I know i have been looking in these forums saying i am going to build something but then i loose interest in that general. i have put up polls all that stuff.
It is difficult for me because i don't really have any favorite cards or preferred play style.
I am looking for a general that is super fun and can win games in multiplayer sometimes but really i am there for the good time and just playing magic.
I have searched all ends of the spectrum from Karn and norin all the way to 5 color omni and dragon tribal.
I really need help and your honest opinion on what your absolute favorite commanders to play with in a casual setting for edh.
Also something that i can play for years and not get board
your help is appreciated
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
[center][color=Blue]
U/R Delver
Edric Spy and die
Azami the lady of the draw
Naya Zoo
Past decks
Orloro
sharuum the hegemond
Mono black control
splinter twin
Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge chaos can be insanely fun. Fill it full of spells you want to cast, and just let loose with it. Double points if you run Possibility Storm: you can play cards, they can't.
I enjoy Karador quite a bit. He can scale to different difficulties of playgroups easily. His colors leave you out of blue, which can often get you targeted, and red, which has limited uses. Your deck is creature heavy and usually very durable, and as the game goes on, Karador remains just as easy to cast.
If you want to make it combo, you can, or good stuff, or other shenanigans. It really has a ton of versatility.
Out of those, the ones I would say the most popular to play against is zirilan - he's strong but not unfair or unpleasant, which is why I've kept the deck together for 4+ years now.
Your desire to find a deck that doesnt get dull and boring over time is what a lot of players struggle with, and is unfortunately very subjective from player to player. To help answer your question, I think you can toss out any decks focused on voltron, combos, or persistent tutoring. These deck types lead to very similar plays each game and for some players, this can grow stale very fast. Therefore, besides chaos decks, I suggest a clone deck. A deck that focuses on clones will always play different, so long as you play different opponents/decks. Blue holds most of the clone/copy stuff, while UB and UG have some clone creatures/spells.
If you want fun and agresive rather than controling... I am rather fond of Zirilan of the claw, it can be clunky if dragons get stuck in your hand but it has so much damage.
Ashling the Pilgrim with 99 mountains, no one takes you as a threat until you win. Has good games against weenie decks, gaddock, derevi, tribal like gobs and elves. And with the tuck rule change she can be quite relevant and only costs like 2$ for the whole deck.
Maelstrom Wanderer Every time i play i find new combos and I have been playing more or less the same build for a year now. 3 color big bombs and ramp. using the general as an obvious beater and card advantage engine.
Gaddock Teeg hate bears if you want to be "that" guy. I love being able to make people not be able to play edh.. lol
Lin-Sivi pillowfort. Doesnt attack, plays defense wins with life shenanigans. A good bit different from other commanders.
Karador, Ghost Chieftain never played him myself but he is a very strong general with a ton of utility and ways to play his deck.
Scion of the Urdragon 5 color toolbox control. When i build it i made a pile of toolbox dragons, destroy target permanents, tutors, and ramp. Pretty obnoxious but having an answer to everything was pretty stellar.
Child of alara Reanimator, 5 color good stuff. With cards to abuse childs ability to keep the board clear while you bring in busted reanimator targets. 5 colors so you can run anything. Jin, Iona, etc.
These are some of my personal favorites that I either always go back to, have had for a while, or that I want to build based in seeing them being played/ getting enough money to build(azusa build wass pretty obnoxious because of legacy staples and whatnot.)
I agree about not going for a voltron general. The games all play out very similarly. Combo can be okay if you are not just tutoring for the same thing every game. I recently made a combo with Deceiver Exarch, Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, Cauldron of Souls and a sac outlet (Altar of Dementia). Hilarious.
I enjoy it when games play out very differently. That is what I think EDH is about. And making bad cards good. I try to run as few tutors as possible so games play out differently.
But really, I think the way to keep EDH constantly fresh is to make new decks. Make them with different budgets and different power levels, so that when you play against a beginner or a veteran, you have a deck that will be fun to play against them.
I would go nuts if I only had one deck to play. I have played 5 decks in Standard since Khans of Tarkir. I rotate through them. In every format I play, there are 2 things in common: I will make my own deck (and not copy a decklist), and I will change decks very often.
I am curious... why do you want to play EDH? Part of EDH is that every game you will have access to your commander. At a certain point, there is a bit of monotony in it. Maybe you should Cube/draft more. Maybe you should play a rotating format (Standard).
Anyway, my personal vote is Maelstrom Wanderer if you want only one deck. He is extremely good, so you will always have a chance to win. There are a lot of types of decks you can build with him, but I would suggest doing your own thing and putting cards you like. I like MW because it tends to be random. Cascade into Blatant Thievery and Sphinx Ambassador and obliterate your opponents. Or cascade into Rampant Growth and Brainstorm. I like that my opponents always have a chance. It is also and easy deck to change whenever you want. You are playing ramp and expensive spells, and as much/little top-deck manipulation as you want. The expensive spells can change any time. They are all pretty much redundant. Spells that cost 7 mana are strong. Make it tribal, make it beat-down, make it control, make it combo.... I don't expect that changing when you feel like it would cost very much.
I've played captain sisay for years and she never gets boring. She can handle anything that comes her way and wins in different ways - she's combo, aggro, and control rolled into one. And extremely competitive.
The commander i would always recommend it Kresh the Bloodbraided. His interactions with a loaded board and the synergies within my deck make me smile every time. Its also sweet when he gets turned into a 300/300 and kills 3 players in one turn (Savage Beating with Mage Slayer then Fling effect). Having said this my deck also works without him on the field. Tokens and Overrun, Big hydras, Grave Pact control. All have won me games and equally within the bounds of possibility.
Your desire to find a deck that doesnt get dull and boring over time is what a lot of players struggle with, and is unfortunately very subjective from player to player. To help answer your question, I think you can toss out any decks focused on voltron, combos, or persistent tutoring. These deck types lead to very similar plays each game and for some players, this can grow stale very fast. Therefore, besides chaos decks, I suggest a clone deck. A deck that focuses on clones will always play different, so long as you play different opponents/decks. Blue holds most of the clone/copy stuff, while UB and UG have some clone creatures/spells.
One is R/U Melek, Izzet Paragon Chaos. It is fun to just screw up everyone's plans oven. You may get hate but so long as it is not group hug you can really have fun. But you might also get a lot of hate.
The Mimeoplasm. I played it as an Infect deck. Originally due to hating tuck and not wnating my general in play to win. But it just became fun.
I've played captain sisay for years and she never gets boring. She can handle anything that comes her way and wins in different ways - she's combo, aggro, and control rolled into one. And extremely competitive.
I second this, toolbox Sisay is incredibly fun, not over competitive, and viable.
STATISTICS.
All of these "Let's eliminate bad cards" crusades are simply ignorant. And when they start to devolve into "WotC is conspiring to give us crappy cards," they just become embarrassing. MATH is conspiring to give you crappy cards.
It can be difficult for decks not to get linear. I built my Maga, Traitor To Mortals with a lot of different ways to win, but it's gotten a bit boring because its normal wincon 50% of the time is Exsanguinate with infinite mana or just a very large amount. The easier and better wincons will start floating to the top as you play your deck a bunch of times.
So, my advice would be to focus on how you build the deck, as almost any general, even the most degenerate, can be built in a balanced way. Avoid two-card wincons, and things that shut the game off for other players ( example: Iona, Sheild of Emeria, in purely casual games.
Well, considering the format... Anything that can be built for under 500$ is cheap. Back in the beginning of edh. You could build pretty much any deck for around 200-250$ not including duals and fetches and whatnot. Everything sense then has atleast doubled... so...
Besides being a format where proxies are generally allowed in casual groups. My playgroup has the rule for proxies that if you proxy it, it has to be a card you would realistically buy for the format. For me that means I can play shocks and some expensive staples, but no dual lands and other overpriced cards(read FoW, wasteland, w/e)
Besides the fact Id love to know where your buying Azusa's for 40$. I get playsets of her for 100$ (behold the power of bid sites and not buying from vendors)
The only deck archetype that I have seen that both matches the power level of any given group and stays varied and interesting game to game is the Clone deck.
I would probably build it as Grixis with Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge as the commander since she fits the idea of copying everything from your opponents.
Then, I would almost exclusively use clone style creatures and lots of Fork and it's derivatives. Add in to that, Control Magic's and Act of Treason type cards. Lastly, use cards like Bribery and Thada Adel, Acquisitor and you have a deck that will only play on the power level of your opponents since you are essentially playing their decks and it will never play the same in two games because, again, you are always just playing your opponents decks.
Now that I talk about it more, I kinda want to build this deck now...
one of my favourite ways (though it might not be yours) to play edh is the all-in pressure deck. it never plays out the same way twice, is quite skill-intensive, and requires you to be able to sweet-talk your way out of pretty harsh situations.
with rakdos, there is always a huge temptation to run tonnes of tutors and doomsday to help your hellcarver demon, but if you don't put them in, it'd make games a heck of a lot more random and a lot more enjoyable. it also takes a bit more skill to pilot it.
One commander many people enjoy, in part because he can be built in many different ways and still be very effective, is Riku of Two Reflections. RUG is one of the better three-color combinations in the game and features a wide array of fun, interesting and powerful spells, and being able to cast them twice for two additional mana obviously offers a lot of value and potential power. My own Riku deck is far from optimized, as I took a middle-of-the road approach rather than focusing on either the spellslinger or the creature-copy aspects, but it's almost always a blast to play and has done pretty well. It's probably as much a goodstuff deck as I run, but it still manages to play very differently from game to game, in part because the middle-of-the-road approach I took to building it makes it a bit more versatile than some more focused Riku decks.
Riku, built with a fair amount of green ramp to allow for color fixing, is one of the decks I most often recommend to people who aren't sure exactly what they want to play.
It is difficult for me because i don't really have any favorite cards or preferred play style.
I am looking for a general that is super fun and can win games in multiplayer sometimes but really i am there for the good time and just playing magic.
I have searched all ends of the spectrum from Karn and norin all the way to 5 color omni and dragon tribal.
I really need help and your honest opinion on what your absolute favorite commanders to play with in a casual setting for edh.
Also something that i can play for years and not get board
your help is appreciated
[center][color=Blue]
Edric Spy and die
Azami the lady of the draw
Naya Zoo
Past decks
Orloro
sharuum the hegemond
Mono black control
splinter twin
-Commander-
UBGMill, Sidisi, and Other ShenanigansGBU
WUBRGShingeki no TazriGRBUW
If you want to make it combo, you can, or good stuff, or other shenanigans. It really has a ton of versatility.
MTGS egos at their finest.
Thoughts on proxies:
teysa, orzhov scion (tokens)
brago, king eternal (superfriends)
lazav, dimir mastermind (control)
child of alara (control)
zirilan of the claw (dragons/artifacts/combo?)
geth, lord of the vault (ramp/control)
nahiri, the lithomancer (equipment/wipes)
Out of those, the ones I would say the most popular to play against is zirilan - he's strong but not unfair or unpleasant, which is why I've kept the deck together for 4+ years now.
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
A few commander suggestions:
The Mimeoplasm
Sakashima the Impostor
Halfdane (Sheldon talks about a friend's clone deck using this general here
The Mimeoplasm || Karador, Ghost Chieftain
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher || Vial Smasher/Tymna Group Slug
Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief || Talrand, Sky Summoner
Yidris - Unblockable Saboteurs || Kiki-Jiki, ETB breaker
Kess, Dissident Mage
I have built some kind of ultimate machine of value.. that is all baubles (conjurer's bauble) and Salvaging station, and one very complicated combo.. invovling ashnod's altar, nim's deathmantle and one of wurmcoil engine, myr battlesphere or grave titan. all good cards on thier own.
If you want fun and agresive rather than controling... I am rather fond of Zirilan of the claw, it can be clunky if dragons get stuck in your hand but it has so much damage.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
Maelstrom Wanderer Every time i play i find new combos and I have been playing more or less the same build for a year now. 3 color big bombs and ramp. using the general as an obvious beater and card advantage engine.
Gaddock Teeg hate bears if you want to be "that" guy. I love being able to make people not be able to play edh.. lol
Lin-Sivi pillowfort. Doesnt attack, plays defense wins with life shenanigans. A good bit different from other commanders.
Linvala, Keeper of Silence Prison, no fun allowed.
Azusa, Lost but Seeking fairly cheap to build, turbo land, might get boring though.
Karador, Ghost Chieftain never played him myself but he is a very strong general with a ton of utility and ways to play his deck.
Scion of the Urdragon 5 color toolbox control. When i build it i made a pile of toolbox dragons, destroy target permanents, tutors, and ramp. Pretty obnoxious but having an answer to everything was pretty stellar.
Child of alara Reanimator, 5 color good stuff. With cards to abuse childs ability to keep the board clear while you bring in busted reanimator targets. 5 colors so you can run anything. Jin, Iona, etc.
These are some of my personal favorites that I either always go back to, have had for a while, or that I want to build based in seeing them being played/ getting enough money to build(azusa build wass pretty obnoxious because of legacy staples and whatnot.)
I enjoy it when games play out very differently. That is what I think EDH is about. And making bad cards good. I try to run as few tutors as possible so games play out differently.
But really, I think the way to keep EDH constantly fresh is to make new decks. Make them with different budgets and different power levels, so that when you play against a beginner or a veteran, you have a deck that will be fun to play against them.
I would go nuts if I only had one deck to play. I have played 5 decks in Standard since Khans of Tarkir. I rotate through them. In every format I play, there are 2 things in common: I will make my own deck (and not copy a decklist), and I will change decks very often.
I am curious... why do you want to play EDH? Part of EDH is that every game you will have access to your commander. At a certain point, there is a bit of monotony in it. Maybe you should Cube/draft more. Maybe you should play a rotating format (Standard).
Anyway, my personal vote is Maelstrom Wanderer if you want only one deck. He is extremely good, so you will always have a chance to win. There are a lot of types of decks you can build with him, but I would suggest doing your own thing and putting cards you like. I like MW because it tends to be random. Cascade into Blatant Thievery and Sphinx Ambassador and obliterate your opponents. Or cascade into Rampant Growth and Brainstorm. I like that my opponents always have a chance. It is also and easy deck to change whenever you want. You are playing ramp and expensive spells, and as much/little top-deck manipulation as you want. The expensive spells can change any time. They are all pretty much redundant. Spells that cost 7 mana are strong. Make it tribal, make it beat-down, make it control, make it combo.... I don't expect that changing when you feel like it would cost very much.
8.RG Green Devotion Ramp/Combo 9.UR Draw Triggers 10.WUR Group stalling 11.WUR Voltron Spellslinger 12.WB Sacrificial Shenanigans
13.BR Creatureless Panharmonicon 14.BR Pingers and Eldrazi 15.URG Untapped Cascading
16.Reyhan, last of the Abzan's WUBG +1/+1 Counter Craziness 17.WUBRG Dragons aka Why did I make this?
Building: The Gitrog Monster lands, Glissa the Traitor stax, Muldrotha, the Gravetide Planeswalker Combo, Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix + Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa Clues, and Tribal Scarecrow Planeswalkers
My G Yisan, the Bard of Death G deck.
My BUGWR Hermit druid BUGWR deck.
BRGKresh the BloodbraidedBRG, A box of lands and ideas.
Modern:
RG Titanshift. A deck made of cards too stupid for EDH.
Retired: Lots. More than I feel you should suffer through or I should type out.
This. Exactly why I play Mimeoplasm, your game changes depending on your opponent, very stimulating.
Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest WUR Voltron Control
Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun WU Unblockable Mirror Trickery
Ra's al Ghul (Sidar Kondo) and Face-Down Ninjas
Brudiclad, Token Engineer
Vaevictis (VV2) the Dire Lantern
Rona, Disciple of Gix
Tiana the Auror
Hallar
Ulrich the Politician
Zur the Rebel
Scorpion, Locust, Scarab, Egyptian Gods
O-Kagachi, Mathas, Mairsil
"Non-Tribal" Tribal Generals, Eggs
One is R/U Melek, Izzet Paragon Chaos. It is fun to just screw up everyone's plans oven. You may get hate but so long as it is not group hug you can really have fun. But you might also get a lot of hate.
The Mimeoplasm. I played it as an Infect deck. Originally due to hating tuck and not wnating my general in play to win. But it just became fun.
Ghave, Guru of Spores, Just build up and cash out on combo.
If you want to cause shenanigans without going Chaos. You can build polite Sharuum the Hegemon
the things is to really suggest a General, you need to give us some help.
UB Vela the Night-Clad BUDecklist
WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores GBW
WUBRGThe Ur-DragonWUBRGDecklist
I second this, toolbox Sisay is incredibly fun, not over competitive, and viable.
It can be difficult for decks not to get linear. I built my Maga, Traitor To Mortals with a lot of different ways to win, but it's gotten a bit boring because its normal wincon 50% of the time is Exsanguinate with infinite mana or just a very large amount. The easier and better wincons will start floating to the top as you play your deck a bunch of times.
I'd say the less obvious the win, the easier it is to make your deck diverse. It's why I'd prefer say, Keranos, God Of Storms over Niv-Mizzet, The Firemind or Sheoldred, Whispering One over Mikaeus, The Unhallowed: combo generals are powerful, but frequently linear.
So, my advice would be to focus on how you build the deck, as almost any general, even the most degenerate, can be built in a balanced way. Avoid two-card wincons, and things that shut the game off for other players ( example: Iona, Sheild of Emeria, in purely casual games.
UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU's prison: blue is the new orange is the new black.
Mizzix Of The Izmagnus : wheels on fire... rolling down the road...
BSidisi, Undead VizierB: Bis zum Erbrechen
GTitiania, Protector Of ArgothG: Protecting Argoth, by blowing it up!
GYisan, The Wanderer BardG: Gradus Ad Elfball.
Duel EDH: Yisan & Titania.
In Progress: Grand Arbiter Augustin IV duel; Grenzo, Dungeon Warden Doomsday.
What part of having a $40 commander is cheap?
Also, I've had a lot of fun with Trostani, Selesnya's Voice. Just creature tokens up the butt.
-Commander-
UBGMill, Sidisi, and Other ShenanigansGBU
WUBRGShingeki no TazriGRBUW
Well, considering the format... Anything that can be built for under 500$ is cheap. Back in the beginning of edh. You could build pretty much any deck for around 200-250$ not including duals and fetches and whatnot. Everything sense then has atleast doubled... so...
Besides being a format where proxies are generally allowed in casual groups. My playgroup has the rule for proxies that if you proxy it, it has to be a card you would realistically buy for the format. For me that means I can play shocks and some expensive staples, but no dual lands and other overpriced cards(read FoW, wasteland, w/e)
Besides the fact Id love to know where your buying Azusa's for 40$. I get playsets of her for 100$ (behold the power of bid sites and not buying from vendors)
I would probably build it as Grixis with Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge as the commander since she fits the idea of copying everything from your opponents.
Then, I would almost exclusively use clone style creatures and lots of Fork and it's derivatives. Add in to that, Control Magic's and Act of Treason type cards. Lastly, use cards like Bribery and Thada Adel, Acquisitor and you have a deck that will only play on the power level of your opponents since you are essentially playing their decks and it will never play the same in two games because, again, you are always just playing your opponents decks.
Now that I talk about it more, I kinda want to build this deck now...
Marath, Will of the Wild Tokens!! / Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund Dragons! / Muzzio, Visionary Architect / Brago, King Eternal / Daretti, Scrap Savant / Narset, Enlightened Master / Alesha, Who Smiles at Death / Bruna, Light of Alabaster / Marchesa, the Black Rose / Iroas, God of Victory / Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury / Omnath, Locus of rage / Titania, Protector of Argoth / Kozilek, the Great Distortion
Modern
Elves / Titanshift / Merfolk
ib halfheart, goblin tactician or Zo-Zu the Punisher comes to mind, or if you're pretty serious about the all-in-ness, Rakdos the Defiler.
with rakdos, there is always a huge temptation to run tonnes of tutors and doomsday to help your hellcarver demon, but if you don't put them in, it'd make games a heck of a lot more random and a lot more enjoyable. it also takes a bit more skill to pilot it.
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
Riku, built with a fair amount of green ramp to allow for color fixing, is one of the decks I most often recommend to people who aren't sure exactly what they want to play.
[center][color=Blue]
Edric Spy and die
Azami the lady of the draw
Naya Zoo
Past decks
Orloro
sharuum the hegemond
Mono black control
splinter twin