As someone who could best be described as a brewer. I have built countless magic decks some building into great ideas that bring others to subjugation. others not finding fruition, mostly due to lack of adequate support cards or deemed by myself as far too simplistic to be worthy of building. However, I have grown disappointed with the cards available to me. Most commanders are in one of two categories. First is the majority: simple and very obvious commanders that nearly build themselves. They are dull and uninspirational cards like Balthor the Defiled. The second is some of the most powerful commanders ever such as Meren of Clan Nel Toth and Breya, Etherium Shaper both of these are strong but leave very little room for growth into a stronger more powerful deck due to obvious established strategies and combos. The third category is much less common, very few commanders can be considered as part of it: this is the commanders that are open to multiple strategies and paths each with their own beautiful puzzle that can be improved on forever. Sadly I am running out of insane ideas that are of complex construction but not oppressive to friends and fellow players. In my work towards theoretical perfection with commander decks I find myself rejected by some of my more casual friends and receiving complements on the ideas worked into decks as gameplay makes them take place. I need to find a enjoyable path of creation that is still enjoyable for people around me. I simply don't know who to do this however. Any possible solutions would be greatly appreciated.
well ehm... you could limit yourself with how many expensive staples you are running if you are. slow your deck down to balance the game out. and if you feel you left yourself too weak buff the deck a bit.
for the rest there probably are some fun commanders to try out still. i believe one that is under the radar is experiment kraj?
there are also a few multiple choise commanders i think... an odd one i find is the one i have from my first precon. nahiri, the lithomancer. i mean its equipment and tokens... equipments is for vultron... and tokens aren't.
one last idea could be to ask permission to make a lich's mastery commander deck. i mean it isn't a creature but it would be a really fun idea no? you could go tokens, lifegain, or both!
silly ideas could evolve into working decks as well. how about that commander that gives other people your permanents, but you cram it full of cards that allow you to return them at instant speed? you can give your opponent the tools to wage war but return them to yourself again if they attack you.
Don’t think of a legend and build down. Create a deck then slap a legend onto the head of it. Jeskai...Astral Slide? Tribal...centaurs? Blue...enchantress? Not sure why all of your decks need to be oppressive either. Just run group hug.
tstorm's Zedruu is built on winning creatively as opposed to the usual painful gifts route and could serve as a baseline the kind of deck you're looking for. Look up "Zedruu the Greatest of All Time" in the commander multi-player section on this site.
As an enthusiast build theorycrafter, I always decide first on 1) picking a legend; 2) defining a theme; or 3) picking specific cards. Then I make a quick search to see if the choice is plausible to make and, if it's ok, I start to make lists around that choice.
Someday in the future, I plan to have a deck for each combination of colors, and I had a bit of struggling to choose a legend or a theme, and started to see the options on EDHrec to see which commanders had less lists, and it was very helpful to make choices. At same time, I noticed that I was picking a new legend from every commander set, and was easy to make the lasts choices. For now, I finished all my lists, and occasionally I see if there is some improvement that can be done, like a new set. But the creation goes on, I have another ideas and make new lists all the time.
Some exemples I have, you could pick them if want. None of them is particaly strong or oppressive, but the idea was fun to design:
- Uril, the Miststalker with the worst auras ever printed, but that caused 15 damage on turn 5
- Tasigur, the Golden Fang with only tokens producers
- Ikra Shidiqi, the Usurper + Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker with lots of low-power high-toughtness creatures, mostly a Defender/Wall tribal
If I want a deck to stick around, it has to have a meta consideration, a "story" the deck is trying to tell, or a character (from some other story, whether to commemorate the time my gaming group somehow had Ravenloft Shenanigans and Strahd ended up an Elf, or to celebrate my daughter's love of Dr. Who) that the deck represents. This gives me plenty of creative constraint, and it keeps the deck-building fresh and fun.
And if the deck is consistently unfun for my playgroup, then it gets gutted. This does not mean that it has to be weakened. My playgroup had no issue with my daughter's infinite turns Dr. Who deck, but they disliked the Ephara flicker control (representing the goddess Abrexa from a game...). The Ephara wins were too slow and grindy.
I'm having similar problems, but I've been on hiatus for 4 years and have bunches of new legends to play with. My only problem is how to build them. Any half-decent legends have already been explored by other people and have well established builds. Built an Alesha, Who Smiles at Death aggro deck to play, but she got shut down completely because most people play her as a combo commander. When all the commanders that interest you already have well established builds and reputations, then there's no brewing to be done. It's only a matter of picking out the select few I think I'd really enjoy and playing those.
Luckily, Dominaria only came out ~2 weeks before I started playing again, but most of the one's I was excited about have already been thoroughly explored and established archetypes. When Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle was spoiled, I had 4 possible build's I wanted to explore: Combo (the norm), Legendary aggro with Day of Destiny, Artifact/token aggro with Tempered Steel, and Voltron by recurring stuff like Stoneforge Mystic and Kor Outfitter by casting the equipment. There's nowhere near enough 3cmc white/artifact Legends to make that deck. The voltron idea I know is just bad or absurdly subpar. The Artifact Aggro wouldn't be so bad if Teshar didn't already have an established reputation by the time I started playing again, got a copy, and built a deck. People were already used to combo, kill it on sight, and the deck does next to nothing.
And the same type of stuff is happening with every commander I look at. I look at people's trade stuff, mention I'm interested in a legend, and the conversation goes:
Them: "oh, yeah. It's insanely good."
Me: "I know. It looks really good."
Them: "Yeah, It goes infinite with X and Y, X and Z, Y and R. It's so cool."
And then I just move on to the next page of their trade binder cause I don't want it anymore. I miss pre my hiatus when I was bored cause the only commanders I hadn't built were things like Hazezon Tamar and only because I didn't want to spend $50 (Hilarious, right?) on a copy of a Legend that only had one possible build.
tstorm's Zedruu is built on winning creatively as opposed to the usual painful gifts route and could serve as a baseline the kind of deck you're looking for. Look up "Zedruu the Greatest of All Time" in the commander multi-player section on this site.
I can second this, the deck is crazy. It's strong, but all of the infinites and chaos are limited - there's no 2-card combos, in fact tstorm generally only considers combos if they're janky as hell and require 3-4+cards.
That's the sort of deckbuilding restriction you could make on yourself. It's kind of a good goal, because it'll never really end. There will always be new cards to test, new zany combos to try.
I agree with Kedvesem, Vorthos is a fun build process. It can limit oppresive power by forcing you to consider cards that aren’t optimal because they fit the theme better than many staples. And yet, players that want to go cEDH can still build vorthos, too. Finding that right card where the art, function, and everything about fits is really exciting, making me WANT to play it. The creativity you expend to research and fill out your story or world representation is quite enjoyable. And then when the deck operates as you intended, it’s awesome even if it’s not as often. I’ve physically built a Dune deck and then also created a LoTR Sauron-themed deck (but decided not to build), and they were fun projects.
I miss pre my hiatus when I was bored cause the only commanders I hadn't built were things like Hazezon Tamar and only because I didn't want to spend $50 (Hilarious, right?) on a copy of a Legend that only had one possible build.
Actually, that is kind of funny. I built a Hazezon Tamar deck because the art looked so much like a scene from the movie Dune that I was inspired to build the deck in edh I had been envisioning for some time. I paid the $50, too. It’s not a bone-crusher, but creating the Fremen and Sandwurm-themed deck makes it one of my favorites. Kaladesh and Amonkhet finally made the deck possible to fill out certain themes from the story that had stopped me from building earlier when Hazezon was a junk-bin rare. Lol...
Finding that right card where the art, function, and everything about fits is really exciting, making me WANT to play it.
The art is a HUGE aspect for me. For example, I love sacrifice effects, recursion, and all sorts of things that Jund does well--and that Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper does perfectly. That deck is hovering around in my head, 3/4 built.
But I will never, never build it. Why? Because Sek'Kuar is a hideous orc.
The generals don't have to be beautiful (though it helps), but they can't be just ... Sek'Kuar. I have a Ramos, Dragon Engine deck, for instance. I have an Ob Nixilis, Unshackled deck, too. Demons and Dragons can be cool. Sek'Kuar is just ... not. And I am still hoping for, one day, a Merieke Ri Berit updated art, like Rubinia Soulsinger got. I love Merieke. I hate that card art.
Have you considered a more abstract direction to deck construction?
Something I've come to realize playing Commander is that Commander is not some sort of innately fun game. It isn't deliberately crafted like some kind of board game that can easily be unboxed and ensure a great time. It's reliant on what kinds of decks players bring to the table. As a result, it's all too easy to have a bad time playing Commander. Commander just pulls players in all sorts of directions.
Generally, players are selfish. They tend to want to explore whatever it is about the game that they find personally interesting, and the repercussions of such are seldom considered. This isn't a criticism of the Commander format per se as much as it is an observation on human nature. Some players want to play theme decks. Some are attracted to winning. Each individual is being pulled in a different direction depending upon whatever it is that they uniquely find enjoyable about the game. And when they all sit down together, good times are not necessarily to be had. Which leads me back to my opening question: have you considered a more abstract direction to deck construction?
At the moment, I own two Commander decks, both of which are very unlike traditional Commander decks. My latest of the two is a Queen Marchessa deck whose design is intended to create the most fun games of Commander possible. That's a very abstract concept, but still quantifiable. The tuner in me has had a great time trying to come up with the exact combination of cards that will most often lead to every party at the table enjoying themselves most. Perhaps that's a direction you could take with deck construction as well, something that has an ulterior motive not necessarily baked into the game by default.
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WUBRGMr. Bones' Wild RideGRBUW Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
As someone who could best be described as a brewer. I have built countless magic decks some building into great ideas that bring others to subjugation. others not finding fruition, mostly due to lack of adequate support cards or deemed by myself as far too simplistic to be worthy of building. However, I have grown disappointed with the cards available to me. Most commanders are in one of two categories. First is the majority: simple and very obvious commanders that nearly build themselves. They are dull and uninspirational cards like Balthor the Defiled. The second is some of the most powerful commanders ever such as Meren of Clan Nel Toth and Breya, Etherium Shaper both of these are strong but leave very little room for growth into a stronger more powerful deck due to obvious established strategies and combos. The third category is much less common, very few commanders can be considered as part of it: this is the commanders that are open to multiple strategies and paths each with their own beautiful puzzle that can be improved on forever. Sadly I am running out of insane ideas that are of complex construction but not oppressive to friends and fellow players. In my work towards theoretical perfection with commander decks I find myself rejected by some of my more casual friends and receiving complements on the ideas worked into decks as gameplay makes them take place. I need to find a enjoyable path of creation that is still enjoyable for people around me. I simply don't know who to do this however. Any possible solutions would be greatly appreciated.
I think you have some interesting thoughts about commanders and deckbuilding, kind of similar to myself. I had the same issues at some point and found a few ways out of that debacle.
One of my first and most well tuned decks is a Teysa, Orzhov Scion Aristocrats deck. Typically you durdle around with that commander and at some point you go find one of the many possible infinite combos to finish of the game. Cards like Darkest Hour or the Reveillark + Karmic Guide Combo come to mind. I tried these things at some point, but it created very undesirable situations for me, because everyone was knowing the end of all that durdling.
Then I made an agreement with myself, saying I'm not going to play with these combo cards anymore and try to find different ways to finish the game. So I cut Darkest Hour and Karmic Guide and many other combo parts. There are still some combos in the deck, but they need 4+ pieces to go infinte and actually I'm winning most games with some high level synergies now. It's a deck that just is very nuts and bolts style and these decks typically have infinite combos in them, because many of the great cards for such a strategy, if combined, create these infinite loops.
So what happened was, I had to think again about how I am winning games and in the process I discovered many new things that are possible with that commander, that other people completely missed, because they would settle with the common strategy. In the end it created an even stronger and way more consistent deck however which is winning way to many games to be quite honest. I'm still playing it every now and then, but it is like said hard to beat and almost always creates an archenemy situation.
But I hope you got my point. Leaving the territory of playing combos to finish the game, made me question many cards and in the process I've build a very unique deck that actually is super powerful. I kept this NO-COMBO mentality since then and I've not build a single combo deck, nor will I ever again.
The second example is a Derevi, Empyrial Tactician project I started January 2018. Derevi, as we all know, has a very bad reputation for being unfair and always a stax general. I thought you know what? I will build a NO-STAX Derevi list. Since then I am experimenting with different themes and for a few months now, I settled with a voltron-control build, based on Equipments. I call it Flashblade, in homage to Cawblade or Stoneblade decks, because it has many overlaps with these, just optimised for Commander. About 80% of the deck can be played at instant speed, hence the name Flashblade.
Not only is it a super fun and strong build, but it also showed the guys in my meta that there are always multiple routes to take with one commander. I'm still brewing and yet again I can claim it is a very unique and personal build, with many hidden gem cards and personal favorites.
I would urge you to try something along those lines aswell. Pick a commander, even Tier-1 commanders, and try to come up with a unique take on them. You will be surprised how much unexplored strategies and cards there are.
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for the rest there probably are some fun commanders to try out still. i believe one that is under the radar is experiment kraj?
there are also a few multiple choise commanders i think... an odd one i find is the one i have from my first precon. nahiri, the lithomancer. i mean its equipment and tokens... equipments is for vultron... and tokens aren't.
one last idea could be to ask permission to make a lich's mastery commander deck. i mean it isn't a creature but it would be a really fun idea no? you could go tokens, lifegain, or both!
silly ideas could evolve into working decks as well. how about that commander that gives other people your permanents, but you cram it full of cards that allow you to return them at instant speed? you can give your opponent the tools to wage war but return them to yourself again if they attack you.
(U/B)(U/B)(U/B) JUMP IN THE LINE, ROCK YOUR BODY IN TIME
(R/W)(R/W)(R/W) RISING FROM THE NEON GLOOM, SHINING LIKE A CRAZY MOON
(U/R)(R/G)(G/U) STEALIN' WHEN I SHOULD HAVE BEEN BUYIN'
Someday in the future, I plan to have a deck for each combination of colors, and I had a bit of struggling to choose a legend or a theme, and started to see the options on EDHrec to see which commanders had less lists, and it was very helpful to make choices. At same time, I noticed that I was picking a new legend from every commander set, and was easy to make the lasts choices. For now, I finished all my lists, and occasionally I see if there is some improvement that can be done, like a new set. But the creation goes on, I have another ideas and make new lists all the time.
Some exemples I have, you could pick them if want. None of them is particaly strong or oppressive, but the idea was fun to design:
- Uril, the Miststalker with the worst auras ever printed, but that caused 15 damage on turn 5
- Tasigur, the Golden Fang with only tokens producers
- Ikra Shidiqi, the Usurper + Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker with lots of low-power high-toughtness creatures, mostly a Defender/Wall tribal
Hightower | Vial/Thrasios | Mogis | Grenzo | Endrek |
Tatyova|Sisay|Zurgo|Breya|Chisei|Marchesa|Olivia|KaradorPauper | Pauper |
Legacy|4fun|4fun|Modern|Frontier|StandardAnd if the deck is consistently unfun for my playgroup, then it gets gutted. This does not mean that it has to be weakened. My playgroup had no issue with my daughter's infinite turns Dr. Who deck, but they disliked the Ephara flicker control (representing the goddess Abrexa from a game...). The Ephara wins were too slow and grindy.
Luckily, Dominaria only came out ~2 weeks before I started playing again, but most of the one's I was excited about have already been thoroughly explored and established archetypes. When Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle was spoiled, I had 4 possible build's I wanted to explore: Combo (the norm), Legendary aggro with Day of Destiny, Artifact/token aggro with Tempered Steel, and Voltron by recurring stuff like Stoneforge Mystic and Kor Outfitter by casting the equipment. There's nowhere near enough 3cmc white/artifact Legends to make that deck. The voltron idea I know is just bad or absurdly subpar. The Artifact Aggro wouldn't be so bad if Teshar didn't already have an established reputation by the time I started playing again, got a copy, and built a deck. People were already used to combo, kill it on sight, and the deck does next to nothing.
And the same type of stuff is happening with every commander I look at. I look at people's trade stuff, mention I'm interested in a legend, and the conversation goes:
Them: "oh, yeah. It's insanely good."
Me: "I know. It looks really good."
Them: "Yeah, It goes infinite with X and Y, X and Z, Y and R. It's so cool."
And then I just move on to the next page of their trade binder cause I don't want it anymore. I miss pre my hiatus when I was bored cause the only commanders I hadn't built were things like Hazezon Tamar and only because I didn't want to spend $50 (Hilarious, right?) on a copy of a Legend that only had one possible build.
WBG Karador, Ghost Chieftain
B Toshiro Umezawa
BG Pharika, God of Affliction - Necromancy and Politics
WWW The Church of Heliod
WBR Zurgo, Helmsmasher
RG Wort, the Raidmother
UBR Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge
UG Vorel of the Hull Clade
I can second this, the deck is crazy. It's strong, but all of the infinites and chaos are limited - there's no 2-card combos, in fact tstorm generally only considers combos if they're janky as hell and require 3-4+cards.
That's the sort of deckbuilding restriction you could make on yourself. It's kind of a good goal, because it'll never really end. There will always be new cards to test, new zany combos to try.
The art is a HUGE aspect for me. For example, I love sacrifice effects, recursion, and all sorts of things that Jund does well--and that Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper does perfectly. That deck is hovering around in my head, 3/4 built.
But I will never, never build it. Why? Because Sek'Kuar is a hideous orc.
The generals don't have to be beautiful (though it helps), but they can't be just ... Sek'Kuar. I have a Ramos, Dragon Engine deck, for instance. I have an Ob Nixilis, Unshackled deck, too. Demons and Dragons can be cool. Sek'Kuar is just ... not. And I am still hoping for, one day, a Merieke Ri Berit updated art, like Rubinia Soulsinger got. I love Merieke. I hate that card art.
Something I've come to realize playing Commander is that Commander is not some sort of innately fun game. It isn't deliberately crafted like some kind of board game that can easily be unboxed and ensure a great time. It's reliant on what kinds of decks players bring to the table. As a result, it's all too easy to have a bad time playing Commander. Commander just pulls players in all sorts of directions.
Generally, players are selfish. They tend to want to explore whatever it is about the game that they find personally interesting, and the repercussions of such are seldom considered. This isn't a criticism of the Commander format per se as much as it is an observation on human nature. Some players want to play theme decks. Some are attracted to winning. Each individual is being pulled in a different direction depending upon whatever it is that they uniquely find enjoyable about the game. And when they all sit down together, good times are not necessarily to be had. Which leads me back to my opening question: have you considered a more abstract direction to deck construction?
At the moment, I own two Commander decks, both of which are very unlike traditional Commander decks. My latest of the two is a Queen Marchessa deck whose design is intended to create the most fun games of Commander possible. That's a very abstract concept, but still quantifiable. The tuner in me has had a great time trying to come up with the exact combination of cards that will most often lead to every party at the table enjoying themselves most. Perhaps that's a direction you could take with deck construction as well, something that has an ulterior motive not necessarily baked into the game by default.
Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
I think you have some interesting thoughts about commanders and deckbuilding, kind of similar to myself. I had the same issues at some point and found a few ways out of that debacle.
One of my first and most well tuned decks is a Teysa, Orzhov Scion Aristocrats deck. Typically you durdle around with that commander and at some point you go find one of the many possible infinite combos to finish of the game. Cards like Darkest Hour or the Reveillark + Karmic Guide Combo come to mind. I tried these things at some point, but it created very undesirable situations for me, because everyone was knowing the end of all that durdling.
Then I made an agreement with myself, saying I'm not going to play with these combo cards anymore and try to find different ways to finish the game. So I cut Darkest Hour and Karmic Guide and many other combo parts. There are still some combos in the deck, but they need 4+ pieces to go infinte and actually I'm winning most games with some high level synergies now. It's a deck that just is very nuts and bolts style and these decks typically have infinite combos in them, because many of the great cards for such a strategy, if combined, create these infinite loops.
So what happened was, I had to think again about how I am winning games and in the process I discovered many new things that are possible with that commander, that other people completely missed, because they would settle with the common strategy. In the end it created an even stronger and way more consistent deck however which is winning way to many games to be quite honest. I'm still playing it every now and then, but it is like said hard to beat and almost always creates an archenemy situation.
But I hope you got my point. Leaving the territory of playing combos to finish the game, made me question many cards and in the process I've build a very unique deck that actually is super powerful. I kept this NO-COMBO mentality since then and I've not build a single combo deck, nor will I ever again.
The second example is a Derevi, Empyrial Tactician project I started January 2018. Derevi, as we all know, has a very bad reputation for being unfair and always a stax general. I thought you know what? I will build a NO-STAX Derevi list. Since then I am experimenting with different themes and for a few months now, I settled with a voltron-control build, based on Equipments. I call it Flashblade, in homage to Cawblade or Stoneblade decks, because it has many overlaps with these, just optimised for Commander. About 80% of the deck can be played at instant speed, hence the name Flashblade.
Not only is it a super fun and strong build, but it also showed the guys in my meta that there are always multiple routes to take with one commander. I'm still brewing and yet again I can claim it is a very unique and personal build, with many hidden gem cards and personal favorites.
I would urge you to try something along those lines aswell. Pick a commander, even Tier-1 commanders, and try to come up with a unique take on them. You will be surprised how much unexplored strategies and cards there are.