Don't Build Around Your Commander  

“For the love of urza” I like that I might use it in a video

Yea waiting and using protection spells is something I should’ve mentioned tbh

Yup I had a Jhoira deck too before I took it apart… maybe try a polymorph deck instead!

@@thetrinketmage Jhoira was also one of my first commander decks. haha. I made it go wizard-tribal with big spells to suspend, cheat, and copy.

That’s fine! As long as you realize your decks weaknesses!

@thetrinketmage I 100% do. However with that said, I've won more games focusing on my commander than when I don't. Light paws is worthless without the commander. But I won so many games with it... people hated playing against it.

This sounds like a ton of fun, would you mind sharing the decklist? 😁

Interesting take on Hinata! And there is a sweet spot too if you find an X spell that is good like heliod’s intervention it just gets better with the commander!

I also used to grind a lot of modern before the elementals invaded… good luck with edh though it’s a lot of fun!

Thanks! And yea the average view duration is always less than the full length of the video some people I think might comment before finishing the vid

That totally works too! I like the idea of a plan B

That’s fair and you are right that there is a middle ground!

I would heavily disagree! This advice does not work for most cEDH decks at all. Many just utilize their commander as a crucial combo piece for an all in win. Like Godo bandit warlord. Many non blue combo decks are like that in cEDH. I think if your deck preformed better in an average game you will have more fun overall

I agree that I probably should’ve made a section about Voltron specifically since that is a special case! As for the winning thing I feel like I covered that with my first example. If your deck is only pop off with commander and win or do nothing it’s not going to be very fun. Even though that deck could win often

@@thetrinketmage yeah you’re right that a lot of decks are very much win or do nothing and should be built better (I’ve seen it happen way too often at my LGS) but sometimes it’s just because that table was running a lot of removal or they didn’t draw many nonlands or something. As someone else said, I don’t really feel like the dies to removal argument is super useful in determine how good a card or deck is. With three other players in the game, that’s a lot of targets to share removal. However, I have played my cards to “lay low” early sometimes and let others bait out removal and counter spells etc before I popped off to win. Someone said I won out of nowhere and I just replied that I was patient and let them take the hits for me, but that speaks more to game strategy than deck building IMO

@@thetrinketmage also, that’s the reason why I stopped playing my Gishath deck for the most part, as it became a constant 50/50 of either I win turn 5, or I never do anything. No in between and it’s not fun to play, whereas with my scorpion god, Faldorn and Brago decks I can do a lot without winning and still have a good time

I don’t think it’s just about being optimal. I think you will have more fun if your deck gets to do it’s thing more! Whether or not you win. As for the tymna thing in casual you can play some aristocrats commander and my point still stands I even had an example in the video

I feel like those commanders break the rules of edh anyway and don’t really apply here!

Why does everyone mention cEDH this video had nothing to do with that… and hold up friend! You can’t tell me you want to play a jank theme deck then say you won’t play never more cause it’s a bad card! Pick a side are you casual let’s play goofy themes or competitive I can’t take turn 3 off to play a card

@thetrinketmage yeah, the nevermore comment was a little too hyperbolic, I will admit. But, the comparison to cedh is still apt imo. Building a deck this way isn't going to make it cedh powerful inherently, but it is using the same mindset of complete optimisation that takes away some of the fun of commander for me, personally.

Damn… wasn’t my point in the video but you’re not wrong

Experience counter commanders are also traps. Because they snowball so much most of them are must kill threats and many decks I see built around them are so weak without the commander. Daxos is the best one in my opinion. As for tribal… don’t most tribal decks not need a commander at all? You just play tribe members then cast coat of arms? It’s why tribal decks are probably stronger than many others cause you don’t fall into that trap

Go to my channel and check the deck techs playlist

@@thetrinketmage cool thanks

That could be the case, I mean at the the end of the day you do you right. I still think many of my points stand also I think that many play groups don’t play enough removal

@@thetrinketmage Mairsil with Aetherling ability is just not easy to get rid off. Not saying there is nothing true about what you said. But I play EDH for the unique commanders and experience and I've been playing it since it got globally spread. Before there even where Commander decks from Wizards. ✌️

Not everything is up to date but I’ve got some stuff there! www.moxfield.com/decks/personal

I really should’ve done a whole section on Voltron but, I think it’s the exception to the rule cause you kinda need to build around your commander and get it into play. Most Voltron decks aren’t great tbh but many Voltron commanders also have built in protection.

Nope! Tribal decks are great without their commander cause you just cast tribe members then play shared animosity and win right? You don’t need your commander for that at all!

If your argument is everyone has threats can I not say everyone has removal? Also although does to removal is a meme it is a valid reason why many cards are not good in many formats. Although you are correct that often times waiting and not running out your commander the first chance you get is smart but that does not change the fact that if you have a huge threat in the command zone everyone can see your other threats you use as bait don’t work as well because everyone can see the bigger threat at all times. Also saying you need to play safe and protect your commander later means your deck must be able to function without the commander right? Otherwise how did you make it to the late game?

@@thetrinketmage so no one else is playing threats during this? You seem like your stuck in 1v1 mode. A threat in the command zone means nothing to threats on the table that are presently threats not future maybe threats. You playing with randoms or a set playgroup? Dies to removal is not a good argument at all in commander. Sure it does, thats just not a constrictive argument . The commander is the card you have access to the whole game making it the most important card to utilize in casual. Synergy with that always available card makes your strategies more likely to work not less because someone might kill it. Thats just numbers and probabillity. Well synergized decks will just have more opportunity to create value with their commander and if your commander does something like draw cards or create huge discounts like hinata the value it adds is not going to be overcome by a deck with less regularity and synergy. You almost sound like you think you can just repeatedly play removal against all 3 opponents without running out or that all 3 will consistantly always have removal for each others commanders. I play with lots of randoms and in my experience people almost never play enough renoval but even those that do thats why you run protection and recovery cards in a deck so thats why dies to removal is not an argument. Removal gets blocked and countered. Board wipes are easy to avoid or recover from. Ascend from avernas, clever concealment, heroic intervention just to name a few. Just like you can try to argue dies to removal i can counter it with cards like those or just counterspells. So if we take those arguments off the table because they can happen or not happen, we go back to what is most likely to win in any format and almost any card game is the more consistent a deck is and synergy with the card you almost always have access to is going to give you that better consistency. In cedh where all that matters is the combos you have access to your argument has more merit, but not in casual in my opinion. My opinion aside we can use actual mathmatics to look at probabillities and again decks will always be more consistent if their strategy strongly uses the card they have the most access too.

I think the video title is mostly hyperbolic. The point he is making is really that kill-on-sight, feast-or-famine, mega build-around commanders tend to be exactly that-threats that either die instantly or end the game, neither of which make for particularly engaging games. Personally I think how good a kill-on-sight commander is not set in stone-it all depends on the pod/meta calls, as the presence of 3 opponents who can also sometimes help you destroys any possibility of a stable meta.

@@lawrencehu7654 all commanders are mega build around commanders, the challenge of utilizing a commander properly is what makes the format fun, otherwise you could be playing any format. People who play in specific pods are going to have a tilted viewpoint because of the people the are consistantly playing. Utilizing an interesting commander to the fullest is what creates interesting game states in commander, otherwise your just playing with magic cards. The commander sets you off on a building adventure, letting you explore how to make the most of its strategy. So your statements on this and in your video perplex me because they in my opinion seem to miss something wonderful and fun about the format. I dont mean this in any sort of insulting way, you have your opinion but i disagree with it so strongly i had to debate the merits because i believe they are on my side in this regard. Do you come from a 1 v 1 environment? Your viewpoint just seems very 1 v 1 to me but i could be wrong. I have played commander for just over 10 years now. I dont know who yout playing against and if its randoms or a set pod, we dont need to get into it as it seems we could keep going on, but those things do have a big factor on the position your viewpoint is coming from. I see games where kill on sight commander sit on the field because no one has removal, games where no one can keep anything on the field. There are many different game states that can happen in any given game. Those things should have np bearing on building strategy other than one should always include appropriate protection and recover cards in their decks. Sure if one person in a pod has some op commander and no one else does the table might team up on them that isnt relevant to deck.building strategy that is a poor rule 0 conversation. If 1 person is playing a sweaty commander then the whole table should be as thats what sets the playing ground for a fun and excellent game. There is something not quite adding up for me in your position and it must be in the information i do not know about your playing habbits so we will just have to leave this debate at this, at the end of the day casual is for fun so you build however you desire, i just had to dispute your position because it is completely against my fundamental philosophy towards building and playing. Anyway i will leave it at that, thanks for your content and have a great day.

@@jeremiahchamberlain4179 not all commanders are mega build around commanders. That's the point of the video. If your deck literally does not work if your commander isn't on the field, you're gonna have games where you do nothing all game because your commander isn't on the field. Building your deck somewhat differently means that even in games where you can't play your commander, you're not stuck in draw go mode until you lose, which is more fun than having one game where you pop off and then 15 where you are a spectator. Your point that there are many possible boardstates so you can't have rules of thumb is especially odd to me. That is true of any format, does that mean that you can't have good practices when building? If your deck folds at the first removal, the possibility that no one draws removal does not invalidate the concern. Your viewpoint seems very slanted towards the wholesome battlecruiser rule 0 let's hug it out chungus side of commander where people just play cards because they like them, even if they don't really work together. Some people want to make decks that actually work without the table just letting them do it, without necessarily spilling into cEDH.

Buddy I’ve been blowing up lands for 10 years I promise you at least humility is a stax piece and both of those are considered stax by 90% of commander players

I do play cEDH it’s fun! But my video isn’t about winning. New players often times get upset when they can’t seem to do anything. And I feel like a new player might not realize that their heavy reliance on their commander is causing them to struggle. Is it not ok for me to give advice that I think will make players have a more fun and enjoyable experience? I don’t think I even mentioned winning once, it’s about having fun first and foremost

@@thetrinketmage you literally described those players as “easy w’s” for having the naive assumption that this is a format about playing with cool legendary creatures and the neat synergies around that legendary creature. If my deck can function just fine without the commander, why am I not playing Canadian Highlander or any of the other Highlander variants that are just 100 card singletons. The commanders are what sets this format apart. It’s what it was built on and what it is for.

@@thetrinketmage so I know I was kind of confrontational earlier, but I will put forward that this format has begun to feel like a bunch of people playing with foam swords for the explicit reason of wanting to hit each other without getting hurt, then people start showing up with foam covered bamboo sticks, then we had a version of the game where they used bamboo and that was fine and we just go back to the foam, and now finally people are putting out videos to tell people it’s incorrect to put foam on your sword. We explicitly made an ultra casual format for purpose, and now it feels like not only are we not able to play that format outside of people specifically we trust to actually play said format the way it used to be, all the people who talk about it continuously say that the reason we play it isn’t just not optimal, but that it’s impossible to have fun with. And honestly it is. I haven’t gotten to play an EDH match like what I used to play with my friends in literal years now. EDH is dead. Commander is not the same format. And it makes me sad and it makes me angry. But it’s true. I should give it up.

Happy to help!