MTG Salvation

Which commanders do you see people play regularly, and think to yourself that does not appeal to me at all? I'm not referring to commanders you dislike playing against or bear some kind of grudge towards. I'm specifically asking about commanders you would never use based on the inherent weaknesses of the card.

What specifically bothers you about the card, and which commander would you choose to helm a similar deck?

For example, I personally have zero interest in playing Mayael the Anima. She was actually the first commander I ever built, and at the time I had a lot of nostalgia for her card. I spent a long time trying to make her work and being repeatedly frustrated. Her ability really demands a lot--you need to be able to manipulate the top of your deck, but you also need to have a lot of big fatties in your deck (and sometimes, you just need to be lucky). Plus, the ability costs so much mana that I often chose to just not use it, instead casting one of the large creatures I would inevitably draw. Finally, she has no built-in protection and puny stats. It's easy for opponents to kill her and deny you any value if you manage to build a deck that actually makes her threatening.

In slightly different colors I would run Intet, the Dreamer as a deck based around cheating cards into play from the top of my deck. Or maybe an inexpensive mana-generating commander like Selvala, Explorer Returned as a way to quickly cast my big creatures.

What do you think?

Surrak dragonclaw people apparently like punching things *shrug*

perhaps I just don't understand everyone elses pure hatred of counter magic.

I have never been interested in mid range goodstuff generals but Surrak is probably one of the worst he doesn't do anything.. I think Roon is one of the best mid range value decks neverending value.

i really don't like generals that push players towards 'midrange' or 'goodstuff'. i feel it leads to a very 'samey' game experience. im a big fan of synergy/jank/fruity/focused decks. surrak can be built in synergistic ways/focused ways, but a dude like Stonebrow, Krosan Hero leads you to build in a certain way.

some of the other generals i dont like are the vanilla generals. unless its built as some sort of theme deck that actually tells a story, they're usually there to hide the fact that its a 3-colour goodstuff/3-colour combo the table by turn 3-4 deck.

...saw someone build a princess lucrezia girl genius themed deck.. was pretty cool actually

Not that I see them often, but a set of commanders I just don't get why people run at all is many of the Legends commanders that are either vanilla, over-costed, or just plain boring. I mean, I understand the appeal of theme decks, but surely you can do the theme with a creature in the command zone that you might actually want to cast? I'm a casual player and don't care for overly-competitive games, but I have my limits.

Commander-centric combos in general (Sharuum, Zur, Oona, Prossh etc.) - in a format about randomness, what makes one want to repeatedly assemble the same infinite combo time and again? I understand it from wanting to win perspective, obviously a strong reliable combo is good for that - but from actually having fun playing the game and interacting... I'm left wondering, heh.

I'll also echo Mayael for muchly the same reasons (doesn't help her score that she's a fricken' elf), she was one of my first commanders way back when.

Zur

The whole nature of highlander formats is that you have variety to the game. A general that just tutors for the perfect answer every turn just feels wrong in the format. Obviously Zur is very powerful and i am sure there may even be a fun version of the deck out there but to me Zur is a turd.

Zur and Narset make me go.. "Oh, you're playing those decks. I guess in order to stand a chance I have to nuke all of your lands so you don't get to play the game"

It is pretty much binary. Either they get to go off and no one else gets to play, or they get denied hard and they don't get to play.

Interactive, but binary. Still, I get to use the excuse that such players "deserved it" and should expect a proper counterstrategy if playing those decks.

I don't get Mayael and Surrak either. One basically forces you to load up on your top end way too much for your deck to be good in most cases, and the other provides a benefit I don't think is worth a command zone benefit as counterspells are generally easy to play around when everything you play is threatening enough.

I am good with any and all commanders, everyone has their own idea of what is fun. The more obscure the more props I will give, but I understand the urge to bust out broken overplayed commanders too.

The one thing I do not relate to or understand is getting your deck list off the Internet and just sleeving it up.

P.S. Surrak is cool and good. He's 6/6 for 5 and all 3 abilities can be relevant.

Not because of weakness, but because of actual fun playing against them i rather dislike certain life gain and tutoring commanders.

Arcum Dagsson - at least he needs stuff to feed on, still though, whats the point?
Captain Sisay - Let me effing guess, Gaea's Cradle first?
Karlov of the Ghost Council - Not really nasty at first but pain in the ass to focus so much on commander removal.
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic - So, you are playing a commander not for the sake of it's colors only, yet you let him sit in the zone because he's "perfectly fine" there...
Yisan, the Wanderer Bard - Cool in the 99 of Elfball, otherwise plain boring.
Zur the Enchanter - ...

A control deck is sometimes necessary to hold down an opressive deck.

I hate decks that abuse extra turns so that means Narset decks geenrally.

There are several generals I would never use, ones like Narset, Enlightened Master and Derevi, Empyrial Tactician. Normally I don't mind a hard-to-kill general, but the above two could potentially win/dominate the game on the next turn, with counterspell protection to boot. I like EDH because it tests creativity and flavor of its players, yet the two aforementioned generals make the game desperate the moment they show up on board. With the new tuck rule (which I disobey in my playgroup), it's all the more annoying to play against them.

Some other generals, such as Oloro, Ageless Ascetic who may never have to leave its invincible command zone, is also irking.

And... as personal pet peeve, I avoid popular generals. I'm more interested in using nonpopular ones and kick people's arse with it.

Poor Narset haha, against certain decks of mine I actually like going up against her.

I guess a strategy I don't really enjoy personally in EDH is aggressive ones that "go wide". In a multiplayer format, with such an abundance of sweepers usually present, trying to dump many threats onto the board as possible just seems like asking to get blown out. Sliver decks are a notable one I guess. I haven't seen one in a while, but when they do show up one well timed Merciless Eviction means they lose. When I build aggro decks I prefer to put 2-3 large scale threats down and then sandbag the rest; Krakens and Dragons over Elves and Slivers. That's just me though.

There are a good amount of commanders I will not play due to either the decks i have seen use them being just no fun to play against, or teh commander is ust not unique enough to be interesting to me. For example. Derrevi, while very unique, i just cannot stand the deck that runs him I have seen 1 deck and while i like the ability, he is broken and the deck abuses that broken mechanic.

Then you have decks like Ktenko, Mob boss. You know it is a goblin deck, you know it is aggressive, may as well just roll your eyes and make sure you you can deal with the swarm. (At least my goblin deck runs Purphoros, Sure i can attack with goblins but the threat is just putting creatures on the field. They have to deal with constant ongoing damage.

Prossh, Skyraider of Kher. When it was first spoiled I thought it was amazing, but then people realized that Food Chain goes infinite. Now I'm just stuck here wanting to make kobolds with a general that everyone insists on making competitive.

Bladewing the Risen - Building dragon tribal with red and black but no green is like fighting with an arm tied behind your back.

Absolutely none.

After years of play, none. There is a deck for every occasion, and I am more so concerned about a player's character rather than the level of his or her general and deck: "A meet the challenge mentality." A mature person owning a highly regarded general (Zur, Derevi, Animar, Narset, etc.) or optimized deck build (Stax, Storm, Ad Nauseam, Doomsday, Druid, etc.) knows when to play that type of deck.

Keep brewing.

I don't understand linear commanders or commanders that easily swing into a linear mode.

Quote from Daracaex »

Not that I see them often, but a set of commanders I just don't get why people run at all is many of the Legends commanders that are either vanilla, over-costed, or just plain boring. I mean, I understand the appeal of theme decks, but surely you can do the theme with a creature in the command zone that you might actually want to cast? I'm a casual player and don't care for overly-competitive games, but I have my limits.

I started a thread to ask why people play these legends. The answers are interesting.

I personally don't like the tutor generals. I prefer my EDH games semi-random rather than I play my general and you better have removal...

I have to put in a good word for some commanders mentioned here. It is very much possible to build fun decks with commanders usually associated with opressive decks. I once played against an all-permants Narset, Enlightened Master deck with a focus on artifacs and enchantments. The deck was a blast to play against and worked pretty well too, despite being built "suboptimally". I myself run a Prossh, Skyraider of Kher list that just focuses on neat sac interactions, without stupid combos like Food Chain or Phyrexian Altar.

I really dislike commanders that really have no fun route to deckbuilding. Grand Arbiter Augustin IV as an example for a prime offender in this sense.

Quote from elfric »

----- the commander i dont get is Dragonlord Kolaghan
why did wizards print elder dragons again? ah yes commander became so popular lets give them somethng in our standard sets.
it just hurts to see an ELDER dragon with an ability irrelevant in ELDER DRAGON HIGHLANDER. really they must hate rakdos. or it was to make an example of to punish the guild having punisher cards themselves.
no it really is just a bad punisher itself as you can punish relentless rats and shadowborn aphostle players

he is just a basic Rorix Bladewing but because you have the added cost of B you give haste to other creatures too.
still pretty vanilla in a format about great things (i consider vanilla pretty boring) and imo combat-only relevant abilities are the vanilla of today

As a commander yes she sucks. However, in the 99 of a Jund dragon tribal deck she's a dragonstorm/Mass reanimation super star. That second ability is easily ignored. She's anything but vanilla to me.

To answer OP's specific question, there are several types of general I never play. Firstly any of the extremely linear but effective combo generals that fall apart if they get answered. My first (and only for like 2 years) deck was Krenko, and everything boiled down to get answered or combo off on the spot. Plus when they do work, they work the exact same way every time, which can get very dull very fast.

The other type are very popular, very powerful commanders especially tutor based or with blue/black in the colour identity. These draw a lot of hate and force you into scaling the power level to deal with the hate. So Ghave fungus tribal could be good and all, but when playing with new people your always going to be hated out because of how gross Ghave usually is. Sometimes a very strong card can be weak in that regard even if in a vacuum they are very effective.

I can see the point of generals like Bladewing in that it can simply be interesting to build around a weakness. Why else does anyone play mono R or W? Hell why does anyone build decks other than top tier UGB combo stuff? I would love to build Bladewing and pit him against other 'tier two' generals (especially Gruul dragons or some such) but lately my playgroup has started on the combo train so decks like that can kinda struggle

Quote from StonerOfKruphix »

I think the most important thing to do during building is to ask yourself "Is this deck fun to play? Is this deck fun to lose to?". If the answer to both is yes, then go ahead. If the answer is no, you might be intoxicating your playgroup with those decks, so don't wonder why nobody wants to play with you. Usually, when someone with a deck I hate (read: any of the ones above) asks me to play, I usually reply with: "No. I like to have fun, thanks." and I think more people should start saying this more often.

Unrelated question, but do you have a decklist for Gahiji? Your sig description is exactly how I've been wanting to build mine and I don't know where to start.

Quote from schnerbst »

I have to put in a good word for some commanders mentioned here. It is very much possible to build fun decks with commanders usually associated with oppressive decks. I once played against an all-permanents Narset, Enlightened Master deck with a focus on artifacts and enchantments. The deck was a blast to play against and worked pretty well too, despite being built "suboptimally". I myself run a Prossh, Skyraider of Kher list that just focuses on neat sac interactions, without stupid combos like Food Chain or Phyrexian Altar.

I really dislike commanders that really have no fun route to deckbuilding. Grand Arbiter Augustin IV as an example for a prime offender in this sense.

The issue i've found with building these decks, that have the tendency to go oppressive, is that people simply don't trust it for quite a while. Even if you aren't running Food Chain in your Prossh deck, then people are still going to expect it. There's no removing that expectation from their mind and that can led to spending more than a few games with people ganging up on you every time your general hits.

The two effects are functionally the same but very different ie Cairn wanderer can use Kolgan but not maelstrom.

Quote from darkeshrine »

Quote from schnerbst »

I have to put in a good word for some commanders mentioned here. It is very much possible to build fun decks with commanders usually associated with oppressive decks. I once played against an all-permanents Narset, Enlightened Master deck with a focus on artifacts and enchantments. The deck was a blast to play against and worked pretty well too, despite being built "suboptimally". I myself run a Prossh, Skyraider of Kher list that just focuses on neat sac interactions, without stupid combos like Food Chain or Phyrexian Altar.

I really dislike commanders that really have no fun route to deckbuilding. Grand Arbiter Augustin IV as an example for a prime offender in this sense.

The issue i've found with building these decks, that have the tendency to go oppressive, is that people simply don't trust it for quite a while. Even if you aren't running Food Chain in your Prossh deck, then people are still going to expect it. There's no removing that expectation from their mind and that can led to spending more than a few games with people ganging up on you every time your general hits.

That may be the case when playing with strangers, but I play with friends (and friend's freinds) most of the time, so I don't have that particular issue. There were some combo pieces in my Prossh deck at some point, but people were complaining about the opressiveness and so I'm trying to lower the powerlevel to the general standard in our playgroup.

Damia, Sage of Stone The real problem I have with Damia is, more often than not, when I'm in at least two of those colors, I get enough card draw that I often have seven or more cards in my hand at EOT. So I'm essentially skipping my draw step for a lackluster creature.