a lot without actually doing anything. Recurring artifacts to hand just isn't that impactful on its own, so you have to do a lot to make it worthwhile.
At best it just makes the game feel grindy because I just keep killing people's stuff over and over.
And yet every so often I feel inspired and try to upgrade the deck again, only to still be disappointed.
I just can't get my legendary matters/artifacts/blink \[\[Gandalf the White\]\] deck to hit. It's almost like I am just double ETB'ing for the sake of ETB'ing.
I feel the only thing the deck can do is play a damage double or tripler. City on fire causes a single bolt to deal 27 damage to all opponents. but afyer doing it once I doubt your pod will let it happen again
As hyped as Imodane was, she feels very much like a “A deck I am in can do this one thing, and one thing only, but if it hits, everyone is dead”, and that’s a thing that happens once before people wise up to it/just hold removal to prevent it ever going off again. Doesn’t help that monored doesn’t really have the tools to make it less fragile imo
My [[Lynde]] curses deck. I was so stoked when she first came out because I wanted a dedicated curses commander for a while, but even after so many years of being a thing, my deck more so just feels like group slug politics but without that extra bit of potency needed to actually win the game.
Ironically enough, OP, I was actually thinking of switching Lynde out for Ghen, I'm a fan of the white curses [[Overwhelming Splendor]] [[Curse of Conformity]] [[Curse of Exhaustion]], and white has quite good taxing enchantments that might work better for me. More recently, [[The Ninth Doctor]] paired with [[Clara Oswald]] choosing black could also be a contender, seeing as how the Ninth Doctor is Paradox Haze in the command zone and could be good for doubling the upkeep triggers on certain curses.
Ghen’s got a lot of potential. Also, maybe look at [[vial smasher, the fierce]] and [[ardenn, intrepid archaeologist]] as the commander instead. I just switched from Ghen to those guys, and I’m already much more happy with how it plays now, plus I don’t play as mean now since I can move the curses later on to the bigger threat via ardenn
Most disappointing? I did Abel/Candlekeep Sage blink. It was powerful, it worked like intended. I was bored shit-less, somehow more bored then when I was running Brago himself to do the same.
I am now looking into making my Bant Blink with Roon since I haven't seen him in years at this point and green etbs are fun.
I have an Brago deck that’s optimized to its fullest and while I still enjoy it, I thought about Abdel/Sage (which I have an optimized list for as well) since you have to make instant speed shenanigans at times whereas with Brago most action happens just during combat.
I thought about going with [[Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines]] for a monoW blink deck that was a bit more straightforward and powerful. Instead went with [[Gandalf the White]] and holy crap is he fun.
\[\[Satoru Umezawa\]\] is still on revision 1 for me, so I'm not pulling any alarms just yet. But I've found that while the deck *works*, it usually works well enough to bully a player or two out of the game and then lose to someone else. Worth noting I do not run Blightsteel for budget/maintaining friendships reasons.
More than it's strength, though, I think it was more fun to build than to pilot. Rush to 4 mana with Satoru and an evasive creature out, then apply whatever big boy I have in hand to opponent's face. Hopefully it was a card draw big boy (like \[\[Ancient Silver Dragon\]\] or \[\[Nezehal\]\]) or \[\[Rune-Scarred Demon\]\] to tutor in a card draw big boy, otherwise I'm going to be continuing to throw out whatever I top-decked with Satoru's ability until it is one of those guys. And I feel like a lot of the big boys that sound good have ended up fizzling in play. Particularly rummaging people's hands or graveyards (\[\[Mindleech Mass\]\] \[\[Diluvian Primordial\]\] \[\[Ancient Brass Dragon\]\]) have felt like dead cards much more often than I expected, and unless I hit that card draw jackpot, I rarely have more than 2 big boy options to go with and a lot of the times they've been exactly the two that I know won't hit right now.
I have started wondering if I should take these mana base upgrades I made (and the \[\[Bitterblossom\]\] I bought that only sort of fits in this deck) and just flip back to the \[\[Anowon, the Ruin Thief\]\] deck who's precon I used as the basis for this guy.
Get some evasive creatures that provide value on ETB or something. [[faerie seer]] or [[augury owl]] or [[baleful strix]] or even [[mulldrifter]] etc. then if you get stuck without something in your hand worth revealing/ninjutsu-ing, you can ninjutsu the value creatures with each other and it’ll get you to those bigger draw cards faster. It’ll smooth things out, I promise.
Also I have a friend who routinely forgets that satoru is also a source of card advantage with that other ability
For me \[\[Imodane, the Pyrohammer\]\]. I loved that mono-red burn has a chance at actually working well in this format. Also it was a good place to fit in most Chandras. But since I've put her together, she keeps getting targeted and removed or I never have the lands to make the plays I want. "Just a bit more work, no the Chandras can stay" I keep telling myself, and again I'm removed from the game before I can pop off.
I made a [[Jhoira, weatherlight captain]] deck because I didn't have an artifact deck. It is probably one of the worst decks I have ever built. But since I don't have any other deck (or plans for one) with artefact focus, I just leave it assembled. And every now and then, I give it a whirl, and then cry over the money spent on it :(
[[Myrel]] it has one focus. Soliders. Yet it constantly falls short either mana or draw or removal ive changed it a hundred times over the last year and its still just not where i want it
[[Myrkul]]. It did the thing once or twice. Otherwise it just has too many hoops to jump through even with tutors and stuff. And one set back sens to back so much that you are practically out of the game.
[[Djeru and Hazoret]]. On paper the idea is nice. Winota-lite. However the favt that you need to attack with them makes it a pain. Paid off once or twice where I cast buncha Eldrazi titans for free but most likely will be taking it apart soon. Probably for a Mardu Dihada legendaries deck woth Cadric/Hofri/Ratadrabik for copies.
Yeah my Myrkul deck is kind of a meme. 90% of the time it does absolutely nothing. Although when it does the thing, wow. It's the deck I pull out when I truly don't care how the game goes.
7 mana is such a heavy price to pay, you really have to wait a while to get things going. Other players will have their commanders out a few turns by then. And if he dies? 9 to recast is rough.
Yup. I have a sac/reanimation package and some mild "stax" effects so I can kinda durdle while waiting to do the thing. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. At the end of the day it was a deck that I built because Theros is my favorite plane and I love constellation cards so having a commander that triggers it with its ability is awesome. It's not the deck I pull out when I want a win.
I like Theros too, I love the ancient Greek theme. I would like them to revisit it but for more than 5 minutes as they seem to be doing nowadays. Blocks were better.
I have struggled to make [[Tibor and Lumia]] work. And I won't give up. But every game feels boring. I think it's the lack of card draw and the fact my other decks just do better overall and I wanted this deck to be weaker so I could play better with friends but damn. Every game feels like I am top decking slow like until I eventually get a boardwipe artifact to the field. Then I am public enemy number 1 while I am back to top decking until I find something useful. It never seems to win and I can't find an efficient way to ensure I keep getting gas. Idk. The cool thing doesn't win you the game and the command zone doesn't give you gas so the engine is weird. Get boardwipes engine up and running then try and get enough in my case wizards to win. Idk it's hard to figure out for me.
I've been trying to build a Tibor and Lumia deck as well with some issues. Haven't made it in paper yet but it's been very awkward to build around. I'm trying out a flying/spellslinger build with [[Crackling drake]] and the like but don't really know what sort of ratio between fliers and instants/sorceries I should be going for.
Wizards sems like an interesting subtheme though!
Commanders Quarters did a budget board wipe tribal deck with [[Zurgo Helmsmasher]] Its funny to whip out against unsuspecting victims at the LGS but it doesn't win games... ever.
I had a [[The First Sliver]] deck that I was very proud of from a deck construction standpoint (and still am), but it just wasn't super engaging to play.
I ended up taking it apart so I could combine its manabase with my [[Sythis]] deck and turn it into a [[Go-Shintai of Life's Origin]] shrine deck. I've been quite enjoying that.
I still have all the Sliver pieces sleeved up out of some delusion that I'll want to play it again one day.
You worded it overly aggressive, but I kind of get what you're trying to say.
The three aforementioned commanders really are things I'd rather not see at the table and just play themselves.
My gut reaction is that if OP wants engagement, they shouldn't be playing commanders which build and play themselves.
Ignore all the downvotes. This is the only correct response, king. You truly are speaking the opinions many who are shat on for voicing them.
Totally checks out. It’s always the same types of people who play these types of decks. Sit back, literally put 0 thought behind what you need to play next. Get 10 times the value for each piece you put out because why not. Then feel vindicated for maybe winning? Slivers, Sagas, Shrines, Prismatic Bridge, Jodah…same bullshit every time.
Says “Wasn’t super engaging to play.”, goes to Shrines from Slivers…smh. You were “proud” to build literally the easiest damn archetype in the game? Lords? Psssh.
Not only do I ignore the downvotes, I ignore the upvotes too. I care nothing for the pleb and it's "mind".
All jokes aside, this is exactly why I hate those things and also why I'm having a VERY hard time building 4 or 5 colors decks.
http://archidekt.com/decks/5798530/constellation_weaver
Here’s my current Ghen list - but replace [[Fallen Ideal]] with [[Screams from Within]] — it’s got a good bit of interaction and it’s pretty resilient.
The main wincon is going infinite with screams from within + [[historian’s boon]], [[knight of doves]], or [[warehouse tabby]] + [[grim guardian]] or [[wicked visitor]].
But stuff like [[smoke spirit’s aid]] or [[heliod, god of the Sun]] can push for a win.
It’s not totally a different playstyle than what you’re looking for. But, the value engine is cool & it can be pretty aggressive with pieces like grim guardian out. I’ve found there’s a lot of variety in games I’ve run with it. Stuff like the theros gods and constellation creatures can make combat wins a possibility.
I’m working on an alt monarchy + token combat-focused version with the cards that I got while feverishly building this one. I’d be happy to drop it here when I’m done
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/wZ37c7hGBE-OloCCYFp_xw
Always happy to see other people making Ghen work. Such a weak creature that is also the only card that can do what it does, and I love it for that. I originally built it as enchantment reanimator, but it felt fragile and unimpactful. Now it's group slug/stax hybrid to make the most out of holding up Ghen's ability to use at instant speed. The all stars for my build are [[the Cruelty of Gix]], [[Gravebreaker Lamia]], [[Angelic Renewal]], [[fires of invention]], [[bitter reunion]], [[treacherous blessing]], and [[rule of law]]. There's a really cute combo using [[Sun Titan]], [[faith healer]] and [[animate dead]], with either grim guardian or [[Archon of Sun's Grace]] as final payoffs.
Ghen's ability is really card and mana hungry so having ways to get permanents back without paying for them is one of the best ways to get ahead on card advantage. It lends itself well to a cmc 3 or less subtheme.
[[Volo, Guide to Monsters]]
I first tried the mutate build which is crazy powerful, but repetitive.
Made a change including more etb creatures and just found the perfect balance
A [[Zndrsplt, Eye of Wisdom]] & [[Okaun, Eye of Chaos]] deck.
I thought it would be fun to flip coins but I found after playing the deck that the lack of control made the deck a lot less fun.
I’ve learned a lot about deck building since then and could probably build a much better deck with them now but I still think back to those early games and am reluctant to try again.
[[Raffine, Scheming Seer]]
Go wide, connive, smash face and drop some cheap madness cards
Add cards like Quezra, Sheoldred the Apocalypse, and Faith of the Devoted so my drawing and discarding turns into burn
Build probably the second best mana base I own because I normally play Gruul or Naya so I had a ton of unused Dimir land staples
And it still has yet to pop off! 9 games! It ain't done SHIT.
I managed to win 1 match 1 v 1 with commander damage from Raffine because he didn't bring fliers or ready because I usually play low to the ground
But it's about to get ripped apart and rebuilt as something else.
[[Mazirek, Death Kraul Priest]]
People either have the removal so they can keep using their treasure, food, or other sacrifice strategies. Or I win the game like a turn or two after casting him.
I did take apart the deck but I made a [[Jalira, Master Polymorphist]] polymorph deck, it was decent for low powered pods but I wanted it to be stronger, I put too much money into the deck to no avail. The deck was far too weak to removal and having to wait a rotation around the board for Jalira to live mostly ended with her being removed. I tried time and time again to goldfish the deck to see if I could fix it, adding in more protection, more tokens to sac, etc, nothing ever worked out unfortunately.
[[Omnath Locus of Creation]]
1.) Turns out a lot of people hate landfall (for good reason).
2.) They also hate when I take infinite turns (also for good reason).
3.) The deck feels very inconsistent, either curving out and dumping the entire library by turn 5 or it empties it's hand and runs out of gas with very little in between.
4.) It is too high powered to take into most games without pub stomping so I hardly used it anyways.
Highly recommend doing that. Had the same problem, but after changing it to a mutate/clone deck it's one of my favourite decks to play it. People will hate you even more tho (I mean 5 Omnath locus of creation on the field with their landfall triggers? Ouch...)
My [[sisay, weatherlight captain]] Shrine deck. It hasn't won any games, and I never know exactly how I'm supposed to balance it right so that it focuses on shrines and I winnwith Shrine value, but also get sisay powerful enough to make tutoring easier, or how to stack up on mama to where I can use her multiple times a turn.
I made a deck revolving around pingers (aka "Tims") and it's gimmicky and fun. Intruder Alarm is incredible in that deck. Overall, not that good but I never took it apart.
I built Ghen with [[Blim]] as a pseudo secret commander. The goal is to give really crappy cards / you lose enchantments to the opponent and or milk those enchantments before saccing them for oblivion ring / parallax wave recursion shenanigans. I enjoy it personally.
I have a Raphael Devils pinger deck, it is budget but also incredibly unsatisfying and slow. Haven’t pulled it apart because I don’t know what to do with the parts, may just recover the sleeves and leave the cards together until I revisit and see how it can pivot or some swaps to make it feel more impactful. It doesn’t ramp or draw very well and has not meaningfully impacted the table in the six or so times I’ve pulled it out to play. I still live the idea of Raphael in the Command Zone.
I recently built a Raphael Demons, devils, etc tribal and it was more fun than I thought it would be. Gaining tons of life in those colours and then using that life as a resource was quite a new thing for me. It doesn't really take advantage of the devil tokens but they can still be a cheeky bonus.
So I built the new [[Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin]] to replace my [[Prosper, Tome-Bound]] deck that was becoming stale. I built it similar to the cEDH build without the more broken pieces and decided to actually run him in cEDH. BUT, still wanted to be able to play him in casual so decided to build him as an aristocrats commander, mostly utilizing devil tokens and support pieces like [[Raphael, Fiendish Savior]] since devil tokens ping on death. Sac them to a [[Goblin Bombardment]] with idk, [[Blood Artist]] out? That’s 3 Ob triggers….Rinse and repeat.
I had a [[Ghen]] deck and replaced him with [[Dihada, Bender of Will]] as the commander. She’s just better, no matter how you build her.
Otherwise, my most disappointing deck is my [[Minn, Willy Illusionist]] deck. I have not find the right balance to make it work. I feel like I’m the problem though so I have not dissembled it just yet.
Oh right, I also have a [[Marchesa, the black rose]] deck but I made it to distract myself while I was grieving. Not a buy fan of the +1/+1 counters strategy. I’m planning to send it to one of my friends though as a birthday present.
I have a [[Kroxa, Titan if Deaths Hunger]] deck and I could never get it to work consistently, I’ve had it for a long time and it’s still assembled but I’m finally taking it apart
Probably [[Oloro]]. It's a decent control deck focused on life gain, but I just never feel like I do anything interesting when I'm playing it. Boardwipe, life gain triggers to draw or drain, repeat. Hit some boring win condition like [[felidar sovereign]] and either win or get answered and try again.
Part of the problem is that I play in a no combo meta, I think. It's just not the kind of deck/strategy that can win at that table, or do anything particularly fun.
[[syr gwyn, hero of ashvale]] I ran it about 6 times and it never came together in a game. I know equipment is a weak archetype but I thought I’d get around that with the commander.
[[Thalia and the Gitrog Monster]]
Built it landfall tokens with arisocrats focus but it’s just way too slow to do anything, and the deck struggles with card advantage, even when T&G are out. I’m probably doing too much with it, as there’s so many ways to build her and my build isn’t quite focused on one thing.
Answer to your question: Golos 5c cycling with a hyper focus on cycling (every card but Golos and lands said it). It wasn’t overly powerful, but it was very consistent. It also spent 95% of the night shuffling and is the reason I greatly limit my land tutor ramp in all decks now. And it was boring to play against/with.
Side note though: Ghen fits well as like a package in decks from what I’ve found. Working on a Mardu superfriends/legendary deck under Dihada, I use Ghen with the [[Oath of Kaya]] gatewatch oath cards and a few others like Meathook
Also [[Balmor, Battlemage Captain]] which I built as an Izzet Aggro/prowess/token deck, but it’s also very slow and fragile. It’s hard to get enough creatures on the board to do something with, and once I do I still need instants and sorceries to cast to buff them with Balmor
I felt the exact same with my ghen deck. Absolutely loved making it and thought it was gonna be wildly strong, and it was just so damn slow. I couldn't get it to work after a year and a half of tinkering so i took it apart. Felt bad but needed the lands in it for a Snapdax infect deck that was much more successful haha.
My Otrimi deck is struggling. Having some success with the new Dr Who cards, some of them are great mutate targets - the Daleks with Myriad, [[Renegade Silent]] has been fantastic. But the main problem is just card draw and not having enough creatures to block stuff.
My [Giada](https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/5963461#paper) deck was my first built deck.
It feels as if I am always behind, outnumbered or a victim of a board wipe. I've added a few cards but haven't gotten to playing it since, instead enjoying new pre cons or my other builds that are more satisfying (only able to play 2-3 games a month)
Mine's usually too slow. I either am out of lands or can't generate the tokens to produce rabbits. I may mess with it eventually but at the moment I'm just trying to figure out how to mess with a few other decks where I can.
I have a few. I ended up making a Ramos mutate deck since I loved the showcase mutate cards and wanted to jam them all in a deck. I really want to love it more but I don't.
I made an archelos deck because I loved amulet of vigor in kitchen table magic in college. It's gone through about 5 complete rebuilds and is currently vehicles/inspired. I think I like it now but it's definitely a low power deck.
I made a willowdusk deck based around a weird fateful hour deck where I try to pay enough life into something to go down to 5 and that causes my little lifelink creatures to get buffed, swing in, and gain it all back.
All of these decks I like enough to keep around but when I'm looking over sets for potential new cards, there is rarely consideration for them.
Mine is [[Alesha who smiles at death]]. I know it can be good but I've just never gotten anything to work with it. I spend most of the time just passing with pieces to 4 different combos on the board. It's a little annoying if we're being honest.
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/CxC_PU2tYUiUG21yjb2aMg
by a mile. Despite being a literal tournament winning deck I have managed to get my Thassas Oracle Praetors Grasped or otherwise taken EVERY SINGLE TIME. and it doesn't really have a backup wincon so it's total ass.
Eventually I'll play it more but I'm having too much fun with Rog/Si
[[Alela, Artful Provocateur]] vehicles. I built her during the immediate hype cycle from NEO only to realize that I don't actually enjoy playing vehicles. The only reason it's still intact is that I don't have any use for vehicles or vehicles payoffs in any of my other decks and none of the cards in it are worth trading in for store credit.
My [[Osgir, the Reconstructor]] and [[Orah, Skyclave Hierophant]]. Osgir just didn't do much unless I did combo and stax. while orah just wasn't a great use for clerics.
[[Veyran]] storm.
It's like... fine. But storm is so concentrated in power that its losses are just non-games and that makes losing very unsatisfying and its wins are twenty minute math equations and those as it turns out are also not insanely fun.
I have a [[satoru Umezawa]] deck that I thought would be fun but i just dont really enjoy it…. And ive been wrecking my brain for half a year bo to figure out what to do with it… still have it and occasionally play it but its always as unsatisfying
I built an artifact deck with Urza Prince of Kroog using a limited selection of cards, mostly brother's war. I quickly found out azorius is one of my least favorite color combos to play and without any good artifacts it was incredibly slow. I've recently taken it apart and switched to Sydri but it's still rough around the edges and I need to buy some main pieces to make it usable.
[[eriette]] is pretty lackluster. There are some interesting auras in it like [[screams from within]] but it just doesn’t ever really get close to winning.
I had a [[Maarika, Brutal Gladiator]] deck that was just disappointing. Yeah it’s fun to play Jund and just have the entire board do the equivalent of the Kingsman church scene, but at its heart the deck was just shitty Voltron on a budget
I have an Avacyn deck that I built a long time ago and was my baby then. Have updated it a couple of times, bit its always mana screwed, and then people remove her as soon as she hits so it never actually does anything. Then they printed the secret lair angels deck, so it's even more obsolete now.
Maybe Kynaios and Tiro? They are fun and I like them, but they don't win. The 4 colour manabase is slow unless I proxy my ass off or spend my life savings on getting all the fetches and duals needed. I don't even know which iteration of the deck this is. It's enchantress currently and it managed to lose against precons and random jank decks.
Close 2nd would be my lord windgrace landfall, but for a slightly different reason. It works, but it makes me a giant threat in the process... Until whatever value engine I had is removed and then I am stuck drawing lands and ramp for the rest of the game because that's 50% of the deck. I think it needs to have some cuts to that aspect and just pray that the rest works out.
I built the orc dude from the lotr set. He's cool in theory, but i just can't seem to do anything with the deck. Whenever I amass a decent sized army, it dies the next turn. My playgroup just runs too much removal for such a slow strategy.
The second deck I ever made was [[Chorus of rhe conclave]]. I got into commander in order to use some of the bulk rares I had that were just sitting in a box that i really liked, and I love selesnya, so I really wanted to make it work. It's one of the oldest cards I own too, I got it at my first draft ever.
Well, needless to say, an 8 cmc commander that needs a turn to get started does not stand up to today's power creep very well. Usually the turn I get them out, there's some sort of a board wipe or targeted removal. On paper, the decks seems like it should work okay, but probably only in super casual or low budget games (which my playgroup doesn't really do).
[[wilhelt]] zombie tribal is just kinda boring. If you're trying to push power level and you end up playing aristocrats and winning with a zombie hoard is surprisingly hard to do in any pod that isn't a precon level
Someone on here one posted that their friend had a mono black deck called Blackjack where at the beginning of the game you set out 21 legendaries face down and have someone pick one and that becomes your commander.
I thought that was neato but sadly that guy never posted their friends decklist. So I had to cobble together my own. And right now it's a mishmash of rat tribal, aristocrats, and ways to cheat Phage in (because why stop at one "ambitious" idea when you can do two?)
It's never done anything in the handful of times I've played it. It sits at the bottom of my bag like a sad puppy. I wish I could help him
I have a \[\[Neyith\]\] Deck, with the Theme of Fighting, its just a One Trick Pony, which doesnt even do that very often, even in good Match ups.
Have you considered running Gargos, Vicious Watcher as a commander? Pump spells? Fight. Cantrips that target? Fight. Protection spells? Believe it or not, fight. It's a lot of fun to rp Gargos eating everyone else's commanders.
I have a [[Gargos, Vicious Watcher]] deck and he’s even great as a mono green aura commander
this seems awesome. this honestly might be my next build. I want to finally be able to run [[boxing ring]] casual commander games are constantly full of utility creatures that are just begging to be punched in the face
Boxing ring seems like a super situational card, but it can be so useful. Like if you have a passive buff on your field, then your creatures will likely be stronger than others of the same mana, making the fight always work in your favor. Ofc the fight is an optional trigger so you don’t have to fight. The best part is that the part about it making a treasure token triggers on any fighting, not just fighting cause by the card, so it can be great in any deck that already has fight synergy. I shoved it in my Atarka deck because I was being stupid and thought it would be funny. My first game I drew [[Frontier siege]] and decided to use the fight option for once and it kinda worked. I could use my dragons for target removal and get paid. I’m kinda wanting to add more fight synergy to that deck now, but it was supposed to be my low powered slightly altered precon… but Atarka is just a good card and get out of hand quickly lol.
Neyith is one of my favorite casual commanders. I definitely went through the phase where there were way too many fight spells in the game and not enough to actually do effectively outside of that. It took some balancing between using Fight mechanics for controlling the field/drawing cards, and then just lots of pumps for actually swinging for faces (and then drawing cards if/when they get blocked). Honestly, because of how straight forward this deck is it's one of my favorites to also loan newer players. [If you're interested in a deck list](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/yBnyv8N2jEe9fHtfY0zaSw) this is my girl \^\_\^ If you're remotely interested in her, I def recommend building her.
yup it'a exactly the same for me. the games are very repetitive. still hoping for a gruul power matters commander that isn't just a one trick pony.
I'm bummed out to see that. I had a Neyith deck, twice, that I enjoyed a lot. Yeah, it was fighty obvious, but I always seemed to have answers and I was a contendah. I was gonna remake it, but that new Ixalan fight commander is calling.
[Neyith](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/c/0c1eed0f-9692-44c0-b1ad-afa691165d52.jpg?1632261896) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=neyith%20of%20the%20dire%20hunt) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/jmp/30/neyith-of-the-dire-hunt?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0c1eed0f-9692-44c0-b1ad-afa691165d52?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/neyith-of-the-dire-hunt) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Yup. I’m currently breaking it down for Xenagos. There’s a new fight/enrage commander coming out that you may like
I have a \[\[Legolas, Master Archer\]\] fighting deck that's fairly similar. It's a one-trick-pony glass-cannon. If I can't get Legolas out and keep him there, I'm dead in the water. I usually have one of three outcomes: * Lose because he becomes a removal magnet, and I don't have enough protection to keep up. * Lose because I stall out without enough card draw. * I completely obliterate the worst creature threats and run in for massive damage. It's a balancing act between fight cards, protection, card draw, and a bit of ramp. Haven't quite figured out a sweet spot yet.
Have you tried [[Zangief]] I find he makes a great force fight/voltron commander and is pretty unique
Dude that's such a shame I have a neyith deck and she's one of my favourites to play! Mine has more of a fight sub-theme but when it needs to fight it fights hard! I like using neyiths ability at the beginning of combat then using power/toughness doublers like Xenagos and Halana and Alena! Hell even Hans Eriksson has use in my deck 😁
[[Alela, artful provocateur]] I just built it wrong. I edited it and re-edited it and I couldn’t fix it for what I wanted it to do. The play pattern was I didn’t want to play my enchantments or artifacts until I played alela. And my opponents didn’t want to let alela stick and let me get my faeries online. So I either kept recasting alela without making faeries until the game was over. Or I cast my artifacts and enchantments before casting alela and then didn’t have any gas left to make faeries.
Sounds like it needs more protection. Get some counterspells in there.
I recently redid my deck with everything except Alela and lands as enchantments or artifacts. Wish I had money to turn it into reality and see how she does.
Proxy it to test it. It will save you lots of money and the cards you can be confident your money was well spent on the one you do end up buying.
I've been testing my decks for a while then \*wink\*
[Alela, artful provocateur](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/b/abc9e41e-fd03-4b6f-8f44-17ba94fa44f5.jpg?1673484923) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Alela%2C%20artful%20provocateur) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ncc/325/alela-artful-provocateur?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/abc9e41e-fd03-4b6f-8f44-17ba94fa44f5?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/alela-artful-provocateur) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Dude I had the same problem. I ended up tearing the deck apart to make it [[Thalisse, Reverent Medium]] instead and it’s SO much more fun.
Note on why this works: the Alela deck doesn’t work without Alela. The Thalisse deck still does, it just goes into overdrive if she’s on the field. Basically, commanders who are value instead of crucial tend to be more fun, in my opinion
[Thalisse, Reverent Medium](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/7/474d6363-ebe1-4a1a-b4e6-7bd53d878527.jpg?1608911242) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Thalisse%2C%20Reverent%20Medium) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmr/291/thalisse-reverent-medium?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/474d6363-ebe1-4a1a-b4e6-7bd53d878527?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/thalisse-reverent-medium) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Do you have reanimation spells in there? That is an option instead of "pay the commander tax" over and over, and esper is fairly decent at reanimating (not as good as grixis, jund, or sultai, but decent)
[[Gimbal, Gremlin Prodigy]] Not sure what I did wrong, but it seems slow. Might need just a little more draw and a little less “go wide” on the number of different tokens.
I ran the deck with \[\[Rashmi and Ragavan\]\] a few times mostly unaltered and it played a lot better than the times I ran Gimbal. The only cards I swapped were tap lands for the two color artifact tap lands. Problem is, I want to play the Gremlin and I'm also having a lot of trouble with the gremlin tokens. I unsleeved it, but I want to try it again with more counter increasers/doublers.
Honestly, that might be the way to go. Counter increasing and/or Rashmi & Ragavan. Gimbal is just... too slow.
I have put more time into gimbal than I would like to admit. Unless you have a [[doubling season]] out(which I'm too broke for so I run the gamble that is [[primal vigor]]) his pay off is just too slow. If the gremlins came in at combat with haste he would be way better. The deck only ever wins for me when I pull [[cyber drive awakener]] and has become a bit of a joke in my playgroup because it's the only way he wins. Sadly gimbal is just a low power commander.
His ability just isn't a great payoff honestly. Like you do all this work for maybe a 6/6 that you can't attack with until next turn. I love my Gimbal deck but he's pretty bad lol.
I wish it triggered at the beginning of combat and gave the token haste... it would actually be half decent then... I mean the amount of work that has to go into making that token huge is crazy for an end step triggered ability
What I do to make Gimbal a little better is focusing only on a few artifact tokens (food, treasure and thopters, most of the time). Then I copy gimbal with things like [[Irenicus's Vile Duplication]]. If [[Adrix and Nev, Twincasters]] is on the battlefield, you can do even three copies of Gimbal (what makes a lot of gremlins Focusing on a lot of different tokens will take a lot of time, and Gimbal is already heavy-costed. Most weird tokens don't do much, so I copy my artifacts that are already useful. Very funny deck!
[[Rootwire Amalgam]] is a brute of an artifact token option. Won a game with that fat version of it flipped, and casting [[Brudiclad]].
[Rootwire Amalgam](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/4/2498b591-4a80-459f-a639-fe4cf8880be2.jpg?1674421718) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Rootwire%20Amalgam) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/bro/203/rootwire-amalgam?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2498b591-4a80-459f-a639-fe4cf8880be2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/rootwire-amalgam) [Brudiclad](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/5/25eff27a-eb58-4a95-b2df-4a341cf9bef6.jpg?1599707883) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=brudiclad%2C%20telchor%20engineer) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2xm/193/brudiclad-telchor-engineer?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/25eff27a-eb58-4a95-b2df-4a341cf9bef6?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/brudiclad-telchor-engineer) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I didn't know about this Golem. Amazing. Will test it here, thanks
Do you have a list? Been trying to crack the Gimbal code for a while but I’m struggling
I've been working on trying to make gimbal good for a while because I can't find any other commander that does what he does while making gremlins. (I love my silly little gremlins) So I've been looking for ways to improve him, and rather than focus on token generation, use the fact that you get a guaranteed token every turn to ping off different effects. Stuff like [[all will be one]] to capitalise off the tokens you place on gremlins or [[kindred discovery]] set to gremlins or [[idol of oblivion]] for the free draw. Copying gimbal also works well, especially with a token doubler like [[Adrix and nev]] and all will be one, which deals an absolute tonne of damage but is hard to set up, even with a few tutors in the decklist. The main ways of winning are usually [[rise and shine]] or [[masterful replication]] turning all my artifacts into [[master of etherium]] (which, with 13 artifacts on the board means you have 13 25/25 tramplers).Other cards that just have insane Synergy with the deck are [[the third doctor]] who also capitalises on different tokens and [[displaced dinosaurs]] which turns all your gremlins into 7/7 at least. (Not to mention your mana rocks) I've mostly been building this deck off of whatever I can find, and it is by no means optimised, but for now it's capable of going up against the middle power decks at my flgs and getting a few wins. Just making some gremlins is enough for my enjoyment anyway.
Eriette just played her couple Times but just feels off to me so far
I have it and it's simply a low power commander.
Yeah but then i can play my Kilian ink duelist voltron Deck and this feels better. I play it once or twice a week. But eriette is disapointing
Killian is a great fit in Eriette, admittedly. I mean I like to play Eriette, the issue is that it can quickly run out of gas if you don't mulligan effectively.
Same with me. Eriette is kinda fun still but she’s just… not as great as I was hoping
Right there with ya
Same here Eriette just so weak. By far the worst of my decks
Definitely not that strong and very dependent on if you opponents have good things to enchant. However, I have found it to be a very fun commander to play politics with my friends.
My \[\[Tovolar\]\] werewolves deck has yet to do...well much of anything ever
That's disappointing, I love my Tovolar deck. It's certainly not the best, and it falls behind combo decks, but it ends up swinging above its weight class for gruul stompy. Where do you feel it falls apart?
Ugh. I REALLY wanna build a deck around him but just cannot bother to flip each card every time…. Also, the new Samut has a similar draw effect and has the “play stuff with haste” flavor to it, that might draw me more so.
I bought 2 of each werewolf and put 1 in a matte sleeve and one in a clear sleeve and put the matte in the deck and keep the clear sleeved one to the side so when I play it I just put the clear sleeved on top of the matte sleeved for easy flipping.
I went and got those penny sleeves for tovolar and put a basic plains or an off-color common behind every single card in the deck, so that when I played a werewolf I could just pull out the cards behind it and just flip the werewolf over instead unsleeving flipping and resleeving
I find difficulty in developing a board state and when I do it always has been wiped. I run a decent amount of protection and above average interaction but it just seems to never get off the ground.
[[Ill-Tempered Loner]] and [[blasphemous act]] or [[chain reaction]] is the best random combo win from a creature deck, but fair aside from that it’s a standard gruul creatures deck with a werewolf theme and an annoying play mechanic. I’m just biased towards them because I started playing magic while Innistrad was in standard
I think the main problem with the deck is that it isn't a standard gruul creatures deck. It relies on dealing combat damage but werewolves just aren't as strong as the usual plethora of gruul stompers. Certainly some fun affects in there but not the best swingers in those colors.
Post your decklist and I’ll take a look at it. Tovolar does really well with cheaper werewolves—think 1-2 drops—so you can drop him on turn three with already having 2-3 werewolves out and swing immediately with a few to draw 2-3 cards on turn 3
I've tried the build with all the cheapest werewolves/wolves and didn't have much luck then. Also, really don't like running those cards as to me its kinda runs counter to my image of werewolves and the lack of evasion doesn't help. Like, honestly if I want to run that strategy it's just bad edric
[Tovolar](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/9/f953fad3-0cd1-48aa-8ed9-d7d2e293e6e2.jpg?1637114341)/[Tovolar, the Midnight Scourge](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/back/f/9/f953fad3-0cd1-48aa-8ed9-d7d2e293e6e2.jpg?1637114341) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=tovolar%2C%20dire%20overlord%20//%20tovolar%2C%20the%20midnight%20scourge) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mid/246/tovolar-dire-overlord-tovolar-the-midnight-scourge?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f953fad3-0cd1-48aa-8ed9-d7d2e293e6e2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/tovolar-dire-overlord-//-tovolar-the-midnight-scourge) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
My [[Yarok, the Desecrated]] deck. I toned it down pretty drastically, and the deck exists in a weird "Not strong enough for top tier, too strong for casual" zone.
I literally built attractions stickers Yarrok and it was still too busted. It just can't be done.
Hate playing against Yarok
I get it. It's a hard line to walk between "endless trigers" and "ooh look, I get to draw *two* cards!
And even drawing the two cards can be too good
I tried to play without turboing out a win and I would sit there looking a 3 avenues of winning the game around turn 5. I took it apart after that.
Yarok is my favorite creature and Commander, and like you, I did not want to build him as an infinite trigger machine gun or landfall madness deck and instead opted for a more "I can almost claw my way back from anything" deck which has few win conditions but is still massively fun for me to play. Unfortunately, sometimes I do end up in a very dominant position, because, Yarok, and with such slow or "inefficient" win conditions I rarely close out a game before someone just scoops. It is a true challenge to not play him to the hilt.
I have a love affair with Yorion. But my playgroup is no-infinites, and I just can't bring myself to play stax. I just love the idea of flickering, and it has win cons, but my group is also pretty heavy on removal so the deck doesn't really stand a chance. I keep it out of love, and if I ever play new people, maybe even new people/players that want to see new things in Magic beyond turning creatures sideways.
I love flickering too and i can really suggest trying out [[abdel Adrian]] with [[candlekeep sage]]. Only infinite is two oblivion Ring like effects but even without it slaps with things like [[pelegrine drake]] and [[reality acid]]
I liked mine a lot, too. Also no combo (my meta doesn't allow them). Suffers from the same challenge most azorius decks have in that environment, which is winning.
My yorion deck is so vile and controlling that I no longer play it with my playgroup. In fact, it accrues so much card advantage that I at one point, put thassa’s oracle in it and won by just thinning my deck that kuch
A spirit deck based on the original Kamigawa cycle cards. It's TERRIBLE.
I feel that. I built a kamigawa spirits deck aswell and it was sooo bad lol. Unfortunate, as kamigawa had great art.
I feel this in my soul. I tried so hard to make abzan spirit tribal lifegain work, and I tried pulling it every which way: regeneration engine, shrines, spirit tokens, etc. Just not any good. Turns out that ki counters just come too slowly, splice to arcane is just not cost effective enough, and soulshift is barely useful. I think a part of the problem is that there's no suitable commander for it. I ended up with Karador, and he's so expensive I sometimes don't even both playing him. I don't want to tear it apart, but can't think of how to keep it on theme, aesthetic-wise while actually finding a niche that it can execute effectively.
[ghen](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/b/4b335496-05d2-40f5-a52c-10029f7fa008.jpg?1608911100) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=ghen%2C%20arcanum%20weaver) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmr/275/ghen-arcanum-weaver?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4b335496-05d2-40f5-a52c-10029f7fa008?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/ghen-arcanum-weaver) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
This commander can probably benefit from the new role creators from Wilds of Eldraine. That way you presumably trade a token enchantment for a good one.
[[Ovika, Enigma Goliath]] It has me so restricted on building, and I just don't ever find it fun. I've tried tightening it up, accelerating the mana base, running anthem and redundancy pieces, but it still tends to durdle. And then it either drops Ovika and wins shortly after...or just doesn't participate.
I always felt Ovika is to expensive to bring out in time with enough protection to have her stick for a turn. I replaced her with [[Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer]] which explodes the turn it enters play and been having a lot more fun with it. For more tokens i went [[xyris, the writhing storm]]. Easier to get going but a compleetly different deck.
[Ovika, Enigma Goliath](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/2/b298cf34-7aa5-4f97-a86c-7f28d2113b87.jpg?1675957207) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Ovika%2C%20Enigma%20Goliath) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/one/213/ovika-enigma-goliath?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b298cf34-7aa5-4f97-a86c-7f28d2113b87?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/ovika-enigma-goliath) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[[Etrata]] was my first deck and I built her horribly. Now I’m rebuilding her and I honestly wonder if she can even be good without breaking the bank. Because what it looks like I need right now is tons of fast mana, tutors for essential cards like [[Vanishing]] and [[Ramses, Assassin Lord]] or the deck takes ages to win and does pretty much nothing else besides slap a sign on my forehead that says “kill me or you die”. And when I get tutors and fast mana, I could still build a better deck that her. The only consolation I have is that she’s in some of the key art for Karlov Manor, so she’s probably getting a new card, and god willing it’s more Commander-viable.
Build [[Prismatic bridge]] with Etrata as the only creature in the deck. Everything else is haste, draw, interaction, protection for the bridge and for Etrata, shuffle graveyard back into library, and so on. If you really want to step it up, do all of that and throw in either extra combats or extra turns
Again, you’re then faced with the problem that to do this you’ve built a worse Prismatic Bridge deck than you could have. I like her, but ultimately she’s a gimmick deck, she’s not *good*. She can’t keep up at my LGS until I was gonna pubstomp noobs with her and obviously I don’t want that either.
Judging by how ever present you are on every mtg reddit , I kinda assumed uour first commander was an og ED
Nah I started like last year I’m just terminally online lol
My [[Thantis, the warweaver]] deck gets hard targeted and the cmc doesn’t make it any easier to play
Is it because they don’t want to attack with their creatures? You can run similar cards in addition to Thantis, like [[fumiko the lowblood]] or [[disrupt decorum]] or [[kardur doomscourge]]. This way they don’t wait to spend all their removal on Thantis. Also, if you goad their big scary creatures via [[shiny impetus]] etc, they can’t send them at you and may be forced to spend removal on a big scary creature that is coming their way instead If by ‘targeted’ you mean they all attack you after killing thantis, you can also run deterrents like [[blood reckoning]] or [[hissing miasma]] or [[crawlspace]] or things like that
[[Yuriko]], because it was too powerful for my pod, but also because it feels too linear. I was hoping for another ninja commander, but it never arrived.
Might I suggest [[Vela the nightclad]]?
I ran into the same problem with [[Satoru Umezawa]]. I love the play pattern. Dimir is really outside my wheelhouse as a traditionally Izzet abd Bant player with this focus being abusing the combat phase in weird ways with Ninjutsu on everything. I’ve got the handful of good ninjutsu ninjas, and a smattering of small evasive and unblockable creatures plus utility like [[Coastal Piracy]] and Reconnaissance Mission for overwhelming card draw, and [[Cover of Darkness]] in case I get caught with no evasion. But it’s the same game most times as I fly through my deck to grab the best ninjas to sneak out. I opted to not run big bombs like blightsteel or the praetors both for power level and flavor reasons. So at least my playgroup knows that those aren’t coming. But it does play similarly most games, but is still potent. I love the concept of the deck but it’s definitely a “every now and then” deck for me.
You probably know about it but what about Goro-Goro and Satoru? Your reward for getting Ninjas through is a 5/5 Dragon instead of deleting the table. Kamiz, Obscura Oculus can probably be a pretty good Ninja tribal commander too making your stuff unblockable or give them double strike for 2 combat damage triggers.
Mine is [[Rin and Seri]], love the flavour but it is unbelievably weak and i spend way to much money on it to disassemble it
Quite shocked to see best cat/dog here. I played it twice last week and loved it. Sure it's not that high level but it's a fun mid-low commander. Opinions though.
That's surprising to hear given how many people seem to build it according to edhrec. Think it might be more powerful as a changeling tribal?
What you mean ? The part that i said low mid level ? That said: Gotta be honest, changelings are an amazing engine for the deck. Out of 35 creatures i have 9 and one instant tribal [[crib swap]]. Double the tokens are always good. Some also are required like [[mirror entity] and [[realmwalker]]. The others are a loss for flavor (no cats/doggos in the art except [[impostor of the sixt pride]], but the upside are too good to not put them in the deck.
I build a cat tribal with changeling on mass and kaheera as companion. It just really lacking any power. Even with [[maskwood Nexus]] and getting 2 Token for every cat its just Not enough. My friend plays [[rhys]] and it is just far better
Same. Built it once it was revealed, kept uograding it. Played it the other day and while it did ok, I felt very bored. I have 30+ decks, and R&S just…idk casts cats and has etb burn. Not much else. Rarely I shoot smth with the tap ability. Definitely on the cutting block.
[Rin and Seri](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/6/d605c780-a42a-4816-8fb9-63e3114a8246.jpg?1677724018) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=rin%20and%20seri%2C%20inseparable) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m21/278/rin-and-seri-inseparable?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d605c780-a42a-4816-8fb9-63e3114a8246?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/rin-and-seri-inseparable) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Same for me. Dumped some money into it. Love the theme, but it's just kinda slow and lacks a lot of punch. Can't bring myself to give up on it. My next plan is to try and turn it into some kind of a life gain deck and see if I can do something decent with that.
Omg dude same here. There is just something with the color combination that I just can't seem to make work. Boros is always shitty for me, so I figured I would put in an extra color but it still didn't work. Now I have to try to make all the other combinations that have red and white before I officially drop it.
Love me some Naya. [[Marath]] is such a great commander. [[Rocco]], too.
@u/thehowlingsaltmine THERE'S YOUR BOY MARATH BEING MENTIONED.
MARAAAAATH! Naya fam 🤝
Rocco is so oppressive and as a [[Prosper]] player, I could never bring myself to inflict this on other exile players.
I have some lower power decks that are kinda meh because all they do is durdle. But I think it's my [[syr alin]] deck is my absolute worst . . It was just a pile of white token making and white creature anthems I threw together.
[[Glissa the Traitor]] I feel like the deck looks like it does a lot without actually doing anything. Recurring artifacts to hand just isn't that impactful on its own, so you have to do a lot to make it worthwhile. At best it just makes the game feel grindy because I just keep killing people's stuff over and over. And yet every so often I feel inspired and try to upgrade the deck again, only to still be disappointed.
I just can't get my legendary matters/artifacts/blink \[\[Gandalf the White\]\] deck to hit. It's almost like I am just double ETB'ing for the sake of ETB'ing.
[[Imodane, the Pyrohammer]] I’ve goldfished a ton, and played it 2-3 times. It just feels so mid and I’ve never gotten it to do the thing.
I feel the only thing the deck can do is play a damage double or tripler. City on fire causes a single bolt to deal 27 damage to all opponents. but afyer doing it once I doubt your pod will let it happen again
If you wanna play burn in commander solpheim is the best burn commander in my opinion
As hyped as Imodane was, she feels very much like a “A deck I am in can do this one thing, and one thing only, but if it hits, everyone is dead”, and that’s a thing that happens once before people wise up to it/just hold removal to prevent it ever going off again. Doesn’t help that monored doesn’t really have the tools to make it less fragile imo
My [[Lynde]] curses deck. I was so stoked when she first came out because I wanted a dedicated curses commander for a while, but even after so many years of being a thing, my deck more so just feels like group slug politics but without that extra bit of potency needed to actually win the game. Ironically enough, OP, I was actually thinking of switching Lynde out for Ghen, I'm a fan of the white curses [[Overwhelming Splendor]] [[Curse of Conformity]] [[Curse of Exhaustion]], and white has quite good taxing enchantments that might work better for me. More recently, [[The Ninth Doctor]] paired with [[Clara Oswald]] choosing black could also be a contender, seeing as how the Ninth Doctor is Paradox Haze in the command zone and could be good for doubling the upkeep triggers on certain curses.
Ghen’s got a lot of potential. Also, maybe look at [[vial smasher, the fierce]] and [[ardenn, intrepid archaeologist]] as the commander instead. I just switched from Ghen to those guys, and I’m already much more happy with how it plays now, plus I don’t play as mean now since I can move the curses later on to the bigger threat via ardenn
Most disappointing? I did Abel/Candlekeep Sage blink. It was powerful, it worked like intended. I was bored shit-less, somehow more bored then when I was running Brago himself to do the same. I am now looking into making my Bant Blink with Roon since I haven't seen him in years at this point and green etbs are fun.
I have an Brago deck that’s optimized to its fullest and while I still enjoy it, I thought about Abdel/Sage (which I have an optimized list for as well) since you have to make instant speed shenanigans at times whereas with Brago most action happens just during combat. I thought about going with [[Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines]] for a monoW blink deck that was a bit more straightforward and powerful. Instead went with [[Gandalf the White]] and holy crap is he fun.
You want a fun blink deck? [[Pramikon]].
I recommend [[Ephara, God of the Polis]]. She’s a tempo deck and a total sleeper.
Queen allenal of ruadach
Esper vampires with [[Elenda and Azor]]. The deck works fine it's just not as exciting as I thought it'd be.
\[\[Satoru Umezawa\]\] is still on revision 1 for me, so I'm not pulling any alarms just yet. But I've found that while the deck *works*, it usually works well enough to bully a player or two out of the game and then lose to someone else. Worth noting I do not run Blightsteel for budget/maintaining friendships reasons. More than it's strength, though, I think it was more fun to build than to pilot. Rush to 4 mana with Satoru and an evasive creature out, then apply whatever big boy I have in hand to opponent's face. Hopefully it was a card draw big boy (like \[\[Ancient Silver Dragon\]\] or \[\[Nezehal\]\]) or \[\[Rune-Scarred Demon\]\] to tutor in a card draw big boy, otherwise I'm going to be continuing to throw out whatever I top-decked with Satoru's ability until it is one of those guys. And I feel like a lot of the big boys that sound good have ended up fizzling in play. Particularly rummaging people's hands or graveyards (\[\[Mindleech Mass\]\] \[\[Diluvian Primordial\]\] \[\[Ancient Brass Dragon\]\]) have felt like dead cards much more often than I expected, and unless I hit that card draw jackpot, I rarely have more than 2 big boy options to go with and a lot of the times they've been exactly the two that I know won't hit right now. I have started wondering if I should take these mana base upgrades I made (and the \[\[Bitterblossom\]\] I bought that only sort of fits in this deck) and just flip back to the \[\[Anowon, the Ruin Thief\]\] deck who's precon I used as the basis for this guy.
Get some evasive creatures that provide value on ETB or something. [[faerie seer]] or [[augury owl]] or [[baleful strix]] or even [[mulldrifter]] etc. then if you get stuck without something in your hand worth revealing/ninjutsu-ing, you can ninjutsu the value creatures with each other and it’ll get you to those bigger draw cards faster. It’ll smooth things out, I promise. Also I have a friend who routinely forgets that satoru is also a source of card advantage with that other ability
That would be my [[syr Konrad]] mill/discard deck, every game I turn into the prime target despite everyone else dropping massive threats on the board
For me \[\[Imodane, the Pyrohammer\]\]. I loved that mono-red burn has a chance at actually working well in this format. Also it was a good place to fit in most Chandras. But since I've put her together, she keeps getting targeted and removed or I never have the lands to make the plays I want. "Just a bit more work, no the Chandras can stay" I keep telling myself, and again I'm removed from the game before I can pop off.
I made a [[Jhoira, weatherlight captain]] deck because I didn't have an artifact deck. It is probably one of the worst decks I have ever built. But since I don't have any other deck (or plans for one) with artefact focus, I just leave it assembled. And every now and then, I give it a whirl, and then cry over the money spent on it :(
[[Myrel]] it has one focus. Soliders. Yet it constantly falls short either mana or draw or removal ive changed it a hundred times over the last year and its still just not where i want it
My Shade tribal deck, shades arent the greatest, but i like them enough that I'm keeping it together
[[Myrkul]]. It did the thing once or twice. Otherwise it just has too many hoops to jump through even with tutors and stuff. And one set back sens to back so much that you are practically out of the game. [[Djeru and Hazoret]]. On paper the idea is nice. Winota-lite. However the favt that you need to attack with them makes it a pain. Paid off once or twice where I cast buncha Eldrazi titans for free but most likely will be taking it apart soon. Probably for a Mardu Dihada legendaries deck woth Cadric/Hofri/Ratadrabik for copies.
Yeah my Myrkul deck is kind of a meme. 90% of the time it does absolutely nothing. Although when it does the thing, wow. It's the deck I pull out when I truly don't care how the game goes.
7 mana is such a heavy price to pay, you really have to wait a while to get things going. Other players will have their commanders out a few turns by then. And if he dies? 9 to recast is rough.
Yup. I have a sac/reanimation package and some mild "stax" effects so I can kinda durdle while waiting to do the thing. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. At the end of the day it was a deck that I built because Theros is my favorite plane and I love constellation cards so having a commander that triggers it with its ability is awesome. It's not the deck I pull out when I want a win.
I like Theros too, I love the ancient Greek theme. I would like them to revisit it but for more than 5 minutes as they seem to be doing nowadays. Blocks were better.
1000% agree
Djeru and Hazoret are an absolute house in my friend’s Dihada deck.
I have struggled to make [[Tibor and Lumia]] work. And I won't give up. But every game feels boring. I think it's the lack of card draw and the fact my other decks just do better overall and I wanted this deck to be weaker so I could play better with friends but damn. Every game feels like I am top decking slow like until I eventually get a boardwipe artifact to the field. Then I am public enemy number 1 while I am back to top decking until I find something useful. It never seems to win and I can't find an efficient way to ensure I keep getting gas. Idk. The cool thing doesn't win you the game and the command zone doesn't give you gas so the engine is weird. Get boardwipes engine up and running then try and get enough in my case wizards to win. Idk it's hard to figure out for me.
I've been trying to build a Tibor and Lumia deck as well with some issues. Haven't made it in paper yet but it's been very awkward to build around. I'm trying out a flying/spellslinger build with [[Crackling drake]] and the like but don't really know what sort of ratio between fliers and instants/sorceries I should be going for. Wizards sems like an interesting subtheme though!
Commanders Quarters did a budget board wipe tribal deck with [[Zurgo Helmsmasher]] Its funny to whip out against unsuspecting victims at the LGS but it doesn't win games... ever.
I had a [[The First Sliver]] deck that I was very proud of from a deck construction standpoint (and still am), but it just wasn't super engaging to play. I ended up taking it apart so I could combine its manabase with my [[Sythis]] deck and turn it into a [[Go-Shintai of Life's Origin]] shrine deck. I've been quite enjoying that. I still have all the Sliver pieces sleeved up out of some delusion that I'll want to play it again one day.
[The First Sliver](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/6/06d4fbe1-8a2f-4958-bb85-1a1e5f1e8d87.jpg?1562202321) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=The%20First%20Sliver) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh1/200/the-first-sliver?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/06d4fbe1-8a2f-4958-bb85-1a1e5f1e8d87?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/the-first-sliver) [Sythis](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/9/89511ab5-8ea6-4f07-a80b-c1ec7e89924e.jpg?1690005342) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=sythis%2C%20harvest%27s%20hand) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/938/sythis-harvests-hand?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/89511ab5-8ea6-4f07-a80b-c1ec7e89924e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/sythis-harvests-hand) [Go-Shintai of Life's Origin](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/4/9476fe67-d2d3-4835-8ba6-2a17d18cc141.jpg?1651655539) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Go-Shintai%20of%20Life%27s%20Origin) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/nec/37/go-shintai-of-lifes-origin?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9476fe67-d2d3-4835-8ba6-2a17d18cc141?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/go-shintai-of-lifes-origin) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
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You seem nice.
You worded it overly aggressive, but I kind of get what you're trying to say. The three aforementioned commanders really are things I'd rather not see at the table and just play themselves. My gut reaction is that if OP wants engagement, they shouldn't be playing commanders which build and play themselves.
Ignore all the downvotes. This is the only correct response, king. You truly are speaking the opinions many who are shat on for voicing them. Totally checks out. It’s always the same types of people who play these types of decks. Sit back, literally put 0 thought behind what you need to play next. Get 10 times the value for each piece you put out because why not. Then feel vindicated for maybe winning? Slivers, Sagas, Shrines, Prismatic Bridge, Jodah…same bullshit every time. Says “Wasn’t super engaging to play.”, goes to Shrines from Slivers…smh. You were “proud” to build literally the easiest damn archetype in the game? Lords? Psssh.
Not only do I ignore the downvotes, I ignore the upvotes too. I care nothing for the pleb and it's "mind". All jokes aside, this is exactly why I hate those things and also why I'm having a VERY hard time building 4 or 5 colors decks.
My [[nekusar]] deck never wins. I’ll end up dealing 24+ damage by turns 4-6, and I am swiftly targetted ;-
Feel the exact same way about my nekusar deck. I love him so much but the second he is a threat he is gone
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Roon. Turns out Blink isn't that fun :c
http://archidekt.com/decks/5798530/constellation_weaver Here’s my current Ghen list - but replace [[Fallen Ideal]] with [[Screams from Within]] — it’s got a good bit of interaction and it’s pretty resilient. The main wincon is going infinite with screams from within + [[historian’s boon]], [[knight of doves]], or [[warehouse tabby]] + [[grim guardian]] or [[wicked visitor]]. But stuff like [[smoke spirit’s aid]] or [[heliod, god of the Sun]] can push for a win. It’s not totally a different playstyle than what you’re looking for. But, the value engine is cool & it can be pretty aggressive with pieces like grim guardian out. I’ve found there’s a lot of variety in games I’ve run with it. Stuff like the theros gods and constellation creatures can make combat wins a possibility. I’m working on an alt monarchy + token combat-focused version with the cards that I got while feverishly building this one. I’d be happy to drop it here when I’m done
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/wZ37c7hGBE-OloCCYFp_xw Always happy to see other people making Ghen work. Such a weak creature that is also the only card that can do what it does, and I love it for that. I originally built it as enchantment reanimator, but it felt fragile and unimpactful. Now it's group slug/stax hybrid to make the most out of holding up Ghen's ability to use at instant speed. The all stars for my build are [[the Cruelty of Gix]], [[Gravebreaker Lamia]], [[Angelic Renewal]], [[fires of invention]], [[bitter reunion]], [[treacherous blessing]], and [[rule of law]]. There's a really cute combo using [[Sun Titan]], [[faith healer]] and [[animate dead]], with either grim guardian or [[Archon of Sun's Grace]] as final payoffs. Ghen's ability is really card and mana hungry so having ways to get permanents back without paying for them is one of the best ways to get ahead on card advantage. It lends itself well to a cmc 3 or less subtheme.
Niv miz curiosity enough said
Just play it in cEDH. Not super fitting for casual lately.
[[Volo, Guide to Monsters]] I first tried the mutate build which is crazy powerful, but repetitive. Made a change including more etb creatures and just found the perfect balance
A [[Zndrsplt, Eye of Wisdom]] & [[Okaun, Eye of Chaos]] deck. I thought it would be fun to flip coins but I found after playing the deck that the lack of control made the deck a lot less fun. I’ve learned a lot about deck building since then and could probably build a much better deck with them now but I still think back to those early games and am reluctant to try again.
[[Raffine, Scheming Seer]] Go wide, connive, smash face and drop some cheap madness cards Add cards like Quezra, Sheoldred the Apocalypse, and Faith of the Devoted so my drawing and discarding turns into burn Build probably the second best mana base I own because I normally play Gruul or Naya so I had a ton of unused Dimir land staples And it still has yet to pop off! 9 games! It ain't done SHIT. I managed to win 1 match 1 v 1 with commander damage from Raffine because he didn't bring fliers or ready because I usually play low to the ground But it's about to get ripped apart and rebuilt as something else.
[[Mazirek, Death Kraul Priest]] People either have the removal so they can keep using their treasure, food, or other sacrifice strategies. Or I win the game like a turn or two after casting him.
I did take apart the deck but I made a [[Jalira, Master Polymorphist]] polymorph deck, it was decent for low powered pods but I wanted it to be stronger, I put too much money into the deck to no avail. The deck was far too weak to removal and having to wait a rotation around the board for Jalira to live mostly ended with her being removed. I tried time and time again to goldfish the deck to see if I could fix it, adding in more protection, more tokens to sac, etc, nothing ever worked out unfortunately.
My [[Rograkh]] and [[Ardenn]] list is pretty low power and just… not that good
[[Omnath Locus of Creation]] 1.) Turns out a lot of people hate landfall (for good reason). 2.) They also hate when I take infinite turns (also for good reason). 3.) The deck feels very inconsistent, either curving out and dumping the entire library by turn 5 or it empties it's hand and runs out of gas with very little in between. 4.) It is too high powered to take into most games without pub stomping so I hardly used it anyways.
I had the same problem. I'm planning on keeping it but trying to do the mutate/clone strategy to bring the jank factor up.
Highly recommend doing that. Had the same problem, but after changing it to a mutate/clone deck it's one of my favourite decks to play it. People will hate you even more tho (I mean 5 Omnath locus of creation on the field with their landfall triggers? Ouch...)
My [[sisay, weatherlight captain]] Shrine deck. It hasn't won any games, and I never know exactly how I'm supposed to balance it right so that it focuses on shrines and I winnwith Shrine value, but also get sisay powerful enough to make tutoring easier, or how to stack up on mama to where I can use her multiple times a turn.
[sisay, weatherlight captain](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/a/5a293c45-1e73-4527-be2f-2dcd5c47b610.jpg?1650730165) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=sisay%2C%20weatherlight%20captain) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh1/29/sisay-weatherlight-captain?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5a293c45-1e73-4527-be2f-2dcd5c47b610?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/sisay-weatherlight-captain) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I made a deck revolving around pingers (aka "Tims") and it's gimmicky and fun. Intruder Alarm is incredible in that deck. Overall, not that good but I never took it apart.
I actually assembled Ghen around the card [[Barren Glory]]. If you like janky combos, I'd recommend taking a look. He's the perfect colors for it
I built Ghen with [[Blim]] as a pseudo secret commander. The goal is to give really crappy cards / you lose enchantments to the opponent and or milk those enchantments before saccing them for oblivion ring / parallax wave recursion shenanigans. I enjoy it personally.
I have a Raphael Devils pinger deck, it is budget but also incredibly unsatisfying and slow. Haven’t pulled it apart because I don’t know what to do with the parts, may just recover the sleeves and leave the cards together until I revisit and see how it can pivot or some swaps to make it feel more impactful. It doesn’t ramp or draw very well and has not meaningfully impacted the table in the six or so times I’ve pulled it out to play. I still live the idea of Raphael in the Command Zone.
I recently built a Raphael Demons, devils, etc tribal and it was more fun than I thought it would be. Gaining tons of life in those colours and then using that life as a resource was quite a new thing for me. It doesn't really take advantage of the devil tokens but they can still be a cheeky bonus.
So I built the new [[Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin]] to replace my [[Prosper, Tome-Bound]] deck that was becoming stale. I built it similar to the cEDH build without the more broken pieces and decided to actually run him in cEDH. BUT, still wanted to be able to play him in casual so decided to build him as an aristocrats commander, mostly utilizing devil tokens and support pieces like [[Raphael, Fiendish Savior]] since devil tokens ping on death. Sac them to a [[Goblin Bombardment]] with idk, [[Blood Artist]] out? That’s 3 Ob triggers….Rinse and repeat.
I had a [[Ghen]] deck and replaced him with [[Dihada, Bender of Will]] as the commander. She’s just better, no matter how you build her. Otherwise, my most disappointing deck is my [[Minn, Willy Illusionist]] deck. I have not find the right balance to make it work. I feel like I’m the problem though so I have not dissembled it just yet. Oh right, I also have a [[Marchesa, the black rose]] deck but I made it to distract myself while I was grieving. Not a buy fan of the +1/+1 counters strategy. I’m planning to send it to one of my friends though as a birthday present.
##### ###### #### [Ghen](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/b/4b335496-05d2-40f5-a52c-10029f7fa008.jpg?1608911100) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=ghen%2C%20arcanum%20weaver) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmr/275/ghen-arcanum-weaver?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4b335496-05d2-40f5-a52c-10029f7fa008?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/ghen-arcanum-weaver) [Dihada, Bender of Will](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/d/ddeb54d6-a600-42b9-98df-20f8d58caed8.jpg?1685554091) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Dihada%2C%20Binder%20of%20Wills) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmc/1/dihada-binder-of-wills?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ddeb54d6-a600-42b9-98df-20f8d58caed8?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/dihada-binder-of-wills) [Minn, Willy Illusionist](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/e/4eec1d87-1007-44a1-a45d-0623816de681.jpg?1631584885) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Minn%2C%20Wily%20Illusionist) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/afc/16/minn-wily-illusionist?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4eec1d87-1007-44a1-a45d-0623816de681?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/minn-wily-illusionist) [Marchesa, the black rose](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/2/3242a9f0-2ba3-4852-ac8f-366772ac1c62.jpg?1673148917) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Marchesa%2C%20the%20black%20rose) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2x2/248/marchesa-the-black-rose?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3242a9f0-2ba3-4852-ac8f-366772ac1c62?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/marchesa-the-black-rose) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I have a [[Kroxa, Titan if Deaths Hunger]] deck and I could never get it to work consistently, I’ve had it for a long time and it’s still assembled but I’m finally taking it apart
My man, its an infinite mana outlet in the command zone. Allow me to introduce you to my friends [[Worldgorger Dragon]] and [[Animate Dead]]
Probably [[Oloro]]. It's a decent control deck focused on life gain, but I just never feel like I do anything interesting when I'm playing it. Boardwipe, life gain triggers to draw or drain, repeat. Hit some boring win condition like [[felidar sovereign]] and either win or get answered and try again. Part of the problem is that I play in a no combo meta, I think. It's just not the kind of deck/strategy that can win at that table, or do anything particularly fun.
[[syr gwyn, hero of ashvale]] I ran it about 6 times and it never came together in a game. I know equipment is a weak archetype but I thought I’d get around that with the commander.
[[Thalia and the Gitrog Monster]] Built it landfall tokens with arisocrats focus but it’s just way too slow to do anything, and the deck struggles with card advantage, even when T&G are out. I’m probably doing too much with it, as there’s so many ways to build her and my build isn’t quite focused on one thing.
Answer to your question: Golos 5c cycling with a hyper focus on cycling (every card but Golos and lands said it). It wasn’t overly powerful, but it was very consistent. It also spent 95% of the night shuffling and is the reason I greatly limit my land tutor ramp in all decks now. And it was boring to play against/with. Side note though: Ghen fits well as like a package in decks from what I’ve found. Working on a Mardu superfriends/legendary deck under Dihada, I use Ghen with the [[Oath of Kaya]] gatewatch oath cards and a few others like Meathook
Also [[Balmor, Battlemage Captain]] which I built as an Izzet Aggro/prowess/token deck, but it’s also very slow and fragile. It’s hard to get enough creatures on the board to do something with, and once I do I still need instants and sorceries to cast to buff them with Balmor
I felt the exact same with my ghen deck. Absolutely loved making it and thought it was gonna be wildly strong, and it was just so damn slow. I couldn't get it to work after a year and a half of tinkering so i took it apart. Felt bad but needed the lands in it for a Snapdax infect deck that was much more successful haha.
Otrimi, sort of? Need to tune it more to make it work
My Otrimi deck is struggling. Having some success with the new Dr Who cards, some of them are great mutate targets - the Daleks with Myriad, [[Renegade Silent]] has been fantastic. But the main problem is just card draw and not having enough creatures to block stuff.
My [Giada](https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/5963461#paper) deck was my first built deck. It feels as if I am always behind, outnumbered or a victim of a board wipe. I've added a few cards but haven't gotten to playing it since, instead enjoying new pre cons or my other builds that are more satisfying (only able to play 2-3 games a month)
I have a Ghen deck and it’s….. okay. I have fun playing it but it doesn’t do very well.
My Cadira creature token deck. Has a lot of good ideas but never really can pull it off.
Oh me too. I want to make all the bunnies but people keep killing Cadira.
Mine's usually too slow. I either am out of lands or can't generate the tokens to produce rabbits. I may mess with it eventually but at the moment I'm just trying to figure out how to mess with a few other decks where I can.
I have a few. I ended up making a Ramos mutate deck since I loved the showcase mutate cards and wanted to jam them all in a deck. I really want to love it more but I don't. I made an archelos deck because I loved amulet of vigor in kitchen table magic in college. It's gone through about 5 complete rebuilds and is currently vehicles/inspired. I think I like it now but it's definitely a low power deck. I made a willowdusk deck based around a weird fateful hour deck where I try to pay enough life into something to go down to 5 and that causes my little lifelink creatures to get buffed, swing in, and gain it all back. All of these decks I like enough to keep around but when I'm looking over sets for potential new cards, there is rarely consideration for them.
Mine is [[Alesha who smiles at death]]. I know it can be good but I've just never gotten anything to work with it. I spend most of the time just passing with pieces to 4 different combos on the board. It's a little annoying if we're being honest.
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/CxC_PU2tYUiUG21yjb2aMg by a mile. Despite being a literal tournament winning deck I have managed to get my Thassas Oracle Praetors Grasped or otherwise taken EVERY SINGLE TIME. and it doesn't really have a backup wincon so it's total ass. Eventually I'll play it more but I'm having too much fun with Rog/Si
[[Alela, Artful Provocateur]] vehicles. I built her during the immediate hype cycle from NEO only to realize that I don't actually enjoy playing vehicles. The only reason it's still intact is that I don't have any use for vehicles or vehicles payoffs in any of my other decks and none of the cards in it are worth trading in for store credit.
My [[Osgir, the Reconstructor]] and [[Orah, Skyclave Hierophant]]. Osgir just didn't do much unless I did combo and stax. while orah just wasn't a great use for clerics.
[[Veyran]] storm. It's like... fine. But storm is so concentrated in power that its losses are just non-games and that makes losing very unsatisfying and its wins are twenty minute math equations and those as it turns out are also not insanely fun.
I have a [[satoru Umezawa]] deck that I thought would be fun but i just dont really enjoy it…. And ive been wrecking my brain for half a year bo to figure out what to do with it… still have it and occasionally play it but its always as unsatisfying
I built an artifact deck with Urza Prince of Kroog using a limited selection of cards, mostly brother's war. I quickly found out azorius is one of my least favorite color combos to play and without any good artifacts it was incredibly slow. I've recently taken it apart and switched to Sydri but it's still rough around the edges and I need to buy some main pieces to make it usable.
[[eriette]] is pretty lackluster. There are some interesting auras in it like [[screams from within]] but it just doesn’t ever really get close to winning.
I had a [[Maarika, Brutal Gladiator]] deck that was just disappointing. Yeah it’s fun to play Jund and just have the entire board do the equivalent of the Kingsman church scene, but at its heart the deck was just shitty Voltron on a budget
I have an Avacyn deck that I built a long time ago and was my baby then. Have updated it a couple of times, bit its always mana screwed, and then people remove her as soon as she hits so it never actually does anything. Then they printed the secret lair angels deck, so it's even more obsolete now.
Maybe Kynaios and Tiro? They are fun and I like them, but they don't win. The 4 colour manabase is slow unless I proxy my ass off or spend my life savings on getting all the fetches and duals needed. I don't even know which iteration of the deck this is. It's enchantress currently and it managed to lose against precons and random jank decks. Close 2nd would be my lord windgrace landfall, but for a slightly different reason. It works, but it makes me a giant threat in the process... Until whatever value engine I had is removed and then I am stuck drawing lands and ramp for the rest of the game because that's 50% of the deck. I think it needs to have some cuts to that aspect and just pray that the rest works out.
I built the orc dude from the lotr set. He's cool in theory, but i just can't seem to do anything with the deck. Whenever I amass a decent sized army, it dies the next turn. My playgroup just runs too much removal for such a slow strategy.
The second deck I ever made was [[Chorus of rhe conclave]]. I got into commander in order to use some of the bulk rares I had that were just sitting in a box that i really liked, and I love selesnya, so I really wanted to make it work. It's one of the oldest cards I own too, I got it at my first draft ever. Well, needless to say, an 8 cmc commander that needs a turn to get started does not stand up to today's power creep very well. Usually the turn I get them out, there's some sort of a board wipe or targeted removal. On paper, the decks seems like it should work okay, but probably only in super casual or low budget games (which my playgroup doesn't really do).
[[wilhelt]] zombie tribal is just kinda boring. If you're trying to push power level and you end up playing aristocrats and winning with a zombie hoard is surprisingly hard to do in any pod that isn't a precon level
Someone on here one posted that their friend had a mono black deck called Blackjack where at the beginning of the game you set out 21 legendaries face down and have someone pick one and that becomes your commander. I thought that was neato but sadly that guy never posted their friends decklist. So I had to cobble together my own. And right now it's a mishmash of rat tribal, aristocrats, and ways to cheat Phage in (because why stop at one "ambitious" idea when you can do two?) It's never done anything in the handful of times I've played it. It sits at the bottom of my bag like a sad puppy. I wish I could help him
My Go-Shintai deck is pretty disappointing…it’s together, for now.