I know there are a list of cards that are just unplayable due to how bad they are. I am not looking for those. i am looking for cards most people would probably overlook due to its abilities. An example would be Dragonlord Kolaghan. Sure the first eight words of his textbox are useful, but he is a creature, easy to kill and he is 6 mana, a pretty decent investment. In most cases one would use cheaper ways to grant haste. (Plus his second ability is useless, or is it?)
Kolaghan is actually very useful, he is in a Dragon tribal deck so he is already easy to cast. In addition his second ability does work in EDH. granted it has to be situational. I faced a muldrotha, the gravetide deck and while he was able to cast some things, he was unable to cast his creatures (which were important) without losing a quarter of his starting life total.
So do you have any cards that seem worse than they are?
First off Kolaghan doesn't work that way. The first step of casting a spell is moving it from where you're casting it from to the stack. Once the card is cast, it's not in the graveyard anymore, so it won't count for Kolaghan's ability.
Now in response to the question, Circu, Dimir Lobotomist is a strong commander option capable of knocking out staples such as Sol Ring, but also acting as a wincon in the command zone with Dramatic Scepter. I've found the deck annoyingly consistent to face, but I wouldn't have thought his tag line of getting rid of cards multiple players in a pod run was so relevant.
I find it interesting how when you get to more competitive EDH, cards like Thoughtseize become a lot better. I don't play targeted discard in EDH because I find it to be card disadvantage (you and one opponent go down one card, the other two are not affected). When you get very competitive, card disadvantage doesn't matter as much as protecting your combo.
I find it interesting how when you get to more competitive EDH, cards like Thoughtseize become a lot better. I don't play targeted discard in EDH because I find it to be card disadvantage (you and one opponent go down one card, the other two are not affected). When you get very competitive, card disadvantage doesn't matter as much as protecting your combo.
Yep. Account got hacked and after three weeks of trying t get twitch to get to my claim and nothing, i decided to make a new account (giving up on customer support) Since Salvation connects your account to your twitch account, that also meant that Gashnaw would no longer work.
another card that surprised me was rhythm of the wild. While I never thought it would be bad, it did FAR better than i thought it would. (though i misplayed twice, using Riot on tokens, and forgetting to both search and riot on my Brightspear. (It did not matter though, game ended a turn later, six dragons and two being Silumgar, the drifting death(-12/-12)
I still find it so funny that people went and made Mishra, Artificer Prodigy work using Possibility Storm. It's a 1-card combo with your Commander that gets you value, but throw in a Nether Void and suddenly everything sucks.
I don't know if this applies to you Gashnaw, but the first time I requested to have my Twitch account merged with my mtgsalvation account, nothing happened and several months passed. On the second request, I got control of my account again.
I think that Norin the Wary definitely falls into this category; it’s the most flavorful bad card ever, yet it is a machine at generating creature ETB triggers.
There are plenty of cards out there that don’t do anything in EDH in 99.9% of situations, like Thrumming Stone outside of a Relentless Rats-type deck, but one of the most head-scratching cards I have ever seen someone try to get to work was Pyromancer Ascension. There was a Spellwever Volute and a Knowledge Exploitation sighting so they at least had a plan, but talk about needing to jump through hoops...
Think about all the games where killing an x/3 at instant speed and/or 1cmc is relevant. Oh, and they also kill walkers....
#micdrop
If you're gonna list Char, at least include the original too: Psionic Blast. No-one expects blue burn.
But yeah, I agree with these. Bolt in particular is a great EDH card. And Bolt the Bird is still good advice.
I mean, I don't play U any more so it never is on my mind. And U decks don't care so much about this as much as comboing off for the win on the stack rather than trying to remove an x/4.
Finally another that sees the light that is Dragonlord Kolaghan. Who cares about that last ability she turns Dragonstorm, Patriarch's Bidding, and a variety of other instant boardstate cards into game over and if I don't see her in your Ur Dragon tribal decklists then no I don't want your number and no I don't wanna give you mine.
Extirpate. Nobody runs it because it only snipes a single card. The thing is, that single card is the only copy of that card in their deck anyways. It is a really unexpected way to suddenly punch a combo-y recursion based deck in the throat. Also when is graveyard hate not relevant. Every deck in the history of EDH has a plan to re-use their cards somehow.
Finally another that sees the light that is Dragonlord Kolaghan. Who cares about that last ability she turns Dragonstorm, Patriarch's Bidding, and a variety of other instant boardstate cards into game over and if I don't see her in your Ur Dragon tribal decklists then no I don't want your number and no I don't wanna give you mine.
Extirpate. Nobody runs it because it only snipes a single card. The thing is, that single card is the only copy of that card in their deck anyways. It is a really unexpected way to suddenly punch a combo-y recursion based deck in the throat. Also when is graveyard hate not relevant. Every deck in the history of EDH has a plan to re-use their cards somehow.
You forget also, that it forces them to shuffle, if the top of their library is relevant for whatever reason.
My Shadowborn Apostle deck would argue about this single card only stuff
I think the "Advocates" are some of the most overlooked and underrated cards due to perceived "drawback" of their abilities; Forcemage Advocate, Nullmage Advocate, Pulsemage Advocate, Spurnmage Advocate.
However in a good game of Magic, this can actually be a huge upside when needing to stop a player from winning, by returning some disruption that a player might have in graveyard.
Also can be used for political back-scratching. Basically these cards have two good abilities.
Cards like Force Spike in general. Stax decks really like these, especially ones like Daze that let you bounce your lands.
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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!
Aggressive small creatures. They get a lot more early damage through than they should.
I built a deck around the pretty-effective Boros 2-drops a la Akroan Hoplite, Honored Crop-Captain, Swiftblade Vindicator and Sky Terror + anthems + the multitude of white cards that get 2-drops back from the grave. It's effective because no one expects aggro in the average table, especially aggro that doesn't fold to a single wrath. The creatures don't seem like much, but being so small it feels like no one wants to 'waste' their removal on them either, so folks end up on the receiving end of a lot of 3-, 4- and 5-power beats. I tend to be only classified as a threat when I've taken out the one player most likely to drop big creatures later, and playing suicidal aggro is sometimes really fun.
But even outside a dedicated deck, early effective creatures can get a lot of chip damage in while folks are casting their manarocks and other ramp. I don't mind including some 2-3 drops in every deck that don't necessarily advance the "grand plan", that are just efficient early beats.
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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 like seeing new commanders pop up that suddenly make a bunch of otherwise 'bad-for-edh' cards suddenly good because of some unusual effect. Keeps me on my toes trying to anticipate what weird but bad card might have a home in a future deck some day. I've bought numerous mediocre or 'bad' single cards for this reason, anticipating a day when some commander will turn that card into an essential powerhouse piece in combination with it.
I really like seeing new commanders pop up that suddenly make a bunch of otherwise 'bad-for-edh' cards suddenly good because of some unusual effect. Keeps me on my toes trying to anticipate what weird but bad card might have a home in a future deck some day. I've bought numerous mediocre or 'bad' single cards for this reason, anticipating a day when some commander will turn that card into an essential powerhouse piece in combination with it.
Me with Dead Iron Sledge. I mean ever since that one time with a Reassembling Skeleton and a Nemesis Mask.........
But yeah, I agree with these. Bolt in particular is a great EDH card. And Bolt the Bird is still good advice.
I'd disagree with that a lot. Unless you're playing 1v1, trading 1:1 with random mana dorks is not a winning strategy imo. Good advice when you're on card parity...notsomuch when you're down half a card. If they're by far the scariest deck at the table, then maybe, but I'd almost always hold the bolt to snipe something more threatening later, after it's become more clear who the threat is.
I don't personally like chain lightning (sorcery ) or char (3 mana ), but the OG bolt is definitely a solid card in commander.
How i feel about competitive players and casual players in EDH: The competitive are german tourists, the casual are italian tourists, both in a italian beach. The italians asking themselves "why are the germans here?" make a legitimate question, the answer is because the beach is beautiful, no matter the country you came from. The italians wanting to ban the germans are dumb, because if the germans pay for their stay and follow the rules like everyone else, they have the right to be in the beach. Hovewer, if the germans started to ask themselves "why are the italians here?"... they would be dumb as hell.
I’ve got a flavor text themed deck, and I included an old favorite of mine, Dragon Whelp. I didn’t think it would do much, but it’s actually been great - I’ve had to fly under a Meekstone, only to draw me 10 cards the next turn after pumping it up with mana from Neheb, the Eternal and then casting Rishkar’s Expertise.
Kolaghan is actually very useful, he is in a Dragon tribal deck so he is already easy to cast. In addition his second ability does work in EDH. granted it has to be situational. I faced a muldrotha, the gravetide deck and while he was able to cast some things, he was unable to cast his creatures (which were important) without losing a quarter of his starting life total.
So do you have any cards that seem worse than they are?
First off Kolaghan doesn't work that way. The first step of casting a spell is moving it from where you're casting it from to the stack. Once the card is cast, it's not in the graveyard anymore, so it won't count for Kolaghan's ability.
Now in response to the question, Circu, Dimir Lobotomist is a strong commander option capable of knocking out staples such as Sol Ring, but also acting as a wincon in the command zone with Dramatic Scepter. I've found the deck annoyingly consistent to face, but I wouldn't have thought his tag line of getting rid of cards multiple players in a pod run was so relevant.
[Primer] Erebos, God of the Dead
HONK HONK
Lightning Bolt
Chain Lightning
Char
Think about all the games where killing an x/3 at instant speed and/or 1cmc is relevant. Oh, and they also kill walkers....
#micdrop
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
If you're gonna list Char, at least include the original too: Psionic Blast. No-one expects blue burn.
But yeah, I agree with these. Bolt in particular is a great EDH card. And Bolt the Bird is still good advice.
Ummm....
I find it interesting how when you get to more competitive EDH, cards like Thoughtseize become a lot better. I don't play targeted discard in EDH because I find it to be card disadvantage (you and one opponent go down one card, the other two are not affected). When you get very competitive, card disadvantage doesn't matter as much as protecting your combo.
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
Yep. Account got hacked and after three weeks of trying t get twitch to get to my claim and nothing, i decided to make a new account (giving up on customer support) Since Salvation connects your account to your twitch account, that also meant that Gashnaw would no longer work.
another card that surprised me was rhythm of the wild. While I never thought it would be bad, it did FAR better than i thought it would. (though i misplayed twice, using Riot on tokens, and forgetting to both search and riot on my Brightspear. (It did not matter though, game ended a turn later, six dragons and two being Silumgar, the drifting death(-12/-12)
I don't know if this applies to you Gashnaw, but the first time I requested to have my Twitch account merged with my mtgsalvation account, nothing happened and several months passed. On the second request, I got control of my account again.
cEDH: [G(U/R) Animar] - [(U/B)(G/W) Redless Wheels] - [(G/U)(W/B) Redless Pod] - [(B/G)W Ghave Metapod]
Mishra, Artificer Prodigy also seemingly has a blank text box in a Commander game, but throw in a Possibility Storm or Blood Funnel and now you have an insane value engine.
There are plenty of cards out there that don’t do anything in EDH in 99.9% of situations, like Thrumming Stone outside of a Relentless Rats-type deck, but one of the most head-scratching cards I have ever seen someone try to get to work was Pyromancer Ascension. There was a Spellwever Volute and a Knowledge Exploitation sighting so they at least had a plan, but talk about needing to jump through hoops...
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
I mean, I don't play U any more so it never is on my mind. And U decks don't care so much about this as much as comboing off for the win on the stack rather than trying to remove an x/4.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
Extirpate. Nobody runs it because it only snipes a single card. The thing is, that single card is the only copy of that card in their deck anyways. It is a really unexpected way to suddenly punch a combo-y recursion based deck in the throat. Also when is graveyard hate not relevant. Every deck in the history of EDH has a plan to re-use their cards somehow.
You forget also, that it forces them to shuffle, if the top of their library is relevant for whatever reason.
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
I think the "Advocates" are some of the most overlooked and underrated cards due to perceived "drawback" of their abilities;
Forcemage Advocate, Nullmage Advocate, Pulsemage Advocate, Spurnmage Advocate.
However in a good game of Magic, this can actually be a huge upside when needing to stop a player from winning, by returning some disruption that a player might have in graveyard.
Also can be used for political back-scratching. Basically these cards have two good abilities.
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
Guardian angel
Benalish hero
EoT tutor... that makes top card relevant.
On phasing:
I built a deck around the pretty-effective Boros 2-drops a la Akroan Hoplite, Honored Crop-Captain, Swiftblade Vindicator and Sky Terror + anthems + the multitude of white cards that get 2-drops back from the grave. It's effective because no one expects aggro in the average table, especially aggro that doesn't fold to a single wrath. The creatures don't seem like much, but being so small it feels like no one wants to 'waste' their removal on them either, so folks end up on the receiving end of a lot of 3-, 4- and 5-power beats. I tend to be only classified as a threat when I've taken out the one player most likely to drop big creatures later, and playing suicidal aggro is sometimes really fun.
But even outside a dedicated deck, early effective creatures can get a lot of chip damage in while folks are casting their manarocks and other ramp. I don't mind including some 2-3 drops in every deck that don't necessarily advance the "grand plan", that are just efficient early beats.
Me with Dead Iron Sledge. I mean ever since that one time with a Reassembling Skeleton and a Nemesis Mask.........
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
I don't personally like chain lightning (sorcery ) or char (3 mana ), but the OG bolt is definitely a solid card in commander.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Looks nteresting, can i see a list?
Zurgo helmsmasher?
Currently Playing:
Multiplayer EDH Lists (click italics for a link to the thread!)
[Primer] Lord of Tresserhorn - Don't Tell Me What I Can't Do[Primer] Roon of the Hidden Realm - Rhino Blink
5 Color Tribal Guide (Slivers, Atogs, Allies, Spirits)
Also Playing (most decklists can be found on my profile)
MarathGeistKamahlGrenzoBolasThassaGitrog
PiratesZurVial Smasher&ThrasiosYennettJhoira(cEDH)Strix(Pauper)
Legacy: Maverick
Modern:
Melira PodRIP 1/19/15GWHatebearsNo. Bloodsoaked Champion and similar disposable/reusable critters.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
RBGLiving EndRBG
EDH
UFblthpU
BRXantchaRB
BGVarolzGB
URWZedruuWRU