Lavinia - Good disruptive commander. I feel GAAVI is probabably a bit stronger, but she meshes very well with the popular blink archetype and kills token decks. As 1 of the 99, if anything I feel she's a little worse - to fully take advantage of her ability you want to play her relatively early and as such she make a poor topdeck when everyone has 10+ mana and huge fatties.
Mirko - Yeah..no. While mill isn't always awful in EDH you either want it to be huge or as part of a strategy to take advantage of the stuff you're milling. Mirko does neither of those as a general. Especially as we've already got Szadek. As a tool in a Lazav or Wrexial deck it might work.
Exava - I could see her being good in a 1v1 aggro deck, but as a multiplayer general, I'm not convinced. If she had green in her identity mabye, but without there just doesn't seem to be the +1 counter support to really take advantage. As a non-general in some other decks (Jund particularly), she looks useful though
Ruric - I like it both as a general and as one of the 99 in the right deck. Interesting ability and a good body + semi-evasion. Only risk is annoying everyone at once.
Emmara - ....
Teysa - Does far too much. A mid sized body with evasion is nice. A No Mercy effect is nice. A token generator is nice. But none of them are what you want for 7CMC (although it is fair for all those abilities at once). You want to be playing cards that will start winning the game at that level and Teysa 2 doesn't do that.
Melek - This is more like it. Powerful, interesting abilities with lots of cool interactions. Great as a build around general, and in a deck thats heavy of I/S spells, could work as aone of the 99.
Varolz - So-so. Strikes me as being better as one of the 99 in Jarad or Skullbriar. That said, there are obviously some good interactions to build around as a general (Dreadnought etc)
Tajic - Probably better than Argus, worse than Jor. But still pretty much the same card. As someone has mentioned, indestructibility would normally go great with board wipes, but the need for dudes to help him out rules that out. Meh as a general, good as a non-general card in a RW(x) token or other creature heavy deck (Jor Kadeen in particular)
Vorel - My favourite. Maybe no super broken powerful, but he's just such an interesting card to use. There's plenty of stuff with counters to pay around with in his colours (well, not huge amounts in blue, but it can fetch up all the artifacts) that you can end up with a decnet number of ways to use him. As a general, build around, or drop him in a existing counter deck.
Overall a mixed bag. Vorel is probably the only one I'm really tempted to build, but there's some interesting options as commanders. Some bloody awful ones too.
Commander Teysa, Orzhov Scion - Interesting, usable abilities that make the deck better but aren't essential for it to work. Like the colours and the natural token based theme too.
Artifact Torpor Orb - For the hate. So funny watching people trying to get rid of a simple little two mana artifact only to realise all their removal is on ETB triggers....
Creature Vesuvan Shapeshifter - Clones are always fun. Clones that can reset for two mana are great. Not to mention, everyone thinks it's a Willbender (you're playing a morph in mono-U? It's always a Willbender) so are reluctant to throw big spells at you.
Enchantment Martyr's Cause - As long as I have spare dudes, you ain't touchin' me. And Teysa has oh so many ways to make said dudes.
If you dont like winning just make a deck with no win cons. Just set up your pillow fort and watch everyone fight and get second place everygame. Someone posted a deck like this i dont know where. Some thread about unbeatable board state.
Why settle for second place? Getting a draw is much better. If you really don't want to win, pillow fort up, then drop Divine Intervention. No-one wins
If not Torpor orb, how about a commander with a reusable (tap based probably) "counter triggered (and possible activated too) ability" ability? Stifle on a creature. That lets you shut down ETB effects but limits it to 1 per turn (obviously, some cards can increase this) to prevent total lock.
Although, I'll be honest, I'd love a Torpor Orb creature - there's all this talk of interaction, but how the hell am I supposed to interact with ETB abilities? If someone drops a....lets use the latest boogeyman and say Sylvan Primordial, what can I do to interact with it?
I'm torn on Jin vs Sylvan. While I certainly agree a resolved Jin, particularly very early (reanimated or whatever), is usually worse than a Sylvan, on the other hand, I think the former is the better card. It's more interesting to me, as it has a semi-drawback in that you can't actually hold all the cards you draw from him (without outside intervention) and is in general, a rather unique card (SP is, while not identical, along the same lines as Terastodon and so forth.)
I wish either Bruna or Hanna were in Bant. I'd love to build an enchantment based deck, and those are the two most interesting generals for that theme for me, but there's a few cards in green I always seem to want.
Agreed. Both those red ones are great. Stranglehold in particular is just beautiful for people's reactions when all their fancy tutors do nothing. The fact that it doesn't hurt you is just the icing on the cake. Probably my second favourite EDH card behind Torpor Orb
I'm not certain whether Sylvan is too powerful or not yet (I'm leaning towards too good), but I really dislike it as a card. Why? It's boring. There's no thought involved, no clever interactions, nothing. At least with Prime Time you could get some interesting combinations of land (admittedly, that was why it was so broken), but with SP you just ramp into it, play it and suddenly you've got a big boost and your opponents are weakened, not to mention a decent sized body with reach (probably not going to be off killing people, but it makes an excellent blocker). If it was just the removal side of it, you might want to hold it back if there weren't that many good targets in play, but as it is, even if all you do is hit a basic land off everyone, you've got a huge step up over everyone.
Mirko - Yeah..no. While mill isn't always awful in EDH you either want it to be huge or as part of a strategy to take advantage of the stuff you're milling. Mirko does neither of those as a general. Especially as we've already got Szadek. As a tool in a Lazav or Wrexial deck it might work.
Exava - I could see her being good in a 1v1 aggro deck, but as a multiplayer general, I'm not convinced. If she had green in her identity mabye, but without there just doesn't seem to be the +1 counter support to really take advantage. As a non-general in some other decks (Jund particularly), she looks useful though
Ruric - I like it both as a general and as one of the 99 in the right deck. Interesting ability and a good body + semi-evasion. Only risk is annoying everyone at once.
Emmara - ....
Teysa - Does far too much. A mid sized body with evasion is nice. A No Mercy effect is nice. A token generator is nice. But none of them are what you want for 7CMC (although it is fair for all those abilities at once). You want to be playing cards that will start winning the game at that level and Teysa 2 doesn't do that.
Melek - This is more like it. Powerful, interesting abilities with lots of cool interactions. Great as a build around general, and in a deck thats heavy of I/S spells, could work as aone of the 99.
Varolz - So-so. Strikes me as being better as one of the 99 in Jarad or Skullbriar. That said, there are obviously some good interactions to build around as a general (Dreadnought etc)
Tajic - Probably better than Argus, worse than Jor. But still pretty much the same card. As someone has mentioned, indestructibility would normally go great with board wipes, but the need for dudes to help him out rules that out. Meh as a general, good as a non-general card in a RW(x) token or other creature heavy deck (Jor Kadeen in particular)
Vorel - My favourite. Maybe no super broken powerful, but he's just such an interesting card to use. There's plenty of stuff with counters to pay around with in his colours (well, not huge amounts in blue, but it can fetch up all the artifacts) that you can end up with a decnet number of ways to use him. As a general, build around, or drop him in a existing counter deck.
Overall a mixed bag. Vorel is probably the only one I'm really tempted to build, but there's some interesting options as commanders. Some bloody awful ones too.
Teysa, Orzhov Scion - Interesting, usable abilities that make the deck better but aren't essential for it to work. Like the colours and the natural token based theme too.
Artifact
Torpor Orb - For the hate. So funny watching people trying to get rid of a simple little two mana artifact only to realise all their removal is on ETB triggers....
Creature
Vesuvan Shapeshifter - Clones are always fun. Clones that can reset for two mana are great. Not to mention, everyone thinks it's a Willbender (you're playing a morph in mono-U? It's always a Willbender) so are reluctant to throw big spells at you.
Enchantment
Martyr's Cause - As long as I have spare dudes, you ain't touchin' me. And Teysa has oh so many ways to make said dudes.
Land
Terrain Generator - Reusable land based ramp? Why, thank you.
Sorcery
Rite of Replication - It's an obvious choice, but it's just so much fun.
Instant
Dominate - Yes, it's mana intensive, but an instant speed permanent creature theft is just delicious. Particularly if I use it more than once
Planeswalker
Sorin, Lord of Innistrad - Basically because it's the only PW I have in an EDH deck. Pretty useful though.
Why settle for second place? Getting a draw is much better. If you really don't want to win, pillow fort up, then drop Divine Intervention. No-one wins
Although, I'll be honest, I'd love a Torpor Orb creature - there's all this talk of interaction, but how the hell am I supposed to interact with ETB abilities? If someone drops a....lets use the latest boogeyman and say Sylvan Primordial, what can I do to interact with it?
Agreed. Both those red ones are great. Stranglehold in particular is just beautiful for people's reactions when all their fancy tutors do nothing. The fact that it doesn't hurt you is just the icing on the cake. Probably my second favourite EDH card behind Torpor Orb
Yeah, that art is phenomenal and it's a crime there's no paper version of it. I would straight away build a Hanna deck if that saw print.
That one creature of course being Rafiq. Because everyone loves getting hit for 22 general damage with prot/ everything in a single swing...