Love this series. You guys have become my go-to for the most in-depth deck building content, both in the mechanics and synergies of the decks and how it all fits in the spirit of commander.
Joey is my people. The way Joey describes his love of reanimation sounds like me trying to explain my play style. One day I'll get a game with Joey and we will reanimate our way to the 1 and 2 position
We’re all like that about one type of deck. If I had one penny for every time someone said something like, “Why don’t you just sit in a corner and play with an abacus? That’s basically what you’re doing with the endless array of +1/+1 counters decks?” I could launch a hostile takeover of Amazon. I’m never able to accurately articulate the joy I get out of figuring out how to counters-load a Fertilid as fast as humanly possible, while attending to the ramp and permanent protection needs to get the mana to go nuts with the land-fetching super early. I loved +1/+1 counters since first encountering Whirling Dervish all the way back in 3rd, but they were nothing but an incidental buff (at best) 99.9% of the time in 60-card. (Even if T2-ing a Dervish on a Mono Black Discard Deck was *always* a joy.) I played a ton of W/U Control and R/U Aggro-Burn back in the day. That’s just not what I want from EDH.
I've now seen like 4 videos with joey and I want to be his best friend his pure joy he gets from playing the game genuinely warms my cold dead heart. Joey you are a joy and continue the good work.
I had no idea Joey was gay, but hearing that someone in the community feels comfortable enough to easily express that to us (I my eyes) shows just how amazing this community is
I can relate, and I think its nice to have 1-2 really tough decks for my playgroup : ) I mean I even like it if I play against a bonkers deck, for the challenge ^^
I am rebuilding another copy of Meren that is the stock precon so that I have a known power level of Meren that can be played in Precon level games but I can't take her apart. She's what got me into the format and losing her would take me out lol
I really enjoy these existential ponderings about commander. I love hearing why people feel the way they do about the decks they build. Commander is such an self-expressive format, so hearing a person talk about their deck is like getting a window into their soul.
I've only ever netdecked 2 EDH decks before... funnily enough those would be Matt's Valduk and Dana's Vela... but now I HAVE to try this Baba deck. You guys are the best EDH podcast out there. Thanks!
My first commander deck was a bloated Angel, Human, Solder trible beck with Aurelia, the Warleader at the helm. That eventually morphed into a clunky Solder Battalion deck with Aurelia still at the helm. The thing was, in both cases, I was winning more with just Aurelia than the go-wide strategy I wanted. So, I split that deck into two. I now have an "Exulted Aurelia" deck and a Tajic, Blade of the Legion battalion deck. The Aurelia deck is a voltron deck where I build a supporting army and at least one mass Exulted effect (like Sublime Angel) and go out swinging. There is an Angel tribal sub-theme, but all angel cards are in survice of the central attack strategy with only one creature at a time (namely Aurilea). I'm still tooling with my Tajic deck. Its "power level" is too low for my LGSs, so im going to need to power it up, but I don't expect it to be as big a powerhouse as its sibling. I tend to favor some mix of go wide and token strat with my decks; however, I do have fun quietly building my backup singers to exult Voltron at least one opponent in one turn (and two combats, thanks to Aurelia herself). Anyway, I know im a bit late to this conversation, but I wanted to share my story in this vain. I am willing and able to provide *current* deck lists if desired.
"I wanted my opponents to still be able to do the thing, but I wanted to best them even when they were got to do the thing." Holy cow, all of my thoughts in one sentence.
Great episode of this mini series where you talk about your commander decks and your personal thoughts on your deck brewers journey, I absolutely love it !
The excitement and pure joy Joey has when talking about this deck is infectious! I'm a graveyard/aristocrat lover too, and people always groan when I play Meren. So maybe a change is in order for me too.
i took my *jarad-graveyard-power-and-toughness* deck apart and made *combo-meren* out of it. people hated it, so i made a *super-selfmill-grist* deck out of it with a lot of insects.. it was not a fun deck and very slow. BUT NOW... i think i'm finally at home... *i found my dream golgari commander thanks to you.* played it first time today and i love it!!!!!!!
Love this video, Joey. The flow from introspection about multi-player enjoyment & self-critique to a specific new deck tech. For me, the biggest take-apart-&-pivot-to-something-similar was my mono-red Homura deck. It started out with just my fav red cards, & creative sac outlets for Homura. But as my group's power level went up, it didn't scale well. I pushed it toward red burn-recursion, but there just aren't enough key pieces yet. So I transitioned to Jaxis - which keeps my love of mono-red, but gives me more interesting lines of play. The same unpredictable ebb and flow, but a more cohesive core.
I had a Gitrog deck for yeeaaars. Really my pride and joy of my edh collection, where I thought that it was just perfect. however, every time I started to "go off" with the deck, it was basicly just me playing solitaire and my friends were not enjoying the game at all. So I decided to let the frog rest and changed it into a Muldrotha deck, which was not as toxic. I removed pretty much all of the tutors and powerhouses like Vorinclex and suddenly I had a way more enjoyable deck. It hurt taking apart a deck I spent so much time and money on, but at the end of the day, all that matters is my friends enjoyment of the game we all love.
This is really cool! Tbh I like both your Meren deck and your Baby Lasagna deck, but I'm glad you were able to make a deck that fit in with the more casual crowd and still have fun.
Always love hearing Joey's philosophy on deckbuilding and the overall game. He has such a radically different playstyle from me, but his mindset is something I related to hard.
"... she's fun, interactive, *very powerful, but very stoppable*..." So glad to hear I'm not the only one that understands how Commander is SUPPOSED to be! Seriously, WAY more decks need to be built like this, and WAY more cards (in the command zone or not) need to be designed like this! We don't need another Korvold, we don't need another Nyxbloom Ancient, we don't need infinite combos, we don't need games ending before the REAL game begins. What we need is for Commander to become MORE balanced, NOT LESS!!!!!
Joey keep on being your fabulous Necromancer enthusiast self! I first got introduced to commander in a local budget league now my deck building has never been great i suffer from Shivam's delema of not being able to parse down my cards to 100. The deck i had started as Acendant Evancar it didn't do anything so i switched it to Chainer dementia master and started to refine what i was doing for 35 dollars. It worked out well
Excellent video. This sets a great example on so many points: - don't blind yourself - don't get overly attached for the wrong reasons - don't hesitate to try new venues - be creative - expect the unexpected from future sets I've churned through a lot of decks since I started playing Commander, ages ago. I currently have 56 built and ready to go, with 4 potential lists as work in progress. But I also have 42 other decks that I have dismantled over the years, and countless tweaks to tone down most of them to a more relaxed and casual level. Most of the takedowns were due to their sheer clunkiness (Sarevok, Greven-rat colony tribal, Tivit with bajillion votes, Rakdos Lord of Riots with Hidetsugu as a secret Commander and wincon...), others because they were not as enjoyable as I thought they would be (Galea auras, Darien, Lathril, Phylath, Perrie and his countless types of counters that are a nightmare to follow...), others still because of the repetitive game plan or the hate they drew around the table (Kalamax extra turns, Tergrid, Torbran...) A couple were also just beheaded by a single ban (I miss you, Golos Gates and Golos God of Gods). I've gone so far as to keep track of stats with a spreadsheet: rate of win/losses, and deliberate passes on a deck when deciding what to play. "Among all of the lesser played, you, I don't want this time? First pass in a row? Fine. Second ? Erm. Third? Strike, you're out." Others I've taken great care not to overplay so I don't get sick of them too fast. Granted, given the variety I have, most of them have only been taken out for 2-3 games tops. But I love brewing so much and trying new ideas that it doesn't bother me too much. I don't build to fine tune game after game, I build to have fun and show something unexpected to the table (or myself).
Baba Lysaga is great commander design. It has so much room for creativity. I hope Wizards takes note and uses this card as a template for what an interesting commander is supposed to be.
Reading all the other comments about Joey's enthusiasm, I 100% agree. I'm a chronic brewer so hearing someone talk about that moment where you're excited to brew and watch your lil baby pop off was gratifying
Spectacular content, Joey! Thanks! Two moments when you describe exactly my philosophy while playing EDH: “I wanted my opponents to still be able to to the thing, but I wanted to best them even when they got to do the thing.” / "Build decks you would enjoy losing to."
And he didn't even mention the commander level up thing he does with the different versions of the card, which I think is a super fun usage of all the printings they roll out of these cards.
Razor's edge thinking here...I like the idea of using the different arts for different castings of the commander, but I feel this is playing into the greed of Hasbro that is becoming detrimental to our game in general.
This actually reminded me of my zombie tribal deck that started out as Scarab God, became Grixis zombies with Thraximundar, and went back to Dimir with Wilhelt fulfilling the niche without being oppressive or clunky to deal with
Love this episode! So cool! Also realized the new Biotransference card from the necromancer precon is also kinda bonkers here too, what a fun commander!
Joey i am on a similar journey with changing my meren deck to a baba lysaga deck Times playing with her just started getting stall to me i try changing it up some to make it fresh but it hasn't done anything for me and still feels like any other meren deck, when i first saw baba i instantly fell in love and wanted to brew around it i got most of the key pieces and im just waiting on the commander myself so ur video has inspired me to go along with this thanks u man
Great episode! I feel the same way about my vehicle deck. Started out as Depala, then Golos, then, then Teshar, then Jhoira, and finally Shorikai. Vehicles are so wacky and different and I love it.
Great video! And I have a deck that went through a similar transformation. Way back I built a grixis zombie deck led by Thraximundar, it made my opponents sacrifice their boards, it had big beaters and a potential for a combo finish, but because of a smal play group I played it less and less as it was always the boogie man at the table. After a few years I took it apart, and liking the zombie tribal aspect, turned it into a mono-black zombie deck helmed by God-eternal Bontu. I like zombies and some light reanimation, but I wasn't too keen on the combo aspect. Turned out this was too big a swing in the opposite direction and I shelved it as it was way too slow, with big expensive zombies and an expensive commander, so this year when Jafar, ghoulcaller of Nephalia was released he was a perfect middle ground for the deck. He came in early, giving the deck something to do while building up mana for all the zombie lord's and high mana-value spells like grave titan, or any of the Liliana's Now it's easily one of my favorite decks to play, especially at an LGS while figuring out the tables power level.
Great vid Joey. Love my Baba deck. Its only a few months old and is slowly developing. So much fun to play. Draw lots of cards, sac multiple stuff (and looking clever doing it) and even get the occasional win.
I am now very grateful for you getting that pack because I have been trying to remember Kruphix for days! Thank you so much. Uh, also, the rest of the video was good too.
I've got two, one that is a transformation like you described, and one that I'm thinking about turning back. When I got back into Magic, I really liked Izoni, and wanted to make that work as a graveyard/aristocrats deck. But every time I tried it out it just felt too slow, and like it was at odds with itself - it wanted creatures on the field, but also in the graveyard. So eventually I switched it over to mono-black Ayara bc I thought she looked cool, and wow did that add some speed. Suddenly the deck felt like it had a good purpose and the means to back it up - get black creatures on the board to drain your opponents, then kill them to drain some more. It's one of my favorites now. The other one is my blink deck - I've kept it as a Ranar "exile tribal" deck for a while and really loved it, but it is definitely slower to win, so I tried out the new Abdel Adrian and Candlekeep Sage combo in the command zone. And, like with Ayara, that deck is wicked fast, really hard to stop once it gets going, and can combo off pretty easily. But I'm not sure I want it to be as strong as it is right now, I kind of miss making Spirit tokens with Ranar, and doing goofy tricks with Saltskitter. So I'm thinking I'm going to go back - sometimes it's worth it to not play the most powerful commander/deck you can if it means you can play something you enjoy, and something that others will enjoy playing against. I like what you said in this video Joey, giving me a lot to consider.
people de-tuning their decks, or building sub-optimally, to keep things fun is so fucking cool! it's easy to build the best deck you're capable of building. it's easy to throw in super powerful cards, or look up ridiculous combos, or drop crazy money to turn your deck into a weapon. but it is so much more interesting to see decks that have prioritized fun, or cool interactions, or silly themes. it's just something you don't really see in other forms of competition, and really is unique to casual commander. i love it.
my first build was a kodama of the east tree/yoshimaru deck. it played classic selesnya stuff, and just tried to pump Yoshi to be massive. When DMU dropped, i disassembled it and a couple others i had to build the first draft of my Jodah deck, which has now become one of my favorite to pilot(second only to Arcades).
Love it, I overlooked this Commander when I opened it in my pack........now building. I really like Old Rutstein's ability to keep feeding the graveyard AND putting something on the board
Late to the party but I went through the same process with my Izoni Thousand Eyed list. She is my 1st EDH deck ever and had a strong aristocrat theme with cards like Zulaport Cutthroat, Savra, Butcher of Malakir etc. During quarantine, I went against a pod of complete strangers via Spelltable and one of them was running a Voltron deck. I've never felt so bad playing a card game. It just wasn't what I wanted to do. I still have Izoni as the commander but it's all about self-mill now ! Nyx Weaver, Satyr Wayfinder, Cemetery Tampering into playing Splinterfright, Jarad or Lhurgoyf is all I want to do. My favorite is playing an Embodiment of Agonies followed by players asking me why I'm putting so many counters on it. It's my oldest and my favorite deck. I can't imagine going at my lgs or an event without Izoni and her army of bugs. I was also really tempted to include Baba Lysaga when I first saw her card ! I'm sure she would have a blast as a member of the Golgari Swarm :D.
@Joey I built baba after seeing this video with ur list for the most part. A blast to play! I also added gyome, master chef and braids, arisen nightmare! They r fun and work in tandom with most of the theme. Another card I realized to be good in there recently is titania's song. The deck typically has a slu of food,clues and/or treasures laying around...especially if the academy manufacturer hits. Titania's song will turn those into creatures killing them and all ur opponents artifact tokens at the same time. Which in turn will trigger your syr conrad, blood artist, poison tip archer and other aristocrats! And then u can sac the song to baba and continue going to work! I have yet to playtest this for consistency,but I think It could be a neat interaction. Also running manglehorn can help keep ur opponents from sacing there treasures in response to this interaction!
Always loved simic merfolk simic ascendancy for the Alt wincon. Build the mono white light paws Auras. Consistency of turn 4 1 shot commander damage of 26 or more. Without shenanigans just pretty and efficient
I love this video! I've only taken apart one deck so far and it was my first deck ever. It was a equipments-focused voltron-y deck that I ended up not vibing with at all. Luckily, my second and third decks ended up being staples I continue to love to this day. As for that first deck, while some of it sits in my trade binder, a good portion of it I gave to my older brother when he built his own equipments deck (that he loves to pilot).
I love this video. I specially took apart my Prava/Nadier deck and made it a part of my Jan Jenson deck. I specifically make a part of other decks to another deck.
Your feelings towards baba lysaga with your old meren deck is exactly how i was when Old Stickfingers came out, and i instantly fell in love with him and i altered my meren deck to fit more for him and i never regretted it
It seems like you've nailed the (in my opinion) ideal power level and variability of a deck here. My Anje, Maid of Dishonor blood tokens deck I accidentally did the same thing with. I wanted to build it as strong as I could, but it came out middling power, but with so many different ways of interacting with its own pieces and so many different ways of doing cool stuff. I had been intending to build Meren eventually because I like the stuff she does a lot, but you've sold me on building the Baba Lysaga I have buried in my collection somewhere instead.
I love this kind of video where you talk about your favorite cards. I also change my marien deck into a Nethroi, Apex of Death cause I like the move mass reanimated effect
Great video. I've taken apart most of my decks. Some didn't end up doing the thing, some were not appropriate for the power level I wanted to only at, and some I just didn't enjoy as much as I hoped. But there are a couple of decks I'm still excited to tinker with and play years later. My number 1 is Ghalta. I find that my opponents have a tough time arguing that attacking with big green doofuses is unfair or unexpected. I toned down the deck and got rid of cards like natural order and craterhoof, but wizards has printed so many great green mythics that the deck can still be strong and fun to play. I first decided to build the deck after watching Jon Suarez play it on commander vs and have loved it ever since.
This is very relatable. I run an aristocrat themed Chatterfang, Squirrel General deck that just gets groans when I pull it out. But I love playing from the graveyard, and didn't think I would find anything that gave me that level of enjoyment without evoking eye rolls when tabled it. Enter Bane, Lord of Darkness. Politics and fun graveyard shenanigans come together to form a very odd style of gameplay, and way lower sodium content than Squirrelpocalypse. Love the contwnt, keep up the great work.
I'm fairly new to commander. I built my first deck around a Nissa Resurgent Animist. It was the first expensive card i ever pulled so it felt natural to do so. I cannibalized all my fallout precons to make the deck, but in the end i had too few elves/elementals to search for, and nothing to spend the excess mana on. Fast-forward to now, i re-made it with Bonny Pall at the helm, and added a bunch of big creatures and some bounce spells so i can keep making oxen tokens when Bonny enters. I enjoy it much more 🎉
Oh man, I've had the exact same thing with Meren, and I refound that joy interestingly in a whole different setup, with the mono red Jaxis, The Troublemaker. Not graveyard, but copying creatures, swinging with abandon, them dying, and burning everyone. It's so much fun, and importantly, everyone else is enjoying it now too.
Joey, I am right there with you. I want to re-animate anything and everything. I love milling myself and putting awesome creatures in the graveyard only. tobring them back, it's awesome! But more than how much I love and want that experience, I want all of my friends and people I play with to have a good time. So I actually did the exact same thing and built Baby Lasagna as well! One of my favorite decks by far!!! I did put my Meren in my deck, as I also took apart Meren to build her, lol! I love Meren so much, and I didn't want the International Women's Day art to go to waste! I am now looking to build Mimeoplasm but asking my friends if they would tell me what their favorite green, blue, and black creatures are, and making the deck out of their favorite things! No need to worry on the reanimator though, I built Raffine to do that... haha! Thanks for the vid, it was awesome!
I also found a similar new love from the same set with Raggadragga. I was able to combine ramping out and hydra tribal to make home a true deck I realized I had been yearning to have for years. It's always fun when you can take the best parts of two or three decks and combine them to be a legitimately fun deck with all your favorites!
Great episode and story. Meren is not a commander I've actually had to play against much as nobody in my playgroup has her so only seen her a few times online but boy is she a machine when she gets going and once, she does she can be hard to keep up with / stop. For all the reasons you listed I totally get why you would dismantle her. For me the one that got away was Bruna, Light of Alabaster. I love Innastrad and I love angels and she was my first commander that I built myself. Pretty simple deck construction but she felt fun, unique and could do some crazy things given the chance. The main issues I ended up having was that her only line to win was voltron and that ended up being less fun for me and my opponents. I could get her out and buff her up and kill one person only for her to be removed by someone else after and then that one person would be out the game so suddenly (sometimes in one combat) and I could struggle to rebuild as she has a distinct lack of haste in her colours and has high CMC so it can be slow and very predictable. As things are now she got demoted to "plan B-runa" in my bant Rafiq voltron aura deck. Which honestly can have similar issues but I focus less on just Rafiq being the win con in that deck. I don't think it was a perfect breakup and new match up like yours was with Baby Lasagne but it's been a step in the right direction for me. I think. lol
Picked a copy of her up on a whim at a game store, best decision ever. My build is similar, but instead of winning through sacrifice triggers, I focus on board flooding, then winning with a cradle and finale of devastation. Using the couple budget tutors in the deck and Lysaga's insane card draw ability allows me to hit this combo pretty reliably and it is the most rewarding thing ever to finale of devastation a marionette master and swing for 200+ damage.
This is how I felt when the new 40k commander came out for X tribal, smashing my favorite hydra cards with some new tyranid and splash in some of my favorite x spells. No over powered but competitive and fun, loving it!!!
My first EDH deck was Grimgrin when I did open one in a pack back in 2012... then it became Phenax for a while before I got included in a cedh group and converted it to Oona months before the pandemic. This year I created Gale/Scion for a edh tourney that has a baldur's gate commander restriction and fell in love with it. Right now, it is helmed by Rona but after the tourney for DMU i'll set it back to Gale/Scion.
Great video Joey! As a Dragonlord Ojutai player I kind of see your sentiments when my myriad of counterspells fly by the table. I've tired to keep the table's fun in mind a lot of the time but I've only been playing him for 2 years. I still enjoy the groans I hear when I play a counterspell. Maybe some day I'll get tired of it, but God it feels good to stop someone's plan only for them to stare at a dragon with hexproof lol
Hell yeah, so relatable! I remember building Prosper, my first time playing Rakdos & it quickly became my favorite color to play but my friends felt miserable playing against it. So I went back to the drawing board and ended up falling in love with the partner pair of Toggo/Keskit! It let me make use of all the artifact aristocrat shenanigans I loved with Prosper while still being something fun to play with buds. Such a fun deck, it actually plays kind of like Joey’s Lasagna deck here so I may just need to give this old girl a whirl! Keep up the good work Joey!
You know I hadn't really thought much of this commander since it's release but this video has more than sold me on Baba and now I think I have to build her, she really just does everything I love in a commander from using janky cards that aren't widely good in a lot of decks to spinning wheels and doing a bunch of stuff and it just seems like so much fun.
Love the passion with which you talk about your layered noodles with cheese and meatsauce ;) Haven't taken anything apart yet, will say however that there's 3 decks that I can think of that I'm this passionate about: - Obeka, Brute Chronologist: It started basically with your Upping the Average deck list, but has since evolved a little bit. I've found that making multiple copies of Balor to send at opponents is just devastating, and overall I enjoy how janky the deck appears to be until the cloning engine is online (i.e. the various ways I get to copy my creatures, and good targets available). I pulled off the dreaded Hivemind / Final Fortune combo twice, and boy the looks on other players' faces once they realize what's happening. - Ayesha Tanaka, Armorer: For some reason I've seen like no lists of this one, so I created my own list. I took what little I saw on EDHREC and made it my type of spicy. It can be incredible fun swinging in with a commander who just grabs more and more artifacts out of my deck with each attack, and ends up becoming nigh unkillable and possibly literally unblockable. I once got boardwiped with a Farewell, losing 15 permanents and only leaving me with 6 lands. Within 2 turn cycles I had recovered enough to swing in for almost lethal commander damage in 1 turn, and the game remained fun despite the inevitable loss after the boardwipe. - Esix, Fractal Bloom: Ever since you guys revealed the submission for your Esix challenge (adding Mercurial Transformation because it allows you to turn almost anything into a creature), I've fallen more and more in love with the idea of a commander who frankly just has exponential growth potential. I've now build my Esix deck, drawing inspiration from EDHREC as well as the various "Adrix and Nev" lists out there, and today is going to be the first day I play this for real. I've playtested already a bit, and so far I am happy. Playing a Lord of Change only to copy it with a multi-token creator (other than your usual suspects, how about Ethereal Investigator with his 3 Clue tokens?) and drawing between 9 and 20 cards just feels INSANE. And I've added as many creature lands as feasible so I could make token copies of my mana base too. Overall the pieces I had to buy (about 65 cards, since I had most of the budget mana base and a few others) ran me only $110, total cost (as originally built, without the more expensive cards that I did have lying around) was $150.
I never thought about multi-type matters as a play space, that’s really cool! I had a Selenia life swap deck but saw a Vilis list that looks more streamlined so I’ll be doing that soon!
I have over 2 dozen EDH decks and really the process of hunting for cards and building them. Anyway, the only two decks I have taken apart are Numot, the Devastator, built before I understood the social contract of Commander, and my Ruric Thar deck, which is a one dimensional glass cannon that was boring to play.
This is great content Joey. Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I personally find myself wanting to play cool and interesting decks more and more. Like, I wanna win, but I want to win in style.
The one deck that I've redone the most is a liliana themed deck started mono black, went to girxis, then dimir and now it's a Muldrotha deck and it works so good now
I recently took apart my Grenzo, Dengeon Warden deck. It consistently won at instant speed which became fun for no one. I built a Henzie and Rionya deck from the ashes. No more infinite loops.
I took apart Kalamax and a few decks have filled its role. Most recently, it’s Magus Lucea Kane. That deck checks all the boxes for me. Temur, tribal, stompy, midrange, copy spells, combo, card draw, etc etc. but it doesn’t feel as linear as Kalamax did
I went through this when I initially built my Toxrill deck. I managed to open one from a pack and just loved the idea of a giant slug turning all my opponents creatures into baby slugs but knew that his effect would be stifling to the table. I tried to build it with just cards that I had laying around and a strict $10 budget to keep the power level lower but even then I quickly realized that it just wasn't the type of game that I was after, and not having a super charged deck but still having Toxrill in the command zone definitely painted a target on me. After a bit of trying to make Toxrill work I realized that I just couldn't do it and keep it at the power level I wanted and still have fun so I decided to move him into the 99 of the deck as a slow board wipe with upside and move my girl Eloise, Nephalia Sleuth into the leading role and shift the deck to be wholly hers. I am so much happier with Eloise at the helm and the slug in the 99 and its so fun to just pull out Eloise and hear people say ""Ooohh, I've wanted to see an Eloise deck!" and get to show her off. With so many moving parts in the deck; sac outlets, expendable and recurrable creatures, aristocrat payoffs, and artifact synergies; I do sometimes just fail to find one of them but when I do manage to assemble all the pieces the deck really just hums and is so much fun to play. I do need to get more practice in with the deck though because there are a TON of triggers in that deck and I find I'm frequently missing some here and there.
I really love the idea of what I now call “deck of Theseus”, the deck you’ve had forever but in a nearly unrecognizable form because it’s changed so much. I think my now Shorikai deck has had the most big changes? It went from a Breya precon to Azorius vehicles lol. The Breya precon deck was upgraded but kinda got sidelined for being too similar to my own Meren deck. It then got revamped as Sydri vehicles with Parhelion II as a secret commander, and has since been helmed by Alela and Rebbec/Silas before Shorikai. I actually thought about going Azorius before ND bc Black wasn’t doing a ton for me and so the timing of Shorikai couldn’t be more perfect.
Most of the time, I'm just switching the old commander for a new one, but... - Golos (Tireless Pilgrim) ...got banned, so I embarked on a quest to collect ALL of the shrines to build my first ever actually legal 5-color brew, Go-Shintai of Life's Origin. I love it when a collect-a-thon deck comes together, and I even made black and white ink proxy tokens of the shrine tokens the commander produces, one of Stan Lee of Marvel Comics and the other of Vinnie Paul of Pantera, Damage Plan, Hellyeah, and Rebel Meets Rebel. I also wanted to do a couple more shrine token proxies, one of Jimi Hendrix and another of Randy Rhoads (Ozzy)... shoot, --just popped into my head-- one of Lemmy Kilmister (Motorhead) as well. ...and well... I successfully collected all 5 hondens, all 6 sanctums, and all 6 Go-Shintais. The enchantment versatility means I can recur sagas as well, and I have Amareth (the Lustrous) and Ghen (Arcanum Weaver) in the 99. Also, ALL of the shrine spells in the deck are historic, so I have Cabal Paladin and The Weatherlight in my particular brew. - Varragoth (Bloodsky Sire) ...is where a lot of the janky silliness from my original big-dumb-stupid- fun Golos deck went, so now I can assemble the silliness in mono-black, which includes Tree of Perdition and Triskaidekaphobia. I've also acquired Festering Newt, Bubbling Cauldron, and Bogbrew Witch for one trio assembly, though I'm still waiting on a Throne of Empires to complete the empires trio. - Rakdos (Lord of Riots) ...I love Rakdos good-stuff mixed with Rakdos jank, but Rakdos had to go share the 99 with Kaervek (the Merciless), Prosper, and a few others in my Karazikar goad deck. It needs more testing. The deck's true purpose was in limbo for so long, then Forgotten Realms came along, and I even dismantled the Crimson Vow vampires pre-con to change the deck into something fresh and exciting. - Kadena (Slinking Sorcerer) ...yeah? ...and make it like everyone else makes it? No thanks. I decided to build Nine-Fingers Keene featuring Maze's End instead, since it can be very difficult for 3-color commanders to impress me, especially Sultai-colored ones. After giving Kadena the axe, some of the best from her arsenal went into Skanos Dragonheart//Acolyte of Bahamut die-on-this-hill dragons tribal (featuring Old Gnawbone in the 98) and a VERY fun Izzet brew featuring Alora, Merry Thief//Tavern Brawler, utilizing lots of adventure spells also including ways to reuse and capitalize on them.
for me that deck is Vannifar, but since i build it up to be more or less cedh. i dont get to play it as often anymore. but when i do, i always get exited about seeing how fast i can get my combo this time
Meren is also my favorite deck, and I'm never taking it apart 😬 But I appreciate your reasoning! I also keep Meren for higher power games, as you do with Titania and Konrad.
I had a Sliver Overlord deck for 7 years(same as Meren!), and within the last 2 weeks I changed it for the first time in years. I swapped Overlord with The First. It fits my pod much better now, and I find I like the chaos element now better than I did when I first included First in the 99. I love my Slivers and it will always be one of my best and most powerful deck.
I have a Prosper tome bound deck, and a Lathril blade of the elves deck, that are all optimized to the max. They were so good in fact that people gang up on me, and I either win, or fight an uphill battle. I ended up building a deck like Prosper, using Safana, Calimport Cutthroat, and passionate Archaeologist. It's game plan is go through the dungen and (to get the treasures) and use passionate Archaeologist to burn down the table. It's like Prosper, but with extra steps. But I really enjoy it. No one knows what to expect, the commander is slower, and unassuming, and its my own and I love it.
As somone who ran Curse of Strahd in DnD, hearing you ALSO call her Lasagna both crushes me, and brings a smile. No matter the game, she is doomed to this fate. Sacrifice your heart out, from one Blood Artist to another.
Welp, if you see another deck named baby lasagna on archidekt its cuz Joey has me hyped for this commander and I honestly cannot think of a better name for her, I will for sure link to this video though!
My favorite deck is my first deck, Brudiclad. At the moment, I have been considering taking him apart.and pitting him in the 99, but I don't see what commanders would be best to replace him with.
Hey Joey, I loved this video,and I too recently parted ways with Meren, despite her being a deck I was going to foil out. I had the same issues, the edict creatures were too good against the voltron decks and I ended up rarely playing the deck. Im trying an approximation of your Baba list this weekend, but id love an upping the average plus some decision making commentary on the cards you chose to play and didn't choose. Keep up the great work!
I turned my orzhov Teysa aristocrats deck into a back ground sub themed Silvar deck that's ton of fun, just one of the most adaptive decks i've played can easily move between voltron, go wide and aristocrats at will, absolutely inspired by the commander commander deck. Is absolutely hillarious to win with a massive glorified hill giant doing commander damage with Cultist of the absolute.
Love this series. You guys have become my go-to for the most in-depth deck building content, both in the mechanics and synergies of the decks and how it all fits in the spirit of commander.
"Threw in the cards that I like" produces an edh experience unlike any other
Joey is my people. The way Joey describes his love of reanimation sounds like me trying to explain my play style. One day I'll get a game with Joey and we will reanimate our way to the 1 and 2 position
There's a little Joey inside all of us.
Wait, that came out wrong.
We’re all like that about one type of deck.
If I had one penny for every time someone said something like, “Why don’t you just sit in a corner and play with an abacus? That’s basically what you’re doing with the endless array of +1/+1 counters decks?”
I could launch a hostile takeover of Amazon.
I’m never able to accurately articulate the joy I get out of figuring out how to counters-load a Fertilid as fast as humanly possible, while attending to the ramp and permanent protection needs to get the mana to go nuts with the land-fetching super early.
I loved +1/+1 counters since first encountering Whirling Dervish all the way back in 3rd, but they were nothing but an incidental buff (at best) 99.9% of the time in 60-card. (Even if T2-ing a Dervish on a Mono Black Discard Deck was *always* a joy.)
I played a ton of W/U Control and R/U Aggro-Burn back in the day. That’s just not what I want from EDH.
I've now seen like 4 videos with joey and I want to be his best friend his pure joy he gets from playing the game genuinely warms my cold dead heart. Joey you are a joy and continue the good work.
I had no idea Joey was gay, but hearing that someone in the community feels comfortable enough to easily express that to us (I my eyes) shows just how amazing this community is
Times are changing...
I knew he looked too put together for a nerd, good for him.
Also checkout Nitpicking Nerds for more representation. And if you're into Warhammer, Eons of Battle.
@@seayeo they're gay? Thats cool
@@101stumphead On Nitpicking Nerds, Joe is gay but not Beezy. It comes up occasionally during side chatter.
I couldn't take my Meren deck apart, I feel like I'd be losing a friend that all of my friends hate.
I can relate, and I think its nice to have 1-2 really tough decks for my playgroup : ) I mean I even like it if I play against a bonkers deck, for the challenge ^^
I am rebuilding another copy of Meren that is the stock precon so that I have a known power level of Meren that can be played in Precon level games but I can't take her apart. She's what got me into the format and losing her would take me out lol
I feel this. I think I'm just going to keep my Meren alive AND build Baba.
I really enjoy these existential ponderings about commander. I love hearing why people feel the way they do about the decks they build. Commander is such an self-expressive format, so hearing a person talk about their deck is like getting a window into their soul.
I've only ever netdecked 2 EDH decks before... funnily enough those would be Matt's Valduk and Dana's Vela... but now I HAVE to try this Baba deck.
You guys are the best EDH podcast out there. Thanks!
My first commander deck was a bloated Angel, Human, Solder trible beck with Aurelia, the Warleader at the helm. That eventually morphed into a clunky Solder Battalion deck with Aurelia still at the helm.
The thing was, in both cases, I was winning more with just Aurelia than the go-wide strategy I wanted. So, I split that deck into two. I now have an "Exulted Aurelia" deck and a Tajic, Blade of the Legion battalion deck.
The Aurelia deck is a voltron deck where I build a supporting army and at least one mass Exulted effect (like Sublime Angel) and go out swinging. There is an Angel tribal sub-theme, but all angel cards are in survice of the central attack strategy with only one creature at a time (namely Aurilea).
I'm still tooling with my Tajic deck. Its "power level" is too low for my LGSs, so im going to need to power it up, but I don't expect it to be as big a powerhouse as its sibling.
I tend to favor some mix of go wide and token strat with my decks; however, I do have fun quietly building my backup singers to exult Voltron at least one opponent in one turn (and two combats, thanks to Aurelia herself).
Anyway, I know im a bit late to this conversation, but I wanted to share my story in this vain.
I am willing and able to provide *current* deck lists if desired.
"I wanted my opponents to still be able to do the thing, but I wanted to best them even when they were got to do the thing."
Holy cow, all of my thoughts in one sentence.
Great episode of this mini series where you talk about your commander decks and your personal thoughts on your deck brewers journey, I absolutely love it !
I recently built Baba and it has been a blast. Definitely the most fun I've had with a commander in a while. Thanks for the inspiration.
Baba Lysaga has been one of my all time favorite new commanders and glad you've highlighted her here!
Hey! Good to see you commenting around here :) Waiting for more of your interestimg videos!
@@Julio1jpg Thanks for the comment! I do currently have some content in the works to get back into the swing of things after this current break :D
Baby Lasagna
The excitement and pure joy Joey has when talking about this deck is infectious! I'm a graveyard/aristocrat lover too, and people always groan when I play Meren. So maybe a change is in order for me too.
i took my *jarad-graveyard-power-and-toughness* deck apart and made *combo-meren* out of it. people hated it, so i made a *super-selfmill-grist* deck out of it with a lot of insects.. it was not a fun deck and very slow. BUT NOW... i think i'm finally at home... *i found my dream golgari commander thanks to you.* played it first time today and i love it!!!!!!!
Love this video, Joey. The flow from introspection about multi-player enjoyment & self-critique to a specific new deck tech.
For me, the biggest take-apart-&-pivot-to-something-similar was my mono-red Homura deck. It started out with just my fav red cards, & creative sac outlets for Homura. But as my group's power level went up, it didn't scale well. I pushed it toward red burn-recursion, but there just aren't enough key pieces yet. So I transitioned to Jaxis - which keeps my love of mono-red, but gives me more interesting lines of play. The same unpredictable ebb and flow, but a more cohesive core.
I had a Gitrog deck for yeeaaars. Really my pride and joy of my edh collection, where I thought that it was just perfect. however, every time I started to "go off" with the deck, it was basicly just me playing solitaire and my friends were not enjoying the game at all. So I decided to let the frog rest and changed it into a Muldrotha deck, which was not as toxic. I removed pretty much all of the tutors and powerhouses like Vorinclex and suddenly I had a way more enjoyable deck.
It hurt taking apart a deck I spent so much time and money on, but at the end of the day, all that matters is my friends enjoyment of the game we all love.
This is really cool! Tbh I like both your Meren deck and your Baby Lasagna deck, but I'm glad you were able to make a deck that fit in with the more casual crowd and still have fun.
Always love hearing Joey's philosophy on deckbuilding and the overall game. He has such a radically different playstyle from me, but his mindset is something I related to hard.
"... she's fun, interactive, *very powerful, but very stoppable*..." So glad to hear I'm not the only one that understands how Commander is SUPPOSED to be!
Seriously, WAY more decks need to be built like this, and WAY more cards (in the command zone or not) need to be designed like this! We don't need another Korvold, we don't need another Nyxbloom Ancient, we don't need infinite combos, we don't need games ending before the REAL game begins. What we need is for Commander to become MORE balanced, NOT LESS!!!!!
I was with you until nyxbloom ancient
Joey - i get this reaction with the new braids too, it's so fun to get that ooh and ahh each time you sit down.
Joey keep on being your fabulous Necromancer enthusiast self!
I first got introduced to commander in a local budget league now my deck building has never been great i suffer from Shivam's delema of not being able to parse down my cards to 100.
The deck i had started as Acendant Evancar it didn't do anything so i switched it to Chainer dementia master and started to refine what i was doing for 35 dollars. It worked out well
Oh my god Joey. This is how I feel about my Nevinyraal deck. Its definitely impacted how I build decks now.
Excellent video. This sets a great example on so many points:
- don't blind yourself
- don't get overly attached for the wrong reasons
- don't hesitate to try new venues
- be creative
- expect the unexpected from future sets
I've churned through a lot of decks since I started playing Commander, ages ago. I currently have 56 built and ready to go, with 4 potential lists as work in progress.
But I also have 42 other decks that I have dismantled over the years, and countless tweaks to tone down most of them to a more relaxed and casual level. Most of the takedowns were due to their sheer clunkiness (Sarevok, Greven-rat colony tribal, Tivit with bajillion votes, Rakdos Lord of Riots with Hidetsugu as a secret Commander and wincon...), others because they were not as enjoyable as I thought they would be (Galea auras, Darien, Lathril, Phylath, Perrie and his countless types of counters that are a nightmare to follow...), others still because of the repetitive game plan or the hate they drew around the table (Kalamax extra turns, Tergrid, Torbran...)
A couple were also just beheaded by a single ban (I miss you, Golos Gates and Golos God of Gods).
I've gone so far as to keep track of stats with a spreadsheet: rate of win/losses, and deliberate passes on a deck when deciding what to play.
"Among all of the lesser played, you, I don't want this time? First pass in a row? Fine. Second ? Erm. Third? Strike, you're out."
Others I've taken great care not to overplay so I don't get sick of them too fast.
Granted, given the variety I have, most of them have only been taken out for 2-3 games tops. But I love brewing so much and trying new ideas that it doesn't bother me too much.
I don't build to fine tune game after game, I build to have fun and show something unexpected to the table (or myself).
Baba Lysaga is great commander design. It has so much room for creativity. I hope Wizards takes note and uses this card as a template for what an interesting commander is supposed to be.
Reading all the other comments about Joey's enthusiasm, I 100% agree. I'm a chronic brewer so hearing someone talk about that moment where you're excited to brew and watch your lil baby pop off was gratifying
I love the perspective of deck-building as a social choice.
Spectacular content, Joey! Thanks! Two moments when you describe exactly my philosophy while playing EDH: “I wanted my opponents to still be able to to the thing, but I wanted to best them even when they got to do the thing.” / "Build decks you would enjoy losing to."
My first video of yours which I discovered from the professor and I loved this video! It's nice to find a new magic show to watch.
And he didn't even mention the commander level up thing he does with the different versions of the card, which I think is a super fun usage of all the printings they roll out of these cards.
Razor's edge thinking here...I like the idea of using the different arts for different castings of the commander, but I feel this is playing into the greed of Hasbro that is becoming detrimental to our game in general.
This actually reminded me of my zombie tribal deck that started out as Scarab God, became Grixis zombies with Thraximundar, and went back to Dimir with Wilhelt fulfilling the niche without being oppressive or clunky to deal with
Love this episode! So cool!
Also realized the new Biotransference card from the necromancer precon is also kinda bonkers here too, what a fun commander!
Joey i am on a similar journey with changing my meren deck to a baba lysaga deck
Times playing with her just started getting stall to me i try changing it up some to make it fresh but it hasn't done anything for me and still feels like any other meren deck, when i first saw baba i instantly fell in love and wanted to brew around it i got most of the key pieces and im just waiting on the commander myself so ur video has inspired me to go along with this thanks u man
Great episode! I feel the same way about my vehicle deck. Started out as Depala, then Golos, then, then Teshar, then Jhoira, and finally Shorikai. Vehicles are so wacky and different and I love it.
I was perusing your deck lists just last week and immediately wanted to build this baby. Really nice to hear you talk about what went into building it
Love this video! Please make more co tent like this talking about your decks and your building process with them!!
Great video! And I have a deck that went through a similar transformation.
Way back I built a grixis zombie deck led by Thraximundar, it made my opponents sacrifice their boards, it had big beaters and a potential for a combo finish, but because of a smal play group I played it less and less as it was always the boogie man at the table.
After a few years I took it apart, and liking the zombie tribal aspect, turned it into a mono-black zombie deck helmed by God-eternal Bontu. I like zombies and some light reanimation, but I wasn't too keen on the combo aspect.
Turned out this was too big a swing in the opposite direction and I shelved it as it was way too slow, with big expensive zombies and an expensive commander, so this year when Jafar, ghoulcaller of Nephalia was released he was a perfect middle ground for the deck. He came in early, giving the deck something to do while building up mana for all the zombie lord's and high mana-value spells like grave titan, or any of the Liliana's
Now it's easily one of my favorite decks to play, especially at an LGS while figuring out the tables power level.
It's also nice to see that you can love a deck this much. And I learned about the liquid metal torch and reclamation sage and by gosh I love it!
Great vid Joey. Love my Baba deck. Its only a few months old and is slowly developing. So much fun to play. Draw lots of cards, sac multiple stuff (and looking clever doing it) and even get the occasional win.
So happy to see this video; been wanting to build Baba Lysaga for aaaaages!
I am now very grateful for you getting that pack because I have been trying to remember Kruphix for days! Thank you so much. Uh, also, the rest of the video was good too.
This is a really good video by Joey, I enjoyed listening to this perspective
I've got two, one that is a transformation like you described, and one that I'm thinking about turning back. When I got back into Magic, I really liked Izoni, and wanted to make that work as a graveyard/aristocrats deck. But every time I tried it out it just felt too slow, and like it was at odds with itself - it wanted creatures on the field, but also in the graveyard. So eventually I switched it over to mono-black Ayara bc I thought she looked cool, and wow did that add some speed. Suddenly the deck felt like it had a good purpose and the means to back it up - get black creatures on the board to drain your opponents, then kill them to drain some more. It's one of my favorites now.
The other one is my blink deck - I've kept it as a Ranar "exile tribal" deck for a while and really loved it, but it is definitely slower to win, so I tried out the new Abdel Adrian and Candlekeep Sage combo in the command zone. And, like with Ayara, that deck is wicked fast, really hard to stop once it gets going, and can combo off pretty easily. But I'm not sure I want it to be as strong as it is right now, I kind of miss making Spirit tokens with Ranar, and doing goofy tricks with Saltskitter. So I'm thinking I'm going to go back - sometimes it's worth it to not play the most powerful commander/deck you can if it means you can play something you enjoy, and something that others will enjoy playing against. I like what you said in this video Joey, giving me a lot to consider.
It’s literally a crime this channel has less than 1 million subs. Such great content
people de-tuning their decks, or building sub-optimally, to keep things fun is so fucking cool! it's easy to build the best deck you're capable of building. it's easy to throw in super powerful cards, or look up ridiculous combos, or drop crazy money to turn your deck into a weapon. but it is so much more interesting to see decks that have prioritized fun, or cool interactions, or silly themes. it's just something you don't really see in other forms of competition, and really is unique to casual commander. i love it.
my first build was a kodama of the east tree/yoshimaru deck. it played classic selesnya stuff, and just tried to pump Yoshi to be massive. When DMU dropped, i disassembled it and a couple others i had to build the first draft of my Jodah deck, which has now become one of my favorite to pilot(second only to Arcades).
Love it, I overlooked this Commander when I opened it in my pack........now building. I really like Old Rutstein's ability to keep feeding the graveyard AND putting something on the board
Late to the party but I went through the same process with my Izoni Thousand Eyed list. She is my 1st EDH deck ever and had a strong aristocrat theme with cards like Zulaport Cutthroat, Savra, Butcher of Malakir etc. During quarantine, I went against a pod of complete strangers via Spelltable and one of them was running a Voltron deck. I've never felt so bad playing a card game. It just wasn't what I wanted to do.
I still have Izoni as the commander but it's all about self-mill now ! Nyx Weaver, Satyr Wayfinder, Cemetery Tampering into playing Splinterfright, Jarad or Lhurgoyf is all I want to do. My favorite is playing an Embodiment of Agonies followed by players asking me why I'm putting so many counters on it.
It's my oldest and my favorite deck. I can't imagine going at my lgs or an event without Izoni and her army of bugs.
I was also really tempted to include Baba Lysaga when I first saw her card ! I'm sure she would have a blast as a member of the Golgari Swarm :D.
@Joey I built baba after seeing this video with ur list for the most part. A blast to play! I also added gyome, master chef and braids, arisen nightmare! They r fun and work in tandom with most of the theme. Another card I realized to be good in there recently is titania's song. The deck typically has a slu of food,clues and/or treasures laying around...especially if the academy manufacturer hits. Titania's song will turn those into creatures killing them and all ur opponents artifact tokens at the same time. Which in turn will trigger your syr conrad, blood artist, poison tip archer and other aristocrats! And then u can sac the song to baba and continue going to work! I have yet to playtest this for consistency,but I think It could be a neat interaction. Also running manglehorn can help keep ur opponents from sacing there treasures in response to this interaction!
Always loved simic merfolk simic ascendancy for the Alt wincon. Build the mono white light paws Auras. Consistency of turn 4 1 shot commander damage of 26 or more. Without shenanigans just pretty and efficient
I love this video!
I've only taken apart one deck so far and it was my first deck ever. It was a equipments-focused voltron-y deck that I ended up not vibing with at all. Luckily, my second and third decks ended up being staples I continue to love to this day. As for that first deck, while some of it sits in my trade binder, a good portion of it I gave to my older brother when he built his own equipments deck (that he loves to pilot).
I love this video. I specially took apart my Prava/Nadier deck and made it a part of my Jan Jenson deck. I specifically make a part of other decks to another deck.
Your feelings towards baba lysaga with your old meren deck is exactly how i was when Old Stickfingers came out, and i instantly fell in love with him and i altered my meren deck to fit more for him and i never regretted it
It seems like you've nailed the (in my opinion) ideal power level and variability of a deck here. My Anje, Maid of Dishonor blood tokens deck I accidentally did the same thing with. I wanted to build it as strong as I could, but it came out middling power, but with so many different ways of interacting with its own pieces and so many different ways of doing cool stuff. I had been intending to build Meren eventually because I like the stuff she does a lot, but you've sold me on building the Baba Lysaga I have buried in my collection somewhere instead.
I love this kind of video where you talk about your favorite cards. I also change my marien deck into a Nethroi, Apex of Death cause I like the move mass reanimated effect
Great video. I've taken apart most of my decks. Some didn't end up doing the thing, some were not appropriate for the power level I wanted to only at, and some I just didn't enjoy as much as I hoped.
But there are a couple of decks I'm still excited to tinker with and play years later. My number 1 is Ghalta.
I find that my opponents have a tough time arguing that attacking with big green doofuses is unfair or unexpected. I toned down the deck and got rid of cards like natural order and craterhoof, but wizards has printed so many great green mythics that the deck can still be strong and fun to play.
I first decided to build the deck after watching Jon Suarez play it on commander vs and have loved it ever since.
This is very relatable. I run an aristocrat themed Chatterfang, Squirrel General deck that just gets groans when I pull it out. But I love playing from the graveyard, and didn't think I would find anything that gave me that level of enjoyment without evoking eye rolls when tabled it. Enter Bane, Lord of Darkness. Politics and fun graveyard shenanigans come together to form a very odd style of gameplay, and way lower sodium content than Squirrelpocalypse. Love the contwnt, keep up the great work.
Lololol “snac-rificed”. Solid gold performance here🎉
I'm fairly new to commander. I built my first deck around a Nissa Resurgent Animist. It was the first expensive card i ever pulled so it felt natural to do so. I cannibalized all my fallout precons to make the deck, but in the end i had too few elves/elementals to search for, and nothing to spend the excess mana on.
Fast-forward to now, i re-made it with Bonny Pall at the helm, and added a bunch of big creatures and some bounce spells so i can keep making oxen tokens when Bonny enters. I enjoy it much more 🎉
Oh man, I've had the exact same thing with Meren, and I refound that joy interestingly in a whole different setup, with the mono red Jaxis, The Troublemaker. Not graveyard, but copying creatures, swinging with abandon, them dying, and burning everyone. It's so much fun, and importantly, everyone else is enjoying it now too.
Joey, I am right there with you. I want to re-animate anything and everything. I love milling myself and putting awesome creatures in the graveyard only. tobring them back, it's awesome! But more than how much I love and want that experience, I want all of my friends and people I play with to have a good time. So I actually did the exact same thing and built Baby Lasagna as well! One of my favorite decks by far!!! I did put my Meren in my deck, as I also took apart Meren to build her, lol! I love Meren so much, and I didn't want the International Women's Day art to go to waste! I am now looking to build Mimeoplasm but asking my friends if they would tell me what their favorite green, blue, and black creatures are, and making the deck out of their favorite things! No need to worry on the reanimator though, I built Raffine to do that... haha! Thanks for the vid, it was awesome!
I also found a similar new love from the same set with Raggadragga. I was able to combine ramping out and hydra tribal to make home a true deck I realized I had been yearning to have for years. It's always fun when you can take the best parts of two or three decks and combine them to be a legitimately fun deck with all your favorites!
Great episode and story. Meren is not a commander I've actually had to play against much as nobody in my playgroup has her so only seen her a few times online but boy is she a machine when she gets going and once, she does she can be hard to keep up with / stop. For all the reasons you listed I totally get why you would dismantle her.
For me the one that got away was Bruna, Light of Alabaster. I love Innastrad and I love angels and she was my first commander that I built myself. Pretty simple deck construction but she felt fun, unique and could do some crazy things given the chance. The main issues I ended up having was that her only line to win was voltron and that ended up being less fun for me and my opponents. I could get her out and buff her up and kill one person only for her to be removed by someone else after and then that one person would be out the game so suddenly (sometimes in one combat) and I could struggle to rebuild as she has a distinct lack of haste in her colours and has high CMC so it can be slow and very predictable. As things are now she got demoted to "plan B-runa" in my bant Rafiq voltron aura deck. Which honestly can have similar issues but I focus less on just Rafiq being the win con in that deck. I don't think it was a perfect breakup and new match up like yours was with Baby Lasagne but it's been a step in the right direction for me. I think. lol
Picked a copy of her up on a whim at a game store, best decision ever. My build is similar, but instead of winning through sacrifice triggers, I focus on board flooding, then winning with a cradle and finale of devastation. Using the couple budget tutors in the deck and Lysaga's insane card draw ability allows me to hit this combo pretty reliably and it is the most rewarding thing ever to finale of devastation a marionette master and swing for 200+ damage.
Love this deck, love your infectious energy!
I LOVE these personal commander stories! Keep it up ❤
This is how I felt when the new 40k commander came out for X tribal, smashing my favorite hydra cards with some new tyranid and splash in some of my favorite x spells. No over powered but competitive and fun, loving it!!!
My first EDH deck was Grimgrin when I did open one in a pack back in 2012... then it became Phenax for a while before I got included in a cedh group and converted it to Oona months before the pandemic. This year I created Gale/Scion for a edh tourney that has a baldur's gate commander restriction and fell in love with it. Right now, it is helmed by Rona but after the tourney for DMU i'll set it back to Gale/Scion.
Great video Joey! As a Dragonlord Ojutai player I kind of see your sentiments when my myriad of counterspells fly by the table. I've tired to keep the table's fun in mind a lot of the time but I've only been playing him for 2 years. I still enjoy the groans I hear when I play a counterspell. Maybe some day I'll get tired of it, but God it feels good to stop someone's plan only for them to stare at a dragon with hexproof lol
Hell yeah, so relatable! I remember building Prosper, my first time playing Rakdos & it quickly became my favorite color to play but my friends felt miserable playing against it. So I went back to the drawing board and ended up falling in love with the partner pair of Toggo/Keskit! It let me make use of all the artifact aristocrat shenanigans I loved with Prosper while still being something fun to play with buds. Such a fun deck, it actually plays kind of like Joey’s Lasagna deck here so I may just need to give this old girl a whirl! Keep up the good work Joey!
You know I hadn't really thought much of this commander since it's release but this video has more than sold me on Baba and now I think I have to build her, she really just does everything I love in a commander from using janky cards that aren't widely good in a lot of decks to spinning wheels and doing a bunch of stuff and it just seems like so much fun.
Yooo what a coincidence! Just tore apart my Meren deck the other day!
Love the passion with which you talk about your layered noodles with cheese and meatsauce ;) Haven't taken anything apart yet, will say however that there's 3 decks that I can think of that I'm this passionate about:
- Obeka, Brute Chronologist: It started basically with your Upping the Average deck list, but has since evolved a little bit. I've found that making multiple copies of Balor to send at opponents is just devastating, and overall I enjoy how janky the deck appears to be until the cloning engine is online (i.e. the various ways I get to copy my creatures, and good targets available). I pulled off the dreaded Hivemind / Final Fortune combo twice, and boy the looks on other players' faces once they realize what's happening.
- Ayesha Tanaka, Armorer: For some reason I've seen like no lists of this one, so I created my own list. I took what little I saw on EDHREC and made it my type of spicy. It can be incredible fun swinging in with a commander who just grabs more and more artifacts out of my deck with each attack, and ends up becoming nigh unkillable and possibly literally unblockable. I once got boardwiped with a Farewell, losing 15 permanents and only leaving me with 6 lands. Within 2 turn cycles I had recovered enough to swing in for almost lethal commander damage in 1 turn, and the game remained fun despite the inevitable loss after the boardwipe.
- Esix, Fractal Bloom: Ever since you guys revealed the submission for your Esix challenge (adding Mercurial Transformation because it allows you to turn almost anything into a creature), I've fallen more and more in love with the idea of a commander who frankly just has exponential growth potential. I've now build my Esix deck, drawing inspiration from EDHREC as well as the various "Adrix and Nev" lists out there, and today is going to be the first day I play this for real. I've playtested already a bit, and so far I am happy. Playing a Lord of Change only to copy it with a multi-token creator (other than your usual suspects, how about Ethereal Investigator with his 3 Clue tokens?) and drawing between 9 and 20 cards just feels INSANE. And I've added as many creature lands as feasible so I could make token copies of my mana base too. Overall the pieces I had to buy (about 65 cards, since I had most of the budget mana base and a few others) ran me only $110, total cost (as originally built, without the more expensive cards that I did have lying around) was $150.
I never thought about multi-type matters as a play space, that’s really cool!
I had a Selenia life swap deck but saw a Vilis list that looks more streamlined so I’ll be doing that soon!
I was planning on took apart my first deck, Yuriko. I was hesitant but I kinda want to do it now. Just need to find the next deck
I have over 2 dozen EDH decks and really the process of hunting for cards and building them. Anyway, the only two decks I have taken apart are Numot, the Devastator, built before I understood the social contract of Commander, and my Ruric Thar deck, which is a one dimensional glass cannon that was boring to play.
This is great content Joey. Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I personally find myself wanting to play cool and interesting decks more and more. Like, I wanna win, but I want to win in style.
The one deck that I've redone the most is a liliana themed deck started mono black, went to girxis, then dimir and now it's a Muldrotha deck and it works so good now
Perfect deck tech for a perfect deck. Thanks
I recently took apart my Grenzo, Dengeon Warden deck. It consistently won at instant speed which became fun for no one. I built a Henzie and Rionya deck from the ashes. No more infinite loops.
I took apart Kalamax and a few decks have filled its role. Most recently, it’s Magus Lucea Kane. That deck checks all the boxes for me. Temur, tribal, stompy, midrange, copy spells, combo, card draw, etc etc. but it doesn’t feel as linear as Kalamax did
I solved this problem my adding umari as a companion as a restriction and only running creature spells. It offered me a cool build around.
I went through this when I initially built my Toxrill deck. I managed to open one from a pack and just loved the idea of a giant slug turning all my opponents creatures into baby slugs but knew that his effect would be stifling to the table. I tried to build it with just cards that I had laying around and a strict $10 budget to keep the power level lower but even then I quickly realized that it just wasn't the type of game that I was after, and not having a super charged deck but still having Toxrill in the command zone definitely painted a target on me. After a bit of trying to make Toxrill work I realized that I just couldn't do it and keep it at the power level I wanted and still have fun so I decided to move him into the 99 of the deck as a slow board wipe with upside and move my girl Eloise, Nephalia Sleuth into the leading role and shift the deck to be wholly hers. I am so much happier with Eloise at the helm and the slug in the 99 and its so fun to just pull out Eloise and hear people say ""Ooohh, I've wanted to see an Eloise deck!" and get to show her off. With so many moving parts in the deck; sac outlets, expendable and recurrable creatures, aristocrat payoffs, and artifact synergies; I do sometimes just fail to find one of them but when I do manage to assemble all the pieces the deck really just hums and is so much fun to play. I do need to get more practice in with the deck though because there are a TON of triggers in that deck and I find I'm frequently missing some here and there.
This is a very important topic, well presented
I really love the idea of what I now call “deck of Theseus”, the deck you’ve had forever but in a nearly unrecognizable form because it’s changed so much. I think my now Shorikai deck has had the most big changes? It went from a Breya precon to Azorius vehicles lol.
The Breya precon deck was upgraded but kinda got sidelined for being too similar to my own Meren deck. It then got revamped as Sydri vehicles with Parhelion II as a secret commander, and has since been helmed by Alela and Rebbec/Silas before Shorikai. I actually thought about going Azorius before ND bc Black wasn’t doing a ton for me and so the timing of Shorikai couldn’t be more perfect.
Most of the time, I'm just switching the old commander for a new one, but...
- Golos (Tireless Pilgrim)
...got banned, so I embarked on a quest to collect ALL of the shrines to build my first ever actually legal 5-color brew, Go-Shintai of Life's Origin.
I love it when a collect-a-thon deck comes together, and I even made black and white ink proxy tokens of the shrine tokens the commander produces, one of Stan Lee of Marvel Comics and the other of Vinnie Paul of Pantera, Damage Plan, Hellyeah, and Rebel Meets Rebel. I also wanted to do a couple more shrine token proxies, one of Jimi Hendrix and another of Randy Rhoads (Ozzy)... shoot, --just popped into my head-- one of Lemmy Kilmister (Motorhead) as well.
...and well... I successfully collected all 5 hondens, all 6 sanctums, and all 6 Go-Shintais. The enchantment versatility means I can recur sagas as well, and I have Amareth (the Lustrous) and Ghen (Arcanum Weaver) in the 99. Also, ALL of the shrine spells in the deck are historic, so I have Cabal Paladin and The Weatherlight in my particular brew.
- Varragoth (Bloodsky Sire)
...is where a lot of the janky silliness from my original big-dumb-stupid- fun Golos deck went, so now I can assemble the silliness in mono-black, which includes Tree of Perdition and Triskaidekaphobia.
I've also acquired Festering Newt, Bubbling Cauldron, and Bogbrew Witch for one trio assembly, though I'm still waiting on a Throne of Empires to complete the empires trio.
- Rakdos (Lord of Riots)
...I love Rakdos good-stuff mixed with Rakdos jank, but Rakdos had to go share the 99 with Kaervek (the Merciless), Prosper, and a few others in my Karazikar goad deck. It needs more testing.
The deck's true purpose was in limbo for so long, then Forgotten Realms came along, and I even dismantled the Crimson Vow vampires pre-con to change the deck into something fresh and exciting.
- Kadena (Slinking Sorcerer)
...yeah? ...and make it like everyone else makes it? No thanks. I decided to build Nine-Fingers Keene featuring Maze's End instead, since it can be very difficult for 3-color commanders to impress me, especially Sultai-colored ones.
After giving Kadena the axe, some of the best from her arsenal went into Skanos Dragonheart//Acolyte of Bahamut die-on-this-hill dragons tribal (featuring Old Gnawbone in the 98) and a VERY fun Izzet brew featuring Alora, Merry Thief//Tavern Brawler, utilizing lots of adventure spells also including ways to reuse and capitalize on them.
for me that deck is Vannifar, but since i build it up to be more or less cedh. i dont get to play it as often anymore. but when i do, i always get exited about seeing how fast i can get my combo this time
Meren is also my favorite deck, and I'm never taking it apart 😬 But I appreciate your reasoning! I also keep Meren for higher power games, as you do with Titania and Konrad.
I play edh for 2 years now and I really learned to enjoy playing underwhelming commanders and get them to work great anyway
I had a Sliver Overlord deck for 7 years(same as Meren!), and within the last 2 weeks I changed it for the first time in years. I swapped Overlord with The First. It fits my pod much better now, and I find I like the chaos element now better than I did when I first included First in the 99. I love my Slivers and it will always be one of my best and most powerful deck.
I took apart Ur dragon to make Miirym, and Riku of two reflections to reuse a lot of it in Esix, I love that one!
I have a Prosper tome bound deck, and a Lathril blade of the elves deck, that are all optimized to the max. They were so good in fact that people gang up on me, and I either win, or fight an uphill battle.
I ended up building a deck like Prosper, using Safana, Calimport Cutthroat, and passionate Archaeologist. It's game plan is go through the dungen and (to get the treasures) and use passionate Archaeologist to burn down the table. It's like Prosper, but with extra steps. But I really enjoy it. No one knows what to expect, the commander is slower, and unassuming, and its my own and I love it.
Honestly this made me think about my own Maren deck and made me push it to CEDH and I loved doing that and now I'm gonna build this as my fun deck
As somone who ran Curse of Strahd in DnD, hearing you ALSO call her Lasagna both crushes me, and brings a smile. No matter the game, she is doomed to this fate. Sacrifice your heart out, from one Blood Artist to another.
Welp, if you see another deck named baby lasagna on archidekt its cuz Joey has me hyped for this commander and I honestly cannot think of a better name for her, I will for sure link to this video though!
My favorite deck is my first deck, Brudiclad. At the moment, I have been considering taking him apart.and pitting him in the 99, but I don't see what commanders would be best to replace him with.
Hey Joey, I loved this video,and I too recently parted ways with Meren, despite her being a deck I was going to foil out. I had the same issues, the edict creatures were too good against the voltron decks and I ended up rarely playing the deck. Im trying an approximation of your Baba list this weekend, but id love an upping the average plus some decision making commentary on the cards you chose to play and didn't choose. Keep up the great work!
I turned my orzhov Teysa aristocrats deck into a back ground sub themed Silvar deck that's ton of fun, just one of the most adaptive decks i've played can easily move between voltron, go wide and aristocrats at will, absolutely inspired by the commander commander deck. Is absolutely hillarious to win with a massive glorified hill giant doing commander damage with Cultist of the absolute.
Squibbles are just so much fun I’m planning on changing my chitterfang into voltron about bloodforged battleaxe/prying blade
I recently put together a Slimefoot and Squee deck. I've really been enjoying it so far.