Finishing the Commander Cycle
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on April 10, 2019, 2:10 p.m. by ZendikariWol
SynergyBuild brought this up on the unfinished cycles thread, and I was reminded that... we haven't had ally-colored commander decks yet. In fact, we've had every other color combo except colorless, but still no allies. So this begs the question, if you could build the ally commander precons, what strategies would you employ for each color? Feel free to discuss, feel free to disagree, and please be civil, folks.
Chandra585 says... #3
There is already a / one, the cats deck from C17. I agree with PhotogenicParasympathetic about the ninjas. For Rakdos, I want a suicide burn/chaos deck, for Gruul I want anything other than Stompy, for Azorius I want hardcore Taxes/no fun allowed, but they would never print that, so B/W birds might be cool
April 10, 2019 4:43 p.m.
MagicalHacker says... #4
Well, I'll answer this based on what I've built my existing allied colored commander decks on my YouTube channel:
Azorius draw-go
Dimir theft
Rakdos (none yet, but probably dragons)
Gruul enchantress
Selesnya (?????? bc I'm an izzet-aligned player)
April 10, 2019 5:06 p.m. Edited.
ZendikariWol says... #5
My say is:
Azorius: Fliers. OG Ravnica had this as a sort of subtheme and it’s returned a little in varying sets. It could also become birds.
Dimir: Milljack. “What on earth is that?”, you ask? It’s stealing spells from graveyards, of course! And, of course, first milling those spells over.
Gruul: ... I don’t really know. That was kinda something I wanted to consult the forums about.
Rakdos: Self-Harm. Ideally, featuring a commander whose rules text reads “whenever you lose life, each opponent loses half that much life, rounded down.”, with a subcommander whose text is “whenever each player loses life,” do something?
Selesnya: Tokens. It has a shitload of support and still enough untapped potential to make for interesting exclusives.
April 10, 2019 7:38 p.m.
If they go down this road I would love to see partner come back on the mono colored legends like they did a few years back on the 4 color.
I like the Gruul enchantress idea above as well as the Dimir Milljack.
Rakdos self-harm I like, or a coin flip/random commander. Maybe have both built into the deck.
Azorious Fliers or flicker effects. You could probably have both effects in the same deck between commanders and just print a bunch U/W ETB fliers.
Selesnya, give them a stompy/reanimator strategy. why? The two colors can do this and it would be a totally different deck then anything else G/W does already.
April 11, 2019 10:03 a.m.
ZendikariWol says... #7
Does Gruul have much enchantressy stuff? I wasn't aware.
April 11, 2019 10:12 a.m.
MagicalHacker says... #8
I like a lot of red enchantments, like Blood Moon , Blood Sun , Burning Earth , Curse of Opulence , Mark of Fury , Stranglehold , Sunbird's Invocation , Vicious Shadows , Widespread Panic , Predatory Advantage , and two Theros Gods.
April 11, 2019 11:32 a.m.
Chandra585 says... #9
MagicalHacker three Theros gods: Purphoros, God of the Forge , Nylea, God of the Hunt , and Xenagos, God of Revels . The only thing is that they would need to print more Enchantresses that aren’t white to get the critical mass of about 8.
April 11, 2019 11:46 a.m.
ZendikariWol says... #10
Yeah, you right, MagicalHacker. DUDE what if was control!? In a cycle with in it!! That would be hilarious and also probably a ton of fun to play. Cindervines , Ruric Thar, the Unbowed , there are a surprising amount of green cards designed more or less exclusively to limit the opponents' options. That combined with it's surprisingly powerful and versatile removal- fight effects for creatures, Naturalize effects for artifacts/enchantments, strong creatures for planeswalkers, what CAN'T kill!?
April 11, 2019 11:51 a.m.
Chandra585 says... #11
ZendikariWol I’m working on a Ruric Thar, the Unbowed Stax build. I can post it on your wall if you’re interested?
April 11, 2019 12:05 p.m.
ZendikariWol says... #12
Oh, I don't touch stax. Not with a 39.5' pole. I am 100% down to make it unpleasant for opponents to do certain things such as casting spells or attacking, but my key word there is "unpleasant". Not impossible, just unpleasant.
Idk what exactly you mean by stax, but I strive to make decks as interactive and fun for the whole table as I possibly can, so I probably won't be of much help if you're looking for serious, competitive stax pieces. If not, I'll see what I can do.
April 11, 2019 12:12 p.m.
Chandra585 says... #13
Competitive stax is hard without Black and White, but things like Blood Moon , Scab-Clan Berserker , and friends are it really easy to do something that makes it VERY hard for people to mess with your late game stompies plan.
April 11, 2019 1:35 p.m.
MagicalHacker says... #14
Chandra585, there are currently four, and I use Green Sun's Zenith , Gamble , and Worldly Tutor to bring that number up to seven. As for the gods, I wasn't including Nylea because I was talking more about what red brings to the table :)
ZendikariWol, red green control could be pretty funny! You could play cards that grant the artifact type and then play a bunch of ways to destroy artifacts! That seems pretty sweet for a red green deck.
April 11, 2019 4:24 p.m.
Last_Laugh says... #15
We haven't seen friendly color pairs because they're already so prevalent and thus much harder to design something that would entice you to buy it more than shards/wedges/enemy colors would. There's probably as many friendly color commander options already available as there are shards/wedges/enemy colors combined.
April 11, 2019 6:56 p.m. Edited.
PhotogenicParasympathetic says... #16
ZendikariWol I laughed at "39.5 foot pole." One of the best songs ever written.
April 12, 2019 10:41 a.m.
ZendikariWol says... #17
Absolutely agree, PhotogenicParasympathetic! Remade so many times, but nobody does it like the original.
Anyhow, more on topic. Seriously, what can one do with Gruul other than big angry creatures (and apparently some light staxing)? So far I have... a couple ideas.
1) Landfall! The fans love it so it would make sense, and it's a very strong color combo for land ramp. Problem is, Lord Windgrace kinda already stole the thunder on that one.
2) X. ... what? X. Think about it. Red has an abundance of ramp, it has an abundance of hydras, it has Rosheen Meanderer . What more is there to want? Mana ramp and X-spells.
3) Werewolf Tribal. A beloved tribe, but kinda iffy in commander, where your werewolves are practically guaranteed to remain human forever.
4) Kicker?? Back with the mana ramp thing (it would be very helpful with kicker costs), we could also print some cards in the same vein as Hallar, the Firefletcher ! There are a shocking amount of red/green kicker cards, plus fifteen exclusives, plus lands, rocks, and perhaps a couple big-ass creatures for good measure? Seems crazy but it might work.
5) Attack Triggers. A little more typical, yes, but with Grand Warlord Radha , Tana, the Bloodsower , and Xenagos, the Reveler ? That plus some bloodthirst, add some more creatures that trigger effects when they attack or deal damage? Could actually be kinda fun.
April 12, 2019 11:02 a.m.
ZendikariWol says... #18
Sorry to awaken a dead forum, but I’ve been building a lot of legends lately and... how do these look for ally commanders?
Azorius Commander
Flying
Whenever you cast a spell with flying, you get an experience counter.
At the beginning of combat on your turn, creatures you control with flying get +X/+X, where X is the number of experience counters you have.
3/3
Dimir Commander
Whenever you cast a spell an opponent owns, you get an experience counter.
At the beginning of each opponent’s end step, exile the top card of that player’s library. You may cast it without paying its mana cost if that cost is less than or equal to the number of experience counters you have.
1/4
Rakdos Commander
Haste
Whenever a source you control causes you to lose life, you get an experience counter.
At the beginning of your end step, deal X damage to each opponent, where X is the number of experience counters you have.
2/2
Gruul Commander
Trample
At the beginning of each postcombat main phase, if a creature attacked you this turn, you get an experience counter.
Creatures attacking your opponents get +X/+0 and trample until the end of the turn, where X is the number of experience counters you have.
4/4
Selesnya Commander
Vigilance
Whenever you cast a creature spell, you get an experience counter.
At the beginning of your upkeep, you gain half X life and draw half X cards, where X is the number of experience counters you have. Round down each time.
4/6
Also I didn’t notice this until after writing it all out but the primary colors are WUBRG from the top down, and the secondary colors are WUBRG from bottom to top going down.
April 21, 2019 6:28 p.m.
Last_Laugh says... #19
Azorius - Busted. A go wide flyers strategy would be gross. Up to 2 target creatures get that buff seems more reasonable.
Dimir - Too hard to get your first few experience counters, other than that I like the twist. Maybe 'if it's 2 plus the number of experience counters' and instead of a guaranteed once per turn it's a combat damage trigger and has it has Intimidate or another form of evasion.
Rakdos - Broken beyond repair. It's too easy of a win off of Necropotence etc. on turn 3.
Gruul - Kind of uninspiring but to be fair most of Gruul is.
Selesnya - Too easy to get experience counters coupled with a good payoff. I like the payoff but am not sure what to do about getting experience counters other than make it a bit harder to build up experience... maybe a caveat making it similar to Evolve but just bigger power or toughness than your experience.
April 21, 2019 7:30 p.m. Edited.
ZendikariWol says... #20
Hoo shit. Yeah you’re not wrong. Rakdos and Azorius def need some tweaking. Honestly I forgot about all those tier decks that use stuff like... well, all the cards you listed. Idk about the Selesnya one- it’s 6 mana, that seems like balance enough? How many creatures are you going to be casting in a turn?
And I agree, the Gruul is kinda uninspired but I tried a few designs and believe it or not this was the best I could do. If you have any ideas, PLEASE, Gruul needs to have some creativity.
Here are my tweaks, whaddaya think?
azorius commander
Flying
Whenever you cast a spell with flying, you get an experience counter.
At the beginning of combat on your turn, up to two target creatures you control with flying get +X/+X, where X is the number of experience counters you have.
3/3
dimir commander
Whenever you cast a spell an opponent owns, you get an experience counter.
At the beginning of each opponent’s end step, exile the top card of that player’s library. You may cast it without paying its mana cost if that cost is less than or equal to 1+ the number of experience counters you have.
1/4
rakdos commander
Haste
Whenever a source you control causes you to lose 2 or more life, you get an experience counter.
At the beginning of your end step, deal X damage to each opponent, where X is the number of experience counters you have.
2/2
gruul commander
Trample
At the beginning of each postcombat main phase, if a creature attacked you this turn, you get an experience counter.
Creatures attacking your opponents get +X/+0 and trample until the end of the turn, where X is the number of experience counters you have.
4/4
selesnya commander
Vigilance
Whenever you cast a creature spell, you get an experience counter. At the beginning of your upkeep, you gain half X life and draw half X cards, where X is the number of experience counters you have. Round down each time.
4/6
Questions: should Rakdos be 3 or more? Also PLEASE do you have any other Gruul ideas?
April 21, 2019 8 p.m.
Last_Laugh says... #21
My problem with the Selesnya one is there's not really a cap to the experience counters so drawing a buttload of cards and gaining life each turn guaranteed on your turn is really really good. If you add a cap like in my example then you aren't going to reliably get beyond 4 cards/life which is still amazing. When you get those cards also matters... beginning of turn is probably too good.
Selesnya-
Vigilance
Whenever you cast a creature spell with greater cmc (or p/t) than your experience counters, you get an experience counter.
At the beginning of your end step you draw half X and gain half X life rounded down where X is the number of experience counters you have.
2/4
April 21, 2019 8:16 p.m.
Last_Laugh says... #23
The others are probably fine (besides Rakdos, see below) and I'm no better at creating Gruul legendaries than you or anyone at WotC lol... especially an experience counter one.
I like that the Rakdos one is a hastey low drop creature and wouldn't want to change that. I also think the 2 life lost to get an experience counter fixes that part also. However the payoff is pretty good because the experience counters don't go away and as a 2 drop he's super easy to recast. He'll also be coupled with every aristocrat card in black/red, Purphoros/tokens, and/or Exsanguinate/Gary and that bleeding adds up fast. Maybe to 1 opponent instead of all, half X again, or both. If both I'd make it so the experience counters aren't just limited to self inflicted life loss to make it so your opponents can give you experience too.
PhotogenicParasympathetic says... #2
If isn't ninjas I might cry.
April 10, 2019 3:43 p.m.