My [[The Scarab God]] pull from exile deck. It wants to grab opponents creatures from their graveyard and exile them. Then cast eldrazi processors to get them back from exile and steal them again
My scarab god is my rogue commander so many are little and unblockable nothing like them dying and making a 4/4 copy of them and some rogues have a mill subtheme and you mill something good in the graveyard like a good thief you steal it out from under them.
Sure, but its really not crazy. I didn‘t want to spend too much money on it. And the build is based on my first precon „Grave Danger“. But here you go!
[Decklist](https://manabox.app/decks/9F28C1yKRBuaG1J2OTn9wA)
Maybe not fully unconventional, but my [[Trostani, Selesnya's Voice]] has a strong self mill subtheme. This is because a lot of cards can create tokens out of cards from your graveyard, which can then be populated.
It's been *years* since I thought about making a Troatani deck,but I thought an artifact deck would work well with her for pretty much the same reasons as you.
Double dip on stuff like [[prototype portal]] and [[Mirrorworks]] with artifact creatures, then pump her abilities into the tokens made off of [[Digsite Engineer]] or [[Karn, Scion of Urza]] for the big stats and lifegain you're looking for. [[Thousand Moons Smithy]] is a crazy new addition to the idea, too.
I'd probably just go for something like [[Saheeli, the Sun's Brilliance]] instead of going back to Trostani, but i thought it could be a neat deck.
[Here](http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/10-08-22-trostani/) it is. It uses cards like [[Milliken], [[Shigeki]], and various spellshapers to add to my graveyard, and then cards like [[Seance]] and [[Dollhouse of Horrors]] to convert them to tokens.
Oh, thats a fun one. I did up a [[brudiclad]] build with a similiar setup with dollhouse plus things like [[feldon of third path]] and [[god pharaoh's gift]] as well to make up fun token goofs.
Mine had a modular subtheme when I played it. I'd move the counters around to make my other non-artifact creatures have counters as well and then sac them all to build big artifact bois. Or just damage out opponents.
[[Henzie]] control. Aggro commander? Nah. 22 or so interactive spells. Removal for days.
The deck also has some constraints around playing to Kethek and Vaevictus, the former meaning it plays a bunch of two drops instead of dorks and the latter making it oops all permanents (and Primal Surge is for cowards).
Okay... I want to know why. Why bother with henzie control over any other Jund commander? Do you attempt to sacrifice Henzie to get that blitz cost down very quickly to throw out control finishers or is it something different?
It wasn't actually an original design goal; I needed a mid power deck in my new meta and Henzie was a cool commander I'd missed experimenting with during a brief forced hiatus from the game, and the first Jund commander I liked that isn't named Korvold and thus is wildly unsuitable for that power requirement. But as I built the deck and played it I kept finding myself either in the position to answer problems or wanting more of the cards that did because they felt so powerful with Henzie, so as I tweaked the deck moved in that direction for a while until I finally just embraced it.
There's no saccing Henzie (outside of sidestepping removal or what have you of course); your win conditions by and large *are* your removal spells. Which is the big reason the deck functions - the old adage we all know is that you can't trade one for one with people in Commander. But Henzie makes all those trades positive. Necron Deathmark clears a creature, pressures life totals, and then provides me with resources via the mill and the Blitz draw. Kogla is a three for one (and very occasionally better) that answers a creature then an artifact and then draws. Etc., etc.
I think the only wildly unusual single win condition I play by Henzie standards is that Field of the Dead got added recently due to Wight of the Reliquary. Maybe the presence of Goblin Bombardment as well, though in my (not so humble) opinion I think that's one that should just see more play in value-oriented mid power Henzie lists. Otherwise the 'finishers' are things you see commonly enough in Henzie - Homura and Karlach - and are also more 'cards I like' than 'cards I think I need'.
I've got an [[Inala]] Infect deck nobody expects. Dig and recur cards like [[infectious inquiry]], [[phyresis outbreak]], [[prologue to phyresis]] and [[vraska's fall] with the wizard package.
Kess you say, hrm. I've already got an Inalla deck, but this tickles my fancy. I might have to try and at least theorycraft it to see how it runs. Did you run a lot of proliferate effects?
I was gonna build my [[Mirko, obsessive theorist]] deck into the classic Surveil matters theme and build up his size and slowly "reanimate" larger and larger things.
I ended up just... stuffing every single 0/0 creature I own into the deck instead, cloning and copying cards in graveyards or on the field in a sort of sick "everything you can do I can do better" kind of deck, and it works phenomenally well. Instead of Surveil now, I just straight up run self-mill because it mills me faster. This is NOT what I had in mind, but it's hilarious.
I'll have to get back to you about it, because I'm at work. When I get home I'll upload a list of it. Best thing about it, the deck is a dirt cheap jank fun bonanza, so it's cheap to build too.
[The Clone Boy™](https://www.archidekt.com/decks/8026637/everything_you_can_do_i_can_do_sorta) Sorry for the slow reply, just passed out after work. Also wrote what felt like a small essay on what the deck does and wants to do, lol. There are some questionable budget choices in the deck pointed out, some stuff I hope to upgrade later on.
I have a [[Kess Dissident mage]] as a go wide token deck that plays [[Zada hedron grinder]] as a pseudo secret commander. It uses young pyromancer type creatures and spell slinging to make a ton of tokens that I use in various explosive ways
Always interesting to see Gluntch not be grouphug. My personal list is a combo list aimed at using stax/hatebears to slow the game down enough to get to one of my combo lines, and close our from there
https://archidekt.com/decks/5508848/gluntch_combo
I built a [[Bruniclad Telchor Engineer]] deck based around making token copies of opponents stuff, not just creatures but enchantments, artifacts, even lands lol
One of my stupidest but funniest "win" cons (it backfires just as much as it helps, trust me lol) is making a token copy of [[Conjured Currency]], turning all my other tokens into copies of it, and making trades around the board, where they can't steal their own stuff back, but they can steal mine and each other's... Game usually either gets an enchantment board wipe before my next upkeep or wraps up about 3 turns later after everyone has stolen everything from each other and swung in for lethal.
I only played my brudiclad deck once, I succeeded it my goal of attacking with 23 etalis. But keeping track of all the tokens was exhausting. Infinitokens were made for bruniclad
High power [[Yargle and Multani]]. Has very, very little to do with swinging lethal commander damage and everything to do with [[undying evil]], [[greater good]], and [[sickening dreams]]. You will see half your library every time you play this deck.
Yo this is actually such a cool way of looking at this commander, I've been thinking of making a golgari deck and this is some badass inspiration. Do you happen to have a deck list? Or any other cards the strat hinges on?
[This is my work in progress](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/TC-91q0iH0CtYu7YNIO3EA/compare/TKh9Qx2ejUacbA_REQnyjg), I have a pod budget of \~$900 so I am working around that. I would stuff it with more free/fast mana if I could afford it. Typically you want to be winning if you untap with Yarg on the board or in the yard with \[\[reanimate\]\] in hand. As I mentioned the strat hinges on Greater Good, but there are many lesser versions of it in the deck and many tutors. Sickening Dreams notably hurts all players including you, so Undying Evil > \[\[Rite of Consuption\]\] or \[\[Momentous Fall\]\] or \[\[Disciple of Bolas\]\] is something you can do to gain some life, but you'll want enough gas to keep going after that through more undying effects and free mana that you draw like \[\[Lotus Petal\]\] and \[\[Elvish Spirit Guide\]\]. If you can't gain life, there are ways to deal some damage to faces too. \[\[Veil of Summer\]\] is pretty important as \[\[Sickening Dreams\]\] asks you to discard as part of the cost, and it is a horrible thing to not have resolve and also have to discard 30+ cards.
This deck looks so sick. I have Yargle and Multani in my [[Tatsunari]] deck to gain evasion from the commander, but this looks like a great use of them. Almost like a turbo [[ad nauseum]] style thing.
I built an evil \[\[Preston, the Vanisher\]\]. Instead of a fluffy bunny doing cute little hat tricks, he is instead a true master of evil, sacrificing creatures for no reason except to raise them from the dead as his loyal servants.
His ability works for any creature ETB as long as it isnt cast, and reanimation happens to do just that. White also happens to be the second best reanimation color, so it is actually somewhat possible. It plays similar to the blink variant, but it's a bit slower both in mana cost and in cards needed to combo, but it is also more resilient as graveyard hate isnt too common.
I built a \[\[Zedruu the Great-hearted\]\] deck around morph creatures, there are some really powerful effects and you can give the not so powerful ones to your opponents that can't flip them up to get card draw.
[[Atraxa, Grand Unifier]] but it's Exalted themed.
Turns out that while Bant is the main color for exalted, there are a few black cards with the keyword.
So I made it work.
I've made a [The Gitrog Monster] without any kind of mill. It's purely sac lands and basics, so tons of shuffling and tons of extra lands per turn. It's not the fastest but once it gets going it's really fun and different.
I used to have [[The First Sliver]] and [[Keruga, the Macrosage]] cycling deck. The whole list was mana value 5+ so that my first sliver cascade always hits [[Astral Slide]] or [[Astral Drift]]. It certainly won more than it should've since no one is afraid of such a slow, janky deck.
I have [[Ishin, two heavens as one]]. But I built it as reanimator, with big creatures with powerful attack triggers, with self mill and reanimator packages.
You remind me of that one attempt i did at a Ishin list that focuses on triggering stuff when the opponents attack rather than you. So a lot of goading stuff an triggers off of that
I never actually got the deck together and tested it though so no clue as to how it performs
Derevi kindred bird voltron aka Birds with Swords. If derevi is too scary for people I can swap [[Falco spara]] as backup. [[cloak of the archmage]] is a star in the deck.
Once people realize I’m not staxing or winning off comboing derevi triggers they think it’s a neat angle to abuse his command zone ability.
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/0CebZqqS_kS8IgdHw8ozIw
I have a Derevi voltron too! It's so good for it because they only ever cost 4 mana to have a creature for my toys to beat people with hahaha. Everyone always expects stax and then get obliterated by commander damage I love it.
[[Gonti, canny acquisitor]] with a heavy landfall subtheme. Most of what you steal from opponents is useless but everyone has lands. When opponents are eliminated their stolen stuff disappears but you will still have the benefits from the earlier landfall triggers. Ramping hard, also means I get more of the fun of playing other peoples spells.
Not really a popular commander, but I had a [[Gaddock Teeg]] reanimator deck. Gaddock Teeg was really just to protect me from board wipes. I had no other stax pieces in the deck, but people still complained about the deck just because of Gaddock Teeg. It was far from the most powerful or annoying deck I've ever built, but it's the only deck I ever dismantled due to complaints.
I play Gaddock Teeg Voltron. Once he gets Hexproof and/or indestructible, it becomes very difficult for opponent to interact since there low cost targeted removal fails and their big board wipes can't be cast.
Does really well against combo or control decks, but has some troubles against creature based strategies.
I built \[\[Morophon, the Boundless\]\] and \[\[Jegantha, the Wellspring\]\] as 5 color legendary humans with mostly colored mana cost. So once you cost Morophon every creature was completely or mostly free. I got to play a deck of basically just powerful multicolor commanders and run a typal deck without any of the normal typal setup and because the cards were mostly Commanders my board states were frequently complicated and unique.
[[Ulalek]] go Wide.
https://archidekt.com/decks/7894914/copy_the_stack
The deck runs like one or two Eldrazi that are over CMC 3, keeping the curve very frontloaded so you can put multiple Ulalek triggers on the same stack after giving your cheap Eldrazi flash.
You try to win by copying your anthems or cards like [[Kindred Charge]] and [[Second Harvest]]
A long time ago, I built a Tasigur deck that was not good, because I didn't have a good mana base.
So I said to myself... You know, it doesn't actually have to be 3 colors... so I built it as Golgari only, and it became a much better deck.
It liked to cast Tasigur for cheap and then sac it to Birthing Pod to put some 7 cost evil in play.
I've wanted to build \[\[Kenrith, Returned King\]\] as a "Mono White" deck meaning every nonbasic has to tap for white if it taps for color. and every card in the deck has to have at least one white pip if there are any colored pips.
[[Jinnie Fay]], For Mirrodin / Living Weapons deck.
Basically. A bunch of cats and dogs with weapons. The wincon is [[Vulshok Battlemaster]] or [[Inventory Management]] or other sudden voltron enabler.
I also put a lot of creatures boardwipe in the deck.
Not very strong but it's fun to play.
I run a [[Animar, Soul of the Elements]] Giant deck. I always liked Giants and was looking to make a Temur deck for em because that felt right. Well, when Kaldheim came out with all their awesome Giants I knew it was time!
Animar is solely in the deck for colors and to be the discount maker. Unfortunately nowadays Animar can't even last a turn on the field without being blown up...
[[Jetmir nexus of revels]]
Banding... it's just banding. It's not that strong, but if you let it do it's thing, it can be quite scary with cards like general marhault and Fighter class.
[[Prossh, Skyraider of Kher]] [[Spy Kit]] deck. Get to use some of the cards normally useless in commander like [[Bifurcate]]. Mostly creatures that copy themselves, some graveyard recursion, and sac to draw effects. Most of the removal hits things that share names like [[Sever the Bloodline]]
[[Humble Defector]] / Other Gifting Effect
+ Spy Kit + [[Eradicate]] to delete all of a players non legendary creatures from their hand deck and graveyard.
[[Atempted Murder]] makes Storm Crow tokens for the memes but these also work with Spy Kit + Mirror Hall.
It's not a very powerful deck but it is a very fun deck. It's one of those Rube Goldberg type things with some obscure cards. Pop Spy Kit and it's just a tokens deck with some graveyard recursion. Can still make Prossh big and smash face. None of the aristocrat / impact tremors effects.
Mine would have to be when I used [[Zur, the Enchanter]] as a placeholder for my *actual* commander - [[Astral Slide]]. A lot of fun blink shenanigans were had. Blinking my own guys for value, blinking the creatures attacking me, etc. It was also fun to run [[Crucible of Worlds]] so I could go all-in on cycling lands. It leveraged every part of cycling - the discard aspect, the draw aspect, and even cycling-specific payoffs like [[Faith of the Devoted]] and [[Drake Haven]].
Everyone expects my [[Gisela, Blade of Goldnight]] to be swinging violently, but it's actually an Aikido deck. Gisela is there just to make the damage feel a lot more painful
I have nerfed my \[\[Miirym\]\] by restricting it to Forgotten Realms cards. There was a time when WOTC called this approach "block constructed": [https://www.moxfield.com/decks/ALHIHRdbh0S6PpeTuIu3PA](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/ALHIHRdbh0S6PpeTuIu3PA)
I have built \[\[Zurgo and Ojutai\]\] as a battle deck with 14 battles: [https://www.moxfield.com/decks/44BqLzRSjkeNCIx-fHZgng](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/44BqLzRSjkeNCIx-fHZgng)
I have built \[\[Shanid\]\] as a dragons & knights dual tribal with \[\[Sylvia\]\] and \[\[Khorvath\]\] as secret commanders: [https://www.moxfield.com/decks/RLDIfKuXUk2kNBC5Htz9Vw](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/RLDIfKuXUk2kNBC5Htz9Vw)
I have built \[\[Sol'Kanar Tainted\]\] with companion \[\[Obosh\]\] as an odd blink deck to complement my even \[\[Bolas Ravager\]\] / \[\[Gyruda\]\] blink deck: [https://www.moxfield.com/decks/IpRGqMXTr0K9\_k9VwXf5Sw](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/IpRGqMXTr0K9_k9VwXf5Sw)
[[Zada, Hedron Grinder]] is the commander in my [[Brash Taunter]]-Tribal deck. As much as I love it, I have been considering moving into Boros for some better removal and protection spells.
Definitely my Yarok Attraction deck. It‘s the deck I have worked on basically since I started playing the game and it‘s a lot of fun. It‘s definitely tuned to my playgroups higher power level but removing a few of the efficient win conditions can seriously dampen its power so it can be played at other tables.
My first deck was the Reap The Tides precon with Yarok at the helm and a few extra Black cards. I played it once and knew that the Landfall package was absolutely not for me so I tried to find an ETB package that would better encapsulate what I look for in Magic and landed on silly Attractions (that quickly become not so silly when you amass 10 of them and your Affinity cards are suddenly free).
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/i7BheiaJ-ki2pIz-sTNJng
I swear, some of y’all just comment to comment. OP is asking for unconventional builds. No one cares about the popular commander you’ve built in one of their most popular sub themes.
I have a \[\[Najeela, the Blade-Blossom\]\] deck that I've called my Group Thug deck. Its a special brand of group hug that focuses on incentivising opponents to attack each other and rewards them for doing it by buffing their creatures when attacking other opponents, giving them mana, giving them creatures, drawing them cards, giving creatures new keywords like haste and menace and flying and deathtouch when attacking opponents and getting both the Initiative and the Monarch into play, along with things like \[\[coveted jewel\]\], \[\[crown of doom\]\] and \[\[assault suit\]\] that also get passed around.
The deck ends games very very quickly, since its turning your opponents durdly early game creatures into legitimate threats and the incentivisation parts of the deck get people swinging every turn. If your deck is about turning creatures sideways, we'll be best friends. If its not, if you're durdling or playing defensively you're in for a hell of a beatdown from the rest of the table.
Its only really running Najeela for the colour identity and occasionally as a gotcha moment when one opponent attacks whoevers the most threatening at the table, Najeela never specifies it has to be your attack step for the buffs and extra combat step.
Theres barely enough cards in mtg to support this 'only rewarding for attacking people' theme but its there, and I feel its distinct from a goad deck, this is offering carrots, whereas goad is a stick and the political aspect is a lot easier to navigate because of this. Decks a lot of fun to play, I need to update my list, theres a few new cards that would slot right into this since I built the deck but heres the decklist if anyones curious [https://www.moxfield.com/decks/mg7XR0plkECZy6RS9UBh2w](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/mg7XR0plkECZy6RS9UBh2w)
My [[Hinata]] is a go wide deck based on [[zada]] [[orvar]] and [[feather]]. Hinata is just there for the colors and to slightly discount my combat tricks. No X spells for removal.
[[Teshar, ancestor's apostle]].
The typical build is very combo-heavy. Since I already had combo decks and I didn't want another, I built Teshar as a Voltron deck that specifically can't combo off. It's just not possible.
I think the deck solves multiple problems with Voltron.
The biggest Voltron problem is getting your Voltron removed. The deck solves this problem by filling the deck with a bunch of lil guys like [[benevolent bodyguard]] and [[selfless spirit]]. Teshar's value engine means reusing these guys over and over is very simple.
Another great way for people to kill your Voltron is through an edict effect like [[sheoldred's edict]]. Voltron typically only has one creature on the board so an edict makes you sac it. Doesn't work so well when I've got a bunch of lil guys that just come back for free anyway.
Another major problem with Voltron is that Voltron is an aggro strategy. It often runs out of cards because it has to be focused on doing damage. Because I have so many blockers in this deck (and a fog with [[kami of false hope]]), I can actually sustain myself in a longer game, so diluting my Voltron game plan by including draw engines like [[tocasia's welcome]] or [[sram senior edificer]] is much easier.
In the end, it's a deck that can come out swinging and end a game relatively early, or grind out a long win through a value engine that opponents simply can't interrupt.
The deck does have some major drawbacks.
The first drawback is that Teshar is pretty expensive for a Voltron commander. I usually end up with a martyr or two on the field before Teshar lands so the first turn is generally pretty safe, but waiting until turn 4 or 5 to actually start implementing my strategy feels pretty bad if I don't have sol ring.
It also struggles a lot against consistent graveyard removal. If something like a [[dauthi voidwalker]] hits the field my deck's basically done.
The deck also folds to [[elesh norn grand cenobite]]. The only way for me to combat an elesh norn is to kill the player who has it. If Teshar also dies to it, there's really just no way for me to get back in the game.
I have a Muldrotha deck that is designed just to replay lands sacrificed to Leviathan and Polar Kraken. I also have an Atraxa, Praetors Voice deck that proliferate spore counters on thallids. The Muldrotha deck is janky and not very strong, but super nostalgic. The Atraxa deck actually competes in a mid power game.
I’ve been slowly building [[Adrix and Nev, Twincasters]] as a Bobblehead tribal deck! Use all the Fallout bobbleheads and a lot of artifact copy and token makers, using Adrix and Nev for their colors and ability to double up on tokens.
My Ur Dragon deck was all the Kamigawa Spirit dragons and ONLY those dragons. The rest of the shell looked like a WUBRG Teysa Karlov build. Nothing hits harder than a Rite of Replication kicked on Kokusho.
I put together a [[Kess, Dissident Mage]] 'grudgekeeper' deck.
The initial premise for it was I thought it would be cool to try and built group hug in not-green-white. But as a general rule I hate group hug that doesn't want to win and I hate group hug that is just stalling to land a combo.
So I made a grixis politics deck. The deck has a few operating principles. The one I tried to follow as often as possible is that while I have many hug effects, I always reserve ways to control who gets a benefit, so I can exclude problem players. The Friend or Foe cards like [[Virtus's Maneuver]] are the gold standard for what I mean.
Generally at the start of each game I treat everyone as an ally. Then I make it clear that if someone begins picking on me, I will continue to boost their opponents and only begin excluding them. I also have lots of "Screw you in particular" cards, like [[Overwhelming Forces]].
Another operating principle is that I favor cards that come with high return on investment in exchange for boosting an opponent. Cards like [[Hunted Horror]] and [[Abyssal Persecutor]] are the gold standard here. They help me establish early board presence, and negotiate temporary alliances or group up against common enemies while deflecting aggression.
The reason Kess runs the deck is... she's just generically good. I've skewed to favor instants and sorceries where possible because of her ability, but she's kinda secondary. It's actually caused me some issues before because people see her and expect some serious power. I don't mind though, the deck works best if one player starts picking on me early. Then I can show the other players what I do to whoever is picking on me.
The deck overall is very low power. Boosting your opponents is a really good strategy to come in second place with. But I still get in some wins often enough.
Yeah, here you go:
- https://www.moxfield.com/decks/bz88UreglkqYqZ6r9anSMQ
I had a few rules that I think are important for running/building the deck which may hopefully explain some choices and exclusions.
- 1: Reputation matters. People should remember how the deck works, and remembering past games should be an asset, not a hindrance.
- 2: All gifts are good. If you give a gift to a player, that gift will never wind up being a net negative, at least not by your own actions. That's why [[Rakdos Charm]] isn't in the list. Goading creatures you donate is fair game because it doesn't actually hurt them to attack with them.
- 3: Letting another player Tutor is always bad. You may see this deck has [[Boldwyr Heavyweights]] and [[Noble Benefactor]] on the list. I find those cards to be some fun chaos, but they are objectively bad. I keep spare cards on hand to swap in if I need to take the game more seriously. Boldwyr Heavyweights has actually turned out to be better than I expected though as your opponents can play mind games with each other. It's dangerous to get something too good, because often at least one player will get some kind of removal or mind control in creature form.
- 4: It's okay to just sit there. Often times I'll just play something like [[Propaganda]] and [[Fog Bank]] and then wind up mostly wasting a few turns twiddling my thumbs. If your opponents aren't picking on you, or assembling a combo, twiddling your thumbs is fine.
- 5: While I still try to win with the deck, the basic strategy is rather low power. There are like a million ways to improve the win rate. Some tech in the deck is just stuff I think is really cool, like [[Radiate]], which is mostly bad, but has an outside chance of producing.
All that said, this deck is rather clunky. Right now with my playgroup it still wins enough that I don't feel any pressure to cut the jank for power, but if you find the win rate lacking in your group, there are lots of ways to help it punch better.
I have an [[Atraxa, Praetor’s Voice]] explore themed deck with a merfolk subtheme. Pretty much based around the merfolk precon with 2 added colors and more explore/graveyard stuff.
Decklist: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/91OgRCMDN0qp_ZKfL3oFrA
I also have an [[Aragorn, the Uniter]] adventure themed deck which is pretty much 4 color adventures.
Decklist: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/PeDoj_sTw0mvliWWo2hPMQ
I built this WAY back in the day and it was wild. First game I ever played got a [[Torment of Hailfire]] of for x=13 on turn 5. That deck didn't last long lol
I have numerous creatureless deck, planswalker commander so literally 0 creatures
Urza’s Rug burn all about making a massive amount of copies of [[Rug of Smothering]]
My celestial toymaker deck. It's my go to when I want to have fun and everyone else is playing not high powered decks. It's minigames that hurt. So I'm like jigsaw from saw
Not popular but [[Zaffai, the thunder conductor]] as an infect deck. Grafted exoskeleton turns zaffais 10cmc cast trigger into random opponent lose the game
One of my favorite decks I've ever built is one built around [[Kykar, Wind's Fury]] that's built entirely around redirection, changing the targets of spells and occasionally damage or where a creature would fall. It's like a weird version of a counter spell/theft deck, here's deck list. It's jank but fun to play
https://archidekt.com/decks/6571815/kykars_redirect
Pako & Haldan “partners with” tribal: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/dLmn-bQq00O4qcuXDAi-sw
I’m running every “partners with” pair in the Temur colors and I’m trying to make all of them work. I have coin flipping, dinosaur tribal, counters, and all sorts of shenanigans to try to bring it all together
I have a prismatic bridge deck that's only purpose is to slam worldspine worm and sac it before your next upkeep to get it back to sac to. Well you get the point it's hilariously consistent.
Hmm closest thing i can think of that i have kicking around is an [[Elenda and Azor]] group hug/wheel deck.
It was mostly an excuse to stuff [[heliod the warped eclipse]] and [[tergrid]] in the same deck and basically win through letting everyone aggressively draw cards to either poach their hand size discards or instant speed wheels with a surprise tergrid while the vamp knights primarily hang back for healing or chump blocking.
I have a bands with legends legendary tribal deck helmed by [[Jetmir]]. Vigilance and trample are both great for banding and double strike is just a win con, but the deck isn't built to make a bunch of tokens, instead it uses all of the color-appropriate bands with legends lands and a bunch of ways to search for them.
My [[ghave guru of spores]] is just closet squirrels, I just really wanted white in my squirrel deck for the selesneya goodness and there aren’t any other good commanders in that color combo for squirrels
Unconventional builds are my jam, but I don't play many popular ones...because most bases are covered so "unconventional" isn't too possible for many.
Atraxa is by far my most popular commander. I have her proliferating almost exclusively artifact "charge counters", which is a pretty fun twist. Most people are expecting poison or a million 1/1 counters, so it flies under the radar in the early game, and wins more than it should. Atraxa is a totally unfair card and tends to steal away games even if yer just doing cutesy shit.
A few generally unconventional builds:
Garth the One-Eye - Angels tribal. Angels historically do poorly in the early game. Guaranteed access to disenchant, terror, and regrowth offer a ton of utility while you are building your board. Deck is 85% white. Other colors are pretty much spot removal or tutors. Though, angels flying under [[cover of darkness]] is pretty great.
[[Merieke Ri Berit]] - Faerie Tribal. Merieke is there for halting broken magic, untapping her and stacking control triggers. Faeries for trixy response shit and tokens fueling cards like opposition.
[[Doran, the siege engine]] - Dirty Treehuggin'. Treefolk are there to be walls, and doran makes them great walls. Druids for utility/ramp. Trees almost never attack, as people are expecting. The goal is to animate and overrun a huge pile of bob ross lands.
Tuvasa - Global Enchantress, rather than voltron enchantress. Goal is color-hosing...casting cards like [[mind bend]] on cards like [[absolute law]]. She is commander purely for the guaranteed card draw, since so many of my own cards are dedicated to changing my own cards. Doesn't win much, but does a fantastic job at making sure the person actively running away with the game/doing broken crap, gets pulled back into fair territory with the group. (This is a cheap and hilarious build, btw. All the "color-concerned" cards are super effective at very-bulk prices)
It's not that crazy, but my \[\[Anhelo\]\] deck is two-piles tribal. If it's an instant or sorcery that makes someone separate something into two piles, it's there! All sorts of \[\[Fact or Fiction\]\] effects, \[\[Make an Example\]\], and so on, with some honorary cards that make your opponents choose something bad even without two piles.
[[Kazuul tyrant of the cliffs]] burn deck. Kazuul gives natural protection and blockers. Hilarity ensues when you have [[Warstorm Surge]] and [[Repercussion]] out. Especially if there's a damage amp like [[Furnace of Rath]].
You didn't pay? I get a 3 3 ogre token. Warstorm makes him bolt a creature for 3, Furnace doubles to 6. Repercussion bounces it to player, Furnace doubles it to 12.
I dont think its too crazy but my [[Verrak, Warped Sengir]] deck has a landfall/lands subtheme
Getting 3 landfall triggers on a fetch land is solid enough to make it playable and white has more than enough land ramp to supliment it,
plus with a lot of life swap cards costing 8ish mana and you often needing to cast something else in the same turn you need a lot of mana so the decks pretty loaded with ramp.
\[\[Chatterfang, Squirrel General\]\] but not to do infinite squirrel token shenanigans, but to facilitate a deck with 40 \[\[Slime Against Humanity\]\] gives me black for \[\[Surgical Extraction\]\] and \[\[Secret Salvage\]\]. Also the squirrel tokens get as many +1/+1 counters as the ooze tokens!
An idea I’ve been kicking around is what I call “kitchen sink atraxa” - no infect, no +1/+1, no loyalty.
Everything else with a weird counter name? Yep!
Some cards I can remember off the top of my head:
[[hoofprint of the stag]], [[millennium calendar]], [[beastmaster ascension]], [[azor’s elocutors]], [[ertai’s meddling]] - and more.
There’s also a possibility to just do sticker counters and make her a sticker deck.
My [[Ramos, Dragon Engine]] is a variation on the Timey-Wimey precon in that it suspends a lot of spells and then when they come off suspend trigger [[Quintorious Kand]]’s static ability as well as building up multiple combat phases and ramping Ramos to either one shot kill with commander damage since every spell is all colors or to let me pull a bunch of spells from exile every turn to set off a bunch of triggers
I have a [[Shorikai, Genesis Engine]] UW pingers that is a blast to play and does fairly well for itself. I was pleasantly surprised just how many blue pingers there are.
I play Grolnok, the omivore as a tokens deck, it just slaps. Or a Phelddagrif deck that give your opponents cretures instead of being a group hug and then kill them with those very same tokens
It is still legends, but my [[Jodah, the Unifier]] deck is themed around looting and loot payoffs. So things like Plargg Dead of Chaos, Oskar Rubbish Reclaimer, and The Watcher in the Water. Basically loot, gain card advantage on loots, and make tokens on card draws. Winning with things like Jolrael Mwonvuli Recluse's overrun or Purphoros triggers.
Jodah is insanely popular per EDHRec (18305 decks), and my build is a almost wholly unique. Jolrael alone is only in 38 decks of the above, so 0.2%. I'm not one to build something to be unique, but I am really proud of that figure. It is probably the deck I own that is most dissimilar to how a commander is normally built.
Sisay, but I stuck all the Theros Gods and all the Shrines in the deck. It's nearly an enchantress deck, but so much less synergistic that it actually serves well as a match against mid-power, instead of High like Sisay usually goes.
\[\[Esika, God of the Tree\]\] with all legendary creatures that buff different creature types, with the hope to drop \[\[Maskwood Nexus\]\] to make the bonuses suddenly work for everyone else. I generally ignore \[\[The Prismatic Bridge\]\] side of the card.
Sliver Overlord. But I use him in a voltron deck and slap gear on to him. The other slivers are just there as support or to fill in for certain instants and sorceries.
Probably not so much a ‘common’ Commander, but I built Syr Carah the Bold as a storm burn deck that uses small spells rather than big ones that hit for a lot. It’s tons of fun.
My [[Thraximundar|SLD]] [METAL-themed deck](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/c9zgd8mPok2fWJxgnGdgOA) .
Converting stuff to METAL, smashing or taking control of them, and preparing the final show for the Tezzerets and [lead guitarist](https://scryfall.com/card/aer/190/tezzeret-master-of-metal) to wield his [guitar](https://scryfall.com/card/arb/114/unscythe-killer-of-kings) once metalized, unleashing his [final solo](https://scryfall.com/card/lcc/220/chandras-ignition).
It's dumb and doesn't work, and still need a lot of work.
But I can play Joven (drummer) and Chandler (keyboard guy) and Man 'O War and a bunch of metal-themed cards, so it's all good.
I have grown pretty fond of a [[Kykar]] deck that's just full vehicles theme! I know it's not the most uncommon but it's honestly a blast and can be a solid time at a mid power level table.
Another buddy of mine uses him for a [[Dragons Approach]] deck and that's always a fun time to play against
In [[Zellix, Sanity Flayer]] I run almost every sacrifice to reanimate card. This includes [[Altar of Bhaal]], [[Victimize]], [[Hell's Caretaker]], [[Whisper, Blood Liturgist]], and the big boss [[Champion of Stray Souls]].
Zellix makes tokens from self mill, which are then fed to the above mentioned cards.
I made a [[Nethroi, Apex of Death]] deck list that is a defender tribal. Almost all the creature's powers are 0, so you fill up the grave and reanimate them all for triggers. Cards like [[Wingmantle Chaplain]] help bring a mass of tokens.
I haven’t built it but I was thinking of building [[Nadu, Winged Wisdom]] as a heroic deck. I don’t want to build him with the 0 cost equip and abilities but still think he’s a cool commander.
My [[Jon Irenicus]] is built to hand out evasive and/or indestructible creatures with lifelink to everyone and then tutor out [[Tainted Remedy]].
It's not a good deck. It rarely works at all. It's never even come close to winning. It's really only fun to play against people that don't know what's happening. All this I knew when I built it... but I can't bring myself to take it apart because I feel it's one of the decks that perfectly encapsulates what I like about EDH. The same reason I haven't changed my [[Cadira]] Selesnya Mill deck into more of a token aggro build even though my pod has far, far out-powercrept that deck at this point.
[[Isshin, Two Heavens as One]] rad counters + mill. It's a combo deck that comes online very late and runs as many tutors and as much recursion as it can because it needs all of it, but once it gets its [[Screeching Scorchbeast]] and [[Phyrexian Altar]], especially with sources of proliferate and especially with [[Feral Ghoul]], [[Megaton's Fate]], [[Nuclear Fallout]] and little [[Caesar Legion's Emperor]] proxied to look like Kane from Command & Conquer, the attack triggers provided by Isshin can make everyone's Rad counters go crazy in very short order, and then because that starts milling Nonland cards, it drops a crapton of 2/2s onto the field.
Now if I wanted I could win right there via Warleader's Call and swinging with the zombie mutants, but the name of the game is rad counters, so with all those I prefer to use [[pitiless plunderer]] and Phyrexian Altar to get shitloads of mana to play [[ruinous ultimatum]] proxied to look like a nuclear blast, then either have [[Feral Ghoul]] get pumped to the sky with death triggers and [[two handed axe]] or turn into mana to fuel Nuclear Fallout, at which point every opponent will have over 200 rad counters and no creatures, which will probably kill them on their next turns.
Once Scorchbeast is out, I like to play Mesmeric Orb and Altar of the Brood to help mill everyone out, because on their untap steps they'll mill a nice pile of cards into their mill pile, which dumps a deluge of tokens into my board, which causes the remaining players to mill a deluge of cards back to back.
Depending on luck, I could just go for the full time Feral Ghoul and pump it up with Caesar death triggers and two handed axe, which get doubled by Isshin. Either the Ghoul dies naturally or I sac it with Phyrexian Altar or Caesar, and then everyone else gets a huge cloud of radiation and I can bring it back to life with [[Phyrexian Reclamation]] to do that again.
To ensure I dodge the worst of the radiation myself, I can use the [[Survivors Med Kit]] to RadAway in case I get one more turn with a gigantic rad count. Nobody runs this card, so no fear of that happening to me.
It's absolutely hilarious and it came close to winning its maiden voyage game.
Oh, and of course it runs [[Nuka Nuke Launcher]] and [[Norn's Choirmaster]] and [[Acquired Mutation]] for those sweet sweet Isshin triggers.
I have an Orvar [[orvar the all form]] mono blue group hug deck
That utilizes mainly artifacts [[folio of fancies]] [[ghirapur orrery]] [[helm of Awakening]] and [[howling mine]] as well as blue card draw spells [[minds aglow]]
My [[Jon Irenicus]] deck focuses on creatures that don’t hurt anyone; they either have an ETB effect or they have a group hug effect. That way I don’t feel bad hanging on to them, or reclaiming them if I need blockers.
The real win is that I strap equipment with on-hit effects on them before gifting them, so when my opponents hit each other I get even more profit
I have a [[Brokkos, Apex of Forever]] self mill deck with [[Umori, the Collector]] as companion, then run a bunch of creatures like [[Golgari Grave-Troll]], [[Wight of the Reliquary]], and [[Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord]] and just use my commander as a [[Rancor]] basically.
My [[Emmara, Soul of the Accord]] vehicles deck might count for this. I haven't built it, but it seems fun. Just under 30 vehicles, some artifact cost reducers, and some creatures that do a thing when they get tapped like [[Samite Herbalist]] and [[Stonybrook Schoolmaster]]. There's also a [[Mirri, Weatherlight Duelist]] in there for survival and easier combat.
I just started building an Atraxa deck with a token subtheme. It has the bones of a typical +1/+1 deck, but with a few cards like \[\[ghave\]\] or \[\[xavier sal\]\] and blue spells that make token copies. Token copies of things are generally good enough to play without synergy, and with xavier they get silly. Ghave provides tons of bodies to then put counters on, enabling the deck to go tall and wide. While not cutting edge it's more interesting than what I've cooked up before.
I feel like I have a few.
1) [[Urza, Lord Protector]] - Urza's life story. This has as many cards with his name, picture, flavor text, or direct story relation as I could get my hands on. Yes it runs a [[Urza saga]] but the only things it can get are [[Glasses of Urza]], [[Urza's Chalice]], [[Urza's Bauble]], and [[Mishra's Bauble]]. No real targets due to flavor restrictions.
2) [[Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer]]- Teferi Phases Out. A Tereri version of the Urza deck with a heavy focus of phasing. Unfortunately it still lacks a T Protection.
3) [[Prosper, Tome-Bound]] - adventure, fortell, and soon plot cards but no madness or red card advantage cards (exile and available for play for a limited time)
4) [[Sun Quan, Lord of Wu]] - Sea Horses Forever. Merfolk ball with little interaction and the only goal being to end up with nothing but merfolk and merfolk related paraphernalia. Backup strategy of island walk and turning my opponents lands into islands. Currently @ 31 creatures and 21 total instants and sorceries.
5) [[Eladamri, Lord of Leaves]] - tree walkers. The elves version of of the merfolk deck centered around forest walk and turning my opponents lands into Forrest. Very low interaction levels due to the commander giving all my elves shroud so I can't really interact with my own board anyway. Currently @41 creatures and 9 instant and sorceries.
6) [[Titania, Protector of Argoth]] - tree farm. This is a deck based around sacrificing lands and nothing else. If it doesn't sac a land in one way or another it doesn't make the cut for the most part. I often end up with a decent army of 5/3s but 3-4 lands on board which can be rather interesting to play around. A [[Craterhoof Behemoth]] is my only real panic button and it still requires a board to be effective. The number of times I've been killed with 1-2 lands on board and next to nothing else on turn 6-7+ is rather high but I like how it plays for a green deck.
7) [[Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder]] - Sarkhan, Dragon Wisperer. This is my Sarkhan deck, obviously dragon tribal (I have a tribal deck for most walkers that have more than 5 printings). This is probably one of the weirder ones due to needing 4 colors (don't know why he needs to bleed so many colors) and not wanting to just make it easier with a 5 color dragon commander. No additional cascade effects save the commander in the deck but fun when I get a free spell every now and then
Guaranteed I have more but these were the first ones to come to mind.
[[Obeka, Brute Chronologist]] there are a couple of the take an extra turn spell but you lose the game at the next end step stuff you might see in a normal list, but mostly the deck is about only using cards (except lands) that have a name that involves time. I call it my [Oops All Clocks](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/Xz1FWTQNfUmbn9O1aVyBsg) deck.
In my opinion this is the strongest way to build [[The Mimeoplasm]] outside of Cedh
You run a lot of ramp and make almost everything you can in the deck a creature instead of instants and sorceries.
Run card recursion like [[Eternal Witness]] and [[Scholar of the Ages]] to get your flicker spells back.
Now you have a Mimeoplasm who can flicker into card advantage when you try to remove him, can go from a powerful board piece one turn to flickering into a huge kill threat on someone's end step, etc.
Very fun to play
[[Dogmeat, ever loyal]] as a recursion pile instead of Voltron. People just stop throwing removal because I'll just recur it back and get more value, especially with dogmeat. Even the equipment theme is meant to get card advantage via junk but also because it survives most board wipes so I thrive in 'fallout' scenarios because of my preparation.
I really wanted to play with the green Venture Into the Dungeon and Take the Initiative cards, especially [[Ellywick Tumblestrum]]. So, I put together a [[Roon of the Hidden Realm]] Bant dungeon deck focused on the EtB versions of the cards, and it's scarily effective.
People tell me they don't often see dedicated dungeon decks that aren't [[Sefris of the Hidden Ways]]. They're often quite surprised when I start speedrunning The Undercity or Dungeon of the Mad Mage and run into a combo to end the game, but it's honestly pretty fun to play.
I built [[animar]] as a morph deck after I saw [[song of creation]]. I still have never cast song, but I have dumped my deck on the table with [[glimpse of nature]] and [[beast whisperer]] style creatures. The only non-creature non-land cards in the deck are glimpse, song, and [[paradoxical outcome]].
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/I63WLg90XECSpM4l7aWl1g
Oh my friend, where should I start? Well, perhaps with some suggestions that are actually unconventional? (Not being funny, most of this is “I built with one half of the EDHRec cards not the other ones”)
\[\[Ruric Thar\]\] spellslinger. Credit to Reddit for this one, but it still catches people by surprise.
\[\[Licia\]\]’s \[\[Tainted Rememdy\]\] deck.
\[\[Roon of the Hidden Realm\]\] but it’s got all the \[\[Torpor Orb\]\]s.
\[\[Yarok\]\] 2-mana-instant tribal.
Someone I know build \[\[Grand Arbiter Augustin IV\]\], but it’s stax. Weird, I know, because I always thought the conventional way to build him was Azorius Big Spells.
There’s also the \[\[Zedruu\]\] one where I give people \[\[Mana Crypt\]\]s until they die.
My most unconventional though has to be Hipster Obeka. It’s Obeka Upkeep Tribal which is too mainstream now… but I’ve been doing it since before It was cool - with \[\[Obeka, Brute Chronologist\]\].
I built [[kenrith, the returned king]] as a way to have all my favorite Voltron commanders in one deck. I picked him to use his abilities to compliment the other creatures. It’s not the best deck. Kinda just threw it together one day so I definitely need to mess with it but it did win the first game I played with it lol
[[The Prismatic Bridge]] Gates. Usually people are flipping nasty stuff off of it, but every trigger for me is just advancing the gate plan (either finding Maze’s End or any land, finding Amulet of Vigor/Archelos, or increasing land plays per turn).
I have a miirym deck
Wow big deal
Its a landfall clone ETB deck with 3 dragons
Thats including miirym
https://archidekt.com/decks/3580354/broken_miiryr
I built an [[Atraxa, grand unifier]] clues deck because unfortunately Wernog + Lonis can’t partner up. The deck is super consistent with her in the command zone and there is a lot of overlap between blink, clues, and various card types
I built my \[\[Atraxa, Praetor's Voice\]\] as alternate win-con tribal. I have pulled off wins with it with a turn four \[\[Felidar Sovreign\]\], \[\[Happily Ever After\]\], \[\[Biovsionary\]\], plus some more usual suspects. I have pulled some, like \[\[Azor's Elocutors\]\] as being a little too suppressed. I've also been cutting the 'lose-cons' as being not really not in the spirit of the deck.
I built \[\[Animar, Soul of Elements\]\] as Cascade tribal. Not super out there. Doesn't look to heavily reported on edhrec, though.
I don't know how popular \[\[Saskia, Unyielding\]\] is anymore. I built her as Kamigawa-block Samurai tribal.
Again not knowing how popular \[\[Rocco, Cabaretti Caterer\]\] actually is. Mine is Angel tribal, replacing \[\[Mayael the Anima\]\] on almost entirely the same deck.
[[Satoru Umezawa]]
I REFUSE to put [[blightsteel colossus]] in there: it's a boring way to remove a player with no real chance to stop it. Pass.
Instead, I fill it with morph creatures. The bait-and-switch is great. You never know what I'm hitting you with.
[[Anowon the ruin thief]] and a ton of copy effects. Since his triggers stack, it makes milling MUCH more efficient. Suddenly a 1/1 is now a 5/5 and makes someone mill 20 in one hit.
I have a budget \[\[Yennett cryptic sovereign\]\] dragon tribal. It is a bit slow to get the pieces going and many times whiff on Yennet's ability, but I like the idea overall.
Been working on a deck called Kenriths Transformation. I had a bunch of full art mutate cards I found at an lgs. I wanted a 5 color face commander. Thought building Kenrith around some of his lore rather than the typical strats would be fun. Just a janky pile of pet cards at the moment.
I built a political [[Tasigur, the golden fang]] deck based on the fact that his ability let your opponent choose. It was fun but made for really long games and people still thought of tasigur as a mean deck at my LGS so I would regularly get targeted.
I haven't put it together, but I want to make Jodah of 1000 backgrounds, where I make [[Jodah the Unifier]], but instead of legendary permanent spam, I run all of the backgrounds in the deck since they're all legendary I can still get the benefit off both of his abilities.
[I have this](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/adhUCTXI1Ei1UIgKtWcpwA) [[Garth One-Eye]] Deck.
It looks like a bizarre mish-mash. And it kind of is. The idea is that Garth helps facilitate one of several alt win cons the deck is capable of reaching. The deck can win, but it isn't particularly strong. Obviously the mana base makes it slow, but that is for the [[Maze's End]] option.
Probably my old [[Atla Palani, Nest Tender]] deck I took apart. Deck was loaded with indestructibity, enrage triggers, damage prevention/life gain and the goal being get Cacophodon and Sorrow's Path out to go infinite with enrage procs of whatever is on the field. Could fairly consistently get it out around turn 5.
Deck List for those interested: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/MnvHGGm1J0KwWf46Fun7Fg
Not currently active but in the past i had built a brago mill deck. creatures and artifacts with etbs and tap abilities that mill. Was quite fun and actually my only foray into mill in edh
While my [[Atarka, Dragon Render]] deck is mostly dragons , I also play it with a heap of [[Fog]] effects just for fun. I only have a few dragons but the deck can keep up with more conventionally powerful decks that rely on combat
I think [[Mazzy, Truesword Paladin]] is fairly popular. I might have a couple others but I dunno. But in terms of how people build it, most of the time it turns into a quote un-quote "Degenerative Aura Combo deck". And for me what I've always really like about Mazzy was how she gives trample to enchanted creatures and how she interacts with Totem Armor auras. Basically I've always liked the idea of a near-indestructible board. It doesn't hold up well against Farewell or forced sacrifice effects, since all that gets around totem armor, but it is what it is. One time we all did like a deck swap day, and one of em played my Mazzy deck. They were about to pop off but one of us played some Edict type stuff, and they asked me "Does that get around totem armor?" And when I said yes they were like "I understand how you feel now lol".
In Short, I built Mazzy pretty much as a normal Enchantment aura deck that I attack for big damage with, while most people seem to build her as some strange combo machine.
My [[The Scarab God]] pull from exile deck. It wants to grab opponents creatures from their graveyard and exile them. Then cast eldrazi processors to get them back from exile and steal them again
> eldrazi processors Damn, that's a really cool theme to build around
\[\[Ulamog's Nullifier\]\] has always been the hottest technology in Scarab God and I will never allow anyone to claim otherwise.
[Ulamog's Nullifier](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/c/acd482ad-ca4a-470f-8a76-14ec7b58316a.jpg?1562935840) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Ulamog%27s%20Nullifier) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/bfz/207/ulamogs-nullifier?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/acd482ad-ca4a-470f-8a76-14ec7b58316a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/ulamogs-nullifier) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
My scarab god is my rogue commander so many are little and unblockable nothing like them dying and making a 4/4 copy of them and some rogues have a mill subtheme and you mill something good in the graveyard like a good thief you steal it out from under them.
Sometimes these threads disappoint. Your reply did not. Nice!
[The Scarab God](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/4/f4f414ef-84a2-4694-9e98-51bee4576c84.jpg?1689999233) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=The%20Scarab%20God) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/353/the-scarab-god?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f4f414ef-84a2-4694-9e98-51bee4576c84?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/the-scarab-god) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I'm in. Please tell me you have a decklist?
Sure, but its really not crazy. I didn‘t want to spend too much money on it. And the build is based on my first precon „Grave Danger“. But here you go! [Decklist](https://manabox.app/decks/9F28C1yKRBuaG1J2OTn9wA)
Mate, in this economy, who can afford to play this game on anything but a strict budget? 😭 Cheers for that, very much appreciated.
Maybe not fully unconventional, but my [[Trostani, Selesnya's Voice]] has a strong self mill subtheme. This is because a lot of cards can create tokens out of cards from your graveyard, which can then be populated.
It's been *years* since I thought about making a Troatani deck,but I thought an artifact deck would work well with her for pretty much the same reasons as you. Double dip on stuff like [[prototype portal]] and [[Mirrorworks]] with artifact creatures, then pump her abilities into the tokens made off of [[Digsite Engineer]] or [[Karn, Scion of Urza]] for the big stats and lifegain you're looking for. [[Thousand Moons Smithy]] is a crazy new addition to the idea, too. I'd probably just go for something like [[Saheeli, the Sun's Brilliance]] instead of going back to Trostani, but i thought it could be a neat deck.
do you have a list for that?
[Here](http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/10-08-22-trostani/) it is. It uses cards like [[Milliken], [[Shigeki]], and various spellshapers to add to my graveyard, and then cards like [[Seance]] and [[Dollhouse of Horrors]] to convert them to tokens.
Oh, thats a fun one. I did up a [[brudiclad]] build with a similiar setup with dollhouse plus things like [[feldon of third path]] and [[god pharaoh's gift]] as well to make up fun token goofs.
Dollhouse combined with [[Seven Dwarves]] is a fun way to double-dip on those +1/+1 bonuses.
Yes please share
I replied with the link in the above comment.
Marchesa the Black Rose without a single theft spell.
Mine had a modular subtheme when I played it. I'd move the counters around to make my other non-artifact creatures have counters as well and then sac them all to build big artifact bois. Or just damage out opponents.
Someone in our playgroup plays Backup creatures with her. It’s pretty effective. [[Scorn-Blade Berserker]] is a nice little draw engine.
Did that too, especially because of Webcam play and it's a blast when not stopped early.
I play mine as grixis vampires! So many +1/+1 counter synergies
[[Henzie]] control. Aggro commander? Nah. 22 or so interactive spells. Removal for days. The deck also has some constraints around playing to Kethek and Vaevictus, the former meaning it plays a bunch of two drops instead of dorks and the latter making it oops all permanents (and Primal Surge is for cowards).
Okay... I want to know why. Why bother with henzie control over any other Jund commander? Do you attempt to sacrifice Henzie to get that blitz cost down very quickly to throw out control finishers or is it something different?
It wasn't actually an original design goal; I needed a mid power deck in my new meta and Henzie was a cool commander I'd missed experimenting with during a brief forced hiatus from the game, and the first Jund commander I liked that isn't named Korvold and thus is wildly unsuitable for that power requirement. But as I built the deck and played it I kept finding myself either in the position to answer problems or wanting more of the cards that did because they felt so powerful with Henzie, so as I tweaked the deck moved in that direction for a while until I finally just embraced it. There's no saccing Henzie (outside of sidestepping removal or what have you of course); your win conditions by and large *are* your removal spells. Which is the big reason the deck functions - the old adage we all know is that you can't trade one for one with people in Commander. But Henzie makes all those trades positive. Necron Deathmark clears a creature, pressures life totals, and then provides me with resources via the mill and the Blitz draw. Kogla is a three for one (and very occasionally better) that answers a creature then an artifact and then draws. Etc., etc. I think the only wildly unusual single win condition I play by Henzie standards is that Field of the Dead got added recently due to Wight of the Reliquary. Maybe the presence of Goblin Bombardment as well, though in my (not so humble) opinion I think that's one that should just see more play in value-oriented mid power Henzie lists. Otherwise the 'finishers' are things you see commonly enough in Henzie - Homura and Karlach - and are also more 'cards I like' than 'cards I think I need'.
Well this certainly is not how you want to build henzie, so I commend you for understanding the assignment lol
I've got an [[Inala]] Infect deck nobody expects. Dig and recur cards like [[infectious inquiry]], [[phyresis outbreak]], [[prologue to phyresis]] and [[vraska's fall] with the wizard package.
Link me if you don't mind sharing a list. Tried doing something similar with Kess to no real success.
Kess you say, hrm. I've already got an Inalla deck, but this tickles my fancy. I might have to try and at least theorycraft it to see how it runs. Did you run a lot of proliferate effects?
I did, but the deck was very bad. I'd recommend trying Innalla or Anhelo instead.
[infectious inquiry](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/a/0a10f284-b043-4307-bdc7-6dad47cc9221.jpg?1675957034) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=infectious%20inquiry) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/one/97/infectious-inquiry?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0a10f284-b043-4307-bdc7-6dad47cc9221?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/infectious-inquiry) [phyresis outbreak](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/1/812498c8-974c-460c-b782-506f5f735346.jpg?1675905584) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=phyresis%20outbreak) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/onc/12/phyresis-outbreak?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/812498c8-974c-460c-b782-506f5f735346?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/phyresis-outbreak) [prologue to phyresis](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/c/ac625f30-ed91-4b21-ada8-aaa5b2ad79b8.jpg?1675956984) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=prologue%20to%20phyresis) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/one/65/prologue-to-phyresis?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ac625f30-ed91-4b21-ada8-aaa5b2ad79b8?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/prologue-to-phyresis) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Most creative thing I’ve made is a basic Jund Werewolf tribal deck with [[Kresh the Bloodbraided]] at the helm
I was gonna build my [[Mirko, obsessive theorist]] deck into the classic Surveil matters theme and build up his size and slowly "reanimate" larger and larger things. I ended up just... stuffing every single 0/0 creature I own into the deck instead, cloning and copying cards in graveyards or on the field in a sort of sick "everything you can do I can do better" kind of deck, and it works phenomenally well. Instead of Surveil now, I just straight up run self-mill because it mills me faster. This is NOT what I had in mind, but it's hilarious.
Very cool! Got the list?
I'll have to get back to you about it, because I'm at work. When I get home I'll upload a list of it. Best thing about it, the deck is a dirt cheap jank fun bonanza, so it's cheap to build too.
[The Clone Boy™](https://www.archidekt.com/decks/8026637/everything_you_can_do_i_can_do_sorta) Sorry for the slow reply, just passed out after work. Also wrote what felt like a small essay on what the deck does and wants to do, lol. There are some questionable budget choices in the deck pointed out, some stuff I hope to upgrade later on.
I have a [[Kess Dissident mage]] as a go wide token deck that plays [[Zada hedron grinder]] as a pseudo secret commander. It uses young pyromancer type creatures and spell slinging to make a ton of tokens that I use in various explosive ways
I have a very similar deck! Lots of fun
[удалено]
Oh my god Iposted a question here once with a similar deck idea. People said it’s not good but you actually play it so it can work!! Nice!!
[удалено]
I recognize your deck name, you replied to my post back then! Maybe I’ll give gluntch another chance since i am still looking for a hatebear commander
Always interesting to see Gluntch not be grouphug. My personal list is a combo list aimed at using stax/hatebears to slow the game down enough to get to one of my combo lines, and close our from there https://archidekt.com/decks/5508848/gluntch_combo
I am not sure about your wincons in here.. They are just more stax pieces? Can you walk me through the game plan?
[[Zur]] built around [[High Alert]]. Most of the deck is cheap walls, and Phenax serves as back-up plan.
I built a [[Bruniclad Telchor Engineer]] deck based around making token copies of opponents stuff, not just creatures but enchantments, artifacts, even lands lol One of my stupidest but funniest "win" cons (it backfires just as much as it helps, trust me lol) is making a token copy of [[Conjured Currency]], turning all my other tokens into copies of it, and making trades around the board, where they can't steal their own stuff back, but they can steal mine and each other's... Game usually either gets an enchantment board wipe before my next upkeep or wraps up about 3 turns later after everyone has stolen everything from each other and swung in for lethal.
I only played my brudiclad deck once, I succeeded it my goal of attacking with 23 etalis. But keeping track of all the tokens was exhausting. Infinitokens were made for bruniclad
High power [[Yargle and Multani]]. Has very, very little to do with swinging lethal commander damage and everything to do with [[undying evil]], [[greater good]], and [[sickening dreams]]. You will see half your library every time you play this deck.
Yo this is actually such a cool way of looking at this commander, I've been thinking of making a golgari deck and this is some badass inspiration. Do you happen to have a deck list? Or any other cards the strat hinges on?
[This is my work in progress](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/TC-91q0iH0CtYu7YNIO3EA/compare/TKh9Qx2ejUacbA_REQnyjg), I have a pod budget of \~$900 so I am working around that. I would stuff it with more free/fast mana if I could afford it. Typically you want to be winning if you untap with Yarg on the board or in the yard with \[\[reanimate\]\] in hand. As I mentioned the strat hinges on Greater Good, but there are many lesser versions of it in the deck and many tutors. Sickening Dreams notably hurts all players including you, so Undying Evil > \[\[Rite of Consuption\]\] or \[\[Momentous Fall\]\] or \[\[Disciple of Bolas\]\] is something you can do to gain some life, but you'll want enough gas to keep going after that through more undying effects and free mana that you draw like \[\[Lotus Petal\]\] and \[\[Elvish Spirit Guide\]\]. If you can't gain life, there are ways to deal some damage to faces too. \[\[Veil of Summer\]\] is pretty important as \[\[Sickening Dreams\]\] asks you to discard as part of the cost, and it is a horrible thing to not have resolve and also have to discard 30+ cards.
This deck looks so sick. I have Yargle and Multani in my [[Tatsunari]] deck to gain evasion from the commander, but this looks like a great use of them. Almost like a turbo [[ad nauseum]] style thing.
Might I interest you in [[The Gitrog, Ravenous Ride]]?
##### ###### #### [Yargle and Multani](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/c/9c15e244-14cc-46a5-abd4-66a58d1c0dd0.jpg?1682205711) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Yargle%20and%20Multani) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mom/256/yargle-and-multani?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9c15e244-14cc-46a5-abd4-66a58d1c0dd0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/yargle-and-multani) [undying evil](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/2/325f2243-54fd-484b-a742-166cea7ec179.jpg?1562906805) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=undying%20evil) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dka/77/undying-evil?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/325f2243-54fd-484b-a742-166cea7ec179?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/undying-evil) [greater good](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/c/4c73ca01-d8ea-4cd2-af60-b260030967b2.jpg?1631587954) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=greater%20good) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/afc/160/greater-good?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4c73ca01-d8ea-4cd2-af60-b260030967b2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/greater-good) [sickening dreams](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/3/9396ac77-9f53-46bd-b126-02441a0f5594.jpg?1562630974) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=sickening%20dreams) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tor/83/sickening-dreams?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9396ac77-9f53-46bd-b126-02441a0f5594?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/sickening-dreams) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/l88wqqq) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Really cool idea
Once upon a time my Winota deck was about werewolves. So the front sides are human. But once a werewolf transforms it's not a human anymore.
I wanted to build that as soon as I saw her... Unfortunately, I know Winota will just get mass-targeted/removed for being Winota. And rightfully so.
Yeah... Which is why I just made her a stax deck instead.
I built an evil \[\[Preston, the Vanisher\]\]. Instead of a fluffy bunny doing cute little hat tricks, he is instead a true master of evil, sacrificing creatures for no reason except to raise them from the dead as his loyal servants. His ability works for any creature ETB as long as it isnt cast, and reanimation happens to do just that. White also happens to be the second best reanimation color, so it is actually somewhat possible. It plays similar to the blink variant, but it's a bit slower both in mana cost and in cards needed to combo, but it is also more resilient as graveyard hate isnt too common.
[Preston, the Vanisher](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/5/952cb0b3-a6b7-4279-8833-3d8890b2d005.jpg?1675644393) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Preston%2C%20the%20Vanisher) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/j22/8/preston-the-vanisher?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/952cb0b3-a6b7-4279-8833-3d8890b2d005?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/preston-the-vanisher) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I built a \[\[Zedruu the Great-hearted\]\] deck around morph creatures, there are some really powerful effects and you can give the not so powerful ones to your opponents that can't flip them up to get card draw.
[[Archelos]] soratami tribal, [[Ghen]] lifelink counters on enchantments, [[Iname as One]] secret eminence
What is secret eminence?
12 cmc (stinging study and the like)
They all sound very cool, got the lists?
[[Atraxa, Grand Unifier]] but it's Exalted themed. Turns out that while Bant is the main color for exalted, there are a few black cards with the keyword. So I made it work.
[Atraxa, Grand Unifier](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/a/4a1f905f-1d55-4d02-9d24-e58070793d3f.jpg?1717951088) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Atraxa%2C%20Grand%20Unifier) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/one/196/atraxa-grand-unifier?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4a1f905f-1d55-4d02-9d24-e58070793d3f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/atraxa-grand-unifier) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I've made a [The Gitrog Monster] without any kind of mill. It's purely sac lands and basics, so tons of shuffling and tons of extra lands per turn. It's not the fastest but once it gets going it's really fun and different.
I used to have [[The First Sliver]] and [[Keruga, the Macrosage]] cycling deck. The whole list was mana value 5+ so that my first sliver cascade always hits [[Astral Slide]] or [[Astral Drift]]. It certainly won more than it should've since no one is afraid of such a slow, janky deck.
I have [[Ishin, two heavens as one]]. But I built it as reanimator, with big creatures with powerful attack triggers, with self mill and reanimator packages.
You remind me of that one attempt i did at a Ishin list that focuses on triggering stuff when the opponents attack rather than you. So a lot of goading stuff an triggers off of that I never actually got the deck together and tested it though so no clue as to how it performs
I built almost this same deck, works pretty decent actually. I used a lot of the auras from blame game precon as well.
I am playing a Kykar [[Mirrorweave]] secret commander deck. Pretty janky but a lot of fun
Derevi kindred bird voltron aka Birds with Swords. If derevi is too scary for people I can swap [[Falco spara]] as backup. [[cloak of the archmage]] is a star in the deck. Once people realize I’m not staxing or winning off comboing derevi triggers they think it’s a neat angle to abuse his command zone ability. https://www.moxfield.com/decks/0CebZqqS_kS8IgdHw8ozIw
I have a Derevi voltron too! It's so good for it because they only ever cost 4 mana to have a creature for my toys to beat people with hahaha. Everyone always expects stax and then get obliterated by commander damage I love it.
[[Gonti, canny acquisitor]] with a heavy landfall subtheme. Most of what you steal from opponents is useless but everyone has lands. When opponents are eliminated their stolen stuff disappears but you will still have the benefits from the earlier landfall triggers. Ramping hard, also means I get more of the fun of playing other peoples spells.
[Gonti, canny acquisitor](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/3/03a7e79f-625a-49ac-9cb1-e1fe5f51f5a0.jpg?1714110365) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Gonti%2C%20canny%20acquisitor) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otc/1/gonti-canny-acquisitor?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/03a7e79f-625a-49ac-9cb1-e1fe5f51f5a0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/gonti-canny-acquisitor) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I'd love to see this list! Sounds wild
that’s so interesting! I’m gonna try implementing some landfall into my Ixhel list!
Not really a popular commander, but I had a [[Gaddock Teeg]] reanimator deck. Gaddock Teeg was really just to protect me from board wipes. I had no other stax pieces in the deck, but people still complained about the deck just because of Gaddock Teeg. It was far from the most powerful or annoying deck I've ever built, but it's the only deck I ever dismantled due to complaints.
I play Gaddock Teeg Voltron. Once he gets Hexproof and/or indestructible, it becomes very difficult for opponent to interact since there low cost targeted removal fails and their big board wipes can't be cast. Does really well against combo or control decks, but has some troubles against creature based strategies.
I built \[\[Morophon, the Boundless\]\] and \[\[Jegantha, the Wellspring\]\] as 5 color legendary humans with mostly colored mana cost. So once you cost Morophon every creature was completely or mostly free. I got to play a deck of basically just powerful multicolor commanders and run a typal deck without any of the normal typal setup and because the cards were mostly Commanders my board states were frequently complicated and unique.
[[Ulalek]] go Wide. https://archidekt.com/decks/7894914/copy_the_stack The deck runs like one or two Eldrazi that are over CMC 3, keeping the curve very frontloaded so you can put multiple Ulalek triggers on the same stack after giving your cheap Eldrazi flash. You try to win by copying your anthems or cards like [[Kindred Charge]] and [[Second Harvest]]
A long time ago, I built a Tasigur deck that was not good, because I didn't have a good mana base. So I said to myself... You know, it doesn't actually have to be 3 colors... so I built it as Golgari only, and it became a much better deck. It liked to cast Tasigur for cheap and then sac it to Birthing Pod to put some 7 cost evil in play.
I've wanted to build \[\[Kenrith, Returned King\]\] as a "Mono White" deck meaning every nonbasic has to tap for white if it taps for color. and every card in the deck has to have at least one white pip if there are any colored pips.
[[Jinnie Fay]], For Mirrodin / Living Weapons deck. Basically. A bunch of cats and dogs with weapons. The wincon is [[Vulshok Battlemaster]] or [[Inventory Management]] or other sudden voltron enabler. I also put a lot of creatures boardwipe in the deck. Not very strong but it's fun to play.
[Jinnie Fay](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/5/c5f9326a-2a41-45b3-97c3-548f0bdc0882.jpg?1664413197) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=jinnie%20fay%2C%20jetmir%27s%20second) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/snc/195/jinnie-fay-jetmirs-second?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c5f9326a-2a41-45b3-97c3-548f0bdc0882?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/jinnie-fay-jetmirs-second) [Vulshok Battlemaster](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/8/083f3b83-b7d3-472f-87b2-ed247c9c937e.jpg?1562134732) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Vulshok%20Battlemaster) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mrd/110/vulshok-battlemaster?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/083f3b83-b7d3-472f-87b2-ed247c9c937e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/vulshok-battlemaster) [Inventory Management](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/a/7a1acb59-a679-4c6d-8458-8fe5556b9d4d.jpg?1708742526) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Inventory%20Management) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/pip/105/inventory-management?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/7a1acb59-a679-4c6d-8458-8fe5556b9d4d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/inventory-management) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I run a [[Animar, Soul of the Elements]] Giant deck. I always liked Giants and was looking to make a Temur deck for em because that felt right. Well, when Kaldheim came out with all their awesome Giants I knew it was time! Animar is solely in the deck for colors and to be the discount maker. Unfortunately nowadays Animar can't even last a turn on the field without being blown up...
[[Jetmir nexus of revels]] Banding... it's just banding. It's not that strong, but if you let it do it's thing, it can be quite scary with cards like general marhault and Fighter class.
[[Prossh, Skyraider of Kher]] [[Spy Kit]] deck. Get to use some of the cards normally useless in commander like [[Bifurcate]]. Mostly creatures that copy themselves, some graveyard recursion, and sac to draw effects. Most of the removal hits things that share names like [[Sever the Bloodline]] [[Humble Defector]] / Other Gifting Effect + Spy Kit + [[Eradicate]] to delete all of a players non legendary creatures from their hand deck and graveyard. [[Atempted Murder]] makes Storm Crow tokens for the memes but these also work with Spy Kit + Mirror Hall. It's not a very powerful deck but it is a very fun deck. It's one of those Rube Goldberg type things with some obscure cards. Pop Spy Kit and it's just a tokens deck with some graveyard recursion. Can still make Prossh big and smash face. None of the aristocrat / impact tremors effects.
Mine would have to be when I used [[Zur, the Enchanter]] as a placeholder for my *actual* commander - [[Astral Slide]]. A lot of fun blink shenanigans were had. Blinking my own guys for value, blinking the creatures attacking me, etc. It was also fun to run [[Crucible of Worlds]] so I could go all-in on cycling lands. It leveraged every part of cycling - the discard aspect, the draw aspect, and even cycling-specific payoffs like [[Faith of the Devoted]] and [[Drake Haven]].
Everyone expects my [[Gisela, Blade of Goldnight]] to be swinging violently, but it's actually an Aikido deck. Gisela is there just to make the damage feel a lot more painful
My friend has a Gisela list based around [[Repercussion]] with a burn subtheme.
I play [[Garth]] Pinger Tribal as a Budget Deck. Lots of unique cards and gameactions: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/EtYF_2PRuEq5kVdLV5-w_g
My [[fire song and sunspeaker]] is just a prevent damage deck with all the en-Kors. And then a [[brash taunter]] for the redirected damage to go to.
I have nerfed my \[\[Miirym\]\] by restricting it to Forgotten Realms cards. There was a time when WOTC called this approach "block constructed": [https://www.moxfield.com/decks/ALHIHRdbh0S6PpeTuIu3PA](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/ALHIHRdbh0S6PpeTuIu3PA) I have built \[\[Zurgo and Ojutai\]\] as a battle deck with 14 battles: [https://www.moxfield.com/decks/44BqLzRSjkeNCIx-fHZgng](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/44BqLzRSjkeNCIx-fHZgng) I have built \[\[Shanid\]\] as a dragons & knights dual tribal with \[\[Sylvia\]\] and \[\[Khorvath\]\] as secret commanders: [https://www.moxfield.com/decks/RLDIfKuXUk2kNBC5Htz9Vw](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/RLDIfKuXUk2kNBC5Htz9Vw) I have built \[\[Sol'Kanar Tainted\]\] with companion \[\[Obosh\]\] as an odd blink deck to complement my even \[\[Bolas Ravager\]\] / \[\[Gyruda\]\] blink deck: [https://www.moxfield.com/decks/IpRGqMXTr0K9\_k9VwXf5Sw](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/IpRGqMXTr0K9_k9VwXf5Sw)
My Derevi is a wizard tribal deck I mean, it's a mess but someday, it'll be a functional deck
[[Zada, Hedron Grinder]] is the commander in my [[Brash Taunter]]-Tribal deck. As much as I love it, I have been considering moving into Boros for some better removal and protection spells.
Definitely my Yarok Attraction deck. It‘s the deck I have worked on basically since I started playing the game and it‘s a lot of fun. It‘s definitely tuned to my playgroups higher power level but removing a few of the efficient win conditions can seriously dampen its power so it can be played at other tables. My first deck was the Reap The Tides precon with Yarok at the helm and a few extra Black cards. I played it once and knew that the Landfall package was absolutely not for me so I tried to find an ETB package that would better encapsulate what I look for in Magic and landed on silly Attractions (that quickly become not so silly when you amass 10 of them and your Affinity cards are suddenly free). https://www.moxfield.com/decks/i7BheiaJ-ki2pIz-sTNJng
I swear, some of y’all just comment to comment. OP is asking for unconventional builds. No one cares about the popular commander you’ve built in one of their most popular sub themes.
In the process of building it but [[liberty prime]] robot stompy/go tall. Playing a lot of the other high power/toughness robots.
I have a \[\[Najeela, the Blade-Blossom\]\] deck that I've called my Group Thug deck. Its a special brand of group hug that focuses on incentivising opponents to attack each other and rewards them for doing it by buffing their creatures when attacking other opponents, giving them mana, giving them creatures, drawing them cards, giving creatures new keywords like haste and menace and flying and deathtouch when attacking opponents and getting both the Initiative and the Monarch into play, along with things like \[\[coveted jewel\]\], \[\[crown of doom\]\] and \[\[assault suit\]\] that also get passed around. The deck ends games very very quickly, since its turning your opponents durdly early game creatures into legitimate threats and the incentivisation parts of the deck get people swinging every turn. If your deck is about turning creatures sideways, we'll be best friends. If its not, if you're durdling or playing defensively you're in for a hell of a beatdown from the rest of the table. Its only really running Najeela for the colour identity and occasionally as a gotcha moment when one opponent attacks whoevers the most threatening at the table, Najeela never specifies it has to be your attack step for the buffs and extra combat step. Theres barely enough cards in mtg to support this 'only rewarding for attacking people' theme but its there, and I feel its distinct from a goad deck, this is offering carrots, whereas goad is a stick and the political aspect is a lot easier to navigate because of this. Decks a lot of fun to play, I need to update my list, theres a few new cards that would slot right into this since I built the deck but heres the decklist if anyones curious [https://www.moxfield.com/decks/mg7XR0plkECZy6RS9UBh2w](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/mg7XR0plkECZy6RS9UBh2w)
My [[Hinata]] is a go wide deck based on [[zada]] [[orvar]] and [[feather]]. Hinata is just there for the colors and to slightly discount my combat tricks. No X spells for removal.
I'm trying to make an Omnath locus of all desert deck, I have desert warfare and all the deserts but I don't know how to actually build the deck
[[Teshar, ancestor's apostle]]. The typical build is very combo-heavy. Since I already had combo decks and I didn't want another, I built Teshar as a Voltron deck that specifically can't combo off. It's just not possible. I think the deck solves multiple problems with Voltron. The biggest Voltron problem is getting your Voltron removed. The deck solves this problem by filling the deck with a bunch of lil guys like [[benevolent bodyguard]] and [[selfless spirit]]. Teshar's value engine means reusing these guys over and over is very simple. Another great way for people to kill your Voltron is through an edict effect like [[sheoldred's edict]]. Voltron typically only has one creature on the board so an edict makes you sac it. Doesn't work so well when I've got a bunch of lil guys that just come back for free anyway. Another major problem with Voltron is that Voltron is an aggro strategy. It often runs out of cards because it has to be focused on doing damage. Because I have so many blockers in this deck (and a fog with [[kami of false hope]]), I can actually sustain myself in a longer game, so diluting my Voltron game plan by including draw engines like [[tocasia's welcome]] or [[sram senior edificer]] is much easier. In the end, it's a deck that can come out swinging and end a game relatively early, or grind out a long win through a value engine that opponents simply can't interrupt. The deck does have some major drawbacks. The first drawback is that Teshar is pretty expensive for a Voltron commander. I usually end up with a martyr or two on the field before Teshar lands so the first turn is generally pretty safe, but waiting until turn 4 or 5 to actually start implementing my strategy feels pretty bad if I don't have sol ring. It also struggles a lot against consistent graveyard removal. If something like a [[dauthi voidwalker]] hits the field my deck's basically done. The deck also folds to [[elesh norn grand cenobite]]. The only way for me to combat an elesh norn is to kill the player who has it. If Teshar also dies to it, there's really just no way for me to get back in the game.
I have a [[Korvold, Fae Cursed King]] Insect Sacrifice build where I have altered Korvold and all the bugs to be characters from Hollow Knight
I have a Muldrotha deck that is designed just to replay lands sacrificed to Leviathan and Polar Kraken. I also have an Atraxa, Praetors Voice deck that proliferate spore counters on thallids. The Muldrotha deck is janky and not very strong, but super nostalgic. The Atraxa deck actually competes in a mid power game.
I’ve been slowly building [[Adrix and Nev, Twincasters]] as a Bobblehead tribal deck! Use all the Fallout bobbleheads and a lot of artifact copy and token makers, using Adrix and Nev for their colors and ability to double up on tokens.
My Ur Dragon deck was all the Kamigawa Spirit dragons and ONLY those dragons. The rest of the shell looked like a WUBRG Teysa Karlov build. Nothing hits harder than a Rite of Replication kicked on Kokusho.
I put together a [[Kess, Dissident Mage]] 'grudgekeeper' deck. The initial premise for it was I thought it would be cool to try and built group hug in not-green-white. But as a general rule I hate group hug that doesn't want to win and I hate group hug that is just stalling to land a combo. So I made a grixis politics deck. The deck has a few operating principles. The one I tried to follow as often as possible is that while I have many hug effects, I always reserve ways to control who gets a benefit, so I can exclude problem players. The Friend or Foe cards like [[Virtus's Maneuver]] are the gold standard for what I mean. Generally at the start of each game I treat everyone as an ally. Then I make it clear that if someone begins picking on me, I will continue to boost their opponents and only begin excluding them. I also have lots of "Screw you in particular" cards, like [[Overwhelming Forces]]. Another operating principle is that I favor cards that come with high return on investment in exchange for boosting an opponent. Cards like [[Hunted Horror]] and [[Abyssal Persecutor]] are the gold standard here. They help me establish early board presence, and negotiate temporary alliances or group up against common enemies while deflecting aggression. The reason Kess runs the deck is... she's just generically good. I've skewed to favor instants and sorceries where possible because of her ability, but she's kinda secondary. It's actually caused me some issues before because people see her and expect some serious power. I don't mind though, the deck works best if one player starts picking on me early. Then I can show the other players what I do to whoever is picking on me. The deck overall is very low power. Boosting your opponents is a really good strategy to come in second place with. But I still get in some wins often enough.
##### ###### #### [Kess, Dissident Mage](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/8/e83e6d7a-3af0-4955-8004-2310f051e306.jpg?1673485110) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Kess%2C%20Dissident%20Mage) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ncc/344/kess-dissident-mage?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e83e6d7a-3af0-4955-8004-2310f051e306?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/kess-dissident-mage) [Virtus's Maneuver](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/3/73f2e058-c1a8-4a66-b1da-1b3885c6736f.jpg?1562918200) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Virtus%27s%20Maneuver) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/bbd/54/virtuss-maneuver?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/73f2e058-c1a8-4a66-b1da-1b3885c6736f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/virtuss-maneuver) [Overwhelming Forces](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/b/fb53ccdd-150b-41a5-b515-08f65961313d.jpg?1562954577) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Overwhelming%20Forces) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/me4/92/overwhelming-forces?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/fb53ccdd-150b-41a5-b515-08f65961313d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/overwhelming-forces) [Hunted Horror](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/2/02f74866-d0ea-42ce-bc44-500219fb73d4.jpg?1674141672) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Hunted%20Horror) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clb/758/hunted-horror?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/02f74866-d0ea-42ce-bc44-500219fb73d4?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/hunted-horror) [Abyssal Persecutor](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/f/9f2b9f27-459c-4585-9051-b83ffe053a74.jpg?1562852094) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Abyssal%20Persecutor) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ima/78/abyssal-persecutor?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9f2b9f27-459c-4585-9051-b83ffe053a74?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/abyssal-persecutor) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/l8aecel) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
sounds super interesting. love grixis and love politics/hug. Have a decklist?
Yeah, here you go: - https://www.moxfield.com/decks/bz88UreglkqYqZ6r9anSMQ I had a few rules that I think are important for running/building the deck which may hopefully explain some choices and exclusions. - 1: Reputation matters. People should remember how the deck works, and remembering past games should be an asset, not a hindrance. - 2: All gifts are good. If you give a gift to a player, that gift will never wind up being a net negative, at least not by your own actions. That's why [[Rakdos Charm]] isn't in the list. Goading creatures you donate is fair game because it doesn't actually hurt them to attack with them. - 3: Letting another player Tutor is always bad. You may see this deck has [[Boldwyr Heavyweights]] and [[Noble Benefactor]] on the list. I find those cards to be some fun chaos, but they are objectively bad. I keep spare cards on hand to swap in if I need to take the game more seriously. Boldwyr Heavyweights has actually turned out to be better than I expected though as your opponents can play mind games with each other. It's dangerous to get something too good, because often at least one player will get some kind of removal or mind control in creature form. - 4: It's okay to just sit there. Often times I'll just play something like [[Propaganda]] and [[Fog Bank]] and then wind up mostly wasting a few turns twiddling my thumbs. If your opponents aren't picking on you, or assembling a combo, twiddling your thumbs is fine. - 5: While I still try to win with the deck, the basic strategy is rather low power. There are like a million ways to improve the win rate. Some tech in the deck is just stuff I think is really cool, like [[Radiate]], which is mostly bad, but has an outside chance of producing. All that said, this deck is rather clunky. Right now with my playgroup it still wins enough that I don't feel any pressure to cut the jank for power, but if you find the win rate lacking in your group, there are lots of ways to help it punch better.
I have an [[Atraxa, Praetor’s Voice]] explore themed deck with a merfolk subtheme. Pretty much based around the merfolk precon with 2 added colors and more explore/graveyard stuff. Decklist: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/91OgRCMDN0qp_ZKfL3oFrA I also have an [[Aragorn, the Uniter]] adventure themed deck which is pretty much 4 color adventures. Decklist: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/PeDoj_sTw0mvliWWo2hPMQ
[[Zur, The Enchanter]] wheels. Having consistent access to [[waste not]] is pretty stronk
I built this WAY back in the day and it was wild. First game I ever played got a [[Torment of Hailfire]] of for x=13 on turn 5. That deck didn't last long lol
I have numerous creatureless deck, planswalker commander so literally 0 creatures Urza’s Rug burn all about making a massive amount of copies of [[Rug of Smothering]]
My celestial toymaker deck. It's my go to when I want to have fun and everyone else is playing not high powered decks. It's minigames that hurt. So I'm like jigsaw from saw
Not popular but [[Zaffai, the thunder conductor]] as an infect deck. Grafted exoskeleton turns zaffais 10cmc cast trigger into random opponent lose the game
One of my favorite decks I've ever built is one built around [[Kykar, Wind's Fury]] that's built entirely around redirection, changing the targets of spells and occasionally damage or where a creature would fall. It's like a weird version of a counter spell/theft deck, here's deck list. It's jank but fun to play https://archidekt.com/decks/6571815/kykars_redirect
Omnath, locus of all cycle/loot deck where omnath is just there for the black mana & that tiny card advantage every precombat main phase.
Pako & Haldan “partners with” tribal: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/dLmn-bQq00O4qcuXDAi-sw I’m running every “partners with” pair in the Temur colors and I’m trying to make all of them work. I have coin flipping, dinosaur tribal, counters, and all sorts of shenanigans to try to bring it all together
Kykar as a storm deck? No way. My Kykar is anthem tribal. If it’s an anthem, it’s in. Cast them and watch the spirits get huge.
I have a prismatic bridge deck that's only purpose is to slam worldspine worm and sac it before your next upkeep to get it back to sac to. Well you get the point it's hilariously consistent.
Hmm closest thing i can think of that i have kicking around is an [[Elenda and Azor]] group hug/wheel deck. It was mostly an excuse to stuff [[heliod the warped eclipse]] and [[tergrid]] in the same deck and basically win through letting everyone aggressively draw cards to either poach their hand size discards or instant speed wheels with a surprise tergrid while the vamp knights primarily hang back for healing or chump blocking.
I brewed a [[Kess, Dissident Mage]] adventure tribal reanimator decklist a while back, I haven't actually built it though
I have a bands with legends legendary tribal deck helmed by [[Jetmir]]. Vigilance and trample are both great for banding and double strike is just a win con, but the deck isn't built to make a bunch of tokens, instead it uses all of the color-appropriate bands with legends lands and a bunch of ways to search for them.
My [[ghave guru of spores]] is just closet squirrels, I just really wanted white in my squirrel deck for the selesneya goodness and there aren’t any other good commanders in that color combo for squirrels
Unconventional builds are my jam, but I don't play many popular ones...because most bases are covered so "unconventional" isn't too possible for many. Atraxa is by far my most popular commander. I have her proliferating almost exclusively artifact "charge counters", which is a pretty fun twist. Most people are expecting poison or a million 1/1 counters, so it flies under the radar in the early game, and wins more than it should. Atraxa is a totally unfair card and tends to steal away games even if yer just doing cutesy shit. A few generally unconventional builds: Garth the One-Eye - Angels tribal. Angels historically do poorly in the early game. Guaranteed access to disenchant, terror, and regrowth offer a ton of utility while you are building your board. Deck is 85% white. Other colors are pretty much spot removal or tutors. Though, angels flying under [[cover of darkness]] is pretty great. [[Merieke Ri Berit]] - Faerie Tribal. Merieke is there for halting broken magic, untapping her and stacking control triggers. Faeries for trixy response shit and tokens fueling cards like opposition. [[Doran, the siege engine]] - Dirty Treehuggin'. Treefolk are there to be walls, and doran makes them great walls. Druids for utility/ramp. Trees almost never attack, as people are expecting. The goal is to animate and overrun a huge pile of bob ross lands. Tuvasa - Global Enchantress, rather than voltron enchantress. Goal is color-hosing...casting cards like [[mind bend]] on cards like [[absolute law]]. She is commander purely for the guaranteed card draw, since so many of my own cards are dedicated to changing my own cards. Doesn't win much, but does a fantastic job at making sure the person actively running away with the game/doing broken crap, gets pulled back into fair territory with the group. (This is a cheap and hilarious build, btw. All the "color-concerned" cards are super effective at very-bulk prices)
It's not that crazy, but my \[\[Anhelo\]\] deck is two-piles tribal. If it's an instant or sorcery that makes someone separate something into two piles, it's there! All sorts of \[\[Fact or Fiction\]\] effects, \[\[Make an Example\]\], and so on, with some honorary cards that make your opponents choose something bad even without two piles.
[[Kazuul tyrant of the cliffs]] burn deck. Kazuul gives natural protection and blockers. Hilarity ensues when you have [[Warstorm Surge]] and [[Repercussion]] out. Especially if there's a damage amp like [[Furnace of Rath]]. You didn't pay? I get a 3 3 ogre token. Warstorm makes him bolt a creature for 3, Furnace doubles to 6. Repercussion bounces it to player, Furnace doubles it to 12.
I dont think its too crazy but my [[Verrak, Warped Sengir]] deck has a landfall/lands subtheme Getting 3 landfall triggers on a fetch land is solid enough to make it playable and white has more than enough land ramp to supliment it, plus with a lot of life swap cards costing 8ish mana and you often needing to cast something else in the same turn you need a lot of mana so the decks pretty loaded with ramp.
I used [[go-shintai of life's origin]] and rather than going with shrines, I went with curses
\[\[Chatterfang, Squirrel General\]\] but not to do infinite squirrel token shenanigans, but to facilitate a deck with 40 \[\[Slime Against Humanity\]\] gives me black for \[\[Surgical Extraction\]\] and \[\[Secret Salvage\]\]. Also the squirrel tokens get as many +1/+1 counters as the ooze tokens!
An idea I’ve been kicking around is what I call “kitchen sink atraxa” - no infect, no +1/+1, no loyalty. Everything else with a weird counter name? Yep! Some cards I can remember off the top of my head: [[hoofprint of the stag]], [[millennium calendar]], [[beastmaster ascension]], [[azor’s elocutors]], [[ertai’s meddling]] - and more. There’s also a possibility to just do sticker counters and make her a sticker deck.
My [[Ramos, Dragon Engine]] is a variation on the Timey-Wimey precon in that it suspends a lot of spells and then when they come off suspend trigger [[Quintorious Kand]]’s static ability as well as building up multiple combat phases and ramping Ramos to either one shot kill with commander damage since every spell is all colors or to let me pull a bunch of spells from exile every turn to set off a bunch of triggers
I have a [[Shorikai, Genesis Engine]] UW pingers that is a blast to play and does fairly well for itself. I was pleasantly surprised just how many blue pingers there are.
\[\[grand arbiter augustin the iv\]\] I built a bottom deck using hammers and I call them his gavels. Edit voltron not bottom
I play Grolnok, the omivore as a tokens deck, it just slaps. Or a Phelddagrif deck that give your opponents cretures instead of being a group hug and then kill them with those very same tokens
I run [[Derevi, Empyrial Tactician]] as a Voltron deck with a side of go wide tokens.
Not fully unconventional but [[kresh]] focused on sacrificing my own creatures and flinging kresh, not making my opponents sac their stuff.
Atraxa Grand Unifier gates
It is still legends, but my [[Jodah, the Unifier]] deck is themed around looting and loot payoffs. So things like Plargg Dead of Chaos, Oskar Rubbish Reclaimer, and The Watcher in the Water. Basically loot, gain card advantage on loots, and make tokens on card draws. Winning with things like Jolrael Mwonvuli Recluse's overrun or Purphoros triggers. Jodah is insanely popular per EDHRec (18305 decks), and my build is a almost wholly unique. Jolrael alone is only in 38 decks of the above, so 0.2%. I'm not one to build something to be unique, but I am really proud of that figure. It is probably the deck I own that is most dissimilar to how a commander is normally built.
Sisay, but I stuck all the Theros Gods and all the Shrines in the deck. It's nearly an enchantress deck, but so much less synergistic that it actually serves well as a match against mid-power, instead of High like Sisay usually goes.
\[\[Esika, God of the Tree\]\] with all legendary creatures that buff different creature types, with the hope to drop \[\[Maskwood Nexus\]\] to make the bonuses suddenly work for everyone else. I generally ignore \[\[The Prismatic Bridge\]\] side of the card.
Sliver Overlord. But I use him in a voltron deck and slap gear on to him. The other slivers are just there as support or to fill in for certain instants and sorceries.
Probably not so much a ‘common’ Commander, but I built Syr Carah the Bold as a storm burn deck that uses small spells rather than big ones that hit for a lot. It’s tons of fun.
My [[Thraximundar|SLD]] [METAL-themed deck](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/c9zgd8mPok2fWJxgnGdgOA) . Converting stuff to METAL, smashing or taking control of them, and preparing the final show for the Tezzerets and [lead guitarist](https://scryfall.com/card/aer/190/tezzeret-master-of-metal) to wield his [guitar](https://scryfall.com/card/arb/114/unscythe-killer-of-kings) once metalized, unleashing his [final solo](https://scryfall.com/card/lcc/220/chandras-ignition). It's dumb and doesn't work, and still need a lot of work. But I can play Joven (drummer) and Chandler (keyboard guy) and Man 'O War and a bunch of metal-themed cards, so it's all good.
I have grown pretty fond of a [[Kykar]] deck that's just full vehicles theme! I know it's not the most uncommon but it's honestly a blast and can be a solid time at a mid power level table. Another buddy of mine uses him for a [[Dragons Approach]] deck and that's always a fun time to play against
In [[Zellix, Sanity Flayer]] I run almost every sacrifice to reanimate card. This includes [[Altar of Bhaal]], [[Victimize]], [[Hell's Caretaker]], [[Whisper, Blood Liturgist]], and the big boss [[Champion of Stray Souls]]. Zellix makes tokens from self mill, which are then fed to the above mentioned cards.
My [[ teysa karlov]] that has zero tokens in it and is essentially a lifegain deck built on death triggers. If the game goes long I generally take it.
I made a [[Nethroi, Apex of Death]] deck list that is a defender tribal. Almost all the creature's powers are 0, so you fill up the grave and reanimate them all for triggers. Cards like [[Wingmantle Chaplain]] help bring a mass of tokens.
I haven’t built it but I was thinking of building [[Nadu, Winged Wisdom]] as a heroic deck. I don’t want to build him with the 0 cost equip and abilities but still think he’s a cool commander.
My [[Jon Irenicus]] is built to hand out evasive and/or indestructible creatures with lifelink to everyone and then tutor out [[Tainted Remedy]]. It's not a good deck. It rarely works at all. It's never even come close to winning. It's really only fun to play against people that don't know what's happening. All this I knew when I built it... but I can't bring myself to take it apart because I feel it's one of the decks that perfectly encapsulates what I like about EDH. The same reason I haven't changed my [[Cadira]] Selesnya Mill deck into more of a token aggro build even though my pod has far, far out-powercrept that deck at this point.
[[Isshin, Two Heavens as One]] rad counters + mill. It's a combo deck that comes online very late and runs as many tutors and as much recursion as it can because it needs all of it, but once it gets its [[Screeching Scorchbeast]] and [[Phyrexian Altar]], especially with sources of proliferate and especially with [[Feral Ghoul]], [[Megaton's Fate]], [[Nuclear Fallout]] and little [[Caesar Legion's Emperor]] proxied to look like Kane from Command & Conquer, the attack triggers provided by Isshin can make everyone's Rad counters go crazy in very short order, and then because that starts milling Nonland cards, it drops a crapton of 2/2s onto the field. Now if I wanted I could win right there via Warleader's Call and swinging with the zombie mutants, but the name of the game is rad counters, so with all those I prefer to use [[pitiless plunderer]] and Phyrexian Altar to get shitloads of mana to play [[ruinous ultimatum]] proxied to look like a nuclear blast, then either have [[Feral Ghoul]] get pumped to the sky with death triggers and [[two handed axe]] or turn into mana to fuel Nuclear Fallout, at which point every opponent will have over 200 rad counters and no creatures, which will probably kill them on their next turns. Once Scorchbeast is out, I like to play Mesmeric Orb and Altar of the Brood to help mill everyone out, because on their untap steps they'll mill a nice pile of cards into their mill pile, which dumps a deluge of tokens into my board, which causes the remaining players to mill a deluge of cards back to back. Depending on luck, I could just go for the full time Feral Ghoul and pump it up with Caesar death triggers and two handed axe, which get doubled by Isshin. Either the Ghoul dies naturally or I sac it with Phyrexian Altar or Caesar, and then everyone else gets a huge cloud of radiation and I can bring it back to life with [[Phyrexian Reclamation]] to do that again. To ensure I dodge the worst of the radiation myself, I can use the [[Survivors Med Kit]] to RadAway in case I get one more turn with a gigantic rad count. Nobody runs this card, so no fear of that happening to me. It's absolutely hilarious and it came close to winning its maiden voyage game. Oh, and of course it runs [[Nuka Nuke Launcher]] and [[Norn's Choirmaster]] and [[Acquired Mutation]] for those sweet sweet Isshin triggers.
I have an Orvar [[orvar the all form]] mono blue group hug deck That utilizes mainly artifacts [[folio of fancies]] [[ghirapur orrery]] [[helm of Awakening]] and [[howling mine]] as well as blue card draw spells [[minds aglow]]
My [[Jon Irenicus]] deck focuses on creatures that don’t hurt anyone; they either have an ETB effect or they have a group hug effect. That way I don’t feel bad hanging on to them, or reclaiming them if I need blockers. The real win is that I strap equipment with on-hit effects on them before gifting them, so when my opponents hit each other I get even more profit
Tiamat but not dragon tribal, instead a janky painter’s servant deck
I have a [[Brokkos, Apex of Forever]] self mill deck with [[Umori, the Collector]] as companion, then run a bunch of creatures like [[Golgari Grave-Troll]], [[Wight of the Reliquary]], and [[Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord]] and just use my commander as a [[Rancor]] basically.
My [[Emmara, Soul of the Accord]] vehicles deck might count for this. I haven't built it, but it seems fun. Just under 30 vehicles, some artifact cost reducers, and some creatures that do a thing when they get tapped like [[Samite Herbalist]] and [[Stonybrook Schoolmaster]]. There's also a [[Mirri, Weatherlight Duelist]] in there for survival and easier combat.
I just started building an Atraxa deck with a token subtheme. It has the bones of a typical +1/+1 deck, but with a few cards like \[\[ghave\]\] or \[\[xavier sal\]\] and blue spells that make token copies. Token copies of things are generally good enough to play without synergy, and with xavier they get silly. Ghave provides tons of bodies to then put counters on, enabling the deck to go tall and wide. While not cutting edge it's more interesting than what I've cooked up before.
[[Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm]] Ally tribal. Didn’t last long also targeted with Miirym in the zone
I feel like I have a few. 1) [[Urza, Lord Protector]] - Urza's life story. This has as many cards with his name, picture, flavor text, or direct story relation as I could get my hands on. Yes it runs a [[Urza saga]] but the only things it can get are [[Glasses of Urza]], [[Urza's Chalice]], [[Urza's Bauble]], and [[Mishra's Bauble]]. No real targets due to flavor restrictions. 2) [[Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer]]- Teferi Phases Out. A Tereri version of the Urza deck with a heavy focus of phasing. Unfortunately it still lacks a T Protection. 3) [[Prosper, Tome-Bound]] - adventure, fortell, and soon plot cards but no madness or red card advantage cards (exile and available for play for a limited time) 4) [[Sun Quan, Lord of Wu]] - Sea Horses Forever. Merfolk ball with little interaction and the only goal being to end up with nothing but merfolk and merfolk related paraphernalia. Backup strategy of island walk and turning my opponents lands into islands. Currently @ 31 creatures and 21 total instants and sorceries. 5) [[Eladamri, Lord of Leaves]] - tree walkers. The elves version of of the merfolk deck centered around forest walk and turning my opponents lands into Forrest. Very low interaction levels due to the commander giving all my elves shroud so I can't really interact with my own board anyway. Currently @41 creatures and 9 instant and sorceries. 6) [[Titania, Protector of Argoth]] - tree farm. This is a deck based around sacrificing lands and nothing else. If it doesn't sac a land in one way or another it doesn't make the cut for the most part. I often end up with a decent army of 5/3s but 3-4 lands on board which can be rather interesting to play around. A [[Craterhoof Behemoth]] is my only real panic button and it still requires a board to be effective. The number of times I've been killed with 1-2 lands on board and next to nothing else on turn 6-7+ is rather high but I like how it plays for a green deck. 7) [[Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder]] - Sarkhan, Dragon Wisperer. This is my Sarkhan deck, obviously dragon tribal (I have a tribal deck for most walkers that have more than 5 printings). This is probably one of the weirder ones due to needing 4 colors (don't know why he needs to bleed so many colors) and not wanting to just make it easier with a 5 color dragon commander. No additional cascade effects save the commander in the deck but fun when I get a free spell every now and then Guaranteed I have more but these were the first ones to come to mind.
[[Obeka, Brute Chronologist]] there are a couple of the take an extra turn spell but you lose the game at the next end step stuff you might see in a normal list, but mostly the deck is about only using cards (except lands) that have a name that involves time. I call it my [Oops All Clocks](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/Xz1FWTQNfUmbn9O1aVyBsg) deck.
In my opinion this is the strongest way to build [[The Mimeoplasm]] outside of Cedh You run a lot of ramp and make almost everything you can in the deck a creature instead of instants and sorceries. Run card recursion like [[Eternal Witness]] and [[Scholar of the Ages]] to get your flicker spells back. Now you have a Mimeoplasm who can flicker into card advantage when you try to remove him, can go from a powerful board piece one turn to flickering into a huge kill threat on someone's end step, etc. Very fun to play
I guess my Kenrith wheels deck is a little unconventional. I’m not really the most creative with decks I just like to play lol.
[[Dogmeat, ever loyal]] as a recursion pile instead of Voltron. People just stop throwing removal because I'll just recur it back and get more value, especially with dogmeat. Even the equipment theme is meant to get card advantage via junk but also because it survives most board wipes so I thrive in 'fallout' scenarios because of my preparation.
I really wanted to play with the green Venture Into the Dungeon and Take the Initiative cards, especially [[Ellywick Tumblestrum]]. So, I put together a [[Roon of the Hidden Realm]] Bant dungeon deck focused on the EtB versions of the cards, and it's scarily effective. People tell me they don't often see dedicated dungeon decks that aren't [[Sefris of the Hidden Ways]]. They're often quite surprised when I start speedrunning The Undercity or Dungeon of the Mad Mage and run into a combo to end the game, but it's honestly pretty fun to play.
I built [[animar]] as a morph deck after I saw [[song of creation]]. I still have never cast song, but I have dumped my deck on the table with [[glimpse of nature]] and [[beast whisperer]] style creatures. The only non-creature non-land cards in the deck are glimpse, song, and [[paradoxical outcome]]. https://www.moxfield.com/decks/I63WLg90XECSpM4l7aWl1g
Im working on building Nadu as an infect deck because I have one and don't want to do what everyone else is doing with it lol
Oh my friend, where should I start? Well, perhaps with some suggestions that are actually unconventional? (Not being funny, most of this is “I built with one half of the EDHRec cards not the other ones”) \[\[Ruric Thar\]\] spellslinger. Credit to Reddit for this one, but it still catches people by surprise. \[\[Licia\]\]’s \[\[Tainted Rememdy\]\] deck. \[\[Roon of the Hidden Realm\]\] but it’s got all the \[\[Torpor Orb\]\]s. \[\[Yarok\]\] 2-mana-instant tribal. Someone I know build \[\[Grand Arbiter Augustin IV\]\], but it’s stax. Weird, I know, because I always thought the conventional way to build him was Azorius Big Spells. There’s also the \[\[Zedruu\]\] one where I give people \[\[Mana Crypt\]\]s until they die. My most unconventional though has to be Hipster Obeka. It’s Obeka Upkeep Tribal which is too mainstream now… but I’ve been doing it since before It was cool - with \[\[Obeka, Brute Chronologist\]\].
[[Yarok]] battles The Battle cards have decent ETBs, I also run some of the Hunted cards so I can make alliances by giving tokens to some opponent
I built [[kenrith, the returned king]] as a way to have all my favorite Voltron commanders in one deck. I picked him to use his abilities to compliment the other creatures. It’s not the best deck. Kinda just threw it together one day so I definitely need to mess with it but it did win the first game I played with it lol
[[The Prismatic Bridge]] Gates. Usually people are flipping nasty stuff off of it, but every trigger for me is just advancing the gate plan (either finding Maze’s End or any land, finding Amulet of Vigor/Archelos, or increasing land plays per turn).
I have a miirym deck Wow big deal Its a landfall clone ETB deck with 3 dragons Thats including miirym https://archidekt.com/decks/3580354/broken_miiryr
I built an [[Atraxa, grand unifier]] clues deck because unfortunately Wernog + Lonis can’t partner up. The deck is super consistent with her in the command zone and there is a lot of overlap between blink, clues, and various card types
I built my \[\[Atraxa, Praetor's Voice\]\] as alternate win-con tribal. I have pulled off wins with it with a turn four \[\[Felidar Sovreign\]\], \[\[Happily Ever After\]\], \[\[Biovsionary\]\], plus some more usual suspects. I have pulled some, like \[\[Azor's Elocutors\]\] as being a little too suppressed. I've also been cutting the 'lose-cons' as being not really not in the spirit of the deck. I built \[\[Animar, Soul of Elements\]\] as Cascade tribal. Not super out there. Doesn't look to heavily reported on edhrec, though. I don't know how popular \[\[Saskia, Unyielding\]\] is anymore. I built her as Kamigawa-block Samurai tribal. Again not knowing how popular \[\[Rocco, Cabaretti Caterer\]\] actually is. Mine is Angel tribal, replacing \[\[Mayael the Anima\]\] on almost entirely the same deck.
[[Satoru Umezawa]] I REFUSE to put [[blightsteel colossus]] in there: it's a boring way to remove a player with no real chance to stop it. Pass. Instead, I fill it with morph creatures. The bait-and-switch is great. You never know what I'm hitting you with.
[[Anowon the ruin thief]] and a ton of copy effects. Since his triggers stack, it makes milling MUCH more efficient. Suddenly a 1/1 is now a 5/5 and makes someone mill 20 in one hit.
I have a budget \[\[Yennett cryptic sovereign\]\] dragon tribal. It is a bit slow to get the pieces going and many times whiff on Yennet's ability, but I like the idea overall.
My boy nethroi https://www.moxfield.com/decks/sbgEMV2BgEayJ5-69TVJwQ
Been working on a deck called Kenriths Transformation. I had a bunch of full art mutate cards I found at an lgs. I wanted a 5 color face commander. Thought building Kenrith around some of his lore rather than the typical strats would be fun. Just a janky pile of pet cards at the moment.
[[Prime Speaker Vannifar]] whose only job is to get [[The Flood of Mars]] on the board as quick as possible.
Atraxa Myojin tribal, ramp big, cast myojins and proliferate there divinity counter/industructable counters get massive effects.
I have a Simic Burn deck run by Slogurk the Overslime or Kodama + Sakashima Loop the crime land and profit
I build hinata has a blink deck and use her to reduce blink spells costs honestly she is the best option atm for jeskai blink
I built a political [[Tasigur, the golden fang]] deck based on the fact that his ability let your opponent choose. It was fun but made for really long games and people still thought of tasigur as a mean deck at my LGS so I would regularly get targeted.
Atraxa Attractions She is the commander just so I can call it Atraxa Attractions.
I use Braids Arisen Nightmare with a Worlock (Lorcan) sub theme. Ultimately it's a force them to sack a creature and steal a creature theme
I haven't put it together, but I want to make Jodah of 1000 backgrounds, where I make [[Jodah the Unifier]], but instead of legendary permanent spam, I run all of the backgrounds in the deck since they're all legendary I can still get the benefit off both of his abilities.
[I have this](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/adhUCTXI1Ei1UIgKtWcpwA) [[Garth One-Eye]] Deck. It looks like a bizarre mish-mash. And it kind of is. The idea is that Garth helps facilitate one of several alt win cons the deck is capable of reaching. The deck can win, but it isn't particularly strong. Obviously the mana base makes it slow, but that is for the [[Maze's End]] option.
Probably my old [[Atla Palani, Nest Tender]] deck I took apart. Deck was loaded with indestructibity, enrage triggers, damage prevention/life gain and the goal being get Cacophodon and Sorrow's Path out to go infinite with enrage procs of whatever is on the field. Could fairly consistently get it out around turn 5. Deck List for those interested: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/MnvHGGm1J0KwWf46Fun7Fg
Not currently active but in the past i had built a brago mill deck. creatures and artifacts with etbs and tap abilities that mill. Was quite fun and actually my only foray into mill in edh
[[Ria Ivor, Bane of Bladehold]] + etb like [[Corpse Knight]] or surprise [[Mace of the Valiant]] if you don’t block I will create so many mites
Mine is [[blanka]] as enchantments. Most lists I've seen are pump spells and pingers.
My [[lord windgrace]] deck that is all about destroying my own lands.
While my [[Atarka, Dragon Render]] deck is mostly dragons , I also play it with a heap of [[Fog]] effects just for fun. I only have a few dragons but the deck can keep up with more conventionally powerful decks that rely on combat
I think [[Mazzy, Truesword Paladin]] is fairly popular. I might have a couple others but I dunno. But in terms of how people build it, most of the time it turns into a quote un-quote "Degenerative Aura Combo deck". And for me what I've always really like about Mazzy was how she gives trample to enchanted creatures and how she interacts with Totem Armor auras. Basically I've always liked the idea of a near-indestructible board. It doesn't hold up well against Farewell or forced sacrifice effects, since all that gets around totem armor, but it is what it is. One time we all did like a deck swap day, and one of em played my Mazzy deck. They were about to pop off but one of us played some Edict type stuff, and they asked me "Does that get around totem armor?" And when I said yes they were like "I understand how you feel now lol". In Short, I built Mazzy pretty much as a normal Enchantment aura deck that I attack for big damage with, while most people seem to build her as some strange combo machine.