One thing I've noticed in my games is a lot of people struggle with giving up the security of running blue because they want to be able to counter spells on the stack, which could be one of the reasons the combinations including blue tend to be more popular.
Those people are the ones who talk the most smack about other people’s deck. When in reality they suck at deck building and creativity. The majority of the just copy pasted a deck list online.
Selesnya player as well and sometimes plays Abzan. Combos are what people like the most and Selesnya is not very good at it. On the other hand, Selesnya’s best weapon for me is tax&stax which is not a very popular strategy. Also, I very much agree that White and Green are a very cohesive color pairing.
Mono red is seriously underrated. Much more stack interaction than you would think, and more card advantage too. Plus it has dockside, jeskas will, and Swat. It's good.
Blue can do for $10 what red can only do for $300. This is the issue all mono colors have in EDH, many staples are not redundant enough to have budget options. White card draw for instance, is seemingly plentiful now, but depending on what your deck is doing, you are maybe limited exclusively to 10 10$ cards, with none of those juicy 50c pickups.
I think the Miirym popularity just comes down to people finding dragons really cool and the other face commander for the Tribe costs way too much. Miirym lets everyone play with their cool favourite tribe! Its less about how good it is or what type of decks you make with it, it wins out on coolness factor alone, people just like dragons.
Another reason for Miirym’s popularity is the ease of transition from either the Draconic Dissent precon or the Draconic Destruction precon. You are only adding one color to your color identity, and since lands are the most expensive cards to upgrade, switching from Atarka or Firkraag to Miirym isn’t going to break the bank as much as Ur-Dragon.
Not only that but she’s really powerful in the right deck. Throw in the new Elesh when she comes out, panharmonicon, and the artifact that lets you tap two of one type of creature to play another and you’ve got yourself a scary ass board state
I feel another reason Abzan is so low is that among its (comparatively few as you pointed out) options it is not very varied or flexible. With a couple of exceptions like Doran, every single Abzan commander does stuff with counters, reanimation, or both, and Karador and Ghave are already the best in these colors to do these things, so Abzan commanders new and old get passed over because they're unoriginal and there is a clear better option already in these colors
I have a Doran deck and it’s a ton of fun, but if you want big butts you might as well do Arcades so he gets passed over a bit. Abzan desperately needs a lifegain commander
Abzan are my favorite colors. My first Abzan deck was a Myrkul deck, though I bought a Ghave as well. Haven't done anything with it yet because it feels to me like it'd be really similar to a Golgari deck I already have.
I feel like with some of the colour combo's, for decades now they've struggled to figure out ways to make them mechanically interesting. Abzan is a great example. I think Dark America is another 3 coloured wedge that struggles.
I was expecting you to mention Jodah, the Unifier when you talked about 5-color commanders. This commander is just broken, but so much fun to play. I saw that it was actually #6 on the WUBRG most popular list. Fun video. I have been trying to only build decks that are outside of the top 100 on EDHREC.
I am honestly impressed by the creativity of the people coming up with commander meachnics. the new commanders especially often come with such intricate ideas, its awesome!
Way to go Dimir! I run rotclever in my dimir zombie deck and he’s pretty darn solid. If I had a scarab god, I’d have him as the commander, but rotclever definitely puts in the work.
I love Naya. Ghired is one of my favorite commander. With Naya you get the best ramp, some of the best removal and protection spells in the game. And you can use the best cards from boros also.
I've loved Naya since I first played Ixalan Dinosaurs, which was the set that brought me into Magic. From then on, I've stuck pretty close to those colors.
This video made me wonder how many decks people have published on EDHREC that I have made also are: - Zetalpa Primal Dawn 173 - Kamahl fist of Krosa 260 - Ghave 3811 - FBLTHP 412 - Emiel The Blessed 1561 - Raggadragga Goreguts Boss 2982 - Krenko Tin street kingpin 760, Zada Hedron grinder 3556 - Mogis God of Slaughter 2056 - Chainer Dementia Master 881 - Korvold Fae-cursed king 10814 - Edric Spymaster of Trest 1863 - Brokkos Apex of Forever 1082 - Varina Lich Queen 4634 - Meren of Clan Nel Toth 8557 - Dihada Binder of Wills 2523, Akiri Line Slinger/Tevesh Szat Doom of Fools 37 - Satoru Umezawa 6204 - Ur Dragon 12886 LOL My Akiri Line Slinger/Tevesh Szat Doom of Fools is the lowest at 37 :P
The thing that stuck out with Dimir, to me at least, is the fact that most of them were tribal commanders at the top. Ninjas, Rogues, and Zombies. There's not a whole ton of great commander options for those tribes. Especially not ninjas or rogues. Zombies do have Varina, Lich Queen, which gives you white (lowkey a great add to the tribe). But, that's got to help Dimir.
Varina is bad. She looks nice on paper, but her abilities are really mediocre. No evasion, no ETB, and only limited card selection. The zombie tribe is a mess.
@@martl8615 the access to white in Varina is really nice, since it helps the removal suite as well as giving you access to Corpse Knight, Oketra, and Wayward Servant. I'm not going to act like Zombies don't need a face lift, but they also have the single most lords (or its close between them, Elves, and Merfolk) and have a Swampwalk option with the ability to make all lands Swamps.
I think you might be misunderstanding Miirym and his popularity. It’s not that it’s the best or particularly synergistic, but it might be one of the top 3 easiest commanders to build and play due to the raw power a lot of dragons have. If you put ONLY whatever cards you can afford with “dragon” in it you’re already better off than like 70% of casual decks. There’s payout for including the expensive stuff (and plenty of people in this hobby are into that). And you can take it even further when you realize there are other literally any other cards in this color identity. “Me like dragon. Dragon cool, strong. Get dragon. Get more dragon. Win game.” - Miirym players
@@farty555 I fully support proxies! But I know some people don’t like them and it’s hard to tell what cards are real and not when people post theirs deck lists online.
I think WUBRG is a noob fan favourite. I suspect, based on your comment alone, that you're probably a more advanced player. 'Colour fixing' isn't something noobs are even really aware of. They see 5 colours, and they get excited. It's as simple as that!
As a follow up. To you and I, 5 colours is complex and difficult to construct around. To the noob, 5 colours mean you can bring whatever you want in your deck. All the noobs favourite cards can just be stuffed in the deck and thats it! No need to think anymore about it!
You only need to buy one five colour precon and your mana will work in any of them. It’s actually harder to fix for two colour since you have less access to colour mana rocks.
Playing Shorikai is some of the most fun I've had playing commander. There are so many directions you can build and it feels fitting that the vehicle mechanic essentially just makes your commander a non-creature artifact the majority of the time feels so powerful in Azorius wrath decks.
I've been on a gruul kick lately. Raggadragga and kibo are both incredibly powerful. I also love my mono-blue atemsis deck. "Ah yes, I will now draw 35 cards, any responses? No? *tap* you lose the game"
LOL My last game with my Raggadragga deck went quite similarly to that final statement: ''My mana dork is now 17/19 Trample, I will tap for 17 and play Return of the Wildspeaker drawing 17 cards...'' opponents scooped but mind you I had also cast 2 other 7cmc spells previously that turn ;D
I found a way to get the EXACT numbers for each color combo if you'd be interested. It's basically just a list of the possible number of decks that a card of each color combo could go in, and an excel sheet to compare them all. And it's really easy to update, since most of the work is automated. Dimir for example has exactly 126,251 decks in total. And mono white has 51,652.
I’m pretty new to magic. I started collecting cards for the art work last year and now I try and play with my friends regularly. We decided to each get a commander precpn but after looking I couldn’t find a set that spoke to me. Except for the Eldrazi precon. Idk why but colorless really spoke to me. I clicked immediately with it. I was surprised to find out that it wasn’t as popular as I thought. I dunno. Just interesting to me
I just want to share that I really enjoyed this video in particular. How you organized it and the details you chose to share made for great content in my opinion.
Part of the most popular commanders is definitely the precon effect. People just paste in the precon to buy the singles or to make small modifications to one they've bought.
I'm really surprised about Orzhov and mono black, I'd expect them to be higher on the list. I was also surprised that Naya was that high. I expected that it would be lower since it's a simpler combination than some of the others below it. Not hating though, I've fallen in love lately with my old Marath deck. It has mostly junk in it yet it's fun and surprisingly stronger than what its price is. I'm very happy that Yuriko is so popular. I begun playing mtg during the Saviours of Kamigawa set. I liked the block despite it being generally disliked and ninjas were one of my favourite tribes. It's nice to see them becoming so widely played after so many years.
I enjoy running mono black with Liliana Heretical Healer as my commander and Bolas (red, blue, and black) with Nicol Bolas, Dragon God for my commander. Lot of tactical choices.
Maybe something that drains for each land that enters the battlefield. Basically flood the graveyard and play lands from the graveyard to show abzan’s relationship with the circle of life.
I know not everyone is crazy (thinks like an engineer in terms of statistics) but there are 2 things that stand out in what you have here, but it took me 2 watches to come to this. First, the bulk of these decks - like from 20 all the way to 7 - are all between 40k & 50k decks; anything within 5% of another combo is reasonably equal. Apart from that, most decks fall into 1 of 2 categories; 1, deck color held up by 1 or 2 commanders, or 2, 5 or more popular commanders (no single commander >25%). Big Delta's in the % difference between colors is the main differentiator but the number of viable commanders within the color indicates the 'health' of that color
omg! what a troll! xD I was sitting there almost getting a headache trying to figure out the last color combination and finally gave up just to be surprised with the 5-colors (thinking this list would only be mono, two- and three- color combinations).. Anyways, great video, I enjoyed it thoroughly!
Abzan suffers for the reason Mardu is #3, diversity of commanders. I build primarily Mardu decks and have since I first build Edgar Markov from scratch. I’ve since build Licia, Queen Marchesa, and Kelsien. Each one plays vastly different from one another and has very little overlap of cards. I’m already theory crafting at least two other decks and still have several other options. When you look at Abzan options, you have counters matters, some graveyard, treefolk tribal, Kethis (why you wouldn’t use a 5-color Legendary matter deck is beyond me) and Mrykul. In fact Mrykul is so different, that is surmise that this is what is driving it’s popularity. I expect the new angel, Ixhel, will be fairly popular too, but still, it deals with counters. Black, green, and white all gain life. Where’s the lifegain commander? Where are the unique commanders like Mrykul that do things no one else does? As much as I love my Mardu decks, the distribution of commanders is completely uneven.
I'm just looking at my decks, and I've got quite a bit of a range. This list includes current decks and those still under construction. Grixis/Esper/Jeskai/Azorius/Dimir/Gruul/Orzhov/Simic/Izzet/White/Blue/Black -- NONE (As you can tell, I'm not a big fan of Blue) Five Color -- Monarchy (Kenrith), Cascade (The First Sliver), Superfriends (Esika or Jared), Green Devotion Elementals (Horde of Notions), Legendary Dragons (Ur-Dragon), Yes! (Garth), WUBRG Matters (Jodah), Gates (Golos - Rule Zero), Godzilla Augments (Surgeon General Commander), Temur Hydras (Progenitus - White/Black splash) Four Color -- No-White Landfall (Yidris), No-Blue Saprolings (Tana/Ravos partners) Naya -- Eggs (Atla Palani) Jund -- Lhurgoyf Beats (Lord Windgrace), No Food Chain Kobolds (Prossh) Bant -- Enchantments (Estrid), Walls (Arcades) Abzan -- Walls (Doran), Orzhov Reanimator (Karador - Green splash) Sultai -- Let it Snow (Jorn), Face Down (Kadena) Mardu -- Battle Cry Beats (Isshai) Temur -- Infinite Warp Worlds (Riku) Rakdos -- Devils (Raphael) Selesnya -- Cats (Nazahn), Archers (Caleria), Hatebears (Gaddock Teeg) Golgari -- Squirrels (Chatterfang) Boros -- The Factory (Toggo/Rebbec partners) Mono-Red -- Beg, Borrow, Burn (Grenzo or Krark/Kediss partners) Mono-Green -- Shamans (Sachi)
I am honestly surprised then not surprised Abzan isnt as popular as most decks. White and Green are obviously mainly creatures and some buff and field effects, and with Black who can do a lot of graveyard shenanigans as well as use said creatures as sac fodder, I realize the big weakness of Abzan. It hates creature boardwipes, reanimation counters, and graveyard destruction. And guess what 2 color combos love both? Rakdos Izzet Golgari Orzhov and Boros. Selesneya isnt as bad since it mainly deals with just creatures which can then be brought back through Black, Azorious gets overrun by huge creatures, Dimir can only prevent the inevitable for so long, and Simic or Gruul are probably the best 2 colors to wall Abzan since both have gigantic creatures, tons of tokens, and the ability to punish with extra mana.
Honestly Miirym does not surprise me. People have always been into dragon tribal and for the cost of ditching dragon tribal's weakest colors you get a much stronger commander than Ur-Dragon or Scion.
I don't think people came to a realization about ivy, I think they just watched game knights and saw how cool she was there. That seems to happen a lot with some commanders
I LOVE the state of color balance now. It really is too bad that people tend to chase public perceptions of color combos still, and/or build with cheesy commanders. Thus is the nature and allure of popularity. But Wizards could really work on NOT making commanders that get card advantage AND mana production in one card as well.
I run Abzan, very underrated color combination and fairly challenging build. Anafenza, Tha Foremost (Fearless) is my commander of choice. I force people in my play group to respect her at all costs.
Crazy, wouldn’t have guessed Dimir would be so high up there. I mean i would have guessed B/L and a third color would have trumped that. Especially Esper. That was my biggest suprise.
Lathril makes sense since elfball is super easy to build. Kinda like Krenko goblin easy to build. Edgar Markov also will remain top because he's unfair considering he doesn't have to be cast to generate absurb value. Vampire being an already absurd value tribal. Dimir makes sense to be Yuriko is one of those commanders that cheat the commander tax, and the effects can just make you win with 1 attack depending on all the cards off the top. Plus you can play thassa oracle regardless of casual or cEDH because commander is still a game and still about winning. Kennrith is only popular because people had to stop playing Golos and didn't want to dismantle their Uber deck.
Miirym is in my Tiamat deck. It is the 1st card I grab when I cast Tiamat. I agree that alone it is a not a great commander but apart of a dragon tribal 99 it is essential.
Ivy seems fun, turn one, play forest tap it for any 1 drop green creature. turn 2, play an island play ivy. Turn 3, play any land that enters untapped, cast careful cultivation on your 1 drop creature so it taps for 2 green mana, ivy copies it and attaches a token copy of careful cultivation to herself. Turn 4, you now have 8 mana! Have fun 👍
I refuse to believe that mono-green is less popular than mono-blue. However, I do believe that mono-black is the most popular single color. Izzet being in the top 10 most popular is easy to believe. Dimir being the most popular guild was a bit surprising, until I thought about the Thoracle combo in cEDH. Dimir also seems to offer the most unique strategies in Commander.
The biggest surprise to me was thinking Wubrg was the most popular commander color then when we reached number rank 2 wondering what was number 1. Forgetting about WUBRG.
Not having any restrictions at all is not my reason to run a 5 color commander deck. In fact, I use Jegantha as a companion in my Sisay deck, making it the deck with the most building restrictions I own due to the companion requirements.
when I was searching for an Orzhov and Azorius commander I was really surprised myself. It kinda seems like those two combinations aren't that interesting in edh in terms of commanders
Dimir really does have such fun commanders. I run yuriko as my high power deck, also run wilhelt for my zombie deck, and I absolutely love Umbris filled with horrors and other fun cards.
Tiamat and Miirym are my favorite commanders and they don't have to be built as just "hurr durr, big dragon, turn sideways". You can put some actual strategy into these decks and win in ways your opponents don't expect. Make a mountain of treasure tokens using [[Old Gnawbone]] but not even spend any of them. Instead I'll just play [[Renari, Merchant of Marvels]] and pass. When it comes around to my turn I'll just play [[Hellkite Tyrant]] on your end step to win the game on my upkeep. Use [[Ancient Gold Dragon]] to make a bunch of 1/1 Faerie Dragon tokens then play [[Terror of the Peaks]]. Opponents will think your did that in the wrong order and let you get away with it. Then next turn play [[Utvara Hellkite]] and swing with all your 1/1's making that many 6/6's. Or just use [[Scion of Draco]] with [[Tiamat]] and [[The Ur-Dragon]] on the battlefield and turn into a lifegain deck.
I think almost every commander player wants at least 1 5 color deck, so when the right commander for it comes out they pounce on it. pair that with competetive players liking the lack of restrictions and you have a recipie for a popular color combo
People sleep on how versatile White is. Pillow forts, grave hate, land hate, artifact hate, big creatures, small tokens, equipment, enchantments, diverse play styles. Never understood why "White sucks lol" is a thing.
I have a Krenko deck, but I was surprised that not alot of people are playing with Rakdos, Lord of Riots. He's my first, and favorite, deck. Who doesn't want to cast huge creatures for tiny mana?🤣
Wow, I have 1 commander deck, and it's The Ur Dragon. I thought you could only have colors that the Commander has though? Still, my deck was built with Ur Dragon and, was built with the 5 Dragonlords as "sub commanders" in the deck, it also has several Planeswalkers and supporting cards that revolve around making dragons cheaper or easier to bring out
Love Naya and Bant personally, but the difference is startling so many Naya commanders I find interesting and I want to build, but I’m struggling so hard to find a Bant commander I want to build, love the colours but walls is one note, Chulane is too powerful, just can’t work out how I can enjoy Bant.
I have a rules question. If a creature you control deals damage to you, and that creature has lifelink, will you take that damage and gain that much life back? Say you give Yusri lifelink: Will you take 2 damage and gain 2 life for each fip you lose.
I have a lot of cycling green fellas so I can take something with a shite load of counters from ezuri or something sacrifice it and put all the counters on a reanimated titanoth Rex (base 12 12 with trample)
Prosper is my favorite commander, so no surprises there. Keep in mind popular precon commanders like prosper and Wilhelt get bumps. Imagine if golos didn't get banned...but I bet most of the golos players went kenrith
I kinda have a question. Is it worth it to play less popular color combinations? Does playing like mono-white Human Tribal make your game worse than something else? I really want to play Rick, Steadfast Leader but rn I'm getting a bit discouraged.
Nekusar being topmost in Grixis is really shocking for me - I don't even think of him as particularly emblematic of the shard in EDH, not to mention being the top commander!
Everytime I build an Abzan deck I regret it. Whether it was 10 years ago building a "budget" Ghave or last year building a cedh Tymna Kodama deck. Abzan just leans too heavily into combos and those same combos would be easier to pull off in Orzhov or Golgari. I think that color combination is funner in other formats.
My buddy runs a Miirym deck and a Ur Dragon deck with Miirym in it I can honestly say it can grow to be one of the worst fronts to face because with the right cards you have a mix of card draw constant any target damage that increases with every dragon that hits the battlefield and all the copies
@@edhdeckbuilding It’s a different flavor of value than Korvold. Korvold rewards sacrifices with card draw, Prosper rewards impulse draws by adding mana. And he’s one less color, which helps him be distinct. There are plenty of reasons to pick one over the other. My friend has a Prosper deck he loves but he probably wouldn’t build a Korvold deck. It’s just not his style.
Looks like precon commanders really skew the results for each color combination. We should also acknowledge that more of the cedh decks out there tend to be either 5 color or dimir and it's likely disproportionately the seasoned and competitive players looking to price out or record their builds that record higher numbers of 5 color and Dimir in edhrec.
One thing I've noticed in my games is a lot of people struggle with giving up the security of running blue because they want to be able to counter spells on the stack, which could be one of the reasons the combinations including blue tend to be more popular.
agreed. people really like the feeling of safety that blue gives them.
virgin counterspeller VS chad silencer
Those people are the ones who talk the most smack about other people’s deck. When in reality they suck at deck building and creativity. The majority of the just copy pasted a deck list online.
My commander is Alela faeries and rogues have some fun synergies and it's been a blast for me
Alela cunning conqueror
I really expected Simic and Izzet to be more popular. Then again, I observed a table with three graveyard decks. 2 Dimirs and 1 Grixis.
I was playing a game with 3 dimir and an esper deck, plus one of the dimir decks was a mill deck. It took so fucking long.
@@mackabbot1439This is why Jubilation angel is underrated along with grave hate
I love how you structured this content. Adding the top new commanders gave this video some uniqueness and was much appreciated.
Yeah! It adds a much deeper layer to it. I’m always a fan of extra stats. He did really well with this one for sure, as always.
Selesnya is my favorite two color combination, I don't know why it isn't more popular truthfully, white and green work really well together
Selesnya player as well and sometimes plays Abzan. Combos are what people like the most and Selesnya is not very good at it. On the other hand, Selesnya’s best weapon for me is tax&stax which is not a very popular strategy. Also, I very much agree that White and Green are a very cohesive color pairing.
Mono red is seriously underrated. Much more stack interaction than you would think, and more card advantage too. Plus it has dockside, jeskas will, and Swat. It's good.
Blue can do for $10 what red can only do for $300. This is the issue all mono colors have in EDH, many staples are not redundant enough to have budget options. White card draw for instance, is seemingly plentiful now, but depending on what your deck is doing, you are maybe limited exclusively to 10 10$ cards, with none of those juicy 50c pickups.
I think the Miirym popularity just comes down to people finding dragons really cool and the other face commander for the Tribe costs way too much. Miirym lets everyone play with their cool favourite tribe! Its less about how good it is or what type of decks you make with it, it wins out on coolness factor alone, people just like dragons.
Another reason for Miirym’s popularity is the ease of transition from either the Draconic Dissent precon or the Draconic Destruction precon. You are only adding one color to your color identity, and since lands are the most expensive cards to upgrade, switching from Atarka or Firkraag to Miirym isn’t going to break the bank as much as Ur-Dragon.
The way most people build her is to go copy spam and have 50 dragons enter the battlefield off of one cast
Also, twice the dragons!
Don't forget to mention miirym is budget friendly. The other dragon commanders are relatively expensive. Ur dragon is ridiculous for its price.
Not only that but she’s really powerful in the right deck. Throw in the new Elesh when she comes out, panharmonicon, and the artifact that lets you tap two of one type of creature to play another and you’ve got yourself a scary ass board state
I feel another reason Abzan is so low is that among its (comparatively few as you pointed out) options it is not very varied or flexible. With a couple of exceptions like Doran, every single Abzan commander does stuff with counters, reanimation, or both, and Karador and Ghave are already the best in these colors to do these things, so Abzan commanders new and old get passed over because they're unoriginal and there is a clear better option already in these colors
I have a Doran deck and it’s a ton of fun, but if you want big butts you might as well do Arcades so he gets passed over a bit. Abzan desperately needs a lifegain commander
Abzan are my favorite colors. My first Abzan deck was a Myrkul deck, though I bought a Ghave as well. Haven't done anything with it yet because it feels to me like it'd be really similar to a Golgari deck I already have.
I feel like with some of the colour combo's, for decades now they've struggled to figure out ways to make them mechanically interesting. Abzan is a great example. I think Dark America is another 3 coloured wedge that struggles.
I was expecting you to mention Jodah, the Unifier when you talked about 5-color commanders. This commander is just broken, but so much fun to play.
I saw that it was actually #6 on the WUBRG most popular list.
Fun video. I have been trying to only build decks that are outside of the top 100 on EDHREC.
I am honestly impressed by the creativity of the people coming up with commander meachnics. the new commanders especially often come with such intricate ideas, its awesome!
Way to go Dimir! I run rotclever in my dimir zombie deck and he’s pretty darn solid. If I had a scarab god, I’d have him as the commander, but rotclever definitely puts in the work.
I love Naya. Ghired is one of my favorite commander. With Naya you get the best ramp, some of the best removal and protection spells in the game. And you can use the best cards from boros also.
I switched from Ghired to Samut and that's my favourite color since then. A blast to play.
I've loved Naya since I first played Ixalan Dinosaurs, which was the set that brought me into Magic. From then on, I've stuck pretty close to those colors.
This video made me wonder how many decks people have published on EDHREC that I have made also are:
- Zetalpa Primal Dawn 173
- Kamahl fist of Krosa 260
- Ghave 3811
- FBLTHP 412
- Emiel The Blessed 1561
- Raggadragga Goreguts Boss 2982
- Krenko Tin street kingpin 760, Zada Hedron grinder 3556
- Mogis God of Slaughter 2056
- Chainer Dementia Master 881
- Korvold Fae-cursed king 10814
- Edric Spymaster of Trest 1863
- Brokkos Apex of Forever 1082
- Varina Lich Queen 4634
- Meren of Clan Nel Toth 8557
- Dihada Binder of Wills 2523, Akiri Line Slinger/Tevesh Szat Doom of Fools 37
- Satoru Umezawa 6204
- Ur Dragon 12886
LOL My Akiri Line Slinger/Tevesh Szat Doom of Fools is the lowest at 37 :P
Dimir is also by far the most common among my commander decks, with Sultai as a close second. Black and Blue are just that good!
The thing that stuck out with Dimir, to me at least, is the fact that most of them were tribal commanders at the top. Ninjas, Rogues, and Zombies. There's not a whole ton of great commander options for those tribes. Especially not ninjas or rogues. Zombies do have Varina, Lich Queen, which gives you white (lowkey a great add to the tribe). But, that's got to help Dimir.
Varina is bad. She looks nice on paper, but her abilities are really mediocre. No evasion, no ETB, and only limited card selection.
The zombie tribe is a mess.
@@martl8615 the access to white in Varina is really nice, since it helps the removal suite as well as giving you access to Corpse Knight, Oketra, and Wayward Servant. I'm not going to act like Zombies don't need a face lift, but they also have the single most lords (or its close between them, Elves, and Merfolk) and have a Swampwalk option with the ability to make all lands Swamps.
then I'm just out here with nebuchadnezzar
I think you might be misunderstanding Miirym and his popularity. It’s not that it’s the best or particularly synergistic, but it might be one of the top 3 easiest commanders to build and play due to the raw power a lot of dragons have.
If you put ONLY whatever cards you can afford with “dragon” in it you’re already better off than like 70% of casual decks. There’s payout for including the expensive stuff (and plenty of people in this hobby are into that). And you can take it even further when you realize there are other literally any other cards in this color identity.
“Me like dragon. Dragon cool, strong. Get dragon. Get more dragon. Win game.” - Miirym players
Unlike most other tribes, they fly. Another big benefit.
Izzet and Dimir are my favorites. They’re fun to play! And my friends don’t find it too annoying lol
Would love to see a updated video like this. Great content keep it up
BAM! ruclips.net/video/sB8PNVowQAU/видео.html
I’m actually surprised WUBRG is the most popular just because of the mana base. It can be hard to color fix a 5 color deck if you’re on a budget.
Proxies are a thing, and the first thing most people proxy up are the expensive land cards that wotc won't reprint.
@@farty555 I fully support proxies! But I know some people don’t like them and it’s hard to tell what cards are real and not when people post theirs deck lists online.
I think WUBRG is a noob fan favourite. I suspect, based on your comment alone, that you're probably a more advanced player. 'Colour fixing' isn't something noobs are even really aware of. They see 5 colours, and they get excited. It's as simple as that!
As a follow up. To you and I, 5 colours is complex and difficult to construct around.
To the noob, 5 colours mean you can bring whatever you want in your deck. All the noobs favourite cards can just be stuffed in the deck and thats it! No need to think anymore about it!
You only need to buy one five colour precon and your mana will work in any of them. It’s actually harder to fix for two colour since you have less access to colour mana rocks.
Playing Shorikai is some of the most fun I've had playing commander. There are so many directions you can build and it feels fitting that the vehicle mechanic essentially just makes your commander a non-creature artifact the majority of the time feels so powerful in Azorius wrath decks.
would love to see another updated version of this!
i just might do that
I've been on a gruul kick lately. Raggadragga and kibo are both incredibly powerful. I also love my mono-blue atemsis deck. "Ah yes, I will now draw 35 cards, any responses? No? *tap* you lose the game"
LOL My last game with my Raggadragga deck went quite similarly to that final statement: ''My mana dork is now 17/19 Trample, I will tap for 17 and play Return of the Wildspeaker drawing 17 cards...'' opponents scooped but mind you I had also cast 2 other 7cmc spells previously that turn ;D
@@mr.mammuthusafricanavus8299 raggadragga is critically underrated. He is so terrifying fast because of the very nature of dork tribal
I found a way to get the EXACT numbers for each color combo if you'd be interested. It's basically just a list of the possible number of decks that a card of each color combo could go in, and an excel sheet to compare them all. And it's really easy to update, since most of the work is automated.
Dimir for example has exactly 126,251 decks in total. And mono white has 51,652.
This channel has the coolest video ideas- love to follow it daily
I’m pretty new to magic. I started collecting cards for the art work last year and now I try and play with my friends regularly. We decided to each get a commander precpn but after looking I couldn’t find a set that spoke to me. Except for the Eldrazi precon. Idk why but colorless really spoke to me. I clicked immediately with it. I was surprised to find out that it wasn’t as popular as I thought. I dunno. Just interesting to me
I just want to share that I really enjoyed this video in particular. How you organized it and the details you chose to share made for great content in my opinion.
thanks so much.
Part of the most popular commanders is definitely the precon effect. People just paste in the precon to buy the singles or to make small modifications to one they've bought.
I'm really surprised about Orzhov and mono black, I'd expect them to be higher on the list.
I was also surprised that Naya was that high. I expected that it would be lower since it's a simpler combination than some of the others below it. Not hating though, I've fallen in love lately with my old Marath deck. It has mostly junk in it yet it's fun and surprisingly stronger than what its price is.
I'm very happy that Yuriko is so popular. I begun playing mtg during the Saviours of Kamigawa set. I liked the block despite it being generally disliked and ninjas were one of my favourite tribes. It's nice to see them becoming so widely played after so many years.
I enjoy running mono black with Liliana Heretical Healer as my commander and Bolas (red, blue, and black) with Nicol Bolas, Dragon God for my commander. Lot of tactical choices.
Love seeing my favorite Mardu getting all the love. Hopefully, next year will be the year of mono white!
Mono white is my favorite lol, I just love all the crazy stuff you can do with life gain
Abzan color identity: hi there, have you considered putting counters on your permanents and/or sacrificing them for value?
True, The Ozolith is Abzan's best friend.
Abzan really needs a cheaper lifegain/drain commander. Maybe Something that gains life or counters for each creature that died on your turn.
Maybe something that drains for each land that enters the battlefield. Basically flood the graveyard and play lands from the graveyard to show abzan’s relationship with the circle of life.
Many years back, when ravnica was actually new, I loved Dimir so much. So I'm kinda giddy about it seeing so much play now.
Dimir didn't surprise me at all. It's the troll colors and magic players live under bridges.
I made two Abzan decks this year (Myrkul and Karador) and it's now my 2nd favorite colors behind Sultai. Hoping for more in the future!
I know not everyone is crazy (thinks like an engineer in terms of statistics) but there are 2 things that stand out in what you have here, but it took me 2 watches to come to this. First, the bulk of these decks - like from 20 all the way to 7 - are all between 40k & 50k decks; anything within 5% of another combo is reasonably equal. Apart from that, most decks fall into 1 of 2 categories; 1, deck color held up by 1 or 2 commanders, or 2, 5 or more popular commanders (no single commander >25%). Big Delta's in the % difference between colors is the main differentiator but the number of viable commanders within the color indicates the 'health' of that color
omg! what a troll! xD I was sitting there almost getting a headache trying to figure out the last color combination and finally gave up just to be surprised with the 5-colors (thinking this list would only be mono, two- and three- color combinations)..
Anyways, great video, I enjoyed it thoroughly!
Abzan suffers for the reason Mardu is #3, diversity of commanders. I build primarily Mardu decks and have since I first build Edgar Markov from scratch. I’ve since build Licia, Queen Marchesa, and Kelsien. Each one plays vastly different from one another and has very little overlap of cards. I’m already theory crafting at least two other decks and still have several other options.
When you look at Abzan options, you have counters matters, some graveyard, treefolk tribal, Kethis (why you wouldn’t use a 5-color Legendary matter deck is beyond me) and Mrykul. In fact Mrykul is so different, that is surmise that this is what is driving it’s popularity. I expect the new angel, Ixhel, will be fairly popular too, but still, it deals with counters.
Black, green, and white all gain life. Where’s the lifegain commander? Where are the unique commanders like Mrykul that do things no one else does? As much as I love my Mardu decks, the distribution of commanders is completely uneven.
You will never see massive amounts of players because the cards cost too much
Surprised the new Jodah wasn’t mentioned in the 5 color section. Came out in Dominaria United and already has 6700 decks which is absurd
I'm just looking at my decks, and I've got quite a bit of a range. This list includes current decks and those still under construction.
Grixis/Esper/Jeskai/Azorius/Dimir/Gruul/Orzhov/Simic/Izzet/White/Blue/Black -- NONE (As you can tell, I'm not a big fan of Blue)
Five Color -- Monarchy (Kenrith), Cascade (The First Sliver), Superfriends (Esika or Jared), Green Devotion Elementals (Horde of Notions), Legendary Dragons (Ur-Dragon), Yes! (Garth), WUBRG Matters (Jodah), Gates (Golos - Rule Zero), Godzilla Augments (Surgeon General Commander), Temur Hydras (Progenitus - White/Black splash)
Four Color -- No-White Landfall (Yidris), No-Blue Saprolings (Tana/Ravos partners)
Naya -- Eggs (Atla Palani)
Jund -- Lhurgoyf Beats (Lord Windgrace), No Food Chain Kobolds (Prossh)
Bant -- Enchantments (Estrid), Walls (Arcades)
Abzan -- Walls (Doran), Orzhov Reanimator (Karador - Green splash)
Sultai -- Let it Snow (Jorn), Face Down (Kadena)
Mardu -- Battle Cry Beats (Isshai)
Temur -- Infinite Warp Worlds (Riku)
Rakdos -- Devils (Raphael)
Selesnya -- Cats (Nazahn), Archers (Caleria), Hatebears (Gaddock Teeg)
Golgari -- Squirrels (Chatterfang)
Boros -- The Factory (Toggo/Rebbec partners)
Mono-Red -- Beg, Borrow, Burn (Grenzo or Krark/Kediss partners)
Mono-Green -- Shamans (Sachi)
I am honestly surprised then not surprised Abzan isnt as popular as most decks. White and Green are obviously mainly creatures and some buff and field effects, and with Black who can do a lot of graveyard shenanigans as well as use said creatures as sac fodder, I realize the big weakness of Abzan.
It hates creature boardwipes, reanimation counters, and graveyard destruction. And guess what 2 color combos love both? Rakdos Izzet Golgari Orzhov and Boros.
Selesneya isnt as bad since it mainly deals with just creatures which can then be brought back through Black, Azorious gets overrun by huge creatures, Dimir can only prevent the inevitable for so long, and Simic or Gruul are probably the best 2 colors to wall Abzan since both have gigantic creatures, tons of tokens, and the ability to punish with extra mana.
Honestly Miirym does not surprise me. People have always been into dragon tribal and for the cost of ditching dragon tribal's weakest colors you get a much stronger commander than Ur-Dragon or Scion.
Miirym is not stronger than the Ur Dragon. Eminence is a very fun ability.
I don't think people came to a realization about ivy, I think they just watched game knights and saw how cool she was there. That seems to happen a lot with some commanders
that explains alot.
I LOVE the state of color balance now. It really is too bad that people tend to chase public perceptions of color combos still, and/or build with cheesy commanders. Thus is the nature and allure of popularity.
But Wizards could really work on NOT making commanders that get card advantage AND mana production in one card as well.
I run Abzan, very underrated color combination and fairly challenging build. Anafenza, Tha Foremost (Fearless) is my commander of choice. I force people in my play group to respect her at all costs.
I love bant, probably my favorite color combination. Rafiq is usually my go to.
I'm surprised you didn't mention Jodah the Unifier. I think this will be an extremely popular commander historically.
Crazy, wouldn’t have guessed Dimir would be so high up there. I mean i would have guessed B/L and a third color would have trumped that. Especially Esper. That was my biggest suprise.
I'm kind of surprised at no mention of tergrid after how much people complained about her before
Lathril makes sense since elfball is super easy to build. Kinda like Krenko goblin easy to build. Edgar Markov also will remain top because he's unfair considering he doesn't have to be cast to generate absurb value. Vampire being an already absurd value tribal. Dimir makes sense to be Yuriko is one of those commanders that cheat the commander tax, and the effects can just make you win with 1 attack depending on all the cards off the top. Plus you can play thassa oracle regardless of casual or cEDH because commander is still a game and still about winning. Kennrith is only popular because people had to stop playing Golos and didn't want to dismantle their Uber deck.
I fucking love Sheoldred, The Apocalypse. I don't play commander but she is one of the standard win conditions of my deck.
Weird to see Abzan that low, Myrkul, Frodo-Sam and Doran are some of my favourite
It's interesting how popular esper is while being comparatively low in popularity with individual commanders
Miirym is in my Tiamat deck. It is the 1st card I grab when I cast Tiamat. I agree that alone it is a not a great commander but apart of a dragon tribal 99 it is essential.
Yea prosper is by far my strongest and most expensive deck because it's so much fun to play
This video should get an update for 2024
Baba has 1601 now as I was finally finishing up a deck I started months ago while watching the new vid. A real fan of the Golgari colors
The fact that the most popular mono white commander isn't Odric Lunarch Marshall really throws me off he's insanely fun and honestly pretty busted
Ivy seems fun, turn one, play forest tap it for any 1 drop green creature. turn 2, play an island play ivy. Turn 3, play any land that enters untapped, cast careful cultivation on your 1 drop creature so it taps for 2 green mana, ivy copies it and attaches a token copy of careful cultivation to herself. Turn 4, you now have 8 mana! Have fun 👍
Bestow also looks like fun with her.
I refuse to believe that mono-green is less popular than mono-blue. However, I do believe that mono-black is the most popular single color. Izzet being in the top 10 most popular is easy to believe. Dimir being the most popular guild was a bit surprising, until I thought about the Thoracle combo in cEDH. Dimir also seems to offer the most unique strategies in Commander.
The biggest surprise to me was thinking Wubrg was the most popular commander color then when we reached number rank 2 wondering what was number 1. Forgetting about WUBRG.
roon of the hidden realm is my favorite deck always been a fan of flicker deck
Not having any restrictions at all is not my reason to run a 5 color commander deck. In fact, I use Jegantha as a companion in my Sisay deck, making it the deck with the most building restrictions I own due to the companion requirements.
when I was searching for an Orzhov and Azorius commander I was really surprised myself. It kinda seems like those two combinations aren't that interesting in edh in terms of commanders
Dimir really does have such fun commanders. I run yuriko as my high power deck, also run wilhelt for my zombie deck, and I absolutely love Umbris filled with horrors and other fun cards.
Everyone sleeps on Abzan, Nethroi apex of death is an awesome commander in particular
Tiamat and Miirym are my favorite commanders and they don't have to be built as just "hurr durr, big dragon, turn sideways". You can put some actual strategy into these decks and win in ways your opponents don't expect.
Make a mountain of treasure tokens using [[Old Gnawbone]] but not even spend any of them. Instead I'll just play [[Renari, Merchant of Marvels]] and pass. When it comes around to my turn I'll just play [[Hellkite Tyrant]] on your end step to win the game on my upkeep.
Use [[Ancient Gold Dragon]] to make a bunch of 1/1 Faerie Dragon tokens then play [[Terror of the Peaks]]. Opponents will think your did that in the wrong order and let you get away with it. Then next turn play [[Utvara Hellkite]] and swing with all your 1/1's making that many 6/6's.
Or just use [[Scion of Draco]] with [[Tiamat]] and [[The Ur-Dragon]] on the battlefield and turn into a lifegain deck.
I think almost every commander player wants at least 1 5 color deck, so when the right commander for it comes out they pounce on it. pair that with competetive players liking the lack of restrictions and you have a recipie for a popular color combo
I use mono-white and I do just fine. It is an underrated color.
People sleep on how versatile White is. Pillow forts, grave hate, land hate, artifact hate, big creatures, small tokens, equipment, enchantments, diverse play styles. Never understood why "White sucks lol" is a thing.
I have a Krenko deck, but I was surprised that not alot of people are playing with Rakdos, Lord of Riots. He's my first, and favorite, deck. Who doesn't want to cast huge creatures for tiny mana?🤣
Yooooo that yugen intro is so fucking goooooood i love that song so much
Wow, I have 1 commander deck, and it's The Ur Dragon. I thought you could only have colors that the Commander has though? Still, my deck was built with Ur Dragon and, was built with the 5 Dragonlords as "sub commanders" in the deck, it also has several Planeswalkers and supporting cards that revolve around making dragons cheaper or easier to bring out
Love Naya and Bant personally, but the difference is startling so many Naya commanders I find interesting and I want to build, but I’m struggling so hard to find a Bant commander I want to build, love the colours but walls is one note, Chulane is too powerful, just can’t work out how I can enjoy Bant.
I run a bant enchantress with tuvasa and it is a blast!
With the new Commander precons for ONE revealed Abzan might start climbing up with those new infect commander options
Should have included all 4 color combinations as well.
I have 3 dimir decks that all feel unique. I get why it's popular
Dimiiiiiiiir, let’s gooooooo!!!! 💧💀
I have a rules question. If a creature you control deals damage to you, and that creature has lifelink, will you take that damage and gain that much life back? Say you give Yusri lifelink: Will you take 2 damage and gain 2 life for each fip you lose.
correct
I play white 👀 its tricky! The tribal decks i play are:- knights, angels & phyrexian elesh norm. 😂 yup. Thats 3x different decks; not 1x lol.
Working on a reanimator/ counter maw deck with paired commanders Rehan the last Abzan and Ishai ojutai dragon speaker
I have a lot of cycling green fellas so I can take something with a shite load of counters from ezuri or something sacrifice it and put all the counters on a reanimated titanoth Rex (base 12 12 with trample)
Arcades is a bit slow, but he's super fun to play. I love giving my walls flying with Wonder.
Prosper is my favorite commander, so no surprises there. Keep in mind popular precon commanders like prosper and Wilhelt get bumps. Imagine if golos didn't get banned...but I bet most of the golos players went kenrith
I kinda have a question. Is it worth it to play less popular color combinations? Does playing like mono-white Human Tribal make your game worse than something else? I really want to play Rick, Steadfast Leader but rn I'm getting a bit discouraged.
Dimir makes sense, I run 4 different Dimir decks and they all do different things, Sulimgar, Sotaru, Phenax, Anowar Tribal.
Nekusar being topmost in Grixis is really shocking for me - I don't even think of him as particularly emblematic of the shard in EDH, not to mention being the top commander!
My guess at #1 before the video plays or I check anything
Bant is de best
Also shout out to bae Light-Paws, best commander ever
Green is my fav color but mardu is my fav 3 color combination
My favourite color combinations are esper and bant, least favourite is mono-red.
Everytime I build an Abzan deck I regret it. Whether it was 10 years ago building a "budget" Ghave or last year building a cedh Tymna Kodama deck. Abzan just leans too heavily into combos and those same combos would be easier to pull off in Orzhov or Golgari. I think that color combination is funner in other formats.
My buddy runs a Miirym deck and a Ur Dragon deck with Miirym in it I can honestly say it can grow to be one of the worst fronts to face because with the right cards you have a mix of card draw constant any target damage that increases with every dragon that hits the battlefield and all the copies
The fact that Yeva, Yisan, and Selvala weren't in the top 10 for green commanders seems wild to me.
my biggest surprise is Kenrith not being #1 most popular commander
Prosper is such an incredible value train; how is his popularity surprising?
more value than korvold? how is that not surprising?
@@edhdeckbuilding It’s a different flavor of value than Korvold. Korvold rewards sacrifices with card draw, Prosper rewards impulse draws by adding mana. And he’s one less color, which helps him be distinct. There are plenty of reasons to pick one over the other. My friend has a Prosper deck he loves but he probably wouldn’t build a Korvold deck. It’s just not his style.
This video made me realise that Kaldheim is already a two year old set...
11:09, more like 9669 decks since that’s my DUDE. My only playmat has Krenko on it hehehe.
Looks like precon commanders really skew the results for each color combination. We should also acknowledge that more of the cedh decks out there tend to be either 5 color or dimir and it's likely disproportionately the seasoned and competitive players looking to price out or record their builds that record higher numbers of 5 color and Dimir in edhrec.
Gruul was a big surprise for me. 90% of their guys are just big, bad things that turn sideways.
How is Abzhan this low? The best guild+white removal is a slam dunk, plus the commander options are STACKED!
What we notice is that power level is not exactly the mesure for commander what make me happy.