Your most fun cEDH lists
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on Nov. 13, 2017, 12:16 a.m. by Kaleo42
Tactical Beauty
Commander / EDH
SCORE: 1 | 452 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER
Marath Says No
Commander / EDH
4 COMMENTS | 83 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER
With my second cEDH list rapidly nearing completion I am looking for inspiration on what to work on next. I play weekly or biweekly with 3-4 other cEDH players; one favors green beat down combos, another twiddle/tutor storm combos, another stax, and the one who doesn't play with us as much usually has Doomsday.
I enjoy cEDH decks with many different ways to win. Tactical Beauty for example can lock the table to a crawl and win with normal attacks or accelerate to an instant win at a blinding pace. Marath Says No obviously ends most games with a Marath, Will of the Wild combo but how it gets there and more importantly how it stops my opponents along the way is always different. The other great thing about both of these decks is that they scale nicely when introducing players to cEDH, by playing less cutthroat you can still have a lot of fun and get a good game against an otherwise outmatched deck.
To the point though, please tell me what makes a cEDH deck fun for you and share examples. I will happily review each deck posted for feedback as well.
Megalomania says... #3
Heres mine:
Degenerate Designs
Commander / EDH
SCORE: 9 | 38 COMMENTS | 1004 VIEWS
As for my idea of cEDH, I have always been drawn towards really fast and consistent combo decks while trying to maintain a really strong and solid synergy among the pieces.
My current deck (Thrasios and Tymna) isnt very different from how most people build theirs (Ad Nauseam, Scepter, Paradox Engine, etc.). I guess it is pretty optimized at this point.
Compared to my previous decks, this 4-colored beauty is quite resistant to cards like Blood Moon and Stax effects which were the bane of my previous decks. So far, I have been able to outspeed GAA IV and Derevi Stax decks so im pretty happy.
I have only been testing it for a few months and it has really exceeded my expectations. I win around 70-80% of the games I play and my meta is quite diverse and competitive although probably not as cut-throat as those playing in the top tiers. Would love to get some feedback from you and the other folks reading this. Ive been trying to find new eyes and hopefully new perspectives to help me improve the deck.
November 13, 2017 12:57 a.m.
rockleemyhero says... #4
Hey Megalomania i have some suggestions for ya.
- I noticed that you had Day's Undoing for Timetwister. I dont think thats worth it, days is a pretty bad card and timetwister is near impossible to replace if you dont have one. Id cut it for something else.
- Not a fan of Selesnya Signet in a deck that is so heavy in black and blue. If you need more ramp id suggest Cabal Ritual or another dork such as Llanowar Elves or Priest of Titania (who is a total all star in specific metas)
- The birthing pod line is really cool but feels a bit too cute to me. Id replace it with Survival of the Fittest. If you want to keep the birthing pod line (one of my favorite cards so i cant blame you) I think that Kiora's Follower is a bit excessive. Its utility as a dork is pretty limited at 2 mana in my opinion. Can be tough to cast on t1 or 2 if used as a dork as well.
- I see the purpose of Grand Abolisher but i dont think it sees much play outside of flash hulk because of the double white. You are such a small splash of white that it feels really hard to pull casting him off consistently.
- Not a fan of Reflecting Pool as it really hurts your t1 ramp plan. Id replace it with a Forest.
As far as replacements, if you are running labman, why not just include the doomsday combo? Otherwise I think you can just cut labman and use Reality Shift and Beast Within lines to kill your opponents with infinite mana. Since Im assuming you dont have Timetwister, you can loop your deck via Memory's Journey, which doubles as grave hate.
And speaking of hate, I think you could benefit from adding Mental Misstep and possibly Swords to Plowshares if hatebears are a bothersome. Otherwise your list looks pretty solid man!
Ps just saw walking ballista in there. I don't think you need both it and labman. I like aetherflux more than labman as well
November 13, 2017 1:21 a.m.
The budget of cEDH is something that's always put me off -- I know there are a few budget builds floating around the net, mostly Yisan, but does anyone have any good budget cEDH decks? Top end ~$500, anything below.
Otherwise I'm just a super boring guy who LOVES Edric Flying Men.
November 13, 2017 8:31 a.m.
rockleemyhero says... #6
Have you checked out the laboratory maniac's budget series Skulloelegy?
November 13, 2017 10:25 a.m.
Winterblast says... #7
What I like in cEDH is that everyone has the plan of winning very early in the game but then after the first 2 turns it's often clear that no one is going to have an easy time pulling his plan off. You have to anticipate and plan ahead longer than you probably would in a slower paced format and mistakes have a much bigger effect on the game...that's what makes it fun imo.
as for the decks, I usually brew my own builds but obviously classic combos can't be re-invented. my favourite decks at the moment are:
The Incredible, Undisruptable Hulk
Commander / EDH
SCORE: 29 | 26 COMMENTS | 4563 VIEWS | IN 9 FOLDERS
Augustin's $t4ks (Primer)
Commander / EDH
SCORE: 74 | 130 COMMENTS | 11899 VIEWS | IN 33 FOLDERS
The 5c deck took 2nd place out of 18 players in the October Commander FNM, so I'm quite happy with that build. At it's core it's a reanimator deck, that can either go for an early game kill with Flash Hulk or stall the game with hatebears and assemble the kiki-jiki combo with Birthing Pod or by reanimating it directly. What I like about this deck is that it does never take too much risks (such as self-milling) and that it can recover quickly if an early kill attempt has been stopped, which feels even more important as my main opponents are mono blue (Teferi, Arcum Dagsson and at the tournaments also Baral). The 5c build makes it easy to play around disruption and lost combo pieces.
The other deck is fun to play because it simply annoys everyone, even if it doesn't win eventually. Classic proactive Stax, especially the land removal part, is something that cEDH seemingly doesn't (want to) deal with and it's remarkable how hard an Armageddon combined with a taxing commander hits decks that only play 30 or fewer lands on average.
I also like to try making aggro as competitive as possible, especially mono G with lots of artifact hate. That's my preferred choice for 3 player games.
November 13, 2017 10:32 a.m.
I play Arbiter Paradox Engine and Kess Twin. Both are immensely fun to play (particularly Kess) but my current group dynamic makes me the archenemy every game. The group runs just enough interaction to blanket fast combo, so you need counter backup, while also beating you in the face with creatures. It's actually really rough to play vs 75% decks like a XenaGod deck packing lean threats and efficient interaction (ala nature's claim) when they decide to 3v1 you. I'm actually struggling to find our sessions fun. I love my decks and I run less tuned stuff to keep things from becoming archenemy all the time, but lots of small things align themselves in such a way that our nights are less than ideal from my point of view.
Still, the decks are fantastic. I'm actually getting really close to buying a Timetwister for the arbiter list. I plan to eventually have it entirely altered by some of the best artists out there, but this is a LONG way down the road.
November 13, 2017 2:09 p.m.
Hey there, I really enjoyed both brewing and playing my Shu Yun list(Oh no, its a stormy day!). I only got to play it a couple times because it was pretty obvious that locally people didn't dig it but it's a fun spellslinger deck. It could probably use some more win conditions to use the large amounts/infinite mana like a Comet Storm etc to be closer to optimal but I wanted to win with commander damage, storm or tokens and it's pretty great at that imo.
November 13, 2017 4:33 p.m.
Steelspike says... #11
Not my most fun, but my most consistent winner is
Coming for you, we're the zombies from Hell!
The Scarab God with Vengeful Dead, Rooftop Storm, Gravecrawler and any sac outlet.
Tutor, Buried Alive or Entomb, for the creature combo pieces, re-animate (kinda) with Scarab God and go to town.
November 13, 2017 6:44 p.m.
For me I have two lists. My Saffi Eriksdotter deck (Just Stay Dead) is a lot of fun to play and most people haven't versed a Saffi deck before. While it's porbably not as competitive as some other decks, I really enjoy it.
I also have a more competiive Thrasios, Triton Hero + Tymna the Weaver list (Triton Weaver) which is a lot like Megalomania's list. I'm missing a few money cards, however the list on the whole plays quite well.
November 13, 2017 7:23 p.m.
Wow! Thank you for all the responses. I am making my way through the decks mentioned and seeing a lot of good stuff.
Skulloelegy My friend's green decks run light on the budget if you hold off on Gaea's Cradle. Also my Tactical Beauty list can be budget replicated with cheaper lands and a more aggressive game plan.
TheDevicer It sounds to me like there are a few things that could help. First up, if your opponents feel like they have to team up to win they may need to look at what their decks are lacking. Usually when this happens it boils down to speed, budget, or subpar pet picks.
Speed: Prossh, Lord of the Food Chain created this problem in my group. The deck was too fast for any of us to deal with so I began to craft my Tactical Beauty to be able to inhibit or at least slow this and other fast paced combo decks. Your table's game doesn't need to go faster, but your opponent's need to understand they can control the pace of play if they understand what tools they have available and how to correctly disrupt decks that are blatantly faster.
Budget: This can be rough to work through but discussion forums like this are great at finding budget solutions to problems. Usually the budget options are just more narrow or cost 1 more mana. Thanks to cards like Manglehorn and Eidolon of Rhetoric though budget lists are becoming more and more viable. Also remind people that putting value into their cEDH deck instead of their binder or random box is a great way to ensure your collection gains value over time due to staples always steadily increasing.
Subpar Picks: This is often the hardest point to get across. Often times what the deck needs is not what the player wants. I wanted to run Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Zealous Conscripts in Marath Says No but that isn't what the deck needs. I needed to focus on disruptions and low cmc high value plays to make up for not drawing very many cards and often destroying all lands. Over time players become so attached to their pet cards and combos they don't even consider that they might be holding the deck back. Crowd sourced feedback is the best way to get around this. My group will often times have one player sit out and work on their deck while the rest play. This keeps the others playing but creates an environment that the builder can be asking for feedback in real time as the deck is being crafted. Someone should always play devil's advocate but make it clear that they are only challenging the idea to ensure it holds up to scrutiny not just disagreeing because of opinion.
I hope that helps work through that situation.
November 13, 2017 7:56 p.m.
Oh I'm a long time veteran of the format at various levels as are all the players in my group. I could easily remedy the deck-centric issues i mentioned. It's just that I dislike playing decks of this caliber. This is a me issue. There is no answer to this problem. Only compromises.
November 13, 2017 8:17 p.m.
Megalomania says... #15
rockleemyhero, thanks for the feedback! Ill take all of them into consideration.
I already made adjustments with the mana base based on your comments.
November 14, 2017 7:44 a.m.
rockleemyhero says... #16
No prob Megalomania! Glad I can help after being steam rolled by paradox scepter 1 too many times xD
November 14, 2017 9:52 p.m.
Sorry for the radio Silence I have been hiding away working on this new agro list for my cEDH table.
cEDH Beat Down
Commander / EDH
48 VIEWS
December 4, 2017 6:46 p.m.
Finally done with beta testing on this and would really love your feedback.
cEDH Beat Down
Commander / EDH
48 VIEWS
December 10, 2017 3:01 p.m.
Flindsey2249 says... #19
Ik this is an old thread but I have just started playing cEDH and am trying to complete a The Locust God deck. I find it a very fun commander out of the "popular" cEDH commanders. I would love any recommendations for any combos that I may be able to include in this deck.
July 22, 2018 10:52 p.m.
Flindsey2249 says... #20
Ik this is an old thread but I have just started playing cEDH and am trying to complete a The Locust God deck. I find it a very fun commander out of the "popular" cEDH commanders. I would love any recommendations for any combos that I may be able to include in this deck.
July 22, 2018 10:53 p.m.
Megalomania says... #21
I’d be willing to check it out but where’s your list?
July 22, 2018 11:27 p.m.
I’ll probably never not respond to this thread. Share that list and we’ll happily provide pointers. Being new to cEDH I have have one giant recommendation; efficiency. Efficiency is king in cEDH, you have 3 turns to interact or try to win and if you can’t do at least one of those two things every game by turn 3 then whatever your big finish is wont matter. That being said I feel I always have to clarify most cEDH games are in the 5-15 turns realm due to cold war tactics after the initial sprint.
July 23, 2018 5:21 a.m.
I put together a new list recently. Haven't had a chance to test it yet though.
July 23, 2018 4:11 p.m.
I put together a new list recently. Haven't had a chance to test it yet though.
rockleemyhero says... #2
Hey! I play almost exclusively cEDH. Nice to see cEDH get a mention and some tread on t/o. Here are my current decks if you're looking for something new.
My pride and joy Rafiq deck. This deck loves to get under people's skin by winning through combat damage and going for the long game. I've spent about 7 or 8 years tweaking this deck or starting over from the base up literally hundreds of times. It's an obsession and this is my best list to date results wise. Very fun and challenging to play; it requires minimal errors on your part and attempting to knife into your opponents by hitting them in their most critical weak spots. Can really punish greedy decks with a well timed stax piece or counterspell. Essentially plays as a control deck that shifts into a tempo deck once you land an engine like Cold-Eyed Selkie. Think of a hybrid between rashmi control and edric turns.
My take on the infamous blood pod deck of recent popularity. However, this deck is unique in the sense that it plays Sneak Attack and Protean Hulk lines. At it's heart it is an adaptive combo deck that can win out of nowhere as soon as t3. It can easily grind out opponents with tymna and a plethora of stax pieces you can easily work around as well. It utilizes a layered combo system that ultimately wins of a kiki-jiki combo with Grand Abolisher protection and/or with Zulaport Cutthroat without combat damage!
It's boring, predictable, and easy mode (for you). Just a run of the mill Kess deck. Runs storm lines, high tide lines, and control options to make Kess stand out in light of her heavily debated twin, Jeleva. Pretty standard list though for when I want to feel like a villian. Usual broken cEDH MVPs ad nauseum and Yawgmoth's Will.
November 13, 2017 12:38 a.m.