Well, all of my decks are fairly low on budget, but I'm not a big combo player. Additionally, if you want to play combo, your deck probably won't be incredibly cheap what with all of the necessary combo pieces and expensive tutors if you want it to be competitive. If you want to stay on a $150 budget and comboish though, I would suggest Krenko, Mob Boss. He is mono red so you won't be playing a pricey land base. Additionally, if you run him as a goblin tribal, he is relatively cheap to make good. Just play as many low drop goblins as you can then throw in things to let you reuse his effect. This lets you get a bit of a combo feel. If he is equipped with Illusionist's Bracers and untap him (say with Magewright's Stone) you get for triggers in one turn. Even if you only have him on board, that leaves you with 16 1/1's. That can be pretty darn fun. Additionally, while you can build him easily within your budget, he has options to get pricey if you want. Say with Goblin Piledriver or other pricey goblins. I have been running him as a goblin tribal for a while and love it. If you want to talk more about him or some of my other decks, feel free to PM me. I am always open to chat about EDH.
I think another good idea, is to not have these decks be finely tuned machines. Most decks that are optimized and powerful are not very easy to play in commander since you have to know all 99 cards and their many synergies to know how to play it correctly. On the flip side though, I wouldn't build decks that are painfully easy and practically play themselves either. That loses a lot of the fun of a goofy multiplayer format. A nice middle-ground, possibly edging towards simple, seems like it would be the best.
Hey, I just wanted to say that this is a great primer. I really appreciate the work you have put into it, especially keeping up with it. It has been a great resource for me. Thank you
I like listening to podcasts when I do yard work, I have found that the guys over at commadercast do a good job. As the name implies, they are about commander. Also, they have a ton of episodes.
If it doesn't have to be about commander, LoadingReadyRun has a podcast series called TapTapConcede that I also enjoy. It is all about casual magic including a few episodes about commander.
I strongly agree with Reaper on making the decks focused on the general. Our biggest pull for commander is that the commander itself is leading the 'army' of your deck. It is the coolest part of the format so you should definitely show it off.
From your post, it seems you have two types of people to whom you would be lending. The first type (as per your example 1) is people that play r have played but don't have a deck with them. In similar cases, I just lend them a deck that I frequently play. In your case though, it seems that you could be building one for this group of people to borrow and another for the second group. That second group being people that have not played Commander before. For this group I think it prudent to build a simpler deck.
For your first group, I would not be afraid to build a three color deck, or a slightly more strategy intensive two color. I would look into some of the commanders already listed, namely Mayael the Anima. She isn't hard to learn to pilot so can be very welcoming to play fresh. It is also a fun splashy type deck for longtime magic players just getting into commander.
For the second group, I would try to stay two colors with a simpler strategy. Think more punch the opponents face in. I have a fairly straight forward Aurelia, the Warleader deck for this same purpose. It doesn't fair too well in really grindy multiplayer games, but in a three person game, it can fairly comfortably knock out one player quickly and have a chance on the second.
Turn five or so I play a Cathars' Crusade with Marath on board and pass the turn.
He pings me and plays Rakdos.
I drop a land, somehow kill Rakdos (don't remember how, just that it happened) and play Increasing Devotion thus making lot's of arbitrarily large things on board (including making Marath huge) then pass the turn.
I draw a land and then have a Sporemound, a Prey Upon, and a land in hand. (Possibly another dead card or two.) I am one mana short of the nine mana flashback of Increasing Devotion if I drop the land so I play out the Sporemound then drop my land to make the token off of Sporemound. (This whole time, I am conveniently forgetting that I have no flyers and have to kill Steel Hellkite to stop him from wiping my tokens with Steel Hellkite's effect.) That token triggers Cathars' Crusade making my things bigger, then I spam my mana into making 1/1's off of Marath to pump everything else instead of using Prey Upon to kill the Steel Hellkite. Now I only have the first five humans off of the Increasing Devotion and Marath that don't have summoning sickness so I attack with them, he blocks where he can, loses about 15 life or so and I pass the turn.
He swings in with Steel Hellkite, I can't stop it, he activates it's ability to kill my tokens, cast's Rakdos again then passes the turn. Over the next few turns, I die despite all of my best efforts.
If I had used that Prey Upon, I would undoubtedly have won the game. Instead, I was so excited about making all of my tokens and the sweet interaction between Marath and Cathars' Crusade that I forget about Steel Hellkite completely.
Oh well
Edit: Sorry about not using the card tags, I'm still hazy on how they work exactly...
Edit 2: I think I fixed them... if they still don't work and you would like to help me, could you send me a PM?
Welcome, I too am fairly new to the forums and a big fan of EDH. I commented because I saw that you play violin and viola. I myself play Upright Bass and the Saxophones (mainly Alto, Soprano and Bari) so I wanted to say hello to a fellow musician and player of Magic
Well, as the title says, I have been a lurker for a while. The usual, reading through decklists and comments so that I can find tips for myself. However, I keep seeing posts that I find interesting and wanting to comment/make my own posts.
I have been playing for a bit over a year now and have been playing edh for most of that time. It quickly became my favorite format. Like most of us in edh, it took over. I took apart most of my other decks to grab the cards I needed for whatever deck I was building at the time. Then, as one would expect, I started making trades and buying cards to gear even more towards edh and away from 60 card decks. However, I did keep together one of them. It is my favorite W/G exalted deck. It has been doing pretty well in modern night with my playgroup. I will probably post the list for that soon. I have noticed though that most people don't much like exalted, especially in modern, so, if you want to see it, send me a PM and I'll get a list to you along with my thoughts.
Well, I appear to have prattled on quite a bit more than I wanted too. So, here I am world. Feel free to call me Spike (not as in the psychographic profile, just my usual username) if that isn't to your liking, Nevets is my other preferred forum name.
(Just out of curiosity, I would like to know the people's opinion on Exalted. Hopefully the poll worked.)
Traveler's Amulet thins your deck out. While this is not incredibly relevant in some formats, with a singleton deck, every little bit helps.
If it doesn't have to be about commander, LoadingReadyRun has a podcast series called TapTapConcede that I also enjoy. It is all about casual magic including a few episodes about commander.
For your first group, I would not be afraid to build a three color deck, or a slightly more strategy intensive two color. I would look into some of the commanders already listed, namely Mayael the Anima. She isn't hard to learn to pilot so can be very welcoming to play fresh. It is also a fun splashy type deck for longtime magic players just getting into commander.
For the second group, I would try to stay two colors with a simpler strategy. Think more punch the opponents face in. I have a fairly straight forward Aurelia, the Warleader deck for this same purpose. It doesn't fair too well in really grindy multiplayer games, but in a three person game, it can fairly comfortably knock out one player quickly and have a chance on the second.
Turn five or so I play a Cathars' Crusade with Marath on board and pass the turn.
He pings me and plays Rakdos.
I drop a land, somehow kill Rakdos (don't remember how, just that it happened) and play Increasing Devotion thus making lot's of arbitrarily large things on board (including making Marath huge) then pass the turn.
He plays out Steel Hellkite and passes the turn.
I draw a land and then have a Sporemound, a Prey Upon, and a land in hand. (Possibly another dead card or two.) I am one mana short of the nine mana flashback of Increasing Devotion if I drop the land so I play out the Sporemound then drop my land to make the token off of Sporemound. (This whole time, I am conveniently forgetting that I have no flyers and have to kill Steel Hellkite to stop him from wiping my tokens with Steel Hellkite's effect.) That token triggers Cathars' Crusade making my things bigger, then I spam my mana into making 1/1's off of Marath to pump everything else instead of using Prey Upon to kill the Steel Hellkite. Now I only have the first five humans off of the Increasing Devotion and Marath that don't have summoning sickness so I attack with them, he blocks where he can, loses about 15 life or so and I pass the turn.
He swings in with Steel Hellkite, I can't stop it, he activates it's ability to kill my tokens, cast's Rakdos again then passes the turn. Over the next few turns, I die despite all of my best efforts.
If I had used that Prey Upon, I would undoubtedly have won the game. Instead, I was so excited about making all of my tokens and the sweet interaction between Marath and Cathars' Crusade that I forget about Steel Hellkite completely.
Oh well
Edit: Sorry about not using the card tags, I'm still hazy on how they work exactly...
Edit 2: I think I fixed them... if they still don't work and you would like to help me, could you send me a PM?
I have been playing for a bit over a year now and have been playing edh for most of that time. It quickly became my favorite format. Like most of us in edh, it took over. I took apart most of my other decks to grab the cards I needed for whatever deck I was building at the time. Then, as one would expect, I started making trades and buying cards to gear even more towards edh and away from 60 card decks. However, I did keep together one of them. It is my favorite W/G exalted deck. It has been doing pretty well in modern night with my playgroup. I will probably post the list for that soon. I have noticed though that most people don't much like exalted, especially in modern, so, if you want to see it, send me a PM and I'll get a list to you along with my thoughts.
Well, I appear to have prattled on quite a bit more than I wanted too. So, here I am world. Feel free to call me Spike (not as in the psychographic profile, just my usual username) if that isn't to your liking, Nevets is my other preferred forum name.
(Just out of curiosity, I would like to know the people's opinion on Exalted. Hopefully the poll worked.)