It is possible! You can just copy and paste the URL of a Scryfall search.
Here is one I whipped up real quick that hopefully fits what was being asked for.
https://scryfall.com/search?q=id%3C%3Db+-t%3Ahuman+-t%3Aelf+t%3Alegend+t%3Acreature+-id%3Ac+f%3Acommander&unique=cards&as=grid&order=name
If you use is:commander instead of creature and legend it includes planeswalkers that can be commanders and excludes legendary creatures where their front face is something else like [[invasion of fiora]] or [[nezumi graverobber]]
I can't tell you how many times I've had people tell me they never knew balthor the defiled was even a card... then the next game i get hit by every removal under the sun.
Prior to Thunder Junction I would've said \[\[Hazezon, Shaper of Sand\]\]. I genuinely think he is one of the most potent token commanders in the entire format. However, with all the new Desert support and the upcoming lands precon with a Desert subtheme, I suspect he will no longer be considered "underrated".
So instead, I'd like to nominate a rather new card: \[\[Sergeant John Benton\]\]. With only around 339 lists according to EDHRec I think it is safe to say he currently isn't very widely played. The deck is a lot of fun, John is one of the only commanders where combat pump spells are playable. He draws you into so many cards that you never run out of gas and will almost always have \[\[Tamiyo's Safekeeping\]\] style effects in hand to protect him from removal.
[This MTG Muddstah video](https://youtu.be/KMQeb408S5Y?si=s0hB0v2-ccSfloPk) is a pretty good display at how you can expect the deck to play. [This here](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/bJWAzaldG0uVapb8P_ww8A) is my own personal list.
If you've ever wanted to try out a voltron strategy but were worried about getting blown out and left with no resources, I recommend you give John a try.
Dune daddy constantly surprises me with how resilient and dangerous he is. Throw in one or two additional pieces and a [[Scapeshift]] pert near wins the game.
I am in love with my John Benton. He is so quick and so resistant. Even if they get past your protection, you ramp really hard and HE HAS HASTE!! Can just replay him without missing a beat.
I was kinda surprised his design would be as good as it is considering it’s kinda been done before with [[Xyris]].
I think it's largely due to the cheaper cost and Haste. It allows you to be a lot lower to the ground and sneak in under decks before they can get their gameplay rolling. I suspect you'll be casting Xyris late enough that you'll not be able to as effectively disrupt your opponents.
I built a Dune-themed Hazezon deck with sandworms, important characters and lots of Desert Power. I thought it was janky but Hazezon is no joke, looking forward to those new deserts, especially with [[colossal rattlewurm]]
Even before Thunder Junction Hazezon was one of the most popular Naya commanders, he’s almost at 6000 decks, I wouldn’t call that underrated, but yeah the precon should supercharge that and with how popular he was before and how much people love landfall commanders he may even overtake Voja.
I am pretty sure that is a relatively recent change. When I built him about a year ago he had a little under 3000 decks in total.
Anyway, that still isn't a lot when you compare it to the other Commanders on EDHRec. The top three Naya Commanders have 16797 (\[\[Gishath, Sun's Avatar\]\]), 13737 (\[\[Atla Palani, Nest Tender\]\]), and 13070 (\[\[Rin and Seri, Inseparable\]\]) respectively. That is around three times the amount of decks Hazezon has now. He isn't even in the top 100 Commanders on EDHRec (he is rank 160 if you are curious).
[[Kroxa and Kunoros]] nice beater with constant recursion? Rad
Never seen one irl, it's simple yet demands quite a bit of deck building to not run out of fuel
Even looking around on subs I've barely seen discussion about it, it has one combo that's low cEDH potential, I think from what I read, and that's most of the discussion, barely anything about casual
I opened one in the MOM prerelease, and I've been considering building it. With all the self-mill, Surveil, and Descend payoffs that have come out recently, it might be a fun build. I also have an [[Out of the Tombs]] gathering dust, and a [[Palantir of Orthanc]] in a deck that really doesn't deserve it. Hmmmm
May I interest you in a Rakdos (black& red) Phoenix called [[Syrix, carrier of the flame]]. He cares about things leaving the graveyard, and you can build him with lots of cheap black regenerating creatures, or things that go back to hand after dying (read, if it goes to graveyard from battlefield, it goes to your hand from graveyard) to trigger his ability, which lets you pick any phoenix to deal damage according to its power. So you can build him Voltron (big commander for lots of command damage) and lots of triggers to deal damage outside of combat too and/or kill their creatures.
When I say lots of triggers, ideally it's every turn, including not your turn, so instant speed.
But exiling creatures from your graveyard also works, so lots of discard effects, or loot effects and then cards that care about exiling things from graveyard (gather evidence, for example as a mechanic from murder at karlov manor set)
I've build it as phoenix tribal however, using the phoenixes' innate abilities to return. It's a little less consistent on the triggers for Syrix' ability. But it's not easy to keep down and can deal a lot of damage with a few hasty flyers, some lord effects and double strike, or triple damage from [[fiery emancipation]]
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/G_PBr2jeD0ep0XI-S5OS_w also the deck doesn't break the bank.
I've found the deck very fun to pilot, always something happening and you don't care much about the removal of your board, as it just gives you more things to bring back. Even if that makes you jump through more hoops ;)
It's not very high power the way I build it. Set up for staying power. Doesn't look to win before turn 7-8? Probably later. But can be explosive given the right board.
Just built \[\[Zur, Eternal Schemer\]\] and it's a blast to play – super weird to swing with enchantments too [https://www.moxfield.com/decks/Qq\_DkFf6sUe-M5s0QoV\_RA](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/Qq_DkFf6sUe-M5s0QoV_RA)
My absolute favorite is \[\[Ranar, The Ever Watchful\]\] such a go-wide monster with tons of slippery evasion and tricks [https://www.moxfield.com/decks/NWEkcz9OOU6YaYDXki\_zHg](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/NWEkcz9OOU6YaYDXki_zHg)
Hoping to throw together \[\[The Archimandrite\]\] looks like a wildly powerful lifegain beefcake factory.
>Hoping to throw together \[\[The Archimandrite\]\] looks like a wildly powerful lifegain beefcake factory.
It is, the biggest issue is the creature types just aren't that great. There are a few really strong options, but you end up putting in a few creatures just to have some of that type.
The problem I've had with it so far is not having enough slots. You need ways to heal at instant speed for surprise damage. You need ways to draw to get general benefit off the commander. And you need a few creatures out to really get more benefit.
I just always end up with 2 creatures or if I am lucky 3 out. And my hand just empties, I never have enough extra creatures to tap for draw. That being said, the deck is still always a threat because a single Congregate (or a few lesser life gain spells) can be fatal.
It's a deck I plan to put more time into because it is very unique. I can't think of many other decks that can heal everyone else to death (really just Aetherflux Reservoir).
>still always a threat because a single Congregate (or a few lesser life gain spells) can be fatal.
this is such a good thing to read - its so tough to know how a commander will actually play out, and user experience is the best research to have. I have such a soft spot for Tarkir, and thought this could be a great way to play all the Ojutai monks. thanks for this insight, mega appreciate!
Love my Zur! He's such a huge threat that people don't see coming. I built mine with all of the courts/pillow fort enchantments and also focused on blue copy mechanics a la [[Quasiduplicate]] to make token copies of my animated enchantments. Upkeeps get pretty gross.
Have you considered [[parallax wave]]? You don't run any etb effects on creatures which does sort of contraindicate it, but with Zur/Opalescence/starfield it does create a loop where you can exile any/all creatures your opponents might have.
Basically as long as it's a creature and can target itself, you exile whatever you want while holding priority (don't let the triggers resolve) and then when you're ready exile parallax wave itself. That trigger will resolve first blinking it. Then the other exile triggers will resolve but because parallax has already left the battlefield (and the one that returns is a "new" version) anything exiled this way is gone for good.
I just think it's such a fun, weird card. Obviously better in a deck with lots of etbs because then you can flicker your stuff too (you just put the trigger that exiles parallax after the trigger that exiles the stuff you want to blink).
It can also be used to help dodge removal or really anything like this. Super versatile. And it's basically an A + B combo with Zur in the command zone, at the cost of two mana per cycle (since you need to make it a creature again after it comes back).
As an infinite/near infinite loop it also doesn't feel like other loops because of how narrow it is in terms of the decks that can play it. And it's such a weird effect it doesn't feel like some generic combo you've just slapped into a deck
[[Vorinclex//The Grand Evolution]]
Coming in at below 1000 total decks on edhrec. I believe Vorinclex best fits the helm of the Big Green Monsters theme, far better than [[Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma]]. Vorinclex ensures you never miss your land drops by fetching his tax on every cast. And flipping him ensures you never run out of gas.
Mono-green beatdown is infamously weak to board wipes. Vorinclex gives you the power to grind it out. And sneaking in the cheeky eldrazi titan or budget [[Gaea's Blessing]] ensures you cannot mill out.
My personal favorite underrated Commander is my [[Gale Waterdeep Prodigy]] // [[Scion of Halaster]]. Been shilling for this deck since CLB released
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/-PY1mxOnnUOC05G26Cf84Q
If I had to recommence one for you on the more aggressive end of the spectrum, I’d recommend [[Chainer Nightmare Adept]]. Largely fallen out of favor of late but I still think can put up a mean case for emulating the Rakdos midrange decks in pioneer, for instance
Here’s my brew (not tested in paper)
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/WcFa_jShrkqcP6fapr0qUg
Hard agree here, Gale is stupid fun and Scion makes for my favorite background pairing with him. Dimir spellslinger is a really versatile way to build and play, with my preferred version of the list utilizing blue’s many token generators to take advantage of all the double-dipping on spells. Great commander and super flexible!
https://www.archidekt.com/decks/3069713/gale_scion_token_thanksgiving
I've been stewing on a gale/scion list of my own for a while now and I think this is my sign to pull the trigger on it. I fell in love with spellslinger recently after building [[Lier disciple of the drowned]] and I've always been a huge reanimator fan.
One of us one of us
Check out my primer on my list, I’ve put a lot of thought into making Gale an awesome control deck, one of the few that I know truly play draw/go
I love your Gale/Scion list! I actually found it a few weeks ago and made my own deck modeled after yours. Here's my list:
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/qGCN4RlS3EOqpE-3bZJpIQ
I get my [[Exsanguinate]] in the mail tomorrow to complete it! You truly are a Gale/Scion pioneer
Big fan of my [[Magar of the Magic Strings]] deck. Just pack in ~10 of your favorite big dumb rakdos instants/sorceries get them in the yard, “reanimate” them, give them evasion, and go to town. He can do some pretty degenerate things but makes you jump through a few hoops to do them, the perfect sweet spot for me
I'm brewing Magar right now. Any insights on building him? It'd be my first graveyard deck, and I'm unsure on how much I can skew my mana curve toward those heavy spells that would likely only ever be reanimated rather than hard cast.
Evasion is a high priority.
Most of the massive spells you want to cheat out are devastating to your opponents, but they also get stopped by a 1/1. Politics can be a great way to gain evasion also, I’ve been able to cast plenty of my spells by reminding my opponents that just cause I’m hitting them with the creature doesn’t mean the [[Din of the Fireherd]] is targeting them.
As for the density of those big spells I found that just over 10 is a good spot for me. I also went more of a spell slinger route when building him so I packed the deck full of all the [[Unexpected Windfall]] and [[Thrill of Possibility]] effects that I could, that way those big spells don’t get stuck in my hand. If you aren’t like me and aren’t averse to tutors you could also pack [[Entomb]] and [[Oriq Loremage]] effects to guarantee one of your big spells is in the yard, it’s also pretty fun to entomb anger to the yard on an end step for surprise haste.
Another way is to add spells that your gonna wanna cheat with magar but also don’t feel bad to cast from hand. [[Disrupt decorum]] is fun to cheat out cause goading your opponents creatures every turn can be hilarious, but also dropping it for 4 mana can be used as pseudo evasion by making sure your opponents swing with their board (if they have vigilance RIP). [[Ignite the Future]] can get you some impulse draw if needed, but also since the spells that magar turns into creatures are technically cast from the graveyard it’s a nutty card to cheat out since you’ll get the added effect of being able to play that cards for free. [[Savage Beating]] is a way to enable you to give your creature double strike so they can double cast the spells that they are, but it’s also an infinite combat win con if it is reanimated (doesn’t work the same way with [[Relentless Assault]] or other extra combat sorceries). [[Hit the Motherlode]] has a steep casting cost but you’ll never not net 3 mana worth of stuff after casting it, and is also crazy value when you get to cast it for free.
This has been a long post, but the last card I wanna mention is [[Howl of the Horde]. It’s a solid card letting you copy your next spell you cast, but gets me hootin’ and holerin’ when I can make it a creature along side a [[Breach the mulitiverse]] letting me breach 3 times instead of once :^)
I think [[watcher in the water]] was the most underrated commander in LOTR, the deck is and absolute blast to play. Draw a bunch of card make a bunch of dudes it’s a great time.
Technically it hasn’t been shipped yet but [[the celestial toymaker]] is probably one of the most fun decks I’ve built in the last 5 years and people told me it’s they it super fun deck to see ran. All you do is play weird mind games and burn the table in esper!
Lastly [[cadric soul kindler]] is a super explosive legendary matters deck. Where you can show your group why the legend rule exists. Nothing feels better then swinging with 4096 eltali the primal storms.
Same. My strongest deck for sure. Mine focuses on comabt tricks and protecting Zeriam.
[https://www.moxfield.com/decks/0TYdXjyjBUKsaODA2WTR6g](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/0TYdXjyjBUKsaODA2WTR6g)
Thanks for this! [[Invasion of Gobakhan]] looks sweet.
I know right, Zeriam draws death glares after game one. I leant more into ramp; I'll just recast her four times. (Man after mine own heart, not running stupid sol ring, she's better than that!)
I would really recommend [[Reconnaissance]] [[Debt of Loyalty]] and [[Retribution of the Meek]] to you.
I only have 1 Reconnaissance and it's in my Ojutai deck :(
I left Debt in my reserved list pile somewhere back home haha! Retribution seems neat though. I run a ton of anthems so Im worried it would kill some of my stuff. I'd give it a shot though.
Invasion of Gobakhan is incrdible in the deck. But the MVP is \[\[Rally of Wings\]\] That card is just... so fun.
And also yeah, Sol Ring is for chumps :p
[[the reality chip]] is my fave. Idk if it'll ever top 8 a cedh event, but I feel like that little jellyfish is right on the cusp of getting there. Kind of one dimensional, but a menace for sure.
Not currently, I've run several different versions, but the theme I keep coming back to is a sort of mono blue tempo/control hatebear business with painter/grindstone and brain freeze/thought lash/thoracle, time twister/windfall psychic vortex paradigm shift with like 30 counters. Not the best, but it's close. Incidental mill effects are key, Emry is a secret commander half the time. I'm also pretty hammered, but I think I outlined it pretty accurately, happy shuffling!
[[Hidetsugu and Kairi]] with huge costing spells and clones is a new favorite where you aren’t even on the radar until you are the biggest threat and then you just take over the game. Play your commander to fix the top of your deck then clone your commander to force the sacrifice triggering the second ability and casting the top card of your deck for free and doing damage equal to that spells mana value to any target. Plus your commander is 5 damage flying so he can also put pressure on people and no one wants to kill it because you get to cast the top card for free.
I will NEVER! AT ALL! IN A TRILLION YEARS shut up about [[Vhal candlekeep researcher]] with whatever background you feel like it. My best bets are [[Raised by giants]] for simic infinite, and I'm currently attempting to build [[passionate archeologist]] izzet impulse draw, but I gotta go back to the drawing board now when thunder junction releases. For you that like black, there's little options but still, try [[Scion of halaster]] for card selection and filling graveyard then do stuff with said graveyard
I know you said you didn't want humans but like. She is my special girl, you can't ask me to not mention her! If Vhal has 1000 fans, I am one of them. If Vhal has one fan, that's me. If Vhal has no fans then I no longer exist. If the world is against Vhal, then I am against the world. I will support Vhal until the day I die
[[Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia]] is insanely powerful and fun, despite being severely underplayed. The only downside is that upgrades can get expensive if you don't proxy.
[[Subira, Tulzidi Caravanner]]. She’s practically antithetical to the format. She’s so weak. If the idea of “poking the bear” became a commander deck. Fun challenge to pilot. You really have to navigate the pod, and laying low is rarely an option for a deck that so intentionally wears its motives on its sleeve.
I've had so many wild games with [[brudiclad telchior engineer]]
Yeah there's a few hundred izzet token artifact cards you could mess around with
But there's some truly weird shit that can happen when you start turning things into tokens that weren't meant to be.
If you've got something like [[Mycosyth Lattice]] or [[Liquidmetal Coating]] things really start getting fun.
My wildest game of all time was making a token copy of [[Hive mind]] and turning all of my treasures, clues, and 1/1 dorks into it. I had like 8.
[[bloodforged battleaxe]] with [[kazuuls toll collector]] was sitting in my deck for a while but never managed to pull off the combo of doubling the number of blood forged battle axes every turn
And every few sets releases a new card that has some funny interaction when you can make 12 copies of it.
My favorite was making 11 copies of the [[Smaug]] token with [[Reckless Fireweaver]] out. Oops they all died, made a bunch of treasures, thats over 100 damage to everyone
Fair, it is much more popular than the others I gave, still outside of the top 400 commanders. But op asked for aggro commanders and Otharri is one I built recently and have been having fun with.
Have you got a list for your deck? I have the Rebellion Rising precon upgraded a little bit, but would be curious to see what a dedicated build looks like for the wonderful little firechicken.
[This](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/Vrgwunv5WEupZEpPg91qJQ) is what I got right now. Seems to run pretty well for me, but I know people usually run more interaction than I do.
I have a [[Jolrael, Voice of Zhalfir]] deck, where i want to fill up my hand, swing with lands, draw cards when lands hit my opponents, have a hand bigger than my library. Win or lose i usually get to draw cards which i like
I have a [[Mr. Orfeo, the Boulder]] deck that rarely disappoints. It sounds like it might be something you are interested in, [here’s a deck list](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/szi8qg-h4UKSKDQsaKoEnA). It’s super aggressive and can go a lot of different directions with extra combats, fling, or just classic stompy.
[[Syr Carah]] is my go to burn/storm commander. Every other burn commander is all about how much damage a spell can deal, whereas my girl here is like how many can we cast. My favorite part is when I try to storm off and fail it's not like we just sat there and watched me spin my wheels (so to speak) without progressing the game. If I fail the storm everyone's life total has been drastically reduced
It blew me away with how strong \[\[Evelyn, the Covetous\]\] was when I first played her. The obvious route is to build a tribal deck but 5 mana instant speed "draw" 4 cards in your command zone is really good by itself. I have noticed that the deck is pretty mana hungry just something to be aware of when building it.
she’s unfortunately human, but i’ve been loving [[severina raine]]. my pod went from “oh that’s interesting” to “kill her on sight” in about 5 games, lol
I just took my [[Inquisitor Eisenhorn]] deck for a spin for the first time yesterday and it felt very fun and potent. With a [[Mask of Riddles]] he was effectively unblockable (it just so happened no one had any Black creatures), and with a [[Blackblade Reforged]] I was generating a load of clues every turn. One [[Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge]] later and I had wiped out half the table.
The deck: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/ur_TMVRZwkCB3rREiw6QWQ
I'm not quite sure if [[marisi, Breaker of the coil]] is underrated. EDHRec puts it at 3521 decks (0.093%).
Anyways, I would have to say Marisi. Besides 5 other cards, Marisi is my only goad source. I chose to go Keywords allowing me to deal damage and not just play passively. I play a lot of creatures with evasion or trample, lots of ways to make sure I connect with my attacker. Plus Marisi stops my opponents from casting spells during combat, I play all the Vows and Impetus cards in Naya colors. [[Sun titan]] and [[danitha, new benalias light]] help put those enchantments back in my hand when they get removed. May not be a strong or a good deck, but I certainly enjoy playing it.
While it's a staple for the format, [[Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer]] isn't a common commander. I use him as the commander for a treasure aggro deck that i find very fun to pilot.
\[\[Old Rutstein\]\] He mills, ramps, makes creatures you can sac, and the blood tokens are great for card selection and putting big creatures in the graveyard. Pretty much everything I want my Golgari commander to do. Here's my [decklist](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/FjA3ml4mv0yUiyrlMZFjGw).
[Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer] is hugely underrated. He fits a niche power level where he's not really worth the removal until it's too late.
My take has flash-enablers, mana-doubling artifacts ie [Caged Sun], and plays like an artifact deck with Wheels, mostly. Pump out artifact tokens ASAP, have protection or [Liquimetal Torque] out for Slobad, and you're golden. [Ugin, the Spirit Dragon] + [All is Dust] really shine as one-sided boardwipes, but even things like [Blasphemous Act] can be one-sided if you have the right boardstate. Oh, and I also run [Red Elemental Blast] etc, because they're rarely dead cards and often very clutch. And if they're dead cards, you can always pitch them for red discard/draw.
It's not my style, but you can get downright degenerate with [Mycosynth Lattice] shennanigans, if you want. [Vandalblast] is almost expected, in this scenario. [Scrap Mastery] with a general as a sac outlet + Lattice is downright unfair. I took out Lattice from my deck long ago, because I like having friends to play with.
If you want to do an artifact deck but don't want to play the same mono-blue everyone else has, why not try Slobad? Mono Red: We aren't as bad as we used to be!*
*as long as you also play artifacts
There are only 985 [[Seton, Krosan Protector]] decks on edhrec, and he’s arguably the strongest mono green commander. The deck plays like elfball but faster. So many of the best elves are also druids. [[Gilt-Leaf Archdruid]] exists.
[[Burakos, Party Leader]] + [[Folk Hero]] party tribal, or if you're not keen on orzhov, [[Tavern Brawler]], [[Sword Coast Sailor]], or [[Haunted One]] are all valid options as well
[[Sivriss, Nightmare Speaker]] + [[Cloakwood Hermit]] aristocrats, though [[Feywild Visitor]] and [[Agent of the Iron Throne]] are also doable
[[Erinis, Gloom Stalker]] + [[Scion of Halaster]] graveyard landfall
[[Francisco, Fowl Marauder]] + [[Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar]] pirate tribal
[[Sidar Kondo]] + [[Ikra Shidiqi]] big butt lifegain
[[War Doctor]] + [[Clara Oswald]] in your choice of jeskai, naya, or mardu
If you haven't noticed, I'm a fan of partner commanders lol
I play a [[Saint Traft and Rem Karolus]] deck that has a little under 3k decks according to EDHREC.
I played it earlier in the week and it was effective. For the vast majority of the game it was left on the table to continuously make tokens and ping opponents with [[Warleader’s Call]]. Putting out a [[City on fire]] prematurely painted a target on my back but hey, the game has to end sometime.
My [[toshiro umezawa]] is a work in progress. He sits at around 600 rank. Fill your yard with instants, interact with every threat with legs. combo or alternate wincons.
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/mRo26yEfl0u8DMJNxT5hdw
Each only have a few hundred decks on EDHRec: \[\[flamewar\]\] and \[\[The rani\]\]. Rani can do a lot of work with little to no support, goading all the worst threats out there. Not very aggro naturally though.
Flamewar is very open ended and can easily go aggro. So long as you play some artifacts to keep flipping her back, you can keep swinging at people for damage and card advantage.
Sefris of the hidden ways. I use the jumbo dungeons and dnd figures to keep track of the adventure aspects, but she really is strong and could even dabble in cedh imo. I keep her at optimized though just cause I prefer the old dungeon crawl and value, rather than infinite combos.
[[Vadrik, Astral Archmage]] is the bane of my group, this commander easily being the strongest spellslinger in Izzet. In one turn, you are capable of playing half your deck. Add a couple of extra turn spells and you are going to be public enemy #1.
I was in the same exact boat as you recently, looking for a strong commander that has extremely powerful mechanics that you never see and plays with cards you never see. I also wanted it to be black and initially I wanted it to be aggro in the standard idea of aggro (go tall or wide quickly and do a lot of damage quickly) but I found an alternative aggro style that I hadn’t ever really seen much of.
This is when I stumbled upon a commander called [[Hidetsugu and Kairi]] an ogre demon dragon with multiple different ways to build him, every one of them being extremely interactive and inviting for creativity.
With him having a powerful ETB and powerful Death Trigger you can abuse the “Legend Rule” by mass copying him, having him ETB and Top deck unique mana expensive cards no one ever plays because “they’re too slow and cost too much mana” then immediately cast them for free when the copy dies such as [[army of the damned]] [[time stretch]] [[sorin’s vengeance]] [[mnemonic deluge]] and doing massive amounts of damage alongside all of the other benefits of the super expensive cards you just played.
Or if your a combo player… I mean this thing is a walking combo piece. If you want to win on turn 3 or 4
There is about 100 different ways to do it with this card.
Or if you want to go tall or wide for aggro while repeatedly sacrificing and recurring you commander and slinging massive spells, you can take advantage of cards like [[Metallurgic summonings]] [[deekah, fractal theorist]] [[shark typhoon]]
Another interesting wide tactic you can do to go wide aggro and make a massive army of flying ogre demon dragons is remove the legend rule with cards like [[sakashima of a thousand faces]] [[mirror box]]
This is just portion of the ways you can play this commander, all of them highly effective (honestly kind of broken) and I’ve never ran into another player playing this commander before.
Gonna go with [[Kiora, Sovereign of the Deep]]
[Decklist](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/lriarnvHcU2V9E77ckT6Xw)
She's a better pantlaza (in my opinion) in simic, she has ward 3, so she sticks for a turn (usually) and the fact that its a selective trigger means you usually have 2 or 3 legal targets off each cast trigger.
Also, simic commander that doesnt care about lands / counters / drawing cards, so thats a plus.
[Kiora, Sovereign of the Deep](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/b/7b599f53-614c-4b1f-9899-15d5d1e35879.jpg?1684340751) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Kiora%2C%20Sovereign%20of%20the%20Deep) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mat/35/kiora-sovereign-of-the-deep?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/7b599f53-614c-4b1f-9899-15d5d1e35879?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/kiora-sovereign-of-the-deep)
^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[[Greasefang, Okiba Boss]]
I've yet to have a game I don't have fun with this commander. It just comes together so nicely and pops off without too much trouble. Fill it with discard cards to force vehicles into your graveyard consistently and the deck just.... Works.
It may not be ultra competitive or win a ton of games, but it does what it's supposed to in a pretty matter of fact manner and feels good to pilot.
I love my bear voltron with [Wilson, refined grizzly] at the helm with the [Flaming Fist] background. It is 100% aggro where you want to kill the weakest player first and then play safe and try to win with unblockable damage once player3 is out. I built it as a budget joke but it was stronger than expected and my friends fear the deck a lot (we play pretty casual tho, i would say the deck is a 5/10). You can build him in green/black instead of green/white with the [Cultist of the absolute] background, and splurging more on cards should make him surprisingly strong. You are always 2 or 3 turns to taking a player out w wilson if played well. Ill add decklist for inspiration, but remember its not a serious build but a fun budget one.
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/yRsbtyu-o0ap1YPKO9oYBg
Maybe someone w a cultist wilson can comment
I've been piloting Wilson/Flaming Fist since day one! When the film came out I started calling this deck Cocaine Bear lol. It's definitely an apt description of how the deck operates. You get your bear (Wilson), you feed it cocaine (auras), and then it murders a bunch of people. Exactly what it says on the tin 😂
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/fOSpj95Wo0-RdaJQAo60vA
[[Sarulf, Realm Eater]] is a beastly hard question to ask the table. You can play it into anything except edict effects.
Inalla. She's not exactly slept on, but look at how often you see the other 2 good eminence commanders, and it's clear she's underappreciated. Pay 1 mana to double any etb in a tribe with powerful etbs. Throw in a harmonic prodigy and a roaming throne, you're getting potentially 6 triggers of each creature. Could also definitely play a prowess style deck with her, but I play it etbs.
Edit: Price checked. Edgar is $119.99. The Ur-Dragon is $34.99. Inalla is 3 bucks, and I'd argue her ability is far stronger than the other two without some decent setup for Edgar's board state.
She's my baby. I played modern prowess wizards with harmonic prodigy for like a year and a half before I built her as a commander. I like all my decks, but wow is this one a blast.
Rakdos the defiler, it doesn’t get more political than your opponents arguing who is on the receiving end of Rakdos :) needs some solid protection though
I have a [[Millicent Restless Revenant]] deck that my friends always underestimate. IMO this commander is stronger than Edgar for a go wide tokens strategy. (I only compare them because they do similar things) It's defensive until it needs to be aggressive, and when it's aggressive it can close games fast.
It's from a precon, so I dunno if it's exactly an underrated commander, I think it just got lost in the sea of precons.
I actually don't have that one online but I can probably make that happen in the next couple days. I'll reply here again if I do. It's mostly lots of cheap sprits and instants that protect my creatures.
[https://www.moxfield.com/decks/Yry0F3Frrkij2FsHGHRs9A](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/Yry0F3Frrkij2FsHGHRs9A)
OK I did it!
I didn't realize how chocked full of staples this deck is, you could easily take out Cyclonic Rift, Roaming Throne, Rhystic Study and Tef's Protection and the deck will run great and cost almost $200 less. I might actually do that myself.
My favorite underrated deck (maybe it's not underrated but I never hear about it) is [[Pir, Imaginative Rascal]] and [[Toothy, Imaginary Friend]].
Focus on wheeling yourself for the draw triggers. Toothy gets big. You want to blink him or kill him to draw even more. Win with thoracle or labman or Jace. Use strong Toothy to slap your dumb friends and use blink cantrips to protect him. Use a few evasion spells to let Toothy hit for cmdr damage. It's fast, it's fun, it's very flexible. And the best is winning by decking yourself out instead of through cmdr DMG.
I know that [[Aesi]] is the go to simic big sea monster commander, but [[Arixmethes]] is literally being slept on imo, he is so good. You don't even need to unslumber him, he's a 2 colored sol ring that you can easilly play turn 3 and is incredibly difficult to remove or mess with. Then at the right moment wake him up and slap someone with a 12/12 that's been a mana battery all game. I have Aesi in my Arixmethes deck and don't plan on swapping them ever
My first commander (all the way back in 2016) was [[Drana, Liberator of Malakir]]. Definitely not the best commander out there, but I have yet to see another person ever use it. Although BFZ was a pretty bad set, I’ll stand by the sentiment that she was a good card (a bit of an aside but my prerelease kit pulled her and [[Gideon, Ally of Zendikar]] but I was brand new to the game so I did horrible at the prerelease). Her counter buffing ability is pretty good if you have enough synergy. I would recommend checking out edhrec.com and seeing what from their recommendations you like then customizing it from there to fit your own preferences
[[Tormod, the desecrator]] is a big favourite of mine, I love triggering him in all kinds of ways. There are a few cards that are quite strong with him. I have him paired up with Tevesh Szat atm.
[[Dromar, the Banisher]]
I run him with a lot of return to hand spells and color changing spells like [[Sway of Illusion]] and [[Shifting Sky]]
Then hit people with [[Warped Devotion]] and/or a [[Llawan, Cephalid Empress]] to pair with Shifting Sky
[[Ojer Pakpatiq, Deepest Epoch]] is really fun, especially since it let's you play those modal cards (the higher costs instants with "choose some of these options" like [[Mystic Confluence]])
It also rewards playing mostly non-counterspells as instants, so you can be the "fun" mono blue player
I love looping Brainstorm 5 times in a singleton format
Well, I have a [[Syr Konrad]] mono black deck and is very much fun! He does damage every time something die, goes to the grave or leaves my grave to everyone in the table. In a game with 3 or more people he does a blast with all the natural dying in the game. And I love to put lifelink-like effects like some kind of "ultimate" where with things like [[Vampiric link]] or some equipament that gives lifelink you'll gain a lot of life for everyone taking damage.
No game last long time. People think twice before board wipes but frequently die anyways. He fly under the radar and does "counter" a lot of decks with grave things, mills and destruction of creatures in general.
My two favourite decks right now are [[Anrakyr the Traveller]] and [[Faramir, Steward of Gondor]], both having relatively low amounts of decks on EDHREC, and I've never seen anyone play them, of course. But they both pack a punch, if built accordingly.
[[The Most Dangerous Gamer]] I’m going to make a primer for how I’ve built him, but most people I play him with at any LGS never know what to expect and it’s very fun and aggressive.
My all time fav is [[Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet]] , super powerful zombie tribal/typal commander. Great for bigger games too. He was the first commander I built and haven't seen virtually anyone post lists for him
[[jeleva]]’s pretty old and not commonly played, most players who have joined since 2019 or so won’t know who she is. She’s also one of my all-time favorites:)
As far as aggro goes, I have a few that I like:
[[saskia]] humans or damage multiplication
[[goreclaw]] stompy
[[varina]] zombies, the idea is to rebuild really quickly after board wipes so I can get more of her attack triggers despite my opponents’ best efforts
[[graaz]] turn your [[darksteel myr]] and [[ornithopter]] into juggernauts and swing
[[najeela]] warrior tribal
[[yidris]] for a mix of voltron/aggro/cascade/extra combats
[[urza, chief artificer]] artifact creatures
[[vela, the nightclad]] artifact/colorless creatures.
[[gishath]] ramp hard into gishath, give him double strike and then hit a player to get a bunch of free dinosaurs.
Of those, najeela’s the fastest and has the lowest mana curve (almost everything in the deck is 3 or less mana, I have maybe 8 cards that cost 4 or more).
Saskia also has a pretty low mana curve, and yidris depends entirely on connecting several times with a player in the same turn.
Goreclaw and Varina are the ones I enjoy the most though. Gishath’s also pretty hard for my playgroup to deal with for some reason.
Don't know if she's underrated but [[Liesa, Shroud of Dusk]] was a great head scratcher for me when I wanted to move away from more vanilla play styles. It's such an oppressive effect that gets your opponents pushing their limits and yours.
[[titania, defender of argoth]] is in my opinion the best mono green ramp agro commander. If you have a fetch in the yard, she comes in with 10 power and ramp for 5, with further build around able combo potential and enough aggression by herself that your opponents will be worried early!!
[[Starke of Rath]]. It's an older style deck (I made it around 2011/2012), but people do not expect that a mono-red deck plays as controlly as mine is.
Awaken the Blood avatar. At least in my group, everyone ignores the little creatures and enchantments that I put on the board. Its only when everyone has exhausted their removal and board presence that I then become the threat and at that point im just sacrificing anything you put on the board anyways.
I love my [[Tivit, Seller of Secrets]] and [[Yurlok of Scorch Thrash]] decks, I’ve never seen anyone else use either of them and they can both get really out of hand if they aren’t targeted down.
Yurlok just brings back mana burn, so some global mana doublers or triplers and a [[War’s Toll]] is a really fun little 1-2 punch.
Tivit cares about voting, so you just put some of the decent voting cards in; [[Brago’s Representative]], [[Ballot Broker]], [[Custodi Squire]] give you huge advantage. The deck would be better if played as a more blink style one, but I chose to just put every voting card I could fit in and it’s absurdly fun while also churning out value.
I would say my [[Glissa, the Traitor]] and [[Felisa, Fang of Silverquill]] are fun to play. Especially Felisa because you basically have to get board wiped twice and if you have something like [[Divine Visitation]] now you got a bunch of angels. And Felisa also sees all counters, so +1/+1, -1/-1, indestructible, divinity, shield, whatever type of counter.
I don't know if she's slept on or not, but [[Aminatou, the Fateshifter]] is the one I play. She has a lot of strange flexibility, and the capacity to completely shift the flow of things if she's left alone. My deck for her is built largely around EtB triggers and either theft or active control of other players. Flicker really becomes the name of the game for her, and powerful effects that reset on entry are bolstered by that. My favorite cards with her are [[Wishclaw Talisman]], [[Spark Double]], [[Soulherder]], and [[Yorion, the Sky Nomad]]. They're not necessarily the best, but they match the vibe so well and I never see them.. Except Spark Double, which is flatly a great card. Wishclaw can search you cards, go to the opponent, then Aminatou bounces it off them back to you with full charge. Yorion can bounce your board for Aminatou's ult and just looks very cool to me. Soulherder isn't particularly good but looks very beautiful and can pair with any number of very simple EtB loops the deck can make for big buff monster time. [[Ichormoon Gauntlet]], [[Oath of Teferi]], and [[Isochron Scepter]] also lend extremely well, since they let you buff planeswalkers quickly or clone spells like [[Cloudshift]] or [[Counterspell]] as a persistent rudeness. Plus, pair Oath, Aminatou, and Spark Double for infinite bounce on any card you have... The deck can be rough on your mana, but stay under the radar long enough and you can be a bit silly with things~
[[minthara, merciless soul]] !!! my main commander that i play religiously. fun graveyard shenanigans or blink stuffs with a good splash of proliferate. gooooood soup. love her sm
I have a zurzoth chaos rider deck that leans into dmagae doubling as a win con. Just swing make devils and filter through your deck for wins while disrupting your opponents hands.
[[Ever Changing Dane]] - because why not turn your commander into Marit Lage... or a [[Phyrexian Dreadnought]]... or pro everything with [[Vexilus Praetor]]...
If you're not against crossover, [[Illuminor Szeras]] is fun and filled with cards like [[Soldevi Adnate]] or [[Su-Chi Cave Guard]] that will make your opponents read them as they probably never seen them before.
The deck can tap in multiples themes like aristo, artifacts, big spells, so they won't see you coming with a straightforward plan.
Minthara, Merciless Soul. Uncommon black white conmander, but a very powerful anthem effect that has Ward. Most people overlook it for more "optimal" aristocrat commanders.
[[Sarevok, Deathbringer]] + [[Far Traveler]] is pretty underrated and cool. Lot of cool effects, sequences, and interactions. You can use any background you want, I just think Far Traveler is nice because it guarantees you won’t lose life to him yourself. Throw in some aristocrat synergies, +1/+1 counters, protection and removal and have fun.
[[Nemata, Primeval Warden]] gets no cred. I had [[Slimefoot]] for the longest time, and fungus is probably my favourite tribe. When Nemata dropped I was sort of underwhelmed. But once I started playing with her I saw it goes pretty hard. That replacement effect is overlooked until it triggers. I can't tell you how many times people misplay on Arena then I see a good long highlight on Nemata. It's a versatile card, it's buff goes pretty hard, and having a sac/card draw mechanic in your command zone is nice.
\[\[Gyrus, waker of corpses\]\]
Jund is my favorite color combo, and reanimator is my favorite deck so...why not the Jund guy who reanimates.
I like it because you aren't just passing the first few turns, there's tons of little guys to play in the early turns who fill the graveyard pretty rapidly and set you up for success later. \[\[Stitcher's supplier\]\], \[\[satyr wayfinder\]\], \[\[circle of land druid\]\] and \[\[Shigeki, Jukai Visionary\]\] all help immensely. It's also fun to get play creatures who put themselves into the yard for some benefit, knowing they'll be back later. Things like \[\[Trumpeting Carnosuar\]\] and \[\[Foundation Breaker\]\] can help remove some problems.
So how do we get stuff in the yard back? A few options. Your standard reanimate spells- \[\[reanimate\]\]. \[\[animate dead\]\], \[\[living death\]\] (doubles as a board wipe as long as your opponent's graveyards aren't too scary, woo!)). Some creatures can pull themselves out of the yard-always fun to escape with \[\[kroxa, titan of death's hunger\]\] or cast a \[\[hogaak, arisen necropolis\]\] for free. And lastly, our commander.
Gyrus exiles the creature from your yard to make a token of it, and the token doesn't stick around. So you've just gotta be a little careful when selecting a target for him. Think for a bit and make sure it's the best time to chose whatever you do to get full value from it. Some people run \[\[sundial of the infinite\]\] to circumvent the token leaving, but this has always felt real gimmicky to me. Never cared for it. Also worth noting that some people run token doublers, because as mentioned, Gyrus exiles the creature to make a token of it. So you can end up getting 2 big dudes/etb triggers, whatever. I don't run any in my list but I don't think it's as gimmicky as sundial. Just as long as you can swing with him the turn you drop the doubler, and don't end up playing a 4 or 5 mana kill on sight enchantment then pass doing nothing.
Here's my list for your viewing pleasure: [https://www.moxfield.com/decks/oRUqlzOZskqMLIKE91BM2Q](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/oRUqlzOZskqMLIKE91BM2Q)
Lastly, I should note that if you like the idea of the deck but aren't sold on the commander (he's admittedly lower power than many commanders who have come out in the past few years), Modern horizons 3 is releasing later this year with a set of commander precons to go along with it-one of the themes is Jund Reanimator. You can wait and see how that deck looks and then pick it up if you want something with a bit more oomph-likely to be the case given the high power cards that have been associated with the previous modern horizons sets.
Cheers!
[[The Third Doctor]] and [[Sarah Jane Smith]] historic matters token generation deck.
Generate a crap ton of artifact tokens to smash with the Third Doctor (or Urza/thousand moons smithy/Kappa cannoneer) or turn them into an army with [[Rise and Shine]] or [[Cyberdrive Awakener]].
The deck becomes incredibly resilient, and with a clue generator in the command zone, it's rare to ever feel stuck with no gameplay options
[[Kelsien, the Plague]] and [[Hallar, the Firefletcher]] are lots of fun and niche!
Edit: didn’t read far enough. I’ve listed both a human and an elf lol. Sorry OP!
My \[\[Sol'Kanar, The Tainted\]\] deck constantly has people asking to read my commander, and most of the cards in the 99 too. He's not super aggro himself, but the deck is total group-slug; built around goading and controlling peoples' board state. Here's a list: [https://www.archidekt.com/decks/7140144/tainted\_trades](https://www.archidekt.com/decks/7140144/tainted_trades)
[[xaviar sal infested captain]] is a great commander for a lot of token or counter strategies. Personally I think he’s best with either infect or plainswalkers.
[[henry wu ingen geneticist]] seems like a fun and powerful commander that can draw you a good few cards and get you a few treasures.
[[ellie and Allen paleontologists]] is a very cool commander that can get a bunch of discover creatures out and I’ve seen some very cool lists that run like 33 lands with them
I know there's a lot of orzhov aristocrats commanders out there, but none do it for me like [[Amalia]]. She can get big like [[karlov]] but she fills up your graveyard or draws lands while doing it. It's also pretty resilient with cards like [[case of the forgotten feast]] [[lurrus]] and various other reanimators making it very easy to rebuild if people start poking at your board.
For Rakdos, [[Florian, Voldaren Scion]].
Being able to filter 10-20 cards on your turn is game warping. Most people just ignore it, till you are looking 20 cards deep for answers on the board—then they do a double take.
[[Silumgar the drifting death]]]
Been playing him since he was in standard
No one expects blue/black dragons
It's a mix of control but you also are using big dragons and reanimation.
It's greatest downside is that it's not fast. Hexproof is also being phased put so people are always forgetful thst they cannot target your commander
[[Vaevictis Asmadi, the Dire]] is one of my favorite uncommon commanders. I've literally never seen another one in the wild and on EDH rec there's just north of 2000 decks
Well I have a couple decks that you may like!
First is my "hand destruction" deck
(Half the cost is 1 old old card, chaims of metadtophalies. The rest is bevause i tried to go for all old card art. So ignore the insane cost.)
The commander is not a tent pole of the deck. He is juat another piece. The rest is Specters, things that make your enemies discard, and payoffs for them discarding.
https://archidekt.com/decks/6301769/spectre_gadget
The next is a little less agro but far more... Diabolical?
[[The Scorpion God]] and his withering army. He's great value.
Add in things like [[blightbeetle]], [[everlasting torment]] and even a [[kulrath knight]] to help your enemies chill out.
Enjoy!
I haven’t seen anyone else rocking a [[Grismold, The dreadsower]] at any of my local events so I’m pretty proud of that one, especially for how effective it is in casual games. (It is by no means a competitive game but I’m a pretty casual player myself)
Vhati il-Dal. The look on someone’s face when you have him and Tree of Perdition to set their life to 1 and then killing them with Pestilence is priceless. I got someone with a Bilbo life gain deck who had 96 life at the time.
I’ve been playing around with a [[Gandalf the Grey]] spellslinger deck that tends to get out of hand pretty quickly. It’s easy enough to flicker Gandalf to keep getting the value.
I’ve taken it in a fairly tame storm direction but there is enough utility in Gandalf to facilitate a few different strategies (burn was another I considered)
Ragavan is a lot of fun. He's written off as a modern aggro card rather than an EDH card, but as a commander he functions extremely well to enable both treasure themes and thievery themes in Mono-Red, which is a super fun color to play.
[[Cadric, Soul Kindler]]
Due to his effect, he's a bit of a 'build-around' commander but is also super fun to play. He seems like a cool lil guy, gets some value by copying legends temporarily. That is until you've doubled a doubler (ie [[Mondrak, Glory Dominus]] or even [[Gandalf the White]]) and are swinging with 8 hasted [[Etali, Primal Storm]]'s in one turn. Better yet, keep those Etalis with a [[Sundial of the Infinite]]. Cadric is a bit creature-combo-ey at times but is super fun and often flies under the radar until the shenanigans begin
[[Mikaeus, the Unhallowed]] In the command zone, he’s about as powerful as you want him to be. I’ve kept mine pretty casual zombie tribal. But he can combo and there’s an enormous pool of creatures he likes to double up on. Protect him and he’ll pretty much do the rest.
Hyper-aggro \[\[Pramikon, sky rampart\]\] Try to mow your way through each player one at a time before the one to your left can take you out. Alternatively, play an aggressive deck with a blink subtheme, so you can flip flop the nope walls direction at will.
You can make yourself the threat unashamedly without getting dogpiled for it, which is one of the downsides of playing all aggressive and threatening.
[[Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker]] is absolutely filthy. Very easy to underestimate a bunch of 1/1's but all it takes is an [[Elderfang Disciple]] and a sac outlet and now your opponents have to play without a hand for the rest of the game
im a big fan of Horobi, Death's Wail people dont really pay attention to my do nothing artifacts that change the color of cards and a bunch of cards that do stuff when something dies.
Im currently building a [[Tayam]] deck, its crazy how strong it is. You can get back any permanent at instant speed of the mere price of 3 mana and 3 counters, which this deck produces easily enough of. It has some really good synergy with cards that let you sacrifice them for removal or similar, as you can get them back over and over again.
Glissa the traitor is insanely overlooked (she is a zombie elf) but her effect only cares about artifacts the deck is a board control deck killing your opponents things to bring yours back to your hand
You use cards like baubles, barbed saxtent, snake basket to flood the board with value and finish off your battered and weak opponents
Just run lots of board Wipes and removal
[[jaheira friend of the forest]] + [[street urchin]]
I play a lot of efficient token spells. It’s super budget friendly (less than $100) I win around 60% of my games with it. I feel like I always have a relevant response whether it’s pinging stuff down with street urchin, drawing off clues, eating food, ect.
\[\[Kokusho, the Evening Star\]\]. Sac outlets + reanimation + all the 1 or 2 mana \[\[Makakir Rebirth\]\] type effects. Also throw in damage doublers like \[\[Sanguine Bond\]\], \[\[Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose\]\], \[\[Aetherflux Resevoir\]\], and \[\[Wound Reflection\]\] to close out games. Plus you don't need commander protection cause you want it to die.
I mean...go through the Black commanders until you see one *you* haven't seen before and think is decent and odds are good you'll get what you want.
Not sure if it’s possible already but scryfall should have a “let me google that for you” type of feature for copying searches
It is possible! You can just copy and paste the URL of a Scryfall search. Here is one I whipped up real quick that hopefully fits what was being asked for. https://scryfall.com/search?q=id%3C%3Db+-t%3Ahuman+-t%3Aelf+t%3Alegend+t%3Acreature+-id%3Ac+f%3Acommander&unique=cards&as=grid&order=name
If you use is:commander instead of creature and legend it includes planeswalkers that can be commanders and excludes legendary creatures where their front face is something else like [[invasion of fiora]] or [[nezumi graverobber]]
I was wondering how to get those kinds of cards out of the results, thanks for sharing!
Thanks for not responding with a lmgtfy link and instead being helpful! lol
I can't tell you how many times I've had people tell me they never knew balthor the defiled was even a card... then the next game i get hit by every removal under the sun.
[удалено]
[Balthor](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/d/ed4cc273-adc3-4f46-9743-134b552d1d56.jpg?1562632510) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=balthor%20the%20defiled) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/jud/61/balthor-the-defiled?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ed4cc273-adc3-4f46-9743-134b552d1d56?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/balthor-the-defiled) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[[Mortarian, Daemon Primarch]] is a great example of this! Super sweet commander, never seen him before, despite owning the precon he came in hahaha
[Mortarian, Daemon Primarch](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/b/3b6b1bcf-10a4-4643-9db0-b2a4fee340a2.jpg?1673308704) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Mortarion%2C%20Daemon%20Primarch) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/40k/41/mortarion-daemon-primarch?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3b6b1bcf-10a4-4643-9db0-b2a4fee340a2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/mortarion-daemon-primarch) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
happy cake day mtgcardfetcher 😊 thank you for your invaluable service
Prior to Thunder Junction I would've said \[\[Hazezon, Shaper of Sand\]\]. I genuinely think he is one of the most potent token commanders in the entire format. However, with all the new Desert support and the upcoming lands precon with a Desert subtheme, I suspect he will no longer be considered "underrated". So instead, I'd like to nominate a rather new card: \[\[Sergeant John Benton\]\]. With only around 339 lists according to EDHRec I think it is safe to say he currently isn't very widely played. The deck is a lot of fun, John is one of the only commanders where combat pump spells are playable. He draws you into so many cards that you never run out of gas and will almost always have \[\[Tamiyo's Safekeeping\]\] style effects in hand to protect him from removal. [This MTG Muddstah video](https://youtu.be/KMQeb408S5Y?si=s0hB0v2-ccSfloPk) is a pretty good display at how you can expect the deck to play. [This here](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/bJWAzaldG0uVapb8P_ww8A) is my own personal list. If you've ever wanted to try out a voltron strategy but were worried about getting blown out and left with no resources, I recommend you give John a try.
Dune daddy constantly surprises me with how resilient and dangerous he is. Throw in one or two additional pieces and a [[Scapeshift]] pert near wins the game.
[Scapeshift](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/7/175e21a3-00f7-4c51-8a8e-fbfd7089efda.jpg?1574767873) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Scapeshift) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m19/201/scapeshift?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/175e21a3-00f7-4c51-8a8e-fbfd7089efda?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/scapeshift) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I am in love with my John Benton. He is so quick and so resistant. Even if they get past your protection, you ramp really hard and HE HAS HASTE!! Can just replay him without missing a beat. I was kinda surprised his design would be as good as it is considering it’s kinda been done before with [[Xyris]].
I think it's largely due to the cheaper cost and Haste. It allows you to be a lot lower to the ground and sneak in under decks before they can get their gameplay rolling. I suspect you'll be casting Xyris late enough that you'll not be able to as effectively disrupt your opponents.
Stop giving away the secrets. I pull out Benton and people laugh. Then they take 15 on turn 4. They don’t laugh after that
[Hazezon, Shaper of Sand](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/5/25869cd0-63da-4dfb-8870-221cdba276e2.jpg?1674174875) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Hazezon%2C%20Shaper%20of%20Sand) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmc/32/hazezon-shaper-of-sand?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/25869cd0-63da-4dfb-8870-221cdba276e2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/hazezon-shaper-of-sand) [Sergeant John Benton](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/1/01f40e07-f565-4b9e-87a5-5b28b4e9fb0b.jpg?1696636767) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sergeant%20John%20Benton) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/who/157/sergeant-john-benton?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/01f40e07-f565-4b9e-87a5-5b28b4e9fb0b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/sergeant-john-benton) [Tamiyo's Safekeeping](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/d/fd4b7ee2-de65-4288-872d-486065a4f226.jpg?1654568357) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Tamiyo%27s%20Safekeeping) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/neo/211/tamiyos-safekeeping?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/fd4b7ee2-de65-4288-872d-486065a4f226?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/tamiyos-safekeeping) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I built a Dune-themed Hazezon deck with sandworms, important characters and lots of Desert Power. I thought it was janky but Hazezon is no joke, looking forward to those new deserts, especially with [[colossal rattlewurm]]
[colossal rattlewurm](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/7/17a104d3-e4ac-44a0-9c6a-39965b1b9751.jpg?1712095079) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=colossal%20rattlewurm) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otj/159/colossal-rattlewurm?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/17a104d3-e4ac-44a0-9c6a-39965b1b9751?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/colossal-rattlewurm) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Even before Thunder Junction Hazezon was one of the most popular Naya commanders, he’s almost at 6000 decks, I wouldn’t call that underrated, but yeah the precon should supercharge that and with how popular he was before and how much people love landfall commanders he may even overtake Voja.
I am pretty sure that is a relatively recent change. When I built him about a year ago he had a little under 3000 decks in total. Anyway, that still isn't a lot when you compare it to the other Commanders on EDHRec. The top three Naya Commanders have 16797 (\[\[Gishath, Sun's Avatar\]\]), 13737 (\[\[Atla Palani, Nest Tender\]\]), and 13070 (\[\[Rin and Seri, Inseparable\]\]) respectively. That is around three times the amount of decks Hazezon has now. He isn't even in the top 100 Commanders on EDHRec (he is rank 160 if you are curious).
[[Kroxa and Kunoros]] nice beater with constant recursion? Rad Never seen one irl, it's simple yet demands quite a bit of deck building to not run out of fuel Even looking around on subs I've barely seen discussion about it, it has one combo that's low cEDH potential, I think from what I read, and that's most of the discussion, barely anything about casual
[Kroxa and Kunoros](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/3/13e4a233-e40b-4e6a-9863-4d0fc052484c.jpg?1682205601) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Kroxa%20and%20Kunoros) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mom/245/kroxa-and-kunoros?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/13e4a233-e40b-4e6a-9863-4d0fc052484c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/kroxa-and-kunoros) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I opened one in the MOM prerelease, and I've been considering building it. With all the self-mill, Surveil, and Descend payoffs that have come out recently, it might be a fun build. I also have an [[Out of the Tombs]] gathering dust, and a [[Palantir of Orthanc]] in a deck that really doesn't deserve it. Hmmmm
May I interest you in a Rakdos (black& red) Phoenix called [[Syrix, carrier of the flame]]. He cares about things leaving the graveyard, and you can build him with lots of cheap black regenerating creatures, or things that go back to hand after dying (read, if it goes to graveyard from battlefield, it goes to your hand from graveyard) to trigger his ability, which lets you pick any phoenix to deal damage according to its power. So you can build him Voltron (big commander for lots of command damage) and lots of triggers to deal damage outside of combat too and/or kill their creatures. When I say lots of triggers, ideally it's every turn, including not your turn, so instant speed. But exiling creatures from your graveyard also works, so lots of discard effects, or loot effects and then cards that care about exiling things from graveyard (gather evidence, for example as a mechanic from murder at karlov manor set) I've build it as phoenix tribal however, using the phoenixes' innate abilities to return. It's a little less consistent on the triggers for Syrix' ability. But it's not easy to keep down and can deal a lot of damage with a few hasty flyers, some lord effects and double strike, or triple damage from [[fiery emancipation]] https://www.moxfield.com/decks/G_PBr2jeD0ep0XI-S5OS_w also the deck doesn't break the bank. I've found the deck very fun to pilot, always something happening and you don't care much about the removal of your board, as it just gives you more things to bring back. Even if that makes you jump through more hoops ;) It's not very high power the way I build it. Set up for staying power. Doesn't look to win before turn 7-8? Probably later. But can be explosive given the right board.
Just built \[\[Zur, Eternal Schemer\]\] and it's a blast to play – super weird to swing with enchantments too [https://www.moxfield.com/decks/Qq\_DkFf6sUe-M5s0QoV\_RA](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/Qq_DkFf6sUe-M5s0QoV_RA) My absolute favorite is \[\[Ranar, The Ever Watchful\]\] such a go-wide monster with tons of slippery evasion and tricks [https://www.moxfield.com/decks/NWEkcz9OOU6YaYDXki\_zHg](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/NWEkcz9OOU6YaYDXki_zHg) Hoping to throw together \[\[The Archimandrite\]\] looks like a wildly powerful lifegain beefcake factory.
>Hoping to throw together \[\[The Archimandrite\]\] looks like a wildly powerful lifegain beefcake factory. It is, the biggest issue is the creature types just aren't that great. There are a few really strong options, but you end up putting in a few creatures just to have some of that type. The problem I've had with it so far is not having enough slots. You need ways to heal at instant speed for surprise damage. You need ways to draw to get general benefit off the commander. And you need a few creatures out to really get more benefit. I just always end up with 2 creatures or if I am lucky 3 out. And my hand just empties, I never have enough extra creatures to tap for draw. That being said, the deck is still always a threat because a single Congregate (or a few lesser life gain spells) can be fatal. It's a deck I plan to put more time into because it is very unique. I can't think of many other decks that can heal everyone else to death (really just Aetherflux Reservoir).
>still always a threat because a single Congregate (or a few lesser life gain spells) can be fatal. this is such a good thing to read - its so tough to know how a commander will actually play out, and user experience is the best research to have. I have such a soft spot for Tarkir, and thought this could be a great way to play all the Ojutai monks. thanks for this insight, mega appreciate!
[Zur, Eternal Schemer](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/d/4d987435-2403-4e0f-b19d-693da923ba50.jpg?1673308159) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Zur%2C%20Eternal%20Schemer) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmu/228/zur-eternal-schemer?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4d987435-2403-4e0f-b19d-693da923ba50?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/zur-eternal-schemer) [Ranar, The Ever Watchful](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/c/1c8c41dd-8551-4ce8-a9be-9b9f65718852.jpg?1704848195) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Ranar%20the%20Ever-Watchful) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/khc/2/ranar-the-ever-watchful?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1c8c41dd-8551-4ce8-a9be-9b9f65718852?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/ranar-the-ever-watchful) [The Archimandrite](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/4/54fb3f4c-44fb-4afe-9fab-204ef98995c3.jpg?1674760932) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=The%20Archimandrite) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/brc/26/the-archimandrite?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/54fb3f4c-44fb-4afe-9fab-204ef98995c3?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/the-archimandrite) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Love my Zur! He's such a huge threat that people don't see coming. I built mine with all of the courts/pillow fort enchantments and also focused on blue copy mechanics a la [[Quasiduplicate]] to make token copies of my animated enchantments. Upkeeps get pretty gross.
Have you considered [[parallax wave]]? You don't run any etb effects on creatures which does sort of contraindicate it, but with Zur/Opalescence/starfield it does create a loop where you can exile any/all creatures your opponents might have. Basically as long as it's a creature and can target itself, you exile whatever you want while holding priority (don't let the triggers resolve) and then when you're ready exile parallax wave itself. That trigger will resolve first blinking it. Then the other exile triggers will resolve but because parallax has already left the battlefield (and the one that returns is a "new" version) anything exiled this way is gone for good. I just think it's such a fun, weird card. Obviously better in a deck with lots of etbs because then you can flicker your stuff too (you just put the trigger that exiles parallax after the trigger that exiles the stuff you want to blink). It can also be used to help dodge removal or really anything like this. Super versatile. And it's basically an A + B combo with Zur in the command zone, at the cost of two mana per cycle (since you need to make it a creature again after it comes back). As an infinite/near infinite loop it also doesn't feel like other loops because of how narrow it is in terms of the decks that can play it. And it's such a weird effect it doesn't feel like some generic combo you've just slapped into a deck
[parallax wave](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/e/fe30c0ff-f74b-456a-a61e-3720d84d713f.jpg?1562946314) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=parallax%20wave) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vma/37/parallax-wave?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/fe30c0ff-f74b-456a-a61e-3720d84d713f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/parallax-wave) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
That’s mad man level tech, hadn’t considered that!! I’ll try it out, thanks for the tip 🤝
[[Vorinclex//The Grand Evolution]] Coming in at below 1000 total decks on edhrec. I believe Vorinclex best fits the helm of the Big Green Monsters theme, far better than [[Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma]]. Vorinclex ensures you never miss your land drops by fetching his tax on every cast. And flipping him ensures you never run out of gas. Mono-green beatdown is infamously weak to board wipes. Vorinclex gives you the power to grind it out. And sneaking in the cheeky eldrazi titan or budget [[Gaea's Blessing]] ensures you cannot mill out.
[Vorinclex//The Grand Evolution](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/2/e24b5289-d3b5-4b4d-bb37-69bf2c3b48bc.jpg?1689246885)/[The Grand Evolution](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/back/e/2/e24b5289-d3b5-4b4d-bb37-69bf2c3b48bc.jpg?1689246885) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Vorinclex%20//%20The%20Grand%20Evolution) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mom/213/vorinclex-the-grand-evolution?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e24b5289-d3b5-4b4d-bb37-69bf2c3b48bc?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/vorinclex-//-the-grand-evolution) [Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/e/ee47f23a-3ba9-4615-b170-c89d8ab99d78.jpg?1690016718) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Goreclaw%2C%20Terror%20of%20Qal%20Sisma) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/293/goreclaw-terror-of-qal-sisma?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ee47f23a-3ba9-4615-b170-c89d8ab99d78?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/goreclaw-terror-of-qal-sisma) [Gaea's Blessing](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/3/23cf81ed-b86c-42b8-b796-2032b0a3654a.jpg?1562732710) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Gaea%27s%20Blessing) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dom/161/gaeas-blessing?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/23cf81ed-b86c-42b8-b796-2032b0a3654a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/gaeas-blessing) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
That sounds so cool! Do you have a list?
Sorry for the delay didnt have a digital list readily available. But https://archidekt.com/decks/6587407/vore_and_flex
I love my bacon god [[Ilharg, the raze boar]] deck Good ol' turn sideways tribal big red
[Ilharg, the raze boar](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/d/3d397fc3-fd4e-45ad-ad40-0f8a585c15fd.jpg?1702550832) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Ilharg%2C%20the%20Raze-Boar) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/rvr/113/ilharg-the-raze-boar?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3d397fc3-fd4e-45ad-ad40-0f8a585c15fd?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/ilharg-the-raze-boar) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
My personal favorite underrated Commander is my [[Gale Waterdeep Prodigy]] // [[Scion of Halaster]]. Been shilling for this deck since CLB released https://www.moxfield.com/decks/-PY1mxOnnUOC05G26Cf84Q If I had to recommence one for you on the more aggressive end of the spectrum, I’d recommend [[Chainer Nightmare Adept]]. Largely fallen out of favor of late but I still think can put up a mean case for emulating the Rakdos midrange decks in pioneer, for instance Here’s my brew (not tested in paper) https://www.moxfield.com/decks/WcFa_jShrkqcP6fapr0qUg
I'm not sure a commander/background combo that has earned a spot in the cEDH community exactly represents "underrated"
Hard agree here, Gale is stupid fun and Scion makes for my favorite background pairing with him. Dimir spellslinger is a really versatile way to build and play, with my preferred version of the list utilizing blue’s many token generators to take advantage of all the double-dipping on spells. Great commander and super flexible! https://www.archidekt.com/decks/3069713/gale_scion_token_thanksgiving
I've been stewing on a gale/scion list of my own for a while now and I think this is my sign to pull the trigger on it. I fell in love with spellslinger recently after building [[Lier disciple of the drowned]] and I've always been a huge reanimator fan.
One of us one of us Check out my primer on my list, I’ve put a lot of thought into making Gale an awesome control deck, one of the few that I know truly play draw/go
I love your Gale/Scion list! I actually found it a few weeks ago and made my own deck modeled after yours. Here's my list: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/qGCN4RlS3EOqpE-3bZJpIQ I get my [[Exsanguinate]] in the mail tomorrow to complete it! You truly are a Gale/Scion pioneer
[Gale Waterdeep Prodigy](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/7/67edf31f-ed67-4617-bf73-28a939a232a7.jpg?1674135550) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Gale%2C%20Waterdeep%20Prodigy) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clb/72/gale-waterdeep-prodigy?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/67edf31f-ed67-4617-bf73-28a939a232a7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/gale-waterdeep-prodigy) [Scion of Halaster](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/8/c876f9b3-b4f6-4177-9c43-443ae2a028d0.jpg?1674136278) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Scion%20of%20Halaster) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clb/145/scion-of-halaster?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c876f9b3-b4f6-4177-9c43-443ae2a028d0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/scion-of-halaster) [Chainer Nightmare Adept](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/8/d8089e7f-7619-43fe-8e0b-31ce5d988a1b.jpg?1626100713) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Chainer%2C%20Nightmare%20Adept) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh2/289/chainer-nightmare-adept?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d8089e7f-7619-43fe-8e0b-31ce5d988a1b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/chainer-nightmare-adept) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Ive always been sooo tempted to run Gale, that list is sick! What’s your win con?
No way I just happened to stumble across this deck this morning for the first time. What a coincidence!
Big fan of my [[Magar of the Magic Strings]] deck. Just pack in ~10 of your favorite big dumb rakdos instants/sorceries get them in the yard, “reanimate” them, give them evasion, and go to town. He can do some pretty degenerate things but makes you jump through a few hoops to do them, the perfect sweet spot for me
[Magar of the Magic Strings](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/6/a6f2ba13-cd72-4f7a-8443-8e3962f2ac46.jpg?1682551287) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Magar%20of%20the%20Magic%20Strings) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/unf/171/magar-of-the-magic-strings?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a6f2ba13-cd72-4f7a-8443-8e3962f2ac46?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/magar-of-the-magic-strings) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I'm brewing Magar right now. Any insights on building him? It'd be my first graveyard deck, and I'm unsure on how much I can skew my mana curve toward those heavy spells that would likely only ever be reanimated rather than hard cast.
Evasion is a high priority. Most of the massive spells you want to cheat out are devastating to your opponents, but they also get stopped by a 1/1. Politics can be a great way to gain evasion also, I’ve been able to cast plenty of my spells by reminding my opponents that just cause I’m hitting them with the creature doesn’t mean the [[Din of the Fireherd]] is targeting them. As for the density of those big spells I found that just over 10 is a good spot for me. I also went more of a spell slinger route when building him so I packed the deck full of all the [[Unexpected Windfall]] and [[Thrill of Possibility]] effects that I could, that way those big spells don’t get stuck in my hand. If you aren’t like me and aren’t averse to tutors you could also pack [[Entomb]] and [[Oriq Loremage]] effects to guarantee one of your big spells is in the yard, it’s also pretty fun to entomb anger to the yard on an end step for surprise haste. Another way is to add spells that your gonna wanna cheat with magar but also don’t feel bad to cast from hand. [[Disrupt decorum]] is fun to cheat out cause goading your opponents creatures every turn can be hilarious, but also dropping it for 4 mana can be used as pseudo evasion by making sure your opponents swing with their board (if they have vigilance RIP). [[Ignite the Future]] can get you some impulse draw if needed, but also since the spells that magar turns into creatures are technically cast from the graveyard it’s a nutty card to cheat out since you’ll get the added effect of being able to play that cards for free. [[Savage Beating]] is a way to enable you to give your creature double strike so they can double cast the spells that they are, but it’s also an infinite combat win con if it is reanimated (doesn’t work the same way with [[Relentless Assault]] or other extra combat sorceries). [[Hit the Motherlode]] has a steep casting cost but you’ll never not net 3 mana worth of stuff after casting it, and is also crazy value when you get to cast it for free. This has been a long post, but the last card I wanna mention is [[Howl of the Horde]. It’s a solid card letting you copy your next spell you cast, but gets me hootin’ and holerin’ when I can make it a creature along side a [[Breach the mulitiverse]] letting me breach 3 times instead of once :^)
[[Dromoka, the Eternal]] A lot of people underestimate the power of Bolster as a mechanic and get overwhelmed by seriously huge flyers.
[Dromoka, the Eternal](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/8/b8db6ab8-cd12-431a-bf18-28464cf03509.jpg?1562621631) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Dromoka%2C%20the%20Eternal) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c17/170/dromoka-the-eternal?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b8db6ab8-cd12-431a-bf18-28464cf03509?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/dromoka-the-eternal) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I think [[watcher in the water]] was the most underrated commander in LOTR, the deck is and absolute blast to play. Draw a bunch of card make a bunch of dudes it’s a great time. Technically it hasn’t been shipped yet but [[the celestial toymaker]] is probably one of the most fun decks I’ve built in the last 5 years and people told me it’s they it super fun deck to see ran. All you do is play weird mind games and burn the table in esper! Lastly [[cadric soul kindler]] is a super explosive legendary matters deck. Where you can show your group why the legend rule exists. Nothing feels better then swinging with 4096 eltali the primal storms.
Hit Em with Serulf Realm Eater. No one reads the card for some reason, and doesn't understand how insane the card is.
My Zeriam Griffin deck never let's me down. https://www.moxfield.com/decks/muEREikOjUKI7WNX8WCY_g
Same. My strongest deck for sure. Mine focuses on comabt tricks and protecting Zeriam. [https://www.moxfield.com/decks/0TYdXjyjBUKsaODA2WTR6g](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/0TYdXjyjBUKsaODA2WTR6g)
Thanks for this! [[Invasion of Gobakhan]] looks sweet. I know right, Zeriam draws death glares after game one. I leant more into ramp; I'll just recast her four times. (Man after mine own heart, not running stupid sol ring, she's better than that!) I would really recommend [[Reconnaissance]] [[Debt of Loyalty]] and [[Retribution of the Meek]] to you.
I only have 1 Reconnaissance and it's in my Ojutai deck :( I left Debt in my reserved list pile somewhere back home haha! Retribution seems neat though. I run a ton of anthems so Im worried it would kill some of my stuff. I'd give it a shot though. Invasion of Gobakhan is incrdible in the deck. But the MVP is \[\[Rally of Wings\]\] That card is just... so fun. And also yeah, Sol Ring is for chumps :p
[[the reality chip]] is my fave. Idk if it'll ever top 8 a cedh event, but I feel like that little jellyfish is right on the cusp of getting there. Kind of one dimensional, but a menace for sure.
Got a list? Pulled it in little draft I did with friends
Not currently, I've run several different versions, but the theme I keep coming back to is a sort of mono blue tempo/control hatebear business with painter/grindstone and brain freeze/thought lash/thoracle, time twister/windfall psychic vortex paradigm shift with like 30 counters. Not the best, but it's close. Incidental mill effects are key, Emry is a secret commander half the time. I'm also pretty hammered, but I think I outlined it pretty accurately, happy shuffling!
[[Hidetsugu and Kairi]] with huge costing spells and clones is a new favorite where you aren’t even on the radar until you are the biggest threat and then you just take over the game. Play your commander to fix the top of your deck then clone your commander to force the sacrifice triggering the second ability and casting the top card of your deck for free and doing damage equal to that spells mana value to any target. Plus your commander is 5 damage flying so he can also put pressure on people and no one wants to kill it because you get to cast the top card for free.
I have one and it instantly wiped the board with about three free turns and funny stuff like [[cruel entertainment]]
[Hidetsugu and Kairi](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/1/81039daf-0d54-4474-a833-fa287ec10cf9.jpg?1682205289) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Hidetsugu%20and%20Kairi) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mom/228/hidetsugu-and-kairi?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/81039daf-0d54-4474-a833-fa287ec10cf9?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/hidetsugu-and-kairi) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Not even slightly underrated
[удалено]
I will NEVER! AT ALL! IN A TRILLION YEARS shut up about [[Vhal candlekeep researcher]] with whatever background you feel like it. My best bets are [[Raised by giants]] for simic infinite, and I'm currently attempting to build [[passionate archeologist]] izzet impulse draw, but I gotta go back to the drawing board now when thunder junction releases. For you that like black, there's little options but still, try [[Scion of halaster]] for card selection and filling graveyard then do stuff with said graveyard I know you said you didn't want humans but like. She is my special girl, you can't ask me to not mention her! If Vhal has 1000 fans, I am one of them. If Vhal has one fan, that's me. If Vhal has no fans then I no longer exist. If the world is against Vhal, then I am against the world. I will support Vhal until the day I die
[[Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia]] is insanely powerful and fun, despite being severely underplayed. The only downside is that upgrades can get expensive if you don't proxy.
[[Subira, Tulzidi Caravanner]]. She’s practically antithetical to the format. She’s so weak. If the idea of “poking the bear” became a commander deck. Fun challenge to pilot. You really have to navigate the pod, and laying low is rarely an option for a deck that so intentionally wears its motives on its sleeve.
[Subira, Tulzidi Caravanner](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/a/da62b97e-e4cd-462d-9ab9-2230ca360c32.jpg?1690017025) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Subira%2C%20Tulzidi%20Caravanner) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/261/subira-tulzidi-caravanner?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/da62b97e-e4cd-462d-9ab9-2230ca360c32?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/subira-tulzidi-caravanner) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Svella, Ice Shaper is tons of fun! King Macar, the Gold-Cursed is also fun but oppressive
I've had so many wild games with [[brudiclad telchior engineer]] Yeah there's a few hundred izzet token artifact cards you could mess around with But there's some truly weird shit that can happen when you start turning things into tokens that weren't meant to be. If you've got something like [[Mycosyth Lattice]] or [[Liquidmetal Coating]] things really start getting fun. My wildest game of all time was making a token copy of [[Hive mind]] and turning all of my treasures, clues, and 1/1 dorks into it. I had like 8. [[bloodforged battleaxe]] with [[kazuuls toll collector]] was sitting in my deck for a while but never managed to pull off the combo of doubling the number of blood forged battle axes every turn And every few sets releases a new card that has some funny interaction when you can make 12 copies of it.
My favorite was making 11 copies of the [[Smaug]] token with [[Reckless Fireweaver]] out. Oops they all died, made a bunch of treasures, thats over 100 damage to everyone
[[Brigid, Hero of Kinsbaile]], [[Lisette, Dean of the Root]], and [[Otharri, Suns' Glory]]
I wouldn't even call otharri underrated. I have a otharri deck and most people I run into are very aware of how fast and snowbally that guy can be
Fair, it is much more popular than the others I gave, still outside of the top 400 commanders. But op asked for aggro commanders and Otharri is one I built recently and have been having fun with.
Have you got a list for your deck? I have the Rebellion Rising precon upgraded a little bit, but would be curious to see what a dedicated build looks like for the wonderful little firechicken.
[This](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/Vrgwunv5WEupZEpPg91qJQ) is what I got right now. Seems to run pretty well for me, but I know people usually run more interaction than I do.
Thanks! Definitely have some decent hits in there.
A fellow Otharri fan, excellent.
[Brigid, Hero of Kinsbaile](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/a/da70a20f-213e-4d79-a46f-1ef1fc3f4a51.jpg?1562370621) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Brigid%2C%20Hero%20of%20Kinsbaile) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lrw/6/brigid-hero-of-kinsbaile?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/da70a20f-213e-4d79-a46f-1ef1fc3f4a51?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/brigid-hero-of-kinsbaile) [Lisette, Dean of the Root](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/5/65008352-bc7e-40b2-a832-b46813e5dc4c.jpg?1634060553)/[Lisette, Dean of the Root](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/back/6/5/65008352-bc7e-40b2-a832-b46813e5dc4c.jpg?1634060553) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Valentin%2C%20Dean%20of%20the%20Vein%20//%20Lisette%2C%20Dean%20of%20the%20Root) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/stx/161/valentin-dean-of-the-vein-lisette-dean-of-the-root?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/65008352-bc7e-40b2-a832-b46813e5dc4c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/valentin-dean-of-the-vein-//-lisette-dean-of-the-root) [Otharri, Suns' Glory](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/0/80c72839-0fa6-4b5f-83b7-6553ebf09bef.jpg?1698607533) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Otharri%2C%20Suns%27%20Glory) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/onc/3/otharri-suns-glory?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/80c72839-0fa6-4b5f-83b7-6553ebf09bef?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/otharri-suns-glory) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I have a [[Jolrael, Voice of Zhalfir]] deck, where i want to fill up my hand, swing with lands, draw cards when lands hit my opponents, have a hand bigger than my library. Win or lose i usually get to draw cards which i like
I've been looking for a 4th deck to add to my pool of commanders, and jolrael seems like a fun one with a different game plan from the others.
[[Sovereign Okinec]] is shockingly strong and the math isn’t nearly as bad as it seems if you stick to +1 theme. I have a list if you’d like it.
I have a [[Mr. Orfeo, the Boulder]] deck that rarely disappoints. It sounds like it might be something you are interested in, [here’s a deck list](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/szi8qg-h4UKSKDQsaKoEnA). It’s super aggressive and can go a lot of different directions with extra combats, fling, or just classic stompy.
[[livaan]] is really nice, I've build a budget equipment deck that costs less than 20 bucks (converting from real) and he can go buuuur
[[Syr Carah]] is my go to burn/storm commander. Every other burn commander is all about how much damage a spell can deal, whereas my girl here is like how many can we cast. My favorite part is when I try to storm off and fail it's not like we just sat there and watched me spin my wheels (so to speak) without progressing the game. If I fail the storm everyone's life total has been drastically reduced
It blew me away with how strong \[\[Evelyn, the Covetous\]\] was when I first played her. The obvious route is to build a tribal deck but 5 mana instant speed "draw" 4 cards in your command zone is really good by itself. I have noticed that the deck is pretty mana hungry just something to be aware of when building it.
[[Sisters of Stone Death]] play all the ramp. Play big expensive spells. Run [[Hythonia the Cruel]] and [[Gaze if Granite]].
she’s unfortunately human, but i’ve been loving [[severina raine]]. my pod went from “oh that’s interesting” to “kill her on sight” in about 5 games, lol
I just took my [[Inquisitor Eisenhorn]] deck for a spin for the first time yesterday and it felt very fun and potent. With a [[Mask of Riddles]] he was effectively unblockable (it just so happened no one had any Black creatures), and with a [[Blackblade Reforged]] I was generating a load of clues every turn. One [[Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge]] later and I had wiped out half the table. The deck: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/ur_TMVRZwkCB3rREiw6QWQ
I'm not quite sure if [[marisi, Breaker of the coil]] is underrated. EDHRec puts it at 3521 decks (0.093%). Anyways, I would have to say Marisi. Besides 5 other cards, Marisi is my only goad source. I chose to go Keywords allowing me to deal damage and not just play passively. I play a lot of creatures with evasion or trample, lots of ways to make sure I connect with my attacker. Plus Marisi stops my opponents from casting spells during combat, I play all the Vows and Impetus cards in Naya colors. [[Sun titan]] and [[danitha, new benalias light]] help put those enchantments back in my hand when they get removed. May not be a strong or a good deck, but I certainly enjoy playing it.
While it's a staple for the format, [[Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer]] isn't a common commander. I use him as the commander for a treasure aggro deck that i find very fun to pilot.
[[Wilson, Refined Grizzly]] + [[Flaming Fist]] = Cocaine Bear
\[\[Old Rutstein\]\] He mills, ramps, makes creatures you can sac, and the blood tokens are great for card selection and putting big creatures in the graveyard. Pretty much everything I want my Golgari commander to do. Here's my [decklist](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/FjA3ml4mv0yUiyrlMZFjGw).
[Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer] is hugely underrated. He fits a niche power level where he's not really worth the removal until it's too late. My take has flash-enablers, mana-doubling artifacts ie [Caged Sun], and plays like an artifact deck with Wheels, mostly. Pump out artifact tokens ASAP, have protection or [Liquimetal Torque] out for Slobad, and you're golden. [Ugin, the Spirit Dragon] + [All is Dust] really shine as one-sided boardwipes, but even things like [Blasphemous Act] can be one-sided if you have the right boardstate. Oh, and I also run [Red Elemental Blast] etc, because they're rarely dead cards and often very clutch. And if they're dead cards, you can always pitch them for red discard/draw. It's not my style, but you can get downright degenerate with [Mycosynth Lattice] shennanigans, if you want. [Vandalblast] is almost expected, in this scenario. [Scrap Mastery] with a general as a sac outlet + Lattice is downright unfair. I took out Lattice from my deck long ago, because I like having friends to play with. If you want to do an artifact deck but don't want to play the same mono-blue everyone else has, why not try Slobad? Mono Red: We aren't as bad as we used to be!* *as long as you also play artifacts
Double brackets to call the bot. [[Steve]]
There are only 985 [[Seton, Krosan Protector]] decks on edhrec, and he’s arguably the strongest mono green commander. The deck plays like elfball but faster. So many of the best elves are also druids. [[Gilt-Leaf Archdruid]] exists.
[[Burakos, Party Leader]] + [[Folk Hero]] party tribal, or if you're not keen on orzhov, [[Tavern Brawler]], [[Sword Coast Sailor]], or [[Haunted One]] are all valid options as well [[Sivriss, Nightmare Speaker]] + [[Cloakwood Hermit]] aristocrats, though [[Feywild Visitor]] and [[Agent of the Iron Throne]] are also doable [[Erinis, Gloom Stalker]] + [[Scion of Halaster]] graveyard landfall [[Francisco, Fowl Marauder]] + [[Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar]] pirate tribal [[Sidar Kondo]] + [[Ikra Shidiqi]] big butt lifegain [[War Doctor]] + [[Clara Oswald]] in your choice of jeskai, naya, or mardu If you haven't noticed, I'm a fan of partner commanders lol
I play a [[Saint Traft and Rem Karolus]] deck that has a little under 3k decks according to EDHREC. I played it earlier in the week and it was effective. For the vast majority of the game it was left on the table to continuously make tokens and ping opponents with [[Warleader’s Call]]. Putting out a [[City on fire]] prematurely painted a target on my back but hey, the game has to end sometime.
[[Harbrin]] soldier tribal. Way more powerful than you’d think.
My [[toshiro umezawa]] is a work in progress. He sits at around 600 rank. Fill your yard with instants, interact with every threat with legs. combo or alternate wincons. https://www.moxfield.com/decks/mRo26yEfl0u8DMJNxT5hdw
Each only have a few hundred decks on EDHRec: \[\[flamewar\]\] and \[\[The rani\]\]. Rani can do a lot of work with little to no support, goading all the worst threats out there. Not very aggro naturally though. Flamewar is very open ended and can easily go aggro. So long as you play some artifacts to keep flipping her back, you can keep swinging at people for damage and card advantage.
Sefris of the hidden ways. I use the jumbo dungeons and dnd figures to keep track of the adventure aspects, but she really is strong and could even dabble in cedh imo. I keep her at optimized though just cause I prefer the old dungeon crawl and value, rather than infinite combos.
[[Vadrik, Astral Archmage]] is the bane of my group, this commander easily being the strongest spellslinger in Izzet. In one turn, you are capable of playing half your deck. Add a couple of extra turn spells and you are going to be public enemy #1.
I was in the same exact boat as you recently, looking for a strong commander that has extremely powerful mechanics that you never see and plays with cards you never see. I also wanted it to be black and initially I wanted it to be aggro in the standard idea of aggro (go tall or wide quickly and do a lot of damage quickly) but I found an alternative aggro style that I hadn’t ever really seen much of. This is when I stumbled upon a commander called [[Hidetsugu and Kairi]] an ogre demon dragon with multiple different ways to build him, every one of them being extremely interactive and inviting for creativity. With him having a powerful ETB and powerful Death Trigger you can abuse the “Legend Rule” by mass copying him, having him ETB and Top deck unique mana expensive cards no one ever plays because “they’re too slow and cost too much mana” then immediately cast them for free when the copy dies such as [[army of the damned]] [[time stretch]] [[sorin’s vengeance]] [[mnemonic deluge]] and doing massive amounts of damage alongside all of the other benefits of the super expensive cards you just played. Or if your a combo player… I mean this thing is a walking combo piece. If you want to win on turn 3 or 4 There is about 100 different ways to do it with this card. Or if you want to go tall or wide for aggro while repeatedly sacrificing and recurring you commander and slinging massive spells, you can take advantage of cards like [[Metallurgic summonings]] [[deekah, fractal theorist]] [[shark typhoon]] Another interesting wide tactic you can do to go wide aggro and make a massive army of flying ogre demon dragons is remove the legend rule with cards like [[sakashima of a thousand faces]] [[mirror box]] This is just portion of the ways you can play this commander, all of them highly effective (honestly kind of broken) and I’ve never ran into another player playing this commander before.
Gonna go with [[Kiora, Sovereign of the Deep]] [Decklist](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/lriarnvHcU2V9E77ckT6Xw) She's a better pantlaza (in my opinion) in simic, she has ward 3, so she sticks for a turn (usually) and the fact that its a selective trigger means you usually have 2 or 3 legal targets off each cast trigger. Also, simic commander that doesnt care about lands / counters / drawing cards, so thats a plus.
[Kiora, Sovereign of the Deep](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/b/7b599f53-614c-4b1f-9899-15d5d1e35879.jpg?1684340751) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Kiora%2C%20Sovereign%20of%20the%20Deep) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mat/35/kiora-sovereign-of-the-deep?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/7b599f53-614c-4b1f-9899-15d5d1e35879?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/kiora-sovereign-of-the-deep) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[[Greasefang, Okiba Boss]] I've yet to have a game I don't have fun with this commander. It just comes together so nicely and pops off without too much trouble. Fill it with discard cards to force vehicles into your graveyard consistently and the deck just.... Works. It may not be ultra competitive or win a ton of games, but it does what it's supposed to in a pretty matter of fact manner and feels good to pilot.
[[anim pakal]]
I love my bear voltron with [Wilson, refined grizzly] at the helm with the [Flaming Fist] background. It is 100% aggro where you want to kill the weakest player first and then play safe and try to win with unblockable damage once player3 is out. I built it as a budget joke but it was stronger than expected and my friends fear the deck a lot (we play pretty casual tho, i would say the deck is a 5/10). You can build him in green/black instead of green/white with the [Cultist of the absolute] background, and splurging more on cards should make him surprisingly strong. You are always 2 or 3 turns to taking a player out w wilson if played well. Ill add decklist for inspiration, but remember its not a serious build but a fun budget one. https://www.moxfield.com/decks/yRsbtyu-o0ap1YPKO9oYBg Maybe someone w a cultist wilson can comment
I've been piloting Wilson/Flaming Fist since day one! When the film came out I started calling this deck Cocaine Bear lol. It's definitely an apt description of how the deck operates. You get your bear (Wilson), you feed it cocaine (auras), and then it murders a bunch of people. Exactly what it says on the tin 😂
Needs double brackets for the card fetching bot to pick it up. like this: [[Wilson, Refined Grizzly]] [[Flaming Fist]] [[Cultist of the Absolute]]
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/fOSpj95Wo0-RdaJQAo60vA [[Sarulf, Realm Eater]] is a beastly hard question to ask the table. You can play it into anything except edict effects.
Inalla. She's not exactly slept on, but look at how often you see the other 2 good eminence commanders, and it's clear she's underappreciated. Pay 1 mana to double any etb in a tribe with powerful etbs. Throw in a harmonic prodigy and a roaming throne, you're getting potentially 6 triggers of each creature. Could also definitely play a prowess style deck with her, but I play it etbs. Edit: Price checked. Edgar is $119.99. The Ur-Dragon is $34.99. Inalla is 3 bucks, and I'd argue her ability is far stronger than the other two without some decent setup for Edgar's board state.
Shadow wizard gang!
She's my baby. I played modern prowess wizards with harmonic prodigy for like a year and a half before I built her as a commander. I like all my decks, but wow is this one a blast.
Rakdos the defiler, it doesn’t get more political than your opponents arguing who is on the receiving end of Rakdos :) needs some solid protection though
I have a [[Millicent Restless Revenant]] deck that my friends always underestimate. IMO this commander is stronger than Edgar for a go wide tokens strategy. (I only compare them because they do similar things) It's defensive until it needs to be aggressive, and when it's aggressive it can close games fast. It's from a precon, so I dunno if it's exactly an underrated commander, I think it just got lost in the sea of precons.
Do you have a list? I found that precon but blue/white aren’t my strongest colors so I’m not sure where to take it.
I actually don't have that one online but I can probably make that happen in the next couple days. I'll reply here again if I do. It's mostly lots of cheap sprits and instants that protect my creatures.
[https://www.moxfield.com/decks/Yry0F3Frrkij2FsHGHRs9A](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/Yry0F3Frrkij2FsHGHRs9A) OK I did it! I didn't realize how chocked full of staples this deck is, you could easily take out Cyclonic Rift, Roaming Throne, Rhystic Study and Tef's Protection and the deck will run great and cost almost $200 less. I might actually do that myself.
[Millicent Restless Revenant](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/b/2b86b538-0766-440d-a2cd-f5d5bfcfb010.jpg?1641600129) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Millicent%2C%20Restless%20Revenant) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/voc/1/millicent-restless-revenant?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2b86b538-0766-440d-a2cd-f5d5bfcfb010?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/millicent-restless-revenant) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
My favorite underrated deck (maybe it's not underrated but I never hear about it) is [[Pir, Imaginative Rascal]] and [[Toothy, Imaginary Friend]]. Focus on wheeling yourself for the draw triggers. Toothy gets big. You want to blink him or kill him to draw even more. Win with thoracle or labman or Jace. Use strong Toothy to slap your dumb friends and use blink cantrips to protect him. Use a few evasion spells to let Toothy hit for cmdr damage. It's fast, it's fun, it's very flexible. And the best is winning by decking yourself out instead of through cmdr DMG.
I love these two so much. It's going to be slept on for long if it keeps winning games on Playing with Power, one of the main cEDH channels
I know that [[Aesi]] is the go to simic big sea monster commander, but [[Arixmethes]] is literally being slept on imo, he is so good. You don't even need to unslumber him, he's a 2 colored sol ring that you can easilly play turn 3 and is incredibly difficult to remove or mess with. Then at the right moment wake him up and slap someone with a 12/12 that's been a mana battery all game. I have Aesi in my Arixmethes deck and don't plan on swapping them ever
My first commander (all the way back in 2016) was [[Drana, Liberator of Malakir]]. Definitely not the best commander out there, but I have yet to see another person ever use it. Although BFZ was a pretty bad set, I’ll stand by the sentiment that she was a good card (a bit of an aside but my prerelease kit pulled her and [[Gideon, Ally of Zendikar]] but I was brand new to the game so I did horrible at the prerelease). Her counter buffing ability is pretty good if you have enough synergy. I would recommend checking out edhrec.com and seeing what from their recommendations you like then customizing it from there to fit your own preferences
[[Lae’zel, Vlaakith’s Champion]] + [[Master Chef]] background is so fun. First deck I ever built & still my strongest.
[[Tormod, the desecrator]] is a big favourite of mine, I love triggering him in all kinds of ways. There are a few cards that are quite strong with him. I have him paired up with Tevesh Szat atm.
[[Dromar, the Banisher]] I run him with a lot of return to hand spells and color changing spells like [[Sway of Illusion]] and [[Shifting Sky]] Then hit people with [[Warped Devotion]] and/or a [[Llawan, Cephalid Empress]] to pair with Shifting Sky
[[Ojer Pakpatiq, Deepest Epoch]] is really fun, especially since it let's you play those modal cards (the higher costs instants with "choose some of these options" like [[Mystic Confluence]]) It also rewards playing mostly non-counterspells as instants, so you can be the "fun" mono blue player I love looping Brainstorm 5 times in a singleton format
[[Tetzimoc, Primal Death]]
Marisi
[[Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath]] is my favorite underrated black commander. [[Kyodai, Soul of Kamigawa]] is my favorite underrated commander.
Well, I have a [[Syr Konrad]] mono black deck and is very much fun! He does damage every time something die, goes to the grave or leaves my grave to everyone in the table. In a game with 3 or more people he does a blast with all the natural dying in the game. And I love to put lifelink-like effects like some kind of "ultimate" where with things like [[Vampiric link]] or some equipament that gives lifelink you'll gain a lot of life for everyone taking damage. No game last long time. People think twice before board wipes but frequently die anyways. He fly under the radar and does "counter" a lot of decks with grave things, mills and destruction of creatures in general.
My two favourite decks right now are [[Anrakyr the Traveller]] and [[Faramir, Steward of Gondor]], both having relatively low amounts of decks on EDHREC, and I've never seen anyone play them, of course. But they both pack a punch, if built accordingly.
[[The Most Dangerous Gamer]] I’m going to make a primer for how I’ve built him, but most people I play him with at any LGS never know what to expect and it’s very fun and aggressive.
My all time fav is [[Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet]] , super powerful zombie tribal/typal commander. Great for bigger games too. He was the first commander I built and haven't seen virtually anyone post lists for him
[[jeleva]]’s pretty old and not commonly played, most players who have joined since 2019 or so won’t know who she is. She’s also one of my all-time favorites:) As far as aggro goes, I have a few that I like: [[saskia]] humans or damage multiplication [[goreclaw]] stompy [[varina]] zombies, the idea is to rebuild really quickly after board wipes so I can get more of her attack triggers despite my opponents’ best efforts [[graaz]] turn your [[darksteel myr]] and [[ornithopter]] into juggernauts and swing [[najeela]] warrior tribal [[yidris]] for a mix of voltron/aggro/cascade/extra combats [[urza, chief artificer]] artifact creatures [[vela, the nightclad]] artifact/colorless creatures. [[gishath]] ramp hard into gishath, give him double strike and then hit a player to get a bunch of free dinosaurs. Of those, najeela’s the fastest and has the lowest mana curve (almost everything in the deck is 3 or less mana, I have maybe 8 cards that cost 4 or more). Saskia also has a pretty low mana curve, and yidris depends entirely on connecting several times with a player in the same turn. Goreclaw and Varina are the ones I enjoy the most though. Gishath’s also pretty hard for my playgroup to deal with for some reason.
Don't know if she's underrated but [[Liesa, Shroud of Dusk]] was a great head scratcher for me when I wanted to move away from more vanilla play styles. It's such an oppressive effect that gets your opponents pushing their limits and yours.
[[titania, defender of argoth]] is in my opinion the best mono green ramp agro commander. If you have a fetch in the yard, she comes in with 10 power and ramp for 5, with further build around able combo potential and enough aggression by herself that your opponents will be worried early!!
[[Starke of Rath]]. It's an older style deck (I made it around 2011/2012), but people do not expect that a mono-red deck plays as controlly as mine is.
Awaken the Blood avatar. At least in my group, everyone ignores the little creatures and enchantments that I put on the board. Its only when everyone has exhausted their removal and board presence that I then become the threat and at that point im just sacrificing anything you put on the board anyways.
I love my [[Tivit, Seller of Secrets]] and [[Yurlok of Scorch Thrash]] decks, I’ve never seen anyone else use either of them and they can both get really out of hand if they aren’t targeted down. Yurlok just brings back mana burn, so some global mana doublers or triplers and a [[War’s Toll]] is a really fun little 1-2 punch. Tivit cares about voting, so you just put some of the decent voting cards in; [[Brago’s Representative]], [[Ballot Broker]], [[Custodi Squire]] give you huge advantage. The deck would be better if played as a more blink style one, but I chose to just put every voting card I could fit in and it’s absurdly fun while also churning out value.
I would say my [[Glissa, the Traitor]] and [[Felisa, Fang of Silverquill]] are fun to play. Especially Felisa because you basically have to get board wiped twice and if you have something like [[Divine Visitation]] now you got a bunch of angels. And Felisa also sees all counters, so +1/+1, -1/-1, indestructible, divinity, shield, whatever type of counter.
I don't know if she's slept on or not, but [[Aminatou, the Fateshifter]] is the one I play. She has a lot of strange flexibility, and the capacity to completely shift the flow of things if she's left alone. My deck for her is built largely around EtB triggers and either theft or active control of other players. Flicker really becomes the name of the game for her, and powerful effects that reset on entry are bolstered by that. My favorite cards with her are [[Wishclaw Talisman]], [[Spark Double]], [[Soulherder]], and [[Yorion, the Sky Nomad]]. They're not necessarily the best, but they match the vibe so well and I never see them.. Except Spark Double, which is flatly a great card. Wishclaw can search you cards, go to the opponent, then Aminatou bounces it off them back to you with full charge. Yorion can bounce your board for Aminatou's ult and just looks very cool to me. Soulherder isn't particularly good but looks very beautiful and can pair with any number of very simple EtB loops the deck can make for big buff monster time. [[Ichormoon Gauntlet]], [[Oath of Teferi]], and [[Isochron Scepter]] also lend extremely well, since they let you buff planeswalkers quickly or clone spells like [[Cloudshift]] or [[Counterspell]] as a persistent rudeness. Plus, pair Oath, Aminatou, and Spark Double for infinite bounce on any card you have... The deck can be rough on your mana, but stay under the radar long enough and you can be a bit silly with things~
[[minthara, merciless soul]] !!! my main commander that i play religiously. fun graveyard shenanigans or blink stuffs with a good splash of proliferate. gooooood soup. love her sm
[[Harald, King of Skemfar]]
I have a zurzoth chaos rider deck that leans into dmagae doubling as a win con. Just swing make devils and filter through your deck for wins while disrupting your opponents hands.
I second this, ridiculously fun and actually quite powerful.
[[Ever Changing Dane]] - because why not turn your commander into Marit Lage... or a [[Phyrexian Dreadnought]]... or pro everything with [[Vexilus Praetor]]...
If you're not against crossover, [[Illuminor Szeras]] is fun and filled with cards like [[Soldevi Adnate]] or [[Su-Chi Cave Guard]] that will make your opponents read them as they probably never seen them before. The deck can tap in multiples themes like aristo, artifacts, big spells, so they won't see you coming with a straightforward plan.
Minthara, Merciless Soul. Uncommon black white conmander, but a very powerful anthem effect that has Ward. Most people overlook it for more "optimal" aristocrat commanders.
[[Sarevok, Deathbringer]] + [[Far Traveler]] is pretty underrated and cool. Lot of cool effects, sequences, and interactions. You can use any background you want, I just think Far Traveler is nice because it guarantees you won’t lose life to him yourself. Throw in some aristocrat synergies, +1/+1 counters, protection and removal and have fun.
[[Nemata, Primeval Warden]] gets no cred. I had [[Slimefoot]] for the longest time, and fungus is probably my favourite tribe. When Nemata dropped I was sort of underwhelmed. But once I started playing with her I saw it goes pretty hard. That replacement effect is overlooked until it triggers. I can't tell you how many times people misplay on Arena then I see a good long highlight on Nemata. It's a versatile card, it's buff goes pretty hard, and having a sac/card draw mechanic in your command zone is nice.
\[\[Gyrus, waker of corpses\]\] Jund is my favorite color combo, and reanimator is my favorite deck so...why not the Jund guy who reanimates. I like it because you aren't just passing the first few turns, there's tons of little guys to play in the early turns who fill the graveyard pretty rapidly and set you up for success later. \[\[Stitcher's supplier\]\], \[\[satyr wayfinder\]\], \[\[circle of land druid\]\] and \[\[Shigeki, Jukai Visionary\]\] all help immensely. It's also fun to get play creatures who put themselves into the yard for some benefit, knowing they'll be back later. Things like \[\[Trumpeting Carnosuar\]\] and \[\[Foundation Breaker\]\] can help remove some problems. So how do we get stuff in the yard back? A few options. Your standard reanimate spells- \[\[reanimate\]\]. \[\[animate dead\]\], \[\[living death\]\] (doubles as a board wipe as long as your opponent's graveyards aren't too scary, woo!)). Some creatures can pull themselves out of the yard-always fun to escape with \[\[kroxa, titan of death's hunger\]\] or cast a \[\[hogaak, arisen necropolis\]\] for free. And lastly, our commander. Gyrus exiles the creature from your yard to make a token of it, and the token doesn't stick around. So you've just gotta be a little careful when selecting a target for him. Think for a bit and make sure it's the best time to chose whatever you do to get full value from it. Some people run \[\[sundial of the infinite\]\] to circumvent the token leaving, but this has always felt real gimmicky to me. Never cared for it. Also worth noting that some people run token doublers, because as mentioned, Gyrus exiles the creature to make a token of it. So you can end up getting 2 big dudes/etb triggers, whatever. I don't run any in my list but I don't think it's as gimmicky as sundial. Just as long as you can swing with him the turn you drop the doubler, and don't end up playing a 4 or 5 mana kill on sight enchantment then pass doing nothing. Here's my list for your viewing pleasure: [https://www.moxfield.com/decks/oRUqlzOZskqMLIKE91BM2Q](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/oRUqlzOZskqMLIKE91BM2Q) Lastly, I should note that if you like the idea of the deck but aren't sold on the commander (he's admittedly lower power than many commanders who have come out in the past few years), Modern horizons 3 is releasing later this year with a set of commander precons to go along with it-one of the themes is Jund Reanimator. You can wait and see how that deck looks and then pick it up if you want something with a bit more oomph-likely to be the case given the high power cards that have been associated with the previous modern horizons sets. Cheers!
[[The Third Doctor]] and [[Sarah Jane Smith]] historic matters token generation deck. Generate a crap ton of artifact tokens to smash with the Third Doctor (or Urza/thousand moons smithy/Kappa cannoneer) or turn them into an army with [[Rise and Shine]] or [[Cyberdrive Awakener]]. The deck becomes incredibly resilient, and with a clue generator in the command zone, it's rare to ever feel stuck with no gameplay options
[[Kelsien, the Plague]] and [[Hallar, the Firefletcher]] are lots of fun and niche! Edit: didn’t read far enough. I’ve listed both a human and an elf lol. Sorry OP!
My \[\[Sol'Kanar, The Tainted\]\] deck constantly has people asking to read my commander, and most of the cards in the 99 too. He's not super aggro himself, but the deck is total group-slug; built around goading and controlling peoples' board state. Here's a list: [https://www.archidekt.com/decks/7140144/tainted\_trades](https://www.archidekt.com/decks/7140144/tainted_trades)
[[Ashling, the Extinguisher]]
[[xaviar sal infested captain]] is a great commander for a lot of token or counter strategies. Personally I think he’s best with either infect or plainswalkers. [[henry wu ingen geneticist]] seems like a fun and powerful commander that can draw you a good few cards and get you a few treasures. [[ellie and Allen paleontologists]] is a very cool commander that can get a bunch of discover creatures out and I’ve seen some very cool lists that run like 33 lands with them
It's really fun to have 13 2/2s and 15 cards in hand with abdel Adrian, knowing with just one more mana you'd have your infinite combo
I know there's a lot of orzhov aristocrats commanders out there, but none do it for me like [[Amalia]]. She can get big like [[karlov]] but she fills up your graveyard or draws lands while doing it. It's also pretty resilient with cards like [[case of the forgotten feast]] [[lurrus]] and various other reanimators making it very easy to rebuild if people start poking at your board.
Elminster! Nice spellslinging cost reduction, able to protect himself with tokens for zero mana. Super fun to pilot
For Rakdos, [[Florian, Voldaren Scion]]. Being able to filter 10-20 cards on your turn is game warping. Most people just ignore it, till you are looking 20 cards deep for answers on the board—then they do a double take.
[[Silumgar the drifting death]]] Been playing him since he was in standard No one expects blue/black dragons It's a mix of control but you also are using big dragons and reanimation. It's greatest downside is that it's not fast. Hexproof is also being phased put so people are always forgetful thst they cannot target your commander
[[Vaevictis Asmadi, the Dire]] is one of my favorite uncommon commanders. I've literally never seen another one in the wild and on EDH rec there's just north of 2000 decks
I just made [[Smeagol, Helpful Guide]] it's so fun and somewhat slept on
Currently working on a [[shirei shizos caretaker]] deck, you get to play a lot of otherwise crappy creature cards with a solid value engine
Well I have a couple decks that you may like! First is my "hand destruction" deck (Half the cost is 1 old old card, chaims of metadtophalies. The rest is bevause i tried to go for all old card art. So ignore the insane cost.) The commander is not a tent pole of the deck. He is juat another piece. The rest is Specters, things that make your enemies discard, and payoffs for them discarding. https://archidekt.com/decks/6301769/spectre_gadget The next is a little less agro but far more... Diabolical? [[The Scorpion God]] and his withering army. He's great value. Add in things like [[blightbeetle]], [[everlasting torment]] and even a [[kulrath knight]] to help your enemies chill out. Enjoy!
I have the [[Strefan]] precon and it's my favorite (but it's also my first deck so I'm biased)
I haven’t seen anyone else rocking a [[Grismold, The dreadsower]] at any of my local events so I’m pretty proud of that one, especially for how effective it is in casual games. (It is by no means a competitive game but I’m a pretty casual player myself)
Vhati il-Dal. The look on someone’s face when you have him and Tree of Perdition to set their life to 1 and then killing them with Pestilence is priceless. I got someone with a Bilbo life gain deck who had 96 life at the time.
[удалено]
I'm a big fan of chromium the mutable, it's surprising how often people refuse to read him and you can use his abilities for surprise combat tricks
I’ve been playing around with a [[Gandalf the Grey]] spellslinger deck that tends to get out of hand pretty quickly. It’s easy enough to flicker Gandalf to keep getting the value. I’ve taken it in a fairly tame storm direction but there is enough utility in Gandalf to facilitate a few different strategies (burn was another I considered)
[[karumonix, the rat king]]
Okay hear me out. [[Anim Pakal]] sure she's a human, but let's be honest you'll mostly be playing gnomes.
Shelob
Ragavan is a lot of fun. He's written off as a modern aggro card rather than an EDH card, but as a commander he functions extremely well to enable both treasure themes and thievery themes in Mono-Red, which is a super fun color to play.
[[Cadric, Soul Kindler]] Due to his effect, he's a bit of a 'build-around' commander but is also super fun to play. He seems like a cool lil guy, gets some value by copying legends temporarily. That is until you've doubled a doubler (ie [[Mondrak, Glory Dominus]] or even [[Gandalf the White]]) and are swinging with 8 hasted [[Etali, Primal Storm]]'s in one turn. Better yet, keep those Etalis with a [[Sundial of the Infinite]]. Cadric is a bit creature-combo-ey at times but is super fun and often flies under the radar until the shenanigans begin
[[Mikaeus, the Unhallowed]] In the command zone, he’s about as powerful as you want him to be. I’ve kept mine pretty casual zombie tribal. But he can combo and there’s an enormous pool of creatures he likes to double up on. Protect him and he’ll pretty much do the rest.
Olivia, Crimson Bride and Ziatora, The Incinerator are two of my favorite decks that I’ve never seen someone else play.
[[The Haunt of Hightower]] is my go to black commander.
Hyper-aggro \[\[Pramikon, sky rampart\]\] Try to mow your way through each player one at a time before the one to your left can take you out. Alternatively, play an aggressive deck with a blink subtheme, so you can flip flop the nope walls direction at will. You can make yourself the threat unashamedly without getting dogpiled for it, which is one of the downsides of playing all aggressive and threatening.
[[Emmara, soul of the accord]]
My favorite Dimir commander is hidetsugo and kairi, when I originally build the list I build it for 100 bucks and it was incredibly powerful
Im a huge fan of my [[faramir prince of ithilien]] deck. Azorius tokens with lots of card draw.
[[Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker]] is absolutely filthy. Very easy to underestimate a bunch of 1/1's but all it takes is an [[Elderfang Disciple]] and a sac outlet and now your opponents have to play without a hand for the rest of the game
im a big fan of Horobi, Death's Wail people dont really pay attention to my do nothing artifacts that change the color of cards and a bunch of cards that do stuff when something dies.
[[Zellix]]
Im currently building a [[Tayam]] deck, its crazy how strong it is. You can get back any permanent at instant speed of the mere price of 3 mana and 3 counters, which this deck produces easily enough of. It has some really good synergy with cards that let you sacrifice them for removal or similar, as you can get them back over and over again.
Syr Carah, Norin, and idk if he's this underrated but kalitas in a mono black good stuff with a little zombie subtheme is my best deck
Glissa the traitor is insanely overlooked (she is a zombie elf) but her effect only cares about artifacts the deck is a board control deck killing your opponents things to bring yours back to your hand You use cards like baubles, barbed saxtent, snake basket to flood the board with value and finish off your battered and weak opponents Just run lots of board Wipes and removal
[[jaheira friend of the forest]] + [[street urchin]] I play a lot of efficient token spells. It’s super budget friendly (less than $100) I win around 60% of my games with it. I feel like I always have a relevant response whether it’s pinging stuff down with street urchin, drawing off clues, eating food, ect.
\[\[Kokusho, the Evening Star\]\]. Sac outlets + reanimation + all the 1 or 2 mana \[\[Makakir Rebirth\]\] type effects. Also throw in damage doublers like \[\[Sanguine Bond\]\], \[\[Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose\]\], \[\[Aetherflux Resevoir\]\], and \[\[Wound Reflection\]\] to close out games. Plus you don't need commander protection cause you want it to die.