I love this subject, from a budget perspective, and from a spirit of the format perspective. Odd cards that have niche uses tend to be cheaper than format staples, since they aren't in demand, and I love seeing old cards/obscure cards get love. Sounds weird to say, but this is a large reason I love this format so much.
Ugin's Nexus is HILARIOUS in Megatron. Drop it, use Megatron to sac it, blast a dork, punch, make 10+ mana, drop some massive artifact creatures, take your extra turn.
Also good in Osgir. Filter it into your Graveyard, make two copies. One legend rules itself and you take your extra turn. You now have threat of activation for another extra turn for only a single mana using Osgir's sac ability.
I run Ugin's Nexus in my Kibo, uktabi prince deck! Build up a bunch of artifacts for my opponents, play an artifact board wipe, make my board of monkeys huge, swing out and then take my extra turn. Good times. Made kibo a 48/48 once this way
Chronozoa actually feels like a Doctor Who monster to me. I can see some scientist disturbing their habitat and getting swarmed "You barged into their home so they did what they do best...multiply!"
There are a handful of cards from Time Spiral block that I was surprised to *not* see in the Doctor Who precons, Timey Wimey in particular. Chronozoa is one, Chronomantic Escape was another, so was Aeon Chronicler.
Chronozoa reminds me of Trebbles from classic Star Trek TV episode Trouble with Trebbles. it starts out with one at the start of the episode, and eventually ends with the enterprise being overran with trebbles.
I stand by this philosophy when deckbuilding. Design decks that do their own thing and get to play unique cards. The best example is a Zur the Enchanter secret commander deck I own, which fetches "Exchange of Words", a bizarrely legal unset card that swaps the textboxes of two creatures. There are so many oddball things to do in that deck. - Play creature lands that can steal powerful abilities and then go back to being difficult to remove lands - Play transforming cards with prohibitive costs or requirements and transform them for free with e.g. "Cloistered Youth". My "Enduring Angel" wasn't designed to flip while I'm still at 30 life but it's fun that it can. - Mess around with counters. How many indestructible counters can I stack on "Mondrak, Glory Dominus" before it's text becomes that of "Myojin of Blooming Dawn"? Express yourself and keep commander weird
That’s why I love commanders like Jon Irenicus, turns the objectively awful cards you would never consider otherwise into devastating problems for your opponents. Just such a fun and interesting deck where you embrace being a villain
I love Jon, but I use it for more ethical means. I simply substituted it to my demon deck, so I can just play the demons I would have already played, if my commander is removed!
This topic just resonates with my Garth one-eye “old school” deck. It only has cards with the old framework. It’s a nice call back to the times I played with my brother. It’s also fun to play cards and have my friends go “what’s that??” With shock and fetch lands getting the old frame treatment, I could easily update the decks land base and make it more efficient and consistent but i feel like it would take the “magic” out of the deck.
I love this topic. My Cleric deck in particular runs cards that see no play. One such card is Glarecaster, a bird cleric that redirects damage. It is a sneaky way to knock one person out. It also runs False Cure that makes players who gained life lose 2 for each life gained and pair that with Beacon of Immortality which doubles a player's life total.
I want to a shout to Ashen Skin Zubera and Floating Dream Zubera in Araumi of the Dead Tide. They are black and blue 2 mana 1/1s respectively that have a shared trait of having shared dies triggers for every other zubera that died that turn. So they do a thing for every zubera that died that turn including themselves. Araumi gives encore to the zubera in the yard, so you get three copies when you encore them. So when you activate encore in the 2nd main, all copies of floating dream zubera draw 3 cards each when they die. For ashen skin zubera, a target opponent discards three cards per zubera copy that dies. So that 2 mana for either draw nine, or make the table discard nine cards. The rates for both are unreal, and only Araumi enables these creatures to do this.
Chronozoa does a great job in Falco Spara as well! At one point, I had 5 of them going on, and I had cast like 10 spells in a row from the top of my library. It was amazing! :D
I started the color challenge, building decks of every color combination. In an effort to make things somewhat unique, I had built some of them with restrictions. Like my esper deck. Everything features an instrument in some way. Some are a stretch a little bit I love it XD.
For me personally with the decks I have currently the most "Commander format" card I play is actually the commander of my Dimir mill deck Phenax. That deck runs a lot of stuff that benefits off milling or stuff being in my opponent's graveyards so having a hard to get rid of card that I always have access to that gives all my creatures the ability to mill a player without even attacking extremely useful.
It's a bit sad that modern cards tend to be templated in such a way that we don't have these charming, under-powered cards anymore. Everything is generically powerful and sort of printed for a specific purpose.
My favorite deck right now is mono green morph Yedora deck I threw together for 25€. It uses two synergies Yedora can abuse - morph effects and land animation. Morphs can be turned face up after they become forests, and animated lands become forests if they die, which get animated, which then become forests if they die, which become animated... You get the idea. You can build it dirt cheap because nobody really plays morphs
I've built a Kros Superfriends deck and it's definitely one of my favorites. Ulting Planeswalkers while my opponents beat each other up is SO entertaining, and it dodges the stereotypical superfriends problem of never ending the game.
fogs are so cool, epecially inkshield, selfless squire and arachnogenesis. one match i had with friends it ended up being a 1v1 situation between me and the big threat that ko'd the other two players. he had a massive field and i had a lowly shelob child of ungoliant. i fogged prematurely and played it off as a misplay so that he'd keep his field untapped, and then on my turn i played a "you look upon the terrasque" on my shelob to field wipe him entirely. love how free you are to use your key pieces in this game
I've always really enjoyed finding very niche pet cards that have specific uses, but when they find a home are absolutely great. There are a lot of cards like this from Mirage block through Onslaught block that people seem to overlook. Here's my list of a few interesting cards; Kyren Negotiations Unfulfilled Desires Winter's Night Dark Suspicions Yawgmoth's Agenda Circle of Despair Infernal Contract & Murderous Betrayal in a deck like Rowan Derelor & Bog Elemental for decks like Jon Irenicus Decaying Soil
I love odd cards, especially if they have weird art as well like Possessed Aven and Krosan Beast. One of my favourites, that is also actually very helpful, is Ashnod's Transmogrant, I use it in my modular +1 counters deck.
For the Familiar’s Ruse challenge the stats I was surprised you didn’t mention how it can be good in Adventure decks. Cast Familiars Ruse, bounce your Brazen Borrower back to hand! So much value. I also use it in my Alela deck, it’s on theme and I run a lot of flash creatures that do tricksy things that I can reuse.
Enduring Renewal in Bane Lord of Darkness or Polukranos Reborn. It has some pretty steep restrictions, but with the right setup you can put the fear of god in everyone at the table. Also important to have a consistent way to draw outside of your beginning phase or remove Enduring Renewal alongside this, otherwise you can fall apart super quick.
I have a Vial Smasher and Ravos Soultender deck where every card has two colors in its identity. This restriction has me playing oddball cards that are so much fun, such as Brightflame, Tsabo Tavoc, and even Lim-Dul's Paladin.
My favorite deck right now is my cecily, haunted mage + elmar, uvenwald informant… because the whole deck is kinda this theme. I have in the deck a duggan, private detective, and its so fun. Instead of a high powered blue farm light kinda deck, the deck is all about draw a bunch of cards to make creatures go smash and i love these random amazing cards
One with nothing (the greatest card ever made) comboing with archfiend of ifnir (whenever you discard a card, put a -1/-1 counter on all creatures your opponents control) for the world's dumbest almost board wipe is my favorite fever dream for this kind of thing
28:43 I play Familiar's Ruse in my The Cyber Controller deck since the commander wants to be cast and recast many times. Protect your board/stop an opponent AND get to replay your commander and mill the table? Yas please!
I made an Inga Rune-eyes deck that was centered around Sakashima's Will. With just a moderately sized board you start to draw ABSURD amounts of cards, 3 for EACH creature other than Inga adds up. The real crazy combo is cast Sakashima's Will with Inga on board, cast Reins of Power with it on the stack. You swap all your creatures (sometimes just Inga) with all of target opponent's creatures, then yoy take your Inga back and make all of your opponent's creatures into Inga. Saccing them all and drawing 3 for each. You can also Sakashima's Will on a Reef Worm with and Altar of Dementia to sometimes just mill someone out. The deck was really bad and too Inconsistent to really keep together when I needed some of the cards for other decks, but the more I contemplate the more I wanna remake it. Especially since Nanogene Conversion came out and although it doesn't quite combo with Inga in the same way it can still work with a sac outlet.
Ugin’s Insight is a great example for me to use as i built Eligeth and Siani partners. It straight up draws 9 cards every time when Eligeth is on the field. And it doesnt see use anywhere else that im aware of
Modify Memory is my absolute favorite pet card that I put in every blue deck. The amount of times I've just completely shut off other peoples' decks by swapping their commander is up there.
Back when I pulled a Fury I really wanted to play it in a commander deck but didn't knew how you could possibly play it. It took a while before I managed to develop a deck idea around the card. A few months later Fury got banned in modern. I am glad mine has found a home.
i use Brazen Cannonade in my Neyali deck. it's so fun having a 1/1 double-striking minion that pings everyone for 2 if it gets blocked and dies. it also helps a lot with the cast from exile synergy i also have an Errant and Giada deck with almost no instants or sorceries so i can keep casting from the top of my deck. so as a way to get around that, most of my removal is stuff like Cast Out: flash enchantments that also remove stuff. also counterspells are things like Judge's Familiar. and i don't want board wipes anyway cos i'm a mostly creatures deck. i also include things like Raider's Karve and Explorer's Scope. i will almost always know when it's the best time to use them. it's such a fun deck i think made fun by putting a limitation that most of the deck had to be either flying or flash. and scry becomes so powerful, so Mazemind Tome or Crystal Ball get so much better EDIT: i see now Dana's Callaphe deck has a very similar build restriction! i also have Venser in it because it's a flash creature that can affect spells EDIT AGAIN (i'm just gonna finish watching the whole video now lol): one of the first decks i made was a Yuriko deck before realising how absolutely crazy it is and how targeted everyone gets as a result of it. i managed to get Goro-Goro and Satoru at pre-release and now my ninjas deck doesn't have a ninja commander, and Yuriko is a lot more manageable in the 99 when she can go away with a lightning bolt and doesn't get to just commander ninjitsu again. plus it also has DRAGONS and cool ninjas with great showcase are like Inkrise Infiltrator i just have so much to say, sorry! if you're still reading, i love you. Greasefang is my absolute favourite vehicle commander, even though she's only in orzhov colours. however, she has such a great play pattern with Morbid Curiosity, but the absolute BEST card is Fateful Handoff. due to how her ability is worded, you get a free Parhelion II, attack with it, getting 2 angels, then you can give Parhelion away, draw EIGHT cards, and it returns to your hand at end of turn. and ooooh noooo i have too many cards in hand. guess i'll discard this PARHELION. i've done it a few times now (with Parhelion and other expensive vehicles) and it always feels so great every time
also Wrong Turn is such a fun card. i've been using it in my Alela deck to goad a creature, then give it to another player, so it's still goaded and has to attack again (maybe even the original owner lol). it doesn't always end up helping your own board presence, but it's definitely very fun with some great emergent storytelling
Surprised there was no mention of Joey's Commander Commander deck... I think Commander is a wonderful home for big Timmy type cards. Cast that giant x spell, play Grothama, drop a Blightsteel (but mention it first). Or you can just go themed/typal. Play "Oops All Walls". Build a Ninja Turtles deck.
I love my Grismold deck. I carry a stack of dry erase tokens with me, and it basically turns commander night into arts and crafts for everyone at the table. Some of my favorite, unique cards in it are: Clackbridge Troll Pestilence Infernal genesis
I built grismold as a saprolings deck and could NOT resist the urge to slam Clackbridge troll into anyway. It's just a nutty card and grismolds troll friend. I love it
I’d like to challenge Dusk Rose Reliquary in Queen Kayla Bin Kroog decks. It’s currently only in 5% of decks but because Kayla’s ability puts things in to play rather than casts them you don’t have to sacrifice anything for Dusk Rose essentially getting a free O ring in the 1 mana slot
Apparently my Vaevictis Asmadi deck is a cross between Joey's Sphinx and Matt's own Vaevictis because I love Baleful Omen and all those other top deck drain cards you mentioned.
I'm so with Danna, picking a weird restriction or off-color strategy are real fun, i built a mono blue enchantress deck using as many copies of claustrophobia as possible which in like 3 months transformed into my IceQueen deck (I don't remember her name) it still doesn't run the white enchantress but it has an actual win con now. Another deck I built is my Abzan Anthem tribal deck where it's as many enchantment anthems as possible because I loved playing with Collective Blessing when I started playing, so my deck is most of the anthems and inverse anthems as I own, and it gave my Elish Norn Grand Cenobite a home that isn't just a value piece and it ends up being all of 6 creatures and a pile of token instant and sorceress and enchantments out the wazzu
I also have a Rak Lord of riots, and I use "Pain's Reward". Either I pay life and draw 4 cards (gas!) or someone else pays life and gets 4 cards, and I get cost reduction!
Me: Has win attack on board, unless opponent has a fog, looks an opponent trying to look innocent. Opponent: Has one green mana open and one card in hand. "What?" 🤣
Matt, I would love for you to go in depth on your Council of four decklist at some point. I’ve seen it and it’s very different from any other Council of four deck tech I’ve seen people do. I’d love some explanations on your philosophy of the deck.
Benjamin is more than 21, and he’s one of the most creative deck builders I’ve met. He’s working on a deck that doesn’t use any cards that see more than 0.0% of play according to EDHREC!
Tyrant of Dyscord is a card I always try and find space in any red deck that wants some big haymakers. I have wiped half of the board of a player that popped off with some mana rocks and I love ot for that
One if the first rares i ever pulled was Colossus of Akros from an LGS lucky dip bulk pack. Never had a use for it until i played commander and made an Alena, kessig trapper deck and oh boy the look on peoples face when i drop that monster and have a way to give hexproof
I just recently built a deck, that play some weird cards. I built a Najeele, the Blade-Blossom deck that only plays Warrior-Creatures. So each card has to be a warrior. Since I needed Ramp I inlcuded Drumhunter, Undermountain Adventurer and Skyshroud Troopers. As Board-Wipe I inlcuded Hammerfist Giant. To have at least some form of Removal I use Gatekeeper of Malakir. It was really fun to browse through all these Warriors and search for cards that I can use so that I still have enough Card-Draw and Ramp.
I'm currently obsessed with my Narci, Fable Singer deck and one weird card in it is actually from a fairly recent set: Spirit-Sister's Call from Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty! Recursion, sacrifice triggers, and it's an enchantment? Sign me up.
Super late to the party on this one but Arboria in Anikthea, Hand of Erebos. Once you fill your graveyard enough, as long as Anikthea stays on the field, you can’t be attacked by opponents creatures since the enchanted you reanimated is a token and meets arboria’s requirements
The dauthi embrace reminds me of how powerful of protection the card Vanishing can be. Need a threat gone, but only if it is against you? Make it phase out, unless you get an agreement that they can have it this turn. Need to protect a specific creature against a removal heavy game? Phase it out when you need to. It’s like a limited repeatable teferi’s protection.
Craw Wurm > Ruxa, Patient Professor Rapacious One Brazen Cannonade > Gut, True Soul Zealot//Any Background from Baldur's Gate will work. Baneful Omen > Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow Dauthi Embrace > ...is good for just about any deck with black in the color identity. I had a bit of a Vorthos flavor question... what would happen with Cyberdrive Awakener or Rise and Shine, if either were to animate a bunch of clues?
I had a hilarious moment playing my Imotekh "take cards out of the grave to spam a million tokens" mono-black artifacts deck the other week where I managed to allow Player A to take out Player B and seriously hinder Player C in one round, then in the next, protected myself against Player A with a totally unexpected Darkness. Excellent political value.
Familiar's ruse seems like it'd be real good in Zethi, Arcane Blademaster. Bouncing her to kick her again can sometimes feel bad but doing it attatched to a counterspell seems acceptable to me.
I run the Avatar in my Kardur- deck. Turns out, it's great if those double strike creatures are probably not coming at you. Also, shout out to War cadence, which was last printed over a decade ago but can either help yourself in combat or just ruin your opponents', oftn for the price of 2 mana
Volcanic Offering is just fun in multiplayer format. I always ask my opponent : do you want X destroyed? Yes? Ok great you'll..."help" me then. *Cast Volcanic Offering*
I salute to your callephe Deck. My Mono blue Deck is Grazilaxx and I dont Play Instant Speed spells. My Deck has about 5 sorcerys (consuming tithe, spectral deluge, Clone legion, rite of Replikation and inscription of Insight). And also some of the best cards in that Deck are calliphe and nyxlotus.
I just built a group hug Vaevictus Asmadi, the Dire. It was actually a ton of fun. I also put Avatar of Slaughter into the deck, because what's more fun than giving everyone a bunch of powerful creatures and then beating each other with them xD
I also built a Helix Pinnacle deck with Tatyova, Benthic Druid at the helm. The ONLY win condition was Helix Pinnacle and I needed to get there by fogging once I had the HP counters maxed out. It forced me to build a different way and since I didn't want to buy cards for the deck (because it was a bit of a meme deck) I built it with a bunch of commons and uncommoms that I had lying around. Wilds of Eldraine had a nice boost to it with Virtue of Strength. Also, regularly having all 37 lands on the field was pretty wild.
My favourite/pet deck is Treebeard, gracious host lifegain voltron and two of my favourite cards are: Fracturing gust, destroys all enchantments and artifacts AT INSTANT SPEED (for the joy of my calyx and galazeth friends) while also making treebeard ginormous, I can't believe this is only played in 3000 decks; Abiding grace, to get back soul sisters, mana dorks, speaker of the heavens and such, which all work well with the low power theme I have in my deck, letting me draw cards with welcoming vampire and tocasia's welcome. Huatli's sun heart, which is one of the strongest finishers of the deck, just gives treebeard +5 power and lets me double its original power +5. Whenever it comes down and my friends don't have removal they all start praying to not be killed that turn lmao.
I know Brudiclad is a more popular commander, but he enables so many funny cards: in what other deck could I clone Nascent Metamorph and swing out with an army made of each creature in my opponents’ decks??
Ever since I saw it on a "top 10 worst magic cards" list I have been looking for a deck to put Scornful Egotist into. I think I may have finally found them in either The Ancient One or Marvo, Deep Operative. Even then the use case is a little meh. In both of those deck and in my Optimus Prime deck another one of my favorite pet cards fits will, which is Homarid Spawning Bed. Such a silly bad card and I LOVE IT. It works especially well in Optimus cause you can just freely get 6 1/1s for 3 mana each turn if you play your cards right. Which adds up when they get bolstered up to 2/2s fast.
Not that this is that niche by any stretch of the imagination, but a friend looked at my grist in Karador as kind of a weird choice (He thinks planeswalker just get focused down). I agreed with him then reanimated her like eight times lmao, it felt good
My favorite deck is my naban edh deck. The deck’s win conditions are sage’s row denizen and supreme inquisitor. Nobody knows those cards and that makes is great.
Another great home for tombstone stairway is baeloth, you want your opponent to have a lot of small dude to goad them and have them die so it's perfect there
Guided Passage always get the "wtf is that" treatment. 3 relevant cards that I know I'll use somehow (even if they pick it) and it's enables commander politics.
One card I use in one of my decks is Punishing Fire. It's literally a Shock for 1R, but you can pay R to add it from your graveyard to your hand when an opponent gains life. Kinda narrow, yes, because not all decks gain life outside of the random Lifelink. But what if your commander was a little monkey that likes to give all players a Banana Token, which allows you to tap/sac to add either R or G AND gain 2 life?
I have a Sivriss//Street Urchin deck that I call my Saw or "Make your choice" deck. It plays a bunch of cards that make my opponents have to choose between two usually bad choices. It runs all kinds of weirdos like Choice of Damnations, Captive Audience, and ensared by the mara. And even the good cards in it like combustible gearhulk rarely get played as more than one offs of the theme. People tell you that letting your opponents make the choice is bad. But if you make them have to do it enough? They will eventually make the wrong one. Edit: Nothing is funnier than if I get to play something nasty and an argument at the table breaks out over who let me have said card in the first place.
just here to say I had tombstone stairwell in my Karlov of the Ghost Council deck. Soul sisters = Life please. Blood artists = Dies triggers. Karlov = 40/40 on one rotation many times
Have you ever considered segueing into a bonus second challenge the stats with an additional challenge and just say it all really fast before anyone can stop you? That’d teach em
Just gonna spread the tech that is bitter ordeal in umbris and mirko vosk decks that run mill. mill a bunch, take out alot of lands (or eldrazi titans) and make your future mills even more potent
After 15 years of sitting in my box of playable black edg cards, I finally found a home for Xathrid demon in my Davros, Dalek Creator deck, as well as lightning bolt. Should I play them? Probably not. Do they synergize and are cool and borderline unplayable in most other decks? Absolutely. But finding a home for unique cards is definitely part of edh’s charm that competitive formats don’t have the pleasure of oftentimes
My no partner Rebbec deck plays a lot of goofy little artifact guys and I have won off a Hovermyr who blocks like a champ when it's got protection from just the right mana values
![The Complete Story of Destiny! From origins to Shadowkeep [Timeline and Lore explained]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/9mbDXvDNqTU/mqdefault.jpg)
I love this subject, from a budget perspective, and from a spirit of the format perspective.
Odd cards that have niche uses tend to be cheaper than format staples, since they aren't in demand, and I love seeing old cards/obscure cards get love.
Sounds weird to say, but this is a large reason I love this format so much.
Ugin's Nexus is HILARIOUS in Megatron. Drop it, use Megatron to sac it, blast a dork, punch, make 10+ mana, drop some massive artifact creatures, take your extra turn.
Also good in Osgir. Filter it into your Graveyard, make two copies. One legend rules itself and you take your extra turn. You now have threat of activation for another extra turn for only a single mana using Osgir's sac ability.
I run Ugin's Nexus in my Kibo, uktabi prince deck!
Build up a bunch of artifacts for my opponents, play an artifact board wipe, make my board of monkeys huge, swing out and then take my extra turn. Good times.
Made kibo a 48/48 once this way
@@NarutoGeek411 doesn't the remaining Nexus prevent you from taking the extra turn?
@@beurtalvarez Actually, no. The extra turn can't start if Nexus is on the field, buuuuut they will start if it's gone before the end of the turn
Chronozoa actually feels like a Doctor Who monster to me. I can see some scientist disturbing their habitat and getting swarmed "You barged into their home so they did what they do best...multiply!"
There are a handful of cards from Time Spiral block that I was surprised to *not* see in the Doctor Who precons, Timey Wimey in particular. Chronozoa is one, Chronomantic Escape was another, so was Aeon Chronicler.
Chronozoa reminds me of Trebbles from classic Star Trek TV episode Trouble with Trebbles. it starts out with one at the start of the episode, and eventually ends with the enterprise being overran with trebbles.
I stand by this philosophy when deckbuilding. Design decks that do their own thing and get to play unique cards. The best example is a Zur the Enchanter secret commander deck I own, which fetches "Exchange of Words", a bizarrely legal unset card that swaps the textboxes of two creatures. There are so many oddball things to do in that deck.
- Play creature lands that can steal powerful abilities and then go back to being difficult to remove lands
- Play transforming cards with prohibitive costs or requirements and transform them for free with e.g. "Cloistered Youth". My "Enduring Angel" wasn't designed to flip while I'm still at 30 life but it's fun that it can.
- Mess around with counters. How many indestructible counters can I stack on "Mondrak, Glory Dominus" before it's text becomes that of "Myojin of Blooming Dawn"?
Express yourself and keep commander weird
That’s why I love commanders like Jon Irenicus, turns the objectively awful cards you would never consider otherwise into devastating problems for your opponents. Just such a fun and interesting deck where you embrace being a villain
I love Jon, but I use it for more ethical means. I simply substituted it to my demon deck, so I can just play the demons I would have already played, if my commander is removed!
This topic just resonates with my Garth one-eye “old school” deck. It only has cards with the old framework. It’s a nice call back to the times I played with my brother. It’s also fun to play cards and have my friends go “what’s that??”
With shock and fetch lands getting the old frame treatment, I could easily update the decks land base and make it more efficient and consistent but i feel like it would take the “magic” out of the deck.
This concept is my #1 reason for choosing this format. I get to play Shauku, the Endbringer in my Mortarion deck and she is a house.
I mean... There's has to be a limit though and I think 7 mana do nothing and can't attack is way past that limit lol
I have a Mortarion deck too! Shauku looks like such a fun addition!
I love this topic. My Cleric deck in particular runs cards that see no play. One such card is Glarecaster, a bird cleric that redirects damage. It is a sneaky way to knock one person out. It also runs False Cure that makes players who gained life lose 2 for each life gained and pair that with Beacon of Immortality which doubles a player's life total.
I have ORah Aristocrats and it doesn't work. Good for you making Clerics work.
Haven't even watched the video but I love Avatar of Slaughter, he turns things to 11 in my Neheb the Eternal group slug/stompy deck
It's good in illharg too
I want to a shout to Ashen Skin Zubera and Floating Dream Zubera in Araumi of the Dead Tide. They are black and blue 2 mana 1/1s respectively that have a shared trait of having shared dies triggers for every other zubera that died that turn. So they do a thing for every zubera that died that turn including themselves. Araumi gives encore to the zubera in the yard, so you get three copies when you encore them. So when you activate encore in the 2nd main, all copies of floating dream zubera draw 3 cards each when they die. For ashen skin zubera, a target opponent discards three cards per zubera copy that dies. So that 2 mana for either draw nine, or make the table discard nine cards. The rates for both are unreal, and only Araumi enables these creatures to do this.
Heck yeah from a fellow Araumi player! 🖤💙
Spicyyyyy!
Matt I guarantee you never once did I forget about archfiend of depravity
Chronozoa does a great job in Falco Spara as well! At one point, I had 5 of them going on, and I had cast like 10 spells in a row from the top of my library. It was amazing! :D
Archfiend of Depravity is one of my favorite cards in my Prismatic Bridge deck!
I started the color challenge, building decks of every color combination. In an effort to make things somewhat unique, I had built some of them with restrictions. Like my esper deck. Everything features an instrument in some way. Some are a stretch a little bit I love it XD.
For me personally with the decks I have currently the most "Commander format" card I play is actually the commander of my Dimir mill deck Phenax. That deck runs a lot of stuff that benefits off milling or stuff being in my opponent's graveyards so having a hard to get rid of card that I always have access to that gives all my creatures the ability to mill a player without even attacking extremely useful.
It's a bit sad that modern cards tend to be templated in such a way that we don't have these charming, under-powered cards anymore. Everything is generically powerful and sort of printed for a specific purpose.
My favorite deck right now is mono green morph Yedora deck I threw together for 25€. It uses two synergies Yedora can abuse - morph effects and land animation. Morphs can be turned face up after they become forests, and animated lands become forests if they die, which get animated, which then become forests if they die, which become animated... You get the idea. You can build it dirt cheap because nobody really plays morphs
One of my favorite decks I've built is my Kros, Defense Contractor deck. Giving your opponent's creatures counters on purpose os hilarious.
I've built a Kros Superfriends deck and it's definitely one of my favorites. Ulting Planeswalkers while my opponents beat each other up is SO entertaining, and it dodges the stereotypical superfriends problem of never ending the game.
fogs are so cool, epecially inkshield, selfless squire and arachnogenesis. one match i had with friends it ended up being a 1v1 situation between me and the big threat that ko'd the other two players. he had a massive field and i had a lowly shelob child of ungoliant. i fogged prematurely and played it off as a misplay so that he'd keep his field untapped, and then on my turn i played a "you look upon the terrasque" on my shelob to field wipe him entirely. love how free you are to use your key pieces in this game
I've always really enjoyed finding very niche pet cards that have specific uses, but when they find a home are absolutely great. There are a lot of cards like this from Mirage block through Onslaught block that people seem to overlook. Here's my list of a few interesting cards;
Kyren Negotiations
Unfulfilled Desires
Winter's Night
Dark Suspicions
Yawgmoth's Agenda
Circle of Despair
Infernal Contract & Murderous Betrayal in a deck like Rowan
Derelor & Bog Elemental for decks like Jon Irenicus
Decaying Soil
I love odd cards, especially if they have weird art as well like Possessed Aven and Krosan Beast. One of my favourites, that is also actually very helpful, is Ashnod's Transmogrant, I use it in my modular +1 counters deck.
Keep Watch and Secrets of the Golden City are big hits in my meta since introducing them thanks to EDHREC podcast.
For the Familiar’s Ruse challenge the stats I was surprised you didn’t mention how it can be good in Adventure decks. Cast Familiars Ruse, bounce your Brazen Borrower back to hand! So much value. I also use it in my Alela deck, it’s on theme and I run a lot of flash creatures that do tricksy things that I can reuse.
That was the longest I’ve ever seen Craw Wurm as a featured card that wasn’t “worst vanilla creature”.
I love the old school Mirage and Visions single mana charms. It's easy to keep up one mana and they are always a surprise.
Enduring Renewal in Bane Lord of Darkness or Polukranos Reborn. It has some pretty steep restrictions, but with the right setup you can put the fear of god in everyone at the table. Also important to have a consistent way to draw outside of your beginning phase or remove Enduring Renewal alongside this, otherwise you can fall apart super quick.
I have a Vial Smasher and Ravos Soultender deck where every card has two colors in its identity. This restriction has me playing oddball cards that are so much fun, such as Brightflame, Tsabo Tavoc, and even Lim-Dul's Paladin.
My favorite deck right now is my cecily, haunted mage + elmar, uvenwald informant… because the whole deck is kinda this theme. I have in the deck a duggan, private detective, and its so fun. Instead of a high powered blue farm light kinda deck, the deck is all about draw a bunch of cards to make creatures go smash and i love these random amazing cards
One with nothing (the greatest card ever made) comboing with archfiend of ifnir (whenever you discard a card, put a -1/-1 counter on all creatures your opponents control) for the world's dumbest almost board wipe is my favorite fever dream for this kind of thing
Stealing Archfiend for new Massacre Girl, thanks :)
28:43 I play Familiar's Ruse in my The Cyber Controller deck since the commander wants to be cast and recast many times. Protect your board/stop an opponent AND get to replay your commander and mill the table? Yas please!
25:12 It should also be noted that Sliver Gravemother’s encore gives the tokens haste already. 😂
I have a Zombie Aristocrats deck. I very rarely have to pay a single cumulative upkeep for tombstone stairwell, and I’ve never had to pay more than 1.
I made an Inga Rune-eyes deck that was centered around Sakashima's Will. With just a moderately sized board you start to draw ABSURD amounts of cards, 3 for EACH creature other than Inga adds up.
The real crazy combo is cast Sakashima's Will with Inga on board, cast Reins of Power with it on the stack. You swap all your creatures (sometimes just Inga) with all of target opponent's creatures, then yoy take your Inga back and make all of your opponent's creatures into Inga. Saccing them all and drawing 3 for each. You can also Sakashima's Will on a Reef Worm with and Altar of Dementia to sometimes just mill someone out.
The deck was really bad and too Inconsistent to really keep together when I needed some of the cards for other decks, but the more I contemplate the more I wanna remake it. Especially since Nanogene Conversion came out and although it doesn't quite combo with Inga in the same way it can still work with a sac outlet.
Ugin’s Insight is a great example for me to use as i built Eligeth and Siani partners. It straight up draws 9 cards every time when Eligeth is on the field. And it doesnt see use anywhere else that im aware of
Modify Memory is my absolute favorite pet card that I put in every blue deck. The amount of times I've just completely shut off other peoples' decks by swapping their commander is up there.
Back when I pulled a Fury I really wanted to play it in a commander deck but didn't knew how you could possibly play it. It took a while before I managed to develop a deck idea around the card. A few months later Fury got banned in modern. I am glad mine has found a home.
i use Brazen Cannonade in my Neyali deck. it's so fun having a 1/1 double-striking minion that pings everyone for 2 if it gets blocked and dies. it also helps a lot with the cast from exile synergy
i also have an Errant and Giada deck with almost no instants or sorceries so i can keep casting from the top of my deck. so as a way to get around that, most of my removal is stuff like Cast Out: flash enchantments that also remove stuff. also counterspells are things like Judge's Familiar. and i don't want board wipes anyway cos i'm a mostly creatures deck. i also include things like Raider's Karve and Explorer's Scope. i will almost always know when it's the best time to use them. it's such a fun deck i think made fun by putting a limitation that most of the deck had to be either flying or flash. and scry becomes so powerful, so Mazemind Tome or Crystal Ball get so much better
EDIT: i see now Dana's Callaphe deck has a very similar build restriction! i also have Venser in it because it's a flash creature that can affect spells
EDIT AGAIN (i'm just gonna finish watching the whole video now lol): one of the first decks i made was a Yuriko deck before realising how absolutely crazy it is and how targeted everyone gets as a result of it. i managed to get Goro-Goro and Satoru at pre-release and now my ninjas deck doesn't have a ninja commander, and Yuriko is a lot more manageable in the 99 when she can go away with a lightning bolt and doesn't get to just commander ninjitsu again. plus it also has DRAGONS and cool ninjas with great showcase are like Inkrise Infiltrator
i just have so much to say, sorry! if you're still reading, i love you. Greasefang is my absolute favourite vehicle commander, even though she's only in orzhov colours. however, she has such a great play pattern with Morbid Curiosity, but the absolute BEST card is Fateful Handoff. due to how her ability is worded, you get a free Parhelion II, attack with it, getting 2 angels, then you can give Parhelion away, draw EIGHT cards, and it returns to your hand at end of turn. and ooooh noooo i have too many cards in hand. guess i'll discard this PARHELION. i've done it a few times now (with Parhelion and other expensive vehicles) and it always feels so great every time
also Wrong Turn is such a fun card. i've been using it in my Alela deck to goad a creature, then give it to another player, so it's still goaded and has to attack again (maybe even the original owner lol). it doesn't always end up helping your own board presence, but it's definitely very fun with some great emergent storytelling
Surprised there was no mention of Joey's Commander Commander deck...
I think Commander is a wonderful home for big Timmy type cards. Cast that giant x spell, play Grothama, drop a Blightsteel (but mention it first).
Or you can just go themed/typal. Play "Oops All Walls". Build a Ninja Turtles deck.
I love my Grismold deck. I carry a stack of dry erase tokens with me, and it basically turns commander night into arts and crafts for everyone at the table. Some of my favorite, unique cards in it are:
Clackbridge Troll
Pestilence
Infernal genesis
I built grismold as a saprolings deck and could NOT resist the urge to slam Clackbridge troll into anyway. It's just a nutty card and grismolds troll friend. I love it
I’d like to challenge Dusk Rose Reliquary in Queen Kayla Bin Kroog decks. It’s currently only in 5% of decks but because Kayla’s ability puts things in to play rather than casts them you don’t have to sacrifice anything for Dusk Rose essentially getting a free O ring in the 1 mana slot
Apparently my Vaevictis Asmadi deck is a cross between Joey's Sphinx and Matt's own Vaevictis because I love Baleful Omen and all those other top deck drain cards you mentioned.
I'm so with Danna, picking a weird restriction or off-color strategy are real fun, i built a mono blue enchantress deck using as many copies of claustrophobia as possible which in like 3 months transformed into my IceQueen deck (I don't remember her name) it still doesn't run the white enchantress but it has an actual win con now. Another deck I built is my Abzan Anthem tribal deck where it's as many enchantment anthems as possible because I loved playing with Collective Blessing when I started playing, so my deck is most of the anthems and inverse anthems as I own, and it gave my Elish Norn Grand Cenobite a home that isn't just a value piece and it ends up being all of 6 creatures and a pile of token instant and sorceress and enchantments out the wazzu
Baneful Omen absolutely slaps in both my Rakdos, lord of riots and Runo Stromkirk decks.
I also have a Rak Lord of riots, and I use "Pain's Reward". Either I pay life and draw 4 cards (gas!) or someone else pays life and gets 4 cards, and I get cost reduction!
Me: Has win attack on board, unless opponent has a fog, looks an opponent trying to look innocent.
Opponent: Has one green mana open and one card in hand. "What?"
🤣
Matt, I would love for you to go in depth on your Council of four decklist at some point. I’ve seen it and it’s very different from any other Council of four deck tech I’ve seen people do. I’d love some explanations on your philosophy of the deck.
I love slamming Repercussion on the table in my Ashling, The Pilgrim deck to let people know I mean business
Benjamin is more than 21, and he’s one of the most creative deck builders I’ve met. He’s working on a deck that doesn’t use any cards that see more than 0.0% of play according to EDHREC!
Tyrant of Dyscord is a card I always try and find space in any red deck that wants some big haymakers. I have wiped half of the board of a player that popped off with some mana rocks and I love ot for that
The Beamtown Bullies is a great deck for using cards that have few other homes. Where else am I going to play Phyrexian Negator or Despotic Scepter?
One if the first rares i ever pulled was Colossus of Akros from an LGS lucky dip bulk pack. Never had a use for it until i played commander and made an Alena, kessig trapper deck and oh boy the look on peoples face when i drop that monster and have a way to give hexproof
I just recently built a deck, that play some weird cards. I built a Najeele, the Blade-Blossom deck that only plays Warrior-Creatures. So each card has to be a warrior. Since I needed Ramp I inlcuded Drumhunter, Undermountain Adventurer and Skyshroud Troopers. As Board-Wipe I inlcuded Hammerfist Giant. To have at least some form of Removal I use Gatekeeper of Malakir. It was really fun to browse through all these Warriors and search for cards that I can use so that I still have enough Card-Draw and Ramp.
I'm currently obsessed with my Narci, Fable Singer deck and one weird card in it is actually from a fairly recent set: Spirit-Sister's Call from Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty! Recursion, sacrifice triggers, and it's an enchantment? Sign me up.
I see the case for Familiar's Ruse in Wanderer, but I don't see how it works in Yidris: Yidris' Cascade is a combat trigger
I love Ugin's Nexus. I use it in my Osgir deck. Osgir + Nexus + Pull from Eternity imprinted on Isochon Scepter.
Super late to the party on this one but Arboria in Anikthea, Hand of Erebos. Once you fill your graveyard enough, as long as Anikthea stays on the field, you can’t be attacked by opponents creatures since the enchanted you reanimated is a token and meets arboria’s requirements
Often I’ll be on scryfall looking at the work of an artist, particularly the old cards, and that’s where I spot oddball cards to put in a deck.
The dauthi embrace reminds me of how powerful of protection the card Vanishing can be. Need a threat gone, but only if it is against you? Make it phase out, unless you get an agreement that they can have it this turn. Need to protect a specific creature against a removal heavy game? Phase it out when you need to. It’s like a limited repeatable teferi’s protection.
Craw Wurm
> Ruxa, Patient Professor
Rapacious One
Brazen Cannonade
> Gut, True Soul Zealot//Any Background from Baldur's Gate will work.
Baneful Omen
> Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
Dauthi Embrace
> ...is good for just about any deck with black in the color identity.
I had a bit of a Vorthos flavor question... what would happen with Cyberdrive Awakener or Rise and Shine, if either were to animate a bunch of clues?
I used to run Dauthi Embrace and keep watch. Maybe I should try to run them again.
Challenge the stats: Dauthi Embrace for Magar decks! I had to go to a bunch of local stores to get a copy recently. such a good card
In this vein, I made an Ovika Enigma Goliath deck that’s just all the manalith style cards, as many weird mana rocks as possible
I had a hilarious moment playing my Imotekh "take cards out of the grave to spam a million tokens" mono-black artifacts deck the other week where I managed to allow Player A to take out Player B and seriously hinder Player C in one round, then in the next, protected myself against Player A with a totally unexpected Darkness. Excellent political value.
Familiar's ruse seems like it'd be real good in Zethi, Arcane Blademaster. Bouncing her to kick her again can sometimes feel bad but doing it attatched to a counterspell seems acceptable to me.
I run the Avatar in my Kardur- deck. Turns out, it's great if those double strike creatures are probably not coming at you. Also, shout out to War cadence, which was last printed over a decade ago but can either help yourself in combat or just ruin your opponents', oftn for the price of 2 mana
Volcanic Offering is just fun in multiplayer format. I always ask my opponent : do you want X destroyed? Yes? Ok great you'll..."help" me then. *Cast Volcanic Offering*
I am not putting Aeon Engine and Chronozoa in my Ydris deck haha. I run Timesifter and Cruel Entertainment in that deck as well.
I salute to your callephe Deck.
My Mono blue Deck is Grazilaxx and I dont Play Instant Speed spells. My Deck has about 5 sorcerys (consuming tithe, spectral deluge, Clone legion, rite of Replikation and inscription of Insight). And also some of the best cards in that Deck are calliphe and nyxlotus.
I just built a group hug Vaevictus Asmadi, the Dire. It was actually a ton of fun. I also put Avatar of Slaughter into the deck, because what's more fun than giving everyone a bunch of powerful creatures and then beating each other with them xD
I also built a Helix Pinnacle deck with Tatyova, Benthic Druid at the helm. The ONLY win condition was Helix Pinnacle and I needed to get there by fogging once I had the HP counters maxed out. It forced me to build a different way and since I didn't want to buy cards for the deck (because it was a bit of a meme deck) I built it with a bunch of commons and uncommoms that I had lying around. Wilds of Eldraine had a nice boost to it with Virtue of Strength. Also, regularly having all 37 lands on the field was pretty wild.
My Volo deck has 60 creatures and no overlapping types so it has cards like Purple Shell Crab or Golden Hind.
See you all at magiccon Chicago
My favourite/pet deck is Treebeard, gracious host lifegain voltron and two of my favourite cards are:
Fracturing gust, destroys all enchantments and artifacts AT INSTANT SPEED (for the joy of my calyx and galazeth friends) while also making treebeard ginormous, I can't believe this is only played in 3000 decks;
Abiding grace, to get back soul sisters, mana dorks, speaker of the heavens and such, which all work well with the low power theme I have in my deck, letting me draw cards with welcoming vampire and tocasia's welcome.
Huatli's sun heart, which is one of the strongest finishers of the deck, just gives treebeard +5 power and lets me double its original power +5. Whenever it comes down and my friends don't have removal they all start praying to not be killed that turn lmao.
I run seed time in my Ghave deck, It has a lot of threats that want to get countered, and it is so funny to go "I cast Time walk but green"
Black counterspell, perfect in commander, Withering Boon "counter target commander creature spell"
I know Brudiclad is a more popular commander, but he enables so many funny cards: in what other deck could I clone Nascent Metamorph and swing out with an army made of each creature in my opponents’ decks??
Ever since I saw it on a "top 10 worst magic cards" list I have been looking for a deck to put Scornful Egotist into. I think I may have finally found them in either The Ancient One or Marvo, Deep Operative. Even then the use case is a little meh.
In both of those deck and in my Optimus Prime deck another one of my favorite pet cards fits will, which is Homarid Spawning Bed. Such a silly bad card and I LOVE IT. It works especially well in Optimus cause you can just freely get 6 1/1s for 3 mana each turn if you play your cards right. Which adds up when they get bolstered up to 2/2s fast.
Not that this is that niche by any stretch of the imagination, but a friend looked at my grist in Karador as kind of a weird choice (He thinks planeswalker just get focused down). I agreed with him then reanimated her like eight times lmao, it felt good
My favorite deck is my naban edh deck. The deck’s win conditions are sage’s row denizen and supreme inquisitor. Nobody knows those cards and that makes is great.
Dream Halls was my big wacky card when I first found commander.
I’m surprised that Matt’s Mishra, Eminent One all retro border deck didn’t get an honourable mention.
Another great home for tombstone stairway is baeloth, you want your opponent to have a lot of small dude to goad them and have them die so it's perfect there
Guided Passage always get the "wtf is that" treatment. 3 relevant cards that I know I'll use somehow (even if they pick it) and it's enables commander politics.
One card I use in one of my decks is Punishing Fire. It's literally a Shock for 1R, but you can pay R to add it from your graveyard to your hand when an opponent gains life. Kinda narrow, yes, because not all decks gain life outside of the random Lifelink. But what if your commander was a little monkey that likes to give all players a Banana Token, which allows you to tap/sac to add either R or G AND gain 2 life?
Or you just play Grove of the Burnwillows like the modern deck everyone has seen a million times.
I have a Sivriss//Street Urchin deck that I call my Saw or "Make your choice" deck.
It plays a bunch of cards that make my opponents have to choose between two usually bad choices. It runs all kinds of weirdos like Choice of Damnations, Captive Audience, and ensared by the mara. And even the good cards in it like combustible gearhulk rarely get played as more than one offs of the theme.
People tell you that letting your opponents make the choice is bad. But if you make them have to do it enough? They will eventually make the wrong one.
Edit: Nothing is funnier than if I get to play something nasty and an argument at the table breaks out over who let me have said card in the first place.
Familiars ruse is just worse that counterspell, since you cannot cast it when you cascade into it anyways. Just play cryptic command.
I haven't built the deck yet but I'm pretty certain portcullis will slap hard in my mageta, the lion deck
I always see you guys show Syr Konrad the Grim, but I've never seen that art for it before outside of the show, is it custom art?
If you look closer that’s actually Joey on the card.
@Dragon_Fyre I didn't notice till you pointed out just thought it looked cooler than the original 😂 thank you for pointing it out!
I luv weird and unique cards.. I try to do my best with that
Council of the absolute. I just found a home for him in a slime against humanity deck with Katilda and Lier as the commander.
My current project is turning Codie into an artifact deck.
Trust me: it'll work.
I still love to put Shattered Angel in my Life Gain Angel deck.
just here to say I had tombstone stairwell in my Karlov of the Ghost Council deck. Soul sisters = Life please. Blood artists = Dies triggers. Karlov = 40/40 on one rotation many times
A follow up that does the dies thing and creature entering the field thing: Pure Reflection. another soul sister or blood artsits best friend
Have you ever considered segueing into a bonus second challenge the stats with an additional challenge and just say it all really fast before anyone can stop you? That’d teach em
Norin the Wary in the War Doctor is pretty hilarious
Just gonna spread the tech that is bitter ordeal in umbris and mirko vosk decks that run mill. mill a bunch, take out alot of lands (or eldrazi titans) and make your future mills even more potent
After 15 years of sitting in my box of playable black edg cards, I finally found a home for Xathrid demon in my Davros, Dalek Creator deck, as well as lightning bolt. Should I play them? Probably not. Do they synergize and are cool and borderline unplayable in most other decks? Absolutely. But finding a home for unique cards is definitely part of edh’s charm that competitive formats don’t have the pleasure of oftentimes
My no partner Rebbec deck plays a lot of goofy little artifact guys and I have won off a Hovermyr who blocks like a champ when it's got protection from just the right mana values
of one mind is a lot better than secrets of the golden city in council of four. It helps to trigger both effects by only costing 1 mana :)
Familiars ruse fits well in my kaho deck to reset her spellbook
Cant give matt the cold shoulder on that ice joke
I have a G/W Verdant Succession mill deck