Is Your Deck Fun 

"I'm stupid *faster*" is a legendary catchphrase

As a player who only affords budget commanders most of the time, finding alternate cards that maybe approach a commander from a different side is not only fun, but immensely satisfying.

Deathtouch pingers. That is what is fun to me. I am depraved lol.

Good topic. No point playing a game that isn't fun. And I haven't thought about Children of Korlis in a hot minute. What a weird card.

I seriously didn’t get that most people play the ur-dragon as a dragon tribal commander. When I built it I was thinking about using dragons as ramp and removal until I have enough mana to cast the ur-dragon and then I swing with my dragons to put cards like platinum emperion and Avacyn, Angel of hope into play with the ur-dragon’s effect that protect me after my dragons swung for damage.

Making unique but functional commander decks is my favorite part of brewing, especially because of the budget I usually restrict myself to. I actually spent the past couple days working on a Bant Reanimate deck and it's been load of fun. Hope to see the 11 Bant Reanimate decks on EDHRec go up to 12 soon haha.

I kinda just pick a theme and run with it. I'm building a Kennrith Deck that's "Restaurant Tribal" where the theme is Kennrith is really hungry and goes to one of the best rated restaurants on New Cappena. The 99 has a handful of specific cards called the Chefs and Line Cooks The Chefs are all Legendary Chef Creatures like Gyome, Asmo,Brenard,Rocco etc. The Line Cooks are Legendary Creatures that Help Enable the Food Token Generation aspect of the deck (with the caveat that they are all Mono colored). Creatures like Chatterfang or Black Braids. The rest of the 99 is all Token generation and synergies with the intent to just spill out a ton of food tokens and either raise an Army and run over or create near infinite Value to abuse Kennriths abilities

I watch your shorts and I never thought it would be a problem it is infinite content that is the opposite of a problem

I wanted to build a Landfall that utilized Realm Razer for mass landfall triggers. My first iteration was with Marath, but then Atla Palani was released so I changed the deck to include her as the commander, and now it's just a landfall slot machine.

I love your mentioning Kairi the Swirling Sky, probably my favorite deck. There is so much underutilized potential in mono-colored commanders!

The only Top 100 Commander I have is Henzie. I think Henzie is also a lot of fun, because you can cycle different threats in and out and experiment. While there are some obvious support cards you always keep in the threats you load your Henzie railgun with can be quite varied. Also blitzing a Panglacial Worm from the deck off of a random fetch is one of the most hilarious things you can do in Magic I think. I'm also brewing an Alela, Artful Provocateur Vehicle deck. The idea is that she creates pilots for your Mechs when you cast them and thanks to her colors she can also fit Greasefang and Kotori. The ideal is to then also have a bunch of Alters for the cards and replace Alela, etc. with Mecha-Pilot characters and the vehicles with corresponding Mechas.

I've recently split my generic zombie value pile into two fun decks. The first is a Varina Lich Mastery deck. The goal is to play on as a horde of zombie tokens after your deck has run out. The second one is Jonslaught, where Jon Irenicus and some curses give everyone their own hordes of zombies, while I run onslaught block cards like Gempalm Polluter and Rot Shepherd that care about any player's zombies.

So I recently made a rats deck, and while building it, I went out of my way to make sure that I didn't include rat colony. I've gotten so bored of rat colony decks on Arena that I refuse to play the card. And honestly, Totentanz has been a pretty good time, especially when I swing for 1700+ damage that's largely unblockable.

While popularity as a commander is a good thing to look at on EDHrec I also think general card popularity (playrate as card on EDHrec) is something to account for as well. I've seen dozens of Gadraks and Sidisis for instance, not just because they're occasionally in CEDH decks and are extremely powerful (Sidisi more than Gadrak of course, but both show up there), but also because they get run a lot in a myriad of different decks. Not that this is a bad thing of course, just saying they're not my go-to for obscure commanders, and again I just feel it's good to check the card's overall playrate as opposed to just their playrate in command zone when trying to gauge how popular a card is

I try to do this so that when I play my decks people don’t roll their eyes. I have a Jodah Archmage Eternal that’s just a pile of “bad” cascade cards and it’s always a blast to play! Also I have a series on my channel where I’m building a deck for every commander in order and I’ll never catch up either.

I like heavy combo decks with a lot of randomness. Grenzo, Dungeon Warden and Meria, Scholar of Antiquity are my current favorites. Will I pull the exact card I need at the gamebreaking moment? Will I piece together an unstoppable combo and kill everyone? Will I flip a land and cry? Let's tap a few cards and find out! It's exciting to see people watching the flips as if we're in a high stakes poker game and exclaiming "She can combo with that! We need to kill it now"

This video definitely made me think of what decks i tend to like bronging out kore than others. And i can start seeing where youre commig from. It seems that part of the magic about building decks is making ot unique and your own. I dont know if ill evolve from pizza eventually but ill definitely watch your commander reviews and see what comes to me

Not the most out there but I play with a Henzie wurm tribal (and friends), and it is terrifying. I think even just taking a popular commander and adding a small twist like that really elevates a deck

I'm building an Ooops! All precon commander's commander deck. It includes the precon face commander and their subcommander. It's interesting to note many of them are in a multicolor 4mv range with Ur-dragon at the top of the curve. There isn't much in the way of 1 and 2 mv. Which I guess can be dedicated to manarocks and card draw with some light staple removal or reanimation. Considering that this is a "goodstuff" build makes the question- aren't most new commanders secretly goodstuff themselves? I wonder.

I have had my Seton deck for about 6 years now, glad to see a fellow druid enjoyer. When people ask me what it does, "Oh it's elfball but worse" but the cards you get to use are very fun, lots of interesting toolbox effects like druid lyrist or nantuko tracer. Its fun to see whenever a new druid comes out to see if it makes the cut, because there's maybe 1 or 2 a set, and every so often its a banger. Still need to get the new Ixalan one that gives Druids retrace

As someone who enjoys higher power games, my personal trick for making fun decks is to take something that doesn't look like the strongest card out there and try building a powerful deck with it. Two of my brews can actually sit at CEDH tables and play mostly fine. Gonna list my three most successful brews in terms of fun factor to give people an idea of what I do with them. Nashi, Moon Sage's Scion: First brew that can play in CEDH pods without falling over. Gameplan is to make Nashi unblockable against at least one opponent and then grind value off of him. Very cursed style of Midrange for CEDH, but it's a lot of fun planning out the correct plays when given a random card off everyone's deck. Chiss-Goria: My second CEDH capable brew. Gameplan is to slam him turn 1 or 2 and start flipping into powerful artifacts (normally stax) every turn while also pressuring life totals. Due to the likelihood of exiling combo pieces, Plan A is to simply beat the table to death before they can break through my stax. The Unspeakable: Very much not a CEDH deck, but I wanted to try building a battlecruiser commander. As it turns out, Spirit Tribal backed up by every single EDH-playable Arcane spell that mono blue has to offer makes for a surprisingly fun and effective deck. The Unspeakable brings it all together as I tend to get the mana required to cast them right around the time I start running out of gas.

Too right, homes. Decks, to me, are most fun when I as the pilot have to piece together the puzzle of how I win. I have a casual Esix, Fractal Bloom deck that tries to win by making a bunch of token copies that's highly dependent on my opponent's board state, which gets really crazy when you do something like make 10 copies of your opponent's Wrathful Red Dragon

I’m a big advocate of building non-mainstream commanders. Your pizza analogy was super spot on, I just usually sigh internally whenever I see lathril or the Ur dragon at the table just because it’s super predictable. That’s why I love my scorpion god deck because it used the -1/-1 counter archetype that no one ever really used (until new massacre girl just dropped), and it made me feel super proud that this deck was MINE and uniquely mine, not just a generic tribal deck that everyone has. Building non-popular commanders allows for unique cards and interactions to be created that just feels personal to me for finding and discovering. The scorpion god pseudo-aristocrat deck I have just feels so satisfying when the synergies I found that weren’t recommended by EDHREC work in game is just super enjoyable. I wish more people tried to be as creative as I try to be when brewing new decks. I still have some mainstream commanders (Brago, Faldorn, Gishath) but the next decks I plan on making (megatron, Boros Kellan (sunforger deck)) are just fun and unique decks that I can’t wait to actually buy and put together

I tend to have issues picking between commanders for a deck when one has an extra color. For example, I have a bunch of angels laying around, so I figured making an angel deck, and was thinking Iroas. That said, though, using Atla Palani can help with getting more angels out faster, and for ramp because green, but it also seems like a rather common commander. Another isn't really a "too common" issues, but more just not being able to decide in general - Surrak Dragonclaw or Xenagos for just big stompy

Have you thought of running partner commanders but only one half? I have a Shabraz the Skyshark that always surprise people as they think i'm running both but Shabraz does not dissapoint with a Voltron strategy along a side of pillow fort and group hug (sometimes the best way to draw cards is for everyone to draw cards)

Scion of the Ur has been my best commander for years. Super fun deck. Every once in a while I swap him out for U.D. (and make a few small dragon changes) but I find the Ur dragon most fun as a temporary break from the main attraction which is silly dragon toolbox. My favorite list Ive been running is Experience Counter matters Kelsien the Plauge, with the other 4 experience counter creatures in his colors.

I'm trying to currently build boomer Garth, One Eye. It's an interesting challenge and so far I've basically got him with a suite of token doubling and flicker effects supported by a bunch of iconic cards like lightning bolt, flametongue kavu, dark confidant, lord of the pit and even some silly stuff like grizzly bears and hurloon minotaur. The plan is really to make a bunch of shivan dragons for beatdown. Building like this makes you learn so much, I learnt a lot of history trying to build this and I also learnt that there actually aren't that many blinks that immediately return the creature, a lot of them only return it at end step, including most of the repeatable ones. There's no way its anywhere near optimised yet but that's part of the fun.

I built a deck using almost entirely cards with art by Rebecca Guay. It’s almost as cool as my deck that uses only cards that feature white beards in the artwork.

I have an Atla Palani deck that only runs all the big creatures from the 90's! I'm often kept alive by the table just so i can crack more eggs, the laughter and joy from the table when i am flipping into Craw Wurms, Shivan Dragons, Serra Angels, Crash Of Rhinos et al is the best. Couldn't win a game to save its life, but it's definitely fun 😂

I have an enerjyund deck run by indoraptor and I'm so excited for the rest of it to arrive so I can bring it to the next tourney at my lgs

When I'm feeling frisky, I'll bust out my Grolnok "Oops All Permanents" deck, Beledros Aristocrats Pod, Inniaz Flying Tribal Yankee Swap, 3 Color Omnath clones, or Marisi Monarch. Can't help but lean into power (shameless Windgrace, Rakdos, Liesa, Feather, Arahbo, and Niv Parun (no infinite) user), but I like to mix it up. It also doesn't help that I'm aiming to build at least one of every mono, every pair, every trio, and one five color, so it's like I have to make each identity count. Yet to build most interesting would probably be Ghen, Vadrok, and Falco.

I'm very interested in what the Reki deck looks like. I'm not a green player really but a friend of mine recently expressed wanting to play a deck in green and that card seems pretty interesting.

As the kind of guy who's more flavor than function, there are some times when the deck pop off doesn't happen. However the table politics and the splashy plays my group love to see are rewarding no matter who is doing it. I will say that my standard group is always up for letting you get "one more turn" to either lwt you do the unexpected or, sometimes, crush that hope because we know each other that well. But if im at a strangers table I bust out my decks that are balanced in draw, interaction and the like. And during play we tend to talk about those wierd decks, the flavor heavy ones, the wierd plays and this always inspired game 2 to be a little more experimental. Having a few types of decks gives me such a variety of experiences qhile still being "in" the game is very rewarding.

Quintorius Sunforger spellslinger sounds so cool. I have been trying to build him in a unique way (failed a discard/self grave hate list) and I would love to see your list!

On top of underused tribes, you can also play off-color tribes. One of the decks that I’m rebuilding because my friends enjoyed it so much is Wasitora cats. You can do silly things like simic dragons, Azorius zombies, or mono-black elves. If my gameplay can tell a story or my deck is somewhat unique, I have more fun than just playing generic good stuff. My Lara Croft deck tells the story of raiding vaults and/or getting lost then having to (re)discover iconic places. It doesn’t matter if it loses because that just means that she tried to raid a vault that she wasn’t ready for. However, the most important fun factor for me is if everyone had their moment, whether it’s a big attack or picking apart the archenemy’s board, just get a chance to do your thing - hopefully without the game stalling for seemingly no reason.

There was a nail, and you hit it on the head. I’m always sad when I pull up to a random table and people aren’t able to say anything that makes their deck unique.

I've brewed around 5 of the potential Companion deck building restrictions so far. Umori/Jared Super friends was fun for me, and pretty novel and interesting to my opponents as you're not playing the traditional support cards. Jeskai artifacts using Zirda to think outside those generic auto includes like Darksteel Forge, Unwinding Clock etc. When LOTR released I really wanted a Bant deck, and eventually they released Galadriel. And I've made it entirely Universe beyond artwork.

I find it fun when my deck is like a puzzle. So i put in non-bos and not as focused as a deck should be so it plays out as differently as possible. Otherwise i get bored of the deck if it's too on rails.

I’ve got 2 brews I think are pretty unique. Og atraxa but it’s level up as the main mechanic. And the. I also have the legendary matters Jodah with partner with as the main mechanic.

It's a great topic and I love building fun decks. There are a ton of thrilling older legends and underrated legends to brew around. There are unique combos to employ as you pointed out. Sadly, a lot of people lack the creativity or the confidence to build something on their own. Or they're too competitive and want to build the most "optimal" deck. Doran the Siege Tower is one of my oldest commanders and I think he's fun to build around. He could lead Treefolk Tribal, a LotR deck, Toughness matters/defenders attack, etc. He throws off a lot of other decks and strategies. But Yeah, I think it's way more fun when people build unique decks without sacrificing workability Asking someone to build Scion of the Ur Dragon instead of The Ur-Dragon isn't likely to be a more fun deck. I know it's only an example, but I've always seen very linear Scion decks vs Ur-Dragon decks can be built on many budgets since dragons are a very supported tribe. Of course there is a fair amount of overlap, but there's a lot of uniqueness to the builds as well. I tend to do looting and excessive draw on order to fill my graveyard and bring them all back when I play my Ur-Dragon deck.

People have fun experiencing my Daryl, Hunter of Walkers Gruul Control deck... then have fun never playing against it again. It draws cards, interacts, uses stuff a lot of players have never seen before, and is just fun and quirky. "Normal" decks are too boring--I build decks that I enjoy piloting, not just goodstuff. Sure, Teysa Karlov isn't the most unique, but that final aristocrats turn is a rush.

as a Timmy as long as I can cast big and strong creatures Im having fun

"Scion of Ur-Dragon toolbox". The issue is that 99% of the time there will be 1 correct choice and you end up doing the same play over and over again. Or you will be targeted because the card combos too easily. You cannot let a Scion of Ur Dragon untap, ever.

Thanks I’m sure I’ll have fun with my deck when I have two opponents playing land destruction 😢

How would you rate a hypothetical "Confuse your entire Pod" Tribal deck in terms of fun value?

I don't disagree with your video, but here's a bit of nuance or clarification. First: Interesting is often used instead of "weaker" which I find to be a problem. Sure, you "could" do Edgar Changeling, but it's also gonna be way weaker. Is weaker less fun? Depends. Second: Just because others have played something doesn't mean I wouldn't want to try that thing too. Third: Very few people are actually "Deckbuilders". EDHREC is a nice resource, but it's also a self-fulfilling one. People play the ur-Dragon because it's the top one, it's the top one because people play it, people play it because it's the top one...

Have you tried PreDH?

im actually shook to hear muzzio is so underplayed

But pizza is always good tho

Friends FORCE their friends to mulligan often. Shaming ppl for awful keeps became common place in my playgroup and harshly not letting ppl complain for bad keeps. This really helped alot more non games from happening even if you seem like the dick the first time it happens. Yes its rough that u sat here for 40 mins with 3 lands while we played, but u did that to urself when u said "eh i dont wanna be shuffling anymore and just wanna start already"

johnny no like timmy

I don't get why so many WUBRG dragon decks are lead by Ur-Dragon, Scion is more powerful, Tiamat is more consistent, both are more interesting, & ether is half the price

ATRAXA MYOJINS DECK ???????

to be unga bunga uwu