Quintorius, for the same reason as Sedriss. Not only is it fun to have a self mill deck in boros of all things, but there's been so much support for him like with ascent from avernus, extraction Specialist, and things of the like.
Just made an Etrata deck, always wanted to make one and didn't have an excuse not to after Mari came out. Love the video idea, recently "buffed" commanders are a great way to have a unique commander while still feeling like it's competitive.
I would also like to make a case for Hofri that the reason why he's underrated is because people are focusing on the spirit/token bonuses a bit too much instead of capitalizing on the rules interaction his 2nd ability. As long as a nontoken "creature" DIES under your CONTROL, you get the trigger regardless of the zone it goes to. This means 2 things 1) Aristocrat and etb/ltb are basixally doubled because you get a chance to do everything twice. 2) Hofri can sub theme Treason effects and keep the creatures near permanently as tokens. If any of the cards that die arent creatures they done come back as creatures. Its linked to the card jot to the creature. You can steal permanents and make new removal as a snatch steal deck. This commander also synergizes with so many other sub themes as long as you following the main plot of aristocrat engines and the Altar. The vast amount of combos and abuse he can put you through is amazing, include Turning himself into a token with a red Splinter Twin effect. And then he immensely benefits with cards like Kindred Charge as a wincon.
I'm not quite following the second idea. You can keep them as permanently as any other creature, which is not really in a format where boardwipes are aplenty. Also not sure what you mean by things not coming back as creatures, his ability literally only effects creatures. You're not gonna be stealing and destroying their artifacts and still having them exiled into nothingness for no reason?
Yeah, she's way too slow. You're going to background into green to build it well and there's so many better cheaper options in those colors. She's poopy.
@@craigstuckey319 weird to say poopy is a strong word but as she can help with planeswalkers as well I think she's better than you're giving credit for. Backgrounding into a color with strong planeswalkers than green could be fun, especially black or blue.
Watchong you from the begining Demo, and I am shocked that Campfire didn't get a mention;) All the Myiojins, Phages... And it is colorless! Keep up the great work and soon we will have colorless option for creature type changing:)
Jolrael, Mwonvuli Recluse is incredibly powerful. Jimmy Wong on the Command Zone made a deck with her and it seemed very good. Any 2 drop commander that creates a board presence early, but also is a mana sink and/or win condition seems very strong. I think people are sleeping on this card because in limited and constructed when it came out it never did anything. That makes sense, because it’s easy to imagine scenarios where you draw your card draw before you draw Jolrael, or you draw her while you’re empty handed. In Commander, where you’re going to be able to have access to her on turn 2 every game, that’s not a concern. My only problem with her is maybe, she’s a bit boring? “Pay off”s for drawing extra cards are not usually a thing, because drawing cards is already the sweetest thing you can do in Magic. I still think she’s sweet. I’m not going to build her any time soon because I have like 4 mono-green commander decks already, but I think she’s rad.
I play her in the 99 of my Eligeth, Crossroads Augur and Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix partner deck with a "hand size matters" theme and she wrecks face any time she hits the field. I could really see her being a good commander with help from stuff like: Return of the Wildspeaker Rishkar's Expertise Fungal Sprouting Realm Seekers Sage of Ancient Lore Masumoro, First to Live Multani, Maro-Sorcerer Sylvan Yeti Surrak, the Huntcaller Pathbreaker Ibex Traverse the Outlands
Hofri and Blitz is a good shout out, which made me realize that Solitude is absolutely busted with Hofri. Get two Swords from one Evoke and you don’t even have to Ephemerate it? Yes please!
I've had a Heliod, God of the Sun deck basically since the card got spoiled. While making creature/enchantment tokens is for free is obviously powerful, esp w all the new cards like you've mentioned, his static ability granting vigilance to all your creatures is, imo, WAY more powerful than it looks. Getting to attack every turn while still presenting a formidable defense is incredibly valuable, especially in as hectic of games as you get in commander. It allows you to apply real pressure to control/combo strats while still respecting other creature based decks. Ultimately, I think it boils down to the fact that 2WW for a 2/1 (with flash+vigilance mind you) is just not very powerful. Drawing off Welcoming Vampire and Bennie is great, but a 4 mana creature is going to outpace that any day of the week. That's competing with stuff like Hero of Bladehold and Adeline (which only costs 3!). Hell, Odric Master Tactician basically wins the game if you manage to untap with him. My point here being that, while making tokens is useful and powerful, it's at a pretty awful rate. You're not gonna be making 2+ tokens a cycle until T5 and even then, an 8 mana 4/2 that divinates isn't gonna compete with like, even the average 5 drop. while you're making goblin pikers, your opponents are casting Bolas's Citadel and Muxus. Global vigilance is way more relevant than you think it is! Jam some creatures! Enter the red zone!
Syr Carah from Eldraine got a LOT better over the course of the last year(and some change), mainly due to Strixhaven's unlimited common, Dragon's Approach and Kaldheim's Birgi. Before that she wasn't guaranteed consistent impulse value and with it she has turned into a storm deck at best and massive bomb spell enabler at worst. But also adding on to that you have cards in every set that is either new impulse or new burn or new spell copying and really amps up the consistency. Cards like Invoke Calamity, Delayed Fireblast, several cards from Innistraad, etc. She has always been a favorite of mine since her debut but she has really exploded with the newer cards from impulse to burn.
@@TheSkepticalCat It's so worth it. I played Mazirek turn 4 with 2 other creatures on board. One opponent had 5 treasures. He cracked them without realizing he was going to add 15 power to my board XD
Heliod is also a decent commander to put alliance creatures into, as it’s just a consistent way to put creatures onto the battlefield and trigger those. There are better commanders for that of course, but that’s just some additional support he’s gotten too.
Ayy Demo. Please do me a huge favor! I am so interested in Etrata deck but I cannot seem to find a way to build a well-functioning deck. Will you suggest us an Etrata EDH decklist?😃
Heidar will always have his condition fulfilled from Snow-Covered Islands. So the other permanents in your deck don't really matter if they're snow or not
I feel like with the new dragons from BG, [Scion of the Ur-dragon] has gotten a lot better recently. Now you can swing in and pay 2 generic to draw 10.5 cards and get no hand limit (avg), or get 10.5 other 1/1 fliers that will trigger off of your scion it you turn it into [Utvara Hellkite] so you can just get a ton of 5/5s. Once you’ve dumped a lot of your good dragons into the bin you can just cheat a ton into play using [Ancient Brass Dragon]. Plus you’re playing a with blue, so disruption to your main game plan will be much harder for the table.
Gotta disagree with Vrondis. The commander is solid, but the restriction of saccing the tokens is the biggest deal breaker. There exists cards that can trigger off enrage repeatedly, so adding dice rolling cards just adds in redundancy. It's hard to keep your tokens on the field since you either go aggro and lose them or conserve them in a defensive play. Vrondis utilizes the dice rolling in an underwhelming way. He has an identity crisis. He would be better if he either A, allowed him to ping your own creatures instead of himself when you rolled a die or b, allowed to keep the tokens after they dealt damage.
Bennie is a big trap, in my opinion: he is good only if you can reliably create tokens during other players turns and/or in mono white. If it triggers only during your turn he's a phyrexian arena that dies to any wrath, and I don't think many decks will be happy with that. If you are running green or blue you surely have a dozen much better ways to draw cards. If you can trigger it reliably 2/3 times at every cycle, then yeah, then he's very good.
Etrata definitely got much more support than just one card. Etrata’s ability will still go off if you ninjutsu after etrata connects, and we just got a hit of ninjutsu cards from kamigawa. Satoru Umezawa is an excellent example because satoru also lets you ninjutsu etrata back in from your hand.
Heidar, Rimewind Master is a commander I've been wanting to build for a long time, but every time I think about it, I end up thinking about just using stasis and winter/static orb and then I don't build it because it sounds like cancer.
Nils belongs in a deck lead by Kros, Defence Contractor. Goad several creatures a turn and when there's no one else to go after, they have to pay Nils' propaganda tax to come after you.
Am I the only one who feels Etrata doesn't go as well with Mari the Killing -Stairs- Quill as it looks? With Etrata you obviously want to run a bunch of flickers, phasers, bounces, ninjas, whatever allows you to dodge getting her shuffled into your library. Mari meanwhile wants you to run ways to kill your opponent's creatures. This will water down your deck and if you don't draw Mari these spells don't give you the value you want.
Displacer Kitten wouldn't work with Sedris. Unearth says "if the creature would leave play, exile it." This would include the kitten's ability. This is part of the reason Sedris is underwhelming. Unearth is too hard to break.
The video is actually correct. Here's an official ruling for Sedris from 10/1/2008: "If a creature returned to the battlefield with unearth would leave the battlefield for any reason, it's exiled instead - unless the spell or ability that's causing the creature to leave the battlefield is actually trying to exile it! In that case, it succeeds at exiling it. If it later returns the creature card to the battlefield (as Oblivion Ring or Flickerwisp might, for example), the creature card will return to the battlefield as a new object with no relation to its previous existence. The unearth effect will no longer apply to it."
For those interested in Etrata, Ravenloft Adventurer from the new Baldur's Gate Commander set is essentially a second copy of Mari, The Killing Quill!
Also all the new ninjas work really well with her
Nice find. Thanks!
Quintorius, for the same reason as Sedriss. Not only is it fun to have a self mill deck in boros of all things, but there's been so much support for him like with ascent from avernus, extraction Specialist, and things of the like.
Great video Demo I shouted you out in my last video hope your doing well buddy thanks for making these they help me so much
thanks buddy.
Just made an Etrata deck, always wanted to make one and didn't have an excuse not to after Mari came out. Love the video idea, recently "buffed" commanders are a great way to have a unique commander while still feeling like it's competitive.
LOVE this video! The new Ravenloft Adventurer also puts hit counters on creatures. I might have to build an Etrata deck since I've always loved her.
I would also like to make a case for Hofri that the reason why he's underrated is because people are focusing on the spirit/token bonuses a bit too much instead of capitalizing on the rules interaction his 2nd ability.
As long as a nontoken "creature" DIES under your CONTROL, you get the trigger regardless of the zone it goes to. This means 2 things
1) Aristocrat and etb/ltb are basixally doubled because you get a chance to do everything twice.
2) Hofri can sub theme Treason effects and keep the creatures near permanently as tokens. If any of the cards that die arent creatures they done come back as creatures. Its linked to the card jot to the creature. You can steal permanents and make new removal as a snatch steal deck.
This commander also synergizes with so many other sub themes as long as you following the main plot of aristocrat engines and the Altar. The vast amount of combos and abuse he can put you through is amazing, include Turning himself into a token with a red Splinter Twin effect. And then he immensely benefits with cards like Kindred Charge as a wincon.
I'm not quite following the second idea. You can keep them as permanently as any other creature, which is not really in a format where boardwipes are aplenty. Also not sure what you mean by things not coming back as creatures, his ability literally only effects creatures. You're not gonna be stealing and destroying their artifacts and still having them exiled into nothingness for no reason?
Laezel is closer to Hardened Scales than Doubling Season
yeah, its like a Winding Constrictor, definitely not Doubling Season
Yeah, she's way too slow. You're going to background into green to build it well and there's so many better cheaper options in those colors. She's poopy.
@@craigstuckey319 weird to say poopy is a strong word but as she can help with planeswalkers as well I think she's better than you're giving credit for. Backgrounding into a color with strong planeswalkers than green could be fun, especially black or blue.
@@joshhutchins6747 depends on how you build her I guess. In green/white tokens and +1/+1 counters she's shitty though.
It effects planeswalkers the same way doubling season does. I think that’s why he said that
Etrata actually got two cards! the second one being Ravenloft Adventurer in CLB
Watchong you from the begining Demo, and I am shocked that Campfire didn't get a mention;) All the Myiojins, Phages... And it is colorless!
Keep up the great work and soon we will have colorless option for creature type changing:)
Jolrael, Mwonvuli Recluse is incredibly powerful. Jimmy Wong on the Command Zone made a deck with her and it seemed very good. Any 2 drop commander that creates a board presence early, but also is a mana sink and/or win condition seems very strong. I think people are sleeping on this card because in limited and constructed when it came out it never did anything. That makes sense, because it’s easy to imagine scenarios where you draw your card draw before you draw Jolrael, or you draw her while you’re empty handed. In Commander, where you’re going to be able to have access to her on turn 2 every game, that’s not a concern. My only problem with her is maybe, she’s a bit boring? “Pay off”s for drawing extra cards are not usually a thing, because drawing cards is already the sweetest thing you can do in Magic. I still think she’s sweet. I’m not going to build her any time soon because I have like 4 mono-green commander decks already, but I think she’s rad.
I play her in the 99 of my Eligeth, Crossroads Augur and Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix partner deck with a "hand size matters" theme and she wrecks face any time she hits the field. I could really see her being a good commander with help from stuff like:
Return of the Wildspeaker
Rishkar's Expertise
Fungal Sprouting
Realm Seekers
Sage of Ancient Lore
Masumoro, First to Live
Multani, Maro-Sorcerer
Sylvan Yeti
Surrak, the Huntcaller
Pathbreaker Ibex
Traverse the Outlands
Hofri and Blitz is a good shout out, which made me realize that Solitude is absolutely busted with Hofri. Get two Swords from one Evoke and you don’t even have to Ephemerate it? Yes please!
14:09 I thought exactly that, when I saw all these blitz cards and was so happy for an Update of my Juri Deck 🤗
I've had a Heliod, God of the Sun deck basically since the card got spoiled. While making creature/enchantment tokens is for free is obviously powerful, esp w all the new cards like you've mentioned, his static ability granting vigilance to all your creatures is, imo, WAY more powerful than it looks. Getting to attack every turn while still presenting a formidable defense is incredibly valuable, especially in as hectic of games as you get in commander. It allows you to apply real pressure to control/combo strats while still respecting other creature based decks.
Ultimately, I think it boils down to the fact that 2WW for a 2/1 (with flash+vigilance mind you) is just not very powerful. Drawing off Welcoming Vampire and Bennie is great, but a 4 mana creature is going to outpace that any day of the week. That's competing with stuff like Hero of Bladehold and Adeline (which only costs 3!). Hell, Odric Master Tactician basically wins the game if you manage to untap with him. My point here being that, while making tokens is useful and powerful, it's at a pretty awful rate. You're not gonna be making 2+ tokens a cycle until T5 and even then, an 8 mana 4/2 that divinates isn't gonna compete with like, even the average 5 drop. while you're making goblin pikers, your opponents are casting Bolas's Citadel and Muxus.
Global vigilance is way more relevant than you think it is! Jam some creatures! Enter the red zone!
those new ways of copying creatures as nonlegendary also help etrata a lot
Ghave continues to always get better :P
Any thoughts on making a Rienne, Angel of Rebirth deck? Seems like a fun naya "aristocrat" theme?
I think the new phasing cards also helped a ton for etrata decks
Syr Carah from Eldraine got a LOT better over the course of the last year(and some change), mainly due to Strixhaven's unlimited common, Dragon's Approach and Kaldheim's Birgi. Before that she wasn't guaranteed consistent impulse value and with it she has turned into a storm deck at best and massive bomb spell enabler at worst.
But also adding on to that you have cards in every set that is either new impulse or new burn or new spell copying and really amps up the consistency. Cards like Invoke Calamity, Delayed Fireblast, several cards from Innistraad, etc.
She has always been a favorite of mine since her debut but she has really exploded with the newer cards from impulse to burn.
surprised you didn't mention raven loft adventurer for etrata which came out in this set
If heliod ever comes to the "underwhelming commanders" poll that will be an easy choice for me
i will add it to the next one
Mazirek is so underrated, I played at my LGS tonight and everyone was using treasures. Meaning my board was quickly pumped.
Ohhh, that's a great idea! I have him, maybe I should build something.
@@TheSkepticalCat It's so worth it. I played Mazirek turn 4 with 2 other creatures on board. One opponent had 5 treasures. He cracked them without realizing he was going to add 15 power to my board XD
Really solid idea for a series Demo! :]
I used to have a sedris deck, but it felt so feast or famine. Maybe I’ll give it a try again
Heliod is also a decent commander to put alliance creatures into, as it’s just a consistent way to put creatures onto the battlefield and trigger those. There are better commanders for that of course, but that’s just some additional support he’s gotten too.
Lae'zel is grreat in any experience deck she can go in to doule rhe experience counters you get
Ayy Demo. Please do me a huge favor! I am so interested in Etrata deck but I cannot seem to find a way to build a well-functioning deck. Will you suggest us an Etrata EDH decklist?😃
Is the exiling from unearth a replacement effect or touch the creature the grav 'when it leavs'?
Nerver mind, listen to Demo answerd my question. Yes, it's a replacement.
Honestly, pretty much every izzet spell slinger commander had a ton of awesome additions since Strixhaven
I just jammed Squee into the new Jaxis deck that I built, probably the best card in the 99 to be honest, it’s just so good. ^_^
Heidar will always have his condition fulfilled from Snow-Covered Islands. So the other permanents in your deck don't really matter if they're snow or not
Etrata got another card with Baldurs gate in Ravenloft Adventurer
I feel like with the new dragons from BG, [Scion of the Ur-dragon] has gotten a lot better recently. Now you can swing in and pay 2 generic to draw 10.5 cards and get no hand limit (avg), or get 10.5 other 1/1 fliers that will trigger off of your scion it you turn it into [Utvara Hellkite] so you can just get a ton of 5/5s. Once you’ve dumped a lot of your good dragons into the bin you can just cheat a ton into play using [Ancient Brass Dragon]. Plus you’re playing a with blue, so disruption to your main game plan will be much harder for the table.
Turn scion into nicol bolas. Too much fun oml the despair in your opponents never gets old
Wow. That’s a great Format
Excellent idea for a video.
Gotta disagree with Vrondis. The commander is solid, but the restriction of saccing the tokens is the biggest deal breaker. There exists cards that can trigger off enrage repeatedly, so adding dice rolling cards just adds in redundancy. It's hard to keep your tokens on the field since you either go aggro and lose them or conserve them in a defensive play. Vrondis utilizes the dice rolling in an underwhelming way. He has an identity crisis. He would be better if he either A, allowed him to ping your own creatures instead of himself when you rolled a die or b, allowed to keep the tokens after they dealt damage.
Bennie is a big trap, in my opinion: he is good only if you can reliably create tokens during other players turns and/or in mono white. If it triggers only during your turn he's a phyrexian arena that dies to any wrath, and I don't think many decks will be happy with that. If you are running green or blue you surely have a dozen much better ways to draw cards.
If you can trigger it reliably 2/3 times at every cycle, then yeah, then he's very good.
how many cards in the format draw you 2/3 cards per turn cycle? your standards are incredibly high.
Etrata definitely got much more support than just one card. Etrata’s ability will still go off if you ninjutsu after etrata connects, and we just got a hit of ninjutsu cards from kamigawa. Satoru Umezawa is an excellent example because satoru also lets you ninjutsu etrata back in from your hand.
shoulda started this video with a quick monty python clip..."she turned me into a newt....I got better"
Heidar, Rimewind Master is a commander I've been wanting to build for a long time, but every time I think about it, I end up thinking about just using stasis and winter/static orb and then I don't build it because it sounds like cancer.
Fain player here. He is so fun and gets support every set
Nils belongs in a deck lead by Kros, Defence Contractor. Goad several creatures a turn and when there's no one else to go after, they have to pay Nils' propaganda tax to come after you.
oh this is a good series
Am I the only one who feels Etrata doesn't go as well with Mari the Killing -Stairs- Quill as it looks? With Etrata you obviously want to run a bunch of flickers, phasers, bounces, ninjas, whatever allows you to dodge getting her shuffled into your library. Mari meanwhile wants you to run ways to kill your opponent's creatures. This will water down your deck and if you don't draw Mari these spells don't give you the value you want.
Nice.
Displacer Kitten wouldn't work with Sedris. Unearth says "if the creature would leave play, exile it." This would include the kitten's ability. This is part of the reason Sedris is underwhelming. Unearth is too hard to break.
The video is actually correct. Here's an official ruling for Sedris from 10/1/2008: "If a creature returned to the battlefield with unearth would leave the battlefield for any reason, it's exiled instead - unless the spell or ability that's causing the creature to leave the battlefield is actually trying to exile it! In that case, it succeeds at exiling it. If it later returns the creature card to the battlefield (as Oblivion Ring or Flickerwisp might, for example), the creature card will return to the battlefield as a new object with no relation to its previous existence. The unearth effect will no longer apply to it."
@@coreyroberson4550 wow, that's pretty neat then
big problem with Hofri is that he looks like a boring dude. just standing there being a boring dude
Hofri Ghostforge is unpopular because of the bad art.
Bolster still stinks