I wish the editor would show a flash of whatever card they're bringing up as alternatives. Here I was with moxfield in another tab trying to figure out what name Tomer said
Imma make a hot take and say Edgar Markov, Theres a lot of good Vampire commanders nowadays and Edgar feels like the most generic option (Said at 13:56 , so Idk if he comes up in the video yet)
Gang: But Selesnya gives humans access to green. Crim: but Mardu has black. Gang: But Selesnya gives humans access to green. Crim: but Mardu has black.
My eyebrows were kinda raised when they said Green had the second most humans ngl, it has the least humans. The thing is humans are so generic none of them are even wrong, Chulane is as valid as any of them.
Theoretically Mardu is the better color combo, but for flavor, Mardu just doesn't match the theme Kyler is going for or what he represents/represented. Selesnya is way on theme for the type of deck Kyler represents. Humans working together to overcome the odds, especially the plane that Kyler is in, Innistrad.
As someone who has built Aesi and Kyler, you are totally right. Aesi makes everyone groan as you draw 6 cards per turn and play big creatures only to get murdered by the table. Kyler is a removal magnet or a mathematical nightmare, take your pick of misery.
I absolutely hate +1/+1 counters because of cards like Kyler. Even if I'm not the one playing them you have to sit there and wait for the dozens of die to be rolled haha
Tomer, Scion doesn't quite work that way. Once the ability resolves, it loses the ability. This means that you can't turn it into one dragon to kill player A, and then turn it into a second dragon to kill player B. At most you can put multiple instances of the ability on the stack to rapidly turn Scion into different dragons, but all of the abilities have to go onto the stack at the same time. This is why Moltensteel & Skithiryx works (because you can put moltensteel's firebreathing on the stack before Scion becomes Skithiryx), but Old Gnawbone & charger wouldn't (because once Scion becomes charger, it's no longer old gnawbone, and vice versa). Scion can kill one player at a time and is very good at it, but it's not as good as I think you think it is.
Scion's best combo potential is being an entomb + payoff for a Worldgorger combo, since you can entomb the Worldgorger and transform into Bhaal's Invoker for infinite burn damage from the Worldgorger mana (with the potential to do this on a single turn with enough mana up, or split over two turns like a janky splinter twin.)
i think scion is still like crazy strong. Like the Ur dragon is cool okay what about i just cheat the ur dragon in the graveyard and scion becomes it for a turn and i draw a card and put the best permanent into play for free on like turn 5. re animate the ur dragon the next turn.
There's so many humans now you can build your human deck around specific themes: +1/+1 counter humans, Aristocrat humans, Legendary humans, token humans, etc...
I like Atraxa because you can proliferate other types of counters that are otherwise not interacted with. Charge counters, shield counters and level counters to name a few
Phil's goblin dig makes so much sense. Krenko = consistency. Muxus = chaos. Now between chaos and consistency which do you think fits the goblin mantra more?
@Joshua Cohen I mean, your opinion is basically "the one edhrec says is better is clearly the best" so i dont really give a shit for that trash, but to sweaty little tryhards that desperately need that win sure I bet krenko is somehow "flavorful and fun"
@1:01:10 in addition to the "main things in green" Crim is mentioning, Champion of Lambholdt is a HOUSE in most +1/+1 counter decks that love going wide. She is in my Hamza build. White has a good amount of protection and Green gives the card draw and overrun type of effects, (while I think the best overrun spell is in white, Akroma's Will).
Before the Ur dragon, I played with scion. The deck is more combo/voltron than go wide with fatties. Scion is also very consistent so each game you feel like you have the same lines of play. Scion also will get you targeted by the pod because with no interaction it can kill as soon as you untap with it.
I love how this group can say "I love telling people they are wrong", but it's totally fine. Everyone here is just having fun, and even if they tell you you're wrong, it isn't a big deal. If anything, everyone here would love to see you play "wrong" fun cards. : )
Morophon Wizard Tribal continues to be underrated. So many wizards with 3-5 colors in the cmc, really make good use of that cost reduction Atraxa saproling tribal theoretically goes hard with the fungus counter proliferation
Morophon only reduces Azami by 1, completely disregarded XD Nah just kidding, that sounds less cookie cutter than Inalla. Access to White and Green gives you a ton of hate bear Wizards, though they don't really need Morophon to be efficient. Kenrith might be more useful for Haste enabling. Access to Stonybrook Schoolmaster is also very cool. I use Niv-Mizzet, Parun w/o Curiosity effects as my Wizard Commander. Absolutely dumb with Harmonic Prodigy. Never have to worry about my ratio of Wizards-to-spells because they all cantrip. 😄
Morophon can’t be overrated because it’s like the most obvious punchline in Magic. Up there with “dredges got a new toy” and all the Goldfish type memes of “this is good in soul sisters/Is panharmonicon for X”.
I wonder if Morophon sees play because he is less expensive than cards like the Ur Dragon. If I hadn't bought the dragon commander deck when it came out, I would find The Ur Dragon's current price to be prohibitive and I wouldn't play him for that reason
I play Kyler because I always wanted all innistrad tribe decks and I can indeed tell you it's actually fun. He is almost always left unchecked and when you untap you can go lethal by casting a couple of cheap humans
some of the innistrad humans have wonderful evasion. black is the most prominent color in my playgroup, so i included the little dude with swampwalk, and then the two dudes with pro zombies. never expect the innistrad draft deck in commanda
Everything Phil said about Muxxus is sooooo correct. I run grenzo dungeon warden as my goblin commander and it's so much fun. Krenko should just be in the 99
In defense of Morophon Slivers, since it's colorless to cast you're able to build a non-5-color mana base around whatever tribe you're in. I have brewed a "Naya Slivers" deck around Morophon, where i run a budget Naya mana base and a bunch of Slivers that are in Naya colors, or are R/X G/X W/X. Morophon's discount is really good for that tribe honestly.
Yes, very powerful. A guy in my local group runs this. At some point he will draw all the creatures in his deck and be able to play them for free. It is an interesting way to play slivers. Most people play queen and combo off, overlord and tutor first and hivelord immediately, or first sliver as a budget sliver deck. Those decks all play the same every time and we all know how they play. I run The Prismatic Bridge sliver deck to make the tribe unique.
Kess is about how milling is card draw. She also nearly doubles the value of rituals. Her niche is double dark ritual or cyc rift into another cyc rift. Her goal is usually combo, but she also has 2 boardwipes per boardwipe, 2 draws per draw etc. She double downs on value spells that don't exile. Aka a blue spell slinger that doesn't run every extra turn spell. Only some :)
Kyler is fun and solid but also requires some skill. He has to stick on the field but once he does you can win. Attacking with 20 dorks that are all 20/20s is great. You don't go aristocrats because you care about the humans. Kyler is the one who unifies and inspires the humans in a world where everything preys upon them. You are facing down the vampire lords, hordes of zombies, and werewolves are your gates. You need to stand together and Kyler is there for it.
Crim: “I just really dislike eminence.” Crim in the very next breath: “I just really like the mana reduction.” Also Crim (probably): “I only eat green M&Ms, the yellow ones are yucky.”
If you do a human tribal week you should do a video where you do a snake draft humans from all of MtG history to join your team (deck list) Once a human is picked nobody else can put it in their deck.
Scion of ur dragon was my first dragon commander (then ur, then ramos right now) but scion of ur dragon is REALLY BORING because it is so consistent. If you dont block, my first transformation is going to be og nicol bolas, and opponent discard their hand is over for that player. Having tutor ability in your commander is really boring. Ur-Dragon is actually MORE fun than scion because there's more variety with less consistency.
I have a khler deck and I think you're missing the fact that blink is absolutely busted with kyler or going tokens Increasing devotion makes 5 5/5 for 5. Wyrms crossing patrol a 1/1 with myriad becomes 4 4/4s on attack with the myriad sure the deck can be kinda weak to mass removal or kyler being killed every time you play it but the same is true for any go wide deck or commander focused deck
I've played a LOT of dragons. A LOT. Scion is the dragon deck for winning, but it's super boring because you tutor the same 5 dragons every game. Tiamat is similar with the same-y ness. Ur-Dragon and Morophon are both loads of fun because every game is different (if you don't run a bunch of tutors), where you're just getting to play big dumb dragons. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but it's like singleton mid-range dragons. The archtype has gotten too strong lately and I've switched to Ur-dragon+Jegantha because it does require a more interesting build and you have to skip things like the Ancient cycle and Old Gnawbones.
A few years back I got a hankering to build 5 color devoid eldrazi using morophon. I looked it up, and sure enough Tomer had beaten me to the punch. I picked up that deck, added a few little tweaks of my own, and it's still a part of my ever growing collection.
I can understand disliking Krenko as a combo commander, but I think what makes it cool is that it can be a combo deck while ALSO being a crazy aggro tribal deck. Or it can JUST be a crazy aggro tribal deck. My sister has a Krenko deck (that I built and have maintained for her), and while every once in a while she starts with a Goblin Recruiter "win on T3" hand, plenty of the time she doesn't, and builds an army of hundreds of flying indestructible 200/200 goblins. Despite her deck being very strong, it's not super consistent or oppressive, as it doesn't have combo-ing as a *goal*.
I agree with Tomer on Scion of the Ur-Dragon. At it's base it has combo lines that it can go with. The most basic is the knockout combo of Skithiryx - Molten Steel for a poison kill. You can also set up a Niv - Mizzet Combo using Keen Sense or Curiosity and turning Scion into one of the card draw combo Nivs. And it also sets up the Worldgorger Dragon combo with Animate Dead, Dance of the Dead, and Necromancy. Setting up a Dragon Reanimator strategy is more explosive than The Ur-Dragon which I also play, lol.
In defense of Atraxa as an infect commander, that slow ticking clock is kinda the appeal of her. You could also argue it makes sense flavour wise because then you're not killing your opponents but converting them. Infect decks like Saskia rely on killing someone in one shot (or 2). My very first commander deck I wanted to build an infect style deck, but one that wasn't built around beating people with 1 attack. Was having a hard time finding a proper commander until Atraxa came out. I understand that now there are other commanders that could replace her (and that she see's a ton of play) but she's just cool and kinda nostalgic for me.
I totally get what Krim’s saying about Kyler. That being said though, Kyler can be very strong and hard to deal with once he gets a few counters on him, which is insanely easy to do quickly in selesnya, and white has so many options to use to keep him safe so you can continuously beat face with him. I think he’s an excellent humans commander and definitely understand the hype, personally. He may be a bit more hyped than he should be, but he’s a ton of fun.
I have a Kaalia deck and it plays a lot more smoothly than the clash crew gave it credit. I have a ton of mana rocks to ramp into my big threats, pleanty of protection for Kaalia, and TONS of board wipes and interaction for when Kaalia does get delt with. Half of the deck is hay makers so when you make it to the late game you're sitting pretty Edit: A lot of people are less scared of Kaalia these days, I can typically politic my way into the table hating the green player over me (then i armageddon but oopsies)
When I started playing my commander, I got the Aesi Precon and replaced them with Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty and turned the deck into Simic 6 drop cascade and had a lot of fun with it! Turning sea monsters into more sea monsters was super fun.
When it comes to Kaalia, if there were more Mardu commanders for Angel tribal I might consider something else. When I built mine, I had angels in all of those colors I knew I wanted to run, and even in 2022, there just aren't a lot of options for that. Giada is great, for sure (and she's in my Kaalia deck of course), but mono white's rather restrictive, and if you want both Aurelia and Liesa, you're out of luck unless you run 3-mana Kaalia (which just isn't as flashy). Kaalia was also the Commander that made me interested in the format, though, so even with a better Mardu one, I might still stick with her just for sentimental reasons. If they give us a solid Mardu Avacyn someday, I'll switch in a heartbeat, though. :P
I feel like you guys got me on Kess being generic but you guys are sleeping on Kyler, there are a ton of ways to instant speed make tokens before you untap and just have an insane board, and then you don’t need to take up slots with overruns
I once won a game with Atraxa specifically because she has vigilance and flying. I had a lock on my opponents: Static Orb + Tanglewire while I also had out a Wilderness Reclamation. 😂 Of note, I have since taken apart that deck, but I am very proud to say that one opponent of mine who ran Atraxa immediately went out to find a Tanglewire as soon as our game was over.
I agree with Phil on Krenko, it seems like a color shift from Marrow Gnawer. I like the idea of the Shattergang Brothers as a different way to play Goblins.
On the topic of Atraxa, at least for me, it's the sheer amount of extra things that she forces me to do. Those extra counters every turn add up and I get tired of ticking them up by the third activation.
This episode of the podcast should be renamed to "Commanders we find boring or are powerful". There is nothing overrated about any of the one you mentionned . They are rated appropriately. I agree that they are powerful for the most part, but this is why they are picked frequently because of that feature. I agree that most of them are boring to me and I would choose the less played commanders, but that doesnt mean they are overrated because they are played a lot The only one I agree with the overrated tags are Atraxa and Kaalia . Her effect is so slow in today commander climate and Kaalia effect is on such a fragile body
I built kyler as a halfway point for building 4c humans. It's just kind of a really solid deck right now and I built it out of cards I had sitting in boxes plus the precon.
I feel like commander that are basically just " whenever you do x, draw a card" are boring in general, unless it's something like Gitrog monster, where the thing you're doing is otherwise detrimental.
Only thing I'm not looking forward to is seeing a boring 5c humans deck from Seth. I want to see interesting builds, not goodstuff 5c with the most printed tribe out there.
I have Morophon at the head of my Sliver deck. Cost reduc is insane, ramping into any color mana to cast him is great. All the other slivers are either weaker, or repetitive. I get to play all those slivers for free, and I don't have the same play pattern every game. Everyone I've played it against has been impressed by it, it's not cEDH, but it's tuned with the best slivers and lots of support. As far as Kaalia, she's my winningest deck... If I want a win for the night, I play Kaalia. You have Avacyn, Liesa, Sephara, Serra's Emissary, Aegis Angel, and Breathkeeper Seraph. Bastion Protector, Guardian of Faith, Mother/Giver of Runes, Greaves/Boots, Robe of Stars, Teferi's Protection, Flawless Maneuver, Deflecting Swat, Kaya, Dihada, and the new Vexilus Praetor... Many others. They also keep everything else safe. Multiple demons tutor, and there's ways to keep your mana base reasonable and cheat these out without Kaalia.
idk if its been said yet but a bit of the combos Tomer said using Scion dont actually work because once Scion's ability resolves it is a copy of what it sent and not the Scion anymore nor has its original ability for that turn. The moltensteel + Skythrix combo works because you can put 2 activations of Scion of the stack and then when the first resolves do moltensteel in response to the 2nd copy of the ability being on the stack but you cant go for example sent an attack trigger dragon, swing for its trigger and then send a combat damage trigger dragon because at that point scion no longer has the ability to do so for the turn
The Ur-Dragon is the weakest of the three dragon's (Tiamat, Ur-Dragon, Scion of the Ur-Dragon) mentioned and ironically is the most fun. Scion is a tutor/combo deck which is a lot less fun in practice as you just do the same lines of play every game as tomer was saying with molten steel/skithryx. Tiamat has a fringe cedh combo insta win if you stick a dream halls and loop moriette of the frost with bladewing or use food chain for the same effect. Ur-Dragon is the most stompy/timmy deck and the eminence just helps if you want a 5 average cmc deck it being the top played makes sense as it doesnt have the same lines of play every game like the other two and actually gives you a unique experience every game.
On the topic of Kess, I gotta pour one out to Gale, Waterdeep Prodigy. As soon as I built it, it became one of my staple decks. You lose a colour compared to Kess, but it costs one less mana, you choose a second effect to go with it, and Gale forces a really interesting balance between instants and sorceries. It forces fun deckbuilding, and breeds creativity. Gale Scion of Halaster storm is my current deck, I absolutely love it.
Interesting.... my Nymris deck has slowly turned into a flash tribal, and I kinda miss my fun utility instants from before. Thank you for this comment, I may build one for muself now xD (Scion of Halaster is the Nymris static)
@@SSolemn My Gale deck was originally a Nymris deck, eventually I just got bored of Nymris and wanted something new. I really like storm decks, so I settled on Gale and went from there.
With the discussion about how to build human tribal, I realized that (a) I want a commander clash where everyone is playing their own vein of human tribal (I saw that's happening next week, awesome!) (b) I want an episode where you all build a deck together. That would be fun
I think the amount you all play is definitely showing in how you view the card. You ask why people play those commanders? Because they're often straightforward, fun, easy to get hold of and not super expensive. Perfect for new people getting into the game. Even more the ones that came out of the precons that were many people's first decks.
@@MTGGoldfishCommander The superfriends bit is, but the actual commander isn't and most of the decks on EDHREC never get built and are just theory building
The thing most people dont know is that if you wanna build krenko optimally, he isnt a goblin commander. Sure you put a few goblins in there because they synergize with the deck but the thing you wanna do is give your team haste and untap krenko. That is far more efficient than hardcasting multiple goblins. So krenko and muxus have way different roles. If you really wanna play goblin tribal, play muxus. If you want a goblin themed combo deck, play krenko.
Yeah Phil more so made a point of why Krenko is unfun and not why it’s overrated. No one even mentioned the difference between 4 and 6 mana in a mono Red goblins deck
@@itsallenwow Yeah I think their point is it's not much of a goblin, but truthfully going wide was always the focus of goblins. When the majority of the best goblins are around 3 mana or less, a 6 mana commander becomes questionable.
I have a friend who told me this "Sure Krenko is good and all, but if you are going for a goblin Tribal use the Black and Red one as it gives you way more options on how to build the deck than a mono color ever would. Plus if you ever wanted to turn it into a competitive deck Black has the best draw and search cards paired with the Goblin cards such as Goblin recruiter that allows you to search for any number of Goblin cards" It was his first EDH deck and yes i got him into it as he told me about this 100 card format that uses a cool legendary monster and yes i built his deck as he told me "Aight, if you want me to play it with ya then build me a deck using my cards" I think Krenko as a mono red commander is just a noob trap that will draw aggro the moment it sits down in most casual tables just for being in the command zone despite being in mono color. Now i honestly think a mono red Krenko fits perfectly in 7's as it is not that strong of a deck without another engine added to it to sustain it such as Chandra as my god those cards work well with goblins. My first deck was Numot, the Devastator yes it was bad as random red white and blue cards in it just to make a 100 card deck just so i could play the first ever legendary i have gotten. Which is what prompted me into getting my friend into it in the first place as once i built the deck i wanted to play with it. Eventually i built my second deck Slivers as i honestly thought they were cool back then before Sliver Queen was over 20 bucks weird right as it was a few years ago. I kept switching around decks because i was just trying to find something i could win with against my Uncle turns out i built mean like really mean decks i just did not understand how they worked nor did i like actually being aggro as my Motto after seeing a Phyrexian Swarmlord in a 60 card infect deck was "Build up a swarm kill them in one fell swoop" Yeah people caught onto not allowing me to live for too long as while i was not that good i was great at looking like i was weak because i was still learning how to shuffle so often i got mana flooded or mana screwed because again i was bad at shuffling and suddenly i pull a sanguine bond exquisite blood wins from no where as i was just playing the lands and occasional blockers so i can play the i win cards in one turn as the moment i play either of the combo i get targeted by the entire table as they fear i could play the next one the next turn and win. I did that so often everyone just said "Never let the game get to turn 10 otherwise Johnny is just going to win" like they understand that i win the game combos like that gives newer players or less experienced ones a chance to actually win. They also knew that i was not going to do anything unless i thought i was going to win in 3 turns so i did not really attack much but that did not really stop people from attacking what they think is a easy kill instead of looking at the bigger picture My ideal deck is a Infect deck but we all know how bad Infect is in commander and i refuse to use that 4 color Phyrexian angel that proliferates at the end of turn as it draws too much aggro to be worth Yawgmoth would be better but mono black infect while actually decent is weird as mono black does not really have ramp compared to the other colors outside of easy to get rid of creatures and forces you to discard cards so might as well make a mix of if you discard creature a creature type of thing and not be a pure infect sadly
I think something y'all are kinda missing is that Kaalia decks tend not to JUST play the commander and live or die by it. There's tons of cards like Sneak Attack and Quicksilver Amulet which can do what she does as back up on top of just playing the deck as a reanimator strat when she isn't online. She's also in the colors of haste and protection and we have more good 2 cmc rocks than ever. Like yeah she can die to spot removal but you better have it like immediately or you could just die with some of the boardstates she creates early on.
I remember building wrath tribal with atraxa, just pure control with so many boardwhipes and having atraxa just as a powerful creature that i never minded expending infinite mana to cast
I built a kaalia deck about a year ago, but after about 3 games. I took the whole deck apart and made it Olivia mobilized for war. Basically a big mana haste/extra combat deck. With kaalaia games were so boring, and I hated the exact situations that you guys pointed out with her. With Olivia I was able to find a place for most of those dragons and demons. You only need Olivia for a while then you can find other replacements for her if he gets popped. She's also more resilient with the discard/reanimate sub theme. I think Olivia is a good replacement for kaalia. Its one of my favorite decks.
Thoughts as the podcast goes on. You could always rule 0 eminence and just say "I'm not going to use the eminence ability." The problem with Krenko is he is the defacto best goblin commander for a go wide strategy. Its mono red so you are going to have haste effects and goblins just pump each other. The other problem, you basically do the same thing every game. Play a bunch of goblins, then make more goblins. It becomes boring to play because there is not a lot of randomness. Atraxa is always gonna be played with counter doublers. Also you can always play Atraxa as like a phyrexian theme and considering where we are in the story there is going to be a lot more phyrexian flavour coming in. Or play Atraxa with only uncommon and rare planeswalkers because they are 'fair' to play against. Kaalia got a huge boost of power with the attack-harmonicon creature from Neon Dynasty. But again, you have to be creative with Kaalia. Most decks are going to be playing the same thing, but like you said, she's iconic as hell. And on the comment of Kaalia reanimate, there are better Mardu commanders to play like Alesha, Who Smiles at Death. The other good thing about Kaalia is you can just play cleric tribal or dragon or angel or demon tribal for fun. Or you could always play the newer Kaalia from M20 which is way more fair but also has better card advantage. With Scion of the Ur-Dragon, don't you just tutor The Ur-Dragon into the graveyard first just to get a bunch of card draw from there and then go HAM on your opponents? Any 5 colour dragon deck seems like its just a secret commander deck around The Ur-Dragon.
I told myself that I would never need to make an Atraxa deck. But I became a fan when I made the AtraxSaga deck. It makes perfect sense to have her as the Saga leader.
I think the big appeal for Atraxa is that she fits into so many different deck variants. You guys mentioned four different deck themes ( super friends, +1/+1 builds, Infect, and Energy). We also have -1/-1 counter builds, the ability counters that showed up in Ixalan (and shield counters from New Capenna). I've played against a stax variant which was interesting. I'll agree that there are cards that'll do an aspect of Atraxa better/more interesting. Aminatou letting a walker activate twice is far more interesting than +1 loyalty. But it's not offering the versatility that Atraxa has. My current build of Atraxa is a themed deck around the Scars block and the infect mechanic is what I wanted to build around. I like the idea that proliferate is a slower mechanic and she being the symbol of Phyrexia's conquest of the plane Mirrodin just felt right. So it messes with poison and -1/-1 counters from infect and more -1/-1 from other spells while also adjusting the loyalty of the two Compleated walkers and +1/+1 counters from Sword of Truth and Justice.
In regards to krenko have you considered: no. Also, the hidden krenko tech is to love goblins so much that you have mob boss, tin street kingpin, shatter gang brothers, muxus, AND ib halfheart. Yall don’t love goblins the way they deserve.
Olivia, Crimson Bride was my replacement commander for Kaalia, she works the same except she uses the graveyard and not the hand, and her having haste makes a WORLD of difference
RE: Morophon and Atraxa are good "until something better comes along": I agree 100%. Crim's point about Aminatou being a better superfriends commander and Seth's point about Hamza being a better counters commander are spot-on. Jimmy Wong said on a CZ episode that staples are good to put into decks until the perfect fit comes along. So, you could run Craterhoof as a finisher in a lifegain deck but, now that we have Bogbeast, it's more synergistic and on-theme (if less powerful) to run Bogbeast. Same is true for commanders. Morophon for devoid eldrazi tribal is actually pretty cool, decidedly more cool than Morophon vampires or slivers.
I have a $50 Krenko deck for exactly the reason Toner outlined. I like to have some decks to hand to new players around and Krenkers is very good at teaching.
For goblintribe and any tribe at all: Try out to swich the commander with cards you allready have in (as long the colors stay otherwise talk with your table they might allow it)
As a Kaalia player since she debuted, we are very aware that Wizards is very careful about the Angels, Demons, and Dragons they print. Combat damage triggers and ETB triggers on A,D&Ds have become significantly less frequent since about a year or two after Kaalia's printing. However I do agree that Kaalia has a unique deck building struggle that is balancing the effort to keep Kaalia alive with having A,D&Ds to cheat into play.
Pitch for a kaalia deck-- kaalia is a feint. You just have faithless looting effects to put threats in the graveyard to reanimate, and maybe by accident use kaalia if the opportunity arises. That way, everyone is holding their removal for kaalia, which doesn't come, and boom, surprise win...
Seeing a good Kaalia list tht makes use of Demons Dragons n Angels tht actually synergize with one another would be interesting 🤔 Not just your usual "good stuff" list
I have a Kess deck, made it when the wizards deck came out, and can confirm Kess doesn’t lend herself to any one theme, but also I kinda like that I can just play my favorite cards in grixis with her. I don’t have to worry about if they meet a restriction. But yeah, I understand your point.
I find scion of the Ur-Dragon to be very sweaty. if people play him in the command zone they're going to combo off and kill the table by tutoring all their creatures (because you can activate the ability multiple times in a turn) so they'll either do a proc chain and use a dragon to get their dragons back from the graveyard or play something like Living End to wipe the board at the same time as filling theirs. Tutor in the command zone is fun the first 1-3 times you see it, but then it becomes a "search for the combo then win" deck that just doesn't end up being very fun for anyone.
scion is definitely more powerful than Ur-Dragon itself in commander. Ur-Dragon might help you play your dragons with cost reduction, Scion just plays your dragons for you.
Doesn't Scion of the Ur-Dragon lose the copy ability when it becomes the copy? So what Tomer is explaining with extra combats doesn't work. It changes into the dragon, them that's it. While you can stack the triggers, it becomes whichever was last on the stack and that's it until end of turn.
32:52 5-Color Garth Landfall is my favorite landfall deck I own. There are so many fun cards like Ob-Nixilis the Fallen that people completely forget exist because they're mono-colored in something not associated with landfall.
I like Zimone as a fair simic alternative to something like Aesi that also encourages you to include untap/activated ability copying to get more value out of the options she provides. Also, another cute combo with Scion is to get an unblocked swing in against anyone, entomb a Balefire, get the trigger on the stack, entomb a deathtouch dragon, blow up your opponent's creatures no matter how big. Or life link to gain a bunch.
I do play Tariel, Reckoner of Souls instead of Kaalia for my Mardu Angel commander deck. Mostly because Kaalia gets hated too easily. Tariel doesn't get cast very often, but it does make Stinging Study way better. Just make sure there is more interaction/mana rocks so you can play battlecruiser magic in the late game.
Oh my goodness Seth, you broke my heart with Kess :( She's not actually super exciting on her own, yes. But she does offer two important things: open endedness and a high floor. I've gone through three enjoyable variations of Kess decks (enjoyable for just me, sometimes) because it's so easy to take a chunk of cards out and put a different chunk of cards in. The deck continues to function but feels different each time.
For selesnya humans the 3 main choices are these. With Kyler you have a mega anthem in the command zone. You want lots of creatures including tokens and some ramp and you 1 shot swing people With Torens you get lots of creatures from the command zone, you want anthems and value, you are more resilient and easier to not brick, but dont have as much explosiveness With katilda you have tons of mana, so just want creature value and hay makers, you don't have much win con in the command zone (except if you build combo), but can play anything much easier
My favorite landfall commander, is Kyneos and Tiro, same colors as Omnath, draws you a card and lets you drop an extra land every turn, but also give your opponents just enough value that no one ever ever removes it
I wish the editor would show a flash of whatever card they're bringing up as alternatives. Here I was with moxfield in another tab trying to figure out what name Tomer said
Same, it took me quite some time to catch "Zevlor".
I agree. I had to search 60% of whatever they are referencing
Yeah I think about it pretty much every episode 😅
Tomer is the editor
You know the editor is tomer ?……
Crim: gets yelled at for having a changeling at the head of his dragon deck
Tomer: has a dragon At the head of his changeling deck
If being boring is a criteria for this list, chulane takes the cake.
He's so bantal.
Hey, I have a lot of fun playing a growth spiral after every spell.
No he's too boring to like cake, he takes the tofu
Imma make a hot take and say Edgar Markov, Theres a lot of good Vampire commanders nowadays and Edgar feels like the most generic option (Said at 13:56 , so Idk if he comes up in the video yet)
Nah he's fun to play, not fun to sit across from.
I loved Phil's somewhat sarcastic response to Crim about getting rainbow mana.
"Sure, yeah, that's the problem in 5 color, getting 5 colors"
Gang: But Selesnya gives humans access to green. Crim: but Mardu has black. Gang: But Selesnya gives humans access to green. Crim: but Mardu has black.
My eyebrows were kinda raised when they said Green had the second most humans ngl, it has the least humans. The thing is humans are so generic none of them are even wrong, Chulane is as valid as any of them.
he's not wrong haha
Theoretically Mardu is the better color combo, but for flavor, Mardu just doesn't match the theme Kyler is going for or what he represents/represented. Selesnya is way on theme for the type of deck Kyler represents. Humans working together to overcome the odds, especially the plane that Kyler is in, Innistrad.
I don't think Crim realized that "The Ur-Dragon" and "Scion of the Ur-Dragon" are different cards
I was under the same impression.
I think Wort the Raidmother is the most fun Goblin Commander. Make goblin tokens, feed to big x spells. Make biiiiig boom. Very Gobbo.
Ib Halfheart is the most underrated Goblin commander.
Just his flavor text makes him so much fun.
Yesssss that’s what I’m about to build bc it’s green but doesn’t do green cringe ghings
Based Wort enjoyer
I think a big thing with Kaalia is that those colors were very under represented for a long time.
Fr, Mardu probably has some the coolest commanders now (even if a lot of them are spicy aristocrats)
As someone who has built Aesi and Kyler, you are totally right. Aesi makes everyone groan as you draw 6 cards per turn and play big creatures only to get murdered by the table. Kyler is a removal magnet or a mathematical nightmare, take your pick of misery.
I absolutely hate +1/+1 counters because of cards like Kyler. Even if I'm not the one playing them you have to sit there and wait for the dozens of die to be rolled haha
I play aesi control :^) draw 6 counterspells per turn
@@Daniel-ut6lc you say that as if counterspells aren't uniquely weak in commander
@@wldnrkls depends on what type of playgroup you're in.
(Rephrased) "I just want to sit on you. I don't need to know your name."
is gonna be my new thirst opener.
Truest words were never spoken
Tomer, Scion doesn't quite work that way. Once the ability resolves, it loses the ability. This means that you can't turn it into one dragon to kill player A, and then turn it into a second dragon to kill player B.
At most you can put multiple instances of the ability on the stack to rapidly turn Scion into different dragons, but all of the abilities have to go onto the stack at the same time. This is why Moltensteel & Skithiryx works (because you can put moltensteel's firebreathing on the stack before Scion becomes Skithiryx), but Old Gnawbone & charger wouldn't (because once Scion becomes charger, it's no longer old gnawbone, and vice versa).
Scion can kill one player at a time and is very good at it, but it's not as good as I think you think it is.
Scion's best combo potential is being an entomb + payoff for a Worldgorger combo, since you can entomb the Worldgorger and transform into Bhaal's Invoker for infinite burn damage from the Worldgorger mana (with the potential to do this on a single turn with enough mana up, or split over two turns like a janky splinter twin.)
i think scion is still like crazy strong. Like the Ur dragon is cool okay what about i just cheat the ur dragon in the graveyard and scion becomes it for a turn and i draw a card and put the best permanent into play for free on like turn 5. re animate the ur dragon the next turn.
human tribal commander clash would be actual fun to see,. there are so many variations now
and u also forgot the best human in selesnya, toski
There's so many humans now you can build your human deck around specific themes: +1/+1 counter humans, Aristocrat humans, Legendary humans, token humans, etc...
Absolutely, give me a Human Bowl!
I like Atraxa because you can proliferate other types of counters that are otherwise not interacted with. Charge counters, shield counters and level counters to name a few
I have an atraxa charge counters deck, it's super fun.
Phil's goblin dig makes so much sense. Krenko = consistency. Muxus = chaos. Now between chaos and consistency which do you think fits the goblin mantra more?
And that's why you gotta go middle road and get Krenko tin street.
Early goblin cards were not chaotic. But had lots if sacrifice synergies.
Krenko is better, more fun, and just as flavorful.
@Joshua Cohen I mean, your opinion is basically "the one edhrec says is better is clearly the best" so i dont really give a shit for that trash, but to sweaty little tryhards that desperately need that win sure I bet krenko is somehow "flavorful and fun"
@@papaUrabrask What? I didn't say anything about edhrec.
Clearly we need a “who is the best 5c Dragon Tribal commander” commander clash episode
@1:01:10 in addition to the "main things in green" Crim is mentioning, Champion of Lambholdt is a HOUSE in most +1/+1 counter decks that love going wide. She is in my Hamza build. White has a good amount of protection and Green gives the card draw and overrun type of effects, (while I think the best overrun spell is in white, Akroma's Will).
I was screaming Lambholdt at that part
Before the Ur dragon, I played with scion. The deck is more combo/voltron than go wide with fatties. Scion is also very consistent so each game you feel like you have the same lines of play. Scion also will get you targeted by the pod because with no interaction it can kill as soon as you untap with it.
I was just looking to say this. Scion is a fun card. But the molten steel skittles combo is just very predictable
I love how this group can say "I love telling people they are wrong", but it's totally fine. Everyone here is just having fun, and even if they tell you you're wrong, it isn't a big deal. If anything, everyone here would love to see you play "wrong" fun cards. : )
Agreed, I refused to watch one of command zone's click- baity, you're wrong, videos but have no problem watching these guys tell me that lol.
@@jamesmoore1476 : )
We just need more options in 4 color commanders. So wizards need to make more.
Agreed
Agreed! I'd love for WOTC to make new versions of the Nephilim from Ravnica
@@CasualKing21 Ravnica is always a fun time, they can put them in return to ravnica: the sequel.
I want a not Atraxa witch colors
We have omnath and 2 others in his quad color. Kinda want 5 in each quad color combination
OG partners enter the chat
Built my GF an aesi deck as a big sea creature tribal deck when she got promoted at her work in a fisheries department. Flavor win hahah
Based flavor enjoyer
Yeah what else about her is fish flavored
Morophon Wizard Tribal continues to be underrated. So many wizards with 3-5 colors in the cmc, really make good use of that cost reduction
Atraxa saproling tribal theoretically goes hard with the fungus counter proliferation
Morophon only reduces Azami by 1, completely disregarded XD
Nah just kidding, that sounds less cookie cutter than Inalla. Access to White and Green gives you a ton of hate bear Wizards, though they don't really need Morophon to be efficient. Kenrith might be more useful for Haste enabling. Access to Stonybrook Schoolmaster is also very cool.
I use Niv-Mizzet, Parun w/o Curiosity effects as my Wizard Commander. Absolutely dumb with Harmonic Prodigy. Never have to worry about my ratio of Wizards-to-spells because they all cantrip. 😄
Morophon can’t be overrated because it’s like the most obvious punchline in Magic. Up there with “dredges got a new toy” and all the Goldfish type memes of “this is good in soul sisters/Is panharmonicon for X”.
"Dies to Doomblade"
Toy got a new Dredges.
anybody got a stifle?
I'm really looking forward to the proposed Human Tribal bowl
It's happening next week!
@@MTGGoldfish Can't wait! ....I hope someone plays Kyler...............
I wonder if Morophon sees play because he is less expensive than cards like the Ur Dragon. If I hadn't bought the dragon commander deck when it came out, I would find The Ur Dragon's current price to be prohibitive and I wouldn't play him for that reason
I'm glad Tomer pointed out how weird Omnath looks on his promo. I'm not the only one.
I play Kyler because I always wanted all innistrad tribe decks and I can indeed tell you it's actually fun. He is almost always left unchecked and when you untap you can go lethal by casting a couple of cheap humans
some of the innistrad humans have wonderful evasion. black is the most prominent color in my playgroup, so i included the little dude with swampwalk, and then the two dudes with pro zombies. never expect the innistrad draft deck in commanda
Everything Phil said about Muxxus is sooooo correct. I run grenzo dungeon warden as my goblin commander and it's so much fun. Krenko should just be in the 99
Based Grenzo enjoyer
Wrong. Krenko is the bread and butter to any goblin deck.
In defense of Morophon Slivers, since it's colorless to cast you're able to build a non-5-color mana base around whatever tribe you're in. I have brewed a "Naya Slivers" deck around Morophon, where i run a budget Naya mana base and a bunch of Slivers that are in Naya colors, or are R/X G/X W/X.
Morophon's discount is really good for that tribe honestly.
Yes, very powerful. A guy in my local group runs this. At some point he will draw all the creatures in his deck and be able to play them for free. It is an interesting way to play slivers. Most people play queen and combo off, overlord and tutor first and hivelord immediately, or first sliver as a budget sliver deck. Those decks all play the same every time and we all know how they play. I run The Prismatic Bridge sliver deck to make the tribe unique.
Kess is about how milling is card draw. She also nearly doubles the value of rituals. Her niche is double dark ritual or cyc rift into another cyc rift. Her goal is usually combo, but she also has 2 boardwipes per boardwipe, 2 draws per draw etc. She double downs on value spells that don't exile. Aka a blue spell slinger that doesn't run every extra turn spell. Only some :)
Kyler is fun and solid but also requires some skill. He has to stick on the field but once he does you can win. Attacking with 20 dorks that are all 20/20s is great. You don't go aristocrats because you care about the humans. Kyler is the one who unifies and inspires the humans in a world where everything preys upon them. You are facing down the vampire lords, hordes of zombies, and werewolves are your gates. You need to stand together and Kyler is there for it.
if you’re not playing human tribal to embody the indomitable human spirit, then leave
"You've got tons of 5-colour dragon commanders. You've got the Ur-Dragon...Scion of the Ur-Dragon..."
Tiamat: Am I a joke to you?
Crim: “I just really dislike eminence.”
Crim in the very next breath: “I just really like the mana reduction.”
Also Crim (probably): “I only eat green M&Ms, the yellow ones are yucky.”
If you do a human tribal week you should do a video where you do a snake draft humans from all of MtG history to join your team (deck list)
Once a human is picked nobody else can put it in their deck.
That's a super cool idea
Loved the idea xD
Scion of ur dragon was my first dragon commander (then ur, then ramos right now) but scion of ur dragon is REALLY BORING because it is so consistent. If you dont block, my first transformation is going to be og nicol bolas, and opponent discard their hand is over for that player. Having tutor ability in your commander is really boring. Ur-Dragon is actually MORE fun than scion because there's more variety with less consistency.
I have a khler deck and I think you're missing the fact that blink is absolutely busted with kyler or going tokens Increasing devotion makes 5 5/5 for 5. Wyrms crossing patrol a 1/1 with myriad becomes 4 4/4s on attack with the myriad sure the deck can be kinda weak to mass removal or kyler being killed every time you play it but the same is true for any go wide deck or commander focused deck
I've played a LOT of dragons. A LOT. Scion is the dragon deck for winning, but it's super boring because you tutor the same 5 dragons every game. Tiamat is similar with the same-y ness.
Ur-Dragon and Morophon are both loads of fun because every game is different (if you don't run a bunch of tutors), where you're just getting to play big dumb dragons. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but it's like singleton mid-range dragons.
The archtype has gotten too strong lately and I've switched to Ur-dragon+Jegantha because it does require a more interesting build and you have to skip things like the Ancient cycle and Old Gnawbones.
I wish we had more proliferate commander options
I’m excited for these matchups with the humans and dragon decks
A few years back I got a hankering to build 5 color devoid eldrazi using morophon. I looked it up, and sure enough Tomer had beaten me to the punch. I picked up that deck, added a few little tweaks of my own, and it's still a part of my ever growing collection.
I can understand disliking Krenko as a combo commander, but I think what makes it cool is that it can be a combo deck while ALSO being a crazy aggro tribal deck. Or it can JUST be a crazy aggro tribal deck. My sister has a Krenko deck (that I built and have maintained for her), and while every once in a while she starts with a Goblin Recruiter "win on T3" hand, plenty of the time she doesn't, and builds an army of hundreds of flying indestructible 200/200 goblins. Despite her deck being very strong, it's not super consistent or oppressive, as it doesn't have combo-ing as a *goal*.
I use Morophon for Elder Tribal 😂😂 It's actually a creature type, since "Elder Dragons" are as much "Elder" as they are "Dragon" in the MTG rules.
I agree with Tomer on Scion of the Ur-Dragon. At it's base it has combo lines that it can go with. The most basic is the knockout combo of Skithiryx - Molten Steel for a poison kill. You can also set up a Niv - Mizzet Combo using Keen Sense or Curiosity and turning Scion into one of the card draw combo Nivs. And it also sets up the Worldgorger Dragon combo with Animate Dead, Dance of the Dead, and Necromancy. Setting up a Dragon Reanimator strategy is more explosive than The Ur-Dragon which I also play, lol.
In defense of Atraxa as an infect commander, that slow ticking clock is kinda the appeal of her. You could also argue it makes sense flavour wise because then you're not killing your opponents but converting them. Infect decks like Saskia rely on killing someone in one shot (or 2).
My very first commander deck I wanted to build an infect style deck, but one that wasn't built around beating people with 1 attack. Was having a hard time finding a proper commander until Atraxa came out. I understand that now there are other commanders that could replace her (and that she see's a ton of play) but she's just cool and kinda nostalgic for me.
I totally get what Krim’s saying about Kyler. That being said though, Kyler can be very strong and hard to deal with once he gets a few counters on him, which is insanely easy to do quickly in selesnya, and white has so many options to use to keep him safe so you can continuously beat face with him. I think he’s an excellent humans commander and definitely understand the hype, personally. He may be a bit more hyped than he should be, but he’s a ton of fun.
I have a Kaalia deck and it plays a lot more smoothly than the clash crew gave it credit. I have a ton of mana rocks to ramp into my big threats, pleanty of protection for Kaalia, and TONS of board wipes and interaction for when Kaalia does get delt with. Half of the deck is hay makers so when you make it to the late game you're sitting pretty
Edit: A lot of people are less scared of Kaalia these days, I can typically politic my way into the table hating the green player over me (then i armageddon but oopsies)
Good on you, deck building is a dead skill in Commander, too many people relying on filling out a template instead of using good deck building theory.
When I started playing my commander, I got the Aesi Precon and replaced them with Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty and turned the deck into Simic 6 drop cascade and had a lot of fun with it! Turning sea monsters into more sea monsters was super fun.
Banger of an ep. I love hearing people campaign for more interesting games of magic, and the crew has a lot of good suggestions here.
When it comes to Kaalia, if there were more Mardu commanders for Angel tribal I might consider something else. When I built mine, I had angels in all of those colors I knew I wanted to run, and even in 2022, there just aren't a lot of options for that. Giada is great, for sure (and she's in my Kaalia deck of course), but mono white's rather restrictive, and if you want both Aurelia and Liesa, you're out of luck unless you run 3-mana Kaalia (which just isn't as flashy).
Kaalia was also the Commander that made me interested in the format, though, so even with a better Mardu one, I might still stick with her just for sentimental reasons. If they give us a solid Mardu Avacyn someday, I'll switch in a heartbeat, though. :P
I feel like you guys got me on Kess being generic but you guys are sleeping on Kyler, there are a ton of ways to instant speed make tokens before you untap and just have an insane board, and then you don’t need to take up slots with overruns
I once won a game with Atraxa specifically because she has vigilance and flying. I had a lock on my opponents: Static Orb + Tanglewire while I also had out a Wilderness Reclamation. 😂
Of note, I have since taken apart that deck, but I am very proud to say that one opponent of mine who ran Atraxa immediately went out to find a Tanglewire as soon as our game was over.
I agree with Phil on Krenko, it seems like a color shift from Marrow Gnawer. I like the idea of the Shattergang Brothers as a different way to play Goblins.
On the topic of Atraxa, at least for me, it's the sheer amount of extra things that she forces me to do. Those extra counters every turn add up and I get tired of ticking them up by the third activation.
It's even worse in saga tribal, but it's pretty fun
This episode of the podcast should be renamed to "Commanders we find boring or are powerful". There is nothing overrated about any of the one you mentionned . They are rated appropriately.
I agree that they are powerful for the most part, but this is why they are picked frequently because of that feature. I agree that most of them are boring to me and I would choose the less played commanders, but that doesnt mean they are overrated because they are played a lot
The only one I agree with the overrated tags are Atraxa and Kaalia . Her effect is so slow in today commander climate and Kaalia effect is on such a fragile body
Yes please to the human and dragon tribal weeks, it would be neat to see several different takes on the same tribe battle it out.
I built kyler as a halfway point for building 4c humans. It's just kind of a really solid deck right now and I built it out of cards I had sitting in boxes plus the precon.
These guys really need to play either with or against a Kyler deck.
Seriously... my group banned my Kyler deck at our table.
I won turn 5 with him once because I got to attack with my 14/14 kyler. The deck was modified but I only drew precon cards.
I feel like commander that are basically just " whenever you do x, draw a card" are boring in general, unless it's something like Gitrog monster, where the thing you're doing is otherwise detrimental.
human tribal commander clash sounds really interesting. (coming from someone with a Kyler deck)
Only thing I'm not looking forward to is seeing a boring 5c humans deck from Seth. I want to see interesting builds, not goodstuff 5c with the most printed tribe out there.
I have Morophon at the head of my Sliver deck. Cost reduc is insane, ramping into any color mana to cast him is great. All the other slivers are either weaker, or repetitive.
I get to play all those slivers for free, and I don't have the same play pattern every game. Everyone I've played it against has been impressed by it, it's not cEDH, but it's tuned with the best slivers and lots of support.
As far as Kaalia, she's my winningest deck... If I want a win for the night, I play Kaalia.
You have Avacyn, Liesa, Sephara, Serra's Emissary, Aegis Angel, and Breathkeeper Seraph. Bastion Protector, Guardian of Faith, Mother/Giver of Runes, Greaves/Boots, Robe of Stars, Teferi's Protection, Flawless Maneuver, Deflecting Swat, Kaya, Dihada, and the new Vexilus Praetor... Many others. They also keep everything else safe.
Multiple demons tutor, and there's ways to keep your mana base reasonable and cheat these out without Kaalia.
I definitely wanna see the humans tribal commander clash
idk if its been said yet but a bit of the combos Tomer said using Scion dont actually work because once Scion's ability resolves it is a copy of what it sent and not the Scion anymore nor has its original ability for that turn. The moltensteel + Skythrix combo works because you can put 2 activations of Scion of the stack and then when the first resolves do moltensteel in response to the 2nd copy of the ability being on the stack but you cant go for example sent an attack trigger dragon, swing for its trigger and then send a combat damage trigger dragon because at that point scion no longer has the ability to do so for the turn
The Ur-Dragon is the weakest of the three dragon's (Tiamat, Ur-Dragon, Scion of the Ur-Dragon) mentioned and ironically is the most fun. Scion is a tutor/combo deck which is a lot less fun in practice as you just do the same lines of play every game as tomer was saying with molten steel/skithryx. Tiamat has a fringe cedh combo insta win if you stick a dream halls and loop moriette of the frost with bladewing or use food chain for the same effect. Ur-Dragon is the most stompy/timmy deck and the eminence just helps if you want a 5 average cmc deck it being the top played makes sense as it doesnt have the same lines of play every game like the other two and actually gives you a unique experience every game.
On the topic of Kess, I gotta pour one out to Gale, Waterdeep Prodigy. As soon as I built it, it became one of my staple decks. You lose a colour compared to Kess, but it costs one less mana, you choose a second effect to go with it, and Gale forces a really interesting balance between instants and sorceries. It forces fun deckbuilding, and breeds creativity. Gale Scion of Halaster storm is my current deck, I absolutely love it.
Played against Gale/Scion of Halaster, Dimir Spellslinger.
Very cool deck
I think Gale's ability to break the sorcery timing restrictions pushes him over the top of Kess
Interesting.... my Nymris deck has slowly turned into a flash tribal, and I kinda miss my fun utility instants from before. Thank you for this comment, I may build one for muself now xD (Scion of Halaster is the Nymris static)
@@SSolemn My Gale deck was originally a Nymris deck, eventually I just got bored of Nymris and wanted something new. I really like storm decks, so I settled on Gale and went from there.
I made a Gale Izzet storm deck and it’s nutty the amount of mana it can generate at instant speed
I love my krenko, tin street deck. It's goblin tribal and voltron at the same time, and it also bounces back from board wipes pretty well.
With the discussion about how to build human tribal, I realized that (a) I want a commander clash where everyone is playing their own vein of human tribal (I saw that's happening next week, awesome!) (b) I want an episode where you all build a deck together. That would be fun
I think the amount you all play is definitely showing in how you view the card. You ask why people play those commanders? Because they're often straightforward, fun, easy to get hold of and not super expensive. Perfect for new people getting into the game. Even more the ones that came out of the precons that were many people's first decks.
Atraxa Superfriends is incredibly expensive so I'm not sure about that one.
@@MTGGoldfishCommander The superfriends bit is, but the actual commander isn't and most of the decks on EDHREC never get built and are just theory building
@@MTGGoldfishCommander also thank you for taking the time to respond! and thanks for all the consistently engaging an enjoyable content!
I play Atraxa for a charge counter deck
The thing most people dont know is that if you wanna build krenko optimally, he isnt a goblin commander. Sure you put a few goblins in there because they synergize with the deck but the thing you wanna do is give your team haste and untap krenko. That is far more efficient than hardcasting multiple goblins. So krenko and muxus have way different roles. If you really wanna play goblin tribal, play muxus. If you want a goblin themed combo deck, play krenko.
Krenko isn't overrated, it's power.
Yeah Phil more so made a point of why Krenko is unfun and not why it’s overrated.
No one even mentioned the difference between 4 and 6 mana in a mono Red goblins deck
@@itsallenwow Yeah I think their point is it's not much of a goblin, but truthfully going wide was always the focus of goblins. When the majority of the best goblins are around 3 mana or less, a 6 mana commander becomes questionable.
I have a friend who told me this "Sure Krenko is good and all, but if you are going for a goblin Tribal use the Black and Red one as it gives you way more options on how to build the deck than a mono color ever would. Plus if you ever wanted to turn it into a competitive deck Black has the best draw and search cards paired with the Goblin cards such as Goblin recruiter that allows you to search for any number of Goblin cards"
It was his first EDH deck and yes i got him into it as he told me about this 100 card format that uses a cool legendary monster and yes i built his deck as he told me "Aight, if you want me to play it with ya then build me a deck using my cards"
I think Krenko as a mono red commander is just a noob trap that will draw aggro the moment it sits down in most casual tables just for being in the command zone despite being in mono color. Now i honestly think a mono red Krenko fits perfectly in 7's as it is not that strong of a deck without another engine added to it to sustain it such as Chandra as my god those cards work well with goblins.
My first deck was Numot, the Devastator yes it was bad as random red white and blue cards in it just to make a 100 card deck just so i could play the first ever legendary i have gotten. Which is what prompted me into getting my friend into it in the first place as once i built the deck i wanted to play with it. Eventually i built my second deck Slivers as i honestly thought they were cool back then before Sliver Queen was over 20 bucks weird right as it was a few years ago. I kept switching around decks because i was just trying to find something i could win with against my Uncle turns out i built mean like really mean decks i just did not understand how they worked nor did i like actually being aggro as my Motto after seeing a Phyrexian Swarmlord in a 60 card infect deck was "Build up a swarm kill them in one fell swoop"
Yeah people caught onto not allowing me to live for too long as while i was not that good i was great at looking like i was weak because i was still learning how to shuffle so often i got mana flooded or mana screwed because again i was bad at shuffling and suddenly i pull a sanguine bond exquisite blood wins from no where as i was just playing the lands and occasional blockers so i can play the i win cards in one turn as the moment i play either of the combo i get targeted by the entire table as they fear i could play the next one the next turn and win.
I did that so often everyone just said "Never let the game get to turn 10 otherwise Johnny is just going to win" like they understand that i win the game combos like that gives newer players or less experienced ones a chance to actually win. They also knew that i was not going to do anything unless i thought i was going to win in 3 turns so i did not really attack much but that did not really stop people from attacking what they think is a easy kill instead of looking at the bigger picture
My ideal deck is a Infect deck but we all know how bad Infect is in commander and i refuse to use that 4 color Phyrexian angel that proliferates at the end of turn as it draws too much aggro to be worth Yawgmoth would be better but mono black infect while actually decent is weird as mono black does not really have ramp compared to the other colors outside of easy to get rid of creatures and forces you to discard cards so might as well make a mix of if you discard creature a creature type of thing and not be a pure infect sadly
I think something y'all are kinda missing is that Kaalia decks tend not to JUST play the commander and live or die by it. There's tons of cards like Sneak Attack and Quicksilver Amulet which can do what she does as back up on top of just playing the deck as a reanimator strat when she isn't online. She's also in the colors of haste and protection and we have more good 2 cmc rocks than ever. Like yeah she can die to spot removal but you better have it like immediately or you could just die with some of the boardstates she creates early on.
I remember building wrath tribal with atraxa, just pure control with so many boardwhipes and having atraxa just as a powerful creature that i never minded expending infinite mana to cast
I built a kaalia deck about a year ago, but after about 3 games. I took the whole deck apart and made it Olivia mobilized for war. Basically a big mana haste/extra combat deck. With kaalaia games were so boring, and I hated the exact situations that you guys pointed out with her. With Olivia I was able to find a place for most of those dragons and demons. You only need Olivia for a while then you can find other replacements for her if he gets popped. She's also more resilient with the discard/reanimate sub theme. I think Olivia is a good replacement for kaalia. Its one of my favorite decks.
"Atraxa's body is really good." - Seth. ;D
Thoughts as the podcast goes on.
You could always rule 0 eminence and just say "I'm not going to use the eminence ability."
The problem with Krenko is he is the defacto best goblin commander for a go wide strategy. Its mono red so you are going to have haste effects and goblins just pump each other. The other problem, you basically do the same thing every game. Play a bunch of goblins, then make more goblins. It becomes boring to play because there is not a lot of randomness.
Atraxa is always gonna be played with counter doublers. Also you can always play Atraxa as like a phyrexian theme and considering where we are in the story there is going to be a lot more phyrexian flavour coming in. Or play Atraxa with only uncommon and rare planeswalkers because they are 'fair' to play against.
Kaalia got a huge boost of power with the attack-harmonicon creature from Neon Dynasty. But again, you have to be creative with Kaalia. Most decks are going to be playing the same thing, but like you said, she's iconic as hell. And on the comment of Kaalia reanimate, there are better Mardu commanders to play like Alesha, Who Smiles at Death. The other good thing about Kaalia is you can just play cleric tribal or dragon or angel or demon tribal for fun. Or you could always play the newer Kaalia from M20 which is way more fair but also has better card advantage.
With Scion of the Ur-Dragon, don't you just tutor The Ur-Dragon into the graveyard first just to get a bunch of card draw from there and then go HAM on your opponents? Any 5 colour dragon deck seems like its just a secret commander deck around The Ur-Dragon.
I told myself that I would never need to make an Atraxa deck. But I became a fan when I made the AtraxSaga deck. It makes perfect sense to have her as the Saga leader.
I think the big appeal for Atraxa is that she fits into so many different deck variants. You guys mentioned four different deck themes ( super friends, +1/+1 builds, Infect, and Energy). We also have -1/-1 counter builds, the ability counters that showed up in Ixalan (and shield counters from New Capenna). I've played against a stax variant which was interesting.
I'll agree that there are cards that'll do an aspect of Atraxa better/more interesting. Aminatou letting a walker activate twice is far more interesting than +1 loyalty. But it's not offering the versatility that Atraxa has.
My current build of Atraxa is a themed deck around the Scars block and the infect mechanic is what I wanted to build around. I like the idea that proliferate is a slower mechanic and she being the symbol of Phyrexia's conquest of the plane Mirrodin just felt right. So it messes with poison and -1/-1 counters from infect and more -1/-1 from other spells while also adjusting the loyalty of the two Compleated walkers and +1/+1 counters from Sword of Truth and Justice.
In regards to krenko have you considered: no.
Also, the hidden krenko tech is to love goblins so much that you have mob boss, tin street kingpin, shatter gang brothers, muxus, AND ib halfheart. Yall don’t love goblins the way they deserve.
Olivia, Crimson Bride was my replacement commander for Kaalia, she works the same except she uses the graveyard and not the hand, and her having haste makes a WORLD of difference
RE: Morophon and Atraxa are good "until something better comes along": I agree 100%. Crim's point about Aminatou being a better superfriends commander and Seth's point about Hamza being a better counters commander are spot-on.
Jimmy Wong said on a CZ episode that staples are good to put into decks until the perfect fit comes along. So, you could run Craterhoof as a finisher in a lifegain deck but, now that we have Bogbeast, it's more synergistic and on-theme (if less powerful) to run Bogbeast.
Same is true for commanders. Morophon for devoid eldrazi tribal is actually pretty cool, decidedly more cool than Morophon vampires or slivers.
I have a $50 Krenko deck for exactly the reason Toner outlined. I like to have some decks to hand to new players around and Krenkers is very good at teaching.
For goblintribe and any tribe at all:
Try out to swich the commander with cards you allready have in (as long the colors stay otherwise talk with your table they might allow it)
As a Kaalia player since she debuted, we are very aware that Wizards is very careful about the Angels, Demons, and Dragons they print. Combat damage triggers and ETB triggers on A,D&Ds have become significantly less frequent since about a year or two after Kaalia's printing. However I do agree that Kaalia has a unique deck building struggle that is balancing the effort to keep Kaalia alive with having A,D&Ds to cheat into play.
Would you say Atraxa is the best Infect commander?
Nah, that is still Skittles,🤷
@@thomasjacobs4919 And miss out on all the Simic Infect/Prolif cards? And Vorinclex? Nah, I think Atraxa's usually quite a bit better.
Phil's chair is the Matchspel from IKEA. #notsponsored #yet
Pitch for a kaalia deck-- kaalia is a feint. You just have faithless looting effects to put threats in the graveyard to reanimate, and maybe by accident use kaalia if the opportunity arises. That way, everyone is holding their removal for kaalia, which doesn't come, and boom, surprise win...
Seeing a good Kaalia list tht makes use of Demons Dragons n Angels tht actually synergize with one another would be interesting 🤔 Not just your usual "good stuff" list
Where is my Card Draw Tier List part 2??!!! 🤣
I have a Kess deck, made it when the wizards deck came out, and can confirm Kess doesn’t lend herself to any one theme, but also I kinda like that I can just play my favorite cards in grixis with her. I don’t have to worry about if they meet a restriction.
But yeah, I understand your point.
I really like Purphoros as a goblin commander. It just gives you a bit of extra reach with the damage. Surprised it wasn't mentioned
I find scion of the Ur-Dragon to be very sweaty. if people play him in the command zone they're going to combo off and kill the table by tutoring all their creatures (because you can activate the ability multiple times in a turn) so they'll either do a proc chain and use a dragon to get their dragons back from the graveyard or play something like Living End to wipe the board at the same time as filling theirs. Tutor in the command zone is fun the first 1-3 times you see it, but then it becomes a "search for the combo then win" deck that just doesn't end up being very fun for anyone.
scion is definitely more powerful than Ur-Dragon itself in commander. Ur-Dragon might help you play your dragons with cost reduction, Scion just plays your dragons for you.
Doesn't Scion of the Ur-Dragon lose the copy ability when it becomes the copy? So what Tomer is explaining with extra combats doesn't work. It changes into the dragon, them that's it. While you can stack the triggers, it becomes whichever was last on the stack and that's it until end of turn.
32:52
5-Color Garth Landfall is my favorite landfall deck I own. There are so many fun cards like Ob-Nixilis the Fallen that people completely forget exist because they're mono-colored in something not associated with landfall.
Im so happy to hear Seth mention Carth! I thought I may be the only one who loves him!
Carth is my pet deck, gets a ton of compliments at my lgs. Suuuuuper fun
I like Zimone as a fair simic alternative to something like Aesi that also encourages you to include untap/activated ability copying to get more value out of the options she provides. Also, another cute combo with Scion is to get an unblocked swing in against anyone, entomb a Balefire, get the trigger on the stack, entomb a deathtouch dragon, blow up your opponent's creatures no matter how big. Or life link to gain a bunch.
So we need humans week and dragons week, get on it please!
I do play Tariel, Reckoner of Souls instead of Kaalia for my Mardu Angel commander deck. Mostly because Kaalia gets hated too easily. Tariel doesn't get cast very often, but it does make Stinging Study way better. Just make sure there is more interaction/mana rocks so you can play battlecruiser magic in the late game.
Oh my goodness Seth, you broke my heart with Kess :(
She's not actually super exciting on her own, yes. But she does offer two important things: open endedness and a high floor. I've gone through three enjoyable variations of Kess decks (enjoyable for just me, sometimes) because it's so easy to take a chunk of cards out and put a different chunk of cards in. The deck continues to function but feels different each time.
For selesnya humans the 3 main choices are these.
With Kyler you have a mega anthem in the command zone. You want lots of creatures including tokens and some ramp and you 1 shot swing people
With Torens you get lots of creatures from the command zone, you want anthems and value, you are more resilient and easier to not brick, but dont have as much explosiveness
With katilda you have tons of mana, so just want creature value and hay makers, you don't have much win con in the command zone (except if you build combo), but can play anything much easier
My favorite landfall commander, is Kyneos and Tiro, same colors as Omnath, draws you a card and lets you drop an extra land every turn, but also give your opponents just enough value that no one ever ever removes it