Swappable Esper Commanders/thoughts needed
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on May 5, 2021, 4:06 p.m. by lifemtg
I really want to make a Oloro/Sen Triplet deck where I could alternate in between. I know it’s somewhat of a stretch since both may or may not revolve around different aspects, and adding too many things is a scatter. I was considering making it a control deck with life as a pillow fort, and using that extra life as a cause of a few wincons. I can always change out a few cards when switching commanders but i would like to keep that minimal. For e.g, when using Oloro have a few esper combos that work on their own, with cards like test of endurance and felidar sovereign, when switching to sen triplets, still revolve around combos, but take out a few life cards for more control and commander specific combos. Any thoughts?
Without coming across as too blunt, what's the point? If the deck play almost exactly the same, you're better off just picking the commander you think will do better as commander cough Oloro cough and then jamming the other one in the 99. That way you still get the "sometimes" aspect of playing them as your psuedo commander, while retaining an actual set of win conditions for the deck.
And as mentioned, you'll most likely be playing some sort of stax shell with them anyway. But trying to build a deck with hot swappable commanders will just leave you with an overall worse off deck for that one time in ten where you want to play Sen Triplets as your commander.
May 5, 2021 8:20 p.m. Edited.
enpc no idea. Thought i might switch it up from time to time but the main incentative is cause right now i dont have the budget to buy two force of wills and etc, so using the same deck but switching out cards was an idea.
May 5, 2021 9:12 p.m.
The problem is that even if you switch a few key cards out (lifegain effects), most of your win conditions will still be the same and the gameplan will still be the same.
On top of that, in most circles Sen Triplets gets hated on pretty bad, so you'll either spend half the time protecting her or she'll not be in play at which point you'll (probably) just be wishing you were playing Oloro as your commander anyway.
I used to play commander with somebody who had like 2 esper artifact decks, a white/blue artifact deck, a blue artifact deck and a colourless artifact deck (all at the same time) and I just couldn't understand it. At some point, all of the decks start looking the same or so similar that the only difference is how well you can argue semantics.
similarly, having two commanders who you interchange (one in the 99, one in the CZ), chances are you'll just find yourself tutoring for the other one anyway, or the other one becomes so irrelevant that as your commander, you don't play it unless you have nothing to do or you never tutor for it and get disappointed when you draw it.
In one scenario, you can just cut the underwhelming card entirely (so you definitely don't want it as your commander). In the other scenario, you're better off (IMO) playing Oloro as your commander since A) he provides card advantage and B) helps work with aforementioned woncons. The play Triplets in the deck and silver bullet them out. And look, I could be completely wrong and it could end up as the thrid option where swapping commanders makes the games feel completely differnt and fun, but I just don't think that will be the case. Call me old and jaeded, but there's a reason I only have like 4 commander decks assembled at any one time, and I make sure they're vastly different.
All that said and done though, you do you.
May 6, 2021 12:51 a.m. Edited.
enpc, no your actually completely correct in that stance, if I were to switch commanders I would have to drastically change cards for the win cons to be different. I might as well just make two separate decks and switch the common cards like force of will and etc in between, according to what I’m playing atm.
Omniscience_is_life says... #2
I've always thought of Oloro as being mainly control anyways--doesn't seem like too much of a stretch
May 5, 2021 4:41 p.m.