"Your deck should work without your commander." 

Good news, my deck doesn't even work with my commander, so I'm all good there.

I think if your commander is really important and "monolithic" and you don't have the cards to reliably protect them in your deck or simply didn't draw any... and your meta has a good amount of interaction and/or boardwipes, then it might be wise to simply keep your commander in the command zone for longer than you're normally comfortable with. Even if you commander costs only 3 mana, maybe don't run him out until turn 6, even if you ramped. Have enough "generically good" cards in your deck to cast stuff, maybe have a couple of rattlesnake cards. E.g. ramp, draw, disruption and wait for a time, where maybe there is another big bad at the table. If you deploy your commander immediately after a board wipe, you're just going to be the next arch enemy.

This sort of feels like a litmus test for me. Even if your commander is out and its a key piece, there will just be some games where you'll have to deal with them not doing the thing, being removed and made expensive, etc. At some point it may become no longer worth it to even put it out again. Some of my best games have been with my commander on the bench because it felt so good to have the deck work in spite of that.

Jimmy Neutron has some pretty good points tho...

"Have a backup plan in case of___"

I feel like this applies only if your main goal of the deck is to "win". Now i don't mean that you should never try to win a game of commander, all decks should be capable of at least that, but i mean that not every commander deck is made to look for a win, sometimes it's to do something janky and fun. but if you decide to go down that route you can't be too surprised if the win ratio of the deck is low. for me my philosophy is make a deck work without your commander, but work better with it.

Enjoyed this video so much that I had to watch it again! It is also very timely as I am having issues with my Ulalek deck.

I agree that advocating for novelty over optimization is import. Playing powerful decks and commanders is fun but the MOST FUN I’ve had with Magic is playing suboptimal, unique cards that lead to the WOW moments we can only have in this format. Great discussion and loved the video!

Voltron players in shambles

My Archimandrite Artifacts deck is probably my most proud deck, because it mainly just ENABLES all the artificers and whatnot that happen to go into my artifact deck type play style or whatever, and seeing it in action without ever needing to cast my commander is such a good feeling

Whenever I build a deck, I always consider "What's my back up plan?" A good example is my Olivia Crimson Bride deck. When I first built her, it was PAINFUL to have a 6 mana commander countered or removed. I thought about what I can do that can act as a back up plan, but also fit within the deck. Drana, the last bloodchief, Feldon, and especially Chainer NIghtmare Adept all act as possible backups while fitting within what the deck is trying to do in case Olivia just can't stick around. Personally for my decks, I don't want to build a deck where there's only one path to win, where all the decisions I make in playing end up in the same place every single time. A super good example of building this kind of flexibility is the new Omo. I absolutely love this commander. You can go landfall, lands matter, anthems/lords... I went with the more financially responsible anthem/lords version, but I've won with either my creatures powering through and being unblockable, but I've also won by turning my lands into creatures and gaining the anthems/lord effects from the everything counters and swinging through to win. (EDIT: reading the card explains… she distinctly says nonland creatures so this doesn’t work) I know I've done a good job when my friends are excited for me to win because I did something they didn't expect with a deck. Also, why the hell is Trade Routes not on Omo's edhrec AT ALL. That card is a beast when you've got land recursion or want to tap your Urza's tower for 5 mana (tap, pay one, bounce it back, play it again, tap), even in my more creature focussed version it does so much work. The worst kinds of commander games are the ones where you feel like you've had no impact at all on the game, where you've felt like you did nothing after the game is over.

I’ve been thinking about this maxim a lot as I’ve looked at brewing The Necrobloom. On the one hand, building around the landfall trigger feels like a more commander-independent path, but it makes the deck feel like a generic-landfall option. On the other hand, building towards the dredge mechanic would require Necrobloom on the field, create something more unusual but might push towards a combo-centric deck and power-level that I’m less engaged by. Thanks for distilling your thoughts on the topic.

Enjoyed the video, excellent point

I love this video!!! Honestly a lot of these channels are starting to annoy me about how they talk about don’t build around your commander with a whole “video essay” like… obviously if you want to win you just put a pile of good cards in your deck that don’t have to do with your commander. Look at the cedh decks built around partners that barely use their abilities or build around them. But some people want a more unique and flavorful and thematic deck built around the commander, even if we know it isn’t the easiest way to win.

great video ! i like how you think about others play experience especially as there are lots of new players or deck builders

It's funny, Galea, Kindler of Hope is my favorite/strongest deck that I use right now. I love the way the deck uses her, but she also relies on the deck too. The main point is that I generally want to have effects that reduce the casting cost of artifacts, a lot of top deck manipulation so that right before I play her, I can shuffle a bunch of equipment to the top of my library and then drop them onto her for free all at once. The deck is a Voltron deck, but it usually wins with a combo.

great vid! I saw that you mentioned your Marvo deck, I finally finished building it last week, it's such a fun commander, although I feel like it's missing extra turns and interaction. Had a game where Marvo just popped off with Spark Double and Anton Soldier + myriad tokens, so I ended up getting around 30 triggers of draw and freecast, pretty much had every big creature on board, but I still didn't have a win, if I passed I would get a boardwipe, so I had to win there and now. They ended up conceding, but I wasn't satisfied with the win lol, so I ended up adding 2 extra turns cards, a few more counterspells, also added Weed Strangle, it's a clash card + destroy any creature, and you gain life of its toughness, which is what you said at the end, to tailor your deck to your preferences and needs

I'd like to see your take on Henzie as a commander. Probably one of my favorite commanders if not my favorite. I love it because you don't need or care about protection, you don't care if your stuff dies and in fact you want it to since it fuels your gameplan. Typical Jund but I like henzies flavor of it.

Wow i didn't know Sid from Toy Story played magic And is insightful on deck building

I had to learn this with my Howling Abomination deck. Every time i played home without being able to have a blowout turn, im usually targeted down because of how ridiculous he can get. Now, i put redundancy in the main deck, and it's a lot smoother. Ive been applying this to all my other decks and its helped a lot

I don't run a lot of removal beyond mass target like the obvious cyclonic rift, or curse of the swine. Instead of removing a lot of removal, I double down on protecting my stuff and commander. Blinking/phasing/ and so on.

The most fun is when your deck does the commander thing but your commander is making it just better. my Bear deck as soon as my commander comes out she is dead and makes the whole deck better when out, but it can still fight until next time. my The beast deck falls flat without the commander out. and my living isle does work without the commander as the commander is just there to swing commander damage but I have other Equally as big creatures in the deck.

It's a case where you need to either "Don't put all your eggs in one basket," or "Put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket." You either have to fully commit to commander protection, or you need to diversify.

I like it when it works with or without.

I think green also has some decent protective combat tricks. It’s not super efficient, going down a card for one turn of hexproof and/or indestructible, but it’s definitely better than anything red has.

Ypu brought up a very valuable point that not a lot of content creators address: not every commander deck needs everything all the time. SOMETIMES its actually beneficial to the health of the deck to NOT put certain things in. Now, that point is only under certain circumstances and MOST decks should have a healthy mix of interaction, but not ALL. Thats where the art of deck building comes in. To your point of the deck running without the commander, like you said, not always true. If your commander is 2-3 cmc, it might be extremely beneficial to hyper focus around bringing that commander out as fast and as often as possible to reap the benefits.

While I do agree with the statement, I think it applies to decks inequally. There are what I like to call "carry commanders" such as Aesi, Animar, Kaalia and others. These decks rely the most on having their commaner on the board, ideally for the whole game. Thus, their biggest heel is having their commander removed. If these decks are still able to operate, that's some really good resilience. But there are decks that do this somewhat automatically. I don't have a fance name for those yet, maybe "drop-in commanders" or something. Think of Shalai and Hallar or The Mimeoplasm. Decks that can choose to develop a game-/boardstate without ever having to cast their commander before it isn't ready. Those decks' heel lies elsewhere, for The Mimeoplasm it is quite obvious in the form of graveyard hate. Moral of the story is: Be aware of what kind of resources your deck depends on, and think of strategies to work around having to access to them.

I fully believe this is one of those rules that is important to acknowledge whether you are going to follow or not as you begin your deckbuilding process. I have plenty of decks that really do just care about what the commander is and does, mostly mono red decks that aim to get the commander out by turn 2 or 3 and never actually plan to win like chiss-goria and slicer, but I also have decks like my shorikai deck that is almost entirely value pieces and interaction in the 99 and just uses the commander as a card draw engine to allow the 99 to win me the game. I do mostly believe that the playstyle of the deck should be primarily influenced by the commander and its capabilities but whether or not the commander itself is actually needed to make plays should be almost entirely decided by how you are feeling while making the deck.

... i am always the person having the removal spell in my playgroup. I run between 15 and 20 interaction pieces in most of my decks.. which is quite a lot. My friends always answered: I play so much removal but I just don't draw it. When I asked one of them, if I could peak through their decklist I found out that they run: 4 spells in their Bant color deck. Arcane Denial, Beast Within, Generous Gift, and Path to Exile.

I recently made a bant stompy, which is a new play style for me. I entirely designed it without a commander in mind. It's a totally different vibe than my previous decks. Very fun to make and very fun to play. It now uses Ellie and Alan, Paleontologists just as a backup way to rebuild after board wipes. Definitely recommend taking that approach in a deck, it's a fun way to make a deck.

There are now a lot of enchantments that remove all abilities from creatures, and many decks run very little enchantment interaction (good luck black and red). Cards like Amphibian Downpour, Darksteel Mutation, Imprisoned in the Moon, etc. These cards break the format in the sense that they are removal where your opponent does not get to choose to put their commander in the command zone. The player must interact with the enchantment or find some way to destroy their own commander. If the deck relies mostly on the commander, and they have few answers to these types of enchantments, they are going to be in a very rough situation. This is one of the situations "your deck should work w/o your commander" is trying to avoid. Because let's be honest, if removal is not found, commander-centric decks 95% just lose to an Imprisoned in the Moon. I would argue that Imprisoned in the Moon is the best removal spell in the casual format. Because it turns the commander into a literal land, and most decks have few ways to interact with lands, it makes this extremely hard to deal with.

I build a "Hidetsugu and Kairi" to play all those bigs spells too. I stopped playing it after a few games because it was too long to play and opponents were not conceding 😂

I feel like a good perspective on the dichotomy/gray-area is this: "Whatever you do, do it because you *want* to do it; don't do it by accident." If you're making a janky deck that focuses fully on the commander and some crazy interactions, and that is what you want to do, own it. You know what you're getting into, and you know that it might end up being inconsistent, or that your dangerous commander might get targeted out; that's the game, and you know what you're in for. You're ultimately trying to get that magic moment when it all works, and it feels *great*. The point is, don't just 'end up with' a weird pile, or a janky mess, or a same-y consistency pile, or whatever. Be aware of what you're choosing, why you're choosing it, and what experience that is likely to get you at the table. On the practical side of 'be able to run without your commander', I wholly agree that it is often more fun if you're still able to meaningfully play the game without the benefit of your commander on board, while you're hopefully setting up to get it out again and try to push your main plan. From a 'I am having fun playing this game' standpoint, I am having more fun if I am able to play meaningfully and interact with the board state even while I'm in a 'holding pattern' waiting for the opportunity to bring up my commander again.

I Roil Omnath deck is in a strange spot, where having him out becomes a piece of the value engine that ovewhelms my hand with cards, and the +1/+1 counters he throws around either win harder or do nothing. So to say, eventually my commander is hurting my game plan.

There are some commanders that just provide innate value from the command zone and don't require much (or any) investment to enable them which allows you to build the deck in any direction you want. Some examples: Kutzil, Malamet Exemplar or a Breena, the Demagogue will draw you some extra cards from attacking MacCready, Lamplight Mayor will continuously drain your opponents Talion, the Kindly Lord draws you extra cards and drains your opponents Katilda, Dawnhart Prime or Radha, Heir to Keld are guaranteed ramp on 2 Arixmethes, Slumbering Isle is guaranteed ramp on 4 Yasharn, Implacable Earth is a decent stax piece that draws you 2 lands Ertai Resurrected is an on-demand interaction

I've always had in the back of my head what if commander dies can I still do x or win and yeah it doesn't need to be optimized my first deck was a token deck with og sigarda an un sackable army exception of board wipe now its a voltron deck with auras / equipment I gave her cool shiny equips because she was my first deck and needed some updated love. But I was worried to its weakness to her dying so I made sure the support be able to juggle if she went or could no come out

Nice video! A question, what would you do to avoid the problems of overdependence of the commander un Hylda decks? I a currently trying to solve that issue. Thanks!

One interpretation I've seen for how to use a commander comes from the channel Salubrious Snail who points out the commander as a spell you have access to all game, and to take advantage of that to fill holes in your gameplan like a commander who can remove threats or protect your combo deck or something like that.

Any ideas for protecting mothman? I cant run lightning greaves because of the fact that it targets itself to get bigger. Considering champions helm

My first and favorite commander deck is Zurgo Helmsmasher, and where the deck is at now is far removed from it's first iteration. It started off as an Ally Deck that didn't really need Zurgo but he did the work but I can at least have a board state that didn't need him. Over the years it has become a pure voltron commander and the sole creature of the deck where ramp, draw and speed are key with an abundance of boardwipes and targeted removal and interaction with extra combat steps with double strike. I've taken out someone with commander damage by turn 3. It's really my favorite deck, and I have over 25 decks built from scratch.

My osgir deck often fails to counter spells so now I’m putting in pyroblast and red elemental blast

Laughs in Sidar knights. He literally is the decks engine. And I just crammed a bunch of knights in it and card draw and said yeah.

I'm a cEDH player. Though Winota is strong and has gotten good new cards from MH3, it isn't actually viable at all right now. Rule of Law effects aren't in a great place, the value, though solid, is random, and the meta has a ton more removal now for Nadu and Orcish Bowmasters. Also, Orcish Bowmasters destroys this deck. What I'm saying is that, Winota is actually a dead deck. I think a better monolith cEDH deck to point to would be something like Stella or Nadu.

I have never heard of "dies to removal" being used in a context outside of a kind of joking response to 'man this card is so good/busted/etc.,' so it's interesting to hear it being used in the context you bring up at the start of the video

Trinket Mage made an excellent video talking about the best way to build a commander deck is building them "bottom-up" as in starting with a coherent deck that works well within itself and then fitting the commander to it. I now build my decks in the same way only treating the commander as an extra card to the 99 I will simply always have access to. I think this will help with people building more unique decks (it's helped me make mine unique) and avoid the pitfalls of using EDHrec as a resource.

When the commander storm cards were released, I built a deck with them in mind. It's Thrasios and Vial Smasher and the general idea is that I expect my commanders to be removed and I benefit from it. If they won't get removed, I still benefit from it. It's not a great deck, but it's fun to play and that's what matters to me, I enjoy playing underused stuff over optimization of my deck and usually my commander supports what I'm trying to do. I also have a Xiahou Dun deck where the point of the commander is to die, so it's sort of build around, but there's plenty of commanders that have their effect of sacrifice or overall not sticking on the field.

Laughs in Eriette while enchanting everyone elses creatures with buffs.

how can i play my prime speaker vannifar pod deck without her tho?

Bottom line is, the same people who tell you to build your deck without needing your commander also say win-more cards are bad. I agree win-more cards are bad. But when we build our deck to not need the commander, that just turns the commander into a win-more card thats just there for the colors. 🤷‍♂️

My Shigeki deck is interesting to consider in this context. It really needs my commander to function, I just dont need him on the battlefield. He recycles things from my graveyard when channeled from my hand and I have 8 copies of 'put him back in my hand' in my deck. So yeah I need him but its also almost impossible to keep from being able to use him.

Ultimately its a game, if you and your playgroup are having fun don't change anything. However, I think a lot of these types of sentiments are directed at people who can't seem to have fun or keep having nothing to do during games because of problems that could have been solved before they sat down at the table. If you aren't having fun or you feel like you keep having nothing to do during a game, I think the sentiments of "Your deck should work without your commander" and similar consistency points can definitely help with that. It also can lead you to finding more interesting ways of playing because of finding lesser seen commanders that deserve a spotlight, which happens a lot when you do something like build the 99 before the commander, or at least having a deck idea and finding a commander that helps that deck idea instead of the other way around. The inverse is still fine either way, some commanders are so monolithic that the deck almost needs to be build around them instead of the other way. But different approaches can help people who aren't having fun the normal way, or are bored with the normal way and need something to get that brewing mindset turning.

How about Horobi death's wail? Whats Ur take on horobi?

I think this deck-building advice was a lot more important back in the old days when we had powerful tuck effects like spell crumple and hinder that could more or less permanently eliminate a commander on the stack. Back then if you had no alternative game plan, you were out of luck. These days, the best option to answer pesky commanders is having drannith magistrate in your opening hand, or a handful of 3 cmc sorcery speed removal spells in Blue, White, and Green, all of which are too narrow or slow to see widespread use. The chances that your opponent will have access to one of these cards with you having no answer to it, is extraordinarily low in high power and competitive. I just don't think this is good deck-building advice to try to play around 4 cards out of 27k to avoid feelbads from not packing enchantment removal.

I have an obeka deck, without her my deck is useless, i practically have to play in a way that is super safe to play her so i must have hexproof equipment on the board an possibly some haste one and at least two counter in my hand and the mana to play them or she will not remain on the board for my next turn.

I'd say should is a bit strong But working without the commander is absolutely a big advantage

I made a deck theme around knights and wizards cause King Arthur and Merlin and went heavy on creatures trying to keep out all Voltron style or other tribes , I don't win but usually get focused into oblivion and can't enjoy my deck cause people expect me to go destroy their faces even if i'm not swinging, if a play my creatures i'm a menace to the table, if I play my commander, if I play my planeswalkers, if anything... but if I dont they just go "oh no resistance I hit you in the face/combo for the game" ... I tried playing more agresively but when I notice that with one more hit of my commander I leave some one out the game I no longer enjoy

I think the pod you play with really impacts this decision. Also, I personally don't mind losing to make unique builds or play weaker synergistic decks. No one plays Cedh decks in my pod so it works out. I started to add the classic bnb cards to My decks and the game did start to feel very repetitive.

There's something to be said about commander options like Thrasios, Tymna, Kraum, and perhaps also Malcolm. The commanders that "do amazing" seem to be those that enable card advantage without getting in the way of the rest of the library. There's a reason why Korvald is so powerful though to get that "advantage" you have to sacrifice things and he supports using Dockside Extortionist. But you don't need Korvald to hit field for the deck to win.

In my simic token deck, my commander soley exists to turn all my tokens into mana rocks / mana dorks when Im ready to throw out multiple 5+ cost spells. i am actively aware that people will try to kill her asap and that is okay, in response ill tap all these tokens for floating mana lolol

On the casual side, Feather the redeemed cant function without commander (but the deck plays enough protection from 0 mana up). Maybe my Kumena reck dont work without the commander (40 1 mana 1/1 tend not to have too much value). Most of my decks do have function as a weaker version of the main game plan

I've gotten to the point in commander, personally, where I will "build a commander," as in, top down (From commander as the focus, moving toward goals the card itself can contribute to), to putting in combos that aren't relevant to what the commander actually does. For example, I've grown tired of saying "My high power deck isn't good enough" and while I detest low-hanging fruit of the format, I've gone for the lesser evil of a Kiki-Snoop list for Marchesa, Dealer of Death instead of a Consultation-Oracle combo list. Yes, full of tutors and interaction. Yes, annoyingly consistent if uninterrupted, but the deck does play to Marchesa's tempo and depends on her being left alone so I can use that crime trigger to use her as a pseudo-reanimator-list enabler. I mean sure I could just toss her out for Kess, but that'd make Kyren Negotiations pointless, along with the other 1 drop, T: Target a player permanents that make the tempo work while Marchesa is in play. I couldn't go the same route in Grolnok, as the deck is dependent on him probably 60% of the time, and it's essentially a "Past in Flames" simic list with an immense amount of ramp and self mill into 2 card combos, but no tutors and budget interaction. In contrast, Grolnok can't do a thing vs High pods, Marchesa is too fast in mid pods, and even my Xyris and my Korvold lists fall short in high power for their transparency. I mean are you gonna let Xyris hit you if you have a Thopter to block it? Nah. Well, at least, you should not. Sorry this was huge. Maybe I should be a content creator I just like to say stuff.

Very interesting video, though i was hoping for a bit more guidance on how to build particularly vulnerable commanders other than just going all in. Was expecting Rakdos Lord of Riots to pop up also, seeing as you built him in the past. For me this commander defines casual 'dies to removal' much like Kaalia does in higher power pods. Going harder on looting and reanimation these days, but making Rakdos LOR resilient is tough.

Your commander should work without your deck Kick there teeth in Selvala Explorer Returned!

Neverrrr

I think we get a little wrapped up in the "absolute-ness" of the actual statement, "Your deck should work without your commander". This doesn't have to be true for your deck to be good, but your deck should be adapted to 1) how much you need your commander, 2) how much your commander gets removed.

My Denry Klin deck can work without the commander, but he makes sure that everything works way better. I love it because its jank, and outside of the colors that make it even better. I, however don't care that it isn't optimal to play azorius for 1/1 counters. All my other decks, I haven't worked this hard on. I have a Yuriko that I purposely built lower level because I don't want it to be that good. My Caesar deck is just a mash up of the Rebel deck from AWBO and Caesar(I threw in some cards like impact tremors and witty roast master)

Winota pretty much does not see cEDH play anymore, unless someone is reminiscing.

If you run a shit ton of protection, a few control pieces and play smart, you’ll be ok even with the most commander-dependent deck.

My favorite commander is still Marath. The deck is 100% focused on the commander but removing my commander only makes it stronger. If you don't remove it, I will.

Playing necrobloom as a commander has actually changed how i view this sort of thing. Token doublers are all well and good, but what if my commander's not out? Well tokens of all ki ds are incredibly common right now. Abzan gives me access to parrallel lives AND kambal. Oh you got a treasure token? I'll take 2. Farewell is fine to use because i likely have ways to turn my lands into creaturrs AND have ways to play them from the graveyard. Sure. The dredge 2 and zombie tokens are nice, but theyre not the only way my deck functions. Your commander should be a nice little bonus. Not the combo key that keeps getting smacked off the board every time you tap out just to get it there.

>Laughs in Zada

I've said for a long time your deck needs a plan A, B, and/or C. I run a Gisa and Geralf Zombies EDH. I ran Gisa and Geralf when they were the newest, coolest commander to run in Dimir Zombie Tribal. As cards got power crept, I had to rework the deck and decide to not only rework my strategy, but also to make the deck able to operate wholly independent of the commanders. It's fun when someone's Kaalia or someone else's or Narset ends up killing each other while I get the cards I need. Gisa and Geralf themselves aren't a threat, but the zombies they command are. I can play infinite combos, or play without the graveyard, or play a token army. I have a plan A, B, and C all related to my main strategy. When I built my Lathril, Blade of the Elves deck, I built it with the opposite idea in mind. I want to kill opponents quickly with my commander. The trouble comes from Lathril being a regular target. This is why I run Gilt-Leaf Archdruid. It not only gives me card draw, but it can be used to slow down the game for my opponents and speed up the game for me. The deck has a plan A and B. My plan C is elfball. I ran into issues where my untap spells were being targeted. I threw in Savage Summoning (SUPER underrated in my opinion), which is good to use on a variety of creatures in the deck, and Copperhorn Scout. Cast Savage Summoning, cast Copperhorn Scout, swing, untap everything, finish the combo on my second main phase. Throne of the God Pharaoh finishes off each opponent. If you're building a deck, it IS important to make it operate without your commander. I also understand that for some decks, the commander must be used. In those cases, run plenty of counters, removal, etc.

Nadu/Magda/Jodah players scratching their heads on this one

I think one of the valuable formats I've seen in deck discussions is when they build a casual powered and higher powered casual deck, when I first started playing it really helped me get out of "these x cards should go in every deck" or "No point in playing this commander without these x cards"

Honestly this is why I prefer using a commander people expect a strategy with (ulalek, atraxa) and then just straight up the entire deck is nothing to do with that commander at all. Nobody expects it ever

When i built Hinata, i keep one thing in mind... loads of protection, bounce, mana rocks and draw spells. Hinata needs them and why not? cost reduction, arcane denial now only needs 1 blue. Snap only needs 1 blue. If Hinata dies? Theres ramp to get her back. The Synergistic broken X spells are the theme, but the main core are the basic spells and mana rocks.

well, some cards are either way to good, let the imoti resolve and the player gets next turn Big Monsters, you counter it no problem, because of the Cascade he got enoug mana to cast her again and again.

it is my personal opinion that outside of CEDH if you are winning significantly more then 25% of your commander games in 4 player pods, then you are playing at the wrong powerlevel and you should be finding opponents that can put up a better fight against your deck.

This is exactly why I don't really like the maskwood nexus type effects in Disa. Those cards do literally nothing without her and in the case of nexus and conspiracy, are probably taking up your whole turn to play them

Meme decks are fun. Toski is a fun one

Play how you yourself see fit. I use janky commanders, where the deck bleeds out if the commander has been removed three times. I have decks where the commander strengthens the game play, but ain't a keypiece. Just pick your battles I guess

I feel that Winota is a little misrepresented on how Winota works. For one, Winota is barely played in cEDH in 2023, and was only getting good results a while ago because of the current meta. While we don’t know exactly, data sites like mtgtop16 are showing a low amount of play, with an abysmal conversion rate today. As for why it (and maybe sissay to some extent) are so good, is the nature of cEDH. No one runs boardwipes in cEDH, and so decks that would get blown out in causal formats, can live in cEDH because they aren’t going to see any boardwipes. Decks like Winota, or even some sissy shells have built in protection against removal, (swords and path are played in both formats) because they generate things that need to removed more. Sure you could spend removal on Winota, but once they get drannith or any other stax piece or infinite combo, that removal spell was a waste compared to what it should have been used for. Sisay is kinda a stretch but I think it kinda works for this logic to (if you’re fast enough)

If your commander keeps getting removed, you're also not running cards that are scarier than your commander. People hit Otharri often, then i reanimate him, or they left the smothering tithe alive for too long

We might as well not play commander at all then, unless we are ok with the dreadful scenario that someone, someday will eventually have a removal spell ... Sure, let's stop building decks around a commander's unique ability, let's all build dull, generic, min-maxed lists that do a little bit of everything. That sounds like so much fun!!!

Most grixis decks don't need the commander to win.

No Ms Paint, opinion irrelevent

Play modern then, it's called commander. If you want a competitive deck that works without the stipulation of a commander. Play another format.

I think you should have your script next to your camera. It feels strange to see you glance sideways while you are talking. Otherwise great video!

If the commander isn't required for the deck to win, then why am i playing the Commander format? It's the pay-off for dealing with the deck building restrictions and is the only consistently available card in the deck. "Card diversity" and "slower, more interesting games" isn't a draw anymore, functional reprints with different names and fast mana have already brought it too close to turn 0-2 insta-win formats while catering too heavily to a specific kind of player by making other playstyles nearly impossible.

no idea why commander is such a popular format. To me it seem just like a lazy lower end version of standard constructed. Seem more casual and fun on the outside, but quickly turns into just another meta chase. The headache of determining "deck power level" also sound tiresome

Ngl I’m not a huge fan of the kind of strawman argument style disparaging other content as MSPaint. I think your arguments, for casual commander, are solid.

Why does your lighting look like that on your face

I prefer Microsoft paint videos lf the alternative is staring at some dudes face for 20 min

LOL Hide this video from others because it is funny when you kill someone's commander at least 3 times and their deck can't work without them #Gotteeee!

I still always have a problem when people are like "UGH! I don't want to keep using the SAME 20-30 cards all of the time" and then bring up enablers/interaction like Sol Ring or Rampant Growth or Pongify or Cyclonic Rift etc. That's not what your deck does. You don't sit down and say "Oh yeah, the way my deck works is I rampant growth into my curve so I can play my spells. Then if I need to, I use Pongify on threats or even mass remove everything with Cyclonic Rift. Then I kinda just win." The fact my Tiamat Deck uses Rampant Growth and Into the North says NOTHING about the fact it's not even a Dragon deck but a tribal tribal deck. It plays like a toolbox combo deck that uses cheap changelings alongside powerful Tribal effects to create chains of effects typically not expected to happen together. Staples just help it do that more consistently and flounder less. If over 30%, nearly 40% of your deck is allowed to be lands so that your deck can function... You can let another 20-30% of your deck allow you to be doing the last 30-40% every game.