Favorite EDH Cards
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on April 12, 2024, 11:47 a.m. by FormOverFunction
Just a fun Friday post. What are some of your favorite pet-cards? Not necessarily key pieces or staples, just cards that you at least want to include in whatever deck you’re working on. I’m going to toss a couple out, though I’ll probably remember more later (and I hope you all do too). Whipkeeper is weird, and heavily reliant on circumstances, but when you have it on hand and those circumstances arise it’s really fun! Walking Sponge is another similar critter. That’s red and blue, and now I think I’ll shoot for one of each color. I’ve touted my love for Xenic Poltergeist often enough that you’re probably tired of it, but I’m always happy to draw it. I don’t play a ton of green, but Dense Canopy is something that’s had a special flavor for me. I love the idea of stealing a little of the power from flying, which is a pretty significant strength for a basic evergreen ability. In white I’ll pick Confessor as it’s a neat effect with a solid flavor. Mechanically I’m not a big fan of what lifegain decks have become, because of the sort of game state that you can end up with in a casual format, but I’m not totally negative on them. For an artifact, as a bonus, I’ll say Armageddon Clock because it’s a fun, symmetrical, way to move the game ahead while still giving people an extra out to regulate it some. What are some of your favorite cards, even if they aren’t particularly high-end?
FormOverFunction says... #3
Those are great! I’m a huge fan of enchantments, so I’m in agreement on a bunch of those: ESPECIALLY pestilence. The flavor of “the pestilence ends once everything is dead” is 100% spot on!
April 12, 2024 8:54 p.m.
griffstick says... #4
Howl from Beyond and Endless Scream are cool.
Dauthi Embrace is good
I personally like Reiver Demon
More people should be playing Void
I found Karn, Silver Golem to be very useful in a black deck to kill artifacts.
And I will always say Infiltration Lens and Glasses of Urza are underrated
April 12, 2024 9:31 p.m. Edited.
griffstick says... #5
I do alot of magic online and I have been really liking Demonic Embrace
April 12, 2024 9:35 p.m.
I like Darksteel Monolith but more mostly for its flavour text.
Triumph of the Hordes is another card I’m fond of.
April 12, 2024 10:09 p.m.
Squee_Spirit_Guide says... #7
I love seeing everyone's responses to this :). To me having pet cards you always try to work into a deck is a lot of the fun of deck building.
I've always really liked Spirit of the Night and Teeka's Dragon and find myself cramming them into decks whether or not they fit. They were just so impressive the first time I came across them and I've never lost that excitement for them.
I also have a few specific pieces of cardboard I'm fond of, like the Vesuvan Doppelganger my friend gave me and the Sylvan Safekeeper that I got signed by Olle Råde.
April 12, 2024 11:05 p.m.
Dense Canopy is such a good one! Definitely one of the most unique effects, and cards like that that are game changing but not game changing from straight up power level, I love those cards.
My biggest pet card has to be Warrior Angel When I built my Kami Neon deck, I finally found a place for this card that has been my favorite forever. I remember getting Sliver Queen and Mox Diamond in packs of stronghold when I was a kid, but I never played anything as much as I played Warrior Angel
Also, I'd have to say Willbreaker I have a 60 card deck that uses the venture into the dungeon mechanic to hit target abilities like, target creature gets -2/0, which sounds underwhelming until it becomes a steal a creature : ) The whole deck became my pet deck, mostly because it was a pretty unhinged idea that I expected to not go anywhere and then it worked so crazy well.
April 13, 2024 8:05 a.m.
FormOverFunction says... #9
These are all great! Awesome mechanics, great flavor text, personal stories... this is exactly the sort of stuff I was hoping to see. Thanks for sharing all this! Hopefully we’ll see a few more!!
April 13, 2024 10:24 a.m.
griffstick says... #10
Now for my second favorite color.
I absolutely love Prison Term I put this in every deck that has white.
The player with Impact Tremors doesnt want to see this next one. Michiko Konda, Truth Seeker, this card is kinda like No Mercy that's another one I must add to my black decks). There is a white version of No Mercy I forget what it's called. It doesn't destroy them like No Mercy. It instead turns them into "statues" sorta.
This next one whould not be good enough if it wasn't for flash. Temporal Isolation
Righteous Aura is soo frickin good. It gets around hexproof, ward and shroud.
April 13, 2024 5:14 p.m. Edited.
FormOverFunction says... #11
Those are great, griffstick! So many of these have great effects that react to your opponents successfully doing stuff, allowing them to actually play, which is fun. I love it!
April 13, 2024 7:01 p.m.
I will go lower power on these pets, but oddities as well.
Oath of Druids my baby! it can crap on control in great ways while making sure the game will have impactful play from many spots.
Descent into Avernus I write about this one all the time
Shiny Impetus I ramp away while not being the guy that removed my opponent's thing.. Also, lets that pain train keep on rolling
Any of the monarch courts
Titania's Song hilarious, kills treasures too.
Crescendo of War for the sake of aggression
Wand of Wonder it just randomly will get me out of a bind and makes my deck function unpredictably
I don't have much for pet creatures, I will have to look into that
April 14, 2024 1:12 a.m.
Anyone who has seen me comment on their deck will know I love using people's cards against them. Whether it's Worst Fears (the mythic I got in my first pack coming back into MTG), Mindslaver (flashbacks to academy ruins lock) or Emrakul, the Promised End, their hand is my hand. And with that hand I say why are you hitting yourself? LOL
As such, my 3 favorite cards are Deflecting Swat, Misdirection and Imp's Mischief. The first 2 can be cast for free which is great as you can bluff interaction. The latter is usually unexpected, until your playgroup asks why are you holding 2 mana after casting a large Torment of Hailfire and then they learn that with 2 mana open, you too can be the blue player!
April 14, 2024 6:30 p.m.
FormOverFunction says... #14
Profet93 those are great! In my witchy-bad-deals coven deck I have Cruel Entertainment which takes your enjoyment even a step further, where you’re not even responsible for the choices made! Great additions to the list!! Thank you!!
April 14, 2024 10:02 p.m.
Oh, and it may seem a little weird but I really love targeted removal in EDH. One of my favorite things in a game is to look around the table, assess threats, and have lots of flexible answers. Cards like
Actually, yep, Tragic Slip is definitely my pet removal spell : ) It's always the best card in my hand, it just depends on when it gets used.
I guess part of it is that when I used to play board sweepers it always felt so uninteractive. So many games became, somebody doing a combo, does anyone have Cyclonic Rift? And that's so chance dependent that it feels unfun, to me at least. I like target removal because they always have a target, so I can play enough of them to always have some answer, and then it's on me if I don't save it for the correct threat.
April 16, 2024 7:56 a.m.
FormOverFunction says... #16
Niko9 - Terror was my first removal and probably still my favorite. The original art was AMAZING and has the added flavor of “can’t terror-someone-to-death if they’re a robot or zombie/demon/etc”. Super great. Yay removal!
April 16, 2024 12:28 p.m.
Niko9 If you like targeted effects a lot I think the newest set has a few sleepers with "commit a crime" mechanics. I think the wordiness of "committing a crime" will make some people sleep on some of those cards. I mean if you reword Freestrider Lookout to: ramp out a land when you target something... then you aren't looking at a card that is <$1
I never really loved the targeted removal, so that would be a further reason for me not having love for Thunder Junction, since "commit a crime" is a solid-gold payoff for removal... Who knows, maybe I could look into a "commit a crime" deck & completely change my viewpoint of targeted removal. Which currently, in my meta, it is hard for me to justify using up a card slot, using a card from hand, only removing 1 thing; in my meta, it always just leads to an opening for some other opponent that is waiting to go off. Though, my meta does a ton of midgame stuff, so you usually win by committee or resilience.. Targeted removal just doesn't carry the oomph in those circumstances because the meta doesn't tend to play singular lynch-pin cards where disruption means a whole lotta beans.... but if there is a payoff attached to removal, like with "commit a crime" I could look to changing my ways a bit. Also, that being said, I have always been a huge fan of redirect-type spells because it changes up that whole resource to removal equation.
Certainly with Wand of Wonder I do not complain that people rock tons of targeted removal for me to utilize :)
April 16, 2024 5:49 p.m.
pookypuppy6 says... #18
My favourite card is Phytotitan. I have a casual kitchen table deck built around it, but whenever there is a sacrfice theme (from my Prime Speaker Vannifar commander deck to a sacrifice archetype in a cube), I tend to include it. Even though, realistically speaking, it's not a terrific card.
April 17, 2024 12:17 p.m.
pookypuppy6 I like Phytotitan with that 7 power it can be a life pressure threat in death-happy grind games. Really solid if you are degenerate enough to have it in decks that work well after Obliterate or similar
April 17, 2024 2:08 p.m.
pookypuppy6 says... #20
@Gleeock: The Obliterate I pair it with specifically is Bearer of the Heavens. Here's my deck, it's my fave deck at the moment: https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/titan-towers-the-repocalypse-1/
April 17, 2024 4 p.m.
Gleeock You know, being doomed by Wand of Wonder sounds like a really fun way to lose a match, so still a good time : )
Honestly, I'm not really sure how "commits a crime" works yet, but good to know that it might be something fun to explore. I was trying to get back into the game a bit and then the Princess Bride cards kind of broke my brain, so not really sure if I will check out the new sets right now. It's kind of weird that they don't have reminder text for these effects. I mean, I guess I should know what these effects do, but I really kinda don't.
And yep FormOverFunction the original Terror was such a creepy card, but in the best way. Part of me misses those legitimately scary cards, but then part of me thinks it went maybe a little too far with something like Ad Nauseam, so I don't know, but I love the original terror!
April 17, 2024 9:31 p.m.
Yeah, I really ebb-&-flow with my MtG twilight as well. I am genuinely curious on when I just flame out completely on it. You would think some of the cash grabs would have put me over the edge, but I guess I am not totally over it yet... Though, I haven't played in months & when I do get together with friends it seems to be for DnD.
I run into plenty of opportunities to quote Willow regardless of which game I play... But I really get to throw them out with Wand of Wonder; where I can use my old lady voice & say: "I have Chelindrea's wand!" or I activate & say: "picture a beautiful woman".... "CONCENTRATE Willow!!"
RiotRunner789 says... #2
My favorite card is Grave Pact but that isn't quite niche. I don't seem to have as many oddball fun cards that I tend to play but there are a few oddball or less played ones at least.
Black: Koskun Falls is a favorite of mine. I prefer decks that do not attack, so the tapping is not a big downside. Tainted Remedy because it makes opponent's creatures with lifelink funny. Gift of Doom which doesn't use the stack when morphing which has come in handy more than once. Pestilence is one of my favorite black board wipes which typically is on my board with an indestructible creature. Dystopia since at least someone is playing Selesnya.
White: Peacekeeper because no means no. Aura of Silence use to be more niche but has seen some prominent reprints. Solid removal with a tax effect has tripped up more than one opponent. Mandate of Peace is a great fog and a counter spell in some situations. Underplayed.
Green: Hall of Gemstone for any monogreen deck. Had a blue player try to win on my endstep and about 5 minutes into their combo, I asked where there blue mana was coming from.
Orzhov: Batwing Brume has killed a few Kranko players for me and saved me several times.
Colorless: Null Brooch is just Isochron Scepter with Negate already attached. Arena of the Ancients is great for when my commander doesn't need to tap, or attack, or is played after this and has vigilance. Great card no one expects.
Red: Apocalypse or Jokulhaups for the hard reset. Stranglehold because blue players are the worst and tutoring takes too long.
Blue: Mana Vortex for the slow decent into hell.
April 12, 2024 6:14 p.m.