why you should try unpopular commanders

[@nwind9594]

I absolutely love that you highlighted Cosima // The Omenkeel. It is easily my most terrifying deck. My friends HATE it because it's insanely strong and easily becomes an archenemy situation. Not to mention the thematic elements of returning to my Scandinavian roots and pillaging all their lands

[@DominatorLegend]

Well, this was supposed to be EDH's whole point: a format where the forgotten jank can shine. I think my greatest achievement for underused commanders was my mono black Korlash, Heir to the Blackblade (819 decks in EDHRec, 57th mono black commander). Lots of people ignore this one because of him being a grandeur mechanic card, but he hits like an absolute truck. Won a fair good number of games thanks to commander damage.

[@zackkelley2940]

Might be worth looking at The Ever-Changing Dane. He makes an excellent grandeur commander (though there's certainly still SOME hoops to jump through)...and somehow has even fewer decks than Korlash (currently 757 decks).

[@FraggleRockss]

My rarest deck and also one of my top three only has 430 decks on EDHREC. I made a Shadowheart, Dark Justiciar // Haunted One after playing BG3 and I love it so much. it was reliable and so fun that my friends want to borrow it when we play. She is a powerhouse sacrafice commander thanks to her three creature types.

[@camilovarela478]

This sounds really fun, do you have a decklist?

[@dairybugle354]

How do her creature types make her powerful? Do you run urza’s incubator or something?

[@mcatis]

@@dairybugle354the background Haunted one gives all creatures that share Shadowhearts creature type undying until end of turn. So they can sacrifice them twice per turn

[@FraggleRockss]

@ it’s the background. The background cares about creatures that share a type with her. I filled the deck with lots of creatures with her 3 types and cards that can tap her. The background only cared about when she taps so at instant speed I can give all my board undying in response to a board wipe or in an end step to start draining my opponents and turning my creatures into cards and mana. I want to draw into Yawgmoth so I can take their counters away and the combo goes near infinite

[@TheDreamTwist]

@@mcatis yeah but a nonbo for the first sacrificed creature to shadowheart, personally like it on burakos instead for the more diversed creature types

[@dewyquade7137]

Heartless Hidetsugu! Never seen anyone else with him..

[@MrJojotheLion]

I always manage to smile like a big idiot when my Iname as One list pops off. Much fun is yet to be found by exploring the bottom of the barrel; nothing gives me greater joy in this format by showing off how two pieces of otherwise junky cardboard can make good memories. Reject Atraxa. Embrace a commander with under 500 decks and you'll have a blast

[@pupo1999]

I love Firja so much! Glad to see her getting some recognition :)

[@jacopogenovese4728]

I have a Sol'Kanar the Swamp King deck I'm really happy about! His lifegain ability is stronger than it looks with all the "whenever you gain life opponents lose life" effects that have been printed lately, and black is one of the most popular colors in the format, so most of the time his swampwalk will be relevant for at least one of your opponents.

[@goncalooliveira4700]

Nice video and commander! I didn't even know Firja, Judge of Valor existed! I've just build and bought myself a new Kalain, Reclusive Painter (748 decks in EDHRec, 61st rakdos commander) for Christmas. It is an aggro deck that uses the commander as ramp to consistently play under-costed high power creatures starting on turn 3 (e.g.: Abyssal Persecutor, Territorial Hellkite, Bloodvial Purveyor, ...) while everyone else is still setting up their board. I goldfished it a lot and it seems to be fun and working well! Hopefully it will also feel like this once I get to play with it with my playgroup.

[@valmar2889]

As the owner of a Firja deck I approve of this message. Weird bargain bin cards are the heart of the format, I agree that more people should give them a shot. My rarest deck is Toluz, Clever Conductor. Despite technically being an Esper commander it can be cast with only blue mana which prompted me to try it as a mono blue deck instead of a multicolor one, but one where I get access to blue hybrid cards with white/black. The deck uses a lot of draw/discard effects to turn Toluz into a bag of extra cards where you use mono blue sacrifice cards for a new hand. It doesn't play like anything else I've ever built and I really enjoy it bringing it out.

[@piralos1329]

Hell yea Toluz mentioned!!!!

[@zookaru]

[@Hayao0569]

I did this with my girl Maja, Bretgard Protector. She's got less than 1000 decks and is the 45th most popular G/W commander according to EDHRec. Gave myself a $20 budget and no Sol Ring and no Arcane Signet. She's a bit slow to get out but the turn after she gets out tends to always be pretty explosive.

[@QuipsAndGuac]

Great video! what a fun way of stumbling onto a commander you might have never known about. I saw the cheeky approach of the 7th sun in the cards you had as alternative win cons but Firja helps you chew through cards till you get to recast it, what a neat little combo!

[@CardBoardJunkiesYT]

Thank you! Yea it’s a nice little addition to the deck :)

[@BuckysKnifeFlip]

That's a cool way to get to Approach faster. I used Varina to do that.

[@lonpa93]

Mine Is Donal herald of wings. I think it's art is beautiful, and allows me to play "mono blue, flying aggro" with the focus on etb effects. Not as powerful as others, but fun

[@davidhower7095]

I love doing this sometimes. It’s a really good test of your scryfalling skills. There’s just so many options nowadays that you’re unlikely to find something (with text) that doesn’t have a semi-playable buildaround. Personally, I prefer picking a few cards for the 99 and working backwards from there. Still leads to some interesting choices, though. Edit: Oh, yeah. My favorite low-ballers. Niambi, Faithful Healer (# 2216), Haktos the Unscarred (# 1420), and Chisei, Heart of Oceans (# 1604) are three I have decks for. I really want to figure out something for Idris, Soul of the TARDIS (# 2535), but I’ve been struggling with that one. Rilsa Rael, Kingpin (# 993) would be here, but they’re just below the 1K threshold, so I’ll say Hama Pashar, Ruin Seeker (# 1044) instead.

[@princedretten3154]

I absolutely love going on to EDHREC and scrolling down to commanders that have under 1000 decks. I've found a few gems doing this. Maeve, Insidious Singer - A mono blue siren with the ability to goad other creatures and draw you cards when they attack. I play this in a Control/Theft deck, letting the other players fight it out then stealing the biggest monsters left on the field. Kellan, Inquisitive Prodigy - Simic Adventure card, giving you access to both a ramp spell and creature with a solid ability. Either take out a scary artifact or choose one of your tokens for card draw. Green can make him a solid threat and blue can keep him alive. Lyzolda, the Blood Witch - Rakdos sac outlet. Still testing this one, but the idea is to play a bunch of rakdos coloured creatures and bring them back with black's graveyard recursion. Cards that care about others colour identity always seemed interesting to me. A couple options, hope someone finds this interesting.

[@ninshjok]

I build Firja becouse I loved the art and wanted to build an Angel deck, but with black becouse I loved the flavour of kaldheim. On the other hand, that "Idea" of limited commander sound really nice, I would organize the same but with 60card decks cool video. My favourite underdog it's Izoni, Thousand-Eyed, I build her a few years ago just to play golgari mill and loved the idea that I do not care to have a board, as long as I have a graveyard

[@Jackson-ol5xt]

Harold and Bob is amazing. You play something to snack him T1/2, and get to ramp to 6/7 mana turn 4, potentially even more if you have a way to untap lands. It easily gets out of hand, and you can draw your whole deck by milling yourself a bunch

[@goose8580]

3296 Tetzin was the first deck I built myself and it’s changed and evolved so much while I played, learned, and tweaked! It’s still my favorite deck

[@solomonsomers7033]

I basically only build uncommon commanders. My favorites include Karona the False God shrines + goad enchantments, Aphemia The Cacophony self mill+enchantments+reanimation+zombies (less jank than it sounds), Agrus Kos "only multicolour cards", Bilbo Retired Burglar just stacked with "when this deals damage" effects to get a ton of value when he connects and a bunch of blink spells with a top end of expensive etb creatures

[@Quarrenn17]

I have a hard time picking which deck to comment so I’ll just mention both. My second deck ever was a Chisei, Heart of Oceans deck. I built it around making more use of all the many cards that interact with counters and benefit from removing them, including Sagas, some artifacts, even some really forgotten lands. He isn’t the best deck, but he is a very fun and unique deck for sure. My third deck was Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient. He’s a mono red artifact activated abilities matters deck, copying ramp early on, but due to the nature of his ability, there are so many different ways to go infinite with the random artifacts in the deck. Even to this day (years later) I frequently play the deck and just dump my hand only to say “oh, actually that’s an infinite loop” when I had no idea those cards went infinite together. Every time it’s another fun exploration experience!

[@princedretten3154]

I've considered making a Chisei deck. My first thought was playing with less-used cumulative upkeep cards, removing age counters to make the most of them for as long as possible. Sagas also makes sense. I'm curious If maybe you could play him in a really silly clone deck to REALLY make use of the counter removal.

[@Quarrenn17]

@ cumulative upkeep is very good with Chisei, perhaps the best card in that is Glacial Chasm. It’s already good in other commander decks, but here you never have to pay more than 2 life generally. So if you play it at 40 life, then you have 20 turns to figure out a way to win (which is normally enough time so long as no one else has alternate win conditions along the way). I also do run some non-legendary clones, they can increase how many cards I can have on the battlefield at once. Probably a more efficient option, though, is to include other cards that can remove counters every turn. Examples of this are Ferropede, Power Conduit, and Goldberry, River-Daughter, although Goldberry requires some forethought and may not be able to remove counters from the same permanent each turn.

[@princedretten3154]

@@Quarrenn17 Yeah, I was looking at Glacial Chasm. definitely gonna try building Chisei in the near future. Thnx for the reply.

[@creditroll176]

one of my favorite decks of mine is my plargg, dean of chaos budget reanimator deck!! hes mostly just a way to get things in the graveyard, but supplementing it with a discard strategy is so fun. it goes for about 40 bucks

[@mudholefury]

I recently built a old stickfingers reanimator deck and it’s the most fun I’ve had in a very long time, I’ve always liked building different or unique commanders that rarely get seen, and I love when I pull up to my lgs to play and someone says “what does he do?” Because they’ve never played against him before 😂

[@faebaevesper]

my favorite deck of all time is with Xiahou Dun, The One Eyed as the Commander. it's basically an eternal witness in the command zone for black cards. he can be run as a generic "rebuy your spells" kinda deck or it can turn into a heavily layered combo deck or anything in between, honestly

[@TeamKatastrophe]

I've had my (one) eye on that commander for ages. He's awesome, and his lore is metal as hell

[@micboyyaboy2578]

My very first commander deck (which i still have today!) is a Zagras, Thief of Heartbeats list! The original game plan was pingers and first/double strikers because they work *so well* with deathtouch, but more recently I've moved to running a lot more kill spells. The wincon is either get something that pumps Zagras and beat people to death with commander damage, or use death trigger payoffs to kill people/win (I have a Revel in Riches).

[@MahBoi100]

A couple of years back, my brother and I started making commander decks consisting only of commons and uncommons. Making decks without relying on typical strong cards found at rare and mythic turned out to be really fun, especially because it allows more overlooked cards the chance to shine. The biggest boon from this is that every set release is really exciting now. Who knows if we will get new uncommons that break the mold. Reprint sets particularly becomes an exhilarating search for new downshifts. Playing without rares and mythics also makes you less affected by the crazy arms race WotC's got with itself which sees increasingly busted cards entering edh every set. My first uncommon deck was a Lagomos, Hand of Hatred list. It centers around edicts to help proc his second ability. One of the deck's most impressive performers is Mortician Beetle. If anyone looks to try playing with underdog cards, as it were, I definitely recommend skipping rares and mythics altogether. It's quite fun! 😄

[@CardBoardJunkiesYT]

I’ll probably give this a shot! Sounds fun

[@sleepingbee8997]

The first deck I made was "Commissar Severina Raine" from the Warhammer 40k Imperium deck. When she attacks, she drains each opponent based on the number of attacking creatures. So I make a hoard of cheap tokens, swing out, and tear a chunk of HP off my opponents before we even get to combat. It takes some time to build up, but I only have to swing with her 2-3 times to make a big impact on the game.

[@austyn307]

I sold off my whole collection a few years back and recently got back into it. To pad my collection, i bought bulk and dollar store packs and have been brewing some sweet ultra-budget commander decks with them. Built my brother a snowballing monstrosity with Gut, True-Soul Zealot which essentially makes infinite 4/1s with menace. Its really hard to stop once it gets going. I built a grindy Minthara deck as well. A Cheshiro equipment deck, an Urza deck, etc. A bunch of sweet bulk legendaries. It is a lot of fun to force yourself to brew with an extremely limited cardpool and with commanders you have never seen played. I definitely can vouch for the value of unpopular commanders.

[@toshibro689]

My Alesha, Who Laughs at Fate deck clocks in at a whopping 26 dollars including lands. It outplayed: RGB Henzie Blitz ($250 in deck value) BW Vampires ($300 in deck value) Mono Black Rat Tribal ( $400 dollars in deck Value) All off of grave bouncing Kardur Doomscourge every turn to Vampiric Rites, Perforating artist and Zoyowa Lavatongue burning out the field and life totals and a lot of other dumb Rakdos gravebounce shenanigans. $0.30 cent Flayer of the Hatebound was a removal focus for the first time in that cards life. All while causing mass swings every turn and big chaos at the table resulting in... everyone having a lot of fun. Cheap commanders are the best way to play in my opinion and it ain't close.

[@Mazz-Mayhem]

I have an alesha deck. Mines still fairly budget sitting around 80 dollars. But i went with giving her some equipment for quick power and being able to bring out big 6+drops the turn of or after she comes out. Also easy with cheap haste enablers. Vile entomber is also great for this deck. Bloodthorn flail is also very good with her +2 to power is a 1 drop and can equip by discarding. Easy stuff

[@toshibro689]

@@Mazz-Mayhem Hero's Blade is a great drop too for an early bump and auto equips to a legendary. A lot of the Azra cards from Battlebond are great as well, Rushblade Commander is another good option to give yourself more chances at pulling a haste enabler for her. Building semi-tribal into Warriors in general works super well for people looking for true budget options.

[@camilovarela478]

Would love to take a look at your list, sounds fun

[@toshibro689]

@@camilovarela478 Formatted for easy copy pasting to your preferred platform Alesha's Recurring Carnage (AKA a decklist of unused metal band names) [Commander] Alesha, Who Laughs at Fate [Creatures] Mardu Shadowspear Monastery Swiftspear Norin, Swift Survivalist Rakdos Cackler Cynical Loner Eternal Tasmaster Goblin Wardriver Hobblefiend Reassembling Skeleton Rushblade Commander Tymaret, the Murder King Undead Sprinter Vengeful Strangler Zoyowa Lava-Tongue Zulaport Cutthroat Archetype of Aggression Azra Oddsmaker Cryptborn Horror Judith, the Scourge Diva Lobelia Sackville-Baggins Mardu Strike Leader Nine-Lives Familiar Perforating Artist Rakdos Ickspitter Sawblade Skinripper Shatterskull Charger Totentanz, Swarm Piper Brawl-Bash Ogre Chainer, Nightmare Adept Frontier Warmonger Garna, the Bloodflame High-Society Hunter Kardur, Doomscourge Syr Konrad, the Grim Massacre Girl Titan Hunter Flayer of the Hatebound Noxious Gearhulk [Spells] Faithless Looting Eaten Alive Vampiric Rites Deadly Dispute Fake Your Own Death Forever Young Molten Collapse Nasty End Skullcrack Terminate Blightning Five-Alarm Fire Goblin Negotiation Heartless Pillage Midnight Snack Skewer the Critics Theater of Horrors Slaughter Games Terminal Agony Unexpected Windfall Berserkers' Onslaught Torrent of Souls Kindred Charge [Artifacts] Hero's Blade Swiftfoot Boots [Lands] 10 Mountains 11 Swamps Akoum Refuge Blackcleave Cliffs Bloodfell Caves Canyon Slough Cinder Barons Dragonskull Summit Foreboding Ruins Jagged Barons Rakdos Carnarium Shadowblood Ridge Smoldering Marsh Tainted Peak Temple of Malice None of the dual color lands are really all that necessary and were I had available to me I think only Dragonskull cost me over a dollar.

[@AdrieSteia]

I have a Carmen, Cruel Skymarcher deck. She's ranked #455 on EDHRec. She's just a fun resurrect commander, but what makes her special is 2 things: 1) she triggers off of any players' sacrifices, meaning I can buff her with forced sacrifices (edict of erebus, grave pact, blasphemous edict) 2) she triggers off of any permanent being sacrificed, this means she can be played as a food, treasure, or clue commander, or also counter those strategies These two things you usually don't see (symmetry on aristocrats, and aristocrats of any permanents) makes her very fun. She also returns any permanent, rather than just creatures, meaning I have access to many special things other resurrection decks don't: 1) Ramp is Orzhov by bouncing evolving wilds or terramorphic expanse 2) Card draw by bouncing commander's sphere or mind stone 3) The ability to return high value enchantments that may have been removed Also, as it triggers on attack and not combat damage, I can set up combos, like have a sanguine bond on the field and an exquisite blood in the graveyard. If Carmen has 5 power, which is very easy, and flying so she is hard to block, I can basically flash in an insta kill combo with her. She also can be built as a counters or life gain deck because of her sacrifice trigger, meaning food token lifegain is very viable as her. I've been loving it so far.

[@ender4101]

I will sometimes look for all the legal commanders of a specific color or color combination and note down all the ones that seem interesting. Lots of hidden gems if you look for them. Also, freaking LOVE Firja! She leads my reanimator deck with an Angels subtheme and a graveyard denial gimmick. My favorite uncommon commander!

[@Tristan-2016]

I have to shout out my boy Caparocti Sunborn, a commander with almost no decks but that I made on a whim since I pulled him from a pack. One of my most fun decks that plays like a Boros Prosper with a token sub-theme, yet only about 230 decks on EDHRec.

[@creditroll176]

oh man, ive built that one!! i think i built him as equipments, he was so good

[@Tristan-2016]

@ Mine is focused on playing from exile and winning with cards like Unstable Amulet, Quintorius Kand, and Iraxxa, Empress of Mars.

[@creditroll176]

@@Tristan-2016 i had never heard of unstable amulet before this, but wow that’s a great card!! i guess i just skipped over it because i assumed it was just for energy decks

[@Tristan-2016]

@ it’s basically a burn card that gives you a one-time impulse draw, very good if planning to play from exile like with Discover

[@baelsalmongaming]

I've brewed/am brewing a Hans Ericksson deck for fun as theory craft. My take on it was to go with multiple combats and trying to make Hans indestructible, at least until end of turn. I think it needs more ramp and some haste enablers, but seems like a fun way to build the weird Gruul commander.

[@migsmigs2425]

Our pod fears my Darigaaz Reincarnated Jund midrange goodstuff deck. Reid Duke would be proud.

[@mrplumbe7318]

My pet deck is The Most Dangerous Gamer, it's amazing how cheap attractions are!

[@chemnao4009]

I haven't really built anything that obscure yet, but I'm currently theorycrafting one deck around a really cool partner pair: Tormod and Bruse Tarle. The idea behind the deck was originally to find a way to make Yidaro, Wandering Monster's effect live easily, so the idea is a Mardu cycling deck where I return my cycling card to hand to trigger Tormod repeatdly, and reanimate big creatures with cycling and make them hit harder with Bruse Tarle. The pair doesn't have a lot of decks (27, ranking #3057 on EDHREC) and the synergy doesn't seem obvious at first, but it made ask myself about what weird partner pairings you could make work. Alson a commander I always come back to despite never finding any satisfying idea for a deck to build around is Odric, Blood-Cursed (347 decks, #1654). I love keyword soup and the original Odric, and I love small artifacts shenanigans, but I struggle to find a way to meld those two things together in a coherent deck.

[@oddac2669]

This is why I still buy a booster box when I can; I could just buy the singles, which is cost efficient for making my dollars impact my deck power, but if I buy packs, I am forced to use my brain to work with what I have, and I tend to get more inspired by holding the cards in my hand, instead of scrolling through Scryfall.

[@MrToxic908-m7m]

Gretchen the twitch willow and my iname as death deck are my 2 VERY strong jank decks with budget leds then 100 dollars gretchen with a mana doubler like the one from eldraine triple your basics tap for can make you win on the spot and the hold the mana up affect is really useful but my iname deck is really cool and fun for jank recur all the ones i throw into the bin or i just MORTAL COMBAT for the win super fun and highly recommend one of the 2 builds and if you guys want a random cool jank commander just msg me on this comment ill give you a random deck to build

[@yvexi]

I recently got into magic through some friends at uni and have had a blast trying to learn new cards, archetypes and strategies. I only have one deck at the moment (through proxies), focusing on +1/+1 counters using Xolatoyac, but have recently been looking at a potential Eight and a half Tails Voltron strategy. I've always been an off meta player in video games and my previous card game in Yu-Gi-Oh so playing odd ball commanders is coming pretty naturally to me now I understand the game a bit better.

[@jyomi7506]

One of my first decks was the mono-black Ashnod, a big artifact deck using her sac ability to ramp with power-stones. It always surprised people with how fast a Myr Battlesphere or Phyrexian Triniform would hit the board, and being in black just killing it wasn't enough. It was super fun, even had a bit of an aristocrat back up plan. May have to rebuild it, lots of new cards to try out with her now ^.^

[@DROSTAR123]

so Rona herald of invasion is probably not the most unique commander and being the 24th most played dimir deck. That being said, i tried to make it unique and built in a way thats trying to be a legendary wizard tribal deck with some reanimator themes that i built out of cards i owned.

[@Zumteifl]

One of my very first Decks was the Aesi Landfall Precon. And ever since then i've fallen in love with drawing cards. But the deck needed some ways to close out games, so i've tried a bunch of other commanders in the landfall category like some of the omnaths, and although strong, they didn't really hit home.. then they released Greensleeves Maro Sorcerer (ranked like 640+ on edhrec) and let me tell u it slaps. She itself becomes a huge threat by herself and you're building an army while doing so. If she gets removed thats no problem because you are ramping so much and her power is equal to the number of lands you got, so she comes back even stronger. With cards like soul's majesty, return of the wildspeaker and rishkars expertise you are usually drawing like 8-12 cards which draws you into an overrun effect and can just kill the table out of nowhere. The ramp, card draw (who needs a sylvan library when u got elemental bond) and damage this deck can provide is insane.

[@Xoz_101]

My least popular commander is Ob Nixilis, Unshackled. I was actually surprised to see he only had 400 something decks on EDHrec, considering this is one of the decks I have the most fun playing.

[@michaeltodd343]

My favorite underdog is Goldberry, River-Daughter from the LOTR set. She's a little unassuming mono-blue creature that moves counters around your permanents. She's a lot of fun and creates interesting play patterns

[@ioblackrose]

i love seeing videos like this ^^ weird brews are my fav and i love what u did with firja my underrated pet deck is a Reyhan / Alharu partner deck and i love it so dearly

[@TimPoultney]

Funny you put Rex up at the end... Just finished brewing a budget combo deck with the goodest boy at the helm.

[@papaflowers5726]

My starscream deck is goated currently, and I am going to put Ruxa back together. Those two are so fun

[@SieTeppischfresser]

I made a Rith, The Awakener deck back in 2018. It was the only one i knew of and never saw it online until recently.

[@DCode504]

I really like the dimir The Master, Formed Anew which (in a very janky way) turns into a Swiss army knife over the course of the game. It also synergizes with threaten / temporary theft and self-bounce effects which is quite unique. It doesn't win a lot of games but man is it fun every time

[@nevzatkumas7158]

link to deck?

[@cordelbowers2668]

My Jem Lightfoote deck has a focus on foretell and Dungeon exploring that is insanely fun! Nobody ever expects how crazy it gets since Jem rewards you for not playing cards in your hand.

[@MorganEdwardsTV]

My favorite deck I’ve built is an Alquist Proft commander. It’s a combination of clue/artifact synergies and unblockable detectives. So many people double take it, because they’ve never seen him. It’s really strong but by far my favorite deck.

[@whyeumadbro]

I'm all about building underdog commanders, my fave list is: Horobi, Death's Wail -- turns any target ability on the board into an instakill (mono black) Braids, Conjurer Adept -- group hug and cheat out big timmy creatures (mono blue) Norin Swift Survivalist -- whacky etb blink & steal (mono red) I also play a bunch of Pauper EDH which is all about building underdog commanders: Defiant Survivor - manifest dread for value Osseous Sticktwister - quirky end step decision making for opponents Ganax, Astral Hunter // Agent of the Iron Throne (background) - crack treasures for face damage

[@thelunchlady8276]

Love Horobi and lands that target. Forge of Heroes is a free instant commander kill.

[@grantmurdock7385]

I build Rails Duskbrinfer as angel typal, letting me play all the rad black angels. Firja is an absolute house, doing absolutely everything the deck wants to do.

[@lukestange]

my favorite deck is Kumano, Master Yamabushi that I built around mono-red storm and damage modifiers. i also built Cao Cao, Lord of Wei, which at the time of building had like 70 decks on edhrec. i pretty much exclusively build underdog commanders, its a blast. edit: i didn't think this was an underdog commander, but people are talking abt cards with under 1000 decks on edhrec as underdogs. i love geist of saint traft! its like playing bogles in commander. he's so much fun

[@zweis]

DUDE I LOVE FIRJA SO MUCH IT'S MY FAVOURITE COMMANDER I LOVE ALL 4 OF MY FIRJA DECKS WOOOOOOOOOOO glad to see her getting some love. I have a high power spell slinger build which wins through Approach of the Second Sun and a reanimatior build that's very similar to the one you showcased. My favourite version of Firja is definitely the most recent convoke build I created which takes the most fun part of the spellslinger build and the win condition of the reanimatior build and merges them together into a cohesive convoke deck. Finally the last build of "Firja" is actually helmed by the alternate Commander, Shilgengar, Sire of Famine. It still plays Firja in the 99, but it's a heavy stax deck filled with a bunch of salty cards that aims to break parity by nuking all lands and bringing back a bunch of threats from the grave like Avacyn, Serra's Emissary, and other high cost Angels. If you want some recommendations let me know!!

[@CardBoardJunkiesYT]

Hit me!

[@zweis]

​@@CardBoardJunkiesYTHere are the all stars across all my builds: Vedalken Orrery - Absolute staple in the deck, even for budget builds. Casting all your spells at instant speed completely breaks Firja. Cling to Dust - 3B cantrip escape cost is really strong, especially because you can double spell on an opponent's turn. Tenacious Underdog is decent too. Rammas Echor, Ancient Shield - It's the best token generator if you're looking to lean into convoke with Dazzling Theater // Prop Room, but it's still a great stall piece that gives you incidental card draw. Drownyard Temple - It's very low opportunity cost for late ramp. Scout's Warning - Giving flash is so broken in Firja. Deep Gnome Terramancer - The entire catch up ramp package of Cartographer's Hawk, Knight of the White Orchid, Scholar of New Horizons, and Loyal Warhound is my preference over mana rocks in a reanimatior deck, but I would definitely include this one. I also think Chains of Mephistopheles is hilarious in this deck if you don't care about budget since your Commander breaks parady on it

[@zweis]

​​@@CardBoardJunkiesYT Vedalken Orrery - Absolute all-star in the deck. Completely changes the game for you, even in budget decks I would highly recommend it at $10. Rammas Echor, Ancient Shield - This one is a budget all-star in the deck. It does everything you want: gives you blockers, card draw engine, and provides an alt wincon with Commander damage. It just gets even better in the convoke build that plays Dazzling Theater // Prop Room. Cling to Dust - 3B to cantrip is actually decent with the Commander since it's a spell you can always cast. Deep Gnome Terramancer - I find the entire package of Cartographer's Hawk, Knight of the White Orchid, Loyal Warhound, and Scholar of New Horizons all fantastic in a reanimatior deck, I would definitely recommend the Gnome over a mana rock. Drownyard Temple - It's low opportunity cost ramp. Priest of Fell Rites - 3WB and not even counting as a cast is not ideal, but if you're playing other 2MV reanimate spells then having the option to play it from grave is nice.

[@zweis]

Some cards I like are Archivist of Oghma, Aven Interrupter, Clarion Spirit, Cling to Dust, Drownyard Temple, Flare of Fortitude, Malakir Rebirth // Malakir Mire, Mistveil Plains, Scout's Warning, and Tenacious Underdog. Deep Gnome Terramancer as well as the white catch up ramp creatures are pretty good in reanimator decks as they tend to be better than rocks.

[@zweis]

​@@CardBoardJunkiesYTBut the best cards in any Firja deck are hands down Vedalken Orrery and Rammas Echor, Ancient Shield.

[@gimistesista]

I like my Hans Eriksson deck a lot! He’s basically gruul Kaalia of the Vast, with the big difference that Hans gets targeted waaay less than Kaalia.

[@illuminedfain5114]

Tana the Bloodsower and Nadier, Agent of Duskenel is my $250 powerhouse that generates a ton of value without going infinite. I am so happy with it!

[@PUDRETE919]

Rienne, Angel of Rebirth & Donal, Herald of Wings are my lowest ranked commanders at #1254 & #1116 respectively; Rienne is a multicolor sac deck, using self-sac creatures and sac outlets to churn through my deck and keep getting it all back to my hand, there is a lot of protection in there as she is a rather monolithic commander Donal creates copies of non-legendary flyers, so the deck is full of powerful ETBs or creatures who's copies end up being stronger than the original (e.g. Trawler Drake) and as all copies are Spirits, there is a very light tribal theme there

[@vincentflores3101]

Ratadrabik of Urborg scratches every aristocrats reanimator itch for me

[@MrLeolb2]

why there are so many paint edh gurus?

[@Einherjar212]

I have two decks: Florian, Voldaren Scion whioch I call "mono warcrimes." I play Pox, Fraying Omnipotence, Descent into Avernus and the list goes on. It can be super nasty and I love the high-impact nature of it and the groaning at the table. Also a Shanna, Purifying Blade deck that is centered around landfall. I don't know what got into me, but it kinda works.

[@illusivespecter8124]

Rionya fire dancer the reaction is always the same 3 steps step one they read and go thats pretty cool.step 2 i do something they read it again and realize its x +1 and go thats pretty crazy then step 3 she eats the table alive and they say that's a pretty scary commander then watch out for me in the next game.

[@teaz3139]

I run four decks: Goose Mother (counters), Goose Mother (food) - because I own geese, as well as Jon Irenicus Shattered One (I loved BG2) and Kassandra, Eagle Bearer (I liked AC Odyssey). I get a lot of confusion and disparagement over how weird Goose Mother is, but she's really quite an adaptable commander. You can play her turn 2 as a 2/2 if you need, or later for a giant attacker. You can use her to draw or block flying or as a threat.

[@demonicgrub1025]

I love my Homura, Human Ascendant deck. It's my favorite explosive go wide deck that I've tried. I've had turns start where all I have in play at the start of the turn is homura and 7-8 lands, and at the end of the turn I've swung 40+ damage at everyone else at the table. And unless you've already played against it, most people do not pay much attention to homura, especially since until he flips all he does is make it more annoying to kill him.

[@Fabiundso]

Lae'zel with Dragon acolyte Background is very fun :)

[@creditroll176]

also flavorful!! i think some gith have dragons as mounts?

[@Fabiundso]

@creditroll176 at least in the bg3 Intro, haven't played it through. Plus, most of the selesnya dragons care about counters anyways, so im surprised it doesen't get played more. But i guess the most people read that she adds counters and take the obvious Background wich also gives counters.

[@Guild_Navigator3000]

One of my goofiest, high variance decks has Torgaar, Famine Incarnate as commander. I call it Torgaar Kart because my main motivation for making the deck was to have a big commander with an ETB to crew big vehicles like Consulate Dreadnought and Skysovereign, Consul Flagship.

[@eggfinallap]

I was seriously considering building Firja at one point. I wrote multiple lists. Voltron, clerics, vampires, even allies.

[@leodalkey651]

If your a grasshole but people always pick on you and laugh and accuse you of setting yourself up for failure try this. I remember back when mh3 precons were running the show. Eldrazi, Zimone, ect. But nobody thought satya was up to snuff. With most players dismissing it altogether. So i built it up and it amazes me how easy it is to build up a board when other players are playing notoriously gross cards that must be answered. I'm just socking away energy until presto chango I've got a healthy board of hasty evasive bigs, or pseudo-infinite combats.

[@crittermoder]

My favorite unpopular commander i have built right now has to be Gorex the Tombshell. It's a really weird deck that takes advantage of my commander's ability to recycle cards with Cycling, Transmute, Evoke, and Exploit like Shriekmaw, Dimir House Guard, and Fell Stinger for solid but fair value. Paired with the repeatedly printed "when a creature leaves your graveyard" abilities, you can make a pretty decent boardstate. Only downside is that the deck really wants the best sacrifice outlets like altars and warren soultrader, which makes it look scary and chews through your wallet

[@MrWustl]

A shout out to my Feather the Redeemed deck. It wins maybe a third of the time but I find it to fun to recur cat trip spells or ramp via token generation and path to exile combo

[@greatbrandini3967]

My newest deck is actually a Frija deck. Most people will guess you're either playing reanimator, angels, clerics, or life gain, but I actually built her as an artificer. MVP of the deck has to be either The Capitoline Triad or Salvaging Station

[@benturtl9076]

my brother built a Gut, True Soul Zealot deck with Agent of the Iron Throne. It's one of the craziest aggro decks I've seen so far and the best part is he plays it without sleeves to annoy people because it's just 35 bucks

[@sadtomat548]

My favorite unpopular commander I run is Kresh the Bloodbraided in a jund combo deck. By itself the deck is very fragile, all that opponents need to do it snipe Kresh and the deck falls apart. The fun comes from convincing people to keep Kresh on the board so I can do a combo and 1 shot someone in the lead with commander damage or some spell that uses the power of my commander to do something. Last game I played I was able to get Kresh to 408/408 power and use flesh // blood to kill a random player on the board by way of high roll. I lost that game but it was still a lot of fun

[@Kryptnyt]

Verrak is looking at that #41 spot with greedy eyes

[@zackkelley2940]

It's a pity there's so little that actually works with him. The big ones are fetchlands and greed effects. Most of the other pay life effects in orzhov either don't benefit from being doubled (i.e. regenerate this creature) or... are mana abilities that he can't copy anyway. There's definitely potential there....just not much to work with yet.

[@angryfyce]

I have an Atris, Oracle of Half-Truths deck. It's a dimir self-mill combo deck that looks to copy Mirror Mad Phantasm using creatures every other player owns, then activating those copies, making all my opponents deck out. Atris is a lackluster commander. all Atris does is let an opponent look at three cards from the top of your deck, then place the drawn cards into two piles, one pile face up while the other face down, and you choose one pile to put in your hand, and put the other in the graveyard. The good part of Atris is that he can be blinked, causing his effect to happen multiple times, letting me quickly filter through my deck, looking for combo pieces. The deck doesnt care very much if the combo is in my hand or in the graveyard, so it doesnt matter very much which pile is placed where. The last thing Atris does well, is not die. Because Atris doesn't pose much of a threat on his own, other players rarely target him, so when the combo has been assembled, he's likely still on the field, letting me use multiple modes on Shakishima's Will, making the combo even easier to pull off.

[@CardBoardJunkiesYT]

That’s sick!

[@scienceoffinance1778]

The Rani, Super Underrated The Beast Deathless Princess

[@ezraezra666]

I'm a huge fan of Finneas, Ace Archer as an insanely strong 2 mana anthem + draw engine for a token deck. I only play like 2 rabbits in my list and it goes hard.

[@diegogaray4324]

Favorite underdog commander is krenko

[@fladoodlebocker]

My favorite underdog commander is Mr. Orfeo The Boulder. Swing and fling is better with black 😎

[@redwertens2283]

When I built it (2+ years ago) , Hinata was low on the jeskai edhrec leaderboard 😢 now she’s popular My most recent builds queza (card draw) and odric (keywords) are absolute monsters.

[@zefereater4741]

wats da draft list

[@garythacker6731]

Patron of the Kitsune.

[@enso8379]

I deliberately avoid top 100 commanders. I don't want to sit down and have people roll their eyes and say something like "not another x deck". I think I have two commanders in the top 200, but for the most part my commanders are not played often. The very first deck I created and still have is Yes Man. It's a mono white token and flicker deck. It's evolved over time and now uses a lot of white recursion effects like Second Sunrise and Sun Titan to benefit from the ETB effects and to bring back fetch lands that got sacrificed for additional ramp. And then win with the usual go-wide strategies like Mirror Entity making everything into 4/4s or Moonshaker. But I really like the flicker package with Yes Man. Tap and Untap with Manifold Key/Voltatic Key/Sonic Screwdriver to draw a ton of cards, then use something like Charming Prince/Parting Gust/Homeward Path to get him back under my control with a bunch of tokens. Or you can use the keys to abuse Basalt Monolith and cast a Finale of Glory way sooner than you ought to be able to.

[@tonight_you]

I want to see more gisa decks. drowning people in 2/2 zombies is fun. with some lords they're 5/5 deathtouch zombies add the right artifacts and thats alot of zombies!

[@1ogic948]

Scryfall note: the “is:commander” tag also includes other noncreature cards with the “can be your commander” text :)

[@CardBoardJunkiesYT]

Thanks!

[@muroderepolho69]

Underdogs are the best

[@aromaz3966]

My unpopular commander is Ishkanah, Grafwidow. Simple Spider tribal with selfmill.

[@ZargX76]

Firja gang in the building 🙌

[@CardBoardJunkiesYT]

🙌

[@zweis]

@@ZargX76 We out here convoking creatures to trigger Firja

[@Foggert772]

I havent gotten it yet but i have a decklist made for Drana, kalastria bloodcheif i cant wait to get

[@begg2048]

My favourite deck of all time is my old rutstein self mill

[@marcelhoernchn3909]

Ever heard of pauper edh? 😂

[@AmicoDave]

I'm trying my best to get Kianne, Corrupted Memory going, even is still turning into a voltron type of deck. If anyone else is building her too i'd like to receive/give some hint :)

[@Myrical32007]

Being a hispter has its perks what can I say? 😤

[@Helios810]

you want unpopular? I have an Oketra the True (185 decks on EDHREC) Tokens deck, Iymrith Desert Doom (192 decks) card draw deck, The Haunt of Hightower (308 decks) discard deck, Gut True Soul Zealot/Agent of the Iron Throne (884 decks) aristocrats deck and lastly an Aragorn and Arwen (654 decks) life gain and +1/+1 counters deck… I enjoy doing unpopular commanders and I had a Kazuul Tyrant of the Cliffs pillow fort deck, but I’ve since made it an Aurelia the Law Above deck

[@Skub_Eve]

Thats me with atogatog

[@LightMachina]

I saw someone run atogatog once, scariest meme deck I've seen.

[@Skub_Eve]

@@LightMachina Yes! It’s so random, one way I love winning with it is having the right atogs out, sacrificing everything to them and then to atogatog while barren glory is out. Pretty fun since you can sac atogatog to himself

[@Cynidecia]

EDH was supposed to be a format about cards not intended to work rogether. everything is explicitely synergistic piles.

[@mark1A100]

frija judge of valor has the most metal art. i wish she was one or two mana cheaper. 5 is justva lot of mana in tge currentbworld

[@Myrical32007]

Classic example of value commanders being good. If your whole deck is built around your commander its more fragile.

[@WoebringerofDoom]

Why don't you marry the single mother with six kids and six baby's daddies?

[@DuraheLL]

GUYS I'm fu**ing telling ya'll. BULK is the key to magic. All this staple buying commander is SH** garbage. Semi limited/constructed is the key to unlocking the true potential of magic. Implementing draft and "make do of what you get" is how to truly enjoy magic where you have to find use of less than optimal cards. BULK is win!