The Most Broken Commanders | Commander Clash Podcast 155

[@andyspendlove1019]

1:00:06 Richard’s improving! He went a whole hour without mentioning Farewell, but just barely!

[@josephwodarczyk977]

Help is out there! People are capable of reform!

[@bitesizetheology1414]

Richard says every chance he can that single target removal is bad. Najeela comes up, and he says "you just fire a swords on it". He doesn't play swords and doesn't encourage people to play single target removal. I will grant that he mentioned fogs which also hurt Najeela's plan but fogs have been around for forever and I've only seen the ones I use, except for Teferi's.

[@Lucarioguild7]

Which is funny because Najeela is like the one commander where yes just spamming board wipes is the correct choice

[@callmeanata]

Alexios can also be chump blocked, but the opponents need to make a pact that they assign all damage to the chump blockers, so that none of the damage gets through to the players.

[@matthugenberg8869]

Yes, but what casual player knows this off the top of their head, and what alexios player is going to tell their opponents how to not die? Goldfish plays literally every week, and multiple of them play more than that, but they never thought about that rule. So what person that plays maybe once a month with friends is going to think about that interaction?

[@callmeanata]

@@matthugenberg8869 my response; be the change you want to see and spread the word ;) Perhaps cards like these will encourage players to learn more about the in-depth mechanics of mtg. If someone faces problems and searches for a counter to Alexios, neat info like this should be in the top results :)

[@zurreal8087]

Holy shit that’s awesome! I didn’t think of that at all!

[@SifSehwan]

Yes, we played it proper. It's the most commander commander ever, even if people who normally don't negotiate or banter do it when he hits the table. It's great, just make sure you communicate the exact ruling at the start of the game. There are other weird bits in the release notes like, if a player controlling Alexios dies it goes back to it's original controller rather than getting exiled. The card is juiced.

[@gabecastillo1634]

@@matthugenberg8869 these guys do it for a job to be fair

[@brningpyre]

Clash's experience with Slicer/Alexios is so poisoned by their refusal to play single-target removal. I've played Slicer with many different groups (and at events), and it's been a good time. Richard just saying "well they can just play it again." Yeah, maybe twice, but when Slicer costs 9+/11+ mana for a relatively small body at that point in the game, that ain't cutting it. You don't need to go hard on single-target removal, just save it for stuff that counts. Slicer even gets hit by artifact hate, which they also don't play enough of.

[@kyonizuka]

the problem with that line of thinking is that yes in a slicer/alexios matchup okay this is a really good card. but in a save it for stuff that really counts, its a dead card in your hand that isnt supporting your game plan and isnt benefiting you in the game at all. but what you are really missing out on saying something like this is that richard plays targeted removal the entire table does, literally none of you people who cry against him saying targeted creature removal is bad ever actually listen to what he says, but instead of pure creature removal like swords or path they play flexible removal so that way less often is there ever a truly dead card they just didnt have it in that matchup because the game went so fast there wasnt time to draw into it. ALSO his argument that playing more targeted removal doesnt necessarily help you win is still valid, look at the game with alexios they just had, seth didnt remove the alexios he let it beat down his opponents and he just continues building his board and then let his commander and 9/9s overtake the game. had he used removal he would be further behind on board while allowing crim and richard to stay in the game and possibly become threats. being the one to use your mana and use your cards trading 1 for 1s to deal with a threat is a benefit to the 2 other players. you might keep urself in the game longer but you are playing a losing game plan more often than not

[@michaelcollins4534]

​@kyonizuka that's a lot of words. Too bad I ain't reading em

[@kylecarlson1228]

Using a single target removal on a combat based commander is something you basically never want to do. You'd much rather boardwipe this and the other critters away or go bigger. Even in the CEDH games Slicer is clearly super powerful, it's very easy for these cards to be power outliers in a casual table. If your commander has to be removed 2-3 times and the same hasn't happened to the other commanders your commander is likely a power outlier. I will say a byproduct of Goldfish's take on removal is that decks that are too strong for the table get away with it more often because it's harder to 3v1 that way.

[@MFCI_Orange]

Ya; Richard does mention that the "good" builds just run ramp to avoid that recasting problem. I think I resonate with Crim, Aggro and stax are gameplay styles that exist; if you don't like them that's ok, but it would be better to expand your mind a little and learn to laugh when your friend Armageddon's you with no backup plan or slicers you to death on turn 3. I get to play regularly with friends so I can appreciate some people do not want all those experiences :P

[@gdmikester4302]

@@kyonizuka In your seth example, seth basically "won" the game because he had removal in hand. Choosing when to hold back and gain advantage from extra damage allowed the win, and seth could even leverage the removal spell as a political tool. Seems like you can't really do that with fogs in richard's likeness.

[@kamikazepilot9]

In regards to the question of why the super-powerful commanders are so popular: I think a big part of it is that if you're trying out brewing for the first time, there's a hundred Ur Dragon decklists out there you can review and tweak to your tastes. For jank commanders you *really* need to know what you're doing to make a halfway decent deck because there's just not as much info out there about how to do it. As a person who is not a great brewer, I always want to play around with oddball decks but sometimes I just don't know where to start.

[@dementievatz]

Yeah, I think a lot of it can be answered by asking yourself “Why would someone choose to play X commander?” If it’s not straightforwardly powerful, doesn’t do a unique thing, and isn’t part of a beloved typal, then there are so many other commanders available that it just won’t get picked up by a large concentration of players. Unpopular commanders can be totally fine to play, and their unpopularity doesn’t mean they’re bad.

[@TolarianNinja]

I feel like one of the things about Golos's land fetch ability that wasn't mentioned is that it made him a better commander for some archetypes than anything built for them. The example that I always think of is that I played against more than one person who used him as the commander for their mono-black decks, because he tutors whichever of Coffers / Urborg you don't have, and if you don't have either you can sac him and replay him to fetch up the other. Sure, you could have Eladamri as your elf commander, or you could have someone that gets you Cradle on turn 3 every game. Granted that was back before non-basic ramp was as prevalent as it is now, but that's more a statement of how egregious Golos was at the time.

[@HWHY]

Good eye. As someone with no direct experience, who only casually lurks Commander content on KZbin, this put a lot in perspective regarding his ban.

[@jadegrace1312]

​@@HWHY Don't get tricked, his ban is ridiculous and he would be very fine to be legal. He's easily the weakest of all the commanders mentioned in this episode besides the Triad, which is garbage.

[@Suavek69]

​@@jadegrace1312lol Lmao

[@cablefeed3738]

​@jadegrace1312 He's definitely not the weakest on this list.But he should be unbanned.He's only banned because The rules committee don't like seeing him all the time.And I think that's a stupid reason.

[@xxthevampirate]

@@jadegrace1312 I'm not sure if you were being sarcastic or not but OP was right he was just the best commander for tons of decks, He's WUBRG so you get to play all the good cards and he's so good that he is the best commander for other architypes like Mono black or Elves and that is utterly insane. Golos became the only cEDH commander because he was better than every other commander in the format with some exceptions for turbo strategies (golos is too slow he only wins turn 2/3).

[@thetrinketmage]

Interesting to see Richard say these mono red commanders are like stax. When in reality it's just mono red aggro. Which is a normal archetype that exists in every format other than EDH.

[@DylanHunter64]

Extremely fast aggro is a very normal thing in almost every format but commander though and almost all commander decks aren't prepared for something so aggressive so the game is very different from a typical one, that's how it's like stax. That's the only way they're similar and it makes sense when you look at how people build decks

[@atk9989]

The difference is every other format is competitive and winning is the single goal of the deck. EDH is a casual format where fun is the primary goal and winning is cool if it happens. That's why losing on turn 3 to a turn 1 slicer is like stax, casual decks don't stack up well against cEDH decks. And a turn 1 slicer is super easy I have one built for cEDH and iv played it against my home pod as a test with casual decks and I won 2 games back to back in 4-5 turns even with turn 2 casting. And using 0 interaction except for mithrial plate.

[@lesternomo6578]

i think richard is mostly right in the way he describes how the commander game the average player is looking to play gets warped by slicer/alexios. but his view is also colored by the fact that he doesn't play single target removal. he implies that a single swords will do nothing the turn alexios comes down, which is just not true. that's no commander damage that turn, and they probably won't have the mana to recast the next turn, maybe not even the turn after if they miss a land drop/have to dig for it. if 2 turn rotations aren't enough for you to get up some blockers/refill the hand and find more interaction (and all for a single mana), that's on you IMO

[@Lucarioguild7]

Richard has a terminal case of commander player brain rot

[@paullloyd9331]

Capitoline Triad feels very out of place here. I understand Seth had some crazy games with it, but it's very limited and pretty one dimensional being colorless. I don't the think it's anywhere near the same power level as the rest of what was discussed.

[@Zanzibawrr]

It just takes one altar of dementia and you can reasonably mill your entire deck with the triad. Then it’s only a matter of time before someone breaks it.

[@MTGGoldfishCommander]

I think there might be some recency bias at play, but the emblem is super strong.

[@Ghostly81199]

Just realizing now, Nadu is just a power crept portion of Leovold’s second ability pretty much 😂😂😂

[@khub5660]

It's like Leovold and Uro had a child

[@scaredycat3146]

To be fair the second ability was rarely what people were worried about.

[@devinkerr5474]

I read Leovold and had the same realization, and I did so by muttering "Nadu doesn't even have the first clause, but he still feels like he does"

[@thordagreat]

Nadu has singlehandedly caused a shift towards a faster cedh metagame. Its easier to just win underneath a nadus setup turn, rather than erase their progress

[@atk9989]

CEDH has always been a win as fast as possible format, they banned flash because It allowed turn 0-1 wins and cedh players got tired of that over turn 1-3. Turn 3 Nadu is still in pace with the rest of the meta, it's why a 6 mana commander still won the first cEDH tournament in a pod of 3 Nadu decks.

[@thordagreat]

@@atk9989 flash was banned not because of how fast it won, but with how consistent it won. Its also weird you choose to say turn 3 nadu when talking about cedh thinking that cedh players play their cards on curve

[@winter945]

​@@atk9989also flash was banned because an opponent having 1U available to them meant the could win the game in response to anything, there was a joke that flash was the best counterspell as you wait for someone to attempt to win the game and then after the giant interaction war you put flash on the stack and win the game. This actually lead to a Mexican standoff situation where no one wanted to try and win in case an opponent won in response, not the most fun meta

[@kylegonewild]

@@winter945 Sounds like a skill issue. Hold up your interaction and gameplan longer. Non-cEDH suffering for the inability of cEDH to adapt to a meta is silly.

[@winter945]

@@kylegonewild having to hold up interaction and wait on your gameplan because a player has 1U open is not a fun gameplay, and few enough players ran flash outside of cedh that they are probably outnumbered by the cedh players who wanted flash gone

[@MattWilliams747]

Richard why are you hating on your birds now. They’re your people. Embrace the birds.

[@alexnope3200]

We need this to be top comment, if only to bring some light heart ribbing. Roasting Richard is played out

[@MattWilliams747]

@@alexnope3200 for real man. Not that I agree with all his stances but sheesh so much hate for maybe one of the best brains in MTG

[@Lucarioguild7]

​@@MattWilliams747Yeah Richard is basically Sam Black because he tells people not to run single target removal

[@logansmall5148]

Birds aren't real though.

[@MattWilliams747]

@@logansmall5148 apparently not man

[@Alikaoz]

They kind of forget that Najeela is a 5 color commander that can and will defend itself with counters and cast a Thoracle-Consultation on second main after your fog.

[@VincentWolfeye]

And also the tokens generate more tokens. So you build your army pretty damn fast.

[@adamkarolak3544]

Well yeah, but that's cEDH build, and they try to stick mostly to casual version, which is why discussion with crim about rograkh

[@Alikaoz]

​@@adamkarolak3544 that's the first (and most prominent) combo that came to mind, but the issue remains the same. Najeela isn't a smol red combat commander. It's that +4 colors with access to a whole catalogue of ways to mess with your non-answers. Chance for Glory and Alchemist's Gambit being the kind of tricks that end with everyone still dying to a deluge of 1/1s

[@cameton_youtube]

Kinnan deserves a place on this list. So strong it made simic viable in cedh for years lol

[@Greg501-]

Nadu is Kinnan 2

[@Queuexdodge]

@@Greg501- the re-tentacleing

[@RobiousIllyrian]

Oh Richard, I've seen Najeela win on turn 3 too many times to say it isnt good anymore.

[@stephangg000]

I thought I was taking crazy pills when they started talking about Najeela. In CEDH Najeela is still insanely good. In casual Najeela is... "fine". Like you can definitely "accidentally" just combo if you go to the edh rec page and add some high synergy pieces. Like it would be inconsistent cuz it's casual but sometimes you'll just pop off with 3 and randomly win cuz you had what you needed. Najeela is definitely still scary.

[@brandonchristner1520]

Seeing all the busted commanders makes my stock on oubliette increase even more

[@Chris-yb8bg]

Nadu reminds me of paradox engine where one player is doing stuff for a very long turn and everyone else is deciding whether or not to just scoop out of boredom.

[@Playingwithproxies]

And it can easily be gg if the opponent has a creature like scute swarm that multiplies on every land drop 😅

[@bubb922]

Nadu is definitely Cedh viable. It was 1% off beating the all time highest Top 16 conversation percentage in its first month with a relatively large meta share in those tournaments. There is something to say about it being new as an advantage, but this deck has been so hyped and spoiled that everyone knew this was coming, knew the strategy (tbh it's not a complex play pattern, pretty telegraphed), and still got rolled. I'd say there's an equal chance that the deck will just get more refined and stronger.

[@al8188]

Exactly. The fact that people were building it turbo when that is not the best way to play it actually dented its numbers. Everyone moving to more resilient lists will only further solidify its power level, and any loss of face in the format will cause people to disrespect it unduly in the interim.

[@gabecastillo1634]

⁠nadu looses unless he’s turboed tbh (in cedh)

[@almogdov]

Our playgroup have integrity, no one gonna build Nadu or even put it in a deck. It's a miserable card that shouldn't exist.

[@wedgearyxsaber]

Misread your message and thought you said your playgroup has zero integrity, but even they wouldn't touch the bird.

[@Thoughtmage100]

​@wedgearyxsaber That would be even more hilarious tbh. Well I guess you can count my locals as that, we've had a resident Nadu player since day one. 😂

[@Mikadonja]

The real broken commander was the misplays we made along the way

[@Alikaoz]

Every commander is broken when you forget to tap an extra land

[@Spanner1971B]

Leovolds text box says "Your opponents get to watch you play Magic for 45 minutes." Nadus text box says "Your opponents get to watch you play Magic for 45 minutes, whilst you wonder how Leovold is considered worse than this somehow."

[@LionWithShades]

in regards to Leovold, Tomer said it perfectly once before by changing it to say: "Each opponent can't draw more than one card if caused by a spell or ability controlled by that opponent." Wizards could print cards that hate on extra card draw and not worry about wheels. Crim is right in saying we need something to hate on Nadu style cards....

[@josephwodarczyk977]

Nadu doesn't draw, and he doesn't get more than one card at a time.

[@blueredlover1060]

My thing is that there are options outside the command zone that are more miserable or just as miserable to play against as Leovold for wheel decks. You have Narset or Notion Thief to do that job. It's one of those things where I feel like he could be fine if we still had banned as Commander still. It's honestly similar with Golos. He'd be fine in the 99.

[@ScottyPotty666]

I saw a short from Maria Bartholdi saying that Nadu shoulda just had the quotations moved so that the ability rlly does only trigger twice and i truly believe an errata of that would save several formats

[@ScottyPotty666]

(and drop a 30 dollar shuko to 5 cents again lol)

[@ElDocBruh]

I built a "casual Korvold", played it three times, transformed it into Slimefoot and Squee. The same happened with Winota, who turned into Eowyn. But I stand by my "warriors, no infinite attacks" Archaeon/Najeela.

[@DotDeck]

Your best chance at casual Korvold deck is a different jund deck with Korvold in the 99. It's still the one card you'd search for first

[@DotDeck]

I "joke" that my Ziatora deck is a secret Korvald deck

[@jacobalbert2603]

I usually find myself agreeing with you Crim, but dude, really....unban Leovold. That's just nuts. There is a huge difference between two card combos that just end a game and you move on to the next game and the crap Leovold pulls. Leovold doesn't end the game, it just says I'm the only one allowed to play magic.

[@bryanleblanc5648]

On the other MTGGoldfish podcast that released on the other channel today, the guys talked about how EDH could turn into Modern in that Wotc will keep printing more and more powercrept cards into the format. But this list gives me hope, ironically enough. We've already had plenty of way-too-powerful cards in EDH, and it's the "build for fun, not power" or "build the deck that will get you invited back" rules of thumb that have kept the format fun for the most part, we need to keep that energy going and not succumb to powercreep for the sake of it

[@atk9989]

Every single one of those broken commanders are Wizards printed directly into commander. With 3 of them being the last 2 sets and in just the last month printed for modern but clearly also planned for commander.

[@bryanleblanc5648]

@@atk9989 right, but other cards like Ad Nas have been legal forever. With a format that allows almost any cards regardless of when it was printed, we've always needed to rely on Rule Zero and that isn't going to change

[@brandonlogue1301]

I'm just realizing Alexios saying "can't attack owner" instead of "goad" is a crazy difference

[@gnomersy1087]

Yup it's also not a may ability to give it away so it is going to the opponent on their upkeep no matter what. Which is I assume why it uses the can't attack it's owner text unlike Slicer.

[@MrMalorian]

Surprised to see no Voja. Did we forget already?

[@caseyfurey1348]

We had no time for Voja since we had to talk about Rograkh lmao

[@Lucarioguild7]

Voja is not on the same level as most of these, the reason it has so much discourse about it is because it leads to decks needing to be more and more board wipe focused.

[@aquareus1]

Here’s an idea: Eminence but it sets your deck BACK. “All your creatures cost one more mana to cast” or “non-basic lands you control don’t untap during your untap step.” Let’s make some real garbo build around commanders.

[@barrinburg612]

This is kinda similar to companion and would probably be more balanced

[@charlesplass]

goldsabertooth recently won a cedh tournament with nadu. there was also a tournament with 3 nadu in the finals pod, it’s absolutely playable

[@applepunk5688]

With Alexios, if your opponnet blocks with a 1/1 for example can you just assign all the dmg to the 1/1 instead of the player?

[@noooosdfg]

You can yeah. They haven't mentioned in when they've discussed him, but the trample only actually matters on the Alexios player's turn if everyone else is smart.

[@swiftdragonrider]

@@noooosdfg they said how they would attack and blow him up so playing "smart" is off the table.

[@bruvaroni]

This is less of an issue than you realize. Chump blocking doesn't hurt slicer that much and it won't hurt Alexios either. Plus you still get to trample over on your own turn

[@noooosdfg]

@@bruvaroni It's not a huge issue, obviously Slicer is still cEDH power level, but it removes most of the benefit the crew is talking about of Alexios over Slicer.

[@weirdo82]

Excess damage is still dealt to the defending player/Planeswalker/Battle. If you assign all his damage on a 1/1, then excess damage is still dealt to the defending player/Planeswalker/Battle he's attacking. You choose the player/Planeswalker/Battle he's attacking, choose how damage is dealt to blockers, then damage is calculated and directed. You don't choose how excess combat damage is dealt.

[@NoNo-qt4ov]

Interesting to see Crimm bring up the idea that if you give people the opportunity, they'll play a broken card in a fair way. Im the opposite. Give people a powerful and cheap commander that is meant to be played with wheels, then I think it's realistic to expect that play pattern consistently.

[@pierredupont1096]

"It throws a few roadblocks in there." I'm reminded of that Doonesbury strip where Uncle Duke was at the Great Wall of China: "Imagine you're the Huns, you're100-0 and you come across this, instant loss, you just feel terrible." Leo is just so good, he's probably been power crept at this point but geez Crim, geez. You'd need to ban Wheels at the very least.

[@ishotthepilot2904]

This needs a part 2 and a part 3! Great episode and commentary but it didn’t even scratch the surface on these types of commanders. Krenko, Jodah, Esika, Orvar, Kaalia, Nekusar, Prosper, Atraxa, Baral, Sythis, and Sisay are worth mentioning just to name a few.

[@jeremiahchamberlain4179]

When leovold is built right no one gets a card after turn 3 but leovold, Crim you have no idea what your talking about and you haven't built it correctly to the reason it was banned. I was a leovold player before it was banned. Teferi's puzzle box makes sure your opponents don't have a single card in hand not even first they draw each turn. That is super easy to tutor for with say fabricate.

[@gabecastillo1634]

Yea his take is just stupid, a turn 2 Leovold with a turn 3 wheel is perfectly viable almost everytime when the deck is built decent

[@zweis]

Crim's the type of guy to play Leovold then get mad at the Mono Red deck playing Blood Moon

[@weirdo82]

Crim seems to have a bias towards Leovold. Not only is he a lock with Teferi's Puzzle Box, *his effect is asymmetrical.* So you can draw extra cards, everyone else can't. He doesn't "just" slow your opponents down, he lets you speed ahead unimpeded. You can't tell me there's no way in U/B/G to constantly draw cards, even barring his second ability.

[@jeremiahchamberlain4179]

@@weirdo82 literally in my old play group if i wanted to guarantee i won the next game i would pull out leovold. Never lost not once, in the end i tore the deck down and sold my leovold before he got banned as the win rate was boring.

[@zweis]

@@weirdo82 I fully agree. Crim only likes asymmetrical Stax hence my statement about getting mad at Blood Moon 😂

[@TheJFKWahoo]

Hey, A fun local rule I have with my play group is that "all uncommon legendaries have partner with other uncommon legendaries" It's a pretty cool rule and I wanted to suggest it for a flavour clash episode

[@hanschristopherson8056]

Even without wheels levold stops people from drawing extra cards which is extremely powerful, not fun to play against, and also makes him harder to remove because you can’t really draw into removal effectively

[@thetrinketmage]

I've never had that much trouble with Yuriko. I feel like you just spot remove her after the ninjitsu. Most of the unblockable creatures don't have haste. So they need to spend 1 turn casting that, then another turn attacking with that to ninjitus it in. So once she is removed it takes 2 turns for her to attack again. Plus since she damages all players everyone is just going to attack that player.

[@timbombadil4046]

You do not remove Yuriko. Yuriko *wants* to be in the command zone. You remove the unblockable mooks.

[@jasonstatom9693]

@@timbombadil4046 other dude is right its situational, if yuriko is my only creature on the board you need to kill her asap the lack of haste can be back breaking.

[@timbombadil4046]

@@jasonstatom9693 She's too easy to chump and it costs comparatively too much to make Yuriko unblockable. If she's stuck on the board you're probably looking to sac her for value as soon as everyone has a blocker (the new flares are gas for this). If you wait until she ninjitsus in the unblockable creature is back in hand ready to be deployed that same turn so Yuriko can do it all over again the next turn.

[@jasonstatom9693]

@@timbombadil4046 i don't disagree with what your saying, just that sometimes the play is to kill yuriko asap. You dont have the mana to replay the unblockable on your turn 2 yuriko. Your turn 3 is now cast your unblockable and wait instead of sac yuriko and combo off.

[@Orkimtor]

I am only 3:30 into the podcast and already wondering why they don't mention braids, when talking about banned commanders. Braids is far more broken than golos, golos is just generally really good.

[@schrodingersowl8774]

One of my worst experiences ever was I was in a casual pod and a new guy had just joined it turn mana crypt mountain cast slicer convert it turn 2 cast commanders plate equip it turn 3 someone was dead and everyone else had 1 hit to go

[@MrGeoghagan]

An episode in which I completely agree with Richard. I never thought the day would come

[@joshuacostigan4119]

How do you have an entire conversation on Leovold and not even mention Teferi's Puzzle Box as the biggest issue?

[@Kroxti]

Point of order you can chump Alexios. Trample damage does not have to be assigned to the defending player. You can put all of it on the 0/1 blocker.

[@edwardgribbins7175]

To be fair, wheels cause more problems than Leovold or Hullbreacher do without them. They all create very unfun play patterns.

[@andyspendlove1019]

Yeah when they were arguing against Leovold cause of wheels, I was like “…doesn’t Narset already do that? Maybe the problem is wheels?”

[@MrAvatarzan]

To put it in more context, Leovold led to toxic lockout states such as the very fun Teferi's Puzzle Box, congrats now you won't have a hand ever again. It can stay banned.

[@Swnkmstr]

@@andyspendlove1019 Narset Parter does it, but Narset doesn't sit in your command zone to cast once you draw your windfall.

[@jadegrace1312]

Wheels are perfectly fun when not combined with stuff like Narset or Leovold

[@muditjohar5323]

I like how in this day and age commanders like Chulane don’t even get a mention in any of these podcasts even though those commanders can be so stupid

[@dariocampanella7992]

Its just a powerdown nadu

[@noahfriedrich4686]

​@@dariocampanella7992Nadu requires set up to combo off. Chulane only cares about you for playing cards. It's not *stronger* than Nadu, but the concept of "I do what you do but I also get free cards and lands for it" is fundamentally worse, because it doesn't really require any deckbuilding

[@dementievatz]

The name I was surprised wasn’t mentioned once was Tergrid. Not the most powerful commander, but very behated. Chulane is a better call though.

[@muditjohar5323]

@@dariocampanella7992I mean it’s not exactly like nadu since nadu requires deck building to its triggers whereas chulane kinda does not but the point is that chulane not even being a top commander anymore just shows the amount of power creep we have had

[@weirdo82]

​@@noahfriedrich4686 Chulane is 3 color, more expensive, needs a decent chunk of creatures, and getting rid of Chulane doesn't trigger Chulane, and isn't as combo focused as Nadu. I have both a Nadu and a Chulane deck. One works a LOT better than the other, I'll let you guess which. If anything, *Nadu* is "I do what you do, but I also get free cards and lands for it".

[@O6R3M4N]

As someone who LOVES cEDH Leovold would be fine there. However in less competitive lists, you build a deck to fit the commander, so not playing wheels and other effects like that is essentially, ignoring your commander and playing generic sultai. To Crim's point people build Yuriko to "do the thing" Playing wheels in Leovold IS "Doing the Thing"

[@derekgorlewski7870]

Derevi, Empyrial Tactician. Seth, in another recent video, asked if there was a bird other than Nadu that was impactful in MTG, and in Commander, i posit that there is. Another card for the list that breaks parity on Commander Tax, but with less timing restrictions. Having built 3 different archetypes using this commander (token gen, bird tribal, and CEDH stax/combo), i can say that even the most casual of builds with Derevi at the helm can be quite egregious. Thank you all for the content and entertainment.

[@jadegrace1312]

Derevi is broken and has only gotten better with The One Ring being printed

[@MrMalorian]

The answer to Alexios is to understand how Trample works. As the attacker, YOU decide how damage is allocated. Want to trample over? Ok. Want to allocate everything to the creature and not trample over? Now you're getting it 😉

[@georgesingletary2380]

Lame rule exploitation

[@Lucarioguild7]

​@@georgesingletary2380It's an uncommon commander it wasn't built to be broken

[@JD-gk7eh]

Agree on Mana Crypt vs. Ancient Tomb. For one, Tomb only puts you up one mana, which is way more fair. The format is full of those. Further, having that on turn 1 isn't as powerful because you can only cast a colorless spell with it. On turn 2, you can cast a single pip spell, which does limit your options as well. You can't accelerate out any multicolor commander with just Ancient Tomb as a result before Turn 3. And being up one mana on turn 3 is par for the format. Mana Crypt lets you cast a 2X spell on turn 1, a 2XY spell on turn 2, etc. Waaaaaaay more powerful. Further, Tomb really scales down with the power of your deck because the 2 damage every turn really adds up in combat metas. Mana Crypt is 1.5 per turn but sometimes it's even less when you get lucky. You may get to tap it 3 times before you take damage (25% of the time in fact!), whereas Tomb will always cost you 6 life for 3 taps.

[@drkatz1192]

One theory about the most played commanders you guys overlooked relates to Crim’s point. People build these decks, then play them once or twice - and never play them again (Yuriko, Ur Dragon, etc). The issue is EDHRec is just a database. It doesn’t mean people are currently playing those commanders, but they’re still in the database since “everyone has a Yuriko or Ur Dragon deck” or did once.

[@noahfriedrich4686]

Crim is possibly the wisest clasher. Fewer banned cards, the format is self correcting. Its casual, not competitive. People can change their decks to be cEDH if they want to play Urza and Nadu loops.

[@vigiltgi]

Here is a quick recap of the episode: Seth - "Yeah this commander is really busted" Richard - "Totally agree" Crim - "Ok sure, but..." Love the pod guys! Hope to counterpell Crim into oblivion one day haha

[@totakekeslider3835]

He’d love that. What you really wanna do is ramp into a big green idiot that draws you a bunch of cards, take a ten minute turn, then kill him. That would actually really annoy him lol

[@Graatand]

I’ve long had an idea for how to fix Eminence. Just format all Eminence abilities as “You get X of something” where X is the amount of times you’ve cast your commander. That way, you’ll have to cast your commander at least once to get the minimum amount of the effect, and you’ll always be incentivized to re-cast it in order to ratchet up the Eminence effect.

[@xaphan7061]

Counterpoint for Rograkh - people are deeply uncreative. I have seen a nonzero amount of Rograkhs that were yanked straight off of EDHrec and, as a result, built weird cEDH synergies into the deck by accident. It's still fine in casual, but the wack ass deckbuilder factor is real.

[@helfiswelf]

Finally, and thank you Richard: “We really need emblem removal!” With Crims hand in his face.

[@ianleggett8429]

I actually think Nadu will be self regulated out of casual edh because it’s such a pariah. It’s the same reason Thassa’s Oracle or Demonic Consultation aren’t banned. They have self regulated to only cedh decks.

[@Alikaoz]

I have no idea who flopped an artifact deck with an Urza at the helm in front of Crim, but it seems like they really botched it. Unlike Nadu, Urza gets deterministic quickly and obviously. Also "play more stax" _and_ "ban Urza" is a weird take.

[@T_Peazy]

To me, BUSTED means no matter how you build it, it's super powerful, consistent, and hard to interact with. Rograhk is, therefore, not busted.

[@paulszki]

It's really not an on/off thing. Like... you COULD build a nadu deck without shaku, greaves, aphetto alchemist etc. and some play "fair" magic with counterspells and cards like Snakeskin Veil. Then Nadu, too, wouldn't be broken, just "strong". Same with Leovold. Don't play wheels, bam, fair. In the end, you can build any commander badly -> just make your deck is 99 basiclands. So "no matter how you build it" can't possibly apply. Nadu and 99 basiclands clearly doesn't do anything. So I don't think a card's strength (or how problematic it might be) should be measured by how bad a deck can be if you don't build it correctly or even how difficult it is to build it correctly. So in my mind, it only reallyy matters how strong a card is if built "correctly". You can absolutely build a bad Yuriko deck... but most people won't.

[@T_Peazy]

@paulszki I fundamentally disagree. If you build a cohesive deck (yeah I was never talking about 99 lands but way to make a bad faith arguement), Golos is still super busted. Seth showed that. If we are governing a whole format of millions of players by how new players with very little game knowledge will play and interact, I think that's a mistake. When you're new to something, you get some leeway, then someone tells you, "Hey,that's super unfun. can you play something else?" And you change if you're not a sociopath. I also think basing it on the worst possible outcome is wrong. Commander is mostly a casual and social format, just because some people want to pub stomp at their fnm doesn't mean you ban anything that you don't like.

[@paulszki]

@@T_Peazy I think you're misusing "bad faith" here. You just don't like the argument I'm making or possibly, simply misunderstand the point I'm trying to make. If you say "busted no matter what deck" and I can present you with a very simple counter example of "not busted", then it's not about making up ludicrus bad faith examples but expressing that there is a fallacy somewhere in your argumentation. It's very easily shown that one can make a version of any given commander that is really bad. If I can do that, since building a deck is such a granular process, I can very obviously make a moderately powerful Nadu-Deck. But where then would YOU draw the line? And that's my core issue with your argument of "no matter what". If I playy 98 lands and one creature in Nadu, it's still really bad. I can take out another land and put in another creature. Still bad, but.... better? I can keep doing this and remove lands to replace them with creatures and synergy pieces. If I do this, then there is no singular point in which my ludicrous (or in your words bad faith) example of a bad deck suddenly turns from utterly unplayable garbage pile into completely broken cEDH S+Tier deck. It's not just on/off. Which was the very first sentence of my first comment. -> I CAN just play Nadu, no Snakeskin Veils, no Equipments and have Nadu just be ... a bit annoying but generally still unproblematic. There are very clearly some extremelyy high synergy pieces that, if you leave them out of the deck, leave Nadu strong, but not broken. You do not have to run 99 lands for Nadu to be "okay", that was just the simplest and cleanest example I could give. It's honestly utterly trivial, really, to build a "fair" Nadu deck. He simply is not "broken, no matter what." The issue simply is, it's also utterlyy trivial to break him and THAT is why he may be a problem at cEDH tables, where people play to win. Does Nadu matter at casual tables? Not at all. Just like any other card in casual, just like you said, I can always say "that wasn't fun. please play a different deck." and worst case just leave and play with someone else. But because you can do that for basically ANY card, why would casual players even care about a ban list? Why is Primeval Titan still banned? Hullbreacher? Golo? Eventually, I'm arriving at the conclusion, that talking about banning anything only makes sense for cEDH, because they don't use rule zero and just play what's legal because it's a competitive format. Everybody else can just say "please stop playing golo now".

[@T_Peazy]

@paulszki im calling bad faith because you started that argument by taking the MOST ridiculous example (99 lands) and pretending that's what I mean. Then calling this wrong. That's why. You also said [you have to assume the best possible version of a deck] and I think that's completely wrong. You assume that players will inherently build the "correct" version of the deck and you said yourself that you assume the worst potential of a deck and I think that's insane to assume everyone builds the best deck possible. Also, half of the things you are saying are completely irrelevant to the conversation of busted commanders. I literally never said Nadu was busted. I said Rograhk isn't. I think golos is busted. But you aren't using that example. You're cherry-picking an example that I didnt even use.

[@Playingwithproxies]

Every card has a floor and a ceiling. The floor is how good the card is when you get minimum benefit from it. Almost any card is not busted on the floor. But if the ceiling is easy to hit and says you win the game 100% of the time it’s a busted card.

[@alexkulis7295]

The Ur-Dragon is powerful for sure, but I don't think it fits the bill of being broken. It generally wins on an acceptable turn compared to most decks. I am very surprised that Derevi, Empyrial Tactician is not on this list.

[@domotoroOfficial]

Leovold is legal in legacy, BTW, Richard

[@Magnet977]

Slicer and Alexios are good examples of why single-target removal matters, no matter how much some might loathe it. Situational awareness is important part of that too. You can't always just wrath away the board and expect everything to go well. Players conflate wrathing the board with wiping the slate clean when in reality it could just be a crapshoot and you might just be handing someone control (or even victory) of the game, especially if they have the right resources to bounce back.

[@ReyaadawnMTG]

1:07:01 - Another absolutely based take from Seth. Truly one of the best minds in the format.

[@bonifreyoflight4440]

On the point of mana crypt vs ancient tomb, costing a land drop is a huge difference. Its the same difference between the basic lands and the moxen (from a gameplay perspective anyway).

[@AndrewLawton16]

I built the most non-serious meme-y korvold deck when it came out. My buddy picked up Chulane. Even from the first play, I knew Korvold was a problem. That deck was too good to be fun jank because you just have a loaded gun in the command zone

[@enoesiw]

Leovold isn't banned because it is OP. Leovold is banned for the same reason as Hullbreacher: because they don't want to encourage that sort of gameplay where you play Leo and wheel to strip your opponents of their hands.

[@enoesiw]

Ancient Tomb is "fine" because it still takes up your land for turn, whereas Mana Crypt can be played alongside your land for turn giving you an explosive turn 1. And you're not even locked out of colored mana like you would be with Ancient Tomb.

[@lukaspecson6095]

I play Rograkh Yoshimaru. the main plan is definitely Yoshi but I have killed people with Rograkh thanks to ozolith counters and a gaggle of jittes. The free body with good aggressive keywords is sweet and u get the added bonus of killing someone with your 0 mana 0/1

[@CameronSMoore]

I think that commander NEEDS a mono-red go-fast deck or two. Slicer is certainly one of the best options, and it does warp the game. That’s the whole point, it punishes durdully decks that don’t take relevant game actions until after a board wipe. Then the red playing either runs out of gas and the table stabilizes (and the red player looses) or the red deck wins. It changes a four player midrange/control matchup into a midrange/aggro face off. And the nasty slow mono blue decks that just draw cards and only interact when the absolutely have too are finally called into account. (It’s me, I’m the mono-blue player, and good, fast mono red decks do out damage me.)

[@ernestosalinas1091]

Something tells me that the Triad was supposed to be a planeswalker(to reflect its in-universe power) and then Wizards remembered that planeswalkers are unplayable in commander

[@Greg501-]

*They remembered only in-universe (and DnD) characters are allowed to have planeswalker cards

[@Lucarioguild7]

They don't do Universe Beyond planeswalkers

[@cedarbobedar7223]

Damn Richard, $500 is your floor? You can do a lot with a $50-100 budget deck

[@zachbadgett2101]

The mana bases they play with are more than $100

[@gabecastillo1634]

@@zachbadgett2101 also not to mention that 90% of the decks you’ll come across or play with are in a $400 range anyway, no one’s rolling with 20 different $50 budget decks usually

[@StEEVOxxKNIEVO]

I play slicer and used to save him to the last game of the night if there was under 30 minutes left. The last half dozen times i played him slicer gets removed nearly every time he hits the board. Its not anything to be upset about because he has scored a lot of wins but it sure did discourage me from pulling him out as often 😅

[@kylegonewild]

Rograkh and Reyhan is how I played him casually for a while. Good ol' Jund graveyard+counters.

[@robomelon314]

Actually the last game I played vs Korvold, it wasn't a super optimized list, and it *still* almost won on the turn korvold came down. They had enough to sacrifice to dig through 85% of the deck, and it turned out food chain was in the bottom 10. They decided to take the L and not kill anyone with commander damage, since they were out of lands, but it was still oppressive to play against, since everyone had to hold up removal and interaction just in case he'd go off.

[@lobo-xs6kd]

Alexios can be chumped if the attacker is willing to put all their damage into the chumping creature. Just a tip in case you face off against one.

[@TheHobbyExpert]

I don’t think Ur-Dragon is busted. Sure you don’t want them drawing 4+ cards but, for dragons, I think Miirym is just waaayyy scarier for obvious reasons

[@king99kon]

Half of the list is on my tabble, and one guy has three of those commanders. Now I understand my frustration with the community's judgment and understand that they are frustrating. I would like to ban them from the day-to-day table. Maybe one day people will see it that way.

[@al8188]

They're like top 20 EDHrec commanders. These decks are all at my table as well, sans leovold and the new AC commanders, between 2 players.

[@king99kon]

@@al8188 I know they're cool precisely because the way to build them can be almost infinite (in the case of The Ur-Dragon), but I still feel they're unfair, you know? I'd like a strong voice in the community to talk more about which Commanders are overpowered and shouldn't be played.

[@al8188]

@@king99kon the ur-dragon has... like one playpattern you're gonna see 90% of the time. I don't think they should be banned. Commander ninjutsu and Eminence are pure design mistakes, but they're not taking over cEDH or anything. I was just commenting on the fact that they're fucking everywhere. I *personally* find them boring and don't build with them, and won't keep anyone from building them, but they will put a target on your back in my mind and I won't be clamoring for your deckbuilding advice if you show up with Yuriko.

[@starmanda88]

@@king99konlol the ur dragon is not remotely bannable

[@nathand6467]

That kind of sucks, cause in my local area those commanders, are mostly soft banned cause everyone knows they arnt really fun. I have seen an ur-dragon, but very rarely do these pop up.

[@neutnn]

Liked for "Eminence should never come back" Hard agree.

[@BloodMoonGo]

For once Richard makes a solid argument for not running swords to plowshares as the default auto-include. While that consideration is niche for Alexios, we can finally agree with his point.

[@mitchellbruderlin8621]

important thing to note about alexios: the other players can work together to mitigate its deadliness. because of the trample rules people can choose to assign all damage to a chump blocker with nothing trampling over

[@gilliganallmighty3]

To Seth's point about emblems being restricted to Planeswalkers; Praetor's Council effectively gives an emblem that says, "You no maximum hand size." I'm surprised that it didn't get an errata when Elspeth Knight Errant did.

[@erfunk]

I put Najeela from the Warhammer secret lair (Archaeon the Everchosen) as the commander of a nostalgia-inspired 40k theme deck I built. It only got played a few times before being shelved, as it kept face-rolling tables mostly on the strength of Najeela. She's stupid strong, though probably not banworthy, and you're seriously underestimating her. But so did I when I thought the Archaeon was the solution for my theme deck's commander/color issue. The deck mashed together the Imperium and Chaos 40k precons to make something themed vaguely Astartes typal with Chaos and Inquisition side themes, to represent the renegade chapter I used to play that tried to fight Chaos by using Chaos (ends terribly!). Literally only cards from those two precons, plus Archaeon and the loxodon warhammer from the secret lair, and a forest from the Tyranid deck. I avoided demons, the the deity-aligned Chaos legions, Imperial Guardsman, and Knights/Titans as much as possible, trying to maximize flavorful choices over everything else. The first game I played with it, I played an early-ish Marneus Calgar into Najeela. Turns out a lot of Astartes are Warriors, tokens included. The game immediately went from me being an early threat to full 3v1, but she rolled over the whole table anyway. I did have a couple timely pieces of protection, one to save my board and one to save Najeela, so it's not like they didn't try to remove her. Then she rolled the table the next time I pulled her out. I've tried a couple games treating her as if ahe didn't have each of her two abilities, and I won one of those as well. This was more or less a trimmed precon, with an incredibly narrow card pool. But you're in 5C, so a less restricted deck will always have access to the best offense and defense. The argument to play removal I think she's got a stronger top end than Winota, but I don't think either are banworthy. Just play to your local group's power level, and pass on her unless you really know what you're getting yourself into.

[@ZeroG]

Surprised you didn't mention MH3 Tamiyo. The "I have 50 counters and now I get to draw my entire deck and take infinite turns forever" deck is pretty much the most broken thing I've ever seen.

[@SnapMulligan]

As someone who regularly plays the competitive commander leagues on MTGO, I can assure you Nadu is everywhere and is a PROBLEM. T3 wins (at worst) with plenty of blue protection. At least one, often 2, in every pod. And on top of being busted, it has the KCI problem of playing solitaire for most of the clock. Truly egregious on all fronts.

[@zinalblitzstein86]

Child of Alara gates deck, not fun to play against and still hard to interact with.

[@ChaosDGrade]

Teferi's puzzle box with Leovold is really funny. Miss playing that deck

[@pokedadsam9041]

1:06:31 waiting for Tomer to show up with Izzet Otters in a few weeks and spellsling lol.

[@bartoffer]

Eminence would be a dope mechanic if it only started triggering from the command zone after it was cast. Creates a cool little mini-game of trying to get the commander out. Could even change it to 'enters the battlefield from the command zone' to combo it with the small handful of cards, like the hellkite, that pull them out for a turn.

[@ryantomczak2248]

Richard, Mana Crypt does not make a deck cEDH. Add one to a precon and see if it is more powerful because of it. Cards like Mana Crypt enable cEDH decks but they do not make decks cEDH. A cEDH deck is highly tuned. It is the other cards that make it cEDH.

[@winter945]

That was the point Richard was making

[@ryantomczak2248]

@@winter945 that is not how I took it when I listened. It sounded to me like he was saying they do make the decks cEDH.

[@DanZigs79]

Yuriko can be fixed be changing the rules for Commander Ninjutsu to include the commander tax. It will affect no other card. I don’t know why this would be so complicated.

[@anaskaadan5845]

Guys, the Ur-Dragon isn't popular cuz its powerful. It's popular because its the ultimate Timmy card. It lets you play with every dragon in MTG history and it has a cool explosive effect when it hits the board.

[@samuelsumuel9683]

Yall got to remember Alexios having trample makes it easier to chump if you coordinate with the table. Just put all the damage on the chump blocker.

[@Sicktoid]

I know that Humility gets mentioned as a potential answer largely as a joke, but I still wanna mention a few huge problems I have with Humility as a an "answer" for busted commanders. 1) That card always does so much collateral damage. I don't wanna shut down a casual player's precon or wolf tribal in order to deal with dumb designs like Korvold or Nadu. Not to mention, it's pretty difficult to get any kind of creature centric strategy of your own to work through humility either. 2) Humility is only available in white. It's probably the least played color in EDH so not very many decks even have it as an option. 3) It's a notoriously complicated card in terms of the rules. Again, something I'd rather not expose any potential casuals to. 4) Not sure if you guys have been checking, but Humility is kinda getting up there in price. It's a reserved list card and it's creeping up towards 50-60 dollars. 5) The way I often see Humility working is that it drags the game out until the problem commander - the one that Humility was supposed to answer - draws their disenchant or boomerang or whatever to get rid off Humility and then proceeds to win the game immediately. So the outcome remains the same, but it just takes longer to get there.

[@bassfingas11]

To touch on the subject of "Why are these the top most built commanders"; I think that one reason could be is that most commander players have more than one deck, each of different power levels to be able to play in any pod just to get some games in.

[@johnnyrussian318]

This week we're swapping "dies to farewell" for "stopped by humility"

[@psul42]

keep in mind a ton of decks scraped to EDHREC are aspirational and many of them have never been played.

[@samogburn2662]

Finally, the humility podcast

[@Bubblenuts13]

They should remake or errata Leovold to say that spells and abilities your opponents control can’t cause them to draw more than one card each turn. That limits them to drawing a second card each turn and blocks the wheel thing. They could also make it symmetrical, so you get one bonus draw with leovold when they target your things.

[@noahfriedrich4686]

I will make and defend the claim that the most broken commanders are Aesi, Chulane, and Animar. Why is because they (and this is common among UG commanders) simply reward the player for taking game actions. You dont have to *do* anything to your decklist to have the full effect of Aesi, it just ramps and draws (without loops like Shuko for Nadu) Animar and Chulane are similar. Playing creatures? Great work! I'll clarify that these aren't the most "powerful" commanders, but they are broken because warp the structure of the game from "build a deck that does a thing" to "build a deck that does anything"

[@pj-wille]

(commenting at 8:44 into the video) Standing up for Leovold is just...come on. The thing is, its even worse than the way it was painted. You can completely delete people's hands if you get them to draw a card before the wheel. -**Teferi's Puzzle Box** - You have to do your normal draw, and then it has you do it's triggered effect and consequently no one can draw anymore cards besides you for the rest of the game, but the game isn't over. -**Temple Bell** - Combo with any wheel to completely remove everyone's hands -**Wheel and Deal or any flash speed enabling for the sorcery wheels** - during someone's Draw step (since they have to draw their card before anything else can happen) and now they don't have a hand for turn -Im sure there's more, but this is just off the top of my head The big issue is the insane redundancy with locking out players in a way where they can't even interact even if they had an answer in their deck, and now everyone either scoops or watches you durdle. And on top of all that, Crim's talking about it "stopping nonsense" when it actually enables you to be more nonsensical than anyone by spamming all the symmetrical draw cards but only you get the value out of it (Howling Mine, Font of Mythos, Horn of Greed, Dictate of Kruphix, etc) drawing you into your protection and answers to anyone who may possibly top deck a response. It's miserable 150%.

[@ryanfohrman7911]

This discussion reaffirms to me that I need more darksteel mutation, imprisoned in the moon, and kenriths transformation type effects