My friends and I (5 players) want to try commander but we are new to magic (around HOU set).
We dont have the experience to build deck so my question is: which one of the precon commanders do you think is best out of the box?
(2013/15/16/17 didnt like the PW decks)
Well, this all depends on your budget. Some of the decks are pretty damn expensive (Atraxa).
Theres 5 of you, which works for most of the sets. C17 only has 4.
The issue is that theres some rather large variation in power levels within the "blocks" ie. Meren is MUCH more powerful than Kalemne
I would go for the commander anthology and then something from C17 (Go for Wizards). However as much as Derevi is a tier 2 commander, the precon sucks...
This will give everyone a roughly even playing field to begin with.
If not Im not 100% on the precon power level, but a rough Commander power guide would be:
C17: Wizards(Kess)/Dragons(Ramos)
C16: Atraxa/Breya/Ydris (Plus they have the partner commanders)
Its a shame you're not into the the C14 decks. Daretti was one of the most powerful of that set out of the box and was super fun to play. Otherwise the list above is pretty much accurate.
Tier 1 is a grouping of the best [object]s in [category]. Tier 2 is a grouping of the second best [object]s in [category]. And so on. This system applies to more than just Magic.
The decks I listed are probably the most powerful commanders of that set and yeah they should be roughly equal out of the box.
I forgot about daretti. :|
The wizards deck is ok out of the box, but it has much more potential (in my opinion) than the other decks. The precon comes with a huge amount of really good legendary creatures and one of the alternate commanders, Kess, is a tier one commander.
The deck give LOTS of different upgrade paths. And Grixis (Red, Blue, Black) is one of the more powerful color combinations in Magic.
Edhrec.com - Really useful for looking at commanders and getting some build/upgrade ideas.
Tappedout.net - full of deck lists. There are a great amount of budget deck lists on here that cost around the same price as a precon. In case anything different tickled your fancy.
Here - there are tons of deck lists here as well and also a huge amount of people that can help when you want to brew your own deck or upgrade a precon
In recent sets, Vampires is insanely powerful. (which also comes with Teferi's Protection.)
Meren is also good, Ghave is strong. I am not sure about c13 but i do know I hate derevi decks, (not sure if the precon with derevi is good or not)
Just don't go for the 2013 decks. They are terrible out of the box... they are not streamlined in any way and each seem to be doing 3-4 different things that are not very synergistic. They can be good value pickups, but if you get them to build decks you will find they are filled with garbage.
15-16-17 are great decks. I think the Atraxa deck with Reyhan + Ishtai commanding is the best deck. Reyhan enables a lot of infinite combos in that deck.
I didn't like the C13 precons out of the Box. But the commanders from that set are all extremely powerful.
What i did like about the C14 set was the focused nature of the decks, they all work great out of the box. The issue is mono coloured decks are hard to play in commander with the lack of removal options.
I like the C15 sets they are strong, even the less popular ones much more cohesive than the C13 decks.
C16: oh god the mana bases! They are supprisingly more focused than the C13 precons, they learnt a lot. but I am not sure I'd be comfortable giving a new players a 4 colour deck. Too much losings to yourself.
C17: If you like a tribe do it. I think these decks other than being tribal actually diverage a bit internally, not as cohesive as I'd want a tribal deck to be. Other than being a bit slow I like the vamps deck, particularly with all the easy addtions from standard. Wizards also seems good. Cats have this werid mix of cats and equipment and dragons is too many colours.
In summary
So C15 for deck mechanics and C17 for Tribes. I'd probably go with a mix of C15 and C17 decks.
I will echo others:
Commander 2013 had very strong new legendary creatures who continue to be relevant to this day. However, the decks they came in are total trash. I just bought the singles and moved on.
I loved commander 2014. I got the black deck and after a few fun games out of the box, I quickly chamged my commander for Ghoulcaller Gisa and never looked back. It is still my most reveared and powerful deck in my playgroup after upgrades. I kow that people fell in love with the red one and amyone who plays magic can co firm how oppressive mono blue can be. The white and green deck offer staples to add to other decks while being weak on their own.
Commander 2015 had 5 decks, but in my opinion, only the Blue Red one was worth buying. I know that everyone loves the Black Green one, but th only card I personally wanted was the commander as a single card and built my own deck arpund her from my collection, just as I had done with Commander 2013. As I was saying, the blue red one needs improvements, but has a solid skeleton for a spell slinger combo deck.
Commander 2016 has Atraxa which everyone loves, and my personal favorite, Breya. I bought the kings of Melitis deck and regret it. I hate group hug and have no idea what I was thinking.. okay, I was thinking of having a deck without black. You see, with the exception of the Blue Red combo deck I mentioned, all of my decks have black: Oloro, Gisa, Meren, and Breya. Even my new 2017 Vampires. I bought the kings instead of Saskia... which I regret, because I wanted to try something new. About a year later and I still have no idea what I want to do with that deck. If I had bought Saskia, I wpuld have at least had fun building an aggressive infect deck or something. The group hug commander has no real focus or theme. Even Zedruu has a theme. The kings just stink.
As for Commander 2017, I like all of them except for the Cats and bought the Vampires for myself while my wife got Wizards and my best friend got Dragons. Vampires is a "go wide" beat down deck. Dragons is filled with game changing threats and Wizards is a bit slow buts out of hand once it gets rolling.
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We dont have the experience to build deck so my question is: which one of the precon commanders do you think is best out of the box?
(2013/15/16/17 didnt like the PW decks)
Theres 5 of you, which works for most of the sets. C17 only has 4.
The issue is that theres some rather large variation in power levels within the "blocks" ie. Meren is MUCH more powerful than Kalemne
I would go for the commander anthology and then something from C17 (Go for Wizards). However as much as Derevi is a tier 2 commander, the precon sucks...
This will give everyone a roughly even playing field to begin with.
If not Im not 100% on the precon power level, but a rough Commander power guide would be:
C17: Wizards(Kess)/Dragons(Ramos)
C16: Atraxa/Breya/Ydris (Plus they have the partner commanders)
C15: Meren/Mizzix
C14: Teferi
C13: Jeleva(and Nekusaur)/Derevi/Prosh
Hope that helps
UBRJeleva, Nephalias Scourge: ...and the storm arrivedRBU
BGHapatra, Vizier of PoisonsGB
WAvacyn, Angel of Hope: Avy, Baby!W
I watched alot of youtube and read online about the C17 wizards, they are the worst according to my research.
Also, you mentioned Derevi being tier 2. Meaning?
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
I forgot about daretti. :|
The wizards deck is ok out of the box, but it has much more potential (in my opinion) than the other decks. The precon comes with a huge amount of really good legendary creatures and one of the alternate commanders, Kess, is a tier one commander.
The deck give LOTS of different upgrade paths. And Grixis (Red, Blue, Black) is one of the more powerful color combinations in Magic.
Some useful resources:
Commanders by tier (Disclamer: just because a commander is a high tier doesn't mean that it is easy to build or fun to play against!)
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/list-multiplayer-edh-generals-by-tier/
Edhrec.com - Really useful for looking at commanders and getting some build/upgrade ideas.
Tappedout.net - full of deck lists. There are a great amount of budget deck lists on here that cost around the same price as a precon. In case anything different tickled your fancy.
Here - there are tons of deck lists here as well and also a huge amount of people that can help when you want to brew your own deck or upgrade a precon
UBRJeleva, Nephalias Scourge: ...and the storm arrivedRBU
BGHapatra, Vizier of PoisonsGB
WAvacyn, Angel of Hope: Avy, Baby!W
Meren is also good, Ghave is strong. I am not sure about c13 but i do know I hate derevi decks, (not sure if the precon with derevi is good or not)
UB Vela the Night-Clad BUDecklist
WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores GBW
WUBRGThe Ur-DragonWUBRGDecklist
15-16-17 are great decks. I think the Atraxa deck with Reyhan + Ishtai commanding is the best deck. Reyhan enables a lot of infinite combos in that deck.
Meren is also a solid deck. Daretti too.
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
What i did like about the C14 set was the focused nature of the decks, they all work great out of the box. The issue is mono coloured decks are hard to play in commander with the lack of removal options.
I like the C15 sets they are strong, even the less popular ones much more cohesive than the C13 decks.
C16: oh god the mana bases! They are supprisingly more focused than the C13 precons, they learnt a lot. but I am not sure I'd be comfortable giving a new players a 4 colour deck. Too much losings to yourself.
C17: If you like a tribe do it. I think these decks other than being tribal actually diverage a bit internally, not as cohesive as I'd want a tribal deck to be. Other than being a bit slow I like the vamps deck, particularly with all the easy addtions from standard. Wizards also seems good. Cats have this werid mix of cats and equipment and dragons is too many colours.
In summary
So C15 for deck mechanics and C17 for Tribes. I'd probably go with a mix of C15 and C17 decks.
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
Commander 2013 had very strong new legendary creatures who continue to be relevant to this day. However, the decks they came in are total trash. I just bought the singles and moved on.
I loved commander 2014. I got the black deck and after a few fun games out of the box, I quickly chamged my commander for Ghoulcaller Gisa and never looked back. It is still my most reveared and powerful deck in my playgroup after upgrades. I kow that people fell in love with the red one and amyone who plays magic can co firm how oppressive mono blue can be. The white and green deck offer staples to add to other decks while being weak on their own.
Commander 2015 had 5 decks, but in my opinion, only the Blue Red one was worth buying. I know that everyone loves the Black Green one, but th only card I personally wanted was the commander as a single card and built my own deck arpund her from my collection, just as I had done with Commander 2013. As I was saying, the blue red one needs improvements, but has a solid skeleton for a spell slinger combo deck.
Commander 2016 has Atraxa which everyone loves, and my personal favorite, Breya. I bought the kings of Melitis deck and regret it. I hate group hug and have no idea what I was thinking.. okay, I was thinking of having a deck without black. You see, with the exception of the Blue Red combo deck I mentioned, all of my decks have black: Oloro, Gisa, Meren, and Breya. Even my new 2017 Vampires. I bought the kings instead of Saskia... which I regret, because I wanted to try something new. About a year later and I still have no idea what I want to do with that deck. If I had bought Saskia, I wpuld have at least had fun building an aggressive infect deck or something. The group hug commander has no real focus or theme. Even Zedruu has a theme. The kings just stink.
As for Commander 2017, I like all of them except for the Cats and bought the Vampires for myself while my wife got Wizards and my best friend got Dragons. Vampires is a "go wide" beat down deck. Dragons is filled with game changing threats and Wizards is a bit slow buts out of hand once it gets rolling.