MTG Salvation

I've been playing commander for a good while now, and I've got the idea down. My biggest problem right now is my friend's Kothophed deck, because he plays extremely controlling and constantly kills everyone's commander as soon as it comes out. I want to build a deck that's not reliant on the commander, just so that I can hopefully have fun playing commander again haha. Any ideas?

Edit- At the moment, I play Omnath Locus of Mana, and Niv-Mizzet the Firemind.

You can play commanders that have effects from the command zone; Arahbo, Roar of the World, Edgar Markov, Inalla, Archmage Ritualist, Oloro, Ageless Ascetic, The Ur-Dragon, Derevi, Empyrial Tactician.

But most of these decks are still based around playing creatures from your deck. So if they are playing a lot of creature board wipes, then you'll still fall victim to them.

You can opt for hexproof commanders, if they use a lot of one-for-one removal; Chromium, the Mutable, Lazav, Dimir Mastermind, Narset, Enlightened Master, Sigarda, Host of Herons, Uril, the Miststalker.

But if they play a lot sacrifice creature cards, and mass creature removal, then these will still be removed.

You can go for essentially a creatureless deck, even spearheaded by planeswalker commanders, which are much harder to remove with spells.

Check out my Will and Rowen Kenrith deck in my signature which would prey upon a deck like you've mentioned your opponent plays.

Any of the planeswalkers as commanders will be harder for targeted removal; Aminatou, the Fateshifter, Daretti, Scrap Savant, Estrid, the Masked, Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury, Lord Windgrace, Nahiri, the Lithomancer, Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath, Saheeli the Gifted, Teferi, Temporal Archmage.

I think Darren made most of the best suggestions, I would add the gods to that list. Indestructible and useful. If you like izzet decks, Keranos, God of Storms provides some excellent value, putting a land into hand or bolting something/someone. I've seen him helm some pretty vicious combo decks. Your other commander is gruul and Xenagod is pretty dang decent in the command zone.

You can play a Child of Alara lands deck that doesn't care about non-land permanents. There is one in the primers list. Basically you want them to destroy Child of Alara.

Other commanders that you don't care too much about removal is Prossh, Skyraider of Kher and Zacama, Primal Calamity gets value in the face of removal because you get to untap your lands.
Essentially look for commanders that you're guaranteed to get value even if they are removed straight away.

As far as actually "not building your deck around a commander", there are plenty of ways to build decks where you don't cast your commander until the game is well and truly gone into the later stages, and they might have run out of removal and it's simply not your major game plan.
Often I'll run 'partner' commander just for color fixing with no real intention of casting them, unless the opportunity arises for a turn off casting one or two of them. The can often cause a bit of subterfuge to what your deck really does.

Darren made most suggestions I would have made. You can also use cards simply for colors and build a 99 card deck. For example, Ramos, I build a deck and while he was good I did not need him (and since my deck abused Humility, seldom did my general matter)

you could also go a voltron deck, but instead of making your commander teh guy you sut up, make creates in deck be suited up and run at enemies (Equipment voltron though)

Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord typically plays creatures that it doesn't mind sacrificing with the idea that it can recur them over and over. I would think that any commander that would typically play a recursion long game would fare well against Removal.dec, as you can undo whatever destruction your opponents might play until they are out of cards.

Commanders with Hexproof can also nullify a lot of what a deck full of removal wants to do. Narset, Enlightened Master often doesn't run many other creatures at all and it can play a bunch of stuff for free allowing you to hold up Counterspell mana for a sweeper. Uril, the Miststalker works well with Auras that have Totem Armor (Bear Umbra, Snake Umbra, etc.) so that you have ways of surviving many sweepers.

The other option is to run a commander whose main ability can be replicated with other cards in the 99 for added redundancy. For Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind, that would mean also running The Locust God, Psychosis Crawler, Niv-Mizzet, Parun, etc. to take advantage of all the draw triggers you are generating. For Omnath, Locus of Mana, there really isn't any replacement for what it does other than Upwelling and that really isn't reasonable so I would steer clear of Omnath.