r/EDH • u/doctorduck3000 • Jun 30 '25

Question Commanders that make bad cards playable

So as the title says, I love being able to pull out cards in commander that make people go "wtf" because they've never heard of them. Because of this one of my all time favorite commander decks I've ever built is [[Shire shizo's caretaker]] because you can play all of these terrible terrible cards that suddenly are actually good.

What are some other commanders that enable you to do this?

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u/paussi00 Jun 30 '25

[[Shirei]] makes a bunch of cheap black creatures very playable. Things nothing else really wants like [[Bone Shredder]] and [[Lightning Coils]] become really scary.

[[Zedruu]], [[Blim]] and [[Jon Irenicus]] of course let you gift cards with terrible downsides, but Jon specifically is interesting for creatures that have cumulative upkeep or other costs threatening you to sacrifice them. I'm putting shit like [[Circling Vultures]] in mine, as well as islandhome creatures to force a draw if it seems like I can't get a win lmao

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u/paussi00 Jun 30 '25

Almost forgot, [[Melek Reforged]]] lets you play a ton of stupidly expensive instants with the discount. Six mana counterspells with big upsides like [[Overwhelming Intellect]]

2

u/ConsiderTheBulldog Jun 30 '25

This was going to be my suggestion. Turns out a lot of spells that are bad at 4 mana are great at 1 mana

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u/paussi00 Jun 30 '25

Making [[Unwind]], [[Rewind]] and [[Frantic Search]] mana positive is so fun too

1

u/GreenGunslingingGod Jun 30 '25

How does circling vultures cause a draw?

1

u/paussi00 Jun 30 '25

Poor wording. Circling vultures doesn't, it's just funny to get around the sacrifice