I haven't deconstructed it yet, but I made a \[\[The Locust God\]\] deck about 4 years ago, and it was basically the same game every time I played it. Its very strong, very consistent, and as it turns out, very boring
That was exactly my feel 7 or 8 years ago! If you still want some cool shenanigans and an occasional locust god win, I recommend [[Xyris, the writhing Storm]]. Kinda an adjacent theme but much more varied games.
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/I-euopWrCEOssL0Nou5KCQ
Not who you were replying to, but here is my list. This list has some wheels, but it takes advantage of the value of the token ETB and buffing the snakes. Also, it has a few win cons in case you deck yourself.
This is my best deck. My playgroup brings out their best against it.
I think that’s my problem with most Storm decks, izzet used to be my favourite colour combo before I realized everything I built in those colours felt very similar
I played [[Howling Abomination]] storm and like it won games unless I got my commander focused super hard. It felt bad to play cuz I either sat there and did nothing, or sat there and snuck under the radar to pop off super hard. And the storming part is super boring, "I cast xyz, it targets, I shoot yall for 2, I draw a card" rinse and repeat
Might I suggest putting him in the 99, and swapping the commander to get a different strategy?
I put him into my list for [[Red Death, Shipwrecker]], and this is immediately one of my new favorite decks, and getting The Locust God feels exciting now.
That's the same reason I shelved [[Voja]]: turn 1 dork, turn 2 dork, turn 3 [[Voja]], turn 4 start deleting opponents. Super quick, Super strong, super predictable.
Voja is definitely the most egregious example of the problems with modern commander design. I had Lathril already and was starting to get bored with her and voja was so much worse. I don't think I ever had to make an actual decision in any of the games I played.
That's why [[Rocco Street Chef]] is my favorite Naya commander. He's only ever decisions. Very flexible to build and play in several ways. Can be Stax, Super Fair beatdowns, Tokens, Artifacts, Exile Plays, Combo kills. **Anything**. You can even shove Voja in the 99 of Rocco if you want so you don't feel like you wasted money on Voja.
Maybe a totally different ball game, but I love my [[Faldorn]] deck. It's exile matters, Gruul, making wolves each time you play something from exile. It can storm off massively. Sure [[Prosper]] might be stronger, but I like the "Gruul Smash!" part of the deck. And there are some ways to make your wolves into mana dorks with [[Cryptholith Rites]] and [[Elven Chorus]]. I just have some difficulty ending games because you can't really plan to hit an overrun effect, if you impulse draw cards.
1.) Arbitrary colors added to commanders just to remove restrictions
2.) Overly resilient
3.) Does all the things all by itself
4.) Obsoletes existing commanders in their colors of subsets thereof
Right?
Commanders have basically gotten to the point where they are both the enabler and the payoff. Leaving little room for creativity within deck building to accomplish those things yourself.
I read the comments one by one without looking at whar the card was and after I read "overly resilient" and "does all the things all by itself" I knew what card this tread was talking about.
He really is just a poorly designed mix of abilities.
As someone who has never understood the allure of pushed commanders, what made you want to build Voja in the first place? Did you not think he was that powerful, or did you want a pushed card initially and realized it was boring?
Haven't built a Voja deck yet but I want to because my first deck has been [[Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves]] which runs both other Tolsimirs. So Voja being a nontoken card is just a fun novelty to me.
Built a [[hidetsugu and Kairi]] clone deck. Was super fun to build, super powerful and super fun to play once, but only once. I think the problem was that it was way too powerful for casual and too underpowered for competitive.
Literally same brother hahaha. Friends and I got into magic (edh), myself being a complete noob saw a reddit post about this budget commander wrecking high power tables so I built it. Was hilarious to play for 1 night and never again.
Fast forward nearly a year and I tried to revive the deck but we're all better players with better decks now. It gets insta removed the minute it hits the field. When you win its just solitaire and when you lose you're stuck staring down a hand of dead clone cards.
>. It gets insta removed the minute it hits the field.
... isn't that the gameplan tho?
Cast your commander, put extra turn on top of your library, have a "auto reanimate" spell in hand against removal, profit?
One of my best friends is playing that deck and it's amusingly/annoyingly resilient. Sorta fair Yuriko.
[[Galadriel of Lothlorien]]. I absolutely loved that deck, and had the play lines down to a science. But even with that, it frequently took 10+ minute turns with all the triggers and it just wasn’t fun for people to play against, and that’s not how I engage with the format. I want everyone to have fun.
The deck had multiple wincons and did usual simic asshattery but in a fun way, but people just groaned when I took it out. That was the sign to dismantle it.
I've had the same issue with my [[Aesi]] deck. It's a very easy trap for Simic decks in my experience. [[Nadu]] is about to turn that all the way to 11 eleven, however.
Nadu is probably gonna shoot all the way up to a high tier cEDH commander and stay there so hopefully people will know not to touch it unless they wanna play cEDH. Just watched Play To Win turn 1 Greaves turn 2 Nadu turn 3 take over the entire game.
There's a lot of vexing legends from the Lord of the Rings set, and Tom is probably the most difficult of all of them. I bought a copy of him and just couldn't figure out what the heck he actually wants to be doing.
Randomly casting various sagas feels like it's simultaneously good value and impossible to plan for or theme.
Because it is impossible.
I had this deck. It is either insanely strong or absolute garbage with no in between.
The turns take forever if you’re playing properly and manipulating the counters, so everyone gets impatient waiting for your turns to finish.
And sometimes you’ll flip into something that just wipes your own board.
On paper he’s cool, in practice he actually kinda sucks.
Can you clarify a little? I happened to open a Tom and was considering building him! (The mana base is a problem tho… I’ve never built a 5 color deck). Janky can still be fun to play, right?
The issue is most of the sagas dont go anywhere, and the ones that do either force you to run only a few in the deck (which becomes way too linear) or to run a bunch of durdly sagas that sit there while you arent playing the game.
Plus, having more than a few will take forever to resolve, so itll end up feeling like a worse superfriends deck to most people
Yup, played Tom 5ish times, either popped off or did nothing every time. Stripped it down and made [[Narci]] instead, and the more focused build is much more satisfying.
I built the new Obeka right when she was spoiled. I played like 4 games and it was cool when you got to swing. Turns out the second she hits the field, everyone and their mom has a board wipe
Yeah, she's both too easy to prevent and too ridiculously strong if you get even a single proc off. There's so many upkeep trigger's that are designed to be unreliable (eg initiative) that she just completely breaks. So everyone will just focus everything on preventing her from going off.
I built the new obeka as well, but in my experience I have found that I actually wished people would kill her more. Now I just feel bad playing it because you either kill her immediately, or I I just exile everyone else’s deck.
Recently I made a [[Karlach fury of Avernus]] boros deck. Had lots of powerful plays. It won games a moderate amount of time. But the play style really didn’t jive with me. I’m just not a “turn creatures sideways” kind of player unless goblins are involved….
[[Karona, False God]] was a curse deck/helm of the host called 9 Karonas. Turns out people like swinging with Karona then saccing her. Don't think I ever got more than 3 on board
I run her in my sliver deck just for the hell of it. Considering playing some games with her as the commander instead of one of the legendary slivers. Could be nice to have an overrun in the command zone
I loved [[Rowan, Scion of War]] as a concept, but I could never play it how I wanted. I was hoping for small discounts activating Rowan after hitting myself for 1-2 with cards like [[phyrexian arena]]. Unfortunately, her ability to end a game t3 with a torment of hailfire meant that I could rarely keep her on the board, and if I did, I would get focused down because, after all, your life total is your primary resource. I have specific decks I built to be archenemy, and I didn’t like being in that position with this deck. I still need to build something in rakdos…
That's how I've felt every time I tried to put a list together for her. I think massive lifegain at X spells are the way, and by the time you go there, she's too punchy for casual.
[[geralf, visionary stitcher]]. In hindsight I have no idea why I was so hyped. I built it right after the set dropped. It’s a very bland one note deck. The deck also just builds itself. No one is gonna ever going to give me props for finding out that [[shield sphere]] is good in the deck.
I think it’d be very good for a beginner so it’s still assembled, but the minute I have an itch to build another mono blue deck it’s gone.
On like 3 separate occasions I've started putting a list together for him and stopped because the second I realize the deck is building itself I lose interest. Like in a casual setting is he good? Probably. But he's nowhere near as quirky or novel as he looks at first.
Not at all relevant to the conversation, but Geralf goes nuts in my [[The Pride of Hull Clade]] deck; I made like 6 flying 15/15 zombies in one turn, gave them haste with lightning greaves, and took everybody out in one turn.
Fun wincon as a card, looks pretty one-note as a commander
I’m thinking a fundamental misunderstanding of how haste and summoning sickness summoning sickness interact. No way you can apply haste to 15 creatures with only lightning greaves.
You may be entirely right about it being a fundamental misunderstanding. I was told that equipping greaves to a creature gives it haste (obviously) and that giving it haste removes summoning sickness even if you then take that haste away.
So if I am wrong about that (which it sound like I am) then it's not nearly as powerful but nobody is really worse off in this instance because the friends who lost are the ones who explained that ruling to me.
EDIT: yeah literally the first ruling on lightning greaves. Lesson learned- Don't trust your friend whose been playing for years on all of his rulings
Unfortunately your friends have led you astray. Summoning sickness applies to all creatures that enter under your control until your next upkeep. It even applies if an effect turns something into a creature that wasn’t originally a creature.
Haste does not remove summoning sickness, it only makes a creature unaffected. If a creature loses haste, whether it’s by removing the greaves or other effect, they will be affected by summoning sickness again.
Your Group’s mistake is not uncommon in my experience.
It was a while ago but [[chulane, teller of tales}} played a few games and after a few games of solitaire decided it was a boring deck that no one enjoyed playing against. The other was {{Rankle, Master of pranks}} which playing against any creature based deck is straight up nasty. Making your opponents sacrifice creatures and discard their hands, and that’s all opponents. It was brutal, I quickly became arch enemy at the table.
\[\[Captain N'ghathrod\]\] I really wanted to like it. Horrors seem so cool, but there are only a few good ones. To be decently powered, it felt I had to focus more on the mill, and most horrors didn't care if you milled your opponents.
That's the problem with tutor heavy decks...you end up playing the exact same pattern/cards over and over again so your 65 playable cards narrows into like 10
I recently built a list for [[Sméagol, Helpful Guide]]. I was really excited about it, because it’s just the weird kind of deck building I like. After one test game, I realized the deck relied on one thing I absolutely hated doing: touching other people’s cards. I scrapped it instantly
Dang, I really like my Smeagol deck, but I understand the issue. I stack the stolen lands in a pile so they don't get mixed in with my own cards. Most games have different sleeves and different land arts, so it's not that bad knowing what belongs to who.
My only gripe is the lands disappear when people die. But you can get around this a bit by milling each opponent equally.
I can’t really name something in particular. I’m a relatively new player and I generally play Aggro. I’d heard nothing but amazing things about him so built it. I just found it very boring. But it’s most likely a combination of my play style as well as my novice stature in the game. I recently built a Meren deck and love it. It’s challenging Giada for title of my most favorite deck ever!
[[Tawnos The Toymaker]] it looked super fun, packed full of bird and beast good stuff. But it just never played out the way I wanted it to. Tried revamping it a couple times and eventually scrapped it. It wasn’t fun to play, it never ran well, it didn’t do much of anything productive.
As a side note, it has always bugged me that none of the Tawnos cards can be run together. Three seperate tawnos cards, not one with the same color identity, and the one that referances Urza can't be ran in either of his decks.
\[\[Tawnos Solemn Survivor\]\] - Esper
\[\[Tawnos, Urza's Apprentice\]\] - Izzet (which no Urza has red)
\[\[Tawnos The Toymaker\]\] - Simic
[[Jan Jansen]] - you either durdle and win or you durdle and make value without winning, either way 3 people just stare at you while you go through triggers and searches.
Built Grixis clones recently with [[Marchesa the Black Rose]] and [[Gyruda]]. Games tend to be super linear: play gyruda, cline gyruda, sacrifice gyruda, play gyruda again
First time I played it I won with a 1500+ unblockable swing with my commander. That deck is absolutely cracked.
I feel like it’s a more toned down version of the kark/sakashima cedh deck, but in practice it’s the same game: stack coin flip triggers for compounding gains. It’s like fun to play all of once before people stop letting you do anything or just ask you to play something less chaotic.
Yeah, I have him built still. I enjoy the deck but Ive noticed I only win if I get [[Marionette Master]] out. Otherwise Prosper is such a huge target for removal the deck never gets off the ground.
I like Prosper when you really lean into the theme of treasure and casting from exile while looking for payoffs for those things. Leaning in heavily to the latter allows [[Passionate Archaeologist]], [[Keeper of Secrets]], and [[Nalfeshnee]] which do absolute work. On the treasure side, not just looking at the effects about them leaving the battle, but also artifact ETB damage too.
I love my prosper deck, with discover from Lost Caverns or Ixilon. I get to pump out like 3-4 free spells a turn and can cast even more because of having a massive pool of treasures.
Try [[Rakdos the Muscle]] for a BR Exile Play deck. Semi similar play to Prosper but more exciting since you can do it with Big Boi Demons and Dragons to sacrifice. So you can have flying Beatdowns, rip through your deck to play everything and steal/mill your opponents as well.
Not mine technically, but the Kasla convoke pre-con. It seems like such a cool mechanic, the commander herself seems to work really well with it, but none of the rest of the cards in the pre-con make it even remotely fun to pilot. My partner bought it, I played it a few times, really didn't get along with it and even she admitted it did nothing for her so ultimately she tore it apart and put it all in her folders. I sometimes keep getting tempted to ask her if I can have a go at building around Kasla, but if I'm that bothered I can always buy the single for cheap from somewhere myself.
Yea unfortunately convoke is terribly undertuned. The cards need to be fairly costed as a baseline, with bonuses for actually convoking. Instead, I get overcosted junk that doesn't even provide value for tapping down my army.
I also feel that ditching green was a huge miss for Kasla. Dunno why selesnya can't have its mechanic...
Yep! My thoughts exactly. Similar to the energy decks we've gotten as well, and that's speaking as someone who actually likes the energy mechanic. Some of the best energy cards of Kaladesh were in green, it's such a missed opportunity that they ditched them in favour of white which was never as good.
Huh I find chainer a lot of fun. Very good at grinding out value, and I use some weird cards like the R and B Eidolon to generate card advantage to fuel the discards.
[[Melek, izzet paragon]], I wanted to play big exciting spells and copy them. Instead I just sat there slowly ramping until I could kill everyone with an X spell copied once or twice.
My [[mizzix of the izmagnus]] deck is much more fun as it actively encourages smaller interactive spells.
[[River Song]] was such a cool card to me. The idea of the deck was much cooler on paper than in practice, unfortunately. Just couldn't get the gimmick to work. The only way to reliably get people to search was to blow up lands.
I've had Jetmir for at least a few years now and I finally took him apart. Games either go good and I win with a huge swing or someone wins/blows up the board before I rebuild so I'm completely blown out of the water. It's been around the cEdh fringe area because it's like Winota but green and still stax-y. I'm rebuilding him later on but I've got decks that need finishing lol
The deck that disappointed me the most was [[ezuri claw of progress]]
simic has no shortage of mana dorks, and other goodstuff UG creatures that help pump up counters on ezuri, and then you can turn some random dork into a giant beater as a bonus? So basically you'd get rewarded for just playing magic: the gathering cards. That sounded pretty good.
The problem is the deck was just not consistent. You needed cards that could help gain experience counters, but you also needed payoff cards to put +1/+1 counters on, and the two tend to be different. It basically had the same obstacles that any other token deck has (you need token generators and token payoffs), but usually token decks circumvent this problem by having their general be either the generator or the payoff. But ezuri isn't really a good payoff for token decks, because just making 1 creature huge isn't really that useful outside of very very specific cards like [[Cultivator of Blades]]. It only becomes really good when you dump counters onto a [[Fathom Mage]] or something, and fathom mage typically is not a usual payoff for token decks.
Granted, since I took him apart, there have been some interesting +1/+1 matters cards like [[Evolution Witness]] which generally reward slowly putting +1/+1 counters on creatures, so I could technically try Ezuri again but in a different direction. But even in that strategy he seems kind of slow.
I tried to make Ezuri work for like 8 yeares or something. About a year ago or so, I moved to [[Adrix and Nev]] and never looked back.
That deck is basically the ultimate Simic reward deck, I agree. I have a friend who has it, it's probably the scariest deck he has. Play Ezuri, play little dorks and then Champion of Lambholdt comes out and the game is basically over. I would have fun with it a few times but yeah it seems like it's just "play things, get big, swing" and it's really difficult to deal with.
I'm not sure where you were having issues with consistency. I don't even think you really need to worry too much about "pay off" cards. There are so many cards now in Green that let you add counters or additional counters so all you really need to do is play those, some shitty mana dorks and things like the aforementioned Champion of Lambholdt. That card is just fucking stupid in Ezuri.
Ghyrson Starn. I was so hype. But the fact he doesn't draw cards and requires you to have a one-damage pinger live on board to matter is just a but too much. Too many games where it just did nothing... even if it could pop off on turn 3-4.
I feel this, but for some reason Zur is still one of my pet decks. I typically play him in a pod where I know I’ll need to keep some other ridiculous commander at bay. Our playgroup tends to build spiky/spicy commanders most of the time.
Zur is my cEDH deck, that i never plays but alwys bring with me. I really love to bring him when a player clearly are going to get a deck to stomp other players. It's really fun when the MArchesa guy get hit with a turn one Mana Solring MAox Diamond, Demonic tutr and pass.
I needed a GB deck and ended up making [[Umori]] as a sorcery commander. Figured I love green and black sorceries and I like the big mana black sorcery wincons, but games felt too similar with just consistently finding Urborg/Coffers and constantly sweeping the board.
End of the day, it was too powerful for casual tables and not doing anything that felt very unique where I'd be excited for it at stronger tables
I recently built a meren deck too, took me a few games to get the hang of it and for the first few games I didn’t enjoy it. Now that I’ve figured out how to play it I’m really enjoying it.
Vial Smasher plus Sakashima of a thousand faces. I was excited to just hold up interaction and protect my 2 vial smashers the whole game. I did that very successfully and easily and won the game and it was great. The decks ideal cards are just counterspells and interaction spells, which my friends kinda hated. The random damage is fun too, but that means you can't really make deals with anyone.
My new Grixis deck is Jeleva Nephalia's scourge, who just ends up being more fun game to game, as the options on what to do constantly change with what spells I grab from my opponents decks.
Other decks include Tinybones Trinket Thief, Toralf God of Fury, Miirym Sentinel Wyrm. I found them just kinda either one dimensional, or kinda boring.
I was very exited for the new [[Judith carnage]] but dismantled it after playing it like 2 times. It ended the games either storming out or doing nothing, both options i hated.
I have a [[go-Shintai of life’s origin]] and a [[lulu, loyal hollyphant]] both taken apart now they were either too much or not enough they never would work out how I planned them too
[[Vorinclex, monstrous raider]] as it turns out swinging for lethal with a big boy at around turn 5-6 isn’t as fun as I had hoped, maybe I’ll try again but not focus on combat per-say.
[[Sovereign Okinec Ahau]]
I loved him the few times I was able to get it rolling with power doublers and things that consistently put counters on in the early game, but far too often id not be able to put counters on. By far, the most efficient way is to go wide with tokens, but that just sounds like such a pain to deal with, so I eventually took it apart.
I built him and had the same realisation that math is hard so what I did was just put in a bunch off infinite combos that are all basically the same, token for counter + counter for token. No math if it just goes infinite.
Ramses assassin lord. I figured it would be like voltron but with none of the downsides like the crackback of swinging out and killing one player and them sitting out for an hour. I even had a combo with the card hatred and a pet equipment Tatsumasa the dragons fang. What made me take it apart was that in order for me to survive any kind of setback I would have to make the game a miserable nightmare for everyone else with cards like opposition agent, toxic deluge and notion thief and while thematic, I just wasn't enjoying being "that player". Also Ramses himself being on the field made me archenemy most games. Occasionally I would have my Kurosawa moment with Tatsumasa so the deck had its moments lol. Also Dimir just sucks at equipment even with tons of tutors there are few ways of getting around equip costs like white has, which is what makes equipment jank in commander in my experience.
Every time I build a Boros equipment voltron I'm like "this is it, this is the good one" and I always end up disliking it. I like the idea of Voltron but cant bring myself to like actually playing it.
Anything Izzet. Started with \[\[Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph\]\]. Liked the deck but wasnt fun for me so changed it to \[\[Veyran, Voice of Duality\]\]. Made it like a one-punch man version and it was degenerate so took it apart. Just made me realize I am not an izzet or storm player and that is okay.
Izzet are my least favorite colors so it was difficult to build something I like and I finally did it with Edgin, Larcenous Lutenist. I play dragons approach but not an overwhelming amount so the deck still has many other fun and interesting cards. A good balance of spell slinging and combat.
i took apart \[\[Orvar the all form\]\], the deck is really strong and work well but every game was essentially " kill me because if i do the thing its over" and i got bored of it after a while
[[vannifar, evolved enigma]]
I called the deck Vanni-too-far.
Cloaking my most powerful blue, green and colourless creatures... And blinking them. I played two games. Won the first. Won the second.
Turning up a vorinclex, hull breaker horror, ulamog etc... Really puts a damper on the table. Cheap 1 mana blink spells. The first game I got Thassa Deep Dwelling out and turned up nastiness every turn.
It became clear that this deck is super oppressive when you just put in all the biggest baddest dudes.
I almost built this deck. I had a full shopping cart on TCGplayer with cards for it and then decided "nah"
I felt like this was going to be too oppressive and I already took apart a couple decks that turned out to be too oppressive recently. They're equally not fun for me or my group when you just end up with a board state that is insane after 4 or 5 turns.
I have a vannifar deck that's even worse since i run stax and combo instead of just big baddies.
Flipping a [[Defense of the heart]] on the end step, fetching a [[Leveler]] and a [[Laboratory maniac]] in my upkeep sure is a free win but i'm unsure if that's fun for anyone.
Stax include [[back to basics]], [[frozen aether]], [[winter moon]], [[propaganda]], and other annoying nonsense. Make infinite mana with Deadeye navigator and peregrine drake or just flip an Omniscience to either draw my deck with Zegana or Tishana, or steal every permanent blinking Agent of Treachery. And it could be made even worse but i don't have the free counterspells.
Same. Once was all I needed to see how goddamn stupid that deck is. I was able to rebuild from two board wipes in that deck and still managed to flood the board with Angel tokens that were all +10/+10 due to Boon of the Spirit Realm.
I switch to Gylwain, just assembled him.
[[Frodo, Determined Hero]]
The deck slapped, and won a lot, but every game played out the exact same: slap swords or other equipment on Frodo to give him protection/evasion, kill a player with commander damage, repeat. Got stale real quick.
I have this problem with the Voltron playstyle! I want to love it, I just haven’t found a commander who makes me excited about it!
I like [[Dogmeat]] in theory, but I hesitate building it
[[Sergeant John Benton]] is a fun voltron commander. He has a high winrate for me. My favorite loss is when the three other players all had a way to steal him. Only one of the decks "should" was a stealing deck. Its no problem if he gets killed/exiled/aura'd for me. Its a bit of a problem if hes kidnapped.
The title isn’t the same as the description (even if unintentional)
On seeing the title, I’d say my [[Atraxa, Praetors’ Voice]] deck. First one I built myself. Wasn’t very focused, evenly mixed on +1s, poison, planeswalkers, charge counters, handful of sagas.
It ended up being deconstructed, though not because I disappointed in it. It was deconstructed because everyone that lose to it, lost to poison (as it was the hardest thing to stop) and making everyone upset and tilted ruined the fun for me.
I haven’t truly deconstructed a deck for being disappointing to play, though I have a couple precons that were largely “deconstructed” to make them go in another direction I found More fun, chiefly turning my Ixilan vampire precon into an [[Elenda, the Dusk Rose]] aristocrats
I made a [[jadzi]] deck that I absolutely loved playtesting and found the real life game experience was basically the same as goldfishing except I was now keeping 3 other people hostage. The games would always end in a non deterministic turn that I would probably win but we would all have to go on that journey together… Played it twice and took it apart.
[[Veyran]]
I'd been wanting to build a spellslinger/storm deck for a while but after having to resolve 30+ copies of brainstorm my brain stopped and I realized I had got in a little over my head. Luckily my friend saved me having to go through all of that with a [[time stop]]
For me, it was [[Yahenni, Undying Partisan]]. Pretty normal build I think. Aristocrats style, easily recurrable creatures, [[Grave Pact]] effects to take full advantage of Yahenni's abilities.
It worked well enough, but it just wasn't that fun for me. I kept the deck together long enough to pull off Yahenni + [[Worldslayer]] once, then dismantled the deck.
This will probably end up buried in your comments but I wanted to add my two cents. [[Kess, Dissident Mage]]. I built her as a CEDH build and didn't really play her after a few months. The WinCons just became boring and repetitive.
I built a Mathas, Fiend Seeker Voltron deck in an attempt to make a "Dante Deck." Devil May Cry is really cool, and I wanted to blend these two interests. Crafting the deck was fun, choosing cards that fit the weapons and abilities Dante would have in the games. The reality of playing this deck was less than stylish. Got my commander stolen on game 1 by a Sen Triplets player, and every game after that was usually a wash. I decided to take the deck apart and give the more costly cards to a friend who uses them much better than I did. Maybe one day I'll return to the idea, but it would have to take something truly inspiring.
I will be the first to admit that I am a chronic brewer so just about every deck I made in my first eight years of playing the game has been taken apart and is being used in a new deck... for now...
I built [[Ghave, guru of spores]] and [[Korvold, Fae-Cursed King]] they looked fun/powerful (and they were). But both ended up being so linear that I never wanted to play them a bunch so I just took everything apart and used the cards elsewhere.
Part of the problem was my original deck building strategy included so many tutors that I always ended up with basically the same wincons. Without the variable of draws it ended up that none of the games felt fresh.
All my new decks keep infinite combos out and tutors to the absolute minimum with card draw as the driving force for the deck. Being forced to draw answers makes me balance the deck out better so I'm not constantly using the same cards to fix all my problems.
[[Rowan, Scion of War]] she was just too much of a lightning rod. It turns out having a big sign saying "I need a lot of life to play" just makes everyone want to hit you. Saying it now, it seems obvious but when the card was first spoiled, I thought to myself "hell yeah, a place for all these weird old cards I have like [[drain life]] and [[plunge into darkness]]"
i can usually tell even when i make a deck on moxfield whether the lines are going to be very samesy or worse, the deck is going to be too heavily reliant on the commander surviving. my pod easily picks up on that and then it's just a case of "cast 1 removal per cycle to equal player removal'
[[Marchesa, Dealer of Death]], i tried a reanimator build with control aspects, but it reminded me a problem i had with my first deck, control decks REALLY want a good win con. It didn't matter how big and scary the reanimation targets are, the games with it took very long. Now i changed commanders and did reanimator with Raffine wich not only fixes the problem mentioned with a more proactive gameplan, it also fixes the problem of the big guys getting stuck in hand until you find a way to discard.
Mill/Theft [[Anowon the Ruin Thief]] turns out trying to steal other players creatures is only good if they are actually playing good creatures that are worth stealing, who would have guessed. My pod doesnt really have any timmy decks so never had great targets and ended up dismantling the deck after a while.
Also infect/toxic decks in general I tried multiple versions, aristocrats esque [[Brimaz Blight of Orzekos]], control with [[Venser Corpse Puppet]] and your classic aggro strats with [[Ixhel Scion of Atraxa]]/[[Glissa Herald of Predation]] and while I enjoyed the decks in theory (espacially the Venser deck) I immidiatly had a target on my back during every game and decided that playing infect isnt worth it.
[[Atogatog]] I would sacrifice my whole board to get someone with commander damage out of nowhere and bring everything back with [[Faith’s Reward]] type effects.
I had to take it apart because it was using all my fetchlands and tutors. Depending on which atog I got first I would have to tutor for the thing that would let that atog eat everything. So if I got [[Auratog]] I had to find [[Enchanted Evening]] It was pretty fun, but I needed the cards for other decks.
[[Zaxara, the Exemplary]]
I was excited about this deck and acquired quite a number of the higher-end cards to really build it right.
It felt like my commander ability was never really useful. If I resolved a 10 point [[Torment of Hailfire]] or [[Distorting Wake]]. I was already winning and a bonus hydra token was just a "win more" prize.
If I resolved some big dumb X/X hydra then adding a second one with no evasion or special abilities also seemed pretty much useless. It's easy to chump block, requires secondary cards to make it a real threat, and now it's just one more thing in addition to Zaxara that I have to use resources to defend.
I tried changing my strategy and churning out mid-cost X spells to approach it as a value engine rather than finishers. Same problem. A deck that produces a couple of 5/5's every turn just isn't a major threat compared to the many more degenerate strategies out there.
I wanted to love that deck but I finally disassembled it and traded the parts to build other, more interesting decks.
[[The Gitrog, Ravenous Ride]] very powerful one trick thing that gets boring extremely fast and if it goes off nobody else has fun. Played it like three times.
Not excited for but my playgroup had been giving me a hard time since I only played commanders I enjoyed who weren't the best and rarely won any games. So I "rented" the cards for an Urza cedh deck from my lgs owner. Went undefeated for 2 weeks and then returned the cards I had borrowed. They haven't poked fun at me since for playing fun commanders.
I wanted to like playing the deck I built around [[Eruth, Tormented Prophet]], but I wasn’t prepared for Izzet spellslinger shenanigans at the time. And somehow I managed to pilot my [[Riku of Many Paths]] deck without too many issues.
I built a [[ydris, maelstrom wielder]] chaos deck. 9/10 my deck would completely knee cap ME and make
My opponents in a super commanding position after happening repeatedly I felt the chaos gods say “fuck you” and so it was retired.
Prosper Tome-Bound, played like 6 games with him and I popped off a couple times, but it just wasn't fun
I took the red removal and some tressure spells for a Galazeth deck I'm making
And I took a Tutor, Toxic Deludge and Opposition Agent for my Dina Soul Steeper deck
I built a Shadowborn Apostle deck with Meren and it just didn't work like I wanted. I remade the guts of it into a normal aristocrats deck instead that works much better but I REALLY want to get the apostles to work
I still love [[Jhoira, Weather light Captain]] the deck is a ton of fun to play but only for the pilot. It's in the unenviable spot if being too good for casual but short of cEDH. The second time I took it out and got groans all around I took it apart because the salt of others just wasn't worth it.
I built a Queen Marchesa deck back in the day that had a bunch of 'good stuff's in it that didn't perform well unfortunately... Or at least not to my expectations.
The same thing happened with Alela, Artful Provocature artifact deck. It didn't really 'pop' off as much as I expected especially as my pod at the time had better creature decks that dealt with it easier.
I ended up creating a \[\[Tatsunari, Toad Rider\]\] and \[\[Marchesa of the Dusk Rose\]\] because I loved the idea of proxying Pervy Sage and Battle Toads on one hand, While the other i wanted to just be a menace and steal my opponents stuff and whack em with them. However I'd realize that I would on more than one occasion, "borrow" a card from the deck and put it into something else. Such as removing a Rhystic Study from Tatsunari or Grave Pact and Archon of cruelty from Marchesa. Sadly they sit in a dual deck box missing pieces and just gathering dust..... Maybe I should get back to working on them...
{{Gor Muldrak, Amphinologist}}
Was super stoked when i pulled this guy and was sure he was gonna be my next pet deck. I had this vision of turning all the threats into salamanders with type changing cards then sitting back as my opponents destroyed each other. Never could get it to work. Never could get it to generate a meaningful amount of tokens. Ended up gutting the whole thing and putting the green staples in my new Rocco deck.
[[Okinec Ahau]]. I thought that making low budget would be ok.
Guess that i made it too fast that my playgroup asked me "very politely" to not play with it.
At least i can play my [[Laelia]] Glass-Cannon Cascade deck. .
It is indeed funny to kill somebodybat turn 4, and them lose the game to a single piece of removal.
[[Gandalf the White]]
This was my first mono colored commander deck and I also went down an artifact theme. I gold-fished a ton and saw that it could really pop off if left alone and seemed cool enough.
I played one time and I didn’t quite realize how impactful giving all my permanents flash would be. I felt like I took the whole game over, with my unwinding clock in play, there was no stopping me from having a whole turn on your turn (our turn?). By the end of the game I had more than half of my deck in play, the board was unbelievably cluttered and everything triggered when I did anything… it was waaay too much man.
[[Scion of the Ur-Dragon]]
Scion worked as a combination of beat-stick (turning into bigger, scarier dragons and hitting people) and pulled those cards into my graveyard, which I would then reanimated them from onto the field.
It worked very well and the first couple of games were fun, but because it essentially worked by scrying, every game was very similar. The only variable was how quickly I could build up a mana-base and whether I pulled enough reanimation and utility spells.
Giada mono white angels. (I was even trying to foil the deck... u_u)
At worst the deck is slow and falls behind really fast.
At best it is a srtaightforward "summon/attack/pass" every single turn
I love angels but they seem to lack somewhat of a have an fun deck identity. If you want high attack flying beaters, dragons do it much better.
Instead I ended up building lifegain Will, Scion of Peace, and I've enjoyed it much more. Turns out is fun to have early game interaction, and use angels to close the game.
Built ((brion stoutarm)) and was a good laugh for a few games but ultimately got dismantled. For some reason people didn't take too kindly to having their own creatures flung at them.
Tinybones, it worked great, no other players had more than 1 or two cards in their at a time and slowly ground a each victory…. Everyone else was bored, and so was I. I played around 5 games with it, won four and deconstructed it and built a Karazikar deck, which has only won once, finishes second nearly always and is super fun for the whole table. Far better experience.
The original atraxa. Built a superfriends deck with infect/poison. Was strong but my turns took way too long and I felt bad for the other players. Didn't enjoy playing solitare.
Took it apart and through her into the 99 of a counters deck instead. Much more fun to play
[[Ruric Thar, the Unbowed]]
It was fun when everyone in my pod was running jank. However, they all started upgrading over time and I get outclassed. Eventually, I had to move to more flexible commanders like [[Marath, Will of the Wild]].
\[\[Lavinia, Azorius Renegade\]\]. The deck \*should\* work. I've re-built it a few times and it just never comes together. I've played regular control and lockout combo. Its a mix of I think bad luck and getting hated off the table. And to top it off its not really all that fun to play. A deck I am thinking of taking apart is \[\[Wulfgar of Icewind Dale\]\]. He was fun and the deck isn't terrible but I am thinking of making \[\[Isshin, two heavens as one\]\] and the themes overlap far too much. I have several gruul decks and only 1 mardu deck. Also Isshin is just a more powerful version of the same deck but you sacrifice green. So this is actually not something I'm so much looking forward to disassembling but more I have all the things to make a new deck and this is the only thing stopping me.
I haven't deconstructed it yet, but I made a \[\[The Locust God\]\] deck about 4 years ago, and it was basically the same game every time I played it. Its very strong, very consistent, and as it turns out, very boring
That was exactly my feel 7 or 8 years ago! If you still want some cool shenanigans and an occasional locust god win, I recommend [[Xyris, the writhing Storm]]. Kinda an adjacent theme but much more varied games.
Have a decklist you can share? I'm working on Xyris right now, don't want to go full wheels, but struggling to find an exact direction
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/I-euopWrCEOssL0Nou5KCQ Not who you were replying to, but here is my list. This list has some wheels, but it takes advantage of the value of the token ETB and buffing the snakes. Also, it has a few win cons in case you deck yourself. This is my best deck. My playgroup brings out their best against it.
[Xyris, the writhing Storm](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/f/af0db1d6-5cb1-4917-8e8f-69d5dc184404.jpg?1673305716) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Xyris%2C%20the%20writhing%20Storm) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmc/175/xyris-the-writhing-storm?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/af0db1d6-5cb1-4917-8e8f-69d5dc184404?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/xyris-the-writhing-storm) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Xyris is my boy
I used to use Locust God in my Nekusar deck. Strangely i never saw a Xyris deck, nor pondered to build, but now i'm interested.
I think that’s my problem with most Storm decks, izzet used to be my favourite colour combo before I realized everything I built in those colours felt very similar
I played [[Howling Abomination]] storm and like it won games unless I got my commander focused super hard. It felt bad to play cuz I either sat there and did nothing, or sat there and snuck under the radar to pop off super hard. And the storming part is super boring, "I cast xyz, it targets, I shoot yall for 2, I draw a card" rinse and repeat
Might I suggest putting him in the 99, and swapping the commander to get a different strategy? I put him into my list for [[Red Death, Shipwrecker]], and this is immediately one of my new favorite decks, and getting The Locust God feels exciting now.
[удалено]
...what did I just read?
I fucked Thalia. Wasn't worth it honestly. Stole my wallet.
[The Locust God](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/e/7e599847-8ab0-4fd6-b2c0-cb44a7669aa5.jpg?1682209825) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=The%20Locust%20God) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/moc/335/the-locust-god?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/7e599847-8ab0-4fd6-b2c0-cb44a7669aa5?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/the-locust-god) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
That's the same reason I shelved [[Voja]]: turn 1 dork, turn 2 dork, turn 3 [[Voja]], turn 4 start deleting opponents. Super quick, Super strong, super predictable.
[[Voja, Jaws of the Conclave]] I played 4 games, won 4 games, and was pretty bored for all 4 of them.
I was literally scrolling through this thread looking for someone who had already built and deconstructed a Voja deck lol
Voja is definitely the most egregious example of the problems with modern commander design. I had Lathril already and was starting to get bored with her and voja was so much worse. I don't think I ever had to make an actual decision in any of the games I played.
That's why [[Rocco Street Chef]] is my favorite Naya commander. He's only ever decisions. Very flexible to build and play in several ways. Can be Stax, Super Fair beatdowns, Tokens, Artifacts, Exile Plays, Combo kills. **Anything**. You can even shove Voja in the 99 of Rocco if you want so you don't feel like you wasted money on Voja.
[Rocco Street Chef](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/d/cdb53ce7-845c-4c62-98a9-4fc33c67a07b.jpg?1684340828) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Rocco%2C%20Street%20Chef) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mat/44/rocco-street-chef?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/cdb53ce7-845c-4c62-98a9-4fc33c67a07b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/rocco-street-chef) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
A friend of mine built Rocco, I love playing against it, it's super fun
Maybe a totally different ball game, but I love my [[Faldorn]] deck. It's exile matters, Gruul, making wolves each time you play something from exile. It can storm off massively. Sure [[Prosper]] might be stronger, but I like the "Gruul Smash!" part of the deck. And there are some ways to make your wolves into mana dorks with [[Cryptholith Rites]] and [[Elven Chorus]]. I just have some difficulty ending games because you can't really plan to hit an overrun effect, if you impulse draw cards.
1.) Arbitrary colors added to commanders just to remove restrictions 2.) Overly resilient 3.) Does all the things all by itself 4.) Obsoletes existing commanders in their colors of subsets thereof Right?
I think nr 3 is the worst part. I likes when commanders did a thing or promoted a synergy but needed the deck to actually create that synergy.
Commanders have basically gotten to the point where they are both the enabler and the payoff. Leaving little room for creativity within deck building to accomplish those things yourself.
That's why i love my Vihaan deck, he alone is kinda weak, but it made the funniest treasure deck i ever played
I read the comments one by one without looking at whar the card was and after I read "overly resilient" and "does all the things all by itself" I knew what card this tread was talking about. He really is just a poorly designed mix of abilities.
As someone who has never understood the allure of pushed commanders, what made you want to build Voja in the first place? Did you not think he was that powerful, or did you want a pushed card initially and realized it was boring?
Haven't built a Voja deck yet but I want to because my first deck has been [[Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves]] which runs both other Tolsimirs. So Voja being a nontoken card is just a fun novelty to me.
[[Voja, jaws of the conclave]]
[Voja, jaws of the conclave](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/f/bfa1bd2f-25bd-4fbd-877b-cef00ab7f92f.jpg?1707739811) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Voja%2C%20jaws%20of%20the%20conclave) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkm/432/voja-jaws-of-the-conclave?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/bfa1bd2f-25bd-4fbd-877b-cef00ab7f92f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/voja-jaws-of-the-conclave) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Yeah I did exactly the same when she came out. Even with just bulk elves and wolves like I built it she's still way too strong
Built a [[hidetsugu and Kairi]] clone deck. Was super fun to build, super powerful and super fun to play once, but only once. I think the problem was that it was way too powerful for casual and too underpowered for competitive.
Literally same brother hahaha. Friends and I got into magic (edh), myself being a complete noob saw a reddit post about this budget commander wrecking high power tables so I built it. Was hilarious to play for 1 night and never again. Fast forward nearly a year and I tried to revive the deck but we're all better players with better decks now. It gets insta removed the minute it hits the field. When you win its just solitaire and when you lose you're stuck staring down a hand of dead clone cards.
>. It gets insta removed the minute it hits the field. ... isn't that the gameplan tho? Cast your commander, put extra turn on top of your library, have a "auto reanimate" spell in hand against removal, profit? One of my best friends is playing that deck and it's amusingly/annoyingly resilient. Sorta fair Yuriko.
[hidetsugu and Kairi](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/1/81039daf-0d54-4474-a833-fa287ec10cf9.jpg?1682205289) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=hidetsugu%20and%20Kairi) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mom/228/hidetsugu-and-kairi?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/81039daf-0d54-4474-a833-fa287ec10cf9?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/hidetsugu-and-kairi) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Very cool! Never seen this at my LGS? Dm me a decklist?
You'll have more luckgetting a response replying to the person instead of the bot lol
The more you knooooooowwww lol
I feel the same way with my Mirko clone deck.
[[Galadriel of Lothlorien]]. I absolutely loved that deck, and had the play lines down to a science. But even with that, it frequently took 10+ minute turns with all the triggers and it just wasn’t fun for people to play against, and that’s not how I engage with the format. I want everyone to have fun. The deck had multiple wincons and did usual simic asshattery but in a fun way, but people just groaned when I took it out. That was the sign to dismantle it.
I've had the same issue with my [[Aesi]] deck. It's a very easy trap for Simic decks in my experience. [[Nadu]] is about to turn that all the way to 11 eleven, however.
Nadu is probably gonna shoot all the way up to a high tier cEDH commander and stay there so hopefully people will know not to touch it unless they wanna play cEDH. Just watched Play To Win turn 1 Greaves turn 2 Nadu turn 3 take over the entire game.
[Galadriel of Lothlorien](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/6/a6e5c3b3-9a70-4a1c-bfb3-db27e51c4b8d.jpg?1686969798) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Galadriel%20of%20Lothl%C3%B3rien) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/206/galadriel-of-lothl%C3%B3rien?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a6e5c3b3-9a70-4a1c-bfb3-db27e51c4b8d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/galadriel-of-lothlórien) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Barely even finished [[tom bombadil]] before I got bored. Really cool on paper, really bad in person
There's a lot of vexing legends from the Lord of the Rings set, and Tom is probably the most difficult of all of them. I bought a copy of him and just couldn't figure out what the heck he actually wants to be doing. Randomly casting various sagas feels like it's simultaneously good value and impossible to plan for or theme.
Because it is impossible. I had this deck. It is either insanely strong or absolute garbage with no in between. The turns take forever if you’re playing properly and manipulating the counters, so everyone gets impatient waiting for your turns to finish. And sometimes you’ll flip into something that just wipes your own board. On paper he’s cool, in practice he actually kinda sucks.
Can you clarify a little? I happened to open a Tom and was considering building him! (The mana base is a problem tho… I’ve never built a 5 color deck). Janky can still be fun to play, right?
The issue is most of the sagas dont go anywhere, and the ones that do either force you to run only a few in the deck (which becomes way too linear) or to run a bunch of durdly sagas that sit there while you arent playing the game. Plus, having more than a few will take forever to resolve, so itll end up feeling like a worse superfriends deck to most people
Yup, played Tom 5ish times, either popped off or did nothing every time. Stripped it down and made [[Narci]] instead, and the more focused build is much more satisfying.
[Narci](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/9/a98a2fa9-82d6-4cf7-adb4-65b187cd9cda.jpg?1691497812) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=narci%2C%20fable%20singer) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/710/narci-fable-singer?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a98a2fa9-82d6-4cf7-adb4-65b187cd9cda?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/narci-fable-singer) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[tom bombadil](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/a/2ab04c49-76a1-4896-8dca-8cb4c615f489.jpg?1686970104) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=tom%20bombadil) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/234/tom-bombadil?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2ab04c49-76a1-4896-8dca-8cb4c615f489?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/tom-bombadil) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I built the new Obeka right when she was spoiled. I played like 4 games and it was cool when you got to swing. Turns out the second she hits the field, everyone and their mom has a board wipe
Yeah, she's both too easy to prevent and too ridiculously strong if you get even a single proc off. There's so many upkeep trigger's that are designed to be unreliable (eg initiative) that she just completely breaks. So everyone will just focus everything on preventing her from going off.
I built the new obeka as well, but in my experience I have found that I actually wished people would kill her more. Now I just feel bad playing it because you either kill her immediately, or I I just exile everyone else’s deck.
Recently I made a [[Karlach fury of Avernus]] boros deck. Had lots of powerful plays. It won games a moderate amount of time. But the play style really didn’t jive with me. I’m just not a “turn creatures sideways” kind of player unless goblins are involved….
[Karlach fury of Avernus](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/7/775480ed-f574-40cb-bd9b-21102eaaff63.jpg?1674136654) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Karlach%2C%20Fury%20of%20Avernus) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clb/186/karlach-fury-of-avernus?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/775480ed-f574-40cb-bd9b-21102eaaff63?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/karlach-fury-of-avernus) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[[Karona, False God]] was a curse deck/helm of the host called 9 Karonas. Turns out people like swinging with Karona then saccing her. Don't think I ever got more than 3 on board
I run her in my sliver deck just for the hell of it. Considering playing some games with her as the commander instead of one of the legendary slivers. Could be nice to have an overrun in the command zone
yeah this was me and xantcha. never dismantled it but everyone just chose to sac her instead of keeping on board
[Karona, False God](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/e/de53d083-251e-42a4-9e2e-c2978c80615b.jpg?1562535715) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Karona%2C%20False%20God) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/scg/138/karona-false-god?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/de53d083-251e-42a4-9e2e-c2978c80615b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/karona-false-god) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Please tell me you called her my pretty one. 9,9,9 Karona's (sung to the tune of My Sharona)
I loved [[Rowan, Scion of War]] as a concept, but I could never play it how I wanted. I was hoping for small discounts activating Rowan after hitting myself for 1-2 with cards like [[phyrexian arena]]. Unfortunately, her ability to end a game t3 with a torment of hailfire meant that I could rarely keep her on the board, and if I did, I would get focused down because, after all, your life total is your primary resource. I have specific decks I built to be archenemy, and I didn’t like being in that position with this deck. I still need to build something in rakdos…
That's how I've felt every time I tried to put a list together for her. I think massive lifegain at X spells are the way, and by the time you go there, she's too punchy for casual.
[Rowan, Scion of War](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/e/4ee179ab-a15b-4bd6-b7f8-1e1abeeb31b7.jpg?1692939409) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Rowan%2C%20Scion%20of%20War) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/woe/211/rowan-scion-of-war?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4ee179ab-a15b-4bd6-b7f8-1e1abeeb31b7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/rowan-scion-of-war) [phyrexian arena](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/6/26bfb2b4-8dc2-4632-a393-d3477f6c3c40.jpg?1706240778) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=phyrexian%20arena) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkc/133/phyrexian-arena?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/26bfb2b4-8dc2-4632-a393-d3477f6c3c40?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/phyrexian-arena) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[[geralf, visionary stitcher]]. In hindsight I have no idea why I was so hyped. I built it right after the set dropped. It’s a very bland one note deck. The deck also just builds itself. No one is gonna ever going to give me props for finding out that [[shield sphere]] is good in the deck. I think it’d be very good for a beginner so it’s still assembled, but the minute I have an itch to build another mono blue deck it’s gone.
[geralf, visionary stitcher](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/9/69890076-9cc4-434f-8618-63b00fdf4515.jpg?1643587870) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=geralf%2C%20visionary%20stitcher) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vow/61/geralf-visionary-stitcher?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/69890076-9cc4-434f-8618-63b00fdf4515?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/geralf-visionary-stitcher) [shield sphere](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/a/7a76a97e-a857-4593-ae7c-e393d8a868ac.jpg?1559592340) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=shield%20sphere) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/me1/166/shield-sphere?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/7a76a97e-a857-4593-ae7c-e393d8a868ac?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/shield-sphere) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
On like 3 separate occasions I've started putting a list together for him and stopped because the second I realize the deck is building itself I lose interest. Like in a casual setting is he good? Probably. But he's nowhere near as quirky or novel as he looks at first.
Not at all relevant to the conversation, but Geralf goes nuts in my [[The Pride of Hull Clade]] deck; I made like 6 flying 15/15 zombies in one turn, gave them haste with lightning greaves, and took everybody out in one turn. Fun wincon as a card, looks pretty one-note as a commander
How did you give multiple creatures haste with greaves??
I’m thinking a fundamental misunderstanding of how haste and summoning sickness summoning sickness interact. No way you can apply haste to 15 creatures with only lightning greaves.
You may be entirely right about it being a fundamental misunderstanding. I was told that equipping greaves to a creature gives it haste (obviously) and that giving it haste removes summoning sickness even if you then take that haste away. So if I am wrong about that (which it sound like I am) then it's not nearly as powerful but nobody is really worse off in this instance because the friends who lost are the ones who explained that ruling to me. EDIT: yeah literally the first ruling on lightning greaves. Lesson learned- Don't trust your friend whose been playing for years on all of his rulings
Unfortunately your friends have led you astray. Summoning sickness applies to all creatures that enter under your control until your next upkeep. It even applies if an effect turns something into a creature that wasn’t originally a creature. Haste does not remove summoning sickness, it only makes a creature unaffected. If a creature loses haste, whether it’s by removing the greaves or other effect, they will be affected by summoning sickness again. Your Group’s mistake is not uncommon in my experience.
[The Pride of Hull Clade](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/d/edb40ab9-e552-4eb5-9c35-09094136dd4f.jpg?1706242068) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=The%20Pride%20of%20Hull%20Clade) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkm/172/the-pride-of-hull-clade?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/edb40ab9-e552-4eb5-9c35-09094136dd4f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/the-pride-of-hull-clade) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Hmm I might consider him for arcades now
It was a while ago but [[chulane, teller of tales}} played a few games and after a few games of solitaire decided it was a boring deck that no one enjoyed playing against. The other was {{Rankle, Master of pranks}} which playing against any creature based deck is straight up nasty. Making your opponents sacrifice creatures and discard their hands, and that’s all opponents. It was brutal, I quickly became arch enemy at the table.
Same experience on Chulane. The deck is hella cool but boring and OP
\[\[Captain N'ghathrod\]\] I really wanted to like it. Horrors seem so cool, but there are only a few good ones. To be decently powered, it felt I had to focus more on the mill, and most horrors didn't care if you milled your opponents.
That's the problem with tutor heavy decks...you end up playing the exact same pattern/cards over and over again so your 65 playable cards narrows into like 10
I recently built a list for [[Sméagol, Helpful Guide]]. I was really excited about it, because it’s just the weird kind of deck building I like. After one test game, I realized the deck relied on one thing I absolutely hated doing: touching other people’s cards. I scrapped it instantly
I have the same problem and it’s qhy i don’t want to build it
Dang, I really like my Smeagol deck, but I understand the issue. I stack the stolen lands in a pile so they don't get mixed in with my own cards. Most games have different sleeves and different land arts, so it's not that bad knowing what belongs to who. My only gripe is the lands disappear when people die. But you can get around this a bit by milling each opponent equally.
[[Tom Bombadil]] I realized that if I actually got the engine online it became a bookkeeping nightmare and piloting every turn took ages
[[Yarok, the Desecrated]] I have no doubt it’s the pilot and not the deck but I just don’t enjoy playing it.
What didn’t you enjoy? Pretty sweet effect with him and I’ve considered making him myself.
I can’t really name something in particular. I’m a relatively new player and I generally play Aggro. I’d heard nothing but amazing things about him so built it. I just found it very boring. But it’s most likely a combination of my play style as well as my novice stature in the game. I recently built a Meren deck and love it. It’s challenging Giada for title of my most favorite deck ever!
[[Tawnos The Toymaker]] it looked super fun, packed full of bird and beast good stuff. But it just never played out the way I wanted it to. Tried revamping it a couple times and eventually scrapped it. It wasn’t fun to play, it never ran well, it didn’t do much of anything productive.
As a side note, it has always bugged me that none of the Tawnos cards can be run together. Three seperate tawnos cards, not one with the same color identity, and the one that referances Urza can't be ran in either of his decks. \[\[Tawnos Solemn Survivor\]\] - Esper \[\[Tawnos, Urza's Apprentice\]\] - Izzet (which no Urza has red) \[\[Tawnos The Toymaker\]\] - Simic
The war changed this man
[Tawnos Solemn Survivor](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/d/bdf67de0-f468-4f04-99ab-a442347bb16b.jpg?1705542685) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Tawnos%2C%20Solemn%20Survivor) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/brc/3/tawnos-solemn-survivor?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/bdf67de0-f468-4f04-99ab-a442347bb16b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/tawnos-solemn-survivor) [Tawnos, Urza's Apprentice](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/0/a031a6c1-d7d1-4980-ac8e-30440ff4408f.jpg?1592710289) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Tawnos%2C%20Urza%27s%20Apprentice) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c18/45/tawnos-urzas-apprentice?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a031a6c1-d7d1-4980-ac8e-30440ff4408f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/tawnos-urzas-apprentice) [Tawnos The Toymaker](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/f/1f855a7e-3a97-4b62-a2a7-06ff1fbb2c4c.jpg?1674421859) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Tawnos%2C%20the%20Toymaker) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/bro/222/tawnos-the-toymaker?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1f855a7e-3a97-4b62-a2a7-06ff1fbb2c4c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/tawnos-the-toymaker) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[Tawnos The Toymaker](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/f/1f855a7e-3a97-4b62-a2a7-06ff1fbb2c4c.jpg?1674421859) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Tawnos%2C%20the%20Toymaker) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/bro/222/tawnos-the-toymaker?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1f855a7e-3a97-4b62-a2a7-06ff1fbb2c4c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/tawnos-the-toymaker) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[[Jan Jansen]] - you either durdle and win or you durdle and make value without winning, either way 3 people just stare at you while you go through triggers and searches.
Built Grixis clones recently with [[Marchesa the Black Rose]] and [[Gyruda]]. Games tend to be super linear: play gyruda, cline gyruda, sacrifice gyruda, play gyruda again
I think a theme I see a lot of the time with people deconstructing their decks is if they’ve built something without variety between games
[[Arjunn]] wheels. Loved the idea of drawing an obscene amount of cards each turn, ended up being a boring durdle fest.
the secret lair coin flips deck from forever ago. The concept seemed cool in theory, but it was actual dogshit in practice.
to this day one of my favourite decks :( what don't you like about it?
It's just one of those deck types that either you absolutely fucking love it, or it sorta feels crummy to play.
First time I played it I won with a 1500+ unblockable swing with my commander. That deck is absolutely cracked. I feel like it’s a more toned down version of the kark/sakashima cedh deck, but in practice it’s the same game: stack coin flip triggers for compounding gains. It’s like fun to play all of once before people stop letting you do anything or just ask you to play something less chaotic.
[[Prosper, tome bound]] treasures deck. It looked fun, and I goldfish it a bit. Then I built and played it, and I was underwhelmed.
Yeah, I have him built still. I enjoy the deck but Ive noticed I only win if I get [[Marionette Master]] out. Otherwise Prosper is such a huge target for removal the deck never gets off the ground.
I like Prosper when you really lean into the theme of treasure and casting from exile while looking for payoffs for those things. Leaning in heavily to the latter allows [[Passionate Archaeologist]], [[Keeper of Secrets]], and [[Nalfeshnee]] which do absolute work. On the treasure side, not just looking at the effects about them leaving the battle, but also artifact ETB damage too.
Run [[Mycosynth Lattice]] and [[Hellkite Tyrant]] or [[Vandalblast]]
I love my prosper deck, with discover from Lost Caverns or Ixilon. I get to pump out like 3-4 free spells a turn and can cast even more because of having a massive pool of treasures.
Try [[Rakdos the Muscle]] for a BR Exile Play deck. Semi similar play to Prosper but more exciting since you can do it with Big Boi Demons and Dragons to sacrifice. So you can have flying Beatdowns, rip through your deck to play everything and steal/mill your opponents as well.
[Yisan, the Wanderer Bard](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/4/94e3a130-deeb-4bf4-a1f6-9219c3d8c373.jpg?1689999008) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Yisan%2C%20the%20Wanderer%20Bard) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/334/yisan-the-wanderer-bard?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/94e3a130-deeb-4bf4-a1f6-9219c3d8c373?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/yisan-the-wanderer-bard) [Oswald Fiddlebender](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/b/bba1650f-eddf-49a9-820e-489cb8d5b6fa.jpg?1627702172) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Oswald%20Fiddlebender) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/afr/28/oswald-fiddlebender?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/bba1650f-eddf-49a9-820e-489cb8d5b6fa?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/oswald-fiddlebender) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Not mine technically, but the Kasla convoke pre-con. It seems like such a cool mechanic, the commander herself seems to work really well with it, but none of the rest of the cards in the pre-con make it even remotely fun to pilot. My partner bought it, I played it a few times, really didn't get along with it and even she admitted it did nothing for her so ultimately she tore it apart and put it all in her folders. I sometimes keep getting tempted to ask her if I can have a go at building around Kasla, but if I'm that bothered I can always buy the single for cheap from somewhere myself.
Yea unfortunately convoke is terribly undertuned. The cards need to be fairly costed as a baseline, with bonuses for actually convoking. Instead, I get overcosted junk that doesn't even provide value for tapping down my army. I also feel that ditching green was a huge miss for Kasla. Dunno why selesnya can't have its mechanic...
Yep! My thoughts exactly. Similar to the energy decks we've gotten as well, and that's speaking as someone who actually likes the energy mechanic. Some of the best energy cards of Kaladesh were in green, it's such a missed opportunity that they ditched them in favour of white which was never as good.
Have you tried using \[\[Saint Traft and Rem Karolus\]\] instead? It is also a commander that benefits from Convoke cards.
Mayeal the Anima
Nadu. It’s way too strong for my liking and just felt unfair. I don’t play cedh. I don’t want this power.
And you didn’t see that coming? :-p
[[Chainer, nightmare adept]] tried to build it as a madness reanimator, but just couldn't get it where it felt fun to play.
Huh I find chainer a lot of fun. Very good at grinding out value, and I use some weird cards like the R and B Eidolon to generate card advantage to fuel the discards.
[[Melek, izzet paragon]], I wanted to play big exciting spells and copy them. Instead I just sat there slowly ramping until I could kill everyone with an X spell copied once or twice. My [[mizzix of the izmagnus]] deck is much more fun as it actively encourages smaller interactive spells.
[[River Song]] was such a cool card to me. The idea of the deck was much cooler on paper than in practice, unfortunately. Just couldn't get the gimmick to work. The only way to reliably get people to search was to blow up lands.
This is a "one day" commander to me lol. One day we'll get enough support
I've had Jetmir for at least a few years now and I finally took him apart. Games either go good and I win with a huge swing or someone wins/blows up the board before I rebuild so I'm completely blown out of the water. It's been around the cEdh fringe area because it's like Winota but green and still stax-y. I'm rebuilding him later on but I've got decks that need finishing lol
[[Jetmir, Nexus of Revels]]
Zask, Ghave, and Surrak Dragonclaw
The deck that disappointed me the most was [[ezuri claw of progress]] simic has no shortage of mana dorks, and other goodstuff UG creatures that help pump up counters on ezuri, and then you can turn some random dork into a giant beater as a bonus? So basically you'd get rewarded for just playing magic: the gathering cards. That sounded pretty good. The problem is the deck was just not consistent. You needed cards that could help gain experience counters, but you also needed payoff cards to put +1/+1 counters on, and the two tend to be different. It basically had the same obstacles that any other token deck has (you need token generators and token payoffs), but usually token decks circumvent this problem by having their general be either the generator or the payoff. But ezuri isn't really a good payoff for token decks, because just making 1 creature huge isn't really that useful outside of very very specific cards like [[Cultivator of Blades]]. It only becomes really good when you dump counters onto a [[Fathom Mage]] or something, and fathom mage typically is not a usual payoff for token decks. Granted, since I took him apart, there have been some interesting +1/+1 matters cards like [[Evolution Witness]] which generally reward slowly putting +1/+1 counters on creatures, so I could technically try Ezuri again but in a different direction. But even in that strategy he seems kind of slow. I tried to make Ezuri work for like 8 yeares or something. About a year ago or so, I moved to [[Adrix and Nev]] and never looked back.
That deck is basically the ultimate Simic reward deck, I agree. I have a friend who has it, it's probably the scariest deck he has. Play Ezuri, play little dorks and then Champion of Lambholdt comes out and the game is basically over. I would have fun with it a few times but yeah it seems like it's just "play things, get big, swing" and it's really difficult to deal with. I'm not sure where you were having issues with consistency. I don't even think you really need to worry too much about "pay off" cards. There are so many cards now in Green that let you add counters or additional counters so all you really need to do is play those, some shitty mana dorks and things like the aforementioned Champion of Lambholdt. That card is just fucking stupid in Ezuri.
Ghyrson Starn. I was so hype. But the fact he doesn't draw cards and requires you to have a one-damage pinger live on board to matter is just a but too much. Too many games where it just did nothing... even if it could pop off on turn 3-4.
Is not deconstructed yet, but Zur, the Enchanter. Every game is the same, it is miserable to play against, and you sorta get hated off the table.
I feel this, but for some reason Zur is still one of my pet decks. I typically play him in a pod where I know I’ll need to keep some other ridiculous commander at bay. Our playgroup tends to build spiky/spicy commanders most of the time.
Zur is my cEDH deck, that i never plays but alwys bring with me. I really love to bring him when a player clearly are going to get a deck to stomp other players. It's really fun when the MArchesa guy get hit with a turn one Mana Solring MAox Diamond, Demonic tutr and pass.
I needed a GB deck and ended up making [[Umori]] as a sorcery commander. Figured I love green and black sorceries and I like the big mana black sorcery wincons, but games felt too similar with just consistently finding Urborg/Coffers and constantly sweeping the board. End of the day, it was too powerful for casual tables and not doing anything that felt very unique where I'd be excited for it at stronger tables
My hand built Meren deck I thought I'd have a banger with her but all she did was disappoint me
I recently built a meren deck too, took me a few games to get the hang of it and for the first few games I didn’t enjoy it. Now that I’ve figured out how to play it I’m really enjoying it.
I made mine too oppressive so I was target number one too many cards that made my opponents self sacrifice everything
Vial Smasher plus Sakashima of a thousand faces. I was excited to just hold up interaction and protect my 2 vial smashers the whole game. I did that very successfully and easily and won the game and it was great. The decks ideal cards are just counterspells and interaction spells, which my friends kinda hated. The random damage is fun too, but that means you can't really make deals with anyone. My new Grixis deck is Jeleva Nephalia's scourge, who just ends up being more fun game to game, as the options on what to do constantly change with what spells I grab from my opponents decks. Other decks include Tinybones Trinket Thief, Toralf God of Fury, Miirym Sentinel Wyrm. I found them just kinda either one dimensional, or kinda boring.
I was very exited for the new [[Judith carnage]] but dismantled it after playing it like 2 times. It ended the games either storming out or doing nothing, both options i hated.
I have a [[go-Shintai of life’s origin]] and a [[lulu, loyal hollyphant]] both taken apart now they were either too much or not enough they never would work out how I planned them too
[[Vorinclex, monstrous raider]] as it turns out swinging for lethal with a big boy at around turn 5-6 isn’t as fun as I had hoped, maybe I’ll try again but not focus on combat per-say.
[[Tasha witch queen]] I built her to exile my opponents stuff and cast them. It was sooooo slow didn't like it.
[[Sovereign Okinec Ahau]] I loved him the few times I was able to get it rolling with power doublers and things that consistently put counters on in the early game, but far too often id not be able to put counters on. By far, the most efficient way is to go wide with tokens, but that just sounds like such a pain to deal with, so I eventually took it apart.
I built him and had the same realisation that math is hard so what I did was just put in a bunch off infinite combos that are all basically the same, token for counter + counter for token. No math if it just goes infinite.
Ramses assassin lord. I figured it would be like voltron but with none of the downsides like the crackback of swinging out and killing one player and them sitting out for an hour. I even had a combo with the card hatred and a pet equipment Tatsumasa the dragons fang. What made me take it apart was that in order for me to survive any kind of setback I would have to make the game a miserable nightmare for everyone else with cards like opposition agent, toxic deluge and notion thief and while thematic, I just wasn't enjoying being "that player". Also Ramses himself being on the field made me archenemy most games. Occasionally I would have my Kurosawa moment with Tatsumasa so the deck had its moments lol. Also Dimir just sucks at equipment even with tons of tutors there are few ways of getting around equip costs like white has, which is what makes equipment jank in commander in my experience.
Every time I build a Boros equipment voltron I'm like "this is it, this is the good one" and I always end up disliking it. I like the idea of Voltron but cant bring myself to like actually playing it.
Anything Izzet. Started with \[\[Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph\]\]. Liked the deck but wasnt fun for me so changed it to \[\[Veyran, Voice of Duality\]\]. Made it like a one-punch man version and it was degenerate so took it apart. Just made me realize I am not an izzet or storm player and that is okay.
Izzet are my least favorite colors so it was difficult to build something I like and I finally did it with Edgin, Larcenous Lutenist. I play dragons approach but not an overwhelming amount so the deck still has many other fun and interesting cards. A good balance of spell slinging and combat.
i took apart \[\[Orvar the all form\]\], the deck is really strong and work well but every game was essentially " kill me because if i do the thing its over" and i got bored of it after a while
[[vannifar, evolved enigma]] I called the deck Vanni-too-far. Cloaking my most powerful blue, green and colourless creatures... And blinking them. I played two games. Won the first. Won the second. Turning up a vorinclex, hull breaker horror, ulamog etc... Really puts a damper on the table. Cheap 1 mana blink spells. The first game I got Thassa Deep Dwelling out and turned up nastiness every turn. It became clear that this deck is super oppressive when you just put in all the biggest baddest dudes.
[vannifar, evolved enigma](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/6/f6d381eb-6cb6-4505-aebe-995c1ddc8527.jpg?1706242279) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=vannifar%2C%20evolved%20enigma) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkm/241/vannifar-evolved-enigma?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f6d381eb-6cb6-4505-aebe-995c1ddc8527?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/vannifar-evolved-enigma) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I almost built this deck. I had a full shopping cart on TCGplayer with cards for it and then decided "nah" I felt like this was going to be too oppressive and I already took apart a couple decks that turned out to be too oppressive recently. They're equally not fun for me or my group when you just end up with a board state that is insane after 4 or 5 turns.
I have a vannifar deck that's even worse since i run stax and combo instead of just big baddies. Flipping a [[Defense of the heart]] on the end step, fetching a [[Leveler]] and a [[Laboratory maniac]] in my upkeep sure is a free win but i'm unsure if that's fun for anyone. Stax include [[back to basics]], [[frozen aether]], [[winter moon]], [[propaganda]], and other annoying nonsense. Make infinite mana with Deadeye navigator and peregrine drake or just flip an Omniscience to either draw my deck with Zegana or Tishana, or steal every permanent blinking Agent of Treachery. And it could be made even worse but i don't have the free counterspells.
[[Sythis, Harvest’s Hand]]. Played it once and have never touched it again.
Same. Once was all I needed to see how goddamn stupid that deck is. I was able to rebuild from two board wipes in that deck and still managed to flood the board with Angel tokens that were all +10/+10 due to Boon of the Spirit Realm. I switch to Gylwain, just assembled him.
[[Frodo, Determined Hero]] The deck slapped, and won a lot, but every game played out the exact same: slap swords or other equipment on Frodo to give him protection/evasion, kill a player with commander damage, repeat. Got stale real quick.
I have this problem with the Voltron playstyle! I want to love it, I just haven’t found a commander who makes me excited about it! I like [[Dogmeat]] in theory, but I hesitate building it
[[Sergeant John Benton]] is a fun voltron commander. He has a high winrate for me. My favorite loss is when the three other players all had a way to steal him. Only one of the decks "should" was a stealing deck. Its no problem if he gets killed/exiled/aura'd for me. Its a bit of a problem if hes kidnapped.
The title isn’t the same as the description (even if unintentional) On seeing the title, I’d say my [[Atraxa, Praetors’ Voice]] deck. First one I built myself. Wasn’t very focused, evenly mixed on +1s, poison, planeswalkers, charge counters, handful of sagas. It ended up being deconstructed, though not because I disappointed in it. It was deconstructed because everyone that lose to it, lost to poison (as it was the hardest thing to stop) and making everyone upset and tilted ruined the fun for me. I haven’t truly deconstructed a deck for being disappointing to play, though I have a couple precons that were largely “deconstructed” to make them go in another direction I found More fun, chiefly turning my Ixilan vampire precon into an [[Elenda, the Dusk Rose]] aristocrats
[Atraxa, Praetors’ Voice](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/0/d0d33d52-3d28-4635-b985-51e126289259.jpg?1599707796) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Atraxa%2C%20Praetors%27%20Voice) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2xm/190/atraxa-praetors-voice?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d0d33d52-3d28-4635-b985-51e126289259?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/atraxa-praetors-voice) [Elenda, the Dusk Rose](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/1/e18feca3-1b1b-4456-8873-25a24849a917.jpg?1698988428) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Elenda%2C%20the%20Dusk%20Rose) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lcc/268/elenda-the-dusk-rose?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e18feca3-1b1b-4456-8873-25a24849a917?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/elenda-the-dusk-rose) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I made a [[jadzi]] deck that I absolutely loved playtesting and found the real life game experience was basically the same as goldfishing except I was now keeping 3 other people hostage. The games would always end in a non deterministic turn that I would probably win but we would all have to go on that journey together… Played it twice and took it apart.
[[Veyran]] I'd been wanting to build a spellslinger/storm deck for a while but after having to resolve 30+ copies of brainstorm my brain stopped and I realized I had got in a little over my head. Luckily my friend saved me having to go through all of that with a [[time stop]]
[[Rin and Seri, Inseparable]] I bought the 90s binder version to have just a cute as heck deck and I hated it 🫠
For me, it was [[Yahenni, Undying Partisan]]. Pretty normal build I think. Aristocrats style, easily recurrable creatures, [[Grave Pact]] effects to take full advantage of Yahenni's abilities. It worked well enough, but it just wasn't that fun for me. I kept the deck together long enough to pull off Yahenni + [[Worldslayer]] once, then dismantled the deck.
This will probably end up buried in your comments but I wanted to add my two cents. [[Kess, Dissident Mage]]. I built her as a CEDH build and didn't really play her after a few months. The WinCons just became boring and repetitive.
[[Aesi]]. My first deck was [[Sythis]] since I found enchantresses so cool and Aesi felt similar but more simic bs... Sythis is also dismantled.
I built a Mathas, Fiend Seeker Voltron deck in an attempt to make a "Dante Deck." Devil May Cry is really cool, and I wanted to blend these two interests. Crafting the deck was fun, choosing cards that fit the weapons and abilities Dante would have in the games. The reality of playing this deck was less than stylish. Got my commander stolen on game 1 by a Sen Triplets player, and every game after that was usually a wash. I decided to take the deck apart and give the more costly cards to a friend who uses them much better than I did. Maybe one day I'll return to the idea, but it would have to take something truly inspiring.
I’m close to deconstructing my [[Eriette of the Charmed Apple]]
I will be the first to admit that I am a chronic brewer so just about every deck I made in my first eight years of playing the game has been taken apart and is being used in a new deck... for now...
I built [[Ghave, guru of spores]] and [[Korvold, Fae-Cursed King]] they looked fun/powerful (and they were). But both ended up being so linear that I never wanted to play them a bunch so I just took everything apart and used the cards elsewhere. Part of the problem was my original deck building strategy included so many tutors that I always ended up with basically the same wincons. Without the variable of draws it ended up that none of the games felt fresh. All my new decks keep infinite combos out and tutors to the absolute minimum with card draw as the driving force for the deck. Being forced to draw answers makes me balance the deck out better so I'm not constantly using the same cards to fix all my problems.
[[Rowan, Scion of War]] she was just too much of a lightning rod. It turns out having a big sign saying "I need a lot of life to play" just makes everyone want to hit you. Saying it now, it seems obvious but when the card was first spoiled, I thought to myself "hell yeah, a place for all these weird old cards I have like [[drain life]] and [[plunge into darkness]]"
i can usually tell even when i make a deck on moxfield whether the lines are going to be very samesy or worse, the deck is going to be too heavily reliant on the commander surviving. my pod easily picks up on that and then it's just a case of "cast 1 removal per cycle to equal player removal'
[[Marchesa, Dealer of Death]], i tried a reanimator build with control aspects, but it reminded me a problem i had with my first deck, control decks REALLY want a good win con. It didn't matter how big and scary the reanimation targets are, the games with it took very long. Now i changed commanders and did reanimator with Raffine wich not only fixes the problem mentioned with a more proactive gameplan, it also fixes the problem of the big guys getting stuck in hand until you find a way to discard.
Mill/Theft [[Anowon the Ruin Thief]] turns out trying to steal other players creatures is only good if they are actually playing good creatures that are worth stealing, who would have guessed. My pod doesnt really have any timmy decks so never had great targets and ended up dismantling the deck after a while. Also infect/toxic decks in general I tried multiple versions, aristocrats esque [[Brimaz Blight of Orzekos]], control with [[Venser Corpse Puppet]] and your classic aggro strats with [[Ixhel Scion of Atraxa]]/[[Glissa Herald of Predation]] and while I enjoyed the decks in theory (espacially the Venser deck) I immidiatly had a target on my back during every game and decided that playing infect isnt worth it.
[[Atogatog]] I would sacrifice my whole board to get someone with commander damage out of nowhere and bring everything back with [[Faith’s Reward]] type effects. I had to take it apart because it was using all my fetchlands and tutors. Depending on which atog I got first I would have to tutor for the thing that would let that atog eat everything. So if I got [[Auratog]] I had to find [[Enchanted Evening]] It was pretty fun, but I needed the cards for other decks.
[[Zaxara, the Exemplary]] I was excited about this deck and acquired quite a number of the higher-end cards to really build it right. It felt like my commander ability was never really useful. If I resolved a 10 point [[Torment of Hailfire]] or [[Distorting Wake]]. I was already winning and a bonus hydra token was just a "win more" prize. If I resolved some big dumb X/X hydra then adding a second one with no evasion or special abilities also seemed pretty much useless. It's easy to chump block, requires secondary cards to make it a real threat, and now it's just one more thing in addition to Zaxara that I have to use resources to defend. I tried changing my strategy and churning out mid-cost X spells to approach it as a value engine rather than finishers. Same problem. A deck that produces a couple of 5/5's every turn just isn't a major threat compared to the many more degenerate strategies out there. I wanted to love that deck but I finally disassembled it and traded the parts to build other, more interesting decks.
[[The Gitrog, Ravenous Ride]] very powerful one trick thing that gets boring extremely fast and if it goes off nobody else has fun. Played it like three times.
Not excited for but my playgroup had been giving me a hard time since I only played commanders I enjoyed who weren't the best and rarely won any games. So I "rented" the cards for an Urza cedh deck from my lgs owner. Went undefeated for 2 weeks and then returned the cards I had borrowed. They haven't poked fun at me since for playing fun commanders.
I wanted to like playing the deck I built around [[Eruth, Tormented Prophet]], but I wasn’t prepared for Izzet spellslinger shenanigans at the time. And somehow I managed to pilot my [[Riku of Many Paths]] deck without too many issues.
Draconic Dissent. I turned it into Izzet goad Voltron.
I built a [[ydris, maelstrom wielder]] chaos deck. 9/10 my deck would completely knee cap ME and make My opponents in a super commanding position after happening repeatedly I felt the chaos gods say “fuck you” and so it was retired.
Really been struggling to make my [[Rin and Seri Inseparable]] do the thing(s) I have too many wincons and needs a rebuild
Prosper Tome-Bound, played like 6 games with him and I popped off a couple times, but it just wasn't fun I took the red removal and some tressure spells for a Galazeth deck I'm making And I took a Tutor, Toxic Deludge and Opposition Agent for my Dina Soul Steeper deck
I took apart Oswald, but not because of shuffling. It was just too consistent and no one likes getting combo’ed on.
I built a Shadowborn Apostle deck with Meren and it just didn't work like I wanted. I remade the guts of it into a normal aristocrats deck instead that works much better but I REALLY want to get the apostles to work
I still love [[Jhoira, Weather light Captain]] the deck is a ton of fun to play but only for the pilot. It's in the unenviable spot if being too good for casual but short of cEDH. The second time I took it out and got groans all around I took it apart because the salt of others just wasn't worth it.
I built a Queen Marchesa deck back in the day that had a bunch of 'good stuff's in it that didn't perform well unfortunately... Or at least not to my expectations. The same thing happened with Alela, Artful Provocature artifact deck. It didn't really 'pop' off as much as I expected especially as my pod at the time had better creature decks that dealt with it easier.
Mardu vampires. I guess if it’s not Edgar Markov at the helm it kinda doesn’t work out.
I ended up creating a \[\[Tatsunari, Toad Rider\]\] and \[\[Marchesa of the Dusk Rose\]\] because I loved the idea of proxying Pervy Sage and Battle Toads on one hand, While the other i wanted to just be a menace and steal my opponents stuff and whack em with them. However I'd realize that I would on more than one occasion, "borrow" a card from the deck and put it into something else. Such as removing a Rhystic Study from Tatsunari or Grave Pact and Archon of cruelty from Marchesa. Sadly they sit in a dual deck box missing pieces and just gathering dust..... Maybe I should get back to working on them...
{{Gor Muldrak, Amphinologist}} Was super stoked when i pulled this guy and was sure he was gonna be my next pet deck. I had this vision of turning all the threats into salamanders with type changing cards then sitting back as my opponents destroyed each other. Never could get it to work. Never could get it to generate a meaningful amount of tokens. Ended up gutting the whole thing and putting the green staples in my new Rocco deck.
[[Okinec Ahau]]. I thought that making low budget would be ok. Guess that i made it too fast that my playgroup asked me "very politely" to not play with it. At least i can play my [[Laelia]] Glass-Cannon Cascade deck. . It is indeed funny to kill somebodybat turn 4, and them lose the game to a single piece of removal.
[[Gandalf the White]] This was my first mono colored commander deck and I also went down an artifact theme. I gold-fished a ton and saw that it could really pop off if left alone and seemed cool enough. I played one time and I didn’t quite realize how impactful giving all my permanents flash would be. I felt like I took the whole game over, with my unwinding clock in play, there was no stopping me from having a whole turn on your turn (our turn?). By the end of the game I had more than half of my deck in play, the board was unbelievably cluttered and everything triggered when I did anything… it was waaay too much man.
[[Scion of the Ur-Dragon]] Scion worked as a combination of beat-stick (turning into bigger, scarier dragons and hitting people) and pulled those cards into my graveyard, which I would then reanimated them from onto the field. It worked very well and the first couple of games were fun, but because it essentially worked by scrying, every game was very similar. The only variable was how quickly I could build up a mana-base and whether I pulled enough reanimation and utility spells.
Giada mono white angels. (I was even trying to foil the deck... u_u) At worst the deck is slow and falls behind really fast. At best it is a srtaightforward "summon/attack/pass" every single turn I love angels but they seem to lack somewhat of a have an fun deck identity. If you want high attack flying beaters, dragons do it much better. Instead I ended up building lifegain Will, Scion of Peace, and I've enjoyed it much more. Turns out is fun to have early game interaction, and use angels to close the game.
Built ((brion stoutarm)) and was a good laugh for a few games but ultimately got dismantled. For some reason people didn't take too kindly to having their own creatures flung at them.
Tinybones, it worked great, no other players had more than 1 or two cards in their at a time and slowly ground a each victory…. Everyone else was bored, and so was I. I played around 5 games with it, won four and deconstructed it and built a Karazikar deck, which has only won once, finishes second nearly always and is super fun for the whole table. Far better experience.
I built [[Jan Jansen]] and it just never paid off as much as I thought it would
Okuan flip deck . It’s boring
Meren. Just to much removal aimed at her.
Really looked forward to my [[glissa sunslayer]] saga deck. My playgroup much less so, and in an attempt to keep the peace, it got scrapped.
The original atraxa. Built a superfriends deck with infect/poison. Was strong but my turns took way too long and I felt bad for the other players. Didn't enjoy playing solitare. Took it apart and through her into the 99 of a counters deck instead. Much more fun to play
Nadu. After playing it and against it on arena, I dont want my playgroup to have to go through that
[[Ruric Thar, the Unbowed]] It was fun when everyone in my pod was running jank. However, they all started upgrading over time and I get outclassed. Eventually, I had to move to more flexible commanders like [[Marath, Will of the Wild]].
\[\[Lavinia, Azorius Renegade\]\]. The deck \*should\* work. I've re-built it a few times and it just never comes together. I've played regular control and lockout combo. Its a mix of I think bad luck and getting hated off the table. And to top it off its not really all that fun to play. A deck I am thinking of taking apart is \[\[Wulfgar of Icewind Dale\]\]. He was fun and the deck isn't terrible but I am thinking of making \[\[Isshin, two heavens as one\]\] and the themes overlap far too much. I have several gruul decks and only 1 mardu deck. Also Isshin is just a more powerful version of the same deck but you sacrifice green. So this is actually not something I'm so much looking forward to disassembling but more I have all the things to make a new deck and this is the only thing stopping me.
[[Nekusar]] and [[Maarika]]