So, there have been a number of threads addressing which generals people thought were most powerful, most fun, and the most annoying to play against. In this thread I am interested in playing a different angle. This thread is about piloting particular generals, rather than playing against them.
This topic came to mind after I built a Zedruu the greathearted deck. I played three games, and they felt so incredibly one-sided and boring for me (pyromancer's swath+countermagic=derp), I dismantled it that day.
Which generals have you enjoyed pilotingthe least in your time playing EDH?
it was great at first, it won games. after about three edh nights though it felt like the same game every single time and it generally won with ease very quickly.
I really did not enjoy Avacyn, Angel of Hope. I like games to play differently, and Avacyn is ramp + boardwipes. If your opponent can manage Avacyn, the deck doesn't do anything. I found it very dull. I also did not enjoy Ruric Thar, the Unbowed very much but I will try again. I didn't have a meaningful way of interacting with my opponents. I will try a more dynamic build next time.
I have really enjoyed Zedruu group hug. I don't want to give nasty things to my opponents, though I have most of those cards. I just want to stall until I can find a win.
I have a few, actually. Kemba, Kha Regent - This was pre-tuck-change, and basically, if Kemba got tucked, it was game over. If not, she'd trample everyone. Boring really fast. Stonebrow, Krosan Hero - It was fun for a bit, an all-tramplers deck, but it quickly faded away as every game turned out to be the same. Glissa, the Traitor - As interesting as she is, she draws too much ire to be useful around here as she does need to kill to do her thing.
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My Commander decks:
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
I think the deck I most dislike was Ruric Thar, the Unbowed with 99 permanents and Primal Surge. The deck just didn't have any decision trees to it except the most basic of basic things, like equip lifelink to RT or leave open mana for Spearbreaker Behemoth. I could of made a flow chart that would let the deck play itself.
I actually think I just figured out what makes the kind of commander that I like to play, the ability to transform mana into other things so that your always deciding if you want to use mana on the cards you draw or on the commander.
Vorosh, the Hunter: My first EDH deck was between the release of Scars and Mirrodin Beseiged. I decided to make an infect deck, and at the time, all of the infect cards were BG (plus artifact), and all of the proliferate cards were U (plus artifact). At the time, Vorosh was the only UBG legendary creature. He had zero synergy with the deck, though.
Glissa, the Traitor: I've seen her do great things, but the Glissa deck that I build (my second EDH deck ever) was thrown together in about an hour with cards I had on-hand. There wasn't much interesting to do in the deck except for Grappling Hook on Glissa and Executioner's Capsule to slowly clear the board.
Karona, False God: My fifth deck was ambitious. Five colors! I tried to make it a pillowfort deck to prevent Karona from attacking me, I tried to make it a tribal deck to leverage her ability, and I tried to make the tribe Avatars so that she would be in the tribe, too. The main problem is that most of the Avatars are either bad or cost too much, and a bad pillowfort deck is really boring to play. Either I failed to draw the cards I needed and got curbstomped, or I drew the cards I needed and sat there doing nothing. The only game I enjoyed playing with that deck was when I followed my friend's Storm Herd with Decree of Pain, pitching a few dozen enchantments at EOT, and casting Open the Vaults on my next turn.
Anything that hinged entirely (or almost entirely) on the commander lost their sparkle quickly, for me. Uril, the Miststalker was the first of these. The deck either steamrolled everyone or did absolutely nothing, depending on how many counterspells, clones (back when they blew up legends), or other forms of hate people had at their disposal. Kaalia of the Vast suffered from this same playstyle, although a bit less so as creatures could still be hardcast and later reanimated if Kaalia got dealt with and the game went long.
Looking back on it now, though, I've tended to build a lot of (or almost entirely) decks that hinge on the commander - Azusa, Lost but Seeking and Wydwen, the Biting Gale being the other two. At least Wydwen dodged removal pretty much indefinitely.
I didn't like Tajic, Blade of the Legion for the same reason other people mentioned disliking Avacyn. Wrath, swing (especially dropping two hasty-one-drops with him) got old fast. I realized Avacyn would be the same way, so I never bothered with her, either, despite how much I love the card.
Nekusar, the Mindrazer- how many wheels to kill everyone? backed with alot of counter magic got boring fast. I find any general who's deck really makes itself to be quite boring, ala most Commander 14 generals.
For me, it was my 99 permanents Animar, Soul of Elements deck. Every game was the same: play Animar as soon as possible, attempt to build a board state, then either win because no one had wraths or attempt to recover from a wrath. Then continue to recover from wraths while having no real way to interact with my opponents.
Marchesa, the Black Rose. I loved the concept of my deck, but it was too grundy, and Grixis colors just feel wrong and restrictive.
THAT'S the one I was looking for. I played a modular version because it seemed unique (among the decks in my playgroup, I mean), but it just ended up being BAD. It needed like 4 pieces to go off, never managed to draw the right things, never got Marchesa to stick... it didn't know if it was aggro, durdle, or combo. There was one game where I got in with a 16 power Ornithopter, but that was almost the worst... the one good experience that makes you keep trying to play a bad deck over and over again. That's why she's my least favorite - promised so much but ended up delivering very little.
Animar was a deck I did not enjoy, even though I never lost a game while I had the deck together. It is just too strong of a general. Naya decks, circa 2008 were also not very fun, due to the support not really being there. Then again, when Tolarian Academy is legal... you need a good excuse to not be playing blue.
Kaervek the Merciless was one of the ones I liked playing as the least. Sure it seems great on paper, but once you play it you run out of friends fast. It was taken apart very quickly. Tariel, Reckoner of Souls took a lot of the cards from that deck and ended up being incredibly meh. Even with stuff like Umbral Mantle to "combo" and Rag Dealer to get garbage out of peoples graveyard, it ended up being boring and.. not too good.
Merieke Ri Berit: Created a chilled, flat board state if I had her out and protected since nobody wanted to play anything strong and lose it. It turned every game into an interminable slog.
Bruna Light of Alabaster: Ramp and blow someone up in one shot, or Bruna gets counterspelled and it's useless. So, so, so boring.
Yisan the Wanderer Bard: I just built it last week, and after only two games I get a strong feeling it's going to be really linear as the tutor targets are going to be obvious every time. That's something I should have realized going in I guess, but I just didn't get how on-rails it was going to be.
Brion Stoutarm - Felt amazing when I slam dunked someone with on a Serra Avatar...but the problem was that I couldn't win a multiplayer game because I had the potential to completely kill one player and then someone else would get me out of left field. In 1v1 situations I felt I was just outpaced by other decks.
Bruna, Light of Alabaster - She will forever be one of my top 5 favorite art pieces of all time in Magic, but playing her in the deck made me realize that you can either combo out or get hated out. Felt like Voltron...but it was really a combo deck more or less.
Still admire her for her art and design though.
For me it's literally anything RW. I've tried a couple times to build a Boros deck I'd like to play, and it remains pretty much the only color combination without one. I'm a combo/control player at heart and RW just. . . doesn't do that, that I've seen.
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Rest in RIP My Signature, I guess. 2015-2016, we hardly knew ye.
Total side note but I like how people are discussing running this over itself.
Well, it has to be said that Kolaghan is clearly better than Kolaghan. Considering what BR decks usually want and how stiff the competition in this guild is, there is no way that I would run Kolaghan over Kolaghan! Kolaghan might make it in as the sixth guild card or so. Kolaghan on the other hand ranks several places below that.
It was so funny to me when they described this as a downgrade to the original Zurgo during the Pax East panel. I was thinking if this is a downgrade, they should really "downgrade" all legendary creatures. Haha.
My deck designing is quite concise at this point:
1. Come up with deck idea
2. Realize this idea is somehow fundamentally similar to another deck I have or that is commonly played in my group
3. Decide I don't want to disassemble one of my existing decks
4. Give up and do nothing
I don't see the point of this new shroud mechanic. It's strictly worse than Hexproof. Threshold is pretty bad too, Delirium is a much better mechanic and probably easier to activate.
Otherwise this card is a pretty neat guy. Dodges removal and grows into a Primal Huntbeast. 3/5
Nahiri was the worst deck I've built. Put a lot of effort into it and the General just wasn't good enough. The ultimate was a joke, and the stone blade was so easily dealt with a lot of the time no one took her seriously. Got rid of the deck.
Prossh was pretty linear too. The combo version anyway.
Hmm, I've quite enjoyed Nahiri. I've been running her as wrath.dec, though. She has a large equipment package and counts on her tokens for swinging. But she isn't the most powerful of decks, so there is that.
For me it was norin. After optimizing it to its fullest potential, it was so weak that it was embarassing to play against my playgroup. The only significant threat in it was confusion in the ranks which was always dealt with instantly.
Animar, Soul of Elements for me. For whatever reason, I always felt like I was either completely taking over the game (which wasn't fun because I was the only one doing things) or doing nothing.
Played the Morph Cloudstone/Equilibrium version of it with some artifact creatures and general good stuff. Was super boring. It was either a fast 21 commander damage or killed everyone with purphoros. I had so little fun with it I took it apart very quickly.
anyone here heard of a card called ancestral recall? its kinda a good card that can go in many blue decks to make it better (usually). I thought "well this bloke here, hes ancestral recall on a beatstick, and if i can untap him, i can multiple a'recall every turn! brilliant!"
in practice, he just didn't shine nearly as well as i thought he'd be. maybe if instead of ancestral recall, he was a time walk or timetwister he'd be better. or maybe im just sad that hes a pale impression of the real thing.
This topic came to mind after I built a Zedruu the greathearted deck. I played three games, and they felt so incredibly one-sided and boring for me (pyromancer's swath+countermagic=derp), I dismantled it that day.
Which generals have you enjoyed piloting the least in your time playing EDH?
it was great at first, it won games. after about three edh nights though it felt like the same game every single time and it generally won with ease very quickly.
I have really enjoyed Zedruu group hug. I don't want to give nasty things to my opponents, though I have most of those cards. I just want to stall until I can find a win.
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
Kemba, Kha Regent - This was pre-tuck-change, and basically, if Kemba got tucked, it was game over. If not, she'd trample everyone. Boring really fast.
Stonebrow, Krosan Hero - It was fun for a bit, an all-tramplers deck, but it quickly faded away as every game turned out to be the same.
Glissa, the Traitor - As interesting as she is, she draws too much ire to be useful around here as she does need to kill to do her thing.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
I tend to dislike decks that play the same way everytime, so I've had to take apart decks like Thrun, the Last Troll and Wydwen, the Biting Gale voltron as well as decks that just tutor for the combo, like Godo, Bandit Warlord, Scion of the Ur-Dragon and Niv-Mizzet the Firemind
I actually think I just figured out what makes the kind of commander that I like to play, the ability to transform mana into other things so that your always deciding if you want to use mana on the cards you draw or on the commander.
Glissa, the Traitor: I've seen her do great things, but the Glissa deck that I build (my second EDH deck ever) was thrown together in about an hour with cards I had on-hand. There wasn't much interesting to do in the deck except for Grappling Hook on Glissa and Executioner's Capsule to slowly clear the board.
Karona, False God: My fifth deck was ambitious. Five colors! I tried to make it a pillowfort deck to prevent Karona from attacking me, I tried to make it a tribal deck to leverage her ability, and I tried to make the tribe Avatars so that she would be in the tribe, too. The main problem is that most of the Avatars are either bad or cost too much, and a bad pillowfort deck is really boring to play. Either I failed to draw the cards I needed and got curbstomped, or I drew the cards I needed and sat there doing nothing. The only game I enjoyed playing with that deck was when I followed my friend's Storm Herd with Decree of Pain, pitching a few dozen enchantments at EOT, and casting Open the Vaults on my next turn.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
Looking back on it now, though, I've tended to build a lot of (or almost entirely) decks that hinge on the commander - Azusa, Lost but Seeking and Wydwen, the Biting Gale being the other two. At least Wydwen dodged removal pretty much indefinitely.
R.I.P. Sundering Titan (6/20/12) and Braids, Cabal Minion (9/12/14)
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[Pr] Marath | [Pr] Lovisa | Jodah | Saskia | Najeela | Yisan | Lord Windgrace | Atraxa | Meren | Gisa and Geralf
EDH
Works in Progress:
WUControlling the ElementsUW C Perfect Insanity C B Anowon, the Ruin Sage B BLiliana, Heretical HealerB
Pauper EDH:
WTallowispW Voltron
Retired:
RDaretti, Scrap SavantR
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
THAT'S the one I was looking for. I played a modular version because it seemed unique (among the decks in my playgroup, I mean), but it just ended up being BAD. It needed like 4 pieces to go off, never managed to draw the right things, never got Marchesa to stick... it didn't know if it was aggro, durdle, or combo. There was one game where I got in with a 16 power Ornithopter, but that was almost the worst... the one good experience that makes you keep trying to play a bad deck over and over again. That's why she's my least favorite - promised so much but ended up delivering very little.
Draft my Peasant Cube.
Tariel, Reckoner of Souls took a lot of the cards from that deck and ended up being incredibly meh. Even with stuff like Umbral Mantle to "combo" and Rag Dealer to get garbage out of peoples graveyard, it ended up being boring and.. not too good.
BGGRock
Modern
BRGJund
BBGRock
Bruna Light of Alabaster: Ramp and blow someone up in one shot, or Bruna gets counterspelled and it's useless. So, so, so boring.
Yisan the Wanderer Bard: I just built it last week, and after only two games I get a strong feeling it's going to be really linear as the tutor targets are going to be obvious every time. That's something I should have realized going in I guess, but I just didn't get how on-rails it was going to be.
GReki, the History of Kamigawa Legendfall
UGEdric, Spymaster of Trest Drawmaster of Trest | GBGlissa the Traitor A Touch of Death | WBTeysa, Orzhov Scion Spinning in Graves
UWIsperia, Supreme Judge A Riddles of Sphinxes | RG Mena and Denn, Wildborn Beware Falling Rocks | GWSigarda, Host of Hurons The Enchantress
WRGRith the Awakener Superfriendly Tokens
Bruna, Light of Alabaster - She will forever be one of my top 5 favorite art pieces of all time in Magic, but playing her in the deck made me realize that you can either combo out or get hated out. Felt like Voltron...but it was really a combo deck more or less.
Still admire her for her art and design though.
Animar, Soul of Elements - Literally the same excuses everyone else in this thread has made.
Karador, Ghost Chieftain - Felt like Animar. Creatures were really just spells that could occasionally block and almost next attack.
Hmm, I've quite enjoyed Nahiri. I've been running her as wrath.dec, though. She has a large equipment package and counts on her tokens for swinging. But she isn't the most powerful of decks, so there is that.
My G Yisan, the Bard of Death G deck.
My BUGWR Hermit druid BUGWR deck.
Played the Morph Cloudstone/Equilibrium version of it with some artifact creatures and general good stuff. Was super boring. It was either a fast 21 commander damage or killed everyone with purphoros. I had so little fun with it I took it apart very quickly.
anyone here heard of a card called ancestral recall? its kinda a good card that can go in many blue decks to make it better (usually). I thought "well this bloke here, hes ancestral recall on a beatstick, and if i can untap him, i can multiple a'recall every turn! brilliant!"
in practice, he just didn't shine nearly as well as i thought he'd be. maybe if instead of ancestral recall, he was a time walk or timetwister he'd be better. or maybe im just sad that hes a pale impression of the real thing.
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom