Guys, I like the most the fact that decks have a theme. I hope 100% of cards inside that deck will do well with that theme but also offer variance for other stuff (parts) like they did last year.
I hope they will play well out of the box but still offer useful upgrades for different decks. No ~maren~ commander yet as power level...
I think Atraxa has a shot to be. She is in the Right Colors to do super friends, has proliferate to push walkers towards ultimates, and acts as a nice wall to discourage people swinging at your walkers, she may not be as techy with it as Narset who can just dump planeswalkers into play however Atraxa is a fair bit cheaper to cast and brings in blue, so all the Jaces!
I wasn't under the impression that Super Friends is reasonably competitive? Meren was pretty strong with just slight tuneups (she's, what, tier 2? Not as crazy as Karador, but around the level of Ghave, Guru of Spores?) so I don't see Atraxa Super Friends hitting the same level as Meren, at least not right out the gate.
I built an Illusion deck around when Lord of the Unreal and company released. I can't remember exactly what was in the deck (I'm currently two states away from it), but I know I had Wash Out in it, as well as Grand Architect and I believe a few Wurmcoil Engine or Steel Hellkite, don't recall on which I settled using. Depending on what kind of decks your friends run, turn 1 Bear, turn 2 whatever, turn 3 Architect and Wurmcoil can be a decent blowout. It was the deck I played when Standard players came around for casual games, which hasn't happened for like a year and also why I'm having trouble remembering.
Counterspell itself would probably be a good inclusion.
I'm trying it out a little bit. I don't have a Drain or Flusterstorm so it seems infinitely worse to me right now, but eventually Stoic Rebuttal and Turn Aside will be replaced by those cards. Anyway, Isochron seems okay. Roughly as situational as Dross Scorpion (in that you need to draw a piece naturally and then combine it with an Arcum tap plus whatever you've drawn for maximum value). In a lot of cases, you don't need a Sol artifact to take full advantage of Reversal. A game in which I drew Reversal, I could have tapped Arcum for Rings, but instead went for Scepter while only controlling a Mox Opal and four lands. I wound up netting 5 Arcum taps which secured me the game right there. I'm thinking about moving Scorpion, Myr Moonvessel, and one more card, I'm thinking Gilded Lotus right now (I don't tap Arcum for UUU very often. I've been required to do so maybe once in the three years of playing my deck lol), and I'm going to move in Dramatic Reversal, Isochron Scepter and maybe Mystical Tutor or Merchant Scroll since my instants package is pretty anemic. So far, though, my limited amount of testing the card has proved fairly fruitful since I typically have a mana rock or mana creature of some kind to support the Scepter loop, or at worst Reversal is 1U- Untap Arcum and go get another thing, which I still find pretty valuable.
Now, mind you, I absolutely love Dross Scorpion. It's been in my list since I originally made it back in May 2013, but I've found myself less and less enjoying drawing it because Ad Nauseam or Doomsday decks can deal with Possessed Portal pretty handily (typically speaking, the turn I can get Portal is the same turn they can go off. Losing 1-2 permanents or cards in the turn rotation doesn't hurt them as badly as others, and I can't always seat myself directly to the right of the ADN/Doomsday player). Beyond that, Scorpion really only shines with Turbine, a card I find myself wanting to rely on less and less, lol. There are some corner cases I'm ignoring because they rarely have ever happened to me, but I think the immediate impact of Reversal will be worth the exchange.
Or I could be horribly wrong and it's empty hype on my part, lol. I really like this card in the small amount of times I've drawn it as it has always had some kind of impact on the game, though I am much more cautious about the Scepter since it's largely worthless with most of my deck. Even without the Scepter loop, I think its phenomenal since it can be the difference between a fourth or fifth turn lock.
My list from before the above changes is here, I just haven't gotten around to updating it yet and I seriously need to go to bed:
Well, it was necro'd, but the format has vastly changed over the last few years so perhaps this discussion could be picked back up?
Commander, as a format in general, has become quite fast in the last couple of years. Zur is still absolutely outrageous (Zur Doomsday is among the best decks in the format), Brago, King Eternal is quite impressively powerful, Yisan the Wanderer Bard is surprisingly powerful and consistent, Arcum Dagsson is still a consistent powerhouse, Teferi, Temporal Archmage basically supplanted Azami by doing both the stax and incidental combo game better, Leovold makes an absurdly strong Doomsday Commander with built-in Laboratory Maniac protection, etc..
If I had to say what I personally feel are the top three strongest, I'd say Zur, the Enchanter Doomsday/Ad Nauseam, Arcum Dagsson, and Leovold Doomsday, though if you can't tell I'm kind of biased towards Doomsday decks. These typically can win on turn 4 or 5 pretty easily, with all three doing pretty spectacularly through hate, with Zur and Arcum able to grab hate, if needed, at will.
Padeem isn't an artifact so he's not tutorable when we'd need him (green tutors can find him, lol, but Fabricate, Reshape, Transmute, etc., can't. Can't even Muddle the Mixture him since he's 4), shares CMC with Arcum, and I have the strongest suspicion that if I were to add him to my deck, I would draw him when he's irrelevant and it would slow me down a turn, or I wouldn't be able to find him when I need him. The card draw seems really unimportant to me since 1 card per turn really wouldn't amount to much.
Foundry Inspector seems worth a test, but I'm not overjoyed about more 3cmc fodder. Etherium Sculptor has led to some incredible t2 wins by reducing the costs of Lightning Greaves, Rings of Brighthearth, Hangarback, etc., so I can windmill slam Arcum and pull Monolith + Staff of Domination all in one go, but that was just kind of a, "Tee hee, I have a great frickin' hand" start. Inspector could do the same if the opener has Mana Crypt or Sol Ring in it, but I have no clue what I'd sub out for him. Actually, I just noticed my list still has Myr Moonvessel, so I may try Foundry Inspector in that slot.
Panharmonicon is going into my Roon of the Hidden Realm deck when it drops. I don't have any other deck it can fit into (Ghave is all about dies triggers moreso than ETBs, Chainer is dies triggers, Zur and Arcum don't care, etc.), but Roon is going to absolutely love that card.
My wife (girlfriend at the time, roughly 8-9 years ago) wanted to get into Magic because she wanted to be in the activities in which I took part, so we built her an Elf tribal deck since Lorwyn was the most recent set at the time (I started in Time Spiral, she started within the year or so). She loved it and still has it to this day, though it has been heavily modified since that time and the only card that is probably the same is most likely Priest of Titania.
My wife tried doing events, but she cracks under pressure and her performance would suffer as a result (the last one she played in was a Legacy event where she 0-2 dropped, playing Aggro Loam while I played Enchantress). She likes going to events if I'm playing, even to this day, she just doesn't like playing in them any more. She plays kitchen table almost exclusively, which is where she can play her Elf deck and her Ezuri, Renegade Leader Commander deck that I built for her (we're probably switching the Commander to Yisan, the Wanderer Bard because the deck has consistency issues. Sometimes she can kill the whole table on her third or fourth turn, other times she sits there and does nothing until turn 7 or 8). Getting her into Magic was really no different from getting anyone else I've taught how to play, except she had more gusto and really just wanted to be a part of the activities with my friends and I, probably moreso than anyone else I've ever taught. I've been talking about doing the Commander nights at the local game store, but I'm unsure if she would feel like playing in those.
The most important thing to remember is: If the person doesn't want to play, then they don't want to play. Prodding and pushing the issue can just turn them off from the game entirely. Case in point, an old co-worker of mine recently got into Magic the Gathering on her own- and now loves it, despite the fact that she fervently hated the game before because one of her past boyfriends pushed and argued and pushed to try and get her to play, resulting in her loathing it. So, you know, don't be annoying and remember that no means no. If she wants to play at the kitchen table, then don't push the issue until she winds up hating Magic in its entirety.
Purphoros can win out of nowhere and through fair amounts of hate, while Krenko has a very hard time doing so because it needs to build up a board presence with the most easily-removed creature type. That's the only reason I can think of, anyway.
I've had playgroups with people who do this kind of thing- usually leading to multiple 1v1 scenarios in our games where other people can be hit by collateral damage.
Sometimes, players exercise bad threat assessment, or do not assess threats the way you feel they should. Let them.
And, let's be honest, you don't want him to exercise better, "Threat assessment" you want him to play more like your group's mentality- there's nothing wrong with that. I don't have enough information to know if your group even exercises good judgment and threat evaluation, but I do know that a guy who goes against the grain of that drives you nuts, and there's not really any good way of reigning that in, as far as this other player is concerned. He can play however he likes, even if you feel it is ruining your games: That's Magic, and that's playing multiplayer in a social format. You're going to have to deal with some people who don't play like how you think they should and there's no one way to, "Force" him to accept this. Talking with these players isn't going to do jack- Telling someone to, "Play more like how the rest of us play" is going to lead them to do what they were doing, except dial it up to 11 (I have seen it happen), or he's going to go to the exact opposite extreme and just stop participating in games before he stops playing altogether (saw this happen as well).
I played for 3 years with someone who only attacked the person to his left. No rhyme or reason, wouldn't change his seating or anything- he always and only attacked the person directly left of him, and that was that. Nothing I did ever changed that attitude of his, I would merely step in occasionally and destroy some of his creatures to assist the player leftside, and it eventually came to the point where I always sat left of him, so I always had to deal with him and it improved everyone's fun factor by a pretty significant value, because I could play Archenemy and had no problem with it, lol.
The best option would be to create a fun police deck as mentioned above. Make it a deck that constantly generates value (mine is a Roon of the Hidden Realm Bant Blink deck) so you don't run out of steam while screwing with this player, and you should be fine (since Roon/Mistmeadow Witch/Eldrazi Displacer can exile other people's creatures all day, and if you make it yours, you can use Fiend Hunter/Reveillark/Karmic Guide/Wood Elves/etc to constantly have the best board position without sacrificing any of your cards just to screw with one guy). If you can't make him learn what it feels to be focused like that- and that's what it'll take, you need to make his feelgoods feel bad without making him feel like quitting your playgroup entirely, which takes a *very careful* mixture of plays and communication. You're going to have to talk to him constantly, and the onus is going to be on you and the rest of your group to clarify why he feels like he's not having a good time, and if he gets angry, lay off him for a bit and then try again later (because angry people do not care to listen to anyone).
So, that last paragraph is my advice. You're fine to stomp a mudhole with a value-generating deck to focus him down and annoy him, bit by bit, while generating a board state- but if you do it without communicating with him, you'll lose him as a player. I've seen this way too many times in Magic in the last rough decade I've been playing, and if you want to keep him as a player, you'll talk to him while you show him what it's like to play against him (you're basically going to be rubbing his nose in it, which is why you need to be nice, persistent, but not aggravating, in your approach).
The only real purpose to build Ivanka Trump over most other GB Commanders would be for its utility as a mana sink after achieving infinite mana or infinite tokens.
I really wouldn't bother trying to go tribal Spiders. Running bad creatures to stay on theme just sounds painful. Chameleon Colossus can also be used as a, "Break in case of emergency" mana sink that also works as a Spider, though, so I guess that's a thing.
I'd seriously consider running most of the following, though:
Each of the above have their own function in some form of infinite mana combo, with the last two probably being the worst of the whole bunch but at least better than most spider creatures. Generating infinite mana that's actually black is a huge deal, though, since you can just win outright. Kind of why I'm suggesting Coffers, Temple, and Rings (have 7 Swamps, will travel), as well as Magus and Mantle (6 Swamp shuffle). Rings and Monolith also do infinite mana, but it's colorless. In any event, if you have as much black mana as you want, it doesn't matter how many spiders you control beyond the Commander.
I am so tired of Eldrazi. I'm sincerely hoping that they're just getting all of the Eldrazi out of the way right now. Maybe I'm just disillusioned by there being 27-28 creature cards spoiled right now (not an exact count) and 17 or so of them are either Eldrazi, or transform into an Eldrazi. That's not even counting cards that produce Eldrazi or deal with them in some other way, like Coax from the Blind Eternies, Emrakul's Evangel, Emrakul's Influence, Hanweir Battlements, or Cryptolith Fragment.
BfZ and Oath just turned me off of Eldrazi entirely, at least in comparison to RoE.
Thankfully, though, my fascination with artifacts in casual play gave me a full binder of stuff like Lattice, Darksteel Forge (which at the time of me building the deck, didn't have a reprint yet), Crucible of Worlds, Rings of Brighthearth, etc., that I couldn't really use anywhere but Commander, which is largely why I gave the format a shot in the first place. I still have the deck together, and it gets updated every so often (I think the changes from last year or so were adding Metalworker and Hedron Crawler lol). Arcum also rarely got played for a while because my group didn't exactly have the same level of collection as I did, so I wound up building weaker decks to compensate (I built Roon of the Hidden Realm and Ghave, Guru of Spores. Now I've gone a step even weaker, and built Kemba, Kha Regent and Chainer, Dementia Master, among others, so that I can appropriately select a deck based off my group's capabilities, rather than curbstomping them with Arcum, Zur, etc.). So now I have decks of strengths varying from fully optimized Arcum and Zur all the way down through Kemba, Chainer, Uril, and Sliver Overlord, lol. My wife's Commander deck is Ezuri, Renegade Leader, though we just swapped him out for Yisan, the Wanderer Bard to fix her consistency issues (sometimes she'd kill everyone turn 3, sometimes she'd durdle until turn 8. It had some consistency issues no matter how many tutors I added to it). If a Commander can tutor, apparently I'll build it.
But yeah, if you couldn't tell, I still think my first Commander deck list is okay. lol
It depends on the number of creatures you run, their mana costs, etc.. If you regularly have 2-3 creatures by turn 3, then you're probably free to run Cradle, maybe even Crop Rotation if you're really feeling it (now it's Shulk time).
If not... then don't run Gaea's Cradle. It's not strictly better than a Forest, and there's also a great deal of dependence on whether or not your meta game is full of control/prison/lockdown decks that regularly wipe your board state. It's strong acceleration, but if your group regularly Wraths and Staxes you, Cradle is probably going to be dead weight much of the time if your deck isn't capable of comboing out and winning before they can do so (if your deck is capable of doing that, then run Cradle. If not, and your meta is rough, don't bother with Cradle for obvious reasons).
lol, I have Cradles and they're only in my Ezuri, Renegade Leader and Ghave, Guru of Spores decks (I have 5 Commander decks in green: The aforementioned, Sliver Overlord, Uril the Miststalker, and Roon of the Hidden Realm. Overlord is probably my only other deck that truly wants a Cradle, and I've been lazy and just haven't put one in for months lol).
I am essentially exactly what you described hating, but without the outwardly displayed attitude. From running Sivitri Scarzam for the colors to maintaining rakka mar as preference over kiki, I am that hipster.
If you don't have the attitude, then you're not what I hate at all. I said my problem was less with the cards, and about the attitude-- a guy who complains and insults me for playing Kemba because he made the choice to play Kentaro, Smiling Cat is the example I used after saying my problem was with the attitude. Again, the guys who play Axelrod Gunnarson are not my problem. The guys who play Axelrod and then ***** that they can't win because everyone is using cookie-cutter Commanders (especially after doing things that essentially knock themselves out of the game- see the Armageddon example that actually happened) is my problem.
If you don't openly start fights with people (and believe me- this was an open argument at a table because this guy was purely toxic) over Commander choices, then you're not what I was talking about in the slightest. I was complaining about a specific toxic attitude and I plainly stated as much. You can have a problem with cookie cutter generals, and you can have a problem with seeing the same decks with a different pilot, but I will not, however, tolerate someone insulting another person because they don't select their Commanders in the same way in which you do- that's nonsensical. It's toxic. As you eloquently stated, "I respect everyone's choice to play what they want, it is my choice to play what I enjoy." The person and attitude I described is someone who does not do this and openly starts fights. I can understand you taking offense, especially given how I started that paragraph, however just a sentence later my context should have been clear- I don't care if you play Sivitri or any other vanilla Commander- but if you begin flinging insults because you're not being handed a win for your kooky commander choice, then you just shouldn't play a game with people (not saying that you do this, but this is essentially what the Kentaro player did).
Any general that has a tutor ability tends to be very boring.
But for players that play only once in a while, they find it fun. I would take their comments with a grain of salt.
I enjoy playing a commander with a tutor simply because I love the fact that I don't have to pray to the shimmying shuffle god to get the answer I need *now*. Just because someone somewhere down the line decided "You must play five copies of the same card or never see the card evar" doesn't mean that's the game I want to play.
Also, playing a six mana 6/5 Vanilla isn't exactly the greatest amount of fun anyone could be having.
As someone who has pretty much exclusively played Legacy and Commander for the last 3 years, I agree. Arcum Dagsson was my very first Commander (I had every card already lying around in my binder- including Mana Crypt), and I've built Zur and greatly enjoy even Sliver Overlord, as well.
As far as Commanders I just don't get... It'd be the ones used by hipsters that offer no practical benefit over anything else in their colors, that they play primarily because they want to be different and so they may condescend toward others who don't care about such a thing. My problem is less with the cards themselves, however, and more about a specific attitude accompanying them. Don't disparage me for playing Kemba, Kha Regent because she's, "A cookie-cutter Voltron Commander" (when she's not even that good lol) while I'm beating the ass off of your Kentaro, the Smiling Cat Voltron because you misplayed by casting an Armageddon as early as possible while I had both Marble Diamond and a Worn Powerstone, and you no mana rocks at all.
The guy who plays Barktooth Warbeard or Axelrod Gunnarson because their names are cool and they made a metal-themed deck for them or whatever is perfectly fine, in my book, and I'll bust out one of my weaker Commander decks to play against them so we can all have fun. The guys who purposefully play hard-to-function Commanders, or ones that are simply obsoleted by other cards in their colors in specific styles of play, and then complain, argue and insult other people are the bane of Commander, in my opinion, especially since I only seem to run into these people online or at shops.
I wasn't under the impression that Super Friends is reasonably competitive? Meren was pretty strong with just slight tuneups (she's, what, tier 2? Not as crazy as Karador, but around the level of Ghave, Guru of Spores?) so I don't see Atraxa Super Friends hitting the same level as Meren, at least not right out the gate.
I could be wrong, I guess.
Counterspell itself would probably be a good inclusion.
Now, mind you, I absolutely love Dross Scorpion. It's been in my list since I originally made it back in May 2013, but I've found myself less and less enjoying drawing it because Ad Nauseam or Doomsday decks can deal with Possessed Portal pretty handily (typically speaking, the turn I can get Portal is the same turn they can go off. Losing 1-2 permanents or cards in the turn rotation doesn't hurt them as badly as others, and I can't always seat myself directly to the right of the ADN/Doomsday player). Beyond that, Scorpion really only shines with Turbine, a card I find myself wanting to rely on less and less, lol. There are some corner cases I'm ignoring because they rarely have ever happened to me, but I think the immediate impact of Reversal will be worth the exchange.
Or I could be horribly wrong and it's empty hype on my part, lol. I really like this card in the small amount of times I've drawn it as it has always had some kind of impact on the game, though I am much more cautious about the Scepter since it's largely worthless with most of my deck. Even without the Scepter loop, I think its phenomenal since it can be the difference between a fourth or fifth turn lock.
My list from before the above changes is here, I just haven't gotten around to updating it yet and I seriously need to go to bed:
1x Basalt Monolith
1x Clock of Omens
1x Darksteel Forge
1x Elixir of Immortality
1x Ensnaring Bridge
1x Gilded Lotus
1x Grim Monolith
1x Lightning Greaves
1x Lotus Petal
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mana Vault
1x Mox Diamond
1x Mox Opal
1x Mycosynth Lattice
1x Myr Turbine
1x Nevinyrral's Disk
1x Null Brooch
1x Pithing Needle
1x Possessed Portal
1x Rings of Brighthearth
1x Sculpting Steel
1x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Sol Ring
1x Spine of Ish Sah
1x Staff of Domination
1x Static Orb
1x Swiftfoot Boots
1x Tangle Wire
1x Thousand-Year Elixir
1x Torpor Orb
1x Unwinding Clock
1x Voltaic Key
1x Winter Orb
Enchantment (2)
1x Copy Artifact
1x Power Artifact
Land (34)
1x Academy Ruins
1x Ancient Tomb
1x Blinkmoth Nexus
1x Buried Ruin
1x Cavern of Souls
1x Command Beacon
1x Crystal Vein
1x Hall of the Bandit Lord
1x Inkmoth Nexus
1x Inventors' Fair
17x Island
1x Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1x Mishra's Factory
1x Reliquary Tower
1x Saprazzan Skerry
1x Seat of the Synod
1x Strip Mine
1x Tolaria West
1x Dross Scorpion
1x Etherium Sculptor
1x Hangarback Walker
1x Hedron Crawler
1x Junk Diver
1x Kuldotha Forgemaster
1x Manakin
1x Metalworker
1x Millikin
1x Myr Moonvessel
1x Myr Retriever
1x Myr Sire
1x Phyrexian Metamorph
1x Plague Myr
1x Silver Myr
1x Spellskite
1x Trinket Mage
Instant (9)
1x Brainstorm
1x Counterspell
1x Cyclonic Rift
1x Muddle the Mixture
1x Negate
1x Stoic Rebuttal
1x Swan Song
1x Thirst for Knowledge
1x Turn Aside
Sorcery (3)
1x Fabricate
1x Reshape
1x Transmute Artifact
Planeswalker (1)
1x Tezzeret the Seeker
1x Crucible of Worlds
1x Defense Grid
1x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Jester's Cap
1x Kill Switch
1x Master Transmuter
1x Mindslaver
1x Neurok Stealthsuit
1x Orbs of Warding
1x Ward of Bones
Commander, as a format in general, has become quite fast in the last couple of years. Zur is still absolutely outrageous (Zur Doomsday is among the best decks in the format), Brago, King Eternal is quite impressively powerful, Yisan the Wanderer Bard is surprisingly powerful and consistent, Arcum Dagsson is still a consistent powerhouse, Teferi, Temporal Archmage basically supplanted Azami by doing both the stax and incidental combo game better, Leovold makes an absurdly strong Doomsday Commander with built-in Laboratory Maniac protection, etc..
If I had to say what I personally feel are the top three strongest, I'd say Zur, the Enchanter Doomsday/Ad Nauseam, Arcum Dagsson, and Leovold Doomsday, though if you can't tell I'm kind of biased towards Doomsday decks. These typically can win on turn 4 or 5 pretty easily, with all three doing pretty spectacularly through hate, with Zur and Arcum able to grab hate, if needed, at will.
Foundry Inspector seems worth a test, but I'm not overjoyed about more 3cmc fodder. Etherium Sculptor has led to some incredible t2 wins by reducing the costs of Lightning Greaves, Rings of Brighthearth, Hangarback, etc., so I can windmill slam Arcum and pull Monolith + Staff of Domination all in one go, but that was just kind of a, "Tee hee, I have a great frickin' hand" start. Inspector could do the same if the opener has Mana Crypt or Sol Ring in it, but I have no clue what I'd sub out for him. Actually, I just noticed my list still has Myr Moonvessel, so I may try Foundry Inspector in that slot.
My wife tried doing events, but she cracks under pressure and her performance would suffer as a result (the last one she played in was a Legacy event where she 0-2 dropped, playing Aggro Loam while I played Enchantress). She likes going to events if I'm playing, even to this day, she just doesn't like playing in them any more. She plays kitchen table almost exclusively, which is where she can play her Elf deck and her Ezuri, Renegade Leader Commander deck that I built for her (we're probably switching the Commander to Yisan, the Wanderer Bard because the deck has consistency issues. Sometimes she can kill the whole table on her third or fourth turn, other times she sits there and does nothing until turn 7 or 8). Getting her into Magic was really no different from getting anyone else I've taught how to play, except she had more gusto and really just wanted to be a part of the activities with my friends and I, probably moreso than anyone else I've ever taught. I've been talking about doing the Commander nights at the local game store, but I'm unsure if she would feel like playing in those.
The most important thing to remember is: If the person doesn't want to play, then they don't want to play. Prodding and pushing the issue can just turn them off from the game entirely. Case in point, an old co-worker of mine recently got into Magic the Gathering on her own- and now loves it, despite the fact that she fervently hated the game before because one of her past boyfriends pushed and argued and pushed to try and get her to play, resulting in her loathing it. So, you know, don't be annoying and remember that no means no. If she wants to play at the kitchen table, then don't push the issue until she winds up hating Magic in its entirety.
Sometimes, players exercise bad threat assessment, or do not assess threats the way you feel they should. Let them.
And, let's be honest, you don't want him to exercise better, "Threat assessment" you want him to play more like your group's mentality- there's nothing wrong with that. I don't have enough information to know if your group even exercises good judgment and threat evaluation, but I do know that a guy who goes against the grain of that drives you nuts, and there's not really any good way of reigning that in, as far as this other player is concerned. He can play however he likes, even if you feel it is ruining your games: That's Magic, and that's playing multiplayer in a social format. You're going to have to deal with some people who don't play like how you think they should and there's no one way to, "Force" him to accept this. Talking with these players isn't going to do jack- Telling someone to, "Play more like how the rest of us play" is going to lead them to do what they were doing, except dial it up to 11 (I have seen it happen), or he's going to go to the exact opposite extreme and just stop participating in games before he stops playing altogether (saw this happen as well).
I played for 3 years with someone who only attacked the person to his left. No rhyme or reason, wouldn't change his seating or anything- he always and only attacked the person directly left of him, and that was that. Nothing I did ever changed that attitude of his, I would merely step in occasionally and destroy some of his creatures to assist the player leftside, and it eventually came to the point where I always sat left of him, so I always had to deal with him and it improved everyone's fun factor by a pretty significant value, because I could play Archenemy and had no problem with it, lol.
The best option would be to create a fun police deck as mentioned above. Make it a deck that constantly generates value (mine is a Roon of the Hidden Realm Bant Blink deck) so you don't run out of steam while screwing with this player, and you should be fine (since Roon/Mistmeadow Witch/Eldrazi Displacer can exile other people's creatures all day, and if you make it yours, you can use Fiend Hunter/Reveillark/Karmic Guide/Wood Elves/etc to constantly have the best board position without sacrificing any of your cards just to screw with one guy). If you can't make him learn what it feels to be focused like that- and that's what it'll take, you need to make his feelgoods feel bad without making him feel like quitting your playgroup entirely, which takes a *very careful* mixture of plays and communication. You're going to have to talk to him constantly, and the onus is going to be on you and the rest of your group to clarify why he feels like he's not having a good time, and if he gets angry, lay off him for a bit and then try again later (because angry people do not care to listen to anyone).
So, that last paragraph is my advice. You're fine to stomp a mudhole with a value-generating deck to focus him down and annoy him, bit by bit, while generating a board state- but if you do it without communicating with him, you'll lose him as a player. I've seen this way too many times in Magic in the last rough decade I've been playing, and if you want to keep him as a player, you'll talk to him while you show him what it's like to play against him (you're basically going to be rubbing his nose in it, which is why you need to be nice, persistent, but not aggravating, in your approach).
I really wouldn't bother trying to go tribal Spiders. Running bad creatures to stay on theme just sounds painful. Chameleon Colossus can also be used as a, "Break in case of emergency" mana sink that also works as a Spider, though, so I guess that's a thing.
I'd seriously consider running most of the following, though:
Each of the above have their own function in some form of infinite mana combo, with the last two probably being the worst of the whole bunch but at least better than most spider creatures. Generating infinite mana that's actually black is a huge deal, though, since you can just win outright. Kind of why I'm suggesting Coffers, Temple, and Rings (have 7 Swamps, will travel), as well as Magus and Mantle (6 Swamp shuffle). Rings and Monolith also do infinite mana, but it's colorless. In any event, if you have as much black mana as you want, it doesn't matter how many spiders you control beyond the Commander.
BfZ and Oath just turned me off of Eldrazi entirely, at least in comparison to RoE.
Thankfully, though, my fascination with artifacts in casual play gave me a full binder of stuff like Lattice, Darksteel Forge (which at the time of me building the deck, didn't have a reprint yet), Crucible of Worlds, Rings of Brighthearth, etc., that I couldn't really use anywhere but Commander, which is largely why I gave the format a shot in the first place. I still have the deck together, and it gets updated every so often (I think the changes from last year or so were adding Metalworker and Hedron Crawler lol). Arcum also rarely got played for a while because my group didn't exactly have the same level of collection as I did, so I wound up building weaker decks to compensate (I built Roon of the Hidden Realm and Ghave, Guru of Spores. Now I've gone a step even weaker, and built Kemba, Kha Regent and Chainer, Dementia Master, among others, so that I can appropriately select a deck based off my group's capabilities, rather than curbstomping them with Arcum, Zur, etc.). So now I have decks of strengths varying from fully optimized Arcum and Zur all the way down through Kemba, Chainer, Uril, and Sliver Overlord, lol. My wife's Commander deck is Ezuri, Renegade Leader, though we just swapped him out for Yisan, the Wanderer Bard to fix her consistency issues (sometimes she'd kill everyone turn 3, sometimes she'd durdle until turn 8. It had some consistency issues no matter how many tutors I added to it). If a Commander can tutor, apparently I'll build it.
But yeah, if you couldn't tell, I still think my first Commander deck list is okay. lol
If not... then don't run Gaea's Cradle. It's not strictly better than a Forest, and there's also a great deal of dependence on whether or not your meta game is full of control/prison/lockdown decks that regularly wipe your board state. It's strong acceleration, but if your group regularly Wraths and Staxes you, Cradle is probably going to be dead weight much of the time if your deck isn't capable of comboing out and winning before they can do so (if your deck is capable of doing that, then run Cradle. If not, and your meta is rough, don't bother with Cradle for obvious reasons).
lol, I have Cradles and they're only in my Ezuri, Renegade Leader and Ghave, Guru of Spores decks (I have 5 Commander decks in green: The aforementioned, Sliver Overlord, Uril the Miststalker, and Roon of the Hidden Realm. Overlord is probably my only other deck that truly wants a Cradle, and I've been lazy and just haven't put one in for months lol).
If you don't have the attitude, then you're not what I hate at all. I said my problem was less with the cards, and about the attitude-- a guy who complains and insults me for playing Kemba because he made the choice to play Kentaro, Smiling Cat is the example I used after saying my problem was with the attitude. Again, the guys who play Axelrod Gunnarson are not my problem. The guys who play Axelrod and then ***** that they can't win because everyone is using cookie-cutter Commanders (especially after doing things that essentially knock themselves out of the game- see the Armageddon example that actually happened) is my problem.
If you don't openly start fights with people (and believe me- this was an open argument at a table because this guy was purely toxic) over Commander choices, then you're not what I was talking about in the slightest. I was complaining about a specific toxic attitude and I plainly stated as much. You can have a problem with cookie cutter generals, and you can have a problem with seeing the same decks with a different pilot, but I will not, however, tolerate someone insulting another person because they don't select their Commanders in the same way in which you do- that's nonsensical. It's toxic. As you eloquently stated, "I respect everyone's choice to play what they want, it is my choice to play what I enjoy." The person and attitude I described is someone who does not do this and openly starts fights. I can understand you taking offense, especially given how I started that paragraph, however just a sentence later my context should have been clear- I don't care if you play Sivitri or any other vanilla Commander- but if you begin flinging insults because you're not being handed a win for your kooky commander choice, then you just shouldn't play a game with people (not saying that you do this, but this is essentially what the Kentaro player did).
As someone who has pretty much exclusively played Legacy and Commander for the last 3 years, I agree. Arcum Dagsson was my very first Commander (I had every card already lying around in my binder- including Mana Crypt), and I've built Zur and greatly enjoy even Sliver Overlord, as well.
My meta game also is moderately competitive though. Lots of our games are decided in the first 5-6 turns, because sometimes people like dropping turn 2 Land Equilibriums off of a turn 1 Sol Ring, Talisman of Progress, and an Island. It's nice to be able to get your Commander out, grab Rings of Brighthearth, and then the next turn grab Basalt Monolith and Staff of Domination off of one activation, draw the whole library, and then hard cast Clock of Omens, Nevinyrral's Disk, Mycosynth Lattice, and Darksteel Forge with all of your counter backup in hand- all while someone is trying to lock the game down. I find that fun.
As far as Commanders I just don't get... It'd be the ones used by hipsters that offer no practical benefit over anything else in their colors, that they play primarily because they want to be different and so they may condescend toward others who don't care about such a thing. My problem is less with the cards themselves, however, and more about a specific attitude accompanying them. Don't disparage me for playing Kemba, Kha Regent because she's, "A cookie-cutter Voltron Commander" (when she's not even that good lol) while I'm beating the ass off of your Kentaro, the Smiling Cat Voltron because you misplayed by casting an Armageddon as early as possible while I had both Marble Diamond and a Worn Powerstone, and you no mana rocks at all.
The guy who plays Barktooth Warbeard or Axelrod Gunnarson because their names are cool and they made a metal-themed deck for them or whatever is perfectly fine, in my book, and I'll bust out one of my weaker Commander decks to play against them so we can all have fun. The guys who purposefully play hard-to-function Commanders, or ones that are simply obsoleted by other cards in their colors in specific styles of play, and then complain, argue and insult other people are the bane of Commander, in my opinion, especially since I only seem to run into these people online or at shops.