Commander Puns

Greetings, commanders (pun intended).

We've noticed several questions and concerns in the community regarding the recent sale of unique commanders like John Doe or Jack Dunkirk re-skins in Premium shop. Some players anticipate that such practice would lead to pay-to-win, as technically those commanders have improved skills and are currently not available in the game for free.

Please be assured that this is not the case, and that unique commanders distribution will remain fair. The ability to earn them was in the game, and will be, in various forms, be it another in-game mission set or even including them in the upcoming high-level "shop" we mentioned before. Right now there is German unique commander mission going on, so focusing on the others at the same time does not makes sense, but they will come in the near future.

We're not going to change this principle, as we, along with you, believe that locking straight combat-buffed commanders behind a paywall is not healthy for the game and not good for the community.

P.S. Also, please note that commanders in Premium shop have different names and portraits, so the free unique commanders are technically unique unique commanders now:)

Fair seas!

Introduction

Hello everyone, I recently completed a pullover anorak inspired by the traditional winter jacket worn by the Inuit:

Anorak in action beside snow sculpture, winter day -17C/1F

The following write-up is a 'post-mortem' of sorts intended to describe the process of making the anorak, and comment both on what went right and what went (very) wrong.

 

Project Scope

Full-disclosure: I am not a tailor. I have barely sewn a seam in the nearly two decades since my grade seven home economics class. My girlfriend had to show me how to thread a machine and fill a bobbin.

Knowing this, I decided to make the most basic version I could to maximize my chance of not only finishing the project, but also being able to functionally wear it. That meant no pockets, no decorations (apart from fur hood), or reflective strips, etc. Thankfully, I think I made the right choice as I succeeded in both goals.

 

What the heck made you want to do something like this anyway?

Last October I was reading about Iqaluit, Nunavut in Canada's Arctic, and stumbled across the blog Finding True North in which the author wrote a series of posts about her experience making parkas for her boyfriend and herself, and also her dog (one, two, three). I was really impressed with the final result, and as I am wont to do in such situations, I said to myself, 'I want to make one, too!'

 

The Materials

The materials are pretty straight forward, clockwise from upper left:

• Blue commander outer layer
• 4-ounce quilted layer
• Generic thinsulate-like layer (~4-5 mm thick)
• Generic slippery grey lining

I bought three metres of each material at a total list cost $300, but since everything was 50% off, it came out to $150. The final product only used about 1.5 m, or approximately $75 worth of material factoring in sale price. Canada is notorious for ridiculous prices, so Americans, I am sure you can command (pun intended) better deals.

Not pictured is the fur, which is fake. If I ever make another I might spring for some real coyote fur, since it does not retain moisture from your breathe (or so Canada Goose claims). The fake fur did not cost very much, and maybe added another $5-10 to the cost

He orders everyone around.

Inspired by endless Tiktoks of a similar vibe, I figured we could try an EDH themed variant. Post a short comment about your deck, and let's see if people can guess your Commander exclusively from whatever jank wincon or obscure synergy you describe. The weirder, the better.

I'm interested in hearing about some of the more illustrious cards that people are actually playing with in their Commander decks.

What is your most valuable card that you currently have in a Commander deck that is NOT on the reserved list?

Also, feel free to share additional details about that card. When did you get the card? How did you get it (i.e. from a pack, from a trade, bought as a single)? Do you ever imagine yourself trading or selling the card? Would you be disappointed if the card lost most of it's secondary market value?

Today, Mark Rosewater asked on his blog if players would like to see a sequel to Commander Legends.

Commander Legends was a popular set that sold well with a limited draft environment that was well received but the set was criticized by some for not having enough new dynamic commanders that bolstered the Commander constructed format and a few chase rares that were polarizing to some (i.e. Opposition Agent, Hullbreacher, Jewled Lotus).

Commander Legends 2 seems virtually inevitable considering how successful the initial product was (success breeds repetition) and how popular the format is. However, I think Maro is asking this question gauge interest on a sequel and what players would want/expect from it.

What does r/EDH think about this? Would you like to see Commander Legends 2? Why or why not?

So, for me it was [[Nekusar, the Mindrazer]]. During my early days of playing, one of the guys brings that guy out and I’m like, cool. I’m up for it.

Two turns in, I can’t do anything because I was wheeled out of my hand and had no lands. No responses, no way to deal with the threat. Every time I DID get something to do something about the guys board, the other players countered my shit. It was hurting them as much as me, but for some sadistic reason they loved to keep drawing cards. Like, are you serious? Nevermind the fact that we all died 5 turns into the game.

Subsequent games the most turns we ware into the match for about 10-13 turns before we were wheeled/burned to death. Now, I can’t stand that commander at all, and I don’t care how mild or toxic your Nekusar will be /is, I will hate you off the board. Thats how much I hate Nekusar. If I can’t avoid playing against it (not more players in the pod, etc).

So, my question to you is, which commander is that one commander that you will, no questions asked, avoid or hate off the board?

I was on EDHrec doing some deck tech, and I looked at the price of [[Veyran, Voice of Duality]] only to become deeply confused. How is the price of the single worth practically 1/3 the entire precon already? I sort of understand when years go by and these precons become more rare, but the thing is out right now, and there are dozens sitting in my local stores. By comparison the face commander is worth less than a dollar.

Are you tired of paying your fair share for your commanders? Do you wish you could deploy them to the battlefield without having to worry about expensive things like wages, health insurance or paternity leave? Do you love to sacrifice your army for your own personal benefit?

Hi, I'm GamesfreakSA, and the SA currently stands for scholarly advertiser. If you answered 'yes' to any or all of the above questions, you might have something in common with Amazon. That's why the new five-tape VHS series Global Conflicts for Fun and Profit from The Strange Outliers is perfect for your classroom, military bootcamp, or corporate all-hands. Follow along with our [[Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh]] pile and you'll learn all the advanced techniques:

• Keeping a storm count across multiple turns
• Committing commander tax fraud
• Goddamn dinosaurs

Once you've watched through our seven-tape series, come back and tell me which commander you wish was free like Rograkh. I personally wish [[Gabriel Angelfire]] was, but that's because it would make him even slightly playable.

You can also visit my Discord to vote on which decks you want to see next, and with all the cash I've gathered from my money laundry scheme we're even doing a raffle for a free commander deck! It's loads of fun.

I was looking at a Ranar deck and thought how much of a shame it is that due to the release of more 'individual' sets instead of "set blocks", cool keywords like Foretell will probably not be printed in the near future and Ranar's first ability's power will be restricted to Kaldheim's limited number of foretell cards.

Obviously there are some extremely powerful keywords in commander like Storm, Infect, Eminence and Annihilator that WOTC probably don't want on too many cards. For example, 'Mutate' deserves more cards since it's a great mechanic that's both interesting and has clear weaknesses, and it will boost a lot of potential commanders in Ikoria. As for a tribe, me and a few people I know love cats but a commander like [[Arahbo, Roar of the World]] is so limited due to the lack of cat cards.

What do you want to see WOTC give more love to?

I have had probably 50+ decks at one point or another but now I try to just have a rotating 10 or so. Many of these were brews that came together maybe saw 1 or 2 games and were dismantled. Either for being too oppressive, too disjointed or too boring to either pilot or made a gaming experience that was just drudgery rather than entertainment.

But the two most notable retirees for me would be my [[Gitrog Monster]] dredge combo deck and my [[Zedruu, the greathearted]].

Gitrog came apart after me being "that guy". I was so fed up with losing for months on end I did what any respectable MTG player would do /s. I netdecked a teir 1 deck, assembled it and made my playgroup sit through me figuring out how the hell it worked on the fly. Why? Because I was a shit person. Lol

With that being said Gitrog taught me how to play combo decks, and made me realize that I enjoy playing combo, and the importance on my part of goldfishing and knowing play lines. I eventually stopped playing him out of respect for my playgroup tiring of him even once I understood the playlines well, it was my only deck at the time. But someday I may revive him to see what I'd make him today and how he would play.

The other was dear sweet Zedruu. I leaned very hard on the pillowfort control aspect and ended most games playing kingmaker which started to bug me. I dont mind losing, but I dont really enjoy picking another winner either. So she came apart as well. Though I absolutely love her.

What are some of the commanders you've retired and why?

I have no idea if this is something people would be interested in but I started recording games of commander that I played on May 8, 2020 and wanted to share some of my results. Obviously, this is done with my own playgroup (and they gave their consent to this being posted) so some of the statistics may not reflect commander as a whole. However, I have 2 separate sheets of statistics to make everyone's lives easier:

1. This only has overall statistics on commanders, color combination win rates, and general information. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OzuQ9nG1dCSTzmzf63QIlGVBaRTKwDf7/view?usp=sharing
2. This has the same information as the first link but also includes individual descriptions of each game and tracks my playgroup's most played colors/commanders so it's more personalized to my playgroup. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zRsMgReGphD72TFwW-nb3BKpFk9FD66c/view?usp=sharing

So, two things right off the bat: first, I know this isn't pretty. It was done in Word when I first started, I never expected to do this for a year, and I'm working on transferring it to Excel so it's easier to read, sorry about that in advance. Second, if you don't want to actually dig through these sheets for information I figured I'd do some short summaries below to highlight the things I found the most interesting.

• Total Games Recorded:
  • 167
• Number of Unique Commanders Played (Including Unique Partner Pairs and Unique Companions):
  • 211
• Most Winning Color Combo:
  • Mono-Blue (11-7) at a 61.1% win rate
• Most Losing Color Combo:
  • Colorless (0-3) & Rakdos (0-8) both with 0% win rate
• Commanders With Positive Win Rates *With At Least 3 Games*:
  • Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait (2-1) at a 66.6% win rate
  • Anowon, Ruin Thief (6-5) at a 54.5% win rate
  • Eligeth, Crossroads Augur & Siani, Eye of the Storm (3-2) at a 60% win rate
  • Fblthp, the Lost (2-1) at a 66.6% win rate
  • Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker & Reyhan, Last of the Abzan (3-2) at a 60% win rate
  • Kenrith, Returned King (2-1) at a 66.6% win rate
  • Lord Windgrace (4-2) at a 66.6% win rate
  • Numa, Joraga Chieftain & Miara, Thorn of the Glade (4-2) at a 66.6% win rate
  • Tawnos, Urza's Apprentice (3-1) at a 75% win rate
• **Undefeated Commanders *With At Least 2 Games*

Hey everyone so I’m trying to get a deck of each of the 2 color pairs. Orzhov is the last one I’m missing.

As for power level any power level is fine as long as it’s above a slightly upgraded precon level.

I’m looking for a deck that doesn’t just feel the same every time I play it.

In the past I had a Selena dark angel deck that I used to upgrade and downgrade depending on the playgroup and absolutely no one liked playing against it at any level and I’d like to avoid that as well.

Mark Rosewater is asking on his blog how many color(s) players like to play with the most when playing a Commander deck. What are r/EDH's thoughts on this question?

Which is your preferred number of colors for a commander? Zero colors (colorless)? One color? Two color? Three colors? Four colors? Five colors? Explain your answer along with which color(s) you would like to see the most in future commanders.

Hey everyone,

Per the title, which legend or legends are you most enjoying from Commander 2021 and/or Strixhaven?

Is Osgir as amazing as he looks? Is Veyran killing it in spellslinger lists? Do any of the Deans play well? Is Hofri Ghostforge as good as he seemed when spoiled?

Tell us your stories, cheers!

Seriously, at first I thought she’d be a cool addition to my camp. Scavenged for some clothes for her, got her in a nice raider harness and some sunglasses, she looks hot for an NPC. That was fun for a few days.

Now I literally find myself using excuses not to come back to camp. I just use the workbenches at Foundation. I get so tired of her talking about her space dreams or her passive aggressive comments about how she was wondering when I was coming home. This is bullshit. If I want this kinda treatment I can get that in real life. I expect a little more sucking up from an NPC. I guess props to the devs, they programmed codependency very accurately.

So yeah, I think I’m gonna send her packing today.

I only have a few EDH decks, and none of them are even partially Black. I also opened up a few good cards for Black decks before, like Cabal Stronghold, Black Market, Ashnod's Altar, and Bolas's Citadel. For this reason, and to not splurge a lot on a manabase, I may like the idea of building a mono-black deck. I just am not sure which commander is best, or is most fun to play. I was thinking about Ayara, but Syr Konrad and Yawgmoth also caught my eye. I am not looking for anything ultra competitive, just at least fun and fairly strong. Any suggestions? Thanks!

Edit: Wow, this blew up way more than I was expecting. Thanks for the comments! K'rikk is very popular so I was looking somewhere else, Tergrid is a no- too mean and I'll be targeted by everyone I bet, and I have a Voltron style deck already, so not Yahenni. Endrek Sahr looks really interesting with sac outlets, Ayara still seems good. Lots to think about.

So i bought one licence in like 2008 and since then i've had access to every new release, update etc with that one single one time fee of less than 40 euro. And even more than 10 years later, the developper still releases updates, answers questions etc...

If BIFL is to apply to software, i guess that's as BIFL as can be !

For info, total commander is a replacement of windows explorer :)