Our Favorite Deckbuilding Restrictions | Commander Clash Podcast #10

Commander Clash is defined by the weird deckbuilding restrictions we impose on ourselves to meet each episode's themes. Today we discuss our most popular deckbuilding restrictions and rank them against each other.
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[@Freezingfist1]

S tier for Tomer's budget speech. Bravo

[@Parodox306]

You guys should do a "secret theme" episode, where all the cards in your deck have one weird thing in common but you don't tell anyone what it is, and you each have to try to guess what each other's themes are. The themes could be some art-based commonality like "glasses tribal" or a weird Vorthos theme, like "characters or movies William Shatner has played or acted in." I'd also really like to see an artist shoutout game, where each deck only has cards with arts from the same artist (maybe a handful of artists if one is too limiting).

[@BAM_Deadstroke]

I second this. Awesome idea 👆🏻

[@sirmoth3955]

These ideas are both top tier. I hope I get to see them at some point.

[@qubingjianshen8210]

Could even add a rule, that the first to guess someones theme correctly gets a free "favour" from them (within reason). Essentially a free bargaining chip.

[@Cookie_Nova]

Have you checked out Commander Vs.? Every so often they have a week where each player has a secret goal to achieve and they receive additional points for the round if they succeed.

[@qubingjianshen8210]

@@Cookie_Nova Cool, ill look it up =)

[@BarbeChenue]

I want Tomer to read this: I was moved by your impassionated speech vis-à-vis college students on a budget. I'm older now, I own 10K+ MtG cards, but my younger 'college' self could *NEVER* have afforded the 20+ decks I have now. I don't enjoy budget restrictions now that I have the means to "play with power", but I fully respect your endeavour. [Caveat: it doesn't restrict power levels, card prices are often based on a kind of global market "mob" mentality, budget doesn't equate power.]

[@Shulwelld]

College student here: I actually love building decks on a budget! (Usually $100-150) just started playing over quarantine and having to build budget forces me to find some crazy underrated gems and also avoid the “sameness” that I see from a lot of creators’ decks. (Oh boy, another rhystic study?)

[@BarbeChenue]

@@Shulwelld 100% agreed. Overpriced / overrated "autoincludes" bore me, and don't significantly make decks better.

[@christopherjacobs9849]

Richard: The best theme is one where I don't even have to play my deck Everyone else: The best theme is where Richard plays our decks

[@MakeVarahHappen]

I can just imagine someone who has taken a break from Commander Clash, hasn't seen anyone's faces, and jumps into this as their first episode of the podcast and watches Crim and Tomer with dyed hair and just thinking "so that's what they've always looked like."

[@akselevensen2763]

Tbf, they wouldn't be that far off when it comes to Crim.

[@RavarSeer]

I’ve just started watching… is it not?

[@MakeVarahHappen]

@@RavarSeer Crim changes how he dies his hair (and if it's even dyed) every couple of weeks and Tomer's hair was only died in this episode as a fundraising goal during a pride month charity stream.

[@stormycat0905]

You should do a week where each deck showcases a retired mechanic. For example, one deck uses banding, another uses rampage, etc.

[@ServentForAnubis]

Hellbent commander plz no

[@Wearywastrel]

Soulshift and bushido ew

[@Red-Tower]

I mean I won't stop them from using banding, but that is a truly awful mechanic. Otherwise though I dig the idea!

[@stormycat0905]

@@Red-Tower My banding and flanking tribal deck would disagree with you good sir! Ok not really, but it's fun to play.

[@BAM_Deadstroke]

Just off the top of my head (not far into the vid yet) my favorites are definitely the new set vids, alphabet soup, and the "build a deck for someone else" videos like White Elephant, Secret Santa, etc. Can't believe it's been half a decade or more since I started watching you guys. Keep up all the awesome work, all

[@alexandrelima2766]

Best restriction is and always will be sliver week

[@theretrometroman]

Sliver week is the true chaos week

[@babassoonist557]

Sliver week isn’t a restriction, it’s an unleashing

[@samelol8149]

ALL SLIVER WEEK

[@psychozen7169]

Crim favorite format is mono green so he can play with all the over powered cheap green cards.

[@LadyMorrigan]

without feeling all the guilt of playing green

[@micah711]

Extus/The Blood Avatar is another great Commander for "everyone play the same Commander" week. Surprising number of different synergies and builds for both sides of the card.

[@hazzenko_]

Suggestion for theme: using a 3 color commander but all cards must have one color in common, except for artifacts. For expample, Marath but all cards must have red, or Alela but all cards must have black. Just to be fair, Crim can't choose the color blue.

[@loganator326]

I've recently discussed with my friends doing a $1 or less per card limit. This excludes commanders, but we also decided to ban the top 100 commanders on EDHREC. Honestly super excited to see what we brew up and see how these restrictions work out

[@waaaaaaah5135]

I've done that with a whole bunch of brews, it's surprising how powerful you can make certain decks

[@johnmarx]

Moral of the story: make more wacky theme weeks.

[@siri7005]

I was so worried you'd all be low on random commanders because that's my favourite. Super glad you're (mostly) all into it and hope to see it more often!

[@calebanderson6193]

One thing that I loved from you guys was a “set” restriction where each deck was built around a certain plane. Like Dominaria, Tarkir, and Kamigawa for example!

[@ToSGod]

30:30 Seth’s resting face was too much. I lost it. XD

[@farden4]

My favorite theme episodes are always the popculture episodes, with Richard's Fate/Zero deck being an absolute highlight. Maybe as an idea for a Seth based "popculture" thing you could all build a deck around a book, or a series of books?

[@buzzwords2081]

generally i agree with the casts take on the budget weeks. it can be interesting to see how the crew deals with it, how creative they get and how deep they go, but they're often iffy, and it feels bad when a deck you wanna root for feels like it SHOULD get there, but doesn't and you kinda blame the budget. BUT tomers case for why he loves it brings a single tear to my eye. you're doing important work out there. you keep it up.

[@adamfiliatreault3393]

I think it's very telling when (I think) Crim said that he doesn't want to worry about budget. The reality is that most players (besides cEDH spikes) have to worry about budget and it's great when streamers consider that and understand that money is a huge factor in the game. Love Tomer for what he does for the community when it comes to this - he's truly a fantastic face and ambassador for casual, fun EDH

[@TheSynisterMinister]

diversity is strength here. the fact that all of you love doing different things likely causes you guys to try different content ideas. and I really love all of them, I say S teir for Budget too!

[@jondubois5347]

I think you guys should bring back some of the Magic era restrictions. Stuff like choosing blocks to build decks out of, using format card pools, or just from certain years of magic. Those are some of my favorite early episodes and they seem like a hit with most of the crew as well

[@Red-Tower]

Something like different iterations of Standard/Extended would be interesting too, especially if they all had different ones to work with.

[@Deris76]

Thanks Tomer, I actually built 2 50$ budget (Shirei and Toski) and 1 100$ budget decks (araumi). Something I discovered in the making was that 50$ decks tends to be super linear : you have only one clear line and you can't splurge on much outside of it. For instance, in toski, you want to play all the 25c evasive creatures into the big swingy payoffs such as beastmaster Ascension. Same with shirei, where you play dirt cheap sac fodder for more expensive sac payoffs (blood artist or pitiless plunderer, which was way cheaper back in the day). However, in Araumi, In get to play counterspell, command the dreadhorde, gyruda or Wayfarer's bauble. At 100$ you get to play a well-rounded deck while still having the budget restriction

[@ms.sysbit5511]

Revenge is my favorite. I’ve seen all the CCs and those consistently are smash hits. They are more polished lists we get to see go again and the drive you have for them in particular is palpable. Close runner up is Flavor Restrictions like D&D, Anime, Movie Night, etc where you jam it with references and spend 1/3 of the game explaining them to the one other player who knows it well enough to appreciate. Third place I give randomized card/commander. You have had some insanely sweet builds from those and unknown entities become seen. Perhaps randomize only rares/mythics or the commander would fix it but there’s such a charm to that Shattergang deck stemming from the humble common, Shatter. That’s my take anyway. (Edits: typo in movie, updating name of Flavor Restrictions from ‘Story Themes’ due to typing before watching their ratings.

[@VinegarAndSaltedFries]

This podcast is reminding me ya’ll need to do another random week.

[@zaclock-4228]

49:30 Good idea! You should do a mono-color Atraxa week, where all non-land cards must be mono-color based on one of Atraxa's colors.

[@Red-Tower]

Or all have to share a single color, like all the cards in Crim's deck have to at least have blue but can also be multicolor with blue, etc. for each color/person.

[@HypnoticGG]

Anything Goes is my favorite, by far. It's budget-less jank which is pretty unique to this channel. Most the other themes are represented elsewhere (and more consistently), but not a lot of people do anything goes without it just being cEDH.

[@jordangroblewsky2087]

Anything goes certainly feels the most like playing a random pickup game, and that's what I like about it.

[@colinfowler3021]

What about "weird tribal" for example the CMC tribal episode or the card type tribal episode (Richard's mono green instants still stands out in my mind as really interesting).

[@wyattgrenstiner1709]

One of my favorite restrictions is alphabet week where your entire deck can only consist of one letter besides basics. My names Wyatt so I built W tribal and it searches for the W.

[@Wearywastrel]

That's awesome, but how often do you find the W?

[@canadianguy1578]

The easiest fix to the problems associated with the 'random' challenges is to use a selection pool. I've done this a couple times with my play group and found the best method is: Everybody chooses an amount of commanders to add to the pool. (usually 5-10 each) Everybody gets to ban 1 or 2 options and remove them from the pool. Pool gets shuffled and everybody draws a random option from the pool. (Optional whether or not players reveal their commanders before deck-building starts.)

[@crimsonking905]

A guest rotation would be nice, haven't seen one in awhile and it was always fun to have the dynamic of a new person at the table

[@sglied1320]

I really enjoy seeing everyone play the same commander. I saw a game on a different channel where they all played Nekusar and meta gamed planning on everyone else wheeling and no one put wheels in their decks. That's hilarious, stuff like that is why I enjoy the same commander. I'd love to see group slug week where you all pick a diffrent commander that has a group slug theme like yuriko, mogis, torbran, etc.

[@mrTjstephens1]

Seth being bad at pop culture is a great running gimmick of Commander clash

[@deathnoteforl1712]

I’d love to see a week where you build voltron decks with Commanders that aren’t usually voltron (ex: a voltron Gitrog). You could add the restriction that everyone has to win through Commander damage.

[@MisterAnimeFreak]

I demand a Yugioh week! Seth needs to play Pot of Greed Tribal.

[@MihaelGeng]

Tomer: We even did mythic commander one! Richard & Seth: I don't remember that very well... Right, you should be, bc you guys never did that! And neither for a rare commander episode...

[@HinderYourGeneral]

Not gonna lie I freaking love Crim's hair!!!

[@Rulox665]

you guys should do a budget restriction of no cards below $10 or some higher amount. I think that would be interesting

[@zach3553]

No bombs at common? Don't make Colossal Dreadmaw sad!

[@bariandymitri]

I like the crazy restrictions you guys do on commander clash. Mono colored week, alphabet soup, budget week, viewer submitted etc. I think its one that really makes this channel (along with the shining personalities of the commander clash crew) so great. I would still love to see an X Deck week where everyone plays x spell themed decks though. Curious what commanders would be played and what kind of decks or janky things you all would try

[@ebonezra8073]

I love your restrictions. Not only does it keep content fresh, but it inspires new decks from me too- my name starts with J, so I built a Jodah deck (including Jokalhaups)! But, it has also helped me get others involved because they see valid decks at budgets they prefer and feel like Commander is accessible. Ultimately, if I live with a restriction that causes others to want to play, then I'll go for any restriction- even Pauper (OK, maybe I'll try to talk them into Peasant).

[@KrishkaMoons]

Awesome dye job on the hair tomer

[@magicbanding1095]

HaHa, Crim thank you, "Seth said Do Do" -Crim

[@justatraveler09]

I don’t know if you’ve done this theme before, but what about Victory week? Each player brings a deck that was very dominant on a previous episode. Sort of like Revenge week in reverse

[@jasooon86]

Love to see it - liked this topic a lot, very interesting!

[@wiseguy425]

Flavor restrictions has to be my favorite episodes of commander clash. Two of the most memorable decks for me are Crim's jujutsu kaisen deck and Phil's smash bros deck

[@ivrissgaming8006]

Singleton season. Each person only gets one copy of each card for the entire season to force new cards to be shown each week.

[@SrPacoTaco]

Thank you Crim. I also immediately thought "teehee, Seth said doo-doo." 1:13:00. Also, on the topic of team week, if you do two headed giant it is SUPER fun to come up with deck pairs that just end up being broken in 2HG. Najeela (always broken, but even warrior tribal is broken with 2HG), the latest Kangee can do dumb things in 2HG, knocking people out with commander damage is SUPER viable in 2HG. It's a fun and different way of thinking about your decks, but of course would have to be webcam which is a shame.

[@Zentenski]

In my playgroup, we almost always play Planechase, using a single planechase deck for the whole table. It's sad that it's so tough for you to do that, but if you could find a way to do it at some point, I'd love to see that.

[@Red-Tower]

I always thought it was weird that the "official" way to play planechase was to each have individual decks. It's so much more fun and interesting to all share one.

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

A "no flavor breaks" week would be neat. Where all 100 cards have to match the deck's theme, with no exceptions.

[@soleo2783]

Crim plays a child of alara board wipe tribal

[@OGTahoe3]

Does Seth say "take for granite" or "take for granted " at 11:30

[@Wearywastrel]

Granite, just like he would spell it. Lol

[@ODIRGO]

that's one of his catching misspronouncing phrases.

[@richardadams429]

"does Seth say..." and/or "did Seth just.." ..yes, the answer is always yes..

[@Red-Tower]

Yeah, there was another one that stuck out to me too but I can't remember what it was now. But Granite is a somewhat common one for him lol.

[@oORoOFLOo]

I think you could try anti-cedh week where you build decks without any card from the cedh staple list. Maybe you can make it somewhat more restrictive tho, as you will be able to still build very powerful decks, not sure.

[@wesleywyndam-pryce5305]

thats just every other game they play though

[@twlvfngrs]

For me budget is one of my favorite formats, just in sense of accessibility for my self and others.

[@mikeyjesse9376]

literally subscribed for just the plant

[@raysecondo1820]

Secret Partner week: editor or 3rd party chooses a partner for each player and that player wins if he is deputy to that partner winning, or wins. Coat of Arms Week: in paper play with a token coat of arms starting on the battlefield. Or tribal week where each deck is required to run CoA

[@tikkamoods]

With all the new partner commanders and changelings how about a return to double tribal? Now you can actually run both tribes in command zone and have cards to bridge the two

[@LucMMailloux]

As a Pauper Commander (PDH) player, I gotta be the guy to say that y'all would definitely have a better experience with that research time. Pauper Commander is how I've introduced multiple players to the game, and a big reason was that their budgets were very tight. I've got 15 PDH decks that add up to maybe $300 in cards. Then the smaller card pool of "simpler" cards also helps with new players. Yes, some decks are durdly and slow, but others are definitely not. Commander Legends and sets post-Dominaria have flooded the format with powerful uncommon creatures to be your commander, and that's brought up the power level tremendously. Anyhow, that's my case for PDH.

[@thuggishcone1392]

I love the Pauper restriction. Not as playing against 3 other Pauper decks. But as playing against normal decks. Its a lot of fun to jank someone out with a bunch of commons. It's my favourite restriction cause it's a good way to test out a legend and then upgrade it if you enjoy it.

[@Deathkeeper43]

For card pool restrictions, I enjoy taking a commander and saying: This card was just "released' and I wanna make a deck now! (Cards in that set and everything printed previously for that commander) Example: Questing Beast would allow Eldraine and everything from alpha up to it. Another option would be only cards printed AFTER the set. Example: Questing Beast would allow Eldraine and only stuff after it.

[@1berengan5]

Something we sometimes do in our playgroup is planechase Commander, it can leads to some very long games but once in a wile it's really fun!

[@joefjunior]

Paper Budget Variant: Raw Dog. No sleeves, No proxies. (flip cards are banned because they require proxies)

[@wesleywyndam-pryce5305]

what!? you monster!

[@richardadams429]

So which goldfish member doesnt wear trousers when doing this podcast? Richard and Tomer seem professional so id be surprised if it was them..Crim seems like he's in permanent chill mode so i imagine he's in shorts until he has to leave the house..Seth gives off a "casual hippy vibe" and seems to rarely leave the house so if i had to pick it'd have to be him.

[@oafkad]

"I love chaos!" - Richard. I knew it!

[@zylowolfzan3345]

I think it'd be really cool to do an Alternate Rules week where you play Custom Commanders. The CDH Discord makes a ton of super cool Custom Commander cards that do a ton of interesting things, and I think it'd be really fun to see you guys play some of the Approved commanders there! You'd obviously have to do this in paper and print out a proxy for the commanders themselves, but it'd be super cool to see what you guys do with some of the cards there.

[@allhailbolas]

Companion restrictions are really cool to me. And similar mechanical themes like 'only cards with a certain word on them' / 'everything is at instant speed' etc.

[@bernabes8424]

As someone that lives by the free 5 tix loan for edh play I'd love to see more budget tix decks. It would increase awareness to the program and your how-to videos from last year 👍🏼

[@RedBossTV]

themes I’d like to see in the future: - Atraxa Week: All players pick Atraxa but can only run one of her four colors (Crim gets Green, Tomer gets Blue, Seth gets Black and Richard gets White) - Standard Rotation Send-off: A Legend from each set that is rotating out of standard, representing the best and worst of that set. - Planeswalker Week: Pick a Planeswalker that CAN’T be your commander (out of MODO episode) - New Set Decks, but from sets before the start of Commander Clash, in reverse chronological order until Legends. Like, “Shadowmoor week, with legends from Shadowmoor” as if it was the new set. On the case of sets like Mirrodin that only has two legends, it would be ok to run legends from the block (OG Glissa; Slobad; Memnarch; Bosh; Raksha)

[@rosspenney5158]

I would love to see a "Manhattan Project" deck where the goal is to give your opponent a Dralnu or Phyrexian Negator and then cast a Blasphemous Act. Where do we submit viewer decks?

[@Wearywastrel]

I want to see this!

[@jonahcoffman3078]

You guys should definitely design your own legendary creatures and play those as your commanders. Would have to be webcam though

[@architectofdreams73]

I pretty much do the random Commander concept, except I would have someone else pick the Commander for me to build around. For example, someone wanted me to build around Grandmother Sangir. That was somewhat challenging. For me, building around a Commander doesn't mean, just put in some infinite combo or have the deck do something that has pretty much nothing to do with the Commander, it is just being used for it's color identity to accomplish something completely irrelevant to what it does. I like to actually figure out ways to make the Commander do its thing and have it somewhat matter

[@jeffreycarey1641]

It might not be doable now, but maybe you all could do an alternate art week, where you build the deck around a group of cards that WoTC has put out alternate art for. For example, you could build a Godzilla themed deck using all the alternate Godzilla art cards from Ikoria. With WoTC saying there'll be more of these crossover works in the future (Warhammer, LoR) I think building decks that have to include all of a certain group of alternate art cards could be interesting.

[@josephhawkins7974]

So for viewer submitted weeks could you just put in a restriction to have viewers submit 95 card decks and let you guys decide what 5 pieces of draw, interaction, or ramp you want to add in?

[@gabrielsilbert1144]

Tomer’s hair is so cool

[@MWorl91]

Might I suggest randomly playing partner commanders. Just spinning the wheel and playing 2 commanders that both have the partner mechanic at random.

[@thatepicwizardguy]

I wanna see council commander where you have a handful of commanders in color under your main commander and you have to play each of those before casting your primary but can only play them once each from the command zone/council zone (like a dungeon in an MMO or something) I think doing that and promoting a very specific theme on top of it would be super cool Or ya know, somethin like that anyway! Experimental idea

[@Illaoi_Bot]

I think a fun alternate rules video would be playing with a chaos app, or with planechase

[@Deris76]

One thing about pauper commander : It is not supported correctly on MTGO. Most of pauper EDH playerbase accepts any uncommon creature as your general, as it allows more diversity. It lets you play more synergistic decks than being restricted to legendary creatures. It makes a great paper format, not MTGO.

[@wesleywyndam-pryce5305]

why not just add planes walkers instead?

[@snedthedead]

Something about the format of the video: it feels like you are putting richard on the spot each time you brought up a new theme, so swapping who starts every time or few times would help keep the flow of the video fresh! Loved the video though!

[@jamesmiller684]

flavor weeks, (in particular anime week) are my favorite thing about commander clash! The cedh weeks have also been consistently great.

[@colbybastian17]

My favorite restriction my group ever did was Ravnica Plane. You had to pick a 2 color commander, ONLY spells from one of the 3 Ravnica blocks, NO spells with another guild's watermark, and at least 10 cards with your guild's watermark.

[@gerardoayala8124]

I really enjoy the New Year's Resolution decks - both the serious ones and the "anti-Budget Commander" variants. A good mix of self-reflection and memeing. For new themes, I've always thought "use lesser versions of x effect" would let everyone see further into the MTG grab bag of cards. The banlist kind of takes care of it, but it would be nice to see some jankier board wipes, for example.

[@horseasaurus2940]

Alright, the stars were aligned today. I was looking at one of my own decklists and scrolled past Distant Melody at the exact same time Richard mentioned it.

[@345tom]

This is my viewer thoughts of each restrictions I think on the New sets, I'm with the gang where its the staple, bread and butter, but I feel like you can easily do one week of "this is what we want to build from this" one theme if theres still something you want to explore and be done. Budget Restrictions, as a viewer, I actually like it when you get lower budgets because it amplifies creativity. Not too often, but I like it, but I think it should be similar to Quest for the Jank lords, where they spin for a cheap Commander as well, or spins for a random Commander for each player. I agree on Rarity Restrictions. I think 1v1 is fine, and MAYBE at a push 100 card singleton, but I feel 4 ofs is the best pauper. Random Commander I like just because sometimes you guys get set in your ways with making the decks the same way, and it helps out. I think if you have played the Commander deck, you should be able to mulligan. The same with if they are generally accepted as "Common too good commanders" Gift Deck weeks are always fun as a viewer. Just results in fun banter between each other. I'd love to see one of the other hosts take a stab at making a deck for each person. I dont have that nostalgia for old cards or old borders, but I did enjoy Alphabet Soup. Commander cycles I think you guys hit on the head, it also sucks when two of you are only really interested in one commander, since you can tell you're a bit put down. Flavour restrictions are fun, but I thin you should all be on the same page- often some of you say "Well I just added it tomake the deck work" Viewer submitted week I think works best when the decks aren't trying to be specifically tailored to you guys. Like sure include a few pet cards, but the highlights are like Richard mentioned- take no turns, Lichs etc. Anything Goes is fun, and I like seeing you run back revenge week decks and adapt them. CEDH week is so hit and miss. I find that when you guys know what your supposed to do, great, but you just don't understand the meta and the decks you've got well enough for it to be as fun to watch Alternate Rules, I liked banned commander, but I felt that you didn't go far enough. Miscellaneous are great. Overall, I think you guys are about on the right track. Some ideas I'd love to see are you give people an archetype, someone else gives a restriction and then they go away and build the deck. Or you all build the same broad archetype and come with your spin on it. Also Umori week, although one player does have to play Umori Planeswalkers in commander. "Finish the deck" might be fun, one player puts together about half the cards to a deck, someone else does the other half. It'd also be fun for other people to take on building the other hosts like "Signature" decks and piloting them.

[@jesusmunoz6372]

Richard's CEDH answer surprised me.

[@endermeap6488]

Tomer really commanded a lot of my respect in this one, I think they had a lot of very reasonable opinions.

[@MyAverageLife01]

Pauper commander is so much fun though. Sure it’s lower power, but it’s a lot calmer of a format. My only complaint about it is that white doesn’t have the more recent card at common and simic is still busted.

[@ms.sysbit5511]

Some themes you haven’t done since you need ideas: Deck Style. Everyone plays a: Group Hug, Group Slug, Aggro, Politics, Control, Combo, Voltron, etc. It can be limiting in the way the game will go but each theme is broad enough to go various ways like Group Slug could be Mogis v Thantis v Ruric Thar v Belbe and so on. You have sort of done this with homage weeks inadvertently but it’d be a simple yet wide enough set of themes to explore. Janky tribal. (everyone on a janky tribe for sure! No good ones!) would be hilarious.That game with Fish, Elephants, etc was awesome. Retro Commander. Pick a cut off date like pre the EDH precon era and everyone makes a deck around a legendary creature that likely hasn’t been dusted off in awhile. You Win the Game. Aka No One Gets Second! Pretty simple but the only acceptable way to win the game is to resolve an effect that states you win the game. Liliana’s Contract, Laboratory Maniac, Test of Endurance, Happily Ever After, etc. It’d be a blast to see imo with all the meta gaming you’d do to stop each other. Kaiju Clash. You all need to pick a commander that is at least 7 CMC and duke it out to see who is top dog among fatties. These also tend to be less popular generals so you’d see some lesser loved ones among the giant monster fight. Might need to ban eldrazi that week so things like Gishath, Suns, Avatar, Lorthos the Tidemaker, Drakuseth, Maw of Flames, Nicol Bolas, Reya Dawnbringer, etc can shine. Build-Around Hard Mode. You all need to pick some convoluted card like Haakon, Stromgald Scourge, Dragonstorm, Dralnu, Lich Lord (or anything Lich), Phage the Untouchable, the Epic cycle, etc that comes with a fair bit of difficulty to make work. Let those crazy cards do their thing for once. Is that enough? That might be enough. I love the series as a long-time viewer and these are some original themes I’d love to see tried. You’re not scraping the bottom of the barrel; you’re reaching new, unexplored territory you can trail blaze!

[@LeKrutes]

This needs to be higher

[@coopergraveline4533]

My favourite themes are tribal and flavour. Pretty unexciting, maybe. But I find that they really bring my decks to life 😁 My Sigarda deck is human tribal, but doesn't run any of the 'human' werewolves (even though they're great) simply on the basis of flavour.

[@bcoble121691]

You guys should do plane week. Everyone pics a plane and builds decks out of cards from that plane, with maybe a 10 card exception to give people enough fixing. Also ravnica should be banned, the shocks and signets plus 9 sets of content make it a clear winner

[@akselevensen2763]

They have done this. Twice. Pretty good episodes.

[@jordangroblewsky2087]

Coming to the defense of Pauper Commander. The problem is really just the fact that MTGO doesn't have Pauper Commander as a format it officially supports. There are a lot of fun, powerful commander options that you can't use because they aren't legendary creatures. Pauper Commander is a lot of fun when everybody is essentially playing Pauper cEDH too, and it's pretty comparable to a regular non-cEDH commander game excluding stuff like Dockside and Tutors.

[@zaclock-4228]

I've recently built a few peasant decks where I allow the commander to be rare. I actually really enjoy those decks, the restriction makes me plays cards that I would never have considered otherwise, and they perform well.

[@austinmitchell2053]

Distant Melody - Also great in pauper elves!

[@andrewtaylor5883]

I love Tomer's perspective and I too agree that budget shouldn't restrictions the gameplay and fun.

[@theatog]

I'm obsessed with Tomer's hair.

[@ebonezra8073]

Only vanilla commanders (have to play commander at least once); random guild colors; only historic/standard cards (super brawl); one set each (eg: someone builds only from Amonkhet)

[@Infernoman64]

I LOVE chaos weeks! maybe next time you each make decks (based on some criteria) and the final twist is each one of the crew randomly choose a deck they didn't make.

[@espinacasable]

I was watching through the archive and found an episode where a commander group each sent you the decks they play against each other, and y'all really seemed to enjoy them. Seems to me like a good way to filter out all the non-functional decks, since those were basically tuned to compete with each other. Idk how easy it'd be to set up though, I guess

[@TeaHauss]

S - Gift (my personal favorite), Flavor (the effort put into the references is awesome), Anything Goes (seeing decks have a second chance + personal touch) Best - Budget (powerful unique decks without staples), Card pool (depends on the theme, but generally great), Viewer-submitted (almost Gift) Ok - New (I enjoy seeing other people's deck builds, but I'm only really excited when I see a commander I want to build around), Random (hit/miss but generally fun), Commander Cycle (great for viewing), Alternate Rules (fun for viewing, but doesn't translate to the game table) Ni - Cedh (I enjoy cedh, i think this group needs to warm up to it) No opinion - Rarity (don't remember these games, so nothing to say), Miscellaneous (depends)

[@PalPlays]

I have a 5C Prismatic Piper deck that consists of a stack of 50 lands, and a stack of every Seb McKinnon card. At the beginning of every game, I shuffle 49 Seb McKinnon cards into the lands and make that my deck.

[@rafaelreina7010]

An idea for restrictions: choose like 3 sets and all cards must be within them, even the commanders. Maybe making standard editions (all cards from amonkhet standard for instance). Another very convoluted way to do so would be restricting each rarity in a set. Deck building would be very difficult, but you might come across some very interesting new cards. About viewer's week, I wouldn't be sad with having a deck chosen but with a few modification, if the main focus of the deck is there, I'd still be pretty happy, Maybe even get some ideas from your POV.

[@HellBent4Kitties]

I'd like to see restrictions like Modern legal week or something like that pioneer legal week

[@psychozen7169]

Would love to see you all build all Markov decks just to see who flinches first...