There used to be this site that had a list of various commanders that had, shall we say...ill tidings whenever they show up. Sadly, that site doesn't seem to exist anymore. So, I decided to make this thread and see what the community thinks.
Now, please, I ask of you all to note that I'm not asking you to simply describe commanders you hate. I'm asking you to think about commanders you've played, played against, or considered building that seem almost a little too good. To give you a better idea, I'll describe the one who sticks out to me and was funnily enough, my first commander:
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher: If I had to describe Prossh...it would be as an elegant and brutal killing machine. A friend descibed him as "less of a commander and more of an inevitably". A Jund colored, flying, 5/5 body, who can pump himself up at instant speed and brings a small army every time he's cast? Good...lord. As if it couldn't get worse, he scales with commander tax, bringing more and more kobolds every time. To top it off, Prossh isn't hard to build around. He just lends himself to so many synergies at once. Just have some haste enablers, a few token producers, ways to make your opponents sac with you and a way to pump up some creatures and you've got a winner right here. Seriously, the deck just builds itself after a while.
But that was the problem. Prossh became formulaic to me after a while. Despite the fact that I was proud of the deck and the rep I developed with it in my meta, I just couldn't see what more I could do with the deck. It was too good at what it did and didn't have enough variety in how it played to keep me interested in it. While there are some good cards out now for Prossh that have tempted me to go back...I just don't know. Part of me wants to return to that awesome power but I've done that song a dance before.
Narset, Enlightened Master. Either they are giving themseleves infinite turns or combat steps destroying all lands... Or masively cheating on mana and dumping a bunch of planeswalkers into play or all of the above. Not only that, she is hexproof! you can't spot remove her! and you have her deck ready and willing to protect her. I wonder how you could possibility give her haste in jeskai hmmm hmm it is stupidly easy.. so you never have a chance to deal with her with a wrath. She gets too attack its game over either literially or the advantage is overwhelming or they are unusally unlucky.
There is one way to stop her... kill the player running her before they reach 6 mana...which results one grumpy narset player whille the rest of us have our hour long match. As much as I enjoy making Narset players, accustomed to winning, rage quit after sending every bit of hate thier way, using my removal spells on destroying thier mana rocks and every single counter spell pointed in thier direction. It isn't exactly a good experience for them and doesn't foster good will in a commander group.
Almost any Commander that has an ability that you can build around gets a bad reputation in some form or another, but I think the Top 10 for me (for multiplayer) would be the following:
Narset, Enlightened Master. Either they are giving themseleves infinite turns or combat steps destroying all lands... Or masively cheating on mana and dumping a bunch of plainswalkers into play or all of the above. Not only that, she is hexproof! you can't spot remove her! and you have her deck ready and willing to protect her. I wonder how you could possibility give her haste in jeskai hmmm hmm it is stupidly easy.. so you never have a chance to deal with her with a wrath. She gets too attack its game over either literially or the advantage is overwhelming or they are unusally unlucky.
There is one way to stop her... kill the player running her before they reach 6 mana...
Or run stuff like Aether Flash, Elesh Norn, Peacekeeper, mandatory sac effects, Blind Obedience and friends to buy a turn, counterspells, etc. I mean, sure, she's awful to play against, but there's lots of options. I will agree, though, that gunning for the Narset player is a very wise choice - hit them early and hit them hard.
My personal choice was Leovold, but he deservedly got the banhammer. With him gone, I'd probably vote for Nekusar, the Mindrazer. The funny things is, he isn't even that fast or deadly unless they give him infect. It's just wheel, wheel, wheel, everytime, never being able to plan a turn ahead because Puzzle Box or something else will guarantee that you don't know what cards will be in your hand when your next turn comes around. I like to plan ahead, but this strategy prevents me from doing that. I always target the Nekusar player and encourage others to do the same. I feel he deserves all the hate he gets (though certainly not banworthy like Leovold was).
I have a grudge against Derevi, Empyreal Tactician, for she's too difficult to remove and enables too many combos. If Prossh is, as TheC2 pointed, an inevitability, Derevi is a persistent depression, never enough to force a suicide on you but agonizing enough to last forever should she choose.
Narset, Enlightened Master. Either they are giving themseleves infinite turns or combat steps destroying all lands... Or masively cheating on mana and dumping a bunch of plainswalkersinto play or all of the above.
Plainswalkers are definitely OP, I understand your pain and the only 4 Plainswalkers in the game -Boggart Arsonists, Graceful Antelope, Righteous Avengers & Zodiac Rooster make Narset buh-roke. It's a shame you can't play Zodiac Rooster because of Narset's color identity though.
Skullbriar, the Walking Grave - This guy is ridiculous, and I groan every single time I see him. He's one-track minded, I grant you that, but consider his strong points:
1. He's a 2 drop, which means he's coming out fast unless your opponent gets mana screwed(and if they're playing a hand with less than two lands to start...).
2. He's hasty, which means he's gonna swing, likely hitting you or someone else unless you all managed to cast 1 drops, leading into point 3...
3. He's gonna get big FAST. If you can't block him consistently enough, you'll likely be getting lethal damage(either regular or commander) before you have a chance to cast your first 5 CMC.
4. With the abolishment of the tuck rule, the only hope you have of clearing those counters(aside from theoccasionalexception) is to bounce him.
I don't see him that often anymore, which is good...but I've never had a fun game when he's in the pod.
I feel your pain. The first time I played my suspend EDH deck at the local FNM I wiped the floor with everybody and they had no idea what hit them. Since then I just get pounded the first four turns until the Narset/Prossh player combos off and then everybody's like "oops".
Maelstrom Wanderer deserves its reputation. The card is good. You don't really have to build that well to have a very powerful deck.
Azami, lady of scrolls is a hated general of mine. It's an all-in combo deck, nothing else. Very consistent. There's no surprise.
And I actually think Derevi doesn't deserve its reputation. I've had it lock me out of a number of games, but I find the gameplay stimulating. You just need to know what's coming and try to answer it.
I like Ghave, Marath, and Animar on paper, but the first two in particular are just so easy to combo with that not doing so means intentionally leaving extremely synergistic not-quite-combo cards out of your deck like Cathars' Crusade or Hardened Scales lest you accidentally include a combo. Conversely, I like Derevi because nothing about her forces you to play stax, even if she is extremely powerful in that archetype. It's kind of annoying you can never actually get rid of her, though.
sliver queen and any other sliver deck - Your going to cast a bunch of slivers and win if no one has a boardwipe, or sit there and sulk if someone does have a board wipe, either way the game is going to be boring. purphoros, god of the forge - just like nekusar, going to complain if not allowed to do 30 damage to the table in one turn.
Skullbriar, the Walking Grave - This guy is ridiculous, and I groan every single time I see him. He's one-track minded, I grant you that, but consider his strong points:4. With the abolishment of the tuck rule, the only hope you have of clearing those counters(aside from theoccasionalexception) is to bounce him.
If someone tries to bounce him, you can send him back to the command zone rather than hand.
Almost any Commander that has an ability that you can build around gets a bad reputation in some form or another, but I think the Top 10 for me (for multiplayer) would be the following:
Skullbriar, the Walking Grave - This guy is ridiculous, and I groan every single time I see him. He's one-track minded, I grant you that, but consider his strong points:4. With the abolishment of the tuck rule, the only hope you have of clearing those counters(aside from theoccasionalexception) is to bounce him.
If someone tries to bounce him, you can send him back to the command zone rather than hand.
?!? Removing tuck affects putting it in your hand??? Un-frickin'-believable...>.<
Before I begin, I want to point out that I have a Breya, Leovold, and Derevi deck.
These are the decks I have complained about and I have heard a lot of complaints about. Often times these decks are played to enable mean combos or strategies that are unfun to most players.
However, I don't think that the cards themselves always deserve the hate alone. When I saw these commanders I did not intend to play them in their most degenerate forms.
My Breya deck is just an artifact good stuff deck. It doesn't have infinite combos, because to me that was not a fun way to win. I wanted to play a bunch of cool artifacts and try to build some crazy machine out of it. People who know my deck no longer groan when they think of Breya, they just see it as a cool machine deck.
My Leovold deck (I know he's banned now) is not a stax deck where I try to hand lock you out of playing. It's an Elf Tribal deck. It's still really good, but it's not nearly as evil as what it could be.
My Derevi deck has been through the most reworking. It's been the oppressive deck people despise, but I didn't find it very fun to play. Right now, it's more of a tactical deck with a little of little card advantage engines and wild combat tricks. I only run a few stasis like effects, but I cut the majority of them because it was just not as satisfying.
My point is that a lot of Commanders receive the hate they do because they're usually built for abuse. Very few games I play outside of my regular playgroup I run into one of the "annoying commanders who isn't being used in a degenerate way. This is an unfortunate side effect of competitive games.
Fortunately I got to the point where I had the "One Punch Man" syndrome where when I would play these super powerful decks and win, it didn't feel very interesting. I got bored of it because I wasn't having any fun. Not everyone feels like this, which is a shame because it means there will always be degenerate Commanders and decks out there.
My advice to anyone who has a deck like this but often received hate from people is to make your deck less degenerate and more interesting than the metadeck spike version. Not only will it make you a better player but it will show people that not every commander deck featuring a hated Commander deserves the flak it receives.
Onlh 2 i can name off tbe top of mh head. There are others but i can deal and trade ows with most. I cannot deal with proper derevk decks and tbus anyone who plays derevi gets targeted by me almost exclusively. (Even if their deck sucks)
I never llayed against an arcum but i played arcum. And consitebtly winning turn 4/5 tells me it was good. (If i made it better. Turn 2 and 3 were also options.
Zur the Enchanter. Partly it's the tutor on a stick, but it's also the time people take to search for what they want. Everyone knows your first picks are Necropotence or Vanishing, so hurry up already.
Thoughts on Oloro? I've been seeing more and more combo for him. Especially with the pillowfort then go off.
Speaking as an Oloro player, Oloro himself is mostly irrelevant. The problem is that he's usually head of Esper control, combo, or pillowfort, not actually Oloro. 2 life per turn cycle in Commander is nothing.
Kaalia of the Vast: Good grief...this one. I've played her and played against her. Yeah, kill her with fire, the moment she hits the board. If she's allowed to stick to the board you will be assailed by very hard hitting creatures that also shift the game in her favor. Not too mention, that for as long as she's out, her pilot doesn't have to worry about mana, just card draw. So you know what happens next? MLD. Discard effects.
The upsides to this is that Kaalia decks are predictable (you see one deck, you've seen most of the others), has several hoops she must jump through to be effective (she requires haste to start cheating stuff and needs protection because she's a 2/2) and her deck is sink or swim. If Kaalia cannot stay on the board or cannot attack, the deck loses steam and most of it's advantages. In short, at her best Kaalia is an oppressive little fiend with a high amount of firepower should she get going but she can be very easy to gimp, thankfully.
Sharuum the Hegemon: Another one I've built and played. Noticing a trend here...Anyway, IMHO, she's far worse than Kaalia. The reason for that is that is because Sharuum is a combo piece onto herself that you always have access to, is a decent body and has a recursion ability that can be quite easy to exploit. Not too mention Sharuum's focus on artifacts gives her so many things to work with. Her decks have a level of versatility that is hard to match while still remaining powerful. Also, resiliency. Shoot, an actual strategy for Sharuum can be to make her stuff nigh-untouchable and just blow most of the field multiple times.
Can't comment on Rafiq. Never played with or against him.
Yeah, Rafiq has a reputation for using unblockable enablers like Whispersilk Cloak. That double-strike and exalted adds up fast. Typically fast and aggressive, similar to Kaalia.
There's a Kaalia deck in my meta, but fortunately it doesn't use MLD or any of the more expensive/oppressive angels/demons/dragons. It's still hard to keep up with, though. Although, one of the funnier games was when I had a Narset superfriends deck (no extra turns) and was playing against Kaalia 1v1. It was a race to cast our commander first and we ended up slowing each other down a bit, waiting to cast commanders around turn 7, both afraid the first to cast their commander would get it answered. I can't remember who won, but that standoff in the opening of the game was hilarious.
Now, please, I ask of you all to note that I'm not asking you to simply describe commanders you hate. I'm asking you to think about commanders you've played, played against, or considered building that seem almost a little too good. To give you a better idea, I'll describe the one who sticks out to me and was funnily enough, my first commander:
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher: If I had to describe Prossh...it would be as an elegant and brutal killing machine. A friend descibed him as "less of a commander and more of an inevitably". A Jund colored, flying, 5/5 body, who can pump himself up at instant speed and brings a small army every time he's cast? Good...lord. As if it couldn't get worse, he scales with commander tax, bringing more and more kobolds every time. To top it off, Prossh isn't hard to build around. He just lends himself to so many synergies at once. Just have some haste enablers, a few token producers, ways to make your opponents sac with you and a way to pump up some creatures and you've got a winner right here. Seriously, the deck just builds itself after a while.
But that was the problem. Prossh became formulaic to me after a while. Despite the fact that I was proud of the deck and the rep I developed with it in my meta, I just couldn't see what more I could do with the deck. It was too good at what it did and didn't have enough variety in how it played to keep me interested in it. While there are some good cards out now for Prossh that have tempted me to go back...I just don't know. Part of me wants to return to that awesome power but I've done that song a dance before.
BK'rrik Goodstuff
GWSythis Enchantress
URYusri Coin Flip
BRGKorvold Tokens
BGUYarok Lands Matter
WUBRaffine Looter
There is one way to stop her... kill the player running her before they reach 6 mana...which results one grumpy narset player whille the rest of us have our hour long match. As much as I enjoy making Narset players, accustomed to winning, rage quit after sending every bit of hate thier way, using my removal spells on destroying thier mana rocks and every single counter spell pointed in thier direction. It isn't exactly a good experience for them and doesn't foster good will in a commander group.
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
1) Vial
2) Prossh
3) Ghave
4) Azami
5) Arcum
6) Narset
7) Baral
8) Jhoira
9) Zur
10) Breya
Jalira, Master Polymorphist | Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder | Bosh, Iron Golem | Ezuri, Renegade Leader
Brago, King Eternal | Oona, Queen of the Fae | Wort, Boggart Auntie | Wort, the Raidmother
Captain Sisay | Rhys, the Redeemed | Trostani, Selesnya's Voice | Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight | Obzedat, Ghost Council | Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind | Vorel of the Hull Clade
Uril, the Miststalker | Prossh, Skyraider of Kher | Nicol Bolas | Progenitus
Ghave, Guru of Spores | Zedruu the Greathearted | Damia, Sage of Stone | Riku of Two Reflections
My personal choice was Leovold, but he deservedly got the banhammer. With him gone, I'd probably vote for Nekusar, the Mindrazer. The funny things is, he isn't even that fast or deadly unless they give him infect. It's just wheel, wheel, wheel, everytime, never being able to plan a turn ahead because Puzzle Box or something else will guarantee that you don't know what cards will be in your hand when your next turn comes around. I like to plan ahead, but this strategy prevents me from doing that. I always target the Nekusar player and encourage others to do the same. I feel he deserves all the hate he gets (though certainly not banworthy like Leovold was).
2023 Average Peasant Cube|and Discussion
Because I have more decks than fit in a signature
Useful Resources:
MTGSalvation tags
EDHREC
ManabaseCrafter
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
Plainswalkers are definitely OP, I understand your pain and the only 4 Plainswalkers in the game -Boggart Arsonists, Graceful Antelope, Righteous Avengers & Zodiac Rooster make Narset buh-roke. It's a shame you can't play Zodiac Rooster because of Narset's color identity though.
......Sorry, I had to.
1. He's a 2 drop, which means he's coming out fast unless your opponent gets mana screwed(and if they're playing a hand with less than two lands to start...).
2. He's hasty, which means he's gonna swing, likely hitting you or someone else unless you all managed to cast 1 drops, leading into point 3...
3. He's gonna get big FAST. If you can't block him consistently enough, you'll likely be getting lethal damage(either regular or commander) before you have a chance to cast your first 5 CMC.
4. With the abolishment of the tuck rule, the only hope you have of clearing those counters(aside from the occasional exception) is to bounce him.
I don't see him that often anymore, which is good...but I've never had a fun game when he's in the pod.
EDH decks: 1. RGWMayael's Big BeatsRETIRED!
2. BUWMerieke Ri Berit and the 40 Thieves
3. URNiv's Wheeling and Dealing!
4. BURThe Walking Dead
5. GWSisay's Legends of Tomorrow
6. RWBRise of Markov
7. GElvez and stuffz(W)
8. RCrush your enemies(W)
9. BSign right here...(W)
Everytime I play him in FFA, I get targeted. It is like playing archenemy. without the schemes.
Salt is part of the game. Deal with it.
Modern:R 8Whack R|W White Knights W
Azami, lady of scrolls is a hated general of mine. It's an all-in combo deck, nothing else. Very consistent. There's no surprise.
And I actually think Derevi doesn't deserve its reputation. I've had it lock me out of a number of games, but I find the gameplay stimulating. You just need to know what's coming and try to answer it.
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
Also Ghave, Guru of Combos, Marath, Will of the Combo, Animar, Soul of Combo, Saffi Combo-plotter, Niv-Mizzet, the Combomind and Alesha, Who Smiles Whilst Comboing.
I like Ghave, Marath, and Animar on paper, but the first two in particular are just so easy to combo with that not doing so means intentionally leaving extremely synergistic not-quite-combo cards out of your deck like Cathars' Crusade or Hardened Scales lest you accidentally include a combo. Conversely, I like Derevi because nothing about her forces you to play stax, even if she is extremely powerful in that archetype. It's kind of annoying you can never actually get rid of her, though.
- Rabid Wombat
purphoros, god of the forge - just like nekusar, going to complain if not allowed to do 30 damage to the table in one turn.
If someone tries to bounce him, you can send him back to the command zone rather than hand.
I buy HP and Damaged cards!
Only EDH:
Sigarda, Host of Herons: Enchantress' Enchantments
Jenara, Asura of War: ETB Value Town
Purphoros, God of the Forge: Global Punishment
Xenagos, God of Revels: Ramp, Sneak, & Heavy Hitters
Ghave, Guru of Spores: Dies_to_Doom_Blade's stax list
Edric, Spymaster of Trest: Donald's list
She is very powerful...too powerful in some instances. Mass LD followed by huge bombs.....yea nope.
I buy HP and Damaged cards!
Only EDH:
Sigarda, Host of Herons: Enchantress' Enchantments
Jenara, Asura of War: ETB Value Town
Purphoros, God of the Forge: Global Punishment
Xenagos, God of Revels: Ramp, Sneak, & Heavy Hitters
Ghave, Guru of Spores: Dies_to_Doom_Blade's stax list
Edric, Spymaster of Trest: Donald's list
Thoughts on Oloro? I've been seeing more and more combo for him. Especially with the pillowfort then go off.
I buy HP and Damaged cards!
Only EDH:
Sigarda, Host of Herons: Enchantress' Enchantments
Jenara, Asura of War: ETB Value Town
Purphoros, God of the Forge: Global Punishment
Xenagos, God of Revels: Ramp, Sneak, & Heavy Hitters
Ghave, Guru of Spores: Dies_to_Doom_Blade's stax list
Edric, Spymaster of Trest: Donald's list
Pauper EDH: ~ Rhox War Monk ~ Scornful Aether-Lich ~ Ashenmoor Gouger ~ Ascended Lawmage ~ Nightscape Battlemage ~ Warden of the Eye ~ Hedge Troll ~ Dinrova Horror ~ Renata
Pauper 60: ~ Caw Blade ~ MonoU Delver ~ MonoW Monk Fish ~
Standard: ~ Boros Knights ~ RDW ~
Pioneer: ~ U BControl ~
Modern: ~ UB Control ~
Legacy/Vintage: ~ MonoU Delver ~
93/94: ~ Erhnamgeddon ~
?!? Removing tuck affects putting it in your hand??? Un-frickin'-believable...>.<
EDH decks: 1. RGWMayael's Big BeatsRETIRED!
2. BUWMerieke Ri Berit and the 40 Thieves
3. URNiv's Wheeling and Dealing!
4. BURThe Walking Dead
5. GWSisay's Legends of Tomorrow
6. RWBRise of Markov
7. GElvez and stuffz(W)
8. RCrush your enemies(W)
9. BSign right here...(W)
Basically any zone change can be replaced by sending commander back to the throne. There's a reason why I hate Derevi even more now.
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
These are the decks I have complained about and I have heard a lot of complaints about. Often times these decks are played to enable mean combos or strategies that are unfun to most players.
However, I don't think that the cards themselves always deserve the hate alone. When I saw these commanders I did not intend to play them in their most degenerate forms.
My Breya deck is just an artifact good stuff deck. It doesn't have infinite combos, because to me that was not a fun way to win. I wanted to play a bunch of cool artifacts and try to build some crazy machine out of it. People who know my deck no longer groan when they think of Breya, they just see it as a cool machine deck.
My Leovold deck (I know he's banned now) is not a stax deck where I try to hand lock you out of playing. It's an Elf Tribal deck. It's still really good, but it's not nearly as evil as what it could be.
My Derevi deck has been through the most reworking. It's been the oppressive deck people despise, but I didn't find it very fun to play. Right now, it's more of a tactical deck with a little of little card advantage engines and wild combat tricks. I only run a few stasis like effects, but I cut the majority of them because it was just not as satisfying.
My point is that a lot of Commanders receive the hate they do because they're usually built for abuse. Very few games I play outside of my regular playgroup I run into one of the "annoying commanders who isn't being used in a degenerate way. This is an unfortunate side effect of competitive games.
Fortunately I got to the point where I had the "One Punch Man" syndrome where when I would play these super powerful decks and win, it didn't feel very interesting. I got bored of it because I wasn't having any fun. Not everyone feels like this, which is a shame because it means there will always be degenerate Commanders and decks out there.
My advice to anyone who has a deck like this but often received hate from people is to make your deck less degenerate and more interesting than the metadeck spike version. Not only will it make you a better player but it will show people that not every commander deck featuring a hated Commander deserves the flak it receives.
Dunes of Zairo
SHANDALAR
Innistrad - The Darkest Night
~THE RAVNICAN CONSORTIUM~
A Community Set
Commander: Allies & Adversaries
Derevi
Onlh 2 i can name off tbe top of mh head. There are others but i can deal and trade ows with most. I cannot deal with proper derevk decks and tbus anyone who plays derevi gets targeted by me almost exclusively. (Even if their deck sucks)
I never llayed against an arcum but i played arcum. And consitebtly winning turn 4/5 tells me it was good. (If i made it better. Turn 2 and 3 were also options.
UB Vela the Night-Clad BUDecklist
WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores GBW
WUBRGThe Ur-DragonWUBRGDecklist
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
old thread
old thread
old thread
R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
Kaalia of the Vast: Good grief...this one. I've played her and played against her. Yeah, kill her with fire, the moment she hits the board. If she's allowed to stick to the board you will be assailed by very hard hitting creatures that also shift the game in her favor. Not too mention, that for as long as she's out, her pilot doesn't have to worry about mana, just card draw. So you know what happens next? MLD. Discard effects.
The upsides to this is that Kaalia decks are predictable (you see one deck, you've seen most of the others), has several hoops she must jump through to be effective (she requires haste to start cheating stuff and needs protection because she's a 2/2) and her deck is sink or swim. If Kaalia cannot stay on the board or cannot attack, the deck loses steam and most of it's advantages. In short, at her best Kaalia is an oppressive little fiend with a high amount of firepower should she get going but she can be very easy to gimp, thankfully.
Sharuum the Hegemon: Another one I've built and played. Noticing a trend here...Anyway, IMHO, she's far worse than Kaalia. The reason for that is that is because Sharuum is a combo piece onto herself that you always have access to, is a decent body and has a recursion ability that can be quite easy to exploit. Not too mention Sharuum's focus on artifacts gives her so many things to work with. Her decks have a level of versatility that is hard to match while still remaining powerful. Also, resiliency. Shoot, an actual strategy for Sharuum can be to make her stuff nigh-untouchable and just blow most of the field multiple times.
Can't comment on Rafiq. Never played with or against him.
BK'rrik Goodstuff
GWSythis Enchantress
URYusri Coin Flip
BRGKorvold Tokens
BGUYarok Lands Matter
WUBRaffine Looter
There's a Kaalia deck in my meta, but fortunately it doesn't use MLD or any of the more expensive/oppressive angels/demons/dragons. It's still hard to keep up with, though. Although, one of the funnier games was when I had a Narset superfriends deck (no extra turns) and was playing against Kaalia 1v1. It was a race to cast our commander first and we ended up slowing each other down a bit, waiting to cast commanders around turn 7, both afraid the first to cast their commander would get it answered. I can't remember who won, but that standoff in the opening of the game was hilarious.
old thread
old thread
old thread
R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko