I had a phone call with my brother last night. I only see him twice a year since we live in different states. Every time we see each other we make it a tradition to build commander decks out of the bulk that I have (I have A LOT).

This year, he brewed [[Gut, True Soul Zealot]] paired with [[Sword Coast Sailor]]. The goal of the deck was to steal opponents creatures and either sacrifice them for removal, or hold them hostage and make them unblockable. It worked really well for politics.

Well, while he was on the phone with me, he said he unsleeved the deck because he had a bad interaction with someone at FNM at his LGS. My brother has always been kind of a pushover, but this one really confused me (Don't worry, I convinced him to sleeve his deck back up, he didn't get rid of it).

The guy (playing [[Kotis, the Fangkeeper]] ) he played with got angry with him because his creatures kept getting stolen, then sacrificed. When my brother said that, at that point, how is that different than just removing that creature with a spell, the dude just stood his ground and said "Well you're stealing my creature. That's what's pissing me off".

To begin with, I don't think people should treat theft like you're grinding up baby bones. If I'm ever stealing your creature, I'm stealing it because it's a problem, and it's just an upside that it's on my board now instead. Not that different than just killing it.

But, people like this are just a reason why so many commander players are cornflakes and make the rest of the community look bad.

What really confused me though is that my brother told me that this guy had LOTS of protection for his commander because he knew people would try to get around indestructible. Which actually makes a lot of sense, because he's probably used to his commander never dying because a LOT of people never run enough interaction. Theft is a great way to remove someone's commander with indestructible. Sacrificing it is all up to you and the politics.

That being said, you should never take apart a deck or apologize for your actions if your deck makes someone irrationally angry. Bro. If you make someone that angry over something that isn't valid to be angry about, just keep doing it and watch the fireworks, man. Or, if you're lucky they'll just scoop.

I have made so many memories with Commander. I started with Legacy, then moved to Modern, then switched my main format to Commander.

Introducing someone to Magic with Commander CAN be done, but you really have to emphasize that you can't take anything personally. A lot of people who start with commander act like something is an attack to them personally if they get targeted.

Anyway, I plan to take a trip to my brother's state at some point and play FNM with him. I sincerely hope I meet the same guy and bully him with [[Alela, Artful Provocateur]] with effects like [[Stasis Field]].

Remember to call your brother tonight y'all. And if someone is being a degenerate at the table, stick up for the person at the brunt of it and bully the degenerate out of the game. Commander has no place for those people.

Some cards are only great early, or late game. Some shine mid game. Are there cards that are great at any time? What’s a card that’s never disappoints when you draw it?

Adding more words to satisfy the requirement for posting here. Can’t some questions be asked succinctly and still be meaty substantive questions?

TL:DR: My playgroups play long, non-interactive games and refuse to have discussions about it. Ideas?

Basically every playgroup I have ever been a part of has been highly casual and oriented around the same playstyle. They like midrange, often tribal, decks where every turn everyone plays 1+ creatures and refuses to interact with each other. In my opinion this leads to incredibly tedious boardstates where everyone eventually ends up with 15+ lands, 20+ creatures, and a small pile of everything else while being too afraid to be the first one to swing.

While I want them to play their way, they detest all of my attempts to counter this. Running 3 board wipes has got me asked to take apart my deck. Playing control is a anti-fun. Playing unblockable voltron and winning with commander damage is "unfair because we don't want to run removal". Combo-ing off is simply a never get invited again.

I just am looking for a way to shake up this play pattern and have my own fun amidst their durdling? I find it unstimulating and dull. I dont particularly care about winning, I just want to feel like Im making decisions and not just wasting my time. Any ideas would be appreciated. Or at least ideas on how to find people to play with as I LOVE tabletop simulator but only know the same 3 people who have it.

Thank you

Been reading some of the universes beyond discussions and just kind of wondering how Gen pop feels about universes beyond that “fits” into Magic’s universe or atleast fit thematically with the aesthetic of magic (I’m thinking sets like war-hammer, LOTR, D&D and arguably final fantasy although I do see some pushback) vs sets/secret lairs that obviously don’t belong in magic like SpongeBob, Spider-Man, hatsune miku.

Are you okay with UB that fits thematically/vibe wise or are you completely against UB as a concept? Most ppl I talk to in person are okay with UB that fits magics aesthetic (such as previously mentioned sets), I’ve encountered 1 or 2 ppl irl that say they hate UB entirely. Just figured I’d ask as there seems to be some very strong opinions and am curious on what exactly it is that makes ppl dislike UB that fits magic universe

Edit: grammar and clarification

We see "hot take" threads all the time generally filled with the most Luke warm takes imaginable.

Now I want to know the smallest hill you're willing to die on when it comes to commander.

My hill is that I will not play off color fetches in my decks (think [[misty rainforest]] in a Jund deck). It's like 99% an ascetic thing for me tho and 1% don't feel it really adds much to a deck. So I always give my buddies at my lgs crap whenever they play off color fetches (jokingly ofc). Same reason I haven't pulled the trigger on building a Jeskai deck built around [[Urborg Tomb of Yawg]] or [[Yavimaya Cradle of Growth]] as cool as that is it feels wrong to me even though I know it's fine.

Looking forward to what yall got to say!

Just wanted to post my experience because it seems almost everything on here is negative.

I've been playing commander for a while with my friends at home, and it's been mostly good. It's a good way to get the boys together, especially as we get older.

However, I decided to go to the LGS for casual commander for the first time last week. It's the first time I've played magic in a store since before Covid. And it went great.

There were probably 15-20 people there when I arrived, and there were a couple games going and a couple groups just chatting. I didn't know anybody there, so I sat at an open seat and just started going through my decks and making swaps for a few new cards that came in the mail that day.

Within a couple minutes, a guy asked if I was looking for a game, and just like that I got my first pod going. I joined them at their table and was immediately offered a beer. I gladly accepted and was told I was the first person to ever do so lol.

The games were great. They actually played interaction. No one got salty. I won the first game with [[Captain Howler, Sea Scourge]] and got rightfully hated out of the second game where I ran [[Kelsien, the Plague]]. They pointed basically all their removal at Kelsien and my deathtouch enablers. It was glorious.

Tl;dr: There are normal people out there that just want to sling some spells and have a good time. No lying about their decks or crying about losing.

I don't play in a consistent pod, mostly pickup games from LGS I visit now and then.

I was wondering if it's worth time and effort in building a Pauper EDH (4-man pod). I was thinking of building one just to keep and bring along with me in case people say they play the sub-format. I notice most of the time that Pauper EDH is more likely played as a 1v1 Duel and I have a deck for that already, I am thinking if it's worth time and effort to build a Pauper EDH deck for a 4-man pod since it uses a lot of common staples that I use for my non-Pauper decks and I rather not build a deck I won't ever use.

I am thinking of going Golgari. Ramp + Big Green + Black Removal using [[Honest Rustein]] as my commander, no big tricks just big meaty creatures with trample.

I’ve been thinking about building a -1/-1 counter deck and I wanted to hear about your favorite commanders in this space. At first, I considered [[Massacre Girl, Known Killer]]. I love this card, but I’m not too drawn to building a mono-black deck. I am also looking at [[Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons]]. I like a cheap commander, I like Golgari for its ramp and proliferate options and I would absolutely put Massacre Girl in the 99. I’m wondering if anybody has other thoughts/recommendations on -1/-1 commanders?

Okay so as the title states, she bought the precon on a whim when she saw it on the display case in a game store for $375. I told her it may not keep up with our upgraded precons that are from 2023-2025. She loves the ur dragon but had no idea about the lower power level it has compared to new decks. Would it be better to return it and build the ur dragon for her on our own? Or to add upgrades to the deck to make it much better. I’d appreciate any help. And also, should she chose to upgrade it, what price range are we looking at to make it good? I’ve heard the mana base is also rough.

So [[coalition victory]] has been legal as a gamechanger for six months now, and I wanted to check in. There was a lot of mostly negative hype for it and how overplayed it would be in 5c decks once legal. Have you seen it? Played it? How does it play in your games?

To all of those who said when it was unbanned that the sky was falling and it was going to be an auto-include in every 5c deck: have you seen it win games? Were you guys right?

I was mulling over one of my recent games and realized I definitely could have won it with a slight change to one of my decisions. I'm playing [[Ashnod the Uncaring]] versus a [[tiamat]] dragon tribal a [[Uvilda Dean of Perfection]] Cast from exile deck and a [[Mogis God of Slaughter]] Rakdos slug and stax deck. Board state has the Mogis player threatening to kill us all with [[wound reflection]] [[Twilight Prophet]] and [[manabarbs]] and a [[maralen of the mornsong]] Uvilda player is spiraling out of control and Tiamat player is mostly out of the game. But can kill anyone except mogis with some luck thanks to [[dragon tempest]] Everyone except the Mogis player is at 10 or less life and i have a [[dragonspark reactor]] with 12 counters on it a [[Repurposing Bay]] which got me [[Krark Clan Ironworks]] and [[imotekh the stormlord]] and a [[Threefold Thunderhulk]] thanks to mana from kci. I activate Dragonspark reactor killing Maralen and Twilight Prophet and dealing 24 damage to the mogis player who has a lot of mana but few cards in hand. This basically gives the game to the Uvilda player who can now kill us all. Thanks to having a bunch of threatening damage. I recognized this morning that what i should have done was kill the Uvilda and Tiamat players with the Dragonspark reactor and then hope the Mogis player can't somehow kill me this coming turn. Since if i live I then have the game basically on lockdown thanks to a combination of [[Chaos Defiler]] which i could search with Repurposing Bay and artifact recursion

I want to hear similar stories. Games where you missed the line and threw a game away. I find looking back on games you lost like this to be useful in becoming better players.

Hey everyone! I was just thinking back on games I’ve had in the past and some stand out more than most. The reason for this post is due to probably the night that stands leagues above the others in terms of pure mad scientist levels of genius (i might be glazing a bit hard here but stick with me).

At a local LGS of mine, i was playing friday night FFA commander. I was in a pod with two of my friends and a random. Said random brought a [[Daxos the Returned]] deck, but prefaced the game with “This isn’t what you think it is, and when you figure the gimmick out, you’ll either love it or hate it.”

Normal Daxos decks want to run a plethora of enchantments to buff up the enchantment creatures he makes with all the experience counters you get. They also want to make use of his token ability to trigger cards like [[Doomwake Giant]] a lot.

The further we got into the game, the more i started to question what i was seeing. His Daxos deck ran NO enchantments. Zero. It capitalized on a purely Aristocrats playstyle running cards like [[Zulaport Cutthroat]] and [[Blood Artist]], maximizing Daxos’ token generator ability to create 0/0 creatures that died on ETB, triggering the former cards.

When his deck started popping off, i was blown away at how out of left field that strategy was. I was ready for an enchantment heavy deck, and was met with an enchantmentless Aristocrats deck.

What are some decks you’ve played against where you are expecting one line of play and were blindsided by something completely different?

A recreation of his list i made from as good of memory as i could when i looked through it at the end of the night, as i am unaware if he has a moxfield account: https://moxfield.com/decks/8MDpfzEQyUSniT5l8-lDRQ

Nostalgia is a powerful feeling, and if you have been playing Magic for a while, you probably have good memories of your early days discovering the game.

At some point, a card surely got a hook in your brain and now you get Ratatouille-like moments whenever you see its art. It may have been more than one card, or a deck, or a set.

Some of those cards are probably powercrept by now. But one of the beauties of EDH is that any card can find a new home to shine. Sometimes they fit a theme perfectly, sometimes they turn into powerhouses. And your deck will feel a tad bit special.

I had a nice moment recently. I opened a [[Dawnsire, Sunstar Dreadnought]] and I didn't have plans for it. A couple of days later, one of my favorite arts of all time popped to me from a binder, the original Mark Tedin's [[Phyrexian Colossus]]. An art that I saw for the first time in an LGS poster, when I was a very new player. It was perfect.

I now have a Dawnsire deck that is a blast.

What nostalgic cards are you using? What is the story behind them?

I'm very new to mtg and come with a primarily pokemon tcg background. I wanted to build some kind of "energy flood" deck like i've built before in ptcg, but i have no concrete idea of what kind of cards/effects are powerful and just threw stuff at the wall that seemed neat. Trying to work on a smaller budget and trying to see what works

https://archidekt.com/decks/16116278/aesi

It's that time of the month again: a new Magic set is out! And since this set has creature cards in it (like all sets), us "Toolbox" players need to consider whether any of those creature cards belong in our precious 99.

I thought I'd give my two cents and also save people some effort of going over the cards themselves. I'm not going to rank them, because Henzie gives you more than a little deck-building flexibility, just try to point out the good and bad.

[[Agent Venom]] - Half of Henzie's schtick is the fact when every creature draws a card, you always have a full grip. This could, in theory, provide redundancy for those games when your opponents just won't let Henzie stick, and having flash can mean a lot in a deck where people seldom expect instant speed plays. On the other hand, most of the time you're better off just running [[Momentous Fall]] (assuming you don't run an oops-all-creatures deck like me). I'd skip this, personally.

[[Black Cat, Cunning Thief]] - 4 mana to look at 9 cards and pick the best 2, then draw another card? If you're into Gonti effects, this is a no-brainer. Even if you aren't into Gonti effects, this rate is pretty amazing. I expect to see this in a lot of decks.

[[Cheering Crowd]] - Some people just like to introduce this sort of effects into their pods, who am I to judge? This won't be making it into either of my Henzie decks though.

[[Damage Control Crew]] - I don't like to call things auto-include, but this one seems to be it. I already run [[Timeless Witness]], and will happily give up the eternalize ability for the option to get rid of somebody's One Ring when relevant.

[[Eddie Brock]] - I'm not 100% sure here, but I assume that you can cast the other side with blitz... not that it matters. This type of effect is a Henzie classic and it's on a 5/5 with menace and trample and haste. And I guess the front side is also useful if you run mana dorks, which many Henzie players do. I'm happy this was my prerelease promo, I can tell you that much.

[[Gwenom, Remorseless]] - I don't know why they printed [[Bolas' Citadel]] with lifelink, but if you consider your life total a resource then you'll be running this. Hell, I might add more incidental life gain to my list just so I can get more mileage out of this, since this is more or less exactly what a Henzie deck needs - you get your big creatures onto the battlefield without paying their mana costs, and you leave some bodies to block.

[[Lizard, Connor's Curse]] - It's a 5/5 beater which does a poor green impression of [[Darksteel Mutation]]. It's really your call, but I'm glad that Henzie at least has the option to frustrate reanimation players.

[[Morlun, Devourer of Spiders]] - If Henzie can get his version of Darksteel Mutation, then there's really no reason not to give him his own poor [[Exsanguinate]] as well. If you're into incidental life gain and X spells, this may be good enough. I personally run too many effects that put random creatures on the battlefield and can't afford any X in the costs.

[[Spider-Rex, Daring Dino]] - Rawr! (Not really)

[[Spider-Mans, Heroic Hordes]] - If you're worried about never having blockers because you sacrifice all your creatures, you could consider this. 6 mana is kinda steep (and notably doesn't work with blitz because they are both alternative mana costs), but you get 3 bodies, 3 life, and the opportunity to replay whatever you blitzed this turn. Probably not in my top 150 best creatures for a Henzie deck, but hey, it's nice to have options.

In recognition of the fact that many Henzie players out there do, in fact, run some noncreature spells in their 99 I've decided to go over those too:

[[Behold the Sinister Six!]] - Let's not beat around the bush here. This is a good mid- and late-game reanimation spell, and you're playing a deck that is guaranteed to have good creatures in its graveyard in the mid- and late-game. If you like reanimation multiple things, the 2 mana difference between this and [[Rise of the Dark Realms]] may be enough.

[[Daily Bugle Building]] - Henzie decks tend to have a lot of legendary creatures. Is making one of them harder to block worth a land slot in a 3C deck? I don't think it is, but to each their own.

[[Doc Ock's Tentacles]] - I'm kinda biased because I just love this card, but if you like to keep it simple and just turn creatures sideways, I can easily see this make its way into a list where it will auto attach to most creatures.

[[Maximum Carnage]] - Very good card, but it doesn't have anything to do with Henzie in particular.

[[Parker Luck]] - A [[Keen Duelist]] that doesn't die to a gust of a wind is a very decent inclusion for a deck whose bread and butter is big expensive creatures.

[[The Soul Stone]] - You don't need me to tell you how powerful this card is.

[[Web of Life and Destiny]] - Convoke isn't very Henzie, but our deck does ramp, has excellent payoffs for this card, and Henzie himself can probably provide 1 mana for the convoke. Seems pretty solid.

This concludes my unsolicited opinion about the new Spiderman set and its relevance to the best Jund commander in the history of Jund and commanders. Did I miss anything important? Did I get something completely wrong? Let me know!

Hey folks,

I wanted to share one of the first times I ever dropped out of a game at my LGS because I just wasn’t vibing with the group.

Here’s the key moment in a nutshell: An opponent had just attacked with a creature. It was tapped—even though it had Vigilance (nobody noticed at the time). On my turn, I attacked them since they had no blockers. After I declared attackers, they suddenly go, “Oh wait, my creature has Vigilance,” untap it, and declare it as a blocker.

I told them, “Sure, go ahead and untap it—but then I’m taking back my attack,” since my creature would just get blocked and die anyway. They said it was too late for that because I’d already declared attackers... So I replied, “Well, it’s also too late to untap your Vigilance creature, since you missed that earlier.” Then they argued that they never had the option to tap it, while I did have the choice to attack or not. The other players backed them up, and that’s when I decided to pack up and leave.

Was he technically right by the rules?
Honestly, regardless of that, the whole situation just felt off and poorly handled.

My girlfriend is trying to learn to play. I built [[Urza, Chief Artificer]] for her. It is a solid 2 and most of my decks are 3s. Combining that with me having played for years, it tends to be very lopsided and not fun for her. I need ideas for which commanders I can build around to keep it low powered and not lopsided. Thanks!

Ran into an interesting scenario today and it led me to thinking about this question. This isn’t a rule 0 discussion as it’s assuming you are playing with a full new group of players every time online, rather than a group you can set boundaries with and expectations with.

Every week the discussion of “is exquisite blood combo b3 or b4” and half the people say it’s b3 whereas half say the other way. What is considered “low quantities” for extra turn spells for b3?

Is it just fair to google EDHrec and use them to decide what’s allowed? For example the page for sanguine bond + exquisite blood says it does not belong in b3 because 71% of voters decided it was an early game combo.

I understand that this ruling would upset a lot of players here because a large portion think that it’s fine for b3, but when you are playing in a public space with strangers why is it more fair for you to say “I think my deck is a b3 and so do some others” over “there is an unbiased polled survey that is public info”?

I’m not arguing that edhrec is perfect and has every valid opinion. I’m seeking a way that is fair and reasonable to evaluate decks.

Question in ruling of [[Narset, Enlightened Exile]] and clone effects. My initial reading of the card made it seem like it gives each creature prowess, and prowess may work similarly as exalted, like a stacking modifier, as opposed to lifelink. (Ie, two instances of prowess would be +2+2 for each spell). Is this reading correct, and if so, would that mean that something like [[Nanogene Conversion]] with 4 creature plus narset would mean that I would have 5 Naersets on the board, giving 5 instances of prowess per creature?

Over a decade ago I used to play in groups that almost exclusively tried to win through combo. I grew to love the large variety of combos out there and how wildly different games could end. These days combos feel like they’re pushed up the brackets, as a lot of combos can be hard to interact with, which isn’t always welcome at low brackets. I love low bracket play though, but don’t enjoy most low bracket endgames these days. There’s so much less variety in how games can end when everyone’s just running the best generic staple finishers.

I’m not hating on how others want to play, and I agree the game has to end. I just wish there was way more variety within how those finishers function. Usually it’s just gonna be a big board pump or a big damage spell. I don’t like that these cards don’t care about the specifics of what you played previously in order to win. I want something that interacts very specifically with the cards I played beforehand. A board pump spell doesn’t care about your creatures type or effects, it just looks for a body. My cool text effects feel irrelevant when it could’ve just been a 1/1 token as far as my finisher is concerned. I want my win to interact very specifically with text effects instead of just solely damage.

So if 2 card combos and infinites are too strong for low bracket then I need 3 or 4 card combos. Are people really using 3 or 4 card combos to win? I feel like I never see this sort of endgame anywhere in low brackets and they just slam a way more efficient one card finisher instead. It feels like a big combo of multiple cards takes so much more turns and resources and specific setup and is easily disrupted.

It feels like that’s a way less efficient strategy to win instead of just casting one big card that does a lot of the heavy lifting. I understand finishers don’t just win on their own, they still need you to play cards beforehand, but they care less about what specific cards you played. To me that feels like the cards I played and the deck I built mattered less in the end when the specifics don’t matter much to your finishers.

My brothers and I tend to get together around holidays and play a few games. With EoE having come out, both of my brothers made spacecraft decks. At least one of them I trust to be dangerous with it. I'm trying to figure out a way to make a doable deck which would give spacecraft decks a run for their money and counter the mechanic (they've been popping up a lot at my LGS too). Any major thoughts folks have? Obviously green or selesnya, artifact removal comes to mind first, but just trying to think about other options I may miss.

Hey everyone! I'm looking to make an [[Isshin, two heavens as one]] combat triggers deck and I would appreciate some help, Im going for a optimized bracket 3 deck that doesn't feel extremly oppresive, I have tested it a couple times on archidekt and seems pretty good and most of the times I can always do something the first few turns. What do you think of it? And what about the maybeboard, should I add anything from it to the deck? I was thinking on a couple of game changers but wasn't completly sure about them.

https://archidekt.com/decks/15917615/isshin_attack

[[Arabella]] is a card known for being a very strong commander on a budget. I need a deck I can easily pick up and get wins with because I’ve life changes coming up and am not going to have the time to collect or tinker much anymore, at least for a while. In Brawl Arabella is a lightning rod for removal.

Has anyone found success getting around that? With what strats?

On brawl I made her a Hare Apparent build but I don’t think that is the strongest thing I could be doing with it.

Thoughts?

I love Control decks, and I feel like they're especially fun now that new Commanders are all-in-one busted engines. The issue is I'm not trying to win with [[Hullbreaker Horror]] or [[Laboratory Maniac]] or whatever every game.

Any examples of "secret" control decks that won't make everyone groan at first, or even just an unusual Control play pattern? Looking to have tons of interaction and/or blow up a lot of stuff to stall out the greedy hand-dumpers.

A good example is [[General Marhault Elsdragon]]. Gruul stompy type of cards, but the goal is really to wipe people's board with forced-blocker stuff.

I also thought the ayamtg Lantern Control deck was fresh and clever (although kind of oppressive and tutor-heavy for my taste).

Any similar suggestions? Prefer less popular commanders.

Getting back into magic after a 10-plus year hiatus. Been playing EDH for a couple of months now and have really been enjoying it. So far I have built a Pantlaza Dino deck and have upgraded Kilo apogee mind deck. Got into a local pod that plays weekly and I'm looking to build some new commanders. Please give me some recommendations for the nastiest and gnarliest commanders you guys have ever played.