So I must say Stitcher's Supplier looks like one hell of a card, and has already earned some success in Modern.
Jund-Vine decks I think are probably one of the deck archetypes that can use Supplier do it's greatest point, and oh boy do these 5-0 League Lists look sweet.
Question about how Alpine Moon works in regards to tron: The card says it loses abilities and type, but it doesn't mention name. If I name Urza's Tower, do mine and power plant still generate 2 mana since they are checking for card names?
The Tron lands all have land types. For example Urza's Tower has the typeline "Land - Urza's Tower"
When the Tron lands are checking requirements for whether they produce more than one mana, they are checking land types, not card names. As such Alpine Moon turns off Tron is you name one of the Tron lands.
yeah there is not much to be done about it other than getting proficient at executing the combo and hoping people concede more often than not.
clock management is definitely something that sets mtgo apart from paper. i do wish that there was some sort of chess clock system in place for paper, but its just impossible. the judge system to manage slow play blows. calls are made without much information, are open to interpretation, and naturally favor the person who called the judge over. its just distasteful all around.
If there was a clock in paper like on MTGO, I would never get draws with Lantern. I don't think in the past year of playing it on MTGO I finished a round with less than 10 minutes left on the clock unless it was a suuuuuuper grindy match up like UW Control. My opponents on the other hand, would either time out, or finish the round with just a minute or so left. Lantern isn't slow because of the pilot. Lantern is slow because of the opponent.
I think for a large majority of people, this is what ktkenshinx was referring to when he mentioned an "unrealistic expectation". And to reiterate what he said, that isn't to say you're a bad player. From what you mentioned about getting to multiple PPTQ Top 8's, you obviously aren't.
However, you need to start by scaling back the goal. I was in the exact same boat as you. My goal was to make the PT. It doesn't seem that hard. I mean you just have to win a PPTQ, then Win an RTPQ. Or Top 8 a GP! The goals sound so simple, that it's really easy to envision "Make the Pro Tour" as a reasonable and realistic expectation. But it isn't. Because those are actually pretty big jumps.
GP Toronto wrecked my motivation to play Modern because I was in the exact same mindset as you. I dropped after Round 6 with my 3-3 record and was almost too dis-heartened to sign up for any side events. I wanted to quit Magic.
So I've scaled back my expectations. My goal right now is to Top 8 a PPTQ. That's it. Get Top 8 at a Modern PPTQ.
Once that's done, what will my next goal be? Well I suppose after that my next goal will be to WIN a Modern PPTQ. Not just Top 8, but first place. Qualify for the RPTQ!
And you just progress from there.
With the GP, my goal isn't to make Top 8. My goal for the next GP I play in is to do better than my last performance. To do better than 3-3 drop. If that means I get eliminated in Round 7 this time, cool! That's progress!
The steps are small, sure. But that is how you keep yourself motivated. You make it so each small step you get is a positive step in the right direction for you, as opposed to being disappointed every time you don't make that monumental leap.
Sure but I think the point is if your pissed that your opponent got a lucky top deck then you are less likely to say GG and go to the next match and far more likely to grind it out and go full trench warfare and let them win slowly. You are not likely to lose gracefully, this tactic is even more viable in a situation where there is a clock and you can slow play it out.
And yet people GG and scoop all the time when a Tron opponent top decks their third Tron piece, or their Karn, etc.
The type of hatred people have for Lantern is just for Lantern. And don't get me wrong, I can understand why the deck can be annoying to play against. I am not holding a hatred of that against anyone. What I don't understand is the sentiment of pride people get from, "Well I am going to waste their time and ruin their tournament." Congratulations, you're a scumbag. Want a trophy?
First off, I feel stupid for not mentioning Kanister when I was talking about amazing Lantern players. Shame on me
As for draws with Lantern Control, that isn't really a thing at the Professional Level. If we look at the last Modern Pro Tour, there were I believe 3 people playing Lantern Control. Between both Days 1 & 2, the decks (if I remember correctly) together had 1 match end in a draw. And said draw was against a wonderfully slow UW Control Player who ended the PT with 3 Draws.
So yeah, the main thing keeping pros away from Lantern is the sheer amount of time they need to dump into it. Though I wouldn't discount how the entire playstyle of the deck keeps some players away. I have seen more than one Tweet by PVDDR where he has essentially said he'd rather quit Magic than play Lantern Control, even if it was hands down the best deck in Modern.
Now as for your opponents conceding, as a Lantern Player you just need to leverage the Judge Call. And I'm not being petty here. When I played Lantern Control at GP Toronto this year, I called the Judge on my opponent for slow play one round because he was intentionally stalling. He would draw his card, humm and haw for close to a minute, and then pass the turn. The judge gave him a warning because I was able to show through my bookeeping that the only cards he had in hand were lands, he had nothing in his graveyard he could cast because of Grafdigger's Cage, and he couldn't attack with any creatures because of Ensnaring Bridge. I'm sorry, but if you are going to be a salty jerk, then I will get you punished for it.
That being said, I only had to do that one round. In every other game I played, if I had my opponent in a lock, I just explained to them how the lock worked, and the situation they were in. Even in matches where we were on Game 3 and the loser would not make Day 2, I had my opponent concede. Because reasonable people will understand that you have demonstrated a loop that makes it so that they cannot win the game, and I will win the game. It is no different than conceding when someone starts storming off. Some people just have a juvenile and spiteful hatred for Lantern. For those people you just need to put in even practice with the deck where you can play swiftly and end games fast. That's all there is to it.
While I do agree that the deck is very strong if you put in the effort to master it, I don't think this is the main reason people don't play it.
I'd say the fun factor plays a big role in this one. To me, and to most players I know, Lantern (and several other prison/permission style decks) is no fun to play and especially not to play against. It's also an expensive deck.
So, unless you are a proffessional grinder, I don't think it's wise to invest in a deck that nowone in your playgroup likes to play against and just scoops up.
Oh I completely agree that the playstyle of Lantern is a huge reason why so few people play it. Honestly, it is probably the biggest reason why more people do not play the deck.
Just throwing out my (completely biased) opinion that Lantern is the best deck in Modern that no one is playing, because no one is properly skilled enough to play it.
Its a bit early for me in the day and week to want to kick of a war over text on a forum...but that bold part is a hilariously biased take.
I dont touch Lantern because its the opposite of fun for not only me, but most opponents. Same reason I put down Turns. I dont like salting the earth.
I did mention that my opinion was biased (notice my emphasis lol).
And honestly, to go into it a bit more, while I will again admit that my opinion is extremely biased, I have it for a reason.
For your average Modern deck, you can pick it up and with 0-5 hours of preparation you can do average, or good at a high level tournament completely off the back of your previous play ability. Obviously the more experience you have with a deck, the more you can also influence these results.
However this is not true of Lantern. Lantern Control requires you to have different skills than you require for your average Modern deck. You need to not only have your 75 memorized, but the 75 of potentially 100 other decks you could play in the format. At every step in the game you need to determine:
What is the worst possible card for your opponent to have right now?
If you don't have knowledge of their hand, what are the odds of them having the card at this moment
If you do have knowledge of their hand, what steps can you take to prevent them from getting it?
If either of the above two cases, what are the costs of you not playing around them having the card?
The inverse of the above, what are the costs of you playing around them having the card?
Repeat all of the above mental processes for the second, and then third worse card for them to have in their deck.
While these sound like things you would do with a normal deck in Magic, the sheer amount of information you get access to in a game with Lantern makes it overwhelming to new players of the deck. Hell sometimes it can get overwhelming for me and I've been playing the deck competitively for 2 years.
At present I'd say BBD, Zac Elsik, and Sam Black are the best Lantern Control players in the game. And even then, I still feel all of them have a bit further they could go with the deck. And I know that I myself am leagues behind them in skill.
Lantern is the best deck in Modern because it is equipped in such a way that it can deal with any, and every deck. However, it takes a ridiculous amount of practice and preparation in order for it to be piloted well. Add that to the fact that the playstyle is extremely unappealing to a large amount of people...and well...
Lantern is the best deck in Modern, that no one is playing right now, because no one is properly skilled enough to play it.
Less in the way that there isn't really a best deck anymore
I would counter this point with my (completely biased) opinion that Lantern Control is in fact the best deck in Modern. It has the most effective ways to disrupt and stop the largest number of decks in the format, and as it slowly gets more cards (like Whir and Sphere) the consistency of it's power slowly rises.
The problem with Lantern, and why it isn't played more, is simply the skill ceiling for the deck is just so damn high. Where your average Modern deck can yield you decent results with around 5ish hours of testing, in Lantern to do alright requires close to ten times that much preparation. I'd argue that to be a master with Lantern you need to put in 300 or more hours with the deck, and that isn't something many players would do. Specifically because of the type of deck Lantern is.
So Lantern is the best deck in Modern, that no one is playing in Modern, because no one knows how to play it in Modern.
true, but lets also not pretend that lantern players are better at the game.
Playing Lantern actually improved my skill at playing Magic as a whole.
Just throwing out my (completely biased) opinion that Lantern is the best deck in Modern that no one is playing, because no one is properly skilled enough to play it.
Look, if we're talking about things that should probably be unbanned in Modern, h0lydiva made a great comment on their Twitter last night:
"The only thing Jace ruined in Modern was his reputation."
I think this honestly holds true for a fair number of cards on the banned list, and I'm fine with Modern breaking for a season if it means us slowly going over the banned list a few cards at a time to see what is and isn't truly worthy of expulsion from the format.
So Commander is a 100-card Singleton format. This means two things:
Your deck must consist of exactly 100 cards. 95 is too few. 103 is too many.
Except for Basic Lands, you may only have a single copy of each card in your deck*. This means instead of running 4 Brainstorm you may choose to instead run 1 Brainstorm, 1 Ponder, 1 Preordain, and 1 Opt.
*Cards like Relentless Rats which have text stating any number of these cards may be placed in your deck are the exception to this rule. In theory you could make an EDH deck with 30 swamps, and everything else being a Relentless Rat.
Now the first card you need to pick when creating a commander deck is the commander you want to be running, or at least what colour commander identity you want for your deck (we'll get into commander identity in a moment). In order for a card to be your commander it needs to fit the following criteria:
Be a Legendary Creature
That's it! Just look for whatever Legendary Creature you want to have fun with. No your Commander can't be a Legendary Enchantment, or a Planeswalker, or an Artifact. Legendary Creatures only. Now that you have picked your Commander, we can determine what your deck's colour identity is.
Your deck's colour identity is determined by all the coloured mana symbols in your commander's mana cost, as well as by any coloured mana symbols in the commander's rules text. Let me give you two examples with some new cards:
Muldrotha, the Gravetide has a mana cost of 3UBG. There are no mana symbols in her text box, so the deck's colour identity is Blue, Black, and Green.
Jodah, Archmage Eternal has a mana cost of 1WUR. However, in his text box he has WUBRG symbols in it. Because of this, the deck's colour identity is White, Blue, Black, Red, and Green.
Now the colour identity determines which cards you can, or can't run in your Commander Deck. Let's take the example of Muldrotha that I had above. My deck's colour identity is UBG. This means that in all of the cards in my deck they are not allowed to have W or R symbols in their mana costs, or anywhere in their rules text. Terminate? Nope. Avacyn's Pilgrim? Try again. Boros Reckoner? HAHAHA. No.
This colour restriction is applied to every single card in your deck, even lands. So I could never run a Temple Garden or a Tundra in my Muldrotha deck. But what about a card like Arid Mesa? Mesa doesn't have any mana symbols anywhere on the card, so I am actually able to run it in my Muldrotha deck if I wanted to. Additionally there is an exception that reminder text does not count. So I would be able to run a Crypt Ghast in my Muldrotha deck, even though it has a White hybrid mana in it's reminder text.
So you have your commander decided and you know your deck's colour identity. What comes next? Well next you build your deck and play a game of course! So lets go over some of the Commander specific game rules.
First off, your life total is 40 instead of the usual 20 you would have if you were playing a format like Standard or Modern.
Second is a new way for you to lose the game; Commander Damage. If over the course of a game you receive 21 or more combat damage from a single Commander, you lose the game. It doesn't matter how many times the Commander has died. It doesn't matter who controls the Creature. As soon as you are dealt that 21st point of damage, it's curtains for you.
Third is how your Commander is player. You Commander begins the game outside of your deck in a place called the Command Zone. While your commander is in the Command Zone, you may cast it from the Command Zone as if it were in your hand. Think of it as a card you always have in your hand, but your opponents know it is there, and it never counts towards your maximum hand size. Yes if you are running Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir or any other Legendary Creature with Flash, you can cast your Commander from the Command Zone at instant speed. If you Commander would ever leave the battlefield, you can choose to place it in the Command Zone instead of whatever zone it would be going to. So if your opponent casts a kill spell on your Commander, you can put it into the Command Zone instead of your graveyard. Or if an opponent is trying to get rid of your Commander with an Oblivion Ring, you can choose to put it in the Command Zone instead of the Exile Zone. Every time you go to cast your Commander, you pay it's mana cost plus what is called the Commander Tax. The value of the Commander Tax is an amount of generic mana equal to two times the number of times you have cast your Commander. For example if my Commander is Isamaru, Hound of Konda, it will cost me W to cast him from the Command Zone the first time. If one of my opponents kill him, the next time I go to cast him it will cost me 2W since I have already cast him one time this game. If he dies again it will cost me 4W to cast him, since I have already cast him twice this game.
That should cover most of how command works. Feel free to ask me any questions if you are still a little confused.
Hypno Frog is much better than than our little Ramp Dino. I keep the ability to play extra lands, but also gain the ability to draw cards from using lands like Strip Mine or Wasteland. I get to blow up your land and draw a card? Ohhh gooody!
So 9 times out of 10, Survival is a better card than Leap. Instead of getting a random creature, you get whichever one you want. However sometimes you want Leap as a sac outlet to be able to recycle some creatures. However Survival is just much better in more instances, so I will be making this change but keeping an eye out for a deck slot that I can use to put Leap back into the list.
So...this change is going to look a little weird, but hear me out. Rhystic Study is a great card, but does this deck really need it? Consider that this deck is running, and making amazing use of Mystic Remora. Do we need to add Study to our deck with Remora in it? If we want another enchantment to help us draw cards, Siege is honestly a pretty good choice. If we get it early we can use it as a Howling Mine, but later in the game we can replay it as a way to help protect our Muldrotha. The versatility Siege gives us offsets how many fewer cards we'll be drawing every game by getting with of Study, or at least that is what I am hoping
One thing I noticed super quickly the first few times I played this list was just how many sources of mana I have that produce only colourless. So I took a quick look at my mana base and tried to figure out what lands I could cut to give me more access to coloured mana. I don't wanna cut Geier Reach Sanitarium is it's a great card advantage land for this deck. The same holds true for High Market since it's a sac outlet which lets me reuse creatures. Basically Throne and Port were the two lands that looked a little out of place to me, so I swapped them over for some lands that produce all the mana.
There are some other lands I could use to try and fix the mana issue such as Cascading Cataracts, Meteor Crater, or Thran Quarry. All of them have some of their own benefits and downsides, and I may end up slotting some of them into the list in the future.
Jund-Vine decks I think are probably one of the deck archetypes that can use Supplier do it's greatest point, and oh boy do these 5-0 League Lists look sweet.
God I love Magic sometimes.
The Tron lands all have land types. For example Urza's Tower has the typeline "Land - Urza's Tower"
When the Tron lands are checking requirements for whether they produce more than one mana, they are checking land types, not card names. As such Alpine Moon turns off Tron is you name one of the Tron lands.
If there was a clock in paper like on MTGO, I would never get draws with Lantern. I don't think in the past year of playing it on MTGO I finished a round with less than 10 minutes left on the clock unless it was a suuuuuuper grindy match up like UW Control. My opponents on the other hand, would either time out, or finish the round with just a minute or so left. Lantern isn't slow because of the pilot. Lantern is slow because of the opponent.
I think for a large majority of people, this is what ktkenshinx was referring to when he mentioned an "unrealistic expectation". And to reiterate what he said, that isn't to say you're a bad player. From what you mentioned about getting to multiple PPTQ Top 8's, you obviously aren't.
However, you need to start by scaling back the goal. I was in the exact same boat as you. My goal was to make the PT. It doesn't seem that hard. I mean you just have to win a PPTQ, then Win an RTPQ. Or Top 8 a GP! The goals sound so simple, that it's really easy to envision "Make the Pro Tour" as a reasonable and realistic expectation. But it isn't. Because those are actually pretty big jumps.
GP Toronto wrecked my motivation to play Modern because I was in the exact same mindset as you. I dropped after Round 6 with my 3-3 record and was almost too dis-heartened to sign up for any side events. I wanted to quit Magic.
So I've scaled back my expectations. My goal right now is to Top 8 a PPTQ. That's it. Get Top 8 at a Modern PPTQ.
Once that's done, what will my next goal be? Well I suppose after that my next goal will be to WIN a Modern PPTQ. Not just Top 8, but first place. Qualify for the RPTQ!
And you just progress from there.
With the GP, my goal isn't to make Top 8. My goal for the next GP I play in is to do better than my last performance. To do better than 3-3 drop. If that means I get eliminated in Round 7 this time, cool! That's progress!
The steps are small, sure. But that is how you keep yourself motivated. You make it so each small step you get is a positive step in the right direction for you, as opposed to being disappointed every time you don't make that monumental leap.
And yet people GG and scoop all the time when a Tron opponent top decks their third Tron piece, or their Karn, etc.
The type of hatred people have for Lantern is just for Lantern. And don't get me wrong, I can understand why the deck can be annoying to play against. I am not holding a hatred of that against anyone. What I don't understand is the sentiment of pride people get from, "Well I am going to waste their time and ruin their tournament." Congratulations, you're a scumbag. Want a trophy?
As for draws with Lantern Control, that isn't really a thing at the Professional Level. If we look at the last Modern Pro Tour, there were I believe 3 people playing Lantern Control. Between both Days 1 & 2, the decks (if I remember correctly) together had 1 match end in a draw. And said draw was against a wonderfully slow UW Control Player who ended the PT with 3 Draws.
So yeah, the main thing keeping pros away from Lantern is the sheer amount of time they need to dump into it. Though I wouldn't discount how the entire playstyle of the deck keeps some players away. I have seen more than one Tweet by PVDDR where he has essentially said he'd rather quit Magic than play Lantern Control, even if it was hands down the best deck in Modern.
Now as for your opponents conceding, as a Lantern Player you just need to leverage the Judge Call. And I'm not being petty here. When I played Lantern Control at GP Toronto this year, I called the Judge on my opponent for slow play one round because he was intentionally stalling. He would draw his card, humm and haw for close to a minute, and then pass the turn. The judge gave him a warning because I was able to show through my bookeeping that the only cards he had in hand were lands, he had nothing in his graveyard he could cast because of Grafdigger's Cage, and he couldn't attack with any creatures because of Ensnaring Bridge. I'm sorry, but if you are going to be a salty jerk, then I will get you punished for it.
That being said, I only had to do that one round. In every other game I played, if I had my opponent in a lock, I just explained to them how the lock worked, and the situation they were in. Even in matches where we were on Game 3 and the loser would not make Day 2, I had my opponent concede. Because reasonable people will understand that you have demonstrated a loop that makes it so that they cannot win the game, and I will win the game. It is no different than conceding when someone starts storming off. Some people just have a juvenile and spiteful hatred for Lantern. For those people you just need to put in even practice with the deck where you can play swiftly and end games fast. That's all there is to it.
Oh I completely agree that the playstyle of Lantern is a huge reason why so few people play it. Honestly, it is probably the biggest reason why more people do not play the deck.
I did mention that my opinion was biased (notice my emphasis lol).
And honestly, to go into it a bit more, while I will again admit that my opinion is extremely biased, I have it for a reason.
For your average Modern deck, you can pick it up and with 0-5 hours of preparation you can do average, or good at a high level tournament completely off the back of your previous play ability. Obviously the more experience you have with a deck, the more you can also influence these results.
However this is not true of Lantern. Lantern Control requires you to have different skills than you require for your average Modern deck. You need to not only have your 75 memorized, but the 75 of potentially 100 other decks you could play in the format. At every step in the game you need to determine:
At present I'd say BBD, Zac Elsik, and Sam Black are the best Lantern Control players in the game. And even then, I still feel all of them have a bit further they could go with the deck. And I know that I myself am leagues behind them in skill.
Lantern is the best deck in Modern because it is equipped in such a way that it can deal with any, and every deck. However, it takes a ridiculous amount of practice and preparation in order for it to be piloted well. Add that to the fact that the playstyle is extremely unappealing to a large amount of people...and well...
Lantern is the best deck in Modern, that no one is playing right now, because no one is properly skilled enough to play it.
I would counter this point with my (completely biased) opinion that Lantern Control is in fact the best deck in Modern. It has the most effective ways to disrupt and stop the largest number of decks in the format, and as it slowly gets more cards (like Whir and Sphere) the consistency of it's power slowly rises.
The problem with Lantern, and why it isn't played more, is simply the skill ceiling for the deck is just so damn high. Where your average Modern deck can yield you decent results with around 5ish hours of testing, in Lantern to do alright requires close to ten times that much preparation. I'd argue that to be a master with Lantern you need to put in 300 or more hours with the deck, and that isn't something many players would do. Specifically because of the type of deck Lantern is.
So Lantern is the best deck in Modern, that no one is playing in Modern, because no one knows how to play it in Modern.
Playing Lantern actually improved my skill at playing Magic as a whole.
Just throwing out my (completely biased) opinion that Lantern is the best deck in Modern that no one is playing, because no one is properly skilled enough to play it.
Teferi is interesting because you can tap out for him, but still hold up protection for him. Definitely an interesting card.
"The only thing Jace ruined in Modern was his reputation."
I think this honestly holds true for a fair number of cards on the banned list, and I'm fine with Modern breaking for a season if it means us slowly going over the banned list a few cards at a time to see what is and isn't truly worthy of expulsion from the format.
Now the first card you need to pick when creating a commander deck is the commander you want to be running, or at least what colour commander identity you want for your deck (we'll get into commander identity in a moment). In order for a card to be your commander it needs to fit the following criteria:
Your deck's colour identity is determined by all the coloured mana symbols in your commander's mana cost, as well as by any coloured mana symbols in the commander's rules text. Let me give you two examples with some new cards:
Muldrotha, the Gravetide has a mana cost of 3UBG. There are no mana symbols in her text box, so the deck's colour identity is Blue, Black, and Green.
Jodah, Archmage Eternal has a mana cost of 1WUR. However, in his text box he has WUBRG symbols in it. Because of this, the deck's colour identity is White, Blue, Black, Red, and Green.
Now the colour identity determines which cards you can, or can't run in your Commander Deck. Let's take the example of Muldrotha that I had above. My deck's colour identity is UBG. This means that in all of the cards in my deck they are not allowed to have W or R symbols in their mana costs, or anywhere in their rules text. Terminate? Nope. Avacyn's Pilgrim? Try again. Boros Reckoner? HAHAHA. No.
This colour restriction is applied to every single card in your deck, even lands. So I could never run a Temple Garden or a Tundra in my Muldrotha deck. But what about a card like Arid Mesa? Mesa doesn't have any mana symbols anywhere on the card, so I am actually able to run it in my Muldrotha deck if I wanted to. Additionally there is an exception that reminder text does not count. So I would be able to run a Crypt Ghast in my Muldrotha deck, even though it has a White hybrid mana in it's reminder text.
So you have your commander decided and you know your deck's colour identity. What comes next? Well next you build your deck and play a game of course! So lets go over some of the Commander specific game rules.
First off, your life total is 40 instead of the usual 20 you would have if you were playing a format like Standard or Modern.
Second is a new way for you to lose the game; Commander Damage. If over the course of a game you receive 21 or more combat damage from a single Commander, you lose the game. It doesn't matter how many times the Commander has died. It doesn't matter who controls the Creature. As soon as you are dealt that 21st point of damage, it's curtains for you.
Third is how your Commander is player. You Commander begins the game outside of your deck in a place called the Command Zone. While your commander is in the Command Zone, you may cast it from the Command Zone as if it were in your hand. Think of it as a card you always have in your hand, but your opponents know it is there, and it never counts towards your maximum hand size. Yes if you are running Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir or any other Legendary Creature with Flash, you can cast your Commander from the Command Zone at instant speed. If you Commander would ever leave the battlefield, you can choose to place it in the Command Zone instead of whatever zone it would be going to. So if your opponent casts a kill spell on your Commander, you can put it into the Command Zone instead of your graveyard. Or if an opponent is trying to get rid of your Commander with an Oblivion Ring, you can choose to put it in the Command Zone instead of the Exile Zone. Every time you go to cast your Commander, you pay it's mana cost plus what is called the Commander Tax. The value of the Commander Tax is an amount of generic mana equal to two times the number of times you have cast your Commander. For example if my Commander is Isamaru, Hound of Konda, it will cost me W to cast him from the Command Zone the first time. If one of my opponents kill him, the next time I go to cast him it will cost me 2W since I have already cast him one time this game. If he dies again it will cost me 4W to cast him, since I have already cast him twice this game.
That should cover most of how command works. Feel free to ask me any questions if you are still a little confused.
I've made the following changes to the list (OP will be edited soon):
Wayward Swordtooth -> The Gitrog Monster
Hypno Frog is much better than than our little Ramp Dino. I keep the ability to play extra lands, but also gain the ability to draw cards from using lands like Strip Mine or Wasteland. I get to blow up your land and draw a card? Ohhh gooody!
Evolutionary Leap -> Survival of the Fittest
So 9 times out of 10, Survival is a better card than Leap. Instead of getting a random creature, you get whichever one you want. However sometimes you want Leap as a sac outlet to be able to recycle some creatures. However Survival is just much better in more instances, so I will be making this change but keeping an eye out for a deck slot that I can use to put Leap back into the list.
Rhystic Study -> Monastery Siege
So...this change is going to look a little weird, but hear me out. Rhystic Study is a great card, but does this deck really need it? Consider that this deck is running, and making amazing use of Mystic Remora. Do we need to add Study to our deck with Remora in it? If we want another enchantment to help us draw cards, Siege is honestly a pretty good choice. If we get it early we can use it as a Howling Mine, but later in the game we can replay it as a way to help protect our Muldrotha. The versatility Siege gives us offsets how many fewer cards we'll be drawing every game by getting with of Study, or at least that is what I am hoping
EDIT: Some more changes I forgot to make note of:
Throne of the High City -> City of Brass
Rishadan Port -> Mana Confluence
One thing I noticed super quickly the first few times I played this list was just how many sources of mana I have that produce only colourless. So I took a quick look at my mana base and tried to figure out what lands I could cut to give me more access to coloured mana. I don't wanna cut Geier Reach Sanitarium is it's a great card advantage land for this deck. The same holds true for High Market since it's a sac outlet which lets me reuse creatures. Basically Throne and Port were the two lands that looked a little out of place to me, so I swapped them over for some lands that produce all the mana.
There are some other lands I could use to try and fix the mana issue such as Cascading Cataracts, Meteor Crater, or Thran Quarry. All of them have some of their own benefits and downsides, and I may end up slotting some of them into the list in the future.