A Guide to Evaluating Commanders  

My favorite aspect of commander is being able to find a commander to build around in a unique way. My current favorite example of this is General Marhault Elsdragon. You can capitalize off his ability by building the deck around forcing your opponent to block you when you attack.

A commander that generates card advantage is the most power thing to do with the command zone aside from partner (or ramp)

My favorite commander of the last few years is Yargle And Multani. Playing a vanilla with 18 power is a statement of intent. It says that today, we're reminding fools why big numbers need to be respected.

Great video again! I really just want to emphasize that. The work you're doing to improve the experience for players and get us thinking through how to make the format better is commendable. I might challenge ideas, push back on things or offer a bit of correction, but I don't want that to be the takeaway. To answer your final question: I think there are so many interesting commanders that's it's overwhelming, but even boring do it all commander designs like Kenrith can lead to interesting decks that don't have a Commander... Yet. Like 5 color dice rolling. Mr. House has made me reconsider this, but I think the support in Mardu isn't enough yet. Some of my favorite commanders right now that have opened to interesting decks to play are Vhal, Jorn, Atla Palani and the Simic Frog that I just built and can't remember his name lol. Even Yargle & Multani is looking like a blast to play, but it's still in construction

Yup. You summarized what EDH was all about. But then WotC saw the money potential and created Commander. They don't want 'interesting'.... that doesn't make them money. They want chase cards....and that means pushed power.

You mentioned the Myojin from Neon Dynasty, which there was an older cycle from the earlier Kamigawa block that do the same thing effectively, so they're also bad from the command zone. Not that it's a big deal. I also notice that they have the KND commander symbol, though they don't actually appear in the Commander decks. They only open in packs, which was a weird thing that went under the radar for a lot of people. The first issue just shows that some legends are not meant to be commanders. The second issue is a big problem with what Wizards is doing to me. Either way, great video! I enjoy watching your videos and agree that you need to balance power and interesting play.

I totally agree with everything about your philosophy here. I really dig what you value out of the game. With that said I own 10 decks and just built #11 because I’m sick of getting stomped by the Ur-Dragons of the game so I built Voja as strong as I possibly could and now I understand why some people want that option in their deck list. Sometimes it’s fun to have a fast paced higher powered game where everyone in the problem all at the same time. I won’t use Voja to pubstomp weaker commanders just because I can that would be lame and boring. But. I do enjoy a good high powered back and forth and having a reason so run Pyroblast and Red Elemental blast to protect against the blue player countering my must answer problem is a fun experience from time to time.

This is the reason why I love my aristocrat Scorpion god deck. I need to balance being able to put -1/-1 counters on things to kill them, generating 1/1 tokens for easy to kill fodder, and then cards that profit off those death triggers. Lot of balance and synergy that the scorpion god alone doesn’t generate, so I have to work a lot harder to gain max profit off the deck

Honestly after watching this video I am very interested in making a galazeth deck. what my arcane signet and other mana rock now tap for 2 each and I am suddenly playing an 8 drop big spell outta nowhere? or what, all my treasures no longer need to be sac'd for mana and instead now tap for 2 each oh my! sounds like a Lotta fun and could be a great big spell slinger deck. throw in some copy effects and bam. Ty for the idea!

Caparocti Sunborn? hmmmmmm... Boom sneak attack its equipment spam time And I have access to a lot of Evoke creatures and adventures and reduce-cost board wipes for purposes of making sure I either hit an equipment or maybe occasionally an equipment payoff

been playing edh for 12 yrs. Ive made 4 decks in the last 6yrs and they've all been from legends. tetsuo ninjas is my current jam because its not great and hard to pull off. theres a few more I still want to build from the greatest set of all time mainly because they are generally open and others don't have them. they are well received as well

Lol I have a Radha deck. I have about 4 cards that make every land every basic land type but your right, I have to jump through hoops to get it going. I havnt found a better commander for the deck yet though

As someone who had a Korvold deck for a while (eventually took it apart for power-level reasons), I can tell you that Korvold's sacrifice-trigger almost never felt "rewarding" in any way, even with the card draw printed onto Korvold. Mostly everything I ever wanted to sacrifice, I could do so "for free" or for cheap anyway (like any type of "fetchland" or treasures), without the risk of Korvold getting removed with the mandatory sacrifice-trigger on the stack and without the downside of potentially having to sacrifice something of value when attacking with Korvold. Korvold "doing the thing" (the sacrificing) really wasn't the issue with the card, it was that you could easily draw 10+ cards after casting him from sacrificing treasures and lands alone.

Galazeth is my boy!

Partner and Eminence are fine. And playing generically good CMDRs is not boring, if you are not playing same people with same decks 3 times a week. I think all this stuff is popular, or why it exists in the first place, because it is not bothersome to build somewhat well.

I'd argue that lately new legends are designed to be less generically good, see omnath 5c not being a golos, I can't recall any obnoxious generic legend for commander lately, even new staples are coming at a lower rate. I do feel this is good.

Mention this not to be a pedant, but because you might wanna know, and it's a classic! "Rancor" is pronounced like "Ranker", not "Rann-core". It means bitterness. Great vid, btw

Call Scion the OG yet don't even use his Time Spiral print T_T As a dragon player myself, I actually think people sleep on Scion. On call ancient dragon effects are no joke; he can even still become his parent for a turn if you really want to cheat something out. As for the thesis of the video: I guess my only thing is how commander has changed. Commander isn't something for your bulk rares and rotated cards anymore, it's a format to spend money on itself. To keep up with that, commanders have been made to feel more competitive. I know CEDH is it's own thing, but the lines kinda blur. As for Eminence vs. Partner, I still kind of give it to Partner.

Omg holy shit I just realized you only have like 8k subs that's crazy I love your content keep going!