The Most Expensive Commanders to Build Around | EDH | Pricey Decks | Magic the Gathering | Commander

[@azrael4401]

Who else has expected Maximilian as our host?😄

[@delasvegas9644]

Yeah, I miss Maximilian. I think he should get more screen time

[@georgetaylor203]

Yeah, itd be cool though if he could host a budget deck and watch his disgust at hoating a deck that budget

[@CodyDockerty]

Because of social distancing Maximilian has cooped himself up in his study in his mansion.

[@zulfyby]

Would have been awesome. Love the altar persona thingy

[@CanadianSoldier]

Damn he didn’t do it !

[@williamgreen6814]

Mitch read Kenrith's abilities like he was running an auction. Now that I think of it, he always talks really fast...

[@Vuurgeest]

He has to, he's talking on a budget.

[@notabotm9923]

Vuurgeest love the comment

[@matthewhenson4566]

You will notice that most of these decks are 3+ colors. Part of the price is likely dual lands, expensive fetches, and pain lands.

[@Mizelei2012]

You're right, but you can still do that in an affordable way. Especially if green is one of the colors.

[@joaksannan551]

@@Mizelei2012 I mean kinda, you can build a budget version of the deck, but you will have significantly lower consistency than somebody with a proper manabase

[@Cyberium]

They ought to make more powerful mono-color commanders, or cards that could punish too many colors.

[@chrischris1886]

Cards that punish greedy mana bases exist, Blood Moon, Back to Basics, Ruination. But no one plays those outside cEDH, because people don’t like their lands to be messed with.

[@Cyberium]

@@chrischris1886 So it's ok to ramp 5+ mana by turn three, but it's not ok for people to stop it. The hypocrisy of EDH.

[@premiumcheddar9983]

My dad has two of the original printing of Sliver Queen, and I am very much jealous of him.

[@joaksannan551]

Borrow one for a deck? He's your dad, unless you're an absolute clutz he'll probably let you.

[@vincentfeng9802]

aren't all printings original printings because its only been printed once?

[@premiumcheddar9983]

@@vincentfeng9802 yeah I suppose you're right since the other was an oversized card

[@codygottman2642]

I got one for $40 on vacation forever ago.

[@michelejoyce281]

I'm starting to like the commander's 2 cents more. Keep going, I like the fact that you use a wide span of topics. Btw can you please make a Gerrard weatherlight hero Deck Tech?

[@pippofelipe6901]

Sisay without paradox...feelsbadman

[@krisdaschwab912]

More like feelsbannedman

[@pippofelipe6901]

@@krisdaschwab912 hahaha nice!

[@michaelcabangbang]

Wheres Maximillion when you need him? His decks are the best because they're SOOOOO expensive...

[@zotmaster]

Your deck is more expensive so you've already won.

[@drakeconsumerofsoulsandche4303]

@@zotmaster and then theres me, making CEDH players miserable with my pauper stax list

[@salfazlucario2660]

@@drakeconsumerofsoulsandche4303 wait really? wow

[@salfazlucario2660]

@@drakeconsumerofsoulsandche4303 can I see the decklist?

[@drakeconsumerofsoulsandche4303]

@@salfazlucario2660 I dont have an online decklist, it's in paper. I'll start work with my free time to put it online though

[@GoblinTherapy]

I feel like multi-color decks have a distinct advantage, since original dual lands (and most dual lands in general) can drag the price upwards. The more colors, the bigger upper tier. The 4 color decks listed in this list are heavily used in cEDH, which is going to affect their price point. Teferi is almost 100% played as cEDH, and he's dragged up by Timetwister, which last I checked was $4,000

[@notabotm9923]

Eric Byers timetwister is $2800 currently, up from the $2200 average for about a year. And while true, you can jack up price of any deck with a few expensive inclusions, lands are always a great option for that. Fetches and tutors are king in commander. You play a Kess deck decently built it’s gonna cost about $500, make it competitive it jumps to $1100 minimum to run decently, and upwards of $6000 at best tier from fetch lands, imperial seal, time twister, etc.

[@notabotm9923]

Eric Byers also that being said, I currently have a competitive Kess and building Vial Smasher Thrasios as well haha. My pockets hurt bad.

[@notabotm9923]

However, you can also make a competitive Najeela very cheap in comparison to other cEdh decks, and also a Sisay Weatherlight Captain. Both 5 color decks, can be built on a $800 budget without the fetch lands and be super strong.

[@ClawDragoon]

cEDH community uses proxies, there are more decks built and stocked than there should be according to cards printed by WOTC

[@notabotm9923]

ClawDragoon not always. And I own 0 proxies. But I also don’t have a timetwister to throw down on a table. Or a bazaar of Baghdad. In my meta we don’t like proxies unless you own the card as well.

[@barryswigart1432]

My 80 dollar Kenrith Group Hug deck feels much better now

[@goldilock4199]

Finally, someone with taste

[@wadewilson5712]

i just bought a 250 eldrazi deck .....the salt factor will be real

[@GigaLordShinyMudkip1]

By comparison, your deck is a soup kitchen.

[@cincill1]

So what I'm hearing is the most expensive commander to build around is thrasios but with more colors.

[@savingark1528]

“Sisay is not a very competitive commander” rip paradox engine

[@Krisaber]

So many new videos this week! Keep up the good work !

[@W.edgewargames]

Love this channel, nothing on this list was a surprise honestly, with Sushi/Flash Hulk builds in cedh Tymna and Thrasios had been peaking recently. Thanks Mitch awesome content as per the usual

[@eronXIII]

I liked the idea of the video, although I thought we would learn more about commanders that run expensive cards that are essential to build them, but instead we had a list of competitive commanders that players tune up because of their competitiveness. I understand how more colors leads to expensive mana-bases, but I was hoping for more cards like Transmute Artifact, or Training Grounds, that have abilities related just its commander, and not that many format staples: moxes, mana crypt, mana vault... even sylvan library or dockside extorsionist can go everywhere we would want to put them (if we had enough of them). If you ever revisit this idea, it would be nice if you focused on the expensive versions of each commander, and pick just the non-staple non-manabase cards that have a significant % of appearence with them.

[@varieedeventualii]

It really depends in how much you want to fine tune your deck, I managed to spend more than some decks on the list with commders which are not on the list... The best recipe to spend a lot is at least a 3 color commander, possibly throw blue and black in there, there you go :)

[@friedpinnapple]

Sisay can definitely be an expensive deck. Legendaries tend to call a higher price and that really brings up the price. Ive got a sisay weatherlight captain deck and its my most expensive deck but its not my strongest.

[@friedpinnapple]

guru khalsa my sisay is about 300 but my strongest is teysa karlov who is about 130. Teysa can pull wins a fair bit quicker then sisay and is much better at hindering opponents.

[@edwinsiefert9925]

I actually made a budgetish sisay deck because of the secret lair drop. It’s a stacks super friends build, it has worked surprisingly well in my playgroups

[@bantcm]

You mentioned Sisay isn't that competitive which is true, however until the paradox engine ban she was a tier 1 cEdh deck. I would guess many of the lists will date back to when Paradox was legal.

[@Lhurgyof]

Angus Mackenzie is my favorite commander. I picked one up years ago for $30, got it altered, and made a Super Friends deck with it.

[@ussgordoncaptain]

The thing about the Partner decks is that it isn't so much that playing a partner means your deck will be expensive, but if you are playing an expensive 99 (98 in this case) then you will be playing a partner. Partner's let you play a 4 color deck and occasionally let you actually win with their bodies (it's surprisingly rare for tymna/thrasos to actually do anything in sushi hulk) I've played

[@xwwg1wgax277]

Agree. Build. Variance. Luck. Matchup. Any budget deck can beat money decks. I could buy the remaining dual lands [we'll go with revised prices] to make my fetch lands more effective. But this mono black braids deck [can't remember if she's banned but just using as example] got the upper hand with six cent swamps. You don't pay to win. But you pay to increase your odds of winning.

[@runawayteacher8514]

Love your videos! Thank you for all the information!!!

[@Shannon_Vlogs]

Binging your content today! Trying to use my quarantine time to finalize my commander deck

[@johnroyston3859]

Every time I see sliver queen I die a little inside. Wish I could go back in time to teenage me and say "NO!!!! Don't sell those to that guy for 60 bucks for the pair!!" I was young, dumb, and 60 bucks seemed like a fortune at the time 😭😭😭

[@jacobmonks3722]

I've made plenty of stupid decisions with trading and selling cards that I would slap my past self for.

[@themagiclair]

My Zhulodok deck is over $8,000 mostly due to the fact that it has Mishras Workshop which is nearly $4,000 alone. but after that all but two lands is a utility land and 2 wastes incase an opponent has me search for a basic land. There are also plenty of expensive mana rocks and Eldrazi. So I think that should make the list as the most expensive commander if you really want to optimize it. Of course any of these 4 color decks would most likely want dual lands which will also be 2-5 hundred dollars alone.

[@TheMusicalDuelist]

Would love to see you try to tackle a budget (break the bank?) Deck teck of Thrasios/Tymna just for the challenge

[@faerie7dragon]

Thrasios be like that Bling meme guy, with shades, cigar, rings and dollar falling down behind him.

[@kleedrac]

Very interesting video but I feel like this will show how the data was corrupted. Kenrith decks being ~$1k is (at least in part) going to be inflated due to people creating dream lists on Deckstats (which is where EDHRec gets data from) including things like all shocks/duals even if that doesn't match the deck they're using at the table.

[@JB-sc3fr]

Good job on creating content so quickly.

[@tjcofer7517]

you only need 4 cards for a tutorable wincon for sisay. 1 Marowin the Nurturer, 2 umbral mantle, 3 nazahn revered bladesmith, 4 kamahl fist of krosa. These put together are like $10 (because of mystery boosters slicing the price of umbral mantle) that leaves plenty of decent cards, and even some tutorable recursion could fit in budget (like teshar) and value engines like Seeker of skybreak are cheap

[@venkelos6996]

I remember when Skittles used to cost a lot; between him being the only Infect Commander, and the cost of some of the other best Infect spells, I almost hoped to see it here, since Infect can end a game so quickly.

[@MadMage86]

Holy balls, when did Training Grounds hit $30? This is why I don't build budget EDH decks; I got into Commander early when it was still the 'poor man's format' and a LOT of the cards I got on the cheap have gotten VERY expensive.

[@joebykaeby]

Loved this video, first time stumbling on the channel and definitely subbing. But I have to say, setting the playspeed to 0.75 almost made the commentary comprehensible. Slow down, take a breath!

[@theeternallysurprised]

the top two decks are the ones that definitely want to run timetwister ;) kraum & tymna aka opus thief is a dedicated wheel deck and is so much fun to play!

[@redstonepro5412]

you should have mentioned that the price of teferi also goes up because of timetwister, tabernacle, and also maybe the fetchlands that are autoincludes in every monocolored deck

[@TheGrifcannon22]

Kenrith surprised me a bit, although my deck was running at $600 and a lot of it was due to shocklands and such. I didn't run fetchlands or duals which would definitely run up the cost.

[@robotclaw22]

You should make an Emry, Lurker of the Loch deck tech.

[@KoolioJosh]

I enjoy these vids more than the deck techs, only because I already have 4 decks built from the ground up and def done with building new decks lol.

[@0w3n42]

JJCBalak that’s what you think now

[@jayhenry2197]

So.... I feel like the follow-up video to this is a budget but competitive Thrasios/Tymna deck.

[@jayhenry2197]

@@bodaciouschad I thought the cost of the commander was still excluded?

[@jayhenry2197]

Well, yeah. I have both. Bought the pre-cons.

[@nicholas8739]

@@jayhenry2197 Either way, competitive T&T will never be on a budget. Key cards are expensive combo cards, training grounds, etc. Without that, your just a target that's gonna die in your playgroup because of the commander combination.

[@Drewbe821]

I remain unsurprised, yet very entertained.👍

[@marcoscolon5348]

Nice work. I have a question for you. Do you think Wizards made a mistake when they added the partner mechanic? I just think that mechanic responds to cEDH more than the casual player. I wish they just added more 4 color legendary creatures instead considering there are only 5 in total in all of Magic.

[@TheKrismage2000]

Thank goodness for proxies. Can easily build that #1 deck without breaking bank.

[@joonasjarnvall832]

The tabernacle of pendrell vale is big reason why cedh teferi is very expensive.

[@sachigame924]

Do one-trick pony combo commander decks ever even make it into competitive leagues? Like Doomsday decks for example. I actually have a doomsday deck I built myself, not that that's very hard, I just crammed a ton of tutors, counters, and lab maniac into the deck, and use Damia, Sage of Stone to keep generating me card advantage as I play my hand. I dunno, the competitive lists make it sound like everyone in the leagues play the same decks out of a really small pool of commanders. Even at my LGS when I'd show up for commander nights, everyone pretty much had 1 commander they'd use for the actual tournament. I always had way more fun with the casual games we'd have after the tournament where everyone would start playing around with their more experimental decks.

[@isaoblack987]

Most combo decks in cEDH have a main line and one or two backup lines. The most typical ones I see are flash hulk, consultation / tainted pact and doomsday. Since most lines in hulk, consult and doomsday use Thassa's Oracle to win (lab man and jace also exist but are usually back up options if they are included) it isnt particularly hard to include more than one option.

[@SpitefulAZ]

Do these costs include having original duel lands in your mana base?

[@drgarushi]

Can you make a video on "How to build a budget mana base + ramp"?

[@Wrestlemania24444]

Can you make an Angus Mackenzie deck tech?

[@PawzBrownMTG]

Great video Mitch. Wish i had your artistic abilities when it comes to MTG. Keep staying Pawzitive and safe

[@salfazlucario2660]

mitch: captain sisay decks are very expensive me who is trying to build a captain sisay stax deck: wait what???

[@jesterstinger]

Mitch should do some of these on a budget and blow us away.

[@alexgonzalez3962]

A cool video would be a budget build with these commanders

[@SomeOfTheJuice]

There are some who call Angus Mackenzie...Tim. But seriously, I actually cheered when I saw Angus Mackenzie on here, simply because of it being Angus Mackenzie/Tim the Enchanter.

[@crovax1375]

I could have guessed that the majority of expensive commanders would have partner

[@DraGhoul-xb4mq]

Doesn't surprise me commander is expensive as a whole.im tinkering with a nekusar deck and a kaalia deck.could you possibly do a video on either of those commanders?

[@JB-sc3fr]

I love my nekusar deck. One of my favs. Tons of wheels. Then some counters and tax effect cards. You end up being hated. 3 on 1 is usually how it goes. I like being the arch enemy sometimes

[@franken_monkey9609]

MAKE DECKS FOR ALL OF THESE

[@HaydenX]

I expected Atraxa to be like number 8 or so...this surprises me.

[@MoriRaineMatsuko]

A lot of expensive cards are noted for these decks, but I believe another thing that drives up the costs are the shock lands that these cEDH players love to use

[@joonasjarnvall832]

Shock lands are the cheapest part of cedh decks landbase.

[@unai49999]

Alternative name "best proxy options"

[@chriscockrell9495]

Kenrith Sisay. Thrasio, vial smasher. Emrakul, expropriate, mana drain Teferi, force of will. Training ground Silver queen Tana tymna, Angus

[@AidanWR]

Rec deck sounds like a name that I would name a deck

[@TheLegacyDan]

Seeing Bruse in there was kind of unexpected but I called most of the others

[@niceonestu9853]

Can u build a deck around yuriko

[@clutchbleach2057]

When I begin to play magic a buddy of mine tossed me a shoe box full of cards and said make a deck. Well I so happened to grab nykthos shrine to nyx and was like can I have this he respond np idc use whatever you want. Now it's 30 bucks I would never pay that. So happy to have it

[@drearydoll6305]

Who came here expecting Maximillion?

[@xSkye629x]

Well.....any commander can be cheap or expensive, depending on how far you are willing to go on a single deck (and whether you can afford it). Yes more colors will generally be more expensive, but that doesn't mean going less colors is cheap either

[@RussiaRulesEarth]

One interesting question: what is the win rate of a $50 budget deck winning a game, full of cedh decks costing thousands of dollars and above?

[@gnarly814]

Id say somewhere under 1%

[@tjcofer7517]

I would say it depends on the deck... I would say jhoira is going to find an opportunity where in a multiplayer environment where they have burned all of their interaction on eachother so you storm off and win uninhibited about ~5% of the time and win

[@tjcofer7517]

Elsha too... although only if you bumped up the power level using a 50 dollar budget instead of the $9 one on here

[@gnarly814]

@@tjcofer7517 5% is still a stretch... All they have to do is kill jhoira or elsha even incidentally through a wrath or something and the decks do nothing. Its not like the cedh builds where you have real countermagic and protection.

[@tjcofer7517]

Although because he has such a low budget version in here you might be able to get something functional after throwing in top and a couple cheap tutors to get it

[@rulezer0682]

Angus budget deck on Wednesday?

[@mikelong2756]

Who else pictures Mitch dancing to the intro music swagging it out😂. Mehh meow meowww

[@chachi_arcola]

"Partner" was a gift from the MTG Gods 💘

[@Vuurgeest]

For most of these the average is under 2k, that means there must be plenty of cheaper decks because especially for the 5color decks there will always be people who just jam all the duals and fetches, a full set of duals alone is close to 2k.

[@Madman3721]

Where was Urza?

[@TheCommandersQuarters]

Just missed the top 10 actually! I believe he was around 12 or 13

[@micheal5973]

1,000$ Kenrith deck...... eyes my 3 jank kenrith decks, 5 colour energy, kenriths awesome adventure and scapeshift gates

[@judegraham2951]

Wow it’s almost like the idea of having 2 commanders is fundamentally overpowered and downright broken

[@elyasmacherawb]

Real men run Bruse Tarl+Akiri

[@joaksannan551]

To be fair, the only truly represented "partners" on the list is Thrasios + whatever colours you want. Thrasios is just too busted to be given acces to other colours, that is the issue, not the two commanders.

[@salvatorestabile5547]

I love my Captain Sisay deck

[@Lukegamer]

Surprised by the fact the Najeela didn't make the list. But dang partner was a broken mechanic for competitive edh

[@itchyprince3793]

When you went over kraum I swear you said “zombie horr”

[@chadjames1245]

And now I challenge you to make a $50 Thrassio/Tymna deck tech

[@Eramiserasmus]

Well, at least I know what decks to proxy.

[@TheSPIRITJUNKIE]

Now do a crushing quarters on each of these.

[@me12345635]

I'm surprised there are no land matters decks given how pricey good lands are.

[@Soupbatt]

What about Najeela, Blade Blossom!!

[@Mizelei2012]

But those online decklist typically have no budget in mind, right? In my playgroup we use mostly have relatively low-budget decks with the occasional €20+ card.

[@joaksannan551]

You're probably spot, a large ammount of these lists are probably dream lists and or goal lists, not the lists people are actually playing when physically getting together with their friends. There are playgroups where everyone has been playing for a long time and has invested a lot as a result. Every playgroup has its own idea of what "budget" is as well, my playgroup operates in the 3-500 dollar range being budget friendly, most people probably wouldn't. As long as you guys are having fun and things are fairly equal, that's really all that matters.

[@stevesmith5883]

It's different everywhere, I play EDH at my LGS and the power-level and budget are pretty high there, reserved list cards and fast mana are not uncommon at all, I still have fun though despite not having the funds to build these decks immediately. The thing I like about EDH decks is that I can run a budget version whilst I save and trade for pricier cards, for example a Jhoria deck I am playing atm started out as a $50 deck, is now around a $250-300 deck and my idealised version or goal list is likely over $1000 but I know that's going to take a while and still am having a blast with the deck whilst slowly upgrading it card by card.

[@joaksannan551]

While you're absolute correct, I wonder if you maybe missed the context a bit. There will obviously be lists in every concievable budget range from 50 - 10 000+ dollars, but I'd wager the majority of lists played are on the more sensible 100-300 dollar range. There are people running 4000 dollar decks quite often, it's not at all uncommon in my playgroup. But based on my experience when playing at events in various places, that isn't really the norm. Most people do not own multiple mana crypts or other expensive cards, they typically have them in one of their decks. But in the ideal version of the list, which they have posted online, it would be included regardless. Now I'm not saying that's bad or wrong, I do it myself, but I do suspect it heavily skews the data gathered from looking at and comparing the lists. For example, i strongly doubt that most people playing a Kenrith deck has invested as much as 1K dollars in it or even close to that. But that the average between every posted list being around that mark seems entirely reasonable. If that makes any sense?

[@Mizelei2012]

@@joaksannan551 That's true. I also own 1 mana crypt, chrome mox, Mox opal and I am going to buy a Mox Diamond next month to complete the set, but I only have these for one deck. In your Kenrith, the returned King example I don't see myself building it without Training Grounds, Rings of Brighthearth & Illusionist's bracers, though.

[@gaweinlyondree1859]

Well. Can confirm thrasios/thymna is expensive. I am currently at 6000€ foiling mine out still needing some very high priced cards.

[@conlanrichichi2328]

Maximilion would be great in this video!

[@clutchbleach2057]

Holy crap Dockside Extortionist is 20 bucks wtf! Sweet IL trade for a new commander. How did he go down 5 dollars though from this filming?

[@sanddrag8496]

RDW is watching you Just a warning

[@sagesmukler9383]

I want to make Mishra pretty bad, but I don't feel like dropping a couple grand.

[@aus1e390]

Sliver queen's price has jumped to about $530 now

[@linksoldier1]

I really thought Maximillion was gonna take over.

[@TheClerity]

I dont know about anyone else, but I dont know why you'd have sliver queen as a commander. Sure you can play her multiple times, but I'd rather cheat her in earlier than an average of turn 4 or 5... that might just be the spike in me

[@pauljimerson8218]

Maximillion approves of this list.

[@MrWhowatchesme]

These are Eternal commanders. I play Modern commander so my budget is within my range. Although, I do not use fetch lands and Moxes.

[@draxthemsklonst]

We need more partner commanders.

[@trapvd]

Matt Lynn the problem with partner is that any of them can pair with any of them, so they have to be very careful so they aren’t busted

[@draxthemsklonst]

@@trapvd True. If they make them monocolor and colorless, it may tone down the power level. I don't know why they began partners with 2 color commanders...WotC should have known better.

[@coolman1724]

Who knew that mono blue is so can be expensive

[@joonasjarnvall832]

The tabernacle of pendrell vale.

[@varomata6701]

I'm surprised Hazezon Tamar isn't in the list

[@AzyxA]

He probably didn't even make the list because of how few decks he has on edhrec? He is an extremely obscure commander and though fun to build around, it is difficult to make him effective. But yeah, quite expensive to build around if you want to try to highly tune him.

[@kingvirmire5935]

Arcum Dagson?

[@kirillveduhin7770]

Next video: The most cheap commanders to build around

[@calebb1178]

1st up theres wayfarers bauble...

[@davidiswhat]

It wouldve been nice to see the actual cost of the commanders

[@TheMajesticYak0]

I was excited when I saw the title because I expected Maximilian to show up as the host. So disappointed! Mitch you owe us Max!

[@patrickcarroll9118]

I'm honestly surprised that captain sisay made it but sisay weatherlight Captain did not

[@elementsgone]

Only 2 of the decks doesn't run Blue... I'm shocked