Hey everyone! This episode was recorded roughly 2 weeks ago, so you may notice we do not address any of the concerns or developments about COVID-19 in this episode. It's our mission to continue to provide entertaining and informative content to keep you company, and we hope everyone is staying safe, practicing good cleanliness, and looking out for one another. The best part of Magic is the gathering, and though we cannot gather at this time, that doesn't mean we aren't together. EDHREC does not have a Patreon, but many other content producers do, so if you feel you have the means to support content creators out there who may be struggling during this unprecedented time, we encourage you to consider helping them out, so they can continue to make the content we all love. Thank you so, so much for your support of the show. Enjoy the episode, and stay safe.
As a follow-up, I really like mono-white as a theme and have made a couple of decks. They aren't my most competitive, but they can be decent and very flavorful!
A friend of mine pilots an Ayula deck where it semi-Voltron's Ayula with Equipment that he can also give to his other Bears. Because he's, as he puts it, exercising his right to bear arms by arming bears.
Would love time stamps for the different colour combos. That being said... Pulokranos is awesome in a Jarad deck. Bury it in your gy and let your opponents forget it exists. Excellent late game ending combo.
Yeah, Feather can be dirty cheap to build. The Monastery Mentor in my Feather deck is worth more than the rest of the non-land cards. If I cut the rare lands Mentor would be more than entire deck.
Disagree on Farhaven in Meren. The card is fine but if you want to highlight this kind of effect you should really be showing love to Diligent Farmhand. For the same 3 mana you get the same effect only it dies in doing so giving you experience and making it easier to bring back. You can also use it turn 2 if you played it turn 1 which gets you an early Meren which Farhaven can't do. I'm also going to disagree with not of this world. The card is fine and I get why people like it, but white can grant protection, blue can counter, and green can give hexproof all for 1 mana. Yes 1 is a LOT more than 0, but I'd rather shed the condition and just have the over all more flexible card.
Farhaven is nice since you get the body to sacrifice to Alters and what not, but the chance for a turn 3 Meren is super worthwhile imo. It also enables Meren to get some experience if you don't have an outlet up yet, so it has some value there too. It is arguable certainly, but Farmhand would put in work and much more of a "you probably have never heard of this" type of card which is why its worth highlighting imo.
Polukranos is an AMAZING card in Jarad, many times you aren't exiling creature cards from your graveyard to escape him, and the first time you cast Polukranos you can respond to its sac trigger and Sac it to Jarad for sweet sweet damage. plus, you're in BG so you have tons of recursion to do it again without ever having to escape him. even if you do, you just dealt 6 damage to each opponent for 7 mana, followed by another 12 damage to each opponent if you escape it for 9 mana. plus if you have extra mana, responding with a fight trigger can even clear the board for Jarad to swing in. seriously great card for Jarad.
I have a Depala Dwarf Tribal/Artifact deck! Definitely one of my favorite EDH decks, I love a lot of the zany combos I have within it, most land destruction.
I found this video late, but I was getting tired of playing all the same EDH decks and was looking for something different to play. Thanks for the video and all the great recommendations!
41:44 preach it brother I once tried explaining my older brother that farhaven elf is better if you run more basics only to be told that he wanted the ability to grab dual colored lands of which he runs only one that wood elves can actually get I think people get too fixated on the forest being untapped rather than the mana fixing especially considering most answers a golgari deck has are black which means if you tap out and recur wood elves it looks like you have a giant growth at best
Admiral Beckett Brass was the first commander deck I actually built and I have kept improving it since it's construction. I can confirm that a large majority of the cards within the deck I have not really put in anything else
Yeah, planeswalkers essentially read "you can only activate one effect of this card per turn, and only once that turn," so a soft limit since resetting oko will reset his activation but yeah even then, life gain, creature debuffing, and a card swap effect aren't things yugioh prioritize. Honestly giving an opponent a s/t and taking a creature would be an interesting gimmick in yugioh, considering they have a fiew lich-like cards in yugioh where removing them from the field penalizes the controller
Amazing content! Jeez, I really envy that you guys have lots of interesting topics to uncover yet with your unique and rich way of surveying and studying the available data. You simultaneously are helping us discover how to best use edhrec data. Thanks CommZone Crew, the podcast has indeed improved visually. Cheerios from secluded, contagious France ! Take care everyone ! Help others by staying inside and working from home when possible !
If you're doing a lot of self-mill with Jarad, Polukranos gives you a way to use the non-creature cards in your graveyard, not just the creature cards.
I disagree with the challenge on Polukranos in Jarad. It's a 6/6 for four mana, which is efficient and great sac fodder. The concern of it removing cards and weakening other graveyard-centric cards is misplaced; you don't escape it multiple times - you escape it as a finisher to drain all of your opponents for 12 (hopefully the final 12).
My two cents about polykranos on Jarad, first of all you don't have to exile creatures to escape him you can exile lands, enchantments and instants/sorceries which are cards that are harder to get out of your graveyard to start with and they end up in there when you are milling, dredging or whatever. Polukranos is also a card that can get out of your graveyard on his own without any extra help which can be really nice. Lastly he needs only 6 cards in your graveyard for Jarad to deal 12 damage to your opponents, which is a feasible amount to get AFTER you have already gotten your graveyard exiled (assuming Polukranos wasn't exiled with your graveyard in the first place).
2 of my favorite swaps for Farhaven Elf and Wood Elves in my Meren deck are Dawntreader Elk and Diligent Farmhand, plus they have a sac ability on them.
i have built a lot of these commanders and gave my buddy a few of my multiples, which he built, including arcades, rona, and one other that i cant think of at the moment... I have built nearly all of these on MTGO, and i have also built and regularly play a bunch of these in paper :) and my collection only consists of less than 2000 uniquely named cards, with less than 100 legends.. My most expensive card that i bought as a single is Doubling Season for my first ever EDH deck: Slimefoot :) i also bought Parallel Lives, Corpsejack Menace, and Winding Constrictor. My only slight issue is having just 1 copy of a lot of my cards, so im constantly moving them between decks when i play a different commander... Im still not done building all of the decks i have planned tho.
I have friends that have the colorless commander mentioned here, Doran the Siege Tower, and Aryel Knight of Windgrace as commanders in their decks and I like how they made them overall. They are fun to face off against them as well. I find it funny they are mentioned in this video as well.
Thank you for mentioning why escape is not ideal for graveyard decks. When this came out everyone was like. Are you putting this in your sidisi deck. I was like naw bc it exiles my own graveyard
I've had a scorpion god (affectionately named Scorp-gorp) deck since I was able to get to get my hands on him, and hes honestly on of my favorite decks I have!
The pattern here is that many of the most unique decks in each color combination are tribal decks, which makes sense because tribal commanders force you to play cards specific to a particular creature type and often forces you to deviate from what that color combination usually does. I think this video should've excluded tribal commanders because they are for sure going to skew the uniqueness factor.
By that logic we should also remove artifact matters decks from the list of candidates too, since that seems to be the second biggest chunk of archetypes in the video.
It sounded like their methodology eliminated commanders from "major" tribes, because of the way Synergy is calculated. This is why we don't get Elf tribal in green, Merfolk tribal in blue, etc, but we can get Admiral Becket Brass for Pirates.
The Commander ban list is not official, as it's not supported by WOTC for tournament play, so some play groups allow certain banned cards. Ban certain cards that aren't even on the list. Allow people to play non-legendary creatures as commanders, or Planeswalkers that don't have the ability to be your Commander. In the world of organized play, Commander is considered a casual format
@@briangentry3714 so, despite the fact they make products specifically for Commander, have the current banlist on their website, and list format legality for Commander on the gatherer, it's not official because they don't run tournaments? Look, I'm all for rule 0 conversations but the banlist is there as a baseline that you can take anywhere and have it work. If I wanted to make a mono blue deck I wouldn't just slot in a banned card and say, well, it's not tournament sanctioned so there's nothing stopping me from playing this
@@collecter137 Wizards of the Coast doesn't make the list. The Commander Advisory Group and Rules Committee do. Pretty simple concept to grasp. Wizards is not making the ban list. It's a guideline. The CAG even says as much
Possible Challenge the Stats: Myriad Landscape shows up in 5% of Hope of Ghirapur decks but it's completely useless in a colorless deck. 13% of new Kozi decks. 8% of Traxos decks. And so on.
Rona is awesome. Reanimating historic stuff is a new twist and makes perfect sense for a legend who tries to go Phyrexian; they are keen on assimilating great legends into their fold. I said this many times before in other places: Ulrich is NOT a werewolf commander. Just because he has that type and has an ability slightly related to werewolves don't make him an ideal werewolf leader. People fail in making Ulrich deck because they kept wanting to make him werewolf. MTG Muddstah showcased a non-werewolf Ulrich deck twice to good result. And like Ulrich, Varina isn't limited to a zombie deck. You can run near creature less with her using filter cantrips and Time Spiral effect to continuously maintain control while having a board state.
I've often contemplated whether or not super specific strategies like tribes or Kadena morphs are more or less fun for me than goodstuff decks like Muldrotha
I'd say it's more fun. Many commanders like that it's like you are playing an entirely different game and sometimes you have to relearn how you play magic innately.
i think that you are misunderstanding the polukranos + jarad interaction. If you add dredge, you can fuel polukranos by exiling the non creature cards from your yard while leaving the creatures intact.
It doesn't have to be lands. Remember this is from the top 100 played cards with each commander, not from specific lists. So lands does not have to be different at all as there are other variations among lists with the same commander.
Temmet has always interested me as a commander, but I've never gotten the inspiration to make his deck. Maybe with all my free time I'll finally get around to it
I have a challenge the stats for you: Oversold Cemetery appears in ZERO Rankle, Master of Pranks lists and it is the perfect grindy, value card for a deck that is all about generating long term or mid term value.
Dont know if I am the only one thinkin this but when you guys mentioned teshar and macar as most unique commanders, do they still count even though the cards that make them tick are not mainly from their respective colors but from somewhere else, like colorless cards? I don't completely agree with these commanders being the most unique because teshar are mainly colorless creatures, unless someone goes legendary tribal, while macar is exclusively colorless with the two main routes for him are artifacts and vehicles. Just wanted some thoughts on this Also, really surprised that the 5c commander isnt jodah or morophon. Great episode!
30 out of 60 cards being noncreatures in a grave deck that cares about creatures is bad and is not a good reason to fix your deck to prevent exile disruptions from one card. 20 out of 60 cards that care about flashback that you have to exile for running one card is bad for the same reasons. Stop it get some help
@@kingfuzzy2 i personally dont know how i feel about the escape mechanic yet. i have a couple cards but havent played them yet. Also my only golgari deck is with Slimefoot so I havent relied on a full grave yet. Soon Ill be looking for some cheap legends tho so i can expand my deck collection :) cheap as in under $5 or even under $1 haha
I know this is 3 years old now, but as a Meren player with quite a few experience counters, Wood Elves really does add so much more over Farhaven. And because of all of the tutoring available in black and green, and that you are also running STEve and maybe even Yavimaya Elder (draw + able to sacrifice itself of course), there isn't much room left available for another one of those effects that is also demonstrably worse than the better option. Farhaven is the Evolving Wilds to the Wood Evles Verdant Catacombs. And certainly don't discount being able to get Dryad Arbor (for tons of reasons, but one being as a sac option to Birthing Pod for a Spore Frog). In a more budget friendly deck it probably gains a bit of extra ground because you don't have as many tutors. Also, interestingly, 3 years later, Farhaven is now at 26% to Wood Elves 49%. I get why there are more Farhaven, I don't know why there are fewer Wood Elves....
In the wrapup for this episode it occurred to me that I would really like to see discussion about partner commanders used as the only commander. I, for instance, have Silas Wrenn, Seeker Adept as my commander for a lightly modified version of the Warhammer Necron Precon. Sometimes a single partner is the only card I want to build around and if I can do that without leaving color, then I do so.
For Polukranos, Unchained it's clear that the strategy is to escape and sacrifice it to get in that last 12 damage to win. At that point it doesn't matter if you exile your graveyard.
On the Meren challenge: Yavimaya Granger not only does the same thing that Farhaven Elf does, but it also dies to echo, which ups your experience and allows you to replay it without a sac outlet.
About the polukranos in Jarad. You probably don't need to sacrifice him that many times to kill the table, so using the resources to escape him often will just end the game.
i feel that the polukranos inclusion in jarad decks works best as a late game 12 damage kill shot for 9 mana. You've self milled and done a lot of damage, one or more opponents are lower than 12, so even if you dont have cards in hand you can still play a pretty powerful nuke. At that point the exile cost won't matter.
They completely forget about Traxos as truly newest colorless commander , dominaria was indeed after the Kaledesh block .... Give the goodboy some love ... He's just a big ole doggo who likes to be play
A buddy of mine has a Urza/Yawgmoth myr tribal with rona at the helm. Rona's sole job is to make sure he can treat urza/yawgmoth as commanders being able to re-cast them.
Tribal Commander decks are still commander decks. Uniqueness has been part of (Most) tribal decks charm, and to exclude them from a discussion about uniqueness shows a bias against tribal as an archetype.
It sounded like their methodology eliminated commanders from "major" tribes, because of the way Synergy is calculated. This is why we don't get Elf tribal in green, Merfolk tribal in blue, etc, but we can get Admiral Becket Brass for Pirates.
what is sad is that "Immerwolf" is the best commander for werewolves and he's not legendary, but I'm sure your play group would let you build around him even if he's not legendary, he's so good with werewolves, but only human ones, so not the eldrazi. I'mmerwolf is a 2/2 wolf for 1RG. he has intimidate and his text says: Each other creature you control that's a Wolf or a Werewolf gets +1/+1. Non-Human Werewolves you control can't transform. this means your humans will transdform into their warewolf form, but can't turn back, so they are never in their weaker form again. so long as Immerwolf is on the battlefiield. this is the perfect werewolf commander. he buffs them by +1/+1 and makes them be powerful all the time. Experimental frenzy + Grafdiggers cage in Zedruu is nasty, you give Experimental frenzy to a non-red player and with grafdiggers cage out, he can't play anything for the rest of the game, then you copy Experimental frenzy with something like Clever impersonator and give it to the next non-red player and now he's locked out.
This was a great episode! I love unique and underdog type cards. Could you do an episode about odd cards or if there is already one can someone link me? I love cards like Rescue from the Underworld!
The Polukranos is Jarad is decent because if they have infinite mana it's a wincon that both continuously come out of the GY or CZ. I do understand the non-bo, but I also see the upside in a lot of ways. Exiling lands from your GY after dredging 5 for two turns doesn't seem so bad to me.
I never knew what you guys looked like and I held a picture in my head just by the sound of your voice.. You guys are better looking than I thought but don't let it go to your heads lol jk love the show guys!
“The original Gruul Omnath that also just makes a ton of elementals...” I think you’re forgetting the original Omnath was mono green. gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+[Omnath]
About the Meren of Clan Nel Toth discussion, I think both are right :) Wood Elves is goated and clearly better, but not to the point of a 40% disparity. This was fun to watch even if it is not a fresh ep :)
Was expecting Hapatra with how -1 counters are just not a common mechanic, so not surprised Scorpion God was picked. Just wish Hapatra had a but more attention
@@kingfuzzy2 -1/-1 counters in it's own right isn't that common. Infect is relatively, but golgari is more general GY recursion. In terms of -1/-1 counters, golgari does have a lot of cards, but those cards just dont seem to be in many commander decks being that most commanders dont have a use for them
I feel like some people haven't seen very many mono black Artifact decks they are all uniquely powerful. I like to build unique / obscure decks and I loved this podcast except wer they limited the decks to 100. To beat zedruu exile their wincons even if they have wishcards in the deck to fetch them again zedruu decks run very very few wincons 3 or less or just want the game to last forever with 0 wincons for the 0 one just mass exile Everything or punish them for running delay effects / sorceries / instants/ non creatures/ and lastly turn/ phase skipping cards. I think you forgot the nephilim the very reason why there is 4 colour commanders and casual 4 colour non-legendary commanders
Allow me to pitch you an upgrade to farhaven that I don't see a lot: Yavimaya Granger. Same cost, same any basic tapped effect, except it's a 2/2 (minor relevance) and has echo, which mean you can choose not to pay the cost and it sacrifices itself and gets you your experience counter, which is useful if you're short a sac outlet and are trying to build your experience count as well as fetching a land at 2G on a stick.
Mono black doesn't do artifacts? lol wut... Also as for Yuriko not being the most unique dimir commmander, I just imagine that since it's among the best/most popular ones of that color combo, the decks in the DB will have more staples. I like when you talked about "not of this world" and mentioned a free counterspell against something that kills your commander... given that this video was a few months ago and they now have the cycle of free if your commander is out spells... Also, farhaven elf is much worse, wood elves gets a shock untapped, farhaven gets a basic tapped, effectively costing 1 more mana. Overall great episode btw, thank you : )
Damn Jhoira of the Ghitu is bad ass. Definitely making a deck with her. Also haha, I made a Zedruu the Greathearted deck the other day before watching this video. Super pumped about him. Illusions of Grandeur is way more bad ass to give to your opponents than Mediocrity because of the cumulative upkeep and 20 life. Also I put in a bunch of Darksteel Mutation like enchantments
bad take on polukranos and in general escape. The option to cast it with a full yard is valid, the option to mill noncreatures and still recur it is valid, polu even kills itself to put it back in the yard. Im suprised you mention a dredge cards front face because the thing a gy player wants to do with a dredger is discard and dredge it back, they never want it in play even if its a 10/10.
I built a Glissa deck as my 2nd competitive deck for Commander and it's pretty disgusting. The general idea is infinitely recurring Mindslaver which turns your opponents into traitors and is amazingly on theme.
Complaining about Polukranos in Jarad is somewhat similar to complaining about Triumph of the Hordes in X. It's kinda a wincon. Anti-synergistic with the rest of the deck but does it matter if everyone else is dead?
Hey everyone! This episode was recorded roughly 2 weeks ago, so you may notice we do not address any of the concerns or developments about COVID-19 in this episode. It's our mission to continue to provide entertaining and informative content to keep you company, and we hope everyone is staying safe, practicing good cleanliness, and looking out for one another. The best part of Magic is the gathering, and though we cannot gather at this time, that doesn't mean we aren't together.
EDHREC does not have a Patreon, but many other content producers do, so if you feel you have the means to support content creators out there who may be struggling during this unprecedented time, we encourage you to consider helping them out, so they can continue to make the content we all love.
Thank you so, so much for your support of the show. Enjoy the episode, and stay safe.
@Matthew Maclaren Or nobody wants to play it because it is quantifiably weaker than other colors and color combinations...
As a follow-up, I really like mono-white as a theme and have made a couple of decks. They aren't my most competitive, but they can be decent and very flavorful!
This just in, Oko has been banned in Yu-Gi-Oh!
But what about the new Super-Pulsar-Galaxy-Oko No. 75?
Oko is not banned in yugioh as that format is too fast for oko to do anything
@@winter945 the really sad thing is you are right
damn and i was just about to buy some for my Raidraptor deck to
holy shit Oko's tokens make Mecha Phantom Beasts actually playable!!
"the most unique colorless commander is also the newest"
*sad traxos noises*
Traxos scourge of kroog!!!
Narabedla yeah wheres my boi at
@@bryankopkin6869 exactly!!
Sad part? I had to re-record that bit a few days later, and got it wrong again.
A friend of mine pilots an Ayula deck where it semi-Voltron's Ayula with Equipment that he can also give to his other Bears. Because he's, as he puts it, exercising his right to bear arms by arming bears.
Take my thumbs up and leave.
BRILLIANT!!!!!
Take my damn thumbs up, make sure you buy your friend a beer cause that’s funny as hell 😂
Would love time stamps for the different colour combos. That being said... Pulokranos is awesome in a Jarad deck. Bury it in your gy and let your opponents forget it exists. Excellent late game ending combo.
Had a Temmet deck for a long time. Mirrorweave is sweet when you have a Germ on the field.
I actually was surprised about Boros. Feather uses like 40 cards that no other commander deck would ever touch, but you found some obscure one lol.
Yeah, Feather can be dirty cheap to build. The Monastery Mentor in my Feather deck is worth more than the rest of the non-land cards. If I cut the rare lands Mentor would be more than entire deck.
Me too. Feather is like one and two mana jank spell tribal. I guess Depala is just so obscure.
I enjoy this type of video layout balancing the hosts and cards. The hosts seem very likable too
Would love to see an updated episode
Disagree on Farhaven in Meren. The card is fine but if you want to highlight this kind of effect you should really be showing love to Diligent Farmhand. For the same 3 mana you get the same effect only it dies in doing so giving you experience and making it easier to bring back. You can also use it turn 2 if you played it turn 1 which gets you an early Meren which Farhaven can't do.
I'm also going to disagree with not of this world. The card is fine and I get why people like it, but white can grant protection, blue can counter, and green can give hexproof all for 1 mana. Yes 1 is a LOT more than 0, but I'd rather shed the condition and just have the over all more flexible card.
a little late, but paying Mana to sacrifice a creature is a lot more than free sac outlets you are already playing in Meren decks
Farhaven is nice since you get the body to sacrifice to Alters and what not, but the chance for a turn 3 Meren is super worthwhile imo. It also enables Meren to get some experience if you don't have an outlet up yet, so it has some value there too. It is arguable certainly, but Farmhand would put in work and much more of a "you probably have never heard of this" type of card which is why its worth highlighting imo.
Polukranos is an AMAZING card in Jarad, many times you aren't exiling creature cards from your graveyard to escape him, and the first time you cast Polukranos you can respond to its sac trigger and Sac it to Jarad for sweet sweet damage. plus, you're in BG so you have tons of recursion to do it again without ever having to escape him. even if you do, you just dealt 6 damage to each opponent for 7 mana, followed by another 12 damage to each opponent if you escape it for 9 mana.
plus if you have extra mana, responding with a fight trigger can even clear the board for Jarad to swing in. seriously great card for Jarad.
I have a Depala Dwarf Tribal/Artifact deck! Definitely one of my favorite EDH decks, I love a lot of the zany combos I have within it, most land destruction.
I found this video late, but I was getting tired of playing all the same EDH decks and was looking for something different to play. Thanks for the video and all the great recommendations!
20:56 Since Lorwyn? Did Scars Block traumatize you so much that you forgot it entirely?
41:44 preach it brother I once tried explaining my older brother that farhaven elf is better if you run more basics only to be told that he wanted the ability to grab dual colored lands of which he runs only one that wood elves can actually get I think people get too fixated on the forest being untapped rather than the mana fixing especially considering most answers a golgari deck has are black which means if you tap out and recur wood elves it looks like you have a giant growth at best
Very interesting content! See such unique commanders kind of makes me want to start brewing
Admiral Beckett Brass was the first commander deck I actually built and I have kept improving it since it's construction. I can confirm that a large majority of the cards within the deck I have not really put in anything else
Crazy thing is oko would probably be underpowered in yugioh lol
You're not joking lol
Yeah, planeswalkers essentially read "you can only activate one effect of this card per turn, and only once that turn," so a soft limit since resetting oko will reset his activation but yeah even then, life gain, creature debuffing, and a card swap effect aren't things yugioh prioritize. Honestly giving an opponent a s/t and taking a creature would be an interesting gimmick in yugioh, considering they have a fiew lich-like cards in yugioh where removing them from the field penalizes the controller
Dude outside of the place that they make in legacy everything is underpowered compared to Yu-Gi-Oh
I mean floodgate trap hole was good before links.
I don't know, making an attack position monster into a vanilla 3/3 would seriously hurt
Amazing content!
Jeez, I really envy that you guys have lots of interesting topics to uncover yet with your unique and rich way of surveying and studying the available data.
You simultaneously are helping us discover how to best use edhrec data.
Thanks CommZone Crew, the podcast has indeed improved visually.
Cheerios from secluded, contagious France ! Take care everyone ! Help others by staying inside and working from home when possible !
When they got to mono-blue I was like... Is this Tomer's fault ? (from MTGGoldfish)
If you're doing a lot of self-mill with Jarad, Polukranos gives you a way to use the non-creature cards in your graveyard, not just the creature cards.
I disagree with the challenge on Polukranos in Jarad. It's a 6/6 for four mana, which is efficient and great sac fodder. The concern of it removing cards and weakening other graveyard-centric cards is misplaced; you don't escape it multiple times - you escape it as a finisher to drain all of your opponents for 12 (hopefully the final 12).
My two cents about polykranos on Jarad, first of all you don't have to exile creatures to escape him you can exile lands, enchantments and instants/sorceries which are cards that are harder to get out of your graveyard to start with and they end up in there when you are milling, dredging or whatever.
Polukranos is also a card that can get out of your graveyard on his own without any extra help which can be really nice.
Lastly he needs only 6 cards in your graveyard for Jarad to deal 12 damage to your opponents, which is a feasible amount to get AFTER you have already gotten your graveyard exiled (assuming Polukranos wasn't exiled with your graveyard in the first place).
Also he's a 4 mana 6/6 that can trade for multiple things. It's a card that's decent on its own without Escape with a ton of flexibility to boot.
I'm a little sad that Mairsil didn't make it to this list but the pirate tribal commander is definitely unique.
2 of my favorite swaps for Farhaven Elf and Wood Elves in my Meren deck are Dawntreader Elk and Diligent Farmhand, plus they have a sac ability on them.
Technicly speaking the most recent colorless commander is "Traxos, Scourge of Kroog" but I don"t thin there is much to do with it except Tron.
i have built a lot of these commanders and gave my buddy a few of my multiples, which he built, including arcades, rona, and one other that i cant think of at the moment... I have built nearly all of these on MTGO, and i have also built and regularly play a bunch of these in paper :) and my collection only consists of less than 2000 uniquely named cards, with less than 100 legends.. My most expensive card that i bought as a single is Doubling Season for my first ever EDH deck: Slimefoot :) i also bought Parallel Lives, Corpsejack Menace, and Winding Constrictor. My only slight issue is having just 1 copy of a lot of my cards, so im constantly moving them between decks when i play a different commander... Im still not done building all of the decks i have planned tho.
I am surprised that the mono red commander wasn't Ashling the Pilgram, as 99 mountains is pretty unique. ;)
Hell yea, was looking for my girl
I have friends that have the colorless commander mentioned here, Doran the Siege Tower, and Aryel Knight of Windgrace as commanders in their decks and I like how they made them overall. They are fun to face off against them as well. I find it funny they are mentioned in this video as well.
Representing Hope of Ghirapur (HoG) here! Feels great knowing my commander can come out T1 every game.
4:30 Colorless 6:10 White (W)
7:46 Blue (U) 9:36 Black (B)
11:06 Red (R) 14:40 Green (G)
Thank you for mentioning why escape is not ideal for graveyard decks. When this came out everyone was like. Are you putting this in your sidisi deck. I was like naw bc it exiles my own graveyard
Thanks ( :
True that cut the chaff that doesn't synergize.
I've had a scorpion god (affectionately named Scorp-gorp) deck since I was able to get to get my hands on him, and hes honestly on of my favorite decks I have!
The pattern here is that many of the most unique decks in each color combination are tribal decks, which makes sense because tribal commanders force you to play cards specific to a particular creature type and often forces you to deviate from what that color combination usually does. I think this video should've excluded tribal commanders because they are for sure going to skew the uniqueness factor.
By that logic we should also remove artifact matters decks from the list of candidates too, since that seems to be the second biggest chunk of archetypes in the video.
It sounded like their methodology eliminated commanders from "major" tribes, because of the way Synergy is calculated. This is why we don't get Elf tribal in green, Merfolk tribal in blue, etc, but we can get Admiral Becket Brass for Pirates.
I was surprised to see that Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker is not the most unique mono-black commander. Nice video as always btw.
I'm so glad to hear about the Vela the Nightclad deck because I built a blink combo deck based around her and I'm really intrigued to know the build
Aryel was my second deck ever, op. Shoutout to Waylay. So good!
Polukranos can exile noncreature cards, you're good. I'll add it lol
Love the podcast, I've been listening from the beginning but first time interacting. Can we do this subject again, but with tribal decks disincluded?
I'm not sure why erayo was used as a moonfolk example since that card is banned in commander, but the video is interesting nonetheless
The Commander ban list is not official, as it's not supported by WOTC for tournament play, so some play groups allow certain banned cards. Ban certain cards that aren't even on the list. Allow people to play non-legendary creatures as commanders, or Planeswalkers that don't have the ability to be your Commander. In the world of organized play, Commander is considered a casual format
@@briangentry3714 so, despite the fact they make products specifically for Commander, have the current banlist on their website, and list format legality for Commander on the gatherer, it's not official because they don't run tournaments? Look, I'm all for rule 0 conversations but the banlist is there as a baseline that you can take anywhere and have it work. If I wanted to make a mono blue deck I wouldn't just slot in a banned card and say, well, it's not tournament sanctioned so there's nothing stopping me from playing this
@@collecter137 Wizards of the Coast doesn't make the list. The Commander Advisory Group and Rules Committee do. Pretty simple concept to grasp. Wizards is not making the ban list. It's a guideline. The CAG even says as much
My favourite Macar vehicles deck name is Dude Where's Macar?
Possible Challenge the Stats: Myriad Landscape shows up in 5% of Hope of Ghirapur decks but it's completely useless in a colorless deck.
13% of new Kozi decks. 8% of Traxos decks.
And so on.
Wastes are considered basic lands.
@@swatkatsrule nope
@@swatkatsrule Not how it works. They don't have a basic land type.
Rona is awesome. Reanimating historic stuff is a new twist and makes perfect sense for a legend who tries to go Phyrexian; they are keen on assimilating great legends into their fold.
I said this many times before in other places: Ulrich is NOT a werewolf commander. Just because he has that type and has an ability slightly related to werewolves don't make him an ideal werewolf leader. People fail in making Ulrich deck because they kept wanting to make him werewolf. MTG Muddstah showcased a non-werewolf Ulrich deck twice to good result.
And like Ulrich, Varina isn't limited to a zombie deck. You can run near creature less with her using filter cantrips and Time Spiral effect to continuously maintain control while having a board state.
True commander text isn't all that synergizes well with the commander think skeleton ship.
How hard would it be to add a "uniqueness score" to each Commander page? I would love that.
I've often contemplated whether or not super specific strategies like tribes or Kadena morphs are more or less fun for me than goodstuff decks like Muldrotha
I'd say it's more fun. Many commanders like that it's like you are playing an entirely different game and sometimes you have to relearn how you play magic innately.
i think that you are misunderstanding the polukranos + jarad interaction. If you add dredge, you can fuel polukranos by exiling the non creature cards from your yard while leaving the creatures intact.
78? That means unique lands that aren't run in those three colors. I think the lands become something we should know about.
It doesn't have to be lands. Remember this is from the top 100 played cards with each commander, not from specific lists.
So lands does not have to be different at all as there are other variations among lists with the same commander.
Wathing this 3 years later...Man, so much has changed and SO MANY new cards went into circulation since...@39:45, Dana, Swat says hi :)
Temmet has always interested me as a commander, but I've never gotten the inspiration to make his deck. Maybe with all my free time I'll finally get around to it
I have a challenge the stats for you:
Oversold Cemetery appears in ZERO Rankle, Master of Pranks lists and it is the perfect grindy, value card for a deck that is all about generating long term or mid term value.
thanks for a very fun video, guys!
Dont know if I am the only one thinkin this but when you guys mentioned teshar and macar as most unique commanders, do they still count even though the cards that make them tick are not mainly from their respective colors but from somewhere else, like colorless cards? I don't completely agree with these commanders being the most unique because teshar are mainly colorless creatures, unless someone goes legendary tribal, while macar is exclusively colorless with the two main routes for him are artifacts and vehicles. Just wanted some thoughts on this
Also, really surprised that the 5c commander isnt jodah or morophon. Great episode!
I was originally surprised 5c wasn't reaper king, but OG Kamigawa spirits really does take the crown.
Pokukranos doesnt have to exile creatures.. it can be anything, so it can easily not disrupt a single thing for golgari grave-matters ;)
30 out of 60 cards being noncreatures in a grave deck that cares about creatures is bad and is not a good reason to fix your deck to prevent exile disruptions from one card. 20 out of 60 cards that care about flashback that you have to exile for running one card is bad for the same reasons. Stop it get some help
@@kingfuzzy2 lol i was just mentioning it :p since the Escape doesnt say it has to be creatures.. you could always exile fetchlands and ramp spells.
@@tornadojoe87 I know my point still stands I'm very pedantic : p
@@kingfuzzy2 i personally dont know how i feel about the escape mechanic yet. i have a couple cards but havent played them yet. Also my only golgari deck is with Slimefoot so I havent relied on a full grave yet. Soon Ill be looking for some cheap legends tho so i can expand my deck collection :) cheap as in under $5 or even under $1 haha
40:30 hearing joey talk about his favorite golgari deck and it be merin and not baby lasagna is such a weird feeling
I know this is 3 years old now, but as a Meren player with quite a few experience counters, Wood Elves really does add so much more over Farhaven. And because of all of the tutoring available in black and green, and that you are also running STEve and maybe even Yavimaya Elder (draw + able to sacrifice itself of course), there isn't much room left available for another one of those effects that is also demonstrably worse than the better option. Farhaven is the Evolving Wilds to the Wood Evles Verdant Catacombs. And certainly don't discount being able to get Dryad Arbor (for tons of reasons, but one being as a sac option to Birthing Pod for a Spore Frog). In a more budget friendly deck it probably gains a bit of extra ground because you don't have as many tutors.
Also, interestingly, 3 years later, Farhaven is now at 26% to Wood Elves 49%. I get why there are more Farhaven, I don't know why there are fewer Wood Elves....
In the wrapup for this episode it occurred to me that I would really like to see discussion about partner commanders used as the only commander. I, for instance, have Silas Wrenn, Seeker Adept as my commander for a lightly modified version of the Warhammer Necron Precon. Sometimes a single partner is the only card I want to build around and if I can do that without leaving color, then I do so.
For Polukranos, Unchained it's clear that the strategy is to escape and sacrifice it to get in that last 12 damage to win. At that point it doesn't matter if you exile your graveyard.
Ah! Kamigawa shows up a lot in these kinds of things. Love it.
As a yugioh player I can confirm oko is playable
No one plays removal anyways, but…
Love this podcast. Keep the great content up 😀👍
Was kind of expecting Horobi for black and wort for gruul, but I guess this makes sense :)
You exile noncreature cards with Polukranos, as much as you can help it anyway
I would love to see this revisited after 4 year's gap!
Woohoo! I love my Brass deck, it's fun to steal opponents stuff, and if you're up against tron, 'fumble' is no joke :D
On the Meren challenge: Yavimaya Granger not only does the same thing that Farhaven Elf does, but it also dies to echo, which ups your experience and allows you to replay it without a sac outlet.
About the polukranos in Jarad. You probably don't need to sacrifice him that many times to kill the table, so using the resources to escape him often will just end the game.
i feel that the polukranos inclusion in jarad decks works best as a late game 12 damage kill shot for 9 mana. You've self milled and done a lot of damage, one or more opponents are lower than 12, so even if you dont have cards in hand you can still play a pretty powerful nuke. At that point the exile cost won't matter.
I'd love to see an updated version of this
They completely forget about Traxos as truly newest colorless commander , dominaria was indeed after the Kaledesh block .... Give the goodboy some love ... He's just a big ole doggo who likes to be play
A buddy of mine has a Urza/Yawgmoth myr tribal with rona at the helm. Rona's sole job is to make sure he can treat urza/yawgmoth as commanders being able to re-cast them.
I love my grand warlord Radha Edh deck it has an infinite mana and battle phase combo. Ahhh such a good relaxing gruul deck
Just started watching your guys' channel, my Kykar deck wants a shot at Dana for that jeskai joke
they should've excluded tribal commanders. obviously commanders with unique tribes are gonna be using alot of unique cards. it really skews the stats.
Totally agree, I think it would have made the ep less repetitive
Tribal Commander decks are still commander decks. Uniqueness has been part of (Most) tribal decks charm, and to exclude them from a discussion about uniqueness shows a bias against tribal as an archetype.
It sounded like their methodology eliminated commanders from "major" tribes, because of the way Synergy is calculated. This is why we don't get Elf tribal in green, Merfolk tribal in blue, etc, but we can get Admiral Becket Brass for Pirates.
It seems a lot of the unique commanders are tribal based which is interesting to think about
"nobody is running cloud pirates in normal simic decks"
Me, with cloud pirates in every deck I have with blue...
I have a Doran deck it often is good in pods where nothing else I have deckwise works against the decks my friends play at particular times
what is sad is that "Immerwolf" is the best commander for werewolves and he's not legendary, but I'm sure your play group would let you build around him even if he's not legendary, he's so good with werewolves, but only human ones, so not the eldrazi. I'mmerwolf is a 2/2 wolf for 1RG. he has intimidate and his text says: Each other creature you control that's a Wolf or a Werewolf gets +1/+1. Non-Human Werewolves you control can't transform. this means your humans will transdform into their warewolf form, but can't turn back, so they are never in their weaker form again. so long as Immerwolf is on the battlefiield. this is the perfect werewolf commander. he buffs them by +1/+1 and makes them be powerful all the time.
Experimental frenzy + Grafdiggers cage in Zedruu is nasty, you give Experimental frenzy to a non-red player and with grafdiggers cage out, he can't play anything for the rest of the game, then you copy Experimental frenzy with something like Clever impersonator and give it to the next non-red player and now he's locked out.
This was a great episode! I love unique and underdog type cards. Could you do an episode about odd cards or if there is already one can someone link me? I love cards like Rescue from the Underworld!
Try building budget versions of expensive cards you'll discover jank.
I'm an Arcades player and I knew it would make the list.
Oh my god, the video is amazing!
The Polukranos is Jarad is decent because if they have infinite mana it's a wincon that both continuously come out of the GY or CZ. I do understand the non-bo, but I also see the upside in a lot of ways. Exiling lands from your GY after dredging 5 for two turns doesn't seem so bad to me.
I never knew what you guys looked like and I held a picture in my head just by the sound of your voice.. You guys are better looking than I thought but don't let it go to your heads lol jk love the show guys!
I JUST build a King Macar deck in a "classic" black pattern + artifact synergy. I feel like I did it all wrong now.
“The original Gruul Omnath that also just makes a ton of elementals...” I think you’re forgetting the original Omnath was mono green.
gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+[Omnath]
About the Meren of Clan Nel Toth discussion, I think both are right :) Wood Elves is goated and clearly better, but not to the point of a 40% disparity. This was fun to watch even if it is not a fresh ep :)
I absolutely love my Zedruu and Varina decks
Varina was my first commander deck and Zedruu is the one I have the most fun with
Cool podcast guys!
Was expecting Hapatra with how -1 counters are just not a common mechanic, so not surprised Scorpion God was picked. Just wish Hapatra had a but more attention
Snake tribal, -1/-1 counters, and infect are common golgari thems so sadly hapatra isn't exceptionally unique but still is fun.
@@kingfuzzy2 -1/-1 counters in it's own right isn't that common. Infect is relatively, but golgari is more general GY recursion. In terms of -1/-1 counters, golgari does have a lot of cards, but those cards just dont seem to be in many commander decks being that most commanders dont have a use for them
@@traycarrot Ummm, Hapatra is only about 50 cents...
@@jackpabich763 I got her for $0.08
@@kingfuzzy2 That's impressive
I feel like some people haven't seen very many mono black Artifact decks they are all uniquely powerful. I like to build unique / obscure decks and I loved this podcast except wer they limited the decks to 100. To beat zedruu exile their wincons even if they have wishcards in the deck to fetch them again zedruu decks run very very few wincons 3 or less or just want the game to last forever with 0 wincons for the 0 one just mass exile Everything or punish them for running delay effects / sorceries / instants/ non creatures/ and lastly turn/ phase skipping cards. I think you forgot the nephilim the very reason why there is 4 colour commanders and casual 4 colour non-legendary commanders
I'm so happy, uril is my best commander out of 14 decks
Allow me to pitch you an upgrade to farhaven that I don't see a lot: Yavimaya Granger. Same cost, same any basic tapped effect, except it's a 2/2 (minor relevance) and has echo, which mean you can choose not to pay the cost and it sacrifices itself and gets you your experience counter, which is useful if you're short a sac outlet and are trying to build your experience count as well as fetching a land at 2G on a stick.
Mono black doesn't do artifacts? lol wut... Also as for Yuriko not being the most unique dimir commmander, I just imagine that since it's among the best/most popular ones of that color combo, the decks in the DB will have more staples. I like when you talked about "not of this world" and mentioned a free counterspell against something that kills your commander... given that this video was a few months ago and they now have the cycle of free if your commander is out spells... Also, farhaven elf is much worse, wood elves gets a shock untapped, farhaven gets a basic tapped, effectively costing 1 more mana. Overall great episode btw, thank you : )
Damn Jhoira of the Ghitu is bad ass. Definitely making a deck with her. Also haha, I made a Zedruu the Greathearted deck the other day before watching this video. Super pumped about him. Illusions of Grandeur is way more bad ass to give to your opponents than Mediocrity because of the cumulative upkeep and 20 life. Also I put in a bunch of Darksteel Mutation like enchantments
In Jarad, if you have doubling season in play, Polukranos gets sacd for 12, comes back and gets sacd for 24. Your opponents are probably dead.
Y’all should revisit this video now after 2 years of more printed commanders
"moonfolk offering is a unique ability" oh you forgot emerge too? its okay :( everyone does
Emerge doesn't give it flash though
Fully expected Anje to be the RB commander. Very surprised to Scorp there
bad take on polukranos and in general escape. The option to cast it with a full yard is valid, the option to mill noncreatures and still recur it is valid, polu even kills itself to put it back in the yard. Im suprised you mention a dredge cards front face because the thing a gy player wants to do with a dredger is discard and dredge it back, they never want it in play even if its a 10/10.
I built a Glissa deck as my 2nd competitive deck for Commander and it's pretty disgusting.
The general idea is infinitely recurring Mindslaver which turns your opponents into traitors and is amazingly on theme.
Complaining about Polukranos in Jarad is somewhat similar to complaining about Triumph of the Hordes in X. It's kinda a wincon. Anti-synergistic with the rest of the deck but does it matter if everyone else is dead?