Just seems like the dumbest deck ever, either you suspend your ***** and win with basically zero interaction, or jhoira dies a lot and you can't do anything. Either way you barely actually play magic.
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When your wincon is "cast my commander and swing with it once", the way you stop that is by not letting them cast their commander, and not leaving it alive to swing. But they get mad about you doing this, say you're picking on them, and generally be salty about not getting to play.
You will not be allowed to cast your commander and swing with it once. Because you will win the game on the spot (usually) if you do. Your deck does absolutely nothing besides cast your commander and swing with it once. You literally designed your deck to not let you play, if you are not doing the one thing it does that wins the game. You do not get to complain, essentially, that we are not letting you win.
Narset, Enlightened Master makes me cringe like there's no tomorrow. The solutions to her are incredibly narrow, and oftentimes is just a matter of "I attack with Narset, trigger... oops, looks like I'm gonna take an extra turn each turn. And in the meanwhile I'm just gonna plop all these walkers for free", which is a miserable thing and nobody should ever experience that, since I think that decks like this are the bane of a fun format like EDH. And to think she'd be great in a especially-made-for-her-ability token deck.
Also, I don't get control players. Come on, man, you're playing the best format and an almost unlimited choice of cards and you decide to play control? Just try to be original for once. So far the worst offenders are Grand Arbiter Augustin IV,Dragonlord Ojutai, Talrand and Geist of Saint Traft. The last one I especially hate since I've seen so many players pick it up as their first general and they're all like: "HURR DURR why has nobody ever thought of putting Steel of the Godhead in here HURR DURR I'm gonna be so original and it's gonna be so much fun for my opponent to get whacked for 6 or more each turn while he can't do anything!"
And don't even get me started on combo players ('dat Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind + Curiosity cheese is overflowing). It must obviously be my fault for liking interactive decks.
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.
Sounds like you think midrange is the only legitimate edh deck. rofl
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Cards are game pieces, and should be treated as such, easily replaceable.
Cards are not money, investments, or a retirement fund, and should never have been treated as such.
Wizards made a mistake caving to speculators once, and we still pay for that mistake 19 years later.
Happy is the man who has broken the chains that hurt the mind and given up worrying once and for all. Be patient and tough. One day this pain will be useful to you.
Format is not about randomness. It's about multiplayer (originally) with a larger deck and a deeper card selection. This nonsense about 'casual only' and the like is ridiculous.
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.
I have had this same issue w/ my Nekusar, the Mindrazer tribal zombies deck. I had one guy who was dumping everything out of his hand anticipating the Wheels start cursing me out when I told him the deck doesn't have any. lol
For me its any deck that people are playing to win with not to have fun with. The commander doesn't normally matter for this but its fairly easy to tell when I person doesn't like their deck but rather just likes that feeling of winning.
The other thing I dislike at times is when a person obviously doesn't understand their deck yet. While sitting down with a new commander is huge and difficult at times, this isn't what I am meaning. I am talking more of the person who Netdecks an EDH and doesn't understand how it combos out or understand its inner-working that make it a powerful deck. I don't know why this bugs me but it really does.
This is a bad question for me to answer. I'm the guy that builds stupid decks with underwhelming generals just to see how effective I can make them. I completely understand that in a format where most players look for optimization and "solving" their decks general, what I enjoy out of this format is considered silly and wasteful. At the tables I play at, my decks are usually where this sort of conversation comes from
For example I love my latulla, keldon overseer deck with a sick passion. Some of my most pimp and high-value decks I maintain (Latulla and Jeska, Warrior Adept) are just abysmal in power. And man do I get a lot of crap from some friends and spectators for "misusing expensive mtg resources."
To answer the question although, my opinion is on the other end of the spectrum. I feel that if a general is considered "solved" in any way, such that people can talk about optimization with little effort or research, if it is just "known" that to run X-general you should run X-cards, then that is a general I find pointless to run.
Competitively speaking you need a quality deck to compete against other tier quality EDH decks. If that is all you play, then this entire topic probably doesn't mean anything for you.
I understand net-decking for competitive tournaments since in a constructed format, it is necessary to understand what everyone is playing at large events. But in this format, I see very little value in running a hyper-common general in a hyper-common deckbuild with hyper-common cards if you capable of developing your own deck with a general you actually want to play.
If the hyper-common general is your baby, and its a card that you have grown to love, then yes, that is great! Otherwise I don't understand how people don't get bored with their decks.
My opinion is also due to me being a hyper-casual-hipster.
I play control decks and combo decks extensively and find that they are very interactive. It's just a shame that some players refuse to interact with the stack/hand and don't have the patience to learn how to deal with threats outside of combat.
The only way to interact with things on the stack is counterspells. The only color I know of that can reliably disrupt an opponent's hand is black. So everyone has to either play blue or black and run lots of counterspells and Thoughtseizes?
Also, I don't get control players. Come on, man, you're playing the best format and an almost unlimited choice of cards and you decide to play control? Just try to be original for once.
The salt doth overflow. 'Playing control' in EDH does not mean the control player is unoriginal. There are original ways to play control, moreso in this format than others.
And don't even get me started on combo players ('dat Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind + Curiosity cheese is overflowing). It must obviously be my fault for liking interactive decks.
1. So you hate control (which are interactive decks), but hate combo because they are non-interactive? Do I have this right? Am I missing something?
2. Hey, you know what's good at stopping those dirty combo players? Control players.
I play control decks and combo decks extensively and find that they are very interactive. It's just a shame that some players refuse to interact with the stack/hand and don't have the patience to learn how to deal with threats outside of combat.
The only way to interact with things on the stack is counterspells. The only color I know of that can reliably disrupt an opponent's hand is black. So everyone has to either play blue or black and run lots of counterspells and Thoughtseizes?
Sliver generals. Either you don't get boardwiped and you win or you get board wiped and you lose. At no point do you make an interesting decision. You've taken all possibility of interesting gameplay and thrown it away in deck design.
There are a bunch more generals that promote similar linear strategies that I don't get either. It's not interesting to see a linear strategy work more than once.
I feel the same way about most tribal generals. Tribal decks feel so contrived unless you're really digging deep. That being said, I do think tribes are an excellent supplement to a decks theme. For example, I run my dralnu list as a mill deck with a zombie-wizard tribal back-up plan and I use vampire tribal in jeleva as a plan b because it's not terrible.
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The only commander I hate that I've played, and played against, was norin the wary.
When I built it, it was optimized (imperial recruiter, mana crypt, etc) and wow is it terrible. If I was foolish enough to cast pandemonium/warstorm surge, people would laugh and do way more damage than norin did. The only real threat was confusion in the ranks which was always countered or destroyed instantly. The deck basically sat there every game with hardly any card draw or tutoring, and did nothing. Except lose. Which it was excellent at.
Other norin players I played against basically had no interest in trying to win, they just wanted to ruin the game with stupid chaos type effects. Oh you want to do something? - you better flip coins or spend a few minutes determining a random target first.
I play control decks and combo decks extensively and find that they are very interactive. It's just a shame that some players refuse to interact with the stack/hand and don't have the patience to learn how to deal with threats outside of combat.
I have no problem with combos, just with predictability, Niv Mizzet+Curiosity isn't creative and rarely results in that unique of a game. I build combo decks all the time, I just try to make ones are could not be seen a mile away from their commander. It's the same as 1-card combo generals like kalia, I have only ever seen 1 kalia deck ever.
That's largely my only issue with commanders, if I can come up with your entire decklist just by seeing your commander I really don't want to play. That ends up the problem with pretty much every CommanderYear product from WoTC, because they're almost always comically powered and fall into a single immediate strategy. There's a lot of fun lost when the entire game is predicted from the get-go. If I go in knowing what your deck does and that I need to target it down it isn't fun, far better to have some subtly and unpredictability.
It also isn't about power, I play a very competitive deck, it's just not obvious.
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.
Or they can consider running cards like Xantid Swarm, Gaea's Herald and Uba Mask to name just a few to get around counters and making better use of things like Brainstorm and Scroll Rack to get around discard. There is also the option of learning how to play around opposing disruption instead of people just playing as if it doesn't exist and then moaning when the control player makes the correct play and counters their threat card.
I took you to mean that other people had to deal with control and combo players with hand disruption and counterspells. Which does seem to be the case with many combo decks. I don't see any problem with other people countering a spell that would win me the game. I see problems when the only solution to some other person's combo or impending board lock is a counterspell or hand disruption that people may not be running.
Well my general irk is commanders that make decks spend more time doing their thing... On MY turn... Then me on my own turn... And everyone else's before and after. Having a group of 4-6 people, nothing is worse then a deck that responds/tutors/mechanics for 10+ minutes on every single persons turn.
Land sac/land tutor or draining out your mana for something small before your turn? I get that, that's fine. Doing something small or to protect yourself, again, get that. You're about to die so you look for every option? Cool. There's a limit though, that's all I'm saying.
tbh I have a hard time thinking of commanders that I don't get because I like to see individual decks and I like the diversity. One thing I don't get is Oloro, probably because there's just more commanders that I find more interesting in those colours
Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
I don't get why people play Arcum Dagsson. Everyone who has played against it knows it is broken. Every game I have ever played against it has gone one of two ways:
- Everyone gangs up on Arcum to stop it from winning the game.
- Arcum wins the game on turn 4.
Any general that has a tutor ability tends to be very boring.
But for players that play only once in a while, they find it fun. I would take their comments with a grain of salt.
I enjoy playing a commander with a tutor simply because I love the fact that I don't have to pray to the shimmying shuffle god to get the answer I need *now*. Just because someone somewhere down the line decided "You must play five copies of the same card or never see the card evar" doesn't mean that's the game I want to play.
Also, playing a six mana 6/5 Vanilla isn't exactly the greatest amount of fun anyone could be having.
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Oath of the Gatewatch; the set that caused the competitive community to freak out over Basic Lands.
I dunno, I love playing my Surrak Dragonclaw deck. It's very rampy and winking at the blue player as I'm flashing an EOT Surrak to protect my Craterhoof or Prime-Speaker or Kiki-Jiki has been very satisfying on multiple occasions. The fact that he's a big pseudo-hasty beater for 5 has been pretty valuable on occasion as well.
That being said, there are very few Commanders that I'd have any qualms with someone playing. Johnny, Spike, Timmy and Vorthos all play Commander for different reasons. Given that, the only people I can see building around a vanilla, over costed Legends commander are Vorthos players and the theme better be pretty spectacular...
Any general that has a tutor ability tends to be very boring.
But for players that play only once in a while, they find it fun. I would take their comments with a grain of salt.
I enjoy playing a commander with a tutor simply because I love the fact that I don't have to pray to the shimmying shuffle god to get the answer I need *now*. Just because someone somewhere down the line decided "You must play five copies of the same card or never see the card evar" doesn't mean that's the game I want to play.
Also, playing a six mana 6/5 Vanilla isn't exactly the greatest amount of fun anyone could be having.
As someone who has pretty much exclusively played Legacy and Commander for the last 3 years, I agree. Arcum Dagsson was my very first Commander (I had every card already lying around in my binder- including Mana Crypt), and I've built Zur and greatly enjoy even Sliver Overlord, as well.
As far as Commanders I just don't get... It'd be the ones used by hipsters that offer no practical benefit over anything else in their colors, that they play primarily because they want to be different and so they may condescend toward others who don't care about such a thing. My problem is less with the cards themselves, however, and more about a specific attitude accompanying them. Don't disparage me for playing Kemba, Kha Regent because she's, "A cookie-cutter Voltron Commander" (when she's not even that good lol) while I'm beating the ass off of your Kentaro, the Smiling Cat Voltron because you misplayed by casting an Armageddon as early as possible while I had both Marble Diamond and a Worn Powerstone, and you no mana rocks at all.
The guy who plays Barktooth Warbeard or Axelrod Gunnarson because their names are cool and they made a metal-themed deck for them or whatever is perfectly fine, in my book, and I'll bust out one of my weaker Commander decks to play against them so we can all have fun. The guys who purposefully play hard-to-function Commanders, or ones that are simply obsoleted by other cards in their colors in specific styles of play, and then complain, argue and insult other people are the bane of Commander, in my opinion, especially since I only seem to run into these people online or at shops.
I am essentially exactly what you described hating, but without the outwardly displayed attitude. From running Sivitri Scarzam for the colors to maintaining rakka mar as preference over kiki, I am that hipster.
While I respect everyone's choice to play what they want, it is my choice to play what I enjoy.
Internally although, I can't help but feel the annoyance of seeing the "cookie-cutter" generals so frequently. Seeing the same small percent of legendary creatures being played by multiple friends over the years gets very dull. The worst part is the awkwardness when you can make legitimately optimal suggestions for your friends deck who just built Maelstrom/Zur/Karador/Roon/Meren/Riku/Narset/Derevi/Prosh/Mimeo/etc for the first time, since you have seen that particular general/deck perform better from previous friends decks. Eventually you end up playing against your previous friends deck with a new pilot.
This annoyance most likely comes from the amount of time I've played this game/format, but it isn't something that I can just ignore. I keep it inside and don't try to dissuade people from their generals.
Using forums and the power of the interwebz for research seems ideal, but I also feel that it has gone too far. When there are metric-driven statistical lists like this and this, top-card lists, etc, that nudge people into playing one of these top-X common commanders, it brings on a pretty dull feeling of repetition.
There is nearly 640x legendary creatures for people to actually work with. Many are garbage, but many very playable legendaries are neglected due to this lack of knowing they exist, or what players are exposed to, or what they are recommended to play.
I am essentially exactly what you described hating, but without the outwardly displayed attitude. From running Sivitri Scarzam for the colors to maintaining rakka mar as preference over kiki, I am that hipster.
If you don't have the attitude, then you're not what I hate at all. I said my problem was less with the cards, and about the attitude-- a guy who complains and insults me for playing Kemba because he made the choice to play Kentaro, Smiling Cat is the example I used after saying my problem was with the attitude. Again, the guys who play Axelrod Gunnarson are not my problem. The guys who play Axelrod and then ***** that they can't win because everyone is using cookie-cutter Commanders (especially after doing things that essentially knock themselves out of the game- see the Armageddon example that actually happened) is my problem.
If you don't openly start fights with people (and believe me- this was an open argument at a table because this guy was purely toxic) over Commander choices, then you're not what I was talking about in the slightest. I was complaining about a specific toxic attitude and I plainly stated as much. You can have a problem with cookie cutter generals, and you can have a problem with seeing the same decks with a different pilot, but I will not, however, tolerate someone insulting another person because they don't select their Commanders in the same way in which you do- that's nonsensical. It's toxic. As you eloquently stated, "I respect everyone's choice to play what they want, it is my choice to play what I enjoy." The person and attitude I described is someone who does not do this and openly starts fights. I can understand you taking offense, especially given how I started that paragraph, however just a sentence later my context should have been clear- I don't care if you play Sivitri or any other vanilla Commander- but if you begin flinging insults because you're not being handed a win for your kooky commander choice, then you just shouldn't play a game with people (not saying that you do this, but this is essentially what the Kentaro player did).
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Just seems like the dumbest deck ever, either you suspend your ***** and win with basically zero interaction, or jhoira dies a lot and you can't do anything. Either way you barely actually play magic.
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When your wincon is "cast my commander and swing with it once", the way you stop that is by not letting them cast their commander, and not leaving it alive to swing. But they get mad about you doing this, say you're picking on them, and generally be salty about not getting to play.
You will not be allowed to cast your commander and swing with it once. Because you will win the game on the spot (usually) if you do. Your deck does absolutely nothing besides cast your commander and swing with it once. You literally designed your deck to not let you play, if you are not doing the one thing it does that wins the game. You do not get to complain, essentially, that we are not letting you win.
I just don't see the point.
Nicol Bolas Dragon Dick
Hanna, Ship's Navigator Heart-attack Stax
Oona, Queen of the Fae Fairy Dance
Vhati Il-Dal Tree of Woe
Scion of the Ur-Dragon Durgensturm
Jolrael, Empress of Beasts Jamuraa's Army
Liliana, Heretical Healer Rise from your Graves and Proliferate
Tariel, Reckoner of Souls Angelic Judgment [
Sounds like you think midrange is the only legitimate edh deck. rofl
Cards are not money, investments, or a retirement fund, and should never have been treated as such.
Wizards made a mistake caving to speculators once, and we still pay for that mistake 19 years later.
Happy is the man who has broken the chains that hurt the mind and given up worrying once and for all. Be patient and tough. One day this pain will be useful to you.
I have had this same issue w/ my Nekusar, the Mindrazer tribal zombies deck. I had one guy who was dumping everything out of his hand anticipating the Wheels start cursing me out when I told him the deck doesn't have any. lol
Purphoros, God of the Forge is usually so spectacularly generic, I don't see the point.
The other thing I dislike at times is when a person obviously doesn't understand their deck yet. While sitting down with a new commander is huge and difficult at times, this isn't what I am meaning. I am talking more of the person who Netdecks an EDH and doesn't understand how it combos out or understand its inner-working that make it a powerful deck. I don't know why this bugs me but it really does.
For example I love my latulla, keldon overseer deck with a sick passion. Some of my most pimp and high-value decks I maintain (Latulla and Jeska, Warrior Adept) are just abysmal in power. And man do I get a lot of crap from some friends and spectators for "misusing expensive mtg resources."
I constantly waste an inordinate amount of time brewing up theoretical decklists for mostly trash unplayable legends (Lim-Dul the Necromancer/Maraxus of Keld/Avacyn, Guardian Angel/Ith, High Arcanist/Malfegor/etc).
To answer the question although, my opinion is on the other end of the spectrum. I feel that if a general is considered "solved" in any way, such that people can talk about optimization with little effort or research, if it is just "known" that to run X-general you should run X-cards, then that is a general I find pointless to run.
Competitively speaking you need a quality deck to compete against other tier quality EDH decks. If that is all you play, then this entire topic probably doesn't mean anything for you.
I understand net-decking for competitive tournaments since in a constructed format, it is necessary to understand what everyone is playing at large events. But in this format, I see very little value in running a hyper-common general in a hyper-common deckbuild with hyper-common cards if you capable of developing your own deck with a general you actually want to play.
If the hyper-common general is your baby, and its a card that you have grown to love, then yes, that is great! Otherwise I don't understand how people don't get bored with their decks.
My opinion is also due to me being a hyper-casual-hipster.
Links to my most current deck lists;
Primary EDH; Rakka Mar Token Perfection, Crosis Mnemonic Betrayal, Cromat Villainous, Judith Gravestorm, Rakdos Empty Storm, Exava Artifacts, Bant Trash, & Fumiko Voltron!
EDH kept at home; Ruzzian Isset & Rakdos LoR!
EDH (nostalgic/pimp/retired) in storage;
Latulla Burns, Akroma Smash, Jeska Voltron, Rakdos Storm, Bladewing Darghans, Lyzolda Worldgorger, Xantcha Steals your Heart, Jori Storm, Wydwen Permission, Gwendlyn Paradox, Jeleva Warps, & Sigarda Brick!
Legacy Showanimator and High Tide!
The salt doth overflow. 'Playing control' in EDH does not mean the control player is unoriginal. There are original ways to play control, moreso in this format than others.
1. So you hate control (which are interactive decks), but hate combo because they are non-interactive? Do I have this right? Am I missing something?
2. Hey, you know what's good at stopping those dirty combo players? Control players.
EDH Decks:
G Jugan
U Budget Jalira Battlecruiser
Stack interaction is not limited to blue. Hushwing Gryff in response to Craterhoof Behemoth is stack interaction. Dromoka's Command in response to Blasphemous Act is stack interaction. Jund Charm in response to Living Death is stack interaction. Interacting directly with spells on the stack is typically limited to Blue with some in Red.
There are a bunch more generals that promote similar linear strategies that I don't get either. It's not interesting to see a linear strategy work more than once.
When I built it, it was optimized (imperial recruiter, mana crypt, etc) and wow is it terrible. If I was foolish enough to cast pandemonium/warstorm surge, people would laugh and do way more damage than norin did. The only real threat was confusion in the ranks which was always countered or destroyed instantly. The deck basically sat there every game with hardly any card draw or tutoring, and did nothing. Except lose. Which it was excellent at.
Other norin players I played against basically had no interest in trying to win, they just wanted to ruin the game with stupid chaos type effects. Oh you want to do something? - you better flip coins or spend a few minutes determining a random target first.
My G Yisan, the Bard of Death G deck.
My BUGWR Hermit druid BUGWR deck.
I have no problem with combos, just with predictability, Niv Mizzet+Curiosity isn't creative and rarely results in that unique of a game. I build combo decks all the time, I just try to make ones are could not be seen a mile away from their commander. It's the same as 1-card combo generals like kalia, I have only ever seen 1 kalia deck ever.
That's largely my only issue with commanders, if I can come up with your entire decklist just by seeing your commander I really don't want to play. That ends up the problem with pretty much every CommanderYear product from WoTC, because they're almost always comically powered and fall into a single immediate strategy. There's a lot of fun lost when the entire game is predicted from the get-go. If I go in knowing what your deck does and that I need to target it down it isn't fun, far better to have some subtly and unpredictability.
It also isn't about power, I play a very competitive deck, it's just not obvious.
Land sac/land tutor or draining out your mana for something small before your turn? I get that, that's fine. Doing something small or to protect yourself, again, get that. You're about to die so you look for every option? Cool. There's a limit though, that's all I'm saying.
Or a personal favorite of mine: Vines of Vastwood.
Also, white hand disruption.
On phasing:
- Everyone gangs up on Arcum to stop it from winning the game.
- Arcum wins the game on turn 4.
Very boring, and does not interact well.
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
But for players that play only once in a while, they find it fun. I would take their comments with a grain of salt.
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
I enjoy playing a commander with a tutor simply because I love the fact that I don't have to pray to the shimmying shuffle god to get the answer I need *now*. Just because someone somewhere down the line decided "You must play five copies of the same card or never see the card evar" doesn't mean that's the game I want to play.
Also, playing a six mana 6/5 Vanilla isn't exactly the greatest amount of fun anyone could be having.
That being said, there are very few Commanders that I'd have any qualms with someone playing. Johnny, Spike, Timmy and Vorthos all play Commander for different reasons. Given that, the only people I can see building around a vanilla, over costed Legends commander are Vorthos players and the theme better be pretty spectacular...
As someone who has pretty much exclusively played Legacy and Commander for the last 3 years, I agree. Arcum Dagsson was my very first Commander (I had every card already lying around in my binder- including Mana Crypt), and I've built Zur and greatly enjoy even Sliver Overlord, as well.
My meta game also is moderately competitive though. Lots of our games are decided in the first 5-6 turns, because sometimes people like dropping turn 2 Land Equilibriums off of a turn 1 Sol Ring, Talisman of Progress, and an Island. It's nice to be able to get your Commander out, grab Rings of Brighthearth, and then the next turn grab Basalt Monolith and Staff of Domination off of one activation, draw the whole library, and then hard cast Clock of Omens, Nevinyrral's Disk, Mycosynth Lattice, and Darksteel Forge with all of your counter backup in hand- all while someone is trying to lock the game down. I find that fun.
As far as Commanders I just don't get... It'd be the ones used by hipsters that offer no practical benefit over anything else in their colors, that they play primarily because they want to be different and so they may condescend toward others who don't care about such a thing. My problem is less with the cards themselves, however, and more about a specific attitude accompanying them. Don't disparage me for playing Kemba, Kha Regent because she's, "A cookie-cutter Voltron Commander" (when she's not even that good lol) while I'm beating the ass off of your Kentaro, the Smiling Cat Voltron because you misplayed by casting an Armageddon as early as possible while I had both Marble Diamond and a Worn Powerstone, and you no mana rocks at all.
The guy who plays Barktooth Warbeard or Axelrod Gunnarson because their names are cool and they made a metal-themed deck for them or whatever is perfectly fine, in my book, and I'll bust out one of my weaker Commander decks to play against them so we can all have fun. The guys who purposefully play hard-to-function Commanders, or ones that are simply obsoleted by other cards in their colors in specific styles of play, and then complain, argue and insult other people are the bane of Commander, in my opinion, especially since I only seem to run into these people online or at shops.
Sig and Avatar drawn by me.
While I respect everyone's choice to play what they want, it is my choice to play what I enjoy.
Internally although, I can't help but feel the annoyance of seeing the "cookie-cutter" generals so frequently. Seeing the same small percent of legendary creatures being played by multiple friends over the years gets very dull. The worst part is the awkwardness when you can make legitimately optimal suggestions for your friends deck who just built Maelstrom/Zur/Karador/Roon/Meren/Riku/Narset/Derevi/Prosh/Mimeo/etc for the first time, since you have seen that particular general/deck perform better from previous friends decks. Eventually you end up playing against your previous friends deck with a new pilot.
This annoyance most likely comes from the amount of time I've played this game/format, but it isn't something that I can just ignore. I keep it inside and don't try to dissuade people from their generals.
Using forums and the power of the interwebz for research seems ideal, but I also feel that it has gone too far. When there are metric-driven statistical lists like this and this, top-card lists, etc, that nudge people into playing one of these top-X common commanders, it brings on a pretty dull feeling of repetition.
There is nearly 640x legendary creatures for people to actually work with. Many are garbage, but many very playable legendaries are neglected due to this lack of knowing they exist, or what players are exposed to, or what they are recommended to play.
Links to my most current deck lists;
Primary EDH; Rakka Mar Token Perfection, Crosis Mnemonic Betrayal, Cromat Villainous, Judith Gravestorm, Rakdos Empty Storm, Exava Artifacts, Bant Trash, & Fumiko Voltron!
EDH kept at home; Ruzzian Isset & Rakdos LoR!
EDH (nostalgic/pimp/retired) in storage;
Latulla Burns, Akroma Smash, Jeska Voltron, Rakdos Storm, Bladewing Darghans, Lyzolda Worldgorger, Xantcha Steals your Heart, Jori Storm, Wydwen Permission, Gwendlyn Paradox, Jeleva Warps, & Sigarda Brick!
Legacy Showanimator and High Tide!
If you don't have the attitude, then you're not what I hate at all. I said my problem was less with the cards, and about the attitude-- a guy who complains and insults me for playing Kemba because he made the choice to play Kentaro, Smiling Cat is the example I used after saying my problem was with the attitude. Again, the guys who play Axelrod Gunnarson are not my problem. The guys who play Axelrod and then ***** that they can't win because everyone is using cookie-cutter Commanders (especially after doing things that essentially knock themselves out of the game- see the Armageddon example that actually happened) is my problem.
If you don't openly start fights with people (and believe me- this was an open argument at a table because this guy was purely toxic) over Commander choices, then you're not what I was talking about in the slightest. I was complaining about a specific toxic attitude and I plainly stated as much. You can have a problem with cookie cutter generals, and you can have a problem with seeing the same decks with a different pilot, but I will not, however, tolerate someone insulting another person because they don't select their Commanders in the same way in which you do- that's nonsensical. It's toxic. As you eloquently stated, "I respect everyone's choice to play what they want, it is my choice to play what I enjoy." The person and attitude I described is someone who does not do this and openly starts fights. I can understand you taking offense, especially given how I started that paragraph, however just a sentence later my context should have been clear- I don't care if you play Sivitri or any other vanilla Commander- but if you begin flinging insults because you're not being handed a win for your kooky commander choice, then you just shouldn't play a game with people (not saying that you do this, but this is essentially what the Kentaro player did).
Sig and Avatar drawn by me.