Most Powerful Old School Commanders | The Command Zone 583 | MTG EDH Magic Gathering

[@commandcast]

What’s your favorite Old School commander? Did we miss any synergies with your favorite old-bordered legend?

[@kurtisohlhausen1538]

Sliver Queen

[@moedark4390]

The Blind Seer

[@JohnnyBoy-wi4kn]

Bolas has been my guy since I started MTG!

[@stevengerhard4666]

I made an OG Bolas deck with all cards that are from 1999 or prior. It’s not the greatest deck, but so fun to play.

[@joshuamartinez6112]

Rasputin Dreamweaver! I play him as an etb synergy allowing me to play big scary eldrazis and other scary colorless spells.

[@ThorgisArcade]

I just started playing Magic again for the first time in fifteen years, so seeing cards that I used when I stared now being mentioned as Commanders was a treat.

[@z.scott.porter]

Welcome back.

[@timothyvandenberg2905]

Fun Fact: I spoke with Magic Artist Bryon Wackwitz at MagicCon Vegas (2022) and he confirmed that he intentionally made Angus Mackenzie specifically look like Tim The Enchanter from Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail. So, yes, that was on purpose. That's not just your eyes fooling you. :)

[@LuciusAmadeus21]

Sliver Queen is one of my favorite commanders, but with how expensive she is- I feel bad playing her, she’s become more of a collector piece for me

[@savannahlion3081]

Just play It ! That's what they're made for! 🤘🦁🤘

[@MaximBeatsMusic]

Maybe just get a cool proxy and keep the original in a binder.

[@iananelson8256]

@@MaximBeatsMusic yeah that's what I did.

[@nelsikegaming]

You own the card. Play it. I used to feel guilty for playing expensive cards but every card is expensive to someone. Play a $10 card and get a groan, play a $300 card and get a groan. Just play and ignore groans.

[@travismeyer1670]

Most people these days don't understand that you earn your money if you buy something you enjoy there should be no reason anyone should be jealous if your opponents want one they can set aside a dollar a day until they earn there own wizards has lost focus on that earning your game pieces makes then feel more satisfying to play never let anyone make you feel bad about something you've earned

[@BrodyTwice]

I have a chainer dementia master deck, my all time favorite, a captain sisay, and a hazezon Tamar deck, there's a lot of fun to be had with old school commanders

[@manasplained]

The fun thing you can use with the old elder dragons is assault suit so that they can’t be sacrificed or eon hub to skip upkeeps so you don’t have to pay the 3 each turn

[@pauldyson8098]

Reki (OG Kamigawa block) is my oldest commander (I've had it built for almost ten years) and still one of my best. Not quite old enough to make your cutoff (he's 2005) but he's held up well over the decades.

[@mofomiko]

What is it built around? Legends good stuff? How does it pilot? You've had it a long time, so it seems fun enough. Asking because i have one lying around, and im building a mono deck for each color, and so far, mono green is the most uninspiring to me

[@pauldyson8098]

@@mofomiko Basically, green legends "storm." Dana Roach of EDHRECast has a Reki deck and they've made a few videos on it. His Archidekt page has an. His list is pretty pricey but you can build Reki for super cheap and it'll still be solid. It's pretty simple/linear, but the deck snowballs and is resilient and rebuilds fast after wipes.

[@Flyboy245]

I’m so glad you included gilt-leaf archdruid. That’s my favorite druid. Before I got into commander, I made a modern deck based around that card Nicol bolas only has to deal damage 😂 That hua tuo tech is sweet haha

[@VagrantKing]

Hua Tuo was my first Monogreen commander deck many many years ago. I used to to play it as a Monogreen reanimator deck where I would mill myself and use him before my draw step to get a creature back and “reanimate” them so I could cast them again.

[@shadowstargaming7186]

I'm extremely surprised that when talking about Seton and how he wants Druids and card draw, you didn't mention one of the best card draw druids for the deck: Beast Whisperer! In case you guys forgot, HE'S A DRUID!

[@thriftypsgr]

ITS MERF!!!!!!! Heck yeah. Been a fan of merf since I saw him on the hakbul upgrade

[@Shikigami6]

I really like Maraxus of Keld. You can go so many routes like goblin or treasures. Just anything that spits out a lot of permanents. Very unique to have a Voltron style commander that wants you to go wide as a backup/resource

[@hermodnitter3902]

Love the old commanders! I currently have these: - Shauku, Endbringer (kill everything) - Soraya the Falconer (birds) - Phelddagrif (combo'y semi group hug) - Zirilan of the Claw (big red dragons) - Gabriel Angelfire (all white borders!) - Lady Caleria (archers) - Rohgahh of Kher Keep (hidden commander in my Prossh deck)

[@paytheonemtg]

Wanting to build a Nicol Bolas deck right now

[@GustavoAccorsi]

Please share

[@paytheonemtg]

@@GustavoAccorsi we might do that in an upcoming episode 🤗

[@Creature1024]

1:25:09 Roaming Throne would be so gross. Double the activated abilities!

[@Helios810]

Roaming Throne is only triggered abilities, so it wouldn’t work

[@Creature1024]

Ah yes, my bad.

[@valerieiglar-mobley4894]

Command Zone, I’m thrilled about the live game knights Friday at MagicCon Chicago, but when are you all doing signings? Do I need to get a badge for Saturday too? Are signings an extra ticket? The MagicCon event website is not clear, please help!

[@tahoth5866]

An important part of Merieke with those auras is you can untap her with the ability on the stack, allowing you to do it again, and again. The creatures won't die so you can steal 4-5 creatures at a time and keep them all rather than just killing them

[@bobbye4369]

I love these old commanders. It's nice to see some of the OGs get some love.

[@snakeman830]

I'm pretty sure the main reason you see the other legendary slivers so often compared to Sliver Queen is the price. $250 is a pretty big barrier for just the commander.

[@oneofthosebeebles]

Multani, Maro-Sorcerer is my favorite. Ramp him out and cast Last March of the Ents, or a Rishkar's Expertise + Psychosis Crawler. Big dumb green things with a pinch of grouphug. Using the same copy of Multani that I got as a kid.

[@literaturegeek1570]

My oldest Commander and also my first deck was Rubinia Soulsinger. I got the bant Precon from Commander 2013 and have recently reinstated her as the helm of the deck, even though the contents have changed over the years. She will always have a special place in my heart. 🥰

[@Superangeldemongirl]

I never realize promise of tomorrow worked with merieke like that! I'm definitely going to have to add that card to my deck :)

[@moedark4390]

me neither, i was instantly on tcg when i saw that.

[@tomatodragon8164]

Xiahou Dun, he has a lot of graveyard shenanigans he can pull. He’s also a horsy boy, so you can buff him and wipe out a player whenever.

[@themagicofmtg]

Captain Sisay is my pet deck. I've always loved it and it's the deck I've had together the longest. It's the second deck I built (after Niv Mizzet). I carry it around with me even though I don't play it very often as it's a very powerful deck.

[@alexandergartner8877]

Cerulean Wisps is basically a strict upgrade over Refocus in a Merieke deck. But why not run both?

[@AfroAtze]

I love the classics! I have recently built a full old border deck helmed by Ertai, the Corrupted, which is great fun. A cool feature is that the commander can be replaced and the deck just functions slightly different with another twist: 1.) Ertai, the Corrupted with repeatable counters backing the win condition up. Synergy pieces are untaps and enchantments 2.) Merieke Ri Berit with more board control, synergizes with untap 3.) Zur, the Enchanter synergizes with the enchantments and turbos the deck

[@hugmonger]

Merike: So with Aura/Free From The Reel she becomes a mass mind control spell. Tap put ability on stack, hold priority pay to untap, when untapped re-tap and repeat. Then of course if they try to regain their creatures hold up 1 mana to kill all of them

[@MrNzninja666]

Merieke and Intruder alarm if you don't like anyone to have creatures on the battlefield :D

[@typethe1316]

For Merieke, just play cards that give all your permanents indestructible (Avacyn, Angel of Hope).

[@Dekaar]

Back in the days (Era Mercadian masks) we had a saying, as Tempest block was largely gone but still seen pretty often... "how much mana does it cost to have flying, first strike, trample, can't be targeted by spells, has shadow, does not need to be tapped for attacking and can blow themselves up to give you directly? Yeah right. 2 Mana" - and then every sliver player near hearing it went into maniac laugh mode .... yeah... Sliver Queen was insane back in the day. Her ability is so simple but what happens after is basically a messy catastrophy gotta build sliver again with my 2 queens and overlords.

[@mooninites755]

Volrath the Fallen is actually a pretty underrated voltron commander. He's certainly not going to be among the best, because he is kind of forced into voltron, but he falls into a big CMC matters type of deck and suddenly go from a 6/4 to a 22/20 by discarding a Draco or anything else with high CMC

[@TheRandomeDud3]

You could always use Arcane Teachings on Nicol Bolas to make him a tapper to deal damage or Mutate Porcuparrot (underneath) Nicol Bolas as well

[@ingolf82]

Seton, Krosan Protector was one of my first decks. When Raggagragga came out I took it apart and turned it into that. But I had this for years, it was my craterhoof deck. Another fun thing I liked to do was to steal everyone's lands. what makes Seton special is that you can tap the druid right away, so if you have a hand full pf 1 mana druids, you can play them all for one mana, I did that many times and then I got 2 7 druids and then played the land stealing druids and whoops aæll the lands are gone and then I play a seedborn muse and I can do it EVERY TURN. I played a game where I recast Seton for 17 mana, because they kept removing him lol. I ran 26 lands in this deck, so what Rachel says is correct. I ran 24 forests, a nykthos and a homeward path, incase of creature theft

[@jovax0450]

Eladamri, lord of leaves is my favorite old commander. Makes for a very unique deck build for elves

[@joshuagodinez4271]

My stick ever since I started playing magic was Nicol Bolas. From him being Super OP in mtg 2013 on my Xbox, with the mox artifacts, to his less than glorious end in war of the spark, he has been my favorite deck to play. I have him as a hate deck, full of removal, counters, and discard. I recently made one around the ravager, filled with eternal and zombie tribal for the limited creatures for the sheer number of wipes he has, to decimate the board over and over till he’s the last one standing after recurring his board back to its glory.

[@Anew522]

I love Zariel. I pulled her in the set she came in and use her in a couple red decks now. My new Ob nixilis, captive kingpin loves her so much

[@kovala]

Never smashed the like button so fast. Love seeing old commanders put to use. Source: am oldie.

[@Sweetguy1821]

I built my skeleton ship deck. Love taking people by surprise and winning games with it

[@unwucht1529]

I don't know if this was errataed but Nicol Bolas only cares for damage, not combat damage. Might be a mean strategy to enchant it and make a pinger out of it. With untap effects your opponents won't ever have cards anymore. Even if they draw cards you can make them discard at instant speed. And, yeah, if that wasn't bad enough you can always try to get a Tergrid on board, as well.

[@gypsieking3280]

Merieke lets you steal multiple things with Freed from the Real if you respond to her initial activation on the stack by Untapping and activating again for however much blue mana you have.

[@theirishmanplays]

I believe that Conspiracy also can help with the Chainer deck so that none of the creatures are nightmares anymore since Conspiracy removes all other creature types

[@gallantduke6393]

Shout out to Karn Silver Golem. His animate artifact ability allows for some BUSTED combos and land destruction. It’s beautiful 🥹

[@patricksaville8672]

I still have my Seton deck and I love it. Super strong and a lot of fun!

[@Rabid_Wombat]

Dakkon Blackblade Voltron deserved a spot 😅

[@kristopherlaws2438]

even though it is a few years after what you said for the time frame. I like Wort The Raid Mother. But I have a Scion deck as well and never though of the Nicol Bolos thing as well. but since those work as damage, would fling work as well for doing damage to make them discard

[@LMNHProductions]

Rachel! Gift of Doom belongs in Kelsien the Plague! It's fantastic in there

[@marcomx8069]

I have an Hazezon Tamar naya lands deck and it's super sweet, and fun fact i built it after discovering hazezon in the commander cube episode of game knights

[@starmanda88]

Love this topic!!!

[@BigDrew49]

Sol'kanar the Swamp King deserves honorable mention

[@TedMattos]

At 39:17 Murph's boyish giggle made me smile big!

[@SWNJim]

21:03 Soldevi Adnate lost the restriction when it was re-templated. The only cards that still have the timing restriction are Lion’s Eye Diamond, Diamond Lion, Rhystic Cave (which no one plays), and Charmed Pendant. 56:46 I use Márton Stromgald in my Queen Marchesa deck. I use damage redirect effects to keep him safe when I’m swinging in or blocking with my “stop hitting yourself” creatures.

[@hermodnitter3902]

I play Rhystic Cave in Phelddagrif. Just sayin' :)

[@SWNJim]

@@hermodnitter3902 I stand corrected. 🤣

[@capnsoapy]

Sasaya is one of my favourite "old" commanders; they can be a bit linear with how restrictive the flip condition is but tapping forests for 10+ mana is always fun

[@jacobroberson5669]

Beast Whisperer in the Druid deck is huge to keep the gas down. And he is a Druid.

[@hugmonger]

Lord of Tresserhorn is so cool, it feels like being the big monster from a monster movie like Jason Vorhees or the Nemesis from Resident Evil or Yargle. I think if I make Pre-DH though I'm most likely going to want to do Hunding or Marhault Elsdragon

[@Chaoslorden]

I've built a Oldschool Nicol Bolas deck using only cards legal in premodern. It is pretty unique I'd say! It has some old evil strategies but the only discard in the deck is Bolas himself. I see him as the evil scheming boss of the deck and he only enters the game when his plans or minions fail haha. I'm also going to build a new deck with him and all kinds of Evil characters that can join him. Kind of like a evil team avengers.

[@ChrizzellJay]

I’ve wanted to make an Angus deck since I started playing but he’s too expensive!

[@mrj3711]

Proxy one

[@CAPTAINCHAOS_]

When they’re THAT expensive and hard to find, a proxy is justified these days.

[@Sweetguy1821]

Angus pillow fort deck looks fun but expensive indeed

[@depictiongames9758]

That nicol bolas combo with dragon tempest is going to completely break my scion reanimator deck holy crap

[@peterthompson4376]

I might have to see how busted Marton Stromgald is with Najeela the Blade Blossom, sounds like it could get scary fast.

[@cell9962]

I have a hua tuo deck and absolutely love it. It’s such a fun strategy and seems like with every new set there are hidden pieces to find and try!

[@goelandz878]

Holy crap, Hua Tuo. Is by far my favorite commander. Hes so unique.

[@zachblackwell7810]

As an Angus player, run all the fog cards in Bant and drop a Divine Intervention on the table…it’s really that easy

[@manasplained]

I am making a series building every commander in order. Going through all the old cards has been super fun. One of my favs was Adun Oakenshield because of his synergies with channel, cycle and evoke creatures.

[@DAsrada]

Angus Mckenzie i play as kind of a good stuff deck using Angus to cover my bases. A bunch of effects like Cryptolith Rite and Seedborn Muse

[@damo9961]

Nebuchadnezzar is an outlet for IsoRev. Good with Mind Over Matter and the One Ring.

[@daviddufrane9697]

I need more episodes like this one, great job team! 🎉

[@shayneweyker]

Hakim Loreweaver plays nice with Abduction (which can be defense or steal), Pemmin's Aura and Octopus Umbra. If you play Imprisoned In the Moon then you can blink that to put on Hakim in response to a mass wipe that hits enchantments and creatures (like say yur own Nevinyrral's Disk) . Moving auras around is probably not worth it. Matron can go less wide with extra combats with a new pump on each combat or copies of his triggered ability.

[@piratecpnjack]

I used to have an Angus Mackenzie deck. I played it like a turbo fog deck cause I was bored. Wincon: Second Sun

[@moviesnapper]

Literally Googled this out of curiosity three days ago

[@cannon0wood]

Bolas + Chandra's Ignition. Hit all opponents. No more hands and a board wipe.

[@CAPTAINCHAOS_]

HAKIIIIIIM! I own this deck. I always keep the deck box in my backpack because if I try to leave it at home it somehow finds it’s way into my backpack again. Following me. Taunting me. It’s cursed. I can’t take it apart even.

[@andrewcrookall7229]

Chainer and faceless butcher combo is great btw

[@michaelxydas2420]

i play marton and its one of my favorite decks. love making tiny goblin tokens into giant menaces to society. also run raging river in the deck which makes it fun too

[@Prometheus5419]

I have played Seton and Dakkon for 5+ elves. Seton is VERY strong and comp

[@mightyone3737]

I built an entire pod of Legends beaters, 1 of each colour pair, none of them being pricey. I made up some lore for each, but afaik the only one with actual lore in the game is Tobias Andrion, so my long distance telepath pot-head isn't canon afaik. Anyways, the decks are designed to be ~6 in power level, they skip most staples and go well out of their way to run weird cards, and each deck has it's own game plan. Only 1 is a combo deck, and only two have useful tutors. Each deck is designed to have Vorthos elements to it, the cards represent the character's true abilities, combining the power level restriction with the vorthos ones (cards have to 'make sense' in context of the roleplay for the deck, this definitely means some real suspect cards get included for flavor) result in decks that are subbornly hard to power creep. They are meant to be played against each other, but they can be played vs other decks, most of them are fine vs 7s, and 1v1 they can be surprisingly scary, using Commanders that offer very little synergy elements to exploit result in a LOT of space for 'role filler' cards, so these decks are some of my more responsible ones. I think most/all of the decks have alternative Commanders in the 99 you can just switch up if people feel weird playing against a 5 mana 4/4 vanilla (for example).

[@mygalsiii]

just get Cryptic Gateway for your sliver queen, Recycle for your druidballs, Martin just wants Aggravated Assaults and trample buff for the team... vigilance would be decent too for those who choose to use that planeswalker for his emblem.

[@andrewpeli9019]

I’d build a slivers deck if it weren’t for all the combo shenanigans. It’s a very cool tribe but your threat level is going to be very high if you sit down at a pod and pull out a 5 color sliver commander.

[@nerdlabmtg]

Captain Sisay built around Horn of Gondor is super fun.

[@Cybelenn]

4 pm central right?

[@Kazz1187]

love seeing the outro this time

[@ogrokun]

I have a Balthor deck, and it is sweeeet. I was sick of my friends using so many board wipes, so I put mostly creatures that screw up my opponents when creatures die. And then, I kill these myself and bring them back with Balthor. I am curious to see Murph's Chainer decklist! Can you share the link for it?

[@danielgoldberg2129]

Game Knights in Chicago? Guess I picked the wrong week to go to Antarctica! 😂😂😂

[@Its_spanky]

So can we get Rachel doing the closing theme music dubbed over the end of every podcast episode now?

[@josephmorin276]

It's been since November for the last Game Knights. Over two months now. Are you guys not doing it anymore? Or what's the delay?

[@zramirez5471]

Nicol Bolas makes me want Wizards to create a Taunt mechanic

[@gabriellecureux5528]

So I ended up building sissay nythos shrine to nyx most ly white devotion it has so cool

[@nathannguyen9907]

Captain sisay hate bears is my pet deck. I love how difficult it is to play it although sometimes it’s too strong for some tables

[@myramini188]

I just realised 'Seton' is 'Notes' backwards and I can't unsee it.

[@minispiel19]

I just built a Chainer, Nightmare Adept, but OG Chainer looks really sweet too! Maybe I will give that a look.

[@grillburgerdaq5121]

My Karona deck smacks so much face. It’s my favorite deck by far. Wish you would’ve had a segment on her. I could talk for a long time about what makes her special. Also, I’m not saying it’s good, but I do own a Purraj of Urborg deck. I have combat tricks and a lot of ramp and try to activate her ability and put counters on her. It’s slow and easy to upend but I love it all the same.

[@serdna901]

Any chance you can share a link to your decklist? I built her a couple years ago as a goad deck but my build was wildly inconsistent

[@grillburgerdaq5121]

@@serdna901 is the primary focus to goad opponent’s creatures? Because Karona might not be the best commander for that. You need to goad her the turn she comes in, or have some way to block her if you don’t. My build is based entirely on goading Karona. If I goad other things along the way that’s great. But Karona is the primary focus. Karona herself is of no help if the goal is goading opponent’s creatures.

[@SWNJim]

How did you build yours? I went with a Voltron build. Unfortunately, I haven’t moved the deck list over to Moxfield yet.

[@mong0038]

What about recycle for Seton? Old school card for an old school commander! I use it in my Azusa deck and it's one of the best draw spells I've seen.

[@chriselliott5539]

The thing they missed with Merieke is just making your board indestructible. You can untap her and "destroy" the creature but being indestructible they won't die and you don't lose control.

[@lulu1997master]

Holy crud, I was just thinking about maybe building a Merieke deck and then this video showed up. Nice!

[@MultiRammstein1990]

I used sliver queen as my superfriends commander back then it was amazing and fun

[@mrTjstephens1]

Chainer is a favorite of mine!

[@Shank40]

My personal favorite is Halfdane!

[@Kat13196]

I have a Reki the history of kamigawa legendary deck and uhhh I may have to turn him into sisay eventually 😂

[@verlandes1]

I have an all old borders Commander Greven-il-Vec deck that is terrible and I love it.

[@thomasbornhofer6984]

Can you give the creatures stolen with Merieke indestructible to keep them as well?

[@robsyv]

A good idea to play with Marton Stormgale is to play Uncivil Unrest which gives all your nontoken creatures riot, so when they etbs you can give them haste or a +1/+1 counter

[@poorlymadedc]

Ok General Mills was generally hilarious 😂