I'll agree that, reprint-value-wise, these are on the somewhat lower end than what we've seen from previous years, but I take big umbrage with this claim that they're going to play worse than previous years decks - ESPECIALLY 2011. Mimeo was the major exception - it had by far the most reprint value, as well as playing the best out of the box. But the other ones were hot trash.
When I look at the decklists for 2019, the vast majority of cards are at least playable. There's a few real garbage cards (fervent denial? That's terrible AND makes no sense with sevinne!) but the majority of them seem like something you could happily play in a 75% version of the deck (minus the lands, I suppose, but that's always been true).
So I call major bull***** on this "commander 2019 decklists will make new players quit because they'll lose too much" argument. 2011 decks were EASILY the worst in terms of playability - since then, I would say it's been pretty steady in terms of power level. 2019 looks pretty much on-par to me.
You see me as a shill, but it's just that we have different priorities.
At least imo, the precons have a few goals in this order of importance:
1-get new players into the format with a playable deck for a reasonable cost
2-print some new spiciness for existing players
3-lower the cost of existing cards
For 1, the decks look playable and decent out of the box, while still wanting upgrades for certain cards, as always. In terms of raw value, they're a lot cheaper than buying the whole thing as singles, so new players aren't getting ripped off. I'd say this is an easy check.
For 2, I at least am very satisfied. Of course this is subjective. But there are a lot of commanders I'm very excited to build and relatively few duds. I personally find this an easy check, but I can't really argue if you just don't like the designs since it's a matter of opinion.
For 3, I'll agree that these didn't really do much. But idgaf about that at all. So you can call me a shill for not caring about what you care about, but it doesn't come from me having an irrational love for WotC - it's just that I already have every existing card I want.
Realize that wotc's goal is to get as many new players as possible, while keeping existing players for as long as possible. So unless you're going to up and quit over reprint value, they've done their job.
Number 2 is definitely not satisfied with the new product. That's the reason for this thread. There are very few new cards that slot well into even medium strength existing commander decks.
I don't think it's an issue of strength. In most cases I think they're fine, strength-wise, they're just narrow because a lot of them are designed to fit with the commander of the deck they're placed in.
I think that's more true this year than past years, mostly because the themes they went with have little enough support that they needed more cards to be feasible.
It's a double-edged sword - there aren't many cards I'm considering for existing decks, that's true, but it does let them design commanders that are going to have a greater divergence of strategy from existing commanders than they usually do.
I think their primary targets are new players, and existing players who want to build a deck around the commanders using the precon as a starting point - and for those players, I think the new singles do just fine. If you're only usually buying a half-dozen singles to bolster your existing decks, you're probably not making them much money anyway. We just had MH1 which had, at least for me, a TON of new stuff for my existing decks. My guess is that they figured enfranchised players already had plenty of new toys for the year.
They tried to cover too many bases and ended up alienating existing players.
They had to add substantial madness and morph support to get people interested in those strategies, and they missed the mark completely. So no experienced player cares about the commanders anymore, no one wants to build a morph deck when there are no good morph creatures, same for madness.
They could have salvaged this with valuable reprints or solid new playable cards, but they missed on this as well. I mostly don't care about the reprints, and I mostly don't care about the new cards. They aren't exciting.
They tried to cover too many bases and ended up alienating existing players.
They had to add substantial madness and morph support to get people interested in those strategies, and they missed the mark completely. So no experienced player cares about the commanders anymore, no one wants to build a morph deck when there are no good morph creatures, same for madness.
They could have salvaged this with valuable reprints or solid new playable cards, but they missed on this as well. I mostly don't care about the reprints, and I mostly don't care about the new cards. They aren't exciting.
The product is definitely a bust.
I've been playing magic for 17 years and commander for 10. I plan on building decks for Anje, Sevinne, Elsha, and Rayami - and maybe others as the urge strikes me. More than I can say for...actually any other commander release. And I know others in a similar boat.
Unless you're playing cEDH, moderating power levels is always necessary. Sure, the madness pool is pretty weak, but that just means you can go more all-out in your build without overstepping any bounds. And it's worth pointing out - only 3 commanders are tied to narrow abilities (sevinne, anje, and kadena...and anje could be built as WGD combo tbh...). Elsha, Marisi, Ghired, Rayami, etc have plenty of flexibility in their builds.
It's also worth pointing out that not THAT many cards are tied to the commanders - sure, the demon sucks outside of madness, thalia's geistcaller is pretty narrow, etc - but plenty of them are fine outside of synergy (curse of fool's wisdom fits into nekusar, anje's ravager could fit into aggro builds, ignite the future is fairly strong just generally, etc).
If you've got some solid evidence that fewer people than usual are interested in building these commanders, then let's see it - otherwise I feel like I'm seeing the same thing I've seen every release - many folks pleased, some only interested in a few commanders, and some who don't personally like any of them - and for some reason assume that means no one could.
I don't think busts preorder for $160-$180 for the set. Just sayin'.
Well where ever I pre-order are somewhat just conned me
Pre-ordered 153 now it magically changed to 159 (still getting the decks though because I have ammo to transfer to my current and future decks and I do want to try the naya token and sultai morph decks as well)
I’m saving my money until they give us a sweet ass Sliver deck complete with 10-15 brand new Slivers.
Or a tribal deck of some kind where the Tribal card-type returns and matters.
Otherwise they’d have to give me things I never knew I wanted and they haven’t done that yet with Commander decks. So overall I’m never too disappointed with these decks.
Not sure how this is a bust, looks nice enough to me. Maybe I don't have very high expectations for this, but seems like I wind up happier overall than others with them.
My flgs had an event where you could win prizes if you played with the new precons so I participated with the populate deck and I found out that the deck comes with only one rhino token. One of the most common play patters I did was attack with Ghired, Conclave Exile leaving back the rhino token I created earlier so I would often have no way to represent the tapped rhino because wotc decided to include four(!!!) egg tokens instead of two rhinos.
There are also two wurms which are only created by Garruk's ultimate and two sculptures (which can't attack).
I had to laugh at every single token from mystic intellect being a human token on one side. There's only one card that makes human tokens - increasing devotion. And while sure, it makes a lot - if you have sevinne out, you still won't have enough, so what's even the point of making so many. Although really that's probably partly the fault of having an equal number of tokens in an explicitly token deck, as well as decks that only use tokens tangentially.
Honestly weird about the rhino considering that's the main play pattern of the face commander. Bit of a dropped ball there.
I wasn't too disappointed with the Commander 2019 Pre-Cons though it felt like more went into the new cards being printed than the actual reprints in order to avoid one deck from being outsold from the others or at least that's what Wizards of the Coast were trying to do. Unfortunately that didn't happen as K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth was the most sought after card from the Rakdos Madness deck similar with True-Name Nemesis's first printing in one of the past Commander Pre-Con's years ago. The Jeskai Flashback deck only had two to three good cards (with Elsha of the Infinite being $20 a piece) where as there was only one good card out of both the Sultai Morph deck (Road of Return) and the Naya Prowess deck (Song of the Worldsoul).
Knowing that I was needing new cards out of the Jeskai Flashback deck for Kykar, Wind's Fury, I picked that up instead of purchasing the other four decks knowing that they only had one to two good cards that were brand new with the rest being low-budget reprints that I didn't need. One of my friends made the stupid decision to buy all four decks when there was hardly any reprint value with the good brand new cards being stretched very thin. I'm not sure If Wizards of the Coast can resolve this issue by changing the distribution of the Commander Pre-Cons to appease veterans as much as newcomers into the game though it is what it is. At least the Commander Weekend Tournament was fun.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Kaalia was a joke out of the box - gwyllion hedge-mage? That's garbage AND makes no sense in kaalia. orzhov guildmage? razorjaw oni? dragon whelp? serra angel? oni of wild places? I mean, I'm just going down the list of creatures on the first deck, and most of them aren't just bad, they're completely unplayable in EDH. Need I go on?
When I look at the decklists for 2019, the vast majority of cards are at least playable. There's a few real garbage cards (fervent denial? That's terrible AND makes no sense with sevinne!) but the majority of them seem like something you could happily play in a 75% version of the deck (minus the lands, I suppose, but that's always been true).
So I call major bull***** on this "commander 2019 decklists will make new players quit because they'll lose too much" argument. 2011 decks were EASILY the worst in terms of playability - since then, I would say it's been pretty steady in terms of power level. 2019 looks pretty much on-par to me.
You see me as a shill, but it's just that we have different priorities.
At least imo, the precons have a few goals in this order of importance:
1-get new players into the format with a playable deck for a reasonable cost
2-print some new spiciness for existing players
3-lower the cost of existing cards
For 1, the decks look playable and decent out of the box, while still wanting upgrades for certain cards, as always. In terms of raw value, they're a lot cheaper than buying the whole thing as singles, so new players aren't getting ripped off. I'd say this is an easy check.
For 2, I at least am very satisfied. Of course this is subjective. But there are a lot of commanders I'm very excited to build and relatively few duds. I personally find this an easy check, but I can't really argue if you just don't like the designs since it's a matter of opinion.
For 3, I'll agree that these didn't really do much. But idgaf about that at all. So you can call me a shill for not caring about what you care about, but it doesn't come from me having an irrational love for WotC - it's just that I already have every existing card I want.
Realize that wotc's goal is to get as many new players as possible, while keeping existing players for as long as possible. So unless you're going to up and quit over reprint value, they've done their job.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
You sure about that?
I think that's more true this year than past years, mostly because the themes they went with have little enough support that they needed more cards to be feasible.
It's a double-edged sword - there aren't many cards I'm considering for existing decks, that's true, but it does let them design commanders that are going to have a greater divergence of strategy from existing commanders than they usually do.
I think their primary targets are new players, and existing players who want to build a deck around the commanders using the precon as a starting point - and for those players, I think the new singles do just fine. If you're only usually buying a half-dozen singles to bolster your existing decks, you're probably not making them much money anyway. We just had MH1 which had, at least for me, a TON of new stuff for my existing decks. My guess is that they figured enfranchised players already had plenty of new toys for the year.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
They had to add substantial madness and morph support to get people interested in those strategies, and they missed the mark completely. So no experienced player cares about the commanders anymore, no one wants to build a morph deck when there are no good morph creatures, same for madness.
They could have salvaged this with valuable reprints or solid new playable cards, but they missed on this as well. I mostly don't care about the reprints, and I mostly don't care about the new cards. They aren't exciting.
The product is definitely a bust.
Unless you're playing cEDH, moderating power levels is always necessary. Sure, the madness pool is pretty weak, but that just means you can go more all-out in your build without overstepping any bounds. And it's worth pointing out - only 3 commanders are tied to narrow abilities (sevinne, anje, and kadena...and anje could be built as WGD combo tbh...). Elsha, Marisi, Ghired, Rayami, etc have plenty of flexibility in their builds.
It's also worth pointing out that not THAT many cards are tied to the commanders - sure, the demon sucks outside of madness, thalia's geistcaller is pretty narrow, etc - but plenty of them are fine outside of synergy (curse of fool's wisdom fits into nekusar, anje's ravager could fit into aggro builds, ignite the future is fairly strong just generally, etc).
If you've got some solid evidence that fewer people than usual are interested in building these commanders, then let's see it - otherwise I feel like I'm seeing the same thing I've seen every release - many folks pleased, some only interested in a few commanders, and some who don't personally like any of them - and for some reason assume that means no one could.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Well where ever I pre-order are somewhat just conned me
Pre-ordered 153 now it magically changed to 159 (still getting the decks though because I have ammo to transfer to my current and future decks and I do want to try the naya token and sultai morph decks as well)
Or a tribal deck of some kind where the Tribal card-type returns and matters.
Otherwise they’d have to give me things I never knew I wanted and they haven’t done that yet with Commander decks. So overall I’m never too disappointed with these decks.
There are also two wurms which are only created by Garruk's ultimate and two sculptures (which can't attack).
Honestly weird about the rhino considering that's the main play pattern of the face commander. Bit of a dropped ball there.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Knowing that I was needing new cards out of the Jeskai Flashback deck for Kykar, Wind's Fury, I picked that up instead of purchasing the other four decks knowing that they only had one to two good cards that were brand new with the rest being low-budget reprints that I didn't need. One of my friends made the stupid decision to buy all four decks when there was hardly any reprint value with the good brand new cards being stretched very thin. I'm not sure If Wizards of the Coast can resolve this issue by changing the distribution of the Commander Pre-Cons to appease veterans as much as newcomers into the game though it is what it is. At least the Commander Weekend Tournament was fun.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta