Is running a powerful commander worth the trouble of it's notoriety?
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on July 25, 2020, 12:08 p.m. by SteelSentry
I was building Abzan +1/+1 counters, and was considering running Ghave, Guru of Spores as the commander, but well... he's Ghave. How do you all deal with the heat that running strong commanders draws, and should I run a worse commander for the sake of not being targeted?
griffstick says... #3
It comes with the territory. Meaning if the players know how you play and it's in a casual way then you'll be fine but if the players know you are not then you'll be treated as such I think the commander has nothing to do with it.
July 25, 2020 12:59 p.m.
Flooremoji says... #4
As far as I understand... If you want a really good deck play the most powerful commander and all of the associated combos, but don't play a commander thats goining to draw hate of you didn't build the deck that way. The power level of your group is also somthing to consider.
I think there are many abzan commanders (even partners) that care about +1/+1 synergy, so unless you want Ghave combos many other things will do fine.
July 25, 2020 1:01 p.m.
Omniscience_is_life says... #5
Reznorboy that's a very intriguing way of going about doing that. I would agree that it depends on the situation: for example, if you have a set playgroup, it's probably best to just play a good commander that you like, you can't fool anybody for long. Whereas, on the other hand, if you just want a deck for a FNM where no one knows you... then you could consider being a little tricky with your general.
July 25, 2020 1:06 p.m.
GhostChieftain says... #6
As stated above, it entirely depends on your playgroup and how they regularly react to strong commanders... and even how they define strong commanders. My suggestion if you are unsure, build a deck that can still be played with another abzan commander/s and keep it on hand if they are too upset with it
July 25, 2020 1:23 p.m.
MagicalHacker says... #7
It depends on who you ask, but if you ask me, it's much smarter to make your 99/98 strong and your commander(s) weak.
The commander(s) in your command zone is the first thing opponents get to see to determine if they should be ready to take you out of the game at a moment's notice or if they can sit back and relax.
July 25, 2020 5:58 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #8
I deal with the heat of running a good commander by running a good deck capable of handling the heat. I'm not into winning via deception or politics. (I know some people think politics is the most important part of commander. I hate it. Don't at me, bro.) So I will always play the best commander for my purposes.
If you are focussing on Ghave combos run Ghave. If you are doing just silly massive amounts of counters shenanigans run Reyhan, Last of the Abzan
and a partner (usually Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker for colors and the incidental counters). Just run what best fits the deck.
July 25, 2020 6:39 p.m.
MagicalHacker says... #10
DeinoStinkus, sounds like you allied with the wrong person, something I try to avoid by reminding myself "Don't make a deal with the devil"
July 25, 2020 10:30 p.m.
Normally if your play group is too noobie they might not have a point of reference in terms of how strong any given general can be. If everyone's commander is in the over-powered bracket then it doesn't really make a difference if you play that strong general. It's the sort of middle ground where people know what's nasty, but they're not running the nasty themselves that is the problem. In that case I'd generally build with that general, but fill it full of group hug cards to guilt people away form targeting you. Stuff like Howling Mine and Temple Bell work great.
July 26, 2020 3:06 a.m.
Metachemist says... #12
I'm of the opinion that any Commander is strong in the hands of the right pilot and with a solid game plan built into the 99.
However that being said there are some Commanders I will hose right off the board as fast as I can either due to threat level and/or style of deck they enable. Any of the Legendary Five color Slivers I will kill asap just because well Slivers are Slivers which are somehow too powerful and ridiculous boring at the same time. I'll kill a Krenko or Purphorous for reasons of "Oh, if your board state gets ignored you will suddenly win" Largely the same with Atraxa.
That being said, if you want to play with a Powerful commander? Just bring the heat right back. Also consider upping the amount of interaction/wipes you run cause if you're constantly catching hate then at least you can deal with it.
The other thing about running a Powerful Commander? Please have a way to win, no one wants to set through and/or have to concede a game that has been rolling along for an hour+ that suddenly gets stuck in a Grand Arbiter Control lock with no win cons other than Commander damage against three other players. Same with an Angus deck.
July 26, 2020 10:20 a.m. Edited.
SteelSentry says... #13
I appreciate the insights from the thread so far. To clarify, I was not planning on running combos (although with Ghave they would inevitably happen), just counters and Saprolings. I think I will end up using the partners from C20 after all, the core of the decks are pretty similar anyway.
July 26, 2020 2:39 p.m.
If you play with the same play group regularly, they'll know what to expect from your deck in short order. If you play with random pickup groups, then expect more hate the more powerful your commander is.
It definitely helps that Ghave is a higher CMC commander if you are playing him janky. Your early drops will point to that before the commander hits the table.
If you are playing a jank version of say Najeela or Tymna/Thrassios paring, your commander is probably going to meet some early removal before they figure out that your are playing a casual deck.
The opposite is also true. If you are playing an optimized version of a more casual commander with a low cost like Skullbriar, the Walking Grave, it might fly under the radar until it is too late. But if you race a Vaevictis Asmadi, the Dire out turn three or four with haste, people are still going to be afraid of you even through Vaevictis is considered a lower tier commander.
Reznorboy says... #2
It's a very complicated subject as to whether a weak or strong commander is optimal for that exact reason.
It's very situation dependent.
Usually, it's optimal (from my experience) to attempt to compromise some style points, and instead focus on this: finding the most outlandish, weird, bad, garbage looking commander you can find, that is also incredibly strong. It's about appearance. If you present yourself as not a threat, but are, and wait until it is the right time to strike, and then quickly switch to a different deck the next game, and then play with different people after that, you will find the most success.
For example, Melira, Sylvok Outcast appears as though infect gives you a mighty heebie-jeebies and you are deathly afraid of it and yet you are playing that when no one else is playing infect. They think, "this person has no idea how this game works". However, instead, what you are actually doing is playing cards like Woodfall Primus so that you can blow up stuff literally at no cost.
For your predicament, I'd probably choose... Doran, the Siege Tower. Again, "What the heck?! Why is this person playing this!" You could make a stax deck that grinds the game to a halt, messes with their ability to do combat, which becomes more important in these types of scenarios, and win.
July 25, 2020 12:31 p.m.