Why Are These MTG Commanders So Underplayed? | 10 Obscure Commanders 

Just watched the vid for the first time. Katsumasa, the Animator is in the 99 of my Cosima, God of the Voyage Mono-Blue Vehicles deck. I sometimes swap him into the commander slot.

Addendum for Huatli Poet of Unity/Roar of the Fifth People. An idea occurs to me for an alternative build for Huatli. Rather than going all in on dinosaurs (though you'll still want some in here) why not counter manipulation/populate? Huatli is unique in that she transforms into a saga... which naturally gains counters. Why simply let it progress when you can add or remove counters to get whatever effect is currently most useful? Also note that the saga will trigger whenever you add a counter to it (there are effects that can let you do this at instant speed). Use proliferate effects to add counters (The Huatli planeswalkers and artifacts such as Everflowing Chalice and Pentad Prism can also benefit from this). Remove counters with cards like Scholar of New Horizons, Power Conduit, and Ferropede. You can also use Dramatist's Puppet or Quarry Hauler to add OR remove a counter from a permanent (though you'll want ways to bounce or blink them if you want to use them more than once). You can also MOVE the counters with Nesting Grounds and Resourceful Defense. Myth Realized and Scroll of the Masters are great cards to put any extra lore counters on (as they also technically use lore counters) and can be proliferated as well. The populate effects are to make MORE dinosaurs. Huatli makes dino tokens, might as well make more of them with cards like Growing Ranks, Song of the Worldsoul, and Selesnya Eulogist. Also note that you can prevent Roar of the Fifth People from sacrificing itself if you remove the 4th counter in response.^^

The Ever-Changing 'Dane looks like it could be super cool and I may try to build it soon!!

Daryl (Hansk) is a really fun commander, I recommend. He used to have more decks on EDHrec, but when the Universes within version came out the deck numbers got reset. My list of course runs loads of pyroclasm effects, but you can go a lot of different directions with him. You can do dinosaur stuff with enrage, you can go more political with the tokens and goad things, or you can just build whatever and have a great draw engine in your command zone. One last thing: don't be like 46% of Daryl players and run Compost in your deck. Compost only draws cards when black CARDS go to graveyards, so it does not synergize with Daryl at all. Don't play it.

Thinking about Korvold as a Baba Lysaga-type deal where I'm trying to sac permanents with multiple card types. I like the idea of The Ever Changing Dane, will investigate further. I also wanna see about Huatli being a dino token deck

Grolnok, the Omnivore is my new go to commander. Such a fun and underrated commander. First time I play it against anyone it’s a guaranteed win. Nobody sees the Hermit Druid and Thassas combo coming

I actually have a daryl deck, I use daryl as a draw engine together with 15 or so tutors to turbo out combos. It's great

As I play mostly on cockatrice, I love unusual and unpopular commanders. They are so rewarding and teach you a lot about deck building strategy!

If I had to guess, Mizzix was likely overshadowed by Riku who has access to green and can do the same thing for instants, sorceries, and creatures AND the copied creatures don't go away. Mizzix also requires an enabler of some sort to get started (not terribly difficult with easy access to impulse draw, but an extra step nonetheless.). That said Mizzix does have a FEW unique options that Riku does not. He can also copy artifacts, enchantments, planeswalkers, and battles.

I have a Fransisco/ Ishai bird tribal deck that is one of my favorites. 65 total on EDHrec

I love my Lucius the Eternal deck, hes just so tricky! He has a major weakness though that if you can remove what hes targeting before he exiles, then he gets stuck in the grave. Luckily with black there are recovery cards to get him back out, but it can really throw a wrench into plans. The most toxic combo is Dictate of Erebos and Goblin Bombardment, instant speed saccing which then makes everyone have to sacrifice a creature is really nasty. Hes definitely not the best but for the power level we play at I get to have a lot of fun with him.

Korvold, Gleeful Glutton isn't built more... because Korvold, Gleeful Glutton is TERRIBLE. You need to jump through a LOT of hoops for a middling payoff. First, tokens are NOT cards. It's questionable if they'd count towards the first ability and they definitely DON'T count towards the second (tokens MIGHT have a card TYPE but they are indisputably NOT cards). This rules out the easy stuff like treasures, creature tokens, etc. Second the cost reduction is not permanent. It only counts card types you've sacrificed THIS turn. To wit if it's a different turn and you want the discount to recast him you'll need to sacrifice MORE things. Third it requires that the permanents in question be SACRIFICED. It won't count at all if you're creatures DIE to a boardwipe or an artifact of yours gets DESTROYED or someone decides to EXILE a problematic enchantment you had out. Fourth, both abilities have a cap of 6. Creatures, Lands, Artifacts, Enchantments, Planeswalkers, and Battles are the card types that count towards these. Realistically it's 3... creatures, lands, and artifacts. Good luck trying to find ways to sacrifice enchantments, planeswalkers, and battles in JUND (exceedingly rare but there are a FEW cards such as Infernal Tribute). The ABSOLUTE BEST CASE scenario is a creature that draws you 6 cards.... on dealing combat damage. This will almost NEVER happen as it requires that you build a deck with an even mix of SIX different card types WITH ways to sacrifice ALL of them in play AND, should you happen to manage THAT, you need to make sure your graveyard doesn't get VAPORIZED by a random Bojuka Bog, Soul-Guide Lantern, or Tormod's Crypt. FAR more likely you'll probably stick to the permanents jund can reliably sac (creature, land, artifact) and capping at 3 for each of his abilities. Korvold, Gleeful Glutton SOUNDS like he's doing something interesting... when he's just doing EXACTLY what the original Korvold does.... but WORSE and with a bucket-load of attached restrictions and quid-pro-quos.

The problem with Hanna is that she is just straight up bad. 3 mana and tap to get one thing back that has to then be cast again is just way too clunky.

Hanna is another one i've wanted to build for awhile!

I think the issue of a bunch of these is the fact that they're overshadowed, y'know? Some of these have quite a lot of hoops to jump through (Korvold w/ the limitations), others are limited to weird archetypes that other Commanders do better (Jirina, Dauntless General & Lurrus) while others are unfocused like Mizzix who wants to focus on different things (Copying/Exile). Doesn't mean they're not fun, just people like having an easier time with what they're building when it's clearly laid out before them! I'm working on a Ravos/Kodama Blink deck and I have very little information to go on and I'm loving it while I know some people that would hate trying to build something like it due to the severe lack of data even with the EDHREC advanced searching features.

Katsumasa seems really... clunky. Not only is he painfully slow to start (4 mana to get out and another turn cycle AND 3 mana per activation of his ability before he actually DOES anything) not having access to white really hurts (you lose access to cards like Swift Reconfiguration, Peacewalker Colussus, and Scourglass). There is also the fact that, while his ability CAN work on non-vehicles, it's usually not worth the bother. Sydri works MUCH better for that AND you have cards like Rise and Shine and Cyberdrive Awakener for turning masses of clue/treasure/etc tokens into an army. He feels like he'd be much better in, perhaps, the 99 of Optimus Prime since he's already doing vehicles and 1/1 counters AND gives you access to white and red as well. Even for mono-blue vehicles Cosima and Orvar seem like they'd be MUCH better.

Jirina Dauntless General? These effects are nice to have but they're not exactly exciting. She's much better as a support for her father... or her OTHER card for that matter. General Kudro and Jirina Kudro bring far more to the table than Jirina Dauntless General. Her dad comes with repeatable gravehate, repeatable removal, and an anthem. Jirina Kudro isn't really doing anything exciting either (Makes an extra body on ETB and +2/+0 anthem for other humans you control) BUT adding red is huge as you get easy access to haste effects, damage buffers, and a LOT more humans.

Song list?

Huatli is.... painfully slow. You need 3 to get her out (that the land goes to hand instead of field is frankly insulting), another 5 to transform her, and then SEVERAL turns for the saga to finish. There is also the fact that it is EXTREMELY telegraphed. How helpful are chapter 3 or 4 really going to be when everyone knows what's coming well in advance and can simply hold up interaction for it (counterspell/removal for whatever you search for and a fog for the overrun effect)? Then the saga dies, goes back to your command zone as Huatli, and you have to start the process all over again. This... feels like the textbook definition of slow, predictable, and repetitive.

Promo-SM

These aren’t played mostly because they are overcosted version of decent commanders that already see play.