Commander Threat Levels | EDHRECast 254
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- Опубліковано 16 гру 2024
- Are these legends kill-on-sight, or can you ignore them? Which ones require special types of removal to handle? Joey and Dana discuss commanders of various threat levels, and how to prepare for their impact on the game.
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As I listen to your wonderful advice, I keep realizing that I learned many of these lessons by playing cEDH.
You talked about not removing the thing that’s attacking you now because something more dangerous might be coming later.
I’ve played with so many people who don’t understand this. They will just fire off removal on the first thing that irritates or targets them.
Worth it for Jitte, Malcolm and Sentinel
Especially Sentinel
“Oh sure I totally believe your Markov/ Urza/ Chulane/ etc is strictly casual and janky”, the episode.
I have a mono black vampire tribal with Edgar at the helm of it
I want to build urza roulette
Will it be storm crow, or will it be storm tide leviathan?
Tbh Edgar while in 1vs1 is disgusting, in 4+ multiplayer is barely a threat anymore. At least in our playgroup. He will probably kill 1 person but never the table, the voltron problem kinda.
I was tempted to use Chulane as my Human Tribal Commander but the stigma of running him coaxed me into running Tocasia until Katilda and Lier comes out.
@@Thoughtmage100 If I may, you don't necesarily need blue in humans, Kyler or Kathilda are amazing (I had both those decks).
However, if your playgroup knowz your Chulane isn't a stupid combo deck, you'd be fine imho (even though Chulane cannot realisticly be not stupid)
At my LGS' Commander League, it took about 8 games for my opponents to realize how explosive my Kalamax deck was.
It went from 'Oh, that looks neat.' to 'We need to kill Doug, NAO~!'
Great stuff as always, guys!
As a fellow Kalamax player who wants to tune their list, may I ask how you make the deck so explosive? Do you use infinites?
@@Loxorius literally just chandra's ignition for me. Ocasionally comet storm plus a twinning staff.
@@Loxorius Kalamax, the Stormsire | Upping the Average
ua-cam.com/video/JbBRmx-agL0/v-deo.html
@@dougystyle79 thanks Buliding Kalamax deck
People Killing Yuriko and I’m just agonizing internally like, “NO!! Kill the 1/1 unblockable BS!!”
worst part is that people think yuriko is an extremely dangerous commander because of the top deck damage, but on average the deck do like 2 damage per trigger... Like, there are a lot of cheap avasion creatures and lands... it's not like 100% of the deck have high cost.
I would not focus on killing the player unless he already has multiple ninjas or a way to constantly arrange the top deck. Just keep all those unblockable on check and the deck is done.
Yuriko is fine the only thing they messed up design wise is the commander ninjutsu cuz you never have to pay no more than 2 mana for it, otherwise its not that bad especially if you can offset it with life gain or get a bigger board state since the ninjas arent that big
@@mibbzx1493 if you add commander tax to yuriko, the whole deck is unplayable... it would be just bad.
@@ViXoZuDo In my experience Yuriko decks always have enough top of the library shenanigans to drain everybody for 30+ in a couple of swings.
@@Suhrvivor The whole deck have like 3 recursive top deck sorters and 8 one time use... so statistically speaking, you would use like 2 of them the whole game...
I have the deck since the card was released... I understand how the deck works pretty well. Just keep in check the evasion 1/1s and the deck is done. Top deck sorters are not really a problem. Most of the time, a single board wipe would throw you out of the game.
There is a reason the cEDH version of the deck relies on the combo and not the damage.
Happy to see a shout out for echoing equation. There's SO many commanders that just do bonkers things with that card. Some examples:
Adrix and nev - "let's tick up that Planeswalker for 2^10 tokens"
Aesi - "let's drop 7 lands, and draw 40-some cards from them"
Ezuri - "let's follow with a 1 drop flyer, get 5 experience counters, then plant dozens of counters around"
Miirym - "just watch my board after I blink myself"
Xyris - 'I heard you like more snakes from your snakes'
Garth - 'Look at all my black lotii'
Grolnok - 'lets mill into thoracle'
Perrie the pulverizer - I'm actually a craterhoof now'
And the list goes WAY on from there.
"Meteoric impact" then mentions a Dinosaur. Joey is dad joking without trying now
In put on my dinosaurs tribal deck card called the first eruption IT helps with enrage mechanic 👍🆒
May I introduce everyone to one of my pet cards, Whirlwind Denial? 3 mana is a little much for a counter/stifle, but the first time you stop a Teysa deck that got boardwiped you'll be hooked.
Love this card!
I also love whirlwind denial. underrated gem and totally worth 3 mana for a stack collapse
it's one of my favourite cards. 3 mana yes, but it hits the whole stack INCLUDING abilities, and even though opponents can pay, 4 mana is a lot to pay, often even too much
I use Sudden Spoiling for the same effect, in response to boardwipe: turn aristocrats player's board into 0/2s with no blood artist effects.
My experience of these sort of discussions is that we should have 98 defense and situational cards and Approach of the Second Sun as our single-card win condition.
Idk how the challenge the stats formally works but I found one thats living rent free in my head and I need to shout into a pillow. Triarch Praetorian among other of these Warhammer cards that explicitly say when it enters *from the graveyard* do X (in this case draw 2 cards), it is ran in a nonzero percentage of Lurrus Decks and almost tricked me out of 25 cents. Lurrus is casting cards from your GY, so its entering the battlefield from the stack not the gy, so unless you really wanna pay 5 for the unearth you're not getting much value here.
Um also to make this relevant to the video if you see a lurrus you better kill it holy is it good.
My friend's Iroas deck that I played against early on in my EDH days made me realize that I need more of the shutdown/transform removal like Imprisoned in the Moon or Darksteel Mutation. On the flip side, giving a voltron player a 0/1 indestructible insect might exacerbate the issue, depending on the target's original text.
There are definitely preconceptions about commanders and archetypes, but it can be tough to spot obscure combo pieces sometimes (sac outlets are less obscure, but can indicate an infinite combo is on the horizon). Combos can be a case where you need to take the pieces out beforehand, rather than wait for them all to be assembled.
Timing of removal is important, which is why instant speed is typically preferable to sorcery speed. But variety of removal is also important. I like to cover as many permanent types as I can, and I favor board wipes that are modal (Austere Command, Farewell, Merciless Eviction) even if they cost more mana than one that only hits creatures.
On the topic of "commanders that are actually bad to remove", i always get a chuckle whenever someone kills my tiamat
I just got back from my lgs. Played 3 others and 2 decks were stax rule of law meanie decks. Was fun to weave my way around them.
Low key... I'm just listening for the Segway this year. Have expecting Joey to one day to find success in his trial!
being able to grab augmenter pugilist as a creature from your graveyard to cast echoing equation as a sorcery. its so good.
I agree! This is one of my favorite cards
Someone in my play groups KNOWS to save a spot removal for Ganax, Astral Hunter, not when he hits the board, but after I play Agent of the Iron Throne.
Came for the insight, stayed for the dad jokes
My playgroup learned to snipe Krark or Sakashima off the table immediately or it will end the game. They used to insist I play out the chain of events cause "oh it's possible he whiffs on all of them". They stopped thinking that after a 1 hour turn and 47 Krarks
I own a Ghave deck that strictly makes Saproling tokens and uses them as the primary win condition. Even though it is nowhere near a regular Ghave deck's power level, it can still combo off and be pretty ridiculous, but it is fun and thematic!
Definitely going to go back and watch the whole episode...but first I skipped to the middle to see if the streak continues.
It's a good video because you're explaining Threat Assesment and sadly IT IS the skill people lack the most.
Still, there is some commander you can easily underestimate and be killed because of that.
My favorite exemple is my own deck, Samut, Voice of Dissent. She's nothing but a Haste enabler in Naya colors.
It doesn't seems frightening at first glance, but don't be fooled : Mass Haste is huge threat. Sure it doesn't ruin my gameplan but it slows it really hard so you can have time to respond what is coming. If you don't, well good luck with the deluge which is going to happen.
Even if you don't know what your opponent is playing in the 99, try to think just a bit more about hidden plans your opponents can runs like I do with Samut. It can save you games.
"Does February March? April May"
I'm subscribed now
Maelstrom wanderer is a classic "no right answer" commander. Same with Yuriko. You just have to kill everything else that comes from their decks.
Pithing needle ruins commander ninjutusu
As a long time Maelstrom Wanderer player, this is correct. Unfortunately based on the current state of the generally accepted social dynamics of commander, Maelstrom Wanderer is able to exploit the community's disdain for land destruction.
Blow up my rocks and lands, don't let Wanderer hit the table, because as soon as it does, it will again.
And again.
And *again*. 😊
The only way to stop a Maelstrom Wanderer deck is to make sure they never get enough mana to cast it in the first place, cause once they do, it's probably over already
@@MomirsLabTech how are you recasting it if it's a Forest or an indestructible 0/1?
I am currently running Lae'zel, Vlaakith's Champion//Master Chef and I seriously think that Myojin of Blooming Dawn, a $0.20 card, is going to take the place of my Avenger of Zendikar.
Echoing Equation is an interesting win con in 4 colour Omnath. Turning a bunch of landfall tokens into Omnath's and then hitting your 3 land drops is epic when people haven't seen it before 😂
Thats insane..im gonna put it in my Zaxara deck. ..make a bunch of Zaxaras to go mana positive on the spell then cast my x spell and make a butt load of hydras.
@@moedark4390 oi yeah, that's nuts too. Forgot it taps for mana, that would be crazy. Man, the triggers would be everywhere 😂
Something a guy in my play group said during a game stuck with me: "once any of you figure out when [I'm] about to go off, let [him] know so I can stop it".
I was already going off. I love playing decks like that - both playing them myself and playing against them.
Total urza death. Swords urza, path urza, counter urza from the stack, stomp artificers into the graveyard
As a sheoldred the apocalypse player, those enchantment based removal cards are absolutely back breaking, she’s also a kill on sight commander in the group I play in.
Any praetor is kill on sight 🤣 only one thats probably not is urabrask
@@mibbzx1493 I would say in Todays meta everything is easily dangerous preators are just very obviously scary vs most other legendaries.
I think my threat level eureka moment was when I was playing my greasefang deck at a table with a Marisi goad deck.
About 3 turns in, I realized my vehicles don't get goaded when they'd not crewed, so I was content to let the Marisi player goad the rest of the table and swing my stuff his way. Being able to save my removal was pretty nice.
WOW ,thanks for pointing out echoing equation..gonna put it in my Zaxara deck. ..make a bunch of Zaxaras to go mana positive on the spell then cast my x spell and make a butt load of hydras.
I so glad Yidris got brought up because that’s how I built my deck. If he connects you’re are probably all dead.
"Why are you killing Verazol?" "Big snake." "He's gonna come back bigger if you do that..." My entire experience playing that deck in a nutshell. They just don't listen.
Regarding the challenge the stats I’ve been running Myojin of Towering Might in my proliferate deck as a finisher and it’s absolutely silly, I really like this cycle
Re: Echoing Equation. I play it in an Amareth deck (alongside Mirrorweave and Sakashima's Will, for redundancy). The point is to turn all my many crappy mana dorks and ETB looters and tokens into Pathbreaker Ibexes or Blossoming Bogbeasts (the attack triggers stack!) or Steel-Plume Marshals or even a simple Thorn Elemental. It's an amazing card. Thinking of playing Sakashima's Will in an Ovika spellslinger tokens deck to turn everything into a Guttersnipe or Electrostatic Field to OTK everyone with a simple Opt, or turn them all into Goblin Electromancers for effectively a 2cmc 50-damage Comet Storm! Those kinda copy cards are wild!
Omg Dana's segway into Challenge the Stats was fucking hilarious!
13:50 When two players play apex threats, the other players should often ignore both. A player in last place should force the first and second place players to expend resources on each other. If the third or fourth place players expend resources not advancing themselves, they play kingmaker between the top two players and give themselves no chance to win. Make the leading players protect their lead: they’re the ones with something to lose!
My last way do deal with Baba Lasagne was to attack them with 4 Lord Xander clones to mean they had no library left.
No one lets me have Tergrid, God of Fright. Honestly, I wouldn't let me untap with her, either... Oh, Thank you for Echoing Equation. Going into Yarok >_>
God of salt is just not fun to play against, shes not broken or anything but really just annoying asf playing from top decking praying for answers
Don't worry, it's not _that_ Tergrid deck
I'm sure Tergrid was the obvious choice for your mono-black merfolk deck. Makes perfect sense, no shenanigans here.
This might have been one of my favorite episodes. This was more game theory than numbers. "more art than science"
-edited because drunk
Going for a commander that doesn't immediately make all you opponents respond to it can be a good strategy in many groups. If you play the new Atraxa, you know it will likely not remain on the board for very long.
One thing I hate about Enchantment removal is some colors and even color combinations only have 1-2 answers.
It feels bad to Darksteel the Rakdos color commander because they may never be able to deal with it.
For some reason my Nekusar is often left alone for a turn or two. My group has seen what it does repeatedly, and usually loses to it, yet it way too often is left alone.
"Just show up" LMAO Dana
I typically don't evaluate commander threat levels as heavily as I used to. My thought process is now that if it's not stopping me from my gameplan and/or knocking me out within the next 3 turns, let 'em have it. Powerful commanders aren't necessarily kill-on-sight, because it's often not the commander that wins the game.
TL;DR: Don't remove something, unless you have to.
Can somebody tell me what happens, when an Opponent has an Elesh Norn on the table and I copy it? Are we both getting double ETB triggers or does nobody gets an ETB trigger? OR do they cancel each other out and normal (read: singular) ETB triggers happen?
No triggers. The first ability is conditional on an ETB trigger, and the second ability stops that from happening.
I love it when we get the dad'est of jokes and the reactions are just "wow"
Love it
I wonder what yalls thoughts are on something like Raddadrabik of Urborg.
A guy at my lgs runs him as a legendary tribal with myriad and it becomes very difficult to deal with unless you have a way to deal with the myriad or bounce everything.
Thinking of the transformation removal might actually be a good way of dealing with raddadrabik, so I'll keep that in mind for the future.
One of my favourite decks was a athreos edh packed with 20 board whipes. It was fantastic, but made games take very long.
Prossh is my commander and half of my victories are due to Lathliss or Chaos Dragon. Then again, it is a dragon tribal deck that frequently hits hard as a truck.
Since we are challenging stats about the Olsen sisters... Who would expect Elizabeth to become the most famous of the three? Crazy, right?
Should I run mindcrank in my Baba deck? I’ve been considering it but I do want the deck to be more low key and casual.
My Baba deck is kind of low key and casual, and it's pretty fun. Doesn't draw as much hate/aggro, just kind of hangs around and does its thing.
1 commander that is never a threat is slivers
My problem with commander threat assessment is that ive built some very strong decks ( Muldrotha, Tuvasa, Momir Vig) and now in my playgroup everyone assumes im playing decks at that level even when im genuinely playing underwhelming stuff.
My Hinata is a kill on sight :D if I can go with full mana and my Hinata there will be damage and players which just dont know what hit them. The Ur-Dragon is coming up for me too, if this one hits there will be death, but well I am fair I will tell everyone that my Ur-Dragon deck has pretty every piece its needs, like my Teysa but both are easy to see coming I would say.
Love the video, but I disagree with the opinions on Prossh. Typically those decks have a lot of other things to do and a bunch of setup as well. Especially if you’re running aristocrat/token themes. Also, I know when I’m playing Prossh I am usually fine with him being countered. I still get my kobolds and next time I cast him there will be even more.
Legendary segue, Dana 😂
Who do you think has a higher threat level if Mary Kate Olsen and Ashley Olsen are both on the battlefield?
Everyone thinks my yuriko is high level taking turns and combos , I actually play zero extra turns and wayyyy too many clone effects in my 4 cmc slot lols
“Zuko, it's time we had a talk…about your hair. It's gone too far!”
I once had a Ghave deck. It was only my second commander deck, and I had only been playing for 1.5 years and was a much worse deck builder than now. I did not intentionally put infinite combos. Nearly every single game I won, I went infinite. Kill Ghave on site!
Im here for it
I love me some oubliette
People always make the mistake of leaving me alone cause shit hits the fan when I start looping board wipes and other removal artifacts then I make my things indestructible and I combo with nevinyrrals disk so I can kill things when ever I want to and since all of my cards are artifacts there is little many can do since artifact and enchantment removal isnt abundant
What’s the Syr Konrad art??? It’s so cool
What Konrad art is that?
It's the Edhrec alter sleeve art, featuring Joey
10:09 why does syr konrad have that art? Looks very weird
Always, liked the vids never subscribed... As, a Victim of a Dad who plays commander, the dad jokes always hit harder..... Now being exposed too such a large amount of them. I seem too have grown a slight immunity. I subscribed due too the peer mental endurance gained.... very impactful and enlightening. Now we call pop's 'Vintage dad.' I now have learned too weaponize, dad humor.... Bahahahah!
Can you explain the looping please? 😭🤧
Wilhelt with diregraf captain or plague spewer can quickly turn that deck annoyingly deadly
I’m more of a fan of fight fire with fire. If someone wants to be a dickhead and run something super high power on a causal table I switch to ether my jeska/ishai or kraark/sakashima deck and devote ALL my attention on that deck aaaaaand then scoop
So the other players can have fun
I mostly play in a private playgroup so we never have this problem. If someone wants to play a high power deck we will bring out our own and the playing field is always kinda even that way. For my lgs.. well. Lets Just say i enjoy playing there a bit less....
A hero was born and recognized today
😂 i do the same with my liesa deck, i played a chulane player who had like 15 mana by like turn 4-5 doing that solitaire bull💩 and he kept casting stuff after i turbo’d out liesa until he was at 1 life so i made him watch us play until he scooped
Can you do an upping the average on ghave guru of spores
I’ve found you need to be very judicious as to when you play Imprisoned In The Moon, Darksteel Mutation, or Song Of The Dryads on someone’s commander. Once these are down, they are hard to remove, and totally shut down a Commander, and that can be a real feel-bad move in the wrong crowd, as you may have completely shut a single player out of what should be a somewhat social game. Do make sure you don’t just drop it on some newbie’s Feather The Redeemed, or similar commander upon which a deck is totally reliant. Obviously, if you know your playgroup, or someone is the obvious threat to everyone else, or you’re closing out a game, then it’s probably OK. Cards like Kenrith’s Transformation are better options, as players usually can find a way to at least get their commander back to the zone with some form of creature removal (which tends to be more prevalent than enchantment removal), or chump blocking. I’ve taken Imprisoned In The Moon, Darksteel Mutation, and Song Of The Dryads out of all of my decks because of this. Too many times I’ve seen them played, only to have the victim spend the next 45 minutes hoping to top-deck an enchantment removal spell, and not being able to play Magic.😢
This might be a good topic for an episode, but I see way too many players using a top-tier meta commander for their jank casual deck. It's land sacrifice/landfall with Muldrotha! Very casual I promise! Keep your commander's threat near your deck's threat to avoid being unduly targeted, even if it's less optimal. You can even use an intentionally bad commander to sign post to other players what your power level is.
My Jinnie fae jetmirs second is deceitful as hell when I pull it out for higher power metas. Looks like it's going to be jank but will absolutely kill the table by turn 6 or 7 almost everytime.
I can't decide between making a Jinnie deck or Jetmir. You have a deck list by any chance lol?
that first min of dad jokes... *likes video*,
is that commander a threat...or is it an elk?
Both! Its Jegantha!
whaaaa??? no zacama is fiiiiine!
dont look here, zacama is fair magic.
Or just say Nevermore.
So, I kinda dislike this type of video. So often players who "want to get better" get told not to run single target removal, as it is giving your opponents card advantage. So, they get told to run less single targets, then get told to not run all sweepers, it pushes things towards non interactive decks, or those that simply give up all together and just make decks with inadequate interaction, and just end up getting stomped.
I really think that if you do videos like this, that having a video that goes over board wipes by color and which to use/how many you really want to look to as a minimum to run in a given deck, as well as one that goes over single target removal with the same goal in mind.
For example stuff like Timestop can be used as a counterspell, fog, stifle, timewalk, clear game ending triggers, keep cards that self exile at eot forever, by casting it after the trigger goes on the stack.
Agonizing Remorse solves all the problems even though it costs 3 and is two colors.
Abrupt Decay gets around Ward effects and under counterspells.
I would bring up more recent cards but I have not had enough money to buy anything since Eldraine, so you guys can figure that out yourselves.
I guess my point is that people should know what single target stuff is ok and what cards can do all sorts of things you never even thought of as opposed to just a "things are scary out there ya'll"
Nah run more stuff like soul shatter, magpie, run away together, sheoldred’d edict style effects and copy/recycle them. Still very effective in multiplayer and interacting woth everyone’s board