Let's build around Unplayable Commanders; Bruse Tarel, Boorish Herder

Commander Deck Help forum

Posted on Nov. 12, 2016, 7:59 p.m. by joecool1299

Happy Birthday To me!

What makes an Unplayable commander?

I'm using EDHREC'S list of Unplayable commander's. They are commander's that have less then three decks on tapped out, you can find the list here.


List of EDHREC unplayed commanders

Casual ooctopus

SCORE: 8 | 4 COMMENTS | 5396 VIEWS | IN 7 FOLDERS


How does this work?

I'll randomly select a commander. I'll build the rough skeleton. You send me suggestions for weird cards for it. And we'll cut it down and ship it. Let's put the minds of the internet to the test

Why would you build around (Insert bad commander) when you could play (Insert better commander in the same archetype or colors) instead, what's the point?

First off the object should not be to just build good stuff with X. If we're building Rohgahh of Kher Keep we aren't building R/B good stuff. We're building around Rohgahh of Kher Keep. Weird drawbacks and neat side effects and all.

Because if you limit yourself to just the best deck of their colors, you limit yourself to 30 decks in the entirety of the format (Mono color, guilds, shards ect), But the great thing about commander is that there are hundreds of ways to build around one commander. I can build Zedruu the Greathearted as a prison deck, a evil santa deck, a group hug deck, Heck I could build voltron Zedruu, Sky's the limit.

So instead of simply looking at the cards and seeing what they aren't, let's look and see what they bring to the table. No matter how bad it looks. No matter how weird it is.

Plus it'll be a lot of fun.

TLDR; What's the deck already

Pang Tong, "Young Phoenix"

Another Mono White Commander??

Heh.

Hehe.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Goes on murderous Rampage

Comes back after drinking a cup of tea

You know? I'm kinda sick of Mono white. Let's do something else.

Well they came out with the new commander set. I'm sure there is at least a couple of unplayable commanders.

Hmmmmmmmmm. What's the wheel of randomness say?

Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder

Okay, let's build around Our Heavy metal Herder.

"OBJECTION! Bruse Tarl is not an Unplayable commander

Au contraire! EDHREC does say that Bruse Tarl has 44 decks buuuuuuuuut if you scroll down, you find all these partner combination that have stone zero decks built around them.

So let's take a look. EDHREC defines unplayable commanders as 3 decks or less so that leaves our partners as......

Ravos, Soultender, Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa Thrasios, Triton Hero, Tymna the Weaver Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix Ludevic, Necro-Alchemist, Silas Renn, Seeker Adept, and Vial Smasher the Fierce.

Oy vey.

So this is how I've decided to tackle this. Let's start with cards that work well with Bruse in general. Say 40 cards. Then we can come up with cards that overlap with the various commander. Then I'll build the individual lists. Also I won't make a base deck this time so just comment here!

As always any Suggestions for the deck, feedback, Liking and spreadage of the word is great appreciated!

Here's the previous decks if you wanna stroll the Asylum. Ranked for best to worst.

Gallowbraid: Because if you laugh you die

Kentaro, the Smiling Cat: Kentaro the Smiling troll

Yuan Shao, the Indecisive: Yuan Shao the menacer

Chandler: Chandler's list

Kodama of the Center Tree:Spetral Trees

Rashka the Slayer:Rashka, Color hater

Telim'Tor:Mr Toilet, King of the horsemen

Lu Su, Wu Advisor: Lu shu, Scooby doo

Ur-Drago:Ur Drago of the Ur dragon clan

Nagao, Bound by Honor:Samurai are cool right?

Liu Bei, Lord of Shu: Liu bei, the trilogy maker

Livingham says... #2

I really don't think you can consider Bruse or any of the others unplayable commanders. Pretty much none of the partners are good but they are far better than the unplayable commanders this has previously been about. I know you're going off of the definition right now but you have to consider that the decks with these cards were released yesterday and that there are 105 possible combinations of the partners, it's going to take a while for people to start testing different combinations and actually uploading their decks.

November 12, 2016 8:25 p.m.

RazortoothMtg says... #3

Bruse is actually VERY GOOD. Ever heard of Rafiq of the Many? Well now you have that with lifelink and potentially 4 colors.

Straight up VOLTRON. Batterskull, the mirran swords, Lashwrithe/Strata Scythe + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth , Whispersilk Cloak, Executioner's Hood, etc. Probably pair it with Ludevic, Necro-Alchemist or Thrasios, Triton Hero since that's card draw is your biggest problem. I'd go with Thrasios so you can just slam sum Giant Growth effects/Rancor pump spells.

November 12, 2016 9:19 p.m.

legendofa says... #4

I like RazortoothMtg's Voltron build, but wondering about something slightly different: Silas Renn, Seeker Adept. I'm thinking with double strike, Silas can pull out two artifacts per attack (Breya, Etherium Shaper?), and the color combination has a lot of ways to prevent blocking, from protection Pentarch Ward to unblockability Tricks of the Trade to just killing blockers Terminate. More of a combo build, but it might be doable.

November 12, 2016 11:26 p.m.

The_Raven says... #5

Brah... I'm personally offended by this....

Jk, however, I believe my man Bruse is far from unplayable. I actually do believe he is one of the better partner commanders. I made a deck with him and Tymna the Weaver.


"I foresee... That you smash, Partner!"

Commander / EDH* The_Raven

SCORE: 3 | 18 COMMENTS | 385 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER


What exactly does Tymna and Bruse give you?

Tymna can give you an insane number of cards. Often MORE than 3 cards a turn. It gives you access to Aggravated Assault/Hellkite Charger with Sword of Feast and Famine, tutoring them up with Stonehewer Giant, Stoneforge Mystic, Steelshaper's Gift and Relic Seeker.

Furthermore, the black gives you access to all the kill-spells you want. Especially good with the Sunforger toolbox.

So seriously, you can't say he is unplayable. Sure, he might not have more than 3 of the same deck on EDHrec, but with 105 new commander combinations, it will take people some time to make new decks.

If you still want to make a Bruse deck... Those cards mentioned are already pretty good.

November 13, 2016 5:01 a.m.

Named_Tawyny says... #6

Yeah, I don't think you can count Bruse. You're ignoring one of his abilities which is specifically relevant to EDH. He has Partner - claiming he's unplayable (but only if you ignore the fact that he has Partner) makes about as much sense as saying that Derevi, Empyrial Tactician is unplayable if you ignore that he has "Whenever Derevi, Empyrial Tactician enters the battlefield or a creature you control deals combat damage to a player, you may tap or untap target permanent."

OF course something is less than ideal when you ignore a major part of what makes it good.

November 13, 2016 9:26 a.m.

joecool1299 says... #7

Sorry! Real life got in the way for a little while.

Livingham, Named_Tawyny I guess I didn't quite make my intentions clear. the objective of this is to see what can be done with the partners you wouldn't normally think of pairing with Bruse. So I'm covering all of the partner combinations that haven't be widely covered yet. Hence the list above. If that isn't really in the spirit of this series or if it ends up being rather redundant, fair enough, But let's try it!

The_Raven Perfect example. Tymna add this interesting layer to the deck in card advantage and tempo. Let's do that for all the different combinations!

November 19, 2016 11:47 p.m.

Livingham says... #8

I still feel like the intentions of this thread contradict with the intentions of the series. I get where you're coming from but you're still comparing unplayable commanders to cards that haven't been paired together in a very short amount of time. Maybe in a few months you can consider any combination of partners unplayable if there are hardly any decks with them but there just hasn't been enough time for people to experiment, especially considering there are 105 different combinations of the partners; you have to realize it would take hundreds of decks to be made in the first week using only the partners for your definition of unplayable not to apply.

November 20, 2016 1:12 p.m.

joecool1299 says... #9

Hello anyone still following this.

Sorry, Thanksgiving , a Loooooong week of work and Getting sick all has prevented me from doing this series. During that time though. I realized that building a deck for every partner combination was a little bit time consuming. As well as not really in the spirit of this series, as other has said. (P.S Thanks Livingham for actually caring enough to give criticism for this series) I did build two decks for Bruse and various other partners. And I still plan on doing it. Just not as a part of this. I started another Commander Below. Thanks for all the help.

TLDR; Starting another Unplayable commander, Here it is!

November 28, 2016 4:07 p.m.

This discussion has been closed