The NEW Most Unique Commanders | EDHRECast 206 

I love that both "Jerk Santa" decks made it onto here. It is such a bizarre mechanic to give your opponent stuff.

Awesome episode, as always! I’d like to propose a challenge for a topic for another episode. Something that I’ve been running into recently at tournament style games at my LGS. I tend to build on a budget, and I like more obscure/often less powerful commanders and strategies. I find that I’m regularly playing against decks that cost 10-20 times what mine do, and I get absolutely destroyed. What are some ways that budget decks can compete with those with all the expensive powerhouse staples? Perhaps that might mean a discussion about specific strategies or budget replacements for those staples, or any number of other points. I’d love to see you guys tackle that question!

Loved when you were talking about the most unique mono blue deck and all the color changing cards. I run a similar deck but with Dromar, the Banisher as my commander. This has become my most unique deck by far and when not 1, not 5, but like 10+ cards people ask "wait, what does that do?" whenever they are against it for the first time, and I absolutely love it. I think another fun thing to note here is not only when commanders do something unusual for their color pairs, but when an individual commander does something way outside its usual EDHREC average decklists. My Breena deck is full of Soltari and Dauthi for a shadow tribal deck, and my Liesa, the Dusk Shroud deck is a Rebels vs. Mercenaries build so she will ping opponents more than me since I will be using abilities more than casting my creatures. Great episode as always guys!

I have been talking up Licia (Lis-see-ya) for months (maybe even years) now and there should be a much higher unique card count. Looking at the average deck list on EDHREC, it can’t decide if it wants to be a lackluster vampire deck or a piecemeal lifegain deck. Word of advice, leave vampires to the superior vampire commander, Edgar Markov. This might be due to the precon effect again, because she was originally in Edgar Markov’s deck. The only other vampires I have in my deck are Vona (for permanent removal) and Twilight Prophet (repeatable, pre-combat source of life gain). Even Vito lost out to Vizkopa Guildmage for the effect (targeted vs untargeted). Licia is also not interested in anything piecemeal. Gaining one life three times doesn’t do a whole lot to reducing her cost. Go big or go home. Also don’t be afraid to gain and lose life at the same time. While it might be net zero when it comes to your actual life total, you do get both effects. Cards like Death Watch and Dying Wish do double duty. These are so unique, most of you reading this will probably need to look both of them up to see what they do. I see Well of Lost Dreams on the average list, why not add in Words of Woppprship? You can bounce the effects off each other, meaning Licia will never pay commander tax again and only cost RWB to recast her (you can do this trick with Words of Worship and Dawn of Hope too, but it’s not as efficient). In other words, she is… inevitable. Where does my deck overlap? The artifacts. There’s just no way to avoid most of these (Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Lightning Greaves, Swiftfoot Boots, Aetherflux Reservoir, talismans) but I do have a few others that can be considered unique. Elixir of Immortality is a big chunk of lifegain and can recycle the cards in the graveyard. Sunbeam Spellbomb is also a 5 mana reduction off Licia’s casting cost or you can just pay 1 sac it to draw a card if you don’t need the lifegain. Tainted Sigil is very useful even if it’s just your life is going down, but is even better if your opponents are too. Might as well throw in Alhammaret’s Archive as well, because who wouldn’t want double the lifegain and card draw on a single card?

I love seeing Lynde get some love, the first commander I ever built around :D

This is a really, really fun list! Honestly, I think both Gallia and Hallar can lead people into a deckbuilding strat of focusing on one specific part of them - Satyrs with Gallia, and kicker with Hallar. As was mentioned, Hallar is often better off just stacking a bunch of counters on them, and then casting any kicked spell to blast out a bunch of damage (very tasty with snake umbra), but Gallia is an absolute card advantage MONSTER if you build her right. Tokens make her absurd, and madness cards let you get even more value from her! People underestimate her, and she can absolutely slaughter. Also, one thing I have been having a LOT of fun with is taking relatively ununique commanders, such as Lathril, the GB Elf commander from the precon deck. Take her, and change her from an elfball commander into a spellslinger one! After all, she makes a bunch of tokens when she deals combat damage - so giant growth now reads create three 1/1s for one green mana! Or how about Scale Up, or groundswell? Spellslinger Lathril takes people by surprise a lot of the time, and gets out of hand VERY quickly.

Earliest I've ever been to an EDHREC video.

Thantis, my girl! Hell yeah, one of my oldest decks and i love it to pieces, one of the few I never took apart. It's so fun and interactive and agonizing and energetic. Ugh, too good, too effin good :D

have been a big fan of lin sivvi for quite a while! glad to see her getting some recognition. there's some good rebels in black too - i hope we get a w/b rebel commander at some point.

Deece+ I agree is very good vernacular

wooh! I was happy to see King Macar coming by. it's my mono black deck

Zedruu is one of the most unique legendary creatures ever created. I LOVE this guy!!!

Fangren Marauder is a Pauper all-star

Great eppisode guys. I am fairly new to commander, so I can't say I have any unique commanders that I like to play yet. Have to say that I am really loving playing commander. I need to catch more of your Twitch streams.

I actually built a Tazri d&d edh deck, and it's got a lot of different ways to win that are d&d related, for example, win with deck of many things, win by having a lot of treasures or by just having a lot of party members to overwhelm your opponents. It's fun and my friends keep being surprised by the many ways this deck plays

Glad to see more hot johney action good on y'all of you unique brewers out there.

Killian is one of those commanders that feels like it should be a rare. Kind of an absurd ability actually.

Whoever you guys use for your website does such a good job. I’d love to see the backend stuff that was done for linking all the data points, I’m sure it’s awesome! Love the content, keep it up!

Joey’s Dad Jokes coming off more like Son Jokes this episode.

Great video. Did y’all do a grixis commander? I was waiting for my favorite 3 color combination

I REALLY LOVE YOUR DAD JOKES THEY ARE PRICELESS. You guys are great. KEEP STAYING PAWZITIVE GUYS

I absolutely love Sygg. He was my very first commander deck I put together.

Love seeing Tolsimir shine it was my first commander deck

Do it Joey....DO IT! Build Belbe!!! Haha. I've been waiting for someone to finally mention my girl...she deserves so much more respect than she gets, one of my stronger decks. Nothing feels better than a turn 2 God-Pharoah's Statue or a t3 Ulamog. Also of note...the most colorless mana your opponents can make is 4...they can't make 6 like you can because of the way Belbe is worded, and your deck WILL be better suited to use that mana anyway

I tried Blim, I gave an enchantment to a friend who made them discard their hand at the end of each turn. I certainly lost some friendship points that day.

I run Fangren Maruader and Viridian Revel in my green decks because treasures/storm are a thing in my pods

The Prof. has a Sygg commander deck that he just adores.

I love seeing tolsimir get some recognition. There's so many fun things you can do with the deck.

I have Tolsimir deck. It's a cool destroy any creature whenever you play a wolf and gain a bunch of life while you at it. Fun though not powerful :)

I'm trying to get things together to build Blim myself and I'm having a lot of fun. I've always been a red player but I kinda sterred away from black, so I challenged myself to compromise and find something fun in rankdos I like to ease me in and it's been really cool so far. I built a Jund Deck as well for shirts and giggls and Korvold, Fae cursed king is a lot of fun

Excited for this episode. Always looking to play a commander that makes people go... wait wtf?

Body of Research is cool in Riku decks. Cast a Terror of the Peaks, copy it, then cast Body of Research copied and get two huge tokens dealing 50+ damage 4 times thanks to the two Terrors

Temur Thievery Sounds FANTASTIC!

How can I submit a challenge the stats?

I thought that Ghen, Arcanum Weaver would have taken the Mardu spot considering that it deals heavily with enchantments which is uncommon for that combination.

Haven't even watched the video yet, but I know I'm gonna spend at least $5 on cards at the end of it. Damn this channel!!

Y'all would love my friends "Chaos" Thantis deck....it's hilarious

Yes. I play Depala, Hallar, and Verazol. I love how different they play from other commanders in their colors. They are also incredibly fun.

Look mom I'm special.

So an upping the average for Skeleton ship soon?

I also say Abzan like Joey. The other way sounds very American to me. I do say Bant like bent, though.

Yasova is my main Temur deck XD.

I run a Kadena deck that I built around the same time this video came out that I feel might add a more unique run to it that Kadena normally. Power Rangers morph and ninjitsu

Commander's Quaters shout out for the Nylea, Keen-Eyed unique strategy. Brilliant channel and strategy.

I try to avoid the overpowered commanders and simic is so powerful that the commander I have in that color pair is Got Muldrak, he is obviously not the most unique simic commander but I feel like he has to be up there

You don't get aunt colonies in your front yard and bant has no u, so I'm with Joey

Lovely to see one of the three top Red cEDH commanders getting a look in here. Go Magda Clock!

Again Depala? I'm so disappointed that Osgir didn't grab that spot :/

don't entomb the dad jokes Matt!

Loved the topic. I cried when Experement Kraj was not even mentioned.

Don't worry Joey, vowels are difficult.

My head canon is that Joey secretly despises the dad jokes and is exerting extreme self-control to act as if he doesn’t. Imagining him seething beneath his smile is just too funny.

Is it just me or does Matt look like the friendly version of the T-1000 terminator?

My deck is more of a deece nuts.

A lot of these decks are unique among there colors but are really the same most everytime u see them.

The way that I interpreted this was actually the opposite: these are the _least_ unique commanders in that if you sit down against any one of them you'll have X cards you can expect to see in that deck.

Where's Macar, dude?

Even though you explain it at 4:20, the title is misleading and should be something like "The commanders with the most unique cards". The commanders that are mentioned later are often not very unique themselves, but these decks can be in the respective colors because they are running a lot of unique cards (for that color combination). If I think about "unique commanders" I want to see an analysis about the commander itsel, not their average deck.

PEOPLE KEEP MAKING ZEDRUU WRONG!!! Having bad cards in your deck means you only have bad cards if you don’t have Zedruu out. You run SYMMETRICAL effects that your deck can work around.

34:33 Why is Unclaimed Territory showing "X% of 1,028,273 decks" whereas Secluded Courtyard is showing "X% of 88,063 decks"? Surely Secluded Courtyard 'could' be played in the same potential 1,028,273 decks that Unclaimed Territory could be played in?...so why is Courtyard showing a much lower number as it's number of potential decks, compared to Unclaimed Territory?

I wonder if Joey like mispronouncing things just to be special…

Tolsimir isn't fun

I am once again asking that you remove the yt widget from the site. Not a fan, makes me hate visiting the site that I'd normally find myself idly browsing.

This is boring