Lord of the Rings Tier List G-Z | Commander Clash Podcast 102
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- Опубликовано: 27 авг 2024
- The crew ranks all the new Lord of the Rings commanders from G to Z!
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Hai, nice list! Why haven't you added the aragorns...or have I missed it?
Sauron, dark lord is criminally underrated by Seth and Richard
I've played a dark lord deck a lot and it's so good. It's absolutely a slow deck and you have to maneuver for the late game but eventually they just can't stop you
I think richard just assumed you had to tempt from the orc. I loaded my deck with "the ring tempts you" cards and it feels like cheating. My deck is staying only LOTR cards tho
After that section of sauron cards, I am sure that both Richard and Seth are beyond horrible at evaluating commanders... None of their logic makes Any sense..
For my money, it's the best nazgul commander
Yeah, what the heck. And they didn't even comment about it as an aristocrats commander.
The Tomer Commentary track gives it the "Director's cut" feel
I love Tomer’s editor comments!
I have never felt so in sync with Tomer as I have in the moments describing Sauron the Dark Lord, and my incredulous eyes at Seth and Richard rating Necromancer higher. I am shooketh.
Sauron, the Dark Lord is REALLY good. REALLY REALLY good. Don't sleep on amassing on opponents casts and wheeling your hand.
Cannot believe the B ratings on Sauron the Dark Lord. Ward is incredible and almost always ensures a 2 for 1 while generating an Army and reads "draw four cards".
How the fuck do you rate Sauron the Necromancer higher? "It's more castable" It's one more mana. JFC.
@@destinyhero Right??? I made another comment getting into it, it's wild how poorly discussed this card was, kinda disappointing.
People still have a very hard time evaluating how powerful "Ward" is, especially on expensive Commanders. Even Tivit's Ward 3 is insane, and it's way easier to pay 3 mana than to pay Sauron's ward cost.
@jeffe2267 Yup, I have a Tivit cEDH deck and it's true. In casual EDH the ward cost makes people Way less likely to interact. In cEDH, every mana is valuable, so it's borderline hexproof.
The disparity of opinion on the Saurons is why popular opinion is never the definitive end of the discussion, because there is NO WAY that the Lidless Eye is on the same level as The Dark Lord.
It is. The Lidless Eye is at least an infinite mana outlet.
@@jadegrace1312several weeks of playing the set have proven this comment to be false lol
"F tier because it doesnt have enough colors"... "sauron necromancer is the best sauron"
Literally the best Ring Bearer in the set. A mechanic they seem to have completely forgotten about, especially considering the discussion on Grima Wormtongue.
Tomer literally building the Legolas deck from the editing booth while the rest of the crew are talking. Priceless.
It's quite similar to my Gargos so it's an easy build for me
For King of the Oathbreakers, you guys totally missed mass targeting cards like Cauldron Haze and Eerie Interlude. Lots of ways to target your whole board and at instant speed. Heck, if you have Horobi on the board (also a Spirit), Cauldron Haze becomes a 2-mana one-sided board wipe that also builds your board.
Pollen Remedy’s time to shine!
Phase out your whole board for just one mana!
yeah Im making a deck with that stuff right now they a lot of 1 mana cards that target and just change the cards color at instant speed like Touch of Darkness so they can turn into a boardwipe with Horobi or just a save your board for 1 mana and make a bunch of tokens after
Also, if a card doesn't require a friendly target, it also doesn't fizzle when they phase out.
Really Disappointed on the commentary around Sauron, The Dark Lord.
Doesn't feel like anyone on the cast accurately understood the card's power or explained why it was so good.
So for anyone curious:
The Ward is really good (better than Saruman's) because it is a 2-for-1. They have to have spent mana to cast a legendary artifact or creature, then sacrificed the creature or artifact and spent a card to remove Sauron, and keep in mind even after they spend all of this, you could spend a counterspell to make the resources they spent a total wash.
Even beyond the level of protection that provides, the psychological impact it has on anyone else in your pod, where they potentially have to put themselves significantly behand the other players in your game just to attempt to remove your commander, means that 90% of the time you basically have hexproof.
Now, the best part of this commander was not discussed at all. Amassing everytime an opponent casts any spell is insane, especially if you aren't focused on growing your army, but instead on sacrificing your army to trigger Aristocrats. Sauron is easy one of the strongest Aristocrats commanders ever printed and the fact this is barely mentioned just shows how disappointing the discussion around him here was.
Frequent problems with Grixis and Aristocrats commanders are:
A. The color identities generally lack ramp.
B. The Commanders are such key pieces that removing them is a significant set back.
As a result of both of those, Aristocrats decks tend to be very glass cannon. But Sauron not only has one of the strongest ward abilities ever printed, he also makes an army (if you don't have one) on CAST, meaning: Oh you cast a Fleshbag Marauder? Cool, on cast I make an army and sac the army to it. Oh you cast an Edict effect, cool, I make an army on cast and sac it to the edict.
The card not only has an extremely strong ward, it also has edict protection. The only way to remove this card is a boardwipe, and, unlike many aristocrats commanders this card has one other key strength. Access to Blue. Counter magic has gotten so good and will likely only get better.
Lastly, we have "Armies dealing combat damage to a player makes the ring tempt you" and "whenever the ring tempts you, you may discard your hand and draw 4".
As was thankfully stated, this is pretty great, especially if you run any kind of flashback cards or reanimation package, maybe you want certain cards in the grave. Additionally, this turns cards like Changeling Outcast (which counts as an army) into an insane value engine, or Call of the ring into Phyrexian Arena on steroids.
However, if playing Sauron TDL at its strongest, you are likely playing an aristocrats/control deck, and don't want to be discarding and drawing 4 all the time, thus making it arguably the "weakest" part of the card.
When "discard your hand, draw 4" is the weakest part of a card...I don't understand how you can grade it lower than an A.
Glad you like it but I think you’re off the mark . Is it fun sure but not a standout card by any means or oppressively powerful
@jeremymann6069 Having run the deck at my regular commander night, which has a pretty high powered meta, I could not disagree with you more strongly.
Its also one of the few cedh playable commanders. A bit of a side note: No colors struggle with ramp. Artifact ramp is crazy strong.
Rosie Cotton is crazy underrated. She’s literally the Heliod of tokens. She’s the best card in my Samwise Gamgee deck and I just added her to Ravos/Tana tokens where she’s a house too. Definitely the sleeper card of the set.
True, but in their defense I do think the only rated her as a commander. She goes infinite with both curry oak and Herd Baloth but those are in green.
On Sauron the Dark Lord, I wholeheartedly agree with all of Tomer's commentary when comparing it to the other versions. Dark Lord is S tier, no question, and I've now become ths archenemy of my playgroup because of it lol
I absolutely love this tierlist series, i only wish that you would rate the cards as they are, either commander or a 99 card. Cheer guys, love the content!
Lotho just undisputed S hooefully if that was the case. Although both Richard and Seth apparently have No clue when it comes to commander power, since dark lord is an obvious S...
same
Tomer raging in the editors notes over the Sauron ratings is killing me
I would really love to see Kithkin errata'd to be halflings, so you can mix & match MTG, D&D, & LOTR lil guys.
Yes. There are no downsides. Just let the long lost cousins find each other again!
Have you guys ever considered doing double ratings for commander and the 99? Or is that a bit too much? It seems to come up a lot, and some cards are a lot better in the 99.
I second this motion
I thrice it!
Shelob turns games intoo video game rogue likes. Collect different passives each game and try to win.
There’s a reason Sauron the dark lord is the most popular commander so far on edhrec
It's not because it's that good lol
Mm 19:30, blue has the leyline that turns all non land permanents into legendary, combo with loreth with any untapper plus hate out tokens!
26:00 Very specifically on Legolas and Gimli counter of kills they should be partnered with each other. My play group house ruled it and I built it. Add red to Legolas there and its pretty good.
With Shagrat, you don't gain control of the equipment. It specifically doesn't work with 'sword of x and y' or dowsing dagger, because your opponent still controls the combat damage triggers.
How is Saurob not a an instant A,lol. Mono green radagast is an A over sauron? What in the hell,lol. Very confusing take ngl
Lotho is better than Monologue Tax because you can trigger it too, but everyone was super high on that card until they actually played it and got maybe 1-2 triggers per game.
Its tied for Best card of the set with bowmasters in cedh, so I think it depends on the group. The higher power level, the better he is!
So for Tom, he's really good as a saga's matter commander with enchantment subtheme. The problem that I had when playing him was resolving all of his triggers when it came to my own turn. It's a fun deck to play, but just be aware before making it/when choosing which deck to play that you're going to be slowing down the game to resolve all of your stuff.
Why is there tomer on the thumbnail but not in the Video?
He's there in spirit
A classic form of tomerbait
Its likely the graphics they slap on the thumbnail
Clickbait.
@@DukeGusion😂😂😂
Lobelia sackville-baggins - A
Sauron, the Dark Lord - B
Ok Richard….
It’s interesting to see Tomer, the ultimate Johnny, voice his opinions from the editing room against the other three very non-Johnny guys, especially Richard who is pure Spike.
I haven't watched one of these before, and after seeing Seth and Richard's completely baffling Sauron ratings, I think that's enough for one lifetime.
The entire point of these episodes is to hear multiple opinions, even if those opinions are bad. It's just for fun.
Put together Smeagol ft Nazguls and I have to say Crim and Richard were right on the money... best commander of the set.
Sauron, The Dark Lord with the Nazgul is both flavorful and awesome.
Ratadrabik also goes infinite with Nazgul and a sac outlet. If you're in to that sort of thing
I can’t believe crim built a green deck in paper lol
I love Tomer commentary on the Sauron cards! XD
I'm building Sauron, The Dark Lord as a Turbo Temptation deck that wants to churn stuff into the graveyard, and play it as reanimator.
Sauron, the Dark Lord is extremely powerful. Its probably the strongest Commander from the set.
However personally I think Ill build Saruman of Many Colors instead. Everyone is building Sauron, and Frodo & Sam in my area, so I'll instead be going with Saruman. He seems to be really strong as well.
Those Sauron ratings have me joofed
King of the Oathbreakers I think is more of a Voltron commander. Attach equipment to it as it doesn’t drop off when it phases out and just smash the opponent. Vorpal Sword would be great with it
This is the only way I can see to build this effectively. Spirit tribal is an option I guess but without blue I think you'd struggle to find enough value there to build a win con. Really neat and unique commander but I think it'd struggle to close out games.
Irenicus with the legend breaking clones is pretty cool
Agree with Tomer/Crim, Sauron Dark Lord was very underrated. The amass ability is crazy since it triggers off every opponent's cast. With a sac outlet, you have a large amount of creatures ETB/dying so it makes for a stupid good aristocrat commander.
1:09:48 Sauron the Dark Lord is nuts.
I'm not into grixis, but if I was at all, this would be my next deck.
Busted.
Ugluk deserves more than Ds across the board, he's a professional and a true hero of the orc people
Ioreth: make a clone of her with a different name or non-legendary, and now you’ve got an untap machine gun
Sakashima, Irenicus, or Lazav for the clone effect, Arixmethes or Zaxara for infinite mana, Reveka to ping everyone, or Unctus or Rona or Vohar to mill yourself. I think she’s a good secret commander for Nashi, Moon’s Legacy.
39:25 Setg is talking about Monologue Tax
Honestly, can't believe the fact Seth and Richard rated Sauron the Dark Lord so poorly, tis a dark day
The gaffer is SO good in a control shell. If you gain life every turn you can trigger a lot of cards like crested sunmare, and you have your white card draw engine in the command zone for 3 mana.
master archer is pretty sweet especially for budget decks. you can go mono green aura voltron + fight spells and probably do pretty well. the prof's thrun smash deck is actually a pretty sweet base to look at for what you'd kind of want to do with legolas plus the cards Tomer mentioned.
I'd give it a B like Tomer. it's way cooler and easier to use than everybody else is saying and TBH we've all seen the decks on commander clash... that deck would have a good chance of stomping the table lol
Treebeard? Looks like there's a new Scurry Oak combo piece
For the guy that wanted to build a Legolas deck...i feel you. Pippin is my favorite character. 😅 Seems like my best route for him is playing him in the precon with Merry and slowly upgrading the deck... But even then the Frodo/Sam pairing feels more fun. Bummer! Plus i can't play every card he's in with that combo because the colors of the cards he's represented in are all over the place in terms of color identity.
While we're talking about Legolas and his power level, it's been a bit since I read the books but I i did read them not too long before the movies came out and i remember thinking about how they REALLY made Legolas cooler in the movies than he was in the books. He's not uncool, but he's just a part of the group, there to represent the elves and tie into The Hobbit since he's the son of the king of Mirkwood (it's really easy to forget that LOTR is technically a sequel!). A lot of his coolness in the books from what i remember is that he's an elf, and elves are just cool in general in Middle Earth, and even then there's much more powerful examples like Galadriel and Elrond. (And IIRC part of the reason elves are SO COOL is Tolkien was frustrated that in popular culture of the time elves were thought of as stuff like Santa's elves and Kibler elves and stuff, not like how they were in folklore. He might've overcompensated a bit though...)
But yeah, a lot of the iconic stuff he does in the movies were just in the movies. He doesn't shield surf down a flight of stairs, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't kill an oliphant all by himself and flip off it's trunk as it falls. That's not really even really Tolkien's style of action scenes at all, he fought during WWI so his battles are more...grim and sad, really.
The kill counting competition and his rivalry-turned-friendship with Gimli, that leads to more respect between dwarves and elves? That IS from the books. It's a real shame the kill-counter cards aren't partners.
TL;DR I'm sad a Pippin deck will be difficult to make work, and Legolas in the movies is way cooler than in the books, so that might be why he's not as powerful as you'd think he would be. (But he still feels underpowered.)
Smeagol is certainly an S - build a list myself, but I wanna see Crim's list.
OMFG - Tomer making the edits are making this 😂
I think Saradoc will prove to be much better than people think. Creating an extra body when all your weenies ETB is a solid effect, especially with white’s current state in EDH. Having Saradoc out while casting a Lae’zel’s Acrobatics or some kind of mass blink/reanimate, then tapping down all your halflings to swing in hard with Saradoc could be a game-winning move.
The aristocrats version of Sauron is absolutely an archenemy commander deck, but I can't think of anything more flavorful for him. You can set up a sac outlet with things like Impact Tremors and go nuts. It's extremely powerful.
The Balrog, Durin's Bane is great with treasures, each treasure is 2 mana, add in Mayhem Devil, Mirkwood Bats, and Nadier's Nightblade and you create an impressive drain/gain value loop
5c Tribal Tribal with Sauron the Dark Lord in the 99. Every changeling is an army triggering tempt, and you can assign the amass counters to any changeling.
If you could make a deck to counter King of the Oathbreakers's triggered ability you could make a scary Voltron commander that can dodge every attempt at removing him. I think the card is very strong but needs a very weird deck to function.
Also every time you don't draw a way to counter the ability you can force create a body with the ability to make use out of the equipment and have that pseudo voltron token until you draw the counter ability spells to equip the commander.
Sauron, Dark Lord is an absolutely NUTS storm commander. play a good amount of the cheap ring tempts you cards plus mana rocks and rituals, then storm off with all those fresh new cards in your hand.
can't believe Seth of all people discounted such a fantastic card draw commander.
Apparently he is clueless.
yes, the "ghost people" could "fly" they didn't have legs they just kinda floated there
The Balrog, Durin’s Bane and Sméagol, Helpfull Guide are the two most powerful commanders from the set. I have built both for budget and non-budget, and even in a $40 budget game they are powerhouses. Both can easily combo kill your opponents, and can do it quickly.
Sounds cool!
I do think that sauron the dark lord is a wee bit stronger still though. Its roof is very high, and due to colors is playable in cedh in contrast to the ones you named. ☺️
@@karateLynge I would argue that the Balrog is playable in cEDH. Works similar to Dargo and has built in removal as well. Arguably a little slower due to needing two colors to cast, but still very viable.
Seth and Richard are huffing something weird on those Sauron ratings. How is a 5 mana 4/4 menace that has to attack to do anything that cuts 2 colours from your deck better than dark lord that does.... sooo much for free, just for being there, and costs so much to remove, if they cast a spell and sac to remove it then you still get an amass trigger. You dont even need to build around the ring tempts you but you probably should add some of them. it should cost 6 cause if it cost less it would be stupidly unfair.
They went full retard right there. Does not happen often, but they did.
for King of the Oathbreakers the spirit tokens are a distraction. He's an equipment voltron commander with evasion that is incredibly easy to protect. Load your deck with single-target removal and utility spells as Crim said, and any time an opponent tries to remove him with an edict, ability, or sweeper you can point an instant at him to phase him out
He should almost literally only ever need to be cast once per game.
For Theoden, king of rohan you should play hyper aggro with power > mana human creatures and the most efficient power-boosters/doublers and evasion. Make them wrath early and often or lose. Like Steven Green's Swiftblade Vindicator deck or a well-built Myrel or Adeline deck.
Witch-king of armar: people would not attack you unless they play token.
Players dont like to lose value. They will stop attack you randomly.
He has a free discard ability so is a great discard \madness deck commander
Oof, monstrosity of the lake could very much be a BRUTAL stax piece. Thassa and Conjurors closet, ensnaring bridge, trinisphere, rising waters, forsaken monument + basalt monolith + staff of domination, inexorable tide, contentious plan, tezzerets gambit, anything in mono blue that proliferates. If their plan is to get through with a creature, you can just keep it locked out with a crapload of stun counters.
After watching the section of Sauron cards, I'm convinced that Richard casts votes because he realizes that "contrary" rankings get people watching the videos. And Seth is just one of those guys who looks for reasons to buck against "the hype".
Loreth of the healing house is great in Experiment Kraaj, now they can be among the ranks of horseshoe crab, to help enable infinite +1 counters or a 7 card combo infinite turns combo. Woo
Uncommon Grima Wormtongue is gas in Jadar. Sac your decayed zombies with their own death trigger on the stack to turn them into a big army and then make another zombie on end step.
Need to make the decayed zombies legendary for the amass, but I like the idea of pulling double duty of sacing them for something else while their trigger is on the stack.
Is there a link for everyone's ratings in a spreadsheet like you've done in the past? Thanks :)
Here: images1.mtggoldfish.com/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/3868/content_Lord_of_the_Rings_Tier_List_G-Z.png
I love how Richard pronounces every name wrong, but Gwaihir was spot on from the first go 😂
Loved Tomers notes
I would like to see an archenemy style game where the fellowship plays the uncommon versions of themselves in PEDH decks vs a Sauron the dark lord normal commander deck
I think the gang is sleeping on lobelia that makes treasures. some kind of living end shenanigans exiling your opponents things, im sure theres a loop to bank a stupid amount of treasure. plus a 3 mana flash commander that nets you mana.
I'm still completely baffled by the commentary on Sauron, the Necromancer and Sauron, the Dark Lord. Like if you want to rate the Dark Lord a B, I strongly disagree but fine. To rate the Necromancer higher though is just illogical. "It's way more cast-able" - the Dark Lord costs 1 more mana. The extra colors make it a bit harder as well, but it shouldn't matter 99% of the time in a well made deck AND they consistently listed mono color as a major flaw for a bunch of other cards. "The Dark Lord gets wrecked by a board wipe" - so does the Necromancer and guess what else the Necromancer gets wrecked by? Spot removal. They even said it needs greaves, so it can get value right away. If your opponent has spot removal up before you can equip greaves you're out of luck though. If only there was a card that had built in protection that also gained you value when your opponents did anything, including trying to remove it... oh wait. The rest of their arguments are whatever, I guess. Nothing that I heard that I disagree TOO strongly with. I think they just find the Necromancer to be a fun card and it colored their perception of how strong it is.
In Thantis I have Raphael, Maskwood Nexus, and Shelob. So the death touch devil spiders ping and make food.
Merry and pippin partners is fun to play. Not terribly strong but I enjoy sacking the foods to make my team huge!
1:38:44 earned my like. Nice editing Tomer!
Gorbag got done dirty, all the lorwyn black goblins are dope and he has ramp/draw on him
1:22:12 Whoah crim buying Green cards in Paper is a Sign! 🧐
Helpful Guid is also my favorite commander from the set. Gonna put it in Zimone and Dona Landfall!
I’ll wait to buy singles due to this video 👍😊greatest info on the net
Necronomicon!
Just that last ability Sauron has makes it an S-tier. I mean, you could easily build a deck capable of drawing 12 cards a turn, since its not a "once per turn" ability.
I don't think Saruman casting cards milled any other way but by his own effect works, so no sword of body and mind or other such mill cards . I think it's a restriction that makes the card worse than most people realize.
I actually built Durin's Bane already & it's a ton of fun! & you don't HAVE to make it super miserable for everyone. If you just keep it symmetrical & leave out the Tergrids of the world, it's not the worst thing to sit down with.
I was thinking aristocrats/treasures with Grave Pact effects
Can we please get the actual image during the video like every other tier list? Please. 🙏
So the deal with Ioreith is cards like cradle or the artifact that lets you tap two creatures of single type to put a creature of that type into play and like alarm deck.
Is there a place where we can upload deck lists? I've got the sickest deck for Crim
I've already built a Witch-King commander deck and I'm having a lot of fun with it, so fun beats your Cs
I watched the extended trilogy straight through since the last episode and I still think there are cards I don't know
You gotta read the books
The movies omitted a LOT and created a lot more that never happened or happened differently. For example, movie watchers would never know who Tom Bombadil is, but he's a large portion of the early story in The Fellowship of the Ring.
I watched the extended trilogy this past week too! lol. I put Captions on and a lot of the legendary orcs and humans had their names there even though they were not spoken in the movie.
Question on Grishnakh, if you instant speed removal it before the amass orcs 2 goes off, does the gain control effect fizzle?
It appears to go on the stack only after the amass orcs resolves, that's why I ask.
If the king phases out, doesn’t shields go down for the rest of the spirits?
Tomer was there for the thumbnail and the rankings but then he died to doomblade. Very sad
@01:26:00
Sorry, "Flame of Udon"? You were reading while hungry again. 🍜🍜🍜
So a card being exactly one mana cheaper makes it so much more cashable? I thought we were playing commander here where even mono white decks can have 6 mana on turn 2 just because of colorless ramp xd
If you listen very closely at the strider card saffron says hard D. 😂😂
Sometimes I feel like Tomer doesn't listen to what Richard says for the grades or Richard is reading from the wrong list because there are so many times the grades don't accurately match and no one has said "oh I'm moving mine from this to that." For Mauhur, Richard said Ds across the board, and there's not much else to say about it. But somehow, Tomer put 3 Ds and a C for Richard.
I'd love to see King of the Oathbreakers versus a Feather or Zada deck, where half their random red cantrips suddenly let you phase out all of his blockers when you want to
King of the Oathbreaker triggers for targeting things you control.
Feather and Zada typically won't do it.
Mirrorwing Dragon and Inktreader Nephilim will though
@@brandyourfan9244 I suppose that I was somewhat vague in my statement. What I meant is that you can use the multitude of random cantrips those decks run like Expidite or Unnatural Speed to phase out Oathbreaker's blockers whenever he's in play
The guys forgot while rating the legendary limitation means little in a set with the ring tempting mechanic. From now on any creature can be legendary if needed.
4 or 5 cmc and greater can be cheated around unlike once per turn, in particular ones that can reduce their own cost such as delve, alternative casting costs, etc.
I built a Sauron, Lord of the Rings budget reanimator deck and in the 4 games I played last night, I could always cast him on turn 4 or 5. You can easily get to 8 mana in commander if you really want to. He came down, did tons of damage and then while everyone tried to clean up and answer my follow up, you just cast again and keep going. Ended my last game with 5 cards left in library
Gwaihir the Windlord IS GOOD for a Birds Tribal deck. Thing is, Birds tribal just isn't competitive anyway, it's never going to be a really impressive, powerful deck. But the goal and strategy of a birds tribal deck is to go as absolutely wide as you can with birds and then peck your opponents to death with pumped up flyers and mostly birds. Vigilance, therefore, is something that is super important for that deck as you'll not only want to be attacking as a win con but also attacking for card draw with things like Reconnaissance Mission and Bident of Thassa. As such, the more sources/chances to get board-wide vigiliance in your deck for birds or fliers the better. You can put in Thraben Watcher and Always Watching, sure, but that's only 2 cards so adding in Gwaihir is a no brainer since, because you'll be drawing cards by attacking anyway and your deck is all fliers so some opponent will almost always be open to such attacks, then you can EASILY, EASILY play Gwaihir, the Windlord for just 4 mana. In which case, he's a REALLY great bird Legendary but I'd still say Kangee, Sky Warden is the best choice for Bird Tribal commander. Gwaihir goes in the 99 for it's great utility.
Also, a 4/4 bird is actually pretty rare. Most birds are pretty wimpy, anywhere from 1/1, 2/1, 3/1, to maybe a 3/4 but nothing really up at 4/4. So, when you consider that, you ABSOLUTELY will be able to play Gwaihir in a birds tribal deck for only 4 mana, a 4CMC, 4/4 bird with vigilance that gives all your other birds vigilance is a great card still. Not as good as Thraben Watcher, no, but still a great card in the 99 that gives your deck just a little bit more chance to get out a board-wide vigilance effect for your birds who you will want to be ALWAYS attacking as many turns as you can for card draw and win con.
For Meneldor, also another great bird card for bird tribal. Birds DO have ETBs in the form of some handy utilities such as the THREE different bird cards that destroy an enchantment when they enter the battlefield (so if you can pull it off you can just knock out a bunch of oppressive enchantments). Those are Cloudchaser Kestrel, Aven Cloudchaser, and Cloudchaser Eagle. Then there's Wingmate Roc, a very good bird card that is 5 mana 3/4 flier which says each time it attacks you get 1 life for each attacking creature. Then it says, "If you attacked with a creature when it enters the battlefield, create a 3/4 bird token creature". Then it's not a bird, but works SUPER well with the above strategy of birds with vigilance (so they never go tapped) but add in Sunblast Angel that destroys all tapped creatures on ETB and you can have repeating board wipes on your enemies' creatures while your birds (or fliers in general) stay untapped due to vigilance. Then add in a Pilgrims eye for land ramp on ETB. Frost Tricksters is a bird card as well that on ETB taps an enemy creature, it doesn't untap on their upkeep. Then you could put in Eagles of the North which on ETB gives your creatures +1 power and first strike til end of turn.
While none of that above sounds like "WOW super unique and SUPER powerful" that's just because birds aren't that good as a tribal OR typically as stand alone cards anyway. So frankly what you're reacting to isn't that these cards aren't good for bird tribal but just that bird tribal isn't that powerful in the first place. I think WOTC has actively tried to keep Birds as a creature type to be a fun but not powerful creature type and saved most of the most powerful creatures in blue, white or Azorius for Angels, Sphinxes, Archons, and so on, THOSE are the big fliers for those colors. Both these cards I think could easily have a place in the 99 in a birds tribal! They're not bad for the strategy or the money. Hell, a 3/3 bird for 4 mana is STILL good in a birds tribal deck even if it had nothing else on it and was vanilla just purely because there aren't that many strong birds with enough of a synergy to be super competitive like Elves would be.
If someone wanted a Birds Tribal deck, I'd recommend adding in what I mentioned above with some ETB triggers, there are a couple other ways to add in some blink or bounce or recursion to your deck to make use of those ETB triggers. There's Keeper of the Nine Gales, a bird that lets you bounce a permanent if you tap two bird you control. There's Cloud Cover a 4 CMC enchantment which lets you bounce your own permanent if it gets targeted by an opponent's spell or ability (this is just good in general if someone tries to hit you with an exile or a destroy effect and you want to save that birdy). Then there's Teshar who, whenever you play a historic spell, allows you to recur a 3 CMC or below cost creature to the battlefield. Then Emeria the Sky Ruin which lets you return ANY permanent to the battlefield if you control 7 or more plains (which is easy to do in a birds deck where it's mostly white mana usage anyway and then you can put in a Cartographer's Hawk, the Pilgrim's Eye mentioned above, a Celestial Dawn (which makes all your lands Plains and you can then use white mana for mana of any color and all other mana becomes colorless). You get the idea there's a lot of ways to push out Plains faster to try and get that card active (and you can use something like a Tolaria West to tutor for it). Then you run a Guardian Scalelord, another of the VERY few but very helpful cards to bring back those beloved birdies.
Then apart from your recursion cards and your ETB bird cards, the rest will be either some fliers that give you some card draw by attacking or whatever and then almost all the rest will be "battle birds" those that either pump, go in for the kill or are just there to swoop in and cause mayhem. So in no particular order, Kangee's Lieutenant, Kangee Aerie Keeper, Gustcloak Savior, Steel Plume Marshall, Ishai, Empyrean Eagle, Lieutenant Kirtar, Commander Eesha and so on. I should have said too, that some have a utility that isn't necessarily card draw or battle so stuff like Esior for some defense for your commander against spells and also Nimble Obstructionist. Then you've some ramp birdies like Warden of Evos Isle and Watcher of the Spheres which reduce the cost of fliers by 1 colorless mana.
Then just pump enchantments, other creatures with flier pumps, other cards that grant vigilance and card draw with combat dmg or attack, cards like True Conviction that grant all your creatures lifelink and double strike, etc. But as you can see, this is a super predictable deck type and not one that is EVER going to be competitive but it's definitely really fun because it's relatively low mana cost cards so you get to DO a lot even if it's not like "I play this one card, I win the game" sort of playstyles.
In any case, I just wanted to say that ETBs do or can or should work in Bird tribal precisely because if you DON'T have anything other than pumping your birds, then it's going to be even more difficult cause some of those ETB effects that are on actually a variety of bird cards can give you utility that bird tribal otherwise struggles with. Meneldor in this way, if you're just sticking to as many birds in bird tribal as possible and NOT going Bragos cause that's just out of flavor or style or whatever, then Meneldor is a GOOD bird card seen this way, not better, but for Birds definitely good.
Yoshimaru Rograkh legends deck laughs at Sauron, the Dark Lord. I would simply sac my 0 mana commander to his ward cost and swords to plowshares him
He could still counter the spell after you have paid the ward
@@karson2022 Ok and? He costs 6. He could also be dead on turn 3 to a really large dog before he could ever cast his commander
@@lukaspecson6095 I very highly doubt your dog is going to be able to kill someone who is likely going to ritual out his commander fast, and even if not he is in blue and black? if he doesnt have any interaction to slow down early game ofc he is gonna die. But that is unlikely
@@karson2022 Yoshi consistently kills people turn 3 and if not then t4 by the latest, in no world is anyone ritualing out Sauron on turn 3 when they have a 7/7 double striker coming at them, and if they are, they have to chump block my yoshi which kills him in combat or swings for lethal at that point. It's very evident you've never played against the dog with how you think these scenarios go
@@karson2022 Yes Yoshi is 100% going to kill someone that is ritualing out their commander by turn 3 or 4 especially when yoshi will be larger than Sauron by that point in the game
Legolas is a weird archers deck. Basilisk Collar, Viridian Longbow, and cantrips? He's just shooting things down combo style. But he's not in death touch colors.
that Saruman of Many Colors card bro...
couldn't sharkey become a land if there is a thespian stage?