Ranking Decks I Took Apart | Commander | Magic: the Gathering
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- Опубліковано 9 лют 2025
- Lessons learned from things left behind.
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Sometimes I wonder if I have too many decks. Then I see how many decks Joey has taken apart, let alone owned throughout the years.
How many decks do you have?
@@jrodeck Personally I'm up to 42 Decks that are built with another 6 being built.
I'm at 36 with another 4 just rattling around in my brain. I feel what your saying.
Few and thought my 12 with 3 more on the way was a lot.
How many decks is too many though? I say that as I'm building my 64th deck....
Hearing Joey talk about his previous commanders and how much they meant to him makes me think you could have named this video “To All The Decks I’ve Loved Before” without missing a beat
7:55 Can confirm. Building a strategy outside its colors really teaches you a lot of odd but fun things
Agreed, built a Gretchen Titchwillow pauper commander deck and it helped tremendously with niche interactions and cards I wouldn't normally use turned out to be awesome cards
I remember watching a game where Olivia Gobert-hicks was playing the kindly lord, the faerie that taxes a number. She said "orzhov mindset in dimir " and it was... eye opening.
TWO HOURS???? JOEY YOU BLESS ME!
But is it with a Gaea's Blessing or a Lord Skitter's Blessing? Or perhaps an Emiel the Blessed? 😇
i'd say this is absolutely a Blessed Respite c:
@@EDHRECast Lord Skitters, cause it leaves someone enchanted
@@chaoticevilproductions7303 eyyyyy
Joey remembers more about decks he's taken apart than I remember about the decks I currently have... Great video as always!
Can I say that this commander deck dive has been great. It’s why I enjoy the faerie conclave podcast so much. It’s not a deck tech as usual. It’s what you got out of the deck. What you felt about it. The inspiration and all those things really make you feel like you’re understanding the person and not just getting some answer from an interview. Pie break is another great podcast for getting to get a persons vibe that’s also so full of bits. Really feels like you get who Joey is from the way he describes how each deck works and what the thinks about them
Thank you, that's such a kind thing to say! 100% agreed about those other shows, they're so great and you really put into words exactly why we love them too ❤️
Stumbling upon this comment has absolutely made my day! Thank you for the kind words and I totally agree about Joey and Pie Break, it's really more about the player than the decks themselves.
The whole thing about silver-border really resonates with me, because I just built me a Discord, Lord of Disharmony deck (which has said commander as its only silver-border/acorn card). It's definitely not a deck for everyday use, but watching an entire pod stare in suspense at my phone waiting which random card Discord is pulling up next is a really fun experience.
This video was excellent. You condensed ***years*** of man-hours spent playing and testing decks to understand what makes a good play pattern, not only for you but for the rest of the table. I heard many hard-learned lessons of my own in here and gained new perspectives on why some of my meh decks aren't working for me. The sheer number of decks you have tested and played makes me think I may cling onto making an idea work a bit too long. I'm also very far from a golgari player but you got me excited to try abomination of llanowar!
By liking,commenting and subscribing to every video Joey has made it so I draw my 4th land on turn 8!!! I am eternally grateful
I found joy in Tasha by leaning in to the steals and leaning away from mill. My opponents tend to play their removal and ramp spells regardless of whether I'm on Tasha, and with enough ramp spells to steal, my regular play ground has realized that killing Tasha is just re-setting her, and it's more valuable to leave her alone and attack me. In reaction to that, I've loaded up on witch-themed removal spells, mostly turning anything pointed at me into small animals. Often I end up surviving to the 1v1 then it becomes a gripping back-and-forth of "Can I find something in your deck that ends you before you do?"
This video gave me an idea that i dont know if this exists.
But i think a randomizer 'Deck Idea Generator' would be cool.
Edh Rec has all these categories listed for decks, so itd be so cool to click a button and EDH Rec will tell you your next deck should be "Temur Tokens" or "Simic Reanimator".
It could push players to try classic archetypes they never bothered to visit, or challenge players to build a theme outside its normal colors.
Idk if EDHRec is the home for something like that, but that sounds really fun.
Could see it being used in tandem with archidekt, shows you examples and automatically opens up a fresh deck to build
Seconding this idea, I might even just put together my own table to roll 2D10s against it and see if what it comes up with sounds like fun :P
I built my Tasha deck using your Tasha video for your mom as the main inspiration. I ADOREit and still do with the changes it's been through here and there. I've ended up adding three blink permanents (like displacer beast) to blink etb effects of permanents with stealing effects. It's my absolute favourite deck and I really appreciated your base built that I could change from there. Thanks Joey
This is truly fascinating to see someone a player like Joey have so much insight and memory about each commander deck they have built over the years and it is fascinating to see how he grew and improved over his commander journey. Also it is interesting to see the different ways he tried building different decks to try different ideas.
The Windgrace precon was my first experience in commander. Pretty much solidified Jund being my three favorite colors
I love this content - I think one learns more and grows more as a person not by hyping up their successes, but by examining mistakes or things that could have been improved. I've learned way more from my decks that didn't work and why they didn't work than I have from stomping around with a deck that worked.
I've got more bad builds, decks where the commander's power was too low or gameplay was too slow, or decks where the plan was a bad idea, or just where I wanted the pieces for other stuff.
My "I might put it back together some day" deck was Raggadragga, Goreguts Boss. Mana Dork aggro was actually really fun, but there was a better version of it in the store and the big green cards I had were called to other builds. As they print more and better mana dorks in green/red I could see myself rebuilding. Bloomburrow just added two great ones for the 99. Modern Horizons three added an impressive one as well. I could see myself owning another Raggadragga deck again.
My "what was I thinking?" deck was Rona, Herald of Invasion. I was trying Dimir reanimator with Phyrexian Praetors... yeah, none of the Sheoldred or Jin-Gitaxias cards really play well together and the deck had no midgame at all. I was just a punching bag for anyone and anything with 3+ power. This deck, more than anything, taught me to eat my vegetables - I was way too focused on big cards and splashy plays and "WHOA LOOK OUT IT'S JIN GITAXIAS"... people could just remove the thing or me.
50:45 the way the piano hits and Joey's face when talks about his commander "Ex" Meren 😭
Seriously though, thanks for making this personal type content. The insights and anecdotes are so relatable when they come from this place of experience.
So happy to hear you talk about Odric in such a way! I adore him and it’s one of my fav decks. Wizards loves to slap a bunch of keywords on white creatures and new gems come out all the time like Bloomburrow with Shrike Force! 3 mana - flying vigilance and double strike! The more creatures like that we get the more room it allows for other tricks and gems.
While I had many EDH decks in the past, I currently only play and maintain only four (Karona Voltron, Kykar Polymorph, GW Selvala and Lyzolda). I found this to be the perfect number of EDH decks that I actually am able to play with, given the limited amount of time I have. My current decks offer a lot of variation in regard to how they feel gameplaywise, and they fit many tables, in terms of their power level. For a couple of years now I set a rule for myself, to never actually build a new deck, unless I dismantle one that I currently own. Up till now this worked perfectly fine and enabled me to be less wasteful with my MtG resources. I found that brewing online more often than not satisfies my urge to build decks and, upon closer inspection, reveals, that what I seek from the brew does not work better/ is more fun than what I already have at my disposal.
Off the top of my head: The deck I had the most fun ever playing was Merieke Ri Berit, but, as you described, it changes the game and while It is a lot of fun to play her, the playtime and my friend's fun did not justify the amount of effort that I put into it (so in a sense it sits firmly in S and D tier). Another deck that I sometimes miss is Razia, who was my very first EDH deck back in early 2014. I built it off my kitchen table "Boros Legendary Angel" deck. Razia soon changed into Basandra, as the latter was more powerful...but the entire deck got dismantled after it became apparent, that this kind of deck was simply too slow and weak (as such I would place it in A tier - it taught me a lot of lessons, being my first EDH deck ever, filled with creatures that I am, till this day, very fond of). Roon and Rona, Disciple of Gix were fun, the latter being a mix of reanimator, combo and artifacts matter. Yet they never left me fully satisfied. Roon simply was too good stuff'ish and lacked personality, as I felt the need to update it, whenever a new set introduced a new "ETB" staple (B and C Tier it is). Goodstuff also describes Xira Arien, but compared to Roon it wasn't even that good (C tier). Edric, Spymaster of Trest group hug by comparison was a lot of fun for both me and my playgroup! It encouraged players to play offensive while enabling most decks to execute their game plan, which made for fun games with many twists and turns that took long, but never were boring (S tier; funnily enough, it was actually built off Kynaios and Tiro, which I found to be too many colours/to unfocused for this kind of deck). My mono coloured decks, including, but not limited to, Celestial Kirn, Rayne, Seizan, Ashling and Jolrael, will never see the light of day again (F Tier). Not because they were not a lot of fun to build and/or play...but rather I simply don't like playing mono colour decks. It feels like they become stale more quickly than multicolour decks and they don't satisfy my urge to explore this game's great library of cards - especially after I limited myself to having only four EDH decks in total. The sole exception might be Braids, Counjourer Adept Clone Tribal, which made every game unique, depending on whichever deck your opponents brought to the table.
The last thing that I HAVE to mention is that Kykar is the love child off Merieke + Razia. It was built from the remains of both decks, including Meriekes control'ish aspects, alongside my beloved Razia (the first Rare I ever pulled from a booster, staring my MtG journey back when City of Guilds released) list - Razia herself is in the deck, alongside favourites like both Akromas. Those creatures aren't great by nowadays standards, yet are perfectly fine in EDH if cheated out on turn 5 or sooner. At the very least, I enjoy them so very much that it is worth it every time. In all honesty, I can say, that my four current EDH decks are solid S tier decks...and they will remain there, until another S tier deck comes around that topples one of the others.
Joey I loved this episode and it is hitting me particularly hard because this year has been the year of retiring decks for me. So I will do a similar exercise here, and nobody can stop me.
In the last year I took apart:
Urza Lord High Artificer - Voltron using equipment for ramp/ pay for their equip costs. Rank F (Too straightforward so it got dull, and I struggled to make the card type ratios work. Also my swords of ___&___ went into Obeka when she came out.)
Tyvar the Belicose - Elves rank A ( took apart for the same reason as Joey)
Rashmi, eternities crafter - simic clones Rank A+ possibly S in a couple years.(needed cards from ot for a more exciting deck and I had been playing it for years.)
Alesha - Near death experience/counters Rank D (did the alt win con and couldn't get the other focus to work at all.)
Tana and Ravos - Saproling Kindred Rank S ( cute, but slow to get rolling, rarely got updated, and was holding a lot of cards that were useful to alot of other decks.)
Sophia, Dogged Detective - Clues Rank D (had been excited for a clue deck since SOI. Turns out what I wanted was artifact tokens as a resource and I already have a Toggo/Ich-tekik deck doing that way better with rocks)
In the past I have also taken apart:
Ephara, god of the polis - flash tokens - Rank S may even be building that within the next year. (this was kinda my control deck so it often took a while to win but I did love the play pattern of play spell get creature)
Karador, ghost Chieftain - enchantress/death by 1,000 cuts Rank A (nifty deck, but I struggled with not wanting to make it a control deck, but wanted to slowly win with Subversion and friends. Never was particularly powerful and eventually was too disheartened to keep playing it. I tried it a couple more times in other combos of colors including a Mardu with Ghen but finally have the concept in Obeka, splitter of secons and am very happy with it.)
Sekkuar, deathkeeper - Aristocrats/ reanimator rank A (tuned to an inch of it's life, and bored the hell out of my friends. Kokusho loops paired with a wall of graveborn tokens lead to non-interactive games.)
Meren of clan Nel Toth - That Meren Deck Rank C ( there were at least 3 other meren decks in my playgroup at the time and the only way I won was Kokuso loops. Again. Tore it apart and built Mazirek from the scraps. So much happier)
Two different versions of Wort the Raid Mother. Rank S ( rebuilt it a 3rd time and I absolutely love it)
Mayel of the Anima - big creatures Rank S ( my first deck, took it apart for a change of pace and to bolster a new deck. I think a Kaila the vast deck for a modified precon tournament. Immediately missed the Mayel deck and rebuilt it within a month. Now is Atla Palani good stuff)
Whatever deck I needed Mayel cards for. Rank C. Legitimately cannot remember what it was, it was 2011 and lasted less than a month.
I felt that description of Tyvar so hard. I got that deck as a Christmas deck and was so excited to play it. And first game took 20 minutes when I oops-ed into an infinite, and the second game wasn't much better. I love the deck but I feel like I experienced everything it had to give. I haven't taken it apart yet cause it was a gift, but the idea is keeping it around for others to play sounds like a great idea. Thanks Joey
I actually love these long form videos! My latest experience of this is actually the new Esper deck, Arna. I was so excited to play it and then after 3 games I was like ‘holy shit the administration work that needs to be done constantly is not fun’ and switched it to Silas Renn/Ardenn
Joey watching this video, only about halfway through and I gotta say we both have VERY similar philosophies when it comes to approaching deckbuilding and what playstyles we enjoy, and when you talked about loving Esper, my absolute favorite deck I have right now is Raffine, Schemeing Seer, She plays heavy into the graveyard strategies with all the conniving, it's easy to build a powerful but fun for you and everyone at the table version of her and games never go super super long with her and it's just a lot of fun. If you haven't built a Raffine, I would highly suggest it to you!
Now THAT is an interesting topic!
Thanks much! Hope you enjoy
If you want a version of "Punch you with my brain" I recommend Curie, Emergent Intelligence. I love casting spells like Relics Roar before damage, Enchantments like Nerd Rage or Aqueous Form to buff her while giving her evasion, and using cards like Psychosis Crawler to close out games.
This was a very insightful video and it inspired me to think of my own retired decks. I laid them all out and tiered them with a deck explanation for that tier for all of them (Strap in, this is a long one)
S - Kenessos, Myra, Averna/Keruga
A - Tayam, Atarka (FRF), Aegar, Brinelin/Ikra
B - Varina, Wilhelt, Gargos
C - Morophon, Sek'Kuar, Tazri (MAT)/Zirda
F - Melek (MKM), Tetzin, Gut/Iron Throne
(The explanations are ordered in the order the decks were built)
Morophon - This was my first deck ever, being 5 color Eldrazi (I know, I know). Looking back, this was a really bad deck and never really performed that well, but I did enjoy playing it. It has been replaced with my current Ulalek deck
Brinelin/Ikra - This was my first of 3 sea monster focused decks. There was not a dedicated sea monster commander in 2020 when I made the deck, and it eventually got replaced by Kenessos when he came out
Gut/Iron Throne - This deck was one that honestly should've left in the brewing stage. This deck was supposed to be a menace tribal deck, but the problem is there's not really any menace support aside from 2-3 individual cards like Labyrinth Raptor and Sonorous Howlbonder. This deck got played twice, both alongside precons, and got crushed each time.
Wilhelt - I bought the precon when it came out, and I really liked it. Eventually it started going the combo direction and I forced myself to take it apart because I wanted to play Zombie tribal. This deck eventually became my Varina deck
Gargos - This deck was Hydra tribal, but with a fight twist. I'd often make Gargos indestructible and fight a bunch of things my opponents control. This deck was a lot of fun, but it got taken apart and replaced with Polukranos Reborn, as the Selesnya Aristocrats subtheme appealed to me more than fighting things
Aegar - This is a deck that I liked a lot when I played it. There was a time where I leaned more heavily into Aegar rather than Giant Tribal like I wanted initially, and it became filled with Blasphemous Act and Chain Reaction types of effects. Half of the deck got put into Melek, and the other half is still sitting in its box, waiting for another day for Giant Tribal to get a fun new commander. I may built Ruhan Jeskai Giants if the mood strikes me
Tayam - This was my first restriction heavy deck. The deck consisted of ONLY cards that Tayam could grab. So that meant only permanents with CMC 3 or less. This deck was fun, but it was NOT strong, and because Tayam sees play in cEDH it had a lot of people pinning me as a threat turn 1. This deck had a 5% win rate (It won once in the about 20 games I played with it) and eventually it became another deck with a theme, Karador with Umori companion
Atarka - Gruul Dragons is a deck that was gonna be built at some point, and after buying the starter deck that's when I made the jump. I really love this deck, but I found 2 colors to be limiting for a creature type like dragons so it eventually got expanded with Tiamat at the helm
Kenessos - This is probably my favorite deck that I no longer have. A Simic Scrying deck that cheats on mana with sea monsters. This was a fun balance of topdeck manipulation and stompy. This ended up getting replaced with Aftermath Kiora, but there are some days I wish that I hadn't, Kenessos is still fun
Tazri/Zirda - This deck was the first (and nowhere close to the last) deck that I wanted to have a companion with, and of course I chose the hardest companion. I did like the deck, but none of the individual cards excited me a whole lot and it devolved into finding an infinite with a Llorwyn untapper. This deck was scrapped for parts but I still have the Halo Foil Tazri in my personal art binder, as Tazri is one of my favorite characters.
Averna/Keruga - This is another deck that I am sad I took apart. The deck was very Cascade focused in Temur, but the interesting part was that, because of Keruga, if I play a 3 mana Cascade card (or 4 mana and all the 3 mana stuff is gone from the deck) then I get to tutor any land I want if Averna is on the field, because the Cascade flips over my whole deck since I don't have 1 or 2 drops. This usually resulted in grabbing Field of the Dead and eventually Glacial Chasm locking the table. I loved it, but the table did not, and I tried leaning into other things like landfall or burn with Purphoros effects, but it never worked out. A good chunk of the deck lives on in a Maelstrom Wanderer deck that's in the halfway built binder, including the Keruga companion
Varina - This is the shell that my zombies eventually entered. It became a lot more consistent with branching synergies with the drawing, discarding, and life gain. The deck suffered a very similar problem that Wilhelt did. Even though I did not put in combos purposely, a lot of games led to a 4 card combo with Gravecrawler recursion with Rooftop Storm, a sac outlet, and a payoff. Though there weren't any tutors, the deck was super consistent with all of Varina's draw, so the deck got taken apart. Some of the pieces made their way into Prossh but the rest are in the trade binder.
Tetzin - This is a deck that really could've used more playtesting. What I thought was going to be a unique spin on an artifacts deck just ended up being an artifact storm deck that was more wheelspinny and tedious than the artifact decks whose play pattern I was trying to avoid. I learned very quickly that Tetzin's ability is not a cool double sided artifact payoff, is uses double sided artifacts as fuel in a machine to power out your typical artifact cards. I played the deck twice, tried to fix it in playtesting, did not like it, and took it apart
Melek - This was my second Izzet deck. I told myself I want at least one Izzet deck, because I want to have one deck in color combos I don't like (Esper, Jeskai, and Izzet) to try and grow an appreciation for them. This deck filled an idea I had for a long time with Nymris, which was to play payoffs for casting one spell a turn, every turn. Unfortunately, that meant turning the deck into a control hellscape that I wanted to avoid in these colors. I looked for an Izzet commander that could do unique things and settled on Myra
Sek'Kuar - This was what I finally settled on for my Jund sacrifice deck that I always wanted to play. Unfortunately, Sek'Kuar suffered from a common trait a lot of PreDH commanders had, which was that they were very clunky, and I wasn't looking for a clunky commander. I did like the actual deck, but I found myself almost never casting Sek'Kuar. I remade the deck with Prossh since he could fill the sacrifice outlet piece of the puzzle, and also be a token maker if need be
Myra - This, aside from Kenessos, is my favorite deck that I don't have anymore. This was such a fun thing to do and work with. Izzet, but I want to play durdley little cantrips to open attractions alongside stiff like Disrupt Decorum that I would love to cast every turn with those attractions, and I'd get to throw in some die rolling cards and artifact synergy. Unfortunately, much like with Averna, my playgroup did not like playing against the deck, so it was eventually scrapped. It has since been replaced with Magnus the Red, my current Izzet deck and my Polymorph deck that I've wanted to build for a long time
Would be cool to see more EDHREC-ords from the rest of the cast!
I love how much Joey talks about how these decks affected the other players, and how much of a consideration that was for him when evaluating the decks. Truly a player for the people!
58:00 Have you looked at Willowdusk? I have a Willowdusk deck that I absolutely love! It's a bit of a meme, but packs a punch if things work out. Basically you pay as much life as possible and put those counters on a lifelinker to gain it back. It relies on things that let you pay life repeatedly so you can pump out 30/30+ creatures. Plus it's Golgari!
Another Pay Life commander I enjoy is Anrakyr The Traveller.
Might be a bit too much overlap with most of Joey's reanimator decks. But Mono Black Artifact Reanimator is pretty fun, spending life to cheat them out is a fun twist.
I second the Willowdusk idea. I also have a Willowdusk deck and it is awesome.
Thanks for sharing, Joey! I have stuff for monoblack and your mentioning Drana settles it for me, been wanting a voltron build and a monoblack!
The deck I miss the most is my odd 5-Color Pirate combo deck. It had Rakarumel, Biologist as the commander (who I honestly never seen used besides when I played it) & it would turn all creatures in the deck into pirates. I loved that it had Green/Black in its colors because I could tutor up Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator & cards like Mayhem Devil or Reckless Fireweaver & win the game. Mayhem Devil & Reckless Fireweaver being able to deal 1 damage to each opponent whenever a treasure token etb'd (Fireweaver) or whenever I sacrificed a treasure token (Devil) would trigger Malcolm, since a pirate dealt damage & he would create 3 more treasure tokens. I took it apart before Caverns of Ixilan was announced & ever since the new Admiral Brass was spoiled, I thought about rebuilding; she allows you to reanimate a pirate which the deck really needed since the combo leaned on having Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator so much.
My Eligeth / Esior deck is one of my pride and joys. I also found him too slow as a combat focused deck or fliers deck (when I used Siani as the partner). Now the deck is doubled down on drawing, and wins through Lab Man effects by chaining together spells that scry at least 1 per mana spent. Usually once Eligeth is out, I'm drawing at least 20-30 cards in a turn, if not my whole deck if I happen to find High Tide.
I'm not a huge spellslinger player but spending my early game ramping and holding back opponents until I hit 6-8 mana, then going off is so satisfying. It's like purposefully hanging in last place until the third lap of Mario Kart to hog good items, then jumping ahead to the finish. I'm normally a stompy-creature or value-engine player, so it's a really refreshing play pattern break amongst my other decks.
I like how even though I like very similar decks to Joey we build decks in completely different ways, he tends to try a bunch of commanders for one deck idea and I try and shoehorn as many different deck ideas with a much smaller pool of commanders
I have a Lae'zel Master Chef deck that is planeswalker focused. Selesnya has a lot of planeswalkers that make tokens and add +1/+1 counters. It's pretty straight-forward, but actually felt unique. It was pretty resilient because the planeswalkers mostly make defenders for themselves and a board wipe usually leaves the planeswalkers alive, so my board rebuilds itself. The only drawbacks are that planewalkers lead to long turns, and tokens and counters can be difficult to physically manage. Which turns out to be a lot of drawbacks.
I currently have 4 decks in my rotation:
Bello Bard of the Brambles
Go-Shintai of Life's Origin
Hazezon Shaper of Sand
Hakbal of the Surging Soul
I've had many decks over the years that I've taken apart:
Admiral Beckett Brass
Alela Artful Provocateur
Arcades the Strategist
Bruna, Light of Alabaster
Commissar Severina Raine
Daxos the Returned
Emarra Soul of the Accord
Ezuri Claw of Progress
General Tazri
Izoni Thousand Eyed
Judith the Scourge Diva
Juri Master of the Revue
Kangee Sky Warden
Old Stickfingers
Omnath Locus of Rage
Prosper, Tome Bound
Sahelli the Gifted
Sidisi Brood Tyrant
Sythis Harvests Hand
Talrand Sky Summoner
Thassa Deep-Dwelling
Trostani Selesnyas Voice
Wyleth Soul of Steel
This is such a fun watch! Joey, if you still want a Greven life loss deck at a lower power level, you should check out Licia, Sanguine Tribune. I have a budget list with the goal being to use my life as a resource and use Licia to keep myself from dying. Might be worth giving a look!
This was very fun to watch!
I've been toying with self-imposed nerfs for Meren just to see if it was possible to build her fairly, and I think I might do something similar to stickers: a sideboard of 10 nerfs and I randomly get 3. It's been a fun thought experiment, but currently its a Storrev deck.
My first non-precon deck was Feather. It was alright but I ended up not enjoying it in the long term and it was the first deck I ever took apart. I ended up using most of the red parts of my Feather deck to create my Pauper Commander Deck with Zada at the helm. It's such a fun deck to play, I think powering it down with just commons helps me enjoy it a lot more!
Okay, here we go:
Maelstrom Wanderer - S, my first deck ever, it became Ydris. I loved it and still love it. Made me fall in love with Temur.
Gisela, Blade of the Goldnight - A, second deck ever. It taught me so much, and was my first attempt at a color pair that still eludes me, Boros.
Rakdos, Lord of Riots - A, I loved this deck, but i don't think I'll build it again. Certainly not the way i built it back then. It ramped out massive eldrazi and was terribly fun to play thanks to the inclusion of spells that damaged the whole table like Pestilence and Pyrohemia. I do think about how nice Descent into Avernus would be in it sometimes....
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic - D, took this deck apart last month after owning it for literally a decade. It should've been pulled apart 8 years ago. Miserable deck lol, packed with alternate wincons, infinite combos, and so, so many gain life triggers that left my opponents wondering when they'd get to play Magic.
Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge- F, it didn't work and I didn't enjoy it. It wanted to abuse extra turns and other big splashy spells, but it was not fun nor built well.
Mayael the Anima - C, my first attempt at Naya, and it didn't pan out. It did the thing, but i was bored.
Ezuri, Claw of Progress - B, this was really tough to place. Had some of my first combo engine builds, could literally go infinite off a few lines. Wasn't the funnest to pilot in the end, and games felt same-y. Sometimes it ended with a wet thud, like "I remove counters from Sage of Hours, and proceed to take infinite turns" and everyone at the table just shrugging and sighing.
Melek/Mizzix/Niv Mizzet/Adeliz - B/B/D/C, these were all iterations of the same spellslinger deck. That deck is now Vadrick, Astral Archmage and i love it. These were all varying flavors of good/bland.
The Gitrog Monster - D, another deck i had for way too long. This monster took 10-15 minute turns. At minimum. Its winning turn could go much, much longer, and i didn't even run any infinite combos. It was a "fair" Gitrog deck, but ultimately i stopped enjoying it as i watched my pod play on their phones during my turns. I'm ashamed i only stopped playing it last year after building it all the back during SOI.
Stonebrow, Krosan Hero - C, my "Trample Tribal" deck. Loved it way more in concept than in execution. It was clunky and show. Ikoria helped it out a ton, to the point of being nearly B tier, but it needed to be taken apart.
Feather the Redeemed - F, nothing here worked for me. I never hit my ramp, or card draw, or payoffs. Feather routinely was removed before i could get going, and my playgroup was diligent about keeping her off the field. Even when she stuck around, the deck was just as Joey described it, a C experience. Too much work for no payoff. Sorry Feather.
Atla Palani, Nest Tender - D, The child of Rakdos and Mayael, but it never got there. It was clunky, and if it did work, nobody was pleased when Annihilator took them out on Turn 4 and they watched the pod play a whole game of commander without them.
Esix, Fractal Bloom - C, it did what it was supposed too, sometimes too well. Drew too much hate and played very same-y each game.
Gyome, Master Chef- B, i learned a lot from this deck. Rebuilt into two different decks: Dina and Ygra. Gyome never worked for me, but it taught me the lessons i needed to make two fantastic decks years later.
Tatsunari, Toad Rider - F, played it twice, hated it. Didn't do the things i wanted it to. It was mostly there for things like Doomwake Giant. Unfocused and unfun for me, sadly.
Rem Karolus - C, it was a reimagining of my Firesong & Sunspeaker deck, which itself was a reimagining of Gisela. I went back to Firesong after this deck bored me. Still trying to crack that code.
Minsc and Boo - C, Stonebrow's evolution. Played well. Almost too well at times, but became very commander-centric. Mutated into my R/G Karlach deck which is a 10/10 for me.
Jor Kadeen, First Goldwarden/Koll the Forgemaster - B, two commanders for the same deck. Both were fine. This avoids C because they were strong and fun to play, ultimately just not what I wanted to do in Boros.
River Song - S, this was the hardest deck to place. It was either going to F or S, but ultimately i landed on S. This deck got played a few times, i realized they way i built it didn't work (like, flat-out awful, one of the worst decks I've ever built), and a bunch of pieces were eventually galvanized for Vadrick. So now she's now sitting in a box, waiting for her day. I *will* build River Song again, but i actually need WotC to accidentally print some specific pieces of support. In a flavor win, I'd like to think i met her in the wrong order, and I'll be seeing this deck again when i least expect it.
Depala, Pilot Examplar - D, this was a Dwarves and Vehicles deck. I loved it in concept, but it didn't work. Incredibly low-powered and inconstant.
Raff Capashen - C, it was a Flash/Instant speed deck, and man was it hated. It did things, but it wasn't strong and it made the playgroup angry by taking its turns on theirs. Bland overall, which is a shame.
Xyris, the Writhing Storm/Muldrotha/Yadrok - B, all of these commanders were the same idea. A stand-in commander for my Sea Monsters Deck, but none of them felt right. It's now thankfully Kiora, Sovereign of the Deep, and she's very happy to be that commander.
Ghalta, Primal Hunger - C, it was mono-green elves. It did elf things. It gets style points for having a fun commander, so it was closer to a B than a D, but it ultimately was just bland, boring mono-G elves.
Thanks, Joey. You're so talented at this type of casual long form content. Do you make bullet point notes for yourself ahead of time? Or is this all off the top of your head?
Kruphix is lso a deck I had built very shortly after it had released, opened it in a pack, and it was actually a replacement deck for one I had recently taken apart at the time.
The deck I took apart was Yeva, Nature's Herald Primal Surge. I wanted to build a creature deck that could still interact by using green creatures with etb effects and be able to build up to a "dump my whole deck on the board and swing" win with Primal surge being the only non permanent in the deck. That deck was really fun
I took the bones of that deck and put them into Kruphix, except this time it was primal surge. I was using Prophet of Kruphix, Seedborn Muse, Yeva, etc to use mana when needed that I was storing with Kruphix to react, but also played Genesis Wave as my way to try and end games. This did feel way more powerful than Yeva Primal Surge and eventually i took it apart because it was just too dominant at my table. I would consider building Yeva again, as 10 years of green creatures have come out since i last had her built, but maybe not Kruphix even though I enjoyed both decks.
I feel like Odric was the same experience for me. It either closes out a game quick with some strong early keywords, you get key pieces removed early and just flounder, or you play at a pod where folks have learned to fear Odric and he never resolves 😅. I've been heavy considering building Akroma/Rograhh as an excuse to play the same theme but with better access to red keywords and some extra combats to smooth things out... Maybe someday.
Very "sitting in a house coeat, swirling a martini, and reminiscing on old lovers" energy
Yes. So much yes. Especially on the topic of "Gitrog is just *too* good." I had the same issue. Turned it into my happy little Necrobloom list that I have now. Still does fun land graveyard shenanigans. But not nearly as...violently...
I threw my gitrog into my glarb frog tribal, with some of the land recursion pieces then I built a mycotyrant with some of the other pieces. Gitrog is just too good, I dont like playing solitaire and nor does the other table
actually was looking for something like this thanks
1:46:00 I will say: my play group pretty much allows full proxy decks withour own custom ban list (mostly because some of the play patterns was getting out of control), and I used to also have a Go-Shintai deck for that group. And tbh, I can totally see the frustration in building that deck as it kinda has the feeling of either it "does the thing" and gets so much value so quickly that it draws too much attention, or you spend several turns just going "when will I actually draw the shrines that I need". And just the enchantress package you need to support the deck just take up so much space that there's just not enough interesting stuff to add in around it. I've started having to cut a number of shrines from the deck just to give it a better sort of back up plan, and at that point it just becomes "why not just play Tuvasa or Kestia instead" for me
To answer the question that was posed pretty early on. A deck that pained me to take apart was Thalia and The Gitrog Monster. I was really wanting an Abzan deck that could gain and drain with aristocrats flavor that wasn’t a partner pairing or +1/+1 counters. My playgroup hated their things enter tapped and it wouldn’t be uncommon that every time I played TatGM, they would be nuked off the board the next time I took any game action. Commander tax would often make them cost 10/12/14 and I couldn’t keep anything on the board because everyone was attacking me. Would love to revisit the deck again but I would need a completely different play group for it
I almost built Thantis back in 2018 or so. As I was making the deck list I realized how much more excited I was to cast Vaevictus Asmadi the Dire than the commander. I had a “wait a minute “ moment and realized I was building the wrong commander.
1:45:59 I build Sisay with a Background subtheme to flesh out the space that wasn't taken by shrines, and it put a fun little twist that no one sees coming. Of only there were a few more backgrounds to replace all of the shrines...
Love this kind of analisys!!
Hell yeah for Grusilda! S tier from the heart hahaha If you like silver borders it is sooooo fun!! I have it and Baron von Count on the way!
In my playgroup we break many barriers of "playing in the formal way" and it has become so muuuuuch fun!! Silver border cards, proxies, custom invented commanders, theme ub decks from reddit like halo or darksoul and so on... Now it has become much more fun, less about winning or optimal play and more about imagination and crazy thematic plays!! 😂😂😂
Geth and Oona take me back to my first decks. Oona was mostly just a finisher in a control deck, and Geth was...well, Geth never worked for me either. Neither were very fun, but I'm still glad I had them, as they were good intros to the format.
5:35 to skip the yapping
I was watching the video at the moment Joey was talking about reanimator, and "Breath of Life" was on screen. Then I opened a new tab with scryfall and hit "Random Card" as I do each day. Which card came up? Breath of Life. WITCHCRAFT!
I have a bad habit of building decks far, far more than I actually play them. As such, I've only really pulled a couple of them apart.
The biggest one was probably my attempt at making Naya superfriends with Kitt Kanto. Playtesting it just... didn't feel good. It was kinda pulling in a couple different directions that just didn't mesh well. I ended up swapping it over to a Mardu deck helmed by Dihada, Binder of Wills. Despite lacking the green proliferate cards, the deck felt so, so much better to playtest with black's card advantage, removal, and recursion options added...plus the ramp/card advantage Dihada herself provides, which is important for getting more walkers on the board.
Also yeah...Sevinne is a commander I wanted to like, but even after two attempts I just... couldn't make him feel good to play, and ended up piecemealing most of the deck to build other decks.
I pulled apart my one Selesnya deck, Torens, just to remake it as mono-White under God-Eternal Oketra...mostly just because I wanted to run Oketra in the command zone.
And I'm still struggling to make a mono-Green list I'm happy with, as a couple completed decks don't feel good (Ruxa, Ich-Tekik/Gilanra), and the in-progress one (Peregrin Took) feels more fun to play given the engine nature of the commander...but kinda doesn't actually DO anything with it. So, a bunch of that stuff is likely to come apart. I'm still considering trying out a mono-Green take on Jinnie Fay, but haven't committed yet (I did something similar with Rigo, making at first a "mono-White Edric" list that I later rebuilt into a more sensible tokens list that actually does things other than poke for one damage XD), and I'm still looking out for possible options that might finally scratch the itch for me.
The other one I took apart was a solo Brallin deck. I didn't really build it storm-y enough imo, and ended up having other decks I wanted to make that I wanted some of the cards for more. It was kinda a gimmick deck in the first place that I built just because I could, and so I didn't really have much attachment to the list overall.
Made my heart sad to hear Mayael was in F, until I listened to the explanation. I sold my Mayael deck a few years ago, and I sorely regret it. Currently rebuilding it.
This was an interesting watch, all two hours of it! But also a little sad for me because it actually made me realise I have no deck that I feel is "me." I've made so many and dismantled so many, more than even Joey has listed here, and none of them I particularly have attachments to. I've enjoyed them then passed them on. I want to love a deck, I want a deck to personify me 😔
Man I wish I knew Joey in RL and we were friends. What a lovey human .
My very first commander deck that I built was an Abdel Adrian / Candlekeep Sage combo deck. It was pretty bad, because I was building out of the meager cards that I had, but I had just enough cards like Werefox Bodyguard to build a three-piece version of the AA flicker infinite. I sometimes get the itch to go back and build it again, just to see how much better the deck would be with my added experience (and card pool), but it hasn't yet been strong enough to knock one of my other decks out of my current rotation. But maybe one day!
1:02:52 If you're looking for an experience of winning because you have a huge hand, Duggan from the Doctor Who set is a really interesting choice for it. He comes pre-loaded with a removal option that you can reset with a blink effect and additionally he allows you to dabble with Artifact / Clue synergies in Simic. I'm honestly surprised he has such a small sample size on EDHREC
Hello, If you liked Syr Elenora style of "voltron for cards", I'd recommend you building Alrund. It is quite fun and not as heavy as Syr Elenora, as you can play Haka in the first turns to fix your draws :)
Great content!! I can't seem to get rid of my decks once I build them.
Dude I really wanna see you make a Thraximundar deck, I made one and it's in my top 3 I've made. Sacrificing creatures to make Thrax big just to bring them back is so much fun.
I think you would enjoy a grixis, greven deck focused around greven as a hidden commander that you can copy a bunch with blue.
Have you tried Auntie Blyte for the self harm deck idea? Auntie Blyte grows every time you harm yourself, notably NOT when you pay health for effects and can turn into a giant heat seeking missle. It is also in mono red
Love the vid joey!!
The strategy u talked about Graven is also my favorite strategy too.
I do it in bant with phelddagrif and all this life lost is for the best mythic in the game! Seraphic greatsword bb.
If you liked Phylath, you should try Mina and Denn for landfall but another way. You don't care about having more lands at the end of your turn but how many came to play and you can turn Skyclave Pick-Axe into something to be wary about.
The Selesnya Aristocrats deck I made and found a ton of success in was Torens. He gives a token for every creature cast, giving a bunch of sac fodder
Myrkul was a deck I really loved the concept of. The issue I had was it was either doing a whole lot of nothing or was way too oppressive and controlling. It was really hard to hit the middle ground on it since its win condition was taking creatures that are instant removes for my opponents and bringing them back immediately as a harder to remove permanent. The concept was really cool but it ended up being a resource wall that got progressively more annoying to deal with until it became sacky but if I removed those cards it did a whole lot of nothing and the deck couldn’t really do much until the commander was in play and for 7 mana it just was too slow.
LOL I don’t know why I found the “69…nice!” at the beginning so funny coming out of Joey.
I used to have a Sevinne deck too that also didn't do what I wanted it too. Something I found fits that spellslinger from the graveyard style weirdly is my Tormod the Desecrator with a blue partner. It's still a bit slower than I like currently but I am at least not slowing down the entire game because of that.
I feel like people dont talk about the interesting or the teaching decks enough.
Like theres soo many enchantress decks lets say where you just play enchantments out and u ball. But theres such a cool section of decks, likely will be represented in A tier, that might not be the easiest to build or play but have really interesting play patterns and let you do some really fun stuff. Like one that always sticks out to me is Aphemia zombies since theres so many interesting enchantments but they dont directly synergize with zombies so your encouraged to have a more diverse gameplan and a more like responsible and varying deck which is really cool since you get to play brain maggots, or Clawing Torment, and such like that. And it also disensentives the super hardcore zombie tribal cards, since you arent necessarily always holding a grip of 10 zombies or whatever.
Ive always been somewhat interested in Mina and Denn since I know they are a slightly older commander now, but they feel like theyd encourage a deck alot more like that but for landfall which is sick.
Pretty cool how many cards in the S/A aren just directly immensely spooky cards. Like if I saw this without hearing the reasoning id be super surprised to see abomination of llanowar so high up as it feels like an uncommon card, but it def sounds interesting and worth being there when it was explained.
Except feather, I hate that card >:(
My feather deck has only stayed alive due to adding Boros Reckoner type creatures. Slap Indestructible on them and make em be great blockers that hit back. A Blasphemous Act can turn into a huge damage swing to knock out a low player. Though I didn't go with it, the En-kor creatures from Stronghold also let you shift damage around, pinging off pesky targets after a block.
I'm glad Joey is saying what we are thinking: yeah it's powerful but if you're not having fun then it's powerless.
I still have my first Rafiq deck from 2011 still intact
Took apart 3 decks
1. Edgar Markov, was boring right out of the gate, I am a green player and wanted something different so I built up the precon, got bored immediately
2. Kydele and vial smasher, a wheels combo deck, was extremely powerful to the point it would be voted off tables, was extremely repetitive with an umbr mantle combo
3.Ezuri claw of progress, +1 +1 counters theme, wasn’t that fun to play and would dominate quick,ended up building zaxara which was very similar and I put a lot of cards in that,rebuilt it and gave the deck to my friend as his first commander deck
"So he rebuilt Odric that very day. And all rejoiced."
I also had Wrexial and Lazav as early decks that swapped out into the same mill shell! That was when my deck was mostly just filled with my return to ravnica draft chaff. Oona also got a short time in that commander slot. I agree with the timing restriction weirdness of Lazav, nowadays I have a Mimeoplasm deck that I think works a little bit better than the Lazav one but is still pretty janky 😅
I've been having a ton of fun with niv-mizzet supreme as my graveyard spellslinger although it can be a bit like the spam removal from bin type deck like meren if you are not careful just having so many options available at all times and niv being deceptively hexproof from everything
The deck I miss the most is definitely Golos.
My version of the deck played only commons and uncommons in the 99 and used Golos for the colorless mana fixing and card advantage. That being said, I think my deck made a good case for it being banned: I had one game where I was outvaluing both a Muldrotha and a Karador deck, and another where I meant from missing my third land drop two turns in a row to KO-ing the table with Debt to the Deathless around turn 8-9.
I have down time at work and this 2 hour epic drops?? Wooo!!
I really took the comment about building decks flexing on your family and then being embarrassed. I've done some self realization lately and found I do that to my playgroup. There power level usually falls in upgraded precon range and my deckbuilding is not. I'm am often archenemy at our tables. I started feeling guilty, but always told myself I'm a good deckbuilder and that is the separation, but lately I feel my ego is flexing and if I was such a good deckbuilder I would be able to build at a power level and not maximize the potential of every build. Mr Foxglove is a perfect example. I loved that design, but instead started tinkering with Galadriel Light of Valinor because I saw so many ways to break it. Thanks for helping me reassure the concept so that I can work on this in my own building.
I'm with you on Abomination and Phylath: both are great but are overshadowed by more popular decks.
kruphix was one of the commanders i built as a secret commander with statue of the god pharao to animate it and make a bunch of copies... it did the thing, and it was a glorious one trick pony that i will never use again xD
I'm here for phylath! He's so much fun, and it's all ramp!
Throw in some in the web of war effects with impact tremors effects the tokens do the work without evening truly needing to pump them! Highly recommend this commander and it's pretty budget friendly (minus a couple of landfall staples (oracle etc))
I used to have a phylath deck too and I loved it!
As I’ve gotten more into Magic I’ve noticed that I’m definitely more drawn to Token, and Aristocrat decks. And I’m definitely sure that I’m a Red player at heart because it is the most common color across all my decks, and I really enjoy decks that have a more aggressive play pattern. I have a lot of Jeskai, Mardu, and Naya decks compared to any other color combinations.
As of this post my top 5 favorite Commanders I play are:
(1st) Narset, Enlightened Exile
(2nd) Yuma, Proud Protector
(3rd) Caesar, Legion’s Emperor
(4th) Vihaan, Goldwaker
(5th) Zinnia, Valley’s Voice
Most of the decks I've taken apart have been taken apart because the play experience they created for the rest of the table wasn't enjoyable. They were all strong, but whenever they won, the rest of the players were salty and didn't enjoy the last 45 to 90 minutes. I'll use rakdos the muscle as an example. The deck was strong. It could exile someone's library quickly. It stole all of the good stuff out of people's decks. It created really weird and wacky board states. Which I adored, but nobody else did.
If you're thinking about mono-white and like decks that hurt themselves to do cool stuff, I can highly recommend Darien King of Kjeldor. He has a bit of a self harm problem and is in a vicious circle where the more he hurts himself, the more followers he gets. Luckily his sisters are there for him and make sure the worst doesn't happen.
For the lose life deck have you considered nashi moon sage scion
If you want to do nonblack reanimator, my alltime fav deck is Hinata. All my white targeted reanimation spells cost 1 less and Hinata gives a minor protection boost to everything. Its not a great deck, but it sure is fun and interesting!
I never added the X spell wipes because they felt weird, but thats why I had to take the deck apart because Id get hosed off the table due to everyone fearing those spells.
I put this on while taking apart my Ognis deck, I'm building a spellslinger/aristocrats deck with Kylox (I know one 'viashino' deck for another) Ognis was one of those decks I gave to beginners: Play a creature attack with it don't worry about waiting for your next turn... It was powerful but I have mixed feelings on it now that the cute viashino tribal side of the deck has been errataed to be lizards, it causes me to not want to play it.
Kylox can do what Ognis was doing go wide combat tricks, but also I never build spellslinger or anything in izzet colours, hence I want to branch out a bit. I may want to rebuild some of the treasure synergies into it's own deck possibly Marcus of Keld.
Edgar Markov was a deck, I happily took apart. It brought no joy to anyone in any game I played it. Nowadays I have Strefan for my big vampires and Clavileño for my small vampires and each one feels so much more interesting than Edgar. Especially Clavileño has proven itself and became my favourite deck.
I made an interesting deck building choice for Clavileño aswell: I don't ramp. There is no reason to play a signet on turn two and my mana curve ends on 5.
Oh you could try running Syr Elenora with Toluz in the cz - she's esper but it's split pips so you can run her mono-blue, and she makes for a fun little minigame of trying to wheel your hand a bunch and then pop her to get a huge handsize and then swing with Syr Elenora et al - I've been having a blast with an esper build of the deck even though it's only worth like $70 CK value. Opponents love trying to find a way to bounce or exile her when she's loaded up, and you get to have instant speed sac effects to foil them. Just don't accidentally draw the whole deck and lose mid-combat - the cipher wheel is *dangerous* lol
and yeah Empyrial Plate was the inspo for me on Toluz - had a copy I pulled back in Darksteel days because I'm old lol and never managed to find a reason to play it so I built Toluz just for that bulk rare lol
1:04:27 Have you tried John Benton? It’s an ultra aggressive Voltronish style deck that wins with a gigantic hand. It’s really fun and ends games very… very quickly.
Joey inspired me to make old rutstein a while ago and now it’s a deck I will never take apart 🔥
Love this format
You could try Licia as a Commander for the lifeloss theme. She is so much fun and a constant rollercoaster Ride for your Life total + also a cool payoff!
Nice Video!
Edit: Nvm, I just saw your Deck, where licia is in the 99, so you probably already considered her
Joey, my favorite deck is Vilis. Pay life and draw cards. Not necessarily pain for pain, but it might scratch the greven itch!
I turned my Krrik deck into vilis and I never looked back. Yes vilis is 8cmc but I basically win when he hits the field. It's a deck I dont bring out too often because it's too strong.
probably the one old deck i would remake is my old saheeli deck (the 2018 planeswalker precon). the only reason it came apart was to add more colors, but now i wish i hadn't because having only 2 colors was just what i wanted with her
I would recommend making Meren without cards you recur from removal. Take out the easy staples and edicts.
For the life loss stuff you should give Auntie Blight a try! I built one for a friend and it is bonkers