Most Useless Commander?
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on July 30, 2016, 5:16 p.m. by Livelinkon
What Commander do you think is so useless that it should never be used? Explain why you feel it is so bad.
Gidgetimer says... #4
No, there are enough things like Torpor Orb that phage isn't the worst. I agree with just taking a look at the set "Legends". Outside of the cards in that set I would say Lord of Tresserhorn.
July 30, 2016 5:35 p.m.
DruneGrey look up a deck list, she's completely playable. Also, there a general by tier list on here. Use that.
July 30, 2016 5:36 p.m.
I've made it my goal to make a Decent Yukora, the Prisoner edh deck. I have been fairly unsuccessful.
July 30, 2016 5:43 p.m.
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/list-multiplayer-edh-generals-by-tier/
July 30, 2016 5:50 p.m.
iBleedPunk says... #11
Surprised no one has mentioned the obvious Dragonlord Kolaghan
July 30, 2016 6:18 p.m.
Faceless_Being that card is OP compared to Ur-Drago, Jedit Ojanen and, the worst of all commanders, Axelrod Gunnarson...
July 30, 2016 6:28 p.m.
The_Raven, Axelrod Gunnarson is far from useless; he has the fantastic ability of giving you an excuse to say the name Axelrod Gunnarson.
July 30, 2016 6:33 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #14
6/5 flying, haste, other creatures you control have haste for 6 mana is much better than many other legendaries that have been printed. True the last ability is useless in commander, but the rest of him is good enough that it doesn't matter. Pavel Maliki is the same CMC in the same colors and I feel is much worse.
July 30, 2016 6:44 p.m.
I came in to say Haakon, Stromgald Scourge as well. He's no longer impossible to use, thanks to Command Beacon, but you still have to discard him after you get him into your hand, then cast him. And then after all that work you really only get a 3/3 that keeps hurting you when it dies. Casting him from the graveyard is nice, but compared to a normal commander you're only actually saving yourself the commander tax. You get to reanimate your knights, but there's only 28 of them you can use (including Haakon), and most of them are really bad.
July 30, 2016 6:55 p.m.
Sivitri Scarzam. Cool character, horrible card. Overcosted vanilla needs no explanation.
July 30, 2016 7 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #18
You want to talk about overcosted vanillas? Torsten Von Ursus 5/5 vanilla for 6 in green? The color that has Polukranos, World Eater?
July 30, 2016 7:13 p.m.
DERPLINGSUPREME says... #19
@Raging_Squiggle to be fair he does let you play mono black 
@Faceless_Being look at him without his third ability. He's not even bad! 6/5 for 6 that gives haste to you stuff is good.
July 30, 2016 8:23 p.m. Edited.
Vaevictis Asmadi, and legends is probably your best bet for useless commanders!
@Faceless_Being, at least Dragonlord Kolaghan can hammer mono 
decks running Relentless Rats or Shadowborn Apostle!
July 30, 2016 8:30 p.m. Edited.
How about Mannichi, the Fevered Dream? I can't find anything in 
that makes creatures' power 0, so that's useless. And if you try to use its ability to beat down with things such as Bottle Gnomes, an Electrickery can wipe your board.
July 30, 2016 8:41 p.m.
All this talk about the Legends set and Dragonlord Kolaghan and not one mention of...
Emmara Tandris. I laugh at anyone who actually uses her because there's more superior (and just as budget-y options).
July 30, 2016 8:43 p.m.
I played against Emmara Tandris once, she is actually really strong due to 
's ramp, and 
's awesome token production.
July 30, 2016 8:48 p.m.
DERPLINGSUPREME says... #24
@Atony1400 but was it the deck that was scary or the commander?
July 30, 2016 8:54 p.m.
I don't know. I feel that tokens were meant to run . The reason being is because of one keyword: Haste. You can't expect to cast an Avenger of Zendikar and have it just sit there will a ton of plant tokens and hope it survives the round. Everyone will take note of it. With Red, however, you can ensure those tokens get put to good use and sneak some damage through before they hit the bin. Purphoros, God of the Forge is also really good at this.
It's like running flicker in mono-white. It's a neat concept, but it won't last, even when Rhys the Redeemed exists.
July 30, 2016 8:54 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #26
Tokens definitely do not need red. Haste isn't that big of a deal. You can produce them at instant speed or you can just lay them out and force the inevitable wipe. Token decks should have a way to bounce back from a wipe anyway. I honestly feel that you gain more from adding black to a GW token deck than you do from adding red.
July 30, 2016 9:05 p.m.
From my experiences, red has historically been a godsend.
Purphoros, God of the Forge, Ogre Battledriver/In the Web of War, Titanic Ultimatum, Xenagos, the Reveler, Dragon Broodmother, Sarkhan Vol, and Vicious Shadows are some of the best red cards to use with tokens. Three of them kill the entire table quickly if left unchecked.
July 30, 2016 9:09 p.m.
@DERPLINGSUPREME, the deck was mediocre but Emmara Tandris really pushed the deck into almost unbearable status. I believe I lost that game a turn after Trostani's Summoner resolved.
July 30, 2016 9:15 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #29
Black tutors and Smothering Abomination make the deck much more consistent. Grave Pact punishes people for not having as many creatures as you. Blood Artist and Zulaport Cutthroat disincentivize wiping if you are not actively attacking the person with the wipe.
TBH though, neither red nor black are needed. Selesnya tokens does just fine in most playgroups. If they need to build a stronger deck Ghave combo tokens is a much better deck than any Naya token deck that I can think of.
July 30, 2016 9:30 p.m.
SamCre1993 says... #30
The cycle of 5 grandeur legends from future sight seem pretty useless.
and friends
July 30, 2016 10:08 p.m.
Raging_Squiggle says... #31
Korlash is a powerful voltron commander. He continues to get bigger with built in regeneration.
Sure the grandeur is useless, but the other abilities more than make up for it.
July 30, 2016 10:30 p.m.
SamCre1993 says... #32
I moreso meant the group, and listed korlash because he's the only one I know off the top of my head.
Sure regen is nice but I believe he is outclassed by the other mono black commanders
July 30, 2016 11:16 p.m.
DERPLINGSUPREME says... #33
@SamCre1993 well aside from skittles he's the best if you don't wanted to be hated out and play coltron. and he has a cool promo art! Korlash, Heir to Blackblade
July 31, 2016 2:52 a.m.
If you're playing Linessa, Zephyr Mage as your commander, you can actually use the grandeur. I think. But it's pointless to pull of because you can just Mind Bomb people to death instead.
First, you need an original Tamiyo emblem. That's why this is ridiculously unlikely. Then you play clone on Linessa and legend rule your actual Linessa. Let her go to the graveyard. Tamiyo emblem adds it back. Now you can loop the grandeur.
Haakon actually allows you to loop Nameless Inversion, but that's the only real thing you can do with him.
Overall, I think that various creatures from legends and Phage are the worst.
July 31, 2016 5:28 a.m.
MagicalHacker says... #37
So if you could design the most broken commander, it would have these three qualities: low converted mana cost, the color identity of many powerful colors, and abilities that are powerful. You won't find a single tier 1 commander lacking any of those except maybe when the color identity and abilities are so good that it excuses a high cmc. So, the worst commander then must lack all three of those qualities, right?
This means DERPLINGSUPREME, Gidgetimer, Faceless_Being, The_Raven, Bushwhack, K34, Atony1400, Phaetion, and DarkLaw missed the mark when they answered multicolored commanders. There are even worse commanders than playing a multicolored 99-card highlander deck.
It also means that suggesting a mono-green, mono-blue, or mono-green commander is not as bad as possible, so DruneGrey, NecroPony, fadelightningmm, Raging_Squiggle, __fense, SamCre1993, and DarkLaw were also off when they suggested that there can't be anything worse than running a mono-blue, mono-black, or mono-green 99-card highlander deck.
Colorless would be the worst color identity, but all the commanders have powerful abilities.
Mono-red is the next worst color identity (it's picked up popularity after getting powerful commanders as opposed to powerful cards for the 99), so let's look for an expensive vanilla card or an expensive self-hurting card. So objectively, 123katty's suggestion of Mannichi, the Fevered Dream and SamCre1993's suggestion of Tarox Bladewing were the closest of the previous comments, but I intend to show that those commanders are still not the worst. They both had non-hurting abilities, and they both were pretty inexpensive.
It is my argument that the worst commander possible is Myojin of Infinite Rage.
Not only is it the most expensive mono-red commander, it also has no ability unless you can move it from the command zone to your hand and then cast it. Even if you manage to do that in the color that has literally one tutor to do that at 4 mana or less, it only gives you the option of an indestructible but chump-blockable 7/4 or destroying all lands, including yours. Otherwise, I hope you like paying 10 mana for a vanilla creature that can be killed with a Mizzium Mortars.
I hope you can see why it is definitely the worst commander, and if I missed anything, I'd love to discuss it more!
July 31, 2016 5:56 a.m.
MagicalHacker I disagree. The person asked what the most useless commander is. My interpretation of this is that he was talking about the usefulness of the commander itself- it's power and what it synergises with, hence promoting a certain build of deck. If a person were to build a Lady Orca deck, then odds are, they aren't using the commander at all. They will just be using the deck, casting Lady Orca only if it is better than the alternatives, as it doesn't support any themes. Myojin of Infinite Rage, in contrast, would promote some crazy brewing in order to make it happen. This sort of commander actually does things, and a vanilla commander does not.
TLDR: I think that they are talking about the commander, not the deck.
July 31, 2016 7:38 a.m.
MagicalHacker says... #40
DarkLaw, I agree that he was talking about the commander, but the deck that is built and the commander affect each other, so their input are nearly inseparable. Just out of curiosity, if you were playing for money in a pod, and each player got to pick another player's commander, but commander only, but you couldn't know which player you were picking for, would you let your opponent have a rakdos deck with a useless commander or a mono-red deck with a useless commander? Would you let your opponent have a 7-drop 7/4 or a 10-drop 7/4? The choice seems obvious to me: Lady Orca and every multicolored legend are less useless commanders than Myojin of Infinite Rage because their decks would be better than MoIR's deck due to having multiple colors in it and making it stronger.
July 31, 2016 9:02 a.m.
Gidgetimer says... #41
MagicalHacker A counterpoint to what you posit as the qualities of a strong commander is Arcum Dagsson. He is monocolor and, while his CMC is not high, it is not low. I also do not think I could find anyone who would argue that Arcum isn't tier 1. His powerful abilities more than make up for it though.
As DarkLaw said, the question was about commanders that should never be played, not about how to make the worse possible commander deck. While Jerrard of the Closed Fist or Livonya Silone could helm a goodstuff deck the deck would be much better with just swapping in Xenagos, God of Revels as the commander. You need to judge a commander by how good of a deck can be built around them, or how well they stack up to other commanders in the same colors in a generic good stuff deck. I am not going to say that Myojin of Infinite Rage is a good commander, but I refute your hypothesis that he is worse than other commanders just because of his color identity.
July 31, 2016 9:03 a.m.
MagicalHacker says... #44
Gidgetimer, I think Arcum Dagsson is not expensive, has a good color identity, and has a powerful ability.
You say the question is about the commander, not the deck, but the commander and the deck are tied together. The commander dictates the legality for cards in the 99, so to try to separate the two is either not smart or not possible. Remember, the question asked for one commander, one that is worse than all the rest, so would you be willing to say that Livonya Silone is worse than MoIR? For me, I'd choose literally every other commander first before MoIR. Even Livonya Silone.
July 31, 2016 10:13 a.m.
Postmortal_Pop says... #45
I'd like to call out two of the previous posts, Lord of Tresserhorn and Zurgo Bellstriker, are actually really powerful.
In commander, lordy's additional costs are negligible at worst and helpful at best and in grixis colors it's not even hard to get commander damage the token he drops. Even ignoring the deck, he's a regenerating 10/4 for 4 mana. Zurgo, may seem weak, but in effect you never have to pay commander tax, you just dash again and play it from your hand. Pairing him with instant buffs like Titan's Strength and I've managed commander damage wins on turn 4 with little effort.
I would have to say Balthor the Stout is pretty useless, his ability only effects 31 cards in existence, of which 7 (not including himself) can't be played because they aren't mono red or came out in an un-set. He's mono red so he has no access to Xenograft like abilities. There's even a better commander in the list of cards he can effect, Kamahl, Pit Fighter, Who by the way it's even quoted on balthor's card.
July 31, 2016 12:36 p.m.
ComradeJim270 says... #46
@DarkLaw: Phage is hilarious though. Deathtouch for players!
Yes, you can cast her without losing. Torpor Orb, Sundial of the Infinite, Platinum Angel, Command Beacon...
Janky, but not useless.
July 31, 2016 12:50 p.m.
DERPLINGSUPREME says... #47
now that I'm thinking of it, Skeleton Ship is pretty crap, though I do have a fondness for him since I built him once.
July 31, 2016 12:57 p.m.
ComradeJim270 The biggest problem is that it is so easy to lose because a blue player bounces your torpor orb while Phage is on the stack. No other commander can cost you the game for playing them like Phage. But don't get me wrong. If you can pull her off, she's decent.
MagicalHacker The commander and deck are closely linked (apart from when they are not). The problem, of course, is that they are not the same. The guy who posted this stated exactly "commander". Therefore, you should ignore the deck.
July 31, 2016 4:01 p.m.
Dredge4life says... #50
Even so, a vanilla 7RRR 7/4 seems really bad. I would go as far to say it's in the top 5 terrible commanders anyway.
DERPLINGSUPREME says... #2
take a good, long look at the set "legends"
July 30, 2016 5:23 p.m.