There aren't a lot of burn decks in commander since dealing 120+ non-combat damage is a tall order.
Popular burn commanders are Purphoros, God of the Forge, or any commander that can twin spells or reduce the mana of spells. Riku of Two Reflection, Melek, the new UR commander, and the RG conspire commander whose name I forget.
Nekusar and wheel effects or any storm strategy is also an option.
I've started playing the precons on Cockatrice. I've got three games with the WB and one with the UR. Against constructed decks.
The WB deck won 2 of 3 games. And the game it lost against the Abzan Stax deck didn't feel like a complete defeat. Could have done better if the other players didn't quit. The tokens Daxos make get real big real fast. The other two commanders don't seem very well supported though.
The one game with the UR deck I got didn't go very well. I just couldn't get things moving. I had a hand of expensive spells with little ramp. But I think it has potential.
But I think people are underrating the WB deck. Daxos making three mana 6/6s is a thing. Nothing exciting, sure, but it will win games.
Then add that tag so it can be sorted for in the future?
EDIT 1: Ashiok is looking for a way to find Duel Commander threads more easily. Or at least a way to separate French from Non-French lists. There is currently a tag for Duel Commander and a tag for Non-Duel 1v1 could be added. A function that sorts threads by their prefixes solves the problem. To be honest I'm surprised there isn't already a sorting system. What's the point of tagging threads with a prefix if there is no means of easily finding them?
EDIT 2: It seems the search function can already do this. Just not as desired.
I don't think ' 1v1 using classical commander banlist and rules' has much of a following so a separate sub-forum does not seem very useful.
Really? Have you looked at that forum? There are PLENTY of 1v1 decklists that go by wizards rules.
Yes, I have. Just like there are 'plenty' of Tiny Leaders decks, and Pauper decks, and Peasant decks and every other variant.
So do we need 10 sub forums, or a search function?
Do you want a "sort by" function? Something that can move all threads tagged [Duel Commander] to the top of the page? That seems reasonable.
I've trying to build a Meren of Clan Nel Toth list since she was spoiled but I keep running into obstacles.
Note: The following is my thought process and doesn't need to be read
The first obstacle I came across was that I wasn't convinced that she was better than Karador, Ghost Chieftain. For me to play Meren she'd have to be as good as or better than Karador. The only situation were Mere was better than Karador was when Meren functionally generated mana by reanimating large creatures without paying the mana cost. Voluntarily sacrificing my creatures to gain experience counters early so that I can reanimate large things later seems to be the only reasonable way for me to play Meren. This naturally leads to wanting to play a GB board-control/stax deck.
The second obstacle I came across was whether or not she was better than other GB Legendaries. Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord is similar but different enough to exclude comparison. That means Meren needs to be better than Nath of the Gilt-Leaf and Savra, Queen of the Golgari for me to play her. Savra is most comparable to Meren. Both cost the same, gain incremental advantage, and want to be a GB board-control deck. From past experiences Savra required too many seperate pieces to function properly and was useless by herself. Meren will utilize the same tools but will still serve some function when some of the puzzle pieces are missing. So I think that Meren is better than Savra.
Nath of the Gilt-Leaf will produce tokens and attack opponents hands. Again, from past experience I feel that Nath doesn't do much by himself. He needs to survive an entire turn cycle to do anything, discard only hits one player, and Nath isn't very threatening without certain other cards. Though both Meren and Nath do something in the worst case scenario the fact that Meren is cheaper and gets value sooner entices me to choose Meren over Nath.
Note: End thought process
I think Meren is the best - or at least one of the better - board-control/stax general within the Golgari colors. I'm just not familiar enough with stax and stax-esque play styles. All my drafts for a Meren decklist look like a pile of cards with no well defined path to victory. It should also be noted that I'm not sure what such a deck should look like. So I have questions.
I believe the main goal of the deck should be to slow the game down enough so that I can stabilize the game. From there I should soft lock my opponents out of the game and win before they recover. What are some of the better ways of doing this. What are specifically helpful cards, interaction, deck building principles, and gameplay mindsets that I should use?
I want to sacrifice my own creatures to get experience counters. I know that Phyrexian Altar, Ashnod's Altar, Altar of Dementia, and Greater Good are the best instant speed sac outlets. Are there others that I should use? Greater Good needs large targets for it to be of any use. How many large creatures should I run? Is Altar of Dementia only useful as a sac outlet if I have a means of milling out my opponents or is it always useful. How many sac outlets do I need?
If I'm sacrificing my own things should I use Grave Pact, Dictate of Erebos, or Savra, Queen of the Golgari? All of them? Multiples? Just one? Savra is the most conditional but also the most tutorable in these colors and Meren can reanimate her. Grave Pact is better with Gray Merchant of Asphodel.
What are good things that provide sacrifice fodder for Grave Pact effects? Bloodghast, Avenger of Zendikar, Grave Titan. If I use Savra how balanced should my production of green and black tokens be? Are token producers that make only one creature a turn good enough or are things that make lots of tokens at once better? What are the best creatures that produce tokens for Meren to reanimate?
Keeping creatures off the board isn't by itself enough. What else do I do. Should I use Winter Orb, Contamination, and Infernal Darkness to stymie mana or should I use Mindslicer, Sadistic Hypnotist, and other discard effects to keep people off of answers. Both? Just one? How many means of denying resources is too many? Do I need two or three? Just one?
If I utilize mana denial should I use mana dorks or mana rocks to compliment. Mana dorks take up valuable creatures slots, are easy to remove, and lower the concentration of good reanimation targets with Meren but they synergize better with Meren, death triggers, and Skullclamp. Mana rocks are harder to remove and can come with additional effects but they also cost more on average and there aren't as many that fix colors in enemy colors. Which is the better option?
Is discard worth running as a resource denial option? It seems easy to top deck out of. How do I make it so that effects that make everyone discard are more beneficial for me? If I do run discard as a means of denying resource is Nath better as a commander or as part of the 99?
How do I win? Do I try and loop Kokusho, the Evening Star or Gray Merchant of Asphodel? Do I need to worry about my devotion so that Gray Merchant can kill off opponents in a timely manner? Is draining to slow? Is a combo better? Should I Woodfall Primus/Triskelion and Mikaeus, the Unhallowed/Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest my way to victory? It's only two cards but I'm worried it will eat deck space or be too hard to assemble when I'm trying to slow the game down. I'm I being over worried? Do I just win with tokens?
For Maren to be better than Karador she needs to be able to reanimate good, expensive targets. What are the best?
How low should my mana curve be? Stax-esque decks are supposed to be efficient. I assume that also means being mana efficient. The majority of my cards should be less than 4? 3? 5? Or should I only have so many more above 3/4/5/etc? How important is mass removal, instant speed removal, card draw, redundancy?
tl;dr - I've never built a board-control/stax deck before and I don't know how to properly construct one. I've read the stax primer and I did not find it particularly helpful. Advice?
If you want to learn more about commanders that interest you go to the commander decklist database here. You can find can find some very interesting post that describe the many decisions that go into deck building. Mayael has a primer of her own but both Edric and Karador haves threads with many, many pages of discussion.
You didn't mislead anyone. Any deck can cast creatures but few actively direct you to do so. Animar is one of them but you already have that. Mayael wants to play big creatures, yes, but she also requires you play them in large quantities so you can hit off of her effect. Karador, the Ghost Chieftain is another option. It's reminiscent of Animar but plays differently enough that you shouldn't be bored by it. Edric, Spymaster of Trest is good. He want's you to play a lot of mana elves and cheap evasive creatures.
Mayael was just suggested because it plays quite differently from the decks you're currently using while still being what you're looking for. Also, big creatures are best creatures.
Okay, I've been playing EDH for going on 3 years now and I feel like I'm running out of commanders that excite me or that I myself getting excited about their play styles. Yeah, I know. That's thrown around here a lot. But I'm really looking to the future here. I'm currently running/using/refining/reinforcing 3 different EDH decks. It took me a bit of time to figure out what I like in a commander deck:
Shriekmaw, Bone Shredder, and Vulturous Aven seem like good inclusions. All have good effects and all sacrifice themselves to give experience counters.
The faerie is an interesting idwa. Unfortunately, it only works when you have two or more experience counters. Assuming I read her ability correctly, it's not a may.
Meren's ability has you choose the creature separate from the experience counter part of the ability. You choose the creature. Then you check to see if you have enough experience counters, then if so, put it into play. If not, it goes back to your hand. Which then allows you to discard it again and target your graveyard hate.
I'm also thinking about building a Meren deck, dumping my Jarad deck which everyone in my play group knows well enough that I can't win often with it anymore, so I'll be watching your endeavors, I like the list.
I think he meant to say two or less. It would be very interesting if you could return Faerie Macabre to your hand while you had three or more experience counters though.
I was hoping for a GB Rakshasa legend. I still have hope. I normally get all of the green commanders but neither of the revealed green legends legends interest me yet.
The lands are worth it. Consitency is key. Craterhoof Behemoth is infinitely better. If you're not winning the turn you cast Craterhoof than you are doing something wrong. Don't bother with the others.
They're not appearing in Battle for Zendikar for the same reason Slith didn't show up in Scars of Mirodin. There's a limited amount of cards that can be in a set and it's better to focus on a large amount of few things than it is to focus on a small number of many things. In return set at least - since most of the world building has already been done.
Besides, BFZ is about mainly about the Eldrazi, the Allys, the vampires, and the land that represents Zendikar itself. Adding Surrakar, or Minotaurs, or anything else detracts from this focus.
Popular burn commanders are Purphoros, God of the Forge, or any commander that can twin spells or reduce the mana of spells. Riku of Two Reflection, Melek, the new UR commander, and the RG conspire commander whose name I forget.
Nekusar and wheel effects or any storm strategy is also an option.
The WB deck won 2 of 3 games. And the game it lost against the Abzan Stax deck didn't feel like a complete defeat. Could have done better if the other players didn't quit. The tokens Daxos make get real big real fast. The other two commanders don't seem very well supported though.
The one game with the UR deck I got didn't go very well. I just couldn't get things moving. I had a hand of expensive spells with little ramp. But I think it has potential.
But I think people are underrating the WB deck. Daxos making three mana 6/6s is a thing. Nothing exciting, sure, but it will win games.
EDIT 1: Ashiok is looking for a way to find Duel Commander threads more easily. Or at least a way to separate French from Non-French lists. There is currently a tag for Duel Commander and a tag for Non-Duel 1v1 could be added. A function that sorts threads by their prefixes solves the problem. To be honest I'm surprised there isn't already a sorting system. What's the point of tagging threads with a prefix if there is no means of easily finding them?
EDIT 2: It seems the search function can already do this. Just not as desired.
Do you want a "sort by" function? Something that can move all threads tagged [Duel Commander] to the top of the page? That seems reasonable.
Note: The following is my thought process and doesn't need to be read
The first obstacle I came across was that I wasn't convinced that she was better than Karador, Ghost Chieftain. For me to play Meren she'd have to be as good as or better than Karador. The only situation were Mere was better than Karador was when Meren functionally generated mana by reanimating large creatures without paying the mana cost. Voluntarily sacrificing my creatures to gain experience counters early so that I can reanimate large things later seems to be the only reasonable way for me to play Meren. This naturally leads to wanting to play a GB board-control/stax deck.
The second obstacle I came across was whether or not she was better than other GB Legendaries. Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord is similar but different enough to exclude comparison. That means Meren needs to be better than Nath of the Gilt-Leaf and Savra, Queen of the Golgari for me to play her. Savra is most comparable to Meren. Both cost the same, gain incremental advantage, and want to be a GB board-control deck. From past experiences Savra required too many seperate pieces to function properly and was useless by herself. Meren will utilize the same tools but will still serve some function when some of the puzzle pieces are missing. So I think that Meren is better than Savra.
Nath of the Gilt-Leaf will produce tokens and attack opponents hands. Again, from past experience I feel that Nath doesn't do much by himself. He needs to survive an entire turn cycle to do anything, discard only hits one player, and Nath isn't very threatening without certain other cards. Though both Meren and Nath do something in the worst case scenario the fact that Meren is cheaper and gets value sooner entices me to choose Meren over Nath.
Note: End thought process
I think Meren is the best - or at least one of the better - board-control/stax general within the Golgari colors. I'm just not familiar enough with stax and stax-esque play styles. All my drafts for a Meren decklist look like a pile of cards with no well defined path to victory. It should also be noted that I'm not sure what such a deck should look like. So I have questions.
I believe the main goal of the deck should be to slow the game down enough so that I can stabilize the game. From there I should soft lock my opponents out of the game and win before they recover. What are some of the better ways of doing this. What are specifically helpful cards, interaction, deck building principles, and gameplay mindsets that I should use?
I want to sacrifice my own creatures to get experience counters. I know that Phyrexian Altar, Ashnod's Altar, Altar of Dementia, and Greater Good are the best instant speed sac outlets. Are there others that I should use? Greater Good needs large targets for it to be of any use. How many large creatures should I run? Is Altar of Dementia only useful as a sac outlet if I have a means of milling out my opponents or is it always useful. How many sac outlets do I need?
If I'm sacrificing my own things should I use Grave Pact, Dictate of Erebos, or Savra, Queen of the Golgari? All of them? Multiples? Just one? Savra is the most conditional but also the most tutorable in these colors and Meren can reanimate her. Grave Pact is better with Gray Merchant of Asphodel.
What are good things that provide sacrifice fodder for Grave Pact effects? Bloodghast, Avenger of Zendikar, Grave Titan. If I use Savra how balanced should my production of green and black tokens be? Are token producers that make only one creature a turn good enough or are things that make lots of tokens at once better? What are the best creatures that produce tokens for Meren to reanimate?
Keeping creatures off the board isn't by itself enough. What else do I do. Should I use Winter Orb, Contamination, and Infernal Darkness to stymie mana or should I use Mindslicer, Sadistic Hypnotist, and other discard effects to keep people off of answers. Both? Just one? How many means of denying resources is too many? Do I need two or three? Just one?
If I utilize mana denial should I use mana dorks or mana rocks to compliment. Mana dorks take up valuable creatures slots, are easy to remove, and lower the concentration of good reanimation targets with Meren but they synergize better with Meren, death triggers, and Skullclamp. Mana rocks are harder to remove and can come with additional effects but they also cost more on average and there aren't as many that fix colors in enemy colors. Which is the better option?
Is discard worth running as a resource denial option? It seems easy to top deck out of. How do I make it so that effects that make everyone discard are more beneficial for me? If I do run discard as a means of denying resource is Nath better as a commander or as part of the 99?
How do I win? Do I try and loop Kokusho, the Evening Star or Gray Merchant of Asphodel? Do I need to worry about my devotion so that Gray Merchant can kill off opponents in a timely manner? Is draining to slow? Is a combo better? Should I Woodfall Primus/Triskelion and Mikaeus, the Unhallowed/Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest my way to victory? It's only two cards but I'm worried it will eat deck space or be too hard to assemble when I'm trying to slow the game down. I'm I being over worried? Do I just win with tokens?
For Maren to be better than Karador she needs to be able to reanimate good, expensive targets. What are the best?
How low should my mana curve be? Stax-esque decks are supposed to be efficient. I assume that also means being mana efficient. The majority of my cards should be less than 4? 3? 5? Or should I only have so many more above 3/4/5/etc? How important is mass removal, instant speed removal, card draw, redundancy?
tl;dr - I've never built a board-control/stax deck before and I don't know how to properly construct one. I've read the stax primer and I did not find it particularly helpful. Advice?
Mayael was just suggested because it plays quite differently from the decks you're currently using while still being what you're looking for. Also, big creatures are best creatures.
You want Mayael the Anima
And a Savra list that explains many of its card choices can be found here.
I think he meant to say two or less. It would be very interesting if you could return Faerie Macabre to your hand while you had three or more experience counters though.
Daxos the Returned is basically just a better Heliod, God of the Sun, right? I find him the most interesting so far.
Most of the exotic creatures fill niches for limited. Or landfall stuff.
Still, the most likely reason the Surrakar don't show up is because there wasn't any reason to add them.
Besides, BFZ is about mainly about the Eldrazi, the Allys, the vampires, and the land that represents Zendikar itself. Adding Surrakar, or Minotaurs, or anything else detracts from this focus.