The NEW Most Unique Commanders | EDHRECast 206

[@RedCometNurse]

I love that both "Jerk Santa" decks made it onto here. It is such a bizarre mechanic to give your opponent stuff.

[@shaneportis520]

That’s what also makes them awesome, their uniqueness! I’m actually currently brewing a Zedruu, trying to focus on group hug and control.

[@dorsalfin22]

Loved when you were talking about the most unique mono blue deck and all the color changing cards. I run a similar deck but with Dromar, the Banisher as my commander. This has become my most unique deck by far and when not 1, not 5, but like 10+ cards people ask "wait, what does that do?" whenever they are against it for the first time, and I absolutely love it. I think another fun thing to note here is not only when commanders do something unusual for their color pairs, but when an individual commander does something way outside its usual EDHREC average decklists. My Breena deck is full of Soltari and Dauthi for a shadow tribal deck, and my Liesa, the Dusk Shroud deck is a Rebels vs. Mercenaries build so she will ping opponents more than me since I will be using abilities more than casting my creatures. Great episode as always guys!

[@theskoolman]

Can you link decklists? Sounds cool

[@JSBozick]

Awesome episode, as always! I’d like to propose a challenge for a topic for another episode. Something that I’ve been running into recently at tournament style games at my LGS. I tend to build on a budget, and I like more obscure/often less powerful commanders and strategies. I find that I’m regularly playing against decks that cost 10-20 times what mine do, and I get absolutely destroyed. What are some ways that budget decks can compete with those with all the expensive powerhouse staples? Perhaps that might mean a discussion about specific strategies or budget replacements for those staples, or any number of other points. I’d love to see you guys tackle that question!

[@davidtuffelli-rail2214]

I build both budget and expensive decks. After years of playing both, heres my unfortunate advice: only combo or stormy budget decks usually compete vs expensive decks. Things like Zada, Wort, pirate storm are 25-50$ decks ive build that held their own against expensive decks.

[@kingfuzzy2]

My 8$ karona wall deck beat everyone else's very expensive decks recently idk about that.

[@damagedjoker69]

check out the professors podcast episode with the commanders quarters

[@shaneportis520]

I personally don’t believe that just because a deck is more expensive it’s automatically better. Based on everything I’ve seen, the more focused your deck is to it’s central theme, and the more synergistic your cards are to that theme seem to be the most important factors. Also making sure it has plenty of sources of ramp, card draw, and removal!

[@kingfuzzy2]

yeah budget decks tend to be way more synergistic than $$ decks because they instead of running expensive cards that discourage synergy they go for cards that do the do.

[@SWNJim]

I have been talking up Licia (Lis-see-ya) for months (maybe even years) now and there should be a much higher unique card count. Looking at the average deck list on EDHREC, it can’t decide if it wants to be a lackluster vampire deck or a piecemeal lifegain deck. Word of advice, leave vampires to the superior vampire commander, Edgar Markov. This might be due to the precon effect again, because she was originally in Edgar Markov’s deck. The only other vampires I have in my deck are Vona (for permanent removal) and Twilight Prophet (repeatable, pre-combat source of life gain). Even Vito lost out to Vizkopa Guildmage for the effect (targeted vs untargeted). Licia is also not interested in anything piecemeal. Gaining one life three times doesn’t do a whole lot to reducing her cost. Go big or go home. Also don’t be afraid to gain and lose life at the same time. While it might be net zero when it comes to your actual life total, you do get both effects. Cards like Death Watch and Dying Wish do double duty. These are so unique, most of you reading this will probably need to look both of them up to see what they do. I see Well of Lost Dreams on the average list, why not add in Words of Woppprship? You can bounce the effects off each other, meaning Licia will never pay commander tax again and only cost RWB to recast her (you can do this trick with Words of Worship and Dawn of Hope too, but it’s not as efficient). In other words, she is… inevitable. Where does my deck overlap? The artifacts. There’s just no way to avoid most of these (Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Lightning Greaves, Swiftfoot Boots, Aetherflux Reservoir, talismans) but I do have a few others that can be considered unique. Elixir of Immortality is a big chunk of lifegain and can recycle the cards in the graveyard. Sunbeam Spellbomb is also a 5 mana reduction off Licia’s casting cost or you can just pay 1 sac it to draw a card if you don’t need the lifegain. Tainted Sigil is very useful even if it’s just your life is going down, but is even better if your opponents are too. Might as well throw in Alhammaret’s Archive as well, because who wouldn’t want double the lifegain and card draw on a single card?

[@piralos1329]

This is a really, really fun list! Honestly, I think both Gallia and Hallar can lead people into a deckbuilding strat of focusing on one specific part of them - Satyrs with Gallia, and kicker with Hallar. As was mentioned, Hallar is often better off just stacking a bunch of counters on them, and then casting any kicked spell to blast out a bunch of damage (very tasty with snake umbra), but Gallia is an absolute card advantage MONSTER if you build her right. Tokens make her absurd, and madness cards let you get even more value from her! People underestimate her, and she can absolutely slaughter. Also, one thing I have been having a LOT of fun with is taking relatively ununique commanders, such as Lathril, the GB Elf commander from the precon deck. Take her, and change her from an elfball commander into a spellslinger one! After all, she makes a bunch of tokens when she deals combat damage - so giant growth now reads create three 1/1s for one green mana! Or how about Scale Up, or groundswell? Spellslinger Lathril takes people by surprise a lot of the time, and gets out of hand VERY quickly.

[@mattb1571]

I love seeing Lynde get some love, the first commander I ever built around :D

[@styfen]

Shame she didn't get pushed enough to make curses viable with some form of cost reduction for them. I guess we'll just wait for the next curse commander 5 years down the line.

[@mattb1571]

@@styfen She's super fun if you're playing at low power level which is where my playgroup sits 🥰

[@scyphron4357]

@@styfen A little late but my Lynde deck makes a huge impact on every game and can win fairly easily in my higher power games. To be fair its in no way a budget deck sitting around $1000 but she's much better than she seems if you cut all the objectively bad cards and embrace the value engine of the commander.

[@SloppySyntax]

Whoever you guys use for your website does such a good job. I’d love to see the backend stuff that was done for linking all the data points, I’m sure it’s awesome! Love the content, keep it up!

[@mus0u]

have been a big fan of lin sivvi for quite a while! glad to see her getting some recognition. there's some good rebels in black too - i hope we get a w/b rebel commander at some point.

[@6million1]

Look mom I'm special.

[@kingfuzzy2]

Me too thanks

[@FakeDonut]

Thantis, my girl! Hell yeah, one of my oldest decks and i love it to pieces, one of the few I never took apart. It's so fun and interactive and agonizing and energetic. Ugh, too good, too effin good :D

[@jongailey85]

Killian is one of those commanders that feels like it should be a rare. Kind of an absurd ability actually.

[@eliakimrodrigues]

Maybe not so busted in Limited, the place where rarity matters. (Also, uncommons are cheaper than rares, great for budget EDH players.)

[@Kryptnyt]

Deece+ I agree is very good vernacular

[@pauldyson8098]

Fangren Marauder is a Pauper all-star

[@NightOfCrystals]

For sure. OG tron and mono green tron love.

[@pauldyson8098]

@@NightOfCrystals I play two formats in Magic: the Cadillac of formats and the Pinto of formats. :D

[@NightOfCrystals]

@@pauldyson8098 nice. I’m a format junkie and dip my toes in all kinds of stuff. Historic standard and premodern are recent favorites.

[@facepalmjesus1608]

Zedruu is one of the most unique legendary creatures ever created. I LOVE this guy!!!

[@shaneportis520]

I absolutely agree! I’m currently brewing her to focus on group hug and control! Unfortunately because of her uniqueness I’m definitely having trouble cutting cards. Happen to have any tips?

[@PraetorGix]

@@shaneportis520I do. Cut all the group hug cards because group hug sucks ass! But on a more serious note, you better choose one or the other, group hug and control don't work well together. How are you supposed to reliably control a board when you're also giving everyone cards and tempo advantage? Nah man you're either trying to control and win, or you're trying to make others win, gotta choose just one IMO.

[@ry7hym]

wooh! I was happy to see King Macar coming by. it's my mono black deck

[@mockery4010]

I actually built a Tazri d&d edh deck, and it's got a lot of different ways to win that are d&d related, for example, win with deck of many things, win by having a lot of treasures or by just having a lot of party members to overwhelm your opponents. It's fun and my friends keep being surprised by the many ways this deck plays

[@thatlamp]

Earliest I've ever been to an EDHREC video.

[@Snipfragueur]

I tried Blim, I gave an enchantment to a friend who made them discard their hand at the end of each turn. I certainly lost some friendship points that day.

[@rteishe]

Do it Joey....DO IT! Build Belbe!!! Haha. I've been waiting for someone to finally mention my girl...she deserves so much more respect than she gets, one of my stronger decks. Nothing feels better than a turn 2 God-Pharoah's Statue or a t3 Ulamog. Also of note...the most colorless mana your opponents can make is 4...they can't make 6 like you can because of the way Belbe is worded, and your deck WILL be better suited to use that mana anyway

[@jzkayakpnw]

They can make 6 if they deal damage to themselves included…

[@rteishe]

@@jzkayakpnw That's true

[@kingfuzzy2]

Golgari burn is almost as cool as yurlok group slug enchantress highly recommend.

[@rteishe]

@@kingfuzzy2 she's more like golgari burn-stax-tron, haha. Yurlok does look really fun tho...he's always seemed interesting to me as well

[@kingfuzzy2]

@@rteishe right on : p yeah meeting other yurlok players has really helped me realize how open ended he is to build from enchantress to Mana burn to group "hug"

[@jdogbemple1]

Joey’s Dad Jokes coming off more like Son Jokes this episode.

[@acrocket121]

I love seeing tolsimir get some recognition. There's so many fun things you can do with the deck.

[@vanessaeve925]

Yes. I play Depala, Hallar, and Verazol. I love how different they play from other commanders in their colors. They are also incredibly fun.

[@kingfuzzy2]

Glad to see more hot johney action good on y'all of you unique brewers out there.

[@bellightnings1954]

Body of Research is cool in Riku decks. Cast a Terror of the Peaks, copy it, then cast Body of Research copied and get two huge tokens dealing 50+ damage 4 times thanks to the two Terrors

[@claygillman9351]

Great eppisode guys. I am fairly new to commander, so I can't say I have any unique commanders that I like to play yet. Have to say that I am really loving playing commander. I need to catch more of your Twitch streams.

[@stationdisatrous647]

The Prof. has a Sygg commander deck that he just adores.

[@1stool3fools18]

I absolutely love Sygg. He was my very first commander deck I put together.

[@LMGB2309]

Love seeing Tolsimir shine it was my first commander deck

[@pistolpete7422]

How can I submit a challenge the stats?

[@PawzBrownMTG]

I REALLY LOVE YOUR DAD JOKES THEY ARE PRICELESS. You guys are great. KEEP STAYING PAWZITIVE GUYS

[@_savvi3_]

I run Fangren Maruader and Viridian Revel in my green decks because treasures/storm are a thing in my pods

[@wizkid3643]

I'm trying to get things together to build Blim myself and I'm having a lot of fun. I've always been a red player but I kinda sterred away from black, so I challenged myself to compromise and find something fun in rankdos I like to ease me in and it's been really cool so far. I built a Jund Deck as well for shirts and giggls and Korvold, Fae cursed king is a lot of fun

[@SamundraDarion]

Temur Thievery Sounds FANTASTIC!

[@Quack-nq1ok]

Great video. Did y’all do a grixis commander? I was waiting for my favorite 3 color combination

[@Ryadic]

Excited for this episode. Always looking to play a commander that makes people go... wait wtf?

[@kingfuzzy2]

I like both building decks that make people swear repeatedly on reading the cards and reading the commanders.

[@fortek13]

I have Tolsimir deck. It's a cool destroy any creature whenever you play a wolf and gain a bunch of life while you at it. Fun though not powerful :)

[@brendans1983]

Haven't even watched the video yet, but I know I'm gonna spend at least $5 on cards at the end of it. Damn this channel!!

[@Simsystwistedmind]

I thought that Ghen, Arcanum Weaver would have taken the Mardu spot considering that it deals heavily with enchantments which is uncommon for that combination.

[@eliakimrodrigues]

Not really uncommon. Queen Marchesa and Mathas often play enchantments to police the board.

[@styfen]

Lovely to see one of the three top Red cEDH commanders getting a look in here. Go Magda Clock!

[@slickrick9152]

Y'all would love my friends "Chaos" Thantis deck....it's hilarious

[@pj3259]

So an upping the average for Skeleton ship soon?

[@franklinrichen8391]

I run a Kadena deck that I built around the same time this video came out that I feel might add a more unique run to it that Kadena normally. Power Rangers morph and ninjitsu

[@Max.Volume]

I also say Abzan like Joey. The other way sounds very American to me. I do say Bant like bent, though.

[@danielsalay3681]

I try to avoid the overpowered commanders and simic is so powerful that the commander I have in that color pair is Got Muldrak, he is obviously not the most unique simic commander but I feel like he has to be up there

[@cylonsteve2511]

Commander's Quaters shout out for the Nylea, Keen-Eyed unique strategy. Brilliant channel and strategy.

[@wafflezorz1]

My head canon is that Joey secretly despises the dad jokes and is exerting extreme self-control to act as if he doesn’t. Imagining him seething beneath his smile is just too funny.

[@kingfuzzy2]

: D oml thank you

[@thatoneguyshawn]

You don't get aunt colonies in your front yard and bant has no u, so I'm with Joey

[@MalteLewandowski]

Even though you explain it at 4:20, the title is misleading and should be something like "The commanders with the most unique cards". The commanders that are mentioned later are often not very unique themselves, but these decks can be in the respective colors because they are running a lot of unique cards (for that color combination). If I think about "unique commanders" I want to see an analysis about the commander itsel, not their average deck.

[@Zaelkrie]

Yasova is my main Temur deck XD.

[@Amaurn89]

Don't worry Joey, vowels are difficult.

[@jeanmarais337]

Loved the topic. I cried when Experement Kraj was not even mentioned.

[@mfitkin]

Is it just me or does Matt look like the friendly version of the T-1000 terminator?

[@mathimus55]

Thanks I think?

[@20x20]

The way that I interpreted this was actually the opposite: these are the _least_ unique commanders in that if you sit down against any one of them you'll have X cards you can expect to see in that deck.

[@EDHRECast]

This was the subject of our last episode, #205! Low-variance decks with similar 99s. We spend some time in this episode discussing the overlap between uniqueness scores and low-variance scores.

[@PraetorGix]

Again Depala? I'm so disappointed that Osgir didn't grab that spot :/

[@eliakimrodrigues]

How could he? Zirda, Alibou, Zabaz, Jor Kadeen, old Akiri all care about artifacts.

[@colinhofer7830]

A lot of these decks are unique among there colors but are really the same most everytime u see them.

[@phrikaphrak40k]

My deck is more of a deece nuts.

[@mrpopsful]

Where's Macar, dude?

[@crawdaddy1234]

PEOPLE KEEP MAKING ZEDRUU WRONG!!! Having bad cards in your deck means you only have bad cards if you don’t have Zedruu out. You run SYMMETRICAL effects that your deck can work around.

[@kingfuzzy2]

Yeah feel the same way about inniaz so few people build symmetrical effects in him and instead run powerful cards that they have to gift their opponents.

[@facepalmjesus1608]

but you ruin the whole fun!!! i love giving Demonic Pact or Midnight Oil or Sorrow's Path and tap it ...not to mention the Bronze Bombshell that can end the game on spot

[@andrewsparkes6275]

34:33 Why is Unclaimed Territory showing "X% of 1,028,273 decks" whereas Secluded Courtyard is showing "X% of 88,063 decks"? Surely Secluded Courtyard 'could' be played in the same potential 1,028,273 decks that Unclaimed Territory could be played in?...so why is Courtyard showing a much lower number as it's number of potential decks, compared to Unclaimed Territory?

[@LairScavenger]

It's just new, I think is the case. Territory has a whole three-year head start, so it would naturally be in more decks that people haven't updated.

[@andrewsparkes6275]

@@LairScavenger No, the Y in "X% of Y decks" is the number of POTENTIAL decks it could go into. Of course the number which makes up the X% would be lower, but the amount of potential decks they could go into in the first place should be the same. You can see a little later at 37:00 that both Fangren Marauder and Viridian Revel can fit into the same potential decks (i.e. any deck with a partially or completely green color identity). This should also be true of Courtyard and Territory.

[@LairScavenger]

@@andrewsparkes6275 Oh! Sorry, I definitely didn't initially understand. Yeah, that is weird, especially considering that last week's podcast's Challenge the Stats featured a green card showing up in X% of 481,587 decks. How did the number of green decks shrink? What determines the whole number anyway? There's only 429 commanders with green in their identity. Even with all the possible partner combinations, that's only 2,149 decks, I think. It's all very confusing.

[@EDHRECast]

@@LairScavenger's original response is correct. EDHREC's total eligible decks for any card will only include deck data we've received since that card was officially released. This includes brand new decks and recently-updated decks. So in the case of the Courtyard example, 88,000 decks have been either newly uploaded or recently updated since Neon Dynasty's release. If we compared all new cards against all pre-existing EDHREC data, it would be misrepresentative; Courtyard could not have been included in a deck from 1 year ago, but Unclaimed Territory could. Comparing any new card against 1,000,000 decks that are years older than that card would not give us an accurate understanding of the card's popularity. However, whenever users update an older deck *after* Neon Dynasty's release, then those decks will be eligible for Courtyard to be measured against. Re: the total numbers question, EDHREC draws data for any decks that have been uploaded or updated within the past 2 years. This is why cards like Viridian Revel and Fangren Marauder have the same base totals for their eligibility.

[@andrewsparkes6275]

@@EDHRECast That makes a ton of sense - thanks for answering! I thought it was as simple as checking the color identity and if a card could go into a deck to get that "Y" number, so it's nice to know there's so much more thought and fairness going into it than that! Also it's fascinating to see that the number of decks uploaded/updated since Neon Dynasty came out is so high, compared to the total number of decks overall. Perhaps, since you have this data, you could do an episode on what sets/years prompted the biggest deckbuilding sprees (at least since this data has started to be compiled)? It'd be awesome to see how the Commander format has grown!

[@Eldrad235]

Tolsimir isn't fun

[@enriquemeza5291]

I wonder if Joey like mispronouncing things just to be special…

[@CaptainQbvious]

I am once again asking that you remove the yt widget from the site. Not a fan, makes me hate visiting the site that I'd normally find myself idly browsing.

[@cjtnegrete]

This is boring