Non-White TL/EDH MEGA-DECK
Commander / EDH*
210 VIEWS
Jund Commanders and Leaders —Oct. 4, 2019
If I don’t discuss a card, it’s because that card didn’t feel like a card I’d want to play, or I didn’t think it was a viable commander. If I miss any really good options for my commander or leader, please let me know.
Adun Oakenshield TL?
Gyrus, Waker of Corpses TL???
Xira Arien TL?
Honestly, looking through this list, most of these cards don’t appeal to me. That said, there were a few that could work if I really felt that I needed to go with Jund. First, Gyrus, Waker of Corpses is really interesting to me as a leader. I could use it as my commander, I guess, but it just isn’t that interesting as an effect to me. I want my commander to have more of an impact on the game than being big, and allowing me to reuse creatures for a turn. I like how it allows me to essentially dash in creatures from my graveyard, retriggering any enter the battlefield effects they may have, and another cool feature that Gyrus has is that it doesn’t really lose value when I recast it from the command zone. I’d much rather spend 9 mana on an 9/9 than spend 12 mana on a 6/5 that’s only really worth 6 but I’m looking for a bit more in a commander, especially since I’ll probably be able to shuffle my graveyard into my library multiple times throughout the game. If I were to use a Jund commander, Gyrus is there, but I know that there are better commanders for me to choose from. As a leader, however, Gyrus seems awesome. For one thing, he kind of breaks the 3 mana limit by having X in his cost, and bringing cards back from the graveyard is much more useful in a format that doesn’t have any Twilight’s Calls or Aphetto Dredgings in it. For now, I think I’m going to move on, but I may come back to him later when I’m searching for my leader.
Kresh the Bloodbraided intrigues me. I can just imagine… Kresh is on the board. I also have a Dread Shade, and a Urabrask the Hidden out. My opponents have full boards with 4+ creatures each; the collective power of all my opponents’ creatures is something like 45. It’s my turn. I draw. GASP! In my hand, I now have Plague Wind. I cast it. SUDDENLY, all of my opponents’ creatures are gone except for one Seraph of the Suns (dang) and I have a 44/44 legendary human warrior, my 3/3 shade, and a praetor that makes all my opponents’ creatures enter tapped. Those are the kind of game-changing plays that I like. Kresh is definitely an interesting commander, but I really doubt that I’ll be using him, because besides Plague Wind and card:Garruk’s Wake, there aren’t any cards that really use him to his full potential. Unless there’s some way to destroy a lot of creatures in a short amount of time, he’ll never get very big, because a 10/10 is a threat that most players can kill and will kill before it becomes much bigger than that. So, Kresh just won’t be a very good commander 97.9% of the time (I calculated it) and, in the other 2.1% of games, I have the potential to dominate for a few turns until someone kills Kresh through literally any means other than damage, because Jund doesn’t have any decent counterspells besides Avoid Fate, and Regenerate isn’t a very good answer to Murder.
I like the sound of Vaevictis Asmadi, the Dire, but without much mill in these colors (besides Altar of the Brood, Waste Not, and Dread Summons, but 3/99 cards isn’t enough to make a mill deck), I don’t see much of a reason to play it. Sure, if one of my opponents plays a Top, I can get rid of it and hope that they don’t draw their Paradox Engine, but aside from getting rid of annoying cards I don’t see much of a purpose in playing Vaevictis.
This concludes my exploration of Jund commanders, and since the only options for a Jund leader, besides Gyrus, are Adun and Xira, I don’t think I’ll be using these colors unless I decide to use Yidris as my commander, and Gyrus as my leader.