This Commander Used to be the Most Played in the Format - The Rise and Fall of Oloro 

I kind of feel like a bigger change might be the solving of the meta pushing towards faster combo wins. Back in Oloro's heyday, loss of life of some form or another was by far the most common way of losing. As long as you could keep commander Voltron down, gaining life meant that you were very difficult to kill. The incremental value was rated highly. Fast forward to contemporary commander, it doesn't matter if you're at 1 hp or 1200 hp when Kess pulls her ThOracle, when Krenko makes infinite tokens, etc. Incremental value is getting weaker, especially when the value you're accruing is life gain. And even moreso when you've been left behind by power creep. 2hp per turn cycle is just not worth much compared to more explosive cards. I'd much rather run Karlov over Oloro in this meta. At least I get to do stuff.

Oloro is an upkeep commander. Upkeep commanders need to slow the game down considerably to maximize the number of triggers they can get in a game and the best way to do that is stax which most people don't enjoy playing against. You build oloro to maximize his upkeep, cards that synergize with him, and add in other upkeep cards to get even more value and what you quickly see in most groups is people start refusing to play with you. When you have no one to play with you just end up taking the deck apart. Basically people just hate you out of playing the deck by not letting you even play if you build it to maximize upkeeps. That feels bad. Atraxa gets things more powerful but players have removal and feel like they are still participating where as stax makes players feel like they don't get the chance to enjoy their time and that is precious to them.

This video just stands as a testament to me that EDH really has something for everyone especially as it’s evolved over time.

Another thing to consider was the addition of the Tuck Rule. Prior to 2015, commanders were not immune to being shuffled into the library. Cards like Chaos Warp and Oblation were far more powerful and the preferred removal for commanders. Oloro functioning from the command zone made him largely immune to these effects.

Power creep didn't affect Oloro as well as other commanders you mention like Atraxa and Kaalia. Pretty much since blocks stopped being a thing you've gotten crazy proliferation payoffs in at least every other set if not every set, and there's usually a few rare or mythic dragons, angels, or demons with each set that make it so by each standard rotation you could probably rebuild an entirely fresh Kaalia deck

Oloro was my first commander I used, and to this day he is tied for my favorite commander. If I am not running an Oloro stax deck, I am running a Zur, Eternal Schemer enchantment deck.

Idk man, still my only commander. I'll switch it form pure Control (which don't seem too popular) to more combo focused, to enchantment nonsense, etc etc. Oloro was basically made for me!

Lots of nostalgia, looking back at old commanders. More videos like this please!

I got an Oloro in a booster pack a year ago, built my most powerful deck ever around Oloro, then scrapped it a few weeks ago. For me it was because Oloro was unfun to play against, and not super fun to play with either since, as you said, he doesn’t do much but gain life and put a target on your back. However if Oloro had green in his colour identity I would’ve definitely kept it since green is amazing for lifegain

Great Video, I really would like to see more of these. You hit the nail on the head on why I don't play my oloro deck anymore, it was my "pridemate" lifegain deck. It was extremely dependent on Karlov or a pridemate to come out and it wasn't powerful enough to end a game against other strategies, aetherflux reservoir was a great boon but it wasn't enough.

Oloro was my first commander ever built, ive since benched him for an aminatou deck. Esper is my favorite color combo. Oloro is a super fun deck and this video really makes me want to rebuild him. Gotta get all the upkeeps lol. Good video!

Oloro - ooh card draw, how "exciting". Also you nailed it with the life gain, I've stopped using the life gain 2 colour lands. Gaining even that 1 life can set you apart in the early turns and end up with more hits coming your way. Atraxa - proliferate is a really good mechanic, like crazy good Kaalia - big flying angels, demons, and dragons are cool Krenko - infinite tokens

Oloro is still fun in pods that play to the original spirit of commander. Back when judges built this format for goofy fun while cooling off from a long day of frankly boring and tedious judgments at tournament. A format they could really sink their teeth into, a format that could give some love to vastly under appreciated cards. Who cared in they could only fit one match in in a night, it was an epic to be sure. Nowadays the vast majority of players with the “quickest path to a win equals fun” mindset have taken it and so legends like Oloro get brushed aside. But I hold out hope for a revival of the format, as players get past the “always gotta win” phase they’ll branch out and rediscover the joy the original way can bring. I’ve personally enjoyed watching the cEDH crowd at my LGS turn back into brewers willing to build the zany dream decks of their youth, having epic battle cruiser board states and sharing a pizza and a few drinks.

When you mention roles I immediately looked at Torens, Fist of the Angels and how I built the deck to represent religion in society full of angels and clerics along with darker religions with altars for sacrifice and nature shamans and worship. Really got me into the rpg role of a warrior cleric and loved it still one of my most favorite decks. Even though that's a flavor role lol. He does make 1/1's for creature cast and I do use that as well. I think backup commanders are good in the 99 to combat the weakness of build around.

I think it also has a good bit to do with supporting cards that get printed. Pretty much every set that gets printed has a Dragon, Demon, or Angel that is powerful or at least flashy. Goblins get printed all the time. Most of the popular commanders have cards that could be relevant to their decks coming out regularly, and a commander that has you wishlisting cards during spoiler season is a commander that doesn’t get taken apart and scrapped.

Oloro is the first Commander deck I bought and he is what got me into MtG after my friend recommended him to me. He's really fun to build around specially for beginners like I was at the time. He'll always be my main commander.

Good video and solid talking points. Do you think that availability/reprintings can also play a factor in this? Atraxa and Kaalia both have received reprintings in the Double Masters sets and that may also be a factor in why these two have retained such a high number of decks.

I love playing Oloro. I may not win every time, but I'm going to have fun toying with my opponents either way.

That was the commander set that got me into EDH! I ended up buying that whole cycle and still break them out regularly...with the exception of Oloros deck. For me I think it's just because he puts too big of a target for such little gain. Other than playing control or stax there wasn't really anything I got from him that I couldn't find in other commanders. Might build him again sometime soon.

I think it's just that the contemporary state of commander has created an environment where oloro is less preferable to others

I saw this Reddit post. I’m super glad you made a video on it

Atraxa has one other major benefit not really mentioned: It has wide applications and many possibilities. There are so many, many counter decks you can run with her. You can go the standard +1/+1 counters, you can go for superfriends, you can do a janky infect deck, and so on. Kaalia is similar, in that you can run her with different proportions of demons, angels, and dragons, allowing for a great degree of customization. These two provide possibility while also providing clear direction. Oloro gains you life and draws you cards, which is very little direction at all. Lastly, Oloro lacks Green in their color identity, while Dina and Shanna have it. This lets them use a lot of newer Green lifegain cards, along with past lifegain cards that had Green in them.

I’d love too see more of these types of videos!

i love my oloro deck. its just plain fun to play. its super non agro at first which makes you not the first target but it can get ugly about turn 7. i just like the passive 2 life per turn. it is one my favorite decks of all time.

I've still been hanging onto Oloro even though I know its not the best option. My very first commander deck ever when the format was just beginning was Vish Kal and I quickly realized I needed to add some blue to it for counters and card draw. The deck has changed a lot over the years from lifegain, pillowfort, control to now combo. Most of it has been curated with my favorite foils and promos. I think it is finally time tho to split it into 2 decks. Tymna and Malcom cedh and a low power level Oloro deck with some goofy pet cards that have been sitting in my binder for years.

He never fell, he just never stood up. In all seriousness; I love this commander, but my opponents don't like facing him. They find him too powerful.

Been working on a soldier-giant lifelinker build around him. Mostly focusing on making a wall of vigilance life linkers, then keeping Oloro out and keeping various token mana sources up to just keep the threat of the microwave and answer finder up. Then finding ways to just spend my life pool to win. Not great prolly but for my first dip in full deck brewing I've been having a lot of fun with it.

Great analysis, keep up the good work!

Oloro is the only commander who loses nothing by playing Drannith Magistrate.

I think I agree with a lot of the thoughts in the video. Some interesting ideas too regarding the 'roles' of different decks. For the 2013 commanders, I do think I have some good ideas on why they're less popular these days: - Derevi: stax is frowned upon by a lot of players. It's simply not fun to have your opponent tell you that no, you cannot attack this turn. Or the next. Or ever. Being able to cheat the commander tax is also not great. It allows you to wipe the board as much as you want, because you'll always, at instant speed, have access to a 2/3 bird. - Marath: I think counters are simply mainly a Simic thing these days. Marath is expensive to activate too. If you only had to remove the counters, then Marath would be great! As it stands, it's simply too expensive. Unless you have a way to gain counters (Marath pairs great with Pir, for instance!), Marath isn't even that great. We don't want to be casting our commanders three to five times per game anymore! - Nekusar, the Mindrazer: Honestly, he seems fun. My guess is that his CMC is too high. - Prossh: There are simply better or more interesting options these days. I wrote another comment where I mentioned Ziatora and Korvold. This also goes for a lot of other commanders; we simply have more interesting options nowadays. Commanders are cheaper, narrower (which is usually more fun) and more efficient. The activated ability commanders like Shattergang Brothers, Sydri and Zacama are perhaps just a little too mana-intensive. People like triggered abilities. Personally, I'm a fan of all of them, but it's just a chore to have to keep paying, I guess? Even though it's like having extra cards? As a last thought on Sydri, let's look at Zur, Eternal Schemer! They're pretty similar! But Zur provides more protection for the enchantment creatures than Sydri does, and it costs less to give the creatures their abilities! There is, most of the time, no downside to your stuff just having deathtouch, lifelink and hexproof! The only likely case I can think of that favors Sydri is that you're reliant on Zur being on the battlefield. Funny thing, that; that's what commander is all about! The commanders! I hope we'll be able to keep the format from being too fast, but I also don't mind just shuffling up and playing another game!

I'm actually building a gain and drain aristocrats Oloro deck. My main problem with popular commanders is that they usually only have 1 direction and that just isn't interesting to me. I found an interesting path and took that with Oloro and it changed how I look at deckbuilding, how I enjoyed finding what hasn't been done or only done poorly and making it my *thing*

5:40 had a friend build a turn 2 khalia deck. Basically fished out master of cruelties and started taking the table out. Greaves and signets gave him haste and the mana needed to pull it off

I remember I stopped playing oloro when og theros released, because at almost every pod, at least one person had erebos in the 99 or as their commander. I recently rebuilt the deck and modernized it though, and I really like it

I first learned about commander around 2012, but Oloro was the first commander that actually made me build one, so I started out with a Karlov precon since I didn't have an EDH deck yet, then once I actually picked up Oloro, I still kept it orzhov until I dipped my toe into counter spells, then combos, picked up a judge promo Oloro, then tutors and better combos, and it kept creeping up and up in power level until I had to let Oloro go in favor of the strictly better Kenrith for cEDH, so 10 years later and many great games of magic, I owe it all to Oloro

I still have my Derevi deck built and I love that bird. I named it Tap Dance :D

The thing that I liked most about Oloro when I played him was that while everyone else was fighting over each other's commander because it was so crucial to their strategy, I didn't need to cast him, protect him, do anything, I didn't have to waste resources and card slots on keeping around a commander, so I could focus more on keeping other decks in check and winning the game instead of lightning greaves and dive down sorts of cards. And I still feel that way, with my Muldrotha deck, it just doesn't do that much when she's not in play, and Balan absolutely crumbles if you can keep him in check, so the deck that evolved from my Oloro is Kenrith, who only used Kenny as an infinite mana sink to win the game, or Sisay shrine enchantress, where the commander isn't pivotal, it just helps out the overall strategy

I never realized Oloro was so popular! In our circle, I'm the one who has played him. Even when it was new, it was clear that he didn't do much, but still earned a big target. The aspect of getting targeted so much is definitely why I played him less and less.

I think the thing to consider when it comes to at least the popularity of Atraxa, Kaalia, and Krenko, it's less a matter of they're popular because they're cool or provide a specific ability to work with. The key to those three in particular is that they keep getting support each set. There will rarely be a set that goes by without a fairly potent dragon/demon/angel in the WBR colors, and for Krenko, we've been getting a lot of utility goblins these past few years that keep his very simple plan of amassing a big army of goblins and running over the table. And Atraxa? Loyalty counts as a counter, and Superfriends (the planeswalker decks) can be popular, but also just the sheer amount of types of counters means atraxa can help abuse them consistently at very low mana. Oloro does seem like a very good commander choice with a lot of flexibility, and heck, there may be plenty of undocumented Oloro decks, but there's just a lot of WUB commanders that can fill that role well enough and then some. Plus Commander Damage makes life gain strats a bit less viable.

I think a lot of it has to do with why people play commander, and how big game play channels like the command zone have influenced how people want their games to go. I haven't played against many Generic Good Stuff Atraxa decks, usually they have a theme like +1 counters or super friends. Oloro gets associated with stax and other game slowing effects, which people frown upon. And, if people are looking for a generic value commander to play a strategy that has nothing to do with the commander, they typically want 5 color. I think Krenko stays popular because of how popular it is as a "new player" deck, it's the best mono red go wide commander and can be built cheap while still competing with your friends playing $1k decks. Kaalia because people like big battle cruiser stuff in casual. I miss seeing the cool Oloro lifegain decks, but I think the format has kind of moved away from the other things he brings to the table

I think it’s be interesting to look at the top commanders. Most of them are either the undisputed best options for very supported tribes/themes, or are so versatile they can support 100 different strategies.

I have an Oloro commander deck that consistently does well in my play group. There has been quite a few cards printed over the past few years that have really buffed Oloro imo.

Ive been playing Kaalia since 2016 when my friends built Maelstrom Wanderer and Atraxxa and 2 out of the 3 of us still have been tweaking our lists over time. Not a suprise it was Kaalia and Atraxxa with your logic from this video!

I have an Oloro deck and it's always great to play. It's a combination of life gain and using life as a resource while playing Esper "good stuff"

I still have an Oloro Life grain Control deck and love it

I'm more suprised Derevi is so low down the list, it's cheap, there are so many easy combos and bypassing the command tax at instant speed is wild.

This is 11 months after this video was posted, Atraxa is still the number 1 commander with 26,797 decks built. Oloro is number 39 with 9353 decks (according to EDHREC)

When you mentioned roles i was thinking because there are other options it became less and less played. The format is much bigger then it once was

I still play Oloro. I enjoy the constant life gain and playing it as a life gain theme which really seems to fit him better than any other commander. I think most people enjoy actual creature tribes more than a choice mechanic.

I honestly was trying to make a curse deck around Oloro, but never got far. Might try to make it again sometime in the future.

I have been keeping this commander deck updated with new cards and it is still very good deck and it wins alot even with the table I knowing what I am going to do.

The concepts of Commander Damage, as well as mill and infect are ways around the Oloro lifegain deck. I built Oloro/Extort/Shadow... but died to these things way more often then I was beaten down. And when you're playing Secret Teammates, or Two Headed as my playgroup likes to play, alternative win conditions (rather than life destruction) are the real ways to win.

I think another aspect is the growth of the game in the community over the past few years. Those products are almost 10 years old. They were most popular back then but then tons of interesting cards kept coming out.

Marath was the first commander deck I ever built, I update it every now and then, and will always keep it around. However, Prossh is straight power, so many broken things can be done with him.

I've got quite a few decks, sitting man Def my fav hands down. Heavy control, non fort combo

I still use Oloro. He's my "main" commander. Plenty of decks have come and gone, but when I just wanna be rude I keep returning to this classic.

One thing i slightly remember from way back was players who had Oloro decks and weren't actually Esper and instead were playing it as a Dimir deck which back then you had fairly limited options, most of which were Mil oriented, didnt really do much like Wydwen or the Legends cards, zombie tribal with Grimgrin, or something like sygg or wrexial for value. If you wanted to build a general good stuff deck for Dimir and didnt care about having your commander out you could just run Oloro since it gave you something weather you could cast it or not.

Same thing for Uril, it was very popular Voltron commander and now, it rarely sees play

I remember when the OG commander decks first came out. I instantly wanted and gravitated towards Oloro because it was how I casually played when I first learned the game. I didn’t buy it though because I saw tables with 2-3 Oloro decks playing against other decks and I didn’t wanna just have a game with 4 Oloro’s. Eventually people stopped running Oloro because they would complain about being focused down or hated on for making the game last forever. Gaining life, controlling the game with no feasible way to knock out the other 3 players.

Used to run black white oloro whith a cleric tribal theme. He'd never come out as its a black white deck, but throwing people off into thinking im mana screwed was fun lol

Oloro was my first deck built when Spell Crumple and tucking commanders was meta

I definitely think part of the shift is down to the format becoming much faster, which is also reflected in the average play times. Also, most other colours got better options over the time (Chullane, Kitt Kanto, Korvold...), which the 4-colour commanders just didn't do

I think everyone forgets he is actually pretty damn good on the battlefield too. Cast him when you have a Soul Sister out and your hand usually fills quicker than Consecrated Sphinx can do it. I play Oloro punisher, removed all the mana tax cards that stops everyone else from playing and just filled it with Ankh of Mishra, Dingus Staff, Painful Quandary, Vile Consumption, (new) Sheoldred style effects. I basically turn everyone's decks into mono-black, whatever you do will cost you life. I just hope that the 20life Oloro gave me will see me over the line 🤣

Oloro is still an amazing commander. Second most powerful deck I have behind my Kozilek the Great Distortion deck.

Oloro will always have a solid place in my heart. His upkeep trigger generated so much salt just because it was free, just for existing it generated butthurt, and designs that do that are awesome.

i remember when atraxa hit 2k decks and i was shocked by it.

My first commander was aesi last year. Going to get oloro after 10 decks built. Need an esper deck I can meld erebos into

My favorite commander only has 397 decks and is ranked 752. Sad face for Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant.

I feel like we just got a lot more Control-archetype commanders that synergize better with what a lot of original Oloro-players wanted to do. Back in the days, people just played Oloro because he was the most powerful commander in Esper, had decent synergy with control (life+draw). These days, the main allure of Oloro is the synergy with lifegain, but there are so many Commander-options within Esper-control.

Honestly I see this commander as an absolute win more upkeep triggers making more life with Oloro REGARDLESS OF IT BEING ON THE BATTLEFIELD!!! Couple that with ways to dump life and harm your opponents with Aether Flux, maybe some phyrxian shenanigans at the cost of life. Really this deck seems like a really good way to say to your play group "Hey, my life doesn't matter and neither do any of yours!" Idk I personally just love the commander at first sight sad that I only recently found this gem. Now by no means am I saying this could be a CEDH commander BUT I do really like the concept for a casual play group.

I recently purchased an Oloro, and have been wondering what to brew him as. Currently, I'm thinking Enchantments, with a focus on Shrines and combat Stax. I feel like it could be fun to alter between 3 wincons of milling others out, blasting them with Aetherflux, or drawing my whole library to victory with Labman or Jace.

I think more it's drop in popularity based on 2 factors: a bigger pool of possible commanders and power creep, especially within his lifegain niche. Meanwhile, Atraxa hasn't gotten any competition as far as being a proliferation commander, and people love their superfriends and counters decks.

I think it also has to be with the availability, I mean there are legendary possible commander cards every where from sets, but not as many from commander products

As someone that just started playing MTG and not just commander, Atraxa, Kaalia and Krenko's gameplan is much more attracting and less intimidating to build around with. While watching the video, it only made sense to me why Oloro was good when you explained it. Having less knowledge with the cardpool, I wouldn't know what to do with a deck with Blue in it. So perhaps with the rise of edh's popularity, new players are more attracted to straight forward, easy to build around commanders.

Oloro was the main reason I never found Esper enticing to build in EDH. I prefer proactive decks that advance the game state to an ending sooner rather than later. I did eventually build Esper commanders (Raffine & Tivit) who were more proactive than your typical Esper.

Oloro is still my favourite Commander. I don't play him as much anymore, but that's only because my friends kinda hate my Oloro deck (for good reason). It's just balls to walls control with some lifegain to counter aggro.

Oloro even back when he first released made some people "see the writing on the wall" in that EDH was now officially powercrept to all hell and back and theres no going back. Diversity in esper commanders was still low in 2013 so many just succumbed to using oloro for the color identity.

Last thing to consider imo is that if you're going to splash a color into azorious control, black just isn't it. Ramp is key in the slower pace of edh, and you can't fall behind as the control deck. This makes the ideal control colors bant rather than esper, again, just imo. The building a massive defensive barrier type game plan is definitely an rpg role that's very fun, and viable, in edh, but it's Arcades that appeals to that most. So yes, there are more appealing lifegain commanders, but there are also more popular barrier and pillow fort commanders.

As someone who used to run an Oloro deck, for me, it was just too slow. Granted, I tried to go cleric-esque lifegain tribal but I just wasn't having fun with it. If Oloro was in Abzan he'd probably see a lot more play today. I still think I could go back and build a better Oloro but I already have two Esper decks in Varina and Alela, so I'm not exactly jumping at another one, and as you pointed to there are better lifegain Commander options available these days(Heliod, Sun-Crowned is mono white and is an absolute beast in the lifegain space). My experience might be a little different because I tend to play a majority of my Commander as 1v1.

I built an Oloro deck a few years ago as an Eldrazi/Control deck with Oloro primarily serving as a life buffer card since I would get ganged up on once people saw the Eldrazi cards come out. After awhile of playing him, it honestly just got boring. He doesnt bring much value nowadays, and there are just more interactive and fun options for the Esper color theme. He's great for casual play, but it's hard to make him anything above a power level 6 without him pretty much being not involved in the deck really. If he was remade into a 4 CMC commander that had the card draw as an Eminence ability while making his life gain into something that he had to be on the field for, I could see him being a lot more popular nowadays.

I think this is implicit in the discussion of cost, but lets make it explicit: The format has gotten a good deal faster. A commander that doesn’t reliably get out until round 5 and starts drawing you extra cards round 6, when the average game ends in rounds 8-10, is generating significantly less total value over the course of a game than it did five or ten years ago. You can try to compensate by going stax, but but most people don’t find that particularly fun.

This gets better with the new sheoldred

I built my liesa deck because a friend of mine has olo and showed me the annoying power of constant life gain

I just asked myself this question and found this video. When will Solemn Sim be cut?

"For 6 mana commander should do more" Me: Plays fucking Sharuum the Hegemon

Oloro is my first deck I still have it but I'm not the most serious player in fact I don't win within often but he's my only deck I can win with a infinite combo

I played him for a good long while. Basically you just load your deck with combo pieces, tutors, and board control. And a few difficult creatures like Sphinx Of The Steel Wind. No Oloro deck is complete without sanguine bond/exquisite blood. But don't expect to make friends.

Personally I really like Atraxa because she looks neat and she's an angel, and for me Angel cards are the coolest cards in the game

It has come to the point for me I either go really fast to kill or want to go really slow to give my friends a chance but kill them with a explosive thing for oloro is perfect he’s a bit slow but with the effect I can gain life slowly then blow them away with aetherflux as a slowly building threat

Prossh has been replaced by a fairly significant upgrade in Korvold. There's that sort of deal with a bunch of commander options. Oloro gets out shined by newer commanders. Kaalia doesn't have a replacement though.

Prossh is by far my favorite dragon tribal commander

Seems like at my FNM lately the bandwagon is Miirym, LOL I made a Miirym deck even but quickly took it apart I really prefer playing underrated commanders since you aren't considered as much as a threat as other commanders. Shout out to everyone who made one of these decks and posted on EDHREC: FBLTHP 344, Raggadragga 2065, Ghave 3158, Dihada 642, Kamahl fist of Krosa 226, Krenko tin street kingpin 607, Chainer dementia master 743 :P

He was often played as a generic option just for the colors. That's just not a common deckbuilding style anymore because we have way more options.

I want to build an Oloro deck, but the price of the card stops me. Commander is great because you can get into it on a budget

im still shocked that Ezuri isnt the most popular elf commander anymore.

I built a lifegain +1/+1 counter proliferate deck with him threw in counterspells and control for good measure so far its alright

Prossh was replaced by Korvold, and goes in that 99 now.

I liked this video.

I'm tweaking my Oloro deck to be creature-less control. It's pretty brutal

His 6 mana cost for sure doesn't help in people choosing him. In my Oloro deck I put plenty of mana rocks to get past his cost being so high. He is a good card and his draw isn't bad so if I have to I will go that route and get him on the board to draw into a win.

Like others here have written, Oloro is an upkeep commander. All he does is gain you life _once_ on each of _your_ turns, and you can pay 1 mana to drain your opponents for 1 life and draw a card. Now, that's a neat ability, but it's not that great for 6 mana. Yes, getting life for free is nice, but let's look at some other 6-mana commanders so I can make my point. Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer costs 6 mana. So do Pabine, Boss's Confidant, Niv-Mizzet, Parun, Prossh, Skyraider of Kher (seeing a lot less play probably because Jund has many options these days; he used to be king!), and there are many more. All of these are commanders that do *something* and can affect the game a lot more than Oloro can. Oloro tends to be durdly. That's not fun in a meta that's getting faster. I play Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm. It's usually not super fast, but when it gets going, it _really_ gets going. It's more fun to do stuff than to wait long enough that you have so much life your opponents are having a tough time beating you. I see a lot of cheaper commanders too. They don't all cost 6 or more anymore; the worst part is that Rhys the Redeemed is not usually considered the worst thing to be facing anymore; it's also durdly! People like to draw multiple cards per turn, deal massive amounts of damage to other players and generally advance their board. Oloro does very little there. If I was to play an Esper deck, I'd play Varina, Lich Queen, because she has a defined strategy that actually wins games (hit people with zombies). She also (kinda) draws me cards. I like Oloro. I don't mind Eminence as a mechanic existing, and I certainly don't think the Eminence commanders should be banned. It was an interesting design space! I just don't think we need any more. There's enough ramp accessible to all the colors that commanders should only do stuff when they're outside the command zone anyway. I do see some infinite combos in the groups I play in, but most of the time, people just die to combat damage. And Oloro's nice, but gaining 2 life on each of your upkeeps is not enough when the other three players are busting out all their moves to take you down. I tend to play more combat-focused decks these days, so you can bet I'll be dishing out more than 2 damage to you each of my combat phases. To try and sort of gather my thoughts at the end, I just don't think Oloro is narrow enough that he's interesting to me, and I think he's a little too slow, both for most players to find him fun to play and too slow to keep up with faster decks. And having thousands of life does not matter when Muxus hits you for 56 commander damage. Ouch.