Why I Took Apart My Favorite Deck (And Fell In Love With a New One) | Magic: the Gathering
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- Опубликовано: 25 окт 2022
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"Threw in the cards that I like" produces an edh experience unlike any other
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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!
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!!!!!!!
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
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.
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
Lololol “snac-rificed”. Solid gold performance here🎉
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.
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.
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 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.
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
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.
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.
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.
Love this video! Please make more co tent like this talking about your decks and your building process with them!!
It’s literally a crime this channel has less than 1 million subs. Such great content
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.
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 love the perspective of deck-building as a social choice.
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!
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.
So happy to see this video; been wanting to build Baba Lysaga for aaaaages!
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
I LOVE these personal commander stories! Keep it up ❤
Oh my god Joey. This is how I feel about my Nevinyraal deck. Its definitely impacted how I build decks now.
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
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.
"... 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
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.
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."
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!
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
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.
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
This is a very important topic, well presented
This is a really good video by Joey, I enjoyed listening to this perspective
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).
Did you say "snacrifice"?! Joey, you are just my favorite!
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
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.
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.
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.
Love this deck, love your infectious energy!
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.
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.
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).
Perfect deck tech for a perfect deck. Thanks
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 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.
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.
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.
Yooo what a coincidence! Just tore apart my Meren deck the other day!
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
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!
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!
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).
Good call. I think a lot of players don't take into account the other players at the table nearly enough. Commander IS a social format. It's supposed to be fun, for everyone. Stax, Discard, mill, land destruction, etc are generally pretty frowned upon. But the thing all players need to do more of is properly gage their decks and card choices and what cards, if any, are producing groans of displeasure amongst your play group.
Everyone plays to win, but it should never be at the cost of everyone having fun.
I think it sounds more like a power level mismatch, than a playstyle issue. He built an 7ish meren but wants to play battlecruiser, so he changed commander and tuned them to more of a 5. Also wouldnt say those playstyles are "generally frowned upon" more so that they are higher power level play styles.. Cutting those play styles out create imbalances... then a stompy jodah just runs out of control...Again he s talking about card selection, but its clear it s about the power levels he s encountering.
Sometimes, that's just the way it's got to be. You've got to win at some point, 2hr long commander games are for RUclips channels.
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.
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
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!
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!
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.
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.
I did this with Lord Windgrace, he became Golos 5-color lands shenanigans. As time went on Golos drifted away from the core Windgrace deck. I stopped playing with him and was not sad to see Golos fall under the ban hammer. Right before Zendikar Rising came out I rebuilt Lord Windgrace and I rediscovered my original love of his gameplay. While Joey has evolved in his new deck, I rediscovered a lost love in an old friend.
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.
I feel just about the same way with my Gisa&Geralf deck. Used to be a mass-type zombie deck, but that got boring quickl and so I recently converted it into more and more of a recursion theme. Prized amalgam is pure joy with altar of dementia and a few lords
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!
Great Joey I think now I have to rebuild my deck too. I have the same feeling about meren atm. I don't get to play her so often anymore...
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.
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
I play edh for 2 years now and I really learned to enjoy playing underwhelming commanders and get them to work great anyway
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!!!
I can totally relate here Joey. Speaking from one graveyard guy to another graveyard guy, well done! Hope to see you at MTG Summit!
Well God dangit. I guess I'm building this now. It looks like so much fun!
This resonates so much with me. Thank you for this kind of content!
I recently watched UTA Jodah, and the reco on Prosper (and Laelia), Sisay and Esior stuck to me, mostly because I have a Prosper (with Laelia), Sisay, and Esior (partnering with Ardenn) EDH decks. Makes me want to unify them under Jodah. Now I am looking at current and past decks, and wondering if I can make a Jodah Commandmer Commander deck of past commanders (reminsicent to Joey's Commander Commander deck).
Then, after watching this video, my mind goes to my Feather bilnk deck, which plays similarly to said Meren, recurring blink and defensive spells, making it both difficult and boring for opponents. Now I wonder who my own Baby Lasagna will be...
Thanks again, Joey, and more power, even if my wallet shudders at your deck techs that make me want to build each and every UTA deck!
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
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
So I started playing Magic around Ravnica Allegiance. Not knowing any format or anything, I got starter decks and a bundle and started to build my own decks. One of which, was a Azorius fliers deck. It wasnt really well built, but in the pods with my friends it was amazing. So when I tried to transistion over to commander, I tried recreating that.
I just had Lavinia, Azorius Renegade as a potential commander, so I buillt it around her. But soon I noticed that the fliers part wasn't coming to fruition and instead it was more around knowledge pool. I had to change the deck.
This time I picked Isperia, Supreme Judge. I got the Azorius Guild kit and at the helm was a cool looking flying sphinx with a awesome ability? Yeah. So I picked her and tried to change the deck and instead make it more around forcing other people to attack me so I can draw a bunch of cards with cards like Taunt. This time, it wasnt working at all. There arent that many cards that force combat in azorius colors, especially when you try to force them to attack you. The fliers part was better, but it still wasnt the feeling I wanted. Again, I changed it.
This time I had an idea. Instead of nontoken creatures, it would be better to work with tokens. But there wasnt a commander that supported this strategy. Until Commander Legends released and I used Prava of the Steel Legion and Siani, Eye of the Storm as my commanders. Also I added all the flying token generators I could get. The deck became better, but again it wasnt the thing I wanted it to be. Its still quite weak compared to the other decks of my friends. So after a while, I changed commander again which leads us to the present version of the deck.
Elminster is the commander of the deck now. Again I needed a big overhaul, I put out a bunch of token generators and more instant/sorceries that support elminster as well as some huge spells to exile for faeries. I'm still upgrading this deck rn, but this feels like the deck I wanted. A planeswalker (which is best protected by fliers) who also does the most difficult and important job (creating tokens) in a way that is the best these colors can achieve. Finally I got this feeling back I had a few years ago.
And here we have it. The history of me changing a deck over and over again, until I ended it with something that makes me happy. Instead of the history we heard in this video, this was more about finding the right commander for the strategy and colors I wanted that is also strong enough to compete with the other decks. Instead of weakening the deck, I tried making it stronger. And it was a success.
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. 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.
Yep, I'm looking at several of my decks and contemplating which ones to dismantle to make room for new blood. I just bought a slew of the Dom United box toppers and want to make decks for all of them and I need to pull staples from other decks...
I've had my favourite deck I thought I will never take apart - Tasigur. But time came and now The Mimeoplasm reigns that graveyard pile ;)
The experience of other players saying "Wait, what? That's awesome!" is one of my favorite things in commander. It's one of the things that made me so immediately attached to my Burakos/Haunted One deck. No one ever blocks correctly against it because they don't realize how many on-board tricks it has access to.
hi as someone trying to build mono B Burakos, do you have a list?
@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!
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.
Every so often I dismantle most my decks to make new ones. The main reason being: I don't have copies of powerhouse cards I wanna play, and I don't use proxies. So, when he came out, my Locust God was a BEAST! I played that deck for years. And Locust God was like this perfect amalgam of silly antics (destroying more than 100 insects at one time to replace them with more than 100 dragons was fun, y'all) and spell slinging beauty. Unfortunately, time ran over him.
So, I started to experiment more with token based strategies, at one point playing Slimefoot the Stowaway for that sweet aristocrat based power madness, then trying off Niv-Mizzet, Parun which either durdled around or ended games in a heartbeat, Urza, which I created for the sole purpose of artifact beatdown. All of those got dismantled at one point. Oh, let's not forget Extus. Mardu Aristocrats, anyone? Hell to the YES.
Now I am kinda combining all of the strategies that fit me.
Vadrik for the spellslinging sweetness. Jan Jansen for the artifact/sacrifice shenanigans. Jinnie Fay, a true token deck. Of these, I work on Jan Jansen to optimize it as much as I can. Vadrik Storm fits me and I am definitely having fun with it (even if it is sometimes hard to have long turns and a mass of triggers). Jinnie is just straight up: make a bunch of tokens, make a bunch of life, attack at will. I also have a VERY powered down Animar and a Feather, the Redeemed which I tried to make according to Duel Commander rules.
I am sure some of those will go back to the drawing board when I get tired of them.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention one important thing: the other reason why I dismantle decks. See, I like thinking of new strategies as I go along, like if I get a new card and see some potential and wanna try it out. Unfortunately, a lot of the time, it just underperforms, is too slow or is not what I want out of the game, so it gets taken apart.
The one regret I do have is never being able to make a viable Scion of the Ur-Dragon deck. That was the first commander I played with and I am a huge fan of dragons. They dominate when on the field, but are just too darn slow at times. So yeah, that's my one regret and the one deck I always go back to, thinking that THIS iteration will work, yet it never does.
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.
I swear we are the same people. Back at the Baldur's Gate release, my game store did a 60 card commander draft. I was so excited. This was my first ever draft in Magic. When I laid eyes on Baba Lysaga, i glowed with excited. And it was a fun and exciting deck to build and play. Of course, I was newer in magic, and I wasn't a good deck builder, so it didn't do the best, so I replaced it with Savra. Thank you for the inspiration. My Savra deck is pretty toxic and can be a bore to play, so I will be recreating Baba Yaga. ❤❤
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
This is nearly exactly what happened when i scattered my muldrotha deck, it led to my food based reanimutate nethroi, apex of death deck i affectionately refer to as imsorryjohn, reanimating cauldron familiar as a free mutate target to mass revive zombies, horrors, and hydras, a lot of times just stitching together a win condition out of a few low power combo pieces, remember that elves and halflings are only human adjadcent, they still turn into the cat of long death all the same