Why Weren't These Commanders More Popular?

[@rjams8953]

Alela vs. Tegwyll is pretty simple really, Tegwyll is a faerie lord, Alela is a "flash" deck commander that creates tokens and controls the board. Either one could be faeries, but Alela isn't pigeon-holed into ONLY faeries. Most of the other commanders you covered here fall into one of two camps: 1) they pilot a deck that requires a lot of hoops to jump through to make it work, and other, simpler decks do similar things just as well or better; 2) they are so open-ended that people don't want to build them because it doesn't give them a direction - restrictions breed creativity after all.

[@lorenzomarquez9122]

I came here to say this about alela and tegwyll.

[@crypticmrchimes]

I would also argue that Alela is also a lot more synergistic with the mechanical identity of Faeries as they are more often than not creatures with Flash that like to meddle with other player’s game plans and Alela rewards you more for playing to the tribe’s unique strengths.

[@hrocxvid]

In the case of the swarmlord, context is important. The backup commander for that precon was Magus Lucea Kane… a lot stronger of an effect and ultimately, much more popular (10k decks vs 2k decks on EDHrec).

[@bdog331b]

i know its been a hot minute but also lets not forget ghyrson being super hyped up

[@jasonhicks9262]

Swarmlord costs way too much for so little impact. Cool 6 mana it gets removed/exiled no card draw. Second casting is now 8 mana and just gets removed again. The issue for him is his cost with no payoff.

[@Imanmagnet00]

​@jasonhicks9262 I hate that it doesn't even have trample, feels awful that people can just chump block it

[@acechaps001]

Needed some of the keyword soup, if it had say trample and first strike it would be much higher but with no keywords people walk by it. in the video it was compared to Atraxa for counters but Atraxa has built in protection with deathtouch and lots of keywords, cool idea on a card poorly executed by lack of what people want form their commander.

[@Roshi_IsHereTV]

Plus spending 6 mana just to draw a few cards and have a big dude with no evasion is mediocre

[@kyoquadon]

What you might want to highlight about Oskar is that it’s biggest strength is being able to cast anything you discard at Instant speed! Maybe you do already know that, but probably a must to mention in order to promote it

[@bryceduyvewaardt8136]

As someone who made the Mazzy deck, thanks for considering that commander. More videos like this are welcome since they bring up interesting topics around the game!

[@redbirdriot]

I love my Mazzy deck. Relatively budget but it can hit really hard.

[@scrowtumbus7522]

Mazzy is the only deck I will never take apart! #mazzybro

[@barrysetser3909]

@@redbirdriot Mazzy is one of my personal fav builds

[@Urathamax]

I have the card, barely ever thought about using it as a commander, and then just looking at it in this video, my first thought was of all those auras that go back to hand, Rancor and such....well, not exactly relevant - Mazzy kinda does that herself. But then I immediately went to those 'impetus' cards. So, I can goad my own creature, give it +4/+2 and trample, AND make a treasure when it attacks? That's awesome! 😂

[@scrowtumbus7522]

@@Urathamax It's pretty wicked! Cards like Immolation can be used as repeatable removal, AND trigger enchantress. If you do build her you gotta do a Colossification and Triclopean Sight combo to make Mazzy lethal. She even has a few infinite combos if you try hard enough.

[@prizum217]

As Mazzy player who built it as a Goad deck, I'm glad it's not played more. It is a fresh take on Enchantress, helps with its downside, and allows for unique lines of play. I added a Gates subtheme for flavor and keep it from powercreeping too hard. Oskar is also on my list to build at some point, I'm just not sure how I want to build it. I would love to see a Commander league where you're restricted by the amount of existing lists on EDHREC. It would allow fringe builders to play against others with similar mindsets!

[@Andres-pp5zw]

i build it as a cast from exile aura storm deck, its a bit clunky at times but when it pops off i can draw like 20 cards in a turn

[@patrickfitzgerald7884]

Mazzy is my favorite goad deck! Built it after you pointed out in a previous vid that it buffs ALL enchanted creatures, and it’s always a hoot and a holler. Bestow cards let you incentivize your opponents to attack one another while being able to block later, and cards like claws of gix or auratog let you sac any attached aura’s to take the buffs away or rearrange to your hearts content

[@Skamakka]

I have a River Song deck that I love and the drawing from the bottom ability is really fun to build around and honestly once you spend a couple games with the deck the awkwardness of drawing from the bottom goes away

[@TheSmartCinema]

for Alela vs Tegwyll, I assume the art is playing a role... like who doesn't want 3 cuties as their commander

[@Raveworg]

That was what I immediately pointed out. Plus it probably doesn't hurt that the duke is just a slightly glorified lord

[@deviousj5868]

True. Unfortunately, Tegwyll is a dude.. but I swap at times. But Alela is also more flexible with 2 Great effects. I love its flash trickster style

[@robertcarsten4050]

Waking up to the notification of a new video with my girl Mazzy on it..... Best start to the weekend

[@hux0rd]

WOOO! Rigo Streetwise Mentor is definitely my best deck. I love the strategy of "unblockable White-Weenie-esque creatures deal combat damage for effects" so so much. It makes alot of unlikely creatures huge threats. And the added blue/green means that I can attack 3 players, draw, then use some sort of pump effect and close out games. Too fun

[@LeBecBec]

I made a Mazzy deck almost immediately! I went for the politics style put auras on other people's creatures and encourage violence! Glad to see her getting recognition, very fun deck.

[@esconde9922]

Rigo seems like a cool alternative commander for toughness matters decks since it's requirement is only power so i think those cards that use toughness for damage lets you work with the condition nicely.

[@jasonhicks9262]

I seen Rigo and I was like cool, then I remembered Arcades exists and just does it better

[@esconde9922]

@@jasonhicks9262 true, but there's some fun i think in playing the commander that doesn't do it the best and still doing cool stuff with it

[@coachzachadams]

I love my Malcolm alluring scoundrel deck. Sometimes I am playing free stuff as early as turn 3. This deck is always a threat. I have a version of the deck made of all common and uncommons, and it goes off too.

[@littlemrdoom5997]

The one im personally most shocked about is Kels, fight fixer. She's a dimir commander with a unique theme that is very hard to remove

[@JanBeetz-e8g]

For tegwyl: its much harder than you think to reliably and early enough it is to produce faerie tokens besides bitterblossom. Also tegwyl insentifizes you to build a deck with creature recursion and significant board presence, which fearies aren't realy good at. They more play like flash tricksers, and the best faeries have flash, what highly induces a direction of "flash tribal" or control, which alela and nymrys are the only legendary faeries that support this archetypes. (I have both: an alela and a nymris deck for this reason) On Hidetsugu and Kairi: i can see your arguments, but i more believe their unpolularity result in the the deck mostly been build as a combo deck. It's super centric on the commmander and sling big splashy spells and wins off of that. Maybe the spells you Hit might differ, but the play pattern is mostly like a storm deck: deny opposing game plans while bilding your mana up. Then cast your commander and sac it immediately and basically win. That leaves a taste not many playgroups like and becomes bring if done to frequently. (I have that deck as well)

[@SSolemn]

With Tegwyll you still need to cast the faeries in card form (not token) if you want to go full "aristocrat" with him as a Commander or draw a lot, because if you just depend on the tokens you wont have enough, and if they are the good faeries, you don't want them dead anyways. I made the deck with cards not in the precon and it was a very fun deck to play, but I am not a graveyard player and took it apart after a time. Alela is a "draw/go" deck that rewards you for attacking, plus gives you flying blockers at instant speed, cantrips give you cards and the tokens, and Tegwyll is awesome in the 99 🌈 🧚 Faerie player here: Ivy simic faerie combat tricks/Donal MonoBlue tribal faeries/Talion clones/Alela enchantress/Alela spellslinger/Nymris flashy control/Helga bant faerie adventures

[@TheKreve]

Most of my commanders hover around the 1600-1700 hundred decks. I get really turned off by commanders with 10k + decks. I am currently looking to build a Sigurd, Jarl of Ravensthorpe deck and that commander is barely at 700 decks.

[@jlbrooks74]

Great potential commanders for sure. I think the only real problem is the pace that wizards is pumping out product. These commanders come out and as soon as you decide to build around it another set is released and time to brew something else. But yeah no real reason why these shouldn't be used more 😕

[@thomasboggs4735]

I have a River Song deck and love it. You do have to remember sometimes to draw from the bottom but you have some really good things that can be done power wise. Obviously timestream navigator is a thing but you can be a little taboo and non basic land destruction with from the ashes to force your opponents to either search for basics or be down on lands. Also grafted exoskeleton always fun too.

[@rainbowcrash6990]

Looking back on ones predictions or expectations is always a good idea! Great video

[@cody98533]

I love Aegar he’s awesome ! A mix of burn and giant tribal , a nice change from normal spellslinger and there’s actually some really cool and strong giants that compliment the play style

[@VegtamTheWonderer]

I think any commander that doesn't have built in protection, an immediate and game changing effect, or haste is going to have trouble gaining traction. Obviously none of that is required for a commander to be powerful and/or fun, but I see so many posts on forums with people saying something along the lines of "Commander x isn't good because it doesn't have Protection/ETB/Haste" that I think people just don't even bother looking at a commander without those.

[@Kabyk]

Yes, a lot of EDH decks are moving in the direction of "i don't play my commander until the turn i win" or, at least, not until all the pieces are in place to "do the thing" in general so they don't actually have to have the commander susceptible to removal. which is a little frustrating playing so much commander just to see the faces of the format sit off to the side of the table for the whole match.

[@olafthemoose9413]

More relevant in 1vs1 commander (or commander-esque) formats.

[@thrasherftw]

I have a Rigo deck that I call “Rebantinmator”. It makes use of white’s recursion abilities, which are often tied to creatures power, and also that lots of small creatures have removal on them when you sacrifice them. Also cards like mother of runes that give protection. Once you have an abiding grace and court of ardenvale out, you can drop a dovescape and really control the board till you close out the game, since I’ll have ways to buff creatures after attacks.

[@sunsfssb7699]

For the most part I think you are absolutely right. Lots of them would make interesting decks. However: I think there is one thing you underestimate A LOT: The power of artworks! It's not all about effects. Having a cool looking or stunningly beautiful artwork helps cards a lot to become popular. Alena vs Tegwyll might be the best example from this video for that.

[@Dragon_Fyre]

I remember Alela being ranked S class by content creators and Tegwyll was typically around B class, so I don’t doubt that was a huge factor.

[@matthewsawczyn6592]

- Rigo seems perfect for White Weenie, but I imagine there are better options - Swarmlord with modular creatures sounds fun

[@angelojohnson9441]

I originally built a Marisi Naya deck, but while I really liked Kaima, I felt it was a color too short to headline. When I found Mazzy chilling in my trade binder, I realized that while Kaima, would still be playing second fiddle, Mazzy would allow a three color aura goad build with Vows and Impetuses. The thought of playing a [color] ward aura on a voltron commander to give it protection from the auras it would want also just seems hilarious if I ever pull it off. Cruel tricks aside, I feel like the deck goes in a far more interesting direction than if ai had gone straight goad with Marisi

[@actiondk2279]

Love the Warhammer mtg cards

[@mn6334]

I saw an article once about a Mazzy deck built around the "Substance" Auras. I ended up buildng my own version and it's been pretty fun. Mazzy is a pretty sweet card.

[@virgilhoward9071]

Thanks to your channel, I have been looking at underwhelming commanders and I am building a Calamity, Galloping Inferno deck

[@deadNdivine12]

Calamity seems like a fun commander.

[@taypires]

I'm one of the folks that bought the Fae Dominion Precon where both Tegwyll and Alela come from. For me Tegwyll was kinda boring, it does more of the same most commanders around do, but Alela looked like a challenge to build around, and there were no Flash themed deck in my playgroup. The deck turned out pretty bad though, but I still like to play with it

[@SSolemn]

Tegwyll is great with a build not from the precon. If you want to build an "aristocrat" faerie deck he is very good tho

[@TheMattyNation]

Malcolm is insane with eldrazi… a guy in my group had this deck and it’s unbelievable… way better than my Rakdos, Lord of Riots to cheat things in. I’m surprised it’s not popular either it’s the most powerful on this list.

[@AnnikaSabers]

Malcolm is the commander for my strongest deck. To make him work you need to protect him from removal (counter spells and phasing), proliferate to speed it up, and a little extra evasion never goes amiss. With the protection and proliferate I am likely to be cheating out cards by turn 5 or 6.

[@narkfly]

River Song is a pretty popular character for Whovians. She's the Doctor's wife, and her story and character on the show are pretty cool. Her not being a popular commander doesn't have anything to do with Whovians not liking her. The first episode of the show I watched was the episode that introduced River, and she spans three different regenerations of the Doctor. There's a reason she kept popping up on the show; it's because she's awesome.

[@saintkupo7164]

Swarmlord's problem is that he is the face commander for a deck that is going to cut him immediately. Magus Kane just synergizes much better with the deck and at that point you may as well sub the lord for an X draw spell. He is a fantastic Birthing Pod centric commander though, especially since we got the new MH3 birthing pod adjacent. He has done lots of work for me.

[@UnknownPerson-ix1tx]

Oskar is actually crazy powerful because it breaks TIMING RESTRICTIONS, and there's great ways to get the mana from discarding to cast the spells

[@Mecal00]

Speaking of commanders from Aftermath, I built a Danitha, New Benalias Light deck, and I'm surprised how unpopular it is (381 decks). It's Selesnya Voltron, but once per turn you can cast an equipment or aura from the graveyard with her ability. It's pretty cool. She also has "keyword soup": vigilance, trample, lifelink

[@JetNAmplify]

oh boy, Im legitamitly quite excited for another episode of "why are these comanders with no clear direction to build them upopular". lets see if the episode goes how i expect it to. these videos are always fun.

[@PaulMerizationXL]

I have always been shocked that “Grakmaw, Skyclave Ravager” is so low. Like only 300 decks on edh and granted you build +1/+1 theme around it but I built it so that you always want commander die but keep bring it back with cards like as example feign death,undying evil, not dead after all . Just makes army with +1/+1 theme that usually see in white not green which is very different

[@BigDrew49]

I found with Rigo your boards decimated easily because you're basically all weenies. Especially against rakdos where a delayed blast fireball, 1 point Meathook, toxic deluge, etc can ruin you. You're also VERY susceptible to trample damage so a little pillow forting helps. It gets boring quickly though because you're still just digging for a Craterhoof or Triumph of the Hordes.

[@jamiep8002]

Mizzix seems like they'd fit in the 99 of Eruth, Tormented Prophet, but every Eruth build I've seen is about eye-bleeding speed combos to rip through your deck and combo out, so a 5-mana creature that costs an extra 2 to actually use is just too much. On the other hand, putting Eruth in a Mizzix deck would be an efficient way to access that copy ability consistently without necessarily making a combo-centric build. Of course, there's still always the temptation of magecraft + copying a copy spell to just infinite draw (archmage emeritus) treasure (stormkiln artist) or burn (Ral, Storm Conduit) for the win.

[@Qwazzy2021]

For River Song, it could end up being that online simulators don’t easily allow to draw from the bottom of your deck and so they don’t make an online decklist for it That’s my reason at least, and I’m iffy about making a deck without playing it a couple times online with my friends

[@TheAngelRaven]

I feel like Swarmlord's first effect is one of the issues. As the commander, you need to cast HIM to start scaling HIM and it's slow. The card draw is great and I feel both his effects are just better in the 99 than as a Commander because if you play, say, Rog/Thras you have 2 casts before Swarmlord. Edit: Also, Dr. Who is just so standoutish of a set, so commanders from there being unpopular is 100% reasonable. River Song also suffers from the '2-Card Combo' issue of the commander going infinite with 1 other card, so anyone with a level of sense should just take them out first.

[@cody98533]

I think what holds Malcolm back is probably that he becomes a magnet for removal then you have to build up the counters again , proliferate definitely helps it though ! With speeding it up and adding resilience

[@combobreaker449]

I play Zurgo and Ojutai, I consistently destroy my pod. I never thought I’d be a Jeskai player, but my god I wipe the floor with them around Turn 4-7. Card Advantage is so powerful with that commander.

[@reynaaiken4542]

The Swarmlord can be an absolute beast to play against with the right cards and ways to make the extra mana to recast him is quite plentiful

[@zacharymorris6119]

Place back on bottom in any order effects with river song makes it epic. It's literally reverse scrying lol

[@MsJoshthomas]

I miss the retrospectives! I also LOVE my plargg and nissari deck!

[@PixelBricksel]

I think most people prefer Alela over Tegwyll, because Tegwyll feels very generic and just does fearie good stuff. While Alela has an interesting subtheme with goad and also playing creatures with flash.

[@MediumChungus223]

I don't know how you can say that with a straight face when Ur Dragon is the second most popular commander in the entire format.

[@bennefib]

That's why I perfer tegwyll over her, unassuming commanders are easier to win with imo, drawing extra cards in black is insane , with artifacts I can draw up to 4-5 cards per turn , if he doesn't die to removel he's taking someone out with him and he's giving my faerie's +5/+5 by turn 5 if drawn correctly. way more viable then counters and goading since most people are aware of that tactic and are simply awaiting a removel spell once they swing, and with more removal being added , it's more likely alela will be a 7 drop sooner then later

[@DracoX-hz3tu]

​@MediumChungus223 very different scenario, dragon players are naturally going to gravitate towards the best 5 color option to play all the most fun dragons (including most of the other commander options). With faeries there's really only the 2 color options from that precon, and one is pretty clearly more interesting than the other

[@dopethrone9445]

Also, Alela is a precon face commander

[@vincentwerts4724]

Let's face it. A big part of the appeal of Alela is the art. She's a babe, and people want to play visually appealing cards.

[@Knights_Oath]

I have two of these decks, The Swarmlord, and River Song. For River Song, there are a lot of cards that put cards at the bottom of your deck to work with. It's also a great form of anti mill, as you want your good cards at the bottom. Hell, I run a 9th Doctor deck and on paper he has one of the weakest abilities..... until you have 4 upkeeps create 8 thopters and 4 knights then Court of Embreth goes off when you have the monarch.

[@jacobstone4070]

I love Oskar. I don't have him as a commander, but he's an MVP in my Chromium deck

[@robertcarsten4050]

He is so fun as a commander. Lots and lots of thinking involved which is different from my regular "imma beat your face"

[@otterfire4712]

I tinkered with Aegar for a hot minute and I think the issue comes in the dependence on opponents having weaker creatures and burn based removal can be outpaced. Board wipes also hamper your own deck's potential, pair all this with a lack of an end goal beyond drawing many cards off a Blasphemous Act, which gets you plenty of advantage as it is, it's little wonder why Aegar isn't more popular. There's a couple issues with Hidetsugu and Kiari, one the concern of command tax for having to make use of death triggers. Instant speed grave hate, obliterates the death revival strategy, not to mention mixing low and high instant/sorceries. The Swarmlord missing Trample kind of removes some of the fangs on the card, even with a plethora of Temur based spells that grant trample, it somewhat restricts what you can run just to be truly threatening. The second effect loses some value though mass burn spells could pair fairly well and give The Swarmlord room to make use of his big body and take out a couple players with relative ease. Tegwyll has competition in the form of Oona, the OG Faerie commander with an arguably better design, having an alternate win condition and interesting token generation versus a flying deathtouch banner that recuperates lost resources and self harms in the process. Alela also has a lot more flexibility with her effect and doesn't restrict you to Faeries, you can build a instant/flash based deck and still get your Faerie tokens to swing and trigger Alela's second effect to goad creatures. Mazzy has a neat effect but it's overshadowed by other slugging commanders who aren't as restrictive with their effects and there are other aura decks that can be faster utilized than Mazzy. Honestly scratching my head with Oskar, remarkably similar to Rielle the Everwise, another fairly fun and flexible commander. Perhaps one of the shortcomings of the commander is a need of mana to capitalize on reaping both benefits. I could see it as a pseudo Cheerios commander where you run fairly low costing cards with low commitment discard effects to cycle through them and cast them to double dip on cards. Eventually overwhelming players with value. Potential storm end goal perhaps, but there's a small list of useful storm end points to use. River Song's burn can miss out a bit against a lot of decks, there are some cards that can force opponents to search which will trigger her effect, the reverse draw effect is neat, I'd expect the solution to drawing from the bottom is to fan the bottom part of the deck to make it easier to draw from the bottom. Rigo is somewhat neat, I'd say Exalted could work pretty well as you can sequence attack triggers to resolve Rigo before all of your Exalted and Instant speed buffs. Speaking of buffs, it's a feast or famine type cards where their value is based on having a solid board state which isn't always there for you. Malcolm is a high commitment commander where it's dependent on opponents ignoring the card's presence. Proliferate is pretty handy, but you're still needing to build up to that four counter mark to start really generating value from him. That said, he'd go pretty well with Oskar, being able a Lieutenant of sorts. Plargg and Nassari begs to be hated out of the game to prevent you from stealing spells. There's some salt from making an opponent chose, not to mention potential counseling to minimize as much value you get from it. They're not so much politics as it is archenemy. Two big things barring Mizzix from popularity is the steep commander cost to bring her out and the requirement to cast outside the hand. I would like to run her as a commander because she looks somewhat fun, though I tried a similar commander in Pia Nalaar, Consulate of Revival where the problem is the dependence on exile based spell casting and general steep costs from cascade or from delayed casts with suspend/foretell/plot.

[@otterfire4712]

tl;dr There are either commanders that are more flexible with their design to build around, the commander itself is too expensive to cast without being hated off the board, or lack a direction to end games in. I very much would like to tinker with Oskar though finding a solid win con will be tricky as he lacks Rielle's built in power scaling which can be used to eliminate problem players from tables with various spells/abilities that can make her unblockable.

[@Devoratrix]

Not my ass playing Atris Oracle of Half-Truths as a goofy reanimator/blinking deck

[@juliusruhe6544]

Sophia, Dogged Detective ist auch komplett underrated! Ich finde das Deck hat flavour und scheppert immer wieder auf etwas andere weise rein 👍🏻🐕

[@JayoticMTG]

Rigo would such a cool Commander if he said “base power 1 or less”, as is it’s pretty tough to consistently hit with small creatures or defenders.

[@greatshell311]

Just finished putting my river Song build and it's super fun! Goad/land destruction/ forced tutoring and scry

[@brandoncreek5709]

I'm a big fan of Mazzy! It's a unique take on an enchantress deck that actually makes me want to play the archetype

[@derekgreen2524]

My River Song deck is in jail in my playgroup, they hated the non-basic land destruction. I use a deckbox angled slightly so I can pull from the bottom. It's not easy.

[@mistawinta56]

I am a simple man who likes cool, rawr, nothing but fang & claws xenos: alien, predator, tyranids, you name it. When the Swarmlord came out, I bought it for this simple reason alone, but as I've continued to play magic, I've repurposed the deck a couple of times until I finally landed into a self-sacrifice, birthing pod deck: it's extremely consistent & reliable, even without birthing pod present. MH3 brought out a psuedo auto-include in Birthing Ritual, and even without those cards present for an entire game, the deck establishes a presence & churns through cards pretty well. Super fun, would recommend.

[@Turn140]

Absolutely love mazzy, ordeal of nylea is amazing. All of them are.

[@akumu2625]

As a swarmlord main, they overlook swarmlord second ability. And the best cards in the deck: persist

[@GlennSherwood]

I've always thought an Ian Malcom deck would be fun at a table, but ive never seen him as a commander.

[@arrowrandoman]

My first thought with Mazzy is running Totem Armor Auras. Keep up protection in addition to the buffs while making use of Enchantress effects.

[@TheClocktowerCrew]

Alela vs Tegwyll, Id say its because Goad is just generally a better effect in commander than just giving fairies +1/+1 and card draw. Goad being both Pseudo-Protection/Pseudo-Removal. Your board stays relatively protected since people wont be attacking your board due to Goad, its waaaaaay easier to set up a winning board with Alela than Tegwyll. Plus Tegwyll just seems...... boring, like Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait. Like its powerful, but like its a 1 card engine which isn't exactly inspiring.

[@dopethrone9445]

I disagree that goad is generically better than card draw. But I agree that Alela is a much easier setup. Alela is more “complete” of a package by herself that just rewards you for playing at instant speed. I also think she winds up having more ways to build than Tegwyl. As a token generator, she makes a great Dimir aristocrats commander that Tegwyl slots into very well. Or just a solid payoff for Dimir spellslinger strategies with the fun of trying to attack each opponent every turn. By comparison, Tegwyl feels like she’d have little to no personality as just go wide fairies. She also looks like she wants to lean into fairy aristocrats, for which she is only part of the package and you need to work harder for the strategy than with Alela. I love fairy aristocrats, and I play the esper alela with both Tegwyl and Dimir alela in the 99.

[@MetallicMutalisk]

Nice, I have a Hidetsugu & Kairi deck and it's probably my strongest deck. It can kind of go semi infinite or win in a single turn sometimes. I also have a Mazzy deck, it's pretty freaking aggro but I never even thought of the "cast from exile" synergies and I'm tuning it further.

[@adapperpigeon7946]

I got a Malcolm deck built around extra turns. I built it because i was told that commander is trash and no good deck could be built around it. First game I played against them, i dropped a Omniscience and stormed off. It's a fantastic and fun deck to try!

[@josephfreitag568]

Hidetsugu and Kairu is really cool and ridiculously powerful (legit one of the strongest commanders imo), but if built to the strongest point it’s pretty oppressive. Like clone effects and recursion and there’s times you just deny a person a game and it can lead to unfun games. Not for the Hidetsugu player but for the other players.

[@xaviermontigny9381]

I built Hidetsugu and took it appart because it was so annoying to play with or play again. Basically, either I could play solo for 20 minutes and loop all the effects to kill everyone or I couldn't and would do almost nothing

[@Kryptnyt]

I do think Plargg/Nassari was overshadowed by Gruul Etali as it essentially does the same thing but a lot faster. I'd say P/N is equally a removal magnet as monored Etali is. Maybe more, because you're guaranteed to hit. We all know the guy that flips lands with Red Etali every turn.

[@Drewtwu]

I have Malcolm in the 99 of my Octavia, Living Thesis deck. The deck is centered around small, hard to block creatures that grant card draw which I can then buff to be 8/8s with Octavia. Malcolm is perfect for that, but it takes far too long for him to reach four counters.

[@chrisbeard7501]

Alot of commanders would be fun to build around, but power creep is making it harder to make decent decks with under powered commanders.

[@zenalias3131]

I've built Mazzy and Rigo, each in a modularized deck concept. They are so unique and nobody expect the shenanigan that you can pull off with those two.

[@nicholasbruce4124]

I wanted to make Mazzy but could never find a deck I liked for her

[@robertcarsten4050]

​@@nicholasbruce4124you can build her in a number of different ways. With the release of giggling skitterspike I've rebuilt mazzy burn and it's so fun now. But I've done goad, go wide, voltron and she evne has a fee ways to make infinite attack/mana/ or even burn

[@austinyoung3953]

I think the Tegwyll also wants want to be built more aristocratics, and there were no sac outlets in the precon.

[@YourCrazyOverlord]

Take a shot every time he says "I'm shocked" if you wanna die.

[@JohnSmith-ro2sc]

My favorite deck is my Endrek Sahr deck. Which has virtually no decks in comparison to the most popular ones.

[@thelunchlady8276]

Love the Master Breeder!

[@BurgerSmother]

For all of the commanders you listed, I would guess that it boils down to 3 main reasons why they arent played as commanders (as much as you think they should be). 1, there is simply too much product to keep up with for a lot of people, and as such many people may simply just miss a lot of these commanders, possibly favoring the more flashy or unique designs. 2. They are too expensive for what they do. In the cases of swarm lord or plargg for example, they are simply just too expensive for what their effect is, and for less mana you can likely find a commander that does a lot of the same thing but done cheaper or with more upside for a similar cost. 3. In the same vein as number 2, many of these commanders may even be good, but they do a lot of the same thing that other commanders are already doing, and possibly worse. Izzet spellslinger, dimir mill, bant tokens, these are all well documented and popular archetypes, but these commanders youve listed dont do all that much particularly new or innovative, and people may already have decks that do something very similar and theres no reason to swap to a new commander or to build a whole new deck for it.

[@evanbutler4347]

Plargg and Nassari is good for sure, fun to just ritual it out on turn 2 and start flipping. It just isnt very good once your two other opponents die. You lose all your stolen stuff, and then they can just pick the worse of the two cards flipped over.

[@bigbadwolf6256]

I play a faery deck with Talion, the kindly lord and there are 5813 decks with here that might be the reason. There are 3 choices.

[@SSolemn]

Faerie player here, I have an Ivy simic faerie combat tricks/Donal MonoBlue tribal faeries/Talion clones/Alela enchantress/Alela spellslinger/Nymris flashy control/Helga bant faerie adventures... But yeah Taliom is amazing

[@aperture2408]

I am currently building a River Song spellslinger/top deck manipulation. Decklist is pretty much done the only problem is how to draw cards from the bottom of the library without the cards falling. I am thinking of using a boulder deckbox for it.

[@hanschristopherson8056]

I think the swarmlord isn’t very popular because the precon it came it was focused on playing big creatures and so it’s ability was more incidental in that deck. This does seem to happen with some commanders where the first thing people see with it makes people think it only does that

[@yamcakes3607]

I play Wilson, refined grizzly paired with cultist of the absolute. Pretty fun Voltron deck.

[@elaborateillusion]

River Song mentioned ❤ Actually love my deck

[@luhcsgrimm8857]

Alela is IN the faerie precon. People run her as the main commander.

[@gustavocve1779]

my friend has a Rigo, streetwise mentor deck and it's amazing. You draw so many card each turn that it's impossible to stop.

[@Dragon_Fyre]

You would only be drawing one card on your turn unless you are copying the ability (but you can do that for any draw ability unless it specifically says otherwise).

[@edhdeckbuilding]

it's one card per player attacked. similar to grazilaxx.

[@masterdanthegod]

River song is pretty good a buddy plays it, makes or gives people choices to scry or dig in decks but at a cost haha its fun i want to play with it.

[@reclinedpartygaming3774]

I have a hidetsugu and kairi deck that focused on making non-legendary copies/reanimating clone creatures so i would combo off with multiple etb and LTB triggers per turn and using those to make even more copies or take extra turns.

[@Urathamax]

River Song was my go-to for playing versus Jenson Carthalion, the WUBRG value boy. Spell Crumple is busted with her just as is, but From the Ashes was a game ender 😂👌

[@PaulMerizationXL]

Cormelia trinket thief is under played surprise me with , slept on commander out of streets of capena

[@Torsav]

Over saturation is a likely suspect. Whether that's people building something else from the set or, for me personally, start brewing and then it's spoiler season for the next set.

[@samniemann6890]

I think that Rigo competes for the same audience as Edric and people like Edric more despite having fewer colors. That said I think Rigo is one of the best secret mono white commanders.

[@agrumpypumpkin]

I love Rigo, one of my most salty decks. It's a toxic proliferate deck. So much fun... well for me anyway haha but no one knows what the deck is gonna be when they see him. And the shield is awesome too, keeping him from dying every minute. And with so much proliferate, he usually has 11-12 shield counters on him by the end of it all. Definitely underrated

[@punkypinko2965]

River Song 12:04 has a really interesting ability: drawing cards off the bottom of your deck. I like that, but I would have to build the deck and play it to know for sure. It's just interesting. All those spells that put cards on the bottom of your deck. But if I built a Dr. Who deck it would be The Second Doctor for all the card draw and card draw triggers.

[@Adam_First]

Great video

[@radvillainy]

I built a Hidetsugu and Kairi deck where I cloned him a bunch to get both the ETB and death trigger from the legend rule. It ended up being much too powerful for my regular playgroup and since it was only 30 bucks I took it apart. Clones are pretty cheap turns out, you could make that deck even more powerful if you wanted by slotting in more expensive spells to hit with his death trigger.

[@reclinedpartygaming3774]

yeah, mine turned out too powerful for my group. when you have extra turns, and make stupid amounts of copies/clones per turn people get bored or annoyed quickly so i dont play it much.

[@xfighters3913]

Rigo seems OP as hell. Just run one of those token commanders and attack with a bunch of 1/1's then draw your entire library. I guess you can't run anthems but im sure the 1 million cards you draw make up for that.

[@Abdul-cs9re]

Oh, I have that Malcom as a commander, funny how people don’t know how good he is, literally dropped a turn 3 omniscience

[@zchwen]

Mizzix is insane in old jhoira. Copying anything you suspend will almost always be insane

[@FredrickTesla]

The majority of the cards you highlight come from commander decks that have more powerful commanders in them. Oskar comes from the same deck as Tivit, a crazy popular commander.

[@markcahalan5698]

I tried the Swarmlord for a Slime Against Humanity deck. It was okay, but I almost never cast him - so I replaced him with Loot, the Key to Everything And then I built another Slime deck with Kudo, King Among Bears. It's hilarious because he acts as a double anthem from the command zone that also ruins the PT of everyone else's stuff - and Ayula turns every slime into a kill spell

[@mistawinta56]

I built the Swarmlord as a sacrifice/birthing pod deck, and it's feels extremely consistent & reliable both with birthing pod/birthing ritual on the board, and without them too 😁