The 20 Most Underrated Commanders In The Format

[@edhdeckbuilding]

a few of my patrons generously donated decklists for some of these commanders. they're in the description.

[@15spidergel]

Another aspect of Ulasht is that you can cast it, remove all counters to create that many saprolings, then cast it again to make it even bigger since it'll see those Saprolings while determining the number of counters it enters with.

[@ceronmachtdinge]

And then add an earthcraft and maybe a wild growth for infinite creatures

[@Eddie_Makes]

I always love the underwhelming/underused commander videos. ALWAYS watch them 🔥

[@LexAnarchy]

Kazuul is one of my absolute favourite commanders! I built a combat focused deck around him and there are just so many fun and interesting cards you can put in. I always have a blast playing it and it's a really fun deck for the whole table.

[@patriciosoler3861]

So many, imaginative ways to play this game- thanks Demo!

[@Gabahulk]

36:15 Also, if the removal is only for creatures, you can just reveal your hand in response again, your ability will resolve, Sasaya will become an enchantment, and the removal will fizzle because the target is invalid.

[@ricardardevol9720]

I have a Grazilaxx Ninjas + "Hand size matters" deck and it is one of my favourites because of how consistent it is in its game plan. I also tried in the past to build both Barrin and Temmet, but was not convinced by the decks I made. Certainly got some new interesting ideas from this video... time to brew them! Thanks for sharing :)

[@NateFinch]

I just made a Danny Pink deck, it's so good. There are so many creatures in blue that get a counter whenever you draw a card or draw your second card. I draw so many cards in that deck and my creatures get huge. And proliferate now says "put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control and draw that many cards". Hell yeah.

[@bartoffer]

One of my recent faves for underrated commanders are Anax and Cymede (358 EDHR decks). Built with auras that you can manually return to your hand (conviction, crown of flames, flickering ward, ghitu fire breathing), you build around repeatedly casting them - either to make tokens, to draw cards, or on A&C to close out the game. First-strike vigilance turns out to be a great statline to deal with early aggression, and you unlock access to both commander damage and go-wide damage with the pumps. Blend in Storm Herald's ability to grab stuff from the GY and you have a ridiculous value-train with cantrip auras. The new Jumpstart legends Brigone (at least once she's cheaper) and Cleon are excellent, but far more obscene is Frontline Heroism. Each aura cast on A&C now gets you a copy of that aura, a hasty token it's attached to, and said token is pumped with 1/1 trample. Three-Dog might be a better value commander, but he'll get a lot of attention, struggles to commander-damage kill, and is far more easily disrupted.

[@thelunchlady8276]

I have a playgroup that we take the 'flip' commanders from Strixhaven and build unique decks around. We decide, with our opening hand, which color we will play that game and stick with that. If we put a permanent out of one color, we can't use the other color. Needless to say, there is a lot of discard and cycling in our decks. It really makes deckbuilding challenging and makes you look at it a whole new way.

[@marcoottina654]

I guess reanimation is a powerful strategy here :D Orzhov decks should be almost unbeatable :D

[@jonathantavitian7283]

I’ve already tried making five of these after watching and I just realized you posted this only yesterday. I love this content please keep it up😊😊

[@jasonhettenhouser4115]

OMG, I have a sapling of colfenor deck that is so much fun to play. Life gain/life loss. I love that you mentioned it on your video, and I wish more people played her... She's great!

[@jonathantavitian7283]

I’m trying her out now!

[@pjmielnik]

I love videos like this. So much cooler than the new sets and their commanders.

[@makesquash]

I literally just finished putting together a Temmet deck. Ever since Amonkhet ive been trying to find a good theme for it and I landed on a Living Weapon theme. Really fun commander you can do a lot with.

[@casually_lurking]

My Temmet is an Embalm/ Eternalize Azorius token (Zombie?) build; it's the obvious direction, but between Exalted and Discard-Draw subtheming it claps people out of nowhere. I loved the Amonkhet block SO much, and he's just a fun guy.

[@makesquash]

@ I put all the enbalm / eternalize cards that made sense. Aven Wind guide is probably the best one. I also built in some phyrexian support cards for the germ tokens you get off living weapons, the flip praetors and cards that make incubator tokens.

[@lucky777seven5]

Guys I really can't express how powerful and FUN a Seizan deck is. You can opt for political/hug in mono black or a more competitive drain playstyle, but it doesn't change the fact that EVERYONE has fun with this deck, because everyone draws so much (damn maybe even voltron would be a good option). It also speeds up games, which can be useful for shorter game nights with friends. Give the little guy a try and you won't regret it

[@dysfunctionalfuk]

I've played against a Seizan deck and it was the least fun I've ever had. It was just board wipe, 2 damage, repeat and this lasted over an 1hr. I conceded when he did killing wave for 19. I'm sure your deck is different. Its just a game I'll never repeat.

[@Sushi4Tetra]

36:25 you can just activate the "reveal your hand" ability again in response to targeting

[@andrewfornes5320]

Ellyn Harbreeze, Busybody is one of the "Choose a Background" commanders & I believe is one of the least used. She is a 4 drop, Mono-White creature who has a tap ability which looks at the top X cards of your library and you choose one to put into your hand & the rest get put on the bottom in a random order. She isn't anything special, but I decided to build a Boros Treasure deck with her & selected Passionate Archeologist as the background which deals damage equal to the cmc of a spell to target player, whenever you cast that spell from exile. The deck utilizes all of those red instant & sorceries that create treasure tokens as well as exile cards to cast. Wild-Magic Sorcerer (gives the first spell you cast from exile cascade) & Rain of Riches (gives the first spell you cast using treasure mana cascade) both work amazingly well. I played the deck the other day after removing Dockside & it still works fine... I did lose out on infinite Treasure combos but that is okay.

[@barrysetser3909]

Nice video Demo! Ironically, got a bunch of new ideas for a Hylda deck that I've been slowly working on... Yeah yeah, Hylda was not covered (and probably won't be), but many of the ideas here work even better in that deck (Danny Pink and Aboshan). Pink is legit sick in any U or UB counter deck

[@efbland1]

Great ideas - I do have a Grazilaxx deck that I really like, which re-uses adventure creatures and on-cast effects, like Eldrazi, when they're blocked and bounced back to my hand. But often my opponents would just choose not to block if they don't want me to re-use an on-cast trigger. Barrin is a really cool alternative that I hadn't considered, since his ability can guarantee I'll bounce my creatures back to my hand to recast them if I want.

[@TheGreatBryan25]

I love my Iname, Death Aspect deck. It is a really fun build and it is better than anyone thinks. Depending on how you build it, it can win out of nowhere. Definitely one of my all-time favorites. I'm never taking it apart.

[@davwad2]

Sapling of Colfenor looks good w/ 0/X walls and life gain triggers. I like the 2/2 point made here. You get life gain and loss triggers if you go with equal power/toughness.

[@punkypinko2965]

I"m thinking about trying Sapling of Colfenor 30:31 in my Lathril deck (which I might turn into a Tyvar the Bellicose deck and keep Lathril as a secret commander). I have a lot of elves in that deck and this will help me dig through my deck to put elves in my hand. And it might provide a bit of a distraction from my elves, since I would be attacking with it every turn. It reminds me of Toski -- an annoying attacker to bug my opponents and draw cards -- but it might draw a card on attack instead of combat damage.

[@mitchwhite8941]

I built plargg with zirda companion, and the only card 3cm or less is basalt monolith with zirda makes infinite mana. Then the rest is a bunch of stuff with activated abilities

[@Foetoid2k6]

My fav commander and one i’ve never see a anyone else play at any LGS is Shattergang Brothers. Very underrated.

[@WoundedDuckify]

One of my favorite decks is Eligeth and Kydele hand size matters. It has Multani and a lot of power/toughness is equal to hand size. Pretty cool creature

[@stevenwatson9555]

Seizan is my favorite deck to pilot. Love that dude.

[@joedominguez8064]

Kogla is amazing but he gets a lot of hate once ppl realize how strong he is. First game I played him I realized I’d accidentally made a combo with Eternal Witness and Bramblecrush that let me destroy EVERY PERMANENT my opponents had 😅

[@DarkJusticeMetal]

I have a Valgavoth Wheels deck and let me tell you... I had my fun with it when it was new and fresh but now I can never get anything off with it. I wonder if I can form it into a Seizan deck. Granted I lose the wheels but I still get the few "draw ouch" effects in black. I've been on a mono color renaissance so that might be the right play

[@jonathanfagerlund976]

My Grazilaxx deck is one of my favorites, and it's GREAT if you're on a budget. My variant focuses on 1) cheap creatures with ETB effects, and 2) card draw payoffs (including some neat secret tech like Sword of War and Peace). My opponent blocks me? I can recast for another instance of the ETB. They let damage through? I'm drawing cards. Full grip all day.

[@poldosfamily2490]

My iname deck is arriving tomorrow. I’m so hyped!!! Pretty budget but with so many lines that i’m eager to play it!

[@Nirvines97]

Vogar, Necropolis Tyrant is another shocking one, only 181 decks for such a great draw engine for sacrifice/destroy strategy in mono black

[@Twime.]

Agreed! That commander is so sweet

[@angryfyce]

I have a Kazuul deck. It has a fair bit of pillowfort and stacks pieces to try and make sure people can’t afford my ogre tax whenever they attack me. The problem is that there aren’t enough cards that force people to attack me specifically, so people end up never attacking you once they realize I don’t get any ogres if they just fight amongst each other until they can remove Kazuul. I have voltron cards in the deck to try and punish people who ignore me, but some more cards like Trove of Temptation that force at least one creature to hit me would help the deck a lot.

[@ZeIose]

For sasaya, if they try to remove it in response to my activation trying to flip it, can I not just respond by trying to flip it? And that would avoid the removal if it were a creature kill spell?

[@edhdeckbuilding]

yes. you can activate the ability as many times as you want. in fact you can activate it even without the right amount of lands in hand.

[@TheBonemanjack]

Nice video, do you have a decklist of the Temmet deck you used to have?

[@Shimatzu95]

My first token deck in azorious was temmeth, built fairly soon after he came out. I come back to it with some ideas every now and then but besides the "living weapon" kind of cards nothing worked out that well.

[@nelsikegaming]

I have a Sasaya deck and man is it fun. I avoided all infinites and play it in casual pods. I goes under the radar until it's too late. I love it!

[@davidhower7095]

Kazuul is the de-facto commander for mono-red superfriends. People keep using flipwalker Chandra… and while I get it, actually being able to keep your other Chandras alive feels a bit more important, don’t you think?

[@RedGuitarFreestyle]

Damn i have this Situation since 10 years and i never git this Idea this is hilarious thank you XD

[@nelsikegaming]

Glad you added the "It's actually 5" for Sasaya's. I learned that AFTER building this guy. Even better than I thought. It adds the mana for tapping it and then for each other land with the same name. The creature removal trick is so good too haha "in response it's now an enchantment" 😂

[@PrimalRockSlapper]

and I already built decks around 3 of these in 2 days, Multani, Maro-Sorcerer is crazy, dont even need anthoms, just a lot of ramp, a lot of card draw, and trample. Last game I playtested the deck, I got up to 20 some cards in hand, one of the few decks that actually needs a reliquary tower.

[@Xylol1337]

geez barrin is so much fun. my most sucessful deck and its quite unique. the ability to bounce something on will is so impressive

[@kamakazi339]

I built Iname because of your channel. It is a complete glass cannon but when it works it is awesome. I also have Kazuul and I built it as mono red enchantments I also think Akuta, Born of Ash is criminally underrated. Run it as Voltron with hidden commanders (Tinybones/Tergrid) and profit.

[@kurtisyoung6739]

I absolutely love Kogla. I have a Kogla deck that's essentially a mono green human tribal deck with a bunch of fantastic ETB's and mana reduction. The deck ends up replaying humans over and over again for massive value.

[@gabrielkopp9248]

Could you share your list please? I’ve been eyeing him for a while since I’ve wanted a mono-green deck but I might just need a little inspiration

[@kurtisyoung6739]

​@@gabrielkopp9248I'll have to get it put on moxfield or something and get back to you. I don't have it written down.

[@JohnOConnell-u9o]

Underrated pet commander of mine: Sek'kuar Deathkeeper.

[@Koko-fp2pl]

Ooh I've been thinking of building him do you have a deck list you can share?

[@Nirvines97]

I actually have Storrev Vraska planeswalker deck aiming to do precisely what you described - ult main phase and then return her at combat damage step to my hand only to play her again. I proliferate the counters to get the ult out asap. Funny one

[@HanDaimond]

I always loved underrated commanders, I think my most underrated one is Jo Grant, she's rank 2971 so dangerously closer to rank 3000, only 30 decks in EDHREC, and all the deck's strategy is discarding artifacts to bring them back from the graveyard with spells like Brilliant Restoration and Triumphant Reckoning, it is also very budget ($17 USD) so had to be very creative when building it. It was a fun challenge and turned out to be functional, I've played with it 3 times and won all of them, maybe because how unassuming the commander is compared to the most played ones.

[@andersrolig]

Temmet was my first commander rigjt when Amonkhet came out. Took him apart fast. But might revisit him

[@maxlee9512]

Pillow fort group slug Kazuul is my fave deck rn. Mortal combat iname is also really fun with seizan as the alt commander!

[@jdvolz]

I played the Multani, Maro-Sorcerer deck a long time ago. This deck is insane if you want to draw cards and hit people with a huge creature. Every card that says "draw cards equal to a creature's power" or similar is going to draw you 21-25 cards. I am not exaggerating. Rishkar's Expertise or Return of the Wildspeaker are draw 20+ cards in this deck. After you've done that, you'll find the one green one sided board wipe called Monstrous Onslaught. You will deal about 40-50 damage split among all the creatures on the table (excluding hexproof and indestructible, etc). It just occurred to me that you could actually do this to a Stuffy Doll and kill a player. I never did that when I played this deck about 6-7 years ago. Once you have drawn half your deck, then Multani is big enough to be lethal to most opponents. That's when you start using the "give each creature you control trample" effects so that your 52/52 Multani can just trample players to death. If you like to play the game with half your deck in your hand, this is the deck for you.

[@GrompEconomics]

The guide of seasons with lure effects would be awesome! Makes your spirit army psuedo unblockable and makes you even more spirits

[@channeling764]

I’ve wanted to play Iname for the longest time just to play with Infernal Kirin in it…. That card has such a beautiful art

[@edhdeckbuilding]

kamigawa has some of the best art

[@mmartak]

Kogla is quite possibly my favorite commander of all time. I like to throw in Mycosynth Lattice, Liquimetal Torque, even Ashnod's Transmogrant...now you are just taking out any permanent on the board.

[@marcoottina654]

Storrev seems funny! I've never thought about Elves as "sacrifice A, make B a big Voltron, discard C in a madness-like fashion, etc", but she's amazing :D giving her double strike is surely a nice challenge :D I LOVE "Loriq Loremage"! It's in ALL my black deck since I can "Entomb" anything I wish to reanimate, or just "Dread Return" so I can reanimate other "entombed" cards :D He's fantastic! A true Rare card with a balancing of ... yes, a lost time

[@aldotrioksidi]

I built an illegal deck with Storrev and Marcus as partner commanders. I also run several of these as a normal EDH decks, but I'm terminally a hipster commander player. I think my lowest deck count is on Tahngarth, Talruum Hero, which is under 50 decks still probably.

[@jkjackson91]

Love my Taigam deck! Fun graveyard shenanigans!

[@obadijahparks]

Maralen of the mornsong is my pet commander. People hate it!

[@Zaelkrie]

I can believe any commander is unpopular there's like 300+ a year now with a lot of overlap, realistically there are only so many decks you can physically build and play in a given year. By the time you've built a deck a new set is already out with a whole bunch of new possible commanders.

[@anthonydemartinis766]

For the Patron of the Nezumi list, would you go just general mono-black midrange? Or would you focus on the life loss ability? Nezumi is really strong, but how much would you lean into the ability, or would you just play normally and have Nezumi as passive extra damage?

[@edhdeckbuilding]

so as it happens i'm currently putting an all white-bordered list together.

[@yerosilveira4614]

Funnyy fact about Sasaya is that you don't gotta tap it, so if they try to remove it, you can activate that hability again

[@dominooch1917]

I tried to make a kazuul deck a while ago I used those forced combats to try and have my opponents attack me and would give them incentives to attack me by placing curses on myself and other similar cards that would give my opponents a benefit from attacking me so I can make an ogre army I even included a fun combo whith Thunder dragon and Stalking Vengeance so I could just blow up my whole army of ogres as a funny alpha strike. Sadly, the deck is a little too passive and not proactive, so it relied too heavily on my opponents to make my deck run correctly. I ended up taking it apart, but taking its essence into a new deck of Gut with the Inspiring Leader background so I could have 6/3 skeletons I make myself and kept themes like terror of the peaks and the aforementioned thunder dragon/stalking vengeance for my silly combo

[@peterklein3354]

Patron of the Nezumi: I think this ability triggers too when permanents get milled into graveyard. Monoblack mill - could be fun too

[@sskinner462]

Storrev goes well with Ygra, Eater of All. You can sac food (creatures), buff Ygra, attack and retrieve, replay during 2nd main. Even without a sac outlet, you only spend 3 mana a turn looping a 1 cost, which is nothing for green.

[@teddysworldinsane7382]

Would barrin master wizard work in my blind seer deck?

[@Kryptnyt]

I didn't realize that Aboshan had been buffed so much when the creature type changes came out. Finally time for Giant Octopus

[@AlexOvTheAbyss]

I've had my eyes on Temmet for a long time now. Couldn't decide on whether to try and go all out tokens, do equipment, and/or an exalted theme

[@Lazydino59]

If you use equipment be careful you don’t give your token protection from your general’s colors!

[@AlexOvTheAbyss]

@Lazydino59 I did consider that. I have most of the Sword of X and Y cards, but did realize I can't run any with pro blue and/or white, which was a bummer. That said, the living weapons seem perfect for Temmet

[@jasonferguson9052]

Kogla, was great! Hint make him a human with maxwwod type effects then you can bounce him to avoid everything that opponents try to do to stop him like elking

[@Metabubblez]

I built iname death aspect back in 2020 and its one of the best decks at the table i built it as living death tribal

[@JeffreyGoddin]

I'm in the process of picking some $0.25-$1 Commander candidates from my collection, and first the Illithid, then Seizan got pulled for building lol. Yeah, that one seems like a challenge to build in a way that doesn't suck for me... Now let's talk about Zurgo Bellstriker lol.

[@mave6602]

Best shenanigan for Shaile and Embrose is to add many +1/+1 counter centric legends (or aristocrats) and simply play Ratadrabik. The +1/+1 counter theme is amazing with Cauldron of Souls and that is amazing with Aristocrats. Activate Cauldron sacrifice Embrose, get a non legendary Embrose Token while the card returns as Shaile, then use both Embrose and Shaile to use Persist shenanigans and have two ways to put coutners on your creatures. I actually play Ulasht. But it ends into infinit shenanigans really quickly. Way too many ways to turn Saprolings into mana. At first my playgroup said okay no infinit combos which ended in near infinit combos with ulasht were I recast it 30 times from the command zone instead. Since that became to complicated we said okay that is just a niech combo commander in the playgroup. And my last two cents. Sekki really fun with Coats of Arms. Lots of fighting effects, adding Pariah's Shield, Nemesis Mask, Angel's Trumpet. Lots of fun. And important note you can activate Sasaya's ability as often as you like Reveal your hand to flip it. Opponent casts a creature removal activate the ability again Sasaya becomes an enchantment the ability/spell fizzles. So it is 100% guranteed flipped if the condition is met.

[@jordansams6240]

Omg i forgot about storrev. I dont want to build a deck for him, but he would be amazing in my 6th doctor deck because i have a rule there that if i can get an effect i need on a legendary permenant then i gotta use it. So this would be awesome recursion for that deck especially since my commander would makena copy of him

[@GrizzneyGames]

Someone at my lgs has a Kogla deck, and he controls the board when he plays it.

[@DisgruntledFinnegan]

I think the reason Taigam doesn't see much play is due to him being completely overshadowed by Damia. Also skips your draw step, also gives card advantage but arguably more of it, and importantly she's in Sultai colors, which increases your options pretty significantly. I think people play Taigam, just in the 99 of their Damia deck.

[@Grootzrootz]

Dreamtide whale could go in a Danny Pink deck

[@rainbowcrash6990]

Danny Pink is awesome, maybe hes played more in 99s. I run him in animar, and without really any extra support, hes awesome. 4 mana is relevant, being able to run him out after animar. Then its an easy (auto?) 1 extra card per turn, already dope. But he often gets 2-3 cards in no time, and i dont have any specific counter support. Just a few extra U/G +1-counter-relevant cards, and hes re-filling my hand every turn.

[@casketbase7750]

I can vouch for Kogla. He has several combos that make infinite mana and draw your whole deck. King Kong Combo on TappedOut is my list.

[@moxcardboardtv8797]

I fucking love this channel.

[@MultiDAXDAX]

I love patron of the nezumi to hate tokens, sekki to di a crazy token strategy, taigam for everything, seizan as hand punisher, saplig as walls life gain!!

[@gethan3189]

Don't let everyone know about my boy Temmet. It's one of my oldest and by far funniest decks. Mine is built as token clones of my opponents creatures.

[@crawdaddy1234]

Mikeaus is just so good with Ranger (Captain) of Eos. That may be why it’s not used as a Commander.

[@fabiocorrea950]

I can see Taigam working on CEDH from card advantge alone

[@crawdaddy1234]

Sekki is one of the only Commanders that actually wants Doubling Season. 😂

[@Isaac-cm7zg]

Triad of Fate is another fun one

[@HumbleBasse]

I played 5/6 times against Danny Pink on cockatrice xD had no idea it was so .. "rare"

[@brennanmohr7348]

Multani is the truth.

[@bulcano1000]

O guess im playing mono black spirits next 😂😂

[@pretty_fly_for_a_jeskai]

My buddy has a Sekki deck and man overloaded Scale Up beats so much face in his deck. Not uncommon for him to have 20+ tokens to turn into 6/4's. They don't even need trample, someone is losing if the spell resolves.

[@xsenit]

grazilax is an amazing card i guess the only reason we dont see it is cause its mono blue combat

[@joaozin5132]

My favorite commander is Noyan Dar, absolute shit, and I love it!!

[@crawdaddy1234]

For Kogla, just make sure not to run Garruk’s Uprising. 😂

[@othellosmistake]

No Asmira love? She breaks Persist cards. Not a hard thing to do but still fun.

[@geoffbarnes2590]

A lot of the dr who legends that weren't the face commanders or really obviously broken aren't very popular

[@StalkingPanda96]

Penultimate is next to last, so when's the next great vid!?

[@commiecommandermtg]

Commie Commander here, Nice to see some undervalued commanders!

[@simoindi8084]

nice

[@HarmonicResonanceScale]

Iname and haunting voyage = busted

[@my_dude_5742]

I-nam-e.....

[@edhdeckbuilding]

57

[@my_dude_5742]

@@edhdeckbuilding I'm genuinely confused 🤔

[@edhdeckbuilding]

@@my_dude_5742 just counting

[@my_dude_5742]

@@edhdeckbuilding ya I'm sorry. I don't come here for diction, but the content and shouldn't criticize you for something so trivial. I think I've even made the same comment before, it's reprehensible and doesn't add anything to the conversation. So, genuinely, I apologize for being pedantic. Great video as ever, I wish the best for you in the future

[@edhdeckbuilding]

@@my_dude_5742 no worries. thanks for watching.

[@kendalltatom452]

Vhal Candlekeep Researcher and Agent of the Iron Throne have 7 decks on EDHREC. makes a great unassuming artifact aristocrats deck.

[@garythacker6731]

Hey quit telling people about Sasaya. I didn't want more people knowing about her.

[@snowmanO07]

Danny pink is probably unpopular in part due to being aesthetically unappealing. I know nothing about doctor who, and it just looks like my neighbor down the street in a high-fantasy card game 🤢

[@hahahafunniness]

First