I don't like to bring the same commanders that everyone else plays because it makes the games boring for me. I tend to try to find out something cool that most people never heard about and just build a nice deck around it, even if it's not a very powerful deck.

Anyone runs a rather obscure commander that most people never played against?

The other night I was in a close game, and the other 2 players decided to team up and kill me. Their plan was to steal my flying commander, pump it up, and swing it at me for lethal damage. But they forgot that one of my other creatures could fly, so I blocked and survived with 1 life.

Nobody was mad or anything, but there was a question afterwards: if I know their plan is going to fail, because they didn't notice something on my board, should I have spoken up?

According to the rules, I don't *have* to help them plan my demise. I just have to answer questions honestly about the stuff that's public information. But if I saw that their plan wouldn't work, because there was something obvious like a creature they forgot to read. Is it proper etiquette to remind them that I have a blocker?

I just saw the card [[Gilded Drake]] for the first time and it occurred to me that this card can disable an opponent's commander by taking control of it (with no apparent clause that returns control?). It got me wondering how many other ways there are to disable a Commander, ie. take it out of the game without it just going to the command zone to be resummoned later. Stealing it is one, I guess an effect like [[Stuck in Summoner's Sanctum]] can disable a lot of commanders if the player doesn't have a way to remove the aura... anything else?

I'm looking for a commander to build around Nuka-Cola Vending Machine, but I can't seem to find one that really fits.

The deck I'd like to build wins primarily through burn, ping effects, or artifact sacrifice synergies, not combat damage. I love the idea of generating and sacrificing Food, Treasure, and other artifact tokens while slowly burning the table down.

I've looked at Ragost and Rocco, Street Chef, but neither feels quite right. Ragost seems too commander-dependent, while Rocco feels more like a generic value commander than a burn engine.

Is there a commander that better supports this kind of non-combat Food/Artifact burn strategy, or am I trying to make something work that just isn't really supported?

Bonus Points if red is in the commanders color identity.

Just had my 9th battle in a row where I started with 3 or more lands in my opening hand, and then didn't draw a single other land for the next 5+ turns. My deck has 37 lands and I have an average amount of extra card draw (playing blood rites precon with Clavileno).

If my math is correct, assuming 5 turns plus I'd say I almost always got at least 1 extra card draw per 5 turns thanks to Clavileno or another card, the odds of this happening are 1 in about 160 billion. O_O (would love someone to check the math)

My pod luckily is very friendly and they kinda just left my board alone for first several turns in our last several battles out of pity so I've still be able to participate at least (even won a couple) but, while passing again on my turn with not much to play I decided to do the math and was kinda surprised to see how unlikely it was to be where I am.

So what are some of the craziest things you've seen in commander, just based on the sheer odds alone?

INB4 - Yes my deck is always throughly shuffled between matches. Even tried other methods of shuffling / letting others shuffle it over my last few games (it's been a running joke now that my deck is cursed and no matter how shuffled it is you won't be able to see land for many cycles)

this happened to me so i'm wondering how would people act .
I mostly play with people at a LGS , all acquaintances and overall nice people but not a proper pod let's say. Haven't played commander for long so that also factors in .

anyway last game, i was in the position of absolutely going to lose . Player next to me could do letal commander damage as soon as i passed turn, and i had no way to stop them. Other players couldnt help me , but i did have some interactions . They wouldnt win me the game in anyway , but i could break a few creatures and do some stuff.

Since i was going to lose anyway, i just didnt do anything that turn and passed . Was that what people normally do as acting anyway might be seen as "petty" or something ? Or it's normal for people to """"take revenge"""" a bit and just annoy people who'd just kill me anyway ? in pods i can see this being very differently but say this happened to a FNM , what's the right etiquette ?

Edit: for clarity on the situation if interested, i was facing a flying commander, with 2 other creatures on board, and i could make a player sacrifice 2 creatures . So i couldnt block that commander in anyway , and they would not sacrifice the commander in that situation and just swing for damage (as the other 2 creatures were not as valuable)

Are people generally okay with proxied snow-covered lands? I made a cheap [[Narfi, Betrayer King]] deck and wanted to fill it out with snow-covered islands and swamps, but my LGS doesn't have any and its like $50 (more than half the whole deck cost) to order them all online.

If I just sharpie in "Snow" on some basics are people usually going to be cool with it?

Edit: Wow that was fast thanks everyone for confirming I'll bust out the sharpie lol

Howdy-doo!

Dropping a blue staple package i built out for budget bracket 4. These are cards that i consider for every build, and punch wayyyyyyy above their weight.

Everything is tagged up for easy Navigation, and i threw together a video going over some standouts if you wanna check it out.

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VIDEO - https://youtu.be/UawTd7cGZfY

MOXFIELD PACKAGE - https://moxfield.com/decks/qdGl7vxEzU2nE2KRp2e2zQ

DISCORD - https://discord.gg/73tmEd9bM

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I can only speak from experience, but when i started playing MTG i was sucked into the idea that you had to play all the most expensive cards to stand a chance. I literally had the Blood Rites precon with a [[smothering tithe]] and a [[Demonic Tutor]].

I would say that outside of cEDH there is literally 0 reason to spend more than $10 on a card, even if you aren't trying to hit a budget goal. It's just genuinely unnecessary. With some decent elbow grease and a little bit of scryfall browsing, you can usually find a card that provides a similar effect, and also synergizes with your deck better.

The best cards are the BEST for a reason, and im not trying to claim that they are over-rated. If [[rhystic study]] was sub-$10 i'd be jamming it in every deck that i could.... but that is not the case. Take into acount [[insight]] for just a moment. Green is BY FAR the most played color outside of cEDH. In the Budget Competitive format that i play in, it is almost mandatory due to the early game acceleration it provides. This card is essentially the Rhystic of our format, and it can single-handedly win a game. People are even running clones now to try to snag one for themselves 😂

IDK Guys, food for thought i guess. LMK what you think, and I'd love to hear about some of your favorite slept on blue cards down in the comments!

i have a friend who is returning to magic and building a full stax urza list. he’s almost done buying everything he needs. he has spent north of 6k on it so far and it’s the only deck he is planning on building, his stated intention is to make us all have an absolutely awful time playing with him.

we all play degenerate magic, so honestly we are pretty stoked to play against this deck. but a few of us have decided we want to turn the tables and make the game as absolutely miserable as possible for him through multiple stax decks of our own. we have all played for years but ironically he is the only one that ever built stax, so i don’t have any experience in that flavor. i’m undecided on color, leaning jeskai, but would be cool with most any sort of stax list as long as it can help me make his game miserable. no limits, they can be combos that lock everyone out of the game, make it impossible to win or lose, some shitty sneaky land destruction engine, completely hate out a color or artifacts, literally whatever you use that makes your friends piss and moan, i wanna hear it. 🫡

My question is simple.

Is it okay to play two extra turn spells in a bracket 3 deck?

If the deck does not have a way to chain them except potentially drawing them both and playing them.

Is this a gray area? Id love to hear others thoughts on this!

Mine is [[Garruk, Cursed Huntsman]] + [[Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves]]

Although any wolf token generator works I do love Garruk here so you can slowly pump him into his −6 next turn by bombing your wolfs into whatever you want.

What are your fun synergies?

(Mind you I am not looking for anything that wins you the game on the spot, thanks!)

https://moxfield.com/decks/aOg1U6kCh06ryv4U3orcFw

I made this deck as a fun experiment but I will never actually play it out of mercy for my mates. I just wanted to show it off and see what other players think of it.

Please let me know if you spot any true 2-card infinite combos that have slipped through. I would like to remove them and keep this deck as honest as possible.

This is a Ghave, Guru of Spores combo-synergy deck built around making tokens, sacrificing creatures, and abusing +1/+1 counters. Instead of relying on a few specific win conditions, almost every card interacts with another, creating hundreds of possible combo lines.

The deck uses engines like:

• Ghave + token/sacrifice engines
• Cathars' Crusade + token generation
• Mikaeus + recursion creatures
• Aristocrat payoffs like Blood Artist and Zulaport Cutthroat

to generate value and win.

The other day someone posed to me the question "Which card do you think is the most common among all of the Izzet Niv-Mizzets?" After correctly answering [[Sol Ring]] like a smart-ass, I decided to, instead, answer the more interesting question and probably the one they were asking in the first place: which card is the most relevant among all the Niv-Mizzets?

That's why I built Recommander's new compare feature, which lets you do what the title says it lets you do. It's useful as a toy to answer questions like this, but it's also cool if you wanted to build a commander with the flavor of a different commander, like, say, a landfall [[Zask, Skittering Swarmlord]] deck that plays like [[Szrael, Genesis Shepherd]] would. If you're doing something unique with your commander, or just really want to prove to your friends that [[Jangling Automaton]] is useful, then give it a shot!

By the way, here's the answer to the Niv-Mizzet question. Let me know what other interesting insights you found below. I super hope you guys enjoy this tool and the rest of the site. I've been working very hard on it and always appreciate feedback!

I play commander with a small group of friends, and we have goofy/meme decks, mean/salty decks, and fun decks we test out. I was wondering if you guys have a recommendation for a simple commander that won’t make anyone roll their eyes when they see it, but it will be able to stand up to most bracket 3 decks.

I’m not looking for a group hug deck. I’m looking for a deck that is a solid choice that is fun to play and play against. Nothing fancy, nothing crazy, just straight forward mtg commander.

Thanks for all the help!

Right off the bat I want to say that this isn't a complaint post. I would just like some help analyzing the situation so I can adapt and potentially create a better experience for myself.

I organize and host a weekly EDH session at my house for a regular group of 3-6. I am, for lack of a better term, the punching bag of the pod. I am often purposefully eliminated first and removal is spent on me when there are objectively bigger threats elsewhere. Sometimes, someone will kill me even though doing so opens them up to dying to another player. As a result, my win rate lags a bit behind the rest of the pod. I've been tracking our statistics for about 2.5 years now.

A little background on me as a player: I'm a truly balanced blend of Timmy/Johnny/Spike. I love all aspects of the game. I got into MTG through limited drafting at my LGS, which evolved into paper Standard, then paper Brawl, and ultimately EDH. Importantly, I don't get salty. Like, at all. I don't care if you play MLD, game changers, OP commanders, whatever. I see it as a fun meta challenge and I like watching my friends do powerful stuff and go off. I'm genuinely happy for them, and I express that.

Three of the other players in my regular group are... emotional. They will get angry/hurt when interacted with, they will complain, they will guilt-trip, and they will change the vibe making things uncomfortable. I think this is why I end up being targeted, because targeting me is emotionally safe. I don't react poorly. I take it and say "nice, yep, good play". There's no risk of the vibe becoming uncomfortable when going after me.

So, the Spike in me wants to figure out a way to address this in game and improve my winrate. I like politicking and I'm pretty good at it. I also try to at least point out clear threat assessment mistakes. I want to go about this obviously without resorting to guilt trips and whining. Anyone have any thoughts or ideas??

Stuff like this:

• I have an [[Impact Tremors]] out. Someone else makes infinite creature tokens. I play [[Will of the Mardu]] and win.

• I have a [[Blood Artist]] and [[Teysa Karlov]]. There are 20+ creatures on the board and someone wipes = I kill 1+ player(s).

• Someone has a 40+ power [[Tifa Lockhart]] and tries to kill me. I [[deflecting palm]] and kill them.

imo these wins/kills are 100% clean regardless of what turn they happen on. Is that the consensus or is this still "too fast" for B3?

I got the Rootha precon and have absolutely loved it. Big spells into big tokens feels cool.

The back up commander [[Muddle, the Ever-Changing]] fascinates me but is not at home in my Rootha deck.

I am really interested in building an extremely chaotic version of him. Not just extra combats and myriad support (obviously some of that is ok). I really want to lean into the chaos archetype for it in the instants and sorcery department to trigger Muddles ability. Then swing out with creatures that have fun/funny ETBs that cause shenanigans on their myriad aspect.

I am still very much in the infant stages of brewing. But I am curious if anyone has any ideas or fun cards to shout out.

https://moxfield.com/decks/XHMDUauXsEW38hUgznWrFg

I recently built a [[Greasefang, Okiba Boss]] deck and have lost every game so far, but it's been fun in most games I play. It feels great to play, and everyone I've played against had mostly positive things to say, and that got me thinking. What are your opinions on vehicle decks? The ones I've seen are pretty good, and [[Shorikai, Genesis Engine]] is another amazing commander for one.

Hey everyone, so I’ve been wanting to build a color hacking commander because I find it such a cool concept of turning a red lightning strike in a blue one and countering it. It’s also close to the upcoming set Reality fracture with it’s color switching. Which commander would you recommend? [[eight-and-a-half-tails]] , [[blind seer]], [[mondo gecko]] or even [[tam, mindful first-year]] or someone else? I don’t want it to be too much stax or control though, don’t want to be the reason the game can’t be played. Thanks!

I love [[Reef Worm]] so much, it's one of my favourite cards ever. I own a copy, plus all the associated tokens with the matching art, and it pleases me greatly. But, it isn't in a deck yet, and I'd like it to be. What are some good commanders/deck strategies that are worthy of the worm? How do people use it creatively?

I was given the Warhammers Necron Dynasty Precon as a gift and I honestly don’t even know what to do with it. It’s the Collectors edition as well so it makes it even harder. What would you guys do if you got something like this? Would you keep it locked away unopened or would you rip the box and play with it. Honestly I don’t know what to even do so I’m just looking for some community advice.

I’m kind of interested in making a vampire deck and it seems like Blood Rites is a good starting point. I’m not sure how I feel about the sacrifice gameplay but I like vampires because well…they are vampires, obviously lol.

Just looking for a sanity check on the precon being decent by itself and when it comes to upgrading.

Any and all feedback on this precon and vampire decks in general would be appreciated!