Our Worst Commander Decks: What Went Wrong? | Decks We Took Apart

[@maelstromcarl]

As someone who has mostly tribal decks and its my favorite archetype to build, I didn’t want to agree with you when you first said they were on rails and build themselves… BUT YOURE RIGHT 😭

[@NitpickingNerds]

It is ok to enjoy that 100%

[@Helpfulhelp]

It's an easy and fun archetype to build IMO. And usually they can have some fun flavor in abilities or gimmicks

[@jackofhearts7509]

I agree!! Most tribes are a little stuck. Fortunately wizards do keep expanding and growing tribes to give more options lately. I used to feel my Scarab God deck was dullll as hell because it was just play best zombies and go... But changed it up to Varina Lich Queen with a sub theme of enchantments and now it's so much more explosive and fun. I have faith in the variability of tribal decks 😜💪💪

[@jonasdietrich8109]

The bigger the tribe, the more options you can build it. And even if not, it just matters whether you enjoy it, that is why we play decks.

[@krunchyapples]

No matter what I do I always end up just building tribals. Idk what it is; it's just really easy to build fun synergies with tribal. Wanted to do Nekusar. Somehow became wizard tribal sub-theme. Tried doing a Licia forced combat theme. Ended up becoming angel/soldier half n half. Now working on King Kenny political theme. Legendary tribal with enchantment/God sub-theme

[@pharaoh2426]

As someone who fell in love with the kaldheim angels, I was this close to finally feeling compelled to play angel tribal in commander, but Giada being monowhite instead of orzhov just feels like such a miss.

[@representativejoints1188]

You guys have played enough that you understand you're making an art piece with your friends and so it's so much better to be creative than hyper efficient.

[@rodgerlang884]

As someone who's only ever disassembled one of the 35 decks I've built, I always find these type of videos interesting. It's fun seeing why people do that.

[@Frothmeister]

I'm having a fever dream situation where I seem to remember a nitpicking nerd Daxos Blessed By The Sun deck tech and now I can't find it and I'm losing my mind.

[@kevinj4002]

Bennie bracks is a stricly better mono white commander that can utilize the go wide soul sisters strategy ! But yes I def watched the soul brother video too

[@Frothmeister]

@@kevinj4002 I want to build it as a mono-white oloro that just never casts him

[@Frothmeister]

@@davidcrain453 nah, I don't watch that guy

[@dozi3r]

@@Frothmeister How did eddie hurt you?

[@jajahatman8842]

@@Frothmeister mono white Oloro seems fun, but don’t forget black has alot of great lifegain options and payoffs as well

[@tiagomanuelzanfrademeloego7694]

Hello guys, love your content. Have you already made or at least thought of making a series where you discuss your actual decks? Introduce the commander and why you like it. What is the way you built it and why, what are the other ways to build it. What are the techs, the win cons, the play pattern. Highlights of the deck play. The best and the worst matches you have played whit them... What you think?

[@evanhastings9733]

It's good to see Skullbriar get some love. That was my first commander deck and unfortunately it was taken apart to build Zaxara, which was powerful but felt too samey after a while. In the last year, I rebuilt Skullbriar with better deckbuilding knowledge and pfft.. lasted about a month. I think he's incredible in 1v1 but too narrow for 4 player.

[@pauldyson8098]

Decks I took apart: -OG Sigarda. No one enjoyed playing against an almost uninteractable threat. -Arcades: Same reasons as Joe. -Kametra enchantress: Change to Sythis; rebuilt Kara as goodstuff. -Yuriko: Same reasons as Joe. -Fournath: Same reasons as Joe. Recommend Mina and Denn as a fun and still pretty dece lands deck (BEEZY: THEY WORK GREAT WITH FIELD OF THE DEAD)

[@charliemarlow647]

I've loved 3-colour Omnath as a lands commander too. Gives another angle of elemental tribal on top of the lands :)

[@pauldyson8098]

@@charliemarlow647 I love 3Nath!

[@jajahatman8842]

What about angry jelly bean 2nath

[@charliemarlow647]

@@jajahatman8842 Also a fan! I love all the first 3 Omnaths, just the 4-colour one I haven't liked so much, personally.

[@pauldyson8098]

@@jajahatman8842 Errrryone loves Jelly Belly!

[@brulelame]

Hated my arcades deck aswell, but then I threw in a blink subtheme (eerie intervention and its variants, brago, yorion, ghostly flicker, ephemerate and a few good etb such as eternal witness to allow the ability to spam mass blinks) and it now is one of my favourite deck to play, very resilient with some cool moves to pull off while not being overwhelming !

[@sliralisk]

i personally added planeswalkers into the deck and let the walls protect them while they take their time to ulti behind those thick walls

[@ericr4677]

I might have to add some of that. Thank you.

[@alexandertorres9756]

Best tribal deck I’ve ever built is insect tribal with grist, the hunger tide. There’s a plethora of good insects you can stick in this deck, and the ones that aren’t good you’re going to stick in your graveyard anyway. It’s a good self-mill/recursion strategy that uses an off the beaten path commander that I’ve enjoyed

[@bimsherwood7006]

I built yuriko recently, and realized satoru would be the "normal", "fair" and "real" ninja commander. Will swap over after the fun runs out.

[@nicholaswalker2278]

For me Satoru is a miss because he doesn't work for ninja tribal, he is more like a Khalia deck cheating in huge things. So I am sticking with Yuriko but only using it against decks of a similar power level.

[@loganprovo3479]

I looked at making a Jeleva, steal peoples stuff deck but i found Evelyn from new capenna and I love it. She's such a good commander and is easy to build around. She also makes every game different because you're using your opponents win-cons. I did find that the infinite combo with ghostly flicker and dual caster mage was really un-fun and just recently took it out of my deck.

[@mrmrmeta3698]

as a satoru umezawa player, i can confirm that he is just funner yuriko

[@skyguy____2835]

I built a Omnath LoC commander deck and played it for a while and had basically the same issue. I searched ALL THE TIME. And I have smaller hands, which makes it very difficult for me to shuffle commander decks (and I had a lot of fancy stuff in it so it was double sleeved). Ultimately the reason I dismantled it.

[@sirmoth3955]

Decks I took apart: - Rosheen Meanderer hydras: It was super linear; just ramp a bunch and make a big hydra each turn. I eventually changed it to Gargos after it came out, and the addition of the fight club and targeted spells sub-theme helped a ton for variety. - Yeva, Nature's Herald: This one I took apart because it was not fun for anyone else to play against. I would get out Yeva and a Seedborn Muse and basically have four turns per turn cycle by playing on other people's turns. I loved it, but I would have lost some friends if I kept it.

[@JonReid01]

Damn you really got me this time with the moxfield ad, I was like what deck is he talking about. Got 'em!

[@eddieredmann3]

I actually also built a creature snatch deck with Marchesa, the Black Rose, and when it had all the pieces it needed, it could be fun, but that required a number of components that were very delicate all being around. It was just... a mess. Besides, giving people your stuff is much more fun anyway!

[@ferdithetank7535]

Can't wait for Ham Sandwich deck tech, interested in what you can build with that😏 Also, sometimes if you don't like how your deck works, good solutions are: 1) swapping a commander with one in the same colour identity 2) changing the format you play it in. For example, you can build Adeliz deck into a Veyran izzet valuetown, or take it into Duel Commander, where it's a pretty strong tempo general

[@RedCometNurse]

I made a Breya Vehicles deck that I want to try out. It is kinda dumb with a secret commander of Alibou, Ancient Witness to get some damage out for tapping the stuff to pilot. The requirement is that all the creatures in the deck need to be Artifact Creatures.

[@jessesandburg]

Congrats on 80k subs!

[@kendelia9609]

This one goes out to Joe. I had a jeleva theft deck. I changed it to a volrath clones deck, and love it so much more. You copy your opponents stuff, so less worry about taking it home with you. Volrath is super versatile himself. And if a player dies you don't lose half your board. And I get to draw everything I copy on infinitokens! Still not very strong but I win with it quite often. Each game is a puzzle to find the win condition

[@connorwasson4220]

So sad to see the jeleva deck taken apart! The first video I saw from you guys was the budget bombs deck tech, which led to me building it as my first commander deck.

[@Stray7]

One deck that I had that I loved in concept but just didn't really work was my Marath Naya Aristocrats deck. This was an experiment to see if I could combine all the Persist creatures in the Naya colors with all the cards that incidentally plop +1/+1 counters on things when they ETB and then sac them off for value with the surprising amount of sac outlets available to the Naya shard. It worked...a little bit. But it was just waaaaay too clunky, and there were the standard problems Aristocrats can have of not getting the right pieces in order to come together. Compounding this was it being hard to actually close out games. A noble attempt, but sadly a failed experiment.

[@Orelusz]

Decks I've took apart must be an Adeliz as well, it was fun but I wanted more so switched over to Inalla at first and later on to Tevezh / Kraum cutting a lot of creatures and making it just a powerhouse. As for other that I'm taking apart is Kadena, is fun but isn't my style anymore so moving to another thing there maybe Kodama/Sakashima or something. As for Yuriko... I continue to make her even more unjust everytime I can, is my high power almost cEDH on a budget, the deck itself doesn't cost more than 200$ and is so damn powerful I love it.

[@PALIGames]

my main deck I took apart years ago was my Prime speaker Zegana deck it was so strong that every game became archenimy and I could still win, probably wouldnt be as strong with all the cards out now but who knows I dont even remember the decklist.

[@coreyroberson4550]

15:08 - "It is the only transform card like that" - Garruk Relentless would like to have a word with you.

[@brett5569]

Congrats on 80K!

[@quailsinspace]

Im in the process of taking apart my Myrkul lord of bones deck, was a mana intensive enchantment deck that needs way more mana fixing and even when it worked it was usually only 1 turn away from someone else winning anyhow. Also another friend built a stax version that worked waaaaay better and that fully put me off trying to fix it. Now im trying to separate it out into a mono white Daxos deck and a yet undecided golgari deck.

[@jackmcfetridge]

I do have a Yuriko deck that is by far the strongest deck I own, but it’s nice to have it in reserve for when we want to have a quick game or everyone pulls out their high power decks for a game

[@JJMickeyMedia]

Decks I've taken apart: The Omenkeel: Too vulnerable to removal, and too staxy for casual play. Vona, Butcher of Magan: Stuck between wanting to be a value deck and a combo deck Gruul Omnath: Was more interested in playing elementals than landfall so I switched to Horde of Notions with Omnath in the 99 Kess: I enjoyed the deck enough, but when Veyran came out I decided I'd rather have her as my spellslinger deck

[@MedievalWerewolf]

I feel you on balancing Wizard Tribal with Spellslinger. It never played out as envisioned. That's why I completely revamped my Parun deck (no combo).

[@darksteelmenace595]

I've lost count of all the decks I scrapped over the years, but I actually managed to build a cool Breya deck: Breya mass polymorph. All of the creatures in the deck are 7+ mana polymorph hits and her colors allow you to play all of the polymorph spells + reanimation (and carddraw) which is pretty nice. Also she's one of the very few Commanders that just puts 3 creatures on the table for just 4 mana.

[@blaze556922]

Great video is always guys. I don't so many decks that half of them end up being once that just sit on the back burner. Could you do a video about Dex you intend to build in the future and commanders you'll never have any interest in messing with?

[@charliemarlow647]

Decks I've taken apart and why: 1. Atraxa superfriends - miserable to play against for creature decks. Am actually reassembling this to play in different metas. 2. Tergrid discard - most decks can't handle hand disruption (pun intended), and so isn't fun to play against. Changed into K'rrik with a hand disruption sub-theme. 3. Esix, Fractal Bloom - deck durdled too much and relied too heavily on commander, without much to do when it wasn't on-board. Stripped for parts into Xyris. 4. Tuvasa voltron - was too fragile and either won very quickly or fell flat on its face. Could've fixed with some changes, but switched to a Kestia auras deck with a tokens sub-theme and have loved that!

[@ferdithetank7535]

Also, interesting observation is that like with Omnath, I grew tired with green decks in general, because they all played pretty much the same and even used same cards, so I'd have to buy multiple copies of same staples just to keep their integrity. Now I only have one green deck and another one building, it's been *that* boring😅

[@Krunschy]

The one deck I had to take apart was Satsuki, the living lore and for tons of reasons. It's a selesnya saga deck, which basically results in a token + counter deck. What makes it terrible is how is each synergystic Saga pumps out different tokens and distributes counters in different ways, so in the end your board is 5 different stacks of tokens, with different amount of counters on each and 3 different triggers on the stack that hardly matter. You just stop caring about your own board at some point. Plus the commander is so mediocre, I would only ever cast them, when I ran out of better stuff to do. On top of that the deckbuilding was boring too: Between enchantresses and sagas you basically have the tribal problem in deckbuilding twice. So yeah, can't recommend one bit.

[@StrangeGamer859]

4c Omnath is my favorite deck I've made so far, but that doesn't have any Landfall effects besides the basic ramp package. Instead I made it a blink deck, but with access to 4 colors and a combo piece in the command zone

[@notequalto5179]

How does Moxfield compare to Archidekt? I use Archidekt and it's pretty convenient and has a lot of features already.

[@seanduncan9722]

I literally watch you guys more than every other mtg channel. Including command zone and other big names. Love you guys, youre doing gods work.

[@noffpoppin]

I am also Sean Duncan and I approve this message^

[@1eworm]

I played Joe's Satoru Umezawa deck at LotusCon2022 and it was hella fun. Didn't need Yuriko and had a lot of variance in how to win with it.

[@trumpetperson11]

I definitely agree with many of the points you brought up about four color decks, based on my experiences with Yidris. Its really hard to choose a cohesive direction, since you have so many options, and can really just end up in a value pile. That being said, I think yidris is the kind of commander that can introduce a somewhat unique and enjoyable value pile deck. There were definitely issues with closing out games without playing boogieman cards like expropriate (I also didn't really want to put any infinites into the deck), and often if you 'go off' it just means you have some non-deterministic thing where you durdle for a while and come out with a lot of value and some advantage. But then someone just board wipes or kills some of your things, and you feel like you didn't really do much. Also, due to the fact that you can play almost any card in the deck, it is very easy to accidently get carried away and make the deck more powerful than you originally intended. You can basically put any of the 'really powerful' bombs in commander into a 4 color value pile. But if you do that too much, you just end up with a deck that is way too slow for cEDH and too strong for your average casual pod. All that being said, I love playing my Yidris deck, and am glad that it was the four color deck I chose to go for. Especially as a player that enjoys just durdling around for a while.

[@clayvision]

I built a mono black self mill zombie deck that I adore, but I built it much differently and for a lower power pods, still awesome

[@Smaul002]

Would love to see a vid gushing about your favorite commander decks

[@Rascus75]

Beezy! I was thinking of building Saskia but I'm having trouble settling on a direction to go in; goad, opponents' choice, treasures, infect, aristocrats, equipment, they all seem fun. Any tips from your experience with her? As for the question, I always try to roll a commander I'm dropping into the next deck. Rolled Ulasht into Xenagos into Gahiji into Marath (and maybe now Saskia!). Rolled Arixmethes into Damia and she's still going strong.

[@SirCorn]

I currently have Emry built, but I'm always swapping pieces out and trying new things. It seems pretty ambiguous and can do a lot, I just don't know what I want to do with it lol

[@zeorox4490]

How cool would it be if there are mdfc creatures that are mages Who have a spell at their backside and a weaker Version of that Effekt on the Frontsite. Like they used up all their power and became a spell besically.

[@Gamemaniac92711]

I remember at least one mdfc card who's a spell on the other side and Is a legend: Extus, Oriq Overlord / Awaken the Blood Avatar

[@sliralisk]

the typical Arcades deck is kinda hard to win with just walls...until you add planeswalkers behind those walls and threatening to ulti.

[@BattleAxeRX]

I've taken apart all but one 2 color decks that I've made and 2 out of 4 single color decks. They feel too constrained to me. I finally built a 4c omnath and need to play and refine it...

[@bluepomegranate]

I also took apart my Mazirek deck. Originally, the plan was to convert it into a Korvold deck, but eventually I just decided not to bother because it felt so darn linear and the amount of math involved didn't seem worth it.

[@TCG9777]

Yuriko for worst decks? How do you mess that up?

[@kevinj4002]

I just took apart Chulane because I got bored of the play pattern. I only played it in high powered games. But even then, bouncing shrieking drake gets old after a couple years.

[@TheBrymanCometh]

I bought the Vehicle precon from Neo Kamigawa, dumped some upgrades into it and it just value tokens and swing big. Its so close to being torn apart.

[@jonasdietrich8109]

I took apart: -Bruvac, Mono Blue Mill: Can barerly win at all, is super repetitive and auto loses against some cards -Adrix and Nev, Simic Token Doubler: Tokens that are just vanilla creatures are just boring -Wilhelt, Dimir Zombie Tribal: The games always ended up being "search for Gravecrawler" and no other Zombie came even close to him -Satoru Umezawa, Ninjutsu cheat big threats into play: The whole deck falls apart with 1-2 removal and it turns out that people don't like getting hit by an unblockable Blightsteel colossus turn 4

[@Iamthequick]

that's why i dont have a Blightsteel colossus on my Satoru Deck (and because it costs like $80 xd)

[@charliemarlow647]

Suggestion for Wilhelt: don't play with Gravecrawler! Sounds silly, but honestly makes for much better games. Also, Varina is a really interesting zombie tribal commander that I'd highly recommend!

[@jonasdietrich8109]

@@charliemarlow647That sounds like a good idea, but I have already sold it to someone else. But I have some other refreshing ideas that I haven't seen that often: -Jadzi: blue green storm spellslinger stratgety -Go-Shintai of Life's Origin: Shrines (it is kind of somewhat determined, but the shrines themselves aren't monotonous and offer a variety of effects) -Magar of the Magic Strings, red and black discard + reanimating spells - such an interesting design, combines morph and spellslinging somehow

[@THE_REEEE_KING]

Rothulk > necroduality > sac engine Rooftop > acerak Rothulk > relentless dead > ashnods altar > 2 other zombies Mikaeus > putrid goblin/plague belcher > sac engine Tons of ways to work without gravecrawler and win. Also to second the other guy, Varina is the way to go. More flexible and faster than wilhelt.

[@charliemarlow647]

@@THE_REEEE_KING The way I've built Varina is with no Gravecrawler, no Acerak and no sac outlets, so as to avoid any infinite combos while still allowing playing with powerful zombies. Good mid-range deck that fits nicely into most pods in my meta :)

[@JessBritvec]

I posted this in response to a short, but I have a Mazirek deck that wins by turn 10 or 11. I have all the combos in there, but I keep the power down by never tutoring for them, just Jarad, Golgari Litch Lord (who is my main win con), and use just a few sub-optimal tutors. Other than that I’m relying on combat damage. Mazirek is strong enough that the deck is still consistent when you don’t have a combo out, which is kind of scary when you think about it, but it is possible to build it in a way that isn’t ultra efficient and still have a good deck. Mine does have edict effects, which can be oppressive, but it’s balanced out by how delicate creatures pumped with +1/+1 counters can be. Instead of running all the staples there are plenty of Golgari options that require you to sacrifice something, so it can be super synergistic, even for ramp. Skullbriar is really fun though, and you can do a lot of the same things.

[@matthewbell4897]

What didn't go wrong is my blind guess that the moxfield promo is at 14:14

[@Jeunster]

Hah, Arcades, the first commander I’ve build from scratch, good one to start with BECAUSE it build itself and has evolved over time into a fun deck with interactive cards like Switcheroo recently replaced with Modify Memory, Guard Duty, and the new E.Honda card. Yes, my Arcades is still alive! Where Ghostway and Eerie Interlude made more sense than Teferi’s Protection. 🙌🏻

[@kurtisyoung6739]

Haha, that's funny, cause my Mazirek deck is my oldest deck and I will never take it apart. I just love it too much. However, I definitely agree. You have to actively remove infinite combos if you're not looking to win like that, and the moment you think they're all gone, whoops! I accidently went infinite again and ran away with the game, haha. My Mazirek deck has seen many iterations, and I feel it's finally in that "powerful but fair and fun" range that I like to play in, but there were many games before where it made the rest of the game feel invalid because oops, I went infinite again.

[@NitpickingNerds]

Beezy was oops I winning all the time lol 😂

[@waaurufu]

I took apart my Karoma False God deck. 5 color is rough when you don't have the money for the good manabase.

[@ThorMan91587]

Tomer of mtg goldfish has a guide for cheap five color manabases. He claims he can make one work all the way down to fifteen bucks

[@averageplaygroup]

Cool video guys! @Beeze may I have a link to the 5-color-only-multycolor deck list? This was faith! My pod has a challenge to build a multi-color only deck and I got nada 😔

[@Mentaliyah_fine]

Can we getca deck tech for the changed yuriko to umezawa deck? I lost all fun using my yuriko but love ninjas. Would appreciate it. Love to you guys!

[@TransparentEclipse]

I made a yuriko deck recently just for lols, tried it out with my friends a couple games. Out of 3 games I won all 3 and none lasted longer than their turn 9, my turn 12. I won one of the games on their turn 5, my turn 7. It’s just so ridiculously unfun for everyone involved other than the yuriko player, and it was even worse for me since I had to calculate so much crap every turn and my friends were just on their phones. Yuriko is stupidly strong, no kidding, but it is a miserable experience for everyone on the table other than the yuriko player. Made a wyleth deck more recently and Jesus the difference is night and day, he’s a blast for everyone

[@jaredgraham4363]

the biggest thing i have run into with 4 colors is normally its partners and one is there for colors and just does not get cast

[@ANeonGenesis]

Joe's hair looking wonderful, as usual.

[@Brooks0511]

So sad that in august 11th y’all didn’t put out a full video and wish me a happy birthday I waited all year lol

[@poutinemcflurry3544]

I don't have many decks, and I haven't taken any apart yet, but one I'm definitely gonna take apart is my volo deck. I built it on a pretty serious budget, so the majority of the cards are super clunky, and the way I built it was so stupid, because there's a lot of overlapping creature types, and there are like 6 cards in my deck that can get around it, so I end up just playing a bunch of creatures. Plus, the only real way for my deck to pretty much do anything is if I draw this very specific mutate creature.

[@stfinalwrath]

You should really try out Xanathar for the steal your stuff deck. You run the bells to mill your opponents of 1 card, so if you get land on top you can "re-roll" for a spell, and ofc the creatures that tap to mill two are good for this as well, and you run paradox haze and sphinx of the second sun so you can target all 3 opponents each turn and the rest of the deck is just card draw, counters, removal and mana rocks. It works FANTASTICALLY. I built it and ran it a couple times after a buddy pulled an extended art foil because I told him I wanted to make the deck so I bought it off him for 20$ because that's what it was worth at the time, even though I knew it obviously wasn't going to keep that value, and it was definitely worth it. It's hard to win a game of magic when all your key pieces are on someone else's field. 😆 I ended up taking it apart, but not because it was slow or bad or couldn't close a game, it did pretty freaking well in all but like, one game. But there was stuff in it I wanted for my Xander Sneak Attack/Netherborn Altar deck, and I needed the sleeves for that deck as well. 😆 If you want to run a strong and fun version of steal your opponents stuff, I HIGHLY recommend giving Xanathar a try, Joe. I think you'd have a lot of fun with it.

[@chrischrisson4152]

Muldrotha: Muldrotha always gets so much hate that untapping with her in my playgroup is almost unheard of

[@stevecarr1389]

I am now waiting for 'The Ham Sandwich' decktech. No excuses lads.

[@NitpickingNerds]

It’s coming!

[@crawdaddy1234]

The coolest Saskia deck I saw was based on the enchantment, Wild Pair: all creatures have power + toughness equal to seven. 😂

[@lorenzomasieri6872]

I want to build a wurm tribal with Saskia, trying to turn them unblockable and with double strike. seems pretty fun

[@Pigotti94]

Every deck is tribal just like every ability is kicker. Aristocrats: death tribal Spell slinger/ storm: instant and sorcery tribal Token decks: token tribal Wheel decks: wheel tribal Stax: hatebear tribal Voltron: pump tribal Enchantress: enchantment tribal Keep it going

[@Nat1Fletcher]

Decks I have dissasembled -Most spells decks, cause I just would get board of it. -GB Aristrocrat decks, I just get bored of the board -Sultai Goodstuff decks, absolutely love them, but hate combo wins with them. I know i did not put specific commanders cause I have played multiple commanders in these colours lol

[@jerryloiselle8507]

Yessssss I was waiting for this !!!

[@hobez64]

I currently have 7 precons in my possession. The original plan was to get something to play and then scrap it for parts later, getting some things in interesting color combos. Right now the only one I'm not a huge fan of is the newer Innistrad vampires but other than that I love the other ones I have

[@alexandertorres9756]

The deck is honestly slow and clunky. It relies too heavily on the commander to “work,” which most of the time the special ability takes 2 turns after you cast him to do his thing. Two whole turns of spot removal, building up threat, and board wipes for your opponents. It’s just… there’s better ways to cheat out vampires in these colors

[@RazielNightfall]

I just took apart my Lord Windgrace since it felt like it was being pulled into two different directions. Tokens and hailfire combo. I built Omnath of rage for tokens overrun, and Gitrog for hailfire combo. Both of those run much better/ smoother then Windgrace.

[@xCptKramerx]

Your problems with Adeliz remind me of my problems with my Veyron deck. Its a hard thing to balance between putting more magecraft creatures on the field and casting the instants and sorceries that that trigger them. Veyron does a little better than Adeliz since doubling the magecraft triggers makes it much easier to get a good combo going.

[@spudster8887]

It should also be noted with arcades, he is just strictly worse chulane if you build him a little higher up. Hes a curio deck that is going to combo out in the same way those decks do. Oh beezy if you want wizard tribal, have you tried marchesa the black rose? Shes a surprisingly good wizard tribal commander

[@squirrelsflame6829]

How I like to play my omnath deck is by once I get a lot of mana I use the avenger of zendikar + mystic reflection combo or the sun titan + maroug + fetch land or Kodama + the moon sage Or I try to get enough token makers where I just overwhelm their boards

[@Blighted_agent]

I play almost exclusively CEDH and I've found that I enjoy decks more when they allow fun interaction rather than just turbo out the exact same combo over and over. Tivit Seller of Secrets and najeela come to mind immediately

[@g4greed502]

are they examples of fun interactions or linear combos? tivit is just extra turns with time sieve and najeela is just extra combat

[@Blighted_agent]

@@g4greed502 those are decks I had to take apart, they were super linear and never really led to fun games. My favorite decks currently are Raggadragga and Krrick

[@tee918]

For anyone reading this there's an Avacyn primer that is amazing on tappedout

[@willzang3000]

i had mutate and copy spells in omnath to get the damage triggers multiple times

[@thundering1]

Haven't taken it apart, but don't play it often - Saskia: Mother of Dragons! It works REALLY well, and can finish games as quickly as you can ramp (hello green!) to get your dragons out. Saskia picks someone who I know will be heavily fortified, then swing at the poor player who has no way to block my Dragons. You can make them HUGE with various anthems, many ways to give them double strike, lifelink, deathtouch, and thanks to white I have Unbreakable Formation, Rootborn Defenses, Make a Stand, and the new Your Temple is Under Attack just WAITING for someone to play a wrath. It's a real PITA, which is why I don't play it often.

[@AugustAMcClung]

Omnath with Avenger of Zendikar, scute swarm, felidar retreat, Purphoros seems fun….throw in a bala ged recovery, eternal witness, dollhouse of horrors to do it all over

[@DaGraveCrowder]

My guess is 8:51 One of these days I will guess right! Also, I made Breya into an artifacts matter/treasure deck!

[@ericr4677]

I turned my arcades deck into chulane and it has become a lot more entertaining. It’s twice as fast and just when it feels like you’re about to get curb stomped. You end up wrecking your opponents.

[@burningpapersun1]

I made a mazerik deck that was sacrificing eldrazi to squirrels.

[@thrillhouse4151]

Mmm I’ve taken apart so many decks, a lot of them I liked but just wanted to try something new with my poor sleeve to card ratio. Oddly enough I could never get a Teysa Karlov deck I liked and I built it like 4-5 times with cards I bought specifically for it. Hahaha my worst would have to be my Cao Cao lord of Wei deck I made when I was first getting into Magic, it was just Cao Cao and every black card I owned, gurmag angler and vampire nighthawk and all.

[@timothysmith2308]

The ones I took apart Aminitou blink: I had a theme of amass as its main gimmick. In the end the deck went everywhere and lacked focus. I rebuilt it online and played it a month ago to delete it after due to the same issue. Both my wizard decks: draw go decks were not my style. One was firemind and the other was aeger. The decks had no real finish other than lab or oracle. Niv mizzet reborn: it was my legendary tribal. More of a superfriends build. More of the deck preformed but died to any blow out.

[@timothysmith2308]

Oh also Blood avatar: I converted my Mono black to this for 2 months. Found it quite boring.

[@JD-gk7eh]

Ones I took apart: - Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy: I built him as value and battlecruiser. He was just superlinear and rather boring. - Slimefoot: So mana hungry it just didn't work. I felt like I never did anything of consequence in most games. - Emiel the Blessed: Really mana hungry again and did a lot of work for payoffs that weren't very good. 6 mana to play a Rec Sage and blink it to kill two artifacts is not very strong, as it turns out. - Prime Speaker Zegana: I wanted a +1/+1 counter deck to work and she just wasn't it. It had mid-game playoffs that involved making large creatures that weren't so great. Had a lot of really expensive cards in it to not be very good. - Massacre Girl: I built her not to be oppressive but when you do that, you end up with something that's not very good. She was my lesson that you can't make some commanders fair or balanced; lean into the thing they do and go to 8+ power because that's where they end up. - Karametra, God of Harvests: Plenty strong and reasonable. She's just too much work. Too much searching, too much bookkeeping. She became not fun to play because there was just too much to keep track of and it was tiring. - Elsha of the Infinite: a cEDH build. Not as good as my Yuriko. We rarely play cEDH and this was a $3k+ deck that was sitting around not getting played so I took her apart and redistributed her pieces to other decks and traded others in. - Depala, Pilot Exemplar: Super clunky. She just didn't really work out, needing too much mana to be effective in colors that can't ramp it and needing to draw the right balance of cards in the deck to work. When Shirokai came out, this deck got repurposed into that.

[@wakefieldwade4019]

Thank you guys this was insanely entertaining.

[@RussianPS3]

I took apart omnath too for the same reasons, as well as Elsha because I was winning every game with top

[@ricomartins_]

Cmon guys Breya is a super fair and fun deck to play. It has several lines of action, you ban build it super combo agressive or just a boa constrictor deck that grows along the game. You can control it in various ways with different win conditions. Great content anyways! :)

[@CmdrUD87]

Beezy, did you consider building the wizards deck with Anhelo instead? Just out of interest

[@PlayerThe90]

Nice content as always! my nerds I have taken a part in several decks through the years because you find in the wrong spot at the table (to powerful for the table level). Moxfielg Guess simple percentage equation: Video length * 0.75 (75%) = 13.09 close enough ?

[@blaze556922]

Yuriko is always fun and I don't play any extra turns. When you say you have to power something down to make it fun you also could just not have powered it up in the first place. Make a ninja deck and have ways to know the top card of your library and you will have a great time.

[@TheThirdGenQ]

Town Gossip Monger has the same problem as Avacyn, but matters a lot less.

[@suntitan4429]

If you want a fairly fun yuriko you can’t use extra turns obviously

[@RecoveringSpartan]

I house rule my own yuriko deck to pay commander tax on ninjutsu too. So casting or ninjutsu both add to tax and you pay tax on both. It's still pretty aggro and all in but much more balanced. Tuning it to play a longer game takes off some heat and makes it play better both to pilot and play against

[@skullkrusher-dx4kg]

I play light paws and the searching does get insane.

[@krunchyapples]

"Yuriko is incredibly strong with extra turns". Well, then just.....don't put extra turns in the deck?? Although I will admit Yuriko was my very first commander deck that I ever built from scratch, and she holds a very special place in my mind. My play pod at the time enforced a soft budget cap of around $115, so I couldn't really make use of many really powerful cards, but I tried making it work with trying to synergize ninjustu with etb effects. I've since switched her out for Satoru Umezawa just like you because he's obviously just way more fun. Unblockables into big, splashy creatures like archon of cruelty or sepulchral/diluvian primordials is just pure goodness. It's still fair for the table and I enjoy using him more too.

[@SPACEB0YZER0]

To keep from being on rails, then use a different commander other than the main one for that tribe