MTG Salvation

What are some of the generals that when you see, you just dread. My play group tends to rely on creature heavy decks and U control decks. I want to make something that makes doing just about anything bothersome. The first two cards that came to my mind were Zo-Zu the Punisher and Kaervek the Merciless. I'd prefer to stay away from mono blue or Grand Arbiter Augustin IV.

Also, what are some cards that would fit into this category? I know of things like Polluted Bonds and Manabarbs. What are some other painful cards?

Ankh of Mishra to go with Zo-Zu. Crawlspace, Silent Arbiter, and Ensnaring Bridge all make it harder for people to attack. Then there's Pyrostatic Pillar and Eidolon of the Great Revel that go well with Kaervek and cards like Manabarbs.

I'll probably think of more later. There are tons of cards that do stuff like this.

Edit: Price of glory, Tectonic Instability, and War's Toll make it hurt to play and/or use lands.

Dragonlord Kolaghan: Anti-Rats / Anti-Apostles
Mogis, God of Slaughter: Sacrifice or take pain.
Ruric Thar, the Unbowed: Cast noncreature? Take damage.
Ob Nixilis, Unshackled: Tutoring/Ramping? Lose life for heresy.

Nongenerals cards I can think of are stuff like...
Feroz's Ban: I don't like you having army so fast.
Stranglehold: No searching and no extra turns for enemies.
Sphere of Resistance: I am slowing this game down.
City of Solitude and Dosan the Falling Leaf: No, its my turn, you wait.
Bubble Matrix: Not in the mood for getting hurt today.

Wouldn't be a bad idea to go something like RGB as that is where a lot of punishment spells tend to be.

I've never had the pleasure of playing against it, but I hear Sen Triplets is the definition of "unfun." Mostly from the people who play against mine.

Quote from JohnnyDegenerate »

I've never had the pleasure of playing against it, but I hear Sen Triplets is the definition of "unfun." Mostly from the people who play against mine.

What's unfun about them? Not getting to play your cards? I don't see why they would be unfun, but maybe the deck she's in could be.

Quote from LnGrrrR »

Quote from JohnnyDegenerate »

I've never had the pleasure of playing against it, but I hear Sen Triplets is the definition of "unfun." Mostly from the people who play against mine.

What's unfun about them? Not getting to play your cards? I don't see why they would be unfun, but maybe the deck she's in could be.

Sen Triplets is mostly used for combo decks. Not fun getting comboed out on when you can't do anything to interact with the opponent.

Arcum Dagsson, the deck is entirely noninteractive, it just combos off every game the same way.

I would not recommend Zo-zu, you're locking yourself into an awkward mono-color and his effect is far too ignorable for anyone not looking for the long game or are heavily invested in green. Kaervek is better, keep in mind you can allow people to cast spells and then let the damage go to someone else. If you go green, Primal Orderis decent. I like Oppression more than Painful Quandary, but it doesn't do damage so might not go well with your theme. Bottomless Pit is annoying too, as long as your deck can deal with it.

Or you can dump red entirely, and go with some sort of lifedrain cards with Kambal, Consul of Allocation at the helm.

Quote from LnGrrrR »

Quote from JohnnyDegenerate »

I've never had the pleasure of playing against it, but I hear Sen Triplets is the definition of "unfun." Mostly from the people who play against mine.

What's unfun about them? Not getting to play your cards? I don't see why they would be unfun, but maybe the deck she's in could be.

I'm not fond of Triplets (for casual) because I don't like opponents using my cards or looking at my hand. But as long as I get to play what I want, I'm fine with other people doing the same.

Nekusar is pretty much a "kill on sight" Commander for me.

I suggest mogis, god of slaughter and all the pain enchantments. It wouldn't take long to completely wreck both blue control and creature heavy metas. Mogis, is of course, your only creature!

Gaddock Teeg is a notorious one, and though at least he's not usually combo he can run it with cheap creature tutors and Reveillark

Other than that, any strong combo commander with blue in their colors. Take your pick, they all play the same.

I've seen plenty of degenerate things with Darevi, Yidris(SP?) - the cascade on combat damage, Mereke, Oloro, and Zur are the ones that immediately pop to mind.

Edric, Spymaster of Trest. Especially if your own deck isn't creature heavy. "What's that? You all decided I'm today's punching bag because Edric lets you draw cards? You also all decided Edric doesn't need to die because he draws you cards? You're surprised Edric just won because NOBODY DID ANYTHING ABOUT HIM?"
Hate him. Hate, hate, HATE.

Quote from LnGrrrR »

Quote from JohnnyDegenerate »

I've never had the pleasure of playing against it, but I hear Sen Triplets is the definition of "unfun." Mostly from the people who play against mine.

What's unfun about them? Not getting to play your cards? I don't see why they would be unfun, but maybe the deck she's in could be.

My Sen Trips deck tends to annoy people since it uses a lot of Counter, Kill, control spells. And often I will end up stealing most anything useful from my opponent amd abuse Mind Slaver effects (I have found that Mind Slaver is Kinda a dick card).

Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
/thread

If the opponents are playing creature heavy decks and U-control decks, then I wouldn't suggest kaervek the merciless or mogis, god of slaughter.

Kaervek the Merciless tends to just gut shot when he gets path to exile/swords to plowshares/rapid hybridization/pongify'd. Then you get to build up 9x mana in your non-ramp colors just to re-cast him. His effect is powerful, but without green to land-ramp you into him, he is not likely to survive long. Also his body is pretty mediocre in size, so the creature-heavy opponents will just attack you before casting anything.

Mogis, God of Slaughter is a pet favorite of mine, but with the opponents you are describing, you are likely to get blown out pretty easily. He can be good against creature heavy strategies if you load up on board-wipes, but the blue players will stop/bounce your punishment effects, which cripples the deck. Without an additional effect Mogis nets very little damage in the long-term game.

I love Zo-Zu the Punisher, and he is good at netting a lot of damage, but unfortunately limiting to mono-red means you will be vulnerable to the large creatures (no wipes) and mass bounce of your enchantment/punishment effects (blue stuff). You can easily loose just as much life (or more) from the blatant punishment effect.



The best recommendation is to put out something that will have an impact as soon as it hits. Ramping Ruric Thar, the Unbowed out asap can really screw with the creature heavy players (ramping into large creatures to overwhelm theirs), and can shut down blue players (or really hurt them for trying to stop you). Ru-Ru for days!

Zur prison. No question. Mana Breach? Why the hell is that a card

If your plan with Ruric Thar, the Unbowed is to specifically make U players unhappy, then combining him with Possibility Storm should do the trick (there's a reason my own Ruric deck doesn't have that card, namely, I like still having friends). Dosan the Falling Leaf will likewise make your typical mono-U control player upset with you, though for different reasons.

Quote from Pokken »

Zur prison. No question. Mana Breach? Why the hell is that a card

There's also Overburden that really hurts creature based decks.

My boyfriend has a Talrand deck that can be super frustrating. It runs by creating tokens naturally, and stuff like Mind's Desire. He also had a Keranos deck which was primarily kill spells. That was fairly frustrating, especially using my Bruna deck against it; Bruna just could not win against it. Even with pro out, sac abilities would sneak up on me. Or stuff like Pongify or Turn to Frog. The deck's since been taken apart but I'm still kinda thinking about getting Leyline of Sanctity for Bruna...

I have to agree with OP on mono blue and Grand Arbitir

Derevi and Narset, both hard to kill and powers infinity too easily.

Quote from LouCypher »

Edric, Spymaster of Trest. Especially if your own deck isn't creature heavy. "What's that? You all decided I'm today's punching bag because Edric lets you draw cards? You also all decided Edric doesn't need to die because he draws you cards? You're surprised Edric just won because NOBODY DID ANYTHING ABOUT HIM?"
Hate him. Hate, hate, HATE.

Between him and Leovold, something tells me those Trest elves are up to no good.

Quote from Jar of Eyeballs »

Commanders that wheel a lot e.g Nekusar or Leovold.

That might be indicative of a dangerous thought process I see a lot of players fall into. They fall in love with their hands and make plans too far in advance and get stuck in tunnel vision. It's very dangerous.

You should love your deck. Not your hand. And be able to adjust plans when a wheel hits. I love playing with and against wheels.

there are so many crazy commanders and people brewimg them, this question has lost all relevance.

When i started playing EDH there were like 3 Uril, Zur and Slivers. These 3 would get you targeted by the whole table and dead quick.

Now theres those plus about 50 other, Kaalia, Animar, Meren, Omnath, Rys,Bruna, Sigarda, Nekusar, Narset, Atraxis, half the new partner guys, just to name a few.

I feel like at this point its less about what commanders are hate magnets and more like there are two seperate levels of commanders. Competetive like this listed and then more casual guys that arent as powerful or easily broken.

Furthermore its more the player than the commander. ive seem a jerk build a turn 3 or 4 infinite combo with a commander they never even cast, and ive seen Animar decks that dont just bounce a creature over and over and dont make you want to choke someone.

If a deck is not fun to play against or you constantly face top tier commanders everytime, its the player not the cards.

Quote from bigbearlyke »

Quote from Jar of Eyeballs »

Commanders that wheel a lot e.g Nekusar or Leovold.

That might be indicative of a dangerous thought process I see a lot of players fall into. They fall in love with their hands and make plans too far in advance and get stuck in tunnel vision. It's very dangerous.

You should love your deck. Not your hand. And be able to adjust plans when a wheel hits. I love playing with and against wheels.

Well witg Leovold the frustration comes in that you are stuck topdecking.