Why Your Deck Doesn't Click (It's Not Your Fault) | Commander | Magic: the Gathering

[@felixmortem487]

Force of Will 1:15

[@REON-pw5ze]

Pact of negation 💧💧

[@Nose4a2]

Mental Misstep

[@therealjeromeo4366]

I have a Boromir in the field

[@Controlqueen31]

@@therealjeromeo4366 Freaking Boromir. My brother in arms

[@wedgearyxsaber]

Misdirection: subscribe and like it yourself 🤓

[@PALIGames]

I'm glad someone else recognized the lack of Ooze tribal. We need more big voices like this pointing that out.

[@BlitzKreigur]

Agreed! My "Ooze" kindred commander is Wort, the Raidmother. Which I love, Slime Against Humanity go brrrr, but she's not a slime, just slime-y

[@angelojohnson9441]

I recognize that my Mime-ooze deck is at a 3-4 in terms of power level, but I wanted to use my black oozes and it was my only avenue. I also run gates with a secret commander of Nine-Fingers and Maze’s End and you best believe…that really does not help the deck either. I know I could make a better Ooze deck if I removed all blue mana sources and just went green black, but the flip side is I could make a much better reanimator deck if I scrapped the ooze idea, so the deck just exists for playing against new players since I built it as a Sultai deck for the 32 deck challenge and already had Golgari and a reanimator deck.

[@PALIGames]

@angelojohnson9441 mimeo can work but you are running self mill/reanimator and a bunch of oozes. I just think Oozes should get some actual kindred support. Now they seem pretty adamant about giving all the other creature types kindred support 🙄

[@RaginKavu]

Talk about Scorpion or even Centaur tribal support.

[@sungodniku]

wheres my legendary scavenging ooze at fr

[@trichogaster1183]

this is why i always lean into a theme as much as possible. build for fun, play for win.

[@Nr4747]

Exactly ! Nobody is forcing Tivit players to put Time Sieve in their decks and go infinite. Just put a fun voting card into the deck instead.

[@Luckie_7]

Sorry g I play blue, I’m gonna have to stop you right there. The only one having fun at this table is gonna be me.

[@alij4778]

The "you are tapped out and cannot counter my call to action" bit was really funy u got me there🤣

[@dragonking64]

Got me to subscribe with that one

[@swawslord]

Flare of denial.

[@samhillier5167]

This might be your best video yet, Joey! I love listening to you talk through some great EDH topics, and this was a very clever topic with a smart discussion. Very illuminating, thank you!

[@Thoughtmage100]

This is far from the intended purpose of the video, but it did further solidify my belief that optimizing a deck doesn't necessarily make it more fun. Sure, you can get infinite turns with Tivit and Time Seive, but to me the voting mechanic would be more fun, even if its objectively weaker.

[@zacharythorp6095]

I had a lot of issues with GU Elves in the Lord of the Rings precon. Ostensibly it threw in a few Scry elves and Big Mana wizards, but that deck is entirely an Elf Tribal + Voting deck. Since the Voting cards aren't that amazing on their own, nor are they consistent, many players cut them entirely. Galadriel (2GU), however, hit the target perfectly with voting, as did Cirdan (3GU), without being overpowered. I firmly believe now that you can include Galadriel (1GU), Erestor (1GU), Galadriel as commander, and Cirdan in the same deck with a minor Voting subtheme just fine, to add spice to your otherwise aggressive Elf deck.

[@jacquesdespadas]

As someone who knows another player with a Tivit deck, I can confirm your supposition.

[@Sonicron86]

I've encountered this problem as well in my current build process. I'm trying to cobble together Gyome, but without even actively intending for it to happen, my work-in-progress turned into a Sacrifice deck, and that bummed me out because I already have Elenda for that. The solution presented itself to me when I reexamined my reason for building Gyome: I've become a pretty good home cook over the last few years, and I enjoy how the food I make and serve can nourish the soul as much as it can nourish the body. Translating the joy and power of a fine meal into game mechanics meant starting over the build process and leaning into the Lifegain theme, and even though I can see the deck is becoming objectively weaker, it is already becoming more fun, niche and unconventional. Now I just have to win my internal struggle and not cram too many goodstuff cards into the pile... ^^°

[@Magidex]

Gyome's cooking can pull double duty, though. With a pile of food, you can tap opposing creatures to make them unable to block. The food is so good they're full! AND he's a 5/3 trample who can also munch on something in response to removal. He can very much get there witj commander damage with minimal or sometimes no help. If you already knew all that, props. And if you didn't, here ya go.

[@Sonicron86]

@@Magidex The bit about Gyome enjoying the benefits of his own cooking and smashing in for damage, yes. Force-feeding a banquet to tap down key enemy blockers, that I very much hadn't realized. Brilliant! Thanks a bunch!

[@stetsoncrobison]

You hit the nail on the head with Shelob. I built her as a spider tribal deck. But, the more you play with her, the more you realize...you wsnt more fight spells, and less boring spiders. I think i've found a good balance, but it still pulls me towards less spiders the more i play.

[@Slippils]

Vraska, The Silencer seems like a silent recognition that some players really only wanted Shelob for the steal/copy effect. With the lower cmc and treasure vs food making Vraska the "better" option for that strategy, it makes Shelob more compelling as a spider commander retroactively.

[@RadicalPrion]

I tried to make a Shelob Maskwood Nexus "Things You Find in the Forest" deck (it's always spiders!), but it didn't play out the way I had hoped. When other people were doing "fair" creature-based strategies, Shelob could take over the game (and not in a fun way), but would struggle to keep up with other decks doing more degenerate things. Alas, I have yet to succeed in my Quest for the Jank(lord)

[@brycehinson2005]

​@@RadicalPrion Are you too stuck on a nightmare Plane?

[@RadicalPrion]

@@brycehinson2005 unfortunately or fortunately no unlimited booster packs here

[@Justadadonthetok]

I tried spider tribal and even after changing commanders multiple times and play testing with my pod I could never get it to stick. Always too slow. I tried going wide and also just tried pumping. It feels like a hybrid of some spiders works along with other spells works best for this tribe

[@MrMalorian]

I see this a LOT. It's hard convincing a player their deck doesn't have the theme they think it does.

[@kazko2563]

me trying to convince the Bruvac player that they're playing a combo deck and not a mill deck

[@WilliamAndRose1]

@@kazko2563 Its both, or just one or the other, depending on how you build it :). If you include any of the 'mill half the library' cards, then its combo. If you include incrimental mill (on untap, landfall, upkeep, etc) its mill. If you include both, its both (that is where mine lives, personally). Can also be a control deck since its in blue, with a combo to win if you eschew all other mill and stock it full of draw, counterspells, and removal with just a couple of the combo finishers. I think that is maybe one thing missing from this video: the idea that a deck (and/or commander) can have multiple identities at the same time.

[@WilliamAndRose1]

And I just went and watched the Part 1 video, where he brings up the idea of decks being a combination of different identities / features. So... yeah, he's got it covered :)

[@tking5218]

It really is, this happens in way too much in casual and even in cEDH. Commander is such a difficult format to understand fully IMO.

[@V2ULTRAKill]

​@@tking5218 i mean in cedh most decks are catagorized by their speed Turbo tries to win by turn 3, tempo and midrange try to threaten by turn 3 And stax tries to start a lock by turn 3

[@thomasstenson7989]

Great thoughts Joey. This is why I tend towards commanders that are less popular, trying to make something unique and fun. It’s pretty cool when after a game another player tells you “Wow, what a neat deck idea.” Easier said than done, but I think the challenge is worth it.

[@SSolemn]

I'm all about hipster decks (they have few registered decks, and I've never saw any of them at any LGS, but they do work and win) and faeries even if they are popular 🧚✨

[@Volkbrecht]

This used to be what the format was mostly about. A rather limited number of legendary creatures that required a bit of creativity to build around.

[@VinceOfAllTrades]

This isn't even limited to card designs, but actual mechanics. Flicker, bounce, and reanimation all seem like some form of evasion to diversify interaction, but in practice are just methods to trigger your own ETBs more.

[@laynegrey2003]

You're right since it didn't even occur to me that those even *could* be evasion, but also... they're REALLY GOOD EVASION in a deck like Anikthea lmao. She has both an attack trigger and an ETB trigger, and doesn't require hitting the opponent to get the effect. I didn't even consider using those for that purpose, but I'll be damned if I'm passing up a 2 for 1 special like that

[@Yepnopeyep]

Well said, Joey. The Kalamax bit hit home…. I just wanted to sling spells in Temur. Wish me luck with new Riku!

[@supapong323]

Let me know how it goes. I've been throwing together, and taking apart Temur storm ever since I saw Song of Creation. Never found a build that felt right.

[@NJKoopmeiners]

Yeah, build Kalamax as instant tribal, focusing on combat tricks and interaction, turns out it will just go infinite all the time, deleting one player out of nowhere and I just really don’t like the deck, even though I LOVED the idea of temur spellslinging, instead of the overdone Izzet spellslinging.

[@Suber_Soldier]

@@NJKoopmeinersI just built kalamax instant cantrips. No thousand year storm, no infinites, he’ll barely any interaction with my opponents. Literally just creature gets +1/0 draw a card type of shenanigans. Lower power because it doesn’t ramp super hard, but it fun to build around. Entity restoration GOES CRAZY THOUGH

[@nickh5302]

Hidetsugu and Kairi are a really excellent example of this. I would imagine they were meant to be a spellslinger deck which accounts for 40 of the 1987 decks i see right now. But i started building it and was like "wow, how is this the best clone commander"

[@mistercleff8819]

No, actually, how is this the best clone commander lol

[@andrewfornes5320]

Because each Clone will Brainstorm then kill the OG H&K which triggers it and allows you to cast another high CMC spell. ​@@mistercleff8819

[@wheezel666]

@@mistercleff8819 You cast instants or sorceries that create clones which then ETB as copies of H&K and you can just chain and burn your opponents with this. Not saying that they're the de facto best clone commander but they can really pop off.

[@aydenross7605]

Not only did you get me with that nasty play at 1:15 but i'm genuinely hooked on your style of communication in this video, not over the top, but honest in your approach with what you intended and were hoping for, there is no means to misconstrued anything. I love it, lifetime subscriber earned.

[@charlieawerbuch5352]

I think a perfect example of this is in the Lara Croft release from last year. On paper, she's a neat (and thematic) way to continuously recur and reanimate legendary lands and artifacts. And then you start realizing that this requires you to get them in your graveyard in the first place, so now its a self mill deck instead. Then, since a lot of the more generically useful targets are equipment, well now its a voltron deck as well.

[@lokumo13]

Omg, the Tivit conversation is word by word what I went through. I won the Esper Precon in a raffle, and wanted to build a voting deck around Tivit as soon I saw the card. Then, didn't really enjoy the 17 voting cards at the time available to Esper. So I went for Spark Double, Sakashimas and bunch of blink pieces. I omitted Time Sieve because it is stupid imo for a casual pod. (I play Tivit in cEDH as well, and there it is very close to the usual top16 lists-with Time Sieve and Thoracle Consult ofc.) Highlights in my casual Tivit list inclue Tezerret, Master of the Bridge, Kappa Cannoneer, Cyberdrive Awakener, Kitten, etc.

[@SilHbs]

I mean... It's not that "casual" when you overabuse an ability that's already busted... You just avoided the obvious pieces but found a way to abuse the same way... And here is another huge topic players always avoid to touch: overabuse of abilities while not being obvious, but it's still making it broken.

[@lokumo13]

@@SilHbs yes it is, lol. A landfall deck that abuses landfall is still casual. An aggro artifact blink deck is still casual if its winning via the methods I’ve mentioned. It’s just highly synergistic and high power, still casual and not competitive. Casual isn’t only “chair typal”.

[@giuseppemammino4975]

no time sieve?? BOOOOOOOORING

[@bwahchannel9746]

​@@lokumo13it's casual, not competitive casual.

[@bwahchannel9746]

​@@SilHbs I'm 90% sure the reason in those players don't want to out themselves.

[@michaeltaylor4492]

Excellent deep dive on a very real problem, Joey! Chefs kiss.

[@harelbar3513]

I love the fact that the first two examples you named are decks I own. I didn't get to edit Stella Lee yet, but I'm pretty sure my Tivit desk is actually "politics & control" and not "blink & artifacts"

[@CarlPotak]

You always have the most thoughtful commentary on EDH, which makes you my favorite to watch, as well. Thanks for the great content.

[@EDHRECast]

Thanks so much for the kind words! Means a lot 🫶

[@imaginarymatter]

Still weird that they didn't put the "once per turn" clause on Stella Lee since it's so prominent on cards in OTJ.

[@michaelsparks1571]

That's what the {t} is for. If you don't have an untap effect , it IS "once per turn".

[@generalkohn]

The once per turn riders are mostly on crime related effects, since those are very easy to trigger

[@bwahchannel9746]

​@@michaelsparks1571 I doubt that

[@maxpelaez4955]

​@@michaelsparks1571But it was simply one card away from being that with the million different twiddle effects u can add

[@JMDSlayer]

This video just came across my feed and I wanted to say thank you. I enjoy these deck tech type videos that delve into the unspoken parts of magic and that it is clear you hold respect for both the designers and the players as we are all just people playing a game we love.

[@mechazard9883]

As someone who has a few tetzin decks, the reason i feel it's so easy to storm off with him is because of the critical mass of good artifact support in jeskai colors. Other great artifact decks usually give up one or more colors like jhoira losing white's artifact protection/ recursion or osgir losing out on the decades of blue artifact support. Tetzin can run all the amazing artifact support cards while directly benefitting from them unlike other jeskai commanders before him (it?)

[@wolfshui]

This is probably my favorite conversation that I have seen on magic analysis in a long while, Thank you.

[@Z-S-H]

2:25 "lets investigate" *lays clue token on the desk 😂

[@pythiusplaysgames]

This was a really great vid! I've definitely also been victim to being excited about a perceived theme and then playing the deck out and being surprised that the pieces don't seem to actually synergize well together. Always love to learn and expand as a player with your insight!

[@wickederebus]

I play Xyris as a commander for a pile of combat tricks, with a few other creatures in the 99. Some sorcery ramp, no mana dorks. Usually on turn 5 I land him, and after passing to the next player, I start asking everyone how their hands are looking and if anyone wants to draw cards. Then I ask what they are willing to pay for those cards. It's about 3 cards different from Salubrious Snail's Xyris deck list.

[@tiofranja]

your video got suggested to me and I absolutely loved watching it! the way you build your reasoning is so easy and pleasant to listen to

[@Kay_Drechsler]

Very awesome video. Nailed a very complex topic with simple words.

[@IslarfPokemon]

Thanks for that site link. I found like 10+ combos for my tormod/sider deck by adding like 2 cards

[@laytonjr6601]

Ashnod's Altar goes infinite with parallel lives and/or doubling season. Who knew?

[@inujuju]

Honestly, hearing you bring up Tivit and Shelob means so much to this lil player. Both were commanders I was so excited for, as I love voting and I love spiders, and both are just underminded by their arguably more powerful effect. And while I have certainly tried building Tivit as a voting commander, the player base for Magic just... won't let that happen. You mention it in part 1, but I really must stress how I go to my local game store events, I flip over Tivit to play, and they immediately all think of Time Sieve and the like. I can't play funny haha Tivit, because he just doesn't have that identity. Some of these commanders, I think, they are trying to make More Powerful because they're identity is weak (not enough GOOD voting cards for Tivit, not many good/well costed spiders for Shelob), but it ends up changing the identity of the commander as a result. I think some commanders need to have their identity build up better before they release, or at least see more support (more voting cards that are in Tivit's colours, more spiders for Shelob). Also, because I can't resist, where is our Sea Monster tribal commander that is actually a Sea Monster, sultai, and cares about them so you can run them all??? Let me run my big dumb monsties!! (By Sea Monsters, I mean Leviathan, Kraken, Octopus, and Serpent. Sea Monsters is the nickname my friends and probably other community peeps have given this not tribal-triabal theme XD)

[@benjaminbechnielsen4932]

I find it so important and necessary that some people take up the mantle and stand out, to say the things others are afraid to say. Thank you so much Joey!! For bringing forth and issue, even though it creates controversy. Keep up the good work

[@jeppekjr4618]

Thank you for making this video!! I’ve had this exact feeling ever since I started playing EDH, and I just haven’t been able to put my finger in it. There are so many cool commanders I wanna build, but are just way too easily pulled in an entirely different direction than I want to go. Wotc: PLEASE give commanders more restriction, it breeds creativity. You hit the nail on the head man. Great video

[@tgva8889]

As someone who has a Kalamax deck with no infinites, I appreciate this. I can't tell you how much I wish it didn't have that second paragraph so I could just play Fork and Twincast in my deck, or even less good cards like Refuse//Cooperate. But I can't play those cards without it being infinite, so there's a lot of potentially funny cards that I just can't make work because haha they go infinite by accident. I've also found a lot of commanders that I thought would be fun, and then when I go to build them I realize that no, the way you make this good is miserable or infinite or boring or not what I wanted to do. It's very rare that I can make a deck where the commander is pushing in a completely different direction.

[@Azeria]

This is plaguing my Kalamax deck right now and I’m not sure how I want to go about fixing it at the moment. He doesn’t have haste, evasion or protection baked in, he’s a big dumb target sitting on the field the turn he comes down unless you can both find a way to tap him (Springleaf Drum, Song of Freyalise, etc.) and even then you only really get to cast one, maybe two Instants for him to copy during the turn cycle before you run out of mana, and then he’s just a 5/5 or a 6/6 with no evasion. Because it’s just the first Instant each turn as well,the sequencing is a nightmare; like you tap Kalamax with Springleaf Drum before combat to cast and copy Turn Against to steal two creatures, but then Kalamax is topped and can’t attack unless you use Instill Energy or something. I loved the idea of designing around a commander like that because I get to use cards in interesting new ways but ultimately for the deck I want to play Kalamax is just not doing enough, he needs too many support pieces every turn. Ultimately my new Bria/Prowess deck ended up filling the role I had for Kalamax and I haven’t yet worked out what I want to reuse that shell for. I know no one will read this because it’s long and this video isn’t new but I wrote it out for myself as deck therapy and since I have, I may as well post it. I’m also in Tokyo rn and the weather is lovely. :)

[@Azeria]

oh and I didn’t even realise Kalamax could (and in fact my specific decklist) went infinite until after I’d built it.

[@BrandyJ]

So accurate. I’ve been building Stella and the only difference between edh and cedh is the high dollar/proxy mana base. She just sneezes into infinite even when you’re trying to build her a different way

[@laytonjr6601]

Don't put any spell that untap her and there's no more infinite. Of course now your deck is infinitely worse

[@jstengren]

Love this analysis! And, I think you're getting to the root of humanity as a whole... There are people who thrive on loopholes and exploiting the system, and there are people who enjoy a well balanced, dynamic game. You'll find these people across all walks of life, from finance to politics to gaming. I personally can't handle when a Commander game gets reduced to churning your entire deck as fast as possible to find three cards that win the game. It feels to me that "infinite chasing" sucks the soul out of the game. It's essentially playing Magic against a timer. But, there are plenty of people who love this kind of thing. And those people will find Commanders who make that process ever more efficient, whereas the rest of us will try more for theme and gameplay.

[@lloydpeacock2378]

So i used to have a Roon deck which was based around flicker, but i loved the fact that he could interact with other people's boards with his effect, so my aim was to build it as more of a control deck. In the end, I was too tempted by all the potential combos i could do, the deck became a combo deck with cards like Time Warp + Archaeomancer for infinite turns. However, I've recently built Roon in a way which i personally think the card was originally designed, he's not a voltron commander. He can attack, then tap because he has vigilance to remove a blocker, then trample through with his trample. It's certainly not optimal, but it's a really fun strategy to play

[@piershollott339]

"What typal cards do you play with until you combo out, or how much can you invest on efficiency and speed so you can combo out fast"... great video. Love these.

[@isaacagar8681]

I never turned this deck into commander, but the last standard deck i made was *supposed* to be Pirate/Dinosaur back in the first Ixalan. Cheap Pirates to summon Pirates in order to make Treasures in order to help cast big dinos. Subtheme was burn. Plenty of pirate cards dealt damage or forced combat which helped dinos enrage triggers. But it didn't take long for me to notice that the dinos just didn't need the pirates. They appreciated the treasures, but there were enough non pirates that created them and enrage dinos that fetched lands, I just no longer needed the pirates. So I just dismantled the whole thing. Fun concept I may return to in commander now that there are many more Pirates to play around with, but standard at the time was just not ready for that kind of mashup

[@lordspider3958]

I'm so glad you brought up shelob! My experience in trying to build her is exactly what brought me to this video. I thought she was going to be a better spider commander than grafwidow, but that's just not what she wants to do...

[@TheMusicMan1105]

With Tivit, perfect example of what I have coined the “if you give a mouse a cookie” principle Commanders or decks that start one way but in order to do what you want to do, they go down a rabbit hole

[@DragonmasterSK]

I have an Aurelia the Warleader deck, which is honestly a good classic Boros deck. However, I have a Helm of the Host in it (in case I encounter a very powerful strategy) I have been tempted to take the Helm out because it has that infinite theme and not many people like it. But then again, I need closers in my deck and my Playgroup keeps countering or path my Aurelia so... Yeah. It's hard to find a balance 😂😂😂

[@joegaylord87]

So, I think there's a great discussion of this from back in Time Spiral block. R&D had an issue that everyone in testing (Hey cool, they used to test things!) acted like suspend creatures had haste when they entered the battlefield. Everyone was doing this wrong. So, they changed it so that suspend gave creatures haste. In response to this discussion, MaRo said "If the players are consistently doing something wrong with a card you designed, the problem is not the players, it's the design." That's a KEY context for what's going on here.

[@derrickheard9535]

Keep up the good work Joey.

[@satansamael666]

The mindset also helps with things like threat assessment as well. It does provide some insight into certain strategies that you or your opponents are playing and the answers possible.

[@iceghost27]

Great video and thought-provoking! Keep things like this coming.

[@matthewbailey1850]

magic players when they build a deck with infinates and it goes infinite

[@DerpyLaron]

My Veyran deck pretty much had that problem. I wanted a token based spellslinger deck, but she just ended up being better at stormy voltron every time. Why bother woth the token generators to swing in if she can do so unblockable or with trample.

[@CR-wz7gv]

Yeah, Veyran can get pretty gross. I had to take her out of my Narset, Enlightened Exile because Veyran is just too strong at times.

[@IxWxSxProud]

Great way to discuss this! I wish Ghave didn't immediately make me arch-enemy, I just want to play Abzan aristocrats man lol

[@philovermyer6166]

I love Tovolar because he's the right "i will help you but I'm not going to save you" level of power while also being very good at filling that tribal commander spot so you can figure out how you want to play your deck.

[@caiocapasso]

Some Commanders are just too good at doing something, especially newer ones that have both the setup and the payoff as abilities, so you either end up trying to force a theme that's not the optimal for them and brewing a "weak" deck, or you go with the flow and build another Tivit.dec. And what also sucks is that people will see your Stella, Yuriko, Winota, etc. deck and assume you're playing the "strong" version and act accordingly denying you the chance of having fun with your "weak" brew, out of fear of getting crushed instantly.

[@Longshanks126]

Interesting to see Tetzin called out as a potential storm deck. I actually built Tetzin with a bunch of double-faced artifacts and incubators, and I've never run into that kind of play pattern. But our playgroup is generally lower power (for example, we banned fast mana rocks, including Sol Ring). So that could be the difference.

[@prizum217]

I would love to see a Rule 0 video of gameplay using some of the suggestions posted on EDHREC's previous videos. Such as Ezuri, Claw of Progress as a Boros commander and Kalemne in Simic colors. That would be a fun 'what if' topic to include alongside this discussion video!

[@milesteg198]

Love the video Joey! Makes me think about how Scryfall and EDHREC have an opportunity to help tag the themes of not just commanders but the themes of the decks they commonly produce (already doing some of this already). Taking it a step further it would be cool to see an intentionally designed commander discovery tool that helps players identify themes they want their deck to embody and the tools suggest commanders that fit those themes. All too often I see players in my play group reading every commander in a color identity and trying to interpret what that deck could be. Weeks later, hours of effort and their first outing with the deck they have that Brian Kibler moment you mentioned:)

[@captaindb4998]

Fantastic video! 🤜

[@metalthrashingnerdpodcast9864]

I clicked the like and subscribe before you could even ask. Your playthrough with the professor brought me here.

[@aubroski3962]

I have a Kros, defense contractor deck that I struggled with it's deck identity for awhile. After a lot of gameplay I think I finally have it in a solid state and have started to consistently win with it, but only after a lot of testing and card cuts.

[@bionicleboy54]

Thats why I love open ended commanders, my favourite example is Xavier Sal, infested captain, he can focus on populating or proliferation. My route i took was populating and made the major theme cloning. Specifically cloning non-legendary copies of marit lage and i love playing it. Easily one of my favourite decks i own especially casting tempt with discovery and suckering one player into searching to get dark depths and thespian stage and now all the sudden i have 5 marit lages on board.

[@hotglew2]

Zurzoth is a great example of a card that had a restriction put on to prevent what could have been insanely busted

[@vexhia6792]

I think a big part of the problem is that when wizards print a commander for a niche deck type like spider tribal for example, the reward that the commander gives for playing spiders is underwhelming and just not viable for a lot of tables

[@Tuss36]

My impression is more that they end up pushing it a bit too far or giving it too much generic value to the point you're less playing the tribe and more just using the tribe to enable that busted value. Anje Falkenrath as mentioned in the video is a good example, as it's meant to enable and reward playing Madness cards, but instead folks use those cards to just burn through their deck for the *actual* cards they want. It wouldn't matter if it was Madness or Arcane or Brushwags, you could put any qualifier on it and lead to the same result.

[@laytonjr6601]

Giving all your spiders deathtouch means your fight spells will always trigger Shelob's ability! Well the commander is an 8/8 so there's not many downsides in making IT fight instead of the 1/2 spider token

[@51gunner]

If the tribe is well-supported and the bonus is inconsequential, then the legend sits in the bulk box, because there's probably something better. If the tribe is well-supported and the bonus is meaningful, then it heads up a ton of decks. If the tribe is poorly supported and the bonus is inconsequential, then nobody remembers the card exists and it goes right to the bottom of the bulk bin. If the tribe is poorly supported and the bonus is big enough to make up for that, it becomes a Changeling deck.

[@zyibesixdouze4863]

@@51gunner woe

[@nateszigeti3653]

the Ghave example is so funny to me because it was the first EDH deck i built from scratch, and I wanted to just shove it full of Thallids. But stuff like Ashnod's Altar should just go in the deck, Doubling Season and Primal Vigor seem like auto-includes. But playing that list against a stacks player, I play my Blood Artist into a board with all this stuff and they look at my board like "oh we're all just dead, you can combo us to death"

[@FranciscoJG]

Regarding the final bit, "untap" and "enters the battlefield" are also routes to accidental bad designs (as most of the examples stated).

[@christianjohnson4328]

Ty for mentioning my two favorite guys, Mimeoplasm and Ghave!

[@zacharythorp6095]

I really appreciate you calling out the idea of uncapped triggers or activations. This is one of the *the biggest* issues I have with *all* of WotC design as I've gotten older and played, well, better games (better balanced, mostly). What I would want more than anything is a blanket rule added to the game saying you can only have 3 activations of an ability in a turn, ever; this is tracked with the card, across all zones. That would help fix some of the design issues. Not the issue of Jodah's first line saying "+X/+X" vs. "+1/+1", among other things, unfortunately.

[@51gunner]

I'm starting to think the most powerful word in Magic is "Whenever...". That always gets the brewers brewing: if thing happens, get reward. How can I make the reward happen as much as possible?

[@emmakristoffersen8550]

I have one of those rare non-combo Ghave deck, and you're right, it takes a lot of work. The main offenders are cards that generate extra mana off of things ghave care about (so counters, having creatures, creatures dying, creatures entering, sacrificing, the list goes on) but just to be on the safe side I also avoid any and all free sacrifice outlets and also anything that could go infinite with Ashnod's Altar (which I don't play, but it's an effective test of combo potential). It's a real fun deck to play, but it's a bit of a hassle to upgrade, every new card needs to fall into a very narrow synergy window

[@weirdo82]

I appreciate the Shelob discussion at the end there, just got her this week myself, and wanted to brew her. To be fair though, there's now a lower cmc version of her from Outlaws of Thunder Junction: Vraska.

[@evangrescol7772]

This reminds me of when Mothman came out in the Fallout Precons. Everyone wanted to throw in the big mill cards, but most didn't bother with more mill payoff cards like Sidisi.

[@jmantehguy]

This is what I went through playing Timey-Wimey out of the box. I kept trying to play it looking for big payoffs with the Tenth Doctor’s activated ability. I had some decent games, but I felt like the deck didn’t accomplish much and never threatened to win. Then I realized the whole deck is really just a value engine to assist a Rose Tyler voltron strategy. The deck has played 10x smoother ever since I leaned into the Voltron strategy instead of cheating things out through suspend, even tho I didn’t change a single card.

[@andariel654789]

My first ever commander deck and my introduction to MTG was an Avacyn The Purifier blink deck which with time turned into blink/burn

[@daveczerwinski8816]

What a great video. Thanks for this. Gonna have a look at all my decks now.

[@Emeraldtail75]

Great video! Words that needed said!

[@TimHense-m5k]

Loved the call to action

[@kbreviews7785]

There are a lot of commanders that look really synergistic on paper but the support is so, you either have the synergy or you lose. So you have to find ways to subvert the expected play patterns.

[@malcomchase9777]

The thing with Tivit is that you have to want to make a blink/infinite turns deck. It doesn't happen by accident like Ghave. Without Time Sieve, five artifact tokens are not worth the bother of a full blink package, and Tivit can create that stuff by attacking. It's hilariously broken beyond intention, sure. It's not something you misstep into.

[@laytonjr6601]

Did you ever met a Tivit player that didn't put Expropriate in their deck?

[@battonia982]

This actually happened to me, with Mirri, Weatherlight Duelist. I had it in a modified cats precon for years before deciding to turn it into a cat deck using Mirri and Nacatl War-Pride, then it became how quick can I get my key pieces to win the game through combat instead of the fun cat deck I had for years.

[@kristadisgumundsdottir3658]

As I recently started playing MTG and I've noticed this quite a bit with potential commanders when I run a potential deck through my head with the most obvious pay to play (as intended?) but them run another potential deck focusing on another aspect of the commander through my head and come up with a potentially much better and effective deck.

[@xyriliawhitestrake7263]

Had a similar situation just a couple days ago when I made my Nadu deck. I pretty quickly identified that this creature loves landfall so I made it a landfall deck with a few ways to infinitely target. In my first game with her I accidentally combo'd off and drew my whole deck on turn 4. I purposefully didn't add a labman effect to my deck because that wasn't my intention even though I knew I could do it with a certain combination of cards, but that combination of cards is much more vast than I gave it credit for, nadu goes off so easily it's insane. I could have won that game if I had a labman effect or just decided not to continue drawing when I had a couple cards left in my library, but it was unfair so I went ahead and killed myself by drawing. So yeah, Nadu is definitely a combo commander not a landfall commander even if you do want landfall effects.

[@goten3268]

I fell into this with my gisa and geralf until recently. It has an effect letting me cast a zombie from grave. I looked at "zombie" and forgot about casting from grave and recently someone in my pod mentioned that to me. You're still supposed to use zombies as your creature type but the support should be graveyard synergy. I've had a lot of fun working on it.

[@jeffcallahan5467]

You’re totally right about Tivit, but my Politics Tivit deck is one of my favorite ones

[@alexcurtis6180]

I had a similar realization with my newest deck, Oskar, Rubbish Reclaimer. I wanted to build a weird janky deck with blue inspired by the card Dream Halls. Deck is a control deck that can cast anything at instant speed thanks to looters. I have never been a control fan but the odd style of it has made the deck feel more interesting to me

[@negativespace6218]

This was an awesome video, learned so much - thanks!

[@CyberMaliceman]

Absolutely had this happen to me with a Nicol Bolas the Ravager deck. I built it with the idea of punishing discards and reanimating big beaters, but it ended up becoming all about wheels. Felt more like a Nekhuzar deck

[@Xalyn937]

I did make a tivit deck and put in as many voting and voting related cards as possible. It still has so much value that its just really solid. I even took out time sieve/sideboard it for more powerful games.

[@deohere7647]

Part of the issue in my book are commanders with very unique abilities. The lagoon mystic is a great example, nothing else does what he does and thus it's overtuned towards hyper competitive. More crossover in design space would help with this especially if it's spread a bit more thoughtfully across the color pile. Another huge issue are commanders that do everything. One of my favorite decks is Sefris of the hidden realms, and it's also one of my best decks. Sefris makes the deck go off, but her ability requires me to do things to make it work. Many newer commanders are both the engine and the pay off which allows deck space to again, become hyper optimized. Lastly, I need to adress the elephant in the room. Most cards are tuned for limited environments. This leads to many effects (suck as flicker and blink) being under costed. Then you have cards like dockside just running away with the format. I don't know how to fix this problem but it needs to be addressed for the long term health of the game. PS:Prophet of kruphix is banned for good reason. I can think of dozens of other cards that should be added to the list because they are not fun and are suffocating. The current edh council seems very adverse to bans. This may need to change. Please, when making your decks think about how fun it is to play against as well.

[@MasterHyperionMC]

I’ve had the exact problem you mentioned with Shelob. I built it to be budget spider fight jank, but what that ends up with is half my spells are terrible and the other half is removal, so if we’re playing budget decks basically no one has a good time at the table. It’s a shame, but I’m probably gonna dismantle it and concentrate on other commanders. It’s not like I’m lacking in decks to play

[@x3mskbord]

honestly, my biggest gripe with Tivit isn't even the 5 artifacts you get on ETB. It's the fact that it's a 6/6 with evasion (in flying) and protection (in ward). Forget voting, just swing sideways 3-4 times and you kill. Not to mention you get even /more/ ramp and card draw every time you do

[@Luckie_7]

I built an Abzan recursion deck that ended up playing hugely different than I expected but fortunately it felt really good. It has a lot of cyclers and ramp so I ended up with a lot of decent card draw early game which was suprising as well as bringing my big cyclers out of the graveyard for like 4 mana. The pivot point of my deck ended up being common creatures with cycling rather than my big combos I tried to set up which makes ppl sleep on it until all of a sudden I board wipe and have a couple big creatures that I can give evasion with my instants and kill next turn

[@Zenith118]

1:35 oh hey Korvold, didn't see you there buddy

[@sebastianscopa3188]

This happened to me when I first built Inalla. I didn't realize because I was so new to the game how many infinites Inalla in your command zone makes, so I had to cut them. I cut infinite anything, no infinite turns, no infinite tokens, no infinite damage. It's wizard tribal, it's efficient, it leverages the synergies between instants/sorceries and wizards and the long term value Inalla grants by ensuring your cards put in twice the effort. The win condition is to use wizard doublers to double the wizard damage dealers (Basalt Ravager, Prophet Titan, Ghitu Journeymage) (obviously the biggest strength it leverages is the un-removability of Inalla, which means opponents have to target other pieces (exile Basalt Ravager, destroy Kindred Discovery, attack so as to force blocks and removal rather than allowing me to sit tight and draw into my power pieces)

[@user-tl4ze2vq9i]

Building a comboless Ghave deck actually sounds like a fun challenge!

[@dragonirradiant3188]

As someone who likes to design cards, I've designed a creature Vraska with two abilities; "Other creatures with deathtouch you control get +1/+0 and menace" and "When this creature enters the battlefield, for each player, destroy up to one target permanent they control. For each permanent destroyed this way, their controllers search their libraries for a basic land and put it on the battlefield tapped." The deathtouch buff is not massively impactful in most games, and the Assassin's Trophy effect on her ETB ends up being significantly more relevant even though she doesn't get blinks in her Green/Black color identity.

[@xaropevic7918]

Yeah, on the example of "commander card that does work for not intended themes for me was the new Lavinia, Foil to conspiracy, which in theory is a clues deck, but can work as a oops all instants/flash or even control deck pretty easily, and I love the versatility of where she can sink mana into, I hope someday w has enough food support to make her a foods deck someday. On the aspect of "using x commander that does not support at all a theme because no commander supports it" like the merfolks case, this reminded archeloos being an example again, being used for a turtles deck despite no synergy, which as a guy that wants to make a turtle deck, I wouldn't choose at all

[@MackDaddyHart]

I have a vehicle deck that's piloted by Emmara, Soul Accord. I think it's a really fun and really cool vehicle deck that works better than it should within the confines of selesnya artifacts. I have so many fun and interesting ways of tapping and untapping Emmara aside from vehicles, like convoke and escalate to name a few. it's definitely one of my favorite decks. 8/10 times, though, this "vehicle deck" is nothing more than soldiers token tribal deck with a ton of life gain (cuz she makes 1/1 lifelinkers on tap). you can take a selesnya deck to water, but you can't make it not pump out tokens and counters.

[@TemplarOne]

Ond of the most important string of words they started using more recently is: This ability triggers only once each turn.

[@jben6]

Tivit is a GREAT example - my first draft was a voting deck, but after one play, most of the voting cards were removed, because they are awful.

[@dr00ness]

one of your first videos i ever watched was your upping the average Ranar video because it was the first commander product i ever bought, and i was looking to upgrade it. one of the things you pointed out in that video was that, as you upgrade, you'll probably move away foretell cards because, although this is quite literally a foretell commander, it seems to be that blink spells are just much better at triggering his abilities and also giving more value that's all i could think of as you were going over the Tivit design. i can definitely see that someone thought 'oh, just foretelling for free isn't enough, what if we got a spirit for exiling as well...' and probably not realising that there are just so many more ways to trigger that than foretell to the point that foretelling isn't actually all that impactful anymore also i heard that Korvold was originally designed to work with sacrificing food, and i just laugh every time i hear that. i don't know how true it is, but it's hilarious how it's so much easier with so many other things lol

[@anthonycannet1305]

I built Tetzin as a transformers tribal deck, and while I do still have all of the legal transformers cards in there, they’re mostly just there to trigger a bunch of stuff. It’s actually a self mill deck that wins with laboratory maniac and underworld breach lines I have this convoluted loop with him, Essence of Orthodoxy, Maskwood Nexus, and Desecrated Tomb…

[@Muhahahahaz]

1:10 subbed for the joke 😂 (Er, I mean… You’re right, I couldn’t counter your Call to Action spell)

[@joelmacgregor2615]

Best call to subscribe ever. Nice insert

[@wowomah6194]

This is what I love about commanders like Harbin, Vanguard Aviator: 2 mana cost, 3/2 flyer, Human Soldier that only cares about how many soldiers you're attacking with. Boom. Simple. Satisfying and cost effective. It's been a BLAST building this commander purely because I love Soldier tribal but also because I've been able to totally streamline the deck and no card feels out of place or less than optimal. Because the goal of the deck is as simple as possible, I don't have ANY cards that I think "Uggh, I feel like I need this but I really don't like it", they're all "YES. KILL. MORE. SOLDIERS. ATTACK. FLY. VROOOOOOOOM". It's not the most creative deck, no, but it's immensely satisfying in its simplicity and on-theme, jet-fueled direction.

[@kj61768]

Wait what if wizards sometimes intends these kind of hidden themes. I know it might be a stretch but more often than no we do see these kind of things happen. Maybe it’s not just the ability that can determine the theme. Take Kykar, Winds Fury for example. You cast no creature spells to make tokens that can generate mana, so mainly you wanna make spirits, but the color identity of Jeskai makes you focus more on instants and sorceries which makes it a spellslinger deck. That might be a bad example so I’ll use another. A while ago I built an Akim the Soaring wind deck, so mainly you wanna make a bunch of creature tokens. What I ended up doing is that I put in Token generators that trigger off instant and sorceries, which most of them ended up being removal, turning it into a midrange but more of a control deck than an actual aground token deck.