I tried searching for a thread that explored this idea, but could not find one, so I made my own. We all know some Commanders that synergize well with otherwise terrible cards. I'm talking about cards like Unspeakable Symbol with Marchesa. What Commanders that use otherwise "bad cards" do you guys consider the most reasonably competitive?
I am not saying all the decks that play this Monk do this but Zedruu the Greathearted is Monarch of bad cards working out half decently for the player.
Horobi Deaths Wail. It's not going to take down competitive tables, but is solid in 75% tables, and his ability counters most creature based combos. The sheer volume of outright garbage that he turns into gems is amazing. You haven't lived until someone frantically FoWs your Souls of the Damned, a 3 mana 0/2 that taps to give a target creature -1/-0. Banshee is dirty in that deck. Tap to kill a creature, or pay mana and life to send burn to the face.
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The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
Riku of Two Reflections - Copy, then copy again | Shattergang Brothers - Token Sac&Recur | Gahiji, Honored One - Multiple attack steps | Karametra, God of Harvests - Landfall, Creaturefall, Shroud | Ruhan of the Fomori - Stop hitting yourself | Zurgo Helmsmasher - Equipment&Wraths | Crosis, the Purger - Dragon Tribal Reanimator | Derevi, Empyrial Tactician - No stax, just tap and untap fun | Anafenza, the Foremost - Enduring Ideal Enchantress | Sharuum, the Hegemon - Sphinx Tribal Control | Noyan Dar - Spellslinger | The Mimeoplasm - Counterpalooza
Lists can be found here.
Still convinced the guy on Beseech the Queen is wearing a Mitra-type hat. Wake up sheeple!
Nekusar, the Mindrazer with Forced Fruition. The real problem is, Forced Fruition is almost certain to give them a combo, unless it's storm. When that happens, you lose. Nekusar deals with this by turning it into basically a Ruric Thar, the Unbowed that only hits opponents.
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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 have a Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper deck that has gotten incredible mileage out of Teferi's Response, which is basically unplayable in any other deck but a blowout in Noyan. He also makes Clockspinning worth playing.
I tried searching for a thread that explored this idea, but could not find one, so I made my own. We all know some Commanders that synergize well with otherwise terrible cards. I'm talking about cards like Unspeakable Symbol with Marchesa. What Commanders that use otherwise "bad cards" do you guys consider the most reasonably competitive?
X Hope of Ghirapur Swordpile W Ghosty Blinky Anafenza U Nezahal- Big, Blue and HERE! B Gonti Can Afford It R Etali, Primal 'Whatjusthappened?' G Polukranos Wants More Mana WU The Exalted Vizier Temmet WB Home, Athreos WR Basandra, Recursive Aggression WG Karametra, Momma of Lands UB Wrexial Eats Your Brains UR Arjun, the Mad Flame UG The Fable of Prime Speaker BR Hellbent, Malfegor Style BG Jarad, Death is Served RG Running Thromok WUB Varina and ALL the Zombies WUBYennett, the Odd Pain-Train WUR Zedruu the Furyhearted WUG Arcades' Strategy, Shmategy, Sausage and Spam WBR A Case of Mathas' Persistent F*ckery WBRLicia's League of Legendary Lifegain Layabouts WBG The Karador Advantage PackageWRG Gahiji Rattlesnake Collection UBR Jeleva... does... things UBG Damia's Just Deserts URG Yasova's Has More Power Than Sense BRG Wasitora, Bad Kitty WUBRBreya, Eggs, Breya'd Eggs WUBG Tymna and Kydele, Extended Borrowing WURG Kynaios and Tiro, Landfall Impersonations WBRG Saskia Pet Card EnchantressUBRG Yidris of the Chi-Ting Corporation WUBRG Tazri's Amazing Allies
I really don't get what the point of this topic is.
The definition of "bad" is very muddled when talking about edh. Skullclamp gets pretty bad if you combo it with creatureless Narset but that doesn't mean Skullclamp is a bad card.
Other than that i think commanders that allow you to double up like Riku of Two Reflections or profit from a simple game mechanic such as Talrand, Sky Summoner are easy places to fill with sub par to bad cards.
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 am not saying all the decks that play this Monk do this but Zedruu the Greathearted is Monarch of bad cards working out half decently for the player.
Zedruu does have more use for janky weirdness than most.
Edgar Markov springs to mind too. There's no other place you'd want to play things like Vampire Interloper and the various supremely average one drop vampires that have been printed over the years.
I think Mishra can compete, a lot of the cards in his 99 are often ones that seem to be chaotic or frustrating, but when run with Mishra and artifacts, become massive advantage generators
And let's not forget Jade Monolith in Darien which is garbage in almost every other deck.
Jade Monolith has some value to keep value creatures on the battlefield, if damage-based removal is more common. But its biggest problem is costing 4. That's a little more than I would pay for that effect, and Eldrazi Monument costs 1 more (and having some sort of Breeding Pit-like card, showing my age with that reference). But it does have use in Darien.
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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!
Jalira, Master Polymorphist gets a lot of mileage out of cards like Nuisance Engine and Throne of Empires that are normally really poor token producers, but since they are not creatures they are perfect for the deck. It's not that Jalira always runs terrible cards, but that it runs a certain class of terrible cards that synergize with its ability so well that the deck more than makes up for it (in this case, turning those tokens into huge fatties).
Similarly, Arcum Dagsson gets a lot of mileage out of really crappy artifact creatures like Silver Myr and Hedron Crawler that most decks would avoid for more durable non-creature mana rocks, but Arcum turns them into Darksteel Forge and Spine of Ish Sah. So again, its not that Arcum decks are just full of bad cards, but they surely run some cads that no other deck would normally touch because of Arcum's ability to urn them into awesomeness.
I think that this theme can be carried on to pretty much any Commander that has some sort of ability that can be build around.
I really don't get what the point of this topic is.
The definition of "bad" is very muddled when talking about edh. Skullclamp gets pretty bad if you combo it with creatureless Narset but that doesn't mean Skullclamp is a bad card.
I think that you understand the topic and disagree with the title.
The OG thread author seems to be talking about niche cards and not staple cards, which probably most unattuned players see as bad cards because they don't do much aside from work well with their General's strategy. But these are not cards you see very often and usually surprise most players around the table when you play them because they make them say "Wow why have I never seen this card before? That's such a weird card."
Anyhow back to the original topic, in monogreen I think Gaea's Touch is super cool and I never see people play this card.
I love Mudslide in any red deck with tons of flying guys like Dragons.
Trade Routes is in my Noyan Dar deck, and really solid.
Trade Routes is interesting in Stax, if you feature Winter Orb and friends. If you have mana dorks available (or just Cryptolith Rite), you can just use them as additional Quirion Ranger/Scryb Ranger cards (which let you untap said mana dorks and use them again). It can also be used in landfall.
Then again, I wouldn't call it a "bad" card. "All land cards in your hand have cycling 1." for 1U is not bad at all.
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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!
amazingly epic sig courtesy of DarkNightCavalier at Heroes of the Planes.
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
Tamanoa - Welcome to the Jungle
Lists can be found here.
Also, Edric, Spymaster of Trest turns all the stupid 1/1 evasive creatures into a legitimate threat. These are normally too small to make a difference in commander, but with free card draw, they accelerate you into your win condition.
2023 Average Peasant Cube|and Discussion
Because I have more decks than fit in a signature
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On phasing:
Any Commander that can expand into other colors to access Fathom Mage, Gyre Sage, Simic Manipulator, Sage of Hours, Doubling Season, Hardened Scales, Primal Vigor, Proliferate, etc. could use Unspeakable Symbol.
Darien, King of Kjeldor plays them as extra Nomad Stadiums.
The
Necromancer (or Noob)
Cat.
Don't ask, I don't know why ether...
The definition of "bad" is very muddled when talking about edh. Skullclamp gets pretty bad if you combo it with creatureless Narset but that doesn't mean Skullclamp is a bad card.
Decks that have Otherworldly Outburst and Elvish Pioneer as some of the best cards are obviously jank champs.
Other than that i think commanders that allow you to double up like Riku of Two Reflections or profit from a simple game mechanic such as Talrand, Sky Summoner are easy places to fill with sub par to bad cards.
Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest also has a tendency to play some pretty jank cards. Expedite and Leap are always fun to play in EDH.
-Modern-
WMartyrProcB
BBurnR
-Commander-
On phasing:
Zedruu does have more use for janky weirdness than most.
Edgar Markov springs to mind too. There's no other place you'd want to play things like Vampire Interloper and the various supremely average one drop vampires that have been printed over the years.
Jade Monolith has some value to keep value creatures on the battlefield, if damage-based removal is more common. But its biggest problem is costing 4. That's a little more than I would pay for that effect, and Eldrazi Monument costs 1 more (and having some sort of Breeding Pit-like card, showing my age with that reference). But it does have use in Darien.
On phasing:
Similarly, Arcum Dagsson gets a lot of mileage out of really crappy artifact creatures like Silver Myr and Hedron Crawler that most decks would avoid for more durable non-creature mana rocks, but Arcum turns them into Darksteel Forge and Spine of Ish Sah. So again, its not that Arcum decks are just full of bad cards, but they surely run some cads that no other deck would normally touch because of Arcum's ability to urn them into awesomeness.
I think that this theme can be carried on to pretty much any Commander that has some sort of ability that can be build around.
I think that you understand the topic and disagree with the title.
The OG thread author seems to be talking about niche cards and not staple cards, which probably most unattuned players see as bad cards because they don't do much aside from work well with their General's strategy. But these are not cards you see very often and usually surprise most players around the table when you play them because they make them say "Wow why have I never seen this card before? That's such a weird card."
Anyhow back to the original topic, in monogreen I think Gaea's Touch is super cool and I never see people play this card.
I love Mudslide in any red deck with tons of flying guys like Dragons.
Trade Routes is in my Noyan Dar deck, and really solid.
Dunes of Zairo
SHANDALAR
Innistrad - The Darkest Night
~THE RAVNICAN CONSORTIUM~
A Community Set
Commander: Allies & Adversaries
With Red/X Sun Droplet and Angelheart Vial can gain charge counters, then Dismantle.
Then again, I wouldn't call it a "bad" card. "All land cards in your hand have cycling 1." for 1U is not bad at all.
On phasing: