Philosophy I've lived with is: Playing Voltron helps learn how to avoid removal, when to be aggressive. Playing Tokens/Combo helps understand how to interact with your own board state and keep said board state relevant. Playing control helps learn threat assessment and ways to interact with other people's board states. Niche mechanics have value as well but I think make more sense to play once you have a grip of most parts of the game.
I would never concede to a board wipe, lmao Actually I exclusively play multiple board wipes in my own Edgar deck and I make it hit myself when I destroy creatures especially because I tak advantage of Cordial Vampire and Blood Artist, and give some of my creatures indestructible so their effects can continue to trigger because they stayed on the battlefield.
Basically the exact same answer when people complain about overpowered cards. Play removal. Magic isn't just playing permanents and everyone playing at sorcery speed
Here’s my problem with that: either I kill my opponent’s commander so many times that they end up doing nothing, or they get all the value in the world and snowball fast. I don’t enjoy playing against those types of commanders.
There are certain commanders, like voja, that are incredibly resilient to that. Voja frequently resolves on turn 3, before anyone can really target it with an average piece of removal, and then the next turn its pumping its board massively while holding up teferis protection or an equivolent. Just run removal doesn't answer these creatures that are printed to be resilient to removal. Not to mention voja refills your hand, so you are as likely to find your second protection spell as your opponents are to find their second board wipe.
I'm playing the new Judith, and she is immediately targeted. I started running a lot of instant cards to keep her around. She's my first monolith commander, and I found that out quick after my first game that people would save removal for her.
proxied a judith deck myself, and a good portion of is low-cost kaya's protection-type instants to both deal with removal and trigger judith to make imps. I find it an interesting gameplan, though it hasn't gotten much experience yet.
I’m playing Judith as one of my main decks right now, and I have a huge percentage compared to what would be typical of instant speed regeneration or similar spells so that she can stay on the battlefield while also getting me another imp at the same time.
My first ever experience with being targeted because people don’t like your commander was in high school when I built nekusar. Still have the deck 10+years later. One person in the group would always kill me first and I quote “I don’t like drawing cards because I don’t want to discard” I never saw a game past turn 5 with him in a pod. I could have nothing but mana rocks and something small like a Kami of crescent moons. And he’d annihilate me for it.
Saving all your removal and answers for my commander is HUGE advantage for me... It stops you from advancing while letting resources (mana) sit there idly.
This video hits very close to my heart, because I'm in the process of building the big Aurelia. Thank you for those valuable pointers, made me rethink how I want to proceed with my deck.
Oh, this was important for me to see! I’m a newbie player with only two commander decks. I’ve been trying to make Ghyrson Starn, Kellermorph work for so long. But as soon as I blast people, they target me down and remove my commander… then I’m stuck with a board of 1 damage pingers and a hand full of spells that are fine, but a strategy that can never go off. I think I’ve only ever won one game, and it was just because I happened to draw into Niv-Mizzet and Curiosity. Now I realize I need to cut down my “synergy” cards even more and include many more Counterspells and protections… Time to cut…. Thanks for sharing your insight!
And That what you are doing, is the first mistake of a bad deck builder. You will see how boring a game can get if you only draw counterspells and removal with no actual way to play the game yourself. Just a hint. This video is not the best. Just start Building a Deck that can Funktion outside of your commander. There are a lot of cards that can be a star of the field in your already planed strategie. Make it more difficoult to play against your decks because you have multiple possible threats
@@keldone3186 I don't understand this comment. Counterspells and removal ARE playing the game. Whenever I have a counter in hand it makes me so much more involved, so much more attentive to the rest of the table, because I know I can interact with them.
@@cheesi sure one or two counter are fine and interaktiv. You know blue players right? It's never just one. And at that point it becomes boring and not interactive anymore.
As a fellow Otharri player I totally agree. I also run a lot of protection spells in my Deck. In my playgoup however, I have realized that Otharri's second ability often makes my opponents not target him because I usually have a rebel in play that you could use to get him back into play for only 4 CMC. So that seems to feel like wasting a removal spell. It is board wipes that scare me more so I have a lot of board wipe protection in my deck. Can I find your Otharri decklist online anywhere?
Weird analogy about “slow” vs “fast” play, I’m thinking back to a Helldivers 2 gameplay where someone was sneaking around the map because “slow is smooth, and smooth is fast”
Sounds like a soldier/Army vet. Heard that a lot during my time in. Stop a moment and think about what you're doing and you won't screw it up. If you don't screw things up, you only have to do them once. Doing them once is much faster than doing them repeatedly to fix your mistakes.
One of my favorite commanders is in the thumbnail-Xyris, The Writhing Storm. While protection is definitely an important part of keeping the gameplan going, the deck has enough ramp to recast the commander when needed. I also run something I think most monolith commanders would benefit from: copy effects. I'm talking about Spark Double, Auton Soldier, and maybe Helm of the Host? What's scarier than one copy of a monolith commander? More than one copy of a monolith commander.
My current favorite Commander is kind of monolithic. It is Atsushi the Blazing Sky. It is build around copying him and let the copy die to the legend rule, to get the death trigger. It has a treasure subtheme. But thanks to the deathtrigger people rarely want to remove him.
I started running a lot of the "becomes a 1/1 and loses all abilities" cards. There's a lot of them out now, and super useful. More removal is the key, and it's usually taken care of for a few turns, when it then gets eaten by piranhas, or okod again. Darksteel mutation and public enemy is an absolute hilarious combo in the aura strat
My friend was playing my derevi deck for the first time. Played Kennith’s transformation and the dark steel mutation and he’s newer to magic but getting good. So he asked. “That would stop your Jansen from using its ability right?” And as he was saying that I go “in response I tap Jansen” 😅💀 had to teach him I could respond the one time still.
Thank you! As a modern player who has been playing brawl on MTGA and wants to eventually get a commander deck, this has been helpful. unfortunately, my main colors of Jund are not great at protection, but my next favorite colors, Grixis, are not too bad. I am deciding between a Jund or Grixis commander as my commander, I have not decided which creature yet though, but it might be one of the Wind Graces in the Jund sphere, but I also like the Grixis amass/army commander form the LOTR set.
As a Jetmir player myself, I am honored to see someone realize that I WAS ALWAYS THE THREAT. Seriously though, this is a great video essay with a ton of great points and although I already have a lot of protection, I may spring for Unbreakable Formation or Heroic Intervention because I do have about 8 right now.
This is situational, you can use a monolith specifically to sink removal spells in a deck that has a lot of ramp or is specifically a landfall deck. Sometimes I plan around using the commander to redirect target spells or to trigger the “discard” of a field wipe before moving onto starting larger combos with it.
There's another way to make a monolith commander work: build the deck around the concept and not having your commander out. If your commander becomes unplayable and that was your whole strategy, then instead of putting more cards to protect it, focus on making it not wholly necessary to play the deck. There are some that aren't able to do that, sure. But there's plenty that can be built to treat the commander as a booster and not the entire engine. That's my philosophy on it, anyway
I hilariously learned this exact lesson while playing my Clavileno deck. Our Zhulodok player wiped the board killing Clav and several other vampires. They come back as vampire demons! Glad I'm still in there ans my strategy is working, until she plays another board wipe immediately after killing my tokens. I've learned my lesson about protection from that since I use to run 0 instant protections and instead only focused on gas. Thanks for the video! My anecdote supports your video.
A problem I encountered with my Monolith commander (Xyris) is that I'm usually forced to play my commander a turn or two later to be able to keep mana up for protection. A solution I found is to spend early turns getting permanent type protection out on the board already, such as Spellskite or Lightning Greaves. My opponents will be so busy trying to remove my protection that they usually have little interaction left once my commander hits the field. With players who are unfamiliar with my deck and commander, I play Xyris straight away and just let my wheels take them by surprise ;)
This reminds me of a Zacama deck I did once that the theme was "inevitable" or "time bomb". The idea was the deck is only ramp, artifact/enchantments removal (to avoid things like nevermore, torpororb and other stacks) and anti-counters. Close to turn 6 I started casting Zacama non-stop. People could deal with him some times, but since I had ramped a lot, everytime he hit the battlefield he always got removed taking stuff with him and I could almost always cast him again the next turn, until eventually the table simply couldn't deal with me. I thought it would be a terrible deck since it is so slow, but it performed surprisily well, and people said that the feeling of playing against it was exactly that dread of an upcoming monster getting close as the time went by, so I think it was a success. I enjoyed playing that, and my friends told me it created a cool dinamic on the table that they enjoyed having that deck around. My record was casting Zacama spending 25 total cost because of how much he got removed from the table once.
I agree, a lot of cards I run in my orvar deck are wincons that can also double as protection pieces, for example like displacer kitten, venser and spellseeker just to name a few. They pair up really well with the rest of the instants package. Another thing you can do is to attack decks from other angles, I am talking about stax, it limits their ability to interact with your deck more. My Orvar deck for example, plays some stax pieces like back to basic and parallax tide, parallax especially is insane in the deck.
Subbed. Also, protection is fun. I love when someone tries to remove my commander or wipe the board ... and they can't :). Removal and board wipes that are uncontested are just boring and slow the game. Interaction should be ... interactive ... not just auto removal or wipe -- that's boring.
I find it hilarious that you start off talking about Edgar when he's one of the very few monolith commanders that doesn't care about interaction. You'll never see Edgar cast until the very end when the player has finally run out of gas. Which might not even happen since the deck has black and red, two of the absolute best burst card draw colors.
@@cucumber030 Have you not played mtg in the last 10 years? They've completely done away with red's lack of card draw as a weakness. Even in EDH it wasn't a huge drawback cuz you always had wheels. While it's not pure card draw like the other colors it definitely makes up for it in the amount and cheapness it comes at.
@@cucumber030 Oh I dunno Jeska's Will Bitter Reunion Professional Face Breaker Inti Faithless Looting Thrill of Possibility Big Score Fable of the Mirror Breaker Laelia Light up the Stage Just to name a few and I barely even touched on the ones made specifically for EDH in the precons.
@@tonysmith9905 I get where you're coming from with that list. I would just rephrase your term from "card draw" to "card advantage". Card draw means you are putting the card directly into your hand. There is a clear distinction between card draw and impulse draw.
I absolutely LOVE otharri. I built her very similarly to yours. A few more etb value like purpheros and terror of the peaks and maybe a little less protection. But she runs hardly any creatures because she's all you need!
As a big fan of Monolith commanders, I agree with running more protection. It's a bit narrower, but I also tend to play Monolith commanders who can afford the commander tax; it mostly means you need to be green and have a ramp as part of your strategy. Great video! Also, I recommend getting a pop filter for your mic; your "p" has that popping sound. :)
The way you've described is basically how I've built my Chulane deck. Relegating everything to creatures for the most part, even tho it's more expensive option I get there. The issue with the deck is that people are scared of it, and I've built just a pay off. And I like rolling things, drawing cards, playing creatures, don't really care about winning. Major part of the deck is protection, and most of it is on creatures. I do run potentially two Counterspells, and two Instant creature protections, which aren't on Creatures. Like there was some good creatures in it, but mostly ones I love, nothing too powerful, like... the dream of the deck is to Meld Brusela, it never happened. lol I've never seen both cards in a single game, and when I've won with the deck, it was kinda... forced. It was either me winning, or me letting someone eliminate me, so I couldn't wait a bit more to see if I'll draw the second Angel of the two. I don't run tutors in it, other than Vivien, Monsters' Advocate, and well... Eldritch Evolution in powered up version (which I've never played lol) but both of those are hard to work with if I don't already have Bruna to work with (or well Gisela and another 5 mana creature to worth with Eldritch Evolution).
The leasson today is: never play those commanders on curve, even if you ramped, unless you have at least one protection spell. In green, blue and white I think there are a lot of spells that protect things, including cheap (in mana and price) counters, cheap protection spells and creatures. In black and red is a bit more complicated but try to play spells that change targets and the blasts and things like Kaya's ghost form
Animar player here: having auto include protection from white and black stuff makes him very resilient, however still prone to blue or green removal/non targeting board wipes. As a result, red pyro and red elemental blast are the go to answers as well as phasing out like slip out the back and March of swirling mist avoid board wipes. Find out which spells work best and synergies with your commanders, odds are someone else already found it and posted it online
As someone who constantly has his commander being killed before it can do its thing, i completely agree with this video. Protections are underestimated.
Seriously ran into your Chanel today and I deckbuild allot like you. Most people wouldn’t understand why I’ve built my deck the way I did but I’ve been playing it for over ten years and it just keeps doing its thing. I’d love for you to look it over and maybe use it to match up against one of your own high powered decks.. assuming you’ve got the cards 1 Animar, Soul of Elements 1 Bristly Bill, Spine Sower 1 Roaming Throne 1 Spark Double 1 Forgotten Ancient 1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker 1 Imperial Recruiter 1 Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar 1 Painter’s Servant 1 K-9, Mark I 1 Champion of Lambholt 1 Sun Quan, Lord of Wu 1 Karlach, Fury of Avernus 1 Lightning Greaves 1 Ogre Battledriver 1 Urabrask the Hidden 1 Maelstrom Wanderer 1 Apex Devastator 1 Shadowspear 1 Legion Loyalist 1 Pathbreaker Ibex 1 Craterhoof Behemoth 1 Kodama of the West Tree 1 Mana Crypt 1 Sol Ring 1 Birds of Paradise 1 Delighted Halfling 1 Sakura-Tribe Elder 1 Cloud of Faeries 1 Nature’s Lore 1 Dockside Extortionist 1 Nissa, Resurgent Animist 1 Vizier of the Menagerie 1 Sowing Mycospawn 1 Saryth, the Viper’s Fang 1 Defiler of Vigor 1 Mirri’s Guile 1 Sensei’s Divining Top 1 Faerie Mastermind 1 Pollywog Prodigy 1 Sylvan Library 1 Rhystic Study 1 Twenty-Toed Toad 1 Shaman of the Great Hunt 1 Guardian Project 1 Beast Whisperer 1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 1 Ohran Frostfang 1 Shamanic Revelation 1 Tatyova, Benthic Druid 1 Consecrated Sphinx 1 Disciple of Freyalise 1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth 1 Evolution Witness 1 Siren Stormtamer 1 Spellskite 1 Azure Beastbinder 1 Tyrant Guard 1 Hydroelectric Specimen 1 Hope-Ender Coatl 1 Endurance 1 Glen Elendra Archmage 1 Terror of the Peaks 1 Silverback Elder 1 Cyclonic Rift 1 Balefire Dragon 1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger 1 Command Tower 1 City of Brass 1 Mana Confluence 1 Exotic Orchard 1 Cavern of Souls 1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx 1 Misty Rainforest 1 Wooded Foothills 1 Scalding Tarn 1 Prismatic Vista 2 Forest 2 Island 2 Mountain 1 Urza’s Cave 1 Gaea’s Cradle 1 Minamo, School at Water’s Edge 1 Yavimaya Hollow 1 Kessig Wolf Run 1 Strip Mine 1 Shifting Woodland 1 Cinder Glade 1 Breeding Pool 1 Stomping Ground 1 Steam Vents 1 Cascade Bluffs 1 Fire-Lit Thicket 1 Flooded Grove 1 Dreamroot Cascade 1 Rockfall Vale 1 Stormcarved Coast
I learned this lesson with Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker. He leverages otherwise terrible creatures, and I know, I need to be ready with sneaky protection because those bad creatures need him to go to the moooon
This is one thing I noticed with Jodah the Unifier in MTG Arena vs my LGS. Paper magic has the advantage of having more protection cards to access, while my MTG Arena Jodah deck gets steamrolled due to how Brawl is set up. Another thing to consider is that, with 4 players, you don't need to be indestructible, you just need to provide enough inconvenience to slide attention away. I find that Warding your commander can also be enough to keep you alive. Then save the indestructibles for true board wipes.
one of my pet decks is Shauku, Endbringer. She's expensive, she's slow, and she's scary as hell in the creature-centric pod i play in. I use a lot of effects like No Mercy and various other black control/denial pieces to keep my opponents from developing much of a boardstate, and by the time Shauku herself enters the battlefield I've likely gotten a bloodsoaked pillowfort to ensure her survival
I'm running into this problem building Koma. Yes she gets indestructible after the next upkeep, but it usually doesn't get that far. I've settled for all the static hexproof effects I could find: Asceticism, steely resolve, etc
I run Jetmir , when he hits the table. Yes, he's impactful, but I also run a lot of ramp, protection the rest of the deck has scarier things to deal with . Monolith Commander Decks need to run efficiently without their commander, Regardless if the deck leans into it. The threat from the command zone should be enough to control the game while exploiting whatever value on board you can represent. Piloting & adaptive gameplan while your commander is just a closer or value when opportune
This. If your commander can cause psychic damage from the command zone you can lean into that. I knew a guy who ran 7 drop Sheoldred as his commander and simply never cast her. "Every time I untap with 7 or more mana my opponents squirm, and the blue players always let my other spells resolve."
If your deck is completely functional independent of your commander, that isn’t exactly a monolith commander, is it? Judith is a much better example of a monolith commander because both the game plan (spellslinging) and synergy pieces (1 damage sweepers) are basically useless without the commander in play.
I like adding protection over sinply not running monolith commanders because I LIKE those commanders. Some decks I made 99 first (I wanted a mutate deck and Ramos was a good fit to let me have all the options i wanted to include) but in some cases the commander is what lets me play the deck like I WANT to play the deck. Can I build a dinosaur/big stompy deck that doesn't need Atla? Yes, but Atla lets me have the randomness I love. Can u build an enchantress deck without Myrkul? Sure, but what other enchantress deck let's me run no enchantments and turn all my creatures into them instead? Can I make a deck that makes tokens and draws? Definitely, but Zada alone takes my cantrips from storm to hurricane. If I played those decks with different commanders, theyd be different decks and not the playstyle I enjoy. The thing about monolith commanders is that they do draw hate, but they can also be fun and let you play the game in a way that no other card can do exactly the same. So play some protection because you should be doing that anyway
heres a couple of cards that i found that i think you should look at for the shigeki deck. 1) Scryb Ranger, 2) fungal rebirth, 3) spore frog 4) emerald medallion, 5) tamiyo's safekeeping
So, then the question of commanders like Yuriko, Derevi, or say, Hazezon Tamar? Commanders that by their very name can strike fear into someone. And at least in the case of Yuriko and Derevi, are quite resilient and in colors that are resilient. ... Yes I have these, yes they make me a bad person.
This is why one of my favorite, if not my most favorite, decks is Grist, the Hunger Tide. Go ahead, bugbomb me, I'm just gonna cast Unearth my next turn. Grist is a .50 Cal BMG in the command zone and I loooooove her for it.
The problem of defending or answering monolith commanders is an interesting one for me since I’ll build the core of a deck first and choose a commander that best suits it afterwards. Defending? I don’t need to as the deck has a functional gameplan before I’ve even chosen a commander. Answering? I like cards that have interaction attached to their other functions, so I can answer them quite often. The best deckbuilding decision I saw an opponent do with a monolith commander was running a chunk of “big mana” mana rocks like Thran Dynamo. He was piloting Zurgo Helmsmasher voltron, and knew rushing Zurgo out would eat early interaction. Instead he let opponents deploy early threats and have to spend that interaction with each other while he set up resources to utilize the rest of the game, then then the rest of the game is seeing how often he can slam a buffed, hasty voltron threat who murders in 1-2 hits. Each game I play against it, I know I’ve got to dismantle the rocks and equipment rather than the commander.
If you are playing a deck that builds around the commander, you have got to have a backup plan in the deck. Whether that be a card that can fill a similar role, or an entirely seperate win con that doesn't rely on your commander. That's how I build anyway.
I was struggling thinking of ways to build Zangief and how to keep him on the battlefield. I'll follow suite with more protection, thanks for the advise 😎
I'm fairly new to magic and have only began dabbling with deck building, but none of my decks i've brewed run any monolith commanders. First deck is a dimir Wizard/zombie tribal deck, and it's lead by gale, waterdeep prodigy with haunted one as a background. It's a draw heavy spell slinger deck, and while Gale is quite important to my main strategy, I have other ways to play it aswell. However it needs some fine tuning. The second deck I brewed was a clone deck with Volo, guide to monsters ss my commander. This deck relies more on my commander early on to flood my field and strong arm my opponents into submission, the longer the game goes the less important Volo becomes, since I have other ways to copy few of my finishers ad infinitum. The last deck I brewed up last night started as a lifegain/explore deck centered around Amalia Benavides Aguirre/Wild growth walker combo, but it soon turned into food token deck lead by Frodo, Adventurous hobbit/Sam, Loyal attendant partner combo. This deck is probably the least reliant on the commander duo, where Sam's ability compliments the main strategy rather than it being necessary. I'll probably end up building all decks in paper at some point, but my latest craft is going first. Great video, was very informative and something I can keep in mind, if I ever decide to go with a monolith commander as my main battle plan!
I play kaalia. I played in a pod where removal was ubiquitous. It had marath. Marath just nukes kaalia at instant speed on sight. So of course I run protection. Swifties, greaves, whispersilk, teferis prot, boros charm. My main strategy, though, was actually to just ramp harder. I built the deck to run without kaalia cheating stuff in. Yes, it isn't as good, but at a mid power level, mardu goodstuff focused on Angels demons and dragons works well. Hardcasting everything in the deck isn't ideal, but having it as my fallback worked because the synergy was there, especially between the angels. Gisela+heartless hidetsugu. Aurelia and multiple combats. Hellkite charger or aggravated assault and sword of feast and famine. Utvara hellkite can flood the board on its own. Hellkite tyrant + artifact lands and mana rocks are a win con, especially if you steal your opponents artifacts. Basically, protection is good. Having the mana to charge forward with the plan is also good too, and not relying on the commander too much is also good.
7:15 Didn't see mentioned, but Redundancy should also count as resiliency. My Zada pile runs Mirrorwing Dragon as a backup plan and functional reprint. Orvar doesn't have an exact replica, but Willbreaker uses the same tools.
I have some monolith commanders, such as narset, teshar, kirrik and Edric...they are fragile sometimes but are really fun! When i play the non monolith, such partner decks, commader becomes soooo boring, i dont know how to explaim
This is certainly possible but also playing smart works: I used torun a Miirym deck and yes it was a lightning rod for removal. However at a certain point I had so many other powerful dragons, ramp and cost reducers that I've found that sometimes I didn't even need to cast Miirym: I would just really hurt the table enough with a couple of other dragons without getting copied that it was usually enough to trigger an anticipated removal or even better for me, board wipe. At that point I was ready to quickly get Miirym out and something to get more dragons out faster like sneak attack, Jeska's will, etc. And just close out the game because since someone else would 'take the lead' and trigger a board wipe then Miirym was the best rebuild option out there sometimes with as little as 1 other card in hand (Miirym + Astral Dragon for example)
I feel like an underrated monolith strategy is playing a "weak" commander. Endrek Sahr is a good example of this. I've never had a piece of removal hit him but if he lasts long enough for me to make it to my next turn, it's game over most of the time.
The way we do it: everyone has removal and protection, nobody has tutors or 2-card infinites, decks aren't built to be as optimized as possible and go crazy as soon as possible, but they can get there if you let them.
if you take a deck like horobi, deaths wail, probably one of the most lightning rod commanders of all time, it makes a good example of a commander that cant run protection, but almost uses its commander as a spell. Sometimes your commander is only good for a turn, but if you design your deck around that, have a lot of recursion for it, and just are glad when it sticks around, I think some monolith commanders could use this deckbuilding strategy and be better because of it.
I play a Unesh Sphinx deck. I recognize the strength of Unesh and know that I must protect them. They are my engine and at least 20 cards in my deck are counter or removal spells. It really pays off when the opponent runs out of gas and I have 30 cards in hand.
0:39 I did this exact thing. I stopped playing it for your exact reason, lol. I kept getting target despite running high cmc vampires, tapped lands, and budget stuff.
I think it depends on your budget and how much space is available in the deck. Nice cheaty protection like teferi's or flawless can be expensive. So sometimes you have to decide to cut down on those for more slower or mana intensive protection. (But I don't play high power nor do I have an endless pit of money so who knows.). Phasing out spells in Boros can be expensive too. As a voltron player, it really boils down to how much am I willing to spend on protection equipment too. Hexproof/Shroud is not too expensive with options like Boots or whisper silk. Indestructible is a bit tougher with Darksteel or Mythril plates. Phasing is the worst with only Robe of Stars. You can easily spend 30-40 dollars on these. Instead I rather suggest tutors, ramp, draw or recursion spells.
I had this problem with my darien king of kjeldor deck. I whenever I take damage, I create that many 1/1 tokens so the whole deck is about getting him on the battlefield (a big challenge in mono white) but I don't like it when I'm not allowed to play him as the deck folds in on itself with aggressive self-damage but I can understand the fear when he does hit the battlefield since it enables some pretty disgusting levels of play either generating infinite life and / or infinite tokens. Since I am mono white though I have protections galore to prevent me from being essentially unable to play. Most of my other commander decks though are less commander dependent and can function and even win even when the commander isn't cast, like my marrow-gnawer mono black rat tribal.
I love listening to casual players talk about power dynamics, to a cedh player this is both obvious (commanders try to do what commanders try to do), and absolutely wrong (play protection). Good pilots are never carried by their decks, and good decks are never carried by their commanders. Highest level pods are experts at sandbagging, most atraxa or tivit players will simply win without ever casting their commanders, hence making removal or protection irrelevant. And removal will never win you against the true powerhouses of commanders like Kinnan, because they just recast the piece of shit and eventually win because their ceiling is much much higher than the rest of the table’s. Let a blue farm player play uninterrupted, and even with a cedh deck they will struggle to goldfish by turn 3, because decks are not gameplans. Keep a tutor and mana and you will still need 3-5 mana to win after passing the turn to an end phase intuition or ad naus. Just play good decks and forget about power dynamics, pods are self correcting and so is the meta, good mulls and politics wins way more games either the 99 or the commander.
The protection I run for Edgar Markov is simply rarely - if ever - casting him. Having him as a commander simply means having him generate fodder bodies for the various sacrifice strategies as far as I am concerned - and only casting him on a nuked board with no open mana.
wow thanks. I just hsd rough games with my Brimaz phyrexiana which was elevated from 4 mana to 10mana cost with tax.. it was awful.. I thought.. probably some protection needed. another thing i saw a podcat with a guy that run voltron and had success in some league, and even that deck trends to have tone of gas, his thing was to have many protection as well
my eriette deck has lots of return from graveyard to battlefield auras. Noticed how replacing my drain spells(vito, debt to the deathless, etc.) with reanimation auras made it reliable in draining each turn lol
Last time I built Kaalia I was up to 15 protection spells and it still rarely worked. And the few times she stayed on the field, I ran out of threats really quick. I also needed more draw but couldn't cut protection.
Great video, I'm not sure you're using the term monolith correctly tho. It's not about the commander making you a target, but about the deck only working as long as your commander is out, giving your opponents an easy way to shut your deck off. Your points still apply, but Edgar for example is like the opposite of a monolith commander.
one of my commanders could be considered a monolith in the way the deck works: Belbe, Corrupted Observer. the catch is, other people benefit from her effect, and often at my tables, she sticks around for a long time.
One thing I don't see much of in your protection strat is artifact equipment, specifically Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots. With a commander I expect to see targeted by spot removal, I've considered playing the boots first, so they're ready to equip as soon as I cast the commander. The drawback is this usually delays commander rollout by a turn or even two. Do you think it's better to cast your commander ASAP or wait till your protection's in place?
You still need a piece of protection to help get the equipment on the creature. Any skilled veteran player will till you pay for equip cost, then spot remove the creature while the equip trigger is on the stack.
Orvar suffers from this problem as well. I typically dont cast him until i can cast several instants to create copies of various lands or very impactful creatures.
I have two main decks, one where the commander is just an asset and one where the commander is the whole strategy. The "protection" in my voja deck is half protection and half just so much ramp that it'll keep coming out. Meanwhile I have a Shanna purifying blade deck thats core element is actually token swarm and power ramp (parallel lives, anointed procession, doubling season, Cathars Crusade, etc). Unfortunately as fun as token swarm is, the Voja deck is just more powerful.
I love my Otharri deck as well for the same reason. Very reliable. Once you have a few key oieces iut and protection, it’s VERY difficult to slow down.
You will also be the target, not just your commander, so they'll likely to go with player removal strategy; in that case I think fog spells are great at least in combat heavy meta.
I think we are honestly just watching how metas shift (even in casual.) Certain new commanders are a problem -> Removal becomes a problem -> protection becomes a problem -> certain new commanders are a problem. And so - the cycle continues! See you next year for the 'New Commanders are a problem' cycle!
How much protection do you run in terms of colorless equipment? You seem to mention a lot of instant spells that give short term protection. What about long term protection, like Mithril Coat and Darksteel Plate?
The thing about monolith commanders is that you can afford to spare deck slots for protection and interaction. If your commander requires to have a huge density of something for the strategy to work and don't let you space for interaction that mean that it's not a powehouse.
I ran into this issue with my Wyleth deck. He is a powerful monolith commander, but he really wants alot of equipment and/auras. I built him as an equipment only deck, so my equipment also serves as protection, (Swords of X and Y, Hammer of Nazahn, Swiftfoot Boots, etc) Most people actually leave him alone as he doesn't really do anything early, but by the time he is a threat, there isn't much you can do about him.
So I don't usually run Monolith Commanders (beyond my "feast or famine" Miirym deck, which either wins big or loses big) with my arguably strongest being Armix & Rebbec. Yes, it's Artifact beatdown, but when my one Commander gives Protection (the keyword in this instance), it kinda becomes an inevitability especially once one of the main "hidden" protection pieces hit board
Philosophy I've lived with is:
Playing Voltron helps learn how to avoid removal, when to be aggressive. Playing Tokens/Combo helps understand how to interact with your own board state and keep said board state relevant. Playing control helps learn threat assessment and ways to interact with other people's board states. Niche mechanics have value as well but I think make more sense to play once you have a grip of most parts of the game.
Philosophy I've lived with is:
I don't care that my commander only has 2 legs and 2 arms he's getting 3 swords two pieces of armor and 3 boots. Idgaf.
@@mackinzieyou, sir, are a true commander player.
you sound like a Felix five boots typa player @@mackinzie
well said @TatsuRyuByo
@ry7hym right now I play a lot of boros kellan, syr gwyn, and a couple other fun commanders 😊
How to play around a commander?
Edgar markov: " ????"
A lot of them fold to one boardwipe
I would never concede to a board wipe, lmao
Actually I exclusively play multiple board wipes in my own Edgar deck and I make it hit myself when I destroy creatures especially because I tak advantage of Cordial Vampire and Blood Artist, and give some of my creatures indestructible so their effects can continue to trigger because they stayed on the battlefield.
@@LiteDrift cyc rift, teferis protection and Armageddon together go BRRRR
5:20 To quote military guidance: "Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast."
I thought that was a Phil Dunphy original
Basically the exact same answer when people complain about overpowered cards. Play removal. Magic isn't just playing permanents and everyone playing at sorcery speed
I can only pack so much removal into my deck and then my opponent plays thrun breaker or somesuch
Here’s my problem with that: either I kill my opponent’s commander so many times that they end up doing nothing, or they get all the value in the world and snowball fast. I don’t enjoy playing against those types of commanders.
There are certain commanders, like voja, that are incredibly resilient to that. Voja frequently resolves on turn 3, before anyone can really target it with an average piece of removal, and then the next turn its pumping its board massively while holding up teferis protection or an equivolent. Just run removal doesn't answer these creatures that are printed to be resilient to removal. Not to mention voja refills your hand, so you are as likely to find your second protection spell as your opponents are to find their second board wipe.
@@demonicgrub1025 There is removal that gets around ward and hexproof like sacrifice or cards like void rend that say “can’t be countered”
I always hear this but conveniently no one ever says how much? What’s the ideal ratio for removal? Exceptions aside what’s the baseline ideal numbers?
protection is indeed one of my 6 things every commander deck needs.
Remember kids, always wear protection !
I'm playing the new Judith, and she is immediately targeted. I started running a lot of instant cards to keep her around. She's my first monolith commander, and I found that out quick after my first game that people would save removal for her.
proxied a judith deck myself, and a good portion of is low-cost kaya's protection-type instants to both deal with removal and trigger judith to make imps. I find it an interesting gameplan, though it hasn't gotten much experience yet.
I’m playing Judith as one of my main decks right now, and I have a huge percentage compared to what would be typical of instant speed regeneration or similar spells so that she can stay on the battlefield while also getting me another imp at the same time.
My first ever experience with being targeted because people don’t like your commander was in high school when I built nekusar. Still have the deck 10+years later. One person in the group would always kill me first and I quote “I don’t like drawing cards because I don’t want to discard” I never saw a game past turn 5 with him in a pod. I could have nothing but mana rocks and something small like a Kami of crescent moons. And he’d annihilate me for it.
Decklist?
Exactly. Protection is underrated.
Saving all your removal and answers for my commander is HUGE advantage for me... It stops you from advancing while letting resources (mana) sit there idly.
Can you post that deck list? I'd love to see it.
This video hits very close to my heart, because I'm in the process of building the big Aurelia. Thank you for those valuable pointers, made me rethink how I want to proceed with my deck.
Ooh, I run her in the 99 of a WUBRG angel deck but she's a powerhouse of a commander if you dig into extra combat spells
Oh, this was important for me to see! I’m a newbie player with only two commander decks.
I’ve been trying to make Ghyrson Starn, Kellermorph work for so long. But as soon as I blast people, they target me down and remove my commander… then I’m stuck with a board of 1 damage pingers and a hand full of spells that are fine, but a strategy that can never go off.
I think I’ve only ever won one game, and it was just because I happened to draw into Niv-Mizzet and Curiosity.
Now I realize I need to cut down my “synergy” cards even more and include many more Counterspells and protections…
Time to cut….
Thanks for sharing your insight!
Thanks, Sound like me too, once Jodah archmage enternal came out, died... Missy too
I’m surprised you had so much trouble since in my experience the Ward on Ghyrson is enough to discourage removal until it’s already too late
And That what you are doing, is the first mistake of a bad deck builder.
You will see how boring a game can get if you only draw counterspells and removal with no actual way to play the game yourself.
Just a hint. This video is not the best.
Just start Building a Deck that can Funktion outside of your commander. There are a lot of cards that can be a star of the field in your already planed strategie.
Make it more difficoult to play against your decks because you have multiple possible threats
@@keldone3186 I don't understand this comment. Counterspells and removal ARE playing the game. Whenever I have a counter in hand it makes me so much more involved, so much more attentive to the rest of the table, because I know I can interact with them.
@@cheesi sure one or two counter are fine and interaktiv.
You know blue players right?
It's never just one.
And at that point it becomes boring and not interactive anymore.
As a fellow Otharri player I totally agree. I also run a lot of protection spells in my Deck. In my playgoup however, I have realized that Otharri's second ability often makes my opponents not target him because I usually have a rebel in play that you could use to get him back into play for only 4 CMC. So that seems to feel like wasting a removal spell. It is board wipes that scare me more so I have a lot of board wipe protection in my deck.
Can I find your Otharri decklist online anywhere?
Weird analogy about “slow” vs “fast” play, I’m thinking back to a Helldivers 2 gameplay where someone was sneaking around the map because “slow is smooth, and smooth is fast”
Sounds like a soldier/Army vet. Heard that a lot during my time in. Stop a moment and think about what you're doing and you won't screw it up. If you don't screw things up, you only have to do them once. Doing them once is much faster than doing them repeatedly to fix your mistakes.
One of my favorite commanders is in the thumbnail-Xyris, The Writhing Storm. While protection is definitely an important part of keeping the gameplan going, the deck has enough ramp to recast the commander when needed. I also run something I think most monolith commanders would benefit from: copy effects. I'm talking about Spark Double, Auton Soldier, and maybe Helm of the Host? What's scarier than one copy of a monolith commander? More than one copy of a monolith commander.
Quality content! I'm new in commander as a returning player. You earned my sub, I'll binge your videos
My current favorite Commander is kind of monolithic. It is Atsushi the Blazing Sky. It is build around copying him and let the copy die to the legend rule, to get the death trigger. It has a treasure subtheme. But thanks to the deathtrigger people rarely want to remove him.
I started running a lot of the "becomes a 1/1 and loses all abilities" cards. There's a lot of them out now, and super useful. More removal is the key, and it's usually taken care of for a few turns, when it then gets eaten by piranhas, or okod again. Darksteel mutation and public enemy is an absolute hilarious combo in the aura strat
My friend was playing my derevi deck for the first time. Played Kennith’s transformation and the dark steel mutation and he’s newer to magic but getting good. So he asked. “That would stop your Jansen from using its ability right?” And as he was saying that I go “in response I tap Jansen” 😅💀 had to teach him I could respond the one time still.
Thank you! As a modern player who has been playing brawl on MTGA and wants to eventually get a commander deck, this has been helpful. unfortunately, my main colors of Jund are not great at protection, but my next favorite colors, Grixis, are not too bad. I am deciding between a Jund or Grixis commander as my commander, I have not decided which creature yet though, but it might be one of the Wind Graces in the Jund sphere, but I also like the Grixis amass/army commander form the LOTR set.
As a Jetmir player myself, I am honored to see someone realize that I WAS ALWAYS THE THREAT. Seriously though, this is a great video essay with a ton of great points and although I already have a lot of protection, I may spring for Unbreakable Formation or Heroic Intervention because I do have about 8 right now.
TIP: If you're going to reference another video (as you do at the start here), remember to link it in the description!
This is situational, you can use a monolith specifically to sink removal spells in a deck that has a lot of ramp or is specifically a landfall deck. Sometimes I plan around using the commander to redirect target spells or to trigger the “discard” of a field wipe before moving onto starting larger combos with it.
There's another way to make a monolith commander work: build the deck around the concept and not having your commander out. If your commander becomes unplayable and that was your whole strategy, then instead of putting more cards to protect it, focus on making it not wholly necessary to play the deck. There are some that aren't able to do that, sure. But there's plenty that can be built to treat the commander as a booster and not the entire engine. That's my philosophy on it, anyway
I hilariously learned this exact lesson while playing my Clavileno deck. Our Zhulodok player wiped the board killing Clav and several other vampires. They come back as vampire demons! Glad I'm still in there ans my strategy is working, until she plays another board wipe immediately after killing my tokens. I've learned my lesson about protection from that since I use to run 0 instant protections and instead only focused on gas. Thanks for the video! My anecdote supports your video.
A problem I encountered with my Monolith commander (Xyris) is that I'm usually forced to play my commander a turn or two later to be able to keep mana up for protection. A solution I found is to spend early turns getting permanent type protection out on the board already, such as Spellskite or Lightning Greaves. My opponents will be so busy trying to remove my protection that they usually have little interaction left once my commander hits the field. With players who are unfamiliar with my deck and commander, I play Xyris straight away and just let my wheels take them by surprise ;)
This reminds me of a Zacama deck I did once that the theme was "inevitable" or "time bomb". The idea was the deck is only ramp, artifact/enchantments removal (to avoid things like nevermore, torpororb and other stacks) and anti-counters. Close to turn 6 I started casting Zacama non-stop. People could deal with him some times, but since I had ramped a lot, everytime he hit the battlefield he always got removed taking stuff with him and I could almost always cast him again the next turn, until eventually the table simply couldn't deal with me. I thought it would be a terrible deck since it is so slow, but it performed surprisily well, and people said that the feeling of playing against it was exactly that dread of an upcoming monster getting close as the time went by, so I think it was a success. I enjoyed playing that, and my friends told me it created a cool dinamic on the table that they enjoyed having that deck around. My record was casting Zacama spending 25 total cost because of how much he got removed from the table once.
Got a link for the decklist? I'd love to give that a try seems extremely fun.
I'd love to see that decklist too!
I agree, a lot of cards I run in my orvar deck are wincons that can also double as protection pieces, for example like displacer kitten, venser and spellseeker just to name a few. They pair up really well with the rest of the instants package.
Another thing you can do is to attack decks from other angles, I am talking about stax, it limits their ability to interact with your deck more. My Orvar deck for example, plays some stax pieces like back to basic and parallax tide, parallax especially is insane in the deck.
Subbed. Also, protection is fun. I love when someone tries to remove my commander or wipe the board ... and they can't :). Removal and board wipes that are uncontested are just boring and slow the game. Interaction should be ... interactive ... not just auto removal or wipe -- that's boring.
I find it hilarious that you start off talking about Edgar when he's one of the very few monolith commanders that doesn't care about interaction. You'll never see Edgar cast until the very end when the player has finally run out of gas. Which might not even happen since the deck has black and red, two of the absolute best burst card draw colors.
how is red good at draw
@@cucumber030
Have you not played mtg in the last 10 years? They've completely done away with red's lack of card draw as a weakness. Even in EDH it wasn't a huge drawback cuz you always had wheels. While it's not pure card draw like the other colors it definitely makes up for it in the amount and cheapness it comes at.
@@tonysmith9905 I mean, beside wheels, what good card draw does red have in EDH? Like ACTUAL GOOD even if you compared to the other colors.
@@cucumber030
Oh I dunno
Jeska's Will
Bitter Reunion
Professional Face Breaker
Inti
Faithless Looting
Thrill of Possibility
Big Score
Fable of the Mirror Breaker
Laelia
Light up the Stage
Just to name a few and I barely even touched on the ones made specifically for EDH in the precons.
@@tonysmith9905 I get where you're coming from with that list. I would just rephrase your term from "card draw" to "card advantage". Card draw means you are putting the card directly into your hand. There is a clear distinction between card draw and impulse draw.
I absolutely LOVE otharri. I built her very similarly to yours. A few more etb value like purpheros and terror of the peaks and maybe a little less protection. But she runs hardly any creatures because she's all you need!
As a big fan of Monolith commanders, I agree with running more protection. It's a bit narrower, but I also tend to play Monolith commanders who can afford the commander tax; it mostly means you need to be green and have a ramp as part of your strategy.
Great video! Also, I recommend getting a pop filter for your mic; your "p" has that popping sound. :)
What does monolith commander mean?
The way you've described is basically how I've built my Chulane deck. Relegating everything to creatures for the most part, even tho it's more expensive option I get there. The issue with the deck is that people are scared of it, and I've built just a pay off. And I like rolling things, drawing cards, playing creatures, don't really care about winning.
Major part of the deck is protection, and most of it is on creatures. I do run potentially two Counterspells, and two Instant creature protections, which aren't on Creatures.
Like there was some good creatures in it, but mostly ones I love, nothing too powerful, like... the dream of the deck is to Meld Brusela, it never happened. lol
I've never seen both cards in a single game, and when I've won with the deck, it was kinda... forced. It was either me winning, or me letting someone eliminate me, so I couldn't wait a bit more to see if I'll draw the second Angel of the two. I don't run tutors in it, other than Vivien, Monsters' Advocate, and well... Eldritch Evolution in powered up version (which I've never played lol) but both of those are hard to work with if I don't already have Bruna to work with (or well Gisela and another 5 mana creature to worth with Eldritch Evolution).
The leasson today is: never play those commanders on curve, even if you ramped, unless you have at least one protection spell.
In green, blue and white I think there are a lot of spells that protect things, including cheap (in mana and price) counters, cheap protection spells and creatures.
In black and red is a bit more complicated but try to play spells that change targets and the blasts and things like Kaya's ghost form
Animar player here: having auto include protection from white and black stuff makes him very resilient, however still prone to blue or green removal/non targeting board wipes.
As a result, red pyro and red elemental blast are the go to answers as well as phasing out like slip out the back and March of swirling mist avoid board wipes.
Find out which spells work best and synergies with your commanders, odds are someone else already found it and posted it online
As someone who constantly has his commander being killed before it can do its thing, i completely agree with this video.
Protections are underestimated.
Seriously ran into your Chanel today and I deckbuild allot like you.
Most people wouldn’t understand why I’ve built my deck the way I did but I’ve been playing it for over ten years and it just keeps doing its thing.
I’d love for you to look it over and maybe use it to match up against one of your own high powered decks.. assuming you’ve got the cards
1 Animar, Soul of Elements
1 Bristly Bill, Spine Sower
1 Roaming Throne
1 Spark Double
1 Forgotten Ancient
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Imperial Recruiter
1 Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar
1 Painter’s Servant
1 K-9, Mark I
1 Champion of Lambholt
1 Sun Quan, Lord of Wu
1 Karlach, Fury of Avernus
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Ogre Battledriver
1 Urabrask the Hidden
1 Maelstrom Wanderer
1 Apex Devastator
1 Shadowspear
1 Legion Loyalist
1 Pathbreaker Ibex
1 Craterhoof Behemoth
1 Kodama of the West Tree
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Delighted Halfling
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Cloud of Faeries
1 Nature’s Lore
1 Dockside Extortionist
1 Nissa, Resurgent Animist
1 Vizier of the Menagerie
1 Sowing Mycospawn
1 Saryth, the Viper’s Fang
1 Defiler of Vigor
1 Mirri’s Guile
1 Sensei’s Divining Top
1 Faerie Mastermind
1 Pollywog Prodigy
1 Sylvan Library
1 Rhystic Study
1 Twenty-Toed Toad
1 Shaman of the Great Hunt
1 Guardian Project
1 Beast Whisperer
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Ohran Frostfang
1 Shamanic Revelation
1 Tatyova, Benthic Druid
1 Consecrated Sphinx
1 Disciple of Freyalise
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 Evolution Witness
1 Siren Stormtamer
1 Spellskite
1 Azure Beastbinder
1 Tyrant Guard
1 Hydroelectric Specimen
1 Hope-Ender Coatl
1 Endurance
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Terror of the Peaks
1 Silverback Elder
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Balefire Dragon
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
1 Command Tower
1 City of Brass
1 Mana Confluence
1 Exotic Orchard
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Prismatic Vista
2 Forest
2 Island
2 Mountain
1 Urza’s Cave
1 Gaea’s Cradle
1 Minamo, School at Water’s Edge
1 Yavimaya Hollow
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Strip Mine
1 Shifting Woodland
1 Cinder Glade
1 Breeding Pool
1 Stomping Ground
1 Steam Vents
1 Cascade Bluffs
1 Fire-Lit Thicket
1 Flooded Grove
1 Dreamroot Cascade
1 Rockfall Vale
1 Stormcarved Coast
I learned this lesson with Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker. He leverages otherwise terrible creatures, and I know, I need to be ready with sneaky protection because those bad creatures need him to go to the moooon
This is one thing I noticed with Jodah the Unifier in MTG Arena vs my LGS. Paper magic has the advantage of having more protection cards to access, while my MTG Arena Jodah deck gets steamrolled due to how Brawl is set up. Another thing to consider is that, with 4 players, you don't need to be indestructible, you just need to provide enough inconvenience to slide attention away. I find that Warding your commander can also be enough to keep you alive. Then save the indestructibles for true board wipes.
one of my pet decks is Shauku, Endbringer. She's expensive, she's slow, and she's scary as hell in the creature-centric pod i play in. I use a lot of effects like No Mercy and various other black control/denial pieces to keep my opponents from developing much of a boardstate, and by the time Shauku herself enters the battlefield I've likely gotten a bloodsoaked pillowfort to ensure her survival
I'm running into this problem building Koma. Yes she gets indestructible after the next upkeep, but it usually doesn't get that far. I've settled for all the static hexproof effects I could find: Asceticism, steely resolve, etc
I run Jetmir , when he hits the table. Yes, he's impactful, but I also run a lot of ramp, protection the rest of the deck has scarier things to deal with .
Monolith Commander Decks need to run efficiently without their commander, Regardless if the deck leans into it. The threat from the command zone should be enough to control the game while exploiting whatever value on board you can represent. Piloting & adaptive gameplan while your commander is just a closer or value when opportune
This. If your commander can cause psychic damage from the command zone you can lean into that. I knew a guy who ran 7 drop Sheoldred as his commander and simply never cast her. "Every time I untap with 7 or more mana my opponents squirm, and the blue players always let my other spells resolve."
I am also building a Jetmir deck at the moment. Would you mind sharing you decklist?
If your deck is completely functional independent of your commander, that isn’t exactly a monolith commander, is it?
Judith is a much better example of a monolith commander because both the game plan (spellslinging) and synergy pieces (1 damage sweepers) are basically useless without the commander in play.
I like adding protection over sinply not running monolith commanders because I LIKE those commanders. Some decks I made 99 first (I wanted a mutate deck and Ramos was a good fit to let me have all the options i wanted to include) but in some cases the commander is what lets me play the deck like I WANT to play the deck.
Can I build a dinosaur/big stompy deck that doesn't need Atla? Yes, but Atla lets me have the randomness I love. Can u build an enchantress deck without Myrkul? Sure, but what other enchantress deck let's me run no enchantments and turn all my creatures into them instead? Can I make a deck that makes tokens and draws? Definitely, but Zada alone takes my cantrips from storm to hurricane.
If I played those decks with different commanders, theyd be different decks and not the playstyle I enjoy. The thing about monolith commanders is that they do draw hate, but they can also be fun and let you play the game in a way that no other card can do exactly the same. So play some protection because you should be doing that anyway
heres a couple of cards that i found that i think you should look at for the shigeki deck. 1) Scryb Ranger, 2) fungal rebirth, 3) spore frog 4) emerald medallion, 5) tamiyo's safekeeping
So, then the question of commanders like Yuriko, Derevi, or say, Hazezon Tamar? Commanders that by their very name can strike fear into someone. And at least in the case of Yuriko and Derevi, are quite resilient and in colors that are resilient.
... Yes I have these, yes they make me a bad person.
This is why one of my favorite, if not my most favorite, decks is Grist, the Hunger Tide.
Go ahead, bugbomb me, I'm just gonna cast Unearth my next turn.
Grist is a .50 Cal BMG in the command zone and I loooooove her for it.
The problem of defending or answering monolith commanders is an interesting one for me since I’ll build the core of a deck first and choose a commander that best suits it afterwards. Defending? I don’t need to as the deck has a functional gameplan before I’ve even chosen a commander. Answering? I like cards that have interaction attached to their other functions, so I can answer them quite often.
The best deckbuilding decision I saw an opponent do with a monolith commander was running a chunk of “big mana” mana rocks like Thran Dynamo. He was piloting Zurgo Helmsmasher voltron, and knew rushing Zurgo out would eat early interaction. Instead he let opponents deploy early threats and have to spend that interaction with each other while he set up resources to utilize the rest of the game, then then the rest of the game is seeing how often he can slam a buffed, hasty voltron threat who murders in 1-2 hits. Each game I play against it, I know I’ve got to dismantle the rocks and equipment rather than the commander.
If you are playing a deck that builds around the commander, you have got to have a backup plan in the deck. Whether that be a card that can fill a similar role, or an entirely seperate win con that doesn't rely on your commander. That's how I build anyway.
This. Even my Jodah deck has multiple ways to best face or get around blockers to beat face. That's all it can do, but it's built to do it rather well
Tamiyo's safekeeping and Loran's escape are two of my favorite cards ever and this is why
I was struggling thinking of ways to build Zangief and how to keep him on the battlefield. I'll follow suite with more protection, thanks for the advise 😎
I'm fairly new to magic and have only began dabbling with deck building, but none of my decks i've brewed run any monolith commanders.
First deck is a dimir Wizard/zombie tribal deck, and it's lead by gale, waterdeep prodigy with haunted one as a background.
It's a draw heavy spell slinger deck, and while Gale is quite important to my main strategy, I have other ways to play it aswell. However it needs some fine tuning.
The second deck I brewed was a clone deck with Volo, guide to monsters ss my commander. This deck relies more on my commander early on to flood my field and strong arm my opponents into submission, the longer the game goes the less important Volo becomes, since I have other ways to copy few of my finishers ad infinitum.
The last deck I brewed up last night started as a lifegain/explore deck centered around Amalia Benavides Aguirre/Wild growth walker combo, but it soon turned into food token deck lead by Frodo, Adventurous hobbit/Sam, Loyal attendant partner combo.
This deck is probably the least reliant on the commander duo, where Sam's ability compliments the main strategy rather than it being necessary.
I'll probably end up building all decks in paper at some point, but my latest craft is going first.
Great video, was very informative and something I can keep in mind, if I ever decide to go with a monolith commander as my main battle plan!
I play kaalia. I played in a pod where removal was ubiquitous. It had marath. Marath just nukes kaalia at instant speed on sight. So of course I run protection. Swifties, greaves, whispersilk, teferis prot, boros charm. My main strategy, though, was actually to just ramp harder.
I built the deck to run without kaalia cheating stuff in. Yes, it isn't as good, but at a mid power level, mardu goodstuff focused on Angels demons and dragons works well. Hardcasting everything in the deck isn't ideal, but having it as my fallback worked because the synergy was there, especially between the angels. Gisela+heartless hidetsugu. Aurelia and multiple combats. Hellkite charger or aggravated assault and sword of feast and famine. Utvara hellkite can flood the board on its own. Hellkite tyrant + artifact lands and mana rocks are a win con, especially if you steal your opponents artifacts.
Basically, protection is good. Having the mana to charge forward with the plan is also good too, and not relying on the commander too much is also good.
7:15 Didn't see mentioned, but Redundancy should also count as resiliency. My Zada pile runs Mirrorwing Dragon as a backup plan and functional reprint. Orvar doesn't have an exact replica, but Willbreaker uses the same tools.
Im gonna try to aim for 15-ish protection spells in my decks now, do you maybe have a list of favourites?
If you give color combination, I would be glad to help.
I have some monolith commanders, such as narset, teshar, kirrik and Edric...they are fragile sometimes but are really fun! When i play the non monolith, such partner decks, commader becomes soooo boring, i dont know how to explaim
Would love to see some of your decklists, especially that Otharri
This is certainly possible but also playing smart works: I used torun a Miirym deck and yes it was a lightning rod for removal. However at a certain point I had so many other powerful dragons, ramp and cost reducers that I've found that sometimes I didn't even need to cast Miirym: I would just really hurt the table enough with a couple of other dragons without getting copied that it was usually enough to trigger an anticipated removal or even better for me, board wipe.
At that point I was ready to quickly get Miirym out and something to get more dragons out faster like sneak attack, Jeska's will, etc. And just close out the game because since someone else would 'take the lead' and trigger a board wipe then Miirym was the best rebuild option out there sometimes with as little as 1 other card in hand (Miirym + Astral Dragon for example)
Youre right, i should try and keep my Lathril protected. Black Green is such a struggle though for protection...
I have a high-ish power Krenko deck, that relies on his reputation of being a problem, leading to my other 99 cards mostly being left alone
I feel like an underrated monolith strategy is playing a "weak" commander. Endrek Sahr is a good example of this. I've never had a piece of removal hit him but if he lasts long enough for me to make it to my next turn, it's game over most of the time.
The way we do it: everyone has removal and protection, nobody has tutors or 2-card infinites, decks aren't built to be as optimized as possible and go crazy as soon as possible, but they can get there if you let them.
if you take a deck like horobi, deaths wail, probably one of the most lightning rod commanders of all time, it makes a good example of a commander that cant run protection, but almost uses its commander as a spell. Sometimes your commander is only good for a turn, but if you design your deck around that, have a lot of recursion for it, and just are glad when it sticks around, I think some monolith commanders could use this deckbuilding strategy and be better because of it.
I play a Unesh Sphinx deck. I recognize the strength of Unesh and know that I must protect them. They are my engine and at least 20 cards in my deck are counter or removal spells. It really pays off when the opponent runs out of gas and I have 30 cards in hand.
0:39 I did this exact thing. I stopped playing it for your exact reason, lol. I kept getting target despite running high cmc vampires, tapped lands, and budget stuff.
I think it depends on your budget and how much space is available in the deck.
Nice cheaty protection like teferi's or flawless can be expensive. So sometimes you have to decide to cut down on those for more slower or mana intensive protection. (But I don't play high power nor do I have an endless pit of money so who knows.). Phasing out spells in Boros can be expensive too.
As a voltron player, it really boils down to how much am I willing to spend on protection equipment too.
Hexproof/Shroud is not too expensive with options like Boots or whisper silk.
Indestructible is a bit tougher with Darksteel or Mythril plates.
Phasing is the worst with only Robe of Stars.
You can easily spend 30-40 dollars on these.
Instead I rather suggest tutors, ramp, draw or recursion spells.
Recently found your channel! Love your content so far! Keep it up dude!
I had this problem with my darien king of kjeldor deck. I whenever I take damage, I create that many 1/1 tokens so the whole deck is about getting him on the battlefield (a big challenge in mono white) but I don't like it when I'm not allowed to play him as the deck folds in on itself with aggressive self-damage but I can understand the fear when he does hit the battlefield since it enables some pretty disgusting levels of play either generating infinite life and / or infinite tokens. Since I am mono white though I have protections galore to prevent me from being essentially unable to play.
Most of my other commander decks though are less commander dependent and can function and even win even when the commander isn't cast, like my marrow-gnawer mono black rat tribal.
I love listening to casual players talk about power dynamics, to a cedh player this is both obvious (commanders try to do what commanders try to do), and absolutely wrong (play protection). Good pilots are never carried by their decks, and good decks are never carried by their commanders. Highest level pods are experts at sandbagging, most atraxa or tivit players will simply win without ever casting their commanders, hence making removal or protection irrelevant. And removal will never win you against the true powerhouses of commanders like Kinnan, because they just recast the piece of shit and eventually win because their ceiling is much much higher than the rest of the table’s. Let a blue farm player play uninterrupted, and even with a cedh deck they will struggle to goldfish by turn 3, because decks are not gameplans. Keep a tutor and mana and you will still need 3-5 mana to win after passing the turn to an end phase intuition or ad naus.
Just play good decks and forget about power dynamics, pods are self correcting and so is the meta, good mulls and politics wins way more games either the 99 or the commander.
The protection I run for Edgar Markov is simply rarely - if ever - casting him. Having him as a commander simply means having him generate fodder bodies for the various sacrifice strategies as far as I am concerned - and only casting him on a nuked board with no open mana.
wow thanks.
I just hsd rough games with my Brimaz phyrexiana which was elevated from 4 mana to 10mana cost with tax.. it was awful..
I thought.. probably some protection needed.
another thing i saw a podcat with a guy that run voltron and had success in some league, and even that deck trends to have tone of gas, his thing was to have many protection as well
That's why I love playing two cost commander, usually flies under the rader and not respected
my eriette deck has lots of return from graveyard to battlefield auras. Noticed how replacing my drain spells(vito, debt to the deathless, etc.) with reanimation auras made it reliable in draining each turn lol
As the dreaded and hated nakuzar player in my pod, I learned the hard way how important protection is
I always try to put this kind of stuff in. This video makes me want to try harder.
Stax and protection is your best bet for your monolith commander. Another option is having a side route if needed in deck to W.
Edgar feels more like a satellite... Doesn't even need to be cast sometimes
Last time I built Kaalia I was up to 15 protection spells and it still rarely worked. And the few times she stayed on the field, I ran out of threats really quick. I also needed more draw but couldn't cut protection.
I really like your philosophy in deck building! Would you mind sharing your Otharri deck? I've really wanted to build around him for some time
Great video, I'm not sure you're using the term monolith correctly tho. It's not about the commander making you a target, but about the deck only working as long as your commander is out, giving your opponents an easy way to shut your deck off.
Your points still apply, but Edgar for example is like the opposite of a monolith commander.
Very interesting take. I'll try that. Tks!
Can I get the Otharri decklist? I want to compare it with mine
one of my commanders could be considered a monolith in the way the deck works: Belbe, Corrupted Observer. the catch is, other people benefit from her effect, and often at my tables, she sticks around for a long time.
One thing I don't see much of in your protection strat is artifact equipment, specifically Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots. With a commander I expect to see targeted by spot removal, I've considered playing the boots first, so they're ready to equip as soon as I cast the commander. The drawback is this usually delays commander rollout by a turn or even two. Do you think it's better to cast your commander ASAP or wait till your protection's in place?
You still need a piece of protection to help get the equipment on the creature. Any skilled veteran player will till you pay for equip cost, then spot remove the creature while the equip trigger is on the stack.
Can you do a watch along from concept to creation of your deck?
Orvar suffers from this problem as well. I typically dont cast him until i can cast several instants to create copies of various lands or very impactful creatures.
This is how I run my Tergrid deck. 1-mana protectionspells. As long as she's on the table, everything else is secondary
Mind sharing your Othari list? Just bought the rebels precon and love Othari as commander
I have two main decks, one where the commander is just an asset and one where the commander is the whole strategy. The "protection" in my voja deck is half protection and half just so much ramp that it'll keep coming out. Meanwhile I have a Shanna purifying blade deck thats core element is actually token swarm and power ramp (parallel lives, anointed procession, doubling season, Cathars Crusade, etc).
Unfortunately as fun as token swarm is, the Voja deck is just more powerful.
100% accurate and practical. Nice!
Nice clean presentation, well done.
I love my Otharri deck as well for the same reason. Very reliable. Once you have a few key oieces iut and protection, it’s VERY difficult to slow down.
Yeah. The inevitability of that commander is actually low-key nuts.
As somebody who plays monolith commander pretty often I can confirm this is “the way”
This gave me another pov. I might rethink a bit my Me deck
You will also be the target, not just your commander, so they'll likely to go with player removal strategy; in that case I think fog spells are great at least in combat heavy meta.
I think we are honestly just watching how metas shift (even in casual.) Certain new commanders are a problem -> Removal becomes a problem -> protection becomes a problem -> certain new commanders are a problem.
And so - the cycle continues! See you next year for the 'New Commanders are a problem' cycle!
How much protection do you run in terms of colorless equipment? You seem to mention a lot of instant spells that give short term protection. What about long term protection, like Mithril Coat and Darksteel Plate?
Do you have a link to your otharri deck?
The thing about monolith commanders is that you can afford to spare deck slots for protection and interaction. If your commander requires to have a huge density of something for the strategy to work and don't let you space for interaction that mean that it's not a powehouse.
I ran into this issue with my Wyleth deck. He is a powerful monolith commander, but he really wants alot of equipment and/auras. I built him as an equipment only deck, so my equipment also serves as protection, (Swords of X and Y, Hammer of Nazahn, Swiftfoot Boots, etc)
Most people actually leave him alone as he doesn't really do anything early, but by the time he is a threat, there isn't much you can do about him.
If you're in white Martyr's Cause and Fanatical Devotion are excellent protection pieces.^^
So I don't usually run Monolith Commanders (beyond my "feast or famine" Miirym deck, which either wins big or loses big) with my arguably strongest being Armix & Rebbec. Yes, it's Artifact beatdown, but when my one Commander gives Protection (the keyword in this instance), it kinda becomes an inevitability especially once one of the main "hidden" protection pieces hit board
Howdy, would you mind posting a link to your Othari deck list? I have trouble brewing him!